Flight of the Conchords: That was all there was

It seemed pretty clear that the season two finale of "Flight of the Conchords" was Bret and Jemaine's way of saying goodbye to a show that was fun but had probably run its course. (Or, at the very least, that would require an incredibly long hiatus between seasons so they could build up a backlog of songs.) And after a lot of speculation, the guys finally made that official today with this announcement on their website:

Bret, Jemaine and James (co-creator/director) said �we�ve noticed the less we say about the future of the show, the more people want to talk about it, so in an effort to reverse this trend we are today announcing that we won�t be returning for a 3rd season. We�re very proud of the two seasons we made and we like the way the show ended. We�d like to thank everyone who helped make the show and also everyone who watched it. While the characters Bret and Jemaine will no longer be around, the real Bret and Jemaine will continue to exist.

That's all, folks. It was fun while it lasted. Better they go out relatively on top than to keep doing the show with ever-diminishing returns, at least in terms of the songs.

Flight of the Conchords, "Evicted": Is that all there is?

Spoilers for the season -- and maybe series -- finale of "Flight of the Conchords" coming up just as soon as I use my calculator watch...

"Is it a hit?" -Jemaine
"It depends how you define 'hit.'" -Murray
"Do people like it?" -Bret
"No, I don't think it was that sort of it. But you enjoyed yourselves, right? That's what it's really about." -Murray

I spent a whole lot of "Evicted" trying to parse it for clues about which way the Conchords were leaning about continuing with the show. And when we got to that extremely meta exchange, followed by the guys deported back to a New Zealand sheep ranch (and Murray either deported as well, or simply joining them because he has to keep managing the band), I assumed that this was their farewell.

Then I thought back to season one, which ended with the band more or less disintegrating in the wake of the Crazy Dogggz becoming an international phenomenon. That also could have worked as a series finale, but the show came back.

Now, HBO keeps saying no decision has been made, and the guys and James Bobin have been pretty mum on the subject. And the way HBO works with other shows like "Curb Your Enthusiasm," we may not know there's going to be another season until it's announced, maybe months or even years from now.

And I'm ambivalent about whether I want the show to continue.

In some ways, season two has been even better than season one. I think they've had a better handle on what they want the show to be, comedy-wise, they've made more and better use of the supporting players. And even when the songs weren't that memorable, the quality of the videos was significantly higher.

On the other hand, the songs were, for the most part, less memorable. And now that they've dipped even deeper into what's left of the back catalog -- they finally found a way to work in "Petrov, Yelyena and Me" by making it a nautical nightmare of Bret's -- I wonder what the songs would be like for a hypothetical third season.

I love this show. I'm very happy I got to watch it for two seasons. I'd probably be very happy to watch it for two or three more. But there's certainly something to be said for the idea of walking away before the law of diminishing returns kicks in.

Some specific thoughts on "Evicted":

• I loved every little detail of Murray's musical about the band, from his brief attempt to turn Bret's life into Luke Skywalker's (complete with Greg building a model Landspeeder) to the incredibly literal lyrics that lacked any of the charm or wit of actual Conchords songs.

• A great episode for Mel -- and and for Doug, for that matter -- as the problems in their marriage finally came to a head, then got solved when Mel got to glimpse Doug performing on stage with her beloved band. My favorite part of the break-up montage: Doug reverting to his hard-partying ways once he and Jemaine had moved into the RV. (Mel, of course, gets to keep the house, even though I'm sure it was Doug's.)

• If this is, indeed, farewell, Dave also got a few nice moments, once again trying to make his living situation seem vastly cooler than it is, then turning up as the Statue of Liberty and more or less getting the lyrics right.

So, three questions for discussion:

1. Do you want the show to continue?

2. If it doesn't, do you feel this was a fitting ending?

3. Favorite moments/songs/jokes/whatever from the two seasons so far?

What did everybody else think?

Flight of the Conchords, "Wingmen": Freak attack

Spoilers for last night's "Flight of the Conchords" coming up just as soon as I purchase a kilt, a bottle of Southern Comfort, and a Chris Isaak CD...

"I saw it on a sitcom." -Bret
"Did it work on the sitcom?" -Jemaine
"Not completely. But this is real, so I think I have a better chance." -Bret

This is a dangerous game that clever comedy writers sometimes play, this idea that if they take a standard plot device from traditional, mediocre sitcoms, they can improve upon it -- or, at least, can get away with using it by having the characters reference the fact that it's a bad sitcom plot. Sometimes, it works. More often, you just wind up making a bad sitcom yourself. And that's basically what "Wingmen" was. Because it takes place in the "Conchords" universe where the logic isn't quite normal, there were amusing little touches, like Dave's secret surveillance gear turning out to be a pair of walkie-talkies, or Mel giving Bret advice on how to stalk the pet shop girl, but too much of it was every bit as predictable and lame as the equivalent episode of "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" would have been.

Because of that, "Wingmen" turned out as the mirror opposite of most of "Conchords" season two. Instead of having great jokes holding up forgettable songs, we had a couple of great songs (really, one good one and one great one) compensating for some underwhelming comedy.

When I saw the Conchords in concert last year, the two songs that really stuck out to me were "Carol Brown" (used brilliantly in "Unnatural Love") and "I Told You I Was Freekie," which I knew they were going to do something awesome with when it became a music video. The final version didn't disappoint, particularly when it ended, Jemaine came home and discovered Savannah painted as wallpaper and Bret covered in honey-money. There's always this question of how much some of the music videos bleed into reality -- in season one's "Mugged" (which introduced John the mugger, making his not-so-triumphant return here), when Bret and Jemaine finish "Rhymenoceros Hiphopopotamus," John asks, "Are you guys dancing a little bit?" -- and I liked discovering that not only had Bret told Savannah about all these fetishes, but that she was, like Coco, into it.

"Bret's Day" was interesting not only as an unexpected Billy Joel soundalike (seriously, play it alongside "Piano Man"), but for being presented relatively unadorned. Just Bret singing and playing as he walks through the apartment, punctuated occasionally by spoken complaints from Jemaine (before Jemaine gets into the spirit and picks up his bass). There are times when the video production winds up overshadowing the songs -- and/or times when the songs need the overshadowing -- but it was nice to hear a simple and clever story-song without outside distractions. It more or less played out the way it would have in one of their stage shows.

