And so another series of Doctor Who begins thanks to the magic of the Internet and bit torrent software! Spoilerphobes beware, because I consider information up to and including this premiere episode to be fair game!

How much you enjoy the fourth series premiere of Doctor Who will in large part, I suspect, depend upon your level of tolerance for the show being almost exclusively for laughs. I’m just schizophrenic enough to admit that my tolerance level is pretty high, even though my greatest joy comes from Who at its most emo. So far my fondest memories of the current series involve crying my eyes out over the separation of Rose Tyler and the Doctor at the end of Series 2. See, I actually enjoy crying, particularly if it’s motivated by something as safe as a television program.

Nonetheless, I recognize that a lot of hardcore old school Who fans (perhaps the saddest group people on the planet, and a group to which I was one of the proudest and most fanatical members when I was younger and dumber) will have a lot of axes to grind here.

For one thing, there’s Catherine Tate. I like Catherine Tate, and, following the initial shock over the announcement last Summer that she would be joining David Tennant full-time for the entire fourth series, I applauded loudly. It seemed like an audacious move, and one which would surely shake up the status quo, a development which might well be needed at this point in the show’s 21st century incarnation. Nonetheless, I had hopes that Donna would bring a level of vitality (if not outright aggression) to her performance which would markedly contrast with the swooning mooniness which tended to dominate both Billie Piper in Series 2 and Freema Agyeman in Series 3. Mind you, I liked both Piper and Agyeman, but Billie’s chemistry with Christopher Eccleston in Series 1 was simply not matched later, and Freema, whilst making the best of things, still got saddled with the burden of pining after the Doctor.

I know I said that I prefer emo Who, and that’s true, but I don’t mean that I want to watch the girls embarrassing themselves for 13 episodes at a stretch over why doesn’t the Doctor luuuv them? When Christopher Eccleston kissed Billie Piper in “The Parting of the Ways,” I cheered because they stopped swanning about and got to it. On the other hand, Martha’s neediness and clinginess simply got old quickly.

Which takes us back to “Partners In Crime.” I’m very happy to see that Russell T Davies has decided to face the dilemma more or less head on by having the Doctor make it fairly clear that he’d rather not have any more traveling companions falling in love with him. This led to the episode’s biggest laugh, also, with Donna misunderstanding the Doctor’s desire for a mate with a need to mate and responding with utter horror at the prospect of having sex with someone she still thinks is kind of a creepy alien, at least in a sexual context. I’m sure many Who fans breathed a sigh of relief over that. I’m not one of them, necessarily, mind you. I don’t have a problem conceptually with the Doctor having a sex life. I just don’t want him to have to be fending off his companion episode after episode all series long.

Unfortunately, for all of my hope that Catherine Tate would bring a unique vitality to the show, she seemed surprisingly to be playing catch up here, never quite popping out of the background to claim the show as her own. That probably shouldn’t be too surprising, as Doctor Who remains a bit removed from what I presume is her acting comfort zone, Doctor Who being a bit removed from the tonal landscape represented by The Catherine Tate Show. Still, it was a bit of a letdown, I’ll admit, even as I willingly cross my fingers and hope for the best next week.

I’ve always thought that Russell T Davies’s strength as a Who writer lay in his ability to create interesting characters and have them bounce off each other rather than in his skill at laying out a complex or at least well-engineered science fiction plot. Fortunately, much of the point of “Partners In Crime” was in bringing the Doctor and Donna back together and letting them make a go of it. Unfortunately, it still took far too much time to actually bring them together. Having them constantly missing each other was amusing, but, really, we’ve only got 13 episodes, LET’S GO! I’m that eager to see them working directly off each other.

Also, as I pretty much started to say a couple of paragraphs ago, once they finally reunited, I’m not sure that Donna made a very good case for herself as a new companion. I really think that if this is going to work, then the scripts are going to have to give Catherine Tate more opportunities to stretch her dramatic muscles a bit. Davies’s script relied primarily on comedy this time, and it all felt just a bit strained, surprisingly. Little bits like Donna lashing out at the Doctor for leaving them vulnerable to danger were more off-putting than endearing, and even the best bit, the extended mime during which the two time travelers reacquainted through several layers of glass on opposite sides of a room, completely oblivious to the fact that the episode’s villains were completely aware of them and had stopped what they were doing in order to watch incredulously, went on just a bit too long.

As for the villains, there’s not much to say. Sara Lancashire did a perfectly workmanlike job as Miss Foster, but the main interest in her comes primarily from the somewhat middling mystery of her sonic pen. On the other hand, the adipose babies were beyond adorable, and one can’t help but hope that we might see them again. I think there’s real potential for the lil’ fatties to become Who’s 21st century Tribbles. They also led to one of Donna’s finer bits, the moment when she appreciated the fact that the Doctor wasn’t going to destroy them the way that he destroyed all the spider babies the last time they’d gotten together. It was a cute callback.

