TOP OF THE CLASS (Translation: love it!)

The Venture Bros:  A+

All I can think about when I watch this show is how freaking depressed I’m going to be when it ends it’s “half run” in a few more episodes.  The Venture Bros is a really genius half hour of hilarious animated fun, if you don’t watch it already you should get on board.  It’s honestly the best half hour of my entire week – and I say that almost without embarrassment.

The Good Wife:  A

As I’ve already discussed on this site, this show is working for me on all levels.  The performances are strong.  The writing is incredibly smart and the format of a formulaic style – i.e. a case being solved each episode – but with an overarching narrative running throughout the season is a wonderful way to engage the viewer for the long term and yet offer excellent episode to episode payoffs.

Mad Men:  A

So I just spent the last month catching up via Netflix on the first two seasons of Mad Men (I had DVR’d the entire third season to enjoy once I got through the discs) and I have to say – though I still have a few episodes left in season three – “boy am I glad I did”.  It’s some of the best dramatic television I’ve ever seen.  The sets, clothing, and general attention to detail are gorgeous enough on their own to warrant watching the show, but to combine that with that amazing complicated characters, strong performances, and incredibly sharp writing – it’s just a home run.  It is definitely one of those shows that I will be investing in when the entire series is released on Blu-ray.

Top Chef :  A

Top Chef is the definition of great reality television, and never has it been so notable as in comparison to this season’s suddenly weak Project Runway.  Contrasting the two, once similar shows, really illuminates what Top Chef is doing right: casting incredible talent, upping the ante with intense always evolving challenges, consistent and impressive judges, and superior editing that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

The Office:  A

Some people don’t think this is a great season.  Some people also don’t like that Jim and Pam are together.  I’m not one of these people on either count.  I think this season has been a bit hit and miss, like every season, with stronger episodes and weaker episodes…but even the weaker episodes are still better than 95% of the other shows out there.  As for the haters that didn’t want Jim and Pam to get together – whether you think it’s working or not – aren’t you tired of the “will they or won’t they” trope?  I for one am glad to see a show biting the bullet and getting the couple together rather than trying to keep us in suspense indefinitely.

30 Rock:  A-

I feel about the same with 30 Rock as I do with The Office, it has stronger episodes and weaker episodes every season and this season is no different.  But on the whole it’s better, funnier TV than available anywhere else.  If I’m honest I’d say pound for pound it hasn’t been AS good as last season – but we’re only a few episodes in – plenty of time for it to pick up speed.

ABOVE AVERAGE (Translation: very good but still room for improvement)

Bored To Death:  B+

I love this show.  I was a little on the fence after a couple not so stellar episodes, but they nailed exactly what works for me about this show in episode six “The Case of the Beautiful Blackmailer” and after that episode I don’t think I’ll ever doubt the show again.  What works (to me) is the idea of these three great friends – Jason Schwartzman’s writer/unlicensed private investigator; Zach Galifianakis’ cartoonist; and Ted Danson’s magazine magnate – an incredible though unlikely team, hanging out and just being friends.  It’s fun to watch and they make me yearn for a female version of this show with an out of work alcoholic writer, chubby cartoonist, and powerful older business woman who go on awesome adventures.  But it will never happen…well, probably not in my lifetime.  TV is sadly not ready for women in these roles – and I admit I’m a little jealous that we get to have it for men – but not jealous enough that I’m not also happy it works and has found a home on HBO.  It’s so refreshing to find characters that love each other and are great friends.  Why is that I wonder?

Anyway, I’m not sure if Bored to Death started out as a show about these three friends – more likely I think it started out as a show about Schwartzman’s character – but surely as they went along they realized the great opportunity they had for a comedy about these unlikely friends and the adventures they might have in New York.  The writing comes alive when it’s about these three working together and the performances are completely badass.  The show is also pretty much a love song to Brooklyn, which makes for stunning natural sets. And as if all that wasn’t enough, the credit sequence is one of the best I’ve ever seen.

Modern Family:  B

I’ll spare you the involved details since I already posted about this show on this site, but suffice to say this little half hour sitcom has impressed (and surprised) the hell out of me.  What could have been yet another in a long line of throwaway comedy sitcoms really transcends your average show with strong performances, genuinely funny writing, and some welcome physical comedy.

Community:  B

For some reason I don’t want to like this show – and I really don’t know why because I’ve always found Joel McHale (from E!’s The Soup) hilarious.  But something about the concept just doesn’t seem great to me.  And yet they pull it off every week.  Every week I think, “Eh, I’m not really into this show, maybe I’ll stop watching it.” But every week it’s solidly funny and offers great surprises.  I think other than McHale’s strong performance, Danny Pudi is the real standout star here, with a great eccentric character in Abed and a quirky delivery style – he’s my favorite by a mile (if there was any doubt his Batman performance sealed it).  The weakest link here by far (and unfortunately) is Chevy Chase.  Both his performance and the tired character of Pierce are just boring, predictable, and sometimes unwatchable, especially in comparison to the other cast members.

