19 Dec 2004
I'm pretty much an SNL apologist. Most people gave up on them pre-Will Ferrell. Even more gave up on them when he left.
Not me. I TiVo it every week. I sit through every minute. And, up until this year, I generally would find 2 or 3 sketches that would make me laugh, and then there was the ever reliable Weekend Update to round out the night.
But not this season. Damn, it's been awful. Last night's episode had to be rock bottom. Outside of the Roomba parody, a few moments of the "Pranksters" sketch, and one single moment in the Robert Smigel bit (when he referred to the Red states as "Dumbfuckistan"), it was excruciatingly bad.
Part of that can be attributed to Robert DeNiro, who was god awful the last time he was asked to host. But most of it is the writing, since it has been pretty uniformly awful this season. Last night they had a sketch that was Rober DeNiro dressed as an old lady with cats.
That's it. No punchline. Someone thought it would be funny enough to dress DeNiro up as an old woman and make him a cat lady and broadcast it on TV for 2 minutes.
I think that's been my major issue with SNL this year. I love the over the top comedy, the sketches that are these surreal situations that are inherently bizarre and funny. But they have to lead to a punchline. There has to be a joke. Otherwise it stops being funny after a minute or so.
Think back to the Celebrity Jeopardy stuff. Just weird and funny, but they always had punchlines.
Then watch last night's show. There's a funny premise with Horatio Sanz going undercover as a super over the top Italian criminal. It was somewhat funny. Then the punch line was that he was going to infiltrate an Asian crime ring as Hong Kong Phooey.
Hong Kong Phooey? That's the best punchline you could come up with?
Compare that with the stuff on Chappelle's Show like the racial draft. The whole premise is insanely funny, and you get a billion and one jokes including the whole Wu Tang appearance.
Now, I'm not a comedy writer, and I don't think I could be because I'm not that funny. And I know how much harder it is to do SNL than Chappelle's Show. But that's not an excuse for not being funny.
Anyway, my guess is there's a shelf life on being the head writer at SNL. Tina Fey had a really good run, but it might be time for some new blood at the top. I think they've got lots of talented performers (including the criminally underused Maya Rudolph and Darrell Hammond). There's no reason the show can't be funny again.
The final skit last night was at least redeemable - it had Horatio Sanz come out to do the Christmas song he used to do with Jimmy Fallon, Tracy Morgan, and Chris Kattan, who've all since left the show. It's a silly skit they did around every holiday, but it worked for me. Last night, the Muppets (well, Fozzie, Kermit, Gonzo, and Animal) joined Horatio, doing the mannerisms and everything.
It made me think - right now, I think I'd rather see new episodes of the Muppet Show than more episodes of SNL. Same hosts, same musical guests, but using the Muppets rather than the normal SNL folks. I bet it would work.
13 Dec 2004
If you're not watching The Wire, then you have no right to own a television.
Damn. I don't think that, in my lifetime, there has been a show as amazingly good as this one has been for the past 3 seasons.
Buffy will always be number one in my heart, but The Wire simply does stuff that no other show would dare do, and it does everything better than everybody else.
It's not even hyperbole. I dare you to rent the 1st season on DVD (Netflix it!). Watch the whole thing - it's only 12 episodes, so it'll take you like a weekend. Just watch it, pay attention to the characters and stories. If you're not completely blown away by say, episode 8 or 9, I will give you a cookie and apologize for wasting your time.
Then I'll punch you in the face for being stupid. If you don't get this show, you can't be my friend.
06 Dec 2004
I'm a big fan of Scrubs. I've considered it the top sitcom on TV pretty much since it came on the air. Consistently inventive and funny and makes me laugh hard every week.
Arrested Development may have passed Scrubs last night. Any show willing to make a bunch of homages to the Peanuts animated shows scores major points with me.
This is what cracked me up last night:
<cue the Charlie Brown Christmas Special sad music>
That may be the funniest sight gag since Bender shit a brick on Futurama.
05 Dec 2004
I had a mini-riot at Casa De Ryan this afternoon.
VT 16 - Miami 10
04 Dec 2004
My Virginia Tech Hokies take on the Miami Hurricanes for the ACC Championship in just about 2 hours. This was a year when no one expected the Hokies to be successful. They lost "phenom" Marcus Vick before the season, they were entering a new conference that was supposed to be tougher than the Big East that they'd run roughshod over for the better part of 7 years, and they do not have a single recognizable player on the team.
