Father of the Pride: What's Black and White and Depressed All Over?
In response to the title of this one--me, after watching the first episode of this new, supposedly "adult" series. (Seriously, you couldn't go fifteen seconds during the Olympics without seeing a promo for it!) These are the same guys who brought us
Shrek, right? So why isn't it as funny, entertaining or all-around amusing as either of the
Shrek films? I think they're trying too hard to be "adult." Take out the fact that it's about animals and animated and you've got basically a pretty standard episode of
Everybody Loves Raymond here. Only difference--
Raymond is funny. Visually, it's a stunning achievement. Comically, it's not quite all there, yet. I wanted to like this one, but it just fell so flat. Or maybe it was that most of the jokes here were previewed in the comercials all summer long and were long since ruined for me.
Scrubs: My Old Friend's New Friend
Dr. Cox line of the night: "Do you want me to give you my 'things I don't care about' speech again because, ya know, I've updated it to include all white guys who add --izzle to anything."
Oh,
Scrubs, how I've missed you. The perfect balance of comedy, drama and wacky insanity. In the day and age when a lot of TV sit-coms have become cookie cutter, Scrubs is one of the few that has a "voice" to it--character if you will. I think part of it is that everyone on this show is so deeply flawed that it's hilarious to see them all interacting and scary to wonder--are all doctors like that?!? The fourth season kicks off in fine form with the wacky new Heather Graham character (her touching everyone's face and then repeating their name was a riot) and the usual gang at the hospital. Turk and J.D.'s reunion after being separated for two weeks and Carla's comment that "Maybe someday (Turk)'ll love me that much" was also nice. And Dr. Cox...always count on him for at least two good belly laughs per show. How is it that the Emmys keep overlooking John C. McGinley in the role?!? The season premiere was much hyped and with good reason--Scrubs is the best comedy on TV, hands down. If you missed it, do yourself a favor and catch an encore of this one on Saturday night.
The Amazing Race
For the second straight episode, no one gets elminated. This time around, Brandon and Nicole stave off stupidity and get to continue in the race. The line, "We can't shave our heads becuase we're in the modelling industry" had me laughing out loud. This time around, Colin continues to act like a jerk to everyone and Chip and Kim begin to play him. Hearing Chip admit he's fuelling Colin's ego for an inevitable self-destruct is great and makes me pull even more for that team. Colin continues to be a complete jerk to Christie, though from the looks of things, she's gonna finally get some gumption next episde and stand up to him. 'Bout time! And another team nearly goes to jail over a money dispute with a taxi driver.
In watching the events in India, I had to wonder some things. Christie assumed that all the men were staring at her at the train station, but could it have been seeing these two strangers with camera crews following them around? I am uncertain if India gets the glut of reality shows we do and I think it'd be pretty strange to see two people followed around by cameras like that. I'd certainly look and try to figure out what was going on. Also, maybe that was why everyone was so eager to help with the pushing the taxis. Maybe they figure this is their big chance to get on TV.
Stargate Atlantis: Poisoning the Well
I've finally found my favorite character on this show--Dr. Beckett. He gets to be at the center of an episode and quickly shows why he deserves to be a full-time character on this show.
The un-easy question here is--is victory at "any cost" really worth it?
On the world of Hoff, the people have found a way to possibly keep the Wraith from feeding on them. With some work by the Atlantis team, this drug is perfected. But it has a high price--it kills the Wraith and about half the population of Hoff due to side-effects . Shepard points out the Wraith are gonna get kind of annoyed at this and level the cities, but the Hoffrans don't care. They want to defeat the Wraith and are kind of upset when our heroes don't take the drug with them to offer to other cultures in the wake of the Wraith. Meanwhile, Shepard and the Wraith captured a few episodes ago engage in a Kira/Dar'heel debate ala one of
DS9's finest hours, "Duet." The scene where Shepard agrees to "feed" the Wraith in return for information is nothing short of chilling.
In short, this is the best episode of Stargate Atlantis yet. It asks hard questions and gives us no easy answers. In the end, we feel the same horror our heroes do at what they've helped create. The only obvious part of this one was that cute Hoff girl, Perna, who Beckett takes a fancy to, has to die by episode's end. But otherwise, this show keeps getting better and better each week.
posted by Michael Hickerson at 9/01/2004 02:33:00 PM |
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