Scheduling conflicts kept me from watching much on Wednesday night, but it did allow me to come up with an acceptable way to watch the American Idol audition shows...I can wait until it goes off at 10, then and follow along with Dan Feinberg's live blog, fast forwarding past the parts I don't care about. Doing that, I was able to watch the whole 2 hour show in about 20 minutes.
Have I mentioned lately how much I hate the audition episodes? Last night's episode didn't record because of too many conflicts (as you are about to see), and I certainly don't feel like I missed anything. I am out until at least Hollywood week...then we'll see if there's anybody that actually grabs my attention.
So, anyway, I had the house and TV to myself last night and ended up basically overdosing on comedies...Modern Family, Happy Endings, Parks and Rec, 30 Rock, Raising Hope, Big Bang Theory, and Archer. On one hand, that made for a VERY enjoyable three hours...on the other hand, watching them all in a block like that kind of causes it all to run together, to the point where I'm struggling to remember specifics about any of them. So let's knock them out...and for the sake of my addled brain, we'll do it in the order that I watched. Maybe that will help...
Modern Family - The "Claire is unlikeable" storyline was by far the best part of this episode, both because of the meta commentary (since Julie Bowen often gets the same type of criticism), and also because it led to the two best scenes of the episode...the mock debate where Phil and the kids "buzz" her every time she pulls one of her "unlikeable" tics or shows the "bad side" of her face (which Phil and Haley disagreed on which side that was), and then the ACTUAL debate, which was best encapsulated by the viral video that resulted from it.
But if those two scenes were Modern Family at its best (which they were), the other two were the show at, if not its worst, at least its laziest. Absolutely nothing stood out to me in either of those storylines, except how telegraphed and unfunny the jokes were.
In other words, a typical Modern Family episode for me...parts that had me pausing and rewinding so that I could catch my breath (usually involving Phil and the kids), and parts that had me having to fight the temptation to fast forward.
Happy Endings - This is one that especially suffers when I gorge like this...I vividly remember laughing at this one at least as much, if not more, as I did at my other favorites (Parks and Rec and Archer). But because the plots are so thin, usually just acting as joke delivery systems, that I sometimes have a hard time recalling all the jokes the next day. But I know that Elisha Cuthbert continues to impress (in more ways than one, right? HEY NOW!!). I don't know if it's her or the writers, but they have really nailed her character (stop it), settling on a variation of a "dumb blond" without it being too cliched. "I think my baker is ripping me off" and "Four V's? That's almost FIVE!" both had me cracking up.
And, of course, the Black Wee Man...hilarious.
Parks and Recreation - First of all, I was completely unspoiled on the appearance of Paul Rudd, and I loved his character...Bobby Newport (said in the most over the top "scary" voice you can think of).
Chris Pratt continues to bring it every week. He had three moments of physical comedy in this episode that I am cracking up right now just thinking about....the initial "sneezing his head into the wall" incident that set the whole story line up, him hitting himself in the eye with a tennis ball in the background of April's talking head, and of course, him running full speed into a parked ambulance. "Call an ambulance! A different ambulance from this one that I just ran into!"
The Andy-April storyline was definitely my favorite this week ("Brain helmet", "You DROVE us here!", "Some of that is just being a human"), but the other two were typical goodness as well. The Chris/Ron plot may have been the weakest, but it still gave us the scene where Chris is laughing at Ron's refusal of his lunch offer, immediately cutting to him laughing at the diner and Ron's confusion as to how exactly that happened. "Did he drug me?"
Best comedy on television. And yeah, I'll probably be saying that every week for a while.
30 Rock - Admittedly, I kind of zoned out on this one (hey, I do have other stuff to do, believe it or not!). But two things stood out....A) the fact that this show may be the only one on TV (besides maybe South Park) that would take a controversy like Tracy Morgan's anti-gay comments and not only ADDRESS it, but actually mimic it on the show; and B) the Idiot protest, including the Frat Boys, Parrot Heads, Anti-vaccine Activists, Guy Who Won't Shut Up About Scuba Diving, and of course...celebrity spokesperson Denise Richards. ("Yeah, I'm an idiot...surprised?" "Ehh").
Raising Hope - Not much to say about this one, either, except that this show continues to be Greg Garcia at his best. I loved the early seasons of My Name is Earl, and that one eventually ran out of steam. I expect that to happen with Raising Hope, too, but for now it is consistently funny. And this week, I laughed out loud several times, especially EVERY time Garrett Dillahunt had to crash through his red Solo cup fort in order to look up something else on the internet for Jimmy. ("Why does one word have two definitions?? JUST MAKE MORE WORDS!!!).