Now, this may be the next-to-last "Conchords" episode ever. HBO hasn't decided on a third season, and I'm not sure if the guys would want to keep going. The nature of the show -- writing original comedy, original songs, and filming one or two music videos per week -- gives it one of the higher degrees of difficulty in the TV business, and I could imagine Bret and Jemaine wanting to quit while they're ahead. It would make me sad, but I would understand.

What did everybody else think?

Flight of the Conchords, "NewZealandTown": Murray with no Maori, Mel with no gel

Brief spoilers for last night's "Flight of the Conchords" coming up just as soon as I live up to my ancestral legacy by shearing a sheep...

"Forget it, Brian. It's NewZealandTown."

"NewZealandTown" wasn't as consistently funny as last week's introduction of Prime Minister Brian(*), but the passage towards the end with Bret and Jemaine holed up in their apartment, fiending for any kind of hair-styling product as if they were character on "The Wire," was explosively hilarious enough to make up for some slow spots elsewhere in the episode. And the homage to "Chinatown" at the end, with Lucy Lawless walking off as the crane pulled up to show poor Brian alone in this ever-changing world of moral decay, was quite brilliant.

(*) Is it Brian or Bryan? Actor's name is with an I, but the hand-drawn poster was with a Y. Was the Y the error he said he needed to fix?

What I found interesting was that, unless my brain still hasn't properly adjusted to Daylight Savings Time, we only got one proper music video this week, with the totally '80s "Fashion Is Danger." (That song, by the way, felt like a case of the guys doing too good a job of recreating the thing they were spoofing.) We heard snippets of other songs, but they were all things they've played before. With all the discussion we've had this season about whether Bret and Jemaine can keep cranking out funny songs as easily as they and the other writers can keep cranking out funny comedy, maybe one video per episode is a smarter pace, unless great inspiration strikes them in a given week.

What did everybody else think?

Flight of the Conchords, "Prime Minister": It is a country. Yes, it is.

Spoilers for last night's "Flight of the Conchords" coming up just as soon as I load up my briefcase with cheeses...

"How's the environment going? Well, can we clean it up a bit? Well, I don't know. Just get some of your cousins together and clean it up a bit." -Brian (prime minister of New Zealand)

At this point, I think we have to consider "Unnatural Love" to be the anomaly of season two as the only episode where the show was firing on all thrusters musically and comedically. But if the two songs in "Prime Minister" (not counting the guys' wretched "Scarborough Fair" cover) were forgettable, this was a really funny half-hour, and if forced to choose between a memorable song or good jokes, I'll choose the latter.

After loading up on every negative Aussie stereotype with "Unnatural Love," "Prime Minister" gets back to the self-deprecating humor about New Zealand, where the prime minister (played by veteran Kiwi actor Brian Sergent) turns out to be just as ineffectual and clueless as Murray. He lugs around his own suitcase (not even one with wheels!), has no security detail, believes in The Matrix (leading to the hilarious deja vu/glitch/multiple Elton Johns joke at the episode's end) and apparently is leader of a country with only one gun. Very silly, very laid-back, and very "Conchords."

Jemaine's creepy romance with Mary Lynn Rajskub as an obsessive Art Garfunkel fan was a bit more predictable, but was buoyed by Mel's involvement -- when Mel calls another woman crazy, you listen -- by the cameo by the actual Art Garfunkel at the end, and then by the outtake over the closing credits with Bret (now dressed as the '80s Paul Simon) working with a group of backup singers who were either Ladysmith Black Mambazo themselves or (in keeping with the story's theme) a troupe of Ladysmith Black Mambazo impersonators. I wish Patton Oswalt had gotten more to do as the lead Elton John impersonator, but you can't have everything.

Even if the music hasn't been up to snuff (and the lyrics of Bret's karaoke song were funny, even if the song itself was forgettable), I'm disappointed that there are only three episodes left in this abbreviated 10-episode season. Maybe I'll have to plan a trip to New Zealand to get over it. According to Murray's latest poster, it's only 18 hours away.

What did everybody else think?

Flight of the Conchords, "Love Is the Weapon of Choice": Brahbrah in the house

Spoilers for last night's "Flight of the Conchords" coming up just as soon as I go to jazzercise class...

Last week's episode was about as perfect as "Conchords" gets, with a very funny storyline balanced by two catchy songs with memorable music videos(*). "Unnatural Love" was going to be a tough act to follow under any circumstances, so I suppose I should be glad that last night's show was still relatively amusing and had some good videos. (The video for the title tune had a real Queen circa 1982 vibe to it.) But it was very inconsistent and the songs themselves have already completely vanished from my head.

(*) I may need an intervention to stop watching those two on YouTube. In particular, ever since a commenter last week pointed out that the cowboy from The Village People is leading the conga line in "Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor," it's become this huge obsession of mine. It very well could lead to divorce, and the only thing saving me is that my wife keeps humming the tune from "Carol Brown." In fact, I just watched "Too Many Dicks" again after I went to get the proper link. Dammit.

I like Kristen Wiig a lot, even though I think "SNL" is now leaning on her so heavily that it's diluting a lot of what makes her funny. My problem with the episode is that the writing tried to have it both ways with Brahbrah(**), who at times was just as crazy as all the regulars in Conchords world, and who at other times was supposed to be the straight man who pointed out how bizarrely Bret and Jemaine were acting in their attempts to seduce her. The insanity -- like the various photos of Charlie the dog in disguise, and her unexpected explanations for each one (gourd party?)-- plays to Wiig's strengths, and I'd have preferred if they went entirely in that direction. Instead, it felt awkward whenever she was relatively sane and questioning why Jemaine suddenly had a beard.

(**) After she confirmed the pronunciation of her name, I went back to the beginning of the episode to check how she said it there, and it's impossible to tell. Probably why Barbara was a good name to goof on.

On the other hand, I thought it was a wonderful touch that Murray, for all his obliviousness -- he's a band manager who doesn't understand the concept of backing tracks -- was the one to cut through all the posturing and explain to Brahbrah what the guys were up to. It's those rare and unexpected moments of insight from the main characters that makes their eccentricities work. I know that seems contradictory to my complaint about Brahbrah, but the rules are different for ongoing characters versus one-offs.

