You: A Highly Enjoyable Thriller/Romance Hybrid

Late this summer Lifetime quietly premiered You, a terribly titled new drama starring Penn Badgley (Gossip Girl) and Elizabeth Lail (never heard of her).  Advertised as a thriller about a man stalking a romantic interest, I wasn't expecting much from the show, but I had read some decent reviews so I decided to check it out.  The show follows Joe, a quiet bookstore owner who begins dating Beck, a loopy and irresponsible, but kind, student and aspiring writer.  Soon Joe becomes completely obsessed with Beck, monitoring her texts and phone calls and tracking her every movement, as well as doing everything he can to remove anyone vying for Beck's attention from her life.  This leads to a series of more and more serious crimes and a web of lies that finally begins to unravel in the last couple thrilling episodes of the season.

What could have been a mediocre show is elevated by the out-there, balls-to-the-wall performance of Badgley as Joe.  His acting never did much for me on Gossip Girl (at least from what I saw of the teen drama), but here his performance totally makes the show.  He skillfully creates a character that the audience believes could exist; we can see how Beck could be drawn to him, why he goes to such crazy lengths for love, and how he ended up becoming so disturbed in the first place.  Badgley’s voiceover narration is award-worthy by itself.  He injects darkness and wry humor into lines that are often quite cheesily written.  Because of Badgley, I found myself actually rooting for the character despite of all his crimes.  I even found Joe and Beck to be cute together, and I kind of wanted them to succeed as a couple, even though I knew that would never happen in the end.

Also notable is the subplot involving Joe's neighbor Paco (Luca Padovan), a young boy who Joe takes under his wing and tries to protect from his mom's abusive boyfriend.  Despite all of his misdeeds involving Beck, Joe does right by Paco, but towards the end of the season I started to wonder if Joe would start to groom him into becoming a sort of monster like himself, whether intentionally or not.  There's a moment in the finale where Paco discovers at least a piece of Joe's misdeeds, but he keeps the secret to himself, leading the viewer to believe that Joe now has a dangerously strong hold over him.  This sets up some interesting possible story evolution for next season.

Despite the show's fast-paced storytelling and strong performance from Badgley, it does still have a few flaws.  As I mentioned before, the writing is often quite cheesy.  The writers paint Beck into such a naïve nitwit that I sometimes just wanted Joe to kill her already (yes, I'm twisted).  I can't really fault Lail's performance for her character's flaws, however.  After all, her character is completely in the dark for most of the season, so she's just portraying a young girl falling in love.  When she does begin to uncover the truth in the last 2 episodes of the season, Lail switches gears and becomes a terrified victim, stepping up her acting game in the process (although still not matching that of Badgley).  Despite these flaws, I definitely recommend bingeing the 10 episode first season (now concluded).  I'm really curious to see where the story goes, if it comes back for season 2 that is...

Homecoming: Bingeable Modern Noir

Last week Amazon Prime premiered a new 10-episode drama series starring film actress Julia Roberts, which seems to be the streaming service's attempt to enter the awards race now dominated by HBO and Netflix.  The plot of Homecoming is shrouded in mystery, even as you're watching it, but I'll try to describe it as best as possible without giving any major spoilers away.  Roberts plays Heidi Bergman, a counselor at Homecoming, a private company program designed to help ease the transition of recently deployed military service members back to civilian life.  Heidi takes a shine to Walter Cruz (newcomer Stephan James), a new entrant into the program.  In counseling sessions, he tells her about the loss of his friend in Afghanistan to a roadside bomb and otherwise bonds with her over a series of conversations.  Is there any romantic interest between them?  I'll let you watch and figure out for yourself.

Heidi's boss, an eccentric character who micromanages her every move but gives her direction mostly just through phone calls, is Colin Belfast (Bobby Canavale, best known from Boardwalk Empire and a guest stint on Will & Grace).  Rounding out the main cast are Sissy Spacek as Heidi's mom, Marianne Jean-Baptiste (I know her from the CBS procedural Without a Trace) as Walter's mom, Alex Karpovsky (from the HBO show Girls) as Homecoming's life skills counselor Craig, and Shea Whigham as Thomas Carrasco, a bureaucrat investigating Homecoming.  The show flashes back and forth between Heidi's time at Homecoming and a separate future timeline where she is living back at home with her mom and working as a waitress, seemingly not remembering or at least not wanting to remember her time at Homecoming.  Viewers are kept in the dark for most of the season about what exactly happened to cause her career change, but we're slowly given clues that something nefarious happened at Homecoming, particularly involving Heidi and Walter.  I'll let you take the journey of unraveling the mystery as the characters do, and what an enjoyable journey it is!

