Fall TV Thoughts - 2013

It is that time of year. We are, in some cases, almost a quarter of the way (or more) through the season run of TV shows for this year. As is the usual case in our family, we have purchased Season Passes for some shows and checked out the free pilots for still others. Below is a brief summary of my thoughts on the shows we have sampled so far.

The Big Bang Theory - If you checked out my Fall TV post from last year, you are aware that we have been watching BBT for several years and last season we started to see a drop off in our enjoyment of the show. Sad to say that is continuing into this year. The lack of character development for Sheldon - at times he is infuriatingly mean to other characters (and doesn't need to be). The flip-flopping for Raj - sometimes sensitive and then sometimes a jerk and then a complete disaster in front of women. They might as well just have Raj and Stuart start dating as at least that would be funny. Amy's character just continues to be the long-suffering girlfriend who has to roll her eyes at Sheldon. What can be done to raise the bar for this show is more episodes like The Romance Resonance, which was clever and sweet. They should also mine more geeky tropes like in the The Raiders Minimization (albeit without the subsequent lame response from Sheldon). Is the show bad, no. Is it as good as it has been, no. Worth watching, but not nearly as must see as it has been in the past - 3.5 Mick Happies.

Elementary - The show continues to mine the Sherlock mythology and provide insightful mysteries for the duo of Holmes and Watson to solve. If you have liked the show's first season, there really is nothing to keep you from liking the second season. The one concern I have is that the show seems to be modeling some of the episodes off of headlines from the news. While this has worked in the past for shows like Law & Order, it takes me right out of the story with Elementary. This is probably due to the mysteries seeming so unique in season one. We'll have to see if this is a trend of just a couple one-off episodes. - 4 Mick Happies.

Grimm - Coming off a big cliff-hanger from the end of season 2, Grimm could have gone seriously wrong with the start of season 3. Happy to say that the show runners quickly resolve the main story line from the end of last year. There are some long-term concerns that Nick and crew need to deal with and the writers probably need to stop trying to find relationship tension for Nick and Juliette, but overall the show is still fun and action-packed - 4 Mick Happies.

The Goldbergs - A 1980s-based sitcom covering the real-life antics of show runner Adam F. Goldberg's family. I made it through 2 episodes before deciding to not buy the complete season pass for this show. The nostalgia is there and it is funny, but not funny enough to sway me to vote with my dollars to watch the full season as it airs. What you get here is big hair, leg warmers, bright clothes, the start of rap hitting mainstream, teen angst, family bonding, etc. All the hallmarks of a family sitcom from the 80s. Oh, did I mention the roller rink? Look it up, think indoor skate park without the jumps (and most of the bruises). - 3 Mick Happies

Last Man Standing - Over the summer, we took advantage of Netflix to start watching the first two seasons of the Tim Allen, Nancy Travis starred family sitcom. Tim Allen plays Mike Baxter, the marketing head for an outdoor sports equipment chain. He handles work and his family consisting of wife and 3 daughters. The show also stars Hector Elizondo as Mike's boss and one of the standouts is Christoph Sanders as Kyle, a nicer than smart employee at the sports store who dates one of Mike's daughters. It is fun and easy to get into type of show. If you liked Home Improvement, there are shades of that here but doesn't feel like a re-hash. Note that there was a casting change in the oldest daughter between seasons one and two, but you will get past that quickly. Catch up on Netflix and then dive into season 3. Fun - 4 Mick Happies.

Super Clyde - This is the failed pilot from Gregory Garcia (Raising Hope, My Name is Earl) starring Rupert Grint (Harry Potter) and Stephen Fry. The show is about Clyde, who inherits a lot of money from an eccentric family member. Eventually he finds out what his (I think) uncle was doing, dropping wallets of money and helping those who returned the wallet. Clyde, with the help of his butler (played by Fry) becomes a super hero of sorts when he takes up where his uncle left off. This seems to follow in the same vein as My Name is Earl, helping people who need it on a weekly basis or at least it would have if picked up. You can probably find the pilot online and it is worth a view if just to see Rupert Grint in a part other than Ron Weasley. - 3.5 Mick Happies.

