May 2, 2008 · 11:06 pm

Battlestar Galactica – “The Road Less Traveled”

“The Road Less Traveled”

May 2nd, 2008

After last week threw us into the psychological and religious conflict brewing on Galactica, it’s natural that this takes a back seat to the plots we really want to see: Starbuck’s struggles to find Earth and the Cylon’s internal conflict. We’re thrown right into the action this time around, with Mark Verheiden’s script starting with a definitive revelation for the Demetrius.

That was what was lacking last week, as to an extent “Escape Velocity” seems unnecessary by comparison: here, we get the kinds of reactions that we expected to find last week but didn’t. We get a glimpse of Baltar, and one that perhaps didn’t need such an extracted investigation as we saw last week. Similarly, did we really need last week’s events to explain Tyrol shaving his head and obsessing over his wife’s death? I liked last week’s episode alright, but it feels as if it was a lot of exposition without much comparative value.

Last week felt totally wrong when it comes to the central conceit of the season: the blurring of the line between human and Cylon is integral to defining the series moving forward, and this week we return to the concepts of shared destiny and identity within the context of the series. The result is a sharper episode, one that feels like we are, indeed, traveling down a particular road as the two storylines missing last week coincide.

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May 2, 2008 · 5:26 pm

Grey’s Anatomy – “Piece of My Heart”

“Piece of My Heart”

May 1st, 2008

It’s certain: we have missed Addison Montgomery. I never got into Private Practice, a show that I found too preachy and too talkative for its own good (A comment that Addison makes when trying to discern things from glances and eyebrow raises instead of the long-winded speeches of LA). This is a show that, for too long, has been decipherable: these characters have been acting out of character, scrambling around and struggling without really coming out and saying it.

Well, they’re coming out and saying it now: often it only takes one new influence for things to perk up, and Addison Montgomery is that character. It’s a cheap plot device on the surface, sure, but we create a sense of drama that we haven’t seen in a year. Something about her arrival, and the surgeries that surround it, influences our characters across the board. She is the person that they can talk to, someone who won’t be around for the drama and who wants to know how things will change.

The result is some great character turns, some drama being drawn from humanity and not chaos, and an emotionally charged hour of television.

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May 2, 2008 · 12:42 pm

The Office – “Did I Stutter?”

“Did I Stutter?”

May 1st, 2008

I’m in the process of preparing an article for Always Watching on what I consider to be one of the Office’s most definitive qualities, and I am always glad to see when something pops up to prove my point for me. In this instance, “Did I Stutter?” manages to portray a version of the Office where no one is an abject idiot, and things which were funny without being sensationalist or over-the-top. It was the best possible argument for a version of this series, and its characters, which resists caricature in favour of subtle, yet brilliant, development.

A lot of this is dependent on the version of Michael Scott that we see, and here he is at his most naive, desperate and yet also honest – this is a Michael Scott who of course doesn’t know how to handle an employee being insubordinate, but when tasked with addressing the problem searches for advice and inevitably comes across a decent, if eventually overused solution.

And if The Office can be both funny and logical while maintaining this characterization, I’m on board.

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May 1, 2008 · 10:40 pm

30 Rock – “Sandwich Day”

“Sandwich Day”

May 1st, 2008

If there was something that I was missing in the first batch of post-strike episodes of 30 Rock, it was whimsy: while there was plenty of humour, there were few instances where the show was moving at the same pace that it had in the past. It hasn’t been poor, not at all, but this was the first time that things were moving at the same speed as we’ve seen before.

This week, everything just felt lighter: Liz felt more silly (in a good way), Jack felt more panicked, and the storylines felt like they were on a level that matched the usual madness of the storylines. To this point, it felt like the plots didn’t match the tone, and here we are with an episode that seems right.

That’s not to say it’s better than what we’ve seen: Floyd’s return pales in comparison to Dennis’, there was nothing close to last week’s expanded Amadeus metaphor, and the drinking contest storyline was fairly slight compared to some of the others we’ve seen. However, it was a breezy and enjoyable half hour nonetheless.

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May 1, 2008 · 9:27 pm

Lost – “Something Nice Back Home”

“Something Nice Back Home”

May 1st, 2008

Welcome to May, folks, and welcome to yet another new episode of Lost. If the trend continues, this week has the potential to upend last week’s momentum: if there’s ever a way to stop plot development in its tracks, the past has shown that Jack and Kate episodes are the most effective. So, when we flashforward to a time when Kate and Jack are in angsty situations, there are signs that we might be in the wrong territory.

But then, things got interesting: it wasn’t a Jack story at all. You start to realize that although Jack is the window into our flashforward and this episode, this isn’t about him: it’s about people haunted by their past, and haunted by its impact on their lives. Where is home for these people, when all of them are struggling to reconcile their new lives with haunting flashbacks from their past?

There’s a lot of questions this episode, and while they might not be as game-changing as last week they remain dramatically strong and certainly important to developing these characters as we march towards a finale.

WARNING: Spoilers, so don’t be clicking until you’ve watched it, or until you’ve decided to turn to the dark side.

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April 29, 2008 · 6:43 pm

Greek – “Move on.Cartwrights”

“Move on.Cartwrights”

April 28th, 2008

As Carrie over at Zap2it noted, there was probably nowhere to go but down: after an episode that had me psychoanalyzing characters on an ABC Family series as if it was on HBO, chances are that the next episode of Greek wouldn’t be able to live up to such a high standard. In this situation, a show has two choices: either over-emphasize your dramatic tension or allow for comedy to take over to lighten the load.

