Launch Party marked back to back episodes of stretching Michael's stupidity to unbelievable levels. Solid effort otherwise. Angela/Dwight/Andy looks to be an awesome triangle, and Kelly needs to hop aboard the Darryl Express STAT. Not enough Pam and Jim, but I have a feeling that something bad is brewing. Although next week's preview mentions something about them spending the night at Dwight's farmhouse. Wacky. That will also be the last hour long episode for the time being, and I think going back to the tight, twenty-two minutes will strengthen the show. It's been a good first three episodes, but not at the heights of the previous two seasons so far. Dwight battling the self-aware paper selling website was pretty awesome though.
I've never been so intrigued to watch an episode of any show based on one photograph.
Jim Halpert doesn't even need to look into a camera in order to mug. A plate of bacon will do just fine.
I watched the third episode of Gossip Girl last night, which puts me just one episode behind. I was sitting there, completely engrossed by this show, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why. Luckily, during the very next scene, it hit me. The evil, evil JEZEBEL of a villain embarrassed the heroine in front of the Brown University rep at an Ivy League mixer by revealing that she had recently been to rehab for her crippling drug addiction! And then she laughed in the girl's face about it. That's why this show is great. All of the bad guys are essentially cartoon characters with handlebar mustaches and black hats. It's so awesome. And it's not just the heels either. Everyone fits into a readily identifiable mold. You have the evil rich bitch, her male equivalent, the bitch's ex-best friend who, though having led a life of privilege, isn't so into that anymore. The rich bitch's boyfriend who harbors a secret love for the ex-best friend, the new guy in the ex-best friend's life, from the other side of the tracks. His younger sister, caught between who she is (middle class) and who she wants to be (the elite). It's phenomenal. You don't even have to do any thinking. Gossip Girl, you get a big thumbs up from me. And it just got picked up for a full season. Yay!
"We are easily identified by our character traits. Ask us how!"
After seeing the first two episodes of Gossip Girl, I declared it to be my favorite new show of the fall season. I spoke too soon. I've now seen both episodes of Pushing Daisies, and it rules mightily. And not in a guilty pleasure way, either. It's just delightful. Essentially, it's about a pie maker with the power to bring dead things back to life. The catch is, one touch brings them back, but another touch kills them again, permanently. So why not just touch dead people once and leave them be, you ask? Well, if he lets them live for longer than a minute, a random person in the proximity dies instead! This is actually a brilliant plot device because he brings his childhood sweetheart back from the dead, but literally can't touch her. So many shows come up with one hackneyed reason after another to keep its romantic leads from getting together. Pushing Daisies came up with a good one. SHE WILL DIE. Buffy the Vampire Slayer also handled the Buffy/Angel thing fairly well in this regard, I thought. They can't be happy and together because he'll turn evil and try to suck the world into Hell.
Love's never easy.
Anyway, the pie maker works on the side assisting a private investigator who accidentally saw him use his powers, and now they split rewards by solving murders. Touch the victim, ask them who killed them, touch the victim again, go to the police. AWESOME. It sounds kind of morbid, but it's actually a very sweet fairy tale, complete with motherfucking DOCTOR TERMINUS from Pete's Dragon as the kindly, old narrator! Pushing Daisies 4 the win!
Ready to work on the set of Gossip Girl.
I just realized that there are narrators for both of the new shows I love, as Gossip Girl is voiced over by the former Veronica Mars, Kristen Bell. Coincidence!? Most likely.
Dwight: You believe a computer can beat me?
Angela: I don’t care, but yes.
Dwight: Well I will prove you wrong.
Angela: I don’t care, and you won’t.
Dwight: You’ll see.
Angela: I won’t be watching, and I won’t.
I'm starting to really like Angela. The character and the actor.
Angela Kinsey: Creepin' on a come up (like Bone).
4 comments:
That's a big bowl of eggs.
Also, it saddens me a bit to see the glorification of short-cuts towards dramatic tension in scripting.
I think that Angel/Buffy is just one more symptom of Josh Wheaton's amazing laziness in script-writing. Need some exposition? Somebody had a vision! Need to justify the entire existence of your show's structure? High school on a Hellmouth! Need some angst? If they do it, he turns into a really bad guy!
Having said all that, now that I'm actually watching Buffy through for the first time, and although it's still a really cheesy characterization, I like Angelus. He justifies--yet eschews--the whole "I'm so crazy and evil I'm gonna kill people that help me for no reason" bit. Giving him that passion for cruelty was actually a very good touch.
See, I find no fault at all with the Hellmouth premise, because that was one of the basic ideas of the show. That's why Buffy is there.
As for so called "short-cuts", I sort of see your point, but as long as sexual tension between romantic leads is a television convention (and it always will be), in most cases I'd rather have an actual reason for them not being able to just screw and get it over with than season after season of WILL THEY OR WON'T THEY bullshit.
Newsradio actually handled this better than any sitcom ever, with Dave and Lisa banging between the first and second episode and hooking up right away.
I also feel like something bad is on the horizon for the Jim/Pam relationship. I don't know why, it just feels like there's a little tension or something. I also agree that Angela was GREAT in this episode.
I can't get into Pushing Daisies. Even though I already knew most of the plot, that description you gave made my head spin. Too much.
I couldn't tell from your (Josh's) post whether that means you've seen an episode or not, but if not, it's really not so scary. The way the story unfolds, it's very easy to take it all in.
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