{"id":106,"date":"2003-05-31T16:18:03","date_gmt":"2003-05-31T16:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/?p=106"},"modified":"2003-05-31T16:18:03","modified_gmt":"2003-05-31T16:18:03","slug":"tv-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/?p=106","title":{"rendered":"TV Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Way back in October<\/a>,
\nI took some time to
\nreview<\/a>
\nthe television I was watching, or planned to watch, in the coming season. Now,
\nthat all the season finales have passed and television has become a wasteland
\nof late night Three’s Company reruns, I thought it might be fun to run through
\nmy personal list again, comparing what I thought then to how I feel
\nthings really turned out.<\/p>\n

For those that still have some shows queued up in the TIVO, watch out. I
\ncan’t promise that there won’t be some spoilers ahead. Travel your
\nunwatched shows with caution. Here goes.<\/p>\n

Sunday<\/b><\/br><\/br><\/p>\n

The Sopranos<\/a>
\n(prev<\/a>)
\nI started the season noting that the pace of the show had slowed
\na bit. Just wait, I said, things will pick up. Well, they did
\nand they didn’t. The crescendo that ensued resulted in a pitched
\nbattle between husband and wife, with far less body bags to wade
\nthrough than a normal season of good ole’ Tony. It’s still one
\nof my favorite shows but I can’t wait to see all the folks that
\nhave been playing with fire finally get burned. It should be
\na short, two year wait before season five allows me to do so.<\/p>\n

Curb Your Enthusiasm<\/a>
\n(prev<\/a>)
\nThis silly little comedy gave me just what I expected: a silly
\nlittle comedy. It doesn’t pretend to be something that it isn’t.
\nThe final episode of the season, which featured an impressive
\nburst of profanity, made me howl. I don’t remember the last time
\na half hour of comedy made me do that.<\/p>\n

The Simpsons<\/a>
\nThe Simpsons was a late season addition, largely brought on by
\na Christmas present from a friend. The DVDs of the first season
\nreintroduced me to the show I always wanted to watch but never did.
\nI’m glad. The old ones are classics. The new ones will be
\nclassics the moment they age. The love the creators have for
\nthese characters shine through, even after all this time.<\/p>\n

Fox recently signed the papers for two more seasons of Homer,
\nmaking Simpsons the
\n
\nlongest running<\/a> comedy series ever. That’s a whole lot
\nof DVDs I’ll have to buy.<\/p>\n

Malcolm in the Middle<\/a>
\nMalcolm is a show I’ve followed from the beginning but somehow missed
\nthe cut in October. My VCR is more than happy to keep recording
\nlong after the Simpsons is over and I’m more than happy to speed
\nthrough its commercials. I still enjoy this one, even as the
\nmain character quickly passes puberty by.<\/p>\n

Monday<\/b><\/p>\n

Drew Carey<\/a>
\n(prev<\/a>)
\nI’m sad to say that Drew jumped the shark<\/a> by jumping all the
\nway to the sad graveyard that is primetime Fridays. Kate ran
\noff to one of my favorite shows, Scrubs, and you get the feeling
\nthat the writers are just out of juice. Maybe a summer relaunch,
\nwhich will move it back to Wednesdays, will do it good. I have my doubts.<\/p>\n

Whose Line is it Anyway?<\/a>
\n(prev<\/a>)
\nThis show also got caught up in Drew’s midseason move. As a result,
\nI don’t remember the last time I saw an episode. It’s
\ntoo bad. I miss it.<\/p>\n

Tuesday<\/b><\/p>\n

Frasier<\/a>
\n(prev<\/a>)
\nI predicted that once 24 began, I’d have trouble finding the time to
\nwatch Frasier. It was a good prediction. I haven’t seen an episode
\nsince. Oddly enough, it was the cancellation of the show after it,
\nHidden Hills, that really took Frasier off my schedule. It hardly
\nseemed worth it to tape just a half hour of television.<\/p>\n

Hidden Hills<\/a>
\n(prev<\/a>)
\nI was sorry to see her<\/a>
\ngo. I mean it go. And the shows that replaced it are sad. Not that I’d
\nknow personally. I’m on strike from its timeslot until she – I mean it – returns.
\nI can only hope that the phrase “Returning Soon”, which can be found on its
\nweb site, mean that it, in fact, is returning….soon.<\/p>\n

24<\/a>
\nThe best suspense show on TV came to the end just a week or so ago.
\nSome say the first season was better. Some say the second. I
\ncall it a draw. It did feel a bit more uneven, though, with some
\nepisodes far outpacing the others. I hope that they leave Kim
\nhome for the next one. Her adventures, which included being nearly
\nkilled no less than six times this year, get harder and harder to swallow.
\nI thought Jack had a bad day.<\/p>\n

Wednesday<\/b><\/p>\n

My Wife and Kids<\/a>
\n(prev<\/a>)
\nI said that I rarely fit it into my viewing schedule and that trend
\ncontinues. While I don’t know if it will ever make my ‘A’ list,
\nI’ll catch it now and then, particularly during the summer of reruns.<\/p>\n