Lastly, I want to just say a little bit about the “surprise” at the end of the episode. That was a stunner. I knew that it was coming, although I remain more or less unspoiled about the circumstances, yet I never thought we’d get a taste of it so early on. One area in which I’ve long hoped Who would pick up the slack is in establishing a series long arc. Before Series 1, it had been announced that Davies was going to emulate the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Big Bad model for his storytelling. That’s not really happened so far. For the most part, we got the repitition of “Bad Wolf” in Series 1, which really never went anywhere, the infrequent references to Torchwood in Series 2, which, again, didn’t really amount to anything before the finale anyway, and the admittedly more involving references to Mr. Saxon in Series 3. In all likelihood, Series 4 may well follow the same model, but I’d really like to see them Buffyize the storytelling a bit more, weaving the Big Bad in and about more consistently, perhaps, letting us know who they are and what they want early on.

One last thought on the surprise appearance of Rose. Watching it again after the surprise had worn off, it’s really quite chilling, particularly in the way that Billie looks right into the camera at us. The foreboding is palpable. Whoever would have thought that Rose Tyler’s return would turn out to be a Very Bad Thing? Kudos for Russell T Davies for managing to bring a whole new flavor to the Rose Tyler experience for this. That’s really well done!

Some final little bits:

• I love the new theme song and the somewhat less orchestral score this time. The increased use of organ was a nice touch and gave the whole thing a sort of 70s vibe that was welcome.
• It really is nice to note that David Tennant is now really, really ensconced in the role now. I like the idea of long-term Doctors, and until now there’s just been too much of a sense of transience around the new series, between Christopher Eccleston’s short tenure and the fact that BBC actors simply cannot be contracted for years at a time in the way that American actors routinely are, leading to the constant speculation on exactly when or if David Tennant will resign the role. That’s still happening, of course, and will undoubtedly continue, but there’s still no arguing with three full series and something like at least 7 specials (including all of the Christmas episodes and next year’s pseudoseason of occasional specials. He has established himself in a way that no actor has since the last incarnation of the program, and that’s nice to see now.
• I noticed that the timing of the credits was a little off, with Tennant’s name appearing earlier than usual; I wonder if this is to account for an increase in the number of pre-title names later in the series when Freema Agyeman comes back.
• A hat box! She’s bringing a hat box onto the TARDIS, in case she needs a hat! Comedy gold!
• Weird little bit of framing during the shot of Donna heading off to drop her mum’s keys in the bin. The extra playing the police man in the red vest is so close to her and so prominent in the shot that I thought for sure he was heading toward her. I wonder if the production team was really happy with that shot.
• One more thought on the music; wasn’t that amazing when the Doomsday theme popped up toward the end of the episode, accompanying the enigmatic appearance by you-know-who?

So that’s it for me. Now tell me all about how wrong I am!

Resuming the story quite literally right where we last left off, the “best show on television” comes roaring back onto our screens with an intensity that…doesn’t quite sustain the dramatic and emotional heft of the outlandish and outrageous third season finale, which saw both the delirious return of Katee Sackhoff’s Starbuck and the revelation that four long-running characters, including at least two fan favorites, are Cylons.

It was nice to see Katee Sackhoff’s name returned to its rightful place in the credits following Edward James Olmos and Mary McGovern. This was no surprise, but seeing it was so had the effect of restoring some of the equilibrium that had been thrown out of whack after Starbuck’s “death” late last season.

Speaking of which, does anyone else think that her return, as welcome as it is, constitutes a bit of a cheat? We saw her raptor blow up, right? I tried finding the scene in question on Youtube, but all I could find are fan-made emo videos, the type I’d be creating myself if I were a fifteen-year-old girl (or could successfully pretend I was a fifteen-year-old girl). They show the moment but still manage to somehow obscure the point just a bit. Nonetheless, they’re out there. It’s unmistakeable: her raptor blows up, and people can’t survive that. On top of that, didn’t the producers come right out last Spring and declare that she really did die?

On the other hand, even though it initially smacks of one of those 1930s serials where an extra scene is added the following week after the cliff-hanger recap showing the hero jumping out of the wagon before it careens over the cliff, I’m willing to trust that the Galactica writers have got a clever explanation for us somewhere down the line. Hell, we’ve already got them acknowledging that Starbuck’s raptor is brand new and can’t possibly be the same one she flew off in. That’s some red meat for us to chew on, isn’t it?

On a relevant side note, I should admit that I’m not much of a re-run watcher, at least not when it comes to dramas. Sitcoms, sure. I never tire of a good Friends, Seinfeld, Raymond, King of Queens, etc., but when it comes to dramas, especially serialized ones like Battlestar Galactica, I’m a one-time viewer kind of guy generally.

Now, Galactica’s been gone a long time. Razor notwithstanding, it’s been over a year since the story has been moving forward, and in that time, I kind of forgot how emotional I could get watching it. So tonight I programmed my DVR to start recording ten minutes early so I could get the end of the season three finale, and as soon as it started playing, I had an unexpectedly emotional reaction. The visceral punch of Tigh, Anders, Tyrol and Tory discovering their true nature and choosing to maintain their artificial identities and loyalties, combined with the last moment return of Starbuck, caused me to stifle back tears lest my roommate require some kind of explanation for why I was turning into a little girl on the sofa. I’d truly forgotten what an emotional investment I’d made in this story and these characters.

