Are you ready for the summer?

Tonight marks the end of the official 2007-8 TV season, though that distinction is becoming more and more meaningless as everyone moves to year-round programming. (It's especially meaningless this year because the strike pushed back things like the "Grey's Anatomy" (tomorrow night) and "Lost" (next Thursday) finales past the Nielsen-mandated end date.)

Still, a good chunk of the shows I regularly write about won't be back until the fall, and so once again it's time to talk about what the summer months will bring for the blog. Tentative plans coming up just as soon as I clean off my propane grill...

Obviously, we still have the aforementioned "Grey's" and "Lost" two-hour finales to deal with, plus additional episodes of "Battlestar Galactica" (3 left) and "Doctor Who" (6 left), though both are, like me, taking Memorial Day weekend off.

While the strike disrupted some summer programming, "Mad Men" and "Burn Notice" will both be back in July (no specific date yet for the former, July 10 for the latter), "My Boys" is back on June 13, HBO's David Simon-produced miniseries "Generation Kill" bows on July 13, CBS' "Swingtown" (which I haven't watched yet) is on June 5, and USA's "In Plain Sight," which I have high hopes for, starts on June 1. There are probably a few other new and returning shows that will work their way into the rotation before the summer's out.

In addition, I'm finally going to attempt two projects that I originally mentioned in the early days of the strike: revisiting the first seasons of "The Wire" and "Sports Night." Last summer, I ran through the entire run of "Freaks and Geeks," and I spent the strike watching the original version of "Cupid" on YouTube, so these will be continuing that trend.

The "Wire" reviews are a definite; I've already gone back and watched the pilot and will attempt to do them on at least a weekly basis (give or take some disruptions for press tour and/or vacation) starting some time late next week. (I'll announce the exact day ahead of time; I just wanted to put the thought in people's heads so they'd know to make sure they had DVDs handy.) I don't want to 100 percent commit to "Sports Night," simply because it's 22 episodes and I don't know that I want to be doubling up on them. Once I figure out the logistics, I'll make an announcement.

That's what I have in my head so far. As always, I'm open to suggestions, though, as always, I reserve the right to not use them.

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Reaper, "Cancun": A death in the family?

"Reaper" season finale spoilers coming up just as soon as I get rid of a mold stain...

Hmmm... I'm a little conflicted on how that all played out.

On the one hand, the finale introduced a whole bunch of interesting new angles for season two: Sam is now marked for death (or worse) by all the non-Tony rebel demons, Sam believes his father to be dead even though his father somehow (by being a demon himself?) survived being buried alive, Sam is either the harbinger of the Apocalypse or an important part of God's plan, etc. To trot out the now inevitable "Buffy" comparisons, this is the sort of territory that "Buffy" was heading into by the end of its uneven first season, which led to its kick-ass second season.

On the other hand, I don't know that this show, with this particular assemblage of talent in front of and behind the camera, is really up for much weightier material. Bret Harrison's a talented comic actor, but he doesn't seem up for the more serious moments, as evidenced by how flat the few scenes were in between the apparent death of Sam's dad and the revelation that he was alive and well. I don't know if that's on Harrison, or on the producers not wanting to go to a very dark place knowing that, within minutes, they'd be telling us that it all was a lie, but Sam seemed mildly bummed-out, at best, at the thought that his father (biological or adopted, he was still Sam's dad) was dead, that he was now Demon Enemy #1, that he could be Satan's son, etc. The idea to have Sock try to help Sam cope with his grief in the only way he knew how -- acting juvenile and blowing stuff up -- could have been both funny and moving at the same time if the moments leading up to it seemed more tragic, but instead it came across like the show itself only knows how to deal with tragedy by being juvenile and blowing stuff up.

I remain glad that the show got renewed and will be back at midseason, and that Fazekas, Butters and company got away from the tedious Soul of the Week format that was killing the show in the early going. I just wonder if they've maybe bit off more than they can chew here.

What did everybody else think?

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American Idol: Top 2 performances

"American Idol" spoilers coming up after I see what listings the phonebook has under Molten Lava Hot...

Sonuva... David Archuleta is going to win "American Idol" after all.

Yes, David Cook has been much better throughout the season, and if you believe DialIdol and the iTunes sales figures, then he's easily eclipsed L'il Archie's popularity in recent weeks. But there's a school of thought suggesting that Cook would be better off not winning, with the proponents of said school citing Chris Daughtry (while ignoring, of course, the cautionary tale that is Bo "I finished second and all I got was this cheeseball album" Bice). Given that, I think Cook really needed to blow the kid's doors off tonight and, though I enjoyed all three of his performances, the first was the only one that was close to showy enough to really sway people, while Archuleta belted himself silly. Anything can happen with crazy fanbases on either side, but I have a feeling young David's going to have the good kind of cry tomorrow night.

Song-by-song...

CLIVE DAVIS' CHOICE

David Cook, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For": When this particular song spoiler starting floating around over the last 24 hours, it seemed like a no-win scenario for Cook. Because U2 has never been performed in competition on the show before (though Elliott Yamin kinda sorta dueted with Mary J. Blige on "One" in the season 5 finale), the judges have never gotten a chance to lump Bono in with the Mariahs and Whitneys on the list of Thou Shalt Not Sing types, but he'd definitely be up there. Could Cook tackle one of the most iconic songs by one of the most iconic rock bands of all time and not seem, at best, like a decent imitator?

