Category: Episode Reviews
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Community, “Basic Rocket Science”
When Community really picked up steam with critics and internet commentors (because let’s be honest, it still hasn’t caught on with the general audience), most people pointed to episodes like “Contemporary American Poultry” and “Modern Warfare,” and for good reason. Those two episodes are probably the best the series has to offer (I personally prefer…
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Modern Family, “Strangers on a Treadmill” and Cougar Town, “The Damage You’ve Done”
Having a deep ensemble of comedic performers is almost always a positive thing for any sitcom (or drama, for that matter). Obviously, putting together a cast full of humor-producers is better than relying on a few lead horses because it allows the series to rotate the focus on specific characters, concoct new pairings and develop…
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Terriers, “Ring A-Ding-Ding”
With the Lindus case wrapped up and the Montague aftermath still to come, Terriers takes a detour into more procedural fare this week, but by pushing the character arcs further and tying the case to the personal lives of Hank and Britt, the resulting episode is one of the best thus far. The opening sequence…
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Raising Hope, “Say Cheese” and Running Wilde, “The Junior Affair”
If you’re a comedy that desires to wrap things up with something of a happy ending each week, there’s a fine line to tight-rope. As I’ve discussed relentlessly over the past few weeks, there seems to be a need to execute this approach in all the recent comedies, and that’s fine, but it’s really all about the…
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Glee, “Duets”
Character consistency is an important concept to any television series, particularly dramas. We want the people on-screen to be themselves each week, even if that includes slight variations and ultimately development, along the way. But for most of its run, Glee hasn’t been concerned with such concepts. The series has traded in character consistency and…
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Sons of Anarchy, “The Push”
I could very easily explain my lack of posting about Sons of Anarchy by noting that hey, I’m in graduate school and I’ve been fairly busy over the last month. But though that’s certainly part of the equation, I can’t just leave it at that. I’ve been frustrated and even disappointed in Sons of Anarchy…
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Chuck, “Chuck Versus The Coup d’Etat”
I didn’t write about last week’s Chuck because I didn’t feel like I had much to say. This is perhaps weird considering so many people had strong (read: angry) reactions to the episode and its desire to create all sorts of neurotic drama between the supposed-to-be-happy Chuck and Sarah pairing. I wasn’t as offended by…
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House, “Massage Therapy”
I’ve been saying this all season (and really for the past few seasons), but if House wants to transition into a character-centric drama that just happens to be based in a teaching hospital where crazy, mystery-based cases often occur, that’s fine by me. At a certain point, the mysteries became boring (right around season four),…
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Mad Men, “Blowing Smoke”
Penultimate episodes often make things really, really bad for characters, creating a world where there looks to be no hope. Even in a series like Mad Men where characters are not necessarily in mortal danger and when things have already been unraveling at a consistent rate, “Blowing Smoke” has no problems making things just a little worse.…
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Supernatural, “The Third Man”
Three episodes in, Supernatural‘s sixth season is a mess. “The Third Man” brings our favorite angel Castiel back into the picture, and along with him comes some hackneyed new mythology about the archangels and more McGuffin-like weapons that may or may not be important in the future. Here’s my problem: If the series wants to…
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Community, “The Psychology of Letting Go”
Community typically strikes a nice balance between it’s riffs on the sitcom form, reference humor and heartfelt endings, usually in that order. With that in mind, this week’s episode, “The Psychology of Letting Go” surprisingly mixes that order all up to an extent where the episode works more as a fairly emotional story about loss and letting…
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The Office, “Andy’s Play”
Though it has taken me a few extra days to get to writing up “Andy’s Play,” the episode has been in my mind ever since Thursday night, as it is certainly the best episode of this young season and probably the most enjoyable effort since “Niagara.” Yeah, I said it. The writers said before the…
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Smallville, “Supergirl”
The biggest problem with Smallville as a series, dating all the way back to its origins, is that always likes to make Clark the problem, not the solution. He’s often wrong, made to look foolish and sheepish and spends more time feeling sorry for himself than actually being proactive and heroic. The last two seasons…
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The Vampire Diaries, “Killed or Be Killed”
Apologies for not writing up last week’s Vampire Diaries (again, at Flow), but I found “Memory Lane” to be a really great episode, perhaps the best of the season. It was only a matter of time before Katherine was humanized a little bit and frankly, I’m glad it happened sooner rather than later. I also…
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Fringe, “The Plateau”
Fringe has now reached a certain level of awesomeness (cross a plateau of awesomeness, perhaps?) that every episode this season feels like it’s on another plane of quality in comparison to the first two seasons. This week’s effort is, in theory, just a Freak of the Week episode in Earth-2. In practice, it’s one of…
CB, PhD 