This Week in TV: Sunday & Monday

Barney Stinson, a man of many talents.

This will be a new installment on Joe’s Junk in which, every day or two, I give brief thoughts on the shows I watch during the week. In the past I’ve done in depth recaps of The Office and Community but those tend to be overlong & a number of people (including Alan Sepinwall, James Poniewozik of TIME, & the fine people at the AV Club) do a much better job of it, so now I’m keeping it short & sweet. Now I must warn you my viewing habits are odd. Some of these shows I highly recommend as the best television has to offer (Breaking Bad & Parks and Recreation) & some I would recommend to no one, but watch anyway (Glee). So this will be all over the place in terms of taste, but hopefully that will help keep things interesting. Also the grades I hand out will be somewhat arbitrary in that to some degree I’ll be grading on a curve based on what I expect from each show. A B+ episode of Castle or Glee is not likely to be better than a B- episode of Breaking Bad or Parks & Rec, & an A- episode of The Office would likely be one or two grades lower 3 years ago when it was the best sitcom on TV, so don’t take them too seriously. Enough talk, let’s do this…

Sunday:

Breaking Bad (AMC at 7)-Hopefully the winners and nominees in the male drama categories were enjoying themselves at the Emmys last week because next year Bryan Craston & Aaron Paul will be back to claim their crowns (both won last year but BB didn’t air any episodes over the last year). The two of them are far and away the best acting duo on television (if you disagree it’s because you aren’t watching). & the show… Good God it’s fantastic. It’s reached the epic The Wire season’s 3 & 4 (considered by many the best run of any show ever) & Lost season 5 (My personal favorite network television season ever) league where nearly every new episode could be called one of the series, & TV’s best. & by God if this week’s episode didn’t blow me away. Breaking Bad just started streaming on Netflix so I encourage you to watch it, & don’t want to spoil anything for those of you smart enough to listen to me (next week I will in fact discuss the episode), so all I’ll say is don’t ever fuck with Gustavo Fringe & these last 2 weeks of the season are going to be insane.

Grade: A

Monday:

How I Met Your Mother (CBS at 7)-I only just started watching HIMYM full time last year & it was an uneven season for the only CBS comedy I consider worth watching. Marshall & Barney had some great storyline revolving around their fathers, but the waste of a relationship that was Zooey dragged much of the season down. Thankfully this year started off with a blast as the gang attended a Cleveland Browns themed wedding for one of Ted’s high school classmates in the funniest half hour of any show last week (the second episode was more hit & miss). This week HIMYM kept going strong as everyone’s favorite ex-girlfriend of Ted’s, Victoria the extremely cute caterer from season 1, showed up in a bittersweet reunion that reminded us of just how fantastic the two are together & allowed her to point out how his relationship with Robin & Barney may be holding back his love life.  The rest of the gang got an extremely fun subplot in which a bet leads to Barney finally getting to see Lilly’s boobs, but also getting stuck wearing a ducky tie the rest of the year.
Grade: A-

Castle (ABC at 9)-The last season of Castle ended with a lot of drama. Some of which was good (Captain Montgomery’s last stand) & some of which was pretty stupid (Beckett getting shot when we all know she won’t die, this isn’t 24, & Castle being as cliché as possible by proclaiming his love for her as she bleeds out). Last week’s opener resolved all that crap (Sheri Palmer’s the new captain?!) so that this week it could return to the loose & fun version of Castle we all love as they investigated the murder of a sexual deviant by a masked vigilante (with our victim being sliced in half  via sword). While the idea was good Castle & Beckett solved the case in about twice as long as it would’ve taken any normal human being & the idea that the vigilante, who turned out to be a female cop who was framed for the murder, got to keep her day job was a tad beyond ridiculous. An improvement but our investigators can’t have their IQs dipping into the double digits.

Grade: C+

Death Valley (MTV sometime during the night, I always just DVR everything)-Thanks to my brother I have found myself sucked into every MTV scripted drama (I refuse to watch their reality crapathon, if you enjoy Teen Mom & Jersey Shore then hopefully you end up in hell because I’m pretty sure that’s all they show there), be it the high school escapades of a dork with a massive dick (The Hard Times of RJ Berger), a teen wolf (the aptly named Teen Wolf), or that girl who played Sam (the teenager who lived with Brooke) on One Tree Hill back in season 6 (Awkward). Death Valley is the only one not about high schoolers, instead focusing on police officers dealing with vampires, zombies, & werewolves in L.A. This week’s episode saw the squad battling vampires & zombies & the revelation that one of the female cops is a lesbian (which has been obvious for at least an episode). Two thirds of the episode ranged from mildly funny to boring however it was saved by an inspired storyline about zombie fights (hobo fights, but with, you know… zombies) & the continuingly hilarious work of Bryan Callen (Bilson from How I Met Your Mother & Eddie from The Hangover). Thus far the writing for Death Valley remains uneven, making nearly every episode, though enjoyable, immediately forgettable. If I had a life, or didn’t have a DVR, I wouldn’t be watching. Grade: C+