Shows That Are In Trouble

We are dancing on the clouds about Fringe, Community, Parks and Rec, and Southland getting renewed. (Wow, that sounded less gay in our heads, but still. It’s accurate.)

Here are the shows that we want to see stick around that still haven’t been renewed…and the shows we hate and want to see go away. Their slots can go to good, new shows. Possibly. As for the ones we don’t mention: we either don’t care or we don't think the show is in enough danger to be on this list.

Our struggling favorites:

Chuck - Leeard is a beyond-faithful fan of Chuck, and Ern watches it when it’s on and she has nothing better to do. Still, both of us would like to see this cult fave survive yet again.

Outsourced - It’s offensive. Blah blah blah. What matters is that it’s really funny.

Off the Map - How are the Grey’s and Private Practice fans not watching this? Yeah, the pilot was awful and some episodes are cheesy. But the last episode was devoid of cheese and it’s getting better. It deserves a season two.

Lie to Me - The concept alone is worth keeping this show for. It’s been much better since they got rid of the stifling FBI stuff. Also, if they just aggressively serialized a few more elements of the show (like Bones does with its characters), it could start getting intense and making people care about the characters.

Two and a Half Men - We know, we know. You’re thinking, “What blog is this?!! It’s been taken over by imposters!” But we think it would be extremely entertaining to watch the show replace Charlie Sheen and even more entertaining to watch Charlie Sheen react to getting replaced. It will be a train-wreck ending to a horrible show. After we happily watch its demise with a glass of wine and an evil laugh, the networks can totally cancel it.

Perfect Couples - It's a way funnier version of Better with You. It could grow into something hilarious.

Shows we want gone:

The Event - We hate this show for promising to bring us a LOST-meets-24 dynamic and giving us a show we couldn’t give two craps about.

Better with You - Unfunny, sexist dribble. No one cares. Leeard is actually still watching this show, but doesn't care if it's cancelled or not. That's not a good sign.

Detroit 1-8-7 - If this goes away, then maybe its fans will console themselves with Southland, which is so much better than this cop show.

V - Die V, die! This show got a miracle second season and then proceeded to squander it by being silly, boring, and the opposite of addictive. It gives serialized drama, which we usually love, a bad name.

Dropping V

This isn't like when we "dropped" Gossip Girl and one of us caved. We are both really dumping this show. Even though our blog stats say the reviews are popular, we just don't want to watch it anymore. It will probably be canceled after this season anyway. A DESERVED axe.

This week, a semi-important character died. We had heard rumors of a death, and we got excited, thinking it might be Tyler. Sadly, it was not. Also, we realized that there wasn't a single character we would mourn at all. After nearly two season, that's a problem. Heck, after five episodes into the first season of a show, that's a problem.

Also, the show makes no sense. As commenter Jim Z pointed out, the Vs could just put a tracking device on Ryan to find The Fifth Column. That comment pretty much ruined the entire show for us (not that there was much to ruin). There are lots of things the Vs could do to find The Fifth Column. They are too bumbling to be scary.

It's a dumb show. And boring. It's like The Hills: They just walk around and talk about each other. Nothing happens. Occasionally, someone bites someone else. We may go back to the original and see what on earth there was that made a remake seem like a good idea.

The only episodes of this show we will be watching are the finale and the episode where Tyler, inevitably, dies a horrible death.

Show Grade: C-

Fringe - 6B review

Fringe is still owning its new Friday slot. The ratings went up this week. We will be surprised if it doesn’t get a fourth season, which is great news for nerds. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Fringe is the best nerd show on right now. It’s not as good as LOST or The X Files, but we are in a nerd TV draught. Don’t even mention V or The Event to us. Or Flashforward. Buncha failures. They forgot one thing: Nerds are SMART. We need mythology, philosophy, spirituality, and three-dimensional characters we will care about.

On Fringe, Walter gets more loveable all the time. He’s a far cry from the weirdo wetting his britches in season one. Making pancakes for Olivia and Peter to try to get them back together was so adorable. And after Peter made that perfect little speech to Olivia about what it was like when he thought they were together, we were surprised she didn’t immediately give in. But finally, she and Peter decided to give it a go and went upstairs…presumably to play board games and drink chocolate milk. Ya think?

The case of the week, with the fake ghost, was eerie and felt supernatural, even though this show sticks to science rather than spirits. Does the vortex freak anyone else out, a lot? The one that looked like a whirlpool?

Alright episode of a good show. It’s nice to have Peter and Olivia get together again. It balances the scales for the universes, after last week’s episode.

Episode Grade: B-

V - Unholy Alliance recap/review

After weeks of sucking and ruining our TV lives, V got better this week. We’ve started to care about Father Jack a little bit. Anna still isn’t scary, and Erica’s son still needs to die, but one character we care about is better than none. We admire Father Jack's principles and unwavering determination to speak out against the Visitors. That said, we hope he compromises those priestly principles soon and has sex with Erica.

