Grid Effect

We’re noticeably under the weather today, like can’t hold our head up straight or move without immense pain radiating through our body under the weather. So unfortunately we’re going to have to mail this in. Don’t blame us, blame the dipshit who comes into our work with the flu out of some misguided sense of dedication.

I'll never get tired of this.

Here’s some snippets from Fred Savage directing an episode of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. I can’t begin to tell you how much I’m looking forward to this. Between this photo array and DeVito’s pretend meltdown with local Philly news I just might have to start downloading pirated episodes. Also, the first picture is of a dog that appears to be dead or experiencing some REM sleep, which leads me to believe that Mike Vick is going to be a focal point of one of these episodes.

Conan O’Brien has usurped David Letterman in ratings. And here I was, thinking that one night when Letterman beat Conan on Tuesday that it was all over for the gangly red-head. Who would have thought, that when you beat someone in ratings for one night in a show that airs five nights a week, you can easily bounce back from that? Rejoice, the world is not ending. I don’t know if it will stay this way for Conan, but with every committed republican now officially vowing to never watch Letterman, O’Brien will probably lose again tonight. Has anyone even bothered to explain Letterman’s joke to Palin? Because if she really thinks he was trying to disparage Willow (Alaska is still on planet Earth, right?), I don’t think she really understands the context of it.

Here is a round table discussion with multiple showrunners explaining why they don’t like spoilers. I didn’t realize this was something that needed explaining. People invest a lot of time developing plots, scripts, settings, etc.  I could understand one wanting to wait to unveil their work on their own time-table, not at the whim of some unemployed fuck-face. Maybe someone thought that any news is good news? Either way, I’m linking to this mainly so you can see what Genji Kohan looks like. Methinks she was born into whatever plane of existence Weeds happens on. At least the first couple of seasons.

Alright, that’s it. We’ll try to post again later tonight.

A little upswing in television news lately, unfortunately about 80% of it revolves around late night talk shows. We’re just going to skip all of that and try to bring you the interesting part of the remaining 20%, which leaves us with about 5% of the news items available.

As you have probably heard by now, Mad Men has an official premiere date for the third season. I’ll just go ahead and kill the suspense: it’s August 16th. We’re still over two months away but it feels oh so close. This is how desperate we are for good news in television, a show that we knew would be released in August makes headlines when which day in August it will be on air. And there were really only five days too choose from since we knew it would be a Sunday. Whatever, the general mundaneness of this news isn’t going to kill my buzz over hearing it.

As if I needed another reason to feel giddy this morning: Michael K Williams has signed on for a part in Martin Scorsese’s Boardwalk Empire, which will air on HBO once they pick up the pilot. If you don’t know who Michael K. Williams is, you might know him better as Omar Little. And if you don’t know who Omar Little is, then I’m taking my ball and going home, because I don’t think we can be friends anymore.

You may have noticed that we’ve been intentionally avoiding all the David Carradine, part of that has been out of respect for the actor and his family, but mostly because the somewhat abnormal circumstances surrounding the case have led pretty much everyone to believe that there are some sordid details that won’t come out for awhile, if ever. Well, the leaking of new information continues, so we’ll just stand guard for now.

A producer for Lost has come out and said they’ll have a “real” finale, “unlike The Sopranos”. You may remember when a producer for The Shield did the same thing, and maybe it’s just me but I find myself wondering where these guys find the balls to do shit like this. Do they not understand? If it wasn’t for The Sopranos none of you fucks would even have a show to worry about a finale. It started the whole “TV as cult following” movement and dragged a dying medium (scripted televised dramas) out from the gutter. To his credit he did say that The Sopranos was “brilliant”, but it seems a tad disingenuous when you follow that up with, “(Lost) is going to have a real ending”.

Here’s a list of television’s twenty least feminist characters. There isn’t really thing to argue here, but I will say that feminist have some lofty demands of who their pop-culture icons should be. That’s probably why there’s so few of them. That, and no one really identifies as a feminist anymore, even if they adhere to feminist principals. I think it’s time for a re-branding.

The end of Summer cannot come soon enough.

Here’s Danny DeVito drunkenly forcing — intentionally or otherwise — one of the more awkward interviews you’ll ever see on local television. You could dump five gallons of Nickelodeon ooze on these two and it really wouldn’t seem that out of place. Between this and Pat Tomasulo from WGN trash-talking to a four year-old in a take of one-on-one basketball, I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to start watching more local news. My favorite part from either of these is when Tomasulo says, “don’t bring that in here, Tyler“, just so the kid knows exactly how much the guy from the TV hates his guts.

OK, a couple late night items: I know I’ve been giving Stephen Colbert the business as of late (and I’m sure its gotten back to him and just devastated his week), but his shows from Iraq have been as genuinely funny and enjoyable as anything he’s ever done on his show. He’s also giving a voice to the military, something so many people that have been in a similar position have failed to do. Also,  The segments at Fort Jackson have been especially entertaining.

And finally, everyone is rushing to call the move of Conan to 11:30 a mistake since Letterman beat him in the ratings this week. I’d tell everyone to relax, since I don’t think Letterman will be able to book guests with the same clout as Howard Stern and Julia Roberts every week, nor will he always inadvertently crack pedophilia jokes at the expense of a conservative politician’s daughter. Or maybe he will if it means improved ratings, I don’t know. Considering he is basically the only entity at CBS that has been losing to his contemporary at NBC, staying on top might result in an extreme course of action. You’re just the beginning of it, Willow.

