Grading 2010′s New Shows, Part 1

“Louie” – FX, Tuesday 11 PM

Synopsis: Part autobiographical, documentary style show about the life of Louis CK, a misanthropic middle aged divorced comedian, part surreal weirdness… interspersed with bits of real stand-up footage.
Our take: “Louie” is by far our favorite new show of the season. The stand-up alone makes it funnier than almost anything else on TV. Early on, the show struggled to mash together all of the elements, but as the season went on, it really started to come together. It seamlessly transitions from the profound and meaningful to purely absurd filth like nothing else we’ve ever seen.
Grade: A

“The Event” – NBC, Monday 9 PM

Synopsis: The first episode is not the event. The second episode is not the event.
Our take: They should have called this show The Lost V-Files. They’ve blended a lot of elements of “Lost”, “V“, and “The X-Files“, to create a sort of mediocre science fiction soup.  (Which, coincidentally, is one of Emeril’s least popular recipes.) There’s a lot of jumping back and forth in time, and most of the dramatic interest is derived from the writers not telling you exactly what’s going on. Their hope being that you’ll be curious to find out what’s going on. Despite its hamfisted effort, I was a little curious. “The Event” fails, however, at creating even one character worth rooting for, so I doubt I’ll be back for episode 3.
Grade: C

“No Ordinary Family” – ABC, Tuesday 8 PM

 

Synopsis: When a vacation to Brazil goes awry, and by “awry” I mean their plane crashes into a glowing river, one ordinary family develops super powers.
Our take: “No Ordinary Family” is not at all something I’d watch, but for what it’s going for – sort of a watered down “Modern Family” crossed with “Heroes” – I think it does a decent job. I’ll even admit to chuckling a few times. My only complaint is that Michael Chiklis was laying the cheesy kid’s movie dad stuff on a little thick. In the comedy scenes it worked well, but in the dramatic family scenes, it didn’t seem to fit.
Grade: B-

“Rubicon” – AMC, Sunday 9 PM

Synopsis: Will Travers cracks codes and analyzes government intelligence for a living. When his boss/father-in-law is killed, he’s sucked into a whirlwind of conspiracy and intrigue.
Our take: In fairness, the bar for AMC shows is extremely high. “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men” are arguably two of the best shows on TV now and ever. But for me, the “Rubicon” intrigue is wearing a little thin with the turtle speed pace the show has set for its mystery. To illustrate the slowness, it was ten episodes before the two leads (Will and Katherine Rhumor) finally met up, so everything from episodes 2-9 was at best a baby step and at worst, irrelevant. The two most amusing characters, Miles, the nutty analyst and Kale Ingram, the dour boss, are almost distractions from the main plot. It’s good enough that I’ll keep watching, but the pace is frustrating.
Grade: B+

“Hawaii Five-O” – CBS, Monday 10 PM

Synopsis: Two cops with enormous capped teeth fight terror on the front lines… in the tropical paradise of Hawaii. Also Jin from “Lost” and Boomer from “Battlestar Galactica” are there.
Our take: I made it about ten or fifteen minutes before I had my fill of Alex O’Loughlin’s faux badassness. He’s still the guy from that J-Lo movie to me. For a network show, the action scenes were pretty impressive.
Grade: D

Things I thought during Survivor Nicaragua: 9/15/10

- Every time Jeff Probst uttered the words “Medallion of Power,” I peed a little bit. He spoke of the medallion in a reverent, almost Gandalf-ish, tone. Clearly this thing is going to be like Link’s power bracelet, the boots of force from Wizards and Warriors and one of Mario’s hallucinogenic mushrooms rolled into one.

-NFL Coach Jimmy Johnson clearly trained for Survivor by locking himself into a tanning bed for 2 weeks. Seriously, he is officially the first 66 year old man to glow the same shade as Snooki.

-It’s also pretty clear that fellow old team member, Marty, is deeply disappointed that he won’t be the awesome alpha leader of the tribe with a Super Bowl winning coach around.

-Another oldie, Holly, sounds pretty much exactly like Sarah Palin.

-Switching to the young folk for a moment, the big dude with dark hair, Shannon, seems like a cross between Burton from the Pearl Islands, Silas from Africa and Bobby John from Guatemala… except more obnoxious than all 3 combined.

