Neil Diamond...

...your days are numbered.

Tingling Phantom Limb

4.07 "Guess What's Coming to Dinner (Part 1)"

And the awesome continues. This episode was killer. Everything that could possibly be cool happened and there wasn't a single moment of boring. Why haven't they been doing this all along? I really want to wait to see the second part before I talk much about this one. Just a couple of things, though.

Derrick thinks Dee might be the final Cylon because when Athena was chasing Hera through the ship she only encountered other Cylons (Chief, Tigh, Natalie). He may be right. There really wasn't any other good reason for her to be part of that scene. Unless it's because she was the only cast member not caught up in another plotline. I'm just recording his guess for him in case he's right. Actually, since I'm doing that here I'll also record his prediction that Lee Adama will be President by the end of the season. I feel pretty strongly that he's right about that one. He made the prediction several episodes back, but this episode seemed to support it.

Why did Baltar go to see Gaeta in the medbay? Are we finally going to get back to what Baltar said to Gaeta right before Gaeta stabbed him in the neck with a pen? At the time I was pretty certain that it had to do with Gaeta having a sexual relationship with one of the Cylons (probably Doral...or Simon), but maybe it's something more significant. Or maybe that is significant.

I expected Tigh and Tory to be doing a lot more to dissuade Adama and Roslin from making the deal with Natalie to unbox the Threes. Speaking of Tory, the degree to which the smackdown was laid upon her by the President was AWESOME. I want some more of that. Teach her to be the smug, crazy bitch she's been all season.

...and I was right.

3.15 "Pain in the Heart"

So it was Zack. At least Zack was the apprentice. But finding out it was him was the key to solving the whole thing, so it was him. For a split second I kind of thought we'd find out that Gormogon himself was Dr. Wyatt from last season.

Other than figuring out Gormogon, this was the weirdest episode of the show I've ever seen. I felt like it had an awful lot going on. Several episodes worth. And that a lot of it should have been broken up and sprinkled in throughout the season to make it a truly seasonal arc. Granted then it would have been several episodes of everyone being suspicious of each other, but it would have built the suspense for more than just the course of this one episode.

Anyway, the fake funeral for Booth at the beginning of the episode was truly, truly bizarre. Whatever the circumstances of that situation were seems like they could have been an entire episode themselves. And then it all kind of got randomly glossed over. But the bathtub scene was a pretty entertaining result of the whole situation. (I liked that Booth was reading Green Lantern as a nod to David Boreanaz voicing him in a recent Justice League movie. Also, was that a Philadelphia Flyers beer hat? Did Boreanaz get all the props from his trailer?)

This was a good acting episode all around, but particularly for Tamara Taylor. I think this should be her Emmy consideration episode the way "Aliens in a Spaceship" should have been T.J. Thyne's last year. The facial expressions she goes through just in the moment Cam realizes that Booth and Bones are there for Zack were phenomenal, and probably the most moving part of the whole episode. The only rival moment would be Tamara Taylor again at the very end where she breaks down with grief.

Well, that was all very interesting. If this show really goes full tilt seasonal arc in future seasons I might have to start blogging about it on a regular basis. Although I might spend half the time talking about how beautiful Tamara Taylor and T.J. Thyne are. Regardless of how they do the plot in the next season, it will be interesting to see how things work without Zack and with Sweets around full time.

Who is Gormogon?

I don't normally blog about Bones because 1) it's a procedural so the same thing happens every week and 2) I'm mainly watching for the unresolved sexual tension, so I pretty much figured that each week my entry would look about like this:

"There was a murder. Booth and Bones solved it with some help from the Squints. There was some witty banter and a few amusing moments in the lab. Booth and Bones didn't do it."

But tonight's episode, the season finale, may be revealing the identity of Gormogon, the serial killer introduced in the season premiere. So I wanted to have my guess written down before I watched the episode.

