what what whaaaaa?!?!!

obviously last week's south park must be discussed. and that odd but amusing it's always sunny should be mentioned (and now has been). but first--

summer heights high. worst advertising campaign of all time, but a rare free half hour on sunday led me to watching, and i was blown away. the best mocumentary style show yet, perfectly capturing these personalities. possibly the best pilot i've ever seen. start watching if you aren't.

and 'park. less than 24 hour turn around? how'd they do that? my guess: they assumed obama was going to win (and figured if he didn't they'd just do the episode anyways and bite the bullet?), made the episode's shell, and fought like hell to get the details in in time. whatever the case, a great episode.

and entourage continues like it's been all season. awesome.

my apologies that this blog has become only about two or three shows. more to come as soon as there's time.

ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod...

lots to update.

first: WE HAVE A NEW PRESIDENT COME JANUARY AND IT'S THE RIGHT ONE.

a few years ago, when time/newsweek/otherfakeishnewsmagazine came out with a barak cover and the question: is he our next president, i remember being ecstatic that the question could even be asked. never could i have dreamed that the answer would be yes. thank god, america. faith is restored.

now, on to the show.

the last two episodes of the office have been unreal good. so, so awkward, yet so perfect. they've gotten back to their roots by moving on--if that makes sense.

entourage: another two great ones. ari handled the offer semi-perfectly (i'd have liked to have seen him take the job, but this works, too), and smokejumpers has the makings of a great arc. and all of the characters have for the first time in the show's history REALLY hit their strides. let's see how this all plays out.

south park. two weeks ago: abysmal. confusing as all hell. as a huge pan flute comedy fan (check my track record), i found this to be a terrible use of a potentially brilliant set piece. and stan's dad? but it was all just a setup for one of the most brilliant episodes of the past few years. bravo. all i couldn't understand--why send the kids to peru? why not just send them somewhere else? or kill them? if you know craig's the key, why even put him in the same country as the lock? amazing, though.

it's always sunny. rob thomas and sinbad's episode was just kind of confusing--the least sensible one yet (which is saying a lot), but still hysterical. last week's, however, with the mail room jobs and dee's heart attack, is among the best ever. it was politically poignant ("we don't have government provided health care in this country?! what is this, socialism?") and hysterical (charlie, as per usual, was unreal).

24's on its way back, as is breaking bad. --or breaking bad might already be back, actually. i really should be more on top of all this.

entourage...

and entourage? oh BOY entourage. he's not going to take the offer, but he should...

reDOMption, south park e2, it's always sunny kidnapping

the unwelcome return of dom to entourage--even if it was a sendoff--comes in the middle of the most formulaic episode of this otherwise stellar season. back to the e/vince turtle/drama mode, which they thankfully (like with dom) cut the ties with before it got too far. i'll mark this one up to doug ellen doing a friend from home a favor (at the wga he said dom, who basically plays himself, was getting heckled on the street because of his "character." the title says it all...), and we'll move on...

south park's second of the season (breast cancer) is among the best of all time. they returned to the bare bone of their strength and made an episode about the innerworkings of eric cartman. it felt...real. for the first time in a long time.

...which is the exact pattern i've been expressing fear it's always sunny was falling into, but tonight's--the first without devito since he started--dispelled that notion. the indian neighbor's arch was perfect.

a good week for television on the whole.

true bood, entourage

almost a week late, but here's an update on those HBO showz:

true blood is getting good. and good--because it looked from the beginning like it was squandering all of the potential in the world. crazy, redefining ending to last episode, though. let's keep a close eye on this one.

entourage--tripping in j-tree. amazing. i'd heard about this episode a while ago when i saw doug ellen speak at the wga, and it followed through on expectations. fantastic. truly.

up in 'dem california GUTS

californication premiere sucked. but it may just be a setup for a season, so we won't judge it yet as a legit episode.

entourage continues its streak.

GUTS is back--in some form. so far, positive reviews, although i haven't seen it.

and how have we forgotten to mention man bites dog? best missed show on TV since stella. check it out on itunes.

entourage

thank god, entourage. thank god. you're actually very good--really for the first time in your run.

that car chase scene? beautifully choreographed, an actual part of the plot and not just a gimmick, and it didn't end the way everyone thought it would, yet it was still satisfying. wow.

where it's at--two turn tables and a microphone.

weeds finale, entourage continues, true blood--ech!, etc

the weeds reboot worked. the best season yet, by far. the last two episodes were indicative of a season marked by an unbelievably crisp balance of seriousness and absurdity.
--again, the same place entourage is at now, which is at an equally amazing point in its run, after an equally low point.

true blood's first episode sucked. cool world, terrible episode. episode two was great...until it wasn't. in an instant you could see the series get canceled; it really is a cool idea, so that--like--totally blows and stuff.

in other rockin' news, malcolm reruns are back to the pilot, which is amazing because the show gets progressively worse from day one out. getting to the beginning after suffering through the end is like peeing at a rest-stop.

in yet more news, because i don't know what else to say, this somehow feels appropriate, albeit morbid: isn't it perfect that dave wallace committed suicide in the method most frequently discussed through the use of incorrect grammar? (and isn't the forced construction of the sentence it takes to express that idea even more perfect? any students of his that may be reading this [barnet in particular, but he wouldn't be reading this], please correct away.)

and we're back!

it's that time of year again. football's in the air, life's just getting stressful with a new round of school staring up, new series and seasons of television burst forth from the womb, and the aggrocrag staff reunites in an epic ceremony of the first simultaneous comatose sunday of the TV year.

first, a moment of silence for tom brady.




just a note--i'm predicting the pats finish 11-5, plus or minus two.

weeds is back; the show continues to reinvent itself--this time with a full-blown reboot. it's got good stuff going on, though. it's regressed into the same shell that entourage is in when it's at its best: serious, engaging overarching plots, silly side stories, and characters you care about on occasion.
interestingly enough, after a year-plus of horrendous consecutive episodes, entourage put out one of its best as last season's finale.
this season's premiere outdid it.
entourage and weeds are two shows that are easy to equate with one another if you've never seen them, but up until now they've been vastly different shows on the intangible paradigm of structure (think: mise en scene, but for plot instead of visual structure. and then think of all of the two-dimensional spectra that go into that. and then think of those making up a multi-dimensional graph). it's just now, in their fith and fourth seasons respectively, that they've met somewhere at a really similar middle.
does the fact that they've both arrived at the almost exact same arbitrary point on a large, incomprehensible, strictly-metaphorical graph say something about where we are as an audience in 2008? or just something about what happens when a not-serious show which deals with serious fascets of life reaches this level in its maturity? are they each others' inverses?--is weeds entourage's benjamin button (jay kay, j/k, jk...lololololol). ...or do i just miss media studies?

entourage

(just a quick note...)

(these are getting shorter and shorter...)

worst entourage season ever. although the last episode was possibly the best of all time. ...this should be interesting.

entourage

another waldo watcher should be updating shortly with a more in-depth look at the recent failures of entourage, but for now i would just like to ask: why bring back walsh? he was a pathetic, annoying character his first go-around, so why would they possibly give him a second try? for a show that many fans seem to think is getting repetitive, it was a horrible idea to bring back a character i think most of us were sick of before vince even became queens boulevard.