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A new Fall television season is underway, and a full slate of my own humble opinions are up on the site. I'll work at keeping the site updated -- last year I attempted to review EVERY. SINGLE. EPISODE. and that failed. Now I'll focus on news, noteworthy episodes and events, ad whatever fun stuff I think up.
Enjoy!
Yet another case of the actors trying too hard.
The premise is fine. Eight people whose only connection is that they were in the third grade together reconnect and hilarity results. The pilot was funny, but the freshman overacting of the cast continued through the second show. They have to settle in soon, or people will flip channels.
The show won its place on TV due to the pedigree of the creators (some of the folks behind monster-hit Friends) so I hope it will improve. I think the pre-planned dynamics -- these two will fall for each other, this one will have an affair with this one, etc. -- are a bit contrived, and I'd like to see more cross-pollination of the storylines.
We'll keep watching. FOR NOW.
The Race is up there with Survivor on our all-time favourite shows. I go into serious withdrawal when it's not on, enough so that I actually watched a few episodes of Treasure Hunters before running screaming from the room.
Really, it's awesome. We love it so much that every episode is an analysis of 'What We Would Do'. Which one of us would do the Roadblock, which Detour we would take...we cheer on favourites, Lisa screams at the assholes and we roll our eyes at everyone who prays that God will leap them to win the leg. Frankly, we were happy to see the Muslim team this year say, "We will win if Allah wills it" which is awesome. Too bad they lost out first episode.
It's one of the very few reality shows that both of us would leap at the chance to be on it.
People we hate this season: None so far. Rob & Kimberly suck and there is zero chance of their marriage surviving the show. David & Mary are showing to be a lot more open and accpeting than the stereotype the show painted them as, but they do grate. I think Tyler & James, the models/recovering addicts will win. That would be cool, especially if it helps other people get over addiction.
You've been watching the web mini-episodes right? If not, go watch them now.
If you're not in the States, you likely can't view them (stupid Sci-Fi Channel). Thankfully, they're all over YouTube and can be download from various websites.
Again, I'm not sure I get the rationale for adding a new cast member. The dropping of Goodman for Camille was done, apparently, because "the director of the Jeffersonian would not spend so much time in the Forensic Division". It gives more tension, since Camille doesn't let the Squints get away with murder any more.
But again, contrived. Unneccessary. I like to see my mad geniuses throwing dead chickens into wood chippers. That's part of the fun.
I will admit that it's given some more depth to Booth, which rocks.
Last season sucked. There, I said it.
The plan this year (reportedly) is to get back to basics. An underlying mystery that connects all the main ladies on Wisteria Lane. Good. All the scattered plots bored the pants off me, and the big mystery? Who cared!
A big draw is the cool evilness of Kyle MacLachlan. He's groovy. And if Lisa watches enough of him here, I might be able to get her to watch reruns of Twin Peaks.
One of the rules of a comedy show is that you can only have one stable relationship between primary characters at any time. Like how before Chandler and Monica could get together permanently, Ross and Rachel had to break up.
So with Ted and Robin now together, Lily and Marshall are broken up. I don't like it. Beyond the fact that I can't believe anyone could ever say no to Willow, their relationship was a cornerstone of the show. It's another case of shaking things up for the sake of shaking things up.
I predict they will be apart until Spring Sweeps, when Ted and Robin break up.
Bah.
We watched the premiere of this apocalyptic small town show and episode two is sitting on the PVR. I liked it well enough, but I think its premise may be its downfall.
It's too real.
Small town is cut off by nuclear attacks. They have to deal with rationing, power loss, no information, panic, mobs, fallout...all the grim stuff that we know would happen in the real world. But I'm not interested in the real world. If I were, why would I be watching television?
There has to be something else brewing in there, otherwise the show will turn into week after week of rationing and boiling water. Exciting.
The premiere is next week. Lisa remarked to me when we saw that the PVR had taped the 'previously on' show Wednesday that she hasn't even thought about Lost since the finale last Spring.
I'm nearly the same, although I lightly followed the Lost Experience and it's bizarre results which may or may not actually have anything to do with the truth of the show.
Despite the success of the last two seasons, the producers are throwing even more cast members at us. How about resolving something -- anything -- with the current people before adding more? Just a thought.
The producers of My Name Is Earl have announced that not every episode of the series this year will focus on Earl crossing an item off his infamous karma list. Instead they will have some wacky side-adventures with the other cast members.
The pilot gives us a taste of this, with a storyline focusing on Joy and the aftereffects of getting a giant television that can be hidden in its entertainment center.
I wasn't thrilled. Joy is funny and all, but two much Joy is a bad thing. The heart of the story is Earl's list and with some 200+ items remaining on it, there's another eight seasons of material waiting to be mined. I guess having one of the highest rated and critically acclaimed comedies on television wasn't good enough for them.
