May 20, 2008 · 9:13 pm

American Idol – Finale – The Duel of the Davids

“Finale”

May 20th, 2008

Well, FOX would like us to believe that the battle between David Cook and David Archuleta is like a boxing match, which is really not the most apt metaphor for a variety of reasons. First off, in this day and age, most boxing matches are rarely as close as this battle, and no one really pays attention to boxing anymore either. Second off, I’m fairly certain that if Archuleta was that overwhelmed by praise by this point in the competition, he’d be in the ring for about twenty seconds before the bright lights had him “Omigosh”-ing Pavlov style.

Rather, I like to think of it as a duel – not only do I think it’s slightly catchier, but it is also a better representation of how these two competitors stack up. I haven’t cared enough about their battle to turn in for the last few rounds, what with their unshaking inevitability, but when it comes down to seeing how these two very different, but fairly equally popular, candidates shake up I am most intrigued.

And there’s plenty of spectacle: Tale of the Tape theming, Clive Davis, excessive amounts of Andrew Lloyd Webber, and the wonderous opportunity to hear MORE THAN ONE of the hideous Idol songwriting contest entries. So instead of our contenders being able to define themselves as artists, they have to follow the guidance of an old man and sing an awful emotional/spiritual song.

So, needless to say, Archuleta benefits most from this arrangement.

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May 20, 2008 · 2:02 pm

Season Finale – Gossip Girl – “Much ‘I Do’ About Nothing”

“Much ‘I Do’ About Nothing”

May 19th, 2008

This one is a bit late, but only because last night was a bit earlier than my previous ones. Considering the traffic that my review of January’s mid-season finale is getting, there’s a lot of people who want to see how Gossip Girl’s first season turns out, particularly in terms of the various romantic couplings the series is too often defined by.

That being said, the bigger issue is that this particular episode is defined by three separate relationships each with their own relative quality. As we wait and see how the Dan and Serena melodrama unfolds, or how the Lily/Rufus love destiny resolves itself, excuse me if I care far more about the delicious pairing of Blair and Chuck that the series has been playing with.

Yes, Chuck is the best part of this finale: smarmy with a purpose, charming with his usual edge, caring even through his usual harsh exterior. That he and Nate settle their rivalry, and that we discover his true feelings for Blair, is the part of the episode we relish in – meanwhile, the other storylines feel less resonant when the show has done them before (Lily and Rufus-style) and lack their explosive spark (Georgina disappears fifteen minutes in). Of course, even that part becomes a bit overplayed by the time the episode concludes.

So as we leave for the summer, which will be filled in by five episodes of material to come in August, everything is topsy turvy, and none of it is overly positive in my eyes.

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May 19, 2008 · 10:27 pm

Season Finale – House – “Wilson’s Heart”

“Wilson’s Heart”

May 19th, 2008

Last week, I thought House was style over substance for 55 minutes before, in the final moments, it transcended into something more interesting – suddenly, a rather pointless and indulgent episode took an intensely personal turn, and “Wilson’s Heart” had a lot more dramatic resonance by default. Placing Amber in danger is actually an incredibly smart move, mainly because we really don’t know what will happen.

Anne Dudek has been enough of a revelation as Cutthroat Bitch that keeping her in the cast could be a theoretical option, or at least keeping her alive long enough for her to appear as a recurring character. At the same time, this episode in particular did a great job of escalating tension to the point where Amber’s death could fundamentally change these characters enough to justify the whole selection process that resulted in three new cast members in the first place.

The result is a finale far less interesting or eventful as last week’s finale, but a hell of a lot more tension-filled, and with a lot more dramatic interest – I didn’t really care about House’s head games last week, but this is the most that I’ve cared about a patient on the show in forever. And in a procedural show that is too often self-centered on House, it was great to see a final hour that barely even dealt with his head in favour of Wilson, 13, and more people who really needed their time in the sun.

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May 19, 2008 · 9:21 pm

Season Finale – How I Met Your Mother – “Miracles”

“Miracles”

May 19th, 2008

For quite a few series, there isn’t much to go on as far as judging the show’s return post-strike – can we really fairly judge the quality of a series by only four or five episodes designed to either tie up loose ends or pump out content for their network before May Sweeps ends? However, in the case of How I Met Your Mother, you can’t really make the same argument.

