Reader mail: 'Sopranos' finale (3 years later), 'The Pacific' and more

Another reader mailbag column today, in which I again stand by my "Sopranos" finale theory, respond to complaints that "The Pacific" isn't really showing the entire story of the Pacific theater, and help out what must be one of The Star-Ledger's oldest readers with a bit of movie trivia. Click here to read the full post

American Idol: Top 11 results

Been otherwise occupied tonight (and try to avoid watching the whole results show anyway), but I have "American Idol" results spoilers coming right up...

So, bottom three were Katie, Tim and Paige. Katie sent back to safety quickly, Paige and Tim bottom two, Paige eliminated.

The part I did see, which was interesting, is that Simon didn't even bother trying to maintain the farce that is the Judges Save. Instead, he told Paige flat out that they weren't going to use it on her before the "sing for your life" portion, and we therefore got her goodbye speech and death montage before she finally struggled her way through "All Right Now," her voice completely shot.

I know Paige's exit goes against my "better to be awful than mediocre" elimination theory, but there are exceptions, and completely losing the ability to sing was one of them. At this point, I suspect even the Paige die-hards knew they were just prolonging her misery by keeping her there.

So we're stuck with Tim at least another week (if not longer), but the clear worst person from last night went home, and that's acceptable.

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

Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, "Banana Etiquette": Plan Voodoo child, please

A review of tonight's "Survivor" coming up just as soon as I slip on my Superman girdle...

Credit where credit is due: Russell is a smug, preening ass, but he foiled the hell out of Rob's attempt to run Plan Voodoo on him, and Tyson was unbelievably stupid enough to fall for it. (What was the risk, Tyson? In a 6-3 alliance where a tie is followed by a revote, no way Plan Voodoo should ever fail. Moron.) And some might argue that Russell's victory was a short-term one, in that he lost the idol and is still down 5-3, but his team could keep winning until the merge, and/or there might be a shuffle, and/or he might just keep finding hidden immunity idols. This was an easy shot to either get rid of him or get rid of his closest, most charming ally, and because Tyson was a putz(*), Rob's group accomplished neither.

(*) What was that Dark Helmet once said? "Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb"? Because the "Heroes" have been so inept and obnoxious, Tyson is part of what qualifies for "good" in this season.

As for the Heroes, meh. They made the right call, in that James is likely a liability in challenges, but this is two all-star stints in a row where Colby mentally checked out on the second or third day. Like Jerri, he keeps coming back because his acting career hasn't gone the way he'd hoped, but his heart's not in it, and it's hard to get the eye of the tiger back when you're cold and hungry and playing with a bunch of drips like Amanda and Rupert.

I don't like double-eliminations in theory, because they penalize a team that's kicking ass (Tom's Palau team also suffered one of those, though they just cut one of their deadweight players), but it's been so long since the Villains went to Tribal, or since we'd seen any major strategizing from them, that it was a relief for a week. I'm sure next week we'll be back to seeing the Heroes flounder while Russell wanders around gloating about his awesomeness, but at least this week he got to walk the talk.

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

Firewall & Iceberg podcast, episode 9: Caprica, V, Survivor and more

In case you're somehow still not tired of me talking on podcasts this week, the new episode of Firewall & Iceberg is up and ready. NJ.com has the rundown, as well as the usual links for downloading, streaming, subscribing, etc. Click here to read the full post

Parenthood, "Wassup": The five-timers club

A review of last night's "Parenthood" coming up just as soon as I look for anything that smells like Yo-Yo...

One of the best, most unexpected parts of "Friday Night Lights" is the portrayal of the Taylor family - not just the compelling equal partnership between Coach and Mrs. Coach, but how the two of them have dealt with teenage daughter Julie's growing pains over the last few years. And one of the stylistic trademarks Jason Katims and company took to that show, and specifically to depicting that family unit at the center, is how much is left unsaid in the dialogue and left to very expressive actors like Kyle Chandler, Connie Britton and Aimee Teegarden to convey. You learn as much about the Taylors' parenting style from what they don't say as from what they do.

With "Parenthood," Katims has taken a different, more overt approach. Everybody spells out their feelings and motivations at every turn. That's probably a more commercially-viable approach (people don't always look to their heartwarming family dramas for rich subtext), but the contrast in styles was particularly noticeable in an episode like "Wassup," which spent so much time focusing on the teenage members of the extended Braverman family (plus arrested adolescent Crosby). "FNL" hasn't always been perfect in how it shows Julie's teen rebellion, but watching Haddie at odds with her parents, or Drew shrink in embarrassment at everyone trying to talk about masturbation with him(*), or Amber confront her mom about being spied on, I found myself wishing for less telling and more showing.

(*) That plot, by the way, more or less comes from the movie, where Dianne Wiest catches Leaf (soon to be Joaquin) Phoenix with a paper sack full of pornos. I will say, though, that even in 2010, at 10 o'clock on a network that aired "Friends" at 8 o'clock forever, that seemed to be a franker, more extensive discussion of masturbation than I was expecting.

As I said on Bill Simmons's podcast yesterday, when there's a cast this big, there are going to be characters and stories that you like, and then others you have to endure to get to the ones you like. So beyond the speechiness (which I would say wasn't too different from previous installments), I also didn't love "Wassup" because they were spending a lot of time with characters I'm either not invested in yet (Haddie) or ones I don't particularly like (Julia). With the former group, sooner or later the show has to start giving the minor characters material if we're ever going to care about them, but with somebody like Julia (where Erika Christensen seems very miscast), what can you do? This isn't a hospital show where George Clooney can leave and Goran Visjnic can come in; the Bravermans are the Bravermans are the Bravermans, and if they have to resort to bringing in the long-lost second cousin from Duluth to fill the void of a sibling who isn't working out, that'll just be awkward. Julia's moment with Crosby on the houseboat was nice, but she still has a long way to go before I believe her as either a member of the family or the high-powered career woman she's been sold as.

Didn't love the episode (and have to assume there are easier ways for parents to find out what's on their daughter's Facebook page than to hack her own laptop), but hopefully next week the focus will shift to some other stories I care about more.

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

American Idol, Top 11: Billboard #1 Hits Night

A review of last night's "American Idol" performances coming up just as soon as my gimmick is a carpet...

At one point, this was supposed to be Teen Idol Night, and for whatever reason - maybe because mentor Miley Cyrus objected to the idea? - it changed to Billboard #1 Hits Night, which is one of those amorphous "choose your own theme" nights that lets each contestant stay in his or her comfort zone. And that in turn makes for a much less interesting show than ones with more specific themes; even if the theme has no application to pop music and doesn't fit most of the contestants, it can be entertaining to see how they each try to make it work. This, on the other hand, was dullsville - as Simon said, bluntly, "Tonight, for me, was not a good night overall." - where even the one truly strong performance (Crystal) was exactly what you might have expected that singer to do.

In order...

Lee Dewyze, "The Letter": This song would have technically qualified for a Teen Idol Night, as Alex Chilton was only 16 when The Box Tops recorded this one. I don't know if DeWyze knew about Chilton, and I'm sure Simon neither knows nor cares (Big Star is the kind of cult favorite he has no use for), but the song has had an "Idol" presence since at least season four, and this was an odd arrangement of it. I never would have pegged Lee as a guy to go all lounge act, but it was, between the suit, the horns and his stage presence sans guitar. Not that interesting, save for a couple of big notes in the middle, and he lost the thread near the end.

