I checked Bodog and they didn't have a line for this but I could have told you that as soon as I came out and declared Parks and Rec the best sitcom on TV last week, it would drop one of its worst episodes on us this week.
Not you Ron, you were perfect as always. The photo album of every steak you've ever had at Mulligans, the genuine concern for all those steaks left behind when Mulligans shut down. You recoiled in disgust as Chris grilled you a mushroom. No not you Ron Swanson. Not you. You ordered all the eggs and bacon and we loved it.
As for the rest of you, I'm disappointed. I'm all for more screen time for Adam Scott. He's a funny actor and his character is finding his niche in the office. Tonight just wasn't a successful integration for Ben in with the other department members beyond Leslie. I'm a fan of Tom and his attentions seeking, success longing, tiny suit wearing ways but the fragrance angle was pretty weak. The names of Feinstein's fragrances ceased to be funny after about the third. By the way, what's the point of having Rafi from The League on your show if he's going to have one line and play it straight. You gotta let that man get someone pregnant up in the club.
Tonight dampened my hopes for the Andy and April courtship. Somehow they took two of my favorite characters and removed the funny from them. Andy's stupidity is funny in the office when he's around people like Ron, Leslie and Ben. In a place like the Snake Hole he loses all of his charm. The lovable loser becomes the sad idiot.
I'm not really going to get into the Chris and Anne breakup because I though the whole story line was pointless. Take away Leslie's line about questioning how good a nurse she is and you had absolutely nothing worthwhile. Anne's appearance in the episode was completely irrelevant and pointless. Beyond that it was just kind of stupid.
I'm holding Parks and Rec to a higher standard because I know how great it is when the show is on. Tonight just wasn't one of those nights.
Showing posts with label rob lowe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rob lowe. Show all posts
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Parks and Recreation "Media Blitz" Review
I have to admit I might give up listening to John & Lance in the morning if Crazy Ira and The Douche were to move here.
No offense to Community but Parks and Recreation is the funniest show on television right now. Ron Swanson is in the 2007 Tom Brady zone right now. Everything he does kills. I just laughed out loud while he typed the words "rectangle, America, megaphone, Monday, butthole." Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) is the most awkwardly funny person since Michael Scott and Tom (Aziz Ansari) is a dead eye comedic sniper right now.
The best part of tonight's episode is that we finally got to see Ben (Adam Scott) step out of his straight guy persona and completely lose his mind in every medium possible. When confronted about his disastrous stint as an 18 year old mayor on a popular radio show, Crazy Ira and The Douche, Ben shows that he may not be as cool and collected as he appears out of the media. The Douche by the way is played by the very funny veteran of The League, Nick Kroll. As the media blitz to create buzz around the Harvest Festival continues, Ben's outbursts become more outlandish. At one point lifting his shirt to show host Perd Hapley his birthmark in order to drive home the point that he's not perfect. It's more than obvious Ben is haunted by his past failure.
Lucky for Ben, he's got Leslie and Tom to fall back on. An appearance on Joan Callamezzo's show wraps up the day for team. Tom is always on point to butter up Leslie's rival in the media Joan. For all of Leslie's awkward goofiness she somehow always knows the right move to fix a problem. When she is being grilled by Joan about Ben's ability to oversee the Pawnee's budget, Leslie knows the time is right to Ben to defend himself. And so the Harvest Festival is saved once again.
Let's not forget Chris' offer to take April with him to Indianapolis to be his assistant. Her response "sounds boring but I don't have anything tying me here so OK." No way are Ron and Andy going to let April get away that easy. Plus I'd have to drive to Pawnee and kill them if they did. Andy agrees to do all the jobs April hates for a month if she'll stay in Pawnee. Ron who knows he'll never find a suitable replacement for April takes it upon himself to make sure Andy succeeds. Of course, Andy runs into a number of Andy problems along the way.
I love Andy. He's dumb, sweet and completely naive in all the right ways. The character is ten fold better than he was in Parks first season. I'm glad he and April reunited. I don't see this as one of those relationships that changes the dynamic of the show. Neither character are central to Parks but rather the kind of role players that make a series.
