There is a new blog logo. Discuss.

The "Lost" logo stayed up a little more than a week, and now it's another foursome's turn.

As always, you can find links to, and explanations for, all the previous logos in this post.

Have at it. Click here to read the full post

House, "5 to 9": Cuddy class

As I've said previously, I've largely given up on writing about "House" because there's no point in my repeating the same complaints week after week after week, but last night's Cuddy-centric episode - like the Wilson-centric one that was the last one I previously wrote about - was of an order of magnitude so much better than most of this season that I felt it deserved mention. Some quick thoughts coming up just as soon as I get a prescription for breast milk...

The basic idea was the same as in "Wilson," which was to show the huge part of this character's life that's unrelated to House, and to show what typical House stories must look like from the perspective of someone not on the team. And even though it was coming relatively close on the heels of "Wilson," I thought the execution was really effective, in part because Lisa Edelstein is really talented (and only occasionally gets to show off that talent), in part because the day-in-the-life structure gave "5 to 9" its own distinct vibe. We got a great sense of just how overburdened Cuddy is as both single mom (even with a nanny and a helpful boyfriend) and administrator at PPTH, let alone how exponentially harder House makes her life just because he can. And I loved the use of two songs by tough female singers of a certain age (The Pretenders' "Break Up the Concrete" and Mary Chapin-Carpenter's "Passionate Kisses") to bookend Cuddy's story.

What episodes like this one, and "Wilson," and "Broken" show is that there are still really strong elements to this series. I'm just tired of the formula, and too much of this season has been hardcore formula.

I'll still watch it (or have it on in the background) most weeks, but until they go off-format again, or find some way to do a transcendent formula episode, it's back to not writing about the show again. But kudos on a job very well done last night.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

How I Met Your Mother, "Rabbit or Duck": Pants!

A quick review of last night's "How I Met Your Mother" coming up just as soon as you call me Allie Westside...

What a bizarre but ultimately funny episode of "HIMYM." "Rabbit or Duck" pushed into some incredibly broad territory, not just for the cartoonish-by-design Barney, but for the other characters. Both the rabbit/duck escalating argument and then Marshall and Lily's last-minute campaign to find a wife for Ted seemed wildly off-tone - Barney's escalating cell phone nightmare was surreal, too, but in a typically Stinson way - yet every time it seemed like the show was skipping off the atmosphere, we'd get a nice, small, "HIMYM"-y moment like Ted asking for Marshall's permission to lawyer Robin, or Ted and Robin sitting together-but-alone in the apartment on Valentine's Day(*), or Don's apology to Robin at the station.

(*) Said scene reminding me, once again, how good Josh Radnor and Cobie Smulders are together, and to lament the "Aunt Robin" thing, even as I buy the ultimate reason for why they broke up.

And NPH had himself a lot of fun dealing with the cursed phone, plus we got the return of both Ranjit and The Naked Man (which Don apparently read about on Barney's blog), so I would say that ultimately, my laughter outweighed my "what the hell is going on?" reactions.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

'Past Life' review: Sepinwall on TV

In today's column, I review Fox's "Past Life":

I briefly wondered if I found Fox’s reincarnation detective drama "Past Life" so silly because I don’t believe in past lives. Then I remembered that I also don’t believe that a tropical island could heal a paralyzed man’s spine or travel in time and space, yet I love "Lost." And that the idea of a man having a computer in his brain seems goofy to me, yet "Chuck" is one of my favorite shows.

More to the point, I don’t believe in any kind of psychic phenomena, yet I’ve often found "Medium" to be an effective, well-made show.

So, no, I don’t dislike "Past Life" because I’m a skeptic, but because it’s not very good.

You can read the full "Past Life" review here. Suffice it to say, this one won't be a fixture around here. Click here to read the full post

Chuck, "Chuck vs. the Mask": Night at the museum

A review of tonight's "Chuck" coming up just as soon as I'm ready for my big boy bike...

"So if I have to see you with someone else, it might as well be a hero." -Chuck
"What can I say? I have a type." -Sarah

"Chuck vs. the Mask" wasn't designed to be the last episode viewers would see for a few weeks (remember, the season was originally going to debut after the Olympics), and as such doesn't have the jaw-dropping quality you sometimes get from mid-season finales. We get our first glimpse of The Ring's headquarters(*) and learn (not surprisingly) that they want Shaw dead, and we close with Chuck and Sarah moving into new relationships with other people, but there's nothing seismic about what happens. It's just a solid episode of "Chuck."

(*) Said HQ looking very much like the Fulcrum digs we saw back in last season's "Chuck vs. the Predator," no? I'd been assuming that the two groups are unconnected - that Fulcrum basically died with Ted Roark, and that The Ring has its own agenda and intel. Are we supposed to assume, based on the similar design, that Fulcrum is as much a Fulcrum splinter group as Fulcrum was a CIA splinter? Or just that the "Chuck" production design team really digs this look?

But while I enjoy a good cliffhanger as much as the next guy, the actual good ones have been in short supply around television as more and more shows have turned to them leading into long hiatuses. Too many shows do them just to do them, and they either screw up a good thing or get undone so quickly that there's very little point to them. What "Chuck" is doing is strong enough to keep me interested three weeks from now, even if this one didn't end with Shaw pulling off one of those "Mission: Impossible" masks and revealing himself to be Bryce Larkin's sister seeking revenge on the members of Operation Bartowski for her brother's death, or something equally surprising or weird.

And the way that "Chuck" works, odds are that one of Shaw or Hannah, if not both of them, will turn out to be too good to be true. Hannah could be another Lou from season one - the normal woman Chuck can't have because of his double life and his love for Sarah - or she could be another Jill. After last week's episode dealt with the rules for cultivating an asset, more than a few of you pointed out that Hannah's relationship with Chuck so far fits those rules to a T.

And Shaw could be another Bryce or Cole - the alpha male Chuck still can't quite be, but someone who's ultimately a good guy - or he could have a dark hidden agenda, including one where he's actually working for The Ring. On the one hand, the final scene of this episode suggests they want him dead; on the other, our first glimpse of Shaw (in "Chuck vs. the Three Words showed that General Beckman was very afraid for what he was going to do to Chuck, Sarah and Casey.

But here's the thing: as we get ready to play guessing games over the next three weeks, I have to say that I like these two relationships. And I say that as someone who thinks Zachary Levi and Yvonne Strahovski have absurd chemistry together, and who got very frustrated at some of the shenanigans used at the start of the season to keep Chuck and Sarah apart. (And also as someone who usually grinds his teeth at any hint of a love quadrangle, or rhombus, or trapezoid.) Brandon Routh and, especially, Kristin Kreuk have fit very well into the show's world and tones, have clicked nicely with their respective co-stars, and have created plausible, interesting reasons why our hero and heroine might let their eyes wander. If Sarah has a type (which Shaw most certainly matches), then so does Chuck (which Hannah does, as well). Since I'm assuming one or both will wind up as a betrayer, I'm assuming/hoping that the writers will finally ditch the stall tactics before the season's out (and preferably by the end of the originally-planned 13 episodes), but at the moment I'm enjoying what they're giving us.

