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The 4400: “Trial by Fire”

Oh, no. Someone leaked a list detailing the names and addresses of the 4400 returnees and made it available to the general public. An unscrupulous newswoman who regularly encourages distrust of the 4400 was suspected of leaking the list but that's not the real problem.

The real problem was that someone was using the list to strike back at the 4400 with homemade bombs. The first targets were Lily Moore and Sam Tyler, who came home one day and found out that the front door of their apartment had been booby-trapped.

In desperation, they turned to millionaire returnee Jordan Collier, who is building a new compound especially intended to provide sanctuary for the surviving members of the 4400. Collier gave them a place to live and Sam a job as his new security chief. He even provided Lily with free medical care. But there turned out to be strings attached to Collier's generosity and the man definitely had cards he wasn't showing.

Meanwhile, Kyle woke up from his coma and returned to his mother's house, only to find himself increasingly alienated from his new surroundings. Neither his mother nor his father could figure out what was wrong with him but something definitely was out of sync. Could Kyle be having an identity crisis?

Shawn found himself increasingly attracted to Nikki and eventually acted on said attraction. Will this cause problems between him and his younger brother? Obviously, but not as great as the problems his cousin Kyle was having.

In other news, a stranger from Homeland Security named Warren Lytell (played by Mark Valley of Keen Eddie fame) showed up at NTAC headquarters to “help out” Dennis Ryland. But Ryland suspected he was up to something. Apparently D.C. wasn't too happy with the way Ryland was handling the 4400 case and sent Lytell to help sort things out.

Meanwhile, Baldwin and Skouris traced the bombs to some relatives of one of the previous episode's murder victims. Could they stop the mad bombers before they struck again?

Stay tuned.

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The 4400: “Becoming”

Oh, no! One of the 4400 turned out to be a suspected serial killer who seemed to be taking up where he left off after being abducted. You just know that any show involving federal agents is going to mention serial killers sooner or later.

But wait! There's more.

Somebody else confessed to the crimes the suspected serial killer supposedly committed.

Oops!

Two people confessed to the crimes the suspected serial killer supposedly committed. And one of them was only a kid when the first murders took place.

It looks like a job for Mulder and Skul--er--Baldwin and Skouris.

In other news, richer-than-heck hotel magnate Jordan Collier publicly admitted himself to be a member of the 4400. And it appeared that he had some plans in mind for his fellow returnees.

Will his plans eventually involve Baldwin and Skouris? What do you think?

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The 4400: “The New and Improved Carl Morrissey”

Oh, cool. We actually got a series theme on this episode. Granted, the theme sounded a little like a cross between a certain West Side Story song and Garbage's “# 1 Crush.” But apart from that...

If anything stinks worse than being abducted by some mysterious entity and kept away from your loved ones for years on end, it is being brought back and finding out that things have gotten worse in your absence.

In the case of 4400 returnee Carl Morrissey, what had gotten worse was the neighborhood that he and his wife Gracie live in. The local park was being been overrun by muggers and graffiti artists and the old job that he loved had him being bullied by a supermarket manager who had it in for him.

Then Carl found out he had superhuman reflexes. He started to literally clean up the local park, halted an assault in progress and ended up making the local papers. He even managed to make the bullying supermarket manager back down. Tom and Diane from the previous episode came to investigate him but by then, Carl had convinced himself that he is on a mission from -- well -- whatever entity gave him his powers. So he went back to the park for yet another time...

Meanwhile, former Korean War Navy pilot Sam Tyler had gotten together with fellow returnee Lily Moore. Lily was the granddaughter of a former girlfriend of Sam's -- a white woman whose photograph had gotten Sam in trouble with his white colleagues. She still looked like her grandmother did when Sam knew her in the days prior to his abduction. Needless to say, Sam was not her actual grandfather. But had he not been abducted, he was close enough to Lily's grandmother that he could have been.

Anyway, Lily was also pregnant with a baby that she had no knowledge of conceiving, an infant whom -- as long as she knows -- belonged neither to Sam nor her ex-husband. And speaking of her ex-husband, Lily found out the hard way that the restraining order he took out in the last episode was still in effect when she tries to go to his house and secretly spy on Heidi -- the daughter she had with her ex-husband prior to her abduction. Her ex had since remarried and it was only due to Sam's intervention that he got persuaded to drop the charges against Lily.

In other news, Diana continued to bond with Maia Rutledge the psychic girl and eventually adopted her. Tom suspected his nephew Shawn had magical healing abilities and that he used them on his son Kyle. But he could not prove anything. Shawn found out that his brother's girlfriend Nikki had a crush on him and in the process of trying to discourage her, he accidentally gave away the fact that he can heal things.

