House 7.17: Deadly Healthy Diet

Top-notch House 7.17 tonight - with a fine medical mystery, and a shocker of an ending which fits in with the mystery in more ways than one.

The mystery:  In what way could a derelict's life be healthier for him - a diet of garbage and scraps from dumpsters - than the care and nutrition given in a hospital?   Allergies and microbes are ruled out.  What's left?   As House eventually realizes, it's the good, healthy hospital food.   The patient is having a reaction to all of these green vegetables.  A diet of fatty, sometimes raw scraps of meat is his best medicine.

And the shocker?  After the patient, mostly cured, leaves the hospital, the FBI descends on the place.  The patient's DNA matches to a serial killer - who eats his victims.  No wonder he had a taste for raw meat and his body is used to it.

This is thus an episode about a deadly health diet in two ways:   The healthy diet almost killed the patient in the hospital.  And the diet which kept him healthy out in the street was deadly - for the victims he consumed.

This also raises the time-honored ethical quandary - once again on House - about whether it's right to use medical knowledge to save a human monster.   Chase and Cameron broke up over this last year.   And now the team has unknowingly cured a serial killer, and set him loose again in the world.  Life ain't easy, and doctoring's even tougher.

Meanwhile, House marries someone more or less to hurt Cuddy, which it does, but she can cope with it.   Doesn't matter - the best part of tonight's story was in the plot.   Could be a good cross-over to Criminal Minds, if such were possible between networks.

See also House and Cuddy on the Other Side in Season 7 Premiere ... House 7.2: House and Cuddy, Chapter 2 ... House 7.3: The Author and the White Lie ... House 7.9: The Vilda Chaya ... House 7.11: The Patient's Most Important Right ... House 7.14:  House, Death, and Cuddy ... House 7.16: Broken Hearts and their Repair

And see also House Reborn in Season Six? ... 6.2: The Gang is Back and Fractured ... 6.3: The Saving Hitler Quandary ... 6.4: Diagnosis vs. Karma ... 6.5 Getting Better ... 6.6 House Around the Bases ... Four's a Crowd on House 6.7 ... House 6.8 and the Reverse of Flowers for Algernon ... House 6.9: Wilson ... House 6.10: Back in Business ... House 6.11: Making Amends, Mending Fences, and a Psychopath  ... House 6.12: The Progression to Mensch ... House 6.13: Cuddy's Perspective ... House Meets Blogger in 6.14 ... House 6.15: About Taub ... House 6.16: Revealing Couples ... House 6.17: Socrates on Steroids ... House 6.18: Open Marriage

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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Detroit 1-8-7

Just caught the season finale of Detroit 1-8-7 - been watching and enjoying the series since it began - and the finale was superb.  A realistic, satisfying ending.

The series started off a little slowly in the Fall.  Formulaic two cases per episode, rarely intersecting.  But an outstanding Detroit locale.  Between that and new Chrysler commercials, I almost want to live there (I'm an incorrigible New Yorker).

The acting has been powerful throughout.   With Michael Imperioli and James McDaniels (Lt. from NYPD Blue), how can you miss.  And, in fact, this easily is Imperioli's best role since The Sopranos, and McDaniels may be even better here than on NYPD Blue, playing a detective close to retiring.

But the rest of the cast and characters are fine, too - even McDaniels' partner (played by Shaun Majumder), which easily could have been a throwaway role, makes a unique, memorable impression.

And with the last few episodes, the series has come into its own.  Surprising deaths and other twists, stories which get to the hearts of the characters.  Especially effective was Imperioli's son Vadim playing Imperioli's character Fitch's son - a cool, younger version of the father,  with similar body language and expressions, as well as sharp dialogue.

If you missed Detroit 1-8-7, catch it on Netflix or whatever when it's out.  And here's hoping that we get to see more of Detroit and this story in the Fall.  I'd really enjoy another weekly series of visits.

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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

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Big Love Ends

I liked everything about the series finale of Big Love, just on HBO, except one thing.   If you haven't seen it, don't read on ...

The shocker near the end of last episode of Big Love was certainly not satisfying, and only appropriate if one values metaphor above the lessons of real life.  After surmounting most of the obstacles facing him - keeping his family together, starting his church, which has nearly 500 people coming to its opening after Bill stands up in the Utah Senate and introduces an amendment which would legalize polygamy - after doing all of that, Bill is shot dead by his off-balance neighbor.

Yes, you could say that this was appropriate, given that Bill had completed his mission here on Earth.  Yes, this ending gives us the O'Henry-esque twist of not being able to escape one's fate.   Bill dodged Alby's intent on shooting him, last week, only to succumb to the deranged neighbor's bullet tonight.

Yes, you can say all of that, and it would be true and well-taken, but I still would have preferred an ending that left Bill alive.  Had Bill been convicted and gone off to prison, the excellent very last scenes could have been exactly same:  Sarah and her husband and baby back home, Barb presiding over the christening, Margene about to leave on another trip, and everyone with tears in their eyes because Bill wasn't there.

But I thank Big Love, its writers and producers and performers, for a great run.  The show will go down as one of the best ever on television.

