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“Vanessa From Queens

Honestly, she might not be from Queens at all, but how often can one tie in a Malkmus song to an episode of Gossip Girl? (Actually, I don’t know the answer to this either as I’ve never really thought much about linking the two. Perhaps its easier than imagined. This might make a fun game for those of you at home.) Either way, Vanessa is here and she’s intent on shaking things up in that quaint berg known as the UES — so long as the shake-ups don’t last for more than one hour (or 43 minutes after you account for commercials). More after the jump…

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One of my biggest conflicts on television is Monday nights at 8:00pm. I have How I Met Your Mother, which is obviously priority number one, but I also have Chuck and Everybody Hates Chris. Chuck is certainly getting preferential treatment these days because its new and because I happen to find it highly enjoyable, but perhaps in fitting fashion, Everybody Hates Chris is getting the short end of the stick. If there has ever been a really great series with so little buzz, it’s this one. More after the jump…

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Tanya schools Drew in a cut-throat game of checkers.

Everybody Hates Chris is basically the show for which DVRs were made. You always forget about it until it shows up in your list one night and you think to yourself, “Hey, that’s a pleasant surprise.” Then you flip it on and for thirty minutes keep thinking about how wonderful the show is and how you should tell more people about it, only for the program to end, put something else on, and then completely forget about it until the next time your handy little machine decides to surprise you.

Lucky for me, I have this here television blog to keep the dream alive (or at least until the post works its way down on the page to where no man, woman or child dares scroll), so check out the show. It won’t change your life, but what does? It skews to the better side of the television universe and deserves to be watched.

As for the episode itself, Terry Crews and Tichina Arnold again prove they are two of the best comic actors working on television. The brilliance of their characters is that they are being portrayed through the eyes of a fourteen year old, which allows them to be much bigger in their performances than any of the kids on the show, who come off as any kid you’ve ever met.

Watch Everybody Hates Chris episodes at CWTV.com

I’ve been watching Everybody Hates Chris all season, and yet for some inexplicable reason haven’t been writing about it or talking about with friends. No wonder the show is drawing viewers in the dozens. Let’s try to correct that.

Last night’s episode was yet another solid one. The basic premise being Chris gets hired to DJ a party after doing a good job filling in for a DJ who was just arrested. People who like to say the phrase, “That would never happen!” probably should stick with CBS on Monday nights. Luckily I rarely find myself asking questions like, “What on earth was Chris doing at a dance club anyway? Isn’t he, like 14? Everyone else was in their 20s.” Yes, not asking questions like that makes watching almost all filmed entertainment a little more relaxing.

The best jokes in the episode revolved around the notion that in 1984 the suburban white kids found hip-hop utterly confusing. When Chris tells his friend Greg that he needs a copy of James Browns “The Payback” to mix at the party, Greg replies, “It’s all ready a good song, why do you have to remix it?” To which Chris replies, “I have to rock the party.” So true. So very true.

The performances on the show, especially Terry Crews and Tichina Arnold as Chris’ parents, are top-notch. Each has these delightful little ticks — specifically Crews’ trademark “shocked reaction to overspending.” It’s this wide-eyed kind of lurch that has become the embodiment of Julius Rock. Everything else the character does seems to be placed in and around that physical reaction.

Watch “Everybody Hates DJs” at CWTV.com
Listen to part of James Brown’s “The Payback”

Not only is Monday night one of the busiest night of television for me, but it’s also one of the most uneven. Tuesday mornings when I check out my DVR, I’m usually quite reluctant about diving in. Heroes, 24, Studio 60… not exactly a crop of sure-fire crowd pleasers (How I Met Your Mother and Everybody Hates Chris* are rock solid, but they also aren’t hour-long dramas that look quite menacing while sitting in a queue).

Luckily for us, one of those shows will deliver the goods, and by “the goods” I mean, “a scene or two of unbridled awesomeness.” Either Jack Bauer will do something completely off-the-wall crazy or Hiro will do something magically adorable yet thought-provoking or Matt Albie will tell his writing staff… um… yeah, 24 and Heroes will bring something to the table! Unless, of course, they don’t. Then Monday night (or Tuesday morning) slowly morphs into this endurance challenge, where a regular Joe sits in his easy chair staring at moving pictures while his mind is completely and utterly empty.

Last night’s selections were so boring there was a point where I started to try to breakdown the individual smell components of the fabric softener sheets I used on the sweatshirt I’m currently wearing (it’s like flowers with cotton candy and wood… or something).

Jack was absent from a good portion of 24 making the single episode feel like an entire day. I ended up fast forwarding through a good chunk of the CTU/White House nonsense, and even then the episode ended with me thinking, “All this for James Cromwell?” The same could be said for Mr. George Takei on Heroes, whose brief appearance at the end of the episode was suppose to make for the fact that nothing happened during the previous 57 minutes.

Thank god Veronica Mars is on tonight.

Last night I’m watching the second season premiere of the CW’s Everybody Hates Chris. I’ve only seen a handful of the show’s episodes from last season and probably won’t become a regular viewer this season either. This isn’t to say I don’t like the show — it’s quite good — but you have to draw the line somewhere when you’re logging at least 25 hours of televised goodness a week (wow, typing that was a little more depressing than I thought it was going to be). In any case, as I’m watching I think to myself that if I ever had children (god forbid) I could see watching this show with them. Its funny, tells good stories, and follows both the kids and the parents. Then I sat for a minute before realizing that Everybody Hates Chris might be the only show I’d watch with these fictional kids.

This is troubling, not so much for me and my carefree, childless lifestyle, but for the millions of families in America who’d like to sit down together every now and then and watch something. The problem is there just aren’t that many shows (read: two shows) designed for kids and parents to watch together. Look at the network schedule and try to find something you wouldn’t mind watching with an eight-year-old. Keep reading by clicking below…

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