Category: Episode Reviews
-
Series Premiere — Breaking In, “Pilot”
Here we are with yet another new comedy, which immediately makes me just want to point to the piece I wrote a handful of weeks ago about watching and writing about new entries in the genre. Much like so many of the new comedies this season, Breaking In has a lot of potential. In fact,…
-
The Good Wife, “Wrongful Termination”
I couldn’t really bring myself to write about last week’s episode of The Good Wife. Since I watched the first 33 or so episodes in a week-long binge, I can’t really be sure, but I’m mostly confident in making a claim for that to be the worst episode of the series. This is such a…
-
Series Premiere — The Killing, “Pilot” and “The Cage”
I’ve slowly recognized that reviewing pilots of big, anticipated series is sort of a frivolous game. By the time something like The Killing hits the airwaves like it did last night, it’s been discussed so much and been reviewed so frequently, it’s moderately difficult to think about the series in ways that the 923 reviews…
-
Justified, “The Spoil”
In my review of last week’s Justified, I talked about how that episode served as a nice pivot point for the rest of the season. While I still stand by that observation, this week’s episode more overtly points out those sorts of things. So many of the characters and smaller problems introduced in the first…
-
The Office, “Garage Sale”
Well, it feels real now. After a summer of speculation and 18 episodes of wondering and looking for clues as to how The Office would figure out how to say goodbye to Michael Scott, “Garage Sale” gives us our answer. As this episode unfolded, I was assuming that I’d be of two minds as to…
-
Community, “Critical Film Studies”
When I knew that “Critical Film Studies” was reportedly going to include a lot of Pulp Fiction references I was a bit worried that my general ambivalence (and thus lack of real knowledge) towards that film would mean I wouldn’t enjoy this episode as much as I could have. I wasn’t necessarily concerned about not…
-
Justified, “Save My Love”
I haven’t been writing about Justified on a weekly basis because of various scheduling issues but in short, I’ve really enjoyed this season. And I’m still short on time today but I wanted to get a few thoughts down on “Save My Love” because it was just that good. Anyway, the world of Justified is…
-
The Good Wife, “Ham Sandwich”
Holy crap that was a fantastic episode of The Good Wife. “Ham Sandwich” had all the makings of a legitimate finale, but also found a way to serve as a catalyst for what will surely be a wonderful string of final episodes. This episode was full of great moments, shocking twists and some intriguing little…
-
How I Met Your Mother, “Legendaddy”
Note: This post would have been up much earlier, had it not been for WP issues. My apologies. There’s something inherently problematic with Barney Stinson’s place within How I Met Your Mother. On one hand, he’s the series’ breakout character, primarily for the hilarious broadness at which he operates as a womanizer, friend and all-around…
-
Chuck, “Chuck Versus The Muuurder”
Sometimes, Twitter is not your friend. Last night during the first 15-20 minutes of my viewing of “Chuck Versus The Muuurder,” I tweeted something along the lines of “Chuck is getting kind of good again.” And at that point, I really meant it. Despite some of the middling reviews, I actually thought last week’s episode…
-
Fringe, “Stowaway”
Because I was taking something of a minor sabbatical from criticism for my spring break last week, I didn’t write a review or get to put down some thoughts on the cliffhanger from last week’s Fringe. You know, the one where William Bell’s soul/consciousness took over Olivia’s body, which was probably one of the biggest WHAT THE…
-
Parks and Recreation, “Harvest Festival”
I think “Harvest Festival” might be my favorite episode of Parks and Recreation ever. I’m not really confident in that opinion since I’m still basking in the afterglow of watching the episode twice in less than a few hours and I’m mostly confident that it isn’t the “best” episode ever, but good lord do I…
-
Community, “Custody Law and Eastern European Diplomacy”
I have been criticized, both online and in-person, for being totally in the tank for Community. Readers, friends, family, whomever they all just assume I adore every single episode of Community and perhaps I have lost all of my ability to review the series “objectively.” Of course, I hate to break it to everyone, but…
-
Glee, “Original Song”
If there’s one thing that Glee has consistently done well is the competition episodes. “Sectionals” is one of the top five episodes in the series’ short run on the air, “Journey” worked wonders in spite of itself and I actually found season two’s Sectionals episode “Special Education” to be pretty damn good as well. Of…
CB, PhD 