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Monday, April 18, 2011

Last Week in TV #30

Another short one, but I should be back to my regular long-winded ramblings next post, as I'm home and should have plenty of TV watching time. 

American Dad: Jenny Fromdabloc
Good stuff. Steve/Roger pairings are always enjoyable (Wheels and the Legman is one of my favorite things, ever) and I love it when Roger gets into his characters a bit too much. The Stan/Francine plot was amusing if slight (the cutaway to Stan racing down the street in his underwear after one martini was pretty hilarious), but the episode realized its strength was in the Steve/Roger plot and wisely didn't crowd it.

The "Hardcore B.F. Weekend" T-Shirts were awesome.

Steve: You get to go to Forever 21.
Roger: Eeeee! Cigarette jeans!

Snot: We stayed up all night, talking about our hopes and dreams. And then I f***ed her!

Jeff: I'm sorry our horse-for-two costume freaked him out, Mrs. S.
Francine: Just bad timing Jeff
Jeff: It's a sex thing.
Francine: I know Jeff.


Family Guy: Brothers and Sisters
The first (and last) time we saw Lois' sister, wasn't she having a baby? This episode got the "divorced" part right, but kinda forgot about that. Also, where was Peter's excitement over having a sibling when the family learned about Lois' insane brother? Or for any of Carol's other ex-husbands?

Am I quibbling about continuity on Family Guy? Yeah, well, it was a fairly routine episode (by which I mean, there was plenty of funny, but the main plot was nothing remarkable) and that's what happens.

Stewie: Only circles can fit through that rectangular doorway!

Narrator: The preceding joke was brought to you by men. Men! We don't know what we did!

Peter: Let's go butts up and fast! (Kid-Peter is always good for some laughs).

Peter: Life is full of big decisions. Like deciding if you're gonna have time to masturbate.
Lois: Peter, I'm gonna go pick up Stewie. I'll be back in five or 10 minutes.
Peter: Well, which is it?
 
Lois: I promise you made the right decision. Just give yourself some time, and I'm sure you'll feel much better about it.
Stewie: She says that to Meg a lot, so that's not good.

Peter: I drink and you use sex as a weapon. That seems to me a successful New England marriage. 


The Cleveland Show: Back to Cool
Cleveland Show is generally a mediocre-to-awful show I largely watch out of habit born of its proximity to a bunch of other shows I watch, but tonight's episode was worth mentioning for two things. The first: the presence of Lando Calrissian as a judge of the Coolympics. The second: after Donna's ex-husband called getting alimony the second best job he's ever had, the cutaway to a scientist saying, "in this experiment, we will be testing the effects of massive amounts of high-quality marijuana on a man's ability to play video games while having sex."


Saturday Night Live: Helen Mirren & Foo Fighters
If all the sketches involving Elton John last week were about Elton John being gay, British, or both, this week all of the sketches featuring Helen Mirren were about how she's more crass and randy than her prim and proper image. Guaranteed, if there was a setup for some kind of crude character, Helen Mirren would be playing it. Hugh Jackman's talk show about actors who are in action movies and musicals? Here comes Helen Mirren-as-Julie Andrews to impale a production assistant for putting the wrong milk in her tea. A sketch about strippers? Here comes Helen Mirren as the most over-the-top of them all. And so on.

So in the end, we got another episode that was enjoyable enough without having a real standout sketch (or two), which seems to be the rut SNL has been in lately.

Favorite Sketch: Tough to say, with several sketches having some good bits without standing out. I loved the Helena Bonham Carter/Tim Burton impressions during the Mort Feingold sketch, and "The Roosevelts" sketch was a pretty good knock on The Kennedys (especially the cutaways to the on-set historian). But in the end, I think my favorite sketch was the "Under Underground Records: Crunk-Ass Easter Festival" commerical, a recurring bit I always enjoy but which is usually overshadowed by other stuff (loved the "live sex show with the green M&M" and the line "These bands would give Jesus nightmares". 

8 comments:

  1. what- no Top Chef Reunion yet?
    We haven't watched Family Guy or American Dad yet- and won't be watching them tonight either (per our usual routine) because we get to watch Game of Thrones instead!
    EEEEEEEEEEEEEEH can't wait!

    so i guess what i'm saying is watch for my real comment sometime later this week

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  2. @Anne: what- no Top Chef Reunion yet?

    Not yet. This week.

    because we get to watch Game of Thrones instead!

    Are you getting HBO, or are you watching it via more...illicit means?

    ReplyDelete
  3. oh, we already have HBO (legally)- how else would we keep up on True Blood?!

    ReplyDelete
  4. OK so we watched FG and AD.
    I, too, get bothered by FG continuity. I mentioned Carol's baby during the episode. ALSO, this was a realization that came to me last week when watching a FG rerun - Jesus and death are reoccuring, real people in the FG world, and yet, Brian is still an atheist. For someone who's an athiest based on logic, how does he explain jesus?
    Anyway, i LOVED when Peter and West were bike-riding. So hilarious

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  5. @Sarah: For someone who's an athiest based on logic, how does he explain jesus?

    Yeah, it is kind of hard to not believe in Jesus when your best friend was part of his entourage for awhile.

    Anyway, i LOVED when Peter and West were bike-riding. So hilarious

    I also liked their fighting over the rules of a game they just made up.

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  6. Adam West just cracks me up- him and Peter palling around was great. i liked when West fell off his bike.
    Pat laughed for like 5 minutes on the hardcore BF tshirts
    Roger moving really fast was funny, but then it just made me think of all the times he could've used that ability in the past (such as any time he needed to run away from someone- like the government). Also, like Sarah said, how'd he sell Steve's underwear to that guy- the guy wasn't moving super fast.
    Still, funny

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  7. @Anne: Roger moving really fast was funny, but then it just made me think of all the times he could've used that ability in the past

    Yeah, I think we have to chalk that up to being useful for a one-off gag. I doubt we'll ever see him move that fast again.

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