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Sunday, February 19, 2012

There's a Light at the End of this Tunnel, Guys

Good news for those of you addicted to this blog: One of us sees a part in the clouds of schoolwork and anticipates that April-May will be lighter. This means daily posts are an option at that time. Until then, here’s your Monday summary. Yeah, we're behind on a few shows. 

Cougar Town - Ain't Love Strange: This show returned to a series low in the ratings. We were sad about that. It’s due to a tough time slot and no powerhouse lead-in like they had last year. That didn’t stop the show from turning in a premiere in its usual adorable, heartfelt style. We weren't digging Laurie's ankle monitor though. It felt like she would have told the gang the story right away, not in exposition in the episode.  
Episode grade: A-

Revenge - Chaos: Leeard was expecting (and wanting) the body to be Tyler, but Ern was completely surprised. Either way, bravo for the twist. In order to fool us, the show used a body double that looked sort of like Tyler and sort of like Daniel as the body that fell to the beach after being shot. We are really glad Revenge kept Daniel alive. One of us thought the Tyler stuff was getting a little too cheesy and overwrought, especially the scenes where he plotted with Emily. There was so much exposition that we expected him to break out in a cliché villain “muah haha.” Leeard hopes Tanaka doesn't kill Emily and is starting to like her.
Episode grade: A

Glee - Heart: Rachel’s dads were delightful, and we like the new Christian character. Ryan Murphy was jonesing for a Christian character so badly on The Glee Project that he was bound to name a Christian kid the winner. Now that he has his Christian, Ryan will be able to pick the most talented, awesome kids when The Glee Project returns. Yeah, we are still sore about Hanna losing. We also liked Quinn’s talk about Christianity and the Bible. For a crazy, flawed character, Quinn can manage to say sensible things when people need advice. She presented the other side of a common argument well. The show continues to avoid demonizing religious people while it pushes for tolerance of gay people. That’s quite a feat. We liked a lot of the songs and performances. It is eerie that Glee chose to do Whitney Houston’s famous song. The decision was made before Whitney died and the episode aired after Whitney’s death. Glee is psychic. That’s probably why it’s so crazy. We can’t believe we were sad for Karofsky. We are also surprised that Rory isn’t leaving! He was lying about his visa being denied. Does that mean Damian gets to be on the show longer than the few episodes he was promised? Strangely, Rachel Berry’s nighttime routine resembles Ern’s, only Ern’s is possibly more elaborate. Ern doesn’t do the ice thing though. That’s the height of insane, Rachel. 
Episode grade: B+

Glee First Listen Friday - Everything is a little forgettable except Blaine’s song, a cover of “Cough Syrup” by Young and the Giant/The Jakes. It’s a cool song. Blaine’s voice is too autotuned in it, but we still can’t decide if we like his cover or the original better. Rachel was given a song that didn’t fit her voice at all and the results were disappointing. The "Fly"/"I Believe I Can Fly" mash-up was ok. Ern is kind of over "I Believe I Can Fly". Leeard will never be.

The River - Los Ciegos: This show improves in its third week and is turning into a really fun show. A few of the characters got more sympathetic this episode, and there was some good humor. 
Episode grade: A-

Parenthood - Tough Love: Whoa, Julia. Being a paralegal is a hard job. They have to read well, pay attention to detail, and be extremely responsible. We love that Julia thinks Coffee Girl is that smart, but we think that’s a stretch. Fortunately for the legal profession, Coffee Girl did not apply. We love the aspect of Julia’s personality that just won’t let go of this girl, but we are bracing ourselves for a possible sad ending to this story. We can’t believe Amber was caught by Kristina so quickly. Haddie, you little rat! We are even more dismayed that Bob was such a pussy and let Kristina take her. They are both adults and the age disparity isn’t that great! Ugh, Kristina. We felt bad for Seth but not Drew in this episode. For some reason, we think Drew is too old to have this reaction. He has progressed to the age where he needs to work on being happy for his mother, getting along with his potential new stepdad, staying quiet about his feelings, and dealing with real life. Maybe we are being too harsh? Meh. 
Episode grade: B+

The Secret Circle - Return: Cassie's dad shows up at her house!! Then Cassie tells Adam, who says something like, "Then he's really alive?!" We wanted to hit him in the face for dumb ass-ery. It's been apparent for weeks. The audience knew in the pilot. Anyway, this episode was almost as good as last week's. The dad stuff did not disappoint. We're not sure we trust him, but we like him. We liked seeing Faye make out with a guy who wasn't Jake. Also, coma girl woke up. We'll see what that's about. 
Episode grade: A

The Vampire Diaries - All My Children: We have yet another Alaric death fake-out as a cliffhanger. Meredith shoots a gun in his direction. He'll live. He always does. We loved watching resourceful Elena face off against Rebekah, and it was nice to see Damon protecting his brother's returning humanity. Bonnie's mom is a vampire, yawn. Good job for fighting back, Elijah. Don't let this show take you from us again so quickly. This episode was fine, but it wasn't among this show's best. We weren't surprised by anything or particularly touched. 
Episode grade: B

