Re-watching LOST: season six

The final season. Sob. Lots of people hated this season and plenty were satisfied. We were among the satisfied, and we're not going to say why again. Just read this post. The post you are reading now is to grade each episode and talk about the arc of season six. This show was uneven from the start, but what made it one of our favorite shows ever was that it was always challenging and completely unique. There will never be anything remotely like this show ever again, unless it's a remake.

Fiction we read in February

The Furies of Calderon by Jim Butcher: We love his Dresden Files books (with the exception of the most recent entry...ugh), so we thought we would give his high fantasy a try. It started out rough, and we didn't care. Once we got into it, we appreciated the tight little story and the characters. They were a little black-and-white for us, a little too flat and blatantly "good-vs.-evil," but that's better than having no one to root for, like in the first Game of Thrones book. The writing is easy to understand, and the book was fun. We care enough to read the second one and watch where Butcher takes this, but we don't care enough to read it right away. We will take a little break first. Book grade: B-

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater: We liked everything about this YA book except for one thing. They way Maggie writes, you can't get sucked into a scene. She has paragraphs of character thoughts after every line in a conversation! She interrupts herself and her scenes so much that it feels choppy. She needs to let things flow. Otherwise, there are good characters, romance that actually works, a good story, and good use of magic. We loved the gang of guys and the main female character. We want to read the next one...we just hope it won't be so hard to read. Book grade: B

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl: This was like Twilight, only with the genders swapped and the more offensive/abusive elements removed. We liked the small-town, Southern Gothic setting and many of the adult characters. We also loved that the main character and narrator was a guy. He seemed cool. This was easy to read, but it was way too long, keeping this book from being tight and focused. It's not special or original, but it's enjoyable if you like YA paranormal romance, and we do. We weren't nuts about the ending. If we continue this series, we hope the writers take more risks. By playing it safe, the writers didn't write something bad, but they didn't hit any great notes either. Book grade: B

House of Cards season one- Netflix

When we heard that both HBO and AMC bid for this series and lost to Netflix, we had to check it out. This is the show Netflix chose to brand and kick off their original programming. It stars Kevin Spacey, and David Fincher directed the first two episodes and helped in the creation of the show. The entire first season is available, because Netflix knows we like our binges (or at least to watch a show when we want to watch it). So is it as good as it should be?

Movies we've seen in the past couple of months

Lincoln: You've heard all about this. The people who saw it loved it. It's historically accurate, it's not boring once it gets past a few opening scenes, Lincoln is fully humanized with both good and bad traits, Sally Field is great, Daniel Day-Lewis channels Lincoln (no, seriously, we suspect magic), you'll feel things, it looks good, and the script is awesome. What you might not have heard is that Tommy Lee Jones steals the movie, and Lee Pace is still hot as a racist bad guy, which is hard to pull of since racists are the worst. Movie grade: A

Re-watching Gilmore Girls: seasons six and seven

This is the season where the show started to go downhill. It wasn't SPEEDING downhill like in the seventh and final season, but there were some things we didn't like. The main thing? April. Giving Luke an illegitimate love child when we were perfectly content thinking he'd spent most of his life pining for Lorelai or watching Star Trek was sleazy.

Shows that are in danger

We've bolded the ones we care about.

• Happy Endings
• Zero Hour (we haven't seen it yet, but it just started out. We hate when things are canceled that quickly.)
• The Good Wife (It's not THAT in danger, but the fact that it's not a guarantee for renewal is a travesty).
• 90210
• The Carrie Diaries
• Hart of Dixie
• Smash
• The New Normal
• Deception
• Up All Night
• Community

Grey's Anatomy- Season 9, Episodes 11-16

Don't you love when we don't blog about a show for more than five episodes and then we freak out and hastily write an overlong reaction post to everything? Yeah, we don't either, so we're gonna do that less from now on. In episode 11, AGES ago, Derek and Meredith wake up happy one morning. Meredith is happy that the case will finally be over, and Derek is happy that it's the end of Meredith's first trimester and she can finally tell Cristina about her pregnancy.

The Vampire Diaries: Season 4, Episodes 12-15

Clearly, it's time for a Vampire Diaries post. We've been rolling our eyes and shaking our imaginary dicks at this show for a few weeks, because we didn't think it would have the balls to let anything actually happen. We have a fake relationship due to the sire bond (Delena) and a fake turning to vampirism (Elena, since there is a cure), and that's basically what the whole season has been about. We wanted those things to happen, but for REAL. No take-backs.

