How I Met Your Mother: 7x20, "Trilogy Time"

It feels like it's been a while since we've gotten a new How I Met Your Mother (three weeks according to IMDB). So I was pleasantly surprised to see "Trilogy Time" listed on my DVR's scheduled recordings for tonight.

"Trilogy Time" began with college-aged Ted and Marshall in 2000. As they began a tradition of watching the Star Wars trilogy every three years, they also imagined what their lives were going to be like in three years. Then the episode flashed to actual 2003 and showed the reality of their lives. This alternating pattern of their imagined lives and their real lives (including Barney's once he enters into the time frame) continued until it reaches 2015.

I think this pretty much sums up the episode.

The format of "Trilogy Time" is a fun idea, but in practice, it became a little repetitive. While the Barney ushering out a girl he never plans to see again shtick was intentionally repetitive and used to prove a point about Quinn, it grew kind of tiresome. Similarly, seeing Marshall and Ted fantasize about different versions of Lily and Robin became slightly boring as well. I did enjoy the fantasies to a degree, particularly the touches like Ted's long hair; I just wish they hadn't have been so repetitive.

The episode was also somewhat predictable. From the moment the format of episode was revealed, it was pretty clear that Barney was going to stop imagining the "saying goodbye to a random girl" in his future, and instead plan to still be with Quinn. It was also clear that Ted was going to worry about his future and that we'd be shown some kind of flash forward that would tease his post-meeting-the-mother future. That being said, I enjoyed both of these parts of the episode.

I actually really like Quinn, and I think the storyline between Barney and her was done really well tonight (although I wasn't a huge fan of the fart jokes). I enjoyed the contrast in maturity levels between old Barney and the 2012 version of Barney. I think it's more likely that Robin and Barney will end up together, and I don't necessarily mind that. However, Quinn has been a good fit for Barney, and I like her as well.

I also enjoyed seeing Ted with his daughter. I had thought that 2015 Ted was merely going to be shown talking about his wife; so it was nice and surprisingly touching to see him holding his daughter. As much as I may complain at times about How I Met Your Mother not being as great as its earlier seasons or dragging the mother storyline out, this moment showed me that I do still care about Ted meeting his wife and getting the family he's been wanting. This moment also proved that the mother should enter Ted's life soon if he's (presumably) married with a baby by 2015. Anyone want to bet how they're going to draw it out? Pull a 24 and convert each season into the span of a day? Pull a Dallas and declare this last season a dream? Actually, gasp, show the mother within the next season or two? Only time will tell, I suppose.

Overall, "Trilogy Time" was a slight boring but decent episode with some nice moments.

What did you think of "Trilogy Time?" Are you enjoying the Barney/Quinn relationship, or do you prefer Barney/Robin? How did you feel about Ted's flash forward tonight? Whatever your thoughts may be, feel free to share them below.

The show that desperately wants to be edgy: A review of 'Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23's' pilot

I really wanted to like Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 because the premise, while not the most original concept, is really fun, and I've been a fan of Kristen Ritter since Veronica Mars. The commercials for the show looked somewhat lame, but after the Breaking Bad reference in one of them, I was willing to give the show a shot. Unfortunately, it blew that shot.

One of the strangest things about Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 is its marking strategy. Most of the commercials try to portray the show as a super-edgy and scandalous. However, I found that the pilot just came off as trying way too hard to be this and failing. I think the show might fare better if it didn't try so hard to be shocking and embraced that it's a network show being paired with Modern Family. I'd enjoy if it more if it focused on being witty rather than being scandalous.


In addition to trying to be something its not, Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23's pilot was terribly paced, moving much too quickly. So much time is devoted to June and Chloe's antics against each other that I didn't get much insight into the characters beyond what I already knew from the minute-and-half long trailer. June in particular made so little of an impression on me that I kept calling her Jill in this review until I looked up the show's air date and learned that I had her name wrong. In the span of less than half an hour, Chloe and June go from being strangers to enemies to tentative friends. Their eventual tentative friendship felt false as a result of this, and if Chloe's truly such a "B," I feel like her and June's bonding shouldn't have come so early into the series. I understand that the show wanted to set up its entire premise, but it really suffered from cramming so much into the pilot.

