Mad Men “The Color Blue” Has Betty Seeing Red

Photo from AMC

There are only three more episodes left of “Mad Men” this season, and the episode “The Color Blue” seems to be setting up viewers for a rocky finish. The events in the episode follow many of the previous episodes: Don sleeps with another woman, people drink and smoke a lot, Roger is jealous of Don, Betty seems conflicted, and business continues to go on at Sterling Cooper. But the events of this episode hint at big trouble for the Drapers and more changes down the road at Sterling Cooper.

Don Draper (Jon Hamm) continues his affair with teacher Suzanne Farrell (Abigail Spencer). While in bed, Suzanne tells Don about a student who asked how she knows the color blue looks the same as it does to him. She told the student she didn't know, but was glad he made her think about it again. Don said if he had to respond to that question, his job was to boil communication down to absolutes. There was an idea of blue that at least 45 percent of the population agreed was blue. He said that people don't see things differently because they want to. A very clinical response, to say the least. Don also meets her brother Danny (Marshall Allman) when he drops in unannounced. He has epilepsy and as a result, has a hard time keeping a job. Suzanne finds him another job, and Don helps out by driving Danny there. When Danny wants to get out of the car and take off before getting to his destination, Don gives him some advice, some money, and a business card before Danny exits. While Don gave Danny his business card for him to call him if he needs any help in the future, I suspect that his business card will trace back to Don in a way that maybe Don will not want.

Suzanne Farrell is also giving off the “crazy clingy mistress” vibe, when she surprises Don by getting on his train going in to work. Something about her strikes me as being a little too needy, and while she denies calling Don’s home and hanging up, she strikes me as the type that would do exactly that. Don seems to care about her, but if she were to endanger his “real” life, I suspect he would cut her lose in a New York minute.

Betty Draper (January Jones) is going through her normal daily routine. By the way, we find out the Drapers are not frequent churchgoers. Betty also wonders about the phone call that was a hang up and calls Henry Francis (Christopher Stanley) to ask if it was him. He thinks she made this up as an excuse to call him, and while she didn’t make up the hang up call, I am sure in the back of her mind she felt it was a good excuse to call him. But Don’s secrets may be in real danger when he puts the money from his signing bonus into his locked desk drawer, and he accidentally leaves the key in his bathrobe. Betty finds it while doing the laundry when she hears it clanging around in the clothes dryer. Temptation taking over, she opens Don’s Pandora’s box, which includes the shoebox of photos and papers he has in that desk drawer, along with a bunch of money. The photos are one thing, but the deed and divorce papers to an Ann Draper are quite another issue. When Carla (Deborah Lacey) and the kids arrive home, she drops the box of photos on the floor, and tells Carla to take the kids out somewhere and not bring them back until dinner. Later, Betty stews while she waits for Don to come home, the box with her. When he doesn’t come home, she puts the box back in the drawer, puts the key back into his bathrobe, and goes to bed, alone.

Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) and Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis) are working on ad campaigns for Aqua Net and Western Union. When Paul thinks Peggy stole his thunder with the idea for Aqua Net, he vows to show her up. But while Peggy works on her ideas for Western Union with a clear head, Paul works in his office, using lots of alcohol, music, and maybe even a little bit of “pleasuring himself” in order to come up with the idea. When he runs into the janitor who is named Achilles, he gets what he thinks is the best idea of his life. Rather than write it down, however, he has more to drink and then passes out on the couch. Lois wakes him at 9:00 AM – why is Lois still working there after she ran over Guy’s foot with the lawnmower in the office in the episode ”Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency” ? When Paul can’t find his great idea from the night before, he realizes his big one got away. When Peggy hears this she seems sympathetic, and when confronted with Don’s displeasure that they have no good ideas, she gets Paul to admit he had a great idea but forgot to write it down. Even Don seems sympathetic, indicating it happens. But Peggy builds on a comment that Paul made earlier, and comes up with a great idea. Paul seems dejected but at the same time, may be now understands Peggy’s methods and how she can come up with ideas on the spot.

Also at Sterling Cooper, they are readying for a 40th anniversary party for the firm. Don is to receive a special honor, much to Roger Sterling’s (John Slattery) annoyance. Bert Cooper (Robert Morse) doesn’t want to attend at all. Lane Pryce (Jared Harris) finds out that Sterling Cooper is doing so well it is up for sale, something that clearly makes him unhappy but which brings joy to his homesick wife Rebecca (Embeth Davidtz). Lane manages to use Bert’s vanity to get him to attend. When Don calls Betty to tell her when he will be coming home to get her for the party, she doesn’t want to go, saying she feels sick. But Don blows it off, telling her to get into bed for a while and adds that he wants to show her off. Of course, she looks stunning, but at the same time, cold and stiff. After Roger gives a very flattering introduction for Don at the dinner – I am sure he was choking on every word – Don rises to the thunderous applause, and Betty looks as if she could care less.

As there are only 3 more episodes left, one has to think that Don’s past, and his cheating ways, will catch up with him. How much damage will be done to Betty in the process we can only guess, as she seems on the edge herself. As Betty assumes that Don himself was divorced – not Dick Whitman, to whom she is really married – will she just use that as her excuse to take the initiative with Henry Francis? Does she have any inkling that the problem isn’t the just divorce papers in that shoebox but the people in the photos? Will Suzanne Farrell get a little too clingy for Don and start showing up in other places like his work? Somehow I see a “fatal attraction” thing coming, it’s just that Suzanne seems way to needy for someone like Don. Regardless, with 3 episodes left, the stage is set for some big trouble.



AMC’s Video Recap “The Color Blue”




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Fringe “Dream Logic”: What Dreams May Come to Peter?

Photo from Fox

Fringe (Fox) “Dream Logic” was about those often-illogical dreams and nightmares that we’ve all had, but this time someone is out there who is feeding off of them. It seems that people who were involved in a sleep study begin to suddenly have their nightmares while awake, and in the process these people kill. Adding to the mystery: afterwards they almost immediately age, their hair turning white, as they themselves die of what is believed to be exhaustion. It was an excellent episode which provided an intriguing stand alone story of its own, plus deepening the mystery surrounding the effects on Peter of being pulled from another timeline without his knowledge.

Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) is also still trying to cope with the death of her work partner, Agent Charlie Francis (Kirk Acevedo). She is getting help from Sam Weiss (Kevin Corrigan), who has apparently told her to get business cards of people she meets in the course of her work that are wearing red.

When Olivia and Peter (Joshua Jackson) and Walter Bishop (John Noble) are called to Seattle to investigate the death of person at the hands of the first crazed killer, Walter seems very uncomfortable and won’t go in the room with the patient while he comes out of his deep sleep. When the man ages in a matter of seconds and dies, Walter enters the room. He wants to take the body back to his lab, because he thinks Seattle feels and smells like his time in the mental institution. (I find myself thankful that they didn't place the episode in Cleveland. Te city gets too much unfair press as it is.) Peter gets FBI Agent Kashner to escort Walter home.

While Olivia and Peter investigate more similar deaths in Seattle, Walter finds that some sort of chip has been implanted in the thalamus of the first victim, who had been under treatment at the Nayak clinic. Dr. Nayak (Ravi Kapoor) agrees to help Olivia and Peter, but when they get to his office, they find all his critical computer equipment that he used to monitor the implants has been stolen. Later, an unsuspecting Agent Kashner (Travis Schuldt) is victim to one of Walter’s tests, and as a result, Walter finds out that someone is using the chips to steal people’s dreams. Since they aren’t really getting the benefit of dream sleep, he believes this is what causes the quick onset of exhaustion.

While Olivia and Peter find ways to track down the other patients who had these implants inserted by Dr. Nayak, Peter tells Olivia he used to have terrible nightmares himself. He said Walter helped him get through it by reciting a mantra before he went to bed, saying, “please don’t dream tonight.” Peter also says that from the age of 8 to 19, he had no dreams at all. Since we have the benefit of knowing that this Peter Bishop was taken from another timeline, it could explain why Walter was so intent on not wanting Peter to remember his dreams.

Meanwhile, Sam has called Olivia and asks her if she got the business cards, and she tells him she has eight. He asks her if everyone she saw was wearing red, and she confirms it. He then tells her to circle a letter in each name, first and last then write each letter down, and solve the jumble. When she seems perplexed at these instructions, he says she will be looking for whatever she needs to hear, and she will figure it out.