And speaking of Sarah's "hero" type, Chuck ironically has rarely matched it more than he does in "Chuck vs. the Mask," where he plays a much more active, decisive role in ensuring the success of the mission than he did when allegedly flying solo in "Chuck vs. First Class." He steps in when Shaw's compromised at the museum gala (and turns out to be a better catcher of falling objects than Shaw), and he comes up with the plan to both save Hannah and get the antidote. Yes, Shaw throws Sarah over his shoulder and busts out of Castle to ensure they can take the antidote in time, but Chuck does the metaphorical heavy lifting in this one, which was just as satisfying a mark in his spy growth chart as his willingness to burn Manoosh at the end of last week's episode.

This was also a bit of an old-school episode, with the Intersect 2.0 skills taking a week off in favor of Chuck using his computer talents (and Hannah's) and some old-fashioned ingenuity (plus a more traditional Intersect flash to identify the vase) to save the day. I worried when they introduced the kung fu cliffhanger to season two that the show would lose its ability to have Chuck be a hero while still being fundamentally Chuck, and so far, season three has managed to balance things out nicely. The talk of Chuck getting to operate solo seems premature - and surely, Fedak, Schwartz and company would never be dumb enough to try and ditch Sarah and Casey - but he's definitely getting much better at this, whether he's flashing on new skills or using his old ones.

Looking forward to what comes next in March.

Some other thoughts:

• Last week's episode was the closest we've come all season to having the entire cast all present at once, with only Big Mike missing. Mike's still absent in this one, along with Awesome and Jeffster.

• Poor Morgan. He called dibs on Hannah with Jeff and Lester, but never even thought Chuck would be his competition - even though it was Chuck who asked Morgan to get her the job. He and Ellie no longer seem nearly as hot on Chuck's spy scent as they were last week - and with Jeffster absent, we learn that their stalking powers weren't mighty enough to dig up anything on Chuck - but we're definitely heading towards a place where Morgan will be moving himself away from Chuck.

• Still waiting for a truly kick-ass Sarah fight scene to rival some stuff from season two (fighting Michael Clarke Duncan, beating on Nicole Richie in the showers, going at it with Smooth Lau in the sports car), but the sequence with Sarah fighting one of the goons (and running off a wall) while Chuck hung from the rig and Shaw and Hannah tried to out-hack each other was at least in the ballpark.

• This week in "Chuck" music: "Let's All Die" by Jack Penate (playing for much of the pre-credits sequence at the museum), Franz Ferdinand's "Can't Stop Feeling" (Chuck and Hannah, and Sarah and Shaw, pack up for their "mission" at the museum), and Matt Costa's "Astair" (Morgan and Ellie see Chuck and Hannah making out in the AV room).

• This week in "Chuck" pop culture references: the wire rig that Shaw used in the opening scene, and the gag where he tries (and in this case fails) to catch a falling object before it can hit the floor, is from the first Tom Cruise "Mission: Impossible." Chuck trying to find the right vase reminded me of Indiana Jones trying to figure out which cup was the Holy Grail (and, in a way, it would have been cooler if Chuck had figured it out without the Intersect's help). Anything else?

• Couple of notable guest stars this week, with Jim Piddock (a regular in the Christopher Guest movies) as the Luddite museum curator, and Henri Lubatti from (the rapping Bosnian terrorist from Showtime's underrated "Sleeper Cell," but also a very funny guest star on the final season of "The O.C." as Taylor's smarmy French husband) as the burned bad guy.

• Of course Casey takes his coffee black and bitter. Of course he does. And he's especially bitter this week that he can never blow stuff up. (I almost went with a "just as soon as I blow the hatch" intro just because I felt bad for the guy.) Adam Baldwin also did one of his most expressive grunts of the series when Casey recognized what was going on with Shaw and Sarah at the end.

• Should we take Hannah's "You saved my life, Chuck!" reaction at the end - when she had no way of knowing this - as our (relatively minor) "Chuck" Plot Hole of the Week, or as yet another sign she might be a baddie? I like Kreuk enough that I want to take the character at face value, but when she said that - and when the show skipped past the inevitable moment where Hannah stood up and noticed Chuck's ex-girlfriend was conveniently also at the museum - my eyebrows raised.

Again, show's off air for the rest of the month, returning on March 1 with "Chuck vs. the Fake Name." Earlier today, NBC announced finale dates for a bunch of its series, and "Chuck" season three will close with a two-hour finale (combining episodes 18 & 19) on Monday, May 24 from 8-10 p.m. Assuming I've done the math right, that's 11 episodes (counting 18 & 19 as one) airing over 13 Mondays, so we'll get a couple of repeats at some point (likely in early April, after the show's had a chance to find its post-Olympics sea legs, and before May sweeps begin).

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

'Heroes,' 'Ugly Betty,' and other TV shows that burned hot, then burned out - Sepinwall on TV

In today's column, I take the occasion of the "Heroes" season finale - which could well be the series' finale, as well - to look at some other TV shows that went from phenomenon to afterthought surprisingly quickly.

Anybody around here actually still watching "Heroes" at this point? How has the carny season been? Click here to read the full post

So... 'Undercover Boss.' Thoughts?

The way my week broke, I never got a chance to write about CBS' "Undercover Boss," which debuted after the Super Bowl. But my take is more or less in line with what Fienberg wrote, in that the show is well-made and effectively manipulative, but ultimately completely full of it.

Did you stick around after that great Super Bowl to watch? And, if so, what did you think? Click here to read the full post

Super Bowl open thread

As I said in this week's podcast, I think Super Bowl commercials have been living on their reputation for years now, but if you want to talk about the ads, the anthem, or any other TV-related thing having to do with the game as it goes on tonight, have at it. Click here to read the full post

Interview: Claire Danes & Temple Grandin talk HBO movie

In today's column, I interview Claire Danes and Temple Grandin about HBO's terrific "Temple Grandin" biopic, which premieres tomorrow night at 8.

UPDATE: Bumping this up in case anyone watched the movie tonight and wants to discuss it. Click here to read the full post

Caprica, "Reins of a Waterfall": Boxing day

A review of last night's "Caprica" coming up just as soon as I glue your nose to your ear...

"Balance it out." -Joe Adama

And it was when we got to that line, at the end of the three screener episodes I got in late December, that I knew I was in with "Caprica" for the long haul.