Also, maybe I just wasn't paying close enough attention, but I hadn't realized there were a lot of dogs (epileptic dogs, at that) in the audience for the benefit, and so the joke about the strobe light giving them all seizures took me too long to process for me to laugh at it. I'll blame that one on Oscar fatigue, though.

What did everybody else think?

Flight of the Conchords, "Unnatural Love": Crikey!

Spoilers for last night's "Flight of the Conchords" coming up just as soon as I squint my ears...

"Big J, you couldn't get more Australian than me." -Keitha

After spending the early weeks of season two debating whether the show's comedy had far outstripped its music, "Unnatural Love" gives us both aspects of Conchords World functioning at peak level.

The comedy was a delight as usual, with Jemaine's new girlfriend Keitha serving as a hilarious amalgamation of Aussie stereotypes (ancestors were a rapist and a prostitute, aggressive and slovenly, makes Jemaine start dressing like Steve Irwin, given to crude sayings like going to the bathroom to "murder a brown snake") and her presence bringing out an unexpected judgmental side in Bret. I knew Murray would be horrified by Jemaine dating one of those hated Australians, but seeing Bret reduced to leaving fake break-up messages on the answering machine? Not a side I was prepared for, but a very funny one.

(And I loved that, in that scene, they continued the running gag about Bret's weird, unnecessary fashion inventions, in which he follows up the bike helmet that looks like his own hairdo with a pair of gloves that look like his own hands.)

But the strength of the songs -- and the videos accompanying them -- were what really elevated "Unnatural Love" above the other episodes of season two, and reminded me just how important the music is to making this show special.

In case you missed the credits, this one was directed by Michel Gondry. He's best known these days for eccentric movies like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "Be Kind Rewind," but before that, he was a prolific, revolutionary music video director (here's his video for Bjork's "Army of Me"), and his vibe fit wonderfully with the Conchords. "Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor" would be a highlight many weeks, but the "Carol Brown" video was perfection, from the digital projections to Bret and Jemaine using mixing boards tricked out as guitars, to Bret's pointless funky dancing. It's not as up-tempo and joyous as some of the other Conchords songs I love, but the marriage of the music and visuals felt so right that I imagine I won't be deleting this one from the DVR anytime soon.

What did everybody else think?

Flight of the Conchords: An interview

A couple of weeks ago, I interviewed "Flight of the Conchords" stars Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, plus executive producer James Bobin. I didn't get a chance to post the transcript until now, in part because I was afraid to start transcribing it. Between Bret and Jemaine's New Zealand accents (which can be thicker in real life than on the show) and the odd way that Bret and James sound alike on the phone, even though one's from New Zealand and one's from England, I was afraid I wouldn't understand half of it, and would mis-attribute the rest.

But eventually I did it (though there were a couple of exchanges I couldn't decipher), and rather than risk getting further behind while waiting to write a review of the latest episode (it's been one of those weeks), I thought I'd just post the interview in lieu of a review. Feel free to discuss both the interview and the episode, and if I have any specific thoughts on it, I'll post them in the comments one of these days.

So, the key should be obvious: the stuff in bold and italics is from me, B is Bret, J is Jemaine, and JB is James Bobin. I feel reasonably confident that I was able to differentiate between Bret and James, but if I screwed up, I apologize to both gentlemen. The interview was conducted the morning after "The New Cup" aired, and so we talked about that quite a bit. I believe one of the upcoming plot points they hinted at was for tonight's episode.

Anyway, here we go...

I had the good fortune to see one of your Town Hall shows a few months back, and it was really striking to me how much the audience tried to involve themselves in it.

J: You mean the one where they put things on stage?

Yeah, the one where they put things on stage and there was the one woman in the audience who viewed the entire concert as an excuse to get a date with Jemaine.

B: That actually was a date.
J: I was taking her out.
B: They met on the Internet.

So much of what you guys do, in the TV show and on stage, depends on the timing of the interplay between the two of you. As you become more popular and the audience becomes more exuberant, does that cause problems?

B: They ruin it. They take out all the fun. No, it really changes the dynamic of the (stage) show. We realized last year it had changed and we don't think it's going to change back, unless we start touring countries in Eastern Europe. It's just a new environment, working on jokes that play along with the audience who know our stuff more.

How long ago did you start writing the musical material for this season, and was it before the scripts were written or was it done in conjunction?

B: We wrote a lot of it before the first season and we saved it up.

Really? Because when I talked to you during the first season, you said you had exhausted virtually all your material.

J: One of them is a lie.
B: One of us is a liar.
J: One of us only speaks the truth.
J: No, we wrote some about a year ago.
JB: Some are pre-existing.
J: We had some left over. Not a lot, and still we have some left over.
B: But a bunch of them we wrote as we wrote scripts this year.

Well, last season you were able to say, "Here's 'Rhymenoceros,' let's come up with a story where we can work that in." This year was it more, "Maybe we'll do an episode about this and then we'll write a song about Jemaine's sugar lumps"?

JB: I like to have songs which aren't necessarily due to storylines, if we can have them as well.
J: I hate (indecipherable Kiwi-accented moment). I like the songs to relate to the stories.
JB: I'm saying I like songs we can then work stories around. I like doing both, basically. I like the idea of having songs that come from the story and I also like the idea of having stories from songs. You can do both. That's the ideal world, I think.

Has it been harder, though? You did have this existing backlog of material going into the first season. You basically had to start from scratch for this.

J: We thought it would be harder, but actually it was easier. We could start off on stories, mostly the story ideas that we liked, and then we could write songs into them. We weren't beholden to our songs to come up with episode ideas.
B: Yeah, last year I don't think we wrote as many new songs because we were more cautious.
J: When we had time off, we were writing songs. We write mostly love songs, so then we have to do a certain amount of episodes that are about having a girlfriend -- which is a subject matter that's been done a lot.
B: By us.
J: Us, even.

Let's just take the episode that aired last night as an example, "The New Cup." There are two songs, I think: "Sugar Lumps" and then Bret trying to tell Jemaine that he doesn't have to be a prostitute. In what order did you come up with the ideas for all of that?

