ApeDonkey

The Borgias - "The Moor" Review

2011-04-11T19:11:00.000-05:00

“Most things in life prove to be sad, sis. Again, I have been told.” -Cesare

I was not kind to The Borgias in my previous review. I found it dull, boring, and predictable. This third episode has proved to me that there is a lot of potential with this show. I found many of the elements still predictable, but I at least got the feeling that there could be some real drama present. Before, the characters were one sided and transparent, now it seems like all the characters have more of a voice and all have something to lose or gain. Each decision the characters made this past episode had consequences. The youngest son, Juan Borgia was perhaps the person who learned the most difficult lesson. His vain desire to please his father and prove useful lead to him getting in over his head. It was his botched attempt at the assassination of Prince Alfonso that lead to him having to kill him with his own hands. It was this Prince Alfonso character that I found to be most interesting.

The Borgias is largely a story of the family defending their papacy by any means necessary. This will undoubtedly lead to lots of scheming, backstabbing, and the making of decisions unfit for the pope. If the season were to just be one event after another of the pope showing us he’s villainous, then the show would fall flat and cease to be interesting. The Prince Alfonso story did a great job a weaving all of the members of the family story lines into one. The pope needed to marry off his daughter and needed a dowry. The death of Alfonso would net him a large sum from the Sultan of Constantinople. So he enlists his son Juan to do the deed for him. Juan anxious to prove his worth to his father asks Cesare to borrow his professional assassin to help him. Cesare, fresh off accepting the cardinal position he’s not exactly thrilled about, does not wish to see the moor die as he can see that his sister Lucrezia loves him. One thing that can’t be forgotten in all of this is Cesare’s love for his sister. He wishes he could be her husband, so he takes the marrying off of her very seriously. This leads to first time that Cesare calls out his father, who now is firmly in control of the papacy. Every decision each character made showed characterization and advanced the plot. It really was a beautifully told tale. I don’t think they should have a guest star each week to advance the plot consistently at this pace, but this really set up future events.

The show also proved two things to me that I was quite surprised at. The first is that it seemed it was being sold as this sexy drama where all the characters will get got up in scandalous affair after scandalous affair. However this episode did not have one scene of nudity and no sex or implied sex. It was just a drama about the moral quandaries of the papal family. I’m sure the sexiness will come back at some point, but I’m glad they’re not just solely relying sex to sell their show. The other is that it proved it could be light-hearted. The suitor scene was particularly entertaining. Every serious drama needs to show moments of levity and the bringing in of silly suitor after silly suitor proved to be a nice change of pace.

I also found the Prince of Naples to be awfully entertaining. The dining room of dead and stuffed adversaries was a chilling image. If Cardinal Sforza wants to be serious about dethroning Pope Borgia he’s going to find himself in some most unpleasant situations. Whereas Micheletto is right at home in the dining room of the deceased. My dad always taught me not to get into fights with stupid people as they will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience. I feel the same can be said for the cardinal and his dealings with getting rid of the pope. He’ll be faced with many moral quandaries and it will turn into a game of chicken between he and the Borgias family as to who blinks first and feels the guilt of their decisions. My money is on the Borgias. I admired though that this was not the central focus of the episode. It will be series long struggle for people to try and dethrone the pope, so there’s no need to constantly be putting him the cross hairs of those who wish him out.

It’s hard to believe that my opinion of a show can be changed so quickly. But this episode of The Borgias really has me excited about the future of the narrative. I look forward very much to the marriage of Lucrezia and what Cesare will do. Will Juan be able to handle this new life style? How will Lucrezia feel when she learns that she’s just a pawn in her father’s game? There are so many good places to go with these stories, I just hope that I am not disappointed. If the episodes are all like this one, surely I will not be.

The Killing - "El Diablo" Review

2011-04-11T17:19:00.000-05:00

“No flowers. Flowers die.” -Darren

The Killing picked right up where it left off last week. The show is unapologetically dark and doesn’t sugar coat anything. There seems to be a lot of positive about the show, which is surprising for a show that is so dark and, for lack of a better word, unhappy. The show beats you up emotionally and we don’t get any real “wins” as a viewer. The Killing continues to further the murder mystery story but also provides us with great images. Two specific images stuck out in my mind from this past episode. The first it the view of “the cage” through the peep hole in the janitor’s office. Was he witness to the horrendous crimes against Rosie? Tough to think about. The second was Mrs. Larsen trying to feel what it’s like drowning herself. The view of the bathtub with just her hands on the outside was definitely stirring. The Killing has an ability to make us feel deeply for those involved through the cinematography and direction.

One aspect I really, and I hesitate to use this word, really *like* about The Killing is that a lot of the crime so far has involved kids. Drama involving teens always has an inherent sense of danger. They don’t fully understand risk, so they’re capable of a lot of damage. For this reason, I find the Jasper/Echols/Sterling story very interesting. I was definitely a bit uncomfortable watching the cell phone video of what appeared to be a duel rape of Rosie, but it seemed so real. Now I hope you can see why I hesitated to use the word “like.” It’s not that I enjoy seeing teens involved in such crimes, but it heightens every sense of justice when kids are involved. After watching what we saw at the end of the episode, we are now so emotionally invested in finding out just who killed Rosie that we will tune in every week and demand those involved get hit with the stiffest punishment possible. The Killing isn’t easy to watch, but dang it if it isn’t compelling.

Because of the nature of murder mysteries, this show will lead to a series of wild conspiracies due to pointers in the script. The newest ones are that Darren is being set up by the current mayor. He had the girl killed and framed his campaign. The other is that Hooper is holding some information that could impact the investigation. We learn about this because of his clandestine phone call. Murder mysteries always have to throw the viewers off the scent a bit. I’m not sure if any of these situations will materialize, but there were definitely some hints that there is more than just meets the eye with Holden and Darren Richmond. I never like it when in murder mysteries the killer is just some random person out of nowhere, so the writers need to introduce us to the killer at some point, make us think they are the murderer, then make us question that thought, and finally deliver them to us. As of right now, the only person we can really write off is Sarah Linden.

The writers have to be careful about the amount of time we spend with the parents of the deceased. I know they need to be present to humanize the situation and make us care, but at what point is it pandering? I know the show can’t just be about the investigation, or else it would be a procedural, but they need to serve and evolve just like everybody else. I’m still liking them, but I worry about that going forward. How much do we need to see of the two kids dealing with the loss of the sister, the dad trying to be strong, and the mom being broken up emotionally. They’re afforded this grieving time now, but at some point I’ll need to see more out of them. Perhaps they go rogue and try and take justice into their own hands because they aren’t satisfied with the pace of the investigation.

I’m curious why we’re spending so much time with campaign of Darren Richmond. It’s not that I don’t find mayoral politics interesting, but I wonder just how essential they are to the story. It has a similar feel to Carcetti on The Wire. It really rounds out the show, but in the first three episodes, we’re getting a heavy dose of it. Perhaps they needed to just show his quest to really get a grip on the race so it his involvement with the case will have higher stakes going forward. Either way, I’d like to see a little less of the mayoral campaign politics and more of the investigation.

Since we’re on the subject of things I think we can spend less time on, I submit Sarah Linden’s love life. I know that she is supposed to leave Seattle for a retired life in Los Angeles with her new husband and kid and that the case is keeping her here. We know she’s going to get emotionally involved and she’ll see the case out, so we don’t need to spend time every episode reminding us that she has somewhere she needs to get to. We should instead spend that time developing the relationship between her and Holden. I really enjoy seeing their two different styles of detecting playing against each other. They both have things they’re hiding and have their own demons, so I’m very intrigued to see how the situation plays out.

The Killing will undoubtedly put us through a roller coaster of emotions. I for one am very excited to be on this ride with the show. I’m a sucker for a good crime story and this seems to be no exception. I hope they take their time and really deliver some great drama. If the first three episodes are any indication, I believe we’re going to be in for a great season of television.

Justified "Brother's Keeper" Review

2011-04-07T23:22:00.000-05:00

Every car salesman should pray to God Mag Bennett never walks into their dealership to buy a car. Mags put on a clinic in negotiation this week and made Carol look like a little school girl in the process.

We've been waiting a long time the season to get Boyd, the Bennetts and Raylan all in the same place at the same time and Mags party is just that place. Once again Walton Goggins is outstanding playing Boyd with the quiet confidence of a man who is holding the winning hand. That winning hand happened to be the rights to Arlo's land. We need Boyd to find his confidence and ego once again. Justified and Harlan County are just more interesting when Boyd Crowder is a major player. Is there any chance that the deal struck between Boyd and Mags lasts? Especially with her final words to him "stay out of the weed business that's Bennett territory."

I love Mags and Margo Martindale deserves as much adulation for her performance as Walton Goggins does for playing Boyd. The negotiation scene between Mags, Boyd and Carol showed us a new side of Mags. When it came time to dealing with business, the flamboyant hill billy went away and a cold business woman took her place. You could nearly see Carol shrink when she realized she wasn't dealing with typical mountain folk anymore. Mags was able to put the screws to her all the while knowing the end result. Once Mags had Boyd and Arlo's land on her side, Carol and Black Pike Mining never stood a chance.

The other Bennett I've been itching to see more of is Dickie. We still didn't get a full helping but he did offer a bit of levity during the party. No one else could have pulled off pop and locking during Mags mountain singing.

I think we've all known for a while that when things started to progress with the Bennetts, Coover was going to be the first one to go down. During the opening scene when he overhears his mother talking about his shortcomings, you had to know things were going to spin out of control for Coover. The only question was who was going to get him? He's had several confrontations with Raylan this season, Mags smashed his hand with a hammer for doing something stupid before and now Loretta saw him wearing her daddy's watch. As it turned out it was a combination of Loretta and Raylan. But ultimately it will be Raylan that faces the retribution for Coover's death.

I'm still uncertain about Mags interest in Loretta. Was is purely that she only had boys and saw Loretta as her chance to raise a daughter? The way she turned her emotions off when Raylan wouldn't let her speak to Loretta made it seem as though her motives were something else. I'm guessing this is the last we'll see of Loretta.

With the business between Carol and the Bennetts wrapping up, I was actually glad to see Raylan rebuff Carol's advances. Raylan isn't that guy. He's no saint when it comes to women but his relationship with Winona is still in flux and I don't think he wants to do anything to put it in danger. Carol's failure to seduce Raylan pretty much completed her flop of a trip.

So with Coover dead, a deal struck between with the mining company and Boyd back in business, where are we headed? You know the Bennetts will be coming after Raylan now. My guess is Raylan will actually be facing a two front war as Boyd ramps up his outlaw ways again. I wouldn't be surprised though to see Boyd assisting Raylan as he faces off with the Bennetts. Boyd and Raylan have that relationship like two brothers on opposite sides of law. Even though they may see the world from opposite points of view, they're still joined by a common respect and connection with one another. A few weeks ago I thought maybe the Bennett arc was going to linger in to next season but now I thing we'll see a war progress quickly with a final resolution by season's end.

Now sing us a song Mags.

Random thoughts:

I missed Chief Deputy Mullen this week. Just like Boyd and Mags, I need my weekly fix of Mullen.
Every week that passes without seeing Gary or Duffy makes their scene a few weeks ago more bizarre.

American Idol One of 9 Voted Off - 4/7/11

2011-04-07T20:53:00.000-05:00

I started to watch the results show while the kids were still up but once the rock medley started, I knew this train wreck would need my full attention. I turned it off until I could watch it without distraction. So here we go.

Let's get the medley awards out of the way first:

Lauren is the run away winner for worst outfit of the night. There's not even a close second.

Haley edges out Pia for favorite outfit of the night.

Paul wins for most natural performance during the medley.

Scotty, Jacob and James tie for goofiest stage presence.

Randy wins for taking my advice and ditching the hefty bag for a cardigan.

This year's Ford commercials have been lame at best.

Russell Brand on AI? God has officially forsaken us and the Earth is facing imminent doom. If anyone outside of Brand's immediate family sees the new Arthur movie Poseidon should release the Kraken and destroy us all.

Lauren, Casey and Stefano. If my predictions hold true I think Stefano should be in the bottom. Plus the guy's a one trick pony. Lauren deserves to be safe unless we deduct points for tonight's outfit. I thought Casey's performance was too safe but I also think he's regained his mojo so I didn't think he'd be in danger.

Do me a favor pause your DVR at the 24 minute mark and look just to the right of Ryan. That is the worst/dumbest hat ever worn. The guy would look better and less ridiculous sitting there in a fez. OK back to the show.

I thought we retired Unchained Melody when Simon left the show. I guess not because Constantine and his butt chin have brought it back tonight.

Paul, Scotty and Pia. If someone in the group is in the bottom it's going to be Paul. The other 2 have pretty strong voting bases. Pia had my least favorite of those 3 performances though. Wow Pia is in the bottom 3? I didn't see that coming but I'm not that disappointed. She's been boring for a few weeks now. Even doing a more uptempo song last night didn't do much to liven up her performances. I can tell you this though, Stefano just crapped his pants because he knows he can't beat her.

The TMZ/American Idol piece is completely unwatchable and definitive proof that the results show should only be 30 minutes. Absolutely brutal.

James, Haley, Jacob. James is the most deserving to be in the bottom but I wouldn't be surprised if it was Jacob. He went first and that's always a tough spot. Yep just what I was afraid of. The best part of this is that this should assure us that Stefano is going home.

Iggy Pop hasn't owned a shirt since 1968. Fact. Another fact is 1973 Iggy Pop would have killed himself if he'd known 2011 Iggy Pop was going to be on American Idol.

Here's my preference for who goes home of these 3. First Stefano, he sucks and ruins my Wednesday nights. Second Pia, she bores me but is nice to look at. Third Jacob, I like him and think he brings a R&B element no one else on the show brings.

Ryan that was just mean. You nearly killed that kid. Please be Stefano. Please be Stefano. What? How does Stefano keep dodging these bullets? Wow. The judges completely missed the point. Boring is the most unforgivable of all sins on AI. You can be off key, pitchy or whatever but if you're boring, America will make you pay.

I don't want to be the guy that says I told you so but last week when the judges told her to do something other than a ballad, I said watching her in the group performances she doesn't have that in her. She doesn't move on stage well enough. She was less likely to bore us by standing still and belting out Celine Dion songs than roboticlly (yes I know that's not a word) trying to imitate Tina Turner. Oh well. I still think Stefano should have been long gone but I don't vote.

On a positive note, I feel much better about my bet on Casey now.

The Borgias Premiere Review

2011-04-07T15:48:00.001-05:00

“God will forgive us son. But I will not forgive failure from you.” -Rodrigo Borgias

At the risk of sounding sophomoric, I think I’ll rename The Borgias, “The Bore-gias” until further notice. There’s nothing too special going on in this period drama. The Borgias is the story of Rodrigo Borgias, played by Jeremy Irons, and his criminal family taking hold of the papacy. This story was apparently the inspiration for Mario Puzo when he wrote The Godfather so we all kind of know what’s happening from the beginning. Rodrigo buys the papacy and gets his position by any means necessary. This includes murder, bribery and seduction. As with any drama the most important element in storytelling is human change. I do not think we will get much change out Rodrigo. He is the constant force. This leaves our young hero Cesare. Cesare Borgia is Rodrigo’s son, played by Francois Arnaud, who has eyes to be leader of the papal army. However, Rodrigo has plans for him to join the cloth.

Cesare’s journey is what is going to carry the show. He appears to have convictions about what is happening in his life, but still chooses to honor his family. Because he is held in a higher standard by the audience his fall from grace will be more tragic. His decision whether to stay in this life of crime or leave it will provide our main source of conflict. Cesare has goals and objectives that are not completely clear to the viewer so we still have an interest in what he does.

I fear that the Rodrigo story line will grow tiresome. We get it. He’s a lecherous pope and the cardinals all want to overthrow him. What can we possibly find interesting about this? The big problem is that Rodrigo is not a sympathetic character. We aren’t rooting for him to keep the papacy because he deserves it, but instead are rooting for him to keep it so the show stays interesting. There will be a constant battle to make each attempt on his reign seem new and believable. He just seems to have such absolute power as Pope, that I’m not sure just how much I can believe he’s ever in any real danger of losing his position.

One of the main problems with the show is that the supporting characters, other than Cesare, aren’t interesting. I still have hopes for Juan Borgia, but we didn’t really get to see him do much in these first two episodes. I certainly have seen enough of Holliday Grainger and her portrayal of Lucrezia Borgia. For having as much screen time as she did, she never really gripped me. I do see that there is potential for her turn the crazy on when the incestuous relationship between her and Cesare is exposed. She’s playing very dull and dim, but maybe it’s a choice that will pay off later when she comes out of her shell. I don’t know how long he’ll be around, but I do think there is a lot of potential in the assassin, Micheletto. He is a total wild card as we’ve seen him play both sides already and we know he’s not afraid to kill. His cold delivery of the line, “I have smothered infants in their bed. But only when the parents paid me,” was pretty haunting.

As a whole, I’m not too enthused about this show. I’m not sure if it’s porn with costumes or porn for costumes. Either way, it just seems like Showtime’s attempt at the next great period drama. I think they’re really going to need to dig down and surprise us. So far we can see all the plot lines developing before they happen. We need to not be bored, and I fear that we are at this point.

Survivor: Redemption Island Recap and Analysis 4/6/2011

2011-04-07T14:21:00.000-05:00

“This is going to be good.” -Steve

Zapatera camp life is home to glowing spiders and contestants all trying to justify their inadequacies. They voted off Sarita last week because she was week in challenges. As long as Grant is on the other team, they’ll always be weaker. David takes getting votes very well, but then again, he has too. Matt meets Sarita and is underestimating his opponent. He’s never seemed confident going into a challenge, so I worry for him. But that boy is smart. He starts getting information right away and contemplates switching to Zapatera when the merge happens. Like I’ve said, in order for Zapatera to have a chance post merge, they need both the Redemption Island dueler and Phillip on their side.

Ometepe is home to neon frogs and a disgruntled federal agent. They get tree mail (a term which I have hated since day 1) that suggests a merge is coming. I don’t know why they’re so surprised. It has to be top 10 so there can be an odd number jury. Rob and Phillip square off again about whether or not to gamble and leave all their stuff on the beach. And once again, Phillip claims he’s the red headed step child. As a side note, a “ginger Phillip” would freak me out. Zapatera wants the merge as well to try and get rid of Rob. Baby steps Zapatera. Maybe pick off a weakling first? No? Your funeral.

Matt is poised for his sixth duel! But there’s drama, he has cut his foot. It seems like the show is trying to build tension because on paper, Matt is the clear favorite to beat Sarita in a duel. Here we have it, the winner of the duel is back in the game. The stakes are high. And in true Survivor form, the battle is an endurance challenge. It looks like Matt’s foot injury might come into play. My money is still on Matt and his reentry would be very interesting. Would he defect to Zapatera? Or would he rejoin the team that voted him out? He’s had two weeks to think about it. If I were an onlooker, I wouldn’t let on to who I was rooting for. No reason to put my strategy out there for all to hear. And Matt wins the challenge! He’s an unstoppable Redemption Island warrior! And we have a merge! I’m not sure if this was the payoff the show was looking for, but wait, Redemption Island is starting back up again. This could be interesting now. The producers are trying to do everything to make sure Rob can stay around. That was quite a run for young Matt. Good on you kid.

The “merged tribe” shows up to their new beach and there’s a feast waiting! I remember seasons past when tribes would have to trade in their gear just to get more rice. They’re really making sure these contestants are well fed. Rob names the new tribe Murlonio. He claims it’s Spanish for “of the sea, united,” but it’s actually the name of his wife Amber’s stuffed animal ring leader. Oh Rob...The merged tribe builds a shelter together and Mike the Marine makes the astute move of trying to enlist Matt’s vote. He really can swing the vote. With that option available to him, it all but guarantees he stays in the game a while longer. I almost never see a tribe just run through the other team’s numbers without some sort of shake up. So even though the camp is very divided, I look for new alliances to be made very quickly.

And wouldn’t you know it, Matt wants to blindside the Ometepe tribe and enlists the help of Andrea. I think Andrea needs to tread lightly, because blindsiding Rob may be all well and good, but she’ll lose every single jury vote from each Ometepe tribe member she picks off. She’s best just letting Matt try and pick off the tribe mates with the other team. She also does not want to go up against Matt in the final vote, as he will almost assuredly win the vote.

Matt has an internal struggle going on where he doesn’t want to dishonor his God by playing a deceptive game. I believe Matt is the most outwardly religious player on Survivor. MIke the Marine is bonding with Swing Vote Matt over religion and Boston Rob thinks he should join in on the conversation, but has nothing to add. He wants to break up what he calls “the Christian Coalition.” And sure enough, Rob has eyes for my pick Mike the Marine. He wants him gone at the first chance, and I think he’s smart to do so. Mike is sharp witted and able bodied.

Immunity challenge is another balance and endurance challenge. The contestants have to balance themselves on a round log while balancing a ball on a plate. Phillip is wobbly, but hangs on. Julie is first out and they add a second ball to balance. Ashley falls. David falls. Ralph barely hangs on. The third and final ball is placed on their plates. And Andrea falls. Grant, surprisingly falls early. Then there’s a wave of exits as Matt and Rob both fall. Mike is looking strong. Only one former Ometepe is left. Ralph drops out. Natalie, Steve and Mike are all that remains. Steve falls out. Mike looks unbeatable. But after a fly lands on his ball and the sweat drips off his brow, he loses his balance and falls of the log. Natalie, a former Ometepe, wins immunity. So Mike is poised to be voted out.

Mike, with a great looking beard, hatches a brilliant plan back at camp. He wants to use Ralph’s idol to save himself and they’ll blindside Grant. The key to this move working is Ralph giving up his idol and former Ometepe putting their votes on Mike. The best laid plans never seem to pan out on Survivor, but this has the makings of a good move. However, as unbeatable as Matt was at Redemption Island, I think Grant would be that much more impressive. Rob and Matt share a moment alone on the beach and Matt decides to stay with Team Rob. He outs the brilliant plan to Rob and now Mike’s plan is all for not. Rob decides Matt can’t be trusted and wants him gone. And now the paranoia sets in for Matt. Mike writes Matt a note that says, “Matt vote for Grant and I’ll take you to the top 3.” Matt has said he doesn’t want to flip because of religious purposes and yet here he is debating whether to flip. I’m not saying he’s “less of a Christian” if he flips, but I think he’s played it up too much.

Tribal council starts off beautifully with David outing the fact that they threw a challenge and it launches Phillip into one of his most excellent rants. It has Zapatera uncomfortable, and Ometepe laughing. I really have no idea how this vote is going to go. Matt, Mike, Grant, and Steve all could be voted out. Ralph could still play his idol. Andrea could still flip and vote Matt out. For the first time in a while, I have no idea how the vote is going to go. Survivor has been lacking this drama for a while now. Ralph plays the idol for Mike and it appears he’ll fulfill my prophecy of wildly misusing the idol.

5 straight votes for Grant, one for Steve, and 6 for Matt. Matt is headed back to Redemption Island. Steve says, “Let the fireworks begin.” David says, “Genius is what that was.” Former Ometepe flushes out an idol, gets rid of the swing vote and fully enlists Andrea. Bravo Team Rob. Now it’s just a matter of time until Ometepe picks off each member of Zapatera.

Final Thoughts: Matt isn’t very good at Survivor, but he is great at duels. Former Ometepe has all the momentum. They have numbers and a hidden immunity idol. If they stay strong they’ll go far. Enlisting jury members is the next big task. Also, when will the Redemption Island winner reenter the game?

My Pick to Win: Mike the Marine

American Idol 9 Finalists Compete - 4/6/11

2011-04-06T22:33:00.000-05:00

This is American Idol

Someone needs to tell Steven Tyler he just looks like an old man trying too hard.

Songs of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Scotty was probably hyperventilating until someone told him people like Johnny Cash and Hank Williams are in the HOF.

Who better to coach the contestants on R&R than Will.I.Am? Uh just about anyone. Unless they need someone to teach them how to avoid slipping in Fergie's crotch droppings on stage.

Jacob is up first. Probably a good decision to switch from Marvin Gaye to Michael Jackson. MJ is much more in Jacob's wheelhouse. Not surprisingly he knocked it out of the park.

I need to get to Randy. The hefty bag jacket is far less cool than a sweet cardigan.

I guess Gwen Stefani thinks Haley should dress like Stevie Nicks. Not a bad performance of "Piece of My Heart" but I thought it was overdone. The judges liked it way more than I did but that isn't anything new.

Steven looks like he's made a recent trip to the botox doctor.

I'm more excited for Casey this week than anyone else. I hope the black eye pea doesn't get in his head and screw him up. Thank god he changed songs. That looked like it was going to be a train wreck even by Idol standards. Slap that bass Casey. I don't love the performance. Interesting take on the song but if nothing else he made it his.

I like Lauren more each week. She's got the big voice to pull off Aretha and I like the way she's mellowed it out a bit. Just for the record, Gwen Stefani is a terrible stylist. Lauren sounds great and looks terrible.

That shot of Christian Slater was the creepiest moment in Idol history. It took me a few minutes to realize it wasn't Kato kaelin.

By far the worst song choice of the night is by James. Nice job of not spotlighting your best asset. He could have chosen any number of slower songs that would have featured his voice better. Not a bad performance but a bad choice.

Jennifer is wrong with her assessment. What a fucking goofball. I don't get the crying. I don't get how you write your own version of a song either. Maybe I just don't get James.

My wife is obsessed with figuring out who all on the show is gay.

You have no idea how excited I am to see Scotty do Rock. Here's a surprise. His head is cocked to the side. Whenever Scotty performs you have a choice to make. You can take him serious by just listening and not watching the screen or you can take in the complete cheese by watching him perform. The hand wave was completely bizzarre and the two handing the mic still freaks me out but I probably enjoyed Scotty more tonight than any other time of the competition.

Pia is coming up. If you need to take a nap here's your chance. I have to admit I didn't pay a lot of attention to Pia's singing. I was too distracted by what has to be one of the 3 worst jumpsuits ever made. It takes something tremendously bad to make a body like Pia's look dumpy and fat. Congrats Gwen.

I believe I told you people last week that Pia lacked the ability to do the simplest dance moves. She can study the mount rushmore of dancing and she'll never have that talent.

I don't know what the rest of you think but Hanna looks like a damn good movie.

I'm calling my shot right here. Before I even see Stefano perform, I'm predicting he goes home this week. I hated the beginning but brought it home nicely. I really can't stand Stefano's cheesiness.

Wow. That was Paul's best performance of the competition. I didn't know he had it in him to put it out like that. Paul should never perform again without his guitar. It anchors him on stage and keeps him moving forward instead of falling all over the stage.

Probably the toughest bottom 3 decision of the season but here goes

James
Stefano
Casey. This one really pains me but the other contestants took bigger chances.

ApeDonkey Power Rankings - 4/4/11

2011-04-06T21:42:00.000-05:00

Top 5

1. Nancy Drew - As I wrote last week, my truck was broken in to and my wife's laptop and my ipod were stolen. Since that happened, my wife has been using all there Nancy Drew and Blues Clues skills to track down the perpetrator. The afternoon of the robbery she started scouring craigslist and ebay looking for postings that looked like they could be our stuff. In the meantime we had to buy a new laptop and I wanted to get a new ipod for the car. Last week my wife sent me a posting and said she thought this was my ipod. I completely blew her off but she continued to try to get information on it. Finally she noticed it was listed as a 7th generation ipod and mine was a 6th so she gave up hope that it was mine. However, they were selling it pretty cheap so I made arrangements to buy it from the person. It turns out they lived on my side of town and meeting them was easy. The person selling the ipod arrived and I approached his car to check out the item and make sure it worked. I turned it on and immediately recognized in the cover flow a record that only me and maybe ten others in the city would own. I went to the playlists and sure enough it was my ipod. At this point I wasn't sure what to do. This guy could have easily beaten my ass in an instance. I calmly spoke to him and told him I didn't want to make a big deal out of it but this was my ipod. I repeatedly expressed to him how important it was that I get the laptop back since it had all of our business files on it. As you would expect, he feigned surprise and told me how his girlfriend had found the ipod by stepping on it in a parking lot. Yeah OK. I just continued to calmly impress upon him the importance of getting the laptop back. Then he decided to be a good soul and knock the price down to $50 for my own ipod. Thanks.

I really didn't feel safe so I told him that was fine and paid for my ipod. I expressed to him a few more times that I wanted my ipod back and even if he didn't have it, if he could tell "whoever" did have it that I wanted to get it back, I would appreciate it. We then went our separate ways. A few minutes later I got a call from him telling me he felt bad about taking my money and offered to give it back. Once again I told him I didn't care about the money, I just wanted the laptop back. Anyway, thanks to my wife's detective skills we now have the guy's phone number, address and a picture of his car and plates. Unfortunately, this was over a week ago now and the police still have returned our call. We've spoken to them a couple of times and even had a police officer friend call and try to expedite the process but still nothing. Apparently there are two police officers assigned to work all the auto theft cases in Houston. Two! I'm not blaming the officers for this but the shitty system. We have essentially done the leg work to locate everything and have been completely ignored. On Saturday, we got a notice from the bank that our account had been disabled because someone had tried the wrong password too many times. I wonder who that was? So if either of the officers working auto theft read this please give me a call. I think we can close a case for you. Until then I'm going to go out a rob a few cars myself because auto theft is Houston's version of Hamsterdam.

2. Clank - This past Monday night Clank had a very good and well publicized evening. I don't know if someone thought it would be funny to replace the Final Four rims with some of those carnival game rims but neither team playing in the championship game could hit a shot. I don't know what UConn ended up shooting but it was beaten into my head yesterday that Butler shot an impressive 18%. I lost interest in the game about four minutes into the second half and started reading with the game on in the background. I couldn't tell you how good or bad the production was but I can tell you without pause how distracting the constant barrage of shots clanking off the rim was. At one point I didn't look at the television for a stretch of about 20 minutes and when I did finally look up Butler had the same number of points as they did the last time I looked at the score. It was just a pathetic performance by both teams. It reminded me of the Presidential elections of the last decade. No one deserved to win but they've got to give it to someone, so congrats UConn.

3. The Killing - A handful of new cable shows premiered this week including The Borgias, Camelot and The killing. Of the three new shows, The Killing looked to have something special. @heydannyv commented on Barry's review how much the cinematography, directing and use of music reminded him of Rubicon. I completely agree with that assessment. The previews gave me flashbacks to Twin Peaks but the reality is Twin Peaks was set in a completely different world where the supernatural and paranormal activity weren't out of the norm. The Killing looks to be an extremely well made murder mystery.

