'Defying Gravity' review - Sepinwall on TV

Over at NJ.com, I have my review of ABC's astronaut soap opera "Defying Gravity," which debuts Sunday night. As you'll tell from the review, I wasn't a fan, and I doubt I'll be blogging on it in the future, but feel free to discuss the premiere here if you watch it.

Burn Notice, "Friends Like These": Thrilla in the villa

In the interest of getting discussion going about last night's "Burn Notice" even as I head out to cover all things press tour, here are a few quick thoughts of mine: 1)Is Callie Thorne now going to be on every show on cable? And how much better is she these days (or, at least, how much better is the writing she gets) than when she was on "Homicide"? 2)The bit with Sam's stolen gun was wonderful, and a nice contrast to Sam whining about the villa. 3)I'm glad to see that Michael's quest to get back in is turning out to have some major personal (and, for that matter, professional) drawbacks.

What did everybody else think?

TCA: HBO renews 'True Blood,' 'Entourage' and 'Hung,' makes more announcements

Because I was busy interviewing Ted Danson (who's in HBO's new comedy "Bored to Death," with Jason Schwartzman and Zach Galifianakis, which will be paired with the new season of "Curb") during HBO's executive session, I missed a whole bunch of announcements. But I'm now caught up on everything that happened, and I have a full account -- which will be of interest to anybody who cares about most current, in limbo, or major in-development HBO series -- up at NJ.com

TCA: 'Seinfeld' reunion on 'Curb Your Enthusiasm'

Over at NJ.com, I have details of how the next season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" will feature the long-awaited (and entirely fictional) "Seinfeld" reunion.

TCA: 'Jon & Kate Plus 8' to continue covering Gosselins 'with great care and thoughtfulness'

Over at NJ.com, the president of TLC makes a statement about "Jon & Kate Plus 8" so we won't waste time asking questions about "Jon & Kate Plus 8."

TCA: Giuliana & Bill and the Lamas family get some marriage counseling from the critics

It was a reality show morning at TCA, and over at NJ.com, I write about how we tried to caution the Rancics and the Lamases that being one of these shows might not be so healthy for their relationships.

TCA: Why I'd rather watch '30 for 30' than blog about it

In my latest press tour blog post at NJ.com, I talk about why there haven't been a ton of blog posts so far, and talk about how ESPN's "30 for 30" trailer is among the more exciting things I've seen in the short time I've been here.

TCA: 'Mad Men' & 'Breaking Bad' own the first night of tour

Over at NJ.com, I have a brief account of last night's awesome AMC party with the people from "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad," along with some thoughts on how I'm going to write about the third season of "Mad Men."

Chuck: The complete Comic-Con panel

Okay, the good folks at Give Me My Remote, who were instrumental in the save "Chuck" campaign, got their hands on the season 2 highlight real and Schwartz/Fedak/Levi sketch that started off the Comic-Con panel. So if you watch that, and then watch Jeffster! on YouTube, then watch the panel itself on Hulu, you'll be able to witness the event in order, in its entirety.

I'm glad this is out there. Fedak's acting debut was too funny to not be seen by the masses.

TCA: 'Man V. Food' host Adam Richman v. over-eating

Over at NJ.com, my first proper press tour blog post, in which Adam Richman talks about "Man V. Food."

Fox announces fall premiere dates... again

Gearing up for the official start of press tour in a couple of hours, but in the meantime, at NJ.com I have details of some minor tweaking of Fox's fall premiere dates.

The Wire, Season 2, Episode 9: "Stray Rounds" (Newbies edition)

We're in the home stretch on our trip back through season two of "The Wire," and as always, we're doing it in two slightly different versions: one for people who have never seen the show before, and one for people who want to be able to discuss not only season two, but everything that's coming later. This is the newbie version; click here for the veteran edition.

Spoilers for episode 9, "Stray Rounds," coming up just as soon as I say "No thank you" to drugs...

"This is about Frank Sobotka!" -Valchek
"The case is bigger now." -Pearlman

"Stray Rounds" contains one of my absolute favorite scenes in the run of the series, the one quoted above: Daniels and Pearlman brief Burrell and Valchek on everything that the detail has accomplished -- all these near-miraculous feats of investigative genius, having taken what was a simple petty grudge and used it to get a line on smuggling, drugs, prostitution and possibly 14 open murder cases -- and all Stan wants to hear about is Frank Sobotka.

This, in a nutshell, is why nothing ever gets done in the universe of "The Wire." Good work is damned hard to do, and if it doesn't help someone in power either stay in power or protect his own interests, then it doesn't really matter, does it? Daniels could close the 14 open murders, could nail the entire Barksdale/Bell gang, could find a way to put a charge on the Irsay family for moving the Colts out of Baltimore, and none of it would matter to Valchek if Frank Sobotka weren't charged as an accessory to it all.

There's a lot of hopeless, myopic, institutionalized thinking going on in "Stray Rounds." Bodie's shoot-out with the rival crew kills a little boy, and though Major Bunny Colvin, commander of the Western District, knows the usual War on Drugs tactics are pointless, Rawls tells him to go bust heads and take doors anyway. Norris and Cole assume Bodie is another idiot drug dealer, and so they fall into the trap they think they've set for him. Avon refuses to see Stringer's persuasive arguments about the Prop Joe deal, and instead arranges to hire legendary enforcer Brother Mouzone (and gets him down to Baltimore much quicker than String was expecting). And we see that The Greek is stringing along an FBI agent named Koutris by pretending to give him "terrorists" (actually, a difficult business partner) in exchange for being informed about threats to The Greek's business.

Hell, Ziggy even manages to get his duck to drink itself to death, because it never occurred to him that giving booze to a waterfowl was a health risk.

If it wasn't for McNulty's latest R-rated shenanigans -- or for the joyful performances of people like Al Brown as Valchek and J.D. Williams as Bodie -- this would be one of the darker hours of "The Wire" in which no major character actually dies.

Part of the reason "Stray Rounds" feels so hopeless, of course, is that it's our closest look to date at The Greek and his operation. While the smoke-filled dinner with The Greek and his lieutenants could resemble a gathering of the Injustice League, "The Wire" isn't interested in concepts like good and evil. The Greek does terrible things, but not out of malice -- or even out of the pride that leads to so many terrible outcomes in the drug world (like Bodie and company's stray round). Rather, as David Simon has said many times, The Greek is capitalism in its purest, most ruthless form -- a man who will do anything to keep his business viable, and the money flowing in.

While he and Vondas have their blind spots -- they're a bit too confident about being able to elude the Baltimore PD -- he's still clever enough to recognize what Fitz told Jimmy in the series premiere about the FBI abandoning the War on Drugs for the War on Terror. He has Koutris on the line, not because Koutris is corrupt, but because he's made Koutris believe he can give him information on terrorists, and Koutris has no idea that he's being played.

Against a man with that long a view, with his finger in so many pies, what chance does the detail have to make a case? And against a generation of Bodies and Avons, what chance do men like Bunny Colvin have to make a dent in the human cost of the drug trade?

Some other thoughts on "Stray Rounds":

• Maybe the most heartbreaking part of the opening sequence isn't the mom finding her dead son (though that's brutal), but the moment right before, when she has no idea what's happened and is just telling him to get to school, because the drama's over -- as if this sort of thing happens so often in the neighborhood that they treat it like just another of life's routine inconveniences.

• As if to symbolize the Valchek/Pearlman exchange, Frank is largely spectator in this one, showing up only to witness Koutris' raid on the can with the Colombian drugs, but we do learn that his plan seems to be working, as the new budget will include concessions for the port.

• McNulty is pure comedy in this one, from Dominic West -- a Brit whose American accent is sometimes spotty -- having to do a fake horrible British accent, to the reactions of McNulty and Kima at his situation during the raid, to the flare of Ronnie's eyes when she reads the incident report over Jimmy's shoulder.

• Speaking of the raid, there's a nice small moment where the uniform officer assumes that the only way to take a door is to knock it in, where both Kima and Bunk realize they can just knock and get the same result. This isn't a drug house; you can't flush hookers.

• Herc and Carver have been getting the short end of every assignment all season (down to washing windows in the previous episode), and their frustration is starting to overwhelm them at this point.

