Monday Musings- Guest Gossip Girls

House
Lets start with a quote from Alan Sepinwall's review of the episode.

He said, about the two hour season premier that "rather than revitalizing my interest in the show in general, it's elevated my interest in House himself and made the other characters and the medical mysteries feel even more superfluous than before."

I agree whole heartedly with Mr. Sepinwall's comments. I was unbelievably pumped for this season of House after the premier saga that took place at the mental institution. It was all House, all the time. Now that we are back in the flow of what the show has always been, I've lost all excitement. Whoah, another crazy medical story that they're going to try and figure out! It's getting old for me. And the other characters? My God, Foreman is terrible. I won't even be sad to see Cameron leave. And I'm sure Chase will turn back into the lame excuse for a character he was as a regular pretty soon. My expectations have dropped dramatically in the last two episodes.

Gossip Girl
For me, this week's ep was just an exclamation point on how good the start to this, the third season has been. It seems that, behind what I assume is Josh Schwartz's mind, the show has transitioned very nicely from high school to college (or not college). I enjoyed the hiccups everyone was having as they left high school and had to learn to deal with the troubles of college in NYC, or not wanting to leave as is the case with Serena.

Quick notes on those not in the main storyline...Jenny was actually tolerable in the ep, as her teaming with Chuck brought her closer to his personality. The little that Nate was in this week's ep (which is a travesty) was fantastic. He's so believable as a character. As he sits at the table waiting for Dan to ask out the extremely famous movie star, played by Hilary Duff, he is beside himself at how ridiculous it is that Dan has no idea who she is. Then once Dan leaves with her, he gives the fist pump and in a sigh of relief exclaims, "oh my God." This dude is real sweet. And then we have Serena, who was TERRIBLE as always.

My biggest knock on this show used to be that I didn't like many of the characters, especially the girls. To start this season they have packed a punch, bringing back Georgina, bringing in Joanna Garcia as Bree Buckley and now Hilary Duff as Olivia Burke. Olivia's character was fantastic. No matter how many shows or movies I see it in, the story line of a famous person pretending to not be famous, is great every single time. It's completely played at this point, but I still enjoy it. Here's what makes this an acceptable plot...If I were to see Kristen what's her name from the Twilight movies on the street, I would have absolutely no way of recognizing her. I don't know how long Duff is staying on, but I'm hoping for it to be a while, 'cause she was great.

Sunday Speculations- Entourage Goes Terminator

Curb Your Enthusiasm
When I watched the 3-4 minute preview of the Seinfeld cast discussing their experiences on this season's Curb I got really excited. They talked about how well it turned out, but what else was I really expecting? That they were going to say that the end product didn't turn out that well? Not likely. But still, it got me real excited. How did the first Seinfeld-esque Curb episode go? I loved it. It's similar to how just mentioning Brandon and Dylan in the new 90210 makes it that much better. At the beginning of this week's ep Larry just starts mentioning Jerry and story ideas for George and I got giddy.

Once Jerry, Jason, Julia and Michael it just got better and better. A couple of interactions between LD and the cast got me going. The first was when Jerry told Larry that he had shifted his view on Reunion Episodes and their conversation turned to "Shift, no shift, shift, no shift." Classic. When Larry had lunch with Jason, I thoroughly enjoyed when he kept making fun of George, because we all know that George was always supposed to be Larry.

My highlight of the ep was when Larry had to think about the two consequences for his decision to either save the NBC presidents' life or not. His first dream sequence is having a great time on the set of Seinfeld as he begins to win back his ex-wife. Then we get to the moment that should have made everyone laugh hysterically. His second dream sequence was him walking up to the casket at the NBC presidents' funeral, putting his hands up in the air and smiling. Unbelievable!

Entourage
This week I felt thoroughly satisfied with the Entourage season finale. The two characters I care about, Johnny Drama and Ari, had story lines that were both humorous and heartfelt. Ari foreshadowed his big moment by saying that he was going to go Terminator on Terrence's building after he bought the agency. Sure enough, after buying out Terrence, Ari walked through the halls with a paint ball gun, shooting everyone and telling them they were fired. Now Drama, on the other hand, was basically giving up on his acting career and the self-loathing was fantastic. After giving it one last ditch effort in his audition for the new Melrose Place, he had peace with himself. Then he was given new life, when the studios decided they wanted to create a whole new show for him. I felt really good for him in that moment. And we won't talk about the terribleness that was E's engagement and Turtle's breakup.

