Among the shows that I watch, the season finales have thus far been underwhelming overall with only parts of each showing promise. I can only hope Lost comes through tonight (the previews look fantastic). The rest of this entry goes through only 5 finales I’ve seen but will probably be spoiler heavy so be forewarned. (all puns intended)
Friday Night Lights – This ended in April when everyone was sure it wouldn’t get renewed. In that light it was an almost perfect “one-and-out” season. The Panthers won State, the coach’s position and teen relationships were in limbo but everyone seemed to have a path forward. This feeling may be ruined by a 2nd season and I really sense a dark cloud labeled “Sophomore Jinx” is hovering over FNL in the fall. But I hope not because it was my favorite this year.
My Name is Earl – A surprisingly strong ending for what I’ve referred to as my favorite dumb show. With Joy facing prison time Earl does the noble, but completely whacko, thing and falsely confesses to her crime(s). Earl had just started the process of growing up and becoming an adult (got a real job, moved out of the hotel into an apartment of his own..well, with Randy of course) when he gets sentenced to two years in prison. As fate would have it he winds up in a cell with his estranged thieving buddy (cousin?) Ralph (always hilariously played by Giovanni Ribisi).
I liked it (certainly better than the Seinfeld criminal trial series finale) but there’s really not much meat in this show. It does have wonderful sight and pop cultural gags (a whole show based on, and starring the cast of, Rudy was close to genius) which is why I keep watching. Hopefully they’ll pick up next season where they left off, or at least with him still doing some hard time, and don’t pull a “two years later” gig like 24 always does. But even the best Earl is usually not anything to write home about.
The Office – Had a great build-up the week prior but kind of meandered around until the last Jim/Pam & Ryan(Temp) reveals. The whole Jan boob-job thing was not as funny as it seemed. Two of Michael’s reasons for not dating Jan were that she was flat chested so clearly he was going to get back together with her once he saw that, but we don’t know how much time has passed since their break-up. Dwight taking over for Michael at the branch office had many possibilities (as when Gareth took over for the Slough branch) but it merely fizzled. Probably the best gag of the night was cleptomaniac Creed’s blog (a word document set up by Ryan with an address of www.creedthoughts.gov.www/creedthoughts) and the untold things he puts in it.
The last 30 seconds (split by 4 minutes of commercials) were really the only reason to watch. Jim *finally* asks Pam on a date and Ryan gets his due by becoming Michael’s boss and dumping Kelly in a matter of 15 seconds. Other than that it was a bunch o’ filler.
Heroes – I’m disappointed. This one had 40 minutes of mostly suspenseful buildup (except for the Peter flashback) undone by a limp-as-a-wet-noodle final fight/resolution. My mouth was agape at how terribly it was executed considering what had gone on for 22.9 episodes. It was like an amateur’s staged fight. Literally one good guy would run at the bad guy, do one thing, then leave/get hurt, then there would be a 10 seconds of blah blah before the next good guy would take a run at the bad guy. The super-baddy gets stabbed because he suddenly has the reflexes of a deer in the headlights. Two weeks previously he somehow broke out of a time-freeze (Hiro stopped time) to grab a sword that was about to chop his neck and on Monday night he couldn’t dodge someone running slowly at him from 10 feet away.
Then Nathan flies in from 200ft in the air and responds to a question someone on the ground said in a normal speaking voice. Supersonic hearing is not one of his powers….and his personality is suddenly a 180 from where it’s been the entire season. Plus everyone took stupid pills…Hey genius, Peter could fly himself into the atmosphere or the ocean..you didn’t need to blow up with him! Maybe the egg will be on my face in the fall, but they really blew a chance at greatness there.
24 – Has consistently been my favorite show for the first 5 seasons until now. It started off with superb 5-6 episodes and then got bogged down for most of the middle 15-16. The last 4 have been increasingly good and, after watching Heroes, it was great to see an experienced show that knows how to finish off its season. The action in the last half hour was again some of the best on TV. Heroes could learn a thing or two about satisfying payoffs.
Individual storylines were set into a nice direction (with the exception of what happened to the current and former presidents…they just left those lines a few months ago) and Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) was written and acted excellently in the final 10 minutes. The last look out over the shore and silent count were perfect.
And they are continuing the story somewhat with 24:Debrief – short videos on the FOX website. Hopefully the rumors about them taking the series in a new direction (i.e. – away from LA and CTU) next year come true. That would be a great shot in the arm for an already pretty great show.
FridayNightLights is filmed on location in tx and the tv show moved it from Odessa to the fictional Dillon Panthers. I’d have to defer to Brian on how realistically it represents TX visually and aurally.
I’m pretty sure Jaime Pressly’s pregnancy changed the flow of season2 of Earl. It was kind of a weird season…but 3 episodes stand out in my memory: the aforementioned “Rudy”, “Finale”, and the 2nd part of the Mexico trip with John Leguizamo (“Are those Bugle Boy jeans you’re wearing?” and “Wolverines!!!!!!” had me rolling)…
Just looked it up…FNL is filmed in Austin, so we’re getting closer (about 200mi from the big D)
So, you’re asking me to tell you if a TV show does a good job of representing Texas. That doesn’t seem like a plan likely to get the desired results.
But, if it helps, Odessa is basically dusty plains. Not quite what I’d think of as desert (although it’s probably technically desert), but not a lot of natural vegetation, either, and mostly flat. Was driving back from El Paso a few years back, and hit a big dust storm while going through Odessa. Could hardly see a thing. Pretty neat.
The only show I watch on your list is The Office. The will-they-or-won’t they story line is over-used in TV, but I admit I was very satisfied with this development (the look on Jenna Fischer’s face was priceless). I have to wonder what Karen is thinking after Jim ditched her in NYC. This is the only comedy on TV I watch regularly.
I’ve cut back my television viewing of late, but:
24:
Avid viewer for the first five seasons, through thick and thin. This season’s Groundhog Day-like familiarity finally caused me to bail out. Tuned in for the finale…thought it was ok, but unexceptional. Hopefully the extensive revamp the network is forcing (due to the series losing 1/3 of their viewers this year) will help things. Rumors have Jack vs. a non-terrorist threat, which is a step in the right direction.
The Office:
Probably the best comedy series currently airing. The Schrute-bucks thing was pure gold for anyone who has worked in the pits of a Fortune 1000. I dug the finale, hopefully the Pam/Jim thing stays resolved instead of becoming an tiresome Ross & Rachel break-up/make-up thing. Worried that next season’s 30 episodes might end up stretching things a little thin, but we’ll see what happens. Only gripe: when Michael’s behavior goes from simply dicky to psychotic (example: the rooftop threats of suicide in the “Depression” episode). Going for a cheap, outlandish laughs is fine, but drop the mockumentary format if that’s the direction you want.
Still not watching Heroes regularly. I’ll try the DVDs this summer, but Devin at CHUD pretty much summed up my general observations far better than I ever could: http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=thud&id=10411