Grid Effect

That was a solid redemption episode to end the first third of this season. I think it’s safe to say that South Park is at its best when their is some current event that is being broached, but in a roundabout way. That is when their satire is at its peak: when there is also a parody slant to arc. So when the episode revolves around Cartman rallying a small number of his classmates to fly to Mogadishu and align with some Somali pirates on Kyle’s dime, we were pretty confident about things from the get go.

The episode was a little slow developing, it didn’t really peak until Cartman jammed the wooden chair-leg into the unnamed man’s left stump and we watched him walk off completely elated. At that point it was all downhill but would still deliver. One would think that at this point, Kyle would know Cartman is way too manipulative to let something like a gang of Somali pirates get the better of him. In that manner it was predictable, but still what we like about South Park. They’re able to take the narcissism and wants of elementary schoolers and turn it into something a lot more sinister than it really is.

I also enjoyed the randomness of the people that Cartman had compiled: Ike, who’s displeasure for “the monotony of middle class life” and the hoopla surrounding Susan Boyle, drove him to the lifestyle. Kevin, who was used as a pawn in Cartman’s latest successfully hatched plan because he knew his mom would supply refreshments. Butters, whose impressionability will always and forever get the better of him. And Craig, who I can’t believe would go along with anything Cartman recommended after the Peruvian flute debacle.

It gave some screen time to some different characters and livened up the show a little. Frankly, at this point, we would be perfectly content if they ditched the Kenny character altogether. They’ve killed him a countless number of times, just don’t bother bringing him back.

We also appreciated the effort they made to demonstrate some sympathy for the Somali people, as they showed the rather nonchalant citizens advising against them entering the pirate hub, and gave the one pirate his explanation for why he decided to become a pirate in the first place: lack of options, dire family circumstances, and ultimately a degree of desperate necessity. It was nice of them to do that before having a team of Navy Seals come on and murder all of them under the order, “all of them but the white ones”. South Park has reached Howard Stern status in which they can say or do anything they want and no one cares, but it was a nice precursor. Otherwise it would have seemed excessively hateful, particularly for a comedy.

Other things we liked from “Fatbeard”:

-We mentioned it earlier but it warrants repeating: Cartman jamming the wooden peg into what was left of the guy’s amputated leg was a classic South Park throwaway moment, like the picture of Cartman leading the Ginger Separatist movement or the Mormons walking off elated with their painted faces.

-Speaking of which, it was oddly reassuring to see Cartman’s seething hatred for gingers is still abundant.

-We generally do not care for music in our comedy, but the song and scene with the pirate choir singing over the montage was classic South Park. Trey Parker and Matt Stone do comedy music better than anyone, and this reminded us of the factory workers at the cigarette company in “Butt Out“.

-Butters’ gold nipple ring.

-Kevin’s light saber was a nice callback to the “Lord of The Rings” episode, when he showed up in a stormtroopers outfit.

In short, a successful and enjoyable half hour of television. It was relevant, witty satire that they haven’t really been bringing to the table the past couple episodes. As for this batch of episodes on the whole, we really only liked three of them: “The Ring”, “Margaritaville” and this episode. That left us with four duds to varying degrees in “The Coon”, “Eat, Pray, Queef”, “Fishsticks” and “Pinewood Derby”. Not the best ratio, but the three at the top of the list were all top forty and arguably higher. Basically, South Park is just trying to outdo itself now.

Office recap later.

I am always reluctant to badmouth South Park because they’ve brought me entertainment and laughs for a solid 180 or so episodes, but what the fuck was that last night? I don’t think South Park can have a literal “jump the shark” moment (good lord I hate that fucking phrase) given the nature of the show, but when the series ultimately ends (and it will in the next five years, I would suspect) and people do the obligatory retrospectives, they will look back on this episode as the low point.

Yeah, this feels like a missed opportunity.

It wasn’t that the episode was too offensive or too myopic or too redundant, it was that it appeared they weren’t even trying. Outside of a few Randy Marsh exchanges, there really wasn’t much to take away from “Pinewood Derby”, other than the fact that it had probably the oddest and one of the more humorless side characters we’ve ever seen in the purple alien whose name I’ve already forgotten. This is a shame, because we saw the premise, registered that it was going to have a surplus of Randy in it and we’re immediately excited.

If they would have kept the episode a little more self-contained on the pinewood derby level, with Randy’s primary obsession to be upstaging the Hollis’ then this could have worked. Throw in some more interaction with the other three guys and I think we have a successful installment of South Park. But expanded to the absurdity that we saw, in which they seemed to just be filling time the twenty-two minutes alloted to them and we get the monotony that we saw last night. This would actually go against the grain of South Park, as absurdity is almost necessary for the satire (”Canceled“, “Ginger Kids“, etc.), but just Randy being over-zealous about the pinewood derby is enough to suffice.

I don’t want to drone on here for reasons already stated, but I hope this wasn’t the last episode for the first third of this season. If for nothing else that will leave a bad taste in my mouth. Ah well, we’ll always have “Margaritaville” to tied us over.

