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Thu, Jun 25, 09 - Arrested Development, Night
Court, Jason Of Star Command

post from A Briefing With Michael on 04 July 2009 09:40:00 AM. © A Briefing With Michael

12.00 Arrested Development
12.30 Night Court
01.00 Jason Of Star Command

Arrested Development. Episode 9. "Storming the Castle" Michael tries to split Gob from his girlfriend, by sneaking her into the magic act.

I've been a Jason Bateman fan through many of his TV series and (now) movies appearences. In Arrested Development, he plays the straight guy most of the time. He totally makes the show for me, but - in general - he doesn't do things that are funny. He plays it straight. Except in this episode, when he gets around Marta and goes all goofy. It's hilarious. And one of my favourite things about the character/show.

At this stage the show's development, some of the characters are being well served by on-going storylines. All of Buster's scenes are driven by his relationship with his mother's friend, Gob's plots are mostly about his attempts to get back into the Magic Circle, every time we see Maeby it ends up being about her feelings for her feelings and Tobias is on a quest for a job. Or something. Other characters, like Lindsay and Lucille are more at-sea, still, with only the strength of the performers to carry them.

Night Court. Episode 11. "Harry and the Rock Star" Kristine DeBell guests in a dumb episode about the pains of celebrity romance. She's great, but it's a silly episode.

The story is told from a quaint ultra-conservative viewpoint. DeBell plays a Rock Star whose fans are oddballs and freaks, and whose music is represented as tuneless noise. Meaning, I suppose, that this episode is aimed at the most middle-of-the-road viewer imaginable. A fuddy-duddy who thinks 'kids' and their 'rock music' are strange and bizarre.

Disappointing.

Jason Of Star Command. Episode 5. "Wiki to the Rescue" Nicole rescues Jason and The Princess, and they manage to sabotage the Dragonship, while Dragos threatens everyone on Space Academy.

Good, harmless fun. Sid Haig is amazing and this episode turns the comedy sidekick (played by Charlie Dell) into a hero. Parsafoot is the only regular left on Space Academy to deal with Dragos, so it falls to him to tell the evil despot to go take a flying leap. This is the highlight of the episode for me.

I hate W1k1. The tiny robot is mildly annoying and the writers have made him omnipotent as a lazy way to resolve stuff. All that I can stomach. However, the cute music that accompanies his every appearance is very hard to stomach.

Highlight? Arrested Development (Jason Bateman)
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Wed, Jun 24, 09 - Arrested Development, Better
Off Ted

post from A Briefing With Michael on 04 July 2009 09:38:00 AM. © A Briefing With Michael

08.30 Arrested Development
09.00 Arrested Development
09.30 Better Off Ted

Arrested Development. Episode 1. "Pilot" Shorter version of the pilot, with swear words beeped out.

It cuts out the Cowboy references, pardner, and seems to push the (lack of) bond between Michael and his twin sister a tiny bit more.

Arrested Development. Episode 8. "In God We Trust" The Living Classics Pagent.

John Michael Higgins and Henry Winkler join the show in this episode for the first of several appearences. Both are hilarious. Interesting to see a show with 9 strong/funny regular characters being able to add two to the mix, for an episode, and not miss a beat.

There are some wonderful Michael/Lindsay scenes in this one. AD is not a warm and fuzzy TV show, thank goodness, but the sap in me still likes it when the character behave as if they do like each other once in a while.

Buster has now come into his own, now, as a character. The love affair with Lucille Austero really served to define the character.

Better Off Ted. Episode 8. "You Are the Boss of Me" Medieval Fight Club.

The most inventive episode so far, and probably the funniest. It's A+ stuff from start to finish.

Both plots are (cleverly) driven by the idea of underlings being friends with their bosses. In the a-plot, Ted pals around with Phil and Lem in Medieval Fight Club. Yes, Medieval Fight Club...

Meanwhile, in the b-plot, Veronica befriends Linda and showers her with her most intimate secrets, causing Linda to fear that she will be fired because she 'knows too much'. It's a wonderful, wonderful storyline. For a start it's great to see any show (comedy or otherwise) casting two women in a tale that has nothing to do with romance, rivalry or anything that defines them in relation to men. Secondly, Andrea Anders and Portia de Rossi are two of television's funniest performers. They could make anything funny. And this script is a delight. At one stage, Andrea Anders declared that she was 'fit shaced'. That's perfection.

Finally, Anders ends the episode dressed as Xena, Warrior Princess. I can die happy...

Highlight? Better Off Ted (Anders as Xena, fit shaced, etc.)
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Tue, Jun 23, 09 - Arrested Development, Royal
Pains

post from A Briefing With Michael on 04 July 2009 09:24:00 AM. © A Briefing With Michael

08.30 Arrested Development
09.00 Royal Pains

Arrested Development. Episode 7. "My Mother, the Car" Lucille frames Michael for a car accident.

And Gob comes to the rescue. My favourite part of the whole episode comes when Gob rushes to the rescue because he and Michael are brothers and kinda like one another! Awesome stuff.

