The usual sitcom suspects are all present, Dexter was planned for watching this weekend but was bumped due to real life commitments. From what I've heard I'm definitely interested in catching up, I have some holiday time I need to spend before the end of the year, so I'll probably use that for doing so.

It's also been hard to get excited about Dexter because I'm watching and writing about the third season of The Wire for the third part of my Watching the Wire feature - it's my favourite season and as great as Dexter is, it does struggle when I'm watching at the same time as The Wire. I know I shouldn't compare them, but it does happen and Dexter always comes off unfavourably - which spoils my enjoyment of Dexter. I know this time last year I was watching the final season of The Shield and Dexter was positively awful in comparison. I know it was a weak season for Dexter, and comparing it to the strongest season of The Shield (and The Shield's swan song) is completely unfair. But it happened, and as such I'm trying to avoid that happening with the fourth season.

Community:
"Introduction to Statistics"

The episode was so great that it made it into my favourite Halloween episode list on Saturday. I shan't repeat myself too much here - I think it's enough to say that Community presses all my buttons comedy-wise. A great cast with fantastic stories and jokes. That is all.

The Office:
"Koi Pond"

For a show which has managed such amazing Halloween episodes in the past The Office didn't really try this year. It gave us a Halloween themed cold opening and then moved onto the main story, I guess the writers didn't really have much they wanted to involve Halloween in this year and as such they only included the opening skit to make it a Halloween episode.

For once I did think that everyone overreacted a little too far to Michael's costume of a hanged man, Halloween should be about scaring kids - within safe boundaries which do not put them in physical danger. I do think children are a little too protected these days and a good scare is not a bad thing for them. (Talking about suicide is a different matter though, even in the context of "it's wrong".) I'll tell you one thing, I'm glad that the present Michael had hanging over his crotch was not where the children were supposed to collect their candy from. Aborted joke maybe?

The rest of the episode was reasonable fair, I didn't really enjoy Pam and Andy out on sales calls, it felt exceptionally forced and unpleasant. Andy's a great character, but at times the writers take him a little too far along the scale and place him in overly creepy land. Considering what's happened to him it's not surprising he reacted the way he did, but ugh. It was not pleasant to watch.

On the other hand Michael falling into the Koi pond was pleasant to watch, as was the revelation about Jim's reaction at the time. This co-manager thing is really working well for The Office, I wasn't sure it would - but it's great.

Last of all, I did like the final pay off from the Pam/Andy storyline with Pam talking to Erin about Andy. Erin's just a lovely breath of fresh air in the show, she's nice, lovely and doesn't do the unpleasant things everyone else seems to get involved in. I could tolerate an Andy/Erin matching, but I'm pretty sure Andy would botch things in his usual indomitable fashion.

Curb Your Enthusiasm:
"The Bare Midriff"

An odd one for Curb, it travelled off into toilet humor - something I don't normally associate the show with. I'm not sure why to be honest, the shows first ever episode is titled "The Pant Tent" and is about erections. But I think it's the utterly slapstick way Larry's peeing is depicted, the amount of splash and the volume of the stream is ridiculous.

Still, the episode was frankly fantastic - if exceptionally Seinfeld in it's feel. Larry is falling into the role of George when Jerry's around on screen, this is not surprising as George is based on Larry, but it is giving the show a different feel. You could probably swap out the Curb theme and put in the Seinfeld music stings instead and you'd have an episode of Seinfeld. This, of course, is not a complaint - it's an observation.

30 Rock
"Stone Mountain"

An episode with some good moments, but on the whole it was pretty mediocre. As observed over at Cultural Learnings (a site I recommend you consider adding to your reading list) 30 Rock is very uneven in quality when you're dealing with their holiday specials. This one was not great.

The better moments included a few throwaway gags like Jack McBrayer appearing in the background as a "Female Kenneth" and a "Mustachioed Kenneth" and the always entertaining Tracy Jordan method of just setting him off in a direction riven with paranoia. But it didn't grip me too hard, Halloween felt like a barely present event. Now you don't have to do a Halloween featured episode in every sitcom, that's not a law
(though maybe it should be), but if you do include it either embrace the event or have a short segment on it and then move on. Don't have it sitting about like an elephant in the room all episode without handling it correctly.

30 Rock seems to have slipped a little in it's standard this year. But it's early days, so I'm hoping it'll pick up again.