Mad Men
Note to Matthew Weiner: Nobody cares about Pete Campbell's life. I hate to say it, but I think I'd rather see a Peggy Olsen storyline than spend another terrible week in the life of Mr. Campbell. With no Roger in this week's ep, the women of Mad Men had to carry the load. Betty and Sally Draper were terrific. Why does Betsy know Italian? I don't know but I liked it. Her little charade with Don outside the hotel was fantastic. Sally shows both sides of her in this episode. She lays down the pain on her brother Bobby, before showing the sweet, shy side when Don comes home.

The Cleveland Show
I like Family Guy as much as the next guy. American Dad can do it for me at times at well, but why would you spin-off of Family Guy with a terrible character? To be fair, there aren't many good minor characters on Fam Guy. Peter, Stewie, Brian and Chris are all good, but Quagmire, Cleveland; these guys aren't the ones you should base a whole show around. As far as the other characters on Cleveland's new show go, the only one I'm finding myself laughing at thus far is the Big Brown Bear. His accent is quality comedy for me.

Poolies Watch- Seinfeld Award

The comedy show category is very deep. It may not be good depth, but it is depth none the less. Last year's Seinfeld Award was a three man race, between The Office, 30 Rock and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and it's looking very similar through the beginning of this season. In somewhat of a surprise, I like Curb the best of the three so far (30 Rock hasn't started yet).

Locks
30 Rock
Curb Your Enthusiasm
The Office

Then we have five shows that I feel extremely comfortable about giving nominations to come May. Family Guy was here last year, and will remain. Eastbound was as well, but we're not sure if the second season will come out in time for this season's awards. The Disney shows have made their mark on the Quiet Pool this summer (after Miley took the world by storm with her MTV acceptance speach). Modern Family is the only new comedy show that has proven to be a worthy candidate.

Best of the Rest
Eastbound and Down
Family Guy
Hannah Montana
Modern Family
Wizards of Waverly Place

The final two shows that I currently have as nominated are Gary Unmarried and Rules of Engagement. Through two eps of Gary, it hasn't looked as good as last season, and Rules won't be on until mid-season. If any other shows prove they deserve a nomination, look for these two to be the first to go.

Hanging On
Gary Unmarried
Rules of Engagement

I have five shows that are chomping at the bit (is it pronounced champing and spelled chomping?) to get nominated for this year's Seinfeld Award. Community is new and has showed promise. Sonny is good but not great. I've watched South Park from time to time and always hear good things. Ted and Philadelphia, I have gotten mixed reviews on, but are hear because of the good things I've heard

Outside Looking In
Better Off Ted
Community
It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia
Sonny with a Chance
South Park

SNL- Ryan Reynolds and Lady Gaga

I really didn't think it could get any worse than last week's dud of a season premier, but I believe it did. This Saturday's show was nothing but blah, blah, blah for me.

Let's see what garbage we had last night...Obama, Monologue, Celebrity Family Feud, Porcelain Fountains, Deep House Dish, Weekend Update, Crime Dancers, International Masterworks and the Bubble Dresses. Wow that was almost every sketch of the night!

There were only two sketches that would not have been cut by Matt Alby if he were the head writer at SNL.

First: Mostly Garbage. Jason Sudeikis was fantastic in this commercial parody for dog food that was made of, you guessed it, mostly garbage. Just like Will Ferrell's Dissing Your Dog, back in the day, Mostly Garbage was fueled by the comedic value of people thinking that dogs are human. Sudeikis promotes the fact that dogs will eat most everything, including garbage. While he laughs at the disgusting stuff his dog eats, I laughed with his performance.

