I Survived the 2010-2011 Season

What in the hell was with this season? It seemed as if every series I watched had some sort of plotline that I found just unbearable. Due to these terrible plots, there were a couple shows that I almost decided that this would be the last season I watch them but I persevered because I knew it was all leading up to something good. So let's get on with this. We'll start where the week starts--on Sunday.

CSI: Miami

I started watching CSI: Miami a couple years ago because of my wife. I enjoy it. I love how it seems as if everyone is aware just how terrible the show is which makes it better. The plot I didn't like is the West Miami Prison break. A bunch of criminals--all apparently captured by Horatio (David Caruso) and his ragtag team of policemen. About halfway through the series, Horatio had to track down and capture the guy who killed his wife. I thought after the first episode featuring Memmo, he would become more of a threat to Horatio and his team but he's absent for a few more episodes then comes back having apparently taken control of the city. You would think they would've saved the Horatio-Memmo stand off for the season finale or at least closer to the end of the season because after Memmo was captured, second-rate criminals have been featured that don't offer as much suspense. The prison break plot was also annoying because it showed that there was no other police precinct capable of handling the escapees. All you have to do is have one person say "The 3-Oh got Jesus Delvecchio who escaped from West Miami Penitentiary" and call it good. Horatio's team doesn't have to do everything.

The season finale also had them running around trying to find a prison escapee who had managed to escape from Horatio and Frank (Rex Linn) at the beginning of the episode and he's still free so we will be revisiting this plot at least in the first episode of the tenth season.

How I Met Your Mother

I had high hopes for this season. HIMYM was planned to end with the 2011-12 season so I was expecting a lot of reveals and surprises. Instead, I got a placeholder plot featuring Jennifer Morrison as Zoey. Back in the fourth season we were introduced to Stella (Sarah Chalke) as a potential candidate for the titular mother. It was then shown in an alternate flashforward that had Ted (Josh Radnor) married Stella, his children would be blond thus ending speculation about all blonde female candidates. That's how I knew the Ted-Zoey relationship was going to go nowhere. Unfortunately, the writers and producers decided to drag this out throughout the entire season. We knew the relationship wouldn't last. I even think Future Ted (voice of Bob Saget) said it didn't work out so why are we dragging this out? You couldn't think of another plot to fill the second half of the season?

Any episode that relied heavily on Zoey, I didn't exactly pay attention to. I found her character annoying and the way Ted acted around her irritating. I enjoyed how Ted's friends initially didn't like Zoey either but then gave in. I would've kept the friends not liking her to add another layer to the plot and maybe try to have Ted convince the audience why Zoey should be liked.

I'm getting high hopes about the seventh season because of how the sixth season finale ended. I remember reading a couple years ago that Carter Bays, one of the creators, said "if you've paid attention, we've met the mother" and that the last scene of the series was filmed during the second season. I now don't think that's true or they have scrapped what they had and they still have to introduce the mother. Either way, deep inside of me, I really hope that despite being renewed through the eighth season, it ends with number seven.

Glee

It wasn't exactly a plotline I found annoying but just the way one of the characters was portrayed. I'll be honest, most of the characters on Glee are pretty annoying and I want to slap more than one of them but this season's gay bullying subplot reinforced my opinion of why Kurt (Chris Colfer) is the most annoying character on Glee. I don't care that Kurt is gay, I thought the bullying plot would be good because bullying in all its forms is wrong. What I got tired of was Kurt's "you-better-like-me-because-I'm-gay-or-I'm-going-to-act-like-a-martyr" syndrome.

Early in the season, anytime Kurt would get slammed up against a locker he would begin a speech about how everyone is a homophobe and that when they are out of school and Kurt is somebody and the jocks are flipping burgers the score will be even. Shut up!! I know in the show Karofsky is a closeted homosexual so kudos to Glee of continuing the stereotype that all homophobes are gay. But the other jocks are just jerks. That's what jocks do. They find someone different from them--less popular and they torment them. And that Kurt acted like and was written like the only gay teenager who's going through this just made me more upset. And the attempts to create an hour-long public service message just made me cramp up and seemed tacked on.

We should all do what we can to eliminate bullying in all of its forms.

