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Bored To Death : season 1 , episode 8
"Take A Dive"
Because it's the finale of Bored To Death tonight, I thought I'd get this up in case people wanted to chat about the episode (probably during Mad Men commercial breaks) before the review runs. So have at it ...
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Saturday Night Live : season 35 , episode 5
Taylor Swift
What I don't understand is, why go to the trouble of hiring new writers and new cast members if SNL is just going to show the same sketches season after season? At the very least I'd rather have ...
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The Prisoner : season 1 , episode 17
"Fall Out"
"It means what it is."
-Number 6Next year is Lost's finale season. I have high hopes; for all its ups and downs, the show has never completely lost me, and given what happened at the end of last ...
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FlashForward : season 1 , episode 7
"The Gift"
“The Gift” is the first FlashForward since the pilot where the stuff that makes me nod my head in appreciation outweighs the stuff that makes me want to throw things at the TV. There’s still enough clumsy stuff in ...
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Project Runway : season 6 , episode 12
"The Art Of Fashion"
Well, surprisingly, in the second-to-last episode this season has sort of rallied. It's been revived slightly. Don't get me wrong, this season is still dead. But tonight, the corpse of Project Runway suddenly sat up straight in its ...
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It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia : season 5 , episode 8
"Paddy's Pub: Home of the Original Kitten Mittens"
Season 5 of Sunny has been one of the best years the show’s had in terms of consistency, but this week’s episode had something I think a lot of the s5 episodes have been lacking: a well-thought out ...
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30 Rock : season 4 , episode 4
"Audition Day"
One of the nice things about having written for the A.V Club for almost thirteen years is that I have the luxury of only writing about television shows I love (The Office, 30 Rock, Eastbound & Down) or am perversely ...
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Supernatural : season 5 , episode 8
"Changing Channels"
Before we get into anything here, I just have to say, this one had me at "Supernatural is filmed before a live studio audience." The show owned my ass from that point on. If it had been just a bunch ...
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Fringe : season 2 , episode 6
“Earthling”
Thanks to the Yankees (yeah, I know, I know), we got an unexpected visit from Fringe tonight… a visit as unexpected as Randy’s foiled anniversary surprise for his wife Natalie. And how about that anniversary surprise, huh? Dude tells ...
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The Office : season 6 , episode 9
"Double Date"
First up, embarrassing confession time. I was once dumped on my birthday. Well, it wasn’t exactly on my birthday; it was about ten minutes before my twenty-first birthday. I could see it coming; it really wasn’t a matter ...
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Community : season 1 , episode 8
"Home Economics"
First of all, my apologies if I get any of the below wrong. I rely heavily on a DVR while writing these things, but this week, I’m hanging out in my hometown where my parents’ DVR only records one ...
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Parks and Recreation : season 2 , episode 8
"Ron And Tammy"
I was already pretty much in the can for Ron "Fucking" Swanson before tonight's episode (excuse me, that's Ron "Freakin'" Swanson), but "Ron And Tammy" definitely proved to me that Nick Offerman is the best guy for the ...
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South Park : season 13 , episode 12
The F Word
Hello there. Your usual South Park duo are otherwise occupied tonight, so y’all get a third-stringer to suss out tonight’s confounding episode. And of course it’s an episode dealing exclusively with a word that I don’t ...
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Friday Night Lights : season 4 , episode 2
"After The Fall"
“You’ve lost your inner pirate,” cameoing Texas Tech coach Mike Leach tells Coach Taylor at a random encounter at a gas station in the second episode of the fourth season. Being a casual, at best, football fan, I had ...
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Modern Family : season 1 , episode 7
"En Garde"
These last couple of episodes have been a mixed bag. We're seeing, I suspect, an excellent sitcom experiencing the growing pains of a long American season. Tonight there were at least two moments that rank among the best the ...
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America's Next Top Model : season 13 , episode 10
"Dive Deeper"
Tonight on Le Petit Top Model, the miniscule lil' modelettes are really starting to show their true tiny personalities. Bloody Eyeball has a stoner voice, but she's pretty sharp, and by "sharp" I mean "she can identify that Erin ...