As it turned out, yes he could. The arrangement straddled the line between a faithful cover and a complete reinvention, in that it sounded in the style of the original but not so much so that I was unfavorably comparing Cook to Bono on various notes. (Compare that to the way male contestants usually fall apart trying to do Freddie Mercury.) Because he's the "rocker" this year, I don't know that Cook gets enough credit for what a talented and versatile singer he is, but I just enjoy hearing him work, and this was no exception.

David Archuleta, "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me": Really, this was the ballgame right here. Everything after this was moot. While Cook was great on the U2 song, it wasn't the kind of flashy, everything but the kitchen sink kind of performance that the voters and the judges lap up. Though some of the notes near the end made my ears hurt, there were enough vocal gymnastics -- and enough genuine passion from the usually dead-eyed Archuleta -- that it was going to be an uphill battle for Cook on the next two songs, and he never really got there. Speaking of which...

CORONATION SONGS

David Cook, "Dream Big": I'll say this: Cook's version of "Dream Big" is the first performance of an "Idol" coronation song since Fantasia's "I Believe" that I actually wouldn't mind hearing if it came on my car radio. I don't know how much of the arrangement was his and how much was the songwriter's -- I was way too afraid to actually listen to all the top 10 contest entries -- but it was uptempo and upbeat without being too cheesey or seeming out of character. But it also wasn't a showstopper.

David Archuleta, "In This Moment": After momentarily turning into a real boy on the Elton John song, Archie goes back to being a lifeless singing puppet on this incredibly boring song. The most interesting part of the performance is how David starts making the Carly Smithson "It causes me physical pain to hit this note but I love my fans too much not to try" faces whenever he has to hit a falsetto. Still, this sounded like a much more traditional coronation song than "Dream Big."

(God, I love Randy. He trots out "lava hot" for Archuleta's first performance, then immediately goes for "you can sing the phonebook" for the second. Question: does he have any idea what a lame cliche he is, and if so, do you think he even cares?)

CONTESTANT'S CHOICE

David Cook, "The World I Know": Much as I admire his insistence on singing a new song, I understand Simon's point about how David would have been better served with "Hello" or "Billie Jean." It isn't even so much that these were songs the audience had enjoyed before. It's that Cook is one of the few artists in the history of the show to be best-served by the ill-fitting theme nights, because he was able to do such surprising things to such familiar lite-FM standards. The last few weeks, when he's had a bit more freedom to choose his own stuff (from Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame Night on), he's often sounded good, but there hasn't been a "Wow" moment the way there was when you heard what he did with Lionel Richie or Mariah Carey. Beyond that, this was a fairly understated take on the Collective Soul original, which I remember building to a much more bombastic and passionate ending than Cook had either the time, energy or interest to go for. Again, a very solid performance, but not close to a winning one.

David Archuleta, "Imagine": Of course David goes and sings "Imagine" again. It symbolizes everything he's about -- specifically, earnest balladeering and predictability. Sounded fine, seemed emotional again, give him the trophy and let me know when Cook's CD drops.

What did everybody else think?

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Desperate Housewives: (Flash) forward progress?

I don't blog on "Desperate Housewives" that often (haven't since this season's premiere, I believe), but as I did devote a good chunk of time to watching the finale, might as well offer up some thoughts, just as soon as I remember to always bet on Nathan Fillion in a fair fight...

So I watched the finale for two reasons: 1)To get a wrap-up to the Dana Delany storyline, which was one of the few things that had interested me whenever I checked out the show this year; and 2)To see how the writers would deal with the much-rumored time jump.

The first ended well enough, I suppose (with some pugilistic assistance from my man Fillion, and from Gary Cole playing one of those bad guys too stupid to keep his mouth shut when he's being held at gunpoint) but wasn't enough to compensate for how much I've grown to dislike the other parts of the show. Susan again winds up in a story (the baby-naming thing) where, rather than have an actual conversation with someone, she resorts to goofy, Ain't-I-Cute subterfuge. Gaby's as spoiled as ever (I recognize that's in the character's design; I just don't find her amusing enough to tolerate it). And even though I knew Lynette and her husband would find a way to stop his manipulative adultery-spawn, it's not something I wanted to sit through waiting for the denouement. (Again, I recognize that it's a soap and I'm not a standard soap fan; anytime one of these evil pathological liars shows up -- see also Michelle Trachtenberg on "Gossip Girl" -- I start to zone out.)

But Delany was very good, and Bree remains the strongest original character, the only one where the writers (thanks to Marcia Cross) usually get to have their cake and eat it, too, with making her likable and human in spite of her more extreme behavior.

As for the time jump, this is now the third series to do it in recent years, starting with the New Caprica arc on "Battlestar Galctica" and the institution of the flash-forwards this year on "Lost." Admittedly, much of the "Lost" action still takes place in what we consider the present-day, but at what point does advancing your characters past all the dead spaces in their lives (say, Gaby dealing with pregnancy and caring for infants) cease to be an interesting storytelling device and start seeming like the crutch of a TV show with too many narrative dead ends that need to be quickly abandoned?

If you're still watching the show, how happy were you with this Delany-augmented season? And does the time jump make you more or less likely to want to stick around come fall?

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Doctor Who: Steven Moffat takes charge

The BBC has announced that Steven Moffat will replace Russell T. Davies as "Doctor Who" showrunner for the new series' fifth (not fourth, as I originally wrote) season, which won't air until 2010. (I believe David Tennant has some kind of theater gig that will sideline him for a while; there are four movies planned to air in 2009.) Thoughts after the jump...

