Pilot Week 2012

While I've discontinued my weekly television posts, I wanted to maintain my annual tradition of watching pilots for shows I've never seen during the week of American Thanksgiving. I think it's a fun way to force myself into shows and see what I'll end up liking, so here is this year's selection.

Game of Thrones
At times I felt the pilot was a little slow, but mostly interesting. I know that pilots usually aren't the best episode of a series, though, because they have to spend too much time establishing everything and it's hard to do that while also being really awesome and exciting. If this show weren't so popular I might consider stopping here, but I want to keep going to where it (I'm assuming) becomes really captivating. Or is this just a dense show, like a fantasy version of The Wire? P.S. Viserys is one of the creepiest TV characters ever.

Party Down
I really like the idea of a show about aspiring showbusiness people having to work a crappy party catering job because their careers haven't taken off. The pilot wasn't hilarious, but had a few funny moments, and I like its potential, as well as the cast. Lots of fun overall, and something I'm looking forward to more of (yes, I'm aware it was canceled).

Archer
I enjoyed Frisky Dingo, and Archer has the same people behind it. It definitely has the same humour and a similar feel - Archer is very Xander Crews-like - and it was funny, but going just by the pilot I do like Frisky Dingo better. That might be for it's unique cast of characters, though.

Girls
What I kept hearing about this show was that it was good, but not funny. I can understand that viewpoint; I did laugh at certain parts, but they were more like light chuckles than hilarious belly laughs. It has the tone of one of those indie movies that is often labelled as a comedy but feels more like a lighthearted drama. That being said, I really enjoyed it because I found the characters compelling. Thanks to Lena Dunham's script, the dialogue felt natural and the characters felt real.

The Venture Bros.
I was surprised to learn that this was a half-hour show, because most Adult Swim cartoons are 10-15 minutes and I thought this was one of them. Anyway, I have to say that in spite of this show having cool artwork on their DVD covers, I didn't really enjoy the pilot. On paper the concept sounds like it could have been a really cool, fun series, but the whole time I felt like I was watching a children's cartoon. I figured the show was popular for its sense of humour, and maybe it is, but the jokes weren't really clever, original, wacky, or mature enough for my taste (and when I say "mature", I'm not referring to an absence of toilet humour, or anything to do with joke topic/content, I'm more referring to joke type. This pilot used an excessive amount of visual and physical gags, which doesn't require maturity or intelligence in order to laugh at, hence why it felt like a children's cartoon). I would glady watch episode two of the other shows in this post, but not this one.