“Anne”

While this isn’t the great episode it could have been, it’s still pretty damn good.  Although it it never crosses the line between exciting, thoughtful, dark entertainment and pure epic catharsis, what it is still makes for a satisfying season opener.

“Dead Man’s Party”

This is a solid Monster-of-the-Week episode.  It’s tight, has some good action, and excellent dialogue (“‘Do you like my mask? Isn’t it pretty? It raises the dead.’ Americans”), but overall nothing sterling here.

“Faith, Hope, and Trick”

This episode introduces three new recurring characters (all mentioned in the episode title), most significantly Eliza Dushku’s troubled slayer Faith, who is one of the series’ best characters.  (Mr. Trick is one of the series memorable non-major villains as well.)  Buffy’s new love interest (but only for three episodes), Scott Hope, never really gets the chance to shine, but I find him an agreeable enough character.  (I certainly like him more than Buffy’s second major love interest of the series, to come in season four.)  This a really good episode though, with a cool one-off vampire.

“Beauty and the Beasts”

This is the weakest episode of the season, and I suppose it’s good that they got it out of the way so quickly.  Its central theme is pretty heavy-handed, which is often a problem with Marti Noxon-penned episodes, but it really gets in the way here.  Just lame drama overall.

“Homecoming”

Now this is an enormous step up from that dud.  Mr. Trick introduces a new concept to Sunnydale, “Slayerfest ’98,” in which a group of murderous baddies compete to decimate Buffy and Cordelia, whom they’ve mistaken for Faith.  It’s well-executed, clever, and really exciting.

Read the rest after the jump…

“Band Candy”

This is the very first episode of the series written by Jane Espenson, my favorite non-Joss writer of the series.  Her episodes are always hysterical (until the last two seasons when Marti Noxon tried to get her to write more dramatic episodes, which she’s great at as well), and this one is a sign of things to come.  The entire town gets addicted to the candy bars various students are going around selling, but the wicked Ethan Rayne has toyed with the chocolate so all who eat it have their mental maturity sent back to when they were a teenager, and Sunnydale is suddenly a town with almost no responsible adults.  It’s a great farce, and a highlight of the season.

“Revelations”

There’s a new Watcher in town, and a new evil as well, and they have more in common than first appears.  This episode is hardly a classic, but it certainly goes down easy.  Notably, it’s Douglas Petrie’s first episode, and he would stick around until the end.

“Lovers Walk”

This classic episode sees the return of everyone’s favorite vampire, Spike.  Motherfuckin’ Spike.  He returns to get Willow to help him out with a spell to win back the love of his afterlife, Drusilla, sadly not making a return to the series.  The hi-jinx are great and, as always, Spike proves himself surprisingly profound with his speech to Buffy and Angel.  An all-around great episode.

“The Wish”

Joss Whedon lists this as I believe his ninth favorite episode of the series, and he’s not too far off.  This is a depressing story about a Sunnydale without our favorite slayer, in which The Master has become able to walk above ground and has taken over the town.  Humans try not to wear flashy colors and curfew is at sundown.  Things suck.  In the end, this dark fantasy is reversed, but that doesn’t cancel out its power.

“Amends”

This is another great episode.  (With Joss Whedon at the reigns, it almost always is.)  Angel is haunted by the First, a villain with no true form who takes the appearance of Angel’s victims from back in his soulless days to haunt him.  First he tries to get him to turn evil again, then he goes for the second-best option.  It’s a scary, fantastic episode, with a gut-wrenching ending.

“Gingerbread”

Jane Espenson picks up the pen again for this one, a darker fantasy than “Band Candy,” but still a gem.  It sees the return of Amy, who becomes Amy the Rat.

“Helpless”

This is David Fury’s first episode of the season, and while his writing credits in season two don’t exactly shine, here he proves that he’s got more than enough talent to justify a presence on this top-notch writing staff.  As is tradition, Buffy is put to the ultimate test for her eighteenth birthday by having her powers removed and pitted against a brutal fucker of a vamp.  It’s a terrifying, engrossing bit of television.

“The Zeppo”

The Scoobies face an apocalypse that’s perhaps the biggest challenge of their evil-fighting careers…in the background.  In the spotlight is Xander, who the gang has tried to keep out of this fight for his own safety.  On his own, he accidentally finds himself being chased by a group of troublesome zombies and stumbles into one or two rites of passage.  Xander’s story here is amazing, and the show just brilliantly parodies itself in the background with the save-the-world plot.  This and “Doppelgangland” are the two best episodes of season, and easily in the top episodes of the series.

“Bad Girls”/“Consequences”

There’s a newer Watcher in town, Wesley Wyndam-Price, who would go on to be one of the greatest characters in the Buffy-verse, but for now is stuck bumbling around and getting in the way (hilariously, though).  More importantly, we see Faith push the limits of what it means to be a slayer, and witness many crucial moments in the development of this character.  These episodes signify the season shifting full speed ahead into the final phase of this arc.

“Doppelgangland”

It’s neat that the two best episodes of the season are a Xander-focus and a Willow-focus.  In this one, Vampire Willow from alternate reality extravaganza “The Wish” winds up in our version of Sunnydale and is horrified to see people out and about at night and no one fleeing for their lives.  The encounters with Vampire Willow and regular Willow are hilarious.  This an energy-fueled brilliant divergence from the main arc.

