Sepinwall on TV: Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

With so many shows debuting on Sunday -- including the entire Sunday lineups of ABC, CBS, Fox and Showtime, plus a couple of new HBO comedies -- I took the grab-bag approach to today's column, with quick-hit reviews of "Dexter," "The Simpsons," "Little Britain," "The Life and Times of Tim," "Californication," "The Unit" and "The Amazing Race."

As this is an absurdly busy time for me, the only one of those I'm going to do a separate post on for Sunday night is "Dexter." Feel free to use this post to comment on any or all of the other Sunday product (plus other shows I didn't write up, if you want). Click here to read the full post

The Unit: Man down

Spoilers for "The Unit" coming up just as soon as I shine my boots...

There are episodes of "The Unit" -- last week's, for instance -- where the wives' storyline feels particularly shoehorned in, as if someone at CBS told Ryan and Mamet that they would lose female viewers if the wives were absent for a week. Last night's episode was something different, in that the usage of the wives was absolutely appropriate, but the action storyline (Jonas' one-man mission) seemed obligatory.

Ryan and Mamet waited until the third season to kill off a regular because they wanted the death to have meaning for the viewers (though the death would have had far more meaning if it hadn't been one of the two sidekicks), and so I was expecting "Play 16" to dwell entirely on how everyone handled that death. I suppose an argument could be made that a solo suicide mission is exactly how Jonas Blaine would respond to the death of one of his men, but every time we cut to the MidEast scenes, I wished we were back in Col. Ryan's office, or with Mac at the coroner's, Grey's hospital room, or even with Molly, Kim and Tiffy as they planned the funeral.

Still, there were many affecting moments, with the big throat-lump moment coming at the funeral when Col. Ryan called out the names of the Unit members one by one until he got to Hector's. I'm sure that's a real ritual, and it was far more moving than I think any flowery eulogy might have been. Plus, these are men who don't do flowery. I loved that Bob refused to tell the reporter anything about Hector beyond his fondness for ice in his beer; to the reporter, that felt like nothing, where to Bob that was probably giving up more info than he wanted. Knowledge of who and what Hector was, even small details like that, is something private to the men who served with him and the women who knew him, and Bob found a way to protect that while still getting what he wanted out of the reporter.

One question for you all: the screener I watched was a rough cut that didn't have main titles. After the show went to all that trouble to create that goofy new opening credits sequence with the five guys walking towards us in slick suits (probably because someone in CBS research found that the military angle was a turn-off to some viewers and thought new credits could fool them), did they redo them for this episode, or was Hector still walking with the others?

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

The Unit: Casualties of war

I don't write about "The Unit" very often, but CBS sent out a screener of last night's episode and next week's, and they were strong enough to merit a little blog love. Spoilers for part one coming up just as soon as I put on a concert t-shirt...

I was at a bit of a disadvantage for this one, as the screener arrived with a note asking critics not to reveal who died. So not only did I know someone would die, but that it was likely to be a surprise ending, since Grey was wounded so early in the episode and yet CBS PR was requesting secrecy. And since I figured the dead guy was either going to be Grey or Hector -- who have always been second-tier characters without wives -- that meant Hector was likely to take a bullet in the final minutes, which he did.

That said, until the Army truck conveniently pulled up at the exact moment (and location) the Unit members charged out of the building, I thought "5 Brothers" was a very effective thriller episode, particularly during the scenes in the apartment where Brown had to keep control of the family who had the poor fortune to have their home turned into a hide-out/field hospital for the Unit. I thought the episode struck a good balance between showing Bob trying his best not to hurt these innocent civilians and not allowing them to do anything that might hurt him or his guys, and the fact that he had to kill the English-speaking son was a place a lot of other shows wouldn't have been willing to go. "The Unit" gets dismissed a lot as a meat-and-potatoes action show, but there's a moral ambiguity to a lot of it that you rarely see on network TV.

