Saturday Night Live: Stray thoughts that may pertain to Bruce Willis/Katy Perry

There hasn't been a huge cast overhaul on SNL for a while now. Ever since they kind of bottomed out in the mid-90s, they've been careful to stagger their castmembers' comings and goings so that the show never feels the absence of a key player. The departures of Bill Hader, Jason Sudeikis and Fred Armisen this past year, and Seth Meyers in the near future, make this the biggest changeover year in a long while. There's a void of "average guys" on the show in the same way that Kristin Wiig's departure opened the floodgates for female roles of all types.

That may be the logic to the new castmembers selected this year, mostly a crop of seemingly-interchangeable white guys, and Noelle Wells, whose biggest part so far was standing next to Regine Chassigne (and she did a very good Lena Dunham in their Girls skit.) It may seem excessive to pick up five guys to fill more or less the same role, but it makes sense to me that SNL would want to hedge their bets. It takes time to figure out which ones are going to be Hader and Sudeikis, and which are going to be Jeff Richards and Paul Brittain. So far, my money's on Kyle Mooney, although that may just be because I know what his name is. The same weekend he debuted on SNL, he appeared on the "so-okay-it's-fine" Stephen Merchant HBO series "Hello Ladies." I also really enjoyed Brooks Whelan's monologue about tattoos. It's the old Chris Rock tactic: get on Update, get your name said.

Speaking of Update, I'm really into Cecily Strong as co-anchor. She has this very at-ease, yet knowing and cheeky delivery, a devilish glint in her eye when she says something dirty. It makes a nice counterpoint for Seth Meyers' trademark over-enthused shouts. (I happen to like Seth's work, too, but you've got to admit.) I thought Cecily was going to be someone we saw in most sketches, but that role seems to have turned over to Vanessa Bayer.

I like Vanessa. In fact, I think the show has a great female cast right now. She seems to have emerged as the go-to wife/girlfriend actress, but she's also continually developing characters and impressions, like Lady Gaga, or last week's poetry teacher. I was worried she was going to be lost in the shuffle, but she's got a good thing going. The one who seems to have fallen behind is Nasim Pedrad, who I wonder if she could maybe become the new Update co-anchor when Seth leaves. Thank about it, Lorne. She's got a great deadpan.

But hey, it's a guys show, and Bruce Willis was the host, so naturally that means plenty of subversive beta male comedy. There were a few clunky sketches, but they came out of it with at least one winner in "Boy Dance Party," the kind of goofy one-off that used to be the regular currency of the Lonely Island Digital Shorts. I also really enjoyed the pre-tape about rushing a fraternity/beer pong/penpals/make-your-own baseball cards.

Oh yeah, and I'm now pretty much in love with Katy Perry. The girl's got some real charm in her stage-presence.

Who knows how this season and this cast will fare? The show itself has proven bulletproof, in the long run, given that it's been on since my father was my age. In fact, it doesn't even have to be that good as long as it's interesting. It's all about eyeballs, folks. That and capitalizing on people like me who don't have much going on on Saturday nights. Ah well.

FOX Tuesday Night: 75% Great

Very quietly over the course of several years, FOX's Tuesday night comedy lineup has become the thing I most actively look forward to on television. I may love Parks & Recreation more than any of those individual shows, but my job has shifted me to the evening shift on that day and I am not sorry to miss the rest of the line-up (sorry, Michael J.) FOX has a very good stable of shows for its Tuesday night line-up. The only problem is that they are only using 3/4 of it.

I could rail on Dads all night if I needed to, or if I was a paid TV critic... but for a hobbyist who's only in it for yuks, it feels like an easy, obvious target. I have nothing against multi-camera sitcoms on principle, but this is a terrible program made by TV vets who, I think, sensed they could get away with something. It's riddled with lame jokes, bad premises, one-dimensional characters, racism, sexism, and Giovanni Ribisi. Okay, that really was a cheap shot. My actual point, aside from my dislike of the show, is that it genuinely seems like a baffling lead-in for a night that consists of the Parks-and-Rec-like Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the female-friendly New Girl and Mindy Project. What they ought to do is bring back Raising Hope, the "hey-this-is-pretty-good" Greg Garcia show that is basically a more family-oriented My Name is Earl (what with the poor people trying to learn to grow as human beings.)