When one of Nayak’s workers doesn’t show up for work, Peter and Olivia head to his house and find him dead. Dr. Nayak finds a threatening letter in his office telling him to quit talking to the FBI, but he turns it over to Olivia and Peter anyway. After they leave, Nayak calls someone and tells them he gave them the letter so the person should just stop. But after hearing that Walter says someone is stealing dreams, Olivia and Peter believe the threatening letter to be written by Nayak himself, and that it’s Dr. Nayak who is stealing the dreams. They believe he has an addiction to feeding off the dreams of his patients. They catch Nayak in the act back at his home, and Olivia must shoot at the computer server in order to stop him from feeding off his latest subject. Nayak dies in the process.

Back in Boston, after Olivia has visited Charlie’s grave, she takes out the jumble of letters from the business cards which says: OAUGENYIRENBEFON. After writing out a few suggestions, she comes up with “YOURE GONNA BE FINE.”

But Peter may not be fine, as after he and Walter moved in to their new home, Peter has had a bad dream. He dreams that he sees his father in his boyhood bedroom, seeing him in a reflection in the mirror. Suddenly he dreams he is ripped out of bed. When he wakes up, he sees Walter standing there, looking slightly concerned, saying that Peter was talking in his sleep. Peter can only remember bits of his dream, but nothing more.


I am sure that Olivia will be fine. But clearly Walter has concerns that Peter is starting to recall some things that are best kept buried. Are Peter’s nightmares leftovers from his life in the alternate timeline from which Walter had taken him? I find it interesting that Peter saw his father in his dream as a reflection of him in a mirror. Maybe Peter’s subconscious knows that he was taken “through the looking glass” himself, and his dreams may be the clue to him recalling from where he came. If Peter ever does remember, Walter will be in more trouble than he himself can dream.

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NCIS Los Angeles: More Of The Same

Photo CBS

The spin off of CBS’s late bloomer, "NCIS", the new NCIS Los Angeles seems to be a big hit, reportedly the top new show on television this season. I wonder - does it have enough to keep its great ratings as the season progresses?

It took years for the original NCIS (the show was a spin off of another CBS series, “Jag) to build viewership, possibly because it ran against other strong shows – like American Idol – at times. But over time, the cast with quirky and sometimes immature characters seemed to lure in viewers who were looking for crime shows with a lighter twist. It helped that it had Mark Harmon and Michael Weatherly, who seem very popular with female viewers. It also had old favorite David McCallum in a role as the medical examiner, Dr. “Ducky” Mallard, and Pauley Perrette as the over-caffeinated, Goth tech whiz, Abby. All made for a cast with great chemistry and fit perfectly for a show about crime mixed with humor.

But for me, NCIS Los Angeles, which airs immediately after the original recipe NCIS, just doesn’t seem to have that same kind of cast or the same kind of magic. Chris O’Donnell, who plays the agent with an initial for a first name, “G. Callen” is just fine, but the rest of the cast seems devoid of personality and interest, and LL Cool J simply cannot act. Worse, because it airs right after NCIS, I find that two hours in a row of the same formula becomes boring. Ennui sets in for me at about 20 minutes in to the show. An article in the recent Ad Age says:


Taking the cookie-cutter route will only get them so far, executives said. Over time, said Ms. Tassler, the characters will grow and develop, allowing for some degree of originality and creative choice-making. The original show features actor Mark Harmon driving a group of investigators, while the new version is more of a "buddy" show, said Mr. Brennan, with LL Cool J and Chris O'Donnell as leads. He likens the concept to the interaction between "Miami Vice's" Crockett and Tubbs or the leads in "Starsky & Hutch." Even so, both programs feature broad teams that include a veteran actor -- David McCallum for "NCIS" and Linda Hunt for "NCIS: LA" -- who offers advice and counsel.

"You can't introduce a new show with new characters and have the audience hold them up in comparison to the characters on 'NCIS,'" said Mr. Brennan, who suggested he wouldn't stand against the development of a third "NCIS" program if there were demand for it. "The trick is to make sure if there is a third one that it has strong characters and once again shines a light on [the concept] that doesn't repeat what [viewers] have already seen on 'NCIS' and 'NCIS: LA'."


Is it possible that the current success of NCIS Los Angeles is due to the fact that there aren’t any scripted dramas running against it at this time? Will the show tail off one American Idol starts up? Since American Idol has been off my viewing list for a while, and seems to be dropping in viewership with every subsequent season, NCIS Los Angeles may have plenty of time to work out the kinks and develop the characters before AI starts back up and threatens to suck away viewers from NCIS LA. For me, I am willing to give the show more time, but won’t give it forever.



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House “Instant Karma” Comes Back to Bite Them

Photo from Fox

“Instant Karma” felt very comfortable, like the earlier episodes of House(Fox). The original team is back working together and House (Hugh Laurie) is back with them, although he can’t technically practice medicine. The patient of the week is the son of Roy (Lee Tergesen), a ultra wealthy man who can seemingly buy anything he wants except a cure for his ill son. Drs. Chase (Jesse Spencer) and Foreman (Omar Epps) have trouble looming when Dr. Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) tells them that the death of Dibala (from the previous episode ”The Tyrant”) will be discussed at the next Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) meeting. Since Chase killed Dibala and Foreman covered it up, one can understand their concern.

As always, the patient of the week is a backdrop to the personal drama between the doctors. They run the usual battery of tests on the young patient, they try a few failed treatments, and House has an epiphany, which later gives him the correct diagnosis. Too bad it was after he already told Roy that his son was going to die. Roy thinks he is a victim of bad karma, and he is getting payback for having enormous wealth and his son’s illness is balancing things out. He has a team of lawyers in the hospital to sign papers, which will essentially destroy his business and bankrupt himself. I don’t understand how one can do that so quickly with one swipe of a pen. His son is cured and Roy is broke. Too bad that Roy completely misunderstood karma – it isn’t a balancing out like he explained, it means if you do something bad in life, bad will come back to you, and vice versa. It doesn’t mean that if you are wealthy, that your family will have nothing but pain and suffering. If he would have realized this, maybe he wouldn’t have given away all his money, especially now that House’s correct diagnosis means his son will live. Now how will he pay all those hospital bills?

Meanwhile, Chase and Foreman are trying to figure out what to do at the M&M to prevent Chase’s actions with Dibala - the fact that he murdered him - from coming out. Chase seems to think that it’s up to Foreman to fix it, which I thought was a little nasty of Chase. Sure, Foreman did cover things up and he has a lot to lose, but Chase is the guy why actually killed Dibala. Things get complicated when the blood Chase used to test for Dibala has abnormal cholesterol levels, something of which Chase was not aware. He enlists Foreman to tell more lies to cover that up, and instead, Foreman tries to get out of doing the M&M. No luck; Cuddy tells him he must do it, but wonders what is going on. Even Cameron noticed Chase’s weird behavior and calls him on it, and he explains it away. Chase gets dangerously close to confessing to Cuddy but is interrupted and never gets the words out. Lucky for Chase and Foreman that House appears to have figured out what happened and secretly leaves a file for Chase that indicates one of Dibala's previous doctors had been prescribing drugs for high cholesterol. This gives them an explanation for the cholesterol readings and gets them off the hook for the M&M. When Chase finds out it wasn’t Foreman who left the file, he goes straight to House, who then tells Chase "better murder than a misdiagnosis."

Intermingled with these stories is Thirteen, who tells House she is planning to travel and head to Thailand. On her way to the airport, she finds that her reservation was somehow canceled. She blames House but he denies it. Cuddy tells House that Thirteen also talked to her about it, and she also asks House if he really wants Foreman running the team. He seems to be comfortable with his role of advisor without actually having the power to lord over people. Thirteen later tells Dr. Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) that she found her computer was hacked and the email to cancel her flight came from his computer. He gives her the appearance that he did it, telling her that she is good for House and he doesn’t want her to throw her career away over a bad break up. Wilson tells House that he confessed to doing it and of course House admits that he knows he didn’t do it, because House did. No matter, Thirteen gets on a plane, and I can only hope she never returns.

At the end, as the penniless Roy now has his healthy son, and Thirteen gets on her plane, Foreman is at the head of the conference room for the M&M. It looks like crisis has been averted.

It was a satisfying episode, with it familiar formula: several misdiagnoses with a cure at the end, conflict with the doctors, Cuddy in tight clothes and cleavage, Wilson and his attempt at fixing things that he didn’t break. The only difference is a more tempered House, but make no mistake, the edge is not gone. Hopefully House’s painful rehab was his “bad karma” coming back at him, and he can start fresh. But for Chase and Foreman, while they managed to get through the M&M, bad karma may still be forthcoming.

