How The Mighty Have Fallen

I recently noted some of my new favorite shows on this blog and it's a damn good thing they've come along because some my higher ranking shows have fallen off the tracks (or in this case, dropped off my tiers almost entirely).

It's always a shame when a once beloved show falls out of favor, but for whatever reasons, the recent spate of mainstays disappointing or boring me has been more irksome than usual. I've broken up with shows in the past (Heroes and Grey's Anatomy were some of my more vitriolic recent break ups), but the shear volume of disappointments lately has been really depressing.

Here are some (though sadly, not all) of the current shit list occupants:

GOSSIP GIRL
It pains me to put Gossip Girl on this list, but what can I say? I think you'd be hard-pressed to find any die-hard fan who hasn't been let down by the current season. Where this used to be the very top of my very top tier, it is now teetering at the bottom of my third tier. This season started off a little shaky, but still enjoyable. Then the show went on a 4 month hiatus. Now my interest seems to be taking a 4 month hiatus... I have heard that the show is on an up-tick after several discouraging episodes, but I'm just not sure I have the strength to even get caught up. I currently have the last 4 or 5 episodes saved on my DVR and can't seem to motivate myself to watch them. Rather, I've been opting to re-watch other shows. And not even top tier shows at that... Why am I forsaking GG specifically?

• Chuck has been defanged. The whole beauty of a character like Chuck is that he's and uncompromising asshole. That's the whole point of a bad boy. He did as he pleased and pretended not to care what anyone thought. He was ruthless and debauched and malicious and wonderfully perverse. Nowadays? He's unbearably pedestrian. And mopey. The devilish glee with which he tortured his friends and enemies is gone and a new sad-sack version of Chuck has taken over. Getting him and Blair together could have been awesome, but instead, it basically ruined them both. I understand that this is a largely unavoidable pitfall of serialized TV. How long exactly can you have a character be the same bastard he's always been? For a character to remain interesting, he or she has to evolve. I just wish Chuck had evolved in a less depressing and untenable way. I hear a return to form is on the horizon and it's no shock to me that this will likely coincide with his and Blair's break-up.


• On a related note, Blair has gone from devious to annoying. The unfortunate decent of Chuck and Blair is due in very large part to the pair of them officially hooking up. As is so often the case, the tension was lost and the writers didn't know what to do with the new dynamic. So what did they come up with? Well, as discussed, Chuck became a mopey, sensitive snooze-fest and Blair? Well, apparently they decided that "weak" and "annoying" were the buzz words for Blair's new life. She was largely defanged as well and it gave her very little to do. Without having a high school to terrorize, she was basically lost. Neither she nor Chuck was left with any real purpose or direction, so Blair ended up turning all her energies on ridiculous and irritating pursuits, many of which involve whining at Chuck. Truth be told? It's been so long since I've jumped right into the show that I'm kind of forgetting where we left off... Last I remember, Blair was moralizing to everyone on the planet and trying to run their lives in completely pointless ways. I miss the badass queen B who ruled with an iron fist... With both Chuck and Blair reduced to pathetic shells of their former shells, the primary reason I watch the show basically imploded.


• I've seen so many combinations of couples that I simply don't care anymore. Serena and Dan. Dan and Vanessa. Vanessa and Nate. Blair and Nate. Nate and Jenny. Jenny and drug dealer guy. Lily and Rufus. Lily and Bart. Serena and Tripp. Serena and Nate. Back to Serena and Dan. Oh, holy hell, I stopped caring 18 relationships ago! When everyone is with everyone else from one week to the next, there's no suspense and very little payoff. Chuck and Blair were always the main reason I watched the show and now that they've lost my interest, the rest of the cast simply can't make up the gap.


• Gossip Girl herself doesn't really seem to matter anymore... This show used to be about the fact that there's no such thing as privacy. Gossip was used as a tool, a weapon, and a constant stream of entertainment. Now that they're in college? Not so much... I can't remember the last time Gossip Girl was even a key aspect of the main plot. She's been reduced to nothing but narrator and that kind of undercuts a show called Gossip Girl...

