“How’s your jaw feeling?”

You ever woken up from a bad dream, dreading having to face what you dreamt? If you have, you also know about the glorious rush of sweet relief that comes with knowing that you didn’t actually kill somebody or embezzle $150,000 from your company or impregnate the girl you’ve been dating for four months and really want to break up with. Watching The Shield at its best is like having that post-nightmare feeling for 60 or so minutes, and right now I feel the relief of not having a hooker-beating psycho out to kill me.

Man, what a kick ass episode. The first four episodes of this season were good, but they didn’t give me that ol’ Shield stomach ache feeling that I had during all of Season Five, when Forest Whitaker was seriously fucking up Vic’s shit until Lem was turned into car upholstery. The last three episodes, including tonight’s excruciating “Bitches Brew,” has brought back that sick feeling with a vengeance.

Frankly it’s been uncomfortable at times (in a good way) watching Vic Mackey being systematically picked apart as The Shield comes to a close. Tonight saw the return of Farrah, a whore—no need for euphemisms here, this woman is a straight up ho—who manipulated Vic in Season Three into taking out her pimp so she could become a free agent. And she did pretty much the same thing in “Bitches Brew,” tricking Vic into putting his men in harm’s way so they could gun down her not-so-suave version of Velvet Jones. Farrah was definitely the worse for wear since we last saw her, but she was still able to zero in on Vic’s weakness—his bogus self-righteousness—and use it to help herself and (hurt Vic) by feeding his selfish need to “protect” other people. The flipside of the Farrah storyline was the business with Danni, who isn’t waiting around to find out how Vic will rescue her son. This is the second time one of Vic’s baby mamas has hit the road to get away from this guy. And you could argue that Corinne was foolish to ever come back, considering the mess Cassidy—remember her?—is in.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Vic was fired by both the LAPD and Pezuela in, like, two minutes. (How funny that Pezuela was the one who offered severance pay!) As if Vic needed reminding that he’s been given a one-way ticket to post-career loserdom, we saw the return of Lester, the creepy ex-cop who made those Rastafarians drink their own pee last season. If Vic is lucky, he’s going to be spending the rest of his life hanging out with guys like this. The alternative is that Shane is going to kill him, possibly after he carries out a hit on Ronnie. (Though next week’s preview suggests that plan is going to blow up pretty quickly.)

Watching tonight’s episode reminded me of a Crosstalk I had with my esteemed colleague Scott Tobias last year comparing and contrasting The Sopranos and The Shield and their anti-hero protagonists. At the time I was complaining about how The Sopranos--my favorite TV drama ever—was playing out in its final season and wishing it were more like The Shield, my second favorite TV drama ever. Now, I can’t help but compare how The Shield has come down the stretch to The Sorpanos’ final run. For me, so far, The Shield has been more satisfying because Vic’s comeuppance feels more organic. Back then I felt that David Chase had stripped his anti-hero of his good qualities and turned him into a “black-and-white baddie” that the audience no longer empathized with. With Vic, Shawn Ryan has been more subtle about revealing how Vic’s seemingly good parts—how he takes care of other people, his commitment to his job—can’t be separated from the bad because they are rooted in the same character weaknesses. He is truly a tragic character, a man doomed to save himself just long enough for something really awful to come along and destroy him.

Grade: A

Stray observations

--We went 30 minutes before the first commercial tonight. Thank you, unnamed beer company sponsor!

--I was slightly disappointed that Ronnie and Shane didn’t throw down tonight, but I’m guessing I won’t have to wait long for a brawl next week.

--Claudette’s trashed apartment gave me the creeps. Is she going to keel over soon or what?

--What do you guys think?

Judging by the comments on Fringe’s previous episode—two long weeks ago—a lot of you felt like the show was taking a step in the right direction by moving deeper into mythology and away from the “each episode stands alone” concept. Me, I’m not so sure. First off, I’m not as down on procedurals as a lot of you are. Not to belabor a point made by my wife last night in her How I Met Your Mother blog—and by me to some extent in this week’s Popless column—but I don’t buy this notion that TV dramas are inherently better when they’re more novelistic, and that TV sitcoms are better when they’re shot with a single-camera and laugh-track-free. These are stylistic choices, that come with their own conventions, and each have their strengths and weaknesses. And frankly, the nature of the TV medium—which breaks stories up into digestible chunks, to be consumed relatively passively—doesn’t favor the complex. Speaking generally, I’d say that single-camera sitcoms and serialized dramas are superior when done well, but that an average three-camera sitcom and procedural is often more entertaining—and to some extent requires more craftsmanship—than an average single-camera comedy or muddled serial.

Which was my major problem with “The Arrival” two weeks ago. I wasn’t bothered that Fringe suddenly shifted gears and started playing up the mystery elements; I was bothered because the results weren’t especially satisfying as an hour of TV. Lost is about as mythological and continuity-heavy as any TV show, and yet if I mention “The Constant” or “Walkabout” to Lost-watchers, they won’t just be thinking about the new characters or concepts those episodes introduced, they’ll be remembering the episodes’ emotional and narrative arcs. To me, the genius of Lost is that it’s telling such a complicated, far-reaching story in individual chapters that can be beautifully constructed and entertaining in their own right. (Veronica Mars was especially skilled at this as well.) It’s clearly possible to combine the episodic and the serial successfully, and I think Fringe has the potential to do just that.

“Power Hungry” wasn’t really a knockout episode, but it did give some indication of how Fringe is going to try to finesse this half-procedural/half-serial gambit. Tonight the writers took a two-tiered approach, exploring the meta-story in Olivia’s briefings with Broyles, and in her encounters with her ex-partner, John. The dead man keeps haunting her: in her kitchen, in the elevator, and by the Cold Drink machine. (How did Fringe land the lucrative Cold Drink product placement?) At the end of “Power Hungry,” Olivia learns that John was conducting his own investigation into Broyles’ “pattern” before he got himself killed—and that he was planning to propose to her. All this information serves to string along the home viewer, inviting us to question whether Olivia’s playing for the right team in this whole Pattern game.

Meanwhile, the Freak Of The Week storyline starts strong, with arguably the best cold open since the pilot. A lovelorn messenger—and REO Speedwagon fan!—with the power to disrupt electrical devices with his mind, gets rejected by the hipster object of his affection, then ends up beside her in an elevator that promptly plummets to the basement. Cue opening credits. This opener works for a number of reasons, but mainly because we get to spend a little more get-to-know-you time with the freak than usual, and witness the devastating details of his romantic failure. (He thought he’d impress his crush by mentioning that he was in Webelos, then learns that she bought the Brownie badge on her cubicle wall because she thought it was kitschy.)

But despite the added FOTW sympathy, “Power Hungry” promptly peters out, because the level of oddity required for Walter and the Pattern Team to track the Freak down isn’t especially high. The big gimmick involves stripping the audio from a REO Speedwagon cassette in order to find the quarry’s electronic signature, and then supplying that signature to GPS-implanted carrier pigeons. Neat, but not as visually interesting as some of Fringe’s prior experiments in ill communication.

That said, Walter's adorable as always, whether pasteurizing his own milk or dancing around his hotel room in wool socks in order to build up a static charge. Peter doesn’t have much to do this week besides being generically skeptical. (Seriously, he still thinks his father doesn’t know what he’s doing, even though Walter is proved right every week?) But father and son do have a nice moment together early in the episode, when Peter reassures his dad by saying, “You’re doing fine, Walter.”

As for The Fringe Pattern—the one that involves the episodes returning to the same core elements week after week—we saw a lot of familiar stuff in “Power Hungry.” Once again, a person gets strapped down and ostensibly tortured by the bad guys. (With sub-dermal electrodes!) Once again, a big chase occurs in a makeshift maze, this time in a yard of big trucks. Once again a FOTW has been transformed by a science experiment. And once again, Olivia seems to be on the outskirts of the main action, but may be the most significant player. Notice how her engagement ring is engraved with the word “Always.” The idea that things persist—perhaps in a ring-like loop—seems to be central to the Fringe mystery.

