The A.V. Club - TV Club

TV: Community:"Environmental Science"

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:54:00 -0600

As it wraps up its appearances in November sweeps, Community is really on a roll. That's, by my count, four straight really good episodes, with at least three of them being all-time keepers (especially last week's terrific half hour). The series seems to have worked out its kinks, and now, it's a pretty lean show, pared down to just what it needs to get laughs. Tonight's episode felt weirdly like a season finale (especially in its closing moments), so it's possible this was the last episode filmed of the initial 13-episode order (just in case ...

TV: 30 Rock:"Sun Tea"

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:03:00 -0600

Hello, 30 Rockers! My name is Steve, and I’ll be covering the show tonight for The T.V. Club. I realize coming here and getting me rather than Nathan Rabin is like tuning in to Pardon The Interruption for the entertaining repartee of Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon and instead seeing the fat, red faces of substitute hosts Dan LeBatard and Bob Ryan. (Sadly, this won’t be the only sports-related metaphor I use tonight.) But I’m super duper thrilled to be here. I haven’t been totally on board with The A.V. Club’s criticisms of ...

TV: Project Runway:"Finale: Part 2"

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:00:00 -0600

Will Carol-Hannah stop puking in time to make it to Bryant Park? Will Irina slaughter a couple of minks at the last minute to up the luxe factor of her upscale loungewear collection? Will Althea develop a design aesthetic besides "eh wear"? Can this season get any worse? Let's all find out tonight, together, in the way that our friends at Garnier Fructisse and the thoughtfully used Macy's Accessory Wall intended, via LiveBlog. Starting at 10pm ET Donna Bowman, Kyle Ryan and I will be your grand marshals in this (probably sad) fashion parade. See you there! Project ...

TV: It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia:"The D.E.N.N.I.S. System"

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:42:00 -0600

“The D.E.N.N.I.S. System” was a little lighter on laughs than last week but had an amusingly intricate plot (something that’s rare for Sunny), and a fantastic, disgusting denouement (something that’s very common, but always very welcome). Best of all, though, it took Dennis and it gave him an easel on which to explain his system for attracting women through cute acronyms and silly slogans. It felt like a warped, disturbing take on Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother: rather than the pick-up artist being soulless but still loveable, he was soulless ...

TV: Fringe:“August”

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:30:00 -0600

Because I work at home, by myself, I spend some portion of each day roaming around the house talking and/or singing in a funny voice. I also spend some portion of each day locked inside my head, in pained reflection, recalling something stupid I said or did decades ago (and feeling humiliated all over again). So if there really were Observers in this world, watching what we do and reporting back to their superiors, frankly I’d be mortified. Of course, I’d feel even worse if I was Walter, and I knew that I’d been closely observed ...

TV: Supernatural:"Abandon All Hope"

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:13:00 -0600

Hey, remember Ellen and Jo, the only two non-dead recurring non-evil female characters on the show? Remember how they disappeared for a while, but then came back for this season, and it was like, we're gonna be fighting against Lucifer, so we gotta have all the good guys together again? Yeah. That didn't last so long, did it. I've mostly been impressed with the way Supernatural has expanded on its mythology over the years, taking what started as a one note premise and then expanding it and developing it as the series went on. If you'd ...

TV: The Office:"Shareholder Meeting"

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:10:00 -0600

Hello, Officeianados! Nathan Rabin, well-selling author and man about town, is off leading the lifestyle of a jet-setting ne'er-do-well, so it again falls to me to recap this week's escapades at the possibly insolvent Dunder-Mifflin. This episode was directed and written by Charles McDougall and Justin Spitzer, respectively, and they've brought us some of my favorite installments of the show, so I went into "Shareholder Meeting" with high hopes. I was a bit nervous about the cold open -- the network-mandated theme bits are often pretty awkward -- but this one was a real winner, featuring a very ...

TV: FlashForward:"Believe"

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:30:00 -0600

Maybe we should only be watching FlashForward in the odd-numbered episodes because after last week's complete snore, "Believe" was quite possibly the show's finest hour yet. It probably doesn't quite deserve an A-, but I believe in using these grades as encouraging signs for anyone from the show who reads this (if, indeed, anyone does), so there it is. "Believe" is the first episode of the show that legitimately feels like an episode of the show I thought I'd be watching when I signed up to cover the series, and it's the first to really ...

TV: Parks and Recreation:"Hunting Trip"

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:59:00 -0600

A few weeks back, Leonard Pierce was covering this show for TV Club and made note that the Fred Armisen episode lacked the strength of Parks & Rec's supporting cast. Tonight we saw the other end of the spectrum. Even though every single cast member played some part of the action, "Hunting Trip" lacked the character focus that made episodes like "Ron And Tammy" and "Kaboom" such successes—a few guys get their screen time, a few others help, and the rest sit out. If "Sister City" is the example of an episode not playing to the show's solid ...

TV: Glee:"Ballad"

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:22:00 -0600

For all of the Glee commentary running rampant on the Internet, there's been surprisingly little analysis of the show as an actual musical. Sure, there's lots of writing about how exciting the show's musical sequences are or the song choices or how well the songs sell on iTunes, but there's very little placing the show within the context of a stage and cinematic genre that it belongs to. Since Myles McNutt pointed out to me that tonight was a Brad Falchuk episode and Falchuk tends to write episodes with lots of big musical moments ("The Rhodes ...

