This Week in Television - Feb. 19-24, 2012

Once Upon a Time
Well, after last week's terrific episode, we're back to a lukewarm show. While what David did to his fiance was not cool, I don't entirely feel sorry for her; partly because she is uninteresting and not likable, and partly because they are both responsible for what happened. They both knew a long time ago that he didn't love her, but they chose to drag it out and remain in denial. The mayor says "relationships take work", but I don't really agree with that. Call me a romantic, but I think if it's the right person, there shouldn't be much work involved. If you have to force someone to love you, or force yourself to love someone, then they're probably not your soulmate.

Smash
This wasn't a very good episode. I hate to say it, but while this show is mechanically less flawed, Glee is still more entertaining, and while I'm indifferent to most of the Glee characters, they're generally still more likable than these pretentious showbiz snobs on Smash. I think I'm mostly referring to Tom and Julia when I say "showbiz snobs", but most of the cast has it to some degree. I did enjoy Anjelica Huston throwing drinks in her ex-husband's face, but it feels like Karen didn't really do anything in this episode. I couldn't care less about the Marilyn musical, but Karen is actually doing stuff when she's a part of it.

Glee
Season three has been the most horrendous season yet, but this episode was almost good. I think the stuff with Karofsky was handled without being exaggerated, misguided, inaccurate, or glossed over, and that is rare for Glee and its sloppy, unrealistic writing. But we still got the usual ridiculousness elsewhere, like Finn and Rachel moving their wedding up AGAIN, and Quinn getting in a random car accident just for the sake of shock value. Also, it stands out too much when choirs other than New Directions perform, and they have one person singing lead and everyone else on backup just because the one on lead is a paid guest star with lines on the show.

New Girl
Some funny stuff again this episode. I think the "Jerksica" line rings true for the lack of creativity in a lot of bullies. I mean let's be honest, how many bullies are actually smart? Speaking of creativity, that Youtube video with the CG animation was way too good for any 12 year-old to have done, especially within the implied timeframe. Schmidt could have just as easily been involved in the bullying story, as he was once fat and most likely bullied for it, but he had the Cece thing, and it gave Winston something to do, which was no doubt funnier than any scene involving his girlfriend would have been, so it worked out. I think Nick kind of got the dud story this week, but it was interesting watching his emotional state at the science fair. On a side note, I was glad to see no volcanoes at the science fair, because that is one of the hugest school cliches out there, although they could have used that as an opportunity for a joke about it. The flashlight duct-taped to the ball was a hilarious one.

Survivor: One World
Colton (which might be in my top 10 least favourite baby names) is already shaping up to be the villain of the season, although he seems to vary between arrogantly thinking he's going to control the game and wandering around helplessly because nobody wants to be his friend and he doesn't know how to do anything. But as much as the guys are dicks, I have to at least give them credit for not being homophobic and not being, as I said last week, disrespectful toward the little person. Although Leif is so far this season's Rick, because we haven't gotten any talking heads or interactions with him yet, so we wouldn't know if someone dissed him to his face.

30 Rock
There aren't many TV shows that do an episode about February 29th, let alone invent an entire holiday - complete with mascot and traditions - for it. Awesome. I also loved the Leap Day Williams movie starring Jim Carrey and Andie McDowell, because when 30 Rock does those kinds of pop culture parodies (e.g. Queen of Jordan, MILF Island, America's Kids Got Singing), they're always just on the edge of ridiculousness but completely accurate to the point of being something that could really, truly, actually exist. Or I suppose they're accurate because they already exist in some form: Leap Day Williams would basically be the same movie as Evan Almighty or The Santa Clause. And as disturbing as the final image of Leap Day William turning into a horrifying sea monster was, I laughed. I like to think that had the hot supermodels not shown up, Liz would have backed out at least half way through having sex with Stevie from Eastbound and Down. Not out of dignity or anything, just out of disgust.

Parks and Recreation
I wasn't expecting that Tom would be complaining about Ann's faults, because as the viewers we know that while Ann is not perfect, she's far from insufferable, and Tom is not an easy guy to date without being embarrassed after five minutes. But it made it interesting when it went that way, and at least Tom is now thinking about more than just her looks. Kind of funny and sad at the same time that Jerry's wife celebrates his birthday by going out alone with her friends.