Tom's current boss Dennis Ryland (played by Peter Coyote*) had a conversation with him convincing him to sign the papers making Tom's divorce final. Then something happened to Kyle in the hospital and Tom started wondering again if maybe -- just maybe -- something Shawn did was responsible.

Say goodnight, Gracie.

* Yes, the same Peter Coyote who played a pivotal part in E.T..

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The 4400: “Pilot”

A friend of mine got me committed to watching this show on DVD because her daughter is obsessed with one of the show's female characters.

So far I have found it far more interesting than I expected a syndicated science-fiction series to be. The scripts are not always as imaginative as I would have liked and there are times when the characters seem to be avoiding an obvious course of action more because the script says so than because it makes sense for that particular character to do that particular thing. Then again it resisted turning two of the lead characters (both federal agents, natch) into Mulder and Scully Redux so I'd like to think that there is more to this series than I originally gave it credit for.

I have gotten so used to rolling my eyes at what passes for sci-fi on the small screen that it's nice to be surprised by a series for a change. And it doesn't hurt that sci-fi icon Summer Glau and geek deity Jeffrey Combs make an appearance in a later season. But, alas, I give away too much already.

Anyway, the show revolved around 4,400 people -- hence the title -- who were abducted by some mysterious entity during various times in the last century and who then get returned just as mysteriously in one mass event. The government created an organization called NTAC to deal with the returnees and discovered that at least one of them has been gifted with some odd superhuman power. Unfortunately, he was not the only one but you probably guessed that already.

One NTAC agent, Diana Skouris, ended up bonding with a little girl named Maia Rutledge whose parents had died since she was abducted. She discovered the little girl had the power to predict the future.

Another NTAC agent, Tom Baldwin, had to deal with the fact that his nephew Shawn was part of the 4400. Moreover, his son Kyle had been in a coma since the night of Shawn's abduction -- and the two incidents might not be unrelated.

Thus, two lead characters had a vested interest in seeing how things work out for the 4400. Funny how things worked out that way.

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The Simpsons: “And Maggie Makes Three”

Anyone else remember a time when having the same job for life seemed like a bad thing?

Yeah, me neither.

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Modern Family: “Pilot”

This is not really a bad series but it is not a series I found all that compelling. I liked it better than 30 Rock and found it a nice opportunity to keep with veteran actors like Married, with Children's Ed O'Neill and Boston Legal's Julie Bowen. But it is not a show that is likely to top my must-see list any time soon.

I could have done without the overly broad Latina stereotype which makes even the most cartoonish moments of Ugly Betty seem like excerpts from a Norman Lear show but even that character I could probably stand -- provided I did not have to watch her every week.

Anyway, I doubt I will be watching this show as often as I watch Ugly Betty and The Office. Perhaps I am just losing my taste for popular sitcoms.

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Keen Eddie: “Pilot”

Best known as the TV series actor Mark Valley starred in before he moved on to Boston Legal and Human Target, Keen Eddie showed a lot of potential in its first episode but unfortunately, it had a lot of dubious humor as well. (For example, a running gag involved the title character's pet dog having forced sex with his roommate's cat. Classy.)

The plot involved a New York City police detective (the Keen Eddie of the title) who screwed up the bust of an international drug ring when he allowed himself to be lured onto a false trail by a mysterious femme fatale. In order to atone for his mistake, he was sent to London and assigned to work with Scotland Yard to track down the British side of said drug ring. He was forced to share his apartment with a young British college student (played by Sienna Miller) and his pet pit bull -- an animal he tried to leave behind in New York but did not quite succeed.

It would undoubtedly surprise few veteran cop show fans to note that Eddie did succeed in redeeming himself in the eyes of his transatlantic colleagues in this episode but not until after a series of amusing culture clashes. The result was the start of a promising series which would have liked to seem sophisticated but more often came across as sophomoric. For every scene which was undeniably clever, there was yet another scene which was -- ahem -- dumb. And the use of annoyingly repeated scenes to emphasize humor on this show was a technique which got old really fast.

On the plus side, the show did provide work for a lot of talented British actors who rarely get seen by American TV viewers. Plus Valley proved with this series that he had a lot more flair for comedy than he ever got to show when he was playing straight man to James Spader on Boston Legal.

Too bad the scripts for this show were not as good. Now that would have been keen.

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Joan of Arcadia: “Pilot”

I found Joan of Arcadia to be a surprisingly good series, at least for the first twelve episodes after which it started being a bit uneven. When it was good, it was very good, but all too often, it settled for being just okay.