I remembered then how amazing that finale was, and as the camera pulled back with a God’s eye perspective on all of our players and their relatively tiny place in the universe as All Along The Watchtower played on the soundtrack, I was filled with all kinds of unreasonable hope that the new season would manage to sustain that level of intensity right off the bat. As far as that goes, I have to say that I don’t think it quite succeeded, even though I enjoyed the episode.

The thing is, after all that intensity and paradigm breaking calamity, it’s a bit of a letdown to find the story sort of step back a little bit, at least in its treatment of Starbuck. Yes, yes, yes, I understand: they have to be somewhat suspicious and question whether she’s a cylon. That makes sense, but it’s kind of boring. We’ve been there before, albeit with Boomer. What I was sort of hoping for was a real leap forward in audacity, the way that they managed with the One Year Later fast forward that ended season two. That was bold!

Now, granted that the New Caprica occupation storyline was a bit of a letdown, too, with its clumsy and not particularly apt Iraq allegory, but I’ll still always love them for taking that chance. We’re at the end of the story now, and I really want them to take more chances again. I don’t want to watch Laura “the Airlock” Roslyn show us how badass and obstinate she can be, again. I already know that about her.

However, please don’t misunderstand: I’m here for the duration, committed til the end, I promise, and loving so very much of it. There was much to admire and appreciate here, from Gaius’s new colony of hot women all eager to have sex with him (has anyone else in history ever gotten so much booty off the systematic annihilation of his people?), to the revelation that our newly revealed cylons might have a harder time resisting their natures than they might initially have hoped.

And then, of course, there’s Tory. Has there ever been a more ridiculous beautiful woman on television than the lovely Rekha Sharma? Well, of course there has, I’m sure, but every now and then someone pops on the screen who just resonates for me, and for today at least, it’s Rekha:

What can I say? I like who I like. Just wait. Soon I’ll be blogging about Bones just so I can coo over the beautiful Michaela Conlin.

But back to Battlestar Galactica, and a few final thoughts:

• I really hope they stop playing around with the back and forth hostility between Bill and Lee Adama. How many more times can we watch one of them dicker around with whether or not Apollo remains a colonial officer? This is another instance of something being revisited too often. Get these two into couples counseling stat, and let’s move on!
• I wonder whether Tyrol is just going to flat out tell Cally that he’s a Cylon. There was something about that moment when she asked him where the Hell he’s been, and he replies that he’ll tell her later. I really think this could be a believable part of his character, and I’m fascinated to see how she’d take it. I imagine she’d agree to keep it a secret.
• As a counterpoint, consider the touching scene where Anders tries to comfort Starbuck by reassuring her that it would be okay even if she were a Cylon. That she doesn’t share his tolerance and shortly thereafter cold-cocked him simply doesn’t speak well for the future of their relationship, does it?

So that’s it. I’m reminded, of course, that one can’t be too critical too early, especially when it comes to long-form dramas at the start of their seasons, given that we inherently lack the perspective of being able to see where it’s all going or how cleverly it’s going to take us there.

Also, for the record, I want to acknowledge the debt this blog owes to Alan Seppinwall, particularly for his handy and workmanlike method of wrapping up with bullet points. Always steal from the best, I say, so make sure you go and give Alan a read, too. His thoughts, I’m sure, far surpass mine anyway. Hell, it takes all the discipline I’ve got to resist reading his take on the episode before composing my own.

Now if only I could get access to the same database of pictures he has. In the meantime, I have to make do with Google’s finest pickings.

So that’s my take on things. Now you!

Last night’s episode of How I Met Your Mother was so good that I think maybe I’ve been too easy on other recent episodes.

Numerous first rate gags on hand this time, from Robin’s sixteen “no’s” in reaction to Blah Blah’s insinuation that she and Barney were a couple (protesting so much, in fact, that I think an eventual Robin/Barney pairing is now inevitable), to the running jokes involving Ted’s bad kissing habits and the technique of saying “come on” in a low key but condescending tone to get people to admit sexual secrets.

But it’s not just the verbal silliness that makes a good How I Met Your Mother work.  It’s the visual gags, too, that keep the show firing on all cylinders.  Here we had the amusement of Ted’s ever-shifting hairstyles, the use of sandwiches to represent joints, and, of course, Barney’s crazy/hot scale and its onscreen visualization, as well as the multiple demonstrations of how it works and how Blah Blah’s placement on the scale kept moving.

Finally, we also had multiple flashbacks, including a good look at dippy Ted the liberal college fool eager to show off his feminist cred in order to get in Lily’s pants and looking entirely like a dope.  Others have pointed out that  this episode had significantly less Robin for a change.  I don’t share the disregard that some have for Cobie Smulders, but it’s plainly obvious that the show works best when it’s acting as a true ensemble.  Consequently, it’s nice to see the focus shifting away from the adventures and/or heartbreak of Ted and Robin.  I hope that this is the beginning of a trend that will carry throughout as the season continues.

Lastly, top marks to Abigail Spencer for her fun job as the crazy but hot Blah Blah.  One of the other continuing pleasures of How I Met Your Mother is its ever changing progression of hot female guest stars, and Abigail Spencer may well be the sexiest one yet.