THE OFFICE
My faith and adoration of The Office has been slipping for the past few seasons, but lately? It's been relegated to the very bottom-most spot on my list. Even below Gossip Girl. Because, whereas with GG, I'm still recording them and have the intention of someday actually watching them, I barely even record The Office anymore and don't even kind of care if I never see episodes. I at least have some hope that GG will come back from its slump, but The Office has been hit or miss (mostly miss) for years now and I think I'm done. Every so often I'll catch and episode and while there are generally a few funny moments per episode, the past few I've seen have been so painfully unfunny that I didn't even finish them. It's hard to even remember what the episodes were about, let alone anything funny that happened in them. I was given quite a hard time when I first noted the slump in quality, but now, even longterm fans (oh, who am I kidding, especially longterm fans) have been forced to admit the decline. Some specific reasons it now mostly kinda sucks?

• Jim went from adorable prankster to managerial prick. Seriously, he suddenly became a real dick when he and Pam finally got together and it's not fun to watch. Even when he's pranking Dwight nowadays, it feels like he's just being an disdainful jackass. Thanks, but no thanks.


• Jim and Pam. That's pretty much the whole complaint. Wait. No. Jim and Pam and a baby. Oh, good lord, that's the way to make things better... You know, because bringing a baby onto a show always helps. [Sarcasm duly noted? Good.]


• It's not about the monotony of office life anymore. That was always the best part of the show and now? It's just one ridiculous hijink after another.


• Just about every character on the show is a cartoon character these days. You'd think that would make it funnier, but when there's no one who isn't clinically insane, the whole set-up falls apart.


• The show has been on for a really long time and the magic is gone. This is a problem for any show that's been on for more than a couple of seasons and The Office is feeling it. Bad.

HOUSE
This is kind of an interesting one... After the old ducklings were dismissed (except for Foreman, of course--because the secret ingredient in reinventing a show is keeping the lamest character around), the new ducklings started to drag things into the depths pretty quickly. I had largely lost all interest, but was still keeping up with the show. Barely. I would often fast-forward through the lamer storylines (13 + Parkinson's (or Forman) = where the hell did I put the remote?) and didn't seem to miss anything at all. The A-plots bored me even more than usual and the characters weren't holding my attention long enough to compensate. When the characters you actually care about only get 3 minutes of screen time a piece, it's hard to stay interested... But, in recent months, Foreman has been mostly marginalized, Cuddy finally got her groove back (the episode that focused on her was a refreshing change of pace and easily one of the best episodes in recent years), Wilson is getting more screentime, and Chase is back! It's as though the powers that be actually listened to my prayers! I'm not saying it's back in the top tier, but it has managed to pull itself up from no man's land to a respectable position in my second tier. Here's hoping this trend continues. If they could just get rid of the patient-of-the-week I think we'd have a top spot contender on our hands... Although admittedly, even the patients-of-the-week have been better. It's still the standard, tired conceit of yore, but I'm not fast-forwarding through as much of it...

PSYCH
Yet another show that it pains me to include on this list... Psych isn't in as dire of straights as other shows on this list (it simply moved from top tier to second), but it's headed in a direction that isn't encouraging. I think it's simply been on for too long. With the light-hearted tone and straight-up procedural concept, it's hard to really explore characters or develop new ones, but I don't think this show has any other choice at this point. It's been the same old thing for way too long. Even the aspects of the show that I once loved have gotten tired and tedious. Shawn's cavalier, snarky barbs and crazy antics are falling flat after this much repetition and his and Gus' interactions have gotten completely stale. The most recent season started off with a bang, but the closing episodes left me underwhelmed. Add to the monotony the belabored will-they-or-won't-they relationship between Shawn and Juliet and the show is starting to fizzle. I'm not totally sure I even really care anymore. All the characters seem to have been boiled down into one-note cardboard cutouts of themselves so even when the writers try to give some depth or range, it seems artificial. I enjoyed the season finale quite a lot and hope it points to better things to come, but I'm not exactly brimming with confidence. I don't know what the show could really do to reinvent things, but they've got to do something or I fear I'm doomed to break up with this one. Here's hoping they get the spark back before my interest really starts to evaporate...

