Thursday Night TV, Plus Leftovers

A full night of Thursday television (NBC comedies plus Smallville for me), plus catching up on Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Jericho's season finale, all after the jump...

My Name is Earl: Being on the lam in Mexico didn't work out as well for Joy as they made it seem on the Dukes of Hazzard, so she's in jail and needs character witnesses. After a very unsuccessful attempt to find some, Ruby (Marlee Matlin reprising her role as Joy's lawyer) suggests Earl.


Part three of Earl's plan to grow up is to get a real place to live, so he moves out of the hotel, but feels unsatisfied. He decides that the problem is that he's ready for a relationship, and after meeting Ruby, he's pretty sure he knows who it'll be with. Everything goes great, until she starts reading the list and discovers that Randy and Earl once robbed her.

Earl's turn as a character witness was going perfectly until the prosecutor played a series of 911 calls Earl had made when he was married, cataloging the horrible things Joy'd done. When he saw the jury making up their minds, he decided to confess, figuring that she has kids and a husband, while he doesn't have three strikes. Earl gets sentenced to 2 years in the state pen, where he'll share a cell with Ralph (Giovanni Ribisi).

Really funny episode and a great story. Between this and last week's great episode, Earl's really ended the season on a high note. Best parts:

• "When I go looking for an ice machine, I should put on pants. Oh, and there's no ice machine."
• "I didn't really need to ask cause his hair is like a mood ring."
• "When I point to you, tickle Uncle Randy until he screams a '1' tone."
• Last time she was here she drank too much cherry wine and had a threesome with my parents."
• "You don't think Jesus would want a piece of this?"
• "He's been sneezing them out for the last hour. They melt in your mouth, but not in your nose."
• "Damnit, how am I supposed to keep my legs smooth? And cut bitches?"

The Office: Beach day! Do offices really have beach days? Michael is interviewing for a job at corporate, and has to show up with a recommendation for who'll replace him. So beach day turns into a series of ridiculous competitions to win the position of future manager. It naturally doesn't prove anything, but a walk over hot coals finally inspires Pam to stand up for herself, wondering why no one showed at her art show, telling Jim how she feels. Funniest parts:

• "About 40 times a year Michael gets really sick but has no symptoms. Dwight is always gravely concerned."
• The despair on Toby's face when he finds that he'll be missing Pam in a two piece (which they teased us with but never showed... bastards).
• "Yes! Funtivities! I knew it wasn't just a trip to the beach!"
• "One day... 14 strangers, who work together... but only one survivor."
• "There is nothing better than a beautiful day at the beach filled with sun, surf, and diligent note taking."
• "Sabotage -- the ancient Dutch art of screwing up your own team."
• Dwight's edited version of The Aristocrats (the easily offended shouldn't follow that link)

Scrubs: Elliot wants to have her wedding in two months, despite the fact that Keith doesn't want to rush things that much. Dr. Cox doesn't want to go, and while she tries to convince him, he points out that Keith and J.D. were basically the only single straight men at the hospital who were the least bit desirable, so she might just be settling.


J.D., Turk, and Kelso are at a conference. Kelso's looking forward to hookers and booze, so he leaves the actual work for Vanilla Bear and Chocolate Bear. J.D.'s mostly along to forget about Elliot, and nothing seems to help until Kim (Elizabeth Banks) shows up as a lecturer at a conference. Last we saw her, she was lying to J.D. about miscarrying their baby, and her giant belly makes it difficult to keep that particular lie going. J.D. freaks out and can't really decide what to do.

At this point, there was an amber alert in my area, so I have absolutely no idea what happened for what seemed like the two most important minutes of plot, but J.D. apparently ran away, and Kim followed him back to ask what happened just as Elliot asks him if she's making a mistake by marrying Keith. They're really bringing the season's plotlines to a climax nicely, but (at least the parts I saw) weren't all that funny. The best parts:

• Old M.C., bust a move, indeed!
• "And you, Nurse Ipanema..."
• Air-groping?
• Janitor, chief of medicine.

Smallville: Helo from Battlestar Galactica guest stars in a terrible, terrible role. A guy who's been brainwashed but tries to fight it off when he meets a close friend? Olivier couldn't save that role from being ridiculous. All you can really do is act like you're having a seizure and speak in sentence fragments.