Paige Miles, "Against All Odds": Speaking of songs with an "Idol" history, this one has been repeatedly butchered (here's Corey Clark killing it in season two), and Paige once again inflicted maximum damage upon the works of Phil Collins. Strained, warbly, and lifeless all at the same time. Even grading on a curve for her cold (which actually kind of worked for her last week), that was awful.

Tim Urban, "Crazy Little Thing Called Love": A few years ago, when somebody (Taylor Hicks?) sang this, I noted that the degree of difficulty is so low that it's the song I would pick if I somehow wound up on that stage (and I can't sing at all). Lots of big stage moves to play to the auditorium, but he was barely even singing for most of it. The reggae "Under My Thumb" was horribly ill-conceived, but at least he was trying something there. This was just lazy.

Aaron Kelly, "Don't Want to Miss a Thing": I haven't been a fan of Aaron, and I cringe every year when this song (my least favorite Aerosmith hit) makes its annual "Idol" appearance, but this was surprisingly decent - particularly if you grade Aaron on a curve for his double case of -itis. He strained in spots, but not as much as he so often does in the weeks when he's been healthier. And he's a damn site better than Tim.

Crystal Bowersox, "Me and Bobby McGee": Of course Crystal would sing Janis if given the chance. Of course she would. But unlike some previous Joplin wannabes on "Idol," Crystal has the voice and musicianship and stagecraft to pull it off. She's just operating at a much higher level than anyone else so far this year (even Siobhan) that it almost doesn't seem fair to give her such a fat pitch down the center of the plate like this. Just a pleasure to watch and to listen to, and she finally started showing some personality in her interaction with the judges afterwards. At this point, my only fears are that she's not current enough to win, and that the judges will start getting bored with her and playing the "you're our resident professional" card around Top 6 or 5.

Michael Lynche, "When a Man Loves a Woman": Kind of the quintessential Michael Lynche performance: solid, entertaining, likable, competent, but not that spectacular. (And I'm surprised he didn't use his falsetto more, as it's probably the one part of his range that sounds like more than just really good karaoke.)

Andrew Garcia, "I Heard It Through the Grapevine": When Miley told Andrew to ditch his guitar, I thought, "Well, if he goes home tomorrow, it's her fault." But I doubt the guitar would have improved things. Sure, his stage moves are mostly clumsy - save for the moonwalk we failed to see because bumbling "Idol" director Bruce Gowers once again cut away from the one interesting thing to look at on stage - but even with the guitar as security blanket, this was still a lifeless arrangement, and one that challenged Andrew vocally only slightly more than Tim. At a certain point, we've got to let "Straight Up" go and just accept that this isn't a particularly good venue for the guy.

Katie Stevens, "Big Girls Don't Cry": God, I hate this song (Fergie's a pox on modern music). Katie was okay, though she started out too low and there were the usual pitch issues. But overall, another really bland performance on a bland night.

Casey James, "The Power of Love": This seems like kind of the quintessential Casey song, in that Huey Lewis and the News were essentially a kick-ass bar band that improbably hit it big for a while(*). Casey doesn't nearly have Huey's range, though (even if he'd had 30 more seconds to play with, I bet he would have skipped the "they say that all in love is fair" bridge to avoid the key change). Like so much on the night, Casey hit the marks and not much more.

(*) When the News were huge, Bobcat Goldthwait had this great bit in his act about how, if you saw Huey walking down the street, "You wouldn't go, 'Hey, isn't that America's #1 rock star?' You'd go, 'Isn't that a friend of my dad?'"

Didi Benami, "You're No Good": Last week, Didi managed to sell the emotions of her song without coming across like an actress. This week, she pushed it too far; it was like a slinkier version of those artificial pageant-y performances that Diana DeGarmo used to give every week. And the song wasn't a good match for her voice.

Siobhan Magnus, "Superstition": The faux-hawk and the outfit made for probably her best look to date, but this was paint-by-numbers Siobhan: start out low (a bit too low this time), move around, then scream. The build up to the scream didn't feel as natural as it did last week, and this time it actually sounded like shrieking, where in some previous performances it just sounded like she had a really powerful upper register.

Best of the night: Crystal. Nobody else close.

In danger: Paige will be in the bottom three again, but under my "it's better to be awful than mediocre" theory of "Idol" eliminations, I wouldn't be surprised to see somebody like Andrew, Tim or even Lee (who was unmemorable and had to go first in a very long show) go home ahead of her.

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

Lost, "Ab Aeterno": The man behind the shackles

A review of tonight's "Lost" coming up just as soon as you fetch me some blankets...

"You've suffered enough, Ricardo." -Isabella

It's been almost three years since "The Man Behind the Curtain" aired and viewers saw that Richard Alpert doesn't appear to age. In the ensuing time, the question about why he doesn't has shot to the top of the "Lost" Mysteries That Must Be Solved list - basically the opposite of "where did Jack get those bitchin' tattoos?" - and anticipation built and built for the Richard flashback episode we all knew we'd get sooner or later(*).

(*) Or, at least, we all knew it once CBS canceled Cane and the "Lost" producers were able to lock down Nestor Carbonell's services for these last two seasons. Imagine how annoyed we'd all be if "Cane" had succeeded, and not just because "Cane" sucked.

In other words, "Ab Aetern" had a lot to live up to - maybe more than any episode we're going to get this season other than the finale itself.

And it absolutely lived up to my expectations.

On one level, it answered a whole bunch of "Lost" questions, some long-standing, some relatively recent but crucial:

• Why doesn't Richard age? Because he asked Jacob for that gift to avoid eternal damnation after Jacob couldn't resurrect his wife or absolve him of his sins.

• How did the statue crumble into a four-toed foot? The Black Rock smashed it to pieces on its journey into the island.

• How did the Black Rock wind up in the middle of the jungle? Because Jacob whipped up one hell of a storm to make sure it landed on the island and couldn't leave.

• What's this game that Jacob and Smokey are playing? Jacob - while playing jailkeeper to the evil that Smokey represents (with the island as "the cork in the bottle") - is trying to prove Smokey wrong in his belief that man is inherently prone to sin, and so brings people to the island to perform in one morality play after another.

• If this whole series has just been one elaborate game between two immortal god-like creatures, why should we care about any action the characters take? Because Jacob is a hands-off deity who believes in free will for all those he brings to the island (as he told Ben before he killed him, "You have a choice"). So whatever actions Jacob took on the mainland to steer them here, what we've seen Jack and Locke and the rest actually do on Craphole Island has been entirely their own doing. (And that in turn takes away one of my big concerns about this final season.)

But if "Ab Aeterno" was just a checklist of answers, it would have been a fairly inert outing (as I've found some previous mythology-intensive episodes like season four's "Cabin Fever").

What made this one a highlight not only of the final season, but of the series' entire run, was what made "Lost" so compelling at the beginning, before hatches and fertility experiments and time-traveling Scotsmen and the rest of the mythology (which I really do like): it was both a great character piece and a white-knuckle thriller.

Carbonell (who once upon a time was known only as The Guy With the Funny Accent on "Suddenly Susan") owned this episode just as much as Michael Emerson did "Dr. Linus" or Terry O'Quinn did "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham." For three-plus seasons, Richard's been the serene, all-knowing man of mystery, and Carbonell was superb at showing both a cracked, suicidal Richard who has decided he actually knows nothing, and then at showing the very human man he was before Jacob made him immortal. Like "The Constant" (another "Lost" all-timer), we had a time-spanning romance, and if it wasn't one with quite the happy ending that Desmond and Penny got (for now), at least Ricardo finally got a proper goodbye from his beloved Isabella, and her love renewed his belief that he chose the right side of this conflict all those decades ago.