Is this show going to reward paying close attention to details like this? I’m not sure; I hope it does. If it doesn’t, I still think Fringe will be enjoyable, at least until the repetition starts to become boring, not beguiling. Anyway, for now, ratings are strong, and the series has a full-season pick-up. Let’s keep riding it out, shall we?

Grade: B-

Stray observations:

-Hey, what’s-her-name is back. (I kid. Her name is Astrid. I knew that last time, too. I was playing off Walter’s ignorance and the character’s generic-icity.)

-Whenever I say “fringe” now, I say it in a voice halfway between “and twins” from that old beer commercial and “trends” from Demitri Martin’s Daily Show sketches. Am I the only one who does this?

-One last note on the “procedurals suck” argument. I’ve read a lot of commenters running down procedurals like House by complaining that they follow the same formula week after week and that they “hit the reset button” with each new episode. I can’t necessarily dispute the formula criticism, but neither do I think that’s inherently bad. There’s comfort in formula, and a smart procedural (like House) knows how to exploit that comfort to explore issues and character in ways that might otherwise be off-putting. As to the second criticism, I can only say that these readers must not be watching the kind of shows they’re complaining about. Outside of Law & Order (which itself has added some character arcs in recent years), the procedurals of the past decade allow their characters to go through changes and have their own dramas that carry over from week to week. That was the structure Fringe followed this week, and I prefer it to the formless ambiguity of “The Arrival.” But I’d still like the mysteries to be better.

Wilson is an idiot.

I got a guy I work with at the library hooked on House over the summer. We've talked about the series as he goes through the seasons (benefit of working at a place with an extensive DVD collection), and while we generally agree, there's one point on which I don't sympathize: he hates Wilson. Loathes him. Thinks he made the worst Puck ever.

I've been re-watching the series, and while I still don't agree with Mr. Guy, I think I can see where he's coming from. In general, Wilson serves as excellent ballast for our lead; he's not quite as brilliant, and not quite as cunning, but he's smart in his own right, and he's comparatively mature enough to see through House's games. The problem is, Wilson is constantly playing games of his own—and what makes that a problem is that he never acknowledges them as games. Over and over he tries to fix House, and at his worst, he operates under the smug assumption that he is the adult, and he knows what's best for both of them.

This isn't exactly true, as "Birthmarks" does a terrific job of showing. I don't doubt that Wilson is more of a grown-up than the Merry Medster; but the self-righteous refuge he takes in that fact makes it, as they say, "diagnostically irrelevant." Whatever problems their friendship has, it's not a simple matter of bad guy/saint.

But put that on the back burner for a moment. We're four paragraphs in, and I still haven't mentioned the big hook this week: House's father is dead. Oh, and an adopted woman vomits blood while on a trip to China to find her birth parents. Really, though, the dead dad thing should probably be the focus here.

House says he's fine, which, as everyone knows (especially House), mean he's lying. So to force him to the funeral, Cuddy drugs him under the pretense of a SARS vaccine and Wilson kidnaps him for a long drive. Wilson claims he's doing this because Mama House called him and asked him to make sure "Greg" made the occasion. Whatever the motivations, House isn't going to make it an easy trip.

Back at the hospital, the team tries to figure out what's killing the adoptee. She's got a troubled history; smoking, heavy drinking, and a pair of white parents who are at the end of their ropes dealing with a perpetual addict daughter. The mystery here is pretty good; there's a tie back into House's major problems (his effed up relationship with Daddy, his conviction that Daddy isn't really his daddy after all) that's maybe a little too neat, but given the strengths of the episode as a whole, I didn't find it distracting. The real meat of "Birthmarks" is the House/Wilson road trip, but it was great seeing Foreman talking with Chase and Cameron about the case; there's the usual phone-discussions that we always see when House is out of the hospital, but when he gets cut off mid-metaphor, the Classic Coke team tried to work out what he meant. New Coke has its moments (Kutner got to do the patient-bond this week), but I miss the originals.

Hey, though—road trip! When Wilson is picked up for an outstanding warrant in Louisiana, we finally get to hear how he and House met: during a medical conference, Wilson broke a mirror in a bar, and House bailed him out of jail. It's a nicely understated scene, playing with our expectations (the cop wasn't the only one who thought House instigated the fight) before resolving in a satisfying fashion. There's more stuff after that, including a House-delivered eulogy that manages to be somewhat respectful without compromising his integrity, and it all builds to a final confrontation in the back room of the funeral home. Wilson goes on yet another one of his big speeches about how House has to ruin everything and destroy everything, and House finally calls him on his crap.

One of the most interesting things about their relationship, especially when it descended into the depths of season three, is how it's never been entirely clear if it was supposed to be a healthy one. You couldn't ever be sure where the writers were going with it, and the worse things got, the shakier it seemed. Why the hell would Wilson put up with that kind of abuse? He's never going to fix House. He's like a girl who marries a murderer and thinks he'll change when she hides the knives.

Well, we finally got an answer, and while it does go back to that whole "change without change" problem, it's about as solid an answer as one could hope for. Wilson hangs out with House because House will never leave him. Ever. After Amber died, Wilson freaked out over the possibility of loss, and started pushing away everything that meant the most to him, including his best friend. But really, you can't get rid of House. It's part of his charm. All relationships are difficult to quantify, but I think more of it than we're willing to admit comes down to a connection that we can neither understand nor permanently resolve alone. House is a twerp and Wilson is an idiot, but they're friends, and in the long run, that's the bit to remember.

There was more going on in this episode—duh, dead dad—but I'll leave that for the comments. Besides, House's parents were on the show for one episode in the second season. While House's comments about his father's abuse have popped up from time to time, it's never been a story thread that's really clicked; maybe because we don't really care what made House. He is who he is—I'm much more concerned with the present, and I think he'd agree. Or maybe he'd just mock me for taking intellectual cues from a fictional construct.

Grade: A

Stray Observation:

--How great was the kidnapping? And well planned, too; Wilson even bought floor mats.

--Seemed a little too neat that the PotW's addiction problems could be solved by removing the needles in her brain. (Also? Creepy.)

--House: "We're all screwed up by our parents. She has documentation."

--So, Wilson is back for good. Resolved faster than I would've thought, but hey, why dawdle?

--Looks like everyone who was gunning for some Thirteen-on-woman action will get it next week.

When Sean and Noel asked me to cover Heroes this week (NBC still hasn't been restored to Sean's neighborhood), the first thing I did was head to NBC's press site to find a post photo/witness the future horror I was about to inflict on my eyeballs/earballs/soul. But I found something wonderful, something that could possibly change the way I watch this season of Heroes.

Bubbles was coming.

Yes, it appeared Andre Royo, my favorite character from one of my favorite shows of all time, was going to be swinging by—as someone with powers (ahem, abilities) no less.

Sigh. Poor, poor Bubs. Royo's appearance fell into the Heroes formula for failure, and basically summed up everything that's wrong with the show this season.

Let's start with the obvious: His character has no purpose—Claire tracks him down because she's, like, so rebellious now, and…actually, I'm not all that clear as to what drove her to read Daddy's files and find/possibly kill the evildoers found within. (Sure, she said as much in that sweat lodge two weeks back, but at this point, how much do we trust the words coming out of her mouth? And remember season one, when she was one of the only characters who could pull off the corny lines with some semblance of conviction?) But regardless, she's here and ready for blood. Only she's so easily swayed by Stephen, and sympathy rears itself almost immediately.

But then Sylar and HRG—even the "previously on…" voiceover guy calls him that now—show up, and we're at problem number two with season three: too much arbitrary drama. Stephen freaks out, creates a vortex and walks off like there's not an endless wormhole of emptiness and despair in his living room. HRG yells for his daughter for a while, then some more, then Sylar vanishes, possibly forever. Nah, he grabs Claire's hand just in time, and what a hand grab! It was enough for him to feel the "pain I've caused" by all the near–brain eating and such. And you know he's genuine, because earlier he admitted that he's "trying."

