Monsters of Television

“God. I hate Chicago. Such a mean place.“

And I thought that the show was cynical before this episode. Sheesh.

“Great Firewall” (it took me until today to get that) is an example of The Good Wife firing on cylinders. Well, almost. The case of the week was a bit vague, even though it ultimately served a more interesting purpose (along with the case from “Net Worth”, as it turns out!), but I’ll get to that. All in all though, “Great Firewall” showcases just how well the show is able to pull together its narrative threads into a coherent whole (the Blake and Kalinda debacle being the glaring exception, and I can only assume that story is on ice at this point) and crafting a complicated and rich world. Read more »

“Okay, if you were new in town and just ingested an eighth of sandwich, where would you go?”

Scooby-Doo references abound.

I know. You’re all pretty confused because this review totally has a picture. “Where’s Noel?” you cry. “Who is this Philistine? What else does he review? Chuck? What does he know about quality television? He’s not even a GRAD student.”

First of all, calm down. Second, quality television is a very problematic phrase (see, that totally made you feel more comfortable, didn’t it?). Third, we’ll take it slow-like. I’ll try not to let my verbosity interfere with Noel’s succinct style. Also, I could’ve been a pretty awesome grad student if Bazin and Barthes didn’t make me so sleepy.

This week on How I Met Your Mother, we go to the well over and over again.

“A Change of Heart” might have felt very familiar to you because we kind of already did this. Remember when Barney got sick and Robin had to take care of him? Or when Barney fell in love with Robin? Or how Lilly is his only confidante? Yeah, that’s all here again with Nora. It’s like the same thing except not as ill-advised as the first time.

We’re also starting to come out of the shadow of Mr Erikson’s death (though it sparks the whole heart theme) and we get a Barney-dominated episode where instead of cracking wise, NPH gets a chance to flex his deeply-flawed and -damaged character, even if we’ve already seen it before.

Though maybe we shouldn’t look at it like it’s tread territory and look at it like a do-over. Right?

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“Don’t lead with the beard. Let it be a pleasant surprise.”

She is so not happy to be on the Island.

Between the Devil from Reaper and Pierre Chang from Lost, this might be the most evil episode of Chuck we’ve ever seen.

That’s why I’m so glad it has been part of what has been an inspired run of of episodes. From the downfall of Alexei Volkoff to the reluctant rise of his daughter Vivian (played by Lauren Cohan — an electric presence on a show not lacking in that department), we’ve seen some imagination, some heart, and really sharp comedy. The kind we haven’t seen in such a long time.

I don’t know if someone cracked down on the writer’s room sometime after they crapped the bed on “vs The Balcony” but it’s refreshing to see characters behaving in the way you’ve been dying to see them behave, engaging in real problems, dealing with issues some characters have been having from the very beginning. Sarah’s detached mind finally has a chance to float in the opportunities afforded by her civilian friends (like getting excited about a wedding). Casey’s skills, handicapped by van surveillance and a string of debilitating injuries, finally gets noticed by higher ups so he’s given a mission. And Chuck — well, Chuck has his black hole of emotion that everyone gets sucked into (even the coldest hearts in the spy world seem to cave into their inside feelings more often lately) but he’s returned to being that affable, sometimes awkward character everyone probably misses. And how about someone realized there’s more to the Intersect than kung-fu. Lots of good stuff with all the characters.

But let’s get to the specifics of this episode, shall we?

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Mystic Falls has a witch problem.

The houseguest of the title is Katherine, shacking up with Damon and Stefan. Her interactions with Damon throughout this episode were kind of hilarious. He is working so hard to hate her, but Katherine still has the ability to wound him, and she knows it. Damon needs to take my advice about exes—buy an island, put them on it, sail away. Nothing good comes from hanging out with an evil ex.

In other news, one of our clueless characters discovers there are vampires in town. This character’s reaction to the news was horror and anger—an incredible scene depicting a vampire’s hopes dashed against the shores of that island where exes should live.  This scene delivered.

