2013 TV Post 1

Believe it or not, the wife and I still have time for television despite a 2 and a half year old occupying the majority of our time.  The little guy is quite a handful but once he's down for the night we like to spend a relaxing evening watching television (and eating lots of junk food).  I'll just go through some of the shows we've watched this week. 

The Blacklist
The premise of this show is a most wanted criminal shows up at the FBI's front door and surrenders and wants to help.  That's the gist of it.  The underlying theme is similar to Silence of the Lambs except the maximum-security criminal is not a sicko.  Like Hannibal Lector, this guy only wants to talk to one person who if I had to guess, is probably his long lost daughter that he abandoned at a very young age. Just a wild guess.

Bottom line: This show has potential.  James Spader plays the criminal and it's the perfect role for Spader because he is great at roles where he gets to talk a lot while everyone listens, or playing an a-hole.  Robert Downey Jr would also have done a good job here.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Marvel hits the tube in this one where it follows a team of people that I assume will search for less-powerful heroes and try to get them on their side before criminal organizations get to them first to make them into bad guys.  None of the real Avengers will show up because it probably costs too much to get them a guest appearance, but the show is very much in that Avengers' Universe and those superheroes are referenced often.

Bottom line: It's Joss Whedon and it's ABC.  If it were FOX, the network that cancels all my favorite shows I'd probably not bother watching but ABC is relatively safe.  They're also a network that does not have a lot of highly rated shows unless you count Dancing With Stars as a show.  They have a bunch of long-running series and are known for that (LOST, Grey's Anatomy) and they tend to stick with shows a little longer than some of the more trigger happy networks (damn you FOX).

Modern Family
Modern Family is starting to get old for me.  I loved the concept of how they interviewed the members of the family separately and the humor, but that fresh style has become old.  I'm finding more and more that I can sit through an entire episode and laugh only once or twice compared to laughing the entire time and chuckling to myself hours later. 

I think that MF is slowly falling into the trap that many other sitcoms fall into, which is where the characters slowly unravel because the writers get too focused on one aspect of the character.  It's like they become stereotypes of themselves, if that makes any sense. 

Bottom line: It's a super popular show and will continue to be that because there's really not much else on. 

Bones
I grew tired of this show because the cases aren't interesting enough at once Booth and Brennan got together it essentially killed the drama for the non-case side of the spectrum of this show. 

Bottom line: This show needs to end.  Even my wife is kind of hoping this show ends soon, and she's been a loyal follower since the beginning.

Revolution
Last year they ended it off with a bang.  The power came back on for a few minutes, someone launched a bunch of nukes and we were told that the President was still alive and was going to make his way back.  This season we found out that the nukes did detonate, taking out half the USA.  But the old crew survived and now were in another town dealing with some ruffians.

Bottom line: I don't think this show will last beyond this current season.  I've said this before -- this show is Walking Dead without the zombies.  It's a Western that is masquerading as a science fiction and their cover has been blown.