New Girl- Season 2, Episodes 13-17

As an anon on Tumblr pointed out, it has been a long time since we've talked about this show, and a lot has happened. We didn't care for the episode with Nick's father. Con-man dads have been done to death (something commenters recently pointed out to us, haha). It's also predictable that Nick's dad would be a jerk. We would rather him be the sweetest old man in the world to have it be more surprising.

Pretty Little Liars- Season 3, Episode 20

Hot Water- There was Ezra drama, blah blah blah, Maggie is going to be homeless, Aria didn't tell Fishy about the kiss, and Ezra fought with his mom. Ezria is still a thing. With THAT out of the way, we can talk about the good stuff, and man was there good stuff. Ashley Effing Marin ran Wilden down with a car to protect Hanna. This was a dumb decision, obviously, but it was still a little awesome.

What's more awesome is Spencer spending a hot evening with Wren and Toby (presumably) getting jealous enough to lock Spencer in the Hasting's steam room. Melissa is under suspicion again. Oh, and CeCe is afraid of Wilden and leaving town. We are upset about that. She'd better be back soon. We lurve her.

The episode ends with Spencer ready to tell her friends that Toby is working with A. We hope the show starts right there next week, rather than letting us miss their reactions. Since this post was so short, you can assume that not a lot actually happened. But what happened was so big that it felt like a lot happened.

Episode grade: B+

Cult- Season 1, Episode 1

You're Next- We saw the pilot of The CW's newest show early on Hulu, and man did we hate it. Here's why:

• It's boring. It was like some of the longest, dullest episodes of Supernatural, not the good ones.
• It wastes good actors, like Alaric from TVD and Jo from Supernatural.
• It's cheesy.
• We thought it was going to be about a cult or different cults, not a cult based on a TV show about a cult. Is anyone REALLY a fan of the "show-within-a-show" maneuver? It wasn't even that great on 30 Rock, and that was our favorite attempt at it.
• We've had enough long-running, confusing mysteries with PLL.
• The characters are bland.
• The tone isn't very fun or thrilling, and it just feels clumsy.
• The cult leader is named "Billy Grimm," which is obviously a not-so-subtle dig at Christians because of evangelical leader "Billy Graham." We don't like any religion disrespected, even ones with crazy followers. What religion doesn't have crazy followers? "Real" Christians are nice people and don't judge.
• Does anyone on this show have a lamp? A flashlight? It seemed like nearly every scene was in a dark room.
• We didn't enjoy a second. We didn't care. 
• For that premise, it wasn't clever enough.

Episode grade: D

Glee- Season 4, Episodes 12-14

By Keith McDuffee from Northborough, MA, USA (Glee cast) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Naked, Diva, I Do- Whoa. We didn't expect the show we wanted to write about today to be Glee, but this episode dropped bombs up until the last moment. Anything Can Happen was cute, and Emma's song was fun (although no Company song should ever be shortened). Still, we were underwhelmed with the music this week. What a shame. We liked the episode though. Things happened!

Pretty Little Liars Season 3, episode 19

What Becomes of the Broken Hearted- Yet another "better late than never" post from us. After A sends Spencer a text threatening to take out one of the other Liars if Spencer tells them about Toby, Spencer clams up even harder. It must have looked to A like Spencer was getting ready to crack. She should have told them sooner. Then, Spencer gets kicked off the Academic Decathlon Team, with Andrew being the swing vote and Mona being the instigator.

Once Upon a Time- Season 2, Episode 13

Tiny- Does anyone else think this episode was a bit of a bore for this show? After that long hiatus, we wanted an episode where something big happens. Not "big" literally, because then we'd be satisfied with our giant friend coming to Storybrooke. Come on, show. As far as Emma/Henry/Gold go, the show only got them on a plane. We're pretty annoyed that they had to take Henry along too. That kid annoys when we see him in large doses.

Community- Season 4, Episode 1

By Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America (Joel McHale  Uploaded by maybeMaybeMaybe) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

History 101- After roughly FOREVER, Community was on our TV's Thursday night. But was it the real Community, or did Dan Harmon's exist doom it to becoming something like The Big Bang Theory? The show instantly mocked that possibility by having Abed go to his "happy place," a CBS-like sitcom in his head, complete with a laugh track. He had replaced Pierce with Fred Willard too! (Riffing on the offstage drama between Chevy Chase and the showrunners.) We thought that should have been dropped after the first scene though.