It's a fundamentally different show than "Battlestar Galactica," despite sharing a universe (and Willie Adama) with it, not just because of the earthbound setting, but the elements at play: corporate intrigue, police investigations, corruption, revenge melodrama, teen angst, etc. But "different" does not equal "bad," and so far I've been enjoying seeing these elements of non-sci-fi dramas injected into this world, in the same way I dug the military and political aspects of "BSG."

And, as on the other show, Ron Moore is clearly reacting to the over-reliance on techno-babble over human drama from his "Star Trek" experience. Yes, Daniel Graystone's building sentient robots and we spend a lot of time in a virtual reality space, but Joe makes it clear where the series' priorities lie when he tells Daniel, "Don't give me techno-talk! Just help me find my daughter!"

After the pilot made it seem like these two would be reluctant, unlikely allies, the events of these next two episodes have explained how they've instead become blood enemies, and Esai Morales has been great at portraying the irrationality of grief.

I also really liked the black humor of the scene where Amanda and Daniel come home to find each other bloodied for different reasons (the Graystones are having a bad stretch) and wind up having sex with the poor Zoe/Avatar/Cylon has to stand and watch.

Things are still getting messy in both the real and holo-band world, with more hints about what Sister Clarice is up to (she was meant to use the avatar to help the cause "through apotheosis"), and with Lacy and Zoe releasing Tamara's avatar into the rest of the holo-band world because they don't realize who/what she is.

Still lots of world-building going on, from Patton Oswalt as Baxter Sarno, a kind of 12 Colonies cross between Jay Leno (the style of his jokes) and Jon Stewart ("More than half of college-age viewers say they get their news from Sarno!") to the use of old juke-joint R&B on the soundtrack in the Little Tauron scenes to our glimpses of Agent Dunham and his partner working the case. And after a casual reference in last week's dialogue, we get more explicit confirmation that Joe's brother Sam is gay, and that it doesn't seem to be a big deal for Joe or Willie. (We'll have to wait and see whether that's because they're family, or if the "BSG"/"Caprica" universe has a lack of homophobia in the same way we've seen in the past that there's no real sexism.)

Finally, since I've said in previous writings that you don't need to have seen "Battlestar Galactica" to understand or appreciate "Caprica," it occurs to me that we should try to be courteous to the "BSG" ignorant in case this show inspires them to check out the older one. That doesn't mean you can't talk about parallels between stories on the two shows, or how "Caprica" stories are pointing towards events on "BSG" - just that if we can all be a little oblique about that, I think it would be nice. Those who saw "BSG" will get what you're talking about, and those who didn't won't be spoiled.

I say this because I was too explicit in a reference to the "BSG" finale in last week's review, and I regret that. (I've since changed the reference, and I will say that if you saw the original version, it gave away too much, but still only a small aspect of the whole finale.)

And with that out of the way... what did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Burn Notice, "Noble Cause": Micro-rave

The Thursday night TV show pile-up meant I didn't get to this week's "Burn Notice" until last night. But even if I'd watched it on time, I don't know that I'd have a lot to say about it. Chris Vance is being a little too hammy and eeeeevil as Gilroy, and the case of Sugar and his slow cousin Dougie felt like that occasional instance of a "Burn Notice" plot that wasn't so much a retro story with a twist, but a story you might have seen on a show 30 years ago.

On the plus side: Michael's microwave shenanigans, the return of Chuck Finley, the reason behind Madeline receiving a crime-stoppers award, and Erik King (Doakes from "Dexter") getting some employment. Not a bad episode - just a blah one.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The Office, "Sabre": Where's Wallace?

A review of "The Office" coming up just as soon as I taste a rainbow...

I've seen a lot of you complain a lot this season that "The Office" feels played-out, and/or that Jim and Pam (Pam especially) have become really smug and annoying. Though I haven't found season six to be as strong or consistent as season five was, "Sabre" was the first episode to really make me see the validity of either of those complaints. It was an episode that felt too reminiscent of a previous one (with Michael reacting to Sabre's new policies with only slightly more maturity than he took to Charles Miner), where most of the laughs came from relatively minor characters (David Wallace, Andy, Erin) and where I really disliked Jim and Pam for the first time, maybe, ever.

I was hoping when they announced that Dunder-Mifflin had been sold based on the strength of the branches, and of this branch in particular, that we might get a story arc where Michael was more or less left alone to wield his peculiar brand of managerial strategy. Instead, Sabre(*) comes in and starts dictating policy changes. I recognize that mergers and consolidations are a big part of corporate culture now, and lots of real-life Michaels and Creeds are being forced to learn a new set of rules after having years to get used to the old ones. But at the same time, the show has gone to this particular well an awful lot, notably with Ryan's brief corporate reign and then the Miner/Michael Scott Paper Company arc, and I'd rather see them try something different at this point.

(*) By the way, is there not a single hockey fan at Dunder-Mifflin Scranton? Perhaps one who's ever paid a visit to the company's Buffalo branch, where they have an NHL team whose name would have told them that it's not pronounced "SOB-ray"?

Still, there was some funny material in the main story, most of it taking place at the home of an unemployed David Wallace, now so lacking in direction and drive that he's happy for the first time in his life to see Michael Scott show up unannounced. Andy Buckley has mainly had to play the exasperated straight man to Michael since he first turned up in season two, and it was fun to watch him cut loose and play this pathetic creature shuffling around his house, coming up with terrible business ideas(**), jamming with his son on a "Suck-It" theme song, etc.

(**) When David proposed the idea for the Suck-It, my wife turned to me and said, "Every parent thinks that one up at some point or another. Then we realize it's stupid."

Ed Helms and Ellie Kemper continue to be adorable and funny as the oblivious, Bizarro World version of Jim and Pam. However, their overlapping confessions to the camera crew was one of two instances in this episode where I began to wonder about the consistency of that device. We saw in seasons past that the camera guys befriended Pam and weren't above interfering in the action a little (as they did by tipping Pam off to the Dwight/Angela secret romance), and I would have to think these guys would take pity on these two and clue them in in some way.

(The other documentary issue: if we assume that the film is something Dunder-Mifflin signed off on years ago, shouldn't it be an issue for new management? Even if it's a case where Gabe or Kathy Bates or someone does a double take and says something like, "Oh, yeah, that's part of the deal, too.")

As for Jim and Pam's daycare center interview, that's a kind of story I rarely like on any sitcom (even though I've faced childcare availability issues myself over the years), and this one struck a particularly flat note. When I find myself sympathizing with Joey Slotnick from "The Single Guy" over Pamela Morgan Beasley Halpert, something has gone seriously awry with the heart of the series, even if John Krasinski (who directed this one) can do a good Christian Slater impression.

Ah, well. At least it wasn't a clip show. And we do get one more new episode next week before yet another hiatus (this one due to the Olympics).

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Parks and Recreation, "Sweetums": What's crackin', DJ Roomba?

