New York/Puppy Catch Up Post part 2. Game of Thrones, Bates Motel, Walking Dead

Game of Thrones, season 3, episodes 1-2
This show always starts each season off slow, because it's based on books and most books build to climaxes. The first two episodes were fine and beautiful and got us pumped for the rest of the season. The second one was a little dull and uneventful, but we're loving Cersei losing her influence and feeling backed into a corner. As people who have read the book this season will be based on, we assure you that this will probably be the best season of this show.

So, yeah, one of us was in NYC and saw musicals this weekend

We know some of you love those, so we'll tell you which ones we saw this weekend and our thoughts in brief. We wanted to see Mathilda and Pippin, but we ran out of time. Our favorite musicals include Ragtime, Les Miserables, Wicked, Rent, Next to Normal, Spring Awakening, Legally Blonde, Avenue Q, Sweeney Todd, Funny Girl, The Wild Party, Company, and Into the Woods.

New Show- Mr. Selfridge, Series 1, episodes 1-2

Spoilers after the jump. If you haven't seen it, read up to the "read more" button.

Yes yes, we know this show's entire first season aired on the BBC, but Americans are just now getting to it. Two episodes have aired on PBS, American home of this show's twin, Downton Abbey. We are going to watch it at a U.S. pace.

Man, was this show long. The premiere was one hour and 50 minutes. The second episode is nearly 50 minutes long. But once you get into it, it goes quickly. The second episode rushed by in no time. The first half of the pilot took a little while to get used to.

This show is about an American, Harry Selfridge, in London in 1909. He's a businessman who wants to build a brash, great department store called Selfridges. He does so and opens it, hiring beautiful men and women to run it, and hooking up with society's elite to get funds and connections.

So it's like Downton Abbey, only it's a store instead of a manor. There are a lot of characters too, but we found it easier to keep them straight than when we first started watching Downton. Like that show, it looks great. The fashion and set pieces are Victorian and loads of fun.

BBC didn't skimp on the beautiful women this time. The girl playing Ellen Love blows Michelle Dockery's looks out of the water. Most of them men are more than decent too. No stand out hotties like Branson yet though. Jeremy Piven is alright as the lead. Some lines come out a little wrong, but Piven has the presence needed for the role. He's a flamboyant, loud actor with no subtlety who is playing a bold man with confidence to spare. It works.

This show is a little more...scandalous?...than Downton. There are more forbidden trysts and more manipulators. It's like Downton Abbey meets Mad Men. This is a compliment. While comparisons to Downton are inevitable, this show has its own tone and stands up favorably against the powerhouse. It's a good thing to watch while we are waiting for the Crawleys and their servants to return.

It's less soapy and ridiculous than Downton so far too. The writing is pretty good. There are enough sympathetic characters that we have someone to root for, but this is a show full of charming anti-heroes.   Overall, we enjoyed these episodes, but we aren't addicted yet. We need more stakes and more excitement. We'll give the show more time.

Episode 1 grade: B+, Episode 2 grade: B

If you have seen the episode, read more.

New York/Puppy Catch Up Post part 1. Supernatural and Mindy

One of us went to New York City. Also, one of us got puppies. If you've never had puppies, you don't know what time-consuming maniacs they are. Trust us. They take a lot of work. But TV waits for no man (or dog), so a lot has happened on the Tube since we last talked to you guys.

Game of Thrones premiered, finally. Thank the good Lord. We love that show so much we named the puppies after a couple of incestuous Lannisters. The puppies are also male and female babies from the same litter. They are already trying to mount each other. They will be fixed ASAP. No one wants a Joffrey.

Supernatural season 8, episodes 10-19
We were shocked at how little we've mentioned Supernatural this year. We've been updating and commenting on the "Supernatural Episodes You Can Skip" post a lot, so it feels like we've been discussing it. But it deserves a post. Bravo to the new showrunner from taking it from abysmal to "just okay." That's more than we could have asked for.

Sad Day

We're dropping Community. It's not what it was.

Glee- Season 4, Episodes 15-17 and a list of the few tolerable songs this season

It's funny that Glee did a guilty pleasure episode this week, since Glee is the ultimate guilty pleasure. We love the singing and dancing, occasionally the humor, and the moments when the show is spot-on. It does social commentary really well. The plots and characters however? Dumb dumb dumb. In fact, if we were to watch a few random episodes of this show before seeing the first season, we never would have gotten into it in the first place. But we're here, and we enjoy Glee, stupid or not.

Comments

Due to the staggering number of spam comments, often pornographic in nature, the comments on this blog will now be moderated. Your comments will appear only after we're sure they are legit.

So thanks, assclowns. You've ruined the fun for everyone. And you probably didn't sell a single fleshlight.

Pretty Little Liars: Season three, episode 24

A dAngerous gAme- The biggin'. Well, everyone saw that coming. The Redcoat reveal was predictable and needed to happen. We all knew it was her. We're just glad it wasn't someone else and we had to wait for a reveal that it was her. But let's back up...

Re-watching Felicity: Seasons 1-2

One of us has seen two seasons of Felicity and decided to finish it, but first wanted to watch seasons one and two again. That task is complete, and here are the thoughts. There are spoilers after the jump, because this show is so old. For those of you who haven't seen it, we recommend it if you like love triangles, are currently in college, liked the parts of Alias when Sidney wasn't spying, and enjoy talking about your feelings. This isn't our favorite show in the world, but certain episodes and moments are dynamite.

