TV Roundup: Volume 7

Lost (Seasons 1-3)
I’ve always been fascinated by stories of people crash-landing on a remote island and having to make do. Lost isn’t exactly what I had in mind, but it’s still a gripping adventure that’s had the same effect on me 24 did years ago. No matter how frustrating the show becomes, no matter how many questions remain unanswered or how many characters unfairly die, I have to keep watching, to know what happens next. I’m a sucker for cliffhangers and have missed a lot of sleep staying up late, glued to the TV. The cast is great, too, and the characters who do stay alive are likable and carry enough complexity to keep the show interesting. The numerous flashbacks certainly help achieve that layer of depth. But while many of these scenes are useful to the overall story, they’re often placed right in the middle of a crisis. When I’m watching an exciting chase between a giant bear and a little kid, I want to see that get resolved as soon as possible. I don’t want to put that on hold so I can learn more about his parents’ relationship.

Gary Unmarried (Season 1)
Some people would probably take offense to a sitcom about two recently divorced adults juggling their kids and taking potshots at the other’s shortcomings, yet even with the TV-14 rating, Gary Unmarried plays it safe. They even stuck with the obnoxious laugh track in case you weren’t sure this is supposed to be a comedy. While there are some funny moments, the overall experience feels very B-quality, like the creators’ only ambition was to outdo According to Jim (a ridiculously easy feat, anyway). Despite some recognizable faces, the actors all seem cast for the wrong parts. The lead characters would be better off as secondary characters on another show, and the secondary characters would be better off as understudies until they learned not to ham it up so much. If you can’t get enough of the traditional sitcom, these are harmless 20-minute episodes, but I don’t think I can take one more viewing of a show where the kids act ten years older than they really are, and everyone yells their lines in order to be heard by the audience that may or may not even be there.

Psych (Season 1)
Ignoring that the pilot episode was two hours (one hour too long), Psych starts out with a lot of promise that’s eventually squandered by an annoyingly talkative lead character. What little charm he had in the first episode completely vanished mid-season. Okay, so his pointless sidekick and the general soap opera staging of the show don’t help things, either, but let’s stick to the important issues. Shawn Spencer’s ability to notice small details and piece together obscure information is dangerously similar to Adrian Monk of Monk fame, except Shawn caters to a younger, hipper crowd and pretends to be a psychic in order to win favor with the police. He takes the psychic schtick a little too far, though, and instead of annoying the police force, which is supposed to be funny, annoys the poor suckers watching it on TV. It would be nice if Shawn would mellow out (and he does later on, but not enough), because the cases he gets involved with are pretty engaging when the rest of the show isn’t already killing the mood.

The Goode Family (Season 1)
King of the Hill is one of my favorite TV shows, but I was not impressed with the episodes leading up to its cancellation. The Goode Family, instead of correcting what was wrong with the Mike Judge formula, only picked up where King left off with the same style, pacing, and family stereotypes. The Goodes are a much less endearing family than the Hills, however, and father figure Gerald’s dull anecdotes aren’t as funny told through the rose-colored megaphone of an environmentalist. Their eco-conscious practices are still amusing when they’re pitted against something they’re supposed to like but don’t (like a disgusting endangered species), but it ends up feeling a little too preachy, even though you can tell the show is trying to be satirical. Maybe liberals don’t offer the same comedic gold mine as conservatives? Or maybe it’s just more fun to see a conservative, like Hank Hill, come to terms with someone else’s alternative lifestyle than it is for the Goodes to propagate that lifestyle from the beginning? Yeah, that’s got to be it.

11 September 2009 | Anything Goes | Comments | Home
tags: movies, reviews

• < Next Post
• Previous Post >