TV Roundup - 9/23 to 9/28

So I've experimented in the past with doing episode-by-episode reviews, and while I enjoy doing episodic reviews sometimes, the truth is that I don't always have a lot to say about every episode of every show. But I still feel like I should write a little something about where I stand with a bunch of the shows that aired in the past week. So here's a thing: each week I'll attempt to do a quick summary of some of the highlight episodes of the past week that I didn't get around to doing a full-length review for. Let's see what happens!

New Girl - New Girl's second episode was not as strong as its premiere, but it was still a pretty fun episode of television, with two storylines that found a good way to utilize everyone in the ensemble. One of the weaknesses of Season 3 was that the strong Jess/Nick focus often left other characters in the dust, so it's refreshing to see an episode where everyone in the main cast gets at least one moment to shine. And this episode also did well by mixing up the pairings a bit: Schmidt/Jess is a combo we haven't gotten in quite some time, and running CeCe loose with the guys rather than keeping her as Jess's sidekick was a good way to dig into her character a bit more deeply than the show typically does. New Girl may not be the world beater it once was, but it feels like it's on solid ground right now, so let's hope it stays that way.

The Middle - The Middle returned for another year in much the same way it has in previous years, which is not a bad thing. This is one of the most consistent shows on television, always delivering the right note in a way that's familiar but still continuously endearing. The show can get away with some of the "more of the same" feel in a way that say, Modern Family can't because it actually does take the effort to gradually change and mature its characters, and that was well on display in this week's premiere, where Sue simultaneously gets her braces off and seems a little bit more weary of the world and Axl begins to confront the fact that his dad is aging and he's not quite sure how to handle it. This is pretty heavy stuff for an 8:00 family sitcom, and that The Middle handles it with the warmth and strength that it does demonstrates why it's still the go-to family show on television.

Doctor Who - I'm actually two episodes behind on my Doctor Who reviews, but that's mostly because I didn't have all that much to say about last week's episode, which was a perfectly solid Doctor Who story that felt a bit inessential to the shows' central themes but still managed to be a good time overall. I have a lot more to say about the most recent episode, though, which was right up there with "Listen" as my favorite episode of this season so far. Sending the Doctor off into Muggle World is almost always a guaranteed good time, but this episode went even further than that and analyzed just what it means to be a companion of the Doctor. It also contained some surprisingly deep-rooted analysis of some of the Doctor's flaws and prejudices, including his apparent distaste for soldiers and his current hesitance to accept anyone that isn't Clara. We're about halfway through this Doctor Who season, and I have to say that I'm surprised at how successful it's been in terms of being an intricate analysis of just who the Doctor is - really is.

Saturday Night Live - SNL kicked off its 40th season in mostly uninspired fashion. There were some decent sketches - the Good Neighbor team continues to bring forth some of the most delightfully weird material SNL has ever seen, the show's skewers of the NFL were pretty damn solid overall, and new cast member Pete Davidson has some real skills that I'm ashamed to admit to because he's younger than me, but overall it was not the strongest of season openers, and it mostly wasted the extremely likable and game host it had in Chris Pratt. The new Weekend Update team in particular was a little bit painful - I'll give Michael Che some time to settle because he's had success on The Daily Show, but man, Colin Jost is just...not suited for this role, is he? Still, SNL premieres often feel like they're shaking off the cobwebs, so hope isn't nearly lost yet. Last season was a pretty rough one, but there's enough talent in this cast and writing staff that they should be able to pull it together.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine - Over the course of the year, I had sort of forgotten about Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which ended its run seemingly ages ago. I really enjoyed the shows' first season, but it never quite wowed me in the way that some of the excellent cable comedies that premiered this year did almost immediately. And yet, this premiere reminded me of just what a solid, funny and overall incredibly entertaining show Brooklyn really is. The cast is truly a hit list of some of the finest actors working in comedy today, and the shows' go-for-broke attitude leads to some of the fastest and smartest comedy currently on network television. This wasn't a perfect episode - the main plot with the mobster sort of just petered out, and a lot of the romance stuff felt shoehorned in (although I'm actually a fan of the totally absurd Gina/Boyle pairing), but it felt fresh and funny enough that it gave me hope Brooklyn could go on to not just become the best comedy on network television (though it'll have to battle it out pretty hard with Bob's Burgers, which returns next week) but could hopefully duke it out with some of those cable comedies to become a contender for TV's funniest show. It's not there yet, but it's so close.