“Enemies”

Angel pretending to be Angelus is kind of lame, but for the most part this is a good, gripping episode.

“Earshot”

Jane Espenson returns and pens her best one of the season.  “Earshot” is a classic about Buffy gaining the ability to hear people’s thoughts.  Unfortunately, it slowly drives her crazy.  But before she goes all meltdown, she hears a stray thought that the next day someone’s going to kill the student body.  The episode achieves a nice poignancy towards the end without feeling cheesy.  (It helps that it wraps up with a good bit of hilarity.)

“Choices”

The Mayor captures Willow and the Scoobies are in a flurry trying to rescue her.  During the disarray they manage to discover a few tidbits about The Mayor’s upcoming ascension, which is a plus.  This episode is good at churning the plot forward in the race to the finish line.

“The Prom”

Marti Noxon does a damn fine job with this break before the climactic battle.  The Scoobies fret over the upcoming prom, particularly Buffy, who doesn’t have a date.  The episode captures Buffy’s emotions really well, and the ending is so cheesy but absolutely irresistible.  I love it.

“Graduation Day Part One/Part Two”

Joss Whedon’s finale is stunning.  It’s a brilliant action-packed spectacle with tragic, funny, and glorious wrap-ups to all the season’s arcs and to the series in general, as the end of the high school period is a big thing for Buffy.

OVERALL

This is my favorite season of the series.  The arc isn’t quite as Shakespearean as season two, but the overall product is more engaging and more consistent in terms of quality.  I love Faith’s arc, and The Mayor is a freaking awesome villain.  Buffy would never be so consistently great again, unfortunately.  All of the remaining seasons are deeply flawed but still absolutely worth watching.

As for the future of this project, well, I have no plans to revisit season four of Buffy in the near future.  I’m thinking January might be around the time I get back into it, but it could happen sooner (or, yeah, later).  As for the future of this blog, while it’s gotten off to a rough start, once the new season kicks in I suspect things will pick up.  I’m not entirely sure what I’ll be doing here in the next few weeks though.  Some major life thingies are going on and they need to settle down before I get too concerned with my next post.  That said, I’m currently watching the final season of Angel, and I’m definitely considering doing an Angel post breaking down the series season-by-season.  I’m also still watching Dollhouse, but I’ve stalled a bit lately.  (Frankly, all my regular DVD-watching got sidetracked by the first season of 30 Rock on that NetFlix Watch Instantly thing.)  I think once I get passed the fifth episode (which is the next one I have to watch), I will start moving faster and maybe have a review up in the next week or so.  But hopefully after the next couple of weeks this can become more than another Joss Whedon fanblog and focus on a lot more TV.

“When She Was Bad”

This episode is met with a lot of derision from fans, but count me in the minority who kind of dig it.  A lot of people don’t buy or don’t buy the execution of Buffy being, well, bad, but I love the sexiness and cruelty of her dance with Xander, the way she treats everyone, etc.  I also enjoy the stuff with the Anointed One and the Scoobies getting kidnapped.  It’s not a superb episode, and I definitely see where the detractors are coming from, but it’s one I’ve always had a soft spot for.

“Some Assembly Required”

I always felt season two had too many weak standalone episodes, and whenever I listed in my head which ones I thought were the weak, this one always ended up in the pile.  I see now that I was way off.  This episode is a lot of fun and certainly one of the better monster-of-the-week episodes from early in the series.

“School Hard”

This is the first classic of the season and introduces everyone’s favorite vampire (sorry Angel), Spike.  Motherfuckin’ Spike.  God I love Spike.  Who the hell doesn’t love Spike?  Show me where they live.  I will kick their ass…  ahem…  We also meet Spike’s demented girlfriend Drusilla, who rocks plenty of her own socks.  Spike and the Spikettes’ takeover of Sunnydale High School on Parent Teacher Night is just great.  The one teeny little thing that irks me is that Spike refers to Angel as his sire, a bit of history that would be rewritten later into the far-cooler scenario of Darla begot Angel who begot Drusilla who begot Spike.  Whatever, I’ll forgive that little lapse in continuity because this episode is superb and a whole lot of fun.

Read the rest after the jump…

“Inca Mummy Girl”

This has some funny moments, and features the totally unremarkable introductions to two great characters (Oz and Jonathon, though you would probably have absolutely no idea which one was Jonathon if you just watched this for the first time), but it’s mostly a stinker.  Too lightweight, and the characters are forced to act a bit out-of-character for the plot to go forward, which is no good.

“Reptile Boy”

This is another mediocre standalone episode.  I may have misjudged “Some Assembly Required,” but that doesn’t mean I made these bad episodes up.  They exist, two in a row, in this case.  “Reptile Boy” is better than “Inca Mummy Girl,” but it’s still a somewhat unfortunate part of the show’s history.

“Halloween”

There we go.  This is the second classic of the season, and introduces us to another great character, Ethan Rayne.  Ethan opens up a costume shop in Sunnydale, and on the big night he works some voodoo and wa-lah, everyone in Sunnydale suddenly becomes their costume.  We learn that Ethan has a connection to one of our main character’s past, and an illuminating connection it is.

