10 Show Recap: The DVR Edition

Movies and Television

Going on a trip is fun. Coming back to a DVR at 97% full is fucking scary. Granted a helluva lot of crap belongs to my roommate, and by crap I do mean Tyra, wretched Shonda programming, and some sort of reality bullshit.

Stana Katic, Nathan Fillion on Castle © 2011 ABC

Power watching has its price

Nothing to make the shitfest of some shows (Smallville, Supernatural, Hawaii Five-O) stand out when watched with vastly superior fare (The Vampire Diaries, Castle, Fringe). Note to self: next time save something GOOD to cleanse the brain of all the FAIL.

Monday Night Procedurals: No contest

Castle gave us the first act of an exciting two-parter with a bomb threat, Nathan Petrelli, victims with convenient 8 by 10 glossy headshots, and the knew-it-was-coming boyfriend woes for Beckett. Is the Castle-Beckett ‘ship finally gonna sail? Better soon before “they did it” becomes its shark jump.

Its popularity baffles me, Hawaii Five-O is so damn boring. Scott Caan is one of the only things worth watching, random acts of shirtlessness not withstanding. I am over the Bromancing Bickersons routine. Oh there was a crime, they solved it but not before some people died. Bored now.

Tuesday on the alphabet network

No Ordinary Family is stuck in oh so boringly ordinary mode, latter season Heroes at best. Glad Katie finally gets the real on Joshua, who may love her but that doesn’t negate the lying, mind raping or killing. Sadly no moves on the story, the characters, the powerzzzzzzzz.

V is still trying to out camp the original, with Jane Badler proving herself above this crap. GOOD: it has pace, shit happens. Ridiculous, contrived, don’t know how the hell FBI agent Erika has means to globe hop. Her travelling companion is the Policey Type’s most wanted Hobbes (not the Calvin tiger, though maybe that’s on his fake passport). BAD: Tyler still has a pulse. Other news: looks like Hobbes now has pole position in the “whom Erika will bang first, now that ex is dead” race.

Summer fluff warms winter nights

Thanks to USA splitting seasons, we get the joys of shirtless Matt Bomer (whom I loved on Traveler) on White Collar and the fun of the Brothers Lawson on Royal Pains.

Matt Bomer, White Collar © 2011 USA

Neal’s (Bomer) bromance with Peter warmed up with him willing to do what he could to rescue Peter. Peter showed why he’s a smart enough agent to catch crooks like Neal. And Neal showed us why the FBI needs someone like him, as bad guy with annoying voice worked them both hard for his jailbreak. White Collar has action, drama, character development that actually advances the plot! More please.

Setting up the finale, HankMed moved to dad’s house having been kicked out of Boris’ guest McMansion. There’s some medical shit but it’s all about characters moving on, up and out. Dad Fonz grows into a real parent, goes to prison rather than taking Boris’ get-out-of-jail free pass; Jill takes temporary off Hamptons job, sure to return for more boinking with Hank; Evan and Girl take off on world-wind trip, leaving Hank to manage slow season on his own; Divya finally breaks it to Raj, their arranged marriage is done. Finally.

Thursday with the CW kids

I love The Vampire Diaries. After the Dinner Party episode of Alaric “holy fucking balls!” Saltzman and Elena “hot fucking ovaries!” Gilbert, I can’t believe the breathless pace this show sustains. Damon continues to evolve, working with Stefan, outsmarting and out-of-his-bed kicking Katherine. Guest stars of color need not plan to stick around on this show, as man-witches Luka and dad are dead. Whatever.

Alaric shows a certain BDA a thing or two, breaking it off with Jenna because he feels like a shitty liar and bad for her, not just himself. And by telling her how he feels but that he can’t come clean; he feels it’s Elena’s secret to spill, which someone must soon as undead Isabel just showed up on their fucking doorstep. Also of note: Caroline sang, awesomely; heroically saved Matt from dying tragically; got dumped for revealing her vampireness, sadly.

Nikita sucks less these days, but still has a ways to go. Alex is running from her own self, the DUH we learn from Amanda’s creepy, drug-induced mind trip. Michael finally puts together some brain cells, figures something is UP with Alex vis a vis Nikita. A little snooping, digging… and he ends up staring down Nikita; she ends up staring down the barrel of a machine gun.

Friday Night Faceoff, X-Files Edition

Smallville has found my last fucking nerve, will get a venomous rant of its very own. Once I find the liquor, the strength.

Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki © 2011 CW

Supernatural was one of my favorite not-so-guilty pleasures until season 5. Not just the pretty, but it had some clever twists, drama, humor. Then they fucked it up, gave it another season, slammed on the breaks and did a 180. Fucktards. “The French Mistake” was a mistake indeed. There is a fine line between making fun of yourself, laughing with your audience vs. cruelly, spitefully mocking them with your boring, pointless META bullshit. Bite me, Supernatural. Oh and you loose so many cool points for name dropping Glee and that reality shit I refuse to name.