Oh, and there was also a Family Guy/Simpsons crossover. I won't comment on that, because that way, I can go on pretending like nothing happened at all. Trust me, the healing process will be better this way.

You're the Worst is the best romantic comedy on television

 

This fall, an undeniable trend has popped up in new sitcom pilots: romance. From Selfie to A to Z to Marry Me, so many sitcom pilots are obsessed with the idea of bringing the building blocks of romantic comedy to television - a feat that has never quite been achieved before. Sure, you have shows like Friends and Cheers and The Office that paired two of their characters together and captivated audiences through intricate will they/won't they arcs, but no show has ever used romantic comedy as the main building block of its world. Those aforementioned shows all had their groundwork in either workplace or friendship comedy (or, in the case of Cheers, both) that gradually integrated rom-com elements to push their central couple forward. But this fall sees an unprecedented amount of pilots that seem to be using the romantic comedy framework to frame their entire show. Perhaps this is due to the (very mild) success of The Mindy Project, or the (much less mild) success of How I Met Your Mother, both of which have been the closest thing we've seen to a straight-up romantic comedy in a long time. However, none of these shows hold a candle to FX's You're the Worst, the best example of romantic comedy on TV. In fact, not only is it the best romantic comedy on television, it's a solid contender for the best comedy on television. It's that good.

How good is it? It's so good that I have only seen nine of the ten episodes it's produced so far because the show hasn't been renewed for a second season yet and I'm scared of the possibility that I'm about to finish it for good. It's so good that each episodes gives me at least one burst of laughter where I have to pause the episode I'm watching and catch my breath. It's so good that it makes me care about two people it explicitly tells me I shouldn't care about by rooting their flaws in a fear that resonates with just about anyone who's ever been young and confused and afraid of their direction in life (also known as everyone). You're the Worst is a great romantic comedy, a great comedy, and just a great show because it understands that sometimes love is an outright terrible idea, and sometimes it's messy, and sometimes it's horrifying, and sometimes it's electrifying, and a hell of a lot of the time it gives your life purpose when it seems like you have nothing left. It also understands that there are many different types of love. There's the love between significant others, sure, but there's also the love between friends, or the love for yourself, both of which are just as vital and important as romantic love, and it understands that love is far more complicated than fancy weddings and life-long marriages and food processors. You're the Worst is a great show because it understands that we are all the worst, and that love is about being able to understand that you're awful and the person you love is awful and that you just have to sit with what makes you awful and trench through it to get to the good stuff.

Oh, and also, You're the Worst is a great show because it's really, really funny. This has been a great year for TV comedy, with prized possessions like Rick and Morty and Broad City and Review bursting onto the scene, and You're the Worst could stand tall with any of them, harkening an absurdist, go-for-broke humor styling that feels akin to the dearly departed Happy Endings at points. It's quickly assembled one of the strongest ensemble casts on TV, with all four of the shows' regular leads delivering the jokes and pathos constantly thrown at them at a whim. You're the Worst is a fantastic show, and you're probably not watching it, and it hasn't gotten a second season yet (though rumor has it that things are looking good) so go and do yourself and it a favor and burn through those ten episodes on Hulu right now - or at least, burn through the first nine and then sit around for a while and hesitate on starting the tenth because you don't want it all to end. You owe this to yourself.

Pilot Review: "Black-ish" on ABC

Black-ish

ABC, Wednesdays at 9:30 PM E.T. 

Who's involved? Black-ish has the impressive pedigree of both Anthony Anderson (Andre Johnson) and Laurence Fishbourne (Pops, who's credited as recurring). Tracee Ellis Ross has a handful of TV credits, from Girlfriends to CSI, but everyone else is relatively unknown. Creator Kenya Barris has previously been a staff writer on shows such as The Game, Girlfriends and I Hate My Teenage Daughter. This is his first gig as showrunner. 

