What Did I Watch Today: Baldwins and Horses and Bears, oh Sigh

Saturday Night Live s37e01 – hm


This and the All My Children sketch were funny I guess.

Annually, I go through the same debate: should I watch SNL this year? I usually make it about halfway through the season before giving up (last season the Dana Carvey episode was just too painful (he used to be so good!)), but when fall rolls around, I trick myself using the same warped optimism: Maybe it'll be good this year! (It isn't.)

This year is so far not proving my hopefulness wise, with a season premiere full of long, mediocre sketches and lots of pee jokes. Fortunately, there was only one recurring sketch (that I know of) -- Top Gun's 25th anniversary DVD release, in no way as funny (or unexpected) as its Back to the Future counterpart -- and host Alec Baldwin's performance was thankfully a few pegs above phoning it in, with only a few cue-card goofs. Weirdly, most of the roles alongside Baldwin were being filled in by featured players, and there were minimal sketches with the main cast; hopefully they've taken the week to channel their comedic talents into something more deserving.


2 Broke Girls s01e02 ("And the Break-Up Scene") – bleh


This is the only picture CBS had on their website... and I'm not doing a rewatch for screencaps.

Ugh. More racist caricatures at the diner; more over-the-top hipster patrons; more cartoony characterizations. The cupcake store plot at last seems to be vaguely going somewhere, which gives it some seasonal-arc points above a lot of sitcoms, but the snarky "quips" got to be way too much for me:
-"I'm afraid I'm going to be late... every month."
-"If I were going to be a lesbian, she's the last les I'd be in."
-"What are you, the relationship ghost?"
-"I wasn't crying... I was masturbating."
Every conversation an abuse of wordplay... this is the type of "crass comedy" that takes any humour out of profanity (like The Whitest Kids U'Know) by having straight up lewdness stand in for innuendo, which will just never be as funny. Also: constant reminders that they're keeping a horse in Brooklyn ("I forgot again that we have a horse.") -- a horse that creates a lot of bodily waste that a person could slip in. And does. This is the last episode for me.


Ballykissangel s04e05 ("The Odd Couple") - blergh


If only they were in this episode...

Oh, the requisite "wild animal" episode. I was hoping Ballyk was above that stock sitcom plot, but it's become a different sort of program after its two protagonists departed at the end of the third series. I mean, it's traded in its agnosticism for mysticism -- I would put hardly anything past it at this point, but at least the animal in question wasn't a monkey.

So basically, by some unclear means, Donal acquires an ex-circus bear named Susie. Liam (who's feeling neglected and lonely, drinking pints by himself at Fitzgerald's) convinces Donal to participate in some sort of scheme to get money out of Quigley -- which involves scaring poor, innocent Eamon, and making it appear as though Susie is threat enough for Quigley to pay them to capture her. Blah blah blah, also Brendon wants to be more of a father to his daughter, but Siobhan is being kind of a bitch... Kevin hangs out with Sean Dillon in a thankfully non-creepy capacity, until his dad gets mad... Fathers, and babies, and bears, oh geeze.

A weak, unengaging episode, brightened only by opportunity to finally see the inside of Donal and Eamon's houses. This expansion in sets, the fancy camerawork, and the new score are indicative of a higher budget this series -- but you're too late! Your money won't save this show now that its thematic heart has been ripped out! It's bleeding all over the place! Go call Doctor Ryan!

Clearly, I wasn't impressed by this episode. But at least Colin Farrell didn't make an appearance, or his budding teen romance. Which, in retrospect, makes it easier to "bear" this episode's plot.

-Guessing the identity of the "Odd Couple" before the start of the episode: "Sean Dillan and his daughter?" "Ewww." "No, not like that! I meant 'odd couple' like the teevee show!"

What Did I Watch Today: Quick Thoughts on Fall Premieres and Pilot Season

I watch a lot of television. For the past year and a half, I've been jotting down my immediate opinions about each episode I watch in a word document — as I work my lazy way up to writing actual formal reviews, I'll be posting those quick thoughts here.

