I don’t know who told you that pouting was an option with me, but all you’re making me feel is a hatred for Renee Zellweger. – Dean Pelton “Community”
Unfortunately, I’ve been super busy this week, so this weekly review is going to take a little different form than the posts before. I can’t really go in depth for each episode that aired this week, so it’s going to be briefer, more summary likes and dislikes in cases. Hope everyone’s okay with that. If not, too bad. These are the jokes.
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The Good Wife Smash Alcatraz Raising Hope Justified New Girl Cougar Town Happy Endings 30 Rock Up All Night Community Awake
The Good Wife – A good story this week with the hockey player, but “Gloves Come Off” became excellent when Michael J. Fox came in. I love him on this show because for once, he’s the guy you love to hate. He was a great catalyst for Alicia to request her raise, and I liked how Alicia played him to her advantage. He still got the last word, though. The little scamp. Also, Diane was kind of on fire this week. I think the alternate title I want for this ep is “How Diane Got Her Groove Back.” Two men and she lords over the board room. Nice shot at the end with her at the middle of the table, like “The Last Supper” or something. Also, nice scene with Cary and Alicia; I like that they are now sort of on the same side. My only problem with this episode was Alicia and Kalinda. It felt a little off to me, like the writers left it on the side for the past few months and then decided to wrap it up in one episode. I feel like this reconciliation should have happened right after Alicia found out Kalinda saved Grace or it should have had more build up. But, with all that said, I’m glad they are talking again because apparently next week is all about Kalinda’s tax problems.
Smash – I think I have figured out what my beef is with this show. Sure, there are some serious problems episode to episode with plotting/triteness, but I think the main thing that is irritating me is that Smash feels like a cable show shoved into a network paradigm. I expect things to play out slowly, take time to build character and plot, but instead everything is happening extremely fast and furious. Julia’s relationship with Michael should have taken all season, but instead, by midway, he’s out of the picture. I just feel like the pacing is all wrong. That said, some good things were in the episode too. More Jack Davenport made me happy. Ellis got his comeuppance. And the musical numbers were good, if not recycled from previous episodes. Finally, Julia’s son crying at the end seemed too melodramatic. Again, I expect cable reserve, and instead, I get network schmaltz. Hrumph.
Alcatraz – Last week, I accidentally erased the episode “Clarence Montgomery” from my DVR. So this week, I had to watch two episodes on demand. And, I’m still not thrilled with this show. It’s so procedural, it’s kind of sickening. And every time they try to introduce twists, they telegraph them from miles away. I’ll keep watching just because it’s JJ Abrams, but I don’t think I’m going to cover it here any more. Sorry if this is the one reason you’re reading.
Raising Hope – Two story lines, one successful one. I won’t talk about Jimmy pretending to be his grandfather because that was just annoying. Even the sweet end couldn’t save it. As for Burt and Virginia, they’ve always been the best part of the show, and I enjoyed delving deeper into their relationship. The teens they were helping weren’t great, but I laughed enough times to make it worth it. Over all, a decent but not great episode.
Justified – I paid better attention this week, and, you know, it paid off. Who woulda thunk. There were some great things here in “Guy Walks into a Bar.” It was nice to see Dickie back in the mix, and I’m excited to see how he is involved in the finale. You can sense that all the pieces are falling into place at this point, and I like the tension that it’s creating. And speaking of tension, Quarles is getting creepier and creepier. That closing shot? So crazy. I’m still not sure about Boyd and Eva’s story with the sheriff. I know that it will intersect, but right now, I’m not certain of how. But now let’s talk about the good stuff. Raylan was pitch perfect this week. The scene in the bar was so well done (Kudos to the director, Tony Goldwyn). It was an old western shoot-out to a tee, and I loved every second of it. And Raylan in court was one of the funniest things. I’ve noticed that this season of Justified has really found its humor, and the speech Raylan gave telling the judge to let Dickie out, just so Raylan could have the fun of catching him, was absolutely hilarious to me. Overall, one of the better episodes of the season so far.
New Girl – By the time I sat down to write this review, I had already forgotten what this episode, “Fancyman (Pt. 1)” was about. That’s never a good sign. That doesn’t mean that I hated this episode; it’s just it wasn’t as funny or as endearing as past ones. Maybe it will all pay off as set up for what I assume is next’s week’s “(Pt. II.)” Or maybe not. Maybe we’ll just forget about this week altogether. Things I did like: Nick falling in love with Russell (Dermot Mulroney), the aforementioned fancyman; Schmidt being awesome at trivia (a man after my own heart); the little kid Winston nannies for was pretty “Jonathan Lipnicki”-cute; Schmidt’s running commentary of Winston’s kiss. Things I didn’t like: Since when does Nick have such bad credit? That seemed out of nowhere. Really, Russell’s a parent of a student? So boring. Why did Jess keep getting wet? Was that some sort of sexual subliminal I didn’t realize until just now?