See also Big Love's Back and North to Alaska ... Big Love 5.3: Grim Christmas ... Big Love 5.5: Barb's Deal ... Big Love 5.6: "I'll Be There" ... Big Love 5.7: Couples ... Big Love 5.8: Casting First Stones ... Penultimate Big Love

See also Big Love Season 4 Start with Casino, Psycho, and Birds ... Big Love 4.2: Politician or Prophet?  ... Big Love 4.3: Super-Compressed, Super-Fine ...  Big Love 4.4:  Bill and Don
... The Potential for Brilliance in Big Love 4.5 ... Big Love 4.6: Barb Ascendant ... Nearly Gunfight at the OK Corral for Big Love 4.7 ... Big Love Breakout Season 4 Finale

See also: Big Love, Season 3 ... 1. a 4th ... 2. Two Issues Resolved, Two Not So Much ... 6. Exquisite, Perfectly Played ... Big Love Season 3 Finale: Bigger Love ...

And from Season 2: 2: Oh, Happy Day, and Not ... 3: Sons and Mothers ... 4. Help Me, Rhonda ... 5. The Waitress and More... 6. Just Lust ... 7. Margene's Mama ... 8. Polygamy and Misgivings ... 9. Swing Vote Margene ... 10. Polygamy as the Ultimate Cool/Bad ... 11. Family in Crisis ... Big Love Season 2 Concludes

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The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book 

Fringe 3.17: Bell, Olivia, Lee, and the Cow

Well, the most exciting part of Fringe 3.17 tonight was likely supposed to be Olivia channeling Bell - and Anna Torv did put in a fine performance (in addition to the excellent portrayals of Olivia and Fauxlivia she's already given us this season) - but my favorite part was seeing Lee (Seth Gabel) at work in our reality.  He's outfitted here with glasses, but his persona came through.   He might even be Lee from the other side - the one we know as leader now of their Fringe division - but my guess is we saw his alternate self here, attracted to our Fringe for the same reason he became a Fringe agent over there.  Nice work, in all cases.

Meanwhile, Bell is inhabiting Olivia, whom Bell assures us is just fine.  But there is a need to get him into a more suitable vessel, and it occurred to me before the characters even said it that it might be the cow (occurred to me because Bell said his new host did not even have to be human).  Finally, a use for that cow, other than as an emblem of Walter's charming nut-cased-ness!   But at the end of tonight's episode, Bell learns that his transfer to another living body may not be easy - it may be that any time a bell rings his soul is summoned somewhere.

Caprica also has a role in tonight's show - at least, Paula Malcomsom played the sympathetic villain tonight - a woman who will do just about anything to join her husband and son, killed in accident, which she was in, too, but for some reason didn't die.

Actually, that reason has something to do with the deterioration of our universe because of Walter's breach, which brings me back to wanting not standalone stories, but more of the riveting central story of Fringe.

See also Fringe 3.1: The Other Olivia ... Fringe 3.2: Bad Olivia and Peter ... Fringe 3.3: Our/Their Olivia on the Other Side ... Fringe 3.5: Back from Hiatus, Back from the Amber ... Fringe 3.7: Two Universes Still Nearing Collision ... Fringe 3.8: Long Voyages Home ... Fringe 3.10: The Return of the Eternal Bald Observers ... Flowers for Fringenon in Fringe 3.11 ... Fringe 3.12: The Wrong Coffee  ... Fringe 3.13: Alternate Fringe ... Fringe 3.14: Amber Here ... Fringe 3.15: Young Peter and Olivia ... Fringe 3.16: Walter and Yoko

See also reviews of Season 2: Top Notch Return of Fringe Second Season ... Fringe 2.2 and The Mole People ... Fringe 2.3 and the Human Body as Bomb ... Fringe 2.4 Unfolds and Takes Wing ... Fringe 2.5: Peter in Alternate Reality and Wi-Fi for the Mind ... A Different Stripe of Fringe in 2.6 ... The Kid Who Changed Minds in Fringe 2.7 ... Fringe 2.8: The Eternal Bald Observers ... Fringe 2.9: Walter's Journey ... Fringe 2.10: Walter's Brain, Harry Potter, and Flowers for Algernon ...  New Fringe on Monday Night: In Alternate Universe? ... Fringe 2.12: Classic Science Fiction Chiante ... Fringe 2.13: "I Can't Let Peter Die Again" ... Fringe 2.14: Walter's Health, Books, and Father ... Fringe 2.15: I'll Take 'Manhatan' ... Fringe 2.16: Peter's Story ... Fringe 2.17: Will Olivia Tell Peter? ... Fringe 2.18: Strangeness on a Train ... Fringe 2.19: Two Plus Infinity ... Fringe the Noir Musical ... Fringe 2.21: Bring on the Alternates ... Fringe 2.22:  Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming ... Fringe Season 2 Finale: The Switch

See also reviews of Season One Fringe Begins ... Fringe 2 and 3: The Anthology Tightrope ... 4: The Eternal Bald Observer ... 7: A Bullet Can Scramble a Dead Brain's Transmission ... 8. Heroic Walter and Apple Through Steel ... 9. Razor-Tipped Butterflies of the Mind ... 10. Shattered Pieces Come Together Through Space and Times ... 11. A Traitor, a Crimimal, and a Lunatic ... 12, 13, 14: Fringe and Teleportation ... 15: Fringe is Back with Feral Child, Pheromones, and Bald Men ... 17. Fringe in New York, with Oliva as Her Suspect ... 18. Heroes and Villains across Fringe ... Stephen King, Arthur C. Clarke, and Star Trek in Penultimate Fringe ... Fringe Alternate Reality Finale: Science Fiction At Its Best

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

On the Road to Another Unconstitutional War?

