MagneticMediaFed

Don’t buy it, but love it.

Yesterday afternoon, while watching the second season premiere of The Riches I began to think about the general improbability of the action on the show — how the set-up is so inherently ridiculous I’m astonished that they’ve already gotten an entire season under their belts and can hardly fathom the creators putting out at least another half-dozen this spring. I mean, how have these characters not been caught yet? But the thing is, the show works. I mean really works, like way better than a lot of those series that actually have believable plot lines. I started to think about which method makes for a better television experience. The short answer is its all about execution. The longer answer is after the jump…

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HBO is going to be posting new episodes of The Wire on HBO On-Demand a week before they air. Because of this, and because “seeing them early” doesn’t really mean “seeing them fast” I have watched the season five premiere three (3!) times over the past week. Some would say this may be excessive. Those people are idiots. More after the jump…

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I love making end of the year top ten lists. Sometimes I think it’s the only reason I put up with the fifty weeks of mediocre nonsense (but then I take my antidepressants and go back to playing with that shiny piece of foil). The problem with having television as your medium of choice is that the television schedule doesn’t fit nicely into the Gregorian calendar. Typical seasons on the networks run from September to May, while cable tends to stick closer to the actual climatological patterns of the earth. It’s easy to say that first season Friday Night Lights was the best thing of 2007 except for the fact that half of the season landed squarely in 2006. MagneticMediaFed has figured out the solution to all of this: EPISODES. Episodes are what make television TELEVISION. A good episode keeps you glued to the screen for the full hour (or half hour), it tells a complete story while adding significantly to the series as a whole, it shows you something you didn’t think you’d see or makes you laugh in ways you didn’t think were possible.

I’ve spent a good chunk of the past couple weeks culling over the MMF-archives reminding myself of those episodes that I thought really stuck out. I watch a lot of television, though I don’t purport to watch all television (anyone who does should be shunned and bathed — not necessarily in that order). Because of this, my list only includes the shows that I regularly watch and is missing some obvious gems that I simply don’t know/care about (i.e. Battlestar Galactica, A Shot At Love with Tila Tequila). Still, I think most of the bases are covered. If there was a fantastic episode you remember from this past calendar year, please let us know in the comments. The full list, available right after the jump…

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For the nine people that care (eight besides myself), Damages has been extended for TWO (2!) more seasons. I haven’t the slightest idea how they’ll keep up the good thing they had going this past summer or if the show can possibly succeed without Danson (assuming he doesn’t come back… hopefully he will) but its welcome news nonetheless. If anything it’s an excuse for everyone to catch up when the DVD comes out in a couple months. It’ll be well worth your time.

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This show is crazy. Crazy good. Well, at least crazy good-ish. While this is only the second episode I’ve ever seen, I’m immediately drawn to the relationship at the core of the series, that of the strangely hostile give and take between McNamara and Troy. For two best friends they seem endlessly ready to destroy the life of the other, and yet right there under the surface is the whiff of homoeroticism. They’re first in love with themselves, then in love with each other. Everything else, I suppose, is icing. More after the jump…

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What are you doing to her Lady Cha-Cha?

I had never seen an episode of Nip/Tuck until I watched Tuesday’s fifth season premiere. The series has gone under a bit of an overhaul, relocating the two star doctors McNamara and Troy from Miami to Los Angeles. It was a move that made perfect sense as setting a series about superficiality in Los Angeles is a peanut-butter/chocolate type of relationship. It also provided an especially easy jump-on point for someone who has always wanted to watch the show but not enough to catch up on previous season’s worth of episodes. Based on that episode, it looks like I’ll be watching Nip/Tuck in the weeks to come. The series is dark, funny, well acted, competently written and (this season) features Oliver Platt and Bradley Cooper, whose roles in this first episode were blisteringly funny. More after the jump…

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It’s been a month since new shows started popping up and my god has it been a rough ride. I was able to keep for the better part of two weeks, but lately I’ve had to throw my hands up and declare that once again, the television has won. Part of the problem, for me at least, is this fall seems to have more decent shows than season’s past. There are always one or two really good new programs, but typically the rest of it is just dreck. This year there have only been a small handful of shows I would consider abdominal, but with an unusually large amount resting somewhere in the middle. But how does one justify sticking with a series that is at its very best just OK. I think now would be as good a time as any to look at where we are and decide how to move forward.

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Generally speaking, I like to watch television when I get home from work at night (which is typically sometime shortly after midnight), then go to bed, marinate on it a bit and write up a post in the morning. Last night, after having watched the outstanding season finale of Damages, I went to bed and had one of those really vivid dreams that more or less picked up right where the series left off. Based on my dream I’d like to say to the suits at FX that a second season could be really cool (especially if it involves Patty throwing me in a trunk). More after the jump…

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I’ll tell you what, gang. Damages is a hard show to warm to, but sticking with it was probably the smartest thing I’ve done all year. Part of the problem is it’s really hard to see where they were trying to go in those first almost half-dozen episodes or so, and even if you got the sense of a bigger picture it seemed like they couldn’t possibly pull it all off. Well, after last night’s (sorry, I gotta say it) tour de force episode I believe — good god do I believe. More after the jump…

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I think the first of Thursday’s IASIP double-feature was the episode I had been waiting for all season, and again I think we can thank “the waitress” for making this happen. After three weeks (and six episodes) of good, but certainly not great, comedy from television’s most self-obsessed foursome, we were finally delivered the goods. What starts out as the gang trying to get a large sum of money to sell their bar eventually turns into everyone working at an T.G.I.Appleli’s and exploiting the kindness of that poor waitress, whose curious fascination with Denis has gotten her nothing but trouble. More after the jump…

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I missed recapping last week’s episode, which in hindsight was a mistake as the hour was so absolutely jam-packed with plot and reveals it might have been a high water mark for the series. I suppose this is to be expected. Being the ninth of thirteen episodes dramatically, the series reached that emotional climax. From here on the story will unravel to its inevitable conclusion (a conclusion that is still a mystery at this point, but which is quickly approaching). The brilliance in last Tuesday’s episode came a lot from the editing, and the jumping around on the timeline. This week, things were much more straightforward, though obviously building upon the events that had just transpired. More after the jump…

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This is what happens, Larry…

I really love the way Damages is able to tell a fairly complicated legal mystery while keeping the individual episodes focused with laserlike precision. Last night’s, for example, had a lot happening but basically dealt solely with one character, Larry, the long-time Frobisher employee on the take (now from both sides). His thoroughly depressing manipulation by both sides of the case was then paired against a perhaps too preachy plotline involving Ellen’s parents and their own legal troubles. The overall story was pushed forward significantly (including another look at that ambiguous scene last week involving the maybe-death of Greggory Molina) but also managed to keep Larry front and center. It doesn’t hurt that everything here seems to be connected — or at least it won’t hurt if they can bring this all together by season’s end. More after the jump…

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The problem with attempting to be ‘the funniest show on television’ is that it is impossible to live up to the hype. I feared last night’s premiere episodes of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’s third season were going to be absolute disasters. It turned out they were pretty OK. Nothing to set aside for the record books, but still packed with enough jokes to make me (and the drunk guy sitting next to me) laugh at pretty regular clip. More after the break…

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