Tag Archives: Episode 8

June 24, 2009 · 12:13 am

Better Off Ted – “You Are the Boss of Me”

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“You Are the Boss of Me”

June 23rd, 2009

I realized when preparing for this post that I have never written about Better Off Ted before here at Cultural Learnings, which means that I am officially “part of the problem.” Suffering from fatigued ratings, but bolstered by critical raves and strong network support, Better Off Ted left the airwaves having aired about half of its 13-episode order to an uncertain fate that thankfully (and surprisingly) ended in a second season renewal with a return at midseason paired with returning Scrubs. Then, bizarrely, ABC decided to burn off the remaining episodes of that order in the summer instead of holding them over to air at midseason.

Dan Fienberg has a big discussion of all of that logic (short form: it helps the show fit into the window being provided at midseason, plus ABC isn’t the brightest network around), but right now I just want to rectify what has been a poor oversight on this part. I’m sure I’ve told anyone who asked that Better Off Ted was the sharpest new comedy of last season, arriving without much fanfare with a top notch cast, a humorous setup, and one particular hilarious episode (“Racial Sensitivity”) with which non-fans can easily be turned into converts (which ABC has smartly made available for FREE on iTunes, in both Canada AND the U.S. even), but unfortunately I’ve never taken the time to really sit down and write about the show.

So, a few months too late, let’s take a look at why Better Off Ted, and “You Are the Boss of Me” by extension, presents a case for the show’s high quality.

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Party Down – “Celebrate Ricky Sargulesh”

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“Celebrate Ricky Sargulesh”

May 8th, 2009

Outside of some belated thoughts on the series’ pilot, I haven’t spent much time blogging Starz’s Party Down – things have been pretty busy during a majority of its run, and I ended up falling a bit behind before catching up a few weeks ago. Plus, the critics received the entire season ahead of time, so Alan Sepinwall (in particular) has been posting highly detailed reviews every week that, combined with the series’ remarkable consistency, have made my own desire to write about the show fairly minimal.

But “Celebrate Ricky Sargulesh” was just so damn genius that I had to put in my two cents about the ways in which it was emblematic of the best qualities of the season’s strongest new comedy (sorry, Better Off Ted). The show follows a pretty basic formula, taking its cast of characters and placing them into a new ridiculous setting each week. This, in and of itself, makes the series feel particular fresh: because it doesn’t follow the traditional sitcom model of focusing on a single place or particular atmosphere, the show is able to vary its storytelling and its focus from episode to episode, and the characters are able to have a broad range of experiences without the show feeling too gimmicky.

What really makes an episode like this one work, though, is the way in which setting and character interact. The setting was perhaps the series’ most outlandish, a Russian mafia “celebration” of a mobster’s acquital for murder, with a ridiculous guest performance by Steven Weber that still has me laughing. However, the reason the episode was so strong is how much this appealed to the side of these characters that they’re forced to hold back while working as cater waiters: by tapping into their desire to be celebrities, or their highly active imaginations, everyone but Ron were able to at least partially enter into that part of their lives that being a cater waiter was supposed to make impossible, and out of fear for his own life Ron has to let it happen.

There are very few comedies on television were the most fundamentally ridiculous of scenarios can actually say more about characters than something inherently dramatic, and Party Down can certainly enter that club with this gem.

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Tagged as Casey, Celebrate Ricky Sargulesh, Comedy, Constance, Dingleberries, Episode 8, Henry, Jane Lynch, John Enbom, Mobsters, Review, Rob Thomas, Roman, Ron, Russia, Season 1, Starz, Steven Weber

April 4, 2009 · 12:34 am

Dollhouse – “Needs”

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“Needs”

April 3rd, 2009

There was a moment early on during “Needs” that really struck me, because it really captured why I appreciated the episode more than I, well, needed it.

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Tagged as Adelle DeWitt, Amy Acker, Contract, Dominic, Dr. Saunders, Echo, Eliza Dushku, Entertainment, Episode 8, Escape, FOX, Joss Whedon, Love, Mountains, Needs, Nolan, November, Paul Ballard, Sierra, Television, Victor

March 18, 2009 · 12:29 am

Project Runway Canada Season 2 – “Episode Eight”

“Return of the Supermodel”

March 17th, 2009

This is going to be a pretty short one, because this episode is as simple as it gets: no gimmicks, no major drama, just five designers given a task to create an outfit for a supermodel. While I think that Adejoke’s depressed take on the challenge was a little bit off kilter, she’s right: while it sounds like this should be really exciting as an opportunity for young and new designers to showcase their work on a grand stage, in reality it’s not actually that interesting.