“Lie to Me”

Classic número 3.  Let’s lose count here, shall we?  This is a dark episode in which a vampire-crazed loony from Buffy’s past shows up, hoping to die and be turned into a “lonely one.”  Despite some ugly sap about cancer, this a fairly remarkable episode.  It has a scary but realistic story (you know, if vampires were real), and has a lot of tough emotional choices.  It also has a stinger of an ending.

“The Dark Age”

In this one we go deep into Giles past as a foolish boyhood stunt involving the dark arts comes back to haunt him.  It’s a tight, fun episode.

“What’s My Line – Part One/Part Two”

This is an awesome two-parter, with so much great stuff going on.  Spike’s trying to resurrect Drusilla’s powers so he send a bunch of bounty hunters after them, one of who gets distracted and tries to get rid of Xander and Cordelia, the gang faces the daunting challenge of career day, and twist of twists, there’s another–?

“Ted”

I have very mixed feelings about this episode.  I don’t like a lot of the stuff with Ted, especially how Buffy kills him but don’t worry it’s all right he’s a robot, but I guess something stops me from disliking the episode.  Not really sure what.  John Ritter?  I do love John Ritter.  I guess it’s because a lot of major things in it are bad, but a lot of other things aren’t and make for kind of decent storytelling.  I don’t know.  My feelings about this episode make very little sense, but know that I’ve never been comfortable with it and I’m still not after, like, the fourth time I’ve seen it.

“Bad Eggs”

This is an occasionally-maligned episode that I happen to really enjoy.  It tells a fairly typical story of a bunch of eggs that hatch and these things that come out of it and attach themselves to you and make you do evil things.  (Brings me back to my days as an Animorphs-lover…)  In fact, it really does little to distinguish itself from similar stories, other than it does nothing that sucks and it involves these great characters, which is enough for me.

“Surprise”/”Innocence”

This is it.  It doesn’t happen often, even with shows as great as Buffy, but with these two episodes, we have something that goes beyond great television.  This is the best television.  Absolute classic fucking television.  The most likable that characters have ever been at this point in the series.  My favorite twist in any TV show I’ve ever seen.  Defines one of the all-time great tragic romances.  This is, purely and simply, the best.

“Phases”

I hate that this episode comes after those two.  It’s fine to follow a series classic like those two with a good-but-not-great episode, but it’s not okay to follow one with a decent-but-not-great episode, which is exactly what we have here.  I honestly have trouble talking about it, it’s such a disappointment coming off of those two.

“Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered”

I have trouble talking about this episode too, but that’s just because there’s not much to say.  This is a goofy episode that gets kind of dark near the end and is pretty cool overall.

“Passion”

Yeah, so take whatever hyperbole I gave to “Surprise” and “Innocence” and apply that shit right over here.  Maybe throw in a little extra.  This has the second-most tragic moment of the series, one that pretty much never fails to make me cry sit there all silent and manly like.  Also, I can’t really think of any narration in any TV series that I like as much as Angel’s narration here.  This episode is just a stunner on all accounts.

“Killed By Death”

God I hate this episode.  I wrote in the season one post that a lot of classic Buffy episodes in the first two seasons are followed by bad-to-mediocre ones.  While I like “Killed By Death” even less than “I Robot… You Jane” or “Phases” (which, remember, isn’t bad), and I like “Passion” even more than “Angel” (obviously, since that one’s really only great in season one terms) or “Innocence,” it’s probably not as big a disappointment as “Phases” since “Passion” isn’t quite as mythic as “Innocence.”  But it’s still pretty bad.

“I Only Have Eyes for You”

This is another occasionally-maligned episode, and whether you can enjoy it or not really depends on who you are.  (Right, I gotcha, Captain Obvious or whatever.)  Yes, it’s melodramatic, but I really think it earns its emotional excess at the end.  It brilliantly employs the relationship between Buffy and Angel in exploring a really haunting ghost story.

“Go Fish”

Yeah, this is a turd of an episode.

“Becoming, Part One/Part Two”

God season two is epic.  Everything slowly and awesomely builds to this absolutely STUNNING finale.  The Buffy/Angel relationship reaches a shocking climax, we learn way more about Angel, we get the best Spike material in the entire season, and the supporting characters really do some growing up.  This kind of stuff makes me giddy.

OVERALL

So I was hard on an episode here and there, who cares?  Season two of Buffy is amazing.  It is one of the greatest seasons of television ever (and I usually have a lot of trouble with hyperbole that doesn’t start with “My favorite…”).  The mythology here is incredible.  The romance between Buffy and Angel is so brilliant, twisted, and tragic that fucking Shakespeare would be jealous.  Buffy made some questionable choices over the years, but a season like this pretty much provides an eternal shield against even the harshest criticisms of the series.  (Never mind that season three is even better.)  This is why people who laugh at Buffy are in turn laughed at.  To call something like this mediocre, silly, or dumb doesn’t even make sense to fans.

