this week in tv

[jlh]

I still haven't seen Undercovers or Boardwalk Empire. There is no reason for this under than a vague nervousness about new shows.

HIMYM: As mardia put it, this lily-white show hasn't really earned the right to make this many race jokes and have us chuckle along. Not that it was offensive; it was merely not as funny as it could have been. But it was cutely emotional—especially in letting us know where Barney's tendency to stretch the truth comes from, and the usual difference in how siblings react to their parents. Ben Vereen was a stroke of genius. But the weird b-plot about Ted and Robin's friend felt phoned-in.

DwtS: Whatever, Bolton sucked, he seemed kinda arrogant, he didn't want to listen to Chelsie, and he was trying to do this in the middle of a tour. You are not Donny Osmond, sir.

Castle: haha Alexander. "Because, if you don’t believe in even the possibility of magic, you’ll never ever find it."

Hawaii 5-0: continues to be a lot of fun. The elevator scene! A bearded Bill from Freaks & Geeks as a hacker! A girl fight scene in which the ladies were wearing jeans and shirts and sneakers! (In fact, Grace Park fully clothed for the entire episode!)

Glee: For me it was worth it just to watch Brittany dance, because boy can she ever dance. The Rachel/Hit Me Baby One More Time was forced, unnecessary, and not very good. (Don't do a Brit vid if you're not going to dance; you just look odd.) I loved the cast sitting along the edges of "Me Against the Music"; Puck working the bar and Kurt perched atop it sipping a girly drink through a straw. Adorbs. Also, Kurt covering Mercedes's breasts with their hats.

Top Chef Just Desserts: Oh Seth, just stop, please? Ugh. Hurrah Eric though, and Erica as well in the quickfire. Exciting to see someone low key (and female and not white) like Erica really succeeding.

Community: Better than last week even! A little easily resolved and too much end speechifying from Jeff, but come on. Annie chloroformed a janitor. Troy referred to himself and Abed as "Kanye and Kumar." Chang popped and locked for five hours. Allen wasn't being cool no matter how hard he tried. Even Shirley was turned to the dark side.

Project Runway: Just when I thought I couldn't love Mondo more, all this happens. What a jam-packed episode, too. And, the pants were really fantastic.

Comments

[slytherincess]

Hawaii 5-0: I'm still up in the air about this show. I tend to prefer police procedurals that are less action oriented and more sleuthified. This new version of H 5-0 has a lot of action sequences in each episode (so far), the kind that I don't prefer - AK47s, bombs, car chases, the use of military-grade weaponry that would hardly go unnoticed on an island as small as O'ahu. I'm not sure I like the whole Danny vs. the Honolulu PD emphasis, although it must have a purpose. It just feels contrived to me, possibly because we haven't really been given a context for this except for allusions to Danny marching to the beat of his own drummer and being accused of corruption (again, how and why?). I don't remember the details of the original series well enough to be able to do a comparison, although I remember liking the original (classic 70s!). I haven't given up on the show yet and will continue to watch. It's mostly the drawn out action scenes that make me glaze over.

Just Desserts: Seriously. Seth, just stop. Surely Harold fired this dickwad? I was genuinely stunned to find out that he is 33 years old. I honestly though he had to be in his early twenties. I, too, was pleased at Erica's win and agree with you that it would be so refreshing to see a woman of color win any of the Top Chef series. That's part of the reason I was rooting so hard for Tiffany in the DC series. I still think she went home too early. The wedding cake challenge was exciting. Poor Malicka - she's just a wet hot mess right now, both personally and in the kitchen. I felt so bad for her in this challenge. I've made layered cakes before and they are extremely difficult to do (yay Duncan Hines!).

[jlh]

You mean Chin Ho vs HPD, right? Yeah, I'm not that invested in that storyline and I agree that they are weird about not giving us any facts to go by. I know what you mean about detecting, but the thing about all those procedurals except L&O and maybe L&O CI because I haven't seen it is that the crimes are really dark. It's like, serial killers and weird sex crimes and a LOT of women being punished for having sex, particularly on the CSI's. It's the biggest reason I stopped watching CSI, because every time Catherine got a man bad things happened. So I like that on 5-0 the crimes are straightforward: extortion, gang violence, trafficking in people and drugs. I kind of don't pay tons of attention to the action, but I think it's a show I kind of don't pay tons of attention to other than the character interaction which is really great. (Also another reason I don't watch CSI, it couldn't decide if it wanted to give me information about the characters or not.)

Maybe Harold did fire him! He'd said he was Harold's first pastry chef so who knows how long he was there. Certainly the pressure of the competition makes people act differently, but if he's anything like that in his kitchen I can't imagine Harold would keep him around. Morgan does say about him later that he's just immature but 33 is kind of late to be that immature!

[slytherincess]

PS - I haven't started Boardwalk Empire yet either. I'm kind of nervous that I won't like it, although I felt the same way about Dexter. It was right after SFU finished and I was nervous about seeing Michael C. Hall in a role other than David Fisher, because what if I didn't like it? I get loyal to actors sometimes and I'm afraid to see them in roles that I end up disliking. Michael Pitt is in Boardwalk Empire and I'm like fiercely loyal to him, so what if I hate the show? < / extraneous >