Show lots of things happenin’ at once…MONTAGE!
First and foremost, how lame is it that Nathan Petrelli uses “All Night Long”* “All Right Now” as his campaign song when the episode is called “Landslide” and we all know that Fleetwood Mac make for the best political celebrations. But enough of about that, I’m totally swamped so let’s get right to the good stuff (after the break…).
As the network upfronts are set to get underway, information has started to leak, and minds can be put at ease. Take for example this bit of news: Friday Night Lights is going to get a second season. In an unofficial announcement by NBC, the network has given the go-ahead to the brilliant series as well as early word on four other dramas that will be making the fall schedule (The Bionic Woman, Chuck, Journeyman and Life).
Last month NBC went ahead and ordered six new scripts for Nights, a sign things looked promising. Looks like the writers are now slightly ahead of the game.
Now we’re just holding out hope for Veronica Mars and How I Met Your Mother. Is it possible we score a hat trick?
Fire walk with her.
Two items in relation to last night’s episode of The Office, which I shall detail in convenient number form only to get lazy halfway through and switch to letters:
1) Super-sizing. The Office was 40 minutes (or 30 minutes sans commercials) again last night. I suspect this is because NBC* is so hard up for programming they actually don’t have a single show that can fill out their Thursday line-up — or at least they don’t have a show that can get even half as many viewers as Earl or The Office. NBC probably thinks of this as a massive problem (which makes sense as the network seems to be hemmoraging viewers at record levels).
It’s not. There’s more after the break…
Mommy issues.
I’d say the hard part is going to be convincing an audience that there are still surprises left in a series that has all ready told us how thing may or may not end up. After last week’s relentlessly amazing look at a possible future, its expectedly rough to go back and have to wade through action that will inevitably lead to a moment we are all certain will transpire one way or another. So over the next two episodes (three hours), we’ll have to try to convince ourselves we’re having a good time even though there is only one moment we really want to see: does someone go nuclear and level Manhattan or not?
Regardless of which event transpires, it can’t possibly be all that exciting. We know its coming. Unless of course, the writers do the right thing and take us in a direction none of us expected, which is what they’re being paid for in the first place, right? At this stage in the game, that’s what I’m rooting for and I’m afraid anything shy of the complete unexpected will be a tremendous let-down (I wonder if this would still be the case if “Five Years Gone” hadn’t blown me away?). Monday’s episode was surprise and suspence free. Everyone did exactly what the paintings and comic books said they needed to do, leaving me, the viewer, bored beyond belief. There’s more after the jump…
Foliage.
Last week I was of the opinion that The Office might have run its course. A good thing doesn’t last forever, and that seems to be especially true of television comedies. Luckily, television also has the power to get you to change your mind one week later. Thursday night’s “Super-Sized” episode of The Office (and wow, how many 40-minute episodes have their been this season? Four?) might be my favorite episode in the series two-year run.
There were brilliant moments scattered all over this one, but what made it great TV is that it was the type of episode where Michael actually learns something (or at least appears to have learned something). Either way, where we start the show isn’t where we are when it ends. More after the break…
Okay, I’ve made it very well known that I am not a Heroes die-hard and that nine times out of ten when matching Heroes against just about anything else that I watch regularly I’d probably chose the unknown latter… but last night’s episode was f—ing awesome. It was so awesome I’m contemplating never watching the show again.
The episode did exactly what you want from televised narrative entertainment: in 20 short weeks it took a character like Peter Petrelli, the world’s biggest pansy/whiner and transformed him into the ultimate badass. The end sequence with future Hiro and Peter storming the homeland security building was right out of the first Matrix and yet better. Perhaps its because we never really see anything — only flashes of what might have just happened. Heroes does a terrific job at misdirection. You’d think a show about people with super powers would be chalk full of special effects, but if you watch closely we rarely see the goods. You know what that’s called? Filmmaking.
Now, the awesomeness of “Five Years Gone” was largely due to the episode taking place five years in the future — a future that we likely will not see again assuming Hiro does, in fact, save the day. This is why I may jump ship on the show. What we saw in the episode, complete with its X-Men themes on hunting down those who are different, almost came off as something of a tease. I mean, is this show really capable of delivering that week in and week out. The track record suggests the answer is no, so why not go out on top.
The problem is that Future Heroes is far more interesting to watch than Regular Heroes, in that it makes the show actually about something on a bigger scale. Suddenly the series could be as much about the war on terror as it is on saving the damn cheerleader. There’s HRG and his underground railroad. There’s Parkman working for the man. And there’s The Man who may or may not always be Sylar. Most importantly though, there’s politics, which have always had a significance in the comic-book world. It would be an absolute shame if we never go back here, but HERE is really really good.
Arrrgh! I guess I’m locked in for the rest of the season. You have to see if the day is in fact saved, though right now I’ll be rooting for evil. Evil promises the best future for television drama.
Whoo! We did it! We did it!
