Season 2, Episode 7 - “Cougars”

30 Rock continues to be one of my favorite shows on television. In this episode 37 year old Liz dates 20 year old coffee boy, Jamie. Of course, he says he’s 25, and she says she’s 29 - so if you go by their made-up ages, it’s not that bad.

The two subplots of the episode were as bizarre as they’ve ever been in this episode, with Jack taking over a underprivileged baseball team from Tracy in an obvious (and hilarious) series of jabs at the Iraq war. Which come to a head with Jack standing over a new baseball field dressed as a General, while he stares at a very familiar looking banner that reads “Fun Accomplished.”

The second subplot of the night revolved around Frank being gay for coffee boy Jamie. Not completely gay, just gay for this one guy. It was funny, awkward, and slightly uncomfortable at times as Frank did his best to put the moves on Jamie - who just wasn’t interested.

The end of Liz and Jamie’s relationship was also pretty darn funny, with Liz meeting his mother, and finding out that they look exactly the same.

There were so many other funny bits in this episode, from Kenneth’s “homeade country gum” to Jenna’s 14-year old boyfriend, that it’s hard to recap it all. This episode is 30 Rock at its best, and well worth checking out.

Grade: A

Season 2, Episode 1 - How to Kiss Hello

October Road is one of those shows that’s really not very good, but really, really wants to be. The show is heavily inspired by the Gilmore Girls (even going so far as to cast “Kurt” from the Gilmore series in a role this season). It tries very hard to be as witty and smart as the show it wants to be, but so far, it hasn’t even gotten close.

Still, there is something I like about it that I can’t quite put my finger on - oh wait…yes, I can, it’s Laura Prepon…why? Because she’s super hot.

The episode focuses on where Hannah and series star Nick (Bryan Greenberg) stand relationship wise, and where Eddie stands with publically handling his relationship with Janet, the chubby girl that runs the bar. See, even though she’s smart and funny, and he likes her - he still has a problem breaking his life long “no fat chicks” policy.

Anyway, the show is hard to review. It’s hard to get through. Basically if you take every melodrama series you’ve ever seen, from 90210 to Hyperion Bay, mix them all in a cliche blender and poor a little sap on top of them…you’d have this show.

It’s just not very good.

Grade: D-

Season 2 Episode 6

It’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to review Heroes this season.  It’s easy to write reviews when the episodes are great, and it’s easy to write reviews when the episodes are terrible.  But this season has been pretty middle-of-the-road.

Peter essentially served as a bookend for this episode.  We opened with him and Caitlin in Ireland, where she pledges to kill Elle.  They finally decide that they have to follow Peter’s prophetic painting and head to Montreal.  Once there, Peter finds a mysterious note from Adam Monroe, a name we saw earlier in the episode (and it’s said he’s the white-haired guy in that picture of the 12).

With that, they take an unexpected trip to June 14, 2008, where New York has been evacuated, and, if the previews are to be believed, 93% of the world population is dead.  Could that virus be connected to the work that Mohinder is doing for the Company?  I’m wondering if this jumping to the future thing is going to be Heroes‘ modus operandi for the rest of the series.  They jump into the future to see what’s at stake, and then come back to the present to prevent it.  I’m not knocking it…I love the time-hopping that goes on.

Now Mohinder appears to be a full-fledged employee of the Company.  He is currently monitoring Monica, helping her to learn the extent of her abilities.  Bob comes to him, trying to convince him to test out a new vaccine that will hinder the abilities of the specials.  Despite some prodding by Noah, Mohinder refuses to use Monica or Molly as lab rats, and destroys the store of vaccines.  Bob apologizes (completely heartfelt and above-board, I’m sure), and Mohinder is hooked up with a new partner…Niki (though she was giving of a definite Jessica vibe in their conversation).

Bob escorts Monica back to her home in New Orleans.  He supplies her with a brand new shiny video iPod with clips of “everything from martial arts to plumbing”.  This could turn into something pretty cool down the road.

Meanwhile (read: 300 years ago), Hiro is desperately trying to help Kensei free the sword maker from White Beard in an effort to fix history.  They sneak into the camp and manage to help the sword maker escape, but in the chaos, Hiro transports himself and Yaeko far from the camp.  She comes to realize that, when she fell in love with Kensei, Hiro was masquerading as him.  They share a kiss, which Kensei oversees, pushing him over the edge and compelling him to turn them over to White Beard.  It looks like things are gearing up for a showdown between Hiro and Kensei.

Now let’s talk Noah Bennet.  I was expecting to see a more toned-down version of HRG this season since he left Primatech, but, if anything, he’s even more hostile than last season.  He ruthlessly pries memories from Ivan, his ex-partner’s brain, uses his dead daughter against him, and, once he has what he needs, caps the dude in the head.  I understand that you’re trying to protect your family, but that’s harsh.  Couldn’t he have just used the Haitian’s ability to pull the location of the paintings?  That would have been considerably less…intrusive…than a bullet to the head.  But HRG is at his best when he’s bad, and he was bad to the extreme tonight.

So Bennet makes his way to the warehouse where the paintings are located.  They are:

• Peter looking into a mirror. 
• Claire laying bloddy on some stairs.
• A hand holding a vial.
• A blonde girl banging on a door or window.
• Hiro and Kensei fighting.
• Someone with a broken nose holding a gun (my money’s on Mohinder)
• The final painting we saw earlier with Bennet shot dead.

Now we head south of the border.  As frustrated as I am with they Maya and Alejandro storyline, Zachary Quinto is good enough as Sylar to bring a spark of life to the subplot.  Here, he manages to convince Maya to use her deadly power to get them out of a jam.  He confesses that he is planning to kill Maya and take her power, or, if he can’t do that, just use her to continue his killing spree. 

Finally, the Claire storyline.  As usual, it’s the most polarizing plot of the night.  On one hand, the way that she and West teamed up to use their abilities to freak out Debbie was pretty sweet, and a good representation of how immature teenagers would use special abilities.  On the other hand…well…as fellow writer Michael put it:  “I mean the whole “pretty girl that’s nice has to show one up the bitchy cheerleader” aspect of it.  It’s all “Bring It On!” levels of cliche.  Plus the “evil” cheerleader could not have been more one dimensional.  She was even drinking from a paper sack - because she’s BAD.  ugh.”  Indeed.

This episode really seemed like filler.  Last week was an undeniably great episode, and next week looks excellent.  This week, though…meh.

Episode grade: B

Dancing with the Stars Results show for 10/23/07

Well, after Marie Osmond passed out on the previous edition of Dancing with the Stars, I think some people expected her to pack it up and go home…but that didn’t happen, and she apparently got the sympathy vote because Marie managed to stay completely out of the bottom two this week.

Jennifer Lopez performed on last night’s show…which for some reason seems kind of sad to me. I mean, Seal was there a few episodes ago performing a hit from the Batman Forever soundtrack…if Dancing with the Stars screams anything to me, it’s “showcase of the has beens” or maybe “showcase of the D list”…and I don’t mean that to be mean, but let’s face it, most of the “stars” on these shows wouldn’t actually be called “stars” anywhere but on this show - and for the most part, that includes the musical talent…so J-Lo appearing on the show, to me anyway, speaks to her diminishing star power.

Anyway - back to the results - so Mark Cuban and Jane Seymour ended up in the bottom two. Cuban was expected to be there, but Seymour was a bit of a surprise. In the end, Cuban had to go home - but he made a gracious exit, and thanked everyone for the wonderful experience…and hey, he lost 30lbs out of the deal, so…he’s got that going for him - oh yeah, and he’s a billionaire.

He’s going to be just fine.