Summertime Is TV Time

Summer has always been TV catch-up time in our household.

 

We have a handful of summer shows, to be sure, but our big start-of-summer project is binge-watching all the things we put off during the year.

 

So, hey, here’s the stuff we knocked out over the last two months.

 

Parks and Recreation:

 

We burned this one off in a week, and honestly, I’m surprised it took that long.

 

It’s far too rare that a show knows that it’s ending, and it’s even more rare when they have an entire year to plan.  Parks knew it’s last season was coming, and they didn’t have to live in fear of ending halfway through a season, or of suddenly getting renewed. 

 

When they were gone, they were gone.

 

And so we got what might not have been the BEST season of Parks, but one that was certainly the most gratifying.

 

Even with the short order, we eventually got two seasons of TV.  The first one was Leslie winning one more big park.  If the show had ended there, it would have been perfectly lovely and I’m sure that fans of the show would have been overjoyed to see it happen.

 

Then came the second half of the season, which a friend of mine dubbed: Everyone gets what they want.

 

And it really was.

 

The “second” season was, quite simply, one person after another wrapping up their bits of business and moving (happily) on to whatever came next. 

 

In certain hands, things like that don’t work.

 

(See: The last season of Glee, where everyone spent the latter half of the season bouncing around aimlessly and pointlessly, and then we got the season finale where everything turned out AMAZING for everyone, ever.)

 

But with Parks… I dunno.  I guess I just wanted these people to be happy.  Which is dumb, since they aren’t real people, but still…

 

In all seriousness, however, the season worked because it was earned.  And while the laughs weren’t always as big as in previous seasons, we got Leslie and Ron in their own episode, which deserves about 15 Emmys.  And we got a whole show where Chris Pratt got to be completely ridiculous, and proved why he’s suddenly a massive box-office star who can carry three giant movies in two years.

 

And there are all the flash-forwards in the finale, where we get to see how awesome everything becomes. 

 

Too sappy, probably.  And in years to come I can see people claiming it’s a weak season that spent too much time making everyone’s lives too perfect.  But I don’t care.

 

Community:

 

Community season six. 

 

So, that happened.  On Yahoo.

 

Community has long been a show under the gun, which turned the last three seasons into… I’m not even sure.  Something bizarre, that’s for sure.

 

We’ve got the fourth season, where the creator was gone and the show kinda-sorta carried on and was still funny, but not quite right. 

 

There was the fifth season, where the creator came back and two cast members left, and the show once again never quite found its bearings.  It was funny, it had some great episodes, but it was a lesser show.  One that spent a lot of time trying to recreate fan-favorite episodes in a sort of greatest-hits way.

 

And then there was the sixth season.  Where everything really started to crumble.

 

The problem can be pretty easily summarized in two parts:

 

First, I think they were just out of stories to tell.  That’s not abnormal for a sixth-season show, really.  They tried to do some of-the-moment stories, tried to revisit some well-loved bits of business, and while the show was still funny, it often felt like one more return to the well.  A victory lap for a for that wasn’t quite up to taking one.

 

Second: The cast.  They lost two cast members last year, and another one this year.  Except, they also lost the two cast members they built up LAST year to replace the two they lost in the first place.

 

So they slotted some people in, and the new guys were game, but… this show was, at its center, about a tight-knit group of friends who ended up together despite their differences.

 

And by the end, it was about a bunch of people in each other’s orbit for no real reason.

 

In particular, Abed spent the entire season stranded.  Without Troy to bounce off of, he went from a fun character who existed in his own world but took Troy along with him… to an oddball who never really connected with anyone.

 

That might be why the final episode worked as well as it did for me.  In the end, everyone (just about) headed off into the world, indicating that, yes, the show was over, and that, yes, things change and that’s both hard and sad.

 

Was it a terrible year?  I think the “true” fans, as opposed to the casual ones like myself, were probably hit the hardest by this year, and I’m glad that the final plug is finally pulled. 

 

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt:

 

I’m going to say something NO ONE else has been willing to say:

 

NBC was right.  They were right to cancel and/or never air this show.

 

They were right to keep it away from themselves.

 

They were right to let Netflix pick it up.

 

And here’s why. In an alternate universe, critics pick up the first few episodes of Kimmy.  They review it, and it falls into the B/B-/C+ arena.