About halfway through “Dummy”, I fell in love with Kristin Chenoweth. And Digby the dog.

I’m starting to get a good feeling about this show, and that became clear the moment that Chenoweth’s Olive Snook brook into song, spontaneously singing “Hopelessly Devoted to You” to express heartache over her inability to snag the attentions of Lee Pace’s Ned. But it wasn’t just the fact that Pushing Daisies gave us a musical number in the middle of its second episode, it’s the fact that it did so in such an idiosyncratic fashion, with Olive being interrupted several times and freezing up in embarrassment for her excessive keening, only to resume at the earliest opportunity. Kristin captured perfectly that sense of humiliation so many of us have felt at one time or another over being caught exposed and vulnerable in front of the wrong people. In a series so quirky and twee (I love that word!), it was a remarkably down to earth moment, and its insight into basic human nature was an unexpected answer to earlier criticisms that Pushing Daisies might be a bit too bubbly for a show so rooted in painful, complicated and seemingly insurmountable problems, like not being able to touch someone without killing them.

And then, of course, there’s Digby the dog who both provided a hilarious foil to Olive during her musical lament and a steady reminder that this is far, far too weird a program to be on the air during family hour, not only for its intimation of bestiality but also for its continuing habit of showing dead bodies in disturbing and creepy arrangements, like being suspended on wires like marionettes. As long as Pushing Daisies is going to keep presenting moments that suggest bestiality, I’m going to have to persist in my prediction that it will be off the air, probably for good, by December.

Still, as goofily uncomfortable as it is watching a beautiful woman first caressing a dog whilst singing a love song, then letting said dog lick her entire face for an extended amount of time before finally sharing a bed with that very same dog, the Olive and Digby sequences were also the moments that captivated my attention. I especially enjoyed the fact that Jim Dale’s delightful narration captured the disparity between Olive and Digby’s focus: whilst Olive believes that Digby is a good listener, Digby is merely following his canine instincts and enjoying the taste of salt off Olive’s face. In that moment, it’s hard to determine which is smarter or more pure in their truthfulness, and believe me I never thought I’d be spending a lot of time writing about Digby the dog in a Pushing Daisies review. Also, am I out of my mind, but was there a moment when Olive actually licked Digby in response?

As for the rest of the episode, programs like Reaper should take note that Pushing Daisies could provide some guidance about how you carry forward a seemingly repetitive procedural program whilst still finding ways to be fresh. In this case, Pushing Daisies does it by opening up the characters more and letting us see aspects to them that weren’t immediately obvious. It doesn’t even have to be monumental. Little details like learning that Emerson Cod has a habit of knitting clothing to deal with tension and stress, or that Chuck is a lot more eager to branch out and try new things than was immediately apparent in the pilot (and not at all intimidated by Emerson’s gruff discomfort with her presence), or that Olivia has an adult bond with Digby the dog.

Think about Reaper for a moment. Three episodes in, do we know anything more about the main characters now than we did at the beginning? No, mainly because Reaper’s principal cast remain essentially cyphers, too one-dimensional to bond with. On the other hand, after only two episodes, I’m already developing attachments to most of Daisies’s principal cast.

Curiously enough, the character which remains the most enigmatic so far is the seemingly central protagonist, Ned, but given how the rest of the characters are being given opportunities to grow, I’m confident that Ned, too, will have his time. In fact, thematically, Ned’s inscrutability fits, and it would be a mistake, I think, to make him too accessible too quickly.

I also want to commend the show in finding more opportunities for Ned and Chuck to experience some kind of physicality with each other. Zipping them both into transparent body bags and then letting them make out through them was inspired, as was the rubber hand attachment to the car divider. Both of these conceits are oddball, but Pushing Daisies was clever enough to make them work, and I’m curious to see how many more variations on this they can conceive without seeming repetitive or too goofy.

I haven’t said much about the procedural part of tonight’s episode, and that’s because it wasn’t all that remarkable, though still light years ahead of its counterparts on Reaper. Presenting Janine as a bulimic, and then sort of going for laughs with it, was kind of interesting, though, and Riki Lindhome did a nice job of making her intriguing and funny. The reveal of the killer was pretty obvious, but I don’t really think that Pushing Daisies is setting out to be a significant whodunnit. It seems to have something more unique in mind, and so far, I’m going to stick with it as long as I can.

Finally, a short bit on the visual look of the episode. I was initially concerned when I read that the network was ordering the produers to rein in the purse strings, thinking that in order for a show like this work it would need the highly stylized meadows and backgrounds. We still had a little bit of that during Ned’s flashback, but for the most part, the look of the episode was pretty straightforward and modern, with the exception of the Dandy Lion car, and, actually, I wouldn’t have minded a bit if they’d had to lose the eccentric automobile look. I’m starting to think that Pushing Daisies might well be able to work with a less eccentric palette, and that’s a good sign.

So that’s my take on the latest episode; now you!

Carpoolers is the best surprise of Tuesday nights so far.  I only hope it doesn’t get sucked down the drain by Cavemen.