Chris (Rob Lowe) cracks me up in small doses but as far as his relationship with Ann, I don't care very much. She finally confronted him about what is going to happen to their relationship when he has to move. All that was resolved was an agreement that they needed to address the subject.
Another excellent episode from Parks this week.
No offense to Community but Parks and Recreation is the funniest show on television right now. Ron Swanson is in the 2007 Tom Brady zone right now. Everything he does kills. I just laughed out loud while he typed the words "rectangle, America, megaphone, Monday, butthole." Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) is the most awkwardly funny person since Michael Scott and Tom (Aziz Ansari) is a dead eye comedic sniper right now.
The best part of tonight's episode is that we finally got to see Ben (Adam Scott) step out of his straight guy persona and completely lose his mind in every medium possible. When confronted about his disastrous stint as an 18 year old mayor on a popular radio show, Crazy Ira and The Douche, Ben shows that he may not be as cool and collected as he appears out of the media. The Douche by the way is played by the very funny veteran of The League, Nick Kroll. As the media blitz to create buzz around the Harvest Festival continues, Ben's outbursts become more outlandish. At one point lifting his shirt to show host Perd Hapley his birthmark in order to drive home the point that he's not perfect. It's more than obvious Ben is haunted by his past failure.
Lucky for Ben, he's got Leslie and Tom to fall back on. An appearance on Joan Callamezzo's show wraps up the day for team. Tom is always on point to butter up Leslie's rival in the media Joan. For all of Leslie's awkward goofiness she somehow always knows the right move to fix a problem. When she is being grilled by Joan about Ben's ability to oversee the Pawnee's budget, Leslie knows the time is right to Ben to defend himself. And so the Harvest Festival is saved once again.
Let's not forget Chris' offer to take April with him to Indianapolis to be his assistant. Her response "sounds boring but I don't have anything tying me here so OK." No way are Ron and Andy going to let April get away that easy. Plus I'd have to drive to Pawnee and kill them if they did. Andy agrees to do all the jobs April hates for a month if she'll stay in Pawnee. Ron who knows he'll never find a suitable replacement for April takes it upon himself to make sure Andy succeeds. Of course, Andy runs into a number of Andy problems along the way.
I love Andy. He's dumb, sweet and completely naive in all the right ways. The character is ten fold better than he was in Parks first season. I'm glad he and April reunited. I don't see this as one of those relationships that changes the dynamic of the show. Neither character are central to Parks but rather the kind of role players that make a series.
Chris (Rob Lowe) cracks me up in small doses but as far as his relationship with Ann, I don't care very much. She finally confronted him about what is going to happen to their relationship when he has to move. All that was resolved was an agreement that they needed to address the subject.
Another excellent episode from Parks this week.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Californication "Lawyers, Guns and Money" Review
Here is what Californication is about. It's about Hank, Becca, Charlie and Marcy and if we must include her Karen. It's not about Eddie Nero, Dean Koons, Lew Ashby or even Mia. Too often the writers get caught up in these ancillary characters they've created, fallen in love with on paper and end up wasting entire episodes because they really want us to see how great these characters are. This was one of those episodes.
"Lawyers, Guns and Money" spent way too much time on that wild and crazy guy Eddie Nero. First of all, Rob Lowe is terrible in the role. So terrible that he even did the finger point thing his character Chris does on Parks and Recreation. Beyond how Lowe's awful acting as Eddie, the fake beard is so poorly done it has become distracting. I thankfully missed quite a few of Eddie's lines because I just kept thinking "that is the worst fake beard and mustache I've ever seen." Worst of all, he's not even funny. The whole story about taking a man in his mouth fell completely flat on both Hank and the audience.
OK so you get past how horrid Rob Lowe is and his even more awful beard. You can't get past his revelation that Hank's book is really about "a man trying to keep it together while falling apart." Here's why. We already knew what Californication was really about. We didn't need a forced epiphany by a fictional actor to reaffirm it. I don't ask much but I would like for the writers to give me credit for being smart enough to figure that much out.
