Grid Effect

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.