Season finales aplenty tonight. I've been putting some thought into what I really want to do here, and I think I'm going to abandon the nightly commentary on everything. It feels like a chore, and I can't imagine all that many people are enjoying reading them anyway. But past the jump, some random thoughts on Smallville, The Office, and Scrubs.
The Office: Freeze frame fun:www.creedthoughts.gov.www/creedthoughts
Lines of the night:
Creed Thoughts!
Hey-o, everyone out there in Syberworld. It's old Creed Bratton coming at you again here from my perch as a Quality Assurance Manager at Dunder-Mifflin paper. Just a few observations on the world around me.
What do you guys think is the best kind of car? To me, you can't beat motorcycles. They're small and dangerous.
Scrubs: I'm kind of disappointed that they're going back to the Elliot and J.D. well. Despite a plot-heavy episode, they still worked in some good lines:
Smallville: I suspect some fakery, but if they killed off Lana there's no reason to watch the show anymore, except for a cool Clark/Bizarro fight.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Thursday Night TV
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Thursday Night TV, Plus Leftovers
A full night of Thursday television (NBC comedies plus Smallville for me), plus catching up on Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Jericho's season finale, all after the jump...
My Name is Earl: Being on the lam in Mexico didn't work out as well for Joy as they made it seem on the Dukes of Hazzard, so she's in jail and needs character witnesses. After a very unsuccessful attempt to find some, Ruby (Marlee Matlin reprising her role as Joy's lawyer) suggests Earl.
Part three of Earl's plan to grow up is to get a real place to live, so he moves out of the hotel, but feels unsatisfied. He decides that the problem is that he's ready for a relationship, and after meeting Ruby, he's pretty sure he knows who it'll be with. Everything goes great, until she starts reading the list and discovers that Randy and Earl once robbed her.
Earl's turn as a character witness was going perfectly until the prosecutor played a series of 911 calls Earl had made when he was married, cataloging the horrible things Joy'd done. When he saw the jury making up their minds, he decided to confess, figuring that she has kids and a husband, while he doesn't have three strikes. Earl gets sentenced to 2 years in the state pen, where he'll share a cell with Ralph (Giovanni Ribisi).
Really funny episode and a great story. Between this and last week's great episode, Earl's really ended the season on a high note. Best parts:
The Office: Beach day! Do offices really have beach days? Michael is interviewing for a job at corporate, and has to show up with a recommendation for who'll replace him. So beach day turns into a series of ridiculous competitions to win the position of future manager. It naturally doesn't prove anything, but a walk over hot coals finally inspires Pam to stand up for herself, wondering why no one showed at her art show, telling Jim how she feels. Funniest parts:
Scrubs: Elliot wants to have her wedding in two months, despite the fact that Keith doesn't want to rush things that much. Dr. Cox doesn't want to go, and while she tries to convince him, he points out that Keith and J.D. were basically the only single straight men at the hospital who were the least bit desirable, so she might just be settling.
J.D., Turk, and Kelso are at a conference. Kelso's looking forward to hookers and booze, so he leaves the actual work for Vanilla Bear and Chocolate Bear. J.D.'s mostly along to forget about Elliot, and nothing seems to help until Kim (Elizabeth Banks) shows up as a lecturer at a conference. Last we saw her, she was lying to J.D. about miscarrying their baby, and her giant belly makes it difficult to keep that particular lie going. J.D. freaks out and can't really decide what to do.
At this point, there was an amber alert in my area, so I have absolutely no idea what happened for what seemed like the two most important minutes of plot, but J.D. apparently ran away, and Kim followed him back to ask what happened just as Elliot asks him if she's making a mistake by marrying Keith. They're really bringing the season's plotlines to a climax nicely, but (at least the parts I saw) weren't all that funny. The best parts:
Smallville: Helo from Battlestar Galactica guest stars in a terrible, terrible role. A guy who's been brainwashed but tries to fight it off when he meets a close friend? Olivier couldn't save that role from being ridiculous. All you can really do is act like you're having a seizure and speak in sentence fragments.
Some interesting developments came out of the episode, though. Martha is going to be a U.S. Senator, Lois is determined to ruin Lex, and Lois is closer than ever to betraying Lex and driving him to supervillainy (or at least I hope so). 
