Sunday will mark the end of the first half of the fourth season–seven new episodes (eight?) will air sometime in the spring of 2010, if the current scheduling holds. However, the new fall shows end this weekend.
This is probably my favorite show on TV right now, and somehow they’ve managed to really go to new places without losing the charm that made the show funny in the first place. For a while the program started getting a lot darker, and that was exhilarating rather than alienating.
Now, although the darkness remains, the show is also showing a lot more affection for its characters. Dean and Hank are still fumbling, but at least their fumbling seems to be heading somewhere (although we did foresee a rather cruel future for Dean this last weekend.*) More to the point, though, is the lightening up on their father, who’s also been kind of a complete jerk and dweeb.
[*As this future was seemingly avoided, though, it’s entirely possible that Dean will have a better one. Even so, it sounds unlikely that there will be future generations of Ventures.]Thadeus “Rusty” Venture has really shown some surprising growth over the last couple of seasons, starting with his finally starting to trust his deceased father’s judgment, and culminating in his rejection of a role as a supervillain adversary for his own annoyingly successful brother. He’s still kind of an ass most of the time, but rather less so, and not all the time. The program continues to push out in new directions–the most dangerous and controversial, I’m sure, is having Brock Sampson leave the Venture compound–and allowing the characters to grow in new ways, and for me there’s been nary a false step yet.
Beside, this last episode was very heavy on Dr. Orpheus, perhaps my favorite character on the show. And again, we saw some really different sides to him this time out, and the indications of a new direction for his daughter Triana (always kind of an underused character) look to be delightful.
Add in a ‘mythos’ (man, that word is starting to sound so pompous) that keeps expanding and deepening, and well, you end up with a show that, as I’ve observed in the past, seems to be written directly for me. Well, OK, I could personally use about 10 or 15% less ‘perverse sexuality’ humor. Other than that, though, it’s perfect.
More please.
