Friday Night TV

Highlight for spoilers:

• Law & Order: Law & Order loves the religion-themed shows, huh? A serial arsonist is targeting churches, but this most recent one was a copycat arson to hide a murder. The motive? A guy was teaching kids in a parochial school about evolution. And they work in a little teacher/student sex for good measure.
  
  
  I figured the guy from Touching Evil can't just be one of those people who talks for a minute and is never seen again. So no surprise when he turns out to be the killer. Cool to see Danielle Melnick, she's one of my two favorite recurring lawyers (along with Dworkin), because she's a big fan of the crazy defense strategies, and doesn't disappoint here. Justifiable homicide because he thought his daughter's life was being put into danger. Because learning crazy ideas like evolution will surely incur the wrath of God. A creative idea that a judge somehow bought into.
  
  And in the end it turns out he was pissed cause a guy was sleeping his daughter. Only it was the wrong guy. She just said the name of the evolution guy cause her dad hated him anyway. While he rots in jail, you have to figure she's going to be riddled with guilt for the rest of her life.
  
  Random aside: I've always thought the Law & Order theme song sounds like the intro to "Where It's At" by Beck.


• Acceptable TV: Same as last week, check out the official site to watch anything you missed, and to vote for your favorites. Homeless James Bond and Mr. Sprinkles, the two I voted for last week, both came back. Neither was as good as the first episode, though Bond was still pretty good while Sprinkles was genuinely disappointing. The only funny aspect was the Captain Crunch character.
  
  
  Medical Hospital was the only of the new ones I liked. The female cast members were looking pretty hot in this one, and I liked the House parody aspect. Super weak ending though. And the user entry this week relied on subtitles in "l33tsp33k", the annoying character substituion language used by kids who think they're hackers, but the Vh1 logo was obscuring a lot of it. The website's overloaded right now, but I'll check it out sometime later. I'm definitely voting for more Bond, but I'm torn between a third Mr. Sprinkles and a second Medical Hospital.

Still to watch: nothing.

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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

With nothing but repeats Thursday night (except an Andy Barker, P.I. that I'd already seen online), I had hoped to catch up on even more stuff, but I ended up mostly catching up on sleep. Highlight for spoilers:

• House: Tricky with the opener, since we usually see the case of the week person in the sequence before the credits, but it turns out to be a dream House was having about having his leg blown off in Iraq or something. But it turns out we did see the case of the week person, because House was dreaming about the guy before he even got the case, giving us two mysteries: what's wrong with the guy, and why is House having psychic dreams about him?
  
  
  Hugh Laurie has such a convincing American accent that it was only from his IMDB page that I learned he was not from the US of A. But sitting in the tub with those somewhat grandmotherly glasses on, he looked as British as a tea-drinking soccer hooligan with bad teeth.
  
  House became obsessed with the idea that the guy was a model or in a movie (possibly porn) or on TV. I kept thinking "Of course the guy's been on TV, he's Riley from Buffy!" But no fourth wall jokes for this show, it turned out he dated Cuddy once several years ago.
  
  House also has some of his own medical issues this week, in the form of difficulty urinating. While I can't imagine how bad any of it must be, I have a hard time imagining that not being able to pee more than a few drips is that much worse than a self-administered catheter. That scene was brutal. Plus, it reminded me of the even more brutal Deadwood kidney stone removal scene. Yikes.
  
  And they're playing up the Chase/Cameron relationship even more. While I'm not sure about the storyline, there's something really hot about the normally reserved Cameron being all "I know I'm sexy and you can't resist me."


• Bones: Hooray, more of Wyatt, Booth's therapist. This week, he does a little couples counselling for Booth and Brennan, deciding that it wasn't her feelings for him that kept her from taking off with Sully. Hopefully it was the fact that he was a crappy character and seriously reduced my enjoyment of the show. Anyway, this immediately solved the tension between the two, which seems odd, but I'll buy it. The cool part was that Angela thought he was full of it. Convinced that they're nuts for each other, she confronts Mr. Fancy Pants shrink with her own theory, and they share an awesome scene at the end. If they hadn't spent most of the season hooking up Angela and Hodgins, I'd hope they'd hook her up with ol' Gordon, cause that would be tons of fun.
  
  
  As for the case, a grave robber breaks a water main, and bodies from all over the cemetery float up, so Bones & Co. are called in to identify and re-bury them, but shockingly they discover a murder victim buried amongst the old corpses. Some stuff happens, and the priest quickly admits his guilt. Easy confessions on TV are always lies to cover for someone, so as soon as the priest said he did it, you knew it was someone else. But I was stumped as to who, so I was pleasantly surprised with the resolution. The administrator lady, "practically raised" by the old priest, is a great unexpected fit, and there were enough characters floating around with possible motives (the possibly abused kid and the grave robber kid) that it was still a mystery. But there's no way her confession holds up in court, right? A priest asking questions with no cops around, any decent lawyer gets that tossed. I like how shows without lawyer characters ignore stuff like this.
  
  I'm kinda surprised that they'd make a lead character in a fairly popular TV show both an atheist and a jerk about it. Seems like that might alienate the 90% of the world that believe in some sort of god.

Still to watch: Friday Night Lights, Jericho.

The original Law & Order comes back for the first new episode since sweeps, and Acceptable TV returns for its second episode on VH1 at 10. Too late to vote, but you can still check out last week's sketches on the Acceptable TV website.

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The Patriot

When I first checked out Turner Classic's 31 Days of Oscar lineup, I was surprised to see The Patriot listed. I'd never seen it because it looked pretty generic, but the fact that it'd been nominated for three oscars made me think I might've missed something.

But what I should've noticed was that the nominations were for sound, cinematography, and score, which were all quite good here. The plot? The only thing unexpected about it was how eerily close it was to what I was expecting. I assumed we'd get the old warrior who's seen too much blood in his day and wants to settle down with his family, but doesn't quite fit in as a farmer. I figured the British would make the tragic mistake of making the conflict personal for him, which forces him into the fight. I guessed that we'd get a series of scenes as they assemble their rag tag group of warriors ready to take on a better trained, better equipped opponent, and only their plucky spirit and unconventional tactics lead them to victory. It felt like a dozen different epic/action movies thrown into a blender and set during the revolution.