Law & Order: Criminal Intent: Fun cameos this week. Peter Bogdanovich plays a Hugh Hefner-type character for the second time, Kristy Swanson plays a fake Anna Nicole Smith, and in one of the best casting jobs ever, David Cross as the Howard K. Stern guy. It was pretty dull, though I really enjoyed all of David Cross's scenes.
Jericho: They finally put the tank to good use, which is good. Johnston dies, which is very bad. Johnston, Jake, Heather, and Hawkins are really the only characters I care about, and they just killed one off after kinda killing one off earlier. It was great to see Heather back, but she's listed as a special guest star.
The season ends on a rather annoying cliffhanger, with the military on the way, some kinda crazy 35-ish star flag, a train and a bunch of troops heading Jericho's way, but no word on the season's most gripping plot: Dale's acquisition of assets in an effort to become a 16 year old post-apocalyptic real estate tycoon!
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Massive Catch-up
Having already seen Spider-man 3, I don't have a movie to catch this weekend, which leaves a little extra time to catch up on TV. A whole mess of shows after the jump.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: Olivia has a brother pops up again, but she's lost faith in him and is now helping the Feds find him. Soon though she bails to follow leads about her father, learns a lot more, and begins to wonder if her mother was really raped. It turns out, though, that the Jersey cop who was after him in the previous episode had framed Simon, and was out to kill him after her sister, Simon's alleged first victim, killed herself. Olivia shows up just in time, and talks the cop into confessing everything, and Simon gets off entirely. 
Bones: I don't have too much to say about this episode, except that if, in a case involving someone falling out of an airplane, you find that the body's been chopped up by a heavy not-too-sharp object moving really fast, and that he was struck many times almost simultaneously, how does it take you half the episode to come up with the "hit by the propeller" theory?
Law & Order: Criminal Intent: Of course one of the Law & Orders was going to rip this particular story from the headlines... diaper-wearing crazed astronauts is just too juicy to ignore. Weird though that this episode aired the same week as the Bones about an astronaut... also weird that they both used the same fake NASA-like group (the National Space Agency). I found Tate Donovan's wife entirely creepy, the way she referred to him as "the Commander." But otherwise it was a pretty forgettable episode.
Entourage: The "one time thing" concept doesn't seem to go well with Amanda and Vince, since they both are really into each other. Ari has a formerly loserish college friend (Artie Lange) visiting who has an inexplicably hot fiancee (Leslie Bibb). Turns out that he made millions on the internet, which makes Ari really jealous.
Pauly Shore wants Drama for a new Punk'd ripoff show, but Drama knows about it ahead of time, planning to act surprised. When a UFC guy argues with him over a parking space, he assumes that it's the prank and practically gets in a fight. But the prank turns out to be something else, and the UFC guy's after him. Drama goes to a fight to kiss up to the guy, but ends up in the octagon on his knees begging for forgiveness when Pauly Shore pops out and reveals that it was all a big prank. Kinda funny, but predictable.
The Sopranos: Tony is seriously strapped for cash. Gambling problems, funding Carmela's spec house, losing Vito (his best earner), and his debt to Hesh leave him in bad financial shape. Carmela closes on the spec house, but she figures it's her money, so Tony won't see any of it, leading to a whole lot of tension.
With Vito gone, his kid's doing the goth thing (Phil says he looks like "a Puerto Rican whore") and acting out. His mother wants a fresh start somewhere else, and money to move there from Tony. Given the money issues, Tony's desperate to straighten the kid out somehow. But it doesn't work, cause for some reason the kid ends up taking a Count Dooku in the shower after gym class. Tony advises her to send him to a (much cheaper) camp for troubled kids.
Penn & Teller: Bullshit!: I was two episodes behind, so two weeks ago they covered immigration. They talked about some interesting stuff. Apparently, just as many illegal aliens enter the country legally and stay after their visas expire as sneak across the border. They rather amusingly hired a group of illegal immigrants to build a fence like the one proposed for the Mexican border, and then had them go under, through, and over it. It took eight hours to build, and 5 minutes to get past.
This week's episode was on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA's statistics count 51 million disabled people in the US, which is one in six. It includes people who have trouble with money or using the phone. That seems kind of messed up, though the braille on the drive-up ATMs is quite funny. Penn & Teller as Libertarians obviously also don't like the idea of the government telling people what to do with their own private property, and generally legislating niceness.
