Tag Archives: NBC

April 26, 2010 · 11:35 pm

Chuck – “Chuck vs. the Honeymooners”

“Chuck vs. the Honeymooners”

April 26th, 2010

“Chuck vs. the Honeymooners” is not an episode about “Chuck and Sarah.” It is an episode about Chuck, and Sarah, and their independent personalities; the argument the show makes is not that they should be together (although it does sort of implictly make this argument through its quality), but rather that they each independently want to be with the other, and that this is a conclusion which they have come to as human beings rather than as much-shipped television characters on a network series.

I’m not one of those people who particularly cares about “Chuck and Sarah,” but I am one of those people who cares about Chuck, and Sarah, and their own journeys through this crazy life they’re living. In an episode which has a lot of fun moments which play into the lengthy period of romantic tension which led to this inevitable conclusion, there are also a lot of fun moments which are just the result of how much chemistry that Zachary Levi and Yvonne Strahovski have independent of a relationship, and how great the show’s stunt team is at making a low budget show look like an action film when it comes time to throw down.

The show can never be exclusively “about” Chuck and Sarah’s relationship, but so long as the show’s investigation of its potential results in episodes like this one which are damn entertaining entirely independent of the shipper mentality, I’d say that this little six-episode mini-season could be quite the ride.

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Tagged as Analysis, Awesome, Basque, Canada, Casey, Charles Charles, Chuck Bartowski, Chuck vs. the Honeymooners, CIA, Ellie, Episode 14, Feeling Good, France, Handcuffs, Interpol, Jeff, Jeffster!, Leaving on a Jet Plane, Lester, Morgan, Music, NBC, Relationship, Review, Sarah Walker, Season 3, Shippers, Stunts, Television, Train, TV, Yvonne Strahovski, Zachary Levi

April 22, 2010 · 11:57 pm

The Office – “Secretary’s Day”

“Secretary’s Day”

April 22nd, 2010

If there were a single quality that defines The Office at its most enjoyable, it is “earnest.” When the show starts heading into the territory of cruel, it is able to survive so long as it remains earnest about it. The show can feature embarrassing and often cringe-worthy moments, and it can have characters do things which are ultimately south of decent, but so long as there is a sense of earnestness in their actions, or their intentions, or even their realizations regarding their behaviour, I’m generally okay with it. When the show goes for earnest without bothering with cruel, it is at its emotional best; when it uses earnest to temper the cruelty, it’s pretty solid.

“Secretary’s Day” ultimately falls into the latter category, but in a season which has been on the inconsistent side I’d say that’s nonetheless a good step for the show. There’s some solid negotiation of the new corporate engagement and some fun office dynamics mixed in with an earnest (and dramatically complex) Erin/Andy story, which is the sort of dynamism that has been missing from the show as of late.

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Tagged as Andy, Comedy, Cookie Monster, Ed Helms, Ellie Kemper, Episode 22, Erin, Gabe, Jim, Kevin, Mindy Kalin, Mindy Kaling, NBC, Pam, Review, Sabre, Season 6, Secretary's Day, Steve Carell, Television, TV, Zach Woods

April 22, 2010 · 9:55 pm

Community – “Contemporary American Poultry”

“Contemporary American Poultry”

April 22nd, 2010

Pop culture references are something that Community tends to lean towards on a regular basis, especially when you consider that one of the show’s characters (Abed) is largely built around them. It’s a part of the show which usually flies by at its breakneck space, references dropping in to make us laugh for a moment and then moving onto whatever storyline the show is investigating.

“Contemporary American Poultry” is the first time the show has done an extended homage to popular culture, and I feel like I’m trapped between objectivity and subjectivity. On the one hand, I have never seen the movie that the episode extensively pays homage to, which means that I can offer my opinion of how the episode worked independent of Goodfellas and the connections therein; however, on the other hand, I really like chicken fingers, and so I spent the entire episode salivating.

However, I ended up salivating through laughter, so I think that’s a good sign.

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“What’s Goin’ On” with NBC’s Parenthood? I Have No Bloody Clue.

“What’s Goin’ On” with NBC’s Parenthood?

April 20th, 2010

When I was watching last week’s episode of NBC’s Parenthood, in particular the scene where Sarah (Lauren Graham) shares a moment over some Faulkner with Mark, her daughter’s English teacher and twelve years her juniour, I was not surprised. The scene plays out exactly as you would have imagined it would play out as soon as the two characters met, sparks flying over shared metaphors and the romance of literature as their love defies social constructions of age and awakens something inside of them. I was ready to write the scene off as the precise opposite of subtlety, falling into every cliche we could have predicted, but then I heard something in the background…and then my jaw dropped.