4. Friday Night Lights Season 5 - FNL comes out on DVD today. We here at ApeDonkey have dedicate a ton of time to praising the series, season and actors of this outstanding show. One thing that hasn't been discussed enough it how stupid NBC is. NBC was set to cancel the series after the second season. Instead Direct TV stepped in to pick up some of the production cost and to broadcast the series on their channel 101 six months ahead of NBC's broadcast. This agreement has allowed me to see the entire series without ever watching a single episode on NBC. I was a late comer to FNL, becoming a fan during its season 3 run, so I saw the first two seasons on Netflix then watched the rest through uploaded episodes on the Internet. Anyway, like I said season 5 comes out today on DVD. If you have Direct TV you could have already watched season 5 on The 101 but NBC still won't be start showing it for another couple weeks. Genius. I'm a bit surprised they didn't cancel Community and Parks & Rec while they were making these brilliant programming decisions.

5. It was a tough week so just pour a little out for #5 this week.

Bottom 5

1. My Wallet - A couple weeks ago my six year old vomited in my Prius. Now I cleaned it up the puke but there's still that lingering barf smell in the car. I need to get it detailed to see if they can freshen it up. In the mean time I've been driving my truck instead. Nothing shocks the wallet quite like going from a car that gets 50mpg to a truck getting 15mpg. Especially when gas is nearly $4/gal. Since I've been driving the truck I've been going through $20-$30 of gas a day. That would last me at least a week in the Prius. If nothing else this week has reminded me why my 2+ yr old truck has less than 15k miles on it.

2. Catholicism - I'm not catholic, in truth I'm about as WASPY as a person can get. However, I did graduate from a catholic university and had to take catholic studies courses as part of the curriculum. So I do know a little something about Catholicism. I find the history of Catholicism fascinating and I tried to convince my wife to let me name our son John Paul so I could call him Pope. That idea didn't fly but I had to try. I do have quite a few friends and people I respect who are catholic. I don't know how they are going to feel about The Borgias but I can't imagine The Vatican being very big fans of the show.

The new Showtime series is based on the 15th century Papal family that was rife with controversy and scandal. In the series Pope Alexander VI has several kids with one of his mistresses. His son who he appoints as a Cardinal is uncomfortably interested in his 14 year old sister. One of his other sons is the head of the Papal army and may as well be based on Uday Hussein. I thought the first two episodes were pretty good but not great. Jeremy Irons as the Pope is his normal terrific self and the show's stand out has been Fancois Arnaud as Cesare Borgia.

The catholic church has a long rich history filled with both incredibly charitable and despicable act. This story happens to be one of the dark times in the Vatican. Showtime has proven they can produce an excellent series and this one has all the elements to be their next one I just wonder how well it will be received by the followers of the worlds largest religion.

3. Toyota Service - I've only had to take my Prius in to the dealer twice for service. Once was for a recall on the brakes and the second time was to have the back seat belts replaced. Both times the service department at Joe Myers Toyota has sucked giant balls. When I bought they car I was given two free oil changes. I used the first free oil change when I had the brakes fixed. At that time the guy told me to skip a few changes before I used the second one because I couldn't use them within a certain amount of time of each other. What? OK. So I tried to use the second one this last time. The guy before never said anything about having to use them before 36k miles. Fucking Dickhead. On top of that the shit heads didn't wash my car like they're supposed. I'm almost glad my car is now out of warranty because I won't be tempted to take it to the retarded monkeys at the dealership. I have a place down the road that does good work and I trust them. For the first time in my life I'm actually looking forward to doing one of those service surveys for a dealership.

4. Brandon Lyon - This is where I was going to talk about Brandon Lyon blowing a 4-2 lead to the Phillies on opening day but the Astros have much bigger issues than Lyon and he's only had one save opportunity so far this season. The Astros are going to suck all season. The best gambling decision I've made this year is not betting the over on the Astros win total. I think they'll compete for the worst record in the majors this year. Thank God for fantasy baseball to make other games interesting to me.

5. Kavorka - I'm not a particularly handsome guy. I probably trend somewhere in the middle of the looks scale but for whatever reason women in the service industry just dig me. I'm a happily married man and don't invite this kind of attention at all. In fact, nearly everything I do should deflect it. I shave maybe once every other month or so. I sustain myself on donuts so that I'm as fat as I can possibly be. I rate closer to the Unabomber on the anti social scale than most. In person, aloof is the best I can do. Mean and flat out ignoring people is more of the norm though. I've adopted a French sensibility to hygiene. Yet, these women and some men still want me. I thought this curse had left me when I moved out to the burbs but then one of the women at the local McDonald's started giving me that extra little smile and wanting look. A few weeks ago though she turned on me and now has started a strict regime of giving me the cold shoulder. I figured out her issue the other day. She finally gave up on me leaving the wife and kids and got engaged to what I assume was at best her second choice. Sorry but I've got a good thing here at home. Now I'm getting those same uncomfortable looks and the eyes undressing me from the girl who delivers pizza. I've tried to tell my wife not to send me to pick up the pizza by myself. You never know when the Kavorka is going to send this poor woman over the edge with desire. My wife seems to be willing to take the chance of my shirt being ripped off but I have to admit I'm a little frightened every time we order pizza.

Lights Out Season Finale - "War" Review

2011-04-06T01:11:00.001-05:00

“Kill the body and the head will fall.” -Pops

It is with a heavy heart that I write this final Lights Out review as this was the final episode of the series. As was announced before last week’s penultimate episode, Lights Out would not be picked up for another season. I had mixed feelings about the season as a whole, but after tonight, I really liked the direction it was heading. It was a show that needed to find its groove and I feel like it found it too late. I know what Lights Out was trying to do with the family, the pugilistic dementia, and the being broke and that’s all well and good, but ultimately boxing was the real dramatic element. Think back on all the episodes and pick out your favorite moments. Obviously the final fight is at the top, but other favorites are the scenes with Ed Romeo training Lights, and David Morse doing a wonderfully heartbreaking guest appearance. Who brought the most electricity to the screen? Barry K Word, every time. I think as the show grew the writers realized where the strengths were and started to lean heavily in the direction of boxing. After seeing the League of Extraordinary Boxers meeting, I could see where season 2 was heading. It makes me miss the show already. A season designed around the boxing world pitting Hal Brennan against Barry K Word with Patrick taking point, playing both sides, sign me up! It’s tough to let any series go, but the finale did provide very good closure and the season does stand alone.

The whole season has been leading up to the fight between Patrick Leary and Death Row Reynolds and it didn’t disappoint. I was relieved to see that they let fight play out essentially in its entirety. I never had any doubts since the show first began that Patrick was going to win the fight, so although I was curious, I still wasn’t quite hooked until the fight actually happened. The show did three smart things to make the fight more interesting. First was making Death Row claim all he needed was one round to take out Lights. This allowed for a flurry of action right from the beginning and allowed Patrick to instantly get beat up a bit. The second thing was having Barry tell Patrick that Morales took a dive. I had suspected this all along, but seeing doubt creep into Patrick’s eyes allowed for just the slimmest amount of doubt to creep into my own, thus making the fight that much more interesting. The third was the most obvious element: having the ref in Death Row’s corner. I was glad it wasn’t completely ridiculous and could all be justified within the fight. Slow counts for Reynolds and the implementation of the three knockdown rule. My only problem with the fight is just how easy it was for Patrick to come back in the second round. Now, I have never fought before and don’t watch boxing, so these comebacks might be normal. I do know that one punch can change the course of the fight dramatically. So when Pops told Patrick he needed to surprise him and get back on top, I think that moment should have been more obvious. I think the punch that swung the match was the quick right jab to the face when Death Row was winding up, but I can’t be sure. Either way, I though the fight was very well done considering we all knew how it was going to end.

Aside from the fight itself, I thought Patrick going to confession was a good moment. We needed our hero to be redeemed a bit so we can celebrate his victory with him. Death Row made too good of a point that Patrick was no role model. His absolution was necessary for us to be fully on his side. I’m glad he finally admits and takes responsibility for just how unfair it was to put the burden of secrecy on his daughter. That to me was his biggest crime given all we know about how Patrick carries himself. I do think the religious aspect of the Leary family could have been used more effectively. We saw hints of it at times, but it almost just seemed like a convention to get Lights to move on. It was after he talked to his priest that he let Ed Romeo go. I guess the intention was to soften the blow to the viewer about Lights letting go a very popular character, but I can’t be too sure.

Lights Out had some very great supporting characters along the way. I vacillated back and forth about Teresa and Johnny, but Pops, Barry K Word and Hal Brennan were always interesting. I also think, given the chance, we could have seen some great things from Hal’s right hand man, Gus. He just had that slimy look and darkness about him. Even when he was delivering neutral news, it always looked like he was playing an angle. I’ve always thought that casting leads was easy, but that casting great supporting roles is what makes or breaks shows. I think that if the show focused more on the great characters I mentioned above, the show would have had a lot more drive. The daughters never even registered with me emotionally and I never felt like Margaret was a part of the family. I’m not saying the reason for the shows failing was because it focused on the family. The show failed because no one really had an interest in boxing. And it’s really a shame, because I would have loved to see just where this show was heading.

Lights Out was always good, but never great. I never think the show quite pushed hard enough. The stakes never seemed like they were as high as they actually were. Holt McCallany delivered a great understated performance, but I would have liked to see him let loose from time to time. It almost felt like the show was timid for much of the season, but by the end they were ready to open up and let a flurry of punches fly. Hearing Patrick ask his wife, “Who won?” showed us that the show was ready to take his injury to the next level which would have provided a lot more intensity in every fight he fought. Lights Out will be missed, but not really for what it was, but for what it could have been. But as it stands, Patrick “Lights Out” Leary is your undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, and no one, not even FX or viewers with Nielsen boxes, can take that away from him.

AMC's The Killing Review

2011-04-04T18:18:00.001-05:00

“I should have said goodbye.” -Stan Larsen

AMC debuted their new drama The Killing on Sunday night and it appears they have found another hit. The Killing stars Mirellie Enos (Jodeen Marquart from Big Love) as Sarah Linden who is investigating the murder of 17 year old Rosie Larsen. It takes place in dreary, and very very rainy, Seattle and the backdrop couldn’t be more perfect. The mood, ambience, and atmosphere are essential to shows success. We are taken into the world of the show and are gripped from the beginning. The show smartly debuted with the first two episodes of the series. The pilot was largely introducing us to the family and the characters surrounding the investigation. The first 50 minutes is dedicated to finding out if Rosie is alive or dead. The show is called “The Killing” so it was obvious from the beginning that she would be dead. This is why it was so smart to air the second episode immediately following the first. The pilot, on its own, is not completely compelling until we get to the end of the episode where we are treated to such a heartbreaking scene that I believe will define the show.

The scene where the body is discovered in the trunk of a flooded car was so perfectly captured it moved me to tears. The father is talking to the mother on the phone as he approaches the crime scene and learns of his daughter’s death. All we hear through the phone is the father screaming his daughter’s name while the mother breaks down. Rosie’s brothers are looking on in complete confusion all juxtaposed against Sarah Linden’s stoicism. The scene is truly striking and moving. The parents Stan and Mitch are played by Brent Sexton and Michelle Forbes (most recently Maryann on True Blood). Their performances as the grieving parents is so gripping and real that you feel such deep sympathy for them instantly.

One piece of the story is a bit trite in that this was supposed to be Detective Sarah Linden’s last day of work before she retires and moves to California with her fiance. Naturally, the case sucks her in and she has to keep putting off her move until she solves the case, which will presumably be on the 13th episode of the season. The season takes place over 13 days. One day for each episode. In that respect, The Killing is sort of 24 meets Gone Baby Gone. It’s not as ridiculous and over the top as 24 is, but the convention of real time is similar. In being that it’s her last day, she gets a new partner for the day, Stephen Holder (played so darkly by the Sweedish actor Joel Kinnaman). His character might be my favorite one one the show as he adds some much needed moments of levity to the show. He’s a gunslinger type who flies by the seat of his pants in the investigation. He also has some real darkness to him as evidenced in the scene where he gets two young girls to smoke weed to gain information about the seedy parts of the high school. This is in stark contrast to Linden’s methodical approach. I really think their polarizing styles plays really well on the screen and it will be interesting to see where the show goes with this relationship.

The murder story isn’t so simple. Rosie Larsen was found in the trunk of a car belonging to a Councilman Darren Richmond’s mayoral campaign. Richmond, who is played by Bill Campbell (Carter Buckly from The OC), is running for Mayor and appears to be in line to win the position. This investigation could ruin his chances of winning so he and his campaign managers are forced to try and spin the story. At first, his involvement seems largely coincidental, but I highly doubt that we’d be focusing so much on his campaign if it were to just be a smoke screen. He’s the obvious first choice for being the murderer, so I hope that the payoff isn’t what I expected all along. I know that to keep a story interesting the investigators are going to have be lead down several paths that don’t lead to the murderer, I just hope that every false angle isn’t obvious.

The real worry for a series like this is the payoff. After 13 episodes will be satisfied with the catching and conviction of the killer? The danger is that the killer could be a red herring, someone we don’t even know or care about. But on the other side, it can’t be someone so obvious. Also, the killer has to be believable. We have to fully understand why they would do it. The first two episodes show tremendous promise, I just hope that the payoff is satisfying.

Camelot "Homecoming" and "The Sword and the Crown" Reviews

2011-04-04T13:59:00.000-05:00

Whether you learned of King Arthur through Tennyson, Disney, Excalibur or Monty Python, the one constant is that his legend and the interest in it endures. My personal favorite is T.H. White's "The Once and Future King." Fresh off the success of Spartacus, Starz will now try to capture the fantasy market with their take on King Arthur in Camelot.

Adaptations on the legend of King Arthur usually fall in one of two camps, historical drama (2004's King Arthur) or fantasy (Excalibur). Camelot falls firmly in the realm of fantasy. Unless you believe in magic, then maybe you consider it a docudrama. However, even though we find ourselves in a world with magic, the setting is easily identifiable as Middle Ages England. The rustic atmosphere, collapsing architecture and warring territorial rulers help place our characters firmly sometime after the fall of Rome and before Egbert c. 839.

"Homecoming" begins with an argument between King Uther Pendragon and his daughter Morgan. She is obsessed with succeeding her father to the throne and is willing to stop at nothing to get there. Morgan a fledgling wizard shape shifts herself to appear as a young girl in a successful attempt to get close to her father and poison him. On his deathbed, Merlin urges him to sign a document before he dies by reminding him of his son.

The first time we see Arthur, he's sleeping with his brother Kay's girlfriend. This peak into Arthur's persona will no doubt play a larger part in the series. Especially once we learn that his new interest, Guinevere is the wife of one of the men sworn to protect him. Through flashbacks and stories told to Arthur in the first episode we learn his penchant for going after someone else's wife was passed to him from his father. Arthur is the product Uther's affair with a married woman, Igraine. This was made possible through Merlin and his ability to make Uther appear as Igraine's husband. Merlin's price for this favor? Uther had to give the child born from the affair to Merlin.

Much of the first episode is Merlin getting Arthur to Camelot to claim the throne while Morgan and Uther's rival King Lot form an alliance to take Uther's kingdom for themselves. The most significant moments are Morgan's refusal to accept her brother as the heir, Arthur killing King Lot's son in self defense and King Lot retaliating by killing the woman who raised Arthur.

In "The Sword and the Crown" Merlin must find a way to convince the public of Arthur's rightful place on the throne. He is on the brink of war with King Lot and Morgan and without the support of his subjects he won't put up much of a fight. To legitimize Arthur's crown, Camelot gives us a new twist on the story of The Sword in the Stone. The myth and legend is that whoever is able to pull the sword from the stone is the legitimate king and destined to unite all the Britons. The twist added by Camelot is that the legend was started and propagated by Merlin himself so that when the time was right he could put his chosen successor on the throne. The sword was placed there by Merlin and he was the only person who knows how to release it. Merlin uses his magical ability to tell Arthur how to release the sword who then falls from the water fall cliff.

Morgan begins communing with a mysterious power in the forest. Unexpectedly, she shows up at Camelot to warn Arthur of an impending attack by King Lot. During the impending battle, Arthur's mother's death is avenged when her husband, Ector kills King Lot but loses his own life in the fight. In the aftermath, Morgan once again visits Camelot. Arthur pleads with her to join him and they can rule together. She's has no interest in sharing power with a brother she doesn't know or respect. Merlin suspects where Morgan is getting her new found strength and warns her against getting involved with something she doesn't fully understand.

Now let's go over the good and bad of Camelot. One of the major strengths of Spartacus was the perfect casting. Camelot wasn't as successful with their casting. Eva Green is spectacular as Morgan. She's absolutely beautiful but with enough strength bitterness in her performance to really bring Morgan's scorned vengeance to life. I haven't seen enough of Joseph Fiennes as Merlin to make a definitive statement. He's been OK so far but well below terrific. I would watch Claire Forlani read silently for two hours so I'm not going to complain about her in the role of Igraine. Where Camelot falls well short of expectations is the casting of Jaime Campbell Bower as Arthur. His portrayal of Arthur constantly reminds me of Mark Hamill in Star Wars. If you're wondering, that's not a good thing. Bower is too fair, thin faced and completely lacking in stature to pull off a convincing Arthur.

The question then is how successful can a show be if the lead is the worst aspect of the production? We'll see I guess. I can say that I've yet to watch a scene in which I wasn't bothered by Bower as Arthur. The producers of Camelot better hope this is exclusive to me and not the universal experience of its audience. The other issue facing producers is managing expectations of the potential audience. Arthurian legends cover a vast realm of fantasy and historical territory. If a viewer turns on the show expecting knights in full plate armor and a Merlin casting spells like a Celtic Gandalf then they are likely to be disappointed. Merlin up to this point is more of an adviser to the king than a magic wielding wizard. Arthur himself doesn't believe in magic. The armor and costumes are more fitting of the early middle ages with leather armor supplemented with chain mail. If the show can catch the attention of the fan looking for an exaggerated historical drama with some crazy Celtic magic thrown in I think Camelot can be successful. Oh and it's Starz so there will be plenty of nudity, blood and sex.

Random Thoughts:

I loved James Purefoy as Mark Antony on Rome and he brought that same energy to the role of King Lot on Camelot. Unfortunately, he's dead by the end of the second episode.
People who tune in expecting to see the Lancelot and the Round Table are going to be disappointed. A lot of fans probably don't realize Lancelot wasn't added to the Arthurian mythology until much later. I don't know if he'll ever be a character in Camelot but he definitely won't be one in season 1.
There's really no challenger for eyes on Friday night.

Thoughts on A&E's Breakout Kings

2011-04-03T14:32:00.001-05:00

I don’t watch many procedural dramas. I don’t often find them compelling to watch. I often feel like they are just mad libs shot on screen. Shows like CSI, NCIS, and Law & Order are a dime a dozen. Opening scene: show the crime. Through the middle: the police go through a series of smoke screens and start figuring out the crime. End of show: Hooray! Mystery solved. Nothing special. So why is it that I enjoy Breakout Kings? I mean, I don’t love it or anything, but it’s not terrible, and I find that strange.

The Premise: A group of convicts are assembled to form a task force with a US Marshall and a convicted con who was once an officer to catch criminals who break out of prison. The criminals all have special and uniques qualities that help catch the escapees. This is more than likely where my interest comes from. All those other shows feature some sort of murder or white collar crime. I was a huge fan of Prison Break, so the idea of people breaking out of prison appeals to me. Each opening scene fits the mad lib formula but it has the chance to be extremely clever and interesting. Each of these convicts gets one month shaved off their sentence for each convict caught. They’re also expert escape artists, so it’s interesting to watch the criminals weigh all their options in each case.

The Cast and Characters: The cast features Laz Alonso, who I know as Zeke from Stomp the Yard, as the leader of the task force and Domenick Lombardozzi, Herc from The Wire, as the second in command ex officer turned con. Their relationship is one of the rockiest parts of the shows. I don’t know if either actor is commanding enough to carry any scenes on their own. The chemistry between the two is a tad bland as well. The success of he show will rest in the hands of the convict team. Perhaps the most interesting character and certainly best performance comes, not surprisingly, from Jimmi Simpson. You’re probably most familiar with his work as one of the McPoyle brothers on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. He plays a sort of boy wonder super genius who psycho analyzes each criminal. His flair for creepy and slimy is not lost on this character as well. There’s one character that is being developed very smartly by the show. Brooke Nevin, who you know from probably nothing, plays Julianne the fact finder office worker type person. It’d be really easy for the show to just use her as a convention for getting the case solved in a remarkable fashion, but instead they’ve afflicted her with a social anxiety disorder. I know it’s just a small thing, but a little bit of characterization goes a long way in my book.

The Network: Breakout Kings airs Sunday nights at 9 PM CST on A&E. Sunday nights are packed nights for television. AMC puts most of their dramas on that night. Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and now The Killing all air on Sunday nights. Showtime is also airing The Borgias now that Shameless is over. I don’t think there’s a lot of crossover viewers between the shows, as people who like crime procedurals don’t often go for period dramas and heartbreaking teen murder stories, but it’s still noteworthy to say it’s going up against some great shows. Without knowing any numbers, I’d say Intervention is A&E’s most watched show, so I think that through advertising during that show, Breakout Kings can gain an audience. A&E also airs Sopranos reruns, so I do think enough people watch the channel to get the viewership strong.

Final Thoughts: The show is flawed, but fun. Yes, it has some bad dialogue. Yes, a lot of situations are far fetched. But it’s better than most crime procedurals. It’s not going to change your life, but it’s very good filler for those of us caught in the spring doldrums of new TV programming.

Justified "The Spoil" Review

2011-04-01T10:54:00.000-05:00

It's taken us 8 episodes but the wheels are finally moving towards the Harlan County showdown between the Bennetts, Raylan and the mining company we've all been waiting for.

So what's all the fuss about in Bennett, Ky? All we learned tonight is that the mining company wants to mine the land around Bennett and is willing to contract out Boyd to offer protection to those residents willing to sign on the dotted line. If I've got Dickie and Coover coming to my door with an angry animal in a bag, Boyd's exactly the kind of protection I want. Boyd's job has the added degree of difficulty of being harassed by Bennett Police Chief Doyle Bennett.

We learned that being assigned to protect mining company executive Carol Johnson is a shitty job when you're sober, much less when your severely hung over and fretting over whether or not you boss knows about your ex-wife's involvement with a bag of missing money.

The town hall meeting was terrific for several reasons. If you've ever read up on or watched documentaries on the coal mining industry, you know what a polarizing entity a mining company can be in a community. The company provides jobs, money and a sense of stability but they also ravage the land, prey upon the poverty of their employees and hold them under their thumb. There's a reason no one has ever written a positive song about coal mining. We got to see all the major players featured and at their best in this meeting. Carol attempts to make Raylan appear to be a mining company sympathizer but he quickly turns her attempt on it's ear. Raylan's a former miner but he's educated enough to know the evils of a mining company. His only interest in being at the meeting is to protect Ms. Johnson. Boyd, on the other hand is a mining company employee and is there to convince the towns people that selling their rights is the smart thing to do. Boyd uses every ounce of his backwoods logic to sell the people on the jobs and opportunity the mining company offers. His speech though is no match for the power and charm of Mags Bennett. Mags whips the crowd into a fury over the history of empty promises and the crushed dreams left in a mining company's wake. She invites them all out to a party at her place to solidify their union against the mining company. She even invites Reggie who's already sold out.

As much as Boyd tries to convince people to sell out to the mining company, you can tell there's a piece of him that isn't sold on what he's doing. When he show's up at Arlo's house to sell him, Arlo reminds Boyd of how disappointed his daddy would be in him for doing the mining company's bidding. I think this was the final spark that finally made Boyd look for a way out from under the company and the Bennetts. I come to love the thought of Ava being Boyd's protector. When Dickie and Coover show up to convince Boyd to leave the company Ava emerges with her shotgun and a poor disposition. If Coover wasn't so dumb, he'd know that Ava is absolutely capable of shooting a man. I think the writers missed an opportunity for Boyd to remind the Bennett brothers that it was Ava who shot and killed his own brother. They didn't miss a chance for Ava to shoot and kill Charlie. The nasty creature the boys have been taking around to change peoples mind on selling. After his confrontation with the Bennett boys, Boyd breaks out the maps to try to figure out why the Bennetts want the land so much and by the end of the episode he thinks he's figured it out and a way for him and Ava to get out of the crossfire.

One mystery was finally revealed. Raylan told Carol about the "history" between the Givens and Bennett clans. Who couldn't have guessed it went back to prohibition and bootlegging. The Bennetts were once busted by the feds and blamed it on a tip given to the law by the Givens. This led to a Hatfield and McCoys type of feud that has lasted 80 years. Raylan found himself in the middle of it during a baseball brawl between himself and Dickie. Raylan took a bat and shattered Dickie's leg resulting in the limp Dickie still has.

So here we are with all the major players on the move and five episodes left in the season. Raylan claims that he's not going to get caught in the middle of their fight but Raylan's never been one to avoid trouble and I'm pretty sure Coover will be the first to catch his wrath. It's been a while since Raylan promised to protect Loretta so that's bound to come back soon. We still have that strange meeting between Gary and Duffy to be expounded on. Art's knowledge of what Winona did is still and issue. And Mags, I'm looking forward to seeing a ton of Mags in the coming weeks.

Random Thoughts:

Where's the Dixie Mafia?
Boyd just misunderstood Raylan when he said he wouldn't be around to clean up their mess right?
I couldn't stand Ava last season but in smaller but powerful doses I really like her this season.
Congratulations to Justified for earning a much deserved Peabody award for excellence in electronic media. I know it's probably not but it should be the precursor to many awards this year.

American Idol Two of 11 Voted Off - 3/31/11

2011-03-31T21:21:00.000-05:00

Ryan just declared he's going to crush the dreams of two youngins tonight.

55,000 votes sets a new record for this point in a season. OK?

Fantasia. I didn't like her during her season.

This duet thing is a whole hell of a lot better than the traditional terrible group performance. It's almost as if they're trying to make me watch more than 15 minutes of a results show.

Is Jennifer wearing a costume from Black Swan?

Not surprised at all that the country couple Lauren and Scotty are getting through. I'm not the biggest Scotty fan but he has a strong voting base.

Is Scotty's head permanently cocked to the side?

Naima and Jacob doing Ashford and Simpson. Eh not my favorite and not nearly as good as the country couple. Good decision America. Naima deserves to be in the bottom.

I can't stand Fantasia's voice or face so I'm skipping over it. Damn, We can stop the search. I just found where all of Jennifer Hudson's weight went.

Pia, Thia and Haley doing Katy Perry and I mean that exactly as it sounds. OK lets cancel that order Randy put in for Pia and Thia to do uptempo songs. Pia and her from the Kardashian collection outfit is safe. I'm a little confused America seems to be getting it right tonight. That doesn't happen very often. Thia joins Naima in the bottom.

Paul, Casey, James and Stefano doing Band on the Run. Which one of these things doesn't fit? Stefano plays the keys just like Linda McCartney used to, without plugging them in. Casey safe and damn well should be. James is deservedly safe. Neither of the two guys left were very good wouldn't be surprised to see either in the bottom. It's Paul.

My prediction is Paul and Thia going home. I think Naima has a bigger voting base than the other two.

Here we go. Paul is safe. Another week of thin voice and bright teeth.

Thank you America. I didn't think you had it in to you send the correct people home. You've restored my faith in......Nah you're going to have to do the right thing a few more times for me to believe this isn't a coincidence.

To wrap up the duet and smaller group songs were a giant improvement over the usual group torture. The still haven't had a guest singer on that I care for maybe next week. I doubt it though.

Survivor: Redemption Island Recap and Analysis 3/30/2011

2011-03-31T02:31:00.000-05:00

“I hope you love Redemption Island as much as I love writing your name down.” -David

Zapatera is a tribe on the fritz. They were at one point very strong, but karma for throwing a challenge is coming back to get them. Ometepe has won 3 of the last 4 challenges and doesn’t seem to be slowing down. David the lawyer is proving to be an antagonist in the camp and it appears that it will be either he or Sarita at the next vote.

Meanwhile, on Redemption Island, Matt ushers in another contestant, Stephanie, to challenge him. Matt is obviously undefeated in duels and I don’t look for him to stop winning now. Stephanie apparently has a mouth that won’t quit, and by the power of God Matt is going to smite her!

Philip doesn’t trust Rob so he’s going to watch the Redemption Island duels with him so he doesn’t pull any funny business. What funny business you ask? How about enlisting numbers from the opposing tribe? Or hiding a hidden immunity idol from your alliance. Philip is right not to trust Rob, but he’s wrong in thinking he can be the one to put a chink in his armor. On the flip side, Rob feels like he has to go with Philip because he has a huge mouth and is “dangerous because of his stupidity.” I agree Rob, you got to keep a lid on that guy.

As Matt and Stephanie approach the arena, Jeff Probst tells us that Matt has spent 12 days on Redemption Island and won 4 duels! My math is shaky but that’s one duel about every three days. Some serious quality alone time is spent between both contestants on that island. I’m not placing this on Matt, but if ever there was a time for two Survivors to get busy, I’d think that would be the time. Anywho, back to the duel! Probst tells Matt and Stephanie they’re playing “memory” for their life. Matt and Stephanie both hit about a 1 in 400 long shot and match a pair sight unseen. Pretty incredible actually. Matt blows his advantage, but gives Stephanie gives it right back. The game becomes simple probability towards the end and not a guessing game, but neither contestant figure that out and Matt wins again! Stephanie cries and David, his sole defender on Zapatera, stirs in his seat. Stephanie goes out with a bit of bang bye enlisting Ralph’s help to take out Sarita and telling Rob Zapatera is gunning for him when the merge happens. Going to the duel proves once again profitable for Rob. He is living a charmed life right now. And with Matt’s latest victory, Philip dubs him samurai-esque. He’s, at the very least, sporting a pretty rad top knot.

After the duel, Philip suggests they withhold the information and Rob is ecstatic. Rob uses that tidbit to turn the tribe fully against Philip. Rob lays out the plan, that if they lose again, he’s the first to go. Notice Rob suggests nothing about throwing a challenge. Why? Because Rob is smart. I say that, and then he comes up with a very not smart phrase in saying that he’ll “frontside Philip.” Sorry Rob. Lost you there. I don’t need an image of you front siding Philip and his pink underwear.

Post duel at Zapatera is a bit of a different feel. Ralph and Dave lie to their tribe mates, saying Stephanie didn’t say much on her way out. Ralph told her he would stick around to take Sarita out, but he’s giving the tribe everything they need to succeed. I still contend that Ralph does one of three things with his hidden immunity idol: 1) Give it away. 2) Get voted out without playing it. or 3) Use it and get no votes cast against him. Long story short, I do not think he’s going to use it well because bluntly, he just isn’t very sharp. Ralph should take Stephanie’s advice and switch the tribe up and put him on top of the numbers. It’s not about keeping a happy tribe, it’s about winning. Speaking of winning, I don’t think David will be doing much of that this game. He’s annoying all of his tribe and me. I wouldn’t mind seeing him go. The only reason why I would mind is because it would be a very predictable vote. Survivor can’t get to the merge soon enough.

After some landscape shots that make me feel like I’m in the live action version of Land Before Time Philip goes on a childish rant that makes me beyond annoyed. He’s a self righteous ass with delusions of grandeur and a bizarre sense self entitlement. He has officially worn out his Survivor welcome in my eyes. Philip reminds me a lot of Sue Sylvester on Glee. Yeah, some of his rants are funny, but he’s largely out of place and insufferable. An Ometepe loss would be welcome and liberating as it would spell the end of Philip’s tenure on Survivor.

