Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Prom-athon

Since I'm having to pick up both Matt's workload and my own for the forseeable future, free time has been cut a little short, so the only Monday show I saw (and may see for several days) was "HIMYM," plus a quick zip through Sunday night's "Grey's."

There's been a lot of discussion lately, both here and elsewhere, about whether "How I Met Your Mother" is the new "Friends," and crashing a prom to hear a wedding band sure seems like the kind of thing Monica and Chandler would have done. (Marian and I once crashed a wedding to hear a potential band and got kicked out, but no vomiting or turtle costumes were involved.)

Despite the premise, the focus on Lily and a marginal role for Ted, this wasn't as funny as I was expecting. A pretty good episode -- frankly, the best joke was the idea that The 88 play proms in New Jersey -- but not up to, say, Game Night, or New Year's Eve or some of the other episodes "HIMYM" has really killed with. I have a tape of the season finale on my desk that I've been sitting on until I see all the episodes leading up to it, but I'm guessing it'll be dealing as much with Lily's cold feet as with Ross 'n Rachel 2.0.

Because some nights I strugggle to have interesting thoughts of my own, I lean on Marian a lot for opinions. When we started watching "Grey's Anatomy" last night, she said, "Do I still care about this show?" I noted that she had still been really into it the last time a new episode aired and asked, "Is it just because you haven't seen it in a while?" She nodded, and she may have been right. Either this was a mediocre episode, or absence made the heart grow bored with this show. Between the reruns and the clip shows, it's been so long since I watched it that whatever spell it had over me feels like it's gone. Or maybe next week's mass-casualty (or whatever the preview was suggesting) will pull me back in. I don't know. Again, this is one of those days where the brain hasn't really turned on yet.

Blog as column idea incubator, take 946: a column about how this season of "American Idol" is still lacking its Moment. And for NY/NJ area "Veronica Mars" fans, third verse, same as the first two: Nets game pre-empting tonight's episode, which will finally be shown on Sunday at 7.

7 comments:

Adam said...

I just wanted to apologize for bringing Corey Clark's "Against All Odds" to your attention.

For those who haven't heard it (and the website with all the mp3s is down), it basically goes Adequate, Adequate, Okay Maybe Not That Good, OH MY GOD MAKE IT STOP! THE PAIN! THE PAIN!

Amy said...

I'm glad/relieved to hear that Grey's Anatomy was nothing special. My husband "accidentally" ereased it from the DVR before I had a chance to see it. Arrgh.

I was a little troubled by HIMYM last night, especially the whole "Lily's having second thoughts" part. I hope they're not heading toward some (past or future) thing between her and Ted. As for this show being the next "Friends"....possibly. It could grow to be as popular, and the ensemble cast is similar, but I think it's a lot smarter than "Friends" most of the time. And when a show is too smart, it usually gets axed.

Alan Sepinwall said...

Don't apologize, Adam. That performance has been forever etched in my memory -- specifically, the way Paula (in retrospect, trying to get laid) went on and on and on and on about how Corey's falsetto was the most beautiful sound God had created since the angels sang of Jesus' birth or some such drivel.

There have been plenty of bad finalists, but (since I saw only a little of season one), I would have to say the two consistently worst (at least, worst who made it more than a week or two into the finals) were Corey and JS IV.

Adam said...

Other bad performances, late in the competition, would have to include JPL's "A Little Less Conversation", that bizarro "Time After Time" by Nadia Turner, and Josh Gracin's "Piano Man" (and "Celebration", but especially for singing "Piano Man" like he was ordering the piano man to sing at gunpoint, rather than just hoping.)

Anonymous said...

I wrote this once before, Alan, but you paid me no heed. Greys is so overrated -- its an attractive cast with a fresher spin on hospital life but the writing is really bad. Cutesty, cloying, would be banter which is just a lot of people repeating stuff over and over again ("I'm knitting a sweater... I'm knittign a sweater". "I am asking you" "You're asking me?" "On a date." "On a date." "This is what I'm asking." Makes me want to punch myself in the face. The show was cute. And now its bland and really in love with itself, and thus I switch over to BIG LOVE.

Anonymous said...

Dug the flashback scenes with Lily on How I Met Your Mother, though. First I'm thinking, ooh, that's the Evil Willow wig (it wasn't), then digging that they used the crappy but very prommy song "Freshmen" in the background. And then I was marveling at how young both she and Segel managed to look in that final flashback - good makeup/wardrobe people on that show, I guess.

Good instinct sitting on the finale, by the way.

Heather K said...

Yeah, Segel and the hair made him look so young! Younger even then he looked when he was young and on Freaks and Geeks!