Community

Shortly before Halloween, Green Dale Community College was ravaged by a zombie apocalypse where nothing was ever quite the same again. Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown) and Senor Change (Ken Jeong) had hooked up, witnessed by Troy (Donald Glover), and the result was Shirley wound up pregnant. The rest of the season showed Senor Chang claiming the baby was his while Shirley was positive it was her boyfriend's Adrian (Malcolm Jamaal-Warner). When the baby was born the the third to last episode, it was revealed that the baby was, indeed, Adrian's. Why all the mystery? Was this really a plot that needed to be stretched through the entire season? Why not just mention it in the episode Shirley reveals she's pregnant and touch on it again when she gives birth? But no, Chang had to constantly mention it.

I really like Community. I hope it becomes the hit it deserves to be but let's never have another plotline like this ever again.

Smallville

Smallvile is one of the few series I have watched from beginning to end during its entire original run that didn't end after 2 or 3 seasons. The others? Boy Meets World, The Simpsons and How I Met Your Mother--and two of these series are still on the air. I have enjoyed nearly every aspect of Smallville even when it looked like they were straying from the source material but this season, the final season, featured a background plot that went against everything. The engagement of Clark Kent and Lois Lane.

Clark and Lois got engaged in the comics in Superman (Vol. 2) #50 in 1990. They would remain engaged until Action Comics #720 (1996) but would get back together and marry in Superman: The Wedding Album #1 (also 1996). Now in comics time, only about a year, year and a half went by between 1990 and 1996 and another year went by between Superman's debut in 1986 and their engagement in 1990. Smallville has never been really clear on the ages of the characters after they graduated from high school (at the end of the fourth season in 2005). Clark was shown going to college for about one season and then that was dropped. How Clark got a job at a major metropolitan newspaper without some sort of degree is better than any of his other powers.

I had worried about the engagement and wedding for just about the entire season but the writers pulled it off. While some may feel it was a cop out to place the beginning and ending scene seven years in the future, I feel it just right.

Unlike the other shows, Smallville redeemed itself in my eyes.

Michael's Last Day

I wrote about a year ago about "The Office" and how, to me, it has jumped the shark. It jumped with Jim and Pam's wedding and subsequent birth of their baby, Cecile. I'm not a fan of babies being born on TV shows because that tends to ruin the series. Go ahead and name a series that got better after a baby was born.

Although technically it was a flashback in the first episode but I say it still counts.

This last Thursday featured Steve Carell's last episode as regular character Michael Scott. I say "last episode as regular character" because more than likely he will be back as a guest star either for Michael's wedding to Holly (Amy Ryan) or even one of the final episodes when the series is put to rest. In Michael's place, D'Angelo Vickers (Will Ferrell) was introduced and in a, I'll admit clever, interesting way of having him as an acceptable replacement for Michael. He was liked, acted like a boss and not like a friend. He seemed like a good fit but then we realize that D'Angelo is a terrible salesman, is sexist and yells at food that he thinks tempt him (he was once overweight). So that is how they will get rid of Will Ferrell.

Even though years of terrible movies still haven't.

I never thought that "The Office" would come to an end when Steve Carell left. They will have at least one more season to see if the show can continue. If NBC, the writers and producers are smart, all of the eighth season will be done with no mention of Michael. Hire the new boss (I'm hoping either James Spader or Will Arnett) and just keep going. Now I know what you may be thinking. "You just said Steve Carell will be a guest star. Why can't he guest star in the eighth season?!" Because the eighth season will be a test to see if "The Office" can continue and be just as good without Carell. It can do it. The new boss just can't overshadow the fact that this is, and always had been, an ensemble cast.

And ensemble casts are always the best.

From what I could tell from the preview after the episode, it almost seemed like a completely different series and since all the characters have grown and changed over the past seven years, it is like a whole new show. Look at early second season episodes and compare them with early seventh season episodes. It's a whole other show.

The thing is that unless NBC has a great season next year, "The Office" doesn't even have to try to get a ninth season renewal. It can just coast along with dwindling ratings and be picked up as long as NBC is the fourth most-watched network.

"It's like we're not even trying anymore."

The Not-So-Great Simpsina

I've been watching The Simpsons since it premiered which normally would be a pretty good feat because that shows dedication and an example of how good a show is and can remain to be. Unfortunately that's the case with The Simpsons anymore. Currently it's just a meandering shadow of what it used to be. Which is why people call it Zombie Simpsons.

Sadly, not good zombies but bad zombies.

A few weeks ago, the episode "Love Is a Many Strangled Thing" did something no other Simpson episode has done. It did not make me laugh. Anymore, Simpsons can make me chuckle but not laugh. "Love Is a Many Strangled Thing" did neither. I sat through the episode and just stared. It was a pretty much wasted 22 minutes. But I'm not here to discuss that episode. I'm here to bad mouth the following episode that aired this last Sunday. "The Great Simpsina".