Just a few side-notes with some links to go along with it, because it seems like there is a lot of pertinent shit going on that we would post about if we weren’t doing fucking episode recaps all week. Take, for instance, the premiere of two new NBC series’ last night. One we watched (Parks and Recreation) and one we didn’t (Southland), neither should be a surprise to anyone who has ever read the site and knows our attitude towards cop dramas, but I will admit that Southland look exceptional compared to the rest, if only because of the way it markets itself as “behind the scenes” cop show. But we’re sure that is all bullshit, a cop drama on a broadcast network can only be so authentic.

Parks & Recreation, on the other hand, we did happen to catch. I mean, it was hard to miss. Ben Silverman did everything short of pop into my living room, put me in the Hannibal Lector gurney and force me to watch NBC from 8:30 to 9PM. Or, at least, that’s how I construe someone airing a series premiere in between two new Office episodes. Anyhow, if you also happened to tune in last night, don’t worry, we’re not going to be recapping it.

Too much of one thing is never good.

That isn’t to say that the series has no untapped potential (and I say untapped because they certainly didn’t open the resevoir last night), but we’ve been watching and enjoying The Office for about five years now. Between the hour long episodes, the cameos, the reruns, etc. I think it’s safe to say that we don’t need another installment of it with a female Michael Scott, not to mention a character with a direct correlation to everyone in Dunder-Mifflin.

We do agree with the popular sentiment that this series will come into its own. The argument seems to be that The Office didn’t really find its way until its second season, since Parks & Recreation is created by the same two people who did the American Office (Greg Daniels & Michael Schur), we should expect the same development phase. I tend to disagree, and think that indeed, since the two shows are so similar the growing pains should be substantially timelier. Either way, best of luck to everyone involved. It is going to be a tough blow when you’re canceled in June.

Speaking of The Office, someone took the initiative (one of the perks of the down economy, I suppose) and created a website for the Michael Scott Paper Company. There’s nothing particularly unique or interesting about it, but now you can look cool in front of all your friends that you knew about this and they didn’t. Cool, or like you’re unemployed or hold an expendable position at work. I guess it really all depends on what kind of people you hand out with, doesn’t it?

Kanye West has responded in kind to Wednesday’s South Park episode with…kindness? Nope, I think humility is the word I’m looking for. I wonder if their will be anymore self-awareness after this, but I’m guessing not. Anyone who writes a screed in caps lock about how “dope” he is, claiming he only wants to be “doper”, doesn’t generally follow through with it. This is basically like when Tony Soprano made the proclamation that “everyday is a gift”, then by season’s end he had murdered family members, beaten his son and told his wife she could live in a dumpster after he died. What I’m trying to say is, I give it about six months before the next Kanye West temper-tantrum. Oh well, at least he’s offering up a substantive response, unlike Carlos Mencia, who’s “laughing off” accusations of plagiarism. That is kind of funny how they relegated his entire career and livelihood into a criminal act, so I can sort of see where he’s coming from.

And finally, if you aspire to feelings of inadequacy and want to elevate your girlfriends expectations to levels that you could never possibly reach (assuming she isn’t already there), you can place a bid for her to go on a date with Jon Hamm, aka Don Draper of Mad Men (pictured here). This sounds like a great, if expensive way to finagle your way out of a relationship that you’re unhappy in. Maybe you can duke him an extra fifty or so (like a prostitute) to make out with her so you don’t have to feel guilty about it. I’m always on the cutting edge of good breakup advice.

If this doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, you could, I don’t know, stop maxing out your bids against a bunch of single women. Though if I had to guess , this whole thing is going to end with Jon Hamm making a cameo at a party for someone’s sixteenth birthday.

FNL recap in a couple.

South Park has a habit of taking the absurd and putting it into terms that are comical as opposed to offensive. So we probably should have seen the evisceration of Kanye West coming at some point this season. But we didn’t, probably because he seems so insignificant and always makes a bigger spectacle of himself than his celebrity should ever warrant.

When he removed the backpack, he lost all humility.

For those who don’t know, all of the “I’m a genius” and “I’m the voice of a generation” quotes from last night, as self-advertising and out of touch as they may seem, are actually quotes Mr. West will gladly take credit for (and I believe they’re written on his website or facebook page or something to that extent). This, of course, is ridiculous; and Kanye deserves all the mockery that comes his way. In fact, there has been an alarming dearth of it. Maybe it’s the times or whatever, but it seems like that ten years ago if someone was as full of himself as Kanye West is, and has no shame about being so conceited, at the very least SNL would tear you apart. That’s not really fair though, because I don’t think current day SNL is capable of tearing anyone apart. Even still, Kanye is lucky they didn’t go after that spectacle he threw at the MTV awards.

And maybe they should have, because as much as we admire and encourage pop-culture observers with a public forum to mock Kanye West,  I didn’t think last night’s episode was all that funny. Sure, we also know Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s opinion of Carlos Mencia (a fellow comedy central cohort), and we love the pathos of Eric Cartman being explored and everyone except for Jimmy (and probably Butters) being wise to them. But there was just a too few ardent laughs for us to consider this episode recommendable. At least by South Park standards.