EW's PopWatch thinks it's Zack Addy's "rival", Dr. Clark Edison (at least I thought they did. Now I can't find it.). That seems pretty reasonable. But I'm kind of afraid that it might actually be Zack. For one thing, I read a cast list for next season (though now I can't find that either. Is this some kind of conspiracy?) that did not include Eric Millegan. And for another thing, over the past couple of episodes we've found out a lot of odd and surprising things about Zack. Last week was the thing about the singing. The week before that we learned that he's "deceptively fit". They underestimate the guy and apparently he's full of surprises. I still can't figure out what his motive would be, but I'm going to go with it being him. If I'm right, this'll be sad. No more "King of the Lab".

Exercise in balance

4.06 "Faith"

Welcome back, Awesome! I fell a couple of episodes behind, so I'm in catch up again. And this episode was just in time to keep me from completely loosing the thread of this season. There was action, there was emotion, there was drama, there were questions and answers, there were pilots! And I had really missed pilots and the "original seven" Cylons.

Helo is a frakking dynamo! I love him to no end and I will not be even remotely surprised if he ends up as the head of the military once they've made it to Earth. He has very Adama-like qualities. Also, thank the gods for the semi-return of an ass kicking Starbuck. Just having her in a state other than her twitchy, vision-induced haze was a huge relief. She's the best when she's angry. Like fire. Now's not the time for me to rant again about how in love with her I am.

It's probably due to the fact that I've only watched three episodes of DS9, but I didn't even recognize Nana Visitor until practically half way through the episode. I'm not sure how I felt about her character, as I'm still not sure how I feel about "The Church of Baltar and the Cylon God", but she was instrumental in getting Roslin into Adama's quarters so they could sit around in their bathrobes and be the adorable married couple we've always known them to be, so she can't be all bad. (It's very disappointing to think that she won't make it to Earth alive so they'll never have a chance to be peacefully happy together.)

It's just amazing to me how much I enjoyed the fact that I didn't have to see Chief or Baltar (even though I had to hear him) and barely had to see Tory. More importantly, I think, is the fact that I did get to see Starbuck, Helo, Athena, Sam, Natalie and Leoben. There were a ton of interesting interactions going on there. The Starbuck/Natalie alliance is definitely going to be an interesting one. Athena and the room full of Eights was brilliant. The whole scene leading up to Natalie killing the PTSD Six was awesome.

And Sam! I think Sam is "The Great Cylon Hope" and I really like the fact that he's incredibly curious about his Cylon nature, but still remains completely loyal to the fleet. He's not Chief and Tigh, who are pretty much flat out rejecting their Cylon nature. He's not Tory who seems to have just gone some kind of mad with power without actually thinking what it means to be a Cylon or a human, for that matter. He's not Athena who is kind of living in denial of being a Cylon. He's doing his own thing, he's completely fumbling around but still making a go of figuring stuff out, and I very much appreciate him for it. Actually, I think I'll make it an even stronger statement. I respect him for it. And I'm continually amazed at how much Sam Anders has grown on me since his introduction.

Wow. I may have just jumped shipper alliances from Kara/Lee to Kara/Sam. Wait...no...I may have actually become a shipper of Sam/Random Eight. Wonder if anyone's writing that yet.

"How is 'Harvey Wallbanger' one word?!"

4.07 "The Unicorn and the Wasp"

This episode made me wish I knew a lot more (or anything at all) about Agatha Christie. She was really lovely and the murder mystery aspect of the story was fun. As was the tie-in with Agatha Christie's mysterious ten day disappearance. The whole scifi aspect, with the woman giving birth to a wasp child who didn't know it's own identity until it was fused with the weird amulet thing, was all a little bizarre and contrived. Whatever, though. It was a fun story and pleasantly un-message-y (a huge relief after last week).

Obviously sight gag-type interactions that involve David Tennant and Catherine Tate are just destined to be funny. This episode had a charades scene that was almost as hilarious as the pantomime scene from "Partners in Crime". Also, Donna sitting in the back of the room being the spectator, munching on grapes and asking questions, while Agatha Christie and the Doctor expositioned the killer was pretty amusing as well.

I don't think this one was very related to the overall seasonal arc. Donna mentioned the bees again, so that's either the Bad Wolf/Torchwood/Saxon of this season, or it's one giant red herring. I'm excited for next week. It takes place in the largest library in the universe. I wonder if it'll be called Alexandria or Pergamum, or some variation on one of the two.

