"Dick punch!"

Sometimes, like this morning, I have these dreams where I am hopelessly late for something and even though I try and try to make it right I can never make it there and it is SO STRESSFUL and then I wake up and realize that it is only 9 am and that outside of a dream it is much easier to use my phone.

Sometimes I mean to write a post for ages and ages but it is impossible to get out until I concretely determine that TODAY I WILL WRITE THAT POST. For The League, today is that day.

Wherein The Wire Crushes All Hope

Oh, jesus. This blog. I love it so much, but sometimes it's hard to decide what to put here. Television hasn't been that great in the past week - I mean, sure, Bored To Death has been fantastic, you should all watch Bored To Death. Boardwalk Empire is having a much better season, due entirely to the awesomeness of Sexy Richard Half-Face. I watched the first episode of Downton Abbey Season 2, which was beautiful and amazing and everything I wanted it to be and I will post on it very soon but I don't want to ruin it for those people who don't watch all their tv on the internet and actually wait for things to air on a regular television set. All I'll say is that the Dowager Countess does NOT disappoint. I was going to write about Up All Night and how it is definitely the best new comedy of the season but then time got away from me and all of a sudden it is Wednesday and I decided I can write about that tonight or tomorrow but just saw there's no new episode this week. Speaking of lack of newness, I finally decided I was gonna do Glee recaps and then stupid baseball happened and is still happening and hopefully there will be a new episode to make fun of very very soon. And then I WAS going to write about How I Met Your Mother but this week's episode was decidedly lack-luster and oh man do I hate Nora but I hate even more the implication that Robin and Ted might get back together because ugh, let's leave that dead horse to be dead on the ground without beating it any more, shall we? So - now you can imagine all the alternate timelines wherein I actually wrote about those things, and we'll move on from there in this, the best and most real timeline (the evil version of me definitely lives in the HIMYM one).

I'm almost certain that part of what has been causing my blogger's ennui is that I've been watching a lot of The Wire. It took me a really long time to actually want to watch the show, because I have issues with anxiety and depression and mostly The Wire looked like an incredibly dark and depressing show about drugs and corruption. And guess what? Turns out The Wire is an incredibly dark and depressing show about drugs and corruption. That's not to say it's not good. Obviously it's good. But I don't think it's so much for people like me who lovelovelove comedy and think that every great drama should include a little levity (remember when Ms. Blankenship died and they had to wheel her out of the office without the clients seeing and Harry is all "My mother made that afghan!"? That's what I'm talking about.), and those who are also just naturally anxious people. WARNING: do not read any further if you have not seen The Wire and think that you might someday want to, because I'm about to get all kinds of spoiler-y up in here.

My Love For Fringe...

...is like a red, red, rose? Or perhaps it's more like an aquamarine rose that only exists in an alternate universe.

Fringe is a tough show to write about. Yes, part of that is because of the mystery aspect of the show, and my reticence to not give anything away to those who may not have discovered its greatness yet. But it's also because, the way the show is structured, events don't unfold the way they did with, say, Lost. And as the show has matured (and improved), the structure itself has changed.

Fringe started off a little weak. Most of the first season is basically just a paranormal crime procedural, with each episode centering around a different "fringe" event that may or may not have anything to do with the larger story of the season. I know it lost some people around the middle there, but the end of season 1 is definitely worth watching, if only to see the superb Jared Harris (Lane Pryce on Mad Men) being superbly creepy. So, if you're new to Fringe and don't feel like slogging through some of the weaker episodes, my advice is this: watch the first two and the last two episodes of the season. That's all you really need. I do think any show is better if you watch all of it, but here, it's not completely necessary.

The second season of Fringe took the awesomeness of the end of season 1 and ran with it. The strength of the show really lies with the characters at the heart of it and the myriad relationships between Olivia, Peter, and Walter. Given material with more depth and an expectation of growth, Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, and John Noble consistently deliver performances that are strong, endearing, realistic, and often funny. Humor was another concept that season 2 embraced whole-heartedly, going as far as naming an episode "Brown Betty" after a particularly potent strain of Walter's marijuana. I really love the embracing of weed and hallucinogenics as part of the mythology of Fringe; it's awesome to be able to say, "We're going to pump this character - and ourselves - full of acid and then take a journey through her brain", and have that be a normal day on Fringe.

"It's like something out of Jules Verne!"

I've been meaning to talk about Showtime's new show, Episodes, but I wanted to wait until I got a better sense of the show as a whole. In the interim I watched a show starring David Cross that premiered on IFC in October, The Increasingly Poor Decisions Of Todd Margaret, and realized that the two shows raise some really interesting comparisons. So, here we go, two shows at once!

Episodes is about a married British writing team who come to LA to help produce an American adaptation of their BAFTA-winning show, Lyman's Boys. The Increasingly Poor Decisions Of Todd Margaret (hereafter known as TIPDOTM or simply Todd Margaret) is about an unqualified temp who gets sent to England to sell a toxic energy drink called Thunder Muscle when his company gets taken over by Brent Wilts (Will Arnett), the loudest, angriest, douchiest guy you're ever going to meet. Both shows find humor in these classic fish-out-of-water scenarios, where expectations and long-held stereotypes are tromped on all over the place. However, even just three episodes in, I can tell that Episodes is already much funnier and much better put-together than TIPDOTM has any hopes of being.

What The World Needs Now Is Parks And Recreation

Parks And Recreation is not The Office.

I'm not sure how many times I've had to repeat that to people whom I'm trying to convince to watch the show. Even fans of The Office often balk when faced with the similarly-formatted comedy, citing rip-offs or it simply being too similar. But really, the format is the only real similarity. Oh sure, it takes place in a workspace and has a cast of quirky characters, but P&R deals with small-town government, which is a completely different world than private sector business, and you can find quirky characters in any ensemble comedy ever. SO - quit your griping and join me in celebrating just what makes Parks And Recreation unique.