Back tomorrow to close out this week, probably with some links. We’re working on procuring Showtime so expect that Weeds recap by Monday, if not tomorrow.

It’s Always Sunny returns in September, so says ad in between the premiere and re-airing of last night’s Rescue Me episodes. I can’t find verification anywhere, but I should be all you need, baby. In the meantime, go to the show’s website and watch these full episodes. Listening to Mac make excuses for why he has to share a foldout bed with Frank should brighten up your morning. I’m looking forward to them taking an ax to the recession. I’m already an asshole, you don’t have to tell me.

As I’m sure you’ve seen/read/or heard about from two dozen different outlets by now, Mark-Paul Gosselaar dressed as Zack Morris on Jimmy Fallon’s show and Howard Stern dressed as Howard Stern on Letterman’s show. Amazingly I watched both of them on television, and I didn’t really think either would be the seminal events they were made out to be the following day in the entertainment world. I think sometimes, we make a bigger deal out of these things than the masses, and I have no idea why. Especially when they aren’t all that unexpected.

This is also making the rounds: how 30 Rock is a thinly veiled shadow of The Muppet Show. Eh, I’m not going to read the article because I’m pretty sure every series on television could have parallels drawn to it from some sort of predecessor, but the snippets I’ve read seem to make sense. I never watched The Muppet Show as a kid, so I don’t really know much about it.

There it is. Riveting.

Here’s the Real World: DC house. I saw articles suspecting that this was the house a couple days ago and thought about posting it, but then it dawned on me: feeding into speculation of where a new Real World house is going to be for a season that won’t air for at least nine months would be a new low for this site. I suppose this isn’t much better, but at least its been confirmed.

Good news for the state of the union: Jon & Kate Plus 8’s ratings continue to drop. I credit Barack Obama for this development. But honestly, I’m proud of you people, between this and the It’s Always Sunny episode I watched before coming in this morning is helping to restore my sanity.

I know everyone was nervous about the state of Nurse Jackie after one episode, but rest assured, it has been renewed. See, as much as I knock on Showtime for their poor production quality and generic premises, they get shit done. I can’t recall a time with The Sopranos or The Wire when the status of each series’ livelihood wasn’t in question. Specifically the questions, “Is it coming back?” and “when is it coming back?” being constantly tossed around for a few months before the network would ever give a definitive answer.

And finally, it turns out AMC isn’t cutting into Mad Men’s runtime to make way for more commercials, but much like we expected is instead going to extend the show’s airtime past 11PM to accommodate additional ads. This is the most logical conclusion, so naturally AMC reached it, because it’s one of the better ran cable networks on basic.

Back tomorrow with more links.

My apologies for the late post, we kind of got preoccupied at work with…well, work. I’m reluctant to call what I do for a living work, though. It keeps me busy, but it’s something a well-trained monkey could do. Actually, I’m not even sure he has to be well-trained, just sufficiently threatened. Anyhow, as a result we never got around to that FNL recap, which we might actually break into two different posts: what happened in the actual episode and what the consequences will be for the fourth season they didn’t know they would have while finishing the third. If we were writing on this site at the end of the third season of The Wire we would have done the same thing.

Onto the links…

Guess which one she is.

Proving once again that you don’t have to engage in an abundance of sex to be considered a whore: Eliza Dushku, Chelsea Handler (who?), Salman Rushdie’s ex-wife and other random women of varying degrees of attractiveness all did a nude but covered by inanimate objects photo shoot for Allure magazine. Not that I’m complaining, but if you already have your own television series like all three of these women do, what is the incentive to do this other than an undying need for attention? Salman Rushdie’s ex-wife is kind of on a tear with the provocative self-promotion lately. That’s right, baby. Just let the Hardee’s burger do the talking.

HBO is set to create a film chronicling the 2008 presidential race that will feature actors playing McCain, Palin, Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama as the lead characters. I would be able to appreciate this a lot more if politics actually had some substance to it and it wasn’t just a series of gaffes and embarrassing moments, I might think something like this could actually be dramatized. But when I think back to the 2008 election, the first things that come to mind are: Sarah Palin and everything SNL had to do with her, Barack Obama calling Hilary Clinton Annie Oakley, “Joe The Plumber” and that asinine 3am phone call ad from Clinton. Its a comedy of appealing to the lowest common denominator, basically, and not something that anyone should really take seriously.

Speaking of misuse of political capital, you can now watch footage from the Battlestar Galactica summit at the UN from last month. The UN has rarely ever been taken seriously, especially in this country. But it has officially become a parody of itself with this. Allow me to paraphrase principal Skinner lecturing the model UN at Springfield elementary: Do you want to be like the real UN or just squabble and waste time?