And if we had gotten no relevant answers but every minute of Richard's harrowing ordeal shackled below decks in a ship full of dead men(**), I still would have found "Ab Aeterno" to be an immensely satisfying hour.

(**) There's long been a mutual admiration society between Lindelof, Cuse and Stephen King, and as I watched Richard struggle to free himself of those chains, my thoughts started to turn to King's "Gerald's Game."

Like I've said and said and said, I care about "Lost" answers much less than I care about being entertained. "Ab Aeterno" offered both answers (or, in some cases, important clarifications) and entertainment in spades. If I wasn't so tired, I might pull a John Locke and declare my need to watch it again, immediately.

Some other thoughts:

• I also don't think it's a coincidence that an episode this good was also the first of the season to do without the flash-sideways (and to bring back the more familiar "whoosh" sound effect for the flashbacks). Not only was Richard's story so compelling that we were able to spend the majority of the episode in an uninterrupted flashback, but we know going in that everything we were seeing has relevance to the story we've been following all these seasons. The sideways probably have relevance, but we don't know what that is yet, so those stories tend to succeed or fail almost entirely on whether we have pre-existing affection for the spotlight character. The flashback was not only a ripping yarn on its own, but something that requires no explanation at a later date to be fully appreciated.

• Smokey adopting Locke's form gives the producers an excuse to keep Terry O'Quinn employed, but I have to say that it was nice to see Titus Welliver again as Smokey Classic. He has such great screen presence and darkness and was a very convincing trickster devil in his scenes with Ricardo. (I remember him turning up in a small role as an "ER" doctor in an early "NYPD Blue" episode and asking myself, "Who the hell is this guy?" I was not surprised to see David Milch kept employing Welliver, until "Deadwood" finally raised his profile enough that he now works regularly on shows like this.)

• And the flashback structure also gave us a long glimpse of Mark Pellegrino as Jacob. Interesting to see a much crankier Jacob in his first meeting with Ricardo; this sure seemed like the first time (or first time in a long while) that Smokey tried to break the rules and use a pawn to try to kill Jacob. And note that Smokey's warning to Ricardo about not letting Jacob say a single word is exactly what Dogen told Sayid about Smokey a few weeks back.

• "Everyone's dead and this is Hell" was one of the earliest fan theories about the nature of the island, so it seemed a nice touch for Richard to spend so much of this episode (first in the past, then in the present) believing it to be true.

• As one of my Twitter followers pointed out, it's been a big week for Tenerife on TV. First Walter White talked about it in his speech in the "Breaking Bad" season premiere, and here it's the home of Ricardo and Isabella before her untimely death and his imprisonment.

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

Justified, "Riverbrook": You, me and Dupree

A review of the second episode of "Justified" coming up just as soon as I talk to a one-time exotic dancer...

Of the four episodes of "Justified" I've seen, "Riverbrook" was definitely the weakest of the bunch - not bad, but a definite comedown from the thrills, chills and laughs of the pilot, and not as strong at working without an Elmore Leonard safety net as the third or (particularly) fourth episode.

Again, you can't underestimate how big an issue that is. Graham Yost borrowed large chunks of Leonard's dialogue from "Fire in the Hole" for the pilot, and while I think it would have been folly to try creating Leonard soundalike dialogue going forward(*), there's definitely less snap to a lot of the banter in this one.

(*) Jason Smilovic and company did okay with that on "Karen Sisco," but in general Leonard's authorial voice is so distinctive that a bad imitator would stick out much worse than not trying to copy him at all.

There were still some very funny moments, like the party guest calling for "Freebird," or Art giving Raylan a hard time about losing his gun, badge and hat to Cooper the bank robber. And some cool running gags, too, like Tim the ex-sniper telling Raylan about he learned to create "stories" about each of his potential targets, until the idea caused some snipers (and, it's implied, him) to have some killer's remorse, which led to the great payoff where Tim described his story about Dupree: "Yeah, if he does anything out of line, I get to shoot him."

My problem with the episode, I think, came largely from the Cooper/Dupree/Shirley side of things. Given the nature of a Marshal's job, and the way that Leonard himself structures most of his stories, the bad guys have to be as important to every story as the good guys. And that can work if Raylan's quarry is played by someone as instantly-colorful as Walton Goggins (who returns briefly as Boyd at the top), or if the writing for the guest characters is really spot on (as it is in the fourth episode). But Cooper was never a compelling enough character for me to want to spend long stretches of the episode with him, and away from Raylan. Tim Olyphant sets such a high bar that the show is going to need to be really smart with how it writes and casts the guest stars, or else the show is going to tip heavily to one side.

(That, or they'll need to rethink how they apportion screen time, and that has its own pitfalls; if we're not in any way invested in Raylan's targets, then things get repetitive.)

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

The Sports Guy and I talk TV, take two

I made my second guest appearance on today's installment of "The B.S. Report with Bill Simmons" podcast, in which The Sports Guy and I ran through an awful lot of mid-season TV topics, spending a while on certain shows ("Justified," "Lost") and going more rapid-fire through some of the other goodness that's airing over the next couple of months (like me, Bill is a fan of "Party Down," pictured above).

The exchange at the very end of the hour-long show could have serious ramifications on the dynamic of tomorrow's Firewall & Iceberg podcast.

(Also, if you're somehow not sick of hearing me after an hour with Simmons and the usual long talk with Fienberg, I was also a guest on this week's episode of Local TV Now. And if you missed my first "B.S. Report" stint back in October and/or the interview I did with Simmons about "30 for 30," you can find both here.) Click here to read the full post

How I Met Your Mother, "Say Cheese": Stroll down Skank Lane

A review of last night's "How I Met Your Mother" coming up just as soon as I compose a song for the evening...

After a long string of episodes that were primarily about Barney, "Say Cheese" turned the focus on the two most problematic members of the ensemble in Ted and Lily. Ted's the series lead, but his romantic impulsiveness, his occasional d-bag tendencies and the unending tease that is his search for the Mother sometimes makes "HIMYM" feel like a show that works in spite of its premise, rather than because of it. And while Lily makes a good comic/romantic partner for Marshall, stories that are primarily about her often make her come across as shrill, controlling and unlikable.

But by putting both characters in the middle of a vintage "HIMYM" trip through time, space and the series' own continuity, and by having each character confront the others' most annoying traits head-on, "Say Cheese" turned out to be one of the strongest episodes of what's been an uneven fifth season.

Yes, Ted's tendency to fall in love with every woman he meets drives everybody nuts, but he got called out on it, just as Lilly had to deal with everyone else's irritation at her control freak ways. The show has to do this now and again to keep both characters in line, and it was done here in the context of an episode that hung a lot of jokes on each character's flaws, whether it was Marshall's inability to take a good picture(*) or Ted's Random Skanks constantly ruining group get-togethers.

(*) I have to say, though, that the Marshall-with-his-eyes-closed running gag was funnier before the episode started calling attention to it.

