Shows That You Should Be Watching But You're Not

Why do good shows get bad ratings?  The answer to that is some long winded combination of poor promotion, bad time slots, and the dwindling of our society’s attention span.  Instead of delving into to that topic which has been explored hundreds of times, I thought we should take a look at some great shows that the Nielsen Ratings say that you are not watching.

Parenthood- NBC-   This family drama has an ensemble cast whose resume could go on for miles.  The stand out star has easily been Peter Krause.  Krause was very good in the short lived Dirty Sexy Money but he really gives Emmy caliber work here.  As a father dealing with a rebellious teenage daughter and a younger son with Autism, we as the audience are able to feel every emotion along with Krause and that’s really all you can ask for from a lead actor.  The real surprise of the series is the acting of Dax Shepard.  He has been strictly a comedic actor before this and while I did really enjoy his work in Idiocracy and Lets Go To Prison, I was very skeptical of him being cast in a drama alongside so many other strong actors.  He has been fantastic as the playboy turned responsible father and is getting to a point where he may need to be recognized come awards season

Lights Out -FX- FX just keeps churning out fantastic drama’s that no one is watching.  I feel like boxing translates so well to the TV and movies and this show is no exception.  The show is about much more then boxing though.  It is about family relationships and the hardship that a man has to go through to achieve the lifestyle he desires for his family to have.  While I would not say this is on the same level as Terriers was, Light Out is better than most things on television right now and it looks to be in danger of falling in to the “one and done” category.

Chuck -NBC- It is amazing to me how the audience for this show has not grown.  It is a show that really has something for everyone.  It is funny, dramatic, action packed and even includes romance in to most of its storylines.  Every actor on the show turns in a superb performance and I venture to say the Chuck uses its guest stars better than any other show.  Chevy Chase as an evil Bill Gates figure and Timothy Dalton as a notorious James Bond like boss can both attest to that.  The show has pretty much had 4 series finales because they know they are endangered of being cancelled at any moment, and every one of them has been virtually perfectly done

The Life and Times of Tim -HBO- I cheated a little on this one because it has not come back on the air yet for its third season.  The first 2 seasons of this show were absolutely hilarious.  The animated show boasts some great comedic talent and also gets fantastic guest actors.  The ratings for the show were so dismal that it actually got cancelled after season 2 but after a few months HBO decided to bring it back.  Do yourself a favor and check it out

Are there any low rated shows that you love?  Let me know in the comments.

My Thoughts on Greek "Subclass Plagiostomi"

(At the request of Jeff Lessman, I used a spoiler free image)

"Every decision has consequences"

A funny thing happened during the first half of this episode of Greek.  I found myself bored enough to have to check my emails and do other stuff on the computer during the episode.  As uneven as this season has been, the episodes have at least been able to hold my full attention.  None of the stories were working for me and it just didn’t feel like Greek to me.

And then another funny thing happened. The last 20 minutes were able to redeem most of the season and provide one of my favorite moments of the shows history.

As per usual, let’s get the stuff I didn’t like out of the way.  The thing I disliked the most was easily the Ashleigh storyline.  I completely understand and support the idea that she could not end the show with Simon.  It’s a character we just met and would be completely non-sensical.  However the whole plot of him buying her things and giving her money just seemed so unlike this show.  Aside from the inferred prostitution of the whole story, it just didn’t make much sense.  Ashleigh is a very strong person and I think that, even at the mention of Simon trying to “buy” her, she would have headed for the hills.  I also did not enjoy the whole lead up to the trial.  Even though it ended up just being a coy trick on Evans part, his whole “it should be us” speech felt really flat and forced.  It came out of nowhere, with absolutely no build up, so the pay off at the end when we find out that it was all a ruse fell short.  In addition, it was foolish of them to suggest there was any chance Casey would even think about Evan over Cappie.  One week after writing that relationship so well, they try to make us think that a confession Evan made on a whim could actually cause Casey to rethink her situation?  And what the heck was the point of Cappie’s story this week?  There was an aspect of it that I liked which I will discuss later, but for most of his story it just kind of seemed like he was in a different show then everybody else.