Will Ferrell will host the SNL season finale with supposed musical guest Justin Timberlake, who I’m sure will make a few sketch appearances. Is it just me or are these two constantly on television for something. Timberlake seems to be going for a poor man’s Sinatra-esque career, but for the most part seems incapable of making up his mind whether he’s primarily a musician or an actor. And Will Ferrell, well, is there anyone over the age of twelve who isn’t tired of his schtick yet? Look, he’s screaming frantically and nonsensically, ohmygod this will never get old. Not to say I carry a groundswell  of antipathy towards the man, I loved Anchorman. But there was actually good writing and punchlines in Anchorman, he was a blustering moron but not a blustering moron who just kept repeating the same thing over and over again in the same scene. In virtually every other movie he’s been a part of that I’ve seen? Not so much. God, I feel curmudgeonly today.

And finally, It’s Always Sunny is set to release a straight to DVD, one-hour Christmas special, probably to get a semi-accurate gauge of how large their audience is. Not everyone has FX, not everyone watches it offline and the series has gained so much popularity from its seasons 1-3 DVD’s that they want to see if the DVD sales reflect the Nielsen’s, and at least we’re getting something out of their extensive market research. This is all speculative and so is my prediction: this will be a top five rental/sale for about a month.

FNL recap later today. Hopefully.

I do not know why I always make a point to wait until after Christmas to do these lists. It couldn’t make less of a difference when they are done in December, so long as they encompass every series that was available. It’s even more baffling considering I’ve been doing links posts for the past two weeks. But hey, that’s me. I’m an enigma wrapped in idiocy.

As usual, these are the top ten series’ in 2008 and they include everything show that aired new episodes during the calendar year. We are basically measuring each show against itself, and how thoroughly it accomplished what it set out to accomplish. So, for instance a comedy might be ahead of a drama, if the comedy was exceptionally clever and the drama was growing old and mundane, and continued on the same track through 2008.

We’d also like to point out that due to the strike and our lack of Direct TV, there will be some notable additions and absences on this years list. Not necessarily shows we recapped like in years past.

With that said, in reverse order, our completely subjective and self-serving top ten list of 2008.

10) It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia

Kidnapping, extortion, fraud & cannibalism were just some of the “high jinks” that the gang found themselves in in 2008. It started off and closed successfully, but in the interim we had a few too many disappointing episodes for us to place this any higher on our annual countdown. This was definitely the least memorable of the four seasons to date, but the least memorable season of It’s Always Sunny is like the least memorable gunfight you were in. Regardless of how uneventful it may have been relative to past gunfights, we imagine the details are still pretty clear.

9) Survivor: Fans Vs. Favorites

Personally, I couldn’t stand how this season ended and that usually dictates one’s impression of the season as a whole (I’m certainly not immune): Whether or not you liked the person who won the million dollars. And while I didn’t like Parvati, Alexis or Natalie (especially Natalie), I have to concede that they made the season inherently interesting, even if endlessly frustrating. They essentially road the additional votes they got from two young, naive boys that couldn’t avoid the manipulations of attractive women in bikinis. All the while Cirie was discretely behind the scenes, bending everyone to her will and she never got the credit she deserved.

Let me put it this way, if Penner or Yau or Cirie or Amanda ended up winning that season, it would probably be a couple spots higher. Instead, we got some ditz whose circumstances allowed her to advance in the game, and much to her credit she took advantage of those aptly. While we respect it, we certainly do not have to like it.

To be fair, I would have been mightily distracted as well.

Weeds

We spent a lot of time complaining about this show: It’s too forgiving of Nancy, it’s redundant, there isn’t enough Andy & Doug and the transplanting every major character down to the border seemed highly convenient. But when all was said and done, they had thrown together what was mostly an effective, well-constructed season; even if the most brutal and least comedic of the four to date. We can’t say we were all that enamored of the cliffhanger that they ended with, as it seemed like just another conveniently timed ploy to keep Nancy out of prison and the morgue. But on a whole, Weeds reinvented itself rather successfully. If compared to another series that tried something similar, it really beat the shit out of Nip Tuck.

7) South Park

Season twelve sported some great episodes in “Canada On Strike”, “Over Logging”, and “Elementary School Musical”, but those were all countered with “Major Boobage”, “Britney’s New Look” and “Super Fun Time”. It was a relatively uneven season for Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who some say might be running on empty with their historic animated series. But they showed they still have the chops to bring the funny when they’re not mailing it in. This season was (surprisingly) rife with controversy. You figure most critics would be used to the vulgarity that this show usually produces, but events in “The China Problem” and “Brtiney’s New Look” that sparked outrage proved that there is nothing this country takes more seriously than its celebrities.

6) 30 Rock

Yes, well, we never watched much of this series, but from what we’ve seen it’s one of a kind. It seems like too many comedies are placed in the entertainment industry these days (Extras, Curb, Entourage, kind of Flight of The Conchords), so we’ve been hesitant to watch based on the now commonplace setting. But when a series is great, despite our reluctance to actually find out for ourselves, we’ll admit it once we do. Jack Donaghy is one of television’s best characters in 2008, Liz Lemon isn’t far behind and with a strong supporting cast that includes Tracy Morgan, Jane Krakowski and Jack McBrayer; we’ll gladly put 30 Rock at #6, even if it is going to be off the air in two years.

Alright, we’ll tackle 1-5 next Monday. Have a good weekend.