J: That was a song idea first, and then a tune, and then an episode. I had the idea for that song, the prostitute song, years ago, but I didn't really know how we could make it funny. But having a show, we could have a context in which it would be funny. I just wanted to have an idea of telling someone not to be a prostitute, but we didn't really think of making me the subject of the song.
JB: But also, Sugar Lumps, that was a song first, if I remember correctly.
J: We had an idea for a song. We just hadn't written it.

I like how the logic in the Conchords universe is bizarre and it goes from the $2.79 cup to you being a prostitute.

B: Thank you.
J: Good memory for prices.

I've only seen the first three of this season, but it does seem like there's more confidence in embracing that odd logic, of both the universe and the way the characters behave, than there was last year. And it seems more overtly farcical. Would you say that's something you were trying to do?

J: I don't want to hog all the answers, but last year, like many shows starting out, we weren't absolutely sure of the tone.
JB: The familiarity with it, you can explore it more fully. The more you learn, the more confident you get about what works and what doesn't work. And also, we liked the idea of evolving the characters more, and we're lucky to have actors like Rhys and Kristen and Arj, and they've really come on this year. So, for us, it was about fleshing that out, the world of the Conchords.
J: Also, last year, when we were creating the show, James, Bret and I have similar senses of humor, but they're not the same. So a lot of the discussion last year was in the tone, and we all had slightly different ideas. That sort of comes out in the first season -- it varies tonally. Whereas after we completed a whole season, we knew what the tone is, and it's a mixture of all our senses of humor together. Where discussion might have come up every episode last year, what we were heading for, this year, it didn't come up once, because we know what we like about the show now.

Even the songs seem to becoming more democratic this year. Murray sings fairly regularly, even Dave and Mel have sung in a few of the songs.

JB: We like that. We liked Murray singing "Leggy Blonde" last year and we wanted to explore that a little further, to see what other characters having going on in their heads.

The show isn't necessarily story-driven, but what are some of the plots that are coming up?

JB: Jemaine goes out with an Australian.

Uh-oh.

J: Yeah.
JB: Murray suggests being friends.
J: He wants to change the nature of his relationship with us.
B: Wants it to be more of a personal relationship.
JB: The prime minister of New Zealand comes to visit, and Murray is appointed his aide. What other ones are coming up?
J: These sound like blurbs out of the TV guide.
JB: I'm really making them sound boring.

Well, if you were to describe last night's, you would say "Bret buys a new cup," and that wouldn't really capture what the episode was.

B: That's right. That's why people clicking through the TiVo might go, "Oh, that doesn't sound very good."
JB: We can give you a sentence saying what happens, but a lot of stuff happens.
J: Jokes work in two ways --
B: Either they do or they don't.
J: Either you surprise people by delivering what they don't expect or you deliver what they expect and they get satisfaction out of that. If they read it beforehand, neither of those ways is going to work.
JB: It's quite hard describing the show without giving away the jokes. Last year, we gave the episodes titles that gave away the story. They were working titles.
B: They were titles to remind us what the story was about.
J: That was very useful, but then they stuck on the Internet and we were stuck with them.

The first season ended, then there was the writers strike, which would have prevented you from coming back right away. Was there any temptation to say, "Well, we did this year, people really seemed to like it, maybe we should quit while we're ahead," or did you definitely want to go full-steam with this season?

J: We definitely thought of quitting. Well, I did. I wasn't supposed to answer that.
B: I thought about quitting. I tried. There was also a contractual thing.
JB: it's a good question.
J: Bret and I never agreed to do a second season. I'm not joking. They never asked us. They just assumed we were doing it. Even though we filmed it all, I like to think I can quit and say, "I never said I would do it."
B: We're too polite to say no.

Obviously, the two of you have different personalities, especially in real life. But on the show, it's kind of gradations of it. How do you decide in stories who's going to do what? Like, Jemaine's going to be eager to be a prostitute and Bret won't want to?

B: We thought it would be funnier if Jemaine was a prostitute. It seems too real if I'm a prostitute.
J: Also, in season one, Bret wouldn't like to do nudity. But he's come around this season.
B: I take my shirt off.
JB: Generally, it's fairly obvious which character would be funnier in which role. Sometimes, you set out with one idea in mind and then you switch it around and it's funnier.
J: that's unusual in that I thought of that idea, and I'm the focus of the prostitute story, but usually we suggest the other one. If it's me and Bret, all my ideas are "Bret does this and Bret does this," and Bret's ideas are all "Jemaine does this and Jemaine does this," because we don't want to do it (ourselves).
B: Last year, I got a lot of girls. This year, we switched that 'round. Jemaine gets the girls.
J: I was away for a week, so there's more storylines with me. Bret was away some of the time last year doing some band stuff when we were coming up with stories, so he got the girls.

One of the things I've always liked about the show is you go into these odd corners of New York, and they always look very memorable and yet I've never stumbled across any of them. Is somebody in the production a big fan of New York architecture, like the bandshells?

JB: Me. I'm a fan of (Robert) Moses' work in New York. I also love history, and I also love New York. So I spend a lot of time finding interesting places to put boring conversations.
B: The locations manager, Diego Prange, works hard to give it that grounding in this real place. We're quite surreal sometimes, but if you set it in a real place, it helps ground the humor.
J: Also, we get to definitely show a different part of New York than you see in most movies and films. I was watching "Hellboy 2" last night, and it's definitely a different part of New York than in our show.
JB: To me, that's a very believable, realistic part of New York. If you're in an unsuccessful band and you're not making any money, you could live a life very much like Bret and Jemaine.
J: When we started the show, Bret and I had hardly been in America, and I don't think you had spent much time in New York, James. We were just guessing what it was like to live in America when we started. Some of it was based on TV.

In the third episode, when Bret disses the other rappers, there's a reference to New Zealand having one other rapper named Steve. And as I recall, in "Rhymenoceros," there's also a reference to a Steve. Is there an actual rapping Steve in New Zealand? Is he a friend of yours?

B: You should check out Steve the rapper.
JB: He's from Dunedin.
B: There isn't one that I know of, but maybe there is now.
JB: There's actually a very flourishing rap scene in New Zealand.
B: But there isn't anybody named Steve.
J: I think he'd have a better rap name than Steve.

