Well then, that was entirely disappointing. I hadn’t actually realized that this season would be the last one, but this episode took the concept of a “series finale” to its most absurd literality more than any show since Dinosaurs. Which, I suppose, is something to commend it for. But why, then, did it feel so boring, disappointing, and most importantly, unfunny?

The first half of the episode is just an extended courtroom scene, with Wiltes as Todd’s attorney, and while it started funny, its interminable length and increasing unbelievability just made it a weak sketch drawn out too far. Plus, something about the fact that it was supposed to be the trial of the century didn’t jibe with the pretty cheap looking set. I know that’s a weird gripe, but it was indicative of how overall slapdash this finale seemed.

There has always been an undercurrent of mystery to Todd Margaret, whether it be the “how are we going to get to the courtroom/North Korea prologue segments?” or the duplicity of Dave, and even the circumstances of Todd’s birth. You could argue that those things weren’t necessarily “important”, that it’s just a comedy show, but it was the creators’ choice to include those things so I think they have a right to deliver on them.

Instead of some sort of meticulously (and humorously) plotted endings, instead everything just got tied up in the most obvious, fast, unfunny, and actually sort of depressing manner possible. Todd’s trial goes terribly, he is sentenced to death. Obviously. He was actually born in Leeds (and I guess may have been Keith Moon’s son? Maybe?) but that really didn’t have anything to do with anything.

Dave ends up being nothing more than just an entitled son of a powerful Lord, played, in easily my favorite moment of the night, by Mark Heap (aka Bryan from Spaced). Whitney and the neighbor track him down and get him to free Todd. Fine. Before that can happen though, Todd in an act of desperation tries to call one last lifeline. Alice? No, the Turkish girl, which sets off the truck bomb, killing Alice. Around here is where the finale really lost me.

It’s not that you can’t joke about death or anything, there just wasn’t really a joke at all. Alice got blown up. Then it’s hinted her corpse gets molested by the morgue workers. lol? Wiltes flees London, leaving behind his friend. Todd is deported to North Korea, the only place that will take him, and in a brief and incoherent montage rises to be a leader and ends up destroying the whole world with nuclear weapons. There was so much plot in this episode, and so little character work or comedy, it was sort of stunning. Easily the worst episode of the series. What a poor decision. Zing!

A troubled brooding doctor with Daddy issues and perhaps a case of latent alcoholism finds himself stranded in a verdant jungle setting with a small group. Soon they are beset upon by a monster that chk-chk-chk’s through the trees and is composed entirely of black smoke. After his love interest is hurt, they share a scene in which he tells a story from his past while a wound is stitched. Then, he begins to see visions of his supposedly dead father in the trees. What show is this you ask? LOST? No sir, it’s ABC‘s The River! What?!

As many complaints as I had about The River, and as many as I’ve seen hurled at it from other reviewers, I was stunned no one else pointed out how much open thievery from the iconic pilot episode of LOST was occurring. Though it’s not the biggest deal in the world (though for a Lostie it’s pretty fucking annoying) it’s indicative of the fact that, unfortunately, ABC’s new found footage horror doesn’t really have much new to bring to the table.

The show, produced by Oren Peli and Steven Spielberg (who appears to have had, oh, .0001% involvement with it), concerns the treacherous attempted rescue of the aforementioned father, nature show host Dr. Emmett Cole. Played by Bruce Greenwood doing a mighty fine Sam Neill impression, Cole went missing in the Amazon 6 months prior to the start of the series, on a quest, as we eventually learn, to find some sort of magical “Source” in the jungle. Okay…

His wife, Tess (Leslie Hope, the murked off wife from 24), enlists her petulant son (the wildly misused Joe Anderson. So good in The Crazies. So bad here…) and Emmett’s former camera team to go search for him and blah blah blah, shaky cam, smoke monster, goofy emotional shit, oh it’s been two hours already? Okay maybe that’s a little unfair. But not by much. Right now none of the characters are at all strong enough to hold the show together, nor, surprisingly, is there really a cohesive feel of setting or place.