I'm very glad to hear this, especially as there had been rumors that the BBC considered Davies so integral to the success of the new series that they planned to discontinue it (or just produce occasional movies and specials) whenever Davies decided to leave. Obviously, Davies deserves the lion's share of credit for how well the show has been reimagined while maintaining the elements the fanboys loved. But Moffat's episodes have consistently been the highlight of each season of the new series, whether it was season one's London Blitz two-parter "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances" with the gasmask people (pictured above), season two's "The Girl in the Fireplace" with The Doctor romancing Madame De Pompadour, or last year's frightfest "Blink."

My only concern is whether Moffat can pull it off on a regular basis. It's one thing to parachute in for one or two episodes a season (I can't wait for his two-parter later this year) and another to have to run the series. Obviously, Moffat has showrunning experience before (notably with "Coupling"), but it'll be interesting to see how (or if) he plots out those season-long arcs Davies seemed to love.

Also, this increases the possibility that, whenever Tennant decides to go, we might get James Nesbitt from Moffat's "Jekyll" as the next Doctor, which would be awesome.

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Bones, "The Pain in the Heart": Tricks and treats

Quick spoilers for the "Bones" season finale coming up just as soon as I reorganize my Social Distortion record collection...

Well, that was pretty disappointing.

On the one hand, I'm glad they didn't make Sweets turn out to be Gormogon (or his apprentice), as it would have been cheap (the only new character of the season turns out to be the big bad of the season) and it would have deprived us of the Sweets/Bones/Booth scenes, as well as depriving the artist formerly known as Sam Weir of employment.

On the other, the resolution to last week's shooting cliffhanger was so lame that it left a bad taste in my mouth for the rest of the episode. We all knew Booth wasn't going to be dead -- you don't kill the buddy on a buddy show -- but to resolve it in such a silly way, with no real emotional follow-up was just awful. Sure, Bones was annoyed for a few scenes about Booth not telling her the truth, but nobody else was either upset or relieved to see the guy, and other than Angela being too sad to go to the funeral alone, nobody even seemed that bothered when it seemed he was dead. If they were going to shrug the thing off so quickly, why even bother to do it? This was the worst kind of sweeps stunting.

As a light comedy with a bit of mystery worked in, "Bones" works very well. (The show it most reminds me of, oddly enough, is the '70s James Garner private eye classic "The Rockford Files," in terms of its laid-back approach to the material.) When it tries to travel into deeper emotional waters, things get rocky. At least, they did last night.

What did everybody else think?

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HIMYM, "Miracles": Can't you hear me yell-a?

"How I Met Your Mother" finale spoilers coming up just as soon as I get my daughter a turtle...

Well, we have our mother.

Or do we?

Yes, "Miracles" opens with Future Ted talking about how the cab ride changed his life, and it ends with him proposing to Stella, but you'll note the distinct absence of Future Ted telling the kids something like, "And that's how I asked your mother to marry me." As bet-hedging goes, it's not massive, but it does give the producers an out if they want it.

From what I understand, "Scrubs" will be done filming its season by sometime in August, which is around when "HIMYM" would be starting production on season four, so if they need Sarah Chalke around for close to full time, that shouldn't be too big of an issue.

And I like Chalke quite a bit -- or, at least, I really liked her in "Ten Sessions," where she got to be funny, spar well with Josh Radnor (and, briefly, Jason Segel) and show the right amount of emotion when things got schmoopy with Ted. I think I'd be perfectly fine with her being the mother...

...except that her next two episodes were two of the weaker ones of the season. The relationship tension in both "Rebound Bro" and last night's "Miracles" felt contrived. We know from the end of the Ted/Robin affair that Ted really wants to have a lot of kids, like, immediately, and while Stella's daughter isn't his, seems to me she'd be a bonus, not a problem, for him. So we have this random, artificial break-up -- two break-ups, really -- just designed to make Ted's proposal more dramatic, but even there, it didn't quite work, because Ted's epiphany about Stella came in between the first and second break-up. The only change at the end was that Ted was cleared to leave the hospital.

Beyond that, "Miracles" was frustrating because it felt very slapdash, and because, aside from Marshall's list of lame miracles and Robin's Canadian references (Springsteen as the American Bryan Adams, Sir Sratch-awan), it wasn't a particularly funny episode. I'd be okay with minimal laughter if the dramatic parts were more interesting -- I'm thinking back to the first season finale, with Ted's rain dance and Marshall and Lily's break-up -- but as I said, the Ted/Stella stuff felt artificial.

In fact, the proposal got thoroughly upstaged by the look on Barney's face when he realized he was in love with Robin. It's no surprise that Neil Patrick Harris can play emotions in a more convincing, more interesting manner than Josh Radnor, but we've also had three years to build up to that, as opposed to three episodes of Ted and Stella (plus a handful of other episodes where they were allegedly dating but where Chalke didn't appear).

This was a very odd season of the "HIMYM." It started off very weakly, with too many episodes in a row of Ted and Robin separately dominating the action (including one of the show's worst episodes ever, "We're Not From Here"). Things started to pick up a bit right before the strike hit, and then the show came back much, much stronger post-strike (including "The Bracket," the season's only episode to belong in the "HIMYM" pantheon), only to peter out here in the last three weeks.

Now that we (presumably) have the Mother taken care of, and assuming (I hope) that there's no actors strike to disrupt things further, I'm looking forward to a season that's not disrupted by outside forces or by the producers' need to stall on finding Ted his woman.

What did everybody else think?

