Well, that was terribly uninteresting. After two seasons of Earl, I was ready for the show to deviate from its formulaic tendencies. And when Season 2 ended with Earl getting incarcerated, I was hopeful that a shake up would make Season 3 into something more than a series of "Earl rights a wrong he did unto another in his past" episodes. But you know that adage about being careful what you wish for? It applies here. This season occurred during the writers' strike, and there are two pretty distinct "halves" that it was split into. The first half consisted of Earl doing hard time. The post-strike half saw him get hit by a car and go into a coma. The prison half was a deviation from the norm that sort of worked and sort of didn't. The second half was a real chore to get through, even on DVD with an Internet-connected laptop in front of me capable of providing me all kinds of distractions. I don't want to imply that Earl turned into a bad show during Season 3. I just think this is the season when it became clear that the potential the show once had (but had never quite lived up to for more than an episode or two at a time) would never end up fulfilled. You know how it is. Something is so-so, but you've convinced yourself it can be more than so-so, and then when you finally realize it's only so-so, you almost overcorrect yourself, pretending that it's less than so-so. (I've been here before, notably with J.D. Drew and the Greek pizza place up the street.) But ultimately, Earl is so-so. It isn't terrible. It just isn't great, either. Thus, I'll head into the final season with no expectations whatsoever.
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