Now for the moment that may have redeemed this season.  Nothing brought me more joy then seeing Calvin and Rusty come to Dale’s aid at the pledge talent show.  While Greek on its core is a show about the Greek system and college life in general, on a greater scale it is about the friendships that a person makes at a turning point in their life.  The heart of the show is about Casey and Ashleigh, Rusty, Dale and Calvin, and Rusty and Cappie.  Even what Evan and Cappie used to be and what they have become.  These are the few people who are by each other’s side when the real ascent into adulthood begins.  Not only did Rusty and Calvin come to Dale’s aid when he needed it the most, they risked school wide embarrassment just so a friend, who had previously doubted there intentions from the start, would not be alone in his shame.  The other really redeeming aspect of the episode was Casey finally sticking it to Evan.  Evan, while once a decent guy, has lost every shred of that and seeing him put in his place by team Legally Blonde rather enjoyable

SOME OTHER THOUGHTS:

Despite not liking Cappie’s storyline, I did really enjoy the scenes with him and Ashleigh together

Been a while but it’s the triumphant return of the “I Hate Trip Meter” No doubt about it, it’s a 10 out of 10 this week

We get another triumphant return and that is the return of Bitch Rebecca Logan!  She is a much better character when she has a chip on her shoulder.

Is this the last we have seen of Simon?  If so I would say they really underutilized a great guest star.

So we have two episodes left.  Hopefully the last 2 hours can build on the great last 20 minutes of this episode.  As for the episode as a whole, I give it a 7 out 10.

Checking in on American Idol

A little disclaimer before we jump right in.  I have not been on the Idol train from the beginning.  In fact up until 3 years ago I had maybe seen 3 episodes of the show total.  My first full season watching was the one in which David Cook won.  I began watching because of my girlfriend at the time.  That girl has since moved on, but I do still watch the show.  In part because I truly enjoy watching talented people perform.  I’d be lying though if I didn’t say that a part of why I watch the show is the train wreck potential.  Whether it be from the contestants or from years past, judges like Paula Abdul and Ellen.  There is something intrinsically entertaining in watching a person completely make a fool of themselves in front of 25 million people.  Last year’s season was definitely weak on talent and fell into the train wreck category.  Lee Dewyze was one of the weaker winners in the shows history, and him beating a truly talented person in Chrystal Bowersox really accentuated that maybe the show was being too dominated by its teenage female fans.  Last year’s weak line up coupled with the complete overhaul of the judges really made me leery about Idol this season.  Would this juggernaut finally fall without Simon Cowell leading its charge?  I decided to watch the first few episodes before I wrote about it so I could give some good analysis.  Here’s what I came up with.

The first thing that needs to be addressed is how is this new judge’s panel handling things?  I really expected Steven Tyler to be an absolute wreck on this show.  Like Paula Abdul but so inappropriate that I couldn’t even enjoy the train wreck (Like I mentioned above) sort of way.  Not only has he been much mellower then I expected him to be, he has actually been fairly insightful and managed to be very critical when he has needed to be.  Sure he does have a crazy moment here and there, and the way he ogles 15 year old girls is enough to make everyone uncomfortable, but for the most part, I really think he has been pretty decent in his role as a judge.  Jennifer Lopez had some issues when she first started with telling people no.  I feel like she has quickly gotten over that and if anyone is going to be the “mean” person in this group, she seems like she could be the one to do it.  As a person who has had success on multiple levels, I really feel like she could be someone who can pick up on an “it” factor that a contestant may have.  Overall I’ve been pleased with her as well.  My main issue is with Randy Jackson.  I hate him. HATE HIM DAWG!  It would be bad enough if they just left him as he was in the previous seasons as the first judge to speak, but they put him in Simon’s seat.  That seat has come to represent not only the person who was going to be the most critical, but the person who was going to have the most insightful thing to say about the performance.  Outside of saying that something is pitchy, has Randy ever actually had any substance behind his criticisms?  I understand wanting to keep Randy on the show even though I was absolutely against it.  With 2 brand new judges and many changes to the format of the show, they wanted to establish at least some semblance of continuity.  I think this is established by keep Ryan Seacrest as the host, but if you are going to keep Randy, do not put him in that last seat