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Sepinwall on TV: 'American Idol' finale preview

In today's column, I attempt to live down (or up to) my pre-finals prediction that David Archuleta would win "American Idol" walking away. Also, in an online-only sidebar, I add one item to my recent list of things "Idol" needs to fix: it's time to dump Randy Jackson.

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House, "Wilson's Heart": Gotta save Ambuh!

Brief "House" season four finale spoilers coming up just as soon as I wipe my sleeve...

Like Amber, I've had healthier days. Unlike Amber, it's not hard to diagnose what's wrong with me (hint: it involves the little germ factory I send my daughter to every day), but it still means my judgment's a bit impaired. (For that reason, and my need to sleep, the "HIMYM" review will likely have to wait until morning.)

I'm still not sure all the hallucinations/flashbacks/dreams in this two-parter were an necessary stylistic flourish, but Anne Dudek and Robert Sean Leonard acted the hell out of Wilson and Amber's goodbye. There's stage crying, and then there's raw, unfiltered emotion, and they gave us buckets full of the latter.

I'm also glad they didn't try to end the season on a House-in-jeopardy cliffhanger. Not only did they do that at the end of season two, but endangering the life of your main character is the most bogus kind of cliffhanger. I mean, we don't know for sure that House will be completely unimpaired, but the final scene seemed to be much less about the state of House's brain than it was about the shattered state of his friendship with Wilson.

Also, good on the writers for making House's sin relatively minor, but still the type that Wilson would have a hard time forgiving. Had House slept with Amber, it might have been more dramatically interesting at first, but it's the kind of development that they could never plausibly undo, and the House/Wilson friendship, whenever it's restored, is one of the strongest (and often funniest) parts of the series.

Speaking of things that can or can't be undone, we end the season with the status quo for the new team, which means the writers didn't try to backslide the way I think we all assumed when House lost his whole team last year. Yes, Foreman's back, but there's no sign that Thirteen, Kutner and Taub (whose hug of his sleeping wife was one of the episode's nicest little touches) are going anywhere, nor that Chase and Cameron want back in. That's not great news for fans of those characters -- or for people who could take or leave, say, Thirteen -- but at least the writers have made the ramifications of last year's finale last a lot longer than House's newfound ability to run from the start of season three.

Don't have a brain injury, but still need sleep. What did everybody else think?

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Sepinwall on TV: 'Square Pegs' on DVD

Today's column takes a look at the "Square Pegs" DVD (out tomorrow) and notes that not all fondly-remembered series play that well when you catch up with them years later.

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Battlestar Galactica, "Guess What's Coming to Dinner?": Bang, bang, bang, on the door, baby

"Battlestar Galactica" spoilers coming up just as soon as I go through the Go/No-Go checklist with my launch team...

"Jump!"

Well, frak me. Didn't see that one coming.

"Guess What's Coming to Dinner?" concludes on a couple of shocking developments that should blow the shaky human/Cylon alliance all to hell, as Athena empties her gun into Natalie just for looking at Hera funny while the Hybrid is reactivated and immediately jumps the baseship away with Roslin, Baltar, half of Galactica's fighter strength, and a whole bunch of pissed-off Centurions aboard.

I feel like I come to the end of every episode this season thinking, "Oh, this is not going to end well," but this one seemed particularly doomsday-ish. If this were a mid-season or season-ending cliffhanger in the earlier days of the series, I could imagine a way in which the pieces are eventually put back together, but we're close enough to the end, and have had way too many hints about what's coming, to think that any good can come from this.

Like a lot of "Galactica" fans, I tend to rag on the Michael Angeli-written episodes as being as subtle as a blowtorch, but this one seemed less on the nose than most of his efforts. That, or director Wayne Rose and the editing team did such a masterful job of creating suspense throughout the hour that I was too busy sweating to notice each character delivering a monologue explaining who they are and which literary archetype they represent.

From the poorly-timed arrival of the baseship, sans Demetrius, in the opening to the sequence of Sharon chasing after Hera on Galactica, Sharon doing the same in the opera house, and Helo escorting Roslin and Baltar onto the baseship, this was as masterfully-cut an episode of the show as I can remember. (It was also one of the best-looking. Gary Hutzel and his team are really outdoing themselves this season: the fleet jumping away from the scary baseship and the baseship hangar deck were works of art.)

Over at The House Next Door, Todd Van Der Werff had some issues with Athena's willingness to give Natalie a fatal case of lead poisoning, given that the Six in the opera house visions was clearly the platinum-blonde Caprica Six and not the dirty-blonde Natalie Six, and since Sharon the mutinous Cylon would be one of the only people in the fleet to actually know or care about variations within each Cylon model. But I bought it, for a couple of reasons. First, Natalie explicitly mentions Hera to Sharon right before they jump back to the fleet, and in a way that Sharon perceived to be predatory. Second, Sharon's already had her baby stolen twice from her (first by Roslin, then by the Cylons), and now she's plagued by these shared visions (which she knows are more than just dreams) of a Six stealing her a third time, and Hera is doing ominous horror movie things like saying "Bye-bye" and drawing endless pictures of Six in her sketch pad (for her age, the kid's a good artist), and here Sharon finds her runaway daughter in the arms of a Six, and I don't think at that point she cared whether it was the Six. Ordinary moms don't play when it comes to the safety of their children, let alone trained warrior alien robot moms. Ironically, I suspect that in killing Natalie, Sharon is going to only increase the chance of Hera being taken away by Caprica and Baltar, either because she'll be locked away in the brig for it (though, given what happened to Cally for killing Boomer, probably not), or because this will only inflame tensions between the human and rebel Cylon fleets.

