Last night on Spartacus, things finally started coming to a
head. Most of the drama around the ludus got resolved in a very blood way,
leaving only the conflict with the Roman nobility that has been taking
advantage of the house left to take care of next week, in the miniseries’ final
episode. It was brutal and dramatic in the ways that the show excels, and as
bitter and depressing as TV usually ever gets.
“Threat Level Midnight”, which finally revealed the film Michael’s
been working on for years, was a mixed bag. On one hand, most of the
episode was taken up by the movie itself, which was generally hilarious
and terrible without falling into too many standard terrible-movie
cliches. On the other, some aspects of its production just didn’t fit
within the world of The Office, and the story around the movie wasn’t
very good. Still, it was fun to see so many old familiar faces again.
Bob’s Burgers is the newest member of Fox’s “Animation Domination” in which they cram the Simpson’s and three version of Family Guy together on primetime Sunday. The first thing to note about Bob is that it’s created by the co-creator of Home Movies Loren Bouchard. Bob is voiced by H. Jon Benjamin who many will recognize as the voice of Coach McGuirk and of FX’s Archer fame.
The pilot episode “Human Flesh” begins with Bob giving his family a pep talk. This scene is used to quickly establish two things 1) Everyone’s personality and name 2) Everyone other than Bob is an idiot. This is very apparent when Tina, the oldest daughter, informs Bob that her crotch is itchy. Bob fires back asking her if he’s telling him as his daughter or his grill cook and that neither one should tell him. The pep talk ends with Bob telling his family that their all terrible at their jobs and that if he could he would fire all of them.
Television shows get cancelled. It happens all the time. In
an ideal world, only bad shows would get cancelled and good shows would be good
for their entire run. In this perfect world, all the good shows would only end
when the story was completed, and each character had reached the end of their
arcs. But alas, we don’t live in this perfect world. We live in a world where
for some reason, TV executives think it’s ok to cancel shows abruptly
(occasionally mid-season) and not even bother giving the doomed series a chance
to finish satisfactorily.
Because of its episodic nature, television seems to be one
of the only media that is plagued by this issue. Movies don’t cut out half way
through without a conclusion. You never buy a novel’s first few chapters, and
then realize the last chapter will never be written. It just seems ridiculous.
However, as much as I love to bitch and moan about this, TV shows do get
cancelled. This article then, is a list of just a few examples of tv shows that
not only got cancelled, but were cancelled so abruptly that they ended on a cliff-hanger.
Seemingly out of nowhere,
the new face of Wonder Woman has been found, and it is none other than Adrianne
Palicki. Palicki will be taking on
the iconic role in the recently picked up Wonder Woman pilot for NBC. Palicki
is best known for her role as Tyra Collette in Friday Night Lights, but she has
also appeared on Supernatural, Smallville and Lone Star. Standing at a towering
5’ 11’, the actress reportedly
auditioned for the same role in the cancelled Justice League movie back in
2007.
Jefferey Reiner is directing
the NBC pilot with David E. Kelley writing and producing. Reiner has worked
with Palicki in the past, as he was the main director of Friday Night Lights
for the first three seasons.
I
love it when a work of fiction is well-structured; meaning that all of
the little bits of the plot fit together like a jigsaw puzzle or, even
better, a complex Rube Goldberg contraption, and that is exactly how 30 Rock turned out this week.
It
started out at a good pace with Liz declaring that she’s putting
herself on the fast track to becoming a crazy old cat lady by not only
carrying around a cat, but also wearing a fanny pack and joining the
book club at her senior center. The instant that Liz held up a copy of Murder on the Orient Express,
I should have suspected that it would somehow tie-in with the episode’s
overall story, but I still didn’t figure out where they were going with
it until much later.
I’m starting to regret choosing to review Community. The
problem is simple; each episode is good.
If you look back on the scores I have given previous episodes, they have
all been quite solid. Sure, Community has some off episodes as all shows do,
but despite this Community is one of the most consistently funny shows on
television currently. If Community keeps being this excellent, and I review it
well, then it is going to seem that the high scores don’t mean anything. But
trust me on this; Community absolutely deserves to be highly rated. It is a
superb show. This week’s episode is no exception.
Community works best when its characters’ story arcs are
separate, and yet are bound together with one central plot line. This episode
follows this structure, with each character pivoting on Pierce’s story. Pierce,
having been admitted to the hospital after collapsing on a bench, summons the
group. Upset at his friends’ lack
of empathy, Pierce pretends to be dying. He gives each of the members (except
for Abed, but we’ll get to that later) a bequeathment. These gifts both seem to be a blessing
and a curse for the receiver, and they shape the multiple story arcs.