• I love the way Frankie Faison plays Burrell in the scene with Valchek, because Erv knows exactly the position Stan is in, having previous assigned Daniels to a detail that sprawled far beyond what was expected.

• We can talk more about Brother Mouzone next time, but note that the character is given the kind of dramatic entrance "The Wire" doesn't usually do -- that is, unless the series' other larger-than-life character, Omar, is involved.

• Bunny Colvin's mustachioed sidekick is Lt. Mello, played by the real-life Jay Landsman, who was the inspiration for both the character of the same name played on "The Wire" by Delaney Williams, but Detective Munch on "Homicide." He has one of the thicker (and authentic) Baltimore accents on the series.

Coming up next: "Storm Warnings," in which Brother Mouzone asks Cheese a question, Valchek makes a federal case out of Sobotka, and Ziggy gets pushed around again.

Not sure when that review will go up, as I used my last free evening before the start of press tour to write this one. Could be next week, could be a few weeks. But it'll get done.

What did everybody else think?

The Wire, Season 2, Episode 9: "Stray Rounds" (Veterans edition)

We're in the home stretch on our trip back through season two of "The Wire," and as always, we're doing it in two slightly different versions: one for people who have never seen the show before, and one for people who want to be able to discuss not only season two, but everything that's coming later. This is the veterans version; click here for the newbie edition.

Spoilers for episode 9, "Stray Rounds," coming up just as soon as I say "No thank you" to drugs...

"This is about Frank Sobotka!" -Valchek
"The case is bigger now." -Pearlman

"Stray Rounds" contains one of my absolute favorite scenes in the run of the series, the one quoted above: Daniels and Pearlman brief Burrell and Valchek on everything that the detail has accomplished -- all these near-miraculous feats of investigative genius, having taken what was a simple petty grudge and used it to get a line on smuggling, drugs, prostitution and possibly 14 open murder cases -- and all Stan wants to hear about is Frank Sobotka.

This, in a nutshell, is why nothing ever gets done in the universe of "The Wire." Good work is damned hard to do, and if it doesn't help someone in power either stay in power or protect his own interests, then it doesn't really matter, does it? Daniels could close the 14 open murders, could nail the entire Barksdale/Bell gang, could find a way to put a charge on the Irsay family for moving the Colts out of Baltimore, and none of it would matter to Valchek if Frank Sobotka weren't charged as an accessory to it all.

There's a lot of hopeless, myopic, institutionalized thinking going on in "Stray Rounds." Bodie's shoot-out with the rival crew kills a little boy, and though Major Bunny Colvin, commander of the Western District, knows the usual War on Drugs tactics are pointless, Rawls tells him to go bust heads and take doors anyway. Norris and Cole assume Bodie is another idiot drug dealer, and so they fall into the trap they think they've set for him. Avon refuses to see Stringer's persuasive arguments about the Prop Joe deal, and instead arranges to hire legendary enforcer Brother Mouzone (and gets him down to Baltimore much quicker than String was expecting). And we see that The Greek is stringing along an FBI agent named Koutris by pretending to give him "terrorists" (actually, a difficult business partner) in exchange for being informed about threats to The Greek's business.

Hell, Ziggy even manages to get his duck to drink itself to death, because it never occurred to him that giving booze to a waterfowl was a health risk.

If it wasn't for McNulty's latest R-rated shenanigans -- or for the joyful performances of people like Al Brown as Valchek and J.D. Williams as Bodie -- this would be one of the darker hours of "The Wire" in which no major character actually dies.

Part of the reason "Stray Rounds" feels so hopeless, of course, is that it's our closest look to date at The Greek and his operation. While the smoke-filled dinner with The Greek and his lieutenants could resemble a gathering of the Injustice League, "The Wire" isn't interested in concepts like good and evil. The Greek does terrible things, but not out of malice -- or even out of the pride that leads to so many terrible outcomes in the drug world (like Bodie and company's stray round). Rather, as David Simon has said many times, The Greek is capitalism in its purest, most ruthless form -- a man who will do anything to keep his business viable, and the money flowing in.

While he and Vondas have their blind spots -- they're a bit too confident about being able to elude the Baltimore PD -- he's still clever enough to recognize what Fitz told Jimmy in the series premiere about the FBI abandoning the War on Drugs for the War on Terror. He has Koutris on the line, not because Koutris is corrupt, but because he's made Koutris believe he can give him information on terrorists, and Koutris has no idea that he's being played.

Against a man with that long a view, with his finger in so many pies, what chance does the detail have to make a case? And against a generation of Bodies and Avons, what chance do men like Bunny Colvin have to make a dent in the human cost of the drug trade?

Some other thoughts on "Stray Rounds":

• Maybe the most heartbreaking part of the opening sequence isn't the mom finding her dead son (though that's brutal), but the moment right before, when she has no idea what's happened and is just telling him to get to school, because the drama's over -- as if this sort of thing happens so often in the neighborhood that they treat it like just another of life's routine inconveniences.

• As if to symbolize the Valchek/Pearlman exchange, Frank is largely spectator in this one, showing up only to witness Koutris' raid on the can with the Colombian drugs, but we do learn that his plan seems to be working, as the new budget will include concessions for the port.

• McNulty is pure comedy in this one, from Dominic West -- a Brit whose American accent is sometimes spotty -- having to do a fake horrible British accent, to the reactions of McNulty and Kima at his situation during the raid, to the flare of Ronnie's eyes when she reads the incident report over Jimmy's shoulder.

• Speaking of the raid, there's a nice small moment where the uniform officer assumes that the only way to take a door is to knock it in, where both Kima and Bunk realize they can just knock and get the same result. This isn't a drug house; you can't flush hookers.

• Herc and Carver have been getting the short end of every assignment all season (down to washing windows in the previous episode), and their frustration is starting to overwhelm them at this point.

• I love the way Frankie Faison plays Burrell in the scene with Valchek, because Erv knows exactly the position Stan is in, having previous assigned Daniels to a detail that sprawled far beyond what was expected.

• We can talk more about Brother Mouzone next time, but note that the character is given the kind of dramatic entrance "The Wire" doesn't usually do -- that is, unless the series' other larger-than-life character, Omar, is involved.

• Bunny Colvin's mustachioed sidekick is Lt. Mello, played by the real-life Jay Landsman, who was the inspiration for both the character of the same name played on "The Wire" by Delaney Williams, but Detective Munch on "Homicide." He has one of the thicker (and authentic) Baltimore accents on the series.

And now we come to the veterans-only section, where we can talk about how developments in this episode will play out later in the season, and the series:

• It's not as grand an entrance as Mouzone gets, but the introduction of Bunny will of course be more important to the series, as he becomes one of the main characters of season three, an important part of season four, and -- depending on your views on drug decriminalization -- one of the more purely admirable characters the show will ever feature. And, yes, all of Bunny's frustration here was designed by Simon, Burns and company to lay some groundwork for season three's Hamsterdam experiment.

• "Stray Rounds" foreshadows not only Hamsterdam, but season three's other grand, doomed experiment, The New Day Co-Op, as Prop Joe mesmerizes Stringer with the story of Charlie Sollers, a heroin dealer who cared only about money, not street rep or violence, and had a long and productive career by staying off everyone's radar.

• While the name of the dope brands tended to change from season to season, Bodie's crew will still be slinging WMD in season three, leading to one of the funniest lines of the series, Santangelo telling the junkies, "I hear WMD is the bomb."

• Because The Greek's people aren't as disciplined about phone use as Avon's crew (and, in the future, Marlo's crew), Sergei dooms himself to a life in prison -- and gives Lester the necessary tip to close the 14 murders -- by reassuring White Mike that anyone he killed would be missing his hands and face.

• Yet another link in the chain that will lead to Ziggy's end: had Double-G just fronted Ziggy the cash that he asked for, Ziggy wouldn't have had to pawn the duck's diamond necklace, and therefore might not have had the opportunity to eye, then buy, the gun he uses to kill Double-G. (Then again, perhaps that's what he intended to buy all along with the cash he asked for.)

Coming up next: "Storm Warnings," in which Brother Mouzone asks Cheese a question, Valchek makes a federal case out of Sobotka, and Ziggy gets pushed around again.

Not sure when that review will go up, as I used my last free evening before the start of press tour to write this one. Could be next week, could be a few weeks. But it'll get done.

What did everybody else think?