The only good thing about Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 cramming so much into its pilot is that I am kind of curious to know where the show is headed. I'm assuming the show's going to use a frenemy dynamic, and if done right, that could be interesting. There are several directions the show could go plotwise, and I do wonder which they'll choose.

I also liked that James Van Der Beek plays a fictional version of himself that's friends with Chloe. It's a funny idea, and I enjoyed some of the Dawson's Creek jokes. However, even in the pilot, I started to get slightly tired of the gag, and I fear that it won't take long for the show to wear it out.

As you can probably tell, I wasn't a huge fan of Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23. It's a show that desperately wants to be cool but really isn't. I won't say that it doesn't have any potential, but I'm not planning to watch again unless I heard great things.

For those of you who want to check out Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 for yourself, you can watch the pilot online now or check it on ABC Wednesday April 11 at 9:30/8:30c.

Orphan

Most of us have had it happen to us. You're browsing online when you accidentally come across a spoiler for a movie you've been looking forward to. Typically you're disappointed, and your desire to see that movie may even fade away. Then sometimes you come across a spoiler for a movie you have no plans to see, and it's so ridiculous that you decide that you need to see that movie. The latter is what happened to me with the movie Orphan.

I suppose my need to see Orphan really wasn't that urgent because I read the spoiler when the movie came out in 2009, and I didn't see the movie until three years had passed. Still, when I saw that Orphan was airing on TV, I didn't hesitate to record it to my DVR (although it still took me another month or two to watch it).

Orphan focuses on Kate and John Coleman, a couple who are dealing with the miscarriage of their third child. They decide to adopt a child and come home with Esther. At first Esther seems like the perfect child, but because this is a horror movie rather than a Hallmark movie, Kate soon starts to suspect that Esther's not quite as perfect as she appears to be.

I think that the mindset with which one approaches Orphan plays a big role in the way he or she will view it. If I had gone into Orphan expecting a serious, scary thriller, I probably would have thought it was terrible. Instead, I expected a ridiculous movie about an evil orphan that I could laugh at, and I was thoroughly entertained.

While I was probably more laughing at the movie than I was laughing with it, Orphan was at least a little bit higher in quality than I expected. The acting was nothing amazing, but it was decent. The little girl who played the daughter of the family was especially adorable and well cast. The back story wasn't particularly original, but it worked well for the movie.

Before watching Orphan, you should be aware that it's really not scary at all. There are a couple moments that might be described as creepy, but they're campy enough that they'll probably just make you laugh. There are a couple jump scenes, but most of them fall flat. In fact, the photography as a whole was kind of wonky. Some of it worked, but there were several instances of strange shots that almost felt like student experimenting.

Overall, Orphan is a hard movie to take seriously, but with the right mindset, it's a decent little thriller. I wouldn't recommend going to much trouble to watch it, but if you catch it on TV, you might want to give it a shot. Personally, I think knowing the twist made the movie ten times more fun to watch. So I'm putting a spoiler in this review (just click the button below), but I'll leave it up to you if you want to read it.

Esther is not really a child. She's actually a 33-year-old woman with dwarfism who intends to seduce John.

Masochistic Viewings: Whitney "The Ex Box" 1x19

There's a fair amount of television shows that I love to scorn and mock that I've never actually taken the time to watch. Perhaps it's unfair of me to do so, but I've had a hard time subjecting to myself to these shows that appear to be so atrocious. That changes, at least in part, today. In Masochistic Viewings, I'm going to subject myself to shows that I've ridiculed but never actually watched. Who knows? Maybe I'll prove myself wrong and find a new favorite show, but it's more likely I'll just grow stronger in my hatred.

