Tag Archives: Bobby

May 21, 2013 · 2:05 pm

Mad Men, The Americans, and Brushes with Everyday Terror

“The Crash” and The Americans’ “Trust Me”

May 21st, 2013

Of the shows I fell behind on earlier this year, The Americans is what I’ve considered my first priority to catch up on, although even that has been a slow process; I just finished “Trust Me,” the sixth episode of the FX series’ acclaimed first season, last night.

However, sometimes timing is fortuitous, as I watched it after having watched—and podcast with the folks at the Mad World Podcast—about Mad Men‘s “The Crash,” and I was struck by a shared interest in how the normal manifests within the sensational. Obviously, “Trust Me” isn’t a trippy drug trip, but it nonetheless juxtaposes a form of psychological struggle or torture with scenes of danger that at first manifest as part of the game but eventually appear to be simply a coincidental brush with everyday terror.

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Tagged as AMC, Analysis, Bobby, Drug Trip, FX, Grandma Ida, Henry, Paige, Sally, Television, The Crash, Trust Me, TV

October 13, 2010 · 10:27 pm

Cougar Town – “The Damage You’ve Done”

“The Damage You’ve Done”

October 13th, 2010

When Cougar Town changed (for the better), it could have completely ignored its past: considering that Jules dating younger men was a failure, there was every ability for the show to just pack up and move on.

However, while the show did change its focus to the community developing amongst the characters, “The Damage You’ve Done” actively unearths the show’s past. Jules runs into one of her ex-boy toys, someone who I had completely forgotten existed, and the show returns to an event that I had no recollection of which it could have swept under the rug.

And yet, in some ways it’s Lawrence and Biegel showing off: they’re sticking their tongue out at the skeptics, proving that the community they’ve developed is strong enough to withstand explosive secrets. However, at the same time, the episode is not without its consequences, maintaining the sense of weight that the show has carried even as it has established its casual atmosphere.

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Tagged as ABC, Analysis, Bobby, Breakup, Episode 4, Grayson, Josh Hopkins, Jules, Kylie, Laurie, Not What the Show Is Cougar Town, Review, Ryan Devlin, Season 2, Secret, Smith, Soul Patch, Swallow the Sword, Television, The Damage You've Done, Travis, TV

October 6, 2010 · 10:04 pm

Cougar Town – “Makin’ Some Noise”

“Makin’ Some Noise”

October 6th, 2010

There’s an interesting duality to Cougar Town: the series is more consistently driven by change than any other television sitcom, and yet at the same time it feels the least vulnerable to the effects of those changes. “Makin’ Some Noise” is about how Jules and Travis each deal with a major change (Travis going to college), and yet it never seems as if those changes will be insurmountable or even that challenging.

Instead, the episode manages to create the sense of real change while also emphasizing that nothing is going to actually tear about this particular cul-de-sac. It’s the best of both worlds, delivering the sense of familiarity we expect from sitcoms without abandoning the real emotions of Travis’ move and its effects on his relationship with his mother (and her relationship with Grayson).

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Tagged as ABC, Badly Titled, Bill Lawrence, Bobby, College, Dan Byrd, Episode 3, Grayson, Jules, Makin' Some Noise, Modern Family, Scrubs, Season 2, Slow Ride, Story, Travis

September 22, 2010 · 11:01 pm

Season Premiere: Cougar Town – “All Mixed Up”

“All Mixed Up”

September 22nd, 2010

I am officially to the point where I am done “defending” Cougar Town: I refuse to accept that anyone who has recently watched the series could think it is anything but honest, earnest and hilarious, and so I’m just going to pretend that there are no naysayers out there. While many turn to Modern Family for their television comfort food on Wednesdays, for me Cougar Town manages to hit the same emotional notes while abandoning neither the honesty nor the snark.

There is nothing complex about “All Mixed Up,” largely relying on the strong interpersonal dynamics that developed over the course of last season, but the episode says something about those dynamics in light of recent changes. It successfully makes the argument that while their relationships will sustain them through any number of challenges in life, it will not be able to make it so that those challenges don’t exist. This is a starkly honest show (as I note above), and this allows them to say something tangible and real about their characters without introducing false conflict.

In other words, things aren’t “All Mixed Up” at all.