How do you think the show has changed the relationship between New Zealand and Australia?

J: Now a lot of Americans who have never been to australia say to us, "Australia sucks?"
JB: Is that a good thing?
B: We're helping.

Now that you're a bit more famous, is there a bit more sucking up from Australia?

J: Some of our first success was in Australia. The Melbourne Comedy festival was one of the first places we played.

And this is how you pay them back. I understand.

JB: I think they quite like it, actually.
J: They like to be mentioned.
JB: I don't think New Zealand gets a very good representation on the show, either.
B: Or America.

I want to get back to the songwriting. You say that, for the most part, it was easier because you could start fresh on it.

J: We were worried when we started.

You were worried?

J: Yes. You probably read an interview where we said we were worried, because we're very honest in our interviews. It was kind of fun.

Is there any temptation to say, "We don't necessarily have to have two to three songs in an episode, because we've gotten quite good at the comedy part of it"?

B: There's definitely a temptation to not have three songs.
JB: For me, the comedy around the songs is obviously quite important. I like to flatter myself to think the show could exist without songs.
J: Again, we have a different opinion. If it was up to me, we'd only have one song.

Flight of the Conchords, "A Good Opportunity": Sing out, Murray!

Brief spoilers for the "Flight of the Conchords" season two premiere coming up just as soon as I weave some pants...

I'm burnt-out from press tour, and I made my point about the good comedy/weak songwriting aspect to these early episodes in Thursday's column, so I'm just going to go straight to the predictable bullet point list of the things I found especially funny in the premiere, and then you guys can talk about the rest:

• Murray, unable to curse, tells the guys "Stuff you!," followed by Jemaine complaining "Why did I get double-stuffed?"

• While Murray's opera was kind of forgettable, the first few moments when I realized he would be singing (or lip-syncing) opera was quite lovely

• Dave's story of the women on the plane, followed by him acknowledging that he knows actual women "pretty much"

• Dave's proof of his amazing deal-making prowess is a macrame owl

• Mel seems far more abusive to poor Doug this year, with the hog noises and her complaining, "Why did you come, Doug, if you didn't want to light a fire?"

• "I'm persona non-regatta, you know what that means?" "You're not at a yacht race?"

• The wonderful look of relief on Rhys Darby's face when Murray realizes that nobody noticed that he quit -- and also all that says about how non-essential Murray is to the consulate's operations

What did everybody else think?

andreikirilenkotattoo on TV: 'Flight of the Conchords' & 'Big Love' reviews

In today's column, I talk about how season two of "Flight of the Conchords" is still very strong on the comedy front but a bit lacking in the songs, and how going into season three, I really wish "Big Love" would just focus on Bill's wives and spend a lot less time on Juniper Creek and Bill himself.

Flight of the Conchords in concert review

As mentioned last night, I got to go see Flight of the Conchords play the second and final night of the New York stop on their American tour. Enough people asked for a review that I'll offer up some thoughts just as soon as I plan a New Zealand vacation, because, hey, why not?

The signature moment of the show came after Bret and Jemaine had finished their first song ("Inner-City Pressure") and were trying to figure out what to play next, as we were all witness to the following exchange:

Screaming audience member: "WHERE'S MURRAY?"
Bret (not missing a beat): "He's not here."
(Huge laughter from the audience, and, as it died down...)
Jemaine: "He's not real."

With that one-two punch, the following ground-rules were established:

• These were not the TV versions of Bret and Jemaine, though they looked the same and sang many of the same songs. These were two sharp, wickedly funny guys who were quick on their feet.
• The audience decided that they were now officially a part of the show, and would spend much of the evening -- usually, but not always, confined to those breaks between songs -- shouting out song requests (including, inevitably, the tool who called for "Freebird"), throwing the guys presents or trying to sexually proposition Jemaine.

Now, there were some pluses to the audience participation element. Early on, someone asked them to sing "Sello Tape." The guys nervously admitted they hadn't played it in close to two years (the version from the show was recorded months before filming even began) and were afraid of screwing it up, but with lots of encouraging applause, they launched into it perfectly, even nailing the between-verses banter (a story about working in a box factory with Bryan Adams and Phil Collins) without any obvious hitches. There were also some guys in the front row who brought their own props for the band to incorporate into the show: for "The Humans Are Dead," they gave Jemaine a bunch of toy robots; during "Albi the Racist Dragon," they threw jellybeans on the stage at the appropriate point in the lyrics; and during the encore-closing performance of "Bowie," they threw Bret an eyepatch (an homage to the episode where they sang "Bowie"), which he happily put on for the song's second half. Bret even joked at one point that those fans put more effort into the show than he and Jemaine had.

The downside of the "Rocky Horror"-ization was typified by the woman with the booming voice who decided the evening's sole purpose was for her to have a running conversation (from wherever her seat was, either in the back rows or the balcony) with Jemaine. When he sang a new song about all his ex-girlfriends, she called out that she would never hurt him like that, and she kept injecting herself into the show without somehow being removed by security. Though Bret and Jemaine seemed amused by all the audience call-outs at first, there came a point where they got tired of it, and Jemaine had to start flirtatiously shushing the crowd whenever it got too rowdy.

(One blog account of the show says he even held up the setlist at one point and said that it didn't include "Audience talks with FOTC" on it, but if he did, I didn't catch it; either my hearing's going, or they weren't mic'ed properly, because there were several points in the show, usually on the songs that I didn't know, where I had a hard time understanding the words coming out of their Kiwi mouths.)

But even with the audience getting over-involved, the guys put on a terrific show. Todd Barry, who played third Conchord/Crazy Dogggz frontman Todd in the first season finale, was the opening act and was dryly funny. (His best moment also came from a loud audience member, who warned him not to mock his home state when Barry began a joke about Alabama -- a joke that turned out to be entirely about how northeast liberals automatically assume the worst about places like Alabama. Barry let the guy have it for undercutting the whole point of the gag.) He also came out to play bongos on a performance of "Business Time," sitting in Jemaine's chair while Jemaine perched himself on the edge of the stage.

