Monsters of Television

“After missing so many little deaths, he should be here for the big one.”

Are we to believe that Taub could really pull this?

Taub is a jackass. I didn’t like him when he was selected from the pool of candidates that gave us Kutner and 13. I didn’t like him his first go-round as a fellow. I cheered when he left and growled when he came back (even though he was reintroduced with 13). So you can imagine my distaste when we have a Taub-centric episode. But, whenever they want to do a show about cheating spouses, they have to wheel out the hobbit.

The patient with the cheating heart is part of an open marriage and she, in fact, is about to get down with a sex buddy when she has an attack in her bowls. The idea of an open marriage intrigues the man-children of the group (i.e. not Chase or Foreman) and puts the idea in Taub’s itty bitty head that this might be a good idea to bring up to his wife.

What should have ensued was a loud guffaw from his long suffering wife but, instead, this is really the main source of non-patient drama for the episode because we’re to assume Taub is some kind of dwarvian lethario. We can only assume it’s because he offers women a peek as his pot of gold.

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“Can’t. You see, in my head, the only way the plane remains aloft is if I’m rooting for it.”

Slight disparity in nighttime wear.

What a waste.

If you’ve been following my reviews of Chuck, you’ll notice an increased enthusiasm for the growing intensity and a demonstration of better story-telling in the last few weeks. Some might even say it was “overly optimistic.” Nay, I said, not overly optimistic. This is clearly where this show is going and finally (finally!) they know where they’re going. This is a mature show, a show with direction, a show with purpose, a show that knows who it is and that will take it over the bubble so it can anchor a soon-to-be fledgling NBC schedule. And then I get this.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to see Chuck and Sarah’s turn of events. Happy to see them air out their opposite-of-differences (concordances?) and finally tell each other how they really feel. Sorry if I spoiled it for anyone but, yes, it finally happened. Chuck and Sarah have finally admitted it to each other (for the hundredth time) and they are together. So much opportunity to treat this burgeoning relationship with the same dark (for Chuck) touch that has haunted the season, I waited for them mull over what makes this thing hard, one the Cardinal Rule of Spying is “Never fall in love (especially with a spy).” They’re targets that make the other person vulnerable in hostage situations. They’re always in danger. They’re always pretending to be someone else. But it was not to be in this episode

Okay, maybe those themes are a little too much pressure on an event that has been three years in the making, one that has been doggedly desired by superfans everywhere. But I wanted them to maintain the darker tone of this season. It’s hard to demand something more realistic from a show about a guy that holds all the government’s secrets in his head because he saw a picture of a sunflower, but maybe I wanted something more grounded.

Instead I got something treacly, oversentimental, divergent from tone, and with not enough Jeffster.

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“In the foster home, my hair was my room.”

Andy Bernard: Cake Face.

Is it weird to anyone else that Erin is the most intriguing character this season?

Sure, Pam and Jim had a baby and Stanley is openly cheating on his wife (yeah, remember that?) but everyone else’s backstory is so vanilla compared to the (albeit relative) complexity of their secretary. She confirmed this week that she was not just from a foster home (like her biological parents fostered children) but that she was actually in the foster care system (like her biological parents didn’t raise her). What seemed like a sunny disposition suddenly became a beard for something darker and maladjusted. And it’s fitting that possibly the most superficial character on the show (in terms of background depth) draws out the crazy in her. Read more »

“I took on three guys in college once.”

Everybody loves Wilson.

The Renaissance Faire? Don’t they know LARPing is way funnier?

Seasons on House have always been the same for me: you look forward to the season finales and premieres and pray they have the inspiration to do something outside the box in-between. Remember the end of Season 4 when they have to save Amber? Or “Locked In” with patient perspective? Or even the Wilson and Cuddy episodes from this season (though I thought both could be better)? It’s why I continue watching. The show could break out at any moment.

This week contained none of those moments. In a show that people appreciate for its formula, somehow, the predictability was snore-inducing. Even the bump at the beginning was snoreable (ha! I’m hilarious!).

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“There’s pride on Bourbon Street.”

The devil’s grin.

Ah, the resentment episode. Or maybe the resentment series.

There was definitely a different feeling about this episode than the last. While the pilot exhibited more hope, this second episode demonstrated a lot more pain, suffering, and anger about the state of New Orleans. And a lot of that resentment is redirected at the city’s burgeoning tourism industry, especially the pity-tourists who came to see the damage.

Last time I reviewed Treme, I broke it down into the main storylines and talked about each in turn. This time, however, it’s a little crowded (there are a lot of characters to follow and, I assume, it’ll thin out eventually) so I’m going to break it down into “Interesting Storylines” and “‘Nobody Cares’ Storylines.”

The terms are probably self-explanatory but an issue with such a crowded show is that a couple of the threads are overshadowed by how good the other stuff is or that the thread is just made me fall asleep. So boring that not even John Goodman can save it. Oh, was that a spoiler?

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“You seduced me with The Sound and The Fury.”