That's not to say it doesn't have some good qualities. There were some well-choreographed fight scenes, Chris Cooper and Rene Auberjonois are pretty much good in everything they do, and it was certainly a nice looking movie. Plus, it's always funny when actors have to look serious when they're wearing those goofy triangular hats (pictured).

My initial reaction to the trailers a few years back was that it didn't look especially good or bad, and I felt no motivation to see or avoid it. And after seeing it, I remain apathetic towards it.

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Wednesday Night TV

I always fall way behind on Tuesday or Wednesday, and today I only caught two shows. Highlight for spoilers:

• Lost: I seriously enjoyed the opener, making us think Nikki was a stripper before revealing that she starred on a V.I.P./She Spies-type show with Billy Dee Williams, who was awesome. Plus, Nikki's easy on the eyes, which I don't mind at all. But from then on? Eh.
  
  So Nikki and Paulo killed a guy and stole some diamonds, they found out a couple secrets about the island before anyone else, Paulo went to the bathroom that time in the hatch so he could retrieve the diamonds he hid there, and then they're paralyzed and buried alive. Seriously? It seems odd that Paulo was apparently an awesome chef with a nice gig and Nikki had just gotten a pretty big break as an actress, and that's when they'd kill a guy for $8mil? Criminals make sense when they have nothing else going for them, not when their lives are looking pretty promising.
  
  But more than that, I feel like we went through the painful introduction of these two characters for this? It kind of felt like a B-level horror movie concept. I can only assume that when Locke mentioned to Paulo that things buried near the beach will wash up, that leaves the door open for them to somehow survive, but I have mixed feelings on that.
  
  Most of the time, I don't like it when a character appears to die but then shows back up alive. There's nothing really more dramatic than a character facing death, but if the people making a show try to play with you, make you think someone dies and they don't, it feels like they're cheating. Creating an exciting moment that will have big consequences in the characters' world, then pulling back and saying "ha ha, only kidding" is cheap.
  
  But at the same time, if we had the awkward introduction over the course of the season and their own flashback episode, and then they die... that seems like cheap filler material. I have no problem with filler in the form of an episode that doesn't advance the plot but allows us to spend more time with the characters, but if you fill an entire episode with filler about characters that you just now introduced and then kill off, what was the point?
  
  I'm a big Lost fan, and haven't actively disliked many episodes, but I think this one falls in that category.


• South Park: I quit watching 24 somewhere in the beginning of the third season, and either the South Park writers did too or the show has remained exactly the same. From the way the phones rang to Kiefer Sutherland's "whispering, but whispering really loudly for dramatic effect" to the visuals and pacing, everything was exactly how I remember it from a few years ago.
  
  The best South Park episodes have either something interesting to say or make you laugh so hard it hurts, and this one did neither. It did have some laughs though, so it was good television, but sub-par by South Park standards.

Still to watch: House, Jericho, Friday Night Lights, Bones.

And I wish I could've come up with a better image of Nikki, cause that's really low quality, but she looked great all through the episode.

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Tuesday Night TV/Catching Up

• Law & Order: Criminal Intent: This very special Criminal Intent is brought to us with limited commercial interruptions. I'm not sure what's special about it. Other than a scene being set in a Moe's burrito place, which might've earned them enough money that they didn't have to air as many commercials to turn a profit.
  
  
  We don't really know a thing about Wheeler, which isn't that surprising for a Law & Order show, but I'm surprised they gave her sort of a feature part this early on. I've had some questions about her character (mostly, thanks to her non-feminine hairstyle and the lesbian mechanic that hit on her early in the season, about her sexuality), but none of them revolved around her father. But it turns out Pop Wheeler was a lawyer who helped people get liquor licenses in exchange for piles of money.
  
  The actual case involved the murder of a judge's son. The investigation, as usual, went in all different direction, but whenever they show punk rich kids I'm immediately suspicious of them. The father of the kid who did it was overacting pretty badly there at the end. A lethal combination of the "look away to process information before dramatically turning your head to face someone in anger" and the long, almost Shatneresque, pause.


• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: Law & Order did an episode on February 10th about a preacher and a gay hooker, played by Anson Mount. L&O: CI followed suit on February 21st, with Tom Arnold as the gay preacher. SVU's way behind the times, with Tim Daly as the religious leader.
  
  
  But they're at least slightly clever and don't make the religious leader exactly like Ted Haggard. They tried to be tricky about it, with all sorts of circumstantial evidence pointing toward Daly's character, but SVU has gone with the same DNA test twist way too many times. They get a partial match to the main suspect, and run with that until - surprise! - it's a close relative of the suspect. The oldest son was the obvious choice, since he thought their little haunted house AIDS joke was so hilarious, but I wasn't 100% sure until the mom from Picket Fences said he'd changed his tune from preaching against homosexuality to promoting tolerance.
  
  I was expecting the son to be the murderer, but when he confessed to having the gay relationship but not the murderer, they were running out of characters to pin it on. Tim Daly's oldest daughter knew her brother was gay, but they made it clear that the killer had overpowered the victim, and she looked to be about 4'10", so that left the smug church assistant guy.
  
  NBC promoted this with "One thing's for certain, you'll have no idea who did it," which worked, because it made me really try to figure out who did it, but it wasn't that much of a challenge. Otherwise, it was nice to see Finn and Munch get a little screen time after being absent for most of the year.


• The Riches: Eddie Izzard finally dons the priest getup that we kept seeing in the promos. It's part of a scam to get fake documents for the rest of the family in order to get the kids enrolled in school. That doesn't go over well, and I have to assume the kids will have a ton of trouble both academically and socially. During the debate, we get a little insight that Wayne is a "half-breed" and through 7th grade lived as a "buffer," the traveller term for a normal person. Which opened up the possibility at least that there's an explanation for his weird accent (which seemed much more American last week, but goes right back to whatever it was in the first episode).
  
  
  Wayne's first day at work starts with a hilarious speech. It resembled his interview last week, and was hilarious. "Peter Piper picked a peck of Panco peppers." Everyone buying into the "we are rocks" bit was a bit of a stretch, but Eddie Izzard is so damn charismatic that I can see people buying his bullshit. From that point on, the story at Panco was the plot to the Newsradio pilot, in which Dave Nelson gets hired as the new news director, has to fire Ed, the old news director. Still, if you're going to rip someone off, you might as well rip off one of my favorite shows ever.
  
