Subtitles do not automatically make things interesting. Shirtless Daniel Dae Kim, however...eh, still iffy.

6.10 "The Package"

1. Like always, Sun is the only sensible person on this island. She's the only one who runs from the dead guy instead of letting him coerce her into doing stuff for him. And I'm so jealous of her island outfit in this episode.

2. I kind of like Keamy in the alternaverse. Is that wrong?

3. Sweet! Mikhail! Is Mikhail way thinner than he was a couple seasons back when he was alive, or does he just look drastically different without the eye patch? And of course he got shot in the eye. Awesome!

4. I don't like to comment on the plot, but I've just had a thought. My thought is that this show is going to end like the movie Sliding Doors. That will be very disappointing. Very, very disappointing.

5. Of course it's Desmond. Hi Desmond!

The dead have risen. Must be Thursday.

5.15 "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid"

1. In the previous few episodes I'd been thinking that Dean was looking crazy tired and this was possibly just make-up being unable to disguise the fact that Jensen is starting to look old. I could not have been more wrong. In this episode he looked downright beautiful. Behold:


2. "Awesome. Another horseman. Must be Thursday." Really, Jeremy Carver? Really? 1) The "this show airs on Thursday" joke was already done better in "Wishful Thinking" and 2) this is a straight up ripoff of "Dawn's in trouble. Must be Tuesday." Maybe next time leave the meta to Ben Edlund.

3. Zombies! Zombie kid holding his dad's entrails, FTW!

4. No, Sam, Bobby's not okay. Dean's not okay. Castiel isn't even okay. You're really going to have to figure out how to make yourself okay because nobody around you has the energy to take care of you anymore. Suck it up and deal before Lucifer makes you his bitch.

5. Where the hell is Castiel?

Let's marathon this shit!

Yes, I just watched five episodes of Lost in a row. I am caught up. Here are my five things:

1. 6.05 "Lighthouse": Way to bring back the caves, show.

2. 6.06 "Sundown": I don't know what's going on with Sayid, but I'm pleased that he killed Dogen. I was getting seriously tired of that guy.

3. 6.07 "Dr. Linus": William Atherton always plays a dick. This was no exception.

4. 6.08 "Recon": OMG. Why can't Sawyer and Miles as buddy cops be a real show? I want that show so bad I'm now going to go a little bit insane for it. I am not kidding. I will pay for the Jim & Miles cop show. Please universe, please!

5. 6.09 "Ab Aeterno": This episode was so awesome that I can't even manage to be snarky about it. I love Richard Alpert and Nestor Carbonell is amazing. I want to watch him in a Spanish period piece all the time. I'm a little disappointed that Jacob isn't really The Devil. If Mark Pellegrino were actually playing The Devil on two different shows at the same time, that would just be fuckin' amazing.

Pilot review: Ugly Americans

This is a cartoon about how New York City is a hell hole. It reminds me of Daria filtered through Scrubs. And there are demons. (Of course there are. I don't watch or read anything anymore that doesn't involve demons. On HIMYM Ted's probably going to date a demon next.) I will watch this show because it fills the void in my life where Venture Bros. should be.

Pilot review: Justified

I think I watched this show because there was a lot of hype about Timothy Olyphant being awesome in a cowboy hat. I really like Timothy Olyphant. For one thing, he was the film geek/killer in Scream 2. For another thing, he used to do the sports report on the radio station that I listened to while driving to work every morning in LA. He would occasionally be interrupted from reporting because he was trying to get his daughters ready for school at the same time. He referred to every sports team as the City Team Name "of Anaheim" (e.g. the Dallas Mavericks of Anaheim). He loved Borat. He was just generally endearing. So I opted to watch the show.

This show is Timothy Olyphant being awesome in a cowboy hat. He shoots people because he enjoys it. He's Southern. He breaks into his ex-wife's house at night to freak out her new husband and then wax philosophical about his life. His name sounds a lot like Waylon Jennings. He's really, really Southern. He is enjoyable to watch and I will watch him again this week.

5 Things about The Substitute

Yeah, I'm finally making a bit of effort to catch up on Lost. I've watched one so I'm back to being only three episodes behind.

6.04 "The Substitute"

Without making any attempt to work out what's going on with the plot, here are my 5 things:

1. The idea of Smoke Monster-vision is cool. Actual Smoke Monster-vision, not really that exciting.

2. Drunk, sad, guilty, belligerent, dead-inside Sawyer who's still more observant than everyone else considering he can immediately tell that Locke isn't Locke and who better put on some pants is like the most Dean Winchester Sawyer has ever been. And it is the Best. Sawyer. Ever. And then he tells MIB/Smokey/Locke about Of Mice and Men and it makes him even better.