Naturally we’re a day late with this (two days, technically). And its not because we were busy or hungover/drunk or anything of the sort. We just forgot about it. Whatever, its not like anyone reads this site on the weekends. Or on weekdays, or weeknights. Basically no one reads it so I wonder why I bother. Anyhow, this was a strong finale. Considering the “Nightman/Dayman” episode was the commercial standout from season three, it stands to reason they would bring him back. And what better episode to do that in than a finale to a somewhat underwhelming season four.

I heard this is how Shane MacGowan writes his music now.

The cold open was brilliant, it was a microcosm of how the collective wasteland of morals that inhabits Paddy’s Pub operates and probably the most meta this series has ever been. The notion of doing something as rewarding as writing a play can be just for the sake of the satisfaction you might get out of it is completely lost on them. Someone has to be a target or a victim. Naturally, Charlie did have an angle and that angle was The Waitress.

Anytime Charlie comes into some power (his ruse in “Mac Bangs Dennis’ Mom” and a momentary scene in which he is posing as a manager at a chain restaurant where Dennis is applying in “The Gang Sells Out” are the only instances I can recall), is out and out genius as the emasculated member of “the gang”. His dressing down of Dee when she was questioning whether or not to sing about her intentions with Dayman couldn’t have been more inspired.

The play itself was hysterical, mostly as a result of Dennis’ contempt for everyone’s shortcomings, Mac’s karate moves and Frank singing the “troll toll” song. Probably the best part about the episode was all four “actors” going out of their way to do the exact opposite of whatever it was that Charlie recommended. There wasn’t a lot of subtle humor in this one, but it worked on a pure visual stimulation level.

Obviously from the getgo once Charlie mentioned that Dee would be playing a woman in a coffee shop, The Waitress was going to be involved in some way, so there wasn’t any monumental twist at the end. Unless you were surprised that Charlie would continue to stalk/harass the waitress because he “never signed anything” as a surprise, but then you have a whole other host of problems, because you’re probably retard.

There isn’t much to say about this episode, just a strong finale for a strong series in a weak season. Not to say we won’t purchase it, but by our coutn they probably had about three or four episodes we’ll never watch again in this season, that’s probably about double for the entire series through three seasons. Still, that’s about nine strong episodes in a single season. Besides The Office and Curb, you’re not getting that from any other comedy on television.

We’re going to combine our recaps for last night’s It’s Always Sunny and The Office into one post for a couple reasons: 1) Convenience, and 2) neither episode did much to inspire a full post on its own. Neither episode was particularly great or particularly flawed, but both were immensely forgettable. I guess that makes them flawed but whatever, the description works damnit.

We’ll start with The Office first, because it was probably the more disappointing of the two. “Business Trip” was setup nicely with Oscar, Andy & Michael taking a business trip to Winnipeg in the middle of November. The only way that group could seem more mismatched is if they through Meredith into the mix, like it seemed like they were going to in the cold open. But nothing about the setting, save for Andy and Oscar bonding over Angela in the strangest manner possible, really worked. At this point now it’s just cruel to the character to have not only Andy drunk dialing Angela while Dwight listens in on the other end with her, but they have him feeling guilty about it the following morning.

While we like Michael standing up for himself in the feeblest thrown gauntlet we’ve seen on television after the blond from Reno 911 threw him out, he’s too much of a tragic figure at this point. I’m sure he’ll eventually rebound, but at the moment its like watching a puppy being tortured and we can’t pinpoint a reason for it.

The Jim-Pam development was probably one of the more contrived attempts to appease the audience we’ve seen this series partake in. The fact it was resolved by the end of the episode is what felt the most…unnatural. They’ve spent the entire season setting up some climactic reunion of sorts, and the best they can do is have her fail a class, him support her decision to stay in New York, and for her to come back after a day of sobbing contemplation. It was a nice little moment for those whose primary reason for watching the series is this relationship, but even they have to feel a bit underwhelmed after that.

Somehow this picture makes everything all better.

Not their best work, we did love the Ryan-Kelly subplot, mostly because of Ryan’s ultimatum (”You want to see me do more pushups?”) and Darryl’s elation. And like mentioned before Andy and Oscar forming a platonic union of sorts was, as Andy put it, “delightful”. We suspect he wasn’t talking to him at Angela’s behest, hopefully that’s one platonic union that ends shortly.

It’s Always Sunny resembled last night what it has too many times in recent history: a brilliant premise for these characters and a promising setup but with no follow through. In the second half of the episode, about the only time we laughed was when Charlie and Dennis were comparing their capacity for leg movement when doing the splits. Outside of that, the cold open and the actual abduction in which all the characters screamed over their heavy metal music what they had intended to portray as a sincere offering to help and instead came off as creepy and threatening; we didn’t really get much out of this one. Even the joke of the family misinterpreting their actions ran its course when they had Dee translate for them.

Maybe this was sort of like Wednesday night’s South Park, in that you might need to have seen Extreme Makeover to really appreciate the episode, just like you might have to have seen High School Musical to like Parker and Stone’s parody of it. But we felt like everything that was referenced was self-explanatory in some way (Charlie’s obsession with Sears, “Bringing in the community”, etc.) and just fell flat on its own accord.