Some interesting developments came out of the episode, though. Martha is going to be a U.S. Senator, Lois is determined to ruin Lex, and Lois is closer than ever to betraying Lex and driving him to supervillainy (or at least I hope so).

Law & Order: Criminal Intent: Fun cameos this week. Peter Bogdanovich plays a Hugh Hefner-type character for the second time, Kristy Swanson plays a fake Anna Nicole Smith, and in one of the best casting jobs ever, David Cross as the Howard K. Stern guy. It was pretty dull, though I really enjoyed all of David Cross's scenes.

Jericho: They finally put the tank to good use, which is good. Johnston dies, which is very bad. Johnston, Jake, Heather, and Hawkins are really the only characters I care about, and they just killed one off after kinda killing one off earlier. It was great to see Heather back, but she's listed as a special guest star.


The season ends on a rather annoying cliffhanger, with the military on the way, some kinda crazy 35-ish star flag, a train and a bunch of troops heading Jericho's way, but no word on the season's most gripping plot: Dale's acquisition of assets in an effort to become a 16 year old post-apocalyptic real estate tycoon!

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Wednesday Night TV

Managed to catch Lost and Jericho tonight, while Bones goes into the ever growing queue of stuff to catch later in the week. Plus I'll be watching Spider-Man 3 Thursday night. Luckily, I have no life. Lost and Jericho after the jump.

Lost: Not a great episode, but not a bad one either. We had to get the revelation about Locke's father being the original Sawyer out of the way at some point, even though everyone on the internet seems to have figured that one out long ago, and we got some interesting scenes along the way. I don't have as much to say about an episode as I normally do, but here are the things that stuck out:

• When Ben was trying to talk Locke into killing his father, he was seriously channeling the Emperor from Return of the Jedi. I swear, he almost said "strike him down with all your hatred, and your journey toward the Dark Side will be complete."
• The scene between Locke and Rousseau was excellent. One picking up dynamite and the other trapping a screaming guy behind a door was just a regular day on the island for these two
• Jack and Juliet having that whole "we should tell her"/"not yet" argument was really intriguing. Is it that they know something we don't? Or that they know that there's no way off the island, and they're just being cryptic about it?
• Old Sawyer's idea that this was hell was nicely placed in conjunction with Naomi's news that the plane and bodies had been found.

And so we're left wondering what Jack and Juliet were talking about, how they'll react to Sawyer bringing Locke's tape and warning of the invasion, whether Juliet will get word of Naomi to the Others, and what will happen when the Other "invasion" happens. Lots of new questions, but only one answer we already knew. Still a cool episode though.

Jericho: The confrontation between Jericho and New Bern is finally here. Constantino issues a warning, demanding 7 farms and half the salt mine in exchange for not blowing Jericho up. Gray sends Stanley and a few other men, obviously doomed because neither Jake nor Hawkins went with them, to try to take out their mortars. It goes as expected, with Stanley only surviving thanks to the character shield.

Hawkins and Jake then take their shot at it, enlist the help of Emily's father Jonah, and manage to take out the mortars. They'd agreed to split the food, fuel, and weapons 50/50, but Jonah obviously screws them. Fortunately, Hawkins has had a huge secret armory the whole time. And Gray finally admits that he's not a wartime consiglieri, enlisting Johnston's help in handling the crisis. We leave off with every able bodied person in Jericho over 16 armed and waiting for the New Bernians.

If they had ditched the whole Dale storyline, which always seems to suck, I would like the show a lot more. But this wasn't a bad episode at all. I'm still hoping Heather comes back, but she wasn't mentioned at all.

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Wednesday Night TV

During Lost tonight, KFC ran the ad TV Squad mentioned a while back with the high pitched sound that only young people can here. I guess I just barely still count as young for these purposes, and boy was that sound ever annoying. What exactly was the point of that? Nothing makes me crave chicken like irritating noises. But that's got nothing to do with anything, just random griping. Lost and Jericho after the jump.


Lost: Three stories going on this week. First, Sun finds out about Juliet's fertility specialty. After a confrontation where Juliet reveals the truth, they head to the staff hatch, where there's a hidden room with an ultrasound machine. After explaining that men on the island had unnaturally high sperm counts, Juliet determines that the baby is eight weeks old, so the baby is Jin's, but this also means that Sun and her baby will die without some kind of medical miracle. In an entirely expected final scene, Juliet goes off and leaves a message for Ben, indicating what she learned about Sun, and that she would next try to find out if Kate is pregnant (since Sawyer would be pretty potent on the island as well).