Nurse Jackie, "Pupil": Don't kid a kidder

Hi. As mentioned earlier, I don't have time to properly review tonight's "Nurse Jackie" because I'm busy preparing for tomorrow's start of press tour, but I do have a few quick thoughts on this one: 1)Ruby Jerins, who plays Jackie's older daughter Grace, is a terrific young actress. I suspect that if she and/or her parents want her to continue acting as she gets older, we're going to see a lot of her. 2)Always nice to see Andrea Martin working, and amusing to see Jill Flint (who's currently playing a doc on "Royal Pains") and Alexie Gilmore (who played an ER doc on Fox's short-lived "New Amsterdam") as her bickering, non-medically-trained daughters. 3)Merritt Wever continues to be hysterical ("I have, like, two more questions"), and it seems like they're setting up Zoey to figure out Jackie's pill problem through her note-taking.

Once again... Jeffster!

I head up to slightly less Southern California in a bit (would have left sooner if it wasn't for the Ben Silverman news) and will be largely radio silent until press tour(*) starts tomorrow morning, other than a "So, what did you think of 'Nurse Jackie' tonight?" post at 11.

(*) This week's blog logo is a tribute to "EZ Streets," the very first pilot I watched before my very first press tour, and still one of the biggest heart-breakers in my time as a TV critic.

Before I go, two "Chuck" links that you may not have seen in comments to the previous post: a pretty high-quality video of Jeffster! rocking out to "Fat-Bottomed Girls," and then Mo Ryan getting some more concrete answers from Schwartz and company about the nature of the Chuck Fu and how that'll impact Chuck and Sarah. (People who want those two together, like, yesterday may not want to click through, for the sake of their own blood pressure.)

UPDATE: Hulu now has the Comic-Con panel up, minus the Schwartz/Fedak video, and minus Jeffster! I'm assuming they didn't want to pay the rights for the song. Ah, well. You can see the performance elsewhere, and one day I'm going to find a way to show Fedak's dramatic debut.

Bye-bye, Ben: Silverman out at NBC

Friday is traditionally Take Out the Trash Day for bad news in both politics and entertainment, but with a lot of the national TV press preparing to travel to Pasadena today for tomorrow's start of the TCA press tour, NBC must have decided it was a fine time to announce Ben Silverman's departure from the network.

You can read the whole press release -- which buries the lead by focusing on Jeff Gaspin's promotion to being in charge of all of NBC's TV properties, both broadcast and cable -- and after the jump, I have a few thoughts on the Silverman era and the impact (or lack thereof) his departure will have on NBC...

Like his boss Jeff Zucker, Silverman wasn't a traditional choice to be the head of a network entertainment division. Though he'd worked in TV for a long time and had a good run of success with his production company, Reveille (which has given us "The Office," "Ugly Betty" and "The Biggest Loser," to name three success stories), he was much more of a deal-maker than a developer. He'd see a show in a foreign market that he liked, acquire it, and let other people figure out how to make it work here.

He would talk about how he revered the late Brandon Tartikoff, who ran NBC in its '80s golden era, and there was a period where it seemed like he was trying to recreate NBC circa 1983 with high-concept, cheesey shows like a "Knight Rider" remake and "My Own Worst Enemy." And while Reveille was placed in a "blind trust," Silverman was still making money off of its shows (until he sold it), and he demonstrated an uncanny knack for adding the company's series to his network ("Kath & Kim" being one of the more noxious examples of the trend).

In fairness to Silverman, he did also champion the highbrow, ambitious "Kings," which was one of the best dramas NBC has aired in years. But it flopped just like everything else Silverman tried, and finished up a Summer Burn-Off Theatre run over the weekend.

Because NBC remained mired in fourth place during his tenure, and because he was such a notorious self-promoter and party boy, Silverman became an easy punchline within the industry. Even his bosses at NBC seemed to recognize he was a poor fit for the job, and in recent months had moved him away from traditional programming and development roles (Angela Bromstad and Paul Telegdy were put in charge of scripted and reality shows, respectively) so he could focus on the kind of new media and product integration deals that were his biggest strength.

And because he wasn't so hands-on with the shows and the schedule anymore, I don't know that Silverman's departure is going to have that much of an impact on NBC primetime going forward. The plan to give 10 p.m. to Jay Leno Monday through Friday (which was as much Zucker as Silverman) is already in place, but it's not like Silverman was the lone champion of that move, or of any shows remaining on the schedule.

The Silverman era was a failure, but NBC and Silverman had both more or less recognized this a while ago. The last few months, everyone's just been playing out the string, waiting for Silverman to find another job more suited to his skill set. And now he has, so what was already reality is now official and public.

Hung, "The Pickle Jar": Taking care of business

Quick thoughts on episode four of "Hung" coming up just as soon as I donate one and a half structural beams...

"This might be your first time, but this is what I do. I'm a professional." -Ray

"The Pickle Jar" was the last episode I saw in advance, and the one that really convinced me that "Hung" was trending in the right direction. As I've said before, the show seems to be following the "Breaking Bad" model of letting its protagonists take their sweet time at learning how to be criminals. If Ray had a successful encounter with the woman in the hotel in the pilot, it wouldn't have felt nearly as satisfying as it did after we've seen him and Tanya flail about for most of these first four episodes. Maybe, it seems, Ray really does have a future as a gigolo, and Tanya as a pimp.

The two Janes (as I think I want to start referring to our stars) were helped in this one by the presence of Margo Martindale as Ray's first real client. I wasn't crazy about "The Riches," the previous series from "Hung" co-creator Dmitry Lipkin, but I always thought Martindale was terrific as the pill-popping neighbor, and she added a lot of depth and pathos to her scenes here opposite both leads.

Speaking of pill-popping, at what point do you suppose "Hung" is going to address the role of Viagra in Ray's new career? One of the many tricks of the trade I learned from "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" -- which, in the end, was really only interesting for the tricks of the trick trade -- was that all male escorts have to keep a steady supply of ED pills handy, just in case the client doesn't stir a reaction on her own. I assumed that's where they were going with the Martindale story -- that Ray bolted because he feared he couldn't perform with an older, heavier woman -- but, no, he was really sick, and when he showed up the second time he had no problems in that area. Or are we supposed to assume that this is one of the other gifts that qualifies him to conquer the Detroit metro area male escort market?

Whether or not his physical gifts are greater than we know so far, what made the final sequence work was that we saw that Ray does, in fact, have more going for him than his anatomy. He knew what the client needed to hear, and he made her feel good about herself even before they got down to the act itself.

I remain on the fence about Ray's family, though. At least the kids are starting to get personalities and stories of their own here, as we see that Damon cares a little too much about his role in Darby's life. As for Jess, is there anyone here who doesn't think her encounter with the heinous Lenore will eventually lead to her trying to become one of Big Donnie's clients?

What did everyone else think?

Doctor Who, "Planet of the Dead": It takes a thief

Because I'm out here at Comic-Con, I don't have much time to write about the latest "Doctor Who" special, save to note a few things: 1)Michelle Ryan remains much, much more interesting in her native accent than she was on "Bionic Woman"; 2)Special effects aside, "Planet of the Dead" felt much more like a regular "Doctor Who" episode than any of the Christmas movies (which all took place on a larger scale); and 3)Much more than "The Next Doctor," this one is offering hints to the end of David Tennant's tenure as The Doctor.

What did everybody else think?

The Doctor comes to San Diego

I can't exactly gauge it, since I was on stage for one and in the audience for the other, but the reception "Doctor Who" -- specifically, David Tennant, Russell T. Davies, director Euros Lyn and producer Julie Gardner -- received here on Comic-Con's final morning was nearly as loud and adoring as what "Chuck" got yesterday. Some panel highlights coming up after I remind you that "Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead" airs tonight on BBC America...

Among the highlights:

• Moderator Robert Lloyd (a writer for the LA Times and an obvious fan of the series) asked Gardner to deal with the rumors of a movie right off the bat. "We are not making any announcement about a Doctor Who movie," she said. "I'm really sorry. I don't know where the rumor started. But what it's made us think is it might be a good idea to do at some point. Is this something that you want?" The crowd, predictably, roared its approval.

