Monsters of Television

“There it is again. That poker face.”

Again with the on-the-nose episode titles. Subtly, people!

This week’s episode is the tipping point episode. It’s that episode of Lost where everyone’s getting ready to run around the Island for the next 5 hours, wondering where something is or to save someone. The big plot threads are starting to wrap together, answering my questions about how Alicia fits into Peter’s narrative, and Peter’s narrative potentially overwhelming the series.

And, you know, we find out that Kalinda is smarter than FEDERAL BOMB EXPERTS. Read more »

“Can’t. You see, in my head, the only way the plane remains aloft is if I’m rooting for it.”

Slight disparity in nighttime wear.

What a waste.

If you’ve been following my reviews of Chuck, you’ll notice an increased enthusiasm for the growing intensity and a demonstration of better story-telling in the last few weeks. Some might even say it was “overly optimistic.” Nay, I said, not overly optimistic. This is clearly where this show is going and finally (finally!) they know where they’re going. This is a mature show, a show with direction, a show with purpose, a show that knows who it is and that will take it over the bubble so it can anchor a soon-to-be fledgling NBC schedule. And then I get this.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to see Chuck and Sarah’s turn of events. Happy to see them air out their opposite-of-differences (concordances?) and finally tell each other how they really feel. Sorry if I spoiled it for anyone but, yes, it finally happened. Chuck and Sarah have finally admitted it to each other (for the hundredth time) and they are together. So much opportunity to treat this burgeoning relationship with the same dark (for Chuck) touch that has haunted the season, I waited for them mull over what makes this thing hard, one the Cardinal Rule of Spying is “Never fall in love (especially with a spy).” They’re targets that make the other person vulnerable in hostage situations. They’re always in danger. They’re always pretending to be someone else. But it was not to be in this episode

Okay, maybe those themes are a little too much pressure on an event that has been three years in the making, one that has been doggedly desired by superfans everywhere. But I wanted them to maintain the darker tone of this season. It’s hard to demand something more realistic from a show about a guy that holds all the government’s secrets in his head because he saw a picture of a sunflower, but maybe I wanted something more grounded.

Instead I got something treacly, oversentimental, divergent from tone, and with not enough Jeffster.

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“You look like hell.”

“Small price to pay when you feel like heaven.”

Thank Gossip Girl! In a season full of stagnation and relationships that no one seems to care about, “Dr. Estrangeloved” was a return to the glory days of season 1. We saw some of our favorite characters reappear in their true forms, reminding us of why we fell in love with them, and the show, in the first place.

No return to form was more satisfying than that of smirky, bow-tie enthusiast Chuck Bass. After his break up with Blair, he has once again embraced his inner mother Chucker. Read more »

“Because you knew if I stayed here, I’d be faced with an impossible choice.“

“The Beast Below” is an episode that shows that the new series of Doctor Who is still not done cooking.

To be fair, I’ve always found the second episode of any new series in the relaunch to be a little “Meh.” Sure, “The End of the World” had the Doctor grooving to “Tainted Love”, but it was a weak episode overall. “Tooth and Claw” has a LOT of running around (even for a Davies episode), “The Shakespeare Code” is just plain bad (so bad), and “The Fires of Pompeii” retraces old ground about the companion wanting to alter time to save some bystanders. Indeed, the job of the second episode seems to be to provide any newcomers to the franchise a sense of how the show operates. And while this is an admirable thing, it’s still something that your first episode should really accomplish.

A part of this could just be the expectations that I have for Moffat’s brand of storytelling. He excels at creepiness (“Are you my mummy?”) and working in humor to those situations (“All that dancing!”) so that both feel exceptionally enhanced. Of course Moffat’s not writing all of these episodes, so I shouldn’t expect it all the time, but there’s very clearly a thematic bent to the series that I hope the rest of the staff is able to follow through on. As a result, “The Beast Below” has a great deal of potential for creepiness and twisted fairy tale stuff, but it’s not exactly fork tender yet.

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“In the foster home, my hair was my room.”

Andy Bernard: Cake Face.

Is it weird to anyone else that Erin is the most intriguing character this season?

Sure, Pam and Jim had a baby and Stanley is openly cheating on his wife (yeah, remember that?) but everyone else’s backstory is so vanilla compared to the (albeit relative) complexity of their secretary. She confirmed this week that she was not just from a foster home (like her biological parents fostered children) but that she was actually in the foster care system (like her biological parents didn’t raise her). What seemed like a sunny disposition suddenly became a beard for something darker and maladjusted. And it’s fitting that possibly the most superficial character on the show (in terms of background depth) draws out the crazy in her. Read more »

“Not give a shit, like a human being.”

Party Down is a show that I only know from Netflix Watch Instantly. I don’t get Starz ( orany premium cable for that matter), so I didn’t find out about the show until last winter when I mainlined the series. At first I wasn’t keen on the show, but about four episodes in the show and I found each other, and I can feel very confident in declaring it a brilliant comedy series that needs more and more eyeballs watching it.

To introduce the show, since I’m sure a few of you may not be watching it (yet), I’ll simply say it deals with the trials and tribulations of a group of catering service employees, all of whom have grander dreams than to serve little sandwiches at really weird functions (ranging from a botched sweet 16 party to a celebration of a Russian mobster). Each episode finds the cast in a new situation, so functions as a workplace comedy with an ever changing workplace.

But the show is also a squirm comedy, like Curb Your Enthusiasm (though not nearly as squirm-inducing). It’s happy to take apart social mores, but more with a sly wink than a pregnant linger like Curb. It’s a show that’s funny and heart breaking, with sublime writing and stellar acting. You need to be watching it. Read more »

“Think slutty Grace Kelly.”

A double dose of 30 Rock would normally be cause for celebration. However, this season’s lack of consistency (or funny) has resulted in a mixed bag of humor and enjoyment. And that gets represented in these two episodes. “Lee Marvin vs. Derek Jeter” is the stronger of the two, with solid comedy and a nicely balanced episode without a lot of poorly developed storylines. “Khonani,” on the other hand, suffers from being repetitive and, really, untimely.

It is a problem that 30 Rock faces due to its weird production schedule (time allowed for Baldwin and Fey to make, and then promote, movies) and then weirder airing sequences. There doesn’t seem to be a throughline in the show any longer, and perhaps a course change is needed. Read more »

“If God were edible, not that I’m Catholic, but if it were cool to eat God, He’d be a chicken finger.”

I really don’t like Goodfellas. Yes, that’s right. I don’t like Goodfellas. I know this amounts to sacrilege for a large number of people, so I apologize in advance for not swooning over Community‘s extended homage to what many consider the greatest gangster movie ever made (for the record, I don’t really like the gangster genre overall).

However, unlike How I Met Your Mother‘s painfully exclusionary baseball episode, Community provides an episode that can work without knowledge of the film that they’re relying on to frame the episode. The reason for this is that Community has established a universe where something like this feels organic and fun. And that’s precisely what this episode is: fun. (I doubt that the chicken fingers were organic.) Read more »

“I took on three guys in college once.”

Everybody loves Wilson.

The Renaissance Faire? Don’t they know LARPing is way funnier?

Seasons on House have always been the same for me: you look forward to the season finales and premieres and pray they have the inspiration to do something outside the box in-between. Remember the end of Season 4 when they have to save Amber? Or “Locked In” with patient perspective? Or even the Wilson and Cuddy episodes from this season (though I thought both could be better)? It’s why I continue watching. The show could break out at any moment.

This week contained none of those moments. In a show that people appreciate for its formula, somehow, the predictability was snore-inducing. Even the bump at the beginning was snoreable (ha! I’m hilarious!).

Read more »