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[/caption]FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS: The fourth season concluded months ago on DirecTV but NBC has not yet burned off the episodes in the ultimate death time slot: Fridays, during the summer, at 8PM. The show is ending next season. Peter Berg and Jason Katims were sneaky about the fourth season. For non-FNL people and fans of Scrubs, just think Scrubs: Med School. Friday Night Lights has rebooted. Rebooting is not new in television world. Rebooting is essentially a spin-off. The key word is essentially. Most of the high schoolers from season one are long gone in the fourth season. Saracen has a six episode arc that ends in confusing fashion. His departure is one of the more oddly written plot points in the series. In episode five, he mourns and buries his father after he had been killed in Iraq. At the end of season three, he wants to leave for Art School in Chicago but feels he cannot because of his grandmother; however, in season four, this is retconned to make Matt's decision all about Julie. Saracen gets a large settlement from the army and decides to leave. There are zero goodbyes shown. The second to last image of Saracen is the man sitting outside of his house, looking at his mother and grandmother. The next image is of Saracen driving on an open road out of Dillion and Texas. The heart of the season has been Coach taking over the East Dillion football program. The transition had some rough patches like how East Dillion seems entirely unfamilair with the success of the West Dillion Panthers and the history of Coach Taylor. The show had the task of introducing and integrating new characters into a familiar world and they handled the task very well. None of the characters are new versions of old characters. Each have their defining characteristics. Some are cliche. Others are not.
For all of the praise the show gets, and it's deserved, Friday Night Lights uses some very familiar tropes of their genre. This season, there's been an abortion storyline. The character Vince, with a criminal past, is torn between providing for his drug-addict mother through illegal means and turning his life around with Coach as his no.1 cheerleader. There was an episode about a girl's distant father who, it turns out, as a different family in Seattle. This same girl was the center of the abortion storyline and she also is in love with Riggins. Riggins, of course, has slept with her mother. I won't even dive into the crime stuff because the show has always been terrible at telling crime stories.
All of this leads me to a grade of the season thus far. Only two episodes remain on NBC. That grade is...
B
TRUE BLOOD: Nazi-werewolves who are addicted to vampire blood. Need I say more? The third season has been better than the nonsense of season two. True Blood, to its credit, knows what it is and embraces it. The show is even campier, more violent and more twisted than ever. I'm awaiting patiently for the arrival of the cute blond girl that Jason saw in the woods. She appeared in episode three but barely. Sookie continues to be the best character of the show.
It's unfair to give a grade after just three episodes but I will...
B
ENTOURAGE: Season 7 has, thus far, been the same old Entourage. And it has only been two episodes. Ari remains one of the greatest characters ever created. Drama remains the second best character on the show. E still sucks. There hasn't been enough Sloane. Turtle is Turtle. I have no idea if the season is going anywhere. Right now, I doubt it because season six went nowhere and the biggest source of drama on the show is that Vince got a haircut which doesn't raise my hopes about the quality of the season. But I've accepted what the show is. With that said, it is fun criticizing it. I also should mention Tucker Gates, LOST Directing Alum, directed the second episode of the season. It did not have the scope of Ab Aeterno and Across The Sea nor was it anything like how The Substitute was shot.
Grade: N/A
MAD MEN: Season 4 begins July 25. I will be caught up by then. Will there be reviews? Not sure. But I'll give grades for seasons one and two. I am only two episodes into season three.
Season 1 Grade: A+
Season 2 Grade: A
DEXTER: I will provide zero Dexter coverage. You can all blame Showtime for that. Or me for refusing to watch the show on friends' netflix accounts.
THE VAMPIRE DIARIES: I've seen bits and pieces of the show since watching the pilot episode. Season 2 doesn't begin until September. Will it be reviewed? No.
THE REAL WORLD/ROAD RULES CHALLENGE: The season wrapped a month ago. It was awesome. Can't wait for The Gauntlet 4.
Grade: A+
Feel free to comment on one of these shows or all of them.
THE YOUTUBE CLIP OF THE WEEK
i will give dexter season 4 a solid A, i think. i eagerly await season 5 whenever that begins. who knows with showtime and their nonsense? by the way, Gonzo mourned the passing of "Party Down" in a recent column, but he said showtime ended it. wasn't that show on starz? if so, THAT is yet another reason newspapers are folding. simple fact checking is a lost art i guess
ReplyDeletehaha i know! i was pleased that he mentioned the show and then saw that he messed that part up and thought 'yeah that journalism degree was so worth it. i can't wait til i can get paid to make stuff up and not know what im talking about.' im sure no one on the staff has ever heard of google. i think they just recently learned what this 'intranet' thing was lol
ReplyDeletehmmm... not sure why that last one was signed as janice. i think something got crossed up in my computer there
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