Chuck -- Chuck vs. the Gravitron

Chuck

Hermes: Chuck has a bizarre and rather absurd premise -- the titular character has all the CIA and NSA’s secrets downloaded into his head through a series of encoded images, and he has to become a spy because he’s the only one who can recognize that guy over there as a former KGB assassin -- all this while working at a thinly-disguised Best Buy. Despite the bizarre premise (or perhaps because of it), this is a very smart and charming show. It’s an homage and subtle parody of Bond-style spy films, with a lot of very funny stuff interspersed with great action scenes. Plus there’s Adam Baldwin (Jayne from Firefly) playing a very Jayne-like character, and lots of cheesecake shots of Chuck’s hot handler and a variety of femme fatales.

"Chuck vs. the Gravitron"

Hephaestos (Plot): "Chuck vs. the Gravitron" is the last episode in the “Jill” arc. Chuck used to date a girl named Jill. She left him for Bryce Larkin five years before the series. She came back in Chuck vs. the Ex and got back together with Chuck. Then we found out she was a spy working for the evil Fulcrum organization. Is everyone Chuck has ever known a spy? The last episode ended with the Jill reveal, with the implication that Chuck was in terrible trouble -- but it took half this episode to pay off. I was disappointed and a little bored. The side plot of Thanksgiving focused on Morgan and felt forced. The Buy More plots are generally becoming more forced, because Chuck is hardly ever involved in them at all anymore. I want to see how Chuck’s spying affects his work, not how Morgan deals with regular life while Chuck is off getting shot at. Unlike some episodes, the Buy More plot did intersect, with a tripwire Jeff set up tripping a spy and Big Mike fighting the “thieves” (spies). Plot (show): 4. Plot (this episode): 2.5.

Zeus (Character): This is, essentially, a Chuck character episode. Jill, who was spoken about but never seen for a season and a half, has returned, and Chuck has a chance to be happy with a girl. No, of course not, because that would be dull (no matter what Aphrodite thinks). So Jill does a “face heel turn.”

Hermes: Quick interjection. Zeus falsely assumes everyone watches professional wrestling. Wrestlers are known as “face” (good guy) or heel (bad guy), so when a wrestler goes bad, he does a face heel turn. And the other way, when a villain reforms, is a heel face turn. Got it?

Zeus: Then the newly villainous Jill makes a heel face turn, turning good because of her love for Chuck. Then she turns again, revealing that turning good was just a ploy. But maybe she wasn’t all bad… too many turns. You’ve twisted my head, and Heracles is completely lost. I realize it’s a spy show, but take it easy. The sexual tension between Chuck and Sarah is so thick you could cut it with a Spartan dagger, especially since she’s jealous of Jill -- and sexual tension is always interesting. Outside the Chuck/Jill/Sarah triangle, Morgan again shows his blind faith in Chuck when he accepts without question Chuck’s lie that he’s not involved with Jill -- and that level of faith should be reserved for WORSHIPPING ME! Morgan needs more backbone. Ellie gets a chance in this ep to be funny for once, as she nervously prepares Thanksgiving dinner for Captain Awesome’s parents -- but since the Awesomes never arrived, I feel irritated that they built my expectations up so high. Bottom line: Jill went over-the-top, and Morgan felt flat this week. Character (show): 4. Character (this episode): 2.

Apollo (Dialogue): Chuck usually makes me laugh out loud with its witty quips (somewhere between James Bond and Buffy the Vampire Slayer), but vs. the Gravitron was less impressive than most eps. I was particularly irritated by the one-sided phone conversation when Chuck repeated verbatim every single thing he (presumably) heard on the other end, which is a sign of sloppy writing. On the other hand, the callback “devious, aren’t I?” and the repeated line that Chuck “read the manual” (odd how no-one ever does that) felt like regular Chuck. Dialogue (show): 4. Dialogue (this episode): 2.