The Soup Presents: College!

Comedies have kind of been letting me down lately (save for Better Off Ted), so when I saw that the promotional materials for NBC's new comedy Community actually looked promising, it was a very nice, rather funny change of pace. I just saw the full pilot the other day and am pleased to announce that it totally lived up to expectations--yet another nice change of pace for this particular industry...
My standards for half-hour comedies have diminished of late, but that should in no way devalue my appreciation for Community. Even though my disillusionment with The Office and disappointment with Parks and Recreation may have tempered me on the genre as a whole, I think my review of Community manages to be mostly unbiased.

Don't hate me, but The Office has lost a lot of its luster. The last several episodes of last season helped redeem the show to an extent, but there's still a lot of love lost between me and the show. I'm not going to beat a dead horse here, but I think it's pretty much accepted that the show just isn't as funny or fresh as it once was. I think a lot of the problem boils down to perspective and tone. The show kind of took a detour in terms of its goals and that made it fall a little flatter than it should. The banality of working in an office took a backseat to uber-wackiness and that's just not where the soul of the show started out. It's still enjoyable, and the last few episodes of last season were certainly an improvement, but even the most dead-pan and intentionally ordinary of characters have become caricatures. Anyway, long story short, and after the dead horse has been more than a little tenderized, I still enjoy the show, but it's not appointment TV for me anymore. I'm also less than thrilled with the prospect of Jim and Pam getting married and fairly mortified by the prospect of them having a baby. Blah. I've said it before and I'll say it again, babies ruin everything. Words to live by.

In related disappointment news, although I could appreciate that Parks and Recreation was funny, I just couldn't really get into it. I think there are a few fundamental flaws with the premise that make it a difficult series to write for and keep things moving along. I found myself bored with the park storyline after the second episode, but was faced with a season-long arc in that regard. I have heard that the writers are going to make a conscious effort to fix what was wrong and improve the show, so I'm hopeful season two works out better.

Until those shows prove themselves worthy of my approval again, my half-hour comedy yen might just be filled by Community. While not the most spectacularly funny show I've seen, it has a solid premise, a great cast, and a lot of potential for longevity.

With The Soup's Joel McHale at the helm, I was immediately ready to give the show a shot when I saw the first promos. What can I say? The Soup eases the pain after a long, painful week. Nothing soothes a weary soul quite like some chicken tetrazzini. :) Anyway, I've always found McHale to be entertaining and after seeing his brief acting appearances over the years, I was fairly confident he could pull this off. McHale plays a slick lawyer whose law degree isn't valid, landing him at a community college. Accustomed to not actually doing any work, ever, his character's approach to academia (and life, really) is to lie and cheat your way to the top. More words to live by.

School is an astoundingly common backdrop for shows, but with good reason. It's the kind of setting that everyone can relate to in one way or another and offers countless scenarios to be explored. Even with the glut of high school and college shows currently on the air, Community has a particular bent that keeps it from seeming hackneyed or overdone. The cast of characters who come together for a fictitious Spanish study group (Clippos Magnificos!)is entertaining from top to bottom and the dean of the school (community college's have deans, right?) is played by The Daily Show's John Oliver, so add that to the rest of the cast, crew, and set up and there was very little room for me not to enjoy the pilot.

