Breaking Bad, "Cancer Man": The Bluetooth meanie

Spoilers for the latest episode of "Breaking Bad" coming up just as soon as I skim my pool...

I don't know if it's just that the Crazy 8 story is done, or that Walt has finally fessed up -- about the cancer, but not the meth -- to his family, or simply that I'm more used to its rhythms, but after being interested in but not necessarily riveted by the first three episodes, I'm finally starting to feel engrossed by this show.

In addition to the reasons stated above, "Cancer Man" was boosted by some insight into Jesse, who had previously just been comic relief. We knew he went to the high school where Walt teaches, which seems to be in a relatively well-to-do district, and now we know what kind of family Jesse came from, and that his parents mean well but somehow have both their sons convinced the other one is the favorite. And for the first time, we see Jesse do something semi-noble in taking the fall for his kid brother's joint. Aaron Paul has played very well off of Bryan Cranston in the first three episodes, but it was about time that we got a sense of who Pinkman is and where he comes from.

Meanwhile, after being in denial and spending the first three episodes on his crazy, homicidal scheme, Walt has to face the music and deal with the reality of his condition by telling his wife -- and, eventually, son and in-laws -- about it. I liked everyone's reaction to it -- how Skyler's sister suddenly turns out to be helpful, how Hank makes the well-meaning but depressing offer to take care of everyone after Walt dies -- but especially liked Walt Jr. not giving his dad any slack on his pragmatic plan to die cheaply. "Just give up and die!" is exactly the venom Walt needs to hear right now. (It's just too bad that the scene was written under the belief that AMC would allow Gilligan to use Words You Can't Say On Basic Cable, because the bleeping gets really distracting in an emotional moment like that.)

But just because Skyler and Walt Jr. know, and just because the new oncologist is holding out some hope (of managing the cancer, if not curing it) doesn't mean Walt can put the genie back in the bottle. Not only does he have two deaths on his conscience, but now he has an even greater need to cook meth for Jesse. And, just as he did in the pilot, his tolerance for bullies and the other irritations of daily life has ceased to exist, as shown by him using his chemistry knowledge to blow up Ken the Bluetooth d-bag's car with a squeegee. (Someone want to explain to me how that works? Is it the water, or the soap and water together?) Jerks talking loudly on their Bluetooths (Blueteeth?) have become an obvious symbol of all that's wrong with Western civilization, and I'm glad certain writers -- Vince Gilligan here, Larry David in the amazing "Curb" scene where he decides to carry on an imaginary conversation next to a Bluetooth moron in a restaurant -- have decided enough is enough with this.

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The Wire, "Took": Goodnight moon

Spoilers for "The Wire" season 5, episode 7, "Took," coming up just as soon as I go to IKEA...

Is your living room dusty? Mine feel's pretty dusty right now, if you know what I'm saying. How else could I possibly explain the moistness in my eye sockets as Kima delivered her ghetto version of "Goodnight Moon" to young Elijah?

Oh, wait, I know: because it was one of the sweetest, most beautiful scenes in the whole series.

Richard Price, who wrote "Took," actually lifted the scene from his novel "Clockers," at the request of David Simon. (Scroll down to around the 16th comment to Andrew Johnston's review at The House Next Door for Simon's explanation of why he keeps asking Price to cannibalize that book for the show.) But it fits perfectly into this episode, as the show throws its support behind Gus' "This ain't Beirut" argument with Klebanow and Whiting. A carpet-bagging, myopic writer like Templeton looks at Baltimore as a blighted, war-torn city that's beyond salvation, where a Baltimore native like Gus or Kima looks on it as a messed-up place that's still, as Gus says, "Our fuckin' city."

If Templeton had a kid and tried to do "Goodnight Moon" for him in the middle of the night and then heard street activity outside his window, he'd likely slam the window shut and try to distract the kid from all that scary noise. What Kima does -- what "The Wire" consistently and brilliantly does -- is to incorporate the unfortunate sights and sounds outside the window into a larger view of the world, which is the world Elijah will grow up in. Yes, the drug culture is tragic and a blight on society, but it exists, and it affects Kima and will affect Elijah one day -- and, frankly, Kima has affection for certain elements of it. (Bubbles, for one.) You can be afraid of the world outside your window, you can demonize it and mythologize it and try to win awards from it, or you can confront it head on and maybe even find a way to make it seem less scary for the little boy in your arms.

I could probably go on for several thousand more words about that scene -- how Kima, despite her problems with assembling compressed particle board furniture aside, looks to be a much better weekend parent than McNulty, for instance -- but seeing as how its has virtually nothing to do with the ongoing stories (even if it's a kind of perfect thematic coda for the series), let's move on to the rest of the episode.

Start with Clay Davis' spellbinding performance on the witness stand. (Not to mention Isaiah Whitlock's equal brilliance throughout, particularly the moment on the courthouse steps where Clay turns his back to the reporters and you see just how scared he is.) Hey, Prosecutor O-Bond-a (heh) -- that is why you're supposed to use the Head Shot when you have it, because it prevents a slick con man like Clay from talking his way to jury nullification. Bond (or, more likely, Ronnie) should have known which way the wind was blowing the second Clay's lawyer chose not to cross-examine Lester, as you only do that move if you're not planning to address the facts of the case in your defense.

So Clay had that jury eating out of his hand, and in the process places himself on equal moral footing with McNulty. Clay's defense about how he was really using the charity money is identical to the justification Jimmy and Lester are using for their phony serial killer scam: get the money tap turned on by any means necessary, even if it's a complete and total lie, and then use the money where it can really do some good. (In reality, of course, Clay is just pocketing that cash.) Not that Lester has either the time or the sense of perspective anymore to see how Clay's defense compares to his current actions, but if he could get his nose out from all those clock photos, he might realize that this is some shameful shit he and Jimmy are pulling.

