Category: Featured
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Season Finale — Fringe, “The Day We Died”
Hey folks, I had a busy weekend full of personal business, so I’ll be posting some reviews of Friday television today. They’re late and probably a bit shorter than usual, but hopefully they’re still worth reading. I said in my review of Fringe‘s penultimate episode that this season was one of my favorite of recent…
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Surveillance Spring Stumping: Why FOX should renew The Chicago Code
It’s May, which means we’re very close to the network upfronts. Choices about which series live and which series die are probably being made right now by all the major networks. This of course means it’s time for fans and critics to start stumping for their favorite series stuck on the bubble between cancellation and…
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Season Finale, Part One — Community, “A Fistful of Paintballs”
Sequels suck. That’s not always true, but it’s at least usually true.* Whether due to poor planning on the producers’ part or a shockingly high level of expectations from the audiences, there’s just something empty about coming back for seconds. So when it was announced that the Community team was doing a follow-up to last season’s epic “Modern…
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#TVFail Entry 2: House, “Simple Explanation”
The accused: House, “Simple Explanation” (Season 5, Episode 20) The crime: Presenting a terribly manipulative version of the “Very Special Episode” gimmick. 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 were convinced had it all planned…
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Glee, “Rumours”
Before “Rumours” aired last night, I tweeted that I had this weird feeling that the final string of episodes was going to be pretty strong. Despite my issues with the length (and the subsequent Kurt lovefest that resulted because of it), I thought last week’s episode was very good and it set up a number…
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Gossip Girl, “The Princesses and the Frog”
Gossip Girl is not a good television program. Most of you already probably knew this. Hell, I knew this. Because of the series’ pedigree (the Josh Schwarz/Stephanie Savage part, not the teen girl novel part), I watched Girl during the first season and found it to be moderately charming. Less so than The OC, but more…
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The Killing, “What You Have Left”
Note: I’m super-busy this week, but wanted to get down a few quick thoughts. I haven’t written about The Killing for a few weeks. Part of that has to do with scheduling issues; I’ve been traveling the last two weekends. But perhaps more importantly, the last two episodes of the series haven’t been particularly review-worthy.…
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Fringe, “The Last Sam Weiss”
I haven’t been able to write about Fringe since “Stowaway” and most of the second half of the season, I’ve been spotty with my reviews. It’s a scheduling issue, and I apologize. And frankly, I don’t actually have a lot of time to write this review of last night’s penultimate episode, “The Last Sam Weiss,”…
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Smallville, “Dominion”
A few weeks ago, I expressed some concern that Smallville would be spending too much time bringing back familiar faces and that decision would ultimately impact Clark’s last few steps of development. Thankfully though, every episode in this final run has included a major guest star — Jonathan, Booster Gold and now Zod — and…
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Waiting for Superman, week three: What’s the legacy of Smallville?
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 two pieces here and here if you missed them. As we get…
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Community, “Applied Anthropology and Culinary Arts”
In light of last week’s very funny episode of Community, there’s been some discussion about the series’ desire to tell us about the emotional connectedness between these people instead of showing it. That’s a criticism I can totally see and if there’s one thing I would knock about this season it would be that sometimes…
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The Vampire Diaries, “The Last Day”
The insane plot developments and shocking twists come so often on The Vampire Diaries that the series has almost lulled me into a nice, cozy sleep in a way. I don’t always know what the twists are going to be, but I always know that they’re coming. Or at least I thought I did. Tonight’s episode, “The…
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Cougar Town, “You’re Gonna Get It”
Producing 22 episodes of comedy isn’t easy. Every season, it is probable that two or three episodes won’t be completely awesome, even for the best series. These episodes don’t necessarily have to be terrible, but they’re just at a slightly lower quality than the rest. Last night’s episode of Cougar Town, “You’re Gonna Get It,”…
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Glee, “Born This Way”
When it was announced a month or so ago, I just assumed a 90-minute episode of Glee would be one of the worst things ever. Some of the episodes from this season have felt extremely long within the 42 minute structure, so I couldn’t even really imagine having to deal with another 20 minutes. Ultimately,…
CB, PhD 