Tag Archives: CBS

October 12, 2009 · 9:58 pm

How I Met Your Mother – “The Sexless Innkeeper”

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“The Sexless Innkeeper”

October 12th, 2009

In the season premiere, we essentially got a confirmation that How I Met Your Mother would be dipping into the well of the double date: after struggling for a few seasons to integrate a drama-free Lily and Marshall into the show’s set of couples, they kind of gave up late last season with Hannigan disappearing to have a baby. The result is that, while Barney and Robin are a newer couple and in need of development, it’s perhaps more important that the show use this opportunity to remind us of Lily and Marshall’s value (as a couple, individually isn’t really a question) to the show’s dynamic.

“The Sexless Innkeeper” is simultaneously a justification for why we haven’t seen much of their individual life since they moved into their new apartment and a sign that the show really should have been going out of its way to do so. I don’t think that they should have rushed another couple together, but the addition of a two-couple dynamic lets them play stories that they’ve clearly wanted to dabble in without much of an opportunity. As Ted says at one point, couples need other couples, and Lily and Marshall only needed another couple to bring back what I enjoyed about their characters.

It really only had two jokes, but one was clever and the other was committed to by four really great comic actors and featured a whole lot of HIMYM-style intricacies (like The Best Night Ever.com, another meta-website), so it’s a very enjoyable half-hour of comedy.

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September 29, 2009 · 9:40 pm

The Good Wife – “Stripped”

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“Stripped”

September 29th, 2009

I’m on the record as suggesting that The Good Wife’s pilot was one of the most accomplished of the fall season, delivering a clever take on the legal procedural that emphasized but didn’t contrive a personal story for Alicia Florrick, part rusty trial attorney and part struggling wife of a shamed politician serving behind bars. The pilot was sharp in how it weaved the two worlds together, both her new job and her life balancing shame and anger, and the show has a pretty bangup cast.

As always, it’s interesting to see how a second episode reacts to the pilot, especially with a procedural where the “hook” of the show seems like something that might only exist in the first episode before being slowly phased out with time. However, with “Stripped,” it becomes clear that The Good Wife is not going to be a show that sees Alicia’s husband or his infidelity fade into the background, which is both good in the long term and perhaps somewhat awkward in the short term.

The core of the series, the integration between her personal life and her job, remains an interesting combination of workplace drama and Alicia’s personal struggle. However, the way that the episode brought her husband’s stripper past into the story was less graceful than it was in the pilot, forcing things into the open by conveniently introducing a stripped-based rape case into the proceedings. It’s not ineffective, per se, but it feels somewhat more forced than it was before, and feels almost like a second pilot as opposed to an example of what the show will do in the future…but a second good pilot.

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September 28, 2009 · 11:35 pm

The Big Bang Theory – “The Jiminy Conjecture”

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“The Jiminy Conjecture”

September 28th, 2009

I know it’s unrealistic, but part of me wanted this episode to start with a moment of recognition from Leonard as to how he treated Sheldon last week, and for that matter a moment for Sheldon to reflect on his own behaviour. I know that this is a traditional sitcom, one where the storyline from the week before could well have never happened (to some degree) before this one, which meant that the show will pick up the next day in some ways but not in others, but part of me wanted them to admit that what happened in the season premiere was not just another incident, and that Sheldon quitting his job was not something that can just be rewritten and forgotten.

However, that didn’t happen: there are no apologies, Sheldon magically has his job back, and the only thing that continues on is Penny and Leonard’s relationship. As such, this is my final complaint: I think it was a mistake, and that it tainted what could have been a strong premiere.

Now, moving onto “The Jiminy Conjecture,” this was an example of the show going back to basics by dividing off their characters and letting the Sheldon, Raj and Howard have some fun while Leonard and Penny attempt to figure out their relationship. While my past views on the show can tell you which side of the episode I preferred, it was a fun half hour of comedy at the end of the day, which is more than I can say for the convoluted premiere.

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September 28, 2009 · 10:14 pm

How I Met Your Mother – “Double Date”

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“Double Date”

September 28th, 2009

I love when episode titles aren’t what you’d expect. As a television critic, it means that I’m taking notes after I’ve looked to see what the title of the episode is (so you can more easily find this post), so I went into this one expecting the show to take advantage of their newfound pairing in order to provide some sitcom-style double date antics.

I should have known, of course, that How I Met Your Mother isn’t that kind of show. The “Double Date” at the center of the episode was a clever sort of “instant mythology,” where Ted relives a previous blind date all over again seven years later, which allows the show to do what it does best. We get healthy doses of both the show’s time-twisty structure as well as its heart within the storyline, while the other (also double-themed) story with Marshall and Barney helps to provide some levity while both work in tandem to create a whole new element of the HIMYM Lexicon.

On the whole, it’s a clever and well-executed episode that further cements the show’s strong sense of narrative, and one which provides a pretty darn good showcase for a somewhat maligned character.