They performed most of my favorite songs from the show ("Bret, You've Got It Going On" was missing, though I hear they did it the night before), including "Hiphopopotamus" (done back-to-back with "Mother 'Uckers," even though Bret admitted they're basically the same song, musically), and "If You're Into It," in addition to the ones mentioned above. They also did "Jenny" (which I'm guessing they still haven't figured out how to work into the show), plus several new songs, the highlight of which was "I Told You I Was Freaky," which is either going to be the funniest or most disturbing video they ever do on the show. Perhaps inspired by fellow Crazy Dogggz member Demetri, they've worked a keytar into the act, and Bret at one point leapt into the audience for an extended keytar solo.

Though there was a lot of noodling around between songs (which no doubt encouraged people to yell out suggestions), and the banter was a mixture of them being in character (Bret discussing his desire for children) and responding to things happening around them (Bret's chair was dangerously wobbly, and after joking about suing Town Hall, he played one of the final songs while tipping back on only two chair legs while he balanced himself with a foot on the sound board).

Lots and lots of fun, and if tickets are still available at a theater near you, I highly recommend it. You can see photos of the show at brooklynvegan

My lyrics are bottomless!

Any thoughts on tonight's "American Idol" elimination show are going to have to wait until early tomorrow, as I'm going out tonight to see Flight of the Conchords -- the mother-flippin' Rhymenoceros and the mother-flippin' Hiphopopotomus -- in concert. To apologize in advance for abandoning my post to go see Bret and Jemaine rock Town Hall, please enjoy the following YouTube links to some of my favorite "Flight of the Conchords" season one moments:

• The aforementioned Rhymenoceros rap
• Jemaine tells Bret that he's got it goin' on
• Bret serenades Coco with an offer of things she might be into
• Dave teaches Bret and Jemaine about flipping the bird
• Bret's angry dance
• Murray sings an ode to the leggy blonde
• Albi the Racist Dragon
• Bret and Jemaine explain ways in which love is similar to tape
• Coco is so hot she makes Bret sexist

There's many more, but that's what the Related Videos bar is for. Enjoy.

Flight of the Conchords: Gotta cut loose

Just got back from a Labor Day weekend full of water, both salty (final summer trip to the beach) and chlorine-y (final day for the year of the town pool). Tomorrow's my daughter's fourth birthday, and I'm in such a good mood thinking about our plans for it that I don't think I'll be able to bring myself to watch "Entourage" for a few more days. (UPDATE: The comments have digressed into an "Entourage" discussion; feel free to keep that going, and if I ever bring myself to watch it, I'll weigh in here.)

In the meantime, spoilers for the "Flight of the Conchords" finale coming up just as soon as I get my key-tar out of hock...

What an odd, silly little ending to this odd, silly little show's first season. Not a single Conchords song (save a few snippets during the dueling concerts), but the entire "Doggy Bounce" video plus two different Bret angry dance montages, the first a hilarious welding of "Flashdance" and "Footloose" (get it? welding? because... sorry, I'm old), the latter a perfect coda to the season. (And not, thankfully, the series, though I imagine the guys had non-renewal in the back of their heads when they wrote/choreographed it.)

Murray has been rather clueless about his responsibilities and powers as the band manager throughout the season, so why shouldn't he decide he has the authority to impose a third member -- a short, bald, dopey leather jacket-wearing, mother-flippin' bongo player, of all things -- on Bret and Jemaine without their permission? The arrival of Todd led to all sorts of genius: the various private band meetings (all interrupting Greg's actual consulate work) Mel finally getting a return on her advances, Bret being oblivious to Jemaine and Todd's ridiculous slap flight, Todd convincing Jemaine during the aforementioned fight to fire Bret instead of him, Jemaine being miserable with Todd's strict-ness, Bret pathetically trying to get back into the band and, especially, the notion that Bret and Jemaine would be far more popular working apart than they ever were together. (Or maybe, as implied by the stadium tour success of the Crazy Dogggz, it's just that Todd and Demetri were so damn cool that they overrode whatever audience-repelling properties Jemaine and Bret possess.)

So here's what I'm wondering: when the show returns next summer (thank God), do they even acknowledge Murray's newfound success, or is a reset button hit? The Crazy Dogggz have crash-and-burn written all over them, and Murray's historically bad with money, so I suppose they could do a reset while still acknowledging what came before. But a part of me almost wants them to ignore it. "Conchords" takes place in a world that's slightly askew to our own, and rules of season-to-season continuity almost seem too mundane to impose upon it.

What did everybody else think?

Busting loose

Spoilers for, in order, the "Kill Point" finale, "Flight of the Conchords" and, extremely briefly, "Entourage," coming up just as soon as I swap clothes with somebody who's not really my size...

Not a bad ending to "The Kill Point," I thought. There were some characters and set-ups that never really went anywhere -- Omar the sniper felt particularly wasted, as did the couple locked in the closet -- but there were so much else going on that I felt I got a reasonable amount of pay-offs. Mr. Wolf finally had to step in and deal with one of the psycho brothers (though when did Rabbit start acting crazier than Pig?), the writers faked me out on Cali's reasons for helping the escape (at first I assumed he had realized the only way to save the hostages was to get Wolf away from the other cops), and Leguizamo and Wahlberg got one more strong scene together at the end. I'm not saying it was perfect, but on the miniseries' own modest level, it got the job done.

(Also, for those wondering about the dedication card to the late "Shield" director/producer Scott Brazil, Brazil was supposed to direct most of "Kill Point," but died before production began.)

As I recall, last night's "Flight of the Conchords" was supposed to air sometime earlier in the summer, but it got pushed back to be the season's penultimate episode. As the show doesn't really do ongoing plotlines (when I interviewed them, the guys implied that after the Coco/Sally stuff was over, they were glad to be rid of any arc responsibilities), it's not a big deal, but it does have me thinking about why. As we've discussed before, the plot's kind of besides the point on this show, yet this episode felt a little overwhelmed by its story, which is one of those stock sitcom plots -- The Lie That Goes Too Far -- they've been doing since a few days after Philo T. Farnsworth invented the TV.

