Bye Bye Nice Moment

Here’s Wednesday night’s crop of shows.

Spoilers!

Cougar Town – “A Thing About You” (B+)

I am really starting to love this show. That’s right, I said love. It’s pretty obvious if you’ve been following my reviews over the past few weeks that the feelings were there, mustering on the surface. It was only a matter of time really until I said it.

Alright, that’s a lie. I literally said the same thing in my last review. But I mean it. There was a point even early in this season where Cougar Town was nothing but an afterthought for me – just the show that came after Modern Family. And while I’ve clearly overuse the word love, it doesn’t change the fact that this show has become a serious contender in its own right. If I haven’t made it clear yet you should be watching this show.

This week’s episode may not have topped last week’s brilliance, but it was still quite funny in its own right. One of the things I’ve come to enjoy most about this show is watching Travis get advice from the older generation. An older generation that for the most part is just as clueless as he is (except for Andy, who is an evil genius). Watching the guys try to come up with romantic things to do was awesome. I also really liked Kirsten’s retelling of their last date:

KIRSTEN: Trav, our last date was watching the first season of Community, and staying up all night watching nine Emilo Estavez movies.

I’ve been on that date.

I also thought the basic premise of who makes better friends was an interesting one (it’s guys). I laughed pretty hard when Laurie mentioned that she had literally dumped a friend at the drop of a hat (she dropped her hat in a puddle). All in all I thought all the subplots worked this week, and each had their own moments.

Modern Family – “Caught in the Act” (B)

Another good outing for the Dunphy family this week. It was a great story idea to have their kids walk in on them. I feel like normally, when a bit like that is done on television or in movies you only really get to see how it affects the characters that walked in on the sex (mostly because the two people they walked in on were for some reason disgusting). In this episode we got to see how both sides reacted to the incident, and that led to some seriously hilarious moments.

I really enjoyed seeing the Dunphy children get a few scenes alone with each other. Normally they’re always paired up with at least one of their parents. Their gift of a door lock really made the episode for me. I love how it makes a distinct locking sound whenever it’s in use and Luke’s final line about it was hilarious:

LUKE:  It’s hard for me to look at Dad afterwards.

Like last week though, the stories from the other families just weren’t as entertaining. Gloria and Jay’s story this week intercepted with the Dunphy family, and I liked watching Phil react to all the double entendres mistakenly flowing out of Gloria, but I’d hardly say these two made the episode for me.

And again this week Cameron and Mitchell were stuck in another stale storyline. I said it last week too, but they really need to pair these guys up with a few different characters for a week. Whatever happened to the days where Cameron was hutting balls to Jay and Mitchell was jumping into Claire’s arms in a mock figure skating routine? Just give me something other than watching these guys overreact to an awkward social situation.

Off the Map – “Smile. Don’t Kill Anyone” (B-)

I didn’t enjoy this week’s episode of Off the Map as much as I did last weeks. It’s not that the episode was all bad – it’s just that I’m starting to see the beginning of what I hope won’t turn into more formulaic writing.

This week continued the show’s trend of using more conventional diseases (again with one major exception), which is something I liked in my review of the pilot because I thought it would bring more focus to the characters. To some extent it’s done just that, as our new doctors are beginning to see and evaluate themselves through the perspectives of the local population. My qualm is if the show begins to overuse the whole Dances with Wolves storyline (or Avatar for those of you who haven’t seen it) then it will grow old very quickly. Off the Map doesn’t need to ignore the cultural aspects of tropical medicine, or become apolitical, they just need to acknowledge that when they do a storyline like this their characters grow from the experience and don’t need to be constantly reminded that where they come from is different from where they are now.

I wasn’t too keen on the Anaconda storyline either. I think transporting a patient with a snake wrapped around their body was maybe too much, too soon for this show. I don’t know that much about the case history related to snakes, but I’m pretty sure using a snake as a tourniquet doesn’t happen all that often.

On the other hand I’m a really big of Lily’s character (played by Caroline Dhavernas). Dhavernas is really likable, and she’s done a great job of playing a character that if not done right could easily come off as irritating. Her back story surrounding the loss of her fiancé has been interesting to watch, and I particularly liked the origin of the episode’s namesake (a text message sent her by her fiancé right before he died).

Keeton (Martin Henderson) has also been done well so far, but the writers need to be careful not to pair him with Lily too often. I understand they’re probably putting them together in these earlier episodes to develop some chemistry between the characters, but I don’t want that to turn into the two of them running off into the jungle with each other every episode. They should use a few more new character pairings next week, and maybe keep Keeton in the hospital for an episode as well.

Stay tuned! I’m running behind this week but I should have Thursday night’s shows done by either tomorrow or Tuesday.