In Sun's flashback, we learn that being Mr. Paik's enforcer was not in fact the deal Jin made to marry her. It was only when Sun borrowed money to pay off a blackmailer that his debt was escalated to where he had to get his hands dirty. The blackmailer in question was Jin's mother, who he thought was dead, but it turns out she was a prostitute. In an effort to save him from that shame, she not only forces him into a life of crime, but when he finds the money Sun is using for the payoff, she manages to make him feel like an inadequate provider for that extra kick in the balls. So in previous flashbacks, when we felt like the tension between them was merely Sun's unhappiness with what Jin had become, we know now that it was also Sun's guilt at her own responsibility for the situation.

Back on last week's camping trip, the guys find that the parachutist has a stick in her chest and that she's dying. When looking for something to use to treat her, Hurley sets off a flare gun. Shortly after, Mikhail comes running to them. This is interesting not only because he managed to survive his encounter with the security fence, but also because it seemed like he was running towards the flare. Was he expecting that woman? If so, why? Mikhail strikes a bargain to save the girl in exchange for his release, and Desmond agrees over Charlie's objections. Mikhail tries running off with the phone, but Jin manages to catch him, but Desmond still honors the agreement to let him go. The parachutist asks where she is, and Hurley explains their situation, and she replies that they can't be from flight 815, since that wreckage was found with no survivors.

We're left with fun questions everywhere. Are we back to the purgatory theory that was so popular in season one? Or is it some kind of Others conspiracy to create fake wreckage and bodies so no one comes searching for them? How close are we to the week deadline for Ben coming back? What about Mikhail and the flares? Whoever thinks Lost has lost it just doesn't know how to sit back and enjoy a cool story.

Jericho: Russell and his friends from New Bern, fresh off their agreement with Dale and Skylar, stage some kind of sit-in at the salt mine, and Mayor Gray threatens to break it up. When Dale refuses to give up any ground, it turns into a shootout, with one New Bernian dead. Russell doesn't seem as aggressive as the rest of New Bern, and warns Gray and Johnston that news of the shooting could start a war between the towns, so Johnston heads out with Russell to save his sons. He meets with Constantino, who explains all about his hatred for Jericho and that he has the Green boys in custody for sabotaging the factory. He demands to see them, but Constantino tells him to take off, so Johnston just kind of wanders around until he finds a truck.


Constantino is interrogating Jake and Eric. They seem to just be asking Jake questions about Hawkins, but beating the hell out of Eric and asking about Jericho's defenses. One of Jake's cellmates turns out to be Maggie the fake marine, who thinks if she gives up Hawkins' name and whereabouts, they'll take her along, and she can pass information to Hawkins once he kicks their asses. It sounds like a really stupid plan, but it apparently works perfectly, and she meets up with Hawkins and Ted.

The plan is for Maggie to get re-captured, steal some keys like some kind of ninja, then Hawkins sets off some explosions in town and free everyone in the ensuing chaos. But it's a good week for improbable plans, since Hawkins has no trouble getting his hands on explosives and she easily takes some keys from a guard. Ted's supposed to factor into the plan somehow with a rifle, but he's never shot a guy before and bails. So Hawkins has to take on the guards by himself, but luckily they're pretty incompetent. He gets off four shots before anyone reacts. Hawkins and Maggie each catch a flesh wound, but everyone manages to escape, thanks to Johnston conveniently showing up in a truck right as the shootout ends.

The episode ends with Hawkins, Eric, Jake, and Johnston walking back to Jericho after the truck gives out, carrying Maggie, who may bleed out from her leg wound. They actually share a nice family moment at the end, which was one of two high points in an otherwise stupid episode. The other was Jake giving us a sliver of hope that Heather is still alive, saying "We can't even be sure Heather's dead with the lies they're spreading." But at this point, I may not see her come back. I feel like the quality has fallen off enough that I might give up on Jericho if it gets renewed.

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Still More Catching Up

I think I'm finally all caught up, and it's only 45 minutes into the stuff I want to watch tonight. Hooray! Thursday's Smallville, the last two Jerichos, and last Sunday's Entourage and The Sopranos after the jump.