Almost Human - I have been waiting for this show since I heard about it. Karl Urban as an acerbic cop in a crime-riddled future who has to work with a android partner? Sign me up. Urban is partnered with an outdated android model that is programmed with empathy and feelings named Dorian (Michael Ealy). The show has action, funny dialogue and will have you wondering who is more human, the driven cop with regrets and bad interpersonal skills or his sympathetic android partner. Two episodes in and I can't wait for number 3. - 4.5 Mick Happies.

Those are the shows we are watching so far this season. Can't wait for Lost Girl to start up again and I did get to see the 50th anniversary episode of Dr. Who, but the ones above are where I have spent most of my TV show viewing time. Hope you enjoy one or more of them too.

2012-2013 TV Wrap-Up

Not too long after the 2012-2013 TV season started, I posted my thoughts on a few of the shows that my family was watching. Now at the end of the season, I thought I would revisit those thoughts with the benefit of the whole picture.

Those that didn't make it:
There were a few shows that we watched and the dropped over the course of the year. Those included Suburgatory, Revolution and regrettably Suits. Suburgatory was dropped after one episode due to the lack of funny story lines and the seemingly too-hard trying to be quirky. Revolution made it much farther, but after the long hiatus and weak story lines, I have dropped to reading synopses online and haven't bothered to see how it ended. I would have preferred not to know how the power went out and have the story lines about rebuilding civilization and dealing with the difficulties of living without power. Lastly is Suits, which came back for the second part of Season two just after the holidays and really lost the two against difficult cases vibe that had worked for the show throughout Season one. Just haven't been able to get through the last four or five episodes yet.

Those that won't be picked up for next year (by us):
When I say picked up, I mean buying a season pass on iTunes so that I can see the episodes the day after they air. This list includes shows like Hart of Dixie (wife and daughter were watching this one) and The Big Bang Theory (BBT). We have enjoyed BBT for years and own every season so far on DVD or digitally. This season saw many stale jokes and situations, short episode times and a major lack of character growth. Some of the characters are made too "bitchy", some never learn from their mistakes and others aren't allowed to have enough screen time eventhough they are most of what made this last season even partially watchable. The Penny character has become lame with her dealing with everything with either snide comments or drinking heavily. Sheldon on the other hand continues to be the most consistently funny character but the lack of growth until the very last few episodes was disappointing as well. Maybe we'll pick up the 2013 - 2014 season on DVD in Fall 2014.

Show that was okay, but has been cancelled:
Go On. They really should make that group session video on YouTube lamenting the show being cancelled that I tweeted about after the cancellation. I will miss John Cho's character the most of any on the show.

Shows we will be glad to see back next year:
This list is pretty small, but the main one here is Elementary. The show was good and the chemistry between the lead actors is as well. We (my wife and I watch this one) also liked that they didn't fall into the "must have a cliffhanger" finale trap and gave some resolution while there definitely being more stories to tell. Lost Girl also is in this category eventhough the ending did have a cliffhanger that really wasn't necessary. See the review for the season here.

Shows I am having to wait for, but will be watching when they hit DVD:
This list covers shows that either we caught the pilot episode but weren't able to get the others or we didn't want to get the season pass. Vikings from the History Channel, Game of Thrones season 3 (naturally), Orphan Black from the BBC and Supernatural. We have been hearing good things about all of these and were surprised by the resurgence of Supernatural since we gave up after the Leviathan story line had been so annoying. Be interesting to see if it as good as the "buzz" is saying. I am also looking forward to giving Defiance a try too.

Best show of the year: Elementary

Runner up: Lost Girl

Update: Honorable Mentions: Grimm and Continuum

That's it. The year over and a couple months to wait for shows to come back. Maybe I can get caught up on older shows I didn't get to when they aired like Fringe, Eureka, Warehouse 13, etc.

Be back soon with new reviews.

Free Comic Book Day and Mother's Day

 

For those who don't know, the first Saturday in May is Free Comic Book Day. The event is a partnership between publishers, distributors and retailers to give out specially produced free comics to anyone coming to a participating store on Free Comic Book Day. What could be better than free comics?

When I was growing up, there was a local comic book shop near my house. It was literally a few miles away and accessible by bicycle. I ask myself now why I didn't go there more often before they moved to another location. When I did go, I was introduced to other worlds like ElfQuest (which you can read online), Green Arrow, Groo the Wanderer, the Green Lantern Corps and Arion Lord of Atlantis to name a few. I have long since sold those comics but oh how I enjoyed them back in the day.

