In part because I want to hear what you think, in part to get Chaddogg off my back, a few thoughts on Sunday’s HBO triple shot:
* JFC. This episode largely ignored the peripheral characters, like the motel Greek chorus, who have been among my favorite things about this series. But in so doing it crystallized one of my essential problems with JFC: I do not care about the Yosts. At all. I don’t care whether Mitch cheats on Cissy. I don’t care whether Seanie signs up with Linc (nor has the show convinced me that signing him requires a covert operation worthy of the cold-war CIA). And I don’t now care whether Seanie ends up with his porn-star mom. Bottom line: for a show with such intended cosmic import, there are too few dramatic stakes. We’ve got half a season to turn this thing around.
* Entourage. You tell me whether the rimjob storyline was more obnoxious or less funny than the she-male storyline here, but the latter is such a tired joke nowadays–it’s in two fall pilots I’ve seen so far–that you at least have to give the former points for originality. Another throwaway episode in a show that seems to have lost interest in its showbiz storylines, and is running out of steam on its guys-being-guys storylines.
* FOTC. I don’t know if it’s actual brilliance, or just gratitude that it’s the reward for watching the two shows that precede it, but I’m delighted to see this show every week. This was probably my least favorite of the four episodes HBO sent me, but what I love about this show is that the really funny stuff happens at the margins or in the background: Jemaine’s hand-drawn poster for the band (with his giant head dwarfing Bret’s), Mel crowding out Koko in the background of the final Brown Paper, White Paper singalong, and so on.
The biggest news, however, is that in next week’s episode–the first one I didn’t get in HBO’s original mailer–the duo brings Business Time to life. So how and when do they work in Albi the Racist Dragon?