In fact, Cavemen is such an off-putting concept (hated the Geico commercials, completely uninterested in a sitcom expansion) that I almost didn’t even bother giving Carpoolers a look.  On paper it sounds unremarkable:  the adventures of 4 guys who share a carpool lane, but it’s filled with funny, interesting characters and a plethora of winning actors.

 There’s so much about Carpoolers that inherently makes me smile, from the goofy performance of T.J. Miller as the Napoleon Dynamite-channeling Marmaduke to the calamity of Aubrey’s household (and the fact that we only ever see the reclining feet of his apparently immovable wife) to the sweet naivete of Dougie’s newlywed co-dependency, to the occasional forays into surreal slapstick, such as the scene when Dougie is literally banged about on both sides in his pursuit of Aubrey.  Carpoolers is no Arrested Development of ground breaking genius, but what it is is a sweetly produced bit of good natured comedy with just a tiny bit of edge under the surface without ever losing its big family-friendly heart.

I want to say a little more about Jerry Minor, Fred Goss and Jerry O’Connel.  Jerry Minor is an absolute delight, dithering about like a man who’s only a few moments away from being pushed too far and maybe pulling out a gun, but he plays it with such tender vulnerability that he steals the show everytime he’s onscreen.  I didn’t realize until just now that he played the neighbor on Lucky Louie last year, and contrasting the two performances, he really is a revelation.  As much as I enjoyed Lucky Louie, and I enjoyed it a great deal, I had no idea that this actor was so capable of holding forth just by virtue of playing under the other characters.  He may be the single deciding factor that keeps me coming back.

As for Jerry O’Connell, an actor I haven’t always been fond of, here he shows terrific comic chops and scores a lot of points by his willingness to play Laird as kind of an unnattractive, insensitive, even bullying figure (although his more hostile tones were considerably muted here from the level they were at in the pilot — and I think that’s a good thing) who wins us over by playing the truth of a guy who’s been completely obliterated and demoralized by a divorce.  A lesser actor might not be as willing to dwell in the mud, and it’s a credit to O’Connell that he goes there.

 Fred Goss’s also does an excellent job as a slightly less harried professional man who nonetheless struggles with a looming sense of inadequacy that leaves him vulnerable to being browbeaten and taken advantage of, all at the service of comedy gold, and it’s a pleasure to watch the chemistry between him and Faith Ford as his uberwife and the aforementioned T.J. Miller as perhaps the oddest new character on sitcoms this season.  Between his goofy hair and manchild innocence, it’s almost impossible not to crack a smile when Miller’s Marmaduke is onscreen.

In tonight’s episode, we got to see how the various families can be mixed together, and the results are encouraging, suggesting that this show might have the flexibility to sustain a large variety of plot permutations.  Given Bruce McCullough’s Kids in the Hall pedigree, and last week’s delightful cameos by Scott Thompson, one can’t help but wonder how far out there Bruce is planning to take things (are we likely to see things as bizarre as guys with cabbage growing out of their head, for example?) and I for one feel somewhat excited to find out.  If you haven’t yet given this one a shot, I highly encourage it.  Fortunately, ABC is offering Internet streams of Carpoolers, as well as many other programs, here.

So that’s my take on Carpoolers, so far.  Now you!

Please please please put a sock in it, already!

Seriously, “All Mine” is an improvement on several levels, and creators Tara Butters and Michelle Fazekas deserve praise and support for that.

So why am I including a large picture of the lovely, lovely Valarie Rae Smith at the top of this post? For two reasons. No! Make that three reasons:

1. *sigh*;
2. since the show continues to waste her in a thankless role so superfluous that only her computer was actually needed, it seems the least I can do is give her a little extra love here; and
3. it’s very difficult to come by timely and relevant pictures from the current episodes. I don’t yet have the connections that some of the bigger kids have. That will change, though; yes, it will change. AND THEN THEY’LL ALL PAY! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

*ahem*

Also, did I mention *sigh*?

But I digress, probably because digression remains more interesting to me than discussing tonight’s episode. Nonetheless, let’s get back to it, okay?

The notable stuff:

• I actually got a genuine laugh, the first of the entire series, when Sam referred to the Devil under his breath as an “ass”. There’s just something perfect about not only using such an inadequate description for the most powerful evil force in existence, but also doing it under your breath, as though (a) he might hear, and (b) you could hide it from him. I’m sorry, but that’s funny stuff. It was the only laugh in the episode, but, again, that was one laugh more than were to be found in the previous two episodes combined.

• The villain’s story, whilst still relatively mundane and ho-hum, had slightly more appeal than the last two, and even included a tiny bit of misdirection, which made for a surprise revelation. Again, a small improvement, but worth noting.

• With the title, “All Mine,” and the fugitive’s backstory of obsessively containing her lover, I get that the writer might have been trying to thematically tie that into Sam’s jealousy over Andi and his ambivalence toward bother her plans to go back to school and her apparent flirtation with another guy, but it really didn’t quite gel, mainly because there just isn’t enough meat to this show or the character relationships yet. Still, if Reaper is going to last, it’s going to have to branch out more often into even slightly more sophisticated storytelling like this. It’s the only way to keep it from getting stuck in the sitcom rut that dominated the first two episodes. More, please.