The immunity challenge is very physical in nature. This is a chance for Sarita to prove her physical worth. I also like that both tribes are even so we get to see every member participate. I look for Grant to make a huge impact on this challenge. Jeff forgets to mention the reward and the survivors react to hearing about food like they haven’t seen it since they last had it for a reward a few days ago. Apparently Natalie isn’t a drinker? Ok. Glad we now know that. This challenge is full of mud and that always provides for good title sequence shots. The challenge is quite exhausting as the lead fluctuates back and forth, but Grant pulls out a last second shot that seals the win for Ometepe. This was easily the most exciting immunity challenge yet. No one particular individual, aside from maybe Philip, held their team back. It was neck and neck from beginning to end, but Grant, once again is the difference in the game. Ometepe wins and Philip lives to see a few more days.

The helicopter ride that Ometepe takes is actually pretty breathtaking. They land in an active volcano and crush a picnic. Philip feels like a member of the tribe and Rob finds yet another hidden immunity idol clue that he doesn’t even need. I think my favorite part of this exchange is seeing Rob have to fake how delicious the biscotti is. “Oh man, all this other great meat, candy, and beer, but you have to try this! SOOO GOOD!” Then Rob tosses the clue in the volcano, like you would.

The music switches to dismal, so we must be at Zapatera’s camp. Hey look! There’s my pick to win, Mike the Marine, talking about how bad it sucks to lose. No one is positive on this tribe, except for Ralph. Zapatera will fizzle out in the merge unless they can convince both Philip and the Redemption Island winner to join in there cause. The vote looks to be between David and Sarita. Surprise surprise. Another predictable vote where I don’t care about the outcome. The only thing of note in the tribal council is that David is a way better arguer than Sarita. I mean, that should be clear because he’s a lawyer. Oh, and naturally Ralph doesn’t know what the word “cohesive” means.

Sarita is voted out at tribal council and realizes she didn’t bring her stuff. David with the dagger trash talk retorts, “Don’t get too confident.” Looks like we know where the next Zapatera vote is going.

Final Thoughts: Survivor needs the merge to come soon! All the votes are becoming predictable and the show is lacking the drama that it had at the beginning. If Ometepe loses, Philip is out. If Zapatera loses, David gets the axe. Ometepe is proving to be dominant and their success will lie in their ability to either retain Philip at the merge or enlist the Redemption Island castaway. I think they’d only need to get on of those two wild cards to run the game if they stick to their numbers.

My Pick to Win: Mike the Marine (though Grant is still my fashionable number 2.)

American Idol Top 11 Compete Again - 3/30/11

2011-03-30T23:27:00.000-05:00

I'm already deducting points from this performance show because Randy's not wearing a cardigan.

Ryan do you think people are still buzzing about last week because you keep talking about last week?

Holy Shit Haley just went complete spazz.

I love Elton John but this could be brutal for some of these contestants.

Time to fast forward through fashion photo shoot piece. If you don't have enough material to fill 2 hours then cut it down to 90 minutes. Please.

I'm predicting Scotty will sound exactly like he hast every other week. The verses are the same terrible country crash test dummies impersonation we hear every week but I thought the chorus was real nice. I just need more steel guitar.

Jennifer just recited a Paula Abdul speech from 2005.

Great Naima is up. Maybe they'll follow it up with a trailer for Arthur and bring home the suck trifecta. If you're not doing an Elton John song before 1977 then you're screwing yourself. Reggae songs should only be about smoking dope and fighting the man. This doesn't qualify and her bad faux reggae accent, whoa. I'm not mad though. I've been pulling for her ouster since the wild card round.

Note to contestants: if Jennifer starts with "I love you" or Randy "Dawg I like you" they thought you sucked.

Paul broke out the Nudie suit again tonight so that's a point in his favor. He giving the opposite performance that Scotty did nice on the verse poor on chorus. He doesn't have enough power in his voice to pull off Rocket Man. He would have been better with off with something like Your Song. Rod Stewart had an unplugged hit with it so it should be in his wheelhouse.

Paul is the only person on earth who can make Ryan look like he needs to hit the teeth whitening clinic.

Pia fills out a dress and she sings ballads. That sunset background is by far the cheesiest moment on AI this season. Sounds good but again boring. This reminded me of the Christian concerts I went to back in the 80's.

Here's how you know Jennifer is a natural beauty. She's in her 40's now and doesn't have old lady hands.

I can't watch the setup for Stefano. His cheeseball factor is off the charts. See Elton was a rocker who could belt out a ballad. When these balladeers try to do these songs they just make them too corny. This guy isn't long for this competition.

Howie Mandel. Why?

Lauren looks like a deer in the headlights tonight. She's a complete mess on stage. Country girl curls. Evening dress. She seems uncomfortable on stage, in the dress but her voice is carrying her through tonight.

Just for the record, Randy is wrong. Steven is telling old man jokes. Jennifer is wrong too. Lauren can sing but she may be dumber than a bag of bricks.

I phased out the nicknames last week but I can't get past how much James looks and acts like a monkey. Him being a WWE fan is perfect. I don't care for the kid much but he's had the best performance by far tonight. Here's my honest opinion on James. He's very immature as a performer. If he had a couple of years on the road he would probably mature into a pretty entertaining stage presence. Right now he performs like a teenage boy having sex. He can't believe he's actually there doing it so he rushes to the end without bringing us to satisfaction.

OK if Pia is boring then I'm going to need a different word for Thia. Dull, bland, banal, insipid any of those will work. She'd be in my bottom 3.

Thank God Casey didn't listen to that bozo and shave off the beard. Your Song is an interesting choice here. I guess he felt like he needed to tone it down to get back in the voting graces of America. He's killing it in a very understated way. Now that was the best performance of the night. If America sends him home again this week then the terrorists have truly won.

One of the only times Randy has been spot on tonight. I'm glad Casey didn't die on stage last week.

Based on the other reviews I've read, I'm one of the only Jacob fans. Screw Jimmy. I like the drama in Jacob's performances. Every great R&B artist has that over dramatic aspect to their persona. The guy knocks it out for me each week. My second favorite performance.

I think I would like this performance by Haley a lot more if I had just listened to it and not watched it. She sounded great but I can't watch her. Her stage performance was uncomfortable at best. BTW the girl needs to cut her hair.

I'm moderately surprised by the overall quality of tonight's performances.

If I were to vote my top 3 would be

1. Casey
2. Jacob
3. James

My bottom 3 would be

1. Thia
2. Naima
3. Paul

I think Thia and Naima deserve to go home but there are 5 contestants I think should be vulnerable tonight the 3 I mentioned plus Scotty and Stefano

ApeDonkey Power Rankings 3/29/11

2011-03-30T19:51:00.000-05:00

Top 5

1. Houston - This is a big week here in Houston. The Final Four is coming along with all the attractions and events attached to it, as is the Shell Houston Open. The weather has been great here all week and should hold up through the weekend. Now don't go looking for me at any of the events around town because the only thing I like less than people is crowds of people. So I encourage everyone to get here spend your money and leave my city in one piece. We may never get another Super Bowl but the Final Four will be back in 5 years. See you then.

2. El Real - The only positive to getting the Power Rankings out so late is that I'm able to include El Real on the list. We've been waiting for this place to open for months. I was hoping to check it out when Southbound Food did their live broadcast from there a couple weeks ago but I left San Antonio too late and was unable to make it. We decided to wait until they started serving lunch so we could go at an off hour. That's always best with young kids. We finally made it over today and the food was a great as advertised. I went basic with cheese enchiladas, queso, rice and beans. The wife had the fajitas that came with a cup of this frothy garlic butter that I could have drank by the glassful. If you're a margarita person definitely get it on the rocks. It's simple, strong and delicious. Minus the two customers who were obviously pissed that I had procreated, it was a great experience.

3. John Harris - It was announced last week that John Harris will be getting his own national show working the overnight 1am - 5am central on Sporting New Radio. I've listened to Johnny since his days as the college football expert all the way through to his show with Raheel. By the way, I was completely wrong about the pairing of John and Harris. They've consistently produced a fun, entertaining show following John and Lance on 1560 The Game. I fully expect Raheel to continue killing it from 10-12p with a rotating list of guest hosts including David Nuno and Richard Justice.

Now back to John and his new show. Barry and I discussed this and thought this was a great move for John. His encyclopedic sports knowledge plays perfectly with the late night national caller. No one is better equipped to take calls about teams coast to coast and be able to talk intelligently about the entire roster. Johnny going national feels like a kid from the old neighborhood making it. He's made so in a sense we've all made it. I wish him all the best and any time I'm up at that hour, I'll be sure to check him out.

4. Shameless - Thank God for Shameless. Of the shows that had season finales the past couple of weeks, Shameless, Californication and Big Love, Shameless was the only one that gave us an excellent satisfying finale. After a little bit of a shaky start, Shameless has come on to be my second favorite new show of the year just behind Terriers and ahead of Rubicon. Of course, it's the only one of those three to get picked up for a second season. William H. Macy was the name going in to the season but Emmy Rossum has been the breakout star. She's given us a powerhouse performance as Fiona, a young woman just trying to keep her family together and raise her five brothers and sisters. It's really been an outstanding first season with strong performances from all the Gallagher kids. If you haven't checked it out try to catch up before season 2 starts next year.

5. Birthday Party - We celebrated my son's 2nd birthday this past weekend and if you weren't part of my immediate family, you weren't invited. That's because I'm a good human being and I know no one wants to be bothered with a kids birthday especially on a big sports weekend. The 2nd birthday is the one time you can get away with a simple "party" like this. Birthday number 2 lacks the milestone factor of the first birthday and the kid still doesn't know what the hell is going on. By the 3rd birthday they are starting to get it and from 4 on you're screwed. Just open up the pocket book and kiss your weekends goodbye because you'll be going to a birthday party every weekend for the next ten years. So happy birthday Cash. I hope you enjoyed your Barry's Pizza and cupcake and we'll do it again next year.

Bottom 5

1. Fucking Thieves - If you follow me on twitter and why wouldn't you be then you probably already know about my truck being broken in to and having my ipod and macbook stolen. My wife and I talked about this and considering all the vital information we had on the laptop like our businesses accounting, art files, tax information, etc. We would have rather they taken the truck and left the computer. Luckily, we do an off site backup for critical client files but what we are learning is that Carbonite apparently is running their servers with 28800 dial up modems. Here we are five days in and we are still restoring files to our new laptop. I could have manually transcribed the missing files by now.

Now let me tell you about the top notch security in the shopping center where Grand Luxe and Nordstrom's Rack is locate. First, when we realized what had happened, my wife had to literally chase the sixty-something year old security guard around the parking lot before I was finally able to get his attention by repeatedly honking at him. Once we had his attention and told him what had happened his reaction was priceless "really? I've been patrolling the area." Uh, yeah sure you were. He tried to write a report but couldn't find a pen among the hundreds of old lollipop wrappers in his very intimidating golf cart. In the end we'll be alright. Home owner's insurance covers items taken from your car in this kind of situation but I could live without the pain and headache of it all and if the person who did it ends up in a burn unit soon, then all the better.

2. Mad Men - Great news coming out of Hollywood this week is that Mad Men season 5 is a go. The bad news is that we won't get to see it until sometime in 2012. The Sopranos think that's a long lay off. Part of the deal to bring the show back for a fifth season is AMC asking for the producers to cut two minutes from the show to open up more ad time and/or cut two regular characters from the cast. I'm fine with either or both of those options. Go ahead and take Betty or Bert or Ken. I can live without any of them. Bert makes the list because I can't stand people who don't wear shoes at work. If you need to cut a couple of minutes, I say go for it. I don't watch commercials anyway so no skin off my back. Just get your shit together and get Mad Men back on the air. Preferably before my kids graduate high school.

3. President Trump - The most shocking thing I heard more than one time this past week is "I'd vote for Donald Trump if he ran for President." The first time I heard this I stopped in mid conversation to verify what I'd just heard. People apparently think he'd have a good shot to fix the economy which that may be true, I don't know. I did remind them that he's gone bankrupt a couple of times but people do learn from mistakes. My biggest issue is that these people are forgetting one important issue. Donald Trump is a buffoon. This is the guy who hosts Celebrity Apprentice. Do you understand the national embarrassment of having state dinners at the gold leafed white house? Air Force One would be renamed The #1 Air Force One. I haven't even mentioned the hair. That is not presidential hair. You have to go all the way back to the early 1800's and Andrew Jackson to find a coif as crazy and unpresidential as Trump's.

4. Movie Reboots - I was reading an article yesterday that after The Dark Knight Rises they are planning to reboot the Batman series. What? I'm not a fan of all the series rebooting or the term rebooting. Teen Wolf as a Twilightesque show on MTV? The Karate Kid learning Kung Fu from Jackie Chan? Completely recasting and starting over with XMen? Ugh here's how a series is supposed to naturally progress. The first one is great and ground breaking. The second isn't quite as good but you add more villains to make up for the quality and by the fourth and fifth installments you've brought in Joel Schumacher to drive it into the ground. That is the life cycle of a movie franchise. It's tried and true and should not be messed with.

5. Elite Eight - Saturday Nicole Zierlein wrote a very touching blog post about her husband and young sons watching the elite eight games and specifically the Butler game together. I highly recommend you read it. If I wasn't a soulless robot, I probably would have been brought to tears. I on the other hand had a much different experience with Saturday's games. I had a little wager on Florida to beat Butler so I was intently watching that game. With a few minutes left, my wife who couldn't give a crap about basketball and is an incurable workaholic didn't know what to do with herself since she was without her laptop and couldn't work. After she complained of being bored and wanting to go out I finally agreed to go when the game ended. Little did I know the game would head to overtime. Being a man of my word though I said we could leave and I'd listen to overtime in the car. Well that was the plan. From the minute we closed the doors on the car my kid decided to be the loudest most irritating human on the planet. She channeled Lloyd Christmas and sang the words "Wipey, Dipey, Dipey" over and over again for a solid half hour until we finally reached the restaurant. After a nice dinner, the wife wanted to return some pants to The Gap and get a different pair. I was fine with that plan. The Gap was in the same parking lot and she rarely takes a long time doing stuff like that. We were in the store maybe 5 minutes when the 2 year old was going so apeshit crazy I decided I'd take him to the car and listen to the Arizona/UConn game while the girls finished up. I don't know exactly how long they were in the store but I ended listening to nearly the entire spectacular second half of the Zona/UConn game in the car with an exhausted, screaming 2 year old. Come to find out, my 6 year old had recently earned $20 from her grandmother and decided she wanted to buy herself something at Gap Kids. The problem is the self proclaimed fashionista had to actually touch, try on and examine every item in the store. And what did she finally emerge from the store with? A fucking pair of sunglasses. That's how I spent an outstanding Saturday of college basketball.

Lights Out - "Sucker Punch" Review

2011-03-30T11:23:00.002-05:00

“It’s my belt. No one’s going to stop me from getting it back.” -Patrick

With now only one episode left in the entire series of Lights Out, it’s hard to judge the episodes as ones that are leading to a season or series finale. If this season was meant to be a 13 episode arc that was going to have complete closure, I’d say it’s a bit uneven and isn’t really hitting on all cylinders as it approaches its finale. But that’s unfair to the show. Lights Out was meant to be more than just one season, so it makes sense that everything isn’t being fully expounded on. This is not to say this episode would have been a great penultimate episode if I knew there’d be a season two. Far from it. But it is difficult to truly asses the effect of the episode on me. When it comes to Lights Out, what do we actually find compelling about this show? The boxing drama is the keystone of the series and sometimes I feel it loses sight of that. That’s why the Ed Romeo episodes and the Morales fight were some of the best. It was able to combine the other elements of Patrick’s life while building toward a fight. This may also be why the Brennan and Word stories are so strong as well. It revolves around the boxing world.

So based upon what I feel is the strong point of the show, you can see where I didn’t really enjoy this past episode where we finally get to meet Patrick’s mother. We’ve been needing that story line all along. However I feel it may be too little too late. Just what can we get from this relationship at this point? The mother arriving is most effecting papa lights. Robert has been such a strong individual throughout the series, that it’s a little heartbreaking seeing him sacrifice his fortitude to bend to the whims of the capricious sycophant. The mother seems forced. It’s just another obstacle that delays the fight between Lights and Death Row. She’s detestable, but not because of what she’s doing, but because of just how out of place she is. This story line in particular is one I feel like could have had more of an impact if there was more time for the series to develop. But given the brevity of the series, anything short of the boxing world and its politics, seems out of place.

Barry K Word is still the most compelling part of the show. He has an electricity on screen that is unmatched by anyone on the series. The politics of the boxing world is what I like. I would have very much enjoyed learning more about the gambling side of the sport and the danger of fixing a fight. The drive by on Margaret raised the stakes for a second, but it will be swept under the rug on the finale because we need to focus on the fight. I know by just focusing on the boxing element makes Lights Out a typical boxing drama, but maybe not. FX has made it clear they didn’t want to do just another Rocky knock off. They needed something else to separate it. I think the Barry K Word/Hal Brennan angle was enough. Throw in just enough family to show how they’re broke and here we have the show. But now it just seems like the show is cycling in one guest star after another. There’s just a lack of cohesion. It’s still high quality drama, but it just needed time to figure itself out. The stakes never really felt high enough. I don’t see the need for Patrick to win. He was originally in the fight for the money, but now money doesn’t seem to be the issue so his drive and desire to win needs to be the overwhelming force in the show, and it just isn’t quite there. Lights Out is a good show, not a great show. I’m sad it doesn’t get a second season because I feel like it could really find itself. But alas, we have but one more episode and hopefully the finale really delivers some closure.

Shameless - "Father Frank, Full of Grace" Review

2011-03-28T16:09:00.000-05:00

“Life’s messy. People have secrets.” -Fiona

Shameless wrapped up its first season yesterday with a wonderfully heartbreaking season finale. So much of the talk about Shameless was people being upset with the Gallagher’s and how they choose to live. If the Gallagher’s don’t care about their own lives, why should I? I think that some people had a hard time grasping the notion that not every person has a desire to “move up” in life. Remember that Shameless is a British show originally and across the pond the notion of the lower middle class sticking its nose at the upper class elite is a long standing tradition. The idea of the American Dream is still present in the United States however. People want to make enough money to be comfortable, to be rich. Not many are ok with the idea of not knowing how they’re going to play rent next month. This is why the Gallagher family is so polarizing in the public’s eyes. Here we have a family that is, at the center of it all, happy. Sure they have a myriad of problems and a lot of history to overcome, but they stick up for one another. They grasp the concept of love and who are we as an audience to hold that against them? The show needs to viewed through different lenses. I’m not suggesting detestable characters like Frank Gallagher get a pass. No far from it. What makes this show good is that we have humane and good natured characters doing the best with what they have. Frank does not fit that description. The show is about Fiona and her family.

Emmy Rossum turned in a brilliant performance as Fiona Gallagher over the course of the first season. Seeing her have to balance all the love she has for her family against the desire to be comfortable and selfish was a thing of beauty. The season finale was no exception. When Lip and Ian were released from prison it was nice to see her so relieved that they’re safe, but she still had the fire to smack them around and hold them accountable. Then as she was walking away, her knowing smile to Tony said so much. Fiona knows he’s a good person, maybe a great person, and she’s very grateful for what he’s done, but she is who she is and they couldn’t work right now. Another great Fiona moment happened when Ian told her he was gay for the first time. It wasn’t when she said, “I know,” because honestly I found that a little silly, but when she said, “You’re still on my shit list.” It’s a great moment for Ian’s character. He learns just how in tune his family is with him and that they care, but still won’t let him get away with whatever he wants. So it’s not surprising that Fiona chose to stay in Chicago rather than go to Costa Rica with Steve. She loves him, yes, but the deal has always been her plus her family and he knows that. Fiona’s idea of comfortability may rest in having a consistent job and bringing in a steady flow of cash. Steve will learn that he can’t take her away from her family.

It will be interesting to see what happens with Steve in season two. I was a little surprised when they didn’t bring up Steve’s duel lives to Fiona. It seemed like it was all but inevitable, however I’m glad they didn’t. Fiona needed to be faced with the decision to leave baggage free and choose to stay. If she would have known about Steve’s other life, it would have been Fiona sticking around because she had no other options. Now that she’s chosen to stay, the writers can fully expound on the Steve/Jimmy situation. Fiona has needed him for both emotional and financial stability, but now that Jasmine is in her life, Steve needs to be there as an emotional partner more than he has. That will be difficult with him in Costa Rica. I envision that the second season will pick up some time in the future where Fiona is stable and so are the rest of the Gallagher’s, but they’re not as happy. I think we need Steve in the show. He adds the element that money does not buy happiness.

Frank Gallagher is the show’s biggest concern going forward. He is such a detestable human being that it’s borderline cartoonish. Shameless tried their best by making him give a curbside apology to his son for sleeping with his girl. However, even that had him justifying his actions claiming that he was a victim in all of this as well. I will say, there was a glimmer of humanity when he jumped back into the urine stream. It was the most bizarre apology and acceptance perhaps ever captured on TV, but in Shameless it works. However, when I hear Frank claiming he’s the real victim, I think of Eddie Jackson. I never thought Eddie was a sympathetic character, but seeing what he went through was tough. Everyone abandoned him to the point where he took his own life at the one place where he felt happy. There wasn’t even that much hesitation when he decided to drop the cinder block in the water. The life that Frank lives is dangerous and wrong and it pains me to see him go unpunished. I’m not sure if he’ll ever change, or even if I want him to. Perhaps we need to hate him, but I’ll be damned if I ever feel any compassion for his character.

It’s for that reason that I don’t think he should be a focal point for the show. I think he is best served as a catalyst for other events. A great example of this is when he slept with Karen. The show didn’t go in a direction where it was all about Frank tying up all the loose the ends that that situation created. It instead let other characters discover the issue and then they handled everything on their own. Tell me you didn’t cheer a little inside when Lip started beating Frank in the snow. The south side of Chicago has a code. People look the other way on a lot of issues, but sleeping with a man’s young daughter is not tolerated. It’s good to see there’s some moral code in the world of Shameless.

Californication "And Justice for All" Review

2011-03-28T14:15:00.000-05:00

I may have to watch last night's finale again because I'm not sure I "got it." Yes, Hank escaped with just probation, community service and a fine but where does that leave him? Karen has obviously moved on with Ben. He blew it with Abbey because as she put it he's "too fucked up" for her. He took Becca's advice and moved out of the hotel. The last we see of Hank he's speeding down the California highway with all his possessions packed into his Porsche. Is he leaving LA? Can he leave California while on probation? Is he heading to the desert for the Jim Morrison experience to find his destiny? Where is Hank headed? I don't know. What I do know is that I loved about 2/3 of the finale and absolutely hated the other 1/3.

When I saw the previews of Hank passing out in court, I assumed it was him passing out just before the sentencing and waking up to find out he had gotten probation. If the preview didn't clue you in the the episodes title should have been a dead give away. I'm not upset by the verdict and sentencing. I never considered him guilty of statutory rape and there's personal growth that can be gained from Hank's brush with the law. However, if I were the judge I would have told him I intended to sentence him to probation but after his smartass statement he earned 30 days in jail along with probation. I'm vindictive like that though.

The dinner party at Stu's was absolute gold. I could have lived without Eddie Nero and Sasha but I understand their presence. For the sake of every Californication fan, I hope we never have to see Rob Lowe as Eddie Nero ever again. Only slightly less irritating was Charlie's nutball girlfriend. Her little dirty antics grew tiresome faster than Charlie Sheen's. The first time she wanted Charlie to pretend he was her brother while they had sex was funny and wrong but by last night's episode the humor had completely evaporated into fumes of crappy unwelcomed screen time. Minus her stabbing Charlie at dinner. That did make me laugh.

Of course Charlie still loves Marcy. He didn't divorce her, she divorced him despite his constant attempts to win her back. Why was this even a question? No that everyone knows she carrying Charlie's baby, what is their future? Does she stay with Stu? That what it looked like during the long closing montage. I'm cool with that. I found Stu more often than not funny plus lest we forget he's "rich as fuck and hung like a moose."

Even though I thought the dinner party was hilarious, I didn't care for the interaction between Hank and Ben. I get it that Ben is a better person than Hank but I have trouble accepting that he'd just sit there and take jab after jab from Hank. At some point, Hank just looks like a bully and Ben doesn't seem like the kind of guy that allows himself to be bullied. Honestly, I have know idea what the "Black Jesus" was supposed to represent when he save Hank in the pool. Maybe, Ben is the person that not only saves Hank's life but also saves Karen and Becca from Hank's self destruction. Maybe, Ben is the example that saves Hank from Hank's self destruction.

OK now on to the 1/3 I hated. The 7 or so minute montage of Hank on the movie set was terribly executed and overall dumb. I'm not going to question Hank sleeping with the actress playing Karen because that's just Hank doing what Hank do. I will say I couldn't stand the flashes of the real Karen and Becca with the actors playing them. I thought the entire montage was pointless. It didn't add any additional meaning to the lessons of the season or further the relationship between the three in a good or bad way. Like about a third of this season's episodes the montage was just cinematic masturbation. Visuals to stimulate and evoke emotions without actually furthering the characters.

Overall, season 4 was a step in the right direction after a terrible third season but the character of Hank stagnated. His failure to learn from his past and grow as a person has become a detriment not only to his family but to his likability as a character. The fifth season needs to further Hank as a person. Otherwise he faces becoming a caricature of himself and the show following he same precipitous decline that doomed Entourage.

Big Love Series Wrap-up with guest blogger Nicole Zierlein

2011-03-26T17:28:00.003-05:00

When Big Love ended last week I knew there was one person who would be equally disappointed in the finally and miss the show next season as much as I would, Nicole Zierlein. Nicole has an excellent blog of her own you should be following and before I even asked her to write something for ApeDonkey she was already working on it. Thanks again Nicole for contributing and the invitation is always open for more.

When Big Love premiered, I was pretty skeptical. How could I watch a show about a man and his three wives even if one of the wives was Chloe Sevigny? Polygamy was not interesting to me in the least, especially considering everything we had seen in the news regarding Warren Jeffs and his followers. The fact that the show was on HBO still didn’t convince me. The first season went by, and I didn’t watch one episode. It wasn’t until my friend told me over and over during season 2 that he could see me in Nicki that I finally decided to give it a chance. (By the time the show ended, this was really more of an insult than the compliment he intended.)

In my opinion, this show was a work of art. It was perfectly cast with Bill Paxton as the husband and Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny, and Ginnifer Goodwin as the sister wives. Sure, some of the children weren’t perfect, but as far as the relevant characters go, the cast rocked. The acting in this show was so spot on that my favorite wife changed each season. I found myself identifying with the sister wives more than I ever thought I could. Although, in the end despite what my friend thinks, I am much more Barb than Nicki or Margene.

The show did exactly what Bill tried to do all along: convince us that polygamous unions can work. It showed the practical stuff like who does the shopping? How many moms do the kids have? To the most pressing: when do they have sex with Bill and what do the other wives think about that? Turns out that head wife Barb is really good at organizing things from finances to scheduling which wife slept with Bill on which night. Said schedule could be altered if a wife was trying for a baby.

Big Love took a couple who had been married for years before Bill decided he had a calling to plural marriage. My first question upon watching the show was: how did he convince Barb into doing this? You knew from season 1 that she wasn’t really convinced about the whole plural marriage thing. The more she talked about how much the family meant to her, the more you realized that she was never really on board. How did Bill convince her? Simple, he knew she loved him and would do anything for him. My heart broke for her, which would happen over and over throughout the series. Who can’t understand being manipulated like that?

I loved how the show allowed Barb to find herself more and more each season. And in finding herself, she realized that she didn’t need Bill. We saw Barb as mother extraordinaire, Mother of the Year (almost), return to school and as the person who truly was the heart of the family. She didn’t just run the houses, she made sure the wives were taken care of even when Bill wanted to ignore problems. This season Barb felt called to be a priesthood holder, a big NO in Bill’s religion. Barb stronger than ever, continued on the path and found a church where she could live her calling. Of course, for me the big letdown came when Barb who was about to get baptized in a different church didn’t follow through because her family wasn’t there. While I could understand the love and need she had for the family, it was just so disappointing to see her go back to someone who really treated her like dirt.

I think what I liked best about this show was how each wife evolved, except maybe Nicki who was basically always a bitch. Her lines just got meaner and meaner. But since I’m kind of mean, I liked it and until this season, loved her character. Nicki Grant, the cold sister wife who came from the compound: you never knew until the third season if she was capable of love. Her marriage to Bill was part of a business arrangement between her father and Bill. Nicki was the child who grew up yearning for her parents’ love and never being good enough for them. Turns out, she was also placed in the Joy Books and became a teen bride. I suppose that would make any person as cold as ice. My absolute favorite Nicki scene was when she worked undercover in the DA’s office and started dating someone else. When she finally came clean about it, I watched the scene over and over. Second best storyline for Nicki was the family finding out she was on birth control. While she almost let someone else take the fall for her, she did finally come clean, but was not really apologetic about it. That is what was great about Nicki, she had no problem telling you what she thought regardless of your feelings. One last fave of Nicki was her giving it to the red headed kid that bullied her son. As the mother of a son who was bullied by a red head a few years ago, I could only applaud her actions.

The fact that I liked Margene so much was a huge surprise for me. She was the young hot wife who loved sex, (although she wasn’t the only wife that loved sex). She was so much more than something pretty to look at though. She had a huge heart and loved without boundaries. Her charm allowed her to make a fortune without any help from the family. Ginnifer Goodwin did such a good job in this role that it was believable first, that she considered herself a mother to Ben, the teenage son of Barb, and then later allowed Ben to comfort her when she couldn’t have Bill at her side. I thought the ending of the show with her going off to do missionary work was out of character, but really, it wasn’t. I mean, yes it was a bit much for her to leave her children, but she grew so much over the seasons that her leaving Utah to save the world actually made sense. She realized she had a life outside of the Henrickson’s family compound. I only wish Barb had found that life.

Big Love even showed us how you date in a plural marriage. I went back and forth on this storyline. It was interesting to watch Bill date a new woman, as well as the sister wives date her. Of course, Nicki hated her, and at that point we found out that Nicki had voted against adding Margene to the family. Maybe Nicki knew Margene wasn’t of age? I didn’t really like Anna, but once Barb decided she did, I changed my mind about her. When Anna left the family, I was kind of relieved for the storyline to end. This storyline did show us another example of Bill screwing over Barb: having sex with yet another person outside of their marriage. Thanks, Bill.

My favorite seasons were probably the first and third, with the fourth season being the worst. The first season introduced us to the family and showed us how they lived. We saw one daughter who didn’t agree with the lifestyle and looked for support outside the home. We saw how Barb’s family reacted to her lifestyle, they disowned her. I loved every scene with Ellen Burstyn as Barb’s mother. The fourth season was just too much: the run for Senate, the casino and trip to Mexico didn’t do much for me.