  I'm really starting to like Ginny next door. Her speech about the fancy private school being a waste and then admitting their hypocrisy was great. And I really liked Dahlia's outrage when the private school wouldn't let them in, but with how thick she laid it on with her after the bird con thing, I'm surprised she fell for it in the end..
  
  Tammy, Cael's special lady friend, is still calling him (and Di Di finds out about it). Dale, the traveler leader guy, beats Tammy into leading him to the Malloys. And Cael naturally falls for it completely. We leave off with Dale clandestinely observing the meeting between Cael and Tammy, so I figure that's going to be the basis for next week.
  
  Not as good as last week's episode, but still pretty solid. I feel like they can get a ton of mileage out of this premise, and the cast seems able to take the material as far as it will go, the only question is whether the writing will hold up. But I'm along for the ride either way.

Still to watch: House, which I kinda forgot was new until just now, and I'm headed to bed.

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Monday Night TV

As a TV and internet addict, I'm a big fan of electricity. Except when I don't have any. I got home around 9:30, ready to tonight's offerings, only to discover that the power was out. And it stayed out until this morning. A few years ago this would've meant I missed my favorite shows, but things are pretty awesome these days. Highlight for spoilers:

• Prison Break: It looks like I recorded the first 10 minutes or so before the power died, but Fox is kind enough to put the episode online here.
  
  
  
  Is there some tradition about military men killing themselves in dress uniform, or did everyone just really like that part of A Few Good Men? Not that it was poorly acted, but I felt like the scene with Kellerman and his sister after the gun jammed lacked emotional weight because we've seen her for all of a minute prior to this. And then he shows up at Sara's trial, but I have no idea how he is a "very credible witness," though, since Kim and friends supposedly deleted all the evidence that he ever worked for them. I like that Sara's defense lawyer is that guy who, although he's had a long and successful acting career, I will always think of as Davis Lynch from Wings and Diane's fake boyfriend who turned out to be gay on the last episode of Cheers ("Muffin, come back!").
  
  A recurring theme in this show that holding someone at gunpoint almost guarantees their escape. It happened with Bellick holding T-Bag, and Linc holding Mahone. Related to the latter, I'm not sure I like the idea that Schofield and Linc aren't capable of killing a man. I understand the idea of portraying them as moral and all that, but I think that if you're fighting for your life long enough, you ought to become willing to take the lives of those who would take yours. Between the brothers not killing folks when they had the chance, C-Note's suicide a couple episodes back, and Kellerman's suicide, I feel like the show is wussing out a lot lately. Cutting away when something exciting is about to happen, only to cut back later and show that it didn't... you can only do that so many times before it gets irritating.


• Everybody Hates Chris: The CW is also friendly and put this episode up on their video site.
  
  I had been souring a bit on the show lately, but I really liked some of the father/son moments. Rochelle's part this week was nice, too. She can be quite the bitch on occasion, but this week was really looking out for Tanya and even Jackee's character. I don't find Monk particularly funny though, and I wish they'd go back to Antonio Fargas as Chris' boss. The two highlights for me were Julius' "cool" scenes and the part where Chris' love interest takes over the narration and instantly asks out the random other guy.

The Riches gets repeated on FX tonight at midnight, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report ran this afternoon (which I watch, but would find impossible to review... I don't know how TV Squad's Annie does it)... so I will end up not missing anything. Hooray for the internets!

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Invisibles 328

Filmwise has Invisibles #328 up. Trickier than last week, I think. I managed 5 without any trouble, but the other three I couldn't be any more clueless on.

Last week's answers: With the help of a commenter, I had them all. I'd talk trash and ask the filmwise editors for a real challenge, but obviously they've already given me one. No time at all to bask in the glory of my victory.

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Sunday Night TV

Packed night of TV, and my Battlestar Galactica talk goes on forever. Sorry. Highlight to reveal spoilers:

• The Simpsons: It seems like The Simpsons takes longer and longer to get into the meat of the plot. They almost always start off with unrelated stuff, in this case fire safety (with a great "Scent of a Wookiee" joke), but usually the second part becomes the main plotline, here re-enacting major events to replace a lost photo album (with the source music montage that now appears in every single episode). Or at least that becomes a B-story. But they ditched that quickly and went with Homer as a paparazzo.
  
  They didn't seem to take a position on the press/celebrity relationship, with Homer clearly victimizing the famous folks, but when he stopped they all turned completely evil (as evidenced by the hilarious montage at the end, with Tatum snorting Secretariat's ashes, Side Show Mel eating an American flag, etc). This episode was decidedly average up until that montage, but the sequence lifted this week's installment all the way to pretty good.
  
  A few guest stars this week: Betty White had a random cameo as herself, J.K. Simmons was great (parodying his Spider-man role of J. Jonah Jameson... "This one has 'page one' written all over it!"), and Jon Lovitz as Enrico Iritazzio was ok.


• King of the Hill: Lucky goes "stumping," leaving Luanne feeling lonely. To make matters worse, she's spending all her time at work doing hairstyles for prom season, reminding her that she never got to go to hers. So while Lucky recruits Hank and friends to help him take on the Moby Dick of stumps, Luanne talks a lonely kid into asking her to the prom. As usual, everything ends on an unusual, but sweet note, with Lucky and Luanne dancing to "25 or 6 to 4" by Chicago, which is indeed an awesome song (though the only Chicago song I actually like).
  
  Best line of the episode: "Everyone goes to the prom now. Even the crippled and the gay!" Not a great episode, but not bad either. The scheduling has been so weird this year (not starting until late January, doing two episodes after the Super Bowl, and then taking over a month off) that I felt a little lost.


• Family Guy: Any footie pajamas-related story is great by me. "Are you telling me I could be pooping and warm?" The whole restaurant storyline was weak, but it served as setup to the pretty good (if completely weird) Crippletron segment, and Peter's wheelchair experiences.
  
  
  As usual, the story is all over the place, so the quality of the episode depends on the cutaways. It was about 50/50. Tyra Banks on America's Next Top Model turning into an iguana, Mexican Super-friends, the extended Maude theme, the M. Night Shyamalan commercial, and Dumbo Ben Stiller (twice) were all pretty lame, while swapping vocal chords with Patrick Stewart, Quagmire tearing up Lois' carpet, exploding cupcakes, and the M.C. Escher rap video were all very funny. Average episode overall.