Less successful this week was the depiction of the witches. Many viewers have commented about the oddity that witches in this world are apparently exclusively African-American—the implications of that for race studies are profound. On a more practical level, however, it seems the witches are best used in small doses, as with Katherine’s witch, Lucy. Lucy came to town, caused havoc, betrayed Katherine, demonstrated her awesome power, offered Bonnie advice, and got the heck out of dodge. Awesome. When witches stick around too long, though, they end up betraying one of our heroes and getting killed. Why Bonnie hasn’t learned that she should better corral these witches, I do not know. Oh, wait, yes I do. Though being redeemed slowly by her sexy affair with Jeremy, Bonnie still has moments of extreme suckitude. After Dr. Martin stole her power, instead of turning to despair, Bonnie should have gotten tough and gotten her powers back. Perhaps she could have spared some lives.

This show is at its weakest when it makes certain points of mythology super vague or otherwise allows characters to act in inexplicable ways in order to justify a delay in the action. I bring this up because the show went out of its way to justify showing a band at the Grill. During a conversation between Awesome Vampire Caroline and Matt, she notices a stage being set up at the Grill, so Matt explains that the Grill needs more business and has hired a band for that night. Later, the girls make a plan to go see the band. We get all kinds of exposition to justify this band at the Grill. But the logic behind having to leave the dagger in Elijah—forever—for him to stay dead? We’re supposed to just take that for what it is–justified by some sort of vampire honor code. Bonnie sucking it up that Dr. Martin stole her powers? Totally understandable—in a completely inexplicable way. Why would she not try to explain to Dr. Martin that her goal was to protect Elena, an innocent? I know I shouldn’t ask too many questions, but sometimes the show brings its less believable moments into a spotlight that can’t be ingnored.

As it is, Bonnie’s failure to talk sense to Dr. Martin led to all this week’s biggest shenanigans. Interestingly, Katherine did very little to force others to act—instead, she offered comedic relief. So our heroes were largely acted upon rather than taking charge. This goes for Ric, trying to deal with Jenna’s anger; Damon, trying to ignore Katherine; Awesome Vampire Caroline, hemming and hawing about Matt, and even Elena, whom we barely see this episode.  With Elijah gone, Elena’s plan to save her friends is kaput.  You’d think she’d be actively trying to forge another plan rather than leaving it to the Salvatore brothers.  Didn’t she say she was in charge last week?  What happened to that girl?  Oh, yeah, girl’s night.

I struggle with these weekly recaps because they inevitably descend into nitpicking.  Was this episode enjoyable?  Darn tooting it was.  Did it offer a few surprises?  Yep.  But did the central plot expand?  Only in one major way.  Damon learned something from the Gilbert journal that only he and Stefan have seen.  We also learned a few things from Katherine that are likely all mixed with lies anyway.  A couple of reveals at the end of the episode set us up for more adventure when the show returns in a month [argh!].  But that means this week provided set up and it is for the rest of the season to execute.  Makes for a less satisfying episode.

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“Oh, sure, send the robot.“

Oh, Modernism. Is there no one you can't suck in?

I’m a week late on this due to computer issues, but that seems only fitting somehow. And with no new episode this week, I don’t feel too bad reviewing this later than I normally would.

“I Am Octus” is one of the show’s stronger episodes, and probably one of my favorites the show has done so far. But then I love existential episodes wherein machines attempt to figure out what it means to be a machine in a world of humans, and whether they have emotions or projecting those emotions because they perceive they should to be accepted. Read more »

“Why do you hate Jesus?“

Can you say breather episode?

I don’t mean that in a bad way per se, just that, well, I was pretty bored with “Silver Bullet.” I even kind of clocked out during the last ten minutes of the episode to do something else, with the episode just playing in the background (seriously, my notes stop after McVeigh suggests running off with Diane).