Very little else that happened in the episode really matters. Not that the Eddie stuff mattered either. I don't know what they're doing with the Stu and Marcy stuff. I think they just needed to fill six minutes of screen time.
Hank and Abby sleeping together was an inevitability. There are freight trains with more stealth coming down the tracks. Although if the episode had focused on their relationship and Hank trying to convince her to take him back as a client, it would have been a whole hell of a lot more interesting.
As a side note, I'm pretty sure the only reason Sasha was in tonight's episode at all was so that we could see Addison Timlin's tits one last time. I'm not complaining. Just making an observation. That's how Californication rolls.
Basically, at the end of the episode we were right back where we started. Just a little more irritated.
"Lawyers, Guns and Money" spent way too much time on that wild and crazy guy Eddie Nero. First of all, Rob Lowe is terrible in the role. So terrible that he even did the finger point thing his character Chris does on Parks and Recreation. Beyond how Lowe's awful acting as Eddie, the fake beard is so poorly done it has become distracting. I thankfully missed quite a few of Eddie's lines because I just kept thinking "that is the worst fake beard and mustache I've ever seen." Worst of all, he's not even funny. The whole story about taking a man in his mouth fell completely flat on both Hank and the audience.
OK so you get past how horrid Rob Lowe is and his even more awful beard. You can't get past his revelation that Hank's book is really about "a man trying to keep it together while falling apart." Here's why. We already knew what Californication was really about. We didn't need a forced epiphany by a fictional actor to reaffirm it. I don't ask much but I would like for the writers to give me credit for being smart enough to figure that much out.
Very little else that happened in the episode really matters. Not that the Eddie stuff mattered either. I don't know what they're doing with the Stu and Marcy stuff. I think they just needed to fill six minutes of screen time.
Hank and Abby sleeping together was an inevitability. There are freight trains with more stealth coming down the tracks. Although if the episode had focused on their relationship and Hank trying to convince her to take him back as a client, it would have been a whole hell of a lot more interesting.
As a side note, I'm pretty sure the only reason Sasha was in tonight's episode at all was so that we could see Addison Timlin's tits one last time. I'm not complaining. Just making an observation. That's how Californication rolls.
Basically, at the end of the episode we were right back where we started. Just a little more irritated.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Parks & Recreation "Ron & Tammy Pt. 2" Review
Ron Swanson missing part of his mustache can mean only one thing, Tammy is back.
Tom sends Ron off on a Tammy bender when he brings her to a Pawnee PD appreciation party to get Ron back for dating his ex-wife Wendy. What Tom doesn't know is that Ron and Wendy had broken up earlier that day. Ron's reaction to Wendy's invitation to move back to Canada is classic and pure Swanson.
The next time we see Ron, he's in a Pawnee jail cell with cornrows, a kimono and the middle third of his mustache missing. He later explains that he lost it because of friction. No couple has a more passionately hate fueled relationship than Ron and Tammy Swanson. I'm sure the real life marriage between Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally. Their scenes together are filled with pure vitriolic gold. The ultimate payoff comes when Tammy kicks Tom's ass for trying to come between them.
Back at the office, the oddest of couples are thrown together when April has to fill in as Chris's assistant. You can imagine April's reaction to Chris's over the top positive attitude. The scene when he's asks her for "green and yellow post its but not orange because I have plenty of orange post its" is their best scene together. By the end of the episode Chris lets her know he can see through her attempts at sabotage and actually offers her a job working for him in Indianapolis. This of course is the writers attempt to build tension in the seemingly perfect relationship that has been forged between Anne and Chris.
The writers continued to lead us down the path of Ben falling for Leslie and Leslie being completely oblivious to this. So far this relationship just doesn't work for me. I thought Leslie's relationship with Officer Dave was the only attempt that really hit the mark. Their awkwardness and inability to hold a comfortable conversation fit perfectly with Leslie's character and the show in general. I don't see the same chemistry between her and Ben at this point.
Any episode with Ron and Tammy is going to be a winner but the rest of the subplots were mostly throw away.
