Category: Episode Reviews
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Review: Parks and Recreation, “Smallest Park”
I haven’t written about Parks and Recreation once this season. Various personal commitments typically keep me to two reviews on Thursday night/Friday morning, I’d frankly just prefer to discuss the likes of Community and The Vampire Diaries at those times. However, although I have enjoyed much of Parks and Rec’s fourth season, I’ve also…
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Review: Community, “Documentary Filmmaking: Redux”
Just picture for a moment that someone who was randomly, in the off-chance, moved by the swell of online support for Community in the wake of NBC’s decision to “bench” it for a bit in early 2012 decided to watch tonight’s episode and it was their first experience with Community. Can you even begin to…
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Review: Glee, “Mash Off”
Glee has never been a consistent series. Even in the now-halcyon days of the first 13 episodes, the series stumbled on a fairly consistent basis, it just happened to get the raw, emotionally wrenching moments right more often. One of the biggest problems with season two was its wild inconsistency, not across episodes, but within…
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Review: The Vampire Diaries, “Homecoming”
Let me just put this out front: I enjoyed the fall finale of The Vampire Diaries’ third season. “Homecoming” was an entertaining episode with a number of truly fun and thrilling moments. If this were just about any other series, I’d be talking about how insane and well-plotted this episode was. But this isn’t any…
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Review: Community, “Studies in Modern Movement”
There are a lot of real awful things in this world – hunger, terrorism, disease – but if we’re talking about somewhat less real awful things, it’s hard to top moving. I lived in the same house my entire life until I went to college and perhaps it’s just because of those 17 years of…
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Review: Glee, “The First Time”
When I read sometime last month that Glee would be doing an episode centered on Rachel and Kurt losing their respective virginities, I shuddered. A few times. Even though this season of Glee has been relatively solid (let’s just pretend last week’s episode never, ever happened OK?), I am always worried when the series decides…
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Review: Sons of Anarchy, “Hands”
Sons of Anarchy is having one heck of a season, no? Whether or not Kurt Sutter agrees with most of the criticisms of the mediocre third season, it is apparent that he decided to push the series back towards the things it does best in season four. Now that we’re coming to the final stretch…
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Review: Glee, “Pot O’Gold”
Well, I guess there was no way that could last. It’s been a while, but when the first three episodes of Glee’s third season aired nine months ago, it was somewhat staggering that all of them were pretty solid, with the last aired episode “Asian F” being one of my favorites in a very long…
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Early-season check-in: 2 Broke Girls
Over the next week or so, I’m hoping to check in with a number of the fall’s new series. Most have aired half-dozen or so episodes by now, so it feels like a fine time to see what they’ve improved on, if anything, since the pilot. These pieces won’t be too long, but they…
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Review: The Walking Dead, “Save the Last One”
That’s more like it. “Save the Last One” is definitely the best episode of The Walking Dead since the pilot and it might be one that I actually like more than that stirring initial offering. This is the kind of series that I hoped The Walking Dead would be and this is the kind of…
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Pilot rapid-fire review: Grimm
There are so many new series debuting and unfortunately, there is only so much time in the day for me to write about television while balancing my “real” life. You know, the one I spend on Twitter. ANYWAY, I’m going to try to touch on each new series once it airs a pilot, but these…
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Season Premiere review — Chuck, “Chuck Versus the Zoom”
Chuck is one of those series that has trouble with season premieres, or at least it has been recently. Because the seasons two and three finales have suggested big changes for characters and for the narrative as a whole, the subsequent S3 and S4 premiere have been forced to deal with those changes. And because…
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Early-season check-in: Prime Suspect
Over the next week or so, I’m hoping to check in with a number of the fall’s new series. Most have aired half-dozen or so episodes by now, so it feels like a fine time to see what they’ve improved on, if anything, since the pilot. These pieces won’t be too long, but they will…
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Early-season check-in: Whitney
Over the next week or so, I’m hoping to check in with a number of the fall’s new series. Most have aired half-dozen or so episodes by now, so it feels like a fine time to see what they’ve improved on, if anything, since the pilot. These pieces won’t be too long, but they will…
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Review: Community, “Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps”
Halloween is a big deal for Community. Although the series was off to a solid start, “Introduction to Statistics” is the first great or borderline great episode the first season had. From Pierce’s ridiculous freak-out to Abed’s Batman costume/voice, “Statistics” nicely combined the series’ pop culture-soaked sensibilities with its thematic and character aims. Of course,…
CB, PhD 