Tag: Teevee

A few teevee notes:

:: Granted, I can’t watch any of the supposedly great shows that are on cable channels, but for my broadcast-only network money, Castle is the best damn thing on teevee right now. It just is. Last night’s episode returned us to the ongoing “Becket’s mother’s murder” storyline, and the ball got advanced a bit; the case isn’t solved, but the writers are able to make it feel like a solution is actually getting closer each time they return to this particular arc, which is really refreshing. (Unlike, say, the “Red John” storyline on The Mentalist, which has had twice the episodes devoted to it and feels as far from a resolution as when the show started.)

:: Bones got moved to 9:00 on Thursdays, so that FOX can put on its latest abomination of a game show, Million Dollar Drop. This means that I can at long last watch The Big Bang Theory when it actually airs. What a great show this is! Last week’s episode sent the group on a car ride to a hotel stay at some conference or other, which is a standard thing for ensemble sitcoms to do: put everyone together in one place and bounce ’em off one another. Every sitcom does this, but the really good sitcoms turn those episodes into greatness because their characters are so good. (The show needs more Bernadette, though.)

:: The Bones move means we don’t watch The Office on the night it airs anymore. And I don’t feel terribly deprived by this. That show is long past its prime, and is only limping along now on reputation.

:: Well, I was excited about Survivor coming back in a couple of weeks. They’re doing a new twist this time out called “Redemption Island”. What happens is that when you get voted off, instead of being out of the game, you’re sent to a place called, you guessed it, “Redemption Island”. There you stay until after the next Tribal Council, when you square off in some contest against the person just voted off. If you win, you remain on Redemption Island until yet another Tribal Council; if you lose, then you’re out of the game. Ultimately this cycle stops, and the last person standing at Redemption Island returns to the game with the other Survivors. So now, voting someone off is no guarantee, and could conceivably come back to bite you.

I rather like this twist…but then CBS had to ruin it with another twist. This one is so vile that now, I have no plans to watch the show at all. The twist?

Boston Rob and Russell are coming back.

For those who aren’t keeping track at home, here are the standings for these two. This will be Boston Rob’s fourth attempt at Survivor, and Russell’s third. Neither has ever won the show, putting them at a combined 0-5. And that’s not all! Rob has also been on The Amazing Race twice, so in CBS’s million-dollar-payout reality game shows, he combines with Russell to be 0-7. And yet, CBS has decided that we need to see these two idiots one more damn time.

I’ve no idea what the fascination CBS has with Rob is all about, or why they just don’t give him a million dollars if it gives them a sad that big that he’s never won. Ditto Russell, a pouty little jerk-off who for all his braggadocio about how good he is at “playing the game” doesn’t know how to play the game. So CBS has taken an interesting premise for a new season of Survivor and turned it into crap. Thanks for that, guys. Rob and Russell have had more than a half-dozen cracks at the million between them. That’s enough.

:: I was actually pleasantly surprised by the new judges on American Idol. It’s hard to judge their effectiveness, obviously, when they’re in the audition stage, but Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez really seem to be engaged and know what they’re talking about, which was simply not the case the last few years. Especially not in last year’s painfully horrible season, during which Ellen DeGeneres looked like she had no idea what she was doing, Kara DioGuardi was looking like she was trying to sound intelligent but was failing miserably, and Simon Cowell was oozing “I really don’t give a f*** anymore” from every pore (which might explain the tongue-bathing they gave the otherwise shitty Lee DeWyze on a weekly basis). But then, I never bought into the whole “Simon is the glue that holds Idol together” meme to begin with.

:: The new Hawaii Five-0 is slowly winning me over. I’m not sold on the new McGarrett, but I do like Danno and the other cast as well. Production-wise, the show is still way too indebted to CSI: Miami, but I do think the show is competently done.

:: I’ve developed something of a grudging respect for The Family Guy, but I don’t think I’ll ever be a Seth McFarlane fan. American Dad and The Cleveland Show are two of the most appallingly bad shows I have ever seen. They are terrible, unfunny, stupid pieces of trash. Ugh!

I think that’s all.

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Some thoughts on teevee shows:

:: It’s taken me a while to finally get hold of the show — it seems to have been eternally scheduled against something I watch on another channel — but I am now a certified huge fan of The Big Bang Theory. I love this show. It walks a pretty fine line, occasionally tempting us to laugh at its socially awkward characters, but for the most part, Big Bang Theory genuinely likes its leads and treats them with respect. Even Sheldon Cooper.

:: I have to admit that I’m enjoying Mike & Molly. The first few episodes really put the pedal to the medal on the fat jokes, but it seems as if the writers have dialed that back a bit and instead focused on the burgeoning relationship between two likeable characters and the big bunch of quirky folks surrounding them. When done well, this is a pretty good formula for sitcom success. I do wish that the writers would push the humor a bit more toward edginess. I like that the show’s tone is generally warm, but a little bite now and then would be welcome. (And as SamuraiFrog points out, Melissa McCarthy is really a beautiful woman.)

:: This season of Hell’s Kitchen was really disappointing. It just seemed totally lackluster, the whole way through. I know that they purposely choose lunatic contestants to make the show more fun, but they went way too far this time, and the whole feeling, almost all the way to the end, was that the show would be won by attrition more than by skill. That’s pretty much what happened. Nona really did do well in the last few episodes, but even she was there, getting kicked out along the way. Russell turned out to be an angry, arrogant jerk, rather like Benjamin from the previous season but with the anger turned way up. I hope the next season is better, though. This year tried for entertaining craziness, but it ended up just seeming to plod along.

