Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘TV 2010’ Category

Cancelled shows that I miss, primarily for supporting characters

Posted in Andrea Anders, Arrested Development, Ben and Kate, Better Off Ted, Gilmore Girls, Lucy Punch, Reaper, Super Fun Night, The Office, Traffic Light, TV 2009, TV 2010, TV 2011, TV 2012, TV 2013, TV 2014, Veronica Mars, Work of Art on March 30, 2014| 1 Comment »

cacnelAs yet another TV season sort of winds down, and a few more shows get cancelled, I decided to compile a list of shows that I miss. This isn’t going to be one of those lists of the best shows that shouldn’t have been cancelled or killed off too early or some other kind of list (I agree with just about everything on these lists).  So, I’m not including Arrested Development or Freaks and Geeks (which I don’t really miss because I didn’t watch it when it came out so I knew what I was getting when I watched the DVDs, plus every actor from the series is seen in something or other all the time) or even Veronica Mars (now that the movie has come out, all is well).

Of course, there are shows that I miss because they were great, but many had a sense of closure, which is nice. Or shows that were great and then weren’t great anymore so I stopped watching, which is less nice but which doesn’t leave me pining for them. Rather these are shows that were cut down unexpectedly (or expectedly) and didn’t give closure (or generate enough momentum for closure).  In fact, shows that weren’t brilliant and probably deserved to be cancelled soon, but were cancelled a little too early so I have no closure. Or, worse yet, shows that could have improved over the next season or two and become really solid shows.  And so from time to time I wonder what the characters are up to (which isn’t as sad as it sounds).

I’m starting with the most recent cancellation because it is freshest: (more…)

Read Full Post »

TV Fall 2010

Posted in 30 Rock, Adventure, Arrested Development, Better with You, Chuck, Community, Corporate skewering, David Cross, Entertainment Weekly, Gilmore Girls, Glee, How I Met Your Mother, John Krasinski, Lauren Graham, Life Unexpected, Mad Men, Mike and Molly, Modern Family, New Adventures of Old Christine, Outsourced, Parenthood, Project Runway, Running Wilde, That 70's Show, The Big Bang Theory, The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, The Office, Tosh.0, TV 2010 on October 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »

The new Fall TV season is pretty much underway.  It brings back a lot of old favorites, as well as a few new series that we’re going to check out. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Tosh.0 (2009-)

Posted in Daniel Tosh, Funny (ha ha), Humiliation, Short Films, TiVo, Tosh.0, TV 2010, Violence, Yuck! on July 31, 2010| 4 Comments »

Our friend Paula (no not that Paula, another Paula) told Sarah about this show.  And they were able to watch an episode together at a conference.  When Sarah came home, we TiVo’d a bunch of episode and we have probably not stopped laughing since.

The premise of Tosh.0 is very simple: Tosh, the host, shows clips that were posted on YouTube and then he makes fun of them.  The clips are certainly lowest common denominator (dumb people doing dumb things), and frankly, it’s not really much of a step above America’s Funniest Home Videos. However, Tosh (real name Daniel Tosh) is a snappy, witty and brutal humorist.  He says things that you only think of about the clips, and then goes one step further to say things that you can’t believe he would say out loud.

In fact, Sarah and I have often wondered if the show isn’t racist. Of course, it is.  And it’s also completely sexist.  Tosh makes many jokes about women’s inability to do things, but they are such patently ridiculous stereotypes that Sarah for one has never been offended by them.  So, we assume that people of the mocked races (which includes whites, lest we forget) are not offended either (or at least they have a good enough sense of humor to be in the audience). (more…)

Read Full Post »

Better Off Ted Canceled and Other New TV News

Posted in 30 Rock, Better Off Ted, Chuck, Community, Glee, How I Met Your Mother, Modern Family, New Adventures of Old Christine, Parenthood, The Big Bang Theory, The Office, TV 2010 on May 23, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I just learned that one of my favorite shows, Better Off Ted has been canceled for next year.   I’m not going to blame Lost for its demise, although, Ted did get pushed around a lot because of the return of Lost.  I’ll just blame it on the sad fact that hilariously quirky comedies need to build an audience, and on the sadder fact that a quirky show with a devoted audience seems to be less desirable than a popular show that burns out after a  season or two.

Also canceled of shows we watch:

Scrubs (no surprise, really, the show should have ended on a high note last year).
Happy Town (we season passed this show, but never even finished watching the first episode.  It was pretty good, and quite spooky, but it was very late so we saved it for the next day (several weeks ago).  I wonder if it’s worth watching it now.
New Adventures of Old Christine (This surprises me as the show got an Emmy not long ago; however, it was getting a little sloppy lately, so I’m not too upset by this).
Sit Down, Shut Up (no surprise here).

Shows that got renewed: (more…)

Read Full Post »

The Inbetweeners (2008-2009)

Posted in BBC America, Boredom, Canadian Music, Cars, Drinking, Feist, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), Holidays, Humiliation, Language, Marriage Trouble, Neurotics, Romance, Set at School, Sex, Smarty Pants, The Inbetweeners, Toilets, TV 2010, Vampire Weekend, Virginity (Loss of), Wikipedia, Word usage on April 17, 2010| Leave a Comment »

[WATCHED: 2010]  The Inbetweeners

I don’t often write about one TV show at a time, but I’m on vacation this week, so I’m taking it easy.