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a delight, though, and it should be with this kind of pedigree. Not only does it have P&R's Michael Schur and Dan Goor, it also has Clone High's Phil Lord and Chris Miller. If you had told me a year ago that I'd be super into an Andy Samberg vehicle, I'd have said, "No, yeah, I can see it, as long as the writing is good." The series follows the familiar premise of being about a guy who is great at his job but kind of a goof (cf. Jim Halpert, Dr. John Dorian,) and a girl who is also great at her job but a bit uptight about it (oh hey Leslie Knope,) and they're probably going to be dating in a few seasons. The dynamic between Samberg as Det. Peralta and Stephanie Beatriz as Det. Santiago is great, but they're not so intertwined that it keeps the supporting characters at bay. This week's episode saw Samberg struggling to learn to play second fiddle to Joe Lo Truglio's Det. Boyle, while Beatriz was busy enlisting the help of Terry Crews' Sergeant character to win over the Captain, Andre Braugher. It's a good mix, and Crews and Braugher in particular both manage to make their characters into standouts. Ever since he was one of the best things on Arrested Development Season 4, I've been sold on Crews' comedic chops, and the "I can't read that guy" runner about Braugher's character was great. To this day, long after they became great, I still can't watch the first 6 episodes of Parks & Recreation or The Office, so to see this one hit the ground running bodes very well.

New Girl kind of snuck up on me, in that I've watched it from the beginning, and I thought "Hey cool, Zooey Deschanel in my living room every week," but about midway between the first season I realized that they had really hit gold with Jake Johnson, Max Greenfield and Lamorne Morris as Nick, Schmidt and Winston. In fact, considering he's somewhat removed from the two main plots of the show (Nick and Jess' relationship/Schmid's two-timing ways) they have given Winston some great C-plots. Morris manages to play them to the hilt, where they rely on the character basically being pathetic, but still lovable, whether it's discovering he's colourblind ("If those [green] shoes are brown, what colour do you think you are?") or trying to get his (stolen) cat some action: "No way in hell I'm running a cat brothel in my room and I'm the only normal one in this loft!"

In this week's episode, Schmidt goes heel after his dual breakups, playing Nick and Jess' insecurities as a way to drive them apart so that everyone is as miserable as he is. It's the kind of cartoonish supervillainy you have to be really sure of your characters before you let loose. While I understand there are people against the Nick/Jess pairing -- what with the chase always being more thrilling than the catch -- we all knew where this was going, and being able to hold off until season 3 is gratifying, and for what it's worth I think they are doing this relationship exactly right, laying all their absurdities bare, as in when Nick finally expresses his "feelings" and it involves his love of the cello and the time he saw a zebra give birth at the zoo. Putting these characters as a unified force against the now-maniacal Schmidt (who will eat Jess' birth control pills to keep them apart) is a dynamic I can get behind. It's a point where "I don't want them to be doing this" becomes overruled by "I like the results." Trust the writers of these shows, they know where the funny is.

At the end of the night, The Mindy Project is a very earnest show, always going for the sweet when other shows might go sour. It doesn't always make me laugh out loud, but after juggling around and trying to find its direction, it's created a rewarding stable of characters that has only gotten stronger with the addition of Adam Pally... although I do just wish he was back playing Max Bloom on Happy Endings. The show is sort of a serialized quasi-chick flick, in that it does the "short relationship arc" formula familiar from many sitcoms, but really does its diligence in getting Mindy attached, so that it can wring a bit more emotion than average out of the inevitable break-up. It's a good and bad thing, in that there are only so many times it can play through this cycle before viewers just stop buying in, since the long game seems to be to get Mindy together with the hard-nosed Dr. Castellano, played by Chris Messina... whose presence onscreen always inspires me to remind anyone nearby that he "doesn't believe in the Devil... because people are evil enough." Still, hot off the heels of Mindy's engagement to Anders (Workaholics) Holm, we get a dickish lawyer played by Glenn Howerton of It's Always Sunny, and the cycle continues. Howerton begins the episode openly mocking Mindy, but by the end seems to have warmed to her... like I said, earnest stuff.

These are three reliable, enjoyable, sometimes excellent comedies. And being that there's nothing I like on TV more than comedies, this has become one of my favourite nights to sit in front of the flatscreen. It will be prefect, just as soon as I find something to watch at 8:00... besides the first half-hour of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD on ABC.