I liked this show for a few main reasons.  First, it takes its time unspooling its plot, but it doesn't add a lot of unnecessary filler either.  Many Netflix dramas have the habit of running seasons of 13 episodes at 1 hour+, often feeling bloated.  Streaming gives directors the freedom to run episodes at just about any length they choose, but this freedom often eliminates the need for them to really edit and trim down their work.  Most Homecoming episodes are just 25-30 minutes, making it easily bingeable and keeping viewers engaged throughout. 

Second, the direction by Sam Esmail (the creator of Mr. Robot), music, and writing are absolutely mesmerizing.  The show has the feel of an old-school 1940s or 1950s film noir, which is enhanced by the tension-inducing background music and the framing of certain shots.  Esmail makes frequent use of the split screen during Heidi and Colin's phone conversations, as well as overhead shots whenever possible.  Also, the aspect ratio goes from widescreen to full screen as the onscreen timeline switches from present to future.  The director was clearly influenced by Alfred Hitchcock in his directing style, even borrowing music from the classic film Psycho.  He also seems to relish in simply letting his characters talk to each other.  Watching actors talk with no action can sometimes feel boring for viewers, but the writers of this show have a knack for interesting, realistic dialogue that never bores and always advances the plot.

Finally, the acting (particularly that of Roberts and James) is top-notch.  In an awards-bait show like this, actors can have the tendency to over-act, sometimes seeming to practically scream for an Emmy or Golden Globe   Here, though, the acting is very low-key for most of the season, only really allowing the actors to stretch in the last few episodes.  But this doesn't make their work any less compelling.  Shoutouts also to Spacek and Jean-Baptiste for making the most of their small but meaningful roles.  Real supporting actors allow their leads to shine, and these two, along with the rest of the supporting cast, do just that.  I fully expect to see some acting awards nominations to come out of this season (both lead and supporting), in addition to nominations for directing, writing, scoring... the whole shebang.

The ending of the season kind of brought the story of Heidi and Walter full-circle, but it didn't exactly wrap everything up into a neat little bow, which I like.  I hate when shows give us a happy ending just for the sake of wrapping things up (I'm looking at you, The Haunting of Hill House).  I would love to see a second season, but only if the plot makes sense and only if Roberts is available.  She was the heart of the show, after all, although everyone involved should be proud of what they created.

Fall TV Check-In

Well, it's now the beginning of November, and we're now about 5 weeks into the new tv season.  Time to check in and see how some new and established shows are doing, both creatively and in the all-important ratings.  There have been some surprises for sure.

Netflix Rules

Netflix has continued its string of successful shows with several high profile premieres this fall.  The Haunting of Hill House came out of nowhere and became a buzzworthy horror breakout.  The show is genuinely terrifying, but it's also a deep family drama with rich writing and many great performances.  I didn't expect much from Making a Murderer season 2 (what else was there to learn about this story?), but it dove even deeper into the cases of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey, richly exploring the appeals process and keeping me completely enthralled for all 10 new episodes.  It also introduced true crime fans to a new breakout tv legal personality in Avery's lawyer Kathleen Zellner.  She stopped at nothing to find new evidence in Avery's case, even though this meant implicating several of her client's relatives in the process (oops).  I couldn't get into The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, the new darker tale of teen witch Sabrina Spellman, but it was a good substitute for fans of the Netflix hit Stranger Things, whose new season has been delayed from its usual October premiere.  Although Netflix doesn't release viewership numbers, I imagine that the streaming service is doing just fine right now.

