Grid Effect

…And we’re back, we took yesterday off for personal reasons. I.E, we felt/feel like shit and any post we would have thrown up on the page might as well have been written in Swahili it would be so incoherent. We’re still a little under the weather so this will definitely be an abbreviated post, but it is better than nothing. Just a little FX binger, to brighten up your day.

It’s Always Sunny creators have asked Bon Jovi to provide a cameo in an upcoming episode in which they buy his arena football league team. This is a fucking excellent premise, and since we do not much care for Bon Jovi we’re kind of hoping he turns down the offer, giving the writers an open window to mock his absurd “music”. We look to Springsteen for our Jersey rock.

See, they’ve already mocked Bon Jovi. Kind of.

Tatum O’Neal, despite recent disprovable drug allegations, is welcome back on the Rescue Me set. Well, it’s a big day for Grid Effect’s favorites. Much like Bon Jovi, we could do without O’Neal on this series, but we wish Buttermaker’s step-daughter all the best.

At least one good thing came out of the writer’s strike: FX canceled Dirt. This is a dark day for people who watch shows solely because the lead actress was integral to one of their favorite shows of all time, so I won’t rejoice too much. We’ve made perfectly clear our feelings on Dirt.

FX: we can never tell where you stand amongst other cable networks, your series’ seem to fluctuate in quality more so than any other cable or broadcast network. Which, sadly enough, probably makes you the most watchable network, because at least it fluctuates.

The Office finale is tonight, rendering us speechless that we’ll actually spend a full hour tonight watching a comedy that we are looking forward too. I saw a preview on Leno last night with Rainn Wilson as the guest introducing it, and if that clip was an indication of how the episode will go, then we’re optimistic for the finale. One of the characters ends up leaving, and though who that is, is implicit in the episode title, we are not in the business of spoiling anyone before an episode has aired. But lets just say that he’s a writer, and I’m sure he will be intricately involved in this alleged spinoff, set to air in 2009.

In the meantime, here are some links. We really pity anyone who reads this site, there are probably about 1,236,632 other TV sites that have more committed approaches than we do at this one as they seem to watch more television. But let us sum that up in three words: fuck that shit. Encouraging people to watch Gossip Girl is something we can’t condone much less participate in.

Not that we expected anything from CBS to really set our world on fire or for them to Stand PAT in the fall, but what they’re offering seems exceptionally bad. For the three pilots they describe in the article: one’s a ripoff of Meet The Parents, one is a ripoff of Psyche and the other is a carbon copy of every relationship sitcom ever made. You know, if they are going to essentially steal from everyone else, you think they would be a little more relevant than a TV show no one watches on USA and a movie that’s over ten years old. Just sayin’.

For God knows what reason, Kelsey Grammar gives a shit about his now canceled FOX sitcom, Back To You. Considering the guy is set for life, has to be pushing sixty years old and the show was at best getting a marginal Nielsen and kind of lukewarm critically, you’d think he’d almost be in a hurry to get off the air with that so as not to tarnish his legacy. But no. He wants everyone to see what no one has seen, and the only reason no one has seen it is because everyone assumes it will be unpleasant. That’s conviction most people lack, which we admire; but it’s like continuing the bank robbery even after you’re surrounded by a SWAT team: it’s probably better to just cut your losses and accept the fact that you failed.

In a stunning development that is shocking the world, left-wing politicians are upset with a Hollywood project. Specifically, HBO’s new original movie Recount about the 2000 presidential election. Apparently it makes them look like complete and utter pussies (while most likely simultaneously making the right-wing look bat shit crazy, but they’re used to it), which democrats are probably tired of being labeled as. We haven’t seen the movie as it doesn’t air for another couple weeks, but our interest has peaked. And I promise both sides of the aisle that when I review it on here, I’ll be sure to point out how ridiculous both of you are.

Obviously, he’s a democrat.

Dana Delaney, whose been in such hits as The Right Temptation and Exit to Eden, will continue her role on Desperate Housewives into next season. This is despite her storyline ending this season, which means she’ll be narrating from beyond with a couple flashbacks here and there. See, if you combine all of the five minute stints we’ve watched of that show, it probably comes out to around an episode and a half of the series, and we already know what’s going to happen.

And finally, according to the San Fransisco Chronicle, it’s officially been proven that sitcoms literally rot your brain. Now, there is a lot of variances of sitcoms these days. If Arrested Development and South Park rot my brain, then let me say that 1) I don’t believe it for a minute and 2) Even if they did I wouldn’t give a shit. If you’re watching shit like Big Bang Theory or Rules of Engagement (or to disprove our bias, It’s Always Sunny), then sure, this study is irrefutable. But simply because it’s packaged as a half-hour comedy on television, doesn’t mean by default it turns you into some zombie shut-in. Sure, that is predominately the case, but there are exceptions.

Office recap tomorrow.

This is what happens when you rewatch an academy award winning movie instead of one of the more anticipated miniseries’ in about a decade, you have nothing to write on your website about. We saw like the first thirty minutes of it, but it was on mute as not to distract us from the riveting phone conversation we were engaged in. Anyhow, it looked stylistic if somewhat fake, and Giamatti — even with being the title character — is on screen entirely too much.