The Office
I liked the ending of this episode, with Jim and Dwight eating dessert together as they hide from the women who want to sleep with them. Good for them for not doing it. Who would have thought Dwight's insanity would come in handy to Jim? Ryan is just 100% douchebag now. I think the last time he was even a tiny bit likable was probably during the Michael Scott Paper Company, and that likability came more from his situation than his character. I have yet to get on board with Daryl and Val, though. They just don't have the chemistry that Jim and Pam had during the beginning seasons, or even that Erin and Andy had before Gabe stole her from him. Val's not a significant enough character to get the screen time for chemistry, or even character development. She's been in a number of episodes now and I still feel like I know nothing about her.

Up All Night
I felt like this episode was almost funny, but all of the jokes just fell short of a laugh. So close. But I do appreciate the truth in most relationships seeming to have one who is easygoing and one who has to be the hard-ass.

Fringe
This week's episode was epic! There has been talk that this may be Fringe's last season because of the ratings it's been getting in its (bad) timeslot, so it's good that we got this episode explaining the observers, just in case. It also nicely tied together the storyline of the entire series to prove the relevance of everything we've seen so far, and dealt with what I pointed out last week about Peter having to leave this Olivia and return to his own. I'm excited for what is to come, because it feels like it is moving toward the series finale now.

Hero of the Week: Both Jim and Dwight from The Office, for helping each other not to have inappropriate sex.

Douchebag of the Week: Ryan from The Office, for transparently not wanting to wait six months for appropriate sex.

The Fades - Season One

The Fades is a British supernatural fantasy horror series that I've been watching on BBC Canada. It follows a high school student, Paul, as he discovers the world of the Fades - souls of the dead who were unable to ascend to Heaven and became trapped on Earth, and can only be seen by special people (Angelics) like himself. A war between the Fades and Angelics is happening, because the Fades have found a way to regain some humanity and strength, and want to destroy everything, and Paul finds himself gaining special abilities in order to fight them.

I'm not much of a horror fan, but the term "horror" is used loosely to refer to some content that is dark, gross, and violent. I wouldn't call this show frightening, in other words, and I don't think its goal is to be scary so it's not a failure. But I had a lot of fun, starting with the second episode. Episode one wasn't bad, it just didn't draw me all the way in; episode two got me invested in some of the characters, just as Paul was realizing that he loves his family and friends too much to give them up. There are tertiary characters I'm still fairly indifferent to as they are unrelated to storylines involving Paul, but they were used to expand on the nature of the Fades, so they were necessary if not entertaining. In particular I enjoy Mac, Paul's loyal best friend and the main source of comic relief in an otherwise serious show, and Jay, Paul's girlfriend who is too cool for him but accepts his nerdiness anyway. John is also quite interesting once the show sets him against Paul in a Lost/Carnivale-type way as the main villain.

Being of British format, the season is only six episodes long, but it actually felt like a satisfying length with a beginning and an end. It is left open for a second season, but it could also stop where it is and not be terribly disappointing. I'd also like to say that I love the episode endings: this show likes to go out with a bang, throwing us a cliffhanger, and then cutting straight to the scrolling credits while a song plays that perfectly fits the mood of what we just saw. For something I never would have heard of if my dad hadn't been watching BBC Canada to catch the preview for it, this show was surprisingly good, and actually the first British series I've ever watched that wasn't a comedy.

Best Episode: While Episode 2 (there are no episode titles, it seems) is memorable for the reason I mentioned above, the best might be Episode 6, where everything comes to an epic conclusion. Or does it?

This Week in Television - Feb. 12-17, 2012

Once Upon a Time
Wow, I wasn't expecting any episode of this show to blow me away, but I really liked this one. Well, the girls night out subplot was dull, but Robert Carlyle and Emilie de Ravin nailed their chemistry together, and just when I thought the Storybrook segments were useless this week, we got that awesome scene near the end with the mayor visiting Mr. Gold in jail. That scene was huge, because it was the first time either of them has openly acknowledged the fairy tale world. This show has been somewhat lukewarm for the most part but, damn, I loved this episode.

