TV THOUGHTS

OLD SHOWS

The Office--

I think The Office is in a 1994-Simpsons kind of run right now, where they're just knocking every single episode out of the park. The episode from two weeks ago, with the launch party (and the brilliant B-story of Dwight competing in sales against the Dunder Mifflin website) was one of the best things I've seen in the last five years.

And I don't know if all the episodes this season are going to be an hour long (probably not, as Scrubs is FUCKING UNBELIEVABLY coming back for yet another death rattle--does Zach Braff have a sense of shame?!), but what show does more than they have to? What show looks at a 22-episode schedule and decides they can do more than that. And then do it. Brilliantly. The hour-long episodes have been fantastic from minute 1 to minute 60.

This is the Tom Brady of television right now, the best show in the best run of its lifetime.

2. 30 Rock

30 Rock started to really hit its stride in the last couple months last year, and I think they've come back strong to start season two. This is my second favorite network sitcom now (not that there's a huge amount of competition--I mean, look at the new ones this year: Carpoolers? The Big Bang Theory? Back to You? Painful. Just painful.) I think My Name is Earl got a desperately needed bit of fresh air from the Earl-goes-to-prison story, but IMO, 30 Rock is way better.

3. Heroes

Ugh. I was already on the fence on this blatant X-Men ripoff by the end of last season, and this one has started out as a real stinker. I loathe the Hiro story where he goes back in time to help the guy who will become Japanese legend. Oh no, what if the guy always remains a drunken coward, imagine the repercussions! Oh wait, there wouldn't be any. At all. So who gives a shit? I'm guessing they're including this because Kensai will turn out to be one in a long line of heroes that reaches back to the Knights Templar (or something else from recent popular culture the writers can shamelessly rip off).

The Clair story sucks, the two new Mexican characters are awful (and mildly racist, as they're seen with the usual brown-people childlike wonder & superstition in religion that us white folk understand on a much more intellectual level), and I want Parkman and the Indian guy to kill each other in some sort of a duel. The only stories I care at all about are Siler's (wait--I thought he was killed in an act of selflessness (which I guess wasn't all that selfless because everyone seems to be A-OK now)--nope, guess not) and Peter's.

I can see how other people like this show--like my wife, for instance--but I personally think it has some of the laziest writing on TV. The whole idea was a ripoff to start, the dialogue is terrible, and I don't think they had a clue at the end of last season where they were taking the story. I can understand not having the scripts written because you have no idea if the show's going to be picked up or not, but don't you at least have an idea of where you might want to take the main story lines? And if not, you can't think up something better on the fly than "everybody sacrifices to kill the bad guy in an epic showdown, but now the bad guy's OK and so is everyone else". Huh. So, Tim Kring...what was the point of all that then? Oh, you don't know either. I see.

4. Friday Night Lights

This breaks my heart, but what was last year one of my favorite shows on TV now...isn't. The great thing about this show has always been it's authenticity, every line of dialogue and every situation was completely believable and true to life (other than, ironically, the overly dramatic last-second football wins). Now they introduce us in season two to this ridiculous teen-horror-movie murder story--from the first second Landry hit the guy, I knew this show had gone terribly wrong. I guess they feel they have to do something to get some viewers, it barely squeaked through to get another season, but this has completely changed the show into something it never was. And what it is now, I don't like. I guess I'll stick with it another episode or two, but the show is officially on notice.

NEW SHOWS

This crop has been a real piece of crap collectively, but I've found a few that I like.

1. Pushing Daisies

This show isn't for everyone, it's quirky as hell, but I really, really like it. It's a dark comedy about a guy who can temporarily bring people back to life, under a set of quirky & arbitrary conditions. It's funny (but again, their sense of humor is definitely not for everyone), weird, and visually attractive. And it's the most original thing to hit network TV in years. Give it a try.

2. Reaper

This is another quirk-fest, about a kid (played by the excellent Bret Harrison from The Loop) who's had his soul sold to the devil by his parents and is forced to work as a catcher of escapees from hell. It's part slacker comedy, part Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the end result is pretty winning.

3. Aliens in America

Another CW show, along with Reaper, that's trying to do something different. This show is about a family in Wisconsin who takes in a Muslim foreign exchange student, with a vibe like That 70's Show. I'm not 100% fully on board with this show yet--it's patchy in spots--but I think it has a lot of potential.

4. Cavemen

This is another one where I think it's been only OK so far, and too inconsistent, but with potential. The most recent episode, the frozen yogurt one, was pretty solid IMO, I laughed consistently the whole way through. A friend says this show might turn out to be a winner because of the talent of the 3 guys who play the main characters, and I think I agree with him--they're all pretty good, especially the pompous grad student. But I don't know if this show is going to make it, it's hemorrhaged a lot of viewers after a strong start, that's not a good sign. It was probably on a short leash to begin with.

And to close, an exegesis of one of my favorite unintentionally hilarious commercials on TV:

It's for Liberty Mutual insurance company, the one where a person sees someone do a good deed, so they do a good deed later on. Then someone sees that and does their own good deed, etc., etc., and it keeps going in a never-ending cycle.

So the last two go like this--A black woman sees a young man help out some pathetic old guy with his luggage at the airport carousel, and she nods her head and is like, "helping people is good--I never thought of it like that before!"

So we cut to her scene of selflessness--it's a stoned pizza delivery guy jamming to his iPod who's about to walk directly in front of a bus--but the black chick holds him back. That's her random act of kindness, stopping someone from getting himself splattered all over the street. I'm not saying that's not a good thing to do, but what's funny here is the implication that, before seeing the young guy helping out the old dude at the airport, she would have seen the pizza guy and just been like, "Good luck with that buddy."--or maybe even chuckled a little to herself, "Ha--that guy's about to die!"

But fortunately that helpful young man taught her a little something about life and humanity--if someone's about to get themselves killed...intervene! Thank you Liberty Mutual Insurance Company!