Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Comical

TigerBlog has now watched his first two episodes of "Modern Family." He thinks it has the potential to be pretty funny.

His impression of the first two episodes, at least, is that the characters are a bit stereotyped but the writing is pretty good.

Apparently it's hilarious. At least that's what people say.

And it won the Emmy for Best Comedy. Again. For the fourth straight year.

Can you name the last show to win the Emmy for Best Comedy five straight times? TB will give you a chance to think about that for a few paragraphs.

TB is willing to invest in "Modern Family" on one condition. He has to be able to watch the show out of sequence, since catching up means seeing the episodes in syndication, and they probably won't be shown in order.

This, by the way, is why "Law & Order" was so perfect. Miss a week? No problem. There were no carrying over storylines.

So back at the Best Comedy Emmy Awards, the last - and only - show ever to win the award more than the four times that "Modern Family" has done so is not one of TB's 10 favorite sitcoms ever. Might not even be in his top 20.

To prove it, here are 20 comedies that TB liked more than the one that won five Best Comedy Emmys (in no particular order):

"The Odd Couple," "Taxi," "All In The Family," "Get Smart," "Barney Miller," "Bob Newhart Show," "M*A*S*H," "Seinfeld," "Night Court," "Cheers," "Family Ties," "Friends," "Big Bang Theory," "Two And A Half Men," "The Wonder Years," "The Cosby Show," "Everybody Loves Raymond," "The Dick Van Dyke Show," "Married With Children" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."

That's 20 easily.

And none of them is "Frasier," the only five-time Emmy Award winner for Best Comedy and a show TB just never got into. He did like Frasier's character on "Cheers;" the spin-off never did it for him.

So TB is going to try the whole "Modern Family" thing and see if it works for him.

This weekend is also the start of Season 3 of "Homeland." If you've read TB for awhile, you know that he considers "Homeland" to be the greatest show in television history, even after only two runs of 12 episodes each. And he's not the only one to think this way.

And the next season starts Sunday night. And please, don't tell TB that "Breaking Bad" won Best Drama. It's not even close between those two shows.

By the time Princeton alum Carrie Mathison starts to sort out what happened with the car bomb that ended last season, her alma mater will have had two more teams begin their Ivy League seasons.

The women's volleyball team hosts Penn Friday night, one year after the teams split a pair of 3-2 matches.

Princeton finished tied with Columbia for second in the league last year, but it wasn't exactly close to first when the season ended. Yale was a perfect 14-0 in the league in 2012, while the Tigers and Lions were five games back.

In fact, Yale went 42-6 in games in Ivy matches a year ago and never lost more than one in any match. Princeton was one of the teams to take a game off of the Bulldogs last year.

Yale is again the favorite, though not as prohibitively as a year ago. Princeton is at Yale Oct. 12 and home with Yale Nov. 15, which means the race can take shape a little before those meetings.

The other Ivy opener is in women's soccer, as the Tigers host Yale Saturday at 4.

Princeton is 4-1-2 this year after going 14-4-1 last year, which included a 7-0-0 run through the league.

Tyler Lussi has been the answer to the question of "where would Jen Hoy's goals come from this year." Lussi has six of them in her first seven college games. In fact, Lussi has six of Princeton's 11 goals through seven games, including two in the Tigers' most recent game, a 3-1 win at Fordham Tuesday night.

The Ivy League women's soccer race figures to be really wide open. In fact, of the eight schools in the league, six are at above .500 and a seventh is at .500. And the one that's under .500 is Dartmouth, which figures to be right there at the end as well.

Penn is 4-0-2 to date and has two common opponents with Princeton, St Joe's (both beat the Hawks 1-0) and William & Mary (both tied).

The Ivy openers are just part of a very busy weekend schedule for Princeton Athletics.

And when it's over? Season 3 of "Homeland."

And a few "Modern Family" episodes before then.

TB will give it a chance.

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