We might need to see The Office again to reevaluate how it stands once this season’s arc is over. This was a plot heavy episode and the conclusion of this season might reflect favorably on what we saw last night (generally speaking, The Office probably pieces together the best finales on television). But with It’s Always Sunny, the finale is next week, so we’re pretty certain this is in the bottom half of their episode barrel. It was no “Who Pooped The Bed?“, but it was closer to that than “Mac Bang’s Dennis’ Mom“. In other words, based on how this season has gone, “The Gang Gets Extreme” fell exactly where it probably should have.

That’s it until Monday or Tuesday. Enjoy the weekend.

In short, this was probably the worst episode they’ve ever put together. We appreciate the ambition, and it had a few moments here and there, but for the most part that was a half hour of television we were counting down the seconds to being over.

When I saw the title, I thought maybe they were going to crack the liberty bell again through some shenanigans in an attempt to impotently get back at the city. But when they went for the 1776 setting it just didn’t seem to meet our expectations, especially coming off of last week’s episode and our theory that great Sunny episodes come in streaks. Admittedly, are expectations are probably too lofty.

Anyone remember this shirt from the "Charlie Gets An Abortion" in the first season?

The effort here is great. At least their not falling to the wayside and relying on one trick to carry them through four seasons. But we worry why they feel compelled to go so far off the beaten path for something different. We’ll give it until the end of the season before we claim that they are running our of steam, but that seems to be where we are heading.

This episode had some notable moments subtle or otherwise, namely all of Dennis’ garb, Charlie asking if Cricket had a pulse, and some of Dennis and Mac’s debates over everything about their surroundings (how they’re dressed, what their course of action should be, etc). But we can’t recall much about this episode that was all that successful. A lot of it was either too predictable (everything with Cricket, Dee actually being a witch) or too redundant (every exchange between Frank and Charlie).

I think we might just be tiring of the abuse towards Cricket. Now, obviously he isn’t dead but that is pretty much the next step. For them to kill Cricket in present day Philadelphia. We’re fine with the sadistic humor and everything, we just prefer for it to be directed at multiple people other than themselves and a guy who used to be a priest.

Other than that, not much else to say about this one. It’s actually a pretty common theme to do an episode set in a different time period (particularly this one), so we can’t really give it points for originality other than for the angle the approached it with. And when only about 15% of what is said and done seems to be executed well, We’d much rather see them terrorizing people in present day America.

Office and Survivor recaps later, which will be a lot sunnier (you see what I did there? Huh?).

Happy election day! Or wait, I guess this will only be a good day for roughly half of you. I wouldn’t much worry about it, whoever wins they will quickly become a grave disappointment as the economy continues to sag and tensions increase with every Asian country imaginable. Look on the bright side, at least if we fall into a depression you won’t have to go to work. I think it’s time we began to ponder what a depression would look like in the 21st century. Are we all going to be boxed up in our own Hooverville’s (McCain/Obama/Bush-ville’s, whatever we decide to dub it), huddled around our battery powered laptops for warmth? We all hope it doesn’t come to that of course, but I think an illustration of such a scenario would actually be funny. Sorry.

Anyhow, between waiting in line for what I can only imagine will be a couple hours to vote, work, eating and whatever else a normal person does to occupy the day, we won’t have time for much more than one post, and that one post will have to be mailed in, so here are some links. My apologies. Again. We’ll try to get to the Life and Times of Tim recap later tonight.

You may have heard that King of The Hill was getting canceled after this season by FOX. Here is some speculation wondering if ABC will “rescue” the Mike Judge animated series. Call me crazy, but if a series has been on the air for thirteen years, and the network decides it has had its run and wants to fill the timeslot with something new, is it really being “canceled” in the classical sense? Isn’t it just coming to an end? Thirteen years is a damn long time, not everything can be The Simpsons. My guess is Judge and the FOX executives have some sort of mutual agreement that its time to close the curtain on a successful run, or he has an open door for any other projects he thinks might benefit the network. In short, I wouldn’t expect to see this moved to ABC anytime soon.

You know television has become too important in this culture when every television critic is comparing Barack Obama’s campaign and presumptive win to every black television character from the 80’s. We still have yet to find an article comparing him to Uncle Phil, but if he wins, once Obama puts on some weight from the stress of leading the free world, we’ll certainly see one. …And just like when Will was taking speed to keep himself up at night in order to study but Carlton ended up accidentally OD’ing on what he thought was Vitamin E, Wall St. went into overdrive and completely collapsed in on itself, with Main St. being the primary victim. What did President Obama do? Just like Uncle Phil, he took back his season tickets to the Clippers.

Sorry, Heidi. If you weren't married maybe someone would give a shit if you left.

Since everything today is related to the election, why not this site? Reportedly Heidi Klum along with her disfigured and content to not work husband “Seal” (quotations because that’s not his real name) are planning to move out of the country should McCain win the presidency. Unlike all the rejects who claimed they would do the same in 2004 if Bush won, they actually have the means to do so. And despite me thinking that is completely absurd (considering democrats used to love McCain), they are well within their rights and I applaud them for sticking to their principals. No, what bothers me is the self-importance of it all, like they are giving us an ultimatum. “My candidate didn’t win, so I am taking my ball and going home”. What a pair of fucking idiots.