AVERAGE (Translation: struggling – could go either way)

The New Adventures of Old Christine:   C

Ah, this show.  I SO want to love you, show, but you’re making it hard.  I think what works are the really great performances by both heavyweights like Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Wanda Sykes and lesser knowns like Hamish Linklater and Clark Gregg.  The comedic timing is spot on, and it’s easy to believe that these people have been friends forever because you can feel it in their chemistry.  Unfortunately, the show is not THAT funny (almost all its best moments come from Sykes) and some of the characters are pretty hard to enjoy, most notably Louis-Dreyfus’ Christine, who I think just goes too far into making fun of herself until it comes out the other side not that funny.  But in an odd turn (the opposite of Community) I WANT to like the show and so I keep hanging in there – believing that the little gems (Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ character going through the five stages of grief in full in about thirty seconds – hilarious!) keep me around.  We’ll see. 

Curb Your Enthusiasm:   C

Uncomfortable comedy is not my thing.  I had trouble adjusting to The Office when I first started watching it – but eventually I came to tolerate it in order to get to the funny (though Michael Scott remains a difficult character for me).  The same was true for Curb, but this season, I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem funny enough to warrant the wincing pain.  The Seinfeld “Season Finale” conceit is the only thing that has kept me around this season – as it has been great fun to watch the old cast work together – and I’ve been curious about that arching storyline and how it’s going to resolve itself.  But some of the comedy has seemed unusually cruel to me.  Larry and his cohort Jeff are never people you can really root for, but usually their comedy seems accidental and irksome, but this year it often feels deliberate and hurtful.  The episode in which Larry and Jeff go to extreme lengths to hide Jeff’s many extramarital affairs from his wife really rubbed me the wrong way.  And I suspect the swan episode should have made me feel similarly…I don’t remember being as angry, but I also don’t remember finding it THAT funny.  I don’t know, maybe I’m just overly sensitive this season, but something is not working for me.

BELOW AVERAGE (Translation: I’ve pretty much stopped watching)

Flash Forward:  D+

This show has so much freaking potential that it literally pains me to see it screwing it up.  The concept is unbelievably good and though there were some major problems with the first episode, overall it started strong enough.  The characters are actually fairly interesting and likeable for the most part and with a few exceptions the acting is solid.  However, the overly earnest writing (and sometimes performances) create a lot of eye rolling and the pace is WAY too slow.  There’s a ton of repetition even though the original concept is very easy to understand.  Characters spend a lot of time repeating themselves to…well, everyone.  Note to the writers: write it one time…if you do it correctly, we’ll get it that first time.  If you have to keep repeating yourself UR DOIN IT WRONG.

Project Runway:  D

This one breaks my heart.  I have been a fan of Project Runway since Season Two (Season One is also good, I just got on board late), but in Season Six it has all of a sudden fallen apart.  Tim Gunn remains the one amazing thing about this show, while everything else has suffered.  The pool of contestants is considerably less talented than in any other season – offering sad little dresses and things that are the antithesis of ‘fashion forward’.  The challenges have been uninspired and often barely a “challenge” at all.  The judging has been wildly inconsistent as Michael Kors and Nina Garcia have been absent for most of the episodes, leaving Heidi Klum (lovely, but the most unreliable of the judges to begin with) as the only mainstay.  Personally I’m not too bothered by the move to Los Angeles, but it certainly didn’t help.  And even the editing seems off – although that could have to do more with the ho-hum challenges and low on talent, er talent.  It’s a mess.  There’s no way to make this work, at least for this season.

FAILING (Translation: if I could kill this show with my bare hands, I would)

V:  F+

Though I did think the second episode was better than the premiere, it’s still a nightmare.  From the inconsistent special effects, to the absurdly cliché almost textbook characters and overwrought performances to the faulty sci-fi logic (if it’s water they need there is PLENTY of water in space – are all the humans in this reality somehow to mentally impaired to know this?) this show is a disaster area.  It’s always disappointing when remakes (even 25 years later) can’t manage to improve on the original, which though full of campy 80’s everything, actually works better than this 2009 re-launch.  A real shame, as the concept is as good and fascinating today as it was in 1984.

Related posts:

1. TV Has Taken Over My Life This Fall…
2. Modern Family: Why It’s Good
3. Lie to Me