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Veronica Mars gets all charged up.

It would’ve probably been a more appropriate title had someone actually flown, but “Fight or Flight” seems to fit with where this show is going. Rather than just kinda keeping the snail’s pace that it has been, the powers that be decided to finally start moving things ahead a little bit, with three of the four plots getting much needed boosts by the end. There was a small amount of backstory given, regarding Parkman’s Dad, and they thankfully gave the week off to the stories that weren’t going anywhere (Claire, Wondertwins). It really feels like there are hints that things are starting to go somewhere. We finally got our first really awesome sequence, but also some really lame sequences. There was some stuff that didn’t need to be there at all, but an awesome new character. This might be the episode where things start to turn around (I hope). What was good and what was bad? Find out after the jump…

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The holy ghost.

It’s just not the same. And I know you can’t ask for something to never change. Change is inevitable. All things change but that doesn’t mean we have to like it. Coca-Cola changed to Coke and got Billy Joel so ticked he wrote a song about it and got the company to change it back (at least I think that’s how it went down… I was only five). That being said, Burger King changed the recipe to their fries a decade ago and have yet to change it back despite all the songs I’ve written. I guess what I’m saying is Friday Night Lights isn’t the same show this season that it was last season and now we’re all going to have to decide what we want to do about it. Should I get the guitar? More after the jump…

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Melancholy.

For the past month The Office has been trying to figure out how to turn a thirty-minute comedy into an hour-long comedy with varying results. There have certainly been some laugh out loud moments over these last four episode, but structurally the series has had trouble filling the time… until this week. It turns out the key to extending a comedy to an hour is not to add more comedy, but to make it a drama. More after the jump…

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A good cameo.

Between reading endless banner ads telling me everything from NBC.com having full-length episodes to the synergenic news that Alec Baldwin was going to be appearing on the next episode of Inside The Actor’s Studio on Bravo there was a pretty great episode of 30 Rock right there on the screen beneath all of the nonsense. While the first episode this season suffered from forcing Jerry Seinfeld into the plot and the second episode just never seemed to gel, this week things played out exactly as we had come to expect from 30 Rock. More on the funny after the jump…

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From here on out I’m grouping together Chuck and Reaper into a single post because, let’s be honest, they’re basically the same show with a really good series buried somewhere between the two. While Chuck has continued to grow into itself since it launched last month, Reaper has struggled to provide reasons for return visits. This week it took the first step toward rectifying this problem. More after the jump…

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Finally, the show is getting kinda good again. Not great, mind you, but pretty solid. It’s almost as if they figured out what was bad about the first three episodes, and in the span of a week, did what they could to rectify those issues. They pared down the number of major plots to a manageable four-ish (three of the four had a few side-scenes with other characters) stories. They moved some things ahead a bit, even if we don’t know where it’s all headed. More after the jump…

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You know that guy at the rock show, the one that’s maybe pushing 40 and has lost a good deal of his hair? He’s a good guy. He likes to rock, and rocking out is all that matters at a rock show. The problem is he also wants to be cool, and sometimes rocking out isn’t cool — which is what makes it cool in the first place (rock and roll is very complicated). But see, coolness is and will always be based on the degree of effort put into being cool. Think about it. All of the coolest people you know, or even don’t know but know of, those people don’t try to be cool, they just are cool. And you know some people who are kind of cool, but seem to want to be cool perhaps more than they really need, and it’s a shame because they could have been so much cooler if they just quit focusing their attention so much on the coolness of those around them. More after the jump…

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Why can’t I just let loose a little?

The most telling moment in Tuesday’s episode of Reaper came at the end when Sam was having a heart to heart with Andy and she said, “Right now, I just really need my life to stay the same.” And so goes a potential nail in the coffin for this series of once high potential. In the battle of the big-box employees with superpowers, Reaper is rapidly losing ground to NBC’s Chuck. The series’ problem is the same as Andy’s: it refuses to change. More after the jump…

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I’ll tell you what, the music supervisor for this show either really loves Spoon’s new record Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga or happens to be Brit Daniels. There is no other way to explain the almost relentless Spoonage on the soundtrack — not that I’m complaining, that’s one bitchin’ record. More after the jump…

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Lost?

I don’t know what it is about this season (maybe the sophomore slump?) but I’m just not digging it this year. If it weren’t for the superpowers and colorful, flashy , and incredibly easy-to-watch cinematography, I’d probably be bailing right now. The storylines are either unfocused and all over the place, or they’re not going anywhere. Out of the five stories that were continued from the last two episodes, only two of them progressed at all, despite the fact the the other three dominated the running time. The return of Sylar was minorly underwhelming, and I don’t really know who was looking forward to Nikki and the kid coming back. More after the jump…

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I’m suppose to be on a bus to D.C. in about five hours and thanks to the literal dozens of hours of television I’ve watched this week am about to pass out any minute. That being said, I feel like it’s my civic obligation to write something, anything about the often-beautiful and occasionally troubling season premiere to Friday Night Lights. Bear with me if this doesn’t end up making any sense, and feel free to hit the comments for those moments I might have skipped in my current haze of cathode ray pixels, pizza crusts and dry eyes. More after the jump…

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OK, I’m really short on time (and sleep) and thus am going to do my best to break down this week’s The Office focusing on two key points… right after the break.

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It’s called SYNERGY!

My favorite moment in Thursday’s 30 Rock season premiere was when a member of Tracy Jordan’s entourage told Liz Lemon that when it comes to transvestite prostitutes Tracy “doesn’t try to mess with them, he just tries to get them into computer-school.” This made me laugh really hard, and thus kicked off what I hope to be another sharp, joke-packed season. More after the jump…

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Hello, is this the CW’s Reaper? Yeah, I think I accidentally took your slacks.

It’s a good thing I’m really digging both Chuck and Reaper because otherwise the fact that the two shows are exactly the same might really get to me. Well, of course they aren’t exactly the same, but “Deep Impact” and “Armageddon” were technically two different movies about asteroids, but that didn’t seem to make much of a difference. Between the two, I think I’d like to hang out with Reaper’s Sam more, though I’d probably prefer to work at Chuck’s Buy More. As far as super powers are concerned, government secrets are pretty cool, but being in the service of the devil would probably get me more chicks. Kind of a toss-up, I suppose. More after the jump…

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Why is it that I enjoy watching this show, but, with one or two notable exceptions, never feel like I enjoyed it a few hours later? It’s completely entertaining and engaging, yet seems to never leave its audience fulfilled. Even the cliffhangers, which inexplicably tell us that the story is “to be continued” when we already assume that, don’t seem to make me want to watch next week’s installment immediately, the way that LOST or 24 in their primes did. I think this all comes down to story structure. More after the jump…

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