We Were Supposed to be Watching Swamp People!!!

Greetings Zayniacs!  It’s been a little while.  Did you miss me?  One quick piece of news and then on to the recaps!

Community, which was set to debut on October 19^th has been pulled from the schedule.  Basically, NBC wants to spend their marketing dollars on promoting the shows on Monday-Wednesday so they can try and save the abysmal ratings of Animal Practice and Guy with Kids.  However, they admitted that they would like to keep them in their back pockets in case they need scheduling changes.  Translation: We know Animal Practice and Guys with Kids are awful shows and are already planning to ship them to Friday and burn off their episodes and premiere the equally odd pairing of Community, a quirky and intelligent show, and Whitney, a formulaic crap pile that should never have gotten a second season, on Wednesday Nights in the winter.  In conclusion, it sucks that we will have to wait for more Community, but this probably means they will be pulled back from the brink of the Friday Night Death Slot.

Alright, onto the highlights from the past several days:

666 Park Avenue: All I watched was the premiere from the 30^th and it was exactly as awful as I thought it was going to be.  Removed from my DVR.

Raising Hope: The premiere was okay with few laughs.  Unfortunately, I don’t have time for only a few laughs.  Removed from my DVR.

Supernatural:  A solid premiere with some interesting questions.  Sam needs to stop being a giant wuss right now though.

30 Rock: A decent premiere.  Jack and Liz continue to make me laugh but Kenneth’s girlfriend is getting on my nerves.

Glee:  A sad episode that I feel should have had more impact on me than it did.  However, Glee’s first ever live performance delivered in a big way and I’m so glad they chose to do it that way.

Once Upon a Time:  Continues to deliver in its second season as allegiances shift and I can’t wait to see what comes next.

The Good Wife:  Another solid outing despite one really disappointing storyline and something involving two fingers and an ice cream cone I wish I could wipe from my memory.

Family Guy:  Much better than the premiere but still not great despite the fact that I wholly support any skewering of the Nielsen system.

Partners (two weeks):  This show is starting to grow on me.  Again, very sitcom-y and over the top but I had several laugh out loud moments last night (see post title) which is more than some veteran comedies are providing nowadays *cough* How I Met Your Mother *cough* so it stays on the DVR for now.

Castle (two weeks):  Any reservations people had about the show going bad after the couple got together can rest easy now.  This season has continued the pattern of excellent characters and fun dialogue.  However, I figured out the doll thing last night pretty much as soon as he gave it to the captain.  Usually they do a better job of diverting my attention from the reveal.

Revolution (two weeks):  Continues to be a solid enough show to keep my eyeballs.  There’s just something that feels predictable about the individual episode plot points that make me wish we could spend more on the interesting mystery arc, and less on telegraphed switcheroo of Danny saving the bad guy just to have the bad guy throw him against the wall and handcuff him again.  (also, I find it amusing that “switcheroo” does not activate spell check)

Let’s expand a minute on Glee.  The episode was good and the reactions and conversations surprisingly in character and mature, despite one huge gap that I’ll get to in a second.  I felt emotionally satisfied by the two relationships that had definitive closure.  The two that were left open-ended were more irritating to me.  Santana and Britney had a really sweet scene but I was never that invested in their relationship and now maybe we’ll get less comments about scissoring.  Finn and Rachel needed to end.  Their relationship dragged the show down considerably last year and I finally started to like Rachel this season without Finn so I’m glad they ended it and logically it makes sense.  She’s making something of her life and he’s directionless and needs to get his crap together before he tries to share his life with anyone.  Will and Emma seemed to be thrown in simply because all the other pairing on the show were fighting so why not.  There was zero closure on their issue which makes it more frustrating but they were singing the final song with the other couples that did break up so what the heck. 

Now onto the section of the show with both the high and low moment quality wise.  We’ll start with the low.  Blaine wouldn’t cheat.  That seemed to come out of freaking nowhere.  To maybe flirt with someone and possibly kiss would be one thing but to hookup and, seemingly, have sex?  That’s just a tiny bit extreme and very irritating.  However, this seemingly out of character decision led to one of Glee’s best moment since its beginning, a live piano version of Teenage Dream.  The amount of emotion Darren Criss put into that song was incredible.  The barely contained emotion behind his singing were pretty great to watch.  Unfortunately, Blaine and Kurt’s storyline was also given zero definitive resolution which I’m guessing means they’ll be the couple to get back together but my interest in that will last maybe one more episode without a lot of movement.  In closing, I thought the fake rapture thing was actually kind of funny, despite the ridiculousness of it all.