For my first victim (or I suppose you could say torturer), I've chosen Whitney. I've showered hatred upon Whitney for a while and cringe every time I see the commercials, but I've never actually watched an episode until now.

Source: Screencap

I'm going to assume that the episode I watched, "The Ex Box," was a fair representation of the show because two of the Hulu reviews mentioned that it was much better than the earlier episodes. "The Ex Box" was bad enough that I shudder to think what atrocities would lay in store if I were to turn to the pilot, but before I go further into that, I'll give a quick recap of the storylines.

 The episode featured three storylines. In the A story, Whitney finds a box filled with items that belonged to an ex of her boyfriend Alex and through a confrontation with him, discovers that he had actually been engaged to the aforementioned ex. After realizing that he treated the girl poorly, she forces him to return the box. In the B story, two girls who appear to be Whitney's friends have to learn to live with each other despite one of them's Type A personality. In the C story, some guy worried about seeing his ex after their recent break-up.

I didn't really enjoy any of these storylines. The A story perhaps could have been handled well on a better show, but with these characters it was just obnoxious. The B story never seemed to go much of anywhere, and the C story was hardly there at all.

Probably the worst aspect of the show was the characters. There was not even one character that I remotely liked. In fact, I'm not sure there was a character that I didn't actively hate. The actors didn't do the characters any favors either. Perhaps they just realize how bad the show is and just don't care, but their performances had little life in them. One of the only actors who put energy in her performance was the guest star playing Alex's ex, but that energy was channeled towards putting in a performance so annoying that she beat out Whitney as my least favorite character.

I also really didn't care for the relationship between the two main characters, Whitney and Alex. From what I could tell, their relationship largely consists of Whitney ranting about some minor issue while Alex throws in a few sarcastic comments about her. In their first scene together, the first genuine smile she gives him (she gives plenty of sarcastic ones before that) follows a comment he makes about wanting to dismember her. That totally sounds like a great relationship, right? There was a brief scene at the end where they actually seemed to kind of like each other, but even then, they didn't have a lot of chemistry.

Note the glee in her face upon hearing her boyfriend talking about dismembering her.

 Source: Screencap

In addition to unlikable characters, Whitney also had a lot of stale references. It was almost as if the writers picked up a People magazine from a couple of years ago, picked a few names at random, and then worked them in awkwardly. For example, there was a Heather Graham reference when Whitney finds a box of tube tops and scrunchies (I'm honestly not that knowledgeable about Heather Graham. So I suppose it's possible this joke went beyond critiquing her style, and I just didn't understand it.), and a David Spade reference about being a player or something. Whitney did manage to fit in one relevant remark about someone's life being like a movie that would feature Taylor Swift on its soundtrack. However, one reference that basically just acknowledges something that currently happens is just not that impressive when there are shows like Happy Endings that throw out clever, relevant references at lightning speed every week.

The references weren't the only stale aspect of this episode's writing; most of the jokes felt stale as well. I felt like the majority of the jokes had been stripped from other sitcoms with the humor completely removed. Without good comedic timing or stellar performances to help them out, the stale jokes seemed especially bad.

In addition to bad writing, Whitney also featured bad editing. Several of the scenes seemed to end in an awkward place. The actors would recite a few lines, and then the scene would be over without any real sense of completion. While I don't think it would improve the show, better editing would probably make the show at least look a bit more polished.

So how did the show measure up to my expectations?
Look, I know I've been pretty tough on "The Ex Box," but to be honest, it wasn't quite as bad as I expected it to be. It was, however, probably more not good than I thought it would be. I may have anticipated worse jokes than the show actually contained or more annoying storylines, but I expected that there would be at least some redeeming value to the show. I couldn't come up with one. I didn't enjoy any of the characters, the jokes, the plots, or even the editing. The whole episode was devoid of any charm or likability. Based on this episode, I'd say my unjustified dislike of the show has just been justified.

