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Pushing Daisies cast members Ellen Greene, Swoosie Kurtz, Chi McBride, Anna Friel, Lee Pace, and Kristin Chenoweth

Moonlight's sexy investigative vamp, Mick St. John (Alex O'Loughlin)

Reaper's Ray Wise and Bret Harrison

As of this writing, the Writer's Guild strike is still in full force with no sign of resolution, meaning that all this talk about fall TV may be moot by mid-December. Let's hope both sides reach an amicable solution soon.

Pushing Daisies (ABC, Wednesday, 8pm est) - Bryan Fuller, the third leg of the TV Wunderkind has done it again. After a too-early series interruptus with Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls, we're hoping Pushing Daisies is just too cute, too original, and too colorful to meet with the same fate. All we have to say to those TV suits who think otherwise is, shut your Pie Hole.

(btw, is it just me, or does the narrator make you feel like you're watching The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy?)

Dirty Sexy Money (ABC, Wednesday, 10pm est) - It has Peter Krause. Really, do I need to say anything else? Have you ever seen this guy in anything you didn't love? I still watch my DVDs of Sportsnight and laugh my head off. It doesn't hurt that the Darlings are just to die for either. Kind of makes you glad you're poor, ya know?

Moonlight (FOX, Friday, 9pm est) - Reminding me of Nick Knight with a little bit of Angel thrown in, Mick St. John is by far the coolest new vamp on TV. But then, I'm a sucker for all vamps. Watch It!

Chuck (NBC, Monday, 8pm est) - I wasn't too sure about this show at first, because it took a couple of weeks to find its feet, but it's getting better, thanks in part to Adam Baldwin, who makes everything fun. Watch It!

Bionic Woman (NBC, Wednesday, 9pm est) - I have to admit I watched the first episode just to see if it was as cheesy as its predecessor, but it's actually good. I especially love the relationship between Jaime and Sarah, which kind of reminds me of Buffy and evil Faith. Naturally, Sarah, like Faith, is much more fun. I hope they never catch her. Watch It!

Reaper (CW, Tuesday, 9pm est) - I'm starting to think Seattle has a thing for the Grim Ones (i.e., Dead Like Me), especially since Dolores Herbig (and her Big Brown Horns) is now running the DMV portal to Hell. And who doesn't love Ray Wise as the Devil? It's almost as good as Alan Rickman as the Metatron.

Torchwood (BBC America, Saturday, 9pm est) - Darker spin-off of its parent, Doctor Who (which hasn't been the same without Christopher Eccleston or Billie Piper), Capt. Jack Harkness is the kind of super-cool, gunslinging space cowboy you want to have on your side.

Breaking TV News!! Let the celebrating begin! The remaining two-thirds of TV's Wunderkind triumvarant will soon be back in the fold with a familiar face in tow. Joss Whedon, along with fellow Wunderkind Tim Minear, has been tapped for a new series by FOX, and guess who his new star will be? All we can say is, ya gotta have Faith. Read all about it at Hollywood Insider.

On DVD

Home for the Holidays
On the fourth Thursday in November, 84 million American families will gather together ... And wonder why.

The best thing about Home for the Holidays is how much it echoes real life for anyone who has suffered through dysfunctional family syndrome. Haven't we all done stupid things our families will throw in our face at the worst possible moment, been embarrassed by our mothers, and looked around at least once and wondered how on earth we could possibly be related to these people? But then, as this film so poignantly points out, isn't that what holidays with the family are all about?

Claudia Larson (Holly Hunter) begins her holiday weekend by coming down with a cold, losing her job, making out with her boss, learning that her teen-age daughter is planning on having sex with her boyfriend, and losing her coat in the airport on the way home for Thanksgiving where, to her parents, she's perpetually 12 years old. Throw in Robert Downey Jr. as her gay, prankish brother who brings home a friend, Leo Fish (Dylan McDermott), to cheer up his sister, a crazy Aunt Gladys (Geraldine Chaplin) who wears Fruit Loop necklaces and harbors a penchant for both giving away hideous lamps and nurturing secret crushes, and you have the makings of a hilarious holiday nightmare.

Thanksgiving at the Larson's is by turns hysterical and bittersweet. Anne Bancroft and Charles Durning, endearingly oblivious parents Adele and Henry Larson, are the glue that binds this crazy clan together. As Tommy (Robert Downey Jr.) tells his mother at one point, "You've got bad hair and you're a pain in my ass, but I love you anyway, Mom."

The all-star cast is rounded out by Cynthia Stevenson (Dead Like Me) and Steve Guttenberg, as Claudia's uptight sister and her husband, and Claire Danes as Kitt, Claudia's teen-age daughter, along with a dynamite classic rock soundtrack. You have to wonder if Jodie Foster, showing amazing insight in her directorial debut, hasn't seen a few of these holidays-gone-awry herself. As Adele Larson remarks after the dust has settled at the end of the film: "There's always Christmas."

We give Home for the Holidays 4 out of 5 thumbs up for holiday viewing. Pick it up on DVD, as you'll want to watch it again at least once a year.