There were things to like in the episode, but these were things that I’ve liked in previous episodes (Eli talk to people outside the normal narrative, McVeigh and Diane’s very adult-ly written relationship, Grace being Grace) without much in the way of shiny newness. As a result, none of this feels all that interesting or engaging. Just a minute to take a breath before Will and Diane try and stop Bond, in what I hope will be the most exciting board meeting ever shot for TV. Read more »

Don't let his mild-mannered career fool you--dude is Bad Ass.

I read some comments on Twitter that suggested this episode started slow and got bogged down in flashbacks. Allow me to disagree. Sure, the flashback stuff can distract from the always-more-interesting awesomeness of the present moment, but there was much goodness to be had this week.

Right at the top of my “goodness” list is Alaric Saltzman. Can I say enough about why this character rules me? Important to note: Alaric? Not undead. Yet he still manages to be quite the badass. As the show’s coolest humans, aka guys who don’t take guff from vampires, I kinda want Ric and Uncle John to form a bromance. Course, I haven’t actually seen Uncle John kill a vampire, have I? So maybe he isn’t good enough for Ric.

Elena and Stefan largely took a backseat this week. Sure, they talked about the past, and that final scene was pretty terrific, but largely, this episode was about Ric and Damon negotiating their friendship. Not sure if I was supposed to read a parallel between Stefan’s relationship with Lexi and Damon’s relationship with Ric, but I won’t mind if it goes that way. There’s a respect between Damon and Ric, solidified this week, that I hope the writers nurture.

There are some issues with this episode.  The rules surrounding the Originals seem awfully slippery–less for logic than for the writers to have an excuse to surprise us.  Trouble is, surprises work best when they are consistent with the world view developed by the show.  Without that, they are cheating and cheap.  But hey, this is a show about vampires so I won’t be too particular about realism.  More troubling is that Damon seemed to have a breakthrough (the bad kind) a few weeks ago–rediscovering his need to suppress all genuine emotion.  Other than feeding on Andie, though, we aren’t seeing much of that.  I hope the show is just taking its time, waiting for the darkness to explode in dramatic fashion.

As for my other favorite, literal bromance—there’s some signs the show is trying to create a divide between our Salvatore brothers. Was wondering when that whole “Damon killing Lexi” thing would come back up. Could be a good way to get Damon to rethink a few things. But more about that…after the jump.

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“Larry King’s so old he had to retire from sitting in a chair.”

A friend of mine tried to defend Mr. Sunshine to me last night by saying it’s good because it’s “vintage Matthew Perry.” That’s true. That’s also the problem.

Just because a former Friends friend is playing themselves doesn’t mean the show is going to be good. Do you not remember Joey? As much as I love Matthew Perry, now matter how vintage he may be, I am still not loving this show. All it is is Matthew Perry surrounded by unfunny people and hating his life. I feel ya, MP.

That’s what it’s like watching your show.

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“Sure, let’s talk. Let’s all talk.”

I enjoyed “Net Worth” a great deal, but perhaps that was because everything didn’t quite work perhaps as well as it should have. Some things worked smashingly well (Owen and Alicia, but that’s a given at this point), some things were enjoyable but too on the nose (the legal aspect of the case that was a little too much like The Social Network but had moments of real delight), and then there’s Kalinda and Blake. And you can imagine how I felt about that.

But I think that the shagginess of some parts of the episode it what makes me like “Net Worth” more than I perhaps should. It’s nice seeing the The Good Wife not be as tight and controlled as it normally is, to be a bit different in spots and give us something other than its weekly greatness.

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“I just kept driving forward, hoping for the best.”

Oh masculinity. Always in crisis.

“Desperation Day” is solid, provides more than a few chuckles (and CBS also gave a last minute Valentine’s Day gift idea), and begins to wrap up the inital impact of Mr. Ericksen’s death. Which in turn helps Ted resolve an issue with Zoey that probably should’ve been drawn out over multiple episodes.

Oh, and Barney hits on women some more while Lily does what we’ve all done at one point or another and pretend that a body pillow is a significant other. You know, the usual stuff. Read more »