House: A kid about to donate bone marrow to his brother develops an infection, so the race is on to find and cure the infection before his brother's leukemia kills him. The plan is to keep him cold to make the infection worse so they can figure out what it is faster. But that turns out to backfire, forcing the infection into the son's heart. Foreman's still dealing with losing a patient last week. House thinks he has Steve Blass disease, and is actually trying to be patient with him, which is pretty un-House-like.
House is still keeping Hector, Wilson's ex-wife's dog, and it's causing him lots of problems. It gets into his vicodin stash, chews up his cane (forcing him to get a sweet new one with a flame decal). But when he eventually gives the dog back, he seems sad to let it go.
They finally track down what was causing the son's infection, and this is where the episode took a crazy left turn that I didn't get. Foreman straps the now-healing son to the table and without anesthetic (because he wasn't well enough), starts extracting bone marrow even though it sounded excruciating. It works, both kids are going to get well, but Foreman doesn't like that he's "becoming" House, and gives his two weeks notice.
Smallville: And old fashioned mystery at the Planet. Lana gets shot, and gets medivac-ed to Smallville for some reason. But what was she doing all dolled up at night, out with Lionel instead of Lex? Jimmy's fascination with old movies and a blow to the head send us into an extended black & white film noir fantasy/dream sequence. There were some nice touches, using the back projection and sped up film during the car chases, the old timey wipes to transition between scenes, cigarette smoke pouring into every frame (I'm surprised they can even do that). 
Since most of the episode was spent in fantasy land, very little was devoted to the actual goings on. Towards the end, they worked in Canadian-filmed TV staple Richard Kahan, a plug for Sprint, let Clark save the day, and reveal the plot behind the attempted murder, which was entirely uninteresting. But the fantasy sequence was fun enough that the episode wasn't a waste of time.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Thursday Night TV
Thursday night has plenty of good TV, and with sweeps upon us, the schedule for the month is loaded with new episodes. Earl, Scrubs, The Office, 30 Rock, and Smallville after the jump.
My Name is Earl: Earl puts himself on his list since he never let himself grow up, so he starts by trying to get his G.E.D. It proves a little too difficult, so he goes back to his old high school for help, but his old teachers are all burnt out cause since Earl they've had an endless parade of kids who are no good. To make it up, he takes over as a substitute covering in-school suspension.
He tries to show them his life as an example of what happens when you goof off in school, but kids today got no respect. So Earl convinces the teachers to fight fire with fire, and they pull a series of pranks on their students. Everything works out great until a car rigged with an innocent prank ends up exploding. But after freaking out, it turns out that was exactly what the kids needed to fall in line. The teachers get back to teaching, and Earl gets his G.E.D. A funny episode, especially the exploding car, but accidental car bombs as the solution to your problems seems like a very odd message to send. Some especially funny parts:
The Office: Crisis mode, as Dunder Mifflin accidentally sends out a bunch of paper with an obscene watermark. Creed is the Quality Assurance guy, and in an effort to avoid blame pulls some evil genius moves. He gets someone fired for his incompetence, then takes up a collection for her and pockets it. I love that guy.
Jim and Andy go to a high school to apologize for the paper, and discover that Andy's girlfriend is a high school student. But that was a one-note story, because aside from that, there was no point and not much humor.
Michael decides to hold a press conference to apologize, presumably without consulting with upper management, to get ahead of the scandal that probably would not have been a scandal of note. And he brings a client to the press conference who won't accept his apology, so it turns out to be an even bigger disaster than I'd have thought. So he records some kind of crazy apology video that sounds like a manifesto and/or threat, and I guess intends to put it on YouTube? Will they continue this story at all, or just leave it? Weird episode, but it had some really good parts:
30 Rock: Season finale already? What a pisser. But what a great episode. Completely insane, but great.
Tracy's still in hiding under the assumed name Gordon Tremeshko (I think?), and only Kenneth knows that he's in Needmore, Pennsylvania, with Kenneth's cousin (played by Sean Hayes in the first role I didn't hate him in) taking care of him. Then going all Misery on him. Kenneth not only rescues him, but throws himself down the stairs to an ambulance will rush them through traffic to get to the show on time.