The thing I hated most about Big Love was the crazy characters. I know that Grace Zabriskie is an amazing actress, but almost every scene she was a part of drove me crazy. That is until this season, I actually liked the storyline with her having dementia and depending on Frank, the husband with whom she had a volatile relationship. (In fact, the last scene of him killing her was one of the few scenes I actually liked from the last episode.) But if I hated Grace Zabriskie, I hated Bill’s brother, Joey, more than any character on the show. I just couldn’t handle how stupid he was.

Dealing with those characters was worth it because the show provided us with Roman Grant, one of the best villains on television. I loved how devious he was and how his wife helped him nonstop. I was so sad when they killed him, and I couldn’t believe that Joey of all people did it. Roman was always one step ahead until the pillow.

Alby was another great character. You wanted to feel sorry for him as a gay man growing up in that environment. There was no way he could live out in the open, but even before the love of his life committed suicide, he was just an asshole. This season he was awesome, but the end for his character, getting shot in the shoulder by Bill, was lame. The great thing about Alby and Roman for that matter was that they could convince anyone to do their dirty work.

I watched an interview with the creators of the show, and they explained that they were ending this season because they didn’t feel they had enough material for another season. While I see their point, the way they ended things was a cop out. I actually didn’t mind Bill getting killed, my problem was how things ended for the interesting ones: the wives. There was no reason for Barb to stay. I could see Nicki (and Margene possibly) staying, but Barb grew so much, and while growth doesn’t have to mean a life alone, it should mean a life where you are respected and Bill clearly didn’t respect her.

Despite my disappointment with how the show ended, I am going to miss Big Love. I really became invested in the sister wives and cared about each of them. I found myself rooting for this marriage to work. I wanted them to live in the open and continue to show people it could be done. That it wasn’t all prairie skirts and long hair. I wanted Bill to wake up and stop alienating those around him.

Every year, there is talk about Grace Zabriskie getting an Emmy. Chloe was finally awarded last year, maybe it was a Golden Globe. This year has to be the year for Jeanne Tripplehorn. She was so damn good.

Justified "Save My Love" Review

2011-03-25T22:19:00.000-05:00

I'm finally getting around to writing this review and I'm exhausted. It's been a long day in which some dick broke into my truck and stole my wife's laptop so let's make this short and to the point.

This week's episode should have had a disclaimer on it that said "Long time fans need only apply." Anyone who hasn't watched the show regularly not only would have been confused by the short scene between Gary and Duffy but they wouldn't have gotten a good sample of what Justified is really like.

I've seen Raylan face gun fire. Stare down the barrel of criminal with bad intentions but I've never been more nervous for him than I was this week as he tried to return the money Winona took from the evidence room without anyone noticing. Stealth and deception definitely aren't strong suits for him. He's prefers to be direct and rely on his ability to be quicker than his opponent. I never got the impression he felt particularly guilty about what he was doing. Committing several felonies. He just seemed annoyed to be put in the position in the first place. It took more work than he would have liked but he and Winona were able to get the money back where it belonged without anyone knowing. Well, except for maybe Chief Deputy Mullen. This incident may not be as over with as it appears.

I was pretty excited to see Rebecca Creskoff show up on Justified this week as the mining companies Vice President Carol Johnson. She's been the only part of Hung worth watching for its entire two seasons. I did find her version of a southern accent kind of distracting but as long as she continues to own scenes with her confidence and sexuality, I can overlook the rest. So, what does she need Boyd for? Well, for most of the episode she claims it's for security but I don't think any of us really believed that line. Her real intentions for Boyd are revealed in the final scene of the episode. She needs someone to get Mags and the Bennett boys out of her way and she believes Boyd is just the man for the job.

There's a moment in the final scene that shows you all you need to know about the brilliance of Walton Goggins in the role of Boyd Crowder. Right after Carol tells Boyd she needs him to deal with Mags and company, without saying a word, Goggins is able to express fear, curiosity and eagerness all in a split second. Next year with Emmy nominations come out, if Walton Goggins isn't at the top of the list then they should just discontinue the award.

As a Justified fan who's been with the show from the beginning, I thought it was a good episode. We got to see a different side of Raylan. We saw him uncharacteristically nervous and completely out of his element sneaking around behind his fellow Marshal's backs. In the end though his intuition and natural ability to read a situation was able to come through during the false bomb threat. It wasn't a typical episode but good none the less.

Random Thoughts:

Why have I always thought Winona was a lawyer?
I can always use more Stephen Root. You can give him any name you want but he'll always be Jimmy James to me.
Two full episodes without the Bennetts is way too many.

The Office - "Garage Sale" Review

2011-03-25T01:20:00.001-05:00

“Michael. You’ve had two ideas today, and one of them was great. And the other one was terrible.” -Pam

This may have just been my favorite The Office episode ever. Did I laugh the most in this episode? No. Did I care about all the side stories? No. But The Office struck me emotionally a bit tonight. I’m not the guy that applauds a comedy when they go rogue and do something emotional to try and show its range, but I applaud when a show is so true to itself that everything just works. Tonight The Office worked. It worked like it hasn’t before. Tonight was the first real push to the Michael Scott farewell episode. In a brilliant proposal scene Michael asks for Holly’s hand in marriage and then tells the office that he’s leaving for Colorado. What a great final 5 minutes.

Tonight’s episode was so great because it got back to what it does best: make us enjoy the great characters. Every character served their purpose tonight. Yes, the point of the episode was Michael Scott’s proposal, but it wasn’t even half the episode. Every person did something small that added to their character. The only time we saw Creed was when he traded Dwight a knife in a quick cut, but yet what a great 1 second. Michael even added to the characterization of Toby and Meredith by just uttering a sentence about them to Holly as he was taking her around a tour of the office. This is the type of symbiotic relationship that always needs to coexist between characterization and plot development. As Michael was getting to the proposal, the plot element, he added to the characterization of other characters. The fact that we know and love all these people makes it so heartbreaking when Michael announces that he’s leaving and no one in the office is excited about it. For as much grief as he’s given the, they still really like their boss and don’t want to see him go.

We now have the escape plan all mapped out. I was happy to see that the events leading up to the decision for Michael to leave are plausible. It would have been easy to send Michael away on some bizarre journey where he invests in a Sbarro’s in India or something, but they chose something way better. I love that he is moving to follow Holly. Michael has a good job and he’s happy, but he’s happiest with her and we see that he’ll leave everything to be with her. Michael has been defined by his job for so long, but now Holly is his life and the evolution of Michael Scott is almost complete. As he was proposing, I started to well up with tears, but when the sprinklers came on, I busted out laughing. Those 15 seconds are The Office in a nutshell. Again, not to keep up with the love fest, but I really loved this episode! And Steve Carell needs an Emmy!

Other thoughts:

Jim is a ploarizing figure on the show and he often gets on people’s nerves, but tonight he was great. He’s at his best when he has a few light hearted moments with Pam, but mostly spends his time trying to prank Dwight out of boredom.

Kevin is a straight up hustler. He ran that Dallas board game.

Was that a Gabe sighting in the final scene? Feels like we haven’t seen too much of him. I would be happy if I never saw him again. With Michael leaving, I feel like the Andy Bernard and Erin love story may move to the front.

Good job by The Office writers on coming up with the garage sale idea. We can get a lot of information about characters by the trinkets they keep and choose to sell.

Why does it not surprise me Holly has a “neon guy?”

Community - "Critical Film Studies" Review

2011-03-25T00:20:00.001-05:00

“As I fell to the floor...I pooped my pants. I did.” -Abed

Community often walks a fine line between comedy and culture. What I mean by that is that some times Community plays for laughs by putting interesting people in interesting situations and we get laughs. Other times, like tonight, it references moments and images from our pop culture history. It pays respect to certain things that shape creative minds. I don’t believe I ever laughed once during tonight’s Community, but that isn’t to say it wasn’t bad or poorly executed. As I watched the opening scene I thought, “ I’m sure that this Community episode is a nod to something, but I don’t know what it is. That being said, I still applaud the show for its creativity. Everyone is dressed in Pulp Fiction clothing. This is where my lack of knowledge about that movie may haunt me. That and Cougar Town.” Community is so clever, but it can really alienate an audience. If I was a casual viewer or someone who had never seen an episode and I saw that one, I’m not sure if I’d watch another one.

Lot’s of TV viewers crave consistency. This is the reason procedurals and cop dramas are big hits. You know exactly `what you’re going to get from CSI and NCIS every single time out. I’ll admit, I was lost during this whole episode tonight. I kept trying to figure out all the references and it left me not really able to enjoy some of the fine acting that was going on. I had never heard of My Dinner With Andre before tonight, but I did look it up. It stars Wallace Shawn who is the “Inconceivable” guy from Princess Bride and the voice of Rex on Toy Story. It wasn’t until about 5 minutes left that I just decided to stop worrying about the uniqueness of the episode and pay attention to the characters I love,

This was an especially strong episode for Danny Pudi as Abed. That monologue he gave will be stuff of legends in Theatre Arts 1 classes in high schools for years to come. He revealed a lot of flexibility about himself, the actor. I don’t watch Cougar Town, but I understand enough that it’s totally in Abed’s personality to like that show. I bet he also loves Chuck and Fringe. Jeff had another strong episode. If Amy Poehler can get Emmy love for Parks and Rec last season, I see no reason Joel McHale can’t the same love this season. I couldn’t help but notice that Chang fit in particularly well this episode. Aside from the fact that Jeff would never invite him to Abed’s surprise party, he really seemed like a member of the group. However, he was just filling the role of Pierce as someone who antagonized and instigated. Pierce’s only purpose was to make a “balls” and “gay” joke. I’m beginning to really think the show needs to move on without him. Anything that will get Alison Brie more air time I’m favor for. She, again, played a very minor role this episode.

I still absolutely love Community as a show. I love that they DO do episodes like this, but I’m beginning to see why it doesn’t appeal to massive numbers. I know it’s been picked up for a third season already, so let’s hope NBC keeps ignoring its numbers and let us lucky few who watch this show enjoy it for what it is.

Parks and Recreation "Camping" Review

2011-03-24T23:27:00.001-05:00

I was out on vacation last week so I never got around to reviewing the "Harvest Festival" episode and that's a real shame because it was outstanding. Little Sebastian stole my heart just like he has every other heart in Pawnee. And just like Little Sebastian stole my heart I'm going to steal Danny Vara's snippet on last week's episode on his blog Danny's Diatribes.

Parks and Rec didn’t wait until the season finale to give us the Harvest Festival and more importantly Li’l Sebastien!
First off it’s important to remember Leslie’s words, “The atrocities are in blue.”
Sepinwall had this little nugget in his review that the Indian was the guy, Jonathan Joss, who voiced John Redcorn on King of the Hill.
Ken Hotate – “There are two things I know about white people: they love Matchbox 20 and they are terrified of curses.”
Lots of great lines in this great episode, but none better than Andy’s reaction to April’s, “I love you.”
Andy – “Dude, shut up! That is awesome sauce.”
Not awesome sauce? Whatever they’re doing with Ann Perkins.

Now on to this week or as Ron Swanson would say "What the F%#$ is a German muffin?"

This week's "Camping" episode wasn't on the same level as last week's but a strong episode none the less. Anytime you get Ron Swanson outdoors in his element, your headed for television gold. Ron's campfire ghost story nearly made me fall out of my chair laughing. Just as he's done in the past Ron was there to pick Leslie up when she needed help the most. Now he picked her up and locked her in a room with a bunch of cats but he picked her up and it worked.

Leslie was panicked as she tried to follow up the Harvest Festival with another great idea. Who wouldn't go blank after the city manager uses your breast to brace himself during a heart attack. It was strange to see Leslie without her normal confidence and zeal for the job. However, her moment of weakness allowed us to see another side of Leslie and added depth to the character.

From the looks of things they've slowed down on trying to hook Leslie and Ben up. That's probably for the best. There's only so many relationships a sitcom can manage at a time. Right now we're still getting a lot of the budding Andy and April love affair. So far their relationship hasn't been as full of "awesome sauce" as I would like but I'm willing to give it more time. Andy and April are two of my favorite characters on the show. Andy for his lovable stupidity and April for being lovably surly. I'm with April and her views on camping. It's terrible. I hope to never suffer through that horror again unless I have a sweet hook up like Tom.

At this point they should just write Anne off the show. Very few of her scenes are funny. She has very little to do with the parks department. Ben has replaced Anne as Leslie's confidant. The whole Chris and Anne thing has run it's course. I think she should take her broken heart and run off to find Mark.

Random Thoughts:

I never want to stay at that or any B&B.
Tom's dog bed killed me.
I like Jerry's role on the show but can live without Donna. She does nothing for me.
"Fishing is like Yoga but I still get to kill things" Ron Swanson

American Idol Top 11 results - 3/24/11

2011-03-24T21:29:00.000-05:00

Here's the deal with the results shows. Not only should they not be an hour long but they shouldn't even be half an hour long. I do my best to wrap them up in about 20 minutes if possible. I've got little tolerance for the fluff and guest performers.

Uh Oh Ryan is already warning us that tonight might shock us. I could not name a single Sugarland song. Are they from Sugarland, TX? I'm pretty sure they sing country.

Here we go with what I assume is going to be the traditional horrible group performance.

How were they ever able to pull Marc Anthony? Dude looks like John Leguizamo on a 60 day hunger strike.

I'm not a fan of the guy with the tail screeching all the time. They told Pia they want her to move around and do an uptempo song but after seeing her trying to dance in this group thing. Abort. Abort. Abort.

Hey look it's Stevie Wonder. Am I the only one who is always disturbed by how small Stevie's teeth are? I looks like he never lost his baby teeth. Freaks me out. That and his braided bald ponytail.

Credit to Ford for figuring out that these kids are so bad a lip syncing they needed to go a different direction with the commercials.

Lauren, Pia and Scotty up first. I think Scotty is in the bottom tonight. All three are safe. And Louisiana dropped some profanity on live television. I love her white trashiness.

It's been a week of true confessions for me so I'm going to drop a big one on you people tonight. This is hard to admit but I don't hate Ryan Seacrest anymore. Maybe I've lost a little piss and vinegar in my old age or maybe he's just grown on me but I actually find him tolerable. Whew I feel better now.

Like I said I've never heard a Sugarland song before and after that I don't think I'll ever listen to another one.

I'm not going to comment on that wrestling piece. I think it speaks for itself.

James and Paul. I thought Paul was better but he's going to be a permanent fixture in the bottom 3 until he's eliminated. Well I guess not. Both guys are safe. I don't really understand why the old guy from American Chopper fake punched Ryan.

I wouldn't see that Carrie Underwood movie with Simon Cowell's eyes.

Jacob being safe is no surprise. He had far and away the best performance last night.

Thia and Stefano in the bottom 3 is well deserved. Stefano was terrible and Thia was boring.

I dislike Naima as much as I've ever disliked a contestant.

Casey in the bottom 3 is a shocker and it isn't. It is because he's pretty consistently one of the better performers and maybe the most entertaining of all the contestants. It isn't surprising because I laid down a bet on my sportsbook the week for him to be the last male standing. That may be the jinx of all jinxes.

OK I'm going to say it. I don't like the deflated Jennifer Hudson as much as the one with more meat on her. Boring song. My man George is singing backup. Love that guy.

Thia is safe and the 10 person concert lineup just got a little worse. I've got a bad feeling for my boy Casey. Like I said last night If you "Hello" and you don't have a blind girl sculpting you on stage then you deserve to go home. Hopefully millions of people heeded my words and sent Stefano packing.

Casey is singing for his Idol life. Good song.

Beards get it done.

At least the judges got it right even if all the morons who voted didn't.

Honestly, this whole production seemed like a WWE show right down to the predetermined outcome.

Survivor: Redemption Island Recap and Analysis 3/23/2011

2011-03-24T01:07:00.000-05:00

“I’m the specialist. Rob is the mentalist. And Grant is the assassin.” -Philip

Matt and Krista meet each other on redemption island and the conversation moves quickly from prayer to business. Business at Zapatera is starting to get disrupted when Steve gets a little hurt that Stephanie and Krista voted for him. Steve, pray tell, who would you have suggested they vote for? If we’re talking poor strategic moves, you just left yourself in a position to get the question turned right back on you. Stephanie is going to try and start ingratiating herself with her tribe now. ABOUT TIME!!!

Oh dear goodness, back at Ometepe the ladies are trimming their armpit hairs with a pair of scissors. Survivor must be running out of stories to tell because spa life at Ometepe is a little unsettling. Ah but Philip is upset they aren’t pulling their weight around camp. It wouldn’t be Survivor if someone didn’t think they were doing more work at camp than someone else.

Krista and Matt continue to develop their religious relationship. Matt worries that it could be tough to face her. Trust me Matt, God does not have a problem smiting down the enemy. So smite her Matt! Smite her!!!! And smite her he does! He’s a master of the grappling hook and the ball puzzle maze. There’s not much this guy can’t do. Well, except grow brunette hair and avoid getting voted out at tribal council. It was a nice moment when Krista gave Matt her bible. Though let’s talk about precedent, can we now start gifting luxury items? Meanwhile, remind me to never date Andrea as she seems to be the jealous type. “He bonded with her more than me!!! Maaaaaattttt!!!!”

You see that Sarita. That’s what you get for trying to brush your teeth with a stick in the jungle. You need to learn to go full on sweater teeth. But wait! What is this? Dave is making a power play to get Stephanie on his side to upset the current numbers? A ha! Just as I predicted. That alliance is just to big on Zapatera.

We’re really paying a lot of attention to camp life this episode aren’t we Survivor? Oh man, I don’t like when we just hear about how people are slacking at camp. That’s a played out angle. But Philip adds an interesting angle to it, however he’s starting to become too ridiculous for me, and my threshold for characters on Survivor is high. Rob pulls Philip aside and tells him like it is. “Listen you idiot! If you’re the one who pulls your weight around camp, you get more votes for 1 million dollars! Team unity knucklehead!” Ok, I paraphrased a bit, but Philip is clearly not playing to win. No one will put his name down to win.

Stephanie is trying to mend her relationship with people in the camp. Thanks for playing the game the first 2 weeks it was a fin time. However, the alliance will be fine if they swap Sarita for Stephanie. The number is the same, and their team is stronger. It’s not a wedge being driven in the middle, just a strengthening move. And if the interviews are any indication, it appears everyone is cool with taking her out. I guess Russell was wrong when he pointed out that she was running things.

On to the immunity/reward challenge! It’s a water challenge, and I do love when people get exhausted during challenges. I’m not so sure what Jeff Probst is getting at when he asks if there’s animosity between the two tribes. Um, sure they don’t like each other, but really they don’t even know each other. Uh oh! Philip is using both the lion and the gorilla in this challenge. Better look out Zapatera. Grant and Rob just dominate the challenge physically. I’m not sure if Philip did one thing on this challenge, but no matter. Zapatera goes to tribal council again. Karma is coming back to get you for throwing challenges. I didn’t like seeing my pick to win, Mike, just get get crushed by Grant and have him resort to tearing his clothes off. Jeff mentioned Grant being an NFL player, I wonder if people knew that. Most people with good jobs, don’t want people knowing they have them because it gives people a reason to not vote for them to win a million dollars.

Just as the boys are trying to sneak off with the hidden immunity idol clue, Philip sees them and busts ‘em! The best part of this escapade is when the camera is turned on to Philip to do his confessional interview, he whispers like he’s got a bug in the room to the camera. He’s so serious, I just don’t understand what’s going on in his head. In fact, he has a name for his “alliance” with Rob and Grant. If you thought “Stealth R Us” you’d be right on the money! But Philip and the United States of America are not happy with the sneakiness going on! He threatens to kick a little ass at the right time.

Zapatera admits they just got smoked in the challenge and that they need to be strong in the challenges. The Stephanie for Sarita swap is in full effect. I’m ok with that. Stephanie is easier on the eyes. Steve claims both Sarita and Stephanie are a 1 out of 10 in challenges. I don’t think he’s paying much attention. No, Stephanie’s no Grant, but she is miles better than Sarita. And Sarita brushes her teeth with a stick.

Stephanie just comes out shooting bullets right at Sarita. Attacking her toughness, her drive, her want. Wow. She’s really laying into her. And it doesn’t seem, not surprisingly, that Sarita is going to put up a fight. I’d actually like to see everyone turn heel here and vote out Dave. Man, is he annoying. But in a bit of a twist they elect to keep Sarita. I’m not sure I agree with this move knowing what they know. Of course, we know Stephanie told Rob she’d join Ometepe come the merge. I’m on board with Dave here. You need to win at all costs here. First they throw a challenge and vote out Russell and now they vote out a true competitor. Zapatera does not seem to be playing a winning game here.

Bottom Line: We still are stuck in a holding pattern. But that is all soon to change as Zapatera is now out of excess members. David can’t be too happy that he wasn’t on the same page as his teammates. He’s now on the outside looking in. Meanwhile over at Ometepe, they still have a Philip problem, but if I were anyone, I want to take him to the end. No way anyone gives him the million dollars. I look for Ometepe to continue to win as Grant is proving to be a real game changer. The redemption island battle island between Matt and Stephanie is going to be a good one. As much as I like Stephanie, I’m still pulling for Matt.

Pick to Win: Ugh...MIke the Marine. Though I’d like to switch to Grant, but he could be too much of a physical threat. We’ll see. But I’m still going with my guy Mike.

American Idol top 11 compete - 3/23/11

2011-03-23T23:12:00.000-05:00

Ahh look someone told J-Lo it was her 3rd grade dance recital tonight. Either that or she bumped her head and now thinks she's Selena Gomez.

How many jaguars had to give their lives for Steven's wardrobe? I mean seriously, the guy wears more animal print than a 68 year old Boca woman.

OK let's roll out the annual Motown reel.

While they drone on about how Motown shaped the judges lives, I'll share a little snippet from my wife while we watched last week. After a few words from Steven Tyler she turns to me and says "I can't trust the opinion of a guy with a skunk tail tied in his hair."

Looks like John the Baptist is kicking things off tonight. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" probably a good choice based on what CCR was able to do with the song. Hate the beginning but picked it up nicely once the music kicked in. Nice performance it won't be the best of the night but he should be safe. He's apparently good friends with Band of Horses or at least their doppelgangers. OK I demand that Casey performs at least once dressed as Dr. Teeth. He's a dead ringer.

It's gonna be really tough for No Melody to sing a Motown song without a melody. Nice big voice but hard to understand. Very lackluster performance almost like she's 16. Oh yeah I forgot.

Swishy Smooth is doing some song I've never heard before but he's singing the shit out of it. This week is a fastball down the heart of the plate for him. Absolutely killed that song. Very restrained with accents in all the right places.

I hate this douche producer whose name I can never remember.

What's Louisiana got tonight. Terrible dress choice for this song. It makes her look way too big and old. Not to mention it's an atrocity of a zebra print. She's rushing through the song and trying to be too clean with it. He strength is when she dirties up a song and adds a southern flair. Wasn't terrible but a miss none the less.

Hey look that chef guy who yells at people is in the audience. That's relevant.

If you do "Hello" and don't have a blind chick sculpting your face on stage then you should automatically go home. Someone needs to tell Stefano that terrible and cheesy is no way to go through life. Does he have to world's smallest soul patch or did he run into a sharpie? I'm pretty sure he's going to be in my bottom 3 this week.

Can someone take a dictionary up to J-Lo during the commercial break and show her what the definition of amazing is.

I don't know what is more impressive Otis Williams' shiny hat bill or the six inch silver heart on his chest.

Poor Mariah just isn't long for this competition. Pretty girl especially for a cyclops but just lacks the chops to go much farther. I do like her growl though. Did she just forget the words? If so ultimate sin. She's gonna entertain a lot of people at church on Sundays but not professional level.

Is it just me or has Jennifer been adding layers of make up at each commercial break.

Let me say 20th Duggar is just about the goofiest looking SOB around. If he pulls this off it will be the upset of the competition. That was a wormy ass handshake Jimmy whatshisname just gave Scotty. I still can't get over the way he two hands the mic. Seriously kid women on the strip two hand mics like that you should not. I feel like the standing ovation is he just got is like the applause at the Special Olympics. He's definitely has a Crash Test Dummies go Nashville style. Is that a good thing?

Winnie Cooper is up next. I hope she's not wearing a bad jumpsuit like last week. She looks a lot better than last week but looking at her is the only thing keeping me awake. This is one of my least favorite Stevie songs and she's doing nothing to make it better. She might win this whole thing because she's got the look and the voice but if Pia doesn't do something to create excitement she may just sleepwalk her way out of the competition. I can't believe I'm actually agreeing with what Jennifer is saying.

I dig Randy's cardigan style this season.

I've got to give Steven credit for not being asleep this week and for not wearing one of Betty White's jackets.

Things are about to get uncomfortable as Laser Teeth falls all over the stage. What I like about this guy is that he knows who he is. Thank God he's got a guitar tonight. I guess the counter weight keeps him from falling all over the stage. This is my favorite performance from Paul this season. It helps that it's also one of my favorite songs.

Whenever Randy asks someone if they had fun that means he's not sure how he feels about the performance.

Can they please outlaw Project Throwaway from wearing her awful creations? Great choice girl because America is full of people who love African dancing. I want her voted off for those pants alone. I didn't get the dancing thing but her singing was pretty good. Dammit.

If Liz Claiborne doesn't pick up Steven Tyler as their spokes model then they're both missing an opportunity here.

Curious George is going to close out the show with "Living for the City." Nothing I like more than listening to someone who nothing about life explain lyrics to a song like this classic Stevie tune. Jesus. Cheeeeeeesy performance and really bad when singing with the back up singers.

The performances overall were pretty good thanks to some great songs. Swishy was on a different planet from everyone else with his performance.

Bottom 3
Mariah
Stefano
20th Duggar

Say goodbye to Mariah and her nice legs.

ApeDonkey Power Rankings - 3/22/11

2011-03-23T17:15:00.000-05:00

Top 5

1. Statutory Rape - Is anything hotter right now that statutory rape? Hank Moody was just convicted of statutory rape on Californication. Bill on Big Love faced the same charge before meeting his fate and now this week on Shameless Frank was essentially raped by a minor. In real life LT just got 6 years probation for sleeping with a 16 year old. And let's not forget the king of all statutory rape Roman Polanski. I'm telling you, statutory rape is white hot right now.

2. Jason Isbell - I finally was able to see Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit live this past weekend at Sam's Burger Joint in San Antonio. It was my first chance to catch him live since he left the Drive-By Truckers. Having now seen both Isbell and DBT since the split, I have to say that I think DBT miss Jason more than he misses them. DBT is still a great band and continues to produce terrific albums but they lost a key piece when Jason left. An outsiders perspective is that Patterson writes songs from his brain. Cooley writes from that old rock 'n roll staple the crotch. Jason's music seems to come from his hearth and soul though. He writes beautiful songs about life in the south, family and soul felt love songs.

The 400 Unit is an extremely tight band and Isbell has developed great chemistry with guitarist Browan Lollar. They traded licks and lead duties like partners of 20 years. The band ran through all of Isbell's best with the DBTs even kicking the show off with "Never Gonna Change" and mixing in the Jimi Hendrix classic "Stone Free" in the middle of the song. They didn't have a particularly long set because this was the third of three shows for them that day. Isbell and the band had played two shows at SXSW earlier in the day before heading over to play a nightcap in San Antonio. Even with the shortened show they hit on every song I was hoping for except for "Brand New Kind of Actress." They did a cover The Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer" with Lollar on vocals that rivaled the original. By the end of the show Isbell's throat was obviously trashed. He was having to use a throat spray between songs to keep going. Afterwards the guys stuck around to have drinks and mingle with fans. Great performers and terrific guys all around. I'm hoping Cactus Music can set up an in store performance when they come to Houston for Summerfest in June. You can bet the mortgage I'll be there.

3. Alamo Heights - Man these are my kind of people. They're old, grumpy as hell and have absolutely no patience for anyone. While I was in San Antonio last week, I found myself in this area on several occasions. On one occasion we stopped in Central Market to get a birthday cake for my son. In a normal supermarket situation people will say "excuse me" or something like that when they try to get by you, not these fossils. These old coots will just mow right through you and if they happen to take out one of your toes, well then that's your problem. Damned is the checker who doesn't get someone to the register for a carry out quick enough. Granny in her animal print shawl and heavy jewelry is about to drop some not so nice knowledge on your ass.

The middle aged residents are just as mean but fuck them. They haven't earned their right to let shit fly. I needed to take a different exit out of the parking lot so I decided to go down a one way because it was the only way for me to get where I needed. Just as I was turning out the one way a woman in her chromed out Escalade wanted to turn in and had to back up literally four feet for me to turn. Well holy shit! You would have thought she had to push her car out of the way. She threw it into reverse hammered the accelerator and jammed it back into drive. As I was driving past she rolled down her window to scream at me and call me a moron. Now I can't argue with someone calling me a moron because much of the time that's a good assessment. However, I happened to be in the car with my mother in law and kids and I've tried to shield my offspring from my moronic tendencies. My first instinct was to roll down my window and tell the bitch to go die in a grease fire (a favorite picked up from legendary red ass Stump). But since I didn't want to lose it in front of the kids and mother in law I let is slide.

4. Burnout Pete - I made a new friend at Sam's Burger Joint waiting for the Jason Isbell show to start. We never exchanged names but I've come to call him Burnout Pete. We talked for at least an hour about bands past and present. He's one of those guys who goes to five shows a week and since he lives in the hill country, he hits shows in Austin, San Antonio and Gruene. A conversation with Burnout Pete is kind of like what you'd expect talking to Tommy Chong is like. During our time together he called me "man" no less than 300 times. He still pumped about a Robin Trower show he'd recently been to and said Trower's show was as good now as it was when he saw him in '73. His wife was the spitting image of a blond hippie Angelica Huston. I tried to turn him on to using IConcerCal for keeping up with shows through iTunes but as soon as I said something I realized he probably had a vinyl music library and not a digital one. I hope I run in to Pete again sometime. That guy was cool and fun to talk to plus we still have some unresolved disagreements about The Band.

5. Kid Prophets - I've got nothing for number 5 so I'm going to leave you with my favorite quote by my 6 year old daughter from our trip to San Antonio. On our way to Kiddie Park which is as terrible as it sounds, read below, my kid drops this nugget on us "I'm gonna die on the horizon."

Bottom 5

1. Spring Break - I did a little research to find out who invented spring break. I needed someone to blame. Someone I could heap all my resentment and hatred upon year after year. Unfortunately, the idea isn't attributed to any one person so I have to blame the farmers and Easter for this week of Hell. At least according to wikipedia and google that's who I should blame. I've learned to deal with summer break. I start getting my mind ready in May. I play loops of screeching noises and loud screaming for a few weeks prior to the end of the school year and I'm set. Spring break always seems to sneak up on me though. And because it's one week of unexpected freedom the kids try to get out all of their horribleness in one nuclear blast of annoyingness. So how bad was this year? Let me see if this gives you any idea. By 10am on Monday morning, one kid have vomited chocolate milk all over my bedroom. While the other kid was in the throws of a monstrous fit because she was bored. It was only two hours in to spring break and she was already bored. If you think your week can possibly go well after a beginning like that then you're wrong.

