Cream of the Crop: Happy Endings

With each new television season, there's a giant new crop of television shows. Some of them are rotten, others are just okay, but a few shine as the cream of the crop. In this series of posts, I'm going to share with you the three new shows from the last year that I've watched and enjoyed. I know there are several more shows that were well received and that I would likely enjoy (The Walking Dead, for example), but I've not seen every show from this past season. Now that you've been introduced to the concept of these posts, let's get on with the first installment.

                                                                   Photo Credit: ABC/CRAIG SJODIN

The first show I'm going to feature is Happy Endings. If you haven't watched this show, you might be a bit surprised that I'm including it in this series. Trust me, I'm probably as surprised as you. There are multiple things that initially turned me off to this half-hour comedy. First of all, Casey Wilson stars as one of the main characters. I was never a fan of hers on Saturday Night Live, and I was worried that would ruin my enjoyment of this show. Secondly, this show's setup was far from original. A gaggle of "group of friends" shows popped up last season like Traffic Light, Mad Love, and Perfect Couples. Finally, the pilot sucked. Despite my reservations, I watched the first episode within days of its airing, and I was completely turned off to the rest of the series.

With all of these things working against it, you may wonder how Happy Endings has made its way into my favor. As to my first complaint, I've found that I shouldn't have judged Casey Wilson by her performance on one show. She's really found her niche in Happy Endings, and as strange as it feels to say this, her character is one of my favorites. My second issue with the show didn't turn out to be much of an issue. While the show's setup may be somewhat unoriginal, their storylines are normally pretty fresh and funny. And lastly, well, I shouldn't have judged Happy Endings by its pilot. Hearing some positive buzz about the show and seeing some clips from subsequent episodes thankfully convinced me to give it another shot.

 For those of you who've never seen or maybe even heard of Happy Endings, I'll give you a brief overview of the show. It centers around a group of six friends. Two of the friends, Alex and Dave, were on the verge of getting married when Alex pulls a runaway bride and leaves Dave at the altar. This show mostly consists of the aftermath and its result on the group dynamic. While several of the storylines do revolve around the resulting awkwardness, this mostly just gives the show a framework with which to play.

Now, even after getting caught up on all the episodes, I still find myself sometimes watching a summer rerun of Happy Endings if I catch it on television. It's not a hundred percent perfect show, but I realized that I'd become considerably attached to it when I felt relief at hearing the news that Happy Endings was being renewed for a second season. The cast is pretty likeable, the storylines are fun, and the show is usually pretty funny. That's plenty of reasons for me to enjoy Happy Endings, and if those reasons are enough for you, you can catch reruns Wednesdays on ABC at 8:30pm (CST). Alternatively, episodes two through seven are currently available to watch on Hulu. The new season will premiere Wednesday, September 28, 2011 in its current time slot.

Link Roundup: Volume 6

Are any fans of Modern Family reading this? Word is that they're looking to recast Jaden and Ella Hiller's role as Lily in favor of a child who'll be more lively on camera.


You think you're being sneaky by fast forwarding through commercials?    Reruns of How I Met Your Mother are using a method of advertising that brings product placement to a whole new level.
(Note: These are two separate links with different examples.)

If you're amazed, intrigued, or made fearful of the future by the last links, click here for a demo reel highlighting other potential examples of this advertising technology.


SPOILER ALERT for all Big Brother US fans. There's been a change in the house. Click here to find out more.

I don't know why, but I'm addicted to this type of thing. I've clicked through an alarming amount of pages on I Spy a Famous Face and Kidcasting (although the second hasn't been updated since March).

Urgent News For Horrible People Like Me That Like to Laugh at Young Children

Okay, so maybe urgent is a bit dramatic of a term to use in such a circumstance. However, what I have to say concerns something that will be airing on television today. You might be able to catch a rerun somewhere, but I'm not sure where that would be. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Like I said, this recommendation is only for those who enjoy laughing at kids making fools of themselves. If you do not enjoy doing so, do not read this. I feel like you will think much less of me.