A review of last night's "Parks and Recreation" coming up just as soon as I drop in a token and look at a duck...

"Sweetums" lived up to its name, not only in its high-fructose antics like the parks department turning the office into a rave after having too many NutriYum bars(*) or Tom introducing his co-workers (and the audience) to the hilarious splendor of DJ Roomba, but in its level of genuine sweetness.

(*) The actual NutriYum commercial reminded me very much of the sort of thing that Troy McClure would have done on "The Simpsons," and I mean that in a good way.

This season has made it clear that Ron F'ing Swanson(**) not only appreciates Leslie for making his job so much easier, but likes her as a person. So it was interesting to see her push her status as Ron's work wife too far (to his mind), then funny to see Ron try to prove her wrong (the hand-crafted harp, complete with photographic evidence, was a highlight), and then ultimately for him to realize(***) he was over-reacting, and to give a very Swanson-esque apology, complete with the terse, factual closing line, "That is the end of what I have to say."

(**) If you haven't seen it yet, the NBC promo department put together this awesome Ron-centric trailer for the show. Enjoy.

(***) He realized this after Leslie made what's at least the second "Dead Poets Society" reference on an NBC Thursday comedy this season, after the "Community" episode that introduced John Michael Higgins. I would like to hear more of a eulogy that begins, "Oh captain, my captain! Ron Swanson: a swan song."

The Leslie/Ron story also returned to a goldmine for the series: the civil servants having to deal with the insane questions and complaints from their constituents. (And this time, Ann had to suffer through it with them, in a pretty good comic outing for Rashida Jones, who also got to spray Leslie with water, Jim Halpert-style.)

Tom's story was impressive in that it made me feel sorry for him (for his inability to tell Wendy how he feels) at the same time he was being an inconsiderate jerk to all the co-workers who showed up to help him move. The episode was awash in Tom Haverford d-baggery, from his fashion show in the teaser (with the LED belt that said variations on "What's crackin'?") to his Canadian DVD edition of "Deep Blue Sea" to him having a box containing nothing but pocket squares.

We also got a continuation of the running gag about the Parks department's hatred of the library (and vice versa), and more movement on the Andy/April quasi-romance, with April feeling squeezed between her judgmental gay boyfriends and Andy's cheerful obliviousness.

Finally, in case you missed the news last week, NBC gave the show a very early renewal for next season. The ratings still aren't very good, so it's nice to see the network rewarding the show for raising its game and being so consistently good this year.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Community, "Romantic Expressionism": Who's your Greendale daddy?

A review of last night's strong "Community" coming up just as soon as I die from a lack of service...

I've talked a lot in these "Community" reviews about the dangers of trying to force an Unresolved Sexual Tension situation when the chemistry's lacking, as it was with Jeff and Britta. "Romantic Expressionism" kind of brilliantly reacts to that concern by creating UST between every single member of the group, regardless of gender, age, or Pierce-ness. (Okay, so maybe Pierce-ness is still a problem for the rest.) I doubt the series is going to follow up on most of the potential combinations we saw in that hilarious staring contest scene at the library - unless NBC pushes for the Annie-Britta one to goose the male demo numbers, that is - but at least they're out there now, and the characters have accepted that they're not really a family, but a collection of unattached, consenting-but-weird adults.

And I will also admit this: Jeff and Britta were great together last night. Not necessarily in a "now they are clearly meant to hook up" way, but just as comedy partners. Britta opposing Jeff's antics in the early episodes was a cliche, and it also didn't serve Gillian Jacobs very well. But having them work towards the same goal - in this case, protecting Annie from "gateway douchebag" Vaughn - with markedly different levels of skill at manipulation was very funny, and the first time in a while that I enjoyed them as a duo, sexual tension or not. Give us a few more stories like this for the pair, and I might stop objecting to the idea that they're each other's romantic density, even if I don't know how necessary it is.

At the same time, Alison Brie was on fire (as she's been for most of the season), regardless of which character Annie was paired with, be it Vaughn (who turned out to be just simple, but not bad, in the end), Troy (being hilariously gross as he tried to mark his territory with her, and calling back to his obsession with "butt stuff" from the psychology episode), Jeff(*), Britta, etc. And seeing Annie absolutely melt in response to Vaughn's song was a reminder that, for all the pop culture references, meta jokes and withering sarcasm, "Community" is a show with a lot of heart, and the kind that rarely feels as forced as it does on some other sitcoms.

(*) I don't think it was an accident that, in the staring scene, Annie's gaze lingered on Jeff for a very long time, given the abundant sparks between the two in the debate episode. I wonder if, in retrospect, the writers regret making Annie so young, as it makes a potential Jeff/Annie romance kind of icky. On the other hand, they seem to be having a lot of fun with the characters' awareness of the icky of it.

The B-story was a simple but effectively funny one, showing old man Pierce's struggle to adapt to yet another college ritual: snarking on bad movies in someone's dorm room. The "Kick-Puncher" movies were amusingly awful in their own right, as were many of the comments, but Pierce's need to hire a writing team was a great touch (as were complaints like, "What are you, my third wife's therapist?"), and then we got another vintage, slightly meta(**) Chevy Chase fall where he knocked down lots of things and made everybody laugh.

(**) This week's winner for meta humor, though, was Vaughn referring to Shirley as "that Sherry Shepherd lady."

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

30 Rock, "Verna": Clang, clang, clang went the mommy

A quick review of tonight's "30 Rock" coming up just as soon as I pre-apologize for clogging your tub, sink and toilet...

There's a generational thing with "Saturday Night Live" where the cast from your formative years is the cast you have the fondest memories of, making it the one period where you'll forgive all the sins (sketches that go on too long, recurring characters who recur too often, etc.) you can find in the show later on. For me, that was the Phil Hartman/Dana Carvey/Jon Lovitz cast - or, I should say, the Hartman/Carvey/Lovitz/Jan Hooks cast. For all that people talked about "SNL" as being a horrible showcase for women before Tina Fey and company showed up in the late '90s, Hooks was just as important a part of the late '80s/early '90s cast as Hartman, able to be just as strong playing the comic center of a sketch as she was being the straight woman.

So I was excited to hear that Hooks would become the latest "SNL" alum to pop by "30 Rock," in what IMDb tells me is her first credited acting gig since 2004's "Jiminy Glick in Lalawood." (Sigh...)

Unfortunately, Hooks wound up in another disappointing episode of what's been an up-and-mostly-down season of "30 Rock."

"Verna" was an episode combining two of my least favorite parts of the show: Jenna, and Jack's mommy issues. (Though Elaine Stritch didn't appear, it was a Colleen episode by proxy.) I understand the desire to make Jenna be less of a cartoon on occasion - and I've certainly complained plenty about Jenna subplots that are too far removed from reality to work - but the only parts of the Jenna/Verna/Jack story I found funny were on the margins, like Alec Baldwin evoking his "Glengarry Glen Ross" character with his "Always. Speak. Quieter." mantra, or Jenna conveniently having a hand mic in her purse.