One of our favorite new shows is (big surprise) a  British comedy (that is airing in the States on BBC America) called The Inbetweeners.  There’s not much terribly original about the premise of the show: four unpopular blokes in secondary school grouse about being unpopular and hatch ways of scoring with the [insert staggering variety of vulgar words for women here] in their class.  And I’m not exactly sure what it is about the show that is so [bleeping] funny.  Perhaps it is the simply brutally vulgar humor, or the excessively horny attitudes, or maybe it is the self-awareness of the vulgarity (by the not exactly prudish but at the same time creeped-out-by-his-friends narrator (“That sounds a bit rape-y, Jay”)), but the show never stops being stomach-hurtingly funny. (more…)

Read Full Post »

TV I have killed

Posted in Aliens in America, Arrested Development, Chuck, Freaks & Geeks, Futurama, How I Met Your Mother, Reaper, TV 2007, TV 2008, TV 2009, TV 2010, Twin Peaks, Undeclared, Veronica Mars on March 21, 2010| 2 Comments »

I have concluded that I have personally killed or mortally wounded every TV show that I adore. Sports fans have their rituals that ensure their team will win, and I have a ritual that ensures a show will stay on the air: don’t watch it.

Here is a list of TV shows that I have single-handedly (with some help from my wife) sent to an early grave:

Reaper
Pushing Daisies
Aliens in America
Arrested Development
Wonderfalls
Clerks the series
Greg the Bunny
Firefly
Dead Like Me
Police Squad (although really, how many more episodes could they have made of this nonsense?)

[Notice that there’s a real pattern here of Fox picking up great, weird cutting edge shows and then canceling them after one or two seasons.  It makes me love and hate Fox at the same time].

Freaks and Geeks*
Undeclared*
Futurama*

[although I don’t know how to classify the weird reprieve they’ve gotten in releasing DVDs and a new season]

*Okay, technically I caught these shows on DVD after they were cancelled, and yet, the point remains that I would have loved them if I knew about them. (more…)

Read Full Post »

The Rise of the Douchebag; the Fall of the Bitch

Posted in 30 Rock, Chuck, Community, How I Met Your Mother, Modern Family, New Adventures of Old Christine, The Big Bang Theory, The New York Times, TiVo, TV 2010, Word usage on February 11, 2010| 1 Comment »

I can’t say that I pay a lot of attention to trends on TV. But, it seems to me that the use of the insult “douchebag” had been skyrocketing in the last few months.

I’ve always kind of liked the word because it’s almost quaint and it was so underused in conversation.  And it feels so 1970s, like when I was a kid and we would say, They said “Bastard” on TV; somehow douchebag fits into that childish insult category.  There’s so many other insults that are used every day that to hear a weird one like douchebag was kind of refreshing.  To say nothing of the fact that it is actually an object (evidently–I’ve never actually seen one to confirm this).

Yet over the last few months, I think I may have heard it used on every show that we watch.  I would speculate that it’s been used on How I met Your Mother, Community, New Adventures of Old Christine, The Big Bang Theory, Modern Family and Chuck.  Oh and probably 30 Rock, too. (I can’t confirm this, I’m using my admittedly sketchy memory).

In fact, to confirm my suspicions I did a search and found that even the venerable New York Times has observed this increase in douchebag usage.

It’s funny as I’m not prudish at all, but I’m getting a little uncomfortable at hearing the word so much. Once in a while was fine, but it seems a little stale all of a sudden. I think I heard it three times in one night of TiVo catching up.

When it’s used that much, it’s just lazy. (more…)

Read Full Post »

TV 2010

Posted in 30 Rock, Better Off Ted, Chuck, Community, Craig Ferguson, Glee, How I Met Your Mother, John Dore Show, Jon Stewart, Jools Holland, Late Late Show, Later with Jools Holland, Life Unexpected, Modern Family, New Adventures of Old Christine, Parenthood, Project Runway, Robot Chicken, Scrubs, The Big Bang Theory, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, The Inbetweeners, The Office, The Simpsons, The Whitest Kids U'Know, TV 2010 on February 7, 2010| 1 Comment »

In addition to reading, Sarah and I watch TV, too.  In the past, I posted occasional updates to a Tab devoted to TV.  But I’m going to put new information in individual posts instead.  So I’m starting with this season’s TV.

Of course, in the last couple of years, TV has changed from working on an easy to summarize Spring/Fall schedule to having shows appear almost at random.   This really undermines the very idea of a “season,” so I’m including a show or two from the end of 2009 as well.

One surprising thing about recent TV is how I watch almost nothing on the CW or Fox.  These were my mainstays as recent as two years ago, but they’ve totally dropped the ball lately.  And I can’t believe how much I’m enjoying shows on CBS (isn’t that the old people’s network?).

And so, for 2010: (more…)

Read Full Post »