Jack's love of his job and crazy mother remind him that he doesn't love Phoebe. And gives him a heart attack. And Lemon's love of hers puts the kibosh on the Floydster. Which sucks for him because Tina Fey was looking especially hot tonight. Glasses, business suit, and a hint of cleavage really works for her. And speaking of hot, Cerie makes her first appearance in a while.
Just some of the many, many good parts:
Scrubs: Turk and Dr. Cox fight over who'll treat hypochondriac Lloyd the deliveryman, making up fake diagnoses for his arm pain to make him each other's responsibility. Just as Perry thinks he's won, Turk ups the ante by actually operating. Take that? I have no idea how Perry didn't see that it was all a prank. Turk's prone to doing some stupid stuff, but he's still a good doctor.
I never thought Keri Russell was all that attractive on Felicity but with straighter hair she's gorgeous. She plays Elliot's old friend who J.D. naturally has a thing for. J.D., despite always being a huge jerk to Elliot, is upset that she makes time for Keri Russell but not for him. So he turns into an even bigger jerk and sabotages the Elliot/Keri Russell friendship. We're supposed to like him and all, but sometimes he's a complete dick. It did, however, lead to a pretty amusing appletini scene. But after he gives a hollow apology for his dickishness, Elliot forgives him. And in the closer, Keith proposes to Elliot. Is she going to be Mrs. Dudemeister?
Best parts:
Smallville: The rich have it good. Even Lex's abductors are beautiful women. She blows up a series of tunnels leaving Lex trapped and Lionel in the hospital. Naturally, the tunnels are filled with kryptonite, cause the episode would be over pretty quickly otherwise. As usual, Lex makes it look like he's finally 100% evil, but then turns around at the last second to partially redeem himself. I hope before this show ends, which I hope is soon because I can't stop watching but I really don't like it much anymore, they finally just let Lex become evil. Elsewhere, Lana's getting used to being a Luthor, acting all deceitful and devious. My recording got all messed up in the last 10 minutes, so I might've missed some stuff, but it sounded like the same old conclusion stuff, where they play spooky music and make it sound like big important stuff is going on but nothing really happens.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Still More Catching Up
I think I'm finally all caught up, and it's only 45 minutes into the stuff I want to watch tonight. Hooray! Thursday's Smallville, the last two Jerichos, and last Sunday's Entourage and The Sopranos after the jump.
The Sopranos: There's a power struggle in the Lupertazzi family, A.J. and Blanca appear to be having big issues, Johnny Sacks dies of cancer, cameos all over the place (Daniel Baldwin, Jonathan LaPaglia, Geraldo, Tim Daly, Sydney Pollack, Christopher McDonald), but what really stood out was the premiere of Christopher's movie.
"Fuck Ben Kingsley!" They're in final editing, happy with their casting, but still going over last minute changes. "The lawyer called, though, we might have to change the title. The Eldridge Cleaver estate, they want an injunction." The whole movie was hilarious, with the mob boss character obviously drawn from Tony. But in addition to being funny, it drove the whole episode. The character's interaction with an associate's fiancee brings up memories of Adrianna for Carmela, and the less than flattering version of himself on screen leaves Tony feeling deeply hurt, pushing the rift between Tony and Chris even further.
A lot going on, I'm actually slightly confused about what's going on in the New York family, but the funny parts were just so damn funny, I couldn't help but love it. Hopefully the New York picture will clear up soon. Or someone will clue me in.
Entourage: Vinnie and E are dodging Amanda's calls, and having issues over a couple's weekend. E and Sloan want to go by themselves, but E tries to come up with a plan to make it happen without offending Vinnie at all, which of course blows up in his face, and leaves him on a trip with Sloan barely talking to him while the rest of the crew heads to Cabo.
Ari is hoping to land a gay client, so he brings Lloyd along in a hilariously anti-gay attempt to prove that he's gay-friendly. But the potential client takes a little too much liking to Lloyd, and the feeling isn't mutual. In order to sign the guy, Lloyd may have to... take one for the team. But look out, Ari's actually feeling guilty about the whole thing, and refuses to let Lloyd sleep with a guy just to sign a client.
