Tag Archives: CBS

May 22, 2009 · 6:24 pm

Upfronts Analysis: The 8 2009-2010 Shows I’m Looking Forward To

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The 8 2009-2010 Shows I’m Looking Forward To

May 22nd, 2009

Every year when the madness of the Upfronts begins, there’s a deluge of video clips of the various new shows arriving. In some ways, I’m kind of an awful TV critic, since I hadn’t watched a single piece of video from any of the new shows until late last night.

Admittedly, when it comes to scheduling, I often find the various moves and strategies more entertaining than the programming itself (with only a few clips available, and usually very polished ones that hide a show’s flaws), but it just seemed like this year’s upfronts weren’t catching me as it relates to the shows themselves. There wasn’t one big show that, based on its cast or its premise, jumped out at me as something that I would absolutely have to watch, no pilots that I had followed extensively and really wanted to see make it to series, or anything like that. It got to the point where, when I did sit down to start watching video clips, I didn’t expect to find much at all to be excited about.

In the end, though, I ended up putting together a list that surprised me both in its length and its quality. No, there isn’t that one big pilot that really threatens to dominate my TV viewing, but there’s eight shows where based only on clips I’m ready to commit to giving the show a shot in the Fall. I still want a chance to dig into the pilots before making any sort of final judgment, but in the meantime there’s a collection of series which show that, although I don’t think this year’s lineup has one breakout hit in it (I’ll get to why in a second), it is very diverse in its areas of strength.

I’ll get to some of the shows I’m already canceling in my head, as well as those which are going to be pilot dependent, over the weekend, but for now let’s take a look at the eight shows (counting down from 8 to 1, because rankings are fun) I’m excited about for next season.

[Note: I’m not including Glee, since I’ve seen Glee, and you can go to iTunes or Fox.com to watch Glee, and I already know I’m going to enjoy it, and have in fact already enjoyed it.]

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May 20, 2009 · 1:32 pm

Upfronts Analysis: CBS 2009-2010 Fall Schedule

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CBS 2009-2010 Fall Schedule

May 20th, 2009

If you’re looking for surprises, why the heck are you watching CBS?

It’s the question we face all the time, really, and I’m sure advertisers feel the same way: CBS never really gives them any reason NOT to buy ads on their shows, considering that they are by far the most consistent network, but at the same time they make so few changes every year that it’s hard for the ad buyers (or us as critics) to really get excited about what they have to offer.

Their new shows are really the only thing of much interest usually, but admittedly I think that their schedule changes this year are quite perplexing and worthy of some analysis. CBS is a network that is trying to maintain their existing image while building new hits, but two decisions in particular are quite strange and indicate a sign that CBS is trying to look further into the future than it might seem like at first.

Full schedule and analysis after the jump.

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May 18, 2009 · 10:50 pm

Season Finale: How I Met Your Mother – “The Leap”

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“The Leap”

May 18th, 2009

“The trouble doesn’t seem so troubling”

As I was taking a look at a really enjoyable spec script for How I Met Your Mother last night, I was forced to consider the question of whether or not the show’s defining characteristics are necessary components of its success. The show is known, at this point, for its time-bending narratives, ridiculous life theories, and its continuity in regards to both tiny throwaway jokes and the eponymous question of the Mother’s identity, but are those qualities necessary to create a good episode of the series or, in the case of “The Leap,” a fitting season finale?

In many ways, “The Leap” isn’t an episode that relies heavily on HIMYM’s signature story-telling methods, but they’re all present in a way: it features some narrative shuffling designed to assist the dramatic end of its storyline, it uses the show’s own continuity to create another life theory, and the continuity of the four-legged farm animal mistakenly inserted into Ted’s Birthday last year makes an appearance. But, outside of a brief mention at episode’s end that promises yet again that we are closer than ever before to the identity of the Mother, the episode was not about Ted’s love life.

The result is, without question, a stronger finale than last season: Ted’s relationship with Stella was an element of the series that never quite worked, and I was worried a few weeks ago that it was going to rear its ugly head for the finale, creating drama where drama was not necessary. Instead, Ted ends up facing his dramatic arc of the season with a lady of another species, and the drama comes from the right place and, more importantly, at the right pace considering what has come before it. Combine with the return of Lily, and Marshall being Marshall, and this felt like vintage HIMYM without feeling as if they were relying too heavily on those broader signifiers.

They weren’t exactly stepping out on a ledge and leaping across a metaphorical alleyway with revolutionary plotting, but in many ways the finale felt more grounded as a result.

