Monsters of Television

Isn't this supposed to be Jennifer Connelly in a dress...?

As part of the new fall season coverage, we’re doing what we call audition reviews for new shows. An audition review doesn’t necessarily mean the show will enter the normal rotation, but it will provide an initial reaction to a new series. Especially in light of time shifting practices, we think this is a valuable way to read brief reviews on new series to help you decide if you want to watch the show. For those who watch it live, it’s a good way to begin a conversation about a new series. These reviews will typically be shorter than our regular reviews, and may include thoughts from more than one of our writers.

In the show HBO hopes will make itself not TV again (it’s been floundering with its original programming due to a mess of executives, like a broadcast network), Steve Buscemi plays Enoch “Nucky” Thompson, the gangster/pillar of the community that has been allowing Atlantic City to thrive. But times, as they say, are a changin’, and Nucky has to figure out how to navigate the feds enforcing Prohibition and young upstarts, like his driver Jimmy (played by the never aging Michael Pitt).

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“Is this you being me-TA?”

Oh, Community. I missed you and our wily knowledge of sitcoms (and of my funny bone).

A common trait for shows, of any genre, is to ramp up the things that seemed to work well in the first season and just keep doing it. Lost decided that it needed a lot more crazy mystery stuff because that’s what people were talking about, so ramp it up to 5 or 6 hatches and some creepy microfilm (and more survivors!). Veronica Mars went with a more layered mystery and more looks into Neptune, ramping up the noir Naked City (not as gritty, of course).

For its return to the screen, Community keeps the meta humor running full blast, and while I do find meta humor very funny and engaging, it does crowd out the less meta and more humane, emotional beats that I’ve always felt the show excelled at. Read more »

“There are 2 big days in any love story.”

I’m understandably weary of How I Met Your Mother after being bloodied and bruised last season. I put it on warning that it needed to step up its game if even wanted me to be writing about it every week, let alone watching it. And while I know my warnings mean a whole lot to the show (I have a ton of clout, after all), I figured them too arrogant to take my word on thing.

I’m pretty happy to report that the sixth season premiere helped erase doubts with, essentially, a bottle episode (a rare thing for a premiere, yes?) (also, I use the term bottle episode as would be best applied for HIMYM, not another, less cut-away jokey show). I’m still a little cautious (they burned me so hard last season), but the episodes provides an umbrella to the pessimism storm.

And umbrellas are important. Read more »

“You’re lucky you weren’t on duty when he had his conjugal visit with a freaking shoe.”

This review will have to be quick and dirty, which is fitting since this episode was more or less the same way. While last week’s episode was a glorious romp, “Pomp & Circuitry” feels like a great deal of piece moving to (hopefully) gets things in place for the tail end of the season that leads to a big splashy event like Season 2’s “Showdown at Cremation Creek” 2-parter.

The continues to conspire against anyone being happy, as Dean doesn’t seem on going to State University (and why would he? Look at all the nuts that went there before him!) and Hank wants to head over to the army (when he really means S.P.H.I.N.X (Sphinx!)) instead of going to college, and Rusty learns that his name is essentially meaningless (again). The only one seems to have anything going for him is Phantom Limb, and he’s still in love with a high heel he stole from Dr. Mrs. The Monarch. Read more »

“In your mind, you already have.”

“It’s an octopus.”

I’ve been a bad Rubicon cheerleader. I didn’t get to “The Truth Will Out” until today, and I skipped “Caught in the Suck” last night so I could watch the two episodes together. As a result, even though I’m caught up, I actually feel a little behind on the show now. Part of this is simply that I’m normally very good about watching shows I’m engaged with when they air, especially a serialized piece of work like Rubicon. Another part, however, is that these two episodes kind of left me out of breath, albeit in a good way. Read more »

“They discover us like every other week!”

Oh thank David Bowie, The Venture Bros. is back.