:: The Amazing Race was solid. Not great, but never bad. Just solid. Two all-female teams went into the finale (three teams make the finale each season), and one of those teams won it. It wasn’t the team I was rooting for, but this was one of those seasons when I didn’t dislike any of the teams that were racing for the million dollar prize at the end. As usual, it was just fun watching the various challenges and all of the locations. I was glad to see that the producers put more of a clamp down on things like paying locals to drive you to where you need to go; a few seasons ago, there was a team I hated — two blondes named Dustin and Kandace — who would land in some country, bat their eyes at some local guy, and get driven right where they needed to be. The next season apparently brings back teams that were popular in their first Races but who weren’t winners. I see that Margie and Luke — the mother and her deaf son — who were faves of mine a few seasons back are along for the ride. Bring it on!

:: Survivor wasn’t as much fun as a few previous seasons, but it ended up pretty good toward the end. Since the finale aired just last night, I’ll white this part of my comment out, if any of you are planning to watch it on DVR.

Once again I was stunned, during the finale, to see contestants saying that the way one contestant reached the final — by staying under the radar, never letting himself under the axe, and winning challenges at strategic points — isn’t a strategy. During the last “argument session” in front of the jury, there were two guys, Chase and Sash, who had done the “weasel and lie and conspire with alliances” method of reaching the finale, while the other guy, a kid everyone dubbed “Fabio” in the first episode, did the “play nice” thing. And at one point, Chase and Sash both argued that their way of playing Survivor is the real way to play Survivor. This is, of course, total nonsense (as I argued here). Getting to the finale and being able to say “I didn’t screw any of you, but these guys did!” is huge, and enough people have won it by now playing precisely this way to prove the point. Because Fabio won, and one of the two guys, Sash, didn’t even get a single vote in the finale.

OK, that’s all for Survivor. (Oh wait, it’s not. Two contestants actually quit the game in the same episode toward the end. They got ridiculed for being quitters, but they were still allowed to sit on the jury and vote for the winners! That’s absurd. If you quit, you should be out. All the way. The producers should bring back the contestant or two voted out right before jury selection began, and put them on the jury. (And as I’m writing this during the live reunion show, Jeff Probst has just announced that they’ve changed the rules for the future for just this reason.)

:: I’m really enjoying House this year. The writers are doing a great job with the relationship between House and Cuddy; they’re not making it easy on them and keeping the characters consistent. The show is still very well done, week-in and week out.

:: CSI: Miami is glorious, glorious trash. It’s just so goofy. I can’t hate a show that ends an episode like this.

:: Castle still rules. It just does. It’s simply the most competent show on teevee right now. And only Castle can end an episode like this!

:: Let’s see, what else? The Office is becoming a testament to “Meh”. It’s just lifeless and dull. None of the antics make sense anymore. The show is still funny on occasion, but a lot of the time it’s just painful. Undercover Boss is entertaining. We still like The Mentalist, although the Red John thing is really starting to wear out its welcome.

OK, that’s about it. More teevee notes to come as shows return to new episodes!

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I’ve gotta say, the current seasons of both Survivor and Hell’s Kitchen aren’t really doing it for me. Neither show is presenting any kind of favorite, any kind of contestant whom I want to see win. I’m almost thinking, maybe both shows should forego a winner this year and give next season’s winner two grand prizes.

I’ve missed some of Survivor this go-round, owing to its new Wednesday timeslot, but wow, what a bunch of doofuses. These are people who left their camp in last night’s episode to go to a challenge, and who decided to build a barrier for their big campfire, between the fire and their lean-to shelter, out of their wooden storage chests. Which caught fire, destroying all of their food stores and their shelter. Nobody deserves to win after that.

As for Hell’s Kitchen, well — Sabrina’s gone, because she was just too juvenile to make it to the end. Gail and Russell seem to both do well in challenges, and then crash and burn in the services. Nona and Jillian are just kind of there. And Trev? Here’s a guy who thought that cooking frog’s legs was thinking “outside the box”. For a dish he was preparing for, among others, a French judge.

It’s still fun to watch the shows, I guess, but without anyone to root for, it’s just watching something dull unfold. I hope the next seasons are better.

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This is one of the best David Caruso moments ever.

No reason, I just love this moment.

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So. Glee.

A well-done high-school show is a great thing. So is a well-done musical. Glee‘s popularity seems to imply that it is both of those things. So why is it that whenever I watch it, I’m astonished by the degree to which it is not?

Glee is awful. I hate it. Hate hate hate it. It is so, so, so bad. Here’s a partial list of things I would rather do than watch Glee:

Watch Phyllis Diller torture puppies
Eat broccoli
Sit through The Usual Suspects again
Attend an all-Hindemith concert music program
Work my way through the entire discography of Ace of Base
Venture out in public with no shirt on beneath my overalls
Get hit with a pecan pie
Peel 50 lbs of potatoes
Vote Republican
Discuss the Star Wars Prequel trilogy with anybody at Ain’t It Cool News
Eat medium-rare chicken
Visit the Creation Museum
Drink a glass of vegetable oil

Yeah, you get the idea.

(Light blogging for another few days, by the way. I’m trying to clear the decks on several things at home and get up some momentum on a few others.)

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