• They showed a teaser trailer for Tennant's farewell movie, featuring the return of several characters from earlier in the Davies/Tennant run (I won't spoil it, but it's easy to find out if you want) that looked tremendous. At the end of the panel, they showed a trailer for "Waters of Mars," the special that'll follow "Planet of the Dead." Looked like a big-budget version of the various Davies/Tennant episodes with The Doctor on a space station with some kind of monster on the loose.

• A fan asked Tennant (a lifelong "Doctor Who" fan) about his memories of when the first Doctor he knew was replaced, and whether he could understand what fans are feeling as they prepare for the transition from Tennant to Matt Smith. Tennant talked about how much he revered Tom Baker, then said, "And I never forgot him, or loved him any less, but then Peter Davison came along, and within three weeks, I thought he was the best. I think what makes the show go on forever." He suggested, to some inevitable skepticism from the room, that within a few weeks, they'd all think "Matt Smith's the greatest thing that's ever been, which he probably is... I think change is part of the show. I'm very very proud to have been part of the history, but I'm very proud that we're handing it over in good health and that it carries on!"

• And speaking of fandom, Tennant said one of his favorite personal moments from playing The Doctor came during a table read of "School Reunion," involving Elisabeth Sladen: "Suddenly, this voice from my childhood was calling me 'Doctor.' When the 8-year-old boy met the 35-year-old boy and was still being called The Doctor by Sarah Jane, that was quite special."

• Tennant's version of The Doctor will appear in an upcoming "Sarah Jane Adventures" episode called "The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith."

• A fan asked about John Barrowman's claims that he's been stealing items from the set, and what any of the panelists might have taken home. They all clammed up, and then Gardner said, "I think John Barrowman just stole things off the set so he could be strip-searched on the way out."

• A fan asked whether River Song would be returning, and Gardner noted, "We are now happy viewers to season five. We don't know anything you don't know."

• Tennant was asked if he might return, as many previous Doctors have, for charity specials or other events. He thought about it and noted that the series' 50th anniversary would be in 2013, then immediately cautioned the room, "That's not me making an announcement. There's no plan. Don't Twitter that! That's not a thing! Yet!"

I'll have a separate, extremely brief, post up tonight about "Planet of the Dead," so don't talk about it here, and I'm interviewing Tennant in a couple of days when we're both at press tour. I'm open to suggested questions if they're good.

Lost: It's so hard to say good-bye to Comic-Con

As soon as I saw the final Comic-Con schedule, my heart sank, because "Chuck" and "Lost" were scheduled back-to-back -- in two different rooms, with "Lost" in Hall H, which is legendary for both its size and the length of its line. I had joked with Schwartz and Fedak that I might just bail on the "Chuck" panel 10 or 15 minutes early and let them conduct the fan Q&A portion, but thanks to some kind people and a willingness to sprint from Ballroom 20 to Hall H, I was able to stay for the entirety of "Chuck" and get into "Lost" with a minute or two to spare.

And it was worth the effort, I thought. I've seen Damon and Carlton in action before at TCA (where the above photo was taken last January), and I enjoy their podcast (more for the comedy value than for anything they reveal about the show, because they're so damn cagey), but I had always heard that, just as Reggie Jackson tended to play his best in the World Series, the Comic-Con stage was the idea venue in which to experience Darlton in action. They did not disappoint. I mentioned a lot of the good stuff on my Twitter feed, but I'll try to capture the some of the highlights after the jump...

After a few video clips (including fake opening credits for an '80s TV show about the Dharma Initiative, which is up on ABC.com), Damon and Carlton came out and said that, since this would be their final Comic-Con experience (they're not coming after the finale), they wanted to thank the fans and also to answer some long-standing questions. One of those was the famous "Are you making it up as you go along?," and they said they had a method to prove that they knew the ending from the beginning: they inserted the script pages for the final scene of the series into a vault with two keys, and promised to open it after the finale on "Jimmy Kimmel Live." (*)

(*) Said method was in service of a comedy bit, or else I'd point out that it wouldn't prove anything, unless they had locked away some notes five years ago.

From there, it was time for a mix of questions -- "We will be as honest and forthcoming as we never were," Lindelof promised -- fan videos (including a great mock opening credits sequence that made the show look like an '80s action series, complete with use of the "Magnum, PI" font (which was also used in that cool YouTube mash-up of Magnum and Han Solo) and a hilarious freeze-frame on the "Lost" logo over Hurley running one of The Others over with the magic bus.

A fan asked about recent Darlton statements that season 6 would resemble season 1 in some ways.

"You'll be seeing many characters you haven't seen since the first season," Lindelof promised.

"There was a certain feel" to season 1, said Cuse. "They were running around in the jungle. Things felt intense and surprising...We feel we have a way to do that in the final season of the show that we like, and we hope you will too."

"It's really our goal to have you watch the final season of the show and not know what we're going to do next," Lindelof added.

Paul Scheer from "Human Giant" showed up to present the guys with a painting of them giving a thumbs-up while being embraced by a polar bear, and after some hedging on the fate of Daniel Faraday, vis a vis Juliet setting off Jughead, another fan asked about flashbacks.

"We are doing something different in season 6," Carlton said. "The time travel season is over, the flash-forward season is over. We have something different planned. Hopefully, you will like it, but we are not going to commit to what it's going to be."

Jorge Garcia appeared in a mock commercial for Mr. Cluck's chicken, then appeared in Hall H itself to ask his bosses if they were going to answer every question, noting, "The last time I trusted you guys, you said Nikki and Paulo were going to be awesome."

Damon cleverly said "Everything that matters is going to be answered," which gives them a ton of wiggle room in terms of what they feel matters.

Michael Emerson then came out to heckle Garcia's heckling of Darlton, and this turned into an argument about whether Emerson didn't like him because he really wanted to play Hurley, and when Emerson (who was, as you can imagine, hilariously sarcastic) denied auditioning for the role, Lindelof played some mock audition footage of Emerson, circa 2004, dressed as Hurley. Very disturbing. Very funny.

There were several Richard Alpert questions -- Cuse promised some Alpert backstory this season -- and when a fan with a thick Boston accent asked the inevitable eyeliner question, we cut to Nestor Carbonell backstage talking to himself in the makeup chair mirror -- "Richard Alpert's not immortal. You are!" -- and, of course, applying a ton of eye makeup. Carbonell would join Emerson, Garcia and other special guests on the stage.

Getting back to Jughead, Lindelof hedged about the survival of Juliet, noting that if the plan worked and time reset, she's fine, and if not, not, but, as with Faraday/Jeremy Davies, he expects to see Elizabeth Mitchell on the show this year in some capacity.

Emerson fielded a question about the fans' nicknaming Jacob's rival "Esau" by saying, "We sometimes deal in Biblical iimagery, but we tend to dance in and back away from it. That might be too much, but I like the way your mind is working."

"You're good at this!" Damon told Emerson, marveling at how impressively he non-answered that.

After a Sawyer tribute clip, Josh Holloway came out with a prop taser and pretended to stun Lindelof to steal his key to the script vault. (It was particularly funny because the taser sound effect was a good five seconds after Lindelof pretended to spasm, and because Lindelof had a hard time not moving around as Holloway stole the key. At one point, he had to lift his head up to help out.) After Holloway stuck Lindelof's hand in a pitcher of water, he threatened Cuse by telling him, "I will shock your friend JJ Abrams again!" (This led to one of the more overt references I've heard Cuse make about how Abrams hasn't worked on the show since season one.) Then he unlocked the box and struggled to read it, so Emerson (who's a great audiobook narrator) took over and began to read the following stage directions:

"'Exterior, circus tent, night... As the flames die, we find Sylar and Parkman...' What the f--k is this?"

We got one final montage, a necrology of all the dead characters set to Boyz II Men's "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday," with the biggest applause going to, in order, Charlie, Faraday and Mr. Eko. Charlie's segment was the last, and longest, because Dominic Monaghan (already at Comic-Con, having joined the cast of ABC's "Flash Forward") came on stage to wave to the crowd. He had something written on his palm, presumably "Not Penny's Boat."

And with that, the final "Lost" Comic-Con panel was over, and if we didn't know much more about the last season than we did going into it, at least we were darned entertained.

Chuck vs. the (San Diego) Comic-Con

Hey, all. Having sprinted from the "Chuck" panel to the mammoth Hall H for the final "Lost" panel, I'm going to camp out here for a while so I can see the "Iron Man 2" panel in a few hours. (Though if the movie panels in between seem particularly bad, I might bail before Tony Stark and company show.) So while my laptop battery lasts, I'm going to write up some thoughts on the day's first two panels: first "Chuck," then "Lost."