For being set in the fucking Amazon, this thing really isn’t taking advantage of that, and is instead hanging classic horror tropes loosely (so loosely…) on the too-green color corrected leaves. And it’s the first episode! In an attempt to be a monster-of-the-week show instead of a mythology show, the characters and setting have to bend and twist each hour to accomodate the new baddie. Whereas this neck-snapping battle of tones works for a self-aware show like American Horror Story that gleefully vaults over the top, for the po-faced River it’s deadly.

The first hour concerned the smoke monster, some sort of angry vengeful spirit of someone I didn’t give a fuck about and then okay the smoke monster is gone now. Second hour: dolls. Evil dolls. Come the fuck on! That’s the best you could come up with for the Amazon? I’ll admit that there were some creepy shots in this episode but that’s because dolls are just creepy looking, not because you’re smart or clever Oren Peli! Oh, and the fact that the whole world seems to be rigged up with cameras anyway pretty much made me forget it was a found footage piece. Unfortunately, the track record of horror on TV remains very spotty. Very spotty indeed.

That’s basically what our timeline looked like last night on Twitter from 8pm last night through today. Last night up and coming crooner Jamar Rodgers from the Bronx performed “Seven Nation Army,” by The White Stripes on NBC’s The Voice. He did all this while rocking a Script Cyrillic Starter Snapback! We are stoked to see him wearing our gear on the stage, and hopefully his lucky snapback will take him far into the competition.

Cee Lo was clearly feeling his performance as he totally turned his chair around! This isn’t Jamar’s first brush with television talent hunts, as he also once auditioned for American Idol. Either way, good luck Jamar, and thanks for blowing up our timeline. You earned a new snapback.

Comedically (though it is not the most emotionally impacting episode) “Fry and The Slurm Factory” is probably my favorite Futurama episode. Considering how tired the concept of flipping a Willy Wonka type story is, the magnificence that is this episode, the first season finale I believe, really cemented to me how incredible the show could be. Whether it be the F-ray, the Slurm Queen, Fry’s inability to stop drinking the super Slurm, and most importantly secretly morose mascot Slurms McKenzie, this episode is aces from top to bottom.

But did you ever want to try the delicious looking worm excretion that is Slurm? I sure did. Which is why I was so excited when I saw this video on io9, where some intrepid internetters attempt to recreate not only Slurm, but also other Futurama faux-product Bachelor Chow, for an episode of their series Feast of Fiction. Unfortunately, I definitely feel like they went with a cop out by making ginger ale and coloring it green. Fuck is that?! Slurm should be almost the consistency of slime, almost like the all-syrup Slushee. So, dear readers, I beseech one of you, one more motivated than I, to come up with a true recipe for Slurm. I’ll suggest a starting point: cook down some Mountain Dew, na’mean? Then get back to me.

There’s two tacts for doing a penultimate episode of a season. For a lot of cable shows, the second-to-last episode of the season is the place for the firecrackers, the whiz-bang revelations, the climax, allowing the the final episode to start setting up the plotlines for the next season. Then there is the other option, a sort of treading of water where chess pieces are briskly moved around with little to no reason, clearly setting the scene for a finale that will, presumably, deliver essentially two episodes worth of goodness, knocking down all the pins set up in its predecessor.

Next week’s finale of Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret Season 2 better bowl a strike, because this was unfortunately my least favorite episode of the season thus far. Thank god for Spike Jonze and especially Sharon Horgan, who shouldered the entirety of this week’s humor. Alice’s scene with the police who are questioning her about her poorly faked liquor license was her finest work on the show yet, only to be quickly surpassed by her surgically precise dressing down of the increasingly idiotic Wiltes.

That being said, I wasn’t a fan of her suddenly figuring out that Dave was Mountford, not just because it didn’t really make sense (I don’t exactly hold this show to high standards in that regard) but instead because it seemed like the writers could have come up with a much funnier scene (preferably involving her and Dave) for this revelation to occur. Instead, it was just a random light-bulb-moment, expositional waste. As far as Jonze, I’m just really loving how each week his outfit seems to get another Sherlock Holmes item and mannerism added to it.