(Speaking of which, I can't be the only one to get "Star Wars" original trilogy flashbacks whenever Adama or someone else referred to "the rebel baseship" or "the rebel leader." Help me, Gaius Baltar. You're my only hope.)

The mortality theme continues, as the Cylons have suddenly (in between episodes, really) decided that they don't really want to resurrect anymore. It was interesting to watch the reactions of Tigh and Tory as all of this was discussed. Tigh, of course, is a self-loathing Final Fiver and doesn't want to hear any further talk of how he's different from humans, but you could see Tory realizing for the first time that he could conceivably have an eternal life, and then just as quickly realizing that the proposed mission could snatch that immortality away from her. All of the Final Four performers got to do some great silent acting in this one, whether it was Tory contemplating resurrection, or Anders listening to Gaeta sing (hell of a voice on Alessandro Juliani), or Tyrol being the only person in the corridor stand-off to know that Sharon, in trying to protect her child from a Cylon, handed it off to another Cylon.

(And gods, I hope that both those characters survive until Tyrol is outed -- or, at least, that Tyrol and Boomer do. The conversation he could have with either Sharon about their relationship, sudden Cylon self-knowledge, etc., should be one of the best scenes of the series.)

This is later than I wanted to post this, so I'll hit a few bullet points and open things up to comments:

• Given that the Final Four discovered their identities through song, is Gaeta's singing (which composer Bear McCreary discusses in detail at his blog) supposed to be a clue to him as the Final Fifth, or just a stylistic flourish?
• Loved the utter contempt Zarek showed for the plan, with his "blah blah blah" over the important detail that if they did this, they might no longer be dealing with an unbeatable enemy. Lee's been whinier than usual since joining the Quorum, but he has a point when he tells Laura she'd be better served with a little transparency.
  
• Actually, now that I think on it, Lee's speech about what it was like to be a civilian during an emergency jump was very Angeli-esque in its "tell, don't show" qualities.
• Does the fact that Laura has Searider Falcon with her for this trip suggest she'll be reading the final chapter (and then dying) before she'll make it back to the fleet?

What did everybody else think?

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Doctor Who, "The Sontaran Stratagem": Companions collide

No "Battlestar Galactica" review until tonight at the earliest, as I haven't seen it yet. Quick spoilers for last night's "Doctor Who" coming up just as soon as I disable my GPS device...

Not a fan of this one, though some of that may be alleviated if part two justifies all this set-up. But "The Sontaran Stratagem" felt too busy, too cheesey (the Sontarans themselves are the first villains in a while to remind me that "Doctor Who" is meant as a kid's show), and too repetitive of other "Who" episodes. We already did the "corporation with a wonderful problem-solving product turns out to be an alien front" gag only a few weeks ago in "Partners in Crime," and the Donna/Martha meeting felt very reminiscent of Rose and Sarah Jane's encounter in season two, where The Doctor worries his new girl and his old one won't get along, and instead they bond over their various issues with him.

This is also the first episode of the season where I've watched the Sci Fi edit, so for all I know, there was some interesting stuff that got left on the cutting room floor, but this was a disappointment. Hopefully, next week's better.

(And speaking of which, I again ask you to respect the American air schedule; if you've seen the next few British episodes, don't discuss them in any way, or else I'll just delete the comments.)

What did everybody else think?

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All TV: Fox upfront

Today's column is a slightly longer look at the Fox schedule.

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Lost, "There's No Place Like Home": The man with the plan

"Lost" spoilers coming up just as soon as I grab the nearest Jesus figurine for protection against prowlers...

"There's No Place Like Home" is a bridge episode, the first hour of a three-hour finale (with the rest not airing for two weeks due to the "Grey's Anatomy" finale), and as such, it could have very easily contented itself with moving all the appropriate pieces into place. And, certainly, there was a lot of that -- though I'll be damned if I can figure out how Sun and Aaron are going to wind up with the rest of the Oceanic Six, who are all converging at The Orchid -- but the episode offered much more than that.

Last week, I was oddly unmoved by "Cabin Fever" because it offered lots of answers (or, at least, clues) without providing much of an emotional arc for Locke or anyone else. "There's No Place Like Home," on the other hand, was bursting with emotion, and with payoffs to character arcs dating back to season one. We had Sun taking out her righteous widowed(*) fury on her dad by buying out his company(**). We had Sayid reunited with his beloved Nadia (even though we know she'll be dead within a year). And, in maybe Matthew Fox's single best moment in the history of the show, we had Jack finally find out that Claire is his sister -- after he's already left her behind (and very possibly dead) on the island. For a long time, I was assuming that Ana-Lucia would give Jack the crucial bit of info, or Sawyer would somehow say the exact right thing in front of Claire about his time hanging out with Jack's dad, or Christian's reanimated corpse (or whatever the hell he is) would tell the two half-sibs himself. No matter the theory, I always felt certain that Jack and Claire would find out in each other's presence, and get to enjoy that wonderful discovery in the midst of all the horror that is life on Craphole Island. But to have Jack find out that way -- and after the Oceanic Six had, for reasons that I'm sure will be explained in two weeks, had agreed to a cover story that included Aaron being Kate's biological kid (which means no Aaron/grandma bonding, or the cover's blown) -- was a cruel, powerful twist on the part of the "Lost" writers, and Fox played Jack's anguish beautifully. Of all the members of the Six, he was the only one who seemed at peace with what had happened for most of the episode, and that just destroyed him. I knew Jack's "and you're not even related to him!" rant from "Something Nice Back Home" meant that Jack knew he was an uncle; I just didn't imagine it would come out this way.

