It’s season finale, um, season

By Hoang-Mai Hong

If there’s one thing university got right, it’s the timing of our summer break. With exams ending in the last week of April, TV aficionados, general slack-abouts and procrastinators with cable everywhere can fully indulge in the last month or so of delicious programming TV-land has to offer before going on break themselves. This year’s offerings are overflowing with awesomeness, thanks to a great decline in crappy reality TV and an increase in slightly more cerebral and compelling fare. When exams finish this year, any schedule can easily be filled by brilliant stuff on the idiot box:

Monday

Prison Break: In a recent plot twist, we found out the vice-prez’s douche bag brother–who was ‘murdered’ by Lincoln Burrows, currently delayed from his death sentence for this supposed crime–is in fact alive. Also, Dr. Sara was found to be a former junkie and Wentworth Miller continues to look dreamy. Word is, at the end of the season, they will indeed finally break out. If this doesn’t happen, let’s hope, at the very least, a swift death will come to T-Bag, the one guy who actually seems to deserve the death sentence in this drama.

24: It is, as they say on the adverts, the most intense hour on television. So far Jack Bauer, all ballsy and crazy-awesome, has endured possibly the worst five days by any man ever. There is nothing this show won’t do to make you go ‘Oh, holy shit!,’ including killing every beloved character, even Bauer himself. How this season ends is anyone’s guess. The president could turn out to be a robot employed by terrorists, for all we know.

Tuesday

Scrubs: This show is consistently good on so many levels. It can be utterly lighthearted, with its silly and mostly innocent gags, then be completely serious and poignant. Resident Dr. JD is still struggling in his love life and is due for a serious love interest after stumbling in the dating world for so long. Where he has failed we have delighted, giving us gems in episodes such as “My Half Acre,” where he and Mandy Moore play wizards and pose on a unicorn. Dr. Cox also never fails with his curmudgeonly and classic quips, continuing to prove in a super verbal battle of curmudgeonly doctors, he would totally make House cry.

Wednesday

Lost: Seriously, anybody not watching this show is basically missing out on the best thing in the universe ever. Like 24, just about anything can happen by season’s end and the season finale is set at a good two hours of masochistic confusion. Before the end of May, Kate and Jack will hook up, we’ll have a Locke and Eko flashback story, which is like the pairing up of any two awesome superheroes you could ever want, and we’ll get answers.

Thursday

My Name is Earl and The Office: Neither show really needs to be followed obsessively, but why wouldn’t you keep watching when comedy is this good? The Office started out with high expectations because the superb British version and has so far lived up to them, thanks to Steve Carrell’s success with The 40 Year Old Virgin. My Name is Earl is another show, like Scrubs, with a bit of heart, making it a comedy worth watching. The premise of a reforming trailer trash thief and his ongoing list of wrongs he has to undo allows for many more hilarious and absurd stories to come.

Friday

There’s nothing worth watching Friday nights. Go out and have a social life.

Saturday

Hockey Night in Canada: The playoffs are where our early summer break comes in extra handy. We can all actually enjoy them, go out, and imbibe excessively sans guilt and sans papers to write! HNIC only gets better during playoffs, too. Not only do the games get more intense, but Don Cherry gets crazier and more senile with every year the Leafs don’t win the cup, which will include this one. What’s more, HNIC finally features other Canadian teams because of the Leafs’ incompetence. Huzzah! GO, FLAMES, GO!

Sunday

Grey’s Anatomy: It’s pretty ironic how this show was scheduled after Desperate Housewives to boost viewership and now DH is bombing and getting ‘desperate’ with its plot twists. Grey’s Anatomy, however, just gets better and better, with pristine scriptwriting and storytelling, not to mention a ridiculously attractive but talented cast. The medical cases have been incredibly over the top, like two people impaled on a pole in a bus accident, one’s old, one’s young, and only one can live, or a live bomb inside a patient, or a championship spelling-bee kid getting operated on while still conscious and spelling his heart out. It’s all well executed, of course, but somehow all the compelling medical drama takes a backseat to the crazy hot doctors, recurring heart patients, and their soap-operatic stories.