The Sopranos: There's a power struggle in the Lupertazzi family, A.J. and Blanca appear to be having big issues, Johnny Sacks dies of cancer, cameos all over the place (Daniel Baldwin, Jonathan LaPaglia, Geraldo, Tim Daly, Sydney Pollack, Christopher McDonald), but what really stood out was the premiere of Christopher's movie.


"Fuck Ben Kingsley!" They're in final editing, happy with their casting, but still going over last minute changes. "The lawyer called, though, we might have to change the title. The Eldridge Cleaver estate, they want an injunction." The whole movie was hilarious, with the mob boss character obviously drawn from Tony. But in addition to being funny, it drove the whole episode. The character's interaction with an associate's fiancee brings up memories of Adrianna for Carmela, and the less than flattering version of himself on screen leaves Tony feeling deeply hurt, pushing the rift between Tony and Chris even further.

A lot going on, I'm actually slightly confused about what's going on in the New York family, but the funny parts were just so damn funny, I couldn't help but love it. Hopefully the New York picture will clear up soon. Or someone will clue me in.

Entourage: Vinnie and E are dodging Amanda's calls, and having issues over a couple's weekend. E and Sloan want to go by themselves, but E tries to come up with a plan to make it happen without offending Vinnie at all, which of course blows up in his face, and leaves him on a trip with Sloan barely talking to him while the rest of the crew heads to Cabo.

Ari is hoping to land a gay client, so he brings Lloyd along in a hilariously anti-gay attempt to prove that he's gay-friendly. But the potential client takes a little too much liking to Lloyd, and the feeling isn't mutual. In order to sign the guy, Lloyd may have to... take one for the team. But look out, Ari's actually feeling guilty about the whole thing, and refuses to let Lloyd sleep with a guy just to sign a client.

There's a whole subplot with Turtle and Drama trying to pick up Freaks and Geeks's Busy Phillips and the lovely Brianne Davis at a dog park, which was kinda funny. A big improvement over the previous episode, which I didn't enjoy all that much.

Smallville: Lex listens to terrestrial radio in his fancy car, I don't think so! They couldn't work in an XM/Sirius plug? Chloe runs Lex's car off the road, knocks him on the head and takes a flash drive. She wakes up the next morning with no memory of the whole thing though. Clark spots a button of Chloe's at the scene though, so now they're all suspicious of what her Tyler Durden personality is up to. They find the flash drive though, and it has files on Chloe's mom, who has the ability to control other meteor freaks.


Lynda Carter is Chloe's mom, and at 56 she still looks great. Lex has her locked up, having found a drug to wake her out or her catatonic state, and hoping to use her powers to his advantage, but she just wants out. So she's using the power to try to kill Lex and help Chloe find her. They escape, but the drug only had a limited effect, and she slips back into her catatonia.

Lex makes some scary threats to Chloe to keep her quiet. Lana, injured in the fight, learns that she had unknowingly been taking hormones to make it seem like she was pregnant, but never was. The sonograms must've been faked and all that stuff. And we wrap up with Clark declaring that the war between him and Lex is about to begin. Cue the dramatic music. I haven't been really in to this show in a long time, and this is just another reminder why. There was nothing bad about the episode, but there wasn't anything good either.

Jericho: Two episodes to catch up on, starting with "A.K.A." from two weeks ago.

Jake is on to Hawkins, with a drawer full of fake government IDs, and confronts him about it. Hawkins is ready with some crappy stories, but Jake isn't buying it. He comes along with a second story, and we get a lengthy flashback, but who knows if it's real or not. Hawkins says he was CIA and hooked up a domestic terrorist cell with fake IDs and killed an FBI informant to win them over, and that flashback we'd previously seen fits in with it well. The CIAs plan to infiltrate the terrorists caused them to move up their timetable, and he was given his orders to take the bomb to Columbus, OH, but instead gathered up his family and took them to Jericho. He shows Jake the bomb, and after freaking out a little, Jake agrees to keep his secrets safe.

Elsewhere, Emily is trying to start up a school for the kids of the town, but they have more pressing matters to deal with and ditch, except for April Hawkins, and they do some bonding, and Mimi is having issues with Bonnie in Stanley's absence.

Then this week's episode, "Causus Belli," picks up on the windmill building story. It looks like all of Jericho's men are back except Eric, who was torn up over April's death, but Stanley and Jake are suspicious as to why he didn't come back.