Korea, Vietnam, Iraq1, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq2 all have something in common:  wars the US pursued without the Declaration of War explicitly required in our Constitution by both houses of Congress.   Call them military actions, joint efforts pursuant to UN resolutions, whatever.   Grant that they were justified, for security or ethical reasons, or not.   What they all have in common is that they were (and are) illegal.

And they by and large have not been very successful, with Vietnam the least, and Iraq and Afghanistan not very far behind.   Some of these started with small commitments of our military, others with massive "shock and awe".   But unlike World Wars 1 and 2 - the last two wars which we did declare and therefore pursued legally - we achieved no clear-cut victories.  Korea is still split, Vietnam went totally over to the adversary, and the fates of Iraq and Afghanistan are still in contention.  Only Serbia can be counted as the one sort-of success.

And now, President Obama has told us that we've moved to the verge of another unconstitutional war.  The US will help enforce a no-fly zone in Libya.  That means taking out Libyan air defenses and shooting down their planes, if necessary.  Very close to war - indeed, actually in a phase a war, by any reasonable standard.

Once again we'll be gambling - that his action turns out more like Serbia than Vietnam.

But we'd be better off not going down that road again at all.

*Noted added 19 March 2011:  And the US has just launched its first missile against Libya - so much for staying out of the action ...


10-min podcast on this subject

Bones 6.16: Stuck in an Elevator, Stuck in Time

What better place than to be stuck in an elevator, if you're two people with deep, wild passion and affection for each other - which, for a variety of reasons, has not yet been consummated -  and, just to make matters even more jagged, neither one until now, for different reasons, really wants to talk to the other about?

This is just what happens to Bones and Booth in tonight's episode 6.16.   Sweets, outside of the elevator, starts the proceedings by urging the two to talk - which, of course, they don't.  But Booth gets off the second best line of the night, when he tells Sweets to "stop shrinking around the bush".  (The best is a series of three "hellos" - too much to explain, you have to see it.)

As time goes on - with Bones consulting with the team by phone on the case back at the Jeffersonian, and everyone stuck also in a snow storm - Bones asks Booth if maybe they should start talking about their relationship.  This a significant development - that is, Bones, in her new, more assertive role with Booth - but he says no.

Later in the elevator, Bones and Booth resume their crucial conversation.  This time, Bones delivers one of the most important declarations we've ever heard her make to Booth:  she's sure they would be great in bed together, and she explains why.  Booth cannot disagree, but still seeks to maintain some distance by saying, great in bed together, sure, but not in a relationship.  Bones - again, with a new wisdom about the best thing to say to Booth - agrees.  This promising conversation might have gone even further, but Sweets comes back in from the cold and unknowingly ends the very conversation he wanted to induce.

But there's more.  In one of the best last scenes between Bones and Booth, we find them back together, out of the elevator in a nice comfy apartment with candle light, for their post-case conversation.  Bones, still driving these exchanges, explains to Booth that whereas she was once just impervious to hurt (meaning she felt no pain), now she's traded most of that in for strength - she can deal with pain when it arises.   Booth, despite what he's been saying so far, is moved by that.  The night ends with both of them writing on a piece of paper how long each thinks it will take Booth to get beyond his issues so the two can be totally, satisfyingly together.  But they don't show each other the estimates - and instead commit them to the candle's flame.

My take:  I hope each wrote five minutes, or some very short time.  I'd also like to have seen - broken record that I am on this point - Bones reach over and kiss Booth.   That, especially after their conversations, would have been the best way to get Booth beyond his perceived need for more time.

But what did they really write on the paper in this story?   And did they write the same, or nearly the same, times?   The still secret answer to that is what keeps this fine show going.


See also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7:  Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ... Bones 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery ... Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love ... Bones 6.13: The Marrying Kind ... Bones 6.14: Bones' Acting Ability ... Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family"

And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ... Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ... Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Criminal Minds 6.18: Farewell Emily

Well, Criminal Minds gave Emily a fitting farewell, with a tip-top high octane complex plot that had me guessing and surprised until almost the very end.

We see a lot of Emily's life as Lauren, and time the she spent with Ian, who now has Emily hostage.   There's a little boy involved - could he be Emily's and Ian's?   Would Emily not only sleep with the subject of her earlier agent's job, and likely even care about him, but also have his baby?

No, the boy turns out to be only Ian's.  He did want Lauren to marry him, so the three could be a proper family, but she says no.  And later, after he's taken into custody - this is not now, but in the past - Lauren/Emily has Ian believe that his son was killed.

Ian, of course, always wanted to know by whom.  And as Emily now tells him the story - still as Ian's hostage - it almost seems as if she was the one who killed the boy and his caretaker.  She did hold a gun on them.   The BAU team can see it's her by her bitten fingernails.  But would Emily even for a second contemplate killing an innocent child?

Of course not!  Indeed, Emily wouldn't kill anyone, unless that person was a homicidal maniac and a fatal shot was the only way to stop the murder of innocents.   Emily just faked the deaths, as a way of giving the boy and his caretaker true safety (as in witness protection).

But now something happens that isn't being faked.  As Ian and Emily struggle, he spears her with a big piece of wood.   She's in very bad shape, rushed to the hospital.

JJ - back on the show for this episode to help with the case - comes out into the waiting room to give the team the worst news:  Emily "never got off the table" - she's dead.  But Hotch - the one person in the room who's not crying - walks out into the hall.  Why?  So the team wouldn't see him cry?  No - they've seen him cry (when his wife was killed).