In other news How I Met Your Mother wasn't on this week (so no return of the Slutty Pumpkin, which is something I hope for every year), and on the DVD front I've just been enjoying my way through the first three seasons of Futurama. Sons of Anarchy and Breaking Bad are still 'to be watched' and 'Parks and Recreation' has made it's way onto my to be watched list as light entertainment.

I was going to pick up the fourth season of Bones, but it was completely sold out everywhere I looked for it, there were piles and piles of Tru Blood and Lost season 5s around, but absolutely no Bones Season 4. I found this amusing for some reason.
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A while back I put up a three parter about my favourite opening sequences (the first part of which can be found here and it will link to parts two and three). Today - inspired by a day spend playing TV Themes on guitar for no reason other than it was raining I'm going to write about my favourite TV Show themes, while there might be some crossover between the two lists it's more about the music rather than the entire combined credits this time.

They're in alphabetical order by show names rather than order of preference:


Oh come on, seriously - are you even surprised? It's fun, it's iconic, and it even gets people going nuts when it's played in a club. And while you can't dance to the original version you certainly can dance to the Guy Pratt remix as featured on Spaced - there's a full length version of it here, annoyingly Channel 4 haven't released the excellent video of Mike dancing - which is what I originally wanted to put up here. Gits.


Surprise! At least I hope this inclusion is a little bit of a surprise - I love the closing theme to Blackadder II, the entire series has great music but it's the closing ditty for each episode in the second series which seals the deal.


The full version of the song from the most excellent (and difficult to find) Crystal Method is here it's a kind of crappy video but the music quality is good.


It's a great little tune which almost sounds purpose made for the series with it's funky spy like guitar riff but in truth it's a boiled down version of Cake's Short Skirt/Long Jacket. This is the theme which inspired the list and it's an excellent choice for the show, fitting pretty much perfectly into place.

The full music video can be seen here. I think I actually prefer the stripped down Chuck Theme.


Another one which I'm sure won't the least bit surprising to see on here. It was pretty much the TV show theme for a while. But I don't think The Rembrants produced a single other song of consequence apart from this one, pretty much the definition of a one hit wonder.


Filled with energy and punch the theme seems to echo the life and experiences of Tommy Gavin, it's one I find myself huming for a while during and after watching an episode of the show.

You can catch a live rendition on Letterman here.


Using the banjo to great effect the full song is a melancholy tribute to the difficulties of life, the shortened version works well as the opener to Scrubs and served it well for eight seasons. It's the extended version used in the video here - they decided to scale back to the short orignal version after a few episodes. Keep it punchy, more time for gags that way.


The shortened version of this song is so well edited that it almost feels like a complete entity by itself, I know I often find myself surprised with the length of the original version when playing it on RockBand or listening to it on CD.


Say what you like about That 70s Show, the opening theme is pretty awesome.

There's a lowish quality version of the full song/70s show video here.


There are five renditions of the song "Way Down in the Hole" used in The Wire, one for each season. But it is the version from the fifth season performed by Steve Earle (who appears as Waylon in the series) which does it for me. Here's the man performing it live.

Where's Wallace? Where's Wallace? (There he is at 0:55 in the video!)

Honorable mentions go to the themes from Monty Python's Flying Circus, Boston Legal, House (Teardrop - Massive Attack), Top Gear (Jessica - The Allman Brothers) and The 4400 (Amanda Abizaid - A Place in Time) .

Might I just write before I go, these posts might look rather 'filler' but the honest truth is they take longer than written ones. Sigh.
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Starring:
Emily Deschanel as Dr Temperance 'Bones' Brennan
David Boreanaz as Special Agent Seely Booth
Michaela Conlin as Angela Montenegro
T.J. Thyne as Dr. Jack Hodgins
Eric Millegan as Zack Addy


Bones is a forensics procedural vaguely based on the real life experiences of Kathy Reichs starring Emily Deschanel as the titular 'Bones' a brilliant forensic anthropologist with poor interpersonal skills, David Boreanaz as the more worldly and charismatic Special Agent assigned to work with her, Michaela Conlin as Angela (the pretty assistant), T.J. Thyne as Jack (the beardy/hipster assistant) and Eric Millegan as Zack (the nerdy annoying wretch assistant).

