tvthatdoesntsuck

REVIEW FOR

The Ex-List
Season One
Episode Three
“Protect and Serve”
Written by Rick Eid & Matt McGuinness

This week of television has been a mixed bag.  Heroes was unusually weak and  Fringe was mediocre, but The Office and Supernatural were good, so this week could really go either way.  After The Ex-List, I’m thinking it’s leaning more towards good.  This was the best episode so far, and continues to check off items of my list of “Things This Show Needs to Fix.”  I’ve found the supporting characters other than Daphne to be really dull and at times annoying, but this episode does a great job in making sure that these characters get fleshed out.  Both Cyrus and Vivian get their own subplots, and I can safely say that neither of them were annoying this week.

This episode features Bella running into a high school boyfriend that is best described as former bad-ass, current cop.  The well-written, snappy dialogue reaches a new high here as Bella is thrown back into teenage life, which turns from clever to hilarious when she has to sneak around her father, who still hates the dude.  The living life as a high school kid theme also has an impact of Vivian’s subplot, which really brought this home for me.  Overall, this is easily the best episode of the show so far.  As worried as I am about how the show will be after Ruggiero’s (creator) departure, this episode made me optimistic that she planted enough seeds to keep this show entertaining.

8/10

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REVIEW FOR

Sanctuary
Season One
Episode Four
“Folding Man”
Written by Sam Egan

And they accuse Fringe of stealing from The X-Files.  Jeez!  A man can “fold” (though, writers, what they’re doing is not folding–your attempt to make this not look like plagarism just makes you look like you don’t know what the word “fold” means), which enables him to escape from cops, squeezing through tight spaces.  And he’s discovered… by his finger print.  Nope, I’m not setting up a comparison by describing the well-known The X-Files episode… that is really the plot of this episode of Sanctuary.  Down to the finger print.  I’m expecting the next episode to feature a fishy fiend called the Flounderman that really looks more like a fluke.

It’s rife with cliched, trite writing, stupid plot twists, and the worst CGI this side of… actually, just the worst CGI.  Why would you CGI in a wall of books?  I get that the “appeal” of the show is that it’s shot entirely in green screen, but if you have a real table with real books sitting in front of a wall of CGI books it’s kinda easy to tell which ones are fake.  While the show is pretty thoroughly terrible, I do find myself liking its haunting score and the performance of Ryan Robbins as Henry (who barely shows up), but that isn’t really enough to give this more than one lonely point. 

I’ve been using Moonlight as the main example of bad genre shows.  That might be changing soon, because Moonlight started a lot stronger than Sanctuary did–and I don’t want this to come through as praise for Moonlight.  Sanctuary just sucks that bad.  I’m not going put the final nail in its coffin just yet–you’ll know when I will–but if the show doesn’t pull a big, fat rabbit out of its hat next week, I’m gonna pull out the Big F***in’ Hammer.  Because honestly, can you get campier than this?  In an episode called “Folding Man,” they decide to end the episode with the protagonist solemnly saying:

“Sometimes… sometimes you gotta know when to fold ‘em.”

Seriously?  Seriously?

1/10

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Note: I didn’t get a chance to watch this week’s Life on Mars yet.  I’ll probably pair it with Heroes on Tuesday or True Blood on Monday.  I’m not quite sure what I’m going to review tomorrow.  Maybe the Sci-Fi channel movie Fire on Ice, but I’m not sure about that either.  I’ll definitely get around to it, but production on my webseries Whatz Good Studios has been absolutely hectic this week.  We’ll see what comes up!  All I know is this–on Thursday, we’re going to have a PUSHING DAISIES special.  A review of the entire second season so far, so that we’re all caught up for the next week’s episode!

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