JJ joins him in the hall, and says something, which we don't hear.  At that point it hit me - maybe she's telling him that Emily is not really dead.  (Or maybe Hotch was part of this plan, all along.)

In either case, we see JJ meet Emily and give her papers and a new identity the next day.   She deserves a happy life now.  Great send-off for a fine character, and a fine performance by Paget Brewster.

See also Criminal Minds in Sixth Season Premiere ... Criminal Minds 6.2: The Meaning of J. J. Leaving ... Criminal Minds 6.3: Proust, Twain, Travanti ... Tyra on Criminal Minds 6.13 ... Criminal Minds 6. 17: Prentiss Farewell Part I

And Criminal Minds 5.22 and the Dark Side of New New Media

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book 

V Season 2 (2011) Finale: Oy!

Uh boy ... the V Season 2 finale ended about an hour ago on the East Coast.   So many changes for so many Vistors and people that I'll just list their names and what happened to them here, and that will have to serve as my review:

• Diana - killed - by Anna, who uses her tail to apparently once and for all kill her mother. (You just never know with these visitors.)
• Lisa - failed to kill Anna when Erica's plan puts Anna at Lisa's mercy - now sentenced to the dungeon (tailed Diana doesn't need it anymore), where she watches her double (a new daughter for Anna, outfitted with Lisa skin), make love to Tyler, for the purpose getting pregnant, and kill-
• Tyler - yeah, faux Lisa apparently kills him ... and while we're at it-
• Ryan is apparently killed by his daughter, too (a tough night for parents) ... meanwhile, back on the planet-
• Kyle has gone missing
• the FBI guys - Erica's boss and partner - turn out to be part of a secret organization fighting the Visitors for years ... the org is headed by-
• Marc Singer!  yeah - great to see him back - but why have him play a new character, Lars, when we could have had him back as Mike Donovan?

And where does that leave us?  Ryan's daughter has blissed everyone on Earth above ground, including Jack.   Erica discovers this to her horror when she comes back up.

And we'll have to wait until next season, if there is one, for more.  I really liked a lot of V this year, even more than last year.  Wasn't wild, to say the least, about the finale.  But I'm always open for more Visitors...



See also:  V is Back and Badler ... V 2.2: Do Beings from Planets Have Souls? ... V 2.3 Meets 24 ... V 2.4 at Vatican and Mossad ... 2.5: Chess Game with Two-Edged Pieces Continues ... V 2.6: Double and Triple Agents ... V 2.7: Lisa and Diana ... V 2.8: Conversions and Reconversions   ... V Next-to-Last of Season 2

And reviews of Season 1:  V Returns to TV ... V 1.2: The Effects and The Characters ... V 1.3: Multiple Twists and Lizard Visions ... V 1.4: Good Medicine for Television ... V's Back in 1.5 ... V 1.6: Floating Witches ... V 1.7: Ryan's Story ... V 1.8: Is Lisa Becoming 5th Column? ... V 1.9: Moral Complexity and NonStop Action ... V 1.11:  Lisa's Loyalties ... V 1.12: Complex Chess and Red Cloud

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

The Event 1.13: A Little Too Close to Reality

With Japan on the edge of a nuclear meltdown and its horrendous consequences - in stark reality not in fiction - The Event 1.13 tonight had Thomas responsible for Chernobyl and now endangering a nuclear power in plant in California.   I don't know what NBC could have done - postpone tonight's episode - but this was a little too close to reality for my tastes.  (See my Time to Say Goodbye to Nuclear Energy for my thoughts about nuclear fission energy in our real world.)

The story and the action of The Event 1.13 were, however, excellent, and a powerful continuation of the re-launched series last week. Sophia convinces the President to move nuclear rods from the power plant, so that Thomas cant' get them, but it turns out that Thomas set that move in motion so he could get the rods in his possession - he had no way of "portaling" them out of the nuclear plant.  A nice twist.

Sophia is almost done in by one of Thomas's men, whom she and Michael had taken prisoner.   I was glad to Michael shoot him (especially because the actor - Jack Stehlin - played DEA Captain Till on Weeds).  The net result: Sophia survives, as does Simon, when Thomas's people attack the truck carrying the nuclear rod.   But Thomas now has the rods, and the President more than half believes that Sophia lied to him again - when he gives an order to bring her in, he pointed makes clear that it's ok to use deadly force.

Good, taut television.

Real life, unfortunately, is not subject what writers and producers want - sometimes not to what any human beings, whatever their power, want.  My thoughts and hopes are with the people of Japan.


See also The Event Debuts on NBC ... The Event 1.2: Aliens! ... The Event 1.4: 24 Back in Action! ... The Event 1.6: Not Only Aliens, Immortals! ... The Event 1.7: The Portal and its Implications  ... The Event 1.8: The "Republican" VP and the Anti-24 ... The Event 1.9: "Native Populations, Indigenous People" ... The Event 1.10: Satellite ... The Event 1.11-12: Hardball in Fiction

House 7.16: Broken Hearts and their Repair

An excellent House 7.16 tonight, in which a bullfighter with a damaged heart serves as a physical parallel to House's heart, broken last week by Cuddy.

First, let me say that I think Cuddy was wrong to break up with House.  I know she had a harrowing near-death experience, but she of all people should have known what House was made of - his unreliability and his vulnerability - before she initiated their relationship at the end of last year.