The episode started out badly by being something that was whoring out the movie "Rio". There was no opening sequence so no couch gag, which is fine because it seems as if all couch gags have went on way too long. The episode starts with the Simpsons at a family-owned peach orchard. There is an establishing shot of the orchard with a few cars, the Simpsons' station wagon and an old truck but there is also a sign "Freestone Family Peach Orchard - Pick Your Own!" and I noticed something pretty glaring in the shot. There's no joke. The shot lingers a bit too long giving morons time to read the sign but what's the point? There's no humorous sign or comical object in the shot. Once we're inside the orchard, things don't go much better. Homer apparently picks 19 barrels of peaches all by himself and Bart and Lisa are harassed by Ewell Freestone (voiced by Jack McBrayer) who sings a song about all of the peaches. The song, like many jokes nowadays, go on too long and have no purpose.

The Simpsons bring home the 19 barrels of peaches and Marge quickly goes insane making all their meals out of the peaches. Homer then announces he's taking Marge for a massage and has Bart and Lisa work to get rid of the peaches. The storyline diverges here. After Bart and Lisa dispose of the peaches, Lisa notices a garbage can lid is moving and immediately goes to see if Oscar the Grouch is living in the garbage can.

Oscar the Grouch would be a bit more entertaining.

Why would Lisa think that Oscar the Grouch is living in that trashcan? In the classic episodes it was always refreshing to show Bart and Lisa actually acting like kids but now when it happens it doesn't work as good. Eight-year-olds know Oscar the Grouch is not real. What is in the trash can is a rabid raccoon who begins chasing after Lisa which ends up having her meet the Great Raymando (voiced by Martin Landau). Lisa then becomes his protege because Lisa has always shown an interest in magic and begins performing magic shows--and just a few weeks after Homer performed shows with Cheech Marin.

What's the reason Lisa is learning magic? She's not becoming more popular because of it and she immediately loses concentration when a cute boy cons her out of one of the tricks. The press release from Fox made it seem like the "schoolgirl crush" would a pivotal plot point but it's not. The boy, who is Craig Demon's (a parody of Criss Angel) son, shows up on screen, says a few things to Lisa and is nearly forgotten about the rest of the show. During the magic montage, Lunchlady Doris is seen and heard. Apparently she was heard back in season 18, 19 and season 20 and voiced by Tress MacNeille. This unnerved me because after Doris Grau passed away in 1995, the character was reduced to just a background character. And that's where she should remain--she doesn't need to talk.

Anyway, Craig Demon fails at performing the milk can trick that only Houdini, the Great Raymando and now Lisa can perform and the Great Raymando is attacked by fellow magicians Penn & Teller, David Copperfield and Ricky Jay (all voicing themselves) but is able to severely injure all of them.

In real life, these guys can kick your ass.

The episode ends on an odd note with the Great Raymando hepped up on ether and hallucinating about his deceased wife. The two begin dancing, fade to black. That would've been sweeter and a little less creepy if there was something in the plot about the Great Raymando wanted to dance with his wife again. It would've been a better plot if there was actual substance to the plot like Raymando wanting to show everybody that magicians like Craig Demon are not in it for the magic but for the fame and glory and used Lisa to achieve that goal but no, Raymando just seems like a bitter old man and this episode already had enough Grandpa.

We had to say 'dickety' because the Kaiser had stolen our number 20.

For the sake of posterity, here is how the peaches subplot ended:
Homer and Marge are getting a massage and Homer blurts out "The kids are getting rid of the peaches." Marge freaks out and screams "But what will we have to eat!" but then the masseuse begins working her elbow into Marge's back who slumps back down on the table and moans "Who cares?"

My thought exactly. "Who cares?"

Capitalism at Its Best

Is it me or are toy commercials for kids getting stupider and the products getting more and more pointless. I really started noticing this with those Zhu-zhu Pets but I know toys created just to sell more toys have been around for years.

Our toys seem much cooler.

The KooKoo Birds are a group of toys featuring a bunch of stone-eyed brightly colored birds that...well, I don't really know what they do. They are made by Jay at Play and the Jay at Play website doesn't really elaborate on what the KooKoo Birds are but if you want to know everything about the MushaBellys then this is the place for you.  Here's the KooKoo Birds commercial which kind of explains what the hell they are.