• American Dad: A CIA drill gone awry sends Stan fleeing into the woods thinking there's a nuclear attack coming. Since the family has been calling him a boob behind his back, he doesn't tell them when he finds out the truth. This story got really weird and wasn't very funny.
  
  Roger, meanwhile, is left behind, and in an effort to get a blender in time to make his special Grey's Anatomy-themed cocktail (weird that Family Guy ended on a Grey's Anatomy joke just before this), goes on jdate to get a desperate woman to marry him so he can put a blender on his registry. I think the Jewish family was Elliott Gould, Liz Sheridan (Jerry's mother on Seinfeld), and Lisa Edelstein (Cuddy from House).
  
  Things wrapped up very neatly in the end, but the episode just wasn't funny. For a while, American Dad was better than Family Guy every week, but the past month or so, FG has raised its game, and AD has turned back into the uneven show that I considered never watching again during the first season.


• Battlestar Galactica: Those were some loooong previouslies. We pick up with a few relationship droppings, with Adama and Roslin sharing a morning phone call, and Anders hooking up with Tory (and getting caught by Seelix, who he'd been starting up a relationship with). But that out of the way, we get to the meat of the story, which was especially meaty.
  
  I think Gaeta perjured himself because he still feels guilty about the whole thing, but I'm not really sure.. Weird though how Lee was feeling the hate for the old man last week, but refuses to sell him out for prejudging the case. And then makes a great case for everyone hating him. But it's a good speech, and sums up how I've felt about the trial myself. Though at the end, stepped on one of my most hated conventions of acting/screenwriting: repeating a phrase for dramatic effect. It shows up in movies and tv shows constantly, but who does that in real life? No one. No one.
  
  When the judges adjourned to consider the verdict, it honestly sounded like those scenes in South Park where the angry mob goes "rabble rabble rabble." I was thinking that since a lot of the speech was directed at the Admiral that it'd either be 4-1 guilty or 3-2 not guilty, with Adama on the not guilty end either way. "Not Guilty is not the same as Innocent" was a great way to sum up his position, but you can tell Roslin is seriously pissed.
  
  Lampkin's blue suit was weird. Somewhat pimp-like, complete with the cane which was apparently an affectation. Was that for court, or somehow to win Lee over? Either way, this guy was unbelievably cool, and I hope this isn't the last we see of him.
  
  Baltar really had the crazy eyes (pictured) working for him early on as he vehemently opposed a mistrial. But then after I had been feeling sympathetic for him of late, he instantly turns back into a cocky jackass the instant he gets out of the courtroom. Awesome. As I suspected last week, Keegan Connor Tracy reappears. She's taking Baltar off "to his new life." I hope she's a major character next season, because she's a pretty good actress (and also I think she's really hot). And certainly they wouldn't tease us with the Baltar as a religious icon hints they've been throwing out for a while.
  
  With the trial wrapped up and the episode not close to over, the instant Adama gives the order to jump to the nebula, you had to know it was going to be a disaster, most likely in the form of a cylon attack. The attack happens, but not before everything goes completely crazy. The power goes out, and then we get a series of unexpected plot developments.
  
  Earlier in the episode, we learned that Roslin, Athena, and Six are all having the same hallucinations involving Hera at the same time. But we see Six go back to hallucination-land, this time without Athena or Roslin in the vision. I guess they could be seeing it, but as far as we know it was just Six. She, Baltar, and Hera look like they meet the final five, though once again we don't see their faces. The song turns out to be "All Along the Watchtower," which is nuts (but cover version that played over the last few minutes was pretty awesome). Tigh, Galen (who I don't remember hearing the music last week, but I might've just missed that), Tory, and Anders seem to think the music means they're cylons (though I think that might be too easy). Even if he is one, Tigh still hates the toasters, so he convinces everyone to go do their jobs.
  
  And just when I think we're about to get into battle, we get the big reveal. It would've been silly to kill one of your best characters off for good, so I was fully expecting Starbuck back. I'm glad that her return is more than a little mysterious though. I guess that stormy thing Starbuck dove down into is supposed to be a wormhole that lead her to Earth? Or she's a cylon and died and resurrected and is going to feed them a wormhole story. Or, and ooh, this one just popped into my head, the cylons used the eggs they harvested from her back on Caprica to build a new model based on Starbuck. Well I'm not good with theories, but anyway this is exciting.
  
  The wait until 2008, or until the between-seasons movie if that happens, will be brutal. They've been billing this as the best show on television, and while I'm not sure about that, it's episodes like this that keep those claims from being outrageous.

Fox's preview for On the Lot actually looked kinda interesting. But I wonder how similar it'll be to Acceptable TV.

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Saturday Night TV

Saturday Night Live: Peyton Manning hosting this week, and he did a pretty admirable job. He's obviously not a professional actor, but had had fun with it. Mostly, he just played someone exactly like himself, except funnier.

I appreciate a guy who can make fun of himself, and Manning did a nice amount of it. He told a great joke in the monologue (full disclosure: I'm a Patriots fan), "What do Tom Brady and the circus have in common? They both have two more rings than you do," and they did a sketch where people used the phrase "pulling a Peyton Manning" to mean looking impressive until the stakes are high and then choking.

I had to look up Carrie Underwood to figure out who she was. I guess that means I'm old and out of touch (and that I don't watch American Idol). But I quickly became a fan. Not so much of the music, but she's got nice legs and was wearing a tiny skirt. I'm easy to please.

Some highlights: the beginning of the halftime sketch, where Manning gave the best line of the show ("I just thought about going out there for the second half, and a little bit of pee came out."), the meat loaf/toilet car commercial, the couple drinking coffee, and Sen. Tim Calhoun on Weekend Update is always funny. But the absolute best part was the United Way ad. They could've filled the entire 90 minutes with Peyton Manning hitting kids with footballs, and I wouldn't have complained.

