8 TV Hits: Getting Tired or Still Inspired?

Tired: Saying you don’t like a show like Glee is like saying you hate rainbows, lollipops, puppies, and Tom Hanks. Even the sentence ”I don’t like Glee,” makes you sound like you’re an enemy of the very idea of happiness, but, man, do I find the show annoying. The one-note story lines and simplistic lessons have turned it into a cliché feel-good-athon, like an after-school special that accidentally airs in prime time. Even Sue Sylvester, the crown jewel of the show?s characters, has lost her edge, shifting schizophrenically episode to episode from ruthless taskmaster to misunderstood softie. (Introducing a sister with Down syndrome and then sacrificing her on the altar of quick and easy emotional investment is downright cheap.) There is so much effort to maintain the plot’s status quo — relationships come full circle, problems are introduced and simultaneously solved, babies are adopted and disappear into the void of narrative convenience — that the group might as well be called No Directions, and it’s hard not to be distressed at how lazily written this show… wait, look! There’s a celebrity guest singing a popular hit! Never mind. —Keith Staskiewicz

Still Inspired: Suspension of disbelief, people! It’s as simple as that. If you like musicals to begin with, you’ve already accepted that people will break out into song with background music playing in the middle of anywhere. Does every plot line follow a straight line? No, but it’s a show populated with enough interesting, fun characters who we’ve become attached to and who are given enough forward movement, funny lines and song performances to make it a wholly enjoyable hour. And it’s about high school. I think the show perfectly captures the frenetic crazy-making energy of a bunch of teenagers forced to interact. Inherent in that are themes ripe for ”big lessons,” but I don’t have a problem with that. If they want to use this spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down, go for it. And it makes total sense that in the heightened reality of a musical comedy show the adults among them are eerily similar. I also personally love that Sue is not a one-note baddie. Keeping her in that vein, just continuously spouting off her outrageously funny lines along with her venom, would have killed her character faster than anything for me. I can completely buy the forty-something misanthrope who enjoys making enemies but who has loved one person enough to know that she indeed has a heart. Will the misanthrope return? Sure, and we love knowing that. But I also love the ability of an episode like ”Funeral” to bring me to tears. —Abby West

Tired: There was a time when The Office felt like, well, a real office. Characters got on each other’s nerves. Jim hated working there. The Scranton outpost actually seemed to exist within our economic reality — a tiny branch of a failing business in the wake of a national recession. That all went out the window a couple seasons ago. Now, The Office gang is just another blandly happy sitcom family. It’s honestly become a bit depressing: Seriously, do these people know anyone besides their co-workers?—Darren Franich

Still Inspired: Michael’s impending departure saw a sort of maturation in both his character and the show’s supporting players. We never lost the lovable idiot, we just stopped being hit over the head with the idiocy part. Having Michael recognize that his old friend Todd Packer is a jerk made sense in the context of his evolving sense of self. I’m frankly quite hopeful that the rest of the cast will follow suit and have more time to shine. Pam and Jim will hopefully have more going on than propping up Michael. The fact that this season has been more consistently funny than the past few makes me less fearful for its future than I would have thought. —AW

Tired: For a while it seemed as though the new judges panel breathed new life into the show, but by the end of season 10, Randy Jackson’s vocabulary had been reduced to four words (in it to win it!), Steven Tyler’s once-endearing enthusiasm felt repetitive (not everything is beautiful), and Jennifer Lopez was best remembered for being kissed by Casey and shaking her fringed booty. As for the format, the theme nights are increasingly grating, and somehow, despite the help of an industry professional, produced fewer surprises — and those are the only reason to have them. I’m putting my hope in The Voice, which forces its judges to make tough decisions, and The X Factor, which we know will have at least one judge with an opinion. —Mandi Bierly

Still inspired: Okay, so season 9 was a bust. But season 10’s revamped Idol truly awakened the already beastly ratings beast, reminding us of what we once loved about the competitive singing series. The season boasted a variety of music styles (country, jazz, gospel, and pop metal?), plenty of OMG moments (see: Pia Toscano’s elimination, Casey Abrams’ save), and contestants who made us passionate enough to simultaneously yell at our TV screens and pick up our phones when the judges dared to critique them (hello, Haley Reinhart!). Admittedly, whether or not Idol can continue to trot out artists with Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood’s selling power remains to be seen. But, come on — this is American Idol we’re talking about here, a show that can recover from Sanjaya-level kryptonite. If that doesn’t prove that Idol is more powerful than a locomotive, I don’t know what does. —Kate Ward

Tired: 30 Rock is still a reliable joke machine, but it long ago fell victim to Entourage syndrome, which assumes that making your guest stars act self-deprecating excuses the fact that you’ve become overdependent on guest stars. A fitfully funny show featuring a relentless parade of celebrities and lots of NBC jokes… jeez, when did 30 Rock turn into Saturday Night Live? —DF

Still inspired: Yes, season 4 was rough. But this year, the show was tighter, less manic, and all-around more hilarious than it’s been in years — episodes like ”Reaganing” and ”Double-Edged Sword” were among the sitcom’s funniest ever. Season 5 also gets bonus points for the ongoing saga of Kabletown, which allowed 30 Rock to get in some of its best digs at NBC, and the surprisingly heartwarming ”Jack learns how to be a father” story line. —Hillary Busis