What's it about? "Black-ish" is a family comedy that centers about what it's like to be black in an upper middle class setting. Judging by the pilot, it seems to be an attempt to mix some standard family sitcom fare (overbearing dad! kooky old grandpa! level-headed wife that constantly has to talk down her husband!) with some more pointed social commentary about race and wealth. 

Is it any good? Black-ish is the strongest comedy pilot I've seen so far this season by a comfortable mile. That isn't saying a whole lot, but there is a lot to genuinely like here. The cast is immensely talented and already has pretty incredible chemistry - and even the kids, a difficult thing for family sitcoms to get right, are interesting and well-drawn character played by very capable actors. The show does fall into some of the typical ABC family sitcom pratfalls - the narration, which seems to be an unfortunate staple for this kind of show on ABC, is full of unnecessary exposition, and there are definitely more old sitcom chestnuts being brought out to play than I would typically prefer. But Black-ish seems at least vaguely self-aware of all of this, often spinning seemingly rote plots on their heads (a scene that builds to the typical "character thinks they're getting an honor but doesn't" reveal twists into said character getting that honor after all, albeit with a "but") and allowing things like Andre's overprotection of his son to spin into such absurdist territory that you sort of forget that it's a little bit hacky. And it's easy to forgive a few generic sitcom plots when so much of the material here covers topics that we haven't seen properly explored in television comedy in quite some time. Black-ish has an interesting and unique story to tell,  and it seems capable of doing it in ways that are equally as interesting - the humor interestingly feels a lot like the humor of more "edgy" ABC fare such as Happy Endings and Don't Trust the B--- in Apartment 23, which lends itself well to the show's refreshing voice. The success of Black-ish will ultimately depend on whether it can set aside its role as an ABC family comedy and explore the more nuanced material it's obviously interested in. It should still manage to be a good show either way, but the latter show is something that is much more needed on television, so let's hope it trends more towards that one.

Will I be watching again? Definitely. This is probably the only new comedy this fall that I feel a strong need to stick with right now.

It's time to talk about The Mysteries of Laura

The Mysteries of Laura is one of the most hilariously misguided shows to premiere in several years. The entire show plays like a drama straight out of 1991 and even then, it would've been slammed as "overly dated" and "about 30 years too late." It seems enamored with the fact that a WOMAN CAN BE A COP and ALSO BE A MOM, as if WOMEN ARE SIMPLE-MINDED CREATURES THAT CAN ONLY FOCUS ON ONE THING USUALLY BUT NOT LAURA SHE'S THE MASTER OF THE ENTIRE WORLD SHE HUNTS BAD GUYS WHILE HER CAR IS FILLED WITH KID SNACKS AND COLORING BOOKS!!!! There is a line where a character literally says, "wow, a real middle-aged female cop, just like on TV!", and I don't think it's even really meant as a joke. This is a show that seriously finds the idea that a woman can be a police officer and have children to be revolutionary and unheard of. Hell, it seems fascinated that Laura even has a job, constantly reminding us how difficult it is for a working woman to find a place to watch her two out of control and probably deeply mentally ill sons while she's at the office hunting bad guys!

But The Mysteries of Laura is not just tone deaf about the social issues it's convinced it's solving. It's also one of the most unrealistic cop dramas I've ever seen, making the adventures of Scooby-Doo seem like a gritty police documentary. Now, I am not a police officer, but I am pretty sure that typically the police don't exchange quirky dialogue with a perp that is holding someone at gunpoint. I'm also pretty sure that the NYPD isn't allowed to just go solve crime in other towns, and I'm pretty sure that the go-to strategy for investigating someone who is receiving death threats isn't "go to their mansion and eat cake with them." But what's especially disturbing about the shows' portrayal of police work is the way it clashes with the light-hearted tone it's trying desperately to invoke, to the point where the show opens with a scene where someone is shot in the face while holding a hostage and quirky music is playing in the background. There's even an extended gag about Laura wiping the perp's blood off of their hostages face, and it's played off as a wacky moment of slapstick comedy. "Boy, my life sure is a whirlwind! I'm either washing crayon off of the walls or I'm wiping the blood of the human I just murdered off of another humans' face!".

