Monsters of Television

“Are you sure we can’t get the meth addict back? She was really good at cleaning.”

As I suspect I’ll be saying fairly often whenever I watch a new pilot this season (especially this half of the season), I really wanted to like 2 Broke Girls more than I ultimately did. The pilot created the oft-experienced cognitive dissonance where I enjoyed the two leads immensely but the writing just forced them into corners that just weren’t that great and they’re weighed down by a number of factors, including a supporting cast of ethnic stereotypes to pass off as New York City diversity.

But unlike New Girl, where I was generally left feeling adrift in a see of stuff I just didn’t care for, 2 Broke Girl at least earns a few more episodes because of those two immensely likable leads and a shimmer of hope that the writing will improve itself. Read more »

“You can do this.”

If I hadn’t watched Breaking Bad before this episode, I would’ve started tonight. Because that’s how mind-numbingly boring the Emmys were this year. Luckily, Breaking Bad is just the thing to shake off boredom and wire you for the rest of the night, just before Monday, when you have to drag yourself to work after laying awake all night, staring at the ceiling and wondering how the hell things could get any worse for Walter White.

It turns out that they can get actually, maybe, get a little bit better for Walter White, as “Salud” puts things in motions to set up the last three episodes quite nicely (maybe a little too nicely), and gives him some nice time to bond with Walter, Jr., who has been seriously neglected this season in terms of writing and character.

Oh, and then there’s all the “HOLY SHIT” stuff at the end. Because, you know, we’ve missed that. Read more »

“Your stab at pragmatism is, well, adorable…“

So after a really long hiatus (and a slightly longer hiatus from reviewing the show because it was getting to the point where I was just consistently annoyed that writing about it kind of ruined my Friday evening a bit), Young Justice returns with probably its best episode since the pilot episodes.

“Targets” was on and off of my radar since I was always trolling about for when it would air, and then it was accidentally(?) leaked online and thus got passed around on the torrent sites, as it would, generating some buzz. I thought I had missed it when I saw it as having an air date on the show’s Wikipedia page, but was quickly informed about the episodes’s status (the air date turned out to the be day the episode has been leaked online, poking a little bit of fun at the notion of an airdate).

But now that the show back, questions arise. Apart from the fact that Cartoon Network seems to have little rhyme or reason for its scheduling habits (do they think kids don’t notice those types of things?), I wondered about the benefits of “Targets” being the first episode back after the hiatus. Certainly it has me at least vaguely interested in the show again, but I wonder if the hiatus had ended with this episode would I have spent so many months with a bad taste in my mouth, wondering why I should even bother coming back to the series. Read more »

I’m all for NBC trying to carve out another night of comedy. I like having comedy on TV, even if I’m probably pickier with comedy than I am with hour-long dramas.  And this isn’t just motivated by the fact that I generally don’t seem to care for a lot of reality and competition programs. Comedy can help us see things from a different perspective, and it can make us laugh at things that otherwise aren’t terribly funny. Comedy can make us feel better, help us cope, and give us appreciation for things in ways that drama simply can’t.

So, while even though I didn’t like the pilot (or, really, the premise) for New Girl,  I’m glad it’s on. I’m likewise glad that Up All Night and Free Agents are on, even if neither of them have particularly strong pilots. Indeed, Up All Night‘s pilot the stronger of the two, but Free Agents is the show I’m more interested in seeing more of if it can deliver on its ideas more fully (the pilot is not as successful at it as I would have liked). Read more »

“Pink wine makes me slutty.”

While it doesn’t premiere until Sep. 20, Fox has decided that early preview sessions have worked so well in the past (Glee), that they would go ahead and unleash New Girl on us a couple of weeks early (What, Terra Nova still isn’t ready?!). Never mind that  because I’ve been drowning in promos for the series on TV or due to the painful fawning over her at the TCAs I experienced via Twitter, I feel like I’ve been on board a constant hype train for Fox’s attempt to prove that they can still do a comedy (Raising Hope in a minor, but charming, fluke, I think).

