I tuned in to SNL for The Black Keys, and by midnight was doubting my decision. The persistently underwhelming Weekend Update sketch featured an interview with Kristen Wiig as Nancy Pelosi and Bill Hader as John Boehner. Guess who played the punching bag?

As Conor Friedersdorf said in Rob’s thread, we conservatives do sometimes protest too much about attacks from New York and Hollywood liberals. Everyone loves to generalize (see what I did there?) and of course we’re more likely to notice memes that rub us the wrong way.

Still, the Weekend Update bit is enlightening: note how Pelosi and Boehner are mocked. For every second Wiig acts like an airhead, Hader spends twenty seconds sobbing. The crux of the bit is that Boehner will cry about anything… except for “millions of uninsured Americans.” Pelosi is attacked for – can you guess? – not explaining Obamacare better.

Even if late-night shows ridicule politicians on both sides of the aisle, the attacks almost always come from the left. With that in mind, should we be surprised the cruelest rhetoric is reserved for those furthest from the “correct” way of thinking? Regarding Conor’s suggestion that treatment is fairly equal: has history ever produced a politician who pitched more comedic softballs than Nancy Pelosi? Yet Pelosi is shown as a tiny bit of a ditz, while Boehner will be excoriated for years because he’s gotten too emotional on-camera.

On the bright side, the Keys closed with Tighten Up.

Cross-posted at Ricochet.com.

I was happy to find that during an extended lapse in my Norm-Show-DVD-checking routine, it was announced that Shout Factory is releasing a box set of all three seasons on September 7, 2010! Fellow TV nerds may recognize Shout Factory as the folks who released Freaks and Geeks (a boring, somewhat humorous show whose hype I wish I had ignored) on DVD.

Amazon is taking pre-orders for The Norm Show at $45 a pop. All the cool kids are pre-ordering it. On the bright side, you can do so even if you aren’t cool, as evidenced by the fact that Amazon accepted my order.

According to TV By The Numbers, tonight was actually intended to be the season 3 finale. Chuck is on the bubble again, it would seem? Allow me to refer you to last spring’s cutting insights on the topic of cancellation. Anyway, what would’ve made a great finale could also make for a good segue into what this season should have been all about: butt-kicking and laughs courtesy of a fun duo with a great cast of co-stars. Chuck as this guy. Sarah as this hot mama.

I didn’t think of this until my roommate said something a few months ago, but the relationship between those characters is the perfect template. Chuck’s got ridiculous talents, and is more of a clown than a tough guy (though admittedly about .04% as terrific as Wash from Firefly). Sarah is also extremely talented, but her sense of humor takes a back seat to all the skull-cracking she’s got to do. Like Zoe. They’re different but made for each other, blah blah etc etc.

So, yeah… if you’ve given up on Chuck as I nearly did during that string of lame episodes earlier this season, catch up! With any luck, the remaining filmed season 3 episodes feature a sturdy, non-high-school relationship between the show’s namesake and leading lady! Better late than never, and there’s still plenty the writers could conjure up besides everyone breaking everyone elses’ hearts and making sad faces 10 minutes per episode.

It doesn’t hurt that Adam Baldwin maintains a steady level of awesome.

As I’ve mentioned, the writers could have easily taken the Chuck & Sarah relationship in a new direction with the start of season 3. Chuck gets super powers – as if he’s a new man! Alas, none of those powers provides for a spine, so when Sarah tells him everything he’s ever wanted to hear… he responds by being a total flake. Then, instead of patiently regaining her trust like someone over the age of 13, he gives up and starts making out with the next babe who comes along.

I’ll quote my roommate again, because the lame-ness of the new Chuck episodes annoys us both. He pointed out at the start of the season that Joss Whedon provided a perfect template for what Chuck & Sarah should be: Zoe and Wash from Firefly. Awesome, happy couple. Is that so difficult? If you’re a good writer with interesting things to say, there’s no need for an endless cycle of high school drama between every single male/female pairing on the show.

Or you could be like Chuck‘s writers this season, and liberally mix celebrity cameos into a perpetual mass of stupid love triangles. Maybe I’m underestimating them! Maybe the producers decided it would be better if viewers hated the main character.

Oh well; the end of Dollhouse was great, and Community continues to be hilarious!

Season 2 ended such that I was optimistic for the third season – giving Chuck a limitless supply of skills seemed like a great way to use the silly “intersect” concept that we’ve accepted to immediately transform the character. I was looking forward to Chuck as bumbling doofus/super spy, working with Agent Sexypants and Colonel Casey on a variety of fun missions. No need for dumb on-again, off-again romance between Chuck and Sarah, since they get in enough trouble that every episode is a dramatic chance for either (or both) of them to almost die. Yes, I knew this was too much to expect.