Nearly every character on The Mysteries of Laura is an unrealistic prototype, from Laura the Crazy Type A Mom Who Somehow Juggles A Job And Children Which No One Has Ever Done Before Ever How Does She Survive When Target Closes At 11 to her sleazy ex-husband (I don't understand why my wife is so upset with the fact that I cheated on her and refuse to leave her house!) to her deeply troubled and likely future serial killer children (I'm calling it now, the series finale is her grown children murdering someone and Laura having to decide whether to shoot them in the face or not) and even to her jealous co-worker, who doesn't get how Laura manages to have it all so she makes angry faces at her and insults her clothing, because if there's one thing women hate, it's watching their gender succeed, am I right ladies?!

If you really must, watch the pilot of Mysteries of Laura simply for the cringe factor, because this is such a disastrous piece of television that it is kind of worth watching just to see how bad it gets. But after that...I beg you, people of America (or at least the three of you reading this blog right now), burn this show. Burn it straight to the ground. Okay, that's a little dramatic. Maybe just don't watch it. Please, please don't watch it.

New Girl - "The Last Wedding"

 

It's no secret that New Girl had a bit of a rough third season. While I would argue the season was never as bad as some of its worst critics claimed it was, it was certainly a messy comedown from the sky-high achievements of the shows' excellent second season, one of the strongest seasons of network comedy in recent years. While many sitcoms begin to falter after they become too comfortable in their own skin and stop taking the risks that made them stand out in the first place, New Girl actually had the opposite problem last year - it changed the status quo so much that it wound up losing sight of its core. It spent so much time trying to figure out Jess/Nick and Schmidt/CeCe/Elizabeth and the re-addition of Coach and how to better utilize Winston that it never managed to figure out any of it. There were some undeniable high points in the third season, from series highlight episodes like "Menus" and "Basketball" to big, well-calculated moments like the Super Bowl episode and the Jess/Nick break-up, but much of the season seemed to be frantically trying to figure itself out, only to throw up its hands and give up towards the end.

So "The Last Wedding" feels like something of a relaunch, a clean slate that brings all of the loft members more or less back to the place we met them in Season 1 and lets them loose on their way. This is a tricky decision. As I stated before, many sitcoms eventually lose their way because they stop attempting to progress their characters and become content with keeping them as stock types, never growing or changing or learning. And while parts of Season 3 are better left forgotten, these characters have made some real emotional progress in these past three years, and forgetting all of that would be a huge mistake. But this decision winds up working incredibly well - or at least, it does for now, as "The Last Wedding" is a hell of a season premiere. It's an always fun, often hilarious, and overall sweet and entertaining half-hour that reminded me why I loved this show and while I still consider it to be one of the increasingly few current network comedies that's capable of achieving greatness. If the rest of the season plays out like this episode, then what's going to work about this "back to basis" approach is that it won't involve New Girl ignoring the emotional weight that make these characters stand out in the first place. "The Last Wedding" is a simple episode, sure, but it's still an episode that feels rooted in three seasons of well-earned character development. When we see Jess and Nick sitting together in a bathroom stall, it has a poignancy that's different than what it was in...say, "Wedding", way back in early Season 1. This is the Jess and Nick that's been through "Fluffer" and "Cooler" and "Virgins" and "All In" and "Mars Landing", and seeing them continue to connect even through all of that is what makes this premiere have that extra layer that separates a good comedy from a great one, a show that's capable of an episode like "Dance" and a show that's capable of an episode like "Parking Spot". It's still unclear if New Girl can reach heights like the latter episode again, but "The Last Wedding" is certainly a big, promising step.

Doctor Who - "Listen"

"Listen" is an incredible episode of Doctor Who, easily the best episode of the season so far and probably the best episode in several seasons. It reads very much like a summary of everything Steven Moffat has done on the show so far, an episode that gets to the basis of fear and where it comes from and attempts to analyze it under a microscope in an attempt to gain a better understanding of not only the Doctor, but ourselves. On a surface level, you could say the episode succeeds because it utilizes many of Moffat's strongest abilities - digging into the effects of time travel and deeply analytically horror stories (the two components that made "Blink" an episode for the history books), but what makes "Listen" so incredible is the way it wraps so many of the series' defining statements into its story and manages to make them prevalent without making them overly obvious. It's the definition of a landmark episode, and no episode has felt quite that way since "The Doctors' Wife", which aired over three years ago, (Although I would probably accept an argument for putting "Day of the Doctor" up to that level, as well). 