So yeah, outside of the selection show that is our weekend in a nutshell: we didn’t watch John Adams. Enthralling. We did, however, watch No Country For Old Men last night, and this is on the heels of seeing 3:10 To Yuma earlier in the week, all that is really comparable about the two is the villains. And after seeing No Country again, Antoine Chigurh makes Bud West looks like an OZ prag.

See, clearly Giamatti wasn’t that much of a miscast.

It appears not everyone is immediately giving John Adams a rave review like is usually done. This one is particularly soulless towards Giamatti, whose stock has been plummeting ever since he was integral to that Lady In The Water movie.

But hey, HBO only shelled out $100 million to see this project made, that’s hardly even considered a significant investment for a pay channel. Can someone explain the logic for HBO to invest this heavily in something when they are reliant on subscribers? Few to no people are actually going to pay for HBO as a result of a miniseries, and even if they do, conventional wisdom would suggest that it’ll be canceled two months from now when the series is done. So I guess the incentive is that those people, after being exposed to the majesty that is HBO, will have no choice but to keep the pay network, or be to lazy to cancel it, or maybe its DVD sales and awards are the motivators. Either way, I need an explanation.

If this guy’s opinion counts for anything at all, it looks like Mad Men will go over well with the Brits. There seems to be a proclivity on the other side of the pond for watching Americans wallow in despair. From what I can gather, The Wire has a pretty strong following as well. Of course, I enjoy watching both series’, which I guess would make me a self-loathing patriot. Whatever, I’m not watching 24.

The gang from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia is bringing their act to FOX in a new sitcom deal. Or rather, a portion of their act, were not certain FCC guidelines allow for a comedy about finding a dumpster baby. On the other hand, they do allow people to wreck their lives on reality television, so the excessive degree of lewdness could go either way.

To send you out on this Monday morning on a high note, it appears FNL is getting closer and closer to a deal. Good, we don’t want our Crucifictorious t-shirt to be dated before we ever wear it in public. Besides, what is Minka Kelly going to do should this series go off the air.

Slow day, back with more tomorrow.

We decide to partake in a week long tribute to the greatest drama of all time after weeks of monotony in the television industry, and sure enough, news breaks on several fronts that interest us. We’ll be discussing The Wire all day tomorrow and next week, but today we’ll post some links and our Survivor recap later today.

First and foremost, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia is returning for a fourth season. We;re not exactly certain what the delay was, every one we know watches and enjoys it, and that is reflected by the stellar 9.6/10 ranking it has on IMDB. Yes, IMDB people tend to consist largely of teenagers with skateboards and dimebags on their person in school, but it indicates a larger audience than FX could ever expect for such an abnormal sitcom.

I can’t believe this was announced in the same week, much less the same day as It’s Always Sunny’s return, or really I can’t believed this was announced at all: Friday Night Lights is set to be renewed for a third season. How, you ask? Direct TV is going to share production costs with NBC and air the series on one of their selected channels. So not only does the series get picked up, it gets a larger platform. The city of Seattle probably wishes they could be so fortunate with the Sonics.

There back this summer, long underwear and all.

So that’s encouraging for two of the series’ we regularly review here, could anything beneficial happen to another, making this an extraordinarily good week for television even if it’s a bad week for everything else? Well, looky here: The Office cast is returning to work today. Holy shit, my head’s spinning with good news this morning. Seriously, I’m like Lucille Osterro right now.

Not exactly news, but we loved this feature on one of the blogs we regularly visit. Three critics each picked a show and argued for that series’ status as the greatest television drama of all time. The three shows in question: The Sopranos, The Wire and Deadwood. If forced to choose, and mind you each series has it’s own characteristics that make it better than the other two, we rank them as such: The Wire stay the king, The Sopranos, Deadwood.

If you’ve ever read this blog you could probably guess that, and its not that we dislike Deadwood but after a season and a half of it we bowed out because it struck us as somewhat one-dimensional. The former two series’ have plenty in common but approach them from different angles, we gave the nod to The Wire because it has a wider range of characters, more of an emotional core, and it emphasizes the political, rather than the personal, which The Sopranos does in spades ever so eloquently.

Speculation on whether or not SNL sparked this Clinton surge is rampant. If it’s true, and it certainly looks like it could be, it would represent a new low in American politics. First off, SNL isn’t even remotely funny anymore. They might as well have us watch the last five minutes of Million Dollar Baby on a continuous loop for ninety minutes, because that would be equally hilarious. Second of all, if sketch comedy shows are determining election outcomes then we really need to collectively reevaluate how are leaders come to fruition, because this is getting absurd. Though to be fair, any of those politically oriented sketches were ten times more persuasive than that bullshit ad with the ringing phone.

We’ve actually known about this for some time, as we saw the movie 25th Hour the week it came out. But Isiah Whitlock, better known as Clay Davis, first used his catchphrase, “Shhhhheeeeiiiit” in the Spike Lee film, not The Wire. Does it kill its efficacy? Not really because it seems so appropriate for the character, it’s just another example of institutional bureaucracy.

Finally, a British man has opened the “Tony Soprano Pizza Shop” somewhere in North Hampton. It immediately becomes the best restaurant in its area, not because of its name, but rather because it serves something edible. This might be better than the local McDonalds.

Back with the Survivor recap later today.

