Monsters of Television

“Dude, you are misquoting the line and you are ruining Pretty in Pink for me!”

Why do they still have a corded PS1 controller?

So what do the shippers have to live for now?

I was skeptical of this episode going in. Chuck has been on the bubble, more so since its recent plummet in ratings, and TV bloggers, producers, actors, and fans have united into a Save Our Chuck task force. They’ve put together Twitter trending topics and a media blitz that seems to be all I see. I wouldn’t notice so much if it weren’t their mantra, renewed every week: “This episode of Chuck is the best episode to date/of the season.” Now, granted, these episodes lately have been much better and certainly a step in the right direction if they aim to be an anchor in NBC’s schedule but the constant hype for the current week’s episode is starting to just become noise. Maybe I just pay more attention than the average bear to people who are really into TV but it’s all becoming a jumble of hyperbole and desperate pleas to save the show. I mean, I want the show to be saved, too, but they’re using the same rhetoric for “vs American Hero” as they did for “vs The Fake Name” (you remember — the one where we learn Sarah’s name is really Sam and then it’s never brought up again). If you say every episode is awesome and none are unawesome then every episode, by definition, is just mediocre. So I went into this week ready to be disappointed, that rant plus more in the holster, ready to be pulled when the show didn’t live up to expectations.

The bulk of that rant will remain in the holster.

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“Jin is waiting.”

“Sun, wait!”

Better late than never.

That phrase could be applied to both my super timely review of the most recent Lost and the episode itself. It’s been 19 episodes since Sun and Jin last had a centric episode. It’s been longer for some characters (Hurley is at 22, Desmond at 21) but I make mention of this gap because the show, unlike with Hurley or Desmond, continues to makes us aware of the fact that Sun and Jin have been separated for what seems like an eternity (for the audience, anyway) and that their roles in the final stretch of the show has been significantly smaller than many other characters. Read more »

“That’s where you’re wrong, Casey. Because love — love is a battlefield.”

Legion of doom.

It’s a good thing Chuck is leaving town. With as many people roaming around that know his “secret” life, another year and he’d have the entire city of Burbank implicated in the war on terror.

The would-be season finale starts off with Chuck getting his badge and his first assignment, a pretty cush deal with a cover as a billionaire playboy in Italy complete with villa and generous stipend. Chuck, however, would rather stay in Burbank with Sarah. Adorable. Kid’s an idiot but adorable. But before he blabs that to the General, she mentions he gets to pick his own team and we see a twinkle in Bartowski’s eye. Why not live up the spy life with his best girl that he’s never actually had? Wait, I seem to remember him saying that Ellie was his best girl at some point. We’re going to assume he’s never had her either.

Anyway, this leads to Team Get Sarah Walker Back. Because Chuck, despite several pretty winning attempts at wooing Sarah in the past, is now somehow dumbfounded as to how to win her over this time, Morgan, Awesome, and Casey (all with their own stake in his getting Sarah) decide to approach this by committee. It was weird to see so many people come out of the woodwork and all of them know what’s going on with Chuck. I think, officially, everyone on the first floor of their apartment complex is in the know except Ellie. But that’s only because she’s not weirded out by constant helicopters and mysterious disappearances. We’ll say she’s selectively oblivious.

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“We deal with disagreements with emotional detachment and reason.”

I invented Law & Order bingo last night:

• Ripped from the headlines story (often with an anvilicious message)
• Mildly callous one-liner to kick off theme song
• Special guest star looking for an Emmy nomination
  • BONUS: Special guest star is better known for comedic work, trying to prove their range/be taken seriously as a thespian (or the network is trying to pull in a different demographic)
• Some tidbit about a character’s personal life is revealed
• Show hits the Law & Order twist (red herrings, on the stand reversals, defense attorney shenanigans, etc.)
  • BONUS: Twist doubles the story back into another ripped from the headlines story
• Schiff One Liner at the close of the episode

You see that? That’s the bingo arm of “Brazil” waving in the air.
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I don’t watch wrestling of any sort.  Not the wrestling on the Olympics and not the wrestling that dominates for USA on Monday nights. And I never have, really. Even when a number of the people I ate lunch with back in elementary school and middle school talked about Hulk Hogan or the Macho Man or The Rock or Goldberg (a favorite due to his Georgia roots), I only had a passing understanding of who they were talking about.