Fringe needs your eyeballs, DVR, Hulu clicks and better ratings! Walter showed the guilt for his Peter napping, his limits on cruelty in his childhood experiments. For an episode sans lead couple Anna Torv and Joshua Jackson, this was very Olivia and Peter. I dreaded the fated, destined, fucking soul mates crap and thank god they didn’t make Pacey go there again. One action has a thousand ripples; Olivia’s short cross to the OtherU was what tipped Walternate to where Peter had been taken. Dun dun dun.

Thoughts? Other than I need to watch better TV.

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4 comments

  • My, you sure have a way with words. I adore the way you can turn a phrase.

    I think you’re on to something there, too. I’d call it the “stretchiness” of the plot. When stretched too far, with the reveals too spaced out (another pun), I lose interest. Let’s keep it moving along. Obviously television series can’t be like the movies, but anything stretched too thin isn’t going to be palatable.

    I felt season 1 of Heroes was a little stretchy, but I was able to hang in for the payoff. Season 2, however, quickly lost me. I’m not even curious how it ended.
    Tom B. Taker recently posted..Cloud Ceding

    • Thanks. I do like think I wax clever w/ my snarky bullshit, wish I had more time to write.. rambling comments evidence to the contrary.

      I like “stretchiness” and think the elasiticity of some shows will vary. I mean 24 was ridiculous but I allowed it more stretch, possibly b/c it was so absurd it was hilarious. I don’t rank on most shows for some shit, but when it’s crap that a 5-minute search could solve.. not palatable. IIRC Terminator Sarah Connor got ABO blood typing wrong once which whatever.. except it was a major plot point of the whole damn show. That is fail. Don’t care to nitpick the “science” of Fringe, that’s not really the point .. easy to suspend disbelief. It’s when they screw up characters, that’s when I’ll bitch.

      And YES to MOVING the shit along already; spoiled by the pace of TVD and Fringe, other shows barely keep up. Hell last week I fucking called the Hobbes/Erika hook-up, happened the other night. Not for nothing, I think speed can hide some flaws too. Starting to think short, one-off series may be better. Damages isn’t always good, but at only 13 episodes per.. I can deal. True Blood.. same thing. Hell as much as I love TVD I’d rather it hold quality and this pace for just 1 or 2 more seasons and end with a bang then dick around for 6-7-10 seasons of suckage, stall, sputter and craptastic fail. See also, Smallville.

      I have Heroes S1 DVDs, zero interest in the rest. Yes S1 meandered and stretched but they killed off characters from the opening credits, managed to connect all these random things, brought in Malcolm Frickin’ MacDowell! Plus I the HRG arc w/ Claire .. just got me. The writers’ strike killed S2 which was meh, after that.. just no righting the ship, it was almost a different show. The more new characters they tried to introduce and retcon into some mytharc, more it sucked. Kinda like LOST with the tail plane folks; Ben, Juliet, Des & Penny worked… the rest of the new characters just couldn’t get off my screen fast enough.

  • NOF had a fairly good premise, and yes it felt a lot like a reboot of Heroes. The show has its moments but the soap-opera feel has left me wanting. We sort of lost interest and stopped watching.

    I’ve never seen an episode of the H5O reboot, but I loved the RAOS comment. 🙂 Daniel Dae Kim seems like the man to me. Is he all that and a bag of chips? I hope so. I’d love to see him get a more meaty role in something good.
    Tom B. Taker recently posted..Cloud Ceding

    • I don’t know WHY I am still watching half this crap except I’d be left with Fringe (on the brink of Fail by FOX; see also Firefly, Dollhouse) and Vampire Diaries which damn this will be a long break. Smallville.. it’s a train wreck of fuckery from which I cannot turn away. If SPN announced another season.. I may or may not “watch” will doing laundry, writing blogs, 20 other things. Over it. NOF like so many shows, has something… some potential but it’s going nowhere. SLOWLY. It’s not like I’m that much a TV snob (save reality crap); I watched 2 seasons of Dark Angel for fuck’s sake. Think what’s wrong with NOF .. just a lot of potential but nothing happens. And the secondary characters w/out powers are more interesting. Hmm.. where have I seen that before? V at least has pace, Nikita is picking up speed but both are still mired in shitty plot holes that test the limits of my disbelief suspension system.

      Castle is a decent procedural with some clever writing to boot; even WC and RP are sort of procedurals but they at least manage to entertain me. H50 could not be more predictable, the character stuff is good that they try to add that to the Crime of the Week mix; bad that they ALL need meatier characters, roles. Caan’s is the only one that really connects with me, O’Loughlin’s quest for daddy killer kinda not moving my furniture, DDK has a backstory they’ve barely touched, except that his cousin is a Cylon. 😉 If my roomie didn’t DVR it, I’d have bailed long ago sadly depriving myself of some RAOS but alas DDK isn’t get much shirtless love, just Alex. Sigh.. thanks!

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