REVIEW: "Toy Story of Terror"

If Pixar's going to keep making shorts and holiday specials from now on with the Toy Story gang in lieu of another movie, then they're off to a pretty good start with this Jessie-focused Halloween special that aims to become a perennial, ala It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.

The toys are back with all their original voices, and this time on vacation with their new owner Bonnie, when they wander out of their backpack at a motel and get lost in the halls, guided by the horror-movie loving Pricklypants (voiced by Timothy Dalton), who narrates the story with several Scream-like references to horror tropes of what should happen next. The toys are as pop-culture savvy as ever and never slow to drop a reference, but in classic Toy Story fashion, they turn out not to be in a scary movie situation, but at the mercy of another unfortunate real-world danger for the average lost toy: being snatched up and sold on Ebay. Woody and Buzz are shortchanged for once in this outing, as Jessie takes center stage and must overcome her pathological fear of being sealed up in a box (remember her plight from Toy Story 2) to rescue Woody and save the toys from getting lost yet again.

It's a fun, funny Toy Story adventure, with as many jokes packed into a half hour special as they can muster. Particular delights are all the little nods to details from past adventures (this franchise does love its fans) and the hilarious new Combat Carl toy (Carl Weathers, who else?) and his tiny buddy, Combat Carl, Jr. My love of Toy Story knows no bounds, so I'll happily watch these guys star in shorts and specials until the end of my days, my only minor complaint being that in a mini-length format, the characters must necessarily be watered down to a basic one note personality trait, while the best parts of the movies are often how deeply we come to feel for these characters, based on how well we know them (as crazy as that sounds, fellow Toy Story fanatics will understand completely). Maybe the best way to go for these kinds of specials is to narrow down the gang a bit, and focus on just three of four of them at a time? I know we want to see all of them, but it may help enrich the short for storytelling purposes. Otherwise, Toy Story of Terror is a warm and tasty Halloween treat.

Grade: A-

TRAILER: "The Spoils of Babylon"

An epic six-part miniseries from Will Ferrell, produced by Funny or Die for the IFC channel. Looks kinda bizarre, but Will Ferrell will be introducing each new episode as "best-selling author Eric Jonrosh," fictional writer of the fictional book on which The Spoils of Babylon is based. With an all star cast including Kristen Wiig, Tobey Maguire, Tim Robbins, Jessica Alba, Carey Mulligan, Michael Sheen, Val Kilmer, and see if you can spot the now grown up Haley Joel Osment in this trailer. The show starts Thursday, January 9th at 10pm on IFC.

PBS Superheroes: A Never Ending Battle

Tomorrow night on PBS it's the premiere of a 3-part documentary called Superheroes: A Never Ending Battle, that traces the origin of the American comic book hero through all its forms in comics, tv, movies, up to today. It includes interviews with various superhero related icons, like Stan Lee, Lynda Carter, and others (Liev Schreiber narrates). It starts at 8pm. Below is the segment on my favorite superhero, Superman. 

RECAP: Homeland 3x03 "Tower of David"

Brody's back! It's all Brody, all the time on tonight's Homeland (with a little bit of Carrie mixed in) and while it's actually a very dark and kind of depressing episode, I'm tempted to call it the best of the season for one simple reason: ZERO Dana! Hallelujah for that.

We start off in Caracas, Venezuela, as a a gang of mercenaries awaits a car that speeds up and delivers a half dead (and newly baldheaded) Brody over to them, who they promptly take to a darkened safe house to "operate" on his bullet wound. He's bleeding out all over the table as a guy who's acting as the doctor shoots him up with heroin for the pain and removes the bullet in a very careful fashion. We see a little boy helping with the surgery and a young girl named Esme, who turns out to be the daughter of the group's leader, El Nino. As Brody recovers, the "doctor" (whose name I didn't get but that's what I'll call him), wonders out loud to El Nino why they'd save the life of an American fugitive with a $10 million dollar bounty on his head, who's wanted dead or alive. So I guess that establishes that they know who he is.

