Week In TV

Sunday:

Breaking Bad - Face-Off, maybe its just the astronomic standard set by last year's finale, but this was a bit too much of a straight forward thriller for my taste. A frickin excellent one though, full of memorable moments and a farewell to one of the greatest characters in TV history. 8/10

Homeland - Grace, This has to be the best new show of the year, with creator Howard Gordon's smarter take on what he already did on 24. Very promising. 7/10

Hung - Take the Cake, This felt a slight reversion into the aimless hi-jinks of previous seasons, but still fun and Rebecca Creskoff's turn as Lenore is one of the most scene-stealingy performances on TV right now. Very entertaining. 6/10

Monday:

How I Met Your Mother - Field Trip, for a show that feeds you so much information, it rarely seems to go anywhere these days. They clearly don't want to reveal the mother till the end of the show, but it just means that all that matters is the end of the show. 5/10

2 Broke Girls - There's been two god-awful episodes of this show to two ones that have been OK, but I was teetering very close to quitting on this. This one though was a bit more of an improvement, although the racial stereotype supporting characters are still a carcass the show is carrying around. 6/10

Bored To Death - The Blonde In The Woods, Bored to Death really is the ultimate hipster show, that puts its smarts to absolutely no use other than pointing out its smarts, and has absolutely no story to tell. Having said that, thanks to its over-qualified three leads, it ends up being infectiously enjoyable regardless. This wasn't the best episode though. 5/10

Enlightened - Pilot, This was sort of a catastrophe of a first episode, but this is a show I am none the less intrigued with, I like Laura Dern and if they can figure out what the show is then it might be great. But as for right now...eh. 5/10

Tuesday -

Workaholics - Model Kombat, Tuesday became a very slender day indeed, what with raising hope and New Girl getting bumped, so this was it. Like the last episode, it was OK I guess. 5/10

Wednesday -

The Middle - The Test, Another fun and well put together episode of this show, which is probably a lot cleverer than it's given credit for. 7/10

Up All Night - Mr Bob's Toddler Kaleidoscope, this show is still working too hard to convince me its not boring, but this was probably the best one yet. 6/10

Suburgatory - The Chatterer, The show is very much becoming a two-hander, between Jeremy Sisto and Jane Levy, and I think it's working quite well for the moment. Probably the weakest episode yet though 6/10

Modern Family - Hit And Run, This show had a very shaky start, but I think the last two episodes have normalized everything. Still over-rated though. 6/10

Happy Endings - Yesandwitch - This felt like one of those sitcoms where a guest star comes in and takes everything over, but it was still reliably funny and ha a rhythm like any other show on TV right now. 6/10

American Horror Story - Home Invasion, and I'm out of here. 4/10

Thursday -

Community - Remedial Chaos Theory, After a start that seemed to make everyone profoundly nervous, including me and I'm probably going to be a pretty hardcore apologist for this show always, this was what everyone was looking and hoping for. The kind of fantastically put together episode of Community that's both smart and soulful. 8/10

Big Bang Theory - The Russian Rocket Reaction, A mostly sweet but sort of pointless episode. Something that defines this show at this point. 5/10

Parks And Recreation - Pawnee Rangers, A lesser Parks and Rec I think, although I enjoyed the Ben subplot quite a bit, and the batman costume worked as a great sight gag. 6/10

It's Always Sunny In Philidelphia - Frank's Brother, Frank's origin story probably seemed funnier in concept than in practice, but there were still laughs to be had here. 6/10

The League - The Sukkah - The atmosphere of this show is really quite repulsive to spend time in, yet I think the writing and performances are strong enough to survive the extremely high douche factor here. 6/10

Friday -

N/A

Top Three Episodes:

1) Community - Remedial Chaos Theory

2) Breaking Bad - Face-Off

3) Homeland -Grace