101 Things To Love

DirecTV's 101 Network is one of the most wonderful things to happen to television in the last decade. First of all, that's the network that airs my beloved Friday Night Lights months and months before NBC gets around to it. But it also airs other great shows that originally aired on pay cable or were cancelled before their time. Last night I began re-watching Smith - the 7 episode run of which I recently TiVo'd on the 101.

I really liked Smith when it originally aired on CBS back in 2006. A show about a group of criminals who perpetrate a variety of heists with a crew that included Frankie G, Amy Smart, Johnny Lee Miller, and Simon Baker led by Ray Liotta who was married to Virginia Madsen working for Shohreh Aghdashloo, being hunted down by Chris Bauer? What's not to like? It's a decent show but I can kind of see why it didn't make it on a network. This would have been much better on cable. TNT or FX...maybe USA. Anyway, the show was shit-canned after the 3rd or 4th episode so I only vaguely remembered what went down in the few episodes I saw.

Watching it now, I remember some things that I'd completely forgotten since it originally aired. I forgot that I kind of had a crush on Johnny Lee Miller's character. With his hopeless crush on Annie and his tattoos and his camaraderie with Jeff? He was really cute.

I forgot that I totally dug Amy Smart's portrayal of a completely immoral heartless grifter. I'm also in the midst of another Felicity re-watch and I love contrasting her work as the sweet Ruby with her evil Annie. She's a much better actress that she gets credit for I think.

I completely forgot that Virginia Madsen was hip to the life. I remembered that she was suspicious that her husband (Bobby) was responsible for the big-story robbery from the first episode, but I'd forgotten that she knew all of his crew and knew that he'd been in that life previously. I had also forgotten that she was a former narcotic addict. There were a lot of great layers to her character.

I forgot that Simon Baker did his own surfing in the show. He's really good. And he's really hot (that I hadn't forgotten). Jeff is a psychotic whackadoo but it's interesting how protective he is of Tom and how distrustful of Annie. And how freaking hot he is. I'm sorry, did I already mention that? If you have DirecTV and they air it again on The 101 Network, you really should watch him surf on Smith. Mmmmm.