Word is that Tori Spelling is going to appear on Smallville sometime this season as the Daily Planet's gossip columnist. And she'll have POWERS. She can turn into water or something.
Wonder where her Wonder Twin will be...
Apparently there's a new rule in animation. All animated films must feature penguins. Even animated surfing movies.
Smallville is back, and I couldn't be happier. I love way the pieces of the mythology are coming together. I love the addition of Jimmy Olsen to the cast, I love the fact that apparently there is going to be a 'Justice League' episode sometime this season with a bunch of other heroes.
And I love that Michael Rosenbaum got to say, "Kneel before Zod!"
Now there's what looks like up to six escaped Kryptonians or Phantoms from the Zone are roaming free. Lex Luthor has access to some rocking Kryptonian technology, Lionel seems to be taking advantage of the remnants of Kryptonian knowledge in his brain (for nefarious ends no doubt). Cloe is moving on and Clark is unsure if he likes it or not.
Yay!
It's a completely different season. The crooks are all out in the open, they are racing fo DB Cooper's five million. Not everything can be answered by the tattoos on Scofield's body, and good thing too; the federal marshal knows nearly everything and can figure out the rest.
It's a different feel to the show, out of the confines of the prison and it's a hard thing for the TV folks to make it consistent with what's come before...
...but I think they are handling it fine. I like the scramble, I like the chase. I like the fact that Scofield has someone with a bit of intelligence working against him and the weaknesses are all on his side. I like that the whole conspiracy is not being dealt with much -- it felt a little over the top last season anyway.
Good show! More!
James Woods = Television goodness.
Everyone likes to see lawyer getting yelled at. It's a good time. But the secondary characters are all one-dimensional cardboard standups. The misfit, the rich kid, the irritable Hispanic, the suckup. It's all cookie cutter, and there is only so long that even James Woods can carry the show by himself.
Predictable line of the night: Why did the daughter choose to stay with her Dad instead of her Mom? "You need me." I called it ten minutes before it was uttered.
Another case of the TV people wanting us to sympathize with unsympathetic characters. At least this time they are deliberately unsympathetic.
We watched it because I love a good heist story. But I wonder how much of that the rest of the show will involve. For me, the fun is in watching them plan, gather associates, execute the plan, deal with emergencies and walk away with the goods. This looks like it will be all the 'what next'.
We liked it enough to watch another episode. I think it's waiting on the PVR right now...
We watched Sports Night in its original run. We like behind-the-scenes stories, the characters were smart and funny and just a little damaged, and the writing was tight and spot on. We were very sad when it was cancelled. We weren't really into the milieu though. We like sports, but sport reporting leaves us cold. The show was so good, we liked it despite that.
We watched the Sorkin years of The West Wing. Again, not because of any particular interest in American politics, but because it made us laugh and cringe and kept us on the edge of our seats. Something was gone when Aaron Sorkin left, and we stopped watching very soon afterwards.
And now he's back with a show about something we do love very much. Comedy.
Bradley Witford is always awesome and Matthew Perry was (in my opinion) the most under-valued performer on Friends. His guest stint on The West Wing rocked and obviously earned him a spot in the Sorkin Stable of Actors.
Oh, and Evan Handler? Doesn't matter what role you play. You will always be Shrug to us.
Ah, the grand experiment.
Not 'What will happen if we divide the tribes up by racial lines?' It's more 'How much free publicity can we generate for the 13th season of this show?'
It worked. Every racial activist group was on standby, waiting to burn down Mark Burnett's house should their members be shown as less than perfect. Mainstream and Internet media alike were all abuzz.
And apparently the tribes are merging tonight. So much for racial splits.
I'm three for four in my picks so far this year. I missed picking Sekou to go home, but I was right about Billy. And I was right about Jonathan and Yul spending time in Exile. So here's your picks for this week, an Exile and Boot from each tribe:
Exile: Yul, Ozzy, Adam, Nate
Boot: Jenny, Cristina, Jessica, Nate
We liked The Unit a lot last year. I remarked to Lisa that it was probably the most right-wing, pro-US government show we watched.
When it popped up in our PVR list of recorded shows, we were like, "Oh yeah, that one."
If we barely thought about it during the off-season, we figure we don't really need to watch it now. If it continues to do well, we'll catch the DVDs. it's not like it's a watercooler show anyway.
We watched the first two episodes of Vanished. Aaaand then we were done.
It's a failing of new television shows that are about conspiracies or secrets or mysteries. They all want to be Lost but they just can't be. The first episode had more subplots and dangling threads than characters, and this is an ensemble show.
TV creator folks, it is vital to make us actually care about the characters before you bury them in plots. You've got an unsympathetic husband with two annoying kids and a FBI team with more baggage than Paris Hilton. Seriously, we watched the show and felt that she probably ran away because they all annoyed the crap out of her.
I really hope the movie isn't as bad as this trailer makes it out to be.
I don't care if Pan's Labyrinth is in Spanish with subtitles. It looks cool.