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Saturday Night Live “Sarah Silverman/Maroon 5” Live Blog and Review (40×02)

4 Oct

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60 MINUTES: Political openings haven’t been the show’s strong suit, and this sketch isn’t changing anything. It avoids really tackling the issues it’s looking at and instead decides to structure everything around lampooning social media, and it doesn’t work very well. GRADE: C

MONOLOGUE: The sequence with Silverman and the audience member is pretty funny, and it’s a good incorporation of the audience into the monologue. Although the rest of the monologue goes on for a bit too long to really deliver the laughs, it delivers nicely for Silverman as a comedian. GRADE: B

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Parenthood “Happy Birthday, Zeek” Review (6×02)

3 Oct

Parenthood

“I’m going out on my own terms.”

Throughout “Happy Birthday, Zeek”, responsibility to a family is placed alongside an individual’s desires, and the question for Zeek becomes not only whether he wants to do the surgery or not, but also whether what his family wants outweighs his insistence on going out on his own terms. There’s an interesting framing device to the episode in the birthday party–considering a birthday is probably the most personal day of each year–and the show utilizes that party to wonderfully execute its stories, bringing the Bravermans together for one of the last family gatherings we’ll be seeing.

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The Bridge “Jubilex” Review (2×13)

1 Oct

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“I’m not like you.”

At the heart of the show, we’ve always had Marco and Sonya, two people with different ways of going about the world, but two people who work well together. Over the course of the season, we’ve seen them grow distant, tension simmering between them after Marco’s murder of the Juarez cops, but we’ve also seen them move toward each other again. In “Jubilex”, they will both be moving forward knowing the other has his or her back.

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Person of Interest “Nautilus” Review (4×02)

1 Oct

Person of Interest - Episode 4.02 - Nautilus - Promotional Photos

“It wouldn’t be the meaning you want.”

“It’s the only meaning I have.”

The first half of “Nautilus” throws us into what seems to be another “case of the week” episode, but a flip is switched at the midpoint of the hour when it’s revealed that Samaritan is behind the creation of the game Claire’s playing. Through this revelation, the writers begin to draw ideas and characterization from last week’s premiere, effectively setting up the rest of the season when all’s said and done.

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Masters of Sex “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” Review (2×12)

29 Sep

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“The key is, it takes both of you to make a leap of faith, of trust, working together.”

A high level of trust is needed to be intimate with someone, to bare all like so many people do in this finale. The highest level of trust–the deepest bond–that we see is between our two central figures, Virginia Johnson and Bill Masters, and the interesting thing about this relationship is that the more they trust each other, the harder they fall. By putting faith in each other, by trusting each other, by working together, they wind up losing the other people in their lives.

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Boardwalk Empire “Cuanto” Review (5×04)

28 Sep

Cuanto

That’s more like it. After three weeks of solid, but not quite great, episodes, Boardwalk delivers a thoroughly entertaining hour of television that makes good use of the indelible history seeping up through every orifice of the show’s relationships. Some things never change, indeed, and even though power shifts and people die, the cycle of the environment will always pull you back in.

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Brooklyn Nine-Nine “Undercover” Review (2×01)

28 Sep

Brooklyn Nine-Nine - Episode 2.01 - Undercover - Promotional Photo

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is such a well-realized show, one that effectively set up its various character dynamics in season one and continues to develop them with ease and laughter. As we head into season 2, we know where everyone’s at, and all the character beats that are hit are completely in line with what we know about the characters. The comedy derives not from cheap gags, but rather from the little quirks we’re familiar with or from the relationships we’ve seen.

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Saturday Night Live “Chris Pratt/Ariana Grande” Live Blog and Review (40×01)

27 Sep

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We’re back! As always, check periodically for updates.

STATE OF THE UNION: This is a fine start to the season–predictable, of course–especially considering we’ve had a plethora of bland political cold opens before this. Kenan Thompson’s descriptions of the school bus (“it’s yellow”) are definitely the best parts of the sketch, and Jay Pharaoh’s physical comedy makes for some laughs as well. I was expecting Beck Bennett=Roger Goodell, though. GRADE: B-

RIP, Don Pardo.

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Transparent “Pilot” Review (1×01)

26 Sep

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“I don’t know how it is I raised three people who cannot see beyond themselves.”

The title of the series, Transparent, is a perfect encapsulation of what this show is about. On the one hand, you have the obvious play on words with “trans” and “parent” placed side by side, but on the other, you also have the actual meaning of the word transparent: having thoughts, feelings, or motives easily perceived by others. The show is about perception, about how we see who we see, about how societal and personal values may clash, about whether or not we can still love while looking at someone through a different lens.

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Scandal “Randy, Red, Superfreak and Julia” Review (4×01)

25 Sep

136514_0592_preOlivia Pope is the machine that makes everything run, but in reality, many of the problems that pop up around this environment are the result of her actions; she’s a fixer, but as much as she’s the glue that holds everything together, she’s also what will rip it apart. Take “Randy, Red, Superfreak and Julia”, for example, which brings with it a new status quo–Abby as press secretary for Fitz, Huck as Randy the tech guy, Jake and Olivia hanging out on a beach–that is immediately shaken up once again when Olivia returns to D.C.

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