Archive for January, 2007
By fred | January 30, 2007
Ever since Aaron Sorkin’s new show, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, aired its first episode, there has been people voicing their opinions about how much they hated the show. Typical Sorkin, which is true; not realistic, probably true also; yes all those critics are true. Well most of them ; but it doesn’t matter.
Yes it is a typical Sorkin show, characters make references to or even quote some old unknown weird Greek psychiatrist while doing one of Sorkin’s famous walk-and-talks. And it never happens in realty. So what?
Doesn’t mean it’s bad written, or not entertaining. I actually enjoy watching the show. In all honesty I’ve always enjoyed Sorkin’s writing, but still.
It’s also been said that it simply is not funny. Not always true, although it is not always funny, that’s true. And yeah, those sketches they’re doing, are mostly not funny. But does this really matter?
Studio 60 is not 30 Rock. It is not a sitcom, it’s not supposed to be funny. Well, not all the time at least. It’s a bit of comedy, a bit of drama, it’s all that mixed together. And such format is nothing new on TV, anyone here ever watched Ally McBeal ? Wasn’t always funny, and I do mean during the first seasons, before the show sucked it was painful to watch. It was comedy at times, drama at others, and same goes for Studio 60.
With one tiny difference though, when it was comedy on Ally McBeal, you would laugh. With Studio 60, that is not always the case. Sometimes you don’t even really smile.
Of course, if you watch SNL you will see that, in real life, on such shows, you don’t always laugh either. Not every week. So here’s your reality, bitch! Read the review of “Studio 60 is changing shapes” »
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Shows: Studio 60
By fred | January 24, 2007
24 has always been an action drama, with plenty of crazy (literally) things happening to have the action part keeping us high on adrenaline, ridiculous plans of actions that must stay in the dark without telling anyone even though there’s no reasons for it simply in order to maintain the required level of paranoia, and from time to time some people die - or almost die, when it comes to Jack - to create drama.
The show has never been away from family matters either. If you remember season one, a somewhat important part of the story was about candidate Palmer & his family. The whole secret/blackmail issue with his son, the past of his daughter, and of course his wife and her messy and unstoppable appetite for power.
But this week 24 went another step further into family drama, and there are some signs many of you I’m sure noticed. Signs that aren’t good, signs one could interpret as 24 turning into some crappy soap opera ! Read the review of “When 24 becomes a family drama…” »
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Shows: 24
By fred | January 18, 2007
I have never been a huge fan of The Unit, but I kept watching it nonetheless. Don’t mean nothing, I watch crap cause I think it’s fun sometimes too. So let’s be honest, it is not a great show. But I never thought it was a bad one either. The whole part about the wives never did interest me much, and it’s been filled with a lot of clichés and likes and nothing more.
But the interesting part, about this special unit and their missions, was pretty entertaining to watch. Ok, you always could tell what was happening without any problem. And there was no real twist, ever, cause things were way too obvious.
But in a way, it’s just like 24. (Except 24 has lots of twists, each one more unrealistic & less credible than the other…) You can start the endless list all the flaws of the show, but it doesn’t matter in the end, cause it’s just great to watch Jack Bauer going through all the shit to once again save the world.
Pretty much worked the same for me with The Unit, I kept watching every episode and somewhat enjoyed it, but I think last night I finally woke up.
Seriously, last episode (S02E12) was incredible ! And by that I mean I could not believe what I was watching, that this thing actually went all the way through and aired on TV. And that I wasted my time in front of this crap even. Read the review of “The Unit lost cabin pressure!” »
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Shows: 24, The Unit
By fred | January 17, 2007
Another couple of 24 hours in the life of Jack Bauer went by, and I have to admit I’m very pleased with quite a few things going on with that show.
I already mentioned before that there was some very nice enhancements this season, starting with how we entered this new day. Unlike all previous seasons, and there’s been a few already, always the action was (slowly) starting up with the season.
Before the first episode, there was a lot going on obviously, Presidential campaign, CTU investigation, terrorist planning or setting up their bad plans, but nothing had really happened yet.
This time, when the episode start there’s been explosion all over the US for some time now, we’re already in the middle of something. Ok, of course it got obvious pretty fast that this whole thing was only the first step in the beginning of a very long day for our favourite CTU agent, but it was really exciting to have things done that way.
