Friday, March 30, 2007

TV Catch-up

Last bit of catching up from this week's TV. Highlight for spoilers:

  • Friday Night Lights: This show is just awesome. Seriously awesome. So my... I want to call my reaction "giddiness", but as Cliff Clavin pointed out so many years ago, "men don't get giddy." But I was thrilled with this episode, and the result is a pretty rambling commentary on it. Sorry in advance.

    Landry's plan to pick up Tyra with his math skillz is hilarious. I was a nerd in high school (I say "was" as if I'm not a nerd now, which is obviously not the case), but the math never really paid any dividends in that department. "Mr. T., and the T. stands for... Tyrasalgebratutor." I also liked his premature "yes" to the "If you're not doing anything on Friday..." question. Would've been funny if it was "If you're not doing anything on Friday, would you mow my lawn while I go out with some other guy?"


    When that random guy in the restaurant said he remembered those days or whatever, I thought he was going to swoop in, tutor her, and they would hit it off, and Landry would show up just in time to see his plan pay off for someone else. Then they showed someone running up behind her and I thought it was Landry to be all "wait, I'm here!" I did not see that coming at all. I thought the whole thing was written and acted just about perfectly. Tyra seems really tough, and it's appropriate that she'd be able to fight the guy off. But she's still human, and that's obviously pretty traumatic. And you could tell Landry didn't really know what to do, but he still probably ended up doing exactly what she needed.

    The Matt getting paid storyline is sort of predictable. Every college or high school football movie/tv show has to cover race relations, steroids, and under the table payoffs, and since they covered the other two, I guess we were due. It was nice to couple it with the "this is getting too commercial" thing. That's not quite as ubiquitous as the other three things, but still pretty common. I liked that Buddy actually took the "Garrity Bowl" suggestion somewhat seriously.

    In what was a very tiny side story this week, Waverly, the unmedicated bipolar girl, being armed was slightly troubling to me, but not as troubling as it was to smash, who I think thinks she's just going to flip out into a murder/suicide thing.

    In Lyla/Street news, the big blow-up was a long time coming. Too much tension there to not explode at some point. And we finally get rid of the lawsuit cloud that's been hanging over him and Coach Taylor. "You ever thought about coaching?" was the perfect note to end on.

    Warning: actual football content follows. They're not down 8-0 right off the bat if that kid just falls on the ball on that onside kick. You try to return it, and that's how you end up fumbling. Also, it seems silly that Dillon would bite on that fake extra point, the footing being so bad, I think you only kick out of desperation (and we see their opponents try a field goal later and flub it). A nice realistic depiction of a muddy game in general though, and another "chill scene" with the winning run, which featured some really good cinematography, I think. Great, great episode.

  • Jericho: That uptight detective from Psych is the sheriff of the windmill town. And he drives a hard bargain on the windmills. But with the long emotional goodbyes for these ten guys... and the fact that Heather didn't come back, either the actress didn't want to show up (or they couldn't afford to pay her), or that's extremely fishy. And wouldn't the supposedly food-strapped windmill town have to feed all these guys they're forcing to come build the things? Not much of this makes any sense.

    Shoshannah Stern is back! I really liked her on Weeds and part of what made me give Jericho a shot was her presence. But the punk store owning kid and is bratty rich friend are back too, but I guess you have to take the good with the bad. Dale's pissed at farmers not honoring contractual obligations to the store. Nothing says compelling drama like a guy inheriting a store and not getting the 3% the other guy is obligated to give. I almost fell asleep writing that sentence. He showed up at the dude's house with a gun, which seems kinda dumb. He might get the food now, but that guy, whoever the hell he is, isn't going to just shrug his shoulders and forget it ever happened. But hey his bad boy routine is at least going to get him some action with the aforementioned bratty rich girl. You can tell how invested I am with the show by the fact that I don't know a lot of the characters' names. But the show isn't without it's moments, like...

    Aasif Mandvi is back too! I'm seriously loving him on The Daily Show, and it's awesome that he's also a serious, PTSD, drunken doctor here. I find a lot of the character drama in the show to be pretty lame, and April's pregnancy was one of my least favorite storylines, but the scene where Jake convinces Kenchy to go back into surgery was actually pretty moving.

    In the Hawkins storyline, I think he would've been best off confessing that he used to nail Sarah, and that's why she left, and that's why his wife isn't around. Pretty much covers everything, and I think the cop would just let it go. Or at least I would. But it worked out anyway I guess. I had sorta forgotten about the guy Sarah killed, so the twist that they found the body of the guy she killed was a nice surprise to me.

    A pretty good episode, thanks largely to Aasif Mandvi. A character that can barely handle the stress of this whole situation is a great addition to the mix.


Still to watch: nothing. Although by the time I finished this, Friday night TV was already starting.

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