Monthly Archives: January 2015

The Best Thing I Saw on TV This Week (1/4 – 1/11)

Posted on by
Reply

This week saw the return of a bunch of great TV shows from their winter hiatuses. Sunday’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine took all of its characters on a weekend trip, and The Good Wife featured a huge sigh of relief for Cary while tensions rose around Kalinda. Monday gave us the return of The Bachelor with farmer Chris looking for love. Tuesday staked its claim as a fantastic night for television in 2015 with an excellent series premiere for Agent Carter and our first look at Mindy’s time at Stanford on The Mindy Project. And there were plenty of things for sports fans to cheer about as the NFL playoffs kicked off.

This may have been one of the most difficult choices I’ve had to make yet for the best thing on television this week—between Captain Holt eagerly playing a game designed to poke fun at him on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Peggy threatening a sexist jerk with just a fork on Agent Carter, and Cary’s sentencing on The Good Wife. Ultimately, though, I went with what moved me the most—and that came from The Good Wife.

Matt Czuchry’s performance as it dawned on Cary that the case against him was being thrown out was so incredible that I want him to get an Emmy nomination this year for that moment alone. The pure relief and gratitude on his face was paired with a deeper sense of exhaustion that made the relief feel even more powerful. Playing “overwhelmed” can lend itself to overacting, but Czuchry proved that he has taken lessons from the Christine Baranski/Julianna Margulies playbook with the subtlety he brought to that moment. Being able to convey so much emotion in just a facial expression is something every member of the cast of The Good Wife excels at, and Czuchry’s reaction provided perhaps the most earned and cathartic moment I’ve seen on television this season.

The way The Good Wife balanced the relief Cary felt and we felt for him with the fear Kalinda felt and we all felt for her just added to the brilliance of that scene. Nothing on The Good Wife is ever simple; everything is layered. And that kind of emotional complexity made what was already a fantastic scene even better by showing that Cary’s freedom and happiness has a cost, and that cost is one Kalinda is going to have to pay.

What was the best thing you saw on TV this week?

Fangirl Thursday: New Year, New Loves

Posted on by
13

Welcome back, fellow fangirls (and fanboys!), to one more Fangirl Thursday post before this feature goes on another little hiatus until March to make room for more TV reviews here at NGN! I hope all of you had a lovely holiday season and are enjoying a nice start to 2015.

The holiday season is a great time to catch up on the media our busy lives often cause us to miss out on. Between books and movies and TV shows given as Christmas gifts and holiday hiatuses giving us some time to indulge in new interests, it provides the perfect combination of new things to fall in love with and more time to fall in love with them. There are also plenty of people who make New Year’s resolutions to read more, start a new TV series, or watch or read something from the past that has a lot of critical acclaim surrounding it. (We all know that one person who has a New Year’s resolution to watch The Wire in 2015.)

When I was 13, the holiday season was when I binge-read the first four Harry Potter novels. In college, winter break meant exploring the world of Doctor Who and Torchwood. A few years ago, New Year’s Day was the day I discovered Once Upon a Time and proceeded to watch the first seven episodes all at once. Last year, I spent the week after Christmas devouring Season One of Orphan Black.

This year, I was given the gift of three TV shows I’ve been wanting to watch for a long time by two people I know and love and trust (my sister and Heather). Heather’s gift of Eli Stone is waiting for me to explore this spring when I’ll need something to get me through the start of hiatus time. And one of my sister’s gifts for me—the first season of Veep—has already helped me start to heal from Amy Peohler’s Golden Globes snub and finally appreciate the brilliance of Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

My sister also got me the first season of The Americans, and, in doing so, sent me down a rabbit hole of thoughts and feelings I’m not sure I’ll ever recover from (and we all know I love a good rabbit hole of feelings!). Philip and Elizabeth Jennings have now joined the ranks of Harry Potter, Emma Swan, and Sarah Manning as characters I first met over a holiday break but who stayed with me long after the New Year started. When I began watching my DVDs of the first season of The Americans, I had a goal of finishing Season One and then watching Seasons Two and Three after the third season wraps up this summer. Now I only have nine episodes left to watch in Season Two, with every intention of watching Season Three as it airs, starting on January 28. I’m not sure I’ve ever binge-watched a drama series this quickly before, but if there’s a show worthy of being a weird combination of devoured and savored, it’s The Americans.