We got almost as many episodes post-strike as we did before, and as a result there is a sense that the show got to tell actual storylines and to lay down important pieces for its (now confirmed) future. The biggest problem with this is that I don’t know if they actually told enough of those storylines, particularly the unfortunately absent Stella (Busy with Scrubs Sarah Chalke); if we are to buy this as the season’s big purpose, for Ted to meet this one woman, why is it that we still don’t really feel we’ve met her ourselves.

This isn’t to say that the show is falling apart at the seams, but rather part of me would have preferred a classic apartment setting to the hospital retrospective we ended up getting. It felt like too much of a cop-out, an admission that even with nine episodes post-strike they still weren’t able to build to the finale it feels like they wanted to write.

The result is a finale that is humorous, moderately eventful, and felt less identifiable as an episode of this series than the month’s other comedy finales.

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May 17, 2008 · 3:59 pm

Battlestar Galactica – “Guess What’s Coming to Dinner?”

“Guess What’s Coming to Dinner?”

May 16th, 2008

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Season Four.

Yes, certainly, there has been some strong episodes in this first half of the fourth season, so my apparently very late welcome to the series is not to say that the show has been wholly off its form since its premiere in early April. However, with this our 7th episode in the first half of the season that is likely to serve as our only episodic Battlestar fix in 2008, the show is finally returning to what it does best: episodes that combine every conceivable point of strength for the show into a single forty-minute segment.

Here, we have everything: the subtle character moments (albeit in smaller number than episodes past), the haunting thematics, the secret agendas, the political intrigue, the mythology of the series emerging, the cliffhanger endings, and most of all the kind of acting that you just don’t get on other shows these days. The episode leaves us with so many unanswered questions that you’d swear we are leaving for a lengthy break starting now as opposed to in (likely) a month’s time.

But, nope – in two weeks time, we will find out what all of this week’s fantastic episode means. For now, let’s dig in.

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May 16, 2008 · 2:18 pm

Season Finale – The Office – “Goodbye, Toby”

“Goodbye, Toby”

May 15th, 2008

So, you may be wondering: “Myles, it’s the biggest comedy finale of the year, where’s the blog post?” Now, there are two reasons for my delay in getting this post out the door: one is known as “Rock Band” and the other is the episode itself. There is something about this particular episode that had me extremely perplexed – I knew I laughed a lot, I knew I really enjoyed guest star Amy Ryan, but I also knew that the end was certainly a note of tragedy for the series. Everything we wanted to happen didn’t, and everyone fell into a depressive downward spiral.

So it wasn’t a question of whether I liked it, or whether it was good, or whether it was anything – it was just that I didn’t really know how to react to this episode. I would like to think that it’s not just that I don’t know how to talk about something I almost uniformly enjoyed, but part of me can’t help but wonder. Regardless, it’s a sign that hour-long Office episodes aren’t so bad when they’re actually, you know, good.

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May 15, 2008 · 11:43 pm

Lost – “There’s No Place Like Home, Part One”

“There’s No Place Like Home, Part 1”

May 15th, 2008

It’s not often you see a three-hour, two part finale, but it was clear at this point that Lost needed it – there’s a lot of pieces to put into place for the show at this point, and the really intriguing thing is that we, as the audience, know what the end result is: we know which of these people leave the island, so “There No Place Like Home” is a lesson in how this season’s new set of questions has worked so well.

And no, we don’t get much of the way of answers this time around: as is the nature of any hour before the finale kicks in, there really isn’t much here that progressed the plot in any way. We never got to see inside the Orchid, we didn’t see anyone die or officially be rescued, and even the flashforwards were less informative than they were situational. That’s not to say that the hour wasn’t entertaining, but it was just a lot of the things that needed to be done and over with before the finale can kick into gear.

So, if we look at it as an episode, probably somewhat uneventful – as a first act to the finale as a whole, it’s a great piece of setup work.