Big Bang Theory - Meh. It is what it is, much like any other Chuck Lorre show. I laughed a couple of times, I cringed several times (all of the scenes where Howard and Raj cracked up at the word "wood"), and I continue to think that I might rather watch a show in which the female characters were the leads and the guys were ancillary. The show is sort of close to that now at times already...and I think Amy and Bernadette steal the show many weeks the same way Sheldon did early on.
As for me, I am 100% Team Bernadette. Just the right mix of good looks and insanity.
Archer - What a fantastic return episode that was, even if it was not one of my all time favorite episodes of the show. It was just great to fall back into the tremendous comic rhythms that this show has that I don't think any other show on TV can match.
The show didn't have enough Pam and Cheryl for it to be one of the top ones for me, but pretty much everything to do with mega guest star Burt Reynolds was gold. Woodhouse constantly confusing him for Clark Gable...the amazing chase scene (including the meta commentary on the same footage being used for two separate crashes and the shoutout to stuntman extraordinaire Hal Needham (more on that in a minute))... and, especially the scene with Archer and Burt riding the elevator discussing Archer's battles with the co-op board over installing a Batpole in the garbage chute. That scene was some Tarantino level stuff.
The parts that DID include Pam and Cheryl, of course, included most of the stuff that I can't print here and keep it family friendly...but that's what I love about the show: the fact that when it wants to get raunchy it can push the envelope as much as anybody, but it's not content just being that show. It's also smart enough that there are usually 2-3 jokes every week that require me to hit up Google in order to fully appreciate them (like the Hal Needham reference).
So this show certainly isn't for all of you...if you are easily offended, STAY AWAY. But I'm certainly glad to have it back.
WHAT TO WATCH TONIGHT
Chuck is winding down its final season for sure, and Fringe may be doing the same. I didn't do writeups for Fringe and Chuck last week, although I thoroughly enjoyed both of them. I'll try to get some thoughts up over the weekend if the schedule allows.
Portlandia is another show that I would recommend and will be watching, though I'm not sure what all I'll be writing about it on the blog. It's on IFC at 10, and it is a sketch show from Fred Armisen (from SNL) and Carrie Brownstein. If you are like me and came of age in the 90's, or if you just like Fred Armisen's style of humor, I definitely suggest checking it out.
Showing posts with label Modern Family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Modern Family. Show all posts
Friday, January 20, 2012
Thursday, January 12, 2012
What I'm thinking about today...
Going forward, this place is probably going to be a lot more stream-of-consciousness...if some repeatable patterns start popping up, I may do some more structured posting, but for now it's going to be just the stuff that I am thinking about, or talking my coworkers' ears off about.
- Still can't get over how dominant Alabama was in the national title game Monday night. They were one late penalty away from basically pitching a perfect game...no points allowed, no turnovers, and no penalties. And not against Coastal Carolina, either...this was against the undisputed number one team in the country, who had beaten three top 5 teams already this year, and was basically ripping their way through everybody. Add that to the fact that they really outplayed LSU the first time they played them (they just couldn't hit a field goal), and there is no doubt in my mind who deserves to be the national champion.
Which brings me to a subject that I am likely only to post on once (or at least not more than once a year)...the BCS vs. playoffs debate. I am almost 100% anti-playoff. I feel like that puts me in an increasingly small minority, but I do have my reasons...
First of all, I love that the college football regular season is the most meaningful in all of sports. EVERY week really does matter. People dispute that, because teams lose and still get in almost every year, but I look at it this way...at least with the current setup, if you are serious about playing for a national title you better at least APPROACH every week as if it is a must win, because you never know what game is going to be the one that costs you. When Alabama lost to LSU on November 5, for all they knew their hopes at a national title were over. And they would have been, too, if Oklahoma State, Stanford, Oregon, and Boise State had not all lost games that they should have won. If we go to a playoff, then that sense of urgency is lessened....we can argue about how MUCH it's lessened, but I don't want it lessened at ALL.
Because of that, the only playoff system that I can get behind is one that includes NO MORE than four teams....if you're not in the top 4, there's a reason, and you are not elite. And the playoff system that will most likely be implemented at some point probably will be only four (or even a plus one)...but I've watched the NCAA long enough to know that mission creep is not a possibility...it's an inevitability. One thing the NCAA can't resist is the siren song of cash, and if four teams makes them a gazillion dollars, they are just going to want to make TWO gazillion, so why not go to EIGHT teams, etc..