Grey’s Anatomy - Have You Seen Me Lately?: Hey, you know what's awkward and sad? Watching Owen and Cristina in couples counseling. Owen is kind of jealous of Meredith, showing that he misses the point of this show, which is the friendship between Meredith and Cristina, DUH. You have to give them credit for trying with this marriage thing though. Lots of people would throw in the towel and no one would blame them, under these circumstances. Amy comes to Seattle Grace and tries to get her brother, Derek, to do a surgery. They do the surgery in the Private Practice hour (it's a crossover event), but we didn't care enough to watch Private Practice and see how it turned out. If someone else saw it, let us know. The good news this week is that Meredith and Callie might be friends now. Callie is going to help Meredith study after Meredith rocked a case where a man got his hand ground up in a meat grinder. Yuck. 
Episode grade: B

The Office - Tallahassee: The only time we laughed was during Jim's early-morning prank on Dwight. Part of the Scranton branch went down to Florida to design Sabre retail stores. Packer was there too. Dwight got appendicitis. Stanley is acting like this business trip is a month-long paid vacation. That's about it. We miss this show being hilarious.
Episode grade: C

Parks and Recreation - Dave Returns: First of all, Team Ben. Second, we also like Dave. He's so honest. We are still raising our eyebrows at the whole Ann/Ben thing, which is apparently still happening, but it was funny this episode. That song Andy wrote was appropriately hideous. Finally, we have exactly the same reaction to cops as Ben does: we never break the law, because we are terrified of cops. Ern can't even look at them when passing them on the street! 
Episode grade: A-

New Girl - Valentine: We got to see True Blood's Ryan Kwanten guest star as a guy Jess tries to have a one-night stand with. Jess's quest to "get some strange" ends badly. Wait, no, it ends adorable, because it ends with Nick dragging Jess to her bedroom when she contemplates sleeping with Schmidt. She brought an entire (and very large) box of condoms for the occasion. Guess who did sleep with Schmidt? No, not Leeard, even though he is her soulmate. Cece! We can't believe it, guys. This was a funny episode, but we don't really dig the one night stand topic. 
Episode grade: B+

Awake - Pilot: This episode is up on hulu, so you can watch it early, and you should. There isn't much here that wasn't shown in the preview, but we loved what was in the preview, so you can guess what we thought of the whole episode. The main triumph of the pilot is that we already care about the characters. We will be tuning into the second episode when it airs in March. This show reminds us a little of Journeyman, only we care more. Sadly, it seems like just the thing that could be cancelled well before it's time. NBC loves to give us great shows that don't hit it out of the ballpark, ratings-wise. With this show, we just hope there is a satisfying conclusion to what will probably be a short run. 
Episode grade: A

Modern Family - Aunt Mommy: We haven't been mentioning this show in the last couple of weeks, because most episodes are the same. People are saying this show is stuck in a rut and we agree. At least it's a relatively funny rut. However, this episode had some pleasing factors that made it stick out. For once, Cam and Mitchell's plotline didn't involve them having a fight/bickering. We got to see multiple characters drunk. The only thing that could have made this episode better would be if we had gotten to see Luke try to reanimate that dead squirrel. Even though Modern Family refuses to give us something that feels new, it's still a funny show.
Episode grade: B+

Happy Endings - Everybody Loves Grant: One of us watched this episode yesterday when she had a fever and no energy, and this show still managed to pull some chuckles out of the haze that was that day. Dave trying to be "the cool guy" made him the MVP of the night. If you like this show, you probably liked this episode. 
Episode grade: B+

Pan Am - 1964 (and the series as a whole): Well, this show wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it had a nice little (probably) close to the series. We were left with Kate moving up in the CIA, Laura and Ted are in love (and one of us is so glad we didn't have to see Ted tell her that Amanda is pregnant), Dean and Collette are on the road to reconciliation, and Maggie is by herself. While we can kind of see hints of where the show would go if it's given a second season (Collette's search for her brother, Laura and Ted trying to figure out their relationship, Kate becoming an actual spy, Maggie hopefully dying), we think that 1964 works as a decent series finale. Pan Am was a nice diversion, but we won't miss it too much.
Episode grade: B
Series grade: C

Casting news: The Good Wife didn’t have a new episode this week, but news emerged that Matthew Perry will join the show as a lawyer who is trying to win over Alicia. Alicia and Bing-a-ling? We really don’t see it, but we like the idea of Alicia getting another love interest. Breaking Bad’s Giancarlo Esposito will play a business associate of Pierce’s dead dad on Community. We’re sure it will be perfect and hilarious, like that show always is.

