Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Almost Live, Definitely Dead, and Heroes Still In Purgatory

Sunday was a big night for Seth MacFarlane: His big comedy special, two new Family Guys, and The Cleveland Show. Hannah Banana was my favorite of the two, providing closure to the long saga of the Evil Monkey That Lives In Chris' Closet. The subplot with Stewie and Brian meeting Hannah Montana was slow, but picked up near the end, and had some great (and uncomfortable) jokes involved. The other episode was the mandatory "Brian enters another relationship with the usual results" storyline that comes around every other season. Technically sound with some good gags, but not all that satisfying.

The Almost Live comedy special, on the other hand, was an interesting departure for network television. Seth and Alex Borstein have a great chemistry together, and Seth's love of classic variety shows was in full effect here, although the "Family Guy: Live in Vegas" CD reamins his crowning achievement in anachronistic entertainment. The gags were hit or miss, but the Marlee Matlin bit is worth the time spent just on its own. Hopefully the ratings were good enough to spur a few more live specials, hopefully with the rest of the FG cast involved.

Now on to Monday...

Castle: A little bit of a ho-hum episode, sadly. Still enjoyable, but there wasn't much to sink my teeth into. I appreciated giving more screen time to Captain Montgomery, but the stuff with Castle's mom just sank like a stone. Nothing against the actress, but the role is just so very one note, it stands out like a sore thumb around the better written characters on the show. "Old person discovers the Internet" isn't interesting anymore, and the lack of any kind of payoff really made it a chore to get through. The twists seemed perfunctory, and the whole hour just felt like a trip to the outlet mall. Not a long trip, but nothing great on the radio and the scenery was just trees and billboards for Indian casinos.

I don't know if I'll win this year's award for Most Tortured Metaphor, but it'll be an honor just to be nominated.

Heroes: I'm not quite sure how I felt about this episode. I'm going to write tonight's review as optimistically as I can, and see what happens.

Hey, Peter has some motivation now! He's using his power at the expense of his own health, showing us the martyr complex that he's developed ever since his mother chose to lavish more attention on Nathan rather than him. That's character development! Good work, Heroes!

Hey, HRG was pretty bad ass tonight! And he brought the Haitian with him! And those two sorority girls from last week totally got Haitian'd! That's a word now! In all seriousness, the shot of him coming into Claire's room, gun drawn, was pretty cool. Nothing came of it, but it was a cool visual in a show that used to specialize in them. It's also a much needed plotline for HRG; the sins of his past coming to revisit him after he's resolved to turn over a new leaf. And Claire...was there. And her roommate left early in the episode! That's two wins!

Parkman was actually pretty good in this episode too, messing around with Sylar, then attempting to sacrifice himself in order to keep Sylar's memories from linking up with Sylar's body (which for some reason thinks that he's Nathan again). With the news/rumor that Adrian Pasdar is leaving the show, it's fairly obvious how that storyline will end...OR IS IT???

(Spoiler alert: Of course it is, this is still Heroes. It's either obvious, disappointing, or obvappointing)

Also, STILL NO MOHINDER!!! WHOOOOO!!!!

Coming soon: Will I have to review triple FlashForward? Will I ever watch V? Will the cool kids start calling it Five?

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