Tag / Hugh Laurie

by admin

2017 Emmy Awards – Comedy

Emmy_statueWith the Emmy Awards scheduled for Sunday night, here are my predictions for the awards for Comedy shows.  I most likely have seen most of these shows, so, unlike my annual Oscar predictions, I will not mostly be going on gut feel and word of mouth, but will have a somewhat informed decision.

Outstanding Comedy

Atlanta

Black-ish

Master of None

Modern Family

Silicon Valley

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Veep

Veep has won for the past two years and would seem to be a good choice to three-peat, so I’ll go with that.

Outstanding Actress In A Comedy

Pamela Adlon, Better Things

Jane Fonda, Grace and Frankie

Allison Janney, Mom

Ellie Kemper, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep

Tracee Ellis Ross, Black-ish

Lily Tomlin, Grace and Frankie

Julia Louis-Dreyfus won this award the past four years, and I see no reason why she won’t repeat again this year.

Outstanding Actor In A Comedy

Anthony Anderson, Black-ish

Aziz Ansari, Master of None

Zach Galifianakis, Baskets

Donald Glover, Atlanta

William H. Macy, Shameless

Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent

Jeffrey Tambor brought home the award the past two years for his gender-bending role on Amazon’s hit series, but I’m going to go out on a limb and go with Donald Glover.

Continue reading →

by admin

Midseason Review – Thursdays

old-tv-set1Thursday night is traditionally the busiest night of the television week. Here’s our look back at my pre-season thoughts on what’s on the slate for this season.

7:00

The Big Bang Theory – Entering its 7th season, the show’s ratings continue to grow.  Everyone is in a relationship now, so we’ll see how the show handles that.

The continues to be a ratings juggernaut while still being a good comedy.

Once Upon A Time In Wonderland – Originally conceived as a mini-series to air while Once Upon A Time was in hiatus, ABC execs were so enamored with this spinoff show that they moved it to the fall and gave it its own timeslot.  Will 2 hours of weekly fairy tales prove to be too much?  Only time will tell.

I made it through about 2 episodes of this train wreck before I had to drop out.  Turns out there is a limit to the amount of fairy tales I can handle in a week.

8:00

The Crazy Ones – Robin Williams returns to television for the first time since Mork & Mindy, which is not something I would ordinarily be interested in.  Add in David E. Kelley, who has been more miss than hit lately, and this would likely get a pass from me.  However, the inclusion of one Sarah Michelle Gellar has guaranteed that I will at least check it out.

The show has done a tremendous job of toning down the Robin Williams factor to a reasonable level and has been one of the surprises of the new season.

Grey’s Anatomy – Back for a 10th season, the show was revitalized a bit last season with the addition of a new group of interns.  Hopefully they can keep it up this year.

The show continues to entertain, even if it isn’t the ratings hit it was in its earlier days. Continue reading →

by jim

Post Mortem – House

After 8 seasons, Hugh Laurie and the folks at Fox and Universal decided that the time had come for the adventures of Dr. Gregory House to come to an end.  And, frankly, it was about time, as the show, which had been a favorite and a ratings hit, had started to become a bit stale.

There were numerous times over the course of the series where House was changed, and any one of them could have given the show more to work with.  Instead, all of them were discarded over the course of a few episodes, putting House right back where he started.  As the seasons wore on, the charms of the original premise started to wear a little thin.  Bringing in a new team of doctors had given the show a creative boost in the fourth season, but doing so again this past season did not, despite the best efforts of Odette Annable and Charlyne Yi.

At the end, House went out the way he spent the entire run of the show, by breaking the rules to get what he wanted. In his wake, he left behind a legacy of 8 mostly strong seasons.

by jim

The Doctor Is Out

There’s an old idiom in sports that it is better to let a star player leave one year early than to let him hang on for one year too many.  On Wednesday, Fox announced that House would be wrapping up its run this May after 8 seasons.  Unfortunately, it may have stuck around for one season too many.  As I mentioned last month, Odette Anabel and Charlyne Yi have injected some fresh blood into this season, but, overall, the show is tired.  Moving Omar Epps into the Lisa Edelstein role hasn’t really panned out.

That being said, the show was a strong performer for many years, and introduced us to many memorable characters, including Thirteen, Cutthroat Bitch, and, of course, House himself.  I will be looking forward to whatever Hugh Laurie decides to do next.