Tom sends Ron off on a Tammy bender when he brings her to a Pawnee PD appreciation party to get Ron back for dating his ex-wife Wendy. What Tom doesn't know is that Ron and Wendy had broken up earlier that day. Ron's reaction to Wendy's invitation to move back to Canada is classic and pure Swanson.
The next time we see Ron, he's in a Pawnee jail cell with cornrows, a kimono and the middle third of his mustache missing. He later explains that he lost it because of friction. No couple has a more passionately hate fueled relationship than Ron and Tammy Swanson. I'm sure the real life marriage between Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally. Their scenes together are filled with pure vitriolic gold. The ultimate payoff comes when Tammy kicks Tom's ass for trying to come between them.
Back at the office, the oddest of couples are thrown together when April has to fill in as Chris's assistant. You can imagine April's reaction to Chris's over the top positive attitude. The scene when he's asks her for "green and yellow post its but not orange because I have plenty of orange post its" is their best scene together. By the end of the episode Chris lets her know he can see through her attempts at sabotage and actually offers her a job working for him in Indianapolis. This of course is the writers attempt to build tension in the seemingly perfect relationship that has been forged between Anne and Chris.
The writers continued to lead us down the path of Ben falling for Leslie and Leslie being completely oblivious to this. So far this relationship just doesn't work for me. I thought Leslie's relationship with Officer Dave was the only attempt that really hit the mark. Their awkwardness and inability to hold a comfortable conversation fit perfectly with Leslie's character and the show in general. I don't see the same chemistry between her and Ben at this point.
Any episode with Ron and Tammy is going to be a winner but the rest of the subplots were mostly throw away.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Sunday Night TV - 1/17/11
Shameless
So episode 2 is our real introduction to Frank. He likes to drink. He doesn't like his sons. He's OK with his daughters and he really hates Canada. What we also learn is that even though he's a giant dirtbag, his kids still love their father and even though he makes their lives exponentially harder, they turn west Chicago upside down trying to make sure he's OK. Most of all what we learned is the lengths Frank will go to be taken care of and to continue his plush disability check to disability check lifestyle. He moved in with Sheila (Joan Cusack) and that length appeared to be about 9 inches in a most uncomfortable place. Steve was taught a lesson about coming between Fiona and her family and sorry douche but stealing a minivan for her doesn't make up for kidnapping her dad and dumping him in Toronto. I personally would have been happy to see Fiona give Steve the boot all together but I suppose he'll make his way back into her life and we'll all have to put up with him in the weeks to come. Hey maybe that cop friend of Fiona's can take care of that problem for us.
Californication
Not much really happened this week besides some pill and alcohol induced reflection by Hank and we met Rob Lowe's character Eddie Nero who's slated to play Hank in the movie version of Fucking & Punching. So, what did we learn from this week's episode? Not much. Hank is still ruled by his dick, Runkle is up to fifteen women and Rob Lowe likes to dress up as Brad Pitt. We did finally see Hank feel some remorse for the disappointment and embarrassment he's brought his daughter. I thought Hank's line about wanting Harvey Keitel to play him because Harvey likes to show his dong on screen was fantastic since David Duchovny is a notorious on screen dong swinger.
Big Love
So I decided to stick it out with Big Love because this is the last season and I've made it this far. Fortunately, it looks like I may be rewarded for my loyalty. There's no questioning last season was bad. It was more than bad it was god awful. The whole Bill going down to Mexico and rescuing his family in a blaze of glory nearly forced me to cancel my season pass. In their final season it looks like the show is going back to its core principles by focusing on the family and Bill's fight to live the principle. Gone is the casino, JJ's weird gyno son and just about all remnants of last season's bizzaro world. In comes Barb trying new things like drinking, in comes Nicki bullying ten year old boys and a new group of other polygamists who have been living the principle in secret just like the Hendricksons. We finally saw Bill hit with a bit of humility when he realized the pain and feelings of betrayal he's brought upon the people in his life. Even with this bit of humble pie Bill's still the biggest self righteous gas bag on television but it seems at the state house he may no longer be the biggest fish in his pond.
