Week In TV

SUNDAY:

The Walking Dead - What Lies Ahead, A pretty lean, tense opening hour of the Walking Dead. But then that was never the problem, it's the show that exists around the zombies that concerns, but that was badass. 7/10

Homeland - Clean Skin, This show continues to shape up to be a gooden, and while this was another table-setting hour, the show continues to make the characters as interesting as the story 7/10

Hung - Mister Drecker, An interesting episode of this comedy that never seems to make me laugh, but never the less I enjoy every week. 6/10

MONDAY:

How I Met Your Mother: Mystery vs. History 5/10, the sort of sucky, tired hour of this show that seems to be the way for every 2 out of 3 episodes. Due a good one next.

2 Broke Girls:..And the 90's horse party. 6/10 I love the world of TV criticism, where being racist is much more forgivable than being shit. Still, in spite of its racism, I am being sort of won over by it.

Bored To Death - Gumball, the ratings for this show are astoundingly low, yet fortunately for it's on the cancellation free paradise called HBO. Not really been impressed with this opening two parter though. 5/10

Enlightened - Now or Never, Hmm I was curious to see the second episode of Enlightened, mostly because the pilot really gave no indication to what kind of show it would be. I still don't really know, but ya know, its a fun half hour. 6/10

TUESDAY

Man Up - Pilot, Try to watch the first episode of everything, and while this wasn't awful necessarily, it was pretty bland. Meh. 5/10

Workaholics- Dont' entirely know why I've watched this three weeks in a row, but I have. So there's that. I don't hate it. 6/10

WEDNESDAY

Up All Night - Birth, I was getting quite close to abandoning this show, but this episode meant I'm probably in it for at least a season now. Rich and surprising 7/10

The Middle - Bad choices, Continue to like this show, even as it gets uniformly ignored. Not the best episode ever though. 6/10

Suburgatory - Don't Call Me Shirley, She won't because she's playing a kid and all, but Jane Levy's performance on this show is probably my favorite on any new show and deserves to be emmy nominated. Not quite sure about the show around it yet, but it is at least pleasingly weird. 6/10

Modern Family - Go Bullfrogs, the Emmy's favorite show is doing nothing to help the inevitable rage filled backlash against it, with a sort of awful season so far. Stop giving Julie Bowen screentime please, I like Bowen, but this is the most grating character on TV. 5/10

Happy Endings - Secrets and Limos, Happy Endings continues to be one of the funniest shows on TV for me, and this trend was not in any way rescinded this week. Great stuff. 7/10

THURSDAY

Big Bang Theory - The Rhinitis Revelation, At this point you can pretty much trace the stronger episodes of big bang theory to the times when Sheldon is being repressed in some capacity. And seeing his mum come to town lets you see a different side of him at least. 6/10

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Storm Of The Century, there's a general sense that this season of Sunny started really strong, so it would make sense that these last couple of episodes have disappointed people somewhat, but this had its moments. 6/10

The League - The Au Pair, this aged frat-boy comedy continues to be obnoxious and funny in spells, but the more Paul Scheer and Nick Kroll appear the better it is. 6/10

Top Three:

1) The Walking Dead - What Lies Ahead

2) Happy Endings - Secrets and limos

3) Homeland - Clear Skin

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

Week In TV

A new feature I've devised, and no doubt many other have devised before me, is to do a calender of the week's TV, instead of writing actual reviews which would take time and effort. Here We Go.

Sunday:

(Disclaimer - I don't watch Dexter anymore because ergh and I tend to marathon Boardwalk Empire)

Breaking Bad - End Times, an episode that perhaps didn't live up to previous weeks but still contained some great moments. 8/10

Homeland - Pilot, A very strong, engaging pilot. Providing a smarter, darker and altogether more suspenseful look at modern espionage than we've come to expect. 8/10

Hung - Don't give up on Detroit, I don't really know why I'm still watching this show, considering how aimless last year was, but something about it's tone amuses me. And this was a strong season premiere. 7/10

Monday

How I Met Your Mother - The Stinson Missile Crisis, A lot has been made of this shows' decline. But I do still enjoy it week to week, even if it is a pale comparison to what it used to be. 6/10

Tuesday

New Girl - Wedding, I liked this a lot more than previous New Girl episodes, I'm still not convinced there's a show here, stil. Fun half-hour. 6/10

Raising Hope - Kidknapped, Not as strong as the previous two episodes, but I think this is probably gonna be a great year for this show. 6/10

Workaholics - Temp-Tress. My first time checking this show out, It was OK. Might watch one more to see if I got a fair sampling. 5/10

Ringer - It's gonna kill me, but I'll do it, Done with this shit. 4 episodes was infinitely more than it deserved. 3/10

Wednesday

Up All Night - New Car, I tend to think when all of a show's plots are about the leads not being boring, you;re in trouble. But this was likable at least. 5/10

The Middle- Major Changes, I'd be tempted to say this is one of the most under-rated shows on TV, given that the amount of acclaim it gets is precisely zero. I liked this one. 7/10

Suburgatory - The Barbecue, The best new network show for me. Leads Jane Levy and Jeremy Sisto are excellent. Not as good as the first episode, but am feeling this one. 6/10

Modern Family - Door to Door, It's not been a great year for modern family, which is going to compound the internet hate for it into stratosphere, but you know, this one was OK. 5/10

Raising Hope - Henderson, Nevada adjascent baby!, The stronger of this week's two raising hope episodes, a show everybody should be watching at this point. 7/10

Happy Endings - Baby Steps, Honestly I don't think there's a show that makes me laugh more than this one, even if it is a wafer thin show, its a fucking funny one. Not the best episode ever but still. 6/10

American Horror Story - Pilot, It's incredible ambition is only matched by its incredible failure, in that it seems not to understand what makes horror work, or what makes a functioning episode of television. Ryan Murphy writes for moments not cumulative effect, but this is a concoction of all his worst qualities. 4/10

Thursday

Community - Competitive Ecology, Certainly the best episode of season 3 so far, even if the year as a whole seems to be responding to a network note to tone everything down a bit, I'm sort of worried about that direction, but I enjoyed this a lot, mostly thanks to an inspired Chang B plot. 7/10

The Big Bang Theory - The Wiggly Finger Catalyst, Worth it for the line 'Everyone knows all disabled people are good people,' even if this was a weaker half-hour. 4/10

How To Be A Gentleman - How To Have A One Night Stand, this show has been banished to Saturday's, with cancellation soon to follow so there's probably not much point in watching it. It;s not really that great either. 4/10

Parks And Recreation - Born And Raised - This spoof of the birther scandal was a little meh, as Park and Rec goes. Which is quite a bit better than most shows out there. 7/10

Whitney - Silent Treatment, Call it morbid Curiosity, but I have watched three episodes of Whitney. I shan't be watching anymore. 3/10

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia - Sweet Dee gets audited, Not as funny is the stellar first three episodes, but I love this show man. 6/10

The League - The Lockout, This show is a bit obnoxious for me, but it does make me laugh intermittently. Guest-starring Seth Rogen yo. 6/10

Friday

N/A

Saturday

N/A

Top Three episodes of the week:

1) Homeland, Pilot

2) Breaking Bad, End Times

3) Community, Competitive Ecology