That being clarified, I'm talking about kid's week on Jeopardy. Unfortunately, I missed the first two days of this glorious edition of Jeopardy, but the two days I've watched have invoked much laughter. A good bit laughter simply stems from laughing at the dumb answers that the kids provide. And of course, the personal stories segment is also fun. The true gem of this show, however, was a young boy named Neil.

Neil was so stuck by nerves that he made multiple mistakes like forgetting to chose from the board when it was his turn and stuttered quite a bit throughout the show. Much of the game, his score remained firmly in the red. By the end of the show, however, I couldn't help but root for this little kid who probably is fairly accurate representation of how I would act if I were ever to appear on Jeopardy.  Poor Neil didn't manage to win, but he pulled through in the last couple of questions and ended up in second place.

Unfortunately, I don't believe that Neil will be appearing today. However, if you tune in, you'll most likely be greeted with a new batch of awkward kids. I know I'll be recording it.

Also, if you're questioning the strangeness of this post, consider that I wrote it at 3:30 in the morning.

The Glee Project: Glee Has Found a Way to Haunt Us Year-Round

In general, television kind of sucks during the summer (except for the gloriously trashy Big Brother, of course). So, I've been watching The Glee Project. Judge me if you will, but it's actually pretty entertaining. Think about it. The show involves taking a bunch of dramatic theater-type kids, most of whom consider themselves special snowflakes, competing against each other while kissing Glee's butt. How could that not be entertaining?

Plus, the show itself is such a hot mess that you can have the added entertainment of mocking it while watching it. If you haven't seen The Glee Project, it's a competition for a role in Glee. Each episode is focused around themes like Individuality, Theatricality, and Vulnerability. The contestants then perform songs that relate to these themes. So while the contestants have learned to embrace their special snowflakeness, be dramatic, and cry about their feelings, they've yet to actually do any acting outside of music videos. And honestly, isn't that what counts? I mean, it's nice if the winner can sing, but we all know that they autotune their voices anyway. However, my favorite actually does have a nice voice.

So, who is my favorite, you might ask? The utterly adorable and Irish (I think) Damian. Perhaps it's a bit strange to describe someone who can't be much more than a year younger than me as adorable, but I stand by the description. Anyway, his accent definitely endeared him to me from the start, but he truly won me over with his performance of Jessie's Girl. Unfamiliar with the song, Damian sang "I wish that I was Jessie's girl" rather than "I wish that I had Jessie's girl." It was a truly inspired rendition.

Okay, I know this post is kind of all over the place, but honestly, so is my mind right now. Anyway, to make a long story short: if you want a laugh and something to mock or enjoy adorable Irish accents, you might try watching The Glee Project.

Have you been watching The Glee Project? I'd love to hear what you think about it in the comments.

The Name Game: Julie Style

I can't believe it's been over a month since I lost blogged. I was initially going to write that opening line as some kind of "since my last confession" joke. However, I googled it to make sure I had my wording right, and tons of blog posts popped up containing that very joke. Plus, I realized it probably wasn't going to be a very funny joke anyway. 

Somehow I believed that I'd be some kind of non-stop blogging machine during the summer. Instead, my brain went into summer hibernation. In my defense, one of those weeks was taken up with a vacation, but that still translates into a lot of days of laziness. I managed two very time-consuming posts on my other blog consisting of youtube videos and a handful of sentences. Impressive, right?

Anyway, I've spent a lot of my non-blogging time marathoning the amazing show Friday Night Lights. Before watching FNL, I had a irrational dislike of Aimee Teegarden that was based pretty much on fifteen minutes of an episode of 90210 that I saw once and her short role in Scream 4. It was with this irrational dislike of her that I entered FNL. However, near the end of the first season her portrayal of Julie actually started to win me over a bit. This ended when season two started, and Julie turned into a complete brat. She's yet to win me back over. So, while my dislike of Aimee Teegarden remains irrational, my dislike of Julie Taylor is completely rational in my opinion. This is a bit of a bummer because as you possibly (but probably don't unless you've looked at my about me on the side of the page) know, my name is Julie.

