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 Techtite
TV
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What is Techtite TV?
Far
from a recommendation of "What to Watch," these mini-reviews are all the shows I
personally saw (or will see) in the present
week. Sure, we all watch CNN, the evening news, and one or two of those
"other" news shows, and yet how do we feel about the other shows
we watch weekly? Here are my own mini-reviews, episode-to-episode.
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Feel free to contribute.
As always, review submissions are
accepted!
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Sidebar
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Best Reason to Turn on
TV This Week:
24.
Tony's back. 'nuf said.
Biggest Disappointment
This Week:
2 1/2 Men.
Not their best episode this week.
Quote
of the Week:
“Don't go putting too much
junk in the trunk!"
The O.C.,
while Summer is drawn by Seth for his planned comic book, of which he
often makes the women, shall we say, more voluptuous than in the real
world.
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Encapsulated TV reviews
for:
February 12th-February
18th, 2005.
The Techtite.com ratings system (icon version):
 Burnout
 Near
Miss  Small
Crater  Large
Crater  Deep
Impact
For
more on this web site's "Techtite" rating system, click here.
Saturday
11:30, NBC : Saturday Night
Live. Jason Bateman with musical group...oh, I forget right
now. Let's just put it this way; if anyone missed Jason's good sense of
humor in that other show on FOX that shall not be named on NBC, he
certainly showed his comic sense of humor here. The most memorable shtick,
however, would have to go to the two SNL regulars playing Prince Charles
and Camilla Parker-Bowles in the evening's SNL news skit. That was a total
riot. Jason was hilarious too though, so all you Arrested Development
fanatics save your e-mails. It's not like this is Last Comic Standing. Large
Crater
Sunday
9:00, ABC: Desperate Housewives.
Last time on this show, Susan had just found out that the creepy
neighbor boy may or may not have mistakenly killed his infant little
sister when a baby himself. Yeah; I don't buy that either, especially
when what we saw was his father killing the
neighbor lady just for getting too close to the truth. Anyway, it's all
another week at Wisteria Lane, although in a major turn of events,
Susan's plumber boyfriend gets too close to one of those houses he's
secretly investigating for an old acquaintance, and gets shot, only to
have the cops find out. Oh, this is also some time after he confesses to
Susan he'd like to have kids of her own, and she having already had a
now-teenage daughter isn't keen on the idea. I'd say who I feel is the
selfish one of the two, but I'm not in the mood for serious debate here.
Large
Crater
10:00, ABC: Boston
Legal. This was one of those episode that shows what the
series' strong and weak points are. The strong points are Rhona Mitra
and James Spader, whose characters reach a serious bump in their
relationship when Alan (James Spader) is intimidated by a man stronger
than him at a bar who flirts with his girlfriend (Rhona Mitra), only to
have Spader pay another guy $300 to punch the guy. The resulting barroom
brawl sends Alan to court for...what was that again? Oh, right; it isn't
supposed to make a lick of sense, because it was written by David E.
Kelly, who ever since Brotherhood of Poland NH is showing signs of
needing a sabbatical. I mean he's written good stuff before, but this is
pretty off base. Oh, and while I love William Shatner to death, this
whole bit with his character getting all sweaty when Candice Bergen
whispers his name into his ear? That's been stale since the first time
it happened, and now it's just silly. As for Bergen; I still can't
decide if she simply doesn't get along with the other cast members or
she simply doesn't like the show, but she really isn't at her best. This
is no Murphy Brown performance for her; she can do better than this, I
am sure. Anyway; the episode was good because of the final moment when
Alan, often the pompous oaf, suddenly shows a chink in his armor when
his girlfriend may break up with him. That was superb. Large
Crater
Monday
9:30, CBS: Two and a Half Men.
This was another episode which shows how a simple premise can be woven
into a hilarious sitcom story. The simple story is that Jake is home for
a week as Judith goes to Hawaii alone (?). The men are so used to their
daily routine they forget Jake at school, twice. The final shot of them
coming to terms with their change in schedule, only to forget Judith at
the airport was pretty funny. Large
Crater
9:00, FOX: 24.
Just as in a prior season when a nuclear blast goes off right
when you least expect it, a nuclear reactor meltdown occurs when you
felt they would never dare go that far in this series. However; it makes
for good characterizations of the leads in this season, and shows
exactly what they are fighting to keep from happening everywhere else.
Anyway; Jack and Tony now have the wife of Big Bad's Apprentice in
custody. BBA unknowingly bumps into his son to kill him for possibly
thwarting their Big Plans, right when his wife leads Jack right to them.