Tonight, Wilson attempts - unsuccessfully, of course - to get her to go back to House, or at least re-initiate some kind of relationship.  She refuses, and eventually goes to see House only to oppose his diagnosis.   Martha also opposed it (she should be fired, if you ask me), but House, as almost always, was right.  As he tells Cuddy, he's the genius, and he's right.  More power to him in not shying away from his talent and brilliance.

Bur House has one more surprise in store for us.  After a few days and nights with luscious prostitutes, House stands on the balcony of his hotel room, and makes as it he intends to jump off.   He does - with Wilson, standing on the ground, in worse than shock.

But the joke's on Wilson and everyone who worried that House was taking his life.   His jump is into a swimming pool, from which he emerges with a big grin on his face.

He's not out of the woods just yet.  Cuddy's leaving did him real damage.  But he's off to a good start.

See also House and Cuddy on the Other Side in Season 7 Premiere ... House 7.2: House and Cuddy, Chapter 2 ... House 7.3: The Author and the White Lie ... House 7.9: The Vilda Chaya ... House 7.11: The Patient's Most Important Right ... House 7.14:  House, Death, and Cuddy

And see also House Reborn in Season Six? ... 6.2: The Gang is Back and Fractured ... 6.3: The Saving Hitler Quandary ... 6.4: Diagnosis vs. Karma ... 6.5 Getting Better ... 6.6 House Around the Bases ... Four's a Crowd on House 6.7 ... House 6.8 and the Reverse of Flowers for Algernon ... House 6.9: Wilson ... House 6.10: Back in Business ... House 6.11: Making Amends, Mending Fences, and a Psychopath  ... House 6.12: The Progression to Mensch ... House 6.13: Cuddy's Perspective ... House Meets Blogger in 6.14 ... House 6.15: About Taub ... House 6.16: Revealing Couples ... House 6.17: Socrates on Steroids ... House 6.18: Open Marriage

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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book 

Penultimate Big Love

The next-to-last episode of Big Love - maybe ever, but who knows, a movie or television series could revisit the Henricksons in the future - finished airing on the East Coast a little over an hour ago.   What a show:

• Nikki tries to commit Cara Lynn to a boarding school.   When Cara Lynn runs to the family for support, and they say no way she'll be put in a boarding school, Nikki later castigates Cara Lynn about what a terrible, unworthy, manipulating person she is.   Nikki could be talking about herself.  Although her close encounter with death last week might well have made her more volatile than usual, her verbal attack on Cara Lynn is about the worst motherly failure we've ever seen from her.  Nikki soon realizes this  - in a great performance by Chloe Sevigny - but Bill, at his best, tells her she's still and always will be loved.   (Chloe, by the way, tells Cara Lynn that Mr. Ivy had "others" - unknown at this point if this is true.)

• Ben may love Heather, but Rhonda makes sure nothing will come of that: she tells Heather that she and Ben slept together.   Ben then responds that he can be with both of them - a nice touch.  Heather walks off, and it remains to be seen if Ben will stay with Rhonda (who has suggested to Ben that he marry her - a suggestion which Ben has thus far refused).

• Some serious gun play in tonight's episode - not by Adaleen, to whom Alby has given his gun to kill Bill, but by Alby himself who comes after Bill in his state senator office.   Barb, Nikki, and Margene have come to visit.  The situation is dangerous, but, in the end, only the elderly gent at the front desk is killed by Alby, who is wounded and subdued by Bill.

And so we're at the doorstep of the final episode, the biggest question of which is: will Bill go to prison.

My prediction, he will not, and his family will survive.  But, hey, I'm a hopeless optimist and a romantic.

See also Big Love's Back and North to Alaska ... Big Love 5.3: Grim Christmas ... Big Love 5.5: Barb's Deal ... Big Love 5.6: "I'll Be There" ... Big Love 5.7: Couples ... Big Love 5.8: Casting First Stones

See also Big Love Season 4 Start with Casino, Psycho, and Birds ... Big Love 4.2: Politician or Prophet?  ... Big Love 4.3: Super-Compressed, Super-Fine ...  Big Love 4.4:  Bill and Don
... The Potential for Brilliance in Big Love 4.5 ... Big Love 4.6: Barb Ascendant ... Nearly Gunfight at the OK Corral for Big Love 4.7 ... Big Love Breakout Season 4 Finale

See also: Big Love, Season 3 ... 1. a 4th ... 2. Two Issues Resolved, Two Not So Much ... 6. Exquisite, Perfectly Played ... Big Love Season 3 Finale: Bigger Love ...

And from Season 2: 2: Oh, Happy Day, and Not ... 3: Sons and Mothers ... 4. Help Me, Rhonda ... 5. The Waitress and More... 6. Just Lust ... 7. Margene's Mama ... 8. Polygamy and Misgivings ... 9. Swing Vote Margene ... 10. Polygamy as the Ultimate Cool/Bad ... 11. Family in Crisis ... Big Love Season 2 Concludes

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Time to Say Goodbye to Nuclear Energy

I tend to be an outspoken optimist about technology.  I love almost everything about the Internet, want faster trains and planes, and think genetic engineering could be the greatest boon to human nutrition since we started planting vegetables.    I think we will never understand our role in the cosmos until a substantial part of our civilization gets off this planet and out into the solar system and planets around other stars.

But after Three Mile Island in 1979, I concluded that nuclear power was just too dangerous to warrant using as a mainstream energy source.  I was struck back then by a headline in the New York Daily News - "Thousands Flee N-Zone".   I love science fiction, but that was one movie I did not want to be in.

