'Bull's' stock rising

Career envy is one of the necessary ingredients of any great television show. Take some attractive stars, decent writing (a little less decent if the stars are really attractive) and put them in a highly enviable job environment, and it's a pretty good bet the show will be a hit. Throngs of viewers will tune in each week to vicariously live out their dreams of becoming highly successful doctors, lawyers or journalists at glamorous fashion magazines.\nI can't really feel superior to the rest of the TV-watching masses in this particular trend. Although I know I have no future as a politician, I love spending a Wednesday night planning foreign policy alongside the group on "The West Wing." The real-life pressure of working in an emergency room gives me heart palpitations, but Thursday nights are just a little better if I get to imagine slicing an aorta with Noah Wyle on "ER."\nWhile the above careers have always held a certain mystique for me, I have never once desired to be a stockbroker on Wall Street. I can barely comprehend a statistics course for journalism majors (and that should tell you something about how easy the course is). My eighth grade mock stock market project ended with debt and financial ruin. Needless to say, ads promoting "Bull," a TNT original series about life in New York's financial district, didn't motivate me to stock up on VHS and program the old VCR.\nNot only was the show built around a subject I find boring, it was created by TNT, a network only entertaining when it broadcasts programs helmed by others (NBA games or the fifty-thousandth showing of "The American President," for example.)\nBut fate brought "Bull" and I together one August evening. The season premiere of the show coincided with the night I chose to pack my things to come back to college. Finding myself downstairs with only cardboard boxes and cable television for company, I flipped to the first thing that seemed watchable.\nWith a lack of available career envy, the attractive cast and above-average writing are the first reasons to love "Bull." "Bull" follows a group of young stockbrokers as they break away from a powerful firm to become their own start-up company. Full of actors you've seen before but probably can't quite name (Malik Yoba from "New York Undercover," Stanley Tucci from "Big Night," George Newbern from "Father of the Bride," to name a few) "Bull" boasts an ensemble cast with talent and chemistry. Although the plots include a lot of business-speak, the show is smartly scripted and full of interesting sub-plots.\nAlthough it was like at first sight, "Bull" and I were unable to form a lasting relationship this fall. Classes and other more enjoyable social activities kept me from watching most of the 13 new episodes, not to mention the disastrous VCR experiences due to my Eastern standard time brain failing to record according to the Central time zone.\nBut I and all other viewers were handed a second chance to see this great series. Beginning Oct. 31, TNT began re-broadcasting all the episodes in order. If you're already sick of brand-new network TV and would rather do anything than do homework, check out "Bull" at 10 p.m. every Tuesday. You won't be persuaded to become a math major, but it will be an hour well spent.