thahar Reviews

The Simpsons: Moe Goes from Rags to Riches (2012) Season 23, Episode 12

Terrible episode

[3/10 · 17 April 2012]

A talking dishrag, voiced by Jeremy Irons. How ridiculous. The main plot revolves around Moe's dishrag, who talks about its history before it became a dishrag. Characters of The Simpsons portray the people of the past. It's so pointless! Who cares about a damn dishrag! I know it's supposed to parody a film, but most people won't get it. I hate "special" episodes of The Simpsons like these. Most of the jokes just weren't funny. It was just so stupid. But episodes like this shouldn't be a surprise as late as season 23.

There's also a sub-plot with Bart and Milhouse set in current times, but it doesn't blend in at all with the main plot that shows long flashbacks of the dishrag. The sub-plot is very thin, but it's better than the main plot. Otherwise, this is one of the worst episodes of The Simpsons I've ever seen. It's definitely the worst episode of the season so far, as the season is pretty okay.

The Million Pound Drop Live (2010–2019)

Pretty intense stuff

[7/10 · 31 March 2012]

This show is a bit like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, with a chance to win £1 million, but is unique in its own way. Hosted by Davina McCall, two contestants (who know each other) come into the show and together answers questions by putting money on an answer that they mostly guess and hope its right. It starts off with four choices of answers and they can bet with different amounts of sums of £25000 wads of cash on three or less answers, though only one is correct, and if they bet on more than one answer, they'll definitely lose some money. They have to go through 8 rounds of questions and the choice of answers decrease to 3 halfway, and then 2 in the last question, where if they choose the correct answer, they go home with the money they have left.

The show does get pretty intense, and is pretty original. You want to see the contestants go away with the highest amount of cash, but you can also learn things about pop culture etc. Viewers can also play along at home online with virtual money.

The most annoying thing I find about this show is the theme music. Davina is actually less annoying here than she was in Big Brother. But I find it silly when she asks questions to the viewers at home on how they're doing, as if we're replying back, and she goes "uh huh".

Overall, its a pretty good game show, but you won't really get stuck into it. It's just something to watch if you have nothing better to do.

Napoleon Dynamite (2012)

Better than Allen Gregory

[6/10 · 17 February 2012]

I never watched the film (though I might in the near-future) but I think this show is above average. The first few episodes have certainly kept me interested and the plots feel original and creative, with no clichés. The jokes can be funny at times, the writing is consistent, the voice-acting is top-notch, and the animation is high-quality. It probably is a bit too late to make a TV show out of it, because the film was released almost a decade ago. But I'm just looking at it as a TV show in its own right. What's weird though is that the TV show is animated, and that it could've easily been live-action if it wasn't over-the-top at times. It is nice to have something fresh on FOX's Animation Domination lineup of animated shows that is better than the abortion Allen Gregory was. I also think it's just as good as Bob's Burgers. This show should last at least 2 seasons, with plenty of character development along the way, and not have the fate of "Clerks: The Animated Series" (based on the film "Clerks") which was cancelled on ABC after 2 episodes.

Death Note: Rebirth (2006) Season 1, Episode 1

Hooked

[10/10 · 6 January 2012]

I decided to watch the first episode of this anime recently because of the summary: an intelligent student finds a unique notebook, called the Death Note, where if he writes someones name down, they die in a matter of seconds. It intrigued me; it sounds similar to the TV show Dexter: a show which I think is fantastic. So I watched it, and I was immediately hooked and I definitely knew I was going to watch the entire series. It's definitely one of my favourite TV shows now. In my opinion, it's better than Cowboy Bebop.

What I really admire about this show is the art style. The show is based on the manga, which I never read, so that is where the art style comes from. I also like the theme song, despite being in Japanese. I watch it dubbed in English and find the voice acting top-notch, fitting perfectly with the characters, and writing that is so comprehensive.

The first episode shows the beginning of it all; a shinigami god is bored one day and drops the Death Note onto Earth. A student, named Light Yagami, finds it on the ground, takes it home and studies it. I love how the first episode explains all the basics of the Death Note. I also like the character development of Light in this episode. So Light reads what it says inside the Death Note that if he writes someone's name down, they die in a matter of seconds. Light finds it ridiculous but tests it out by writing down the name of a criminal in it. It works; the criminal dies of a heart attack. Light is in shock, but he uses it again and another criminal dies in a different way. Light continues to kill criminals, knowing he has the power to kill anyone in any way. When he gets home one day, he suddenly sees the shinigami (that nobody else can see) who explains almost everything we need to know in detail about the Death Note. By the end of the episode, the government find the sudden deaths of dozens of criminals suspicious, and this is where the show really gets started and to know what it's really all about.

In this show, our protagonist is obviously an anti-hero, who kills criminals, and so is a serial-killer. Not only this, but he's also intelligent, which helps to make the show much more interesting and clever. This is one of the serial dramas where it is mandatory to watch every episode of. This first episode truly is the start of something special.