Ironically, the one factor that made me reluctant to start watching the show was not the premise (teenage girl talks to God) but the casting of Joe Mantegna as the family patriarch. Mantegna has played so many bad guys in movies like House of Games and The Godfather: Part III that I initially found it hard to believe he could play such a benign character. But he won me over eventually and so did Mary Steenburgen (who plays his wife) and Amber Tamblyn (who plays his daughter -- the title character). In fact, the whole cast was better than I expected and I am sorry that the show did not last longer than two seasons.

The plot of the first episode revolves around the title character's discovery that she could talk to God and how she eventually adjusts to it. God does not just appear to her as a disembodied voice or as some old guy with a beard but in a variety of guises, no doubt intended to symbolize the various roles God plays in our lives. Each episode he gives her some vague advice that she reluctantly acts upon. Sometimes she sees the final results. Sometimes she does not.

It eventually turns out that the reason she could talk to God -- or at least, the reason she is given for being able to talk to God -- involves a prayer she made on behalf on an older brother who was injured in a car crash. Apparently the boy was near death at the time Joan prayed and now Joan feels obliged to make up for his recovery by following God's advice.

What happens to Joan as a result of said advice? That remains to be seen in future episodes.

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The Big Bang Theory: “The Psychic Vortex”

I have done enough foolish things in the names of love and lust that I feel silly picking on the characters of this show. Yes, they are stereotypes and yes, the show all too often settles for cheap and easy jokes about geeks and nerds.

But every so often the show clicks and becomes more than that and more often than not, said clicks have to do with the character of Sheldon Cooper, an obsessive-compulsive scientist played by Jim Parsons. Let's face it. Everyone knows at least one person like Sheldon, a guy terminally obsessed with having everything just his way -- and no one else's. And while it is tempting to dismiss Sheldon as just an updated version of Felix Unger, I must also admit to finding him the most interesting character of the show. And that includes the pretty blonde waitress/actress named Penny whom Sheldon's roommate Leonard Hofstadter unsuccessfully pursued in earlier seasons.

Usually I find Sheldon's obsessions humorous but tonight when he chose to educate his Indian friend Rajesh Koothrappali on the Zoot Suit Riots in response to his friend's attempt to get him to go to a local club's rather lame celebration of the Zoot Suit, I actually applauded. It is not often that Sheldon's obsessions actually proved to be more useful than irritating but this was one of them.

I suppose to most viewers, the Zoot Suit Riots were just another trivial aspect of American history and I suppose to some, they are. But when -- like me -- you grow up with Mexican-American relatives who remember the bad old days of the pre-Civil Rights era, you get tired of seeing even the most serious of historical events swept under the rug in the interest of avoiding hurt feelings. I am not arguing that every TV show should attempt to lecture its audience on the darker aspects of American history -- after all, The Big Bang Theory is meant to be a comedy -- but it should not encourage people to ignore history either.

As for the rest of the episode...

Well, it was interesting to see the Howard Wolowitz character -- an obnoxious Jewish-American scientist who usually spends most of his time hitting on women -- actually proving to be more diplomatic than Leonard. Granted, Howard had a selfish motive for his behavior -- he finally found a steady girlfriend who is willing to put up with him and he did not want any philosophical arguments between Leonard and Penny rocking the boat. But it was still rather shocking to see Leonard -- who was usually the most diplomatic male character on the show -- being obnoxious. This time it was about Penny's belief in psychics. Penny was an obvious believer; Leonard was not.

Oh, well. As usual, the best moments on the show revolved around Sheldon Cooper -- which is odd because he was not exactly the most likable character on the show. Then again, perhaps the fact that he didn't even try to be all that likable was what set him apart from the rest of the characters. After all, we all like a challenge.

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Ugly Betty: “The Manhattan Project”

It is the start of a brand-new -- er -- old season (season three, to be exact) and Betty Suarez is finally moving on from her two rival boyfriends Henry and Gio. She's a whole new girl working at a whole new magazine and moving into a whole new place. So I suppose the writers will proceed to do their damnedest to get her back to the status quo of the show's first two seasons.

On the plus side, Lindsay Lohan is cast as a noxious fast food manager who once bullied Betty Suarez back in high school. And no, I'm not even going to make any cheap jokes about typecasting. After all, Ms. Lohan has been the target of enough cheap shots as of late. But I would not be surprised if Ms. Lohan appeared in a future episode.