“Welcome to the Hellmouth”/”The Harvest”

The two-part pilot was one of the few season one episodes I remembered fondly.  Sure enough, it is a fairly solid 90 minutes of entertainment, but it’s very flawed.  A lot of it seems kind of cheesy, and also a little inconsistent with the rest of the series.  The entire season was shot before it ever aired, which gave the writers time to go back to the pilot and fix a few things, but they missed some big ones.  The vampire faces are all purple, which is not how I like my vamps looking.  The biggest flaw is with Angel, who is written nothing like he would be even by episode seven.  He acts kind of like an asshole.  Going back, it’s very unpleasant to see this really inconsistent writing.  I haven’t re-watched it yet, but I’m pretty sure the season two finale “Becoming” has flashbacks that make his behavior here even more inexplicable.  Still, it was a good premier episode.

“Witch”

This is a decent episode on its own, but I feel like the first regular episode of the series should have been a little more vamp-centric and more about Buffy herself than Amy, a character introduced here and not seen again until late season two (and then seen only a few more times).  This episode has a neat twist (almost as neat as the one in “The Puppet Show,” but in a better episode) and hey, I like Amy, but again, some more Buffy-focused stuff would have been a good idea at this point.

“Teacher’s Pet”

This would be the first Xander-centric episode of the series (and introduces the running gag of Xander falling for demons) and is also the first episode of the series written by David Greenwalt, Whedon’s right-hand-man until he left to run Angel.  Overall, this is a tight episode but not very exciting.  Many remark that Whedon’s gift with characters is that he starts with a bunch of clichés and slowly morphs them into great, believable characters.  Here we’re strictly in the cliché stage, and unfortunately we stay that way for most of the recurring characters until season two, when they pretty much all received an automatic upgrade and became the kickass folks we know and love.

“Never Kill a Boy on the First Date”

This is one of my favorites from this season.  It introduces the long-running theme of Buffy struggling to have a social life while slaying vamps, and it does so with lots and lots of funny.

“The Pack”

I enjoyed this episode more than I did when I first saw it when I felt like it was weighed down a bit too much by its metaphor (though not even it prepared me for “Out of Mind, Out of Sight”).  But in retrospect, it really is a fairly entertaining episode, and has a particularly gruesome/darkly hilarious moment when four of the demon-possessed kids act out and eat the principal.  (Principal Flutie’s replacement would often defend his stern disciplinary tactics by noting that the touchy-feely qualities of the previous principal got him eaten.)

Read the rest after the jump…

“Angel”

This is a very important episode and probably the second-best episode of the season.  In it we learn of Angel’s true nature, which is a pretty big deal.  We also learn about his relationship with Darla, which would be thankfully expanded upon in the flashback-heavy second season of  Angel.  And the Buffy/Angel romance begins.  Overall, a very good episode.

“I Robot…You Jane”

I’ve noticed that a lot of the best episodes in these first two seasons are followed by bad-mediocre episodes.  In season two, “Innocence” is followed by “Phases,” which is not too bad an episode, but a pretty bad way to follow that classic.  “Passion” is followed by “Killed by Death,” which is a really bad episode.  And here, “Angel” is followed by what many consider a series-low, “I Robot…You Jane.”  Personally, I don’t dislike this episode as much as most people.  I mean, it’s still my least-favorite episode of the season, but I’d rather watch it than, say, “Beer Bad,” or even “Killed by Death.”

“The Puppet Show”

This is fun episode, and features a great twist on the talking-dummy genre cliché, but it doesn’t leave you feeling very full.  I guess most episodes this season don’t, but this one in particular feels very inconsequential.

“Nightmares”

This is one of the best of the season.  It’s a really cool idea executed well.  Scary in parts, funny in others.  Sure, later Buffy seasons could have done it much better (in fact, season four pretty much did do it better with “Fear Itself”), but for season one-Buffy, with all its growing pains, this is quite a feat.

“Out of Mind, Out of Sight”

This is one of my least favorites of the season.  Sure, it’s somewhat fun, scary, funny, etc.  But its central metaphor is just so freaking stupid that it ranks slightly above “I Robot…You Jane” for me, and to be honest it inspires a lot more ire.  A girl turns invisible because she is ignored in school.  No seriously.  That’s the plot of this episode.  An invisible girl tries to kill the people who ignored her and caused her to turn invisible.

“Chosen”

The finale is my favorite episode of the season.  It features, among other things, the big climactic battle with The Master (who frankly didn’t get enough to do this season), Buffy’s very first death, and some crazy prophesies.  A strong indication that the series was getting way, way better.

OVERALL

When I said that I had been too hard on this season, I didn’t mean that I’d suddenly realized it was the most brilliant season ever.  I just meant that episodes I remembered as bad, such as “Witch,” “Teacher’s Pet,” “The Pack,” and “The Puppet Show,” really weren’t that bad.  (I also realized that I had been dead-right about “Out of Mind, Out of Sight.”)  But still, Buffy season one is a big disappointment in hindsight.  And imagine my surprise when viewing it this time that the dialogue, which I’d long thought the only saving grace of season one, wasn’t all that good some of the time.  And, like I mentioned earlier, the characters are all pretty big clichés.  Even Willow, who is one of Joss Whedon’s greatest achievements as a writer, doesn’t really come off as very interesting.  And she only has one showcase to Xander’s two, and it’s “I Robot…You Jane.”  In season two, pretty much every single part of the series got WAY better.  The characterization, the dialogue, the villains, the monster-of-the-week episodes, everything.  It’s easy to understand why the first season was such a mixed bag.  Whedon and co. were finding their voices and, because they shot everything before it aired, they had no response from viewers to indicate what worked and what didn’t.  But the difference in the level of quality between season one and season two is steeper than any other show I can think of.  (Even going the opposite way.)  It really is remarkable.

