TV Reviews

Terra Nova – What Remains

“What
Remains” was built around the clever idea of an infectious disease
causing memory loss. The story also introduced a “new” species of
dinosaurs and even explored smuggling through the time fracture, but
all that was just smoke screen. The episode was really about human
feelings and their uncanny ability to overcome hurdles thrown at them,
be it memory loss, jealousy or a striking intellectual gap.

It
was understandable for Elisabeth, the doctor, to be part of the
expedition to check out the outpost, but it was much less so for
Taylor. For a commander, he seems to be slightly too involved in
routine tasks, but that is a minor quibble as the disease story was so
well put together that even the underlying theme wasn’t visible at
first. From the arrival at the outpost, to the first assessment of the
situation, down to Elisabeth’s first symptom (wondering who Zoe, her
daughter, was) everything was engrossing.

How I Met Your Mother – Field Trip

Science-fiction nerds such as myself could rejoice with this week’s episode of How I Met Your Mother, but the real question to come out of Season 7’s fifth episode might be whether or not the show can keep up this balancing act between characters for an entire season.

Although significantly funnier and more memorable than last week, “Field Trip” rotated around even more between Robin’s relationship with her therapist, Barney’s doubts about whether he can love a woman that doesn’t love Ewoks (and might be 37), Ted’s improvised architecture field trip and Marshall’s doubts about the tenacity of his boss as an environmentalist.

Breaking Bad – Face Off

In the final installment of Breaking
Bad’s fourth season every aspect of what makes the series so
brilliant was on display. “Face Off” featured a healthy dose of
comedy, superb acting, and thrilling drama to rival any other series
on television. With the exception of one crucial moment, it was an
absolutely incredible ride from start to finish. Though we were
saying goodbye to one villain, as it turns out, we were also saying
hello to another.

One of the most surprising aspects of
“Face Off” was the humor that made up the first few minutes of
the episode. It wouldn’t have been expected of Vince Gilligan, as
writer and director, to include any comic relief in the season
finale, especially with how grim the episodes leading into it have
been. It was certainly welcome though, especially since it didn’t
completely derail the tension that had been building, only lessened
the very dire atmosphere created with the end of “Crawl Space.”

Dexter – Once Upon a Time…

It would be pretty difficult to deny that Sunday was largely about Breaking Bad’s fourth season finale for me and likely many viewers of Dexter, but when the dust was settled for another year over at AMC, Showtime’s behemoth stood front and center. Dexter’s sixth season premiere had a lot to take on last week when it hit screens, as the fifth season wasn’t what one might call universally loved. Scour the internet and you’ll find no shortage of people that cite the fifth season as their favorite, but conversely, you’ll find many that would take a rusty pole to Julia Stiles/Lumen Pierce’s face given the opportunity. Taking its task in stride, the premiere would likely have converted many (if not most) of the season five haters, with an abundance of character and plot progression. While the goings on of the past year hadn’t been solidified quite yet, we’d dealt with any residual rubbish from the gap by the episode’s end. Then along came “Once Upon a Time…”

We picked up this week with Dexter putting his son to bed. Mundane as it might sound, seeing and hearing (through inner monologue) Dexter interact with another human on a completely emotional level is a fairly big thing for his character. Many people probably have not been a fan of Dexter’s humanization over the years, but I find it to be one of best things about the show. Knowing what Dexter is truly made of, seeing him balance his roles as brutal killer and loving father so skillfully, yet at the same time earnestly, is pretty great. In the earlier years, the show derived copious amounts of dark humor and even drama from the double meanings and hidden agendas of Dexter Morgan, but now we just get to see him be himself. With a young son incapable of comprehending the subtleties of his father, we get a view of who Dexter really is outside of his dark passenger and he is a man worth knowing.

Person of Interest – Mission Creep

The names Jonathan Nolan and JJ Abrams suggested we’d get a more science-fiction based thriller with more of a long-term narrative. Instead, the show has turned out to be a “case of the week” mystery. It might not completely be time to come to terms with that violation of expectations, but regardless, the show does the formula pretty darn well.