As such, this felt the least "Conchord"-y of any episode so far, even though I found it funnier than, say, either of the Sally episodes. I liked both songs, though the ode to Murray was the smarter of the two (the "Lord of the Rings" tune was largely carried by the video elements), and there were the usual brilliant little moments, like Dave's story about the five women who wanted to marry him, Murray not understanding why Mel was speaking Elvish, Murray insisting on calling roll at the impromptu band meeting, or Will Forte turning away from the guys without actually walking away. (His character, by the way, reminded me a bit of an old Alec Baldwin "SNL" sketch called "The Mimic," about a man who can only do three or four voices, all of them terrible.) It was unexpected but not off-key to have Jemaine be the more sensible member of the band for once, and Murray's explosion at learning he had been fooled was great, as was the revelation that he was bottomless for the entire final scene.

Finally (sigh), "Entourage." Well, at least the writers had Vince acknowledge that everything always works out fine for him, but it wasn't funny the way it was when Jerry Seinfeld did it in "The Opposite." Unless the Cannes episode features some amazing uptick in quality -- a practical impossibility, I think, since comedy road trip episodes invariably stink -- I can't imagine wanting to watch this show again next season, even if it's again the lead-in to "Conchords." Life's too short.

What did everybody else think?

Flight of the Conchords: Everyone eats at Mel's

I'll get to the other weekend stuff later, but I wrote so much about "Flight of the Conchords" that I felt it deserved its own post. Spoilers coming up just as soon as I finish up my cool ideas list...

First of all, apologies to anyone offended by my, um, alteration of the above photo (the blue dot's a tribute to "I'm With the Band"), but I wanted to find a way to include it without further ruining my attempts to soften my NC-17 rating. That sketch was disturbing, it was riveting, it was hilarious, it was Mel. And our first Mel-centric episode was a winner, with her presence overriding the show's usual problems with episodes about Bret and Jemaine dating.

There was the usual silliness on the margins -- Daryl Hall randomly hosting the world music-fest (and shutting down the guys in mid-song when it became obvious they don't play world music), Dave living with his parents and loaning Jemaine one of his mother's blouses (plus the awful mouse shirt), Murray having a piece of straw in his mouth during the final band meeting, Murray being completely oblivious about his e-mail and webcam shenanigans, etc. -- but Kristen Schaal was the star. Oftentimes, characters that broad only work in small doses, but I was laughing throughout, even as we revisited a lot of familiar Mel topics (how she destroyed Doug's career, for instance). Loved her going on and on to Bret about how she respects their boundaries and then immediately unlocks the bathroom door so she can watch him pee.

I do have one small concern about the threesome plot. On the one hand, Bret and Jemaine arguing about who should do it and why was funny, and as I said in my "Superbad" review yesterday, funny covers for a lot of sins. At the same time, though, Bret's eagerness to get to business time with a lady he just met flies in the face of his sexual skittishness back in the wingman episode. I don't want to be Comic Book Guy or the kid who complains that the same bone in Scratchy's rib cage played two different tones, but part of what makes this show work is its weird internal logic; if the characters' behavior starts bending and twisting to fit the needs of each script, the scripts will eventually suffer for it. I was okay with it here, but don't do it too often, you know?

What did everybody else think?

Ask, and ye shall receive...

From an HBO press release that just went out:

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 17, 2007 - HBO has renewed the hit comedy series ENTOURAGE for a fifth season and FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS for a second season, it was announced today by Carolyn Strauss, president, HBO Entertainment.
Currently debuting new episodes back-to-back on Sunday night (10:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT), both series conclude their current season Sept. 2, and will return with new episodes in 2008.

"ENTOURAGE is a full-fledged cultural phenomenon, and FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS has quickly become a show to watch," said Strauss. "I'm delighted that we'll be bringing new seasons of these distinctive series to our subscribers."

Me so happy. Me want to cry. ('Bout the "Conchords" half, anyway; I'll deal with the continuation of "Entourage" if it gives me more Bret and Jemaine.)

Funny Conchords ready for take-off

Today's column is my ode to "Flight of the Conchords," including stuff from my interview with Bret, Jemaine and producer James Bobin:

People who work in television don't have much time to actually watch television, but they like to keep informed. So whenever I'm out in LA on business, actors, writers and directors will inevitably ask me, "So, what's good this year?," then smile and nod thoughtfully when I namecheck my newest favorites.

When I was in LA last month, though, there was a wrinkle to this phenomenon. I'd finish rattling off the names of a few shows, and then they would say, in a hushed, almost reverent tone, "You know what show I really like? 'Flight of the Conchords.'"

So many Hollywood types professed their love for the HBO series -- a comedy about two New Zealanders in a bottom-of-the-barrel folk band on the fringes of the New York music scene -- that I was barely even fazed when ESPN's Scott Van Pelt began dropping "Conchords" lyrics into "SportsCenter" highlights. (Over a clip of White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen being ejected from a game, Van Pelt quoted, "Be more constructive with your feedback, please," from the Conchords' rap song "Rhymenoceros vs. Hiphopopotamus.")

But if the show biz elite are already pledging their allegiance to the exceedingly polite and silly band, the rest of the country hasn't been so quick. The ratings have been small (the show is averaging only a million viewers per each Sunday airing, down from the 3 million or so watching "Entourage" a half-hour earlier), which is one of only two reasons HBO could have for not automatically renewing the funniest show of the summer and one of the funniest new TV comedies, period, of the last few years.

To read the full thing, click here.

World tour

Spoilers for, in order, "Doctor Who," "Flight of the Conchords" and, for habit's sake, "Entourage" coming up just as soon as I use soundwaves to reset my DNA...

Sorry for the brief lag in "Doctor Who" postings. The conclusion of the Dalek two-parter was just so underwhelming that, even when I eventually finished it (over several sittings), I didn't have the enthusiasm to write about it. "The Lazarus Experiment" wasn't a masterpiece, either -- outside of the arc stuff with Martha and the mysterious Mr. Saxon, it felt very much like a "Who" spec script, science gone awry creates a monster for the Doctor to stop -- but it worked well as a MacGuffin on which to hang the question of Marth's role in the Doctor's life. (Also, was I the only one who thought all the references to the London Blitz were going to be building up towards some link between Lazarus's experiment and the events of "The Doctor Dances"?) I'm glad Martha forced the issue of being a passenger versus a companion, and the Doctor's clearly developing a real respect for her. (Did he ever let Rose use the sonic screwdriver on her own?)

