It's Like A Sickness...

I’m writing this very, very late, so I apologise if any of this becomes incoherent or my vocabulary becomes a little... less big.

Spoilers...

How I Met Your Mother – “The Best Man” and “The Naked Truth” (A-)

I’m going to review the two episodes from Monday night together because despite having relatively different plots they do tend to function as one hour long season premiere.

And what a premiere it was. I wasn’t exactly blown away by last season’s finale – in terms of developing the overall arc of the series we didn’t get much – but the way this episode picked things back up I am extremely excited about what’s to come in the year ahead.

I’m glad the writers continued with the Barney/Robin relationship tension from the finale. As always, every time we talk about these two together I have to give a disclaimer because of how it turned out the first time around, but I do think this time will be different. The way the writers have set everything up (quite skilfully I might add) it looks like the two of them won’t get together until the season finale, if not the series finale, so anyone anxious about their lack of chemistry as a couple probably don’t need to worry anytime soon. Personally, I’ve always been rooting for these two to get together again.

The real question I think the writers are asking though is whether it’s Nora, Robin, or some other mystery woman who ends up becoming Barney’s bride. There were a few clues in this one. The way Lily came to get Ted at the end of the episode to tell him the bride needed him was one of them, suggesting the bride is probably Robin, but I wouldn’t count Nora out either. While he’ll likely end up with Robin in the end (fingers crossed anyway), the way Barney was talking about whether he made the right choice or not makes it seem like there’ll be more drama in that decision than we’ve seen so far.

Of course, maybe the craziest development in the premiere came in its final moments with the return of Victoria. Of all the women Ted has dated over the years Victoria is my favourite. Stella obviously had a good run, but we got closure with her. She hurt us (yes, I said us... don’t read into it). Victoria was a casualty of Ted and Robin’s relationship. At the time they were the couple everyone was rooting for so I was okay with her departure, but now that the Ted and Robin era is out of the picture it’s a lot easier to see just how awesome a character we lost in Victoria.

And her return addresses an important issue with How I Met Your Mother these days – it’s very hard to get invested in any of Ted’s relationships when we know they’re doomed to fail. It’s why Zoey met such a cold reception last season. Victoria is an interesting move by the writers. I don’t think it’s possible based on the back story of the mother that Victoria could be her, but the idea of returning Ted to a well-liked former flame is certainly a creative solution to the problem. It may all end up being a shameless stall (they were quite up front in this one that the story isn’t even close to finished yet) but at the moment her return has certainly piqued my interest.

All in all I thought both episodes were really funny, and like all good season premieres they set the ground work for the rest of the season. Many of you worried that this show had completely run out of places to go should be at least somewhat satisfied with the direction of the season so far.

2 Broke Girls – “Pilot” (C+)

Whitney Cummings actually has two shows coming out this season. One she’s starring in, and the other is this show. Supposedly, 2 Broke Girls is supposed to be the better of the two, which at the moment doesn’t bode well for her other project.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen or heard much of Cummings’ stand up routine, but I do know the buzz around her is she’s quite edgy. That’s sort of what puzzles me about this pilot – if Cummings comedy style is so fresh and innovative why restrain it to a format as worn as the 4-camera sitcom? The jokes just didn’t seem organic, following a very obvious set-up, set-up, punch line routine, and the laugh track didn’t help matters at all. I could see how some of this stuff would be funny in a stand up routine, but coming out of the mouths of these characters it just felt stilted.

I guess a lot of the content of 2 Broke Girls is a little more risky than your average sitcom, and there were at least a few good laughs in the episode, so not everything here was all bad. Pilots are tough – you’ve got to introduce the premise of the show and all of its characters, and for a sitcom you’ve got to do it in just half an hour. It’s no wonder a lot of them come across as forced. I’m a big fan of Kat Dennings, and I have a feeling that once this show is allowed to break off into more specific storylines there’s a good chance it could be worth watching. Just based on the pilot though, 2 Broke Girls has a lot of hill to climb.

Modern Family – “Dude Ranch” (B+) and “When Good Kids Go Bad” (A-)

Oh how I missed this show. Fresh off its second straight Emmy win (though I still contend Parks and Recreation got robbed) it doesn’t look like Modern Family is showing any signs of slowing down. Both of these episodes certainly highlighted that the show is just as good as ever.