"Chuck" stuff coming up -- and full credit to Fienberg's live-blog of the panel for all quotes -- just as soon as Chris Fedak gives me back my pen...

As you might guess from the above photo (h/t to ChuckTV.net for the screencap) -- or as you might have assumed ever since the Comic-Con announcements started hinting at a special surprise from the cast -- the panel opened up with Jeffster! themselves, Vik Sahay and Scott Krinsky, rocking out to Queen's epic "Fat-Bottomed Girls."

UPDATE: Thus far, this is the best version I've seen of the performance, shot by someone up close.

Actually, no: it began with a season 2 highlight reel, followed by a very funny pre-taped video with Josh Schwartz and Fedak in their office a month ago, asking Zachary Levi what he's going to do since they're going to be canceled. Levi is floored by this idea, but Schwartz and Fedak are adamant, when Josh gets a call from the NBC executives. (Fedak tells Josh to say hi; Josh: "They don't know who you are.") Amazingly, they have been renewed, and as Levi bounds out to tell the rest of the cast, Fedak and Schwartz begin to panic: they don't have any ideas for a third season, and in fact only did the "I know kung fu" gag because the assumed they'd never have to follow up on it. As Chris gets his head stuck in a Stormtrooper helmet, Josh suggests one thing they can do that they know will work: Jeffster!

The video cuts out, Sahay and Krinsky (with keytar in hand) storms the stage and the crowd goes bananas for "Fat-Bottomed Girls." So does the cast, who first sprint around to the side of the hall so they can watch themselves, then go on-stage to dance and clap along with the performance. Sahay got incredibly into it, as you might expect, with all the faux-Mick Jagger moves, and by the time I came on stage, the crowd was whipped into such a frenzy that I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get in a few questions.

We opened with a little Jeffster! chat, as Sahay joked that people would probably pay him not to sing in the future; someone in the cast -- I think it was Adam Baldwin -- then slipped him a twenty to confirm the theory. Levi sang the virtues of all the fans who were so passionate about helping to save the show -- Wendy Farrington, who came up with the Subway Finale Footlong campaign, was in the audience and got singled out (and got to pose with the cast for pictures afterwards) -- and Schwartz listed a bunch of media and/or blog types (Mo Ryan, Fienberg, Ausiello, Joe Adalian, Televisionary, Give Me My Remote, ChuckTV.net and me) for their own efforts on behalf of the show.

Schwartz and Fedak were predictably non-commital on what's coming up next season. Schwartz said details on Subway's involvement within the story is TBD, and later said, "Something very emotional and traumatic is going to have happened between Chuck and Sarah" -- and, as the crowd groaned, added -- "But it's gonna be really really good. Is that vague enough?"

Zachary Levi did get dispensation to reveal one thing about the nature of Chuck's new kung fu powers. Since spoiler-phobe Schwartz okay'ed it, and because it's going to be so long till the season three premiere (though Schwartz said several times that they might come back sooner than March, depending on NBC's needs), I'm going to say what it is, but not till the end of the post. So if you don't want to know about that -- or about a couple of other vaguely spoiler-y things -- stop reading before you get to the italics.

There's a new official site, ChuckMeOut.com, that's going to be the place for all "Chuck" news, behind-the-scenes info, etc., that went live this morning. Fedak also talked a little about the season 2 DVD (which right now is tentatively set to come out in early 2010, I guess because they want it to be close to the season three premiere) and said that one of the features would be Baldwin/Casey teaching How to Be a Spy.

I tried not to ask a lot of questions, since I knew the Jeffster! performance would take up some time and the event was for the fans. Schwartz and Fedak kept up the running gag from the clip by acting as if every suggestion the fans offered would be used in the season to compensate for their own lack of plans, and Fedak borrowed my pen to dutifully jot down ideas like:

• Chuck's powers now come with the catch that after he uses them, he can't walk for a half-hour;

• Chuck's dad may have also programmed him with language and other skills. The crowd started throwing out language suggestions, and when several screamed out "Klingon!," Levi (who had the crowd predictably eating out of his hand) said, "Chuck already knows Klingon! Duh!"

• Someone asked if there would be a musical episode, preferably featuring Jeffster! "Now there will be," Schwartz said.

There were also a lot of running gags on the panel: Baldwin took great pleasure in discussing, and eventually goading Josh Gomez to reveal, his bright pink boxer shorts. Baldwin also played into the crowd's predictable "Firefly" love, joking that his internal monologue whenever Casey grunts is "Joss Whedon," and, when a fan asked if there would be "Chuck" action figures, noting that he already had his own action figure. (Levi then did a pantomime of a Chuck action figure beating the snot out of a Jayne Cobb action figure through the use of his kung fu grip.)

Again, not a lot of news (save for the stuff below), but this was largely an excuse for the cast to shower its love on the fans, and vice versa, and everybody seemed to have a good time. Frankly, it seemed like the crowd was livelier for the "Chuck" panel than for the "Lost" panel that followed (though that may just be the hugeness of Hall H swallowing up a lot of the noise).

Anyway, a few things you won't want to read if you're 100 percent afraid of spoilers. Since I'm posting this, it's okay to discuss them in the comments. Stop reading if you don't want to know. Seriously, stop. Now. Stop.

Okay. We all good?

So, the nature of "Chuck-Fu," as one fan dubbed it earlier at the Con: the kung fu abilities and other physical stuff is there, but there's a glitch in the program that means they don't tend to last for very long in any circumstance. Fedak added that the software was designed to be installed in cold, remorseless Bryce Larkin, not big ball of emotions Chuck, and this will also cause problems.

Also, as Ryan McPartlin discussed Captain Awesome finding out Chuck's secret identity, Schwartz added that "Awesome will start to be submerged into the spy world as well."

And in other spoiler minutiae, "The Buy More will still be a part of the show," per Fedak, and Corina, the rival spy from season one's "Chuck vs. the Wookie," will be back, and that Morgan will again try to seduce her.

UPDATE #2: After the panel, Mo Ryan got more out of Schwartz and company about the limitations of the Chuck-Fu.

Dollhouse, "Epitaph One": To have and have not

So the big TV event of the day at Comic-Con was the screening of "Epitaph One," the 13th episode of "Dollhouse" season one, which Fox the TV studio produced to help the foreign/DVD sales, but which Fox the network hasn't bought because they already paid for 13 episodes (counting the original, scrapped pilot).

Now, I suspect many of you who care enough about "Dollhouse" to be reading this entry have already illegally downloaded the episode since it leaked last week, or perhaps you were in Ballroom 20 to watch it with me and 4500 of my closest friends. If not, and you intend to watch "Dollhouse" season two in the fall, I strongly recommend at least renting the DVD after it comes out on Tuesday, both because "Epitaph One" is easily the strongest episode to date, and because it's going to be crucial to how season two plays out. Really, it's one of the most important DVD extras ever.

After the jump, I'm going to discuss the episode -- and the weird implications it will have on the series -- in abstract, relatively spoiler-free terms, including some quotes from Joss from the panel. Because the episode has now been screened via legal means, I'm going to say that it's okay to spoil the episode in the comments, so read anything after the initial post at your own risk. Thoughts coming up just as soon as I enjoy some shellfish...

So, "Epitaph One" begins in 2019, in a nightmarish future where a small band of would-be heroes (including Whedon favorite Felicia Day, plus Sepinwall favorite Zach Ward) stumble across the abandoned Dollhouse. Using the imprint chair, they figure out how the larger Dollhouse organization is responsible for the state of the world, while at the same time we get to see some major developments in the future for all the series' regular characters as the larger global scenario played out.

Written by Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen and directed by David Solomon, "Epitaph One" takes the moral implications of the Dollhouse to their horrific extreme, and its vignette-laden narrative plays to every actors' strengths: Eliza Dushku doesn't have to do too much heavy lifting, Enver Gjokaj gets to show off several very different personas, etc. I'm really glad I got to see it, and on a big screen in a room full of so many enthusiastic fans.