There's a whole subplot with Turtle and Drama trying to pick up Freaks and Geeks's Busy Phillips and the lovely Brianne Davis at a dog park, which was kinda funny. A big improvement over the previous episode, which I didn't enjoy all that much.
Smallville: Lex listens to terrestrial radio in his fancy car, I don't think so! They couldn't work in an XM/Sirius plug? Chloe runs Lex's car off the road, knocks him on the head and takes a flash drive. She wakes up the next morning with no memory of the whole thing though. Clark spots a button of Chloe's at the scene though, so now they're all suspicious of what her Tyler Durden personality is up to. They find the flash drive though, and it has files on Chloe's mom, who has the ability to control other meteor freaks. 
Lynda Carter is Chloe's mom, and at 56 she still looks great. Lex has her locked up, having found a drug to wake her out or her catatonic state, and hoping to use her powers to his advantage, but she just wants out. So she's using the power to try to kill Lex and help Chloe find her. They escape, but the drug only had a limited effect, and she slips back into her catatonia.
Lex makes some scary threats to Chloe to keep her quiet. Lana, injured in the fight, learns that she had unknowingly been taking hormones to make it seem like she was pregnant, but never was. The sonograms must've been faked and all that stuff. And we wrap up with Clark declaring that the war between him and Lex is about to begin. Cue the dramatic music. I haven't been really in to this show in a long time, and this is just another reminder why. There was nothing bad about the episode, but there wasn't anything good either.
Jericho: Two episodes to catch up on, starting with "A.K.A." from two weeks ago.
Jake is on to Hawkins, with a drawer full of fake government IDs, and confronts him about it. Hawkins is ready with some crappy stories, but Jake isn't buying it. He comes along with a second story, and we get a lengthy flashback, but who knows if it's real or not. Hawkins says he was CIA and hooked up a domestic terrorist cell with fake IDs and killed an FBI informant to win them over, and that flashback we'd previously seen fits in with it well. The CIAs plan to infiltrate the terrorists caused them to move up their timetable, and he was given his orders to take the bomb to Columbus, OH, but instead gathered up his family and took them to Jericho. He shows Jake the bomb, and after freaking out a little, Jake agrees to keep his secrets safe.
Elsewhere, Emily is trying to start up a school for the kids of the town, but they have more pressing matters to deal with and ditch, except for April Hawkins, and they do some bonding, and Mimi is having issues with Bonnie in Stanley's absence.
Then this week's episode, "Causus Belli," picks up on the windmill building story. It looks like all of Jericho's men are back except Eric, who was torn up over April's death, but Stanley and Jake are suspicious as to why he didn't come back.
Jake takes Hawkins to New Bern to figure out what happened to his brother. They're fed a bunch of stories that they don't buy, and have to sneak around town and interrogate people to get real answers. Eric and the long-absent Heather apparently sabotaged New Bern's factory that morning, but they're left to wonder why, so Jake and Hawkins make their way to the factory and find a detailed map of Jericho and its resources, already divvied up between the powerful people in New Bern. And the factory in New Burn has been turned into a munitions factory. They're prepping for an attack. 
Jake idiotically decides to try to stop them single handedly and gets himself captured, and throw into a cell next to Eric. And holy crap, Heather is dead. That sucks, I like Sprague Grayden. The episode ends with New Burn's mayor parading Eric and Jake in front of the town in handcuffs, explaining that Jericho never planned to honor their food commitment. It looks like preparation for an execution before they launch their attack, and the only one who can stop them is Hawkins. Luckily, he's a badass.
Stanley comes home to find the dude that's been nailing Bonnie at his farm, which is quite the kick in the balls. But conveniently, that guy's a total idiot, so it's probably not going to last.
Skylar and Dale start moving salt from the mine, but apparently she can't because she's a minor. She tries to get her parents declared dead so she can become an emancipated minor miner (I amuse the hell out of myself), but the mayor shoots that idea down. This might force her to sign a deal with one of the New Burn guys.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Thursday Night TV
As much as I love all the other NBC comedies, it's nice to have a couple things on reruns on Thursday night, so that there's stuff to watch but not quite as many conflicts as there can be.
