Season 4 Episode 13

100 Word Review: You know, sometimes and episode is just…”eh”. This episode of The Office seemed to serve a purpose…showing Jim’s commitment to doing his job for Pam, while Pam showed us that she still dreams of something more than Dunder-Mifflin. Michael is still a moron, and there is just might be some chemistry left between Angela and Dwight. Still, nothing particularly ground breaking or really interesting happened. Michael, Oscar, Daryl, and Pam went to Pam’s old school for a job fair. Jim, Kevin, and Andy played golf in the hopes of closing a client. Season Finale is next week.

Season 7, Episode 11 - My Princess

100 Word Review: This review doesn’t need 100 words…just three letters: W.T.F.

Not only was this episode the worst in the history of Scrubs (it takes that prize easily), this could be the worst 30 minutes of television I’ve ever experienced.

There was not one single amusing moment during the entire show. I’m aware that it was decided that this episode would be the finale after it was already in the can, but that doesn’t change the fact that this episode was unbelievably terrible.

It’s a tired cliche, but I have genuinely never wanted 30 minutes of my life back more than after watching this episode.

Grade: D-

100 Word Review: The Writer’s Strike cut many seasons for shows short, including “Family Guy” which aired its season finale on Sunday. There was nothing particularly “season finale-like” about the episode - which focused primarily on Chris’ pursuit of a girl named Anna who works at Brian’s Vet’s office. Peter manages to kidnap a parrot and become a pirate for a little while, which was…um…hmm…there, I guess. He also spent a good minute or so trying to pick a dead frog up with a shoebox lid - making me wonder just why in the hell I was watching this. You know?

Season 12, Episode 14 - “Cops & Robert”

100 Word Review: In what is, I believe, the season finale for season 12, Hank accidentally steals the wallet of a mentally unbalanced guy who then tries to kill him and the rest of the alley gang, Dale gets a job at “Bossoms” in an attempt to file a lawsuit against them for “sex discrimination” and Bobby gets stuck hanging out with Fred Willard’s has-been cop character at school. Lots of plots that all manage to inter-connect in a relatively satisfying way. I’m glad this wasn’t the last episode of the series for sure, and I’m looking forward to season 13.

Season 19, Episode 18 - Any Given Sundance

100 Word Review: In this sadly average episode of The Simpsons Lisa makes a documentary about her family and it gets accepted into the Sundance Film Festival. You can add film financiers to the list of things Principal Skinner and Super Intendant Chalmers do that they probably shouldn’t. After the Simpsons are in Utah and upset over Lisa’s film we see that Nelson also has a movie showing at Sundance (which is vastly superior to Lisa’s). That’s pretty much it. Guest voices Jim Jarmusch and John C. Riley were entertaining, but Riley felt wasted. Not the best episode. Not the worst. so-so.

Season 4, Episode 10 – Something Nice Back Home

After last week’s amazing episode, this week left me saying…meh.

For being the leader of the Losties, Jack seems to be in distress a lot…it’s like there’s an episode every season where he’s either sick or captured or something. Doesn’t exactly make for the strong leader image I’d like to see in Jack. This week, the good doctor was down with a bout of appendicitis. I’m assuming it served to lay the foundation for things to come, but it seemed really forced. Maybe that’s the idea though…as Rose pointed out, why would Jack get sick on an island that heals everyone else, and at this pivotal juncture?

And I know L. Scott Caldwell is probably busy doing other stuff, but does anyone else find it somewhat jarring to have Rose gone for long stretches of the season, only to return for one episode to impart some words of wisdom? Just me? Okay.

Meanwhile, Sawyer, Claire and Miles are making their trek through the jungle back to the beach. Claire drops the hint that she’s been seeing things (there was a hallucination/vision scene filmed for her intended for last week’s episode, but it was cut). Miles has his own visions again as well…sensing the violence that occurred on the spot they were standing. I wasn’t too surprised that he found Karl’s body, but I was SHOCKED…and a little upset…that he found Danielle, too. She was such a great character, I was sure that she’d have survived the shot that she took. Rousseau…heck, ANY Season 1 character…deserves a better sendoff than that. Of course she’ll be back in flashbacks and such, but I feel like her arc wasn’t really completed.

I’ve noticed over the past few weeks that this season has been much, much darker than anything we’ve seen. Between the borderline insane asylum we see on the freighter, Rousseau’s and Karl’s brutal, sudden deaths and subsequent freaky corpse discovery, and Alex’s absolutely shocking death last week, this season is at a depth that I never expected we would see. I love it.

Back to the story…that night, the jungle company make camp. Claire awakens to see Christian Shepherd holding Aaron. (To help with speculation, check out this spoilery clip from the recent “Missing Pieces” campaign.) When Sawyer awakens the next morning, they are both gone. He finds Aaron alone in the woods, but Claire is nowhere to be seen.