(*) I'm still on board with the idea that Jin dies while the Six escape (which would make the season finale Daniel Dae Kim's last episode as a regular, unfortunately). Too many things about the way Sun carried herself both here and in "Ji Yeon" suggest a widow and not a woman separated from her husband by thousands of miles (and maybe years, depending on what The Orchid does), and there's no reason for her to tell her father that two people are responsible for Jin's death(***) if he's not dead. She's got plenty enough reason to hate the guy. Plus, I feel like there needs to be a payoff to Jin extracting the promise of Sun's safety from Charlotte, and we didn't get that here.

(**) Exactly how big could that Oceanic settlement be for Sun to buy a controlling interest in what's been portrayed as a huge conglomerate? Why do I have the feeling that Hurley took a lot of that unwanted lottery money and put it to good use here?

(***) The answer could turn out to be Ben or Widmore or Keamy or Michael or lots of other people, but I have a feeling the other person Sun blames is herself.

My point is, when "Lost" is at its best -- I'm talking "Walkabout" or "Through the Looking Glass" best -- it manages to balance revelations (shocking and otherwise) with great character moments. I don't know that I'd put this one in the pantheon (again, a lot of it was set-up for the finale, for which I have extremely high hopes), but it was definitely in the spirit of what I love about the show. We managed to flit around all these different locations and groups of people (including Richard and The Others coming back on the board and suddenly looking like they are, in fact, the good guys) without ever losing sight of them as people. The show is as much about Sun's relationship with her father as it's about the Numbers, as much about Sayid's globe-trotting quest for the woman of his dreams as about who's in the coffin, or as much Kate not having anybody to greet her on the tarmac as Jacob's true identity, etc.

There's already been quite a bit of clamoring over in "The Office" finale thread for me to get this thing posted already (whatever happened to all the "take your time, Alan! We want it right, not fast, Alan!" I was getting at the start of the season, anyway?), and since the episode left so much up in the air, I'm going to quickly look at some of the questions raised, open the floor for you all, and get some sleep.

• Again, how is Sun going to get from the explosives-laden freighter to the location of the rest of the Six? And while I wouldn't be surprised to see either or both of Michael and Jin die in an explosion (triggered by the dead man's switch that Omar strapped to Keamy last week), I'm not too worried for Desmond. They've made the Desmond/Penny love story such an important part of the show (both on its own and as part of the larger Ben/Widmore war) that I can't imagine Cuse and Lindelof killing the guy off just yet. (Then again, I also didn't see the Jack/Claire thing coming, so what do I know?)
• Unless Richard and The Others (sounds like a British Invasion band, no?) are really fast walkers in addition to being immortal, to whom exactly did Ben signal at the top of the mountain?
• How does Faraday know about The Orchid? And I still don't understand what specific roles Dan, Charlotte, Miles and Naomi (who, remember, was the key to Abaddon's plan for this mission) were supposed to play, either in concert with or in parallel to Keamy's bunch.
  
• Was that the raft from the freighter that the Six used to get to the nearby fishing island?
• What exactly would happen to a person who ate fifteen year old crackers?
• Does the return of The Numbers (on the odometer of Hurley's muscle car) mean that Lindelof and Cuse actually do have a plan to explain them, or was this just an easy way to set up Hurley's own mainland descent into madness?
• Does The Orchid come with a tutorial, or did Christian give Locke specific island-moving instructions when they were in the cabin together?

Lots to ponder, and lots to enjoy. Gonna be a rought two weeks, but not nearly as rough as the nine months or so until season five starts.

What did everybody else think?

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The Office, "Goodbye, Toby": My name is Captain Bruisin'

Spoilers for "The Office" fourth season finale coming up just as soon as I see if our vending machine takes buttons...

I have one complaint, and only one complaint (and it's less of a complaint than a concern), and I want to get it out of the way immediately, because beyond that, "Goodbye, Toby" was perfection, more than living up to the show's great season finale tradition set by "Casino Night" and "The Job."

So, the complaint/concern: I really, really, really hope the writers aren't going to be foolish enough to try to create real strife in the PB&J relationship over how long it's going to take Jim to propose. That's a stupid conflict, and an artificial one, and is the sort of only delaying the inevitable tactice that's beneath a show that's thus far been so brilliant in the way it's let the old Unresolved Sexual Tension trap play out. But I fully admit that I could be misreading Pam's expression when she told the camera crew that she was surprised Jim didn't propose to her at the carnival.

And if I'm being too alarmist, then so much the better for the already wonderful "Goodbye, Toby."

I've written a few times about how Paul Lieberstein-scripted (or, in this case, co-scripted, with Jen Celotta) episodes tend to be a bit more melancholy and set the characters at a more human scale. Michael is still a bumbler, but he's a recognizable, understandable bumbler. Michael as written by Lieberstein is capable of being charming and insightful (see his review of the "Die Hard" series back in "Money"), which explains how -- with a lot of helpful, restraining advice from Jim -- he was able to hit it off so well with Holly.

(Speaking of Holly, I realize I never noticed her before she played Beadie on "The Wire," but is Amy Ryan entering that rareified territory of always giving a good performance and bringing something interesting to the table? I want to scour her IMDb resume and put the lot of it in my Netflix queue.)

A classic example of the humanized writing was the running gag about Holly believing that Kevin was retarded. Here's something where Kevin behaves the way he always behaves, and Holly behaves in a way that seems appropriate (for her and the situation), and you can see exactly how she'd read their encounters as Kevin being slow while Kevin would read them as Holly wanting to get him in bed. Much as I love "The Office," there are times when the show forces its characters' behavior to extremes in order to get a big laugh. This joke in particular, and the episode in general, found a way to get big laughs while letting everybody be exactly who they are, no more, no less.

