Upgrade / Downgrade: Season Finale's 2006

Thanks to everyone who liked my post about Aleta and wished us luck. That was a cool one to have written and have you guys read.

This is a good way to wake up in the morning. I'm liking this makeshift vacation thingie. Second post this week... don't get too used to this frequency though, it's back to the lab again on Friday, so it'll be back to once a week or so by then.

You guys we're really on my ass to finish this one up, so this morning that was the project, this has been in the works for a couple weeks now. There was a lot of talk about season finales and TV last week on the comment board, and there was a lot of good TV on last week, so I figured it was time for another…

Upgrade / Downgrade: Season Finales, 2006

Let’s start with…

24

As far as seasons go, this definitely wasn’t the best. But it wasn’t bad by any stretch, either. I’m not sure 24 can be bad.

Starting off the season with the death of David Palmer gave the season more than enough ammunition to power through. Palmer was huge. Then to add to that, Michelle was killed 10 minutes later. A few episodes later, Tony died. Overkill. Literally. Powerful overkill, but overkill nonetheless.

As for Tony and Michelle, killing both of them was a tricky choice. If they had killed one or the other, then that opened up the possibility of having one of those characters grieving, which would make for good TV. Especially Tony grieving if Michelle had died, but I’m biased because he was my favorite. It would have worked with Michelle too.

It’ll be tough to recover. They don’t have many supporting characters around now, none that you could base a show on anyways. And the very end… poor Jack… poor, poor Jack. No wonder he asked the Chineese to kill him when he was captured at the end, because he knew that even if he’d be rescued, he’d never get more than 5 minutes worth of sleep.

No idea where they’re planning on going next year. Hopefully, more of Curtis and Buchannan, and less of Chloe. I guess we’ll find out, and reserve judgment until then.

As far as the finale’s went, it would have been hard, if not impossible, to top the finale from last year, where Jack faked his death and disappeared. But this was damn good. Between Jack avenging the deaths of his friends who helped him disappear by killing Henderson to the President finally getting what he deserved, this episode had a lot to offer. The ending was cool when Jack finally got to Audrey, then you could almost hear the collective groan of the audience when Jack was captured by the Chineese and loaded on a boat to be tortured.

So all in all, a good episode.

Upgrade.



On to…

The OC

Wow, this was actually a pretty impressive show. For those wondering my opinion on The OC in general, the first season was phenomenal, the second season was horrible, and this season… well, it was up and down, but it was definitely an improvement.

This was easily one of the best episodes I’ve ever seen. They managed to tie up all the loose ends before everyone went their separate ways after graduation. We we’re also told that one major character wouldn’t survive the episode. I figured it’d be one of the parents, given that the kids will be moving away to different colleges next season, and they’ll be less necessary to have around. But they went the other direction and killed Marissa.

What do I think about this? Well… if they weren’t going to kill one of the parents and we’re going to kill one of the big 4, you knew it wouldn’t be Seth or Ryan. That leaves Summer or Marissa. I actually think Summer would have been a better candidate, because there’s nowhere really for the Seth / Summer thing to go now that they’re together, and most people won’t accept anything less than them being together for the rest of the series, which is just boring. If Summer had died, Seth would have been crushed and it would have given us a chance to see the Seth actor display some human emotion other than sarcasm (not really an emotion).

But they killed Marissa. It was an interesting choice, not sure if it’ll be better or worse as far as “where they go from here” goes, I just think Summer would have been a better one because of where they could go with it. A lot of people didn’t like the Marissa actress, I actually thought the actress was really good, it was the character I didn’t like. But she brought a lot to the show, and the Ryan / Marissa dynamic was what kept a lot of people watching. It’ll be interesting to see where they go with this next season. I imagine it’ll be a downgrade, but it depends who does what.
However, that’s less significant than the episode itself, which is what I’ll rate. Huge upgrade, because even if you didn’t like the fact that Marissa died (many don’t), you have to at least admit it was an amazing episode, from the 4 of them saying goodbye after their last hangout together by the pool to Marissa dying in Ryan’s arms, it was really well written and well-acted by everyone.



The Colbert Report

Oh man, does this show ever kick ass. I fell in love with The Daily Show a couple years back, and for those who don’t know, this is a spin-off of that, hosted by one of The Daily Show’s correspondents. But it’s actually better than The Daily Show. I still love Daily Show and I still love Jon Stewart, but this is so much better. The guy’s hilarious.
Check it out. It’s on after Daily Show, live 4 days a week.

There really was no “season finale” per se, but they are on hiatus for 2 weeks, so seemed as good a time as any to mention it.

Upgrade as well.



American Dad

Oh man, does this show ever kick ass. Wait... that was the same line from last section. I just did this. Well, it's brilliant too. From the minds that brought us Family Guy, we get this. A lot of people will say this show is not as good as Family Guy, but let’s be honest, if it’s half as good as Family Guy, isn’t it worth watching? And I’d make the argument that at least 50% of the time, it’s even better than Family Guy. And that’s not an easy claim to make.

It gets an extra honorable mention because Aleta loves it too... and I get to watch her laugh when we put this on. Speaking of which, she'll appreciate this...

Quote For Today:
"You knew? What else have you been hiding? Maybe the fact that he's not even my son. Please, please, tell me you slept with another man! Tell me it was in our bed and he was wearing my tie as a headband! And... and you grabbed the tie to gain leverage, and then apologized, embarrassed. But he said, 'Noooo, baby, you grab what you need to grab to keep doing what you're doing!' Tell me! If you ever loved me, you'll tell me that's what happened!"
- Stan From American Dad

And the finale where Stan is going to help Francine fulfill her dream by breaking George Clooney’s heart but ends up falling for him himself… oh, man. Delicious. Upgrade.

Survivor & Amazing Race

All right, so everyone knows I'm not a reality TV fan... but we had some pools going at work, and I had the token black guy for Survivor, and the token black couple for Amazing Race, and they both won!

All right, so they didn't. Downgrade!



Hmm, I didn’t hand out any downgrades this time around. I must be getting doughy. What can I say? It was a good season for TV, as far as I can tell.

Now before I sign off here, some interesting news is that the girl I’m currently falling head over ass for, Aleta, actually came and said to me that she wanted to watch some wrestling with me. That’s right, wanted to. She said she wanted to see why I liked it so much. Now, weather or not she actually comes to like it is not really the issue here, it’s that she’s willing to try it. So even if she doesn’t like it, it’s still a way better reaction than most non-fans would give, which tend to involve lighting me on fire and going to hang with the cool kids while I roast like a pig at a company bonfire.

And speaking of wrestling, the wrestling fans of the site will be glad to hear I'm going to be starting a wrestling column soon. Ask B.a.D, Upgrade / Downgrade, etc... it'll all be in there. Work in progress.

B.a.D