NBC Thursday Thoughts

Community Interpretative Dance

Last week I complained that Community broke the fourth wall too much and after rewatching this week's episode I'd like reword that complaint to "they broke the fourth wall too overtly". When characters are literally winking at the camera I roll my eyes more than laugh. This episode had a subtler 4th wall break, which I really enjoyed. At the climax Troy decides the most masculine thing for him to do was save Brita from being embarrassed. Generally the motivation for this action is noble, preventing a friend's shaming out of pure altruism. Community flipped this on it's head my making Troy's actions selfish, since he knew the others would react as if his actions were altruistic. Another strong showing for Community, which I pleasantly discovered will add more episodes this season because of the Leno fiasco.

Stray Thoughts

- I am tired of the will they won't they stuff with Jeff and Brita, hopefully they will turn this into a Jerry/Elaine relationship and not Ross/Rachel relationship.

-Prelimiwow

- I have been spending too much money on breakaway clothing.

Parks and Recreation Leslie's House

Parks and Recreation manages it to be at it's best when it is really well grounded. I like being in a little world that thinks Indianapolis is a booming metropolis and the library is your biggest rival. This episode was less grounded than I would have preferred, but it still managed to be really funny. I thought they had a really solid tight episode before they added the belly dancer, fencing, etc. and I wish they decided to end the dinner party with good, funny human interaction instead of a couple of sight gags. I generally don't care for trials in comedy's as it is a stale contrivance that has tapped into most of it's potential humour. Specifically asking about a date in a trial is an old tired gag and something I really wish they eliminated at the time, however they did have a nice payoff with Leslie's talking head at the end. Similarily the respond to any question with a question is a gag that stopped being funny in high school, but Ron Swanson managed to make it hilarious. I think it worked so well because generally the hostile witness isn't good at asking questions, but Ron's proficiency at evading questions was really funny, ending with this little needle "Thank you Ron" "Are we done?".

Stray Thoughts

-Every episode I feel like I want to see more Tom

- "I'm going to need to refoliate"

- Ron bringing deviled eggs had me dying.

30 Rock Get Dale Snitterman

Last week I didn't blog about 30 Rock because I find it really hard to write about. Firstly I find it really hard to judge 30 Rock because I could watch 22 minutes of Tracy reading off a teleprompter, secondly because a lot of my reviews would just be listing 8-12 funny one liners. I think 30 Rock usually doesn't use their peripheral characters enough and last night gave every character a couple of solid jokes Toofer's attempt to name drop Harvard, which was later repeated by John Hancock, a couple of good Lutz moments, Grizz bashing dotcom's screenplay, etc. All of these elements led to what I felt was a pretty strong B story, some broad silliness with good writing that was very funny. My one problem with the B story is that they didn't give it a satisfactory ending, it was as if they thought the audience would forget about the B story once they went to the credits. The A story was pretty weak and I love Julianne Moore in almost anything she does, it wasn't particularly funny or engaging and I found myself waiting for those scenes to end a lot.

Stray thoughts

- As someone who hates all Boston sports teams, watching Boston jokes for 22 minutes was fantastic

- She's the female Kevin Mchale

Community and Parks and Recreation

Community Investigative Journalism

Most sitcoms take a while to find their legs, but Community has been an exception and has been the best new show this fall. Community is strongest when it is at it's most absurd with episodes like Debate 109 and Introduction to Statistics, unfortunately it's return this episode was one of their weaker efforts thus far. Like usual it has some very good throwaway gags; primarily from Pierce, but the whole episode fell a little flat. Meta-humour is very hard to execute since it takes the audience out of the reality crafted by the show, usually when people are laughing at it they are laughing because they understand the joke and not because it is funny. Community has successfully used meta-humour in its more absurd episodes, but in a fairly grounded episode like Investigate Journalism it became an annoying crutch for the writers. Investigative Journalism had overt, obnoxious meta-humour and I quickly grew tired of seeing Jack Black's character (literally his one character) continue to break the fourth wall by explaining the group dynamics or making other commentary on the absurdity of TV. This reached it's apex when he mentioned giving a winking nod to the camera, making the only meta-meta joke I have ever seen; unsurprisingly it didn't work.

Stray Thoughts

- Pierce's ironic t-shirts throughout the episode worked really well.