Jimmy has no time to notice, either, as he's waffling between being drunk with the power he's given himself and terror at how quickly and widely this lie is spinning out of control. If he had given any real thought to how much publicity he might generate, he never would have shown his face in that Richmond homeless shelter where he dumped Larry. How long is it going to be before the shelter worker he met sees Larry's picture on the news and give a detailed description of the guy who dropped Larry off with them? Jimmy knows how much trouble he's in, and though he tries to act big in front of Bunk -- mainly to defend himself from Bunk's accusation that his lie is getting in the way of real police work -- you can tell he wants an escape hatch, like, yesterday.

Last week, I talked about how Jimmy's abduction of Larry was the moment where he took his scheme way too far, but Kima's interview with the parents of an earlier "victim" show that Jimmy's actions have been reprehensible from the start. Sure, the dead guys are in no condition to care about what's being done to their corpses, but Jimmy's lie is devastating the family members. Like the parents say, it's bad enough to live with the knowledge that you didn't (or couldn't) prevent your son from killing himself with drugs and alcohol, but it's far, far worse to believe that you failed to protect him from being murdered and sexually molested.

And I love how, even in the middle of a completely farcical storyline like this one, Simon and Burns and Price are skilled and wise enough to step back from the comedy for a moment and show the real human cost of all this silliness. What makes "The Wire" so amazing is the way it consistently finds the comedy inside tragedy, or, here, vice versa. There's a similar sort of moment in the pre-credits sequence. After all the comedy with Jimmy's fake Baltimore accent (no doubt a goof on Dominic West's historically shaky attempt to not sound British) and Scott scared out of his mind, we go to Sydnor witnessing the chaos he just helped create, and he could not look more disgusted with himself. Yeah, he wants to get Marlo as much as anybody, but at this price?

If there's one area where I'm disappointed in the serial killer story, it's in Scott's complete obliviousness to what Jimmy is doing. Yes, we have knowledge that the characters don't, but I think it's a real missed opportunity -- and maybe the first time I've agreed with the people who argue that Simon is too tunnel-visioned in his writing of the Baltimore Sun characters -- to have Scott be so oblivious that he has no idea how phony this all is. In the scene where McNulty comes to the Sun offices, we see that Gus is able to poke a half-dozen different holes in the story. And while I get that Gus is supposed to represent all that's good and pure and noble about journalism while Scott represents all that's ruining it, think how much more complex the character would be, and how much more interesting this part of the story might be, if Scott's fabulist tendencies weren't a mark of him being incompetent but simply impatient and entitled. Imagine if he actually had enough reportorial chops to see what was really going on here -- the same way Jimmy did after Scott's "He made another call?" line in episode five -- and realized he had stumbled upon an amazing story that he would never be able to report, because reporting it would expose his own lies. Maybe the story will still go there in the final three episodes (which I haven't seen yet), but right now it doesn't feel like this story is being exploited as well as it could be if Scott weren't such an idiot.

Gus, clearly, is no idiot. Not only is he able to sniff out inconsistencies in Jimmy's story, but he finally takes steps to investigate one of Scott's previous lies, the one from last week about the sister of the lady who died from eating shellfish. For those who couldn't make sense of Gus' conversation with Dennis Mello (more about that scene below), he asks Mello whether Scott's explanation -- that the sister is good people, and that some neighborhood con woman keeps using the sister's name whenever she's arrested, hence the confusion about the scholarship fund -- holds up, and Mello explains that the hypothetical con woman would only be able to impersonate the sister one time before the system figured her out. So now that he has fairly solid evidence that Scott is making things up at least some of the time -- and, as he notes to his pal Rebecca, if Scott will lie like that to duck a correction, how much would he lie to improve his stories? -- what's he going to do about it? Like he also says to Rebecca, he doesn't want to call another reporter a liar, and Scott has the added benefit of being the pet of the paper's top two editors. Why do I have a very bad feeling that Gus is going to pay far more for Scott's lies than Scott himself? (Because this is "The Wire," that's why.)

And why do I continue to have a bad feeling about Omar? (ibid) Much as it was gratifying to see Savino (who, you may remember, was one of the key guys in the ambush that nearly killed Kima in season one) taken out of the picture, it was painful seeing Omar definitively break his promise to Bunk like that. (It's unclear whether he also killed the guy on the floor in the stash house, but if he did, at least that was in something resembling self-defense.) I know that Omar is now at war with Marlo, and that it's bad strategy to leave an enemy soldier alive and in play, but Omar has always been defined by his code, and part of his code is keeping his word. It's a very slippery slope he's limping down here.

Was I the only one, by the way, who took Michael's fear of Omar to have two meanings? Obviously, he's terrified that Omar might recognize him from the shootout where Donnie got killed. But we were also reminded in this episode that Bug's dad molested him, and I'm sure in Michael's worldview that homosexuals and child molesters are one and the same. To have Omar not only holding a gun on him, but sitting that close to him, and behind him -- a position that Bug's dad surely occupied many times when Michael was younger -- must have freaked Michael the hell out, even though he would never admit that to any of the other kids on the corner.

I think it's pretty clear by now that Omar's not going to survive this mission. Even if he somehow takes out Marlo or Chris or Snoop, it'll be a mutually assured destruction scenario. But I have a feeling that Omar may be denied a larger-than-life end, that the person killing him will be someone less glamorous, whether it's Michael or even little Kenard, who acted like he couldn't have been less impressed by Omar hobbling around on his broom.