Athena (Intelligence): A common Chuck theme is that love makes you stupid. The superspies that populate the show’s universe seldom do things so stupid as to make you yell at the screen -- except when emotion is involved. Chuck has routinely screwed things up based on his desire to trust people, or his feelings for Sarah, or.… In this case, it’s his desire to trust Jill that screws him over. Interestingly, though Chuck usually ends the episode with things working out despite/because of the emotional decision, vs. the Gravitron actually forced Chuck to put his logic over his emotion and capture Jill. It was a wonderful character moment for him -- and Dionysos and the other Chuck/Sarah ‘shippers can start up again.
One irritating facet of the Chuck show is product placement. A number of advertisers have their thumbs in the popular Chuck pie, and they work their products into the show. Usually it works, or at least isn’t very noticeable (last week there was a lingering shot of an EA Games sticker, but the company apparently didn’t object to the plot hinging on illegal game-copying hardware, so they must not have any real creative control), nor was it particularly bad tonight -- but it was certainly there. Chuck tells Jill to take his car, the Matrix, and mentions several features of the car -- none of which have anything to do with why it would be a good getaway-mobile (okay, dashboard navigation might be useful, but an iPod jack?), and it was a wee bit awkward.
An odd, and yet interesting, thing about Chuck is how it combines the genres of spy films and the mundanities of ordinary geekdom -- the show could certainly be summed up as “a geek gets to live out his superspy fantasies” -- and since the spy films it homages/parodies are of the Bond variety, one of the dichotomies in the show is how attractive people are. Though Chuck himself is moderately handsome, with a “geek chic” charm, but the other Buy More employees are realistically ordinary in their looks: Jeff is rather hideous, Morgan and Lester are plain at best, Big Mike is a huge fat man, and while Anna is pretty, it’s in a weird geek-girl way rather than a Hollywood starlet way. But everyone related even tangentially to the spy world (that is, everyone else Chuck interacts with) is ridiculously attractive. As we know from the many, many cheesecake shots of Sarah, she’s hot -- as is every femme fatale Chuck encounters. Jill, of course, is no different.
This episode is a fair example of Chuck’s intelligence level. Intelligence (show and episode): 4.

Dionysos (Fun): Merciful Zeus! Chuck is such a fun show! Spy gadgets, witty lines, kung-fu fighting, hot girls getting long, slow close-ups of their barely-covered flesh…
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Excuse me. I’ll be right back. Let me just grab a tissue--
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I’m back, and feeling much better. So. Chuck. vs. the Gravitron. Well, let’s start right there. There’s a fight. In a freaking Gravitron. You know, those crazy centrifuge things they have at carnivals. Awesome scene, something I’ve never seen before. Then they follow it with the requisite hall-of-mirrors scene. YAAWWWNN. I would be happy if I never saw another hall-of-mirrors again. It has been done far too many times, and I don’t care if it’s an homage to spy films who’ve done it before. It’s just dull. As was the beginning of this ep. Last week, we were left with a magnificent cliffhanger as Casey and Sarah raced to tell Chuck that his girlfriend Jill was a spy. vs. the Gravitron starts with Chuck and Jill having a great time together. And he finds out she’s a spy. And does nothing about it for twenty minutes. Not exactly the action-packed episode opening I was promised last week. The carnival sequence and ending made up for it somewhat, but I wasn’t terribly jazzed about Big Mike tackling the big bad rather than more crazy kung-fu. In short, Chuck is an incredibly fun show, but this was an uninspiring episode. Fun (show): 5. Fun (this episode): 3.

Hermes (Overall): I think the consensus is that vs. the Gravitron was an uninspiring episode of a normally much-better program. If this was your first episode, try again next week. Overall (show): 4. Overall (this episode): 2.5.

Thanksgiving

Dionysos: Thanksgiving! WOOO!!! All the cranberry wine and gravy beer you can drink! We won't be posting today... probably...

TV Gods: Show We Don't Watch -- Comedy A-M

Shows We Don't Watch (and Why)

Comedy

30 Rock

Apollo: This isn’t my kind of humor. It seems very intelligently written, and I have no problem with it winning lots of rewards and having tons of fans. Just don’t ask me to watch it. I'm also somewhat bitter that it was at least tangentially responsible for “that other behind-the-scenes-of-a-sketch-comedy-show” show Studio 60, which I really loved, being cancelled.

American Dad

Dionysos: American Dad started off as Family Guy II, with no real difference between the shows. That was fine with me, because funny is funny. However, it irritated Zeus to no end, and he wouldn't let me watch it for a while. Thankfully, Stan Smith and his family have established themselves as distinct from the Griffins. And, dare we say, became a better show than Family Guy. Maybe it’s because Dad hasn’t been on as long, so it hasn’t gotten as tired, maybe it’s because the characters are more likeable (sure, Stan may be a paranoid parody-Conservative jackass, but he’s also a stand-up guy), maybe it’s because the storylines tend to have a little more direction (because Stan’s CIA job creates plots), hard to say. But though Zeus still won't let me watch either show every week, but when he lets me, I choose American Dad over Family Guy nine times out of ten.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force

Apollo: Proof positive that Mortals are different from Gods, because we just don’t get this show. In fact, this is true of virtually all of Adult Swim’s bizarre cartoons (though The Venture Bros., slightly more normal, is one of our favorite shows ever). Avoid ATHF if you want your comedy to make sense.

Dionysos: I give ATHF a full thumbs up!



Apollo: I rest my case.

