Can you feel the hate tonight?: 5 characters currently on TV that I despise

Like many people, I was sad when Lost aired its final episode. It may not have been a perfect show, but I grew really attached to it and miss it now that it's gone. There's one aspect of Lost, however, that I don't miss at all: Kate Austen. I didn't love every character on Lost, but there was no one I came even close to despising as much as I did her. Now that Lost is over, there are still plenty of characters currently on TV who plague me. These characters bring down their shows, and I'd like to see them gone. My desires to see certain characters disappear almost never seem to be fulfilled (e.g. Kate seeming to have 9 lives), but that won't stop me from hoping.

1. Derek Shepherd (Grey's Anatomy) 

I'm not a fun person with which to watch Grey's Anatomy. Every time that Derek's on the screen I can't help but feel a strong hatred towards him, and that hatred often represents itself in comment form. I actually liked Derek a lot during the first season. He was cute, charming, and basically, there was good reason to call him McDreamy. Then came the first season finale and the revelation that he was married, and suddenly, his relationship with Meredith lost its luster for me. It's not just the fact that he was married that bothered me, but also the way he treats women in general on the show. He didn't just end things with either Meredith or Addison; he juggled both of them for a long time. Somewhere in there he also dated nurse Rose while he clearly still had feelings for Meredith. Now he patronizes Meredith on a regular basis. Factor in his self-righteousness, and I just can't stand him.

How to Get Rid of Him: Derek gets into a spat with Meredith and goes to cry in his "house of candles." Then it catches on fire while he's in it, and fortunately, the burns are too severe for him to be saved.

2. Declan Porter (Revenge) 

I'm not sure how much I've talked about it on here, but I absolutely love Revenge. It's my favorite new show this season, and for the most part, I love the cast. Jack's (Kyle Valenti to my fellow Roswell watchers) little brother Declan, however, is horribly out of place. Declan just provides the show with annoying teen drama and distracts from the more interesting storylines. Plus, I've yet to figure out why his accent is different from literally everyone around him, including his brother.

How to Get Rid of Him: Declan does something to land on Emily's hit list, and she does us the favor of removing this blemish on an otherwise great show

3. Alex Dunphy (Modern Family)

I don't have a lot of reasons to include Alex on this list other than she annoys me greatly. There are actually several Modern Family characters that annoy me from time to time, but Alex is by far my least favorite. I don't know what's worse: when she's written as a know-it-all or when she's written as a "regular girl" (e.g. the episode where she crushes on the guy at the dude ranch). It's a close call, but I'll go with the latter. I feel like these moments are only going to increase as the character gets older. It's hard to believe that someone so annoying could be related to Luke, the superior sibling.

How to Get Rid of Her: However annoying Alex may be, she's still pretty young, so I'll go easy on her. Alex goes off to college early, and we never see her again. Or a car that doesn’t stop at the stop sign Claire insisted on hits her. What? I couldn't resist.

4. Leo Houston (Smash) 

Like Alex, Leo is another annoying teen character, but honestly, he's much worse. First of all, the role of Leo was cast terribly. I haven't seen Emory Cohen in anything else; maybe Smash doesn't showcase his abilities well. Still, he's terrible as Leo, and I cringe every time he's on screen (particularly during a crying scene he was inexplicably given a few weeks ago). Secondly (any maybe this ties into the poor acting), it's as if the person writing for him has never met a real teenager. In the second episode he wines about not getting an adopted sister, and questions "what's going to happen to her?" Viewers have also had to suffer through an atrocious storyline about Leo smoking weed. Now, watching him handle his parents' divorce is almost too painful to bear.

How to Get Rid of Him: In coping with his parents' divorce, Leo turns to harder drugs and quickly ODs. Now that I think about it, that would probably just mean more annoying drama for Julia. I'd gladly just accept Leo moving in with his dad and never being heard from again.

5. Ellis Tancharoen (Smash)

As much as I dislike Leo, there's one character that is much, much worse than him on Smash. Smash has a lot of problems, but Ellis is by far the worst. The hate I feel towards him is definitely an unhealthy amount to feel towards a fictional character. I can feel it seeping through me whenever he's on screen. I have a hard time putting my reasoning for despising Ellis into words because I'm not even sure why my hatred is so strong. Ellis is a villain and isn't necessarily supposed to be loved by the audience. Possibly he's supposed to be a character the audience loves to hate, but I just flat out hate him being on screen. He's annoyingly opportunistic, presumptuous, and somehow believes he deserves credit for the Marilyn musical. I wish I could more eloquently explain my hatred for him, but as he seems to be almost universally hated among Smash viewers, you probably know what I'm talking about if you've seen the show.