The other reason I like the BCS is that it is a system that rewards an entire body of work...too often, playoffs and tournaments are won by teams that just got hot at the right time. I like to see excellence rewarded, and I think that almost 100% of the time the two teams that are matched up in the BCS championship are the two teams that most deserve to be there based on their entire body of work. The teams that don't make it are USUALLY not there for a very good reason...either they lost to somebody they shouldn't have, or they didn't beat anybody of note. I don't like the idea of one of those teams sneaking in to the playoffs and then riding a late season hot streak to a championship.
So that's just one man's opinion...we can debate in the comments, but this is a subject that I think gets beat to death in the blogosphere, so I doubt I will post on it too often.
- Good news out of the Georgia Bulldog front yesterday...Orson is leaving (as expected), but virtually the entire defense is returning, as well as our defensive coordinator (after a pretty silly report that he may be flirting with the Falcons). That defense should be an absolute blast to watch next year...let's just hope the offensive line gels, a running back steps up, Aaron Murray continues to develop, etc...next year could be special.
(note: "special" = running through a fairly weak regular season schedule, inching our way in to the Top 5, losing to the Alabama juggernaut in the SECCG, and then winning a Sugar Bowl, setting ourselves up for a similar season in 2013. VERY early predictions there.)
- There are MANY times that I wish I was a TV critic, and seeing reports from the 2 Broke Girls panel at press tour yesterday was certainly one of those times. Jut deliciously awkward and hostile. Excellent writeups are HERE and HERE, from Alan Sepinwall and Todd VanderWerff, respectively. The VanderWerff writeup is particularly interesting, because Todd has been one of the more outspoken defenders of the show online...don't think that's going to be the case anymore.
Todd's opinion of the show has been much like mine: that there is a really good show in there, particularly in the performances of Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs....but that show is being buried under an avalanche of bad puns, racial stereotypes, and raunchiness for raunchiness sake. There is a way to do racial stereotypes and off color humor WELL (see Happy Endings "rotary dial" joke last night for an example of the second thing), but Michael Patrick King is WAY too arrogant and tone deaf to ever be able to pull that off successfully.
It's a shame...I will probably keep watching the show, because I do enjoy the two leads, but I no longer hold out hope that it will turn in to the show that I had hoped it would be.
- The winner of the ABC comedy block last night...Happy Endings. I laughed so much I missed some of the jokes...I'm going to have to start keeping the show on my DVR so that I can go back and rewatch, to get the full experience. They just throw 50 jokes a minute at you...they might not all hit, but there are so many of them that I'm usually laughing nonstop. Favorite part last night? Anything involving the racist, slightly homophobic, parrot that Alex bought on Craigslist from Aryan420. "You trippin, bird..."
Pretty solid outings from Suburgatory and Modern Family, as well....but Happy Endings is the big winner from last night.
- As for tonight...Community may not be back (::sob::), but the rest of the NBC Thursday lineup is, including the return of Parks and Rec (my #3 show of 2011), and 30 Rock.
Also, if you have HBO and have never seen the Paradise Lost documentaries that detail the case of the West Memphis 3, I highly recommend checking your listings for tonight and the next couple days...they are replaying the first two parts and then premiering part 3...if you want to be really furious, and then sad, and then sort of happy but still sad/mad at the same time, you should check it out.
OK! Glad to be back in the blogsosphere...please excuse my rust as I try to get back in the swing of this thing!
- Still can't get over how dominant Alabama was in the national title game Monday night. They were one late penalty away from basically pitching a perfect game...no points allowed, no turnovers, and no penalties. And not against Coastal Carolina, either...this was against the undisputed number one team in the country, who had beaten three top 5 teams already this year, and was basically ripping their way through everybody. Add that to the fact that they really outplayed LSU the first time they played them (they just couldn't hit a field goal), and there is no doubt in my mind who deserves to be the national champion.
Which brings me to a subject that I am likely only to post on once (or at least not more than once a year)...the BCS vs. playoffs debate. I am almost 100% anti-playoff. I feel like that puts me in an increasingly small minority, but I do have my reasons...
First of all, I love that the college football regular season is the most meaningful in all of sports. EVERY week really does matter. People dispute that, because teams lose and still get in almost every year, but I look at it this way...at least with the current setup, if you are serious about playing for a national title you better at least APPROACH every week as if it is a must win, because you never know what game is going to be the one that costs you. When Alabama lost to LSU on November 5, for all they knew their hopes at a national title were over. And they would have been, too, if Oklahoma State, Stanford, Oregon, and Boise State had not all lost games that they should have won. If we go to a playoff, then that sense of urgency is lessened....we can argue about how MUCH it's lessened, but I don't want it lessened at ALL.
