Wednesday Night TV

Late night last night, but I managed to catch these. Highlight for spoilers:

• Lost: A lot of people had criticized the Lost writers for not having the castaways ask many questions. And it did seem kind of odd that all this crazy stuff was going on but they didn't seem quite as concerned about it as they should've been. But in this one, Sayid (and to a lesser extent, Locke) asked a lot of questions of Captain Eyepatch, who turns out to be a Russian guy, posing as a Project Dharma guy, when in fact he's just another Other. We do learn, I think, that the Others (or "hostiles" as the Dharma folks call them) aren't with Project Dharma, and that they inhabited the island before the Dharma people got there. Which I thought was interesting.
  
  One complaint: I understand why Locke could've gotten wrapped up with the chess game, but I don't see him as quite that stupid as to leave Mikhail unattended. I could see him wanting to play the chess game, but I'd expect him to move Mikhail to a more observable place before sitting down. But when he was debating the game, I thought of Dreamcatchers, a pretty awful movie, but with one great scene. Jason Lee is sitting on top of a toilet to keep the lid closed, since some evil alien monster was trying to kill him. After trying to force the lid open for a while, the alien goes silent for a few minutes. Lee's character, who plays with toothpicks in his mouth when he's nervous, reaches for his pocket to get one, only to find that he spilled them on the floor. He tries reaching for them without getting off the toilet, but can't quite reach them, and you start to see the debate on his face. "It's been quite for a while now, I can just get up for a second to grab a toothpick and get right back on." Of course, the audience knows the second he gets up, he's going to get killed. It's a great scene in an otherwise bad movie. That's quite a tangent... but my point is that Jason Lee's character in that movie wasn't so bright, but Locke's been generally pretty smart in the series so far, so it didn't really fit.
  
  Also, Sayid was seriously Monk-ish with his attention to detail in the Flame area. And I hadn't noticed how much Mrs. Clue looked like the leader of the Bloodhound Gang (from 3-2-1 Contact, not the musicians).



• South Park: As usual, a timely episode. And the overall message that people who don't belong to groups that have words that are truly offensive can't understand what it's like? I like that. Also, I thought during the ass kissing scene, that Jesse Jackson would fart in Randy's face, just cause it's South Park and they like to do that kinda thing.



• Sarah Silverman Program: Finally, the episode with Hiro! I wonder if this was the pilot, cause they showed Laura's cop boyfriend, but he didn't act like he knew Sarah at all. And the sequence with Sarah fleeing from the convenience store was great.

On the Tivo: Jericho.

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TV Catch-up

Catching up on Thursday, highlight for spoilers:

• Scrubs: A clip show? Yikes. The Turk-ey bacon joke was hilarious, but otherwise a not very memorable episode at all. I guess a lot of people dug the music, but I could've gone for some fresh material.


• 30 Rock: Another hilarious episode. I'm glad Jason Sudeikis showed back up, even though it was so briefly. He's not my favorite SNL cast member or anything, but I think his brief performances on this show are great. L.L. Cool J was excellent too. Best moments:
  
  
  • Dewey Cheatham and Livingston? Hilarious.
  
  
  • "I'm riding on a subway full of scary, teenage people."
  
  
  • "When you get rich off this stuff, take care of my family. I don't want my kids to have to go to college."
  
  
  • I love a random MC Scat Cat reference, and namedropping Ron Mexico was great too.
  
  
  • "He's got blood on his tote. You're making a mockery of the Source Awards! Wait til I tell Tupac about this!"


• Sarah Silverman Show: The Tab storyline is seriously one of the best B-stories in sitcom history. Seriously, every time Brian Posehn went on a rant about freeing himself from his self-inflicted prison of Tab-lessness, I was dying. The lesbian story was pretty lame, although it had two good moments... the song actually wasn't terrible, just cause the "it doesn't matter if you're gay or straight or black or white or asian, but just those five" line... and the bit at the end where she goes chasing the cop down in the rain. I guess there's only one more episode left this season, but it's already been renewed, which is good news.

On the Tivo: Nothing

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TV Catch-up

Only one show to catch up on, highlight for spoilers:

The Sarah Silverman Program: The AIDS episode was a little off, but this was right back on track. I liked the beauty pageant storyline, mostly for how seamlessly Sarah took on the role of a pageant mother. And of course, given my love for immature humor, the "bomb" storyline worked for me. But once again, with the musical numbers... maybe they can't write enough to fill a while season of episodes without the musical filler, but really I get bored every time they go to it. At least it wasn't too long this time.

On the Tivo: Nothing.

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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.

On the Tivo: A billion TCM movies, that's about it.

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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:


1. - I think feeding Listerine to a turtle might kill it. Do not try this at home.


2. - What was up with that jar of sangria? That thing looked disgusting.


3. - "Since nowadays wrestling is planned in advance...." Great line.


4. - Black Ladies of Wrestling = BLoW. Excellent.


5. - 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.

Parked on the Tivo: Some TCM stuff, but nothing first run.

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