 

And why not?  It’s an odd show, with odd characters that work very hard to exist in a semi-fantasy world.  There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s a sitcom after all, but I can easily see the first episode barely grabbing an audience, a second losing half the people who saw the first, and then it’s gone.

 

Whereas, the way it was released, well, it’s Netflix.  You turn the show on, and you let it roll.

 

That’s where Kimmy starts to work.  It’s not that it’s bad at first, but it takes a while to settle in and get used to the odd little fantasy world that’s somewhat like the real world, but not really.  And it’s perfectly bite-sized, which means you can watch an episode while you eat your dinner, watch another while you eat dessert, and then run through two more as you think about doing other things but figure you’d rather sit on your comfy couch and, you know, NOT do chores.

 

Three nights of that, you’ve watched the first season, and you’re kind of in love with the show.

 

Look, the show is funny.  Sometimes it goes for big laughs, but mostly it’s the charming story of a girl who spent ten years in an underground bunker, her gay roommate, and various other weirdos who cross her path.

 

It’s a charming show, and charming works better when you can control the pipeline a bit. 

 

I’m happy that Kimmy got a full season, and I’m also happy that it’s getting a second one.  I’m curious to see what they can do with the world they built.

 

I’m more curious to see if this should have stayed one delightful, charming, season. 

 

We shall see.

American Idol: Season 14 Arrives

I’ve told the story before, but I only started watching American Idol when of my wife’s co-workers tried to get on the show.

 

The irony was, he made it to the judges… but didn’t appear on TV. 

 

Mostly, at the time, this led me to two comments – 1) why show all those terrible auditions and NOT show his?  Isn’t that cruel?  2) So, are we done?

 

My wife stated that, no, now she was curious to see how it played out, and I spent most of the season stating that, essentially, I liked a lot of the performers, but I was never going to be their record.

 

This has proved to be mostly true.  Over the course of the last few seasons, I’ve bought both of Phillip Phillips releases, the second of which I should review here at some point, and a Kelly Clarkson Best Of that mostly taught me that even over the course of a bunch of records, she only released maybe four songs I actually want to hear more than once or twice.

 

I mean, nothing against her.  She seems nice.  But, I’m just not digging her scene.

 

(Oh, and here’s the capsule review of Phillips’ second record – it’s more consistent than his first, and the better record overall.  But there were exactly zero THIS IS A HIT songs on it, and I’m not surprised it vanished from the charts pretty quickly.)

 

At any rate, we’re three years away from Phillip x2 now, and the last two Idol records tanked.  People who lost the competition in the past came out and sold two and three and four times as many records as the actual winners of the last two years.

 

Oddly, Randy Jackson, who gave worthless advice and platitudes every year I watched him, correctly nailed the issue with those two records – it’s ALL about the songs.

 

With that in mind, I find myself watching the current season and thinking what I’ve BEEN thinking the last few years:

 

My favorites will eventually be swept away.

 

The person with the best voice will probably win.

 

And then make a record I don’t care about at all.  Even the tiniest bit.

 

I mean, let’s talk about last year for a second, wherein Alex made it almost all the way to the top.  And then got knocked out, which is fine.  I get that.

 

BUT.

 

Idol didn’t release most of his performances.  And there were some very good ones that didn’t come out, and could have at least made for a fun collection.

 

And over a year later, he hasn’t released his own record.

 

And I ask: What is stopping him?

 

He’s got a lot of Idol money sitting around.  And he’s got YouTube.  The man doesn’t need a label, and after the sales of the last few Idol winners, no label is coming for him.  He could have a record out now.  Nothing is preventing it.

 

Instead, his web site is dead, and his YouTube channel has… a cover he released two months ago.

 

I think I’m more down on this year because I’ve come to realize that even if these guys can sing, it doesn’t mean anything for their career.  What they need are songs.  And those songs have to be something I actually want to buy.

 

They have made some wise choices for the competition.  A lot of the episodes this year were an hour instead of two, and I got SO much of my life back.

 

Plus I didn’t have to listen to the judges yapping.  That was GREAT.  They seem like they’re probably decent people, but when has anything any one of them has ever said actually made a singer better?  Or won them more votes?

 

So let’s crunch the show back down to an hour soon, shall we?

 

All that said, here’s how I suspect the show will shake out.  As always, my top five will be wildly wrong, but everything below that should come out within one or two steps.