Reboot Fatigue  

I was very much anticipating the return of Murphy Brown, the smart 80's-90's sitcom set in a fictional newsroom, but I've been highly disappointed in the new version (as CBS is in its ratings).  I welcome any show that pokes fun at our president, but this reboot has decided to focus almost solely on Trump and his relationship with the media, completely ignoring any semblance of character development for both its returning players and new characters like Murphy's son (now working at a conservative Fox News-like network) and a bar owner played by Tyne Daly.  Most of the jokes fall flat, and I kind of just want it to end, even before its already-promised 13 episodes.  It's highly doubtful that CBS will choose to continue with this mess.  In addition, the Roseanne-less reboot of the rebooted Roseanne, now called The Conners (did you follow that?) is pulling numbers much lower than Roseanne last season, and I wish that it was a lot funnier than it is.  The choice to kill off the Roseanne character with an opioid overdose was, however, was a pretty bold and moving choice.  Add to this a sad debut for the rebooted Magnum P.I., and the networks must be starting to rethink continuing on the reboot train.  The one exception is Will and Grace, which remains pretty consistently laugh-out-loud funny and has even dove into some serious issues in the reboot's 2nd season, and Last Man Standing, which has become a bonafide Friday night hit for FOX after ABC axed it just over a year ago. 

Fading Hits

I've been a fan of This is Us and its brand of heart-tugging storytelling since the beginning, but this season has me a bit worried for its future.  Season 3 plotlines like Toby's depression and Randall's jump into politics seem unimaginative and boring, and the show now seems like it has to force its trademark tearjerker moment some weeks.  The past stories of young Jack and Rebecca and the 10-year-old and teenage Big Three are far more interesting than the present-day storylines, but the writers seem to be finding it more and more difficult to weave past events into the present-day story.  I have faith that it can recover, but I really hope that it can pull out of it's junior slump soon.  In addition, Modern Family, now in its 10th and hopefully final season, has became almost painfully unfunny and unwatchable.  Once a fresh take on the "modern family", it ran out of funny and believable plotlines several years ago.  I was curious when the show promised the death of a "major" character this fall, hoping that a death could breathe new life into the characters, but that "major" character turned out to be someone who had only appeared in a handful of episodes throughout the past 10 years.  The death episode itself was pretty moving and creative in its depiction of the characters' differing reactions to the death, but still it felt like a cheap ploy to keep me watching, and I'm not sure I can forgive that.    

Making a Murderer Part 2: True Crime Comfort Food

Making a Murderer premiered quietly on Netflix just before Christmas in 2015.  It was one of the streaming service's first forays into the serialized true crime drama genre.  Netflix execs didn't seem to expect the show to make many waves, but within just weeks positive word-of-mouth and social media chatter had turned it into a bonafide pop culture phenomenon. 

Note: Below I will get into specific "plot points" of the show (aka actual real-life events).  I would not suggest reading my review if you want to start the show from the beginning and want to be "surprised" (I'm not sure how you haven't heard details about this case in the media before now, but that's besides the point).

Making a Murderer Season 1 trailer

Dassey confession clip

The show follows the decades-long saga of Steven Avery, a Wisconsin man who spent 18 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of a sexual assault in 1985.  After finally earning his freedom, Avery filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the local police department and several individual local law enforcement officials.  Two years later in 2005 Avery was charged with another crime, the murder of aspiring photographer Teresa Halbach.  Avery's nephew Brendan Dassey, a developmentally challenged teenager, also became charged in connection with the crime after a confession that may or may not have been coerced by the detective questioning him (depending on your viewpoint).  Throughout the first season, Avery and Dassey's lawyers questioned the validity of the confession and raised questions about evidence that had possibly been planted and manipulated to frame Avery.  Did the local police, angry at Avery's pending lawsuit, concoct a massive conspiracy to frame Avery for another crime, manipulating Dassey to help implicate his uncle?  Despite the attorneys' efforts, both men were convicted, and the final episodes of the first season showed the beginnings of their appeals.  

Making a Murderer Season 2 trailer

Season 2 is even more exhaustive than the first, and possibly even more enthralling, as each man's new post-conviction lawyer slogs through the seemingly neverending appeals process.  Dassey's new attorney, a young woman named Laura Nirider, works for an organization dedicated to helping wrongly convicted youth.  She seems a bit too concerned with grand aspirations of improving the legal system rather than the specific facts of Dassey's case, but still she is very skilled and totally dedicated to helping her client.  Dassey's case makes it all the way to one step below the Supreme Court, and Nirider argues passionately in several enthralling sequences where viewers get to hear actual recordings of court hearings played over (surprisingly decent) courtroom sketches (cameras weren't allowed in the courtroom).  I wonder if anyone thought of having a more experienced lawyer help Nirider argue in such a high court, but what do I know?

