Best Episode of the Season: Portlandia Season 2

June 7, 2012

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Season Analysis: Is hipster culture in Portland too narrow a scope for one show?  Well, that was exactly my fear when I first heard about Portlandia, and Season 2 did not alleviate that fear completely.  So, while Fred and Carrie may struggle to consistently put together great episodes, they still have plenty of great sketch ideas up their sleeves.

“Cat Nap”

A male-female indie rock duo that dresses like Devo is struggling to break out when they discover success by incorporating their cat in their act and adopt the name “Catnap.”  JAYDE from the band “JAYDE speaks sevYn” uses Kickstarter to ask for donations for her next music video (which features, among other things, “the wise man who knows nothing”) while an ad for Catnap’s album pops up.  Guest star Miranda July stops by to play the co-owner of a boutique shop with only two shirts in its entire inventory.  That band with the cat is kidnapped by an obsessed fan (played by guest star Kristen Wiig) named Gathy.  That’s Gathy, not Cathy.  Gathy with a “G.”  Could there be a more Portlandia-esque episode of Portlandia?  Well, that last part is more of a goofy Kristen Wiig-ism, but otherwise, this episode was so hipsteriffic it hurt.

Best Episode of the Season: Napoleon Dynamite Season 1 (First and Only Season!)

June 7, 2012

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Season Analysis: Napoleon Dynamite the movie was already cartoonish enough, so the development of an animated series was a natural and pleasant enough transition for the citizens of Preston, Idaho.

“Ligertown”

There is plenty of potential for a momentous occasion when someone finally meets the object of one’s affection.  Ligers had pretty much been Napoleon Dynamite’s favorite animal, believing as he did that they were bred for their skills in magic.  Obviously when actually meeting ligers for the first time, he would discover that they were not in fact magical, but for the sake of good enough television, the ligers needed to be even more disappointing than just “not magical.”  Thus, Napoleon discovered them in an environment in which they were allowed to lie around all day and get their heads stuck in empty chicken buckets.  This episode of the short-lived Napoleon Dynamite TV series is a minor example in the canon of stories of children growing up and learning the sad truths of life, but it did have an enjoyable Napoleon Dynamite-esque oddness that made it a somewhat memorable half hour of television.

Best Episode of the Season: The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret Season 2 (Final Season)

June 5, 2012

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Season Analysis: More so than even its decidedly idiosyncratic first season, the second and final season of The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret was thoroughly unpredictable from scene to scene, which was generally maddening, but occasionally satisfying, and led to a conclusion that felt like it was planned all along but also felt like it came from out of nowhere.

“The Crime Scene, The Storyteller, and the Sanctimonious Tower of Morality”

I got the sense about halfway through Todd Margaret’s first season that David Cross did not really know how long he wanted this passion project of his to last.  He had enough ideas to last a few, if not several, seasons, but it seemed to have a small-scale structure appropriate for a one-season miniseries.  Thus, season 2 did not feature any particularly great episode of television, and “The Crime Scene…” was not really an exception, but it is an episode worth highlighting, thanks especially to Graham Duff’s impressively committed performance as Todd’s peculiarly English pedophile cellmate.  Also, there was Spike Jonze getting all Sherlock Holmes-ian.

Best Episode of the Season: Beavis and Butt-Head Season 9

June 3, 2012

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Season Analysis: As simple and as crude as it was originally, but somehow more sophisticated, Beavis and Butt-Head may just be the best example of a show returning after a long hiatus off the air following supposed cancellation.

“Tech Support”

When B & B stumble into a tech support call center while looking for the abandoned drive-in and then discover some computers, they naturally have only one goal: porn.  But since they can’t find what they’re looking for right away, they fit in by acting like children, parroting the stock phrases of stereotypically Middle Eastern call center employee Hamid.  Depending on one’s point of view, their constant refrain of “I understand your frustration” is either plain unhelpful and even infuriating or evidence that they are doing a great job.  When their shenanigans ultimately lead to a power plant meltdown, it is a beautiful illustration of how they are savants at creating anarchy with little effort and zero focus.