Cougar Town – I had a lot of problems with this episode but the sight of Travis stepping cleared all those away. I think that’s the great thing about shows you love; even when they misstep, they always have moments that remind you why you love them. My problems? The baby out of nowhere seems a rather contrived to me, and I have cold feet after what the same situation did on Gilmore Girls to Luke and Lorelai. However, because I trust this show, I’ll be on board for now, especially since it seems to clean up that whole “Grayson wants a baby, Jules doesn’t” problem that’s been looming since last season. My likes? With all my qualms about the baby-daddy story, I did like that the show acknowledged Graymond’s wild past. Also, I may have been one of the only people who watched all of HBO’s John from Cincinnati, so I really enjoyed watching Bobby surfing. “Mitch Yost needs to get back in the game.” I already mentioned Travis stepping, but I do think that the Laurie/Travis story was my favorite. (Again, the poignant stuff gets to me). The running gag with Andy not being wanted anywhere was pretty funny too.
Happy Endings – A decent episode, but not great. The best part was Jane un-janing herself. Jane is arguably one of the best characters on TV right now, and it’s mainly because she is so precisely drawn as an uptight crazy person. The more quirks she gets, the more distinct and hilarious she becomes. It was nice to see the writers subvert that for this story just so you can appreciate her even more. However, for all that story’s goodness, I didn’t like the story with the bully. One, I totally forgot about the gay friend who hasn’t been around since last season. Two, Dave is one of the weakest characters on the show, so his story lines are never great. And three, Max was really wasted on cliché. Come one, falling for the bully is so trite, and even though I love Max, it didn’t work for me. Still, I laughed a lot at the episode, so it couldn’t have been all bad. Just not up to the level that I’ve come to expect from this show.
Community – A disappointing venture this week, and that’s not a good thing for a show that’s trying to maintain the bump in viewership that it got from last week. First off, it was very clear that things were shuffled in the order of the episodes. I’m pretty sure this was supposed to come right after the Christmas episode, but instead they put “Urban Matrimony” before it. So things felt off right off the bat. And then the episode was all over the place. Normally, the storytelling is very tight, but not here. Jeff’s story with his ego was way too over the top for me, especially with the weird graphic of the apple expanding (This goes along with the graphics from last week. I hope it’s not an actual trend) I did like the cracks about Ryan Seacrest, mostly because I watch The Soup, but all the jokes couldn’t save that story line. And then there was Abed’s story. I’m of two minds about this. One, it wasn’t a very strong premise to begin with. I think maybe the writers just wanted to dress Britta up as Michael Jackson and Abed as a brown Jamie Lee Curtis (both of which I loved) and so created a plot around that. The whole “we need to help our friend with his outrageous debt” just felt really stale to me. However, I did appreciate how it affected Troy and Abed’s friendship. Troy is constantly changing as a character, but Abed, by necessity, is static. I think this episode is setting up a lot for the rest of the season, so I’ll accept my disappointment for now. For now. At the very least, I did love the appearance of “Evil Abed.” Nice callback, writers. (Side note: if this episode was out of order, I’m not sure how Troy and Abed fighting leads into Troy and Abed de-whimsifying themselves. It seems a little incongruous that one would lead to another. But at 21, Troy’s character can flip-flop a bit without being unbelievable. He’s still figuring himself out)
Up All Night – Not the best this week. When you have a guest star like Henry Winkler, you expect them to make the most of it, but that’s not what happened. The main part of the episode was Chris as an on-air personality, which was funny enough because Will Arnett is that good, but I wanted more of the Fonz. He did have some good lines, like when he took a shot at J.K. Rowling. Zing! Otherwise, this episode was utterly forgettable. And the writers still haven’t figured out what to do with Missy. I cringed when she started firing people. Give her another dimension, people. As Gob would say, “Come on!”
30 Rock – Two episodes this week, but they were interconnected, so I’m gonna treat them as one. What did I like? You know, sitting down now, I can barely remember. The other Baldwin was pretty funny. And Hazel being crazy was great simply because I have a giant lady crush on Kristin Schaal. Kenneth has never been my favorite, but I liked the part when he broke is sunny disposition and told Jack that he lies to himself everyday. I thought that was the most accurate portrayal of Kenneth that the show has had in years. What I didn’t like: The stupid song from Jenna (though the Weird Al song for the tag was pretty funny). The random appearance of Cynthia Nixon (why?).
Awake – This was my favorite episode so far, besides the pilot of course. The cases were much more distinct, and I liked how each world presented a very different future for Kate, the connecting character of the week. I also appreciated how Michael is still trying to figure out which reality is real by tracking where things appear first and how his subconscious could be fooling him. One of the benefits of that element is that he is trying to do the same thing as the viewer, so it makes the show more watchable. My screenwriter teacher always told me that good writing anticipates the viewers questions and figures out how to answer them in interesting ways. That’s what I feel like this show is doing here. My main quibble with this episode was again with Rex. Anybody with half a brain could have figured out that it was his mother’s racket that was broken, and I’m annoyed that Michael, the great detective, didn’t see it. Or the coach for that matter. But oh well, maybe that was just me. Still, I’m really liking this show, which means that it will be cancelled shortly. Sigh, I still miss Lone Star.
Finally, I haven’t watched Fringe yet, but I’ll cover it next week. Timing isn’t good for it on Fridays since I try to get most of my writing done by then. Oh well. Also, look for a full review of Bent on Monday or Tuesday.
See you next Saturday with another review,
Mary
Mary the TV Maven 