Boston Legal

Zeus: I find it amazing that aging mortal William Shatner still has a career -- and the staff of Boston Legal know it, as he’s cast as the aging lawyer who used to be great, and everyone is surprised he’s still alive. James Spader and Shatner play off each other very well, and the rest of the cast is funny if unremarkable. The show itself is “dramedy,” with the same mix of straight law drama and slightly surreal comedy that made David E. Kelley’s previous show Ally McBeal famous. Boston Legal isn’t as good as McBeal was in its heyday, but Spader and Shatner are far less irritating than Calista Flockhart.

Breaking Bad

Hermes: We’ve heard good things about Bad, but we’re a little gun-shy about drug comedies since Weeds inspired Dionysos (and Pan) to go on a six-month bender.

Corner Gas

Dionysos: It's boring. I hate it. I won't allow it in my house.




Apollo: Dionysos can be a little irrational. Let me fill you in. This is the Canadian sitcom—in fact, we’ve heard that creator Brent Butt (we know) ups the “Canadian-ness” as much as possible to keep it distinct from its American colleagues (and keep the Canadian government’s Canadian Programming funding). Corner Gas is very mellow, quirky but not to a degree that might alienate anyone, and completely inoffensive. It is pretty clever, the cast is very funny, and we’re fans of the fact that it’s single-camera without a laugh track, but the Gas gang isn’t going to push any boundaries.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

Apollo: Modern audiences have become enamored of a phenomenon I call “squirm humor,” wherein the characters find themselves in embarrassing situations from which they cannot escape. Squirm humor is, according to me, the originator of drama, not actually funny, just -- well, squirmy. Larry David’s Curb is a proponent of squirm humor, but it also pushes all kinds of boundaries. If you like The Office, Seinfeld, and such, you should enjoy Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Dionysos: I, on the other hand, love squirm humor, and hate Curb -- it’s too pretentious.

Entourage

Apollo: This is another really smart show that is completely the wrong sense of humor for me. I have nothing intelligent to say about it.

Family Guy

Dionysos: We (by which I mean mostly me) have always hated the characters on Family Guy. We (by which I mean everyone who’s not Hades) have never been able to really enjoy a show where we hate the main character. Peter Griffin has no redeeming qualities whatsoever: he’s an idiotic, prejudiced, blowhard, and a jerk in every way that Homer Simpson isn’t. And then Lois and Meg are dull, Chris has one joke and a really annoying voice, Brian is only funny interacting with Stewie, and Stewie is underutilized (plus having devolved from an evil genius to the gay stereotype other gay stereotypes point at and say “at least we’re not that bad”). Hermes, Apollo, and I used to watch the show because it broke all the rules, took risks no one else would, and the quality of the jokes pushed beyond the piss-poor characterization. Now, the rule-breaking has apparently been codified into a new set of rules: Every three minutes, random flashback apropos of nothing; ensure nobody learns any lessons, ever; and whenever the show is running short, fill it with REALLY overly long jokes (anyone remember about a minute of Peter hurting his knee? Yeah, they do that all the time now). We say tip your hat to the show Family Guy used to be, and go watch The Venture Bros.

Flight of the Conchords

Dionysos: Get on some mild-altering substance before you watch Conchords, and you will love it.

Frisky Dingo

Dionysos: This show may or may not still exist -- it’s “on hiatus” from Adult Swim. A standard blink-and-you’ll-miss-it 15-minute Adult Swim cartoon, Dingo has a style that gives surreal a bad name. Poorly animated (on purpose, as is standard procedure for most Adult Swim shows), Dingo follows the super-villain Killface, who’s bad at his job, and his nemesis Xander Crews/Awesome-X, who’s even worse. However, there are very little actual super-heroics going on, as many episodes go on truly bizarre tangents, such as Killface and Xander working in a sweatshop making Awesome-X action figures. A little more sensible than most Adult Swim fare, but it’s an acquired taste at best. I vote for watching it, but Apollo hates it with the passion of a thousand suns.

King of the Hill

Athena: I have always said that the only reason King of the Hill was animated was because creator Mike Judge was used to animation after Beavis and Butt-Head. In the same way as Malcolm in the Middle was a cartoon that happens to be live-action, Hill is a a live-action show that happens to be a cartoon. Nothing occurs that couldn’t happen on an ordinary show, and it’s actually a remarkably ordinary world compared to a number of live sitcoms. But I digress. Hill has been an underappreciated workhorse of the sitcom world for thirteen seasons. It is a bit mundane for our own tastes, but undeniably smart and enjoyable. Unfortunately, the much flashier Simpsons and Family Guy have outshone it, and 2008-2009 will be Hill’s last season. Shed a tear and wait breathlessly for what Mike Judge will make next.