Finally, we come to the flashforward. As a friend of mine said, it’s a Jaters’ dream come true. Taking place after the events of Eggtown (Kate’s episode), but before the events of Through the Looking Glass (Season 3 finale), we find that Kate and Jack have definitely hooked up, and it seems that they’ve been in that role for a while…they seem very comfortable together (and they got Aaron a Millennium Falcon toy, which makes them the best parents ever).

Jack heads to see Hurley again, but, even though their meeting was pretty strained last time, this time it’s apparent that Hurley has gone off the deep end…though he could be the sanest of them all. He refuses to take his meds or even talk to the doctors, because he believes that the Oceanic 6 are all dead. He did make a very good point…Jack and Kate’s current life was pretty darn close to Heaven…and in last season’s finale, Jack’s life was pretty darn close to Hell. Hurley left Jack with a couple of bombshells…first, Charlie left Jack a message that “You’re not supposed to raise him” and that Jack would have a visitor soon. Since he had already seen his father once that day, it was pretty easy to figure out who that visitor would be…and this seems to have driven him to his future chemical dependency.

I wonder what’s recording on Jack and Kate’s Tivo.

Finally, we learn that Kate has been sneaking around, doing favors for Sawyer. I’m sure this favor relates to Sawyer’s secret daughter, Clementine, which makes Kate’s hesitation to talk about it understandable, I guess. You’ve got to feel bad for Jack, though…he thought he was finally out from under Sawyer’s shadow, only to find that he is still on Kate’s mind. They fight, culminating in Jack exploding and yelling that Kate is not even related to Aaron, which the boy overhears. Jack loses it and walks away.

Like I said, not the greatest episode ever…no big revelations, save for Jack and Kate’s hook- and break-up. Mostly laying the groundwork for next week…a Locke-centric episode which promises to be great.

Episode grade: B

Season 2, Episode 14 Sandwich Day

100 Word Review: Jason Sedakus stops back by “30 Rock” this week, as Floyd flies in from Cleveland and gets stuck in New York for a few days due to Global Warming. Meanwhile, Jack’s days at GE appear to be numbered as he is forced to move down to the 12th floor by the new Marky Mark loving CEO. Liz does her best to make Floyd want her while he’s back in town, and crashing at her place, but ultimately goes psycho over him because of a phone call from 8 months ago. There was a also subplot involving Teamsters and sandwiches. Really.

Season 4 Episode 12 “Did I Stutter?”

I’m not quite sure how I feel about this episode. The main plot point of this one is that Stanley crosses the line and yells at Michael in a meeting, shouting “Did I Stutter?”. While several other subplots start coming together. Ryan and Toby team up to give Jim a “formal discipline warning”, Angela is impressed with Dwight when he forces Andy to sell him his car, then turns around and re-sells it for a profit, and Kevin’s “librarian fetish” is revealed when Pam is forced to wear glasses after forgetting her contact solution after spending the night at Jim’s place.

There is a lot happening here, but most of it are little moments. It almost feels like everything that happened in this episode, other than the main plot line with Stanley and Mihcael, is set up for the next few episodes. I have to say I am intrigued by where this is going, but all of this set up left much less time for the usual laugh factor.

The main storyline, however, was very well done this episode - with Stanley having just plain lost it on Michael. After the “Did I stutter?” line, Toby confronts Michael, telling him he needs to address the insubordination issue. Michael doesn’t want to, and tries to dodge it through most of the episode, but when he finally does confront Stanley it gets interesting. Stanley goes off the handle after being “fake fired”, and Michael finally has all he can take and screams for everyone in the office except Stanley to leave.

They try to convince you that Michael is about to man up, but instead, he’s almost in tears and he wants to know why Stanley doesn’t like him. After Stanley tells him that he doesn’t respect Michael, Michael finally does man up a bit, and he tells Stanley that he accepts that he doesn’t respect him, but he can’t talk to him like that in his office. He just can’t allow it. Stanley gives him a “fair enough” and the issue is settled.

Sadly, we only have 2 episode left for this season…but I can’t wait to see them.

Season 3, Episode 19, Love Octagon

100 Word Review: Earl’s roller-coaster ride of a season continues down its increasingly strange path. Now that Earl is out of the coma, he’s on a quest to find Billie, because he’s convinced Karma wants them to be together. Several loose ends are tied up in this episode (which I won’t spoil here), and it honestly felt like a great season finale - even though it wasn’t the show’s season ender for this season. I’m not sure where they’re going with this season, but I am interested to see where they take us from here. One thing this show definitely is - is unpredictable.

Last night had to have set the record for the most break-the-fourth-wall moments in BL’s history…I counted at least four. They don’t usually bother me, but these seemed a bit obtrusive.

As obsessed as I’ve been with the election, I somehow missed this, but the pledged delegate thing is actually happening, which improved my opinion of the show. I enjoy watching Alan and Shirley butt heads, as they’re two of my faves on the show.

Denny’s “love story” was contrived and didn’t serve the story or his character at all. I know it was supposed to be whirlwind, but it shouldn’t have been a one-episode-and-out deal.