 

Here we go, from bottom to top:

 

Quentin Alexander

 

The bad news is, I think Quentin might produce the most interesting record, if he ever got near a studio.  And he has a look, which means something.

 

The problem is, he just isn’t connecting with the audience in any way.   He might be able to fix that, but I don’t think he’s going to have enough time to make it happen.  He’s another guy who could really use a YouTube boost.

 

Adanna Duru

 

I’ll admit it, I think she’s got a great voice.  But she has pitch issues, which is death, and honestly something about the way she looks into the camera makes me uncomfortable.   No one else has mentioned it, so maybe it’s just me.

 

Daniel Seavey

 

This kid.  He’s super talented.  He is.  But he has no stage presence, and even though Tyanna is only about a year older than he is, he looks like he’s performing at a high school talent show and she owns the stage.

 

Rayvon Owen

 

This guy… I love his voice.  I do.  And he’s clearly worked a stage before.  Also: Check out his name on YouTube and pull up his song Sweatshirt, which is adorable.

 

He’s going to lose, because he’s just a wonderful old-school balladeer.  But I hope this gives him the push to get himself a full-time singing gig.

 

Maddie Walker

 

I admit it, I’m just not much of a country guy, and nothing she’s done blows me away.  I suspect the country contingent will pull for her (they put TWO country people at the top the year Scotty won, after all) but I don’t see her lasting forever.

 

Nick Fradiani

 

This guy.  I’m tired of people talking about how old he is already.  He gives good performance.  But I’m still waiting for him to just go out there and SLAY a song.  Instead, he’s onstage being the worlds most handsome street performer.

 

It’ll catch up to him, because there are other people who also do that, and DO kill their vocals.

 

Joey Cook

 

Too quirky to last, she’ll almost certainly drop out before this.  She’s Casey all over again, really.  But I’m enjoying her work, and even if she isn’t the one creating her arrangements, she’s been smart enough to be HERSELF so far, instead of doing something straight.

 

I applaud that.  And I’d totally think about buying her record…

 

Qaasim Middleton

 

What a nice kid.  Amazing dancer.  Great performer.  I am not yet convinced he can sing. 

 

Jax

 

Oy.  This could be troubling, actually, as up until now she did oddball little covers that emphasized a certain SOMETHING in her voice that clearly worked.

 

And then last night she sang and that tone was gone.

 

So does she fake the tone?  Or did she fake NOT having the tone?

 

Either way, she showed that she can, in fact, be boring and do karaoke way too early in the season.  So she could be a “surprise” elimination.

 

If it prevents her from doing more of what she did last night, I’d be fine with that.

 

Clark Beckham

 

This guy.  Remember when he auditioned, and he was good but kind of boring?  Who gave him performance lessons?  I can’t think of any time I was this shocked to watch someone come out and just nail his songs.

 

Tyanna Jones

 

She’s got winner written all over her.  She’s got the voice.  She’s got the moves.  At some point in this competition, she will whip out a gospel song and make a bunch of people cry.

 

Then she’ll release a record with no hit songs on a country label, and that will be the last we hear of her…

 

And so it goes.

A Farewell to Glee

It only occurs to me, as I type this, that Glee has developed an odd kind of symmetry.

 

The first part of the first season – a season in itself, really – was about a man trying to put his life back together by bringing back the group he loved in high school.

 

And now, it’s about some broken people… trying to put together their lives by bringing back a group they were in, back in high school.

 

It also occurs to me, for the first time, just how woefully pathetic that concept is.

 

Look, I enjoyed parts of high school.  But I realized, years later, that the parts I enjoyed were firmly outnumbered by the parts I didn’t enjoy. 

 

More to the point, exactly NO ONE ever, ever, ever wants to go back to high school.   I get teaching, as I’ve been one and I loved it.  But to actually try to return, after a fashion?

 

No.  If high school was the best part of your life, I suspect you should talk to someone about that, and figure out what it’s going to take to make your future better than that one time you won that game that almost no one even remembers today.

 

So.

 

So now Glee is in its final season, and it feels, alternately, like they’re trying to do two things.

 

First, they need to run out the clock.  And that hasn’t gone well.  At all.  It’s led to things like Sue building a fake elevator and trapping people in it, which sounds stupid even if you pretend we’re talking about a terrible, mostly-forgotten 80s sitcom.

