The Strange World of Thomas P. Coombe

New On TV: The Goode Family

Not much to say about this one that hasn't already been said by other reviewers. I like Mike Judge. I love Office Space and Beavis & Butthead, enjoyed Idiocracy and have a warm spot in my heart for King of the Hill. But The Goode Family, Judge's latest animated series, lacks something that made all his previous works hold together: characters.

 The Goodes, a stridently PC/liberal suburban family, never actually feel like real characters. After seeing the first episode of King of the Hill, I felt like I knew a bit about who Hank Hill was. The Goodes just seem like the stock neo-hippies that would show up on Beavis ("Every day is Earth Day") or to irritate Hank.

 I laughed --well, chuckled -- exactly twice during the pilot. Once, when the Goode parents tell their son he can get his driver's license, but only drive in emergencies. His response: "C'mon, tornado that doesn't hurt any people or animals."

 The second time: the emergency does arrive, and the son gets his chance to drive, but gets into a drag race. Later, he apologizes to his dad for wasting gas. The dad responds that all that matters "is that you feel guilty."

 The rest of the time, the humor was too broad and cheap (the family mantra is "WWAGD," or "What would Al Gore Do?"). I might check in again later on, but after watching the pilot, it's easy to see why this is airing in the summer.

 Tom Coombe

At the Movies: Star Trek and Terminator: Salvation

There are two big budget movies in theaters this month that present audiences with very different visions of the future.

 In the long-off world of Star Trek, humanity has united with several different alien races to explore space. Sure, they carry weapons, but their missions are diplomatic, not militaristic.

 In the 2018 of Terminator: Salvation, humanity is fighting the war referenced (and often glimpsed) throughout the Terminator mythos: people vs. machines, with the machines winning. It's a much more bleak version of the future than Star Trek presents.

 But what's also interesting is the way the two movies approach their audiences.

Breaking Bad: The Kindness of Strangers

 Midway through "Phoenix," the next-to-last episode of Breaking Bad's stellar second season, Walter White takes his newborn daughter on a walk through their house. It's late at night, and little Holly has just woken up.

 You can see in the picture here what happens next. Walt's just made a little over a million dollars on a drug deal, and he needs someone to share it with. So why not the one person in his family who can't judge him, freak out and/or call the cops?

 "Daddy did that for you," Walt coos.

 If the baby could talk, she'd tell Walt he was full of crap. Walt did this for himself. If his motives were really about preserving his family, he'd let his family (and friends) help him. But his pride forces him to be the breadwinner, the one who saves the day. Which means no act of "charity" -- whether it's his son's PayPal account or his brother-in-law's offer to buy the state-of-the-art security system for the pool -- is good enough.

I could probably write a great deal about Walt and his sense of pride. But what I really should talk about is the final minutes of the episode, and the worst thing we've ever seen Walt do.

Two Holiday Related Notes

 Although can I really consider this a holiday, seeing as how I have no job to take off from? At any rate, a three-day weekend tends to mean one thing in TV land: TV marathons. Memorial Day is no exception, and as always, I've turned to the Interesting Pile blog for its usual list of what's on. (It includes Band of Brothers Saturday on History, House Sunday on USA and Bones on Monday on TNT.)

 Also, I won't be around Sunday evening to watch/write about Breaking Bad, so look for my review of the season's next-to-last episode sometime Monday evening, rather than its usual Monday morning spot. Have a safe weekend, everyone.

 Tom Coombe

What I've Been Watching

  I'll get to the review portion of our program in a few paragraphs. First, some business.

 The regular calendar says it's spring, but the TV calendar -- and the temperature -- say it's summer. And that means that there's just not much for me to write about for the next few months.

 And yeah, I know USA and TNT and a bunch of the other cable stations are premiering new shows this summer, but frankly, none of them really appeal to me. Of the returning shows, I'd love to follow Burn Notice, but I don't see myself getting caught up with season two in time to enjoy season three (I'm not a fan of watching shows out of order). Monk and Psych are both enjoyable, but they don't lend themselves to weekly analysis the way Lost or even The Office do.

