Tellyman 10.1

You killed Jim Halpert

At the start of this, it wasn’t necessarily my intention to do this as an ongoing series under the heading of “Tellyman,” but it would seem to have stuck. I was going to change up titles on a post-by-post basis, but since Ed also came up with “Tele Mundo,” and I got nothing else, I’m going to stick with “Tellyman.” I’ll adjust to use my month-dot-week nomenclature like “Fanboy Fodder” since during repeats, I may not post. I do find it odd that we both thought up the same name though. Spooky…

Week three of the new television season is complete and three shows made their way into my schedule. Kidnapped made its exit due to cancellation, or at least the news that it would not continue past its original 13 episode order. I wasn’t sure it would last, so the news wasn’t much a surprise. I’m not going to finish it out because I already have too much to watch as it is.

That said, I’ll also take a page out of Ed’s book and not talk about every show in depth, but I’ll at least mention each one, even if to just say I liked it or didn’t. I think I am also going to try my hand at writing a focus piece on one show, so since Ed has already taken up the Lost and 24 mantles, I’ll go with Heroes.

The week started off with How I Met Your Mother and it featured Ted’s parents coming to town. Barney and Robin fought over their affections. Seeing Mr. Keaton — of Family Ties fame — as a wingman comparable to Barney was another bit of genius this show seems to find on a weekly basis. Other than that though, not a great episode. It would seem that Ted and Robin are headed for splitsville.

JPo and Ed railed against Studio 60 in the comments of last week’s Tellyman post and I can’t say I disagree with a lot of what they say. I will continue to watch the show because I do enjoy the performances being put in by most of the cast and I do find the writing, especially the dialogue, to be be entertaining. As I said before, Sorkin be damned!

Tuesday brought us the Veronica Mars season premiere and they basically set up the cast the two main storylines for this season. It would seem the shaved head rapist is still on the loose from last season, so I expect that to be one they’ll follow. The other involves Keith Mars transporting a Fitzpatrick brother from get-of-jail to meet up with Kendall Casablancas (the still hot Charisma Carpenter) only to apparently kill her once Keith leaves the room. I wasn’t really following this story that well, so hopefully it will flesh out better next week. It would seem that Wallace’s roommate Piz has a little crush on Veronica, so we’ll see if Logan is still her boyfriend in a few weeks. I did enjoy the story with finding Piz’s stuff. Love the show, but a bit put off by the giggling teenie-boppers in some AE commercialette for the “Girl’s Night” block. I’m sticking with my King and Whedon guns, which simply means I’m a dork like them.

Ed posted a good write-up about Friday Night Lights in his first Tele Mundo post, so I’ll simply agree. Honestly, I was a little confused with myself for wanting to watch the show in the first place, but it would seem it was a good choice. I guess I don’t want to fall into some kind of pattern where I am watching teenager targeted shows as a thirtysomething. While I wish I were a younger man, I definitely don’t want to be that young!

I had to force myself to watch Jericho this week, so that’s not a good sign, but I wanted to see more about what kind of devastation there was and they were supposed to see it on TV and also travel out of town for info. I have found a lot of what they are pushing to be very unbelievable given the circumstances and the finding of the food train at the end may just push that over the edge. Just how lucky can these folks get? I may not watch this week and I feel like if I can’t wait to watch a show, then maybe I shouldn’t be watching it. We’ll see.

I’ll also wait until Ed posts about Lost on The Ed Zone to really comment, but it was a good premiere. I don’t know that it was quite as great as screaming from the rooftops critics did, but whatever. “Ah, you got yourself a fish biscuit. It only took the bears two hours.” I guess we know where that polar bear came from now… UPDATE: I posted my comments on his post.

I’m not blown away by The Nine after its series premiere. A strong cast to be sure, but I don’t know that I’m really going to care what happened in there. The bank manager’s daughter showing up to visit one of the bank robbers, we’ll call him the nice one, in prison at the end of the episode was creepy in dirty molestation vibe kinda way. A f’ed up would-be child predator executing Amish school children this week might have something to do with that. I’ll give it five episodes, but it better hook me fast. The prime Lost lead-in isn’t going to be enough.

Episode two of Smallville has Green Arrow in the house! It will be interesting to see Ollie Queen v. Lex Luthor since they should be equals on the bidniz front. Lana and Lex make me puke in my mouth a little bit, but then again, that’s the teenage girl in me talking. I like the take on Lois Lane starting off as a piss-poor rag journalist before she finds her way on to the Pulitzer Prize path. I appreciate the gratuitous spandex running outfit shots of Erica Durance as Lois though, so that’s gotta be the middle aged guy in me talking.

My Name is Earl was probably on par with the previous week. Overall, the only laughs so far this year are going to Joy and Randy and it is just not enough to have me thinking as highly of the show as I did last year. Judy Greer’s turn as a bearded lady was funny though. I have to wonder if they are trying too hard this year. I’m a little shocked that Ed has removed this from his “must-see” appointment viewing list. I’m not quite there yet.

That leaves us with The Office to wrap this week up. Just a great episode and it made up for the previous one, which I thought was better after I watched it a second time in an effort to make this for Ed. Anyway, I thought Dwight was brilliant and Michael certainly makes himself out to be smarter than we give him credit for in trapping Dwight in his infidelity. Carell’s play of Michael as some kind of accident shock victim while questioning Dwight upon his return from the Dentist was great. The other side of the story involving Jim in the Stamford branch playing Call of Duty 2 with his office mates was classic. I like the hints of a burgeoning romance between Jim and Karen. Her killing of him in CoD2 was classic schoolboy and schoolgirl stuff and their hand grenade pantomime as he left for the night was well played.

Stealing another page from Ed’s book, here are some of my favorite quotes from this week:

Michael: Business is like a jungle and I am like a tiger and Dwight is like a monkey that stabs the tiger in the back with a stick.
Does the tiger fire the monkey?
Does the tiger transfer the monkey to another branch?
[Grins at camera] Pun.
There is no way of knowing what goes on inside the tiger’s head.
We don’t have the technology.

[Shot of Jim’s soldier jumping up and down in a corner]
Karen: Look how cute he is. He’s trying to shoot with a smoke grenade.
Jim: I’m sorry, what are you whispering?
Karen: Oh, nothing. You just concentrate on turning around.
Jim: I’m trying, it’s just…
Karen: Just tap “S” then “D”
Jim: Oh
Karen: Any last words? No?
Jim: Whuh?
[Shoots Jim’s soldier point blank in the face and screen shows “You killed Jim Halpert”]
Karen: [Giggles]
Jim: Wow. Psycho… path.

[Creed steps up to Pam’s desk]
Pam: What?
Creed: I’m just looking.
Pam: Please go back to your desk.
Creed: In a minute.

Finally, here’s my updated schedule:

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