• No sign of Sam’s family this week; I can’t help but wonder whether that trend is going to continue. It probably should, as there’s not a lot of mileage to be gotten out of Sam’s brother acting jealous and Mom maybe fretting over what he’s got to do for the Devil. It worked when Buffy the Vampire Slayer first had to hide her secret life from her mother then later had to deal with her mother’s fears, but, as I’ve been pointing out for a couple of weeks now, Reaper is no Buffy.

• The conceit of dressing the boys up in vessel-specific clothing does seem to be shaping up into a standard gag now. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but nor is it a laff riot. The main thing I come away with from the team activities is that it’s really touching that Sam’s friends have consistently decided to back him up, even though he’s doing very dangerous work, and Rick Gonzalez as Ben continues to grow on me, which is a good thing because it allows for some relief from the obnoxious and annoying Sock.

• As for Sock, it was nice to see that he was toned down a bit this week, a little more approachable, a little less too cool for the room, but great God almighty WILL THEY PLEASE STOP WITH THE HORRIFIC SCENES WHERE HE TRASH TALKS OR MANIPULATES JOSIE. Those scenes are beyond offensive, beyond obnoxious, in no way enjoyable or amusing, and stretch believability well beyond the breaking point. I have a good feeling toward Josie, and such scenes disgust me on her behalf. Worse, they destroy any of the goodwill that each episode struggles to produce with regard to Sock.

• I still think this show needs a shift in tone. If it’s going to be a comedy, they should shorten it to 30 minutes and include more scenes with Ray Wise. But I don’t think it should strive for comedy; instead, it should try to develop more in the hipster dramedy mode of something like, again, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One thing Reaper continues to lack is a sense of danger or importance in what Sam’s doing or the risks he’s taking. I think this show is going to need a major death, and I’d like to nominate Sock (though I actually think that Ben might end up being the sacrificial goat if it comes to that). Get rid of Sock and either bring in a less obnoxious character or increase Ben’s role (and range). Whatever, we need some danger.

So that’s my take on things. Reaper is improving, but it still has miles to go before it becomes a first rate entertainment.

Now you!

An outstanding and sexy return to form after the alarming lameness of the previous episode!

In fact, the track record of How I Met Your Mother is so strong that one should probably look at the lame episodes as a sort of breather, a chance to catch your breath between the dizzying heights of the usual installments.

Tonight we had a mini Freak and Geeks reunion with Busy Philipps showing up as Rachel, playing off a leggy Danica McKellar making a welcome return after last season’s “The Pineapple Incident.” It’s always a pleasure to see Busy; she remains one of the sexiest girls on TV whilst always seeming approachable, even when the characters she’s playing aren’t. She deserves to be a much bigger star, and the only disappointment in her appearance was that we didn’t get to see her and Jason Segel interact. That would have been special.

Of course, How I Met Your Mother also deserves more success and better ratings. It should be as popular and well established now as Friends was back in the 90s. I can’t help but wonder, were HIMYM introduced by NBC back then and Friends brought forth by CBS two years ago, whether HIMYM would already be the cultural touchstone and ratings smash it deserves to be whilst Friends would still be struggling to secure its place in the zeitgeist.

Still, it’s always best to remain grateful for small wonders, like the fact that we’re now enjoying a third season of How I Met Your Mother when the odds really seemed against it last Spring.

Getting back to the sexy for a moment, can I just say VA-VA-VOOM? Again, HIMYM solidifies its place as one of the finest clearinghouses for hot women (and men, too, I suppose, given the appearances by Enrique Iglesias in the last two episodes) and sexy storytelling. In that sense it sort of reminds me of Coupling, and I’m sometimes amazed by how far an 8:00 sitcom will go to bring on the hotness. There was a pleasant surprise at the climax of the episode in that regard. When Ted emerged from his bedroom for the last time and found his living room empty, I thought for sure the show had taken the safest and cleanest route. It might have been funnier, but it wouldn’t have been sexier, and the final reveal that the tricycle (I loved the bicycle metaphors for sex!) was still waiting for Ted to ride was beyond awesome.

One small quibble I have with tonight’s episode, however, is that I wish the writers could manage to keep the ensemble together even more than they already do, because, after the first few scenes, Robin was pretty much isolated from the rest of the cast. Still, her B plot was funny, and she demonstrated once again that she’s got some chops for silly physical comedy.

I do think the show is weathering the Ted/Robin break-up well, and it’s probably inevitable that she’ d still have to be kept away from an episode that was so focused on Ted getting laid, but I look forward to a time when the personal dynamics will be resolved enough for everyone to get to enjoy the main plots together. As Alan Sepinwall has pointed out on numerous occasions, the show continues to combine Barney and Robin in a way that suggests a future pairing between the two. Every week now I see something else that convinces me that this is going to be in the cards somewhere down the line.

Some other things that tickled my funny bone in the episode include: Barney’s aggregate rules for validating a three way (including age, weight and prostitution status limitations), Marshall taking off his pants to play with the Nintendo Wii, Robin’s unshaven legs calling her out as a Turkish lesbian, Barney’s “you did it you didn’t do it you did it you didn’t do it” verbal dithering at the bar (as well as the fact that he brought the championship belt with him!), and the various bicycle metaphors for sex.