What have they done?
-Played #1 USC tough until a couple of bad calls drastically changed the tenor of the game,
-Missed a last second field goal against NC State that would have won the game,
-Won every other game.
Last week they picked apart a pretty good Virginia squad to reclaim the Commonwealth Cup, bringing it back to Blacksburg where it belongs. This week, they're down in Miami to take on a team that has become a rival of ours over the past decade.
It should be a fun game. This Miami team is a team prone to make mistakes, but they're super talented. This Hokie squad is a team that plays generally mistake free football, behind a solid, if unspectacular offense, and an extremely tough defense. The Hokies feed off of mistakes.
Basically, it's old-school Miami football vs. old-school Virginia Tech football. Beamerball, at its best.
A Hokie victory means a top 10 ranking, full claim to the ACC Championship in our first year in the league, and a spot in a BCS bowl game, likely the Orange Bowl against Auburn or Utah.
It should be a fun afternoon. I fully expect to hold a little riot in my living room when we win. Maybe I'll set a couch on fire.
03 Dec 2004
I'm sad. I'm a sucker for a good serialized drama. My favorite show of all time is Buffy, followed closely by Angel and the short run of Firefly. I love The Wire and Deadwood and The Shield and Alias.
There's just something about the character development, the season long arcs, the continuity that allows you to come back to a serial and feel like you're picking up a book -- you know all the characters, you understand their motivations, you feel for them in a way that you don't with a sitcom (well, with most sitcoms).
Now we're about halfway into the new season, and there are two absolute standout new shows this year, and a third show that I wouldn't have expected to be as good as it has been. It's only fair that I share these shows with you, my adoring audience.
Lost
Was it that obvious? Everyone loves this show, even people who normally watch shite like Who Wants to Fornicate with Goat? and My New Mommy Likes Satan (both real Fox shows). I think it's the cavalcade of familiar faces (hey, it's the guy from Party of Five ... and he's on the island with Augustus from Oz. And oh my god, it's Kendall from Alias .... he's got to be up to no good). It makes the show more accessible and palatable to those who's attention spans usually limit them to watching the multitude of crappy sitcoms on TV (ooh, honey, look it's that bald guy from the show with that Seinfeld guy .. and he's grumpy!).
Then, you add a nice dose of Evangeline Lilly, and boom, you've got yourself a hit.
For me, it's the writing. I love shows that walk that line between drama and humor, never afraid to poke fun at themselves, while never doing a disservice to the characters. It's what helps to uphold my suspension of disbelief when there's giant monsters or vampires -- as long as it serves the show. Lost has done that well. The normal story construct (based around telling the backstory of a particular survivor) helps to balance the limited action on the island by revealing bits and pieces of each character. It's just a fun, interesting, and engaging show.
Veronica Mars
What, you were expecting Desperate Housewives? Housewives is good, but it's not nearly as good as VM. Starring Kristen Bell as the titular charcter (heh .. titular), it's like crossing Buffy with Nancy Drew. It's funny, it's got pop culture references out the wazoo, and it's got the weekly "daaaammmmnnn" plot twist to make you look at everything else you've learned about the characters in a new light.
Really, it's good. Watch it. There's the occasional groaner line or moment when you wonder what kind of high school gives it's students the freedom the students at Neptune High get. (It must be California high schools -- the only other schools I can think of that gives its students this kind of latitude are West Bevery and Bayside.) But for 42 minutes a week, you get something that feels like an episode of Buffy. And in today's television landscape, that's well worth the investment.
American Dreams
Yep. That cloying, trite show about the 60s done grown up and become a damn good show. It's possible that it's just the current story arc about the eldest son in Vietnam that's been so engaging, but I don't think so. I tried to watch this show during the initial season because I love period shows and shows that mix in music and it looked good. It was just so saccharine and preachy that it felt like a slightly less annoying 7th Heaven without anyone nearly as hot as Jessica Biel.
Plus, it was on opposite The Simpsons. So there wasn't a chance in hell I'd see it unless Homer and Bart's escapades were previously aired.