Michael's amnesia is wonderfully handled. It's funny in it own right, yes, the show makes it hilarious by having Lucille conk him over the head with something every time he comes close to remembering stuff.

Royal Pains. Episode 3. "Strategic Planning" A senator's son falls ill, and it must be kept secret.

The case-of-the-week is fine, but I'm a bit worried by the type of patient. The show's first two episodes featured a recurring character called Tucker who is a teen with an obnoxious over-bearing father (Andrew McCarthy). This third episode features a patient who is a teen with an obnoxious over-bearing mother (Margaret Colin)!!

Huh? Surely they have more than one story to tell? Surely Hank can bond with more than one type of patient?

Highlight? Arrested Development (Michael's amnesia)
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'So You Think You Can Dance' July 2 Results

post from Starpulse Entertainment News - TV News on 04 July 2009 09:22:49 AM. © Starpulse Entertainment News - TV News

There were so many things that made me scream (in the bad way) at "So You Think You Can Dance" on Thursday, so let's get to it. Sometimes the judges play favorites, and so does the audience.[...] Read more!

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y_2_result

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Mon, Jun 22, 09 - Arrested Development

post from A Briefing With Michael on 04 July 2009 09:08:00 AM. © A Briefing With Michael

04.00 Arrested Development

Arrested Development. Episode 6. "Charity Drive" Lindsay visits the wetlands, Buster bids on the wrong Lucille, George Michael breaks and enters, while Michael kidnaps a stranger.

The sequence where Michael mistakes a stranger for his mother's new housekeeper and (mistakenly) kidnaps her is one of the funniest moments ever shown on AD. It simply blow me away the first time I saw it and it still brings tears of laughter to my eyes all these years later.

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Sun, Jun 21, 09 - Doctor Who, Legend Of The
Seeker, Supernatural, Arrested Development

post from A Briefing With Michael on 04 July 2009 09:02:00 AM. © A Briefing With Michael

06.30 Doctor Who
07.30 Legend Of The Seeker
08.30 Supernatural
01.00 Arrested Development

Doctor Who. Season 28, Episode 10. "Love & Monsters" The story of Elton.

Superb change-of-pace episode, finds The Doctor and Rose left out of the story, and focus shifts to a guy called Elton and his group of friends who are obsessed with finding out who The Doctor is.

Marc Warren heads a great cast, with Shirley Henderson, Peter Kay and Simon Greenall being superb as well.

The script is very funny, the story is crazy and there's an undertone of sadness and loneliness to everything that happens. That, more than anything, is what I loved most about this episode.

Legend Of The Seeker. Episode 4. "Brennidon" Richard finds the village of his birth, and a woman who claims to be his mother...

Isolated from Zed and Kahlan, Richard has a solo-adventure in a village over-run by the D'Harans. There's lots of running around, lots of hiding, lots of brave speeches in the face of oppression and a few good sword fights. The best, by far, comes at the end when Kahlan arrives and stands side-by-side with Richard to take on (and defeat) the forces of darkness. There is something spine-tinglingly wonderful about seeing the two of them working as a team.

The b-plot was amusing (is Zed a dad?) and it was nicely used to reveal something important about the backstory for the show/characters.

Supernatural. Season 4, Episode 10. "Heaven and Hell" The woman who can hear angels is revealed to be one, and the war rages on...

I was right in my belief that Anna's story would get more interesting in Part Two. However... this is still a pretty weak episode of Supernatural. Anna is revealed to be an angel and the good guys must try and get back her grace. Whatever the heck that is!!

Which is the problem. It's hard/impossible to be completely invested in a search for an abstract concept, especially when most of the regulars don't appear to be too sure about what it is themselves.

Anna, herself, is a troublesome and boring character. Her decision to stop being an angel seems a big vague, and her reasons for wanting to get her grace back are - likewise - vague and aimless. It's hard to be invested in a character who is this annoying and... vague. I'm prepared to like Kate from Lost, but one is my limit!

Dean seems to like her, however, because they make love in the back of his car. The sex scene is long, drawn-out and ridiculous. Like a scene from a parody.

Then there's the threat. Castiel and Uriel want to kill Anna to stop the forces of evil getting their hands on her. That, to me, is a silly reaction when you stop to think about it. It makes little or no sense, so it's hard to take the threat seriously. Instead of being all fearful for the good guys, I was wondering why the angels were being such dicks? Was it just to create story conflict?

Later, Ruby was captured and appeared to turn traitor. Gosh, I wondered, could this all be part of an elaborate trap? Lame.

Finally, there was Dean's big speech about his 40 years in hell. Coming at the end of a weak episode, it failed to impress me. In fact, just like his earlier sex scene, this veered into the territory of parody and made me chuckle on more an one occasion.

Oh dear...

Arrested Development. Episode 5. "Visiting Ours" Michael brings his mother to the prison for a conjugal visit with his father, Gob seduces Kitty (once in the prison) and George Michael visits the prison.

Judy Greer appears as Kitty for the first time. This was my first time to see Greer and I'm now a huge fan, having seen her in various other projects. She makes a fantastic first impression here, paired with Will Arnett for two hilarious 'love scenes'.

