This Week in Television - May 24-28, 2010

Glee
I'm not surprised that an episode with a Lady Gaga theme turned out to be the worst Glee episode ever. Everything about it was either stupid or boring, and no Sue Sylvester at all! (unless she was in the beginning, because I missed the cold opening). So yeah, I did a lot of cringing, except when Kurt's dad yelled at Finn. That part was actually kind of awesome.

Flash Forward
The show had its ups and downs (mostly downs) but I liked how this episode ended. Of course, this was the final episode so I would've like it more if it was going to return for a second season. Had this show been successful it would've been an interesting concept to have a new blackout every season. I'm still glad they gave us a taste of some flash forwards though, because frankly I was expecting it to end with everyone passing out and we wouldn't get to see anything until the theoretical second season. I remember seeing a gun being loaded and a page from someone's will, and a May 2011 date written somewhere, but that can't be the date of the flash forwards because someone went way into the future and saw Charlie as a teen. Unless the point was that this time, not everyone's will happen at the same time... Maybe I should just stick to the present. One other little thing I liked was that the flash forwards didn't happen exactly as they were seen. Lloyd kept his shirt on, Mark didn't tell him to "go to hell" over the phone, Wedeck's seemingly mundane "I was on the toilet" vision turned into him hiding in the stall only to bust out and cap one of the masked men coming after Mark, Nicole thought she was going to be drowned but it turned out the hands clutching her were saving her life... Those were necessary changes so that a prophecy-centric show like Flash Forward can avoid an abundance of predictability. Not that it makes any difference now. In the show's defense, I will say that one possible reason ratings declined is that Thursday at 8:00 is a bad timeslot, especially for a new series, because Thursdays are incredibly busy nights in TV land (I myself watched a maximum of 6 shows every Thursday this season, more than half of my TV week). If they had put it on, for example, a Monday or Tuesday, it might still be here. It seemed to work for V.

Sorry, no more Hero/Douchebag awards for a while. The only shows left for the rest of the season are Glee and Happy Town, and it's not as fun when there's only two shows to choose from.