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Unfortunately, one of the best things you could say about the first season of ’Til Death is that it’s consistently inconsistent. It’s sometimes boring, it’s sometimes sentimental. Occasionally it’s angry. From time to time, it’s even funny. That said, I have a hard time believing the back cover’s assertion that this sitcom is a “top rated comedy.”

Here’s the premise, which is hardly new to television. Eddie and Joy Stark (Brad Garrett and Joely Fisher) have been married 24 years and have settled into a period of their lives that could charitably be described as stable, but more honestly as a rut. They love each other, but they take each other for granted. The magic is gone. Unfortunately, there’s no chemistry, either.

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Most cartoons of the Saturday morning variety are written for kids and little else in mind, but every once in a while a show offers a little something extra. Pinky and the Brain is one such anomaly, providing plenty of great antics for kids, but even more for the grown-ups among us. It’s full of parodies and Hollywood in-jokes that a 10-year-old could simply never appreciate. Strangely, as a 24-year-old, I felt very much within the target audience.

The memorable Pinky and Brain mice started as supporting characters on the WB’s Animaniacs back in 1993, but quickly spun off onto their own show.

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I’ll admit it: I’m confused. JAG was on television for an unprecedented length of time, 10 seasons in fact, which puts it in the company of a lot of truly remarkable shows. The current popularity of serialization probably accentuates the challenge, but it seems especially difficult for good dramas these days to make it into the double-digits.

So imagine my surprise when I found out that even bad dramas can achieve the impossible, given the right set of circumstances.

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The Rat Patrol completely took me by surprise, mostly by virtue of the fact that I had no idea what I was in for. Before watching even one episode, I was already underestimating it in my head, imagining a program only slightly more serious than Hogan’s Heroes and confusing the title with the stupendously unrelated Rat Pack.

Boy, was I wrong. This series is tough-as-nails. The first episode of the second season opens with an action sequence that, in 1966, may have been comparable with Spielberg’s opening salvo in Saving Private Ryan.

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I guess you could call this the epitome of good, clean, wholesome children’s entertainment. It’s hard for me to accurately say just how it rates compared to other similar programs, since I haven’t seen anything like it for 15-20 years.

Unlike other cartoons intended for younger audiences, there’s not much here to appeal to grown-ups; it’s all kids-stuff, valuable lessons, and morality tales. While there’s certainly some fun in seeing our favourite Looney Tunes characters de-aged into toddlers, they don’t bear much recognition to their original selves.

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I came to the second season of The Closer with an interesting piece of baggage: I hadn’t seen the first season. And still haven’t. Seeing as I’m a bit of a completionist, this was initially driving me nuts. That said, by the time I finally gave the show a chance, I felt like I’d been in it my whole life.

The show’s premise is simple. Every police department hopes for one thing when working cases, and that’s a confession. To get one, you need somebody you can elicit it from a suspect, usually in an interview, and close the case before it ever goes to a courtroom.

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I am something of a news junky. For lack of anything better to do, I’ll routinely flip my television over to CNN for countless hours of 24/7 up-to-the-minute coverage. Of all the talk shows on the airwaves today, there is no match for the great Larry King. Oprah only wishes she were this good. The ladies on The View should bow down to Mr. King, who is so good at what he does that even his most famous guests seem to open up to him in ways they would normally know better than to do in front of a camera. Whether you’re looking for something light and funny, the hardest news story, or the insights into the most intriguing public figures in the world today, this DVD set is your one-stop shop.

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If I had to find one single word to completely encapsulate this show, and particularly its first season, it would be: Cute. No, wait … scratch that. Make it: Nauseauting.

Silver Spoons came a little before my time, which possibly explains why I have no real affection for it. Certainly I’m guilty of having fallen for a few nauseatingly cute shows of my own (say, Full House, to name but one). If I was 5-10 years older, I could have fallen for this, too.

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I am both the perfect person to be reviewing Babylon 5 and exactly the wrong person. Being an irrationally devoted fan of the series, it’s difficult for me to be objective about it. And it is therefore with this unique perspective that I sat down to watch this newest B5 release.

I expected to absolutely enjoy it. In my mind, if it was really great, than it was good … and if it was really mediocre, it would still be good on account of the fact that it had been so long since the last B5 movie. As it turns out, it was impossible for me to be as universally pleased as I’d anticipated.

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I don’t particularly like boxing, or wrestling for that matter. Martial arts don’t usually turn my crank either, so it’s a little inexplicable for me to be such a UFC fan. And yet, I am. Very much so.

This season introduces a lot of great new talent. Many of the competitors have crossed over from the show to the massively popular monthly pay-per-view events for which UFC has become famous. If you’re a fan of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), this set will offer you everything you could possibly ask for.

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Space Ghost & Dino Boy is the kind of show that seems as though it would carry with it a great deal of nostalgia. Its characters are memorable and its animation is characteristic of an era of cartooning long since gone. Unfortunately, since I missed the show’s heyday by a good 20 years, it’s impossible for me to join in on these fond memories.

To avoid uneccessary confusion, I’ll say that I certainly enjoyed the set. That having been said, it wasn’t without its problems. The stories are short and uninspired, at least by modern standards. Just about every Space Ghost segment (and I can’t think of any exceptions) ends with a deus ex machina moment in which the title character pulls himself out of a bad situation with a new ability or bit of gadgetry we were previously unfamiliar with. That, however, seems to be merely a part of the formula.

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There’s only one way to begin this review: I was prepared right from the get-go to absolutely hate this set. I could not imagine any scenario by which I would be able to get any enjoyment out of MTV’s My Super Sweet 16. So colour me surprised. It turns out there is some appeal in the show after all.

There can be no question that I’m nowhere near the show’s intended demographic (12-18 year old girls, if I had to guess it). Everywhere you look on the set you’re destined to find large amounts of loud, glossy pink lettering, whereas I’m more of a minimalist myself.

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Television today is littered with shows that burned bright but died quickly. In a time when networks are quick to cancel, it’s becoming more and more rare to see a show live out its full potential. Having just concluded its thirteenth season, with many more years on the horizon, ER has more than shown itself to be a proven commodity. It could very well be remembered as one of the most successful and longest-running series in the history of primetime television.

It certainly can’t be said that the sh…

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