Chernobyl in 1986 only confirmed this.  It doesn't matter what the reasons for the accidents are.   Accidents will happen.  We're fallible and so are our technologies.  And the consequences of accidents with nuclear energy are just too high.   Radiation released and its destructive consequences stay around for a very long time.

And now the same may be happening at a nuclear plant in Japan.   It was damaged by the earthquake and tsunami.   Its cooling system was broken.  Current reports say the ceiling of the plant has collapsed, which could lead to a complete meltdown, in turn releasing large amounts of dangerous radiation.

With prices of oil soaring all over, it's especially difficult to give up an alternate source.  But it's time to give up on nuclear energy.    The world should do everything it can to help Japan in its awful time of need, and then see to it that its own energy sources no longer include nuclear.


8-min podcast discussion of this blog post

Fringe 3.16: Walter and Yoko

Well, the best line in Fringe 3.16 came from Walter, early in the show, when he tells us that he slept with Yoko Ono back in the 1970s.  Second best line was also from Walter, who briefly mentions "powdered water" (but no credit given to comedian Stephen Wright, who as far as I know came up with the idea - "I bought some powdered water," Wright used to laconically say, "but I didn't know what to add".)

As for the story tonight, it didn't have much relevance to our central stories, until the very end.  A scientist has developed a way to make people float in the air.  He thinks it's because he discovered what happens when you mix together two rare elements.   A pretty good classic-style science fiction tale.   But Walter brings it back to the central predicament - the impending war between the realities - when he realizes that the floating effect is not the result of the two elements, but of the disintegration of our reality due to the tear Walter made between the two realities, when he kidnapped Peter.

Peter and Olivia now seem happy enough together, but the support of their relationship by Walter and now Nina is a little much.   I was almost sensing something between Walter and Nina, but then remembered that Nina had and maybe has something going on with Broyles.   What's going on with that?

As for Olivia, she's taken over, in the end, by William Bell, whose soul is summoned here like ringing a bell - in this case, by Walter, literally ringing one in Nina's office.   I hope this bell is ringing in a series of Fringe episodes that concentrate more on the deeper, underlying stories.   These make the show really fly.

See also Fringe 3.1: The Other Olivia ... Fringe 3.2: Bad Olivia and Peter ... Fringe 3.3: Our/Their Olivia on the Other Side ... Fringe 3.5: Back from Hiatus, Back from the Amber ... Fringe 3.7: Two Universes Still Nearing Collision ... Fringe 3.8: Long Voyages Home ... Fringe 3.10: The Return of the Eternal Bald Observers ... Flowers for Fringenon in Fringe 3.11 ... Fringe 3.12: The Wrong Coffee  ... Fringe 3.13: Alternate Fringe ... Fringe 3.14: Amber Here ... Fringe 3.15: Young Peter and Olivia

See also reviews of Season 2: Top Notch Return of Fringe Second Season ... Fringe 2.2 and The Mole People ... Fringe 2.3 and the Human Body as Bomb ... Fringe 2.4 Unfolds and Takes Wing ... Fringe 2.5: Peter in Alternate Reality and Wi-Fi for the Mind ... A Different Stripe of Fringe in 2.6 ... The Kid Who Changed Minds in Fringe 2.7 ... Fringe 2.8: The Eternal Bald Observers ... Fringe 2.9: Walter's Journey ... Fringe 2.10: Walter's Brain, Harry Potter, and Flowers for Algernon ...  New Fringe on Monday Night: In Alternate Universe? ... Fringe 2.12: Classic Science Fiction Chiante ... Fringe 2.13: "I Can't Let Peter Die Again" ... Fringe 2.14: Walter's Health, Books, and Father ... Fringe 2.15: I'll Take 'Manhatan' ... Fringe 2.16: Peter's Story ... Fringe 2.17: Will Olivia Tell Peter? ... Fringe 2.18: Strangeness on a Train ... Fringe 2.19: Two Plus Infinity ... Fringe the Noir Musical ... Fringe 2.21: Bring on the Alternates ... Fringe 2.22:  Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming ... Fringe Season 2 Finale: The Switch

See also reviews of Season One Fringe Begins ... Fringe 2 and 3: The Anthology Tightrope ... 4: The Eternal Bald Observer ... 7: A Bullet Can Scramble a Dead Brain's Transmission ... 8. Heroic Walter and Apple Through Steel ... 9. Razor-Tipped Butterflies of the Mind ... 10. Shattered Pieces Come Together Through Space and Times ... 11. A Traitor, a Crimimal, and a Lunatic ... 12, 13, 14: Fringe and Teleportation ... 15: Fringe is Back with Feral Child, Pheromones, and Bald Men ... 17. Fringe in New York, with Oliva as Her Suspect ... 18. Heroes and Villains across Fringe ... Stephen King, Arthur C. Clarke, and Star Trek in Penultimate Fringe ... Fringe Alternate Reality Finale: Science Fiction At Its Best

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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family"

Funniest line of Bones 6.15 - in contention for funniest line of the season, maybe of several seasons - came from Mr. Nigel-Murray, commenting upon a slab of deer meat on the lab table that was part of the investigation: "Are we investigating a murder or preparing lunch for the Palins?" he asks Bones, in a perfect non-smiling delivery.