The comedy is solid throughout the pilot and the comedic timing and pacing of the show kept me interested and laughing from start to finish. The comedy ranges from the more overt gags to subtler fare, but the jokes land consistently and while the pilot wasn't uproariously funny every second, it was funny, charming, and snicker-worthy often enough to bolster my confidence for the future of the series. I particularly enjoyed the layers of jokes. Some jokes were set up early on in the pilot and paid off later (Booyah! springs to mind--you'll understand when you see the pilot), others were peppered throughout with a more immediate pay off. It made for a nice blend of the nuanced and the obvious. Another aspect I appreciated was the lack of a soundtrack (which has thankfully become the norm these days). The show didn't make a point of highlighting, underlining, and pointing a big red arrow at jokes, but rather let them go by in a fairly organic way. There were a number that if you weren't paying attention, you'd simply miss them, and that's fine. The episode as a whole wouldn't suffer if you missed something here or there and more than benefitted from the consistent pace and lack of joke spotlight. And really, anytime John Oliver is associated with something, I'm probably going to be a fan. Although I have heard that he's only a guest/recurring star on the show, Joel and the rest of the cast seem plenty capable of carrying off the show on their own.

At the end of the day, it wasn't the most fabulous or funny pilot in the world, but definitely entertaining enough to get me invested in the show. It's not often that a comedy pilot really has me laughing, but Community certainly had its moments. It's got a strong cast and promising premise that I hope is allotted enough episodes that it can really blossom. I only have a handful of half-hour comedies in my current repertoire, so this should make for a nice addition. I have heard this McHale's obligations on Community shouldn't interfere too much with The Soup, so it's really a win-win.

Much like goose grease.

See, I'm still an Office fan at heart... :)

TV Roundup--Meh

I watch a lot of TV, and given that I have no life, not all my shows constitute my absolute favorite viewing options. I have a tiered system for ranking my show loyalties. In the top tier are my favorite shows; the ones I look forward to week-to-week and refuse to miss. The second tier consists of shows that I'm committed to and enjoy, but that don't exactly have me giddy with anticipation. The third tier is home to the shows I keep up with, but could totally live without. This system is ever-changing, and the new fall line-up has led to a serious shake-up.

SHOWS THAT HAVE MADE THEIR WAY TO THE SECOND TIER:

• HEROES: What can I say? Last season was pretty hard on all of us. I swear, if I'd had to watch one more episode of mind-numbing nothingness (read: Maya and her brother whining (and oozing) their way from Central America to the states for 8 episodes) and Hiro gallivanting around feudal Japan, I think I would have dropped the show entirely. When you start wishing that they had just let the cheerleader fend for herself in season one so the world would have ended (yipee!), that's just not a good sign.
  
  It was with much apprehension and more than a few NoDoze tablets that I sat down to watch the premiere (a few days late, mind you). I would have watched it when it aired, but the thought of enduring a 3-hour event was just exhausting to even think about. Solution? Axe the hour-long "Countdown to Feudalism" and then watch the fast-forwarded version of the two-hour premiere.
  
  It was actually much better (read: it kept me awake) than I had expected. I had heard that the producers and writers recognized that season 2 was kind of painful and were committed to not repeating those mistakes. It seems to have worked pretty well. The essential flaws of the show remain, but at least the history lesson/bizarre, kind of uncomfortable love story is over, right? Oh, and Peter isn't trying to be Irish anymore and I think we can all raise a pint to that sparkling development. Wow, the horrible story arcs of last season are really starting to come back to me now... I had all but forgotten the wealth of bad accents that accompanied Peter's momentous journey out of a box and into a pub... for 8 episodes... again...
  
  As I was saying, the essential flaws are still alive and kicking and that is what has moved Heroes into my second tier.
  
  Flaw #1) It's a HUGE ensemble cast (they tried to squeeze in 8 more faces on that cover, but what can ya do?). When a show has literally over a dozen series regulars, there just isn't enough time in the hour to devote more than a couple of minutes to each plotline, let alone allow for much character development (assuming they make it into the episode at all). There are some character arcs that are more interesting than others, and with this huge a cast, way too much time gets devoted to people I really don't care about (Mohinder and Maya--Boring as Hell, party of two). It's times like those when I get really irritated and a little fast-forward happy... Oh, how I love my DVR! (Oh, geez, and do we remember that girl with the muscle memory or whatever? She won't be missed... Man, last season sucked...)
  
