TV Reviews

Spartacus: Gods of the Arena – Paterfamilias

Last night’s Spartacus had some frustrating moments but it ultimately ended up as a pretty satisfying episode with the best action we’ve seen in the prequel thus far. As the title suggests, it involves someone’s father, with that someone being Quintus Batiatus; his father Titus arrives back from wherever he was, in the middle of Quintus having some fun with his lady friends, and is disgusted both by their display and the apparent sorry state of affairs at the ludus. Batiatus never really wanted to run a gladiator factory for a living, but he was forced into the family business, and Titus isn’t happy with some of his decisions.

Archer – A Going Concern

And I thought the last episode was awesome. A Going Concern is one of the best Archer episodes yet and that is saying something. In a way, this episode should have been the season premier, as Archer discovers the microchip that was planted in brain at the end of last season. After this revelation, Malory reveals that she has lost all of her money in a Ponzi scheme and planes to sell the company to O.D.I.N so their director can marry Malory and Archer has to stop the deal to keep his Mother (and his job).

The Office – The Search

With Jim barely showing up anymore (it seems like he must not be available to film much because of other commitments) and audiences pretty used to Dwight and Pam at this point, it seems like the writers of the show have really been giving just about everybody else on the show more chances to stand out and get a few minutes of screen time. That continued with last night’s cold open, which featured Ryan and Kelly announcing their divorce to the rest of the office without even bothering to have told them about their quickie marriage a week earlier. With so much of the show’s emotional focus on the various troubled relationships its biggest male characters go through, it’s fun to have a couple around that’s just completely ridiculous to deflate things a bit. And I love how nobody raised their hands to show support for either one of them.

Community – Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

Returning from last week’s mediocre episode, Community returned to form last night.  Feeling sorry for one of their classmates and his unfortunate nickname, the study group takes Fat Neil under their wings and attempt to cheer him up. They do this by partaking in one of Fat Neil’s favorite games: The infamous Dungeons and Dragons.  Feeling left out, Pierce soon takes over the game and takes it quite a few steps too far.

Don’t be fooled, though, into thinking that the plot was only slapped together to give the writers a chance to make fun of Dungeons and Dragons. While the show does joyfully play with the notion of role-playing, the plot itself is sound and important to the overall success of the episode.  This is one of the things that is most enthralling about the NBC show. Community successfully ingrains its pop culture references into the plot in such an intrinsic way. Never do the characters simply name-drop an idea, or a reference, to get a laugh. They earn the joke, again and again, and give each situation a reason to exist. And they get these laughs, while also making us care for the characters sharing the experience.

The Cape – Goggles and Hicks

This week The Cape tries to take a day off, but his nemesis Peter Fleming has other plans!  Fleming hires a pair of assassins named Goggles and Hicks, and this marks the first time that that The Cape has fought a villain with a two-syllable codename.  Goggles!  Previously he’s battled Chess, Scales, Cain, and Dice.  I’m not saying that NBC is pandering to an audience of monosyllabic morons, but I don’t think The Cape is going to fight a villain named The Antidisestablishmentarian any time soon.

30 Rock – Que Sorpresa

The new Kabletown overlords arrive this week to take over General Electric, Sheinhardt Wigs and NBC.  The episode begins with Jack assembling the gang and demanding that everyone be on their best behavior.  Of course that just isn’t going to happen, so a crazy caper must be in the cards and this launches 30 Rock into an overt spoofing of one of the classic sitcom tropes; everyone mistakenly thinks that Liz is pregnant. 

In the main storyline where Liz and Jack need the gang to behave, this helps out because everyone has to be nice to pregnant women.  At the same time, Liz and Avery get their own subplot where Liz must convince a nosey reporter that she really is indeed truly preggers.  Again, we have the use of an unabashed TV cliché: The Nosey Reporter. In this case, it’s the ethnically ambiguous Carmen Cho who gives us the episode’s title, Spanish for “What a surprise.”  The writers put in a few self-aware nods to what they’re doing with this cliché, like “By the law of verbal traps you have to do it.”

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Altar of Mortis

In my review for the previous episode, I neglected to delve as deeply into the concept of the “force family” that we were introduced to and instead chose to focus on the characters’ inner conflict, and for that I apologize. I regret this and will do them justice in this review. The Clone Wars continues its story arc regarding the balance of the force and the awesomeness continues.

Picking up where the last episode left off, our Jedi heroes are leaving the planet and the force family behind, but the Son has other plans for both the Jedi and his Father. Son (played by Sam Witwer A.K.A. Starkiller from The Force Unleashed video games) attempts to tempt Anakin over to the dark side (give one more movie pal), but when he refuses, he takes Ashoka hostage, turns her to the dark side temporarily by biting her, and Obi-wan must journey with Daughter to collect an ancient sword to control Son before he kills everything.

Durarara! Episode 3 – Rampant Evil

The third episode of Durarara! begins with a bit of overlap from the second episode. We saw previously that the first day of school started and that Mikado Ryugamine and Anri Sonohara are in the same class together. On the second day the teacher asks for class representatives and Anri is quick to volunteer, but still comes off very shy. She asks if there’s a boy that will help her represent the class which is the norm (one girl, one boy). Mikado wants to join her as the class representative, but hesitates until he hears other boys talking about doing it. He stands up and volunteers while making awkward eye contact with Anri.

Californication – Monkey Business

Pregnancy, autoerotic asphyxiation, a dead monkey, and new love interests for both Hank and Karen make this episode one of the best of the series, if not the very best. Our characters grow and evolve all the while the show tells two entertaining stories that exemplify why this show is just so great. While Monkey Business may not as be important to the overall narrative as say The Apartment, last season’s perfect episode, it is funnier and tells a story all its own while complicating the running storylines of the season.

Fringe – “Reciprocity”

Fringe delves deeper into the psyche of Peter Bishop in one of the most bipolar ways in television history. One minute he is this sweet man that is being used as a pawn in an inter-universal war and the next he turns into Anakin from Revenge of the Sith. Continuing to progress the main plot line, Massive Dynamic rebuilds the mystery weapon that we were introduced to back in the Season Two finale (A.K.A: The McGuffin 2000; Order now and receive a copy of Crisis on Infinite Earths). We still don’t know what it does, how it works, or why Peter is the ammo for the weapon, but that’s what our heroes try to find out… and Peter ends up going through some serious stuff before the end of the episode. 

The episode opens up with the Fringe team being taken to Area 51 where M.D. has recreated the ancient super weapon (brilliant idea!). As soon as Peter steps into the main room, the device releases some kind of tremor which they believe has been affecting Peter’s body in some way. The episode is then divided into two equally important stories: Peter’s health and how Walter is dealing with his son being used as a lab rat; and Olivia’s investigation into the executions of undercover shapeshifters that could have been leads.