Brody continues to be treated with heroin by Esme as he wanders in and out of consciousness, and then we see him wake up on a bed in a bright room after some time has passed. Esme helps him to stand up as he looks out at the city and is told he's in Caracas by El Nino, who also tells him he's "home." Brody rejects further heroin treatments and wonders where his wallet and passport are. Brody also asks why El Nino's helping him and El Nino name drops Carrie before walking off. Esme shaves Brody's head for him and helps him wander through the building, using a cane, where he sees all the drug addicts and degenerates inhabiting this "Tower of David," as the doctor calls it. He goes back to the doctor to get his wound cleaned out while the doctor explains the squatters in the building- it turns out the doctor is a pedophile and the little boy at his side an obvious victim. Brody is understandably disturbed and wants to get out of this place.

More time passes as he gets his strength back by jogging around the tower, and Esme takes him up to the roof to meet her dad and his gang. They give Brody back his wallet and then murder the guy who stole it in front of him, which freaks Brody out even further. Brody sets off to leave, but on his way out of the courtyard is stopped by the crew again, who inform him this is his permanent home now, as their prisoner. He asks if Carrie knows he's there, which El Nino denies and sends him back to his room. More time passes again, and Brody is now camped out on his bed while the doctor and the kid come in to give him his daily dose of heroin, which Brody again attempts to reject, as we see his how bad his veins now look.

Finally we cut to Carrie in therapy back at the psych ward, attempting to convince her own doctor that she's improving, having gotten back on her meds. She tries to get the doc to tell Saul she's better, but he refuses. Carrie's been committed for three weeks now, and is trying to tell the guy what he wants to hear, but as usual, her temper runs short and she yells at him, getting herself in trouble and no closer to gaining visitation privileges.

Brody's now back at the Tower, attempting to escape again, and this time he tries to get Esme to help him. She agrees to do it and helps sneak him out of the building and on his way to a nearby mosque, where Brody's convinced he'll be taken in. When they get there she begs him to take her with him, but Brody can't do it and apologizes frantically as he leaves her on the street. That Brody, he's just a magnet for troubled women, isn't he?

Carrie is now in what looks like recreation time at the hospital, building a house out of popsicle sticks and losing her patience in the process. She bangs her head against a mirror in the bathroom out of frustration, another move that gets her in trouble, but this time with the nice nurse Abby, who likes Carrie and reluctantly agrees to help her make contact with Saul if he comes in to see her. When Carrie thinks he has shown up, Abby takes her down to the lobby, but it turns out to be a lawyer, who's there to talk to her about getting out.

Brody is seemingly taken in by the imam, but later while he's in the shower, the police burst in and drag him away, as the imam tells him he's not a muslim but a terrorist. At the last minute though, the mercenaries shoot their way in and kill everyone in the room, including the imam and his wife, giving Brody back his clothes and taking him once again as their prisoner. This time though, El Nino throws Brody in a cell, telling him for the final time that he's never leaving and no one will ever come for him, Carrie included. Brody accepts defeat passively now, but tells the doctor he can't take being in a cell, which reminds him of Iraq. That means he surrenders to the heroin as well, as the only coping mechanism to help him forget his present condition.

The lawyer tells Carrie he's there to help her, but she doesn't buy it, believing him to be working for the other side somehow, and trying to get her to turn on the CIA. She says she'd rather die in the hospital and storms back inside. We last see her cowering on the floor in a corner, as both Brody and Carrie seemingly succumb to their respective, imprisoned fates.

Well, that was certainly a pleasant hour, wasn't it? As thrilled as I was to see Brody again (and not to see an ounce of Dana), this was a very dark and moody episode, and the season overall has been much the same way. I'll be happy when the plot kicks into high gear frankly, in order to get a respite from all the suffering. Rumor has it Brody is actually in less than half the episodes this season, so I hope you enjoyed this one, folks, because it could be quite a while until we see him again. My biggest question now is if they're going to integrate him back into the show somehow, or will they finally just kill him off? There are those that think he ought to be dispensed with, so the show can become a 24-style terror fighting thriller completely, but I think there are just as many (if not more) who really want him around and watch the show at least in part, because of him.