My Fall 2008 TV Schedule...so far

So the upfronts are over with and the network fall schedules are laid out. With the exception of NBC and Ben Silverman's douchery (aka 52 week programming), the networks picked up very few new shows this year. WGA Strike, glut of reality and game shows, abundance of shows from last year being good enough to earn second seasons. Blame what you will, this fall will be much easier to schedule than last fall.

I was a little surprised by some of the shows that didn't get pick ups. It looks like FOX passed on Virtuality and Spaced, both of which seemed to have generated buzz already. Maybe they're leaving some things to sit until next year. Who knows.

Here's my tentative viewing schedule. Shows in bold are new this season, and I'll decide after the pilots whether or not they're worth keeping.

Monday
8:00PM: Sarah Connor Chronicles, Gossip Girl, Chuck (maybe)
8:30PM: How I Met Your Mother
9:00PM: Heroes (reevaluation period)
10:00PM: My Own Worst Enemy

Tuesday
8:00PM: 90210
9:00PM: Fringe (I'm pretty committed to this one already)
9:30PM: Kath & Kim

Wednesday
8:00PM: Pushing Daisies, Bones

Thursday
8:30PM: 30 Rock
9:00PM: The Office
10:00PM: Life on Mars

Friday
8:00PM: Crusoe

A few other things I'd like to watch are either new but not on the schedule yet (Boldly Going Nowhere), scheduled for 2009 (Dollhouse, Scrubs, The Goode Family, Lost, Merlin, Sit Down, Shut Up), or aren't on the networks (BSG, Doctor Who). The only real trouble spots in the fall will be Mondays and Wednesdays from 8 to 9. I'll probably reevaluate this schedule in September once I've been through EW's Fall TV Preview.

Lost: the Spinoffs

4.12 "There's No Place Like Home (Part 1)"

This was one of those episodes where the alternate genre spinoff possibilities of this show became entertainingly apparent. Here are a few of the options I'm seeing so far:

1) Sawyer & Hurley: This would basically be The Odd Couple. Before Charlie died it could have been a little different, with Sawyer as the kind of charming shiftless cad ("the Matthew McConaughey") who decides he's going to straighten up do something with his life to impress "dream woman", but has to fend off the bad influences of his goofy friends, Charlie and Hurley, who are always coming up with crackpot ways to "help" him and getting themselves in trouble in the process. They'd also play peanut gallery to his romantic attempts. (Sawyer, Hurley & Charlie could also do a great Three Men and a Baby.) Anyway, with Charlie dead, the Sawyer & Hurley show would be a little bit more sitcom-y, with a lot of hilarious mishaps and near-constant bickering with the occasional heartfelt declaration of friendship, kind of Chandler & Joey-ish. (Also, keep the baby and they could do My Two Dads.)

2) Locke & Ben: Also The Odd Couple, but instead of just getting on each other's nerves, each day they would spend their time creating elaborate, Wile E. Coyote-style, plots to kill each other and then hilariously and coincidentally thwarting each other's plots, then sharing a laugh over dinner. Hurley could be their goofy next door neighbor who would occasionally stop by and who they would both attempt to use as bait in their death plots.

3) Jack & Sawyer: This would be kind of an FBI dramedy, where they would be old rivals who become partners and snark at each other while developing a relationship of trust and mutual respect. Their strikingly different attitudes, but shared hero complex, would be perfect complements and would always lead to them begrudgingly working together to save the day. Juliet would be the psychologist assessing their partnership, Hurley would be their go-to informant who runs a corner hot dog stand, Ben would be the bad guy they're after in the first season arc, and Kate would obviously be the shared love interest who started the rivalry in the first place and shows up every once in a while to cause angsty tension. (I feel like this plot could be done with a number of different pairs: Sayid & Miles, Michael & Jin, Desmond & Daniel. All kinds of possibilities.)

4) Locke, Sawyer, Daniel & Hurley: Remake of The A-Team.