Some other thoughts on "Took":

• Gus' arrival at the bar where he met Mello featured a moment that was both a loving tribute to fans of David Simon's work and an absolute nightmare for continuity wonks. In case you never watched "Homicide" -- or "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," for that matter -- the grey-haired guy trying to extend his tab was none other than Detective John Munch, the most crossover-happy character in TV history. He started on "Homicide" (where he did, in fact, own a bar for a time), is now a regular on "SVU" and has appeared, in character, on two other "Law & Order" series, "The X-Files," "The Beat" (a short-lived Tom Fontana cop show for UPN), and even "Arrested Development." Having Munch turn up here places "The Wire" in the same fictional universe as not only those shows, but series ranging from "Picket Fences" to "The Simpsons" to "Cheers" to "St. Elsewhere" -- which would, I guess, make "The Wire" nothing but a product of Tommy Westphall's imagination. It's probably one of those things, like last week's Martin O'Malley reference, where it's best not to think too deeply of the continuity implications. And given that Munch was based on Jay Landsman, who plays Dennis Mello, the only thing the scene was missing to be completely mind-blowing was an appearance by Delaney Williams as the "Wire" version of Landsman.
• The show sure does love its parallel bureaucracies, doesn't it? The montage where Gus and Cedric briefed their respective troops and explained that the recent budget woes wouldn't be a factor evoked previous intercut sequences like the Tilghman teachers and the Western cops both suffering through pointless lectures.
• And speaking of both Tilghman Middle and the opening of the money tap, we haven't seen Prez yet this season, and now I don't want to. The scene where Carcetti learns the budget ramifications of this investigation running more than a month made me very afraid that one of the school teachers who would be laid off would be Prez, under standard "last one hired, first one fired" protocol.
• The On Demand discussion has been fairly light on guesses as to how the clock photo code works. Do you think it has anything at all to do with time? And is Marlo supposed to be using it to communicate with people like Monk, or did Vondas intend for him to only use it for Marlo-to-Vondas messaging?
• For the people with legal expertise, can the Head Shot still be used on Clay, or is it double jeopardy even though one charge was state and the other would be federal? And is there any way O-Bond-a would allow the federal prosecutor to bag Clay after he failed so spectacularly?
• In case you missed the credits, this one was the directorial debut of Dominic West. Usually, when actors direct an episode of the series they're on, it's one where they won't be appearing very much. Given the prominence of the McNulty story this year, that obviously wasn't possible, but I thought West did a good job of blending in with the house style. The only scene that felt even a little bit un-"Wire" was the final one, with the long pullback from Kima's window, but even that seemed an appropriate touch for that particular moment.
• Bubbs finally seems to have turned a corner. He's serving food, happily, at the soup kitchen, he's wearing his hat again, and he's serving as Mike Fletcher's tour guide to the homeless world the same way he used to help Kima and Sydnor navigate the drug world. I don't know what kind of future Bubbs has ahead of him, but he seems to be one of the few characters who I expect to end the series in a positive frame of mind. Very gratifying to see.
• Getting back to Michael and Bug's dad, it was interesting to see how shaken Michael was by those crime scene photos Bunk showed him. On the one hand, I'm sure he feels Bug's dad deserved that punishment and more for what he did; on the other, that's more damage than he's ever seen the normally calm and efficient Chris commit before.
• The scene where Carver picks up Michael from his corner had a number of hilarious moments, whether it was Dukie struggling to interpret the want ads (see below), Dukie pop-locking to show what a great exotic dancer he could be, or Michael uttering McNulty's "What the fuck did I do?" catchphrase.
• As is happening more and more this season (see also Bill Zorzi as Bill Zorzi), Clay's defense attorney Billy Murphy was played by real-life Baltimore attorney (and judge) Billy Murphy.

Lines of the week:

"Policework. What do you know?" -Kima (echoing Carcetti's "Homelessness. Huh." from last week)

"'High quality dental office seeks front desk.'" -Dukie reading a want ad
"What, do they mean like furniture?" -Michael

"Ain't you the little king of diamonds?" -Bunk to McNulty

"You doing good here, boss." -Crutchfield
"What did you just call me?" -McNulty

"Man, they want some good contestants, they need to come around westside." -Clay Davis on "Survivor"

"What the fuck just happened?" -Bond
"Whatever it was, they don't teach it in law school." -Ronnie

"45 inches of Clay Davis playing not just the race card but the whole deck coming at you." -Gus

"I feel very white." -Tim Phelps (Sun state editor)

"Let's say goodnight to everybody. Goodnight moon. Goodnight stars. Goodnight po-pos. Goodnight fiends. Goodnight hoppers. Goodnight hustlers. Goodnight scammers. Goodnight to everybody. Goodnight to one and all." -Kima & Elijah

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

In Treatment, week three: Paul and Gina

Talk about the week's fifth episode of "In Treatment," and how it makes you look back at the previous four. Click here to read the full post

Double threats?

Noodling around on a column I may or may not write, and I could use some brainstorming help. So two related questions:

1. What are some of the best -- and worst -- performances in film or TV by someone whose day job is as a musician/singer/rapper?
2. Do you think it's fair to say that rappers tend to segue better into acting than musicians from other genres? If so, why?

I have my own thoughts on this but I want to bring in some outside ideas before I decide whether this is worth writing.

Click here to read the full post

Lost: Sayid agent man

Spoilers for "The Economist," the latest episode of "Lost," coming up just as soon as I get my tux altered...