I personally think he ought to stick around, because the idea of Carrie, Saul, and the CIA versus various bad guys just seems to me like a generic crime fighting show that's been done before, while Brody provides intrigue and a new angle at least. But I guess we'll find out sooner or later what route the writers prefer to take. Until next week, everyone.

RECAP: SNL 10/12 "Bruce Willis"

Bruce Willis hosted tonight for the first time in 24 years, and seemingly just for fun, since he didn't have anything to promote. He was actually trying pretty hard too, which I didn't expect, assuming he'd sleepwalk through it like Robert DeNiro did the last time he hosted, but unfortunately the material just wasn't there for him. Worst of the season so far.

COLD OPEN: It starts off pretty good tonight, with a Gravity spoof and then Houston not responding because of the government shutdown. Short, sweet and Kenan's funny as the only "essential" employee at NASA- the janitor. 

MONOLOGUE: Bruce mentions how many Die Hard's have come out since he was here last, and then he shows he can play a mean harmonica. Another short monologue, emulating Miley Cyrus from last week. 

24 HOUR ENERGY DRINK: Ad for what to take if you're dating an actress. It's only mildly amusing, but it kinda looks better in retrospect once the rest of the episode goes by. 

BLACK OPS: A dud with Bruce as a macho tough guy wannabe who would rather make up action movie scenarios than follow the procedure for a Navy SEALS operation. Too long, but it's possible it just felt longer than it was. 

BARBER SHOP: Jay and Kenan as two black barbers cracking each other up, while Bruce is the awkward white barber who can't tell his stories right. A couple of chuckles, but when stuff like this is in the first half hour you know it's only going to get worse. 

BOY DANCE PARTY: Hilarious! Best sketch of the night by far, and funnily enough, it's basically a digital short, which they've stopped doing since Andy Samberg left. The one most likely to be remembered from this episode. 

LADY GAGA SHOW: Vanessa is Lady Gaga, and this new Gaga show seems to be replacing the Miley Cyrus one she had. Unfortunately, her Miley was funny and her Lady Gaga really isn't. But Bruce saves the sketch with his hilarious Michael Kors impression. Maybe worth seeing just for that. 

KATY PERRY: She sings "Roar" with everyone on stage in animal costumes, which they had to be embarrassed to be stuck in, especially the giraffe guy. Or maybe the crocodile. Not to mention how hot those things look. 

WEEKEND UPDATE: A pretty mild update tonight with a couple government shutdown jokes and a bunch of zingers about Bruce and Kris Jenner's divorce (that was my favorite part). Kenan comes out as Chaplain Barry Black to pray for Congress, which is pretty good, and new guy Brooks Whelan makes his (first?) appearance as himself to warn against bad tattoos. Eh. It's ok, but it's kind of interesting to see all these new people fighting for screen time and trying to distinguish themselves- don't think any have been successful yet.

ARMAGEDDON: Oh, boy- we're settling into the truly dismal back half of the show now. It's a space sketch with Bobby's kitty-cat character, who I HATE (not as much as Cecily's Girlfriends show, but close). Ick. Not funny, and way too long. 

CENTAURI VODKA: A launch party with Bruce as a waiter dressed as a centaur whose back half is passing out. The only thing notable about this one is that Nasim Pedrad shows up in it, and I realized I'd almost forgotten she was even on this show. Seriously, where's she been? 

EDDIE: Another (seemingly popular?) character that I pretty much hate. It's Taran as the rude adult "teen" Eddie, who yells as Bruce for dating his mom. Ugh, he's just really obnoxious here. Do people really like this character? Doesn't work for me at all (and again, way too long).