Community up in ratings from last year; Do No Harm cancelled after two episodes

We heard it wasn't great, but sheesh. We didn't even get a chance to watch Do No Harm. Only two episodes were broadcast.

Parks and Recreation- Season 5, Episodes 10-12

Well, we guess we have to admit that this show is going the way of The Office. Four great seasons was a good run (meh, it's actually three; season one was bad too). No, wait, we shouldn't say that. It's still yards better than The Office was in the last couple of years. It was turning in C and D episodes.

This season of Parks and Rec is giving us a bunch of B and B- grades, and in previous years it was all As and B+s. (The Office isn't as bad as usual this year. We'd give it B and B- grades were we reviewing it, which we are not, due to laziness.) Onto the specifics of the episodes since the hiatus.

Two Parties- This is the one where the girls had a lame bachelorette party because of Leslie's obsession with the lot and the boys had the time of their lives because Ben is so easygoing. There's a lesson in there somewhere... Maybe all parties should just start off with beer and boardgames? We'd be so down. We loved Tom's latest stupid bar. Yes, there is a wrong way to drink, but it usually involves tampons. Good cameos in this one too. Why do politicians love being on this show so much?

Pretty Little Liars- Season 3, Episode 18

Dead to Me- Jason spends the episode putting Alison's body in a mausoleum and getting the Liars to come for the burial. Again. Spencer doesn't want to go, but she ends up crashing in order to angrily tell Jason about both Wilden and the pregnancy, even though neither are 100% confirmed. The other Liars are miffed. Spencer is taking her grief and anger out on everyone. She sees the Toby's mom's tomb and scratches "TOBY" on it with the A key. We kind of loved that.

Spencer also continues to work with the PI. She tracks down another A lair, but it's abandoned. This is the final straw for Spencer, who hoped to find Toby (and an explanation) still in the lair. We're glad the show isn't just ditching Spencer's downward spiral. It continues, and she is crazier than ever. It might be the most interesting thing this show has ever done with a character. Also, it didn't come out of nowhere (like Mona's insanity). Spencer has always been paranoid, tightly wound, passionate, and a tad unstable. Good job, show.

Emily gets hypnotherapy, but her wacky brain (or Doctor Anne) confuses her into thinking she killed Ali. Eventually, Emily remembers what really happened. The night she was roofied, she reluctantly helped someone on the A team and someone else in a red jacket dig up Ali's body. Interesting. We also find out that Paige wasn't cheating on Emily. She was trying to get information on A. Nothing was found; no one was surprised.

Hanna and Caleb go to his aunt's house to go through some old stuff. The aunt was the one who put Caleb in the foster care system, so we hate her and we're glad she's dead (she's dead, right?). They see Caleb's uncle, who was nice to Caleb when he was five. Hanna quickly figures out that the uncle is really Caleb's dad, and we figured it out even sooner than that. Caleb is in denial. We think it's really sweet, but there needs to be a good explanation why the dad didn't come through for Caleb when he needed him.

Aria is spending the time during Fish Face's absence getting to know his little brother, who is less fish-faced. We approve. Wesley tells Aria that he slept with a teacher, and Aria actually judges him for it, calling the idea "stupid." Is she kidding? Wesley doesn't want to be controlled by his parents and admires both Aria and Ezra for being unpredictable and taking hold of their own lives. No word from Ezra. We hope he stays gone, but who are we kidding? He'll be back and they will probably stay together forever. We've seen TV before. We know an endgame couple when we see one.

Episode grade: B

Being Human- Season 3, Episodes 1-4

By Tony Shek (Being Human Cast) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Finally, this show is back. We forget about it when it's gone (whereas we pine for Girls, Game of Thrones, and Breaking Bad almost daily), but once we realize it's back, we get pretty excited. The showrunners promised that this show would have more levity this season, and we're surely ready for that. Last season was almost too dark. There were many beard jokes, so we're hopeful. The cliffhangers last season were really rotten. We couldn't wait to find out what happens to the characters.

Girls- Season 2, Episode 4

Due to the superbowl, The Good Wife, Once Upon a Time, AND Shameless weren't on last night, so Girls is the only show we had to watch. Game of Thrones, come save our Sundays, pleeeease.

It's A Shame About Ray- This episode has the same title as the season premiere of Being Human, and it's kind of an obscure title, so is it a reference? There's nothing really in the Girls episode that references that show, vampires, or werewolves, or anything. Maybe Lena just likes the show and wants to give it a shout-out? It's probably just a Lemonheads reference.