{"id":57195,"date":"2013-10-14T12:00:10","date_gmt":"2013-10-14T19:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/?p=57195"},"modified":"2017-11-16T18:09:09","modified_gmt":"2017-11-17T02:09:09","slug":"spikes-idiot-box-oct-14-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/spikes-idiot-box-oct-14-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Spike’s Idiot Box: Trimming the Fat"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a gainfully employed, functioning, non-hermitic member of society, I\u2019ve been finding it impossible to keep up with all the television shows I\u2019d like to watch. As far as that goes, the good news is that enough time has passed for me to make some decisions about which new series I’m ready to give up on, and a lot are getting the axe. I still haven\u2019t found time to start on some of the shows I really<\/em> want to watch, like ‘Homeland’, ‘Masters of Sex’ or ‘Hello Ladies’. Hopefully, I can get in some good bingeing sessions with those soon. This week, I\u2019ll start by culling the herd.
\n<\/p>\n

Axed<\/h5>\n

‘We Are Men<\/strong>‘ was cancelled by CBS after two episodes. I saw both of them, and I have to say that the show deserved its fate. Tony Shalhoub and Jerry O\u2019Connell couldn\u2019t redeem this ugly mess that seemed derivative of ‘The League’, only not funny and not as wonderfully crass.<\/p>\n

‘Hostages<\/strong>‘ is simply not my cup of tea. Even though it has a great cast, I found the writing to be utterly absurd. It\u2019s too hard to swallow, and with so many other great options for drama, I\u2019m happy to be done with it. I much prefer its head-to-head competitor, ‘The Blacklist’.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve decided to stop watching ‘Mom<\/strong>‘, the new Chuck Lorre sitcom on CBS. It\u2019s not the worst of the new comedies out there, but the stories and the characters are just not compelling enough for me to tune in every week.<\/p>\n

‘Ironside<\/strong>‘ is history for me as well. I gave it a second chance, but even though it ratcheted down the macho silliness a bit, it’s still bogged down with boring plots and uninteresting supporting characters.<\/p>\n

Goodbye also to ‘Super Fun Night<\/strong>‘, ‘Welcome to the Family<\/strong>‘, and ‘Sean Saves the World<\/strong>‘. All of these probably sounded good on paper, but they\u2019ve been executed poorly. To my way of thinking, the only one that stands a chance of survival is Sean, but even that is not very likely.<\/p>\n

Welcome Back, Old Friends<\/h5>\n

‘American Horror Story: Coven<\/strong>‘ is everything it\u2019s cracked up to be. My expectations were unrealistically high for this one, yet they were exceeded, somehow. The show has taken a completely different direction in style, substance and vibe, and it has a cohesion of narrative elements not seen in previous seasons. The talent pool is also mind-bogglingly deep. If you haven’t watched the first two seasons, you don’t really need to (although I highly recommend them). Each season stands on its own as a unique, independent storyline. Don’t expect high art. It’s absolute filth and complete trash, wildly perverted and has zero redeeming value. It’s obscene. It’s tasteless and destructive. I mean all of these things in the best possible way, of course.<\/p>\n

‘Sons of Anarchy<\/strong>‘ is well into its sixth season. I was a bit leery of the show’s future after the first episode, which included a school shooting that made me worry that it was headed into Very Special Episode territory. As it turns out, that fear was unfounded. Despite a shaky start, I think this is shaping up to be the best season in quite a while, especially after the last two episodes. These included a Nazi massacre (it\u2019s not a good season to be a Nazi – see also ‘Breaking Bad’), Otto taking out U.S. Marshall Toric in a grand suicidal gesture of violence, the murder of the pledges, SAMCRO getting out of the gun-running business, and the total destruction of the club headquarters. I still find Jax an unconvincing club leader. He looks and acts more like he should be playing the lead in an Axe body spray commercial than a violent motorcycle gang chief.<\/p>\n

‘Parks and Recreation<\/strong>‘ remains delightful. In this season, Leslie has traveled to Europe to accept a leadership award, Ron and Diane have gotten married, Pawnee has absorbed neighboring Eagleton, and the characters have met their doppelgangers (of sorts) from that same city.<\/p>\n

‘South Park<\/strong>‘ is a bit of an institution at this point. I\u2019ve been happy so far with the new season, in which the gang has taken on the NSA, George Zimmerman, social networking and forensic documentaries (murder porn) on channels like Dicovery ID. In the last episode, we got to experience the pleasure of seeing the cartoon version of Zimmerman executed over and over again in an electric chair. What\u2019s not to love about that?<\/p>\n

‘Eastbound & Down<\/strong>‘ is back and just as funny as ever. Kenny Powers (full of pent-up suburban rage) quit his car rental clerk job when he got the opportunity to become a sports commentary panelist with a group of other former athletes. After an inauspicious and humiliating debut, Kenny has risen from the ashes to make it his own. The show is as vulgar, filthy and offensive as ever, and his new job presents plenty of potential for Powers to strut his nasty stuff.<\/p>\n