2. On Court Stupidity - I'm getting the power rankings out so late this week the happenings in the NCAA basketball tournament are a bit out dated but the stupid fouls and plays in the Butler/Pitt and Texas/Arizona games are the things of legend. When Pitt was on the line to what seemed like steal victory from Butler I was writing a tweet that the boneheads on Pitt weren't above doing something stupid like fouling Butler right back. And before I could even hit send, they did it. Why would you even care about that rebound? There wasn't enough time to make any reasonable shot so at worst you were headed to overtime. Then my Longhorns decided they didn't want to be left out of the dumbass conversation. With 12 seconds left, the ball and a 2 point lead Jordan Hamilton called a timeout. The only option Arizona had at that point was to foul Hamilton but he let them off the hook and called a timeout. Hamilton is a good ball handler, a premier scorer and a 78% free throw shooter. Now it seems like he may have been coached to call a timeout and if so then the onus falls on Rick Barnes for blowing that game.

3. Big Love - I said my piece about the Big Love finale in a blog post earlier this week but they still make the bottom 5 for what was a very disappointing finale. So many great characters and story lines created through the years were thrown away with a thud. I've tried to rationalize the way the series ended over the past few days and I still can't find an excuse that makes it the correct ending. Sad way to close an excellent show.

4. Third World Cities - One of the best things about living in Texas is that we can visit third world cities without having to actually go to a third world country. Like I've already said, We visited family in San Antonio this past week and it's always a culture shock when we go. Everyone appears to be 10-15 years older than their actual age. Even if you don't take in the arts and museums of Houston, there's a level of sophistication and culture that is absent in San Antonio. If your kid happens to get sick while you're there like mine did, you're better off visiting a witch doctor or just taking them out back and giving them the old lame horse treatment than going to a clinic. They claim to have degrees but judging from their analysis and advice I'd rather trust my kid's health to a can of Dr. Pepper than these fruit cakes.

Even though I said I would never go to Kiddie Park again I found myself there on Thursday and they've found a way to up the horribleness by adding road construction to the equation to go along with the crack houses and throngs of pedders. If you didn't read my last review of this place let me reset what this is. Kiddie Park is a San Antonio "institution." Which means it's really old and run down. On our way there my kid asked me if we were close and I told her when she could smell hepatitis and tetanus then she'd know we were close. The only I allowed myself to touch while I was there were the antibacterial dispenser. I'm assuming my 2 year old isn't long for this world since I caught him licking the glass of one of the tchotchke dispensers. It cost ~$11 per kid to go and my 2 year old refused to ride anything so I actually paid them to give him a disease and nothing else. Luckily, the older kid will be too old to ride anything there the next time we come to town so hopefully my days in Hell are done.

5. Longhorn Fans - I went over the dumb time out by Jordan Hamilton at the end of the Arizona game but that's probably not the reason my fellow Longhorn fans gave for the loss. You probably heard about the short 5 second count. It was a short count and the way the ref responded to questions about it makes me hope he's never allowed to ref another NCAA game. And you've probably heard about the uncalled foul after J. Brown's missed final shot. I can't say there wasn't a foul. However, these aren't the reasons the Longhorns lost. All of these "judgement" calls would have been moot if that timeout isn't called and Hamilton doesn't miss both free throws. Or how about the Longhorns put together two good halves of basketball instead of digging themselves such a deep hole they were forced to play mistake free in the second half. Longhorn fans need to let the phantom and missed calls go. Even if the ref came out today and admitted his mistakes, they aren't putting anymore time back on the clock. The Horns are going to have another top 5-10 team again next season and maybe this time they won't implode down the stretch.

LIghts Out - "Rainmaker: Review

2011-03-23T09:35:00.001-05:00

“Haven’t met a problem yet that money couldn’t solve.” -Johnny

This episode of Lights Out needs to be looked at under two different microscopes. If we examine the episode independent of all other episodes it seems like a really solid episode. There was a brilliant guest performance by David Morse, an exciting arrest, and some good ol’ fashioned scheming. However, when looked at as one of the final episodes before the end of the season, and possibly, but hopefully not, the series, it just seems a little disjointed.

A large Soprano’s style family dinner was present that was very bright and uplifting. It was a fine scene, but I’m not sure we’ve seen the whole family together eating and having a good time. There’s a lot of inner turmoil that’s been present, but it seemed to have disappeared. One of the reasons it seemed so odd is that we finally had all three daughters back in the house. The tension of the episode was put on hold just so we could watch the family strengthen. While I appreciate what they were trying to do there, I’m not sure it was perfectly executed. There was some real drama built up last week with Patrick getting back in to bed with Brennan and brawling with Death Row, but they decided they couldn’t get to all that too quickly, so here we are at this episode.

The Councilman Hess story line I found very interesting, but I think it should have played out over a longer time. That was some real danger Lights faced. He was faced with bribery of a public official, had the feds on his back, and was being viewed as a loose end in Brennan’s operation. It all seemed to wrap up to easily and quickly. First he gets some inkling that Hess is wearing a wire, then he convinces a crime lord that he’s trustworthy essentially by only saying, “trust me.” It was all a bit unbelievable and I think we would have been better served by getting to see a bit more of all that danger start to percolate and boil over. Lights Out is not a political procedural show and nor do I want it to be, but I thought it was just a bit underdeveloped.

What was excellent about this episode was David Morse’s performance of Jimmy “The Rainmaker.” He brought a real honesty to the role and allowed for us to understand his life in just a few short minutes. His presence served two different purposes on the show. The first is he was used as an instrument to get Lights out of some trouble by convincing Councilman Hess to stop talking by using extreme force. This is the first time we see LIghts make a decision that bettered his position by not further putting his family or himself at further risk. If we can see more of Patrick using his other resources, and not just his fists, to get things done, the show will become that much deeper. The second purpose of Jimmy was to serve as a warning to Lights about the dangers of taking too many punches to the head. Though I think we were a little hit over the head (pun intended) with this idea, Morse did do a great job of showing that he still had joy for the game, but the consequences may not outweigh all the costs. We’ll see if this effects Patrick in any way, but he has a history of disregarding former boxing legends who impacted him earlier. Ed Romeo was such a strong force in his two episodes, but now it seems like he’s an afterthought.

Lights Out is till building to the fight with Death Row Reynolds. We know this. So it was no surprise to see the show steer away from the training for a bit. It was logical for Patrick to find himself fixing problems that didn’t get in the way of the healing process. However, I’m not so sure that the independent story of this episode was executed as best as it could have been to keep last week’s momentum going. I look for these next two episodes to really turn up the heat. So while I was particularly thrilled with this episode, I certainly am still looking forward to see how it ends. I’m definitely looking forward to more Barry K Word and definitely looking forward to an epic boxing match.

The Chicago Code - "Black Hand and the Shotgun Man” Review

2011-03-21T23:49:00.000-05:00

“It’s my generations fault for not teaching yours better manners.” -Gibbons 

I’ve given The Chicago Code a lot leeway so far this season due largely in part to the involvement of Shawn Ryan, creator of The Shield and Terriers. I was upset a bit last week with the episode, but dismissed the notion because it was without Delroy Lindo. However with his return this week I got the same feeling: the show is good, not great. When Terriers was around I found myself loving every episode and not wanting it to end, but with The Chicago Code, I feel like I would be ok if it went away forever. That seems very harsh, so let me clarify a few things. The first is that it is infinitely better than CSI, NCIS and all their offspring procedurals. I would miss The Chicago Code because it would be better than those, but know that those shows don’t really exist in my universe. So when I say “if the show went away” I mean if it went away from the list of shows I watch or will watch. Do I wish the show to go away? No. Far from it. What I wish is for the show to improve. It has a lot of great elements in it, it just needs to find a way to put them altogether.

The Chicago Code is essentially two shows battling for air time. One show is Alderman Gibbons using his political office to run an organized crime syndicate but he has to keep batting away these annoying cops that keep trying to slow him down. What he doesn’t know is that he just took in an undercover cop into his crime family. The other show is one where a superintendent has a super detective that rides around with this young up and coming detective solving crimes, but their relationship is the real story. The super cop has a tumultuous home life and the kid cop keeps giving him grief, all while being a pretty decent detective. Both shows on there own would just be ok, but if we can find a way to weave them together, we’d be much better off.

I’m not one to just throw out problems and offer no solutions, so I’ll do my best. It is without hesitation that I can say Justified is currently the best showing airing right now. This excludes the likes of Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire and shows like that as they are currently not airing. What Justified does so well is that it has created a sense of family in Harlan County. Even when things don’t directly involve Raylan Givens, they effect him. Justified is a mix of episodic cases mixed with serialized cases just like The Chicago Code, yet Justified is such a smoother show. In fairness to The Chicago Code, Justified does not have to please a network audience. It can function in cable land. But at the heart of the matter is the lead character. We have learned to love Raylan despite his many flaws. With Jarek Wysocki, we’re not quite head over heels for him. This is why I thought it was nice in this episode to get a bit more of a look in the insight of his home life. On Shawn Ryan’s twitter he was asked when we were going to meet Jarek’s fiance, and he replied, “Soon. And when we meet her, you won’t forget her.” I thought this meant she was going to show up guns a blaze being the drug kingpin of Chicago or something. I half expected her to jump out of the Nigerian’s car with the kidnapped son, but no, it was neither of these things. It turns out that she’s just smoking hot. It’s no wonder Jarek is having trouble leaving her to go back and be with his ex wife. Beautiful ladies is a move Justified has been pulling for a while now. It’s about time The Chicago Code stepped up it’s game. Though I’ll admit, I do find Jarek’s niece Vonda a little attractive.

I think the show has taken a step in the right direction this episode though. There was a great scene where Gibbons brought Liam in to visit the family of the man he unknowingly killed. It really showed the ruthlessness of Gibbons’ character and let us know just how sick and twisted he is. This led to Liam talking to both Wysocki and Superintendent Colvin and ultimately to him saying that he’ll do whatever it takes to bring Gibbons down. Now we have all our good guys with a singular focus. Now if ruthless drug dealer gang kingpins with weaknesses for their family can stop getting the way, The Chicago Code can get focused and close out the season strong!

Californication "The Last Supper" Review

2011-03-21T21:33:00.000-05:00

So what would you do if you were convicted of felony and facing sentencing in a day or so? Well if you're Hank Moody you'd get shit faced, sex your lawyer, visit your daughter, your favorite hooker, you best friend and then spend the evening at a party in your honor with friends and family. Actually, that doesn't sound like a bad day, except for the convicted part of course.

Just as I had predicted, Hank was found guilty of statutory rape. It was obvious throughout the episode that Hank was nervous and off his game. His usual wit was absent and his jokes fell flat. In other words, he was more human than normal. It was an episode for Hank to feel the gravity of his situation. He was finally accepting blame for being his own worst enemy.

Unbelievably, the truest and best scenes of the episode involved Becca. I'm not a big fan of Madeleine Martin's acting but I thought she did quite well tonight. Becca's had to be the adult more often than a child should where Hank is involved and she didn't hold back on letting him know that. Her life is exhibit A of the downside of having the "cool" parent. She expressed to Hank that sometimes all she wishes is that he was a regular dad who came home from work and did normal dad things. As cool as Hank may seem to us, this is one of those moments you are able to see the hidden consequences of being his kid.

Hank's tour of LA is actually kind of sad. Who does he really have to turn to in his time of emotional need? He's alienated Karen. Charlie is little help in this type of situation and everyone else either hates or wants to use him. He's carved out a rather lonely pathetic situation for himself. Who else could he turn to but his hooker with a golden heart? But Hank doesn't need sex from her. He could get laid by any number of women. What he needs is someone who will listen to him. Allow him to be vulnerable and comfort him.

Just as we see Hank thinking about running from his fate, he's called home to a surprise party with Karen, Charlie, Karen and Becca. The show lost something when the split these two couples up and the writers all but admit that through Becca's assessment. The interplay, conversations and chemistry between these two couples was a show highlight waiting to happen. Marcy and Charlie were always better together even with their problems than either has been apart. Hank and Karen are the natural partners for them. Hank a catalyst to take every situation to the next level and Karen is there to ground everyone. If this is the last time we see the two couples together then is was a good last time with dirty stories, drunken confessions and stoned realizations.

Throughout the night you can see Hank trying to sell Karen on the magic of their relationship. Karen isn't buying. She knows their relationship has reached the end of the road and now it's her job to make Hank see that too. She still loves Hank but love isn't enough when it comes to being with a guy like Hank. She's willing to give herself to him one last time. Maybe it's because he could be going away for a long time or maybe it's because she needs a final chapter for her story with Hank but for one more night she's going to be his. In the morning, it will all be over.

So what sentence does Hank get? How does the season end?

Random Thoughts:

I guess we've seen the last of Ben and Pearl this season?
Seems like the least Mia could do is throw Hank one last mercy lay. She owes him that much right?
I really didn't like the way everyone found out about the guilty verdict. There's no way Charlie and Karen wouldn't have been in the courtroom when that came down.
I could do without Rob Lowe coming back next week.

Shameless - "Daddyz Girl' Review

2011-03-21T20:21:00.000-05:00

“I’m happy with who we are. Even if you’re not.” -Ian

As we approach the season finale of Shameless, I find myself loving the show more and more every week. I liked the show from the beginning but I feel it’s really come into it’s own. Nothing has really dramatically changed structure wise since the pilot, but yet it continues to get better. The reason is so simple, yet many shows choose to ignore it: character development. Shameless has a host of characters and yet we know each and everyone of them. We may not like some, *cough* Frank *cough*, and others we have deep empathy for, like Fiona. Too often we can get caught up in the debate about serialized drama versus episodic or one camera shows or multi, but ultimately it all comes down to characters. People spent many years trying to find out what going to happen on Lost and lost the ability to enjoy the characters. Shameless has let us enjoy and grow with their characters, while still keeping us very much engaged in the story.

This week was all about raising the stakes. Characters and plot fall short if there are no obstacles to overcome and there is no danger involved with the decisions they make to overcome that obstacle. I’m not talking about Fiona deciding whether or not to jump off a cliff or not, but each decision she makes has consequences and thus has risk. It’s clear that she likes Steve, but up to this point, it’s also seemed like she needed him too. Steve was Fiona’s ticket to luxury and normal life. I wondered last week if the show took all the money away from Steve, if they would stay together. What happened instead was, Shameless introduced Jasmine who started showering Fiona with many gifts, but none more important than a job. Now Fiona doesn’t need Steve for stability monetarily, but rather emotionally. And with Steve in a lot of trouble with Tony, it looks like we could be back to independent Fiona. I don’t want Steve to leave, but I do think the honeymoon is over and he is going to have to do some serious work to get Fiona back, assuming he loses her.

In Philip and Ian’s quest to find Ian’s real dad, we learn a lot about their ideas for what they think of the Gallagher family and their life as a whole. It seems as though Lip is the one destined to make it out of the hood. He’s starting to have feelings for Karen, who we’ll get to in a second, and he keeps thinking about going to school. Ian is content, he doesn’t have the brain that Lip has. So just as we’re starting to root for a Gallagher to make it out, the show raises the stakes once again and gets Lip and Ian arrested. Lip will no doubt take responsibility and we are left wondering just what could have been. Through this obstacle, Shameless has now given us a rooting interest. Due to great character development over the course of the season we care very much what happens to Lip. Just another example of how the show is succeeding.

Perhaps the character that took me by surprise the most this season is Karen Jackson. She just started out as Lip’s friend with benefits, but has recently really come into her own as a force on the show. Shameless focuses a lot on “daddy issues” whether is be Frank, Steve’s perfect father, or in this case Eddie. Eddie got it into Karen’s head that he cared about her, but after learning of her many sexual encounters, he screamed at her and called he a whore, which she now has tattooed on her arm. When she was first upset, I thought it was more superficial. I thought she was just mad because he wouldn’t get her the car he promised to get her. It turns out, there’s only so much a kid can take. Karen embarked on a rage induced depression crusade where it appears her only goal is to make her father miserable. She spray paints his room, breaks his car window, cuts her hair, pierces her body, and starts a cam website. At first it was a type of diary, but she took it to the next level when she filmed her and Frank having sex in his room. Shameless really kicked it up a notch here and this splash will surely have rippling effects on all members of the Gallagher family.

All that being said, I can’t wait for the season finale next week. I’m curious whether we’ll get some form of closure on this season or if it will be left open ended. Either way, I don’t anticipate being let down in any way.

Other thoughts:

Hearing Emmy Rossum singing badly reminds me just how great of a singer she actually is. She at a young age of 18, played Christine in the movie remake of Phantom of the Opera. I half expected her to belt out some great notes and Steve try and market her voice. But that’s a different show altogether.

As someone who uses a pneumatic staple very often, one staple through the hand wouldn’t cause that much damage. You’d be out for a week tops. I’m not mad or anything, because I realize that injury needed to be one that still allowed for him to come home and sleep with Karen.

I found it particularly amusing when Carl made the impression of his middle finger in the needle toy. They’ve done a good job keeping him consistent. It was also great when he tried to hit on the 12 year old in the truck. Subtle, but good.

Just how many show is Brad William Henke on right now? He’s Coover Bennet in Justified, Ernie Moosekian in The Chicago Code and now Hal in Shameless! Good for him. Good work if you can get it.

Big Love Series Finale "When Men and Mountains Meet" Review

2011-03-21T12:01:00.000-05:00

I waited until this morning to write this review because I didn't want the emotions of the moment to dictate how I felt about the Big Love series finale. I wanted to take moment think about what had transpired and give my honest opinion. The funny thing is not much has changed in the twelve hours since I forever left the Henricksons behind me. I was left with a ton of disappointment, huge questions and the general feeling of being cheated. Maybe the feeling of disappointment and loss is just the nature of finales but I think there was much more at work here.

There's an inherent issue shows face with finales. It is the only time they are faced with the finality of what they are doing. I'm not talking about the fact that it's going away but finality in that the choices they make can never be altered or addressed again. If you take your characters in a direction or make choices you're unhappy with in a season finale, you can fix it before the opening credits role on the new season. Hell, Dallas erased an entire season by writing it off as a dream. But the choices you make in your series finale will live with that show forever. BJ will always tell Hawkeye goodbye in his own way. Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer will never not go to jail. Tony will always play Journey in the cafe. Good, bad or ambivalent these are the images we'll forever be left with.

These images and resolutions or the lack there of, make up the core of the issues I have with the Big Love finale. I felt like in many ways the writers/producers took the lazy or easy way out. They spent an entire season building tensions within the family, the government and the community only to take the easy rout by killing Bill. But before we discuss how the death of Bill was the laziest of all solutions for the series' creators, let's talk about the good and bad of the events leading up to Bill's fateful end.

Barb's resolve to seek out a church that would allow her to become a priest holder has been an essential part of this season. Even though her marriage was fractured and her family disintegrating around her the one thing Barb had to cling to was her faith and her calling to the priesthood. For those of us who are Barb fans, this was the light out of the tunnel of darkness Bill had taken them through. It was exciting to see her continuing down the path of joining the reformed church even though it was causing a greater chasm in her relationship with Bill. At this point, Bill had become far removed from the outcast of Juniper Creek seeking to reform the principle. He had become a self righteous blow hard, who was difficult to like and much more difficult to root for. The terrific scene in which he moves out of Barb's house should have been the final straw for that relationship. If Barb had completely broken with the family at that point, I think we all would have been happier.

The maturation of Margene was another key element to the final season. She had finally had a taste of the outside world and found there was a place for her beyond the walls of the Henrickson's home. I don't think the show ever really painted her as a devout Mormon but she did have a charitable heart and the desire to reach out to those in need. Therefore, her desire seek a mission to those less fortunate seemed like a natural progression for her character. My only question would have been her willingness to leave her three children to be be raised by her sister wives. A question Nicki was quick to ask, although in a selfish Nicki manner. We saw the completion of Margene's maturation process when she finally stood up to Nicki about her desire to go on a mission. She knows her responsibilities at home will prevent her from going but Nicki has no right to call her hopes and dreams ridiculous.

If the second half of the finale had kept the same tone and trajectory as the first half then we may be talking about one of the great finales in television history. The climax of the series was Bill's speech on the floor of the State Senate. The speech at it's climatic moment actually gave me chills. This only goes to show how powerful Bill's character and Big Love itself could be when everything was right. I was sure we they were going to use the momentum of that moment to propel us to a great and satisfying ending. Instead the writers used Bill's outstanding speech to the state assembly as a launching point to resolve the family's issues with the least possible resistance.

From that moment on, we saw the characters we've spent five years getting to know start to do thing completely out of line with who they are. The writers tried to soften Nicki to harbor compassion from the audience. A softening that seemed to happen out of nowhere. Wouldn't Nicki have been more interesting and real if the cracks forming in the family had only hardened her resolve to be the lead sister wife? Instead we were left with a character in flux who we aren't sure how to take. Barb, who had spent the entire season chasing her calling, finally reaches her moment to step outside the family and create her own path and she does a 180 without any real reason. The lame "my family is here" reasoning didn't hold water. She had gone down this path on her own without there support and with the knowledge that it might ultimately lead to her separation from them. I found it incredibly unbelievable that she would get cold fee at that moment.

Now let's talk about Bill's death, why it was a lazy solution and the problems it causes. The writers spent an entire season building story lines including the reformation of the compounds, the fracturing of the Henricksons, Barb's calling and the ascension of Nicki as the head of the Henrickson sister wives and the writers decided to cheat us of any resolutions by killing off Bill. At the time of Bill's death, not a single plot line we had been following had been resolved. Barb still sought to become a priest holder, polygamy was still illegal, the compound rife with corruption and Bill was still facing felony charges. So instead of facing the struggle still ahead for the Henricksons the writers/producers decided let's kill Bill jump ahead a year and the audience will assume everything was resolved. Except, what they really did is open up a whole new set of questions. The only thing this really resolved was the rape charges. You can't put a dead man in jail. But are we supposed to believe that Bill's death solved the problems between the sister wives? Don't you think Nicki being in charge of things actually created more problems? Are we to believe the fundamentalist polygamist sects who had come to Bill's church were now going to accept a woman, Barb as a priest holder? I guess Bill dying made it OK with Heather that Ben slept with Rhonda because it sure as hell wasn't that hokey ass star thing. Apparently, Bill being gone made it easier on the family for Margene to leave whenever she wanted on missions.

Ultimately, the ending left too much unresolved and a bad taste in my mouth. I'm not going to argue with whether or not Bill deserved to die. By the end of the series I wanted him and Nicki to die together in a fiery car crash. I just thought the way it was done was a big cop out instead of having to address the issues still facing the family and the series.

Final Random Thoughts:

That was a sweet fem mullet Barb grew after becoming a priest.
Teeny was and still is the dumbest name on television.
I guess your husband dying gives you a license to cut your hair like a 6 year old boy.
What happens when one of the wives finds a new husband?
What in Carl's character even hinted that he was capable of shooting someone? He was a coward for most of the series.
This episode only strengthened my resolve to never re-sod my neighbors lawn.
Every week Barb was surprising me with her musical selections.
With everything going on with her daughter was it too much to ask to have a final scene with Ellen Burstyn?

Justified "Blaze of Glory" Review

2011-03-20T18:26:00.001-05:00

"When someone is threatening the safety of a woman you care deeply for there is no ends to the lengths you will go to keep that woman safe." Boyd Crowder

Justified decided to take a step sideways this week. Not a step back but sideways to let us explore our hero Raylan and what motivates him. As his relationship with Winona continues to develop it's important to see what he's willing to sacrifice for her and the cracks that divided them before.

Boyd's little reminder to Raylan is essentially the crux of this week's episode with a little bank robbery thrown in to move our characters further. How far is Raylan willing to go to protect Winona? We saw him willing to put his life on the line to keep Ava safe last season and his bonds with Winona run much deeper. Just as we've seen Boyd is incapable of giving up what he is, a criminal, for Ava, we'll soon witness Raylan is equally incapable to give up being a lawman for Winona. One of life's truths is that we are who we are and the one's who love us have to accept that reality or move on.

My favorite part of the entire episode is the truth in Winona's actions when she is faced with financial pressures and a stash of money she thinks no one knows about. If she had taken a stack of money to deposit the believability of the story would have fallen apart before it started. By taking just one bill to see if it was real was a position nearly everyone could see themselves in. What if no one really knows about this money? This could solve all my problems. Even though she and us know it really wouldn't solve anything. Just as she realizes this herself and tries to leave, a bank robbery sends her little investigation spinning out of control.

When the $100 bill is taken during the robbery, she turns to the only person she can, Raylan. At this point, Boyd's words must be swirling around in his head as Raylan is face with the ethical lengths he'll go to keep Winona safe. Luckily, master bank robber Frank Reisner has his own plans that will tie up the authorities giving Raylan the opportunity to sort things out for Winona without anyone looking over his shoulder.

Reisner is Chief Dupty Mullen's Moby Dick. This one that eluded him thirty years ago before being brought to justice by someone else. Now an old man dying from emphysema, Reisner has enlisted the help of a couple young bucks to get him back into the game. As it turns out the old guy still has something less and a plan to end things on his terms.

The second bank robbery is all classic Raylan being smarter and faster than the average Harlan county criminal. He's able to thwart the robbery without a single shot. Well, that part isn't classic Raylan but the wit and banter with the suspects is. However, he still has the problem of getting his hands on the stolen money and Winona's bill before anyone else.

Mullen finally is able to outfox his old nemesis Reisner when he catches up with him at the airport. Reisner's plan was to fly himself to Mexico while the law was out chasing his young cohorts. If you didn't find yourself laughing at the worlds slowest fugitive chase then you don't find humor in humanity. Just as Reisner is facing mortality and the end of his life, Mullen is facing the mortality of his career. He's been on the job a long time and with agents like Raylan who are excellent at what they do but take an immense amount of supervising and patience, how much longer will he be able to keep up.

Ultimately, Raylan is able to get the stolen money and what could be Winona's rogue bill. He acknowledges that they need to talk about what went down and the position in which she has put him. In there is also the assumption that a discussion about their future together is in short order. He's now knows he'll sacrifice his own ethics for her but how far he'll go is still unknown.

Random Thoughts:

I missed my Mags Bennett fix this week. I'm not so sure the Bennett stuff is going to find a resolution this season. This season may just be a primer for an explosive third season involving the Bennetts.
I don't think there's a relationship on television I enjoy more than Boyd and Raylan.
Mullen's ability to match wits with Raylan makes that relationship work on screen.
The previews for next week make it obvious we are going to see exactly how far Raylan will go for Winona.
There is no shortage of dumbass criminals in Harlan County.

Community - "Custody Law and Eastern European Diplomacy” Review

2011-03-18T03:31:00.001-05:00

“Who want’s to take a break and build a birdhouse?” -Chang

Community returned with an all new episode this week after being off the air for what seemed like 8 weeks. Before I get started on a review of this episode, I’d like to congratulate Community on getting renewed for a third season! Community’s ratings are some of the lowest on network TV, but it scores well with the key demographic of 18-39 year olds, so NBC, who’s desperate to stay relevant, picked it up. I’m not sure if this is due largely to the show or that NBC has no real great pilots in development that could do better. We should all be happy Community airs on NBC because on any other network, Community rest firmly in cancellation territory. But when the most watched TV show on your network is Harry’s Law, you’ve got to start taking any show that gives any kind of critical appeal.

This episode wasn’t one of their finest. It wasn’t particularly bad, but nothing stuck with you like in previous episodes. We do get a fine performance from Gillan Jacobs as Britta, which is always good because I feel like she’s been underused since her romance with Jeff has ended. I’m not sure what it is with Britta, but every time I see her on screen, I think she’s fabulous, but when she’s not there, I don’t particularly miss her. I’m not implying the show could go without her, but we’re just not invested in a relationship she has right now. It would become boring and clash with her personality if her only purpose was to constantly fawn over Jeff, but I need her to stay relevant!

This week’s episode proved the show can be just fine without Pierce. Did anybody miss him? Anybody at all? Didn’t think so. His sole purpose was to make a cheap racist joke at the beginning of the episode and then do nothing. If he left the show for season 3, I don’t think anyone would miss him. We also learned that Shirley and Chang can’t carry an episode. The strength of the show lies within the interaction between members of the study group. No matter what the writers try, Chang will never feel like part of the group, so the attempts to humanize him and make us care for him always fall short to me. And it’s not that I dislike Shirley, quite the opposite. I think she’s great at being the moral compass of the group and can always be counted on for a quip about wrong doings of others, but she’s not central plot material. It’s possible it’s because her main story came with the baggage of Chang, but I just wasn’t interested and even Jeff’s charisma could’t help the story finish strong.

In a show where I feel so strongly about the main characters, introducing a supporting character is always hot and cold with me. On one hand I’m curious how the characters will act with an outside force impacting their decisions, but on the other I don’t like losing screen time to some of my favorite episodes. Annie’s lack of presence was definitely noticed at my house. When it came to Lukka, I’m not so sure he served some great purpose, Basically he was just a walking gag that Britta liked some guy who committed genocide and was trying to not bring it up. It wasn’t awful or anything, but I don’t think we revealed anything new about the characters of Britta, Troy, or Abed in this episode.

Community has had a few choppy episodes like this in the past, but they always bounce back. Look for Community to do some allegorical take on Bastille Day done in film noir style or something equally as crazy and ambitious. Nothing would surprise me at this point with show. Congratulations one more time Community on getting renewed, but let’s not get complacent!

Survivor: Redemption Island Recap and Analysis 3/16/2011

2011-03-17T01:52:00.001-05:00

“You got to hustle if you want to make a dolla. Everybody knows that.” -Rob

Survivor off to strong start by listing Philip’s job as “Former Federal Agent?” Not surprisingly Philip is bothering everybody back at Ometepe. Rob cooks up a plan that it might behoove him to keep him around to take the heat off him. Smart move Rob, except he’s the last of your throw away votes before you have to start voting off your fringe alliance thereby outing your core four alliance.

Back at Zapatera Steve wants everyone to be one happy family. He does know they won’t win every challenge right? Someone from their huge alliance has to break apart soon right? Julie has to be the most fit girl for her age ever to be on the show. If you don’t know who Julie is, I don’t blame you. She’s literally had 6 minutes of screen time all season. Stephanie and Krista are going to use their trip to redemption island to build the case for the other team that they’ll switch come merge time. More strategy unique to this season. They couldn;t have asked for a better two people to share their secret with than Rob and Grant. Serendipity!

This weeks redemption island challenge is between Matt and Kristina. I’m pulling for Matt here as I will be for every week unless Rob goes up against him. Survivor going with the ol’ puzzle cube challenge. Rob shakes his head disapprovingly as he’s puzzled hundreds of cubes in his day. Matt asks Rob why he voted him out, and Rob, ever the politician, says it was a team effort. Rob shows up to redemption island and literally has 3 players tell him they’d love to join his tribe at the merge. He lives a charmed life. Matt wins for the third time in a row and is still alive. He’s one of the few contestants who I think could survive if they were put back into the game. He really made no enemies.