As the 2006/2007 TV season winds to a close, it’s kind of interesting/sobering to look at the network schedule and see which of those “highly toted” new shows from last fall actually made it all the way. Even more interesting is to try to figure out which of those shows impressed people enough to get second seasons.
According to my count the following were clearly strong enough (or at least received well enough by critics) to make it from the fall to the spring mostly intact: Jericho, Shark, Ugly Betty, Heroes, 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights, ‘Til Death and The Game. Of those, you can really only grant the distinction of being a “hit new show” to Heroes, Ugly Betty and Shark — all of which are expected to return next fall.
Also interesting is that Heroes is the only true serial (perhaps Ugly Betty to a lesser degree) that caught viewer’s attention this year despite “the serialized drama” being the hot genre going into the fall of 2006 (The Nine, Six Degrees, Other Number Based Drama anyone?). Apparently people who are not myself only have so much tolerance for interweaving storylines.
As for those shows that didn’t make it out alive, they’re numbers are too plentiful to count. Not like we’re really missing anything too significant. Outside of Friday Night Lights, which made it from start to finish despite still being on the bubble for a season two, there really weren’t that many new shows this season that broke any significant ground artistically. Are there people out there still wiping away tears because Kidnapped didn’t make it past its fourth week? Probably, but we didn’t really want to be friends with those people anyway, did we? Look, at least they’re got a DVD release, which is more than I can say for fans of Andy Richter Controls the Universe.
May sweeps, the period in which network television tries to pull out all the stops in an attempt to skewer their ratings higher so they can charge more for advertising, started last Thursday, April 26th. Why Thursday? I’m not entirely sure, but would imagine it is due to the desire to keep the four week period clear of Memorial Day weekend, where the only people watching televsion are fans of mid-round NBA playoffs and losers like me. Sweeps concludes on Wednesday, May 23rd.
The good news is that all of your favorite shows (and even more of your least favorite shows) will be brand spankin’ new, complete with didn’t-see-that-coming twists and turns as well as celebrity cameos, shocking allegations, animals, trick photography and CG talking appliances. In other words, all the reasons in the world to avoid enjoying the outdoors for these few weeks when the weather isn’t suppose to be rainy or so hot you’re convinced you just might take home the pot in your Apocalypse is Nigh pool at work.
Here’s what I’m looking forward to watching:
What are you anxious for? Or perhaps the better question would be, are you just anxious for the season to be over all ready?
He was only in this episode during three or four scenes, and yet “Product Recall” was completley owned by Creed, which is a good thing since I found the rest of the episode a tad forced.
“Forced” is the one thing Creed is not. Ever since he described himself to the camera (as formerly homeless) early on, every single move he made was expertly calculated and incredibly cruel. It may turn off some of the shows fans, but if The Office wants do try something different, being a tad more acidic might be the trick.
Michael Scott is far more childish than he is selfish (which is what David Brendt was most) and his childishness comes off most of the time as endearing. This is obviously fine, but it’s nice to know that there is a guy like Creed who is solely looking at for number one everyone else be damned.
The way he managed to get himself off the hook for the product recall, and figured out a way to pocket some extra cash in the process, was one of the more brilliant character decisions the show has made this season.
The counter of that would be the Andy subplot with the high school girl. Maybe it was because we had only heard about his girlfriend seconds before the reveal, but it simply didn’t work. Creed, on the other hand, would have been completely unapologetic about the discovery.
Well, for those of you holding your breath, you shouldn’t be blue for too much longer. Apparently Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, the holier than thou take on the THRILLING lives of those working behind the scenes at a show similar to SNL, but far more pretentious. The return date is slated for May 24th, which is a Thursday. The show will take ER’s timeslot, the more or less the timeslot it was suppose to have taken when it premiered last fall before being scared away by Grey’s Anatomy.
Matthew Perry fans probably shouldn’t get their hopes up, as the series’ post-sweeps return is likely only to serve as a schedule filler and to burn off the episodes that had all ready been shot.
But who knows, stranger things have happened.
Oh, I was at a costume party…
Last night 30 Rock ended a pretty terrific season with a kind of so-so episode. It was the first time Tina Fey had penned an episode since the fall. This may or may not have been why the episode wasn’t as relentless as it had been. Once the writing staff started to take over for Ms. Fey this season, it seemed like the jokes-per-minutes ratio started to go through the roof. This isn’t a knock against her writing, just that when you’re used to laughing A LOT and then only laugh SOME, you walk away feeling a little let down.
Chris Parnell had all of the best lines this week as Dr. Spaceman (Spa-CHE-mon), but the other go-to characters Jack and Tracy were both out of their element (literally) and just couldn’t deliver the goods.
What I did appreciate was that the episode didn’t feel the need to throw in a lot of season finale nonsense despite the show learning early on that it was getting a second season. In fact there were no cliffhangers at all. Liz broke up with Floyd in a very ho-hum sort of way. Jack broke it off with Phoebe as something of an afterthought, and Tracy Jordan made it back to 30 Rock in time for his weekly pre-show rant (Tonight I think it’s going to be about immigration!).
