“It Starts with an ‘F,” That’s All I’m Saying!”

November 29th, 2009

Do you know what word starts with F? Fail.

Before tonight’s episode of “The Amazing Race,” where a team had a Speed Bump that I thought would be erased by bunching within the first ten minutes, I expected to be writing thoughts on how annoying I found the manipulation of the race in terms of controlling competition.

However, through a strange and unthinkable series of circumstances, I am instead writing about how one of the racers was so convinced of this sort of producer intervention that they risked the entire race on being able to predict their next move.

They bet zig, the race zagged, and the final three was set in stone after only thirty five minutes of a frustrating, if fascinating, hour of television.

It’s an hour of television, though, that you won’t be able to find a review of here: I’m filling in for Dan Fienberg over at HitFix tonight, which means that my review can be found over at their fine establishment:

Recap: The Amazing Race — “It Starts with an ‘F,’ That’s All I’m Saying!” @ HitFix.com

This is probably the best GLEE episode yet. Although the songs weren’t very interesting for this week’s episode, the overall show is still awesome! There were so many hilarious parts.

Nevertheless, ‘Bootylicious’ is my favourite song from this week’s episode.

In case you haven’t caught it yet, you can watch it HERE.

“Hairography”

November 25th, 2009

Last week, I had an extensive Twitter conversation with Jace Lacob about Glee, and the argument boiled down to the question of whether or not the show’s characters were one-dimensional. And what was interesting is that Jace and I don’t disagree: the show’s characters are, on occasion, blindly one-dimensional. However, I argued that the show is still in its infancy, and that considering its identity crisis it’s actually doing a decent job of slowly sketching out its characters.

However, I do think that one of the show’s problems is its decision to have characters waver between substantial character development and broad archetypes week by week. While a show like Friday Night Lights, with a similar ensemble cast of characters that often move in and out of the show’s narrative, is dealing with fairly grounded and realistic characters, Glee is slowly humanizing caricatures. And as a result, you have a character like Artie fluctuating from a handicapped student struggling to relate to his classmates to a random background character in a wheelchair, which feels false. Rather than the character development compounding over time, changing the way the show’s dynamics operate, the exact opposite is happening: while individual episodes give Kurt or Quinn or Puck storylines that expand on their identity, outside of the main serialized storyline (Finn and Quinn’s baby) they revert back to their original modes.

It creates a sense that, for a show which is at its best when characters are being developed and explored in a concentrated fashion, the plots of the show itself don’t actually seem to be changing in kind, and the show reverts back to a farcical comedy more often than not. At the heart of “Hairography” is the fairly simple premise that beneath the distractions we create for ourselves is a sense of our true identity, as various characters test out potential distractions only to find that their heart takes them in a different direction.

However, Glee is a show that is all about distractions, and while this individual episode may have peeled everything back to show the supposed true colours of the various characters the show is never going to stop delivering show-stopping musical numbers or interjecting random musical sequences into largely unrelated scenes. The result is an episode that, rather than representing a legitimate step forward for the series, only draws attention to some of its long-term, cumulative limitations: it can tug at the heartstrings and build character when it wants to, but this is never going to start being a show about twelve kids singing on stools.

Especially not with a fake pregnancy storyline hanging over it.

Now, I am aware that this show (as Twitter user Genshikenn points out) is never overly subtle, so I shouldn’t be annoyed that “Hairography” throws the distractions narrative done our throats with numerous mentions of the term (Quinn wanting to distract Finn, Terri wanting to distract Will, Kurt self-identify as a distraction, Sue talking about being distracted from winning, and of course the eponymous hairography). But when your central theme is the idea that things should be simple and clear, stripped down of the big hair and the crazy dancing in order to fall into a natural pattern, and your episode works for every second of that emotional impact without an ounce of subtlety, that’s problematic for me. Ian Brennan’s script argues that no distraction will ever truly satisfy you, and that you’ll always return to what feels natural and right; however, while I thought the episode resulted in a number of compelling moments (especially the Sign Language collaboration on “Imagine,” which went for the emotional jugular), it never felt particularly natural in the least.