Billy Elliot

Billy Elliot coasts on bring-down-the-house dance numbers, and the effect is thrilling.  It’s a loud, catchy-as-hell blast (“Solidarity forever!”) that enthralls and rarely withdraws its glorious sensory overload.  Occasionally the numbers run a minute or two too long, but this is an imminently forgivable flaw.  (Although it’s worth noting that the first act runs a massive ninety minutes.)  The cross-dressing number, “Expressing Yourself,” in particular is phenomenal.  Act II doesn’t pack quite the punch of Act I, but you’ll still leave the theater in a dazzling high.

An imperfection arises in the presence of Billy’s deceased mother.  It doesn’t add anything to the play other than generic sap.  Her appearances are also rather sobering, which is not welcome, because the rest of Billy Elliot makes you a delighted drunkard.  But overlooking this is the simplest of feats, because the bulk of Elliot is a truly all-ages grand time.

God of Carnage

The most remarkable thing about this play is its cast.  James Gandolfini?  Oh my.  Hope Davis?  Oh my oh my.  Jeff Daniels?  Marcia Gay Harden?  Those four actors could be sitting on stage doing readings of My Mother the Car scripts and it would be worth the price of admission.  Never mind that this is a fabulous play.

It focuses on two couples.  The child of one (Daniels and Davis) has injured the child of another (Gandolfini and Harden), and the couples meet to decide what to do about the situation.  What ensues is a rage-fueled mushroom cloud of anxiety, immaturity, and denial.  Each set of parents shrugs off full responsibility, leading to intense arguments involving every conceivable grouping of the characters.  It’s clear from the beginning what’s coming, but watching it play out is remarkably fun.  This is a bitingly funny play in which the conflict arises from each character’s humanity.  That such an incredible set of actors gets to chew into this script is simply a gift to us.

Rock of Ages

This is a stupid musical.  The plot is stupid, the characters are stupid, the set is stupid, and  the acting is stupid.  And I mean that in the best way possible.

This is a gloriously shallow and thrillingly simple ode to 80s rock and roll.  The plot is outstandingly flimsy.  It concerns a youth named Drew, who works in a bar.  Drew (Constantine Maroulis) yearns for rock stardom.  The bar, which plays host to a number of notable and anonymous metal acts, is run by Dennis (Adam Dannheiser) and Lonny (played by Mitchell Jarvis, truly having a great time and the best part of the cast).  Lonny acts as the fourth wall-breaking narrator, and early on he points out that something’s missing in this setup.  Cue the entrance of Sherrie (Savannah Wise), a cute and bubbly blonde (God love ‘em) with dreams of being an actress, who Drew is immediately taken with.  Throughout the play, Drew comes closer and closer to fulfilling his dreams of rock stardom as he grows further and further apart from Sherrie.  (The show’s happy ending comes when the situation is inverted.)  I’m not entirely sure why I’m bothering to tell you the plot, because it’s the last thing you’ll care about when you see it.  It’s an absurdly fun and absurdly dumb rock musical that will give anyone willing to loosen up a great time.

Outstanding Drama Series

• Big Love
• Breaking Bad
• Damages
• Dexter
• House
• Lost
• Mad Men

The DVD of the second season of Mad Men arrived while I was on vacation, but any day now I plan to sit down and see for myself if Mad Men deserves a repeat win.  I fully support the Lost nomination, and from what I hear it sounds like I’d be head-over-heels for Breaking Bad if I actually watched it.  The other nominations I’m slightly more iffy on, particularly for House and Dexter, which both had lousy seasons.  Meanwhile, the Emmys had their last chance to ignore Battlestar Galactica, and they sure did.  Friday Night Lights also gets no loving, although in an ideal season of television its third season really wouldn’t deserve to be nominated, but at least a few of the shows that made it deserve it a lot less.  (For the record, I’m not even going to bother listing BSG or FNL as disappointments in the other categories, because it’s just so embarrassingly predictable…)  And if I watched The Shield (I’m waiting for a complete series box set so I can correct this oversight), I’m sure I’d be up-in-arms.  Also, very disappointed that In Treatment didn’t make it, but at least it reaped a handful of acting nominations.

Outstanding Comedy Series

• Entourage
• Family Guy
• Flight of the Conchords
• How I Met Your Mother
• The Office
• 30 Rock
• Weeds

This is a really interesting category this year.  Family Guy accomplished the feat that The Simpsons could never manage, getting into the Comedy Series category instead of the Animated Series one.  Flight of the Conchords is a great left-field surprise, and How I Met Your Mother is long overdue.  30 Rock will probably win, but The Office really deserves it.  In the “blah” arena are Weeds, which I can’t even bring myself to watch anymore, and Entourage, which has been consistently horrible since the second part of season three.  As far as series that got the shaft, any dreams that Chuck might actually get some attention from the Emmys thanks to that massive fan campaign that got it renewed have been dashed, and seriously, Chuck was my favorite show in the last season of television, so I’m really bummed.  Also nothing for Scrubs’ resurgent eighth season, but that’s not a surprise.  (Although at least back in the day, before NBC bungled everything, Zach Braff got nominated.)  Also, totally unsurprising, but still a shame, the delightful Starz series Party Down didn’t get any attention.  I doubt the Emmy voters even know it exists.

