Despite my disdain for most episodes centered on some kind of magical mystical creature, Muse to My Ears isn't half-bad. Its central idea, that a demon is pursuing muses, is appropriately silly; but the show cleverly utilizes the story as a means to create humor. Some of the episode's funniest moments involve annoying Melody's influence on the sisters. I especially enjoyed Phoebe's sudden need to turn every sentence she says into rhyming couplets, due to being in close proximity with her muse.Phoebe is justifiably bugged by Cole throughout the episode. Cole is newly human, yet spends seemingly all of his time talking about 'demon factions' and his old abilities. I really liked Piper's conversation with him about Phoebe's reluctance to get married, bringing up how much has changed for her recently. Couple that with Cole's shenanigans with Leo here, it's welcome that Cole is becoming more interactive with characters that aren't Phoebe.
This is another episode that generally works. Obviously there are moments of corn and the bad guys are once again charisma-free ciphers who look like regular humans, but there's a humor and attention to characterization that carries the hour. B-
Crimes of Fashion Phoebe's fug pantaloons, which look like distant cousins of Jerry Seinfeld's puffy shirt. Shivers.
Credits
Guest stars Anthony Starke (Devlin); Siobhan Flynn (Melody); Cindy Ambuehl (Bev); John Prosky (Congressman)
Writer Krista Vernoff Director Joel J. Feigenbaum
Great review, but one thing I must disagree with was Phoebe's outfit, that I always liked! The idea itself never really felt silly to me either actually, especially put in context with all the other blasphemous ideas that they'd tried already! Everything else I agree with though, I loved seeing Cole and Leo together for some reason, they could have more fun with that pairing than they did.
ReplyDeleteSorry, but I can't with you with those pants. Gah.
ReplyDeleteI liked seeing Cole with anybody that wasn't Phoebe. I liked him with Pheebs, obviously. But he had a ton of chemistry with everybody else, especially Prue and Paige. I think that's just Julian, though. It seems impossible for an actor to not bounce off him in a positive way.
Yeah, what really hit me as I watched all these episodes again is how fantastic Julian was. He was always great no matter what dribble he was given and always brought the best out of everyone else. If only he'd stuck around, maybe things would have been different.
ReplyDeleteThe thing I don't like about the muse plot isn't that it's another whacky one-off about previously-unknown creatures, but the idea that these things are always around the girls, invisibly providing them the ideas for everything they do. Same goes goes for the similar episode they do later with guardian angels, where the case is invisible people following them around and deserving the credit for whenever they don't die. If taken seriously, it really sucks a lot out of well, everything the sisters have ever done.
ReplyDeleteI actually just posted my review for that guardian angel episode, and I mentioned the exact thing you wrote. It just got way too crowded, with at least three different beings supposedly watching over every person on the planet -- you had leprechauns, too. It got a little much.
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