Community 1.02: "Spanish 101"

“Forget Britta! All you have to know is her name! What is she? A water filter?”

-Pierce

As much as I want to like it, because it is one of the more critically acclaimed new shows of the season and it stars Joel McHale, Community isn’t quite working for me. It could be that I’m just generally not a sitcom person. I love HIMYM because the situations presented speak to the stage of life that I’m in right now. I love The Big Bang Theory because of the nerd humor. But maybe I just don’t love sitcoms unless they have that one certain aspect that specifically speaks to me.

One thing that did amuse me about Thursday's episode (and, I guess, really the series overall) was the new full title sequence. I love that the actors’ names are written on one of those origami fortune tellers. I used to love those things when I was a kid. I think I actually believed the fortunes would come true. I’m not quite sure how origami fortune tellers are related to community college, but it brought back some good memories nonetheless.

Since I’m spending blog space talking about the main title sequence, it’s pretty obvious that this episode was, once again, kind of light on plot. There were two (sort of) main plot threads. The first is that there’s a Spanish assignment to be completed. The class has been broken into partners, and they have to use basic phrases to present a conversation to the rest of the class. Jeff gets stuck working with Pierce, even though he (of course) really wanted to work with Britta, and he even gave Abed his shirt to try and make that happen. Pierce is a serious Jeff fanboy, to a kind of disturbing degree, and he keeps Jeff in a study room for hours working out this elaborate, multi-act production that doesn’t even include any of the required phrases. Jeff finally puts the kibosh on the whole thing to join Britta at a protest. Pierce gets injured (somehow ends up with his arm on fire) while confronting Jeff at the protest. The next day, Pierce dejectedly arrives at Spanish class, expecting to have to do the “presentation” on his own. Their professor, Señor Chang (who is pretty hilarious, by the way), has offered to let Pierce do the production by himself and just give Jeff a C for putting up with him. Partly because he felt bad for Pierce, and partly because he thought it might redeem himself a bit in Britta’s eyes, Jeff turns down the offer. He and Pierce do the crazy presentation, complete with Israeli flags, robot suits, and sparklers. Señor Chang gives them a failing grade, and Britta once again turns Jeff down, observing that nobody could consider Jeff “sexually viable” after that crazy presentation.

Although the presentation was probably intended to be the big, shining comedic moment of the episode, all it really did was remind me of a similar situation in HIMYM that made me laugh much more. The HIMYM episode I’m thinking of is the second season episode “Stuff” where Barney puts on the one man show called “Suck it, Lily” to get back at Lily for making him go see her in a horrible play. In one of his show’s routines designed specifically to annoy Lily, he dresses up as a robot, very similar to what Jeff and Pierce do for one of the scenes in their Spanish presentation. That scenario in HIMYM included one of my favorite all-time Barney quotes, “Spoiler alert! The robot falls in love.”

Meanwhile, Britta chastises Annie and Shirley for not caring about more important things, like the political situation in Guatemala. Annie and Shirley respond by becoming truly interested in the topic, and they research a journalist who was allegedly killed by the Guatemalan government. They also decide to hold a protest. They protest their own way, though, with brownies, piñatas, and music during the day, and a night time “silent protest.” Britta tells Annie and Shirley that she thinks their protest idea is lame, but then she is forced to reveal that she name checks and complains about fringe political issues much more than she actually does anything about them.

Britta’s revelation at the end of the B story felt very real to me. I think a lot of us do exactly what Britta did. We find out about some atrocity happening in the developing world, get slightly outraged over it for a few days or a week, and then move on with our lives. For instance, I saw the movie Hotel Rwanda for the first time a few weeks ago. It was an excellent movie, and I was incredibly glad that I watched it. What I couldn’t get over was the fact that this movie was released at the height of the genocide in Darfur, yet we once again (just like during the crisis in Rwanda) allowed our government to pussy-foot around calling what happened in Darfur a genocide so that the Geneva Convention wouldn’t require us to get involved. I expressed my outrage to a few people, and I’m writing about it right now on this blog, but did I jump on a plane and head to some forgotten nation where genocide is still happening, or did I even bother to join in a protest closer to home? Of course not.

