Better Off Ted, "Battle of the Bulbs": The nude Bhamba

A quick review of last night's "Better Off Ted" just as soon as I take it back to the sarcasm store...

We're still not back to the level "Ted" was regularly hitting in season one, but "Battle of the Bulb" felt like a step in the right direction. There were a lot of very funny lines like Veronica's lightbulb joke, Rose's reaction to hearing Ted say "suck" ("So, 'suck' is okay to say now? Because I have some thoughts on the lunch you packed me.") and virtually every word out of Bhamba's mouth as he discussed sex with Lem's mom. (The return of Bhamba in general is always a welcome thing.) Khandi Alexander got to show off her comedy chops for the first time since "NewsRadio," Veronica trying to turn Linda into her sociopathic protege worked very well (and spared us from a third consecutive lame Ted/Linda storyline), and the popcorn popping in Lem's mouth was a wonderful sight gag.

Still, I hope we get another episode on the level of "Racial Sensitivity"(*) before the end comes - and make no mistake, it's coming. As I mentioned in the "Scrubs" review, ABC is going into Mid-Season Burn-Off Theatre mode with both comedies. They're going to air one "Scrubs" and two "Ted"s on New Year's Day after the Rose Bowl, and double-run both shows through January to get them off the air before "Lost" comes back. Considering how bad the ratings were last spring, and how surprised everyone was when ABC renewed the show, I suppose we should all look on this second season as an unexpected bonus (just like season two of "Dollhouse"). But like a lot of other TV critics, I'm wondering what, exactly, ABC would have to lose at this point by airing one of the remaining "Ted"s on Wednesday night. With "Hank" long dead, there's a hole there, and it's at least worth a shot. I recognize that the remaining Wednesday shows are all family comedies of various sorts, and their sensibilities are different than what "Ted" does, but funny is funny, and it seems worth a shot. This isn't a case of "Scrubs," a show that's been around forever, and where viewers have had a chance to decide if they care to watch it. This is a show that most people don't even know exists, and pairing it with some comedies on the rise instead of one living on borrowed time, even once, seems only fair, no?

(*) And thanks to all of you who either tweeted or e-mailed me links to the various stories about a racist Hewlett-Packard webcam. Always funny when life imitates art - especially art as good as "Racial Sensitivity."

What did everybody else think?

Scrubs, "Our Mysteries": How can we miss you if you won't leave?

A review of last night's "Scrubs" coming up just as soon as I let all the funk out...

"I don't know, old friend. I've left so many times, I've come back so many times. Even I'm confused." -JD

If the continuation/reinvention of "Scrubs" hasn't damaged the show's overall legacy for me, it's started to make me resent John Dorian a lot. At the very least, it's reminded me of how insufferable he was in the last few NBC seasons before coming back to earth last year. And once again, his presence as irrationally needy man-child - and the apparent need to make him prominent while the show still had him(*) - has made it hard to really gauge how well "Scrubs" Med (or Zombie "Scrubs," or whatever kind of unkind nickname you want to give it) is doing.

(*) This was the fifth episode out of Braff's six-episode commitment, but with JD wrapping up his Sacred Heart teaching gig, I'm assuming - or hoping - his last appearance will be smaller, probably in a personal story involving Turk, or Cox, or even Elliot whenever Sarah Chalke appears next.

The JD portions of the episode continued to be extremely lame - other than the intro of the Interracial Hardy Boys idea, and the scenes at Bob Kelso's shag pad - but I still stubbornly believe the rest of the series still has some promise. The joy in Cox's voice as he talked about opening the "big box of failure" at Christmas, or the terror on Denise and Drew's faces as Sunny asked them on a double date were reminders that there are several very strong comic characters/actors left as regulars. And if Cole still seems like warmed-over Aziz Ansari, Dave Franco plays very well with Ken Jenkins. (But then, who on the show doesn't?)

This season/spin-off has had its early problems, but so many of them have been tied to the decision to bring back JD - and then to the writing staff backsliding in their writing of him - that I really want to see the first post-Braff episode before making a major judgment on things.

Not that it matters in the grand scheme of things, I guess. The ratings have been bad (though not as bad as for "Better Off Ted"), and because "Lost" is coming to Tuesdays before these two comedies will have been on the air for 13 weeks, ABC is going to double-run both for the month of January, and they're also going to air a "Scrubs" and two "Ted"s after the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day.

In other words, we've reached Mid-Season Burn-Off Theatre mode.

It was a surprise that ABC renewed either comedy in the first place, and the ratings have shown why. So enjoy Zombie "Scrubs" (or don't) while it lasts, because this looks like we're finally, actually, really coming to the end of the line soon.

What did everybody else think?