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Mad Men “Wee Small Hours” Real Big Trouble

Photos from AMC

In the “Wee Small Hours” episode of Mad Men, a lot of trouble can happen. Salvatore Romano (Bryan Batt) tries to keep his cover of being gay, and in doing so, threatens one of Sterling Cooper’s largest accounts. Conrad Hilton (Chelcie Ross) and his annoying habit of waking Don up, coupled with his demanding and narrow attitude is giving Don Draper (Jon Hamm) grief. Don uses Conrad as cover to start a fling with Sally’s former teacher, Suzanne Farrell (Abigail Spencer). Betty Draper (January Jones) seems to be leading on Henry Francis (Christopher Stanley ) from the governor’s office, but then seems to get cold feet. This is all over a backdrop of civil rights and segregation commentary. Mad Men remains the best drama on television, as it weaves personal drama in with the culture and the events of the day to create a rich tapestry of life in the early 1960s.

Things are tough for Sal when working on a commercial for Lucky Strike, Lee Garner Jr., (Darren Pettie) the son of the cigarette magnate, makes a flagrant pass at Sal while in the editing room. Sal rejects Garner’s advances, using the excuse that he is married. But Garner, who previously addressed Sal as “Sally”, knows very well that Sal is hiding behind his marriage. Garner contacts Harry Crane (Rich Sommer) and demands that Sal be fired, and Harry, picking up on the fact that Garner seems drunk, decides that since it’s not really his call to fire Sal, and since Garner told him not to tell anybody, he decides to do nothing. This blows up in his face when Garner comes in to a meeting at Sterling Cooper and sees Sal there, and storms out. Roger Sterling (John Slattery) fires Sal on the spot, and then tells Harry to have Don fix the mess. When Harry and Sal come to Don, Don is clearly not pleased, and when alone with Sal, says that the loss of Lucky Strike could turn out the lights at Sterling Cooper. He tells Sal that it just has to be, and tells Sal he will find something. At some later day and time, Sal calls his wife from a phone book in what looks like the park, faking that he had to work late. Clearly he hasn’t told her he was fired.

I felt horrible for Sal, especially when Don, who knows Sal is gay, chastises him and says, “You people.” Don appears unable to see that he is no different than Sal in keeping secrets. Considering Don’s philandering has created problems with accounts before, he has a lot of nerve implying that because Sal is gay, that Sal’s issues are different than Don’s. It is almost as if Don looked down on Sal in the same way that he has looked down on Peggy in past episodes – that because Peggy is a woman or because Sal is gay, that their issues don’t have the same importance as Don’s, a heterosexual male. I wonder what Don would have done if Garner would have made a pass at him? Don’s attitude is reflective of the opinions people had of gays in that era, and sadly, these days, gays can still be unfairly stereotyped.

Meanwhile, Betty starts writing letter to Henry Francis in the governors office, and he responds. Henry then drives to the Draper home to see Betty, and when Carla (Deborah Lacey) comes back home, Henry makes up that he came there about using Betty’s home for a fundraiser. Betty seems to think that Carla is ignorant to what is really going on, but Carla is no dummy and reads accurately that Henry was not there for a fundraiser. When Betty decides to go through with it – maybe she came to the conclusion that she had to keep up the cover story so there would be no issue with Carla, Betty is crushed when Henry doesn’t attend and instead sends one of his staff to speak in his behalf. When she brings the money from the fundraiser to Henry’s office, she throws the cash box at him, angry that he humiliated her and she waited for him to come. Henry said that she had to come to him because she is married. When he locks the door and kisses her, Betty pulls away, saying that meeting there or even in a hotel is “tawdry.” Henry is confused by her behavior and doesn’t know what she wants. Frankly, I am not sure what Betty wants either, but it seems that she wants to be the one that is desired, and not be the one that desires someone else.

Don, on the other hand, seems to have no concerns about anything being tawdry. When he gets a call from Hilton in the wee hours and can’t fall back to sleep, he decides to head into work. On the way there, he sees Suzanne Farrell out for an early morning run. He offers to drive her to her place, and when they get there, he asks her to join him for a cup of coffee. She knows it’s not coffee he wants, and she blows him off. Later, at work, he finds that Hilton has summoned him again. He meets him at Hilton’s place and, over some prohibition alcohol, Hilton gives Don the chance at his international business, saying the he even wants to have a Hilton on the moon. Hilton wants Don’s ad campaign to reflect that. Hilton also calls Don "my angel" adding that Don feels like "more than a son" to him because he didn't have the advantages Hilton’s Connie's own boys had.

Back in the office, Don is unhappy with what Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) and her team have come up with, even though they are based on Draper’s own ideas. At a later date, Don presents the campaign to Connie: How do you say "Ice Water" in Italian or "Hamburger" in Japanese? Hilton. When Hilton wants to speak to Don alone about the campaign, he’s angry, saying the campaign is good but Don had nothing about Hilton on the moon, and "When I say I want the moon, "I expect the moon." He storms out. Afterwards, Roger enters Don’s office, and says that two huge clients stormed out of their office this week, adding, "You've got your face so deep in Hilton's lap, you're ignoring everything else. You're in over your head."

But Don’s answer to his predicament is to get even further in over his head, when he fakes that Hilton called him in the wee hours again, and tells a sleepy Betty that he has to go in to work. He doesn’t head to work, though, he heads to Suzanne Farrell’s place, and she tells Don she knows exactly where things are headed. He could care less, and forges on with a starting the affair anyway, and he spends the rest of the night in her bed.

Sal, the only person who was cautious about having an affair is the one who suffered the most punishment, having lost his job because he rejected the advances of a client. His situation was no different than sexual harassment that women also faced in that area when they refused the advances of a boss or client, but for Sal, it seems even worse because there was zero tolerance for gays during that time. Betty is no more than a tease, and she is playing dangerous game with Henry, whether she realizes it or not. I don’t blame him for being confused as to what she wants. But if Betty only knew what Don was up to, she wouldn’t have any doubts about making an overt move for Henry. Don is becoming more of a cad each week. He’s riding high with his ego in getting the Hilton account, and is acting as if he is untouchable. His fling with Suzanne Farrell – who leaves nearby and can see Betty or the kids in the normal course of a day – is literally too close to home. Don’s behavior seems to get riskier with each passing day. The question is, at what point will his luck run out, and will he take one risk too many which will blow it all for him? Since we know that Bert Cooper (Robert Morse) knows who Don really is, and Roger seem to be out to take Don down a few notches, it may only be a matter of time before Don’s risk taking works against him.



Video Recap “Mad Men: Wee Small Hours”


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It’s Criminal – NBC Cancels Southland

It’s criminal, I tell you. Finally, a new show emerged last season on NBC that had a great cast, it was edgy, it was different. Now it’s canceled. Despite earlier reports that the new Los Angeles police drama “Southland” would have their season premiere delayed until late October, now it won’t happen at all.

The “Jay Leno Effect” has already hit the network in a bad way. Law & Order SVU’s ratings have dropped significantly since moving to its new day and time (Wednesday at 9:00 PM ET). Spotty reports are surfacing from some local NBC affiliate stations across the country that their 11:00 PM newscasts are losing viewers at a steady clip because of the poor lead in from Leno.

Southland was a ray of hope in scripted dramas. It offered story lines and characters that were real. The camera work also made it look and feel real, as if viewers were riding along with the police as events unfolded. I wasn’t sure if I liked the show the first time I watched – the constant “bleeping” of profanities was overdone. But the show grew on me, and by the time the season ended – with a literal “bang” – I wanted more. I was also looking forward to seeing the show paired with Law & Order on Friday night. Now, I have concerns that the absence of Southland will bring even less attention to Law & Order, now in its 20th season but still producing compelling episodes.

The New York Times reported that Southland “was largely distinguished by gritty police work and sometimes dark, troubled characters — not unlike previous NBC hits like “Hill Street Blues.” That apparently became an issue for NBC: several network executives have said that they do not believe darker shows can be successful on network television right now. Oddly, NBC’s production studio, Universal Television, produces one of television’s biggest hits, the drama “House,” for the Fox network, and it has explored some of the darkest themes on television in recent years, including drug addiction and mental illness. Last year, one of the show’s main characters committed suicide. Ratings have been up for the show this season. "

NBC’s move away from scripted drama at 10:00 PM to lighter far such as Jay Leno is having a ripple effect. Despite the claim that scripted dramas are more expensive to produce than Leno’s show, in the long run, Leno may be costing the network far more in lost revenues from fewer viewers and lower ratings, which translates to less advertising dollars. The network is penny wise, but pound foolish, as the old axiom goes.

