A Month in Review, Jun 7 to Jul 4

Shit, I'm far behind on this blog now. My absence started with two weeks off for vacation, but then was extended because I felt overwhelmed with the thought of trying to catch up with my television reviews, and I had a long-term houseguest keeping me busy. I have racked my brain for a way to catch up quickly with minimal effort, and here it is!

I will put a lot more effort into my next post, where I will discuss my summer vacation, pet populations, some very interesting personal developments, and probably include the next brewblog.

The Month in Television

Before diving into the month of new shows, I need to do a quick review of Breaking Bad, now that I've completed watching its third season. In one word: awesome! In eight words: my favourite non-genre drama series of all time. I threw the non-genre qualifier in there for one major reason: it's very hard to compare a series like Breaking Bad to a series like Angel or Star Trek. They come from completely different places. And I will always have a soft spot in my heart for sci-fi or fantasy television, and the rewatchability of sci-fi or fantasy shows is higher for me. But no matter; Breaking Bad is consistently fantastic; intense, shocking, devastating, exhilarating... I could go on and on like this. The third season somehow managed to deliver some of the best moments of the series, culminating in a terrifically dark ending that sets up a very interesting fourth season. Vince Gilligan, you fucking rock! (Vince Gilligan was the best thing about the last five or so seasons of the X-Files, and I'm thrilled that he's kicking so much ass with his first series.)

The Big Catch-up

Loved: Doctor Who (5x12,13), Futurama (7x1-3), Glee (1x22), Party Down (2x8-10), True Blood (3x1,2)
Liked: Doctor Who (5x11), Penn & Teller: Bullshit (8x1-4), So You Think You Can Dance (7x4-11), Stargate Universe (1x20), Top Gear (14x1,2), True Blood (3x3)
Meh: Entourage (7x1), Hung (2x1)

Holy fuck, I still watch a shitload of shows during the supposedly slow summer. I'm not going to go through each and every episode of each and every show; I'm going to just mention the highlights.

The best thing I watched on my TV during June that was not Breaking Bad was Doctor Who's two-part finale, "The Pandorica Opens" and "The Big Bang". (The previous episode, "The Lodger" was inconsequential but quite fun, far better than most episode elevens in new Doctor Who history.) While I have greatly enjoyed previous new Who finales, none were nearly as satisfying as this. Everything fell into place beautifully. Very fairytale-like, which seems strange for a supposedly sci-fi series, but I love it. Although there weren't any single episodes this season on the level of Steven Moffat's previous work on the series, he pretty much nailed this season as a whole.

In other positives, Glee ended its first season with what was easily its strongest episode since the mid-season finale, True Blood came back stronger than ever for the first three episodes of its werewolf-enhanced third season, and Party Down ended its second season with three more hilarious episodes. Party Down has now been canceled, which is sad, but like similarly ratings challenged and hilarious Better Off Ted, I'm just glad I got two seasons out of it.

Less satisfyingly, Stargate Universe's season finale was quite good, but very incomplete in terms of storytelling, leaving a lot of material for the second season premiere in the fall. Penn & Teller: Bullshit is always entertaining, but the topics they have left to cover after so many seasons are not nearly as interesting. The first two episodes of Top Gear's new season were above average for episodes I've seen (which is not many), but frustratingly inconsistent. And So You Think You Can Dance (shut-up!) is... nevermind.

Entourage's seventh season premiere was thoroughly weak sauce. And Hung was also a little lacking in its second season premiere, although I expect things to pick up soon there.

Phew. That wasn't so hard.

Edited to add: How could I forget Futurama's return to TV? It could be just the fact that it's new Futurama and I loves me some new Futurama, but I laughed my ass off at the first three episodes of this unexpected season. Yay, Futurama!

Next week: the thoroughly dumb but entertaining Warehouse 13 returns, and I start trying to catch up on similarly dumb but entertaining Eureka. And maybe I'll finish some fucking books already...