As important as the judges are to the show, by far the most important thing is finding a talented group of competitors.  You won’t find many people who actually thought last season has a good group of performers.  I personally think that outside of Chrystal, they all ranged from mediocre to terrible.  One of the things that Idol did to address this was lower the age limit from 16 to 15.  It seems like maybe it is working because so far the most impressed I have been was during the group performances when that group of all 15 year olds absolutely brought the house down.  As long as they can find 10 quality performers, the show should do fine.

Will American Idol ever be as strong as it once was?  That’s really tough to say.  From a judges perspective I really don’t think so.  But again, it all comes down to the talent pool.  Maybe the answer is taking a year off of the show so the talent pool can refill?  Only time will tell.  So far this season has been decent enough without really impressing me.  We will see if the show is able to improve or, if like last year, it will just leave us all Jaded. 

(See what I did there?  Jaded is an Aerosmith song! )

My Thoughts on Greek "Midnight Clear"

"Worst. Birthday. Ever."

One thing I have been harping on all season is that if Greek has not done one thing well throughout its run its introduce exterior characters that the audience cares enough about to stick around.  Because of this, an episode like Midnight Clear was inevitable.  It involved basically every person that we were introduced to in the pilot episode of the show, being forced to interact with one another because of a contrived snow storm.  I say contrived because from what it seems like the show runners somehow found an area of Ohio where it’s basically always 75 and sunny.  We have never seen the temperature drop to a point where a winter coat was needed let alone a 10 inch snowstorm.  But I can get over that.  What I can’t get over is how this was the 3rd to last episode of the show EVER, and there are some many storylines that just don’t work

Obviously all are main players being stuck together was going to bring up some drama.  It just seemed like so much of it was very forced or uncomfortable, and not in a good way.  I didn’t buy the severity of the Casey and Ashleigh fight at all.  These 2 have gotten over liking the same guy, lying to each other, and sneaking around each other.  So I am supposed to believe that they wouldn’t speak for weeks just because of a verbal spat?  We as fans love this friendship and it is one of the relationships that is at the core of the show, so it just was not believable to me that their fight was that severe.  Another thing that I have trouble believing in the chemistry between Rusty and Ashleigh.  It is nothing against either actor because I find them both very amusing most of the time, but every time they brought up feeling something between them all I could think of was I wish I could see it.  They act a lot more like brother and sister around each other then potential love interests.  The last thing that is not working for me at all is the Dale storyline.  When he was first set to pledge Omega Chi, I wrote that as forced as that storyline sounds and least it was bound to put Dale in some hilarious situations.  So far though we have barely seen Dale interact with the other Omega Chi’s and his whole pledgeship has felt really flat.  Seriously, all he said in this episode was “Omega Chi is better than Kappa Tau”

That’s not to say the episode was all bad.  The main thing I really liked in this episode was the Casey/Cappie dynamic.  Even though they just got back together last week, it would have been really tempting for there to be drama between them, because let’s face it, there was drama between all of them.  But in all of Casey’s worry about the “Law School Curse”, their relationship survived a tough test in a situation where you could cut the tension with the knife.  Another thing I enjoyed was our brief glimpses in to old, slimy, vindictive Evan.  I like that Evan as a character has grown a lot since sleeping with Rebecca in episode 1, but it was still a lot of fun to see him revert back to that, even threatening case that the “gloves were off in law school”

SOME OTHER THOUGHTS

It was good to see Rebecca find her backbone after missing it for much of this season.  The show works
best when Rebecca is a strong willed person, not arm candy for Mr. Chambers

Cappie and Evan kiss? I don’t know whether it was amusing or extremely disturbing

Along the lines of the weather, it seemed a little too convenient that Heath couldn’t even make and appearance at Calvin’s party but the whole gang could walk to Dobler’s.