While most of the short-lived exes were new, it was nice to see Laura Prepon again as the horrid Karen (and the use of whatever French hip-hop song that was really livened up Marshall's worst plane flight ever), and I had completely forgotten that Anne Dudek guest-starred in the series' fourth episode ever (even though that was one of the episodes I covered in my blog's eighth post ever). Dudek's not famous enough for that to qualify as a "Before They Were Famous" appearance; could we go with "Before They Were Cutthroat Bitch on 'House'"?

Also, I got to the episode late last night and therefore didn't have the energy to start Zapruder'ing the "One Year Later" scene to look for clues about the state of various relationships (specifically, Barn-Man and Robin) the way I have with previous flash-forwards, but I'm sure some of you did. Anything useful?

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

Mad Men season 3 DVD: Great episodes, so-so bonus features

Short column today, reviewing the "Mad Men" season 3 DVD set, in which the abundance of great bonus features on the first couple of sets starts to catch up with the people responsible for putting this one together.

Still, great episodes, and nice (unlike some other recent sets like "Breaking Bad" and "Chuck") to come out so far in advance of the next season (presumably late summer again) to give new and old fans plenty of time to catch up. Click here to read the full post

United States of Tara," Yes": Everytime I think I'm out...

I wrote about "United States of Tara" as part of today's column. A review of the season premiere coming up just as soon as I dance to "Jai Ho"...

"I bet everyone thought I'd be the one to off myself. Guess what, Oak Avenue? The lady with the multipe personalities is not the most messed-up one on the block." -Tara
"You are now." -Kate

"Tara" didn't end on a cliffhanger, but a big development happened to Tara over the hiatus: due, no doubt, to all the problems that the alters caused last season, Tara has gone back on her meds (and found a cocktail that doesn't seem to have as many debilitating side effects), the alters have gone away, and the Gregsons have gone through a kind of golden period. Kate graduated high school early, Marshall's made new friends, Charmaine and Nick are shopping for a bed together, and everyone seems calm and happy.

Then a shot rings out on Oak Avenue, and the suicide of Mr. Hubberd starts to unravel that sense of peace that Tara and company have been enjoying. Given temporary custody of the home of a man who worked very long and hard at killing himself, Tara starts losing her grip on her body and mind, and Buck (always the one to take over first when Tara feels afraid) slips out and starts making a move on Pammy, the bartender played by Joey Lauren Adams(*).

(*) Adams has played plenty of roles in her career other than Alyssa Jones in "Chasing Amy," but as soon as Buck started flirting with Pammy, I said, "Of course! Who else would you cast in this part?"

Back at press tour, I interviewed Diablo Cody after having seen the season's first few episodes. Because my schedule's brutal right now, and because we ultimately wound up talking about a lot of things that would spoil upcoming shows, I'm going to dip into parts of the interview when I can, and when it's relevant. The interesting part for our purposes in this episode is that Cody and the writers viewed the Hubberd house as "kind of an alter for the Gregson's house." Same street, same neighborhood, but everything's off (the dated decor, the weird dusk-like quality of the light), and it's not hard to imagine how spending a little time in that place might let Tara's demons loose.

Still, it was nice to see everybody doing well for a while, and to see Max trying to keep things that way, as he kept trying to change the subject away from suicide at the dinner party. We saw last season in the episode with Tara's parents that Max has spent a lot of time coming up with strategies to keep Tara-as-Tara, but there was a sense of desperation this time. Having his wife be his wife while also not being fogged-out by meds is something that has to be really intoxicating after so many years of headaches, and you can understand why Max would want to wrap his arms so tightly around this version of the family's reality, and also why he'd be so freaked to see the apron out and assume Alice is the one wearing it.

"Yes" is mainly a table-setter of an episode, introducing the Hubberd house, gay neighbors Ted and Hanny (Ted played by the always-wonderful Michael Hitchcock, Marshall's involvement with the more openly-gay kids at school, Kate's new job(**), Pammy, etc.

(**) As I said in the column, Kate's storyline is again the obvious weak spot. I like Brie Larson, but it feels like putting her in another goofy workplace storyline isn't the way to go. Cody said they wanted to do it because Larson comes across like "such an old soul" that the writers never enjoyed putting her in typical teenager situations, but they've managed the old-soul-in-high-school issue just fine with Marshall.

Buck's out, and now the trouble starts. I look forward to talking about all of it with you.

Some other thoughts:

• The song playing over the montage of happiness at the beginning was "Care of Cell" by The zombies.

• Last season, Marshall's school didn't seem to be that filled with openly-gay students like Lionel: Cody's argument is that Marshall was still struggling to accept his own gayness (even while chasing after Jason), and he therefore steered clear of the kids sitting at the Gayble.

• I liked that Max and Tara are out enjoying a date at the bar and suggesting that Charmaine would be the one in the family most likely to kill herself at the exact moment Charmaine is getting an engagement ring from Nick. And also that Charaine felt compelled to tell Nick at the dinner party that Tara's condition is in no way hereditary.

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

Chuck, "Chuck vs. the Final Exam": The Kobayashi Maru

A review of tonight's "Chuck" coming up just as soon as I put some new feathers on you...

"It looks like you're going to get everything that you always wanted." -Sarah

"Chuck vs. the Final Exam" was written back at a point when it would be the 11th out of 13 hours this season, not 11th out of 19. Schwartz and Fedak have said the original 13 episodes more or less continued to be produced as an intact unit, so this is the point when the original season arcs really start kicking into gear, as Operation Bartowski appears to come to an end: Chuck passes his final spy test (albeit with secret, illegal help from Casey), Sarah prepares to move to Washington with Shaw (definitely as colleagues, and possibly as more), and Casey has to mostly embrace civilian life (even as he makes time for a bit of freelance killin' on Chuck's behalf). And after a few months of hemming and hawing, Chuck and Sarah finally have a moment where both are interested in discussing their feelings at the same time, and preparing to kiss each other, when work again gets in the way, first with Shaw's radio call(*), then with Sarah's mistaken belief that Chuck has become a killer - and become it for her.

(*) At least this interruption felt natural and part of the plot, as opposed to Sarah arbitrarily changing the subject on Chuck last week.

In order to get the characters to these big crossroads, Zev Borow's script has to throw in more than your usual fair share of "Chuck" plot contrivances. Chuck, for instance, gets placed in a no-win scenario: either he passes the test and is assigned away from Sarah (and, whether he's entirely aware of it or not, completes his transformation into someone Sarah feels she can't love anymore), or he fails and... what? Becomes a civilian with no government oversight, in spite of having a souped-up Intersect in his head? (Whatever happened to the days when Beckman was ready to have Casey put a bullet between Chuck's eyes rather than let him "retire"? And this was back when Chuck wasn't half as dangerous as he is now.) Wouldn't there be talk about the team reverting back to its old configuration, with Sarah and a killer-to-be-named-later as handlers and Chuck waiting in the car?

And, of course, you have to swallow a lot to believe Casey would just let his cover job at the Buy More become his new career, as opposed to becoming a mercenary or security specialist or some other far more lucrative and exciting profession that takes advantage of his propensity for a bit of the old ultra-violence. That he follows Chuck on his final exam and kills the bad guy for him suggests that he really does care about Chuck and can't quite bring himself to leave, but all his earlier scenes at the Buy More are written (and played by Adam Baldwin) as if Casey has no idea what he's supposed to do next with his life.