Anyway, as far as this episode went: Michelle Forbes! She's just the picture of evil and nefarious and I hope she gets to do awesome crazy stuff in the future. Sun is kicking ass and taking names and it's awesome! Jack's reaction to finding out about Claire was appropriately pained. Hurley's new "numbers" freak out was cool, as was Sayid's "interesting theme" comment about his birthday party.

The best bit, though, that made me laugh out loud was Jack's "Son of a bitch!" after Sawyer told him that Hurley was with Ben. That "I'm getting too old for this shit" look on his face was a good one, and there are definitely some traits between Jack and Sawyer that have osmosized between them that always remind me of the part in season two where Sawyer is telling Jack that he slept with Ana Lucia, Jack asks why Sawyer is telling him, and Sawyer says Jack is the closest thing he has to a friend. Aww.

Dollhouse stuff!

So, per the upfronts earlier today, it looks like Dollhouse isn't premiering until midseason, meaning January. For some reason it's being paired with 24. I feel like they should have paired it with Sarah Connor Chronicles, no? (Or maybe SCC should be paired with 24.) Regardless, I'm super excited. And also still really worried that it'll either be terrible, or be really good but bomb and get cancelled (Firefly style).

Anyway, here's the first promo picture:



Pretty standard looking, though Helo does look super hot in a suit. And, perhaps more exciting, here's the link to the promo trailer! After watching it, I'm still having some of the same reservations I had when I read the plot summary. Namely, too high concept...like the Bionic Woman pilot, and that obviously didn't turn out well. Not that my concern is going to stop me from being really, really excited.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

4.06 "The Doctor's Daughter"

Yeah, so I'm starting to question the Doctor's uses of words like "never" and "impossible". Because they just aren't conveying the finality they're intended to anymore. And I'm pleased than Donna's started calling him on it. But he's even said himself "Never say never, ever" and "I like impossible" and I think there was something about impossible just being something he hasn't figured out yet. But, for all that, he still seems to believe that certain things: seeing Rose again, finding other Time Lords, apparently loving his family members, are all impossible things that will never, ever happen.

Anyway, this...was not at all what I was expecting. And I'm really pleased. My concern was that if she had been the Doctor's naturally born daughter it would have brought up all kinds of angst about whoever her mother was and about his other family members and Susan and the fact that they're all dead (though I would have loved an explanation of Susan). Luckily it wasn't that at all so it just brought up more Time War/genocide angst. Although I have to agree with the io9 recapper on this one; the Doctor isn't so much working through his angst as he is periodically revisiting it to no real result. But I'm okay-ish with that for now.

Weirdly, my favorite part about this episode was Martha. She is really good on her own, particularly with the non-talking fish guy. She probably deserved the Torchwood spinoff more than Jack did. And if she really joins Torchwood next year, it'll definitely be worth watching again. She's just so capable. It'll likely make up for Jack and his complete inability to use logic or reason. I'm disappointed that she went home again, though. I was really looking forward to some Donna/Martha/Jack snark.

Donna has developed a great understanding of the Doctor that manages to be totally different than Martha's understanding of him, but they're both really satisfying. Donna's ability to take what he says as opinion, rather than strictly fact, is refreshing. Also, Jenny was cute and fun. My only question about her: Why didn't she regenerate? Oh, no, one more question: Does she not have the Time Lord (Lady?) psychic abilities? Otherwise shouldn't the Doctor have been able to feel her in his head?

So now, my thoughts on the end of the season. As far as I can tell, from what's gone on so far, it'll involve Rose, disappearance of bees, Jenny, Donna's mom and grandad, and something on Donna's back.

Yes, I have a problem...

...and no, I'm not willing to work on it.

After being away for the weekend, starting basically Thursday, I got a little carried away today with the catch-up TV watching. I watched Scrubs, The Office, 30 Rock, How I Met Your Mother, Lost, Bones, and two Gossip Girls. Maybe I can be productive tomorrow.

Destiny=Fickle Bitch. Got it.

