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.

it's always sunny in the bigoted south...and heroes. OH! and skinamax!

the second it's always sunny double-header of the season featured two episodes that helped ease the fear of shark-jumping, but brought forth a fear of formulaic writing. nonetheless, two episodes that started off slowly and finished amazingly does bode well--it's the antithesis of what south park's been doing lately, and that's a good thing.

true blood kind of reinvented itself this week. kind of. it's still hard to fully judge where it's going, but i know that it's treading dangerous waters: it's going to be hard to keep up an interesting supernatural allegory without feeling hammy (it already kind of does).

heroes: i can't believe it's taken me this long to realize that i don't like these characters or actors. writing in the two hour premiere was HORRIBLE, but the plot lines are somewhat interesting. as dan points out, though, adding time travel elements to a show like this just makes it too unnecessarily complicated. it adds in a diagetic rule that nullifies all other diagetic rules. tough.

and finally, co-ed confidential. those of you who are fans of brian belot's work (see: claremonttelevision.com) will love this currently on-demand softcore semi-porn show about four college freshmen and they're craaaaazy overseers. highly recommended. in depth analysis of each episode coming soon.

ps. congrats to the marlins for pooping on the mets' parade this afternoon. HUZZAH!

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.

it is indeed always sunny.

this thursday marked the first time since pre-strike where television really felt normal again. the return of it's always sunny double features made me feel...whole.

the first two episodes were both fantastic, but i'm afraid the show might be suffering from the 24 fallacy, which is to say that they think their strength comes from raising the bar for what they see as a core element of the show, muting the show's real strength (24 seasons progress by making jack save more people, in effect dehumanizing his adventures). in it's always sunny's case, these two episodes brought controversy to its highest levels, through cannibalism and water boarding respectively, and while the show maintained it's humor, i'm afraid it can't keep up this pattern for long. ...we shall see...

question.

if you superman more than one hoe, did you supermen those hoes or superman them?

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.)

david foster wallace

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/books/15wallace.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin

it took me a few days to decide if i had anything worth writing about this. ultimately, i decided: sort of. i never knew the man. i used to make up reasons to go visit the english building so i could pass the open door to his office and casually glance in, giving a head-nod if eye contact was made, but i never had a real conversation with him. i made a comment about tennis in passing once, but that's it. that's all.

i take a lot of pride in knowing he read a story of mine once, though. i wrote it about him. i'm not sure if he knew that or not, but i did. it was in application for his advanced fiction class; i wrote about how if you have large breasts no one will ever see you for anything different. that in any public place, once those breasts are noticed, that's what you'll be seen for/as. it's not to be taken seriously.
for someone who's work i'm not all that familiar with (i've read many individual stories and essays, and the first 300 pages of ij at least 4 times, but no more), i do a lot of writing about him. i think it's because a great deal of the fiction i've been writing recently has come immediately after reading something of his. he inspires. saunders, feig, delillo, and he are the only four writers i can say that of of late.

i don't know where i'm going with all of this; i'm really just getting thoughts out. the newsweek memorial talks about reading his work in retrospect, looking for clues. that upsets me. that shouldn't happen.

i rarely get upset about a death, even that of someone close to me. i think evan put it best, although i'm paraphrasing and somewhat re-interpreting here: his suicide was presumably quite logically thought out. this gives too much validity to depressing thoughts. it doesn't bode well for the world.

it's also possible that this is not the case. it's possible that his decision had nothing to do with the world outside of him, and that it says nothing about the way someone with his propensity for logic and clear thought would see the world through my eyes. it's very possible that it is that very same logic and clear thought that made this world unbearable, and not the other way around. it's possible his problems were internal, not external. or maybe my stupidity--or my unwillingness--is my salvation (i have a feeling this is the case.)

rip, dave wallace. you will be missed.

http://www.marginalia.org/dfw_kenyon_commencement.html

cold-blooded old times.

when did televisions become almost-living things? we're at a point now where the television is no longer a durable room centerpiece, but instead a fragile shrine to luminosity. the monitor is no longer a glass bubble; it's a seemingly-permeable protective membrane, barely separating us from the plasma within.

like i told my grandmother a few weeks ago when she was playing with my iphone:
we're in the future. we've made it.

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?

updatez

so...it's been a while. the last post was late april and--as you can tell from the punctuation--was by one of our other bloggers. it's not that i've gotten lazy (although i have...), just that other bloggs demanded attention. h2brOs.com, EachCastleHasATroll.com, HibachiReview.com, and soon to be VeganLeatherDaddy.com and EarthFireWindWaterHeart.com. ...so get off my back.

anyways...

i've been in NYC, so i haven't been watching much (no tv feed and an internet connection that's firewalled up the wazoo [no freakin' vpn!!!!]), but i'll catch you up on what i have seen.