I know, I know. According to Shakespeare, names aren't that important, and roses smell sweet regardless of what they're called. Whatever. I think names are kind of important. And I don't appreciate sharing mine with a bratty, fictional teenager.

So, I started thinking of other characters sharing my name, and I thought of Julie Cooper from The O.C. Not that much better. I mean, sure, she was fun to watch, but she was evil.

So, the search continued. I couldn't think of any more characters named Julie. So, I did some IMDB research.

 

Credit: IMDB.com

As you can see, there's a quite a few characters named Julie. But I'm sticking with the ones from shows and movies I've seen, and that limits the results quite a bit.

With that criteria in mind, we end up with Julie from Friends, Julie from Jawbreaker, crazy Aunt Julie from 7th Heaven, Julie from Sleepover, Julie from Monk, Julie from I Know What You Did Last Summer, Julie from To Grandmother's House We Go, two different Julies having single-episode roles on Grey's Anatomy, and Julie from Final Destination 3.

To be honest, a lot of these things that I've seen, I saw a long time ago. I do not really recall how likable most of these Julies are. So, I'm going to go with the winner of most deserving of the Julie name being Julie (Ashley Olsen) from To Grandmother's House We Go. This really is a bit of a cheat because I don't think I've ever seen the whole movie, and I don't really remember the parts that I have seen. But how could an Olsen twin role not win?

Do you have a different opinion on who should have won the Julie name game? Do you have a favorite or least favorite character that shares your name? If so, let me know about it in the comments.

Also, I'd love for you all to play the name game as well. If you want to blog about characters that share your name, please share a link to it with me in the comments as well. If anyone (fingers crossed) plays along, I'll make a list of those blogs posts in this post. If not, well, no harm done.

A Glee Rantaholic's View of Episode 2x22 "New York"

I'm seriously starting to think that I'm addicted to ranting about Glee. If you've read any of my other posts about Glee, you know that I have a love/hate relationship with it. I obviously care about the characters and show enough to watch it, and yet, it's so ridiculously bad at times. In fact, I kind of abuse the show. If I were not me, I would probably tell myself to just stop watching. But honestly, it's fun to criticize and it actually manages to be really good at times. For the most part, however, "New York" was not these times. Anyway, I wanted to embrace my rantaholicism for this post. I'm not even going to write in nice little paragraphs. I'm just going to list what bugged me about this episode, and then I'll say a couple of nice things about it. I know this is kind of an unclassy post, but what can I say? Glee brings out the worst in me. I feel like there's a little more class in my non-Glee related post so please don't judge me solely on the basis of my Glee posts.

THE BAD

• Why would Quinn know more about Broadway shows than Rachel? I'm pretty sure Rachel would be aware that Cats is closed.
• Speaking of Quinn, I was way disappointed that her "big plans" turned out to be NOTHING. I was actually looking forward to her sabotage. 
• Why was the Glee club acting like that kiss is what ruined their chances? Maybe it was the fact that they waited until they were in New York to even write their forgettable and auto-tuned songs.
• I miss the Jessie St. James of season one (pre-egging, of course). I feel like they've made him into some nasty sleezeapalooza in an effort to make Finn look good by comparison.
• But if that is their plan, the liking Finn part is not working on me. I'm just sick of Finn. I actually used to like him a lot and Cory Monteith seems like a cool guy in interviews, but Finn has turned into such an unlikable character. First he's dating Quinn, but he starts to have some feelings for Rachel. Then the whole baby drama happens, and he and Quinn break up. He starts dating Rachel but really doesn't even seem that into her at times. Then, they break up and he has ~*~fireworks~*~ (yes, I used sarcastic wavy lines and asterisks) with Quinn, and gets back together with her even though she's dating someone else. Then, Rachel seems to finally be semi-happy with Jesse for a second, and Finn throws a tantrum. Then he breaks up with Quinn to be with ~his true love Rachel~. Then he throws all this romantic crap at her. Ugh. Oh, what do you know? This kind of turned into a paragraph. I guess, I just really dislike Finn.
• My dislike of Finn had me hoping that Rachel would turn him down because he's a jerk. I mean, she sang "Jar of Hearts," a song about being done with a heartbreaker, just a few episodes ago. So, she says no to him because Broadway is her true love. Good enough for me. Except, oh wait. They're getting back together for their senior year. Ugh, again.
• That song or song mashup or whatever it was that they sang as they jauntily bounced around New York was just embarrassing.
• The Vocal Adrenaline performance was pretty boring. In fact, it's already been mostly erased from my memory.
• The original songs were pretty boring too. I honestly don't remember what they were about. 
• That kiss scene had me cracking up with the disappearing audience. So cheesy.
• I was pretty disappointing with Glee for dropping another storyline so quickly. Will has a Broadway gig lined up, and just like that, he drops it for the kids? Seriously? Well, at least he got to pimp out his new album.
• In general, much of the episode was kind of a snoozefest.