4.11 "Cabin Fever"

This episode was really good. There was a minimal amount of Ben being cryptic, and a lot of interesting connections were revealed. At first I thought this was going to lean in the direction of "this is all in Locke's head" (because of kid-Locke drawing the smoke monster) even though the Darlton has repeatedly assured that this isn't in anybody's head. But it didn't swing that way. The "Locke is the chosen one" thing is interesting. So now I'm wondering three things:

1) Was everyone who landed on the island chosen to be there?
or
2) Was the plane crash just a means of getting Locke on the island and everyone else was just unfortunate enough to be dragged along?
and
3) Was Richard Alpert expecting John to have some sort of time displacement issue, like Desmond does, or some other ability that allows him to see his entire time line? Is that what the questions about what things John owned were getting at?

I've also decided that, even though it's annoyed me in the past, I'm okay with Locke being the new Ben as long as Ben stops being Ben. Because otherwise there are just two Bens and that's overkill. Ben seemed to be less Ben in this episode. I guess maybe if Locke is the new Ben then Ben is the new Richard Alpert.

This is one of those episodes that seems to bring up more questions than answers, but I guess that's every episode, so I should qualify that statement. There's the annoying type, where the events of the episode only make you re-ask the big question of "What the hell is going on?" (or possibly just "What?"). And then there's the not-as-annoying type, where the questions are small, like "Is Claire dead?" and "What's the significance of backgammon?" and "How are Richard Alpert and Abbadon related?" and "When will we get back to Desmond having more than one line per episode?".

I was also pleased to see that this episode conformed to the Jack-only-has-one-scene-in-this-episode-so-it-has-to-involve-him-talking-to-someone-in-the-makeshift-kitchen formula. I wonder if that's been addressed by the Darlton in the commentaries.

Oh yeah, what words did Hurley say right before Locke woke him up?* It sounded like "Metal Mars", but I can't make any sense of that. Dammit. I might actually have to venture onto the various theory sites and discussion boards to find out what he really said.

*After some investigation (turning on the CC), I found out that Hurley said "Mallomars". I guess it was meant to be a joke, rather than a clue.

R.I.P. Moonlight

Great. I got caught up on Moonlight just in time for it to be canceled. Actually, it doesn't bother me all that much. It was entertaining, but I certainly wasn't as invested as I am in most of my other shows. And I was probably going to feel compelled to keep up with it next year and now I can give the time over to one of the abundance of new shows that I'm already interested in.

I do feel sorry for all the diehard fans though. I feel their pain. Hmm...I also feel sorry for Joel Silver (as much as I can feel sorry for a successful TV producer). It's only been a year since Veronica Mars was canceled. I hope he has a good pilot or two lined up for next year.

Cats on a Treadmill

I'm a sucker for things about cats. My cell phone has about a hundred pictures of Gwen just laying around. So I really couldn't resist posting this. Makes me wish I had a treadmill. Not that Gwen would use it. She's just like me. Always laying around.

One additional thought though: Who uses a treadmill directly facing the wall?

Why can't I ever find out about the cool subcultures before they attract mainstream attention?

I was totally unfamiliar with the subculture of Steampunk until I read about it last month on io9.

Now that it's got NYT Fashion & Style section coverage, I can see that it's already too late for me to get involved without being a poser (or, in this case, poseur). Dammit. It would go so well with my loves of science fiction and time travel and random technology and knitting and English tea and corsets, not to mention my weird obsession with old maps. Perfect. This was the perfect subculture for me and I completely missed it. Again dammit!

Dumbass Kid Saves Doctor, Day

4.05 "The Poison Sky"

I can hardly focus on this episode because I'm already anticipating next week. "The Doctor's Daughter"?!? Really?!? Weird. And kind of upsetting. But only because it brings up the idea that there's someone still alive that the Doctor can love more than he loves Rose. Also, if that really is his daughter, is she going to start traveling with him too? Along with Donna and Martha? Pretty soon it'll be like he's traveling with a harem.

As for this episode: I'm glad Donna's mom was smarter than the Doctor and Donna so she could save the grandad; It's nice that UNIT actual got to prove themselves and impress the Doctor for a second; Loved the gas mask "Are you my mummy?" joke; It's really heartwarming how quickly the Doctor is able to recognize when something is wrong with one of his companions; I was sad that Ross had to die, particularly because if he had lived the Doctor would have taken him along; I had a suspicion that the dumbass kid was going to redeem himself by saving the day in the end, but for a moment I was a little panicked that RTD was throwing convention to the wind and was going to kill the Doctor and have him regenerate mid season; and finally...