(A few readers last week wondered if perhaps Casey's situation was like Michael Westen's on "Burn Notice," where he's basically cut off from the military-intelligence community. If so, I would absolutely watch a Baldwin-centric spin-off with Casey stuck at the Buy More while being a vigilante-for-hire and trying to find a way back in from the cold. And in lieu of Michael's voiceover narration, each episode could be liberally sprinkled with Casey Facts.)

But if I had to suspend my disbelief more than usual, it was worth it. "Chuck vs. the Final Exam" continued this terrific post-Olympics run, providing suspense (will/did Chuck kill Hunter?), romance (Chuck treating Sarah to the world's most romantic stakeout, with plenty of callbacks to season one's "Chuck vs. the Sizzling Shrimp"), and comedy (Big Mike mentors Casey the interim Ass Man).

After Sarah has been frosty towards Chuck for so much of the season, a scene like the stakeout-cum-date was a very potent reminder of Zachary Levi and Yvonne Strahovski's chemistry, and why so many fans are pulling for these crazy kids to make it work. Ditto the scene at Union Station, where Chuck is all psyched up for a romantic night with the woman of his dreams, only for Sarah to crush those dreams (and in turn to be crushed when Chuck appears to go through with the assignment). Some really high-caliber work done by both leads in both those scenes.

And if the two seem further away than ever at episode's end, I've got faith that these last two episodes of season 3.0 are going to finally bring these two crazy kids together for more than interrupted make-out sessions so shippers and non-shippers alike can live in peace and harmony and the show can move on to its next great dilemma: like how to get Team Bartowski back together, and specifically how to get John Casey his colonel's eagles back.

Casey's interruption during Chuck's red test complicates matters for both him and Chuck. Casey, of course, has now committed murder without any kind of government-issued license to kill to cover him, but I'm also not sure what kind of favor he did Chuck - at least, assuming Beckman wasn't going to order Chuck's death again. If the job Chuck is training for requires the ability to kill from time to time, and Chuck still can't bring himself to do it (both of his "kills" from season two were accidents)... well, isn't Casey just setting Chuck up to fail - or, worse, get himself killed because his opponents will have no such compunction?

But I'm sure the writers thought that problem through, even if Casey didn't, and Chuck's continued skittishness about homicide will play an important role in these next two episodes. And I'm hopeful that the spy stuff will be as much fun as it was here, with Chuck busting out the kung fu in a steam bath, and winding up nude on a hotel balcony to get a good look at the bad guy. ("I am a naked spy!")

Again, the idea of Casey choosing continued employment at the Buy More is pretty goofy, even by "Chuck" standards, but as we saw with the Casey/Morgan team-up in "Chuck vs. First Class," Casey having to carry out actual Buy More duties is a comedy goldmine. And the stakes are even higher here because, at the moment, Casey doesn't seem to have a real job to fall back on if he can't stop himself from punching Lester.

Where Jeff and Lester were mostly harmless in the first two seasons (give or take Lester's brief turn as Ass Man, and various scams), the duo have become much more antagonistic towards our heroes (Morgan included) this season, and it's been a very smart use of Vik Sahay and Scott Krinsky. Their sheer delight at forcing Casey to eat Jeff's sandwich while Lester lists all the places Jeff's mouth could have been ("fire hydrants!") was hilarious, as was Baldwin playing Casey's struggle to follow Big Mike's teaching.

Two more episodes from what was the original season 3 run, then two weeks off for reruns, then Season 3.1 kicks off in late April. Based on how the show's been bringing it lately, I'm very excited.

Some other thoughts on "Chuck vs. the Final Exam":

• This week in "Chuck" music: Hall & Oates' "Private Eyes" (Chuck puts it on the iPod during the stakeout, just as he used it in a stakeout mix in "Sizzling Shrimp"), "Permalight" by Rogue Wave (Sarah invites Chuck to dinner at Union Station) and "In My Sleep" by Austin Hartley-Leonard (Sarah tells him that he has to kill Perry).

• This week in "Chuck" pop culture references: Anatoly's cover name is Ivan Drago, who was, of course, the steroid-abusing, Apollo Creed-killing commie bastard villain of "Rocky IV." Two Drago clips for ya: his catchphrase and Rocky and Drago's training montage, scored to the not-at-all-dated-no-matter-what-you-say sounds of John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band.

• The supporting cast availability is flip-flopped from last week, with Morgan, Ellie and Awesome absent, and Big Mike and Jeffster! back in the fold.

• Two weeks ago, we got our first Subway sandwich sighting of the season, and here, we go whole-hog, with a long scene set at the mall's Subway shop, complete with Jeff ordering his own creation (the Tunaroni), and Big Mike uttering what should be the chain's new slogan: "Subway can soothe the tummy and the soul."

And speaking of one-time "Chuck" savior Subway, many people (including Josh Schwartz) were very concerned when the show's ratings last week dropped 17% from the week before, even though the CBS comedies were in repeats and ABC was in between "The Bachelor" and "Dancing with the Stars." You can pin most of the blame on Daylight Savings Time, since it's been a trend in recent seasons that nearly every show (particularly shows in the 8 o'clock hour) suffers when DST begins, because people are staying out longer and watching less TV. On the same night, "House" was down a similar amount.

The difference, of course, is that "House" can stand to lose 17% of its audience a lot more easily than "Chuck" can. I still believe NBC's problems are too big and widespread for "Chuck" to not come back next year, even if it's just as cannon fodder until other parts of the schedule can stabilize. (If they try to come back in the fall with a schedule that's primarily composed of new shows, they're gonna get killed.) But I could certainly say that with more confidence based on the ratings circa "Chuck vs. the Beard" than I could after last week's numbers. A fan campaign like last year's isn't going to work again. All that matters at this point are two numbers: the ratings the show pulls over the rest of the season, and the license fee Warner Bros. is willing to agree to for a fourth season. All we can do is watch (and encourage anyone we might know with a Nielsen box to watch), wait and hope.

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

There is a new blog logo. Discuss.

New week means a new blog logo. This theme shouldn't be too tough to figure out, but it's been sitting in my reserve pile for so long that I wanted to use it already, particularly since "Castle" begins an entertaining two-parter with Dana Delany tonight.

(I should also say that the thing about "Bones" that qualifies it for the theme has always been one of the things that's bugged me most about the show, as I simply don't believe it would be true of the character.)

As a reminder, this post features links to, and explanations for, all the previous logos. Click here to read the full post

'Nurse Jackie' & 'United States of Tara' reviews: Sepinwall on TV

In today's column, I review the new seasons of "Nurse Jackie" and "United States of Tara." As you can tell by reading it, I was more of a fan of "Tara" season two than "Jackie," and given what a hellacious spring this is for me as a guy who writes about TV, my plan for now is to give "Tara" the episode-by-episode treatment while either skipping over "Jackie" altogether or touching on it from time to time if I have thoughts on a specific episode.

So, back tonight at 11 with a separate "Tara" premiere review, and if you want to talk about the "Jackie" premiere, feel free to do it here. Click here to read the full post

Breaking Bad, "No Mas": Say hi to the bad guy

"Breaking Bad," one of the best dramas on TV, is back. I reviewed the new season generally in Friday's column, and I have a spoiler-y review of the season premiere coming up just as soon as I give my car keys to a goat...

