3-Sentence Reviews: TV Premieres, Part 2

Continuing from last week's installment...

Curb Your Enthusiasm: At the start of a TV season that seems determined to wreak as many changes in characters as the stretching bounds of realism will accept, Curb hit its stride by not changing a thing. Larry is still as cantankerous as ever, and the show's formula of "three or four plot elements converge to screw over Larry" hasn't gone anywhere at all. But that's what made the show funny for six seasons, and that's what should keep it funny for a seventh.

House: This was undoubtedly the weirdest episode of House ever, including the ones that were hallucinations or entirely in House's head. It definitely had its ups and downs, and I'm hesitant to pronounce it "good" or "bad" before I see it in context in the rest of the season. If it means the end of Dead Amber, though, there's at least one definite plus.

The Big Bang Theory: Very weak episode, because it strayed too much from what we've come to expect from these characters--sitcoms aren't supposed to be too much about character development. Sheldon needs to be laughably socially inept, not making statements about religion; Raj and Howard need to making wisecracks about Sheldon, not bringing out actual feelings in him; Leonard and Penny certainly do not need to be in bed together. And I really, really hate Kripke--slapping a speech impediment on a character does not make him funny.

Criminal Minds and CSI: New York: Basically the same episode in both shows, and both were reliably solid. Actually, these are pretty much the same show, with a different flavor of forensics in each. And as long as they stay reliably procedural-y, I'll keep watching both.

The Mentalist: I hope the decision to have Jane and Co. move away from all this Red John business is an admission from the producers that serialized plots don't really fit into a show as light-hearted as this one, instead of the shift to just another serialized element that Agent Bosco could easily become. All the drama about Jane leaving the team in the first half of the episode was completely unnecessary, but the second half picked up nicely with the stakeout scene. Also, is it just me, or is Amanda Righetti ridiculously pretty?

Special note to CBS regarding the above shows: get into the modern era and start putting full episodes online. All your competition does it, and even you do it with a handful of shows. The more reluctant you are to let me watch your programming for free, the more encouraged I am to download some dude's bootleg of it. Controlled distribution on the internet, or a free-for-all in Torrent-land. Your pick.


Currently listening: "My Mirror Speaks", Death Cab for Cutie

Non-Lost Season Finales

Believe it or not, I do actually watch a little television that's not Lost. With the spring television season having just ended, there's plenty of finales to talk about.

24 is still my second-favorite show on television, and more than anything, this season has been about bouncing back from the abysmal season 6. Really, any season that focuses more on Audrey freaking Raines than on Jack Bauer is doomed to fail from the start. Heck, season 7 even kicked off with a movie called "Redemption", which was always a title as much about the show itself as it was about Jack Bauer.

The first half of season 7 did in fact look like it was going to redeem the show from the sixth season. Of course, we knew that the shady Sangalans weren't going to be the endgame... but I think the season might have been improved a bit by making Jonas Hodges the endgame. Jon Voight played the role of the evil, slightly cracked-up mastermind better than most in the show's history.

Instead, we got a jumbled "shadow organization" of private military people, a la Quantum of Solace, which reduced the impact of what happened in the last few episodes. Still, the resolution of "good Tony/evil Tony" made some sense, once we realized he's just crazy and and willing to play both sides to get some revenge.

I liked the finale for the most part, with Renee Walker turning ever more Jack Bauer-ish, and Jack finally boosting the Bauer Count, including a quality scalpel kill. Very nice! At this point, it's obvious that Jack Bauer isn't really going to die, particularly since he has a contract through the next season at least. Is it too much to ask for Kim to be killed/incapacitated in the process of saving him so that she won't be on the show anymore? Probably.

And oh, was it good to see Olivia Taylor get what was coming to her.


House kind of got on my nerves toward the end of that last season, to tell the truth. I did not like Amber when she was a fellowship applicant. I did not like Amber when she was Wilson's girlfriend. And I especially did not like her when she wasn't even real, but inside House's head. Am I in the strong minority here? Does everyone else in the House fan base love her?

Either way, I hope that season 6 gets out of House's subconscious. This show is and has always been about House and his eccentricities. We're perfectly willing to accept a Vicodin addiction if it means more quips and insults. I realize that the show needs some directional mobility, that it needs overarching plots and stories to keep each episode from being a curious one-off. In the past, though, this has always been much more successful when it involved an application of House's character, not an alteration of it.

Nevertheless, there were plenty of good episodes this season, particularly once you disregarded Amber. It was nice to see more Chase and Cameron, and I can't help but wonder how the "star billing" is going to look on this show next year--if I were Olivia Wilde, I'd find it a little odd that I got more screen time yet less credit than some other other actors.