It’s an episode that also demonstrates that the idea of developing each character individually isn’t actually improving on their overall dynamic, as the Glee Club itself felt bizarrely splintered in this episode. When Kurt commented that this was the first time Quinn had ever spoken to him, it reverted back to the stereotypes (Kurt as the social outcast, Quinn as the stuckup and opportunistic cheerleader) that have largely been written out of the two characters through episodes like “Preggers” and last week’s “Ballad.” It’s one thing if every episode doesn’t feature a scene that clearly shows an evolution of a particular character, but Quinn and Kurt could have had this conversation five weeks ago and it would have been just as relevant. In fact, the entire episode could have taken place after “Preggers” and it wouldn’t have been that much of a stretch. And while I understand it’s still early in the season, a lot of substantial character development has happened since that point that should be reflected in how these characters act that just isn’t. Yes, we read Quinn’s efforts to distract Finn and get to know Puck as less problematic since we’ve both seen Quinn humbled (in “Ballad”) and Puck humanized (in “Mash-Up”), but the episode did nothing to reflect this (especially in terms of turning Puck into a complete and total cad).

There was a lot of criticism of “Mash-Up” (where Puck and Rachel got together, and where we saw the Emma/Will story front and center), which was also written by Brennan, but I liked the episode at the time because it showed different sides to characters and connected the three stories together with a central theme that made sense for each of them. However, now I realize that what really made me like the episode was that Terri Schuester was entirely absent from it. I like Jessalyn Gilsig, but this episode reminded us why we were all so glad they put the storyline on the back burner for a while. Not only is Terri’s sister unquestionably the worst character on the show (compared to her, Terri’s downright compelling), but the storyline is the ultimate sort of distraction from where the heart of the show really lies. And perhaps what made Brennan’s theme fall so far short here was that there is no way he is capable of convincing the argument that there is an honest, heartfelt reason why Terri continues to fake a pregnancy considering the potential long-term ramifications. The show has shown us too much of Will and Emma’s flirtations for us to actually root for this marriage to survive, and any chance of having pity for Terri was gone the moment the character was conceived as a shrill drain on Will’s spirit. There’s no redeeming this storyline, no matter the amount of times the theme is drilled into our heads, and it certainly coloured my opinion of the episode considering its prevalence.

There were, of course, elements of the episode I quite liked. I thought that meeting the two other Glee clubs was a solid extension of the show’s world view, and both Eve and Michael Hitchcock (who I recognized most as Ira Gilligan from Arrested Development) were strong as their respective leadership. The scene with Hitchcock’s Dalton Rumba (which is an amazing name, by the way) and Will going back and forth with the partially deaf Rumba misinterpreting what Will is saying is a very simple comedy scene, and with Hitchcock’s timing was really well done. I thought getting a preview of the other schools ahead of Sectionals is also smart in terms of making that event seem like an actual event, as “Sectionals” has seemed like an ambiguous goal up to this point. The episode also nicely used the schools to provide the episode’s broadest storyline, as the Jane Adams Academy girls provide the inspiration for hairography and the Academy for the Deaf provides the impulse to switch to something much simpler.

And if the episode had just been about that idea, perhaps it might have been a more consistent episode, but it just tried to do too many things. Sue suddenly back and gunning for Glee club came out of nowhere, and although it creates tension for Sectionals it never really fit into the episode other than some great delivery from Jane Lynch. And when you pile in Rachel and Kurt’s love for Finn, Quinn’s concern over Puck, Terri’s attempts to distract Will, and then try to throw them all together, you realize that nothing really got accomplished: Quinn’s back where she belongs, Will is still devoted to his child, and Finn and Quinn are still together with Kurt and Rachel still pining after him even while acknowledging they don’t have a shot.