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Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The End of Time: Part Two”

Well, as I noted yesterday, the David Tennant era of Doctor Who is officially over and in the next episode, we will see a young actor named Matt Smith -- no relation to the other Smiths in the DW universe, I trust -- taking over the role of the Doctor. Russell T. Davies will be leaving too and Steven Moffat -- writer of some of the better Doctor Who episodes -- will be taking his place.

As a result, I was not quite as annoyed with this episode as I was the episode before it. The hungry cyborg/Master still bothers me -- for that matter, so does the Mighty Morphin' Power Master -- but they are not really deal breakers. Nor did I mind too much the sillier elements: for example, that fall from a great height that theoretically should have killed the Doctor outright but instead just stunned him a little. Or for that matter, the magic radiation that killed people but still left a certain alien free to travel about without worrying about contaminating anyone.

RTD did take time to indulge all his greatest hits: armed confrontations, moving planets, Star Wars references, arbitrary visits to characters of previous episodes, etc. He always had a flair for the epic that he could not always fulfill as well as he should -- though given the fact that he's been working on three shows -- Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures -- it seems amazing that his screenplays work as well as they do.

Anyway, we never do find out Wilf's big secret -- although we do find out at least one secret about him. Nor do we quite learn the true identity of the Woman in White who kept popping up in the previous episode. Yes, she appears to be a Timelady but apart from that, who is she really? Why does the Doctor seem to recognize him. Show writer Julie Gardner has supposedly outed her as the Doctor's mother -- but RTD did not officially concur -- perhaps so that the new guy's writing staff can come up with their own explanations.

RTD has received more than a little criticism about how he first wrote Donna Noble into a situation where she faced certain death and then rescued her at the last second. Granted, her rescue was so unexpected that I kept the Monty Python crew to show up and start singing about how she was saved at the last minute. But I am kinda glad he did not decide to exploit her death for cheap emotional points and even more glad that he gave her a happy ending. Her ending may not make the most feminist fans of Doctor Who very happy -- but they made sense in view of what we already learned about the character in previous episodes and I was glad to see that her new spouse actually seems to care for her.

Perhaps Donna will have children with her new husband and perhaps someday one of them will accompany a future incarnation of the Doctor on his travels through time and space. Of course, that seems unlikely now. But then at one time, a second Doctor Who series seemed unlikely too.

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Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The End of Time: Part One”

Of course, it always seemed obvious to me that if the Master was ever to come down with an eating disorder, it would undoubtedly involve raging hunger -- just like in this episode.

But still... A hungry cyborg? A cyborg who is resurrected through potions?

Granted, series creator Russell T. Davies deserves kudos for resisting the temptation to toss in a visual reference to Meatloaf's “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.” (After all, the title seemed reference enough as it was.) But did we also need visual references to Silence of the Lambs, Stargate, The X-Files and seemingly almost every sci-fi movie and TV show that is not Doctor Who?

I suspect that Davies' true love is really fantasy and indeed, if you look at most of his Doctor Who as basically sword-and-sorcery stories set in space -- with Captain Jack being Fahred to the Doctor's Grey Mouser and the Doctor's various female companions playing Maid Marion to his Robin Hood -- then the stories do not seem so weird. One of these days, Davies is going to settle down and start working on a fantasy series that is either similar to his beloved Buffy the Vampire Slayer or else similar to Wizards and Warriors. However, at this point, I am still not sure whether or not that would be a good thing.

Anyway, I did like certain scenes in this episode -- including a brief glimpse of my beloved Donna Noble and quite longer glimpses of Donna's grandfather. Indeed, one of the best scenes of the episode -- if not, the whole series -- is a brief conversation in a cafe between the Doctor and Donna's grandfather.

I am not sure how I feel about the episode's end. After all, that pun was pretty bad. But I will give it credit for boasting the most memorable cliffhanger since “Utopia.”

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Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Utopia”

At first I thought this was going to be a rather silly episode, what with the opening sequence which had Captain Jack Harkness hanging on the outside of the Tardis for dear life and the introduction of the Futurekind, a race of futuristic mutants that seemed suspiciously like a ripoff of the Morlocks from H. G. Wells' The Time Machine. (I guess if you're going to steal, you might as well steal from the best.) However, it eventually morphed into one of the better episodes of the third season and its ending is hands-down one of the best cliffhangers of both series.

The great Derek Jacobi of I, Claudius fame played the mysterious Professor Yana, who was working on a mysterious project at the end of the universe, a project designed to take the remnants of the human race away from the planet they shared with the Futurekind and towards a mysterious location known as Utopia. The Doctor arrived on his planet along with Captain Jack and Martha Jones and started assisting the Professor on his project. But as they worked together, the Doctor got more and more suspicious of the Professor's past.

