06.00 Prison Break
07.00 Worst Week
08.00 Worst Week
08.30 Rising Damp
09.00 The Venture Bros.
01.00 NewsRadio
Prison Break. Season 4, Episode 16. "The Sunshine State" A mixed bad, but it's still a lot better than last week's mess.
The show is still reminding me of Alias, with Linc all slicked up and leading his new team on a Search-And-Retrieve mission. They didn't exactly crash a cocktail party, but it has a lot of other elements from the famous/excellent spy series.
It also reminds me - this week - of 24. Sadly, this is a bad thing. Because now that Michael's mother has entered the picture it reminds me of the naff story twist that 24 produced in Season Six wherein we learned that everything revolved around Jack Bauer's family. And had done for a few seasons. Making it all about Jack's family proved to be a mistake and caused us viewers to lose interest.
Making Michael's mother a vital part of the Company conspiracy runs the danger of rendering every thing on the show totally implausible.
Of course, the arrival of Sydney's mother on Alias didn't hurt the show at all, so it remains to be seen what all of this will mean for Prison Break.
For the second week in a row, all of the Michael scenes were duff.
But, pretty much everything else was pretty close to the show's usual high standard. Alex was awesome. Sara was awesome. Gretchen was awesome.
Gretchen's final scene was pretty darn awesome, too. I never expected her to get shot. Having it happen after she showed her true colours/loyalties made it somewhat epic. The aftermath of the shooting was superb, also: Linc about to execute her, while T-Bag and Self acted as his Guardian Angels (one good, one bad).
Worst Week. Episode 10. "The Apartment" Erinn Hayes is hilarious. She's also ridiculously hot, of course, which I know from watching her on The Winner. But as the weeks go by and it emerges that Melanie is almost as unlucky as Sam (she destroys the kitchen while cooking in this episode), and that she is very much Sam's partner in all his misadventures, it cannot be escaped that Hayes is very, very funny. She's always been dropping in some great one-liners, and reactions, amid the chaos that Sam creates, but as the camera lingers on her more and more in this episode the more I found myself laughing.
With this episode the show seems to have opted to abandon the story arc approach. The opening credits no longer have an event written on the calendar and everything about this episode could be done on any other sit-com.
Never mind. Rachael Harris guests and it's a very funny episode. Much as I love the idea of story arcs, maybe the show works best as a series of stand-alone tales.
Worst Week. Episode 11. "The Gift" Weaker than usual. The guy who showed up and stole the car was so totally random that it pretty much didn't work very well. As usual, on this show, pretty much everything else that happened was driven by a large number of little white lies. Christmas, and all the secrecy that that entails, lends itself to telling little fibs, I suppose, but they sure overuse the idea on this show.
Rising Damp. Season 2, Episode 8. "For the Man Who Has Everything" It starts off slow (with too many guest characters), gets better (as the regulars arrive) and builds to a truly great comedy of misunderstanding.
Rigsby has been alone all over Christmas and he is in very bad form. All the early conversations are with guest characters and it lacks the spark of the usual starts. Most episodes seem to open with Rigsby and Alan deep in conversation. Random bickering with random strangers is just not as funny.
Soon Alan and Brenda arrive and things pick up considerably. Rigsby getting the same bad gift from both of them is very funny, but the episode kicks into high gear in the final third. Phillip arrives with a girl in tow. And when Rigsby meets her, he jumps to a spectacular wrong conclusion. Leonard Rossiter has seldom been funnier.
The Venture Bros. "A Very Venture Christmas" An odd little number, this one. Not without laughs, but the conceit that it's all a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream left me with a headache when the credits had rolled. Best bit? The Christmas-themed porn videos!
NewsRadio. Season 2, Episode 10. "Xmas Story" The first episode I ever saw, and still one of my favourites.
Mr. James gives the staff sports cars for Christmas. All except Matthew. For some reason he gives Matthew a box of old radio shows on tape. Bill, meanwhile, is being stalked by a crazed Santa. And nobody believes him.
The Bill storyline is totally crazy, and very funny. The main storyline makes the whole group gather around Matthew for the duration of the episode, and it makes for a fun episode.
Highlight? Worst Week (Erinn Hayes)
Yet Another TV Review Podcast
Yet Another TV Review Book
Yet Another Film Review Blog
A Briefing With Michael: One Year Ago
Tue, Dec 23, 08 - Prison Break, Worst Week, Rising Damp, Venture Bros., NewsRadio
