Seinfeld, Scrubs, Flight Of The Conchords, Jezebel James, Unhitched, X-Files, Lost

Mon, Mar 17th, 2008

06:50 Seinfeld
07:15 Scrubs
07:40 Flight Of The Conchords
08:05 The Return Of Jezebel James
08:30 Unhitched
01:00 The X-Files
02:00 Lost

Seinfeld. Season 9, Episode 3. I was recently reading how the storylines become more fantasy orientated in these last two seasons and - sure enough - here’s an episode with a high fantasy content. Something you wouldn’t see in earlier seasons. Kramer puts up a screen door. On his appartment. And, before long, the hallway is a bit like Anytown, USA with kids playing ball and covering his place with shaving foam. Most of this happens off-camera, but it’s still happening and it’s definitely taking the show off into fantasy realms. Which is great. Because it’s very, very funny. Jerry starts to express his emotions, also. So much so that he tells George he loves him, and ends up proposing to Elaine. While she is eating a banana. Wonderful.

Scrubs. Season 6, Episode 18. A less-hot-than-is-usual-for-Scrubs friend of Elliot’s shows up. JD is jealous of her, and throws a spanner in the friendship. There are lots of laughs along with way, but the underlying theme here is the friendship between the two main characters. And how they have been neglecting it. It’s a sweet sentiment, in the middle of a hilarious episode. And there’s a great cliff-hanger ending, too. Keith proposes!!!

Flight Of The Conchords. Episode 3. Very funny outing in which the two guys get mugged and... one of the guys runs away! Throwing his friend to the wolves, so to speak. Great musical numbers and laugh-out-loud comedy.

The Return Of Jezebel James. Episode 1. Parker Posey is great, but the laugh track sucks. I’m not sure what exactly the "fake people" were "fake laughing" at anyway. "Fake jokes", maybe? The episode is full of things that - at a distance - could be mistaken for jokes. A grumpy waiter, a babbling heroine, callbacks to stuff menioned earlier in the story. All things that could - in theory - be funny. Except they weren’t and I didn’t laugh. Not once. It’s a good central idea (sisters bond when one has a baby for the other) but the execution is rubbish.

Unhitched. Episode 2. I can’t believe I didn’t notice it last week! This is a Seinfeld-clone. And a pretty bad one, too: Based on this episode, which has none of the charm of the pilot. Jack/Jerry dates a girl. He liked her a lot, but she has a flaw. And it is driving him crazy. Freddy/George is socially inept, so he befriends a bouncer in an attempt to get into nightclubs easier. Kate/Elaine meets a nice guy, who turns out to be an idiot. Tommy/Kramer does lots of "hilarious" inappripriate things, like dating a sex addict (at her intervention) and disfiguring Jack’s date. Ho hum. Whatever charm I saw in the pilot, is gone now. It’s trying to be Seinfeld and it’s not.

The X-Files. Season 8, Episode 13. The story of Dana Scully’s Pregnancy. Not just in terms of alien babies, murderous doctors and large conspiracies, it’s the story (told on flashback) of how she set out to have a child: going to an IVF clinic and asking Mulder to be the male donor, etc. While the present day story makes no sense, is too simplistic and contradicts itself as it rambles onward, the scenes between Mulder and Scully are magical. You get the feeling that Scully has a boundless love for Mulder and is mature enough to handle it, while Mulder who (based on this episode) feels the exact same way isn’t quite up to the task (yet) of dealing with his feelings. The scene where he tells her "Yes" is beautiful. And the final twist at the very end is great.

Lost. Missing Pieces 5. Juliet tells Jack that Ben sent her to spy on the women in the camp. The best of the Missing Pieces so far. There is a lot to mull over here.

Highlight? Seinfeld, the real one!

Doctor Who, Law And Order, Unhitched, The Evidence, Scrubs, Airwolf, The X-Files, Lost

Mon, Mar 10th, 2008

07:00 Doctor Who
08:00 Law And Order
09:00 Unhitched
09:30 The Evidence
10:30 Scrubs
11:00 Airwolf
12:00 The X-Files
01:00 Lost

Doctor Who. Season 28, episode 7. It's 1953 and televisions are being used to suck people's minds out. The Doctor dresses up, there's lots of running around, a wealth of one-liners and an FX-heavy ending. It's better than the Cybermen two-parter, but still not an example of the show at it's best.

Law And Order. Season 18, Episode 3. The strongest episode so far. Lupo, once again, is great fun to watch (breaking the rules to track down a bomber). There's a clumsy attempt to give Green a backstory, but this is Lupo's show all the way. Great work, too, from guest star Kevin Rankin.

