From Big Bang to Fringe (and a little Shatner too)

Aah, remember the days of Thursday night comedies? Well, Big Bang Theory has now moved to Thursdays, serving as lead-in to William Shatner's $#*! My Dad Says. Big Bang Theory does not disappoint though I had mistakenly watched clips previously online. One of the things that makes comedy work is the set-up and surprise, which is kind of ruined if you see the set-ups and punchlines beforehand, especially if almost immediately before. Still the characters and actors are in top form, from Penny's door-knocking soliloquy, Raj's musings of toilets in Aquaman's Atlantis, the mathematical calculations of Penny's sex life and of course Howard's robotic arm that he swipes from work.

$#*! My Dad Says has the advantage of almost all of the shows on the other channels are an hour long starting at 8pm, so there's not really another half hour show to turn to. Surprisingly, it was a funny show. While his character's spoutings are the groundwork of the show, it relies on more than that. Time is invested in giving his character some heart as well as making his sons sympathetic and not bitter. There's also some good moments of fast paced banter and dialogue, not relying solely on the comments to generate laughs. Indeed, the funniest, most laugh-out loud moment comes at the end when his son Henry delivers a William Shatner impersonation in the classic Kirk dramatic pauses mode. Like How I Met Your Mother, the basic concept the show is built around may seem dubious, but the execution shows there may be some legs to it. As an aside, if there is some doubt at the Pearly Gates of me getting in, I want the guys arguing my case to be the ones that managed to convince the networks that a concept of flashbacks of one very long story being told to his kids of "How I met your mother" was a great concept for an ongoing television sitcom series . And, then made it work.

Then for strangeness' sake, the return of Fringe. A little disappointed in the episode focused almost exclusively of Olivia's time in the other reality. However, it was played well. The other reality is convincingly done, with little changes to technology and lingo, a world that is so close to ours but very different. Almost like living exclusively in rural, small town America and waking up one morning in London, England. Last season we saw it in comic book covers on Peter's apartment's wall. The Dark Knight Returns became being about Superman instead of Batman, Green Arrow and Green Lantern went red. This time one of the subtle ones was the taxis advertising the Broadway show, "Dogs". John Noble continues to amaze playing the simple, mostly cheerful boy-like Walter Bishop of our reality and the ruthless serious one of the alternate. I normally don't like it when shows go from being episodic with mostly self-contained plot episodes to being about an over-arcing uber-plotline. For one, it just doesn't hold up on watching in syndication or re-runs. And, if you miss an episode or two, it quickly becomes impossible to catch up. A reason why shows like Law & Order, Bones, NCIS, CSI, Criminal Minds, Ghost Whisperer and their various franchises air almost continuously in syndication but 24, Lost and Alias do not despite their being immensely popular shows at one time. If Networks were looking at the long game, they'd see the wisdom would be in fewer shows like those despite their initial big numbers and water-cooler talk. Have over-arcing themes and subplots, but keep them mostly in the background and have each episode itself a satisfying story.