Monday, October 15, 2007

Chuck Versus The Comedies

Chuck - Chuck Versus the Wookie
Everybody Hates Chris - Everybody Hates Driving
How I Met Your Mother - Little Boys
Aliens in America - Rocket Club

Considering I'm a bit curious as to whats happening over at Dancing with the Stars (Jane Seymour was pretty good actually and I cannot rule her out anymore from the battle between Sabrina, Helio, Scary Spice and Jennie Garth anymore, plus, Cameron probably got enough votes showing those cannons of his), the 8pm timeslot on Mondays sure is a little crammed. What the hell networks? Can't you spread it out a bit more? Okay okay, I know, all those years of complaining there wasn't enough good stuff on TV and now there's an overload and I complain again.

Sarah's old colleague Karina, who seems a bit rogue, returns asking for Sarah's help in stealing a huge diamond and Chuck and Casey are sent along to help. The diamond ends up being used to fund terrorists, while Sarah's old colleague inserts doubt for Chuck about Sarah, revealing her past with Chuck's old roommate, meanwhile, Morgan begs to date Karina, and while she goes along with it, using the situation to infiltrate Chuck, Morgan's annoyances finally does good and inadvertently saves the day. That and a really good product placement for FedEx when Chuck ends up mailing the diamond away from the bad guys.

Continued after the jump:
Oh yeah, and Casey is handcuffed to a bedpost which he breaks away from, still trapped to a piece of the bed and he goes into the elevator with a mother and a child. Hilarious! I REALLY don't understand how some people are not loving Chuck (while loving Reaper) but it's this back and forth, between a scene of Sarah kicking ass against the bad guys, Chuck somehow scrambling away, and a scene where Casey stands awkwardly in the elevator as muzak plays over the air, that just keeps the flow so zippy and fun! It's a basic juxtaposition but it works and Chuck knows how to use it.

Chuck, still wary of Sarah after Karina cast some doubt, and he seeks some honesty out of her, but a spy never tells. Or does she? It's a nice twist seeing Sarah possibly breaking her spy persona down and actually enjoying her time with Chuck and co. (I mean, who wouldn't love hanging out with the lovely Sarah Lancaster as sister Ellie and her Captain Awesome).

Over in the 1980's, Chris constantly asks Julius to drive, so while he tries to sleep, Julius finally lets Chris move the car across the street. How can we tell this will go wrong? Cause Everybody Hates Chris.

Chris drives the car all the way to school, ends up impressing the girls, goes for a joyride, and almost gets stopped by the cops. Sadly, it was mom Rochelle who got stopped for speeding (32 in a 25 zone? If she wanted to speed she would have gone 50!) and must fight it in court (and bringing along Drew and Tonya). Only she gets the crazy judge who sentences everyone to ridiculously high fines, if not jail itself for small infractions, unless, they showed some cleavage of course. Rochelle being Rochelle, her time in court, will of course will not go well.

In the end, she wins the case (the cop didn't calibrate the equipment properly... didn't this just get used in another show recently too?) but gets fined for creating a ruckus in court. Meanwhile, Chris manages to survive the day driving, without getting in trouble. Whew...

Only the car gets towed when he ends up parking on the wrong side of the street. "... cause everybody ... haaaaates CHRIIIIIIS".

Robin meanwhile, hates kids. Apparently she's definitely not the mother in How I Met Your Mother. She's set up with a hot guy (Brad Rowe, who has always looked like the love child between Brad Pitt and Rob Lowe, oddly enough) who happens to have a kid. Robin manages to dodge the kids for a few weeks until finally she meets up with Dougie, and surprise, she actually seems to make a connection with him. Until she sees a picture he drew labelling her as his new mommy. Robin freaks. Robin freaking is seriously funny.

Barney and Ted compete to woo a girl first, in a competition to find out who has the best game. Marshall competes much to Barney and Ted's chagrin, but Ted has the edge when she slaps Barney for sleeping with her last year. But never underestimate Barney's game, and he uses the info Ted's gathering to strike against him. Plus, I'm sure the eye patch did help. Everybody loves a pirate. But...

As funny as How I Met Your Mother was again this week (AND during a Robin episode too!), the funniest show of the night was Aliens in America!

Justin and his friends (which include Max from Veronica Mars!) have lied for years about being in a rocket club at school so that they can sneak away to watch Charlize Theron naked and other such things boys do (until they grow up, according to Gary). When Raja wants to join, the jig is up, except Raja actually lies to Fran about it, saving Justin. But Raja, feeling guilty, decides to build a real rocket, just so it isn't a lie, and gets caught buying equipment to build a detonator, which of course, triggers the police to investigate.

Add in a computer used to surf porn, Raja accused of terrorism (again), Fran finding about Justin's lies, a cheerleader whose just as mean as her grandfather who was accused of war crimes, finding about Fran and Gary's locked up liquor (in the house NEXTDOOR), and a spycamera bear and we finally have the biting political episode I've known this show could pull. Did I mention it was flat out funny?

And that's even before we saw Fran's costumes she makes for Rocket Club!

1 comment:

Liz said...

Word on Chuck. And now I'm bummed that I missed Aliens in America--I liked the pilot, but not enough to keep watching, apparently. Maybe I'll have to start again...