The first episode of season 3 had its moments, but was overall a big disappointment. Why, when the woman of his dreams wants to drop everything and run away with him, would Chuck back out? I’m happy to ignore lots of unbelievable things the show does to make spy drama light and entertaining, but the Chuck and Sarah business in Chuck Versus the Pink Slip was too much. The second episode explained it away somewhat, but to quote my eminently wise roommate:

If something is an infinitely stupid thing to do and you make it less stupid by half, it is still an infinitely stupid thing to do.

There are characters who would make the decision Chuck made for the reasons he explained in Chuck Versus the Three Words. Chuck is not one of these characters. Having seen for two years how Sarah and Casey are jerked around by their superiors, he would never choose espionage over Sarah Walker unless lame writers decided it’d be a nice way to draw out the sexual tension. Also, Mopey Chuck is someone we had seen enough of by the end of season 1, so this was a bad idea all around.

On the bright side, episodes 2 and 3 were better; the show is still funny, and Adam Baldwin still rocks worlds. The sooner Chuck and Sarah get together and stay together, the sooner we can stop wasting time on longing glances and all that crap! Were I Zachary Levi, I would have demanded twice as much making out with Yvonne Strahovski months ago. But then, Zachary Levi is probably a toolbox in real life, whereas in real life Yvonne Strahovski is Australian.

One of Whedon’s real gifts is for writing lovable – not likable, lovable – characters whose interactions play out so entertainingly that you’re happy to overlook weak plot points. He needs leeway to develop relationships that aren’t obvious to viewers switching on the TV midway through episode nine. He also needs the support of a network willing to endure low ratings (as when Fox renewed Dollhouse for a second season instead of looking for something else to put in its crappy Friday time slot) knowing that his shows move a ton of DVDs.

Dollhouse gets to go out with a bang after some slow buildup because Whedon and company knew it was canceled with 7 episodes left to film. What would season 1 have looked like with an understanding that Fox didn’t need such disconnected episodes? How much better could Firefly have been if Joss sat down to write it knowing he’d have no less and no more than 26 episodes for the stories he wanted to tell?

A cast of excellent characters with stories that play into a cohesive arc – that’s where it’s at. Without ‘em, would I still prefer Firefly and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog to CSI: Hip City and whatever hospital garbage is popular right now? Probably, but they wouldn’t be half as much fun to watch. To each his own, as long as all these guys get great roles now that Dollhouse is finished filming!

I don’t say excellent lightly here – I really enjoyed the end of season one and really liked how the Epitaph 1 episode on the season 1 DVDs wrapped things up while leaving ambiguity. I think it’s great how Joss (can I call him Joss? man I’m a dweeb) planned ahead with an episode that essentially said, “this is one of the possible horrendous outcomes of what’s going on in Dollhouse,” without closing any doors on season two.

I loved both episodes tonight, and the first thing I said to my roommate afterward was, “I’m so glad this show was canceled!” Surely, Whedon’s experience with Firefly – Fox airing episodes out of order like total jerkbags before canceling during the first season – prepared him for Dollhouse’s abrupt cancellation. It’s good to see a focused team of writers and producers providing great characters with a worthy plot-line. Nothing sharpens the mind like cancellation! Let me choose between seven top-notch episodes and 21 that are a mix of “cool!” “meh” and “boo,” and I’ll take seven every time.

Enver Gjokaj was born for Dollhouse – I don’t think I’ve seen anyone better at adopting a different voice, attitude, and mannerisms. Ray Wise‘s cameo tonight was good. Summer Glau was better than I expected in that her role wasn’t the same one I’ve always seen her in, and she played it very convincingly. If I have one complaint, it’s that Eliza Dushku is too sexy. It seems somehow… unsafe.

I’m looking forward to the final seven episodes, hopeful that tonight was an indicator of the fun twists and madness we can expect!

Perfect timing after the conclusion of Dollhouse! The occasionally annoying but far more often enjoyable second season of Chuck will be out on DVD January 5th. I’m excited for the new season, as the end of season two opened the door for a new and improved lead character, with plenty of fresh story possibilities as a result!

The show looks silly, especially since the very first commercial I saw revealed the “twist” that the Visitors are lizard-folk. However, the opening credits said all I needed to hear:

Guest starring Alan Tudyk

If Nathan Fillion wasn’t busy being mega-awesome on cheesy but enjoyable Castle, this would be a Firefly reunion show!

First impression is that yes, V is a little hokey. The teenage character Toolbox Magee and his pal Husker-du have gotten old already. But wow, is it funny that this show is piloting as election results pour in! The opposition leader’s speech about Visitors infiltrated in all areas of society and the time to stop them running short… with ABC’s election results scrolling across the bottom. Oh, to live in a district with Government For All Occasions liberals being trounced today!