- "Troy's gotta point"

- I already have a huge crush on Allison Brie and than she does a "It doesn't matter"

- At some point I would like to see a final 30 seconds that isn't an extension of the Troy and Abed rap.

Parks and Recreation The Set Up

Earlier I mentioned how most sitcoms take a while to find their stride and P&R is a great example of that, after a first season that felt like a mediocre Office spinoff they started developing their own characters and it has become one of the strongest sitcoms on TV. The Set Up took a couple of cliched sitcom plots blind date gone wrong and boyfriend jealous of girlfriend's friend and managed to make them seem fresh. It is unfair that P&R will always be compared to The Office, however the one area where I feel they have already surpassed them is by turning Leslie Knope into a likeable real person a stark contrast to the man child caricature that Michael Scott has become. I like Will Arnett in almost everything he has done and I thought he had a very good guest spot with a couple fantastic lines my favorite being "I guess I am not as good a technician as I thought I should have noticed you're missing a heart". It was also nice to see Chris and Mark in a plot that doesn't pit them as rivals; they have gotten lots of mileage out of that, but I don't know how long it will last.

Stray thoughts

-I could have watched 22 minutes of Tom interviewing potential candidates for Ron's job.

Update

I haven't given up on this blog after two posts there just haven't been many new shows for me to discuss. I just watched the first third of the Monty Python documentary, which I really liked I heard that is is a little redundant if you have seen other documentaries, but I haven't and I love it.

I will be in the Bahamas all of next week, but after that I will hopefully be blogging frequently.

Californication "Mia Culpa"

Outside of the occasional gem like The Apartment and Rick Springfield's guest spot this was a very weak season of Californication. It was never a great show, but was entertaining enough to make up for it's obvious flaws. This season churned out a lot of formulaic episodes that would have been good season one episodes, but were bad season 3 episodes. This was epitomized in Dog Town I remember seeing Hank and Runkle pretend to be gay and thought "Well at least they aren't going to start another fight" seconds later I was biting my tongue. Before watching this episode I was prepared to give up on the show, however the finale convinced me to stick around a little while longer.

The pilot of Californication set a wheel in motion (Hank sleeping with Mia) that they never satisfactorily resolved and frankly I thought it would never get resolved. Ultimately this show is about Hank and Karen's relationship and the best way to progress their relationship and properly resolve Mia's arc was by having Karen find out the truth. They teased this in the season 1 finale, but it didn't go anywhere. In Mia Culpa they gave a full reveal and it worked really well. Duchovony usually succeeds because he is so endearing while being such an asshole, however this episode let him show off his dramatic chops as well. Hank standing in the doorway preparing himself to tell Karen about Mia wouldn't have been as heartbreaking if a lesser actor was playing Hank Moody. It was a really strong choice to not show the dialogue, since it would be irrelevant and trite. Showing their actions underneath Elton John's Rocketman made the scene much more powerful.

My only complaint about the final scene were the lyrics Rocketman describing what was happening on screen specifically

"Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids

In fact it's cold as hell"

While cutting to Becca was almost cringe worthy. Music and score serve a very useful purpose in film or television, but using them as exposition is almost always lazy pandering.

Californication is not a morality tale, but throughout the whole series the viewer has wondered if Hank's action would have consequences. Ironically Hank sleeping with Mia ranks pretty low among the selfish misogynistic things he has done, but he will get punished the most for them in what looks like (crosses fingers) a very interesting fourth season.

Stray thoughts

- Hopefully that will be the last we see of Sue Collini a one note character whose one joke isn't even that funny.

- Unfortunately that will not be the last we see of Becca who is a terrible actress. Her telling Hank about how she lost her virginity should have packed a much bigger punch than it did, but it was ruined by her terrible acting.

- Dream sequences can be amazing when well done (see Kevin Finnerty episodes in The Sopranos), but they are frequently used to hit illustrate subtext that should be self-evident and regrettably that is how they were used in Mia Culpa.

- The tongue in cheek line about Hank delivered about having trouble sleeping should not have made the final script.

Dexter "The Getaway"

The Getaway is the season finale of the fourth season of Dexter; an up and down season highlighted by John Lithgow's performance as Arthur Mitchell the Trinity Killer. The finale was a microcosm of the show; an anti-climactic cat and mouse chase that manges to be incredibly entertaining in spite of obvious plot holes.

