Lie to me, The Good Guys, Persons Unknown and Last Comic Standing

Summer is here. So, the summer line-up for T.V. is here also. At first glance I felt like this summer was gonna be a lot more reasonable than last year as far as quality viewing but after my first slew of shows I'm a little worried. Here is my first impression of the four shows I caught on Monday Night.

-- Last Comic Standing --

Here is a show that just confuses the hell out of me. Every year I get really excited about it and then ever year I feel disappointed. This year being no different. Here is the thing, I love Craig Robinson. I love the idea of having a comedian reality show and I even liked the judges they picked for the first day. I say "first day" cause last year it was 3 totally different people every episode. I don't know if they are gonna do that this year but the mere fact that I don't know leads into what irks me about this show. I am pretty sure they producers have no clue what they are doing. They don't seem to have any format or any regulation. They seem to be just throwing cards into a hat and hoping they go in. If I ever tried out for this show I would definitely try to make the first audition cause they always seem to pick a ton of comics at the beginning and then cut a lot of people in the later auditions because they are running out of room. Their whole selection process doesn't make any sense at all. Also, this show is on NBC who, if we all remember last year, just decided to end the show with 6 contestants left randomly. Pretty much anything new on NBC nowadays leaves a bad taste in my mouth because I know it was greenlighted by Zuckerman. You know him as the guy who canceled Scrubs, My Name is Earl, Mercy, Southland Tales and who is that popular guy....hmmmm....He had a late night talk show....

All in all, the first episode was pretty damn funny and Craig Robinson did not disappoint. I am just worried about things to come and am assuming it's gonna be another year of half-assedness from the producers and lead to the series getting unusually cut mid season.

Episode Grade: B-

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-- Persons Unknown --

What can I say about this. This wannabe Saw/Lost/Heroes concoction should probably be on during the day on TNT as part of the "stories" my grandma watches. You truly have to have no brain and not have any inclination to want to solve a puzzle to be able to enjoy this. That statement concludes how ludicrous it is because the basis of the show is that it is a puzzle that the audience is supposed to attempt to figure out as the cast does. The acting in this is pretty bad but what makes it stand out so much is the god awful writing. They totally destroyed any type of character development cause they were so intense on cramming so much into the first episode. In order for a show to work this way, you have to be able to identify with the characters and say to yourself, "Yah that's what I would do if I was put in that situation." Right from the get go when hot skinny chick turns her back completely on her kid to talk to the guy that apparently has no other purpose other than to distract her while her kid gets fake-kidnapped...(Which I'm still not sure I even understand how that happened). No real parent (outside of Britney) would take their eyes off their kid for that long.

Also, what's up with the only kidnapping white people? Seriously? Hey NBC....there ARE other brands of human out there. It's 2010 guys, I know you through in the random black guy to "shake things up a bit" but, just because there is a "only black guy at the party" joke...doesn't mean you have to follow it as a basis for every show you create and produce. If you want me to believe that 7 random people got swiped from obscurity, seemingly having no connection to each other....then actually pick 7 RANDOM people.

Episode Grade: D-

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--The Good Guys--

Have you ever wrinkled your forehead so hard and for so long that you got a headache? That's pretty much what happened to me for the entire 42 or so minutes of this show. I had really high expectations going into this. I like Colin Hanks....I think he is the perfect straight man for any show such as this. I love Eric from Billy Madison (bet some of you didn't connect that did you?). But this show was all kinds of wrong and silly. First off, I'm still not sure if it is supposed to be a drama or a comedy...or some kind of comedic drama or dramatic comedy but, it fails to be any of those. The writers of this show should be embarrassed. They seem to play some sort of dumb and dumber detective duo that falls ass backwards into solving crimes when no one expects them to due to their sheer stupidity and lack of any type of knowledge of standard police procedure. The first obvious question you have right at the beginning of the show is...."How in the hell did these guys make it into the police department....let alone get promoted to detective?" In one scene, Eric (I forgot what his real name is) is screaming "tell me where my friend is!" at a police computer because he doesn't understand how a gps tracking program works. Not only that, it seems that he has never used a computer before in his life. Had this show been been on the air in......oh, I don't know..... 1975......or some time period where every single person in the world DIDN'T USE A COMPUTER EVERY SINGLE DAY IN ALMOST EVERY CAREER THEY HAVE.....I'd be more inclined to believe some of the stupid crap that went on in this episode. It was just ridiculous. The main bad guy's plot being foiled because of his jealousy issues....come on. Just silliness. I really hope this show gets much better in the next episode cause the cast has some promise but as far as the first episode.....blah.