-Final thought: Lotta sack blurrin’ going on already this year. Yep. We haven’t seen this much below the waist blurriness since Amanda Kimmel’s ass blurred its way through the wilds of China.

Shutter Island: We Have To Go Back!

In Shutter Island, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a US Marshal investigating the disappearance of a patient and/or inmate from a remote institution for the criminally insane. Creepy noir-ish thriller-y things ensue as Daniels and his partner (Mark Ruffalo)  struggle to uncover the truth. Of course Daniels becomes more and more suspicious of the hospital staff, and of course the audience becomes more and more suspicious of Daniel’s sanity or lack thereof.

The movie looks and sounds awesome. The story, as any good thriller should, makes you wanna know what in tarnations is going on.  I liked almost everything about  Shutter Island, and I wish more big budget studio movies were as daring as it was.

My only complaint, and it’s a big one, is that very similar unraveling sanity plots have been done before, and I think done better (The Machinist and A Tale of Two Sisters, for example).   Perhaps I’d have been completely wowed if I’d seen it ten years ago or had I not seen the “big twist” coming since I saw the trailers for this movie months ago. It might have been a 5 star mind-blower of OMFG proportions.  Sadly, neither of these are true.

TV Casualties Rating: out of 5

Run Time: 138 minutes

Directed by: Martin Scorsese

Written by: Laeta Kalogridis, Dennis Lehane

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley

Theatrical Release: 02/19/10

DVD Release: 06/08/10

Production Budget: $80 million

Domestic Gross: $127 million

Metacritic Score: 63/100

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 68%

Still, the journey is always what matters most, right?  Some of the clues to what’s really going on along the way are subtle and clever – in the opening moments, I pondered why the agent from Seattle spoke with a thick Boston accent.  Others are a bit confusing – I’m still baffled by a mental patient pantomiming drinking a glass of water with an empty hand and then setting the empty glass down in the next shot.  No idea.

There seems to be a split amongst viewers in terms of Teddy’s insanity/sanity. I interpret his final line in the way it would make the most satisfying end to his story – That he is indeed insane and over the course of the film has been made aware of this fact. He murdered his wife after she murdered their children, and rather than live with the awful truth, he is choosing to be lobotomized so that he can be at peace. So while the twist doesn’t give much bang for its buck, the ultimate resolution almost makes up for it with an emotional punch in the gut.

Shutter Island will be released on DVD and BluRay on June 8, 2010. The movie is based on the novel Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane.

From the TVCasualties cookbook… Hurley style feast

On the menu for tonight’s Lost finale is a duo of pizzas and a tropical island style trifle.

Pineapple and Wild Boar *cough* bacon *cough* pizza

Ingredients

1 cup pizza sauce (recommended: Dei Fratelli)
1 recipe pizza dough (I like the frozen stuff by Tiseo’s)
6 oz. mozzarella cheese, shredded
1 oz. parmesan cheese, shredded
6 slices of boar bacon, fried and chopped (or regular bacon, if that’s all you can find…)
1/2 tomato, seeded and chopped
1/8 cup dried pineapple
1 green onion, chopped
olive oil

 

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
2. I like to use cast iron pans to cook my pizza, but use whatever you like best or have on hand – pizza stone, cookie sheet, pizza pan, etc. Slather your vessel with olive oil.
3. Roll and stretch the dough into a 12-14″ circle and place on your greased pizza vessel.
4. Slather with sauce, stopping about 1″ from the edge of the dough.
5. Sprinkle the mozzarella and parmesan evenly over the top, followed by the bacon, tomato, pineapple and green onion.
6. Bake 10-15 minutes or ’til golden brown and bubbly.
7. Slather generously with ranch dressing.

Jerked Chicken and Goat Cheese pizza

Ingredients

1 cup pizza sauce (recommended: Dei Fratelli)
1 recipe pizza dough (I like the frozen stuff by Tiseo’s)
6 oz. mozzarella cheese, shredded
1 oz. parmesan cheese, shredded
1 jerked chicken breast, grilled and chopped
1/2 tomato, seeded and chopped
2 oz. goat cheese
1/4 cup red onion, chopped
olive oil

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
2. I like to use cast iron pans to cook my pizza, but use whatever you like best or have on hand – pizza stone, cookie sheet, pizza pan, etc. Slather your vessel with olive oil.
3. Roll and stretch the dough into a 12-14″ circle and place on your greased pizza vessel.
4. Slather with sauce, stopping about 1″ from the edge of the dough.
5. Sprinkle the mozzarella and parmesan evenly over the top, followed by the chicken, goat cheese, tomato and red onion.
6. Bake 10-15 minutes or ’til golden brown and bubbly.
7. Slather generously with ranch dressing.