Speaking of renewals, Dollhouse definitely isn’t getting one, since apparently people have better things to do on Friday nights than watch crazy, awesome Joss Whedon magic. It should be noted that I’m not meandering off into a tirade about the fact that people are not entertained by Dollhouse, but will watch a hundred thousand CSI spinoffs and hospital dramas.

To be honest, I’m fine with Dollhouse being canceled so long as the writers can plan accordingly. Season 1 left plenty of room to grow but ended well, especially when you consider the completely badass Epitaph 1 episode included with the DVDs. Season 2 can wrap up even better, as long as Alan Tudyk returns in time for Tahmoh Penikett to beat his face in sufficiently.

How about movies – there’s some cool stuff coming out next weekend. Michael Caine – shoot, Sir Michael Caine – is in Harry Brown, and all kinds of people are in The Men Who Stare at Goats, a movie whose trailer greatly confused me when Coffing first sent me a link awhile back.

As I mentioned in my previous BSG post, season 2 ended on what I felt was shaky ground. Well, now I’ve watched season 3 and enough of season 4 to make a simple recommendation: if you haven’t seen Battlestar Galactica, watch the first two seasons and then stop. Season 3 had its ups and downs, with the balance leaning pretty heavily towards the latter. Season 4…

I gave the show the benefit of a doubt and watched “Razor,” the two-hour special that opens season 4. Razor is a flashback that contains a flashback within a flashback. Yes, tertiary flashbacks. No more need be said about the first disc of season four. I gave the show the benefit of another doubt – and then two episodes into the season I dropped all the remaining discs from my Netflix queue.

Think of every thing sci-fi writers could do to ruin a show, and these guys did it. There are ruthless, vengeful robots that look like humans? Obviously when the plot starts running thin half your favorite characters will be revealed to have been robots all along, while the robots who started as frightening villains devolve into emo windbags. Mysterious, supernatural forces at work? Of course it’s better to keep introducing weirder and weirder nonsense than to ever explain anything. Part of me would like to see how BSG ended, but most of me just doesn’t care.

And now, a decision: Leno, or Always Sunny? Haha – just kidding.

(If you haven’t watched Leno, let me save you some time: it’s a lame pop-culture snoozefest. Boring interviews with vapid people, plus boring skits that go much longer than they should. Five nights a week!)

It doesn’t hurt that Joel McHale’s new series Community starts next Thursday night, and Dollhouse will be back the week after. You’ve watched the additional episode of Dollhouse from the Season 1 DVDs, right? And, have you heard that some of Joss Whedon’s favorite ladies and roughly half the cast of Battlestar Galactica are joining the show in season 2?

Don't let her fool you - that's a yawn, not a roar

I’ll be rooting for Michigan today because Notre Dame is annoying and the Big Ten needs to get its act together. I’d like to hear the phrase “a resurgent Big Ten Conference” peppered in sometimes among all the (entirely valid) comments about the Big Ten being a joke.

I really hope the Bucks can… er, buck this trend of flailing helplessly against ranked out-of-conference opponents. USC is going to be tough – but then, when aren’t they? If you’re going to the game by any route that crosses under 315 within 5 miles of campus, you might want to leave home around, oh, 4:00.

Go Bucks!

Having now seen the first two seasons via Netflix, it is so good. Really, the best way to describe my enthusiasm for the first half of Battlestar Galactica is “Schrute-like.” After watching the pilot – basically a feature film unto itself – I expected the entertainment value to drop. It did not. Through the first season and nearly all of the second, the characters (even the sleazy ones) are convincing and their relationships are interesting. The action is great, the bits of over-the-top science fiction goofiness are few and far between, and the drama is… dramatic.

Then you get to the last 20 minutes of the season two finale. I’ve read mixed things about seasons three and four, and the way season two ended inspires no confidence. Let’s say you have a believable love triangle – involving several major characters – that’s picking up steam, sparks of romance between two other characters, and a huge shift in the roles of warring political leaders. Would you fade to black and begin the next scene with “One year later?” Me neither. It almost felt like the writers had gotten tired of the whole wandering through space routine, and wanted to move on to something lamer.

So, like a Schrute (or a lady), season two of Battlestar Galactica left me feeling as though I’d missed a whole lot of important events in the lives of the characters, left me much less excited for the Season 3 disc that arrived today, and made me glad I resisted buying the crazy-go-nuts series box set when DeepDiscount.com had it on sale.

[Update: Typo. First paragraph. Corrected.]

I was bummed to see that CW is dropping Reaper to focus on their skank-targeted programming. In that vein, let’s play “90210 Mad Libs” – because 90210 commercials during Reaper were so inane that I considered buying a DVR. Write your own episode of 90210!

“Omigosh, did you, like, hear? Roxanne got __________!”