Which brings us to the conclusion and point number three: As Sean's pointed out in the past, the show changes fundamental traits of its characters willy-nilly, to better serve the individual scene they're currently shooting. So here we are, a stand-off at the carousel between Claire, Stephen and HRG, who is begging for the creation of a vortex to suck Sylar into oblivion. (Wait, doesn't he have super hearing? How did he miss that?) Only this time, Claire doesn't want Sylar sucked into a vortex—but wait, didn't she just resent her father a few minutes ago because he was working with such a monster? And this is the catalyst that shakes her to believe HRG doesn't see the heroes as human, because he's willing to go to great lengths to protect his family from bad guys? Remember? His "thing?" Plus, why is Sylar, of all people, able to egg her on? I guess, sure, he cut off her head and massaged her brain with his nuclear hands, but he had the decency to replace her scalp. If this isn't the fastest onset of Stockholm Syndrome ever, I don't know what is.

Of course, as I mentioned before, none of this really matters, because Stephen kills himself. Boo hoo. Was I the only one who thought Royo was trying his darndest to make the lines as real as possible? Better luck next time, I suppose.

But what about everything else? What about Hiro and Ando and all the dictating of their past transgressions, for the benefit of the new viewers Tim Kring is counting on to save his flailing show? What about the fact that Adam Monroe escapes from the grasp of tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum, but only makes it as far as the dumpster out back? What about Nathan wrestling with the fact that he might be a hero, or possibly a villain, maybe even some sort of inbetween hybrid where he seems bad for an episode or two, but then is really good? What about poor-person's Veronica Mars—I mean, fast girl? No, that's it: What about her?

I don't know. I don't even know what to say about the remainder of this episode. Look, show: I'm not asking that you serve up juicy, multicoursed drama; I'm not asking that you stay on the cutting edge of serialized storytelling; hell, I'm not dying for visual effects–heavy hoo-ha every second of every episode. I just want a decent show about people with superpowers, where the characters ring with some semblance of truth and the plot occasionally keeps me guessing. And every once in a while, I want to see Marlo Stanfield punch through someone.

Grade: D+

Stray observations:

- There were a few angels amongst tonight's monsters, though: Nightmare Man is back, as is Señor Petrelli—and he's apparently even better at mind control than anyone we've seen. Wondering if he's like Peter, in that he gets everyone's abilities; it wouldn't be the first time father and son shared a power (read: Parkman). Also, Marionette Guy is really creepy, but I'm doubting much more will come of his appearance than the kind of stuff we saw tonight with Royo.

- Petrelli the elder and John McCain: Separated at birth?

- Hiro stabbing Ando: Another chance for the show to solve a cliffhanger using some crazy Hiro time traveling scenario?

- Adam Monroe calling Hiro a "Japanese Nazi": Attempt at humor?

In this week's Popless, Noel writes about whether experimentation is better than conventionality. It's a discussion that's applicable to our sitcom blogs here at the TV Club. Every once in a while one of the non-believers will come wandering into our comment section and express disbelief that we're acting like a laugh-track three-camera half-hour comedy has anything going for it. And while they tend to get shouted down on this page, the same isn't true if they place that sentiment elsewhere on the site -- even elsewhere in the TV Club. For some people, once the cresting wave of television passed the traditional sitcom by, there was no point in creating anything new in that genre. It's as if people were still trying to pretend silent movies are a viable medium.

But Noel contends that there's something to be said for solid work within the old conventions, especially if the alternative is an avant-garde that doesn't keep itself grounded in the basics of the form. And if that's so, then there's surely much merit in appreciating and honoring those old conventions while transgressing their boundaries to grow a new varietal in that old soil.

Isn't that what's happening with tonight's episode, "Intervention"? It's not a laugh-out-loud entry in the series, so those looking for instant gratification might turn away too quickly. It doesn't wear its style on its sleeve, so those looking for innovation might not see anything new. But look again, and it's all about subtle plays on the form, wrapped in the familiar sitcom package.

Suddenly, everyone in the group is moving away. Marshall and Lily are finally going to their new apartment, the Slanty Shanty. Robin's moving to Japan to take that network correspondent job. Ted's moving in with Stella in New Jersey. And Barney -- well, he's not going anywhere per se, but his perverse effort to bag a chick using old man makeup does fit the theme of change. As the group reminisces about all the damage they've done to their apartment, their stories begin to cluster around a period in which they were holding regular interventions: to get Marshall to take off his Dr. Seuss hat ("I do not like that stupid hat/I want to beat it with a bat"), to stop Lily from speaking in a terrible fake lower-class British accent, to wean Robin off spray tanning ("they reel you in with a coupon and then you're hooked!").

And although the "INTERVENTION" banner was destroyed by Barney's flaming magic tricks during the Barney-magic-tricks intervention, Ted finds a new one boxed up with a sheaf of letters, and realizes that the group had been planning a non-stupid intervention to help him realize that he shouldn't marry Stella. (It couldn't be a stupid one, because they decided not to do anymore stupid interventions during their intervention intervention.) Embracing his cold feet, Ted begins unpacking all the ridiculous man-crap that he and Marshall accumulated during their years in the apartment: the flail from the Ren-fest ("there's not enough mead in the world to make me get rid of my flail"), the sombrero, R2-Sweet-Tooth the robot cookie jar ("my sensors indicate that your pecan sandies levels are dangerously low"). Marshall joins him, Lily calls their new place a black hole of death, and Robin abandons the idea of going to Japan. At this point, the conventional sitcom is in full swing: Nothing ever changes. And Ted celebrates stasis with a rousing "Who wants to go down to our same old bar, sit in our regular booth, and order the usual?!"

But the sight of Barney in 83-year-old mode macking on a sweet young thing changes Ted's mind. Nope -- they're all going to move on. Because you can't stop time. They're going to get old, and they need to get on with their real lives so they won't end up pretending to be kids, getting more and more pathetic. Ted proclaims the day a holiday, and calls upon the youth of McClaren's to gather from their disparate locales at that same booth in one year to drink the most expensive hooch in the place ($2500 Scotch) and celebrate their independence.

And so they do. Except ... they still have the apartment upstairs. Did anyone move on, or not? And if not, what are they celebrating? Is there a goat waiting for them up there?

Nothing changed, then everything changed, and then -- we don't know. HIMYM wants to keep us off balance. Its rhythms are only half comfy slipper and stress-relieving belly-laugh. The other half is like those shoes with the convex soles that you wear to improve your gait. It's sitcom exercise, a little workout for a genre that everybody assumes has gone soft. If you're with the program, folks, then you're already reaping the benefits.

Grade: A

Stray observations:

- I love this episode, even though it's not one of those you could show to a non-believer to get them to understand what's special about the show. It's an insider episode -- all the effortless timing and invention that makes the show great, but just for us. Not for them.

- You'd think Neil Patrick Harris in old man makeup would be a cringe-inducing gimmick, but not the way NPH sells the bit. The hand-tremble, folks. Repulsion at the 31-year-old. The epilogue: "What about the old sandpit?" Something that would have gotten tired in act one of a lesser show keeps on giving right until the final shot. Classy.

- How about the ultra-Canadian drunk Robin bit? Here's what really makes it go: They're not even pretending that this is anything but the broadest, crassest, sloppiest set of Canadian stereotypes. When Robin drops the gloves in preparation for the Lily catfight, I was cheering for fake Canuckery. Great misdirection on that scene, too -- it's not Robin's slap shot that marred the wall by the door, but Barney's frustration at being denied girl-on-girl violence.

- "That's douchee, not douch-ay."

So why a Big Bang Theory blog?