- Smallville: Paraphrasing Seinfeld, to the superficial man, that's a hell of a way to open a show. Fortunately, I'm above all that stuff. Yeah, that's the ticket. Of course, the superficial man might've been disappointed when they showed the face of the actress who was putting on the schoolgirl outfit. Great body, but she sorta looks like one of those wrestling women who are usually have slightly mannish faces. Or... at least that's what I would say if I were the type to judge women by that sort of thing.
A lot of shows after the opening go with a "24 hours earlier," or "36 hours earlier," or "48 hours earlier," but Smallville goes for 46 hours. This is the kind of attention to detail that makes this among the two or three hundred best written shows on television right now. Except that in the opening, the guy referred to the girl as "security guard by day, schoolgirl by night," which made me think it was night. 46 hours earlier would make it 2 hours later at night two days earlier, but it was daylight at the Kent farm. But it's Smallville, so I should remember to turn my brain off, especially for pointless stuff like this.
So Clark is onto Titan, a Phantom Zone baddie who's part of some sort of underground fight club. No Tyler Durden, though, this one's hosted by a bad Sam Rockwell knockoff, and features mostly meteor freaks.
Lex and Lana are half-celebrating their marriage, and they throw the sinister music over just about every scene Lex does (including another Corto Maltese namedropping), but they never really show him doing anything evil, just imply it. I'm pretty sure if they showed him get up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water, they'd play the spooky music over it at this point. Anyway, Lana ends up passing out, and may have had a miscarriage... or Lex may have drugged her so that the evil alien baby he implanted in her could be harvested without her knowledge while she slept.
Lois is desperate for a story, and snoops on Chloe's notes on the fight club, inexplicably puts on Britney Spears' red cat suit from one of her videos, and goes undercover. After a brief scene of lesbian sexual tension with our schoolgirl from the opening, Lois shows off her ninja moves, kicking the ass of a woman who seems to be a trained fighter/security guard. They like to point out that her father is an Army guy, but I don't see how she can always take down other people with training who are bigger than her.
Naturally, Clark gets his way into the fight club to take on Titan, but first has to prove himself against Lois. I don't get how that'd really prove his skills, or how any of their supposedly rich clients would really want to see some dude kill a 20-ish-year-old girl... or at least I assume the "fight to the death" audience would want to see a close fight rather than something closer to a snuff film.
But it could've been an interesting situation. He can't use his powers because it's Lois, he can't not win cause he needs to get Titan, and he can't kill her, even though she's often really annoying. And because they haven't exploited Erica Durance's body in a couple episodes, the fight club folks bring her out in an even skimpier version of the tight red leather suit. But rather than force him to come up with a clever solution, he waits until Lois' head is turned to zap all the broadcast equipment with the heat vision.
Par for the course on Smallville a series of convenient events brings the plot to a close. Clark doesn't have to look for the guy because Titan just appears on his own, and Clark doesn't have to hide his powers because Lana gets knocked unconscious 5 seconds into the fight and sees nothing. - Scrubs: Speaking of openings for the superficial man, Scrubs starts off with an Elliot's-shirt-gets-torn-off gag, and cuts straight to a super hot new nanny, played by Mircea Monroe (not porn, but a fairly racy link - follow at your own risk), who I didn't recognize at first, but she was in that Nobody's Watching show from some Scrubs writers that became quite popular on the ol' internets.
The hot nanny's causing stress between Turk and Carla, Jordan's on bed rest after her surgery and is driving Dr. Cox nuts, Elliott breaks the rules because patient wants to see her dog which furthers the conflict between her and Kelso, and Laverne and Perry argue over whether things happen for a reason. That seems like a couple plots too many. But as usual when the jokes are working the show works, and there were some really good ones this week.
"Gotta go, booby horn." Every Dr. Cox's continuing hatred for Hugh Jackman cracks me up every time. The group guy lie was awesome. As was the nice nod to the fact that everyone has hated Dr. Cox's hair this season (except for the obviously out of order episode where his head was shaved), using the delivery guy as the fake father of the stabbed girl was great, and the fantasy ending to J.D.'s date with smoking hot racist thief Heather was one of the better jokes in the past couple seasons.
Ah but the episode ends with Laverne in a coma. She's not my favorite character or anything, but it'd be a little sad to see her die. And I can only assume she will, just because it'd seem cheap to put her in the coma for a while and bring her back, given the "bad things happen for a reason" storyline.
