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American Dad Season 14 Episode 16 It’s often surprising that a show that has been on for just as long as American Dad! has is still capable of delivering such a consistent batting average. The series has produced over 200 episodes and I’d argue that less than ten of those are outright bad entries, with most of those even coming from the show’s earliest years. The show’s current season has been primarily turning out stellar installments, but unfortunately “The Bitchin’ Race” is one of the more forgettable episodes....

American Dad! Season 14, Episode 4 “Where are good citizens supposed to go for egg-related crimes?” American Dad! really struck gold when it found out how reliable and versatile the combination of Roger and Steve would be for its storytelling. The pairing of these two always results in greatness and “Shell Game” acts as the first strong episode of the season that puts these two together in order to create fireworks....

American Dad Season 15 Episode 1 December marks a promising time for many television shows as they get to embrace the festivities of the season. Holiday installments are a fun change of pace for programs, but American Dad in particular gets a lot of mileage out of their yearly Christmas offerings. In fact, “Rapture’s Delight” is still likely the best episode of the entire series and it quickly sets the benchmark for every upcoming holiday special....

American Gods Episode 4 “I lived my life, good and bad. Definitely not light as a feather,” Laura tells Anubis when he attempts to weigh her heart. Laura may not always like herself, but she is sure as hell not going to let anyone else judge her for the choices she’s made — not even a god. This is the most likable quality of an (on paper) unlikable character. It’s hard not to admire someone who looks into the eyes of an irritated, rude (if not honest) Anubis and tells him: “Fuck you....

This review contains spoilers. For a section of the American population, the election of Donald Trump was a nightmare brought to life. For others, it was a victory against forces that they feel are conspiring to hold them down. Both parties are lampooned in the latest season of American Horror Story, which opens up with the real-life American horror story of the 2016 presidential election. On one hand, there are a bunch of sobbing progressives, lashing out at one another and lamenting the election of Donald Trump....

7.9 Drink The Kool-Aid If his turn as Andy Warhol earlier in the season wasn’t quite enough to cement that fact, then Drink The Kool-Aid puts the focus firmly on Evan Peters as Kai tells his space monkeys a variety of fun tales about the history of death and doomsday cults throughout the past fifty years or so: Marshall Applewhite and his applesauce-eating castrati of the Heaven’s Gate cult catching a ride on Hale-Bopp; David Koresh and his messiah semen impregnating his female followers in Waco, Texas; and the titular cult leader, Jim Jones and the People’s Temple drinking poisoned Flavor-Aid in the jungles of Guyana....

The scary child trope is one of the oldest horror staples I can think of. If kids aren’t being scary, then they’re in peril. For whatever reason, it’s basically evergreen, and no matter how much you see a young child sitting in a closet under the stairs talking to a ghost, it retains some kind of weird power to make skin crawl. Especially if it’s a really cute kid, like Lee’s daughter Flora....

Glover once stated that with Atlanta he wanted to make “Twin Peaks, but for rappers.” This helps to explain why the show ricochets between tones, going from dramatic to comedic to deeply dark to outright surreal. And also why it uses the basic plot of a rapper (Paper Boi, played by Brian Tyree Henry) and his agent (Earn, played by Glover) trying to make it big as a springboard (much like Twin Peaks used Laura Palmer’s murder) to explore tangentially related plots and non-sequiturs....

Battle: Los Angeles is an invasion movie for the Call Of Duty generation, a cinematic version of a console shooter with wok-headed invaders who bleed cola and fire pew-pew laser guns from rooftops. Their ranks decimated, Staff Sergeant Nantz (Eckhart), Technical Sergeant Santos (Rodriguez) and their compatriots fight a street-level war with heavily armed aliens. Not that names particularly matter, since writer Christopher Bertolini wastes little time with introductions on either side of the fence....

We knew that when Elena left at the end of the last episode that it wouldn’t lasts long, since that would not jibe with continuing the story line. While this much was obvious, her just up and leaving in the middle of her best friend Becky’s [ Ace Hicks] (who also happens to be your boyfriend’s sister) wedding reception (sorry for the mini spoiler guys. I didn’t give much away, I promise) was pretty ridiculous....