Because of that, the only playoff system that I can get behind is one that includes NO MORE than four teams....if you're not in the top 4, there's a reason, and you are not elite. And the playoff system that will most likely be implemented at some point probably will be only four (or even a plus one)...but I've watched the NCAA long enough to know that mission creep is not a possibility...it's an inevitability. One thing the NCAA can't resist is the siren song of cash, and if four teams makes them a gazillion dollars, they are just going to want to make TWO gazillion, so why not go to EIGHT teams, etc..
The other reason I like the BCS is that it is a system that rewards an entire body of work...too often, playoffs and tournaments are won by teams that just got hot at the right time. I like to see excellence rewarded, and I think that almost 100% of the time the two teams that are matched up in the BCS championship are the two teams that most deserve to be there based on their entire body of work. The teams that don't make it are USUALLY not there for a very good reason...either they lost to somebody they shouldn't have, or they didn't beat anybody of note. I don't like the idea of one of those teams sneaking in to the playoffs and then riding a late season hot streak to a championship.
So that's just one man's opinion...we can debate in the comments, but this is a subject that I think gets beat to death in the blogosphere, so I doubt I will post on it too often.
- Good news out of the Georgia Bulldog front yesterday...Orson is leaving (as expected), but virtually the entire defense is returning, as well as our defensive coordinator (after a pretty silly report that he may be flirting with the Falcons). That defense should be an absolute blast to watch next year...let's just hope the offensive line gels, a running back steps up, Aaron Murray continues to develop, etc...next year could be special.
(note: "special" = running through a fairly weak regular season schedule, inching our way in to the Top 5, losing to the Alabama juggernaut in the SECCG, and then winning a Sugar Bowl, setting ourselves up for a similar season in 2013. VERY early predictions there.)
- There are MANY times that I wish I was a TV critic, and seeing reports from the 2 Broke Girls panel at press tour yesterday was certainly one of those times. Jut deliciously awkward and hostile. Excellent writeups are HERE and HERE, from Alan Sepinwall and Todd VanderWerff, respectively. The VanderWerff writeup is particularly interesting, because Todd has been one of the more outspoken defenders of the show online...don't think that's going to be the case anymore.
Todd's opinion of the show has been much like mine: that there is a really good show in there, particularly in the performances of Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs....but that show is being buried under an avalanche of bad puns, racial stereotypes, and raunchiness for raunchiness sake. There is a way to do racial stereotypes and off color humor WELL (see Happy Endings "rotary dial" joke last night for an example of the second thing), but Michael Patrick King is WAY too arrogant and tone deaf to ever be able to pull that off successfully.
It's a shame...I will probably keep watching the show, because I do enjoy the two leads, but I no longer hold out hope that it will turn in to the show that I had hoped it would be.
- The winner of the ABC comedy block last night...Happy Endings. I laughed so much I missed some of the jokes...I'm going to have to start keeping the show on my DVR so that I can go back and rewatch, to get the full experience. They just throw 50 jokes a minute at you...they might not all hit, but there are so many of them that I'm usually laughing nonstop. Favorite part last night? Anything involving the racist, slightly homophobic, parrot that Alex bought on Craigslist from Aryan420. "You trippin, bird..."
Pretty solid outings from Suburgatory and Modern Family, as well....but Happy Endings is the big winner from last night.
- As for tonight...Community may not be back (::sob::), but the rest of the NBC Thursday lineup is, including the return of Parks and Rec (my #3 show of 2011), and 30 Rock.
Also, if you have HBO and have never seen the Paradise Lost documentaries that detail the case of the West Memphis 3, I highly recommend checking your listings for tonight and the next couple days...they are replaying the first two parts and then premiering part 3...if you want to be really furious, and then sad, and then sort of happy but still sad/mad at the same time, you should check it out.
OK! Glad to be back in the blogsosphere...please excuse my rust as I try to get back in the swing of this thing!
Monday, January 24, 2011
My favorite things I watched last week
Hopefully, this is going to be a weekly feature on the blog. In a normal week I would plan on getting this up over the weekend, but some family issues kept me from doing much blogging this past weekend.
These lists will be in no particular order, and will certainly not contain everything I watched or enjoyed during the week...just my very favorite things.