For starters, we felt like the actual joke was uttered about a hundred too many times. We know the repetitiveness of it was part of the joke, but it got old after Cartman and Butters ran around school telling it to everyone else. We also felt like if someone had simply said to Kanye, “Fishsticks is two words combined into one, when echoed without thinking about it, ‘fishsticks’ can sound an awful lot like ‘fish-dicks’”. And then he could have laughed or decapitated Carlos Mencia or something. I don’t know, it just felt like all the humor when West’s likeness was on camera was drained from the concept about ten minutes into the episode.

There was still plenty to enjoy, namely Jimmy’s confrontation with Cartman, Clyde assuring Jimmy that he wouldn’t win this battle with Cartman, Carlos Mencia pleading that he just repackages jokes and Cartman arriving at Jimmy’s house because “Stan and Kyle are mad at him about something”. All the flashbacks felt like they were from a different show, the Kanye West jabs too frequently fell flat and it seemed like a good chunk of the episode was used to kill time as opposed to having a point or a joke somewhere in the mix.

For some reason this strikes us as an episode that we’re not going to see eye to eye on with the masses. And what with populism being all the rage nowadays, I’d appreciate if you refrained from sending me the conficker virus or whatever the kids are doing these days. I think we have at least one more, if not two episodes left before they go on hiatus again, let’s wait to see if they close out this batch of episodes with something we can all agree on before your fury is unleashed.

Last week’s Survivor recap later today.

Well, I was planning on eating some chips and guacamole while watching this episode, then in a stroke of dumb luck opted to skip ahead on the cable guide to read the description for this episode. I happened to catch the title and, well lets say that we decided to postpone the guacamole. Coincidentally, that decision was pretty apropos of last night’s episode.

But we’re pretty ambivalent to it overall. I don’t know, maybe we’re as subconsciously offended to queefing as the male characters were unabashedly offended, but like with all toilet humor, it was literally the same joke put on repeat. Case in point, with the exception of “Canada On Strike” We’ve never much cared for the Terrence and Philip episodes either.

Meh.

There was a lot of meta in this episode. Most notably the concept of a Terence and Philip sequel being preempted by another show, much like how South Park once preempted a  second half of a two part episode for and episode of…Terence and Philip, which also took place on April Fool’s Day in 1998. We like the circle of life approach to this and how it all ties together, but the content of the episode, save for a couple of choice scenes, was just kind of boring. It wasn’t a terrible episode in the same way that “The Coon” was, but it was redundant. As all toilet humor is.

A couple of scenes we enjoyed:

-This was the second time Parker and Stone had Martha Stewart penetrating her nether regions with inanimate objects. It wasn’t all that funny until the last five seconds of the scene.

-The argument over dinner made us laugh if just for the severity of it between Randy and Sharon. It was also the highlight of the hypocrisy from the guys that dominated the episode.

All in all, not their best effort but at least an attempt to be original with a comedy premise that has been around since time immemorial. If we tallied up the season so far, we have one epic episode (”Margaritaville“), one really good episode (”The Ring“), one memorable episode but only for how terrible it was (”The Coon“) and “Eat, Pray, Queef”, which is somewhere in between really good and their Dark Knight parody. By all measures next week’s installment should be wholly enjoyable.

We’re out of town tomorrow, but will be back on Monday.

So The Office is about to come on in eight minutes and we are just ending our day at work. It’s times like these that I want to quit this site but my OCD won’t let me. Whatever, this episode last night might have been the hardest we’ve laughed since Arrested Development’s four episode finale bloc. Besides, we already have two posts to do tomorrow with the aforementioned Office and last week’s strangely reminiscent FNL. I don’t know about you, but I’m excited about the new direction this website is taking. There’s nothing I enjoy more than ten hour workdays.

But enough of my kvetching. Watching Trey Parker and Matt Stone satirize something as wholly confusing and impossible to assign blame for as the falling economy was simply delightful. We literally yelped when we read the episode description and saw not only the subject matter involving a margarita machine, but also that it was going to be a Randy episode. In short, last night was nothing short of epic.

We don’t want to throw too many superlatives at it because that’s just boring, but we have are going to have a hard time restraining ourselves. From the opening at the bank to the roundtable in Washington to Kyle getting snubbed, about the only thing we would complain about is the joke with the banker carrying on a little too long. Other than that this was a flawless episode.

Naturally Randy is leading the crazy helm. The world of South Park has always been one of cluelessness, panic and overreaction, and he was almost born to tell the townspeople what they pine to hear: That you must radically alter your life at any sign of a setback. It would have been nice to hear from Sharon considering how disapproving she is of all his idiocy, making it all the more peculiar why she married him, and then got back together when they split up. Phew, it’s a good thing this is a comedy show and I fully realize that. Otherwise one might suggest that I’m taking this too seriously.