There were some cartoony moments featuring the cartoonier characters, like the hysterical talking head with Creed having no idea what his job is ("Choir?... Quabbity?"), or Mose (Mose!) showing up with a non-rabid raccoon, but for the most part, the best jokes were subtler. Take Michael's exit interview with Toby, and the pained inflections in Michael's voice as, with Holly and Pam in the room, he has to ask questions like "Who do you think you are?" and "What gives you the right?" in a way that doesn't make him sound like a hostile, vengeance-seeking ass. That was beautifully set up, between the years of Michael irrationally hating Toby and his newfound bond with the Yoda and Lovitz-quoting Holly.

Or take the relieved and yet happy way Jim says "I'm so glad you didn't," when he finds out that Michael restrained himself from kissing Holly. Jim's coaching of Michael throughout was wonderful. I don't know if it's that, as he's decided to fight for his job at Dunder-Mifflin, he's grown protective of Michael or if, more likely, Pam's protectiveness of Michael when he's at his least boorish has rubbed off on Jim. Either way, I liked the idea of Jim trying to work with Michael's social disorders instead of simply standing back and smirking at the camera crew.

After last week's catastrophe, this episode did such a strong job of rehabilitating Michael -- see him acknowledging that, while Phyllis couldn't find an anti-gravity machine, the ferris wheel was pretty cool in its own right -- that I felt genuinely sorry for him when he discovered Jan was pregnant (just at the moment where he had made a connection with his ideal woman), and even worse when we found out that Jan is so evil she got herself impregnated by a sperm bank while they were still living together. (Question: had Michael and Jan not broken up, do you think she would have tried to pass the kid off as Michael's?) Where I think I would be taking an ax to my television if they tried to insert this kind of complication into PB&J (didn't "Ugly Betty" do some goofy story where Betty's would-be boyfriend is stuck with a girl who's pregnant with a kid that might not be his?), it worked here for a couple of reasons: 1)We've only had an episode to get invested at all in the prospect of Michael and Holly, and 2)We've had it drummed into our heads that Michael is obsessed with having children, and so it feels natural that he would let himself get drawn back into Jan's horrifying web by the prospect of being a dad, even if the sperm belonged to a donor at the bank near the IHOP.

Michael being stuck in the parent trap was one of several outstanding cliffhangers in this one. Among the other questions we're left with:

• Is Toby really gone for good to Costa Rica? I can't imagine Amy Ryan being in this for the long haul, and much as Paul Lieberstein is self-conscious about acting, Toby's too good a foil to Michael for the show to lose long-term. I assumed that, when Pam told the camera guys to not tell Toby that she thought he was cute, they would immediately tell him and he would abandon his surfing dream to hang onto his far more pathetic dream of winning her.
  
• Is Ryan gone for good from Dunder-Mifflin? We all knew he was heading for a fall. I assumed it would be the cocaine, but I hadn't realized that, when he was ordering the salespeople to enter all their sales as if they had come through the website, he was double-counting those numbers. (I figured he was just making the salespeople look bad to the higher-ups.) Obviously, Jan has stayed in play on the show despite having been fired by the company; might we see Ryan desperately move back in with Kelly while he tries to rehab?
  
• What will Phyllis do with her newfound knowledge of Angela and naked (brrr...) Dwight? I was not expecting to see that at all, but it was both wickedly funny and something of a callback to Jim catching Angela and Dwight in the act last season. If the rumors are right about Ed Helms being part of the spin-off, I think we know what Andy's reason for leaving Scranton will be.
  

I could go on in my praise of this one, or just do a "30 Rock"-esque list of all the other things I loved (Michael comparing Holly to "a lady baker," Pam and Jim having a completely reasonable conversation about her spending three months in New York at design school), but I have one humdinger of a "Lost" episode to analyze, and I have to leave something for you guys to talk about. Before I go, I ask you this:

Best hour-long "Office" ever?

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Fair to moderate?

It looks like I'll be moderating a panel at the Paley Center in New York on Monday night, called "Click Critics: The Power of Fan Websites," featuring people from Lostpedia, Whedonesque, and a bunch of other top fan sites. If you're in or around the city and are interested, you can get more info and to buy tickets, click here.

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Reaper, "The Leak": Sam of son?

Belated "Reaper" spoilers coming up just as soon as I get a black eye...

I'm glad I got to watch this episode after the CW upfront (where "Reaper" got a pick-up for mid-season), because I no longer have to lament the idea that the producers figured things out just before they got canceled. If anything, this recent run of episodes is evidence for why the CW granted a renewal in spite of lousy ratings. This was yet another fun episode that managed to tell an interesting standalone story (it helps that Richard Burgi has had a lot of practice of late playing lecherous d-bags) while at the same time moving along the arcs (demon rebellion, Ben's marriage) and better incorporating the supporting characters who work (Gladys, who dies almost as hard as John McClane).

Now, I have to think Fazekas, Butters and company worried about cancellation when they were writing these, so in addition to showing CW execs how much better the show could be, they've started throwing out ideas that, under better ratings circumstances, they might have held for later. So now Andi's part of the Scooby Gang (though I would argue that should have come even sooner than it did), and with this week's episode, the show gets overt with the question of whether Sam is the son of Satan. (Not to be confused with this guy.)