Lowlights: the middle of that halftime sketch with what sounded like a Herb Alpert song just dragged on forever, Bronx Beat is never funny, after 30 seconds it became pretty obvious that he wasn't going to throw that rock in the 300 sketch but it kept going for another two minutes, and Weekend Update. I liked Tim Calhoun as I said earlier, but two things stuck out. First, during the "Zoo News" piece, there were some good jokes in there, but Seth Myers read them like it was a race. I think there were commas in those sentences but he read it like they weren't there. Second, obviously since I didn't know Carrie Underwood, the Sanjaya sketch did nothing for me. I'd hear about him and the crying girl, but I can't say it did anything for me. And he was picked by the judges out of a very large talent pool, so even though he might be the worst singer out there, that still makes him a very good singer.

Shia LaBeouf with Avril Lavigne (hey, I've heard of her!) next time out, but that's not for a few weeks.

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Friday Night TV/Catch-up

Two shows with no real plots, so no spoiler warnings here:

• Acceptable TV: A really interesting take on a sketch comedy show. Each sketch is presented as a short "pilot episode." Viewers go to acceptable.tv to vote for their two favorites. The sketches with the most votes get picked up for another episode, while the rest get canceled and replaced by new pilots. They will also feature user submitted videos on the site, and every week the most popular user creation airs on VH1 during the show. It's an awesome concept for a sketch show, since watching SNL often leaves me wondering why so many of the best sketches never show up again, while that Horatio Sanz in drag sketch, the Nunni's, and Deep House Dish have been harder to get rid of than most STDs.
  
  But the good concept is wasted if the mini-pilots aren't any good. You can watch all this week's content on the website if you missed the show. 5 mini-shows this week, plus a user submission: Joke Chasers, Who Farted (a great game show parody, but I'm not sure another episode would be any good), Homeless James Bond, The Teensies (easily the weakest), Anna Manesia (user submitted one, but having Steve Agee of The Sarah Silverman Program in your video is kinda cheating for an "amateur"), and Mr. Sprinkles (and animated "Cat in the Hat" spoof).
  
  I think my votes go to Homeless James Bond and Mr. Sprinkles (or I would if the registration was working, which it currently isn't, at least for me... the voting doesn't last long, so I hope they figure out the issue soon). The Bond sketch had the best jokes of the night, and James Bond movies provide a lot of material to parody, so I think it could last. And Mr. Sprinkles was actually a nice bit of satire. A co-worker mentioned that he was going to sit his kids (aged 6 and 9) down and show them the story about the young boy in Georgia who was recently found dead. He wanted to make sure his kids knew to believe him when he told them to be careful around strangers. And all parents seem to be like this, instilling complete paranoia about people. I'd like my hypothetical (as far as I know) kid to be careful and all, but I'd also want him to know that people in general are good. But I don't think anyone reads this to hear my thoughts on the ills of society, so I'll just say it was funny and move on.
  
  In general I was pretty pleased with the show. All the sketches are kept short, so if they're not funny they're at least over quickly. Assuming the Acceptable TV viewers have similar tastes to me, it could be pretty great. If you don't want to watch the mini-pilots online, Acceptable TV looks like it's repeating a lot over the weekend on VH1.



• Penn & Teller: Bullshit: I somehow missed that this had started back up, but hooray! I don't actually subscribe to Showtime, but I can usually find some time to park on a friend's couch to watch their most interesting stuff. Anyway, Bullshit is one of my favorites. They kind of worked their way past the good issues early on, and tend to overstate their cases on the stuff they come up with now, but even if when I think they are bullshitting as much as their targets, the show is still entertaining.
  
  This week's topic: obesity. A perfect example of overstating cases. I agree that crash dieting is terrible for you, that the BMI is stupid, that the weight loss industry is full of misleading information and has a vested interest in their products not working, that the overweight are unfairly discriminated against, and that we're genetically programmed to eat as much food as we can so the industrialized world with abundant food should naturally start to get fat.
  
  However, they make it sound like being really fat isn't that bad for you. I'm neither a doctor nor a nutritionist nor do I even follow my own advice, but it certainly seems like people who try to get some exercise and who eat somewhat sensibly are a heck of a lot healthier than lazy gluttons. I know two guys with diabetes and it has been extremely difficult for them. Had they taken better care of themselves, they wouldn't be dealing with these problems. So the message that being fat is ok seemed... overstated. But hey, the Fat Olympics were hilarious, especially the blue shirted guy knocking into every hurdle before finally just going around the last one. An average episode, but for a show that's typically good, I'm happy with that.

Still to watch: Nothing. I tried to watch Raines but fell asleep. And I wasn't all that tired, so I think I'm done recording it.

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TMNT

Oh sure, TMNT is marketed to kids, but I was a kid once, and back then I loved these damn turtles. When watching a kid-friendly action movie though, you have to be prepared for a few things that will seriously detract from the experience: situations that call for brutal bloody violence never result in anything more than standard cartoon violence, most of the dialogue is really lame, and there's always a scene about two thirds of the way through that recaps the plot in case slow children can't figure out what's going on.

Those elements were all present, and the plot was kind of stupid. But I still enjoyed it, because the animation was fantastic. It was nicely stylized without losing the feel of the characters, the action scenes were extremely well choreographed, and the camera movements were active and complimented the action without being disorienting. And one scene featured some of the best looking CGI rain I think I've ever seen. The one problem, I think, is that unless you're a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fan (or a kid), the cool animation isn't going to be enough.

Quite a few celebrities lent their voices to the film. Sarah Michelle Gellar as April O'Neil (more on her later), Patrick Stewart as Winters, Zhang Ziyi as the leader of the Foot Clan, the great Mako voiced Splinter before he died last year, and Lawrence Fishburne and Kevin Smith make brief appearances as well. I had also thought Michael Clark Duncan was involved, but it turned out to be Kevin Michael Richardson from Knights of Prosperity.

Two things struck me as odd, though, both about the April character. Slightly more plot discussion here, so I'll hide it. Highlight the text to reveal spoilers:

First, no mention of April as either a reporter (as she had been in the cartoon and in the live action movies) or a computer tech (as she had been in the comics). She appeared to be some kind of archaeologist in the Lara Croft mold, but there was really no explanation of how any of that happened.

