2014 TV Weekly Recap (June 22 - June 28)

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Sunday June 22

Halt and Catch Fire (AMC), Episode 4 "Close To The Metal"

GRADE: B-

Brief Description: Halt and Catch Fire tries to take a slight step back from the building of the portable computer and focus on its main three characters, Joe, Gordon, and Cameron, while adding heavy focus and depth to Donna who seemed to be there solely as a cliche nagging wife. H&CF does its best to try and give these characters the most compelling story line possible, but it's just not clicking. The stakes aren't there and the characters aren't that well defined or developed. It does its best by making Joe out to be a villain and he gets beat up by some cops this episode, but I just don't care. This show hasn't done anything to make me truly care about these characters, and it's just not doing anything to suck me in to make me want to continue watching. 

Tuesday June 24

Tyrant (FX), Episode 1 "Pilot"

GRADE: B

Brief Description: Truthfully, I have no idea how I feel about Tyrant. I didn't hate it and it passed the iPhone Test where I was more focused on the show than my iPhone, but it also didn't do anything to make me want to stay either. I will continue watching it, but I may give up with it soon along with Halt and Catch Fire. The pilot to Tyrant plays out exactly like the plot of The Godfather. Adam Raynor plays Bassam "Barry" Al-Fayeed and he is the Michael Corrleone character. His father is the Don Vito Corrleone character and the dictator of a fictional Iran/Iraq-esque country. Barry is self-exiled and living in L.A. because he doesn't want to be in the violent business that his father is in. However, and just like in The Godfather, a wedding brings Barry back to his home land, and wouldn't you know it, he gets sucked in and stays a while longer. Barry has an older brother, Jamal, who is a hybrid of Sonny and Fredo. Jamal is the "bad son" who stays and loves to rape and take advantage of his power. A character like Jamal should be a character we all love to hate, but he's so one-dimensional that I never had any feelings for him whatsoever. How I felt about Jamal is how I felt about the pilot to Tyrant as a whole. It's cliche, one-dimensional, under-written, and not that well-acted, but there's also a clear capability to become better and more engaging. Despite all my negativity towards it, I'll continue watching a few more episodes, and I will give this FX show a chance.

2014 TV Weekly Recap (June 15 - June 21)

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Sunday June 15

Game of Thrones (HBO), Episode 10 "The Children"

EPISODE GRADE: B+

SEASON GRADE: A/A+

Brief Description: As amazing as Game of Thrones has been this season, and its fourth season was easily its best season to date, there are still plenty of story lines within this story that I just don't care about. Many of those story lines were prominently featured in "The Children". I absolutely don't give a shit about Bran, and now the fact that there's a magical addition to his story makes it even worse, Stannis should be a character I care about but I don't, and Khalessi's story arc in Season 4 was terrible. But with that being said, the ending of "The Children" was incredible- first with the fight and then death of The Hound, and then of course everything with Peter Dinklage is fan-fucking-tastic. That moment where he kills Shae, and then his father is one of the best of the series, but it still wasn't as good as when he was on trial this season.

It actually worries me that Tyrion is still alive, but will now be in Essos. Of course we all wanted Tyrion to live, but I think I'd rather have him die than have him be boring in another country. A huge chunk of what makes Tyrion great as a character was how he was perceived in Westeros and the Lannister family dynamic. He loses both while in Essos, and that could be a recipe for disaster.

However, despite the fact that that Season 4 ended as somewhat of a stumbling block, that doesn't automatically discount the amazing eight episodes that preceded it. Season 4 ended up shrinking the cast and we ended up spending more time with characters we care about. The arc of Season 4 was different, for the better. As opposed to building one giant arc for the entire season like 1-3 did, Season 4 created many mini-arcs, making the middle sections of the season much more enjoyable. As opposed to dragging their feet around Episode 5, we got great episodes in Season 4 like "The Laws of Gods and Men" and "Oathkeeper". Game of Thrones doesn't get a full "A+" in my book, as I only reserve that grade for mind-blowing, game-changing seasons like Season 4 of Breaking Bad and Season 2 of Justified, but when the year is done, I'm confident I'll have Game of Thrones as my #1 show of the year- a thought I never thought I'd have 2 or 3 years ago. 

