Hello,
Lee Thompson Young died yesterday, this is sad news for his friends and family first. However this is also sad news for fans "Rizzoli and Isles", which I'm one of. It seems that Young, who plays Detective Barry Frost, killed himself. This is such a tragedy. I know very little about Young and can only guess what kind of pain he was in. About the only sure thing someone can say about a person who has committed suicide is that they felt there was little they could do. I think suicide might be the ultimate act of desperation, when one shoots themselves they clearly meant to commit suicide.
Looking at Young's life from outside, it might seem that he had everything. However clearly he didn't, or at least he didn't think he did. He was probably at least a bit depressed, depression can make some normal seeming people do things that seem to make no sense. I realize that sometimes people confuse the actual actor with the character they play. I'm sure at least a few people have thought that Barry Frost never would kill himself. Since he's only a character we'll never know. But that's why it's called acting. Even good actors who are fighting depression can act happy and have charisma.
Young played Frost with such charisma and also with a goofy sense-of-humor. I loved his burgeoning bromance with young Frankie Rizzoli. There seemed to be a lot of quality storylines ahead with those two. Just last night I enjoyed watching Rizzoli help Frost get over his squeamishness around dead bodies. Along with those two characters, I enjoy rest of the zany cast. Even when the case of the week was weak, the cast's chemistry always brought a few laughs.
Most people probably remember Young on Disney's "The Famous Jett Jackson", a show I've never seen and barely remember even hearing of. However I loved Young's character on "Rizzoli and Isles". An actor and character that didn't take himself too seriously. He was a great and important part of a great show and will be missed by all of many fans.
Some will wonder why didn't Young reach out? Why didn't he seek help with whatever battle he was fighting? One of the saddest things about this whole situation is that he may have been too good of an actor. Perhaps his friends and family didn't see that he needed help, maybe those acting skills ultimately cost him his life.
R.I.P. Lee Thompson Young
From Young's death to the death of a true entertainment legend. Early Tuesday the great author Elmore Leonard died. Leonard wasn't one of my favorite writers, but he was a very good writer. I loved his novel"Get Shorty", what a great book that is. The main character in "Get Shorty" is loan shark Chili Palmer. He's one of my favorite fictional characters, both from books and movies. Very few times will it be said that a person was born to play a role, however John Travolta was born to play Chili Palmer.
Leonard also wrote many other books, among many of which were turned into movies or TV shows.
R.I.P. Elmore Leonard.
"Low Winter Sun": I've watched the first two episodes of this show and have liked it. However since it's a cop show on AMC as "The Killing" is, I have to admit that I didn't give it much of a leash. As soon as it did something stupid like "The Killing" I was going to turn the TV off. I was pleasantly surprised that the first episode was so good. I'm watching "Low Winter Sun" because I was intrigued enough by it's commercials. Although it deals with similar thematic elements, it has little in common with "The Killing". For instance, the sun actually shines in Detroit, whereas it rarely did in Seattle. Even when the sun shined in "The Killing" it was a very gloomy sun.
One thing that I dislike about "Low Winter Sun", which I've noticed in other TV shows, is how they try to shove too many stories into a season. Here are just a few of the stories. There's the storyline involving Agnew and Geddes and their conspiracy in killing fellow cop Brendan McCann. There also is the Internal Affairs investigation of McCann, then Geddes, occurring. There's also the relationship between Geddes and his Mom. Then there's the storyline about Geddes, Agnew and Agnew's missing prostitute girlfriend Katya.
We also have wanna be gangster Damon Callis and his minions, who are trying to move in on other gangsters territory. There are story lines surrounding his lovely wife, Maya (Sprague Grayden) as well. It seems that Damon isn't the only one that has an interest in Maya. Another story line includes Callis, who was in cahoots with McCann. Now Callis wants to be in business with Geddes, but initially Geddes wants nothing to do with him. Geddes has enough crap going on in his life.
The other gangsters that Callis' crew are trying to inch on include an older white gangster and an older black gangster. These characters and story lines have been introduced in only the first two episodes. There's too many extra stories going on which detracts from the main story, which is the reason why I'm watching the show in the first place.
Sadly the ratings for "Low Winter Sun" haven't been very good and may not be around much longer.
A couple of quick sports notes. Fox Sports 1 made it's national debut this past Saturday. (FS1 is on Channel 265 in the Salt Lake Valley for Comcast Subscribers.) So far I've been extremely unimpressed. Every time I turned over to FS1, they had MMA, auto racing or boxing. Three sports I have no interest in. I realize it's not the prime time to start a sports station, there are many other networks showing sports. I'm hoping with MLB pennant races heating up and college and pro football right around the corner their programming gets a lot better.
And what the hell is "Fox Sports Live", their sports highlight show. The two hosts Jay Onrait and Dan O'Toole seem to be a poor copy of classic and current ESPN sports announcers. They work too hard to be funny and zany and failed miserably in both in the one episode I've seen. They were so bad, they started to bore me. I was glad that I could switch back to ESPN.
Why is it that "Fox Sports Live" is anything but in the morning. This is Fox, the network with the most commercials of any on TV. Those rare times I watch shows on Fox I watch them on DVR, that way I can bypass the 20 minutes of commercials. Fox shows too many commercials and have up to 5 minute blocks of commercials. That makes for some really boring television. So Fox please don't tell us you don't have enough money to show 24 hours of live sports broadcasting.
And what's up with that "Fox Sports Live"panel? They aren't terrible, but 5 people trying to speak in limited time is just too much. The panel that I saw while I was watching was Gabe Kapler, Donovan McNabb, Andy Roddick and Gary Payton with a random hot babe facilitating the discussion. I wasn't overwhelmed by any of them. I don't expect much from McNabb, Roddick etc. however I expect a lot from Gary Payton. Payton is one of the NBA's all-time clutch players and here's hoping he picks up his game quickly. Maybe Fox can dump at least one or two people taking up valuable broadcast time.
Last and definitely least: sometimes I enjoying listening to sports radio. I like to hear other people's opinions and insight about sports. But sports radio has too many commercials and the worst seems to be ESPN 700 in Salt Lake City. The main afternoon host, Bill Reilly, is personable enough. However he works with the brutal Hans Olsen. Olsen is boring and likes to refer to his sports career way too much. I'm of the belief if you have to refer to your pro career too much, then you didn't have much of a career. Olsen too many times likes to start sentences with "Let me break this down for the average listener" or "Let me tell you what I think". Dearest Hans first of all please don't patronize us. It's bad enough being patronized ever, but especially being patronized about sports. It's sports it isn't brain surgery. Second of all just tell us what you think. Listening to the Bill and Hans Show is to suffer through close to 40 minutes of commercials each hour.
First there are the regular commercials, which I realize are the nature of the beast. Unfortunately there are also commercials in the middle of the sports segments. After talking about sports a few minutes and the show gets into a groove Reilly will start talking about something that sounds sports related. Within several seconds you realize it's just another commercial. On Monday I heard Reilly do commercials for some lame sports drink (because we don't have enough of those already) and pizza. Not to mention all the commercials ESPN 700 does for itself, Real Salt Lake and Utah Utes sports. After several minutes of that it gets tiring and it seems the commercials are nearly endless. Many times I'm thankful for CD players and being able to listen to great music. I just wish sports radio came with fewer commercials and people that actually talked about sports.
themusicaddict
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