SIGMA: And quite possibly, the worst sketch of the night, a pre-recorded one from newbies Beck and Kyle as frat boys setting up a weird contest for people at a party. Thankfully, it doesn't go on too long, but not a single laugh here and I don't even know what was supposed to be funny in this one.

KATY PERRY: This time she sings "Walking on Air" with a bunch of wind machines blowing sheets above her head. Katy always has to have weird visual and/or physical stuff going on around her to distract from her inability to really sing or dance, I've noticed. No offense to anyone who likes her of course, but there's not a lot going on there. Although I'm surprised she didn't show up in a sketch tonight, since she has in the past.

E-METH AD: Really? Already a replay of the meth ad from just two weeks ago with Aaron Paul.  Ran under this week, huh guys?

So, that's it. The only thing worth seeing was the Boy Dance Party, even though Bruce did his best with the skits, and effort's always appreciated. Still, the writing wasn't up to par tonight, and for only one good sketch I have to give it a D. They're off next week, so I'll be back on the 26th for the Halloween ep with Edward Norton and Janelle Monae- see you guys then!

5 Great TV Shows for Halloween

It's hard to make a genuinely scary television show on a week to week basis, but there have been some great exceptions to that over the years. Luckily, all five of these  choices are streaming on Netflix, so you can watch them anytime this month. They all have episodes that are just as perfect for Halloween as any horror movie you could find. 

THE TWILIGHT ZONE (1959-1964) This is the perfect episodic show to just watch at any random time, and you can find at least one iconic episode (usually two or three) from every season. I'd recommend "The Hitch-Hiker" (Season 1, Episode 16) for Halloween though. It's a genuinely creepy and still disturbing little story you're bound to recognize as having been influential on dozens of movies in the years since it aired. Other ones to see are "Living Doll" (5x06), "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" (3x16), "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (5x22), and the classic "The Eye of the Beholder" (2x06).

THE X-FILES (1993-2002) This show used to creep me out on a week to week basis as a kid, watching Special Agents Mulder and Scully tackle Monster-of-the-Week episodes that actually formed the majority of the series, even if people tend to remember the mythology stuff more now. It's hard to know if cult audiences today would even accept a show that was mostly case of the week and only occasionally mythology focused, especially the way that they did it here. I think now people would demand that it either be one or the other, as cult audiences really like to obsess and pour over every detail of their favorite shows online. Good eps for Halloween include "Irresistable" (2x13), "The Squeeze" (1x03), "Folie a Deux" (5x19), and "The Host" (2x02), otherwise known in my memory as the "toilet monster" episode, which freaked me out for days.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1997-2003) Ok, so this show isn't so scary, but it's definitely monster focused and with some of the great supernatural and creepy episodes of anything ever put on television. And it's one of my favorites shows of all time, so it has to be included. Unlike X-Files, Buffy was famous for season long story arcs and mythology that built upon itself year after year, but it did have its handful of great one offs too. The best for Halloween are "Hush" (4x10), a really famous episode that was done as a tribute to silent movie horror, "Halloween" (2x06), "Restless" (4x22), a David Lynch-ian dreamscape one, "Nightmares" (1x10), the first great episode of the series, and "Fear, Itself" (4x04), another Halloween centered haunted house episode.

TWIN PEAKS (1990-1991) Speaking of David Lynch, this serialized drama from the surrealist master and co-creator Mark Frost became a cultural phenomenon at the time and turned the mystery of who killed Laura Palmer into a national obsession. But even though that question was the engine driving the show, each episode was really about the interaction between the bizarre townspeople. Since Twin Peaks was at its peak both in popularity and in terms of creative control by Frost and Lynch during the first season (which was lessened in season 2), the best way to watch it is to just sit back and watch all 8 episodes of Season 1- it's not long and you can see what compelled so many and went on to become one of the classic shows of all time.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ASYLUM (2012) Ryan Murphy's nutty anthology series has only had two seasons and yet has plenty of fans for embracing an insanely unapologetic and over the top manner of storytelling that's at once terrifying and unique. Certainly not for everyone, but with plenty to entertain and maybe repel you, along with great performances from Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulsen, James Cromwell and Zachary Quinto. The second season was in most viewer's eyes, better than the first, if no less crazy, and the way AHS works is that each season reinvents itself in a different setting, cleverly bringing along lots of the same actors to fill different roles. Season 2 took place in a mental institution in the 1960's, and don't be surprised to see appearances from such disparate entities as serial killers and aliens along for the ride.