Helluva holiday season this year, we’ve probably been fairly outgoing in the wake of this writer’s strike. And you know what? We don’t like it. Spending time with loved ones, discovering and experiencing new things the world has to offer is overrated if you ask us. Sitting down in front of the television for a five hour binge is generally just as exciting and far more relaxing. Anyhow, onto the rest of the year end review…

5) Extras
Only got better from season one to two and was capped off by an hour and half finale that was as sentimental and introspective as it was hysterical. A sharp turn for a series that’s only dramatic moment beforehand was concluded with a voice mail from Patrick Stewart offering the series’ female lead a role in a soft porn. If Extras taught us anything, it’s that British actors, on a wide scale, are much more self-deprecating than American actors. And that Gervais and Ashley Jensen could both make the transition to dramatic acting and not miss a beat.

4) South Park
Imaginationland! To be frank I couldn’t even remember anything else about the most recent stretch of episodes and had to look it up. There was a King of Kong parody, an oral sex episode that coincided with a mockery of Jesus Camp, a 300 parody, a Guitar Hero episode and several mediocre attempts. But the three part saga that was “Imaginationland” hit on every comedic element possible. From rehashing former characters to absurd scenarios to remarkable likenesses, Trey Parker and Matt Stone proved they still hit more often than they miss.

3) It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia
Sometimes they strive too hard to upset as many people as possible (much like their predecessors at #4) and it cuts into the comedic stylings. But, when it’s working it works better than any other comedy on television. The cast (including Danny DeVito) appears to feed off their apparent synergy more so than any other cast on television since Seinfeld as “the gang” disparages and destroys their lives and the lives of those who dare associate with them. After finishing their third and best season I think this spot is well deserved, if unpopular.

I’d probably rather cross Chris and Snoop.

2) Mad Men
If it wasn’t for the finale of arguably the greatest achievement in television history this probably would have claimed the top spot. Jon Hamm, Vincent Kartheiser and John Slattery (who was briefly in Charlie Wilson’s War getting brow beaten by Philip Seymour Hoffman, by the way) led the helm of an ensemble cast that’s second to none. Every remarkably imperfect character is capable of invoking sympathy at times and hatred at others, including the protagonist Donald Draper, whose mysterious background and unfolded tale kept the summer television season worthwhile. The atmospheric has paved the way for a new style of television as it focuses on every intricate detail of the life during 1960. All we have to say is the editing team is probably underpaid.

1) The Sopranos
What else is there to say that hasn’t been said? The final scene has been rehashed and debated ad nauseum and in some ways diminished the brilliance of the final nine episodes. From a critical standpoint, the concluding half season of this series is probably the best run they produced (we’d still make a case for the fifth season, but that’s a different post) over the eight years it was on and left the series on an ambiguous high note, probably the only appropriate manner for David Chase to end it on.

That’s it for 2007, happy new years!

We haven’t watched Survivor in enough detail to do a full on, play-by-play recap. And to be honest, we’re really unmotivated to do so, everything about this season is about as spontaneous as an episode of CSI. That is to say, we can see it coming from a mile away. I guess that’s the gamut one runs with reality television, you put a lot of stock in casting and hope it pans out. If it doesn’t then the budget costs were low and they can pump out another season ready for airing in three to six months.

So when in doubt or lethargy, we do how we always do and just doll out some links about nothing in particular and be done with it.

The Golden Globe nominees were announced today, and since this is a TV Blog I’ll try to keep my film critiques at a minimum since it seems like for the most part they got it right. We will say that the bias for late fall/early winter releases is growing tiresome. They gave some love to A Mighty Heart and Eastern Promises, the latter was an alright genre flick. A tad formulaic and didn’t really bring anything new to the table, but certainly engaging, well acted and decently written. But still, it pales in comparison to 3:10 To Yuma and Rescue Dawn. One question though, we haven’t seen it, but is it really appropriate to put Charlie Wilson’s War in the Musical or Comedy category. I guess that “American Pie” song is really influential, even though it is misplaced in this film, considering the song was released in 1971 and the movie is set in 1980. But hey, why worry about semantics, right?

As for the television side of things, no nomination for The Sopranos for Best Drama and Gandolfini for best actor are the most glaring oversights, but as far as everything else is concerned it seems pretty accurate. I have a few nitpicks, such as the actresses on Mad Men (especially Christina Hendricks) getting shut out of all nominations, and Vincent Kartheiser as well. However, the series is nominated for best drama and Jon Hamm got a nomination for best actor, so it all evens out. Sort of. Other complaints like It’s Always Sunny and Curb getting shut out weren’t exactly surprises. The former is probably unknown amongst the international press and the latter wrapped up their worst season to date, despite how great the last two or three episodes were. We try to be realists around here.

In non-award news, Will Arnett is scheduled to be the voice of the car from Knight Rider in an upcoming movie adapted from the laughable classic. He really is just squandering away all that good faith he built up in AD, isn’t he?

Those-were-the-dayyyyysssss.

Reno 911 is bringing in several noteworthy actors and actresses for their fifth season, I won’t even say their names. As a casual viewer of the comedy, am I the only one who sees this as a bad thing? Usually when a successful series starts bringing in bigger, non-traditional names to generate buzz, it’s when the series begins to decline. See 30 Rock this season. Or so I’ve been told.

