06.00 Dexter
07.00 Friday Night Lights
08.00 Burn Notice
09.00 The Venture Bros.
09.30 Rising Damp
10.00 The Office
10.30 Corner Gas
Dexter. Season 2, Episode 12. "The British Invasion" A superb conclusion. The beauty of this chapter is that - before it starts - it is impossible to predict how it will all turn out, yet once it is over you cannot imagine it happening any other way.
I am shocked that Doakes is dead. I wasn't sure that he would die, and I never imagined that Lila would be the one to kill him. Clever writing. Great performance from Lauren Vélez in the aftermath of the death/discovery, too.
But the episode belongs to Jaime Murray as the evil Lila. Poor Lila. At different parts of the season I liked her and loathed her. In the end, there was almost nothing to sympathise with. She went after Rita's children for Frak's sake!! No sympathy left for her after that.
But the script is clever. Up until that last scene we were led to believe that she has gotten away scott free. Not so. Dexter found her. And justice was served.
It's been a great season. Better than the first. What's next for Dexter?
Friday Night Lights. Season 2, Episode 12. "Who Do You Think You Are?" A mixed bag. Some stories are great, and some are pedestrian.
Carlotta leaves Matt. It's a lazy ending to a pointless storyline. Corlotta was just somebody for Matt to be with while he wasn't with Julie, and the show made no great effort to turn her into anything more. Which is a pity.
Lila, meanwhile, starts working at a Christian Radio station and Riggins makes a play for her. He arrives, flowers in hand, to find her in mid-smooch with her on-air co-host. Predictable, predictable, predictable. Sigh, sigh, sigh.
Over in the Taylor house, Coach and Tami try to figure out what to do with Gracie during the day (when they are both at work). They have the ol' should-the-woman-quit-her-job-to-mind-the-baby conversation. Predictable.
The only good storylines are the ones devoted to Smash and Santiago. So, all told, this is a disappointing and ordinary episode.
Burn Notice. Season 2, Episode 9. "Good Soldier" The case-of-the-week is a delight. Michael joins a gang planning a kidnapping and tries to derail the plot by being an uncooperative religious fanatic. The ending (when he rams the kidnapper's car from out of nowhere) is superb. And hilarious (as he spouts off a spiel of made-up religious-sounding guff to fool them).
Meanwhile, over in the continuing story arc, things get very confusing. Carla's plot increasingly makes no sense and it seems that (a) she knows every move that Michael is about to make, and (b) she wants everyone dead. Including Michael. We fade to black after a booby trap goes on at Michae's front door, and an explosion sends him flying...
The Venture Bros. Episode 3. "Midlife Chrysalis" The first very funny episode. Brock loses his liscence and Dr. Venture enters the dating scene. The Monarch returns and sends Dr. Girlfriend (is it wrong that I find her very, very sexy?) undercover to seduce Venture. And inject him with... something.
Whatever it is, it turns the esteemed scientist into a giant caterpillar. Yes, a giant caterpillar.
All of the regular (and semi-regular) character generate lots of laughs in this one.
Rising Damp. Season 2, Episode 7. "Things That Go Bump in the Night" Much more over-the-top than your typical Rising Damp episode. But still very funny.
Rigsby is scared of ghosts, so Alan dresses as a ghostly woman in order to sneak down to visit Brenda (who he is now dating). If you are willing to accept that Rigsby is stupid enough to fall for this, there are laughs to be had.
By the end, however, things are been stretched too far. A couple of priests have been called in to deal with the ghosts and everyone runs around as if it is a farce. It's not. Good effort, nonetheless.
The Office. Season 5, Episode 10. "Moroccan Christmas" Dwight buys up all the dolls of a particular brand to make a financial killing when all the parents come looking to buy them. Meanwhile, the gang (well, mostly just Michael) decide to have an intervention to stop Meredith from drinking so much.
The Dwight stuff is funny. Everything else is serious. And not very good. It's commendable that the show would take on such a subject, but they don't really do much with it. Nothing that happens onscreen is funny enough, or awkward enough to warrant much comment.
Even the fact that everyone finds out about Angela cheating on Andy is handled in blah fashion.
Corner Gas. Season 5, Episode 9. "Game, Set and Mouse" Another classic. While Hank and Brent are busy telling tall tales to Lacey, Oscar sets out to kill a mouse at Corner Gas, and Wanda suffers from a sore back.
Nancy Robertson often gets big laughs by playing things a bit over the top, but - in this episode - she steals the show by underplaying everything. Since Wanda is in pain, she can't move very much or get very expressive in what she does and Robertson uses it to deliver some of the biggest laughs in the episode. Scenes from this episode and the one where Wanda went manic on the energy drink could/should be used to illustrate what a genius Nancy Robertson really is.
But, across the board, it's a very funny episode. The biggest laugh comes in the very last second when the mouse that Davis has saved from Oscar comes to a very bad end (thanks, in a roundabout way, to something Davis did earlier in the episode). I was still laughing very hard at that moment long after the credits had faded.
Highlight? Dexter (great conclusion)
Yet Another TV Review Podcast
Yet Another TV Review Book
Yet Another Film Review Blog
A Briefing With Michael: One Year Ago
Sat, Dec 20, 08 - Dexter, FNL, Burn Notice, Venture Bros., Rising Damp, Office, Corner Gas