You know, if this episode had featured nothing but the moment where Sayid pointed out that Jack trying to kill Locke wasn't "good diplomacy" -- the latest instance this season where a character is allowed to question Jack's idiotic leadership skills -- I would have been happy with it. But "The Economist" gave us so much more: a heavy focus on the underrated Sayid (featuring maybe Naveen Andrews' best "Lost" performance to date), Hurley reluctantly going over the cliff with Locke, Faraday's experiment providing more evidence to the "time on the island moves differently" theory, Sayid and Desmond actually getting off the island, and, trippiest of all, the revelation that Flashforward Sayid is working for Ben. The distinctiveness of Michael Emerson's voice meant that this last one was obvious well before we saw Ben's face, but the moment I heard him talk, a chill went down my spine.

Like every other original character, Sayid had run out of flashback-able material, but making him one of the Oceanic Six opens up a world of possibilities for him. Sayid Jarrah, globe-trotting reluctant assassin? Sweet. Sayid Jarrah, reluctant instrument of violence for Benjamin Linus? What what what? Sayid Jarrah, lovestruck sucker who's still badass enough to kill the woman who done him wrong even with a bullet in his shoulder? Splendid work by Mr. Andrews.

So who exactly is Sayid killing on behalf of Ben, and why? In the final scene, Ben suggests Sayid wound up working for him after "the last time you thought with your heart instead of your gun" and implies that Sayid is doing this to protect his friends. Are those friends the other members of the Oceanic Six, or the people left behind on the island? Are the people on the list working with Matthew Abaddon in trying to find the island? (And, if so, how did golf course guy not immediately recognize Sayid?) And how exactly does Ben get on and off the island all the time? The photo Miles had last week looked like it was taken in the real world, and the secret closet Sayid found, full of snazzy civilian clothes, foreign currency and phony passports, suggests he comes and goes to the real world as he pleases, submarine or no submarine. I can't imagine him being considered one of the Oceanic Six -- he wasn't on the flight, after all -- so I'm assuming he gets off the island without being rescued.

In the present-day island action, Sayid again provides evidence for why he'd be a much better leader than Jack. He comes up with a plan and executes it, even after getting captured and disarmed by Locke. I'm really hoping that we spend some significant time on the freighter with Sayid, Desmond (whose joy at seeing the helicopter with Juliet was one of the episode's nicest little grace notes) and the mysterious Regina and George.

I also love how Ben totally has Locke's number ("John's loking for somebody to tell him what to do next"), though the matter of why they don't just kill or, at least, torture Ben is still a problem. (Maybe Locke had a point about not wanting to carry the guy, but why couldn't they start removing fingers instead of toes? Or, for that matter, why not take advantage of Sayid's presence to try to get some answers? Or am I forgetting Sayid trying and failing to get anything useful out of Ben back in the Henry Gale days?)

And I'll admit that I totally fell for the Hurley bluff -- even though, in retrospect, Hurley probably needs to stick with Locke through much worse than we've seen so far before he'll have something to apologize to Jack about in the future. It helped that Hurley was overflowing with genius one-liners, whether it was "Oh, awesome. The ship sent us another Sawyer." or "Yeah, I saw you break that guy's neck with that breakdancing thing you do with your legs. I think I'll hang back here."

Hell, I'm feeling so favorably inclined towards the show these days that I even enjoyed the love triangle-y scenes. The problem with the polar bear cage arc wasn't that it dealt with the triangle; it was that it dealt with the triangle to the exclusion of everything else about the show. Evangeline Lily and Josh Holloway have real chemistry, and the "Now you know what it feels like to be me" scene with Jack and Kate was both an amusing moment and the latest callback to events from seasons past. The writers' eagerness to reference old events this season isn't just a wink to continuity nerds; it gives greater emotional weight to these people and their experience together, so that when they're separated, or fighting against each other, or -- in the case of Sayid and Desmond's long helicopter ride -- getting off the island, the impact is much greater.

So, bullet point-y questions:

• How is Ben getting on and off the island? Does it involve climbing into the (maybe not so metaphorical) magic box?
• What are the ramifications of Faraday's experiment? If time moves more slowly on the island, how would it ever be possible to have a real-time sat phone conversation with someone on the freighter?
  
• Was Jacob's cabin absent because it only appears at night, or because it wouldn't appear before that many people?
• Do you think The Economist is someone we already know? If so, what pre-existing character would be so attached to old technology that he would use a pager?
• Was Elsa's bracelet supposed to be the same as Naomi's? And do we think the "RG" on the inscription of Naomi's bracelet is someone we know?
• Now that Miles is a prisoner of the Locke group, will the inevitable Miles/Sawyer meeting create enough sarcasm to make Professor Frink's sarcasm detector go nuclear?

Finally, a couple of housekeeping notes. First, in case you missed the news, ABC has decided to condense this season from 16 episodes to 13 so that it doesn't run past May sweeps. (Never mind that the concept of sweeps, and even of a September-May TV season, is outdated.) Cuse and Lindelof have said that they still intend to provide all the answers in these 13 that they would have in the original 16 episode plan, and that the remaining three episodes (plus whatever material they feel they can safely cut from them) will be folded into the final two seasons somehow.

Second, I'm going on vacation next week, and while I don't intend to blog very much (primarily "The Wire"), I'll try my best to at least check in briefly on next week's "Lost" episode. With only 13 episodes this season -- and with the first three being this much fun -- I don't want to miss out on too much discussion.

