How I Met Your Mother begins its seventh season with the show’s first doubleheader. Season 7 already should feel less like filler and more like a destination, with the million-dollar question being who will Barney be marrying come season’s end? His foreign flame Nora (Nazanin Boniadi) or Robin? Or someone else entirely?
Community returned with an interesting episode, which did well to introduce the many season changes and new players, but felt a little light on the jokes, which is unusual for the typically entertaining, offbeat comedy.
The episode opened with a traditionally bizarre scene, which made me think that it was about to lead into a full-blown musical episode, Glee style. Although everyone knows that it’s coming, this wasn’t it (Community loves its theme episodes, and a musical one seems to be inevitable, considering how the show doesn’t shy away from the strange. Perhaps they will combine a paint-ball episode with a musical?)
The season premiere of Fringe, “Neither Here nor There,” is a woven tapestry that put a lot of effort into hiding its intricate parts. By the end of the breathtaking third season, the writers had led the audience — and themselves to a degree — into a corner, so they now have to gently lead us back out to, well, Peter. With this episode, they tried and succeeded in kick-starting that process while making sure newcomers to the series are not put off. They first reminded everyone (including regular viewers) of the realities of the new timeline before delicately setting things up for the new season. The result of those necessary steps is an episode that works as an introduction, but is only a promise of better things.
The previous season’s premiere had to deal with Olivia trapped in the other universe, so it was left with very little room for explanations. It quickly used her session with a psychiatrist to bring viewers up to speed before getting right back into business. “Neither Here nor There,” on the other hand, opens with the previous story arc all but complete and only has to deal with its consequence: a reset of the series offering a wonderful opportunity to pull in new viewers. The problem is that dealing with said consequence involves trying to bring back a major character from the abyss of erasure from time. This is why it was necessary to let new viewers know how important the character was, just as it was necessary to make sure everyone understood the impact of Peter Bishop’s disappearance from the rewritten timeline. The writers achieved that double goal by first bringing in a character to whom things could be explained, then sprinkling comments from the Observers here and there, and finally by using an overabundance of sentences with a double meaning.
Deadline had the exclusive on the new
project from the creative minds behind Lost (one
of them anyway) and Supernatural. Not much is known
about Revolution at this point, as Abrams is always tight
lipped on his new series, but what is known is that the script penned
by Kripke has been given a pilot production commitment by NBC. The
action adventure thriller will be produced by Bad Robot and Warner
Bros.
With all the plates he is already
spinning, J.J. Abrams will surely be keeping his name in the news
whether Revolution is picked up or not. Fringe is
moving into its fourth season, just after Person of Interest,
one of the new series from his production company, recently
premiered, and Alcatraz is set to start as a midseason
replacement early next year. Abrams is also maintaining a presence
on the big screen with a sequel to Star
Trek.
Last year, Supernatural had a bit of an up-down season to say the least. Following the departure of the series’ creator and show-runner Eric Kripke, Sera Gamble had a lot to deal with. Not only was she now in charge of a fairly long running show with a strong cult following, but the Winchesters had just thrown down with Lucifer himself and trying to top that is, well, hard. As the sixth season picked up, no one was all that sure what was happening. Dead people were alive and Sam had no soul, creating a seriously interesting, but massively confusing set of circumstances. As the season progressed, we got the lay of the new land, discovering Purgatory and the characters’ battle to get there first. We learnt about the power of souls and even the mother of all evil threw her hat in the ring before being unceremoniously killed off.
The back half of the season heated up the civil war in Heaven, as the resurrected Castiel and the Archangel Raphael vied for control, one wanting peace on Earth, the other wanting to carry out his brother’s legacy and begin the apocalypse. With battle lines drawn, deals were made and everything came to a head on the night of an eclipse, after the location of Purgatory and its millions of souls were discovered. The double cross of all double crosses left once heroic angel Castiel wielding the power of the in-between, which he used to smite his competitor for Heaven’s throne and declare himself to be God. With all of that out of the way, so arrives the seventh season of Supernatural.
The Office is back for its
eighth season and Steve Carrell is long gone, but the rest of the
gang from Scranton were doing all they could to make us forget that
fact. They came close to succeeding with the much anticipated reveal
of who would be filling those regional manager shoes, as well as
James Spader’s first episode as CEO, and a pair of new pregnancies to
boot. Though there were hopes that this change in leadership would
actually bring a revival to the series that had already gone past
it’s prime before losing its biggest star, that hasn’t come to be
just yet. “The List” was by no means a bad episode, but it also
didn’t renew any faith that The Office can return to its glory
days.
Personal preferences aside, it was a
bit surprising to see Andy sitting in the big office and not out in
the bullpen. His own equally shocked grin said it all, and was
amusing enough to distract from the disbelief at the job not going to
Darryl; who seemed like he had been being groomed for the spot since
Jo hauled him out of the warehouse. Certainly preferable to Jim or
Dwight, who have both proven on more than one occasion that their
characters just don’t work as manager. Helms also has the best
chance of recapturing the charmingly annoying aspects of Michael
Scott with his own energetic personality. Of course if he wants to
keep that job he’s going to have to work on getting the new head
honcho to like him.
With Entourage done and dusted after almost eight years on our screens, a quick internet search will let anyone know that there are more than a few differences of opinion about the show. Some people loved how it began, others how it ended. The middle worked well for for a majority and others loathed the entire show from its inception. Nevertheless, Entourage definitely has a legacy. I obviously watched the show and have seen every episode (many on more than one occasion), and whilst it comes nowhere near the top of any ranked list of shows that I’ve seen in my life, I’d be hard pressed to say that I didn’t enjoy almost all of it. The extent to which I enjoyed it definitely varies however, and while those who have seen it will have their own opinions, those who haven’t but were considering giving it a go might want some idea of where to dip their beak to get a taste of Sex and the City man-style.
With that in mind, I present to you my worst-to-best list of Entourage…
