First Pick Blog

TV Show: Louie

Target Audience: Fans of cringe-worthy comedy

Time for week two of our Netflix Pick of the Week. On the spotlight this week: FX’s comedy Louie starring comedian Louis C.K. Netflix has recently added season two of the comedy which brings the total to 27 episodes, each around 20 minutes long. For those who have not delved into the strange and sad mind of Louis C.K. you can check out his comedy special: Chewed Up, which is also available on Netflix Instant Watch. C.K. has been around for quite some time, making his name through the comedy world and TV world as well. C.K. landed on HBO in 2006 creating and starring in the dark humor sitcom: Lucky Louie.

Enough background, let’s jump right into what makes this show great. C.K.’s brand of humor in his stand-up is extreme self-deprecation, sprinkling in some hilarious observations and thoughts on the world in general. The show follows the same lines, a comedian father of two young girls goes through daily life, but in a hilarious and semi-sad existence. He pursues his love interest Pamela (played by Pamela Adlon, who acted in Lucky Louie, and was the voice of Bobby Hill in King of the Hill), gives us snippets of his live stand-up routines, and interacts with many of his comedy friends. Included familiar faces are: Jim Norton, Nick DiPaolo, Todd Barry, Ricky Gervais, Jay Leno, Sarah Silverman, and the always-entertaining Chris Rock.

One of the amazing aspects of this show is that C.K. pretty much has complete control of the project, all the way down to what music is played. When great minds are given free reign to create their product usually they come out with something fantastic (ex. Vince Gilligan and Breaking Bad). The cinematography in many of the episodes is wonderful, and noticeable immediately. But it is in the actions of Louis C.K. himself that makes this show. The character of Louie appeals to the pathetic side of us, the lazy side. He struggles with his weight, his eating habits, his excessive masturbating. He can’t catch a break, can’t get a date, and still tries to be the best father he can be to his daughters. Sure, many of his jokes are offensive to some, but in most of those jokes are deeper meanings and thoughts that haven’t been said before. The best comedians are those who tell us what we already know, but in a way we never thought of.

It may take a few episodes, it may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but Louie is a great show if you give it a chance. Think of it as Seinfeld on crack.

Ben’s Rating: Four and a Half Stars out of Five

By Ben Simpson

TV Show: Luther

Target Audience: Detective show fans/gritty drama fans

Time to start our weekly segment of Netflix Instant Watch pick of the week! Each week a show or movie will be picked, one that may be flying “under the radar.” For this week the Netflix show “Luther” gets my recommendation. Luther stars a fantastic television actor in Idris Elba (Stringer Bell from The Wire, also in the new flick Prometheus) as a troubled black detective, DCI John Luther, in London. The cop drama has been redone and remastered over and over again the past few decades, from “snarky 0ne-liner detective”  (Sean Spencer from Psych) to the “defective-detective” (Adrian Monk from Monk) to even more modern and recent the BBC’s Sherlock (another fantastic show, Season 1 is also available on Netflix) Basically what I am trying to say is clearly a troubled detective is nothing new. Also I am a sucker for these types of shows.

What separates this show from any other, the basic reason to watch, is not only the intense cases and killers covered but the relationship between the always-angry Luther and Alice Morgan (played by Ruth Wilson, Princess Betsy in the new Anna Karenina movie coming out this year). Morgan *Spoiler Alert* is believed to have killed her family in the first episode of the series, which Luther is able to deduce relatively quickly. The two continue the rest of the series to have one of the most complicated and compelling relationships I have seen in television. Many times I found myself yelling at my computer screen, “Why are you talking to her dude?! She’s a murderer!” But the two form a pretty deep bond which I can’t really go into without spoiling more of the show. Also Alice is slightly attractive, in a weird sexy serial killer type of way.

