Spoilers for ...a metric butt-load of shows follow.
- Two and a Half Men- not any LESS funny than it was a year ago. Kutcher seems to fit in just fine, as the show has kind of gone out its way to give his go-to Kelso personality a reason to exist. There was a geniunely touching moment with Jon Cryer and the urn of Charlie's ashes in the premiere which I appreciated. Jake, the kid, has grown up into a decent actor who knows his strengths, hits them hard, and doesn't try to stretch past them. I kind of miss Rose, but it'd be kind of weird since she's a murderer now...
- Castle - Still behind on this, but so far, it's still the same show I've fallen in love with. On the one hand it sort of cheap how quickly Beckett recovered from, you know, DEATH, but what other choice did the show have? I'm both curious and dreading the blowup when Beckett finds out that Castle's main objective now is to steer her away from investigating the conspiracy. The new boss isn't completely unreasonable, so that's good. Heroes & Villains was the last ep I saw, and for once it was nice to see a procedural tackle comic-book fans in non-patronizing way. Kate was just as much a comic-book fan as Castle, and it wasn't ever once remarked on "ooh a girl who likes comic books, RARE!". Points.
- Hawaii Five-0 - Listen, I'm Not Proud Of This(tm), but I promised myself I'd at least try to talk about EVERY show I watch, good or bad. It's just so easy to leave the TV on after HIMYM, 2BG, and 2.5Men, especially when I'm prepping the recaps for former two. It's not as horrendously bad as I remember. My previous expirience being some ridiculous early episode where they used Street View on a surface table to figure out a sniper's trajectory. Not even using made up technobabble tools. They just scrolled the panoramic view until they saw a blurry bush and went "oh it must have come from there" and them BAM, next scene, riding ATV's in the jungle. I couldn't abide that. But now it's part of my rut (so far). It's halfway not-horrendous. I still sometimes mute about half the dialog and turn back to recapping the old shows, but what I do watch doesn't make me change the channel (though maybe I should, seeing as Castle's on at the same time). Terry O'Quinn is a master of understatement as always. He kind of brings up O'Loughlin's game, inasmuch as he has any. I keep hearing "Jin", when people call Daniel Dae Kim "Chin". It amuses me that Danno is so comparatively short. And as much as her pouty, disinterested acting has grown to bother the hell out of me, Grace Kim in tight black dresses and bikini's will always make me give a show an extra chance. Jesus, how did I end up writing the most about this one?
- House - Still not finished with last season!
- The Big Bang Theory - I kind of have issues with the way the premiere played out the Raj-and-Penny cliffhanger. I can't quite put them into coherent thoughts though. It was a weird mix of slut-shaming, prudishness, and insensitivty, which was a weird route to take, considering the situation is an understandable one for everyone to feel conflicted about. I dunno. I'll have to ponder on it more. The good news is, we don't dwell on it much, and just keep plowing head first into the brave new world of Wolowitz' engagement, Leonard's long distance relationship, and Amy's absorbsion into the group. The ep with her and Leonard bonding was funny and probably long-overdue. I am wondering though when Sheldon finally accepted everyone more or less referring to Amy as his "girlfriend" and not his "girl friend".
- Parks and Recreation - Love it, as usual. Ron continues to be my personal hero, Ron and Tammys being an early highpoint for this season. Leslie doesn't miss a step as hyper competent-yet-naively optimistic. I'm still not sure where they're going with the Tom storyline. I have a bad feeling they'll just keep mining it for cheap laughs until they just unceremoniously have the venture fail and Tom comes back to the Parks Dept. Also not sure what's going on with Ben. I'm glad there wasn't overwrought drama over the breakup, but he also seems to be taking it REALLY REALLY well, as is Leslie. Maybe we're just gonna Joey-and-Rachel that whole thing and pretend it never happened. Also I keep forgetting Andy's now Leslie's assistant. They really should do something with that.
- The Office - Feeling good about it. I honestly thought Andy as boss would be underwhelming. I love Ed Helms, but Andy as a character just never seemed to have the pure ego and prescence needed to center the show around him. So, it was a pleasant surprise when they decided to use that same lack of ego and prescence as the foundation for his managerial style. The tattoo episode was hilarious and touching. His tiff with Daryl last week rang emotionally true. I'm glad we're not going to turn Andy stupid(er) to try and fill a Michael role. We've already seen the office pretty much runs itself, so it's kind of a neat twist to make The Boss more of a sympathetic mascot than an active antagonist.
- Grey's Anatomy - Again, I'm Not Proud Of This(tm). Sometimes, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, you just want to watch something that won't get your humours up in a tizzy. That's neither exceptionally awesome, nor mind-bogglingly bad. So I'll turn on Grey's. It helps that there are still some characters there that I like. Bailey, Hunt, April, Christina...It's like spending time with old friends from school. You know their rhytms, it's easy to keep up. So it's probably no surprise I can't think of anything to say about the actual plot. Seriously, I can't even remember what's going on. They may have lost Baby Zora? Shephard's being a judgemental dick? Christina's freaking out about how she's being taught? Meh.
- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - Not even close to being caught up. I'm just still glad that the baby from last season didn't turn out to be Dennis'.
- Fringe - A week behind, but hot damn do I love this show. It's undoubtedly difficult and awkward to have to deal with this whole "Peter's erased from existence" thing. I'm still trying to figure out why they even bothered with that. It's obvious he'll return mid-season, like Ourlivia did, but in the meantime, it's a fascinating character study to chart the changes his abscence has on the team. io9 once mentioned that Fringe is unique in that it not only requires it's actors to frequently play different characters, but they're just as frequently asked to play so many subtle *variations* on these characters that would make an actor's workshop teacher weep. The fact that they pull this off so seamlessly, especially John Noble, is amazing. Without Peter, Walter is still crazy, insane, and like a child. But he's also ruthless, frequently heartless, and without a clear connection to humanity. Olivia as well, she's never learned to open up in the past few years. John Scott tragedy from the pilot rings clearer in her mind, and one can also imagine that without Peter, the trauma of being replaced by Fauxlivia still feels extra raw (or maybe less, since Peter was also a source of pain in that regard). I can't wait to see what happens with Our Lincoln Lee as the new team member. One question still bugs though: without Peter, how did the Olivia replacement caper even happen? How did she break out of her conditioning to free herself? Why did they even go through to the other side if not to chase after Peter?
- Terra Nova - About a week behind. I'm really pleasantly surprised here. I was ready to write this off as another high-concept, badly acted "from a big movie producer" TV spectacle. But the acting is good, the writing pretty seamless and self-consistent, and the characters LIKEABLE. Even the snotty kids don't stay snotty for long. More hardcore science nerds than me can confirm, but the science displayed actually looks pretty grounded and realistic, and thus makes the stakes feel higher. At least to a nerd like me. Oddly enough, the writing reminds me of lower-budget, but higher-reaching syndicated sci-fi from ages past. That is, it speaks like it's being written by a single voice, with a noticeable passion for the characters and the story. I like a lot about this show. so expect it to be cancelled mid-season. My theory about what the symbols on the waterfall mean: this isn't an alternate timeline. Everything they do here CAN affect the future. The symbols are some kind of trajectory to show where the beacon is on Earth in the future, they just never found it. Maybe that's what the Sixers are there for, to influence the future. Personally I think it'd be genius if they said "Yeah this is the past, but in about 2 million years or so, we're gonna have an extinction level event that'll wipe all trace of us from the planet...so we can still do whatever we want. Maybe start on rockets though..."
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