Sadly, after the initial glow has worn off, a few cracks are beginning to form in my love of Revolution.  There was just a lot of stuff this week that didn’t sit completely right with me.  For one, killing off Maggie was not earned.  She was the most grounded of the characters but killing her off so soon does nothing but provide the extremely predictable motive for Miles to stay.  Of course he wasn’t going to leave, he’s top billed on the cast and there’s no reason to follow him solo if he’s just going to go wander the land like a nomad.  We start getting very sad and heartbreaking flashbacks for Maggie and then after she get’s stabbed, you know she’s done for.  If LOST taught us anything, it’s that if you form a deep connection with a character through flashbacks, watch out, the Grim Reaper’s a coming.  Then, the aforementioned plotline of the bad guy that has Danny getting pinned and about to die, needing Danny’s help, conveniently right after having a conversation with him about mercy and how is Dad was so great. 

There were a couple other niggling things but overall, I just expect better from Eric Kripke.  He’s too good to be falling into so many tropes of the genre.  One of the things I really liked about Supernatural is that they never played for keeps when it came to the brothers.  Yes, there were always in mortal danger but they never played it for anything other than momentary suspense.  Of course Sam and Dean aren’t going to die, because they’re your only main cast members.  The few times that big things happened, like Dean only having a year to live before demons came for him, it was a great season arc.  We always assumed he would just find some way out of it at the end of the season so when we watched him get viciously mauled and killed by hell hounds, that was genuinely shocking.  However, before the end of the season, we’re shown a shot of Dean in hell, yelling for Sam.  Obviously he’s going to get out but the question that stuck with you over the summer was “how?” and “what would the cost be?”.  Then of course, the beginning of next season started the angels arc and it was all uphill and awesome from there. 

I will continue watching Revolution because there is still some good there and I have faith that it can and will improve, but my skept-o-meter is powering up on a few of these things.  Also, there was seemingly lightning in the storm last night…huh?

That’s all for right now but I’ll probably have some more thoughts later.

This week, we’ve got a few highly anticipated premieres.  For starters, Arrow is premiering at 7pm on Wednesday on the CW.  I have extremely high hopes for this show.  This could just be setting myself up for disappointment but I have been hearing pretty great reviews for it as well which makes me think my hopes may actually be met.  With guest spots already booked for characters like Deadshot, Deathstroke, Huntress and most recently, the Royal Flush Gang, I look forward to seeing a show that has such unfettered access to DC’s stable of characters.  Next up, we have Nashville, premiering Wednesday at 9pm on ABC, another show which I have high expectations for and have heard nothing but good things about so far.  Connie Britton is an amazing actress and I can’t wait to see what she can do in this role.  I’m not a huge fan of modern country but pieces I’ve heard so far sound good and the show will seemingly have a fairly decent mix of original and covered songs.  Lastly on Wednesday at 9pm on NBC, we’ve got Chicago Fire.  It looks to be essentially a weekly version of Backdraft.  I liked that movie and a few of the cast members are solid so I’ll give it a chance to impress me.  Cautious optimism when it comes to this show. 

In its 4^th season premiere on Thursday Night, we’ve got The Vampire Diaries.  I urge you to look past its stupid name and realize you’ve got yourself a really great supernatural show.  The third season was a little disappointing in regards to its main arc and a villain that lacked real punch and threat, but I’m hopeful that they may have learned from their mistakes and this season could be great again.  The ending of season 3 certainly opened the door for some interesting storylines.  Lastly, premiering at 8pm on Thursday after Vampire Diaries is Beauty and the Beast.  This stars Kristen Kreuk of Smallville fame as a cop (yeah, I checked out at this point too) and some unknown actor playing a tortured, brooding dude who has some kind of monster side to him.  I have less than zero interest in this show and I most likely will not even watch the pilot.  That may change, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.  However, I want you to be informed.

Have a Great Day and Happy TV Watching!