Mainly we decided to add BBT to our Monday TV Club lineup because each week’s How I Met Your Mother blog was becoming a de facto home for Big Bang Theory chat, which wasn’t really fair to people who dropped by each week to talk HIMYM. But more importantly: A lot of us here at The A.V. Club like this show. (Seriously. You’d be surprised how many people volunteered to do this blog when we discussed adding it.) Early in its first season, The Big Bang Theory strained quite a bit, dropping forced geek references and overplaying the “lusty nerd” angle. And while the show remains a broad comedy that trades on geek stereotypes, its references have become far more natural (and geek-friendly), and its characters have developed the kind of distinctive traits and rapport that shows the writers aren’t lumping them all into the same “taped-up glasses and pocket protector” heap. On a good week, The Big Bang Theory isn’t just funny, it’s sweet and knowing. In the classic sitcom tradition, creators Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady have concocted a cast of characters that are enjoyable to be around, in a milieu that’s comfortable to visit for 22 minutes a week.

At least that’s true most of the time. Tonight’s episode wasn’t really a great one to kick off the BBT blog, though it contained at least one extended scene that showed off what the series does best.

The main problem with “The Griffin Equivalency” is that it focused on arguably The Big Bang Theory’s weakest character, Raj, whose sole interesting trait is the disconnect between his scientific skills (about which he is justifiably arrogant) and his skills at talking with the opposite sex (which are non-existent). In this episode, Raj’s confidence in both areas gets a boost when People magazine names on their “30 Under 30 To Watch” list for discovering a new planetoid. (Quoth a confused, envious Sheldon: ““Is there some sort of peer review committee?”) When Raj’s subsequent boasting proves insufferable, his friends refuse to accompany him to his big People party, though Penny—who likes to presume she knows better than her neighbors how to behave in a social setting—fills in for the gang, and promptly regrets it when an already drunken Raj complains that her outfit isn’t “ridonkulous” enough.

I found much of the Raj material as overdone as BBT’s detractors (mistakenly) claim the show always is, especially when his parents showed up via IM-cam, playing not just to every Indian stereotype but to every “Mom and Dad meeting the new girlfriend” stereotype. (Also, the less said about the Charlie Sheen cameo, the better.) However, I did appreciate the way The Big Bang Theory continues to ditch the idea of lengthy resolutions. Just a quick scene before the closing credits and then out.

Which was especially useful tonight, because the lack of a long “I’m so sorry, Penny”/“That’s okay, Raj” scene allowed more room for a classic BBT digression. Over meticulously ordered Chinese food, Sheldon tells a story from his youth in East Texas (which, apropos of nothing, is “home to many Vietnamese shrimpers”), about how he once tried to use the ironic death of his pet cat Lucky as an opportunity to get a new, even more awesome pet: a griffin! Since that plan didn’t work out, Sheldon proposes that they replace Raj in their group with the ultimate animatronic pal. (Just imagine: “We’re playing Halo with a multi-lingual Abraham Lincoln.”) Leonard, the only one of the foursome in touch with reality, extrapolates from Sheldon’s proposal, and suggests that, “Well, it wouldn’t kill us to meet new people. Sheldon’s reply: “For the record, it could kill us to meet new people.”

It’s scenes like that one that keep me watching Big Bang Theory, which may be the best sitcom since The Andy Griffith Show at wasting time with pointless conversations. No quick cutaways. No ironic inserts. No rush. Just enough time spent with characters that we get to pick up on their particularities: like Sheldon’s inability to fake a convincing smile, or the way he eats with chopsticks while Howard and Leonard opt for plastic forks, or how when Howard grumbles that Sheldon’s insane, Sheldon can’t continue the conversation without offering a rebuttal. “I’m not insane,” he says with confidence. “My mother had me tested.”

Grade: C+

Stray observations:

-Ordinarily, I’d be annoyed at a sitcom for relying as heavily on a breakout character as BBT does on Sheldon, but I’m too fascinated by Sheldon to complain. As I’ve mentioned before on this site, my 7-year-old son has an autistic spectrum disorder (he's currently diagnosed as a high-functioning autist, though in the years since that diagnosis, I think he’s moved closer to the Asperger’s range of the spectrum), and I recognize in Sheldon a lot of what I see in my son, and in my other encounters with the autistic. The BBT creators have pointedly avoided addressing whether Sheldon has a neurological condition or if he’s just “eccentric,” and I don’t blame them for their reticence. If they tie Sheldon’s personality to something specific and medical, that limits what they can plausibly do with the character. And yet, the portrayal of Sheldon has been remarkably consistent with Asperger’s, in that he hasn’t shown any sudden emotional growth or extraordinary bursts of tractability. I’ve checked a few Aspie forums, and parents and Aspies alike have expressed their appreciation at seeing such a familiar character on TV, and in what amounts to a starring role. I know I appreciate it. For that reason above all, Big Bang Theory has won me over.

-Fun facts about Howard: He doesn’t have a PhD; he doesn’t think comparing Raj to The Simpsons’ Apu is racist, because Apu is a beloved character; and given the opportunity, he would “so do Ellen Page.”

-Sheldon thinks that his annoyance at Raj’s success was just a way of “raising the bar” and helping his friend. He explains, “When I was 11, my sister gave our father a ‘World’s Greatest Dad’ coffee mug, and frankly he coasted until the day he died.”

-Sheldon on the university bathrooms’ new air-dryers: “Frankly, it would be more hygienic if they just had a plague-infested Gibbon sneeze my hands dry.”

Just as Chuck giveth, Chuck can also taketh away. Last week we witnessed Chuck, infused with resolve by his love for Sarah, take a leap forward in his role as a spy (literally), and succeed gloriously. But here we are, one mission later, and things aren't going nearly as well. Where Chuck has flailed in the past by letting his Sarah fixation get in the way of his responsibility, here he fails—truly fails—as a result. It's a big step for the show, and it makes for the best episode yet.

It starts with the return of Bryce Larkin, former college roommate and destroyer of all things Chuck-Sarah. (Charah? Schuck? Aw, Schucks? It'll catch on…) Nothing else could have shaken Chuck more—after all, Sarah is the root of nearly all of Chuck's bravery, and threatening their relationship is sure to rattle the guy. Not only is he reduced to playing second fiddle to a real-life spy, but he's no longer given the opportunity to be a knight-in-shining-armor to his gal. We see the effects almost immediately; even a simple task of imitating a waiter and seeing what he can flash on proves hard to handle, as he can't keep his eyes off Bryce and Sarah's dancing. Without his head in the game, he winds up spoiling his mission and soiling the target's pants with pricy champagne. Realizing what he's done, he sneaks back in, and jeopardizes the entire operation by getting in harm's way. If that's not failing, I don't know what is.

This exposes something unexpected: Sarah's feelings for Chuck are clouding her judgment and interfering with her ability to carry out orders. And this doesn't just manifest itself in the first part of the mission, where she splits from Bryce and goes after the woman holding Chuck hostage; there's also the episode's end, where in a repeat of the preliminary flashback, she's tasked with taking a tough shot to save the man held at gunpoint. Of course, there's a risk of hitting Chuck in the process, which proves to be too much.

That final scene demonstrates how far Chuck has come. Last season, Sarah wasn't much (besides "to look at," obviously): the first 7 or so episodes found her keeping Chuck in line, and occasionally going soft for a man she witnessed struggle with the hard-knocked spy lifestyle. Call it love, but it was rooted more in pity than anything. But here we have some genuine feelings in the mix, and for the first time in Chuck's history, I'm feeling for Sarah. (Emotionally.) Whereas Chuck can conceivably go back to living a normal life, she can never have one, which I'm sure plays heavily in the fact that she winds up falling for her, for lack of a better term, coworkers—first Bryce, and now Chuck.