The real star of season 2, however, is Avery's new lawyer Kathleen Zellner.  I was completely mesmerized every time that she appeared onscreen, which thankfully was quite a bit.  Viewers are introduced to Zellner by hearing her tell a story about one of her previous clients, a murderer.  The man had confided in Zellner that he had killed nearly a dozen more people, but she was bound by attorney-client privilege not to reveal this to anyone.  When the man died, she boldly held a press conference and recited the names of each victim to their families, sharing what she knew about their deaths.  She states early on in the series that her aim is getting at the truth, even if that means revealing the guilt of her client, and this proved her point.  She had to get her client's permission before his death to do this, but I doubt that most lawyers would go to such lengths to speak the truth. 

Zellner and Dolores Avery

Zellner spends the season exhaustively gathering new evidence in Avery's case, repeatedly visiting his family's property (the possible crime scene), conducting new tests, and raising doubts about the prosecutor's (and Avery's former attorneys') original case.  She's possibly the most hands-on lawyer that I've ever seen.  She also spends a significant amount of time pointing to possible new suspects, who just happen to be close relatives of Avery and Dassey (oops).  This leads to a tense but thrilling phone call between Avery and Dassey's mother, in which threats are made against both Avery and Zellner, but she doesn't care and isn't the least bit intimidated, because she's just going where the evidence takes her.  I really hope that Netflix sees the star power of this woman and gives her her own show, pronto.

Despite all of these positives, there is the obvious flaw that the show is decidedly one-sided in favor of Avery and Dassey's innocence.  It's true that the other side mostly declined to participate in the series, but the producers seemingly tried to give the illusion that it wasn't biased by presenting press conferences and statements given by Halbach's family and Ken Kratz, the prosecutor in the original case.  Why go to all of this effort to attempt to present both sides?  I would have preferred that the show more openly declared its opinion that the men are innocent.  Also, the camera spends way too much time lingering on Avery's elderly parents, seemingly using their grumpiness and hearing issues for comic relief.  I do have to admit though that I laughed when the show spent 5 minutes showing Avery's mother trying to turn on the stove, bickering with her husband in the process, and I'm not sorry for it.

What is my take on the men's guilt or innocence?  I'm pretty strongly convinced that Dassey is innocent (or mostly innocent), and that his confession was indeed coerced (although maybe not intentionally).  Avery, however, is another story.  Despite all the new evidence brought to light by Zellner, I still find it a bit hard to believe that the police could successfully carry out such a massive conspiracy to frame him.  I'm 50/50 on whether he's actually guilty, but I'm more doubtful that he was framed.  Tell me what you think in the comments...

The Haunting of Hill House: Award-Worthy Horror

Last week a new horror series premiered on Netflix: The Haunting of Hill House.  I was starting to get in the Halloween mood and looking for something new and scary to watch, so I decided to check it out, not knowing much about it or what to expect.  And WOW, it far exceeded my expectations, keeping me completely glued to the tv for several days straight.  The show, based on a book by Shirley Jackson, follows 5 siblings: Steve, Shirley, Theodora ("Theo"), and twins Luke and Eleanor ("Nellie"), flashing back and forth between their present adult lives and their memorable summer as kids living in Hill House, a seriously haunted old Victorian house.  Each sibling faces problems as adults, which they ultimately trace back to their time at Hill House: Shirley and Steve are in unhappy marriages, Theo is a promiscuous alcoholic, Luke is a drug addict, and Nellie is severely depressed and emotionally unstable.

Almost every episode follow the Lost model of focusing on one sibling per episode, showing events at Hill House and in the present day from each individual character's perspective.  This structure allows the viewer to get to know each sibling (as well as their parents) deeply, enriching their understanding of big events like the family's last night in Hill House and the night of one character's death in the present day.  What starts out as a simple show about a haunted house becomes a rich family drama with supernatural elements, mostly due to the complex writing and rich talent of its actors.  The twins in particular (Oliver Jackson-Cohen as Luke, Victoria Pedretti as Nellie) stand out among the cast, as their characters carry around the biggest demons (literally and figuratively).  In addition, Carla Gugino, a veteran but relatively unknown tv actress, shines as the siblings' mom Olivia.  Although her performance is a bit over-the-top, the show calls for it, as her character slowly unravels over the course of several months living in the house.  I also have to point out that the uniquely structured episode 6, in which the entire family gathers at a funeral home to say goodbye to one of their own (I won't spoil who), is particularly impactful.  It doesn't follow the single-character focus of most of the other episodes, but instead it brilliantly allows each character to confront each other over long-held issues while grieving their loved one.