A decent episode, but as a two parter, the payoff will obviously determine the overall quality. - Andy Barker, P.I.: Sure, I'd technically already watched this episode online, but this was actually my favorite of the series, and it'll probably disappear forever shortly. A fat client of Andy's (his doctors are a bunch of "gloomy Gusses, they like to think that I'm 66% not body fat") dies on the golf course from a heart attack, but it shockingly not due natural causes. And the motive is jealousy over the fact that he was even more shockingly popular with the ladies (and one dude).
The jokes in this episode really work, plus they let the talented cast play to their strengths. Andy Richter really sells the sequence where the wife shows up to put forward the foul play/he'd never have a heart attack/it was his mistress sequence. He manages to look like he's sorry for the widow, like he thinks she's completely off her rocker saying all this about a really fat guy, and like he's desperately trying to be polite all at once.
And Tony Hale in the scene where he first meets Nicole was great. "And who might you be... hello." He bounces around between false bravado, total lack of confidence, and just regular old infatuation effortlessly. And then he comes back for the "Me and Mrs. Jones"/black and white cookie scene which just killed me.
But even more than the jokes, it was a solid story. Nicely paced, classic cop show misdirection. If you were to ignore the silliness, it'd almost be a halfway decent episode of Law & Order or something... that might be a stretch, but the episode was very well-written.
Still to come: I recorded Raines but I'm still debating whether I'll watch it. Otherwise, I think I'm all caught up.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Thursday Night TV
A couple premieres last night, Andy Barker, P.I. and Raines, which I caught earlier. Plus October Road, which the reviews say are as bad as the commercials, but I still may give it a shot. Highlight for spoilers of the non-premiere stuff:
- Smallville: For some reason I thought they'd stretch out the wedding until the season finale, but they got right to it here. Not sure why they went with the Quentin Tarantino timeline, because it didn't seem to accomplish anything. Lana learns Clark's secret finally, accepts it, and is ready to run off with Clark, but Lionel jumps in and threatens to kill Clark unless she goes through with the wedding, and so she goes through with it. Lionel has to be one of the more confusing characters on TV. He started off as a villain, then almost died and came back as a good guy, but then turns villainous again, hiding bodies for Lex and threatening people to save his marriage, but still inexplicably keeping Clark's secret.
- Scrubs: I haven't seen Victoria Tennant in a while, and it was nice to see the junkie character played by James from Spin City back. The running self-referential joke about the Grey's Anatomy voiceover was excellent. And I love the callback to the episode where Carla lost Rowdy. My favorite part, though, was the ad for the baby lowjack that said "For White Babies."
Friday, February 16, 2007
TV Catchup
Most of these weren't in top form, but still entertaining. Highlight for spoilers:
- The Office: A lot was made about Joss Whedon directing, but TV directors don't really do that much. Maybe the bat/vampire bit was in honor of his directing, but I think mostly the director's job on a series is to keep the feel of the series intact... and make sure everything gets done on time.
The episode was pretty average for the show. Michael was back to normal levels of embarassingness after two straight episodes of extra nuttiness. His Mr. Handell story was fantastic. "Really ruined 8th grade for us...." The vampire jokes were ok, but they were carried entirely by Dwight's paranoia. And Creed is never not funny. And while I normally don't like the parts that aren't just straight comedy all that much, having Michael come through as the hero in the end for Pam was a nice touch.
- My Name is Earl: If that's all Earl ever did to the one legged girl, she's some kind of nut. Obviously that's uncool, but that's the kind of thing you get over eventually. Weird episode, though. Just a big pile of things Earl's done wrong. And the key party thing was obviously bad, but they set it up like it was the worst thing he'd ever done, and it wasn't super evil.
- The Sarah Silverman Program: Alright, this was not as good as the other ones. The part with the questions to assess her risk was pretty good, but as soon as she went on her crazy mission they mostly lost me. Though for some reason Laura not getting upset at the blown $17k cracked me up.
- Smallville: Bowling shoe spray guy couldn't have been more obvious about hitting on Lana without getting slapped or arrested, yet she was completely oblivious. Chloe having meteor powers is kind of an interesting idea. She has inexplicable hacking powers, should've died like eleven thousand different times, and has broken dozens of the craziest (but still true) news stories in the world. Meh, and Lex is evil. I hate this show and I can't stop watching.
