Recently watched Episodes of TELEVISION BOX offerings!

[(Tunnels)]

Mad Men was fantastic this week.

Code:

I knew that as soon as Sylvia and Don reconciled that they would be caught. They were toeing the line before, but there was no way that they wouldn't be caught if they got back together. I just didn't think it would end up being Sally. That whole sequence with her discovery up through Don's attempt to cover it up was very well done. It really speaks to Jon Hamm's acting chops; you could see his hesitation and downright fear when he was slowly unlocking the door to his apartment, fearing what Sally may have revealed to Megan or Sylvia.

Also Bob Benson. I've read several other people's theories about him, and they think he may be up to something. I can say though that I dunno if I wouldn't have picked Pete out of the whole office to make a pass at. I mean, you have Stan and Ted and Ken, and he picked Pete. I dunno, he's still pretty mysterious.

[Lard]

I gave up on Falling Skies partway through season 2.

It was just dull.

[Yoda]

I broke down and bought the complete Babylon 5 dvd set.

Man this show was so great. And for some reason it looks pretty great on DVD....not in a technical sense but the quality makes it look gritty. Plus... the cheap sets probably wouldn't hold up on blu ray.

Most of the performances are fantastic, but some of the scrub level characters are pretty bad, like for instance when the guy from Grease is on it.

[Agent D.]

I want to hate teen titans go...it was the replacement for the greatest cartoon ever...but DAmN it's funny.

[Aeolus]

Futurama: The beginning of the end.

The first two episodes of this final season were pretty good for the most part. The 2D space bit in the first episode was pretty great for the implications of trying to exist on a 2D plane include, also some of the sight gags and street racing riffs were pretty good as well. The second episode was also great for various reasons including the fact that Amy, Zoidberg, and Bender weren't able to save the day, the apes were almost completely on the level with the zoo's administration (leaving most of the peril with Amy and friends), and it was nice seeing Gunther again, also I can definitely see some Fry gifs coming out of that episode.

[Darilon]

Spartacus: Season One, Blood and Sand

I really liked Batiatus and his petty, ambitious personality.

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Batiatus was a seriously lucky bastard for most of the season. No matter how much it looked like he was defeated, he always weaseled his way back up. I actually loved how everyone tried to screw him over which resulted in him proclaiming how the world wanted to do nothing more than spread his asscheeks and fuck him.This must have happened at least five times throughout the season.

He kind of reminds me of Othello's Iago although perhaps Asher would be a better match.

I kind of know the story behind Spartacus so I am not expecting a happy ending.

The fight scenes were good although the blood seemed off. I don't know if this was a stylistic choice or if it was just bad.

[Yoda]

The first season was pretty damn good. It's supposed to be cheesy like that. The prequel season was pretty good too. The second season... I couldn't get into. With the main guy dying of cancer they should've just let it be.

[Esper_Crusader]

I watched the series premiere of Under the Dome and it was okay but I'm not nearly convinced yet. There are a few interesting  stories going on but I'm still on the fence.

[Raziel]

The eighth season of Dexter opened with a bang.

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The dialogue between Vogel and Dexter in the morgue was chock full of suspense. You could see her pushing his every button. Also, Dexter's loss of control and disregard of the code becomes more and more prevalent. Would it be too much to guess that Vogel is the brain killer? She's a trained psychologist, but her ability to get under the skin of Dexter seemed to be more than that, almost as if she was like him.

Anyway, no doubts here, it's going to be a fantastic season. After the decline of Season 5 and 6, and the sharp improvement of the 7th one, this probably will be a winner. After all, it's the last one.

[Aeolus]

Futurama: So long and thanks for all the crabs.

Episode 3 was pretty amusing for the ET parodies and a nice call back to Jurr (of plant Omicron Persei 8)  who we haven't seen since Leila snarfed his siblings. Best lines went to those who chatted with Hermes.

Episode 4 was mostly once again focused on Bender becoming a folk singer and abandoning Fry at the drop of a hat. The 3D printer gag was okay, but aside from the 'And don't come back!" sign and some of the sepia-tone depictions of Bender's song there wasn't a lot of good gif/avatar material.