How to Get Rid of Him: Do it by any means necessary. I'd prefer a violent, painful death (Smashed by a bus?), but I'm not picky. Seriously, just get Ellis off this show.


As you can see, I have a lot of feelings when it comes to fictional characters. How do you feel about my picks? What current characters bother you? Let me know in the comments.

ABC Wednesday Night Comedies: "Leap Day" and "Cocktails and Dreams"

I'm starting to feel that my feelings about Modern Family and Happy Endings have an inverse relationship. The better Happy Endings gets, the worse Modern Family does. I loved Modern Family from the beginning, and it still manages to pull out a good episode now and then. However, it's truly been on the decline lately. On the other hand, I hated Happy Endings' pilot, but it has slowly become one of my favorite current comedies. While I'm not planning giving up on Modern Family, it's episodes like last night that make me wish for the glory days of season one.

Modern Family 3x17: "Leap Day"

I'll be honest; I think "Leap Day" was one of Modern Family's weakest episodes to date. Usually Luke's and Phil's storylines (particularly when they have one together) are the saving grace of even a less-than-stellar episode, but their storyline last night was perhaps the worse of the three. The whole storyline pretty much consisted of one unfunny joke: girls are so crazy when they're on their periods. Yes, that one joke was repeated over and over in a completely unrealistic manner. Watching this storyline, I thought there was no way that a woman wrote this storyline because it was so unrealistic. In fact, it's almost as if the writer who penned the episode has never actually met a woman and used only cliche depictions from other television shows as the basis for the storyline. I understand that comedies often use exaggeration and I'm sure that's what they were going for here, but I felt it just came out as a really cliche and one-note mess. On a positive note, I did chuckle at Luke's attempt to fake an injury with the fake blood.

The Cam and Mitchell storyline didn't do much for me either. It consisted of Mitchell planning Cam's 10th or 40th (depending on how you interpret leap year birthdays) birthday party. Cam really wasn't very likable in this storyline and threw a tantrum when he felt like an inadequate amount of effort had gone into his party (even though he claimed he didn't want one). The whole storyline felt kind of tedious, but it did contain my favorite moment of the episode: an oddly-relevant, clever The Monkees joke.

The last storyline, Jay and Gloria's, never really seemed to have much direction. It pretty much consisted of Gloria wanting Jay to punch someone and was sprinkled with "Jay is old" jokes. It felt under-baked at best and seemed to be another iteration of a storyline we've seen plenty of times on the show.

With three mediocre storyline, I found "Leap Day" to be a pretty bad episode. It was sprinkled with a few good moments, but as a whole, I'd definitely give it a thumbs down. It looked particular bad in conjunction with the a-mah-zing episode of Happy Endings that followed it.

Happy Endings 2x16: "Cocktails and Dreams"

Honestly, how great was "Cocktails and Dreams?" It was probably one the funniest episodes yet in a very funny show. Typically, even in a good episode of a show, one or two moments might stand out as hilarious. "Cocktails and Dreams" was so full of great moments that each comment I read about the episode online seemed to point out a different one. Just to name a few of the moments, I enjoyed Penny's almost suicide (I don't know why I found this so funny, but it was executed perfectly), the Colin Hanks guest appearance (and Dave worrying about calling him Tom), Penny hiding her non-detox food, and Jane and Brad waking each other up after their dreams.

Even though I haven't been particularly rooting for Alex and Dave to get back together, I think the idea works pretty well. While the show starting by revolving around their failed relationship, it had been pretty much pushed to the side other than a few moments of foreshadowing here and there. As long as they don't put too much focus on Alex and Dave, I have faith that Happy Endings will handle the relationship well.

All in all, it was a fantastic episode, and I look forward to Happy Endings more and more every week.

I Believe in a Thing Called Love...

Just try to tell me that reading of the title of this post didn't have you busting out your falsetto to sing "... Just listen to the rhythm of my heart." It didn't? Okay, I guess that's just a me thing. Anyway, that awkward  exchange was my attempt at introducing this post about the various Valentine's Day episodes I watched this week. Maybe I'm just a sap at heart, but I thought all of these episodes (except for one and that one exception was still pretty good) were really fantastic. Thankfully I watched all of these by myself (ironic, I suppose) because I kept smiling goofily at the sweetness. So without further ado, here are my reviews:

Glee: "Silly Love Songs"
I think we can all agree that the much-publicized Super Bowl episode of Glee was pretty mediocre (minus a couple of great moments like Rachel's smiling as she entered the football field). So, I wasn't expecting much from this episode. However, I was pleasantly surprised by it. Most of the characters were likable, there wasn't a million guest stars, there wasn't any ridiculous story lines about cannons, the songs were generally good, and there was actually some plot development. I loved both of the Warbler songs: "Silly Love Songs" and "When I Get You Alone." However, I did think that it was pretty creepy of Blaine to sing to and chase someone who was obviously trying to get away from him. I think Finn is adorable, so I really want to like him. But, he was kind of a jerk in this episode. It wasn't completely out of character for him, but it still made me sad. While I thought it was weird that he just happened to have a gift for Rachel with him (has he just been carrying that around everywhere?), I loved the necklace he gave her and the speech that went with it (even if it sounded like a cop out so he could get with Quinn). Overall, I'd say this was probably the best episode of Glee since "Duets."