RECAP: Homeland 3x02 "Uh...Oh...Ah..."

Ok, well, first off, I have no idea what's going on with that episode title (somebody tell me if you figured that out based on what actually happened in this episode), but tonight was a split one in terms of quality for me. On the one hand, this was a tour-de-force for Claire Danes, as Carrie was off her meds and out of her mind (which is pretty much my favorite kind of Carrie), but on the other hand, half this episode could have been renamed The Dana Brody Show. Why? I have no earthly clue. One can only hope the excessive amounts of Dana we've gotten so far prove to be the most we'll see of her all season, and they're just getting it out of the way at the beginning. That's probably too much to hope for, but my fingers are crossed anyway.

It opens tonight with Carrie busting into Saul's house, yelling at Nira and understandably upset about the hearing last week, where he turned on her publicly. And as I said before, Danes is in top form tonight, clearly unstable and visibly disturbed, but she's so great at this manic behavior that it's always entertaining to watch. Saul isn't home though, so Carrie leaves even angrier, as we see Saul and Quinn at the office, greeting a new agent who happens to be a Muslim woman wearing a veil, which seems to upset them a little bit. It turns out this new financial analyst, Fara, is there to look into the transactions of a bank tied to the Langley terrorists, but she's only worked there for eight days, which disturbs Quinn. And you don't want to disturb Quinn, believe me. He'll shoot you in the blink of an eye.

Adal meets up with Saul in the hallway to tell him Carrie has lost it and scheduled an interview with a newspaper to tell her side of the story, which we then see her doing, and kinda freaking out the reporter while doing it. She again starts to say Brody was innocent and she was the one who was right all along, but the police show up with a psychiatric detention order and Carrie is dismayed when she realizes Saul's had her committed to stop her from talking to the press.

Great, now the first part of Dana's way, WAY too big of a subplot this episode. Jess and Dana are in a counseling session, bickering about how they're coping with Dana being home, and as they check out Dana sees her boyfriend (whose name is apparently Leo and who looks like the most standard cardboard cutout of a CW teen you could imagine) and they silently mouth to each other "I miss you," as I roll my eyes and contemplate fast-forwarding through all of Dana's scenes tonight. But alas, for recapping purposes, I can't do it.

Carrie's now in the psychiatric ward in a hospital dressing gown, and actively denying to a doctor that she needs to be there, while tacitly admitting that she's stopped taking her meds and babbling on about her theories and why everyone in the CIA is against her. These scenes are mostly for us to see Claire Danes in her full bipolar disorder acting glory and she once again delivers as she doesn't help herself in front the doc who clearly thinks she's nuts.

Now we get kind of a weird scene where Saul redresses Fara for having the gall to wear her veil around the place where the attack happened, and when did Saul get so islamophobic? I mean, geez, he makes this poor woman cry. But she does give him some useful info about the bankers coming in for a meeting. Sometimes there is an occasional anti-muslim sentiment on this show that I've spotted before and that's kind of annoying, since we're obviously supposed to identify with the CIA. But, yeah, it really shouldn't have to be said that not every Muslim is a terrorist or a terrorist sympathizer, and how the director of the CIA can not understand that, I don't know.

Dana's at home, annoyed with her mom's attention, so she hides in the bathroom before running away to see Leo, and then Quinn comes to visit Carrie in the psych ward, telling her she can't spill agency stuff to the press, but Carrie isn't having it, thinking Saul sent him and now clearly becoming (rightly) paranoid that everyone's out to get her. She sends him off in a huff and sits on her bed cross-legged in defeat.