In the beginning of the episode, a bunch of peace ambassadors were killed and strung up like Mussolini. Erica was called to the crime scene and started unmasking them frantically, hoping that they weren’t Tyler. Sadly, it was another fake out. Tyler was alive and ticked. He ransacked Father Jack’s church and spray-painted a V on the church wall for revenge. Erica found out because Tyler dropped his phone in the church (that he was using to video tape his vandalism). She cried and said, “This is not the son I raised.” Umm, where have you been, Erica? Your son has always been a little weenie.

Erica got a new partner that she used to be her friend. Her new partner thought that Father Jack was involved with the Fifth Column, due to all the confrontations involving him. Erica and her partner went to question Father Jack, and Erica told her partner that this was the first time she had talked to him in a while. Her partner dug up surveillance of her meeting Father Jack and touching him on the arm just a few days ago, so he knows she is lying. And he is investigating her (that’s why they brought him in). Erica would never suspect her old buddy. We like this storyline…

The Fifth Column found the anti-V terrorist, Eli Cohen. They teamed up with him once Eli revealed that he knew that the V’s planned to breed with the humans. His wife and son had been experimented on by the V’s. Together, they came up with a plan to catch the people who killed the peace ambassadors and used them as scapegoats for Malik’s murder. Erica led the FBI to Eli Cohen’s cabin in the woods (the standard living arrangement for a terrorist) where Malik’s nasty body had been conveniently placed.

Chad and Anna headed off to the Vatican to get the full support of the Catholic Church. Anna figured out that one of the Cardinals was a Visitor who was sent years ago to research the source of human emotions for Diana. He told Anna that the soul is immortal. Anna took him back to the ship, but he would only give his information to Diana, his true queen. He told Diana (in front of Anna) that the soul was the greatest blessing the Visitors could attain. Anna said that she would torture more information out of the man in order to find out how to destroy the soul. So, with the Cardinal’s blessing, Diana bit him on the neck and killed him. Anna said, “Congratulations, mother. You just killed your only ally” and walked off.

Anna asked the Vatican to bar all priests from speaking out against the Visitors in any way. Ok, that’s a scary, totalitarian, and completely wrong thing to ask. When the Cardinals turned her Hitler-esque request down, Anna flashed some blue energy around a statue and threatened them. She said that if she performs enough miracles through her science, the people of the world would shun Catholicism in favor of worshipping her. But rather than trust that truth and faith would win out, the Cardinals caved for fear of losing their power and influence. Chad reported that the Catholic Church had now forbidden all anti-V rhetoric. Father Jack vowed to continue speaking out against them. By embracing the age-old (yet still powerful) theme of standing against evil and censorship, and by giving us someone to put Erica in serious hot-water, the show made us care, for once.

Episode Grade: a solid B

Pure Laziness + Crazy Day = This

Southland recap:
http://www.afterelton.com/tv/recaps/southland/303

V recap:
http://www.ology.com/screen/v-recap-laid-bare

As for what we thought, Southland was good and V was better than last week, but still not good.

Southland: B, V: C

We will be back to writing our own tomorrow.

V - Serpent's Tooth recap/review

Let’s face it: V is probably the stupidest show on TV right now (The Hills was cancelled). Very little about this show is working lately. There are no characters that we care about. For a show that talks so much about human emotion, it’s been failing to generate human emotion in the people sitting in front of the screen. The premise has a lot of potential, but we’ve lost all hope that the show’s writers will be able to squeeze that potential out. And NOW, to top it all off, Anna is looking for the human soul to rid the world of emotion.

The face-off between Anna and Diana was a letdown. Nothing happened except that they bickered about whether Anna could find and destroy the human soul. Actually, it was revealed that Anna overthrew Diana because Diana developed human emotions. Diana has been in a creepy room in the ship for 15 years and this is the first time Anna has gone to see her. Diana figured out that Anna can’t lay eggs and the procreation job is all up to Lisa. Diana told Anna that in order to destroy emotions, you must destroy the soul.

Lisa told Erica that Joshua survived, but he doesn’t remember anything, including being in The Fifth Column. Anna put him in a memory chamber so that she could see who destroyed her eggs. All she got was Erica shooting Joshua, which Anna already knew about, obviously. This episode also included Val’s funeral. Ryan didn’t cry, and Val’s parents were disturbed by this. They also blamed Ryan for her death. This should have been sad, but it wasn’t. Father Jack comforted Ryan and told him he had a soul. Oh, priests. Even trying to turn aliens to God, haha.

A group that met on the internet developed a terrorist organization that is having suicide bombers blow themselves up near Visitor buildings. Everyone thinks it’s The Fifth Column, but it’s not. In fact, Erica was angry that there were human casualties in these sloppy bombings. She figured out that the target of the bombings is Chad Decker. Kyle found evidence that led to a base for the terrorist activities. Malik found the same spot, and she and Kyle fought. Kyle punched her, and we saw Malik pull out a large alien tooth. Kyle found another clue, prompting Erica and Malik to take a road trip together. Malik was onto Erica, due to Erica’s sloppiness. She pointed a gun at the driver, Erica, and Erica crashed the car. That’s how it ended.