The Artist

Credit: The Weinstein Company

As of late, this blog has been a lot more focused on the small screen than the big screen. That's probably not going to change any time soon, but I thought it would be nice to write a post that fits into the movies portion of the blog. I finally saw The Artist on Monday; as it is not only a movie but also this year's Best Picture winner, I thought a review of it would be a suitable topic.

Most of you are probably aware that the The Artist is a black-and-white silent movie. Those of you who've only seen the trailers may not be aware of the film's plot. Going into the movie my knowledge of The Artist didn't go much farther than that it is a black-and-white silent movie with a largely-French cast and Uggie. For those of you who's knowledge falls somewhere along those lines, I'll start with a brief synopsis.

The Artist begins with a focus on George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), a silent movie star in the 1920s who becomes enchanted with aspiring actress Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo). When "talkies" or talking pictures start to replace silent movies, George feels out of place in the new era of cinema, but Peppy's career takes flight.

When I think of The Artist, the first word that comes to mind is charming. From the bouncy music to the adorable dog, the film brings charm in spades. It's the kind of movie that made me want to smile as I watched it. Without this charm, I don't think the The Artist would have worked well at all; although I was surprised at how much of a story The Artist was able to convey, it was still a film with a good deal of fluff. With this charm, however, it was quite enjoyable.

One of the biggest sources of this charm was the cast. While there were a few familiar faces in the cast (John Goodman and Missi Pyle, for example), most of the cast, including the leads, were relatively unknown actors, at least in the United States. This was a wise choice because recognizable leads, even likable ones, would have taken away from the nostalgic feel of the movie. Additionally, Dujardin and Bejo were perfectly cast, and it's hard to image anyone else doing a better job in their roles. Dujardin is dashing as George and Bejo is utterly endearing as Peppy.

As great Dujardin and Bejo are in The Artist, the true breakout star of the film is Uggie. Uggie plays the role of George's faithful canine companion. He's absolutely adorable, and his scenes are the ones that brought the most laughs. I'm not the only one who's been enchanted by Uggie. There was even a tongue-in-cheek campaign to "Consider Uggie" for an Oscar.

Although I found the movie charming, there were a few times during The Artist that my mind began to wander. The lack of voices was a bit jarring, and I have to admit that I'm used to having both audible dialogue and visuals to hold my attention. Additionally, there were a couple of small moments near the end of the movie where I felt it began to drag slightly. Still, for the majority of the film I was entertained.

The Artist is a fun, fluffy film that stands out due to its presentation and charm. If you're willing to watch a black-and-white silent film, I'd recommend giving it a shot. If nothing else, you'll probably come out with a new-found or renewed appreciation of Uggie.

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.

Battle of the Sci-fi Pilots: Touch Versus Awake

It's that time of year when the mid-season pilots are premiering, and if you've been watching FOX and NBC, you've likely seen promos for Touch and Awake. I was intrigued by these shows because they both feature science fiction premises. While neither of these shows are actually currently airing, both have already previewed their pilots. FOX's Touch aired its pilot at the end of January, but the show is set to actually premiere on March 19. NBC's Awake released its pilot last Thursday and is set to premiere on March 1. While the premises of the show aren't really similar, there are few enough sci-fi shows on network television that I think it's fair to compare the two. Having seen both pilots, I'm going to do just that.

Touch

Premise:

Widower Martin Bohm (Kiefer Sutherland) is having trouble connecting with his mute son Jake (David Mazouz), but he starts to suspect that Jake is using numbers to communicate. These numbers bring about unlikely connections, and it appears that Jake can see things that others can't.

The Good: 

Part of my motivation for watching Touch stemmed from the fact that it comes from Tim Kring, the creator of Heroes. As an avid fan of Heroes' first season, I was hoping for something similar. In that manner, Touch didn't totally disappoint. Much like Heroes, it portrayed a wide variety of people around the world and then began to bring them together. This was an interesting aspect, and I liked the way that the storylines connected.