Best of 2009 in TV - Sepinwall on TV

Last week, I gave you my list(s) of the best TV shows of the decade. Today, it's this year's turn, with my list of the best TV shows of 2009. As often happens, I couldn't limit myself to 10 and wound up with a mix of 20 new and returning series. So go over and read, watch the embedded video, etc., and then come back to yell at me for shows that you feel I ranked too high, too low, or not at all.

UPDATE: A couple of additional list thoughts:

1)As I predicted at the end of 2008, this was an incredibly strong year in television. This list could have easily expanded to 25 or 30 entries to include other Sepinwall faves like "Burn Notice" or "How I Met Your Mother" or "30 Rock" (or even interesting newbies like "Kings" or "Nurse Jackie") that I didn't like quite as much in '09 as I did the stuff that made the list. And based on the screener deluge that greeted me when I returned to the office yesterday, I have no reason not to have similarly strong feelings about 2010.

2)Don't get too hung up on the order. The top 4 shows are more or less interchangeable in my eyes in terms of the great years they had, and I spent a lot of time shuffling other shows around while trying to figure out how you judge a "Modern Family" against an "In Treatment" or "Lost." In many ways, I think Mo Ryan had the right idea with her list, which she insists on doing in alphabetical order.

3)In case you're curious to see what made some of my previous year-end best-of's, I added a category tag at the bottom of this post that will take you to my lists from 2005 (the year the blog started) to the present. Note that the first few years will feature links to non-existent Star-Ledger columns, as for a long time NJ.com stories disappeared after 14 days.

Men of a Certain Age, "Mind's Eye": Joe & The Fat Guy

A review of episode three of "Men of a Certain Age" coming up just as soon as I pretend I'm the king of Croatia...

"Whatever I am... what if he's worse?" - Joe

If "Mind's Eye" had contained nothing but that wonderful David Simon Worlds Collide moment where Owen (aka Frank Pembleton from "Homicide") met the older customer (aka Stan Valchek from "The Wire") looking for The Fat Guy, it would still be my favorite episode of this young series so far(*).

(*) In the morning, you'll see my list of the best shows of 2009. At one point, it was going to be two separate lists of 10 - one for new shows, one for returning series - but I couldn't quite come up with 10 new shows I was totally happy with, while the returning shows list was getting overstuffed, so I combined it into one list of 20. But if this show had been on the air for even a few weeks longer in the year, I think it would have been a strong contender for a spot at the back of the hypothetical new shows list. Four just didn't feel like enough.

The show is always about the three guys facing the uncomfortable truths of their certain age, and those truths were particularly uncomfortable for them in "Mind's Eye": that Owen's job makes him (and others) miserable, that Joe's son has inherited the anxiety that makes Joe so unhappy, and that maybe Terry envies his settled-down friends more than he wants to miss.

The Owen story was the definite highlight of the three, allowing Andre Braugher to combine the shlubby everyman quality of his performance so far with a bit of cocky Pembleton flash. And who doesn't dream of a chance to reinvent their job so they only have to deal with the fun stuff (hugs, smiles, moving up the sales leaderboard) with none of the headaches (awkward negotiations, customers resenting you, pressure from the bosses)?

The only part I didn't quite understand - and, admittedly, I'm ignorant about how a sales commission job like this works - is why Owen's check for the month would have been that low. I get that he was making sales below market value, but his total sales were way up, and it wasn't like he was letting the dealership take a loss on any sale. Wouldn't the volume of sales compared to a normal Owen month lead to at least a comparable check, if not a slightly better one? Or does Owen's dad have the ability to give Owen a lousy check just to spite him for not playing by the dealership's rules?

While Owen's resentment of Terry would keep him from ever admitting it, he was playing a role as The Fat Guy, just as Terry winds up role-playing as the family man home-buyer, and Scott Bakula had fun playing off of guest star Cynthia Watros, and at showing Terry's dawning realization that the role would be a lot more fun if it were real.

And Ray Romano continues to do some really interesting, small dramatic work as Joe deals with the parental nightmare of having passed his worst qualities on to one of his kids. I liked that Joe's big speech in the parking lot didn't really fix anything - that we cut from what should be this big inspiring moment to Albert riding in the car with his dad (which no doubt will lead to more teasing from the other kids, and therefore more anxiety). It rang true, and it was funny at the same time it was sad.

Even though "The Closer" aired its last episode of '09 tonight, there's a new "Men of a Certain Age" next week, which I guess is TNT's way of seeing how the show can do without its flagship series as a lead-in.

What did everybody else think?

And in the end...

So a new "Survivor" winner was crowned last night. And even though I didn't watch this season (I kicked the "Survivor" habit after Fans vs. "Favorites"), this was one of those editions where it was impossible to not be aware of some of what was going on. And what happened with the ending has me thinking about the larger question of how the winner of a reality season affects our perception of that season, which I'll talk about (including, obviously, a spoiler on the "Survivor" winner) after the jump...