Overall, I wasn’t really that impressed with this episode of Community, except for Britta’s revelation about the true extent of her political involvement. Jeff and Pierce’s Spanish presentation was mildly funny, but it didn’t have me laughing so hard that I have to remember to breathe like HIMYM and The Big Bang Theory often do. I’m going to give the show some more time to find its way, however, because it’s fun to see Joel McHale act in addition doing his stand-up comedy routine (which is pretty funny in its own right) on The Soup.

Crime is Back: Premiere Week in Review

As I've mentioned before, I don't do crime dramas, but I've been told crime dramas are pretty darn popular out there in TV land. So, I've brought back Sarah to do a guest blog round-up of her thoughts on Premiere Week, covering some of her favorite crime dramas. Enjoy!

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Hi again, everyone. Jen has asked me to drop by and give you all a little recap of premiere week on the crime drama side of TV. So here’s what I have to say about the crime dramas I’ve got punched into my DVR.

NCIS (NBC Tuesdays 8/7 c)

Premise: Told in flashbacks, we find Tony in Somalia being tortured by a rather unsavory character who was torturing Ziva at the end of last season. Three months passed since Gibbs and Tony left Ziva in Tel Aviv and they’re gotten more than a little worried. The episode ends with a reluctant homecoming for Ziva.

First Impressions: I have to say I loved this episode. I found the flashback structure a new approach for the show. I know we won’t get to see that very much but it was a neat way to start off the season. The Tony/Ziva shipper in me was delighted to see Tony risk his life to find and rescue Ziva. Even after all they’ve been through, he still cares deeply for her and couldn’t imagine his life without her.

I also loved how the team worked together to find her. The usual crime-of-the-week element was secondary to reuniting the team. It was great to see as Tony (in the present) talked about each member of the team, we saw them worked into the storyline that got them to Somalia. I’m really looking forward to this season.

NCIS: Los Angeles (NBC Tuesdays 9/8 c)

Premise: The series premiere opens with Callen recovered from the near fatal shooting we saw in last season’s NCIS episode “Legend Part Two” and back to work. The team investigates the homicide of a naval officer during a police chase. The officer was part of a joint US/Mexico op to take down drug cartels. Also, his niece was taken captive by a man Callen and Sam learn is the girl’s father to ensure cooperation.

First Impressions: I like that we get the real crossover with NCIS with Director Vance checking in. In terms of the episode, I thought the way the team approaches things, with a more undercover tactic, as opposed to the pure investigative style of Gibbs and his team was refreshing. There was a scene between Callen and Sam when they were going to examine the dead officer’s apartment and Callen kept bugging Sam about their cover. It’s a different feel and I like it.

I like that in and amongst all of the aspects of the mission, we get some real character information. Like the fact that Callen was an orphan and doesn’t even know what the “G” in his name stands for. It’s the little things like that which draw me in. I realize it’s nothing like NCIS but that’s ok. It doesn’t have to be. I’m hoping the characters get stronger and we see more of the female contingent.

Law & Order: SVU (NBC Wednesdays 9/8c)

Premise: During a drug bust Detective Nate Kendall finds a rape victim running through his crime scene. She bonds with him and he’s unhappily drawn into SVU’s investigation. His tactics are by and large contrary to everything that a good cop should do. Working with Elliot and Olivia, they uncover a string of related rapes from 12 years earlier of two prostitutes, one dead and one in the wind. It turns out the man Elliot had arrested and convicted 10 years previous was innocent and the man responsible for the rapes would never serve his time.

First Impressions: Overall I wasn’t that impressed with this episode. I think I reacted the same way to the new ADA as Elliot and Olivia did. She was abrasive, rude and reminded me of Greylick when she first appeared last season. That doesn’t bode well in my book.

I was also annoyed at the homicide cop, Detective Kendall. I found him to abuse his power left and right and not care about who he hurt in the process. I know there are bad cops out there but that is no excuse for him to be smacking around a drug addict in front of her daughter. So I have to say this opener didn’t impress me. The secondary characters pulled you too far from the core cast.