The other odd thing was that she was kicked some serious ass. I'm cool with the idea that female characters shouldn't have to be damsels in distress, but it was a little out of hand. They had a few scenes early on to indicate that she'd been training to fight, which I guess I appreciated because it wasn't totally out of left field, but in one of the action scenes late in the film, she was mowing down Foot Soldiers as fast as any of the turtles. I realize that the Foot Soldiers are like Stormtroopers from Star Wars, and that they're supposed to look badass but only serve to get beaten down by everyone, but in theory these are highly skilled ninjas who only look bad because the turtles are that much more skilled, plus they have the whole "mutant turtle" thing going that gives them an extra edge. But April seems to have only picked up the martial arts stuff recently, and is also a tiny girl. They draw her like she weighs about 90 lbs. I wasn't expecting realism or perfect consistency or anything, and maybe they were just under pressure to add a little "grrrl power" to a mostly male cast, but it seemed weird.

But as I said, anyone who isn't already a fan will almost certainly not like TMNT. And any fanboy type who would spend the whole movie nitpicking about the fact that it's not 100% true to the original comics will probably also not like it. But fans who just want to see their beloved Turtles on screen again (looking considerably cooler than they've ever looked) should definitely check it out.

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Sabrina

I'm still working my way through all the stuff I recorded during TCM's 31 Days of Oscar. I've watched them roughly in order of how interested I've been in seeing them, which means I'm iffy on the ones that remain, and I don't feel as urgent a need to get to these last ones. So it's pretty slow going, but there are only a few left. Today, Sabrina. Not the Greg Kinnear/Harrison Ford/Julia Ormond one from the 90s, but the Humphrey Bogart/William Holden/Audrey Hepburn one from the 50's.

Sabrina has always had a crush on William Holden's David Larrabee, but as the daughter of the family chauffeur, she's the super rich Larrabee family, and David, quite the playboy, seems to notice every woman but her. Sabrina's father gets her into a fancy French cooking school which she's reluctant to do, but hoping to escape her troubles with David, finally agrees. She's not much of a cook, but she returns from Paris with flashy new clothes and suddenly, David takes notice. This is a problem for Bogart's Linus Larrabee. As the one who actually runs the Larrabee businesses, he's hoping to execute a big merger, and has convinced David to get engaged to the daughter of the head of the other company. David going after Sabrina puts the deal in jeopardy, so Linus starts spending time with Sabrina to keep her away from David, and eventually will offer her a cash payment to leave town so David can marry for the company. Standard romantic comedy stuff happens, Bogart falls in love with Sabrina, and wins her over in the end.

This marks the second collaboration between Holden and director Billy Wilder that I've checked out from this TCM Oscar-fest (Sunset Boulevard being the first), and considering my general disinterest in the romantic comedy, it's not surprising that I didn't like Sabrina as much. But there are some things to like here. Bogart and Holden are quite good. I'm not used to seeing Bogart in a lighthearted role, but he pulled it off really well. He was still playing a somewhat uptight character, playing off his image a little, but we do get to see him in a Yale sweater and a goofy hat, which is definitely not something you'd expect to see in To Have and Have Not.

Audrey Hepburn, however, I didn't really like. I mean, she was a beautiful woman, obviously, but I didn't for a second buy her as the working class daughter of the chauffeur who the rich brothers didn't notice. She's got a very aristocratic air about her, especially the way she talks, so even in the plain-ish clothes she's wearing early on, she just seems like a rich girl slumming it in normal people's clothes. I've never seen My Fair Lady, but I wonder if she got any better at feigning working-class-ness by the time she did that.

For a genre I'm not expecting to like anyway, it was pretty good. A few genuinely funny moments, a few good performances, and it wasn't entirely sappy or anything. So it's not the worst way to kill a couple hours, but I wouldn't rush out to put it on the Netflix queue.

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Thursday Night TV

As much as I love all the other NBC comedies, it's nice to have a couple things on reruns on Thursday night, so that there's stuff to watch but not quite as many conflicts as there can be.

• Smallville: Paraphrasing Seinfeld, to the superficial man, that's a hell of a way to open a show. Fortunately, I'm above all that stuff. Yeah, that's the ticket. Of course, the superficial man might've been disappointed when they showed the face of the actress who was putting on the schoolgirl outfit. Great body, but she sorta looks like one of those wrestling women who are usually have slightly mannish faces. Or... at least that's what I would say if I were the type to judge women by that sort of thing.
  
  A lot of shows after the opening go with a "24 hours earlier," or "36 hours earlier," or "48 hours earlier," but Smallville goes for 46 hours. This is the kind of attention to detail that makes this among the two or three hundred best written shows on television right now. Except that in the opening, the guy referred to the girl as "security guard by day, schoolgirl by night," which made me think it was night. 46 hours earlier would make it 2 hours later at night two days earlier, but it was daylight at the Kent farm. But it's Smallville, so I should remember to turn my brain off, especially for pointless stuff like this.
  
  So Clark is onto Titan, a Phantom Zone baddie who's part of some sort of underground fight club. No Tyler Durden, though, this one's hosted by a bad Sam Rockwell knockoff, and features mostly meteor freaks.
  
  Lex and Lana are half-celebrating their marriage, and they throw the sinister music over just about every scene Lex does (including another Corto Maltese namedropping), but they never really show him doing anything evil, just imply it. I'm pretty sure if they showed him get up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water, they'd play the spooky music over it at this point. Anyway, Lana ends up passing out, and may have had a miscarriage... or Lex may have drugged her so that the evil alien baby he implanted in her could be harvested without her knowledge while she slept.
  
  Lois is desperate for a story, and snoops on Chloe's notes on the fight club, inexplicably puts on Britney Spears' red cat suit from one of her videos, and goes undercover. After a brief scene of lesbian sexual tension with our schoolgirl from the opening, Lois shows off her ninja moves, kicking the ass of a woman who seems to be a trained fighter/security guard. They like to point out that her father is an Army guy, but I don't see how she can always take down other people with training who are bigger than her.
  
  Naturally, Clark gets his way into the fight club to take on Titan, but first has to prove himself against Lois. I don't get how that'd really prove his skills, or how any of their supposedly rich clients would really want to see some dude kill a 20-ish-year-old girl... or at least I assume the "fight to the death" audience would want to see a close fight rather than something closer to a snuff film.
  