Brennan’s approach to the script seemed to be that they had the central idea (dictated by the big musical numbers), so what they needed was ways to tie the characters into that idea in order to effectively fill time. There was no specific character development that needed to happen in the episode, and you could sense this as the stories were happening. Twitter user ageekinthepink notes that it seems like the show keeps raising the same issues as if they are new, and that nothing ever seems to conclude, and while I’m not sure the show is going to be able to “wrap up” storylines just yet (Terri will be the first real test) I do agree that it seems like an episode like this one invented or repeated conflict to fill time more than letting things follow through naturally. It went into characters’ heads to show them hatching crazy schemes in a way that kept things moving but that never felt natural even when everyone got together and sang a stirring version of “True Colours” in the end.

As a result, “Hairography” is unfortunately devoid of the quality that made me argue the show’s merits with Jace in the first place. Its sense of incremental character development requires an acknowledgement that some things have changed, and for episodes to give a clear sense that our changing perspectives on these characters are in some way reflected in their behaviour (as none of the character beats have taken place entirely isolated from the show’s other characters). Instead, we get an episode that in an effort to fill out an intelligent story decision (previewing and setting the stage for Sectionals in two weeks’ time) reverts the characters to their original archetypes and accomplishes nothing substantial in the process. It’s as if any time the show tries to move the show’s plot forward it has no idea how to move the show’s characters forward at the same time, a sort of stop/start mentality that will only hurt it in the long run.

Cultural Observations

• Brittany is really coming into her own: she looked smoking hot (yeah, I said it) with her hair down, and “it’s like cool epilepsy” was the night’s most wrong, and thus most right, one-liner.
• When I heard they were doing “Papa Don’t Preach,” I was all excited about seeing more of Quinn’s family situation and the show using the song as an emotional look into her emotional state as she considers keeping the child. Instead, she performed it for a set of pre-teen triplets in an effort to calm them into submission, which is officially the weirdest application of that song I could possibly imagine. It’s a great song, and a great version from Dianna Agron, but its placement in the episode is token to the point of being utterly worthless.
• I’m officially over mashups for this show: I get that it allows them to introduce two different songs or contextualize a song young viewers might not be familiar with (“Hair”) with one they are (“Crazy in Love”), but this one never really came together. The show already did embarrassing with “Push It” much better, and musically I was left wanting more of Mercedes’ Beyonce impression and more of the cast breaking into the counterculture classic.
• Take being said, Artie as Jay-Z? Inspired. I wanted more.
• The show occasionally makes Kurt out to be extremely intelligent, so how do they justify his claim that he and Rachel are equally unlikely to ever be in a relationship with Finn? I get that he’s a dreamer (he’s not the only one, after all), but it makes the character seem blind to the point of incompetence.
• So, question of the week: how do they get out of this Terri situation? My current bet is a double miscarriage, in that Terri chooses to fake a miscarriage to stop the ruse and tell Will the truth only to have Quinn have a miscarriage at the same time leaving everyone childless and sad, which would have Will falling into Terri’s arms if not for the fact that he learns about the fake pregnancy and the pressure she placed on Quinn and murders her for it. Like?

Heroes Season 4 Episode 11 Thanksgiving

Watch s04e11 Heroes, 4×11 Watch Heroes Season 4 …

Breaking Bad : Season 2 : Episode 11: “Mandala”

Walt waits for the deal to end all deals.

Walt and Jesse decide to get out of the distribution business and focus on production, which is significantly safer. Events have conspired to (mostly) keep Walt out of the lab and classroom, so this episode contains nothing of note. Check back soon!

You can read more about this episode at AMC, IMDb and the A.V. Club.

Elements in the credits

I’m not sure why Michael Slovis wasn’t assigned iodine (I), carbon (C), hydrogen (H), sulfur (S), oxygen (O) or vanadium (V).

Watch The Office  Season 6 Episode 11 – S6E11 online video stream for free. You can watch The Office  Free Streaming Video here. For you that always been waiting for this TV show, now the newest episode of this television series has been aired on 19 Nov, 2009 (11/19). Title for newest episodes of The Office  Season 6 Episode 11 – S6E11 is ““Shareholders Meeting”".

Episode Synopsis : Michael brings Dwight, Andy, and Oscar to NYC when he’s to be honored at the Dunder Mifflin shareholder meeting. Jim tries to get Ryan to work.