Yeah. That totally just happened.

Nate and Lorelai will forever haunt this series.

It’s getting to a point where I have to wonder if it’s just that I’ve pigeon-holed Peter Krause and Lauren Graham into their past roles or if the writers are consciously meta-writing to call attention to it for avid television viewers. I’m starting to think the latter because, a lot of times, the show will take a device from a previous show and turn it around. Little bits such as discussing how Sarah Braverman flirts with a “hair flip” (Lorelai Gilmore calls attention to her “hair twirl”) to major plotlines from both Gilmore Girls and Six Feet Under.

Ladies first.

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“What do you think is going to happen here? You’re going to logic me into coming back?”

Talb having the night of his life.

I would say this is a filler week but, really, how can you tell anymore?

The “trapped together” episode is the kind of theme you’re supposed to avoid as a spec writer since nothing really happens and it usually isn’t very demonstrative of the tenets of a series (unless the tenets of the series include being trapped together). These episodes are generally set-up for more exciting times, like a sacrifice for later in the season. It gives writers the opportunity to try out material they’re too uninspired to work in naturally. But these are staff writers so they can do whatever they want.

Chase and Cameron working out their relationship issues. Talb and Foreman getting high in the basment. 13 and Wilson playing Truth or Dare. Did John Hughes bank a House episode before he left?

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“That’ll work.”

Sending a man home.

How difficult it must be for some to watch a show like Treme and not be predisposed to affectation and nostalgia, maybe even still brewing rage for allowing what happened in New Orleans to occur. Years later, we as a country are still picking New Orleans as the underdog, rooting for them to win and rise from devastation, a destruction that is to the popular consciousness, a man-made disaster catalyzed by nature. Some four and a half years later, the country still champions the city as a site that deserves only the highest accolades for its perseverance, thus far represented by beating the favored Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl.

Trite as the venue of this nation’s full-fledged support may be (at least in comparison to the disaster), there is a certain fondness people look upon New Orleans with, pity in a lot of ways. This is a media-saturated culture and it absorbed just about as much in pictures, footage, audio, and overwrought narrative as it could take on. New Orleans rose to become a beacon of hope for every baby step it took from the wreckage was something to celebrate and coo about as if the city was an infant afflicted with rickets. Each wobble elicited a “good for them” from pasty, distant middle America.

I am not one of those people.

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“Dude, you are misquoting the line and you are ruining Pretty in Pink for me!”

Why do they still have a corded PS1 controller?

So what do the shippers have to live for now?

I was skeptical of this episode going in. Chuck has been on the bubble, more so since its recent plummet in ratings, and TV bloggers, producers, actors, and fans have united into a Save Our Chuck task force. They’ve put together Twitter trending topics and a media blitz that seems to be all I see. I wouldn’t notice so much if it weren’t their mantra, renewed every week: “This episode of Chuck is the best episode to date/of the season.” Now, granted, these episodes lately have been much better and certainly a step in the right direction if they aim to be an anchor in NBC’s schedule but the constant hype for the current week’s episode is starting to just become noise. Maybe I just pay more attention than the average bear to people who are really into TV but it’s all becoming a jumble of hyperbole and desperate pleas to save the show. I mean, I want the show to be saved, too, but they’re using the same rhetoric for “vs American Hero” as they did for “vs The Fake Name” (you remember — the one where we learn Sarah’s name is really Sam and then it’s never brought up again). If you say every episode is awesome and none are unawesome then every episode, by definition, is just mediocre. So I went into this week ready to be disappointed, that rant plus more in the holster, ready to be pulled when the show didn’t live up to expectations.

The bulk of that rant will remain in the holster.

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“That’s where you’re wrong, Casey. Because love — love is a battlefield.”

Legion of doom.

It’s a good thing Chuck is leaving town. With as many people roaming around that know his “secret” life, another year and he’d have the entire city of Burbank implicated in the war on terror.

The would-be season finale starts off with Chuck getting his badge and his first assignment, a pretty cush deal with a cover as a billionaire playboy in Italy complete with villa and generous stipend. Chuck, however, would rather stay in Burbank with Sarah. Adorable. Kid’s an idiot but adorable. But before he blabs that to the General, she mentions he gets to pick his own team and we see a twinkle in Bartowski’s eye. Why not live up the spy life with his best girl that he’s never actually had? Wait, I seem to remember him saying that Ellie was his best girl at some point. We’re going to assume he’s never had her either.

Anyway, this leads to Team Get Sarah Walker Back. Because Chuck, despite several pretty winning attempts at wooing Sarah in the past, is now somehow dumbfounded as to how to win her over this time, Morgan, Awesome, and Casey (all with their own stake in his getting Sarah) decide to approach this by committee. It was weird to see so many people come out of the woodwork and all of them know what’s going on with Chuck. I think, officially, everyone on the first floor of their apartment complex is in the know except Ellie. But that’s only because she’s not weirded out by constant helicopters and mysterious disappearances. We’ll say she’s selectively oblivious.

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