The Week That Was 25/10/08

Category: By Rev/Views

Life:
I'm really sorry to do this, I am. But Life is being bumped down into the week that was feature instead of getting it's own episode review because I'm tired with the lack of consistency. After last week's brilliant Standford Prison Experiment episode this week's was pretty average, and while average for some shows is still miles above the rest Life is not one of those shows. The problem is, I like the show, but this is not Life as I know it. If they'd just pull things together and get back to the great and compelling moments of the latter part of the first season then things would be forgiven. But it's had too many duffers so far with only two episodes that were good.

Dexter:
Likewise Dexter has been bumped down to here, in part because my personal schedule is utterly overwhelmed with other things and something had to give. And in part because this season hasn't been very inspiring compared to the previous two seasons. Last Sunday's episode wasn't bad, but it also wasn't really good either. It seems the show is a little rudderless right now having shot it's bolt in the previous seasons with the loss of two really good antagonists (B & D).

Family Guy:
"Das Poop!"
I never like the "Road to _____" series it's a set of stories that Seth and Co seem very fond of but I find to be rather boring overall. Fortunately this one is pretty good, the Little Shop of Horrors skit was great, as was the Back to the Future skateboard scene, the Top Gun references, the awesome Flash Gordon moment with Brian Blessed and the Indiana Jones snow raft moment. It was all very silly and a lot of fun.

American Dad:
In contrast, American Dad was. Eh, not so interesting. Stan's juggling work and home life again, which is a little... meh considering the potential subject matter. You have to wonder how a show about a fat overweight American can result in an epic romp around wartime Germany while it's sister show about a powerful CIA man instead spends it's time rowing back and forth across a lake to a fat girl. Below average for the show, nothing really that funny contained within it.

Heroes:
Utterly stupid, utterly fun. But it was a real shame they decided to kill off Adam Monroe, he was one of the better characters in the show and definitely the best thing that happened last season (that wasn't retconned this season). At least they've finally neutered stupid Peter, man I'm tired of his special blend of poor acting and plain stupidity of character. Sadly it seems the writers have decided to infect almost every other character in the show with an lowered intelligence. But as long as it remains fun, I'll watch this season.

Also how did I miss the Hare & the Tortoise reference with regards to Parkman and Daphne?

How I Met Your Mother:
After a brilliantly leaked fake out set of pictures last week the crew at HIMYM had a lot of people thinking that we were going to see a happy ending. But as the episode unfolds, no. It was a great little episode with some fantastic moments, more sentimental than funny mind you.
But, I'm thinking the show has just one or two more seasons in it after this one through, it shouldn't be dragged out.

Boston Legal:
"Have you no shame what so ever?"
"None!"
We have a solid episode of Boston Legal this week, to be honest there's nothing we haven't seen before. But there are slight inklings of how the show is going to end creeping in here. Denny and Alan's antics have consequences at long last, the firms reputation is suffering and Shirley is less than impressed with them both. There was plenty for everyone to do, except Carl and Katie who were somewhat sidelined, it does seem that David struggles to write for an ensemble style show. His next project should try focusing on only a couple of core characters and then have reoccuring guest stars that fit the situation when needed. Funnily enough this might be what his next project is...

Did I mention how much I love Tara Summers as Katie? Yes? Did I mention it this week? Well I have now.

The Shield:
This episode was the best thing that has been on TV since the fall season started, more here.

The Office:
I'm really, really enjoying seeing Michael and Holly together. The stuff he says is so cringe-worthy that you think it's all going to blow up but then Holly talks and you realise that they're very much in sync. The auction was also good, with some great moments but I think my favourite moments was the lot "leave now and have a drink with us" and the moment when Dwight realised that his cruelty towards Phyllis was unwarranted and he attempted to make up for it by bidding heavily on a hug with her - each time passing the previous bid by a penny. The other great moment was Jim meeting up with Roy again and nearly developing the same level of possessiveness and paranoia as he had by rushing off to New York to see Pam without warning. But instead of causing some scene he comes to his senses and turns back.

My Name is Earl:
Another episode with Earl attempting to make amends with Randy, this time by getting him a car for his birthday, except it gets stolen and Earl is forced to talk to the police instead of just getting drunk and inflicting violence and property damage onto the culprits (as he did before he got his list). Pretty standard fare for the show, it does feel like it's in a bit of a rut right now. Very formulaic.

Supernatural:
While this week's episode couldn't hold a candle to last week's utterly amazing black and white B Movie monster homage this week did have some pretty superb moments. With Dean acting up after being infected with a 'ghost sickness' - the actual threat of some ghostly illness was pretty laughable. But the episode itself was great, Dean was acting up like a prize coward and you could see that Jensen Ackles was relishing the chance to break character. The episode also packed a couple of strong moments when Dean's fears about Sam resulted in a hallucination where Sam displayed the powers of old yellow eyes. But the real sting was right at the end, where a now cured Dean saw a flash of yellow in Sam's eyes. Sam has vowed off using his powers, but that's not a good sign.

Also, the scene after the credits was amazing and hilarious at the same time, you don't even need to watch the show to enjoy this one so here it is:



On the DVD front I gave up attempting to recover my Green Wing DVDs and picked up the complete collection instead (review coming soon), the phone call to my father was interesting. I started off asking about my DVDs and he flat denied having them, claiming he'd returned them to me a while back. Seeing how I keep my DVDs in order and always have them on the shelf if I'm not watching them, I know he was mistaken. But he was pretty pleased when I told him he could keep them. If I didn't know better, I'd suspect he was trying to borrow them indefinitely anyway.

I also picked up the 15 disc "Almost everything ever in one gloriously fabulous ludicrously definitive outrageously luxurious Monty Python boxset" and the first two series of Rob Brydon's "Marion & Geoff"

 

4 comments so far.

  1. Aaron 25 October 2008 at 13:20
    Are there any extras on the Python boxset? I own the individual seasons already and was wondering if the boxset was vanilla like they were.
  2. Rev/Views 25 October 2008 at 14:14
    The three big films have a complete disc of extras each, but the individual series, "And Now For Something Completely Different" and "Monty Python Live at Hollywood Bowl" are plain vanilla single disc and are identical to the seperate releases. (Except they take up less space).
  3. Rob Buckley 26 October 2008 at 10:24
    I thought this week's Life was excellent - much better than last week's in fact, but hey ho.

    As for Heroes, this week's was great, purely for Zachary and Milo's trying to 'out-pec' each other in one scene; otherwise it was actually a bit dull and there was far too little Ali Larter for my liking. And I missed the hare and the tortoise reference, too, primarily because they've been calling it a turtle the whole way through. My wife spotted it in an instant though. She's smart.

    Still loving Dexter - it's like The Wire in that you have to be in it for the long haul rather than per episode.

    Supernatural this week was fun, but I'm still missing the angels and it's going to be hard for any show to top last week's, simply because of Dean's 'rehymenation' gag last week.
  4. Rev/Views 26 October 2008 at 11:52
    I think you're right about Dexter, but I'm very pressed for time right now so I really can't do it justice. Life, I don't know. I prefered the Stanford one and 'The Business of Miracles' a lot more. I'll probably bounce back and review both episodes in retrospect at some point.

    tbh, if I had the time I'd still carry on writing about both of them in full. But with The Shield, The Wire and Stephen Fry in America already getting full reviews something had to give.

    I completely forgot about that rehymation gag from last week's Supernatural. I did a spit take when he said it at the time, Jensen is great at comedy.

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