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Tagged as ABC, All Mixed Up, Analysis, Bobby, Bonnie, Busy Phillips, College, Courteney Cox, Dan Byrd, Dog Travis, Ellie, Episode 1, Friends, Grayson, Jennifer Aniston, Jules, Laurie, Movie Mashup, Review, Season 2, Season Premiere, Sleep, Television, Therapist, Travis, TV

May 20, 2010 · 12:44 am

Season Finale: Cougar Town – “Finding Out”

“Finding Out”

May 19th, 2010

Jules Cobb loves plans. She makes the argument in “Finding Out” that plans make everything better, an argument which is proven correct as an elaborate plan at the end of Cougar Town’s first season finale ends up working just as she and Grayson had predicted.

Of course, the irony is that Cougar Town is a show which threw out its plan early on in its first season – I’ve written enough about the show’s transformation to not necessarily feel like going over it again (Todd VanDerWerff’s review of the finale nicely captures it, also), but suffice to say that the show is completely different now than it was when it started. However, rather than one plan being replaced by another, the show has largely gone without a plan: sure, Jules and Grayson eventually got together as the show seemed to be gesturing towards, but each episode doesn’t feel like it’s playing into a particular formula, or that it’s forcing characters into particular moulds. Rather, each episode seems like it stems from characters hanging out, or characters dealing with facts of life, or characters just acting like human beings and following their whims.

“Finding Out” has all of the show’s characters struggling to figure out how to manage what is unquestionable a “plot development” which threatens to undermine the show’s sense of laidback stability, and Grayson does come up with a plan that allows them to micro-manage the situation to their benefit. However, the way that plan plays out within the show itself is so wonderfully handled (and the rest of the episode around it so gosh darn fun) that the balance never wavers, and the show handles its transition into a new era and into a second season with the same confidence that it has showed in recent episodes.

In other words, there’s no better time than the present to get caught up for September.

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Tagged as ABC, Analysis, Andy, Bobby, Brian Van Holt, Busy Phillips, Courteney Cox, Dan Byrd, Devil Face, Dog Travis, Episode 24, Finale, Finding Out, Grayson, Jules Cobb, Kylie, Laurie, Review, Ryan Devlin, Season 1, Season Finale, Smith, Television, Travis, TV, Ultimate Penny Can

April 29, 2010 · 4:11 am

Cougar Town – “Letting You Go”

“Letting You Go”

April 28th, 2010

I am officially nearing the point with Cougar Town where I may make it my personal crusade to travel across the country in order to force every person who gave up on the show in its (admittedly pretty bad) early episodes to sit down and watch an episode like “Letting You Go.” As a show which seemed to begin with tired archetypes, I can see why people were perhaps impatient with the series, but these characters are real people now: while Modern Family has a set of dynamic character types that offer plenty of storytelling opportunities, characters on Cougar Town evolve and change in life the same way that J.D., Elliot and Turk changed through medicine.

“Letting You Go” is a careful negotiation of the show’s central relationships told through a combination of some bare bones emotional realities and some ridiculous, over-the-top sequences that would seem like dream sequences on any other show. That the show is capable of achieving this makes it all the more impressive, and makes me all the more sad that people who would truly love this show let it go before it really had a chance to shine.

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Tagged as ABC, Andy, Barry Bostwick, Bobby, Busy Phillips, College, Comedy, Courteney Cox, Dan Byrd, Dog Travis, Ellie, Enya, Episode 21, Florida, Grayson, Jules, Laurie, Letting You Go, Morning Drinking, Review, Ryan Devlin, Season 1, Sleeping, Smith, Television, Travis, TV

April 1, 2010 · 12:24 pm

Cougar Town – “Everything Man”

“Everything Man”

March 31st, 2010

I feel as if “Everything Man” was written as some sort of ridiculous joke, fitting for the night before April Fool’s Day. My point is not that the episode wasn’t funny, but it seemed like the writer drew three things out of a hat and had to turn them into an episode, or perhaps it was the result if an improv session; they asked for a location and got bathroom, they requested an object and got talking toilet, and they asked for an occupation and got photographer.

I thought the episode had the signs of something that never quite fit together, trying to force too much action into that enormously large bathroom and never quite bringing together the separate storylines, but the show was having so much fun with its individual parts that I can’t really hold it against them. While some shows try to pretend that they’re more cohesive than they really are, Cougar Town knows when it’s forcing things, and that self-awareness goes a long way to keeping an episode like “Everything Man” moving; the impressive thing, really, is that it ends up a fairly nuanced investigation of the show’s romantic tension by the end of the half hour.