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

Strike Survival TV Club: Cupid, "Bachelorette Party"

Brief spoilers for the "Bachelorette Party" episode of "Cupid" coming up just as soon as I enjoy some chicken soup...

As Rob Thomas said in the review for "Hung Jury," that episode and this one were the chief victims of the sudden ouster of writer/producers Jeff Reno and Ron Osborn, as Rob and the remaining writers had to scramble to put together episodes that would have been Reno and Osborn's responsibility. The slapped-together quality was more blatant with "Hung Jury" -- "Bachelorette Party" is definitely a better episode -- but you can see how the rush hurt this one as well.

One of the cardinal rules of writing is "show, don't tell," but "Bachelorette Party" flows in the opposite direction at every turn. The characters -- most of them friends of Claire who have known her since high school -- spend the entire hour arguing about events that happened days, weeks or even years before the episode took place, whether it's the affair that Claire's friend's fiance is having with her other friend, or the grudges that the entire clique still hold from their teenage years. And unlike in "First Loves," we don't even get flashbacks to any of these events. The rhythm is constantly exposition/exposition/fight, and while the performances by Piven, Marshall and some of the guest stars are fine, it's very hard to get invested in any of this.

The idea of female friends holding onto the same misconceptions and beefs over 15 years and more isn't a bad one -- there are moments at the bachelorette party where I buy into these long-lasting friendships -- but it really calls for an episode with a wildly different structure than we get here, something that doesn't take place entirely in the present and deal entirely with the past. If Thomas and company had more time to craft the script, to build more sets (virtually all the action takes place at Taggerty's or Claire's apartment), maybe to hire actors to play the high school/college versions of Claire and her friends, they could have done something really interesting with the basic premise, but the quick and dirty version doesn't work.

That said, the scenes near the end -- Claire on the train with Heather and, especially, Claire, Trevor and Joanne at Taggerty's -- feature some nice performances by the actors involved. I just wish they didn't have to do so much heavy lifting.

I don't have much else to say about this one -- Trevor's first experience with sickness and Champ's fear of exposing himself on stage were amusing distractions -- so it's time for Rob Remembers, where "Cupid" creator (past and, maybe, future) Rob Thomas offers his own take on each episode -- which in this case is as brief as mine:

I can't say much about "Bachelorette Party" as I've tried to completely block this episode out of my mind. As I've jotted down my commentary on the previous episodes, I've screened them in the background in order to jog my memory a bit. With this particular episode I'm not even willing to do that. Why revisit the trauma?

Here's my macro problem with the episode. None of the women come off well. Now with the guest stars, this is something of a problem, but the episode also reflected badly on Claire, which was a primary concern. I always wanted Claire to be tightly-wound. Early in the season, I think we dialed up that aspect of her personality too much, but I thought we'd found the right balance at this point in the season. This episode set us back again. It was almost guilt by association. Interestingly, as I recall, the modeling for this episode was the Rosalind Russell/Joan Crawford/Norma Shearer movie, THE WOMEN. We missed the mark wildly.

Coming up next: I'm taking most of next week off, which means you have an extra week to watch the penultimate episode, "The Children's Hour," featuring an all growns up Tiffani-Amber Thiessen. You can see it here, here, here, here and here. We'll talk about it a week from Tuesday, on the 26th.

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

Sepinwall on TV: 'Dexter' on CBS review

Today's column looks at one of this blog's favorite shows as it transitions from pay cable to broadcast TV:

The writers' strike is over, but strike contingency scheduling lives on, which means that Sunday night at 10 we'll be treated to the bizarre spectacle of Showtime's serial killer drama "Dexter" airing on CBS.

And you know what? It works.

To read the full thing, click here. Click here to read the full post

Survivor Micronesia: Love is all around

Quick spoilers for episode two of "Survivor" coming up just as soon as I get pixellated...

Okay, they've still got me, even with an episode where, because of the Immunity Challenge results, the screen time was heavily skewed away from the veterans (who I care about to varying degrees) towards the rookies. It helped that there was a whole lotta conflict on the newbies side, as we burned through four or five different "Survivor" cliches in one episode: old vs. young split, the power couple seen as a threat, the guy who gets targeted for plotting too much(*), and the blindside. I'm not sure I've ever seen all those things combined in one episode before, and after it looked like one of the old people other than Kathy was guaranteed to go home, things got veddy, veddy interesting there at the end.

(*) While I think Joel the fireman is right to distrust Mike for being part of a couple, they were all dumb to dismiss Mike's vote-splitting plan, which is the only effective way to guard against one or even two immunity idols being in play. I also thought it was kind of funny that he got shot down for proposing it in the same episode where Cerie -- the first player in "Survivor" history to successfully orchestrate a 3-2-1 vote -- stepped to the forefront of the veterans tribe after being invisible last week.

So here's your strategery question of the week: if you're Cirie, do you go with the young couples or the older brainiacs? While I'd certainly prefer her to team up with Jonathan and Yau Man, there's an argument to be made for signing on with the beef and cheesecake. Because the show has now shifted to a final three instead of a final two arrangement, she might have a better chance latching onto a rock solid couple who need a third rather than hoping to make it to the end with an amorphous foursome where any combination could stick together. In addition, James and, especially, Ozzy, are likely better challenge shields than anyone in the other group, and Cerie will have a much easier time manipulating the young and buff than she would Jonathan or Yau Man or Ami. Maybe if Jonathan hadn't been so stupid as to try to put his eggs in the Fairplay basket last week, he would have a real agreement already and wouldn't have to worry, but the previews suggest things are in flux, and our resident leaf-phobic is the power player.