The only way it gets interesting is if people step outside of the challenge (See: Sunny), or if people are unable to execute their ideas (See: Kim), or if they don’t quite fail miserably but instead settle on being dead wrong about a challenge’s purpose (See: Genevieve). The end result of the entire affair is nothing even close to surprising, and the most interesting thing to come out of the episode were the scenes from next week – that’s never a good sign for a reality show, which is supposed to get more interesting as it goes along.

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Tagged as Adejoke, Brian Bailey, Canada, Coco Rocha, Entertainment, Episode 8, Fashion, Genevieve, Iman, Jessica, Kim, PRC, Project Runway, Reality TV, Return of the Supermodel, Season 2, Sunny, Supermodel, Television

March 5, 2009 · 12:16 am

Lost – “Lafleur”

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“Lafleur”

March 4th, 2009

“…now what?” – Jin ; “…then what?” – Juliet

It has been said that the last two episodes of Lost, “316” and “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham,” were sort of a launching point for the rest of the show’s fifth season, the one bit of major story material (focusing entirely on off-island activities beyond the bookends of each episode) that felt like it needed to be blatantly exposed to switch gears. “Lafleur,” then, has a lot to live up to: it takes us back to the storyline we’ve abandoned for two episodes, and has created new expectations and new mysteries upon which it is going to rely in the future.

But to answer Jin’s question immediately (and get to Juliet’s later), “Lafleur” establishes that the moment the island stopped “skipping,” the show has gone back to a familiar tune, one less driven by the series’ structure and far more by the series’ characters. What we have in this episode is the closest Lost has come to its initial purpose all season, offering up a few really intriguing character arcs that have created two parallel but ultimately very different series of flashforwards in regards to how these characters got to this place. Faraday seems to indicate that the record is playing the wrong song when they end up stuck in 1974, but the establishment of the “when” doesn’t lead the show to a detailed investigation as to why.

Because James Sawyer isn’t something fascinated with the question of “why,” and when he gets stuck in 1974 he’s going to do everything he can to survive, as if he’s been marooned all over again. And in the absence of Jack and Locke, Sawyer is the closest thing these people have to a leader, and what we see in “Lafleur” is a man finally ready to step into that position and his three-year journey to a sort of peace that operated entirely outside of the show’s mythology, the simple sort of life he never got to lead before.

And then Flight 316 happened, and the show comes to Juliet’s question, and all of a sudden two groups of people fundamentally changed by time are sent back to another one entirely, although this time entirely metaphorically.

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Tagged as 1974, 1977, 2009, ABC, Amy, Anubis, Birth, Black Rock, Character, Charlotte, Daniel Faraday, Dharma Initiative, Entertainment, Episode 8, Flashes, Flight 316, Four-toed statue, Horace Goodspeed, Hurley, Jack, James Lafleur, Jin, Jughead, Juliet, Kate, Kevin Rankin, Lafleur, Miles, Patrick Fischler, Pregnancy, Reiko Aylesworth, Richard Alpert, Sawyer, Season 5, Television, The Others

February 23, 2009 · 9:12 am

Yes, I’m Still Watching…ABC’s Life on Mars

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Yes, I’m Still Watching…Life on Mars

February 23rd, 2009

There were many shows that I caught up on over the end of last week, finding myself recovering from one major academic deadline and then not wanting to start preparing for the next one immediately. And so I sat down and caught up on numerous shows that I’ve found myself falling behind on for this, that, or some other reason.

The one I’m choosing to write about first is the one that has perhaps been off the radar for the longest period of time. I blogged my way through the premiere of Life on Mars, but since that point I have been noticeably absent. But the show after a very strong fall finale of sorts in December, Life on Mars has returned after the break to struggling ratings (nothing ever performs well after Lost) but to a bit of a creative resurgence, picking the right kinds of stories and the right balance of 1973 reality and 1973 surreality to sustain my attention.

I still have some concerns with certain elements of the show’s storytelling, but at this point they have done more than enough in terms of creating endearing, well-acted and well-rounded characters for me to be too preoccupied with such matters, and although I am still remiss in not checking out the BBC original series I am pleased at some of the broader mythology stuff that is starting to appear.

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Tagged as 125, ABC, Entertainment, Episode 10, Episode 11, Episode 8, Episode 9, Episodes, Eric Balfour, Gretchen Mol, Harvey Keitel, Home is Where You Hang Your Holster, Jason O'Mara, Let All the Children Boogie, Maggie Siff, Michael Imperioli, Procedural, Review, Sam Tyler, Season 1, Take a Look at the Lawmen, Television, The Dark Side of the Mook

January 16, 2009 · 1:44 am

30 Rock – “Flu Shot”

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“Flu Shot”

January 15th, 2009

I know that it’s January, which means that we’re smack dab in the middle of two sweeps periods and thus in what would be a creative holding period for most returning shows, but it’s unfortunate for 30 Rock that as it delivers a mostly listless affair there’s all sorts of exciting shows premiering or about to premiere. There’s a lot of excitement swirling around the world of television right now, and this episode just doesn’t capture any part of that.