And poor Chuck—he's no longer on the receiving end of Sarah's pity love, and with good cause. He's grown up in a hurry, recognizing that he and Sarah can never have a normal life, so there's no point in even trying. And these last few episodes have shown us that Chuck, despite the excitement and confidence his spy life has afforded, craves routine; yes he's sick of the Buy More and wants to explore his passions, but within the confines of where the majority of people live. He knows he can't be with Sarah, despite his desire—and hell, she wants in now!—but he's back to the old routine, the fake boyfriend-girlfriend one, only this time it's painful for all parties involved.

Which leads me to something I've started wondering: Does Bryce care about Chuck at all? Near the end of the episode, I started thinking that he really believed he had Chuck's best interests at heart when he sent him the Intersect. He knows Chuck would do the right thing, and would handle everything in stride. And hell, best intentions count for something. But doesn't he recognize that Chuck really wants out? Why give him the Intercept update (besides perhaps a fanboy call-out to the fact that all software needs service packs)? Was it his own doing, a government directive, or yet another cruel prank on his old roommate? Only time will tell, and thank goodness NBC has picked up the show for a full 22 episodes so we can find out.

Grade: A

Stray observations:

- Once again, while the Buy More stuff was funny, it stood as a separate story. But Chuck is one of the few shows out there that can get away with doing this without it feeling totally removed. If anything, it adds drama to the supposedly ho-hum life Chuck would be leading: He's got his guns and double-crossers; they've got the Mighty Jocks who sling burrito ingredients and can be bought off by PSPs.

- Speaking of, another great guest star appearance in Michael Strahan, surprisingly. I used to watch this late-night show Sports Action Team, where a group of Chicago improvisers would pretend to be sportscasters and perform scenes with athletes. Usually they pulled it off by giving the stars tiny parts, and some were actually pretty good actors. But most couldn't really shake the watching eye of the camera. I got the feeling that Strahan was a natural part of the story, though, and not just some stunt casting session gone awry.

- Chuck uses a clip-on bow tie, whereas Bryce ties his own. Do you think that was intentional? If so, it was a great way to play up Chuck's inferiority complex.

- Do you think Chuck's sister knows Bryce? She didn't recognize him in Orange Orange, but he was facing away. Still, hmm…

- Capt. Awesome knows the human heart.

Before getting into Christian Slater’s new TV show, I offer this note: NBC’s Chuck, currently airing on Monday nights at 8 p.m. ET, has experienced a major creative resurgence in its second season after getting off to a rocky start in Season One. However, that resurgence hasn’t been reflected in the ratings, despite the best efforts of NBC’s marketing team and the vigorous support of TV critics. I mention this in my review of My Own Worst Enemy because both shows are essentially high-concept Alias knock-offs about ordinary men leading a double life in the spy game and Chuck would be a devastating parody of Slater’s show had it not be called into existence first. So if you take anything away from the following review, it’s this: Give Chuck another shot.

With that out of the way, let’s delve into the stupefying premise of My Own Worst Enemy. Slater stars as Edward Albright, a generic superspy who can do all the things expected of generic superspies: Assassinate Russian mobsters from long range, frustrate his boss (Alfie Woodard) with his off-the-playbook methods, fix himself a stiff drink, and make love to sexy double agents. Slater also stars as Henry Spivey, a dull-witted family man with a wife, two kids, and a house in the suburbs. But here’s the twist: Edward and Henry are the same guy! “Whaaaaaaaaa?,” you ask? It would seem that through the magic of computer technology, Edward/Henry are a split personality, controlled by Edward’s handlers. So the powers-that-be (CIA? FBI? SD-6? Not sure who’s in charge yet) can call on Edward to snuff out a KGB agent in Paris while having Henry wake up believe that he was on a business trip in Akron.

The amount of money and energy invested in this split-personality scheme is pretty staggering on the face of it: The technology just to turn off and on the fields in Edward/Henry’s brain requires a billion-dollar mainframe, on top of whatever was spent tinkering with his head in the first place. The computer has to be manned by all times by a technician and overseen by Edward/Henry’s supervisors, who have to keep two very different narratives straight at all times. Then the secret must be kept by Henry’s co-workers at his boring day job—or at least Henry’s work buddy Tom, who goes by the name Raymond when he’s in spy mode. Granted, there’s some suggestion that other agents besides Edward are in the program, too, so not all of those resources are wasted on one man. But the question lingers: Why?

Hopefully, future episodes will clarify the purpose of splitting a perfectly good agent into two, but for now, it makes no sense. Edward seems like a highly capable agent who doesn’t need an everyday alter-ego to obscure his identity or go into hiding. And why does Edward know about Henry but Henry not know about Edward? As it stands, if Henry got caught in a sticky situation when somebody mistook him for Edward, he wouldn’t have the tools to defend himself. It hurts the brain to think too long about how My Own Worst Enemy’s basic premise doesn’t add up, even in a television universe that includes a show where the government’s biggest secrets are downloaded into a guy’s head. So let’s consider the show by its merits.

There’s some fun to be had—not a lot of fun, but some—in the moments when the computerized split-personality device goes on the fritz and Edward or Henry wakes up in the other one’s world. In the first episode, for example, Edward becomes Henry at an inopportune moment and winds up facing a battery of Russian henchmen without the slightest idea where he is, who they are, and how to get out of the situation. Then later, Edward pretends to be Henry and winds up spicing up poor Henry’s milquetoast sex life considerably. At times, the show is a little like Face/Off after John Travolta and Nicholas Cage have swapped identities, and the dizzying identity mix-ups can be pretty amusing when they’re not utterly baffling.

But at bottom, My Own Worst Enemy isn’t a comedy and that may be its biggest problem. Played straight, it’s a slick, been-there-done-that spy show built around a gimmick that frustrates and confuses more than it entertains. The creators would do well to play the premise for laughs, but then again, the network already has one Chuck.

Grade: C+

Stray observations:

• From the Directory Of Nefarious Russian TV Names comes this week’s bad guy: Uzi Kafelnikov. (The first name is a weapon, the second the surname of a famous tennis player.)

• I have a lot of respect for Alfre Woodard’s abilities, but when was the last time she starred in something good? I’d have to go all the way back to Passion Fish in 1992.

• “I don’t like to sleep. Not when I’m awake.” There’s a Zen mind-clearer for you.

• Edward won the Congressional Medal Of Honor. How incognito could he be?

Why hello there. Josh is out of town tonight, so I’ll be covering his TV Club duties for the evening, as I am apparently the only other person around the office who still watches Entourage. And you know what? The way this season’s been going, I’m glad I’ve stuck it out. While a lot of the show’s comedic premise has gotten pretty tired—Ari is angry, Drama is dumb, Turtle is high—plot-wise, I think the show is more interesting than it’s been since the days of Aquaman.

Vince’s struggles to land another role continue this week (though he and Eric are left mostly out of the dealings), with Ari heading out to the golf course to try to win his client the second lead in Smokejumpers by hustling studio head and supposed hopeless putter Alan Grey. Of course, nothing’s gone right for Ari lately when it comes to Vince—to this season’s benefit—and his plan goes quickly awry when doddering, vindictive producer Bob (Martin Landau) and Alan’s golf pro (Phil Mickelson, who is apparently someone golf fans care about) team up to help him give Ari a solid spanking on the green. At first, this whole plotline seemed like an excuse to have Ari eat more shit and for the writers to spin out the Smokejumpers conflict a little longer. (Doe anyone really think Vince isn’t going to eventually land that part? Hell, I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t somehow finagle the lead.) But we got a big dose of forward momentum at the end, courtesy of the Entourage deus ex machina, who saw fit to strike Alan down in the middle of his victory bitching out of Ari. While this development is indeed a little too convenient, it’s also nicely double-edged. Sure, there’s an ugly silver lining in Alan’s death—as only Drama is willing to point out—but it’s hard to celebrate a victory when there’s a corpse bringing everybody down. Ari especially seems shaken, probably because Alan’s vindictive, angry existence so closely mirrors his own. Life is short, particularly when you’re a rage-filled ball of stress. So, even though it’s looking like things are finally on the uptick for Vince and Co., the way it all went down is a little messy.