BTW--all movie related posts are now located at EachCastleHasATroll.com

since the last time i updated i've done the sopranos from beginning to end. now that it's more contextualized for me (i originally watched seasons 1 and 6 when they aired, but nothing in between), i must say i'm madly in love with the last episode, but not the ending. obviously, chase wanted to either make a splash or leave things open. if he really wanted to do something cool and (i guess?)pseudo artistic, which he implies, his last shot should have been from tony's POV. but that is what it is. the cut to phil leotardo's last scene could possibly be my favorite of all time in any medium. ...a fantastic show.

weeds season 4 is alive and kicking. glad to see they eliminated the intro, as it wouldn't have been applicable anymore. and i'm shocked at how well they managed to pull all of these ends together. episode one was lacking, but two and three were each exponentially better than the last, with four (and beyond) looking promising.

celebrity family feud? it's horrid--and i'm in love.

and that's what i've got for you. more to come more frequently--i promise--, but don't expect a noticeable spike in posting until the summer ends.

...i love you all.

BSG is stinky

On top of the disappointing 1/2 season of South Park (which Stu amply covers below), the best drama on television is completely lacking 20% of the way into the season. Battlestar Galactica is completely underwhelming. Can't believe I'm typing it but it's true.

I'm not a Star Wars fan but I have a few friends who are (sidenote: all but one of them get laid consistently), and I've heard them complain that the new trilogy feels like the plot volume of one movie stretched out over three. I feel the same about Battlestar season 4. I have no doubt that Ronald Moore knows exactly how BSG is going to end and I'm even more sure it's going to be brilliant. I'm just don't know if he needs 20 episodes to get there. What we've seen in the first four held enough story for one mediocre season premiere. A minor character dies. Blah. Starbuck returns and no one bats an eyelash? Please. Even Baltar is beginning to lose his charm; he's become a babbling, pathetic schmuck as opposed to the glib, egomaniacal schmuck we loved to hate over the last three seasons. The most interesting story in the new season thus far has been the Cylon dispute/possible civil war. And more so than WHO the final cylon is (they've played this card 8 times and it lost its shock value after Boomer) I feel the more interesting mystery is WHY the final five are different.

Most cable shows are serial/episodic hybrids, which gives them an edge: If the story doesn't go anywhere, you can still have a great individual episode. And if the episodic story sucks, the show can still be saved by moving the overall plot forwards. Aye, there's the rub: Thus far, BSG hasn't delivered on either end.

Note: You know how slumping athletes (outside of NY) get a pass from the fans because of all they've done for the team in years past? Well, BSG has earned my trust. No matter how many episodes continue to disappoint me, I have no doubt in my mind that the next one will blow me away.

...and it gets even worse

this season of south park just got 100x less clever...



so much for originality

south park season 12 pt 1 subsector 8 form 26b microfieche

with the conclusion of season 12 part 1, aggrocrag readers will soon finally be treated to a post about something other than south park. ...soon. for now, more 'park it is.

last night's journey to days of field trips yore brought with it the first predictable cartman/butters episode of the series. the formerly novel and always brilliant recipe instantly became formulaic, and some may even say it had echoes of shark jumping (...say it ain't so!). besides that, i was irked by one specific, tiny line that hopefully is not a sign of something bigger to come: the police officer commenting on how annoying the people at the 1800s village are for never breaking character. it was a non-sensible diagetic oversight that played down to a dumb audience--something south park is fantastic at rarely doing. add this to a season without a single real bright spot (besides the 30 seconds of butters singing "what what in your butt," which loses replayability quickly and illuminated their struggles to pick up on potentially brilliant plot lines) (and perhaps the kenny/cheesing episode, which was by far and away the best of the first half of the season but still terrible compared to the classics) and it looks like we may be in for a bumpy ride to the finish.
we should note that it's still the best show on tv.

in other news, matt groening (sp?) interviewing david chase at the writer's guild this past week was exactly as fulfilling as most wga events: i left saying "it was worth the 10 bucks and howevermany hours of my life...but just barely." if you're around in late april and may, though, james l. brooks and judd apatow are coming 'round the bend...

internet money!

this week's south park was a bit disappointing (although the inflection with which them darn canada folk said "more internet money" was hi-larious). we knew they would take on the strike, but not this way. they made it seem like a fruitless battle, while in reality it was a much needed winning effort for the WGA. yes--it may have been a bit early; yes--we may not be fully aware yet of exactly how the internet is going to be profitable, but given that the contracts were up, timing the strike differently was not really an option, and provisions to adapt to change are there.

also, they couldn't have done more with butters status as an internet star? this is what the episode should have been about, and frankly i'll be a bit disappointed if next week is not about butters's jaunt around the talk show circuit.

welps, back to richard rodriguez's days of obligation...

24 season 7 preview...

...got me extremely excited.