Unhitched. Episode 1. Craig Bierko is well cast, Rashida Jones is underused and there are a few laughs. Not enough to fill out the half-hour, sadly, but enough to make me want to see what happens next.

The Evidence. Episode 7. Another very good story from this long-gone cop show. Bishop and Cole investigate the shooting of a paramedic who may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time (with her cameraman boyfriend) but all is not what it seems. As well as a good story, you have great chemistry between the leads, sumptuous visuals of San Francisco and the added gimmick of wondering how the evidence (shown to us in the opening scene) fits into the story being told.

Scrubs. Season 6, Episode 17. Ted, Todd and Jordan take centre-stage and we see how they fit into the big picture at Sacred Heart. All of Ted's scenes are laugh-out-loud hilarious in this episode. Hearing the character's thoughts makes him funnier than he already is.

Airwolf. Season 2, Episode 1. CBS' decision to "domesticate" Airwolf still galls me. Over twenty years later I'm still bitter and hurt that they took the best elements of the first season (dark-tone espionage stories and a loner hero) and revamped it as a more family-friendly action show. This season-premier (where Airwolf goes up against a corrupt small-town sheriff) is about as Knight Rider as it gets. And that's not what I want Airwolf to be.

But, since it is written by Donald Bellisario and features a superb guest cast (Lance LeGault, Jeff MacKay and James Whitmore Jr.), there is still a lot to like in the episode. The story moves fast and contains several memorable set pieces (the motorcycle chase at the start, the Airwolf-flips-a-truck nighttime rescue and the stunning action finale when Airwolf blows the Sheriff station to kingdom come. Bogan is one of the best Airwolf bad guys, and the fact that he killed Stringfellow's friend off-camera makes him seem all the more cold and efficient. Jean Bruce Scott makes a great impression in her first episode. Stringfellow is still the cool, brooding hero we remember from Season 1. His conversations with Bogan are superb, and show him to be clever and resourceful as well as tough and calculating. The climax gives all the bad guys gruesome deaths and the score throughout is sumptuous. A

The X-Files. Season 8, Episode 12. By keeping things low-key the show manages to deliver one of it's very best episodes. Ever. Death in the subway system sends Doggett and three others underground for the whole episode, while Scully monitors them from a control room. It reminds one of earlier X-Files tales, but in a good way. The science-fiction elements are kept to a minimum, the tension and action are ramped up, the character work on Doggett and Scully is top notch and the whole episode has a movie feeling to it.

Lost. Missing Pieces 4. Wow. Great insight into what happened while Michael was being held captive by The Others. Once again Elizabeth Mitchell is stunning, and we get some valuable insight into both characters.

Highlight? Airwolf/X-Files

Moonlight, Supernatural, The X-Files, New Amsterdam, Lost

Sun, Mar 9th, 2008

06:30 Moonlight
07:30 Supernatural
10:30 The X-Files
11:30 New Amsterdam
12:30 Lost

Moonlight. Episode 10 is a filler episode, at least as far as the ongoing Coraline storyline is concerned. She hasn't died (as a result of being stabbed by Beth last week) but she spends the episode in hospital, while Mick and Beth help Josef who has been targetted for assassination. Along the way the producers go the predictable route of revealing that Josef is... a big softie at heart. He's a romantic, really, and not a cynical playboy. It's a dreadful cliché, but - at least - Jason Dohring is superb in the role. The best thing about the episode are the parallels drawn between Josef's past and the burgeoning relationship between Mick and Beth. At the very end, Coraline vanishes from the hospital...

In other business, I've noticed that the characters at Beth's workplace are all crap. Her annoying boss, who shows up and plays the exact same scene week-after-week, is really starting to annoy me. And, this week, they introduce a new tech whiz character who is very annoying and totally unconvincing. Not what the show needs.

What does the show need? More Coraline!

Supernatural. Episode 13. As average as it gets. A standard case-of-the-week and a cute girl-of-the-week make for a mostly-boring episode. Nice performances from the leads, great visuals, and atmospheric weather do not a great episode make.

Usually the boys show up in a town, armed with lots of knowledge and it is they who tell the audience what is going on. Makes them seem cool and in charge. In this episode, they are written as mostly clueless about what they are facing and it is left to minor characters to tell the viewer what is happening. This makes the show seems like lots of other shows in the genre. Not good.