The union is starting to cave in on itself and is now pointing fingers. This might signify the end of the working millionaire in Hollywood. We kid, but we’re actually pulling for them to stay on track and not lose sight of the bigger picture. That being, while this strike is going on, that’s fewer coked out wannabe actresses they’re coercing into bed with the “promise” of a line in the upcoming Brett Ratner movie.

Also from the LA Times, several of the late show writers want their employers returning to work so they can lobby for them on a national level. Because right now as far as the rest of the country is concerned, though there is a deficit of quality entertainment (not necessarily a bad thing in this country), this is ultimately a regional/local problem. Any change would probably be for the better, because right now they’re looking to be in dire straits.

To anyone who isn’t a total moron, Kiefer Sutherland getting a surplus of fan mail shouldn’t come as a surprise. Does he have priors or something? How is he getting two months in prison and his 20 something, white female counterparts are rarely exceeding a full day? God. If this was a torture camp he got electroshocked in the nuts and they got off with some minimal water-boarding. We guess it pays to be a whorish, non-attractive, untalented celebrity in this country.

ABC brought the ax down on Big Shots, a tale of four emasculated CEO’s and how they manage to be CEO’s while completely stripped of their manhood. Damn, we really thought that would build an audience.

And finally, PBS is getting into the reality game with an academic tinge: they’re following around the student newspaper at Penn State. Speaking from experience, we can assure you that few things are more profoundly uninteresting, subjective and apathetic than a student newspaper. Never the less, it beats the shit out of American Idol.

Back with a Survivor recap later.

Well, we’re going to quickly go from overloaded to material-less on the back end of the week here in about ten days. With South Park having one more episode before it goes on hiatus, The Office being plum out of new episodes and being one of the earlier victims of the writer’s strike, and It’s Always Sunny airing its season finale last night … we’re down to Survivor and FNL as the only two series’ we watch at the end of the week, and we have no idea of how much longer the latter will be on board for.

They are expected to have fifteen of the twenty two episodes completed, and their are rumors it might be canceled regardless, but also rumors that ESPN might pick up the series. We’re generally opposed to all of ESPN’s original programming and anything that doesn’t involve PTI and actual sporting events, but we can get on board with the World Wide Leader for this one.

Anyhow, this is neither here nor there. Let’s get to the topic at hand and that’s IASIP third season finale, and a helluva finale it was. Bring back some cameo’s (The waitress, Rickety Cricket), put the bar up for auction on a dance marathon, then see who can withstand the competition and come away with probably the most outstandingly depraved bar on the east coast.

Glenn Howerton was in particularly rare form this episode. From letting the engaged woman drop when she stated she would never sleep with him (after holding her up when Charlie “went limp”), to knocking over The Waitress to dropping the engaged woman’s fiance, it was one of his better performances yet. Especially his response after each person he leveled, particularly the waitress’s:
Waitress: I trusted you Dennis Reynolds!
Dennis: (Smug, amused, self-satisfied expression) Why?
This brief exchange pretty much encompasses their entire relationship.

Actually, all the characters were in rare form last night. Charlie’s psuedo-dance of seduction he rehashed from eighth grade, which actually won him the “dance off” against Dennis, after Dennis beat Mac’s elbow thrusts. Frank was a bit of a side character, but it didn’t stop him from manipulating the contest and determining the winner (after Dee did all the dirty work).

When you see them posed like this, it probably means someone died, and they inadvertently benefited fromit.

And seeing Dee come so close to winning the competition, only to fall short so everyone can disregard everything she says again was almost painful to watch. But, just like her counterparts, it’s hard to feel any sympathy for her with the way she treats Matt (rickety cricket).

There wasn’t really much to the episode other than just putting them in another absurd situation, yet again as a result of Charlie’s illiteracy (It’s ‘prize’, not ‘pride’ Charlie, can’t you see the ‘Z’”?) and have them act it out. Physical comedy played a huge role in this episode, more so than usual, and what would you expect from an episode that revolves around a dance marathon? We probably could have done without the Sklar brothers playing the DJ’s, but they would have just thrown in a couple no names to do the same exact annoying shtick, so either way it doesn’t really matter. We did somewhat enjoy their Entourage cameo though.

Good episode, great season, and they’ve gotten progressively better. which is admittedly somewhat easy, since all they have to do is lower the bar on basic moral standards. The only really bad episode we watched was the hour long special, which in no way needed to be an hour. But this was a great ten episode season and we can only hope the writer’s strike doesn’t knock this series out of commission as well, but we understand if it does.

Back with FNL and Office recaps later.

Great, great episode of IASIP this week. We needed some more zaniness with fewer caricatures like we got last week, and really, the overall tone of this episode seemed less harsh than usual, even though Dee beat up a chronically masturbating homeless man, and Dennis extorted money from non-expecting pedestrians while posing as a cop, that is small potatoes compared to previous episodes.

First off, because it was the first thing I noticed about this episode, the “What are you looking at Dicknose?” t-shirt that Mac was wearing before throwing on the Guardian Angels garb, was ripped straight from Teen Wolf. Stiles is wearing it when he and Scott Howard (let it be known that I originally thought Michael J Fox’s character’s name was “Marty”, before verifying with IMDB) are looking for his misplaced bag of marijuana in his parents garage. Jesus, just when I think this show couldn’t come up with anymore obscure references, they throw in a “What are you looking at dicknose?” t-shirt.

