TV Reviews

Falling Skies – Grace

“Grace”
was a much better episode than last week’s “Prisoner of War,” but being
already the fourth of the season’s thirteen episodes, it definitely
made me wonder about the series’ prospects of renewal. Ideally, at this
stage I should be engrossed with the twists and turns of the story
instead of coldly considering the threat of cancellation. The show
certainly has potential — as seen with the very acceptable ratings so
far — but unless it picks up some momentum, it runs the risk of losing
some of those who have invested in it until now.

True Blood – You Smell Like Dinner

After last week’s season opener introduced us to a wealth of new information as far as Bon Temps and the canon of True Blood goes, this week’s “You Smell Like Dinner”, followed suit. Continuing to fill in the gaps of Sookie’s missing year as well as fleshing out the present day story line to a thoroughly interesting point, Sunday’s True Blood just about perfectly set up the remainder of the season, leaving several avenues for it to follow (Or not, if it follows the books). The episode essentially revolved around two main themes: Sookie (as always) and the vampires. Sookie’s plot points largely center around the vampires as well, so at its core, it was a fang-packed week. Following on from last week’s unfinished plot threads, Jason remained a captive of were-panther Crystal’s family, and Eric had laid a claim to Sookie. 

Jason’s story wasn’t touched upon nearly as much as I’d have liked, especially given how the episode opened, but in essence – Crystal is once again hooked on V thanks to her abusive boyfriend and they’re failing to have a child. Needing to carry on the were-panther bloodline, their plan is to turn Jason into one of them and then he and Crystal can be together in every sense of the word. By the culmination of the episode, Jason appears to have been turned, and as a result, one would imagine that another bizarre sex scene involving Jason Stackhouse is soon to appear on screen. 

Louie – Bummer/Blueberries

Sometimes an episode of Louie is disturbing, sometimes they are very disturbing, and sometimes they are like “Bummer/Blueberries” and make you question your own sanity. That is not to say this episode wasn’t without laughs, as Louis C.K. always finds a way to squeeze comedy out of unexpected places. Still, this episode wasn’t exactly overflowing with mirth, but the beauty of Louie is that there’s always something more to watch for than just the jokes.

Wilfred – Trust

If the first episode of Wilfred pointed out everything the series is doing right, its follow-up did just the opposite. “Trust” wasn’t all bad, but a dependency on unrefined humor brought it down quite a bit. As did Jenna remaining a flat character despite having a larger role in the episode. Whatever the cause, the second episode of this new series just wasn’t that funny.

While the writers have shown that they can do vulgar comedy well, there has been just as many times when they fell short. All their attempts at elevating toilet humor in “Trust” were unfortunately amongst the latter. At times coming closer to engendering groans than they did laughs. One fart joke is really too many and they’ve already done several, none of them particularly humorous. Wilfred’s general crassness also lacked the wit shown at times last week to make his obscene remarks come off as anything but juvenile. It’s not a major problem, but if the series doesn’t maintain a subtler touch on the broad humor the show could decline rapidly.

Falling Skies – Prisoner of War

“Prisoner of War” opens with a scene showing “harnessed” teenagers gathering metallic debris on a roof. We get a good look at their harnesses and at the Mechs and Skitters guards. For those like me who thought the series would be shy about showing Skitters up close and that often, this was a surprise. The opening scene, and in fact the whole episode, made a point of getting us to know the invaders and their technology a bit more, which worked in some cases but not in others. For one thing, showing Skitters in their daily alien activities can only make us spot inconsistencies. We cannot for example help wonder why these aliens who have studied us enough to design perfectly operational biped Mechs would go to the trouble of harnessing kids for what seems to be trivial chores. You would think Mechs could do that more effectively…

True Blood – She’s Not There

If a show in recent history has found a stranger way to come back to our screens, I need to see it, because the return of True Blood made me feel like I was watching Lost all over again. Before getting into exactly what wrinkled my brain about the premiere of the fourth season of the show, it’s probably a good idea to recap last season’s events and how they lead up to what we got given last night. 

The third season as a whole introduced us to an awful lot of things in the world of True Blood, the most notable of those being the vampire hierarchy and the fact that Sookie is a faerie. The finale left us with a mass of information to take in, and several cliffhangers, again, notably: Sookie’s distain for the fact that Bill had been a servant of the vampire queen since his arrival in Bon Temps and that Sookie was headed off into faerie land with her faerie godmother. 