...Donna and Martha are so cute together. I really hope Jack shows up to travel with them for a while. With Jack, Donna and Martha together it'll be like a sitcom going on in the background every time the Doctor's trying to save the world. Come to think of it, throw in Rose...and maybe Ianto Jones, and you'd practically have an episode of Coupling.

Also, Rose! Again! Are we really going to have to wait until the end of the season for the Doctor to see her?

The more Helo the better

4.05 "The Road Less Traveled"

Ah...here's a little bit of my show back. Or maybe I'm just distracted by all the sweaty Helo. Either way, something was holding my interest this week.

Even though the theme of this season so far has been "Let's All Have an Identity Crisis", this episode finally made me actually notice that that was the theme. And I feel about the identity crisis pretty similar to how I felt about the general angst of a couple episodes ago. It gets kind of monotonous when the entire episode is identity crisis. Try to parse the identity crises out over a few episodes, maybe break them up with some storylines of self assurance. I guess that was the idea with putting Baltar all over this Chief and Starbuck identity crises episode, but that wasn't really doing it for me because I STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND HIM. I can see that he's now very confident about his beliefs and his purpose in life and all that, but they've never actually explained how he suddenly became that guy. Or, if they did, and if it was all a product of that sick kid being cured after Gaius prayed for him, then I'm really disappointed. Based on the character of Gaius Baltar that we've been shown for the past three seasons, there is nothing that could convince me that that single "religious" experience would be enough to completely change him as a person.

Anyway, I liked everything happening on the Demetrius and I'm disappointed that they're going back to the fleet (although I am glad that not even Kara can come between the Fighting Agathons). I was a little disappointed that Lee wasn't on board to be involved in the "All The Boys Love Kara Thrace" fight between Sam, Helo and Leoben. Adama should have been there too, for that matter. Maybe when everyone's dead and they're all in the afterlife there can be some sort of grand battle to attempt to prove who loves her the most. I might put money on Sam.

I think the root of all of the problems I'm having with this season is that most of the characters have become largely unrelatable. They've shut us out of almost everybody's heads (whether intentionally or not, I don't know) so all of their weird actions are becoming less and less understandable. Maybe they're alienating us on purpose to convey what all of the characters are feeling right now, but it's just making me not care.

And finally, Helo was awesome this week...but why is it so hot on the Demetrius?

The Future Sucks for Everyone!

4.10 "Something Nice Back Home"

So apparently things I really enjoy are surgery, ghosts and crazy people. I'm amazed that I didn't already know those things, but they seem totally obvious now after this episode was so fun for me.

Juliet (having a totally Jack moment) doing surgery on Jack? Awesome. Jack, Claire and implied Hurley all being visited by "ghosts" (or just hallucinating dead people) and me having to be on edge because a dead person might appear at any moment? Awesome. (Smoke alarms being creepy? Awesome.) Jack and Hurley both being quite far from what would be called "in their right mind"? Awesome.

(Oh yeah, absence of Ben? Awesome. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person watching this show who doesn't like him. His knowledge of stuff is just so unnatural.)

I'm pretty sure Claire's suffering from a subdural hematoma, or some similar brain injury that will cause her to die soon. I'm just glad she didn't pass out and fall over while holding the baby. I was fearing that through the whole episode. I'll be sad to see her go, but curious to learn what's been going on under that wig she's been wearing all season. But when the 6 leave, how many people will actually be left alive on the island? Their numbers seem to be dwindling quickly.

I kind of wonder if Hurley has actually been telling us exactly what's going on throughout the entire course of the show. Not clearly, like I don't really think that the Oceanic 6 are actually dead. But obtusely, like prophecies that don't make sense until after they've been fulfilled. Hey, that makes me think...there was a feel to this episode that was very Season 1-esque. That would explain why I liked it so much. And that makes me think...whatever happened to the numbers?