What concerns me, though, is that "Epitaph One" is such a game-changer for the series -- revealing so much about what the show is really about, and what the future has in store for all the regulars -- that it's somewhat alarming to think it's only going to be on the DVD, especially since Joss said they fully intend to follow up on it over the course of season two. We'll check in on some of the 2019 characters, Whedon intends to explore the parameters (logistically and morally) of what can be done with the imprinting tech, along similar lines to what's discussed in "Epitaph One," and the new season is even going to be shot in the same more immediate (and inexpensive) visual style as this episode.

But while I expect a lot of the show's fans to care enough to seek out the DVD, my guess is that less than half of regular "Dollhouse" viewers who will have seen "Epitaph One" by the time season two begins. Whatever the percentages, we're heading for a scenario where some of the audience will be awash in this huge bath of new information, while others will have no idea who the 2019 people are, or about what we glimpsed of, say, Echo's future. I talked briefly with Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen after the panel, and they said there will likely be some repetition of information from "Epitaph One" to explain things to the viewers who didn't see it, but I can't imagine that explanation being nearly as powerful as simply watching "Epitaph One" itself.

Joss also said that those of us who watched "Epitaph" shouldn't automatically take all the flashbacks as gospel, as they're presented as memories, and memories aren't always what actually happened.

"What we intend to do is honor what you've seen here today," he said, "but also to question the veracity of what you've seen here today." He also said that "The future will inform where we go with the show," but, "it's not going to inform the show so much that it becomes a post-apocalyptic-sometimes show... We're going to use it to take the show slightly on a new tack, but it's still what we wanted to do had we not done the future -- which was twist the knife."

Again, I think "Epitaph One" is an incredible hour of television -- and, more than "Man on the Street," or "A Spy in the House of Love," or any of the episodes from the stronger second half of "Dollhouse" season one, makes me think Joss actually did know what he was doing with this premise, even if the execution of the early episodes was disappointing -- but I don't think it was a good idea to do such a monumental, series-altering episode as one that everyone involved had to suspect might never air on Fox. (At the time it was produced, "Epitaph One" was being made only for the DVD.) Of course, the counter-argument would be that Joss and company couldn't have known that they'd be renewed, and "Epitaph One" would have functioned as a brilliant series finale had Fox not ordered more. Better to have it, and the complications it now creates with renewal, then for Joss to have commissioned another standalone episode where one of Echo's assignments goes awry.

As Joss joked when a fan asked about how the show would deal with all the issues raised in "Epitaph One" during season two, "We talked about a lot of things, when we accidentally forgot to get canceled."

What did everybody else think? Do you think the show can easily bring non-viewers of the episode up to speed early next season?

Torchwood Children of Earth, part 5: Sacrificial lambs

We've come to the end of "Torchwood: Children of Earth," which means we can all openly discuss the whole series. Unfortunately, my Comic-Con stint means my review won't be much longer than for any of the previous chapters. Spoilers coming up just as soon as I stand back...

"That's what Torchwood does, you see: it ruins your life." -Gwen

So who's feeling upbeat right about now? Anyone? Ready to party? No?

I have to applaud Russell T. Davies and company for having the courage of their convictions. While I took issue with a few things in the finale, overall it felt very much of a piece with the thrilling, squirm-inducing four hours that preceded it. There was no attempt at false uplift. Yes, The 4-5-6 are killed(*), and the British Prime Minister is basically stripped of his power, but his replacement is the equally odious Denise. John Frobisher kills his family and himself for what turns out to be a solveable problem. Many are still dead, many others are still traumatized, and in the end, our hero -- smiling Captain Jack, the man who's supposed to be perfect at everything, who can conjure a solution to any problem out of thin air, who lets the world wash off his back -- is left with the image not only of his dead lover, but of the grandson he chose to kill in order to save millions of other children. In that moment, he has to make a similar decision to the one Denise was proposing last night -- needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few (or the one) -- but he does it in a very different way. Where Denise and the rest of the British government were all about protecting their own kin at all costs, Jack has to sacrifice his grandson, because there isn't any time to find someone to take Steven's place.

(*) Or, at least, their Earth-bound representative is; I wasn't entirely clear on whether the rest were also slaughtered, or simply turned tail and ran once it became clear they weren't going to win.

And it's with the matter of timing that I take my biggest issue with the finale. I realize that Davies wanted to create a scenario where Jack had no choice but to use Steven to save the world, and it feels like much of the episode was structured to lead us to that point. Jack is kept on the sidelines, brooding over Ianto's death, for much of the hour, so that when he finally takes action and comes up with a solution, there just isn't time to look for another sacrificial lamb. And that doesn't track with the Jack we know, even after Jack tried to tell Ianto (and us) last night that we don't know him nearly as well as we think we do. Even in mourning, Jack would have taken action, would have fought to make sure Ianto's death wasn't completely in vain, rather than throwing in the towel until Agent Johnson goaded him into saving the day.

I know Jack being useless ties into the general apocalyptic feeling of the first two-thirds of the episode, with Frobisher's murder-suicide and Gwen and Rhys frantically trying to protect the "bad kids" from the neighborhood of Ianto's family from the army, but it was so out of character that it felt like a cheat to get the desired result. And what I think could have made Steven's death even more powerful -- and, admittedly, it was plenty powerful -- would be if he wasn't Jack's only choice. What if Jack is working on this plan all along, does have time to get access to some other random kid, but realizes in the end that he can't be a monster like the PM or Denise -- that if he's going to do this monstrous thing, then he has to suffer personally for it?

Or maybe I should stop trying to rewrite Davies, who, as I've written all week, really delivered the goods throughout "Children of Earth," with the help of a great cast (and I again want to praise the work of Peter Capaldi as the doomed Frobisher, who wasn't quite the unfeeling bastard the PM took him for), director Euros Lyn, and everyone else. Just a superb week of television, and a quantum leap forward for "Torchwood." Assuming the show's going to be back -- and based on the ratings in the UK, it almost has to -- I think the miniseries format is the way to go.

Now Davies just needs to find a way to bring Jack back to Earth, and maybe deputize Rhys and Lois Habiba (and, if he can be found, Mickey Smith) so that Gwen isn't a one-woman agency.

What did everybody else think?

Burn Notice, "Shot in the Dark": Michael gets domestic

The usual jet lag at the start of one of these California trips means I woke up early enough to watch last night's "Burn Notice," but also means I'm not quite coherent enough to comment on it. (Though it's now startling to see Jay Harrington away from "Better Off Ted.")

Instead, let me point you to two accounts of Bruce Campbell's time here at Comic-Con(*): Fienberg's highlights of Campbell predictably owning the room for the "Burn Notice" session, and Mo Ryan doing a video interview with Campbell.

(*) That "Burn Notice" panel was one of two events I'm bummed I missed because I chose to fly in during day one -- the other being the cast of "The Middleman" doing a table read of the script for the unfilmed final episode, which was also turned into a graphic novel that I saw several fans toting around yesterday afternoon. Don't forget that the complete series DVD comes out on Tuesday. I didn't have much of a chance to peruse the special features before I left for California, but the episodes alone are as joy-inducing as ever.

Comic-Con day 1: Chuck poster, Dexter, and lines. Very long lines.

I wound up making slightly more than a cameo on day one of Comic-Con. Parking and getting my credential proved so relatively easy that I got on line for the "Dexter" panel, then spent an hour with Fienberg wondering if we had even a prayer of getting in, given that the line snaked around for-ev-er. Luckily, we did, and just before they started showing a trailer for "Dexter" season 4, featuring the great Jean John Lithgow as this year's very special guest. (You can read some of the highlights of the panel -- and the line -- on my Twitter feed.)

As I suspected, both the availability of outlets and Internet connectivity is spotty at best, so whatever blogging gets done will happen on an irregular basis. Based on the experience with the "Dexter" line, and what Dan has been telling me about the lines in general this year, I suspect my plan each day is going to be to park in a given room all day (most of the TV panels tend to be in the same place), so in theory I can try to blog during the panels I don't care about. (I'm hopefully going to spend a lot of Saturday in the famously huge Hall H, where the things I'm really looking forward to -- "Lost," Mike Judge's "Extract," "Iron Man 2," Kevin Smith -- will be sandwiched around a bunch of horror/sci-fi movies I don't care about, so maybe I'll do a lot of catching up then.)

