TV Roundup: Volume 10

Community (Season 1)
Having been to a community college, I was looking forward to a new show that poked fun of those unfortunate bastards who couldn’t (or refused to) get accepted by a better university. Mid-season, though, it became apparent the “community college” theme was only an excuse to allow what are your basic high school characters to drink past curfew. True, community college is kind of like an extension of high school, but many of the characters are old. Hey, Chevy Chase is in it, and he’s aged well past the point when he was ever funny. Then there’s the obligatory but tedious “they hate each other / they like each other” relationship, and the need to give so many actors screen time every episode results in disjointed story lines that rarely wrap up in satisfying ways. Community isn’t a complete waste, though. There are some very, very funny moments, particularly anything involving the students’ Asian Spanish teacher whose apathy towards teaching is hilariously relatable. All the padding in between, however, is absolutely boring.

Modern Family (Season 1)
I’m glad the traditional sitcom, with its irritating laugh track, is seeing a decline, but I’m not too thrilled with the new wave of documentary-style shows. Modern Family, however, finally uses this style well. The camera operator doesn’t get carried away with too many zooms, the actors only subtly acknowledge the camera’s presence, and interviews don’t feel like they’re pulling actors out of the immediate action. It works. I’m actually surprised by Modern Family… in a good way. It’s an ABC comedy, but it’s so unlike anything else I’ve seen from the network. Music is rarely used. It doesn’t ham up the jokes. The characters are realistic portrayals of—get this—modern families! I don’t think “comedy” is the best classification for it, though. The show doesn’t feel like it’s trying to be funny, nor does it feel like it’s trying to be dramatic. It really feels like an honest view of three related families who just happen to do amusing things sometimes and life-learning things at other times.

Prison Break (Season 1)
I have the same problem with Prison Break that I did with Dexter. A good three-hour movie has been spread across 22 episodes, and the end result takes way to long to get to the rewarding stuff. True, 24 is the same way, but every episode of 24 was exciting. Prison Break hits a lot of lulls, and I frequently found myself screaming, “Escape from prison already!” The hitches the gang’s escape plan runs into are more irritating than thrilling, although there were a few times when I was genuinely concerned about what would happen in the next episode. My biggest problem with the show, though, is that I just don’t like the characters I’m supposed to like. Ringleader Michael Scofield is ambiguous and level-headed to an annoying degree, and the rest of the “heroes” just aren’t very convincing. The best actors are those who ended up playing the sleazy scumbags, but because they’re sleazy scumbags, it’s hard to like them. Sleazy scumbags.

Scrubs (Seasons 1-3)
This is a show that feels like it’s patting itself on the back for not using a laugh track, but all they’ve done is replace audience laughter with cheesy sound effects and obnoxious music cues. I bitch about the music in everything I watch, but Scrubs really overdoes it and either uses ill-fitting music for its montages… or drags those musical montages on for too long. It’s the worst use of music I’ve seen in a TV show. Barring that, Scrubs still manages to be a harmless and easily digested comedy/drama. But there’s the catch. One minute, it’s rambunctious and over-the-top, then suddenly it switches gears, and now we’re supposed to be sad about a dying patient. One of these extremes needed to be more subtle, because trying to juggle both just makes me feel guilty for laughing moments earlier and/or bored when the slapstick stops. You could call it a dark comedy if you really wanted to justify it, but then there’s that music again, telling me how to feel. Let me do it myself!

29 January 2010 | Anything Goes | Comments | Home
tags: movies, reviews

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