Todd himself was barely in this episode, once again in an extremely random situation that’s completely separate from the “main plotline.” Though his incarceration in the pedophile ward was at least a callback to the ongoing “Young & Barely Legal” joke, it really just seemed like the writers needed Todd out of the way for a while. The pederast fan-fic reading circle was pitch dark and pretty funny, but I couldn’t help but wish that Todd was with some of the other main characters, embroiled in this hunt for Mountford instead of just drifting through sketches. The requisite montage at the end however, set up what looks like a good finale, especially with the return of Russ Tamblyn. Yes!

At its worst, science fiction (or just speculative fiction) is a Hollywood CGI robot punch to the balls. At its best, it’s Black Mirror. Last weekend a friend of mine from the UK recommended Black Mirror to me and the next day, I sat through all three episodes of the miniseries while experiencing a revolving series of reactions: shock, nervous laughter, welling up, and cursing our society for the hubristic turds we are. Black Mirror also renewed a bit of my hope that clever, original sci-fi can be done on television again (albeit overseas) without taking the ideas and simply injecting giant action set pieces.

This three-part British series aired in December of last year and might hit BBC America if we’re ever so lucky. It was created by journalist and screenwriter Charlie Brooker – who I had never heard of before but my UK friend described as a bit like the British John Stewart. On the Wiki page for Black Mirror, Brooker explains the show better than I can, stating that “each episode has a different cast, a different setting, even a different reality. But they’re all about the way we live now – and the way we might be living in 10 minutes’ time if we’re clumsy.” He’s dead on. Each episode is a 45-60 minute sci-fi tragedy, with humans brought to their knees, betrayed by the technology we worship and misuse so much. Not in the “machines turn against their creators” way that’s played out and stale (all respect to BSG), but with gut-wrenching realism.

“The National Anthem:” Within the first couple minutes of the kick-off episode, I was squirming. We’ve seen how outlets such as YouTube and Twitter can turn the tides of public opinion and swiftly drive them in every direction. This episode takes that and drives it in a shocking direction. It paced like a political thriller, with the Prime Minister facing an unthinkable dilemma with only hours to make a decision. I will tell no more about this one, I’ll only say it doesn’t involve a meteor headed for Earth. it’s much, much worse. I hesitated to call Black Mirror “sci-fi” because this episode could take place today or tomorrow. The next two are more “hard” sci-fi.

“15 Million Merits”: I’ve never watched American Idol, but everyone I do know who has always says the same thing: I just watch the auditions, they’re hilarious. This episode centers around a version of Idol called Hot Shots, in which, like Idol, three fuckfaced judges build people up and tear them down like expendable entertainers. Everyone is restricted to a strict life of physical exercise and Wii-like activities. Taking part gains you credits, which can be used to buy food or, once you’ve saved 15 million, try out for Hot Shots. This one gets a little preachy towards the end, then recoups by showing how doomed our gimme-gimme society is.

“The Entire History of You:” This one hit me the hardest. It’s an emotional donkey punch that examines what our relationships would be like if everyone could record and play back every moment of their life – even project it onto TV screens to watch like any other show. This would be a fantastic technology for black-out drunks *tugs on collar*, but miserable for liars. Even those who tell little white lies. This episode was written by Jesse Armstrong, scribe of In the Loop and Four Lions.

If you’ve been hungry like I have for the next great sci-fi show after BSG, look no further than Black Mirror. Unfortunately, it’s only three episodes long and there are no plans to air in the U.S. (that I could find). But I looks like they’ve been uploaded to YouTube (ironic) and torrents are readily available as well. And if you’re wondering what the “black mirror” refers to, it’s that smartphone in your hand.

I doubt that Comedy Central will ever fully free itself from the looming shadow of Chappelle’s Show. The premature end of that show, for reasons that aren’t 100% crystalline but don’t reflect very well on the network (or Mr. Chapelle for that matter), transformed it into a martyr figure of sorts, a practically unreachable ideal of sketch comedy. In our collective memories it appears perfect, not only funnier than anything else on tv but impossibly so: something too funny to have actually occurred.

