arc

BTW, props to steelyis for "Flash Mob".

I like season 3 a lot. For me, it's not just RCT. The run it had near the end was great. There's "Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking" and "Virtual Systems Analysis" and "Basic Lupine Urology" ... basically I really loved the last seven or eight episodes of S3. (OK, fine, parts of the emperor Chang plot weren't so great, esp in "Course Listing Unavailable".) And besides that, there's "Regional Holiday Music", where they backed up the smack talk of that Glee crack from the first paintball ep ("write some original songs!"). There's "Documentary Filmmaking Redux", which is even more dizzyingly self-referential than "Messianic Myths and Ancient Peoples" or "Celebrity Pharmacology". S3 was a great season of TV for me.

WOW, that is a low bar, then. The acting on this show is really about the very worst that I can tolerate. (Also, Veronica Mars was technically a CW show after the WB/UPN merger so VM is definitely the best acted CW show ever.) I'm guessing that was what was meant by "I've been waiting centuries". Not that he's Vandal Savage or R'as Al Ghul. A time traveller from the future would make him probably Impulse (?), Reverse-Flash, or (much less likely) Booster Gold... I can't get over how much the particle accelerator looks like a sports stadium. It's prime waterfront territory, it's freaking huge, and, well, it looks an awful lot like BC Place in Vancouver plus a few miscellaneous doodads stuck on top. BTW, it's nice that the science billionaire came up with a metahuman prison for the metahuman problem he created, but this is totally extrajudicial and super illegal. Agreed. Keeping this secret from Iris is so dumb they have to make Joe say "it'll keep her safe", without ever really explaining how her not knowing this could possibly actually make her any safer.

There's a sort of almost willful stupidity to Harewood's character (Sam Saperstein) in the writing and acting that just puts it way too over the top for me. I think of Veronica from Better Off Ted, but she even wasn't quite as dumb. Or early season Jack Donaghy from 30 Rock, who was whip-smart but also unfamiliar with the world of TV he'd just transferred to... but Saperstein just doesn't show any competence in any area to offset the cartoonish behavior he's written with. I actually liked the last moment of the show, where Henry graciously came over to eat lunch with Eliza, but everything else this episode was a painful, painful slog. I feel like stalking/e-stalking has been used as a plot point elsewhere so much that they should have had Joan catch on to Eliza quoting Joan's opinions back to her, word for word, much earlier than she did. And I thought for sure that the whole point of Joan noticing that Eliza was bad at the workout was to signal that Joan was about to catch on, but nope. Same with about everything else. I usually like Brian Huskey, not so much here. Also, Henry's plot got muddied up -- it seemed to be starting off as "Henry's actually not very good at connecting, he's just got a good handle on a surface gloss of pretending that he's got a rapport with Larry, etc. But then it went on a big tangent about Larry's stupid flash mob obsession and how weird and off-putting Larry was... Maybe it's just that the show's not really for me.

Wasn't there some stuff about how he imbued other things with Speed Force, thus conferring the durability and freedom from physics that he enjoyed?Now I'm looking it up on Wikipedia and it is a hefty load of writer BS. Still not as bad as the knockoff "spider force" (not the official name) that JMS tried to introduce to the Spider-Man mythos.

Heh. Maybe I'm too sensitive to this stuff then, because the moment in the second episode seemed anvilly to me.

I feel like outside of Parks and Rec and now B99, assuming the task force goes like I expect it to, very few sitcoms have these kind of long multi-episode arcs, esp not specific work projects with a big climax. Any workplace sitcom, people work towards a common goal, but any specific project is almost always contained in one episode, maybe a two-parter some of the time.

Isn't the "My name is X and I'm the fastest man alive" the traditional start to like, every Flash comic? Certainly when I was reading it off and on during Mark Waid's run with Wally West, that was how every single issue started. I can't let it go. Stem cells and cloning absolutely doesn't mean conservation of mass goes away! Shoot, they even tried to ground Barry's superspeed by saying he needs to eat more to offset how much more he's exerting himself. Worse, Denton cloned his clothes! And even worse, he didn't clone guns!!!! It was kind of underplayed, but Barry did groan when she said that, so I think the show knew she was wrong to say it. Stagg or Denton? Cause I thought even in the moment that it was kind of BS that Barry let Denton die. Most other superheroes, OK, the guy chose to fall to his death. The Flash coulda run down there and dragged something there to catch him. (or air cushion, which is one of the really obscure Flash tricks; points to whoever said that.) Why would they want to avoid shipper baiting? I took that whole exchange as a totally anvillicious "hey, she's super into him but maybe doesn't know it yet" moment.

I really liked "Ed", so I kinda want to call Wells "Evil Ed". I mean, it's still vaguely possible that he's a kind of twisted good guy who is genuinely looking out for Barry. A truly evil guy woulda said that Barry was his as Stagg was dying, not that Barry had to be kept safe. Still, who pretends all day that they can't walk, unless they're super evil?

Esp not the guy who created the Max character on Happy Endings... Nah, Happy Endings started off pretty solid, esp with the network making the right call to drastically re-order the episode order. The pilot's premise was very hooky, which is probably how it got greenlit ("what happens to a group of friends after a nuclear-level breakup?") but the show quickly enough became one of the best hang-out sitcoms since Friends. The first couple of episodes after the pilot had to deal with the continuing fallout from the pilot, though, and then it really did settle into its hang-out groove. By re-ordering the episodes, ABC was able to show off what the show would really be faster rather than dragging out the Dave and Alex story. I don't think Marry Me threw as much of a wrench into its character dynamics that it will have to unwind over the next few episodes , so hopefully they'll hit the ground running faster than HE did.

