Wilfred, True Blood, Falling Skies, Curb Your Enthusiasm

Posted by The TV Critic on 10 July 2011 | 5 Comments

Tags: Wilfred, True Blood, Falling Skies, Curb Your Enthusiasm

Wilfred - 103 - Fear

I remain very disappointed in the characterisation on this show. There are some clever moments of dog\human dynamic but everything else is poorly thought through. Perhaps part of the problem is that Elijah Wood doesn't look like he has smoked a joint in years. The paranoia he was supposed to be feeling just felt like a natural extension of his personality and not the result of over-intoxication.

Then you had the Spencer (Ethan Suplee) character be implausibly stupid and irritating in a way which felt like the worst kind of predictable sit com plot. There was no sense that Ryan and Spencer were real people, they were just vehicles for lazy comedy. And the writers just don't understand how to make Wilfred's games work. Although Spencer was annoying he didn't deserve to have his property stolen, vandalised or get knocked out. He was ignorant and grumpy but he wasn't a villain. Wilfred taught Ryan not to be a push over yes but he also made him into a mean bully.

I think it takes very poor writing to turn baby face Elijah Wood and a pet dog into dislikable characters but so far that's what they are.

True Blood - 403 - If You Love Me, Why Am I Dyin'?

"You just killed my Fairy Godmother!"

How can I take this show seriously when a supposedly dramatic moment is just turned into the lamest kind of comedy? More importantly what are we supposed to think of the whole fairy world nonsense? The fairies all started turning into demonic looking creatures who tried to trick Sookie and then presumably do something horrible to her. So it's not clear how Sookie should be feeling about either her pleas to come with her or her subsequent death. The only thing which is clear is that Sookie's life is just one long confusing harassment by members of various super-human communities.

Eric's memory loss is an interesting enough diversion which is driving the major plots forward. I would call it intriguing but the writers won't address why he is behaving the way he is. Unlike in Buffy, we have little idea of what a Vampire would behave like if it had no memory. Eric acts like a scolded puppy dog, one who has the instinct to feed but the polite manners of a human. Why is that? Is that human personality the default position of a Vampire or is that Eric's pre-vampiric personality coming through? The whole plot feel like an excuse to make Eric more likeable. I suspect the producers realized that many female fans (you know who you are) would rather see Eric with Sookie than Bill. I suppose memory loss plots will always feel contrived though and this is no worse than any other.

The scene where Jason is being raped while children watch was pretty disturbing. There's never any payoff or emotional resonance to anything that happens on this show so I'm just left to feel like this is voyeuristic horror-porn. Similarly I see no good TV resulting from an evil baby scaring the crap out of its mother. The sooner that story reaches a conclusion the better. At least poor Bill got to realize how good it can be to be King for one episode, though I'm sure that's going nowhere good.

Falling Skies - 105 - Silent Kill

This was a very sentiment heavy episode. I understand that the survivors would have all lost friends and family but there was too much remembering going on for my taste. I think the writers need to have some characters planning strategy and some just having fun (or what little fun they can have) so that the mourning can stand as a contrast.

Five episodes in and I think we've seen Carter's team successfully complete their missions against the Skitters each time. That makes it difficult to get too wrapped up in each mission as it doesn't seem likely that anyone is going to die or get captured. To be fair though the Surgeon did die in this episode though in forgettable fashion.

Again the aliens themselves are the most interesting part to me. Here we see a Skitter lie down with the harnessed children like a mother hen and apparently go to sleep. The children then looked fairly concerned at their fallen "mum" when Carter and co knocked it out. I hope there is a coherent story behind the behavior of the aliens because it is definitely intriguing.

Curb Your Enthusiasm - 801 - The Divorce

So Curb is back and is just the same as it's always been. The question is whether you still find it funny to see all the pieces coming together that are going to bite Larry in the ass.

I thought this was an above average episode which set the season up nicely. Larry and Leon have to move house and Marty Funkhouser is now single too. As you would expect, all of that is Larry's fault and I appreciated that his rampant Jew-centric pseudo-racism ended up hurting him.

I chuckled at Larry talking a bald guy as if they were the same race. I laughed at him giving a girl her first tampon and being so convinced in his own helpfulness ("You had it in the right place!"). I really liked the potential dynamic between Leon and Marty as Leon insists that Marty had "wore that ass out" (referring to his wife) and Marty politely insisting that no, "we had a nice marriage."

You could see the misunderstandings coming a mile away but I don't mind. Curb is far from the critically acclaimed comedy that many have claimed it is. However it is interesting and I enjoy it.