In my opinion, rather than add that extra hour of The Today Show – a show that will
eventually run all day, I suspect – they should have created an 11:00 AM show with Jay Leno to compete with The View. While I won’t watch Jay at 10 PM, I would be more than happy to watch him at 11:00 AM. I think he would be great competition for The View and could draw in more viewers than that horrific extra hour of The Today Show, which I will only watch if someone ties me to a chair and forces me to watch. (Note to NBC – don’t get any ideas.)

It’s a crime what NBC has done to Southland and to scripted programming. Hopefully, Southland will find a home on a cable network. If it does, I will be watching.


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House “The Tyrant”: Murder By Doctor

Photo from Fox

The show I love seems to be back, as it seemed like old times in last night’s episode of House, “The Tyrant.” House (Hugh Laurie) is back at Princeton Plainsboro, but he can’t officially practice yet. With Taub and Thirteen gone, Foreman (Omar Epps) is still in charge of diagnostics, and he brings in Drs. Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) and Chase (Jesse Spencer) to help him out with an usual case. House is still creating problems for Dr. Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) when House’s antics make life difficult for another tenant, and as a result, for Wilson as well. But things are not quite as normal as they seem, as the case ends with a shocking murder, one that appears will come back to haunt the team.

The case facing the doctors involves a foreign head of state, Dibala (James Earl Jones) who appears to be vomiting blood. Cameron has issues with treating Dibala because he is being accused of genocide and crimes against humanity. Based on some of the things Dibala says, it’s clear that the accusations are true. Cameron would rather have him dead than treat him. Chase, meanwhile, wants to do his duty as a doctor.

Foreman, meanwhile, is trying to patch things up with Thirteen, after firing her in the previous episode ”Epic Fail”, using the excuse that he did it to save their relationship. She’s not buying it, though. After she agrees to meet him for dinner, and after she questions why Foreman didn’t decide to step down rather than fire her, she comes to the conclusion that Foreman was going to put his needs and wants first, and she walks out on him.

House can’t get directly involved with the patient, but he is able to give the staff advice on how to treat Dibala. In a scene perfect for the acting talents of Hugh Laurie, House communicates to his staff using facial expressions and hand signals. It was the first time in a long time that I genuinely laughed during an episode of House.

House is also stirring the pot at Wilson’s apartment by getting into it with Wilson’s downstairs neighbor, a Vietnam War vet missing his hand/arm. The tenant is a cranky as House for the same reasons – he feels unending pain. In the case of the tenant, it is a phantom limb. The tenant is sick and tired of hearing the constant noise from House’s cane as he walks in the apartment above, and is also sick and tired of the cooking smells, and he wants House out. House thinks that he can intimidate the tenant to back off. The plan backfires horribly when House’s attempts to expose the man as a fake Vietnam vet is foiled by the fact that he really is a vet - a Canadian vet who had been sent to Vietnam to uphold the peace. The man is in horrible agony from pain in his hand/arm that he no longer has. Despite the fact that House still has his own leg but suffers from pain, he seems to develop sympathy for this man.

Meanwhile, treatment continues on Dibala’s mystery illness. Chase is approached by a man, Ruwe (Garikayi Mutambirwa), who wants Chase to forgo curing Dibala because of his killings of their people and explains how Dibala’s government is guilty of rape and torture of his own wife. Later, when Chase sees Ruwe approach Dibala’s room disguised as an orderly, Chase warns the guards and an assassination attempt is foiled and Ruwe is beaten. When Chase chastises him for his actions, he tells Chase he lied about having a wife who was attacked; rather he was made to torture women by Dibala's soldiers. He impresses on Chase that worse things will happen to the people of his country at the hands of Dibala, and a massacre is coming.

Cameron isn’t thrilled that Chase warned the guards that Ruwe was coming. Later, she uses an opportunity where Dibala seems to be confused in the head and she tries to implant an idea with his chief advisor that he may never know when Dibala will be able to give commands with a sound mind. It’s clear that Dibala was later made aware of this, when he confronts Cameron as she was about to inject him with a drug to treat him, saying all she needs to do is inject an air bubble and he will be killed. He knows she wants him dead but he tells her if that’s the case she should do it herself. Of course, she doesn’t, but something in Chase’s mind has already clicked over to the “dark side.”

During their assessment of Dibala, House thinks he has Scleroderma, but Foreman thinks it is Blastomycosis, and he tells Chase and Cameron to treat Dibala as such. Later, Cameron asks for a blood test that seems to confirm House’s diagnosis of Scleroderma, and she convinces Foreman into changing his mind and treating Dibala with steroids.

Meanwhile, House manages to knock out the neighbor by injecting him with some drug, and then restraining him with duct tape, covering his mouth as well. When the neighbor comes to, he is terrified, and one can only wonder if House has gone off the deep end. But there is a method to House’s madness. He has the neighbor place both arms into a box with a mirror, giving the illusion that he has two arms. (Mirror therapy is used often to reduce phantom limb pain.) After getting the neighbor to squeeze and release a fist, House relieves the man's phantom pain for the first time in decades. The man is grateful to House. Later, Wilson is suspicious when the neighbor has no further problems with House and as an added bonus, approved a request for an upgrade of the facilities’ garden.

Back at the hospital, problems ensue when Dibala begins to bleed through his lungs and dies. Foreman is dejected over the event, and he wonders if House’s diagnosis was correct. House tells him to go to the morgue and find out. When Foreman can’t get access to the body, now under guard, he finds that Chase had signed in to the morgue earlier in the day and questions Chase about it. He knows that Chase was there to draw blood from another patient who had Scleroderma, and gets Chase to admit that he drew that blood to be tested to provide a false diagnosis for Dibala. Foreman is horrified that Chase essentially has killed Dibala, and he thinks Chase will have to answer for it. Chase just asks that Foreman give him some notice before he gets the police involved.

Later, as Dibala’s son grieves over his father’s body, we see Foreman burning the paper which is the evidence that Chase has been in the morgue earlier that day.

Despite the ending, this episode was comfortable, like the episodes of previous seasons where the old team was together. House seemed more relaxed, though, yet he still kept his slightly darker side with his rather unusual treatment of an unwilling patient, Wilson’s neighbor. But is House correct in his assessment that Foreman and he are alike? There are some aspects where they are – they both seem to enjoy being in positions of power and authority. They are different in the fact that House would probably not dump the woman he loved in order to advance his own career. Foreman wouldn’t tie someone up with duct tape to cure him or her. Would they both cover up a murder at the hands of one of their own doctors? Hard to say. Clearly, Foreman is motivated to do so not because he feels for Chase, I believe he is doing it to cover a murder that happened under his watch. Foreman is insecure and likely thinks that the discovery of Chase’s actions would reflect badly on him and his future. House, on the other hand, doesn’t have to worry about his standing in a leadership role as he’s gone through drug addiction and rehab and the hospital still wants him back. I also think House would have probably found his own way to kill Dibala if he felt it was the right thing to do – and without living an obvious trail.

All in all, this was a fantastic episode which brought the team back, but only to create a sticky problem that, according to the previews, will come back to bite them. While the title of this episode was called “The Tyrant” we saw more than one of them – Dibala, Foreman, Wilson’s neighbor. Two of them were changed during the course of the show – Dibala is dead, Wilson’s neighbor is cured. Foreman doesn’t seem to have changed at all, and I don’t suspect he will, any time soon.


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Fringe “ Fracture” A Fractured Fairy Tale

Photo from Fox

Things were certainly explosive on last night’s Fringe (Fox) episode titled “Fracture.” It seems that someone can make human bombs without the traditional explosives. The Evildoer Of The Week has found a way to crystallize a person’s body and then cause it to explode – the human shrapnel killing anyone nearby. The first victim is an Officer Gillespie, who blows up in a train station in Philadelphia. The Fringe team is called in, but they don’t know that’s the source of the explosive until Walter Bishop (John Noble) finds a crystallized ear. There is a problem, though; something interfered with the recording of the event on the security tapes so they can't see the event.

Walter Bishop decided that he is going to get as many pieces as he can to attempt to reassemble the body. (By the way, I think that Walter Bishop is one of the most enjoyable characters on television today – he seems to be going through life as part genius scientist and part child. It’s that childlike side of Walter that is so much fun to watch and John Noble is perfect for the role.) I admit that I was a little worried when Walter asked his son Peter (Joshua Jackson) if he recalls putting puzzles together as a child, because we don’t know if who we believe to be an “alternate universe” Peter will have the same memories than Walter thinks. Peter does eventually remember putting puzzled together with Walter when he realizes it was a puzzle of a Playboy centerfold. Walter must have been one wacky dad.

Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) is still trying to recover her memories of what happened that led up to her car accident. She knows she was somewhere else and was supposed to come back and do something important, but it’s just not coming to her. Nina Sharp referred her to Sam Weiss (Kevin Corrigan), who starts off helping by having her remember how to do mundane tasks like tie her shoes and keeping bowling scores for a kids bowling league, the latter to teach her some patience. She is getting very frustrated that he doesn’t seem to be directly helping her with her memories. He asks her if the headaches have started, and while they haven’t he knows they will. Illness strikes Olivia while she and Peter are questioning Office Gillespie’s wife, and Olivia’s hands shake and she rushes to the bathroom to throw up. It must be fate, because when she picks her head up from the toilet, she sees a tile that appears to be loosened, and finds what looks like kits for injection of some chemicals. Gillespie’s wife has no idea what they are, so they take the kits to Walter.

Walter has already noticed many needle marks on the part of Gillespie’s foot that he’s reassembled, and determines that this chemical appears to be part of a regimen which turns the person into a bomb. Astrid (Jasika Nicole) finds Gillespie's military record and finds a mention of a chemical weapon that his whole unit was exposed to, and it should have killed them. The classified project was called Tin Man. The also have discovered that whatever interfered with the security cameras may have actually been the trigger.

Meanwhile, there is a woman who seems to have the same kit and is also injecting herself. It looks like it’s another human bomb in the making, and a man approaches her later and tells her she’s moving to active status, telling her that the "Tin Man parameters are in effect."

While Walter experiments on a watermelon and finds the frequency to make it explode,
Olivia and Peter head to Iraq, where Gillespie had done two tours. Peter has a connection that he thinks can help. The connection arranges them to meet a doctor, now working in a kitchen, and he tells them they developed a treatment that is injected daily to counteract the chemical weapon. Only four people in the program survived, and one of them was Diane Burgess – this is the woman who is currently injecting herself. He also says that an unintentional byproduct of the serum was that it turned people into bombs. He tips them off about a Colonel Raymond Gordon (Stephen McHattie) who wanted to continue the program, and Gordon is one nasty guy.

Lucky for the team, they are able to track down Diane Burgess in Washington DC and catch Gordon in the act by triangulating his signal and then jamming it just in the nick of time. He tries to flee, but Peter knocks him to the ground.

Afterwards, back at the lab, Walter brings Peter a newspaper ad for another apartment, as at the beginning of the show, Peter was having a hard time getting Walter to move into sharing a two bedroom apartment. Astrid had later helped Walter to realize that he can’t find new things unless he learns to widen his scope. Finally, it seems, Peter may hav a chance ro get a good night’s sleep.

Olivia is back at the bowling alley, and Weiss measures her hand, telling her he wants to find her the perfect bowling ball, and tells her to go home. But her patience runs out and we see her pointing a gun right at his head. But he’s happy to see this, because she is standing on her own two feet without the use of a cane, and she seems to be back as Agent Olivia Dunham. He tells her he’ll see her tomorrow.

Elsewhere, though, Gordon tells Agent Broyles (Lance Reddick) that the end is coming and they had to take matters into their own hands. He adds "they" are here, collecting data, making observations. That's what's in the briefcase that was being passed to the people that were exploding. While he is talking to Broyles, we see the man Burgess tried to stop at the train station bringing his briefcase to someone at a diner of sorts, who dumps tons of pepper on his food. Gordon tells Broyles whatever is in the briefcase is going to destroy us all. But as the camera pulls back, we see the man who now has the briefcase eating all that peppered food is the “Observer” (Michael Cerveris) and he is leafing through many pictures of Walter that had been in the briefcase.

One flaw with Fringe is that they seem to move about the country and the globe with lightning speed. It is almost as if they blinked and they went to Iraq and back. But you can’t just beat the humor. The scene where Peter eats a hamburger in the lab and the cow moos in objection – on cue no less – and seeing Peter’s reaction - was hilarious.

The questions we are left with are: Is what Gordon says true and are we being led to believe that Walter – whose pictures are in the briefcase – will destroy us all? Are the Observers here to help us or to hurt us? Since Walter was able to successfully bring an “alternate” Peter over from the other universe or time line, will this action later prove to cause larger problems for the time in which Peter currently exists? What is it that Olivia was sent back to this time to do – and is this really the same Olivia that left? Her memories seem the same, but so do many of Peter’s from his own alternate childhood. One thing is for certain, the Observer may have taken on a new meaning for viewers, since now we are led to believe that they are here to do more than just observe – they are here to possibly affect an outcome. Maybe the child like side of Walter is just lulling viewers into a false sense of security, and it’s Walter’s genius that spells trouble?

The preview for next week featured Leonard Nimoy, so you know it will be good. It sounds too good to miss!


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CSI: NY - A Deadly “Blacklist”

Mac Taylor - Computer airbrushed, or spackled? (Photo CBS)

A hacker who uses his skills to murder is the theme behind CSI: NY “Blacklist.” His murderous intentions include a personal ‘cat and mouse” game with Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise). One thing is for certain, one can always count on the CSI franchise's incredible manner and speed in which they solve crimes. Before I chop the episode apart, I want to state that despite its flaws, I found it to be an enjoyable hour of television.

The murders start when a man finds himself in a bad area of town because he put all his faith in his GPS, which lead him to the Bronx instead of mid town Manhattan. For me, whenever I travel someplace new, I always look at an on-line map first just to be sure I know where I am headed. But not this guy. Not only had someone hijacked his GPS, but his emergency calls, and the operation of his car. When the hacker turns on the car alarm that caused the horn to blare and the lights to flash, he becomes a sitting duck for robbery and murder - because we know that everyone in a "bad neighborhood" will rob and murder at the slightest chance.

The second murder involved the hacker managing to access a restaurant ordering system so he could make sure that his targeted diner would be eating something that included peanut, which drove the diner into an allergic shock. The hacker was also able to hack into the 911 call and have it diverted to his own phone.

Meanwhile, the CSI lab uses all the electronics at its disposal in order to not only use facial recognition to pick out the identities of suspects from grainy security video, but also to attempt tot track the location of the hacker. It all looks so easy, that for a minute I think I am watching an episode of CSI Miami.

But things get personal – you know, criminals out there always want to make it personal – when the hacker – who was called the Grave Digger, decides to taunt Mac. During this process, we are given a diatribe on all the ills of the health care system these days. I don’t mind when shows insert some political commentary in their themes, but I think I like them to be a little less obvious or flagrant. We also see flashbacks of Mac when his own father was dying of lung cancer, and I found myself laughing at what was either a computer enhanced face, or makeup done by a mortician, on Mac Taylor to make him appear younger. His face looked either electrically airbrushed, or filled with spackle - you decide. It was both funny and creepy to say the least. So while Mac is recalling coming back from the service to be with his dying dad, I was distracted by that weird looking face they gave him.

By the way, it seems that Danny (Carmine Giovinazzo) is back to work, but still in his wheelchair, Lindsay (Anna Belknap) is back to work but the baby (I think) spit up on her clothes, and Flack (Eddie Cahill) is still trying to work through Angell’s death. But all three of these stories take a back seat to Mac in this episode, seeing that criminals always seem to want to target the boss.

While they make the connections to the first two murder victims, they realize who will be the next target: Lisa Kim, who worked at the medical facility where Grave Digger had been turned away for health care after his insurance ran out. Despite the fact that she is described as extremely claustrophobic, she gets into an elevator, and freaks out quickly when she realizes that she is trapped. If she was that claustrophobic, I can’t see her even stepping in to an elevator in the first place. She began to panic quickly and seemingly neared death from her own fright within seconds. It was hard to believe. But of course, the CSI NY team had managed to track her down and Mac got there with Hawkes (Hill Harper) to save her before she died of fright.

Eventually they catch up to the Grave Digger and get him to the hospital before he dies on them. Mac has saved the day again.

While this episode kept me entertained for an hour, I wouldn’t say it was one of their best. I don’t understand why crime shows have to create criminal characters that always want to target someone on the law enforcement team and make it personal. CSI NY is not the only show that does this, which is why it seems like such an overused theme. Another overused theme is flashbacks, especially when they try to make the person who is flashing back look a lot younger. It’s distracting, and a younger Mac Taylor looked a little creepy. Otherwise, it’s nice to know that the CSY NY, like all the others in the CSI franchise, can solve crimes with lightning speed. Maybe we should let Mac Taylor and his CSIs loose on the health care system?