This year I woke up to Twitter blowing up about Free Comic Book Day and I took a look at what was being offered, a special Grimm comic based on the TV show that my family likes. Knowing that, I decided to go to the local store and check it out. Needless to say, I was late to the party. By the time I reached a local shop, literally hundreds of people had already been there and received their free comics (No Grimm). I took the opportunity to get a few of the comics offered as prizes for my daughter (who unfortunately couldn't go with me this year). She likes Japanese Anime and Manga but I thought I might lure her toward some other comics if there was something fun around. I also looked around for some Wonder Woman merchandise. You see, Wonder Woman is probably my wife's favorite Super Hero - she grew up watching the Linda Carter series. I was on a mission to find her something Wonder Woman for Mother's Day while looking for free comics. Here are some of the Wonder Woman items I saw:

 Not exactly Wonder Woman, it's Wonder Girl

 

This is Wonder Woman, but how do you take her away from her friends? 

This Wonder Woman is a really nice statue

 

 

None of these quite catptured what I was looking for as a Mother's Day gift. Birthday maybe but not Mother's Day. You see at our house we tend to think of Mother's Day and Father's Day as made up holidays. You should treat moms great all the time - you don't need a special day for it. Plus moms really don't like to get stuff that they later have to dust. Just sayin'.

 

What I did find (by the time I had hit three comic book stores and a Target) was this:

 

 

 

Oh and this of which the Legos go to my daughter and the Wonder Woman to my wife:



How did Free Comic Book Day turn out? Thanks to Dark Tower Comics in Newburgh, NY (the third store I went to), it went great. Grimm was obtained along with some Pippi Longstocking, Spongebob Squarepants, Simpsons, Archie and others. A good haul. Free Comic Book Day had to be a success any way you look at it. I saw tons of families and kids at the shops I went to and people were buying loads of stuff after getting their freebies. Great for the store and good for kids. I give Free Comic Book Day five Mick Happies. All these comics will come in handy for the road trip coming up next week.

Fall 2012 TV Review

My family and I don’t have regular TV in our house. We watch all of our TV online, through Netflix (DVDs or on-demand) or by purchasing the shows through iTunes. Surprisingly, that doesn’t keep us from missing out too much on what comes out each year. We have also found it cheaper to buy Season Passes than to have cable TV for more than a year now. What it does make us do is choose what we want to watch more carefully and not waste our time on crappy shows just because they are on. In this post, I will cover all of the shows we are watching and those that we have stopped.

Go On – This NBC comedy starring Matthew Perry as Ryan King is one of our favorite new shows and about the only comedy we are still watching besides the Big Bang Theory. I have watched a lot of failed Matthew Perry shows since Friends and this one finally seems to get it right. We get a sarcastic and self-centered character for Perry to play. We also get an ensemble cast of likeable weird people who are part of the grief support group that Ryan King joins when dealing with the loss of his wife. There is some out there quirkiness going on in the show, but it is consistently fun and funny. Four Mick Happies.

Elementary – The Sherlock Holmes in New York with a lady Watson show. This new procedural drama has the right mix of smart insight by Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller), banter with Dr. Watson (Lucy Liu) and everything is wrapped up in ~42 minutes. I am a big fan of the BBC Sherlock show and this is not it and is good all on its own. There is definitely room in my viewing world for both. Besides, Elementary’s Holmes seems way more edgy and at risk of drug relapse (and associated problems) than the BBC version Holmes. If you want to buy it like we do, iTunes has the Season Pass in SD for only $24.99 (about a dollar an episode). Also Four Mick Happies.

Malibu Country – Reba McEntire’s new comedy about a recently divorced woman making it on her own with her kids. We gave this one two episodes and stopped in the middle of the second. It isn’t as good and the cast isn’t as interesting as her former Reba show. Lily Tomlin is good as her mother, but that isn’t enough to carry any show or we wouldn’t be waiting for The New Normal to come out on DVD (Ellen Barkin ruled that show in the pilot). Malibu Country gets two Mick Happies.

Suburgatory – This little comedic look at up-scale suburban living us by surprise last year and we really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, the delay between seasons has left us feeling that the best was behind for this show. The jokes seem the same, the characters also seem the same, but it just wasn’t as funny this time around in the first two episodes we watched. Don’t think we will be giving Suburgatory a full season pick up in our house. Two to three Mick Happies.