Tall Floating Man video

Finally, the show works because it is downright scary!  As a horror fan, it's been really hard in the past few years to find a good horror movie or tv show that effectively builds suspense and doesn't just rely on cheap jump-scares.  There are other horror shows out there, but their writing is inconsistent and they just don't have the same impact as Hill House (cough*American Horror Story*cough).  The ghosts in Hill House are actually shown pretty sparingly, at least up until the last few episodes, creating a strong sense of suspense and fear of the unknown.  Many ghosts are, however, cleverly hidden in other scenes, with only eagle-eyed viewers noticing them.  I wasn't one of those viewers, only seeing some of the hidden ghosts when a friend pointed them out to me later.  Three ghosts/supernatural creatures in particular stuck with me even after I finished the show, as they also stuck with Luke and Nellie.  A mysterious tall floating man first haunted young Luke in the house, then continued to do so into his troubled adulthood, pushing him to do drugs to stop the visions of him.  The Bent-Neck Lady appeared to Nellie for years even after she left the house, causing her sleep paralysis and literally making her go crazy.  Finally, when a creepy zombie-like creature came at young Luke in the basement of Hill House, I literally yelled out loud in my living room.  No wonder these twins were so messed up!

Although the ending of the show was a little too neat and tidy for my taste (I like an unappy ending, what can I say?), the rest of the series more than made up for this one flae.  The Haunting of Hill House is a a horror masterpiece, but it's also so much more.  It's about family, death, grief, and the guilt and regrets that we carry with us throughout life.  A must-see to put you in the Halloween mood!

Recasting the Reboots

We're currently in the throngs of tv reboot/revival mania, with many classic shows either already back on the air or returning soon: Will and Grace, Murphy Brown, Fuller House, Magnum P.I., Macgyver, Hawaii Five-O, Designing Women, Charmed, the list goes on and on...

I thought that it might be fun to imagine some other classic shows rebooted, with actors from today filling the shoes of some well-known, already popular characters.  For the purposes of this post, I won't be recasting more recent shows where most (if not all) of the original actors are still alive.  Please comment and let me know if you agree/disagree with my choices, or if you have some better picks in mind.

1.  Golden Girls

Blanche Devereaux
Original Actress: Rue McClanahan
My Pick: Wendie Malick
Malick played the fun, promiscuous character on Just Shoot Me and Hot in Cleveland.  She's the only older, currently active actress that I can see in the role.

Dorothy Zbornak
Original Actress: Bea Arthur
My Pick: Allison Janney
She's currently occupied on the hit sitcom Mom, but her sardonic, "who cares" humor would make a great Dorothy.

Sophia Petrillo
Original Actress: Estelle Getty
My Pick: Rhea Perlman
She was the wise-cracking smartass on Cheers, and she'd be a great older wisecracking smartass on Golden Girls.  Plus, she's short like Getty!  Side note: I want to put Cloris Leachman in this role, but I hear that her health is failing and she's not working regularly anymore.

Rose Nylund
Original Actress: Betty White
My Pick: Jackee Harry
If Betty isn't up to it (she's 96, after all), then I'm going with Harry (227, Sister Sister).  She's hilarious, and I feel like she could play the friendly but naïve character well.

2.  I Love Lucy

Lucy Ricardo
Original Actress: Lucille Ball
My Pick: Anna Faris
Okay it's pretty hard to fill the queen of comedy's shoes, but I feel like Faris should do a pretty good job.  On Mom she has proven that she can do physical comedy as well as straight humor.  She's the Lucy of modern times.  Fight me on this.

Ricky Ricardo
Original Actor: Desi Arnaz
My Pick: Kunal Nayyar
Nayyar has been a strong supporting character on The Big Bang Theory for years, and this role would require Nayyar to be a much more dominant force with a stronger personality than Raj, but he's a strong actor who I believe would be up to the challenge.  Plus the show would keep its "foreign man with American wife" premise.

Ethel Mertz
Original Actress: Vivian Vance
My Pick: Wendi McLendon Covey
Covey spends her time these days as the matriarch of the family on The Goldbergs, but I think that she'd be a strong friend to Faris as Lucy.  Plus, she has also proven her comedic range and skill with physical comedy.

