This week brought us Christmas with the Bravermans on Parenthood! Despite a promo that had me concerned for Kristina’s survival (and my ability not to spend the entire hour sobbing), the episode was another really great installment in what is by far my favorite season of the show yet. The holiday spirit was alive and well with Braverman family.
As usual, I’ll take it one group of Bravermans at a time!
(more…)
Last night’s 30 Rock was the highly promoted wedding episode, and I loved every second of it. It was the perfect wedding for Liz Lemon – I mean, who else would get married in a Princess Leia outfit? Add in appearances by Dennis and Dr. Spaceman, and it was just a fun episode all-around.
Tuesday night’s Parenthood shifted the focus away from Kristina’s cancer and on to some of the other Bravermans a bit – a welcome break from the heaviness of the past few episodes. I really enjoyed the episode and I’m interested to see how some of the seeds that were planted pan out over the next few weeks!
Let’s take it one Braverman at a time, shall we?
I’ve wanted to write a dedicated Parenthood review for weeks now, as I think the show has been absolutely nailing it so far this season, but alas – life, real job, etc. In any case, last night’s episode, in which Kristina finally had her cancer surgery (the same day as Max’s student council election), Sarah moved in with Mark, and Amber went on a date with army vet Luke Cafferty Ryan certainly left me plenty to talk about!
(more…)
Yay, Parks and Rec is back! Even though I just started watching this show a few weeks ago, I was so excited for the premiere of season 5. I missed the citizens of Pawnee. I thought the premiere was great and I’m looking forward to the rest of the season!
What I Liked: Leslie in Washington, D.C. is a no-brainer. She’s so wide-eyed and excited about pretty much everything anyway, that to take her somewhere she’s dreamed about all her life like that just amps up her character even further. They played this perfectly by letting us see how excited she was to be there (waffle sundae!) – just to see her twice as disappointed when she got swallowed up in a sea of bureaucracy. Her reaction to the list of all the Pawnees in America (even that craphole in Missouri) was perfect. I felt like her “Hot Rebecca” bit was totally reasonable (and very Leslie) given how little she saw Ben and how her meeting went – she’s not used to being the little fish in a giant pond. And of course, watching her not even notice John McCain was hilarious.
(more…)
NBC officially released their fall schedule this afternoon. Take a look below, followed by some random thoughts from me (New shows marked with an asterisk and linked to trailers)!
Monday
8PM: The Voice
10PM: Revolution*
Tuesday
8PM: The Voice
9PM: Go On*
9:30PM: The New Normal*
10PM: Parenthood
Wednesday
8PM: Animal Practice*
8:30PM: Guys with Kids*
9PM: Law & Order: SVU
10PM: Chicago Fire
Thursday
8PM: 30 Rock
8:30PM: Up All Night
9PM: The Office
9:30PM: Parks and Recreation
10PM: Rock Center with Brian Williams
Friday
8PM: Whitney
8:30PM: Community
9PM: Grimm
10PM: Dateline NBC
Sunday (Fall 2012)
7PM: Football Night in America
8:15PM: NBC Sunday Night Football
Sunday (Post-football/Winter 2013)
7PM: Dateline NBC
8PM: Fashion Star
9PM: The Celebrity Apprentice
10PM: Do No Harm*
Let’s get the bad news out of the way first: among NBC’s many cancellations (none of which were particularly surprising), was Awake. The viewer-challenged series aired maybe it’s best episode of this season this week, and although I knew it was destined for cancellation, I was still disappointed when the official word came down from NBC. This show was never going to succeed on broadcast television – it is a premise far better suited for cable – and I hope creator Kyle Killen takes his next awesome idea to some place like FX, AMC, or HBO.
As far as renewals, I was thrilled to see Community, 30 Rock, and Parenthood back on the schedule. Unfortunately, all 3 shows were given small episode orders (13 for Community and 30 Rock, 15 for Parenthood). In the case of 30 Rock, the initial announcement indicated this would be its last season – which I think is probably perfect for the series. Bob Greenblatt, the head of NBC, backed off on that in today’s announcement today though, so who knows. I tend to think in the long run, it will probably end up being the end of the road for 30 Rock (Alec Baldwin certainly seems ready for the end, after all). I just hope Tina Fey gets a chance to end things the way she wants to.
Things are looking a little less upbeat with Community. While the fourth season renewal is obviously exciting, and was by no means a guarantee, the show has been shipped to Friday nights, with a lead-in of Whitney. If that doesn’t scream “death-slot”, I’m not sure what does. What concerns me far more, though, is that Dan Harmon is not signed on to continue as showrunner next season, and Greenblatt didn’t sound particularly optimistic that it would happen. With the departure of executive producers Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan earlier this month, that would make for a pretty big chunk of the creative team walking out the door – and the show has always been Harmon’s brainchild anyway. Fingers crossed they work out a deal, so the (probable) end of our time at Greendale is as funny as ever.