So Russell, whose apparent dominance of the game - and all the writing being done about that by other TV writers I follow - made me feel like I was watching the season even when I wasn't, did not win. Natalie did. Some people are already calling it a hose job, a lame jury vote akin to Amber beating Boston Rob because the All-Stars were pissed that Rob outplayed them, or akin to Neleh losing in Marquesas under similar circumstances(*). Linda Holmes, who used to recap "Survivor" for Television Without Pity, argued earlier this year that the Russell-as-greatest-player-ever narrative was constructed by the show and Russell's desire to self-promote, and didn't reflect what was actually happening, and she wrote this morning that the jury vote vindicates her take on the guy, and the season..

(*) Anyone want to argue against Vecepia (who beat Neleh) as the least deserving "Survivor" winner ever? She did nothing all during that season, and backed into the win because there was always a bigger fish to try in her original tribe, then because Neleh and Pascal organized an alliance flip, then because the producers screwed up the Purple Rock of Death twist, then because Kathy's chest was too big, and then because the jurors were a bunch of whiny babies. I know some people will argue for Sandra from Pearl Islands, but at least she was a key part of what was that season's longest-lasting, most dominant alliance, and she was going up against a contestant who was eliminated, then voted back into the game through a twist so lame the show has never recycled it. I say Vecepia, all the way.

But whether you believe the Russell hype or not, this season was all about Russell's alleged dominance, only it ended with him not winning. And if you bought into the guy's mystique and aura, I'm wondering whether his loss retroactively makes you enjoy this season a little less.

When I was working on the Best Reality Shows list for my Best of the '00s package, I briefly toyed with the idea of making it a Best Reality Seasons list, mainly because I felt weird about putting "The Apprentice" season 1 alongside the completely body of work for four other series. And while I was thinking about that, I asked a few reality fan friends for their thoughts on what were the best seasons of my respective candidates. When I told Adam Bonin that I was thinking of going with "American Idol" season five - which I felt had the best mix of talented singers, memorable performances and weird things that happened - he objected on the grounds that Taylor Hicks won that year. I argued that the winner shouldn't matter if the rest of the season was good enough, and that I found the David Cook season really unsatisfying even though I liked Cook himself a lot and was glad he won.

But the more I thought about it, the more I saw Adam's point. Taylor's win doesn't taint that "Idol" season for me, necessarily, but there are plenty of other reality seasons I like less because of who won, like Jenna on "Survivor: Amazon" or Hosea on "Top Chef" a couple of seasons back. Conversely, two of my favorite "Survivor" seasons, Palau and Cook Islands, had incredibly deserving and likable winners in Tom and Yul. Had Katie or Becky, respectively, won because of bitter juries, I might think less of those years in spite of all the entertaining things that happened in each.

Now, I've heard from fans of scripted shows like "The Sopranos" or "Battlestar Galactica" who so hated their finales that they decided they retroactively hated the whole series. And I'm sure the "Lost" finale (which simply won't be able to satisfy everyone, no matter what Cuse and Lindelof do) will lead to some of that.

But at least in those cases, the endings were crafted behind the scenes by the people who made you like the show in the first place. Reality producers don't have that luxury. I'm sure the "Idol" producers were tearing their hair out when Daughtry went home and it became clear Taylor was going to win, just as Jeff Probst for years has made his displeasure clear when someone other than one of his alpha male favorites wins. (This was really obvious, and awkward, at the Cook Islands reunion, when Jeff did everything short of beg the jury to do a re-vote in favor of Ozzy.) All a reality show can do is assemble the strongest cast they can and hope that the jury, the judges or the American public votes to keep things interesting and ultimately satisfying.

Anyway, to sum up that long ramble (forgive me; it's my first day back in the office after a week off), I'm wondering whether people who watched "Survivor: Samoa" all the way through are upset that Russell lost, how that impacts their overall view of the season, and how much you all weigh endings in general when judging a TV season or series.

What is the new logo?

This week's logo was a reader submission, courtesy of Greg Packnett. Can you figure out what these four people have in common?

As always, this post has links to, and explanations for, all the previous logos.

Doctor Who, "The Waters of Mars": Wet wet wet

As I mentioned in the "Dollhouse" post directly below this one, we're at the end of a long week for me and I'm not physically or mentally up to doing a write-up of the penultimate "Doctor Who" movie with David Tennant, which started out as another story of The Doctor trapped on a space station whose crew get picked off one by one, and then became something very different in the final act.

So tell me what you thought, and in a week's time we can discuss (hopefully at more length) the first part of the final Tenth Doctor story, "The End of Time."