Sign of a great detective show is when a funny line can transcend the story, and in this case, it's even better, because the venison indeed has a connection to the case at hand:  Broadsky, last seen at the end of the last episode, as Booth's former military buddy and assassin of the Gravedigger, is using a deer for practice with his new smart-bullet rifle.  The weapon, by the way, is so futuristic, that Bones pipes up when someone says it may come from the future, that "time travel is impossible" (I agree completely - see my The Enjoyable Trouble with Time Travel).

Booth and Broadsky (played by Arnold Vosloo) have a conflicted relationship, to say the least.  Broadsky has apparently become a vigilante super-hero, meting out death not just to deers for target practice but to real-life criminals.   Booth can't let this stand, and feels guilty that he in effect let Broadsky go at the end of the previous episode.   But when Booth pressures Broadsky's connection in the military to help him get Broadsky, she takes her own life.  This gives Broadsky a slight boost in the ultimate morality of this, telling Booth that Booth was responsible for the contact's death.  (Oddly, Booth doesn't respond that Broadsky killed an innocent bystander in one of his vigilante executions.)

All of this puts Bones in a difficult position, too.  She doesn't want Booth to be Broadsky's executioner, and doesn't want to assist or enable Booth in that role, either.  And Booth, for his part, is hurt that Bones may think he and Broadsky are alike.   In the end, Bones is a little slow in giving Booth a crucial detail (from our point of view, it looks as if she didn't see it, rather than she saw it and withheld it).  And Booth stops Broadsky's latest execution - but Broadsky escapes.  Deliberate on Booth's part?

I was actually glad, and hope Broadsky stays around for a while - he brings out good narrative qualities in both Booth and, as a result, Bones.   Good to have Bones back - and, hey, I didn't even mention Angela's father ...

See also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7:  Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ... Bones 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery ... Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love ... Bones 6.13: The Marrying Kind ... Bones 6.14: Bones' Acting Ability

And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ... Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ... Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution

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The Plot to Save Socrates
"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Next to Last V (Just of Season 2, I Hope)

V came through with a fine next-to-last episode tonight - of the season not the series, I hope.   The ultimate fate of this show has yet to be announced.  Like the Earth itself - or, at least, we humans - in this series, V has an uncertain future at this point.

I'd like to see it renewed.   V's continuing to do a good job of making us uncertain about the true loyalties of some of the pivotal characters.  Last week, Marcus was revealed as a Visitor whose ultimate loyalties may reside with Diana not Anna.   Tonight Joshua re-discovers who he really is - a Visitor member of the 5th Column.

Even Anna's ultimate loyalties are significantly in doubt.  She's dead set on destroying humans, but she is not as above and beyond human emotion as she thinks or hopes.   She has the stirrings of real motherly love for Ryan's daughter - more than she apparently feels for Lisa.   Marcus, loath to go against his current queen even on behalf of Diana, notices Anna's emotion.  This could well trigger Marcus's total support of Diana.

In a move which also was explored last night in The Event on NBC,  Anna is now intent on readying the landing docks for the 500+ V ships approaching Earth from outer space.  Erica's bold move to stop that tonight didn't quite work out.

At least some of this will be resolved in the finale.  Again, I hope it's just this season we'll be seeing the last chapter of next week.  V is not the greatest science fiction series ever on television.  It's not even quite as good - yet - as the original V mini-series (the two of them).  But it has something, and I'd welcome its return next year.

See also:  V is Back and Badler ... V 2.2: Do Beings from Planets Have Souls? ... V 2.3 Meets 24 ... V 2.4 at Vatican and Mossad ... 2.5: Chess Game with Two-Edged Pieces Continues ... V 2.6: Double and Triple Agents ... V 2.7: Lisa and Diana ... V 2.8: Conversions and Reconversions 

And reviews of Season 1:  V Returns to TV ... V 1.2: The Effects and The Characters ... V 1.3: Multiple Twists and Lizard Visions ... V 1.4: Good Medicine for Television ... V's Back in 1.5 ... V 1.6: Floating Witches ... V 1.7: Ryan's Story ... V 1.8: Is Lisa Becoming 5th Column? ... V 1.9: Moral Complexity and NonStop Action ... V 1.11:  Lisa's Loyalties ... V 1.12: Complex Chess and Red Cloud

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

The Event 1.11-12: Hardball in Fiction

The Event just finished its 2-hour return on the East Coast - Episode 1.11-12.   It's been a while since the previous episode was aired at the end of November.   I thought the new two hours were the best so far in this series, which still feels like 24 meets Flashforward, high praise in my book.

One point is definitively settled tonight:  The "aliens" are truly from outer space.   They may have come from Earth at some point, and/or time travelled - their DNA is 99% the same as ours - but as Leila's father Michael (himself an alien) explains, his people come from a planet way out in space (with a star number and everything).  In addition, we also get more confirmation that Thomas's plan is to bring a lot more or maybe even the rest of all of his people to this, our, planet, and make it their own.

As a first step, Thomas launches an attack on Inostranka, with a view towards freeing all of the aliens held there, so they can help him prepare the way for the aliens from outer space.  He's a pretty vicious alien guy, that Thomas, slaughtering the aliens who don't want to join him, and torturing Sterling to get a code to help in their escape.   (A nice twist on 24, with bad guys torturing the good guy - though, come to think of it, Jack Bauer was as often a victim as a practitioner of torture.)