 That isn't to say I'm taking the summer off. (Well, as far as the blog is concerned.) I need to finish out Breaking Bad, and Mad Men returns in August. I'm sure I'll weigh in on at least a few of the summer replacement shows, if any of them catch my fancy (although at this point it seems doubtful). I'll be writing about some of the shows I'm finally getting around to, like the first season of In Treatment (and I know the world's dying to hear what an unemployed ex-journalist thinks of a show that came out last year).

 I'll also have lists (in the pipe: one on British TV, another on comic book series that would make excellent TV shows). And I may even write about movies, books or music, if the mood is right. I mean, it's my blog; I can talk about what I ate for breakfast (and I assure you, I won't).

 And now, on to what I've been watching this week, namely, the finales of Criminal Minds (boo) 24 (yay for the season, boo for the finale) and the pilot episode of Glee (cautious yay). Spoilers are ahead.

Breaking Bad: The Baby, or the Dealer?

Breaking Bad spent the early and middle parts of its second season hinting that Walt's downfall would come at the hands of some nameless Mexican drug lord. There was Hank's short-lived El Paso assignment, vague references to "the Juarez boys," Tuco's connection to said boys, and even the narcocorrido.

 Maybe "downfall" is too strong of a word. I mean, the show has another season ahead of it, and I doubt it will involve Walt dead or in prison. My point is: that scorched teddy bear incident is coming, and I'm thinking it has more to do with Walt's own carelessness and desperation than him angering the wrong people. Or are the two things tied together?

The Office Season Finale: A Long Story

  Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present: Michael Scott, grown-up. Sure, he's always going to do goofy things, whether it's small things like eating an entire chicken pot pie and sleeping through most of the afternoon or big things telling the Buffalo branch they'd be losing their jobs during a skit.

 But all season long, especially through the Holly Flax and Michael Scott Paper company story arcs, we've seen Michael grow and mature, to the point we saw at the end of tonight's finale. It was the first 30 minute finale The Office has had since season one. The hour-long finales in seasons two, three and four are rightly considered classics.

 This one wasn't quite there, but it was still a lovely way to finish the season, a nice mix of flat-out comedy and general sweetness, plus one of those big end-of-season, life changing events TV loves to drop on us in May each year. Spoilers on that, and the rest of the episode, are ahead.

Lost Season Finale: The Shadow of the Statue

  Lost has always liked literay references. In season one, we saw Sawyer reading Watership Down and A Wrinkle in Time. Later on there was The Third Policeman, plus Phillip K. Dick, The Wizard of Oz, among many others.

 But the book glimpsed in tonight's finale -- Flannery O'Connor' short story collection Everything That Rises Must Converge -- was the first book referenced on Lost that I actually own.

 So when the screen faded to white tonight -- instead of the traditional black -- I pulled down my O'Connor anthology and read the title story from Everything Rises.

 On its face, it's about a twenty-something wannabe writer escorting his mother to a fitness class in the post-segregation South. I could see why Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse wanted to use it. It deals with the passing from an old order to a new one, the tension between two characters forced to live together for too long, and the idea of someone having a double, all things that apply to this episode.

 None of them, however, help me understand what actually happened tonight. Spoilers, as always, are ahead, so if you haven't watched yet, this is where to stop. Everyone else can read on.

Fringe Season Finale: In Another Land...

Here are two things that I've come to accept about Fringe this year, which I think have improved my enjoyment of it:

• Although its (spiritual) parents are Alias and Lost, it is neither of those shows.
• Although Anna Torv is technically the lead, we should not look to her as the emotional anchor of the series. That job belongs to Joshua Jackson and John Noble.

With that out of the way, let me say I enjoyed Fringe's first season finale not so much for what it did but for how it set up the second season. (Spoilers are ahead.)

Breaking Bad:Getting Your House in Order

Breaking Bad began with Walter White getting diagnosed with terminal cancer and stumbling into the meth business to provide for his family after his sickness killed him.

 An idea the show keeps coming back to: Rather than a good man forced into an evil business to help his loved ones, Walt is instead an extraordinarily flawed man who's used his cancer to unleash all of his worst instincts.

 "Over" -- the tenth episode in Breaking Bad's continually excellent second season -- spent even more time with that idea, giving us a fairly low-key hour that was nonetheless fascinating to watch, if only for the eerie opening sequence (more on that later) and the tense-yet-funny end. Spoilers are ahead, so if you haven't watched yet, be warned.