I don't know why all the birds look stoned--I assume it's because the developers were when they created these things. It's good to know that you can put goggles on the birds and that there is a club house you can purchase that can house your KooKoo Birds. And I am all for prefixing ordinary things with random words to cater to the toy companies.  "Turtle" Van, "Lego" Games, "KooKoo" Cars. And the KooKoo version of the Pillow Pet is pure genius.

It's a pillow. It's a pet. It's a Pillow Pet.

I love the KooKoo Birds that fart and poop other KooKoo Birds. The girls in the commercial seem excited about it too. I'm just wondering what the significance is of finding the Golden KooKoo Bird (which, by the way, looks like real gold). Can you trade it in to get your money back for these things?

I would at least try.

Another toy that I don't understand are Gomus. Obviously something from the good people of Japan, Gomus are collectible erasers. Yes, that's right, collectible erasers. Basically it's the eraser equivalent of collecting comic books and cutting out the X-ray specs or sea monkey ads from the back. Gomu is possibly something I could get behind because I like stupid stuff like that. I would just use them as sit-around junk though. The best part about Gomu is the guy singing the theme song.

See? Isn't that awesome?

Almost as awesome as all the varieties of Gomu.

Squinkies are one of those toys that I wonder why people want. Squinkies run about $10 for 10. Squinkies are also very similar to a toy that I can buy from a vending machine at my local pizza buffet for 25 cents. I'm not saying that the makers of Squinkies are just after our money but it's very likely.

Hunting Ground--A CSI: Miami Adventure

My wife got me into CSI: Miami which is so awfully bad that it's good. David Caruso is just amazing as Horatio Caine and it makes me wonder if Caruso is this bad in the first season of NYPD Blue. I wouldn't think so because he won a freakin' Golden Globe. And they don't just hand those out willy-nilly.

Oh...

The plots on Miami are pretty stupid and a few of them are just not plausible and when I found out this recent episode ("Hunting Ground"; aired 3/13) was about people hunting people, I grabbed my popcorn and was anxious for the magic. Then I noticed who wrote it. Adam Rodriquez--who also plays Eric Delko, an investigator who is there to be slightly attractive and add a bit of Latin flair to the otherwise whitewash of the Miami-Dade Police Department. My wife then informed me that he also directed the episode (I had missed that part of the credits). I then flashed back to a couple years ago when the series Numb3rs was still on the air.

FBI Agents or professional models?

The episode was "Trouble in Chinatown" (aired 1/23/09) and it was written by co-star Peter MacNichol and it was about Chinese girls being sold on the black market to families of recently deceased men.  The girls were then killed and buried next to the dead man because apparently it was shameful to have a dead son who was not married.  The entire episode became a public service announcement for something that sounds made up (possibly for a crime procedural).  I feared the same thing with "Hunting Ground" being both directed and written by Rodriquez.  I figured he read one article or saw that movie "Surviving the Game" one too many times.  Anyway, the episode opens with a man being shot with an arrow so hard that it attaches him to a tree.  Another man then comes up to the now-dead man and begins removing a necklace around his neck when Horatio suddenly appears (he was watching Lockup on MSNBC when he heard screams apparently) and the man "stealing" the necklace begs for Horatio to shoot him.  Now Horatio wants to know why.

YEAAAH!!!

Quickly going through what happens, the team does an autopsy on the arrow and finds that it's custom made and leads them to the only hunting supplier (played by Not-John Waters) near the murder scene.  Not-John Waters says humans hunting human is against nature and the CSIs leave.  They then question this douchey stock trading guy who keeps hitting on Natalia (Eva La Rue) but he seems clean.  It's then determined he's not, something about a leach and a flower spotter and the CSI team is led back to Not-John Waters who is taking money and letting people hunt people.  The CSIs stop the hunt while Horatio confronts Not-John Waters and hilariously gives him 15 seconds to get a head start.  Just like Not-John Waters did to the victims of his manhunt.  Not-John Waters begins to run but Horatio shoots causing Not-John Waters to fall down.  Horatio points out that he wasn't going to kill him and that Not-John Waters has now peed his pants.  The police then arrive and apparently are just going to ignore the slight police brutality because Horatio Caine has freakin' gun.

Yippe-i-o-ki-ay.  *puts on sunglasses*

So the H-Squad (or is it H-Team) wrap up another case and it doesn't get as preachy as I thought it was going to get.  Sure the two brothers being reunited and the guy who was killed in the cold opening had a wife and daughter but other than that it was pretty standard escapist fare from CSI: Miami.  Next week's episode is about the connection between a murdered delivery truck driver and murdered housewife.  Should be a hoot.