Competition and Prizes!

Greetings!  Just for fun and to try to lure you all into posting comments.  I'm going to run a little competition.  The game is: Name the Show where the Title of my last 5 posts came from.  You get one set of guesses and we're going on the honor system for not googling.  The first person to post in the comments with all 5 correct will win some sort of prize. 

So get to it!  Deadline is Sunday Night!  Go!

Night 10: Becky, Can I Get a Xylophone Flourish? ...No?

Good Morning Zayniacs!  So we’ve all survived another week of premieres, in my case, barely.  I’m going to start with a recap of what’s going on this weekend in TV because I’ve got family in town so there’s pretty much zero chance of me being able to write a blog on Sunday.  Tonight, we’ve got the final season premiere of Fringe.  The network decided to give them a 13 episode season to wrap up their storylines and I couldn’t be more excited to see where it all ends up.  Saturday, we’ve got the premieres of The Clone Wars, Green Lantern, and Young Justice, along with the new reboot of TMNT, if you are so inclined.  Also, the fall finale of Doctor Who will probably have me teary-eyed as we bid farewell to the companions of the last two and a half years.  On Sunday, we’ve got a lot going on.  We have the season premieres of Once Upon a Time (preceded by a season 1 recap if you’d like one), Revenge, The Amazing Race, The Good Wife, and Family Guy.  Also, we have the series premiere of 666 Park Avenue.  So…big weekend everyone!

So last night I did watch a couple things from previously in the week but then didn’t watch a couple things like Elementary, The Office, or Up All Night.  Let’s talk about what I did watch though.  Stay tuned until the end of the blog for a special section.

Vegas:  I liked this a whole lot more than I thought I would.

Last Resort:  A really interesting premise with some amazing talent.

SNL:  Jay Pharaoh is awesome, the rest….eh.

Big Bang Theory:  A disappointingly mediocre start to the season, with a “what the crap?” ending. 

Glee:  More good than bad which is more than I can say for the last couple seasons.

X-Factor (Wednesday):  I’m burning out fast despite some entertaining moment.

Grey’s Anatomy:  An odd choice as a follow-up to the finale but really good regardless.

Parks and Rec:  Solid episode despite relying on awkward humor of which I’m not a huge fan.

So let’s talk about Vegas.  This show is set in the 60s and I think it really benefits from that choice.  It keeps it from feeling so much like your typical procedural.  We didn’t have a montage of people giving meaningful looks to inanimate objects in a lab while a rock song played.  We also didn’t have Super Zoom that showed us exactly what was embedded into somebody’s corpse.  I have to give a lot of credit to Carrie-Anne Moss.  That woman is versatile.  She played Trinity, a leather-wearing badass, and you believed every second of it.  Here, she plays a tough but still fairly feminine ADA and pulls it off with equal success.  She was definitely my favorite part of this premiere.  Dennis Quaid, Jason O’Mara, and Michael Chiklis all did good jobs as well.  This was an interesting premiere with most original take on a procedural I’ve seen in a while.  The production value is really solid and the period work was great.  This show will probably get cut from my DVR eventually just because it’s not “must see TV” for me.  However, I would recommend you try and see if it is up yours because it’s a well-made and well-acted show that will probably do very well.

ABC has been marketing the crap out of Last Resort which makes me think it cost a fortune and they’re really trying to make sure it does well.  Thankfully, I don’t think they have much to worry about.  I thought the Pilot was excellent.  I was really surprised how many good people were in it.  I really only knew about Scott Speedman (Felicity) and Andre Bragher (Men of a Certain Age).  We also had Bruce Davidson (X-Men), Autumn Reeser (No Ordinary Family), Omid Abtahi (Sleeper Cell), Robert Patrick (The Unit), Jessy Schram (Falling Skies) and Dichen Lachman (Dollhouse).  Thankfully, ABC was not marketing a bad show.  I thought the Pilot was really interesting.  A nuclear sub out near the middle east picks up a SEAL team with no idea what happened.  Later, the sub is given order to fire their nukes at Pakistan.  They receive this order in such a way that they assume something must have happened to DC.  When they check, nothing appears to be wrong so they try to verify the order.  All of sudden, a missile is heading right for them and sinks them to the bottom of the ocean, they get the sub running again and then realize that it was an American missile.  They find a nearby island with an missile warning system and take it over and are now poised to face off with the US.  It was a fast paced and really tense hour and I hope they can keep up that level of quality storytelling.  I’m really curious to see where they will take the show on a week by week basis.  Will we have a threat of the week or will it be a more drawn out arc.  I personally hope for the second because something this big feels like it needs to be told on a continuing basis without trying to wrap things up at the end of each episode.  Unless it drops significantly in quality, I will be tuning in to this show for a while.  Unfortunately, their ratings were not stellar so we’ll have to keep our fingers crossed that in a world where Two and a Half Men is popular, well-made shows like Last Resort can somehow survive. 