But, I started watching it when The Simpsons was a rerun (during AD's second season) ... and it grew on me. I could tell it wanted to be more than just a fluff show. And then they had some brutally honest shows towards the end of the second season and I was hooked. The timeline had hit Vietnam and riots and situations that couldn't get wrapped up with a knowing glance and laugh between two characters.
This season has been consistently good, and the last couple of episodes have given me any number of goosebump moments. The show's a button pusher; there's no doubt about that. But it pushes the right buttons, and it pushes them at the right time.
Now, obviously, there's other great dramas this year.
The Wire has been phenomenal for the third straight season, at a level of greatness Tony Soprano only wishes he could touch. My two favorite Lorelai's in Stars Hollow have regained their footing after an uneven freshman year at Yale. The denizens of the Bartlett White House have also rebounded strong in their second post-Sorkin year to move back to the list of shows that legitimately should be considered for an Emmy (unlike last year's travesty). The aforementioned
Desperate Hosebea ... Housewives has been guilty fun.
But the above three shows have been surprises, and aside from Lost, have quite possibly been overlooked in your rush to make sure you see this week's very special One Tree Hill.
03 Dec 2004
Alright, so I'm sort of giving myself a little bit of a reboot here. I got angry at Blogger for losing a couple of big posts, then real life and all that intervened, and I let this place grow stale.
So I'm rebooting. I'm going to be making some layout changes -- I've added some recent pics I've taken with my camera phone on the right. I'm going to try and figure out how to work in something with my Netflix queue.
And I've finally put up a feed, though it's Atom and there's no little badge. RSS and badges will come when I get a little bit of time.
I've found myself sort of reinvigorated lately, posting a ton of thoughts online with regards to the Celtics and Sox. I'm going to try and channel some of that over here. Content is king and all that.
I'm back, bitches.
08 Sep 2004
Blogger sucks ass recently. It just lost a giant post. I'll type it again at some point.
In the meantime, Scrubs is on.
08 Sep 2004
11) The O.C.
Half-trainwreck, half-comedy, The O.C. has nobly filled the void left by 90210. It's got a couple of very funny characters ably handled by talented performers (Adam Brody and Peter Gallagher). It's got the breakout hot chick who was supposed to be the friend of the hot chick (Rachel Bilson). It has a smattering of other quality folks.
And interspersed are a bunch of just atrocious, unbelievably bad, "Scott who shoots himself on 90210" level bad. Mischa Barton is plain awful, and really not all that attractive. The main guy is Steve Sanders-esque in his ability to be in his late 20s and act like a high schooler.
Yet it works. It works because the writers know who's got talent and who doesn't, and they use that to poke fun at themselves. The characters are moderately self-aware, leading to fun meta-jokes and pop culture references.
It's also been on opposite any number of better shows - Angel, The West Wing, Friends, and possibly Joey this year. If Joey sucks, I'll get to see a lot more of Orange County this year, since I refuse to watch the loathesome Will and Grace. But that's for another time.
10) The Shield
Who would have thought that TV's Commish and Daddio could make such a compelling bad guy? I have to admit that I didn't watch the show initially because of the positively annoying ads that FX would run over reruns of Buffy. But, thanks to Netflix and TiVo, I was able to catch up on the entire show.
It's flat out phenomenal. Yes, it does occasionally go a little overboard, but so has every great drama (Buffy, Homicide, etc.). Fundamentally, The Shield is just a tremendously well-written show. Each character has had a chance to develop into a full, lifelike character, to the point where you can absolutely understand each reaction.
And each season, the writers have ended the season on a truly stunning note, leaving you begging for the next season to arrive. Then they go off and spend 9 months plotting it. Assholes.
9) Las Vegas
It's really not a good show. Las Vegas just happens to be on at a time nothing else is really on (Monday Night Football being the exception during a portion of the year) and has tons of attractive women. And it is in hi-def.
8) Law and Orders: Special Victims Unit
The only Dick Wolf show on my list. The other L&O shows are still good but SVU seems to be the only one that doesn't always follow the pattern of "establish obvious criminal, introduce shocking twist, catch bad guy." Plus, SVU has Ice-T and Richard Belzer as partners.
7) Saturday Night Live
SNL is still often funny, but is in need of a shakeup. There seems to be a shelf-life of about 3 or 4 seasons for head writers before they become stagnant. I think Tina Fey (whom I adore) probably needs to give the reigns to someone else for a bit.
