Category: Episode Reviews
-
Season Finale — Chuck, “Chuck Versus The Cliffhanger”
I haven’t written about Chuck since the murder mystery episode and I’d like to say that’s because I have been really busy. But it’s not. I no longer have the desire to write about Chuck on a weekly basis, just like I basically don’t have the desire to watch Chuck on a weekly basis. The…
-
Series Finale — Smallville, “Finale”
Here we are at the end of a long, winding and oftentimes bumpy, 10-year road. Smallville is over. As someone who tries to review television objectively, I’ll be the first to acknowledge this series’ weaknesses, both those within its control and those not. I want to point out all of those things first as to say…
-
Season Finale — The Vampire Diaries, “As I Lay Dying”
When you’re a series that’s almost entirely defined by your ability to come up with the most insane twists (in a good way), sometimes expectations for that kind of thing get too high. At the time, the end of The Vampire Diaries first season seemed like the most wild thing ever and throughout the series’ second…
-
Season Finale, Part Two — Community, “For A Few Paintballs More”
If you missed my thoughts on part one of this glorious two-parter, you can check them out here. I’m actually not sure how much I have to say about “For A Few Paintballs More.” Clearly, it was a tremendously fun episode with a number of great gags and lines, but it had less stylistic and…
-
Cougar Town, “Damaged By Love”
It’s pretty clear that the end of this season is going to primarily focus on Travis’ destroyed state after his proposal. In theory, I am fine with that. But if the series wants to commit to telling an interesting, complicated story about Travis’ life and his place within this weird group, I feel like they…
-
Glee, “Prom Queen”
I don’t really hate spoilers. In today’s internet- and social media-powered landscape, spoilers are bound to happen. During the early seasons of Lost, I used to read spoilers on a regular basis until I realized that I was completely ruining my viewing experience. But Lost is a series that preyed so much on our lack of understanding…
-
Supernatural, “The Man Who Would Be King”
This review will most certainly be short. My apologizes. I am of split mind on “The Man Who Would Be King.” This is an episode that has a lot of work to do, both in explaining the season leading up to it and setting up the two episodes that will follow it. And it of…
-
Smallville, “Prophecy”
This review is going to be really short, as I am short on time, catching up AND have very little to say about this episode. I hate to say this, but it’s pretty obvious that Smallville had no business coming back for a full 22-episode final season. I enjoy these characters and like spending time…
-
Season Finale — Fringe, “The Day We Died”
Hey folks, I had a busy weekend full of personal business, so I’ll be posting some reviews of Friday television today. They’re late and probably a bit shorter than usual, but hopefully they’re still worth reading. I said in my review of Fringe‘s penultimate episode that this season was one of my favorite of recent…
-
The Vampire Diaries, “The Sun Also Rises”
Well, that was just miserable. The Vampire Diaries is a series that primarily works based on its ability to speed up the narrative so fast that the twists and turns come so quickly, it’s too difficult to even think about how telegraphed they may or may not be. Everything is shocking on this series because it…
-
Season Finale, Part One — Community, “A Fistful of Paintballs”
Sequels suck. That’s not always true, but it’s at least usually true.* Whether due to poor planning on the producers’ part or a shockingly high level of expectations from the audiences, there’s just something empty about coming back for seconds. So when it was announced that the Community team was doing a follow-up to last season’s epic “Modern…
-
Cougar Town, “Lonesome Sundown”
Apologies for not getting to this sooner. I honestly forgot about it, which is sort of unfortunate because I really enjoyed “Lonesome Sundown.” This is probably my favorite or second favorite episode of the season. It’s up there with “You Don’t Know How It Feels” for sure. A few episodes ago, Cougar Town introduced Chekov’s engagement…
-
Season Finale — Justified, “Bloody Harlan”
“It’s not your problem. Not today.” I don’t usually preface my reviews with quotes from the episode. It’s something like a lot of good reviewers do (some regularly, some occasionally) and I guess it’s a way for me to separate myself. The format of these kind of post-air reviews is mostly standardized now, that’s my…
CB, PhD 