by Amy Van Veen (Contributer) – Email
CBS fell flat with HIMYM and Mad Love, but did manage to bring back the Shenny love, ABC brought quite a few laughs to Wednesday night and overall NBC made Thursday night fairly alright, but the real winner this week is FOX’s laugh out loud hit Raising Hope and their new frontrunner Traffic Light.
HIMYM hit an averagely funny note, but the show itself seems to be hitting a plateau with no way off. Still dealing with the grief of his father, Marshall is unable to love anything he once loved, including his handsy wife Lily. Nothing can get him out of his grief-stricken rut, not even pitching a $12 million green initiative at GNB, leading to the termination of the only employee who liked it. That employee, though, ends up having a happy ending with Wendy the waitress giving the audience a nice little pick-me-up. Barney has a crush on Nora and can’t say her name without breaking a smile. Smitten Barney is even more adorable than boyfriend Barney. Ted faces the Captain and learns he’s the catalyst for Zoey’s divorce. All in all, not bad, but nothing compared to the laughs HIMYM once brought.
Mad Love seems to be the little brother to HIMYM vying for the same love and attention the latter’s fans have gotten for six years. Ben and Kate are happy. Budding romance happy. Laughter, skipping, stupid smiles happy. Their best friends, though, push through their anger to show a little too much flirtatious energy behind their alleged mutual hatred. When Ben and Kate try to have their first real date, their friends end up tagging along when Connie gets stood up and Larry drops by to pick up a file and gets reeled into the Knicks game. Connie and Larry end up going head to head in a betting streak echoing a little too much of those sitcom clichés. The upside, though, has got to be the actors’ natural talent with physical comedy and as expected as Connie and Larry’s quasi-relationship is, the actors make it work.
Raising Hope. It’s hard to give enough attention to a show that can only truly be experienced. The plot itself sounds either ridiculous or overwhelmingly dysfunctional. Boy meets girl. Boy impregnates girl. Girl ends up being a psycho serial killer with a pile of ex-boyfriend’s bodies in a sandbox leaving boy to raise his daughter with his two poor parents and their insane great-grandmother Maw-Maw. His friends, the attractive supermarket girl and her dead toothed cousin help out as the old adage, “it takes a village to raise a child” comes true. This week, just like every other week, brought all different kinds of wonderful. Guest star Amy Sedaris plays Virginia’s cousin Delilah who has always been the better girl and had no qualms about rubbing that into poor Virginia’s face. When she comes to collect on her part of the estate, since Virginia told her Maw-Maw died to make her stop visiting, the Chances strike a deal in order to keep their house: Delilah gets to go to second base with Burt like she was going to before Virginia stole him when they were teens, or she’s bringing in the lawyers none of them can afford. Meanwhile, Jimmy has to keep Maw-Maw at the grocery store in order to keep the ruse going, which means Maw-Maw becomes the greatest greeter in the history of old person greeters before eventually climbing in the deli cooler. After taking off with Sabrina’s scooter, then stealing Dancing Dan’s roller blades, then Barney’s tandem bicycle he was using in the Big Brother program, Maw-Maw comes home to scare Delilah off of Burt. Jimmy asks it best, “Do you think other families have to do stuff like this, but they’re just too embarrassed to talk about it?”
Traffic Light brings in the use of commuter blue tooth when the morning talks between Adam and Callie causes some unnecessary stress for the all-too-polite Adam and call waiting eventually bites him in the ass. Travis’s girlfriend from Cougar Town shows up as a new lawyer trying to get Mike’s number to talk law, but when Mike gets uncomfortable, Lisa give him the green light to help the girl out. Turns out the girl had a little more in mind with Mike, and with Lisa. Ethan is facing a “leave behind” professional with his new girlfriend from a tube of lipstick to a toothbrush. The only way to fix the problem with Daisy Wick from Bones is to keep their dates restricted to the back of his ambulance. Even after Adam tries to fix his own problem with a flower favour from Mike’s guy Anton, he still manages to eat and swallow his foot. This show is quality and definitely offers something new and real for audiences, as well as some tips when the truth about a popped collar is revealed and Say Anything moments still work.
The winter blahs have set in hard on The Middle. When Sue wins a contest, no one really pays attention because Sue wins lots of contests and always celebrates with the same victory dance. This time, though, her win is four tickets to New York. It’s what Frankie calls a “probletunity” since the family consists of five members. After getting a fifth cheap ticket, the family sleeps in giving the audience keen insight into the truth about mothers. They boss people around. When the bag doesn’t fit as a carry-on, they make it fit by enlisting everyone to wear five layers, and getting seats together on an airplane involves just a little bit of passenger reorganization. With four seats in coach and one in first, the family experiences luxury in shifts, but when a snowstorm delays landing, Mike’s uncertainty on his first plane ride causes some reality checks. Eventually, the clan does make it to beautiful NY. In the middle of winter. Under a blanket of snow. Excellent Heck family memories.