Smash
I actually thought they were just going to give the part to both girls, and have Ivy play Marilyn while Karen plays Norma Jean. Although that would be a cop-out, and has been done in the TV movie Norma Jean and Marilyn. I'm finding I don't really care for most of the characters, because everyone except Karen is a showbiz snob, and I'm not on board with Julia's adoption plans because a) they're boring, b) I haven't known this character long enough to start caring about her family, c) she already has a kid, greatly diminishing the whole "strong desire to be a mother" angle, and d) why is that kid as obsessed with having a new baby as she is? Teenage boys have other things to care about. Also, this show is astoundingly terrible at cliffhangers. All of the commercial breaks and episode endings are at odd and abrupt times that in no way leave you wanting more.

Glee
Not only was the Artie vs. Irish kid thing very uninspired, but Sugar just turned down Artie like two episodes ago, so why is she suddenly open to him courting her? And it was painfully predictable that Kurt's secret admirer was going to be Karofsky (or at least not Blaine), because of the way Kurt kept insisting, in a lazy attempt at a mislead, that it was Blaine. Irish kid is still a sneaky prick. The one thing I did enjoy was the slightly meta moment with Santana complaining that she's not allowed to kiss Brittany when Finn and Rachel make out all the time, because the show itself has pretty much had that mentality since Santana came out. I was glad to see they finally addressed something. Only about 9,000 more problems to fix.

New Girl
I think it's official that Winston is boring in scenes with that girl he likes. But there was otherwise some really funny stuff in this episode, like the club pack box of condoms, Jess's failed attempt at doing a sexy cherry trick, any time Schmidt mentioned "youths", and the flashback of Nick entering a cock fight "as a person". On principle, I would have been pissed if Jess slept with Schmidt. We dodged a bullet there.

Survivor: One World
Not much to say yet, except that the men are arrogant pricks, and that it was nice that nobody made a big deal out of the little person. Usually when someone has some kind of disability or anything that makes them different, the show is all over it, but we just got people commenting on his strength.

30 Rock
The Liz and Jack stories turning into a Batman/Joker reference was a weird and random reference to go to, but a funny one nonetheless. I don't mind Jenna and Paul, but I think their regular weirdness was funnier than the "normalling".

Parks and Recreation
It was cool to see Louis C.K. back, but Officer Dave didn't seem like as good of a guy as I remember. He was chivalrous toward Leslie, I guess, but he was also really awkward and unable to hide his jealousy of Ben. But I laughed at his idea that he and Leslie, after reconciling, would go back to the bathroom and uncuff Ben together, like it was something romantic. Speaking of romance, Tom trying to mack is always funny, and I'm almost disappointed in Ann for giving in, but then he would have kept being annoying if she hadn't, so I can see how he wore her down (the four sweetest words in the English language!). Also the little subplot with April helping Ron hide/destroy the Duke Silver memorabilia was great.

The Office
I guess we're not done with Tallahassee, because there was no mention of Erin's possible departure or Cathy hitting on Jim (other than some obvious but fruitless attempts to talk to him). The opening with Dwight waking everyone up was funny. I think some of The Office's strongest moments these days are montages like that one, where we see the characters' individual reactions to something. I enjoyed Andy at reception, because it does seem like it would be a better fit for him, and it served to highlight that he doesn't really do anything as regional manager, which isn't necessarily his fault - that's just how management positions are.

Up All Night
I think this show stepped into the "obvious joke" shoes again with all of the stuff about saying "bomb" in an airport. But the part I did find somewhat interesting was their whole baby plan/schedule to avoid the dreaded fuss of having a baby on an airplane. I haven't seen that before. The "Back it Up" song wasn't that great, but as I am a fan of impressions when they are either really good or really bad, Chris doing Michael Keaton characters was funny.

Fringe
If I were Peter, what I would be worried about is the inevitability of this Olivia getting hurt when he leaves her to go back to his timeline. Unless he's either planning to stay, or take her with him for an Olivia threesome. It was interesting watching Jackson and Torv play this episode, though; Olivia was kind of giddy with her new-found feelings, and Peter was troubled by them. Maybe I wasn't watching closely enough, but the ending seemed to come out of nowhere. Not a complaint, though; I know it will be expanded on next week. It was just a good "WTF" moment.