Mac and Dennis’s physical comedy was great this episode. This series, more than anything else we’ve ever watched relies heavily on non-verbal comedic approaches, and that was accentuated this episode. Mac working the Guardian Angels suit and Dennis impersonating the hard ass cop had me in stitches. Charlie doing Serpico (in the rerun afterwards, he began doing an “Attica” chant) and everyone’s contemptuous reaction to it was a notch below, but the outfit was so reminiscent of the classic Pacino film that I couldn’t help but laugh at it.

The vintage cop car looked real, and amidst all the great scenes packed into this one episode, the initial one at the hot dog stand stood out. Particularly when they told the vendor that Charlie was a pedophile and he threw him a nasty look, and it was a quick glance, but Charlie had a look of befuddlement like, “why is this guy staring at me like that?” Frank throwing the cop lingo around with such familiarity was probably the funniest thing Danny DeVito has done on this series. Also, I’m pretty sure I’m going as a Guardian Angel for Halloween next year, that or Omar Little. Gotta wear the beret.

Special Agent Jack Bauer was a little odd, but since Dennis is the closest thing on the series to a sociopath, or on any comedy for that matter, it makes sense he develops an attachment to a junkyard cat that was born in a pool of gasoline. It’s the first time we’ve ever seen Dennis sacrifice his own best interests for something he values sentimentally. Hopefully they don’t make a habit of writing his character like this, at least the cat ran away.

FNL recap later.

Kind of impartial to this episode. I think the same principal that applies to The Office applies to this series as well, only its exaggerated by about ten times. We can only see so many examples of ill-advised decisions within the same story thread.

For instance, we went from a typical story: the gang finds a kilo of coke and wants to use it to their advantage. But it spins into these three different stories with (even for this series) outlandish results. Never would I think Dennis would allow himself to be pimped by Frank, or that Charlie and Dee would resort to using their own drugs to “keep up” with the white collar crowd, or that Dennis and Mac would allow Dee and Charlie and to sell the coke in the first place.

It had its moments, Dennis’ dancing music was off the charts and the impersonation of the pimp-prostitute mentality was hilarious, regardless of how far-fetched. And Charlie with the jockeys, the stable version of Charlie work, and the horse (particularly when he cut him loose in the streets of Philly) had me rolling. Much like the half hour episodes, it was overloaded with screaming matches and frivolous arguments that turn into hilarious justifications, but for a full hour with one episode, it just got too tedious. The ending was a little too heinous, even for my twisted sense of humor.

I’m sure they just wanted to test the waters here, but sticking with what you know is generally the safe play. Another full hour and I might just become too engaged and begin trying to embody these people, and that’s something we all should avoid.

Back with an FNL recap later.

If there was ever a scene signifying how self-involved and morally corrupt these characters are, it was the scene where Dennis and Dee force the sex offender to move out of town with a preteen kid threatening to accuse him to the cops. This, we can all agree on, is hilarious. No one has any empathy for sex offenders, right?

If Dennis’ problems were by chance, Mac’s soon became self-inflicted by his weirdo father. This, is one character I could do without. The only time a peripheral character has bothered us on this series is Artemus, because, well, what the hell was she? I never really understood the humor to an overweight struggling actress who dresses garishly. That was the extent of her character, and I still don’t understand it.

The issues with the one bland character aside, this was a great episode. Dennis’ vanity being directly threatened always makes for a decent plot, and his will to protect it never (at least for me) grows old. The park scene had me in stitches, it must be hard to find a set of rugged looking, blue collar fathers watching their kids on a playground, but they utilized it well. Also, it was good to see Dee give as good, if not worse, than she gets.

In the same vein as Dennis, a motivated Charlie is a dangerous Charlie. He will literally, betray his mother to get what he wants. I could probably watch him scream in horror for an entire half hour and still find it amusing. He’s done so twice I can recall, once last night and once in “The Gang goes Jihad” episode where the fence was built around the back of Paddy’s.

Other highlights:

-The music they played in the car was appropriately funny.

-The gang’s obsession with cannibalism

-The entire scene towards the end with Charlie and Mac in Dennis’ car assuming his father is killing all the people on his list.

The Mac and Frank storylines, with few exceptions, didn’t do much for me. Mac has Freudian dad issues Frank is horny, we get it. But still, the episode kept up at a decent pace and never felt dull, even when it was unfunny. An hour long episode (note singular conjunction) next week. Looking forward to it.

FNL recap later today. Sometime before 9. Presumably.

These Thursday’s are really taking a toll on my retnas. And I wake up too groggy to articulate a detailed post for any one episode of television last night. So because I’m running in a bit of a hurry today and it’s entirely too time consuming to thoroughly write about both comedies plus an additional post about Friday Night Lights, I’m just going to turn this post into an overview of all of last night’s series, but still write a full recap next week for Survivor and the season finale of Mad Men. I feel like this is appropriate, considering The Office wasn’t exactly a comedy last night and IASIP was just the web episode on MySpace that’s been available for the past two months.