Roger Ebert is not pleased with his replacement. And if you have seen his replacement in action, you can understand why. Watching the new At The Movies is like listening to the two sycophants walking out of the theater spouting off their knee-jerk reactions to everything they just saw. It doesn’t feel professional or intelligent or particularly relevant, and the only reason I can think that they felt compelled to replace Ebert and Roeper with these two is that they’re “more attractive” than their predecessors. Which is yet another reason to hate the entertainment industry, even for those who critique it looks sue-proceed articulacy.

And finally, Chad L. Coleman, who played Cutty on The Wire and was last seen bagging groceries because no one in Hollywood watches that series because they are too self-absorbed to watch something produced in Baltimore, Maryland; has earned a role on a series from the creators of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. As you can imagine we couldn’t be more excited for this. Usually Wire alums take roles for shitty cop shows on broadcast networks, with this it wouldn’t even be necessary for us to seek it out.

Back later tonight.

And she does, but the attack and the consequences from it only last for about two minutes until “the gang” (sans Frank) starts spiraling out of control to manage their health. This was, to say the least, a nice rebound from about three uneven episodes that had us wondering what the hell happened in the off-season.

First things first, everything that happened with Mac and Charlie at their office gig epitomized why we even watch this series. Put them in a real world scenario? Check. Have them approach the scenario like they are being unfairly persecuted? Check. Turn them into lunatics with the same objective but differing ideas as how to meet that objective? Check and mate, my friend. That was some grade-A hysteria, highlighted by the melody to Yello’s “Oh Yeah” and the subtle touches like Mac dismissively throwing envelopes all over the place. This bit will even make us go back on the theory that Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day do not work well together.

This? Is ridiculous, but we'd love to hear remixes to this song.

We were also surprised that we liked Charlie’s rant so much, particularly since we were so unamused by Artemis’ about three weeks ago. Probably for a couple reasons. One, Charlie Day is just a better actor than whatever that woman’s name is (which is why she shouldn’t have been the focal point of the climax); and two, the episode and this particular plot was just funnier. It didn’t try to intrigue me with something as absurd as “who keeps shitting all over the place?”, but it just put two of the characters in an untenable situation (for them), and they went berserk. Then Mac leveling us with the realization that all anyone was talking about was their mail really, really made this episode for us.

We like that whenever Dennis gets completely narcissistic and self-conscious about his appearance, it is either induced or entertained by Dee. It always seems to result in someone collapsing to the floor in a heaping mess. It was probably the weakest of the three plots (which we will concede is one too many) but it had its moments, not the least of which was Dennis’ insistence that the cycle coach (or whatever you call someone who runs those classes) invoke Steve Winwood into his classes.

Generally we never seen one character out on his own without some of the other characters putting him there. But Frank self-medicating (essentially) and giving DeVito a chance to relive his glory days as a cast member on One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest made even his storyline work. I don’t know, maybe we were easily amused last night, because that movie has been parodied 1,000 times over. We just can’t recall seeing one with an actual member from the cast in it.

A top-tier episode that managed to invoke several pop culture references, a Charlie Day in rare, rare form; a bickering Dennis & Dee and Frank losing his shit over free medication all a good episode make. We are barely halfway through the season, hopefully it is all up hill from here.

Well, it’s the beginning of an abruptly needed comeback, but not anywhere near what we need to get it back to third season/first four episodes of season four form. But we still aren’t completely on board with what is making it to screen, and unlike last week we can pinpoint several flaws that even the most layman of viewers can appreciate.

Everything with Sinbad and Rob Thomas didn’t work quite as they had hoped. Occasionally, well alright, quite frequently, this show spins out of control with the over-acting a la SNL. And there isn’t really any jokes but rather it just gives you the impression that it should be laughing because what is taking place in front of you is so off the wall strange.

This was hard to ignore in every scene with Sinbad/Rob Thomas. I can’t remember the last time I ever laughed at someone screaming “He/you’re my bitch!” at the top of their lungs, much less when they do so five times in as many minutes of screen time. Luckily it didn’t eat up much of the episode, but it was just really, really fucking dumb. So it has to be mentioned.

No windbreaker?

The high points came, as they so often do when they pair them together, with Charlie introducing Dee to his lifestyle. Coupled with all their interactions, Frank scampering inside the studio apartment and Dee’s adventure into the hallway, we got top notch Sunny. Between that and Mac mastermining the entire sell Dennis’ “memoirs” ploy, the episode was redeemable. As these specific moments were on par with some of the better stuff they’ve ever done.

To call this episode uneven is an insult to unevenness. Glenn Howerton was uncharacteristcally misused with such an odd turn. It felt like Sinbad and Rob Thomas were written into this to appease FX who is probably pressing for an influx of ratings. Basically, it’s what we were all worried about when they brought in DeVito. The difference being, DeVito actually blends into this mix, whether that is a compliment or an insult to the man is another post altogether.

Still, Kaitlin Olson and Charlie Day stole the episode, and as long as we get one plot line that isn’t completely disjointed we will always recommend this show. But they just feel so hastily thrown together. Blame the writers, the director (Fred Savage) or the actors, either way it feels like with the cult following they have it’s almost as if they’re mailing it in and hoping it delivers. Because right now, it is working about 50% of the time.