Second: Digital Short- On the Ground. Now this was a classic Digital Short! We are back to where we need to be with these things, taking something ridiculously small and turning it into an epic event. Andy slow-raps his way through his daily events. All of which end with him throwing something on the ground in a demeaning fashion. The absolute best part was at the kid's birthday party..."Some poser hands me cake at a birthday party. What you want me to do with this, eat it? Happy birthday to the ground! I threw the rest of the cake too. Welcome to the real world jack ass..." Unbelievable.


Finally: A few words on Lady Gaga. After her first performance, I felt the same way I always have about her. A complete freak that doesn't have good songs. Then came the second performance. She began by posing as Saturn, the planet, and singing (can you call it that) some terrible song. But then something very strange happened...she sat down at a piano, with her giant rings getting in the way, and broke out a fantastic ballad. Was it some sort of combination of completely new material and Poker Face? I don't know, but her voice sounded great. And she seemed really normal in that moment (if you ignore the huge silver rings hanging around her body).

Next up, Drew Barrymore. Oh boy.

Thursday Thoughts- Phil Knight's In the Community

Flash Forward
In a show like this, with such an grandiose theme, I feel it is so easy to think it is really good. I have so many positive thoughts about where it's going, but I fear that it might lead to disappointment down the road. Like what happened with Heroes. After listening to Bill Simmons podcast with Alan Sepinwall today, I agreed whole-heartedly with Alan, who stated that Lost had no idea where they were going through season three and then set an end date and has been unbelievable since. Let's hope the creators of Flash know where they are going. A show like this makes you ask so many questions about the overarching story lines. Why did this flash forward happen, and what was it really? But then, if it's anything like Lost, maybe this one flash was a smaller cog in a much larger picture of the world.

Note: I'm going to be calling the main character, The Dude. The Dude's flash was of him doing the investigation. On his wall of evidence are the things he's going to find between now and six months from now. Pops asked the question, "why not stop doing the investigation in order to stop the chain of events from happening?" A good question, but in the grand scheme of things, some people probably had positive flashes. The Dude is better off doing the investigation so that they can figure out the intricacies of the phenomenon. And then he goes and burns up the bracelet his daughter gave him...interesting.

Immediately before watching this week's ep, I was watching 24 season four. In the ep, 8-9 PM, Dina Araz is taken behind a wall and shot...or was she? Less than an hour later, I'm watching her call Harold on the phone to tell him exactly when he will be murdered, March 15, 2010.

The Office
Great cold open with the Jim/Dwight dynamic back in full force. It's sad that it never came back the rest of the way. I loved the Jim/Michael storyline this week for one reason...Michael. He was hilarious as always, but Jim was acting really lame when as he tried to be a reliable co-manager. Whenever Jim gets so serious it reminds me why I can never nominate the guy for an award. He's funny only some of the time. On a different note, I feel they have really been misusing Creed in the past couple seasons. Early on this guy was dynamite. Recently he hasn't been that funny. The material they gave him in this week's ep, saying "how come we haven't ever...?" to Meredith. Just terrible.

Community
First off can we give some love to Phil Knight back on the comedy night done right lineup? He was the best thing about Kath and Kim last season, and now that K&K is gone, I'm glad to see Phil getting some love on Community. He was classic as Robin Williams' character in Dead Poets Society. He was much more over the top and much funnier. After Jeff kisses Britta at the end of this week's ep, Phil exclaims a big, "Woweeee!" and then frolicked off the to climb a tree.

Even better than Phil Knight this week, was Chevy Chase's lesson on how to sneeze like a man. His wide variety of sneezes, and reason why you would need them all, had me cracking up the entire time.

Wednesday Wisdom- Gary Unmarried Plays Wii

Glee
--When Emma tries to ensure Mr. Shoe that Glee has a chance she states, "You remember the Jamaican bobsled team? Biiiiig long shots." Is this a joke? They lost! Have you seen Cool Runnings, Glee writers? Bootleg.
--Needle Nose Ned's last name in this show is once again Ryerson? That's sweet. Ned the Head trying to steal the lead of the school play was awesome.
--Former American Idol Allison Iraheta could learn a thing or two from Chenowith's version of 'Alone.' It's a really good song and she did a fantastic job with it.
--Phil Rivers (Finn) stringing Rachel along to get her back to Glee Club was kinda funny.
--How have I already got a spot in me for the Glee kids? Rachel's come back and the final act got to me. Great ending.