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NCIS “Reunion” Boring Case, Ziva Reunites With Team

Photo from CBS

The one thing about NCIS (CBS) is that by the time the NCIS team has worked through a case, you find you really don’t care about the case at all. In fact, by the time the murder case was solved, I realized that I still wasn’t sure who did it and why, because I was so distracted by events surrounding Ziva’s (Cote de Pablo) return to the NCIS team and the dumbed down script. I also can’t tell you who the murderer was because I actually fell asleep watching the last five minutes of the show, that’s how disinterested and bored I became.

Ziva has always annoyed me, and every time she seems to be going off the show, I hope and pray that she doesn’t return. Of course, I know that this is not going to happen any time soon, seeing that the show seems to have gained in popularity over the last year and I can’t see anyone wanting to mess with that success. Still, after all the time she’s been in the United States, she still seems to talk like Commander Data from Star Trek The Next Generation, who couldn’t – or should I say “could not” - use contractions. This can get on anyone’s nerves after a while.

It seems that the NCIS team – that is, besides Special Agent Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) - is unable to function properly without Ziva. Special Agent Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) behaves in such an immature and juvenile fashion, and Special Agent Timothy McGee (Sean Murray) is so spineless, that Ziva’s replacement hands in her resignation after only working there a very short time. Yes, she has them pegged.

But the episode falls into silliness quickly when Abby (Pauley Perrette) berates Ziva and then welcomes her back all at the same time, in a scene that I found to be too staged and too overdone. I enjoy Abby but sometimes she seems like a total idiot, and this was one of those times. Likewise, the scene where DiNozzo has to go to the bathroom and Gibbs makes him hold it until Gibbs has the information he needs from Tony was probably one of the biggest scenery-chewing scenes in the history of the show. It was hard to watch, that’s how bad it was. Weatherly can really ham it up, and this time it was too much.

Another ridiculous scene was when Tony goes to meet a suspect and that guy is conveniently shot, then conveniently drives his car (he was already dead, which I guess makes it DWD – “driving while dead”), weaving around the street and then conveniently hits the phone booth where Tony was waiting to meet him. How did that car manage to drive all over and then hit the phone booth squarely where Tony was supposed to be is beyond me.

Ziva decides to approach Gibbs directly about returning to her job, walking right into his basement and….wait, how does Gibbs get those boats out of there?….she gives him a gift of a chisel and then talks to him about returning to the team. He tells her she has to convince NCIS Director Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll), the man who rarely blinks. She meets with him and he is unsure of her loyalties so he makes her undergo psych testing. To make a long story short, she gets back on the team.

This episode seemed to be written to appeal to viewers in the 13-18 year old range. Maybe this is the demographic they are trying to grab, and if so, they did a bang up job. But the episodes of NCIS that I enjoy the most are those with a little less overacting and fewer scenes where the character such as Tony and Abby act like juveniles. This is one “reunion” that should have been avoided.

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House “Epic Fail” Epic Boredom

Photo from Fox

Greg House (Hugh Laurie) is trying to get his life back together after his stint in rehab in last night’s episode of House (Fox), “Epic Fail.” There was nothing particularly memorable in this episode, despite the fact that a lot had happened. After last week’s episode (“Broken”), which was full of angst and drama, “Epic Fail” almost seemed to drag. Maybe part of my problem is that so much time was spent on Foreman (Omar Epps) and “Thirteen” (Olivia Wilde), a couple that seems to have no real chemistry, well, except now maybe the kind of chemistry that blows up.

What happened in this episode? Here’s a list of events:

1. House quits because he doesn’t want to come back to the place that he thinks drove him deeper into drug use. He undergoes more therapy with Dr. Darryl Nolan (Andre Braugher) who tells him to find a hobby to take his mind off the pain in his leg. House tags along with Dr. Wilson’s (Robert Sean Leonard) in his cooking class. As driven as he is, and now even more so to distract him from pain, House becomes a great cook but he is almost obsessive about it. But the pain is still there, so House, currently living with Wilson, goes back to his old place and finds a bottle of pills hidden in a shoe. Doe he take some? We don’t know, bit his pain is suddenly gone. Compounding the matter is when Wilson rigs up the toilet so he can capture some of House’s urine to test for drugs, and Wilson is foiled when he and Cuddy find that House is on to them and substitutes dog pee. (We don’t want to know how he got dog pee.) Nolan tells him maybe he needs his job at the hospital, telling House “The only thing worse for you than going back to diagnostic medicine is not going back." As if anyone really expected House would stay away.

2. Foreman begs Cuddy to let him take House’s position as head of diagnostics, and Taub (Peter Jacobson) and Taub now report to him. But Taub quits, saying he came there to work for House. My guess is once House comes back, Taub will want to un-quit.

3. Foreman and Thirteen work on the annoying patient of the week, who is admitted into the hospital because his hands burn and because he heard the genius House works there. Yes, sure, let’s give this guy special attention for a non life-threatening illness. But since House isn’t there, Foreman, Thirteen and Taub plunder through the case, with the patient making matters worse by getting people from the internet involved. After the doctors ridicule people getting and giving medical advice over the internet, it turns out the Thirteen gets the real diagnosis from someone who submitted their diagnosis on the internet. We find out later that this person was Greg House. No surprise here. By the way, the patient had Fabry disease, and I found that I could care less.

4. Foreman and Thirteen, now that the relationship is boss and subordinate, have a little friction develop between them. (Snore.) They seem to patch things up and then Foreman surprises Thirteen when he fires her to save their relationship. Yeah, now that relationship is going to work (note sarcasm).

5. Somewhere in this episode we see Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) and Chase (Jesse Spencer); two characters that used to be far more interesting but have been woefully underused in the last few seasons. Since it is no secret now that Morrison will be leaving the show part way through the season, I think this series should seriously consider adding another doctor who actually has some spark because, outside of House and Wilson, nobody has it right now. Too bad they killed off Amber (Anne Dudek).

6. Comic relief was when Dr. Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) came to visit House at Wilson’s and an Asian woman speaking Chinese (I think) comments that Cuddy dresses like a whore. She said what I and many other fans have been thinking for the past few years. I was nice to have that validated.


While this episode wasn’t horrible, it offered no drama and as a result, I failed to care about any of the characters, with the exception of House. I think that fans all know that Foreman will never be a great diagnostician like House and it is getting rather repetitive seeing Foreman not measure up every chance he gets. But I am not sure that Foreman's plight is the “Epic Fail” to which this episode refers. I wonder if House has fallen off the wagon. I would like to think that he hasn’t, but honestly, this failure of Foreman’s can hardly be considered epic. Hopefully once House gets back into the swing of things, things will get back to normal for him. But what is normal for House may not be what is good for House, and this could spell trouble.


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Mad Men “Seven Twenty Three” Bad Day For Don Draper

Don Draper – Is That Dick Whitman looking back at him?
Photo AMC

Last night’s excellent episode of Mad Men “Seven Twenty Three” speaks to a significant date in the life of Don Draper (Jon Ham). What leads up to it makes it so, and it seems that everyone is compromising themselves to varying degrees during these few days.

The episode was more about Don’s important date. We are given a glimpse of the events leading up to the day, when the show opens with Peggy (Elizabeth Moss) waking up in bed with another man whose face we can’t see; Betty (January Jones) laying on a fainting couch in a beautiful frock; and Don is walking up on the floor of a motel room and he’s been beaten.

Peggy’s days leading up to 7/23 involves getting an expensive Hermes scarf from Duck as an enticement for her to come to work for Grey. Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) also got cigars, but he is sending them back and urges Peggy to do the same with her scarf. Peggy hates that Pete comes into her office and tells Pete he is infecting her with his anxiety. But Pete has good reason to worry as he thinks Duck is just trying to use them to strike back at Don, who helped force Duck out of Sterling Cooper. When Peggy calls Duck to tell him she is returning the gift, he invites her to the hotel where he is meeting with Hermes and tells her to sop by at 6 to meet them. She doesn’t intend to go, but things change when she later finds an excuse to approach Don and brings up the Hilton account he just landed and asks to be involved. He rips her, asking her what else she wants from him, saying she is always in his pocket, adding he resents her pretending to have something for him to sign off on something when she just wants something like a raise or an office. He wounds her even further by saying r there is not one thing that she's done there that he couldn't live without, saying she's good but she needs to focus on getting better and stop asking for things. She comes close to tears, and saying she is sorry, she leaves.