Big Bang Theory was really odd for me last night.  I expected to like it a lot more than I did.  I was really excited for the new season since I thought last year was their best yet.  However, we got the character paired off into their couples with very little interaction between the group.  I usually like Penny and Leonard but they were acting like toddlers.  Amy and Sheldon’s “romance” has never been my favorite part of the show.  Bernadette and Howard still delivered though.  When did Howard become one of my favorite characters?  I couldn’t stand him in the beginning.  So, is Raj gay now?  I’m confused. 

Glee made me like Sarah Jessica Parker.  I’m angered by this.  Why’d she have to come and actually be entertaining and slightly heartwarming?  I was perfectly fine as my main reference to her being Family Guy’s comment about her looking like a foot.  Normally, I can handle Glee’s ridiculous 180s with their character but for it to happen in under 5 seconds was a little much.  Brody says, “I’m not interested in more, just friends” and then leans in for the kiss and I’m assuming more if Finn hadn’t knocked on the door.  What…the…crap.  I tried to stick up for Brody last week when everyone thought he was creep but if you’re going to pull crap like that, I can’t do anything to help you.  The songs were not as great this week.  I love Tears for Fears as much as the next guy and I like Blaine’s voice but that was just filler, plain and simple. 

X-Factor had a couple of funny things and maybe one singer that I liked.  This two hour block was just too much and I already had to DVR it in non-HD last night because I had too many things recording. 

So I finally got current on Grey’s Anatomy over the summer with a free month of Hulu Plus.  I always had to wait until Netflix released the previous season and by then the season had started and I wasn’t recording.  However, I’d heard about the death in the finale and I wanted to try to get current this time.  Of course, since I put in that effort and had to still sit through commercials on Hulu despite the fact it’s a paid service (if I’m giving you money, you don’t need ad money, so don’t make me watch commercials you morons) Netflix posts the new season well in advance of the new season this time.  Anyway, the premiere jumped ahead at least a month from the finale and the characters are a mess.  This was definitely a depressing episode with hit after hit.  Another main character died, two were seriously altered, one permanent, the other…we’ll see.  It looks like next week, we’ll be going back to the actual crash.  I find this a weird choice to show us the aftermath and then show the event, especially considering there could have been some interesting twists to show.  However, the only thing I can think of is that there will be better character stuff to show the decisions that led to the consequences we saw last night.  I don’t know.  I’m glad they’ve thinned the herd a little.  We have a new batch of interns with some solid actors like Tina Majorino (Veronica Mars) and Gaius Charles (Smash from Friday Night Lights).  Overall, I thought it was a solid premiere and I’m curious to see where we go from here.

Parks and Rec was solid yet again.  However, I’m not a huge fan of “funny because it’s awkward” and that’s most of what we got from Ben this week.  However, it did have a good ending and April threatening the douche with a melon baller was awesome.

So, that brings us to our special segment.  I’m cutting shows right now.  I tried to set the new recording for October 10 and I have 11 recordings that night, and two conflicts, one of which is Arrow not recording right now.  This is unacceptable.  I’ve been more lenient this year because I cut stuff really early last year and I ended up regretting a couple of them, specifically American Horror Story, Grimm, and Person of Interest.  So I’ve been compensating a little this year by being too lenient with crap.  Well it’s time to thin the herd so as I type something to cut, it’s being deleted from my series recordings.

The New Normal:  You should have gone two weeks ago but I kept hoping you’d give me something to look forward to and you just kept getting worse. 

Animal Practice:  There was literally nothing funny about the episode I watched this week and everyone else hates you too so I’m not going to invest any more time into something that has zero chance of survival.

Guys with Kids:  Go back to your late show Jimmy Fallon and leave the sitcoms to people like Modern Family.  Despite one solid comedian, this show is painful to watch.

Brickleberry:  The League and It’s Always Sunny will be back now filling my quota for offensive comedy.  Also, they’re both much funnier than you were.

The X-Factor:  This is easily the biggest cut but the entertainment/time suck ratio is way out of whack and now that it’s interfering with better shows, it has to go. 

That’s all for now but we’ve got a few others on thin ice.

The Mob Doctor:  I still haven’t watch the second episode but your ratings were abysmal and you’ll be cancelled any day now.

Vegas:  A great show, just not enough to get me to spend an hour with you every week.  Maybe the second episode will knock my socks off.

666 Park Avenue:  I know it hasn’t premiered yet but I can just feel that it’s going to be bad.

Ben and Kate:  I want to like it but I just don’t know that it’s going to be enough.

Elementary:  I watched the first 5 minutes last night before going to bed and I’m not optimistic.

The Neighbors:  While I was surprised by the premiere, I’m not hopeful about sustained funny.