Though I guess Ari’s adventure was technically the B story tonight, it felt like the episode’s main thread, probably because Vince and E’s plot felt so unnecessary. Entourage seems committed to foisting the guys’ oafish childhood buddy Dom on its viewers, no matter how much we dislike him. It doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing too much more of him though, as he’s now apparently off to prison for 30 years after panicking and running from the cops trying to pull him over for speeding. (His mother-in-law’s medicinal marijuana was in the glovebox and he had priors.) The whole Dom story really just served to highlight, once again, the difference between Eric’s cerebral skepticism and Vince’s blind, inherent trust in people/projects that don’t deserve it. While it was amusing enough to watch Eric shadow Dom after putting up his own money for bail—since Vince can’t afford it—the whole “if you can’t trust your friends who can you trust” thing is getting a little old.

As usual, Turtle and Drama get the leftovers, in a sitcom-y C-story that had Turtle working as Drama’s assistant for a day. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of these characters could see how that was going to play out—there’s no way Turtle could put up with Drama’s bullshit without the usual buffer of Vince. Unsurprisingly, Drama is a pain in the ass to work for, and Turtle quits after handily completing every asinine task handed to him. Good on Turtle for showing a little work ethic under all that smarm, but he should have taken his fellow assistant’s advice more literally and actually drugged Drama instead of trying to placate him with pussy. It probably would have been more amusing, and make more sense: Sexual harassment complaints or no, does anyone think Drama would turn down some consensual ass from a hot extra? Unless, of course, he’s still broken up over Jacqueline. (Please God, no more of that.) Thankfully, it seems Turtle won’t be unemployed much longer, as Smokejumpers has almost certainly become a reality for Vince with Alan out of the way. And that’s probably a good thing: Although it’s been refreshing to see the guys flounder for a bit in the wake of Medellin, it’s about time to get back to the movie-star shenanigans.

Grade: B-

Stray observations:

• Ugh, the title of tonight’s episode is so, so horrible. It fills me with more rage than Ari and Alan have combined.

• Apparently Eric’s client Charlie (Bow Wow, nee Lil’) is doing well, despite the fact that Eric seems to be a horrible manager, busting out mid-meeting to chase after Dom. In his absence, Charlie managed to land himself a pilot AND get Vince a job to boot. Maybe Eric should be paying him.

• Alan just brought up Bob’s Ramones script again to fuck with Ari, right? That’s not going to become a thing again, right?

• Hey look, Ari found the tightest golf shirt in the pro shop.

• In a weird little coincidence, not 20 minutes before this episode aired, I was re-watching the series finale of The Wire, only to come across both Herc and Spiros tonight in Entourage land. HBO, keepin’ it in the family.

For about the first 20 minutes of this week’s Mad Men, throughout Don Draper’s adventures on the left coast, I was a little confused about where “The Jet Set” was headed. We had Pete and Don wandering awkwardly around the pool, marveling at all the fashionable folk in tailored jackets and swimsuits; Pete awestruck at seeing Tony Curtis in the men’s room and grumbling about how everyone’s late in L.A.; and Don seeing Betty’s face in every woman and pointedly ordering Old Fashioneds. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion out west, in stark contrast to the rapid patter and big moments happening back at Sterling-Cooper.

And then, Don’s story took a turn. And then another. And I was about as awestruck and enraptured as I’ve been this whole season. (And this has been a good season.)

It all starts in a seminar room, where Don is shaken to the core by the latest data about rocketry, and the knowledge that should a nuclear war begin, civilization as we know it could end in a matter of minutes. Later that day, on his way to a meeting, Don runs into a pretty young woman named Joy, whom he’d met earlier, and when she asks him to blow off his business and go motoring off with her to Palm Springs, he finds the offer hard to resist. When she asks, “Why would you deny yourself something you want?”—the kind of question that ad men love to ask, and one that recalls his recent rationalization for buying a fancy new car—Don has no choice. He follows his Joy.

I’m not sure if I can express to you how nervous and excited Don’s choice made me. For one thing, it reminded me of the Don Draper who’s beguiled me since Season One: the impetuous one, the adventurer, the man with no fast allegiances (no matter what he might say to his colleagues in a boardroom). Also, Don’s almost dreamlike journey into the sun-dappled world of the idle rich seemed to follow up on what I was writing last week about The Roger Dilemma. If you’re a person with money and charisma and wit—a Don Draper, in other words—then your possibilities seem limitless, even though social convention keeps trying to force you into seeing one choice through until retirement and death. Last season, Don channeled his desires to be someone else through affairs with a beatnik and a businesswoman. This week, he ate Mexican food with a gaggle of the effete.

And yet, just as Don is starting to get seduced by the oversexed Joy’s proposal that they jet off to Europe, he’s reminded that there’s always a cost for fantasy. A man walks in with two small children, about the age of Don’s little ones, and bickers briefly with Joy. The details of the situation remain unclear by episode’s end—to me, anyway—but its essential meaning rings like a bell. Don may hold an ideal in his head of a life without baggage, but that’s an impossibility. There will always be kids tugging at his pantsleg. A courier will always arrive, carrying a suitcase.

Meanwhile, back in New York, the Rocket Age is catching up to the employees of S-C in a major way. Civil unrest in the south is dominating TV news. (“Why do people keep stirring up trouble? It’s bad for business,” Harry grumbles.) Bob Dylan is playing at Carnegie Hall. And one of Don’s “new blood” hires, Kurt The European, has just announced that “I make love with the men, not the women.”

But the biggest change underway is initiated by Duck, who under pressure from Roger to “make some rain” has contacted his former employers to inquire about them buying controlling interest in Sterling-Cooper. When Duck introduced the idea to his ex-boss, I was sure he had a hostile takeover in mind, but Roger and Bert seemed excited by the prospect of a buyout, so now I don’t know what to think. It doesn’t help that Duck’s re-entry into the arena of big business has required him to start drinking again. (I can’t recall a more clever visual cue than the shot of Duck’s hands fumbling with a roll of breath mints on his way into his meeting with Roger and Bert.)

With all of this in the offing in “The Jet Set,” the episode opens on an oddly muted and seemingly disconnected note, as Roger listens to his new girlfriend recite her own poetry—and reference Lewis Carroll—as they lounge around a fancy hotel after sex. And yet in retrospect there’s something appropriate about it. If Roger and Don are analogues, then it’s only fitting that they both dally with arty young women at the same time. And there’s also some symmetry between Roger’s surprising turn toward conventionality—asking his lover to marry him—and Don The Old-Fashioned Drinker’s own return to the past following his heat-stroke-aided trip through the looking glass. Sprawled out on a couch, lost to everyone who cares about him, Don rises to a sitting position, and as the camera frames him in Mad Men’s familiar back-of-the-head pose, he picks up a phone and utters the four most shocking words I’ve yet heard on this show:

“Hello, it’s Dick Whitman.”

Grade: A

Stray observations:

- Y’know, with most TV shows, you’re lucky if you get one meaty theme to gnaw on; with Mad Men, there’s so much to unpack that there’s almost no way to get to it all without writing a dissertation. There’s a bunch more to analyze here, but I’m afraid I don’t have the time. But you guys surprise me every week with what you come up with, so I’m more eager to read your theories anyway.

-The reaction to Kurt’s announcement among the other execs was painful to watch, especially with Sal and Kurt’s fellow new hire (and likely lover) in the room. Any thought those two guys may have given to coming out of the closet has just been put aside for a good long time.

-Pete says nothing about Don abandoning him, perhaps because he enjoyed being a poolside bigwig for a couple of days. (Pete’s tailor-made for Los Angeles, really.) But I kept thinking about what a different time it was, when business associates didn’t have cel phones to keep in touch with each other on a trip.

