'Rescue Me' season five review - andreikirilenkotattoo on TV

In today's column, I review the new season of "Rescue Me," which is much improved (mostly) from last season, when I gave up midway through:

"I don't have any regrets," firefighter Tommy Gavin explains midway through the fifth season of "Rescue Me." "I don't live my life that way."

Tommy may not have regrets for all his terrible behavior, but he does seem to recognize that it was wrong and that he has to try to live a better life -- a philosophy very much shared by his real-life alter ego, "Rescue Me" star/writer/producer Denis Leary.

You can read my "Rescue Me" review here. After the jump, some specifics on how I'm going to blog the show this year, since I watched it under unusual circumstances.

Basically, I was done with "Rescue Me," but when I was at press tour in January, a friend whose opinion I trust gave me the season's first 8 episodes and insisted that it was much improved. And then, when I complained about the first episode being more of the same junk that made me quit on the show in the first place, he assured me that things would get better, and soon.

Long story short, I listened to his pleas and eventually powered my way through the first five or so episodes and saw that my friend was right (though, as I note in the column, the season doesn't really get going until around week 4). But I was watching them at odd hours, and not taking notes, and while I liked some of them, I didn't like them enough to want to find the time to rewatch them now for proper long-form blogging. I've since watched episodes 6-9 while taking some notes.

So here's the deal: every Tuesday night (or Wednesday morning, depending on my schedule), I'm going to have up some kind of post to allow people to discuss the early episodes, and if I remember a specific detail or three I want to highlight, I'll do that. But the serious blogging won't kick in until episode 6.

Seems the fairest solution. Those of you still watching (or willing to watch it again) get to discuss it, and I don't pretend to be remembering specifics on things I watched three months ago while battling jetlag and press tour brain-lock.

In fact, because I disliked so much of the premiere, I'm not going to bother with a separate post. Feel free to discuss it here, and I'll be back next Tuesday with something (even if it's just an open thread) on episode two.