Category: Featured
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Test Pilot: File #16, Friday Night Lights
Test Pilot #16: Friday Night Lights Debut date: October 3, 2006 Series legacy: One of the best dramas of the 21st century After a short hiatus, Test Pilot is back! Time for more historical pilot analysis – I know, contain your excitement. In case you have forgotten or are new to the site, here’s the…
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Season Finale — Glee, “New York”
Earlier this year, The A.V. Club’s Todd Van Der Werff wrote a great piece with an unfortunate, yet completely valid headline. It reads, “Community and Glee are pretty much the same show.” Obviously, the headline alone was enough to send the AVC community into a tizzy, but Todd’s piece is basically completely on-point. The first…
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On letting go: Musings on Lost’s final season one year after the finale
You’re probably aware of this, but today is the one-year anniversary of Lost‘s finale episode, “The End.” One year ago, the biggest television phenomenon of the 21st century came to an end, overwhelming some and frustrating/enraging more. For me personally, it’s been something of a whirlwind year, especially as far as television goes. I started…
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Checking in with Friday Night Lights Season Five
Again, these posts were written during the DirecTV run. They’re being reposted here now. I haven’t written about FNL in a while (I think since episode three) because of odd scheduling and also because I’ve been a little frustrated with things. It’s not that season five has been bad, I just didn’t feel like the…
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#TVFail Entry 3: Heroes, “How To Stop An Exploding Man”
The accused: Heroes, “How to Stop an Exploding Man” (Season 1, Episode 23) The crime: Failing to provide a satisfying conclusion to a much-hyped season of serialized drama Television’s failures are supposed to be obvious. From the overhyped non-starters that flop from the very beginning (hello, FlashForward, Lone Star) to the much-discussed clumsy conclusions of series we…
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Glee, “Funeral”
Note: I’m traveling today, so this will probably be shorter than normal. Glee has a problem with penultimate episodes, apparently. Last season, FOX swapped the intended penultimate episode “Theatricality” with “Funk” because they wanted the former’s Lady Gaga-centric content to line up with the release of the latest soundtrack. This of course brought us the…
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Series Finale — Smallville, “Finale”
Here we are at the end of a long, winding and oftentimes bumpy, 10-year road. Smallville is over. As someone who tries to review television objectively, I’ll be the first to acknowledge this series’ weaknesses, both those within its control and those not. I want to point out all of those things first as to say…
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Season Finale, Part Two — Community, “For A Few Paintballs More”
If you missed my thoughts on part one of this glorious two-parter, you can check them out here. I’m actually not sure how much I have to say about “For A Few Paintballs More.” Clearly, it was a tremendously fun episode with a number of great gags and lines, but it had less stylistic and…
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Waiting for Superman: Week five part two: Ranking the episodes of Smallville (again)
With only five more weeks of Smallville, there are mixed emotions in the TVS headquarters. To work out those conflicting feelings, I’ll be writing a pre-episode piece every week from here on out until the final episode on May 13. You can the first five pieces here, here, here, here and here if you missed them. And now we come…
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Misery loves company: Musings on why Community season two has been better than season one
I wanted to write something in celebration of Community‘s season finale tonight, but I have gone back and forth as to what is I actually wanted to write about. A ranked list of the episodes? Nah (at least not yet). A list of the best moments? Boo. More about Pierce? Meh. No, instead I’m here…
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Cougar Town, “Damaged By Love”
It’s pretty clear that the end of this season is going to primarily focus on Travis’ destroyed state after his proposal. In theory, I am fine with that. But if the series wants to commit to telling an interesting, complicated story about Travis’ life and his place within this weird group, I feel like they…
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Test Pilot: File #15, Sports Night
Test Pilot #15: Sports Night Debut date: September 22, 1998 Series legacy: Aaron Sorkin’s first foray into television! After a short hiatus, Test Pilot is back! Time for more historical pilot analysis – I know, contain your excitement. In case you have forgotten or are new to the site, here’s the general primer: In this…
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Glee, “Prom Queen”
I don’t really hate spoilers. In today’s internet- and social media-powered landscape, spoilers are bound to happen. During the early seasons of Lost, I used to read spoilers on a regular basis until I realized that I was completely ruining my viewing experience. But Lost is a series that preyed so much on our lack of understanding…
CB, PhD 