I loved Josh Randall on Ed and actually think he does great here as law professor Simon, but can he be in the episode for more then 5 minutes?  Thanks!



So this was not the best episode. I give it a 6 out 10.  With 2 hours of the show left, i have faith that the writers can at least come to a satisfying conclusion.

My Thoughts on The Chicago Code "Pilot"

"They say Chicago is the city that works. What some people never understand is, it works in a lot of different ways."
　
Unless you live under a rock, you have seen something hyping up the debut of The Chicago Code on FOX. Since the day that FX made the sad announcement that Terriers was not going to get a 2^nd season pick up, I have been counting down the days for the new Shawn Ryan run TV show. The fact that it would be taking place in my home town was just icing on the cake. After seeing the pilot for the show this Monday, I was definitely rewarded for my patience. Now being from Chicago and also loving all of Ryan’s other shows may make me a little biased, but I thought it was one of the best pilots of this TV season.

The first thing that needs to be complemented is the use of Chicago as a back drop for the show. In movies and TV shows it has always seemed that Chicago is wasted on romantic comedies. I understand why, it is a gorgeous city with a rich history. It is also known as one of the most corrupt cities in country. It is about time that someone uses that and Shawn Ryan is the guy. The fact that it is shot on location in the windy city makes it that much better. It feels so real and gritty. One of the reasons why The Wire is the greatest cop show of all time is because of how they used Baltimore as a back drop and how real it made the rest of the show feel.

As far as performances go, there are a few really good ones to talk about her. The best has to be Delroy Lindo as the very shady Patrick Gibbons. Something about the way he is able to play slimy and venomous without doing anything outwardly wrong really struck a chord with me. Another performance I really enjoyed was that of Matt Lauria. I have really enjoyed his work on Friday Night Lights as country boy Luke, but that character is so different then a Chicago cop that I was very intrigued to see how he handled the role. The subtlety and breeziness that he is able to portray this young officer who is repeatedly shunned by his more experienced elder is very impressive.

Cop shows are usually not my thing. To me they all have the same formula. Mix 1 part cop with attitude, with 1 part sexy female love interest. Add in the case of the week ripped from the headlines of real life and you have a basic description for any procedural that is on TV. While there are aspects of TCC that seem formulaic, there is more then in enough there in terms of serialization that makes it worth everyone’s time. I give the pilot episode a 9 out of 10. Another strong outing for Shawn Ryan, Hopefully this beautiful expose on life and crime in the windy city does not just blow away.

My Quick Thoughts on How I Met Your Mother "Oh Honey"

How I Met Your Mother’s schedule has been really frustrating lately. It did however make me anticipate this new episode. With the death of Marshall’s dad pretty much in the rearview, the show is ready to establish its arc for the rest of the season. What we got in this episode was a return to form for HIMYM with only a couple minor plot disputes. This was easily one of the better episodes of the season.

With Marshall being stuck at home in Minnesota it brought a lot of opportunity for comedy. Telling a story in different points of views has become a staple of HIMYM and it always leads to some of the most successful episodes. The episode was written by the creators of the show so it was no surprise that this episode felt so true to what HIMYM is. None of the jokes really fell flat at all. Katy Perry, much like the musical guest starts before her, really felt like she could be part of the show. Her character was well written and got more then a couple laughs from me (“I’m going to be on LOST!”) Even the character of Zoey, who I previously found fairly unlikable, had me falling for her right around the time that she put 100 bottles of ketchup in Ted’s fridge.