There's so many components to "Listen", which is a story that admittedly flirts with the idea of being a bit too complex for its own good, something that has sunk many of Moffat's stories in recent years. What starts off as a seemingly commonplace monster story, where the Doctor attempts to analyze the monsters that we're all afraid are hiding under our beds by taking Clara to the childhood bedroom of Danny Pink and coming face-to-face with a monster itself, quickly becomes something much more than that - something that challenges the very idea of a monster story. In many ways, this episode calls back to "Midnight", another episode that started off as a seemingly typical monster story until it completely flipped the switch by having everyone in the episode view the Doctor as the monster. "Listen" argues that the very idea of a monster story is somewhat fabricated, a manifestation of our desire to be afraid of something. It purposely never reveals to us what was hiding under Danny Rupert Pink's bed, because that's not what "Listen" is about. "Listen" isn't about the thing you fear - it's about the fear itself, the idea of being afraid of something, and the idea that being afraid is a key part of what it takes to carry on. If we're afraid of something, there's a reason, and that should drive us to analyze just what we're afraid of and why. The Doctor lied in his bed as a child completely petrified of everything, and now he deals with that by trying to uncover everything he can about the universe.

Of course, that fear occasionally manifests itself into something a bit more troubling, and "Listen" suggests that's what's truly driving the anger and the slight insanity of the 12th Doctor. More than any of the previous three episodes, "Listen" felt like Peter Capaldi's defining moment as the Doctor. It's now incredibly clear just who this man is right now - he's an insane man, which, sure, we've always known, but under 12 we're seeing it more than ever, and "Listen" clues us into why he's that way. Recent incarnations of the Doctor have hid their insanity. The scared, crying little boy has always been there, sure, but they've been uncovered by fezzes and bowties and "Allon-sy!" and leather jackets and suits and anger and giddiness and what have you. But that's what's different about 12: all of that is starting to be progressively uncovered. The 12th Doctor, underneath his stone-cold snark, is the closest we've seen the Doctor to being that scared little boy weeping in bed in a long, long time. And my guess is that he's about to learn - as is Clara, and as is Danny Pink - that it's okay to be that person sometimes. "What's wrong with fear? Fear is a superpower!", the Doctor calls out. He doesn't quite believe it, or else he wouldn't be trying so hard to defeat it. But this incarnation of the Doctor seems to believe it more than most, and that's what makes him such an anomaly. 

Doctor Who - "Robot of Sherwood"

Look, I'm going to be upfront with you guys here: I don't have a lot to say about this episode of Doctor Who. It was a light, fluffy episode that was obviously meant to serve as a bit of a comic relief in what's shaping up to be something of a darker season of the show. And that's fine! Every season of the show has at least one frivolous, carefree adventure - as it should, because this is a television show about a man who travels through time and space in a police box. Not everything has to be so self-serious. It wouldn't be Doctor Who if it was.

So "Robot of Sherwood" was...fine. It was not the best example of a "light adventure", and it was not the worst example of one. It had some parts that were very good, some parts that were hilarious, a ton of parts that were a slog to get through, and an ending that wound up wrapping everything together surprisingly nicely. It's pretty much everything you would expect a "The Doctor meets Robin Hood!" episode to be - there's some silly fight scenes, campy and over-the-top historical dialogue, and a moral that brings a surprising amount of depth to the idea of a fairy tale. It is, in other words, your standard "the Doctor travels to the past and meets a historical figure" episode (even if this one happens to be fictional - sorry, Robin Hood), a format that was a seasonal affair during the Russel T. Davies era of the show but has become less prevalent since Moffat took the wheels. The last one we've had was "Vincent and the Doctor" in 2010, which is one of my all-time favorite Doctor Who stories. In fact, I sort of thought "Vincent and the Doctor"was the perfect cap on those types of episodes, since it turned the format around by bringing some dramatic weight to the idea of the Doctor meeting an important and famed figure of the past. These types of episodes tend to play closely to the version of the show that's a kids' educational program, never really forming a coherent story around the figure or the time period they set foot in. "Vincent and the Doctor" really changed that, as it used the Doctor and Amy's time with Vincent Van Gogh to make some very powerful statements about artistry, legacy and creating your own story.