Jess finds out Dana's taken off, and we see she ran back to the rehab facility to meet up with Leo in the laundry room for a midnight tryst, and I really couldn't care less, so back to Carrie (not to mention Morgan Saylor still looks too young to be doing sex scenes so this stuff seems inappropriate on another level too). Saul comes over to Carrie's house to tell her dad and her sister Maggie that even though he's the one who had her committed, they need to get Carrie back on her meds in order for her to get better. They seem to buy it, so it looks like Saul is succeeding in turning everyone in Carrie's life against her.

Ugh. The morning after with Dana and Leo, blah, blah, blah, some pillow talk, Dana's happy and doesn't think she's crazy, then they're caught by the staff of course. When Jess picks her up, Dana lectures her on not understanding and when they get home, she pulls her into the bathroom to tell her she really did want to kill herself but not anymore because of Leo (how touching- WHO CARES?) and that the only person who was really crazy was Brody, who was also a liar who ruined their lives. But Dana's happy now, because she wants to live, etc. which is too bad for the audience, but maybe this story is wrapping up now? I hope? Please?

Carrie's having a psychiatric hearing, for which Quinn kindly shows up to be a character witness, but when her dad and Maggie get there, they try to tell her to get back on her meds, which of course reveals to Carrie that Saul's gotten to them too. This makes Carrie decide to bolt from the hearing and she's then dragged away kicking and screaming and unfortunately looking ever more like a genuine mental patient as it happens. Quinn is once again in this episode, disturbed by what he sees.

At the meeting with Saul, Fara, and the bankers, it pretty much goes nowhere, as they refuse to give up any info on their clients and Fara even tries to prove herself by stepping up and lecturing them on their responsibility in the attacks, but no dice, and the guys walk out of the room. Quinn, who snuck in in the middle of this to watch the whole thing, is, you got it, disturbed. He then goes to Saul to inform him that he doesn't like what they've done to Carrie and doesn't like what's going on with guys they're targeting, but Saul thinks he's mostly upset about the kid he killed last week. He says he is, but that it's his problem, and he just wants to let him know that once this operation's over he's out, no matter if it's successful or not. Saul seems to accept this as Quinn leaves, but he leaves to confront one of the bankers leaving a restaurant to tell him he knows he was lying in that meeting and basically threatens him to cooperate if he doesn't want to become a target of his. Then he walks away casually, and if badass Quinn can make at least one appearance every episode, I'm pretty much good with it. He's too cool.

Of course the intimidation works and Fara has now gotten some info from them that leads to Iran and specifically the Iranian government, but what exactly the plot is that Saul's working on is not revealed yet, so we don't quite know what this is all leading up to. Meanwhile, as Saul makes progress on whatever it is he's doing, Carrie's being strapped to a gurney and force-fed her meds intravenously, which is always difficult and sad to watch, while Dana (crap, I thought we were done with her tonight) looks at old family pictures of her dad and then takes out his muslim prayer rug and kneels over it with her head in her hands. Last scene of the night is Carrie on the couch in the TV room of the hospital, completely zombified as Saul finally comes to see her, and as he kneels down to whisper how sorry he is for this, Carrie musters up the energy to whisper back "fuck you," as she turns away from him slowly and with all her might.

That's a pretty powerful ending to another somewhat low-key episode, but I like all the character stuff going on with Saul and Carrie this season, and even Quinn to some extent. But man, oh man, SO MUCH Dana! I don't know why they're doing this, she's a dead weight on the show and unfortunately she just seems to be getting a bigger and bigger part, but the question remains, why? I don't know. No one cares about anything that happens to her, so this is all just filler. The good news is, it looks like Brody is finally back next week, and hopefully that will replace the endless amounts of Dana that we seem to be getting in place of him, so thank god for that. Until next Sunday everybody!