Watch The Office  Season 6 Episode 11 – S6E11 online video stream here

Don’t worry if you had missed to watch this TV show at the aired date above or outside U.S and can’t watch this TV Series, you can still watch online live streaming video of  The Office  episode here for free. Taken from updated and working video hosting like Hulu, Sling, Megavideo, Zshare, etc.

Don’t miss to watch The Office  Season 6 Episode 11 – S6E11 Free Streaming Online Video, and also you can watch all Full Episodes of The Office   TV show and other popular TV series

Watch Sons of Anarchy Season 2 Episode 11 (S2E11) – online free video stream.  You can Watch Sons of Anarchy online Free Streaming Video here. For you that always waiting for this TV show, now the newest episode of this television series has been aired on 17Nov 2009 (11/17) on FoX channel. Title for newest episodes of  Sons of Anarchy Season 2 Episode 11 is : Service.

Episode Synopsis : While Opie seeks both revenge and reconciliation, Chibs makes a secret deal with Agent Stahl (Ally Walker) to protect his wife and daughter.

Don’t worry if you had missed to watch this TV show at the aired date above or outside U.S and can’t watch this TV Series, you can still watch online live streaming video of Sons of Anarchy episode here for free. Taken from updated and working video hosting like Hulu, Sling, Megavideo, Zshare, etc.

Watch Son of Anarchy (S02E11) “Service” Video stream here

Don’t miss to watch Sons of Anarchy Season 2 Episode 11 (S02E11) Free Streaming Online Video Here, and also you can watch all Full Episodes of Sons of Anarchy TV Series and other popular TV series

Watch Sons of Anarchy Season 2 Episode 11 (S2E11) – online free video stream.
You can Watch Sons of Anarchy online Free Streaming Video here. For you that always waiting for this TV show, now the newest episode of this television series has been aired on 17Nov 2009 (11/17) on FoX channel. Title for newest episodes of  Sons of Anarchy Season 2 Episode 11 is : Service.

Episode Synopsis : While Opie seeks both revenge and reconciliation, Chibs makes a secret deal with Agent Stahl (Ally Walker) to protect his wife and daughter.

Don’t worry if you had missed to watch this TV show at the aired date above or outside U.S and can’t watch this TV Series, you can still watch online live streaming video of Sons of Anarchy episode here for free. Taken from updated and working link from video hosting site like Hulu, Sling, Megavideo, Zshare, youku,  etc.

Watch Son of Anarchy (S02E11) “Service” Video stream here

Have You Seen Heroes: Season 4 Episode 11 – Chapter Ten 'Thanksgiving'?

Episode Synopsis:

H.R.G. hosts a non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Elsewhere, the Petrelli family gets a surprise guest at their table. Meanwhile, Samuel continues to hold Hiro hostage, as Lydia goes in search of the truth.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Have You Seen Heroes: Season 3 Episode 11 – Chapter Eleven 'The Eclipse – Part 2'?

Episode Synopsis:

In Haiti, Peter and the Haitian try to rescue Nathan who has been captured by the sinister Baron Samdei and his militia army. At Pinehurst, Mohinder finds himself a captive by Arthur who wants his powers back for a grand master plan, in which Mohinder attempts to find Maya to ask for help since she may be powerless too. In Kansas, Matt Parkman learns the true nature of Daphne without her super speed, while Ando and an immature Hiro seek answers to their powerlessness in a comic book store in the late Isaac Mendez’s ‘9th Wonders’ series detailing their conflict as it happens. In California, the powerless Clare is taken to the hospital dying from her wounds, while Syler and Elle turn from hunters to the hunted when the vengeful Mr. Bennet attempts to track them down to kill them.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Have You Seen Heroes: Season 2 Episode 11 – Chapter Eleven 'Powerless'?

Episode Synopsis:

Nathan, Matt and Hiro confront Peter and Adam at the Company’s facility in Odessa, TX where Adam’s intentions become apparent. Micah confides in his mother and working together, he and Niki set off to rescue Monica but with deadly results. Maya and Sylar visit Dr. Suresh and she finally realizes what Sylar is really up to. Noah Bennet visits his family and begs Claire not to publicly reveal her secret.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Have You Seen Heroes: Season 1 Episode 11 – Chapter Eleven 'Fallout'?

