Television

One More Year Of Not Knowing Who The Mother Is!

Funny that I just wrote about How I Met Your Mother, and how the show might just be finally heading for the endgame given the proposal between Robin and Barney, but we’ve got one more season of not knowing who Ted’s future wife is (unless they allow them to meet at the end of this season,…


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Television

The Long Con: “How I Met Your Mother” and our Unreliable Narrator(s)

As a brief note, I should point out that if I were still in grad school, this would probably be an excerpt from a much, much longer paper chronicling the course of the entire series and the ways in which we, the audience, are lied to, and the benefits and drawbacks of such choices. Never…

Television

Shows More People Should Be Watching, Part 1: Suburgatory

This is the first in what I hope will be a series of posts discussing shows that aren’t giant hits, but should be, based on quality. Last season, ABC launched “Suburgatory”, a single-camera sitcom about a high school girl (Jane Levy) moved from Manhattan to the suburbs by her single dad (Jeremy Sisto) after he…

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Television

Double Standard

Today news has come down that both Last Resort and 666 Park Avenue have been cancelled by ABC – two big, expensive, serialized shows that were focused on big, giant concepts (Nuclear Sub Goes Rogue w/ Conspiracy Backdrop, Couple Moves Into Building Probably Run By Satan) and the drama that comes out of that.  From…

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Recent News

Film, Television

What I Learned On Vacation

Recently, I spent a week in New York, crashing on a friend’s couch, for vacation.  I had a few activities planned (an improv show, a play, a taping of The Colbert Report), but other than that, I spent much of my time wandering aimlessly through the city, which helped remind me of a few things:…

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November 16, 2012 Dan 0
Television

How “Revolution” Has Managed To Suck (Me In)

When I watched the pilot for Revolution, I was hesitant. Sure, there were some fun elements (science fiction on network television!) and the fight sequences were well conceived (especially on a television budget), but the show didn’t blow me away.  Even in the next couple of episodes, much of my thought process went through one…

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October 30, 2012 Dan 0
Television

A Couple of Monday Tidbits

Ordinarily I’d save these for another day, one in which I don’t already have a topic in mind, but these popped up today and led to a few thoughts: First, due to Hurricane Sandy, a number of stations have cancelled shows or will replace them with repeats, including CBS (what do you mean there’s no new…

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October 29, 2012 Dan 0
Television

My Misc. TV Top Ten – October 29, 2012

Been a few weeks since I did one of these.  A shocking turn of events for those of you who have seen my previous notions that I was turning toward Fox for my comedy fix.  So here we go: Current Top Ten – October 29th, 2012 1. Homeland – I worry that at some point they’re going…

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October 29, 2012 Dan 0
Improv

The Impressionist

Warning:  this is about improv. I had an improv show on Monday with one of the teams I regularly perform with.  Three people in total, and we had about ten minutes, which generally is not a lot of time (in addition, it was a competition, which meant that we had to move quickly and try…

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October 26, 2012 Dan 0
Television

The Best Medicine

I spent a few days out of town, and now have spent the last two fighting a cold, so this post will be extremely brief. But while attempting to fend off this cold (we’re at a bit of a stalemate at the moment), I will point out that when you’re feeling ill, comedies are MUCH…

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October 23, 2012 Dan 0
Television

That Moment When You’re In

When you fall in love with a television show, it’s almost never an all at once, love-at-first-sight type deal; it builds up, over time, a collection of little moments and jokes (or dramatic scenes, or explosions, or whatever it is that you like) over the course of a number of episodes. That being said, you…

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October 17, 2012 Dan 0
Television

Great Expectations

Apologies for the delay in posting – this was meant for Monday, but work circumstances kept me from being able to complete it until today. Sunday night I watched two shows that highlight for me the problems with audience expectation – in that the expectations directly affected my overall enjoyment of each show. I generally…

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October 16, 2012 Dan 0