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Cougar Town – “Turn This Car Around”

“Turn This Car Around”

March 24th, 2010

Earlier this week, How I Met Your Mother did an episode which more or less spoke to one of the more popular readings of the show: people think that Ted is a jerk, so they did an episode where the characters discussed whether Ted was a jerk. In the process, at least to my mind, they were able to control the narrative of Ted’s behaviour and use that unpleasantness in order to say something about their friendship.

I guess you could say that “Turn This Car Around” says the same thing about the love of wine and sleeping with younger women on Cougar Town. The episode becomes about “change,” which is one of those really terrifying words on most sitcoms (Chuck Lorre is shaking in his boots at the very thought of it, I’m sure), and the show ends up making a compelling argument for small changes, rather than large ones. Combine with a completely useless subplot that made me laugh a lot, and you’ve got a nice half-hour.

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Cougar Town – “Rhino Skin”

“Rhino Skin”

January 6th, 2010

I think a lot of people have chosen to judge Cougar Town entirely based on Courteney Cox’s performance as Jules, which was perhaps fair early in the season – the show was about Jules dating younger men, which was a premise with very little room for growth for both the show and Jules as a character. And yet, something has happened over time that has evolved the show into something very different, a show with a fairly deep ensemble that isn’t afraid of mixing them up to create different pairings.

In other words, Cougar Town has become a show about a community, a group of characters who are capable of interacting with one another in social situations without things seeming chaotic or dramatic. While Grayson was once an antagonistic neighbour, he has become a reluctant participant in more age-appropriate social interactions, and while Bobby was once a deadbeat ex-husband he’s become someone who Jules cares about despite his use of a fish tank as a boat toilet. Ellie and Laurie were once actively antagonistic of one another, but they’ve now come to unite as Jules’ friends even if they maintain a six-foot distance between them when she’s not around.

And while some could argue that this is contrived, it’s given the show a sense of effortlessness with its story lines: it doesn’t feel like a stretch for new characters to interact with one another, and even if it makes for a definitively “small world” it’s one that has been effective both at delivering some strong comedy and, perhaps more importantly, accommodating guest stars like Scott Foley and Lisa Kudrow without feeling as if the show is changing in the process.

Cougar Town is simply a place I want to visit now, and I’m really enjoying what Bill Lawrence and company are offering.

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Tagged as ABC, Andy, Bill Lawrence, Bobby, Christa Miller, Comedy, Courteney Cox, Ellie, Entertainment, Episode 11, Friends, Grayson, Jules, Lady Rage, Laurie, Lisa Kudrow, Reunion, Scott Foley, Scrabble, Season 1, Television, TV

November 26, 2009 · 2:18 am

On ABC, Family Matters: “Fizbo” and “Here Comes My Girl”

“Fizbo” and…

“Here Comes My Girl”

November 25th, 2009

Thanksgiving is a holiday about family, which when deployed in television does one of three things. The first is to emphasize the cohesiveness of a particular group of characters who work seamlessly when brought into the same setting. The second is to emphasize the sheer chaos that results from the show’s personalities coming together, to either comic or dramatic purposes. The third, meanwhile, is to demonstrate that the show is a convoluted mess where bringing the characters together is a futile exercise that will fail to provide interesting television.

What’s helpful for ABC’s 9pm comedies is that both of them have built their identity around the idea of family, to the point where bringing the gang together is like second nature to the two shows. Cougar Town has really started to charm me as of late, and “Here Comes My Girl” is yet another fine episode that brings together this group of individuals into a family of sorts that’s just an enormous amount of fun to watch bounce off of each other. And “Fizbo” is perhaps my favourite Modern Family episode yet, taking advantage of the chaos at the heart of this family and bringing things to a satisfying (and also sort of sweet) conclusion.

It made for a really comforting hour of television comedy, which is what the timeslot has been providing (on average) all season.

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Tagged as ABC, Balloon, Basketball, Birthday Party, Bobby, Cameron, Comb Sheaves, Comedy, Crossbow, Dan Byrd, Entertainment, Episode 9, Eric Stonestreet, Fear of Clowns, Fizbo, Grayson, Here Comes My Girl, In Media Res, Jules, Kylie, Luke, Manny, Music, Review, Scorpion, Season 1, Television, Thanksgiving, Travis, TV