Jake takes Hawkins to New Bern to figure out what happened to his brother. They're fed a bunch of stories that they don't buy, and have to sneak around town and interrogate people to get real answers. Eric and the long-absent Heather apparently sabotaged New Bern's factory that morning, but they're left to wonder why, so Jake and Hawkins make their way to the factory and find a detailed map of Jericho and its resources, already divvied up between the powerful people in New Bern. And the factory in New Burn has been turned into a munitions factory. They're prepping for an attack.


Jake idiotically decides to try to stop them single handedly and gets himself captured, and throw into a cell next to Eric. And holy crap, Heather is dead. That sucks, I like Sprague Grayden. The episode ends with New Burn's mayor parading Eric and Jake in front of the town in handcuffs, explaining that Jericho never planned to honor their food commitment. It looks like preparation for an execution before they launch their attack, and the only one who can stop them is Hawkins. Luckily, he's a badass.

Stanley comes home to find the dude that's been nailing Bonnie at his farm, which is quite the kick in the balls. But conveniently, that guy's a total idiot, so it's probably not going to last.

Skylar and Dale start moving salt from the mine, but apparently she can't because she's a minor. She tries to get her parents declared dead so she can become an emancipated minor miner (I amuse the hell out of myself), but the mayor shoots that idea down. This might force her to sign a deal with one of the New Burn guys.

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Catching Up on TV

My Jericho reviews are always really long, because I actually go back and read them to remember what's going on. Unlike a show like Lost where I pay super close attention, I don't even remember all the characters' names on Jericho, and I'm never 100% engrossed in the show, so writing something closer to a recap helps me keep up with the story. So that means more spoilers than usual are included past the jump, plus some quick thoughts on Penn & Teller: Bullshit:

• Jericho: Hawkins continues to be a part of what I gather is a large number of guys who pretend to be women on computers. He tells the big evil scary guys to meet him at a warehouse, and about a dozen guys with rifles show up. And then he leads them away with another fake text message. So as far as I can tell they had that whole sequence just to show us the bad guy's face. He heads back home to share a moment with his daughter, who is apparently a chip off the old block, not feeling a bit of remorse after killing a woman.
  
  Skylar and Dale continue to play a sort of post-apocalyptic Bonnie and Clyde. It continues to be boring. But at least we get a scene that shows they're prepared for retribution, since they've hired some muscle to guard their supplies. But of course in this situation, I have no idea why they expect the hired goons not to turn on them and take all their stuff. But since they're faceless thugs at this point, I think we're not supposed to care.
  
  Some kids discover the hidden tank, so everyone finds out that the marines aren't coming back with supplies. The panic over resources leads them to decide to kick out the refugees. And they bring two cops to throw about 50 people out. Apparently they figured the refugees would be quietly and happily escorted into the radioactive wild.
  
  
  Mayor Gray goes kinda nuts and gasses the refugees. This pisses some people off, naturally. Roger tries to reason with him, then tries the "I'm holding a gun" brand of reasoning, and we're supposed to get the impression, I think, that he doesn't plan on using it, but of course a struggle ensues and the gun goes off. Roger takes the hard line, he's not going to let Gray get treatment for his wound until he gives his word that the refugees can stay. I liked him better with the stupid fake beard. Deputy Bill pulls out a rifle and tries to take out Roger to save the mayor, but let's just say he's no Mark Wahlberg.
  
  The craziest of refugees takes Jake's mom hostage, and they share a nice hostage/captor moment, giving her extra sympathy for all the refugees, and rallies the townspeople to share their rations with the people about to be kicked out. So Roger gives himself up, and the dramatic hostage situation ends not at all dramatically. And the "we don't have enough food to support the town and the refugees" problem now becomes "we don't have enough food to support the town with it's newly adopted extra citizens." Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, but it sure gives everyone warm fuzzies. Except Roger, who gets kicked out. If he shows back up, the fake beard will return!
  
  The last scene shows everyone gathered around the radio they took from the fake marines, and a news broadcast pointing out that the people who were going to blow up New York were carrying "near perfect fake FBI badges," and the sheriff immediately thinks of Hawkins. So that might be interesting.
  
  I liked the episode ok, but I feel like the show always comes close to being edgy, but backs off at the last minute to be family friendly. And some of the side stories are kind of dull. Plus, I miss Sprague Grayden.