 

There’s the fact that the show has now, several times, flat-out admitted that it was a TV show, and that its time is limited.

 

It has tossed semi-interesting plotlines at us, and then resolved them immediately because there’s no time to actually address them.  Which has always kind of been Glee’s thing, but it’s even worse now.

 

And on the other side of things, they’re trying to resolve whatever plot points they don’t want dangling.

 

So characters are getting married, and pairing off, and mostly just trying to cram unearned happy endings in wherever they can, so they can go out on a high note.  (Pun not really intended.)

 

Ultimately, Glee has frequently been able to get MOMENTS of the show to matter, and so I suspect the final episode will have a certain functional power.  It will be the last time we see these characters, because the show’s popularity is in the toilet now, and there will be no reunion movie.

 

Heck, so why even talk about the show at this point?  The last day of shooting has already been and gone.  There’s no way to fix what’s coming in the next couple of weeks.

 

I dunno.

 

Well, okay, I do.

 

I want to take a minute to talk about the things that Glee did RIGHT, even though it didn’t do them very often these last couple of years.

 

So here we go.

 

Glee introduced me to a lot of music I might have missed otherwise.

I’ve mused on this before, but I live in a radio-free world now.  I’m old enough and have a large enough collection of music that I can simply buy new stuff by artists I already know, and listen to records I already have.

 

I can become like so many other people my age, who haven’t listened to a new song in five years, haven’t discovered a new artist in ten. 

 

The people who think that Ben Folds is a new and exciting artist, even though his first record came out 20 years ago.

 

(Don’t get me wrong.  I love Ben Folds.  But if you make it 20 years in this business, you’re an elder statesman, not a young up-and-comer.)

 

Glee kept me from getting too complacent.  Or at the very least, kept me somewhat on the pulse of what was going on in music today.

 

And there were other good things, musically.  They put out three solid Christmas records that have become family favorites.  They produced some truly excellent arrangements and mashups.

 

And while they didn’t do it often, a few times a season they produced a version of a song I liked more than the original. 

 

(And man, why did they never release another Warblers record?  The first one is easily my favorite of the Glee releases…)

 

So that’s the music.

 

Everything from here?  It comes with an asterisk.

 

Inclusion was the second thing I thought of, when pondering the things that Glee did right.  It had white and black and Asian and straight and gay and bi and trans and someone with Down’s syndrome and a person in a wheelchair, and… and I’m sure there are more, though I can’t think of them right at this exact second.

 

Of course, there’s the other side of that coin, that asterisk, where we have to admit the show thought it was hilarious that most of those people were horrible human beings, who said and did outrageous things that would get you arrested in real life.

 

But on a TV landscape that features only a few of these types, Glee at least made an attempt.

 

And finally ,there are… those moments that I spoke of.

 

I remember early in the first season of Glee, a friend of mine noted with surprise that her husband was watching the show with her.  “The musical numbers are really entertaining!” he said, with a smile.

 

I nodded.

 

“But some of the storylines…”  He paused.  I wasn’t sure if he didn’t know what to say, or if he was worried about hurting my feelings.

 

“The show is deeply, deeply, deeply stupid,” I said.  “You have to accept that if you’re going to watch it.  Most of these people don’t react the way actual human beings would.”

 

And yet, there were moments on the show that really worked.  That, even divorced from logic, could make you feel.  You can argue it’s just a matter of pushing certain buttons, but it takes the right dialogue, the right actors, the right direction, and Glee COULD get there.

 

Which puts sets me down at maybe the best thing Glee ever really did.  Which was to take Mike O’Malley and make him the absolute heart of the show.

 

Here’s a man who has spent most of his working life trapped in so-so sitcoms, and pushing cable TV.  But Glee used him for something more. 

 

I’m not sure how a show that chewed up Jane Lynch and turned her into a ridiculous caricature left Mike’s work alone.  Maybe it’s because he wasn’t on the show that often.  Maybe it’s because Mike is just that good.

 

But when the dust settles, I can only hope Mike gets a chance to do this kind of thing again, because he’s marvelous.

 

March will come to a close, and with it, the Glee saga, such as it is.  The show is in syndication, and you can buy it in various formats and… that won’t happen, for me.

