FTW vs. WTF: The TV Week in Review (January 12–18)
Congratulations, television viewer! You made it through the barren fall season, and your reward is the best time of year for new (and returning!) shows. No longer can you sit idly by and allow yourself to be sucked into Seinfeld or Big Bang Theory reruns. No longer can you go out with friends on the weekends. No longer can you live without fear of spoilers because you're all caught up. This what you've been training for!
Justified! The Americans! Black Sails! Girls! Shameless! Banshee! Looking! Portlandia! MasterChef Junior! Broad City! Workaholics! Archer! The Fall! The Bachelo—well, maybe not that last one. But all these shows have either just returned or will be back very soon, so you get the idea. And a plethora of new stuff means FTWs and WTFs up the wazoo, so let's get to discussing what we liked and didn't like about the last seven days in television.
SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't finished watching this week's new episodes (of The Good Wife, Parks and Recreation, etc.), we suggest that you hold off on reading this story until you do.
FTW:
The Missing doesn't let us off easy
[This one didn't make it onto last week's list; please excuse the tardiness!] The first seven episodes of Starz's heartbreaking drama were filled to the brim with anguish, but the finale traveled even further into the darkness by revealing the truth about young Oliver Hughes, and it turned out to be worse than we could've imagined. His father was obviously devastated, and he spent the rest of his life searching for his boy because he couldn't handle the truth. Sad!
FTW:
The Gallaghers are back!
Shameless's Season 5 premiere faced the daunting task of following the show's best (and most depressing) season to date; luckily, it exceeded our expectations. It's summer once again in Chicago, and after all the bad decisions she made last season, Fiona has turned a corner to become the star employee of Patsy's Pies. Meanwhile, Lip is trying to readjust to life on the South Side after finishing his first year of college, and Ian—who's taken up residence with Mickey at the Milkovich residence—refuses to admit he's bipolar. We're pretty sure everything blow up in their respective faces soon—this is Shameless, after all—but right now we're just happy to have the Gallaghers back on our TV screens.
FTW:
HBO's trio of half-hour "comedies" makes for great Sunday-night TV
It's a little odd to see HBO start off 2015 without a drama on its schedule (most likely due to True Detective's shift to later in the year), but the Girls–Togetherness–Looking combo is a lovely 90-minute block of programming. While Girls is still most likely to grab the headlines, Looking has returned for Season 2 stronger than ever (see below) and Togetherness seems to be the kind of show that Married and Up All Night have tried and failed to be.
FTW:
Looking throws an epic premiere party
Looking's Season 2 premiere took the boys out of San Francisco and on a weekend trip with one goal in mind: to relax and forget about their worries. But since peaceful relaxation = boring TV, they ended up attending a rave in the middle of the woods, as you do. During the party, Agustin made a new friend in Daniel Franzese's Eddie, Dom hooked up with a stranger (he has an open relationship with Lynn now), and Patrick called Kevin to meet him for a secret forest rendezvous that literally involved hugging a tree. Even Doris got in on the action, ending up topless on a jet ski. Talk about a memorable beginning.
FTW:
Agent Carter is all about taking care of business
In just its third episode, Agent Carter made the bold decision to kill off one of Peggy's colleagues at the S.S.R. after Jarvis called in an anonymous tip about where to find Howard Stark's missing "bad babies." Even though the show's cast and producers won't let any secrets slip about what's ahead, we're excited that the series isn't holding anything back. Yes, it's moving faster than we expected, but we definitely can't complain.
FTW:
Parks and Rec's final season premiere makes us laugh and cry (as usual)
It's 2017 in Pawnee, and we're pleased to announce that Parks and Recreation is still very funny in the future. All of the characters are doing great... except for Ron and Leslie when they're in the same room together, a fact that might actually break us. Someone get them to JJ's, stat, because there's nothing breakfast food can't fix.
FTW:
Abbi and Ilana putz around New York City on an A/C adventure
The Broad City ladies returned as strong as ever, as Abbi set out in search of a new air conditioner after an awkward hook-up with guest-star Seth Rogen ended with both of them sweating their asses off and Rogen passing out from heat exhaustion. Ilana tagged along to help, and the two besties raided a dorm room, performed crazy handshakes with Bed, Bath & Beyond employees, and even helped guest-star Kumail Nanjiani make an Amazing Race audition video. "In Heat" proved that Season 1 wasn't a fluke, and it was only the beginning of what promises to be an excellent sophomore season.
FTW:
Adam gets a lesson in porn while Blake gets... a lesson in porn
Workaholics' fifth season opened with the boys heading to campus to recruit for TelAmeriCorp, and of course one of them ended up making a porno, because Workaholics. But the enlightenment that Adam experienced while crashing a Female Sexuality class—which was intercut with Blake being exploited—was so wrong it was right. And Ders roasting the Coast Guard was great, too.
FTW:
The Goldbergs introduces Mini Murray and Mini Beverly
After promising to match Barry with his one true soulmate, the family's ever-ambitious matriarch trotted out a blonde-haired, scrapbooking doppelganger (played by Suburgatory's Allie Grant)—and while an unwitting Barry felt oddly comforted by his new date, everyone else could see that the pairing would never work out. Enter a teenage dead-ringer for Murray played by Jeff Garlin's actual son, James, and it was love at first sight for the two Mini-Mes. And don't try to pretend you didn't feel the warm fuzzies when Barry finally got some attention, in public, from his crush, Lainey. This show continues to impress.
FTW:
Empire's fun second episode stokes the controversy fire
It turns out Fox News isn't the only network in the News Corp. portfolio that features characters yelling about Barack Obama. This week's Empire was quite a romp, but the best part was Hakeem's drunken rant about the president, followed up by Lucious's heated phone call with the man himself. Good on the show for not shying away from interesting—and obviously hot-button—topics and conversations.
FTW:
Community Season 6 will unspool (mostly) week-to-week
Good on Dan Harmon, Sony, and Yahoo for bucking recent binge-watching trends and promising to generally keep to the traditional one-episode-per-week release model (the first two episodes will debut at once in March). Marathons are cool and all, but sometimes it's okay to have to wait a week between episodes. It's good for the soul, or something.
Archer's titular agent reunites with a familiar foe, becomes a verb
Last week's season premiere was just okay, but "Three to Tango" put some real effort into kicking it right through the basket for a home run. A freelance mission to extract an agent from Buenos Aires put Archer on a collision course with Mr. "Diversity Hire" himself, Conway Stern, and the result was a REVENGE RAMPAGE full of winking callbacks and—what else—betrayal. Give yourself a round of applause, show, because after that ending, Stern sure can't (at least until he gets back in touch with Kreiger). And get well soon, Sterling; you've got almost a whole season's worth of plans left to Archerize!
FTW:
12 Monkeys does the redo right (so far)
The TV remake trend has been out of control for ages, but every once in a while, someone gets it right and an homage to a classic is reborn with a fresh new look. Syfy's spin on the 1995 Terry Gilliam sci-fi classic smartly focuses on the movie's most TV-friendly elements (time travel, the basic premise) and abandons the psychological puzzle that, while key to the film, might've been an overreach for a Friday-night basic-cable show. We're only one episode in, but the series appears to be a good fit for Syfy as it tries to get back into sci-fi.
FTWTF:
Nancy Grace and 2 Chainz talk pot
The bossy legal pundit invited the stripper-loving rapper to debate the legalization of marijuana—you can guess which side each one of them chose to defend—and it made for glorious television. While Grace quoted 2 Chainz' lyrics and cited isolated incidents involving dumb parents giving weed to their kids, 2 Chainz eloquently argued that the parents (and not the marijuana) were to blame and making a compelling case for legal reefer. These two deserve their own sitcom.
FTWTF:
The Golden Globes go nuts for newbies
It's not really worth trying to understand the logic employed by the secret cabal at the center of the Golden Globes, but this year's TV winners gave us a lot of satisfaction—Jane the Virgin's wonderful Gina Rodriguez, The Honorable Woman's Maggie Gyllenhaal, Transparent and Jeffrey Tambor—until they didn't. The Affair for Outstanding Drama Series? It's great, but the BEST? Okay, then. However, at least the telecast and the victors weren't boring!
WTF:
McDonald's serves up a tasteless ad
The burger-slinger has unveiled the new worst commercial of the last decade and then some, a misguided attempt to say "we care" that incorporates 9/11, veterans, joblessness, the Chilean miners, God, the Boston Marathon bombings, and every other catastrophe or cause the company could think of. McDonald's should prove it cares by treating its employees better instead of by manipulating viewers' emotions with empty brags. We remember 9/11 too—but not because it has anything to do with French fries.
WTF:
Helix pretends Season 1 never happened
Syfy's virulent drama returned for a second go-round, but it may as well be an all-new series; the premiere, "San Jose," ushered in a new setting and a new virus, with no connection to Season 1 in sight. It's like Helix's producers wanted to forget everything that came before, and we don't necessarily blame them, but can we at least get some of the wackiness back?
WTF:
The Good Wife fails to do anything interesting or meaningful with its Ferguson- and Staten Island-inspired plot
In the past, The Good Wife has excelled at ripping big stories from the headlines, but "The Debate" demonstrated the limits of what the show can do when it has simply too much going on. Between the kitchen debate with Alicia and Prady and the end of the seemingly neverending Neil Gross divorce case, The Good Wife's take on racial tensions between police, communities, and cities amounted to little more than window dressing for Peter to discuss his morality with Pastor Isaiah (who hasn't been seen since Season 2) and for Alicia and Prady to try to come off as caring regarding issues that matter to people of color. There was something of a critique in the way the show's privileged white folks dismissed mistresses and engaged in political gamesmanship while unrest brewed, but it rang hollow since it was all stuff that could've happened with or without the protest angle.
WTF:
USA Network cancels Benched after just one season
What an unhappy ending for Eliza Coupe's new comedy. Not only was Benched a fun and funny little show, but it's kind of sad to see USA Network experiment with a new identity while simultaneously not giving shows that are part of that identity time to breathe.
WTF:
Amazon wants a Woody Allen TV show
A new series from the prolific filmmaker and controversial human being? Uhhh, guess we're sweeping a pretty major accusation under the rug then, huh?
What's on YOUR list of TV loves and hates this week? That disturbingly .GIF-able sex scene on Girls? Galavant's singing pirates? The debut of MTV's Eye Candy? The Bachelor's bizarre virginity jealousy? Person of Interest's deep dive into the world of Control? The premieres of Kroll Show and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia? American Horror Story: Freak Show's penultimate episode? The return of Grimm and Constantine? Glee's Alanis Morissette overload and transgender storyline for Coach Bieste? Share your own FTWs and WTFs in the comments!
