The H Virus: How to survive the Hiatus Apocalypse

It’s that hazy time of year: the gap between the end of fall-airing seasons and the start of summer one-hit-wonders, trials and errors and all in between. The desolate darkness reserved only for repeats you don’t like.
It’s…hiatus season.

Don’t worry—as we’ve survived the other three sitcom seasons, we’ll survive this one. TV’s winter. But how? Well, to hibernate in your living rooms and man-caves properly, you need supplies and an itinerary (and maybe an artillery, depending on how gung ho you get).

Based on experienced accounts from other, well-worn shows, I can offer you this lasting advice:

1. Watch like shows.

Repeats will make you stir-crazy; never forget the looming series premiere. You’ll go nuts. Watch shows with similar humors for the fresh entertainment.
Based on Netflix recommendations:
Like How I Met Your Mother? Watch Rules of Engagement.
Like New Girl? Watch 2 Broke Girls.

Like The Big Bang Theory? Watch It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

And get a Netflix account. It’s the price of a movie ticket.

2. Collect show swag.

Being surrounded the comforts of sets can assuage the pain left where your heart used to beat. To remind you The Mother is just one summer away, look into purchasing The Yellow Umbrella for your foyer. Or The Ducky Tie for on the job. Or The Bazinga Poster.

To remind you you’ll get your sense of feeling and sentimental attachment back again.
Bazinga.

3. Read.

Arm yourselves with the world’s greatest weapons: books. Sci-fi (maybe educate yourself on some of TBBT’s never-ending references!), romcom, or thought-provoking, soul-searching titles, all exist on the page as well as the LED screen.
Or, by reading, you could just pull up those individual Wikia pages one more time. Yeah.

4. Go out with friends.

Remind your friends you exist by tagging along with them the next time they go to your favorite local coffee shop. Maybe downstairs to your regular Irish bar for a drink. Then to the comic book store with your latest paycheck.
…Just try not to start sobbing in public this time.

"You're not your father. You're me."

And because I’m not a big bad Fox subscriber, it looks like I’m crashing Winston’s birthday instead of Elaine’s wedding. Though we do get a decent preview of her lovely…ah…adornments.

Morning-after-Nick (see, getting better with the name thing) tries his hardest to impress Jess right off the bat—until her father shows up on their doorstep. Today of all days, no less. For Elaine’s wedding, no less.
On Winston’s birthday, no less.

While Jess spends the morning scrambling for her friends and co-workers, Nick and her father find themselves bonding into the afternoon; and panicking when he finally reveals he slept with Jess. While the father’s reaction wasn’t what I’d assumed it’d be (I thought he’d be the cricket and/or baseball bat wielder), his actual opinion bruised worse than a club to the head: that Nick was just like him, and that he wasn’t good enough for his own daughter.
Sobs.

But a family crisis calms down a middle school class of rowdy, law-abusing adolescents wonderfully. I wonder what Miguel’s car looks like.

Elaine, driven up the wall by her family’s enthusiasm, barely makes it through the first get-together before finding the end of her fuse. Taking Jess’ advice and napping post-Henna tattoo, she wakes to find the tattoo beautifully adorning her fingers, palms, and wrists…and face.
Winston notices first, running errands on his hitherto-forgotten birthday, and we leave the episode with little more reassurance than a doting fiancé can offer. At least we know in the finale preview she gets the ink off somehow. It isn’t with olive oil.

And Schmidt and Elizabeth repair their college relationship in the nick of time (zing) to share with roof with his roommate, Jess, and, ultimately, Winston. I’m glad they pretended to remember Winston’s birthday in the end, poor guy.
Then again, he got to buy a whole sheet cake to eat himself. I’ve never had the guts.

Who's That Girl?

I decided, for this article, to change the channel for a brand new show: New Girl. New Girl, highly recommended and toted as the new How I Met Your Mother (except this would be, like, how-I-met-my-future-girlfriend-a-few-times-over), will air its season finale May 18. Which means I have to hop to catching up.

I feel proud my readers can follow me into my new-show foray, full of ignorance and surprises and choking. It’s how I respond to jokes.

Let’s see how I do.

…I discovered right away the episode Virgins, aired April 30, probably wasn’t the best episode to review in its entirety. Instead, allow me to divulge my first impressions of half the cast and the plot as a whole; or as many characters whose names I can remember.

Jess

I do remember she came up with her opening jingle in the first, or one of the first, season one pilots. She seems sweet, clear-cut, un-passive aggressive. Dry humored without being vain or aloof. She may be sarcastic. I like her already.

But I also have a strong Zooey Deschanel bias, so bear with me. The fashion, all of it.

Nick

He seems neurotic, but not in the push-aside creepy way. I label him as The Ross from FRIENDS: well-meaning and kind, but, as his father eloquently put it, he “thinks too much.” From what I’ve seen of fan reviews and clips, the patriarch sentiment hits the nail on the head. So much so for half a second I thought he hadn’t lost his virginity before the episode’s finale. Context?

Schmidt

College-Schmidt is the best thing.

He’s loud, rude, crude, and seems so used to his own vocabulary he can’t be bothered to see why he’s all these things. But that’s why his roommates love him. Also why they invented the Douchebag jar. Well played, apartment.

In my next evaluation of New Girl, look out for plot first impressions gearing up before the season finale on FOX!