Hero of the Week: Belle from Once Upon a Time, for coming back with the straw.

Douchebag of the Week: The tribe of men on Survivor. Get over yourselves, meatheads.

Mildred Pierce

I wouldn't have been interested in watching a 5-part mini-series about the depression if it didn't star two of my favourite actresses (Kate Winslet, Evan Rachel Wood) as mother and daughter, plus Hope Davis, whom I always felt was an underrated actress. So I was excited to see this, but I was a little worried that it might be boring and melodramatic. Instead, I found myself completely hooked.

I never saw the original movie or read the book, but this version, at least, is like a classic tragedy. Mildred (Winslet) is a strong, driven woman and easy to like, but her tragic flaw is an excessive love for her daughter Veda in spite of the fact that she is a spoiled, pretentious, ungrateful brat. I don't condone child abuse, but there were a couple of parts where Mildred gives Veda a good slap, and I had to cheer because she really, really deserved it. But the heartbreaking thing about this mini-series is watching Mildred revolve most of her life around Veda - starting up an entire restaurant business just to cover up the embarrassing waitress job she had to take which her elitist daughter would've looked down on - when we know Veda isn't going to appreciate any of it. Because of this, and the fact that she is played by two different actresses at different ages, it seems as if young Veda is the fifth business of this story, while older Veda is the antagonist.

While all of the writing kept me interested, I think it sealed the deal that Kate Winslet is one of those fantastic character actresses who has no trouble being believable, and the actresses playing Veda were so annoyingly condescending and pretentious with their diction that it was never hard to hate the character, and the more I hated Veda, the sorrier I felt for Mildred being unable to see who she is. I enjoyed this way more then I thought I would, and on an unimportant side note, the Blu-ray/DVD combo packaging is really beautiful and classy. Well played, Mildred Pierce. Well played.

Best Episode: I think all five parts were equally good, but if I had to choose I guess I'd go with Part Two, in which Mildred teaches herself to be a better waitress, starts setting up her own restaurant, meets Monty Beragon (Guy Pearce), and suffers a terrible tragedy.

The Tree of Life

Impressions before seeing it
From what I'd heard, it was either going to be a beautiful epic or a pretentious piece of nonsense. Superficially, it was the title that intrigued me.

How was it?
The beginning and end of The Tree of Life are hard to swallow, because they fall into the "pretentious piece of nonsense" category. Especially the beginning, because to me it felt like a full 30-40 minutes before the movie actually began. The sequences are assembled in a way that are meant to be poetic even though it's too early in the film for them to really have any meaning, we get some snippets introducing the characters but not giving us any clues as to their personalities, and then we get a straight 15-minute self-indulgent sequence of nothing but nature shots and special effects (including, for some reason, dinosaurs) set to operatic music. In the film's defense, they are among the most beautiful shots in the movie, but otherwise I saw no reason to include them. I think 15 minutes is a fairly long chunk of time to make your audience sit and watch while absolutely nothing happens, and putting those 15 minutes at the beginning of the movie when nobody has any clue what is coming afterwards, and very little clue as to what they saw before it, is a real test of one's patience. I was thinking to myself that if the rest of the movie is like this, I didn't know if I could handle it for nearly two more hours. And I've sat through Last Year at Marienbad more than once.

But eventually that stuff ended, and there actually is a movie in the middle of the artsy crap. From my views of the family snippets at the beginning, I was worried this movie would actually have no humanity in it due to too much focus on the poetic, but, again, after the drawn out opening sequences we finally get character development. I was going to add "and a story", but it's mostly the former: a family with three boys in the 1950's, mainly from the point of view of the oldest son. We're just seeing moments in their daily lives, and rather than following a significant plot we're just tracking character progress as the oldest son deals with parental issues (a strict father and passive mother) and begins a rebellious phase. I don't know how to make it more interesting than that, but it actually is interesting and the performances very solid. So I did like this middle part of the movie, and it could have easily been its own movie without those big unnecessary chunks of cinematographic flaunting at the beginning and end. And for Sean Penn fans, don't waste your time. His total screen time is probably under 10 minutes in a 140-minute film, and he hardly even says anything. As you can see, being the industry that it is, they still put his name on the poster.