This isn’t to say that it’s bad, or to say that 30 Rock’s fate is dependent on this one outing: in fact, NBC announced today that the show is getting an unsurprising but still very welcome fourth season renewal. This show was on life support as early as this past October, so to see it thriving in the ratings and the award season enough for NBC to give it that vote of confidence is great to see.

Unfortunately, the show itself isn’t really living up to that reputation in “Flu Shot.”

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Tagged as Alec Baldwin, Chris Parnell, Dr. Spaceman, Entertainment, Episode 8, Flu Shot, Jack Donaghy, Liz Lemon, Mr. Templeton, NBC, Renewal, Salma Hayek, Season 3, Television, Tina Fey

January 2, 2009 · 12:00 pm

The 2008 Television Time Capsule: Sons of Anarchy – “The Pull”

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“The Pull”

Season One, Episode Eight

Airdate: October 22nd, 2008

Of the fall shows that emerged from the 2008 season, FX’s Sons of Anarchy is the one you know the least about, and the one that you should have been watching (I too was behind on the show, and caught up during December). Labeled as the spiritual successor to The Shield, the show introduces us to a world we don’t understand and a code they claim is anarchy and yet is maintained through a strict set of rules and guidelines.

When the show truly took off is, not coincidentally, the point at which it threw the rules out the window and embraced a side of itself which was entirely unburdened. “The Pull” may not be the single best episode of the show’s first season, that title perhaps belonging to the season finale which Alan Sepinwall pegged as one of the best episodes of the year, but it was the one that made me a believer.
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Tagged as Entertainment, Episode 8, FX, Kurt Sutter, Season One, Sons of Anarchy, Television, The Pull, The Shield

November 24, 2008 · 10:42 pm

Chuck – “Chuck vs. The Gravitron”

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“Chuck vs. The Gravitron”

November 24th, 2008

The Jill Roberts-arc of Chuck was not what one would call new territory for the series, considering that Chuck’s past relationships from Stamford was such a focus of parts of the first season and earlier this season with the return of Bryce Larkin. The different of degrees, however, is that this is entirely Chuck’s burden: while Bryce had equal parts baggage as it related to Chuck and Sarah, Jill is all Chuck and therefore presents itself as his problem to handle. For two episodes, though, he’s melted into her arms only to have it all thrown out the window when he learns, as we did last week, that she is in fact a Fulcrum agent.

What “Chuck vs. the Gravitron” does so well is pit Chuck as much against himself than it does against Jill or against Fulcrum. While this entire season has been quite a fine showcase for Zachary Levi, this episode is a prime example of the kind of dramatic work that he is often required to bring forward in this type of role. His scenes with Jill this week followed exactly the arc they needed to: starting with terrified at the secret between them, moving into simple awkwardness, and then eventually turning into a realization that “the past is the past,” something that he hasn’t quite been able to do before.

And unlike some other shows, where burning through the built-in dramatic storylines leaves them nothing to accomplish, I get no sense from this episode that Chuck’s journey is complete, or that the season has no further direction. As it concludes Jill’s storyline on a high note, I have complete faith that they’ll find another one in a week’s time – and that’s the joy of Chuck right now.

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Fringe – “The Equation”

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“The Equation”

November 18th, 2008

In a burst of inspiration over the weekend, I wrote a piece about the sort of transitional state of Fringe, a procedural series that people expect to offer heavily serialized content; it appears to have various states of being, and the confusion between them has kept me (to this point) from really becoming a fan of the show. Yes, there have been high points (“The Observer” has got to be on everyone’s list), but the uneven nature of the show’s opening episodes have made falling in love with Fringe a problematic scenario.

No longer, however – “The Equation” was maybe the show’s best episode yet, one which felt less contrived (if not entirely organic) and infinitely more personal than most of what we’ve seen so far. Much as “The Observer” delved deeper into Walter and Peter’s personal lives in search of an answer to a question about the Pattern and how it operates, “The Equation” takes Walter back to his time at St. Claire’s Hospital and it send us on a creepy and atmospheric journey into a quest to solve the end of an unsolvable equation.

Yes, the show still feels a bit like a low stakes Alias at points, but this episode combined some of the most interesting qualities of Alias’ mythology while focusing on the dramatic pathos of the right character at the right time. I’m not quite ready to see it as a trend, perhaps, but I was enraptured and hooked on tonight’s episode and, well, might just now call myself a fan.

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Tagged as Alias, Anna Torv, Apple, Bill Sadler, Christmas Carols, Entertainment, Episode 8, Flashing Lights, FOX, J.J. Abrams, John Noble, Math, Michael Giacchino, Music, Peter Bishop, Piano, Review, Season One, Television, The Equation, Walter, Walter Bishop