Edit:

Episode 5 was pretty good up until the end where it all kinda fell apart. But the bigger question is, what is it with this season and Bender's irresponsibly ditching the crew causing whatever issue occurs in the episode? It was the same set up in episode 3 where Bender ditches Fry and he gets captured by Jurr, in episode 4 where Bender ditches Fry and he gets mauled by a slowly defrosting supervillain, and now in this episode where Bender tries to ditch Fry and Leela only to accidentally turn out to be a hero instead.

Double Edit:

Episode 6 is the best one this season. Out of all the Scooby Doo parodies, this is the only one I've seen that subverted the cliche'd running through the door laden hallway, as well as a couple of nice touches on some of the other aspects of the show like repeating footage, reused scenes, visible animation cells, inconsistent frames, overscrolling on stills, and that was just the first parody. The rest of the episode was mostly social commentary on how shows for kids were thinly veiled commercials with half-hearted commentary or were blatantly edited in a clumsy effort to redirect shows to a younger audience than originally intended.

[Dice]

Um, woah.  That was easily one of the worst episodes of Futurama I've seen.  The humour just kept missing even despite the attempt at parody.  It was cute, but nothing terrible "ha-ha" funny and I didn't dig the middle Purple Berry skit at all, I guess the end message was the veil of consumerism but....*shrug*  It shoves it down your throat on three separate occasions

[Aeolus]

Um, woah.  That was easily one of the worst episodes of Futurama I've seen.  The humour just kept missing even despite the attempt at parody.  It was cute, but nothing terrible "ha-ha" funny and I didn't dig the middle Purple Berry skit at all, I guess the end message was the veil of consumerism but....*shrug*  It shoves it down your throat on three separate occasions

Yes, it was being blatant about it. No, that's not what was funny about the episode. It was all of the subtle touches they added to make the segments like the programs they were parodying.

The Scooby Doo parody was pretty much the most direct but even then it was mostly aimed at the low budget-ness of all Hanna Barbera cartoons making them feel like cheap pieces of crap most of the time (and why the more obscure ones are basically forgotten outside of channels like Boomerang, because they really were cheap pieces of crap and are now garbage).

The Purpleberry one was pretty much directly riffing off the Smurfs and Strawberry Shortcake, like how all the characters were named after nobility like Princess Purpleberry, Lady Lavender, Viscount Violet, Magistrate Mulberry, and Lord Loquat, how a show that preaches friendliness and tolerance has a recurring villain, or how the only friend made was another noble bearing gifts, or how every time the show's status quo got changed it was to introduce a new product, or how a show aimed at younger audiences would have commercial bumpers have intentionally misspelled words in an attempt to both bee funny and bee condescending when most of the demographic probably wont even catch the joke leaving only the feeling of condescension.

And then there's G.I.Zapp which was pretty much a G.I.Joe filter on a Zapp Brannagin heavy short with everyone sporting more "American" faces, stuff like spotty animation cropping up every so often, and the dichotomy of having the heroes violently destroying things like Kindergartens and not batting an eye, but flipping out over a loss of a single main character prompting wanton and wholesale slaughter of the bad guys by the "good" guys, especially jarring if another "good" guy died earlier in the episode but nobody cared since he wasn't even named let alone a main character.

[Darilon]

I watched the first three episodes of the new Arrested Development season. I don't know if it was just me but I thought the first episode wasn't that great. In fact it was kind of bad. Thankfully the second and third episode pick themselves up. It is not as good as the previous seasons so far but I am just happy to be watching Arrested Development again. The show is up there with Father Ted as one of my favourite shows ever.

[Dice]

I watched the first three episodes of the new Arrested Development season. I don't know if it was just me but I thought the first episode wasn't that great. In fact it was kind of bad. Thankfully the second and third episode pick themselves up. It is not as good as the previous seasons so far but I am just happy to be watching Arrested Development again. The show is up there with Father Ted as one of my favourite shows ever.

The GOB, Buster, and Maeby episodes were my favorite...and Lucille,but that might just be me because I think she's great.  But yeah, it was really, reaaalllly hit or miss humor (or worse, gags that just went on too long trying to ring the joke out -- like that first episode with the voting thing they did)/.

[Klutz64]

Continuing my weekend of actually getting shit done, I managed to finally finish all 9 seasons of X-Files. The 9th season was pretty shite all around, but the series finale was actually pretty good. Lots of fun cameos and a good way to wrap everything up without forcing "The End" down the audience's throat the way other shows tend to do.