Recommendation
The Tree of Life will probably pick up the cinematography Oscar, and perhaps other technical ones, and I'd say well deserved, but not if it wins Best Picture. The family scenes in the middle are very good, and if Malick had kept it to that I would've like the film a lot more, but all of the stuff around the edges feels like a blatant attempt to instill an abundance of meaning and beauty in what is just a simple family story. If you're going to watch it, I'd say skip ahead about a half hour, then turn it off when you see Sean Penn. Not Penn's fault, that's just when the content goes back to being less than relevant.

This Week in Television - Feb. 6-11, 2012

Smash
Well, it's a lot less flawed than Glee, but then practically everything is. It seems Katharine McPhee is actually a capable actress, so she was a good choice for the lead role (or maybe not lead, because Debra Messing got just as much screen time, if not more). Ivy - the blonde antagonist - was instantly annoying to me, because she is the type of performer who always goes too big in order to show off. There actually can be such a thing as too much talent, and when you go over the top it ruins a role. While I find Broadway music to be bland, I do appreciate that the music was more seamless and didn't feel like song after song was being crammed down my throat, as is sometimes the case with Glee. My one little nitpick - and it's not just Smash that did this, but a lot of movies and shows do - is the representation of Youtube (or whatever resembles Youtube when copyright is an issue). They always do it as if anything you put on Youtube automatically gets millions of views just because it's on the internet. Unless you have a famous channel with tons of followers, the chances of someone stumbling on your video and then sharing it enough to make it a hit - and in a short amount of time, no less - are about the same as stumbling on a raisin in the sand while walking along the beach. And I doubt that assistant's mother is an internet superstar. But anyway, in spite of an abrupt ending (maybe I'm just too used to cliffhangers) I didn't mind the pilot, so I'm going to keep watching.

Glee
How do they expect us to care about the Sam/Mercedes relationship when 90% of it happened off camera? I don't even care about Finn and Rachel, and they're all over this show. And if Mercedes likes Sam so much, why has she not broken up with her boyfriend? I know we see that kind of behaviour all the time in adults, because sometimes certain circumstances keep you from leaving a person you're not satisfied with, but that does not apply to high school students, because there are no circumstances where it would. I don't think artificial insemination is a fitting storyline for Sue, and I hate that this new coach is still around because she's just an unfunny version of Sue Sylvester. As much as I enjoy Sue, we don't need two of her, especially if one isn't funny. And Santana was right: Mr. Schue's Latino Elvis remix was awful and offensive.

New Girl
Though it may have been a bit of a stretch, I laughed at Jess charming the angry driver with the gun, and Nick and Jess playing chicken with the landlord threesome (is "Underpants Captain" a real thing? ...Never mind, I don't want to know.) The joke about the guards thinking Schmidt was raping his boss in the parking garage didn't quite work, because the view on the monitors just looked like exactly what it was: two people making out. She wasn't struggling, he wasn't restraining her, and they were both standing up. The ending with the Japanese conference call was even worse because it was so predictable and an overused joke. But I really liked the Jess/Nick/Landlord portion of the episode, that stuff was fun.

30 Rock
I like Mary Steenburgen, but I think it was obvious she and Jack were going to develop feelings for each other as soon as she showed up. Their scenes together weren't hilarious, but they had chemistry - probably actually more than Alec Baldwin has with Elizabeth Banks. As a character, Lutz works best when he is the butt of a small, quick joke. When a story is centered around him, like in this episode and the one with everyone catering to him for security in the event of an imaginary apocalypse, it's just more uncomfortable than funny. I don't get the Ikea observational humour because it's not something I've experienced or heard about, but the flashbacks to Liz's bad Valentine's days were fun.

The Office
I liked this one because it seems like it's been a really, really long time since we actually saw anybody working. Dwight trying to put together a team and fighting with Andy about who he's allowed to bring was fun, and it was a nice touch when the final team, whom he despised, surprised him by taking the project seriously and actually contributing good ideas. The way they pulled out those setups at the end, though (Erin claiming she won't return, Cathy hinting that she's going to make a move on Jim), it made this feel like the second last episode of a season.

