My new least favorite TV character

The two or three of you who read this with any sort of regularity know that Amelia Shepherd from Private Practice is my least favorite TV character.  Well, was my least favorite TV character. Part of this is based on changes to Amelia's character and the fact that Private Practice is down to its last few episodes. But mostly it's because the character sucks. I am talking about Kitty, the new Cheerio introduced this season on Glee.

Kitty is supposed to be the replacement for the Quinn and Santana we first knew, bitchy and sent to New Directions to take it down from the inside. The plan for Kitty, apparently, was to give her as many words to deliver as Quinn and Santana would per episode, but only do it in the average amount of time a supporting character would usually get. The result is a hasty mishmash of catty, overly written putdowns delivered with almost no pace or nuance.

Kitty was also forced upon us on day one with no real exposition as to who she was or why she's so disagreeable. She's bitchy for bitchiness' sake, an automaton in Spanx who pushes buttons to get a reaction from characters and viewers alike. We've been given no reason to care about who she is or why she does what she does.  She is not helped by being surrounded by other new characters that were also hastily thrown at the viewers, albeit with a smidgen of background.

I don't know how much of this to lay at the feet of the actor - maybe her delivery has always been a rushed mess - but I really think it's a symptom of the writing and planning for the show, which more or less lurches from plot point to plot point while distracting us with song and dance. I will say that Kitty can at least do that to the appropriate Glee level.

I should also add that, while not a character, I would also be happy if Marley (another of the new characters, who I think is intended to be the new Rachel, just without her drama, interesting character traits, or voice) never appeared wearing that newsboy hat again.

Bring Out Your Dead 2012: The Ted Marshall Open

Another TV season, another attempt to win the Ted Marshall Open, the greatest TV dead pool in the land. You pick 10 shows, get points if they never air after this season, most points win. My ten, in order of preference (show #10 gets me 10 bonus points if shut down, show #9 gets me 9 points, etc.):

10: Gossip Girl. A no-brainer, as it was already announced that this would be its last season. Using the same reason led me to choose:

9: The Office
8: 30 Rock
7: Fringe

6: Private Practice. while it's not the show's official last season, Tim Daly didn't return for the current season, and Kate Walsh announced she'll be leaving at its end. Seems a little daft to keep a spin-off going once the character it was built on leaves. Also, it only got a 13 episode order, which suggests a winding down.

5: The Neighbors. This is the ABC sitcom where a family moves into a gated community which is populated by aliens.

4: The Mob Doctor. Besides having what sounds like a temporary title, there's not been much positive to read about this show, mostly having to do with the implausibility of the set-up (doctor does things for Mob to repay previous favor). I also think it's likely to struggle against Dancing With the Stars and the CBS comedy block.

3: Animal Practice. The standout performer on this show is a monkey. I say fire all the people and let the monkey run the hospital, Lancelot Link-style. Heavy Olympic promotion may help, but given how stupid the promos were, maybe not.

2: Guys With Kids. Mostly because it's the 28048th attempt at a guy-centered family sitcom, but also a little bit because it comes from Jimmy Fallon, who does nothing for me.

1. Malibu Country. Reba (where did her last name go?) more or less plays herself, a country musician who moves to Malibu to focus on family. It's on Friday nights on ABC, so there's a bit of a TGIF vibe here, but what little I've read about it suggests it's nothing to write home about. A calculated risk, as the threshold for this to hang on is probably not that high.

I actually matched up pretty well with conventional wisdom this year, as eight of my picks were in the consensus top 10 (it helps when you have four shows already announced as ending). The two shows I didn't pick that made the top 10:

Oh Sit - it's extreme musical chairs hosted by Jamie Kennedy and one or two other people. It seems like a parody TV listing from The Onion, but as a summer series I fear it may just be stupid enough to come back.

Whitney - I violated the first rule of dead pools (once on a list, the only way off is to die) by leaving this off, but given my multi-year run of picking According to Jim, only to see it come back year after year, I'm gun shy about sitcoms that I pick and are subsequently renewed.

I should also note that I did not re-pick Unforgettable, the CBS "cop who remembers everything but her sister's murder" drama that was cancelled and then renewed a few weeks later. That's the sort of karma I'm not going to mess with.

The Shondaverse: No One Gets Out Alive

I've think I've made passing reference to the abnormally high body count for main and supporting characters in Shonda Rhimes' shows, but having just seen the episode of Private Practice where Bizzy's kills herself after her new wife dies from a blood clot in the lung I'm left kind of amazed at how no character in her shows gets to leave standing upright... except for Izzy Stevens and Preston Burke. I assume they made it part of their exit package not to have their characters bumped off.

I was especially irritated with the decision to kill Bizzy off, given that her character seems to be of sterner stuff. I suppose you can argue that she wasn't able to see her way past losing her one true love, but I still don't see Bizzy choosing to OD. I would expect her to live a long and bitter life, making sure to remind Addison at every turn about how she's such a disappointment. That seems more in line with Bizzy as she was presented.

Horror!

So I now see that Amelia Shepherd is a regular character on Private Practice. Because what medical practice focused on treating the whole person doesn't need a neurosurgeon? And don't get me started on how Charlotte can apparently be the chief of surgery at St. Ambrose and run her sex practice at the same time. I'm beginning to think that St. Ambrose is kind of a crappy hospital.

Annoying

I know I'm several weeks behind Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice due to our DVRing habits, but I did want to mention that I find myself unusually irritated by Amelia Shepherd. I don't know if it's the character, the actress, or an overall annoyance with the combined Grey's universe. I'd say it's 60 percent character (she has an unfortunate combination of brattiness and ego), 10 percent actress (Caterina Scorsone, who I think I've only previously seen in the UPN by way of CBC hockey drama Power Play), and 30 percent the show universe (which seems to favor whinier, needier characters over people I'd rather not see get hit by buses).

It may also be that I'm annoyed with Private Practice in general, as it's given up pretty much any pretense at being a medical drama. I'm pretty sure they only see patients who are lost or looking for a bathroom or something. There is part of me that expects that the show won't end until all the main characters have had sex with each other, which we're about one good sweeps episode away from seeing. Get working, writers!