And one last thought on the matter of sex. I’ve hated Alyson Hannigan’s hairstyle this season, thinking it makes her look dowdy, but Lily in gogo boots tonight all but made up for it and brought her right back into the hotness zone where she deserves to be. One more time: VA-VA-VOOM!

So that’s my take on things. Now you!

It’s the open-hearted abandon of My Name Is Earl that keeps winning me back.

I was an early fan during its first season, but back then I still got the sense that it was bordering on the snide just a little too much.  There was just something about the idea of Ivy League graduates and millionaire movie stars playing white trash (and often in the crudest, last appealing possible light) that made me pause.  I couldn’t deny it was funny, but I wasn’t sure whether it was also being condescending.  As the season progressed, the writing sharpened.  The characters became deeper, arguably more sympathetic, and it became easier to empathize with their points of view.  Eventually, I felt like I was laughing with them rather than at them, and that’s the point at which My Name Is Earl hit its stride.

Nonetheless, they lost me during season 2.  I don’t claim a drop off in quality or anything, it’s just that my time got a bit more scarce, and it was easier to lose track of an episodic sitcom in the face of my generally stronger draw toward serialized dramas like 24 and LOST.  Ironically, as I lost track of Earl, it started experimenting with its format, trying longer-form storytelling, including a season-long arc about Joy’s (Jaime Presley) impending date with life behind bars, a result of a Three Strikes violation she was too reckless to notice until it seemed to be too late.

I caught the season finale, in which Earl (the continuously delightful Jason Lee) sacrifices himself to a multi-year prison term in order to save her, and I was taken aback by how moving it was.  My Name Is Earl made me get weepy, and that’s not something I ever anticipated.  Consequently, I’ve chosen to reward it’s quality with a renewed commitment, and so far season three is proving that a wise choice.

So to get back to the matter at hand, which is the latest episode, I love that the producers are so brave as to take feven greater chances with their format whilst still managing to maintain enough of Earl’s original charms so as not to alienate long time viewers.

One of My Name Is Earl’s greatest assets is its willingness to hand focus over to an ever increasing number of wacky eccentric guest characters, as well as its tendency to cultivate them into an ongoing farm team for future episodes.  “The Gangs of Camden County” featured a number of new eccentrics, from the warden (played so affably by Craig T. Nelson that I never realized before how much I like him) to the two unexpectedly gay gang leaders (one of whom played by Page Kennedy coming off an interesting run on Weeds).  I hope that we will be seeing more of the warden in future episodes, and since one of his functions was to shave off some of Earl’s 2-year sentence, I think that’s probably a good bet, particlarly since I don’t believe the current plan is to leave Earl locked up for the next two seasons.  That said, there really does seem to be comedy gold available for mining, so I hope they don’t leave the setting too soon.

Randy’s new job as a prison guard was a welcome surprise, also, and a nice way to come back from the otherwise depressing ending to last week’s episode which saw him stealing a car in an attempt to get sent to prison so he could be with Earl.  That Randy would do this after all the effort made to become more functional and independent lent a kind of depressing vibe to the ending of what was otherwise a stellar season premiere.  Re-connecting him to Earl in this new capacity actually seems like a much better way to go, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it plays out.

So that’s my take on Earl 3.3 (or 3.2 depending on how you count it).  Now you!

I wanted to like Pushing Daisies a lot more than I did, but I’m not giving up on it, either.

I’m committed myself to at least six episodes, though my gut tells me that there’s no way this show lasts that long before ABC pulls the plug.  Reports that the network is already demanding the kinds of budget cuts that could end up neutering the show’s distinctive visual style are also not encouraging, as this is the kind of series that is desperately going to need an unusual palette to succeed.

One of the first things that strikes me is that 8:00 p.m. (7:00 for you midwesterners) is a really odd timeslot for a show like this, mired in death and violence, however stylized.  In this first episode we witness at least three natual and two violent onscreen deaths, including a man getting a shotgun in the chest from Swoosie Kurtz.  We also get several additional murder victims, including suffocated women with bags over their heads and a man whose face has been partially devoured by a dog attack.  This is a bit much for the family hour.  It’s difficult enough to imagine how this show got on the air in the first place, but trying to make sense of its early evening placement on top of that is enough to make your head spin.

I don’t want to be overly critical, however, as there were many aspects of the show that I enjoyed, and I’m particularly eager to see how it’s going to be structured in future episodes.  I’m hoping that there’s more to it than the murder-solving conceit, because it’s just not that interesting to me.  From a glance at TV.com’s episode guide for the show, future plotlines look set to explore more backstory and interpersonal dynamics, and that’s an encouraging sign.