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May 15, 2008 · 12:51 pm

Upfronts Analysis: FOX 2008-2009 Fall Schedule

“A Subtle Improvement”

FOX 2008-2009 Fall Schedule

In the past, I’ve complained a lot about FOX’s scheduling practices – rather than using their biggest shows to produce strong lead-ins for new shows that need attention, they have instead chosen a path wherein they waste it on reality shows or (what I consider to be) derivative comedies. And really, their fall schedule is always a little bit of a crapshoot: considering that American Idol isn’t on it, FOX is kind of hoping for subtle success before its juggernaut wins the season outright in a few months time.

This time around, I admire their scheduling far more – sure, it isn’t perfect by any means, and they’re only debuting two new shows, but there’s a smart decision that signifies that FOX is no longer being idiots about how to handle their top shows, and to create hit new shows in their place.

New Shows

Fringe – Tuesdays at 9

It has a big-budget pilot, Lost producer J.J. Abrams on board, and most importantly has the best slot on the schedule: the newly created spot post-House on Tuesday nights. This is a smart way to create a lead-in, without question – the only concern is that the two-hour pilot will have to air without a lead-in, so I almost wonder if FOX will divide it in two just to make sure the show doesn’t get off on a weak foot. (Final details of the schedule sees Fringe airing its two-hour premiere on August 26th).

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May 14, 2008 · 12:14 pm

Upfronts Analysis: CBS 2008-2009 Fall Schedule

“Highest Standards in Television”

CBS 2008-2009 Fall Schedule

Last year, CBS’ Upfronts were a shock to fans of Jericho, a drama that had struggled mightily in the face of scheduling woes and was upended by a network with extremely high standards; heck, that year they even got rid of Close to Home, a show with much higher ratings but just not enough balance between buzz and Nielsens for the network to continue on that path. They wanted things to be a little hip, but not too hip, with good ratings as well. In other words, they’ve got an idea of what they want.

And now, a year later, things aren’t much different: Shark is getting the boot for not having enough buzz, and Moonlight is being tossed out with the bathwater because its ratings just aren’t enough to match its overwhelming and motivated fan base.  This news broke yesterday, but today we get to learn which shows are replacing them, and whether or not CBS’ high standards are going to just have more casualties in a year’s time.

New Shows

Eleventh Hour – Thursdays at 10pm

It gets the biggest lead-out in television amongst demo viewers, so there’s something to be said for the potential quality of this British import based on the BBC miniseries starring Patrick Stewart. It comes from Jerry Bruckheimer, who also produces CSI, and its real barrier is that is lacks star power (Rufus Seawell is not exactly a household name). It will be facing off with ABC’s import of Life on Mars, and I actually think that this show’s premise (Investigating abuses of science and scientific crimes) seems less intriguing at the end of the day. This is the first time the network has tested a show in the slot since Shark got moved from it, so we’ll see how it turns out.

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May 13, 2008 · 7:07 pm

Upfronts Analysis: The CW 2008-2009 Fall Schedule

“Scheduling, 90210”

The CW 2008-2009 Fall Schedule

Say what you will about The CW’s second year, but it will be remembered as a general failure in the eyes of most analysts. There was just something about its lineup that fell apart, and no one really knows why: Gossip Girl has been one of the most buzzed about shows on television, the network had two strong pilots in Aliens in America and Reaper, and it seemed as if for once things were going well for Dawn Ostroff. Then, however, everything fell apart: Gossip Girl has been an on-air failure compared to its internet traffic, its reality shows have been absolute busts, and its comedies have struggled mightily.

So, heading into its third year, The CW is taking off the gloves and looking to make a mark on television again. The result is a combination of blatant attempts to rekindle old television glory, further branding their audience based on the teenage girls who make Gossip Girl buzzworthy, and a few bones to critics to prove that the network isn’t in as much of a state of flux as we know they are. The result is something that seems oddly familiar, and The CW only hopes the results aren’t familiar as well.

The New Shows

90210 – Tuesdays at 8pm

It is inevitable that I will be watching this series, even after Rob Thomas (Veronica Mars, Cupid) moved on to his other two pilots (Neither of which has been finalized due to ABC’s decision to largely keep pilot decisions until midseason) and left it in the hands of other people. It has cast members I want to see, particularly the fantastic Jessica Walter (Arrested Development) as the Matriarch, and I’m a sucker for teen dramas.

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