First off, apologies on lack of post about the show last week. I just didn’t have much to say about it (even now the episode’s incredibly fuzzy) and I had things to grade. Such is the way of things. Secondly, apologies for this review taking a while to occur. Week before spring break with lots to do.
So, with the niceties out of the way, we can commence. The episode has found me firmly in the “This is a good show” camp. I’m not in the “No. 1 show on TV” camp, but that’s because I can’t possibly watch everything on television, so I just don’t know. But it is a good show, a smart show. An adult show.
Now if I can only change the strainer in my dish washer…
“Instead of Alzheimer’s, Abed has … someone who likes him.”
With all due apologies to 30 Rock, but I’m afraid that Dan Harmon and his crackerjack cast may be usurping your place as my favorite comedy on NBC. (Don’t worry, Tina! You’re still funnier than Mercy! In different ways though.)
Community, as I’ve said, has been growing leaps and bounds since “Introduction to Statistics” (and if that episode didn’t do it for you, then try “Debate 109” or “Comparative Religion”), culminating in the past three episodes as the show as found itself in terms of format (i.e., the study table moment at the halfway point), characters, and tone. The show’s done this to enough of an extent that I found myself had pressed to take many notes because I laughing so much (a hard feat to do when you’re watching the episode on Hulu by yourself in a library group study room).
Being able to tell you why I enjoyed Parenthood is a tricky thing. I can’t really compare it to anything in particular, though it thankfully avoids stringing out the “reveal” that these people are all related (yes, I’m talking to you Modern Family). It could be that I’ve just been starved for something to watch on Tuesday nights. It could be that I hadn’t seen a Thomas Schlamme directed episode of television in a while and was enjoying his smart and considerate work.
But it probably has a lot more to do with the acting. With a cast led by Peter Krause and Lauren Graham, Parenthood‘s actors manages to easily shift between serious and funny without feeling like there’s a tonal whiplash issue that can plague other shows that attempt it. Read more »
When Dollhouse got cancelled, and with USA shifting its schedule around, my Friday nights were going to be pretty dead (sorry, Caprica fans!). But Law & Order was on Fridays, so I decided to start tackling the old war horse when it came back from the Olympic break. When NBC said it would be moving to Mondays to cover for the widely mourned The Jay Leno Show, I wasn’t thrilled because it meant my Fridays would be really dead (resulting in me occasionally looking at Caprica).
I tuned in for both of Monday’s episodes in a mildly snarky mood. The promos drove home that Debra Winger was guest starring, to which I felt was a little silly since many in the post-Chuck audience wouldn’t know Debra Winger from a hole in the ground. As the episodes progressed, I realized that the show was still beholden to its 1990s heights. As Alisa and Max Dawson conversed with me over Twitter, we bandied about the rough idea of Law & Order as a ’90s period piece.
And I’m fairly certain that much of the time that’s exactly what the show is.Read more »
I can normally get behind the social/dating stuff that the show rolls out fairly easily. Slap Bet. The Hot/Crazy scale. The Bro Code. The Lemon Law. The Platinum Rule. The Naked Man. But this season has been a bit blah. Like “The Sexless Innkeeper,” “Hooked” feels like a neat idea, but the concept doesn’t get exploited for enough laughs.
Hooked refers to stringing along someone that you have no intention of being with, but you keep them near you with the “one day” or “just not right now” line. It’s a relatable concept, as I’m sure many people have done this and/or have had it done to them, but the show fails to latch onto how these situations are funny: seeing the past versions of the characters experience the social trope in play.
It’s frustrating because they show hints at it, as we see Marshall in his teenage years, swooning for some girl, only to being totally ignored and buried in snow, the potential past experiences that could be mined for comedy gold. Instead we get that one bit, Ted being cruel to a woman from the university’s library (who looks like Shelley Duvall’s much younger sister) in his attempt to hook up with Carrie Underwood, and the other bit of Lily attempting to finally break things off with Scooter (and Robin leading on Mike the Cameraman).
The episode is, frankly, prime idea for Seinfeld, with its cast of misanthropic characters, and in a show where all the jokes would end up converging at the end, the pay off could be impressive. But on HIMYM, the characters aren’t as vain or self-absorbed as the characters from Seinfeld (except maybe Robin). So while the show acknowledges Ted’s cruelty to library woman by having Future Ted pause the narrative and yell, it never fully works because the show hasn’t earned Ted as being this jerk-like (he can be a bit of a jerk though).
Lily’s attempts to finally let Scooter off the hook is simply weird due to the presence of the teacup pig (is that a thing?), whose adorable stare parallels that of Scooter’s. Eventually the Lily is able to say no to the pig, and thus to Scooter, but the journey to get there is frankly a bit off the mark.
As the episode finished, I realized that the show has its audience on a hook. “We’re not going to show you the mother. But maybe one day…” And thus we keep giving the show foot massages, baking it cakes, and cuddling with it.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Barney’s discussion of pharmaceutical girls would be funny if Scrubs hadn’t done a similar idea back with Heather Locklear back in the day.
To that end, I’m sure Barney is a pro at hooking women. I would’ve loved to have seen some of that.
The show just loves having awkward and pudgy Jason Segel become his teenage self. And I love it, too.