And as I said the last time I blogged about the show, Scott Foley continues to do surprising, interesting work as Brown; Bob's a quieter, less flashy character than either Jonas or Mac, and some actors would struggle to play an action hero whose defining characteristic is his ability to think, but Foley pulls it off. (He also tends to shine the most in the more overtly Mamet-y episodes; I wouldn't be surprised to see him become a regular in Mamet's movies once the show ends.)

The strip club/tow truck story was what it was -- an excuse to give the wives something to do in the middle of an episode that didn't really need them -- but all the female characters will be used much better in next week's episode, dealing with the aftermath of Hector's death.

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

A man stands alone

Brief spoilers for the "House" and "Unit" season premieres coming up just as soon as I make a ransom demand...

I hate to overhype, but you make the call: funniest "House" ever? Between Dr. Buffer and his lupus suggestion, wilson's reaction at discovering that his lunch date with House was just an invitation for B&E, Wilson's various ransom notes/calls (and good to see Wilson successfully get over on House for once), and Cuddy's increased frustration with House and her inability to stop enabling him, there were very few points where I wasn't laughing. Okay, maybe the parts with the living patient actually being the dead patient and vice versa weren't exactly knee-slappers (and I didn't see it coming, even with the seemingly-pointless scene featuring the other boyfriend), but this episode was pure pleasure -- and episode two is even funnier.

(One Cuddy question: I know House mocks her revealing wardrobe all the time, but did anyone else think her outfits in this episode -- particularly the white dress with the coat -- were even more provacative than usual? Maybe it's just been too long since I watched an episode, but I always remembered Cuddy's clothes as less slutty than House always claims.)

Meanwhile, I almost never write about "The Unit," even though I'd guess I watch at least half to two-thirds of the episodes each season. I wouldn't call it a guilty pleasure, because I don't feel guilty watching any show with Dennis Haysbert as the star and David Mamet sometimes supplying the dialogue (though the non-Mamet episodes usually suffer in comparison to the ones he writes), but I usually struggle to find anyone else who watches the show or cares enough to discuss it on a blog.

Like I said in yesterday's column, both this episode and next week's are devoted to undoing the cliffhanger as quickly as possible, and while I recognize the necessity of reassembling the group that's in the title, I liked the idea of Jonas and the guys being rogue for a little longer. I mean, Haysbert shaved his head and regrew his goatee, and with his shirt off looked unchanged from when he first played Pedro Serrano 18 years ago! That is a man you do not mess with, and I hope he sticks with the new/old look for a while. Also impressive, albeit not in the same age-defying way, is Scott Foley, who played sensitive guys on "Felicity" and "Scrubs" so convincingly that I remain surprised at how convincing and interesting he is as this very smart, circumspect Special Forces badass.

I have the two episodes mashing together in my head a bit, so I won't go into any more specifics, but I want to figure out a way to keep juggling this show, "House" and "Reaper" for as long as I can this season, because I enjoy all three in different ways.

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

Cliffhangers and their aftermath

The second column looks at the season premieres of "House," "My Name Is Earl" and (very briefly) "The Unit" and how each one tries to deal with a status quo-altering cliffhanger...

Season-ending TV cliffhangers are a bit like getting blitzed at the office Christmas party. It seems like a lot of fun at the time, but the next day you have to deal with what you said to your boss and figure out whose underwear you woke up in.

It was hard to find a major network series that didn't end last season on a status quo-altering cliffhanger. Inevitably, that leads to a lot of excited fan speculation for a few days, followed by the writers assembling for production of the new season and asking, "Okay, how quickly can we turn things back to normal?"

To pick just three of this week's returning shows for example purposes, "House" closed with House's three sidekicks either getting fired or quitting; "The Unit" ended with the entire team either imprisoned or becoming fugitives from justice as part of a conspiracy to destroy The Unit, and "My Name Is Earl" sent its hero to jail, having confessed to a crime he didn't commit to spare his ex-wife from going down for her third strike.

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