Category: Episode Reviews
-
Review: The Vampire Diaries, “Bringing Out The Dead”
Boy, did I pick a great episode to check in with The Vampire Diaries. After what I thought was a fairly weak midseason finale by typical TVD standards, the series bounced around a little bit in its first three episodes of 2012. That’s not to say I didn’t like them or that they didn’t include…
-
Series Premiere Review: Touch
Let’s get this out of the way first: Tim Kring is the worst. He is not just the worst because he took a series with a great concept and a handful of truly good episodes in Heroes and quickly ran it into the ground, repetitively. Tim Kring is just the worst because he knows exactly…
-
Review: Justified, “Cut Ties”
I’m short on time again today, but I wanted to put down a few short thoughts on last night’s Justified. If you were to say that Justified had one weakness in its first two seasons (primarily in its first, though), it would be how the series handled the supporting characters who work with Raylan in…
-
Season Premiere Review: Justified, “The Gunfighter”
I’m a bit short on time today, but I wanted to jot down a few thoughts on the very-good season premiere of Justified. When series take the kind of leap in quality that Justified did in its second season (although I maintain that somehow, we’ve retroactively decided the first season isn’t that great and that’s…
-
Series Premiere Review: Alcatraz
Edit: A few folks reminded me that Abrams’ name is also on Person of Interest, which I totally forgot about. My points apply there as well, I think. J.J. Abrams has learned to put his name above television projects that fit a very specific kind of mold. He understands that his name, the mention of…
-
Review: Fringe, “Back To Where You’ve Never Been”
I spent a good deal of time at the end of 2011 being frustrated and disappointed with Fringe. I wrote a review or two and did two podcasts about the first part of the series’ fourth season and if you recall those products, you’ll remember that I felt like Fringe’s approach to this second pair…
-
TV Surveillance’s Worst of 2011: Most Disappointing Veteran Series
It is that time again folks! The end of the year is upon us and that means it is time to look back on the highs, lows and WTFs in television from the past 12 months. There is a lot to reflect on in regard to television 2011. Charlie Sheen went crazy. Well, crazier. Comedy…
-
Review: Once Upon a Time, “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter”
You folks know me. You know that I watch a lot of mediocre and awful television because…well, I am not exactly sure. I know that I cannot quit a series once I put more than five or six hours of investment into it, which explains why I am still watching miserable offerings like Dexter. I…
-
Review: The Good Wife, “What Went Wrong”
I haven’t written much about The Good Wife’s third season. In fact, I’m pretty sure I haven’t done a single post on this season. My good buddy Noel Kirkpatrick and I deconstructed the first three or four episodes way back in the early part of the fall on the podcast, but with so much going…
-
Review: Community, “Regional Holiday Music”
Note: I’m a little short on time today, so I plan on keeping it brief. We’ll see if that actually happens. Chances are you folks know that I watch Glee. Maybe you just come to the site for my Community work, but you probably still see that just a few posts down, I have written…
-
Review: Glee, “Hold on to Sixteen”
At this point, there are so many problems with Glee that is much easier to just say “it sucks!” and move on. Fortunately (or more likely, unfortunately) for you folks, I am much more verbose than that, and I am also so intrigued by the reasons that Glee has so many problems that I cannot…
-
Review: Community, “Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism”
Community is kind of screwed. Now, let me say that I don’t mean that the series is screwed in regards to its place on NBC’s schedule. That might be the case, but there’s no need to be upset about that tonight (and I still think Community is ultimately going to be fine). What I mean…
-
Review: Glee, “I Kissed A Girl”
Despite all its issues, Glee has had a lot of success with exploring the challenges of being gay. I have some issues with how and why Kurt jumped to Dalton last year, but the only good part of season two was his season-long journey to coming out and self-acceptance. The series took Kurt’s challenges and…
-
Review: New Girl, “Bells”
Doing end-the-year lists really forces you to evaluate or re-evaluate your opinion on something. Yesterday, I was crafting my initial “top series” list (which of course started out at like 45 series or something ridiculous like that) and I wrote down New Girl pretty quickly in the process. Of course I did, it’s one of…
-
The Walking Dead is weird.
I’ll just go ahead and apologize up front, folks. Thanks to a dozen professional and personal obligations, I haven’t written anything for TVS in what seems like forever. I’m pretty sure I remember how to do this, however, what I’m trying to convey in this piece is also sort of confounding, so who really knows…
CB, PhD 