Well, it has been nearly a week. I have to say my viewing got a bit side-tracked by the revolution in Egypt. I find it intriguing to watch historical events like that unfold right before me on television while also taking in how different networks and media personalities handle the situation. I wanted to take out my DVD of Live from Baghdad, which is a great HBO movie featuring Michael Keaton about how the first Iraq war really vaulted CNN into prominence in the early days of cable news. Anyway, it all led to a lot of on demand online viewing over the weekend of the prime time network programming on missed. Thank you Hulu.com.
8:00 – Chuck continues to get better. I kind of related to the start of the episode as the trio of spies were dying to get away from their family. Faced with craziness over his sister’s newborn and the non-spy family going crazy jumping ahead on planning the Chuck-Sara wedding, their response was that they needed a bad guy, had to find a mission to get away. Enter John Larroquette as the stereotype ladies man veteran spy Roan Montgomery. They are called on by General Beckman, a lover of Montgomery, to rescue him - although it turns out he’s gone undercover – while the duo also tussle back and forth on whether to have a big wedding or elope, creating some fantastic moments.
9:00 – Although I am kind of reversing my thought on The Cape given I watched all the episodes I missed live on demand, I still chose to go with an all-new Two and a Half Men. That show cracks me up and the whole “Rose using a mannequin so as to fake a marriage and trick Charlie into having what he thinks is an affair with her because now that he thinks he can’t have her he is jealous” is genius. The show was doubly good this week and I can’t wait to see how Alan’s ponzi scheme that he’s unintentionally running is going to fall apart on him and his now split personality. Although, now that he’s making a lot of money and becoming shady, it would be funny to see Charlie exit (here’s your opening CBS) and Alan staying out the house, hosting his ex-wife’s husband Herb if he were to be similarly discarded. Ryan Stiles is hilarious and I’d love to see that mixture in the same house with Jake in a new version of “My Two Dads.” I am not a fan of Mike & Molly so I spent the other half hour flippin around, making dinner and taking a sneak peak at BBC America's Top Gear, which I would watch in full later.
10:00 – I enjoy Harry’s Law quite a bit, but last night's was a little dry. It was basically a continuation of last week’s episode but was pretty serious with its content, seeming to take quite a turn from previous weeks. It had some humor here and there with the Tommy Jefferson character, but even that kind of rolled into a serious storyline as he had to make the transformation from the circus-like ambulance chaser stereotype into being a serious litigator.
Catching Up on Demand – I have done quite a bit of catching up after spending the latter half of the week following the developments in Egypt during the usual prime time viewing. Key on the list was White Collar (originally Tuesdays), Fairly Legal (Thursdays), Royal Pains (Thursdays), The Cape (Mondays), Human Target (Tuesdays) and the Thursday evening comedy lineup, including Community, which I rarely watch.
White Collar did not finish quite how I thought it was going to because my mind had developed a plot far more elaborate than the writers apparently, which left me kind of unimpressed with a plot that could have been pretty good. Royal Pains was pretty good and, happily, it appears they have finally written the Dr. Emily Peck character out of the show. Overall, I never really liked the character, although she kind of was a good nemesis for Divya, even though I thought Anastasia Griffith was good on Trauma. As for Fairly Legal, the third episode featured a surprising storyline surrounding a coach that gets caught on video screaming at a player whom he benches, creating quite a stir. Gerald McRaney’s role (recurring) was quite good as the judge who personally knew the coach chooses Kate for mediation because he knows how good she is despite not being fond of her approach to the law. Meanwhile, the twist in the show is going on is the appearance that Kate’s similarly-aged and widowed step-mother may be falling for the guy who lives in the boat next to Kate in a quirky little side-plot that was pretty funny.