I was glad to see Parenthood left in its Tuesdays-at-10 timeslot. The show isn’t a ratings monster, but it’s been quietly steady there for 3 seasons, and if it’s going to have a shot at maybe getting extra episodes ordered, consistency in the timeslot is going to help out a lot. I was also hoping Jason Katims’ pilot County (starring Jason Ritter and Michael B. Jordan) would get picked up, but I guess the network felt renewing Parenthood was enough Katims on the schedule. Bummer. 
Among the pilots that did get picked up, NBC’s most interesting new show, to me, is Revolution. The network clearly thinks pretty highly of it, as it’s been given the post-Voice time slot to launch from in the fall. Fingers crossed the premise delivers. Most of the other new shows on the schedule aren’t terribly interesting to me. I’m surprised how many comedy blocks the network is rolling with – seems like a ton of sitcoms to me, but maybe it’s just because of how spread out they are through the week. I might check out Go On because I’ve always loved Matthew Perry, but aside from that, I’ll pass. I’m also really interested to see Do No Harm, but the network is holding that for midseason.
I’ll have my take on the other network schedules as they pop up this week!
Although CBS has yet to make their official series pickup announcements, the other major networks spent the last few days renewing/cancelling their existing shows, and ordering the worthy pilots to series for next year. Although there’s not much to go on at this point (mostly a one paragraph summary), here’s my initial thoughts on a few shows I think will be worth watching, and a few I’ll definitely be passing on this fall.
(more…)
Time for a confession: at this time of year, my love of TV tends to take a backseat to my other obsession: hockey, and more specifically, the New Jersey Devils. The NHL playoffs pretty much rule my life from April to June every year, especially while my Devils are still in it. As such, I tend to do a LOT of DVRing and binge-watching of shows in between games (or in between periods!). Hence, not so much with the blogging lately.
This Thursday and Friday, though, were full of amazing new episodes of some of my favorite shows! Here are my thoughts:
At their Paley Center panel earlier this year, the cast and crew of Community teased an upcoming episode as being an “homage” to Law & Order. And what an homage it was. As a pretty big fan of the entire L&O franchise, I adored this episode, and it was pretty clear from the start that writer Megan Ganz is as well. The episode hit so many of the same notes we see in every L&O episode – the random workers finding the “body” mid-conversation, the interrogation in the middle of a busy workplace, the “good-cop bad-cop” routine. Yvette Nicole Brown pulled off a perfect Shirley-as-vanBuren that cracked me up. Troy’s version of the Miranda rights was spectacular. They even included the seemingly-mandatory sidebar in the middle of the trial to discuss something with the “judge”. So, so well done. (As an aside: Jim Rash makes me laugh harder than anyone else on this show, every week. His reactions to Prof. Kane and the army guy serving as Todd’s lawyer were hysterical. And the end tag with him singing to Troy and Abed – so so creepy, but still hilarious).
Probably the most notable part of the episode, story-wise, was the demise of Starburns at the very end. As revealed by EW, actor Dino Stamatopoulos had asked Harmon to write him out of the show – and Harmon clearly obliged. The moment also served the L&O theme very well, as many episodes will end with a shocking death of a suspect or witness just before the show fades to the credits. I think it’s a shame Starburns (MY NAME IS ALEX!) won’t be around on the show any more, but I understand the reasoning behind the move.
(more…)
I am waaay overdue for a post here, but over the course of the last week I started a new job, caught an awful stomach bug (on my 2nd day of said new job), and then spent 3 days recovering. Life, you can be so unkind.
As a result, lots to talk about!
Disclaimer: I’m a huge fan of the comics
Now I will willingly admit that I was pretty hard on this show at the halfway point of season 2. Although the Sophia reveal was done excellently, the pacing of the first half of the season was BRUTALLY slow, and the story just seemed to be meandering all over the place, with no end to the farm arc in sight. The second half of the season solved a lot of the pacing problems, though, and the last 3 episodes in particular were great. Two major character deaths, a huge reveal about the source of the zombie infection (everyone is infected!), and the group has moved on from Herschel’s farm, in rather spectacular fashion. Andrea is separated from the group, and was rescued by a mysterious hooded figure, with two chained up zombies in tow (OMG MICHONNEEEEEE!). Several of Herschel’s family members were killed. Rick laid down the law for the rest of the group – this is not a democracy anymore, folks. He killed his best friend, he’s sick of this crap, and it’s his way or the highway (I may have paraphrased). And in a glorious final shot, we got a glimpse of what appears to be a prison. The prison arc in the comics was my absolute favorite part of the series, and I am SO excited for season 3.
(more…)
Heading into the 2011-2012 TV season, there were a handful of new shows I was excited about. Leading the pack was Awake, which premiered tonight on NBC. The pilot has been available for several weeks, and I watched it twice on Hulu already – and again tonight as it aired. If you love high-concept dramas, this is a show you are not going to want to miss.
The show follows detective Michael Britten (Jason Isaacs), who has just been in a devastating car crash with his wife, Hannah (Laura Allen), and teenage son, Rex (Dylan Minnette). Following the crash, Michael creates two realities for himself – one in which his son survived and his wife died, and another in which his wife survived and his son died. Unfortunately, he is unable to tell which one is real and which one is a dream.
(more…)