Up All Night
I know this was a Valentine's episode and all, but I don't think it's necessary to end almost every episode with Chris and Reagan realizing how much they love each other. The show is about a married couple raising their new baby. We know they're not about to get divorced anytime soon, because their marriage is part of the show's premise. I like their characters and it's nice that they're in love and all that, but it doesn't have to be a romantic comedy. It's allowed to be just a comedy that is sometimes romantic. You have to ration those sweet moments or your show just gets too mushy.

Fringe
For characters who are way smarter than I am, they should have figured out before me that two universes were blending together. They did not, but I guess the writers had to drag it out a little for dramatic purposes. It was a cool episode, though, and the ending with Olivia raises some interesting questions. For instance, if Peter's Olivia is blending into this one, does that mean both will be destroyed? If not, will he even want to go home if he has Olivia back? Or are other things/people going to follow suit?

Saturday Night Live
I don't always watch SNL, and I never write about it, but I'll make an exception because this week it was hosted by my future wife Zooey Deschanel. Now there are times when some of the hosts (probably more often the female ones) get stuck playing the straight man while the cast has all the fun playing their wacky recurring characters, but I was glad to see them allowing Zooey to be funny, because she does have that comedic talent. I don't understand the appeal of those "Les Jeunes de Paris" sketches. I've seen them do it a few times, and I get the references to French culture and French cinema, I just don't see how it is potent as a comedy sketch. Abby Elliot's Zooey impression was fairly good, as was Zooey's Mary Kate Olsen impression, and Taran Killam's Michael Cera impression had the perfect enunciation, but was about three octaves too high. I'm not sure if the squeaky voice was a joke or if for some reason he just can't do it any lower. Bill Hader's Clint Eastwood is also great, but most of his impressions are. I was excited by the return of the technology humping sketch, because it was my favourite part of the last Emma Stone episode. It wasn't as good as the first time, but I enjoy that it can be so filthy while also remaining completely G-rated. The crab sketch was, like the content of it, a predictable build-up to pretty much nothing, and while I liked the fast-talking 1940's sketch, its ending felt weird and abrupt - or, in other words, non-existent. But overall it was a decent episode; I've seen far worse. And we even got a surprise cameo from Nicolas Cage!

Hero of the Week: Zooey Deschanel on Saturday Night Live, for not being the unfunny one in ANY of the sketches.

Douchebag of the Week: Coach Roz from Glee, because there's only one Sue Sylvester.

Curb Your Enthusiasm - Season Seven

I was excited to see this season, because this is the one with the much anticipated Seinfeld reunion. However - and this is only good news in retrospect after watching the entire season - it sort of takes a back seat to the regular Curb shenanigans. It wouldn't be entirely accurate to call it "The Seinfeld Season", because the reunion stuff is only present for about half of the episodes, and the reunion itself is seen in maybe two of them. But that is the very nature of the concept; Larry wanted a unique way to do a Seinfeld reunion without it being exploitative and lame like other reunion shows are, and so while it is a running storyline throughout the season, it's not the focus of it.

To me, season five has been the funniest season so far, but this one comes very close. While I am a Seinfeld fan, I thought all of the non-Seinfeld segments were funnier than any of the Seinfeld ones, but I can't say it wasn't cool seeing the characters back again. No reference was made to their time in prison, but the new scenes were perhaps meant to serve as more of a finale replacement, even though they do take place many years later. The original finale served as a better ending to the series, though, because the Curb one just felt like a regular episode done in modern day, and not an ending at all. Anyway, apart from that, this season was more of Larry's mistakes, misunderstandings, and offenses, which is always comedy gold. I don't recall it in previous seasons, but they seem to have started an arc where Jeff is regularly cheating on Susie. It makes me like him less, but then it is Susie. And I wasn't really a fan of the scene with Larry trying to convince Michael Richards to do the reunion while Michael is distracted by nude artistic photos on the restaurant walls, because it didn't seem to really go anywhere other than later having Michael be slightly surprised that a reunion is happening. It was an anticlimactic payoff. But it was fantastic to see Phillip Baker Hall return as Larry's doctor, Catherine O'Hara as Marty Funkhouser's crazy sister, and a really pointless but funny cameo by Ben Affleck in a role that would have been played by an extra, because all he did was walk by.