Best Music Video Segment: “Cinema”
The video for Benny Benassi ft. Gary Go’s “Cinema” features a series of fantasies that could very well go along with self-pleasure.  Most people are not absolutely consumed with such subject matter, so when they do talk about it, it is often overly crude or overly euphemistic.  But since it is one of B & B’s favorite pastimes, they are veritable poets and cultural scholars when it comes to the topic of masturbation.

Best Reality Show Segment: 16 and Pregnant
What is particularly striking about the 16 and Pregnant clip in the episode “Daughter’s Hand” is not how much of a crisis teen pregnancy can be, but just how mundane and thoroughly unfulfilling the lives of these teen parents appear to be.  As Beavis interprets the mom, “She’s not a bad actor, just a bad person.”  Without its anarchic nature, Beavis and Butt-head would be just as depressing as this clip, and it is thoroughly fascinating that this seemingly hopeless picture of “reality” is what currently dominates MTV’s airwaves.

Best Episode of the Season: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 7

June 2, 2012

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Season Analysis: This was the first season of Sunny that I watched, and I heard from some sources that it was not its best season, but I think that with a show as outrageous as this one, there are bound to be a few clunkers amidst the classics.

“Chardee MacDennis: The Game of Games”

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia feels like it is more or less made up on the spot, by insane people.  I could possibly be off a bit in this assessment, as I have only recently become a regular viewer, and there could be foundational elements from earlier seasons that would make it clear that there is in fact some planning involved in this show.  But that improvised feel does work to the benefit of an episode like “Chardee MacDennis.”  On a slow day, the gang has nothing going on, so they decide to play a game, a game that they have not played in a while, a game that they invented.  So what we have here is something that was more or less made up on the spot, by a group of insane people.  Just because Chardee MacDennis is more or less unbridled insanity in game form does not mean it is not satisfying; Charlie, Dee, Mac, and Dennis were not just insane when they created this game, they were also insanely focused.  Thanks to that focus, this episode provides memorable gags such as Frank having to eat a cake (i.e., the ingredients of a cake), Mac drunkenly attempting to lift up a board that has been nailed down despite acknowledging ahead of time how fruitless such an effort would be, and Charlie failing to answer a question that he himself had written (“Dennis is asshole.  Why Charlie hate?”), and there is even a satisfying resolution to wrap up all the chaos, which, appropriately enough, was thought up by Frank while he was imprisoned in a dog crate.

Best Episode of the Season: Futurama Season 6-B

June 1, 2012

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Season Analysis: The second half of season 6 did not feature any outstanding efforts to stand among the series greats, but it was easily consistently strong enough to justify its continued existence.

“Neutopia”

“Neutopia” takes on one of Futurama’s favorite themes: gender relations, perhaps its most favorite non-future-specific theme.  Regarding human affairs, gender relations are a timeless matter, and this episode takes the fitting approach of dealing with the show’s male-female conflicts as poorly as they have always been dealt with.  The male characters are frequently sexist, blatantly and casually so, as if their sexist attitudes simply represent the way things are (“Ladies, here are your demeaning, skimpy stewardess outfits”).  But there is hope, in the form of a bored rock creature alien, who removes the elements of gender from the Planet Express crew with the goal of teaching them … well, it’s not quite sure what it means to teach them.  His attitude is most clearly expressed in lines such as, “So far I have learned nothing.  But that’s probably as much my fault as it is yours,” and, “Perhaps it is I who have learned a lesson.  Or something.”  “Neutopia” does not have much to say about gender relations in general, and it basically does nothing to affect the underlying gender issues on Futurama, nor does it care to.  But it is a funny episode, in that its blasé attitude regarding its ostensible concerns is its own statement: a society that is unwilling – or profoundly unable – to examine its own prejudices is a big joke.

Best Episodes of the 2011-2012 Television Season: Prologue

May 29, 2012

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The 2011-2012 televsion season has officially ended, and I know you have all been waiting with bated breath for my selections of the best episodes of the year for each particular show.  Rest assured, you will be sated soon.