Tropical Island Trifle

Ingredients

1 cup whipping cream
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1 (8 ounce) container sour cream
1 (9 inch) angel food cake, roughly chopped
1 (3.4 ounce) package instant vanilla
pudding mix
2 cups cold milk
3 kiwis, peeled and sliced
1 pint fresh strawberries, sliced
2 small mangos, peeled and sliced
1 fresh pineapple, peeled, cored and diced

1. Mix instant pudding and cold milk per package instructions and let set.
2. In a large bowl, mix the whipping cream and powdered sugar, and then whip with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form.
3. Mix prepared pudding and sour cream, and then gently fold in whipped cream mixture.
4. Line a large serving bowl with half of the strawberries and all of the kiwi slices.
5. Cover with 1/3 of the cake pieces, followed by 1/3 of the pudding/cream mixture.
6. Layer half of the pineapple and all of the mango slices, followed by 1/3 of the cake pieces and 1/3 of the pudding/cream mixture.
7. Top with the remaining strawberries and pineapple, followed by the remaining cake and pudding/cream mixture.
8. Top with a few strawberries and kiwi slices.
9. Slather generously with ranch dressing (Okay, not really.)

Notes: The trifle tastes best if you let it sit in the fridge for a few hours, but it will get soggy overnight, so I recommend only making as much as you can eat in one sitting.

Unnecessary Censorship and Hanso Training Video for the Lost Finale

Pass or Fail: Grading NBC’s Trailers Pt 2

Outlaw

Jimmy Smits is a hotshot lawyer who plays by his own rules… but he gets results! I’m glad to see that NBC is going for a fresh take on the courtroom drama. I haven’t seen a hotshot lawyer play by his own rules like this since every other courtroom drama on tv (plus House is the same thing, just set in a hospital). It also reveals the conclusion of the pilot in the trailer, which seems like a dumb move. There’s a moment where, as Jimmy Smits is loose-cannoning around his apartment, he is slapping a baseball bat against his palm for no good reason. For a split second, I thought it was a gigantic black dildo. That was the best part of this trailer.

Fail

Chase

This is a straightforward US Marshals show. They intend the hook to be the hard boiled female lead, but this is not a hook. At this point, it’s a cliche.

Fail

Harry’s Law

Kathy Bates is a hotshot lawyer who plays by her own rules… but she gets results! The opening of this trailer is awesome (what’s not to like about Kathy Bates tootin’ on a big ol’ hogleg?), but it starts to lose me when it says “from the creator of Ally McBeal”. And what’s with these lawyer shows revealing the end of the pilot? They’re basically just letting you know that every episode will be completely predictable.

Close Pass

The Cape

I don’t even know what to say about this one… a superhero trained by secret underground circus folk, with a magical cape that he uses as a weapon. The idea that his family wouldn’t recognize him in his superhero get up would be a lot easier to swallow if the show were called The Mask.

Fail

School Pride

It’s Extreme Home Makeover for schools. I’m not into that show, but this seems like a better premise for people that are into that kind of thing. Also, mold is gross, so I’ll give a pass to any show that involves network money being spent on mold removal.

Pass

Pass or Fail: Grading NBC’s New Trailers Pt 1

Undercovers

As a fan of J.J. Abrams, I was looking forward to this one the most. Unfortunately, I was already saying “meh” at the 10 second mark. Too cheesy. Then I got to “sexspionage” and I kinda wanted to throw up.

Fail

Friends With Benefits

I was pleasantly surprised at the beginning, but less so as the trailer went on. I’m a fan of Ryan Hansen (Veronica Mars, Party Down), not so much when it comes to Fran Kranz (Dollhouse), though a comedy should suit him better than a drama.

Pass

Outsourced

The lead actor is weak. The jokes are dumb – intentionally I’m sure, but dumb all the same.