That's enough ranting. It's time for:

The Good

• I actually think I like the idea of Sam and Mercedes as a couple. It's fun and a bit unexpected, but I can see it. So, props on that pairing. Plus, Mercedes is finally getting a storyline not about her tots!
• The "For Good" performance was so good. Yeah, it was a bit unrealistic, but it was actually, dare I admit, a bit moving. 
• Quinn's new hair cut was adorable.
• It was nice to see a scene between the three ex-cheerios.
• The New York scenery made the episode very beautiful.
• It was cute that Kurt and Rachel at breakfast at Tiffany's.
• "My Cup" is an amazing song.
• "Whereas I'm spending my summer composing Pip, Pip, Hooray, the Broadway musical about Pippa Middleton."
• "Yeah" had me cracking up.

That's it for now. If you have any thoughts on the episode, be they good or bad, please feel free to share them in the comments.

Television-Triggered Commentary

Hey everyone! I survived finals, and as promised, I'm back. I started writing a post about the upcoming pilots that I'm most excited about (which I still might finish). However, a certain Youtube video caught my eye, and I felt like writing a post on it. It features an excited-no, exuberant-(I don't really know what's going on with my punctuation there, but I'm just going to claim artistic license) Smallville fan's commentary on the final few minutes of the show. It's probably the it's-five-in-the-morning-and-I-still-haven't-gone-to-sleep-and-in-fact-might-try-to-stay-up-all-night effect taking its toll, but I didn't just laugh at this clip, I guffawed. I guffawed at a Youtube video at five a.m. while sitting in my bed in a room by myself. And, I just publicly admitted that fact. 

I haven't regularly watched Smallville in years. Okay, scratch that, I guess I never regularly watched it, but I used to watch the earlier episodes from time to time when they aired on ABCFamily. Anyway, I did manage to catch some of the finale because a family member was watching it. Honestly, I was pretty much just cracking up at how lame and cheesy the whole affair was. However, I'll resist the urge to snark too much on the show and this Smallville fan (and honestly, I'd be in a more appropriate place to snark if I'd actually seen enough episodes to know what was going on) because I too have been known on occasion to talk to the television screen. Granted, I've never had a reaction quite like this and sincerely hope to never do so. 

The fact remains, however, that I do lamely talk to the television at times. The most recent example I can think of is during The Vampire Diaries season finale. I'm pretty sure I whispered "what?" to myself in a creepy, low voice for at least thirty seconds after the episode ended. This second example is not exactly talking, but I found myself uncontrollably making some kind of strange squeal a couple of hours ago during a cute scene (I'm currently rethinking the whole not going to bed today scheme because I just spelled that "seen" and had to correct it.) from Letters to Juliet. (Edit: I just realized that that's a movie, and I'm talking about television in this post. The principle still applies, though, so I'll leave it in.) These example are kind of tame, but I know I've done much weirder that I just can't remember.

Honestly, though, is it that strange to talk to the television or get emotional over the fictional events that occur on it? Yes, it probably is. But, most of us  many of us some of us hopefully someone other than me will admit to having strange audible reactions to a television show. You know what? I think it's okay as long as we make sure that they stay far away from Youtube.