Throughout this season there was sloppy writing and plotting that led to clear plot holes. These plot holes may get resolved next season, but I am doubt it. Before this season Dexter (the character) was always incredibly meticulous, but he suddenly became incredibly sloppy. Dexter sloppiness was a conscious choice by the writers, but it was frequently illustrated in such a cartoonish way that it challenged my suspension of disbelief. The most egregious example this season was Dexter assuming he could kill Trinity and have the Mitchell family ignore Kyle Butler's sudden entry and disappearance from their life. I am not a detective, but when someone shows up at your house demanding to find the location of someone* he is usually a suspect when said person disappears. In the finale Dexter going to the Mitchell house was a slight stretch, but one I could buy, however Dexter being in the Mitchell family's line of sight as they are getting put in the backseat of a cop car was too unbelievable. That was done to create a good shot, but it still really lazy directing; that reminds the viewer that they are watching a work of fiction. Something contrived like having him behind a tree would have been a significant improvement over the decision made by the director.

*Someone whose throat he held a knife in front of the whole family a couple week agos.

The writers and Dexter's sloppiness were clear from the very beginning of the episode when Dexter's tracked Trinity leaving the police station. He didn't choose to follow him in the traditional stealthy serial killer we'd expect of Dexter. He just ran outside of the police station hopped into his car and chased him. That is the same strategy I use in GTA IV when I need to follow people. Dexter's "plan" and Trinity being unaware of the maniac in the SUV following him through traffic were equally implausible and this is a show about superhero serial killer. Again I realize Dexter was supposed to be losing control, but there is a fine line between making small mistakes like not doing due diligence when killing the photographer and chasing someone you are about to kill in downtown Miami in the middle of the day.

Dexter finally getting Trinity on his kill table was a fantastic scene that was really well acted by both Michael C. Hall and Lithgow, after seeing the Rita in the bathtub I rewatched the kill scene to see how the kill scene would play differently andI was pretty underwhelmed. It seemed like the scene was intentionally written in an ambiguous way to make the twist at the end as shocking as possible, instead of writing the confrontation that these two characters deserved to have.

All of that being said I have really high hopes for S5. One of the biggest problems Dexter has had is that deep down everyone knows Dexter will never get caught because they want to continue the show. This has caused the third and fourth seasons to be pretty formulaic. Dexter finds serial killer spends all season hunting him, kills him the finale or the penultimate episode and manages to express everything he learned in a monologue at the end of the season. Next season should be a paradigm shift because of Rita's death and Deb's discovery about Dexter's past. The main arc should be very different from previous seasons, Dexter will get caught and will need to find a solution that doesn't involve killing the people who find out. I hope next season is the the final season because the S4 finale has laid the ground work for a great final season. Unfortunately I am afraid that Showtime won't want to kill their golden goose and will create mediocre seasons until the show fades into mediocrity. Hopefully I am wrong and next season lives up to the hype that was created by the S4 finale.

Stray thoughts

Although relatively minor, the most annoying part of episode was the Miami PD outrage when the FBI takes over the case. Higher agency screws up earlier and takes all the credit has become an awful cliche when satirizing cop dramas. For it to actually be used in a good cop drama with no twist or irony was painful to watch.

The narration and Harry scenes are frequently a really lazy way to tell the viewers something instead of showing it to them. It has become a crutch that can be unbearable.

A major theme of the show has been Dexter's moral ambiguity; I think the writers missed a huge opportunity by turning Dexter killing an innocent man into a footnote, when it should have been a major plot point.

Introduction

I don't know much about blogging etiquette, but given my limited experience blogging on some other sites, I am pretty sure I am required to write an introductory post. My previous attempts at blogging have had a really wide scope, which ranged from why the Toronto Blue Jays should have kept Alex Rios to masturbatory self reflection. In this iteration I am going to limit my scope, by focusing solely on TV. Hopefully this will allow me to convert all the brain-rotting tv has done into something productive. (Outside of making snarky comments about strangers for having taste I disagree with, so I can feel better about myself.)

Feel free to comment on the posts assuming you have something to add, outside of spoilers. Seriously. I don't expect to have a huge readership, but I really hate getting stuff spoiled. If I haven't posted about an episode, please don't comment on it.