I obviously won't be able to blog, or even tweet about, the "Chuck" panel as it's going on on Saturday (from 10-11 a.m. local time), but Fienberg has promised to liveblog it on his blog the same way he did today for the "Twilight" press conference.

And in the meantime, the "Chuck" guys wanted me to give you guys the first look at the special poster they had made for Comic-Con. (Click on it to see the full-sized version.) I think it looks suitably awesome, and I'm especially happy that they drew Jeff holding his keytar.

Torchwood Children of Earth, part 4: Endless love

Once again, I don't have time to give each episode of "Torchwood: Children of Earth" the proper review it deserves, so I'm going to offer up a few quick thoughts after the jump and then open it up to you. Spoilers for episode four coming up just as soon as I bump up the numbers...

"A man who can't die has got nothing to fear. So you watch it. And you keep watching." -Alice

And now "Torchwood" is not playing around, at all. Rest in peace, Ianto Jones. The line to pillory Russell T. Davies forms after all the Donna Noble fans have had their say.

Ianto's death in Thames House is the climactic, tragic scene of episode four, but the hour has several sequences that are more horrific, even if they don't bring about the end of a popular ongoing character (and Captain Jack's boyfriend).

The first is our glimpse of what The 4-5-6 actually look like -- and, more importantly, what was done with the kids Jack gave them in 1965. "Children of Earth" has gotten a lot of mileage out of using The 4-5-6 as an implied, unseen threat, and even here, the sequence is cleverly shot from the POV of the soldier's video camera, so the picture quality is poor and intermittent. We see everything we need to see to be disturbed, but not so much that we can start to spot the seams of the trick, you know?

Even more disturbing, though, is the scene where the Prime Minister and his people hash out how to select the 10 percent of their children who will be turned into immortal, catatonic fanny packs for The 4-5-6. Davies' work has never shown much fondness for politicians, but Denise's speech about the necessity of discrimination at a time like this -- "Should we treat them equally? God knows we've tried and we've failed." -- are among the most chilling words ever uttered by a "Doctor Who" villain -- if not moreso, because she's not an alien invader bent on global domination, but a scared human being trying to protect what's hers by passing the burden on to someone else.

(There aren't a lot of commonalities between "Doctor Who"/"Torchwood" and "The Wire," but I could sure imagine Tommy Carcetti participating in the American version of that meeting, couldn't you?)

But getting back to Ianto's death, what makes it especially crushing is that it comes almost immediately after it seems that Torchwood has successfully turned the tables on both the government and The 4-5-6. They can blackmail the PM into getting whatever they want, and they have knowledge and technology that the aliens might not be ready for -- but they, in turn, aren't prepared for how quickly and fatally this one representative could strike back. So Ianto (and a bunch of MI-5 employees without easy access to HazMat suits) is dead, Torchwood is now down to a team of two (three if you want to count Rhys), and it looks like the bad guys -- both the aliens and the humans -- are going to win. What now?

Keep in mind, as always, that we're following the American broadcasting schedule of this show, so talk about the first four episodes and only the first four, even if you've already seen the whole series because you live in England or are handy with illegal downloads. Any comment I consider the least bit over the line gets deleted, period.

Considering that, what did everybody else think?

Comic-Con/Press tour preview - Sepinwall on TV

Today's column previews my travels to California for Comic-Con and the TV critics press tour, and goes into more detail about how I'll be covering both events.

I don't expect to do more than cameo at Comic-Con today, if that, but I'll be parked at the convention center for the next three days and will report what I can, when I can. As for press tour, keep in mind that all the actual press tour blog posts will be NJ.com-only, just like my newspaper columns, though I'll be linking to them here.

Still not sure how much review blogging I'll be able to do when I'm out there. I have posts set to go for the final two chapters of "Torchwood," and will hopefully have stuff on the next episode of "Hung" and Sunday night's "Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead," but beyond that, there may be a whole lot of "What did you guys think of this thing I watched but don't have time to write about?" posts.

Starting to get anxious about the "Chuck" panel, since it'll have more panelists and more audience members than the New York event. I remain open to suggestions. How do you think the crowd will respond to some puns? People like puns, right?

Torchwood Children of Earth, part 3: They are here

Once again, I don't have time to give each episode of "Torchwood: Children of Earth" the proper review it deserves, so I'm going to offer up a few quick thoughts after the jump and then open it up to you. Spoilers for episode three coming up just as soon as I hit the Army surplus store...

"We want your children. We will take your children." -The 4-5-6-

When I interviewed Russell T. Davies last month, he said that the budget for the new season of "Torchwood" hadn't gone up at all, and that the improved production values for "Children of Earth" were the result of a lot of hard work by his crew. If so, then part 3 in London was simply gorgeous, arguably the single most impressive bit of VFX of the RTD era of both "Doctor Who" and "Torchwood."

With The 4-5-6 ensconsed at Thames House, the third episode's narrative shifted a bit away from our Torchwood heroes and towards John Frobisher and his colleagues in the British government, who seem as much the villains of "Children of Earth" as the aliens do. And Peter Capaldi is doing such a good job of playing Frobisher -- as a man who isn't so much bad as weak (and who, as we learn in his phone conversation with Jack, is fully aware of his own weakness) -- that I'm okay with him taking on more story burden in this chapter.

At the same time, we got some more Jack/Ianto romantic sweetness (including a reference to The Doctor), Jack dealing with the abduction of his daughter and grandson, and Gwen hooking up Lois with the super sci-fi contact lenses, so it's not as if the team vanished altogether from the narrative.

Keep in mind, as always, that we're following the American broadcasting schedule of this show, so talk about the first three episodes and only the first three, even if you've already seen the whole series because you live in England or are handy with illegal downloads. Any comment I consider the least bit over the line gets deleted, period.

Considering that, what did everybody else think?

Rescue Me, "Clean": Weak against the strong

Quick thoughts on tonight's "Rescue Me" coming up just as soon as I clean under the truck...

The deeper we get into this season of "Rescue Me," the more I'm coming around to the viewpoint, expressed off and on by some commenters here, that doing 22 episodes instead of the usual 13 was a mistake.

Even under the old format, "Rescue Me" was a shaggy dog kind of show, meandering at its own pace, presenting episodes where the scenes seemed to be ordered at random, sometimes following through on ideas, sometimes not. But if a season was never as tightly-plotted as "The Shield," doing 13 usually meant that we got to the end before things felt too shaggy.

And while this year has overall been much stronger than either of the previous two seasons, it's also felt looser and more random than usual, either doubling back over the same material too often, or simply dragging things out past the point of interest.

Take the reverse intervention Tommy pulled on his family(*), which might have seemed funny if it hadn't come so close on the heels of Tommy trying a similar stunt at his AA meeting. Or look at the ongoing Tommy/Sheila/Janet love triangle; admittedly, I wouldn't find it interesting under any timeline, but dragging it out as long as they have (because they can, and because they have episodes that need filling) is just making things worse.

(*) Speaking of Tommy's family, whatever happened to his other brother Timo, played for a few first season episodes by James Badge Dale? At the time, I got the sense that they hired Dale because Dean Winters had a scheduling conflict, but given all the tragedies Tommy has suffered in the years since, shouldn't Timo have turned up again? And was he ever memorable enough to be considered a 21st century Chuck Cunningham?

Now, an argument could be made that because they have so much time to fill, they can let scenes run longer than normal, and then we get terrific sequences like Tommy vs. Needles in Needles' office, or even the pre-credits stuff in Sheila's kitchen. The latter is an instance where I was starting to get irritated (oh, look, Sheila's being an unreasonable shrew again!), then I started to laugh (around the time Callie Thorne started saying the word "fluffy"), and then it really all clicked in when Sheila brought out her pill dispenser and we remembered that Sheila does (understandably) have severe emotional problems, and that the show occasionally takes them seriously.

For scenes like those two, I'll suffer through a lot of fluff. But I still think 13 is a better number for season six (assuming there's going to be a season six).

Given my press tour commitments over the next several weeks, and vacation time after that, I'm not sure how often I'll be able to weigh in on the rest of the season. If nothing else, if I've seen an episode, I'll make sure to put up a post so those of you who are watching can discuss it.

What did everybody else think?

Torchwood Children of Earth, part 2: Three fugitives

Once again, I don't have time to give each episode of "Torchwood: Children of Earth" the proper review it deserves, so I'm going to offer up a few quick thoughts after the jump and then open it up to you. Spoilers for episode two coming up just as soon as I hide in a potato truck...