Suggested words/phrases: Pregnant; Hit by a Mercedes; Soooo wasted; Seven kinds of herpes.

“I’d love to get naked – I don’t care that you’re my __________”

Suggested words/phrases: Mother’s boyfriend; High school principal; Probation officer; Mother’s boyfriend and my high school principal.

“I’m feeling naughty. We should __________.”

There is only one way this sentence ends. You can jumble the words around, but the result is always dirty, random sex. Other 90210 lines that end this way include, “I’ve wanted you for, like, days. Let’s __________,” “You’re looking hot – we’re going to __________,” and “It’s Tuesday. __________.”

90210 makes me want to kick someone in the brain. Judging by the commercials, it could do little harm.

In other news, Chuck has also been renewed for another season.  I do not watch this show, but I know that my counterpart does so I shall post the news here as well.  I watched the first season on DVD, and enjoyed some episodes very much, but they were too few and far between for me to really get into the show.

At first it seemed like Fox was going to pull another Firefly on Joss. The first several episodes had some promising characters, but nothing all that intriguing going on. Then came the rumors that Alan Tudyk would be making an appearance. And about halfway through the season, the awesomeness ensued.

I’m not sure Joss Whedon and Alan Tudyk can work on something together without it being spectacular. Alan Tudyk is so good at what he does. Do you need someone hilarious? Done. Someone crazy? Sure. Someone hilarious AND crazy? Look no further:

We’re not bluffing! –I’m bluffing –But the rest of us mean business!

I hope Dollhouse gets the second season that Fox screwed Firefly out of. The crew at TV by the Numbers do not seem optimistic. If you’d like to lose some faith in humanity, and watching the evening news doesn’t cut it, take a look at this graph on James Hibbard’s site. Note how Dollhouse’s ratings drop in inverse proportion to the show’s level of face-rocking goodness.

To this point, the season 2 finale of Chuck is great. Googling for answers about season 3 I found a Chicago Tribune interview with Captain Awesome. And apparently there were rumors on Twitter over the weekend that season 3 had been confirmed: not so, says GiveMeMyRemote.

While the medium is hardly to blame, let me take this opportunity to say Twitter is retarded.

So what are they going to do with the final few minutes? No terrible cliffhangers yet. I won’t lie, if the episode ends with ambiguity I will assume:

1. Sarah and Chuck live happily ever after.
2. Whoever may or may not have died in tragic fashion will pull through.
3. John Casey spends the rest of his days gleefully assassinating terrorists of various shapes and sizes.

[Update: Such a good finale!! Producer Josh Schwartz was clearly bluffing when he said this would make for an unsatisfying end to the series. They avoided both things I was afraid of - this season ended well, and the twists could easily be developed into 13 great season 3 episodes!]

To use several more words: Yvonne Strahovski. Yikes. Adam Baldwin sets a high bar of badassery, and then hurls himself right over it. The past several episodes the story has been interesting, the writing has leaned towards action while bringing well-timed laughs, and the stars continue to be great at what they do. If you’ve missed it – Hulu has not.

Then you get to the preview for the next episode (and season finale). Are we headed for a cliffhanger? It looks cliffhanger-ish, but let’s face it… most of the commercials feature some combination of Chuck with a gun to his head and Sarah in her underoos. Again I thought, “Have they renewed Chuck? Because it’s been great and they better not ruin it.”

I turned to The Internets. And wouldn’t you know it, the New York Times Arts Beat posted an interview with Josh Schwartz, one of Chuck‘s creators, this morning. The gist of the interview is that renewal or cancellation have still not been announced, which understandably sucks for everyone involved in making the show. They asked Schwartz about the season two finale, and his response was as far from what I was hoping for as a response could be:

If, in two weeks, that is the last episode of the show to ever air, it will be one of the least satisfying finales of all time.

Times like these I’m glad I have no power or influence! Should Chuck end in a miserable cliffhanger? Or should the show get another 20-some episodes, more than half of which are likely to be tired rehashes of old episodes mixed with on-again-off-again nonsense?

The Office‘s magic has always been in how believable the cast and writers made the nonsense: Michael Scott remains to inflict insanity because he’s been around forever and nobody has the heart to fire him. Jim Halpert slacks at his job, but is awesome in every other conceivable way. Pam, likewise. The rest of the characters are quirky weirdos who, like actual people, sometimes say and do utterly ridiculous things.

And now? Charles has been around for a month and has had a single good line (“I am aware of the effect I have on women.”). Watching Jim flail is zero fun. A Pam who quits her job to follow Michael is a dumb, depressing Pam. The Michael Scott Paper Company is a decent joke, but a comletely uninteresting storyline. I’ll keep watching for the funny moments (tonight’s first episode had quite a few), but will no longer expect anything great. Question: if the show’s boring and tired now, what’s next season going to look like?