Game of Thrones - 2x02 - The Night Lands

Another week in Westeros, and this second installment isn't quite as strong as the premiere.  There was no more shots of the comet to link all our stories together and it made the episode feel a little more scattershot.  There are a lot of characters in a lot of different places, and it's going to be tough for the writers to make coherent throughlines.  This week they didn't quite live up to the standard they have set so far, but it was only a small drop in quality.

NBC Thursday Comedies - Weeks 22 & 23

I thought with Community being a two-parter and The Office still on break, I'd take a week off and do another double-up post.  It turns out that while Community continued the Abed and Troy at odds story, the second episode was so radically different from the first that waiting didn't really mattered.  Ah well, it was mostly and excuse to be lazy anyway.

Game of Thrones - 2x01 - The North Remembers

Game of Thrones has returned in fine form this year.  I enjoyed the first season so much last year that it prompted me to read the A Song of Ice and Fire book series that it's based on.  So unlike last year where I knew nothing about anything, I now have five (very large) novels worth of information.  That means no more speculation this year, I already know what's going to happen, unless David Benioff and D.B. Weiss change up some things.  Let's look at how they've done so far in adapting the second novel, A Clash of Kings.

Breaking Bad - Season 3

I read an interview with Vince Gilligan, the creator and showrunner of Breaking Bad, where he said that "this show is going to take Mr. Chips and turn him into Scarface."  Walter White was probably no Mr. Chips when he first started out and it's doubtful that he'll reach the level of Scarface, but the transformation from unassuming chemistry teacher to drug kingpin is in full force this season.

NBC Thursday Comedies - Week 21

No Office this week to make room for a double dose of 30 Rock.  I'm afraid that lowers the bitching of this post considerably.

NBC Thursday Comedies - Weeks 19 & 20

Doubling up this week.  As you may have noticed (probably not), there wasn't a post last week due to all extra time being spent on filling out my NCAA Tournament Brackets.  Therefore, this post will cover the past two weeks of the NBC Thursday lineup.  These two weeks give us our last Parks and Rec for a bit, but feature the return of Community (hence the two images above), so things even out.

NBC Thursday Comedies - Week 18

I suppose overall solid is a good way to describe the night.  30 Rock was meh, Parks and Rec was good, and The Office did okay.

Sherlock - Series 2

Series 2 brought more of the Sherlock I loved the first time around.  No great changes to what made the first series great, just overall more of it.  These three episodes were as dense as the finale of last series, with this finale getting even denser.  The amount of plot at work in 90 minutes is astounding.  Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, and company are churning out movie-length scripts that are more entertaining than most movies out there, including the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movies.

NBC Thursday Comedies - Week 17

This week on NBC it's Leap Day (except on The Office)!  There is news for that show, though.  James Spader will be leaving after this year.  Apparently the Robert California character was only suppose to be around for one season.  There's also talk of a Dwight spin-off.  That show needs to go before it becomes really sad and people forget that it was ever once good.

2011 Oscars Best Picture Rank

I usually write about TV here, but since I make it a point to watch all the Best Picture nominees each year, I thought I would offer up my personal rank of the nine nominees.  I don't have time to do write up for each picture, so this will be just a simple rank with a few quick thoughts at the end.  Also, this is not what I think will win, it's just how I felt about them.