Wife/mom is all "I'll help but only if you save the life of my
son." BBA is all "You shoot me and I kill the boy." Talk
about sons who don't have to worry about finding a gift for Father's
Day. I'm just saying. Weird. Large
Crater
9:00, NBC: Las
Vegas. Aside from The Pussycat
Dolls and Dean Cain guest starring, this was un unremarkable episode.
I'm not kidding; when Vanessa Marcil goes on stage as a Pussycat Doll
and the kooky lighting makes the whole moment entirely forgettable, you
know you have a flawed episode. Yet seeing an opening for Dean Cain as a
recurring character, as well as Marcil's best acting on this show to
date as his estranged soul mate, makes this episode truly work, even if
only just barely. Overall this is another case of good not great. Small
Crater
9:30, CBS: CSI: Miami Horatio
meets up again with Mr. "diplomatic immunity" that got away on
a prior episode. Turns out dad can rescind the rights to immunity of his
son if he so chooses. Well turns out dear old dad isn't so dear if he
ain't the real dad so bye bye faux son, as he goes to jail for real.
Overall I'd have to say this series is finding its niche lately. That's
great news. Small
Crater
Tuesday
9:00, CBS : The Amazing Race
7.
...in two weeks.
10:00, ABC: NYPD Blue
It's on the digital VCR; review later when I see it.
Wednesday
8:00, ABC: Lost.
The good news is that there's a new episode February 9th. The bad news
this is February 2nd. More news by next week.
Thursday
8:00, NBC: Joey.
Review coming soon.
8:30, NBC: The
Apprentice 3 Ditto.
8:00, FOX: The
O.C. Ditto part 2. See you then, O. C.'s.
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Close-up of
the week: 9:00, CBS: CSI.
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 No
Jorja Fox? If only that was the least of this
episode's many flaws. The truth is, I'm sick and tired of all the Jerry
Springer style balderdash on this series lately; gosh
oh golly, the murder victim was into a kinky sex, which in this
case means he wore diapers and even had a "play room."
The real problem here isn't the infantilism; the problem is that
without such piss-poor kinky titillation within this mystery, the
mystery itself would totally stink. In fact, this episode's entire mystery was revealed before the
opening credit roll; fat idiot jumps off his balcony. But why did
he do it? Spoilers be darned because this story has been done over
and over and over again; the guy was high on LSD. Whatever; the
fact is this was one very poor episode. Near
Miss
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10:00, CBS: Without a
Trace. Pompous pop culture princess gets kidnapped by maniac who
blames "her" for his kid sister killing herself when her teen
idol never wrote back to her. What; we're supposed to feel sorry for
someone not being responded to, because such fans never take things too
seriously...? Bwa-ha-ha! Just look at how one simple response to a
simple fan letter cost poor young star Rebecca Schaffer her life back in
the '80s. No, a star in their right mind is not going to reply to you.
Ever. Accept it and just enjoy the music/movies/shows they provide you.
That said; maniac kidnaps girl, makes faux "live or die" vote
site to get feedback as to whether or not to kill her. Guy cheats to
make sure the count is almost always "die." Jack and his team
come on at the nick of time. The end. Overall; nice episode, though
rather simple. Small
Crater
Friday
8:00, UPN: Star Trek: Enterprise. Part
two of three is more evidence of the "how" and "why"
to the capitol of all of the League of Planets being on Earth, as Archer
stops a potential war and even engages in a near fight to the death to
keep it. Does that make any sense? Well it does in the show, when Archer
finds a loophole to keep any ambassadors from dying due to some
rite-of-passage where a killed crewmate requires the blood of their
murderer, or something slightly like that. Anyway the drone ship is
located by the fleet of Vulcan and other ships, and they are in pursuit
just in time for the part three conclusion. On happier news: Trip and
Tucker are no longer stuck on board, though they stayed on long enough for
some nice three dimensional character acting for them. Large
Crater
8:00, Sci-Fi: Stargate SG-1. The
gang engages in a little bit of a humorous episode, where their old
sort-of nemesis yet now quasi-good-guy is pronounced "king" on
the world they deserted him on. This, when an army of Jaffa are about to
invade the region, with the SG-1 team ready to stop them from killing
anyone. This isn't until they find out that the would be king was
pronounced so because of prophecies inscribed on a pillar, and this pillar
means the ancients had some sort of time traveling device nearby, of which
the team finds and obtains. Don't worry; I don't know how they came to the
conclusion of a time machine being in the vicinity, either, let alone an
abandoned one. Yet the overall episode has some nice humor, particularly
between O'Neil and his now ex-nemesis. Large
Crater
9:00, Sci-Fi: Stargate: Atlantis. Didn't
see the tape yet.
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