Alright, that concludes our week.  I’ll see you all back here on Monday morning for a report on as much as I could watch on Sunday night.  I’m predicting now that it will be Once Upon a Time, The Good Wife, and maybe Revenge. 

Good Day All and Happy TV Watching!

Night 9: Not So Much a Friend As a Racoon

Greetings Zayniacs!  Yep, I think I’m digging that nickname.  So last night was a fairly light night.  Unfortunately, my lineup consisted of some expected disappointment and a fairly decent surprise.  Let’s get down to it.

Parenthood:  Depressing with a side of somber.  Well written and acted though…

Brickleberry:  A new show on Comedy Central that has Daniel Tosh as a voice.  Funny moments but trying way too hard to be offensive.

Survivor:  Another entertaining episode.  We don’t have anybody that’s emerged as a villain really but there are several people that I like and I’m not as stressed watching it now that I don’t have money riding on it. 

Animal Practice:  Exactly as boring and unfunny as I’d heard.

Modern Family:  A solid opening to the season.

The Neighbors:  I didn’t hate it.  It surprised me.

Guys with Kids:  No improvement from the first episode.  Its days are numbered

Just in case some readers are still not current on Parenthood, I will refrain from spoilers.  However I will say that while I appreciate the gravity of the current main storyline and I think it was extremely well done, they need to do a better job of balancing that with the other storylines so you don’t feel quite so awful about life by the end of the episode.  I realize there is hope but it is a very heavy subject and then need to be aware of that and compensate in other areas. 

If anyone else besides Unknown watches Survivor, let me know.  Otherwise, I’m probably going to give this show a pass on the recap unless something incredible or funny happens to share with all of you.  For instance, last night had a string of references to a hot blonde with…let’s say an ample bosom, as using her “booby trap” to lure in the twenty-something guy on their tribe to her side. 

I’d heard from the preview during the Olympics that Animal Practice was pretty terrible.  I didn’t want to believe it because conceptually, a show taking place in a vet’s office that relates better to animals than to people could have some comedic potential.  However, this show squandered almost all of that with over the top characters, flat acting, poorly thought out plotlines, and just overall terribleness.  You can skip this show my friends.  I will be.  I don’t think you’ll have to worry about it taking up a time slot for much longer.

Modern Family had more of the same with its season opener.  In Modern Family’s case, more of the same is not a bad thing.  The characters are so fleshed out at this point that comedy comes just from them interacting.  It doesn’t have to come with stunts.  On that note, I’ll say that the least funny and most predictable moment of the episode was Jay falling off the boat.  It was too basic and this show is better than that.  I thought pretty much everything involving the over-sized stuffed animals was awesome.  Overall, it was a breath of comedic fresh air last night.

After seeing the trailers for The Neighbors, I couldn’t understand how they could possibly bump Happy Endings from the post-Modern Family slot to try and drum up an audience for this crap pile.  I watched last night’s premiere out of morbid curiosity.  Instead of me instantly hating it and turning it off halfway through, something odd happened.  I kind of liked it.  Is it going to be appointment television for me?  Absolutely not, but I may keep it on my DVR for a few more weeks to see where they go with it.  Hands down, what saves this show is the acting by 3 of the 4 leads (the human dad is straight up terrible).  Jamie Gertz (Twister) is great as the human mom.  She always has this look of barely restrained terror that I found funny.  The two actors playing the main aliens were unknowns to me but I thought their line delivery was great.  They sucked me in almost right away.  Now, I don’t think this show has a lot of mileage in it and I’d be very surprised if it became a hit but for now, it’s mildly amusing escapist television.  After some of the comedy crap piles that have squeezed their way onto my screen this season, The Neighbors was a pleasant surprise. 

Speaking of comedy crap piles, Guys with Kids stunk up my screen for the second time this season.  I’m pretty well done.  It’s got audience laughter and crazy faces and just a lot of things that feel outdated on modern television.  Granted Big Bang Theory is a multi-camera comedy as well, but when it gets very sitcom-y I start to lose interest in it.  I think in the whole cast of Guys, one is consistently funny, one usually gets one or two small moments, the other is just bad.  It’s not that he’s a bad actor.  I know that’s not true, it’s just he’s not built for comedy, not everyone is.  Based on the amount of recordings I have in the coming weeks, this show will be falling by the wayside sooner rather than later.

In regards to my show load, I currently have 90 scheduled recordings up to Tuesday, October 9^th.  If the 10^th were included, that number would 100 because 3 new Wednesday show start on the 10^th.  I have to draw the line somewhere and my scheduled recordings reaching triple digits is it.  Starting this weekend, I’m trimming the fat.  I can think of at least 5 shows that are ripe for cutting already and I’ve got to let the axe fall.  I’ll try and do a quick post sometime this weekend with a rundown of what I’m cutting and why. 

