Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - Monday - So glad this show is back after a short Christmas break episode where Matt and Danny finally did what felt right. Unfortunately, this episode dropped below the previous. I was glad to see Danny screwing up his relationship with Jordan within the first three minutes of the show, while I like the chase I really didn’t want to see this one drag out given the relationship between Matt and Harriet. Speaking of Harriet, did anyone else find it weird that she had lunch with Jordan on the set? I know that Jordan is a huge fangirl of the show and all and she needs friends but it just seemed too convenient. Other things I liked - the conflict between Simon and Darius (”Why lordy Master Simon, you sure is good to us field niggers ain’t ya”), the development of Lucy and her relationship with Tom, and Dolphin Girl of course. While the FCC stuff moved the plot along, I didn’t really care for it a great deal (although it will be interesting to see how Lucy handles Kim, and the reverse). Not an amazing episode by any means, but as it’s the first of a three part plot arc, I may have to reassign judgement to the end. Thumbs in the middle.

Saturday Night Live - Jeremy Piven/AFI - You would of thought with such a versatile actor in Piven that they would continue the streak of good writing from the Justin Timberlake and Jake Gyllenhaal eps. So of course in typical 2000’s SNL fashion, they screw the whole thing up. As is the standard, a politically themed sketch opens - Hillary Clinton on Hardball. When I started watching SNL, I used to sit there and watch every single Clinton/Bush etc sketch they could throw at me and even if I didn’t quite get what was going on, I’d often get a few chuckles. This isn’t the case these days, and given Weekend Update features the same standard of gags now days I find myself fast forwarding through half the episode. Of the stuff I did like, “That’ll Move The Chains” was amusing to see Ari Gold blow up in a different environment; MacGruber was awesome for Forte singing the theme song, let alone the outrageous household materials (”JoJo, hand me that old bucket filled full of bum sperm!”); and I enjoyed Blizzardman Returns, even if just was the same jokes stuck under a different beat. But as is the norm for bad SNL eps lately, there were enough sketches that just had no endings. They could of done so much better. Thumbs down.

TV Champion - Crane Game - So I was reading an article about a week ago about Japanese fanatics of crane games/UFO catchers. As I have previously written about on here, I’m a big UFO Catcher freak (only the Sega ones, I’m a purist) so when I watched the video filled full of players flipping, tipping and picking up multiple items in these machines, I knew I had to find this special. After a bit of searching, I managed to find and watch it. Now the show is in Japanese (with Japanese subtitles), so I had to guess what was going on based on the actions and what I read about the show. The premise is simple - they have professionals and amateurs take part in challenges based on a certain topic. People get eliminated after each around. The person who sticks around the longest is declared the TV Champion. In this episode, there were several crane game challenges where people had to pick up everything from the standard soft toy to action figures to cooking equipment (yes they put them UFO catchers over there) to boiled eggs (and people were able to pick them out). The contests usually discussed what strategy they would take, then attempt to take out the item. It was amazing to watch these people pick out the tiniest thread from a stuffed animal or get their aim in such a correct position causing an item to flip into the hole. If anything was weird about it, it was the cutaways to ad breaks. A contestant would be in mid action and boom, ad break. No black screen, no title, just straight into an ad (which included a really weird ad for Coco Pops). I just read that there are a few more episodes out of this on the net (including a lego challenge, a cardboard challenge and a bubble challenge). Forget Iron Chef or Takeshi’s Castle, overdub the announcers into English and this could be the next big thing on SBS! Thumbs way up.

Still to come - Thoughts on SNL (Justin Timberlake, Jake Gyllenhaal and Annette Bening), My Super Sweet 16 (Allison), Scrubs (My Musical), Kenny vs Spenny (Who Can Win An Arm Wrestling Competition), and The Simpsons (The Wife Aquatic).