"People move on. They just move on. And we will move on. We will get past this. Because that is what human beings do. We survive. We survive and we overcome." -Walt

"You either run from things, or you face them, Mr. White... I learned it in rehab, it's all about accepting who you really are. I accept who I am." -Jesse
"And who are you?" -Walt
"I'm the bad guy." -Jesse

"You're a drug dealer." -Skyler

Season two of "Breaking Bad" opened on a bit of macabre imagery (the eyeball floating in the pool) that we needed the whole season to fully understand. Season three's premiere (once again directed by Bryan Cranston, with the usual brilliant assistance from director of photography Michael Slovis) begins with another arresting image, only this time its meaning is apparent within minutes.

We head south of the border again to see an old Mexican man crawling desperately through the dirt. Is he injured? Dying of thirst? And why on earth won't anyone in this small village stop to help him, or even notice him? But then our angle changes, and we see that the old man is just one of many people crawling. (What. The. Hell? Is going on here? I asked myself as I watched this.) They're soon joined by two dangerous-looking men in shiny suits with skulls on their boots, who without comment get down on their bellys and inch their way towards a shrine in the desert, where they say a prayer and pin up a totem of the object of their prayer: a rough pencil sketch of the man the cartel knows as Heisenberg, and that we know as Walter White.

Many of you kept expecting the cartel to be responsible for the carnage at Walt's house and were surprised (and/or disappointed) when the plane crash was revealed. But it turns out the cartel was only delayed, and there is no way this can end especially well for Walt.

But up in Albuquerque, Walt has no idea these two fearsome men (referred to in the scripts as "the Cousins") are on their way. Instead, he and Jesse and Skyler are all grappling with the events from the end of last season: Jane's death, the crash it ultimately caused, and Skyler's astute decision to banish Walt from her life.

One hundred and sixty-seven people died in that crash, to be added to the butcher's bill after Jane, and Combo, and Spooge, and Tuco, and Krazy 8 and Emilio, and all the victims of the blue meth we never see. So many dead, so much pain caused, nearly all of it traced back to Walt's decision to enter the drug trade...

... and Walt still doesn't get it. He stands in front of that school assembly (in a scene that's just unbearable to get through, for all the right reasons) and makes everyone there feel horrible just to alleviate his own guilt. He tells Jesse to blame the government.

Even when he's not lying to others, he's lying to himself. In the riveting scene where Skyler confronts Walt about the drug-dealing - which, in that "Breaking Bad" way, becomes simultaneously hilarious because of how she keeps underestimating the depth of the situation (and because Bryan Cranston's reactions are priceless) - Walt has no choice but to finally lay everything out for her. But at the end of the confession, he assumes the honesty will finally start to repair things between them, when in fact it's only made things worse.

Jesse gets it. He comes out of rehab having accepted that he's the bad guy: that Jane would still be alive if she'd never crossed his path, and that in turn the planes wouldn't have crashed. And if he can't forgive himself, he can at least take the rehab counselor's advice to be "good enough to be okay with who and what you are." But Jesse can do this because he's never had Walt's capacity for self-deception, nor the obsessive pride that keeps Walt from opening up emotionally to others. Walt could never have the conversation that Jesse has with the counselor, nor could he have ever accepted the man's advice. His only method of coping is to deny and power through - to survive and overcome, no matter the emotional cost to those around him.

And if Walt's trying to escape his drug-dealing past (even refusing a "Godfather"-level offer Gus Frings couldn't have expected him to refuse), something tells me the Cousins (and whoever sent them) won't let him. And then survival becomes a very, very open question.

Some other thoughts on "No Mas":

• Vince Gilligan, who wrote this one, gave Cranston plenty of cool material to shoot with the Cousins (who very much come off like a silent pair of Anton Chigurhs from "No Country For Old Men"): not just the opening crawl, but them silently stealing the farmer's clothes (which surprisingly fit them, since they both look bigger than him), and then blowing up the coyote truck because that one poor bastard recognized what the skulls on their boots meant (and could therefore identify them later to law-enforcement). And speaking of which...

• The Cousins are played, in fact, by a pair of brothers, only one of whom had any acting experience: Luis Moncada (the actor) and his brother Daniel (the rookie). Basically, they loved Luis's audition and asked if he had any relatives who looked like him. Both have screen presence to burn, as well as the self-possession to not flinch when the truck blew up. I asked Gilligan about that scene, just to confirm my assumption that it was a practical special effect and not something created later by computers. Vince wrote:

No CG! That was definitely a practical effect, Alan -- the two Cousins were sixty feet from the truck when it blew up (although it looks like they were even closer than that due to the long lens which was used on the camera). All that flaming stuff you see raining down around them -- and even in FRONT of them, if you look closely enough -- was truly there, and not added in afterwards. I'm so proud of Luis and Daniel Moncada for the way they pulled that off. Bryan Cranston, their director, told them we'd get only one take at it, so they'd better not flinch... and by God, they didn't!

• Between the matches Walt likes to light and then toss, the teddy bear and other airplane debris, and now the barbecue full of burning drug money, it seems like there's always something flaming landing in the White family pool, isn't there? Walt's guilt-ridden attempt to burn the money was one of his few moments of non-denial in the hour, but of course he wimped out, because burning the money would mean everything he did was for nothing.

• Loved Skyler's reaction when her new divorce lawyer tells her that spouses are adept at hiding all kinds of insane things from each other. If she only knew...

• Because Walt was so convincingly established at the start of this series as this milquetoast guy that no one would ever suspect of being a drug lord, we can have those occasional comic moments when he tells the absolute truth about himself to someone else (in this case, telling Hank that the duffel bag is full of cash) and have the other person laugh it off as Walt making a funny.

• Because this show is shot on a modest cable budget, I'm always amazed at the scope the directors and Slovis are able to create. I don't know if the school assembly scene was full of real students/extras, or if most of them were computer-generated, but it effectively conveyed how many people were affected by the airplane tragedy.

• That was Jere Burns as the rehab counselor. He's best-known as a sitcom actor. but like many comedy types, he can pretty easily make the transition to drama (see also the fella with two Emmys on his shelf for playing Walter White). The monologue about how he killed his daughter while hungry for cocaine was a very nice moment, and a reminder that Walt and Jesse aren't the only characters in this world to have caused pain, suffering and death for others.

• As Walt tried to tell Skyler, then Jesse, how complicated certain scenarios were ("there were many factors at play"), I got a real "Big Lebowski" vibe: "This is a very complicated case, Maude. You know, a lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what-have-yous."

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

The Pacific, "Part Two": Basilone together

A review of "The Pacific" episode two coming up just as soon as I enjoy Rice Without...

"Everybody's heard of Guadalcanal and the 1st Marine Division. You guys are on the front page of every newspaper in America. You're heroes back home." -The cook

The particular kind of heroism on display for much of "The Pacific" is very different than what we most often saw in "Band of Brothers." "Band" was largely about advancing - moving forward, achieving objectives, saving your buddies. "The Pacific" is largely about the heroism of simply enduring - of getting through a brutal artillery barrage by night, knowing you're going to have to go out and face the enemy again come morning, of trying desperately to keep your body and (as Dr. Sledge notes to Eugene) soul intact.

Part Two certainly has a lot of the latter brand, and you can see Leckie and his pals (who spend most of the hour just hanging on) feeling sheepish and confused to hear themselves described as heroes(*). But it also offers us a concentrated burst of the more traditional form of heroism as we follow Basilone through one of the most terrifying, amazing, and 100 percent heroic nights any Marine has ever been through.

(*) In a conversation the real Leckie had with a cook shortly after leaving Guadalcanal.