Wrapping up, we’ve or I’ve got a busy night of TV tonight.  There are several premieres tonight, both season and series.  In the series premieres, we’ve got Last Resort, about the nuclear sub crew that goes rogue, and Elementary, the Sherlock Holmes show which I can practically guarantee is not going to even approach the quality of BBC’s Sherlock.  I’ll be watching Last Resort as a potential new fixture in my lineup, and Elementary out of curiosity before I let it go out to pasture.  In season premieres, Big Bang Theory is back and hopefully firing on all cylinders like last year, and Grey’s Anatomy will be back with the aftermath of the plane crash and potentially two more main character deaths.  There is also the second episodes of NBC’s comedy block, SNL, Up All Night, The Office, and Parks and Rec.  Lastly, the third episode of Glee and whatever number episode of The X-Factor. 

In closing, I'd just like to take a minute to say thanks to my readers.  Yesterday, I broke 40 page views in a single day.  That may not sound like a lot and doesn't take repeat viewers into account but I'm still extremely impressed by the volume of traffic I'm getting on here.  Really makes me feel good, so thank you all. 

So that’s all folks!  Have a good day and Happy TV Watching!

Night 8: The Emotional Cheetahs Always Go For The Cry

And we’re back!  Tuesday night was the night of half hour comedies.  Sadly, there were quite a few less laughs than there should have been.  So let’s not waste any time.

Tuesday Night

Go On:  One of my highlights for the night.  Keeps improving every week.

The New Normal:  WHY AM I STILL WATCHING THIS?!?!  I thought I quit.  This week’s sermon was about how liberals are more principled and conservatives are all racists.  UGH!

New Girl (#1):  A solid opening to the new year.  We’re continuing directly with storylines from last year. 

Ben & Kate:  Sadly, this get a “meh” from me.  Wasn’t bad, but not great either.

New Girl (#2):  Still funny despite one ridiculous storyline (which had some good moments) and one really bad one.

The Mindy Project:  This is the most I’ve ever liked Mindy Kaling.  Granted, that’s a low bar but this show was a pleasant surprise.

Tosh.0:  A decent episode but the Prank of the Week made the entire half-hour worth it. 

Parenthood & Vegas:  Recorded but not watched yet. 

Let’s start off on a good note with Go On.  The show is doing exactly what I wanted it to.  We got an entire storyline focused on another of the group therapy people.  Thankfully, it was my favorite one.  This was easily my favorite episode since the Pilot and that is a big reason.  If we started rotating through the characters weekly for B plots, I’ll be fine with that for a while.  However, the show is funniest when they are all together and I hope they play to that more and more.  There’s not a whole lot else to say other than you should be watching it.  Then, you might understand my post title. 

The New Normal is getting pity from me.  It’s so bad that I’m just watching to see if a miracle happens.  After last night’s episode though, I don’t know that I can stand it anymore.  This one was like getting preached at and bludgeoned with an….I don’t know.  Something bad that you wouldn’t want to be bludgeoned with.  Although, I guess by definition you wouldn’t want to be bludgeoned with anything.  Regardless, this show is awful and I’m now officially done.  For real this time.

The first episode of New Girl was pretty good.  I realized last year that I kind of have to be in the mood for this show but it can be really enjoyable when you are.  The 4 roommates have really gelled together at this point and watching them banter is the most enjoyable parts of the episode.  Max Greenfield who plays Schmidt was freaking robbed at the Emmys this year.  Jon Cryer getting it instead is pretty much a slap in the face, followed by a knife to the stomach, then a candlestick to the head, a wrench to the kidneys, a gunshot to the leg, a lead pipe to the kneecap, and then a hanging by a rope to quality television.  Schmidt’s Douche Jar should have had an Emmy next to it.  Morons. 

Ben & Kate received a lot of cautious optimism from me.  I wanted it to be good but the premise just seemed a little meh and unfortunately, that meh feeling pretty much encapsulates my feelings about the show.  It had some funny moments and even some sweet ones too but I don’t know that it had enough to bring me back week after week.  The comedy was a little too goofy for my tastes.  It was almost like watching  a real life Homer Simpson mess things up.  I half expected a “Doh!” to come out of Ben’s mouth at one point.  I’m going to give it a few more episodes to see if it can grow on me.  Hey, if I did it for New Normal that pretty much obligates me to watch as many of any new show just to make sure.

The second episode of New Girl I thought was a little more in line with the regular show.  We had Nick being an idiot, Schmidt being a pig, Winston being annoyed, and in the one random aspect of the episode, Jess being a bit of a whore.  I wasn’t a huge fan of “Bearclaw”.  He was a little over the top for my tastes.  I like when this show underplays the comedy a little bit more.  For instance, in the first episode, Schmidt having his Douche Jar money ready before he even said something Jess about how she was cooking a frittata.  I laughed at that.  Bearclaw having a nervous breakdown in the bathroom, not so much.  This show will be a permanent fixture on my DVR probably for as long as it runs.  I enjoy it, but it’s certainly not for everyone.