Which brings me to Keegan Michael Key and Jordan Peele, the two guys with the toughest job in the room. They are the brave stars of Comedy Central’s new racially oriented sketch show Key & Peele. They might balk at that designation, and the show itself certainly supports them, but check out CC’s pervasive subway ads – “If you don’t watch, you’re a racist” – then get back to me. It’s impossible not to think of Chapelle’s Show when talking about Key & Peele. Which makes it all the more pleasantly surprising that refuses to be held down by that albatross.

The first episode was funny, quite funny indeed. And I don’t even particularly love sketch comedy. It’s not revolutionary by any means, nor does it really come from any laser-focused comedic angle (whether it be racial, women/men, class, self-loathing, etc…). Both Key & Peele are versatile, neither one (as of yet) pigeonholed as straight man or livewire. Key, the tall bald one, is a little more manic, more physical, but can also dial it back to let the weeded-out intellectual Peele in.

The general theme of the show seems to be “things that they find funny” which is as good a choice as any. It keeps the sketches varied from riffs on cooking shows (including a weirdly great Gordon Ramsay impression), to a sketch that ends in the vacuum of space, and an Obama monologue. I wasn’t rolling on the floor at any point, but the guys have a likable energy, and they’re not trying to mimic their inimitable predecessor. The best thing they’ve done is forfeit the challenge of trying to be as good as Chappelle’s Show by just doing their own thing.

Am I posting another new trailer for HBO’s soon returning Eastbound & Down? You’re goddamn right I am! I can’t wait for this show to come back for its final season, and to see how the great Kenny Powers fares as a member of the Myrtle Beach Mermen farm league team. Only 8 episodes left? Sadness. I was a big fan of Season 2, but I will admit I missed a lot of my favorite characters from Season 1.

Well, it looks like everyone is coming back, and hopefully better than ever. There’s Dustin (and hopefully his super funny wife and kids as well), Clegg, April, and even Will Ferrels Ashley Schaffer. Here’s hoping we can also get more Cutler, Tracy, Adam Scott’s Pat Anderson, and Matt McConaughy as well. Plus there’s the addition of Jason Sudeikis and new-best-friend Shane. C’mon February 19th.

What better way to tide yourself over the interminable break between seasons of Breaking Bad, televisions best show, than with fun little 16-Bit animation that recaps the series to date. Why, cooking and doing meth of course! Just kidding. The animation is better. My teeth hurt. Recast as a SNES Game, all your favorite BB characters have been sprited up in what is easily the best thing I’ve seen with the College Humor branding.

Warning, there are some serious spoilers for all 4 seasons of Breaking Bad, but if you’re not caught up on this absolutely fantastic show I have no sympathy for you at this point. Go watch it. Now! This could’ve been just a little one-note joke, but the wonderful details of this whole endeavor are what makes it, from the Periodic Table character names to the Walt Jr. tag at the end. Thanks internet!

Twin Peaks (1990-1991) 30 Episodes [ABC]

Vs.

The Prisoner (1967-1968) 17 Episodes [ITV]

This week brings us the battle of the supposedly cult TV shows that are actually very well known and loved by everyone. Not that it’s a bad thing. It’s just true. Sorry. Twin Peaks in particular has become a huge cultural touchstone both for my generation and the one (half generation?) directly preceding it. For the slightly older folks it was, surprisingly, one of the most popular shows on television. For us, it’s been a cool-kid rediscovery type thing that gets talked about in hushed tones and exultations. Mainly because it is really good. Also because it is weird, but mostly, I hope, because its good.

Slightly more on the freaky deaky Sci-Fi side is Patrick McGoohan’s dystopic penny farthing mind bender The Prisoner, which originally aired in the late 60s to great acclaim and has since been canonized by a very devoted and intense group of fans. Telling the story of prisoner Number 6 and his travails the Village, The Prisoner is weird and scary and confusing and great. Both these shows have scary towns. Were weirdly popular. Have intense followings. Ended prematurely. Are awesome. But you know how this game works. Choice is yours…