Friday, November 5, 2010

Terriers etc.

TV Watched Today:
Ugghhh... so much TV.
We were both working all day long so we had the TV on in the background and it's all sort of a blur. I can tell you that we watched MASH, My Name Is Earl, and How I Met Your Mother as well as Batman: Brave and the Bold and The Good Guys.  Everything else was sort of background noise while I did laundry and lesson plans and worked on my graduation lecture.

I've really been in the mood to watch some Buffy lately.  I started re-watching it a few months ago but inadvertently abandoned it when we started plans for the big cross country move. Maybe when I finish The X-Files, I'll spend some time in the Hellmouth. For now, while it's still just Mulder, Scully & Skinner, I'm happy to stick with X-Files.

Anyway, one of the new shows we picked up this season is TerriersTerriers is a bad-ass show. It's on FX, same as another of our hour-long favorites: Justified. The show centers around Hank Dolworth  (brilliantly played by Donal Logue) and his best friend Britt (the wonderful Michael Raymond-James) who go around solving crimes as PIs without their PI license. Hank is an ex-cop (thanks to a drinking problem) and Britt is an ex-thief (thanks to a going to jail then finding the perfect girl problem) and their friendship really anchors the whole show.
 
I can't imagine the casting sessions that went on before this show was finalized but I totally believe that when Logue and James finally got in a room together and started reading these characters that little baby angels started singing, new stars formed in the sky, and all across the planet people started smiling but couldn't understand why. What I mean is... these two are effing great together.

Aside from the mystery of the week, this show is really about these two men, their friendship, and the things that are always screwing up their lives.  Hank's ex-wife pities him and is trying to marry a major douche.  His brilliant sister who suffers from schizophrenia shows up a few episodes in and they take care of each other.  He's an ex-alcoholic, still battling his demons.  Britt, meanwhile, has a lot of cronies who'd like him back in the thieving profession. He's in love with his gf but she effed up and screwed her professor and now she's pregnant and doesn't know who the baby daddy is. Etc. Etc. Life is hard and it sucks and these guys are probably really like... bitter. Right?  Well... no. They're not. They don't lay around in their apartments lamenting their tragic lives, constantly overtly dealing with their issues. Instead, they're kicking ass, taking names, and dealing with their shit by being awesome and funny and taking care of each other.



The one who really comes out as the star is Logue, who plays Hank Dolworth so brilliantly, with such grace and finesse that he absolutely breaks my heart in every single episode. The man is amazing. Dolworth is perfectly written and that's gotta help, but Logue sells it 100%. 

To top it off, Terriers has a kick ass theme song that works perfectly for the show which you can enjoy here:



Anyway, Terriers is awesome.  If you haven't been watching it... you should.  It's on Wednesday nights on FX.

Last night was a big night for us.  Thursday... also known as BIG TV NIGHT. We had: Community, 30 Rock, Modern Family, The Office, and Fringe

I'm not sure I have enough energy to go in depth about any of these so here are my general thoughts on the two of these shows that matter the most to me right now:

Fringe: Holy shit. Just get Olivia out of frakking Earth 2.  I love you to death J.J. but it's time to get her out. I miss our Olivia with our Walter and our Astrid and our Pacey.  We're on something like episode five.  Look at it this way.  If The X-Files suddenly focused on Mulder's sister for five straight episodes... well... it would be what happened in Season 8.  So... damnit... just let's try to get her back home by Christmas.  Still, even with all this mess going on, this show is still better than about 90% of everything that's currently on. I do love seeing Charlie. And I think the alt-universe plots are pretty cool... I just miss my regular show.  Hey... maybe Liv could bring Alt-Charlie with her since Our-Charlie is all... dead. That would be pretty sweet.



Community: Oh my god if this show gets any more meta it's just going to eat itself.  But... this isn't a bad thing. On the contrary, I LOVE all this meta shit so they can just keep on keepin' on with all the weird, tv-show-inside-a-tv-show stuff.  It's awesome. Still, remember Scully's snake tattoo:
Yeah, well... it's like that.