Opinion Five-Spot, WE 1/9/11 - HIMYM, V, Grey's Anatomy, The Cape, Bob's Burgers

Here's my Opinion Five-Spot for the week ending January 9, 2011:

How I Met Your Mother - It wasn't a standout HIMYM episode by any means, in fact probably one of the lesser episodes of what's been one of the lesser seasons of the show. But we may well look back on this one and say it had a big impact on the show going forward. Will Marshall's bad news take the show into full-on drama mode? I'm sure hoping not. In other news, can't say I was a fan of the "countdown" gimmick that led up to Marshall's bad news, but maybe I'm just bitter that I didn't notice it till the single digits!

V - I gave up on V one episode after its spring 2010 return, but on Saturday night my choices were either the V marathon on ABC, the stinky Fiesta Bowl, or a hockey game, and V won out. I'm kind of amazed at how silly the show is at times, with the only really credible drama coming from the staredowns between Elizabeth Mitchell and Morena Baccarin. But season 2 actually has me kinda intrigued, and even though I'm not sure the laid back Bret Harrison fits on this show, I'm still a fan and may stay tuned in part for him.

Grey's Anatomy - Thursday was another night when I had nothing much to watch and didn't feel like digging into DVR leftovers, so I watched the show that I hadn't watched regularly since early season 3 (and had probably seen only one or two eps since). I'm not too impressed with much of the huge cast running around these days, but this episode in which the docs deal with shooting victims was a fairly solid entry. I doubt I'm gonna get back on board with this show full-time when everything returns, but I see why it's still big.

The Cape - This is a very entry-level version of a superhero drama. If you like that genre and all its trappings, then you may find this a reasonable entry but certainly nothing distinctive. Keith David is appealing as Max, it's generally pretty cheesy, and the Bear McCreary score brings it more gravitas than the show deserves (see also: season 1 of Human Target). That's about all I can even think of. Oh yeah. The lead is pretty bland. I write this on Sunday not knowing the ratings, but I plan to try it again!

Bob's Burgers - The disclaimer is that I'm not a big fan of animated shows in general. The humor is a bit too "joke-y" for my tastes, and this show was no exception. I probably won't be back. But it seemed an OK entry by recent new broadcast animation standards. (Small praise considering the competition is fairly lame flops like The Goode Family and Sit Down, Shut Up.)

More Five-Spots in the Index.