There's a danger in all the movie action we're exposed to that we might become desensitized to true, extraordinary feats of bravery - that we might look at a night like Basilone had on October 24, 1942 and either shrug it off as too Hollywood or (worse?) not Hollywood enough.

But as directed by David Nutter (who helmed the "Band" episode "Replacements") and played by Jon Seda (doing wonders with what I have to assume was a lot of less-is-more direction from Nutter and others), Basilone's night - fixing one machine gun in the dark and under fire, carrying another without benefit of the special oven mitt to protect his skin, running back and forth for ammo and engaging the enemy hand-to-hand, leaving his machine gun nest to clear bodies so his comrades will have a better field of fire, and just shooting and shooting and shooting until the enemy stopped coming - is incredible both as a piece of filmmaking and as a sequence that makes Basilone stand out among the many brave men who served on Guadalcanal.

When I talked to "Pacific" head writer Bruce McKenna, who also wrote the script for this episode, I asked him about the fear that Basilone's night might seem implausible. He said:

"The first hurdle you have to get over is the innate skepticism of the 21st century citizen of what those guys could do heroically. The problem is you only have 8 minutes of film time to show 18 hours of Basilone's life. There are a lot of conflicting accounts of what happened that night, but we talked to as many people as we could. Showing him running out in the line, clearing the bodies, that was crazy. And a lot of people saw him do it... What Basilone did that night was way beyond what the average Marine in combat would have done. He was extraordinarily brave.

That Basilone managed to do all that - to help hold off a regiment of over 3,000 Japanese troops with only a handful of men and a couple of machine guns - is a testament to his bravery, skill and determination. But it's also a mark of luck. When he's out clearing those bodies, the Japanese shoot at him and miss, for instance.

At several points in Part Two, Basilone and his buddies remark on the small margin of error that separates life and death in combat. Manny, surveying a foxhole destroyed by a direct hit, notes that if the women in the artillery factory had included slightly more or less gunpowder, things might have gone differently. And after Manny himself dies while serving as a runner on that terrifying night, Basilone is consumed with the notion that if Manny had just stepped left instead of right, or moved a second slower, he might have survived.

"Yeah, but he didn't," says J.P., trying not to dwell on the randomness and danger of it all. "He was where he was and he did what he did."

And after the hell that was Guadalcanal, the Marines return to their boats - and their ascent up the rope ladders is bathed with a heavenly light by director of photography Remi Adefarasin - to discover that while they were hot, and hungry, and terrified and wondering why they were likely to die on this tiny speck of Earth they never heard of, the people back home were reading of their exploits and calling them heroes. In that moment, Leckie and his buddies are tired and filthy and so very, very much older than they were when they landed a few months before, and they're not sure how to react to being considered heroes when they were just barely holding on half the time. But you can also see that the word means something to them - that their sacrifices, and the ultimate sacrifices of the comrades who didn't make it off Guadalcanal alive, weren't happening in a vacuum. People in 1942 knew of the heroism of the 1st Marines and now, 68 years later, they know it again.

Some other thoughts:

• Nutter's episode of "Band" featured a scene where Nixon gets shot in the head but survives because the helmet takes all the damage, and a similar thing happens here to J.P. And, of course, there was a similar gag in the Normandy sequence of "Saving Private Ryan" (only there, I believe, the soldier dies because he's shot in the head again after taking off the helmet to admire his dumb luck). I know the head shot happened to Nixon during Operation Market-Garden, and I'm sure it happened to countless other soldiers and Marines, but it's kind of funny to imagine it as a kind of stylistic tic that Nutter and/or Steven Spielberg enjoys.

• Once again, we see both the Marines' esprit de corps and their utter devotion to Chesty Puller in the scene where he orders them to shave and clean themselves up before the Army arrives. And we see, with the wonderful way William Sadler later delivers the line, "We don't have enough men," just why Chesty's men adored him so much: because their lives and deaths really mattered to him as something other than statistics and strategical elements.

• Speaking of the Army's arrival, "The Pacific" isn't a particularly light miniseries (it certainly doesn't have as much room for comic relief as "Band" did with characters like Luz, Guarnere and Perconte). This episode, though, has some very amusing moments revolving around the Marine/Army rivalry, with the Marines stealing as much Army gear as they can get their hands on, Leckie enjoying his stolen mocasins, and Leckie getting sick on the peaches (and briefly earning a new nickname). About the stolen equipment, by the way: I've been getting a lot of e-mails and old-fashioned letters from Pacific veterans since I started writing about the series, and one was from an Army vet who wrote, "If they had equipped the Army like what I saw the Marines had, the Army would have done better or as good as the Marines did most of the time." I'm guessing he's not going to love this episode.

• Our visit back to Sledge's home in Alabama is even more distracting here than in Part One. At least there, it happened during an extended sequence with all three leads still on the homefront, and also helped introduce Sid Phillips. It allows us to keep track of Sledge in these episodes before he gets to the Pacific himself, and this visit lets Dr. Sledge spell out the torn-souls theme of the series, but I think I would have been okay with him being absent for a few episodes.

• I've been skimming James Brady's book "Hero of the Pacific: The Life of Marine Legend John Basilone" and couldn't find any mention of either Manny or J.P., so I asked McKenna if either or both were composite characters. (While many of the figures in the miniseries are real, McKenna and company had to combine some others, or in some cases attribute one person's words or actions to another for simplicity's sake.) He said, "Manny is a composite of two or three characters, one of whom died that night on the Canal. J.P. is real and was one of Basilone's better friends before and during the war."

Finally, let me again repeat how the No Spoiler policy is going to apply to this series. History on a big scale is not and should not be considered a spoiler. If you don't know the larger points of World War II and/or the Pacific campaign, then you and your high school history teacher need to have a chat. But the lives and military careers of Basilone, Leckie and Sledge, for our purposes, will be considered spoilers. So if you know more about one or more of them going in, or read up on them over the course of the miniseries, do not share any of that info in your comments, okay? We were able to get through the "Band of Brothers" reviews without giving away who lived, who died, who got promoted, transferred, etc., and I'm sure we can do that here as well. So until we get to the final episode in 10 weeks, no talking about anything that took place after the events depicted in a given episode (and that includes no talking about what's in the previews for next week's episode). Okay?

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

Caprica, "Ghosts in the Machine": If you don't watch this show, he'll shoot this dog

A review of last night's "Caprica" coming up just as soon as I come back for happy hour...

Yesterday, I was feeling all pleased with myself for choosing to record all of NBC's Thursday comedies as a 2-hour-and-2-minute bloc, which solved the maddening problem of NBC letting a minute or two of each show to spill over into the next one's timeslot. Then I started watching "Caprica" on a DVR delay, and as we came to the final scene, the recording cut Zoe off in mid-sentence. When I ranted about this on Twitter, some people said the same happened to them, while others said their DVR listings knew the show was going to run a minute long, but there should be no excuse for this nonsense in this day and age, and it left such a bad taste in my mouth that I briefly contemplated using the moment as an excuse to kick "Caprica" to the curb.