 

I can’t see going through this journey (hah!) a second time.  There’s too little great to offset the too much awful.

 

The show is over now, and the cast is, I’m sure, scrambling for work.  Coming off a big hit, they might have found fast homes all over the dial.

 

But I think this is the end of the line for many of them. 

 

And that’s okay.  For a moment, they were all icons on the biggest show on TV. 

 

Would that we could all be so lucky once in our lives.

 

So long, Glee.  Thanks for the good times.

 

Sorry I was forced to stop believing. 

What I'm Watching: Finales Part III

I confess I feel a little strange addressing some of these endings almost a month after they aired.

 

But on the other side of the coin, it’s given me some time to ruminate and for some things to happen, some of which I think are important to the future of TV as we know it today.

 

So let’s start with the big one.

 

Glee:

 

I’m trying to figure out the exact moment I realized that my enthusiasm for Glee was just plain shot.

 

I know part of it came from pulling the 100th episode collection out of plastic and putting it in the CD player.  The show hasn’t done many compilations over the last few years, and it’s harder and harder to find the recordings on actual discs now.

 

Any why?  Because they don’t sell very well now.

 

In their first and second year, they went Gold and Platinum on a regular basis.  Now? 

 

Now they barely chart, and when they do, it’s not for long.

 

This one was touted as kind of a big deal – a full recording, based on episode 100 and 101, with a few new songs and some fun re-recordings of some old favorites.

 

But what did we get from it, really?  That’s harder to gauge.  I had listened to the whole thing before I realized that no one singing on it had joined the show after season two.  The remake of Loser Like Me nicely demonstrates that a catchy song can be reworked a bit and still be fun.

 

And we get a fourth version of Don’t Stop Believing, which despite only minor changes, just isn’t as wonderful as that first version.

 

To summarize: The soundtrack offered mostly just reminds how much I used to enjoy the show, and how much my interest has waned.

 

There are other issues as well.  Ohio was dropped from the show, post-episode 100, and I thought that perhaps the show would get a shot in the arm.  Instead, once again, all characters added after season two are now a distant memory. 

 

Which is the say, the show was/is desperately trying to dump nearly two seasons of characters, which they previously (I guess) wanted us to invest in and care about.

 

So we got to spend time with a bunch of people re-hashing stories we’ve pretty much already covered.  Blaine and Kurt are still together, in some strange on-again/off-again way.  They put Sam and Mercedes back together, even though I can think of exactly zero people who ever got invested in them the first time around.  They put Brittany and Santana back together, but forgot to put Brittany back on the show on a regular basis, and never mentioned where she might be.

 

And overall the show became the “Rachel gets everything she wants and acts totally irresponsible and it’s all okay for her” story.

 

And the show had, like, two endings in this season alone.  One where the glee club ended, and one where Sam decides to go back to Ohio because “everyone else is leaving,” even though only Rachel and Mercedes are leaving, and only temporarily, most likely.

 

And then the show ended with a happy song, and the club is over, and… and it felt like a real ending, even though season three felt like a real ending, and the glee club ending felt like a real ending, and…

 

And there was other weirdness. 

 

The show has already been renewed for season six, but the guy who ran Fox said that he was going to have to talk to the folks at Glee about a shortened season, because Glee actually got beaten by a show on the CW.

 

On its finale night, the one time everyone is supposed to check back in with their used-to-be-favorite shows just to see how they wrap up.

 

Except Fox guy is gone, was either quit or fired, depending on how you look at it.

 

Sooo… what happens now?

 

Here’s the deal.

 

I can’t envision a show where the ratings on Glee ever recover.  The only scenario I can see that happen is this: They hit the reboot button hard.  They actually fix all the problems that show has (weak writing, unmotivated characters, characters changing fundamental things about how they act within THE SAME SCENE, an overall trend towards meanness for the sake of being mean, etc.).

 

They work extra hard to get creative in their arrangements, instead of offering note-for-not karaoke on far, far too many song choices.

 

Mostly, the show needs to be what it used to be about – the joy that can be found even in the struggles we have to live with.  Because lately, it has mostly just been about succeeding and succeeding some more.

 

Unfortunately, I can’t see next season as anything other than a write-off.

 

If the show is going to make a comeback, it’s going to need to improve to a level of Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad – something so good and so compelling people need to come back on board.