  Flaw #2) Everyone is spread out. It seems like at the end of every season, all the characters have finally met up, but by the beginning of the next season, everyone has split up again. That would be fine, I suppose, but its the interaction between characters that really makes the show interesting. As is, there are subsets of characters who interact with one another, but there isn't any overarching cohesion to the group. Don't get me wrong, it should only be a few more episodes before the Petrellis have been revealed as sharing DNA with everyone on the show, but that's not exactly the kind of interaction I had in mind. Seriously though, they're going to start giving the Bristows a run for their money...
  
  Flaw #3) Same basic plot, new season. The premiere seemed rather disconcertingly familiar as the horrible future to come is forewarned and Peter tries to make it alllll better... Yeah, I'm pretty sure we've been there... But, here we go again. With all new good guys and baddies! As near as I can tell, the only difference is that everyone is switching teams. I guess that'll be good?
  
  Anyway, that's just the short list of flaws, but the show makes me kind of weary, so I'm going to leave it at that.
  
  Bottom Line: I enjoyed the premiere more than I expected, but it still kind of felt like a chore to watch it. Which is a shame, really. It's a good show and I'll totally keep up with it, but it doesn't have me bouncing off the walls or anything. I'm hopeful this season really redeems it and bumps it back up to the first tier, but I'm not holding my breath. So far, so good (by which I mean, "It's about damn time Sylar got his powers back!")
  
  
• GREY'S ANATOMY: Awww, yet another entry in the "Last Season was Demoralizing" Hall of Lame. Okay, so with Grey's, it was really the season before last that was the killer, but last season spent so much time recovering that it still wasn't spectacular. Vaaaastly improved, but still kind of "meh." And another commonality between our first two entries, I totally didn't watch them at the time they were on. Anytime a show gets relegated to "Well, I guess I could watch Program X, since nothing else is on..." territory, that's bad.
  
  But, yet again, the premiere was better than anticipated. Izzie can still go die in a ditch (and take Meredith her), but overall, it was a pretty satisfying episode for the peeps at Seattle Grace. No one made me really want to throw something at the TV (although Meredith tried and tried, by which I mean, whined and whined) and the overall storyline was cohesive and effective, albeit a bit heavy-handed and schmaltzy at times. The parallels between patients' conditions and doctors inter-personal relationships was a bit too far from subtle for comfort, but it wasn't completely oppressive, so I let it slide.
  
  As per usual, Christina is the reason I watch the show. I'm sick to death of the Derek and Meredith of it all and will happily dig a ditch for Izzie to fall in, but Christina kind of makes it all worth it for me. The past two seasons have showcased a very different Christina and it's really nice to see her getting her mojo back. It's a shame that her new love interest in military, though. We all know that's an insurmountable obstacle (a pre-existing condition, as it were), but the fact that Kevin McKidd is actually from the UK takes the edge off.
  
  Bottom Line: I'll be sticking with Grey's, but if a show needs to get the axe, this one won't be too far from the blade. I'm just kind of over it... I saw a preview for next week's episode and apparently Noah is the newest patient at Seattle Grace and he brought the flood with him. Heh, speaking of arcs... Sorry, that was shameless. You see! You see what the show is doing to me?! Horrible puns! What's next? Rimshots? Oy.
  
  
• THE OFFICE: Okay, please don't hate me! I really do still love the show (honest!), but it just isn't quite the same... It's starting to feel like the 10th season of The Simpsons. I knew it was still good, but it just wasn't living up to the greatness of previous seasons. I think the first two seasons of The Office set the bar incredibly high, and while the latest episodes have been quite good, it's just not connecting with me the way it once did.
  
  The beauty of the show in its early years was that everyone who had ever worked in an office could so completely relate to the show that it was painfully funny. We all know those characters because we work with those characters. The mundaneness of working in an office was itself a character on the show, and I dare say, the most important character. Only in the mind-numbing boredom of an office could such menial projects (like toturing Dwight or organizing the Office Olympics) provide so much entertainment. The banality of it all and the co-workers we all suffer through are what people related to, and I think those things have kind of fallen by the wayside...
  
