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Oct. 9th, 2007 @ 01:19 pm wiwt
What I'm watching tonight: Reaper, but it really needs to get its ass in gear or I'm going to regret my recommendation.

Last night --

How I Met Your Mother is doing a good job, conceptually, of mining "single Ted." Much less so with single Robin, who is just a sitcom cliche (but other than in her scenes with Barney, have we ever seen Robin except in relation to Ted?) And at any rate, quality of concept aside, the follow-through wasn't so hot last night, with the strongest members of the cast literally on the sidelines (at the expense of Barney's characterization, I think).

I want to like Aliens in America despite the oddness of Scott Patterson, but -- though I don't know anything about Pakistani culture and could be wrong -- they seem to be using Raja as a "generic outsider," little more than a less goofy Mork. His Pakistaniness isn't as important as his outsiderness, and while it makes sense for other characters to see him that way, I would like to see some kind of ... culturality to him. That is not really a word, but you know, whatever. At least he isn't from Mypos or Finland.

No Reservations was a rerun of a recent episode, and the baseball game was ridiculously slow, so I watched Journeyman ... and you know, it's not appointment television or anything, but this is a pretty good show. It's lightly dramatic rather than being lightly comic like Quantum Leap was, and just as QL benefited from Scott Bakula's natural likeability, Journeyman benefits from Kevin McKidd's natural screen presence, and that odd "my ear can't point it out, but I'm sure it's there" gravitas you get from some British actors (Hugh Laurie, Damien Lewis) playing Americans on television (House, Life/Band of Brothers).

Plus, it's not going the metaplot route, but it did learn from Quantum Leap and introduce a wrinkle to the show's "the protagonist is randomly thrown around time and has to fix things, but isn't sure why" conceit, in establishing that this happens to other people too. I really don't care about the explanation, and I hope we never meet some Grand Tribunal of Fixitupism; as long as the show stays what it is, I'll tune in from time to time when it's ten o'clock and I feel like watching something.
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