Best Week Lately

Maybe once or twice a year, I'll be hit with really great television from the variety of shows I watch.

The week from 3/15-3/21 was one of those times.


First off, we had How I Met Your Mother Monday night.

It wasn't one of those extremely hilarious episodes, and it wasn't what I call a game-changer (where something major happens), but it was right in the middle. Ted and Lily were discussing the new revelation that she just-- and has also done in the past-- manipulated his last relationship into having his girlfriend break up with him. She did it for the right reasons-- and Ted can see that-- but it was also a huge betrayal to him. I'm curious to see what happens there. Maybe it'll never be brought up again, but this isn't like most shows, it understands-- and pays attention to-- its history. I would imagine the next relationship Ted gets into (which could very well be with the titular Mother), will have him very leery of getting his new lady close to Lily.

And while that "heaviness" was happening, Marshall was proving to Barney how liberating a nightshirt is to wear in bed. It doesn't sound all that funny, but it was; trust me. And while all that was going on, Robin was having some troubles on her morning talk show which were even funnier.


Next, we had The Office on Thursday night.

Michael gets a new supervisor (Charles), which puts him off the deep end because, as he tells Charles, the last two bosses were Jan, "who came around when she was horny" and Ryan, "who was on drugs", so he's used to supervising himself. Charles would have none of that. He could see from just being in that office for five minutes, that there is very little control or leadership in it. Michael tried his usual nonsense, and Charles kept shutting him down. Michael decided to drive to New York to talk to the head guy (David)-- who had avoided his calls all day. In that confrontation, he mentioned that he deserved a party to celebrate his 15 years with the company, but along the course of that conversation, he was also very subtly telling David that he was disappointed that David blew him off all day. David realized that Michael was right; that Michael did deserve better treatment, so he said he would find the money for Michael's party. Michael got up and said, "I quit".

Only two or three other times in the run of this show has Michael pulled his head out of his ass enough to realize what's going on around him. Of course, the bulk of his problems are directly attributed to the fact that his head is up his ass the majority of the time; that he is either too irrational or too infantile to do the right thing. But he did the right thing in this case. One of his superiors proved that he doesn't listen to him-- and while it wasn't mentioned, the reality is Michael knows he got passed over for promotion again-- so he quits.

But an even more intriguing storyline was about Jim. Lovable, funny Jim… He loves pulling pranks and deflating the stupidity balloons around him (namely Dwight's). But one of his best jokes came the same day Charles arrived. Jim decided to go overboard on the dress code memo that Dwight sent out, so he wore a tuxedo to work. Funny, yes-- there even quite a few jokes surrounding it before Charles arrived-- but looking at it as a normal person would (through Charles' eyes), it was shown to be a juvenile prank. Especially because Charles would be the type of guy Jim would need to impress to go somewhere in the company. He further embarrassed himself to Charles for declaring he was the "assistant manager" under Michael-- something he teased Dwight about (for being a made up position) before Dwight lost the title.

So while Jim has always been the character that grounded us in reality while the lunacy of the office occurred around him, we saw Jim for what he has become: just another nutcase in that office.

Will the show get that "deep" and continue along this path, or were we just supposed to feel bad for Jim for making mistakes that one day? I hope they're brave enough to explore the "facts" I just presented (although none of this was mentioned in the episode) and that the show is on the track I'm on right now.


Later on Thursday, I watched the fourth season finale of The Wire. The bulk of my week was spent watching the season from start to finish (over 13 hours from Sunday night to Thursday night), and it was well worth putting everything else aside for it. Two weeks ago, I told a friend that The Wire Season Three (which I had just finished) were 12 of the best hours of television I'd ever seen.

Season Four was even better.

Since I'm focusing on the finale, I'll stay on that path. In about 75 minutes, I had my heart broken countless times, I actually shed tears on more than one occasion, and I was left emotionally spent for over 24 hours.

The beauty of The Wire is that each season is very much like a book. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end. There are many, many characters to follow as the plot progresses, but the main storyline was about four young boys in eighth grade who were at a turning point in their lives. These boys had everyone pulling at them: drug dealers, police, teachers, civic-minded individuals, family, friends... In the finale, we got to see the paths they ended up on, and, true to form for the show, not everyone had a happy ending-- and that was absolutely heartbreaking.

The show had always been about Baltimore, so usually the characters are just our way of getting to know the city, but, man, I loved those kids (even after knowing them for only twelve hours)and to see where some of them ended up was brutal-- even though I knew the odds were bad for them.

And if that wasn't bad enough, one of my favorite characters took two in the head after making the "right choice" and was dead before he hit the pavement. Another favorite character tried killing himself and ended up in an institution. And yet another favorite character failed so terribly after trying so hard to make amends for a mistake.

But while all that bad was going on, there were some good moments: the Major Crimes Unit got repaired, one of the most damaged characters got his shit together for a return, and Bunny Colvin showed that heroism can come in many forms and probably saved a life.

I cannot wait to see Season Five...


Finally (I know: Thank God), we have Friday.

First, came The Soup. Host Joel McHale has never really pulled punches with the stupidity he "reports" every week, but this week was especially brutal. I don't know if the writers are different, or if he was having a bad day, or if these reality shows just had an unbelievably stupid week, but it was harsh. And very, very funny...


And lastly came the Battlestar Galactica series finale. I didn't watch the series from Day One. I elected to wait until near the end to just watch the series in bulk. I started with Seasons 1 and 2.0 last summer and then crammed Seasons 2.5, 3, and 4.0 between Thanksgiving and the end of January, where I picked up on Season 4.5 as each episode aired weekly.

I have to admit that I was disappointed for much of Season 4.5 because there were so many loose ends to be tied up, and the show just didn't seem to want to acknowledge what was out there. So I knew all the questions would never be answered in the final episode-- especially because the Galactica still had one, last mission to go on.

And that last mission was a doozy. Without saying too much, I'll just say how the boarding party got on the ship it was infiltrating was cool as Hell.

Anyway, even though many of the loose ends weren't tied up-- and many of the questions still out there were not answered, I found the finale very satisfying on an emotional level. The show had always been about the characters (even if we didn't understand what they all were), and the episode acknowledged that fact. Fewer people died than I expected, which was a welcome relief after what they all had been through. And while I think the reliance on being ambiguous in certain areas was a bit annoying, this was a true ending for the show, and just based on that, it put this finale in an elite company.

I just wish I would have put my thoughts "in writing" about what I believed was happening after the second or third season because I came pretty close to figuring out how the series fit into "the big picture"...

So there you have it: my week in television. Sometimes I feel guilty about all the time I spend watching TV, but weeks like these make it impossible to cut back. You never know where or when the gems will come.