Weeds – “Super Lucky Happy”

“Super Lucky Happy”
June 29th, 2009
Known for its rather glacial pacing (I was reading in Todd’s review from The A.V. Club last week that the show arguably has only taken place over the course of a year or so, which is probably accurate if often ignored by the show itself), Weeds has been operating at a [...]

Theories on The Big Bang Theory: Why I Hated the Pilot

Why I Hated the Pilot
June 30th, 2009
[While I've blogged about some episodes of the show, and even covered the PaleyFest panel about the show in April, I haven't actually watched The Big Bang Theory with any consistency. I'm watching the show as my thesis breaks over the next few weeks, and while I have no [...]

Nurse Jackie – “School Nurse”

“School Nurse”
June 29th, 2009
When a show introduces a protagonist who has small children, and appears interested in investigating their family dynamic, there are really only two choices. One is to dehumanize them entirely, turning them into an amalgamated responsibility that influences them in some way, while the other involves taking them and turning them into [...]

Series Premiere: Hung – “Pilot”

“Pilot”
June 28th, 2009

“Everything’s falling apart.”

Hung is not a show about an abnormally large specimen of the male anatomy.
Well, okay, technically it is, but that’s really not what the show is trying to tell us. While the new HBO “comedy” follows the exploits of high school basketball coach-turned male escort Ray Drecker (Thomas Jane), who happens [...]

Cultural News Flash: Podcast, Virtuality Ratings, Tonight’s TV

Off to a family gathering today, so I figured I’d drop a few notes on a number of exciting (or depressing, so as to counterpoint the exciting I guess) notes for the day ahead.
(Myles on) TV on the Internet
Todd VanDerWerff is pretty well known around these parts as a fellow TV critic and friend of [...]

Premiere: Virtuality – “Pilot”

“Pilot”
June 26th, 2009
After watching the two-hour event that is the Virtuality pilot, I think I can understand why FOX was resistent to picking the show up to series.
It isn’t that FOX is allergic to science fiction: it goes into next season with the genre’s two biggest television properties, Fringe and Dollhouse, in its lineup. Rather, [...]

Cultural Alert: Ronald D. Moore’s Virtuality airs tonight at 8/7c on FOX

“It is not a f***ing movie.” – Michael Taylor, co-creator of Virtuality

This quote, coming from an interview with former Battlestar Galactica writer Michael Taylor by Dan Fienberg over at HitFix, is probably confusing considering that FOX is promoting Virtuality, from the mind of Ronald D. Moore and with a pilot directed by Peter Berg (Friday [...]

Royal Pains – “TB or Not TB”

“TB or Not TB”
June 25th, 2009
That’s really not the question, Royal Pains.
This won’t be a particularly long review, but I do want to make note that the show is on better footing now that it’s back in chronological order, although it’s still a little bit all over the place with some of its developments. While [...]

Burn Notice – “Fearless Leader”

“Fearless Leader”
June 25th, 2009
While a strong second season and great episodes like “End Run” last week have created raised expectations for Burn Notice, the show remains a formulaic procedural at some level. The show is not formulaic in a negative way, necessarily, but it has its patterns and uses them to varying degrees of effectiveness. [...]

Series Premiere: The Philanthropist – “Pilot”

“Pilot”
June 24th, 2009
The Philanthropist has been a rather rocky development process for NBC, with numerous showrunner switches and some changes of vision in terms of what the show was supposed to be. The result is that it’s airing later than it was supposed to, hustled off into the summer months like it’s a half-baked Canadian [...]