-When the jet-setters asked Don, “What’s your story?” I thought he had the perfect response: “I don’t know how to answer that.”

-Another great comeback: When Duck says, “I’d be proud to present my accomplishments,” Roger cuts him down with, “Good, because I’m at a loss.”

-Only two more episodes to go in Season Two, folks. Want to know the title of the finale? “Meditations On An Emergency.” Besides calling back to our season-opening Frank O’Hara poem (with a slight change in wording), the title may also be an indication that our Cuban Missile Crisis predictions may well come to pass.

-Peggy’s Kurt-fashioned new hairdo… yea or nay? (I liked it, myself.)

The main thing I like about Dexter is how committed the show is to going deep inside Dexter’s head and learning more about the nature of his psychosis and the conflicting impulses that are at war within him all the time. Whenever the show goes flat—and it does often and certainly did at times during tonight’s episode—the writers can always find ways to put Dexter in situations that challenge his way of thinking and throw a roadblock on his long, possibly fruitless journey towards self-rehabilitation. The main thread this season, centering on his relationship to Jimmy Smits’ shifty Miguel character, hasn’t quite delivered for me yet, but Rita’s pregnancy is definitely paying dividends.

Consider tonight’s hour: After twice encountering a man he suspects, correctly, is a sexual predator with his eye on Rita’s daughter, Dexter decides to take action against him. Though he knows that he and the sexual predator are cut from similar cloth—the only difference is that Dexter wouldn’t hurt a    child while his target probably wouldn’t kill anyone—he ultimately decides to wipe him out, in part because the girl is one of his own and his protective instinct is stronger than he thought. But his conclusion brings him into some murky territory in light of his girlfriend’s pregnancy: What if that fatherly need to guard his young was in fact just a convenient rationale for murder?

Once again, Dexter’s difficulty in coming to terms with being a dad proved by far the most compelling element, though his weird kinship with Miguel gets more twisted by the day. Like an animal forced to mate in captivity, Dexter is tied to Miguel and subject to his late-night visits, his overly assertive dinner and get-together invitations, and various secret meets-ups. As of tonight, their purposes are intertwined: Both want the heat off the Oscar Prado case, because the main suspect, Freebo, is dead, so the search for Oscar’s killer is a big waste of time. ‘Twas always so for Dexter, since he was the one who actually killed Oscar, but Miguel’s interest in squelching the case is a suspicious reversal from his previous stance, which was to horsewhip Maria and Miami Metro into finding his brother’s killer.

Meanwhile, a fresh body pops up after Freebo’s death, so there’s an unknown killer on the loose, one who’s also responsible for Teegan’s death. The police don’t know that yet—they’re ready to pin all the bodies on Freebo—but it presents a possible issue for Dexter and Miguel, since the person responsible for those murders must be tied very closely to the case. In their little alliance, Miguel seems to have the upper hand on Dexter: He’s a more powerful man, at least politically speaking, and he’s a very slippery character to pin down. Is he playing a cat-and-mouse game with Dexter or is he a real friend, bonded by their mutual pursuit of justice over Oscar’s murder? They both have serious daddy issues in common, so there’s that, and Miguel offers him the incriminating shirt has was wearing after Dexter killed Freebo, so there’s that, too. But you have to believe there’s an ulterior motive or two at play here; otherwise, what kind of suspense show would this be?

In other, more zzzzzzz-worthy plot threads, Deb gets closer to Quinn’s C.I., which pisses off Quinn for reasons unknown and leads to some possible romantic chemistry, even if he serenades her with the scorching number “Skinny Mean Bitch.” The writers are struggling to find something, anything for Masuka to do this year; here they have him distributing autographed copies of an article he wrote for Forensics Quarterly. (In a funny exchange, Masuka get pissed at Quinn for disrespecting “his people” by tossing the magazine. Who are his people? Angel: “I don’t know. Little scientists, I guess.”) There’s also signs of prosecutorial misconduct in Miguel’s railroading an innocent man to prison, but how that connects to the main thread is not yet clear.

Grade: B

Stray observations:

• As usual, the interplay between what’s being said in the real world and Dexter’s internal response is good for some dark laughs. At the touchy-feely yoga class for expecting couples, the instructor says, “Be as beautiful as the golden flakes of dust, Dexter.” “I could probably kill her before anyone realized what happened,” he thinks.

• John Dahl, the man responsible for such neo-noirs as Red Rock West, The Last Seduction, and Rounders, directs. He also did an episode of True Blood earlier this season and he’s good at bringing a bit of atmosphere to the table.

• Deb’s aggressive vulgarity makes me cringe. No baby should ever be described as “a motherfucking roly-poly chubby-cheeked shit machine.”

• Anyone else kinda moved by the ending, when Dexter sent “positive intentions” to his unborn child? I love that phrase; positive intentions don’t necessarily guarantee positive results.

So here’s the problem with an uneven, closer-to-bad-than-good TV series like True Blood: When you get to an episode that’s supposed to have you choking back tears, it ends up leaving you cold. Alan Ball and company have had five hours to get us to care about his characters and it was clear to me tonight just how thoroughly they’ve failed in that capacity. Six episodes in and I couldn’t care less about any of these people, no matter that a couple of them have been intermittently interesting or entertaining.

The brutal, senseless murder of Sookie’s grandmother Adele was bound to shake things up on the show, certainly more than the other two killings leading up to it. The common thread among all three dead women is that they were sympathetic to vampires and had friendships or relationships with one or more of them. It’s safe to assume that a vamp-hater—given True Blood’s gay metaphor, perhaps I should call him a “vampophobe”—is behind the slaughter, though the lunk-headed local police are still looking to Jason as the prime suspect.

No doubt we’ll get back into the mystery in the coming weeks, but for now, as R.E.M. might say, everybody hurts. Sookie’s reaction to her grandmother’s death is sublimated grief and mounting annoyance at the well-wishers whose heads are filled with suspicion and hate. At the wake, her neighbors all come bearing tuna-cheese casseroles and friendly words, but there’s an ugly tempest of bigotry beyond the surface that’s something closer to a recent McCain/Palin rally. Having to grieve under those circumstances would seem impossibly trying, but again… I felt nothing. And I wonder how much the writers felt, too, since her big moment is telling everyone at the funeral to just “shut the fuck up,” which just seemed like a bad joke to me. By the time she finally let go and started crying in her pecan pie, the episode had lost me completely.

In even more excruciating melodrama, Tara’s drunk of a mother stands up to give a rambling elegy at Adele’s funeral, and the spectacle embarrasses her daughter. Their confrontation also rang false, in part because both actresses played it so poorly. Tara’s mother blames a demon inside her for all the bad things she does; Tara faux-laughs at her for saying so, because she thinks it’s a pitiful excuse for her mother failing to take responsibility for her life. We’re supposed to see in this exchange how the two are bound to each other and what a horrible burden that bond has become for Tara, who doesn’t have a life of her own. But again, nothing.

Sam and Bill are fighting openly now about which one has possession of Sookie’s heart. Sam thinks Bill is dangerous and suspects he might have something to do with Adele’s murder. But then who is he to say anything? He’s a dog. (Maybe.) At this point, Sam trails far behind Bill in the Sookie seduction department; there just aren’t any sparks between Sam and Sookie, and the best he can hope is to be a father-figure to her. On the other hand, Adele’s death strengthens Sookie’s connection to Bill, and I liked the image of Sookie waiting until dark to run to him in a modest, old-fashioned nightgown. Very iconic and romantic, in a not-quite-Harlequin sort of way.

Then there’s Jason, who has predictably fallen into full-on vamp-blood junkiehood. I didn’t believe that he would bust his cell phone like that and I didn’t believe that he would slap Sookie, either. Yes, she’s invited some trouble by associating with a vampire, but he was intimately involved with the first two victims, and doesn’t have the latitude to slap his sister.

At least the last five minutes or so were decent. Next!