3. I'm confused by this sporadic retcon alternaverse thing. So far Jack, Kate, Claire and Rose seem to be in the same places in the alternaverse that they were in the crashverse. Jack's dad is still dead, Kate's still killed a guy and been arrested, Claire's still pregnant and giving up her baby, and Rose still has terminal cancer. But so far at least Boone, Hurley, and Locke have different pasts. Boone didn't bring Shannon back from Australia with him, Hurley has amazingly good luck instead of bad luck, and Locke is engaged to Helen instead of having driven her away by helping his kidney-stealing dad. It's very confusing.

4. I may not always like Ben Linus, but that was an awesome eulogy!

5. Were the flashbacks to Jacob touching all of the Losties really necessary? Has this show ever used flashbacks in an attempt to clarify something that's happened earlier in the show? I really don't think so. And it seems really stupid for them to start now.

Pilot review: Parenthood

I know it was on a week and a half ago, and I really did watch it within a day of it airing, but I'm just getting around to the commenting on it now. It'll be brief.

I have vague memories of the movie Parenthood. I don't have any memory of the first TV series Parenthood (but hey, look at that, Joss was one of the writers). This isn't actually significant accept to say that I'm acknowledging that those two things exist. I really only have two other things to say:

1) I never watched Sports Night, Six Feet Under, or anything other than the pilot of Dirty Sexy Money and yet, for some reason, I am sick of seeing Peter Krause's face. I don't know why. He's not unpleasant to look at. He's a good enough actor. He did his job in this show as well as could be expected. I just have this weird feeling like I've been staring at him for a decade and I'd rather not do it anymore.

2) If I had any desire to watch a family drama, I'd probably watch this one. I love Lauren Graham. Her chemistry with Mae Whitman (Her?) was great and seemed like it could be an enjoyable relationship to watch. Monica Potter made me cry. Erika Christensen was pulling off making me like her and hate her at the same time, which I think was exactly what she was supposed to be doing. I also really enjoyed her trying to come to grips with her daughter liking her husband better and saying "So, she will be like a relative of mine." Anyway, I could probably enjoy this show if I wanted to watch it.

That's all.

What's TV again?

I feel like I'm not watching any TV these days. And I'm probably feeling that way because it's pretty close to true.

Shows I've quit this fall:
- 30 Rock (It didn't start back until November and I kind of just forgot.)
- Gossip Girl (I watched the first episode of the season and decided it had all become a little too angst, schmoop, repeat for my taste)
- The Office (I'm a little bit sick of it.)

Shows I'm behind on:
- Big Bang Theory (DVR didn't get an episode one week and then I let like the last three go by after that. I'm going to have to catch up for the reappearance of Wil Wheaton, though.)
- Lost (I've explained this before. I went on vacation and it all fell apart from there. I'm, what?, three episodes behind now. Yeah.)
- Vampire Diaries (I've watched at least two since Christmas. I think I missed a few after that. I saw something about David Anders joining so I might have to catch up for that.)

Shows on hiatus until forever from now:
- Bones (April)
- Doctor Who (April)
- Glee (April)
- Supernatural (March 25th)
- Venture Bros. (July?)

Shows currently airing new episodes that I am caught up on:
- How I Met Your Mother

Shows I intended to watch this year but didn't:
- 24 (I really do want to see Katee Sackhoff and Freddie Prinze, Jr., but I missed the first episode and never went back.)
- Caprica (I've heard good-ish things. If this lasts, I might have to get back to it.)
- Community (I really meant to watch this. I really, really did. Maybe I'll catch up this summer while I'm going back to this season of 30 Rock.)
- FlashForward (I never saw more than the pilot, but it looks like it's practically canceled now anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter.)
- V (I never even watched the pilot. Based on what I've heard since, I don't need to bother.)

This fall I'm totally going to be on the ball again. I won't have a bazillion weddings to go to so I'll be able to watch and review all the pilots. I'll do the research in advance so I'll actually know what's coming. And I'll make a point to simply mentally let go of the stuff that started before but that I'm not watching. I won't spend time fretting about things like "What if Parks & Recreation is really worth it?", "Other people seem to really like White Collar", and "If Heroes is going to end, maybe I should go back and watch all of it." Dammit. Now I've got myself thinking all of those things. I'm going to stop writing before I convince myself that I need to spend the entire month catching up on TV.