TV Show Round Up: Glee, Modern Family & Survivor: Redemption Island

Glee – Season 2

I only just found time to finish watching the two most recent episodes of Glee (Sectionals & Christmas) but now that I have a bit of downtime because I’m on Flood Break I’ve been able to catch up.

I dug both episodes and they rounded out the first half of this season nicely.  I’ve timed this pretty well as now there’s only another fortnight before we begin the second half of the season, starting with the Superbowl episode.  In the back of my mind I’m always curious what direction this show will take as it goes on.  I felt producer Ryan Murphy was onto a good thing previously with Nip/Tuck until around Season 3 when he went really nuts with that show.  So far I think Glee Season 2 has shown a pretty good understanding of what its audience wants (sometimes self-consciously so).  There’s a good rotation amongst the cast for who gets to sing the songs, the song selection itself has had a good variety and the show is retaining that balance between comedy and melodrama nicely.

The only other thought I had about the Sectionals episode though was that there are probably too many characters on the show now and it felt like that episode had to move in fast forward to fit everything in.  I think at the end of Season Two it might be time to trim the fat a wee bit and remove some extraneous characters which I think the producers have said they’re already going to do.

I should really get around to watching that last episode of The Walking Dead.

Modern Family – Season Two

I still really love this show and its just about the funniest thing on TV at the moment (until the next season of Curb Your Enthusiasm comes on).  In the second season, the formula has stayed more or less the same but the characters are so well established now that part of the fun is when the show has some oddball pairings such as Luke and Gloria together when he teaches her how to ride a bicycle.  I highly recommend this show to anyone reading this.  It’s a very accessible show.  There isn’t any backstory that you need to know going in and each episode is stand alone.  Do it!

For the record, I think “Slow Down Your Neighbors” has been my favourite episode of this season.  The fight in Lily’s playcastle with the heads popping up out of random windows was superb.

Survivor: Redemption Island

So they announced the cast for the upcoming season of Survivor: Redemption Island.

The wideshot may not look like much but zoom in and you can see that Jeff Probst has gone the extra mile this season to try and ensure that there will be some eye candy during the later stages (seriously…why do they always vote out the hottest girls first?).

Andrea

Ashley

Natalie

Sarita

Stephanie

My hats off to you, Jeff.  That’s some fine casting!

This season is a heavily gimmicked one with the castaways being allowed back onto the island after they get voted off by surviving a further elimination contest on Redemption Island.  Probst has blogged about this concept and said ‘give it till Episode 6’ to give the idea a chance.  The season will also apparently feature the return of two former Survivor contestants.  If one of them is Rupert, I’m quitting the show.