Consider the source

I’d like to start this week with something I noticed on a preview for “Traffic Light,” the new situation comedy on FOX.

Not “Traffic Light” itself, mind you – although I will be DVR’ing it from now on to catch the last minute or so of “Raising Hope,” which if you’re keeping score is FOX’s only actually funny live-action situation comedy, airing Tuesdays at 9/8c on FOX – but rather the preview for “Traffic Light,” which I’ve determined is about as funny as a banana peel nobody slips on.

The preview said “Critics are calling ‘Traffic Light’ ‘the best comedy of the year.’ ”

Oh really? Which critics? What critics are those? Oh, there’s the attribution. It’s “critics” such as Wall Street Journal reviewer Dorothy Rabinowitz in her Feb. 4 review, “Men Fighting for Air.”

Dorothy – in the same breath she derides NBC’s practically-the-same “Perfect Couples” – and not even mentioning ABC’s “Better With You,” which we’d all be better without – calls “Traffic Light” a “scintillating comedy brimming with confidence and wit.”

It seems to me if anyone on this show had any confidence they’d be able to say “Honey, I need some guy time with my best friend,” or “Honey, Adam’s in a jam and he needs me to help out with some project for his boss so he doesn’t get fired,” instead of pretending to be a clown and hoping he gets away with it. Or for God’s sake could have a little time to himself in his own home instead of watching an “Iron Man” DVD in his minivan.

Oh, and if there was any wit, entirely different things would be happening.

But Dorothy apparently leads such a limited existence that when “Traffic Light” comes on her screen it’s like she’s been reborn. The acting is “sterling” in its “subtlety” and “hilarious.” Even the bulldog comes off better than that “depressed looking yellow Lab” in the NBC “Perfect Couples” project, which she described as “deadly,” although to my knowledge no one has in any way died from it.

So let’s explore this. When the Wall Street Journal says FOX’s “Traffic Light” is “the best new comedy of the year,” it becomes impossible for me to ignore that the same company owns both The Wall Street Journal and FOX. Now it makes sense. This is like your mom giving you a standing ovation during your 4th grade piano recital of “Swanee River” and booing and throwing things during someone else’s note-for-note exact same performance of “Swanee River.” It’s pretty much exactly the same show, exactly the – well, OK, Olivia Munn from NBC’s “Perfect Couples” brought me to tears in her portrayal of an Italian grandmother this week on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” in her “report” on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s … antics, which Stewart then characterized as a “tarantella marinara farce.” so I know they’re capable of being funny – just not on this thing.

Most of the reviews of FOX’s “Traffic Light” read tepidly favorable, whereas most reviewers can’t stand ABC’s “Better With You,” which I’ve got no idea what Josh Cooke has on ABC that they’re thinking about keeping it around. But seriously, when the review seems to have so little in common with the show you just watched, it’s a good idea to consider the source.

"Glee"

As for FOX’s “Glee,” seems there was actual pushback on Sue Sylvester’s fake Sue-icide. Nothing I can find offhand, mind you, a few independent bloggers, but whatever it was I heard about it before I got to see the episode so I was a little bit alarmed going into it.

And here’s what I saw: I saw a depressed and self-involved Sue Sylvester plotting revenge against a world that has done her wrong in some way or another. Oh, wait, that’s nearly every episode. This is a character who has staged a wedding to herself and invited the first couple. This is an ego unbounded. So really, when I saw it was Sue Sylvester who was meant to kill herself I relaxed instantly. This out-of-hand character is not going to commit suicide when there is so much more vengeance to exact against the entire world.

But really, someone faked a suicide on a song-and-dance show and it’s an outrage? People will complain about anything. It was pure artifice to get Will to let Sue sit in on Glee Club, pure and simple. Most telling detail, Sue described a moment of happiness, singing along to her car radio with the opening number from “Priscilla Queen of the Desert,” Charlene Oliver’s “I’ve Never Been to Me,” which just saying that for no readily apparent reason makes me miss Kristin Chenoweth, but no matter. Sue was weasling her way into Glee Club one way or another, and this was one way where she could be sure of succeeding. Case in point, there she was, singing something that was meant to be inspiring by the end but wasn’t doing a thing for me but oh well. The scene at the cancer ward was predictably cute and quite touching and Will and Sue, I’ll never forgive either of you, but again, no matter. “Glee” sometimes thinks it’s moving simply because it’s on television but until they do some version of “Little Shop of Horrors” and get rid of Emma’s boyfriend the dentist so that Will and Emma can be together because honestly, there is no good reason they’re not, I’m going to be irritated with this show on some level or another.