What I’m not entirely sold on so far is the overall tone of the series, which is a bit more twee and reserved than I usually prefer.  When presented with inherently emotional stories, I prefer an approach of earnest sincerity over irony, and the detached attitude toward death and dying exhibited in the pilot are an acquired taste.  To be fair, stylizing to the point of emotional detachment is probably the only way you’re going to get away with a program so steeped in death during the family hour.  Plus, it’s an interesting reflection of the main character’s own dilemma.  Assuming that his experiences with the resurrected Chuck will eventually teach him how to emotionally engage with the world again, perhaps the long term plan of the show is to gradually deepen the heart of the presentation.  That could certainly be interesting.

Lee Pace gives a solid performance.  Bryan Fuller fans will remember him as the brother on the much-lamented Wonderfalls.  He plays a much different sort of character here, and it’s a credit to the actor that he’s able to make such disparate types come to life to the extent that he does.  The first time I heard of Lee Pace was when he was let go from the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts just a few days before he was to open in the lead role in Philadelphia, Here I Come back in 2001.  When something like that happens, it doesn’t seem likely that the actor will be able to rebound as well as Pace has, but that’s what has happened, and his solid work on both Wonderfalls and in the Pushing Daisies pilot testifies on his behalf.

Anna Friel also does a nice job as the alive again Chuck.  She brings a sweetness and light to the proceedings that remind everyone once again how important it is to be positive and how much better happy people make the world.  Spending not a moment of Pushing Daisies in self-pity over her lot in life or her inability to touch Ned, she shines onscreen whilst even managing to maintain an ever so slight edge and sense of adventure that is infectious.

And then, Chi McBride’s opportunist detective Emerson Cod steals the show, providing dry cynicism to contrast the airiness of the rest of the show, keeping the romp from detaching entirely and floating off into its own idiosyncratic ether.  He, Pace and Friel make a really interesting team together, and Pushing Daisies has just enough of an edge to it that makes you wonder whether the three of them will be able to keep working together without someone eventually trying to stab somebody else in the back, albeit not literally.  Maybe.  Or maybe not?  Who knows?  Probably not, but, again, that’s the kind of unusual chemistry that helps make something really stand out.

So I’m looking forwad to seeing where this might go, but pretty pessimistic about its chances for sucess.  If this thing is still on the air by December, I’ll be amazed.

And that’s my take.  Now you!

Now that’s more like it!

Truth be told, I liked Bionic Woman’s pilot a lot more than others, though many of the complaints were valid.  It was too dour, too mopey and Sackhoff upstaged star Michelle Ryan every time they were onscreen together.  It’s not that I agreed with the notion that Michelle Ryan was bland, it’s just that Katee Sackhoff is a dazzling charisma generator in her own right.    That was less of a problem this week, as Sackhoff ’s rogue bionic woman Sarah Corvus was kept seperate from Ryan’s Jamie Sommers, and that distance allowed Ryan to find some more confidence as the center of the show.  Without having to compete with Sackhoff, Ryan’s Jamie Sommers was relaxed, amiable, endearing and even appreciative of her new status as a super hero and eager to put it to good use.  That’s a definite move in the right direction, as any more scenes of Jamie horrified by her new body would really have been a drag.

In other positive developments, it was nice to see that her agency was presented in less of a sinister light this time through, with Miguel Ferrer even being allowed to inject some warmth and humanity into his performance, elevating him almost to a benign father figure for Jamie, though still maintaining enough of an edge, on his own as well as in conjunction with Molly Price’s character, to keep things from getting too relaxed.  The addition of Isaiah Washington seems like a good development, as well.  There is a tenderness in his work that has a lot of potential to add emotional depth to future episodes.

The writers injected some much needed humor into the dialog and basically managed to lighten things up considerably.  This was a striking departure from the pilot and much welcome.  No longer is Jamie Summers wandering through rain storms bemoaning her new life, now she’s making wisecracks with the other characters and smiling in the present.

On the downside, the A plot of this episode, the agency’s uncovering of a plot to commit mass murder throughout the country by dispersing poison gas, was wrapped up a bit too neatly and quickly.  I’m a big fan of longer form storytelling, and I like to see plots given a bit more time to breathe.  Still, it seems to that the Sarah Corvus plot will be threading throughout the season, and that’s a very good sign.

As for Sarah Corvus, the show introduced some new aspects to her story that I not only didn’t see coming but could perhaps pave the way for the character’s eventual rehabilitation, which is probably necessary if Katee Sackhoff is going to stay involved to the degree that we all want.  Introducing the idea that interference from a hacker might be primarily responsible for Sarah’s mass murders is intriguing.  I’m not generally a fan of such approaches, given that letting characters off the hook through outlandish plot devices usually seems cheap and unfair, but I’m willing to give this one the benefit of the doubt for awhile, at least until I see where they might be going with it.  I don’t generally like the idea of such plot twists, but it didn’t feel wrong in the execution.

Given the lukewarm response that so many of the critics and viewers have had to Michelle Ryan, could this be a way in which the producers eventually manage to bring Katee Sackhoff front and center to take over the lead?  If bionic women can be hacked, can we predict a possible story progression wherein Sarah Corvuss is brought back to grace whilst Jamie Sommers is taken to the dark side and eventually dispatched?

Probably not, but one can’t help wonder whether the producers are thinking ahead like this just to keep their options open once Katee Sackhoff is finally finished with Battlestar Galactica.

So that’s my take.  Now you!