And the only reason I'd be willing to think of such a thing is that I'm still finding "Caprica" to be a very promising, but at times very frustrating show. The Daniel/Zoe scenes from "Ghosts in the Machine" were mesmerizing: great performances from Eric Stoltz and Alessandra Torresani, an escalating mindgame, a disturbing view of how far Daniel will go to get what he wants (and, in turn, an explanation for why the real Zoe was so eager to run away) and by far the best use to date of the visual gimmick of letting us see Zoe standing in for the robot. There was that great moment out on the cliff where Daniel gives a heartfelt, non-manipulative plea for Zoe to make her presence known, and because we can see Torresani's face, we know he's getting through to her - just as we know that he immediately blows it by pulling out the gasoline can and turning back into the monster who's creating this slave race that will ultimately do so much damage.

Had the episode been nothing but that - had the "Caprica" producers been willing to ditch the soap opera-style episode construction for once and let all the other storylines fall by the wayside for a week - I think we could have had something incredible.

As it stands, those scenes were tremendous even intercut with the Amanda and Joseph Adama scenes. But their goodness only underscored how much the parts of the show that don't have to do directly with the girl-turned-robot aren't really working.

I have zero interest in anything to do with Clarice, Amanda and her brother, and only slightly more with Tomas Vergis or the doings in New Cap City. I appreciate that Joseph's being written with the same kind of indecisiveness that plagued grandson Lee on "Battlestar Galactica," but Jamie Bamber was more compelling at playing that confusion and inner struggle than Esai Morales has been so far. His best scenes tend to be when Joseph has decided on a course of action and is pursuing it relentlessly (as we saw briefly here after he double-Amp'ed up), but scene after scene of him looking wide-eyed, baffled and frustrated makes me grind my teeth.

(Speaking of the clan Adama, by the way, one of my Twitter followers suggested that the cross-dresser's riddle at the club was taken from a speech Bill Adama gives early in the "BSG" miniseries. This ring a bell with anybody else?)

One episode to go in this spring run. I recognize that every new show has growing pains, and that I was able to deal with them on "BSG" because I DVD-binged on it a few years after the show debuted. Watched week-to-week (particularly in a week where NBC/Universal's annoying scheduling tactics come into play), the flaws stick out more and tend to linger.

There's a really good show in here, as we saw with Daniel and Zoe, but it's in danger of being dragged down by the rest of it.

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

30 Rock, "Don Geiss, America and Hope": Always bet on Jack

A review of "30 Rock" coming up just as soon as I smell like Icy Hot...

"Don Geiss, America and Hope" wasn't as strong as last week's "Future Husband", mainly because I didn't think the Tracy story entirely worked (more on that in a minute). But like a lot of second-tier "30 Rock" episodes, there were so many funny moments scattered throughout that I was satisfied.

The uncomfortable relationship between Liz and Wesley Snipes (and, yes, it does sound like a name more suited to a pasty English dude than to the star of "Passenger 57") worked better here than last week. The awkwardness between them was greater, Liz's frustration with Wesley's fake English names for things ("film pod," "foot cycle") was a good running gag, and I liked the angle of their disagreement over "Hot Tub Time Machine." (Plus, "Hot Tub Time Machine" remains one of those titles that's just fun to say, which is no doubt at least 80% of why it got greenlit.)

Jack's horror at winding up with a company lacking ambition (because who needs ambition when you've had a consumer monopoly for decades?) was a good story for him, and it's nice to see that the show is just as fearless about mocking their future Comcast overlords as they are at making fun of NBC (Kable Town bought NBC as a "charitable donation"). And I laughed a very long time at Jack quoting the line about Alexander the Great weeping, and then attributing it to Hans Gruber rather than Plutarch. (Though I'll admit that's where I first heard it, too.)

Both Jack's story and Tracy's were taken from current events, but it felt like Tracy's was such an on-the-nose role reversal of the Tiger Woods situation that a lot of it fell flat. I liked the Bed, Bath and Beyond voicemail, and throwaways like Jenna talking about the time she ate the pig that played Babe, but I spent too much of that subplot just nodding and saying, "Okay, I get it. Uh-huh. Yes, this is the opposite of what Tiger did."

(Stories like these - and, for that matter, jokes about "Hot Tub Time Machine" - also raise the question of how well "30 Rock" is going to age, which ties into one of the questions Ken Levine answered on his blog today. "30 Rock" is a much, much better show than "Murphy Brown" was on its best day, but so much of "Murphy Brown" was built around references to politicians and media types who were in the news back then that the episodes became unwatchable within a few years. Moments like the honkies shooting Jack or Liz filming the "Dealbreakers" opening titles should be fairly timeless, but how's an episode like this going to play in, say, 2015?)

Still, any episode that opens with Jack citing Rob Mariano as a reason why Boston is better than Philadelphia, closes with the porn-for-women guy telling Liz what button to push (because of course the people at Kable Town assume the women don't know how to work the remote) and in the middle gives us Don Geiss frozen in carbonite like Han Solo, was amusing enough for right now.

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The Office, "New Leads": A-B-D: A, Always. B, Be. D, Dumping!

A review of "The Office" coming up just as soon as I incentivize murder...

Like last week's "St. Patrick's Day," "New Leads" wasn't an incredibly funny episode, but it felt like the show getting back on course in terms of tone and in terms of having some kind of bigger story to tell.

This was the first time we really felt the impact of the new ownership, as Sabre's "sales is king" corporate culture starts creating big rifts in the office, with Jim and the rest(*) treating the non-sales staff like serfs until Michael brings things to a head when he refuses to give them the new leads(**).

(*) I know there's been some complaining this season that Jim and/or Pam have become smug and unlikable, and I briefly worried that this episode would make things worse in that regard. But then we saw Jim's behavior being equaled (or surpassed) by Dwight and Stanley and Phyllis, and we also saw Jim as the one to convince the others to make a peace offering. So his soul's not gone just yet.

(**) Any mention of new sales leads means I automatically have to link to Alec Baldwin in "Glengarry Glen Ross." Have to. Don't have a choice in the matter.

Tension in the office, particularly tension that's not all based around Michael (even if Michael assumes it is, because every day is Michael's birthday), tends to lead to good episodes. It was fun to see Phyllis become so haughty, and then to see the sales staff have to bend and scrape to the others to get the leads (Stanley enduring a Ryan/Kelly argument about the Kardashians, Phyllis having to fill out meaningless paperwork for Angela, Andy getting too hot-and-bothered over Erin's Hot/Cold game), and then to see the non-salespeople unwittingly throw away some money at the sight of the cookies. (As Stanley, Leslie David Baker has a wonderfully expressive face that the show wisely lets him change only on occasion so it has more effect; the growing smile as Stanley realized what had happened with the cookies almost made the episode on its own.)

Michael and Dwight having a garbage fight at the dump didn't particularly work, in part because it was so goofy (as was Andy and Daryl's wrestling match for the pencil), in part because the green-screen effects had a very distracting quality to them. But I was glad to see the two have a heart-to-heart about how sour their friendship has gotten. (It's a situation that dates back to the Michael Scott Paper Company, though the Sabre corporate structure has only made things worse.) Michael and Dwight are the broadest of the show's lead characters, particularly in their interactions with each other, so it's important that they get to display their humanity together on occasion - even if it has to come in the same episode where they're throwing trash at each other.

Also, for those of you who missed Andy and Erin's first kiss (at the dump) because the tag spilled over into the "30 Rock" timeslot, do what I did last night and set your DVR to record the entire NBC Thursday schedule as a 2-hours-and-2-minutes bloc (because "30 Rock" then tends to spill over into "Marriage Ref"). It's incredibly annoying the way NBC lets the shows overlap timeslots, but they ain't changing, so you have to find a way to work around their annoying habits.

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