Liz's story, meanwhile, was at least the third time she's had a "TGS" staffer crash at her pad (following Pete a few years back and Tracy earlier this season) and led to another one of those climaxes where the whole gang watches a horrifying video of Liz, only not as horrifying (or funny) as her phone sex ad from "Apollo, Apollo."

It's "30 Rock," which means there will always be funny lines and weird gags, but it was pretty weak overall.

What did everybody else think? And did the outtakes of Kenneth talking to Pete (including renaming this show "You-Know-What and the Bear"), which were tacked onto the end of my screener, survive to the air version? Click here to read the full post

Fringe, "Jacksonville": The glimmer woman

A quick review of the "Fringe" winter finale coming up just as soon as you get me some pretzels...

As "Fringe" heads into another long, frustrating hiatus (so that Fox can find a timeslot for the very silly "Past Life"), I'm wondering how strong my interest will be in seeing the show when it returns in April. There are some things it does very well. You can always count, for instance, on freaky/cool/disturbing teasers, like tonight's collision of two buildings from parallel universes, and the people in them(*). And John Noble will always be wonderful, whether he's being endearingly wacky (the pretzel gag), or terrified, or forced to face up to the despicable nature of all those experiments he did with "Bellie" all those years ago. And episodes can usually be counted on to wrap up well, as we got the swirling building disappearance (with better CGI effects than I've seen on a number of shows this week, like "Lost" and "Human Target") and Olivia discovering Walter's terrible secret about which universe this Peter Bishop came from.

(*) The most prominent of said people was played by Jim True-Frost, well-known to "Wire" fans as Prez. I was a little disappointed he didn't get a chance to do much with old co-star Lance Reddick, frankly.

The problem, almost always, is in the long, boring middle between the disturbing teasers and the episode's resolution - and that seems to be true whether it's a standalone episode like last week's evil Nazi story or a mythology-heavy one like this. I also don't find Olivia wandering around a fantasy dreamscape nearly as fascinating as the show's producers do.

Because "Fringe" airs on such a busy viewing night for me and simply isn't as high on my priority list as, say, the NBC comedies, I tend to let episodes stack up on the DVR for a while. And when I get to them, it's usually in conjunction with completing some other task. (The Nazi episode accompanied yesterday morning's workout, and then the sorting of some laundry.) It's not a bad show, but even in is more mythology-heavy episodes (which tend to be the creatively stronger ones), it's rarely compelling enough that I feel in the need to hurry to see it. And with it being out of sight, out of mind until April Fool's Day, it may feel very easy for me to just cut the cord.

The ratings have ticked up in recent weeks, and some people at Fox I spoke with at press tour seemed perfectly content with the ratings when you factor in DVR usage. (They knew when they moved it to Thursdays that its audience might wait a day or two to watch it, but would be technologically-adept enough to be willing and able to do that.) We'll just have to see how much loyalty there is over the next two months.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Cougar Town, "All the Wrong Reasons": The truth hurts

A quick, late-in-the-day review of last night's "Cougar Town" coming up just as soon as I go to an underpass to buy fish and sports coats...

After a start of the season where the male characters were clearly generating more laughs than the female ones, "Cougar Town" had achieved some comedy gender equality in more recent episodes. Unfortunately, "All the Wrong Reasons" felt more like one of those earlier outings. Busy Philipps will never not be funny (particularly as Laurie took us closer than ever to meeting the horror show that is Dale), but the Jules and Ellie storyline was pretty flat and predictable.

(Though even there, in fairness, I had a good laugh at Jules stopping to pick up the garbage can that Ellie tipped over during their foot chase.)

The guy stuff, unsurprisingly, still worked, even if they re-used the photo montage gag(*) - and the larger joke about the price you pay for partying in your 40s like you're still in your 20s - from "Into the Great Wide Open" (which was itself kind of cribbed from "The Hangover"). The guys still have great chemistry, and it was funny to watch Bobby and Andy horrifying Grayson with their keg-pumping routine, Andy waking up in can jail and Grayson discovering "Seacrest Out" written on his torso.

(*) As happened last time, the tall black cop in the photo montage was played by Bill Lawrence's longtime producing partner Randall Winston, who has lent his name to a character or institution on every one of Lawrence's shows. In this case, we meet Jules and Ellie's elderly neighbors, the Winstons.

"Cougar Town" has been on such a good streak of late that I'm not too concerned by an episode that feels like a regression. Every show gets a mulligan now and again.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Demetri & Sarah, together at last

As mentioned from time to time, there are certain shows I watch but don't write about much, either because I view them irregularly, or because they don't seem to lend themselves well to the episode-by-episode review structure I use here on the blog. FX's very funny "Archer" qualifies for the latter group, while "Important Things with Demetri Martin" and "The Sarah Silverman Program," both returning tonight (at 10 & 10:30, respectively) on Comedy Central, fit into the center of that particular Venn diagram.

I enjoy them both for different reasons - "Important Things" for Martin's dry, absurdist wit (which we discussed in this interview last year), "Sarah Silverman" for the surreal, go-for-broke-ness of it - and tonight's season premieres are good examples of each. Martin explores the subject of "attention" (he suggests any statement will get more attention if you loudly count down to it), while Silverman misses a lip-waxing appointment, takes her new mustache way too seriously, and then sings an incredibly catchy, disturbing song about a part of the human anatomy.

You have to be in the right head space to enjoy either one, and it's not exactly the same head space, but the two do manage to play well together in this musical clip. Click here to read the full post

Modern Family, "Moon Landing": Po-lice that moostash!

A quick review of last night's "Modern Family" coming up just as soon as I blame the Latino driver...

"Moon Landing" was a mixed bag of an episode, I thought. There were plenty of great one-liners as usual - Phil comparing Jägermeister to a potion from a fairy tale, "only you don't wake up in a castle, you wake up in a frat house with a bad reputation" may be the funniest joke of the series so far - and some good bits of physical (Jay in the locker room with Cam) and behavioral (Manny stuffing his mouth with cupcakes to avoid his mom's wrath) comedy, yet something felt lacking in it.

The set-up of making the Dunphy house seem like a hellmouth for Minnie Driver's arrival was a little labored (and/or predictable); if not for the usual endearing goofiness from Dylan, and my love of mustache-related humor, I would have gotten very impatient with that storyline. Conversely, the resolutions to both Jay and Gloria's stories felt too abrupt.

(Also, Driver's non-regional American accent is distracting, as opposed to when she puts on a specific one, like on "The Riches." Neither is incredibly believable, but at least on "The Riches" I accepted it and moved on, where here I kept thinking, "Boy, Minnie's struggling with this, isn't she?")

