Grading the 2012-13 TV season

With the TV season (to the extent there is still a "season") coming to its "official" close this past week, it's time for me to justify that time on the couch by presenting...
Doug's Second-Annual Useless TV Report Card!

(Really. I did this last year for the 2011-12 season.)

Bear in mind that the shows are not graded on a curve (some brief details can be read below); even though the list this year is arranged by grade first (with the highest at the top), the secondary sort is merely alphabetical by title, so the order is not suggesting a superiority of one show as compared to another.

A	Bob's Burgers	Sep. – May	Fox
A *	Breaking Bad	July – Sep.	AMC
A	Key and Peele	Sep. – Nov.	Comedy
A	Louie	June – Sep.	FX
A	New Girl	Sep. – May	Fox
A	Scandal	Sep. – May	ABC
A	The Good Wife	Sep. – Apr.	CBS
A-	30 Rock	Oct. – Jan.	NBC
A-	Parks and Recreation	Sep. – May	NBC
A-	Portlandia	Dec. – Mar.	IFC
A-/B+	Happy Endings	Oct. – May	ABC
A-/B+	Raising Hope	Oct. – Mar.	Fox
B+	Fringe	Sep. – Jan.	Fox
B+	The Big Bang Theory	Sep. – May	CBS
B+	The Mindy Project	Sep. – May	Fox
B+	The Simpsons	Sep. – May	Fox
B	Girls	Jan. – Mar.	HBO
B *	Mad Men	Apr. –	AMC
B	Modern Family	Sep. – May	ABC
B	Suburgatory	Oct. – Apr.	ABC
B	Suits	June – Feb.	USA
B-	Covert Affairs	July – Nov.	USA
B-	Once Upon a Time	Sep. – May	ABC
B- *	Psych	Feb. –	USA
B-	Saturday Night Live	Sep. – May	NBC
B-	The League	Oct. – Dec.	FX
B-	White Collar	July – Mar.	USA
B-/C+ *	Maron	May –	FX
C+	Community	Feb. – May	NBC
C+	Go On	Aug. – Apr.	NBC
C+	The Office	Sep. – May	NBC
C	Ben and Kate	Sep. – Mar.	Fox
C	Burn Notice	June – Dec.	USA
C-	How I Met Your Mother	Sep. – May	CBS
D	Up All Night	Sep. – Dec.	NBC
incomplete	Archer	Jan. – Apr.	FX
incomplete	Nikita	Oct. – May	CW
incomplete	Totally Biased	Aug. –	FX
A	The Colbert Report	n/a	Comedy
A	The Daily Show	n/a	Comedy

And with that, I direct you to the comments pane below to allow you to tell me how wrong I am.

Under the Punk Covers: Love the Damned (Splitting the Dickies)

A few weeks ago I was on that popular social network site, and because at some point in the past I had imprudently confessed a preference for early punk pranksters the Dickies a link appeared in my newsfeed. It was to the video done (clearly on no budget) for their 1979 cover of the theme for the '60s kids show The Banana Splits, "The Tra La La Song" (which featured singer Leonard Graves singing into a banana instead of a microphone; it is best that their success never relied on such visuals on the small screen--see for yourself below).


Clicking through to the hosting site's page I saw videos posted for others, including the Damned's cover of "Alone Again Or" (which, I was vaguely reminded, featured the British punk pioneers dressed in Spanish garb out in the middle of a desert... for some reason).


Their faithful rendition of the classic 1967 Love track still holds up after 26 years, in large part because the song is so good (certainly not from that 1987 video).

The funny thing about that, when I think back to that time, is how when I heard it (on KROQ) I was unaware it was a cover.

Eating or Cheating Redux: Two-timing by one-timing

Last summer I posted about finding a new, closer breakfast place and feeling as though we were cheating on the restaurant that had been our regular spot (which was a drive across town). However, in the intervening months, that closer place had gone downhill and we haven't gone there in a while. The previous spot resumed its status as weekend destination for the morning meal.

A couple months ago we went to that usual breakfast spot (the Coffee Cup Café) and the host was a guy who we knew from the place closer to home (which shall remain unnamed) with which we had the dalliance as the "new" breakfast spot. When my wife walked in to CCC one Saturday morning and encountered the guy from other place, she experienced a shred of guilt.

How I Keep Watching 'How I Met Your Mother'

As anyone who is remotely interested in the series the eighth season finale of How I Met Your Mother aired last night, and as anyone who is remotely interested in the series has already seen or heard, there was a surprise ending—which we will touch on—but this post is more general in its scope.

Last week, after the penultimate episode, we knew in advance that the finale would not be the Barney-Robin wedding (where it has already been revealed Ted first sees the woman who becomes the eponymous mother). In the eighth-season opener they teased us with a "flash-forward" scene where it's after the wedding and Ted is waiting at the train station and the woman with the yellow umbrella (whom we know from much earlier in the series is the mother) stands nearby, her face obscured by that item (below).

At that point (back in September) this eighth was to be the final season, so the groundwork laid there clearly suggested in the finale it would close with the continuation of that scene, presumably with Ted and the woman under the umbrella glancing over at each other. We'd get a shot of the mother's face under the umbrella, they'd share a smile as some uplifting song plays underneath, then cut to the kids in the future on the couch wiping a tear away as narrator Ted caps it with the obvious but appropriate, "That's how I met your mother." Roll credits.

Coming out after Collins

NBA player Jason Collins came out in a Sports Illustrated cover story last week, the first openly gay pro in any of the major sports. It was a brave move, of course, and to be applauded certainly. The encouraging thing is that he wasn't met with the undiluted bigotry that Jackie Robinson encountered; it wasn't even that much of an event—sure, it was newsworthy, but there wasn't a backlash in the sports community. The Daily Show even lampooned how it wasn't treated as such a big deal, suggesting that society's acceptance of homosexuality is (to borrow the phrase) out of the closet.

Prior to coming out, Jason Collins was unlikely to be a household name. That's not suggesting he did so as a calculated ploy for fame (I don't believe that was why he did so); it is merely the reality of what has happened in the wake of what he did.

But is it so bad that he gets the highlight given that this should contribute to bringing this vestige of latent homophobia—professional male sports—out of its dark ages (so to speak)?

I'd say that's far more worthy of being known by the general public (rather than merely by NBA fans) than anything any Kardashian has ever done (or not done, as it were).