First off, however, Mad Men ended its inaugural season as strongly as they opened it. Though it appears as though I spoke too soon about the cause of Peggy’s weight gain, since she’s pumping out kids like a God damn house finch now. Seriously, I suppose given the lack of education about the times, Peggy could have gone through nine months or so of pregnancy, and not realized a person was growing inside of her, but it seems unlikely. All I can say is, this was just an all-around bad episode for Pete, who not only has a child he’s unaware of, but also has to work alongside Peggy for the account given to him by his father in-law with the promise that Pete would impregnate his daughter. It’s the least comeuppance he should have to endure after, you know, failing to successfully blackmail his boss.

Still, it looks like the Draper marriage is on the rocks, and Betty’s actions were vexing, though completely warranted. I’m actually surprised she had the foresight to communicate to her husband through her shrink. Seriously, to discover your therapist is reporting everything you air in private back to your spouse is some humiliating shit. I mean, if the shoe was on the other foot, can you imagine the repercussions for everyone involved if the same thing happened to Tony Soprano? Heads would roll, baby.

On Survivor, well, lets just say that while I enjoyed the episode I hated it all at the same time. It seems the common consensus is to only enjoy Survivor when everything you want to happen goes according to plan. And while I understand everyone’s displeasure with what transpired, it really isn’t so distressing. Did Aaron get completely had by some random game “twist” and two shortsighted, otherwise irrelevant little girls? Of course. But this isn’t so much more unjust then having players mutiny for no apparent reason.

One thing I can’t understand, is how were James and Aaron so incapable of pointing out the gaping holes in their logic? Not before the challenge, but certainly after PG and Jaime obviously through it? For instance, what if the merge is at eleven, or nine, or any number other than ten? What then? Because those two nitwits and there virgin accomplice isn’t any match for any three contestants on Fei-Long. Speaking of which, is anyone surprised that the guy virgin is being led around with nary a protest by a woman who’s willfully ignorant to his best interest? Neither are we.

Of course there are plenty of other oversights on there part. For instance, even if they are lucky enough to merge at ten, putting there grand scheme into effect, what happens when Frosti and Sherea opt to align with the other five members of Fei-Long, instead of the original three at Zhan-Hu? It’s not like Sherea was really identifying with anyone there, what is her incentive to return? So she could join a group of four other individuals, go to a tie in the first tribal council after the merge and hope to stay? If I were her, and though I can’t stand the woman, I would stay with the Fei-Long alliance, and by the time they’d have to vote anyone out, at the very least Jean-Robert would go before her. This is all speculation, but speculating is all PG and Jaime are basing their entire game plan around.

Really, the very least those bitches could have done was vote out the participant asking to leave and keeping the one that wanted to stay. This is about as irredeemable as it gets for any Survivor contestants I’ve ever seen, the twist works assuming you’re not dealing with complete schmucks. Though I will agree it put the four swapped players in an unfair position.

Remember when I said The Office was delving too much into the dramatics? Well, they went full throttle with the melodrama last night. And to be honest, I kind of enjoyed it. I have always gone into an episode of The Office expecting to laugh, but when they’re constantly walking the line between drama and comedy, it was more disjointed and uneven than anything. This episode proved that when the series commits to dramatics, it’s actually quite rewarding. Especially when what little humor there is, is actually derivative of the story. The two highlights were Dwight knocking Jim’s stuff onto the floor after Jim confided to him over “lost love” while he was moaning, followed by Jim and Pam’s rapturous glee; and Dwight saying about Mose’s bad dreams, “He hasn’t been the same ever since the storm” followed by one of Jim’s obligatory reactionary stares at the camera, both admittedly had me in stitches.

I’m really, really disappointed this wasn’t in last night’s episode.

Otherwise this episode had virtually no material worth discussing. I found Michael’s financial woes tedious and boring, and regardless of how she might have recovered, Jan was pretty scornful tonight. Also, if we’re going to be taken on an excursion to Schrute’s Beet Farm, then we need more Mose. If you’re looking for more insight, go here.

And finally, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia was damn funny, but since its been available to the public for some time now, and since I haven’t watched it in well over a month, more than a paragraph sounds like too much effort. But yeah, damn funny. I really never thought we’d see Mac’s love tranny again. The series isn’t big on continuity, and we’ve gone well over a full season without a reappearance (he/she was featured in a late season one episode). This was another episode in which Dee took it on the chin. First by not fully fitting the killers “type” of victim as “young, attractive, blond”, then by finding out she’s been leading on a psychopath. Again, she needs to find some female friends, and not that creepy Artemus, whose almost as unsettling as the McBoyles. Definitely a quality episode, a vast improvement from last weeks.

Recap of last week’s Friday Night Lights later today.

Helluva evening of television last night, obviously we’ll get to much of it later next week. For now, here’s the least of it in text, kind of.

You know, one almost has to assume that at least either Rob McElhenny (sp?), and/or Glenn Howerton and and/or Charlie Day are fans of Arrested Development, because this isn’t the first time I’ve watched an unknowing character date someone who’s mentally handicapped. Then again, since it turned out Dee’s boyfriend wasn’t actually retarded, I suppose that’s a slight modification.

This photo instills more fear than any horror picture I’ve ever seen.