Ed<\/a>
\n(prev<\/a>)
\nWill it be cancelled or won’t it? Ed, my favorite show and
\na fellow victim (see Drew) of a midseason move to Fridays,
\nhad its season fall under a shadow of renewal doubts.
\nThankfully, it will be around for another year, making
\nthe season finale, which wrapped up all sorts of loose
\nends just in case, all the more interesting. Let’s see
\nhow Carol and Ed do now that they are together. And,
\ncome on people, watch this show. Do it now. Don’t make
\nme come over there.<\/p>\n

The West Wing<\/a>
\n(prev<\/a>)
\nAnother strong season of a quite likable and (obviously) fictional
\ndemocrat reign, which ended with way more questions than answers.
\nI enjoyed the season although I’m sure you could hear the head
\nslapping when 24 beat them to the punch with their use of the,
\npreviously unknown to me, 25th amendment. Two replaced presidents
\nin one season of television is two too many, if you ask me.
\nYou didn’t? Well let’s move on then.<\/p>\n

Thursday<\/b><\/p>\n

Friends<\/a>
\n(prev<\/a>)
\nI’m just not down with the whole Rachel and Joey storyline.
\nI suppose part of me still has her attached to Ross, regardless
\nof the fact that he has moved on. I also thinks it makes her
\na bit more of a ho; she’s quickly making her way around her circle
\nof friends. They have one more season to correct it, though.
\nI’ll be watching. I always am.<\/p>\n

Scrubs<\/a>
\n(prev<\/a>)
\nThe new time slot for Scrubs was both a blessing and a curse.
\nThe blessing came in the form of ratings; they were spectacular.
\nThe curse came during sweeps when NBC, in a fit to give us
\nas much Friends as we could handle, preempted the show on
\na regular basis. Come on, NBC. You are going to need
\nsomething to carry the torch once Friends has finally
\nflamed out. It should be this show. Give it some respect.<\/p>\n

ER<\/a>
\n(prev<\/a>)
\nThe episodes of this season – the last of which still resides on
\nmy VCR – displayed a marked improvement over the last one.
\nCleaning out a lot of old cast members – including good old Mark Green –
\nseemed to give them the opportunity to take more chances, rather
\nthan rest on their laurels. I’m glad. I’m still a viewer.
\nI didn’t think I would be.<\/p>\n

Survivor<\/a>
\n(prev<\/a>)
\nMy guilty pleasure still manages to entertain me. I imagine
\nthe tribe politics is what intrigues me. Maybe I should have
\ntried my hand at psychiatry.<\/p>\n

CSI<\/a>
\n(prev<\/a>)
\nI mentioned that the premiere was typical. I can’t say the
\nrest of the season was much different. Thankfully, typical
\nis still pretty good with regard to their approach to a crime
\nscene. It still feels different, particularly because its the
\nonly show of its type that I watch.<\/p>\n

Push Nevada<\/a>
\n(prev<\/a>)
\nThe odd, drawn out storyline of this one put it right where you expect:
\nthe trash bin. It never got a chance to tell its story. I don’t
\nreally care. That tells me all I needed to know about it.<\/p>\n

Friday<\/b><\/p>\n

Firefly<\/a>
\n(prev<\/a>)
\nDid Firefly make it past the first episode? If it did, it didn’t
\nmake it much longer. I never made time to watch it and neither
\ndid anyone else. Ever get the feeling that we’ll never get to see
\na decent science fiction show that doesn’t include the Star Trek license?
\nMe too.<\/p>\n

John Doe<\/a>
\n(prev<\/a>)
\nIs this one still around? I wouldn’t know. I only
\ncaught the premiere. The concept – a man that knows
\neverything but who he is – doesn’t sound like it would
\nwork over the long haul. I’ll never know.<\/p>\n

Fastlane<\/a>
\nThis show, which was a midseason addition for me, earned my
\ntrust because it was unapologetic about its content.
\nHere’s some boobs. Here’s some fast cars. Here’s some explosions.
\nWe’re not going to bore you with any kind of storyline. And you’ll
\nalways have Tiffany<\/a> to look at. I say was<\/i> because
\nit has basically been cancelled. How can this be? It should hit the
\nsweet spot for the lonely guys that spend
\ntheir Friday nights in front of the TV.<\/p>\n

That’s it. No Saturday. I need some time to myself.
\nTechnically, I don’t watch anything on Sunday either. I just
\nmake good use of my VCR.<\/p>\n

All in all, it wasn’t a bad season of TV. I am a bit worried
\nabout next season, though. More and more shows that I like
\nquietly disappear from the network lineup and aren’t replaced
\nwith anything too interesting. At least NBC
\nrenewed Ed <\/a>
\nand I have a PVR<\/a> just aching to record something. All hope is
\nnot lost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Way back in October, I took some time to review the television I was watching, or planned to watch, in the coming season. Now, that all the season finales have passed and television has become a wasteland of late night Three’s Company reruns, I thought it might be fun to run through my personal list […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}