Last Week in TV #15

We're back, with a whole bunch of shows. Let's get right to it. 

The Simpsons: Politically Inept, With Homer Simpson

 
This was essentially another "Homer gets a job" episode (and at this point, those episodes are so ubiquitous that I didn't even view the episode in those terms until long after I'd watched it) but his stint as a conservative political TV pundit was really just a vehicle through which the writer delivered one of the most overly-satirical episodes of the season. We got zings at the state of air travel (“You should have thought about that before you drank the fluids you need to live”), politics in general ("I'll just vote for a democrat. The great thing about them is they when they get in office, they act like Republicans anyway") and TV pundits (“Take that, centers of art and commerce!”; also, that Liberal strawman show was 100 kinds of hilarious), from start to finish. Easy targets? Yes, but still funny as hell. Really, the only thing that didn't work was, as has been the case often, the ending, which wrapped things up rather abruptly (and really, all the Ted Nugent stuff in the third and fourth acts seemed a bit random and not as biting as the earlier gags). That said, the whole Homer crying/"feeling things really extremely" bit was nicely setup earlier in the episode, so it wasn't a completely out-of-nowhere resolution.

Last Week in TV #14: Midseason Report

Before diving back into new TV next week (this week's How I Met Your Mother and Top Chef will be covered in next week's post) let's take a quick look at the state of the numerous new shows that debuted this season which I've been watching. 

Pan Am
Despite featuring one of my favorite pilots of the season, after three episodes there wasn't enough narrative urgency to keep this from slipping further down the queue as my TV time got crunched. Now, it seems like a dead show walking, having played out its string but unlikely to get picked up for any additional episodes. I'll finish it out, thanks to the style and characters, but probably not until other, more urgent or intriguing shows, bow for the summer. 

Once Upon a Time
Another strong pilot and one of the show's I most regret falling behind on. Hoping to catch up with it soon. Definitely not perfect, but seeing fairy tale characters re-imagined (both in the flashbacks and the modern day) plus a Lost-ian style ongoing narrative is enough to keep me watching. 

Last Week in TV #6

Happy Halloween, everyone! I watched a ton of Halloween-themed shows yesterday, and am planning on more tonight, so we'll have a nice post-Halloween rundown of those next Monday (it'll be just like the old "Treehouse of Horror" episodes that aired well after Halloween!).

In the meantime, here's thoughts on what I watched last week.

Once Upon a Time: Pilot (series premiere)

I'm pretty much a sucker for anything that takes the archetypal fairy tale characters and casts them in a different light, whether it be the cleaned up animated versions found in classic Disney films or the more thrilling, exciting and adult stories that unfold in the pages of Fables (one of my favorite comic books). So I was pretty psyched to see two "fairy tale characters in the modern world" TV shows set to debut this fall (thus making the odds better that at least one will be watchable and will stick around). Once Upon a Time was the first of the shows to launch (we'll discuss Grimm in next week's post), and it was pretty good, at least at first glance.

Last Week in TV #5

Thoughts on what I watched last week (I did watch the first episode of Once Upon A Time, but I'll save that for next week's post).

The Walking Dead: What Lies Ahead (season premiere)

Well, that was quite an ending...

Last Week in TV #3

Still getting caught up, but lots to cover. 

How I Met Your Mother: The Stinson Missile Crisis

We return to the Robin/Barney/Nora triangle, but while I was mildly amused by the metatextual commentary on the show's format afforded by having the story unfold via Robin's discussion with Kal Penn's psychiatrist, I preferred the B story that found Ted struggling to fit himself onto "Team Baby" with Lily and Marshall. Oddly enough, given that damn near every sitcom to ever feature a pregnant character has done this kind of scene, my favorite part of the episode was Ted and Marshall in the birthing class together. And of course, the recurring gag of poor, sad Ted insisting famous duos were actually trios was classic stuff (my favorites were, not surprisingly, "Batman, Robin and Alfred", as well as "Romeo, Juliet and the Apothecary").

Last Week in TV #2

Well, real life intruded on TV much earlier in the season than I was expecting, which is why lots of stuff is missing this week (no Glee, Person of Interest, or Terra Nova yet; next week, hopefully). Anyways, here's what I got.

The Simpsons: Bart Stops to Smell the Roosevelts
Maybe it's just because I'm a history nerd, but I really liked this episode (Teddy Roosevelt is a pretty cool historical figure). Surprisingly, given the longevity of the show at this point, they've never really done a Superintendent Chalmers episode, and even more surprisingly, it was a relatively down-to-earth story, with Chalmers' old fashioned, boys-will-be-boys, rugged hands on approach reaching the more troublesome kids. Well, down-to-earth until Bart and the bullies overtook the school and held it hostage, but that was more a result of the random last act bizarreness from which the show seems unable to escape since the switch to the four act structure. Still, this late in the game, it's nice to see that The Simpsons is still capable of churning out a solid, thoroughly enjoyable episode now and then.