Fred Mertz
Original Actor: William Frawley
My Pick: Nick Offerman
Offerman, as Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation, was lovable but cranky, just like Mertz.  The role seems like the perfect fit for him, and for some readon I feel like Covey and Offerman would make a great couple.

Fall TV time!

I've been shamefully absent for a while, but I can't stay away when the new fall tv season is upon us!  In this post I will be sharing some recent new fall shows that I've watched and enjoyed in the past few weeks, as well as other promising new shows that are premiering soon.  Here we go!

1. Forever (Amazon Prime): This show, starring Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen, definitely isn't for everyone.  And it's not at all what I expected.  The SNL alums star as June and Oscar, and childless couple entering middle age and beginning to become a bit bored with their marriage and lives.  At the end of episode 2 the show takes a (SPOILER ALERT) Good Place-esque turn when both main characters end up dead together in the afterlife.  From there June begins a friendship with the couple's new neighbor (also dead) played by Catherine Keener, and ventures off to find a more interesting place to spend eternity.  The show is funny, although I wish that the joke count was a little higher.  More intriguingly, the show explores some deept themes like the meaning of life and relationships.  The 2 standout episodes are #2, when June finds herself after her grief over Oscar's death (before her own death), and episode #6, a standalone episode following the relationship between 2 realtors who are drawn to each other but unsure about taking the risk of leaving their spouses for each other.  It's a thoughtful study on human connection and the regrets that stay with us for our entire lives.  Not a perfect show, but at 8 episodes it's well worth a binge.

2. American Vandal (Netflix):  Vandal is a comedic mock crime documentary that in season 1 followed the mystery of who spray painted penises on cars in the faculty parking lot at a high school.  The show borrowed tropes from recent crime documentary hits like Making a Murderer to hilariously investigate the crime, and it worked mostly due to the perfect performance by Jimmy Tatro as the main suspect.  In season 2, the setting has moved to a Catholic high school, the site of a varierty of poop-related pranks inititiated by a suspect dubbed the "Turd Burglar".  None of the actors in season 2 are quite as strong as Tatro (the only returning cast are the 2 student documentrary filmmakers), but the story is a bit more twisty and fleshed out.  Also at 8 episodes, it's another great binge.

3. Murphy Brown (CBS, premieres Sept. 27)): I was the weird 10-year-old that was watching adult sitcoms like Murphy instead of cartoons, or you know...playing outside.  The original show ran from 1988-1998 and followed Candice Bergen as the host of a tv newsmagazine filmed in D.C.  At first a typical workplace comedy, the show courted some controversy in 1992 when Vice President Dan Quayle criticized the Murphy character's status as a single mother.  It also dealt with some serious issues like breast cancer, which Murphy fought during one of the show's final seasons.  The reboot, premiering this week, features Murphy and her old coworkers as hosts of a morning show.  The show promises to tackle the modern political landscape and President Trump.  This could be funny in small doses, but the original show was never that political.  If it can strike the right balance between politics and workplace comedy, then I will welcome it back onto my tv with open arms.      

4. Manifest (NBC, premieres Sept. 24): I don't know much about this show other than the main premise: passengers on a commercial flight return after being missing for 5 years, although for them no time has passed.  After the success of Lost in the mid-2000's, networks tried (and failed) to capture their own magic with a string of sci-flops: Invasion, The Event, Flash Forward, and Surface, to name just a few.  As a network sci-fi show, the odds are stacked against Manifest, but for now I will thrive on the hope that it could possibly be good.

5.  The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Netflix, premieres Oct. 26): A much darker, dramatic take on Sabrina the Teenage Witch, this show intends the fill the creepy tv show void left on Netflix this Halloween by Stranger Things, whose 3rd season has been delayed until next summer.  Normally I wouldn't be excited about a teen supernatural show, which tends to be the expertise of the CW these days.  The Vampire Diaries ain't my thing.  But Sabrina stars one my favorite young actresses, Kiernan Shipka, who out-acted January Jones every week on Mad Men.  She was so strong that Mad Men wisely built subplots around her pre-teen character during its later seasons, even though the show was already stacked with a wealth of talented actors.  Here's hoping that this one lives up to the hype and raises the profile of the deserving and talented Shipka.