Sorry about the late post, but since there were no good games at noon, like there hasn’t been for the past four weeks sans Oklahoma-Texas, we figured we could write this sometime in those three hours. Also, if you are one of those stubborn fucks who won’t scroll past the first post on a blog, our Mad Men recap went up on Thursday, should you actually be looking for something so uninspired.

This episode brought a lot more in the way of laughs than last night’s Office did, but it still left us feeling like it was missing something. Given the nature of these characters, whenever we watch It’s Always Sunny  and the premise is promising, it occasionally disappoints because it feels like there is more that they could have done with it.

The development of everything worked. The execution was great, but occasionally this show delves into senseless muttering and character confusion rather than actually relying on jokes and good physical comedy. This may have been one of those times. Because we just can’t pinpoint why so much of this episode fell flat when the premise was great, the situational humor was effective and we had the original four all with virtually the same objective.

Maybe that was the issue, when do all four of these people ever have the same plan that doesn’t involve dicking each other over? Christ, even Sweet Dee was in on the ruse, and for the past two seasons, any time Charlie, Mac & Dennis had something in the works, she was always excluded; with the few exceptions when she could have been used to manipulate cricket. Frank usually gets billing before she does and he was absent from this episode (without even so much as a throw away line as to his whereabouts).

There were a few things we enjoyed about this episode, namely Charlie constantly lamenting about how the journalist “gets his goat”, then abducting and beating him unannounced. That actor, and we don’t know his name so don’t bother asking, was the same guy who played Phoebe’s obnoxious and invasive therapist boyfriend who passively judged everyone else on Friends (I can’t begin to illuminate just how embarrassed I am to know this). So he seems to just have an air about him of playing a snob.

That, and the nod to Resevoir Dogs with them all looking in the trunk of the car Charlie stole to find the guy lying bound and gagged in it, was quite humorous. You think about the film, and all Mr. Insert Color’s were giddy about the prospect. You watch Thursday night’s episode and they are all horrified. So at least kidnapping is where they seem to draw the line. Though it didn’t seem to phase them when they were tormenting those two kids in Dennis & Dee’s mom’s house last season.

All in all, ultimately a forgettable episode. Maybe it will improve on second viewing, but this is really three duds in a row. We’ve suggested in the past that notable It’s Always Sunny episodes come in droves, and when it is clicking it is some of the better comedy on television. But with a comedy that we consider to be one of the best currently on television, it’s hard to believe they can go three weeks without impressing us and it doesn’t even force us to alter that position.

That says quite a bit about the quality of their more formidable episodes and the lack of good comedy on television. As long as the economy continues to drag, the latter is only kind of depressing. That, my friends, is the thinnest of silver linings.

Out of commission until Monday, enjoy the weekend.

I was tempted to mention it with the Manhunters episode and I bit my tongue then. But I can do so no more: This humor has almost gotten too perverse for me. Like, I enjoy seeing indifferent, immoral behavior portrayed on television as much as the next person. But everything about the Frank and Charlie conundrum was too outrageous for my sensibilities, which are virtually non-existent.

Or maybe it is we just don’t much care for Artemus. Every time she makes an appearance on the show we know we are a minute or two away from cringing. And it’s not the good kind of cringe that this series regularly induces. No, it’s more along the lines of a “what in the hell did she do exactly to convince Rob McElhenney that this would be go over well” cringe.

Speaking of shitting yourself, if they every start a bicycle gang on this show, I just might do so with joy.

Last night’s episode was probably the worst example of this, as she was given an ample amount of lines to really put me too sleep. Though we did like Frank refuting her detailed explanation as to who was responsible for what, and every seen with Kaitlin Olson in it was spot on last night, we would definitely rank this as one of the more, well, not necessarily forgettable episodes. But definitely one of the worst in execution. We expect them to rebound any time now but as we’ve mentioned before, It’s Always Sunny is probably the streakiest television series we have ever seen. It’s a little uneven, but when it is working it is one of the funniest comedies currently in season.

This, unfortunately, was not one of those times.

My apologies for the brevity, back with Survivor recap later.

Not the most colorful of titles, and not the most colorful of episodes. We had issues last year with their only hour long episode and this year it was even more so. There was just so much filler that was trying entirely too hard to be funny. Admittedly, one could make the case that the entire premise of this series demands that those involved try too hard, but we do not have any qualms with it so long as it’s actually humorous. And this episode, much like all of them, had its moments. But there wasn’t enough of them to justify an entire hour when we felt it easily could have been condensed down to a half.

The series always breaks the characters into groups of two or three, this week they parted Mac and Charlie away from Frank and Dennis (Dee is always the third wheel if she is stuck with the larger pack).
In short, we tend to think Mac and Charlie is the worst one-two pairing the series has, and I think they realize that, that’s why it is happens with such irregular frequency. For whatever reason, the dynamic between the two of them isn’t nearly as good when one of them are paired up with Dee, Frank or Dennis. We can recall one exception and that was in the season two episode, “Dennis and Dee Go On Welfare”, and it is no coincidence that this episode is generally regarded as one of their finest.