Arrested Development had that joke before Glee then.

That part was great! A few minutes later in the show, when West said "don't tell Iris, that'll keep her safe somehow", I groaned out loud. Such bullshit. And when has a superhero's friend/spouse/etc ever been safer for not knowing? Jimmy Olsen got into all sorts of trouble and he never knew about Clark being Supes. Yeah, I really wanted to like Tom Cavanaugh's character! But tbh, there really is no reason for a non-evil genius to have a prison cell in his big ol' particle accelerator building, and especially not a . Haha! I haven't watched SV since like season 3, but I just remembered TWOP used to call out all the anvilicious dialogue. Good lord, this show. "I guess I wasn't fast enough." I feel like Hollywood writers (or execs?) always want there to be just One Weird Thing that's responsible for all the weird stuff. That, or it gives everyone a thematic tie-in where they're all superpower siblings. But I hate it; it's not at all like (most) comics that just say "this is a comic book universe and there's a Speed Force, Kryptonians, Oan power rings, Nth metal, Gingold soda, etc." Edit: I know "you should have backups" is an incredibly shitty thing to say to someone who just lost a computer for any reason, but really, a masters or PhD student should have backups. And put her dissertation stuff in the cloud somehow too, like Dropbox.

I know this is a Dan Goor show more than a Mike Schur show (or esp a Greg Daniels show), but... Jimmy Jab games == Office Olympics from The Office, Wuntch == Tammy 2 from Parks and Rec, and the gigglepig task force == Harvest Festival or any of the many fun Parks and Rec arcs over the last few seasons... ? Still very watchable, but ... I guess any workplace sitcom with an arc about a work project is probably going to feel Harvest Festival-y.

The other gig was announced months ago, and as a multicam, will almost definitely be easier on her schedule than Community. For actors, multicams have a day for table reads and later in the week, a day for shooting the episode. Single-cams like Community have long shooting days the entire week.

A largely Community-related interview with Harmon has this bit about how S2 is going:

Vulture: An In-Depth Cultural Analysis of Asian Male TV Characters Getting Some Action The list is both pretty thorough and not that long a read! =P Seriously though, the analysis makes it more than just a list.

Sars was dead on: This - and I will stop harping on this at some point, hopefully - was the same thing that was the least enjoyable parts of Suburgatory for me. Also this: Fuck the message of this show. Social media is no more the death of culture and society than dime novels were way back in the day. And even if it were, the message deserves better than tossing out references like those are complete jokes.

I actually missed that, I was so excited about the renewal and semi-bummed about the quasi-demotion to FXX. I think 13 episodes is a nice run. 10 episodes basically just was enough room for the story they had to tell, and I suspect given Falk's comments in recent interviews that a broadcast-like 22 per season would be too much, but 13 gives them the room to do arcs about the same as season one plus have a couple of standalone episodes.

Renewed! But moved to FXX.

Stephen Falk was talking about Chris Geere sort of changing his idea of who Jimmy was, specifically that Jimmy had originally been not English and also kind of shorter and schlubbier. Which finally made me understand Gretchen's line in the pilot: "someone like you does not just get someone like {gestures at self} this!" Cause as cast, Geere and Cash don't have a pronounced attractiveness disparity, I don't think.

Couple of other things I noticed that paid off in the finale: Edgar put Jimmy in a headlock in the pilot. Must be a go-to move for him. There was a whole big drama about just having a key, not moving in, in ep 4 or so. Note esp the exchange near the end: Gretchen: "Wait, so you wanted me to have a key?" Jimmy: "No, I just wanted you to stop being mad at me." (paraphrased from memory, I might fix up the quote later when I get home.) They didn't really linger enough on it in the finale, but Gretchen really cleaned up her place after ep 9. It went from disaster area to mostly cleaned up, though all those missed delivery slips from FedEx were still there on her front door. Lindsay's discomfort with Paul is apparent from her first onscreen interaction with him, as are his vulnerabilities and hurt feelings.

Someone on the AV Club pointed out that the show really rewards a rewatch. For example, Jimmy's first lines in the pilot included “Sometimes you just want to witness the beginning of the disaster so when the house is engulfed in flames you can say ‘I was there when they installed the faulty wiring.’ ‘’ - amusing in its own right, but now clearly a little foreshadowing for the season finale.

This was a hell of a way to wrap up a great season. (side note: Becca is indeed the worst for saying "hashtag blessed", but there's a webseries called "Just Between Us", where one character said that and made a hash symbol with her fingers and that was amazing and awesome.) So much good stuff in here. Vernon's probably the most cartoonish character among the cast, but there's some elements of self-awareness creeping in here and there that suggest that he's a real person somewhere under there. The Gretchen-Jimmy plot was really fantastic. Aya Cash was so moving up on that balcony accepting the non-proposal, and the way Jimmy won her back would have been enough on its own, but to reveal that it really was an improvised Hail Mary made it inspired. Kether Donohue sold the hell out of that Kate Bush song -- though as Falk says, it's not strictly earned on Lindsay's part, she was cheating on Paul -- but I still didn't like Edgar suddenly becoming infatuated with her then and there. Also, go Paul! I mean, not so good that he was emotionally cheating on Lindsay, but good that he made a decisive move to get out of a marriage that wasn't working.

There's almost too many pieces about YTW in this last week, but Vox's is pretty good (there's an interview and a piece) and Vulture's mentions Stephen Falk's time at TWOP as a recapper.

Popsugar interviews Aya Cash and Chris Geere right before the season finale.