Quick Recap

For all those interested, I was in Los Angeles for the past five days Don Draper-ing it up in the City of Angels (While some may use that reference as an allusion to sleeping with exotic women and possessing an overpowering masculinity, I use it mainly to quantify cigarettes smoked, Scotch consumed and false identities unveiled). Anyway, so if anybody's interested, I have some television to catch up on. But here is where I stand on this past week..

Eastbound and Down: So we get the season finale of our second installment from Kenneth Powers. First, I should say that Danny McBride and Co. intended ideally for this show to be done in three seasons and HBO just recently picked it up for a third. Therefore, I assume they wrote the last episode unsure of whether or not it would be the last of the series. Either way, I think it wrapped up nicely but, in my opinion, almost too nicely. Surely there are pitfalls ahead.

Boardwalk Empire: I have missed the last few episodes of this show and need to catch up. Honestly, it's been awhile since I've watched an HBO drama in the week-to-week format as opposed to the DVD cram-everything-into-three-days format so I'm finding it a bit difficult to tolerate the slow pace.

SNL: I still watch SNL. Mostly on Hulu or DVR but still a fan. This show, like The Simpsons, was one of the first television comedy programs I watched constantly from a young age and thus I feel obligated to still give it my time considering reruns of SNL on Comedy Central were basically a third parent for me growing up. Sadly I watched last week's episode with Jon Hamm in real time at home (something which I haven't done since the early Will Ferrell days). Let me say this, Jon Hamm is the best host this show has had in forever. He is the new Tom Hanks or Alec Baldwin of SNL. Also, Jay Pharoah is fucking talented. Granted, each sketch he has appeared in has basically been a forum for his dead on impressions but that's fine by me. I have never seen anybody do a Denzel Washington impression, much less knock it out of the park like he does. Also, the Back to the Future auditions were owned by everybody who was in it. Especially Bill Hader's Alan Alda.

In future news, at the request of everybody from my close friends to the tailor at my local haberdashery, I have started to watch Modern Family. In proper style, I'm starting with Season 1 and working my way to current episodes. Nevertheless, give me a body pillow, my laptop, a Polar Pop filled with Diet Mountain Dew, a catheter and a ration of Bagel Bites appropriate to feed an entire Kindergarten class and I will be caught up in a matter of days. My initial thoughts: The joke/minute ratio is not as high as The Office or 30 Rock but I think this could easily be one of the funnier shows on television.