Michael Cera continues to generate laughter in episode after episode and - on this viewing, at least - is the one performer I'm enjoying most on the show. His visit to the prison is a series highlight, for me, and I'm especially fond of the scene where a prisoner uses the Stair Car to make an escape.

Highlight? Doctor Who (The story of Elton.)
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NY ABDC Audition Highlights: Ridonkulous

post from Blogging America's Best Dance Crew on 04 July 2009 08:54:00 AM. © Blogging America's Best Dance Crew

[...]

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onkulous.html

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Video: Finally the Michael Jackson Tribute dance
by Beat Freaks Maryss & Rino, w/ other ABDC people

[...]

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Sat, Jun 20, 09 - Scrubs, Breaking Bad,
Flashpoint, Arrested Development

06.00 Scrubs
06.30 Breaking Bad
07.30 Flashpoint
08.30 Arrested Development

Scrubs. Season 8, Episode 3. "My Saving Grace" Carla nags a mean intern, Cox works with Kelso and The Janitor to remove Courteney Cox.

Truly awful.

Not only is this episode not funny once, the whole thing is annoying and embarrasing.

I normally enjoy Neil Flynn as The Janitor, but he runs rampant in this episode and it's very hard to watch.

Carla takes an intern aside and behave like a condescending bully for 25 minutes of godawful TV.

Yuck. Is this the same show that delivered a classic episode last week? What the frak?!

Breaking Bad. Episode 1. "Breaking Bad" A mild-mannered high-school teacher turns to the manufacture and sale of drugs as a means of extra-income for his family before he dies.

Wonderful opening episode, dominated by a killer performance from the awesome Bryan Cranston.

The first half shows us his life. And it's a bleak picture. Were it not for Bryan Cranston's amazing presence I'd have tuned out. He keeps you watching.

Then, at the mid-way point, everything turns up a notch. Our hero finds out that he is dying. And he makes some odd choices...

Best moment? Walter has a total Hulk-Out moment when some jerks make fun of his kid.

Logically/Morally I know that this is all wrong, but it feels so good and this is a TV hero I very much want to root for...

Flashpoint. Episode 16. "Clean Hands" SRU must protect a serial killer.

Average story dragged down by having a member of the team taken hostage. The twist in the end is predictable, but the there's a truly superb character arc for Jessica Steen's character that saves the episode from mediocrity.

Peter Outerbridge and Kari Matchett are two of my favourite performers (particularly Outerbridge) but neither one is well-served by the script. Outerbridge's character is too similar to too many other hostage-takers the show has featured.

The show does a great job of mis-direction with regard to the character played by Matchett. For most of the episode, I thought they were introducting a new recurring character for Enrico Colantoni's Parker to get romantic with. About two-thirds of the way in, I figured out what was going on, and then it was just a matter of waiting for the twist to come... Boring.

What I did not see coming was the stuff that happened to the Jessica Steen character.

Steen is a lot like Michelle Forbes. Both of them have an admirabe track record of being regulars/semi-regulars on quality shows for short/memorable periods of time.

Steen's character affords the writers (on this show) to shake up the status quo in worthwhile ways. The regulars on Flashpoint are nice guys, very dedicated to what they are doing. The newbie character isn't quite as committed, so she gets to ask awkward questions and make everything think a little harder about what they are doing. It's good stuff and I enjoyed every minute of it. The ending (where Steen's character was the one to take the kill shot on a 'good' person, to save a serial killer) was really superb.

It's just a pity the rest of the episode didn't quite live up to it.

Arrested Development. Episode 4. "Key Decisions" Gob goes into prison to... break out! Lindsay climbs a tree to... save it! Buster takes off his glasses and finds... love?!

The first truly great Gob episode. It's hilarious and he is fantastic.

Several key elements of Arrested Development make their first appearance in this episode. 1. The airport staircase car used by the Bluth family for transportation. 2. The character of Marta (played here by Leonor Varela). She was references in the previous episode, but this is where she shows up and where Michael falls in love with her. 3. The catchphrase "I've made a huge mistake." Used twice by Gob in this episode for the first time. Since this is a rewatch the arrival of this wonderful phrase had me in fits of laughter for no logical reason. I mean, it's not funny yet. But it will be. 4. The character of Lucille Austero (played by Liza Minnelli) who is surely one of the greatest things about Arrested Development. Stumbling around, always on the verge of falling over.

Funniest scene? When Gob arrives in prison he is approached by a very large, very angry-looking man who - we are told - is known as White Power Bill. Gob, being very stupid, does a magic trick on Bill wherein he pulls a coin from his 'dirty ear'. At this point, one of Bill's entourage runs off, shouting his new moniker "Dirty Ears Bill". All the while, Bill just stands glowering down at the constantly beaming Gob.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

Highlight? Breaking Bad (Bryan Cranston)
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DarkUFO Episode Cup

Look everyone! DarkUFO is having their annual(?) Episode Cup. Check out the first four matchups[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://ncjl.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/darkufo-episode-cup-2/

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