Not one to choose sides, Greek decided to have thier cake and eat it too: Casey and Evan provide the dramatic pathos (Admittedly not my favourite storyline for the series right now), and Rusty’s romantic exploitation (Not exploits, exploitation) couples with Dale in order to provide the comedy. Sprinkle with a storyline to justify the existence of Rebecca Logan, and you’ve got an episode that moves on from its hideously awkward episode title to become a moderately successful forty minutes.

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April 29, 2008 · 12:18 am

How I Met Your Mother – “The Goat”

“The Goat”

April 28th, 2008

A true sign of a show’s commitment to continuity is when they flash forward to the future during an early episode, and then when they reach said moment in time (If this is a show that pays attention to time) they actually deliver on this moment. Needless to say, there are not many shows with the same commitment as How I Met Your Mother in this area, and so it is not too surprising that they live up to their promise: having reached the story of Ted’s 30th Birthday, it is time for the goat…maybe.

Of course, after last week’s episode left us on Barney and Robin about to hook up, are we really thinking about the goat? The aftershocks of the events of last week are perfect because they affect most the character who is usually so inscrutable: within seconds of returning to McLaren’s, Barney is assaulted with reminders left, right and centre of his deed. Sleeping with his best friend’s ex-girlfriend is something that Barney has never quite done, even considering how much he’s done.

It’s even more delightful that Robin is (on the surface) far less affected by it, as Barney is a nervous wreck by comparison; actually, you don’t even need the comparison to know that Barney is destroying himself inside and out. This takes the form, most directly, Barney scrambling a legal defense against the Bro Code.

What is the Bro Code, you ask? Why, it was a legal document written in 1776 in Philadelphia by Barnibus Stinson, contemporary of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, while they were having a drink. And, yes, it’s delightful.

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April 28, 2008 · 10:57 pm

House – “No More Mr. Nice Guy”

“No More Mr. Nice Guy”

April 28th, 2008

Of all of the shows who had set up extravagant storylines before the strike, House had perhaps the most to lose without returning: it had gutted its existing team, hired on new cast members, and had left at a point with nothing resolved. David Shore and company wanted to be able to see this to its end, whatever that end may be, so here we are with “No More Mr. Nice Guy.”

The episode is a fitting return: a central question of House’s lack of niceness, a chance to further indulge House’s relationship with Wilson and his new girlfriend Cutthroat Bitch, and a sly way to both reference the writers’ strike and find a way to add more of Cameron and Chase to the show all at the same time.

If I were to, like House, give the series a performance review, I’d say that it’s back on track: it’s hard to really analyze the various medical cases, largely interchangeable, but this one was smartly unmemorable in favour of allowing these characters to regain some space in the viewer’s mind. As my mother says, the new lineup wasn’t as favourable once it settled in beyond the entertaining reality show metaphor, so it is important that we get to know them more than we get to know a lovable oaf.

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April 28, 2008 · 9:07 pm

Gossip Girl – “Desperately Seeking Serena”

“Desperately Seeking Serena”

April 28th, 2008

It’s SAT time on Gossip Girl, as our heroes and heroines are obsessing over their futures. Of course, how can one study for the future when your past is haunting you before you can even get there? Georgina Sparks is a dangerous catalyst of the old Serena, a Monday night synergy moment where it appears that Serena has a case of associative regression: when she’s around, something clicks inside of her.

Michelle Trachtenberg (Buffy) arrives on the scene just as Serena’s life seems too idyllic for this drama-filled universe – we are to believe based on the hype that even being stepsiblings with Chuck Bass is a cakewalk compared to weathering the arrival of this character. Here she is, with her entire academic future on the line, and now she has to try to avoid waking up an angry ghost from her, still, mysterious past.

Smartly, the rest of the episode avoided the uber-drama in favour of romantic entanglements of the adorable and/or intriguing variety, along with Blair’s usual scheming and Dan’s usual neuroses. It’s a sign of a show finding its balance, a show capable of taking its storylines and making them into something that affects the entire cast. Much as the pregnancy storyline before the break didn’t break down into something dominating, so too goes Georgie’s arrival on the scene.

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April 28, 2008 · 10:54 am

The Office – “Night Out”

“Night Out”

April 24th, 2008

So, yes, I am extremely late blogging about the most recent episode of The Office. This isn’t because I didn’t like it, but rather that after a long, long day of packing and moving things I didn’t particularly feel like watching anything that I knew I would be viewing critically (It’s inevitable). As a result, I chose to watch the second season of Project Runway (Which, now that it won a Peabody, doesn’t qualify as a guilty pleasure), and only last night sat down to glimpse at the latest The Office had to offer.

I was admittedly quite satisfied with the episode, as it demonstrated the show’s willingness to step outside of the Office while maintaining the character interactions that make the series function. It was great to see a corporate falling out that actually makes sense (Why couldn’t we have had that for Jan?), and the office storyline was slight but certainly demonstrative of a side of Jim and Pam which we rarely see.

And there’s really not much more to say: it was funny, it was entertaining, and it showed some interesting sides of characters. But, let’s go into a bit more detail, shall we?

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