Over at Ometepe Philip compares the ladies to crabs and wonders why they don’t give him a chance. Ashley says there’s a lot of faking it going around. Why do I feel like that’s not the first time she’s used that strategy? Not sure why the sequence of the girls talking about superficial things makes the cut, but I won’t complain about the airtime as they are very easy on the eyes. Philip is starting to work his federal agent magic on Andrea as he plots a plan to backstab Rob. You had your chance Philip and you blew it!

Zapatera is getting awfully complacent. I can’t stress enough how I feel about the size of their alliance. People like Julie and Ralph would really benefit from jumping alliances and get on the top end of the numbers.

There’s a trend in this year’s challenge that it’s a mix of strategy/puzzles/physicality. The show really needs Ometepe to win this challenge. I trust Rob a lot more than Stephanie to lead a challenge. Zapatera forgot to factor in just how dense Ralph is. His lack of intelligence is quite funny to me. I still look for him to get voted out with the immunity idol in his possession. With Rob winning and Stephanie in the goat role, it looks like an easy vote for Zapatera. However, how great of a move would it be for Ralph to turn heel, save Stephanie and join forces with the ladies to over take the tribe! That’s playing to win. But since he doesn’t know his left from right, there’s no way he makes this play.

Philip goes into full on creep mode offering up donuts for massaging. Grant finds the immunity idol clue and he and Rob launch fully into excavating the campsite. What Grant doesn’t know is that Rob already has the idol. I don’t like Rob lying to Grant, but I think he’ll come clean soon enough. In due time Grant. Patience.

David and Sarita are jawing about strategy with who to put where. And yes, that name is Sarita. Apparently she’s in charge of the tribe. She’s also got a floppy black hat, and for that, I have mad respect. Sarita and Julie are hatching a plan to get rid of David! Keep thinking ladies! Get the immunity idol from Ralph, save Stephanie, take out David and get the numbers! Julie, Sarita, Krista, Stephanie, and Ralph. Bingo. There’s five strong to the merge. There’s no scrambling here, so it looks like we’ll get an uneventful tribal council with Stephanie going home.

Krista is spilling the truth at tribal council! She’s calling out the tribe for not thinking ahead about their team of six. She seems wiser than the rest of their team. My pick from Day 1, Mike the Marine, is getting awfully lippy. He runs his mouth a little too much o win. I’m sticking with my pick until he goes down, but I *really* want to switch it to Grant. The tribe votes out Krista because she’s the only one playing a strategic game. Oh how I hope Stephanie can sway the back end of that strong six alliance.

Bottom Line: Survivor lacked drama the past two episodes, but this was expected. It’s good to see they’re letting us get to know some of the players we don’t know a lot about. I look for some upheavals in Zapatera. Ometepe looks to belong to Rob and Grant and for that I am happy. The game really gets going now. I’d also be ok if Krista won out on redemption island and jumped ship to Team Boston Rob at the merge.

Pick to win: (begrudgingly) Mike the Marine

American Idol Top 12 Perform 3/16/2011

2011-03-16T23:41:00.004-05:00

My esteemed writing colleague @fidoz is off gallivanting across Texas with his family, so American Idol Recap duties ha fallen to me. I don’t possess the same biting wit that he has, but alas I feel I will still deliver solid commentary. To the recap...

American Idol has decided that proceeds from the iTunes downloads will go to benefit the Red Cross to help with the relief effort in Japan. Classy as always.

The contestants will be choosing a song from the year they were born, continuing the trend of allowing the contestants to basically pick a song in their wheelhouse. So no excuses on song choice contestants!

Naima -1984: “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” by Tina Turner. Naima is like a walking craft project and unfortunately her flat and boring song only highlights just how bizarre her outfits are. The song was clunky and lousy. Yet Steven loves it. He’s worthless. So is Naima. I don’t even need to see the other 11 to know she’ll be in the bottom.

Paul McDonald - 1984: “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues” by Elton John. I think we’ll just have to get over the fact that he’s going to talk to the audience before he starts. Paul looks like he constantly has to go to the bathroom as he wanders arounds the stage. Paul’s voice is so unique that he just sounds strange singing any song I’m familiar with. This performance was as aimless as his meanderings. Another week performance. He needs to breakout the guitar and rock a power ballad and soon! Though I think the judges would use their save on this guy.

Thia Migia - 1995: “Colors of the Wind” by Vanessa “Pocahontas” Williams. Sorry Thia. Can’t take you seriously based on song choice alone. However, the song really does allow the singer to showcase their voice. If I were 15, I wouldn’t want to hang out with Thia. She seems like she’d always be doing homework. It’s really quite impressive how boring these first three singers have been. Ugh. Someone give me something good!

Kate Hudson was double fisting Cheetos. Good on her.

James Durbin - 1989: “I’ll Be There For You” by Bon Jovi. Fun Fact: this is my brothers go to karaoke song so he has a lot to live up to. I like to think that instead of losing the tail altogether, it just matured in the 80s and now has moved to a side tail. James’s performance on the whole, was ok. He blew the final note, but it was worlds better than the first three. I wonder if he studied any Ashton Kutcher tape from A Lot Like Love?

Haley Reinhart - 1990: “I’m You Baby Tonight” by Whitney Houston. JImmy reminds us that there really are no losers in American Idol because really everybody can get a record contract. I think whoever did J-Lo’s lipstick last week did Hailey’s this week. Haley is always good for some unique vocal runs. In those she is successful, but when she’s just singing regular, she falls flat for me. Though with the weak talent this week, I figure her to be safe.

Stefano Langone - 1989: “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” by Simply Red. Here we are, Stefano really showing off the meat of his voice! Best performance so far. It’s easy to be the person who nails all the big notes, but it takes skill to hit the quiet parts too and Stefano does that with ease. Aside from his moon boots with suit look, I don’t have any negatives.

Pia Toscano - 1988: “Where Do Broken Hearts Go” by Whitney Houston. Pia reminds me of a little ethnic Rachel Bilson. I need to have a conversation with the wardrobe supervisor as I always need a shot of Pia in glasses, and I never need to see her in a classy jumper/powe pants suit again. Look we all know Pia has a great voice. She’s the only real shot the girls have at winning this thing. The singing was good, but it wreaked of a cheesy 80’s vibe. She’s safe and will be for a while.

Scotty McCreery - 1993: “Can I Trust You With My Heart” by Travis Tritt. Hey look, both Scotty’s parents can sing a little bit. I can only hope that we get Scotty as Elvis on some performance episode. Scotty could cut a country album today. He has the most professional voice out of any of the contestants. Whether that translates to votes is yet to be seen, but Scotty is my dark horse to win the whole thing. Scotty is safe, and even if by some weird twist he is voted out, the judges would assuredly save him.

Karen Rodriguez - 1989: “Love Will Lead You Back” by Taylor Dayne. Karen is wearing the ultimate bump it tonight. Her vocals this week are decent, but a little boring and thin. If she’s in any danger from previous weeks, I don’t think this week will save her. Ugh. The Spanish singing strikes again. It just feels out of place and cheap. Look for Karen to possibly be in the bottom. Nothing special here besides the height of her hair. Move on.

Casey Abrams - 1991: “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana. Casey has made it out of the hospital to grace the stage and slap the bass for us. Throughout the entire song, I feared that Casey was going to leap through the screen and eat my face off. He did a lot of screaming in this song, which doesn’t bother me, but it clearly did bother J-Lo and I trust that it will some of the public. Since they don’t announce who was the top vote getter, I don’t think we’ll see how much it effects him, but I look for a much more “pleasant” song from him next week.

Lauren Alaina - 1994: “I’m the Only One” by Melissa Ethridge. This song is clearly right in Lauren’s range. It fits her personality and she does a great job with it. This is a note to all the contestants: stay away from audience participation! It doesn’t read on television. Though I think she may have cut her final note short, she crushed the song and will be safe for a long time to come.

Jacob Lusk - 1987: “Alone” by Heart. Jacob was slaying the song until he slipped going into a high note. This mess up was highlighted by the camera being on J-Lo who made a face and went to make a note. Look, Jacob is a great singer with a great personality, but he oversings like crazy. He’s a great performer and he’ll be around for a while, but I don’t think he’s a *real* threat to win it all.

Bottom Line: Not the strongest set of performances due largely in fact to the age of contestants. Their years of birth all fell between 1984 and 1995 which doesn’t allow for great song choice. This being said, someone could have made giant leaps by really modernizing a retro tune. I don’t think the landscape of Idol was altered at all tonight, except for Stefano solidifying himself.

Favorite: Stefano Langone
Last One Safe: Thia Migia
Bottom Three:
Naima
Paul McDonald
Karen Rodriguez
Pick to Go Home: Naima (which would make the first 2 eliminated wild card choices.)

Lights Out - "Cut Men" Review

2011-03-16T02:40:00.002-05:00

“I never play, Patrick. The train is leaving the station. If you can’t get on it, someone will take you place.” -Barry

When watching Lights Out I have to be careful not to forward think to much. What I mean by that is to not let knowing the logical conclusion of the season get in the way of taking the drama out the season leading up to the end. At this point it’s clear Patrick is going to fight Death Row Reynolds at the conclusion of the season, so it takes a lot of deft storytelling to keep the viewer interested in the events leading up to the finale.

One way the show is keeping us interested is by showing us the many sides of our hero. We know Patrick the family man, the fighter in training, the business man, but we really haven’t seen too much negative from him. We saw him near the beginning try and be a gangster for Hal Brennan, but that was still born out of the desire to put food on the table. Tonight we saw Patrick be unreasonable with his sister, Margaret, when he tried to tell her that her relationship was over with Hal. We saw a similar reaction when he told his wife that she was doing her residency end of story. It’s good to see some flaws in Patrick’s character. I don’t need my heroes to be flawless, I need them to be real. It just makes for a more well rounded character and thus we care more about his journey, not just the end product.

I wonder if Patrick new what he was doing when he went to call out Reynolds. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he knowingly provoked Reynolds into fighting him. Perhaps that was obvious, but it seemed like a huge risk, what with him having a hole in his side and whatnot. Patrick does always seems to have a plan. I’m not so sure I necessarily agree with all his plans though. The decision to dismiss his father as trainer I wasn’t personally on board with, mainly because it robs me of getting to see Stacy Keach on screen. He dismissed Ed who got him into the best shape of his life. But recently his decision to take a needle for of drugs to speed up the healing left me less than impressed. Nothing good can come from any athlete taking a cocktail of various colored drugs for straight cash. I hope this doesn’t provide yet another stumbling block for Lights in his pursuit to fight Death Row. It takes a lot of the faith from the show to trust that the viewers will keep coming back week after week knowing that the forward motion will be slowed by some other event.

Most all of the characters are shaping up much better than where they started, particularly Teresa. I heard something very wise the other day. When a show is conceived, you write a character and then cast an actor. Once the show is in production, you get a feel for the actor’s strengths and eventually begin to write for them in a much more flattering way. It’s not surprising that Teresa’s character is coming along nicely as they realize that her likability is integral to the success of the show. We were all quick to jump on her at the start, but I have to give credit to the writers for righting the ship. The next problem is fixing the daughters. I’m still not sure why we can only get two of the daughters on screen in any particular episode, but it’s beginning to stick out like a sore thumb. If Patrick’s daughters are going to be that important to him, they need to be that important to us and right now they aren’t. But the show makes for the daughters by giving us Barry K Word and Hal Brennan. I just can’t get enough of them. Also good on them to bring back the reporter Mike Famoso. It's important to have someone around that knows Lights from early on in his life who isn't afraid to stand up to him.

I’m anxious for Lights to fight soon. I just hope the show can keep coming up with more plausible ways to keep my interest until the big fight comes. I’ll continue to believe in Warren Leight and the rest of the staff until they disappoint.

Glee - "Original Song" Review

2011-03-16T01:04:00.001-05:00

“All I know is you blew me off to be with Stubbles McCripple Pants.” -Santana

Glee is always most successful when it focuses on the stories and lives of the students as they push toward winning the next competition their Glee club comes across. This particular episode was a return form where Glee reminded of us the potential this show has. There are extremely talented kids on set so it baffles me when the show chooses not to highlight them. I knew we were going to be in for a solid episode when it appeared the focus was going to be largely on the students. However, I never quite felt like the episode fully delivered. It was as if was about to sneeze and then I looked at a light and the sneeze went away. Was my need to sneeze curbed? Yes. But it wasn’t in the most satisfying of ways.

Glee has always done performance episodes so well. But why was this one not as strong as the others? Quite simply, we’re not emotionally attached to anything going on in the club. Before we had so many different issues going on the performances were extremely cathartic. Whether it was Quinn’s pregnancy, Rachel’s love story with Jonathan Groff, or the fact that New Directions was truly an underdog story. I felt that rooting for New Directions was like rooting for Duke. No matter how average they’ve been, we still hear a lot about how great they are and inevitably they win. Now I realize this was New Directions first win at regionals, but did anyone have any real doubt? It just seemed like it would have been really really easy to beat Oral Intensity and The Warblers. They’re nothing compared to how great Vocal Adrenaline was. Yes it was interesting to hear them do original songs, but you can’t honestly tell me that performance was better than the other ones they did. This brings me back to my original point about being emotionally invested in the characters.

Glee realized that they had to play catch up with the Quinn/Finn/Rachel story so they threw it in at the end of last weeks episode and devoted a lot of screen time to it early in this episode. It all seemed so rushed. I just never felt *that* sad for Rachel when she was singing. Finn hasn’t done anything this season to merit that much attention from her. I will give Diana Aragon and Lea Michelle credit for acting the pants of their scene in the auditorium. I really felt honest emotions coming from Quinn as she admitted to Rachel that she was better and that she was going to be the one to get out of Ohio. It’s almost as if Finn was her consolation prize. I wasn’t so sure I was feeling the scene at first because I thought Quinn was being uncharacteristically mean to Rachel, but then she showed us that she was just being brutally honest and sometimes that’s going to sting a little.

Last week I really liked the Santana and Brittany story line because I felt it was came from a real place and presented some very challenging emotions for a teenager. However in this particular episode, they decided to crush all momentum that story line had going. It was simple, but all Santana had to say was “I don’t know what I was thinking.” And there we have it. Don’t be surprised if that story line never comes back. But this just highlights another problem Glee has. I know that emotions of high school students are subject to whims and passing fancies, but changing gears every two episodes really retards any forward momentum and thus we can never fully commiserate with any of the characters. Really the only properly written arc was that of Kurt and Blaine. The writers took their time and fully developed the relationship before culminating it tonight. However, because Dalton Academy is detached from the heart of the show, I felt this story fell flat as well despite the best efforts of Chris Colfer who continues to impress on screen.

It’s not enough to write one good episode, stick at the end and hope that all is forgiven. I think we can apply some lyrics from Rachel’s song to my feelings on the show: “How many times will it take to get it right.” Although I found this episode very enjoyable, I felt it never quite peaked. Glee has a lot of cleaning up to do and I’m not so sure they’re going to start the process anytime soon. I think we’re going to have to be ok with the lack of character development and choppy plot if we are going to enjoy the show going forward.

Other thoughts:

I was happy to see the show realize The Warblers really was just the Blaine show. Even Kurt realized it, and Kurt knows best. However, even though they acknowledged their problem, they sang a duet and went right back to it being Blaine singing Pink with the Pips.

I need to applaud Glee for letting the kids struggle with songwriting at first. One of my complaints with the show is that the students are so great at everything they do the first time around. So it was nice to see the development process for once. It allowed us to see Will do some real teaching, even though he blew it by telling the students to write a song based on a title they came up with.

Speaking of the songs in development, I’m going to have to disagree with Finn. I think “My Headband” > “Only Child.” If I’m rating some of these original songs, I say “Big Ass Heart” has the most potential. “Hell to the No” is poppy and catchy but comes off as a rip off of High School Musical. “Only Child” is emotional, but lacks depth. “Trouty Mouth” has a high ceiling but it could be too one note.

I realize Oral Intensity was terrible but I knew one of the dancers so I was strangely entertained. I worked with Ashley Galvan last year and I always get excited when I see my friends get work on TV.

Kurt’s line “There doing original songs” was extremely necessary, because I wouldn’t have been able to tell if Rachel’s song was currently a single or original.

Brittany line of the week: “My headband.” If you didn’t laugh when Brittany said her favorite was “My Headband” show yourself so I can shake my head disapprovingly at you.

ApeDonkey Power Rankings - 3/14/11

2011-03-15T15:45:00.001-05:00

Here's the power rankings. They're a day late but considering it's spring break, I'm surprised I didn't close the entire site and burn my laptop. I'll be heading to San Antonio this week so I'm sure next week's bottom five will fill up quickly.

Top 5

1. Kemba Walker - I don't watch a ton of college basketball but the conference tournaments were pretty good and Kemba Walker killed it in the Big East tourney. The UConn freshman did his best 2003 Carmelo Anthony impersonation and carried UConn to the Big East Title despite being the ninth seed and needing to win five games in five days. He averaged 26pts - 5 reb - 4 ast over the five day tourney to win Tournament MVP honors. I've got UConn making it to the round on eight in the NCAA tourney before being knocked off by my beloved Longhorns.

2. Buy Buy Buy - It's that time of year to buy as much stock in the makers of Gold Bond as possible. The days are getting warmer getting over 80 degrees here in Houston and with the warm weather comes the scourge of every man. It goes by many names Monkey Butt, Swamp Ass, Crotch Rott but regardless of what you call it, it will soon become a nuisance. Load up on powder fellas, switch to boxers or boxer briefs and prepare to go to battle again. Just at a warning, stay clear of the extra strength medicated powder. It burns in places you don't want burning.

3. Scott Conant - I sent this tweet out while watching an episode of Chopped last week "@LanceZierlein @heydannyv If you guys ever have Scott Conant on Southbound can you ask him where he studied to perfect his dickhead persona?" A few hours later I get a notification that it had been retweeted. By whom you might ask, Scott Conant himself. That right there made me do a 180 on what I thought of they guy. OK maybe a 165 but anyone who can either laugh at themselves or embraces the public perception of his or herself is alright in my book.

Long time readers may recall I made a similar tweet about Chef Michael Symon last year. I was tired of seeing Iron Chef America episodes with him. So I tweeted begging Food Network to please show an episode without him. He like many fringe celebrities obvious searches for mentions of his name and replied to me saying that wasn't cool and to take it easy on him. That is not how you change my perception of you. So if you're keeping score Scott Conant - Cool. Michael Symon - Not Cool.

Pengergast doppelganger Vic Makey

4. The Sean Pendergast Show - I've been a bit of a critic of The Sean Pendergast Show since its inception in January. I'm not a big fan of shows with a single host. I felt like he was spending too much time trying to be Travis Rodgers Now lite instead of crafting his own unique show. More than that though, there seemed to be a real disconnect between Sean's show and the rest of the 1560 station. Last week though it was as if a demon had been cast out and the old Sean that made the Sean & John show so enjoyable had returned. I found myself really enjoying what Sean was doing last week. Then came Thursday and his tournament updates from stringers across the country. It was absolute comic and radio genius. If you haven't hear them yet and have a few minutes to spend here's the links update 1, update 2, update 3, update 4, update 5, update 6, update 7, update 8. Welcome back Sean, I hope you're back to stay.

5. Ark Music Factory - I'm sure by now you've seen the video by Rebecca Black. It was featured on Tosh.0, Yahoo and John and Lance this morning. The bigger story is the company who made the video Ark Music Factory. They've made a ton of these videos and they're all equally awesomely terrible. It's an auto tuned cornucopia of untalented young girls singing ridiculous songs and schmaltzy videos. You can literally get lost for hours in their YouTube catalog. My fear is that the 6 million and counting hits of the Rebecca Black video will somehow alter the way they go about their business and we'll lose the magic touch that is Ark Music Factory.

More Ark Music Magic

Bottom 5

1. Quanell X - I don't comment much on political or racial topics because either I don't care or I don't know enough about the subject to form an opinion. However, as the father of a 6 year old girl the Cleveland, TX gang rape case is one that has grabbed my attention. In a case that involves all kinds of disgusting, horrible things, I thought Quanell X holding a rally for the men and boys accused of raping the 11 year old was one of the more disgusting, attentions seeking, pandering events. Look, I understand if you're the parent of one of the boys who did this, you have to support you child the best you can but this rally held by Quanell X in which he showed Facebook pictures of the girl dressed provocatively was way over the line. The message circulating around this rally was that the girl was either "asking for it" by the way she dressed or she lied about her age. What? She's 11. What did she look 13? does that make it OK? Does dressing inappropriately make it OK for 17 men some as old at 27 to have sex with an 11 year old? Come on. Hell may be a terrible place but it damn sure won't be a lonely place.

2. Gene Smith - Ohio St. AD Gene Smith had an outstanding week. First Yahoo broke the story that OSU head coach Jim Tressel had known about players selling memorabilia eight months before the NCAA found out about the infractions. Then he lied to the NCAA about his knowledge of the situation. So how does Gene Smith and the OSU brain trust punish their coach? They slapped him with a limp wet paper towel. Suspending him two games and $250K. How will OSU ever survive games against perennial powerhouses Akron and Toledo without their sweater vested leader?

If the Tressel punishment wasn't a big enough joke, Gene Smith was the chairman of the NCAA tournament selection committee. You know the committee that got everything but the four number 1 seeds wrong. He then went on national television to defend the committee selection process. This was a big mistake. Unless confusion and contradiction was the committees PR strategy. If that's the case then awesome job Mr. Smith. My friend and fellow blogger Tony Prock had a thing or two to say about Mr. Smith and his selection committee.

3. Rolling Stone - When I bought my tickets for the Old 97's I received a free subscription to Rolling Stone. I haven't bought the magazine in probably a decade and within a couple of issues I was reminded why. On the cover of the latest issue was none other that Snookie. Yeah that Snookie. The magazine that used to cover people like John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young and The Clash is now trying to sell me with a nasty four foot tall skank. No thanks. The worst part of all is that now that magazine is sitting in my bathroom ruining my most treasured time of all. Every time I take a trip to the throne to do a little reading or play some Words with Friends, there I am stuck looking at that disgusting saddle bag with hair. Thanks for the free issue RS but I think I'll be passing or continuing my subscription. Who knows maybe Playboy will offer me a free subscription with Courtney Love on the cover.

4. The NFL - We all know the NFL entered a lockout of the players last week. Now the PR barrage from both sides is coming in full force through the press, twitter and any other media outlet the NFL and NFLPA can get to tell their side of the story. Well let me tell my side. I don't give a shit what either of you have to say. Get to the damn table and hammer it out. The fans don't care who gets how much money as long as the ball gets kicked off in September. 50/50, 60/40 who cares, with $9 billion to divvy up there's plenty to go around. Hell what you ought to be doing it figuring out a way to give the season ticket holders and tax payers some of our money back.

5. Harbingers of Death - My distaste for Christmas and Halloween is well documented but now there's a new contender for my most hated time of year, Daylight savings time/spring break week. Lets talk about daylight savings first. Kids have no concept of time change so they keep trucking along on their own whacked out biological clocks when the time changes. So what you end up with is your 2 year old running around like a crazed jackal at 10:30 pm. Then your 6 year old is up at 5:30 waking everyone else up. I understand why they created DST to help farmers and the such but the last time I checked we're an urban nation now. Not many of us have kids who need to plow a field when they get home from school. How about we just pick one standard time and stick with it year round. I'd even be willing to split the difference with you and adjust the clocks 30 minutes if we can just leave it there.

Now spring break. How much am I hating spring break? Let me cover day 1. By 9am the 6 year old was already throwing a fit because she was bored. The 2 year old got into a bottle of stool softener, ate one of the capsules and then proceeded to vomit chocolate milk all over the house. There are no ruins left of the clean house the maid left me on Friday. While I was out of the room the 2 year old decided the 50" plasma was his gigantic coloring book and took a crayon to the screen. The 6 year old tried to balance her lunch plate on a 1" pipe and spilled it all over the play room. There is no less than 6,000 toys scattered between me and the front door. The 2 year old has bumped his enormous head no less than 1200 times. Worst of all, the wife and I spent March 14, Steak and BJ day eating peanut butter sandwiches and sleeping with the kids in separate bedrooms. Fuck you Mr. inventor of spring break.

The Chicago Code - "The Gold Coin Kid" Review

2011-03-14T21:37:00.001-05:00

“The way I see it, a whorehouse is a whorehouse whether it serves Crystal or Old Style.” -Wysocki

Although a good episode independently, The Chicago Code’s problems reared their head tonight. In order for it to be a successful network drama, it needs to have a touch of episodic elements while trying to maintain a serialized story. Tonight we got very much needed information on Caleb Evers and he and Wysocki’s relationship, but it came at the expense of the Alderman Gibbons arc. The show is not as strong when we get less Delroy Lindo. This in turn effects the undercover agent story line. It’s almost like this episode was aired out of order. I’m ok with episodic cop drama, though I prefer serialized. Up until this point, The Chicago Code was able to straddle both effectively. I’m not a fan of the half in half out episodes. Imagine if a train were to crash. It would be the worst case scenario if it crashed and partially remained on the track as no working train can pass through. If it fell all the way off, at least working trains could still use the track. If The Chicago Code is most effective as an episodic drama that focuses on relationships, so be it. But I think they can maintain their serialized arc once they get all their exposition out of the way.

As for the episode itself, we finally learn a little more about Caleb Evers. Up until this point he was just a ride along detective that was trying to learn some things from Wysocki as he trys to get better at his job. Tonight we learn that he’s a Northwestern grad with aspirations to become an FBI agent. If watching cop dramas has taught me anything, it’s that local police and the suits of the FBI don’t always get along. The only instance I can think of where it worked well was the friend McNulty had on the FBI in The Wire that got him surveillance equipment. Put this against Caleb being from the North Side and we see that there will be tension between Evers and Wysocki just based on upbringing alone.

Now what was nice is that The Chicago Code didn’t let the conflict just die at that. Wysocki and Superintendent Colvin cooked up some scheme to get the department some radios. The problem is that Wysocki left Evers in the dark about it. It was a type of test that led to a 2 week suspension and a black mark in his file. Evers was understandably upset at this and called Wysocki out on the affair that he’s having with his ex-wife. Two things worked really well about this scene. The first was seeing Wysocki almost proud that Evers figured it out. He had a type of sneer that said, “I’m not even mad, I’m impressed.” The second was when Caleb yelled, “You can lie to your fiance but not your partner!” This has to hit home as Wysocki has taught his niece, Vonda, that the most important thing in police work is to trust your partner. Evers grew up right before Wysocki’s eyes. The problem being now is that Evers can’t trust Wysocki as opposed to the other way around.

I did think that The Chicago Code took the easy way out in the case that Wysocki and Colvin cooked up. One problem with the show is that the hand picking of cases for Wysocki is largely unrealistic and the amount of time he gets with the Superintendent is unreasonable. So it was interesting at the beginning when I thought Colvin was going to try and use Wysocki for her own personal gain to keep him in line. However, with them being both in on it and the willingness of both to play with fire like that, Wysocki is just being made more into a super cop that can do no wrong. I think we need to see Wysocki in some real hot water in order for the show to raise its stakes.

I’m still not so sold on the Isaac and Vonda story line. I get that it helps us see Wysocki be protective of his family. The search for his brother’s killer is still looming over our head, but I’m not sure we need full story lines from them. How does it elevate the show? I know that it exoands the universe, and that’s important, but it just seemed very detached from the rest of the narrative. Perhaps Moose was too busy filming season 2 of Justified, where he plays Coover Bennett, for them to keep him in each episode. I can’t envision a scenario where the task force and Wysocki’s cases would come into conflict. I think that angle of the show needs to be fleshed out a bit before I’m ready to see a lot more of it.

Californication "The Trial" Review

2011-03-14T11:32:00.000-05:00

"The Trial" was a nice little episode to show us how we got here. There was some high comedy, a little "OK I knew that already" and one little bombshell. In the end nothing has been resolved but we are set up to see what fate has in store for Hank Moody.

My biggest complaint with this episode is that I think we deserved an entire episode of Runkle on the witness stand. Hell, I might go for a "Charlie Runkle: Lawyer to the Stars" series. If we never heard mention of the squirter incident again it would have been a crime. Kudos to the writers for that but I think we could have used a flashback to help illustrate.

I'm a proponent of more screen time for Mia but I thought her performance on the witness stand was a little hard to believe at best. The last we saw of her she was getting Hank loaded, trying to have a threesome with him and Sasha and causing him more trouble by posing for pictures with her hand down his pants. I don't dispute that she feels guilty about what is happening to him but her testimony on her relationship with Karen was way too hokey.

Lets get to the point of the episode. Hank's going to jail. The whole point of the flashback to a blitz Hank talking to Mia with the sun in his eyes was to give the jury the evidence to convict him but the views the inside knowledge that Hank really didn't knowingly sleep with a 16 year old. Hank's going to prison probably for 6 months to a year. Next season will pick up with his release. My assumption is Hank trying to put his life back together after prison will be the basis for season 5. Maybe I'm wrong but doesn't it seem like the Hank Moody character needs a life altering event like this to grow and move forward?

I would welcome Karen finally breaking ties with Hank but I'm not a fan of her reaction to learning that Hank and Mia had met before the bookstore encounter. Hank is a lot of things bad but a liar has never been one. If anyone besides Runkle is going to believe Hank isn't lying about not knowing Mia it should be Karen. She should know that if anything Hank is truthful to a fault. His inability to lie or smooth over the truth gets him into as much trouble as anything else.

What does the road ahead look like? Like I stated before, I think Hank will be found guilty. The rest of this season will involve Hank coming to terms with his childish behavior and the damage he's done by refusing to take anything seriously. He'll have to get his affairs in order before he goes away for a while. Those affairs, I assume will include mending his relationship with Becca and hopefully resolving to let Karen go her own way. We still have the issue of Marcy being pregnant. Runkle has to find out it's his kid, right? It'll be an emotional ride either way with Hank getting enough sex on to last his extended stay at the Hotel State Penitentiary.

Random Notes:

That was a much needed break from the Stu saga.
I haven't mentioned this before but casting deserves a lot of credit for finding an actor and actress with matching butt chins to play Bill and Mia.
I'm still waiting to see some great lawyering out of Abbey.

Big Love "Exorcism" Review

2011-03-14T00:46:00.000-05:00

So, it's clear how the show is going to end now, right? Not exactly. A few items were cleaned up in this second to last episode but there are still heavy shoes yet to fall. The family is hanging together by tattered threads. The law is protecting them while waiting to knock on the door to take Bill away. And even with dementia Lois isn't as nutty as Crazy Rhonda.

I had to go and check the retrospective special they ran earlier in the night to make sure I didn't miss part of tonight's episode. It felt like we were joining a regularly scheduled program already in progress by the way things started. Then again, I thought the entire episode jumped around and lacked any flow.