• Penn & Teller: Bullshit: This week, a very interesting episode about breasts. Why can guys walk around the beach with no shirt, but in many places women get arrested for the same thing? Why are so many people offended by the perfectly natural act of a mother feeding her child? I'm as big a fan of the female form as anyone, but I've often wondered if men's fascination with breasts is directly related to the fact that they're kept hidden. The forbidden fruit, in this case, are melons. But since this is a Showtime show, there's nothing forbidden about them, so there were plenty off them.
  
  Another really interesting topic they touched on was breast cancer. Apparently all the pink ribbons and walk events put the majority of the money they raise towards awareness, and not that much towards actually finding either a cure or an underlying cause. Early detection seems to be the best thing for any kind of cancer, so awareness is good, but that does seem kind of bullshitty. Just isolating the factors that put women at risk would make an enormous difference. A doctor saying "you should have regular mammograms" carries a lot less weight than "you have gene X, so you will probably get breast cancer. You need to have regular mammograms." But that's just one man's opinion, and on the topic of breast cancer, I don't think a man's opinion counts for much.

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TV Catch-up

Last bit of catching up from this week's TV. Highlight for spoilers:

• Friday Night Lights: This show is just awesome. Seriously awesome. So my... I want to call my reaction "giddiness", but as Cliff Clavin pointed out so many years ago, "men don't get giddy." But I was thrilled with this episode, and the result is a pretty rambling commentary on it. Sorry in advance.
  
  Landry's plan to pick up Tyra with his math skillz is hilarious. I was a nerd in high school (I say "was" as if I'm not a nerd now, which is obviously not the case), but the math never really paid any dividends in that department. "Mr. T., and the T. stands for... Tyrasalgebratutor." I also liked his premature "yes" to the "If you're not doing anything on Friday..." question. Would've been funny if it was "If you're not doing anything on Friday, would you mow my lawn while I go out with some other guy?"
  
  
  When that random guy in the restaurant said he remembered those days or whatever, I thought he was going to swoop in, tutor her, and they would hit it off, and Landry would show up just in time to see his plan pay off for someone else. Then they showed someone running up behind her and I thought it was Landry to be all "wait, I'm here!" I did not see that coming at all. I thought the whole thing was written and acted just about perfectly. Tyra seems really tough, and it's appropriate that she'd be able to fight the guy off. But she's still human, and that's obviously pretty traumatic. And you could tell Landry didn't really know what to do, but he still probably ended up doing exactly what she needed.
  
  The Matt getting paid storyline is sort of predictable. Every college or high school football movie/tv show has to cover race relations, steroids, and under the table payoffs, and since they covered the other two, I guess we were due. It was nice to couple it with the "this is getting too commercial" thing. That's not quite as ubiquitous as the other three things, but still pretty common. I liked that Buddy actually took the "Garrity Bowl" suggestion somewhat seriously.
  
  In what was a very tiny side story this week, Waverly, the unmedicated bipolar girl, being armed was slightly troubling to me, but not as troubling as it was to smash, who I think thinks she's just going to flip out into a murder/suicide thing.
  
  In Lyla/Street news, the big blow-up was a long time coming. Too much tension there to not explode at some point. And we finally get rid of the lawsuit cloud that's been hanging over him and Coach Taylor. "You ever thought about coaching?" was the perfect note to end on.
  
  Warning: actual football content follows. They're not down 8-0 right off the bat if that kid just falls on the ball on that onside kick. You try to return it, and that's how you end up fumbling. Also, it seems silly that Dillon would bite on that fake extra point, the footing being so bad, I think you only kick out of desperation (and we see their opponents try a field goal later and flub it). A nice realistic depiction of a muddy game in general though, and another "chill scene" with the winning run, which featured some really good cinematography, I think. Great, great episode.
  


• Jericho: That uptight detective from Psych is the sheriff of the windmill town. And he drives a hard bargain on the windmills. But with the long emotional goodbyes for these ten guys... and the fact that Heather didn't come back, either the actress didn't want to show up (or they couldn't afford to pay her), or that's extremely fishy. And wouldn't the supposedly food-strapped windmill town have to feed all these guys they're forcing to come build the things? Not much of this makes any sense.
  