Grade: C

Stray observations:

• Hated the visual joke of the cat licking up grandma’s blood. It immediately subtracts from the emotional impact Adele’s death (and the episode on the whole) was supposed to have.

• Another suspect pops up in the periphery: A young coroner’s assistant who hopes that Sookie didn’t notice him at the vampire bar in Shreveport.

• Why would the police leave Sookie to mop up her own grandmother’s blood? Isn’t that what Bill’s for?

• Is this the first time Anna Paquin has done a nude scene? I’m reminded of a special issue we did years ago called The A.V. Club For Men, which was our parody of Maxim. Nathan Rabin wrote a piece for it called “Countdown To Legality,” about hot young actresses who had to turn 18. In the entry on her, Nathan wrote that she was “Paquin much sex appeal.” Still makes me laugh.

On paper, Kath & Kim sounds like a good idea, or at least one that has the potential to be funny: It stars two capable comic actresses, Molly Shannon and Selma Blair, as a hopelessly tacky, thoroughly empty-headed mother and daughter pair. Frequent Christopher Guest player, John Michael Higgins, is Shannon's fiancé, and he's always funny. And the show is based on a highly successful (read: funny) Australian sitcom. What could go wrong?

As it turns out, a lot. Kath & Kim has nearly all the elements for a good sitcom--funny cast, a funny model to work from, and judging by the attention to detail in the costume and set design, a more than adequate budget (Never has cheapness looked so expensive). What it doesn't have, however, is a decent script and, surprise surprise, that's a key element in a funny sitcom. When one of the best lines in the pilot is, "No! The pecan Sandies are for company!" something has gone very wrong somewhere.

Not that Kath & Kim really relies on lines for its humor. The first episode centers on what happens when 27-year-old Kim leaves her husband and moves back in with her happily empty-nested mom Kath. But most of the jokes seem to be visual: Molly Shannon running around in a loud, 80s aerobics get-up, complete with thong leotard; Selma Blair's muffin-top-baring top; the thoroughly un-ironic Glamour Shot of mom & daughter over the mantle in Kath's pastel atrocity of a living room. The message not so subtly telegraphed is: "They're so tacky! And they don't even know it! Isn't it funny?" In a word, no. Especially since the show's writers aren't content to just show us how tacky Kath and Kim are with tacky set design and tacky costumes, they have to constantly let the characters tell us as well. Within the first 5 minutes of the pilot, Kim is envious of her mom's hideous rug, "Oh that zebra rug is soo nice." They're so clueless! They have no taste! Isn't it funny?

But Kath & Kim aren't just tacky, they're also dumb, a fact that the writers also constantly hit us over the head with. "He's not the brightest bulb in the salon," Kath tells Kim about Kim's estranged husband. "Oh yeah, well what about Phil?" Kim responds, "He's no rocket surgeon." Gosh, they're so dumb they don't even know they're dumb! Isn't it funny? No? Well, here are 50 other jokes to make that exact same point!

In truth, the whole pilot episode suffers from a tendency to both repeat and over-explain. In places, there's even a voice-over so Kath and Kim can tell us exactly how dumb and clueless they are. The use of voice-over is highly unnecessary, since it seems to serve only as a highlighter for things that have already been highlighted. Never has the adage of "Show don't tell," seemed both more correct and ignored.

Still, even in the midst of all the tackiness and repetitive unfunny jokes, there are a few bright spots. Shannon's interactions with Higgins are funny, and the moment when they spot each other across the mall is wisely played for maximum awkwardness. Mikey Day, who plays Blair's estranged husband Craig, is also pretty funny. Like Kath & Kim, Craig is also an idiot, but his dopeyness isn't as loud or forced as theirs. When he's trying to win back Kim, he earnestly says, "I love you, dude." He's so dumb! But it actually is kinda funny. Unfortunately, a few scattered kinda funny parts don't make up for the obnoxiously unfunny whole.

Grade: D

Stray Observations:

--I'm unfamiliar with the Australian version, but hopefully it didn't include Kath & Kim toasting the virtues of global warming because, "getting a savage tan in 5 minutes is pretty convenient." They're so dumb! Har-Har

Sarah and Laura Silverman, they’re a funny duo. They probably have all sorts of inside jokes from the nearly 38 years they’ve spent together. You know, like how Laura looks vaguely Asian and Sarah doesn’t? Wait a second… what if there was a whole episode built around that premise?

That’s how the second part of the The Sarah Silverman Program’s “special 2 night Premiere Event” felt: like an inside joke between the Silverman sisters stretched to episode length. I didn’t say it wasn’t funny, but it felt especially fast and loose for a show that already operates with minimal logical cohesion. In its own way, though, it only makes sense that an episode that begins with a stranger speaking Chinese to Laura would end with a lawsuit by the “Mongolian Board Of Tourism” and a rockin’ party straight out of an ’80s teen movie. Fast and loose, like I said.

Race is Sarah Silverman’s favorite comic well, and she returns to it so much that it’s gotta be running dry sometime soon. This time, it centers on the high cheekbones and exotically shaped eyes that make her sister look “vaguely Asian.” It comes from the Silvermans’ ancestors, Russian Jews who were raped by Mongol invaders back whenever that stuff happened. (We strive to spread the knowledge of history here at TV Club.) “You get mom’s chin and her rapist’s eyes,” Sarah says, acting as if Laura herself was raped by the Mongolians. Soon, yesterday’s evil appears today: Sarah’s landlords, a nice Asian couple, are raising her rent $15, like they do every two years. But they’re not only Asian—they’re Mongolian!

Thus begins Sarah’s war against the Mongols. Her opening salvo? A giant billboard of Laura’s face saying “Product of a Mongolian rapist!” (“You cannot run around so casually using that word,” Jay admonishes Sarah. “Rape is for special occasions!”) A lawsuit follows, with the Mongolian Board Of Tourism responding with their own billboard: a picture of Sarah that says “I am similar to bowel movement.”

At this point, I should mention the Steve-Brian B-plot, which begins with Brian walking in on Steve sitting in a cardboard box, with a motorcycle helmet on backwards, in front of a green screen.

“It’s not what you think,” Steve says, embarrassed.

“I think you’re filming yourself being retarded,” Brian responds.

“Yes, it is what you think.”

To scratch an itch he had for web video, Steve has secretly been making low-budget sci-fi shorts called Steve Racer: Adventures In The Rad Zone. The shorts fall into the same bad-yet-also-pretty-awesome zone that has produced thousands of web celebrities, and Brian encourages Steve to keep doing it, especially because there’s so much stupid crap online. To prove his point, he pulls up some web video that counts as this episode’s funniest scene: an orange that’s supposed to be Anthony Edwards but sounds like Bill Cosby. The sheer randomness of it is inspired, and if there’s extra footage of Orange Anthony Edwards, it had damn well better be on the DVD extras, Comedy Central!

Steve’s flair for video comes in handy during Sarah’s trial with the Mongolian Tourism Board. She, Steve, and Brian film a psychedelic sci-fi re-enactment of the Mongol invasion—still not as funny as Anthony Edwards orange—but it proves unnecessary. When Sarah goes to the board’s hotel room to confront them about the bowel-movement billboard, she ends up joining in on their party, which eerily recalls the one in Back To School with Oingo Boingo. Everyone parties together, and all is forgiven—so much so that they forget to show up for the judge’s verdict in the morning. It doesn’t matter, Sarah and the tourism board drop their cases, and all’s well that ends well.

Summing up her day with her dog, as she does every episode, Sarah says what the experience taught her: “I learned that for people who are called ‘nomads,’ they can actually get pretty angry.” That joke makes me think of one my favorites from season 2A: “I may have had an abortion, but at least I’m not a bore, son!”

This episode felt like it went off the rails in its final third, but maybe that was an homage to those Rodney Dangerfield films where everything’s solved with a big party, and it doesn’t have to make sense. (Or maybe that only occurred in that episode of <