2014 Weekly TV Recap (June 8 - June 14)

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Sunday June 8

Game of Thrones (HBO), Episode 9 "The Watchers on The Wall"

GRADE: A-

Brief Description: Historically, penultimate episodes of seasons of Game of Thrones have been the best episodes the show has ever done, and that includes the show's best episode, "Blackwater" (the second to last episode of Season 2). The penultimate of season 4, "The Watchers on The Wall" had a lot to live up to. Unfortunately, it failed to meet those expectations. While having a giant action sequence set in one location is normally the key to a fan-fucking-tastic Game of Thrones episode (see: "Blackwater") there's a second part to this equation. The action has to involve characters we care about. The star of "Blackwater" was Tyrion Lannister, the show's best character. The star of "The Watchers on The Wall" was Jon Snow, a character I wouldn't shed too many tears over if he died. For the past 4 seasons, the scenes involving The Wall were always some of the least compelling parts because the danger never seemed immediate. We knew The White Walkers and The Wildlings were a threat, but certainly aren't even close to the threat that Stannis Baratheon was to King Joffrey in Season 2. Even if Mance Rayder's army did win the battle this week, so what? It would still be another season before they took over Westeros (if they could). The stakes felt significantly lower in "The Watchers on The Wall" then they ever felt in the prior penultimate episodes, which in turn affected the overall quality. That's not to say this episode was complete garbage, Quite the contrary. It was an action-packed episode that gave us wonderful little moments (Sam reuniting with Gilly, Ygritte's death) along with incredible and mind-blowing action sequences. It was a non-stop thrill ride that ended too quickly and didn't feel like an hour had passed. Hence the "A-" grade. However, it should have been more. Especially considering Game of Thrones is currently the best show on television.

Halt and Catch Fire (AMC), Episode 2 "FUD"
GRADE: A-

Brief Description: Halt and Catch Fire already has the reputation of being one of AMC's vastly inferior products and being a show that feels reverse engineered from other AMC shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men. In fact, it seems like you're legally not allowed to talk about the show without mentioning that the Lee Pace and Scoot McNairy characters are analogous to Don Draper and Walter White, respectively. But for all the AMC comparisons, no one seems to be mentioning Halt and Catch Fire in its own right. I really like this show a lot, and I'm going to continue watching for the rest of the season. We find out here what Joe MacMillan's play actually is- to engineer a computer that's twice the speed for half the cost. That notion didn't really appeal to me all that much, as it doesn't feel, as Joe puts it, "The thing that gets you to the thing". Building another computer doesn't seem all that revolutionary and I sided with Cameron about her anger towards the project. On the other hand, Joe's idea at the end of the episode, to build a portable computer IS revolutionary, and we obviously know from history and living in 2014 that that truly is the future of computers. That does feel like "The thing that gets you to the thing". However, what really sucked me in and the reason I want to stick around for the entire season is the corner "FUD" immediately puts itself into. Instead of attacking Cardiff through the courts, IBM attacks their wallets. IBM steals almost all of Cardiff's clients in one fell swoop that it leaves the company with almost nothing, and thereby will stop the production of Joe's new computer. It's a ballsy and daring play to create a status quo of this show and then immediately destroy it. You have to assume that Cardiff or Joe or somebody soon will find money to keep this project going, but this move IBM just pulled seems like the type of move that would immediately destroy a company, and I have no idea just how the show will pull Cardiff out this mess. 

Tuesday June 10

Fargo (FX), Episode 9 "A Fox, A Rabbit, and A Cabbage"

GRADE: A-

Brief Description: Admittedly, this episode was probably an "A" or an "A+" but it's only an "A-" because of my own personal viewing experience. For starters, I normally watch Fargo as one continuous episode, but I watched "A Fox, A Rabbit, and A Cabbage" On Demand, which means commercial breaks and this episode works better when you watch it during one continuous sitting. Also, I watched the first half doing other things, and watching anything distracted goes ruins your enjoyment of the show. That's my fault because I missed a tense filled episode. It goes to show you that a little music can go a long way. Sometimes it worked to the show's disadvantage (once Lester was at his home in Minnesota I knew he was safe) but often times it worked to its advantage (when Lester and his wife initially get to the Las Vegas elevator/ Malvo and Keith Carradine's conversation in the diner). But really, there is only one thing to talk about in this episode, and that's what a fucking horrible human being Lester Nygaard is. Despite his arrogance testing Malvo and later Deputy Solverson, sending his wife in to die at Malvo's hand is unforgivable. Lester has done some pretty terrible things during the course of these 9 weeks, but he still remained a protagonist in some respects, analogous to Jamie Lannster in Season 3 of Game of Thrones. But after what he did to his wife, here's hoping he dies in the series finale next week.

2014 TV Weekly Recap (June 1 - June 7)

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Sunday June 1

Game of Thrones (HBO), Episode 8 "The Mountain and The Viper"

GRADE: B+

Brief Description: I am a firm believer that the ending does not make or break a season or an episode. A bad episode with a great ending is still a bad show. That's what "The Mountain and the Viper" was. Now that's not to say that you completely disregard the ending entirely, as it is still a part of the episode, but the excellent fight sequence at the very end does not excuse how mediocre the lead up to it was. Instead, the fight between The Mountain and The Viper (as well as Tyrion's monologue about his dim witted cousin smashing beetles) added a "+" to what was, overall, a "B" episode. I could care less about anything that happened to the Bolton clan/Theon and that goes double for Gilly. Maybe this was all a set up for the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones, which have historically been shit-in-your-pants incredible episodes, but as a stand alone episode, "The Mountain and The Viper" was just all right. 