The show has banked enough good will with me, though, that I'm fine with an episode that worked in the small moments but not in the bigger ones. The Jagermeister joke alone was worth the tune-in.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Friday Night Lights, "Laboring": Toothpicking against the spread

A review of the penultimate "Friday Night Lights" of season four (finale airing next Wednesday at 9 on DirecTV's 101 Network) coming up just as soon as I drive 50 miles to deliver this blog post...

"I am not playing on a fair field here." -Coach
"That makes two of us, hon." -Mrs. Coach

On one level, "Laboring" is a table-setting episode, preparing us for the season-climaxing showdown between East and West Dillon, for a reckoning between Tami and the school board, for whatever's to come between Vince and Kennard, and between the Riggins boys and the cops.

But, like season one's penultimate hour, "Best Laid Plans" (with trouble swirling around the Panthers on the eve of the state championship), "Laboring" was a table-setter that brought a lot to the table on its own: great moments for half the cast and some huge developments in their own right, regardless of how things play out in the finale.

There's a real sense of despair to a lot of what happens, particularly with the Taylors. Eric knows he doesn't have much of a prayer of beating the Panthers(*) under optimal conditions, and those conditions are now far, far from optimal. Luke is out of the game, which limits his offensive weapons to, basically Vince, and takes away most of the gadget plays that were working so well earlier in the season. And because the Panthers had to use a bazooka as a fly-swatter to respond to Landry's toothpick prank, the Panthers get to play the game on their cushy home field, with the Lions and their fledgling fan base forced to feel like pathetic outsiders in a game that should have been theirs.

(*) And, it occurs to me, if he were to win that game, the people in town would only grow to hate him more. Panther pride runs a little too deep for people to applaud the plucky underdog school across town for an unlikely victory, if that victory also keeps the beloved Panthers out of the playoffs.

And Eric has to deal with this - and the idiot radio calls(**) and defacing of his car and the rest - at the same time Tami has developed her own hate squad thanks to the abortion controversy. "FNL" in general, and Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton in particular, often offer up a ray of hope and idealism in the middle of potentially grim circumstances, but here our most hopeful characters were at their most hopeless. Tami doesn't want to write that letter of apology(***), but can she put her ideals ahead of her family's livelihood?

(**) I thought it was a nice touch that Slammin' Sammy, usually just as much a pig-headed yahoo as his listeners, tried to shut down that one caller's attempt to paint East Dillon as a ghetto hellhole she wouldn't take her family to. Sammy be an ignoramus and an agitator in many ways, but that doesn't automatically make him a bigot.

(***) And would the apology letter even work? Given how dug-in the opposition seems to be, wouldn't Tami apologizing (for something she didn't do) only make matters worse? I don't know small town politics very well, but isn't the wiser course for Tami to argue that at no point did she tell Becky to get an abortion? Which has the benefit of being true?

While the Taylors are trapped in bleak circumstance, it's up to the Riggins boys to provide some hope and happiness - for a little while. After some comic relief from Billy failing to be calm about the birth, we get this perfect moment with the two brothers at home, staring down at the baby, and Tim (wonderfully played by Taylor Kitsch) getting to appreciate the site of a Riggins man being a good daddy for once.

Of course, a Riggins man's happiness can never last very long. So after Tim got to enjoy being an uncle, and showing his new ranch property to Becky, he winds up going to jail, along with Billy, for the chop shop operation. (The large wad of cash Tim gave the realtor surely didn't help.) And will little baby Stephen Hannibal suddenly have to go years without seeing his daddy? With Taylor Kitsch not being a regular after this season, I could see a circumstance in which Tim and Billy do go away for a while, and if we see Tim at all in season five, it'll be with Coach talking to him through prison glass.

Meanwhile, Vince was busy burying the man (boy, really) responsible for drawing the Riggins boys (back) into a life of crime, and then being sucked into Kennard's plan for revenge at any cost. And Jess, realizing what her ex is about to risk, fights to stop him from doing just that, even if she has to ditch Landry in the process.

As with most "FNL" stories related to the criminal world, Vince's plot was the part of the episode that most bordered on cliche. But every time it threatened to get silly or caricatured, Michael B. Jordan and Jurnee Smollett dragged it back into something real and painful, as exemplified by the scene where Jess shows up at Vince's apartment to tell him, "I know that good guy that's inside of you!" To which Vince (desperate to keep Jess away from him as he goes on a mission that could land him in jail or the morgue) replies, "I am a monster! That's what I am! I am that guy!" That dialogue could be terribly corny, bu these two superb young actors made me ignore the words being spoken and focus on the pain, hurt and love behind them.

Thanks to Jess, Vince makes the right decision in the end, but he does it in a way that puts him in the sights of Kennard (who feels like Vince owes him this killing for the rehab loan). And it occurs to me that, because Kennard was the mastermind behind the whole car theft ring, we could see a finale in which Tim and Vince's problems cancel each other out, with Billy rolling on Kennard to secure his freedom (and unintentionally secure Vince's safety).

And if that's what winds up happening, I'm not sure how I'd feel about it. On the one hand, it would seem a little too neat for a show that likes to be sloppy even with its happy endings. On the other, after so much bleakness for our characters in recent weeks, I could use a little sunlight - whether that comes from an improbable, pride-restoring win for the Lions, or Tami getting to keep her job without compromising her beliefs, or Vince and/or Tim getting out from under their criminal burdens. I don't know that I want all of those problems to be solved, but I do love these characters - both old and new - enough to not want to see them suffer any more.

Some other thoughts:

• Am I the only one who was under the impression that Jess's mom was either dead or out of the picture, and that she and Virgil had been raising her brothers on their own? Instead, this week we meet her mother, Bird (played by Lorraine Toussaint), whose appearance played out as if Steve Harris wasn't available this week and so the writers scrambled to give Jess a different parent. Then again, Toussaint's IMDb entry says she was in "Stay" earlier this season, but either I didn't notice her, her scenes got cut, or (as is often the case with the IMDb and TV guest stars) the info is wrong. Whatever the explanation, I was distracted. UPDATE: Several commenters have pointed out that in the final air version, Jess introduces Bird as her aunt, not her mom, which means one of two things: 1)The line was changed in post-production after the screener I got (ala Principal Burnwell's reference to the game "last night"/"last Friday" earlier this season), or 2)My hearing's going. I am open to either possibility.

• Speaking of moms, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson makes her first appearance of the season as Mindy's mom (Tyra's, too) in the labor and delivery scenes.