Revolution – The post-apocalyptic show from Eric Kripke on NBC. The show is set in a future where all forms of electricity have stopped and looks at how things might be eleven years after that event. Some of this show really scratches my dystopian future genre itch and the writers are trying to have reason behind how it happened and (if) it can be fixed, but the stories and situations are pretty far fetched. I have been watching this online from NBC.com and will probably keep watching though I find I have to really work up to finding the 45 minutes to tune in. At best three Mick Happies.

Big Bang Theory – The king of all comedies right now. We have all of the seasons on DVD or in iTunes and have been watching this one as a family. It is too bad that this season seems to be going downhill for us. We are not as amused by the typical jokes. My wife and I discussed it and where the show is losing us is:

·      Leonard and Penny – these two need to break up.

·      Penny – she needs something other than drinking and back and forth relationship with Leonard.

·      Howard – needs to grow up a bit. C’mon, man, you’re married to Bernadette (one of the more interesting characters on the show).

One of the few bright points, besides Sheldon (as always), has been the budding “bromance” between Stuart and Raj. The other is Alex, Sheldon’s new assistant. More of that, less of the 3 bullets above please. We are still watching, but just less amused. Three Mick Happies.

Grimm – This is one of our favorite shows right now. It is based on the premise that all of the Fairy Tales creatures are real and hiding amongst us. The Grimm are people who are descended from the Brothers Grimm who can see the creatures for what the really are and have traditionally hunted them. Grimm is a procedural cop show with a supernatural element and season one was good and season two (this year) is as well. We are about eight episodes in (out of 12 aired to date) and liking it. The only nit to pick here is the storyline about Juliette’s memory – if you are watching you know how annoying it is. This show has supplanted Supernatural as our supernatural weekly fix – Four Mick Happies.

Other mentions of shows we liked but aren’t watching this year:

Supernatural – The wife has seen everything up to the end of last season and I have watched most of them as well. The end of last season was a let down with where the characters ended up. Felt too much like that time when Dean went to Hell and Sam was left on Earth. Maybe we will catch this season when it hits Netflix next fall. Certainly didn’t seem worth us paying to see the week they air – we can wait if we watch at all.

Raising Hope – We have been big fans of Raising Hope since it started, but gave up after last season when they killed the pig (the new version of Jump the Shark) and brought back Hope’s mom. Haven’t watched and probably won’t until a far future date when it is the only thing available on Netflix on demand.

Quick Updates - Grimm Season 1 and Fun Size

Just some quick comments about what I have been watching lately.

Around my house we have really been enjoying Grimm. I had an interest in the show when I first heard about it last year, but we waited until the Season 1 DVDs came out on Netflix to start watching. Has a real Season 1 and 2 of Supernatural feel with a good mythology so far and some comic relief (mainly in the form of Monroe played by Silas Weir Mitchell). If you don't know about the show, check into it. The main character, Nick, is a cop in Portland, OR. He is also the blood descendant of the original Brothers Grimm. This allows him to see the supernatural creatures from the fairy tales hiding beneath the skin of seemingly everyday people. Good premise with witty and interesting characters. Definitely 4 Mick Happies so far (16 episodes in). Wanted to let you know as Season 1 is on sale at iTunes for $19.99 not sure for how long tough. I just purchased the whole season (about $15 cheaper than Best Buy or Amazon for the DVDs). Check it out.

Yesterday the daughter and I went to see Fun Size. I have seen almost every high school movie since the 1980s and this hits all of the cliches - teens having to solve a problem, check. Things going horribly wrong, check? High school crush finally showing an interest in you, check. Overlooked boy or girl you really love, check. What it does right is have a non-speaking 8 year-old (Albert played well by Jackson Nicoll) on the loose who hooks up with a struggling to get his life together store clerk. The movie also doesn't take itself too seriously and doesn't go in for gross-out comedy. Only a few (non-F-bomb) swearing. Definitely family friendly. Not great, but definitely gives off a few laughs. Jane Levy has one line in the movie that you will remember for a long time after the movie ends. Also liked Galaxy Scout's (Riki Lindhome) part - hey I like happy endings. Three Mick Happies for this one. The trailer below gives you many of the best bits (but not all) - catch it on video.