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Saturday, March 28, 2009

Watched 3/23 - 28.

Skins - the last two episodes of the season. I think the third series really came into it's own the last few episodes. The actors all started to click, it seemed. Well done, and without the unremitting dysfunction and depression of the early episodes this season.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold - Sherlock Holmes, bitches. Rock on with your bad self.

Under the Hood and Tales of the Black Freighter - the two mini-documentaries/movies/cut material that'll eventually be cut back into Zack Snyder's interpretation of Watchmen. I really dug the faux TV newshow of Under the Hood. Lot of fun and rather well done.

Kings - Ian McShane is still marvelous to watch, but the actor playing David leaves a little to be desired. The show's got potential, but I don't think it's gonna make it.

MTV Bully Beatdown - Jason Mayhem Miller is hilarious - "[This guy] has the body of a meathead and the personality of a douchebag." The show is just funny.

Heroes - eh, not bad.

Yoga Unveiled - Interesting documentary on the history of yoga. It's weird, I find myself drawn to a lot of the physical and basic neurological aspects of yoga, but the true believers of any stripe are a huge turn off for me. There's a lot of smart stuff in there, but a lot of goofiness too. Interesting how you can trace back modern yoga, as it were, mainly to the students of of Sri Tirumala Krishnamacharya. Worth thinking about that, for good or ill.

Russell Brand in New York City - just too funny.

Reaper - this show cracks me up. Appropriately blasphemy-lite.

Space Race - 4 part documentary/docudrama on the race between the Soviets and the USA into space. Pretty fascinating. Too bad they had to fake that moon landing.

The Mentalist - the show's strength isn't really the procedurals, but the characters. Simon Baker's acting and sense of humor carry the show.

Scrubs - standard Scrubs fare, which is good.

Better Off Ted - this show is weird and quirky. I'm liking it. Interesting to see where it goes.

Life - This season's overarching mystery is picking up. Which is good, since it was dragging a bit. Damian Lewis can still do no wrong. And Adam Arkin was particularly good, and quite funny, in this episode.

South Park - ah, South Park... I don't watch you often, but I can always count on you for some pleasant blasphemy and goofiness - "...it's the jews in some kind of secret jew cave!"

Brian Regan: Epitome of Hyperbole - not bad. Pleasantly diverting.

Breaking Bad - underachieving high school chemistry teacher diagnosed with cancer, decides to start cooking meth to make money to leave for his family. Birth of a "villian." I devoured the entire first season and the first few episodes of the second season this week. It was really, really good. Dark comedy, extremely well crafted scripts and characters, and characters that are complex and hard to get a hold of. Any show where I don't know what's going to happen 3 episodes in advance, I'm a fan of. Great performances as well. Highly recommended.

Aisha Tyler is Lit: Live at the Fillmore - you know, I had only seen Tyler mostly through her acting, and I wasn't expecting much, but this rocked pretty hard. She was funny. I guess I could relate to a lot of those same mid-30s issues she was talking about, but I dug on her timing and delivery too. Worth watching.

Will Ferrell: You're Welcome America - again, I didn't think that Ferrell could maintain his GW Bush as a moron impression for a full one man play, but he pulled it off. Surprisingly well done, funny and even occasionally insightful.

30 Rock and The Office - again, best comedies on network TV. The Office is making some interesting plot moves.

Smallville - after last week's horrible ep, this week's ep had a sense of fun, good characters, nice acting, and some comic-booky goodness. Way to step that game back up geeks.

The Beast - finally revealing some of the past of Swayze's character, clearing up some mysteries. Great episode, with Swayze rocking the acting pretty hard.

Friday Night Lights - still the best drama on TV. Love this show.

Dollhouse - easily the funniest episode of the season. This week's and last week's show are just firing on all cylinders. Too bad they couldn't have had them earlier in the season. When will networks learn to stop fucking with Joss Whedon? Great show, now that it's being allowed to come into its own. Hope it survives into its second season.

Real Time with Bill Maher - Great panel this week - Mos Def, Salman Rushdie and Christopher Hitchens. Mos is always hilarious... though his skepticism came off as too incurious, especially in the overtime. And it kills me how everybody needs to constantly interrupt each other.

Bill Maher had a great new rule this week -
"...and finally, new rule - forget about bringing the troops home from Iraq, we need to bring the troops home from WWII. Can anyone tell me why in 2009 we still have more than 50k troops in Germany and 30K troops in Japan? At some point these people are gonna have to learn to rape themselves...

You know that crazy soldier hiding in the cave... who doesn't know the war is over? That's us... 500,000 personnel... in 150 countries... I'm not saying we're Rome, because Rome had an infrastructure... Americans would never stand for this in reverse... Maybe money is so tight now that we can justify bringing our troops home..."

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