• Though we know Coach to be a very good and wise man, he's also a stubborn one who (rightly) views himself as separate from the kids he coaches, so we very rarely see him admit a mistake to one of them. That's why it was a bit eye-opening, if appropriate, to see him apologize to Luke for giving him a hard time about the injury. Some of you last week objected to my attempt to categorize Luke's actions as selfless - that he was doing it in his quest for a scholarship that will get him the hell out of town. And while there was certainly something to that, keep in mind that he suffered the injury in the same episode where Coach gave him a giant guilt trip about missing practice because he had to help his dad with the fence - sending a very clear message that Luke should never let his personal problems get in the way of practicing and playing for the Lions. And I'm sure Eric, away from the heat of the moment when he discovered the hip flexor injury, realized the role he played in this mess.

• Presumably, this is Jesse Plemons' last year as a regular on the show as well, and I feel bad that Landry has been a bit lost in the shuffle as we head to the end of his time in Dillon. His relationship with Jess has turned out to be more about giving us a window into Jess's feelings for Vince, and this was the first episode in a while where he felt like an integral part of the football team (between his field goal kicking being the only thing standing between the team and more jingle-jangles, and then Landry coming up with the toothpick plan). And though his big moment (waiting outside the BBQ joint for Jess, only to be told by Bird that she wasn't coming) wasn't as flashy as Jess and Vince crying in each other's arms, Plemons did again make me feel sorry for young Lance.

• Kennard said their target was a couple of hours away, and it certainly seemed like Vince got out of the car close to the end of their drive. How exactly did he make it from the middle of nowhere back to Dillon on the same night?

• Notable songs this week: "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked" by Ida Maria (Billy goes in to be there for Mindy during the delivery), "Rock Candy" by Montrose (Tim playing air guitar at Riggin's Rigs before the cops come), and "When the Night Comes" by Dan Auerbach (the final montage).

• Every time Principal Burnwell complains about all the problems Coach has brought to his school, I want to remind him that his school didn't exist before this year. But as with all things East Dillon, the show tends to wax and wane on what all these characters were doing before the redistricting happened.

• Because Madison Burge isn't technically a regular castmember, and because Becky seemed to say goodbye to Tim last week, I wondered if we had perhaps seen the last of the character - that perhaps that was the compromise the creative team had to make for this story, by letting a character get an abortion and then quickly writing her out. But she's still very much present, even if Tim won't respond to her crush on him, and even if, with Tim in jail and Luke having been pushed away, her connection to the rest of the "FNL" world is pretty tenuous.

Back next week for the finale - which will be the first one, I believe, where I'll watch it not worrying if it's the last episode of the show I'll ever get to see. Hooray for two-year renewals!

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Human Target, "Sanctuary": Bulletproof monk

My brain's starting to pay the price from staying up til the middle of the night to write last night's "Lost" review, so I don't have much candle power left to write about tonight's "Human Target," which was a fun mash-up of "Die Hard," Indiana Jones and six other pop culture influences, and gets extra credit just for Chance's use of a censer. Top that with some good Chi McBride comedy and some very interesting shadings for Guererro and it was arguably the strongest episode so far - albeit of a show that seems content to operate on a fairly lightweight, but well-executed, level.

Plus, after all my comic book nerditry on today's podcast, I had to appreciate a good "Crisis on Infinite Earths" gag.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Firewall & Iceberg podcast, episode 2.1: Lost, Fringe, American Idol and more

So, after the fun hijinx Fienberg and I had with our first podcast attempt at press tour, we gave it another go via Skype today, so head on over to NJ.com to download the new podcast and read my explanation for what's in it, and for why, however lame this version is, it's not 1/10th as horrible as the one we recorded, then abandoned, earlier today. Click here to read the full post

Lost, "LA X": Multi-tasking

A review of the "Lost" final season premiere coming up just as soon as I bring a book into a cave...

"My condition is irreversible." -Locke
"Nothing is irreversible." -Jack

Hot damn, that was fun.

The traveling comedy/obfuscation team of Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse spent much of this final "Lost" hiatus promising that season six would have a new narrative structure, just as we got in seasons four (flash-forwards) and five (time travel). Having taken us both back and forwards through time, turns out the game for year six involves going sideways, with a "Sliding Doors"(*) approach that allows Cuselof to have it both ways with last year's cliffhanger, as we see one timeline where Faraday's plan worked and Jack and company wound up back on the plane in 2004, and another where it didn't and everyone's in the middle of a big mess on Craphole Island in 2007.

(*) I swear, I spent the first fifteen minutes after the premiere ended wrestling with whether to use "Sliding Sawyers" as a subject line, or if that would be an unfair giveaway for time-shifters, folks on the West Coast, etc. Ain't easy when my fondness for semi-clever wordplay clashes with my hawkishness about spoiler protection.

It was clear quickly that there was something hinky with the 2004 timeline, particularly since I had only recently rewatched the pilot to write this morning's column. Jack's hair was obviously wrong (as was Rose's), but so were subtler details like the dialogue between Jack and Cindy, or the fact that she gives him only one bottle here, when she slipped him two in the pilot. And then as the flight went along, things became more and more disconnected from the timeline we originally knew: Desmond is on board, Hurley is blissfully lucky, Boone failed to bring Shannon home, etc.

(Perhaps the biggest change of all in the new timeline: the island is underwater. So when Juliet set off Jughead, a whole lotta people died. Hell of a plan, Jack.)

It's a trope of many comic book time travel stories that if you go back in time to change the past, all you do is create an alternate timeline, while the old one you wanted to change still exists. Based on Juliet's posthumous declaration to Sawyer that "It worked" (and based on Lindelof's comic book bonafides), I'm going to assume that's the operating theory here, and that the 2004 scenes aren't some extended dream sequence.

For a brief period, I began to wonder if the gimmick was worth the screen time, and the effort of bringing back Ian Somerhalder, Dominic Monaghan and the rest. Whether the 2004 timeline is real or not (and there comes a point where I have to set my inner comic book nerd aside and acknowledge that none of this is real), the fact is I've spent the last 5 years being invested in the characters back on the island in 2007, and it's their stories I want to see continued.

And, certainly, the parts of "LA X" that resonated with me most deeply were the ones taking place on the island, about which I'll have plenty to say in a bit. But as the premiere moved along and we kept zipping back to hang out on Oceanic 815 (and then in the airport), I began to have the same feeling I did when I rewatched the pilot: I was just so happy to be reminded of when I liked Jack or when Locke was a serene wise man and not a pig-headed victim. I remembered that I did, once upon a time, care about Boone and Charlie (and the unfortunately-absent Shannon). And as the characters landed at LAX and their stories took unexpected turns - Kate escaping from Marshal Mars (and commandeering a cab occupied by Claire, in a neat convergence of Aaron's two mommies), Charlie and Jin independently winding up in custody, Jack and Locke bonding over their respective lost luggage (and Jack and his savior complex wondering if he can fix Locke's wrecked spine) - I couldn't help but be curious about where this was all going.