The Cleveland Show: Yemen Party (2011) Season 3, Episode 5

Mediocre

[5/10 · 1 December 2011]

Well all I can say is I enjoyed the sub-plot, but not the main plot. So the main plot is about Donna - who after going to some sort of man hating club - thinks that the family is too patriarchal, (where Cleveland makes all the decisions over Donna by having the final say), but she wants to start talking it over with each others decisions for things.

Cleveland gets irritated by this, and upon watching a news broadcast on TV in The Broken Stool, he has an idea: dress up as a Muslim woman in a veil from Yemen named Fatima (a little racist, but it's more stupid than racist in my opinion) and visit the club to try and make Donna feel how lucky she is compared to Fatima, whose husband left her and took the children with him back to Yemen, as well as other women in Muslim countries. Donna invites "Fatima" to her house for Donna, to which "Fatima" accepts (though later realises that he did not think this through), where it then falls into clichés: where Cleveland has appear as himself and as Fatima in front of Donna, but cannot appear as both in front of her. You might've seen something like this in an episode of every comedy TV show ever made.

The women in the club then takes Fatima aboard a private jet back to Yemen. He panics but then he falls asleep, arriving at Yemen. He tells and shows the pilot that he is in fact a man, but then the pilot kicks Cleveland out of the landed plane. This is where it really gets stupid: Cleveland stays dressed in a veil, with everything but his eyes covered up, while walking into a town in Yemen. He could've just shown his face as a man who is in Yemen who is trying to get back to America, but no, the episode would've ended too early, and he has no money anyway.

A woman in veil mistakes her as a part of a group of women in veil who are married to a wealthy Muslim man. This is where it is really flawed, because it seems to be that the man is married to more than 4 wives. All I know is that a Muslim man can have a maximum of 4 wives, and no more, so the writers definitely did not do their research, or they were just plain ignorant. Cleveland, like an idiot, joins them and works more like a slave than a wife for the wealthy man, while staying undercover as Muslim woman in veil for no reason but to learn his lesson on how Donna must feel as an oppressed wife that obeys Cleveland. Cleveland eventually has enough and reveals to the wealthy man that he is actually a man. Why he didn't reveal this earlier, I don't know. Cleveland then sets off to travel back to Stoolbend, Virginia by foot through different terrain in the most longest route possible, without using any kind of transport. This part is kind of actually kind of funny. So Cleveland eventually arrives back home and apologises to Donna for not being a better husband.

While the subplot is a parody of James Cameron's film, Avatar. Remember that film? Highest grossing film of all time? Yeah, I think The Simpsons parodied that in a recent Treehouse of Horror episode. So Cleveland, Jr. wears a child carrier and puts Rallo into it. Rallo later finds out that he can control Cleveland, Jr. similar to Avatar. This may make no sense at all and seem really stupid, but hey, it's a cartoon. Jr. plays along to this and humiliates a school bully in Rallo's school. Then the school bully gets his older brother, where the bully is in a child carrier and controls his brother just like Rallo controlling Cleveland. Then an epic battle ensues, where neither wins, but Rallo and the bully become friends.

All in all, an okay episode, but I hate it when someone basically dresses in drag and nobody realises that he is actually a man. But I also hate the cliché used in this episode, despite how brief it was. Avatar was released in theatres two years ago, so the parody might've worked if it was used a year earlier. It's not a dull episode by any means, but it is pretty silly. The episode is quite similar to an episode of American Dad!, where they go to an Arabian country. Season 3 has episodes that are hit and miss, but this lies somewhere in between.

Oz: The Routine (1997) Season 1, Episode 1

The start of HBO's run of fantastic TV shows

[10/10 · 27 November 2011]

Before The Wire, before Six Feet Under, before the Sopranos, we had Oz. This first episode got me hooked. I didn't watch it when it first aired back in 1997; I started watching it recently in the year 2011, 14 years after it originally aired, and I've already decided that Oz is now one of my favourite TV shows of all time. I kind of wish I could have started watching it a little earlier. Now I know where the Wire and The Sopranos gets its HBO high quality style programming from. Though Oz is one of those shows that is actually easy to follow the plot.

So this TV show is about the daily routine of prisoners and staff in the penitentiary of Oz. Each episode looks at a particular theme of stories that affects prisoners in Oz. We have at least one person die in each episode. "The Routine" starts it all, which introduces our huge ensemble cast, where there is no protagonist, and where characters that you get to know a lot might eventually get killed off. This episode is no exception, having this crazy prisoner, who steals the episode by getting into trouble a lot, but gets killed. The show is really dark but feels realistic. The acting is fantastic, the writing is superb, and the pacing is nice and slow. It's a TV show that you'd never see anything like it before 1997.

Oz wouldn't work in any other TV channel but HBO, and probably Showtime. The show has the freedom to do anything, like have bloody violence, strong language, discrimination, and sexual references. It's unfortunate that only 8 episodes are made each season, but I guess the season with 16 episodes makes up for it.

Family Guy: Screams of Silence: The Story of Brenda Q (2011) Season 10, Episode 3

What's going on with this show?