Episodes
I have to say ep. 2 was much better than the first but still not good enough to inspire me to set a season pass yet. Matt LeBlanc played a very capable TV star Matt LeBlanc with all the typical over sexed, pampered star cliches. Hopefully we've seen just about the last of Myra and Andy. The characters are horribly done and continue to clog up the screen with stale unfunny quips. The bit with Merc's blind wife could have been funny if it had been a bit more subtle but I don't think subtlety is in the plans for this show. The seeds of what will undoubtedly be the main tension of the show were planted this week. Sean is obviously embracing the LA lifestyle and willing to make the necessary sacrifices to get their show on the air. While Beverly will continue to fight against LA, the network, body image issues and Matt. At the current pace Episodes probably has two more chances to build momentum and sell me on it. With as crowded as Sunday night is you've got to better than this to crack the DVR lineup.
So episode 2 is our real introduction to Frank. He likes to drink. He doesn't like his sons. He's OK with his daughters and he really hates Canada. What we also learn is that even though he's a giant dirtbag, his kids still love their father and even though he makes their lives exponentially harder, they turn west Chicago upside down trying to make sure he's OK. Most of all what we learned is the lengths Frank will go to be taken care of and to continue his plush disability check to disability check lifestyle. He moved in with Sheila (Joan Cusack) and that length appeared to be about 9 inches in a most uncomfortable place. Steve was taught a lesson about coming between Fiona and her family and sorry douche but stealing a minivan for her doesn't make up for kidnapping her dad and dumping him in Toronto. I personally would have been happy to see Fiona give Steve the boot all together but I suppose he'll make his way back into her life and we'll all have to put up with him in the weeks to come. Hey maybe that cop friend of Fiona's can take care of that problem for us.Californication
Not much really happened this week besides some pill and alcohol induced reflection by Hank and we met Rob Lowe's character Eddie Nero who's slated to play Hank in the movie version of Fucking & Punching. So, what did we learn from this week's episode? Not much. Hank is still ruled by his dick, Runkle is up to fifteen women and Rob Lowe likes to dress up as Brad Pitt. We did finally see Hank feel some remorse for the disappointment and embarrassment he's brought his daughter. I thought Hank's line about wanting Harvey Keitel to play him because Harvey likes to show his dong on screen was fantastic since David Duchovny is a notorious on screen dong swinger.Big Love
So I decided to stick it out with Big Love because this is the last season and I've made it this far. Fortunately, it looks like I may be rewarded for my loyalty. There's no questioning last season was bad. It was more than bad it was god awful. The whole Bill going down to Mexico and rescuing his family in a blaze of glory nearly forced me to cancel my season pass. In their final season it looks like the show is going back to its core principles by focusing on the family and Bill's fight to live the principle. Gone is the casino, JJ's weird gyno son and just about all remnants of last season's bizzaro world. In comes Barb trying new things like drinking, in comes Nicki bullying ten year old boys and a new group of other polygamists who have been living the principle in secret just like the Hendricksons. We finally saw Bill hit with a bit of humility when he realized the pain and feelings of betrayal he's brought upon the people in his life. Even with this bit of humble pie Bill's still the biggest self righteous gas bag on television but it seems at the state house he may no longer be the biggest fish in his pond. Episodes
I have to say ep. 2 was much better than the first but still not good enough to inspire me to set a season pass yet. Matt LeBlanc played a very capable TV star Matt LeBlanc with all the typical over sexed, pampered star cliches. Hopefully we've seen just about the last of Myra and Andy. The characters are horribly done and continue to clog up the screen with stale unfunny quips. The bit with Merc's blind wife could have been funny if it had been a bit more subtle but I don't think subtlety is in the plans for this show. The seeds of what will undoubtedly be the main tension of the show were planted this week. Sean is obviously embracing the LA lifestyle and willing to make the necessary sacrifices to get their show on the air. While Beverly will continue to fight against LA, the network, body image issues and Matt. At the current pace Episodes probably has two more chances to build momentum and sell me on it. With as crowded as Sunday night is you've got to better than this to crack the DVR lineup.
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