Friday, July 10th, 2009
05.00 Burn Notice
07.30 Arrested Development
08.00 Warehouse 13
Burn Notice. Season 3, Episode 5. "Signals and Codes" Someone is killing spies. Michael gets a tip-off from a very unusual source and sets out to put a stop to it.
Almost a typical case-of-the-week, but not quite. For one thing the client is a nut-job and for another, the case neatly ties back to Michael's old life as a spy and offers him a chance to win some favour.
Michael Weston channels Dustin Hoffman, in Rainman, and while I really like Weston I find this to be a bit tiresome after a while.
Also, unlike your typical episode of Burn Notice, it takes forever for the story-of-the-week to get up and running. Partly because the client is written/played as a nut job and it takes Michael and his team a long time to see that he is telling the truth. The problem with this is: the audience at home knows he's telling the truth (otherwise there will be no story this week!) so the long-delay winning Michael over is boring and time consuming.
When the story does start, it's very good.
Just like last episode, we end with a superb scene between Michael and Fiona. Really well written and really well played, too. The show's third season is doing great things with their relationship.
Arrested Development. Episode 16. "Missing Kitty" Kitty returns. The yacht goes bye-bye.
More Judy Greer is always a good thing. This is the episode where she returns from 'sick leave' with very large boobs and a tendency to expose them by pulling up her top. This, in itself, is very funny but it becomes comedy gold everytime the camera cuts to Jason Bateman for his reaction shots. Seriously, this show would have been 50% less funny without him. His exasperation at everyone's antics makes every scene funnier.
More Gob magic shows is also always a good thing. And Gob is superb in this one. He does a magic show by the ocean, in this one, and sets about making the family yacht disappear on TV. There's also a wonderful scene between Gob and George Michael where the former sends the latter away which is the absolute best parody of scenes of this nature that I have ever seen.
Finally, there's Tobias. This is the episode where he puts an end to the reign of White Power Bill (I love that character!) and becomes the new godfather of the Prison. Much to the shock of his father-in-law. His underlings, it should be noted, refer to him as Dorothy. This makes them friends of Dorothy, a running-joke about Tobias' sexuality and it also serves a nice callback to the time George Michael watched Oz and was traumatised (referred to, in an earlier episode).
Arrested Development has found it's feet at this stage and now gets laughs with layers upon layers of references. All of them funny.
Warehouse 13. Episode 1. "Warehouse 13" Secret Service agents go after mysterious objects.
The first third of this is slow-moving. And kinda boring. There's two secret service agents. A man and a woman. He's likable enough, but they write her as an absolute bitch. She is crabby about everything with everyone. And she tends to be wrong about everything that happens. And I'm watching and I'm wondering: am I supposed to like this character? They lay it on pretty thick (with clues and hints) that she was responsible for the death of a loved one. But I didn't care.
After a hell of a lot of talky-talk we finally got to the case-of-the-week: a kid who has beaten the crap out of his girlfriend. All the talky-talky stuff bothers me. The show spends a heck of a long time explaining the premise. Yet, if you've ever seen The X-Files you should know what is going on. So why waste the time of a viewership that is way smarter than you give them credit for?
When we get to the nuts and bolts of the story, we again find that this thing is aimed at people way stupider than the actual viewers (I'm sure). There is a twist, of sorts, with regard to who is the actual baddie here. Yet, it's blatantly obvious who the real culprit will turn out to be. Sadly, the script behaves as if this will be a Big Pay-Off.
Critics seems to be loving this. I can't see why. It's average, at best.
Highlight? Arrested Development (Judy Greer)
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Burn Notice, Arrested Development, Warehouse 13