Gary Unmarried
As ESPN's Erik Kuselias would say, these are the types of people I can hang out with. In the cold open Gary alludes to the time he wanted to bring a turkey leg on It's a Small World and then Mitch goes crazy when Howard buys the kids a Wii with Wii Sports Resort. Nothing like grown men acting like children.

Modern Family
--A much better format than the typical sitcom. Even though it's documentary style, it has a ridiculously different feel than The Office and I really like it.
--Ed O'Neil and the little fat kid's relationship continued to shine in this week's ep. Cool Dad didn't disappoint for the second straight week and the fat gay guy came through for me this time. He put the show over the top as good for me. His paisley shirt wearing, dancing and pretending to be straight was fantastic.

Hank
Hank is so prosaic. The laugh track is ridiculous. It is such a standard sitcom it's not even funny. Kelsey Grammer is trying very hard, but it didn't work for me in this first episode. The kid's aren't funny, and Kelsey seemed much more over the top than in his last endeavor, Back to You.

Survivor Samoa- Week 3

A few quotes that highlighted the ep...

Russell- "This might be the worst group in history...and I might be the best."

Shambo- "I'm alienated from my tribe, 'cause I'm not in the 90210 clique."

The conversation between Jaison and Ben at tribal council was absolutely brutal. Although Ben was leaving that night, Jaison did himself no favors by engaging in such a heated argument. Ben might have made semi-racist comments, but Jaison just made himself sound so lame during the fight. I began to like him less and less as the thing went on.

Fantasy Results

The Technotronics

W. Russell (Foa Foa)-W3 (4)= 4
B. Russell (Galu)- W3 (4), Im (8)= 12
Monica (Galu)- W3 (4), Im (8)= 12
Liz (Foa Foa)- W3 (4)= 4
Natalie (Foa Foa)- W3 (4)= 4
Week 3= 36
Total=103





Freecell Makes Me Wanna

Mick (Foa Foa)- W3 (4)= 4
Brett (Galu)- W3 (4)= 4
Marissa (Foa Foa)-
Laura (Galu)- W3 (4), Im (8)= 14
Yasmin (Galu)- W3 (4)= 4
Week 3= 26
Total= 72

Canon Controversy

John (Galu)- W3 (4), Im (8)= 12
Jaison (Foa Foa)- W3 (4)= 4
Mike (Foa Foa)-
Dave (Galu)- W3 (4), Im (8)= 12
Betsy (Foa Foa)-
Week 3= 28
Total= 47






Sweet Niblets


Erik (Galu)- W3 (4)= 4
Ben (Foa Foa)- Votes (-24)= -24
Ashley (Foa Foa)- W3 (4), Votes (-4)= 0
Kelly (Galu)- W3 (4), Im (8)= 12
Shambo (Galu)- W3 (4)= 4
Week 3= -4
Total= 43

Tuesday Tidings- 90210's Bad Boy

Let's go people...Can we spread out the wealth here? I only have two shows on Tuesdays. Mondays and Thursdays are jam packed and I can't get anything else good on Tuesday? Come on.

90210
Finally! For the first three weeks of the second season the writers have taken their best male character and turned him into a little pansy. Liam came onto the scene in the first season as a bad boy, somewhat in the mold of Dylan McKay. Sure Dylan had his softer side, but he was never wasted by a storyline like Liam had just endured. For the beginning of the season Liam has done nothing but obsess over Naomi and whine about how Annie won't tell her they never slept together and Jen won't tell her that the two of them did. Come on dude, step your game up. Make something happen here! Either say, "it wasn't Annie I was with, it was your sister"...or do what you did at the end of this week's ep. He finally took a turn and did something he should have thought of a long time ago. The kid has had multiple conversations with Jen in which she has admitted that it was her. As the ep ended we see the dude Liam at his computer with his trusty recording device. I don't understand how this helps him at all though. Isn't the fact that it's her sister worse than her kind of friend? We'll see.