Category: Episode Reviews
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Cougar Town, “Little Girl Blues”
Cougar Town is basically a live-action cartoon, perhaps more so than any other comedy on television. There’s probably a nice debate to be had between this series and 30 Rock for which one is more cartoonish. And for the most part, that’s not really a bad thing. I think most people can agree that this…
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Terriers, “Sins of the Past”
With only three episodes left, critics and fans alike are moving into “Save Terriers” mode — if you missed Sepinwall’s piece yesterday, it’s a good read — and the series is continuing to prove why all those columns and Twitter hashtags are worthwhile. “Sins of the Past” is a flashback episode to the case that…
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Season Premiere — Human Target, “Ilsa Pucci”
Writing about the Human Target season two premiere is particularly interesting to me for a few reasons. First of all, I have rarely, if ever, just jumped into a series without seeing most of the episodes leading up to said jump-in point. I literally can’t think of any series that I’ve done that with in…
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Glee, “The Substitute”
The last two episodes of Glee have been generally awful. I mean just dreadful, two of the worst in the series’ run. Perhaps it’s because of that — though not only because of that, as I’ll argue — that I found “The Substitute” to be an insanely fun episode of the series, despite it’s very,…
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The Event, “For The Good Of Our Country”
I haven’t written about The Event since episode three or something like that, and I think you know why. The Event is a terrible, terrible television program. Yet, because I have a whole in my schedule at 9 p.m. on Monday night, there I am, every week, watching The Event. Well, watching might be too…
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Chuck, “Chuck Versus The Fear of Death”
After a string of rock-solid episodes, “Chuck Versus the Fear of Death” feels more in-step with the earlier episodes of season four. Despite the episode’s attempts to keep the stakes high after the Mama Bartowski stuff from the last few efforts, the value of the plot movement found within “Fear of Death” won’t really be…
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Dexter, “Take It”
Of course, I said I’d be checking in with Dexter on a weekly basis and then I followed that post up by not checking in with Dexter last week. Even more unfortunate is the fact that last week’s episode was a damn good one. Nevertheless, “Take It” is yet another strong effort as far as…
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Luther, “Episode Five”
Luther has been in something of a slump over its past two episodes, and after episode four, I wondered if the last two episodes of this first season (I believe they’re doing a few 2-hour movie event things in the future) would be even close to as interesting as the first hour. Well, after “Episode…
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The Walking Dead, “Tell It To The Frogs”
After a generally miserable second episode that felt like the boring middle part of a mediocre zombie movie, The Walking Dead had something to prove to me. Could it tell stories are entrenched in any sort of character focus? Could it take its countless stereotypes and make them into characters? Basically, I’m concerned there’s nothing…
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Community, “Cooperative Calligraphy”
I’ve had some discussions with Community fans who have been a little disappointed by the first batch of S2 episodes because there’s been a lot of “theme” episodes and little Greendale-heavy, smaller-scale episodes. If those people didn’t love “Cooperative Calligraphy” I don’t know what the heck to tell them. Dan Harmon said in an interview…
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The Vampire Diaries, “Katerina”
Wow, and I thought last week’s episode was a major exposition dump. “Rose” featured a whole lot of information disseminated to Elena and company, but at least it came amid a series of set-pieces and character action. “Katerina,” while mostly enjoyable, was a purely expositional episode that is surely setting the stage for all sorts…
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Supernatural, “All Dogs Go to Heaven”
After last week’s exposition-heavy, but still great episode, Supernatural moved forward with its new equilibrium status in “All Dogs Go to Heaven,” with Sam and Dean working specifically for Crowley and hating it, while continuing to figure out just what the hell Sam actually is (or is not) at the moment. “Dogs” isn’t an awful…
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Smallville, “Abandoned”
This week on Smallville, it’s all about family and family histories. And though his issues with Jor-El are certainly present here, “Abandoned” works well in letting the two ladies move to the front and deal with their pasts in emotional resonant and in Tess’ case, twisty kind of ways. The result is the second fine…
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Sons of Anarchy, “Firinne”
It might have taken most of the season, but Sons of Anarchy‘s third season is finally resembling the heights of season two, as “Firinne” feels like both the culmination of a lot of frustrating times for Jax and us at home and a launching pad for some interesting things to come in the final three episodes. After the…
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Glee, “Never Been Kissed”
On the surface, one could make an argument that Glee has always been interested in the bullying that happens in high schools — or at least its fictional Ohio high school — and so with the horrible outbreak of bullying-related suicides, particularly by homosexuals, the series seemed like the prime candidate to spread a “message”…
CB, PhD 