Is this too morbid for a TV blog? It feels too morbid.

Also semi-predictable but entertaining in its construction: Cartman blaming the jewish populace. If there is one thing you can count on in any controversial South Park episode it’s Cartman pissing off everyone for frivolous reasons. Not to say that the tanking economy is frivolous, but the reason Cartman gives a shit is. But for all the laudatory things we have to say about this episode and really the series, nothing compared to the roundtable of oligarchs determining what to do with crumbling American institutions.

I’ve seen some humorous shit in the past three years so when I say this episode was the funniest thing I’ve watched since the end of Arrested Development, it’s saying something. And the headless chicken dancing on the grid was the apex of it. The brilliance of capturing the seemingly random decision making (from both administrations) in such an effectively satirical manner is truly inspiring.

So far, we’re off to a great start this season. I’m the first to admit that last week’s episode was a real setback in terms of evolving: too many flat jokes and overused premises (even for this show) gone awry and underused characters. But I think even those who’ve fallen back on the “it’s not as good as it used to be” justification for no longer watching would agree that between this episode and the season premiere I think we’re witnessing a return to greatness.

Recaps tomorrow, if you can’t remember which ones you should probably emphasize scheduling a CAT Scan.

Holy shit, at first I thought it was a Watchmen parody (which would have been great because it would have given us the chance to pontificate on why the movie was very disappointing), then I thought it was The Maxx (Best. Comic book cartoon. Ever.), and then I recognized the music and the gravely voice and it dawned on me I was watching the first Dark Knight parody, which was long overdue. I’m surprised they had the balls what with the whole Heath Ledger ordeal, although this is about three mountain time zone states away from whatever “the line” is by anyone’s standards.

The Maxx: Too badass to not post a picture of if it gets mentioned in a post.

At first the episode felt like another example of a failed premise from South Park, one that was great in theory and poor in execution…and unfortunately that’s exactly what it turned out to be. It had it’s high points, we loved how Cartman being Cartman, he took about ten seconds to reveal his real motivations, which were for everyone to wonder who The Coon was and to admire him (similar to Butters’ motivations with Professor Chaos, though not nearly as vindictive), despite the incredibly poor footwork he put into it.

Speaking of which, naturally I guessed Mysterio was Butters given his history as Professor Chaos, but I loved bringing him into the mix as his original handle with General Disarray. We also enjoyed that the actual revelation was a jab at their own (intentional) one-dimensional animation, because there wasn’t a character that it could have been that would have been funny. Instead, it was just a random faced extra that wasn’t Kyle or Stan but could have been Craig, Clyde or that Mormon from about eight seasons ago.

Other noteworthy moments:

-Love the artist rendition of Mysterio (similar to the composite sketches from the Willzyx episode) and Cartman being privy to what everyone thinks about him after he claimed to be someone else.

-Professor Chaos’ Joker-esque warning to the city was probably the funniest thing in the episode. I don’t know if anyone has seen Forgetting Sarah Marshall but that’s what it reminded me of, which may or may not have been the desired effect. But specifically the scene with Jason Segel’s online camera conversation with his friend when Segel was trying to ascertain whether or not his friend’s wife was in the room.

The episode flew by so it couldn’thave been terrible and we haven’t said much critiquing it because their just doesn’t seem to be much there, and that’s probably the problem. It felt like it was missing a punchline beyond this is our Dark Knight parody, hoping that, that in and of itself would be amusing. It had its moments but it was basically a disappointment following the strong start from last week. We’ve already watched that episode three times, we doubt we’ll ever watch this one again.

That’s it for today, FNL and Office recaps tomorrow.

That wasn’t quite as controversial of a return as the Indiana Jones episode, but I’m sure it didn’t fail to piss some people off. Well, Christians, Jonas Brothers fans & Disney Corp. Which, in the venn diagram of subsets of people to piss off, I imagine there is a lot of crossover between those three. There was some downside to this episode in that it felt like just another chance for Trey Parker and Matt Stone to take pot shots at everything they disapprove of, and it is, but when they do it so cleverly and I happen to agree with what they say, I can’t help but consider this episode the bees knees.

There were some choice scenes in this episode, most notably the first encounter the Jonas Brothers have with Mickey Mouse, the dinner with all the couples and the constant haranguing of Grey’s Anatomy. There was several in between subtle moments, but with these three teams the satire was so sharp and so cutting that we felt like this was South Park at its finest. Not only was it intelligent and convincing, but also funny and original (in some respects, we actually saw a Mickey Mouse likeness on the intolerable Drawn Together, needless to say it was executed much better here).

Kenny having his own subplot was a welcomed change, as he has always seemed to be aging quicker than his contemporaries. The reaction to discovering his girl puts out was one for the ages, and the response from the four kids being unable to comprehend what was taking place was a part of South Park we always find amusing: These four kids having adult reactions to the world around them but still dealing with the tribulations of being nine. Save for Kenny, of course.

