After seeing the premiere of Rescue Me on FX, I think I may have a new favorite American TV series. (I suppose it's a good thing that HBO isn't airing new episodes of Deadwood right now, or my head might explode.) What sets this show apart from so many others that I enjoy is a feeling of reality. I don't mean a fake, gritty, pseudo-documentary sort of style, but just a down-to-earth sense of the characters and their lives. As much as I enjoy shows like Nip/Tuck or The Shield, and as complex and three-dimensional as the characters and stories of those shows have grown to be, I never don't feel like I'm watching a TV series when I watch them. There's still that element of stylization, of larger-than-life-ness, that keeps it from feeling quite real. They're real life the way we'd like it to be, not the way it really is. Rescue Me, on the other hand, feels real. Which, considering it's got Denis Leary talking constantly to ghosts, is pretty incredible. (It also stars Andrea Roth, thank God, and it looks like Callie Thorne is going to turn up in later episodes.)

And it's late, and I don't feel like writing any more tonight, but if you've got cable, watch this show. That is all.