TV Week in Review

Amazing Race: High(Low?)lights of the week included Donald stripping to his undies to pole vault in the mud and Ronald's brutal browbeating of his daughter throughout the leg, culminating in his telling her that she always disappoints him. I said that I would like to see a family team last long, but given their performances this past week, I don't see that happening again. As usual, the unique teams (goths, hippies, etc) are more interesting and likeable than the dating couples, yet most of the couples finished near the top of the pack this week. But have no fear, each of them is one girlfriend meltdown away from getting Philiminated.

Chuck: Leave it to some good ol' truth serum to get some stories moving forward. Of course, the most interesting tidbit actually came from a lie; we learned Sarah really does have feelings for Chuck. And it comes at a time when Chuck has decided to move past her and try things out with sandwich maker Lou (played nicely by Rachel Bilson). Once again, I see Chuck having more chemistry with anyone but Sarah, but I don't think the Chuck/Lou pairing will last. Next week promises some big surprises and I have a feeling I know what they are, but I'll wait and see if I'm right.

Heroes: See my nagging Heroes questions post to get my thoughts on yet another uneven effort from this show.

How I Met Your Mother: The whole idea behind not seeing the flaws in a friend/lover until someone points them out to you was done perfectly and as Homer Simpson says, "It's funny, cuz it's true". As nice as this episode was, next week is the one I'm waiting for as the slap countdown finally hits zero. Barney beware!

Aliens in America: A stronger effort than the past few weeks if for no other reason than Justin and Raja were fighting this week. I think the value in this show will to have these two outcasts bond with each other in a world "against them" rather than making this The Odd Couple: The High School Years. The direction the show takes them over the next few episodes may be what determines whether I stick with this show or not.

House: I hate repeating myself, but the same gripes I've had about this show this season remained this week. The show still has its strong points, namely its great one-liners (usually from House) and gross out ailments, but the structure under which they're currently being provided is not one that I'm enjoying.

Reaper: Many interesting little things came out of this week's episode: Loved the Gladys subplot and her messing with Sock's dreams. We got to see the Devil's nastier side this week with his leaving Sam the bill for dinner and having the cop's last arrest be his own. The "Get Out of Hell Free" card is also very intriguing, but you can bet Sam won't use it for himself. The likely recepients right now would be Sam's dad or Andi. If it's the latter, lets hope she won't turn it down like she did Sam's birthday gift. BTW, loved the slap fight between Sam and Andi's now ex-boyfriend/douchebag.

Back to You It finally struck me this week how similar this show is set up to Murphy Brown. While both shows have similar characters, there is a key difference between them; MB was a sitcom that had its characters deal with topical issues of the day, while Back to You simply involves their characters in cliched sitcom plots. Take for instance this week's episode which involved the gang trying to get a raccoon out of Kelly's attic. Let the hilarity ensue! If this show has aspirations of keeping the standard sitcom alive, it needs to take things to another level.

Mythbusters: I might as well include this too since it was a new episode this week. I liked the idea of the supersized myths, but was a little underwhelmed by the choices they made for the myths to supersize. Both the shark and waterski myths were pretty anticlimatic (and shouldn't Jaime and Adam have done the waterski one since they did the original). However, I really enjoyed the jet cab one. The results weren't surprising but the visuals were awesome to watch. Finally, there was the jet car myth. I always found the original jet car myth to be boring, but since it was their first, I know this show loves it. It was a shame to see their efforts and not the myth busted on this one. I was not expected the car to blow up like that. Given what happened, I have no doubt that they'll try that one again in the future. I'm curious how recently that one was done though considering Scottie was involved with it. If it was new, I'm not sure why they brought her back for help on it.

Survivor: It's a good thing this week's show didn't air next week or else I probably would have thrown up my Thanksgiving dinner watching Courtney and Frosti canoodling. Thankfully that little showmance had the kibosh put on it when they booted Frosti off this week. There were other annoyances on this week's show like the fact that Phei-Gee's immunity win was seen coming a mile away. Between her "I haven't won anything" speech and Erik's "As long as Phei-Gee's doesn't win immunity, I'll be fine" line, you knew exactly what was coming. The one cool thing about this episode was Probst keeping the castaways at tribal council for an unknown twist. But be forewarned, it won't come this week as they're airing a clip show this week instead.

C.S.I.: So this was the big farewell Sara episode and I have to say I was left relatively unmoved. I get the idea of the job becoming too much for her to take, but I didn't buy that this was the case that would do her in. Maybe part of the problem was that I somehow missed the earlier episode that involved the potential suspect. Disappointment aside, I doubt that this will have too much of a negative impact on the show. There's still cases to be solved and the rest of the crew is intact to deal with them just fine. I would worry that too much time would be spent with Gil being depressed about Sara's leaving, but this is Grissom we're talking about and he doesn't show emotion. They actually will have a new episode this week and it looks to be a fun episode involving the lab tech people playing a mystery game.

My Name is Earl: Hooray Joy had the baby. Now let's get Earl out of the clink and have the show return to normal. And when that happens, hopefully they'll be able to find some way to keep Craig T. Nelson's warden around in some capacity.

30 Rock: The show certainly had plenty of laugh out loud moments, but I'm a little uneasy whenever they try and bring political themes into the show. This show so unapologetically leans to the left that it becomes a bit annoying. It ends up coming off more preachy than funny. Despite this I still enjoyed plenty about this week's show including Northax, Liz's new neighbors trying out for the Amazing Race, and Tracy's crude Cyrano de Bergeac routine.

The Office: It was tough to truly enjoying this one given that it is the last new one for the foreseeable future and because of its more dramatic tone. What I did appreciate was Steve Carell's terrific performance in this episode. You could really empathize with the situation he was being put in. The very fact that he managed to seemingly keep both his girlfriend and his job at the end of it all is impressive. The funniest sequence of the episode though once again involved Michael's use of "That's what she said". The court reporter's deadpan repeating of the dialogue just added to the hilarity. As for the pingpong subplot, it was just all right. I think I would have liked it better had it had a better payoff. Instead, it sort of limped to a finish with Pam and Kelly pathetically settling their issues on the table. Although, having the episode end with Dwight and Mose's epic ping pong battle was awesome.

Is this post long enough yet? :)