Friday, February 9, 2007
TV Catchup
Oh man, Thursday night has a lot of shows... (highlight to reveal spoilers):
- Smallville: So... this show is still kinda lame. The plot centered around creepy pictures sent by a stalker to Lana's Sprint(tm) cell phone. Now the product placement was annoying, but the Lana-centric-ness was nice. I basically only still watch the show because she's unbelievably hot. Seems like Clark and Lana are sort of making up, Lex made a half-assed attempt at mending some fences... or like 10-percent-assed. But still plenty of tension all over the place. And in a plot element that nobody really cared about, I think, Chloe and Jimmy got back together. Hooray?
- The Office: Oh, where to begin? I love Scrantonicity, and like Pam, I thought they only played Police songs, but discovered that they didn't earlier. Fields of Gold was a Sting solo effort. You can tell by the fact that it's completely girly.
Toby having a smoking hot date was a great touch. All they've ever done on the show is make him a nice, friendly, caring guy who constantly gets crapped on. And Ryan knocking the bouquet out of the way was a fantastic touch.
I liked Dwight's fascination with catching wedding crashers... and I hope his Pavlovian altoid reflex comes back in a later episode. Angela's Jackie O getup was pretty amusing. Most of Michael's stuff was kind of annoying though, sometimes when you go for that cringe factor it crosses over the line a touch.
And with the love... rhombus or something... I know a lot of the fans obsess over this stuff and create portmanteau names for all the couple combinations but it's my least favorite part of the show. But the dancing outside shot of Pam and Roy (Ram or Poy?) with the cut to Dwight and Angela (the commercials went with Dwangela, but I'd rather see something like Anght (pronounced anked), cause it sounds cool). then the cut to Michael being all sad, that was good stuff.
And as a Celtics fan, the senile Uncle's "the Celtics were a great team" comment was painful during the franchise record losing streak. Robert Parish, you are indeed missed.
- My Name is Earl: Byron from Andy Richter Controls the Universe (Jonathan Slavin)! D.J. Qualls! They're like the funniest weasely guys on earth! And whoever played Liberty is quite a lovely young lady. Quick hit thoughts since I don't have much to say about the plot:
- - I think feeding Listerine to a turtle might kill it. Do not try this at home.
- - What was up with that jar of sangria? That thing looked disgusting.
- - "Since nowadays wrestling is planned in advance...." Great line.
- - Black Ladies of Wrestling = BLoW. Excellent.
- - I'm liking the way they handled the Randy/Catalina storyline. They keep the same jokes but they all seem fresh now.
- Scrubs: Occasionally on Scrubs, the comedy gets a little derailed with plot. This episode wasn't too packed with jokes, but it was actually an interesting story. JD's girlfriend tells him she had a miscarriage, they agree that they're better off broken up, but in the end we find out that she still has the baby. Them dames is devious! And Dr. Cox's baby required prenatal surgery, which provided a nice feelgood balance to the miscarriage/deceit storyline.
- 30 Rock: I continue to love this show. Kenneth the page would be the best new character of the year, except that Alec Baldwin steals absolutely every scene he's in. And Cerie? Sadly, in winter, she's wearing more, but still, she is quite the looker. Liz's thing with Jason Sudeikis was kinda sweet, and he suddenly struck me as a guy who could totally be a leading guy in a romantic comedy type thing. I'm assuming he'll be back for a story arc.
These guys don't know how to play "Boff"/Marry/Kill, though. It's supposed to be difficult choices. Like three women you hate and would never want to see naked. Or three gorgeous women who seem really nice and you wouldn't think about killing. If you give them Liz, Jenna, and Cerie, you've got one who's easily the hottest, one who's easily the coolest, and one who's irritating as hell.
- The Sarah Silverman Program: Zach Galifianakis! Brian Posehn showing off ninja moves! If they can work Patton Oswalt and Maria Bamford in somehow, it will be this Comedians of Comedy fan's dream. The line of the show: "I better go. Homeless don't crap themselves." Also, the Cousin Sal cameo was totally weird. But I definitely dig this show. It's uneven, and the musical elements don't work for me, but it's two for two in coming up with pretty frequent big laughs. Not nearly enough shows can come up with one per episode.