Modern Family: "Bixby's Back"
Shockingly, Modern Family's Valentine's Day-themed episode was the one that I just wasn't feeling. It wasn't terrible, but it was mediocre for a show that I normally adore. None of the story lines really did it for me. As a plus, though, I'm excited for the return of Dylan.

The Office: "PDA"
If I had to describe this week's episode of The Office in one word, I'd use the word "adorable." Holly and Michael may be one of the cutest television couples I've ever seen. I was literally smiling the whole episode at how cute they are. Even if it's the most predictable option at this point, I really hope Michael leaves to be with Holly when Steve Carell departs from the show. But, the other couples featured in this episode were pretty cute as well. I know that some people complain about Erin and Andy being Jim and Pam 2.0, but I think they're adorable together. They were so cute going working on Gabe's puzzles together. I did feel a little bad for Gabe, though. He seems like a nice enough, if slightly annoying guy. Lastly, Jim and Pam were actually cute again this week. Their knowing smiles at the end were adorable. (Want to play a drinking game that'll most likely lead to alcohol poising? Take a shot for every time I've used the words "adorable" or "cute.") My only complaint is the lack of a Kelly and Ryan storyline. They always crack me up, and a Valentine's Day story line for them would have been assuredly fun.

Community: "Early 21st Century Romanticism"
This week, Community juggled several story lines, but all of them were properly developed and hilarious (except for maybe Pierce's storyline). The Britta storyline was hilarious. If you've watched the episode yet, enough said. I also loved Troy and Abed's storyline. It was such a wonderful subversion of the typical "two guys fall in love with the same girl and get into a fight over it" plot. I definitely awed when Troy broke up with the girl for calling Abed weird. Their bromance is so sweet. My heart melted when Jeff sent such a sweet email to the group at the episode's end. It was a super sweet moment, but because we rarely get to see that side of him, it wasn't overly so. Lastly, we have Pierce's story. I found it slightly tedious, but I have to give Community props for continuing what we saw of Pierce last week. I have to admit, I'm curious to see where his downward spiral is going to end.


In closing, (and pretend it's Monday for this part) Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!!

Short Review Time

So, from now until the end of next week, I'm going to be totally swamped with work.
I don't think I have any regular readers that are going to be devastated at my lack of posting, but I feel like summing up my thoughts on the shows I've watched this week. For the sake of time and my laziness, I'm going to post a bunch of mini reviews. And please, don't judge me by the horrific amount of television shows I watch:

• How I Met Your Mother - "Baby Talk": I had mixed feelings on this week's How I Met Your Mother. It had some funny moments, and Laura Bell Bundy's reappearance. But I felt it was overall a little blah, and can't see myself wanting to rewatch it anytime soon (and I'm the queen of HIMYM rewatching). It felt more to me like an episode from the earlier seasons, but it seemed like a more mediocre episode than the majority of the episodes in the early seasons. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I digress.

• Glee - "The Rocky Horror Glee Show": This was a somewhat fun episode even if it was almost plotless, but I think I would have understood it more if I'd seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Also, this episode brought Will's creepiness and inappropriateness to a whole new level, and his "creature of the night" face was one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen. And Finn looks completely adorable in those glasses.

• Raising Hope - "Happy Halloween": This episode was funny, as all of the other episodes of Raising Hope have been. This is getting to be a new favorite show of mine.

• Modern Family - "Halloween": Modern Family was excellent, and it continued to live up to my high expectations. Gloria's "American accent" was one of the funniest things I've seen on the show and had my dying. Also, Mitchell's spiderclimb down the building was an excellent payoff.

• 16 and Pregnant - "?": I don't remember the girl's name, but there was a girl who was 16 and pregnant. And she had a tire cake at her wedding.  
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• Grey's Anatomy - "These Arms of Mine": I have to admit, this week's Grey's Anatomy bored me, and I didn't really pay attention while I watched. However, they may just be because I started freaking out about all my work. So, I might need to rewatch this to form an accurate opinion.