Later, she arrives at Duck’s hotel room, too late to see the Hermes people, but she comes in to have a drink with Duck. But he then comes on to her, and they wind up in bed, and this is the man we saw her waking up in bed with that we saw at the beginning of the episode. One is forced to wonder if Duck really was as attracted to Peggy as he told her, or is this the way he found to get at Peggy so he could get back at Don? I suspect that Duck’s motives have nothing to do with an attraction to Peggy.

Betty’s days start with an interior designer showing her and Don the changes she made to their living room. Late, she has a meeting there with the Junior League, and the issue on the table is a new 3 million gallon water tank that is planned for their area, and they are worried it will ruin the natural beauty of their area and destroy property values. The want to get the Governor’s attention on the matter, and Betty remembers meeting someone from the Governor’s office (she met him at Roger’s party in the episode ”My Old Kentucky Home” ) and they find his full name of Henry Francis (Christopher Stanley), who is an advisor to the governor. She calls his office and he calls right back. She tells him about the issue and they agree to meet at a local diner on Saturday. He seems to be taken with her, and Betty seems to be trying to hide her attraction. He tells her he will look into the matter but makes no promises. When they walk out of the diner Betty says she feels faint, but it is probably her attraction to Henry. When they pass a furniture store, Henry points out a fainting couch and explains that Victorian women used it when they become overwhelmed. Betty, worried that this is a small town, rejects his offer for a walk to her car, and they shake hands instead. Roger later calls under a false premise and spills the news to Betty on an issue with Don’s contract, and she and Don fight about the contract (more on this later). We then find that Betty has purchased the fainting couch and moved it into the living room, to the horror of the interior designer. It seems to me that Betty is getting restless and unhappier with her marriage, and Henry Francis may be just the ticket.

Don’s day is the most complex and ends the worst. He arrives to work late to find the office abuzz as Conrad Hilton (Chelcie Ross) is waiting in his office, sitting in Don’s chair. He lectures Don on Don not having family photos or a bible on his desk. He tells Don he wants him to handle the New York area Hiltons, and his method of contact with Don will stay the same, but he can’t say the same for the lawyers. Of course, since Don has no contract, he is called to meet with Bert Cooper (Robert Morse), Roger Sterling (John Slattery), and Lane Pryce (Jared Harris) where they tell him the lawyers for Hilton insist on Don having a contract. Don pushes back, and seems upset that they are not pushing back with the lawyers for him. They offer him a three-year contract with a signing bonus and tell him to take it home and think about it.

What Don seems to be thinking about at one point is not the contract, but Sally’s teacher Miss Farrell (Abigail Spencer). The kids are all in the park getting ready to see the eclipse of the sun as it skirts the area. Miss Farrell is showing the kids and the dads there how to set up their “camera obscura” which are cardboard boxes they cut out to allow them to view the eclipse safely. When Don strikes up a conversation with Miss Farrell, she assumes he is hitting on her, because she says they all do it. He puts on the innocent act. When she walks off to look at the eclipse with one of the kids, Don stares right at it, the only thing protecting his eyes are his sunglasses

Back at the office, Roger comes in and quizzes Don about the contract, and tells him all they need is a letter of intent. When Don isn’t responsive, Roger leave and asks Don if he simply doesn't want to do it here or just not at all. When Roger leaves, Peggy walks in, and using needing his signature as an excuse to get in to see him, she asks about the Hilton account and this is when Don demeans her. Keep in mind that Don met with some of the account guys earlier and they also brought up the issue, one has to wonder why Don is being so prickly with Peggy – Don’s sexism is coming out.

Roger then makes that phone call to Betty under a false pretense, and then tells her about the contract issue with Don. Betty is annoyed with Roger and hangs up on him. Later, she rips Don about why he didn’t tell her, and he takes the drink he just poured for himself and walks out. While he is driving, drink in hand, he picks up two young hitchhikers who ask to be taken to the nearest motel. They say they are going to Niagara Falls to get married, as they heard a married guy wouldn’t get drafted for Vietnam. Don continues to drink, and they offer Don “reds” – Phenobarbital – and he takes two of them. They arrive at the hotel, and Don parties with them by drinking while the two of them make out. Don hallucinates, seeing his father sitting in the corner of the room with a rocker and his jug of whiskey. When Don seems to get drowsier, they couple wonders why the pills haven’t knocked him out yet, and the guy strikes Don on the head, putting him out cold. Don wakes up on the floor, bloodied, and finds a note from the couple that essentially says they robbed him but left him his car – and one dollar. How nice of them.

When Don walks back to the office, face swollen and with a bandage on his hose, he says he was in a fender bender. When he walks into his office, Bert Cooper is waiting for him, sitting in Don’s chair. He tells Don a story, saying that Sacagawea carried a baby all the way to the Pacific Ocean, and it thought it discovered America, adding that Don has been standing on someone's shoulders. Bert is annoyed with Don, saying that they brought him in and nurtured him like family, and now is time for him to pay them back. Bert pulls out the contract and asks a bombshell of a question: "would you say I know something about you?" Don knows that Bert is on to his real identity of Dick Whitman, so Don answers Bert that he would. Bert uncaps the pen, saying, "then sign" adding, "after all, when it comes down to it, who's really signing this contract anyway?" Don signs, but insists that he doesn't want any more contact with Roger Sterling. The date on the contact is 7/23/1963.

It seems that Peggy is literally sleeping with the enemy. One has to wonder, is she doing this to get her foot in the door with Duck, or can she use what she finds out from him to get the advantage – and Don’s appreciation? Is Betty playing with fire with Henry Francis and will he expect more from her in exchange for his help with the water tower? And now that Don is in to Sterling Cooper for 3 more years, will he feel even more trapped and will his behavior get more erratic? What will the office be like if he refuses to have contact with Roger? And what about the over-controlling Conrad “Connie” Hilton? Will he be the best thing that ever happened to Don, or will he smother Don with his overly conservative, narrow views? And if Bert knows about Dick Whitman, who else knows, and will this come back to haunt Don in the near future? I believe that Don’s days where he could look at the sun with little worry are over. Not only is Conrad Hilton and Bert Cooper sitting in his chair, so is Dick Whitman.

Mad Men episode video recap





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ABC's "FlashForward": An Uncertain Future?

Photo from ABC

I had high hopes for the new ABC series “FlashForward” . It seemed like an interesting premise: the entire world loses consciousness for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, and while unconscious, many people have visions of their future.

But the premiere episode “No More Good Days” left me wanting. It also left me with a lot of questions, not necessarily questions that the show creators would want me to have. The big glaring problem is if the whole world was unconscious for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, things would be in a bigger mess that the episode seemed to indicate. It seems that life for the most part almost went on like normal for the main characters. For example, there didn’t seem to be any crisis at the hospital with patients flooding in or doctors flooding out to care for others on the street, yet we see injured people everywhere. The issue with the hospital seemingly being little affected by the massive event was something I could not get past.

Another issue I couldn’t resolve was the FBI’s behavior. They seemed to treat this like a normal everyday issue with a normal sit-down meeting about what caused it to happen. Frankly, I would have expected them to be out on the street helping law enforcement. Yet, we are let to believe that main character Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes) was given the lead on such an immense issue, just because he felt his personal “FlashForward” vision tied into the event. Sorry, but an event of this magnitude would have people at the very highest level of office probably running point and calling the shots. It seemed that Benford’s boss Stan Wedeck (Courtney Vance) washed his hands of the matter far too fast.

Another nit pick was that I had a hard time getting my arms around how much time had passed as the episode progressed. If I recall correctly, toward the end of the episode a woman commented about going through a huge number of security camera footage to find one lone person that didn’t seem to be unconscious in that 2-minute time frame. How did she get the video feeds so fast and be able to look through as much of it as she said in what seemed like a short time?

The episode also was a little choppy as it introduced characters. I think I may have preferred a 2-hour episode where for part of the first hour, we got to learn a bit about the people, and the second hour, they began their efforts to pick up the pieces and find out why the event took place. They crammed far too much into that one hour that it seemed to take any mystery or drama out of the reveal that they had a shared vision.

The cast itself seemed wooden, the only one seeming to fit his role was Courtney Vance, who always does authority figures well. Joseph Fiennes was a disappointment, his acting wooden. If he is going to be the lead in this effort to understand why this event took place, I may get bored looking at his somewhat stony and unfeeling facial expression.

Bottom line – a show I was excited about watching I now have some serious concerns about it's survival. I will give it one or two more episodes. If I see more of the same issues I saw in the pilot, it will be off my viewing list, and that’s the vision I had watching FlashForward.



