TV Tues - Oh, It's A-Knockin'

Before we get to the reviews, a little bit of renewal news: My Name is Earl and The Office have both been picked up for next season, while The West Wing has not, none of which is all that surprising, but it's always nice to have confirmation. Speaking of being nice to have confirmation, right now I really wish that Fox would hurry up and officially cancel Arrested Development so Showtime can officially make an offer to pick it up. I'd also like someone at Fox to officially confirm the report on Billy West's website that four direct-to-DVD Futurama movies are a done deal; that would make me a very happy camper.

And now, let the reviewing commence!

The O.C.: Cap'n Cluck chastised me for neglecting to cover last week's ep, for which I heartily apologize. Of course, it's now been well over a week, and so my memories of the "Free Marissa" episode are hazy at best; all I can recall are the creative names for non-alcoholic drinks, particularly Cap'n Cluck's favorite: Safe Sex on the Beach. As for this last week's ep, I have to say that while I don't care for the whole mini-Coop's-a-thieving-ho-bag storyline, they did an excellent job finding someone to play a mini version of Marissa. Things I did like include having mini-Coop take part in the running gag about mistaking the knock on the trailer door for scumbag Gus ("Gus, I'm sorry, but my mom says I can't open the door for you again, even if you do have candy") and Taylor's excitement about the possibility of being Summer's sister. Oh, and Seth's prediction that doom and gloom would come a-knockin'.

Dirty Jobs: Mike Rowe cracks me up; I'm a sucker for self-deprecating humor for some reason . . .

Supernatural: Always good to see Julie Benz pop up, even if her character didn't have a whole lot to do here; at least she did get to deliver the great line "If you're going to have faith, you can't just have it when the miracles happen, you have to have it when they don't."

Gilmore Girls: Didn't really care for the whole "Lorelei offering to postpone the wedding but not really meaning it while Luke accepts the offer without realizing she didn't really mean it" plot twist; doesn't feel worthy of the show. I was pretty happy with the latest step in the Rory/Logan relationship, though; it still surprises me how much I like them together. Fun factoid that will only mean something to Fellow Book Monkey and Blogger Bubblegum Tate: the actor playing Logan is voicing Brainiac 5 in the upcoming Legion of Super-Heroes centered episode of Justice League Unlimited; I now return you to your regular non-comic-geek programming.

My Name is Earl: While not the strongest ep, it did have some great moments, my personal favorite being Joy's look of "surprise" when Crab Man found the toe in his hot dog; so glad Jaime Presley has found an outlet for her comedic talents.

Lost: Jack goes back and forth between the list of characters I like and the list of characters I want to throttle; for most of this ep he was on the "throttle" list, but that "train an army" thing moved him back to the "like" column. My only real complaint with the ep was that Jack was too busy posturing to ask The Others "so, um, is there a reason you're like, y'know, killing us and stuff?" Maybe it's just me, but I would think getting an answer to that would be a pretty high priority.

Alien Nation Disc 3: Moving through the series pretty quickly; as usual, I enjoyed the Newcomer back-story more than the plain old cop drama. This disc contains the eps which explore the reproductive process of the Newcomers, which was pretty interesting.

Invasion: The personalities of Russell and Larkin still grate on my nerves, but the big reveal at the end about Tom's little boot camp for hybrids has me intrigued.

60 Minutes: Don't usually watch this, but while setting up my VCR timer I stumbled across a report about Fatal1ty, one of the world's foremost pro videogame players. That's right; pro videogame players. I'd seen a really interesting MTV True Life special about the pros a while back, and Fatal1ty had been pretty prominent on it, so I took a break from DVD watching to give it a watch. Some interesting tidbits, like the fact that professional videogaming is a huge phenomenon in Korea, where stadiums get sold out and the biggest names make millions.

Stargate: SG-1: At the beginning of the ep, I was afraid they were going to fall into what I think of as the Star Trek alternate world pitfall, in which despite having huge differences between the two universes, the personnel involved is exactly the same, regardless of the logical gaps that have to be bridged for such groupings to make sense; having three separate SG-1 units pop up with the exact same composition sent off the warning bells in my head. However, by the time they returned from the 1st commercial break, that problem had been addressed, and the differing make-ups of the various alternate SG-1s even allowed us a chance to see some old friends like Martouth and Janet. I think one of the reasons I enjoy SG-1 so much is that everyone involved seems to have such a good time with it; they're not afraid to explore their goofy sides.

Stargate: Atlantis: Okay, did not see the reveal of the saboteur coming, so hats off to them. I was afraid they were going to have it be the nervous hiccupping lady, and I was going to be very upset with them if that happened; I've always liked her. And I was sure that it wasn't Dr. Ponytail, which is too bad, because I would have loved a good excuse to never have to see him again.

Battlestar Galactica: Well, that answers the question of "Where's the president's miracle cure going to come from?" One thing I'm loving about this show is that I have absolutely no clue where they're going with 90% of the plots; always keeping my guessing, which is a good thing.

Desperate Housewives: If last week's ep got me closer to keeping this show in my viewing rotation, this ep has pretty much guaranteed its removal; what a waste of my time this was.

Grey's Anatomy: I continue to love this show; I'm looking forward to next week's ep featuring everyone's second-favorite vengeance demon (Anya being the first) Halfrek from Buffy as the anti-Nazi.

24: Y'know, for a counter-terrorist organization, CTU sure sucks at keeping out double-agents and moles, huh? I mean, at the beginning of the series, I was happy to see that the traitor was someone outside of CTU for once, and then they have to go and give him an "inside man." I guess it could be worse; the inside man could be the cougar come back for Kim. Although, I might have preferred that to having it be Chloe's lover; at least he was just a dupe, and not evil.

West Wing: Not sure how I feel about the nuclear plant problem being the reason for Vinnick's downfall; feels a tad melodramatic.

Justice League Unlimited: This cartoon exists solely to make comic book geeks go “ooooooooo, coooooooooool!” Blackhawk Island, complete with Warwheels; Flash’s Rogue Gallery attacking the Flash museum; an upcoming episode featuring the Legion of Super-Heroes, including Bouncing Boy; this show has it all!