Lest you think I only watch a soap opera...

Short list of other stuff I've been watching. You know...stuff that isn't General Hospital: Castle--Before this time last year, I had seen MAYBE one episode of Castle. Then, there was all this hoopla about them doing a noir episode. It probably also helped that this was about the time last year that I got really, REALLY started watching GH again in 'real time' so I started seeing a lot of commercials for it. Anyway...I fell in LOVE. And I'm so very glad. Last year's season finale was SUPERB. This season has had a couple of fantastic episodes and, I'm sorry to say, a bunch that have been mediocre at best, but they've done a pretty good job of avoiding the "Moonlighting Curse" and on the whole it's still pretty fun to watch. Smash--Dear God. I had this weekend at home alone this summer where I THOUGHT I had plans and then I didn't have those plans and instead I watched the entire first season of Smash. There are plenty of things that I enjoy about it. I think Megan Hilty is a goddess and supremely talented and I can vouch that she's utterly charming in real life and when I met her we were wearing the exact same shirt, so she's obviously got excellent taste. The thing is, I felt the whole time that they were trying to make her character, Ivy, just impossibly vile, because it was the only way they could make me sympathetic towards Katharine McPhee's character, Karen, in comparison. The problem is that it kind of didn't work. I mean, yeah, there was an episode near the beginning where I felt a smidgen of sympathy for Karen, but then...nothing. And most of the time, it was just a contest to be the character that I DIDN'T want to punch in the face. Only one episode has aired so far and it may be that they've compounded the problem by bringing on Jennifer Hudson who's playing a character I like to call, "Another Person Who Can Sing Rings Around McPhee." Seriously...find a clip of Megan Hilty singing "Second-Hand White Baby Grand". I'm telling you...goddess. Bunheads--I am now confess that I am the one person on the planet of my particular demographic who didn't watch and worship every single episode of The Gilmore Girls. I watched it here and there because my mom and sister both LOVE it and sometimes they'd have it on when I was around. So I didn't watch the first episode of Bunheads because I was an Amy Sherman-Palladino disciple. I watched because it managed to hit some theater geek trifecta with Kelly Bishop, Sutton Foster AND a plot that centers around a dance school. It can be silly and way to self-aware of how adorable it is and some of the acting is less than award-winning, but it's super easy and fun. Law & Order: SVU--I have come to accept that I will never, ever be able to quit you. We are Ennis and Jack and we must accept this. The Carrie Diaries--This is where I have to confess that I was really excited about this one because I had already read the books and LOVED them. And boy did it not disappoint. Anna-Sophia Robb as a teenage Carrie Bradshaw is just fantastic and charming as hell to boot. It's got tons of fun 80s fashion and the music is really incredible. And it's really neat (and different) to see an in-depth look at the background of such an iconic character. Two EXTREMELY enthusiastic thumbs up. The Americans--Okay, so I watched the first episode on Hulu the day after it aired. And the reason is because I was reading an article about it and in the comments, someone said, "It's like Jack and Irina from Alias if Jack had been a Soviet deep-cover agent, too." At which point I almost broke my fingers trying to type hulu.com into the address bar because--OMG JACK AND IRINA!!! Also, I was fascinated by Keri Russell playing a spy, because JJ Abrams said that the way he came up with the idea for Alias is that he had this thought of, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if Felicity was a spy?". I've only seen the first episode--I haven't watched this week's yet--and I'm completely hooked.