Fringe – Alone in the World

In a very Fringe style, an episode that started out like a standalone was expertly used to explore a character’s backstory, and from that character, the episode was skillfully turned around to propel the main story arc forward.

The episode starts with Walter being interviewed by an old “friend,” the director of the mental institution he resided in for 17 years, performing a monthly evaluation of his former patient. Aside from hovering the threat of re-institutionalization, the session summarized the issues the ethereal presence of a man (Peter) has been having on Walter and was our cue that we were finally having a Walter-centric episode.

Supernatural – The Girl Next Door

Twenty-one episodes after having the helm of the 108th installment of Supernatural (“Weekend at Bobby’s”) put into his hands, Jensen Ackles returned to the other side of the camera for his second directorial effort in this week’s “The Girl Next Door.” Before getting into the who, what, where, why and when of the episode itself, I feel that it would be appropriate to speak of Ackles’ performance as a director. For only his second attempt at being in charge of anything, let alone a show that he is an integral part of on the other side of the camera, the man has some skills. I went back and watched “Weekend at Bobby’s” before taking in this week’s episode and both are indistinguishable from any other episode of the show. By that I mean that a complete rookie has managed to seamlessly integrate his efforts into a show usually directed by veterans of television.

His style is noticeably different in a few scenes of this week’s episode in particular – with some instances of a first person view from Dean’s perspective – but even his own personal touches were perfectly applicable to the situation at hand and would likely have been used anyway were someone else directing. With that out of the way, this week’s episode…

The Office – Lotto

Season eight of The Office had been difficult to judge from its first two episodes.  Should the show be dropped for all its flaws, or held onto for its few redeeming qualities?  Well with “Lotto” the bad has officially outweighed the good.  A lottery winning turned out to be one of the episode’s more grounded plots, as low-key humor didn’t so much take a back seat to wackiness, but was practically thrown from the car.

The episode was off to a rocky start even before the title credits rolled.  For a while now, Oscar has been the only remaining voice of reason in the office, but with this new season of more outlandish moments than ever before, even he is no longer immune to the plague of irrationality.  Watching him sacrifice his sanity in The Office’s latest over-the-top attempt at humor would have been less painful if he – or anyone else for that mater – had been sharp enough to catch the fact that the sun roof was open the entire time.  Oscar taking one of his “principal stands,”as Pam has called them in the past, was right in line with his character, but it just shouldn’t have ended with him vandalizing a car.  The cold open did at least set the tone for the episode, as it was the same reliance on ridiculous premises and adults using the judgment of children that spoiled most of “Lotto.”

Community – Competitive Ecology

Although Community’snarrative continues to be slightly broken by its irreverent moments, those moments remain the saving grace of the show, as showcased in this pretty damn hysterical episode.

What makes a comedy show’s episode a success? For most genres, the success or failure of an episode is determined by criteria such as plot, acting and directing. But in comedy, these things don’t matter nearly as much. Isn’t the success of a comedy measured foremost in the amount of times it makes the audience laugh? True, the quality of humor is perhaps even more subjective than the quality of a plot, but it’s hard to deny thatCommunity continues to be very funny at most levels.

Parks and Recreation – Born & Raised

We are
three episodes into Parks and Recreation’s fourth season and
though it has yet to produce a real barn burner, the season also
hasn’t put out any complete duds. “Born & Raised” continued
that trend with a story that brought Leslie’s birthplace into
question. Though the episode took a while to really get going, there
were still some great laughs to be had throughout its second half.

The cold
open provided a few humorous moments early on, though they would drop
off after that for awhile. Voice of Homer Simpson, Dan Castellaneta,
was responsible for a few of the opening scene’s great lines, if only
for the mellifluous drawl with which he delivered them. Besides the
comedy, the scene also introduced the driving force behind all of the
episode’s storylines. Leslie’s book about Pawnee was actually a bit
of product placement for the real life companion piece for Parks
and Recreation, but it ended up
causing nothing but trouble for the book’s fictitious author.