Thank you, The Office, a million times, for "snapping out of it" and returning to the usual frivolities of Dunder Mifflin. "Cafe Disco" and "Company Picnic" were exactly the right way to end the season: thematic episodes that showcase the excellent characters and situations (this is a sit-com, after all), rather than trying to tie it into "real life" somehow. Even the "Michael Scott Paper Company" arc eventually avoided the unwelcome emotional seriousness that plagued the first two thirds of the season.


Even though on some level, all the CSI's and Criminal Minds are basically the same show, I enjoy them all (except CSI Miami, which I never really got into). Finales were largely good, with the device of "mysterious shooting with two seconds left in the episode" overused and not particularly impactful... but I'm sure everything will sort itself out over the next seasons of each show.


Currently listening: Abraxas, Santana

What's Good on TV This Fall?

By now we're a few weeks into the season, and it's time to give a few opinions.

House is nominally my favorite show on television, at least during non-Lost season. Anymore, I'm going to have to amend that to "the first three seasons of House" forming my favorite show on television. Okay, it's not really fair to judge a show by its 2007-2008 season, what with the strike and all. I wasn't too crazy about the new band of House's cronies (except in that I think Olivia Wilde is pretty). It's probably more a case of new-different-bad than anything, but if the old trio was working, why bring in a new one? Sure, we still see Chase and Cameron on the show, but not nearly enough of them (and Cameron is looking worse and worse as a blonde).

Compared to what's going on in House this season, though, that's the least of our concerns. So Wilson doesn't want to work at the hospital anymore, ever since Cutthroat Bitch died. Whine, whine, whine. Now House is all emo because his best/only friend is gone. Whine some more. No clinic hours. No blatant flirting between House and Cuddy. Private investigator dude is all right, but the storyline doesn't have the legs to become a permanent part of the show. We've had some good House lines--"Send Foreman. Old people are scared of black people." But instead of the wit that we're used to, we have a a bunch of unnecessary drama.

Oh, and I have lots of trouble watching the show. Fox, crafty bastards that they are, have apparently found a way to prevent my DVR from recording the show. Oh well. Just watch it on the internet, right? Sure... eight days later. It's as if Fox doesn't want me watching this show after all.

The Office hasn't disappointed so far. Making Ryan the new receptionist was a master stroke. "How," we wondered, "can this main character remain part of the show despite his firing and arrest?" And perhaps some of the show's more astute or diehard fans wondered "who will be the new receptionist at Dunder Mifflin?" Two birds with one stone, and excellently done.

I like Holly so far. Definitely an interesting dimension in the Michael love polygon... although you know Jan won't be gone for long, and Michael's going to have some explaining to do regarding his maybe-child. I wonder how this season can survive without seeing Pam around--an occasional phone call per episode to who used to be a major character is too drastic a change. And how will the dynamics of the show change once Jim and Pam are married?

The tension and complications of that relationship have been one of the driving forces for the past four seasons of the show. From day one of me seeing the show, I thought the show had to end with two things happening concurrently: the Scranton branch finally closing due to Michael's mismanagement, and Jim and Pam finally getting married. It's obvious by now that's not going to happen. That's okay, as long as there's some equal motivation introduced pretty quickly. And that motivation better not be Jim and Pam not getting married after all, because those two deserve a happy ending.

I've liked what I've seen of The Big Bang Theory, but that hasn't been much. My computer TV tuner seems to know whenever I'm trying to record the show, and conspiratorially restart my computer. CBS.com exacerbates the situation by refusing to post any full episodes of the show. No idea why.

For my trashy reality TV fix, both Survivor and The Amazing Race are doing just fine. And the good part of those shows is that you don't really feel bad if you miss an episode. It's fun assigning a douchebag score to each of the contestants on these shows (similar to the same process one can go through with certain professors). Everybody plays to their stereotypes perfectly, which wouldn't be a valid source of humor except in the situation where they want to "show the world who they really are" and "break a few misconceptions". Right.

Criminal Minds and both the New York and Las Vegas editions of CSI are good, unfortunately having been relegated mostly to background as lab reports are written, or something equally miserable. I do want to pick an ideological bone with Criminal Minds, however, in their depiction of "libertarians". About the only accurate thing said about libertarians in the entire episode is that libertarians believe individuals should be free to do as they please as long as they don't interfere with anyone else's rights. That does not make them crazy cultists.

Finally, how long before I no longer have to alter my entire television-watching plans to watch politicians yell at each other for a while? This is not influencing how I'm planning on voting.


Currently listening: "The Island" from The Crane Wife, the Decemberists