TV Tues - It's Going to Be a Thing

It's a sad, sad day for fans of smart, off-beat, hilarious comedies everywhere: Fox has yanked Arrested Development from the schedule and cut its order down from 22 to 13 episodes. Here's hoping that someone like HBO picks it up; I don't want to lose out on seeing the misadventures of the Bluth family. A world without GOB performing illusions to The Final Countdown is not a world I want to live in.

And with that painful news out of the way, its on to the reviews.


My Name Is Earl: I love how this show's humor ranges from the subtle (Earl referring to Say Anything as "that Matthew Broderick movie") to the bizarre (the transformation of the burning golf clubs). Also love how they have managed to have great guest stars for almost every ep, but they don't feel like stunt casting like they might on Will and Grace or Joey or just about any other sitcom out there.

Amazing Race: One annoying family down; one to go. I really really want the Florida team to lose; drives me crazy to see them playing the injured party who are being ostracized for their beliefs, when it's painfully obvious that they're being ostracized because they're rude and self-absorbed; episode after episode you see them spend half of their time whining and complaining about how awful everyone one else treats them, and then spending the other half treating everyone else awfully; the hypocrisy is overwhelming.

Survivor: Gotta love how the ads made it seem like Judd was going to be the focus of everyone's enmity due to his drunken behavior, and then nothing happened. Was glad to see that not only was the hidden immunity idol found, but that it actually did change the outcome of the tribal council; now I'm just waiting to see if Gary tells the tribe that Judd was lying about his immunity idol clue.

Desperate Housewives: I'm a bit behind, haven't watched this last ep yet, so I can't comment on it; but the episode from a week ago? Hated it. The scene where they crucify Lynette for her wardrobe? Awful. Not as awful as the whole Susan/Mike/Zach storyline, perhaps, but awful nonetheless. Susan was not my favorite character to begin with, but this season I've gone from feeling bad for her to wanting to slap some sense into her . . . violently.

Grey's Anatomy: Zap2It.com's columnist The TVGal made a comment in a recent column about how this show has gone from being a mediocre show with a terrific cast to a show that's actually worthy of its cast; I couldn't agree more.

Gilmore Girls: While I'm glad to see the Rory/Lorelei feud begin to die off, and enjoyed watching Rory realize just exactly what her mother lived through at the mercy of Emily, I felt that the scenes with drunken Logan in the first act were forced; I have no problems with showing that Rory was starting to be bothered by the Life and Death Brigade's partying, but to have it happen just as Jess shows back up . . . well, it just didn't seem worthy of this show. That's the problem with being one of the best shows on TV, I suppose; being held to higher standards than, say, One Tree Hill.

Supernatural: Killer bug ep was the weakest ep so far, but even the weakest Supernatura is still miles above the strongest ep of Invasion I've seen. My biggest problem with the ep, other than the horrible execution of the final act, was how heavy-handed the "Sam and Dad didn't get along" stuff was; the show usually does so well with the relationship between the brothers, but this time the arguments over the dad rankled me.

How I Met Your Mother: So we established a few weeks back that the character of Barney reminds G'ovich of himself, while last week's "Don't Ted out about it" moment and the description of Ted as someone who avoids conflict until it festers and he does something passiver aggresive are obviously signs that the writers of the show are frequenting the blog; so should it worry me that I find the G'ovich character much more entertaining than the Cap'n Nuerotic character, or is that just a given? Anyway, enjoyed the sword fight, and loved the fact that Barney was more caught up in the fact that his "It's going to be a thing!" prediciton came true than that it came true at his expense.

Bones: I liked the glimpses of some vestigal pop culture knowledge from Bones. I'm going to have to rework my VCR timer for this one; the last two weeks I've missed the last couple of minutes due to it switching over to tape My Name is Earl, which means the last two weeks I've missed the resolution of character interaction between Booth and Bones. For a show that survives on the strength of character interactions, that's a no-no.

Everwood: Oh, look, it's the return of jerky Ephraim, I'd wonder where he'd gone; at least he was back to being not-as-jerky by the end, although I would have preferred to see him talk to Reid before the ep was over. I just really hope that next week isn't the last we see of Hannah.

The O.C.: I like the fact that Julie was able to figure out what Evil Jeri Ryan was up to so quickly; I also like the fact that she's being given an opportunity to join in on the evil; she always has been nothing if not opportunistic, so it's going to be an interesting process to see her work through just how far she's willing to go.