Little Mosque on the Prairie

Hermes: A Canadian sitcom focusing on an Islamic community in Saskatchewan. Religious persecution is a little beyond our ken, so we stay away.

Metalocalypse

Hephaestos: You would think I would like heavy metal. I don’t.

Monk

Zeus: A mortal crime show I can actually stand due to its fascinating lead character, Monk has been doing the same thing for eight years now. Admittedly, it’s very good at this thing: Monk runs across the hackneyed mystery of the week. He provides both tremendous humor and even greater pathos as the pathetic OCD-ridden shell of a man who is Adrian Monk. I try to ignore the stupid mystery which is not the reason I watch this show, and I am sorely tempted to fast-forward through the summation to the funny and heartwarming/breaking end to the emotional subplot which is why I watch the show. The problem is that Monk never tries anything new. A recent episode featured Monk regressing to a happier time, providing much laughter as he acted about five years old. Then he “recovered,” and all I could think at the end of the episode was “Oh, great. He gets to go back to his miserable life? LOOK AT HOW SAD HE IS!!!!!! I WILL SMITE YOU, HACK WRITERS!!!!!!”

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Shows We Don't Watch: Action L-Z

Shows We Don't Watch: Action L-Z

The Law & Order Franchise

Zeus: I shall rant again on the topic of mortal lawmen. We do not care if some mundane murderer is caught or not, especially when both they and their pursuers are dull -- which is certainly true of the Law & Order characters. The characterization of the original L&O is close to nonexistent -- but SVU improves on the original series' format through the rich characterization of Benson and Stabler. However, Apollo and I eventually came to realize that the writers were never going to spend enough time on the characters to actually do anything with them, and we lost interest. Criminal Intent is just Vincent D’Onofrio chewing scenery.

Life

Dionysos: The premise is bizarre but fun -- cop goes to goes to jail for twenty years, gets out, goes back to the police force -- but it’s a cop show, so Zeus won’t let me watch it. Maybe one day…

The Mentalist

Zeus: The Mentalist features an interesting premise and a decent script, but is ruined by the cast. Though it is yet another procedural, the premise -- a former magician and fake psychic works as a consultant for the police -- promised enough characterization to be interesting. The lead figures out crimes by figuring out people’s psyches the way most TV detectives figure out physical evidence. The problem is, Simon Baker plays the titular “mentalist” with an incredibly irritating mix of vague stares and scenery-chewing overacting. Seriously. A lot of vague stares. Let’s see how he likes staring vaguely after he’s BEEN HIT BY A LIGHTNING BOLT! Given that The Mentalist has just been picked up for a full season, this irritation with the lead must not be shared by all mortals, but it does mean that whatever great things this show may or may not do, we won’t be able to stand watching them.

NCIS

Ares: For a series about the military, there is shockingly little violence.

Numb3rs

Athena: Unsurprisingly, I enjoy the premise of this series. Numb3rs glamorizes mathematics, the purest of all intellectual pursuits, by using them -- as so often on TV -- to fight crime. It was intriguing and fresh -- for about a season and a half, when they ran out of ways to apply mathematics to the FBI, and started re-using ideas and shoehorning in the math. To be fair, we may have been victims of “sophomore slump,” but we have no overriding desire to go back and be sure.

Prison Break

Dionysos: How could a show about a prison break not be fun? Watch Prison Break, and you’ll have the answer. A show with a premise that could only sustain one season has now dragged out into four. Frankly unbelievable, and with an incredibly uncharismatic cast, I quick-draw channel-change after Terminator to avoid even a minute of this.

Robin Hood

Hermes: The umpteenth version of the Robin Hood legend, this BBC show made so little impression on us when we tried it out, we can’t even remember why we decided not to keep watching it.

Sarah Jane Adventures

Hephaestos: I am a great fan of Doctor Who. A man who lives by his wits and his knowledge of technology. Sarah Jane is Doctor Who for kids. Intelligently written. Sarah Jane is the same kind of intellectual hero as the Doctor. The show is very obviously aimed at children and excludes adult viewers. We cannot watch it. Interesting Who trivia: Sarah Jane Smith showed up on Doctor Who in 1973. The character (and actress) spun off into her own Adventures in 2007. 34 years for her own spin-off. A long time to wait (for a mortal).

Smallville

Athena: We really wish this were a better show. We really, really do. A fascinating premise, with such flawed execution it makes us sad. Superman is the iconic American mythic hero, Heracles for the modern age, and investigating his roots should be fascinating. Unfortunately, poor acting, worse writing, and a Monster of the Week/Teen Soap format makes Smallville an unwatchable nightmare.

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