Episode Synopsis:

The question on everyone’s mind regarding the cheerleader is that, since she’s still alive, does the bomb still go off? This is especially true for Hiro, who meets with Isaac to discuss their next course of action. Having confessed her abilities to her father, Claire seeks other answers that her friends and family can not give. Having captured Sylar, Claire’s father keeps him in a room of total darkness, totally unaware of Sylar’s true strength.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Synopsis:

Tae Kyung and On Yu are in search of a new member for their idol group, A.N.JELL. However, Mi Nam suffers an injury at the last moment. So Mi Nyu, his twin sister, is asked to step in for her brother. The rest of the drama follows the behind-the-scenes life of an idol group.

A.N.JELL :

Jang Geun Suk as Hwang Tae Kyung
Park Shin Hye as Go Mi Nam (Male) / Go Mi Nyu (Female)
Lee HongKi as Kang On Yu / Jeremy
Jung Yong Hwa as Kang Shin Woo
Extended cast :

UEE as Yoo He Yi
Bae Geu Rin as Sa Yu Ri (Fan club president)
Kim In Kwon as Ma Hoon Yi (Mi Nam’s manager)
Choi Ran as Choi Mi Ja (Mi Nam & Mi Nyu’s aunt)
Kim Sung Ryung as Mo Hwa Ran
Jung Chan as President Ahn
Choi Soo Eun as Wang Kko Di
Tae Hwang as staff

Cr: Dramawiki + jinnienomuyeppo02

click here for an English recap credited to dramabeans

Have You Seen Smallville: Season 8 Episode 11 – Legion?

Episode Synopsis:

The aftermath of Doomsday’s attack on Chloe and Jimmy’s wedding leaves Clark in shock, but before he can search for the kidnapped Chloe, an evil being, known as The Persuader, appears and attacks him. Rokk, Imra and Garth, also known as The Legion, step in from the future to help vanquish the Persuader and the group realizes Brainiac has taken over Chloe once again. Meanwhile, up at the Fortress, Chloe, as Brainiac, informs Davis he is Doomsday and was created to kill “the other Kryptonian” and destroy the world.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Have You Seen Smallville: Season 7 Episode 11 – Siren?

Episode Synopsis:

Oliver returns and enlists Chloe in his vendetta against Lex, but a sexy new ’superhero’ stands between Oliver and his mission, even if Lex is, ultimately, one of the bad guys.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Have You Seen Smallville: Season 6 Episode 11 – Justice?

Episode Synopsis:

The Green Arrow sends out for reinforcements and Bart Allan, a.k.a. Impulse, Arthur Curry (Aquaman) and Victor Stone (Cyborg) return to Smallville to help him take down LuthorCorp’s secret lab called ‘Project 33.1′. During a break-in at the LuthorCorp facility, Bart is captured and tortured by Lex for information to who hired him. Clark sets off to rescue him but is felled by kryptonite. An alarmed Chloe goes to Oliver for help, and the newly formed “justice league” springs into action to rescue Clark and Bart. Meanwhile, Oliver painfully decides to break up with Lois, feeling that his dedicating to justice is more important, but he leaves out that information from her.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Have You Seen Smallville: Season 5 Episode 11 – Lockdown?

Episode Synopsis:

A deranged policeman who survived the attack of the Kryptonians and his policewoman fianc�e break into Lex’s mansion asking for the location of the spaceship so they can go public with the news of “aliens on Earth”. But Lex locks himself in the panic room. Clark accidentally finds the association of Lana with Lex in their research of the spacecraft when Lana is kidnapped by the renegade cops to force Luthor to leave the room. Lex’s gets shot, but Lana escapes to the panic room with him. Meanwhile, Jonathan presses Lois to find out who is funding his campaign and Martha tells the truth about Lionel.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Have You Seen Smallville: Season 4 Episode 11 – Unsafe?