This leads us to the Alec Baldwin news, which I’ll get to right after the jump…
Our favorite ratings-tracking company, Nielsen Media Research, has released its first batch of the most “timeshifted” network broadcast programs. Timeshifting, for those still living a reel-to-reel lifestyle, is essentially recording a program to watched on your own schedule. People have been doing this since the mid-80s when a rocket scientist first cracked the “VCR Timer Code” allowing people to finally program their video recorders to start and stop on command. This audience was largely ignored. Now that the VCR has gone the way of the dodo and replaced by the incredibly friendly and easy to use DVR, suddenly those viewers (the timeshifters) became important… kinda (its not like these people are acutally watching commercials, which is for what the advertisers are looking).
Let’s get to the numbers: House, Lost, American Idol and CSI all had between 2.1 and 2.7 million more viewers when timeshifters were included. In terms of percentage increase The Office and Lost scored the biggest boost from the “I’ll watch it later” crowd getting a 31.5% and 22.8% increase respectively.
While typing this my boss brought up the good point that these shows will probably see an increase in product placement which, as anyone who has ever watched The Office can attest, is probably right on the money.
Get the full details by clicking here. Thanks for the tip, Paul.
Mohinder knocked out Sylar with a world map?
All in all a good episode, though I suspect it would have been better had I not read Watchmen years ago. Not that the two are all that similar, but having a villain whose goal is wreak havoc “for the greater good” seems curiously familiar — almost to the point of distraction. How can you make a comic book television show with a rabid fan-boy base and not have people connect the dots back to one of the seminal achievements in graphic storytelling? Look, we still have a few episodes left and maybe things won’t head in this direction, but for a show that took as long as it did to prove itself to me as a serious force, squandering all of this on a great ending we’ve all ready seen would be quite the kick in the balls.
All that being said, Malcolm McDowell is rightfully awesome as Linderman. I anxiously await his plans execution, or whatever may be in store.
The Petrelli family reunion was expectedly cold on all fronts. Claire did her best to put a friendly midwestern face on the proceedings, but was met with shrugs and general upper-class under-the-rug sweeping.
Personally, my favorite parts of this week’s episode involved HRG and Parkman’s game of wordless follow-the-leader. Good stuff. I look forward to their adventures in the coming weeks with the Molecular Man.
As for everyone-but-me’s favorite, Hiro, he’s probably making the time-travel fans salivating over his space-time-continuum bending exploratory side-adventure… with himself. Confused? I was. I can’t wait until I have to draw a flowchart to keep track of which alternate future we’re currently enjoying.
So sad about Isaac, but you can only paint so much before you’re ready for the lobotomy. Just ask Edvard Münch.
Remember when…
It’s been a long time. Too long. Honestly, I can’t even remember how things ended when we last saw our super-powered friends. Was Peter about to die, or was it Mohinder? Either way the momentum was completely killed. Now it’s three months later and we’re suppose to still be excited. Not so.
Look, at 9:59:59 PMÂ EDT tonight, I’ll probably have been won over to the point of girly squealing, but right now at 4:48:05 PM EDT I just couldn’t care less. I’m far more interested in seeing if Drive can continue to win me over or what’s in store on Everybody Hates Chris (which is also returning after a long haitus). This is a problem. I would also suspect that this is a problem facing many Heroes fans.
I have friend(s) at work who have been spending the past few weeks enjoying the Heroes web-comic which NBC has been posting on-line since the show went off the air (actually all season), and whose story has continued despite the show being off-air. I hear they are very good and fill in a lot of details the show wouldn’t have had time to explore. I’m for this, but also against it. I’m glad there’s a place we can go to get stories involving the characters we like, but I find all of this tangential material tedious. What do they really want from us? That being said, my web-comic-reading friends are still very enthusiastic about the show and are anxiously awaiting its return… in five hours.
How about you? What lengths are you willing to go to for entertainment. Personally, last summer’s very lame Office Accountants shorts kind of turned me off to the whole idea. I feel like suplemental material could be effective if it wasn’t produced as something of an afterthought.
“Well played, Garkel.”
Look, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get through this blog post. Cleveland is just beckoning to me! I absolutely must go.
Though as I think about it, I wonder if my inevitable trip to The Forest City will be as spendiperous (not a word) as Liz Lemon’s because I suspect I won’t be followed by that kick ass Cleveland song (presumably recorded by the Cleveland Tourism Board) that was playing under her and Floyd’s montage throughout the city.
Alas.
Though this Cleveland business does bring up an interesting issue: is Jason Sudeikis leaving the show, because he’s way better on 30 Rock than he is on SNL, and he and Tina Fey have really great chemistry. Did that last sentence start leaning a little too fan-girly toward the end? Hmm.
Elsewhere in the episode I liked the Tracy Jordan/Dave Chappelle “Black Crusaders” plotline, which I suspect will run through the rest of the season.
Also appreciated: any additional references to Phoebe’s “hollow bones.” Good stuff.