Continue reading →

TV Time: The Mindy Project 3.12

Posted on by
6

Title Stanford

Two-Sentence Summary Mindy starts her fellowship at Stanford off on the wrong foot, which prompts her to try to win over her professor, who is a friend of Danny’s from med school. Meanwhile, Tamra tries to channel her complicated feelings about Morgan after their breakup into a charity basketball game.

Favorite Line “What’s more important, your relationship with Dr. Lahiri or this basketball team I made you join two days ago?” (Morgan)

My Thoughts “Stanford” was a solid—if slightly formulaic—return episode for The Mindy Project. However, I don’t mind formulaic if the formula works, and this pattern that the show’s developing of episodes ending with Mindy making huge strides in terms of her personal growth is a good example of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Another pattern I hope this show continues to run with is crafting really fun B-plots. I enjoyed basically everything about the basketball storyline. I loved that Morgan’s game tapes were just VHS copies of Space Jam, because any Space Jam reference is a good Space Jam reference. I loved Jeremy’s total confusion over the rules of basketball. I loved the use of “All I Do Is Win.” And I loved Tamra’s confidence in her child-sized shorts (which—let’s be honest— Xosha Roquemore looked amazing in).

I loved Tamra in general in this episode. Roquemore is such an underrated comedic talent in this cast, and I especially love any time she gets to play Tamra’s reactions to people discovering she pays no attention to the details of their lives. (Her inability to realize that Peter is in the same situation as she’s in with Morgan reminded me of her total confidence that Mindy’s name was “Glob” back in Season Two’s premiere episode.) Roquemore is also underrated in terms of the hints of softness she gives what could be a one-dimensional character. I really believed her feelings for Morgan, but I also really liked that they aren’t getting back together right away. Seeing her hit it off with Mindy’s intern was nice, and I hope it leads to more fun places for this character.

Sometimes watching characters develop apart from their relationship is a great thing, which I’m thinking it will be for Morgan and Tamra. It’s also a great thing for Danny and especially for Mindy. This was another really strong outing for Mindy as a character, and it makes me hopeful that the growth that landed her on my list of best character arcs in 2014 will continue into 2015 and beyond.

Continue reading →

The Busy Season Is Upon Us

Posted on by
5

I hope all of you had a lovely holiday season and are refreshed and ready for more great TV and more great TV discussions here at Nerdy Girl Notes!

Over the next couples of weeks, things will be getting pretty busy here, mainly because of NBC’s decisions concerning the final season of Parks and Recreation. I’ve been reviewing that show for the last two seasons, and I’m excited in a very bittersweet kind of way to review this last season, too. However, the decision to move that final season to Tuesday nights puts me in a bit of a bind as far as a posting schedule goes, which is why I’m looking for some help as I prioritize my writing for the next several weeks.

On Tuesdays, I’ll be watching both The Mindy Project and Parks and Rec, but (because I have to deal with a pesky thing called “my 9 to 5 job”) I won’t be able to write about both shows on Wednesdays. Therefore, I want to hear from you, fellow TV comedy fans, about which show you’d rather read my review of the next day and which you’d be willing to wait until Thursdays to read. (Fangirl Thursdays will be taking another hiatus after this week until Parks and Rec’s short run is over at the end of February.)

I’ve included a handy poll here that I’d love for you to participate in, because I want to get a good feel for what you as readers would like to see as far as my posting schedule goes.

 

Thanks in advance for the input, and I can’t wait to start talking with all of you about new episodes of our favorite shows!