Silicon Valley (HBO), Episode 8 "Optimal Tip-to-Tip Efficiency"

EPISODE GRADE: B

SEASON GRADE: C+

Brief Description: Richard is such a meek character that he gets shit on constantly. It's ideally used for humor, but more often than not, it's just frustrating to watch him on screen. I guess that's what makes the end of "Optimal Tip-to-Tip Efficiency" that much more rewarding (and it is rewarding to an extent), but I don't know if the winding journey we had to watch justifies the destination. It's certainly better than if Richard had lost the TechCrunch Disrupt, as all of Richard's hard work finally paid off, but so much of Season 1 was Richard being Richard, which made for unpleasant viewing. I wrote two weeks ago, after Silicon Valley's penultimate episode, that even if the finale was great, there was nothing that was going to get me to start watching Season 2. This finale was far from great, and if anything, the ending of "Optimal Tip-to-Tip Efficiency" only made it seem as if Season 2 was going to be more of the same. 

Halt and Catch Fire (AMC), Episode 1 "I/O"

GRADE: B+

Brief Description: AMC does not have a good track record with new dramas within the past five years. This is especially surprising considering AMC is responsible for two of the greatest television shows in the history of mankind (Breaking Bad and Mad Men). Mad Men has the best pilot I've probably every seen from a drama series and Breaking Bad is not far behind it. Halt and Catch Fire's pilot isn't even remotely close to any of AMC's greats, as it's just riddled with cliches. Every scene I saw in H&CF I've seen in every other drama before, yet I was captivated by it here. The show definitely passed The Smart Phone Test- where I was more focused on the TV show than I was with my smart phone, and I will absolutely be looking forward to episode 2. However, I do hope this show gets better, as it can't remain on this same level as the pilot and also remain successful.

Tuesday June 3

Fargo (FX), Episode 8 "The Heap"

GRADE: B

Brief Description: Very similar to Fargo's second episode, "The Rooster Prince", "The Heap" was necessary for the season as a whole, but didn't work as a stand alone episode. Frankly, if the FX mini-series ended after Tuesday's episode, then all would be fine in the world. Fargo would still be considered a really good show, and the experiment would be considered a success. However, the good guy has to win, and therefore there's still more story to be told. Similar to the movie the mini-series is based off of, the bad guys need to get their comeuppance. Molly Solverson, who is now overtly Marge Gunderson from the movie considering she's now pregnant, is going to be the one to make everything right in the world. As much as I love Key & Peele as actors, their addition as new characters when the season was over halfway done was a bit odd, but after Tuesday's episode, it looks like the bumbling FBI agents will help Molly (because no way in hell was Gus going to do anything) bring down Molvo and Lester. I'm extremely excited to see the last two episodes to see how this series will end, and the "The Heap" was the first step towards the end.

Anytime

Orange Is The New Black (Netflix), Episode 1 "Thirsty Bird"
GRADE: A-

Brief Description: "Thirsty Bird" was a ballsy, ballsy episode for OITNB. We spent season 1 (mainly) following around Piper Chapman as she spends most of her time feeling like a fish out of water. However, by the end of the season, she's fully engrained within this prison culture. She may not be fully accepted, but she's engrained. Season 2 changes the status quo again by doing THE EXACT SAME THING as they transfer Piper to Chicago so she can testify at the trial of the kingpin who is (in some tenuous way) responsible for Piper's lock up. It's my understanding this scenario happened in the book took risk. And it paid off. Just because it was in Piper Kerman's book doesn't mean it had to be included into the show considering the vast majority of Season 1 came from the mind of Jenji Kohan and her writers, but the decision to move Piper not only allows us to spend time in Lynchfield without Piper's uppity attitude, but also expands our view of this world. While Piper is probably the least interesting character Lynchfield, Taylor Schilling is such a great actress that when you get scenes like when she's finally able to express what she (thinks she) did to Pennsatucky, that it all seems worth it. The ambiguity of whether Pennsatucky lived or died was ruined because Taryn Manning's name is in the opening credits (therefore she was paid to be in all 13 episodes); however, because Piper herself didn't know, it made her character interesting to watch. That was necessary as we spend the entire episode with just her and away from some of the characters  we grew to love in Season 1. Speaking of which, Danielle Brooks (Taystee), Uzo Adubo (Crazy Eyes), Natasha Lyonne (Nichols), and Tayrn Manning (Pennsatucky) all get promoted into the opening credits. Unfortunately, Pablo Schrieber (Pornstache) did not, which means my worst fears have come true.