Criminal Minds (CBS Wednesdays 9/8c)

Premise: The team is called to the scene of a murder victim with the same letters as the note an ER trauma surgeon received, threatening his son’s life. The team has to figure out who the killer is before time is up. Meanwhile, The Reaper, an Unsub from last season who got away, has stabbed Hotch nine times and gone after his family.

First Impressions: While I liked the episode, it didn’t have that WOW factor I was hoping for. I think part of what threw me off was that season 3 ended with the possibility of Hotch being dead and so did the end of season 4. Been there, done that. Also wasn’t fond of the Unsub getting away…again. I have a feeling (unless they resolve it in the next few episodes) we may have a Miniature Killer scenario (a recurring storyline on CSI in season 7). It can be done well but I’d rather we get it resolved quickly.

I did like that they were able to work in Matthew Gray Gubler’s injured knee. He was sitting most of the time and he’ll be on crutches for a while. Also, I was pleased to see Spencer able to talk the doctor down when he started to panic and keep the man focused. Reid isn’t always able to communicate with the average person. And while I wasn’t all that thrilled with the Hotch storyline, I was happy to see Emily take a more active role.

CSI (CBS Thursdays 9/8c)

Premise: The team, suffering the stress of being understaffed, takes on the case of what appears to be a drunk driving accident. As they work through the case, with the return of Sara Sidle, they find the case has far more sinister roots than just a drunk hitting a movie star. Stalking and unhappy grandfathers-to-be don’t mix.

First Impressions: I have to say I really enjoyed this episode. It started with a kind of Matrix opener with everyone frozen in time that comes back later in the episode, about 2/3 of the way through. And I think I liked it so much since Lawrence Fishburne (Ray Langston) was Morpheus. Of course, I was happy to see Sara back. And the Grissom/Sara shipper in me did a happy dance because the writers did solidify that relationship in marriage.

The fact that the team was struggling not only speaks to the current economic times but the stress of losing so many of your team in such a short amount of time. I think also, there was a very good point made in a scene between Sara and Catherine. The thing that Grissom had when he led the team that allowed them to be so cohesive was Catherine. She’s leading the team now instead of just working with them. Definitely a good season starter.

Numb3rs (CBS Fridays 10/9c)

Premise: Don and his team are protecting a political activist who becomes the target of an assassination plot. It turns out the activist was responsible for the assassin’s son’s death years earlier. As Charlie, Amita and Larry work to help Don and company, the tensions rise as to where Charlie and Amita stand.

First Impressions: The plot overall was interesting. We don’t usually see the FBI protecting people from the get go. They’re usually hunting down bad guys and leads. Not so much in this episode. I think it was a good way to welcome the viewer back to the characters after hiatus and to give us a little glimpse into their personalities. For instance, Don readily incorporates a parable (of sorts) into trying to talk the activist out of holding a rally.

On the shipper side of me, I absolutely adored the ending of the episode when Charlie and Amita announced their engagement. Their evasiveness towards each other over the course of the episode had me worried that she’d said no but it turned out to be a happy ending. I look forward to seeing how this new development works into the wider interactions of the characters.

FlashForward 1.01: "No More Good Days"

“What did you see?!”

-Pretty Much Every Major Character (and some minor ones too…)

As you can probably tell from the somewhat tongue-in-cheek quote of the episode, the pilot to ABC’s FlashForward was not my favorite television viewing of the week. It wasn’t awful by any means, but there is definitely room for improvement. The premise and some elements of the pilot, however, worked well enough that I intend to give it at least a few more weeks in my viewing and blogging rotation.

In the pilot episode, everyone throughout the world blacked out simultaneously for approximately two minutes. Everyone experiences the event differently, but most see a vision of their lives six months in the future. When everyone regains consciousness, there is wreckage everywhere. Cars and planes have crashed, and people have died on the operating table. The show focuses on a group of survivors in Los Angeles, including a small group of FBI agents. These FBI agents are given the assignment of figuring out just what caused the flash forward. One of them starts a website asking people to record what they saw in their vision.