Human Target’s last two episodes have been interesting. I really enjoyed the Kill Bob show of two weeks ago where they protected a man from his own wife who was actually a Russian spy trying to kill him although she actually wasn’t because she fell in love with him, but nobody could tell. The most recent was an interesting narrative style episode with Chance telling Harry (played by the funny Tony Hale) how he came to be sitting on a bomb handcuffed to the rail on the bar. Also on Fox, House has been quite good of late and last week’s dual stories of family. The team worked on family that did not entirely know they were family due to deception while House was up to his own bit of sneakiness by training Cuddy’s daughter, behind her mother’s back, how to play with toys of the pre-school she was applying for after sneaking in to scout the joint. The most recent episode of Bones was rather boring as the show tried to capitalize on the popularity of HBO’s Big Love by doing a show on polygamy where a man married three women that were actual sisters. Of course there were lots of secrets and, shocking, the father killed him – yawn. Fox’s sister network FX features Lights Out. I watched the third episode and all I can really say is the cliché nature is really starting to bore me.
Now back to The Cape. I was really starting to lose serious interest in the show, but Vinnie Jones was great as the baddie Scales and was quite funny handling the ridicule he got trying to be a villain amongst a costume party on a train two weeks ago. Twists have been the theme of late as The Cape, framed by the arch-villain of the show Chess/Peter Fleming, had to work with his enemy to save themselves and the train passengers two weeks ago and last week was forced to protect Chess from a villain/heroine character called Dice. Dice was a great character played brilliantly by Mena Suvari that sees the future and is trying to kill Fleming to avenge her father’s murder, but The Cape must stop her because he must prove that Fleming is Chess to prove his real identity, Vince, is innocent. The show also delved deeper into the dual identity of Fleming, which is proving interesting.
As for the Thursday night NBC comedy lineup, I watched more than usual. Of note, I thought Perfect Couples, which I have been critical of, was pretty funny as they dealt with a designated Man Cave room that proved to be co-ed instead in a hilarious turn of events. The bigger surprise was from Community. I never really watch that show, but I was intrigued by the Dungeons & Dragons concept they were doing (even though I am unfamiliar with D&D). I was quite entertaining. The other highlight was The Office where they were on a search for Michael who was lost in the city and it showed how uniquely in tune he and Holly were.
Weekend Viewing – Saturday Night Live with Dana Carvey was quite funny. It was great to see the reprisal of Wayne’s World, but I think the return of Church Lady stole the show. Thinking of it now, it kind of reminds me of the Colbert Report in how it’s a satire of a conservative religious talk show. The fake celebs she interviewed were great and the actual Justin Bieber and her reaction were hilarious. I actually think the Church Lady would make for a great half-hour show on Comedy Central. It would be a perfect fit right after Colbert’s show. Other than the Super Bowl, the only other thing of note was the Barbara Walter’s special from Friday night about heart surgeries and health called A Matter of Life and Death. I usually don’t watch her shows, but I remember when David Letterman, who I used to watch religiously came back from his surgery and joked about it on the show, and I thought with it also featuring Regis Philbin, Robin Williams, Charlie Rose and Bill Clinton. It was pretty entertaining.
Tape Delay – It was not quite tape delay, but I caught the re-airs of the new Top Gear (BBC) episodes on BBC America after watching Craig Ferguson manage his newborn exhaustion in his first show taped since his son’s birth. The trio who host the American version of the show are funny, but nobody beats the brilliant trio of Jeremy, James and Richard. Jeremy’s race of a SUV-like foreign car versus a Ferrari on a race track (under construction) was funny and Richard’s race between a Porshe and VW Beetle (falling from the sky) was great. The second extended ‘hour’ featured the lads in America – always a great laugh. Otherwise, I will probably catch the new House and The Cape on demand. I may also give the new Fox show Chicago Code show a shot by watching its debut, but I am not giving it much hope. For some reason, the CSI-like forensic-heavy cop shows of late seem to be giving way to regular cop shows that have some kind of underlying plot of corruption. Blue Bloods is failing incredibly with its while The Chicago Code is coming right out in its promos that that is what the show is about, which seems unappealing. The 10:00 hour was a triple-header. I chose to watch Harry’s Law, which means the new Castle and Hawaii Five-O will be on demand viewing.
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