It was “In These Arms,” a song by the Swell Season; for those who don’t know, the Swell Season is the moniker under which Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova are currently recording music following their Oscar-winning success with Once. However, my jaw did not drop out of simple recognition of this very beautiful and haunting song; rather, it dropped because Hansard and Irglova were at one point in time romantically involved, with eighteen years separating them. It was at that point that I came to a very important conclusion: someone, somewhere, on the staff of Parenthood is screwing with me.

It could be the Music Supervisor, as there is plenty of evidence to indicate that whoever is choosing music for this show is in fact still living in 2006, or it could be the performers, some of whom seem to have made it their life’s work to entirely take away my ability to tell when this show is trying to be serious and when it’s trying to be sarcastic. For every time when I think I finally have Parenthood pinned down, when I grasp at some sort of straw that convinces me that this could some day develop into half the series that Jason Katims’ Friday Night Lights became, there’s moments which leap off the screen and just beg me to ridicule, abandon or at times even throttle this series.

And I’m sort of loving it.

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Tagged as Amber, Bravermans, Crosby, Drama, Friday Night Lights, Jason Katims, Jason Ritter, Lauren Graham, Minka Kelly, Mr. Cyr, Music, NBC, Sarah, Soundtrack, Television, The Swell Season, TV, What's Goin' On Down There

April 8, 2010 · 1:20 am

Parenthood – “The Big ‘O'”

“The Big ‘O'”

April 6th, 2010

I am well aware that Parenthood is not a perfect show, oscillating between moments of quiet complication and moments of tidy resolution without really earning the latter, but here I am reviewing it despite being a day “late.”

Part of that is due to the show’s ratings success: settling in at a solid demo rating that actually saw the show best both ABC’s highly-promoted V and CBS’ hit The Good Wife (which skews old), all signs point to the show receiving a second season, which means that any time I invest now will help me chart the show’s growth in the future.

However, most of it is due to the fact that as the show goes along, it continues to become more confident: it isn’t necessarily that much more consistent, but its inconsistencies are sort of moving around. Criticizing the show is in many ways like trying to hit a moving target: it isn’t that a single story is causing all of the show’s problems, but rather there’s always one story that just doesn’t quite add up, or which feels like it’s unfolding in a fashion too beholden to the unavoidable clichés the show’s premise creates. But because that’s never the same story, with the same characters, there’s always something new to talk about both good (in that past problem stories manage to pull off something quite subtle) and bad (in that some other stories take a wrong turn).

“The Big ‘O'” is certainly one of the stronger hours of the series, managing two fairly “big” moments in the show’s serialized narrative in a nice subtle fashion while going a tad bit off the rails with some of the other developments – next week, I’m sure, things will switch all over again, but let’s stick to what we’ve got for now.

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Tagged as Amber, Asperger's, Braverman, Camille, Crosby, Episode 6, Erika Christensen, Friday Night Lights, Jabbar, Jason Katims, Jason Ritter, Joel, Kristina, Lauren Graham, Max, Minka Kelly, Monica Potter, Mr. Cyr, NBC, Peter Krause, Racquel, Ratings, Sarah, Season 1, The Big "O", Zeke

April 5, 2010 · 11:13 pm

Chuck – “Chuck vs. the Other Guy”

“Chuck vs. the Other Guy”

April 5th, 2010

I’ve taken to referring to “Chuck vs. the Other Guy” as the “FormerFinale,” if only because I want to bring as much attention as possible to the fact that this week’s episode was written as the final episode of the show’s third season. The thirteen-episode order has been the cause of most of the show’s problems: the limited characterization of Daniel Shaw, the sporadic motivations of Sarah Walker, the forced characterization of the “changes” in Chuck’s personality, and the disappearing and reappearing cast members have all been a result of the original episode order and the budget cuts that came with it.

None of these problems, individually, have taken this season down, or fundamentally ruined the show’s premise or anything of that nature – I’m not the person who threw a stink when Chuck/Sarah weren’t immediately brought together, or someone who has been entirely against the character of Daniel Shaw (or Brandon Routh’s work in the role). However, collectively they have formed a sort of distance between the show and I, both as a critic (where certain episodes have struggled to pull things together) and as a fan (where the “fun” of the show has sort of disappeared in the rush to advance the show’s plots).

And so the “FormerFinale” was always going to be a turning point: before it was the point where the show would enter into the limbo of whether or not it would get an unlikely fourth season, and now it’s the point from which the final six episodes of the season will depart from. And for the first time all season, “Chuck vs. the Other Guy” lives up to every possible point of evaluation: as a “FormerFinale,” as a launching pad for the rest of the season and as an episode of the show overall, it delivered enough to turn a somewhat shaky start into an extremely promising future.

But it wasn’t perfect, and it wasn’t enough to make me forget some of the missteps earlier this year.