Before the pilot aired, there was a lot of Internet chatter about how some elements of the pilot were strikingly similar to the pilot of Lost. This is definitely true. There were two elements in particular that, as a pretty big fan of Lost, I recognized quickly. The first was the opening shot. The pilot of Lost begins with a close up on Jack’s eye. We then see the bigger picture, the destruction of Oceanic 815 complete with fires, explosions, and screams. FlashForward opens with a close up on the eye of FBI Agent Mark Benford (Joseph Finnes). We then see the bigger picture, all of the car accidents and other assorted destruction that have resulted from everyone on earth blacking out simultaneously. The other scene that evokes thoughts of Lost happens near the end of the second act. Mark is frantically running towards the hospital where his wife works when a random kangaroo hops across the street. This makes me think of the random polar bear on the Island in the pilot of Lost.

Most of the problems I had with this pilot occurred in the second half. Once the episode gets past the initial shock of the destruction that resulted from the black out, it becomes very talky. And not the good kind of talky. I usually like talky shows, especially when the dialogue is witty. I love Aaron Sorkin’s trademark pedeconferencing, for instance. The second half of the FlashForward pilot, however, is talky in a way that is kind of lazy. Many of the scenes where the FBI agents are trying to make sense of what happened are a perfect example of telling instead of showing, breaking the first rule learned in any writing class. The one thing about that act of the episode that worked for me was when one of the FBI agents calls a woman in London with whom he was meeting in his vision, and she confirms everything he saw. That is how you show and don’t tell.

Another major problem I had with the plot was that I’m not yet emotionally invested in these characters. All I learned about many of them was their name, their job, and if I was lucky, a few facts about their personal life. The characters that were most developed were the Benford family- Mark, his wife Olivia, and their daughter Charlie. We see a few scenes from their family life before the full craziness of the black out hits. Those few scenes, however, weren’t enough for me to be really affected by one of the episodes biggest twists. It turns out that in Olivia’s vision, she was in a relationship with a man other than Mark. Sure I saw that Olivia seemed upset by this, but I think it would have been more effective if I had seen more of the Benford marriage before Olivia’s vision was revealed. I needed a reason to root for the couple other than the simple fact that they are married. I wanted to see why they were together in the first place.

There were enough things about the pilot that worked for me, however, to keep me watching. One of the things I found most interesting was Mark’s vision. He saw himself sneaking into a conference room at the FBI where he and his coworkers have set up a typical TV “conspiracy wall” in an attempt to figure out what caused the flash forward. A team of shooters, wearing really creepy masks, burst into the room, seemingly intent on killing Mark. This scene was intriguing and raised the stakes. It made me really want to see how Mark got to this point. I want to know why the FBI building seems to have been abandoned, and I want to know why scary masked guys want to kill Mark. Another thing that worked for me was the variety of visions and the variety in the characters’ reactions to those visions. Some characters, like the Benfords’ babysitter, see the flash forward as punishment. Others, like one of Olivia’s co-workers, see the flash forward as salvation. Then there’s Mark’s FBI partner Demetri (John Cho). He claims he didn’t see anything during the flash forward, and he is struggling with what that means. I’m wondering two things about that particular sub plot. If Demetri truly didn’t see anything, does that mean he is dead six months in the future? Or could Demetri be lying about not seeing anything because his vision involves some sort of betrayal?

If nothing else, the pilot’s final image makes me want to tune in for more. FBI agent Janis Hawk (Christine Woods), has been compiling all the surveillance footage she can find from the time when everyone blacked out, and she has stumbled upon something intriguing, and (again) a little creepy. There is footage from a ballpark in Detroit that shows one man (in a trench coat, naturally) walking out of the stadium after everyone else has blacked out.

Fringe 2.02: "Night of Desirable Objects"

“It’s brilliant! He’s created a super baby!”