Wilfred – Happiness

After months of FX promoting this
offbeat series, the premiere of Wilfred
is finally here. It’s weird and raunchy, with a dark edge to much of
the humor. Which is to be expected when a show’s opening scene is a
man attempting suicide. Introducing two great leads and a storyline
brimming with opportunities for humor, “Happiness” managed to
provide just that thing to the audience.

With a
plot that is a blend of Calvin and Hobbes
and Fight Club, there
is no denying this series is odd. After ruining his career as a
lawyer, Ryan (Elijah Wood), decides to take his own life via an
overdose. Despite doing all he can to help the drugs along, come
morning he still hasn’t shuffled loose the mortal coil. This is when
his blonde, bubbly neighbor, Jenna (Fiona Gubelmann) stops by to ask
him to dog sit, introducing Ryan and the audience to her dog, and the
titular character. For Ryan however, Wilfred appears as a man in a
dog suit (Jason Gann), who almost immediately takes it upon himself to
be Ryan’s life coach, helping him find the happiness he’s never
known. So it’s certainly an esoteric storyline, but is it funny?

Louie – Pregnant

Louis C.K. is back for a second season of his pet project, and from the first episode it’s looking to be funnier, darker, and better than ever. “Pregnant” was the perfect way to kick off the new season as it highlighted what C.K. does so well. The way he blends hilarious, depressing, and poignant moments together is truly masterful. Whether you’re just watching for his standup or can’t get enough of seeing the world through the bitter and downtrodden eyes of one of comedies greatest assets; this episode was sure to entertain.

Not even letting the audience get to the opening credits without simultaneously feeling a tug at the heartstrings and busting a gut laughing, “Pregnant”’s cold open so perfectly embodied what Louie is all about. As Louie dutifully brushes his five-year-old daughter’s teeth, she informs him she prefers staying at her mother’s because she loves her more. Ever the good father, Louie says nothing, sending her off to bed while flipping the bird to her as she walks away. Heartbreaking hilarity to say the least; which if this series can’t take credit for inventing, it can certainly be said to have done more with the idea than any other show has. Finding humor in some decidedly unfunny situations is a skill deserving of admiration, and no one’s better at it than C.K.

Falling Skies – Live and Learn & The Armory

For the premiere of Falling Skies,
TNT aired the first two episodes back-to-back. “Live and Learn”
emotionally introduced us to the survivors’ plight following the alien
invasion, and “The Armory” pitted humans against humans in an
exploration of human frailty in the desolate post-invasion world.

 
The
extended episode opens with shots of children’s drawings of the
invasion accompanied by their voice-over descriptions of the events that
occurred seven months earlier. This is part of a class activity at a
makeshift school in a survivors camp. The narration becomes darker and
grows more emotional as they mention the death of family members. The
scene ends when one of the kids — talking about his father and his
brother — says, “Well, they were OK this morning, but I don’t know about
now. They are fighting…” This opening worked much better than any
live-action shot of the actual invasion. Using children in such a class
allowed the show to engage us more effectively with the tragedy of the
situation. It also allowed the writers to quickly pass along some
information about the invaders (“Skitters”) and their actions (the
“harnessing” of children). It finally showed us with the closing
comments how the events gave the children an almost grown-up sense of
reality.

Game of Thrones – Fire and Blood

I think the season finale of Game of Thrones illustrated some of the
differences between it and the books well. It was a good episode, and a
lot of important stuff definitely happened, but it also felt a bit light
after the huge events of the last couple weeks. There was a whole lot
of reaction to Ned’s death, and in general it felt like things were just
decompressing a bit. In the book, Ned is killed with a lot more than
10% of the story left to go, and he felt less like the main character
because he was only one of several to get his own viewpoint chapters. So
while it was able to continue on at full speed after his head and body
parted ways, the show definitely seemed to position him more as the
central figure, and his absence could be felt just a bit. There’s
obviously plenty to entice viewers with next year, but with there only
being one episode after his execution to wrap things up, there wasn’t a
real opportunity to actually show new things happening, and so instead
there was just a bunch of pieces moving into place for new threads later
on. Only Daenerys’ story seemed to have major events going on, even if
elsewhere there was plenty happening.