TV: Top Chef:"Culinary Olympics"

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:56:00 -0600

Looks like Robin got out at the right time. With the competition thinned to what I think most would (or should) agree are the best final five chefs in the show’s history, Top Chef morphed into another, more exciting season tonight. To torture a sports metaphor, it was like watching the regular season peter out and suddenly burst into the postseason, where the stakes are higher and only the very best come out to play. Can you even imagine Robin attempting the Elimination Challenge in this week’s episode? To combine that level of technique, execution, and presentation in ...

TV: South Park:Pee

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:35:00 -0600

Ironic racism is a hard line to walk. (Say, isn’t that a Lyle Lovett song?) Doing it right requires a satirical finesse that even our finest comic minds haven’t always pulled off—and when they try, they usually get pissy little blogs written about them. But I’ve always said that I believe South Park is some of the best satire on TV when it’s firing on all cylinders, and to that end I’ve seen it do ironic racism in a way that’s borderline revolutionary: Think of 2007’s “With Apologies To Jesse Jackson,” for ...

TV: Friday Night Lights:"A Sort Of Homecoming"

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:12:00 -0600

If Friday Night Lights has an unofficial theme song it’s the Daniel Johnston-penned “Devil Town.” “Devil Town” opened and closed the first season and served, in a version sung by Tony Lucca, as the soundtrack to the third season’s promo clips. But even if nobody had ever picked it for the show, it would still be the perfect theme. Consider these lines: All my friends were vampires I didn't know they were vampires It turns out I was a vampire myself in the devil town Maybe the word “vampire” puts the stress in the wrong place. Friday ...

TV: Modern Family:"Great Expectations"

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:06:00 -0600

There's one thing that "Great Expectations" gets exactly right. Anniversary presents given by spouses to each other suffer from an inevitable asymmetry. In my marriage, Noel plays the role of Phil, thinking up interesting and extravagant gift combinations, always waiting in vain for reciprocation in kind. I play the role of Claire, giving coupons for hugs, "which are usually free, but this makes it official, which is awesome!" The guest stars on this episode are loads of fun -- what could be better than Edward Norton playing a bassist and backup singer in Spandau Ballet, the one "between Richard Miller ...

TV: America's Next Top Model:"America's Next Top Model Is..."

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:00:00 -0600

Aww. Poor Cornpone Laura. From castratin' bulls to crumple-face crying on the CW because she came in second on America's Next Top Participant At Capetown Fashion Week. And even though she should have known Bloody Eyeball would best her—after all, the chicken-fried, homespun, molasses-dipped musings, charming though they are, could only get her so far—Bankable Productions certainly did try their best to convince us that Cornpone had a shot. When the girls got their scripts, and poor Cornpone was trying so hard to overcome her dyslexia (in one night) to learn her Cover Girl Lash Blast Sweeping ...

TV: So You Think You Can Dance:Week 4 Results

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:03:00 -0600

You know you're in the doldrums of any talent competition when the stress of staying out of the bottom group, while still performing esoteric tasks not of one's own choosing, combine in a mostly workmanlike, lackluster performance show. For the most astute competitors, this is the moment to grab the spotlight and get labeled a pre-emptive finalist. But for most, it's about surviving, not thriving. I didn't think the show really caught fire until Travis Wall's contemporary routine with Ellenore and Ryan; at that moment, I settled back, stopped fretting about evaluation, and enjoyed the ...

TV: Sons of Anarchy:"Service"

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:41:00 -0600

I always get nervous when things work out. Something about a resolved conflict, about people with every reason to hate each other finding some common ground--well, it's nifty, don't get me wrong, but it's almost like everybody walks away from the group hug with a target on their backs. Unless it's the end of the story (or, in this case, the end of the season), no peace can last unchallenged. And even beyond the dictates of drama, there's the simple fact that it's hard to live up to the satisfaction that comes after a ...

TV: So You Think You Can Dance:The top 14 perform

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:10:00 -0600

Some nights the judges on SYTYCD latch onto an idea and it influences the critiques throughout the entire episode, and tonight’s theme was definitely “growth” (with the baby-picture montages to match). Nearly every couple got a comment—mostly from Nigel—about their growth or lack thereof, either as a dancer, a contestant, or both. And with good reason; this is precisely the time—one week away from naming the top 10—that we should be looking at the contestants’ progression, not just their innate talent. Perhaps unsurprisingly, two of the most technically skilled dancers—Viktor and Nathan—fell prey ...

TV: V:"A Bright New Day"

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:26:00 -0600

Halfway through tonight’s episode of V, I was all fired-up and ready to slam it on the AV Club for the third week running when a funny thing happened – the plot started advancing. There were some honest-to-goodness twists! The resistance gained a name, and some new members! And hell, Lauren Vandervoort even took her clothes off. I don’t think V’s out of the woods yet – it still feels too small-scale considering its theme and most of the dialogue just falls out of the actors’ mouths – but with one week to go, progress is being made. It took ...

TV: Other Shows:Chef Academy - "Coming to America"

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:40:00 -0600

I'm pretty sure Bravo's new show, Chef Academy, just blends elements of every other show they have on their network until it ends up with something that feels vaguely like a television show. There's one of the housewives from Real Housewives (OK, not really, but that's clearly the character model). There's a helpful, elfin, most likely gay man, like someone who might turn up on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. There's a cooking competition like on Top Chef. And there's a workplace drama where the experience of everyone working in the same ...