Girls. Season 2, Episodes 5-10

Girls has ended its second season, and it's left us a little confused about the future of the show.

Where's the funny?
Plenty of people are asking whether this show has taken an unintentional turn for the unfunny. After the hilarious episode three where Hannah tried hard drugs, the show has gone to the dark place and never really came out. The show was always darkly funny, but this season has dropped a lot of the absurdities and one- liners in exchange for mental illness and ethically questionable sex. We think the show is allowed to do this, as long as it picks the humor up in season three. A dip into darkness can be genius, as long as the show hasn't lost the voice that sold us on it in the first place.

What about that "on all fours" scene?
The season finale had Adam picking up Hannah, saving her from her own OCD mind with a kiss. It was romantic and fit perfectly with the fun. song the show put at the end. But, in the back of our minds, is the question of whether Adam's bad sex with Natalia bordered on rape. There are questions floating around: Is it really up to the woman to say "no," or should it be the guy's duty to get clear consent? Is it a sad reflection of our culture that the onus is on the girl to stop it? And yet, at the same time, our culture pushes girls to be sweet, submissive, and avoid "awkwardness?" Did we just use the word "onus"?

Pretty Little Liars- Season 3, Episode 23

I'm Your Puppet- We could hardly even process this episode, it was so twisty and brilliant. We had to re-watch a couple of scenes to even figure out what actually happened. If this is the penultimate episode, we can't wait for next week.

Once Upon a Time- Season 2, Episodes 14-16

Well, we need to talk about Once Upon a Time. Yeah, we finally saw this week's episode, and we were blown away. The show is starting to resemble LOST more and more. It has the flashbacks that explain why they are relevant at the very end. It has the brief, but effective love speeches, and heck, even the tear-jerking romantic phone calls. CONSTANTS. It's starting to have creepy moments. Good guys going off the deep end. Just the way the show feels sometimes.

When last we talked about this show, Emma, Gold, and Henry were headed to Manhattan. Well, they got there and found out Gold's son is Henry's father. That's not a shocker, but this show doesn't rely on twists anyway. It's still nice and handled very well.

Slow week

Leeard is out of town and Ern is sick. So that's why.

Pretty Little Liars: Season 3, Episode 22

Will the Circle Be Unbroken- Is Spencer crazy? Spencer seems to think so. By the end of the episode, she was hallucinating the other Liars and admitting that she isn't reliable. It's so sad, but, again, great. We like Eddie, the new character and Spencer's caretaker.

Time spent on the TV blog

40% blogging
10% answering comments
50% removing spam comments

lol

Nashville- Season 1, Episodes 10-14

You guys, this show is finally getting good and trimming the plots that aren't working. It's moving things along and bringing everything we like about it, There is no more Scarlett/Gunnar/Avery love triangle. Avery is out; Gunnar is in. They didn't even annoy us with Gunnar's brother for long! Jason dies quickly, and thank the Lord for that. We thought Gunnar and Scarlett might get arrested for aiding and abetting. Wouldn't that have been a stupid waste of time?

Pretty Little Liars- Season 3, Episode 21

Out of Sight, Out of Mind- Wow. The moment we all knew was coming happened. We were sad about it, of course, but it's so so so cool of the show to take a main character here. Here meaning Radley. They have actually committed Spencer!

The episode starts with Spencer telling her friends about Toby. Emily does not want to believe it, thinking of Toby as a friend, lover of Spencer, and the person who helped her get up the courage to come out. Spencer has ZERO sympathy.

Aria spends the episode dealing with (?) Ezra building a relationship with Malcolm and Maggie moving to Rosewood. Shockingly, his son in the hospital takes up more of Ezra's attention than his high schooler girlfriend. Emily attempts to locate Toby and finds nothing but a warehouse full of Toby's old co-workers, one of whom is clearly lying about what he knows about Toby.

Hanna finds Wilden's cop car, complete with incriminating videos, in the Marin garage. She enlists Aria and the two push the car into the lake, breaking a jillion laws. Literally a jillion. Spencer ends up in the woods, finding a dead body (well, a body that MONA says is dead, so take that with a grain of salt) that appears to be Toby's. We're not taking any of this to the bank.

Spencer chases after Mona in the woods all night and suffers from exposure/exhaustion/general craziness. By the time local authorities find Spencer, she is reeeeeal cray, and they take her to the loony bin. The other Liars don't know yet. Man, this is getting good. We can't wait for the next one.

Episode grade: A-

Bunheads: Season 1, Episode 15-18

Take the Vicuna (B+), There's Nothing Worse Than a Pantsuit (B-), It's Not a Mint (A-)- We don't care for the Millie building an amphitheater storyline, because there isn't much at stake there. Still, it's nice to have Liza Weil on our TVs again. The show kind of dropped the Michelle's mom plot as soon as it brought it up. Is that going to come back soon? Why bring it up if you're not going to do anything with it? We'll wait for season two on that one.

The Oscars 2013

We don't usually review awards shows, but we thought we'd start. Armed with a pack of Guinness, a pizza, cell phones to text friends, and whoever we could strong arm into watching this with us, we sat down to view the show, determined to make it until midnight. Ern, in particular, is a huge pussy when it comes to staying up past your average grandmother's bedtime.

Zero Hour

We can't even be bothered to write a review for this show. Just...it's bad. It's tragically bad. Just trust us.