What did everybody else think? And, keeping in mind that I only saw a few episodes of China, has Amanda ever made it through an entire episode without spilling out of her clothes at some point? Click here to read the full post

In Treatment, week three: Jake & Amy

Jake and Amy are back for this week's "In Treatment," but once again they're not both there for the entire session. Thoughts? Click here to read the full post

8,000 degrees of John Munch?

Does anyone know of a site that has a good master list of all the TV shows that are in the same fictional universe because of the many guest appearances of Det. Munch from "Homicide"? (i.e., Munch was on "X-Files," which then links "Homicide" with "The Simpsons" because Mulder and Scully once went to Springfield.) I know a lot of them off the top of my head, sadly, but I'm looking for a site that lays out the whole "it's all in Tommy Westphall's imagination" issue in clear, easy-to-follow language. Click here to read the full post

In Treatment, week three: Sophie

Talk about the latest "In Treatment" visit for our young gymnast here. Click here to read the full post

NBC firms up some plans

While they aren't as detailed as what CBS put out earlier today, NBC just sent out two press releases confirming things everyone was assuming to be true:

1. That "Chuck," "Life" and "Heroes" will be renewed for next year but won't air again this season.
2. That "My Name Is Earl," "The Office," "30 Rock," "Scrubs" and "ER" will begin airing new episodes in early April.

Keep in mind that "Scrubs" had several episodes in the can when the strike began. This announcement doesn't deal with the whole issue of Bill Lawrence getting to make the four episodes he says he needs to wrap up everyone's story, so those could still wind up as DVD-only.

Click here to read the full post

American Idol: Send in the pros from Dover

Some thoughts on the "American Idol" Hollywood episode and the ringer epidemic that's either the worst or best thing to ever happen to the show coming up just as soon as I dismiss the band...

How about that? Two hours in Hollywood with none of the pointless soap operatics involving the group singing (which never had anything to do with the competition), or partying, or people sitting in rooms, or any of the other BS usually associated with Hollywood week. Just people singing and getting praised or slammed. Very nice. Even the melodramatic moments, like Josiah's aforementioned meltdown where he couldn't get along with the band (and blew off the vocal coach's invitation to get extra rehearsal with them), had to do with the performances.

Now watch: as always, it'll be the lowest-rated episode of the season, because people would rather watch the freakshow.

So here's what I'm wondering: where do all of you stand on the ringer issue? If you've somehow missed all of this -- and the show certainly has gone out of its way to avoid discussing it -- a lot of this year's contestants either once had a major label record deal, or did well on another competitive reality show, or dated Britney Spears, or all three. (Vote For the Worst has a pretty good summary of a lot of these semi-pros backgrounds.) If you believe the leaked list of the top 24 contestants (which I won't link to here, but it's easy to find), then at least 11 of them would qualify as not just plucked off the street at random.

Now, none of this violates the letter of "American Idol" law. Many past finalists have either self-released their own albums (Taylor Hicks) or previously had record deals (Tamyra Gray) or had lots of performing experience (Bo Bice). But a lot of people feel the presence of someone like Carly Smithson -- who was the subject of a failed multi-million dollar marketing push by MCA -- violates the spirit of "Idol" as a discoverer of amateur talent.

My feeling is that I'd rather watch the best singers possible -- and many of the best performances last night were by the semi-pros (like the Aussie rocker who sang "Bohemian Rhapsody") -- than suffer through another year of Sanjaya and Chris Richardson and Haley Scarnato. I just want the show to be honest about it. I want the biographical clip packages to discuss their backgrounds, even if it's to frame it in sappy "Idol" terms ("Carly couldn't achieve her dream the first time with her record deal, so she's back again"). Let the audience know and decide for themselves what kind of contest they want "Idol" to be. Would they rather have the most polished singers possible, or would they rather suffer through a Sanjaya or a Scott Savol if it means that a real unknown like a Kelly or a Clay has a better shot to go far?

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

CBS announces which shows are coming back and when

God bless helpful network publicists. As we're all running around trying to figure out which scripted shows will be back this spring, when they'll be back, and how many episodes they'll be making, CBS put out a press release announcing exactly that for all their shows. For those who don't want to follow the link, I'll try to reprint the whole thing (the original press release involves columns and tables, so the formatting won't be the same here) after the jump. The major news from this blog's perspective is that "How I Met Your Mother" will be making nine more episodes. Nice.

SERIES
ANTICIPATED RETURN
EXPECTED # OF NEW EPISODES

HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER
March 17
9

THE BIG BANG THEORY
March 17
9

TWO AND A HALF MEN
March 17
9

CSI: MIAMI
March 24
8

COLD CASE
March 30
5

CRIMINAL MINDS
April 2
7

CSI: NY
April 2
7

CSI
April 3
6

WITHOUT A TRACE
April 3
6

GHOST WHISPERER
April 4
6

NUMB3RS
April 4
6

NCIS
April 8
7

MOONLIGHT
April 11
4

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
April 14
6

SHARK
TBA
4

* THE UNIT, CANE and SHARK are on previously announced hiatus to accommodate the mid-season launches of BIG BROTHER, JERICHO and DEXTER.

**The drama series SWINGTOWN, which hasn't been scheduled yet, will also resume production.

Click here to read the full post

In Treatment, week three: Alex

Talk about the latest episode of "In Treatment" -- kind of the second half of a two-parter with last night's show -- here. Click here to read the full post

Terminator, "Queen's Gambit": All in the family

Spoilers for the latest episode of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" coming up just as soon as I wave hi to a robot...

