Monsters of Television

Well, well, well. It’s an All-Monster Podcast. It’s like Rampage but better because we have four monsters tearing up your town instead of just three. These week, Karen, Matt, Nick and Noel discuss a range of topics across the television landscape including The Walking Dead, the Mad Men finale (yeah, we know it’s old news — but it’s our show), how cable has disappointed us by having the nerve to cancel shows (Rubicon, Caprica), the USA brand (popcorn/beach-reading), how Life Unexpected is gross probably because they need to keep up with the rest of the CW, and Conan’s pedestrian return, among other things. It’s an interesting hour of witness. Listen to the podcast at the bottom of this post or subscribe to the podcast feed.

Running time: 75 minutes

Topics: Place in the Podcast

• The Walking Dead: 0:00:58
• Rubicon: 0:10:23
• Mad Men: 0:16:21
• Cable as a Haven: 0:21:42
• The USA Brand: 0:25:53
• House: 0:29:52
• TV Actors: 0:35:59
• Chuck: 0:37:41
• Nikita (and other spy dramas): 0:44:51
• The CW/Life Unexpected: 0:51:41
• Parenthood defense: 1:04:25
• Conan: 1:06:21

Brief note from Nick: I know that Chuck didn’t air this week because of the Lauer/Bush thing. I meant last week.

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“What happened to Chloe?”

Nick listens up as Matt talks about Smallville, how it’s operating its last season, some hunches on surprises in store, and the fates of those so important to its teen drama days. Nick feels it’s like Passions except more legitimate. He doesn’t use those exact words though in case Matt has laser beam eyes or blue kryptonite lying about.

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“That’s really funny, Cougartown, but you’re Cougartown and I’m not going to watch you.”

As the ABC comedy block is about to start for Wednesday night on the East Coast, listen in as Matt and Nick discuss if Modern Family lives up to the hype and what the best comedy on television is for the season thus far. Matt walks a fine line as he proposes one of the most reviled shows on Monsters to be a contender.

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“Dude, do the right thing.”

Somebody call the wahmbulance! Matt and Nick harken back to two weeks ago to briefly discuss the Mad Men finale before using the deftness of its narrative craft to chastise Chuck for being a bunch of wusses when it comes to pulling the trigger on plot points. Is it fair to compare Mad Men and Chuck? Not really. Do we unfairly use it against Chuck anyway? Of course. We never said we were fair people.

Also: Dexter Season 4 spoiler at 3:41. You’ve been alerted!

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“I think [Thirteen] has a better chance of getting with Taub.”

Sad that there’s no new House today? Us, too (kinda)! Listen in while Matt and Nick discuss some of what is making (or breaking) season 7, from Huddy to Thirteen’s annual departure to Joan of Arcadia joining the cast.

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“What was that accent?”

And just barely slipping in before the witching hour on Halloween (on the West Coast anyway) are some thoughts on this week’s Halloween episodes. Some of the things we reference:

• Evel Knievel is has, in fact, passed.
• Matt is not the only one lazy enough to be three-hole punched.
• Sofia Vergara might have been influenced by some mid-90s television.
• Maybe the writers on Chuck still live in fear of the Chuckpocalypse.
• Smallville does love them some horror episodes.

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“I don’t even want to listen to us talk for that long.”

So we decided it was time to podcast.

The West Coast contingent of Monsters of Television (Matt and Nick) have decided to team up and let you hear us speak the things you sometimes deign to read. Is that something you asked for? No. But we felt you didn’t need to. We saw it in your eyes.

The plan is this: we put out a podcast about some shows premiering that evening so that we can reflect on last week and look forward to this week. Everything will be brief (well, brief-ish) and cut up nicely so you don’t have to stare down the barrel of yet another hour-long podcast. Here: we even made an introduction for you.

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