Too bad though that, in a very 24ish way, they also ruined it quite fast. By having that looser that works for CTU and has responsibilities apparently giving in & admitting everything to Chloe right away without even waiting for her to even ask!
It would have been so much better & exciting to NOT let us know what’s going on, and we’d have had to pick things up here & there and put pieces back together while watching the whole thing taking place. People watching aren’t morons, be a little subtle FFS!
There was also a very nice move on those episodes: Jack shot, and eventually killed, CTU agent & friend Curtis. That was awesome, because for once Jack had to do something that wasn’t good, I mean killing a friend, a good person, CTU agent, even though he’s acting crazy and almost committing suicide one could say ; I mean he knew people, Jack, would have to shoot him, and would do it. Just like he’d done it if he had to. And he had such a long time to kill the guy, all this time they talked & shit, he could have just shoot him. Over.
Yeah sure, Jack would have killed him too most likely, but on the other side he would have killed Assad at least. But he didn’t, almost a move screaming suicide : really wants to kill Assad, can’t live without doing nothing, but can’t resolve himself to actually do it. Either because he can’t kill a guy like that, cold murder, or because he knew Assad was important to CTU, for future actions against the “realâ€? terrorists. Read the review of “24 on steroids” »
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Shows: 24
By fred | January 15, 2007
Yep, our saviour the one & only Jack Bauer is finally back for the sixth season of the famous show 24. And because people at FOX aren’t as stupid as ABC morons, we had to wait a little more to get started, but as they did before we begin with a big rush with the 2 first episodes in a row, and then we’ll have two more the next day! After that, it’s one episode a week every week till the end.
Now that’s a schedule that makes sense, unless you’re trying every way you can to have your viewers get Lost…
This new season has a very good start, because unlike all previous ones the action has already began before the first episode did. Usually everything was getting started during the first episode of the season, even if it meant killing an ex-President of the United States within the first minutes, and while obviously things had been put in motion long before that first episode, “real events� that made everything start & people (CTU) aware of it, was done during the episode.
This time they went a different way. Probably because last season ended with Jack going to some prison in China, so in order to have him back for the first episode, cause you can’t have 24 without Jack Bauer, they needed a situation to be already there & installed from the start, so they can get Jack back.
Either way, it’s a very good move. Things are already happening, and we’ll be jumping in and realizing all that’s going on on-the-fly, just like Jack will, since we were away too during those two years that separate the beginning of this season and the end of the last, even though we didn’t went to China or prison, well I guess most of us didn’t at least.
But sadly that good feeling about a new start went away as fast as it came when we started to hear about Jack Bauer. See, apparently the US government has found a wat to get the Chinese to give them Jack back. Yes, the very own Jack Bauer is being returned to USA by the Chinese !
And let’s go with it. It’s a very important & secret operation that’s going behind all this apparently, so much even Jack’s good old Chloe wasn’t aware of this. And that’s when things starts to break… Read the review of “Jack Bauer is back!!” »
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Shows: 24
By fred | January 6, 2007
I just watched S01E11 of Shark, and it only confirms what I thought of the show. It’s not a good show. It’s an okay-show at best. Not more.
Okay I have to admit this episode was especially bad. But still.
Want to see a really good show about lawyers? Watch Justice! There you’ll get some interesting stuff, and it’s exciting to watch it cause you don’t know : is the guy guily or not? Will they win or loose?
With Shark, there are no such questions. They’re on the other side, and yes the guy is guilty, he always is. Never do they go after an innocent guy. Oh and, yes they’ll win, cause they always do, one way or another.
Or should I say, he will win. Cause he always does. Shark (James Woods). He does it all. And that’s the problem with the show, IMO. Because as much as they’d like him to be, Shark is in no way such a good & interesting character as is House (brilliantly portrayed by Hugh Laurie), for instance.
And he seems to always be right. 100%. All the time. He is the one who knows things, who get things, who finds out things, who resolves things, and who wins the trial in the end. It pretty much means you can skip the show, you already know how things are gonna turn. Just like watching another Jaws, you haven’t watched it yet, and yet you kinda have. You already know what’s going to happen and how it will end.
And like all those Jaws-alike, there’s not even much excitement at seeing how it’ll get there. So really, why bother watching? Read the review of “Jaws 42″ »
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Shows: Justice, Shark
