Monsters of Television

“Are any of you Americans? Am I the only one who’s been in a Champs?“

While “Cole Landry’s Draft Day Party” episode is funny in places, it’s not a great episode of Party Down, nor do I think it’s a a particular smart piece of writing. Indeed, the episode feels a bit tired as a sitcom set-up (hiding sexualities, drunken confrontations, posing as significant others, learning that people aren’t as they seem), and even the crew of Party Down can’t really salvage the episode from its rather tired premise. Read more »

“And neither will Mr. Slicey.”

So “Made Man” essentially shows us how much of a threat Jesse is as a member of the group. He’s prone to unnecessary improvising, violence is his first reaction to any situation, and he doesn’t have much in the way of restraint. Indeed, the comparisons to Fiona I made last week seem all the more apt this week.

But Jesse has a lot more going on than just being a slightly more ax-crazy version of Fiona. He’s also a more ax-crazy version of Michael. He has Michael’s overdeveloped sense of right and wrong, but unlike Michael, he lacks the cool head and ability to think two or three moves ahead. This head-strong nature puts Jesse at odds with Michael, who is used to being in control, both as a solo agent and a team leader. Jesse challenges all of this. Read more »

“I say we kill him and make his underage whore watch.”

Hot In Cleveland is fascinatingly bad, but it is bad.

There's a joke in here somewhere.

As I’ve made clear, I don’t think you can chalk up all the good or all the bad to a show’s format. Sure, the show is setting up jokes and knocking them down in very old-fashioned ways, but I don’t think this is really an issue (at least for me). The set-up/punchline structure isn’t a liability since everyone is an old pro at this (except Valerie Bertinelli, who seems to be channeling Miley Cyrus in her broad approach to comedy).

No, I think the problem is in the show’s ideology. The show is clearly pushing back against the LA/NYC binary of relationships, but the show’s characters are so age-conscious, gender-conscious, and class-conscious that it just feels like the show is pandering to its target demos instead of trying to be funny and do social commentary (or reverse the order, either way I’m fine). Read more »

“I’m a cop. I drink shots, I don’t take them.”

The Good Guys is steadily improving, but still has more work to do.

The humor is significantly sharper in “Broken Door Theory,” especially with Whitford hamming up Stark’s flu to Shatner-like proportions, while Hanks manages to shape up his straight-man Bailey a bit more to keep Stark funny (and not sad). The patter between the two is more seamless, finding a groove that keeps the interactions between the two cops interesting and engaging.

However, “Broken Door Theory” displays some of the other problems that the show may want to work out before the fall season starts (even if it is on a Friday). Read more »

“And then you started brutalizing the spinach.”

We don’t get much of a soft intro here. We dive right in, with the contestants off to the studio. Das comments that being on the chopping block last week was horrible. Das is obviously not aware of which show he’s currently taping. So their first challenge is probably one that might’ve helped them a bit last week: talking while doing things, like preparing a meal. Way to plan ahead, producers.

So Giada gives them one of her veggie lasagna recipes and each contestant has a minute to do a particular step while talking about it before handing it off to the next person. Of course, if someone doesn’t finish their step, that means the entire flow is thrown off, and it could cause the already completed lasagna to get really cold. While a few don’t finish their steps, it doesn’t seem to really matter. Read more »

“It’s more efficient to use him as a resource.”

This is a step forward.

Last week I talked about how I felt Burn Notice needed to exploit its arc more often, dedicating full episodes to it, as opposed to book-ending it during an episode, with a Client of the Week (CotW) story sandwiched in between. So you can imagine how pleased I was that the show integrated its two story structures — arc and CotW — into one unified plot. I don’t think “Fast Friends” is a great episode by any means, but it is something of an improvement of over last’s weeks almost perfunctory offering. Read more »

“A huge dork getting into a car full of hot chicks. If that’s not a sign of hope, I don’t know what is.”

After the kind of arc heavy episodes of the past couple of weeks, “Joel Munt’s Big Deal Party” slows things down a bit, doing a very solid stand-alone type episode. Sure, we have the sex-happy Happy Relation Syndrome Casey and Henry back together, looking for ways to fool around all night, but their relationship isn’t the focus this week. Instead, Roman’s past comes back to haunt him, giving Martin Starr a chance to really shine, though I feel this season has done an exemplary job of giving Starr lots of good material (how does he not have a sitcom pilot…?) Read more »

“So watching a baseball game at a sports bar makes me a girl?”

Perhaps it’s been the lack of quality programming since the end of the fall season, but this week’s The Good Guys was a significant improve over the pilot. It was funnier, more self-assured, the lack of chemistry between its leads was happily gone (though the chemistry between Hanks and Wade is struggling to work, as is Wade’s character), and while the narrative still didn’t fire on all cylinders, there was less happenstance and more forethought in its construction than in the pilot.

The show still has a little bit more growing to do, but I’m more optimistic than I was last month about the show’s prospects. Read more »

“Always use the mike.”

I don’t really like watching stand-up specials on TV. Listen to them? Absolutely. But watching them? Yawn. It’s something about the pacing of the special (often interrupted by commercials), a 90 minute set boiled down to an hour kills the momentum. Now I remember why I stopped watching Last Comic Standing atfer Jay Mohr left. It’s boring. Really boring.

Early on, host Craig Robinson ponders why this show happened. I know why: NBC needed some really cheap summer programming, and no one is cheaper than stand-up comedians who haven’t produced oodles of cash for a network.

Read more »