I'm starting to think they've decided to make Bill as despicable as possible so that when he goes off to prison, we don't feel as bad for him. Now, I don't think that's really what is going to happen but it was a thought I had tonight. I do however think he and Nicki should ride off into the sunset together and change their last names to the Despicables. What she did to Cara Lynn tonight, both trying to send her off to boarding school and the things she told her in her bedroom was beyond awful. I wasn't much of a Nicki fan to begin with but after today I wish Cara Lynn had thrown her into the fire. Nicki has been on a similar arc as Bill. With each episode the writers find a way to make you dislike them more. She's always been selfish and insecure but now that she's legally married to Bill she insufferably self important as well. Her calling Bill to tell on Barb for going to a new church was not only an awful technical transition but an unforgivable betrayal of trust between the sister wives.

There is nothing I want more from the finale than to see Barb get out of this oppressive environment she's found herself in. She was dead on with her criticism of Bill's uncompromising stance. His lack of willingness to see any one's point of view aside from his own has put their lives, their business and his marriage Barb in danger. His passive aggressive attack on Barb's loyalty and character at Juniper Creek should have been the final straw. I want Barb to find her calling and if Bill isn't willing to accept her then maybe he needs to take a look at his own issues. Maybe I'm alone here but I find Bill to be a very hypocritical man. He puts himself and his agenda above all else. I've never felt like he was following a pat God set before him but rather using God's Will as a tool to create his own path.

The end of the Alby saga was a disappointment. They could have had much greater drama and tension in those final scenes if they hadn't tried to cram so much into the episode. You knew Bill wasn't going to kill Alby and you never feared that Margene had been hit. It was just a very anticlimactic ending to a great rivalry.

There's not much to say about Margene this week. She cried a lot and actually seemed to digress as a character. Her giving up her Goji business seemed a bit abrupt and Pam's declaration that she and Carl were separated was odd. If there was anything to take from Margene tonight it would be the writers setting up the possibility of her leaving on a mission.

I see Ben is walking directly in his fathers footsteps by compounding stupid decisions with more stupid decisions. OK you slept with Crazy Rhonda. If you weren't dumber than a bag of bricks you would have kept Heather away from the house until Rhonda was gone. Then when she does find out about you two, your first instinct is to go to the "I can have you both" card? Wow, I take back all the things I said about you last week. Just stick to playing your corny songs on the piano with your little brothers. That's probably as complicated a task as you can handle.

So where are we going? I'm not sure. With Alby out of the picture, my excitement for the finale has been tempered. Obviously, Bill is going to be arrested at some point. He's going to have a big grand standing moment in the senate and ultimately it will all come crumbling down. I still think he ends up back on the compound with Nicki. Barb will seek out her calling as a priest holder and Margene will experience the world on a mission. That's my prediction and I'm sticking to it. Partially because that's what I want to happen and partially because I just don't see another logical ending. I'm probably completely wrong. It'll probably end with Cara Lynn killing Margene. Bill and Barb remarrying and Nicki becoming a liberal rights lesbian. Who knows.

Random Notes:

I found it extremely difficult to believe Barb would be with Nicki and Margene delivering food to Bill at the State House.
I'm guessing Amanda Seyfried returns next week as Bill faces trial.
I guess statutory rape is the in crime this year. Big Love and Californication both with their protagonists on trial for this crime.
As much as I dislike Bill, I'm going to miss this show next year.

Shameless - "Nana Gallagher Had an Affair" Review

2011-03-13T22:29:00.001-05:00

“Whores don’t get cars!” -Eddie

In last week’s review I stated that the episode seemed very jam packed and that it could have been conceivably two episodes. After tonight’s episode, I stand by that claim. The introduction of Monica was a big event, yes, but I think we could have put it all in one episode. Much of tonight’s episode was all resolution of just figuring out when Monica was going to leave. I actually would not have been surprised if she took Liam with her as I’m sure the logistics for a network to keep a baby on set is tough. Not to mention he’ll grow at a faster pace than the show goes. This episode overall was largely resolution of Monica and exposition about other characters. Nothing *really* changed.

At this point in a series we have to start looking at what stories we’re most invested in. What more do we want to see? Personally, I’m very involved in the Fiona/Steve relationship. There’s still a lot of secret and mystery there. Fiona is ok with slowly detaching herself from the family so long as she has Steve there to fall back on. That won’t be the case by the end of the season. She will inevitably find out and it will undoubtedly come at the hand of Fiona’s old love, Tony. I envision this leading to Fiona needing Frank in some way. And that is a dynamic I think the show can lean on in season two. How do Fiona and Frank work together? Maybe Fiona falls off a bit.

I think we’re all pretty involved with Lip and Ian’s stories as well. Both seem to be sharp enough to better their situation. It’s not that I desire them to get better, but I do find the constant search for what they want out of life to be entertaining. With Lip comes Karen. I only care about Karen as she pertains to Lip. I found her story line tonight to be almost uncomfortable. I’ve seen some “purity ball” type things before at church and they are nothing like that. It seemed a little “child porn-y” to have what’s supposed to be a high schooler talking explicitly about her sexual exploits to a bunch of stuffy old men. I’m no prood, but that left me uneasy.

But I think what we ultimately take away from this episode is that Fiona realizes her place. Before she viewed taking care of her family as part of her duties. Something she had to do because her mom left them to fend for themselves. But seeing the prospect of Liam being taken from her, she realized that she actually takes care of the family out of love. I’ve said it before, the Gallagher’s view of the world is skewed, but they definitely hold family values very close to their hearts. Values of course is subjective.

Other thoughts:

The family dinner scene was a nice one. It was an obvious joke but I found it funny that Frank was more upset that Monica did PCP without him than the fact the she slept with his brother.

Ian is now not Frank’s kid. I wonder what that dynamic will do? My guess is nothing right away. Probably just a few jokes here and there.

Frank is at his most detestable when he’s lusting after money. The only thing he cares more about than booze are those dollar signs. I think Frank is at his best when he’s given a particular task for episode, so long as it isn’t a quest for money that hurts the family. He’s done enough damage and I think the show would be better if he was used in ways that seemed selfish, but actually provided for the family.

So apparently the black baby Liam is the product of Frank and Monica. It was explained in one line that Nana had an affair. So I guess Frank is half black? Yet no other kids have any resemblance to an African American. We know Lip is Franks, but no one else. I find this story element to be a bit too much of a stretch.

Sheila finds herself out of the house again as she throws Eddie out in defense of her daughter Karen. So if we’re keeping track, she’s gone outside twice and both in defense of children. Looks like we know the secret. Seeing Frank happy for her was actually a nice moment.

Damages Season 1 Review

2011-03-13T20:24:00.004-05:00

In my quest to become as educated in good TV as possible, I’m having to catch up on many shows that have already aired or are late into their runs. I’ve only seen 2 seasons of How I Met Your Mother, 0 of Chuck, 0 of Homicide: Life On The Streets just to name a few. This is what led me to Damages. It’s an FX drama with a tremendous cast. I admittedly was skeptical about Ted Danson, but his portrayal of Arthur Frobisher was one of the finest portrayals I’ve seen in a while. However, even with a great cast and a great network, Damages never quite lived up to my expectations as a great drama. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not surprised by it fighting for its life on TV.

Damages at its simplest is the story of attorney Patty Hewes, played by Glenn Close, who handles large scale civil cases. Or case as it is with season one. Damages is a serialized drama that follows one case throughout the entire season. Along the way their are lots of elements that complicate the case, but for the most part each episode builds on the case. What sets Damages apart is that it follows two out of sequence story arcs that eventually join up. (There will be no spoilers other than what you would learn in the pilot.) One story arc is one that follows the Frobisher case. That’s actually in the past. The show leads off seeing one of the lead characters Ellen Parsons, played by the gorgeous Rose Byrne, covered in blood hovering over her dead fiance. We slowly learn information about each arc as the story progresses until they finally meet up in the second to last episode. Think of this tactic as Memento-esque. Though while it was very successful for the movie, I’m not so sure that it worked for Damages.

When investing the time to watch a long form drama like Damages is, I want to be kept guessing. I want to try and figure out the case as I go along. Part of why Lost was such a hit is that we never quite understood what everything was until the end. We were led to such wild prognostications, that you couldn’t help but talk to others about it. Whereas with Damages, I really think that the constant illuminating of details of the future arc was a real hinderance on the suspense of the show. I think it could have been more effective is we just saw one scene where Ellen is in jail, covered in blood, talking to Tom saying, “Find Patty Hewes.” That would lead us the whole time to think what could happen to get us there. We’d be forced to try and connect the dots and as plots points were revealed, we’d be genuinely shocked. Only a few times was a piece of dramatic evidence revealed to us in complete surprise. And because those were so few and far between you’d think they’d be huge elements, but they’re really not. Although one does set up the structure for season 2. But despite problems with the storytelling, I still found myself enjoying the show. How could that be? The answer is that the cast is dynamite.

Glenn Close gives an excellent portrayal of Patty Hewes. She’s a tough strong woman who’s mantra is to “trust no one.” Although, the performance is very strong, I’m troubled at Hollywood’s inability to write great women characters that aren’t over the top and almost caricatures. There aren’t a lot of solid understated performances that get critical recognition. I can think of Connie Britton in Friday Night Lights and Julianna Marguilies in The Good Wife. Regradless, the supporting cast is just as, if not stronger than Close. I happen to love Rose Byrne’s performance. Her transition from new budding young lawyer to certified hard ass is quite excellent. Ted Danson is giving perhaps the greatest performance of his career as Arthur Frobisher. Then two of my favorite character actors get a lot of screen time too in Zeljko Ivanek and Garret Dillahunt. Ivanek was most recently the magistrate on True Blood and Dillahunt was Wolcott on Deadwood and can currently be seen as the dad in Raising Hope. Through in Peter Facinelli and Tate Donovan and you’ve really got an all star cast.

I’ll continue watching Damages, but I have no sense of urgency to see how any of it plays out. I’m curious to see if they use the same story telling tactics for Season 2. Looking forward to it only getting better.

American Idol Results Show - 3/10/11

2011-03-10T22:05:00.000-06:00

This is the diary that almost wasn't. First my 6 year old canceled all my DVR recordings scheduled for tonight. Then it was my night for bedtime duty with a very difficult 2 year old. So not only am I getting a very late start but the first 10 minutes didn't get recorded. So I'm feeling particularly mean tonight.

I scoured twitter to see what I missed an it appears I missed the 437th consecutive terrible group number and a Ford commercial. By the way you should really be following me (@Fidoz) and my partner in crime (@bcstagg) on Twitter. From what I read Stefano had more than a little trouble with his lip syncing so I've now dubbed him Mr. Ashlee Simpson. OK on with the show.

There may never be a more pleasing first sight on an American Idol show than Amanda Seyfried. I love looking at her but not enough to go see that terrible looking Red Riding Hood thing.

Lets get right to it Swishy and Mr. Simpson and American Telemundo. I think their all safe but if any are in the bottom them it's American Telemundo. Yep she's in the bottom and she deserves to be there.

Adam Lambert showcasing his songwriting skills. If I had to list his skills in order of best to worst I would put singing at number 1 and songwriting somewhere below his ability to intimidate Chuck Norris. He needs to stick to the over the top glam productions.

Steven Tyler needs to tighten that scarf. His gobbler is hanging about four inches lower than it was last night.

Louisiana, Donna Summer 2 and Mariah are up next. DS2 is the most deserving to be in the bottom but this grouping has me completely thrown and with Mariah's song choice she could be in danger. Louisiana and eloquent will not be seen together anytime soon. DS2 and Mariah join American Telemundo in the bottom 3. I can't argue with that. Two of them were absolutely terrible and Mariah made a poor song choice. If there's any justice in the world DS2 will be going home tonight.

I'm going to be completely honest here. I have no idea what a Diddy Dirty Money is. I'm guessing it's got something to do with P. Diddy. I'm kind of digging the piano player. Remember back in 1997 when Puff Daddy was a terrible rapper? Yeah not much has changed except what he calls himself. Profound advice there Diddy. Keep it real.

American Telemundo is safe. Not a shocker.

DS2 is going to sing for her Idol life. She's decided to torture us with that crappy Diana Ross song again. I want to thank her for not tempting the judges into using the save. She's taking her terrible rendition to new lows.

Is anyone else worried about Steven Tyler? He hasn't breathed in an hour.

That was nice of J-Lo to pretend it was a tough decision. Thanks America for doing what the judges should have done last week.

Justified "Cottonmouth" Review

2011-03-10T14:19:00.000-06:00

At some point every week I'm reminded I never want to piss off Mags Bennett. If a woman is willing to smash her beloved son's fingers with a hammer for disobeying her, imagine what she'd do to a shlub like me. Oh, never mind we've already witnessed the bear trap and poisoned cider scenes. She is one bad lady.

Justified is one bad show too. I thought Justified was one of the better shows on television last season with a terrific but somewhat uneven first year run. This season they've worked out the kinks and have elevated themselves to one of the premier shows on TV along with Sons of Anarchy, Breaking Bad and Mad Men. So how did they get to this lofty position?

Well this season Raylan is doing real Marshal work instead of running around shooting everyone. He's working cases. He's working towards bringing down the Bennetts but he's also working the individual cases that may or not be connected to the season long story arc of the Bennett clan. They've brought in the Bennetts. Mags is a frightening villain capable of any sort of atrocities. Her sons range from bad to deranged and lack any fear of law enforcement. There are secrets we crave to discover but have only been hinted at so far.

The biggest payoff for this season though has been the evolution of Boyd Crowder. Boyd's character has a depth and sensitivity worthy of our sympathy that he lacked last season. Last season he was pure wild card antagonist. This season he faces moral and ethical dilemmas that affect his and Ava's survival. We've been able to see him work through these issues while trying to find his true self in his choices.

I think that true Boyd is what we finally saw this week. He realizes the only thing he's truly good at is being a criminal. However, he also found there may be a higher calling for a lifetime crook than selfishness and greed. There's giving back to those who care for you. Maybe there can be good gained by evil deeds. True Boyd gave in to the temptations of robbing the mine but when faced with the putting himself in danger or having the blood of an innocent clerk on his hands, he chose to turn his back on the evil doers and give the innocent clerk his life back. In return the clerk (Shelby) looked the other way for his part in the crime. Boyd is smarter and better than most of the criminals Raylan faces from week to week. Combine his intelligence with a conscience and he is now a tremendously complex and interesting character.

Most of the talk this week about Raylan came from him tasering a guy in the nuts. That was funny and I bet painful but that was but a blip on Raylan's day. Chief Deputy Mullen was right when he said Raylan "was fishing with dynamite, trying to see what would float up" in his dealings with the Bennetts. Raylan knows the Bennetts have killed Walt McCready he just can't prove it yet. Still he keeps throwing those sticks of dynamite in the Bennett lake to see what he can stir up. Loretta is the person in the most immediate danger from Raylan's pursuit. Even though Mags has taken her under her tutelage don't think for a minute she wouldn't leverage that girl to get a leg up on Raylan and the authorities. We saw this week that Raylan is aware of the danger he's putting the girl in and offered to rescue her if she's ever in trouble.

If any of the Bennetts are going to do something stupid it's going to be Coover. He's been itching to rub out Raylan since Raylan first stepped foot on their property. Dickie is sadistic and greedy but not prone to the idiotic mistakes Coover is. Maybe his new flat finger will remind him to stay clear of Raylan and any other potential trouble for the family but I doubt it.

Random thoughts:

I'm still itching to find out the history between the Givens family and the Bennetts. Whatever it is Arlo doesn't want any run ins with the Bennett clan.
I loved how cool Boyd was throughout the entire robbery compared to his accomplices. He was always three steps ahead of them.
Every scene between Boyd and Raylan is gold.
I loved Boyd's question of what it said about him that he never thought to tell Raylan of what Kyle and company were up to and let him handle it.
I think Boyd has found a way to help Ava rationalize his involvement with his old lifestyle.
I'm not all that excited about an episode next week revolving around Winona. She's very nice to look at but I'm just not that interested in Raylan's love life.

Survivor: Redemption Island Recap and Analysis Episode 4

2011-03-10T00:14:00.000-06:00

“It’s just what I call The Shepherd...STAMP!” -Philip

Survivor started with giving Philip a lot of screen time. I often think that leads to their exit. It’s been my experience that the director of episodes kind of give a swan song to the survivor leaving the show. However, I think with Philip it’s just that he’s TV gold! In no way is he going to win, but he sure is entertaining to watch.

I worried last week that the next few episodes wouldn’t be as good because there’d be no drama. Each tribe has a strong alliance and there are people on the outs of those alliances. If Zapatera wins immunity, then it will be Philip or Kristina and if Ometepe wins, Stephanie is as good as gone. So the show needed drama to come from somewhere else. Be it Redemption Island, the challenge itself or at camp. Unfortunately we didn’t really get it from anywhere.

At Redemption Island we had a battle between Russell Hance and Matt. I really want Russell to stay in the competition for the drama he brings, but I do think it would be cool to see Matt stay the duration and come back. The challenge is not purely physical and Matt ends up winning. There wasn’t drama in the challenge, but what happened after was pretty interesting. The show is allowing the person kicked out to talk to contestants who attend the duel. Here, once Russell stops crying, he spills the beans about his whole tribe. This would not have been possible in any other season except this one, so it will be interesting to see what comes of this in the future.

Back at camp, my wish came true. Boston Rob found the hidden immunity idol! Best of all, he lied about taking a crap in order to get time to find it. Classic move Rob. I don’t think there could be two more different players to hold the idols then Ralph and Rob. Rob will make all the right moves with it and Ralph is a buffoon. Prediction: either Ralph gives the idol away or goes home with it in his pocket.

The immunity challenge is largely devoid of suspense as Zapatera leads from wire to wire. We do get to see just how freakishly athletic the ex-football player Grant is, but it was all in vain as Zapatera showed they still have a strong tribe even after throwing a challenge to get rid of Russell. So back at camp Ometepe, true to my guess, has to decide between Kristina and Phillip. This isn’t any big drama, but I just think Philip is such an interesting character I don’t want to see him go. Though I would be interested to see whether the lion or the gorilla comes out at Redemption Island. Question. Anybody wonder just what investigations Philip has been on? He clearly has no problem being candid, so I hope we hear something outlandish like “I shot a man in the jaw cuz he wouldn’t stop interrupting me.” Well I get my wish and we keep Phillip. See ya later Kristina. Good luck versus Matt! You’ll need it.

One observation is that both tribes are all about out of their “free votes.” When you’re playing gin, you have some very easy decisons with what cards to discard as you make moves to get your sets in order. But eventually, you have to make a decision to discard something you’ve been collecting since the beginning or abandon a new strategy that you’ve just cooked up. This is not unlike these tribes. They each have created a fairly large alliance and we’re getting to where someone might need to make a move to get in a better position. Someone like Julie is in a dangerous position because she has to consider herself the first to go if it’s just the alliance left. So, although I think there’s still one more drama-less episode, I look for it to be shaken up pretty quickly soon there after.

My Pick to Win: Mike the Marine

American Idol Performance Night - 3/9/11

2011-03-09T22:55:00.000-06:00

Ooo J-Lo went for the deep hooker lipstick tonight.

So the contestants get to choose from their personal idols. Great American Idol contestants always have the best taste in music or maybe not.

Louisiana is up first annnnd there it is Shania Twain. Holy Shit Don Was is proof that Planet of the Apes is a true story. This girl isn't doing anything to dispel the American Karaoke label. Pretty flat performance.

Must suck for her to be the first contestant to not blow Steven Tyler away. J-Lo is in full on Paula Abdul mode to kick off the show. If she starts clapping with her fingers pointed outward I'm going to demand a DNA test.

I don't know where this Peaches nickname for Seacrest is coming from but I'm sold. Peaches it is.

When they said someone was doing Joe Cocker it was no doubt John the Baptist was the the one doing it. Let me just say though this isn't a Fucking Joe Cocker song though. It's a Beatles song done in the style of Joe Cocker's rendition. I'm off the John the Baptist train at least for the this week. That is an unforgivable sin in my book.

The guy is a performer though. A lot like Taylor Hicks. Did he just drop a "what you talking about Willis?" in the middle of that song?

Donna Summer 2 is going to do Diana Ross? Wrong. Stick with the one that brought ya. Yep and she's proving that she didn't deserve one of the wild card spots. I'd boo this garbage at a karaoke bar. Diana Ross did a lot of shitty music after she left the Supremes. This is one of those songs. I wish they would have shown the cringes on Berry Gordy's face during the performance. The judges are giving a peyote analysis of this performance.

Laser Teeth is my new favorite contestant. First he broke out the badass Nudie suit last week and now he's doing Ryan Adams' "Come Pick Me Up." Great choice one of my favorite songs. I assume they won't let him sing the "fuck me ups" but I'll live. His thin voice would be better doing a Gram Parsons song but I've got hope for the kinds of songs he's going to bring to the table. The dude's unbalanced falling dance moves make me incredibly nervous.

J-Lo not know Ryan Adams was a lock but Randy is on point. Whiskeytown and Wilco references.

I've got the commercial break to come up with a nickname for Pia. Boom that interview seals it, Winnie Cooper. If you don't get the reference then that's on you. Uh, their really starting to piss me off with giving credit for songs to the people who covered them. "All By Myself" is a song by the sweet white man's fro of Eric Carmen. Get that shit right. I gotta be honest, I have no idea is Winnie is good or bad but she sure as hell fills out that dress.

Steve Tyler just gave her the same look he used to give groupies back in '75 and that he now gives their grand daughters.

That was not a cry worthy performance. If you put J-Lo behind a screen I seriously couldn't tell you if it was her or Paula Abdul.

Do Steven Tyler and Keith Richards go to the same random crap in my hair dresser?

So Curious George is going from Judas Priest to Paul McCartney? I told y'all this dude was a metal poseur. No tail. No beard. Maybe next week he won't have that extra tooth.

Mariah is currently assaulting a Leann Rimes song. I still like her growl but that was not good. That auditorium must have the best acoustics on the planet because these people aren't hearing the same performances I am.

Swishy Smooth being a spa concierge was a slightly smaller favorite than J-Lo not knowing who Ryan Adams was. The beginning was rough but the guy has crazy range. Serious question, I believe Adam Lambert didn't win season 8 because he is gay. At what point do the voters turn on Swishy for not fitting into their comfort zone? Will he be OK as long as he doesn't flaunt it like Lambert did?

Uh Steven you haven't been judging anyone tonight. You didn't just start with Swishy.

I don't know who the guy with the red headphones is but I can't stand him.

No-Melody is back at free styling her own version of songs. This girl is like a hot towel in a barber's chair. Putting me to sleep.

Randy Jackson is aware of lasik surgery right?

If Stevie Wonder wasn't blind, he wouldn't wear his hair like that.

I missed Stefano's performance. I spent the whole song trying to come up with a nickname. I've got nothing. If you've got one for him send it to me and tell me how he did tonight.

Here's a fact of life. Producers wear stupid hats.

American Telemundo is trying to channel her inner Selena right down to her ridiculous outfit. That's a lot of bling. Ugh she butchered the end of that song.

Was there a book taking bets on whether or not Peaches would be taller than any of the women in the finals?

I'm pumped for the 20th Duggar. My kid watches the shit out of that show so I know she'll be excited if he moves on. A country guy doing Garth Brooks? No way. I'm uncomfortable with the way he's two handing that mic. Has this guy suffered a stroke in his life? He seems to only be able to open one side of his mouth. Well you might get to join your baseball team next week after that clunker.

I know American Idol is going up against Top Chef tonight but I think Peaches trying to steal Richard Blais' hair style is going a bit too far.

Project Throwaway should have been thrown away last week. Man that was close. If this chick slips a nip, I'm gonna vomit. I'm not a big fan of the Rhianna version of this song but this is almost as bad as that outfit.

Terribly lackluster showing tonight. Here's my bottom 3

Louisiana
Donna Summer 2
20th Duggar

Donna Summer 2 goes home. She should have never been a finalist in the first place and showed that tonight.

So long You Less Than Perfect Couples

2011-03-09T17:10:00.000-06:00

I'm sure everyone is going to be completely heart broken but I'm discontinuing my reviews of Perfect Couples so that I can keep my running diary of the American Idol results show. Honestly, I'd rather keep a running diary of a daily root canal than continue review Perfect Couples. However, I did commit a few months of my life to the show so let's put a bow it's season.

The first thing you need to know is that as a show it alternated between drab and terrible nearly every week. Each episode would open with a promising dilemma facing each couple and how they resolve it, then the real episode would start and everything would fall apart. Since I've seen Kyle Bornheimer, Olivia Munn and Mary Elizabeth Ellis perform well in other projects, I'm going to place the failure of the show squarely on the writing, well the writing and casting. The character's ages were all screwed up based on the flashbacks. Rex was the only character who was firmly developed and consequently was the best character on the show. Olivia Munn was woefully miscast as Leigh. She would have been much more successful in the role of Amy. She needed to be in a role where her natural goofball personal could shine. The straight Stepfordish Leigh was the opposite of goofy and fun.

Overall the show was a terrible failure and unlikely to be picked up. Even if every other production company goes under and NBC has to renew Perfect Couples for next season, I'm done with it.

Top Chef: Sizing up the Survivors

2011-03-09T11:02:00.000-06:00

I don't know what the hell that was last week on Top Chef. There is only one rule on Top Chef that must be followed, each week someone must go home. The one time the freezers failed or when both teams screwed up Restaurant Wars were the exceptions. This week however, the judges couldn't come to a decision or more than likely the producers wanted to take five contestants to the finals. If this is the way we're playing it now why not bring Dale back for his undercooked potatoes or give Tre another shot after his risotto? Why not bring Marcel back for his......never mind bad idea.

OK now that I've gotten that off my chest lets size up the final five chefs. I'll take them in descending order from the favorite to no chance.

Richard Blais

Strengths - Blais is the only cheftestant left that can legitimately say he was the best chef on his season. He's innovative, takes chances and more often than not pulls it out. His secret weapon? His hair. It works like Captain Caveman. If he's in a pinch and needs a dozen quail eggs, all he has to do is reach up into that perfectly sculpted coif a BAM there it is. The first season he was on I though he just used a ton of product to get his locks like that but now I know he freezes it into place with liquid nitrogen. Genius.

Weakness - The guy is a spaz. Probably the most nervous person in the show's history. I thought he was going to die on screen last week when Padma pulled the old "pack your.....bags" gag on him. If he falters it will be from a completely spaztastic meltdown.

Antonia Lofaso

Strengths - Antonia has been surprisingly focused and consistent this season. She's not particularly innovative but manages to make good food with just enough twist to make it her own. Where as Blais is "nervous guy" Antonia is just trying to not harsh her mellow. She likes to party a bit and it the finale comes down to a dessert, she's got the perfect brownie recipe.

Weakness - There's always a chance she'll sleep through an entire day of competition that's assuming she makes it though customs on her way to the Bahamas. She may lack the wow food the judges will be looking for in a finale. Then again we've seen before sometimes it just takes a good scallop to win.

Mike Isabella

Strengths - He's really good at taking someone else's recipe and winning with it, right Blais. Even though he's a loud mouth, his chef espionage skills are second to none. If anyone is going to annoy the other cheftestants into submission, it's going to be Mike. He went toe to toe with the Voltaggios and Beardy on his season so you know he's a talented chef.

Weakness - If Blais keeps his little black book under lock and key, Mike might be in trouble. He's been prone to wild overconfidence in challenges that are supposedly in his wheelhouse. He is often guilty of using too many ingredients. He definitely has the talent to win but brain farts and overconfidence may sink him.

Tiffany Derry

Strengths - She's big and fierce. If it comes down to a physical throw down my money would definitely be on Tiffany. We know she's a great chef from her season with the ability to combine her southern style with fine dining. If anyone is going to benefit from the layoff between New York shooting and the Bahamas, it's Tiffany. After being on the show two seasons in a row maybe she goes home recharges, refocuses and cooks in a way she's yet to show this season.

Weakness - She's just been OK so far this season. She's been just not bad enough to survive most weeks. She has appeared to be burned out of the competition for the majority of the season. She's done well during the quick fires but come up short of standing out in the elimination challenges. That kind of makes me think she's either over thinking things or more than likely is lacking the energy to put together a complete meal. We'll see how she responds to the lay off.

Carla Hall

Strengths - The judges love her. No one dodges bullets like Carla at the judges table. She must have a dynamic personality because Chef Tom and company just refuse to write her name down. She makes comfort food and being a caterer is more at ease with producing large quantities of her creations.

Weakness - Depending on who you talk to, she either looks like a Muppet or a feather duster with googly eyes. She is Mrs. Spaz but somehow pulls it off in an endearing way. He cooking isn't at refined as the other chefs. If anyone is going to walk off a pier into the ocean while in the Bahamas, it's Carla.

So that's my prediction for how the chef's finish this season. Blais' innovation narrowly out duels Antonia's solid but not spectacular fare. Blais gets his redemption after his stunning defeat in the season 4 finale.

Lights Out - "In Flight" Review

2011-03-09T00:11:00.001-06:00

“Remember this, everything, even the scariest thing on Earth has got a weakness. The more you study your enemy, the less scary he is.” -Ed Romeo

The second half of Lights Out has been dramatically been the first half and it’s due to one factor: focus. At first, Lights Out didn’t know what story to tell. Was it Patrick and Theresa’s marital struggles? Was it Lights trying to get his family out of debt? Was it training a new superstar in Omar? No. It was always about Patrick fighting for the championship. Along the way there is sure to be some things that make us stop and examine other angles. Ava’s coming of age and going to prom was a nice departure from Lights’ training and made us realize just what Patrick is fighting for. Tonight’s episode really drove home the focus. We got a deep look at Ed Romeo and Patrick trying to make Lights into champion. The problem for Patrick is that he can’t just be a fighter any more. He’s fighting against Reynolds, but fighting for his family.

From the opening opening scene I felt uneasy about Ed Romeo. There’s something else working behind his eyes. There’s an obsession, a need. That need is for boxing. For training. Romeo would have been the perfect trainer for a fighter like Omar. Someone he could really get inside their head and mold them into a super fighter fueled by that same obsession and drive he has. With Lights, it’s not that simple. He has other needs and wants. We know how serious Romeo is about his craft. He slit his wrists after Death Row Reynolds fired him as trainer, so when I started to sense the disconnect between Patrick and Ed I was always tense when he had those quiet moments with the Leary girls. Not that I thought Ed was some sort of adulterer or pervert, but that there was a sense that he could make things get very uncomfortable very quick. Ed’s obsession turned out to be too much for Patrick. He needs his family there. He’s never fought without their support and he doesn’t intend to start now. In Greek tragedy, all the heroes have a tragic flaw that prevent them from immortalizing themselves. Patrick has one that lives and breathes, his brother.