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May 12, 2009 · 12:04 am

Season Finale: The Big Bang Theory – “The Monopolar Expedition”

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“The Monopolar Expedition”

May 11th, 2009

Okay, so, admittedly I don’t actually watch The Big Bang Theory recently, but this is the second episode I’ve stopped in on after really enjoying their PaleyFest panel, and it’s the second episode where I feel like there’s something missing. That something, believe it or not, is an ounce of ingenuity in the series’ broader storylines: these characters stand out on their own, and when doing things that only they would do, but this episode was such a bland sitcom episode at its very core that I don’t really think that it ever elevated itself beyond cute.

This, of course, isn’t a cardinal sin: there’s plenty of room on television for a cute sitcom that, when it’s at its best, can actually be quite funny. But what bothers me about Big Bang Theory is that it often feels like one show is trapped within the other, that characters are being held hostage by a show that doesn’t allow them to branch out of their accepted roles to be actually liked, appreciated, or understood outside of “very special episodes” that only happen ever so often.

The result is a finale that lacked that special something that made it distinct from, well, any other episode of the series, but that went through the motions of a sitcom finale so blandly that I couldn’t help but feel bored by, if not the jokes themselves, then the plot unfolding.

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May 10, 2009 · 9:58 pm

Who Won The Amazing Race Season 14, and Did They Deserve It?

[Looking for details on The Amazing Race Season 15 finale with Meghan and Cheyne, Sam and Dan and Brian and Ericka? Find out who won, and whether they deserved it, here!]

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Who Won The Amazing Race Season 14?

May 10th, 2009

In what began as one of the most promising seasons of The Amazing Race in recent memory, with some slick new editing and the much-loved pairing of Mike and Mel White, tonight’s season finale was in some ways a let down before it even began: while there are reasons to appreciate or even admire the three teams who have made it this far, they have all done things that have kept me from actually liking them. This isn’t to say that any of the three teams are objectionable, or that they don’t truly deserve to win, but rather that all of them feel at least a little bit problematic from an analytical perspective.

However, there needed to be one winning team, and after traveling tens of thousands of miles and visiting what seemed like even more individual countries than ever before (until the end, anyways), the winner of The Amazing Race Season 14 is…

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April 26, 2009 · 10:01 pm

The Amazing Race Season 14 – “Episode 10 (China)”

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“Having a Baby’s Got to Be Easier Than This”

April 26th, 2009

One of my favourite travel stories from my trip to California was that, when I was waiting for a late flight from Toronto to Halifax, I sat down in the departures area to watch the previous night’s episode of The Amazing Race. Now, admittedly, I shouldn’t watch TV in public as a general rule: I tend to be fairly reactive (aren’t we all?), and while an airport creates a cramped space that gives you some pause before overreacting an airport lobby feels open and results in some rather embarassing outbursts of laughter or shock.

However, I should have been doubly aware of this when queuing up last week’s episode of The Amazing Race, which I had no idea featured a spectacular meltdown of epic proportions as Jen and Luke got into TWO consecutive footraces resulting in TWO highly physical confrontations where a combination of aggressiveness and Luke’s sensitivity to physical contact (as he would be unable to hear them coming) created a whole overblown scenario. Killer fatigue playing the role that it does, emotions were high, but I tend to be on the side that Margie crossed a line when she attempted to claim it was deaf-bashing, an argument that felt like a defensive action she had in her pocket the entire race almost searching for an excuse to pull it out. This is a highly competitive race wherein emotions are high, and the best course of action in conflict is to chalk it up to a misunderstanding: lobbing accusations never gets anyone anywhere, except for the Amazing Race editors who got material to make an unsuspenseful episode extremely engaging.

Unfortunately, or fortunately for the racers’ sanity, there is no such event this week, as the teams travel to Beijing for a mostly uninteresting leg that seems almost mean in its efforts to accelerate the teams’ killer fatigue to the point of outright exhaustion. While last week’s episode may have been about personal exhaustion creating drama, I have slightly more of an issue when the producers are outright creating these kinds of reaction.

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March 6, 2009 · 3:09 am

Survivor: Tocantins – “The Strongest Man Alive”

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“The Strongest Man Alive”

March 5th, 2009

There has very rarely been a scenario wherein two tribes on Survivor have been such polar opposites. Going into tonight’s episode, Timbira has been a highly dysfunctional wreck of a tribe, where Coach is convinced that he is not actually part of their failure and where all the beans in the world can’t keep them from cutting off their stronger players. Jalapao, meanwhile, has been able to for weeks put together a very strong tribe that cheers on one another like they’ve been together for months, not just under two weeks.

But what this episode clearly indicates is that the social elements of the game are not the be all end all, and that while Jalapao’s attitude has been very different they were not so fundamentally stronger, or without their own drama, than we would have thought. As a result, for once, there’s actually some suspense about who wins immunity challenges, since both tribes have a very clear path to take if they lose. The result of the episode is nothing surprising, still, but it’s clear that we’re in a “wait and see” pattern in terms of those surprises.

