Tellyman: Week One

Dwight Schrute bobbleheadFor most of us, this week kicked off the first week of the new television season. Sorry, I don’t watch any of the crap on FOX, although that will change when 24 starts up until they kill off Eddie.

Oops, check that… I have watched the first two episodes of ‘Til Death. The giant from Ray doesn’t nothing for me, but I was interested to see what Eddie Kaye Thomas would do on the show and that Kat Foster, who plays his wife, is a little cutie. Thomas is playing it too straight as an assistant principal at the school in which the giant next door neighbor teaches. Of course, the show sucks much ass and I wasted 44 minutes — thank you Media Center — of my life. I knew it would, but I had to make sure. I’m still bitter that Off Centre was cancelled over on UPN, but whatever.

So, I was right the first time, I don’t watch any of the crap on FOX. This week I took in two new shows (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Jericho) and three returning shows (How I Met Your Mother, My Name is Earl, The Office). I suppose before I get to those though, I should layout what I think this year’s schedule is going to be for me:

  • Monday: Mother, Heroes, Studio 60
  • Tuesday: Veronica Mars, Friday Night Lights (tryout)
  • Wednesday: Lost, The Nine (tryout), Jericho (tryout)
  • Thursday: Earl, Office, Smallville, Six Degrees (tryout)
  • Friday: Las Vegas
  • Saturday: nothing
  • Sunday: nothing

Of course, weekends could be spent catching up on all the episodes of Scrubs being recorded in syndication during the week, but more likely watching Football and stuff that catches my eye on TLC, Discovery or History channels.

So, the week started off with How I Met Your Mother and I am happy to say this show is still awesome in its awesomeness. If you don’t get that, then you haven’t watched to see Doogie Howser as Barney. You should do this because even though Lily is still Willow, the rest of the cast is great and the writing is usually very clever and funny. We start the year with the tables turned and Marshall is single and Ted has hooked up with Robin, but Barney is still Barney.

As pilots go, Studio 60 was pretty strong. I think Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford and Amanda Peet are going to put in strong performances and it was evident here. Interesting that Peet and Sarah Paulson find themselves together again on a show as they both appeared on Jack & Jill with Earl‘s Jaime Pressley. I am not a Aaron Sorkin fan, but given that this story appears to be rooted in his, and other’s, real lives, I’m interested to see how it goes. As I said, the pilot was strong, so to me, that is usually a good sign as most pilots suck.

I’m not sure why, but I’m interested to see what Jericho is going to go like. This one does fall into the usual pilot trend of, well, you know. Put it this way, the strongest performance goes to Ashley Scott for just looking good. I don’t know that I am buying the everybody-wake-up-and-be-friends-in-crisis thing they got going on. Yeah, it is Kansas and the hayseeds have Bible thumping good values, but c’mon, looks like the country is getting nuked but good and in every flick I’ve ever seen with that in the backdrop leads to chaos. Hmm, so maybe they are bucking the trend. I’m not sure the show is going to last, but EW did say the first couple eps were weak, but they also have it as a “Pick.” I’m going with it for now because of The Day After nostalgia.

As for the other three that dropped last night, I have a little e-mail conversation I had with Ed today to document them:

Sean:

I missed [Six Degrees] last night. Didn’t realize it was on. Did you? Was it any good?

Earl was disappointing. Joy had some funny lines, but other than that, not a great one.

The Office was great. I felt so very uncomfortable most of the time, but I was laughing my @ss off.

Ed:

It’s funny – this is like the exact same conversation and consensus Joe and I had earlier. (except the Six Degrees part.)

Regarding Six Degrees, I knew it was on but decided to bag out after I read a post that plucked excerpts from a number of national publications and reviews. Bad reviews all around for the first 4 eps. JJ Abrahms doesn’t have much involvement in the show – it’s just Exec Produced by him and under the Bad Robot umbrella. Other than that – he doesn’t write, direct or do much on it. Anyway – they said it is pretty cliched and boring. So I skipped it and most likely won’t make an attempt to watch.

Agreed on Earl. I thought it started well enough – if anything it was nice to see old friends again – but the plot was lacking. You know what the major problem is? The show’s is infinitely as good as the amount of quality Randy time we get – and he was largely absent. It just felt like a ho-hum mediocre episode – which was magnified by the fact that it was the Season Premiere. I’m interested to see if they follow Joy in prison though. That could be great!!!

The Office – on the other hand – didn’t skip a beat. I actually feared (and still do) that Michael would be fired and he was just out-of-control. Some of my highlights:

  • Creed saying that ‘a guy or two could have slipped in there.”
  • Stanley all p!ssed ’cause now he has two toasters.
  • Kevin’s school girl giggling.
  • Dwight perusing the Internet for questionable material and Michael trying to talk about its artistic merits.
  • Roy’s mugshot.
  • Michael’s advances on Oscar… followed by Dwight joining in.
  • Dwight trying to defend the honor of his lady when Oscar pushed her.
  • Meredith licking hand sanitizer for the alcohol (it’s all those little side things that get me)

And the piece de resistance – the repeat of the Jello gag – only Jim encountering a much more psychotic reaction to it. The look of fear on his face was priceless. Poor Big Tuna.

Sean:

Yes, all those moments were great…I’m just too lazy to write them out. I’d also add the GADAR showing up and their call to Jim about it. His new coworker doing the camera face was funny. Pam constantly looking at Ryan as if he were Jim. I’m sure I can go on and on and on, but that just proves how spot-on they are with this stuff. I wanted Michael fired. He’s done bad stuff before, and you know that if this were a real office he would have been long gone prior to this, but this was the piece de resistance.

Randy had some good moments. Putting the guy in the driver’s seat. His “leaving a note” talk with Earl. Sucking regular balloon air but doing a helium voice. I think the main problem with the ep was the list item he was doing was lame. “Never took Joy’s side?” Please. Joy’s lines about “Robin Hood, Batman and Jesus” and “he Ferris Buellered me” were my faves.

Ed:

I also enjoyed Dwight’s sly smirk when Michael put those thoughts in his head of Angela and another woman.

Ed:

Earl featured this classic Crab-Man quote: “That’s how the Federline’s roll.”

Sean:

And Joy saying they were “American Royalty” or “America’s Royalty”… 🙂

Lastly, that ad by Yahoo! with the airbag recalls had me laughing my ass off. The first one was funny, but when two other people get shot out at the end, that seals the deal. If all ads were like that, I wouldn’t be skipping commercials when I watch via Media Center. The thing with watching in HD though is I can’t record in HD via Media Center yet. I don’t have an HD tuner for my computer right now and I’m not sure when I’ll get one because for right now, it doesn’t support more than one or recording via Comcast as it is over-the-air only. This is probably changing with Windows Vista which will also support CableCard, so I’ll likely wait until that hardware is available.

Anyway, do yourself a favor and check out Heroes on Monday. I’m thinking that will be one of the new shows that sticks this year, but then again, I am a fanboy.