Thursday, October 13, 2011

Bye Week - Let's Watch Some TV

Our poor, poor Gophers.  At first I was kind of mad at the Purdue fans for their boisterous celebrations after the Boilermakers scored touchdown after touchdown on our boys.  Then, I realized I'd be doing the same thing if the roles were reversed.  Think about how good that must feel.  You know your team isn't any good, you've lost to Rice and were embarrassed by Notre Dame, but then you come out and positively smash a B1G foe.  It doesn't matter who it is.  It doesn't matter that Tim Brewster ate or threw away all of the canned goods in the Gopher cupboard.  They won.  Decisively.

As @MattOConnellGI of GopherIllustrated.com  tweeted, "Gophers open as 10 point underdog to bye week."  That's where we are as a program.  Things like bye weeks, male cheerleaders and Swan's jogging shorts can score on our defense.  With that being said, here's some stuff about new fall TV shows.


Television - New Fall TV

I usually record quite a few shows on the DVR when the new fall season starts.  I then slowly weed out the garbage (most of it) hoping to find something good leftover (almost never happens).  Here are my brief thoughts on some of this fall's shows:

2 Broke Girls:  Even my love for Kat Dennings can't tip this show into watchable territory.  Be careful if you're a prude and you search for Kat on the inter-google.  It's been picked up for a full season, so someone likes it.  The punch lines are weak and it's pretty poorly acted.  Premise is Kat has always been broke and new waitress chick is the daughter of a guy that ran a Ponzi scheme and is now in jail.  Of course they end up living together (with the rich girl's horse, is selling the horse not allowed people?) I give it 3/10 whatevers. Entertainment Weekly has a 5.7 rating for it for week 4.

"I'm so edgy and street." "And I'm so naive and coddled."


New Girl: The ever so sweet Zooey Deschanel breaks up with her doofus boyfriend and moves in with 3 dudes.  Now Zooey inserts her particular brand of quirkiness into the guy's everyday lives.  This show was apparently Fox's highest debuting sit-com ever and has already been picked up for a full season.  Zooey is cute, but not particularly funny to me.  Jake Mark Johnson plays one of the roommates and he seems to be the funniest guy on the show.  He has a nice drunken meltdown at a wedding in episode 3.  4.5/10 from me, 5.0 rating in week 4.
Oh Zooey, you scamp!

X-Factor: Awful, just painfully bad.  Can't even make a drinking game to it bad.  1/10, 4.4 rating (3rd highest among new shows, lol)

Terra Nova: Even though I managed to dodge The Lost bullet, I bedded down with Lost's evil cousin, Terra Nova.  Being a fan of all things end-times; I was looking forward to a world where everything has gone to hell and people only breathe through masks unless they're rich and have their own fresh air pumped in/created.  Unfortunately, that's like 5 minutes of the whole show so far.  Instead, we're 85 million years into the past where groups of the best and brightest (and maybe some lottery winners?) are sent back to restart civilization.  Even though they drive souped up Humvees on crack they decide to build their walls that are intended to keep out dinosaurs out of logs.  It's log cabin on the outside and Halo 4 on the inside.  WTF?  I've only seen two episodes, but they already did the pterodactyl version of "The Birds" in episode two.  WATCH OUT FOR THE HORDE OF PECKING PTEROS!  This could be a lot cooler, but it's just ok. This one, however, is worth watching and making a drinking game out of.  Terra Nova will air 13 episodes, but has not been picked up for next fall yet. 5/10 for TRE, 3.1 rating in week 4.

THE BIRDS!

Whitney: Whitney Cummings, who I think is also a writer on 2 Broke Girls stars in this one.  This is mostly about her long term relationship with her boyfriend from what I can tell. (HAHAHAHAHAHA!) The thing is though (HAHAHAHAHA!) there's this awful laugh track (HAHAHAHA!) that makes you want to remove your brain from your head with a spoon. (HAHAHAHAHA!) 1/10, 3.0 rating. Picked up for a full season.


How to be a Gentleman:Johnny Drama's show about him playing a dense jock-type has already been cancelled.  No way!  I, like the rest of the world, did not watch.


Free Agents: Free Agents has been cancelled as well, which is too bad for Hank Azaria who I like.  He played a newly divorced schmoe that can't do anything right.  Too depressing.

Homeland:  Homeland is an Showtime series that I haven't gotten around to watching yet, but the word is it's quite good.  I'm looking forward to catching up on this one.  It stars Claire Danes as a CIA agent and Damian Lewis as a Marine that was missing in Iraq for 8 years and has now returned home and maybe is a little terroristy now.  Danes is pretty good and most stuff and I love Damian Lewis.  I usually just call him Jonesy because of his role in Stephen King's Dreamcatcher.  There's also a Mandy Patankin sighting which enables you to bust out your favorite Inigo Montoya lines when the time is right.

Jonesy up to no good.

You killed my father. Prepare to die.

American Horror Story: AHS is a haunted house sort of thing on FX. I've only seen one episode, and there was a lot thrown at me in that 1:10 premier, but it was certainly entertaining.  You have a bald-sharp-toothed-uncle-fester, a guy in a gimp suit, a burned-up-face guy, a chick with down syndrome telling everyone they're going to die, creepy southern neighbor lady who seems like a witch, crazy cutter daughter, cheaty dad, grumpy wife that enjoys the macabre feel of the old house, etc.  People are getting sliced up, old maids are turning into hot young maids, fetuses are chilling in jars of formaldehyde...it has it all!  6.5/10 with upside.

Bring out the gimp!


Let me know if you're watching any greatness that I'm missing by posting in the comments section!

5 comments:

  1. FWIW, Homeland is on Showtime not HBO (I'm guessing that was a typo). All the good TV I'm watching isn't new (Boardwalk Empire, SOA) so I have no suggestions for you that you haven't already covered (hoping that Terra Nova gets better!).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks GoAUpher for the Showtime correction!

    I love Boardwalk Empire; great show. I've been meaning to start Sons of Anarchy from the beginning.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Zooey could be in a show with a laugh track and I'd still watch it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think you can stream SOA on Netflix. You used to be able to at least.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Gray spent his bye week on Lake Calhoun.

    ReplyDelete