Fail

Love Bites

The voice over (and hair) left me cringing. It seems to be going for a Sex and the City type vibe. Ugh. (Tim says: Having a penis, I was not even remotely interested. Lex says: Having a vagina, I was not even remotely interested.)

Fail

Perfect Couples

Despite myself, this one made me laugh. More than once.

Pass

Paul Reiser Show

I don’t even have to watch the trailer. The name says it all. I’d honestly prefer a remake of My Two Dads.

Fail

The Event

I’m not expecting a lot from this after being severely disappointed by both V and FlashForward, but the trailer piqued my interest which is all you can really hope for with a trailer.

Pass

Lost: The Final Countdown

One week from today Lost will be over for good. Crazy. So now is a time to ponder the remaining mysteries as well as look back over the good times. We start on the pondering side of things:

What’s with the gooey black stuff coming off of Locke here?

Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have apparently quit doing interviews between now and the finale, but they did a good one with Alan Sepinwall a few days ago that is worth reading. Here is a little taste:

Damon Lindelof: In terms of what Jacob allowed, what he didn’t allow, what The Others did of their own volition, with Ben basically saying “This came down from Jacob” is all in the area that is subject to interpretation purposely. What our intention was is that there is a repeating vicious cycle that seems to happen on this island, where people come to the island, they try to figure out what makes the island work, and the closer they came leads them to their own inevitable demise.

Check out the rest here.

To move on to remembering some of the fonder moments, we start with a sweet Hurley montage. His epitaph will read “Hugo ‘Hurley’ Reyes. He said ‘dude.’ A lot.”

And last but not least, my favorite moment in Lost history. I suppose this gem could work pretty well on a gravestone, too.

Things I’m Thinking As I Watch Survivor – 05/13/10

– I can’t believe Parvati’s last name is Shallow. It’s too perfect. Jesus, I can’t wait until she gets voted off.

– Jerri has totally redeemed herself. Or maybe I’ve finally seen so much of Colby’s Dudley Do-Right routine at this point that she looks pretty undouchey in comparison.

– I get the impression, not just because of his comments during the “loved ones” challenge, that Jeff Probst doesn’t like Colby very much.

– Sandra might be the smartest player ever. She keeps her mouth shut and trusts her own judgment.

– My prediction is that Sandra, Jerri and Russell will make it to the final three and Jerri will win. I would be surprised if Sandra won again. I think it’s unlikely that the jury would give the million to someone who has already won, especially a villain that’s already won.

That being said, Sandra probably has a better chance of winning it than Russell. He’s just too damn smug, and he pulls the classic Rob Cesternino mistake, which is making too many moves against too many people that he’s given his word to, thus ensuring that none of them will vote for him.

Handmade Awesomeness: Lost Edition

6 years of my life
I dreamed of the damn island.
Can’t believe it’s done

We here at TVCasualties celebrate the approaching series finale of Lost with a haiku and this edition of handmade awesomeness!

 

Spoilers ahead if you’re not caught up this season… don’t say I didn’t warn you.

With this necklace, you’ll never forget which numbers to push.

Namaste necklace by gibberish2

 

The Dharma people will never suspect you’re an imposter from the future with these official Dharma logo goods!

LOST Brooch.. Dharma Initiative Logo by ChocolateMintCrafts

Lost Dharma Initiative – Apple Macbook Vinyl Decal by TheDarkMonkey

 

LOST keychain / keyring DHARMA INITIATIVE by StraitjacketFun

 

Invent your own Lost spoilers with this tee.

Medium Lost Spoilarz Hurley Kills a Dinosaur Mens Shirt Sand by tinaseamonster

 

Nice smoke monster. Pretty smoke monster.

The Smoke Monster Lost Inspired Necklace with Swarovski Crystals and Natural Crystal Spikes by LongLivetheQueenBee

 

With these magnets, you’ll never run out of silly nicknames for Hurley.

Get Lost In Nicknames – Hurley by LittleMommaErin

Two players, two sides. One is light and one is dark.

LOST Inspired Good Evil Black White Bracelet by 2smooches

 

You better give him his kidney back.

Man in Black by theSKIDish

 

A handy tool for any castaway.

Haiti Releif NEVER LOST COMPASS Necklace by madebymoe

 

Twinsies!

Jacob and the Man in Black Bot by boltsandbots

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