The Vampire Diaries won't return with new episodes until Thursday. The Best Directed Episodes of TV might return in some distant future but neither I nor, presumably, the readers are eager to return to such a list. The new NBC lineup debuted last night. Naturally, I only watched Community and I watched the newest episode OnDemand at a late hour so The Foot is not the place for analysis of the new NBC comedy lineup. Instead of focusing on a single episode from a single series, I'll offer a few musings on this Friday afternoon:
-Fringe returns with new episodes tonight on FOX. The episode, titled "The Firefly," may or may not be a coincidence. Firefly, of course, is the beloved short-lived Joss Whedon series that began and ended its run on Friday nights. Fringe is a series I want to give a second chance. I watched the pilot several years ago and lost interest halfway through. After the buzz for "Peter," and then the third season, I considered watching the show especially when I heard that new fans could enjoy the show without knowing the intricacies of the mythology. Perhaps tonight, in mid-season, The Foot will finally watch another episode of Fringe. The writing staff's full of writers I respect like Jeff Pinkner, Graham Roland, Alison Schapker and Monica Owusu-Breen. Famed director Brad Anderson directs multiple episodes of the series a season. I might be completely confused but I'm searching for an entertaining series in this post-LOSTworld. I thought I found that series with Terriers but the poor show couldn't attract an audience.
-Community returned with a great episode last night. It's one of the most consistent comedies on television. Harmon, his writers, directors and actors have found the perfect balance. The annoying aspect of Community are its critics--the professional television critics. These critics should find a different tune. Every single week, since September, Community reviews have spent an inordinate amount of time criticizing the show for its meta-ness or its lack of meta-ness or, rather, the desire for balance between the down-to-earth stories with the parody stories. What's the point? Both aspects of the show make up Community's world. Community's a goofy, silly, fun, surreal, heartfelt, honest show. "Modern Warfare" has become the show's worst enemy in a way because fans who loved it crave more of that style while the blowhards love the episode but criticize the show for returning to the "Modern Warfare" style of storytelling.
The most common argument used is, the parody needs to be rooted in character, or a character moment, which isn't groundbreaking analysis, as any Creative Writing 101 class would teach their students that rule. Each of these episodes like the Godfather parody, the paintball episode, the zombie episode, the rocket episode and the stop-motion episode have been rooted in character. Episodes like the rocket ship episode has gotten criticisms because of the lazy way the writers created character conflict like Annie wanting to transfer from Greendale without any previous evidence. But, if one recalls, she thought about leaving Greendale in the finale for a life with Vaughn, and the Jeff situation played out fairly poor so the idea that Annie might want to transfer didn't feel so lazy to me. Annie's the kind of person who would plan a transfer without telling anyone.
When Community has episodes that are non-parody, critics become hyper-aware of anything meta in the episode. For instance, the most complaints lobbied against last night's episode were about the ending when Jeff ran through the rain because it reversed a common romcom trope in an episode designed to be rooted in reality (whatever the hell that means). Was it weird? Sure. But don't criticize Dan Harmon and his writers for an addiction to meta storytelling--the scene didn't work plain and simple.
The lesson: maybe I need to stop writing what critics and fans thought of Community. If one recalls, the LOST fandom and the television critics basically made me insane during the last season and most of seasons 3-6. The LOST archives feature numerous rants about the fans and critics. I digress. Maybe the critics need to find another tune to hum in their Community reviews as I suggested in the first paragraph or maybe remember past plot points so their reviews of episodes like "Basic Rocket Science" don't seem so lazy.
-CBS has been promoting the tidal wave episode of Hawaii Five-O constantly. Will I watch the episode? I will. Hawaii Five-O is a series I enjoy weekly even though procedurals annoy me; however, I lose interest in the show whenever an episode belongs to Alex O'Loughin's back-story and the mystery surrounding the circumstances of his parent's death which isn't a positive sign for the show's most central character. Five-O is sort of throw-back. The issues in the episode are always black and white. For example, the team needed to protect a dictator from possible assassination. The team's devoted to their jobs so they protected the man even though he committed crimes against humanity. Halfway through, the dictator confesses that he came to America to turn himself on and pay for his crimes because he wants to be a good father. The Five-O team ends the episode as heroes for protecting the dictator. It's rather annoying, and one of the reasons I'll bail on an episode halfway through if I feel like the direction's heading down a nonsense road.
-I watched the third episode of The Cape and could not finish the entire episode. The back-and-forth between the Russian criminal and Vince was so ridiculous as the two grown men argued about a friggin' cape. I know that the cape is a powerful device that evil men used for evil things but it's still a piece of clothing.
-The kind folks at HBO OnDemand added Deadwood so I plan on watching the series for the first time. David Milch's Game Of Thrones premieres in April so maybe the Deadwood thing is some sort of 'this is how great a David Milch series can be.' Perhaps I'll write about Deadwood every so often.
-Finally, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena begins tonight on Starz. I planned on watching the entire first season but I wasn't prepared for how much I disliked the pilot episode and the subsequent episode. Steven S. DeKnight is one of my favorite television writers. Imagine my dismay when Spartacus turned out to be nothing more than True Blood except with gladiators in Ancient Rome. DeKnight's written some of my favorite episodes from the Whedonverse too. I was so disappointed.
If I watch Fringe, I might write something tomorrow. If not, expect more nonsense on Monday.
THE YOUTUBE CLIP OF THE WEEK
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