- The return of Parks and Recreation. Probably my favorite comedy currently on television, and it returned in top form. Even if there was nothing else good about the episode (and there was TONS), it would have made the list just for this:
(Click to enlarge...trust me, it's worth it)
- The ratings for Fringe. The first Friday show itself was not one of my favorite Fringe episodes...I thought it was good-not-great, even though every scene with John Noble and Christopher Lloyd was brilliant. But the really good news is that they managed to maintain the same ratings on Friday that they were running on Thursday, which was enough to win the night for Fox in the key demographics. Great news, and if they can keep that up they will have overcome the dreaded "Friday Slot of DOOOOOOOOOOM".
- Phil Dunphy eating breakfast on the floor. My favorite part of the scene was that neither he nor Claire even acknowledged it. It was just like, "Well, I'm hungry....and Claire won't let me go downstairs until we figure out how to deal with this. So I'm gonna try and salvage these eggs".
- Everything Busy Phillips did on Cougar Town. Wuh-BAMM!!
- Surprisingly enough, American Idol. I was pleasantly surprised by the judges panel, though I am still mostly reserving judgment until we get to the live shows and they can no longer edit out the awkward/annoying moments. But what I was most excited about was the noticeable reduction in freak-show/mentally challenged auditions. I liked what Jacob on Television Without Pity said: "What if the big change this year is that we are no longer playing to the Lowest Common Denominator?"
- Breaking Bad and Deadwood. Two shows on almost everybody's "Best of the '00s" lists that I had missed. I'm catching up on Breaking Bad by watching the replays on AMC, and I'm into season 2 of Deadwood on iTunes. Both are living up to their lofty reputations, though Deadwood's language is causing me some problems...I'm no prude when it comes to profanity (in that I understand that if you're going to write realistic dialogue, you have to write how people really talk), but the air around Deadwood is so blue it is actually distracting at times. But the writing and acting on both of these shows are tremendous, and I no longer begrudge Bryan Cranston beating out Jon Hamm for his multiple Emmys.
- Jay Rome's announcement. Got me believing again that the Dawgs may pull off this whole Dream Team thing, especially when it was quickly followed by his teammate Malcolm Mitchell following him to the Classic City. With Drew, Crowell, and Jenkins still on the board (and supposedly all strong UGA leans), I may actually get excited about football again.
How about you, fellow TV watchers? What were your favorite things on TV last week?
These lists will be in no particular order, and will certainly not contain everything I watched or enjoyed during the week...just my very favorite things.
- The return of Parks and Recreation. Probably my favorite comedy currently on television, and it returned in top form. Even if there was nothing else good about the episode (and there was TONS), it would have made the list just for this:
(Click to enlarge...trust me, it's worth it)- The ratings for Fringe. The first Friday show itself was not one of my favorite Fringe episodes...I thought it was good-not-great, even though every scene with John Noble and Christopher Lloyd was brilliant. But the really good news is that they managed to maintain the same ratings on Friday that they were running on Thursday, which was enough to win the night for Fox in the key demographics. Great news, and if they can keep that up they will have overcome the dreaded "Friday Slot of DOOOOOOOOOOM".
- Phil Dunphy eating breakfast on the floor. My favorite part of the scene was that neither he nor Claire even acknowledged it. It was just like, "Well, I'm hungry....and Claire won't let me go downstairs until we figure out how to deal with this. So I'm gonna try and salvage these eggs".
- Everything Busy Phillips did on Cougar Town. Wuh-BAMM!!
- Surprisingly enough, American Idol. I was pleasantly surprised by the judges panel, though I am still mostly reserving judgment until we get to the live shows and they can no longer edit out the awkward/annoying moments. But what I was most excited about was the noticeable reduction in freak-show/mentally challenged auditions. I liked what Jacob on Television Without Pity said: "What if the big change this year is that we are no longer playing to the Lowest Common Denominator?"
- Breaking Bad and Deadwood. Two shows on almost everybody's "Best of the '00s" lists that I had missed. I'm catching up on Breaking Bad by watching the replays on AMC, and I'm into season 2 of Deadwood on iTunes. Both are living up to their lofty reputations, though Deadwood's language is causing me some problems...I'm no prude when it comes to profanity (in that I understand that if you're going to write realistic dialogue, you have to write how people really talk), but the air around Deadwood is so blue it is actually distracting at times. But the writing and acting on both of these shows are tremendous, and I no longer begrudge Bryan Cranston beating out Jon Hamm for his multiple Emmys.
- Jay Rome's announcement. Got me believing again that the Dawgs may pull off this whole Dream Team thing, especially when it was quickly followed by his teammate Malcolm Mitchell following him to the Classic City. With Drew, Crowell, and Jenkins still on the board (and supposedly all strong UGA leans), I may actually get excited about football again.
How about you, fellow TV watchers? What were your favorite things on TV last week?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)