Dee’s dalliances were only half the episode. The other half featured Frank and Mac trying to start a band while rotating front men between Charlie and Dennis. I can’t think of four people more ill-suited to form a band, forget that they can’t play any instruments, the personality issues might be a little too temperamental to stay together. I did like how each member had their own concept as to what the band should look like. Charlie wanted the soul searching, introspective Bob Dylan image, Mac wanted the death metal, head banging persona, Dennis wanted the David Bowie gender ambiguous style of the 80’s, and Frank wanted to dress in vibrantly colored suits and name the band the “Pecan Sandies”.

Obviously, this didn’t go anywhere. Somehow they filled Paddy’s to the brim and much to Charlie’s worst fear, managed to bomb in front of a large crowd. Twice. I suppose Dee’s “hot local rapper” boyfriend was the reason, in which he proved on stage that he wasn’t mentally challenged.

A few highlights from the episode were Mac and Charlie revealing to Frank that they paid for the hotel room they destroyed with his credit card. Charlie “baring his soul” to Mac and Mac completely ignoring him, coupled with Charlie wanting to be behind a curtain or divider of some sort while on stage. Other than that, it was a fairly bland episode. Nothing entirely unpredictable, really. Just five morons acting insanely.

If you watched the rerun episode following it, however, then you saw the episode “100 Dollar Baby”, which, not to take away from the bulk of the episode, had the funniest two minute sequence in the history of the series when Mac and Charlie meet him at his apartment and greet him by throwing a plastic trash can at his head. Now that, is classic television.

A recap of last night’s The Office and last week’s season premiere of Friday Night Lights later today.

The comedies over the past four or five days will be sharing posts in order to shorten the amount of time I spend writing here while I should be working, or at least pretending to work. We’ll have a post later tonight or early tomorrow reviewing the latest episodes of The Office and South Park as well.

But first thing is first, It’s Always Sunny got back on the right track last Thursday after a derailing of sorts the week before. For the most part, I though these episodes were more abnormal than anything I’ve seen from them in three seasons, which counts for a lot with this series (The “diaper time” thing was especially unsettling). Meaning, the gang seemed acutely oblivious about their goals.

I probably preferred the “Selling Out” episode, simply because the writing and acting seems at its pinnacle when they’re all backstabbing each other for marginal personal gain, but the “famous” episode had its high points. Namely, Dee getting the short end of the stick yet again, and the issues with excessive perspiration afflicting Mac instead of Charlie. However, little could be done to top the reintroduction of Charlie Day’s wife playing the manager at a local generic restaurant chain, and Dennis’ callous indifference towards her. Just a great hour of comedy.

In Curb, well, it seems that we’ve hit a rough patch. Last night’s episode entitled “The Freak Book” had a few absolutely laugh out loud moments, but they were intertwined with too much monotony, and frivolous yet unidentifiable arguments. I really didn’t understand the need to stretch Larry’s conversation with the bartender to over two minutes, considering they didn’t even reference it past the exchange with Ted Danson immediately afterwards. This, among many other mind-numbing scenes, had me checking the clock every five minutes.

Larry being ostracized, much like the freaks in his book.

It seemed this episode wasn’t going to be salvageable, until Larry caused an absolute semi-drunken scene because of the car service while Ted was opening his presents. Him and Jeff laughing hysterically at the freak book reminded me of Mac and Charlie in their penny suits after they stole Frank’s money. This along with the Jon McEnroe “partying” scene that had me in stitches (A similar scene with Johnny Mac takes place in Mr. Deeds with the tennis pro playing himself and showing Adam Sandler “The real New York”. Still remains the only noteworthy scene in that movie) almost saved the entire episode and earned a positive review.

As a side note, I wonder if Larry David inserted the Heather Mills joke as a way of empathizing with Paul McCartney, another uber-rich celebrity going through a very public divorce. The last time I can recall them using an off screen voice as a plot device was in the first season episode, “The Interior Decorator” with Diane Keaton leaving a couple phone messages. The Heather Mills voice was particularly awful, just a harpy, unmerciful thick British accent. Maybe the two of them will start a club, ” The borderline billionaires being taken to the cleaners in a divorce for no apparent reason” club. While I would hate giving up that much money I earned, I would love to be a member.

Still enjoyable, just not what it once was. Either way, it’s a good way to wind down at 3am after driving for eight hours.

Back later with more comedy recaps.

This is what happens when you bring a man widely responsible for Daddy Day Camp to direct two of your episodes. Not to say these episodes were terrible or tame (anything but), but the jokes and situations seemed to resonate less than they have in the past.

For those who don’t know, the director of Daddy Day Camp is Fred Savage. Better known as Kevin Arnold from The Wonder Years. After these two projects, jumping into a series as explicit as IASIP seems very Bob Saget-esque. And these episodes were anything other than straight and narrow. One did a satire on sweatshop labor and in the other Charlie befriended and got engaged to a twelve year-old, whom he assumed was twenty-one because her father (a woman dressed like Kim Jong-Il) had her tending bar.

This is the downside to this series, because at its ceiling, there is seldom anything funnier on television (see the “dumpster baby” and “Hostage” episodes from this season). But when it bombs, it tends to look like tonights first episode, “The Aluminum Monster vs. Fatty McGoo”.