Other things about this episode we enjoyed:

-The boys’ rejection to both Jonas Brothers and Grey’s Anatomy mirrored that of High School Musical, but only Kenny ended up with a purity ring in a failed attempt to fit in.

-Considering I have three nieces, two of which are diehard Jonas Brothers fans, all of the suggestiveness about the Jonas Brothers was a little disturbing, especially the backstage scene. I know it was exaggerated for comedic reasons, but was the general point fairly astute? Because if so: God damn it.

-Everytime Mickey chuckled after everything he said. It was his version of Mr. Garrison’s “Mmmkay”, or vice versa.

-Every bit of intimidating dialogue from Mickey.

Outside of the attempt to schock us with some of the concert antics, this was a solid return that I imagine several fans who felt the thirteenth season was pedestrian (Note: I am not one of those people) will be pleasantly surprised with. Much like we were holding out for an election episode with the last run of episodes, this time we’re waiting on one that provides commentary on the economy. Which is such a remarkably sensitive topic (as seen on Bill Maher a couple weeks ago) it will be interesting to see where they take it and if they care how offensive it is for an issue that’s so prescient for so many people. Right now they’ve built a good head of steam.

Back with links, Survivor and Office recaps later.

Just a couple reminders before we get to some links:

1) South Park makes its triumphant return to television tonight (this season premiere’s target: The Jonas Brothers), just in time for us to be extraordinarily busy at the end of the week. Over the next couple days we should have a recap for this, last week’s Friday Night Lights episodes, Survivor and The Office. When we lose our job due to a crippling economy, it’s good to know our free time will still be limited.

2) We have been sick all week, so if our posts have been atypically short then we apologize, but its not our fault so much as it is the traditionally fluctuating weather patterns of sunny Columbus, OH and the sinus infections it carries.

Anyhow, now that you know entirely too much about how my week is going, lets get to some at least fourteen hour old news items.

There's a good chance you don't know who Jim Cramer is, so here you go.

Jim Cramer and Jon Stewart are escalating their three day long slap fight to an actual face-to-face confrontation on The Daily Show tomorrow night. I like watching The Daily Show and all, and the only thing I know about Jim Cramer is the 60 Minutes piece I saw on him awhile back that portrayed him as a financial savant that was more than a tad hyperbolic; but is anyone else just bored to tears by this? I’m sure it will be monumental when Cramer rings a bell and an anvil drops on his head. Hopefully Stewart can get to his emergency button that will drop Cramer and the chair he is sitting in into the fiery pits of hell before the erratic financial “expert” gets the better of him.

Some great news for fans over overly-sentimental television: Friday Night Lights might be looking at a two season extension with its unique economic model that puts the burden of production costs on both NBC and DirectTV. This, especially in this economy, would be a welcomed surprise. I have no idea how either company can financially justify such an extension and, just maybe, perhaps I don’t care. I just want to see how they transition from a third to a fourth season.

Jesus Christ, its not like David Simon has to do anything to get me to watch his series’. After you create something like The Wire, I’m pretty much on the hook for eternity. Well, not only did his new series Treme, about musicians in New Orleans cast Clark Peters (Freamon, who was also on Damages last night) and Wendell Pierce (The Bunk), but now the show has landed Melissa Leo, star of the underrated indie hit Frozen River (and if you may recall was my choice to win best actress). Just based on the casting acumen alone I can all but guarantee that Treme will be worth everyones time.

Jay Leno is scheduled to do a free show in Detroit at the home of the Pistons next month. As much as his style of comedy is attune to our tastes, I never hear a bad thing about him and he seems to be constantly doing charitable shit like this. God damn it Jay, you make it so hard for me to root against you when you move to 10PM.

And finally, just so you know that her stint on Survivor wasn’t an act: Sandy, the most recent bootee from this season, wants to pose for Playboy. This might be a big enough publicity stunt to bring the magazine back to prominence. Let’s see the miracles that airbrush can work, boys. It’s not necessarily something I would ever buy, but don’t worry, I’ve never bought an issue of Survivor in my life so at least you won’t be losing a customer.

Hopefully we can get to the FNL recap after work.

So we finally got around to Jimmy Fallon’s Tuesday effort (though we didn’t watch Wednesday’s), and there was a noticeable improvement. At least during the interviews, we couldn’t stand to watch the monologue as it’s still a nervous, cliche mess. But the interviews with Tina Fey (whom he’s almost too comfortable with, as Miss Fey’s husband is probably suspicious as hell) and Bon Jovi were laid back and effortless.

Basically they went how every talk show interview I’ve ever seen that didn’t make the evening news. So it wasn’t anything phenomenal, but just an hour of television that didn’t make you want to hide under your bed. I think this is what happens when you interview somebody other than Robert DeNiro.

Here are a few links to kick off the morning.

We occasionally mock David Caruso and the entire CSI franchise, but rarely have we ever taken it to this level. It’s accurate, but just as unmerciful. We recommend the clip of one-liners directly below the flow chart. It starts to wear off about two minutes in, but stick with it and it will be funny again about four minutes in. Quit acting like your time is so fucking valuable, man.