Now we come to The Mindy Project.  This show looked really funny and then I heard a lot of critics saying it needed work and then now it’s getting good reviews again so I don’t know if they tweaked it between Upfronts and now but I really enjoyed the show.  Obviously, I don’t know a lot about the dating world from a woman’s perspective but I know enough about my own experience to know the dating world can be a beat down.  It was nice to see a comedic and honest approach to how skewed our views can get of what romance is based on all the movies out there that make it look like it should be so easy.  There were a couple of stereotypes out there but most of them were given something a little out of the norm to do.  Overall, I was really impressed with the show and I look forward to seeing where it goes.  I rewound the last quick scene in the elevator because it really made laugh and if nothing else, that would have been enough for to at least give it another go. 

Just a quick word about Tosh.0.  The breakdown video was disgusting and I just closed my eyes and listened to the jokes which also made me almost gag a couple times.  Thankfully, the Prank of the Week immediately after had me rolling.  The front of an 18-wheeler was getting towed backwards and looked like it was going the wrong way.  A man’s wife was sleeping in the passenger seat and he started speeding towards the 18-wheeler and screamed that the truck was going to hit them.  Her reaction was priceless.  Are they still married?  Who know but man it was a solid 10 seconds of comedy for me. 

Alright everyone, that’s all for today.  You’ve got the rundown for tonight in the previous post.  As always, please feel free to post any thoughts or questions in the Comments section. 

Night 7: Joke, Joke, Joke, Gay, Gay, Gay, I Will Cut You!

Alright Zayniacs (hm, I think I like that, thank you Paige for the suggestion), we’ve got a lot of ground to cover tonight.  I apologize for the delay but this week has been crazy I haven’t had a ton of time.  Unfortunately, due to the large amount of shows to get through, I probably won’t be getting into much detail on each one.  Why probably?  I tend to ramble so it’s very possible it will be longer than I currently anticipate.  So, let’s get started.

Monday Night

Bones:  A decent follow up to the premiere.  We dealt with some of the issues I felt should have been there.

How I Met Your Mother: Despite a lackluster episode in the comedy department, the ending still got me excited, only to let me down yet again.

Partners:  Not nearly as bad as The New Normal, but there are kinks to work out.

Revolution:  A good step up from the premiere in quality.  I think we’re on the right track.

Castle:  The highlight of my night.  This premiere delivered.

So since Bones wasn’t a premiere or a new series, we’re going to blow through it pretty quickly.  I’ll just say that I’m not sure why they decided to make their main character so unlikable.  I hope we weren’t supposed to be on her side during those arguments with Booth because she was selfish, inconsiderate, disrespectful, and downright mean.  I know she had her little epiphany at the end of the episode but that was almost too late for me.  I didn’t feel any sense of accomplishment from her turnaround because she was so far out there, a couple lines about how she “understands now” will not get me back on board with her.  She’s been in the world and around Booth and Angela for years now.  She should have picked up on some simple steps for human compassion along the way.  (This rant partially sponsored by our esteemed Unknown)

How I Met Your Mother premiered on Monday and despite a noticeable lack of laughs from me, the ending had me sitting up on my couch eagerly anticipating the reveal and wondering how they’d kept it so tightly under wraps.  The reason: there was no reveal.  We got a huge build up and a very leading shot that just ended with more heartbreak.  I’ve huffed and puffed many time about how I’ll be done with this show at some point.  That’s not true.  I’ll watch to the end just out of morbid fascination of how they’ll wrap it up.  Now we know exactly where he meets the Mother.  I thought they were going to pull a Dexter and have us meet her long before Ted.  Then they could be clever and sprinkle shots of her throughout the season showing us how she had been around the gang in near misses.  Alas, we just got teased again with anonymous legs and a yellow umbrella.  Do you know when we found out that umbrella thing?  Over six years ago!  Congratulations, you’ve now beaten LOST in longest unanswered mystery EVER!  Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 25 times, I need to stop watching this show…

Now, after a decidedly mixed beginning in the comedy department this year, Partners came along with the most traditional approach to comedy so far, double entendres and awkward misunderstandings.  Did this show knock it out of the park?  No, but it wasn’t terrible.  There were some funny moments and also a lot of eye-rollingly clichéd moments as well.  I think the cast is mostly solid.  Michael Urie, while definitely taking a Jack from Will and Grace approach, was responsible for several of the laughs that came from me.  David Krumholtz was a little more shticky with his comedy than I prefer.  Brandon Routh was much more amusing than I thought he’d be.  Sophia Bush, however, was a big dud in the comedy department for me.  Maybe she will improve over time but I was not feeling her in the Pilot.  Also, the sassy latina assistant could use some dialing down by about 8 notches, although she did deliver the line that became the title of this post.  Overall, it was a decent way to spend a half-hour of comedy.  I’m going to give it a chance to find a groove and make me laugh more.  I think it has potential to stay both on my DVR and the air, but only time will tell.