Sterling - played by the ubiquitous on television Željko Ivanek (but it's always good to see him) - has a great night, almost saving the day in a torrent of fine action scenes.   Badly wounded, Sterling seemed likely to die before he was forced to give up the code.  But neither happens - Sterling neither dies nor divulges the code.  Alas, a soldier who doesn't want to see Sterling die does give up the code, and Maya is killed, as Thomas escapes with a fair number of his people.

While this is going on, Michael tries to convince Leila to go with him, but not take Sean along.  Leila doesn't want this, but honorable Sean leaves early the next morning, while Leila sleeps, after the two sleep together one last time.  I'd have liked to see Sean do something more dynamic, like insist on going along with Michael.

And the third piece of tonight's story takes place in Washington, DC, as Alaska Senator Catherine Lewis (played by Virginia Madsen) in effect blackmails the President to tell her what's really going in that prison in her state.   Part of this features Sen. Lewis on MSNBC's Hardball, with Chris Matthews playing himself.  He does a pretty good job, but he was not quite as nasty as he is when a guest suddenly starts to snow him on the air.  He should have interrupted more, and started wondering if Sen. Lewis was reading from a script, or in "a trance".   But, hey, it's the second time MSNBC has made it on to NBC drama television - just a few weeks ago, it was Mika Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough, and Tamron Hall on Law and Order: SUV (and last night, Lawrence O'Donnell played a lawyer on Big Love).   Who knows what choice guest gigs Keith Olbermann might have had, had MSNBC not foolishly canned him.

There was also one soft spot in the plot - Sen. Lewis should have not gained such easy access to her husband's office (the office of a former Senator, recently deceased, now sealed on orders from the President).  But The Event has returned with some powerful turns, and I'm looking forward to more.



See also The Event Debuts on NBC ... The Event 1.2: Aliens! ... The Event 1.4: 24 Back in Action! ... The Event 1.6: Not Only Aliens, Immortals! ... The Event 1.7: The Portal and its Implications  ... The Event 1.8: The "Republican" VP and the Anti-24 ... The Event 1.9: "Native Populations, Indigenous People" ... The Event 1.10: Satellite

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The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book

Big Love 5.8: Casting First Stones

Big Love is concluding its run with episodes that just get better and better.  It was already in the best episodes of the entire series last week, and tonight's episode 5.8 was even better - heart-pounding, heart-wrenching, heart-in-mouth, even brutal.

One of the themes is people pointing fingers about transgressions they have been guilty or almost guilty of themselves.  Margene tells Cara Lynn she must break it off with her teacher - Cara Lynn is 15, and Margene was 16 when she first slept with the man she loved.    Ben lectures Nikki on doing something about Cara Lynn, a mere two episodes after he slept with Rhonda, a married woman.

The point is not that Margene and Ben are wrong in their advice,  but everyone in this story lives in a glass house, as the goji-juice king says about Bill and his advice to Margene to leave the juice operation (by the way, goji berries are delicious, and I hate to see them bad-mouthed in this way).  On this point, it's not even 100% clear if Bill is right about Mr. Goji, who seems pretty well out there in the public for someone with an easy-to-spot pyramid scheme.

And all of the above, though about as powerful as it gets on Big Love, was not even the most stunning in tonight episode.   Cluelessness is another theme of the members of this family.  Nikki is clueless about Cara Lynn until Margene tells her.   Barb is clueless about the pathology of Alby - or at least, not enough in touch with it - and sends Nikki on a mission to get him to back off his business attacks on Bill.   In fact, however, Alby has already set Rhonda's husband on a mission to kill Bill, and Nikki's appearance at Juniper Creek brings her this close to getting her own head blown off.  Alby has a gun pointed at her, but at the last minute pulls back and kills Rhonda's husband instead.   (I told you a few weeks ago, after Rhonda seduced Ben at the strip club, that I saw more in store for those two - which, for some reason, I'm happy about.)

And Bill's lawyer Lee tells Bill that he's being indicted.  The only good thing about this is that Lee is played by Lawrence O'Donnell,  one of the best commentators on television (along with Fareed Zakaria and Rachel Maddow).

Just two more episodes left of Big Love.  And the teaser for the last has "God Only Knows" being sung by ... Rhonda (Daveigh Chase), if I'm not mistaken!

See also Big Love's Back and North to Alaska ... Big Love 5.3: Grim Christmas ... Big Love 5.5: Barb's Deal ... Big Love 5.6: "I'll Be There" ... Big Love 5.7: Couples

See also Big Love Season 4 Start with Casino, Psycho, and Birds ... Big Love 4.2: Politician or Prophet?  ... Big Love 4.3: Super-Compressed, Super-Fine ...  Big Love 4.4:  Bill and Don
... The Potential for Brilliance in Big Love 4.5 ... Big Love 4.6: Barb Ascendant ... Nearly Gunfight at the OK Corral for Big Love 4.7 ... Big Love Breakout Season 4 Finale

See also: Big Love, Season 3 ... 1. a 4th ... 2. Two Issues Resolved, Two Not So Much ... 6. Exquisite, Perfectly Played ... Big Love Season 3 Finale: Bigger Love ...

And from Season 2: 2: Oh, Happy Day, and Not ... 3: Sons and Mothers ... 4. Help Me, Rhonda ... 5. The Waitress and More... 6. Just Lust ... 7. Margene's Mama ... 8. Polygamy and Misgivings ... 9. Swing Vote Margene ... 10. Polygamy as the Ultimate Cool/Bad ... 11. Family in Crisis ... Big Love Season 2 Concludes

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The Plot to Save Socrates

"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book