Am I just becoming a softer touch, or was that not a bad hour of television?

The show still has a number of fundamental problems, not least which is the fact that this really shouldn't be a series. (The number of Terminators and resistance fighters hanging out in the past really devalues the concept.) I'm also bored by the CW portion of the show where John and Cameron go to school (and is there anyone who didn't immediately peg the guidance counselor as having had an affair with suicide girl?), and while I appreciate the effort to make Sarah seem tougher by opening with her doing pull-ups, if the show gets renewed, Lena Headey needs to spend her hiatus at the gym.

Still, this episode -- especially the second half, once Derek Reese came into the picture -- was the first time I felt myself actually engaged by the show. The idea of Sarah and John having other family is a powerful one -- you understand exactly why Sarah and then John would break so many of their rules to save this guy -- the chase/fight scene was fairly exciting for what I imagine to be a more standard budget/schedule than the pilot, and I'm really enjoying Richard T. Jones' soft-spoken work as the FBI agent who might be able to talk himself into believing Sarah's crazy spiel. Plus, they've peopled the guest cast with so many actors I like (Garret Dillahunt, Dean Winters, Sonya Walger) that it helps to compensate for the weaker moments from Headey and Thomas Dekker.

Still lots of work to be done, but this felt like a step in the right direction.

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

In Treatment, week three: Laura

And I hope this episode of "In Treatment," like last week's Jake & Amy installment, has finally shown people why it's kind of essential to watch all five episodes each week. Try to imagine watching tonight's Alex episode without having seen last night's Laura show, right? Fire away with your thoughts in the comments. Click here to read the full post

Strike Survival TV Club: Cupid, "Grand Delusions"

In theory, the writers strike is less than 24 hours away from being over, but since most shows won't be able to finish new episodes until sometime in late March or early April, we still have plenty of time to deal with the final four "Cupid" episodes. (After I'm done with these, though, I may table plans to move on to "Sports Night" and/or "The Wire" season one, as my schedule will start getting much busier with new product in the pipeline.)

Spoilers for "Grand Delusions" coming up just as soon as I slurp through a straw...

Oh, this one I like very much. It's funny, and sad, and touching, and sweet. It hits all the notes -- and not just the ones played by Claire's jazzman father.

When your hero is a man who believes he's a Greek god (or may be a Greek god turned into a man), it shouldn't work to pile even more crazy on top of that. And yet teaming Trevor up with a man who thinks he's Don Quixote (a fictional character whose own delusions are his defining trait) produces one of the best episodes of the series.

Much of that is to the credit of guest star Patrick Fabian (almost unrecognizable from the way he looks today, even though he's aged well). As Rob Thomas notes below, he's the rare "Cupid" guest star who upstages Jeremy Piven, and he finds a way to make "Don" (really a man named Robert Cunningham who cracked up after he killed his wife in a drunk driving accident) seem charming even as it's clear he's far more psychologically damaged than Trevor. (If, of course, you believe that Trevor is crazy and not Cupid.)

The parallels between Cunningham and Trevor are, of course, the heart of the episode. Trevor's our main character, and even if you go with the idea that he's delusional, it's clear by now that it's about as healthy as a delusion can be. He's capable of living in the world, finding and keeping a job, making friends (though not girlfriends), and even his psychologist admits (back in "First Loves") that it's a delusion we should all be so lucky to be in the orbit of.

With Robert Cunningham, we see the downside of romantic delusion, and understand more why Claire is trying so hard to "cure" Trevor. Cunningham's delusion may be charming to some, like his stripper Dulcinea, Mona Lovesong (Daphne Ashbrook), but more often than not it invites punches to the face (which Trevor intercepts in the teaser) or outright beatings (which Cunningham receives from the bouncer at Mona's club). If he didn't have Trevor hanging around him to act as translator and peacemaker, Cunningham might have wound up hospitalized far sooner.

And in the sad, beautiful final scene of this story, when Mona visits Robert in the psych ward and gets him to embrace reality by telling him her own real name, we understand just how debilitating even the most charming delusion can be. If Trevor is a man with psychological problems, who knows what kind of trauma lurks beneath all that banter and bluster? Who knows whether he's heading for a meltdown that would make the bedroom freak-out in "Pick-Up Schticks" look like a minor tantrum fueled by low blood sugar? Claire may not always be a good person (see the book material from the previous episode), but she means well for Trevor, and we see in this episode why she cares so much.

Claire suffers from her own delusions in this episode, as her musician dad Bill (Barry Newman) comes to town with the promise of settling down with the first straight job of his life so he can make it up to Claire after all his decades on the road. It's clear almost from the start that Bill isn't cut out to be a suit, and my fear (from not remembering how this plot played out) was that we would go for the cliche ending where Claire gets her hopes up about the old man, only to discover that he took the traveling musician job at the last minute and only left her a note. Instead, Claire (and the script) is smart enough to figure out that Bill's heart really is on the road, and so she gives him her blessing to blow out of town again. You know it hurts her to do that -- Paula Marshall has rarely been better than she is at the end, as Claire watches Bill play a song he wrote about her and tries to balance her love of her dad with the way she always misses him -- but she's an intelligent woman who knows the human mind well enough to realize this is what's best for her dad, and, by extension, her. Had she asked Bill to stay, I imagine within six months their relationship would have gone sour as he subconsciously blamed her for making him take the talent scout job.

