MagneticMediaFed

I’m trying to adjust to a new work schedule and so my daily television regiment has been thrown for a loop. (Eight to five? Have to wear a tie? What kind of madness is this?) And since I currently don’t own an actual set and have to wait for content to be loaded online I’ve been at least a day behind on everything. That being said, I wanted to make sure I hit a few points before the weekend:

• Gossip Girl — OMFG. There are cliffhangers, and then there are CLIFFHANGERS. In a way I’m surprised this wasn’t the season finale, but I’m also completely relieved. Since the strike-break, this show has gone from being more or less awesome to unquestionably fantastic.
• Reaper — Speaking of a post-strike resurgence, this show has completely solved its problem with being wildly inconsistent (and sadly predictable) in terms of storytelling and it doesn’t hurt that its also funnier than its ever been.
• Top Chef — Love Stephaine. Love Richard (which is odd since I used to hate Richard… though I still find his hair objectionable on every level. Love Andrew. Like Spike. Like Antonia. Dale? Well Dale is in a gotsa-go situation. I mean Jesus Christ man, RELAX!
• 30 Rock — The Jack in Washington plot line was perhaps the funniest thing that show has ever done. (The rest of the episode wasn’t so bad either.) “It’s not a leak, you can see the report.”

Updated after the jump…

Since Reaper premiered on The CW last fall it’s been on of those series with enough kinetic energy to really become something memorable, but simply without the tools needed to really pull it off. At first it was too formulaic, trying to be an ultra-rigid monster-of-the-week series when its target audience (young people) has begun to demand at least some serialization (something even CSI has acknowledged). By the time the strike rolled around Reaper had found itself in my not-so-important pile, where episodes would sit around on my hard drive or DVR for weeks before I’d get around to watching them.

However, once the show returned in Mid-March it seemed to have found a solution in the form of Ken Marino and Michael Ian Black as two gay, demons living next to Sam and his friends in a lush high-rise apartment. This week’s episode initially seemed to raise the stakes by having the two of them recruit Sam in an effort to overthrow Satan himself. I loved the long-term possibilities of this. I could their plan being carried out over entire seasons. So needless to say I was disappointed when the whole thing appeared to have burnt itself up over the course of one single episode. More after the jump…

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Um, yeah, I’ll take one jelly, a glazed, and your soul.

Well, I’m back on the horse. After a few weeks away, I’ve been working my way back into Reaper and I think I’m a better man for it. When I bailed a month or so back it had a lot more to do with the excess mediocre programming I was watching (and maybe a bit Reaper’s early tendency toward repetition) than an disinterest in this specific series. Having cut a lot of fat from my lineup (and having finished my novel-in-a-month) I suddenly find myself with — get this! — extra time on my hands. That time has been partially allotted to Reaper. More after the jump…

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Booger is DEATHPROOF

Aaaaaaaand I’m back. Okay, this post is about a week late, but figured I should go ahead and get it up as something of a declaration of intent. After having bailed on Reaper a few weeks back a friend told me that last Tuesday’s episode was particularly funny and that I should do myself a favor by checking it out. I did and was glad I made the decision. It was funny. Very funny, and not just because it featured Curtis Armstrong and myriad references to old video technology.

Basically this is the Reaper I was hoping we were going to get after seeing the pilot. The episode still followed their structural formula down to the letter, but the tone was so much more playful and fun it didn’t really matter what was happening. If anything it’s given me an incentive to tune in for another episode.

For those who feel this small blurb in incentive enough to check back in (and god bless you for it), suffice to say you’ll be treated to: a pitch-perfect “bachelorette party at a bar,” an retail hideaway built out of backstock (which I’ve actually done), a magical eight-track, a cute girl named Taylor and some of the best Devil scenes to date. Viva Reaper!

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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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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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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You gotta get me one of those suits.

This week: Sam versus the lightening monster! Granted, we’re only two episodes into the season, but what I love about Reaper is that it can have a very rigid monster-of-the-week formula, but so far it hasn’t seemed like the monster has ever gotten into the way of the characters interactions — well, aside from the general way being a bounty-hunter for the devil can crimp one’s lifestyle. I guess what I’m saying is that the pursuit of the monster is masterfully woven into whatever problems the characters are going through. This week, for example, Sam’s shift-change at work both affected his hunt of the escaped soul as well as kept him from seeing his crush at work. More after the jump…

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“It’s not just about ham… it’s about self-respect”

Of all the fall pilots, this is the one I had watched the most. In fact, this morning when I saw the actual air version that I had recorded last night on The CW, it might have been the fifth or sixth viewing (though the first with the new “Andy”). Did I keep watching to try and pick up on the intricacies of reaping? No, I kept watching because the show is really really funny… and fun. More after the jump…

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I’m not going to have time this afternoon to get full-length reviews up for Cane and Reaper which both premiere tonight, so I’ll just give you some quick reactions and let you decide what to watch.

Reaper (9:00pm on The CW) is great. It’s about a kid who is sat down by his parents on his 21st birthday and told that they sold his soul to the devil when he was born. Now the devil has come to collect in the form of hiring our hero as a bounty-hunter of escaped souls from hell. Oh, and it’s a comedy. Much hay has been made of the fact that Kevin Smith directed the pilot. While I’m sure his input was kindly accepted, this show would have worked with or without him based exclusively on the strength of the cast. There are four must-see new series this fall and Reaper is one of the top two.

Cane (10:00pm on CBS) wants to be The Godfather. I mean, really wants to be The Godfather. Unfortunately it comes up considerably short. Still, there are far worse shows premiering this week and Cane shows enough promise it could turn into a really great serial. After one episode, you wouldn’t know this. Like K-Ville, the cast and groundwork is in place for the series to grow into itself over the long haul, but it certainly gets no added boost from its pilot, which I found at times painfully slow. Still, Jimmy Smits is in it and I once read that that has to be worth something, right?