Season 1 spans six episodes, with each running about an hour and a half. Season 2 is finally up there as well, which lasts a short but action-packed four episodes. Those with short attention spans may want to stay away, especially with the British accents sometimes making it difficult to understand what is going on. I find that after a few episodes of going, “What the hell did he say?” the accents will become less hard to understand and soon will not faze you one bit. Other characters include Luther’s ex-wife Zoe (played by Indira Varma, who played a big role in the failed Fox thriller Human Target, as well as many Indian flicks) who is getting involved with a new lover Mark North (Paul McGann of Doctor Who fame). Also Luther’s trusty partner DS Justin Ripley (Warren Brown, who actually played one of the mercenaries in The Dark Knight Rises) is a fun character to root for. Loyal to a fault, Luther’s respect for Ripley grows as the show goes on.

In summary, if you enjoy dramas such as Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, or Boardwalk Empire you should enjoy this show. The formula may not be different, but the execution is quite successful.

Ben’s Rating: Four and a Half Stars out of Five

By Ben Simpson

Super Lintendo. Mr. Lincredible. Qui-Gon Lin.

Whatever you want to call him, Jeremy Lin is gaining more media coverage right now than Tebowing and the Kardashian family combined. I’ll admit that I’m a fan of what the kid is doing. And if you aren’t, there is something wrong with you. Who doesn’t love an underdog story? America is an underdog country founded by underdog patriots who put together an underdog government and overcame tremendous odds to force it’s way as a super power in the global scheme of things. If Jeremy Lin’s story doesn’t touch you in some way your probably a robot (or even worse: a communist).

However, I will admit that with the amount of air time Linsanity gets on my favorite network, ESPN, I am definitely starting to get tired of seeing his face and listening to roundtable discussions about whether his play will continue or whether he will be able to coexist with Melo’ or whether the Knicks can make a playoff run. Seeing so many close ups of Landry Fields, Amare Stoudamire’s stubble patches, and Mike D’Antoni’s mustache have made me more disgusted with my screen than the swarms of people that paid to see “Man On a Ledge” in theaters. Ironically, these close-ups were my inspiration for this article.

One morning several days ago I found myself staring intently into the face of the “Italian stallion” that is D’Antoni and found myself wondering, “how in the world does this man keep his mustache so finely trimmed?” One would believe his wife lovingly purchased him a Philips Norelco or Conair hair trimmer for his birthday or Christmas or something but, seriously it is one of the finest mustaches in recent memory. Seriously, see for yourself. 

Not only is it a great stache’, but it eerily resembles the grey stache’/hair combo sported by one William Daniels, or through the eyes of any 90s born teenager, a character named George Feeny from ABC’s sitcom “Boy Meets World”.

As soon as my train of thought brought me to this conclusion, my mind began to wander, “I wonder if the stallion is any good at acting”, and then to, “How funny would it be to see him in a pair of thin brimmed glasses mentoring the likes of Corey and Shawn from the other side of the fence in the Matthews’ yard”.

Then it dawned on me, especially with all this attention being place on Lin, it would not be THAT crazy to place each of Lin’s teammates beside him in an animated sitcom that could air on ESPN in their 4:30 time slot instead of Dan Lebatard’s 30 minute disaster that he is currently running in place on Jim Rome with his Hispanic father.

Seriously how hilarious would that be? Imagine a cartoon montage of Jeremy Lin traveling around New York City in a rickshaw taking pictures in front of the Empire State Building, or surfing down the Statue of Liberty, or even climbing Trump Tower in a gorilla costume. Tell me that you would not take time out of your day to watch that show especially if they cast real voices and actually had hilarious plot lines. Sure as hell would be funnier than the “the Cleveland Show”. I even thought of characteristics for each character:

Jeremy: The shows protagonist who is soft spoken yet, incredibly charismatic. He puts up with the antics of the New York media and he is constantly antagonized by Spike Lee and feels bad when he says no to his ridiculous requests and gifts.

Landry Fields: Jeremy’s best friend and alcoholic who occasionally gets too wasted and makes unnecessary passes at what he thinks are attractive women and makes poor choices (I imagine an episode or two where he tries to hookup with Lebron or D-Rose accidentally or calls David Stern to tell him “how he really feels” about his management styles). He claims that Jeremy and himself make Batman and Robin despite underachieving significantly.

Melo’: The selfish superstar who is constantly jealous of Jeremy no matter what he does. He consistently attempts to get back at him for stealing the spotlight in New York and wants nothing more than to get rid Jeremy and his followers. And did I mention he’s also incredibly overweight.