Anna used Ryan’s new daughter to try to lure him back to her side. She put skin on it to make it cuter, and that didn’t help much. The show has a suffering baby now, but we don’t care that much because Anna is so cold with it and Ryan’s reaction doesn’t convince us of his grief. Also, that is one ugly baby. Anna started torturing it and tempting Ryan with an offer of her bliss for himself and his daughter. Ryan cried and then told Anna to go ahead and bliss the daughter. We guess Anna’s plan worked. Stupid Ryan…

Of course, the whole episode was worth watching to see Anna eat a mouse. That was terrifying and hilarious, so points for that.

One of the stupidest things about this episode was the assertion that the soul is the equivalent of human emotion. Umm, hello? Have the V’s and the humans missed out on the fact that there are chemical sources of emotion, as well as portions of the brain that produce and control them? Has anyone heard of an amygdala? Frontal lobes? There is an actual scientific source for feelings, and Anna could just give people some brain surgery and be done with it. Many scientists deny the existence of a soul, due to their inability to physically locate it. WE aren’t denying the soul, but to dumb the soul down to “feelings” is shallow. Maybe the soul has something to do with intuition (but our subconscious minds do a lot of that), and there is a decent argument to be made that the soul is important in explaining humans’ extreme level of consciousness. Mostly, the soul is supposed to be the spiritual part of us that lives on. It’s what we are aside from our physical material. It’s the core of us. Most of our emotions and thoughts are just parts of our bodies (the brain is part of the body). Maybe the soul has deeper emotions and a deeper voice (who knows?), but getting rid of the soul, even then, wouldn’t stop the amygdala and frontal lobes.

Also, if feelings come from the soul in this mythology, how does fake human skin for a long period of time create a soul? Does God give a soul to creatures who have been on Earth for a long time or who LOOK like humans? Whatever. We give up.

Episode grade: C-

V - Red Rain recap/review

Last season, Erica destroyed Anna’s eggs, and Anna flipped, finally developing human emotions. Then Anna turned the sky red, and all of us said, “That’s it?” But the show has gotten a little better already. Stuff happened in the premiere, so if you missed it, be sure to read the black text.

The episode opened with Erica having a disgusting dream where Anna melted Tyler’s face. We knew it didn’t really happen, but it was gross. We actually kind of wish it happened. Tyler’s not our favorite character, by far. Marcus let Anna know that the ship captains were afraid that Anna was weakening because of her reaction to the death of her potential soldier children. She confronted them and made mincemeat out of one, to make an example. Ryan, meanwhile, worried about his lizard daughter, but Anna kept her to experiment on and expelled Ryan to earth. It is Anna’s hope that Ryan join the Fifth Column and that she will be able to control him better now that she has the daughter to hang over his head. Ryan went right back to Erica and the gang.

Chad reported that the red sky caused riots and earthling unease, and Anna refused to say a word about the Visitors’ involvement with the red sky. Chad also went to Father Jack’s church looking for forgiveness and redemption for helping the Visitors trick the humans, using the media. To gain Father Jack’s trust, Chad had to tell him that humans were being tortured on the V ship. To prove it, Chad gave Father Jack recordings of the human test subjects in interviews. Chad has now joined the Fifth Column as a spy. Right as the red sky started raining what looked like blood but probably wasn’t, Erica used her son to get onto the V’s ship and question Anna. Anna put her big face in the sky and told the humans that the red sky and rain would heal the earth, including that pesky global warming problem. Because people are stupid, they believed her at her word. Anna told Lisa to hook up with Tyler, probably to provide Anna with another half human/half lizard.

Anna found out that a human scientist was close to figuring out the real cause and purpose of the red sky, so she sent someone to kill him. Lisa told Erica about the scientist, and Erica went to the university to grab him first. Then we found out that the red rain has lots of phosphorous (Dun dun dunnnnn). No, really, that’s bad, because that makes the humans better vessels for V babies. Erica remembered that she had very high levels of phosphorous in her blood when she was pregnant and wondered if she and Tyler were V test subjects.

Anna killed her remaining babies to stop herself from having emotions. This doesn’t work, because we see her cry a little. Then she went to some weird, dirty cave room to talk to her mother. What’s with Anna’s mother stepping out of her weird cocoon dressed like she is the next drag queen at a Vegas show? Were those fishnet stockings and platform heels?

This episode would probably get people at least a little interested in this show, so that’s good. The show still needs more action/tension and for the characters to hook our emotions, and we still wonder if making Elizabeth Mitchell the lead was the right choice. But we liked this premiere. At this point, we are still unhooked, but we are still curious. Erica is pretty cool, but none of these characters wring any emotion from us. And Anna needs to be scarier. There needs to be some sort of Big Bad behind her, especially if she is just going to start acting like your typical woman right before her period (remember how 24 used to show us the real scary dude at the end? V should take note). The alien takeover needs to be more horrifying. We need some real tension and a real reason to care.

Episode Grade: B