Wheel of Fortune celebrated its 5,000th show on Friday. I don’t mean to be flippant but is anyone else surprised that the number is that low? I mean, one show for every weeknight for what seems as long as I’ve been alive. Or rather, as long as I can remember being alive. I’m 27, that means it dates back at least 23 years. Frankly, I don’t know what they’re celebrating.

Jerry Seinfeld has a reality series he’s producing for NBC, and claims he will never be in front of the camera. I can understand that. When you’re regarded as one of the world’s best comedians yet haven’t said or done anything all that funny for over a decade, why would you want to break that streak and expose yourself as yet another stooge in the entertainment business that’s reliant on Larry David.

God damnit, I know we’re not immune but the penchant everyone has of late to deride The Office as some run-of-the-mill superfluous sitcom is starting to agitate. In this article, the guy laments that the series is relying too heavily on traditional sitcom quandaries to fill its episodes. Maybe this is true — especially in the case of Jim and Pam — but for the most part, at this point in a series’ run it’s not about the situational humor so much as it is about the characters reactions to it, because their so uniquely established to everything else on television (I am speaking mainly of Dwight, Michael and several of the supporting cast here). The series has been as strong this season as the four that preceded it, and I won’t listen to any arguments otherwise.

Apparently it was rumored that Evangeline Lilly was rumored to be contemplating to leave Lost (sounds substantial to me!). But she has since squashed those rumors and confirms her good standing with the hit

Yeah, this was worth it.

series. Am I linking to this story just to post an accompanying picture of the abnormal yet almost inhumanly attractive starlet? You bet I am. With any luck, the time traveling island will teleport far back in time enough to when television didn’t exist, and I won’t be subjected to any news about it. As long as they leave Miss Lilly behind, I think we’ll be all the better for it.

The guy who played the hapless, average schmoe and homicide detective on The Wire, Holley, won Howard Stern’s Black Superfan Trivia on the radio. I have no idea what that is, but it sounds pretty degrading even by Howard Stern standards. There is no glory in being a bit player on the greatest series in the history of television, it would seem.

And finally, if you don’t own the DVD’s, have access to Southparkstudios.com or are have basic cable, you can now watch South Park on Netflix, under the assumption that you subscribe to Netflix. Which is a good thing, people with the money and time to randomly watch reruns of the best animated series on television, seldom have access to cable or the internet.

Back with an FNL recap later today. Also, new episodes of Survivor and The Office is back after a two week hiatus tonight, so we’ll be plenty busy for the remainder of the week .

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.

Just so everyone knows this site isn’t automated to post once a day with a random word generator (kind of like the Manatees who write Family Guy, except with no manatees), we’re briefly dropping by to notify the seven people who read this site that Funny or Die has the second season premiere of Flight of The Conchords up online. For free. One thing that is a tad peculiar, is that the show is only available to US residents. Which isn’t all that rare, but considering 90% of the series is created by three guys from New Zealand, we figured the global reach would be further than our own coastlines. Which can be observed in all their pristine beauty here and here.

Anyhow, remember when I was wondering when this show would start because their is nothing on television worth watching this time of year that isn’t a sporting event, but was too lazy to look it up myself? Well, the answer is January 18th. That felt worth doubling back for.

Anyhow, that’s pretty much it. We should be back tomorrow with one less news item in our links post.

Seemed like a closing fit to an unusual seven episodes. We weren’t completely enamored with it, but it definitely had its moments. Since we’re pressed for time we’re going to do this bullet-point style.

• The goth kids and their incessant bitching saved the episode. It was similar to the Crab People episode when Mr. Garrison resents mainstream America taking to the stereotypical forms of gay culture, in that these are two groups of people attempting to distinguish themselves, and for whatever reason, everyone wanted to assimilate and make their trends or lifestyle a fad.

• Best scenes with the goth kids included everything with the kids playing soccer (mistaking them for vampires, and especially the Gap clothes), the scene with them driving the car all morosely listening to that wretched music, followed by them casually going to the trunk of the car to reveal the “head vampire” bound and gagged. And we howled at the randomness of Scottsdale being named the worst place you can send someone. I have no idea if that was from Parker and Stone’s perspective, or the Goth kids disliking it because the sun is always out in Scottsdale and it is permanently over 100 degrees, either way that was probably the highlight of the episode.

This is the first Item to pop up on a google image search for "Vampires": A transexual member of the undead. Enjoy.

• In fact, all the music they listened to was spot on. It was just glib for the sake of glibness, and from what I can recall from high school, that tended to be the point of that genre. I’m not sure if Goth kids actually existed during the time I was in elementary school, but in high school I do remember them being the first to smoke weed, drink alcohol and scoffed at those who didn’t. So it was some nice symmetry with the coffee and cigarettes.