Spoilers for Monday’s Revolution are below.  Skip to the next paragraph if you haven’t seen it yet.  I thought this week was a step in the right direction for the show.  I think the plot had a good pace to it.  We know what we’re working for and what pieces they’re trying to put together.  We also got a couple more mysteries including why the Mom is still alive (most predictable reveal ever) and being held by Monroe.  Also, I think the acting was much better this time around, specifically from the main character, Charlie.  She’s still a little too much of a family cheerleader for me but I can see a lot more potential in her this episode than I did in the Pilot.  Also, I like the flashbacks in this show.  They’re being presented as memories of the characters and therefore will be directly relevant to what’s going on in the present.  LOST did this with varying success, but I, for one, hope they continue to expand on them because I’d like to know more about how the world got to the point it is now. 

Last, and certainly not least, Castle premiered and knocked it out of the park.  I think any concerns that the chemistry of the leads would die after doing it were effectively quelled.  Could it still go wrong?  Of course, but I’m not going to be Debbie Downer when the premiere was as strong as it was.  The episode started off with some excellent physical comedy from both leads and a new mystery for the show!  WHAT was “that thing” that Kate did last night that Castle liked so much? (mystery clarification provided by Unknown)  The arc of this show has always been convoluted.  It only pops up in a handful of episodes every year so you always forget what happened before by the time they’re telling you something new that should fit into that story.  It’s gotten to the point where I don’t necessarily care about the arc itself so much as the large amounts of character development that tend to happen in those episodes.  Overall, an extremely solid start to the season and I hope it does nothing but improve. 

Well, that covers Monday night.  Stay tuned during the day for another post covering last night.  Tonight, we thankfully have the lightest load of the week, not counting Friday, and really who does, certainly not the networks.  We have the official premiere of Animal Practice, which I’ve heard nothing but bad things about so I’m not optimistic.  Also, the season premiere of Modern Family and the series premiere of The Neighbors, which I’m anticipating to me another disaster.  Also on tonight is the second episodes of Survivor and Guys with Kids.  For those that follow it, the season finale of Top Chef is tonight.  Finally, if anyone is interested in watching Revenge, which I would highly recommend, there is a special recap of the first season tonight in its formerly regular time slot.  It will officially premiere at its new time this Sunday after Once Upon a Time.  Honestly, I’m hoping all that I think is horrible, will be, because I need to free up some space for the 4 hour long shows that are coming soon to a Wednesday near year, 3 of which I’m almost positive will stick permanently. 

Be back later!

Night 6: Spin It Around and Back It On Up!

Greetings InZayliens.  You know like insane aliens…help me please.  I need some kind of name for all of you.  Anyway, last night was a pretty solid night of TV.  The NBC comedies were back in full force with the noted exception of Community.  Had Community been in the place of SNL, I feel like we would have had one of the strongest two hour blocks of comedy in a very long time.  Hopefully NBC will come to its senses for the winter.  We shall see.  Let’s move on to the rundown.

Wipeout: I don’t know what it is, the obstacles, the jokes, the contestants.  Something hasn’t been clicking for me this year.  I got through about 20 minutes of last night’s episode before I just deleted it and moved on since I knew I had so much other stuff to get to.

SNL: Weekend Update Thursday:  The only parts of this I found funny were the quick news story segments.  The interview bits went on way too long.  I’m not really looking forward to the rest of the these leading up to the election.  It also doesn’t help that I care nothing about the election this year.

The X-Factor:  Yes, I’m still recording and watching it.  No, I can’t explain why.  You win Andrew.

Up All Night:  A decent introduction to the new season.  They’re clearing changing things up.

The Office:  After a season of not watching, I forgot how entertaining this show can be.

Glee:  Britney 2.0 ended up really not sucking.  Could this possible end up being a good season?

Parks and Rec:  The title of this post says it all.

Really all I needed or wanted to say about the first two items are in their summaries so let’s move on to The X-Factor.  I don’t know why I keep watching it.  It’s not getting significantly better.  The new car smell of Britney was gone in about 15 minutes.  The only improvement I can mention is that they’re showing more good performers than bad, which is unfortunately a ratio that American Idol has a hard time maintaining sometimes.  The word I would use to describe this show is…over-produced.  If they just let the talent stand on its own, I could really get behind that, but they have to give us their backstories and sobs stories and everything else to build these people up, so when they’re mediocre and get sent through, I just roll my eyes.  Then, Wednesday night, we had another mean girl that went around trying to mess with other contestants’ heads before they went on stage.  When she got on stage, her voice was the definition of “meh” but the judges fawned over her and put her through.  She had cat paw prints painted on her face like she’d just walked in from a county fair.  What the deuce?