The X-Files. Season 8, Episode 11. The first solo Doggett episode is - sadly - the worst piece of rubbish I think I've ever seen on The X-Files. While Doggett himself is very good, and it is cool to see Skinner taking up a lot of screen-time as his partner, the rest of the episode is a mess. A silly, gruesome, story about a man who eats people, absorbs their diseases and regurgitates them later - fully healed - deep in his underground cavern (!!). The episode's early attempts to mislead us as to what is going on (and who the bad guy is) are clumsy and amateurish. The community of locals built-up around the man never convinces, much of the dialogue is false and unconvincing and the ending (where Doggett is shot dead!) is awful beyond belief. Someone should eat Frank Spotnitz.

New Amsterdam. Episode 2 takes the show in unexected directions. Namely, back to story of John's previous lover rather than onward towards the story of his next lover. However, it's a good story. The show captures lonliness very well. And the case-of-the-week is good, too. No complaints from me.

Lost. Missing Pieces 3. Jack and Ben play chess and the conversation is full of foreshadowing. Events such as the sub being blown up and Jack's eventual desire to return to the island are mentioned and both actors are on top form.

Highlight? Moonlight

Moonlight, Kyle XY, Supernatural, X-Files

Sun, Feb 24th, 2008

06:30 Moonlight
07:30 Kyle XY
10:30 Supernatural
11:30 The X-Files

Moonlight. Episode 8. An average outing is helped by some great Mick/Beth scenes (this is the episode where she finds out he's been 'stalking' her for years) and another great action-packed finale (the bad guy is a former cult leader who looks scary as frak and makes a formidable opponent, even if his motives make no great sense).

Kyle XY. Season 2, Episode 5. I like Tom Foss but having an episode without him (and the training scenes that go with him) makes the whole show seem fresher than it has been in weeks. For once, the while storyline revolved around Kyle's crush on Amanda (the girl next door) and there's even a case-of-the-week for Kyle to solve. Lori is a great character and she's makes a great partner for Kyle as they go after a burglar who has been striking in the area. The story is told with several wonderful touches, including Kyle sending a note to the guy at the very end. Awesome.

Supernatural. Episode 11. A nice change-of-pace episode finds the boys splitting up as Sam decides to head for California after a phone conversation with his dad. Dean, meanwhile, goes to a creepy small town with is sacrificing visitors to a murderous scarecrow. A genuinely scary scarecrow too! A great episode, even if it was a tad obvious that Sam's hitchhiking buddy was going to turn out to be a supernatural evil of some kind. The twist ending was predictable but great because it means we'll hopefully have some continuity from her on in.

The X-Files. Season 8, Episode 10. It doesn't make a lot of sense but it still makes for a pretty good X-Files episodes. The bad guy is a small indian man who never speaks and who can, um, enter into people's bodies as a means of killing them. It's not really made clear why he would opt to do that, but it does make for an exceptionally cool scene where Scully finds him inside a body during an autopsy. The episode has a cool "what the frak is going on?" vibe. Sadly, the writers don't even attempt to offer up an explanation. Usually the show tends to offer coherent stories with lots of loose ends, but this is just a mess of a story with lots of enjoyable stuff to watch. Aside from the cool stuff with the various deaths (one of which provides quite a jolt) there is some fantastic character work on Scully as - at episode's climax - she talks quite a lot about Mulder and what it's like for her to try working on cases like this without him. Wonderful.

Highlight? Kyle XY

Moonlight, Kyle XY, The X-Files

Sun, Feb 10th, 2008

07:30 Moonlight
08:30 Kyle XY
09:30 The X-Files

Moonlight. Episode 7. Is she or isn't she? Hmm. A great episode. Easily the best that this cool show has thus far delivered. Aside from presenting us with a cool scenario, the episode scores major points with me by having the hero act smart. Or at least as smart as the viewer at home. Mick is faced with an exact double of the wife he "murdered" and is then entwined in a case which exactly parellels his last night with the lady in question. It's such a terrific story and his logic as he tries to figure out what is going on is flawless. Where did the producers find Shannyn Sossamon? She blows everyone else off the screen. I want her to launch a vindictive crusade against me!

Kyle XY. Season 2, Episode 4. Slightly disappointing, because it rethreads some of the stuff we've already seen covered: namely the family not being sure that Kyle will want to stay with them. I mean, he's been back for two episodes. Move on! Much better is the Declan storyarc, as he tails Kyle to his training sessions with Tom Foss.

The X-Files. Season 8, Episode 9. Wade Williams plays a man, slowly turning into metal (!), who slowly tracks and slowly kills those he thinks are responsible. Each death is slow and boring. He plods from murder to murder, with Doggett and Scully working the case from mostly seperate angles. Splitting the team does them no favours, particular Scully who looks gorgeous in this outing but is monotone and boring from start to finish. Yawn.

Highlight? Moonlight.