P.S.: “I Know What Boys Like” was utterly ridiculous – why does Lauren have to be so obnoxious? I wouldn’t accept any of her behavior out of any character. I don’t tolerate it from Quinn, for instance, (who ought seriously to have grown up a lot more by now) and I don’t accept it out of her just because she’s big and socially awkward.

Also, the Puckerman love interest storyline is barely believable. They should’ve drawn from his pool boy MILF experiences, rather than the “You’re not doing a thing for me” nonsense, the writers’ desperate appeal to his ego, which is silly. Y’know, points for going beyond the whole unrequited crush thing and the inevitable “Carrie” prom scene complete with pigs’ blood, which was sort of what “Supernatural” went with this past week. But if Puck has otherwise made the rounds among all the skinny girls while completely overlooking Mercedes, this is really coming out of nowhere. Again, oh well. “Glee” airs at 8/7c Tuesdays on FOX.

"The Chicago Code"

Lest you think I’m incapable of saying anything nice about FOX programming – I did mention that “Raising Hope” is quite funny – I do need to re-examine my initial lukewarm review from last week of Shawn Ryan’s “The Chicago Code.” It seems clear enough that just like with “Human Target,” the pilot episode was highly political and hit all the anti-Obama dogwhistles, which may have been part of getting it greenlit.

Developing it one episode further, it seems that Alderman Superfly Ronin Huggy Bear Dolemite pimp cane Gibbons is a big charismatic smooth-talking black man and crime boss, but he is not responsible for every bad thing that happens in Chicago. That there are some 2.9 million people in Chicago and that some of them occasionally get up to no-goodniks besides him.

More to the point, Superintendent Teresa Colvin is confronted by some of the consequences for deciding her officers aren’t cutting it and giving them broom closet duty, and those desk jockeys she kicked to the curb are given a little depth, a little reality, beyond just dismissed as union goldbrickers.

That and there’s some suggestion that her subordinate insisting she take his vest is her fault when he was just being awesome. His mother saying that Colvin should be dead instead, y’know, I get that, but really, at the memorial, “You should be dead instead of him”? That’s just cold. “The Chicago Code” airs at 9/8c Mondays on FOX.

"V"

And FOX isn’t the only one where the conspiracy stuff gets old pretty fast. ABC’s “V” is getting so stale, people. Get to the point.

Y’know, if we didn’t have the cameras cutting to Ana so we viewers were aware of all of her devious schemes, here’s what we would know: Before making themselves known, the Visitors did some reconnaissance. They’ve infiltrated our security forces and they have conducted some experiments on us – not cool, but not outside anything we might do if we were making First Contact.

More openly, they’ve brought clean water, air, and energy, produced food from the deserts and cured diseases and it would be hard to ignore all of that. Plus, Ana’s been nothing but gracious as an ambassador. If we knew nothing but what they’d shown us, we’d be falling all over ourselves to love them – especially our scientists.

Now, on the conspiracy buffs side, they’ve blown up a lake full of Ana’s progeny, they’ve blown up shuttles, they’ve plotted against them because they’re different, incited riots against them and launched suicide bomber attacks. So from anyone’s perspective, Ana would be personally justified in any revenge she’d care to exact.

In the third season of the “Battlestar Galactica” reboot, humans used the tactics of terrorists against their Cylon overlords. As the Cylon-conquered New Caprica storyline developed, it was clear that these tactics grew out of hardship and desperation. But what it did was illustrate how desperate situations could push sympathetic – even in past circumstances, heroic – characters to some ugly, radical extremes, which was in a not at all subtle way urgng a transformation of the conversation toward the middle of our nation’s war on terror circa 2004.