 

But I don’t think the show can really put together a solid 13 (or worse, 6) episode season that will tie off the last few story threads in a satisfactory manner.

 

Really, the big question is, who is left to even care about.  Santana?  Mercedes?

 

Does anyone really want to know what becomes of Blaine in the future?

 

If I were running Fox, I’d call it a day on the show.  The only other choice is to drag the characters together for no real reason to get us involved in stories that are going to come to an abrupt end just a few episodes down the road.

 

They might be able to make a 22 episode season that tells a complete story, and go out well, but I don’t see that happening.

 

And I suppose it’s worth mentioning that, yes, this far in, I’ll be on my couch catching the last few dregs of the show as they work their way down the drain.

 

Sometimes you have to see it through.  But I suspect I’ll be one of the few.

 

Agents of SHIELD:

 

From the saddest ending to the one that pleased me probably the most, I guess.  Because Agents played a long game and made it work.

 

I remember Joss Whedon saying years ago that his new series (I forget whether it was Dollhouse or Firefly) would have seven episodes in a row, all of which could be a pilot.  And I think that’s what happened here, where the show had to make sure EVERYONE was on board before moving forward.

 

And that killed them.

 

They had to tie themselves to movie release schedules.

 

That killed them.

 

And people just expected the show to be great from the word go, even though pretty much every show, ever, needs some time to really find its feet.

 

And that killed them.

 

And then… then they turned it all around.

 

The last episode of the first season was the most Whedon-y episode I think I’ve seen outside of a full-on Whedon show.  It was funny.  It had some great action.  It had hilarious conversations taking the air out of the sails of the villain. 

 

It even had a delightful bad guy moment in the final seconds of the episode.

 

The truth, of course, is that the show is still beholden to the Marvel universe around it, and that is going to murder their momentum in the future.

 

Will that kill them in the end?  Possibly.  But I’m hoping that getting the last few episodes out the door and getting the ratings back up a bit will install a trust in the show folks for the future.  I think they’ve earned it.

 

Good job, folks.  I had fun.  Sorry everyone else was so whiny about it.

 

Modern Family:

 

What is there to say about Modern Family at this point, I wonder? 

 

The show powers along, and it spent the year working up to the marriage of the two gay men on the show.  They tried to make it funny and poignant, and I think everyone who wanted that got it.

 

The show has gone through five seasons now, and as it moves on from here it’s going to get harder and harder to be creative, to service the many characters on the show, and to come up with new and exciting ways to keep the show moving.

 

And yet, they can still pull out great moments – like the impossibly well-oiled Vegas episode. 

 

As long as the show can still offer up one or two of those a season, I’m in.

 

Parks and Recreation:

 

Parks is coming back for one more season after this, but much like Glee, I kind of wish that it wouldn’t.  This season was clearly designed to feel like a conclusion, as everyone found love or otherwise got the happy ending they deserved, whether by getting married, having babies, or moving on with their lives.

 

Much was made of the fact that the show wasn’t as good as it used to be, but I disagree.  Watching the season in the course of a week (as my wife and I always do) revealed the usual flaws, the jokes that come back a little too often, yes, but more importantly, the show let all the characters grow up a little, and change, and get to where they needed to be.

 

The thing of it is, the ending was lovely, and now, much like Glee, the show is supposed to come back for a short season where everything is different.

 

When that happens, you get things like the ninth season of Scrubs, where it’s too different for many folks, who just go ahead and abandon ship.  And the rhythms are a little different, and you have to deal with a new pilot, and just as you get invested… it’s over.

 

I’ll admit, I want more Parks, because I love Parks.  But it ended in a good place, and I suspect that the next year will end with a whimper, not a bang.

 

What I'm Watching: Finales Part II

Ending things can be tough.

 

A season ending is tricky, because you have to wrap things up, and maybe leave a little question at the end of the season so that people will come back next year.

 

And then there’s a series ending, which is tougher, because you have to wrap up everything, but still leave just the smallest little crack open in the event that everything that comes out next year crashes and burns and they have to bring you back for another 13 episodes.

 

I’m still covering beginnings and endings, so here’s part two of that – which is all endings, this time around.

 

Warehouse 13:

 

I wanted to start with this show just because, even though it took a while to get great, it did make it there.

 

And then it went back to being good.