  Shoshannah Stern is back! I really liked her on Weeds and part of what made me give Jericho a shot was her presence. But the punk store owning kid and is bratty rich friend are back too, but I guess you have to take the good with the bad. Dale's pissed at farmers not honoring contractual obligations to the store. Nothing says compelling drama like a guy inheriting a store and not getting the 3% the other guy is obligated to give. I almost fell asleep writing that sentence. He showed up at the dude's house with a gun, which seems kinda dumb. He might get the food now, but that guy, whoever the hell he is, isn't going to just shrug his shoulders and forget it ever happened. But hey his bad boy routine is at least going to get him some action with the aforementioned bratty rich girl. You can tell how invested I am with the show by the fact that I don't know a lot of the characters' names. But the show isn't without it's moments, like...
  
  Aasif Mandvi is back too! I'm seriously loving him on The Daily Show, and it's awesome that he's also a serious, PTSD, drunken doctor here. I find a lot of the character drama in the show to be pretty lame, and April's pregnancy was one of my least favorite storylines, but the scene where Jake convinces Kenchy to go back into surgery was actually pretty moving.
  
  In the Hawkins storyline, I think he would've been best off confessing that he used to nail Sarah, and that's why she left, and that's why his wife isn't around. Pretty much covers everything, and I think the cop would just let it go. Or at least I would. But it worked out anyway I guess. I had sorta forgotten about the guy Sarah killed, so the twist that they found the body of the guy she killed was a nice surprise to me.
  
  A pretty good episode, thanks largely to Aasif Mandvi. A character that can barely handle the stress of this whole situation is a great addition to the mix.

Still to watch: nothing. Although by the time I finished this, Friday night TV was already starting.

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TV Catch-up

Finally caught up with these two over the weekend. Highlight for spoilers:

• Jericho: When the marines blamed all this mess on Iran and North Korea, I was immediately suspicious. Too easy a culprit, and the marines rolling in to save the day was too easy a solution for the series. So while I guess it wasn't a surprise, it was cool to see how they arrived at the conclusion that these guys weren't for real. Jake is quite the player though, moving from Heather to Emily to fake marine chick.
  
  I'm glad that the Hawkins' ex-girlfriend storyline is over. I can't say I'm that interested in it, but I guess his story will pick up with him after the "old man." And I like that his daughter ends up as the shooter, since they'd had a scene earlier in the series where he's teaching her to shoot.



• Halfway Home: A male prostitute, an arsonist, an armed robber, a drug trafficker, and a computer scammer are sent to a halfway house as part of their release. Most of the conflict comes from the fact that the arsonist (played by TV That Guy Regan Burns) is, other than his pyromania, a straight laced play-by-the-rules type, while all the rest are more what you'd expect from criminals. A lot of what you'd expect from a low-budget improv-heavy show on Comedy Central... lots of wackiness, lots of random references (Robert Mapplethorpe, etc), and lots of sex jokes (mostly from Oscar Nunez, who, in a bit of a departure from his reserved Office character, plays a flamboyant prostitute). It's mildly funny in parts, but I can't say that I'm motivated to ever watch it again, especially given how crowded Wednesdays are with good TV.

And a random bit of TV news, Digital Spy is reporting that, much like Ricky Gervais' The Office, Extras will not get a third season, but instead will produce a special to wrap up the series. While I'm a little sad that we won't get another season of this very funny and underrated show, I'm happy to see that we haven't seen the last of it.

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Friday Night TV/Catch up

With Monk and Psych done, there's not much to watch. First some catching up, then Friday night stuff. Highlight for spoilers:

• Jericho: Back to the stuff I like this week, with more focus on the struggle for survival than the crazy conspiracies that lead to the whole situation. Jake and company head out looking for deer, since food supplies are low, but a mysterious pickup ambushes them, flips over their truck, and takes all their stuff. So they're stranded far from town, Jake's trapped under the truck, Stanley has a busted ankle, leaving only Mimi to go find help. Hawkins, meanwhile, heads off to investigate the aforementioned crazy conspiracies, and seems to be figuring out that his old flame has it in for him. And they threw in a little bit with Emily getting re-acquainted with her fiancee, so I'm sure at some point there will be a blow-up over what almost happened with Jake.
  
  A decent episode overall, but I'm still not enjoying the post-hiatus episodes as much as the first set.


• Las Vegas: See, this is why I keep watching this show. It's silly, but they really commit to it. Why not just stick Sam in a box and ship her to wherever, knock up Delinda, blow up a few floors of the Montecito including maybe Delinda, have someone shoot Mary's dad but we don't know which of three characters did it, and just for good measure, have the casino robbed, Ed served with divorce papers, and Danny re-enlist?
  