RECAP: SNL 10/05 "Miley Cyrus"

So, I was pretty much dreading this episode tonight, thanks to the presence of the now ubiquitous Miley Cyrus, who I never gave a single thought to before a few weeks ago, but who I'm now starting to hate with the fire of a thousand suns (is that kind of publicity really good publicity?), but the best I can say about tonight is that most of the sketches weren't too painful to sit through. Still, that doesn't mean they were good either. For me it was kind of a shrugworthy episode.

COLD OPEN: It's a post-apocalyptic America, where a homeless Kenan sits on a bench and explains to newbie Noel that the end of America started the day of the VMA's- and then we get a flashback to Vanessa's Miley impersonation confronting the actual Miley about her "new" self. This sketch goes on way too long and isn't funny, but the best part is Jay's cameo as Will Smith, which is always hilarious. But overall, yeah, this was the lame attempt to get the VMA thing out of the way. 

MONOLOGUE: A surprisingly short monologue, where Miley comes out, makes a couple jokes about the VMA's again and says Hannah Montana was murdered, but extremely short and nothing special here. 

50 SHADES OF GREY SCREEN TESTS: One of those reels where everyone gets to show off their celebrity impressions, these are always good for at least a few chuckles. Unlikely couples who auditioned for the roles include Seth Rogen/Emma Stone, Christoph Waltz/Scarlett Johansson, Philip Seymour Hoffman/Kristen Stewart, Steve Harvey/Rebel Wilson, Jon Cryer/Jane Lynch, Mary-Louise Parker/Aziz Ansari, Tilda Swinton/Tracy Morgan, and Kristen Chenoweth/Shaquille O'Neal. For what it's worth, my fave was Taran Killam's Christoph Waltz.

GIRLFRIENDS TALK SHOW: Ok, when I said most of the sketches weren't painful, this is the major exception. I hate, hate, HATE this sketch. HATE IT. I find myself having to mute or change the channel when this comes on- I don't know what people see in it, if it's just me or what, but I haven't hated a sketch like this since the Californians soap opera. It's just not funny, Aidy's not funny, Cecily's not funny, and neither was Miley. It makes me cringe every. single. time. Sadly, they're moving it up in the lineup, so it must have fans, but it's inexplicable to me what's funny about this. And it's SOOO long!

WE DID STOP THE GOVERNMENT: A fake music video with a hip-hop John Boehner (Taran again) and Michele Bachmann (Miley) having a house party because they succeeded in shutting down the government. It's decent, the best part is when Jay's bewildered Obama peeks in the window from outside.

PIERS MORGAN LIVE: I kinda liked this one. Taran's Piers Morgan is funny and it's about all the new Hillary Clinton movies on other networks since NBC and CNN canceled theirs. My favorite was AMC's "Running Rodham" that spoofs the Walt/Skyler scene of the Breaking Bad finale with Obama and Hillary.  

WEEKEND UPDATE: Pretty good tonight- Seth and Cecily do a funny "Winners/Losers" on the government shutdown and the guests are all spot on. Kate McKinnon is a great suburban mom who's hooked on Grand Theft Auto and Vanessa comes back as Bar Mitzvah boy Jacob (although I think they've used him too much of late), but Jay steals it as NFL commentator Shannon Sharpe. He's hilarious. 

CHEER SQUAD: Really bizarre skit with Miley as a head cheerleader whose team members are abducted by aliens and then Kenan as the alien leader comes down to join them in the cheer. Best thing about this one is how mercifully short it is. 

MORNIN' MIAMI: Decent bit about a grumpy morning news team faking upbeat energy for their promos. Another really short one.

CLASSROOM POETRY: A rare Vanessa-centered sketch about an eccentric poetry teacher trying to get the kids excited about poems. Kenan has a funny haiku, and Miley is actually kinda funny as the kid with a crush on the teacher. Definitely needs polishing but Vanessa might have something with this character, I think. It has potential. 

BACKSTAGE VIDEO: Ugh, this was awful. Worst sketch of the night next to Girlfriends Talk Show, about new guy Kyle's desire to have sex with Miley, and Bobby and Beck Bennett encouraging it backstage. Kinda creepy actually, too. Should have left this one on the cutting room floor. 

