NBC Thursday Comedies - Week 5

Whew, finally caught up.  A normal week this time, too.  Just three shows and three reviews.

NBC Thursday Comedies - Weeks 3 & 4

30 Rock premieres for its final season!  With Community moving to Fridays (premiering someday) and most likely going to be cancelled and The Office and 30 Rock announcing final seasons, Parks and Recreation may be the only survivor of the two hour comedy block I loved.  I enjoy Go On, so there's promise in the NBC comedy lineup, but most of the new stuff is crap.  A presidential debate preempted everything except 30 Rock on Week 4, so we've got two reviews for that this post and one of each for the other shows.

NBC Thursday Comedies - Weeks 1 & 2

I'm back!  Time to get some major blogging done.  The first two weeks of the season had Weekend Update Thursday in place of 30 Rock.  I'm therefore combining the two for a four episodes post.  Last year I said I was done with The Office, and I meant it at the time, but then they had to go and announce that it was going to be the final season.  I've been watching for eight years, might as well finish it out.  I don't have particularly high hopes, though.

Programming Note - Orioles Magic

Most years when the fall premieres roll out, the Orioles are way out of contention, sometimes in dead last.  This year has been wonderfully different, the O's are in the postseason for the first time since 1997.  This had led to the time that I would usually spend in front of the TV watching the new fall shows being spent watching the Orioles instead.  Sometimes at the stadium, eating up even more TV watching time as I sit through rain delays.  Put that on top of all the other things going on (a trip to New Orleans, going camping, Ravens games, my actual job, etc.), and there is precious little time left.  It's been a great ride, but the lack of TV watching means a lack of writing about TV.  I've caught up with a few shows, many I'm still slowing working on.  I plan to get out my weekly NBC comedy posts, one about new shows, and even one about the recent half season of Breaking Bad I've had brewing for a while, when I finally have the time (maybe November?).  So for the five of you who actually care, posts are coming...eventually.

Ain't the beer cold!  Go O's!

Emmy 2012 - Predictions

The 64th Primetime Emmy Awards are tonight and since it conflicts with a Ravens game, I, unfortunately will not be watching.  I will be recording it to at least watch the intro before going to bed.  Not watching it live will in no way hamper my trying to guess who's going to win tonight.  I'm offering up who I personally think should win the category and who I think will actually win.  Last year was my first attempt at this and I did really bad, so let's see how this one goes.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Season 1

I was a late convert to Joss Whedon.  My gateway drug was Firefly, and that wasn't even until after the movie had been out for a couple of years.  It just so happened my roommate had the DVD set and one summer I decided to sit down and finally watch something from this Joss guy I'd heard so much about.  I was hooked immediately and have since devoured any new stuff he's put out (except his comics work).  Dollhouse, Dr. Horrible, and just this year The Cabin in the Woods and The Avengers.  Going backwards though, was a more daunting task.  Seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and five seasons of Angel is a lot of episodes.  I finally got the push I needed when two of my favorite TV critics were going to be revisiting the first season of Buffy on their podcast.

Emmy 2012 - Dream vs Reality

Wow, have I been lazy.  It's been a month since the Emmy nominations came out and the last time I posted anything.  I'd like to make excuses about real life, vacation, and blah blah.  The truth is that it's summer and I'm lazy.  I'll try to keep things a little more lively around here moving forward.  So here's the post (finally) that compares my dream nominations against the actual nominations.

Emmy 2012 - Dream Ballot

It's Emmy time again, and tomorrow morning the nominations for the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards will be announced.  Considering how late I'm posting this, most of you will read it after the announcements.  In any case, you can see how different my tastes and the tastes of the Academy are (hint: very, very different).  I'll have a post up later highlighting those differences, but for now this is who or what I would choose to nominate if I had any say in the matter.

Breaking Bad - Season 4

I swear this show gets better every season.  Breaking Bad is about the slow build, and this season perfected the technique.  We knew from the first episode that this season would be about Walt vs Gus, and slowly over 13 episodes things would move closer and closer to that confrontation being resolved.  Then they hit you with the last string of episodes where everything comes together and things get crazy.

The Legend of Korra - 1x11/12 - Skeletons in the Closet/Endgame

I want to say upfront that for the most part, this was a pretty great finale to an overall pretty spectacular season.  Knowing that there were going to be two seasons, I kind of expected the Amon story to play out over both seasons, with this one ending on some sort of downer (a la Book 2: Earth) or maybe with a resistance building in the underground.  Instead the Amon storyline is brought to a close and done very well.  Overall, this is not a bad thing, many series do season long arcs with one big bad, a problem arises in the final wrap up though.