More recommended viewing ...
Some of our other faves for holiday viewing

From the opening scene, The Ref with Dennis Leary, Kevin Spacey, and Judy Davis, is a sadistically hilarious romp. Leary is at his scathingly sarcastic best as an improvising cat burgler who gets stuck hiding out with the bickering Chasseurs on Christmas Eve. If you haven't seen this movie, you owe it to your holiday sanity to do so.

Despite its stars (Nicholas Cage, Dana Carvey, and Jon Lovitz), Trapped in Paradise is a little-known holiday movie that manages to be both hilarious and charming. The three stars play ex-con brothers who go to Paradise, Pennsylvania to rob a bank and end up falling victim to the warmth of the town's residents. This is a cute one to curl up with the family to watch.

Yes, I know it's on TV wall-to-wall every holiday season, but for me A Christmas Story never loses its charm. Maybe it's the sweet goofiness of Ralphy or Darren McGavin's glib, tongue-in-cheek portrayal of his father, but this movie just seems to touch the child in everyone. I'm sure I've seen it at least 50 times, and even though I know every line by heart, my holiday season wouldn't be complete without at least one viewing. If you've never seen it without the annoyance of commercials every five minutes, treat yourself to the 20th Anniversary DVD this season.

In print

The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror
by Christopher Moore

While not exactly new (The Stupidest Angel was originally published 3 years ago), I felt the story fit the season, especially if your idea of a rousing holiday includes Lena Marquez knocking off her ex-husband Dale (aka Santa Claus) with a shovel to the throat while stealing Christmas trees, then getting propositioned by horny, down-on-his-luck pilot, Tucker Case (the hapless hero of Island of the Sequined Love Nun), who's out looking for a little Christmas nookie while walking his pet Micronesian fruit bat, Roberto.

In typical Moore fashion, the cast of characters in The Stupidest Angel are up to their armpits in absurdity. Take the pot-smoking constable, Theophilus Crowe, who's just been kicked out of his house by his wife, the Warrior Babe of the Outland, after she pledged her faith to Nigoth the Worm God. And Theo's best friend, Gabe Fenton, who wired his scrotum with electrodes to reprogram his response to women after his girlfriend dumped him.

And let's not forget the centerpiece of this bizarre holiday diorama, the slightly retarded, trenchcoat-wearing, Snickers-loving Archangel Raziel, who's running around town assaulting children while looking to pull off a Christmas miracle that ends up unleasing a hoard of brain-sucking, IKEA-worshipping zombies on the annual Pine Cove Lonesome Christmas Party.

If this all sounds a bit too bizarre to you, then you definately need to become acquainted with the World According to Moore.

No, really, you do.

I'm not going to tell you what happens--the would be cheating--but I will offer up a tasty appetizer in the form of one of my favorite paragraphs:

Winter denial: therein lay the key to California Schadenfreude--the secret joy that the rest of the country feels at the misfortune of California. The country said: "Look at them, with their fitness and their tans, their beaches and their movie stars, their Silicon Valley and silicone breasts, their orange bridge and their palm trees. God, I hate those smug, sunshiny bastards!" Because if you're up to your navel in a snowdrift in Ohio, nothing warms your heart like the sight of California on fire. If you're shoveling silt out of your basement in the Fargo flood zone, nothing brightens your day like watching a Malibu mansion tumbling down a cliff into the sea. And if a tornado just peppered the land around your Oklahoma town with random trailer trash and redneck nuggets, then you can find a quantum of solace in the fact that the earth actually opened up in the San Fernando Valley and swallowed a whole caravan of commuting SUVs.

The Stupidest Angel has lots more interesting stuff to keep you teetering on the edge of your seat with laughter. Do yourself a favor, pick up a copy and make this a very Merry Christmas

The man behind the book

To say that Christopher Moore is a funny man is like saying that bunnies like to bop. I've been reading Moore's irreverent romps through the insanity of modern life since Practical Demonkeeping first hit the shelves 15 years ago, so I can say without reservation that, unlike many of his contemporaries, the man has not lost who he is. The Sultan of the Sublime, the Wizard of Weird, the Baron of the Bizarre--these should be trophies residing on Moore's mantle. No one writing today can take an ordinary event and inject it with as much randomly satirical hyperbole.

Moore's first novel, Practical Demonkeeping, was optioned for film by Disney before the book even had a publisher. Unfortunately for us, none of his novels has made it the big screen. Yet. In response to repeated questions from fans over the years, Moore stated during his latest book tour for You Suck that all of his books have been optioned or sold for films, but as yet "none of them are in any danger of being made into a movie." Well, all I can say is, that sucks for the rest of us.

Christopher Moore's Recommended Reading

So what does a zany guy like Christopher Moore like to read? Well, I went straight to the source--his website--and came across something so funny in his Chris Picks that I was snorting out loud like an asthmatic pig. The source of this inanity is the book and website, Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About, by British writer Mil Millington. It could take a week to get through the many jewels on the site, so pick up the book. Millington has also written Love and Other Near-Death Experiences and Certain Chemistry.

For more Chris Picks or insight into what makes Christopher Moore tick, visit his website, www.ChrisMoore.com.

~The Restless Reader