• I was surprised they closed the series up with an episode that had Stan, Kyle, Cartman & Kenny as peripheral characters. They’ve already done a couple of those this season with “About Last Night” and “Eek, A Penis“. This made three and I can’t recall them ever doing three non-main characters episodes in the past. I appreciate it as it keeps the series fresh and demonstrates they’re not a one trick pony, but it looks like they might be running on empty and this contract that expires in 2011 might turn out to be the last.

• With the exception of Randy, Butters is our favorite side character. We loved “Butters Very Own Episode“, but got nothing out of what they did with him in this one. That opening scene in the computer class should have been a lot funnier than it was. In fact, after Mr. Garrison left the room, I’m not even sure if they were angling for humor there or just doing setup.

This episode, kind of like a below average Sunny episode, is loaded with promise but failed to deliver. Maybe they were just exhausted from the election episode and mailed this one in. Not entirely sure, but half of it had us in stitches, the other half had us scratching our head trying to figure out what the punchline was. Sans the pilot episode of True Blood, we haven’t seen any vampire shows films in a long, long time. Blade 2 was probably the last of them. So if anything was a reference to that it flew over our head.  One thing I was confused about, if the Goth kids didn’t shop at Hot Topic, where did they shop at, per say?

Maybe some links later.

Opened up some free time here at work and its been awhile, lets get to some news items before we are compelled to write something even longer later in the week.

I have some good and bad news for all South Park fans: The good news is they might end the series with a full scale South Park movie in theaters (Let’s go spend more money! Weeeee!), the bad news is that they do plan to end the series at some point, and for that I curse them. I curse them to hell for only providing me with roughly fifteen years of high-quality animated entertainment. Is no one reliable these days?

Some guy who plays Anna Paquin’s characters brother on True Blood is shocked (SHOCKED!) that he is so frequently naked on the vampire series. Welcome to life as a low budget actor on a big budget series, man. At least you’re getting some face time. Sure, your face might always be buried inside a vampires nether regions, but at least that’s you up there.

Simon Cowell is now claiming that he never handed over $9 million to his ex-girlfriend after she dumped him through a text message. Yeah, I’m still believing the original story. Why don’t you hand me $9 million, Simon? I won’t tell anyone you’re gay either. Swear to God.

Seth Rogen is creating a series for Showtime about twenty-somethings who run a porn store. Wow, so the raunchy jokes will come fast and easy? For some reason this would have sounded a lot more appealing two years ago. Still, I like the idea of film stars going to television and not considering it a step down. Even though in terms of lifestyle, it most definitely is.

To no one’s surprise, reality show contestants can occasionally be combative and irritable attention whores. When of them is arrested for public intoxication and disorderly conduct, it really never comes as a surprise. So when Ace from this season of Survivor: Gabon does just that, we are kind of hesitant to actually put in a post that is supposed to be a psuedo-news post. Saying a Survivor contestant was arrested, particularly one with as much arrogance as Ace, doesn’t exactly qualify as earth-shattering.

Speaking of which, Leslie Streeter at the Palm Beach Post wonders whether Randy is the nastiest Survivor contestant ever (In terms of personality, though he on a short list for looks as well). While he might not be the meanest contestant the show has ever had, he is probably the least apologetic about his hostility. It stands to reason that Sugar, who cries everytime she votes someone off, cannot stand the guy. Basically, if Sugar hates you on a personal level, then there’s a good chance you are Lucifer’s kin.

Kristen Bell, the hot blond from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, is defending the new season of Heroes by comparing it to their first season, which she then compares to the first season of 24 and Lost and describes the two of them as “among the best” ever. Umm, Has she even seen The Sopranos or The Wire or Mad Men or Friday Night Lights? These are among the most recent best premiere seasons of dramatic television. Yet she throws some off the cuff answers into the mix because the shows have name recognition. Heaven forbid she mention something original. No, I don’t know why I give a shit.

Obviously, her shitty taste in television would not be a deal breaker.

Julianna Margulies, the still brain meltingly attractive 42 year-old actress from the heyday of ER, will essentially be the only headliner not making a cameo in the storied show’s series finale. And I can understand why, given how much her career has skyrocketed since the good ol’ days of the infamous series. Why, she did a Sopranos cameo and a scrubs cameo. And she was in, uhh…*scratches head*…well, I’ll leave it to you to judge how he career has gone. Clearly she has no need to re-energize the brand.

Stephen Colbert was roasted by several Washington insiders to raise money for the spina bifida. I don’t know why, but to see this live sounds like the best time a person could legally have. You get to see politicians pretend to be human, Stephen Colbert keep retort with his own brand of comedy and you get the self-righteous validation that comes with donating large sums of money to charity. That type of validation doesn’t just present itself every day, you know?

The Maloof brothers are working with Mark Burnett to form an NBA reality series. If you needed an answer as to why the Sacramento Kings haven’t seen the post-season in three years and are unlikely to do so in the near future, I think you just got your answer. If you want to entertain me, Maloof brothers, hire some more fucking cocktail waitresses for your casino. Don’t leave me with an empty neat Jameson’s glass while I’m hemorrhaging money at your Pai-Gow tables and all will be fantastic. Me and Kings fans would appreciate it.