  But it could've been an interesting situation. He can't use his powers because it's Lois, he can't not win cause he needs to get Titan, and he can't kill her, even though she's often really annoying. And because they haven't exploited Erica Durance's body in a couple episodes, the fight club folks bring her out in an even skimpier version of the tight red leather suit. But rather than force him to come up with a clever solution, he waits until Lois' head is turned to zap all the broadcast equipment with the heat vision.
  
  Par for the course on Smallville a series of convenient events brings the plot to a close. Clark doesn't have to look for the guy because Titan just appears on his own, and Clark doesn't have to hide his powers because Lana gets knocked unconscious 5 seconds into the fight and sees nothing.


• Scrubs: Speaking of openings for the superficial man, Scrubs starts off with an Elliot's-shirt-gets-torn-off gag, and cuts straight to a super hot new nanny, played by Mircea Monroe (not porn, but a fairly racy link - follow at your own risk), who I didn't recognize at first, but she was in that Nobody's Watching show from some Scrubs writers that became quite popular on the ol' internets.
  
  The hot nanny's causing stress between Turk and Carla, Jordan's on bed rest after her surgery and is driving Dr. Cox nuts, Elliott breaks the rules because patient wants to see her dog which furthers the conflict between her and Kelso, and Laverne and Perry argue over whether things happen for a reason. That seems like a couple plots too many. But as usual when the jokes are working the show works, and there were some really good ones this week.
  
  "Gotta go, booby horn." Every Dr. Cox's continuing hatred for Hugh Jackman cracks me up every time. The group guy lie was awesome. As was the nice nod to the fact that everyone has hated Dr. Cox's hair this season (except for the obviously out of order episode where his head was shaved), using the delivery guy as the fake father of the stabbed girl was great, and the fantasy ending to J.D.'s date with smoking hot racist thief Heather was one of the better jokes in the past couple seasons.
  
  Ah but the episode ends with Laverne in a coma. She's not my favorite character or anything, but it'd be a little sad to see her die. And I can only assume she will, just because it'd seem cheap to put her in the coma for a while and bring her back, given the "bad things happen for a reason" storyline.
  
  A decent episode, but as a two parter, the payoff will obviously determine the overall quality.


• Andy Barker, P.I.: Sure, I'd technically already watched this episode online, but this was actually my favorite of the series, and it'll probably disappear forever shortly. A fat client of Andy's (his doctors are a bunch of "gloomy Gusses, they like to think that I'm 66% not body fat") dies on the golf course from a heart attack, but it shockingly not due natural causes. And the motive is jealousy over the fact that he was even more shockingly popular with the ladies (and one dude).
  
  The jokes in this episode really work, plus they let the talented cast play to their strengths. Andy Richter really sells the sequence where the wife shows up to put forward the foul play/he'd never have a heart attack/it was his mistress sequence. He manages to look like he's sorry for the widow, like he thinks she's completely off her rocker saying all this about a really fat guy, and like he's desperately trying to be polite all at once.
  
  And Tony Hale in the scene where he first meets Nicole was great. "And who might you be... hello." He bounces around between false bravado, total lack of confidence, and just regular old infatuation effortlessly. And then he comes back for the "Me and Mrs. Jones"/black and white cookie scene which just killed me.
  
  But even more than the jokes, it was a solid story. Nicely paced, classic cop show misdirection. If you were to ignore the silliness, it'd almost be a halfway decent episode of Law & Order or something... that might be a stretch, but the episode was very well-written.

Still to come: I recorded Raines but I'm still debating whether I'll watch it. Otherwise, I think I'm all caught up.

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TV Catch-up

A little catch up this afternoon before starting in on Thursday night shows. Highlight for spoilers:

• Bones: I have nothing against the actor who played Sully, nor was the character really that bad, but I'm absolutely thrilled to see him leave. Booth's relationships haven't thrown the show's tone/pacing/whatever off, but every scene with Brennan and Sully seems to grind the show to a halt. At least to me.
  
  This week they find the body, or rather skin and organs because someone removed the bones, of a mail order bride from China. The lack of bones makes things a little difficult, but eventually, thanks to guest star Michael Paul Chan (Lt. Tao from The Closer), we come to the conclusion that the bones were removed for some kind of Chinese wedding/burial ceremony, but we eventually loop around to find it was the weird lady who runs the bride import company. Not a great mystery, but not that bad.
  
  Despite the especially gory case of the week, we still had plenty of funny moments: "No bones, no Bones," switchamacallit, and the balloon head. I tend to prefer a little more Zack and Hodgins, but it was still an ok episode. The presence of a lot of Sully was made up for by the fact that we won't be seeing him again (for a while at least... I hope).


• Friday Night Lights: Somehow I completely missed the fact that Julie would be completely pissed at the idea of leaving Dillon for TMU. Her scene with her dad near the end was really nice. The Taylor family is easily one of the best on TV. A lesser family drama would've had him turn the job down right there and have a group hug, a shock-value show would have him accept for the drama of the moment, while Friday Night Lights is patient with the storyline and to squeeze real drama out of it.
  
  I love that Street got unceremoniously cut from the quad rugby team. Quite the ego on that dude though. He may be the best athlete on the floor, but he's been playing the game for what, six weeks? I have no idea how long, really, but he broke his neck in the first game and the football season isn't over yet.
  
  The scene where the tattoo girl (whose name slips my mind) offers Street a ride was hilarious. "I can give you gas money, or... something." Wink, wink. So that finally goes where it was obviously heading, with a make-out session at Stonehenge II (I was hoping it would be a stonehenge that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf, but it was a roughly full scale replica).
  
  And the scene where Street coaches Saracen is the scene I've been waiting for all year. Great step forward for Street, whose future, I think, is in coaching. Great moment for Saracen, too, who has yet to gain the swagger needed to lead a football team, but Street figures out right away how to inspire some confidence. ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons
  likes to count the "chill scenes" in sports movies. I don't remember many in sports TV shows, which are typically pretty awful, but this was a rare one. And a great one. I actually came to this show from the movie, which I liked a lot, and was much much heavier on the football content. I still love the show, but do miss the football sometimes, and this was by far the best scene they've ever had on that front.
  
  Thank goodness Riggins finally tried to get into his neighbor's pants, cause the kid storyline, which I didn't really mind, got old fast, and like tattoo girl, we all know where this was heading.
  