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September 26, 2009 · 12:53 pm

The Game vs. The Players – A Cultural Learnings Reality Roundup

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The Game vs. The Players

A Cultural Learnings Reality Roundup

In our weekly glimpse into the world of Survivor: Samoa, Top Chef, and Project Runway, it’s important to distinguish between the game and the players of that game. Every episode of all three shows is essentially about the way the producers construct the game (the challenges, the conditions, the time limits, even the casting itself), and the players are forced to interpret and operate within that game as they see fit. So when you find yourself frustrated with a fairly boring season of Project Runway, or impatient with a season of Top Chef, or find Survivor’s villains too much to handle, you need to ask yourself if this it the result of the game or the people who are playing it.

In all three episodes of these three shows this week, we saw situations where the game took control of the players, and where their sewing, their cooking and their scheming felt so clearly defined by the game that I was simultaneously interested and bored. It’s the ultimate test of any group of reality contestants, though, to be forced into a situation the producers have designed: do they strike out on a unique course, indicating that they’re a real rebel, or whether they fall right in with the expectations put in front of them.

It’s a process which makes me doubt Runway, trust Top Chef, and change my mind about a few Survivor players.

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September 23, 2009 · 8:48 pm

Series Premiere: The Good Wife – “Pilot”

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“Pilot”

September 22nd, 2009

Considering that I’m almost a day late, and so many other critics have weighed in on the show and had largely positive opinions, I hadn’t really intended on sitting down to talk about The Good Wife, which I’ve always considered to be the one CBS pilot from this year that sounded legitimately interesting. A new NCIS (the original doing nothing for me, if nothing against me) isn’t going to get me excited, Three Rivers’ premise has enormously limited potential, and Accidentally on Purpose was strained from the start. But there was something both topical and intriguing about a show which took an aspect of a shockingly prevalent political phenomenon (the disgraced politician resigning as a result of a sex scandal) and asked itself a question: what happens to the wife?

And while more recent events would answer with “Go on a ridiculous summer reality show on your husband’s behalf,” The Good Wife fast forwards six months into the future to a position where Alicia (Julianna Margulies) is re-entering the work force as an underddog whose fellow juniour associates at her law firm were pre-teens when she last practiced. What results is logically two separate shows, one where Alicia struggles to raise her kids and live her life in the wake of her husband’s betrayal, and the other as she has to overcome years of rust to regain her composure as a lawyer.

But why the show is so effective is that rather than attempting to demonstrate how challenging it is to balance these two parts of her life, turning her into a harried disappointment to her children or a fundamental less of an attorney, the pilot is more interested in demonstrating that in some ways she’s meant for this. In some ways, what she has gone through in her personal life has made her a far more effective litigator, and has given her a new perspective on her family which keeps her priorities firmly in check. Alicia is a woman who has taken control of her own life, and by marrying her two worlds as largely harmonious as opposed to a constant conflict, it allows us to relate to Alicia on multiple levels – combine with a pretty great cast and an intriguing opening case, and you’ve got yourself a legal procedural I’ll stick with for a while.

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September 21, 2009 · 1:22 am

Hard-Boiled or Sunny-Side Up: The Divisive but Satisfying 2009 Primetime Emmy Awards

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Hard-Boiled or Sunny-Side Up:

The Divisive but Satisfying 2009 Primetime Emmy Awards

How do you like your Emmys?

Oh, don’t pretend as if you don’t have an opinion. Anyone who is reading this column has some sort of an opinion about the award show and its brethren, lavish ceremonies designed to recognize the very best in a specific industry. However, the Emmys are not a universally accepted success story, and while there are some who view the awards as a valuable institution for recognizing talent others see them as an antiquated and slow-minded organization hellbent on refusing to accept that which is different in favour of more traditional “awards” fare.

As such, Emmy producers really have two entirely different bodies of viewers to be concerned with (throwing out those who would never watch the show in the first place). On the one hand, they have those people who believe in the dignity of the Emmy Awards, who highly respect the work of the Academy and believe quite strongly that this is a serious occasion meant to honour the very best in television. On the other hand, you have those who are angry that Battlestar Galactica never won a major award, and that The Wire and The Shield got snubbed for their final seasons, and who are convinced that any time the Emmys do make a good decision it was by some sort of fluke.

What host Neil Patrick Harris and producer Don Mischer put together for the 61st Annual Emmy Awards was what I would considering to be the Sunny-Side Up version of the Emmy awards. With a charming and self-deprecating Harris at the helm, and a sarcastic and rarely serious John Hodgman playing the role of announcer, they staged a show which spent nearly every moment not taken up by awards being self-deprecating or dismissive of something, whether it’s the future of broadcast television or Harris’ own bitterness over his loss in his own category.

For those who have little to no faith in the Emmy institution, this was an ideal point of view which gave them an entertaining show that one almost feels joins in on their frustration, if not directly. However, for those who look for a more hard-boiled and serious awards ceremony, chances are that they viewed this year’s Emmys as an ill-conceived attempt to pander to younger audiences.