How I Met Your Mother s07e01 ("The Best Man") – hm
I mean, of course it will take some time to get into this season, and at least it's good, I guess, that they're at least vaguely going somewhere with the plot (revealing that it's Barney's wedding, and we know Ted meets the Mother at the wedding), but... this really just wasn't a very funny episode; it was a clever-ish device to remind us of Ted's past accomplishments and failures via a montage of "Schmosby" wedding toasts, but that was a bit of an irritating retcon, making it seem as though Ted keeps in contact with all of these high school friends, when before it seemed Punchy was the only one he ever talked to (and due to Punchy's motivation) – makes Ted seem a bit more a commodity than he actually is, this lonely guy with four friends; the plot about Marshall ruining the wedding was just a bit irritating in its fakes and red-herrings, and the final reason (because he drunkenly told about Lily being pregnant, and everyone mistook him taking about the bride, which led to a fathers-in-law fight) was not really enough to make that plot seem worthwhile; Robin still liking Barney is very dragged out, and it was actually rather nice that he had called Norah, and his excitement at talking to her... that dance scene, though? ummmm, sure, I guess it must have been fun to choreograph, but I have no idea whether it was supposed to be a dream sequence of Robin's, and the cinematography was very mockumentary (I would've preferred something even more stylized than usual, as opposed to something that distressingly reminiscent of Dancer in the Dark) and that break of the fourth wall — was this an allusion to something? ; the Lily/Marshall baby bit was good for reminding us of their pregnancy, and at least there were no mushy speeches between them; the cutaways (really only Robin's "truth-voice") was not really funny enough, though chuckle-worthy, I suppose.

How I Met Your Mother s07e02 ("The Naked Truth") – okay
Lolz at Victoria (I did like the music cue) – I totes predicted her coming back!; I did enjoy McPoyle, though his tag being a surgeon was a little racy, as was the "no, the snake is your penis" joke (none of those double-entendres were really all that funny; Martin Short all campy here is such a contrast to his surprisingly toned-down lawyer on Weeds); Ted "choosing between two girls" was a non-conflict that got him back to where he was in, literally, square — or, rather, season — one (wanting to fall in love) (and Victoria is another step backwards; she's obv not going to be the mom; are they yearning for the time when she was on that show? (or the quality of the show at that time? trying to ameliorate any uncertainties we have about the past few seasons with this association?)); Barney at the diner with Norah was cute, I guess; Robin and Lily did not really do anything but cheer Ted and Marshall on; what were they all doing at that diner, anyway? what is this, a sitcom?

2 Broke Girls pilot – hm
It is hard for me to like anything with a laugh track, but some of the one-liners here were undoubtedly snappy (though that old man cashier seemed to have a lot of trouble delivering them, and there is a line between just crass and funny), and Kat Dennings (I love that she has an actually realistic body type) made a likeable, crotchety broke waitress; cliché cliché the plot seems to be (and there wasn't much here), and the sitcom sets are so stifling and fake, but even the former-rich new coworker was not as irritating as she should have been; the sickly sweet ending was a bit too much (and that horse??), but I liked the introduction of an actual goal for this series (for them to make $250,000) — one that leaves room for each episode to be its own individual sitcom plot, but with an overarching focus to the series (sort of like the premise of My Name is Earl, which ended up having a most surprising amount of continuity — is it foolish to hope for something similar here?) (and will this new coworker steal that money once they earn it? is she trustworthy? who knows); the jokes were often a little too pop culture and so will likely not age well (hipters, Jersey Shore, ponzi schemes, Branjelina, twitter), especially in that nannying scene; but nevertheless, I did, for reasons I don't even know, find myself wanting to watch more... I'll give it at least one more episode.

Weeds s07e12 ("Qualitative Spatial Reasoning") – good
I didn't think it would work, but I did end up liking the split-screening, especially the last scene, how even though he was not in the middle frame or really the focus of the episode, it ended up being about Silas, and how he, now being the moral epicenter (I guess), has realized he has done the wrong thing in ratting out this mother; it's nice that they're bringing it back to Stevie and seemingly finally finally finally having Nancy's shit called on her jesus christ how long has this taken; with the funeral inspiring Andy to break away from either side of this conflict (if this ends up having any impact on the show), then this season may have actually been building to something after all; "...all of that was subsumed by the momentum created by finally putting at least some of the pieces together" (Myles McNutt))