Week in Review, Feb 8 to 14

The Week in Video Games

My original plan for this week was to take a break from video gaming. That lasted a couple of days until I found myself with tons of free time and no plan for what to do with it.

So, as I thought I would last week, I started a second playthrough of Mass Effect. The original: complete with awesome but flawed Mako, complicated inventory system, slow elevators, and a confusing cover system. I'm playing a New Game +, which means you get to use your character from your first playthrough when you start over again, keeping your experience level and your equipment. You'd think that would be super easy, but I'm also playing on the Hardcore difficulty level this time around. My first playthrough of the original Mass Effect apparently took me 34 hours. I am now just under 20 hours into playthrough two.

I also started playing Tales of Monkey Island episode two, The Siege of Spinner Cay, this week. I have only put about an hour into the game so far, but it seems very similar to episode one in structure, and that's mostly a good thing. I love me some point & click adventuring. But at the same time, these games require so much trial and error to solve most of the puzzles that they are a little too frustrating to play than my current mood will tolerate.

The Week in Television

With the Olympics now hogging TV (not that I don't enjoy watching the Olympics every once in a while), next week's Week in Television will be ridiculously sparse. But that's next week. This week was pretty packed. And it was a week of Valentine's Day episodes! Great! I loved being reminded every day this week that a shitty Valentine's Day was coming...

Monday, February 8th
Loved: Chuck (3x7)
Liked: The Big Bang Theory (3x15)
Meh: Heroes (4x19), How I Met Your Mother (5x15)

Heroes's uneven and uneventful fourth season came to an end this week with the wholly unremarkable "Brave New World," possibly the weakest season finale in a series that is notorious for having weak season finales. Tim Kring, you fucking suck. The only plotline that could be called good in this episode was the bittersweet resolution of the Hiro and Charlie relationship. The resolution to the season long carnival storyline is only deserving of a "That's it?!?" I think I might just be able to say "I'm fucking done with this show" if it manages to somehow get a fifth season in the fall.

There was a lot to love about this week's "Chuck Versus the Mask," beginning with some Mission Impossible style silly spy stuff and ending with some major relationship shake-ups. I am enjoying Chuck and Hannah together much more than I thought possible.

How I Met Your Mother had its second straight off week with "Rabbit or Duck," an episode that had one good moment with a funny group argument about whether rabbits or ducks are better, and numerous awful moments, mostly involving Robin or the fallout from Barney appearing on TV during the Super Bowl holding up a sign with his phone number on it. Two weeks in a row of man-whore Barney, really?

"The Large Hadron Collision" was a pretty good The Big Bang Theory Valentine's themed episode. The show has been overdoing the crazy Sheldon lately, and this episode still had a big chunk of crazy Sheldon, but there was more balance with Leonard and Penny this week. And I love that, in the end, it was poor lonely Raj that got to join Leonard on his trip.

Tuesday, February 9th
Liked: Lost (6x3)

Lost's obligatory early season Kate episode, "What Kate Does," was a bit of a letdown from the premiere, but on the scale of Kate episodes was actually one of the better ones. The advantage this episode had over past Kate episodes was the presence of the long missing (and missed) Claire. Also unusually good this week: Jack.

Wednesday, February 10th
Liked: Modern Family (1x15)

Modern Family's "My Funky Valentine" had one hilarious storyline (Claire and Phil roleplaying), one okay storyline (Mitchell, Cameron, and the always awesome Manny), and one didn't go anywhere storyline (Jay and Gloria seeing a comedy show). So, overall, pretty good.

Thursday, February 11th
Loved: 30 Rock (4x13), Parks and Recreation (2x16), The Office (6x16)
Liked: Survivor (20x1)

All it took to lure me back to Survivor was another all-stars season, this time the silly "Heroes vs. Villains." I skipped out on seasons 18 and 19 after watching the first 17, but I really don't think I missed much. Especially since Coach and Russell, the only cast members that were memorable from those seasons, are on the Villains team this season. The first episode of this 20th season, "Slay Everyone, Trust No One," was very entertaining, getting a lot of mileage out of all of the strong personalities that returned for this season. The highlight for me was when Boston Rob, always a favourite of mine, made fire from scratch. Who needs flint? Not Boston Rob. Also great: James being James, Tom kicking ass, Jerri & Coach flirting, and Amanda's bikini. Not so good: was Russell always this annoyingly delusional? Fuck that guy.

I'm pretty sure that this is the first week since I started these weekly reviews that all three NBC Thursday comedies earned the Loved tag. I guess Valentine's Day is great inspiration for comedy.

Maybe it's lowered expectations from a below average season, but "Manager and Salesman" was an excellent The Office episode. There was a lot to love and nothing that I disliked. Seeing Jim in Michael's office and Michael at Jim's desk was a highlight of the season. The Valentine's aspect was a cute side story involving clueless Andy and Erin that also made the best use of Kelly in a long time (probably because Mindy Kaling was the writer).

"Anna Howard Shaw Day" was the best 30 Rock episode in a long time for me. The entire episode was a completely cynical and hilarious look at Valentine's Day, and Liz's episode ending hallucinations of her old boyfriends (Dennis!) and Jon Bonjovi made it even better. And I even enjoyed crazy Jenna's storyline this week, which is amazing.

Parks and Recreation's "Galentine's Day" was the weakest of the three comedies this week, but it was still very good with numerous great moments. I just love everything involving Andy and April.

Friday, February 12th
Liked: Spartacus (1x4)

Spartacus's "The Thing in the Pit" was quite strong throughout, offering an intense and disturbing look at underground pit fighting, and featuring some of the most gruesome sequences I have ever seen... Yikes! This episode marks the turning point for me from watching this show because it had interesting potential to watching because I actually really like it.

Saturday, February 13th
Liked: Legend of the Seeker (2x11)

Legend of the Seeker went to the ol' "character split into two" well (best exemplified by Buffy's "The Replacement") with "Torn," and it actually worked quite well. Key to the success: choosing to split Kahlan and providing a believable justification for the two distinct personalities of the new Kahlans. This episode also took the series to Aydindril for the first time--and that was long overdue!

Sunday, February 14th
Liked: The Amazing Race (16x1)

The 16th season of The Amazing Race started strong with "Nanna is Kickin' Your Butt!" There are not many bland teams this season, so there's no risk of all of the interesting teams losing out early as has happened in the past couple of seasons, and there were a surprising number of amusing mistakes made for a first leg. This might just be the stupidest cast of all time. Plus, I'm pretty sure that this was the first time that a team wasn't able to even finish the first leg.