Talkin' tube

This year, I've been a good little pop culture junkie and have found myself watching four shows regularly (positive this is a record, at least for the past few years). Modern Family almost makes the cut, but I just don't quite enjoy it as much as I feel like I should, so I skip it most weeks.

What I will talk about in more detail are those four shows - starting with the one in that picture on the left.

Scrubs

Scrubs is back! Again! Although these eleventh-hour additional seasons have been going on for a few years now, this year is the least Scrubs-like yet - Carla is gone, JD will be soon, the other regulars are down to just guest appearances, and the only familiar faces on the main cast are Cox, Turk, and last year's addition of Denise.

Also gone (or at least performing a diminished role) is show creator Bill Lawrence, who had hoped the show could be retitled 'Scrubs Med' or something similar. I think that might have been a wise choice - people have been trying to compare this year's show to classic Scrubs, even though it's really quite a different show. A new name would have helped reduce some of the comparisons.

Trying to evaluate the show on its own merits, it's pretty good (and I suspect will get better once JD leaves and it can develop its own identity). It's a little less crazy, a little more grounded in the characters, their development and interactions.

Most of the new additions are good, although I'm very confused at why they didn't just stick with last year's new cast (who I assumed were being groomed to take over the show). Lucy originally seemed like a clone of Sunny from last year, but as it turns out she's closer to JD from the first season, only less crazy and slightly more confident. Drew's a neat addition even if I'm wondering where they can go with his character after this week's episode.

Hate Cole though. I know that's the point, but I don't hate him because I'm supposed to hate him. I hate him because I'd rather just not see him on the show in the first place.

V

If it seems weird for me to be opining on Scrubs after three episodes...well, V has only had four. And now it's on a break. Until March.

Long break.

My knowledge of the original V is very little - I read one of the books in high school - but even I still knew the pertinent details. Evil lizards disguised as humanoid aliens invade Earth, most people believe the lizards' propaganda that they're only here to help us, some lizards rebel against the leadership.

So I'm kind of glad that they got all of that out of the way in the first episode - most people already knew the twists one way or another, so give them to us quickly and then get to the real storytelling.

I have to say, I quite like this show (at least for a sci-fi). The pacing is great, the revelations are coming out naturally, the distrust between the main rebels feels real, we're still left with lots of mysteries...I don't necessarily like the portrayal of the media (easily duped, refusing to ask tough questions), but I think that's because of my personal interest more than anything.

Flash Forward

The other sci-fi I've been watching, Flash Forward is clearly the inferior show yet (maybe because of that) I'm almost enjoying it more.

Whereas V intentionally doesn't drop much in the way of clues, preferring to have us learn things as the main characters do, Flash Forward leaves me with the impression I could figure out the entire puzzle if I tried hard enough. I don't know why I think this, considering they also introduce new plot points completely out of the blue even though the characters have known them all along.

The characters are easily to relate to because we see their flash-forwards roughly a million times each - Dimitri seeing nothing, his bride-to-be at their wedding (well, his funeral), Mark being assaulted in his office while drunk, the now-dead guy working on a case with some British intelligence agent, etc.

I still don't understand how some plot points fit together - Mark's daughter is seen in the flash-forward of Lloyd's son, clearly in Olivia's kitchen, yet she also must have encountered D. Gibbons at some point in her 2.5-minute glimpse of the future.

And that's without getting into the incredibly cheesy revelation of the evil genius behind the flash-forwards being hidden by the Persian woman in the last episode.

Still, I'll be watching when it comes back in the spring.

The Office

Finally, we come to the show I've blogged about more than any other. The Office has taken a drastically different direction this year, and I for one don't really like it.

The biggest changes involve Jim - the everyman character who we were all drawn to in the early seasons because of his "island of sanity in a land of bizarre office-mates" personality. In theory, this season should have been his crowning moment - marrying Pam (whom we also all liked), and getting promoted to co-manager, finally able to temper Michael's unpopular side.

Problem: none of that has happened. Instead, Jim and Pam have turned into what they never liked about everybody else they work with - caricatures who have lost sight of their old perspective on life and suddenly care about something else (each other) instead. They're part of the office's problems, rather than surrogates for the audience, reacting at the absurdity.

If we want somebody to empathize with, we now have to go to Oscar (who overreacted to things in early seasons, apparently the least offensive trait the writers could find). Even worse, we almost had a complete 180-degree reversal in Jim and Dwight.

Dwight had become one of the more popular characters by being unbelievably weird, to the point where you'd assume the rest of the office was laughing at him behind his back (which they were). Now, the writers are playing to his popularity by making him funny and while still weird, weird in a much cuter way. It's nowhere near the same character he was originally.

On the one hand, I'm glad the writers realized what was going on and have tried to get us back to not liking Dwight by having him undermine Jim. On the other hand, why is Dwight so upset that Jim got promoted and not him, especially considering that when Jim was named Assistant Manager, Dwight barely caused a stir? Why the sudden change?

There's actually a lot to like about The Office this year - Andy and Erin, Angela becoming a background character again, Creed getting more good lines (although I wish he'd have never been seen again after the murder mystery episode). Even the storyline of Dunder Mifflin having financial woes and ultimately being sold was a great idea considering its current topicality.

But all of these are overrided by Jim, who seemed smart enough to be a decent boss, making absolutely bone-headed decisions, and Michael, who we'd been taught to believe was a horrible manager, being the wise sage. Too many role reversals for me to be enjoying the show as much as I have in the past.

--Ryan