Still, with Darrell Hammond, Maya Rudolph, Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers, and Rachel Dratch, the cast is talented enough to get by. I'd argue there's still at least 1 really funny sketch per show, which is enough for me to still pay attention.
6) Arrested Development
Anything with David Cross is worth watching. This show has been getting hyped all summer long. If you haven't watched it by now, I'm not going to convince you. Just watch it.
Next time, into the top 5. Two of the top 5 shows are amongst the best new shows of the past 5 years. One of the shows looked to be dead a couple of seasons back before making a huge comeback. The other two were shells of their former selves last year, but still have the pedigree for me to watch every week.
God, I'm a dork.
05 Sep 2004
17) Deadwood
HBO's fact-based western about life in Deadwood before the land became part of the United States was probably one of the 3 best shows on TV last season. The second best show on television, Angel, doesn't show up in my season passes since it's been cancelled by the reprehensible WB network. The best show on TV is next on my list.
Deadwood, quite simply, was a phenomenal story told with great actors and great writing. It's a testament to how amazing the medium of television can be when intelligent people are given resources and let loose by a network willing to support them. Deadwood contained numerous arcs, each character, however minor, growing and changing over the course of the season. Just one example: the man who starts out the season as "the bad guy" -- Al Swearengen -- ends up showing more compassion than nearly all of the heroes, without changing his language or his behavior. The subtle transformation of the character (all through body language and tone) was stunning. The fact that Ian McShane was not nominated for a Best Actor Emmy is an absolute travesty.
And that was just one of the great things about the show.
A bunch of people had a problem with the language in the show, with its gratuitous use of "cocksucker" and other colorful, often era-based language. Those people are dumb. The language in the show was far more innocuous than you'd see in the criminally overrated Sopranos, but people can't be troubled to actually, you know, pay attention.
16) The Wire
The Wire. Wow. What can I say? Without a doubt, the first two seasons of the show made it the best show on TV two years running. While often slowly paced, each episode builds layers upon layers into the story. Each character, regardless of what side of the law they are on, is multi-faceted and allows you the ability to understand why they act as they do and how they end up in the situations they are in.
No other show could make you really feel for a dead drug dealer. Or really enjoy a character like Brother Mouzone, who is a glorified hitman, but you understand him.
No other show would allow two cops to work a crime scene - for nearly four or five minutes of television time, using only variants of the word "fuck." And no other show could make it so utterly compelling.
If you haven't watched The Wire, you need to start from episode 1. Catch it on On Demand. Catch it when HBO replays it. Buy the DVD set when it comes out. You won't regret it. The only reason the show is at #16 on my season passes is that it replays enough that I can catch it in a later timeslot, allowing me to see other shows on Sundays at 9. It's the best show on TV. There's no argument.
15) The Jury
I won't spend much time here. I liked Homicide: Life on the Streets. I liked Oz. This is a show by the folks behind those shows. It was ok, but not great. The dialogue was all incredibly stilted because of its need to be expository. Since the viewer sees the show through the eyes of the jury after they've already heard the case, every relevent detail needs to be spelled out. That just couldn't be done with natual language.
It's already been cancelled. I need to dump it from my list.
14) The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Consistently funny.
Consistently biting.
Consistently better reporting than the actual news reporters out there.
That's a pretty bad indictment of the state of the news media today. But a ringing endorsement of the intelligence Jon Stewart (and Stephen Colbert and the rest of the team) bring to their jobs as the fake news leaders.
For instance, check out:
George W. Bush: Words Speak Louder than Actions
Robert Novak: Douchebag of Liberty
Rep. Henry Bonilla: Watch as Jon Stewart Catches Me Following Talking Points And Lying Through My Teeth In One Of The Funniest Moments Ever Recorded On TV
13) American Dreams
From what I've seen, it's a pretty show. Unfortunately, I only see like 4 or 5 episodes a season since it's on opposite The Simpsons. Then again, I dig period dramas (see Deadwood). Plus, any show that would give a job to an adult Joey .. Joseph Lawrence is cool with me.
12) Tru Calling
I heart Eliza Dushku.
I'll wrap it up there. Next time, we'll dig into the bottom of the top 10 including the new version of 90210, the new version of The Commish, and the only Dick Wolf show in my season passes.