  The office atmosphere has changed. In recent episodes, they hardly spend any time at all in the office. There always seems to be something crazy going on or some wacky hijinx ensuing, and while those things are enjoyable, it kind of takes the show away from its roots. The same goes for the characters, or should I say caricatures... Jan went insane, Ryan became a cocaine addict and went to jail, Angela somehow became a saucy little minx, Kelly is, well, Kelly, and so on and so forth. There really isn't anyone to play the straight man (and I mean that in terms of comedic setup, not sexual orientation) anymore. I enjoy the craziness and the whimsy, but I kind of miss that dull aspects of their time in the office that were always so hilarious.
  
  Bottom Line: I still love the show and probably always will. But, can anyone really tell me that they think last season or the latest season premiere can hold a candle to greatness of the first two seasons? The show is still great, but I'm a little nostalgic for the even greaterness of yore... Oh, and Jim and Pam actually getting together isn't helping the situation... The tension is gone, and so goes my interest.
  

Slap Face

Awwwh, The Office. Eases the pain. I'm so excited for the premiere on September 25th!!! Yay! Till then, here's a little something to tide you over. Ann sent me this little gem this morning and it has made Monday just a little more bearable... :)

The Office 2.0 Update

So, news regarding the upcoming Office spin-off has been pretty nill of late, but I finally came across some news. A lot of rumors have been going around, but not much has been available to confirm or deny what I've been hearing. I'm honestly still not sold on the idea, but it's sounding like it might be a viable project. All signs indicate that no one from the current cast will be spun-off, so I think that's a good sign. Anyway, per a couple of my online sources, here's the latest...

• The producers of NBC's The Office spin-off have made their first casting hire, and it's Aziz Ansari of MTV's Human Giant [[AND, who played Sinjay, the angry fruit-cart guy in a completely awesome episode of Flight of the Chonchods]]. "We met him pretty early on and thought he was very funny," exec producer Greg Daniels tells Variety. "[W]e have a good character for him."
  
  The spin-off's premise has yet to be finalized, as producers still are sorting through several ideas. It's unlikely that any current Office staffer will get spun off; rather, one or more characters from the new series probably will be introduced this fall on the mothership, paving the way for the companion show's midseason launch.
  
  "We're trying to come up with the best concept and hire the funniest writers," exec producer Michael Schur tells Variety. "In the next couple of weeks, we'll be making the final move to one specific idea." As first reported by TVGuide.com, Ansari will be featured on the final season of Scrubs, which finishes filming this August and will air on ABC. (Courtesy of Matt Mitovich from TVGuide).

• Consider this only a rumor for the time being. However, word has been rippling through the TV biz today that Rashida Jones (aka Karen Filippelli, presently of Utica, New York) may star in the upcoming NBC spinoff of The Office.
  
  Sounds pretty amazing to this Office (and Rashida) fan, so I did a little digging, and here's where this stands: While one inside source (who has always been reliable) says "it's true" that Rashida will be a part of the new series, another source inside Rashida's camp says, "As far as I know, she has not been approached." Hmmm...
  
  Meanwhile, a rep for Universal (which produces The Office) tells me: "Universal Media Studios has a talent holding deal with Rashida. It is premature to speculate about any potential projects she could be involved with." (Courtesy of Kristin from E!Online).

Jim as Dwight vs. Dwight as Jim

Okay, one more, then I promise I'm done with Office clips... At least for today... Man alive I can't wait for the new season...

"Future Dwight" and "Mint, Dwight?"

For the inaugural post of my new, swanky blog, I thought I'd include a couple of clips of The Office that truly make me smile.

This is one of my all time favorite cold opens. It has gone down in the annals of time as one of the greats. It was one of those clips that everyone began quoting on a regular basis. Classic.





Annnd, as I accept the fact that the bulk of this blog will include clips from The Office, here is another one of my favs. I don't know why I love it so much. I think it's when Dwight says, "My mouth tastes so bad all of a sudden..." Awesome.