 

(Here I’m talking about the series as a whole…)

 

I think it’s that “good” –ness that prevented the show from running longer.  When I read that the final season was going to be a mere six episodes to wrap everything up, no protests were launched, no write-in campaigns to make it keep going were put out in the world.

 

Nope.

 

Instead, we got a quick final season, one that shunted off Myka’s cancer and said, “Uh, that’s not important,” and tore through Claudia’s sister story at Mach 5.

 

And look, we knew this is what we were getting into.  So they told it as best they could, but if we’re being honest, there was NO way to get all the parts and pieces to land emotionally in six episodes.

 

And in the end, they didn’t even have six.  They crammed it into five so they could get to the finale.

 

Was that the right choice?  Yeah, I think it was.  Another episode wouldn’t really have helped their case, and it would have brought the show to a sudden halt with no emotional closure, I think.

 

And even with the sister storyline, they snuck in a couple of fun side quests to a Ren Faire and a Mexican soap opera, complete with callbacks to old characters.  It was a chance to hang out with these guys one last time, and for me that made the first give worthwhile.

 

The struggle of the final episode is, of course, whether to end things completely, or whether to just end, and say that tomorrow is another day.

 

And Warehouse 13 split that hair.  Everyone is told the Warehouse is moving, and that a new staff will come on when it goes to another country.  So they all have to put their defining moment into a sort of time capsule…

 

Which means they get to sneak a few extra “lost” capers into the show.  And have a clips show of a sort.  And…

 

The thing of it is, they did it all. They even put Pete and Myka together, which was sweet, though I’m not sure how many people were clamoring for it. 

 

And at the end, they’re off to work another case, with the Warehouse moving “sometime in the future.”

 

I don’t think the final season of Warehouse was perfect, because it was just a little too truncated.  Perhaps ten episodes might have been enough…

 

But the finale tried, and succeeded, at giving everyone everything they could have wanted. 

 

At the very least, I feel okay saying goodbye.

 

American Idol:

 

Word has already come down that next season will fill 37 hours instead of more than 50, that they want to get the same set of judges back, and that they think the season went all right, and…

 

If I could abandon the show, I would.  But I’m guessing my wife will be interested in what comes next.

 

For me, it was a year of larger and larger disappointments.  Once again, two people I don’t want a record from went head-to-head.  Nothing against them, I just don’t care about what’s next from them.

 

As for Alex, who I finally decided I was kinda rooting for?  The day he was cut, I went online and decided to download all his songs from the season.  Only I guess he didn’t record a bunch of them.  Including a couple I considered essential.

 

So, meh.

 

Even Jena, whose finest performance was almost certainly I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You?  I hope you didn’t want to hear that again, because you can’t download it anywhere.

 

Ultimately, the best thing I got out of the season was the knowledge that there’s a musical artist named Mali Music, and that he wrote a really lovely song called Beautiful.  I wish his record was out already.

 

And here’s hoping Alex doesn’t vanish, the way every single person from last year on Idol did…

 

The Big Bang Theory:

 

You know what surprises me? 

 

Big hasn’t had any real reason to change over the years.  Reruns of the show often pull in twice as many viewers as new episodes of shows going up against it.  Even on cable, in long-ago reruns, it crushes other competition.

 

And yet, they’ve been trying to fix the show just the same. 

 

The characters have moved forward, growing and changing.  The character who couldn’t talk to girls can do so now.  Sheldon has made emotional progress.  The on-again-off-again relationships have all worked themselves into a normalized on-again.

 

I still think there are probably a few too many nerd jokes, and simple references, but… you know what?  I’m going to let it go, for no other reason than because I get a few decent laughs from the show every week.

 

And more importantly, the writers seem to be trying.  Credit where credit is due, folks.

 

Supernatural:

 

So… so the spin-off didn’t happen.  And they killed a main character.  And now… he’s a demon.

 

Aaaannnnndddd… I’m happy.  This was a big, sprawling season, with some monster of the week stories and some bigger and badder big bads that got the characters deeper and deeper into trouble, which doesn’t even seem possible nine seasons in.

 

And yet.

 

Some people are into this idea, and some people are writing it off as something that will just revert to the status quo halfway through the next season, as many of these storylines do.

 

Will it?  That’s an excellent question, for which I have no real answer.  I just hope the writers do.

 

And after two highly enjoyable seasons, I trust the writers.