I can't say much more about the arc elements. Though I've tried to remain unspoiled for all the remaining episodes (save the self-contained "Blink"), forces beyond my control have given me a pretty good idea who this Saxon fellow is. So for the benefit of people who are completely unspoiled about the rest of the season, let's try to contain discussion to this episode.

Not the funniest "Flight of the Conchords" of the season (though, in fairness, fatigue was kicking my ass again; I really ought to just wait to watch this show early Monday nights), but the focus on Murray was welcome, as was the notion of devoting an entire episode to nothing but the band and its struggles. (With a little side dish of Murray's marital strife, I suppose.) The leather suits were a good running gag, though I can't decide which is funnier: that Murray way overcalculated their per diem (per weekem?), or that the shopping in and around the LaGuardia Hotel was so cheap that they could afford three leather suits with their meal money. There are about seven different things that are funny about the concept of the NJU women's water polo team, and I liked how all of Bret's standard behavior suddenly became very expensive, rock 'n roll-seeming behavior once the trio hit the road.

I suppose I should give "Entourage" the same respect (or lack thereof) I do "Rescue Me" and just leave it alone until the end of the season, but I keep watching the damn thing out of laziness, and I can't even blame it on having dipped into Vince's secret stash. Once again, we have one of the boys (this time Turtle) seemingly getting into trouble and then escaping consequence-free, and once again we have Ari operating completely independently of the guys. I like Mrs. Ari to a point, but how does Doug Ellin not recognize that Ari (and the show) is so much funnier when he's running around trying to extinguish the many different fires that Vince is setting to his career? Also, did anyone not see the punchline to the Anna Farris story coming from miles away?

What did everybody else think?

French in action

Spoilers for, in order, "Flight of the Conchords," "The Kill Point" and "Entourage" coming up just as soon as I ship out to Iraq...

Continuing my theory that everyone in the TV business is watching "Flight of the Conchords," earlier this week I heard "SportsCenter" anchor Scott Van Pelt, while narrating footage of Ozzie Guillen being ejected from a White Sox-Yankees game, say "Be more constructive with your feedback, please." Renewal can't be too far away; will world domination be next?

Not a great episode last night, and I'm noticing that the show usually stumbles a bit while doing storylines about the guys and their girlfriends. At first I wanted to blame it on Rachel Blanchard, but this one was entirely Blanchard-free and still felt flat, even with the attempt at gender role reversal between Bret and his special lady friend. Even a weak "Conchords" is worth watching, though, because there's always going to be something funny on the margins.

Here I was especially fond of the '60s-style French video (comic fanboy moment: if someone is ever demented enough to make a movie based on Garth Ennis' "Hitman," seeing Bret in that striped shirt convinced me he's the man to play Jean De Baton-Baton) and Dave giving Bret sausage advice. (Dave's a really nice color for the show to use, as he's more worldly than any of the New Zealanders and yet dumber.)

"The Kill Point" continues to intrigue me, especially after I watched last week's first Summer Burn-Off Theatre episode of "The Nine," which was almost entirely about the bank robbery. As I've said, I'm a sucker for bank robbery hostage stories, but with rare exceptions like "Dog Day Afternoon," they work best at a plot-driven, B-movie level. By starting at the end and working our way backwards over 22 episodes, "The Nine" sucked most of the tension out of the format. (There was a sequence in the latest episode where there's supposed to be some suspense about the fate of Scott Wolf's character, only we know he survived the siege intact.) "Kill Point" doesn't have the ambitions of "The Nine," but it's doing a fine job of singing a straightforward, eight-hour version of the old tune. We're halfway through now, and the creators have done a good job of populating their storyline. They can take someone like the real estate developer dad off the board in time -- the Wahlberg character is so smart that it would have gotten frustrating if he hadn't figured this out by now -- and still have the outside ex-military guys floating around to provide the next potential exit strategy.

Finally, I'm running on fumes with "Entourage." Self-contained Ari subplots don't work, even one that's more work-related than the stuff with his kids' private school, Gary Busey was funnier the last time he was on, and once again there's a lot of hand-wringing about the Variety story (which didn't seem particularly unfair to me) and everything works out fine in the end. Meh. M-E-H, meh.

What did everybody else think?

Every dragon's a little bit racist

Spoilers for "Flight of the Conchords" and "Entourage" coming up just as soon as I call in tech support...

As I often mention when discussing the problems with the Emmys, people who work in television don't spend much time watching television, yet nearly every TV person I chatted with at press tour asked me what I thought of "Flight of the Conchords" and confessed that the show was really growing on them. I don't know if it'll ever be a mainstream hit, but in terms of industry buzz, it appears to be doing well enough that I can't imagine HBO not renewing it.

And a good thing, too, because I'm not sure I can live without the minds who gave us "Albi the Racist Dragon" (now in Davey and Goliath-Vision!), Murray's lonely ode to the leggy tech support girl (in the most technically impressive video by the show's admittedly modest standards), and, especially, the sequence with Dave teaching the guys how to flip the bird, even as they protest that the gesture seems neither obscene nor appropriately bird-like. (The bird montage, oddly, went on so long that the gesture began to lose all meaning, like that time Jon Lovitz kept saying "Tartlets" on "Friends.")

I do wonder, though, whether the boys will be able to come up with enough new music for a second season, since they told me they'll have used up about 98% of their catalogue by the end of this season. But at the moment, no show makes me happier than "Conchords."

I think "Entourage" made me happy once upon a time, but I'm struggling to remember when or how. I suppose I should be happy we got a break from one-note Billy Walsh, and the scene with Ari attempting to be a good dad was unexpectedly sweet, but I'm going to be scarred for life by Drama having furry sex (and by his reference to the meanest thing he ever did to a girl), and E is just a waste of oxygen and screen time. (The funniest part of the whole episode was the preview for next week, where the lady on the phone pointed out that Eric's job is irrelevant.) This wasn't Worst. Episode. Ever. territory like, say, the tranny hooker episode, but I'm just not feeling this show at all anymore.

What did everybody else think?