‘The Good Wife<\/strong>‘ remains gripping, sophisticated fun. It\u2019s one of the most stylish and involving episodic dramas on network television. This season, Alicia is caught up in a secretive revolt with Cary as they try to create their own firm with some of the other staff. She’s struggling to juggle her priorities and her split allegiances. Peter is the new governor, which adds a whole new level of political undertones to weekly proceedings. And the weekly topics du jour remain fascinating.<\/p>\n

PBS\u2019s ‘Frontline<\/strong>‘ provides some of the best investigative journalism and documentaries on television. This week, it kind of outdid itself with ‘League of Denial’, a look into the NFL\u2018s embarrassing and terrible handling of concussions and CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy), which causes dementia, depression and complete loss of self. The NFL should be ashamed of itself, and everyone should see this documentary (it\u2019s currently streaming at the PBS website), particularly parents of children interested in football.<\/p>\n

Middle of the Pack <\/h5>\n

‘It\u2019s Always Sunny in Philadelphia<\/strong>‘ and ‘The League<\/strong>‘ are both back on FX’s spinoff channel FXX. These shows are both a bit long in the tooth at this point, but are still dependably funny, filthy fun.<\/p>\n

In case you didn\u2019t know, ‘COPS<\/strong>‘ has moved to Spike TV for its 26th season. There\u2019s nothing new here. It\u2019s the same old ‘COPS’, but I\u2019ve considered this a guilty pleasure for decades now, and I still enjoy it in a rubbernecky, voyeuristic kind of way.<\/p>\n

‘How I Met Your Mother<\/strong>‘ is in its final season, and honestly it\u2019s about time. The show is still good for the occasional laugh, but it\u2019s well past its sell-by date. The entire season takes place during the two days prior to Barney and Robin\u2019s wedding, and presumably when Ted finally meets his future wife.<\/p>\n

‘The Millers<\/strong>‘ got a lot of terrible reviews. Poor Will Arnett\u2026he tries over and over to find a comedy worthy of him, but just can\u2019t seem to do it. I have to say that I liked this show a bit more than most critics. It\u2019s not great, but it has potential and a fine cast. It doesn’t have quite as many fart jokes as some have complained about (admittedly, none would be better), and the family relationships are ultimately sweet.<\/p>\n

Other shows that are dependably good but fairly unremarkable include ‘The Big Bang Theory’, ‘Parenthood’, ‘The Simpsons’, ‘Bob\u2019s Burgers’, ‘Boardwalk Empire’, ‘The Blacklist’, ‘New Girl’, ‘Top Chef: New Orleans’, ‘Modern Family’, ‘The Crazy Ones’, ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’, ‘The Goldbergs’, ‘Trophy Wife’, ‘Back In the Game’ and ‘The Michael J. Fox Show’.<\/p>\n

Bottom of the Barrel<\/h5>\n

‘Saturday Night Live<\/strong>‘ is struggling after the mass exodus of talent last season. To be fair, the abundant cast of new players haven\u2019t had time to find their mojo yet, but the show is still just not very funny. It hasn\u2019t helped that, with the exception of Tina Fey, the hosts this season haven\u2019t been very interesting either. I\u2019m talking about the execrable Miley Cyrus and the boring Bruce Willis. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve had more than two or three laughs at all this season.<\/p>\n

I caught a couple of episodes of ‘Two and a Half Men<\/strong>‘ this season, just out of morbid curiosity. If you\u2019re wondering if the show is still as horrible as ever, the answer is an unequivocal YES. Probably more so.<\/p>\n

‘2 Broke Girls<\/strong>‘ is a show I sometimes watch, but I always feel a little dirty after I do so. I can\u2019t explain why I keep coming back to it, and I\u2019m a bit embarrassed to even admit that I do. It\u2019s terrible, of course, but I still find myself laughing at it \u2013 canned laughter and all. But I certainly wouldn\u2019t recommend it to anyone.<\/p>\n

At this point, I\u2019ve touched on most of the shows on my fall syllabus. Going forward, my comments will be a bit more episode-specific, and I\u2019ll probably limit them to those that stand out as either good or bad, leaving the mediocre out of it for the most part.<\/p>\n

As always, join the conversation in the Comments below!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a gainfully employed, functioning, non-hermitic member of society, I\u2019ve been finding it impossible to keep up with all the television shows I\u2019d like to watch. As far as that goes, the good news is that enough time has passed for me to make some decisions about which new series I’m ready to give up…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":57227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130],"tags":[3729,3716,3415,1185,6767,3056,6768,1408,2205,6883,329,1176,2921,6834,6862,6882],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57195"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57195"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57225,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57195\/revisions\/57225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highdefdigest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}