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Tagged as Brandon Routh, Casey, Chris Fedak, Chuck and Sarah, Chuck vs. the Other Guy, Daniel Shaw, Episode 13, Finale, Josh Schwartz, Mark A. Sheppard, Morgan Grimes, NBC, Paris, Red Test, Sarah Walker, Season 3, Team Bartowski, Television, The Ring, TV

March 31, 2010 · 4:10 pm

Parenthood – “The Situation”

“The Situation”

March 30th, 2010

Fittingly, subtlety isn’t particularly easy to analyze when it comes to television series. While I would never argue that Parenthood’s morals are subtle, as it tends to go for the blindly emotional over the starkly realistic, I still feel like some of what the show is accomplishing could be considered subtle. Even if things eventually get wrapped up in a neat bow that lays out the circumstances at hand, things always tend to start with a small moment that becomes something more, and so the least subtle of conclusions may still come from subtle origins.

“The Situation” works for most of its run time because the characters aren’t necessarily being driven by clear moral foundations; Drew doesn’t start spending time with Adam and Max because his Dad let him down again, Sarah doesn’t strike up a friendship with Amber’s teacher because of some sort of life problem, and Crosby (while directed by others) manages his paternity situation fairly effectively. In the end, the lessons apparent in each story are drawn to the surface through more direct action, and the show gets as sappy as it always does; however, up to that point, there continues to be enough small moments of subtlety for me to stick with the show for the rest of the season.

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Chuck – “Chuck vs. the American Hero”

“Chuck vs. the American Hero”

March 29th, 2010

Sometimes, when critics receive episodes in advance and when previews run rampant online, those of us without those episodes and who choose not to watch those previews nonetheless hear the basic content of an episode. And when it comes to this week’s episode of Chuck, it was absolutely impossible to ignore the subject matter of this week’s episode.

What’s interesting is that these responses were both positive and negative: news that this episode would directly speak to Chuck and Sarah’s relationship tends to divide the Chuck viewership between those who are excited about it because it’s the reason they watch the show and those who are excited about it because it means they might finally get around to resolving this issue. While some live or die based on this story, most viewers tend to view it as a part of the show that’s fine in small doses, and fine in theory, but occasionally overpowers the rest of the show’s narrative.

And so episodes like “Chuck vs. the American Hero” are either the highlight of the season or a necessary evil in order for the show to keep on track heading into the rest of the year; in this case, after a bit of a rough start, the episode manages to prove engaging enough and twisty enough that any of my concerns with their relationship were (mostly) pushed aside for the time being.

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Tagged as Brandon Routh, Captain Awesome, Casey, Chuck Bartowski, Chuck vs. the American Hero, Daniel Shaw, Ellie, Episode 12, Eve Shaw, Jeff, Lester, Mark A. Sheppard, Morgan, NBC, Red Test, Relationship, Review, Sarah Walker, Season 3, Stalking, Television, TV

March 26, 2010 · 11:21 am

30 Rock – “Floyd”

“Floyd”

March 25th, 2010

While 30 Rock is a show that rarely has a great deal of forward momentum, I always like it better when it seems like it’s taking me someplace in particular; Jenna’s best story was when she was dealing with her weight, Tracy’s best recent story was when he confronting the uncanny valley, and Liz and Jack are almost always at their best when it feels like they’re confronting something that could last a few episodes or have some sort of ramification for their future.

This does not mean that I don’t find episodes like “Floyd” funny just because 2/3 of the episode is pointless, but it does mean that I prefer the parts of the episode which feel like they have history and a future. I know it’s not typical for the show, and I know it’s not really going to last, but there’s something about Liz Lemon doing something which seems mildly important that just makes me like the show more.

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The Office – “Happy Hour”

“Happy Hour”

March 25th, 2010

One of the advantages of the workplace comedy is that there are enough logical reasons for co-workers to get together after hours that episodes like “Happy Hour” don’t feel inherently forced. Sure, it’s still a bit television-like that an entire office would go out for Happy Hour together, but the show doesn’t really need to justify itself too much if it wants to tell some “Things that happen in bars” stories about the cast of characters.

I think where “Happy Hour” goes off the rails is where things become schticky; while the show sort of steps back from the worst of the exaggerations by episode’s end, these sorts of episodes are better when it doesn’t feel like the characters are invading the outside world. While it is inherently in character for Michael Scott to become someone different in a social scenario, the introduction of “Date Mike” was a fun sight gag that ended up pretty lame in execution.

Luckily, the storyline brought together something that could be more interesting moving forward, but it made what could have been a nice sort of “hang” with the cast into an uneven experience.

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Tagged as Amy Pietz, Andy, Angela, Contract, Creed, Darryl, Date Mike, DDR, Dwight, Entertainment, Episode 21, Erin, Happy Hour, Isabelle, Jim, Kevin, Matt, Michael Scott, NBC, Oscar, Pam, Review, Season 6, Stanley, Surgeon, Television, TV, Whack-A-Mole, Yakuza