I flipped over to NBC thinking that Law & Order was about to start, and caught the half-hour break of Chuck. I watched long enough to realize that poor Shaw is on Sarah’s hook (at least up to the point that I watched).
Nick totally guilted me into writing about this. I compromised with myself, and did only the first 30 minutes of the show because staying up for Jamie Foxx just wasn’t an option.
So Jay’s second term as host of The Tonight Show (or is this episode 3,776 or volume 2 episode 1? I don’t even know) kicks off with a Wizard of Oz skit wherein Jay wakes up from the nightmare of having hosted another show at 10pm in a sepia-tinted world. He does the whole “You were there!” thing with Eubanks and the pudgy homosexual intern whose name I can’t remember and don’t really care enough to look up, but takes a jab at his announcer who didn’t go to The Jay Leno Show with him.
And then, probably in an effort to save the skit from being totally inane, Betty White shows up, commenting that NBC must’ve really cut his budget. I’m on the Betty White bandwagon as much as the next person who really hasn’t seen a Golden Girls episode in years, didn’t watch The Proposal but does love her work on Boston Legal, but subjecting her to embarrassment of being in that skit just isn’t kosher. She deserves better. (And so do we.)Read more »
“And then there’s people like me who are made of tweed.”
I don’t regularly watch The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. It’s nothing against Ferguson, but his show is on far too late for me. When I wasn’t in school, that horrible 7 month period, I would catch Ferguson’s show after I got off my shift at Blockbuster. It’s a captivating little show, deconstructing the late night format in the way Letterman used to do: his 1000th show was done entirelywith a puppet, he avoids a scripted monologue, wonderfully eulogized his fatherand mother on air, and encourages voting. The show can feel like Pee-Wee’s Playhouse but with a Scottish accent.
This past week, Ferguson kicked out his audience and filmed an episode-long interview with a single guest. While Ferguson framed it as an “experiment,” he explained that it wasn’t totally crazy. Larry King does it all the time. Charlie Rose does it all the time. But it doesn’t happen all that often on late night broadcast television. So for the entire episode Ferguson sat down and talked with Stephen Fry.
To be fair, selecting Stephen Fry to headline your purely conversational late show is pretty much the best idea on the face of the planet. Fry is a brilliant conversationalist, talker, and thinker (on top of comedian and actor). Ferguson, of course, due to his lack of questions for his guests (he tears up the question cards as each guest approaches his desk), is also a terrific talker.
The hour covers a range of topics, from Twitter to punk rock to dealing with drug and alcohol addictions to the spirit of the United States to not knowing who celebrities are to Jersey Shore. It’s a wildly fascinating conversation, ebbing and flowing, broken only by the need for commercial breaks. The lack of an audience is hardly noticeable and, in fact, enhances the conversation. There’s no need to pause for laughter or ham it up for the audience. The plugs, one briefly for Fry’s new book about the States and a clip from the upcoming Alice in Wonderland (Fry voices the Cheshire Cat) are barely noticeable, mere asides really.
To be sure, the lack of an audience does alter the interview dynamics considerably, but I don’t know that anyone else on late night could do this. Leno’s interview skills aren’t that great, and I think Letterman (and O’Brien) thrives on having an audience. I don’t know that Fallon could stay focused on one thing for too long, and I haven’t seen enough Kimmel to really say either way. So perhaps like Prime Minister’s questions, this event should happen on Ferguson’s show once a month.
And maybe CBS will start advertising the show, because it’s a real party.
“He can’t be told what that is. He has to find it himself.”
I’ve been talking a fair bit about ideas of leadership and trust, two issues that I think are core themes of this season, and are issues that are hinted at in small ways during the episode. But I want to take a step back and think, briefly, about another element that the show has decided to engage the audience with.
Like “Exposé” before it, this season has been decidedly meta-textual, and this particular episode allows that tendency to stretch out a bit. The writers and Team Darlton (who penned this particular episode) are speaking to fans about the show and about the show itself. It could come off as a cheeky and mildly self-indulgent, but the show nicely manages to avoid these by speaking through Hurley. Read more »
John Locke was always scared when he was on the Island, scared that it would always go away: his ability to walk, the connection he felt, scared he’d go back to his old life with boxes and phone sex operators. As a result, Locke was always driven to solve any possible puzzle the Island laid out at his feet (or that he assumed the Island laid out at his feet). It would keep him there, safe and in control. Destiny may’ve brought John Locke there, but John Locke would do everything within his power not to leave.
But then there’s Smocke (apologies to readers of Maureen Ryan’s blog but Flocke just isn’t good enough for me, and Locke-ness Monster is too much to type every time). Here’s a…an entity with all the answers (or we assume has all the answers). There’s no mystery to the Island for him, and there’s no desire to stay. But Sawyer’s wrong about Smocke. There’s one thing that Smocke is afraid of and that’s Jacob. Read more »
It’s a rerun for CBS (and for many watching), but it’s New To Me (TM Jamie Weinman at Macleans). Last week, I tuned into “Hi”, a seemingly pivotal episode for the narrative and the show’s highest rated episode yet. I enjoyed the episode enough to make it part of my regular viewing, so I eagerly awaited another episode, even if it be a rerun.
This was a little bit more what I was expecting from the show when I tuned in last week: bits of courtroom stuff and law firm stuff, the on-going B-plot with Peter, and C-plots with Alicia’s kids. Read more »