But I will take a free preview (it’s on iTunes and your cable provider’s on demand options right now; it’ll be on streaming services on Sep. 13) since it means I don’t have to make time for it while trying to sort out the new schedule. And thank goodness for that since I’d be kind of annoyed that I cleared time away from watching other shows to check out New Girl.

Read more »

“I’m sure if you keep digging, you’ll find me.”

That says it all, doesn't it?

I think my favorite thing about “Hermanos”, among the many many many things I enjoyed in the episode, is that it very much felt like one of those cold opens from season 3 that feel like a miniature movie. Those cold opens are wholly self-contained but send character and thematic ripples across the show. And, sure, people like to say, with each episode of a television show, they’re making a miniature movie, but there’s just something delightful about those cold opens.

With “Hermanos” the entire episode leads up to a sequence that would have otherwise been the cold open of an episode. There’s a steady build to it, which makes it, honestly, a miniature movie within the framework of this entire episode being a miniature movie of Gus Fring’s life. Read more »

“You are not the guy.”

This is going to be kind of quick since I don’t have much to say, I don’t know the episode warrants a lot of commentary, and I’m sure a good chunk of it has been expressed elsewhere.

I will say that I was very jealous of Nick last week. After “Open House” (an episode I’m more and more convinced may be the I’ve enjoyed most so far since the premiere) and seeing the preview for “Bullet Points”, I thought, “Man. Nick gets the exciting episodes.” And then I realized that I would get an exciting episode as I would get to write about whatever the hell happened to Jesse and Mike on their little road trip.

I’m still jealous of Nick, but he didn’t get that great dinner scene to talk about, so I’ll say we’re even-ish. Read more »

“Marie, you want to go home?“

I like vegetables. Especially in the current state of climate affairs, I’ve been eating more salads and raw veggies (I love me some carrots, guys) to avoid heavier, hotter meals that just make me want to lapse into a food coma. This isn’t to say that I want vegetables all the time, as I do like a nice piece of chicken or fish along aside it, but I like to have some vegetables.

And the same is true of narratives. Episodes like “Open House” are narrative vegetables. They’re good for the story and for you, and help set up plot points and keep other things moving along (much like veggies provide you with fiber, if you get my point). So while my initial reaction to “Open House” was, “Wow. That was kind of boring.”, Breaking Bad has established this narrative pace that I shouldn’t at all have been surprised or bored by it.

With further reflection (and dodging conversations and reviews about it on Twitter, which was fairly easy (perhaps due to the lack of OMGWTFBBQ type of moments in the episode)), the episode is a solid one. It’s by no means the most exciting one, but it does important work, just like vegetables tend to do. Read more »

With Young Justice‘s extended hiatus, I haven’t had any superhero television to review for a while. Admittedly, I stopped writing about Young Justice because it was increasingly uninteresting (How bad was the Doctor Fate episode? And, really, boom tubes already? Sigh.), but I was watching it nonetheless.

I did not think, however, that I would miss Young Justice as much as I did while I was watching the Marvel anime series tonight. Animated at Madhouse, a terrific animation studio by the by, and with stories by Warren Ellis, you’d think that Iron Man  and Wolverine would be a bit livelier, but they’re both fairly uninspired affairs from the start. At least Wolverine a has a bit more of a pulse than Iron Man.  Read more »

“Well? Get back to work.“

I did season one of Breaking Bad a while back, and then did seasons two and three over the course of June and just a bit of July so I would be all caught up in time for premiere.

How did you all wait an entire year for this show to come back? (“Meth” was a common answer. Oddly, no one took up chemistry or dressing entirely in purple.) I mean, I only had to wait two weeks for this episode, and while I kept my now very bad addiction to suspense fed by watching the Women’s World Cup, I still found myself jonesing (seeing Walt and Jesse on every other Web site I visited this month certainly didn’t help maters). I can only imagine what people who have been watching the show for longer than I have have been going through.

But it’s here now, so we can all exhale slowly. If only so we can suck all the air back in and hold our breath again. Read more »