Me? I’m just happy they weren’t scrambled.

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September 19, 2009 · 3:42 pm

Trust in Reality TV: A Four-Letter Word? – A Cultural Learnings Reality Roundup

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Trust in Reality TV: A Four-Letter Word?

A Cultural Learnings Reality Roundup

[Since I find blogging about shows like Top Chef, Project Runway and Survivor: Samoa individually somewhat inconvenient, but often nonetheless have things to say about them, I figure we’d lump the three mid-week reality shows together in what we shall now refer to as Cultural Learnings’ Reality Roundup. Enjoy!]

Trust is perhaps the central tenet of reality television.

I don’t mean so much within the game itself, although clearly in a game like Survivor (whose 19th season, Survivor: Samoa, started this week) there is an element of trust between individual players. Rather, I speak of the trust relationship between the show and the viewer. Viewers hope that they can trust the judges on Top Chef and Project Runway to make the right decisions, and they hope they can trust the losing Survivor tribe to vote out the person who is making the new season nigh on unwatchable.

It is a highly tenuous sense of trust, of course: half of the dramatic value of reality television is having that trust violated, and the growing frustration as villains or talentless individuals remain while others go home instead. And, of course, that trust is forever complicated by the existence of editors, learning that the trust you want to experience is being manipulated at every turn.

So, what I find fascinating about this week’s trio of reality shows is that in each instance we are reminded of this trust relationship, and that the “worst Survivor villain of all time” is in fact perhaps the most trustworthy reality character (from a viewer/series perspective) the show has ever seen.

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July 15, 2009 · 12:59 pm

2009 Emmy Award Predictions: Outstanding Comedy Series

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Outstanding Comedy Series

Predictions

There is very little chance that 30 Rock won’t be running away with this category, which means that the other nominees aren’t going to really matter at the end of the day. However, there are a few shows in a position to make a big splash should they be able to break through into the category, especially for a couple of CBS sitcoms looking for their moment in the spotlight.

One can presume, right off the bat, that 30 Rock, The Office and Two and a Half Men will be garnering nominations based on popular vote, having been clear favourites of voters over the past number of years. The other three spots, however, could go in different directions. Last year, Entourage, and Curb Your Enthusiasm rounded out the category, but with the unpredictability of the popular vote combined with Enthusiasm taking a breather, the door is open for some new faces (especially with an extra nominee).

Only one of them, of course, is actually new: Showtime’s United States of Tara was the only real buzzworthy comedy debut of the year (Parks and Recreation proving too mixed to make an impact), driven by a strong (and likely Emmy-nominated) lead performance from Toni Colette and the Hollywood swagger of Diablo Cody. The show has a shot at making the category, but it will likely have to fight it out with stablemates Weeds, which has been close in the past, and Californication. Still, it feels like there’s room in the category for a new show, and Tara might just be it.

The other two shows with a real shot are How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory. HIMYM has the rising starpower of Neil Patrick Harris and four strong seasons in its favour, while The Big Bang Theory is slightly more populist and comes from the much revered Chuck Lorre. I’d say that Jim Parsons will be the latter’s breakthrough, so if one of them finds its way into the category my money’s on HIMYM. It’s a definite long shot, but this is around the time that Scrubs broke into the category and I think fears over its premature cancellation are gone, which could allow it to gain some more credibility.

HBO, meanwhile, is likely to stay in the category with stale but apparently popular Entourage, and it’s impossible to discount Family Guy, submitting into the Comedy Series category with a big campaign and trying to overcome the stigma facing animation. ABC would like to think that Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives could benefit here, but the shows have disconnected from the Emmy base for good outside of their performers. All in all, it’s really going to come down to just how popular the popular vote skews, which is a variable we can’t really predict properly at all.

Predictions for Outstanding Comedy Series

  • 30 Rock
  • Entourage
  • How I Met Your Mother
  • The Office
  • Two and a Half Men
  • United States of Tara

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May 25, 2009 · 2:14 pm

Upfronts Analysis: The 5 Worst Showings of the 2009-2010 Upfronts

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The 5 Worst Showings of the 2009-2010 Upfronts

May 25th, 2009

I am quite aware that there is something problematic about judging series based entirely on quick clips, but in many ways that personifies the upfronts process: it’s about making snap judgments, analyzing a show based on its potential when placed through the advertising machines of its respective network. It is true that there are some shows which are only hurt by this process, but then there are others which are so far removed from anything approaching humour or drama that I really don’t think they can be saved.

As a result, this is not a list of the worst shows during the 2009-2010 upfronts, but rather those which have the longest way to go in order to convince me that somehow, some way, they could be entertaining television. There may end up being more disappointing shows this fall/midseason, or shows which fall apart due to showrunning conflicts, but in their very setups/clips/execution these shows have demonstrated absolutely nothing to convince me that they are worth watching (some shows, like FOX’s Brothers which appears to be just downright awful, is so far off my radar that I haven’t even bothered watching the clips, which may explain its absence).

And so the uphill battle begins.

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