In the “V” storyline, it’s getting harder and harder to define Erica as a hero. Yes, we at home are privy to all of Ana’s evil schemes and all the fears and nightmare scenarios of the fifth-columnists will be borne out when we all start giving birth to alien babies – and that’s certainly one property of phosphorus I’ve neglected in my studies of chemistry, organic or otherwise – but for right now, these people are coming across as shrill and delusional, especially given Ana’s mastery of media relations.

So friggin’ do something already. Ana’s setting up jobs programs and solving all of the world’s problems while Erica and Father Jack are fuming like Glenn Beck in a basement, and other people are expressing doubts born thus far out of nothing – certainly nothing they’ve been able to articulate. Seriously, the Visitors are possessed of an overwhelming force, they could end us at any time. Whatever it is they must be waiting for is getting more and more ridiculous by the day. “V” airs at 9/8c Tuesdays on ABC.

"Community"

Fortunately there is some great television in and among the disappointments. “Community,” for instance, turned in one of the most amazing installments I’ve seen in a while – not just for “Community,” but just generally, really a superior piece of storytelling. Pierce, who has been on painkillers and generally unlikeable lately, has decided to tell everyone he’s dying and called them all to the hospital to make bequests. They’re mostly evil headgames, but they don’t work that well on everyone.

Abed is filming it as a documentary, and the format allows for some comic genius. Also, apart from a truly outstanding turn by Donald Glover, portraying a wigged out Troy confronted with his hero, LeVar Burton, there was some excellent development on Joel McHale’s Jeff Winger character. Pierce judged correctly that Jeff Winger would be cut to the core by a visit from his father. Jeff was beside himself – Abed caught several instances of Jeff freaking out – until Jeff pointed out that if, after getting him so worked up, Pierce failed to produce his father, he would beat Pierce badly.

This happened, but it also illustrated that Pierce is playing something of a father figure to Jeff’s character. And everyone’s always complaining about how horrible Pierce’s character is but I’ll just point out that we’ve been learning some incredible things about this man. Every time he ruins a public service announcement about drugs or a Dungeons & Dragons game or a touching if obnoxious set of moments about bequests – the bequests wouldn’t have held the power they did to mess with their minds if he didn’t know them and hadn’t been thinking about them – he’s trying to be involved in the lives of his friends, and he does, on some level, care about them. “Community” airs at 8/7c Thursdays on NBC.

"Justified"

I’m way running out of time on this one and I’ve got to get it recorded but just a few words about “Justified,” which premiered its second season two weeks ago. Timothy Olyphant returns as a charming, soft-spoken, square-jawed U.S. Marshal Rayland Givens and this season finds him facing some squirrelliness in his home county of Harlan.

There’s poisoned cider, there’s murder and kidnapping, potentially some statutory rape and there’s this thing where Momma Maggs, the last word on Mary Jane for miles around, murdered a man, disposed of his body and is now looking after his daughter. On top of the family meth labs in the first season, this is some dark, backwoods storytelling. Also, Givens’ ex-wife is making a play for him, over the stated objections of her more recent ex-husband, so matters of the heart haven’t been neglected. “Justified” airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on FX.

Coming up

Coming up, oh, hey, it’s Tyler Labine, in a sitcom, sorry, just couldn’t cough the bad taste of “Sons of Tucson” out of my mouth, but this little romantic comedy called “Mad Love,” it premiered last week, totally under my radar, but it’s airing Monday on CBS at 8:30/7:30c, so I’ll try to pick it up from the followup if it’s not so complicated, like “LOST,” if you miss any you’re just hopelessly at sea.

“The Cape” is airing the second half of a two-parter Monday at 9/8c on NBC. From what I’m hearing, that show might want to start wrapping things up. Don’t air any more two-parters, guys. Hell, as poorly as that show is doing, it shouldn’t buy green bananas.

Wednesday continues the production of “Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior,” which I completely missed last week’s premiere but I’m told it was terrible, but if I get a chance I’ll check it out for myself and let you know. As I pointed out earlier, reviewers occasionally disagree, and Forest Whitaker did a fine job in “The Shield.” That’s “Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior” at 10/9c Wednesdays on CBS.

Also, it looks like that “Redemption Island” thing has started in the “Survivor” series, so for people who watch that, that’s going on, at 8/7c on Wednesdays on CBS. Enjoy!