Monday Night Reviews

DANCING WITH THE HOUGHNESS- This week on Dancing with the Stars....oh, who cares. How is our boy Derek doing? This week he did the Paso Doble. For those not familiar, in the Paso Doble the man is supposed to be a tough, masculine bullfighter and the woman is his cape. Hey Paint Hougher, what do you think of that?

If Houghness got into a bullfighting ring, he'd win because the bull would die of laughter.

ALIENS IN AMERICA-Mark it down, folks. It took 3 episodes for Aliens in America to have Raja accused of terrorism. He didn't get sent to Gitmo. Pretty unrealistic considering the evidence against him. He definitely would've been Renditioned in real life.

THE GAME-The Game was so thought-provoking. If you have an episode devoted to how much of a cliche one of your characters is on a show that's one giant cliche is that ironic, deep, or a cliche? This clip is going into the video all-stars this week. Enjoy a preview now

JOURNEYMAN-I watched this less than 24 hours ago and I'd need a time machine just to remember what happened. One thing I do remember is that we never found out why it was important or Dan to save this week's time travel beneficiary. Are we just going with the value of human life now? I also remember that the ads promised me that Dan would have to figure out if he could take another life to save someone. He asks Livia that question (she tells him it's cool 'cuz it's the past so it doesn't count-infallible logic), he just never has to make the call. Lame.

WEEDS-I thought this was the season finale. It wasn't. Andy Milder (Dean) is amazing this week. He does his best work incapacitated in a full body cast and wheelchair. Celia catches Nancy screwing her new boyfriend. Next week is going to be very interesting.

NBC Has Low Standards

NBC recently gave all of its new fall series additional script orders. As you all know, I didn't like any of their slate. The only show I've watched past the pilot is Journeyman, and that's only because there's nothing on at that time and I enjoy making fun of its insane time travel solutions to simple problems. The numbers on these shows are also pretty unimpressive.
The only conclusion we can draw from this, and this has been obvious for quite a while, is that NBC is desperate for anything that isn't a complete failure. When your numbers are in the toilet anyway, you start to see the light at the end of the sewer tunnel.
On the other side of the spectrum, the season premiere of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS was amazing. Something I've come to expect from this program. Also as expected, the numbers sucked again. I'm constantly amazed that people will sit through inane, badly-produced crap like Heroes while good TV dies a slow, painful death.
Good luck to NBC's slate-o-schlock. May it pollute our collective TV screens for years to come.

P.S.: CBS gave script orders on the new show that we don't about here in blog land. If they order a full season, they're going to have to shell out so much money on guyliner.

Monday Night Reviews

DANCING WITH THE STARS- Very boring this week, no dancefloor disasters to cut the bad dancing and the blatant self-promotion. Speaking of which, Maksim worked his Vegas stage show into his video package and Floyd actually told us to buy his Pay-per-view fight. I really hate these people. I also have a gripe with this show: some of the dancers were not actually doing a ballroom Tango. I'm pretty sure no one will care to hear why so I'll just leave it at that until someone engages me about it.
HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER- Not a standout episode. It was trying to be far more outrageous than it actually was. You can't do a threesome storyline properly with an 8pm timeslot on CBS. The most noteworthy part of the episode-for all the wrong reasons- was that Bob Saget spends the episode narrating a story about the time he may or may not have had sex with 2 sorority girls to his tween children. You've gotta love CBS's family-friendly slate of programming.
PRISON BREAK- Prison Break is so strange this season. There's way too much going on, too many subplots, too many characters, and none of it makes any sense. At least the producers took care of the Sarah situation on Monday. I was getting tired of seeing that bad body double. It's amazing that PB has conditioned me to be more shocked when there is no twist. At the end of last week they left us wondering "What's in the box?" This being PB, I assumed it wouldn't be what I expected...but it was. Job well done Prison Break. Job well done.
ALIENS IN AMERICA- Aliens faltered a bit in its second week. I'm glad they cut some of the sentimentality; but it's still not hitting hard enough on the laughs. The show is holding itself back. Also of note: some of the peripheral characters have been recast without explanation. The bullies and the guidance counsellor are clearly now played by different actors. The show tries to hide this by not referring to these characters by name, so that maybe we'll believe that they're not the same people.
MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL- Why can't my Bills just win a game already. This week was especially depressing. I felt like we came so close. This was probably the most exciting 4th Quarter I'll see all regular season. Too bad it didn't go my way.
THE GAME- Speaking of football, this episode of The Game actually featured its characters playing some. Here's the thing; last season this show was a sitcom. Complete with laugh track and multi-camera action. This season it's just a half hour Tyler Perry movie. I'd say the show isn't funny anymore; but I don't think it's even trying to be. They're even piping uncomfortable laughter through the laugh track. The whole experience is surreal because it feels like a sitcom in the way it's shot; but it plays like a cheesy nighttime soap. Here's a clip:


JOURNEYMAN- Boo hoo, Dan used to be addicted to gambling. I liked him better when he was a crackhead. This week's task: stop a crappy lawyer from killing himself over his gambling debt so that he can evnetually become a good lawyer and get innocent people off death row. A noble purpose, no doubt. I'm just not sure why it takes Dan half a dozen trips to do that and why the solution is to have a building fall on the guy.
WEEDS- Filler episode to set up next week's season finale. Some good bits involving the always hilarious Kevin Nealon and Justin Kirk, including this one:

Journeyman Episode 2

So I gave Journeyman another shot to be less boring and it screwed it up. This latest episode was so boring and endless that I could only get through it in several parts. A few things I noticed

1) Dan needs to use Google instead of "Finder Spyder"
Look Dan: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=trevor+mason&btnG=Google+Search
2) Dan has some serious boundary issues with the people he time-stalks.
3) People are way too nice to the creepy, clingy guy that never ages and tries to tell them what to do every time he sees them- even though it's only once a decade.
4) This show is sending us not-at-all-cryptic messages to compensate for its convoluted storylines: "fate never comes through the front door." No shit, but fate also shouldn't go up to the roof, rappel down to your neighbour's apartment, break into there, and then make a hole in the wall to get into your house.

I'd also like to send some notes to whoever or whatever is sending Dan on his "missions." There are much easier ways of achieving the same results.
Episode 1: Send Dan directly to the burning bus full of third world peasants and trust that he won't be too much of a fuck-up to save them.
Episode 2: Just find someone who is a bone marrow match to that guy, send him/her on a time travel mission directly to that guy complaining about his cancer and saying how much he needs bone marrow. If you don't let the time traveller go home until he/she gives marrow, they'll eventually comply.

What's On Kongye's TiVo: Now With Even More BitTorrent Action

Someone just asked him what he finds most sexy on a woman

PRISON BREAK- 8pm, Fox- According to the description "Determined to speak with Sara, Michael enlists T-Bag's help to get to the only phone in Sona." Something tells me that's not going to work out so well for him. This show is aggressively boring this season; but at least Wenty is slowly getting more naked.

DANCING WITH THE STARS-8pm, ABC- Why do I watch this? Take a look at the picture above and tell me if you could resist the magic of THE HOUGHNESS. I didn't think so.

THE GAME- 9:30, The CW- My TiVo has an affirmative action policy (I'm kidding, please don't send angry letters). I have personal reasons for liking this show. Plus, there's nothing on at 9.

JOURNEYMAN- 10pm, NBC- I'm going to give Journeyman another week to show me what it has to offer. I'll let you know how that went later.

WEEDS- 10pm, Showtime- This show just keeps getting better. I have no idea what's going to happen this week; but last week ended with Mary Louise Parker getting eaten out by her boss and the discovery of her DEA-agent husband's body. That's as good a set-up as I could ask for.

*****NEW FEATURE*********

WHAT PIRATED MATERIAL WILL BE ON KONGYE'S HARD DRIVE?

Since TiVo only allows 2 programs to be recorded at the same time, there are occasions where Kongye has to enlist the assistance of BitTorrent to watch quality programming that slips through the cracks. The criteria for what goes on the box and what gets downloaded has nothing to do with which show Kongye likes more or what show is better. As a general rule 1 hour programs get TiVoed because they take longer to DL and because its less efficient to set smaller timeframes on the DVR. Beyond that, it's really just a random judgment call based on what is most readily available online at the fastest speeds.

HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER- NPH just keeps getting better. Last week was chock full of Barney goodness and this week he puts on an accent! I'll be watching this long before I get to the other stuff I'm actually recording in the 8pm timeslot.

ALIENS IN AMERICA- We'll be checking out the new cast of this one to see if it's improved the show or made it worse. Stay tuned for the results.

PIME TARADOX

So, Kongye has already contributed her thoughts on Journeyman, but I figured I'd take special note of the most amazing plot thread of the pilot, which is that Kevin McKidd's heroic journey is that he spends most of show fucking up a random guy's life as much as he can.

Step 1: Kevin McKidd is sent back in time and he stops a suicidal man from getting himself run over by a trolley. He gets the man's name (I think it's Neil,) and goes on his way.

Step 2: A few years later, Kevin McKidd runs into Neil in a cafe. Neil is having a conversation with his pregnant girlfriend, wherein he basically tells her that he doesn't want to take care of the baby and she should get an abortion. Kevin McKidd confronts the girlfriend and tells her how totally special it is to have a child, even if it is in a fucked up relationship. She goes back to Neil and eventually gets married to him at some point.

Step 3: Kevin McKidd finds out that Neil kills his wife and child in 1997.

Step 4: Kevin McKidd goes back in time to 1997 and tracks down Neil, who is stalking his wife and child so he can shoot them. As Neil crosses the street while drawing his gun, Kevin calls out his name.

(This is where it gets good.)

Neil turns around AND IS PROMPTLY HIT BY A BUS. He goes flying like 20 feet and smashes into another car's windshield, dying instantly. At this point, I am laughing hysterically. The wife goes up to Kevin and reveals that Neil had threatened to kill her, then Kevin goes back into the timewarp.

So let's review Kevin McKidd's contributions to the life of Neil: He stopped him from killing himself, and instead pushed him into a loveless, abusive marriage with a child he didn't want, and then HE GOT HIM KILLED ANYWAY. All he did was make Neil's miserable failure of a life that many years longer and that much shittier. MY HERO.*

"I did it for the lulz."

*(Actually, it turns out the real goal of his mission was to make sure that Neil's wife got pregnant so the kid could pull a bunch of third world peasants out of a burning bus or something, but it's funnier if you ignore that scene and just pretend that this is like Quantum Leap except Scott Bakula's mission was to be the biggest asshole ever to random bystanders.)

Journeyman- I Didn't Know Time Travel Could Be This Boring

Journeyman is boring. The premise was sort of intriguing: a guy travels randomly through time, changes events, and tries to affect the future. The pilot was just a mess.
The show has been set up to have two main components. We’ll have a procedural element where each week he has a specific timeline that he has to go through and manipulate to a particular goal and we’ll have a larger story arc about his dead fiancé actually being alive and also travelling through time and him trying to figure out the mystery of that.
The mess in the pilot comes from there being too many components to the plot in the main story arc. The main character is married with a son but he has this ex-fiancé who he thinks died at some point in the past in a plane crash. He has a police officer brother that he doesn’t get along with. During his various trips into the past in the pilot we find out all these details- like his current wife was once married to or dating his brother but the show suggests they were having an affair while he was with the fiancé and she was with the brother. In the present they complicate the story by having him disappear every time he goes into the past. This leads to an intervention on the show and so we get hints that maybe he had a drug problem in the past. All this stuff weighs the show down because you just want him to get on with the time traveling, or with anything other than wallowing, really. Further complicating the show is the fact that it’s painted itself into a corner with its central love triangle. This guy lost his great love and now he’s found out that she may be alive and travelling through time with him. He also has opportunities to be with her in the past. At the same time they show him as a devoted family man who will do just about anything to save his marriage. It’s pretty much a no-win they have set up there. There’s a scene towards the end where he finally proves to his wife that he can travel through time by using their wedding ring and their garden that’s actually lovely and works very well on the female demos. One scene isn’t nearly enough to recommend this, though.

Verdict: Journeyman has a fantastic spot right after Heroes. With that comes the responsibility of retaining the lead-in’s viewers. I don’t see enough people sticking around to watch this. I think NBC will keep this for at least a season, but it will lose its time slot.

Would I Watch It? No; but I think it’s cool if it connects with other people.