-Walter

Before I get into the meat (pun not really intended) of last night’s episode of Fringe, I’m afraid I have to go on a bit of a rant. Especially because this rant caused me to call my mother in the middle of the episode. Twice. While she’s on vacation in Maine. Ladies and gentlemen not familiar with the Philadelphia metro area (where I was born and raised, although hey stalkers, I haven’t lived there full time for seven years and haven’t lived there at all for three)…um…I hate to tell you, but Lansdale is not, as my mother put it, Kansas. My mother worked in Lansdale for over twenty-five years. Trust me. She would know. About the only thing accurate about Fringe’s depiction of Lansdale was the fact that there are indeed railroad tracks that run through the town, and freight trains do indeed run on those tracks pretty regularly. At least they did when I worked in Lansdale myself for a few summers while I was in college and would occasionally have to stop at a railroad crossing for way too long while I waited for a train to pass. Lansdale is pretty much your typical outer Philadelphia suburban town (or Borough, as we strange Pennsylvanians like to call it). It’s got brick row homes, housing developments and semi-abandoned industrial parks. Lansdale is a little heavier on the abandoned industrial park side of that equation than a lot of the Philly suburbs, but still. Definitely not corn fields and scarecrows. And, as one of my college friends who isn’t even from the area astutely pointed out, probably no hungry scorpion/human hybrid teens looking for dinner, either!

I like to call this the “Signs” effect. Which, in a way, was even worse considering M. Night Shyamalan is actually from the Philadelphia area and should have known better. As a final point in this (kind of longer than I anticipated) rant, I’d like to share a few pictures. In this episode of Fringe, the local law enforcement is the “Lansdale Sheriff’s Department,” because, of course, every good hick town in the middle of nowhere needs a Sheriff. Never mind the fact that, at least in Southeastern PA (I can’t really speak to Central PA since I only went to college there, even though that region is probably much closer to the town depicted in this episode…except that they have hills and sometimes even mountains), there are only Sheriffs on the county level. Anyway, here’s a picture of Fringe’s “Lansdale Sheriff’s Department.” Here and here are pictures of the actual Lansdale Police Department. Note that the real building is much bigger, and it’s surrounded by brick row homes and parking lots instead of corn fields.

I’ll be honest, my alternating hysterical laughter and semi-outrage at a repeat of “Signs” kind of distracted me from the overall plot of this episode. I imagine people unfamiliar with the area wouldn’t have this problem. Instead of more fully recapping the plot like I’ve been trying to do in my more recent post-show posts, I’ll hit the highlights of what I liked, since you’ve already heard plenty about what I didn’t like. Or, at least, I’ll hit the highlights of what I noticed in between the aforementioned fits of hysterical laughter and semi-outrage.

I like that Olivia is experiencing physical side effects from her trip to the Other Side (aka the parallel universe where JFK is still alive and the World Trade Center is still standing). This plot is developing very differently from how I thought it would. It never occurred to me that Olivia would completely forget that she met William Bell. I thought we’d get right to the all-out invasion by the Other Side’s soldiers. I like that things are being drawn out a little, although I’ll get antsy if the plot is drawn out for too long. When Olivia had a bout of super-hearing while in her apartment bathtub, I definitely had sympathy for her. I could imagine being suddenly bombarded by the sounds from every other apartment in my building, and it wasn’t pleasant. Although it kind of confused me at first (before I realized Olivia was having dimension-jumping side effects) when Nina Sharp recommended that she see somebody for her condition, my confusion was quickly cleared up in a very interesting (good kind of interesting) way. I thought it was fascinating when Olivia arrived at the bowling alley to see Sam Weiss. He was sufficiently creepy and intriguing to make me curious about where this plot is going to go.

I liked that I jumped and was a bit creeped out when Olivia and Peter finally encountered the actual human/scorpion hybrid (whose dad had genetically engineered him so he could survive gestation despite his mother’s Lupus). The scene was gross and scary, and I expect a little of that each week with Fringe. The rest of the episode had almost been a bit too neat and clean (except for the suicide of the creature’s father...that was pretty disturbing, especially when he was bending the wires to make a noose) up until that point.

Finally, I loved the scene between Peter and Walter about fishing near the end of the episode. It was especially touching because Peter told the story about how, when he was a child, he wished he could go fishing with his father, as a fairy tale that happened to “a young boy” instead of something that really happened. Walter’s reaction was tragically adorable. With a shy, expectant look on his face, he wants to know if he can come along on Peter’s upcoming fishing trip with his “friend.”

Overall, I was pretty neutral about this episode. I like that Fringe is attempting to inject a little of the mythology even into “Monster of the Week” episodes like this one, but I think what made Fringe really take off late last season was a very heavy dose of mythology and fewer kind of cheesy Monster of the Week episodes. I still anxiously await next week, though!