Last night, however, I watched my first WrestleMania. Ted Friedman hosted the event, and luckily the viewing party had a couple of big fans who know the ins and outs of professional wrestling that way I can talk to you about Lost (thanks to Shane, Brandon, and Bryce for putting up with questions). My girlfriend and I (yes, I brought my girlfriend to a wrestling viewing party) were the real novices at the event (though I think she knew more than I did), but I think it was quite the experience, though I am by no means compelled to watch Raw on Monday nights. Read more »

On thee thou must take a long journey:
Therefore thy book of count with thee thou bring;
For turn again thou can not by no way,
And look thou be sure of thy reckoning:
For before God thou shalt answer, and show
Thy many bad deeds and good but few;
How thou hast spent thy life, and in what wise,
Before the chief lord of paradise.
Have ado that we were in that way,
For, wete thou well, thou shalt make none attournay.
-Everyman

Is it okay to admit that I was a bit bored with the episode? It wasn’t that it was bad, because it wasn’t. Richard’s story has been the most anticipated of the season given that for three seasons now he’s been the mysterious gatekeeper, the man with an inkling of what’s been going on in the Island for the past 140 years. As this season as unfurled, it’s been clear that Richard perhaps had even less of an inkling, stuck in the dark as much as anyone else Jacob brought to the Island. And now with Jacob gone, Richard’s eternal life is at a dead end, with no master to serve and no exit. He’s in no position to tell anyone anything. Read more »

“Let’s take a little stroll down Shank Lane.”

Tonight’s HIMYM is one of those episodes where the group, prompted by an outsider joining their ranks for an evening, waxes nostalgic about earlier times. These episodes are the show’s bread and butter. The tradition started back in season 1 with “Game Night.” The crew, motivated by learning more about Victoria (I miss her), organized a game night around embarrassing stories that culminated in a lot of great Barney material set before his Awesome era, including his Muppet walk and giving of High Twos.

Episodes like “Game Night” enhance our understanding of the characters and their pasts as both individuals and as a group. “Say Cheese” should achieve the same thing, but it’s a less enjoyable achievement than others in this vein since it wants to interrogate what happens to friendships when things aren’t all rosy. It’s a decent enough episode, and a good variation on the premise the show often visits, but I just feel it didn’t go enough in that variation to be totally successful. Read more »

“It’s sad really, how little you actually know.”

My thoughts on “Recon” will be briefer than usual for a Lost review. It’s nothing against the episode, I did enjoy it, but there’s not a great deal to pick apart in this episode. This isn’t a bad thing. We, as an audience, need a breather every once in a while (especially for next week’s episode) and the writers need time to get things into place as we’re about to hit the halfway point of the season, and as long time watchers of the show know, the halfway point is where things to tend to pick up as the season hits the home stretch. Read more »

“It’s lame that he cares.”

The fact that “Beginner Pottery” aired out of order is probably a good thing. Last week I expressed concerns that the show was relying too heavily on the “friends as family” theme, and I saw the same concern expressed elsewhere (which is always reassuring). I asked for a variation on the theme or just a new theme all together. This week’s episode does neither. It doesn’t abandon the theme all together, but it doesn’t rely on it for the episode’s moral. Instead “Beginner Pottery” feels like a very smart gag delivery system that doesn’t let up for 22 minutes while still imparting a lesson about success in relation to the individual and the group. Read more »

“I’m following the law, not agreeing with.”

It’s a challenge to review a show when you don’t want to pause it or look away. You don’t want to stop the show’s pace in any way or remove yourself from that pace to scribble or type a note about a scene. You force yourself to take it all in as much as possible and hope that your brain can recall the experience, what you were thinking when someone arched an eyebrow or how an actor just hit the beat in a line especially well. Sure, you could always rewind the episode if you’ve got it recorded, but it may play differently out of context of that pace (don’t even get me started if you watch it live).

This week’s The Good Wife had that quality. It moved at such a near seamless clip that I didn’t want to write any notes. And it’s a different experience than with Lost, which often demands, no matter how well made, taking a second to jot down ideas about what happened. While I’ve argued that Lost is at its best when it focuses on its characters, because of its thematic concerns and genre trappings, it depicts its characters in personal but epic ways. The Good Wife is about character in personal and intimate ways. Read more »