Earlier this season I wrote a lot about how Ted’s relationships that are not with the “mother” have seemed kind of exhausting the last couple of seasons. We know very well that Zoey is not the mother, so I am not so sure about how I feel about putting the two of them together. The only other extended relationship that Ted has had with someone we knew was not the mother was Robin, and the show worked fairly well then, so there is a reason to be optimistic. However, the last couple seasons of HIMYM have not been on the same level as the first few, mostly because a lot of times they seem to lack focus. Here’s hoping that by focusing on Barney’s quest for his father and Lily and Marshall’s quest for a baby, they can still keep the same high level of focus on comedy as this episode was able to.

SOME OTHER THOUGHTS:

Marshall explaining things to his family by using characheter from CLUE was excellent

Neil Patrick Harris can take the smallest things and turn them into laugh out loud moments. Loved his impression of his bed squeaking, complete with increase in pace

I mentioned the successful use of Katy Perry. She joins Brittany Spears, Carrie Underwood, Mandy Moore, and Enrique Iglesias on the list of well used musicians on this show

Great cameo by the Intervention banner!
　
Very funny episode for HIMYM and hopefully it puts the show on a strong path for the rest of the season. I give it a 9 out 10. Hertz Donut?

My Thoughts on Greek "Fumble"

“Right now, just let go and enjoy this. I got you”

I was not available to review Greek last week. I think it actually may have been for the better. The first time I watched it last week, I fell asleep. The episode did not get much better on second viewing. This weeks outing, while still very uneven, was definitely a step up. I still have a lot of issues with the lack of urgency the show seems to be showing but at least the comedy was there this week and we had some storyline advancement to go with it.

Piecing together a drunk night the next morning is a staple of TV shows (One Tree Hill did it just 2 weeks ago) . So in order to stand out, a TV show has to either do something very different with it or do it very funny. While this was not over the top funny I did appreciate them doing something a little different. It would have been predictable to have Cappie be the one who needed to piece together a drunken evening, so having Rusty be the victim of the mind erasing hangover was a unique take on it. I am glad that they acknowledged that Rusty could sometimes be a crappy friend to Calvin. It is something I had been thinking for a couple seasons now, especially when Rusty gets on one of his obsessive missions that we all know to well now. My one major problem with the episode came in the payoff to the hangover angle. I don’t have an issue with the fact that it was Ashleigh that he ended up making out with. My issue was with the fact that COMPLETELY RUINED THE SURPRISE! Since the first commercial for this “last semester” of Greek, they have hit us over the head with the image of Rusty and Ashleigh kissing. So when I saw that one of the main questions in this episode was who did Rusty make out with, I knew right away who it was going to be. I would have appreciated this storyline of the episode more, had the surprised not been ruined by ABC Family.

Meanwhile, the Casey and Cappie aspect of the episode finally worked for me. Sure, Cappie’s growth has seemed a bit rushed, but with such a short season, some things are going to have to be rushed. And it was all worth it for the heartwarming ending. This is the Cappie that we have been rooting for the whole time this show was on, but with a twist. This is not just the charming screw up. He is ready to move on. While in the past it seemed like he wanted to win the girl at that time, now he wants to end up with the girl. The subtlety of “CappieLand” really helped illustrate that. As for the possible pregnancy angle, I was very worried that it would turn into ABC Family being preachy. I was pleasantly surprised that they just let the angle play out and actually thought it was a rather bold choice to show their main character taking a morning after pill on camera.
　
SOME OTHER THOUGHTS:

We really are not getting a lot of Rebecca this season. That being said, her one piece of advice to Ashleigh really showed her growth as a character. Old Rebecca would want to make Casey miserable no matter what

Speaking of One Tree Hill, I loved the little girls line to Cappie: “ Save it, I get my drama from One Tree Hill”

Good to see Beaver and Catherine still going strong. Those 2 make me smile

2 great Calvin lines: “What's with the eyewear, Snookie?” and “It's like going to the mall with Justin Bieber.”
　
While this episode was not perfect, it was a huge step up from last week. I give it a 7 out 10. The Semester is almost over!