The show mixes a stereotypical procedural format with a dark sense of humor and an unusual method of recreating crimes. Each episode gives us the old 'crime of the week' to solve and will normally be wrapped up by the end of the episode. Most long term plots involve exploration of the characters on the show and a 'will they won't they' romantic sub-plot between 'Bones' and Booth. Occasionally reoccurring characters will make reappearances and there is another major plot that deals with Bones' parents, and for the most part things are neatly solved by the credits (but not always).

David is as brilliant as you'd expect from his past performances, he's always made for a charismatic and likable lead, while Emily is also very good as Bones. I still can't decide if she's attractive or just mannish, but no matter what she looks like she's a very good actress. The rest of the cast are also solid and you'll almost certainly have a favourite 'squint' within a few episodes.

As an aside, I'm also exceptionally fond of the title music used in the show. The Crystal Method is one of those bands I love to listen to but have never been able to/got round to getting my hands on their albums.


The Packaging:

As you can see the packaging theme in this set is two main things, white and bones. Pretty appropriate styling really. If I'm honest the skeleton used on most of the pictures (including the front cover) is rather, well CGI looking. It's honestly looks a bit cheap. Likewise the photos, while more interesting, are heavily photoshopped in an obvious manner. Hey, call it stylistic choices if you like, personally I think that this makes for a stylish cover, not obviously photoshopped photos. But what do I know?

Inside the dust jacket the 6 DVDs are held in slimline DVD cases in pairs, one per side. The front of each has a different picture of the cast while the back has the same cheesy CGI skeleton along with details of the episodes contained on the discs. I'm not the biggest fan of packaging but at least it isn't as bad as some of the stuff used on the US versions of The Office has been...

The Start Up & Menus:

The incredibly annoying and frankly offensively placed FACT "You wouldn't steal an _____" video is sadly in attendance here. I believe I've made my opinions on this piece of propaganda quite clear before but to just reiterate my key point. It will not deter people who intend to pirate the DVD and they are more than capable of cutting it out of their pirated versions so people who don't care about intellectual licensing won't even see it. In this end this means that it's just those of us who pay for legitimate copies that get punished. Way to go FACT you bunch of donkey-ass-hats. In fact if you must put a video like that on a DVD please put it after the episodes have all aired and use this one or this one instead.

Fortunately it's skippable, unfortunately the two FACT screens that follow aren't.

The main menu isn't that impressive to be honest, you get a shortened loop of the Crystal Method theme music playing over a static shot. The loop on the music isn't even set up to run seamlessly so the general plan is to get out of the menus asap and start watching additionally there is no "Play All" option

Each of the sub menus has it's own language and scene selection placed over another static image taken from the episode in question. Our ears are treated a little bit here because the music loop isn't present. Just blessed silence. I might like the theme, but it soon loses its novelty when twenty seconds of it is looped over and over.

The Extras:

There's not a lot of extras in this set. They are as follows:

Commentary on the "Pilot" Episode by Barry Josephson and Hart Hanson (Show Creator)
Commentary for the Episode "Two Bodies in The Lab" with Davide Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel.
Squints Featurette
The Real Definition Featurette
Bones - Inspired by the Life of Forensic Anthropologist and Author Kathy Reichs Featurette
Character Profiles

I've listened to a little of the commentaries but on the whole I wasn't that bothered about checking out these extras so I can't comment too closely. I know, I know. I should watch them to give you the full scoop, be happy I'm willing to mention them.


The Details:

Runtime: 920 Mins approx
Number of Episodes: 22
Sound: 5.1, Commentary in 2.0
Language: English
Subtitles: Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish and English
Number of discs: 6
Region: 2

The Price:
Zavvi are the winner this week with a price of £15.99, but they are unfortunately out of stock right now. The next best I've found are both HMV and Play.com who are priced at £24.99. I think it's worth holding out for Zavvi to get back in stock personally, £24.99 seems a little high for what you get.

At £15.99 it's 1.7 ppm.


Bones is a show I like to watch during the quieter TV periods of the year, in some ways it's much like House, CSI. NCIS and other procedurals. Incredibly formulaic plots that are spiced up with strong characterisations, occasionally disturbing images and sharp, witty dialog. It doesn't really tax the viewer at all and sometimes that's just what you're looking for in a show. The first season is good fun and the time will just fly by while you watch it, definitely something for fans of the investigative show genre.
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