Tired: This show was dead to me as soon as the cast got way too famous for its own good. Even moving the action back to Jersey couldn’t repair the damage that’s been done. What was once amusing — Snooki’s infantile behavior, the Situation’s special brand of misogyny, Sammi and Ronnie’s endlessly turgid relationship — is now more played out than that dude in your office who still thinks saying ”GTL” is hilarious. —HB

Still inspired: Everything about Jersey Shore has become bigger. The bodies: The cast have gym’d up so much that they all resemble true-life superheroes, or at least professional wrestlers. The partying: Newfound fame has turned the boys into legitimate girl magnets, with all the hilariously awkward hook-uppery that comes with shameless celebrity. But most of all, the emotions: The unjustly-maligned third season featured one of the great internal implosions in reality TV history, with Ronnie — a man who resembles nothing so much as an iron giant painted orange — regularly breaking down in tears. Can’t wait for Florence! —DF

Tired: I forgave the show the whole Gormogon fiasco and the unfulfilling sniper arc (poor use of Arnold Vosloo) because I was hooked on the evolving Booth-Bones love. Yeah, I’ll say it: I wanted to see them finally get together in bed. Don’t judge me too harshly on that one. I believed there would be enough of a payoff for us oh-so-loyal fans. Yes, the hotness factor would be off the charts, but we’d also be able to witness the emotional high of the two of them finally embracing their love. So that whole implied-sex/surprise-baby season-ending twist felt downright disrespectful. I see how the powers that be could conceive of it as a good way to break the Moonlighting ”curse” and get to continue the grizzly cases with all the characters we love. But I am not confident that they will be able to pull off having a baby in the mix… scratch that, two babies in the mix counting Angela and Hodgins’. And as any parent will tell you, hot steamy sex scenes are not exactly guaranteed that first year. —AW

Still inspired: I won’t pretend that it’s still the show I first fell in with, or that I haven’t, at times, grieved that loss. But I find myself excited for season 7. With Brennan’s surprise pregnancy, producers have presumably given us what we want — these two in a relationship — but held onto the tension. We still have no idea how they’ll actually behave as a couple. (And hey, since we didn’t get to see the actual sex scene, we still have that first real one to look forward to.) The show is at its best when these two are vulnerable with one another — Booth in the bar after Hannah refused his marriage proposal and Brennan sitting on Booth’s bed confused about Vincent’s dying words. With a child on the way, and so many new issues to deal with, we’ll see more fragile moments — but also a new kind of strength. (Also, fingers crossed, fights and make-up sex.) —MB

Tired: House was a great idea when it started: A medical drama that’s more Sherlock Holmes mystery than workplace weepie, and with a true antihero at its center. But it’s a hard act to maintain. How do you keep a procedural fresh when it’s always the same few suspects? (I’m looking at you, lupus.) And what do you do when the audience starts to like a character whose main defining trait is that he is unlikable? Well, the answer that the show went with was to keep introducing increasingly outlandish diagnoses — someone should seriously check into why South Jersey is the epicenter of most of the world’s rare diseases — and to pretend that House isn’t nearly as insufferable as he really is. It’s only his Christ-like ability to heal any disease within the hour that makes him acceptable as a doctor and as a character, and like anyone in a hospital, it’s good that he has insurance. Unfortunately, there’s no easy medicine to fix what ails the show, which probably should have been taken off life support a long time ago. —KS

Still inspired: Love or hate that finale, the show has continued its track record of shaking up the dynamic. Yes, it’s part medical drama but at its core House is a shipper show, with the main relationship being House and Wilson’s, of course. And that’s been okay because the characters have, for the most part, shown incremental growth, the same pace at which real people do it. House’s attempts to be a normal person in a real relationship with Cuddy and his forays into self-awareness showed his desire for normalcy was strong enough to challenge his ”people can’t change” beliefs. He even had to deal with some serious real effects of his drug dependency. But the finale, with his outrageously childish/dangerous/over-the-top action, seemed to bring us back to the essential question that while yes, House does have some legitimate issues he’s dealing with, might he not also just be an a–hole? That ”is he or isn’t he?” question is why Gregory House remains such a good central character. —AW

Tired: Back in the Mandy Patinkin days, Criminal Minds made for ghoulishly enjoyable entertainment; it was the bleak, semi-nihilistic step-sibling in a family of straight-edged CBS procedurals. But the show steadily transformed into a practically unwatchable weekly wallow in alarmist paranoia. Minds has its cake and eats it, with an insane level of sexual violence — a more accurate title for the series would be Murdering Rapists R’ Us — that is only slightly more offensive than the cartoonishly noble investigators’ moral outrage. The only real outrage is that Criminal Minds has lasted this long. The quick death of its spin-off gives me hope for the future. —DF

Still inspired: If you’re going to give credit to Criminal Minds for one thing, it’s delivering what fans want to see. Or rather, who fans want to see. The decision to let go of both Paget Brewster and A.J. Cook had caused an uproar among devoted viewers, but the show’s (awesomely twisted) season finale saw the return of Cook, signaling a possible revival of the team’s pitch-perfect dynamic. And recently, it was announced that Brewster would also return next season. More than the gruesomeness of the team’s cases, this show is about the characters, and now that they’re all back in play, next season is poised to be a great one. —Sandra Gonzalez