Not only do I wonder where these alt-stories will travel, but what connection it's all going to have to the "proper" timeline on the island. Will they just be used to illuminate characters' behavior in the island present, the same way they did back in the early flashback days (pre-Jack's tattoos, at least)? Or is the parallel structure telling us something else? Will Alt-Jack reach a point in his time on the mainland where he realizes, just as his bearded counterpart once did, that he has to go back? Might there be a circumstance where the two Sawyers meet and the universe explodes in a collision of sarcasm and anti-sarcasm? Or will the island and mainland timelines remain independent for the rest of the show's run?

If the 2004 scenes were often intriguing, and occasionally distracting, they were still a sideshow to the main event taking place back on the island.

Where to begin? With the confirmation that Evil Locke (or the Man in Black, or Esau, or whatever we want to call him), is Smokey?

With Sawyer and Juliet's tearful, and all-too-brief reunion in the wreckage of the Swan station?

With our first visit to the temple of The Others, and our introduction to two new recurring characters played by John Hawkes (another "Deadwood" alum) and Hiroyuki Sanada?

With Sayid's death and apparent resurrection?

Let's bounce around, why don't we?

When Locke turned out to not be Locke in last year's finale, I wondered exactly why the smoke monster - which we'd been previously told was the island's "security system" - would tell Ben to blindly follow a man who turned out to not be acting in the interests of the island (and/or Jacob, if you can separate the two). Well, now we know: Smokey ain't working for Jacob, but against him, and is made up of the Man in Black. Like so many "Lost" mysteries, the explanation raises up plenty of new questions - for starters, why Smokey would be willing to work with Ben in previous periods, when Ben was following the orders of Jacob - but we finally have something resembling a definitive answer of exactly what/who the monster is. Now we just need to know exactly who/what Esau is. Heh.

Whatever he/it is, Terry O'Quinn is clearly relishing the chance to play this new, mysterious, dangerous character, and Non-Locke's powers and knowledge of people like Ben and Richard (whom he last saw when Richard was "in chains") creates an unsettling dynamic among these characters who are so used to being in charge. And he also finally, more clearly delineates between the good guys and the bad guys (I think). Since Jacob=light, and Esau=dark, and The Others were with Jacob, and our heroes are now with The Others, that should lay things clear, right? (Of course, we'll still need to learn why The Others were all into kidnapping, torture and other experiments while Jacob was still alive, or if we're just supposed to write that off to Ben being kind of a dick as the human leader.)

And since Ben made clear last season that the island, as far as he knew, could not resurrect people - which was then confirmed when we saw Locke's corpse and discovered that the guy we thought was Locke was really the Man in Black - does that mean we shouldn't be so quick to assume the Sayid who sat up at episode's end is really our Sayid? Could Jacob be using Sayid's body to find his own loophole in this never-ending fight? Or did he just know that the only way to defeat an immortal man who can turn into a smoke monster is with a communications expert-turned-torturer-turned-international-assassin with great hair?

If Sayid's back to life for real, great, but if not, I think I'm okay with it. It felt like the character hit a natural stopping point after he shot young Ben last season, and his opening moments with Hurley in "LA X" suggested the show was saying goodbye to that iteration of Sayid just as Sayid was preparing to say goodbye to this mortal coil. (And, as with Alt-Locke, Naveen Andrews will still get to play a version of the character we know so well.)

Whether Sayid got resurrected or just reanimated and possessed, he's still ambulatory in some fashion, where Juliet appears to be so dead that not even Miracle Max could do anything for her. Josh Holloway and Elizabeth Mitchell got to put a moving coda onto the couple they created with the writers last year, and it was every bit as heart-wrenching as Juliet's plunge into the Swan shaft at the end of "The Incident." The only problem I had with it, I think, is that Sawyer's love and grief for Juliet was portrayed here as so strong and all-consuming that I can't imagine the show plausibly trying to revisit the Jack/Kate/Sawyer triangle, at least in this timeline. Unless there's a point in this season where island time jumps forward a long way from this tragic moment, Sawyer's going to be too wrapped up in his feelings for Blondie to convincingly give Freckles the time of day as anything but a shoulder to cry on and an extra gun to back his play.

Juliet's death also gives the show a fresh spin on the enmity between Sawyer and Jack, and the massive, fatal failure of the Jughead plan (from this Jack's perspective, anyway) might hopefully convince Jack once and for all that things tend to go bad when he's appointed or appoints himself leader of anything. But probably not.

And speaking of leaders, we meet another of a sort in the Hiroyuki Sanada character to be named later. (Several internet sources list Hawkes' character as "Lennon," which simultaneously seems too obvious and amusing, and for simplicity's sake, I'll use that until we get in-show evidence to the contrary.) The temple Others seem culturally different from several other Others factions we've seen, styled more like hippies. (Might we find out that there are a bunch of Dharma defectors and/or their descendants among this bunch?) We've been hearing about the temple for years, and this is definitely an interesting introduction to the place.

And I see by the clock that it's now 1:06 a.m., so I better get to the bullet points before my brain shuts down. Some other thoughts:

• Well, we knew that Cindy and the kids were among the group sent to the temple back in season three, but we still hadn't seen them in all that time. Now we have. All that's left is an explanation for why they (and any other Oceanic survivors recruited into Other-dom) didn't skip around in time last year.

• Getting back to Rose and Bernard, did Jughead's detonation fling them back into the present as well, or did it only affect the time travelers who were close to its explosion?

• Alt-Sawyer has his counterpart's nicknaming gifts, as he dubs Cindy "Earhart." (While doing some prep for this season, I stumbled across this awesome YouTube collection of Sawyer nicknames and its sequel. Absolutely worth the waste of your time.)

• Bram's failed attempt to survive Smokey's attack finally gives us a good explanation for why Jacob's cabin was surrounded by that circle of ash: it, along with the Dharma sonic barrier, are the only things that seem able to repel the monster.

• Still more explanations: the guitar case Jacob gave Hurley contained not a guitar, but a wooden ankh with a fortune hidden inside.

• We may not have gotten Shannon, or Mr. Eko, or some of the other awesome Oceanic survivors in this one, but we got Arzt! And Frogurt! Both as annoying as ever!

• Good to see Kate's tree-climbing skills are still intact even after a time-jump.

• Also good to know that at least Hurley is the one Oceanic survivor who didn't become a firearms expert shortly after landing on the island (or at any point after).

• Was glad to see that the Miles/LaFleur friendship wasn't quickly forgotten now that we're away from the Dharma days.

• "You're the monster." "Let's not resort to name-calling." Funny funny stuff from the Emerson/O'Quinn duo there.

• Claire makes her first appearance in more than a year, and I hope we finally revisit (in one timeline or the other) the matter of what will happen with Aaron's horrible destiny. And speaking of underserviced characters, I'd really like to see Sun return to prominence this year, now that most of the characters are now back on the island at the same time.

Okay, that's enough out of me. What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post