"Robot of Sherwood" sort of attempts to make similarly bold statements, but it doesn't commit enough to fully make the landing. Like Rusty last week, the show sets Robin Hood up as a parallel to the Doctor himself - Robin Hood is just a legend, or so the Doctor thinks, and there's no way anyone could believe this guy is real right? The Doctor assumes that he's a robot, just like several other people in the town have become, and we're meant to believe so, too - until a twist ending reveals that no, Robin Hood is real, but people stop believing that he really existed and thus, becomes no more than a legend, or a myth. This twist is not really as surprising as the show would like us to believe, but it works as a way to subvert our idea that the Doctor is always right and that we should always believe him. It also works as a nice way to point out that the Doctor himself could be constructed as a myth. That's all well and good, but it doesn't quite mesh tonally with the rest of the episode, which is trying so hard to be carefree and silly that it winds up sinking whatever lesson the episode is trying to teach. It's not that Doctor Who can't be carefree, silly and thought-provoking all at the same time, but "Robot of Sherwood" tries so hard to be silly and so little to say anything that at one point, you sort of wonder why it's bothering to say anything at all.

Pilot Review: "A to Z" on NBC

A to Z

NBC, Thursdays at 9:00 PM E.T. 

Who's involved? A to Z has an appealing lead couple in Cristin Miloti of How I Met Your Mother and Ben Feldman of Mad Men, two very likable actors that I would certainly not mind watching pretend to be a couple. It's run by Ben Queen, who doesn't have much on his resume - just the screenwriting credit to Cars 2. (Yes, really.) Rashida Jones and Will McCormack also serve as executive producers.

What's it about? "A to Z" is a romantic comedy that tracks the relationship of Andrew, a whimsical employee for an internet dating site, and Zelda, a no-nonsense lawyer. If you think that sounds cliche - you're right! This is a show that takes every single romantic comedy trope and makes out with it in a big, climactic kiss under a fountain. (By the way, that actually happens in the pilot). The catchy tagline that the show thinks make it stand out is that it tracks every minute of their relationship "from A to Z", but it's unclear what that actually means, except that this show is apparently confident that it's totally going to last 26 episodes. 

Is it any good? There is very little to like about this pilot, which produces zero laughs, creates one of the most annoying characters in recent television history in Henry Zebrowski's Stu (the wacky, bearded best friend is apparently a new sitcom archetype and it needs to stop, now), and follows every rom-com cliche in the book without even attempting to subvert them. The characters are all shallow sketches - he's a mans' man but he also loves to sing Celine Dion! Isn't that just quirky?! She's a super-serious lawyer who doesn't believe in anything magical because her childhood sucked! Oh, boy, these two characters are sure going to be fun to watch together, aren't they?! They're like, opposites! And the lead characters are a minefield of depth compared to the supporting characters. Andrew's best friend Stu -  who, once again, is the worst character ever - has little to him other than "says bad punchlines at inappropriate moments and lies to women for no reason" (god, he is seriously the worst), and Zelda's sidekick Stephie's only personality trait is "inherits the interest of whatever guy she's currently dating". That's literally all we find out about her! This script is a total mess, but it's to Miloti and Feldman's credit that the pilot is actually not unbearable. They're incredibly charming both together and apart, and they're both so clearly putting their all into this. It's literally the only thing stopping this from being a trainwreck, and although it's not enough to make this a good show, it elevates what could've been a truly regrettable pilot into something that's mostly just kind of bland and unremarkable. That's actually a pretty big improvement, and if the writing can just step up even a little bit, Miloti and Feldman could be enough to save this thing and turn it into something worthwhile.

Will I be watching again? I won't go out of my way to seek this one out, but Ben Feldman and Cristin Milloti are compelling enough that I wouldn't mind checking it out again if I'm home on a Thursday night with nothing better to do.