Category: Episode Reviews
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Early-season check-in: Suburgatory
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: Revenge
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: Sons of Anarchy, “Family Recipe”
When I checked in with Sons of Anarchy last week, I couched many of my praises with some concerns. Sons had been having a very good season that led to a number of truly great moments last week, moments that I didn’t actually expect to come until the end of the season. But amid…
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Pilot rapid-fire review: Once Upon a Time
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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Review: The Vampire Diaries, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
I haven’t discussed the last two episodes of The Vampire Diaries here on the blog, but you probably don’t have to make much of a guess about how they were received in the Barker Complex. If anyone was concerned about how Stefan’s departure from Mystic Falls would be handled, you’re probably laughing at your past…
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Review: The Secret Circle, “Wake”
Now that The Secret Circle has aired six episodes, I thought it was time to do a little drop-in and see how the CW series is progressing. Checking in with a series a few episodes after the pilot is always a good choice, but it feels particularly applicable in this circumstance. It was around episode…
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Review: Sons of Anarchy, “Fruit for the Crows”
I don’t have a whole lot of time this evening, but I wanted to jot down a few things about this season of Sons of Anarchy, which I haven’t written about since the season premiere. You can also check out my extended thoughts on the season by listening to a podcast Les Chappell and I…
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Review: House, “Charity Case”
Even at its lowest point (which was definitely season five, by the way), House has never been a bad series. It has turned in some really tepid episodes – and even those are relatively rare – and for the last three seasons, the series has been generally coasting, but there’s still something about House…
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Season Premiere review — The Walking Dead, “What Lies Ahead”
The Walking Dead was not a good series in its short, six episode season. The pilot is one of the best single episodes of television in the past few years, but after that, things devolved into a rudderless, repetitive and un-subtle mess. Dead was always going to have an uphill battle with its plot due…
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Review: Fringe, “Subject 9”
If you’ve been keeping up with TV Surveillance and following me on Twitter, you know that I haven’t been the biggest fan of the early going of Fringe season four. As I said in my short review of the premiere and in my extended podcast conversation with my buddy Tim Bavlnka, the series seemed aimless…
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Review: Community, “Remedial Chaos Theory”
Do you really ever know if you’re the problem? How can you know? And if you do know, what do you to do to fix those problems? As we move along season three of Community, these are the big questions that one Jeff Winger has to answer. He – and admittedly, the rest of the…
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Review: Community, “Competitive Ecology”
How many times can you do a story or tell a joke before it becomes stale or obvious? Television is defined by its formulaic nature and its ability to tell the same story over and over again, only with enough variation to make things seem different. Check out any police, medical and legal procedural on…
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Pilot rapid-fire review: American Horror Story
The next couple of weeks are going to be insane. 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…
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Review: Glee, “Asian F”
In my review of the Glee season three premiere a few weeks ago, I spent some time talking about how formulaic the series’ has tended to be. For some reason, instead of trying new things with the characters, the production staff loves to have them repeat similar or near-exact stories that worked (and worked better)…
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Review: New Girl, “Wedding”
When I reviewed the New Girl pilot, I was very skeptical/curious about what the series would look like post-pilot. The departure of Damon Wayans Jr. and the entrance of Lamorne Lewis had a great deal to do with my skepticism and curiosity, but I also had trouble really figuring out what New Girl would be…
CB, PhD 