Time for "What did you watch last week?", my chance to tell you what I watched last week that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case we’ve missed them.
My recommendations for maximum viewing pleasure this week: Archer, Dexter, The Daily Show, Modern Family, Happy Endings and Community.
Things you might enjoy but that I’m not necessarily recommending: Being Erica, Strike Back: Project Dawn, and Ringer.
Since last week, we’ve had a few cancellations, so I’ve delayed watching the remaining episodes of The Playboy Club and How To Be A Gentleman because there’s not much point.
We’ve also had another attack of "second episode-itis", in which a number of new TV shows with almost acceptable first episodes had second episodes too dreadful to carry on watching. The culprits were:
- Pan Am: despite the lovingly recreated New York of the 60s, the complete absence of interesting plot or characters meant I was practically catatonic within the first 10 minutes.
- Terra Nova: has mysteriously turned into Star Trek: The Any Series That Had Brannon Braga as a Showrunner. While better than the first episode, it was still deathly dull with a plethora of Wesley Crushers in desperate need of being eaten by dinosaurs and a great big chunk of technobabble being used to save the day. It did give us a visual nod to The Birds, but that’s as interesting as it got. If you’re a teenage boy, you’ll probably love it. Everyone else, stay clear.
Shamefully, Suburgatory, the big new comedy surprise, had a very poor second episode, totally lacking in the satirical bite and laughs of the first episode. It’s on the watch list now. Up All Night‘s fourth episode was dreadful so I’ve crossed that off the viewing list.
A few thoughts on some of the regulars:
- Community: in the last two weeks, might actually have passed over from being funny into the realm of "too weird and too dark". Worrying.
- Modern Family: Starting to feel a little tired, now. It needs to start being original again, rather than retreading old ground.
- Being Erica: If you were expecting any big changes of format with the first episode of the new season, now that Erica’s become a doctor, think again. It’s gone back to the first season formula. Oh well. But let’s see if episode two perks it up.
- Strike Back: Seriously, is there something in the contract that stipulates there should be one topless woman per episode?
Still in my viewing pile: last night’s Dexter, episode two of Being Erica, the third episode of Prime Suspect, the first episode of the very NSFW American Horror Story, and episode two of Homeland.
I didn’t watch any movies this week, I’m afraid.
But what have you been watching?
"What did you watch last week?" is your chance to recommend to friends and fellow blog readers the TV and films that they might be missing or should avoid – and for me to do mini-reviews of everything I’ve watched. Since we live in the fabulous world of Internet catch-up services like the iPlayer and Hulu, why not tell your fellow readers what you’ve seen so they can see the good stuff they might have missed?