"If I can't kill you, I can contain you." -Johnson

With Captain Jack dead and/or regenerating and/or encased in concrete for most of this episode, night two of "Children of Earth" falls on Ianto, and, especially, Gwen, to show they can be just as cool and swashbuckling as the guy in the retro RAF duds. Though the circumstances Torchwood finds itself in are grim, and though the world itself seems to be in a lot of trouble from the poison-breathing members of The 4-5-6, it's fun to see Gwen so convincingly kick butt for much of the hour, to see Ianto ride to Gwen and Rhys' rescue on heavy machinery, even to see Ianto's obnoxious brother-in-law turn out to be an okay sort in the end as he provided cover with the black ops surveillance crew.

But part two also provides some smaller moments, like Gwen telling an overjoyed Rhys about her pregnancy, or Gwen again trying to play Torchwood recruiting officer with Lois Habiba. (Given what happened with the doctor in part one, maybe they're better off sticking with known quantities for a while. Stupid Martha Jones vacation, razza frazza...)

Keep in mind, as always, that we're following the American broadcasting schedule of this show, so talk about the first two episodes and only the first two, even if you've already seen the whole series because you live in England or are handy with illegal downloads. Any comment I consider the least bit over the line gets deleted, period.

Considering that, what did everybody else think?

Sports Night rewind: "The Quality of Mercy at 29K" & "Shoe Money Tonight"

Okay, in between the end of my vacation and the start of my Comic-Con/press tour wanderings, I'm going to crank out one more "Sports Night" rewind, this time looking back on "The Quality of Mercy at 29K" (heretofore referred to as "29K") and "Shoe Money Tonight" (heretofore referred to as "Shoe"). Spoilers for both coming up just as soon as I go to Dickensian London...

"I didn't know we could do that. Did you know we could do that?" -Dana

"But mostly, I want you to trust me -- just once -- when I tell you that you have three sevens, and I have a straight." -Jeremy

Unlike some of the past episodes I've doubled up on, "29K" and "Shoe" don't have an awful lot in common, either thematically or in terms of continuing plotlines. The former is Aaron Sorkin, cockeyed optimist that he so often is, musing on how much human beings can accomplish with the right amount of imagination and hard work, the latter a comic romp in which jealousy rears its ugly head for both our actual couple (Jeremy/Natalie) and our inevitable couple (Dana/Casey).

The one clear thing they have in common (other than featuring the Sports Night staff stuck at the office to do a telecast in the middle of the night) is that they're each illustrative of one of Sorkin's recurring flaws: for "29K," his tendency to sometimes overargue a point; for "Shoe," his tendency to get a little patronizing when it comes to the opposite sex.

Now, these are both very good episodes, and they're maybe the first two where I feel my retroactive opinion is being significantly colored by my viewing of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." Because I've seen how awkward those tendencies can feel on a Sorkin show that isn't working, I get uncomfortable noticing them even in the midst of a good Sorkin show.

"Shoe" is more problematic in this respect. Yes, Sorkin lays on the "Look at what we can do" stuff a little too thick in "29K," just to make sure we get the point, but it's still a sunny episode, and features one of my favorite Felicity Huffman performances in depicting Dana's over-the-moon reaction to seeing "The Lion King" on Broadway.

"Shoe," on the other hand, very much fits into the Sorkin pattern of creating female characters who are mostly very strong and great at their chosen professions, but who, from time to time, need the men in their lives to tell them what to do and explain how the world really works. This pattern was most evident in Harriet Hayes on "Studio 60," but even vintage Sorkin-era "West Wing" had stray moments like this.

Now, as to the Jeremy/Natalie poker confrontation at the end of this episode, it's hard to look at it without thinking of what commenter Hal Incandenza wrote in our discussion of "The Apology":

A friend of mine can't stand the Jeremy-Natalie dynamic (though, I believe, he likes both the characters) for the simple reason that Jeremy wins every single argument the two ever have. I re-watched the eps, and it's kind of true. See if that influences your viewing experience.

Natalie is smart, and she's tough, and she's likable, but of course Jeremy knows what the cards are and she doesn't, and the only real trump she has over the guy is her sex appeal. In this relationship, Jeremy's smart and kind and thoughtful, and she... looks really hot in one of his white shirts. In my review of "Thespis," I wrote that Natalie is like every nerd's dream girl, and the way the card game only enhances that idea. What geek wouldn't want a hot woman who gets turned on by his command of trivia, and who also acknowledges that, in the end, she's clearly his intellectual inferior?

And the thing is, I think Sorkin could have told the exact same Jeremy/Natalie story and accomplished the same character arcs for both, even if he had flipped things at the end and shown that Jeremy's count of the cards wasn't as good as he thought. If Jeremy gives the speech about how Natalie needs to recognize that he's not some d-bag like every other guy she's dated, I think she still forgives him for the Judy-Rootie-Tootie thing even if it turns out that she had four 7's instead of three to beat his straight. I think it's a little more unexpected(*), and it makes Natalie seem stronger and more interesting for recognizing that Jeremy is right about the larger point even though he was mistaken on the specific point.

(*) Admittedly, it's more unexpected in hindsight, when we're aware of the pattern of this relationship, and of Sorkin's handling of female characters in general.

And I don't want to bag too much on Sorkin's feminist credentials given the conflict between Dana and West Coast Update producer Sally Sasser (played by Brenda Strong, who would get more work, I believe, if she wasn't taller than most of her insecure potential male co-stars). Yes, there's some amount of jealousy in how Dana reacts to Sally -- not about Sally's looks, but about how Casey drools over them -- but mostly, it's clear that what bothers Dana is that Sally is the kind of professional that Dana never wanted to be. Dana is beautiful, and she's feminine in a job where it would be very easy for her to play the tomboy, but she has never traded on her sexuality in the way that Sally does. She got to where she is because she's talented and driven, and it's those qualities that Casey is drawn to as much as he is to her appearance. And it's that, I think, that really bugs Dana about Sally: if Dana defines herself largely by how good she is at her job, and if Casey can leer over someone who isn't 1/10th as good at it as Dana, just because Sally has long legs and a big chest, does that mean Casey really doesn't care all that much about Dana the professional? And does that, in turn, mean that Dana herself has spent all these years mooning over the wrong guy?

Of course, in the end, Dana realizes that the way into Casey's heart is through his favorite camera angles and a lack of puns (it's an argument where she's right about everything and he's wrong) and everything works out in the end.

Some other thoughts on both episodes:

• At the time "29K" aired, the episode caught some grief from critics who thought Sorkin was being forced to plug another Disney product (or that he was choosing to do it to suck up to his new corporate overlords). He would later say that he just really enjoyed seeing "The Lion King" and wanted to try to convey that experience to the audience, and didn't even think about the synergy thing. As this was 10 years before product integration became the be-all, end-all of network TV, I'm inclined to believe him.

• West Coast Update is kind of a lame name for the 2 a.m. show, unless its full title was supposed to be Sports Night: West Coast Update. Also, the idea that Dan and Casey would be the only anchors available to fill in for the guys stuck in Pittsburgh doesn't track with later episodes, which will reveal a relatively deep bench at CSC.

• And speaking of that, without getting too spoiler-y for the newbies watching these episodes only as I write about them, Dan's on-air plea for food during "29K" seems like a big no-no, given the trouble a fill-in anchor named Steve Sarris will get into for a similar stunt in a season two episode. (Try to be vague if you want to compare the two situations, please.)

• In what circumstance is "The Weight" by The Band not the perfect song to end any episode of anything, as it does "29K"?

• "Shoe Money Tonight" was the first episode of the series not directed by Tommy Schlamme, and it shows, particularly in the climactic poker scene, where director Dennie Gordon eschews Schlamme's trademark fluid camerawork for a lot of quick cuts and extreme close-ups. Very jarring compared to the way the show usually looks.

Coming up next: Another two-parter of sorts with "The Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee" and "Smoky," both of which feature Isaac going up against CSC chairman Luther Sachs.

Don't know when that will be written, given my Comic-Con/press tour commitments. I could slip it in at some point during those two weeks, or I may not get to it until mid-August. But I promise I've got at least a few more of these reviews in me before Labor Day.

What did everybody else think?