The first episode of the night, “Dude Ranch,” kicked things off with a bang. I loved watching Phil play cowboy in a desperate attempt to impress Jay (Ty Burrell proving he really did deserve that Emmy). Overall the writers actually did a great job with the change in scenery. When I first saw the previews for “Dude Ranch” I thought it came off a little gimmicky, and while it is strange that these families seem to take every vacation with each other, picking a dude ranch as their destination worked quite well.

I thought Tim Blake Nelson was a fantastic addition as Hank, the facilitator of the dude ranch. One of the better recurring gags in this episode was Hank’s nicknames for each member of the family. My favourite was Bossy, aka Claire, mostly because after she got the nickname it seemed to catch on with the rest of the extended family (Dylan and Phil had my favourite usages). I also loved the scene where he organized the search party for Dylan, frequently assuming the poor kid was dead in front of a very uncomforted Haley. It reminded me of that great old Simpsons episode where Homer and Mr. Burns get stuck in a cabin with each other.

I’ve also got to point out what a great idea it was to pair up Luke and Mitchell. These two just never seem to get storylines together and after this episode I kind of don’t understand why. The scene where they blew up the birdhouse together was definitely one of the highlights of the first half of the night.

The second episode, “When Good Kids Go Bad,” was even better in my opinion. I think some of the best episodes in this series are when the whole family gets together at the end and all of the separate storylines collide. Watching Claire to go to such great lengths to prove she was right only for Jay to do the same moments later at the most inopportune time ended up capping off both of those plotlines in a way far funnier than they could have on their own.

 And that probably would have been my favourite part of the episode if it wasn’t for Gloria. Gloria’s always shown hints that maybe she’s not as far removed from the darker side of her Columbian roots as she acts, but this episode took it farther than it’s ever gone before, and wow was it hilarious. From subtly threatening Manny’s principle to casually breaking into a young girl’s locker, pretty much every scene she was in was a highlight. In fact the funniest part of the night was just listening to Sofia Vergara’s delivery on this line:

GLORIA: You’d be surprised what people can live with Jay.

The last thing I think I need to talk about is the addition of Aubrey Anderson-Emmons as the new Lily. I’m sure I’m not alone in saying I was a little thrown off by the fact that Lily has transformed from a non-speaking toddler to a kindergartner in just over a summer. Anderson-Emmons is very cute in the role, but I’m someone who likes a certain level of realism and there was definitely something unnatural about that transition.

That’s not to say I think it’s all bad though. I wrote at length last season about how I felt that Mitchell and Cameron’s storylines were getting a little monotonous at times, and how part of that was due to the fact that they don’t have a kid who can function as a real character. The new Lily opens up a ton of new story possibilities and character groupings, and it could very well be the shot in the arm Mitchell and Cameron need to get more variation in their storylines. You could already see some of the benefits starting in “When Good Kids Go Bad.” Hopefully in the long run the writers can keep that up.

Some of my favourite lines:

MITCHELL: I want to be able to teach my son all the things that my dad taught Claire.

PHIL: Which one’s bossy?
HANK: That’s my nickname for your wife.
PHIL: Hilarious!

DYLAN: I just wanted to thank you all for bringing me on this trip and making me feel like one of the family, especially Bossy.

GLORIA: You stole the locket! After I told the principle that you could have never done something like that and I threaten him with the Columbian necktie.

LUKE: (to Lily) This isn’t over...

MITCHELL: How long was I in that dryer? Is this why I’m afraid of tumbling? I had to quit gymnastics Claire!
PHIL: (incensed) A childhood without tumbling... you knew this and just stood by and did nothing!

New Girl – “Pilot” (B)

I love Zooey Deschanel. It doesn’t matter what that girl does, I want to see it. So perhaps I didn’t go into this pilot as objective as I could have been, but I’m okay with that. There’s a lot of charm to this show. It’s not exactly firing on all cylinders yet. There were plenty of jokes that didn’t land and not all of the characters work at the same level, but this pilot had enough charm that even the stuff that didn’t work still gives me hope for its future.

I should note though, Damon Wayans Jr. is still committed to the surprisingly renewed Happy Endings and unfortunately he’s not going to be around for much longer. That’s a shame because of all the guys I actually found him the most entertaining. His “stop it” response to Jess’s crying is exactly the kind of crap my friends and I would pull. So until his replacement is revealed we’re not going to get the whole picture, but either way I think New Girl has earned a second viewing.