It had its moments with the steam whistle, Charlie stealing mounds of clothing from a store while pretending to listen to Dee when she was feeling inadequate that her friend from high school owned the store they were shopping in, Dennis’ reaction to Dee claiming he had peaked, his description of himself to Judy Greer, Charlie Day’s physical comedy when Mac offered him a piece of jerky. But it wasn’t consistently laugh out loud funny like the four preceding it were. Still, I’m not going to complain too much, anytime an episode revolves around a series of lies and deceit its generally a half-hour well spent, despite how many dry spells the episode had where I felt more uncomfortable than humored.

The second episode, “The Gang Solves The North Korea Problem”, was an improvement, but still seemed like it was lacking something. I think when all five characters pair off, or are preoccupied with different things, the episode suffers. Certainly they all have their own agendas, but when those agendas are in different arenas, it seems almost like the writing gets too disjointed and they don’t know what to focus they’re efforts on.

They look innocent enough, but they’ll rip your heart out for a 5-spot.

There was still plenty to enjoy about this episode. Including the American Idol parody, Dee’s constant failure and discouragement (she took it on the chin this hour and I almost started to feel bad for someone on this show, she needs some girl friends), Charlie’s thoughts on kissing, the “enriched beer”, the duster jacket, Charlie and Dennis trying to knock down the “Private” (not pirate) door, followed by Dennis letting out a boastful “Nice” when he spin-kicked it and Charlie subsequently threw his entire upper-torso into it. But again, one too many dry spells where bits seemed to either fall flat or drone on for too long. When something drones on this series, it only lasts around a minute and a half, but they talk at such rampant speeds it seems never ending.

Really, while I wouldn’t completely write these episodes off, I wouldn’t recommend anyone unfamiliar with the series to start with them, nor would I expect anyone who watched the series for the first time last night to continue to watch. Just a (very small) bump in the road, I am fully confident we get back to the constant funny next Thursday. I’m not sure how I’m going to adjust to only one new episode in three weeks.

Damn, so how do I convey something that was twisted, heinous, inappropriate and hilarious without sounding like I need to be committed myself? I know, I’ll go on a preamble about how I do not agree with any of the actions of the characters, but am highly amused by their callous indifference to those around them.

There, now that I can write with impunity, how about the gang celebrating the death of one of their parents? Huh? Was that fucking hilarious or what? Nothing like following up tripping on acid and treating an infant found in a dumpster as a commodity, with kidnapping two college students and figuring out how to screw over your awful, deceased mother/ex-wife. This show, obviously, is merciless.

The first episode, bluntly titled, “Dennis and Dee’s Mom Is Dead” really emphasizes how these are people you’d rather watch than encounter. They’re so self-absorbed, the woman’s death only inspires Frank and Dee to enact revenge against their ex-wife/mother by hoping to coerce Dee’s biological father out of the fortune she left him. To which he turns the tables and ends up marrying the two of them while they’re trying to prove they’re a real couple, and confiscates the video of Frank on Dennis’ estate, left to him by his mother under the bylines that he never let her ex-husband on the property.

The physical acting is kind of what carries this episode. The mannerisms and reactions of Dennis, Charlie and Mac while searching for new friends to live on their “legacy” really accentuate the awkwardness I’m sure their unsuspecting victims were feeling. It would have been nice to see Dee in on this scheme, but who has time for that when pining to dig up your mother for the jewelery she was buried with?

The second episode was actually tame in comparison. In “The Gang Gets Held Hostage”, the McPoyle’s, supposedly exacting their own revenge for the debilitation of their cousin last week at Eagles camp, burst into the bar (the two main ones and the sister with the uni-brow). This episode just revolved around how self-involved each of the characters are. They each, at one point or another, sold each other out to save their own ass.

Speaking of which, there were a number of parodies in this episode. Most notably with Die Hard when one of the McPoyle’s fell off the roof. Also, Dee running around the bar forming “alliances” with Charlie and Dennis in a satirical reference to Survivor (appropriate since the reality show’s 15th season premiered last night); and a psuedo-parody of the movie Hostage with Charlie and Frank climbing through the vents (or at least that is what it reminded me of, seems a tad obscure compared to the other two references).

This episode is also nominated for the most horrifying scene in television history, when Dennis attempts (and succeeds) at seducing the deaf-mute sister of the two brothers. Her only response to anything in this episode is to stick her tongue in a lizard-like fashion, and she does so here. Then with the McPoyle busting into the room and asking what’s going on, and Dennis saying “nothing”, then the McPoyle replying, “It doesn’t look like nothing, but for the record I’m into it”. Ugh. I almost died from laughter or disgust.

In addition to most horrifying scene, the arguably the funniest scene in this series’ history was in this episode. And it was nothing more than Charlie and Mac talking in the bathroom while the deaf-mute looked on. From Charlie’s dismissal, to determining whether or not the deaf-mute can read lips, to arguing over the Frank’s will, I was in stitches.

Anyhow, it ends when they find out there were no cops haggling on the phone, then discover the guns in question were rubber and the entire thing was a practical joke. It is actually satisfying to see a group of scumbags duped by an inbred family, restoring some justice in the world.

Note: With so much quality television on Thursday nights (IASIP, Survivor, Mad Men and The Office), we’re moving the links up to Wednesday or Tuesday. Sorry for the late notice, enjoy the weekend.