Much maligned NBC executive Ben Silverman is actually expecting to have his contract renewed, as Katherine Pope is set to take the fall for the newly canceled series’. In short, they’re getting rid of someone who wasn’t such a controversial choice but still holding someone accountable, regardless of how much responsibility she actually bears. It’s basically the justification for 95% of NFL head coaching terminations.

(For this last link, there are spoilers for later seasons of The Wire. I know a lot of people who’ve taken to the DVD’s to watch the acclaimed series, and nothing is worse than having the plot spoiled for you. Though by the time you’re done with it, you realize that you probably should have seen everything coming. Regardless, do not read if you fit this mold).

And finally, this was written a week ago on the Huffington Post, but it details what Obama can learn from The Wire as he enters his first term as commander in chief. Considering how much his rise to power has mirrored Carcetti’s on a national level, we’d say there is quite a bit. I do not want to argue politics on this site, and I do not agree or disagree with everything in this article. But when he says Obama should adopt Stringer’s unification tactics for the drug trade and apply them to foreign policy, he conveniently forgets to mention that if Omar and Brother Mouzone hadn’t killed Stringer, Marlo eventually would have. If Marlo is willing to betray and murder Prop Joe who mentored him through everything, then certainly he wouldn’t hesitate to put one in a guy’s dome, whose only contribution to his empire was to inform him that getting his car registered in his mother’s name is a surefire way to avoid prosecution.

Back tomorrow with more of the same.

Yet another parody from Parker and Stone, and personally thought it was a successful venture. We haven’t seen the HIgh School Musical movies but get the general gist of what they’re about, but that doesn’t imply that everyone will be in the know on this one. When the entire episode revolves around the parody at work, there is a decent chance you end up alienating a lot of your audience.

I’m not sure that was the case here. But the difference between this episode and, say, “About Last Night“, was that I felt anyone could watch “About Last Night” and find something enjoyable about it. You didn’t necessarily have to see the Ocean’s 11 movies. Whereas if you were as confused as I was about a year ago to the High School Musical phenomenon, we could certainly understand dismissing this entire episode as a failed effort and flip on the Blazers game.

Despite having never seen any of these movies, I could relate to Cartman, Kyle, Stan & Kenny’s reaction to it. Virtually every television series that we hold in contempt on this site gets high Nielsen ratings, and all I am left to do is wonder why American Idol, Dancing With The Stars, Two and A Half Men, Deal or No Deal, CSI, etc. are considered in vogue. Our disdain for these shows isn’t an effort to be counter-cultural, but stems from a genuine confusion to what the appeal is.

We couldn't pick these people out of a lineup.

This seemed to be the dilemma that the four boys were facing, and it was fucking hysterical. Stan telling everyone snapping fingers behind him in unison to fuck off was the high point for us. Or at least after their initial reaction to everyone in the school breaking into choreographed song and dance. There is an old SNL skit with Norm MacDonald that was a West Side Story parody, and MacDonald plays the leader of one of the gangs who is completely dismayed when his and the rival gang break out into song and dance right before a supposed street fight. That was the general reaction they had in their lunch room: what the fuck is going on?

This wasn’t the first time Parker and Stone have expressed confusion/disgust at the growing popularity for varying dance styles in this country. They did a You Got Served parody a couple seasons ago (probably a top ten episode under our watch), and the four characters then had much the same reaction to that as they did to this: is there a reason everyone is dancing and challenging/encouraging me to do the same? It was in the same vein as “Asspen“, only with skiing instead of dancing.

These probably constitute some of my favorite South Park episodes, when they observe and dissect popular trends, usually through a parody of a film or television show when everything about the trend in question seems a tad off-kilter and embarrassing. When Cartman says he is getting old and going to kill himself because he doesn’t identify with the world anymore, we have never contemplated suicide but we understood where he was coming from. That was one of the more haphazard instance from Parker and Stone to using their characters as mouthpieces.

We also had a great subplot running in this episode with the introduction of Mr. Queermo and his timid yet popular son Brydon. I have no idea if these two were ripped straight from the film (I imagine Brydon was) but they need to become recurring. Maybe not in with the same consistency as Butters or Craig, but definitely like Towelie is a recurring character. This can’t be the end of Bryden and his overbearing closeted father, it just can’t.

Also brought into the foray was Stan Malkenson, who seemed to replace Kyle as Cartman’s whipping boy. We like the running theme this season of all four characters being considerably unpopular — as they were always regarded in episodes past as the in crowd — after all these seasons of getting everyone into trouble. This is the fourth episode out of six that has followed that same theme: both “Pandemic”, “Pandemic 2″, “Breast Cancer Show Ever” and this one. At least they stick with some continuity, because we seem to have already forgotten about Wendy beating the shit out of Cartman, which would sully his reputation more than any disregard for musicals.

Another great episode with one left to go in this portion of season twelve. It’s been a slightly better than average run for the now infamous series, we fully expect them to close strong next week.

Links later.