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:

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.