For the rest of the major awards, keep reading after the jump…

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

• Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory
• Jemaine Clement, Flight of the Conchords
• Tony Shalhoub, Monk
• Steve Carell, The Office
• Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
• Charlie Sheen, Two and a Half Men

Jemaine Clement’s nomination is a great surprise.  Jim Parsons is too.  The rest of the nominations are fairly rote, painfully so in Tony Shalhoub’s case.  It was great when he won his first Emmy, but seriously, he’s been playing this role the exact same way for the entire show.  No challenges, nothing, just one performance over and over again.  I guess it’s a no-brainer that this award’s going to Alec Baldwin.  Anything less would be inexcusable.

Outstanding Lead Actor In a Drama Series

• Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad
• Michael C. Hall, Dexter
• Hugh Laurie, House
• Gabriel Byrne, In Treatment
• Jon Hamm, Mad Men
• Simon Baker, The Mentalist

It will be very interesting to see if Bryan Cranston can win this again after his surprising but satisfying victory a year ago.  And yes, Dexter and House had off-seasons, but Hall and Laurie were still brilliant.  Simon Baker is the only surprise nomination, but the award won’t go to him.  For me it comes down to Hamm and Byrne, and since In Treatment probably won’t be around next year, I’ll go with Byrne.  And to be honest, I do kind of think his performance is ever-so-slightly more deserving.  Hamm will win it though.

Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

• Julia Louis-Dreyfus, The New Adventures of Old Christine
• Christina Applegate, Samantha Who?
• Sarah Silverman, The Sarah Silverman Program
• Tina Fey, 30 Rock
• Toni Collette, The United States of Tara
• Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds

To be honest, I don’t particularly care about this category.  Last year I’d have been upset if Tina Fey had lost, but this was such an up-and-down season of 30 Rock that my hope is the more they lose the more they resolve to make the show better next season.  Louis-Dreyfus, Applegate, and Parker are all fine, and I really don’t think Silverman deserved the nomination, so I guess I’ll root for Collette since she’s the only one I haven’t seen and, rumor has it, is fantastic.

Lead Actress in a Drama Series

• Sally Field, Brothers and Sisters
• Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer
• Glenn Close, Damages
• Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: SVU
• Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men
• Holly Hunter, Saving Grace

Snore.  Not a single fucking surprise here, and I really don’t care about any of these performances.  (Okay, I know I said I wouldn’t bring up Friday Night Lights or Battlestar Galactica again, but Connie Britton and Mary McDonald were easily the two best actresses on TV this past season, so COME THE FUCK ON.)

Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

• William Shatner, Boston Legal
• Christian Clemenson, Boston Legal
• Aaron Paul, Breaking Bad
• William Hurt, Damages
• Michael Emerson, Lost
• John Slattery, Mad Men

At least this is the last time Boston Legal will ever be nominated for anything.  Michael Emerson’s performance is the only one here I’m a huge fan of, but he won’t win.  It’s worth noting that Damages’ Željko Ivanek had a surprise victory here a year ago, so Hurt may stand a chance.  Really as long as it doesn’t go to Shatner or Clemenson I’m good.

Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

• Rose Byrne, Damages
• Sandra Oh, Grey’s Anatomy
• Chandra Wilson, Grey’s Anatomy
• Dianne Wiest, In Treatment
• Hope Davis, In Treatment
• Cherry Jones, 24

Chandra Wilson feels long overdue, but I’m really rooting for Hope Davis to win.  Dianne Wiest won last year, but I think that’s better taken as the Emmys honoring a veteran actress than truly acknowledging this great series, which means there’s a large gap between the likelihood that Wiest will win and that Davis will win.  But for my money Davis was truly phenomenal this year, even better than Wiest.  (I just saw her on Broadway in God of Carnage with James Gandolfini, Jeff Daniels, and Marcia Gay Harden, and I thought she was the best there too.)  That said, had Allison Pill been nominated, I might feel a little differently.  Also, it would have been nice to see Elizabeth Mitchell nominated for Lost or even Christina Hendricks for Mad Men.

Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

• Kevin Dillon, Entourage
• Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother
• Rainn Wilson, The Office
• Tracy Morgan, 30 Rock
• Jack McBreyer, 30 Rock
• Jon Cryer, Two and a Half Men

For the past two years it has seemed like the only thing standing between Neil Patrick Harris and an Emmy is Jeremy Piven, and now here they go and they DON’T EVEN NOMINATE JEREMY PIVEN!  Huzzah!  If Patrick Harris loses, there’ll be an uproar.  Jack McBreyer might be his only potential foil.  But seriously, if he doesn’t win, ATTACK!  (Also, is it too much to ask for the Emmys to recognize someone else in this cast, like oh, say, Jason Segel?)  (And of course, no Adam Baldwin from Chuck.)

Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series

• Kristin Chenoweth, Pushing Daisies
• Amy Poehler, Saturday Night Live
• Kristen Wiig, Saturday Night Live
• Jane Krakowski, 30 Rock
• Vanessa Williams, Ugly Betty
• Elizabeth Perkins, Weeds

I love Kristin Chenoweth, and this is the only nomination for the dearly missed Pushing Daisies, but she won’t win.  It is funny how just about everyone in this category is an underdog.  There’s absolutely no clear winner.  (Last year there was also no clear winner, but it ended up going to Jean Smart, who wasn’t nominated this year.)  For the most part though, I really don’t care about these performances.  Nothing for Alyson Hannigan?  Jenna Fischer?  YVONNE STRAHOVSKI?!!!!

None of the other nominations are really worth talking about.  You can find a full list here though, if it interests you.

Most Gilmore Girls fans thought of the sixth season as a major disappointment when it aired.  And undoubtedly it was the worse season of the Palladino reign.  It began with nine episodes of unpleasantness as Rory and Lorelai had a long fight.  Lorelai wasn’t talking to Rory because Rory had stolen a yacht, dropped out of Yale, and moved in with her grandparents.  So for almost the first half of the season the two main characters barely interacted.  Amy Sherman-Palladino (and her husband/partner-in-crime Daniel Palladino) apparently thought it would be good drama to split them up but didn’t bother to make up for the fact that the show now lacked the joy of its central relationship.  And this is looked back on as the better half of season six.

The episode that Rory and Lorelai have their reunion is titled “The Prodigal Daughter Returns,” and it takes on two meanings as Luke simultaneously learns that he has a twelve-year-old daughter.  Of course, this alone isn’t a sure sign of doom.  They could very well have spun this storyline into a tender arc as Luke learns to be a father.  But fans had a sinking feeling that April was brought in to break up Luke and Lorelai, and, well, this is Amy Sherman-Palladino we’re talking about, and they were right.  Sherman-Palladino does a phenomenal job of creating great characters with superb dialogue that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside (when you’re not in pain from laughing too hard), but when she introduces dramatic arcs she damn near ruins the whole thing.  (I’ll admit, that’s being a little unfair to the first couple of seasons, which featured some great drama between Lorelai, Rory, and Rory’s grandparents, but otherwise it rings fairly true.)  It was silly when Lorelai ditched Max on their wedding day, the Rory-Dean-Jess triangle rightfully pisses some people off (although I think it would have been pretty okay if Jess had just been a better written and acted character), Lorelai’s breakup with Jason was selfish, Rory sleeping with a married Dean was ludicrous and shockingly stupid, and Emily and Richard separating rang very false, but at least that was played more for laughs than tears.  So it was no surprise that this contrived daughter plot twist was created with the purpose of generating more stupid, stupid, stupid drama.

Here are some of the crimes Amy Sherman-Palladino commits in season six of Gilmore Girls:

• Keeping Lorelai and Rory apart for nine episodes (well, with two brief run-ins).
• Turning Rory into a Donna Reed-styled Perfect Woman in the DAR.
• Introducing the pretty great character April as Luke’s daughter, only to use her for evil.
• Having Luke act out of character and not tell Lorelai about April for TWO FUCKING MONTHS.
• Having Rory’s life easily fall back into place when she decides to return to Yale.
• Having Lorelai act like a doormat as Luke keeps her away from April.  (I buy Luke wanting to keep April apart from Lorelai, especially with the reasoning he eventually gives, I just DO NOT buy Lorelai letting him.)
• Making Luke act unreasonably like an asshole for the first half of “A Vineyard Valentine.”
• The entirety of “Bridesmaids Revisited” with the exception of the Hep Alien activity.
• Spoiling the best episode of the season, “I Get a Sidekick Out of You,” by having Lorelai drunkenly make a fool out of herself when giving a wedding toast by saying she’ll never get married.  Not a bad scene itself, but an unpleasant way to end the episode, and could easily have happened in some other context.
• Making Jess the only character to emerge from the season with his dignity intact.
• The most season-ruining shot in the history of television with the final moment of the final episode.  (Okay, that’s some hyperbole, but it’s up there.)

Indeed, even knowing where it was going (having, you know, seen it before), I felt the entire time I was watching that the season was always salvageable.  I knew it wouldn’t be salvaged, but it always could have been.  Lorelai and Rory fight?  When they reunite the season could get better.  Luke has a daughter?  The whimsy of her introduction indicates that this storyline could have gone in a very interesting direction.  “We were on a break”?  Maybe Rory will finally dump Logan.  Lorelai lets Luke keep April away from her?  Maybe she’ll let him have it soon.  Lorelai gives Luke an ultimatum and he doesn’t respond?  Err…maybe the ending of this episode can save the season from being a complete misfire.  Lorelai sleeps with Christopher?  Going, going, gone.  There goes the season.  There goes any part of my being that cares what happens to the main two characters.  I no longer care if Lorelai ends up with Luke, Christopher, or Kirk.  Rory can stay in this stupid relationship with Logan.  I don’t care.  Hey, what’s up with Lane and Zach?  Those guys are fun.

Read the rest of this after the jump.