Amare: The astoundingly dimwitted oaf who provides nothing but, comedic relief. Seriously what other role could he play?

Tyson: The swag machine. I imagine him speaking similarly to Barry White and wearing lavish clothing at peculiar times. His vocabulary expands as far as Randy Jackson’s does and he is the ultimate ladies man

Bill Walker/Mike Bibby/Iman Shumpert/Toney Douglas/Jared Jefferies/etc: Bow to Lin every time they are in his presence. They see Jeremy as Elvis and treat him accordingly. They give him shotgun, first in the cafeteria line, offer up their girlfriends, and refer to him as sir no matter what the circumstances are.

D’Antoni: The wise man/ mentor. The oracle. He provides wisdom to Jeremy on top of a mountain that I envision having many stairs somewhere in the Himalayas.

Baron Davis: See above.

Spike Lee: The over enthusiastic suck-up who claims to have had faith in Jeremy ever since he was in high school. He goes out of his way to befriend Jeremy and offers him trips abroad, expensive dinners, invites to exclusive parties, and even buys him a car just so Jeremy shows him respect.His height is exaggerated as well and his glasses are bigger than his head.

Tell me I’m not crazy. If I pitched this idea to ESPN’s headquarters in Los Angeles or in Bristol they could develop it and actually make it work. They have never tackled the field of animation I think this would be great way to start. I think it would get a better following than any Tebow movie or tv show. Besides it would give them more time to talk about Peyton Manning’s future with the Colts, Andrew Luck’s draft potential, Blake Griffins dunking ability, or the most recent alley-oop from the Miami Heat, the things that apparently all of America’s sports fans care about…

If you have any ideas for this sitcom which I am currently in the process of patenting, please comment below or shoot us an email.

By Matt Fehr

With Linsanity not on TV, Wizards playing at 10:30, and terrible college basketball matchups on I guess I have to resort to a running diary of 2 hours of American Idol…Yea that one hurt me too…

8:00-Is there a more overrated show than the Big Bang Theory? Answer: Yes, Two and a Half Men. Also, can a show be too hyped that I don’t even want to watch it? That new Smash show with Katherine McPhee is too damn confusing with its advertising. Is it a play? a musical? a reality show? This is what happens when I can’t watch Lin…

8:01-Jesus Idol, you’re one minute behind, I blame LeBron. I’m greeted with a montage of last week’s drama. Apparently there was a lot of puking and people stating, “This is all I ever wanted, singing is all I have.”

8:05-First group of the night: The Bettys. Or as Steven Tyler slyly quips with a blank response from J-Lo, “Couldn’t it have just been Betty and the Boobs?” Score 1 for ST. All I have written down in my notes is: Bettys Bomb+more shots of people puking.

8:11-First of many commercial breaks after a group named Groovesauce hits one out of the park and receive a bunch of “Wooo’s” from Randy. Gotta love the guy though, the only judge to make it this far.

8:13-So the plot of The Vow is that Rachel McAdams gets in a crash, loses her memory, and Channing Tatum has to convince her they were in love before? Hell if I found out Rachel McAdams had amnesia I would claim we were in love too. Btw if “Smash” totally sucks they should change the name to “Crash”….anybody…anybody…?

8:16-The 6,7,9 Group is next. Led apparently by some chick named Brielle and her mother. Also, apparently bitchiness runs in the family. Everyone makes it except frat-boy crooner Kyle Crews, much to the happiness of Brielle’s mama, “We love Kyle, he has a pretty good voice.” Ouch…

8:23-Holy crap, i’m barely a 1/4th of the way through…wait did that girl just fall? First casualty of the night! They promoted it at the top of the show, and Jackie is down! The Ref is above her counting off! One…two…the group is planning on going on without her…three…four….Jackie’s pulling a Willis Reed! Too bad her group can’t rally, Dustin and Tentgirl (she’s the girl who lives in a tent, come on people keep up) both forget the words.

8:25-Scientology commercial……wow I can’t even think of a pun to go along with that

8:30-More montages of people forgetting the lyrics…btw wasn’t/isn’t there a show called “Don’t Forget the Lyrics” with Mark McGrath?