Up All Night appears to be changing up its dynamic.  Normally, I would say great, change is good but some of these things, like The Ava Show really provided structure for the episodes so I hope that we don’t lose that now that the show within the show was cancelled.  Also, is Will Arnett anorexic now?  He lost a ton of weight over the summer and it was distracting.  I was trying to figure out what could have happened to him the whole episode.  Anyway, regarding the actual content of the show, I thought Reagan’s brother was alright, even if he did come from out of nowhere.  Like I said in the summary, decent start but we’ll have to see where the season takes us.

The Office, on the other hand, was really entertaining.  As mentioned before, I stopped watching last year not because of disinterest but because my DVR inexplicably didn’t record a stretch of 3-4 episodes and I didn’t have time then to go back and catch up because I needed the DVR space of the ones that had recorded that were building up.  However, the good things I heard about last year coupled with the cast additions of Catherine Tate (Donna from Doctor Who) and Clark Duke (Greek, Hot Tub Time Machine) and the fact that this is its final season, made me really interested to come back to Scranton.  I thought this premiere was really solid and I loved the exchange between, Jim, Pam, and the camera crew.  The question was asked, “don’t you have enough footage by now?  It’s just a paper company”.  The New Dwight and Jim were surprisingly good.  I’m looking forward to seeing how everything plays out.

Glee had another fairly solid episode.  It showed me something I thought could never be good, an Aerosmith/Britney Mashup.  I like that they’re attempting to mix up the songs they’re singing more this year like the aforementioned mashup along with an acoustic version of 3, and a mashup of Britney and Bieber that wasn’t as successful but still fun.  The New York storyline is still trucking along at a good pace and Kate Hudson is really elevating the quality.  I kind of wish we had more than just 4 more episodes with her.  It was really nice to see Noah again and hopefully he helped Jake snap out of being a tool because his awesome singing voice can only take him so far.  If his character is a douche, it’s going to limit my enjoyment of his voice…probably. 

Ah Parks and Recreation, I’ve missed you.  Your consistent quality and humor are a treasure in today’s television world.  This show added absolutely nothing in terms of cast members or new storylines.  It’s just continuing to work with the great cast it has and I think that’s one of its biggest strengths.  When you’ve got a group that works so well, don’t mess with it.  Granted, they added Adam Scott and Rob Lowe last year but I think we can all agree that those additions did nothing but add to the show.  I may be slightly biased since Ben is hands down my favorite character.  I liked that we’ve got random antics back in Pawnee but we still get the continuing storyline of Ben in Washington and his relationship with Leslie.  One of the biggest reasons I have a hard time getting into a comedy show, especially sitcoms is that things are wrapped up too neatly.  Is Parks and Rec ideal for syndication like Big Bang Theory, no but I’ll take P&R over BBT any day.  Don’t get me wrong, I like the Big Bang Theory, especially last season but it’s still rage-inducing when they attempt to do something serious and growth related in an episode and then don’t give it even a little closure at the end of the episode and then forget it ever happened by the next one.  I can invest in the Parks and Rec characters because they will change and evolve based on the circumstances around them.  Well, except Tom, but that’s just him.  In summary, this episode was more of the same awesome we get from this show and I can only hope that it makes it to 9 seasons or more like The Office.  Unless it starts to go down in quality, then try and rally to go out on a high note.

Alright, that’s all for this week folks.  We’ve got second to last episode with The Ponds as companions on Doctor Who on Saturday but I’m 95% sure absolutely none of you watch that too so….moving on.  The Emmy’s will delay our Sunday premieres for one more week and that takes us to Monday.  We’ve got the season premiere of How I Met Your Mother, voted most likely to give me a stroke from rage, the season premiere of Castle, who put their couple together which will hopefully turn out more like Chuck and not like Moonlighting, and the series premiere of Partners, which I’m noticeably less excited about after the disaster The New Normal turned out to be.  We’ve also got second episodes of Bones, The Mob Doctor, and Revolution.

Unfortunately, these post will probably end up coming out on the following mornings most of the time now.  It’s really hard to watch all of that and then write one of these posts and still get to bed at a decent time.  Once THE REAPING occurs, I may be able to post again the night of, but until then, it will most likely be the next day.

Until next time everyone!  Have a great weekend and Happy TV Watching!

Night 5: A Pitch to Remember

Greetings! I hope the last couple of days without blog posts have not driven you Inzayne….get it?!?!  Well you people are zero help with names so this is what I’m reduced to, bad puns, and you have only yourselves to blame!

It’s been a relatively slow week for premieres so I decided to take a little break but let’s go ahead and recap a couple things that aired this week.