Episode Grade: F

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Lie To Me

Let's start this out with me saying that the first season of "Lie to Me" was absolutely one of my favorite first season's in a while. It was written well, focusing on the science that Paul Ekman has spent years researching, testing and proving. It was an ingenious idea to cast Tim Roth. He is amazing as Doctor Cal Lightman and the think the way they started developing all the characters in the first season was great. Then the second season came along. I read somewhere that some new guy took over the direction of the show and he came from some cop drama like "The Unit" or something like that. Things started to go down hill a bit. It seemed now that the only focus was on Tim Roth's character and how he is suddenly semi crazy and no one else on the show respects him or his work or ability at all. Everyone thinks he is wrong until he proves them all right and they are somewhat ignorant to him. Then they did the god awful poker episode. Don't even get me started on how terrible that episode was.

So now we have the 3rd season (or 2nd part of the 2nd season...what ever they decide I guess) that began on Monday. Over all I thought it was a pretty good episode. I like when Cal goes up against the psychopathic guys that are hard to read (My favorite episode in the season one was "Blinded" when he went up against the mass murderer guy). I also like that there was another, equally important story going on being head up by the other two on the Lightman team. Here is my problem with this episode: It shoud have been an hour and a half long instead of just an hour. They spent so much time build up the cases that when it came time to resolve the episode they completely dropped the ball. In the minor case, Loker eluded to some creative idea to appease everyone involved but they didn't even tell us what he did! The just had a scene where the hot chick says, "Good thing you came up with that creative idea Loker." Really? Do you think we are that dumb? Then the main story Cal "outwits" the psychopath guy....I guess. I mean you don't really even know. It all got wrapped up so quickly that I had to rewind to even catch what the hell happened.

I don't know. It seems as if they are trying to get back to the first season but are not quite there yet. All in all, I am glad it's back on t.v. Easily one of my favorite shows to watch right now. Just needs some fine tuning.

Episode Grade: B

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All in all, pretty lame beginning to the summer as far as new shows are concerned. Hopefully I pick up on something else that fills my t.v. watching time or else it's Seinfeld re-runs for me.

Antny

The Good Fold...

For most of you out there poker is just a fun game that you watch on t.v. or played with your family when you were little. Maybe you and a few friends get together and play once in a while or maybe you play it at a party and end the game a bit more scantily clad than you started. When you begin to take the game more seriously, learn more about the proper strategy to apply to the game when playing, the lessons learned can be applied to other things in life as well.

I'm not gonna bore you with poker game theory or statistical hand match up advantages. Yet, there is one rule that I find particularly interesting, as it applies to life just as much as it applies to poker. That rule is, "Don't get married to your hand."

The rule is simple. When getting dealt your first cards in a particular round...no matter how good they seem to be at the start....it's always proper to take the strength of your hand with a grain of salt. The reason for this is because a certain percentage of the time your hand will still become the second or third best. The reason why this "RULE" is so important is just as simple. If you have a bad hand....you don't want to put any money in the pot. But if you start with good cards...you have a tendency to want to invest everything you got even though it becomes more evident that you are holding a loser.

Life is crazy. It's amazing that no matter how smart we become as we get older...it's seems impossible to figure anything out. I still have no clue what I'm doing. Conversely, I've never met anyone who walks around confidently saying, "Yah, I got this life thing figured out....what's next on the agenda?"

One thing I do know is through life we get dealt some amazing looking stuff sometimes. Situations or people that, at first look, seem to have great potential and could provide maximum gain. So we invest ourselves into these affairs hoping to get what we thought we may get in the beginning. Yet sometimes, in life, as the same as in poker....things don't go as we planned. Our once exciting world of possibilities turns out to have one single, mundane road leading to disaster. But just like when we are holding two black aces and staring at an obvious made flush...we continue to go down that road because of the promise that was so inviting. So lucrative.

It's at that moment, as a serious poker player, that you learn to make the good fold. You don't get married to your hand. You let it go because you know that later on, in the future another opportunity will arise and it may be even more profitable than the last. You know in your gut that continuing down that road will just cause you to lose more of what you invest. It's hard. It's really hard letting go of those two aces. Seeing them and every potential benefit you may have obtained when you first picked them up go fluttering away as your cards slide into the graveyard of the muck.

When you're beat, you're beat.

Same with life. I'm not advocating just quiting anything you start with the fear that you might not be successful. Everyone out here has that one thing in their life that they know they should have ended a long time ago. It may have seemed really great at first but the sum of mean has shown less than optimal results. It's time to make the good fold and move on so you can be prepared for the better things that are to come. There will always be better spots. Always.