Sunday, May 17, 2009

television recap (May 10-16)

With the end of the television season here, I am only going to write about the shows that had season finales this week, so expect MAJOR SPOILERS!!! It also means How I met your Mother and 24 will not appear until next week. So expect MAJOR SPOILERS!!!

The Big Bang Theory- I am not sure I am behind putting Penny and Leonard together, but this episode sold me on it. Keeping people apart who should be together is an age old sitcom trick, but not too many shows send one of the characters to the north pole for the summer. The episode was a little too focused on Penny and Leonard, but it made it worth it when penny quietly whispered "It means I wish you weren't going." Of course, it gets old to have characters not just say what they feel, but I guess Penny did not want to keep Leonard from having the adventure. I really did not expect the show to actually send all 4 guys on the trip, so that was a nice surprise. The episode had some nice jokes, the best involved Sheldon's various pranks since he is not typically a prankster.

Lost- This is the big one of the week. I liked the finale, but did not love it, like I did the last few. First off, I figured it all out pretty early, which is not a problem, exactly. The problems just out-weighed the good. First off, Juliet's flashback served absolutely no real purpose, except as an easy trick to write Juliet in a way she would back up Kate because Sawyer would listen to her. Her flashback was not in sync with all of the other ones and existed solely so she could say something about love isn't always enough, or some nonsense. Lost worked so hard to get me on board with Sawyer and Juliet and to have it go this way was super annoying to the point where it soiled the tragic moment at the end. Many people liked the screen turning white with black LOST letters, which is fine except the cliff hanger was exactly what you would have expected since Faraday mentioned the bomb. The better cliff hanger would have been to show the minute after the bomb went off, whatever it is going to be. Now, the fight between Jack and Sawyer was intense and perfect and the gun battles on this show are always super, but when did Jack Shepard turn into Jack Bauer?

Grey's Anatomy- I would have expected a lot more water works from me with this episode, but the only thing that hit me emotionally was Dr. Bailey's breakdown. Watching Alex try so hard to keep it together for Izzie really shows how far Alex has come, but when Izzie is pronounced dead at the beginning of the next season Alex will go back to be a jerk, so it will have been short lived. I am not annoyed that the show reused an old E.R. episode by making George the John Doe, because I think it works with the show. George has consistently proven he would put himself in danger to save a complete stranger and how good did T.R Knight look with that Army hair cut and Army gear at the end? I like that Shonda Rhimes used the publicity of Katherine Heigl and T.R. Knight wanting out to set up simultaneous cliff hangers, even if they were obvious cliff hangers and I thought the acting all around was nice. I hope Kevin McKidd and Jessica Capshaw are made full time players on the show next year. I thought the post-it wedding was cute, but I think fans are going to feel robbed of a real wedding, even if the post-it wedding is more in tune with the characters. Lastly, Katherine Heigl has been killing it in the acting category this season and she continued to do a bang up job this week.

Supernatural- The little show that could keeping on trucking. I assumed the final shot of this episode would be Lucifer risen, but instead we cut before that happened, awesome. Instead we get a shot of the two brothers, finally back together, grabbing onto each other for support knowing what was coming. By keeping the brothers apart for the whole episode, the final moment was that much stronger, plus, Dean finally got to kill Ruby! I know many fans who feel rewarded that Ruby was bad all along, but I think Sam fans are probably going to be furious. Both young men acted their asses off and with the creator writing and directing the episode there was a really nice sense of urgency here. This finale reminded me of the season two finale, where it sets up what the next season will be. Next season is supposed to be the final season for this show, as dictated by the creator, so maybe Dean and Sam will spend next season really saving the world. Awesome!

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