Best Episode: I think the first two episodes were among the funniest ("Funkhouser's Crazy Sister" and "Vehicular Fellatio"), and I really enjoyed "The Black Swan" for its crazy murder cover-up story, but I'd say overall the most satisfying was probably "Officer Krupke", in which Larry has his pants stolen, offends some kids who make bad lemonade, covers for Jeff with a silly lie, suspects Cheryl of participating in a threesome without him, and encounters a cop named after a character in a musical. Also, Ben Affleck walks by.

Weeds - Season Four

After compelling second and third seasons, season four receded back to the quality of season one. This wasn't necessarily due to poor writing; it was more to do with the direction they chose to take the story. Having Nancy and her family skip town and go into hiding in a nice little beach town by the Mexican border just didn't offer much in the way of excitement, tension, danger, plot twists, or cliffhangers. In general it was still entertaining and funny, and they managed to keep most of the characters in the show (except for Conrad and Heylia, but I don't particularly miss them), but it feels like a let-down when the last two seasons were hitting their stride with constant cliffhangers. It may also be that Nancy's new boss, Guillermo, is not as intimidating as U-Turn was last season, and her relationship with Mayor/Kingpin Esteban didn't have the same sense of underlying danger as her secret marriage to the DEA agent in season two. I think the season picked up slightly after Albert Brooks's character left, because until then it focused too heavily on the Botwin family.

But there were still fun moments to enjoy. Nancy uncovering the secret tunnel under the maternity store (blurting "What the F?", which somehow was funnier than actually swearing) was a landmark moment, and Doug and Andy starting an immigrant-smuggling business was great because those two doofuses work well together comedically. And I was a fan of the title sequences this season (no more awful theme song covers!), from the classic one in the premiere shown one last time - but with everything in Agrestic now on fire - to the new format, which is to write the title on a significant object from the episode and have something in the image morph into a marijuana leaf. I'm a nerd for that kind of thing, so I actually looked forward to those titles each episode.

Best Episode: "No Man is Pudding", in which Celia comes to stay and the Botwins have a family dinner where everybody looks less than healthy, Andy realizes how poorly the illegal immigrants are treated, and Guillermo gives Nancy a seemingly boring and average job with more to it below the surface (literally).

This Week in Television - Jan. 29-Feb. 3, 2012

Once Upon a Time
I don't know how we were supposed to sympathize with the genie when he seemed to only love the queen for her looks. I felt worse for the king because he was nice enough to free him and it got him stabbed in the back. I saw Emma's failure coming; it was too easy (and, in the series, too soon) for that to be able to stop the mayor. I'm wondering if this mysterious writer guy was the original author of the fairy tale book and has come to finish it or something.

Glee
Rather than go on another rant, perhaps I should just say this: Worst. Episode. Ever. And that's saying a lot when it comes to Glee.

New Girl
I thought Julia was a more fun person in her scenes with Nick last episode, but this week there weren't any signs of that as her being mean was a driving force behind the story. It didn't quite feel consistent, but I did laugh at the bathroom-crying jokes. Winston's storyline was a little dull, but at least it was a bit of character development for him. Schmidt's parts weren't so much a storyline as one very simple joke, which worked best at the end when Nick revealed how little he washes things.

30 Rock
I don't think anyone will disagree that the best line in this episode was "It's the ultimate game... Jack Donaghy playing with himself... It's a Jack-off." I thought Liz using Jack's negotiation tactics against him was an awesomely fun episode idea, and it didn't disappoint. However, Tracy and Jenna at the bar mitzvah didn't work as well for me. It just felt like one joke gone on too long, and a potential platform for character growth that probably won't actually result in any growth from either of them. And I was actually kind of looking forward to the possibility of Kenneth having a different job at NBC, just to change things up, but I guess that was a cop-out, too.

