Haven't seen the NBC comedies besides Community or Fringe yet, so I'll save those for next week!
How I Met Your Mother: "Hopeless"- Much the better than the previous episode, even if that isn't saying much. Neil Patrick Harris and John Lithgow continue to remain awesome and the rest of the cast, despite brief or trivial plotlines, made this episode very enjoyable. The best part was Barney's announcement to his dad "We're also a band!" with a direct cut to the cast preforming the theme song. Very fun.
Chuck: "Chuck vs the Wedding Planner"- One of the best Chuck episodes in quite some time. It gave some much needed closure on Sarah's relationship with her father and continued to push momentum through the non-Vivian related story arcs, you know, the ones that people actually care about. The plot was quite original and paced very well (which normaly wouldn't warrent a note, but based on this show's recent episodes, it seems almost out of the ordinary). The episode also did a good job of balancing the humor and the real emotional stuff. I especially enjoyed the reenactment of Chuck's flash face. Possibly the fourth to last episode of this show ever, so I'm glad it was as enjoyable as it was.
Raising Hope: "Cheaters"- Didn't particularly care for this one. I thought it was fine, nothing too bad about it, but nothing all that great either. I think the main factor might be a heavy use of Maw-Maw (please don't give her her own storylines), but some of the character work just felt forced and frustrating.
The Whitest Kids U'Know: "5.02"- I still am not a big an of The Civil War on drugs. I don't know what it's trying to do, I don't know why it's there, and I don't find it to be particularily funny (although I did laugh several times this week, as opposed to the straight face I had the whole ten minutes last week). I did like almost all the other sketches this week though. "Old Folks Home" was almost a spiritual successor to "Dinosaur Rap" and things like the last second turn of the "Dominos" sketch felt like things we should have seen last week. And the Anne Frank skit did bring up a surprisingly disturbing but true point.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Cancellation and Renewal Predictions
It's almost judgement day. At this point in the season, we should be able to tell the fate of the remaining shows, or at least classify them as 'bubble shows'. For a more statistical look at the prospects, I encourage you to seek out the Renew/Cancel Index at TV By The Numbers, link on the right hand side of the page.
CBS doesn't have very many unsuccessful shows,. In some ways, that makes it hard to predict and in others, it makes it easy. I'd say the Criminal Minds spinoff will be back, as will The Good Wife (Emmy nominated, and recent rumours have suggested CBS is looking for a two-year renewal), CSI:NY has kind of tanked since moving to Friday, so I fully expect that one to do. I'd predict Bleep My Dad Says and Mad Love to be canceled, but with the Two and a Half Men situation, it's a wild card.
ABC: Detroit 1-8-7 and No Ordinary Family will be canceled. I'd say Better With You and Off the Map don't have much of a shot, Body of Proof is actually looking pretty good, the only succesful new drama from ABC this year. Mr. Sunshine could go either way, but I'm leaning towards canceled. If ABC decides they want to do a second comedy night, I could easily see it staying. Happy Endings is heading towards cancellation. It's hard to make a call on V. I'd lean towards cancelled, but I could see it coming back again next midseason.
FOX: With Fringe renewed and The X-Factor on its way, there's hardly any room left on FOX's schedule. I'd say the only bubble show that could make it would be Lie to Me, possibly with a summer renewal. I'd say Human Target and The Chicago Code are dead (then again, I said that about Fringe a month ago). Breaking In has a decent shot, it depends whether or not FOX really cares about the fact its retention from American Idol is not so great. Traffic Light is a goner.
NBC: Chuck, as much as it pains me to say it, is probably not coming back next year. If it does, it'll be a very limited order. In the past couple weeks, its ratings have fallen too far for me to look at the situation with optimism. Harry's Law will probably return. It stayed slightly under NBC's average until its last episode, and it gets a low of viewers, which really only helps NBC in the PR department, but it still helps. The Cape, Perfect Couples, The Event, and Law and Order: Los Angeles won't be back. Parenthood will be renewed.
CBS doesn't have very many unsuccessful shows,. In some ways, that makes it hard to predict and in others, it makes it easy. I'd say the Criminal Minds spinoff will be back, as will The Good Wife (Emmy nominated, and recent rumours have suggested CBS is looking for a two-year renewal), CSI:NY has kind of tanked since moving to Friday, so I fully expect that one to do. I'd predict Bleep My Dad Says and Mad Love to be canceled, but with the Two and a Half Men situation, it's a wild card.
ABC: Detroit 1-8-7 and No Ordinary Family will be canceled. I'd say Better With You and Off the Map don't have much of a shot, Body of Proof is actually looking pretty good, the only succesful new drama from ABC this year. Mr. Sunshine could go either way, but I'm leaning towards canceled. If ABC decides they want to do a second comedy night, I could easily see it staying. Happy Endings is heading towards cancellation. It's hard to make a call on V. I'd lean towards cancelled, but I could see it coming back again next midseason.
FOX: With Fringe renewed and The X-Factor on its way, there's hardly any room left on FOX's schedule. I'd say the only bubble show that could make it would be Lie to Me, possibly with a summer renewal. I'd say Human Target and The Chicago Code are dead (then again, I said that about Fringe a month ago). Breaking In has a decent shot, it depends whether or not FOX really cares about the fact its retention from American Idol is not so great. Traffic Light is a goner.
NBC: Chuck, as much as it pains me to say it, is probably not coming back next year. If it does, it'll be a very limited order. In the past couple weeks, its ratings have fallen too far for me to look at the situation with optimism. Harry's Law will probably return. It stayed slightly under NBC's average until its last episode, and it gets a low of viewers, which really only helps NBC in the PR department, but it still helps. The Cape, Perfect Couples, The Event, and Law and Order: Los Angeles won't be back. Parenthood will be renewed.
Community: "Paradigms of Human Memory" Review
Clip shows feel outdated. They feel unecessary, they feel boring, and they feel lazy. It seems like you can almost mark the point a show jumps the shark by going a few episodes past or before their clip show. Community knows this, so that's why when Community did their clip show, they made up all the clips. I love the idea that there are so many of these adventures that happened this season that we haven't seen. It does wonders to expand the universe of the show. The sheer number of clips in this episode was mind-blowing, I can't even imagine how long it took to film. But it was all worth it. This is one of my favorite Community episodes ever. In fact, I'd be willing to go as far as to call this episode this season's Modern Warfare.
I also greatly admire the show for using some clips to expand on previous episodes. Many people, including me, stated that they wanted to see the other side of the Christmas episode, with Abed describing what he was seeing in claymation and the group sitting in the study room reacting. The expansions of episodes like the Halloween episode helped to service the plot of this episode, involving Jeff and Britta's secret hookups. Besides the clips, this episode also had many callbacks to previous episodes, my favorite being Chang saying "I know these vents like the back of my Chang".
Out of the clips from the episodes that don't exist, I was particularly fond of the Glee Club (which was a hilarious Glee parody), the fanfic montages (complete with cheesy music), and Jeff's speechifying montage. And who could forget Abed as The Cape? Even though this was a fake clip show, it still managed to be retrospective on the season in general. They mentioned how they've been to fun places, they mentioned how they've gone dark places. They references the fact that whenever the group threatens to come apart at the seams, Jeff gives a speech and everything works out. Just a brilliant episode all around (streets ahead, you might say), complete with a genius tag that even managed to top last week's "Fiddler, Please". My only complaint is they didn't manage to work in a Magnitude reference. Pop pop!
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