Johnny is an extremely pivotal character. For some reason or another Lights continues to always go back to his brother when it’s clear they live in two close but very different worlds. I understand Patrick’s desire to please his father. He was his trainer, the man who raised him. But Johnny I don’t get. I applauded when Patrick fired Johnny and was curious how Johnny was going to win him back. To me, Johnny’s ban didn’t last long enough. I don’t think he redeemed himself enough to be brought back in the circle of trust so soon. I don’t think he’s constantly devising plans and ways to screw Patrick out his money, I just think by nature he’s a sycophant who’s not very good at his job. There’s a clear difference when Patrick is talking to his brother and when he’s talking to his manager. Johnny is a great brother. One that empathizes with his family situation and knows where Patrick comes from, but as a manager he’s a panderer who can’t ever get the upper hand. So it should come as no shock that Johnny is responsible for yet another major setback in Lights’ training. In fighting Ed Romeo, Johnny accidentally stabs Lights in the side. The final scene shows Ed Romeo holding on to Lights telling him it will be ok. I wonder if this means we’ll get more of Ed? Perhaps this brings Patrick’s father back. Either way, I’m very happy with the direction of the show right now and think it will only get better as the season goes on.

Glee - "Sexy" Review

2011-03-08T21:37:00.001-06:00

“Just remember whenever you have sex with someone, you’re having sex with everyone they’ve ever had sex with. And everybody’s got a random.” -Holly

Sigh. Glee. How you upset me so. Tonight’s episode “Sexy” highlighted everything I don’t like about the show. While there were a few bright spots, they were few and far between and no memorable songs to break up the mess that was tonight’s episode. Tonight we were given a theme episode. I can’t stand these poorly constructed episodes. Apparently every single person at the school, teachers included, is having a similar problem at the exact same time. It’s unrealistic. And then they have to weave songs around their point as opposed to going with songs that are right for the story and seem organic in the moment. Not too mention they decided to blast us with all sorts of visiting stars that we barely got any real time with characters.

Just so you don’t think I’m some ball of hate toward the show, let’s start with the positive. Tonight was an amazing episode for Santana and Brittany. Naya Rivera continues to amaze me. We’ve seen her sing and dance at high levels, but tonight she really flexed her acting skills. Her scene in front of the lockers with Brittany was elegant and understated just enough. It would have been easy to play extremes and it would have seemed disingenuous, but she played hurt and conflicted very well. These types of scenes and relationships are what make the show so great. So it’s baffling when they stray from such honest and real emotions for cheap jokes and forced situations. I’m not saying I need every scene needs to be a heartbreaking emotional experience tonight, but I think the show thrives when see kids in honest situations reacting in honest ways. There was a nice attempt with Kurt and his dad,but the Kurt story line seems so disconnected that it’s hard to muster up the same empathy for his situation.

My lack of interest in Kurt’s story line is a manifestation of a bigger problem on Glee’s hands: there are too many plots. It seems simple enough to fix, but Glee can’t help themselves. Every week there seems to be a new story or a new character that wasn;t there before that takes up large portions of the episode pushing stories we actually care about to the back of the line. This week it was the reintroduction of Holly Holiday. Gwenyth Paltrow is currently trying to reinvent her career as a total performer. While I very much enjoy Gwenyth’s peformances, I just feel like she robbed too much of the episode. High on the list of things I don’t care about is Will Schuster’s love life. At one point, I cared very much. I think he had a real nice thing with Emma, but then Glee decided to take Emma PIllsbury away from us to the point where it’s hard to think about their relationship in the way we once did. I enjoy the adults presence when they are their as guides for the students. Perhaps instead of so much time devoted to Will trying to get his freak on, we could have seen more of Quinn and Finn making their relationship strong again. This was the show’s original power couple! Yet their relationship tonight felt like an aside. And when was the last time anyone heard from Tina, Mike Chang, Brittany or Sam? Heck even the diva herself, Rachel Berry, took a big backseat tonight. The show needs focus and it needs to find it quick.

Themed episodes are also a plague on the show. Just think of certain stories we had to endure tonight that we wouldn’t have had to if the show hadn’t decided that everything had to revolve around “Sexy.” First in line is the Lauren and Puck sex tape story. First of all, gross. Second, how ridiculous is it that that’s even a suggestion. Lauren was originally painted as this sassy smart woman who was leaps and bounds ahead of Puck mentally, but now she thinks just having a sex tape will bring her fame and a fragrance? Ugh. The Dalton Academy’s “sexy” foam party was laughable at best. The show is just constantly trying to make sure we don’t forget about Kurt, but honestly, I wish they’d leave him out until regionals. The “Afternoon Delight” number was a nice and funny gag, but did we really need John Stamos to come back? I realize the show wanted everyone to see that Emma was conflicted with her emotions, but it was just yet another character the show had to share screen time with. My problems with Sue Sylvester have been well documented, but I actually her when she’s used correctly, so when she was used tonight in a realistic way to deliver the “sexy” news to Kurt, I welcomed the change of pace she brought.

So Glee? If you’re listening, will you please focus your show? Please. For those of us who loved what it once was and know that it still can be. Do it for us, because we were here first and we’ve remained loyal. Please, do this for us. Thanks in advance.

Other thoughts:

- Doesn’t it seem like every teenage male Kurt’s dad comes into contact with seems like they all have something he can relate too? Did they really need Blaine to know about cars? And for that matter, isn’t Finn Kurt’s brother? Can we see any of that story? Oh well...

- Kurt and Blaine need their own spinoff series in that coffee shop. It just seems like every scene takes place there. I think I might be able to order Kurt’s coffee for him before too long.

- Something about lead characters on network shows having crushes on girls named Holly. Michael Scott from The Office and now Will Schuster. Remind me not to name my girl Holly because it will lead to many unwanted crushes.

- One adult I do always like, but only in very small doses is Principal Figgins. Coach Bieste has her moments, but did we really need her one moment on camera tonight as just a reminder of another story we weren’t getting too?

- Glee always brings up social issues that I have forgotten existed since I’m no longer in school. Growing up in Texas, we didn’t have a sex-ed class. We had health class where we briefly touched on sex, but only as a means of reproduction. There’s a lot of people wanting to talk about the difference between abstinence only and safe sex practices. But what I thought was interesting was that Blaine brought up that there’s no real information for gay teens in sex-ed classes. Is this a real issue? I’d imagine so. I can’t imagine a gay teen sitting through class listening to everyone else get their questions answered but feeling to afraid or ashamed to ask theirs. Just never really thought about it.

Brittany line of the week: “ I get my information from Woody Woodpecker cartoons.”

Great Recent Dance Moments on TV

2011-03-08T00:26:00.004-06:00

This past weekend Saturday Night Live aired perhaps one the finest sketches in recent memory. Their second installment of "Les Juenes de Paris" was a brilliant story told through dance. I'm not ashamed to admit that I love dance and am a sucker for watching great dance. (This is why Dancing with the Stars is excluded. The celebrity just brings down the performance constantly.) So I decided to put together a little compilation of some of my favorite moments in dance from the past few years.

"Les Juenes de Paris" - Saturday Night Live

"Bleeding Love" - So You Think You Can Dance

I just absolutely love the passion and release shown here. Great emotion.

"Tap" - Melinda Sulivan

I have the pleasure of knowing Melinda personally and know just how capable she is. Her early exit from last season's So You Think You Can Dance is not indicative of how great an artist she is. Look forward to more exciting tap dancing from her in the future.

"Quest Crew Finale" - America's Best Dance Crew

The athleticism, originality and musicality of Quest all culminated in this amazing dance.

"Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" - So You Think You Can Dance

Great imagination. Good playful dance.

"Freeze (Magic ball illusion dance)" - America's Best Dance Crew

Still can't figure this one out, but dang is it entertaining.

"Ruby Blue (The Robber Dance)" - So You Think You Can Dance

Wade Robson has a unique style and I'm in to it.

"Single Ladies Live"

This is important because it introduced the world to Heather Morris who was tasked with teaching the Glee cast the dance. The results:

Which led to Heather Morris being a full time cast member which gave us THIS:

"Fireflies Solo" - So You Think You Can Dance

Such an inspiring solo it moves Joey Dowling to tears. It also led to his crew appearing later in the season. Also fantastic:

"Remote Kontrol" - So You Think You Can Dance (The dance describes above. Start at 1 minute mark)

"One Step Process" - Barry Stagg

As a reward to those who have engaged me in this post, here's a solo that was choreographed for me at Texas Tech University by Andy Reed. I was an acting major who started dabbling in dance. It's great fun and I wish I could do more of it.

The Chicago Code - "O'Leary's Cow" Review

2011-03-07T21:45:00.001-06:00

“Tape it up. Learn to play with pain. This isn’t Evanston, kid.” -Wysocki

When watching The Chicago Code I have to constantly remind myself it isn’t The Shield, nor does it want to be. Where The Shield was unique in that it took a villain and made us care about him. In The Chicago Code we largely have heroes. As far as we know, Jarek Wysocki, Caleb Evers, Liam, and Teresa Colvin are good police. There is definitely a market for watching good police catch bad guys, but that show has been done to death. What makes The Chicago Code specifically interesting is when good police and good people are put into a situation where their morals and ideals are compromised. Seeing them wrestle with both sides of things is where unique drama is created.

Up until this point, I had largely thought that the storyline involving Liam the undercover cop was a bit light. I knew what it was trying to do, but I didn’t really see any benefit to keep showing him week in and week out. Just as I was thinking that, he’s confronted with an actual chance to commit a crime. This is where all undercover cop stories need to go. It’s the catch 22 within the situation. The undercover agent needs to work their way up to get more information, but in order to work their way up, they need to earn their keep. We’ll see just how far Liam goes. I have a hunch he travels further into the crime world, especially after a dead body was discovered. Any misgivings I had about the Liam story line have been put off. I’m curious how far he’ll go now to make the people who made him a killer pay for what they did. Jarek’s reaction when Liam tells him is also very interesting. He doesn’t so much care about what Liam did. As far as he’s concerned, it came with the territory. It’s just collateral damage. This leads me to believe that in the future Jarek will not be afraid to break a few eggs to make an omelet.

Superintendent Colvin was also put between a rock and a hard place when her sister and brother-in-law asked for her assistance on an issue where it was later revealed that the brother-in-law had sold access to the CPD. Teresa’s sister placed an unfair ultimatum on her. She said she could help the family by just sweeping this under the rug and looking the other way. We learn that Teresa’s family views Teresa as someone who cares more about her job than her family. So when Teresa has to stand up to her family and tell them that she is on the side of the law and not theirs, something tells me those tears let us know that Colvin knows she’s sacrificed a lot for her job and may not be completely comfortable with it. I’m glad that Colvin didn’t bite at the first chance to turn her back on the law. We need her integrity in tact so that when the time comes, her turning her back means something very significant.
 The biggest problem concerning me are the relationships that surround Jarek Wysocki. The superintendent seems to let him get away with a lot. He shoots his mouth off, speaks out of turn, and doesn’t follow direct orders all the time. I think this is a bit implausible, so it was no wonder when the other cops took offense to it. The Vonda and Issac relationship does nothing to help this. I still think their would be lingering tension there, but it just seems like they’re both desperately trying to gain his approval. I would like it more if Isaac and Vonda stayed with Moose’s team and we saw a bit of the conflicting ways to get business done, but maybe that’s a little too “Strike Team-ish.” Finally, the Caleb Evers relationship is one I like but it’s only skin deep. I enjoy their banter, but I think they need to find more instances where they can be equals as opposed to the constant teacher/student relationship we have going. As slight as it was, I liked when Evers stuck up for himself after he asked Natalie the cute nurse out. I had a thought Natalie could be Wysocki’s 27 year old fiance, but I don’t think that the case. Still waiting on her to show up. But the biggest road block in the Wysocki/Evers relationship is that we don’t know much about Evers. We need to know what makes him tick or at least see some sort of dirt. Right now Wysocki is depicted as some sort of super cop where everyone is playing up to him. I wonder what will happen when someone legitimately challenges him. Perhaps that’s where the Alderman Gibbons story takes us. I suspect he knows what happen to Wysocki’s brother.

I do like that we saw a chink in Gibbons’ armor today. We learn Alderman Gibbon’s biggest weakness is voters. The way Colvin gets to him is by attacking those that put him in power. He has power as long as he’s in power. You threaten his position, you threaten everything he’s worked to attain. Gibbons took a bit of a back seat this week, but I’m ok with that. He’s the main guy Colvin is chasing and something tells me he’s going to be around a while. The question is if he’s around for just a season or longer (assuming there is a longer.)

Californication "Another Perfect Day" Review

2011-03-07T14:15:00.000-06:00

So here we are the weekend before Hank goes on trial and he's sleeping in his car because he owes the hotel $25k.

Most of this week's episode frustrated the shit out of me. Make that most of this season has frustrated the shit out of me. At least where Hank is concerned. Remember way back in episode two when Hand drank too much and took too many pills then wrote a beautiful letter to his daughter? It seemed as though Hank had had an epiphany. He had finally realized the damage he was doing not only to himself but to his kid. We didn't need to see a complete 180 in Hank's behavior but even a minor attempt to change would have been a welcomed reprieve. At some point watching Hank go from girl to girl, making witty comments and pining over Karen gets boring without a hint of personal growth. You could have completely removed episode two from this season and nothing would have changed. That is either a wasted opportunity or writing masturbation.

After an episode of pure debauchery we're back to seeing Hank spending time with Karen and Becca. I hate the scenes where Hank is making jokes, being dad and Karen and Becca are laughing and eating it all up. The jokes aren't that funny. I'd rather see Hank struggling with those jokes and being obviously humored by Karen and Becca. Aside from these few minutes it's obvious they've lost all remaining respect for him. Why fake it then? Hank seems to have accepted Karen's new relationship though a few barbs here and there still fee good. We did get one a touching story about how Hank was jealous because he used to be that guy anxiously waiting for Karen to come to the door and now it's Ben.

Following the girls wrecking Hank's car we finally get a poignant conversation between Hank and Karen. Hank obviously wants things to return to his idealized version of normal. The three of them living together as a family. Karen is quick to point out that they can't return to that place because Monday morning they'll wake up, take Becca to school and then drive Hank to his trial for raping a teenaged girl. Now I liked this conversation because Hank doesn't get enough "real talk" in his life. He surrounds himself with sycophants and you women who couldn't spell sycophant. My issue is Karen's emphasis on Hank "raping" a teenager. The show has gone a long way to point out that Karen is both book smart and street smart. She might hound him for having sex with Mia but I she would undoubtedly find his relationship with Mia being defined as rape as ridiculous. Yet she seemed fixed on the term last night. That really bugged me especially with he knowledge of the kind of person Mia is.

So next week we finally get to the trial. Looks like Bill returns to testify against Hank and we get the obligatory Karen freak out over the whole thing. I assume we'll see Marcy and Runkle inch closer to resolving their feelings towards one another. Runkle was visibly upset by Marcy's news of being pregnant with Stu's baby. Marcy at the same time didn't want to tell Runkle because, well it's Runkle's kid and she's got unresolved feelings for him as well. The stuff with Charlie and the real estate agent isn't working for me so hopefully that relationship hits the skids soon. I'm excited to finally get more Abbey. She's been terribly underused this season but the trial should be her time to shine.

Big Love "The Noose Tightens" Review

2011-03-07T12:17:00.000-06:00

If you haven't been watching Big Love this season, first I don't know why you're reading this review and secondly you need to fix that mistake. So much for the methodical pace the show had been taking towards it's end. This week the Henricksons faced complete and total disintegration of everything holding the family together. Every storyline we had been following for seven episodes reached their tipping points tonight.

I've been pulling for Don to give Bill a big middle finger for a while now. He has lost nearly everything good in his life as a result of being loyal to his business partner. His wives have left, his time with his kids is limited and now his mental and physical health have been compromised because of the stress brought on by Bill's public life. Why would he continue to back this guy? Isn't this the same man that asked him to take the fall for Home Plus' insurance scandal? Admittedly, I didn't expect don to sell out to the guy who tried to kill him but hey when he's offering more than twice market value, maybe you forgive a little.

The financial well being of the Henricksons is a secondary concern at this point with both Bill and Barb facing charges of statutory rape and procuring. The DA plans to build their case around testimony from Margene. Bill and Barb would have been fine if Margene would have stuck to the plan and given the authorities nothing to build the case around but in true Margene fashion she cracked under the pressure and started blabbing like a five year old with a secret. I kind of had a feeling Barb was going to dragged into the investigation based on Margene's speech at the youth rally. What I'm not exactly thrilled about is how the other wives have turned on her and her role in all this. Nicki and Margene's assertion that bringing more wives into the fold was somehow Barb's doing seemed completely out of left field. Unless I'm forgetting key moments of Anna's courtship. Nice comeback on Barb's part throwing the secret resealing back at them. I'm still having trouble understanding why Barb is still hanging around though. Her marriage is broken. Her kids are all but grown and the other sister wives are throwing her under the bus. Where is her motivation for sticking by the family? Bill's genes suggest a willingness to cast out the wife who steps out of line. Nicki's insistence on getting her own lawyer was a bit puzzling. Even though she has gotten everything she has wanted lately she is still singing the poor mistreated outcast tune. I've turned on Nicki this season. Although I find her character infinitely more interesting, I find her far less likable. Her selfishness, rudeness and general ignorance though always there have just rubbed me the wrong way this season.

I've been pretty adamant in my apathy towards the Cara Lynn/Mr. Ivey storyline this season. I haven't seen the point of taking away screen time for what seems like a rehashed plot. We got a nice return on our suffering this week though. The first fireworks came when Margene found out about the relationship and Cara Lynn turned to Ben for help. Ben has been a general dud all season. I don't blame him. How is he supposed to recover from the Greenes in Mexico fiasco from last season. Anyway, I thought his confrontation with Nicki was his best scene of the entire series. His willingness to stand up to her finally revealed the maturity and spine long time fans had wondered if he'd ever have. Following Ben questioning Nicki's mothering ability we were treated to another terrifically explosive scene when Nicki took Cara Lynn to break things off with Mr. Ivey. You saw all the frustration and pain Nicki endured from being a child bride herself explode into a fit of rage at Greg. She couldn't change what had happened to her but she was damn well not going to let her daughter follow that same path, at least not right now. I still think Cara Lynn's story ends with her running off with Greg to be married. She's harboring ill will towards Nicki for the death of her father and her defiance is only growing more bold. Of course, if Nicki doesn't survive Alby this will all be moot.

Before we talk about Alby's actions tonight can we just address the elephant in the room? Aside from Solonius on Spartacus, Alby has by far the best haircut on television. His pompadour is outstanding. Now Roman's cowboy hat was more fitting with a compound prophet but Alby's do perfectly fits his Albyness. OK now that we've addressed that let's talk about what Alby's up to. I love his attempt to sink Bill through the back door. What better way to destroy Bill than from the inside? Bill should know by now that trying to get Alby to back down by threatening him only leads to Alby going to greater extremes. Bill threatening to expose Alby's "tendencies" and past transgressions was all the excuse Alby needed to call in a hit on Bill. Alby should be better at hiring his assassins though. Don't hire the guy who just botched offing Don to shoot Bill. Verlan may be a damn fine guy to watch undress but he's proven to be a failure at killing folks. Pretty bold of him to ask for a raise after failing his first attempt at being an assassin. Crazy Rhonda and their baby's got to eat though.

Nicki's brashness and lack of tact got the best of her once more. After learning of Alby's plans to kill Bill she verbally assaults her brother with insults and threats. As we've already discussed, AlbyAlby loves his sister but not even she is immune to his wrath. Nicki kneeling before a five foot grave with a gun to her head is a testament to how fed up Alby is with her and the Henricksons. Fortunately for her, Nicki is the one person in the world Alby does truly love and makes Verlan pay for exposing his plan to kill Bill. Poor Verlan, it's all fun and games being Alby's boy toy until he tires of you and buries you in a shallow grave on the compound. The final image we are left with is Nicki standing on the Henrickson's back port dazed in a filthy prairie dress.

So where are we going in the final two episodes? I think the law closing in and an ultimate battle with Alby all point to Bill and Nicki returning to Juniper Creek with Bill taking his grandfather's former position as the compound's prophet. Even with Bill offering to resign his senate seat the DA is still moving forward with prosecuting him. Alby, I believe ends up dead at the hands of Nicki or Adaleen. There was a little clue in this episode when Alby tells Verlan that no crime committed on the compound has ever been convicted. I think the final unprosecuted crime is the murder of Alby and his glorious hair. I'm conflicted about Barb. I want her to get away from Bill but I'm now concerned that procuring charges may force her to an unfulfilled existence on the compound as well. I can't see Margene ending up with them though. She is completely different from the other wives. She has matured since becoming a part of the Henricksons and now sees there are things in life she can only have outside the family.

Random Notes:

I found the occult thing bizarre but more than that it was resolved awfully quickly and without satisfaction.
What is Grant Show's role in all of this? Is he just working as a LDS agent to break apart the Henricksons?
I found the visit from the other Senator interesting towards the end of the episode telling Bill to continue fighting.
If you ever have a secret do not say anything around Heather. That girl is nothing but trouble.
If Carl and Pam were swallowed by an earth quake, I wouldn't care and neither would you.
I hope Nicki never "rescues" me from anything.

Shameless - "But At Last Came A Knock" Review

2011-03-06T23:15:00.001-06:00

“I was raised by a pack of wolves, just like you were. Only my wolves went to Harvard.” -Steve

Shameless delivers it’s most emotional episode thus far. We get an incredible performance from Emmy Rossum and some really nice developments in the characters. The episode accomplished a few major things. Debs now knows about Steve’s secret life and Fiona realizes that she needs to be a little bit selfish and have a life of her own thanks to the arrival of her mother, Monica. These are two huge developments and I will say that the episode seemed a bit disjointed. These two huge plot developments might have deserved their own individual episode, but nevertheless, we got a solid 50 minutes of entertainment tonight.

At the outset of the episode I was thinking Shameless was up to their old tricks again. We get a nice story from Fiona and the other siblings and the Frank story is a side bar about him chasing money and getting drunk. We learned last week that Frank will do anything for money, even stay sober. So it was interesting when he couldn’t get go through with contacting Monica and even further when he couldn’t face her. Maybe I had missed hearing her name before, but I didn’t think all these shenanigans from Frank would lead to the mother showing up. But when she showed up, boy did she change the dynamic of the show in a hurry.

Debs is the first kid to see her and she greets her by shoving her to the ground. Then Debs tells the whole family mom is back at Sheila’s. There was a very nice moment when Fiona, Lip, and Liam all seem to think Frank did something wrong, but Debs screams back in defense of her father, “Why do you always blame Dad first?” The family is moved to silence at the news of their mother being in town. Liam runs away to Mickey and the rest of the family goes to see her. At Sheila’s house we learn that Monica and her life partner Roberta want to start a family and they want to take Liam with them. In perhaps the finest acting of the season Fiona passionately defends he family. She resents that her mother left her with the kids and left her with all the work to do. The years of pent up rage come flying out when she says she wants to start a family. “Well how about you finish this one first?” Debs and Carl are extremely conflicted emotionally and when they hug their mother, Fiona has had it and leaves. Up until this point I had always wondered why the children put up with Frank. Frank is a worthless father, but he did one thing that can’t be forgotten in their lives, he stayed. The Gallagher’s don’t care about a lot of things, but family and loyalty, they care very much.

Fiona ran away and no surprise, Steve came and comforted her with a new house he bought her. Rewind to the beginning of the episode. Debs is skeptical that Steve is cheating, so she does some detective work and finds out about Steve’s real life as Jimmy Lishman from the North Side. There was a really great scene with Steve and Debs while Mrs. Lishman is ratting out Steve’s gimmick. Just Steve staring at her with a look of terror while Debs gazes on in disappointment. No words between the two, just a story told in body language. Steve has to come clean to Debs and says he doesn’t want a life where he’s expected to be a prim and proper doctor, he just wants to be happy. One concern I have with all of this is that Steve’s go to move is to provide for Fiona’s needs with gifts. I wonder how compatible the two would be if he didn’t have all that money. Does the car thievery really pay that well? Or is he still living off family money? I know Fiona just wants Steve, but the gifts are a bonus.

Fiona will inevitably find out about Steve’s double life. Fiona’s stance on lying is very clear. She told Steve he could sleep with other girls as long as he told the truth, so something tells me Fiona won’t take the news too lightly. One question. We saw Steve kiss a girl we thought was his girlfriend/wife last episode on the mouth, and this week his mother awkwardly kissed him long and good on the mouth. Was Candace Lishman (as it says in his phone) just his sister? Is the mouth kissing a Lishman family tradition? I think Fiona could be talked into staying with Steve if he just lied about his family. But lying about a girlfriend/wife? I don’t think she sticks around.

I’m excited about a few things going forward. The first is I can’t wait to see Fiona fight for her family. It’s clear she wants to move forward with Steve, so I hope they try and start a family together with the children as their legal dependents. I also think there’s a lot of legs to Lip learning Steve’s trade. Lip has a brilliant mind, but doesn’t want to leave the hood. A way he can use his intelligence to get rich and stay a degenerate is by perfecting the art of car thievery. Ten minutes on the job and he already had a few ideas for Steve on how to make business better. Because I love their relationship, I wonder what will happen with Kev and Veronica and their foster child. She took a back seat once Monica showed up, but I am interested to see if they continue to develop this awkward family. I’m not so sure Veronica is ready to go from single to a grandmother in the span a few weeks though.

American Idol - Finalists Named 3/3/11

2011-03-03T21:24:00.000-06:00

Welcome to American Idol and playing the part of Poison Ivy tonight, Jennifer Lopez.

Blah, Blah 6 trillion votes. More drama than you've ever seen on this stage. That doesn't say much for the other AI contestants.

Let's get ready to ruuuuuuuummmmmmmmbbbbbbblllleeeee. The guys are up first.

It's the 20th Duggar kid vs. Daniel Larusso. This looks like an easy pick. If one of these guys is going through It's got to be the Duggar kid. Yep. Congrats. Keep going mom and pop might need the money.

Ugh we've got Roid Rage vs. Chris Bosh vs. Mr. Peabody. I didn't think any of these guys were good enough to go through. Mr. Peabody was the best of the three. Nope Bosh and Peabody are gone. I can't take more Roid ra.....Uh OK he's gone too. Good bye.

Poor 20th Duggar all by his lonesome. Probably refreshing getting away from his 19 siblings.

I guess they're doing some of the ladies next. Unnecessary recap. terrible interviews. Yowser. They need to warn us anytime they're going to show Big Bird and Paul Stanley back to back.

Not Fiona Apple wears the exact amount of animal print that makes me want her to go home.

Alright we've got Pia vs. Louisiana. I think they're both going on. I see what you're trying to do AI. That was too easy. I've got to admit Louisiana has some country curves.

Nip-Slip vs. Prom Dress. No way either of these get through. Unless Nip-Slip has promised the full monty if she gets through. Nope both are sent packing. At least for now.

You know they really should do this tournament style. Singer vs. Singer

Grease vs. Donna Summer 2 vs. American Telemundo. Only American Telemundo deserves to get through. So neither Donna Summer made it through. That's a shame because disco is so popular with the kids these day. Too Easy American Telemundo keeping hope alive.

Looks like it's The Untalented Halpern vs. John the Baptist vs. Swishy Smooth. This group will have a 66% success rate. Any other result will be a huge upset. Swishy glides into the next round. John the Baptist will be baptizing us is awesomeness for another week. Maybe your brother can get you a job at Dunder Miflin Mr. Halpern.

My daughter just told me she doesn't know whether the person on the end with all the hair is a man or a woman. Don't worry sweetie that's a common mistake. A couple of weeks ago Padma wore the same shirt Steven Tyler's wearing but looked much better in it.

Here we go Paul Stanley vs. Big Bird vs. No Melody. Big Bird is taking terrible dresses to a new level. I mean they're all the same dress but she's increasing the pattern difficulty with each new edition. Only No Melody should go on but Big Bird could slip by in a small upset.

Side note here. When a 15 year old is compared to Michael Jackson how do they take that? In their lifetime they've only known him a drugged out, child molesting weirdo. People my age think back to Billie Jean and Thriller. People No Melody's age remember what? Him hanging Blanket out of a window?

OK back to the results. Big Bird goes down. No Melody gets through. Even though Paul Stanley was cut I still think Paul and the 2 Donnas could make a good living on the impersonator circuit.

Here comes The Pocket Tomato vs. Laser Teeth. I'm digging Laser Teeth's Nudie Jacket. He may not make it through but major respect for that jacket. Pocket Tomato liking to hug was -600. Wow I cannot believe there's an hour of this left. I happy with that result but that dude has to promise to wear the whole suit during next week's performance.

Mariah vs. Not Fiona Apple. I think my wishes are clear between these two. Not Fiona Apple wears way too much animal print. Mariah besides damn near being a cyclops is much better looking and I dig her growl. Awesome, in no way is she gonna win but Not Fiona had that "I'm too good for you" bitchy New York attitude and I don't need that on my AI stage. Beat it Not Fiona.

Curious George vs. Stefano. I re-watched Curious George's performance and was more impressed the second time. However, I don't think he gets through right here. Stefano had that pop sound young girls like and that's who votes for this right? Seriously no adults are actually calling in to vote on this stuff right? I'm a little surprised that one of these guys didn't make it in over Laser Teeth but I'd lay good money that the one who doesn't make it right now, gets through in the wild card round. Does anyone else find it highly ironic to call a guy with a faux hawk "organic and real?" Maybe it's just me. Obviously, they saved that for last because it was the one upset of the night. Curious George gets through.

I call BS on them picking 3 guys and 3 girls. The talent pool on the guys' side is much deeper. Both of the wild card picks should be guys tonight.

First up Donna Summer 2. Not good. Sorry but I think you are going. Way too much song for DS2. I'm telling you impersonator's circuit. It's a goldmine. Well if she doesn't make it through she can always take with her the memory of Ryan Seacrest cupping her breast right then.

What is is about Stefano and Pia that I don't have nicknames for them?

I don't like the song but Stefano is knocking it out. He's gotta get through.

Oh no not this cheese ball. I thought we were done with his ridiculousness. If a light fell on this guy mid song, we would all be blessed.

Good God. I was hoping to never have to see one of those dresses again. Look, it's 8:45 and I'm damn near 40. You can't expect me to stay awake through a performance like that. Boooorrrringgg

Daniel Larusso is our final competitor tonight. Get a body bag! Yeah! Daniel may have pulled it out of the bag.

It's definitely between Daniel Larusso, Stefano and Grease.

Fake deliberation. Fake deliberation. Oh we happen to have a Jennifer Lopez video to fill the time.

OK I kind of understand playing this music in a club setting and by the way this is the 600th version of this particular club song, but do people actually buy music like this to listen to at home or in the car?

Obviously, that pick of DS2 wasn't based on tonight's performance.

Stefano well deserving.

What? The fix was in. Can I have the last hour of my life back. If you were just going to select contestants regardless of how they performed tonight we could have cut this thing in half. Big Bird gets through but from now on she will be known as Project Throwaway.

I'm gonna go ahead and call my shot. The three finalists will be John the Baptist, Stefano and Swishy Smooth with everyone getting religion when John the Baptist walks away with the title.