Fairly lame tonight, with Jay's impressions and Weekend Update being the highlights. I give it a C-. Next week, Bruce Willis hosts for the first time since 1989, and Katy Perry performs. See you then! 

REVIEW: "The Bridge" Season 1

FX's The Bridge wrapped up its first season last night, and having not seen the Danish series Bron, on which this version was based, I can't say how it compared to the original. But as a separate entity unto itself, I think this show has a lot of potential, even if the first season was weighted down by a standard serial killer plot that prevented it from exploring the more interesting aspects and storylines hovering around the fringes.

Set on the border between El Paso, TX and Juarez, Mexico, the show set up a story about a serial killer who was kidnapping girls in Juarez, and forcing our two leads to partner up in an investigation regarding the disappearances. Those leads are Demian Bechir as Marco Ruiz, one of the only non-corrupt cops in Juarez, and Diane Kruger as Sonya Cross, from the El Paso police department. This partnership and eventual friendship is one of the most successful and intriguing parts of the show- when we first meet Sonya, who has Asbergers, she is such a robotic, cold, slightly alien presence that I wasn't sure if it was the character or Kruger's acting that was so off-putting. But as the season progressed, she gradually began to grow on me, and surprisingly without a drastic change in personality. By the end of the season I'd done a complete 180 on the character and found myself genuinely liking her- which I think is actually a tribute to Diane Kruger's portrayal. She manages to endear us to Sonya without fundamentally softening her through some kind of romance (which is how Claire Danes's character on Homeland was softened), and she remains the uptight professional she's been throughout as well as the socially awkward and sometimes hilariously abrupt oddball. The only thing that changes in her is a genuine, friendly affection towards her partner Marco, which is a moving and natural development that we see step by step as the season progresses. It was quite an impressive evolution.

Demian Bechir on the other hand, is fantastic from the start as the warm, friendly Ruiz, hampered by problems in his marriage, family and work life, pressured by the police corruption and cartel forces that depend on the collaboration of the cops. The city of Juarez is itself a character in this series, shown as kind of a hell on earth, where anyone can be murdered or kidnapped at any moment, sometimes right in front of you. There are a myriad of subplots involving different aspects of Juarez's various crime scenes, all of which are ongoing and not even brought to a head in this first season, such as the entirely separate story involving Annabeth Gish as the woman who inherits an illegal underground tunnel from her dead husband and finds herself knee deep in cartel smuggling. There's also Matthew Lillard and Emily Rios as reporters for the El Paso Times who find themselves interacting with the police and various criminals, and both of them are quite good on the show (Lillard surprisingly effective) as well. Finally there's the series' most mysterious and perplexing character, Steven Linder, played by Thomas M. Wright, a weird loner who evolves, like Sonya, from a baffling question mark early on into a (spoiler alert) rather lovable and kind of hilarious kook by the end, who I can only hope has more screen time in the second season.

So on one level, it's a labyrinthine show that wants to showcase all these different characters and all these different facets of Juarez crime, but on the other, it had to follow the main thread from the original series, which was a hunt for a serial killer that was intriguing at times in the beginning, but led up to a rather cliched and unoriginal conclusion that the show itself didn't even wait until its season finale to wrap up. It's hard to explain this plotline without giving away nearly every twist, but suffice it to say the killer himself was only mildly interesting when all was said and done, and the various stories surrounding the rest of the show remain far more enticing. There's potential here in every frame, and with all these great characters and performances (including Buffalo Bill himself, Ted Levine, who's great as Sonya's police chief), I think this show will benefit enormously next year from being able to let go of its serial killer plot and devote itself to fully exploring the details and complexities of the city it's set in. I'll definitely be sticking with it.

Grade: B

TRAILER: "Metastasis"

This is priceless. And it's not a joke either- a Colombian remake of Breaking Bad is coming, about the saga of Walter Blanco: