Monday Night TV

Another rerun-heavy week, with basically nothing on tomorrow, but some shows of note tonight. Highlight for spoilers:

• Prison Break We pick up the action at el aeropuerto, where Sucre and Bellick chase T-Bag and his recently recovered bag o' cash. When T-Bag gets away, Bellick uses the fact that he's apparently kidnapped Maricruz to compel Sucre to keep helping him. Bellick sounds especially stupid this week, threatening a Mexican guy in Mexico by pretending to be INS, and using the line "your sweet little plum is going to dry up like a raisin." T-Bag uses his escape to apparently nail and then murder a prostitute.
  
  Linc and Schofield are about to board their freighter, with Michael inviting Sara long. She notices a tail though, and rather than tell Michael, who'd miss his ship out, Sara takes one for the team and says she's already on board. It also seems like she's had time while on the run from the law to get her hair done and do a nice job applying her makeup, as she's suddenly looking especially hot.
  
  C-Note gets offered a walk plus witness protection for his whole family in exchange for testifying against Mahone, and obviously takes it. I think this might actually be the end of his story, since he's probably the most deserving of a happy ending.
  
  Mahone, meanwhile, is having an A Beautiful Mind moment, looking all crazy (which I'm sure is playing right into the hands of the guys working with C-Note to bury him). Schofield's plan is apparently to get to a yacht, which Mahone's crazy pattern recognition, plus a little research, is able to pick up on. He posts a message on that finch webpage about T-Bag being in Panama (where he's showing a preference for a certain type in prostitutes), and Michael falls for the bait, which is likely going to be the focus of next week's episode.
  
  Conspiracy-wise, Agent Kim meets with the mysterious bald old guy we keep seeing in a boat, since it was apparently a blind spot from satellites, but it looked just like the boat where they killed Fredo in The Godfather Part II. So I was expecting old bald guy to kiss him and say "You broke my heart, Kim!" then pop him twice in the head. But instead, it was vague conspiracy talk. Yawn.
  
  Another decent episode, not as good as last week, but still pretty entertaining. I still keep wondering how the show can possibly last through a third season, since it seems to be going to great lengths to stretch things out already. But who knows.



• The Riches: I'm still not clear as to whether Eddie Izzard's character is actually supposed to be born into the traveler lifestyle, or some kind of outsider who married his way in... or if he's even supposed to be American. But the voiceover in the previously is a lot more American-accented, so he probably is. They're both good actors, but why they got two Brits to play Americans in the South is beyond me. But if you can get past the accents, there's a lot to like.
  
  In the opening scene, Dahlia makes Wayne promise not to answer Doug's phone, so that left us absolutely sure he would answer that phone at some point.
  
  The action starts up with the family trying to come up with details about the family so they can keep up their cover. The information gathering out of the computer was kinda cool. The amount you could find out about a person from that is pretty disturbing, so be careful with your laptops. I wouldn't want some nefarious type knowing... uh... the disturbing amount of TV I watch?
  
  Wayne trying on Rich's clothes was amusing. I flashed to that Arrested Development episode where Michael kept looking like a kid around Sally Sitwell, and was forced to wear an oversized jacket to have lunch at that club. And his interview was awesome. "Napoleon used to say 'I know he's a brilliant general, but is he lucky?' He used to say it in French." Great line.
  
  We get a little more insight into the kids this episode. Apparently the teenage son, Cael (IMDB spells it Cael, but it sounds like "Cal"), has a girlfriend back in the traveler camp. Phone calls to her will be a problem at some point. And it's kinda cool that the neighbors think that they have a second daughter.
  
  Dahlia's cookie-microwaving attempt to be all WASP housewife-y to score more pills was pretty amusing. Nothing says classy like taking a swig of cough syrup and stashing the bottle back in your fancy handbag. Or pimping out your teenage daughter so you can steal your RV out of an impound lot (and since the actress who plays Di Di is in her 20's, I don't feel creepy for saying she's totally hot... also I finally realized where I recognized her from - a recent episode of Psych).
  
  Things go pretty well for the family this episode, with Wayne getting the job from Mitch Huntzberger (I forgot his name here) and all that, but I get the feeling they're about to get ugly. The phone Wayne wasn't supposed to answer, which as expected he does pick up at the end, leaves things off on a somewhat ominous note.
  
  Some more random thoughts:
  
  Sweet Dee from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia shows up as the bitchy neighbor, which was pretty awesome just cause I like her, and it was made much more awesome by the fact that her arm fell off in the middle of an argument. I did not see that coming. I hope she's a regular.
  
  The opening credits are pretty trippy, huh? I took a look at the official website, and it's similarly weird. But cool.
  
  Are security guards allowed to actually dress that much like real cops?
  
  Nothing endears you to a character quite like having him drag a pregnant chick out of a car, throw her to the ground, and when a guy comes to her aid, hit him with a tire iron. I'm enjoying all of Dale's scenes.
  
  My issue with the pilot was that I sorta expected a mix of drama and comedy (I hate the word "dramedy" though I guess it applies), but it was fairly laugh-free. This episode was excellent though. I'm almost certainly in for the long haul with this show.

On the Tivo: Everybody Hates Chris.

FX has got The Shield promos coming pretty much non-stop, and I'm excited. My one complaint with all FX shows (including The Shield and The Riches) is that they run over every week by a random number of minutes between 1 and 5, and I usually only get the first minute over recorded. This means if I watch something else at 10, I try to record the 11:00 rerun of the FX show. And sometimes the recording starts with the ending of the episode I'm about to start, which sucks. It's not a problem for now, since I don't watch anything Monday at 10, but it's annoying. I had to record the 11:00 rerun tonight just to catch the end of the episode.