I’m writing this not just to vent on season six, but to say something strange.  Much as I feel season six was a misfire and I will never forgive Amy for what she did to these characters, I noticed a curious effect taking place, one that I have found can be attributed to many other seasons of television.  Having to watch this season over the course of nine months was downright unpleasant.  I spent seven entire months being frustrated with the Lorelai/Luke/April story.  It wore me out.  That season-ending cliffhanger was the worst possible way to end the season.  I was extremely bitter, and felt like I had wasted the last nine months worth of Tuesdays with this show.  But watching it again in a fraction of the time, it felt a lot less painful.  Sure, when April was introduced I dreaded where the storyline was going, but a few days later the whole thing was over and I could put it all behind me.  (I didn’t put it all behind me, I started the Palladino-less final season, but I could have.)  I was also able to savor the good stuff more.  Overall, I leave the season with a great feeling of resentment but with better memories than the first time around when I had months to build up my anger towards the storylines and couldn’t remember much of the goodness.

Which brings me to my greater point.  This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a season of television I enjoyed more on DVD than on TV.  Season six of Scrubs is a lot more enjoyable on DVD than when a stinker of an episode burns for a full week.  But more often I watch a season of television on DVD that I’ve never seen before that I know wasn’t very well received when it aired on TV but enjoy it more than I think I will.  I point to The O.C. as an example.  I watched it on DVD long after it aired, and I loved the first season like virtually every critic or TV watcher when it was on, but I knew that season two and especially three were supposed to be a big step down.  But I loved season two almost as much.  Season three pissed me off, but I still finished far less aggravated than everyone else had.  It was only a few weeks of my life, but it was nine months of the people who watched it when it was on.  I also have to say I love season six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, having only seen it on DVD, and that’s a very controversial season of television to love.

I wonder, if TV was consumed on DVD rather than on weekly dosages, how many seasons of television would have been treated better than they were?  Season six of Gilmore Girls would still go down as the worst, but would it hurt quite as badly?  And I fully believe that season two of The O.C. was unfairly maligned and would have gotten plenty of love if it had been consumed purely in marathon format.  (Season three, not so much, and I wouldn’t apply this to season six of Buffy either.  I think that’s just me.)  So which way is fairer to judge a season of television?  Should we judge based on how we feel when we see the storylines we hate dragged out over almost a year of our lives, or is it better to judge based on how it feels when we consume it in short bursts on DVD, with a lot less time for those awful storylines to get under our skin?

Okay, the dragging out of our titular metaphor ends there.

Basically, I love TV.  Unhealthily.  But I really, really do.  And this blog is an opportunity to share that love with you.

Not that you have to love TV to come here, but I’m sure I’ll be writing about your favorite shows at some point and you might be interested in checking in every now and then.

Here’s how I envision me running this blog: once a week, probably Sundays (but we’ll see if another day works better), I’ll fill you in on what sort of TV watching I did this week.  For instance, say I watched the new Better Off Ted (bad example, this week is a repeat, but next week it’ll apply).  In this post, I will tell you what I thought about it, along with what I thought of most other shows I watched that week. I’m starting this blog in the summer, so it should be awfully slow at first, but by the fall things will definitely pick up.  If there’s anything I watch in a week that I feel is particularly urgent, I’ll write a post to go up before the weekly roundup, and the weekly post will just link to that review.

In addition to these posts, I may occassionally deign to write a “past gem” of sorts, in which I write about a TV show no longer on the air.  These might also take the form of reviews of specific episodes of past TV series.

If I want to post about something that doesn’t quite conform to either of these, I will categorize it as “musings.”  (For instance, there’s one coming up in the next day or two.)  I’ll use the “Housekeeping” category for posts like this one.

So, category roundup: housekeeping, new TV-> (weekly roundup, general review, episode review, musings), and old TV -> (past gem, episode review, musings).

Well, this should be fun.  If you want to know what sort of shows I like, look at the header.

If you need help identifying the shows and the characters, a list of each one, going from left-to-right, follows after the jump.

First row: The Wire (Jimmy McNulty), Veronica Mars (Veronica Mars), Chuck (Chuck Bartowski and Sarah Walker), Futurama (Turanga Leela, Bender Bending Rodriguez, and Philp J. Fry), Friday Night Lights (Eric Taylor), The Office (UK) (David Brent), Seinfeld (George Costanza), Gilmore Girls (Emily and Richard Gilmore), Arrested Development (Tobias Fünke), and Freaks and Geeks (Bill Haverchuck).

Second row: The West Wing (President Josiah Bartlet), 30 Rock (Jack Donaghy and Liz Lemon), Angel (Angel), Freaks and Geeks (Lindsay Weir), The Sopranos (Tony Soprano), Andy Richter Controls the Universe (Andy Richter), Flight of the Conchords (Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement), The Wire (Stringer Bell), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Buffy Summers), Mad Men (Don Draper), and Mr. Show (Bob Odenkirk and David Cross).

Third row: Scrubs (Dr. Cox), Battlestar Galactica (6), Arrested Development (Michael Bluth), Curb Your Enthusiasm (Larry David), Gilmore Girls (Lorelai and Rory Gilmore), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Willow Rosenberg), Lost (Hurley Reyes), The Office (US) (Michael Scott), The O.C. (Ryan Atwood and Seth Cohen), NewsRadio (Bill McNeal and Dave Nelson), How I Met Your Mother (Barney Stinson), and In Treatment (Paul Weston).

I will update the header on occasion, but I doubt I’ll go out of my way to tell you about it, so this list may be outdated if you’re coming across it anytime after the next header change.