It’s not that they are incapable of being funny, but Mac’s character just sort of mesh’s poorly with Charlie’s. Generally what happens is Charlie says something off the wall, Mac overreacts in typical Mac fashion because Charlie clearly has a learning disability, and then it delves into just the two of them screaming. Again, it is not always terrible, but when they never break stride from this for an entire hour it can grow tiresome.

There were certainly some quality scenes in this. Among other instances: Frank and Dennis divulging into the finer points of a “glory hole”, Charlie easily and randomly pulling out his teeth throughout the episode (one would think the ongoing joke of Charlie’s poor hygiene would have ran its course by now, but it hasn’t. Not by a long shot), Dee’s rebuttal to Frank pretending the guy on the other end of the glory hole could pretend he is with a woman (”How is he going to do that with some guy’s dick in his mouth?”), Frank being confronted about the mannequin, The Duster, and the suicide video.

I'm not sure which is more fucked up, this or what Dennis is referring to.

But all of this was offset by the scene on the bus which lasted about two minutes too long, the painstakingly long funeral scene that had little payoff, destroying the car, and virtually every exchange after the inaugural one Dennis had with the European.  It might not seem like much but hey, this series has set the bar high.

Apropos of that, for whatever reason we always find it necessary when criticizing an episode of this or Curb or any other comedy really, ti qualify it as not a complete failure. We just prefer to critique each episode against the bar that the series has set, as opposed to everything else on TV. We watch this series because it is good, we don’t watch everything else on TV because everything else on TV generally sucks nuts. So, when they have a subpar episode, we like to bring it hopefully someone’s attention.

It looks like next week they return to the regular one episode half hour format, followed by Testees, which we may or may not review. I can tell you one thing, that stupid double-entendre title isn’t helping their cause.

Mad Men recap might come later this weekend if not late tonight. We really got tied up at work and weren’t able to get around to it. This is for the best. Trust me.

A programming note for tonight, as a result of the vice presidential debate (which might be too embarrassing to watch) there will be no new Office episode. I repeat, there will not be any Office episodes tonight on NBC. Why they didn’t just wait a couple weeks to air their premiere is beyond me, but it is really early for a two week break, you know, only being one episode into the season and all. Prediction: Pam ends up leaving Jim for Stanley and a career in the soft porn. Tell me how I’m wrong.

Also, I meant to ask all you spoiled pricks with DirectTV, how was FNL last night? I hope you were still able to enjoy it while sucking the devil’s cock, because it seems like that would put a damper on the experience. We hope it’s worth it because the repercussions this will have on your virtually non-existent soul will be devastating.

Speaking of lacking a soul, True Blood, the vampire series on HBO is featuring a Village Voice cover of George Bush sucking blood from the neck of the Statue of Liberty. Man, it is going to be tragic to watch what happens when a fuck up like Bush isn’t there for Hollywood to mock/blame everything wrong with the world on. I’m hoping the change in the White House can veer them away from ridiculous talking point movies and focus on creative projects that may or may not be apolitical. In short: quit being so fucking predictable.

The L Word will premiere its final season on January 18th along with Secret Diary of a Call Girl and the Diablo Cody scripted series entitled The United States of Tara. First off, I can’t imagine a more insufferable block of television. Maybe if you were to throw Sex and The City, Dharma and Greg, The View, and CSI into a simultaneous loop, it could probably topple Showtime’s efforts. But still, we are talking first rate annoyance with what they’ve put together. One thing we are worried about is what are 23-35 year old women living in New York going to do with The L Word and ER going off the air? You would think ER would have more of a universal audience and maybe at one point in time it did, but every time I’ve watched it, it has been at the insistence of a woman, platonic or otherwise. And I have not met a single guy who watches the show at his own volition. Strange but true.

On the other hand, we could watch Sarah Shahi put up drywall and be entertained by it, so maybe we're misguided.

Noooooooo! BET is canceling the afternoon video show Rap City. I don’t still watch it or anything, but in my formative years my friends and I would make it almost a daily tradition to get stoned, potentially get drunk, eat KFC sandwiches and watch Rap City in between video game sessions. It sounds like an aimless and unproductive way to spend high school, but you have no idea how rewarding that was. It got me to where I am today…wait, what?

Comedy Central gave Russell Brand his own comedy special. Because, you know, his performance at the VMA’s was such a smashing success. Still, it’s probably an improvement over Chocolate News.

In what is still arguably the strangest idea for a film to TV adaptation I’ve ever heard of, you can see for yourself how odd the Starz produced Crash TV pilot is on their website. We haven’t watched it, but what could it possibly be about? For it to keep up with the same pace of hyper-racism, wouldn’t it have to be set in the past. And by “past” I mean “roughly at the turn of the century”. I thought it was en vogue hatethat movie, so I am surprised they went ahead with the TV show. Good luck Starz, though I think you might want to leave the original programming to the professionals.

And finally, Kaitlin Olson (Sweet Dee) and Rob McElhenney (Mac) from It’s Always Sunny tied the not in Malibu this weekend, rivaling Amy Poehler and Will Arnett as the best married comedy couple today. In fact, they surpass them handily. While Will Arnett is probably funnier than McElhenney, Amy Poehler isn’t funny at all, and has successfully ridden the coattails of Tina Fey and her husband into notoriety.

Probably it for today, back with recaps/reviews tomorrow.