  Reminds me a little of the first season finale of Alias, except not nearly as well done. But both efforts were pretty ballsy, cause all that stuff coming to a cliffhanger at the same time is really rewarding for the observant viewer, but can confuse the casual viewer who's trying to put the kids to bed, do laundry, and eleven other things at once cause they don't really have time to pay close attention to the TV. But fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), I'm a TV junkie, and I eat this stuff up. A ridiculously fun episode.

On the Tivo: Nothing.

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TV Catch-up

The cable's out, so I might miss all the Thursday night stuff. Hopefully between network websites and other people's Tivos, I can catch up eventually. But that did free up time to catch up on Wednesday stuff. Highlight for spoilers:

• Jericho: That trading post town at the fairgrounds had the feel of those Fallout video games. The guys checking guns at the gate, especially. So apparently salt is worth a ton, so the snooty rich teenager is again rich. They've also teamed up with a neighboring town to trade salt for parts to make windmills. And the new girl living with Hawkins is just trying to find the "package", which I assume is a bomb he was supposed to set off. Dull episode.


• Friday Night Lights: Geez, so much happens on this show. I love it:
  
  • Buddy Garrity as Dupree/Magnum P.I. is pretty hilarious.
  • Riggins' new neighbor is kinda cute, but her kid is irritatingly cute. I can't imagine a kid that old in Texas (or Tennessee) not knowing how to throw a spiral, though... but I guess that's shorthand for "lacking a father figure."
    
  • Landry's toast was excellent.
    
  • Waverly's whole "where have you been?" introduction just made me assume she'd been knocked up, but it seems like she's got a mental health issue. Bipolar, probably. And now she's off her meds, and kinda losing it.
    
  • Tyra's mom, on the other hand, has already lost it.
    
  • Lyla doesn't react too well to her parents' fighting, nor to Street's tattoo girl.
  • And some nice moments between Tyra and Tami, and Buddy and the Coach there at the end.
  
  
• Knights of Prosperity: Ok, the Oswald Montecristo video was quite amusing. "K-E-E-S-I-N-G" and the fantasy sequence about Kelly Ripa and their inexplicably british kids were both pretty good too. I wouldn't rob Kelly Ripa though. Lenny Kravitz was a better choice. I can see the whole ditching Mick Jagger and looking for someone else to rob really improving the show. This may have been the best episode yet.
  

On the Tivo: TCM stuff. I missed all the Thursday stuff, which I'll have to hunt down.

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Wednesday Night TV

Lots of stuff left to watch, but so far (highlight for spoilers):

• Lost: What the hell was that? So Jack's flashback revealed what his tattoo means... sort of? He walks among us but isn't one of us, or Jack's a leader but lonely? Also getting that tattoo means he gets his ass kicked for some reason. And I'm totally unclear why he became so insistent on getting one upon learning that it was Bai Ling's "gift" that he looked ready to beat on her.
  
  And the Jack/Ben/Juliet thing kinda played out how one would expect it to play, with Jack continuing to use his expertise as leverage, but they do introduce a new character, Isabel "the sheriff" (played by Diana Scarwid, who was awesome on Wonderfalls, and was pretty awesome here). The branding of Juliet was kinda unusual.
  
  On the Sawyer/Kate front, nothing interesting happened. Plus it was capped by a cheesy An American Tail shot showing Alex and Karl looking at their same teddy bear constellation. I don't remember a worse Lost episode.

• Jericho: Another show that had a long hiatus, and I have to admit, I forgot what was going on where we left off. But this episode gives us some pre-bomb action, mostly following Hawkins and Jake. Jake's in Southern California or something, struggling to find work after some mystery incident in Iraq ruined his reputation, and then he has to flee from the evil Haliburton like company. Meanwhile, Hawkins has to abduct his family to keep them out of the way of all the bombs, and there's some stuff involving the chick he was living with (including an inexplicable online chat where they have full motion video but no audio). And then we catch back up with where they left off before the hiatus, with the plane crash people showing up, including Roger, Emily's fiancee with a ridiculous fake beard, and Hawkins' girlfriend in the dramatic reveal at the end. Yawn. I've never loved this show, but keep watching for some reason

On the Tivo: Friday Night Lights, Knights of Prosperity.

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