Episode Synopsis:

Alicia Baker returns, and with the help of Red Kryptonite, elopes in Las Vegas with Clark. Lana offers a sexual relationship to Jason in an attempt to win him back. Lionel comes back to Lex with a peace offering.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Have You Seen Smallville: Season 3 Episode 11 – Delete?

Episode Synopsis:

After leaving an article full of denunciations about the “Summerholt Neurological Institute” with her former colleague of the Daily Planet, Max Taylor, Chloe is chased by Clark Kent who tries to run her down with his truck. He claims that he had received an e-mail just before his action. Later, Lana also receives an e-mail from the same address and tries to kill Chloe on the steps of Smallville High, who is saved by Adam Knight. Clark and Chloe, with a little help from Lex, investigate the mysterious e-mail origin, and they discover that Molly Griggs, a former patient of the unethical Dr. Garner, is using her meteor-rock abilities to force people to kill through a hypnotic suggestion in her e-mails. Meanwhile, Adam moves to Smallville to be close to Lana despite that no body knows anything about him. Also, Lex makes contact with Dr. Garner and threatens to expose his unethical practices unless he helps him regain his memory of the last seven weeks.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Have You Seen Smallville: Season 2 Episode 11 – Visage?

Episode Synopsis:

Just as Clark and Lana are making progress and he finally sums up enough courage to ask Lana out on a date to a local festival. But an old flame rekindles when Lana’s former beau, Whitney Fordman, returns from the Marines to make up for lost time. But something is wrong with Whitney for he isn’t himself, and Clark sets off to find out what’s wrong and why Whitney doesn’t remember some things. But the big twist is that the real Whitney was killed in action in Indonesia, and that the meteor-rock shape shifter Tina Greer (from the ‘X-Ray’ episode) is impersonating Whitney to get romantically close to Lana. Soon, Clark finds himself in a bind then Tina traps and immobilizes Clark in his storm cellar tied up with with Lana’s kryptnoite necklace, until help comes from of all things… the spaceship. Meanwhile, Lex confronts Helen Bryce about her employment with Lionel and questions her motives for being in Smallville.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Have You Seen Smallville: Season 1 Episode 11 – Hug?

Episode Synopsis:

Bob Rickman is a evil tycoon who intends to build a very pollutant plant in Smallville, and he needs to buy Jonathan Kent’s farm. Rickman is famous because of his capacity of convincing people, but indeed he has a powerful gift of changing people’s mind with his shake of hands, and he uses his new kryptonite power of persuasion against Jonathan. Meanwhile, the eremite Kyle Tippet, who was the former business partner of Rickman, helps Clark and Lex against the powerful and greedy industrialist. But Clark’s quick kinship with Kyle causes a riff between him, Lana and Whitney who both despite the mysterous hermit.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Have You Seen Gossip Girl: Season 2 Episode 11 – The Magnificent Archibalds?

Episode Synopsis:

As Thanksgiving draws near, Blair looks forward to spending the holiday with her family. But her disappointment only begins when her father, Harold, is delayed in trying to leave Europe, and Eleanor’s new boyfriend, Cyrus, takes over planning the traditional Thanksgiving feast. Blair also learns that Cyrus plans to propose marriage to Eleanor, which prompts her to run into the company of her Polish maid, Dorota. Serena continues to hide her sordid past from Aaron after he tells her that he too is a recovering alcoholic and party guy. Meanwhile, Dan asks Lily to help intervene in the continuing feud between Jenny and Rufus when Jenny crashes at Lily’s penthouse and confides in her that she has decided to file a petition to become legally emancipated from her father. Eric also learns from Chuck about Bart’s investigation and files he keeps on everyone to keep everyone and everything under his iron thumb. Elsewhere, Nate’s fugitive father, Howie ‘The Captain’ Archibald, arrives in town to visit him and his mother with an offer to live a life of luxury as fugitives, while Vanessa gets caught up when the authorities comes to call her on Mr. Archibald’s whereabouts after he’s spotted re-entering the country.

So what do you think of this episode?

If you missed it, you can watch it here.