On tap this year, in alphabetical order, are: American Dad!, Archer, Awake, Beavis and Butt-head, The Big Bang Theory, Bob’s Burgers, The Cleveland Show, Community, Desperate Housewives, Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23, Family Guy, Fringe, Futurama, Glee, Gossip Girl, Happy Endings, How I Met Your Mother, The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Key & Peele, The Middle, Modern Family, Napoleon Dynamite, New Girl, The Office, Parks and Recreation, Portlandia, Raising Hope, Saturday Night Live, The Secret Circle, The Simpsons, Suburgatory, 30 Rock, Up All Night, and The Walking Dead.  And if I can manage to watch every episode of Girls (HBOOOOOO!!!) by its season finale date of June 17, you can add Lena Dunham and Co. to the mix.

For the record, I was a regular viewer of 2 Broke Girls, but I gave up on it about halfway through the season, and I also watched all 7 episodes of the entire series of Allen Gregory, but I will not be covering that show, as it was horrible.

Accompanying the best episode write-ups this year will be brief overall season analyses.

As per usual, I will post in chronological order, according to when each show aired its season finale, so Futurama is up first.

Best Episode of the Season: Happy Endings Season 1

July 10, 2011

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“Dave of the Dead”

Three words: nineties bat mitzvah.
Happy Endings is about a group of friends who hang out and talk to each other, their conversations occasionally peppered with cultural references.  In other words, it is hardly any different than a great number of other sitcoms, but its cultural references are tangier than those of most sitcoms.  Despite this, there is no great overarching idea behind all the mentions of early nineties nostalgia and Chicago trivia.  This changed, at least for an episode, when Penny started dating a hipster, someone who actually does have a purpose behind any and all cultural references.  This difference in purpose or lack thereof came to a head when the gang was invited to a hipster party with “nineties bat mitzvah” as the theme.  The hipsters played cheesy mid-nineties dance-pop like “I’m Too Sexy” while doing their best impressions of bored upper-middle-class Jewish teenagers.  Hipster humor is generally hilarious, but it is often indulgent, so it was healthy that the disaffected hipster elements were tempered by the overeager Penny.

Best Episode of the Season: Modern Family Season 2

July 9, 2011

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“Caught in the Act”

What works best for Modern Family and just about any show with large main casts and multiple storylines in one episode is when everyone crashes into each other.  That did not quite happen in “Caught in the Act” (Cam and Mitchell’s storyline remained separate), but it was close enough.  Phil and Claire already had enough going on without Jay and Gloria showing up at their door.  So of course it would all end up becoming a comedy of errors with misunderstandings galore, and of course Phil’s crush on Gloria would come into play, so much so that he nearly passed out.  The other highlight of this episode was Claire and Phil’s handling of their kids walking in on them.  In a meta moment, the Dunphy kids were right on in predicting the sort of family meeting their parents would have to explain what happened.  And their explanation was actually quite reasonable and sweet, in its own potentially uncomfortable way.

Next (and last) up: Happy Endings

Best Episode of the Season: Glee Season 2

July 9, 2011

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“Rumours”

The most entertaining character in Glee is, of course, Sue Sylvester, but her presence was inexplicably tamped down a bit for Season 2.  Thus, while my pick for last season’s best episode depended on Jane Lynch’s most memorable moment (the rant against Spanish as a “dead language”), this season’s pick was determined more by the music.  The Fleetwood Mac-centric “Rumours” was the best themed episode so far, in that the theme did not feel so very forced.  The internal strife affecting New Directions was, in fact, not unlike the strife that Fleetwood Mac endured before and during the recording of Rumours.  A triumph of editing was at play as well, as the right songs came at just the right moment, particularly when a confrontation between Finn and Quinn that was reaching a fever pitch led right into a duet by those two of “I Don’t Want to Know.”  There was an appropriate song for every moment, as this was just about the best album choice for Glee to build a themed episode around, with nine of the eleven tracks from Rumours still receiving significant classic radio rock airplay today.

Next up: Modern Family

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