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March 2, 2009 · 10:50 pm

How I Met Your Mother – “The Stinsons”

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“The Stinsons”

March 2nd, 2009

Listen to any fan of How I Met Your Mother talk about why they think other people should watch the show and, chances are, they are likely going to eventually say something along the lines of “this is not a traditional sitcom.” This is something that causes some people some doubts: the show has a multi-camera format and utilizes a laugh track, looking and sounding like any traditional sitcom they’ve ever seen.

Astute fans, though, will point out the show often evolves beyond its sitcom qualities through the use of things like the manipulation of time, copious amounts of flashbacks, and even the general conceit of this all being one big memory told by Future Ted. The show has a lot of tricks up its sleeve that, often, leave it looking nothing like a sitcom at all. There are other times, though, where these elements aren’t as present, and where anyone spotchecking the series for the first time might leave thinking that this is a funny, but not particularly original, sitcom.

“The Stinsons” is an episode that, if I had to put it into one of these categories based on its basic concept, would be in the latter classification. This is the very definition of a situational comedy: after Barney leaves the bar suspiciously, the rest of the gang follow him to the suburbs where they discover a secret about his life that could forever change the course of their lives…or, more accurately, the course of the following twenty minutes.

But what this extremely odd, but extremely entertaining, half hour does is prove that HIMYM isn’t just capable of fundamentally altering the sitcom DNA to make itself standout: in the development of Barney Stinson as a character, and through Bays/Thomas’ great grasp of the sitcom conventions, they are subversive just in delivering this scenario in the most dysfunctional but hilarious fashion. That the episode actually ends up boiling things down, even in its lunacy, to an important point of character realization is testament to the show’s strength: being awesome.

And that’s the Stinson family motto, after all.

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February 27, 2009 · 1:07 am

Survivor: Tocantins – “Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This”

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“Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This”

February 26th, 2009

Winners find a way to win, losers find a way to lose.

Coach might be one of the most delusional and irrational players in recent memory on Survivor, but of his various cliched idioms this one is actually quite apt for the game. Of course, when he says it, he implies that it means that Timbira are going to prove themselves winners by winning the next challenge, but this wasn’t in the cards so much. I don’t say that this is an apt saying because it is true, but rather because it’s almost always wrong: at this stage in the game, the tribes are groups of individuals who are made up of winners and losers both, and whoever happens to overcome their losers wins the day.

In the end, Timbira is a tribe that is suffering through the fact that the people are delusional, acting as if they have the luxury of following individual vendettas more than they do the logical structure of the game. They’re so caught up in creating hierarchies that they’re failing to realize that at this stage it’s not about who you like, it’s about minimizing the chances of sending someone home at all. People like Coach can start playing their games once they get to the merge: as long as there are two tribes, they need to think with their heads, and at this point the game is coming down to which team has a larger grasp of reality.

That’s Jalapao right now, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

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January 15, 2009 · 11:06 pm

Goodbye, Gil Grissom: CSI – “One to Go”

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“One to Go”

January 15th, 2009

The amount of times that I have stopped in to check on CSI has been slim in the years since I stopped paying much attention to the show – yes, there have been various character exits, numerous serialized storylines, and intriguing plots, but my Thursdays are chock-full enough as it is. But what I’ve gathered in my relative ignorance is that the show remains by far the most effective of the franchise, demonstrating character-driven storylines and weathering cast changes with subtle precision.

But the exit of Gil Grissom is a whole different story: while other exits felt like they were part of the ebb and flow of television procedurals, a changeover we deal with because Law & Order taught us to. But the loss of someone whose presence has always been the most central, whose calm and cool demeanor defined the very premise of CSI? This is an entirely different scenario, a watershed moment for the show’s durability and more importantly its ability to bring in a new lead actor.

In what is Gil Grissom’s final stand, his team has to band together to give him one last victory while at the same time getting used to seeing Laurence Fishburne walking the halls of CSI with his own brand of case solution. While the first half was defined by Grissom’s attempts to speak to and understand a notorious serial killer, the second half lets Grissom solve the case, along the way using many of his unique methods and saying goodbye to the people around him, while letting Dr. Raymond Langston be the one who faces off with the Dick and Jane killer.

The result is a rude awakening for Langston, and a solemn and fitting goodbye foor Grissom – it sets one up to want to try harder, and the other a chance to leave on good terms. The handling of the switchover is another reason why, if I’m stuck in a hotel room in the middle of the day with nothing else to watch tomorrow, a Spike TV rerun of CSI will continue to be a solid option even after Grissom is long gone.

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