And now it's time for Rob Remembers, where "Cupid" creator (past and maybe future) Rob Thomas offers his own take on each episode

"Grand Delusions" is one of my favorite Cupid episodes. Patrick Fabian, who played Don Quixote in the episode, is, perhaps, the only guest star who stole scenes from Jeremy, though, to be fair, Jeremy happily played straight man to the "crazier" Don Quixote. Patrick has since been a go-to actor for me. He played Veronica's flawed criminal justice professor on Veronica Mars. He's in a comedy pilot I co-wrote that we're hoping to sell post-strike called Party Down.

Our editor, Jim Page, was a real hero on the episode. It was his idea to put in the Spanish guitar stings to underline the comedy. It's one of my favorite touches in the episode.

I just Netflixed the 1971 classic car chase movie "Vanishing Point" because I realized that Barry Newman was the star. Barry played Claire's dad, and he was a pleasure to work with. I've been wanting for years to do a journalism show, but networks are dead-set against it, because there's never been a successful one. (Even Lou Grant lost it's time slot every week.) Barry played one of the last crusading journalists in Deadline. I told him that I blamed him for killing the genre.

I don't if I'm one of the only people alive to notice this, but we have one of the worst performances all time by an extra in the final bar scene. Barry Newman is playing guitar and this idiot extra positioned behind Claire and Trevor is acting like a jackass -- flailing wildly as he's clapping, hamming it up. I can barely watch the scene because of this joker. Although I managed to make sure he never worked on Cupid again, I failed in my ultimate goal of ensuring he never worked again on any show or in any profession ever again. I simply don't have that kind of Joel Silver muscle.

Some other thoughts on "Grand Delusions":

• This episode makes very good use of Claire's assistant Jaclyn, who seems to have a crush on both Trevor and Don Quixote, and whose discussion with Claire about "How can a guy who thinks he's Cupid help a guy who thinks he's Don Quixote?" features some of the series' best non-Piven-involved banter.
• As Rob says, Piven wisely consents to play Patrick Fabian's straight man for much of the episode, but he still gets in a few funny lines as Trevor deals with taking orders, getting thrashed and even kissed by this nutbar. His delivery of "You did that again, didn't you?" after getting kissed again is a particular highlight.
• I think Champ inadvertently hits on the perfect concept for the remake: instead of doing it as another romantic anthology, we could have Cupid team up with Don Quixote (and/or other men believing themselves to be figures out of literature or mythology) to fight crime. Tell me you wouldn't watch it.
• I love the scene where Champ takes Trevor to meet Mr. Clef, the aptly-named oracle of the Chicago jazz scene. It very neatly straddles the fantasy vs. reality line (helped by Sephus Booker's strange performance as Clef) in a way that evokes the first appearance by Zeus the Bum. It's very rare to see Trevor that confused, after all.

Coming up on Friday: "Bachelorette Party," which Rob has already said he considers one of the season's two low points (though it's still markedly better than "Hung Jury"). You can watch it here, here, here, here and here.

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

Sepinwall on TV: 'Jericho' season two review

Oy, I'm not looking forward to the reader mail I'm going to get from today's "Jericho" review:

No one wants to be the jerk at a party who loudly complains that the dip tastes bad, the music is too loud and the guest of honor could stand to switch deodorants. So I would strongly advise any "Jericho" fans reading this column to stop right now and get back to celebrating what you accomplished. You brought your favorite show back from cancellation with the most effective Save Our Show campaign in decades, if not ever, and tonight you get to enjoy the first of seven season-two episodes. So go crazy, have yourself a good time and make sure you have plenty of peanuts handy. Just please, stop reading, because I'm about to say some unflattering things about "Jericho."

To read the full thing, click here. Click here to read the full post

Early ABC pick-ups for next season, plus other strike fallout

The strike is basically over (barring something strange in the WGA group vote tomorrow, everyone goes back to work on Wednesday), but as I mentioned in my story this morning, the networks are still trying to figure out which shows will actually make more episodes this season. The NY Times says that "24" has already been pushed back to 2009 (and that "Heroes" won't make any more episodes until fall), and while it's clear that most hits will be back for at least a few episodes in early spring (and that "Lost" will be able to make something close to a full season), it's still unclear what shows have aired their last original episode for the '07-'08 season. ("Chuck," for instance, isn't coming back until fall.)

To take some uncertainty out of the equation about the long-term future for some shows, ABC just announced fall pick-ups for a bunch of their shows: "Brothers & Sisters," “Desperate Housewives," "Dirty Sexy Money," "Grey's Anatomy," "Lost," "Private Practice," "Pushing Daisies," "Samantha Who?" and "Ugly Betty." So even though "Pushing Daisies" probably isn't coming back until fall, either, ABC can now say that they support that show and intend to continue with it once they have time to do a proper relaunch campaign (and don't have to schedule it opposite "American Idol.")

None of the shows on that list are really a surprise for renewal (maybe "Dirty Sexy Money," but even that did well enough to survive in this weird season), and the only scripted ABC show that I'm confident will be renewed but wasn't on the list is "Boston Legal," which often moves on its own schedule. (There was a brief period where it wasn't on the current fall schedule, for instance.)

My chief concern for the immediate future is "Scrubs," which had seven episodes left on the order for this final season. Bill Lawrence says in an interview with Ausiello that he can wrap up all the storylines in four episodes if he needs to, and that he'd likely get the budget to produce them for the final season DVD if NBC won't air them, and that Ben "But what about '30 Rock,' dude?" Silverman hasn't seemed very enthusiastic about giving the show a proper on-air send-off.

People have been asking questions about show status in the post linking to the strike column, but feel free to ask more here. I can't promise to know everything -- guys like Ausiello and Bill Carter are more plugged into this than I am -- but I'll do my best. Click here to read the full post