  Tammi makes Tyra her personal project as a guidance counselor, but Tyra's mom is not playing along, and continues to freak out over the Buddy thing, and just have issues in general. But they sorta make up at the end, though I'm sure the crazy isn't anywhere near over yet. Speaking of crazy, Lyla's having trouble with her father and Street, and ends the episode with a nice little rampage at the car lot.
  
  Yet another great episode. I'm probably more desperate for Veronica Mars to hang on for another season, but FNL is a close second.

Left to watch: All caught up.

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Comedians of Comedy: Live at the El Rey

In 2005, Comedy Central had a little documentary series about some alternative comedians on tour. They aired it around 2am on Friday nights with more or less no promotion. The series was called The Comedians of Comedy, and featured Patton Oswalt (King of Queens), Brian Posehn (Just Shoot Me, Mr. Show), Zach Galifianakis (Late World with Zach, Tru Calling), and Maria Bamford (who I know from nothing but stand-up). But don't judge these guys based on their work on some TV shows that are kinda weak. A few people pointed the show out to me and said I might enjoy it, and I'm glad they did. It was an interesting look at life on the road, mixed with funny and often innovative comedy, and I became an instant fan of all four performers.

As I looked around for what else they've done, I discovered that the whole Comedians of Comedy thing was a movie first, at the time only available on Netflix. So I checked it out, and it was also very cool. And more recently, I saw that Netflix had a concert film, Live at the El Rey, which arrived over the weekend.

Zach Galifianakis was absent for this one, no behind the scenes stuff, a mildly amusing Bob Odenkirk cameo at the beginning, and some un-funny guy named Blaine Capatch served as the host. And I've hunted down enough performances of Bamford, Oswalt, and Posehn that I'd heard some of the material before. But it was still very very funny, which is the entire point of comedy, so for me it was a winner.

Just now poking around, while the Comedy Central show doesn't seem to be available, the original Comedians of Comedy film plus Live at the El Rey are available in one DVD set, which I'll probably be picking up at some point.

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Wednesday Night TV

A fine night of television, and I've only watched half of it. Highlight for spoilers:

• Lost: A Locke flashback this week, with a couple nice touches. They start with him seated, talking about disability payments, making us think it was post-paralysis, but he was actually collecting for depression. And this played into the theory that Locke lost use of his legs due to a suicide attempt (Hurley owned the box company Locke worked for, and we saw that guy fly out a window during Hurley's first flashback at his accountant's, leading people to connect the two). Though given the awesome sudden turn when his dad pushes him out the window (a nice parallel to Locke pushing Mikhail into the brown noise fence last week), it's possible Hurley was on one of the floors beneath.
  
  On the island, Jack's chumminess with the Others is because they're going to follow through on the deal to take him home, and will be taking Juliet along with him. But Locke's going to blow up the sub, making departure impossible, and playing right into Ben's hands. Locke, Sayid, and Kate all get caught, so after all this bargaining and escaping, there are actually more people in the Others' custody than there were before.
  
  The big spooky part of this episode is the discussion of the box on the island that contains anything you can imagine. Somehow, this results in Locke's dad appearing. More importantly, this raises a bunch of questions about which island oddities are box-related, assuming the box isn't bullshit to begin with. Were the various hallucinations (Jack seeing his father, Kate seeing a horse, etc) because of the box? Was the plane crashing a result of Ben wishing for a spinal surgeon? Interesting.
  
  Another solid episode. I don't know what was going on in the fall, but since the return from hiatus, the show's been just about as good as ever. I'm too spoiler-paranoid to watch the teasers for the next episode, but the guys I was watching the show with seemed really excited about next week. And until then, keep an eye on the Lost Easter Eggs blog for cool stuff from this episode.



• South Park: They really like making fun of generic action movie plots, huh? For a minute, I thought it was going to be a Superman origin story parody. The parents of a new son believing their world is about to end, the government not believing them, Clyde's doctor early on mentioning the fly as a way to travel from one scalp to another seemed like a good way to get little louse Kal-El off of Clyde/Krypton... but yeah they went with a more Bruckheimer-type plot.
  
  Not bad, but not a great episode by South Park standards. The reveal that they all had lice was nice, and I liked the "sock bath" joke. I was sure the fly was going to take the louse to someone's crotch, but I thought it would be Mrs. Cartman.

On the Tivo: Friday Night Lights, Bones.

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TV Catch-up

Nothing new Tuesday night, so mostly a non-TV night for me. I did catch back up on the rest of Monday though. Highlight for spoilers:

• Everybody Hates Chris: I didn't really care for the main story, about Chris getting a gig as a DJ for a party. It seemed like a flimsy excuse for them to be able to make jokes about the early days of rap. And the jokes weren't that great. Plus, it sounded like they could only afford the rights to the one James Brown song ("The Boss", I think?), because it ran almost non-stop through the episode. This is a situation where a few soundalikes would've worked better. The B story was great, though. Drew gets into magic, and wants to go see a free performance at a toy store. When Julius finds out there may be rabbits pulled out of hats, we get a hilarious flashback to him seeing Night of the Lepus.
  
  The other highlight of this episode is that Adam Finley is back reviewing the show at TV Squad. He seems to like the show a lot, and even though my love for it lately is fading, his reviews are always a nice read.

On the Tivo: nothing.

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Random TV Stuff

Still a little bummed about Extras not having a whole third season, but Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant are still out there doing stuff, like travelling to Kenya for Comic Relief:



It's been a crazy week for cancellation type stuff, though.

First Veronica Mars was canceled, and then that story was retracted, and now they're talking about flashing forward 4 years into the future for next year? It's ballsy and interesting, but so was the Super Bowl episode of Alias, which marked a serious drop in the quality of the show. But I guess anything that gives us more VM is worth it, since it's still in real danger of being canceled.

And today Tina Fey is making it sound like 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights will be back, which would be absolutely great. 30 Rock seems to get better every week, and FNL manages to keep the drama coming without being over the top, which is tough to do these days.

In non-cancellation type events, April 17th seems like it'll never come, but it's not too much longer to wait for The Venture Bros. Season Two DVDs. The first set had some fun special features, and I thought the second season was even better than the already great first, so I'm hot to get my hands on this.

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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.

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