Parks and Recreation, "London"

Parks & Recreation's sixth season premiere was more or less a perfect episode of one of my favourite shows currently on the air. It remains at that highly-sought-after level where it has firmly established exactly what each character is and wants and would do in a given situation, and then finds refreshing situations to put each character in so that they can tweak those traits. Leslie is still the overachiever, battling against the will of the ungrateful town she serves. She is pulled between her resolve to do good at any cost and her desire for gratitude. I loved the set-up for this episode, where Leslie is to be the recipient of an award, with the ceremony to be held in London. Those leading the charge to get her recalled see this as her "gallivanting across Europe." Parks & Recreation, since its fourth season, has become a cutting satire of how politics can become so petty, which is one of the show's most underrated qualities. Leslie is such a nice person, but Pawnee being what it is, of course it can't help but heap her with scorn.

I say "of course" because the essence of this brand of comedy is an expected outcome. Some comedy works by subverting expectations, but Parks & Recreation's is built largely around having those expectations play out exactly as you would expect them to. We know what the people of Pawnee think about things like this. Pawnee is such a richly-drawn and particular setting, blending its everytown qualities with quirks unique to its citizens. "They cling to their burgers and sodas, then they complain to me when their pants don't fit." One resident's request of Leslie during her "No Problem Too Small" campaign is delightfully, amazingly specific, and her response to Leslie's attempt to take care of it is perfect.

Tom is in the Daffy Duck role, unable to overcome the ill-deserved adversity of Henry Winkler's Dr. Sapperstein, father to Jean-Ralphio and Mona Lisa. Dr. Sapperstein takes vengeance on Tom because Jean-Ralphio claims he was cut out of Tom's Rent-A-Swag business, because of course he would lie about that. Mona Lisa's part in this is too funny to even discuss in a spoiler-friendly plot summary (in general, Jenny Slate is so amazing in this role that it's hard to believe she only spent a year on SNL.) The fact that clearing the air on this matter doesn't stop Dr. Sapperstein from continuing to screw with Tom's business is also perfect.

Continuing the themes of "characters behaving exactly as you expect them to," perpetual keeners Anne and Chris have finally gotten the news that Anne is pregnant, and are disappointed by the various responses in a nice runner through the episode that results in one of the most unnerving Jerry moments yet. We also get Andy meeting his British equivalent, an upper-class manchild played by Peter Serafinawicz, providing a handy explanation as to why Andy won't be around for a while (the fact that he'll be out there guarding the galaxy being somewhat far-fetched in-universe.)

But the best, best, best bit comes courtesy of Ron Swanson. Over the years, Leslie has demonstrated an ability to read her friends perfectly, to know exactly what to do for them that will show how familiar she is with their unique tastes and temperaments, and there is no better case study for this than the staunchly anti-European Ron Swanson, who is unimpressed by the sights of London and the "socialist air" in general (although he does appreciate the bar between two butcher shops.) Leslie sends him on a mystery tour that leads him to the distillery where they make his favourite whiskey, Lagavulin, which as it turns out is exactly the kind of isolated, quiet spot that Ron Swanson himself would endorse. She instructs him to tour it, then to sit on a hillside and read aloud a verse by The Scottish Poet, Robbie Burns. After doing so, he turns to the camera and gruffly says, "I don't know what she was expecting me to get out of that," but we know. And we know he knows. It's a moment of sweetness that isn't contrived or tacked on: it comes from exactly the same source as the humour from the earlier scenes where Ron is dismissive of London. It comes from our knowledge of Ron, and our knowledge of Leslie's knowledge of Ron, it's funny and fitting that she knows exactly what to give him that would sum up perfectly what Ron Swanson would want out of a trip to the U.K. It's a moment that couldn't have been dropped into any other script for any other show or an easy emotional reaction: it belongs exclusively to these characters, in this situation.

What we've got, in the 2000-and-somethings, is a brand of comedy that finds an interesting relationship between humour and heart. When we know who these characters are, and what they care about, we can laugh when it gets bent out of shape, and we can get real choked up when it finds a perfect form.

Thoughts on Breaking Bad Seasons 1 & 2 (From a guy who's just watched them for the first time)

Hi! My name is Scotto. You might know me as that guy who likes music. You might also know me as that guy who really likes Doctor Who and LOST. But that's work I do for other people, so I like to think of myself as being a guy who talks about music.

A problem I was having a while ago was that I just didn't have time to listen to all the music I wanted (my life routine has changed and nobody is paying me to do it. Wah.) It was getting harder to run the site in the way I wanted to, so I broached the idea of starting this blog, as a way of getting some content out of something I was already going to do anyway: sit on my ass watching TV. It was a good thought, and hey, I've been writing about TV on the side for a while. Problem is, I had this idea during the summer, when the only thing I was watching was MasterChef and Degrassi. So I did one post about each and then thought "Hm, this really isn't enough. Better go back to music." The other thing was that, with super-popular AMC series Breaking Bad set to finish, that's all anyone is interested in thinking about. And I hadn't watched it.

Degrassi: Whaaaaaaaaaaat??

MasterChef: When Safe Isn't Safe

I'm neither much of a cooking show guy, nor a reality show guy, but the one contest I get addicted to every year when it comes back is MasterChef. It is, above all, an extremely nice show, where most of the success is due to an individual's talent, not sabotage or backbiting from fellow competitors - though there is a certain amount of gamesmanship. We've seen otherwise strong contestants be sent home because they got thrown something that was simply way outside their wheelhouse. Up until his elimination, I had Eddie pegged as an unstoppable frontrunner, but then he got sushi'd.

One of the nail-biters for this season has been Bri. Man, I love Bri, but she makes me so nervous. I guess I just need to learn to trust her. Bri is a vegetarian cook, to the point where I think she says during a challenge that she's never cooked chicken before. And she's on a national TV cooking competition! That's messed up. Naturally, the show hasn't coddled her.

"Sooner or later," I told my friend Amanda, who also watches the show, "She's going to get tripped up. It's bound to happen."

"I dunno," Amanda said, "She's proven she can hang, when it comes to meat."

Sure enough, she was eliminated a few weeks ago, but not for a meat challenge. She found herself in a pressure test, where she had to prepare a tray of eclairs. That didn't work out for her. But last week, the show has its "redemption" week. In last year's incarnation, they invited everyone back for a chance, then had the top three prepare a dessert for the remaining competitors to taste and judge. This year, the three judges picked a favourite and set those three against each other. Amongst all the perfectly viable candidates - I am offended on Savannah's behalf! - Joe picked Lynn (who I thought was a bit overrated, from how much guff he got despite his supposed skills.) Graham picked Bime, who I can't even really remember except that he was a bit punch-drunk. Gordon picked Bri. And after a tense vote, and a contest in which Bri and Bime served salmon (again, almost cringe-worthy images of Bri cutting fillets like a sheet cake) Bri was voted back in, in a blind taste test. After tonight's performance, she's even resumed her front-runner status. I was already a Bri fan (what can I say, I'm a sucker for girls in thick-rimmed glasses) but now I don't see her as an underdog. She's here to win.

Tonight's episode featured Krissy - the villain of the show - winning the Mystery Box challenge (did you know Wal-Mart Steaks have a plan for your life?) and selecting a different bird for each of the contestants: Quail, Pigeon, Pheasant, Chicken, Duck and Turkey. It made for an interesting dynamic, seeing what each cook did with each bird. Krissy targeted Natasha and Jordan, two of the forces to be reckoned with, with difficult-to-prepare pheasant and quail respectively. Meanwhile, Jessie, also one of the stronger competitors, got chicken, which the judges considered a "free pass."

She blew it.

It's just interesting to see how a contest like this one can really separate the pros from the Joes (remember that one? Me neither.) Jessie "played it safe" and found herself risking elimination alongside Jordan, while Natasha pulled a Bri and did an amazing job cooking something she's never eaten. In the end, Jordan was sent home, and Natasha and Bri were the victorious two.

I really do love watching the events unfold on this show every week. The "story" of the episode is usually clearly drawn, in this case with Krissy announcing her reasoning behind her picks, the judges discussing which competitors look strong and which they doubt, and while the endings are sometimes overly predictable, it's also tense to watch those judging scenes to see if it's really as bad as they suspected. It's that old comedy formula: "tell them what you're going to do, then do it, then tell them it has been done."

Watching MasterChef is that kind of ride. One week, someone is your favourite, they next they're going home and you have to conclude, "Man, they really deserved that." Plus you get to see the whole group dynamic evolve. Everyone hates Krissy. Everyone fears Natasha. Everyone wonders if the other shoe's going to fall when it comes to Bri. Not to mention, Luca's coming up from behind, and James is there with a snappy remark. As we head into the top 6 (for the second and final time) we're left with a crop of chefs with fewer blind spots. Bri's vegetarianism is clearly not a hindrance to her cooking meat, no matter how much the viewers want to believe it is. Natasha has proven herself adept at everything she's tried, James seems to have a great sense of flavour, getting high marks this week for his dish's fully realized Asian influence. Now that we're near the end, everyone who's going to go home will have felt like a potential winner at some point, and that's what makes the whole thing so exciting. Safe isn't safe.