After a 9-month hiatus (for which I assume that torturing me was the only reason for), The Venture Bros. returns with an episode forces you read between the lines to understand what’s going on. But, then, Venture has always been like this. Like  Jeremy Mongeau tweeted by in August, The Venture Bros. is a show obsessed with its continuity while doing episodic, anthology-esque work week-to-week (Mongeau highlights this season in particular, but I think we can apply it fairly well across the show).

It is “a contradiction” even moreso in that new viewers should be able to come in and understand what’s going on with with little in the way of clearly defined expo speak. But, again, The Venture Bros. straddles the difference, being a show that gives solid and recognizable pop culture references and daring-do nostalgia for new folks, but rewards viewers who are as familiar with the series as the creators. Read more »

Summer TV is nearly over! Sad, but true. We hope you’ve enjoyed our coverage of some of the summer programming.

Fall is nearly upon us, with a number of shows premiering next week. We here at the blog have been figuring out what to cover, what not to cover, and how to dole out the responsibilities. There’s not going to be a whole lot of change from what we was covered around the tail end of the previous season when Matt joined us. Karen’s picking up at least one show, Nick is staying pretty much the same, and I’ve slotted in a show to replace Law & Order (bet you can’t guess which one) while picking up at least one  new show.

We don’t get screeners for new series, so we’ve decided that each of us will do capsule reviews for the new shows called Auditions. This will be an entry that contains a few small reviews of a few shows, with general impressions. There may be some overlap in what gets reviewed as none of us our claiming many new shows at the moment (or that we’d be able to do timely reviews of them with everything else) . In the end, you may get impressions from all of us on the same show, and we’ll sort through who wants to write about what that way. If you find someone’s particular take to be interesting, share it in the comments!

Something we discovered over the summer was that sometimes a show doesn’t necessarily warrant a write-up on an episode to episode basis. Some of this is largely based on the “disposable” nature of summer TV, and some of this was just other things getting in the way of our coverage (life, the universe, everything). We’ve decided that there’s some value to this approach, as it allows us to expand what we write about without totally committing to it. In that light, you can expect to see reviews on shows that may not follow a normal rotation.

One last thing before we show off what’s getting covered. Our writing team has essentially split in half, geographically speaking. Nick and Matt are in LA, while Karen and I are still in Atlanta. And while we’re not known for immediate post-airing reviews, shows that Nick and Matt cover will be on a bit of delay from our normal schedule, just because of the time zone issues.

All right! With all the housekeeping out of the way, here’s the fall line-up for us! Like last time, I’ve included the network and premiere dates. Read more »

“How I know is inconsequential. That I know is significant.”

Dear Zack Whedon,

Allow me to thank you for “Look to the Ant,” the most recent episode of Rubicon. While I’ve been enjoying the show from episode 1, I’ve felt a little like Will in conversations about it. I’m convinced that Rubicon is a very good show, but I’ve had trouble of really convincing people of that, in much in the same way that I’m sure Will feels he can’t convince anyone of the conspiracy he’s currently trying to solve.

While I’ve pointed to the past couple of episodes, particularly “Keep the Ends Out” and “Connect the Dots,” as signs of life in the series, as hints of why people who are in the fence should keep watching, I think I’ll start using “Look to the Ant” as the episode that tells people why Rubicon works. Read more »

“It’s all I have. That, and my ideas.”

Sorry everyone, but with Nick moving to Los Angeles tomorrow (perhaps to see his cancer-stricken ex-wife or have a Fellini-inspired romp with a girl), it means I get to review this week’s Mad Men. Happily, I’ve been enjoying this current season far more than I did the seasons leading up to it. The season thus far has given me exactly what I wanted: more ad agency goodness and Don Draper coming apart at the seams. But no pears yet.

However, that hot streak was doomed to die at some point, and it drank itself to death with “Waldorf Stories.” If anything, it gave me too much of what I wanted from the show, as Don’s descent in being a useless jackass is ever closer to rock bottom, and I find myself almost feeling sorry for Don.

But not as sorry as I do feel for Peggy. Read more »