There was a big bidding war, George Clooney went head to head with Robert Downey Jr, and the show’s writer, Jesse Armstrong, presumably got pretty excited. “I think it’s now available again so let’s make this interview an advertisement that someone else can option it,” Armstrong told Yahoo Movies UK, sounding a wee bit sad. “It’s not currently being made. It’s in development hell! It’s not progressing but we do [want it made]....

The situation on the Walrus and the Andromache continues to confuse me. How and why the Andromache’s crew managed to get all their cannons away from the gun ports (I assume they weren’t just hauling cannons around as cargo) and tucked into an impenetrable bunker, along with 38 slaves, I just don’t understand. What’s Mr. Scott going to do now? I’d really like to see the Scarborough, too. Flint’s got this huge ship,(look at eh size of it next to the Andromeche!...

Blood Drive Episode 6 The racing action is particularly intense tonight, even when the drivers aren’t dodging grenades. Slink (Colin Cunningham) imposes a new safety restriction on the drivers. Don’t think for a minute that this is too keep them safe. On this leg of the race, the drivers are not allowed to use their brakes. If their toes touch the pedals their cars are disabled for ten minutes, leaving them at the mercy of the ultra-feminist Biker Chick cult in Savage Land....

Kompromat. Kom-pro-mat. Kompromatkompromatkompromat. Hypnotically, episode five swung the word like a gold watch on a chain in front of our drowsy eyelids. Entire scenes used it as their only noun. “Kompromat!” declared Sgt Budd. “Kompromat?” replied his boses. “Kompromat,” all agreed, nodding with concern. Bodyguard is hypnotic television, and we are all under its power. It snaps its fingers and we start babbling about briefcases. It snaps them a second time and we instantly forget the briefcase—what idiots we were to worry about the briefcase—and start obsessing about the Range Rover, or the CCTV, or the faked death, or this week, the kompromat....

This week’s job comes from an unlikely source. Michael’s landlord, club owner Oleg, asks him to look into who is threatening his best waitress, Cara. She hasn’t been to work for days, and Oleg is losing money. If Michael can solve the problem and get Cara back at the club, he can live rent free for the next few months. Michael knows a good deal when he’s offered one, and never one to turn down a damsel in distress, he’s drinking recycled coffee in Cara’s hallway by late afternoon....

The imaginations fuelling the story are fourth-grade children George and Harold (voiced by Kevin Hart and Thomas Middleditch), who break up the monotony of their life at the unusually austere Jerome Horwitz Elementary School by drawing comics, playing pranks and generally trying to make each other laugh. Recent DreamWorks outings such as Trolls and The Boss Baby have got experimental with animation techniques, but sort of gone through the motions with their stories and scripts, but Captain Underpants, which is actually the lowest budgeted movie in the studio’s history, is creative all over, from the characters to the techniques....

Charriere’s claims have been disputed for years (for one, there are apparently no records of him being incarcerated at Devil’s Island), but his story of survival in an environment that was inhumane beyond belief turned his books into best sellers. Now director Michael Noer has filmed a new version of Papillon, drawing from Charriere’s book, which stars Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy) as Charriere and Rami Malek (Mr. Robot) as Dega....

This episode, “I’m With the Contraband” was okay. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t that great. It was nice to see Tracy actually getting in on her brother’s scheme and not in a way that she’s exploiting him. It’s clear that Tracy was sort of meant to be the Sweet Dee of this show, but I think the writers found pretty quickly here what the writers of It’s Always Sunny found: having the one girl being the down-to-earth voice of reason, aside from being tediously stereotypical, is just boring and a drag....

Last week I joked that the NBC backlot might get some use when Chuck is deployed on his first solo mission to Paris, and I was almost right. Chuck never manages to escape from one location set, namely the same 747 interior that’s been in a million different movies and TV shows over the years. Having reviewed all the ‘Team Bartowski’ missions, Daniel decides that Sarah and Casey are actually holding Chuck back, and so, despite the protests of Sarah, he sends him off on his own to retrieve a special key....