Category: TV

I usually don’t review individual TV episodes, but when the people that make Community decided to make a G.I. Joe episode, what else could I do?  Episodes like this are why I am so happy to have the creator Dan Harmon back.  Community is a weird show, and it was meant to be weird.

The episode starts off like all good G.I Joe episodes do, with a random Cobra attack on a known location.  In this case Cobra has decided to attack the Taj Mahal.  Jeff, known as Wing Man in this episode, ends the attack by outright killing Destro.  The Joes who have never killed anyone before, have no idea what to do.  This causes all sorts of fallout in the G.I Joe universe.

The thing I love about this episode is how well it lampoons not only G.I. Joe, and lets be honest it is an easy target, but Community itself for even doing a G.I Joe episode.  The whole thing is complete and utter nonsense, but it is amazing.  This is the sort of thing that they never would have tried during the “gas leak year“, but this season, why the heck not?

It is also episodes like this that exemplify why this show has never found a large audience.  Why on earth would you make fun of something, meanwhile slavishly recreating it.  It is because Community understands what it means to be a geek, and not just make fun of geeks.  The love of something that others view as ridiculous, but you love it because it ignites your creativity.

This show has given us several classic episodes, and I think this will be one of them.  This show makes me morn the loss of last season even more.  Because if they had stayed with this writing group, we could have had more episodes like this.  Instead of episodes that were needlessly trying to dig deeper in to the lives of the main cast, and about how much they need each other.  You know, non-weird topics that work better on other shows.

I am always sad when The Walking Dead goes off the air.  I am lost until Game of Thrones fills my Sunday show void. We now have to wait until October to see if the gang can get out of their latest jam.  This is one of the rare season finales that has the left group hanging over the long break.  The short mid-season break always has a cliff hanger, but for the season ending they usually tie things up fairly well.  I guess they know that they are not going to be canceled any time soon, so why not do whatever they feel like.

What I loved about this half of the season is they really got in to all main characters’ heads a little bit, so we could see what motivates them, and who they are away from the group.  It was really daring of the show to go so stripped down and minimal, especially after the show has given us so many large scale action set pieces recently.  I think it all paid off though, and now they can tell a bigger story, and have us understand all the characters’ future decisions better.

This is going to be the first season that they have kept their writing producer Scott Gimple for the next season, and I think he deserves it.  He gave us probably the best season of the show so far, though The Governor walking around got a little tedious, and I can’t wait to see what he has the group up too starting in the fall.  The Game of Thrones had better be good otherwise this will be a long wait indeed!

Last night was the season finale of Almost Human, and it sounds like it is also probably the series finale, so Fox has ended yet another Sci-Fi show I like after only one season.  I should be mad at Fox, but at least Fox is trying, and if they ever got people to watch these shows when they were on that air, you know that they would still be on TV.

This episode showed a lot promise for the future, since we learn that John Kennex’s dad was a cop, and that he was probably killed for not being crooked.  The idea of Kennex and Dorian rooting out the evil inside the police department sounded fun, but at least this episode felt complete, so that we were not left waiting for another season that would never happen to finish off the story line.

I think people either wanted this show to be Judge Dredd without the mask, or really push the Sci-Fi boundaries with its plots, but it ended up being more of a buddy cop police procedural set in the future.  I would have liked both of those concepts too, but I still liked the show thanks to chemistry of the two leads.

Karl Urban and Michael Ealy play of each other so well, it was just fun to watch them.  Even if the episode was lacking in thrills Urban and Ealy’s banter always made me smile.  I would have liked to see how these two’s relationship expanded over more time, but I guess at least I got to see it for a little while.

As Fox pulls the plug on yet another good show, I am hopeful that they at least keep trying.  Even one season of a good Sci-Fi show is better than no Sci-Fi shows at all, and they may still find that new ratings winner yet.  I also think it is time for geeks to start watching good shows when they are on the air instead of waiting for them to hit Netflix or DVD, so we can support the people willing to take a risk on something different.