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Sons of Anarchy : season 2 , episode 9
“Fa Guan”
Zack is graciously allowing me to fill in for him this week on Sons duty because I’ve been itching for the chance to write about the phenomenal second season of what’s become one of my favorite shows. I ...
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So You Think You Can Dance : season 6 , episode 12
The top 18 perform; two are eliminated
Thanks to the scrappy Phillies, we have another two-hour performance show culminating in judges' cuts. And I'm grateful, because better the judges having to make these decisions than America. Even last week I thought there was only one clear ...
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30 For 30 : season 1 , episode 5
"Without Bias"
The second episode of ESPN's documentary series in a row to be crafted from previously existing materal, "Without Bias" -- about the short career and tragic demise of college sensation/would-be Boston Celtics savior Len Bias -- is a reworking by ...
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V : season 1 , episode 1
"Pilot"
Alone among this year’s new sci-fi (or “genre,” or whatever you want to call them) shows, V’s chief strength is its rock-solid premise. Aliens arrive in big ships, they seem nice…but ARE they? (Hint: no.) The alien ...
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Heroes : season 4 , episode 8
"Once Upon a Time in Texas"
More than anything, Heroes wishes it was 2006 again. It was the cool new show on TV, it hadn’t gone to its well of narrative tricks so often that they all became boring, and people were legitimately enthralled by ...
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Gossip Girl : season 3 , episode 8
"The Grandfather: Part II"
Three weeks after its last big celebrity cameo and two weeks after a barely scandalous same-sex kiss, the latest episode of Gossip Girl dove into November sweeps by engaging in some meta-plotting and centering its A-story around political intrigue involving ...
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The Big Bang Theory : season 3 , episode 6
"The Cornhusker Vortex"
“The Cornhusker Vortex” isn’t a bad episode, but I’m not convinced it hangs together story-wise, like the best Big Bang Theory episodes do. It’s a collection of very funny scenes, but most of them don’t really ...
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How I Met Your Mother : season 5 , episode 6
“Bagpipes”
Professor Bowman’s in the midst of a two-week stretch of evening classes and out-of-town conferences, so I’ll be serving as her graduate assistant for the next two weeks, leading our seminar on How I Met Your Mother.
Tonight ...
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Bored To Death : season 1 , episode 7
"The Case Of The Stolen Sperm"
I'm sorry about the late posting, guys, but it was worth it for what I felt was the strongest episode of the season thus far. (Insert weekly questioning of why it took so long…) Not only was the story ...
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Dexter : season 4 , episode 6
"If I Had a Hammer"
There’s a pretty great scene toward the end of “If I Had a Hammer,” and it’s great precisely because it strips away a lot of the bullshit that the show sometimes leans too heavily on. Rita has dragged ...
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The Venture Bros. : season 4 , episode 3
"Perchance To Dean"
Much as I love the big, genre-spanning adventure episodes of The Venture Bros., the ones that stay closest to home tend to be my favorites. While the show gets a lot of mileage out of Publick and Hammer's loving ...
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Mad Men : season 3 , episode 12
"The Grown-Ups"
And so, after a season spent speculating when, and if, Mad Men would deal with the Kennedy assassination, we got there. And, perhaps unavoidably, the show didn’t merely deal with it in passing. After opening with some perfectly ordinary ...
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Other Shows : season 1 , episode 1
Sex Rehab With Dr. Drew
I’m a little bit torn about Dr. Drew. On the one hand, if you listen to Loveline, the guy tends to give people—especially kids—some pretty solid, no-nonsense advice. (Yes, I’m aware of the criticisms—particularly that ...
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Curb Your Enthusiasm : season 7 , episode 7
"The Black Swan"
"Mother of Larry, an asshole and a swan-killer"
In tonight's episode, Larry steps away from the Seinfeld non-reunion and into the world of his country club, a world where we quickly discover he's something of a don. He ...