But because they're addressing that issue this early in the run, I have to wonder if that will really be the answer, or if all the hints that have been dropped were just a feint for some other explanation of the Devil's fondness for Sam. If Sam's not Satan's kid, why does Old Scratch like him so much?

I do want to repeat last week's complaint about Andi. I'm glad she's in on the secret and part of the group, but the writers still don't know what to do with her. I want to see her be more inquisitive about how all this stuff works, or to have some other kind of recognizable personality trait. The running gag about Sock trying to trick her into dressing up at least gave her a bit of business to play, but in the end it was just another riff on the fact that Missi Peregrym is hot, you know?

What did everybody else think? And do you think the death promised in the promos will be Ken Marino, or perhaps Josie, who was slightly less redundant than usual this week?

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Fox upfront, take one

The conference call with Peter Liguori and Kevin Reilly is in a few minutes, so I have to be really quick. Preliminary thoughts on the Fox sked, plus a full list of both the fall and spring skeds, coming up after the jump...

So, some initial thoughts:

• This is much less convoluted than the average Fox schedule. There are officially only two different skeds: one for the fall, and one for when "Idol" comes back. There's some noodling in the spring with the cartoons, but they're not announcing 87 different iterations of the sked, none of them remotely resembling what will actually happen.
• Not surprisingly, both the J.J. Abrams-produced "Fringe" and the Joss Whedon-produced "Dollhouse" (pictured above) made it onto the schedule, with the former getting the benefit of airing after "House" in the fall and "Idol" in the spring, and the latter getting to be the lead-in to "24." Not sure if either show is compatible with Fox's biggest hits, but you can't say they're not putting them in good timeslots.
• That said, they keep claiming that "Bones" will one day air Fridays at 8 at mid-season, and it hasn't really come to pass yet. Think it will this year?
• Not mentioned below, the "24" prequel movie (setting up the events of the next season) will air on November 23.
• "5th Grader" and "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" do decently on Thursdays despite tough competition from the other networks. By moving them to Friday, Fox could have their first passable Friday schedule since "X-Files" moved to Sundays.
• I know it was announced a while ago, but they're really devoting an entire series to Cleveland from "Family Guy"?
• Other than the continued existence of "'Til Death," this looks a lot more like a Fox schedule than the last few years of CBS-lite stuff they've been doing. Lots of dramas that are either serialized, science fiction, or both, even more animated comedies, and more reality on the official schedule.

Gotta jump on the call. Here's the schedule(s):

FOX PRIMETIME SCHEDULE: FALL 2008

(All Times ET/PT)

MONDAY
8:00-9:00 PM TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES
9:00-10:00 PM PRISON BREAK



TUESDAY
8:00-9:00 PM HOUSE
9:00-10:00 PM FRINGE



WEDNESDAY
8:00-9:00 PM BONES
9:00-9:30 PM ‘TIL DEATH
9:30-10:00 PM DO NOT DISTURB (wt)



THURSDAY
8:00-9:00 PM THE MOMENT OF TRUTH
9:00-10:00 PM KITCHEN NIGHTMARES



FRIDAY
8:00-9:00 PM ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A 5th GRADER?
9:00-10:00 PM DON’T FORGET THE LYRICS!



SATURDAY
8:00-8:30 PM COPS
8:30-9:00 PM COPS
9:00-10:00 PM AMERICA’S MOST WANTED: AMERICA FIGHTS BACK
11:00 PM-Midnight MADtv
Midnight-12:30 AM TALKSHOW WITH SPIKE FERESTEN



SUNDAY
7:00-8:00 PM THE OT (NFL post-game)
8:00-8:30 PM THE SIMPSONS
8:30-9:00 PM KING OF THE HILL
9:00-9:30 PM FAMILY GUY
9:30-10:00 PM AMERICAN DAD



FOX PRIMETIME SCHEDULE: BEGINNING JANUARY 2009

(All Times ET/PT)

MONDAY
8:00-9:00 PM DOLLHOUSE
9:00-10:00 PM 24



TUESDAY
8:00-9:00 PM AMERICAN IDOL
9:00-10:00 PM FRINGE



WEDNESDAY
8:00-9:00 PM HOUSE
9:00-9:30 PM AMERICAN IDOL Results Show
9:30-10:00 PM TBA Comedy



THURSDAY
8:00-9:00 PM HELL’S KITCHEN
9:00-10:00 PM SECRET MILLIONAIRE



FRIDAY
8:00-9:00 PM BONES
9:00-9:30 PM ‘TIL DEATH
9:30-10:00 PM DO NOT DISTURB (wt)



SATURDAY
8:00-8:30 PM COPS
8:30-9:00 PM COPS
9:00-10:00 PM AMERICA’S MOST WANTED: AMERICA FIGHTS BACK
11:00 PM-Midnight MADtv
Midnight-12:30 AM TALKSHOW WITH SPIKE FERESTEN



SUNDAY
7:00-7:30 PM COMEDY ENCORES
7:30-8:00 PM COMEDY ENCORES
8:00-8:30 PM THE SIMPSONS
8:30-9:00 PM KING OF THE HILL (January) / SIT DOWN, SHUT UP (wt) (spring)
9:00-9:30 PM FAMILY GUY
9:30-10:00 PM AMERICAN DAD (January) / THE CLEVELAND SHOW (wt) (spring)

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All TV: CBS Upfront

Today's column goes into the CBS schedule (including "The Ex List," pictured above) in slightly more detail.

I should know all about the Fox schedule -- or, given their usual MO, schedules -- by lunchtime today.

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