Parks and Recreation
I almost thought this episode was a rerun when it opened with "Galentine's Day", which a season 2 episode also did, but then Leslie mentioned that April was married and my confusion became delight at the show's continuity. Sometimes when The Office does a certain event like that, we never see it again even if it's supposed to be happening regularly. Chris DJing the party with sad music was predictable, but it was interesting seeing him in a depressed state because it's so contrary to what we're used to from him. Ron, Andy, and Ben as the clue-hunting team was awesome; especially Ron's transition from hating riddles (or at least pretending to) to outright loving them and having so much of a blast that he requests a clue hunt from Leslie for his birthday. I kind of hope we get to see that now. Ann and Tom was a pretty big surprise; I know they were using the idea of Ann and Chris reuniting as a red herring, but because it seemed apparent so early in the episode I thought it was just going to be a very predictable plot point. I like being surprised, so that was an interesting twist, and while it was unclear whether that relationship will continue (it ended with Ann remarking that it was a mistake, but that could be interpreted as a joke), it might be fun if it does. Also very interesting that we've had two episodes in a row where April shows compassion for someone who annoys her. Something's going on there!

The Office
I think the whole jury duty thing was a little over the top, and the web of lies became excrutiating rather than funny. The better part of the episode was actually Angela's baby, with Kevin gleefully calling it "Little Kevin" and Oscar being so amused at her being involved in two shams at once (the gay senator husband and the non-premature baby) that he didn't know which thread to follow first.

Up All Night
It's always fun to see Dennis Duffy from 30 Rock, but once again this show still has trouble making their guest stars funny. The brotherly competitiveness is nothing remotely new to television, and I think I've clarified by now that extended jokes lasting the whole episode are a big drag unless it's a really, really funny joke. This show is only bringing the occasional laugh now, but when it's not funny, it's not excruciatingly unfunny, so I still find it watchable because I enjoy Arnett and Applegate. But I do wish it were funnier than it is.

Fringe
I can't believe it took them four seasons for Astrid to be so heavily featured in an episode, but I'm glad that episode now exists. It was oddly fascinating seeing Alt-Astrid as something of a semi-autistic, semi-childlike savant with no apparent dark side to her, and Jasika Nicole killed that performance. But the scenes with Walter and Fauxlivia felt off. He has no reason to despise her in this timeline if she couldn't have seduced and deceived a non-existent Peter. With two death prediction cases in a row, I thought they were going to come back to Olivia's impending death, but instead they showed us a piece of Observer technology and revealed an Observer's name. I'll take it.

Hero of the Week: Jack from 30 Rock, for both winning and losing the "Jack-off" with grace.

Douchebag of the Week: No one really stood out, but I guess I'll say Dwight from The Office. His glee over the possibility of getting Jim fired was a little annoying.

50/50

Impressions before seeing it
I like Seth and Joseph, and it looked like one of those nice feel good comedies.

How was it?
I don't know how well it goes over when people refer to this as a "cancer comedy", because it's a delicate subject for some. If this movie took it too seriously, it might be considered too morbid, and if it didn't take it seriously enough, it might be considered insensitive. Much like the title, it appropriately balances that tone somewhere in the middle. It doesn't make fun of cancer - in fact I think it illustrates well how downright scary it is when your chances don't look good - and it's not a film about being optimistic in spite of it. Nor does it blatantly try to shoehorn jokes in just to spread funniness around an unfunny subject. It's just here to paint a picture of what someone might go through, and the funny situations that, strangely, do arise from having cancer. For the most part, it's not a laugh out loud comedy, but more the kind that makes you smile because you believe it. Ultimately, I think what really makes this worth watching is the chemistry between the characters. Rogen and Levitt made for fun BFFs (though I often find Rogen fun to watch anyway), and Levitt's scenes with Anna Kendrick, who plays his quirky, inexperienced therapist, had even more charm to them. Anjelica Huston was a tad annoying as the overprotective mother, but it was an entirely truthful character.

Recommendation
For anyone who went through a cancer struggle, 50/50 might feel too close to home for them, which could be good or bad depending on your attitude. But personally I think the movie's tone is perfect for its subject matter, and it's very enjoyable and heartfelt without having too much emotion at either end of the spectrum. How it didn't get a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars this year (they only picked 9, it's not like they didn't have room for one more!), or at the very least Best Screenplay, is beyond me.