Additionally, I appreciated that there were some likable and familiar faces among the cast. Having never watched 24, I'm not really familiar with Kiefer Sutherland's work. That being said, there's something likable about him (although it may partially be that Kiefer is a super fun name to say). As a recent Doctor Who fan, I was excited to see Gugu Mbatha-Raw who I recognized as Tish Jones, Martha's sister. Although I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't recognize him until I did a quick IMDB search, What I Like About You's David de Lautour had a small role in the pilot of Touch as well.

The Bad:

Probably the biggest issue I had with Touch is that the pilot was cloying sappy. The show was so desperate to make me feel sorry for Sutherland's character and his son that it didn't quite feel genuine. For a show called Touch that's about the connections between people, I really failed to connect with any of the characters. They seemed more like sob stories than actual people.

Another issue I had with the pilot is that it was honestly kind of dull. I think I paused the episode 2 or 3 times before actually finishing it. While the idea of kid who knows things that he shouldn't is somewhat intriguing, it's just not that interesting to watch. I'd take Heroes-esque superpowers over that any day.

Will I Keep Watching:

When I first finished Touch's pilot, I thought that I might watch a couple more episodes to see where the show is going. However, the more I think about the pilot, the less I'm motivated to watch any more of Touch. Even writing this review, I was kind of surprised at how negative I felt towards it. It wasn't completely irredeemable, but it wasn't very interesting either. As I have plenty of shows to watch at the moment, it's doubtful that I'll keep watching.

When It Airs:

You can currently watch Touch's pilot at Hulu or on FOX's website. The show officially premieres on FOX on Monday, March 19 at 9/8c.

Awake

Premise:

After suffering a car accident with his wife and son, police detective Michael Britten (Jason Issacs) finds himself switching between two realities every time he goes to sleep. In one reality, his son is alive and his wife is dead; in the other reality, the reverse is true. Additionally, Michael's different cases in the two realities start to bleed together.

The Good:

I thought Awake's pilot was a solid start to the show. The premise is definitely intriguing and is a large part of what hooked me into watching the show, but it's not the show's only strength. I think Awake's cast was chosen well, and they all, particularly Issacs, put forth good performances. There was some sentimentality in the pilot in dealing with the deaths of Michael's family. However, it felt naturally derived from the plot rather than tacked only solely for the sake of stirring the audience's emotions. I felt connected enough to the main characters that I could feel bad for Michael's and his family's pain.

One of the best aspects of the pilot is simply that it made me excited to see where the show is headed. I want to know what's going to happen; I want to find out why Michael's experiencing two realities. It's a good sign when a pilot stirs curiosity in its viewers.

The Bad:

I don't have many complaints about Awake's pilot. I suppose the two cases that were featured were somewhat generic. As the pilot set up the show's slightly complicated premise in addition to featuring Michael's cases, however, I suspect that future episodes will improve in this aspect. To be honest, I'm just assuming that they're going to keep a crime-of-the-week aspect to show, but I don't know for certain.

My only other issue is that it became slightly confusing to keep the two realities straight. However, it wasn't too difficult, and the fact that Michael has different partners and wears different colored bracelets in each reality helped greatly.

Will I Keep Watching:

I'm going to answer this with a definite yes. I am slightly skeptical of how the concept of Awake will work past the pilot. The show could certainly lose its luster and focus over time, but I'm just going to hope the writers have inventive plans for the rest of the series. I'm certainly interested to see where the show is going, and I feel like I'm going to have some fun speculating about Awake.

When It Airs:

You can currently watch Awake's pilot at Hulu or on NBC's website. The show officially premieres on NBC on Thursday, March 1 at 10/9c.

 Bottom Line

I think Awake is a much superior show to Touch, and it's the only one of the two that I plan to keep watching. I found it to be a much fresher, genuine, and intriguing show. Particularly with sci-fi shows, it can often be hard to tell where the show is headed by simply viewing the pilot. However, judging solely by their pilots, Awake is going to be worth your time far more than Touch is.