Go On:  This show is really starting to grow on me.  This episode focused more on the group and was more entertaining because of it.

The New Normal:  I’m done.

Parenthood:  Despite the big shocking ending being spoiled for me, I thought it was a really solid episode.

Survivor: Philippines:  A solid start to what will hopefully redeem the show from the past couple lackluster seasons of Redemption. (See what I did there?)

Top Chef Masters:  Just kidding, I’m not going to recap this but I was slightly disappointed at who made it to the finals.

 

So let’s start on a positive note, Go On.  The show continues to be solid.  I’m not going to say that it’s really improving and becoming Must See just yet, but it even took Community about 5-6 episodes before it really fell into a groove.  As I said before, the therapy group had a larger role this week and I think it made the episode better than the second one.  The group already has really great chemistry and I just hope the writers realize it and pull the focus away from Matthew Perry and turn it on the rest of the excellent cast.

Now a piece of garbage in between two good things, The New Normal.  As stated above, I am done with this show.  I gave it 3 episodes that’s plenty of time to at least show me a glimmer of hope that your show can be something more.  Outside of a couple of funny lines, the show fails on many levels for me.  The “issue of the week” this time was gay PDA.  You’ll recall last week was gay marriage and in the pilot it was gay couples having kids.  If this show is going to continue being a parade of Ryan Murphy’s agenda, I’m done with it.  You know why the gay couple on Modern Family works?  Because their sexuality is neither the most important nor the most interesting thing about their characters.  So we have to see a douchebag being a jerk to the main characters so Ryan Murphy can prove his point.  Then, there was a whole scenario after that with a gay guy, a douche, a guy with down syndrome, a punch, and a gay slur in a juice bar line at the gym.  I’ll let your wild imagination let those pieces form a spectacularly bad scene and it will probably be close to the garbage that was actually put on my TV screen on Tuesday.  To make a long story short (too late), I feel like I’ve given this show a fair shake and it has shown no signs of moving beyond what I’ve seen so far and I have better things to do with my time.  Also, based on the ratings, it seems like more and more people are also realizing they have better things to do.  I don’t see the show lasting much longer on anyone’s DVR.  Goodbye The New Normal, I offer you this parting gift, a scenario I laughed at when first presented to me by our esteemed commenter, "Unknown", but I’m now almost positive actually happened during their pitch meeting:

 Mike: NBC Pitch Meeting

"Exec 1: We've got to get a show like modern family!"

"Exec 2: Yes, we need a show about gays"

"E1: ... that's not what I meant at all..."

"E2: Except we'll do it NBC STYLE!"

"E1: Oh God... please don't make all the characters into unbelievable 1 dimensional stereotypes. Imagine 30Rock if every character was Tracy Jordan"

"E2: You're fired. Tell my assistant to get me a huge pile of cocaine on the way out"

Next up, we have Parenthood.  I’m not going to spoil anything for anyone that may not have watched it yet.  Suffice to say, I’ll be posting an interview with the character whose storyline this is early next week and it has some interesting tidbits about the origin of the storyline.  Overall, yet another solid episode and there was some really nice subtle stuff in there that I again can’t go too much into without giving away info.  I will say one scene I really enjoyed was Sarah and Drew sitting down and talking.  Drew isn’t given a ton to do but his actor has a certain way of doing things that makes me like Drew.  His little under the breath comments about razor blades and sleeping pills were perfectly delivered.  I feel like they’re really balancing the storylines a lot better this year too.  I’m sure it will start branching out soon but I like that it’s pretty much contained to something happening in the lives of one of the four siblings and following them around.  I’ll discuss the big twist and such when I post the interview next week.

Well that’s all for right now.  Tonight, we have a premiere explosion.  The NBC comedies start up again tonight.  First off, we’ve got SNL: Weekend Update Thursday taking Community’s place.  Next we’ve got Up All Night followed by The Office and Parks and Rec.  I’m going to start watching The Office again this year.  I stopped last year because my DVR messed up and I didn’t feel like trying to go back and find the ones it missed.  I’ve been hovering at Netflix hoping last season would go up before this one starts but so far, no joy.  However, this year is the final season and I’d like to see how it all ends up.  Parks and Rec is awesome and you should all watch it. 

Oh as a potential tease to gauge interest, I’m thinking of doing a special little post after all the premieres are done.  I have 89 series recordings on my DVR.  Granted some of these are summer/winter only shows, etc. but I’m going to have to whittle that down or I may be having a nervous breakdown by November.  So, in the spirit of the recent hit, The Hunger Games, I’ll be performing a Reaping of my own.  It’s going to be a blood bath and some good shows will go down in the process but something must be done.  I was thinking of blogging it as if these shows are actually competing just for fun.  Interested? 

Have a Good One and Happy TV Watching!