The Grinder “Genesis” Review – AVClub

AVClub: The problem with episodic TV reviews — yeah I’m biting the hand that feeds me, it happens — is that it’s often difficult to get out of thinking about the episode as its own singular entry and to look at the big picture. This isn’t a new concept and has been around just as long as this kind of criticism has. But I’ve never felt its shortcomings so acutely as I have while writing about The Grinder. Episodically, this show can be good to quite wonderful, which is nothing to sneeze at for a freshman sitcom, especially one with such a high concept. But the benefit of having a couple weeks off from weekly reviewing (stupid cable outtage! Thanks Allison for stepping in) is that I get to see the big picture more clearly. I’ve talked about the development of The Grinder’s unexpected serial turn. Look, it doesn’t always work, but, it needs to be said as many times as I can how impressive and ambitious it is that a show in only its eighteenth episode is creating a storyline on this scale and in a way that’s this interconnected. So interconnected, in fact, that “From The Ashes” mentions flashbacks as a way to break a story. Even if those flashbacks were in reference to Timothy Olyphant’s New Grinder, that’s still an impressive callback joke.