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NCIS “Truth or Consequences” Restores the NCIS Team

Photo from CBS

Season 7 of NCIS (CBS) opened with an episode titled “Truth or Consequences” which featured both truth AND consequence, plus a heavy dose of flashbacks. Let me go on record to say that flashback sequences are being used far too much in TV drama these days. For me, they are starting to lose their dramatic impact. (Maybe ABC has the right idea with their news series “FlashForward” since they will be going in the other direction.)

I have been a fan of NCIS for quite a while, but not a regular viewer at first. This series seemed to start hitting its stride in season 5, which I think was the first season after executive producer and show creator Donald P. Bellisario was ousted from the show. That was a good thing, as there were rumors that Bellisario was too controlling and creating too much friction with the cast, primarily with Mark Harmon (who I call “the franchise”).

In this new episode, Special Agent Anthony “Tony” DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) is in Somalia, bound to a chair in an interrogation chamber. He’s been beaten badly, but his pretty white teeth look very intact. He seems to be in the same chair where we last left Ziva (Cote de Pablo) at the end of the sixth season. Tony is being injected with a truth serum and is questioned by the terrorist Saleem (Omid Abtahi) about his mission, who he is working with, NCIS, and Ziva. Tony tries to be evasive in his answers but eventually begins to spill some information. We also later see that McGee has also been captured and is laying, bound and also injured, on the floor.

It is this interrogation sequence with Tony that give us the flashbacks, as Tony recalls the previous months, that took place after Ziva did not return with the NCIS crew. Tony seems to have mixed feelings' he misses Ziva but tells his boss Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (who Tony referred to as a “functional mute”) that he and Special Agent Timothy McGee (Sean Murray) want Gibbs to allow them to hire a replacement for Ziva. Gibbs gives them permission to do so, dumping all his applicant files on Tony. Of course, Tony is Tony and he only wants to hire a woman – which coincidentally happens to be the gender of all the applicants in the pile. While Tony is screening candidates in the only sexist way that Tony seems to know, he still is distracted by the fact that Ziva has never made any further contact with him or the team.

The issue gnaws at him, and Tony finally approaches Gibbs and wants permission to go find Ziva. They believed she went back to working for her father and Mossad, and they become worried when they hear that the ship she apparently was on was lost at sea. This is distressing to the team but they want to press on for answers. The seem to get a lead as to who was responsible when Abby (Pauley Perrette) helps Tony and McGee to make the connection on the ship’s manifest that will help them track the terrorists – it’s one personal item that the terrorist wanted: Caf-Pow, which also happens to be Abby’s favorite beverage. (I find myself wondering if someone will eventually market the stuff for real.) Gibbs convinces Director Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll) – guy who I swear almost never blinks – to let them go after these terrorists.

When Tony spills the information to Saleem that the Caf-Pow was what led them to him, Saleem throws it to the ground. But he then brings in another captor who is wearing a hood, and sits the person down in front of Tony. When he removes the hood, it is Ziva, very much alive. Saleem asks them to chose – one them will live and one will die. But Tony tells Ziva that they have a plan. Later, when Saleem returns and holds a knife to Ziva, McGee makes his move and uses his body to knock Saleem off balance. When Saleem pulls a gun on McGee, Tony taunts him and saying that they basically have him where they want him. Saleem is doubtful since Tony is bound and has no weapon. Lucky for Tony, McGee, and Ziva, Gibbs is waiting from a perch outside, and she shoots and kills Saleem. This triggers a full assault on the camp, and the team is saved. (You expected something else?) They return to NCIS headquarters to the applause of the rest of the office.

While I felt the start of the episode was a little plodding (too much one on one with Tony and Saleem) and outcome of this episode was predictable, it was enjoyable. The weakness with NCIS is that I think it has focused far too long on middle-eastern terrorists, which becomes repetitive after a while. The episodes I enjoy most are those concentrating on actual naval crimes on their home soil, and less on terrorism cloak and dagger. The series strong point is it’s cast, which has characters that have well formed personalities and behaviors, and also have great chemistry. (I haven’t watched the NCIS LA episode as yet so I can’t comment yet on whether they have the beginnings of the same cast dynamics.) The writers also do a great job in coming up with the witty lines that fit in well with each character’s personality.

NCIS continues to gain in popularity and I’m happy that it is getting the attention it deserves. This episode was a good start to the season and I’m glad they have the team back together again.


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CSI Miami “Out of Time” A Giant Cheesefest

The Sunglasses: A Star is Born
(photo CBS)

After watching last night’s two hour season premiere of House “Broken,” the season premiere of CSI Miami (CBS) felt more like a comedy. The episode had more cheese than Wisconsin.

The episode involves the CSI team working to find Eric Delko (Adam Rodriguez) who had collapsed somewhere in an area the looks like the glades. Horatio Caine (David Caruso), Calleigh (Emily Procter) and a team of police frantically search to find him, and despite the fact that this is Florida and the glades, both which contains lots of alligators, the team walks through the watery area without concern of a gator attack.

When they find Delko, he has collapsed in front of what looks like a roadside emergency call box. When a helicopter spots him, the team rushed to his air and an ambulance is called. As Eric is rushed to the hospital, with the obligatory “We’re loosing him!” line, the flashbacks to the beginnings of the CSI team in 1997 begin. Of course, the spot where Eric was found seems to have a special memory of a case which helped to bring Eric to the team.

My problem is that I am not quite sure whose flashbacks we are seeing. Are they Horatio’s? Are they Eric’s? Are they memories of the assorted cast? It seems that in some of the flashbacks, only certain people were present, including quite a few seems with Jesse Cardoza (Eddie Cibrian), a new cast member to whom we have not yet been introduced in the present time. So whose memories are those?

We learn that in 1997, Calleigh is way too happy, perky, spunky, and horribly saccharine. Frank (Rex Linn) has a little more hair - but not much – and a 1980s moustache. There are phone ringing with bells, which in my opinion were already long gone for the most part in 1997. Eric is working for Flagler Tow. Alex (Khandi Alexander) is working as a medical examiner. Natalia (Eva La Rue) is working for the Feds. Horatio has a partner nicknamed “Sully” (Brad Leland) who is the stereotypical fat, annoying, jump to conclusions cop. There is no CSI team, and forensics is just a small room with one guy seemingly running the operation. There are no flashy glitzy special computer effects in forensics and I don’t recall seeing a computer in forensics, despite the fact that they were very prevalent in 1997. Horatio has slightly longer and fluffier hair, he isn’t wearing dark colors, he already stands with his hands on his hips, he already speaks in a soft whisper, but most importantly, he has NO SUNGLASSES. Yes, this is the episode where we see Eric make his valiant search for the perfect pair of sunglasses. I’ll spoil you now – he gives Horatio the pair towards the end of the episode and they have polarized lens with a titanium frames. They will soon take on a life of their own.

Horatio's team forms while working a case of what seems like a domestic murder at first blush but turns out to be murder at the hands of the gardener. Horatio doesn’t believe the husband killed his wife, and uses whatever meager tools he has to prove his point. At one point, though, the suspect seems shocked that he hasn’t seen some of the methods that is being used in this investigation, and my response is that this guy hadn’t likely been watching Law & Order all those years, where basic forensics were commonplace.

Jesse Cardoza spends what seems like half his time spraying a luminol –like substance all over the house where the murder was thought to occurred. I wondered, what made the area with blood light up in blue if he didn’t use a darkened room and an ultraviolet light as they use now? Did he have an extra special spray he was using or extra-special glowing vision glasses? Also, we are given the impression that in 1997 the entire criminal justice system, including the prosecutor Evan Talbot (Denis O'Hare), were unconcerned about the actual evidence and getting their man, and only Horatio had the desire and the smarts to get to the real facts and expose the real murderer. (This is what ultimately gets Horatio his job as head honcho of the new CSI team.)

Of course, Eric wakes up at the end of the episode and sees the whole team standing in his room. He offers a weak smile and Horatio is happy that Eric is alive, hopefully to supply him with more sunglasses for years to come.

This episode provided zero drama and frankly I think they could have done without the whole flashback scenarios. I never really cared about how the team came together, and nothing happened in this episode to make me care even more about them. The show still seems to be catering to the lowest common denominator when it comes to plot and dialog, and the flashback sequences and frequent use of split screens were feeble attempts to inject suspense and drama. I find myself wondering why I continue to watch this show. I suppose that something can be so bad that it still entertains. I can tell you one thing; I think I’ve had my month’s supply of cheese in this one episode.



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