8:34-Coming up…more fainting?? Ryan, what cologne are you wearing today???

8:37-Commerical for something called Dream Nude Airfoam by Maybelline. I could get behind that product. Apparently it is 100% Nude Perfect.

8:39-I’m sorry but aren’t there certain actors who you just can’t see in anything else. Kiefer Sutherland falls in this list. I know he has this new show where his mute son holds the key to the universe but I keep expecting him to kick down a door and scream, “WE NEED MORE TIME!” Other actors I can’t watch in anything else: The Napoleon Dynamite guy (I have no idea what his real name is) and the guy from Monk (Tony Shaloub I think is his name). See!! I don’t even know their freaking names!

8:45-Ryan Seacrest tells us for the 28th time that Group Round is “Heating up!” I would be impressed if one time Ryan was just honest and said, “Yea..group week is boring as hell.”

8:50-Faint Watch! Imani (Iman Shumpert’s sister, no not really) is down!

8:55-Imani tries to rejoin her group again, but falls again! No Imani! Don’t go a third time!

9:00-…Imani faints again, this time on stage to be sure all the cameras catch her. Ryan: “The Unthinkable just happened!” Really dude…she just fainted twice in the past half-hour, the unthinkable?…

9:01-Question: Are the judges A-Holes if they send Imani home?

9:02-Answer: Yes, and they do

9:05-My two favorites (god someone shoot me) are two dudes by the name of Phillip Phillips and Heejun Hun who i’m calling from now on: Jeremy Lin. They both make it through, Linsanity lives on!!

9:09-Apparently the second half of the show is individual performances, which is what people want to watch. Group Round is worse than the Pro-Bowl.

9:11-PP and J-Lin do me proud, both advance.

9:23-Reed, not understanding the whole idea of playing with the AI band, suddenly has 30 minutes to figure out how to change his previously arranged acapella. In those 30 minutes he somehow manages to meet with a vocal coach, call his mom (he actually calls her i’m not lying), and figures out the entire arrangement. 2 minutes before he goes on he changes his mind and decides to play drums and sing. Could this be the biggest botch since Detroit signing Iverson??

9:24-Darn…he totally kills it.

9:30-I’m beginning to lose my mind…as more people sing “Georgia is on my mind”.

9:45-Everybody is split into 4 groups in 4 different rooms. I mean, isn’t it obvious if you’re in a room with someone who totally kicked ass that you are in the right room? If I turned around and saw someone who totally sucked I would know its all over.

9:50-PP and J-Lin are still in it! 3 rooms make and 1 room doesn’t.

9:55-The remaining contestants head to Vegas for more…oh dear god please no…group singing!

10:00-I just wasted two hours of my life, and you just wasted 10 minutes of yours reading this…

By Ben Simpson

Check out Erin Martin, weird pony-mohawk included, with her performance of “Hey There Delilah.” Knowing America, she won’t last too long. Still, I’d buy an album she put out any day.

Hey look maybe NBC will actually put out a good, original show for once! Trust me, the 2:33 minutes of your life is totally worth it. Here’s the synopsis

After Detective Michael Britten wakes up from a car accident with his wife and teenage son, he learns the devastating news that his wife died in the crash. Trying to put the pieces of his life back together, he wakes up a few days later to realize that his wife is very much alive and his son died in the accident! Did he lose his wife or his son? Or neither of them??

What if your life split in two in the face of a situation like this, and you could actually have everything you wanted, just not all at the same time? Michael goes back to work solving crimes while trying to put things back on a “normal” track, but alternating between realities provides some challenges – one moment he and his wife are grappling with having another child to replace their loss, and the next moment he’s finding himself attracted to his son’s tennis coach to fill the void from the loss of his wife. At the same time, he is solving crimes in each world which sometimes overlap in fascinating and inexplicable ways. Is he dreaming or going mad? Michael begins seeing two different therapists to help him sort things out, but then again why would he want either “reality” to go away when the totality of both means having his family complete?

Oh Darren…what in the world are you doing? The CNBC Sport’s Business Reporter makes for an awkard (yet hilarious) tv moment with Kate Upton