[3/10 · 27 November 2011]

Two serious episodes in a row; and when I say serious, I mean unfunny. Family Guy has just become... dark. I don't know what's going on, but I think Family Guy should either end or get cancelled if they put out episodes like this (even the creator himself said he should've ended the series after season 7). If you had a hard day's night and want to watch an episode of Family Guy to cheer yourself up to, this is exactly the opposite. Remember the episode where Peter reveals to Brian that Quagmire hates Brian? They showed Quagmire's sister, who is a victim of domestic violence from her boyfriend, Jeff, and we thought this was just a one-time gag? Nope, they're back in a major role for the storyline in this episode.

It might've worked to see into the violent relationship between Brenda and Jeff, but the subject is too serious for a show that's supposed to be comedy. The only funny parts of this episode are when the cutaway gags are shown, and the jokes they throw during the plot just don't go with the serious plot. So basically, Peter, Joe, and Quagmire plan to kill Jeff, because he beats Brenda. Yeah, that justifies it! A dramatic fight happens between Quagmire and his potential brother-in-law, and Quagmire ends up murdering Jeff; yep, that's right, Quagmire is now a murderer! He should feel guilt, but no, since Joe the cop is Quagmire's friend, Quagmire will not go behind bars!

On a positive note, it does show how much Quagmire - the ladies man and pervert - cares about his sister, so much that he goes to extreme lengths to protect her; in this case, murder her boyfriend. But domestic violence is very common in this world, and it cannot be resolved by killing the perpetrator. There are no lessons learnt in this episode.

Monty Python's Flying Circus: Whither Canada? (1969) Season 1, Episode 1

The start of one of the funniest sketch comedies ever

[9/10 · 29 October 2011]

30 years before Little Britain, there was this sketch comedy called Monty Python's Flying Circus, from my home nation of the United Kingdom; though this show was made WAY before I was born (I was born in 1992), I watched the first episode quite recently just to see John Cleese's earlier work before the hilarious Fawlty Towers, and I saw a show that can be timelessly funny just like Fawlty Towers; this literally was the start of sketch comedy on television as well as the start of the Monty Python comedy group; as far as I know, the show always starts with a Python member running towards the camera through some sort of obstacle to say the title of the show, then this amazing circus theme music starts when the title sequence starts; unlike Little Britain, there are lots of different sketches that are only used once and never again; I'm amazed how this show hasn't aged at all, and that the comedy is top-notch silliness but stays original; I'm also amazed of the crude jokes they got away with on television at the time; the final sketch of this episode is the funniest, but the other sketches will make you laugh out loud as well

South Park: The Last of the Meheecans (2011) Season 15, Episode 9

One of the best this season

[9/10 · 22 October 2011]

The mid-season finale felt like the South Park creators wanted to end the show, and I was thinking the same; but episodes like this, made within a week and full of originality and humour, feels like South Park can go on for few more years; I really liked this episode because of the classic satire that were in the early episodes; the writers didn't need to use current events for the plot of this episode; instead, they use a plot that can be considered timeless, making me feel that this episode could've been made 10 years ago, it's that good; though the not-breaking-out-of-character thing was kind of similar to a recent episode of South Park, the irony in the episode was hilarious, and makes me remember why I love South Park; any episode that involves the four boys and/or Butters is a great episode

The Simpsons: Bart Stops to Smell the Roosevelts (2011) Season 23, Episode 2

The Simpsons are starting to become funny again

[7/10 · 21 October 2011]

This episode of The Simpsons in season 23 was, in a word, fine; nowhere near in quality of episodes of seasons 2-9, but to me, its better than all the episodes of season 1; this episode could've been made ten years ago,it's that good; the writers did something they have never done before: have Superintendent Chalmers as one of the lead roles for once, rather than being in a minor supporting role like they have done in all episodes before this one.

I liked this episode, even though it felt like a history lesson of a former American President; it was kind of quite unrealistic that the bad boy Bart Simpson would actually be interested in education, and even more unrealistic that the bullies Nelson, Jimbo, Kearney and Dolph would also take an interest; they don't even bully anyone in the episode! The first act shows Bart up to his pranks, like the troublemaker he is, making it classic; the second act is an adventure, which I found alright; but the third act felt like it has been done before though, but shows that Bart is the bad boy we all know and love. I always look for originality in new Simpsons episodes, and this screams it!

Seinfeld: The Maid (1998) Season 9, Episode 19

One of the best from season 9

[9/10 · 21 October 2011]

"The Maid" is not exactly a classic Seinfeld episode like "The Chinese Restaurant", "The Parking Garage" or "The Contest", but is still hilarious and clever like all episodes, even this late in the series; George Costanza's plot was the best in this episode in my opinion, Elaine Benes' plot was pretty silly, the plot with Jerry Seinfeld and the Maid was quite clever, but Kramer's plot was not that funny and weak, though shared with Elaine's plot, I wish he did something wackier like we all know him for in other episodes, and I think he done something similar to this in a previous episode; nonetheless, it's still a normal episode of Seinfeld that you can watch anytime and don't need to watch earlier episodes for it to make sense, being a show about nothing