Books - The White Devil: If nothing else, this book will make you deathly afraid of getting TB. The White Devil is a ghost story featuring an American teenager who has to go to a British boarding school. If you are familiar with Lord Byron as a historical figure or as a poet, you will enjoy this book a lot more than your average reader. This book was entertaining, for the most part, there was good writing, and it had some really creepy moments. But it never grabbed us and we will forget about the characters by the next week. 
Book grade: C+

As for movies, we re-watched Warrior, which is the best movie of 2011 that you never saw. Yeah, some of it isn't very original, but it is so intense Ern almost had a panic attack watching it, there's lots of emotion, you care about the characters, and it's never boring. Even if you aren't interested in MMA or fighting as a topic, you should give this one a shot. Grade: We also saw The Other Woman with Natalie Portman. Despite mixed reviews, we enjoyed it enough that we're glad we watched it. Grade: B- Then, finally, one of us saw The Paper Chase. Like a typical law student, Ern nearly screamed at the end when the main character did what he did (no spoilers here, but if you've seen it, you know what we mean). How could he do that?!! We would NEVER do that. Also, plenty of Ern's law professors are just as bad as Kingsfield, seriously. Grade: B

18 comments:

  1. wow! now I understand how much addicted I was/still am to this blog.

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  2. I know this blog didn't cover PLL, but I just wanted to say last weeks episode was very good...If for no other reason it looks like Mia is leaving! I'm sure she'll be back, but at least we get a little break from her (hopefully). I was actually kinda surprised how much i enjoyed Glee. The last 2 seasons have been kinda "meh," but this episode was good. Grey's Anatomy was good too. Very much enjoyed it. The meat grinder storyline made me wince a little, but that's Grey's for ya. I'm interested to see how the Christina/Owen storyline will play out. Oh, and I watch PP & the Mom lives. I had originally not wanted her to live (I'm awful I know), but after she actually did I changed my tune. It was played off very sweet. =)

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    1. We did a full post on pll, remember? It aired before we changed our policy, lol. Thanks for telling us how pp turned out.

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  3. Good news: Community returns Thursday, March 15 @ 8:00PM :D
    Sad news: Smash and Alcatraz continue fall in ratings. Also, Parks & Rec will have a 5 week break after it's 18th episode.

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  4. Community!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  5. I have to say the preopening credits part of the Office made my day, it would have to be my favourite Jim/Dwight prank in recent memory. Shame about the rest of the episode.

    And I know you won't cover the latest episode of How I Met Your Mother til your next post but I think the references to previous 'Mother' reveals are getting really tedious, and the ending reference of the current episode is so over the top it's ridiculous.

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    1. Leeard actually liked the ending. It implied to us that he finally realizes that there are a bunch of women in NYC and he doesn't need to keep coming back to Robin. Hopefully this means that we'll get some developments this season.

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    2. I didn't mind that aspect of it, just that they had to represent it with everyone carrying yellow umbrellas, when previously there'd be at most one in an entire crowd. Unless there's a yellow umbrella parade in town, it didn't work for me. But yeah, anything that points to finality between him and Robin is a good thing.

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    3. Definitely agree, but I saw it more as a bunch of symbolic yellow umbrellas, not like he told his children "and then a crapload of women with yellow umbrellas instantly appeared around the city".

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  6. Also, eveyone should feel free to use this as a forum for this week's shows as well. Sometimes you want instant discussion. Lots of the eps were so good so far that we want it too, haha

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  7. Look at all these shows the blog covered plus the shows the blog didn't have the time to cover. That says a lot about the quality TV that is out there haha...TV shows keep coming and coming and I go on TV blogs all day which has stopped me from going on youtube anymore. Seriously, I don't go on YouTube for a couple of months now. TV is just awesome these days and the line-up keeps getting insane...like damn!!! How the hell did this happen? haha It's funny how there are so many good 11 hours of TV then there is one-two good hour movies.

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    1. True. We see a good movie about once every three months and we TRY to find good movies.

      Whenever someone says, "There's nothing good on TV" in our hearing range, we go crazy on them. The rant starts. We list all the TV that is good. The person's response is either a) Wow, that is a quality list of TV shows, b) I didn't know/never heard of all that stuff, c) do you ever do anything besides watch TV? (Answer: No, fool, TV is too good,)

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    2. Yeah. I think people still flip through the channels they used to flip through when they were children...or they flip through channels but at the wrong time. (Best entertainment is @8PM-11PM every night on some channel. I think most British shows are on Saturdays..if you also want to get into those. :)) I even made like 3 of my friends into TV addicts. haha

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  8. I should be studying/doing my homework...but nooooo...this site has to be addicting. If I fail, I'm going to blame you guys. I'm taking to this to the court. It should be illegal to make a site that is as addicting as this. If you don't want me to do the above, please make a post every hour of the day. Thank you!

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    1. If you fail, you'd have more time for the site, haha.

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