Then Ms. Jones unintentionally called attention to a mysterious pocket watch in the Professor's possession -- a pocket watch the Professor never before remembered possessing. Shortly afterward, the Doctor suddenly realized the professor's true identity. At roughly the same time, the professor also discovered his true identity -- but his discovery was not a happy one.

Meanwhile, a spaceship took off with the last remnants of humankind aboard, and the Doctor, Captain Jack, Martha, the Professor and his alien assistant were left behind in a site guarded from the Futurekind by an electric fence. Suddenly some fool started shutting off the electricity to the fence and opening the big metal gates that kept out the Futurekind. Coincidence? Probably not. For at the same time, the same fool locked the Doctor and his crew out of the same lab where the Tardis -- his only means of escape -- was located. And the Futurekind were starting to get in. And the Professor was already in the same lab as the Tardis...

But, ah, I have already said too much. See the episode for yourself. And if you can keep from asking yourself how the heck the Doctor gets out of danger this time, then you are a better man than I, Gunga Din...

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Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Waters of Mars”

Anyone else ever wonder if writer Russell T. Davies really likes the character of Doctor Who as much as he claims to? Granted, he deserves much praise for resurrecting the series from near-certain death and making it popular again. But still the way he depicts the Doctor does make me wonder.

For example, in the latest episode, the Doctor is given several opportunities to flee a situation that seems certain to end in tragedy for all concerned. But it's been established that he is too much of a mensch to do that with a clear conscience.

And yet when he accomplishes the impossible and rescues several members of an Earth expedition to Mars from certain death, he is given a rather contrived “mad” scene in which he takes pride in having defied the laws of Time. A scene which scares a mortal human being so much that she seemingly commits suicide just to defy him.

Which begs the question: what kind of point is Davies trying to make with this episode? That the Doctor shouldn't go around trying to rescue anybody because he might scare people? That people are better off going off to their deaths than being rescued by a guy with emotional issues?

Given that Davies devoted a whole episode to the consequences of the Doctor attempting to change history, I also found it odd that this episode seems to make it seem like nothing in that episode ever really happened. Perhaps it's only when Doctor Who crosses his own time line that he gets into trouble. Or perhaps the whole thing is the fault of Davies' co-writer Phil Ford.

Oh, well. I enjoyed the episode more than I expected, considering it was basically little more than a thinly veiled rewrite of Alien combined with the “mad” scene from King Lear. Lindsay Duncan, the woman who played the commander of the Earth expedition, gave a good performance and I especially liked the way the writers tried to humanize the supporting characters. I could have done without the “funny” robot that seemed to be an obvious parody of the title character of WALL·E but even that device had its moments.

If we must have endless Alien remakes, I'd rather see them done Doctor Who style than in any other way. But most of all, I'd rather see an original story for a change. Hopefully I'll get my wish in the near future.

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The Sarah Jane Adventures: “The Day of the Clown”

Oh, cool.

Sarah Jane's stepson Luke has a new schoolmate and her name is -- Rani? Are the writers of this series really all that up on the history of British sci-fi? Because I could have sworn that there was another Rani character on the original Doctor Who series.

On the plus side, it is kinda cool to find out that Sarah Jane's new neighbor is Maggie Habib from The Thin Blue Line. (Better known as actress Mina Anwar to all you spoilsports.)

And yes, this episode's villain is scary. I guess when the writers thought him up, they were not clowning around...

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The Sarah Jane Adventures: “The Last Sontaran”

Oh, cool. Maria Jackson, one of my favorite characters in British sci-fi -- and not just because of her first name -- is back.

But not for long, unfortunately.

At least she won't be gone for good.

I hope.

And her mother Chrissie actually got a rather neat scene that almost makes up for the way she ordinarily seems to be just a blatant imitation of the Jackie Tyler character on the second series of Doctor Who.

Plus there's some story involving an evil alien who wants to destroy the world -- but you all probably guessed that.

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The Twilight Zone (1985): “Button, Button”

From the Reagan-era version of the classic series comes an episode based on a classic short story by author Richard Matheson, a key contributor to the original Twilight Zone. This episode is about a young couple with money problems who are presented with a mysterious box. If they open up the box and push a button, they end up killing someone they don't know. But they also get a lot of money.

But they do not really want to kill anybody.

Yet they can really use the money.

But they do not really want to kill anybody...

As you might guess, this episode was inspired by the same short story that inspired the recent Cameron Diaz movie The Box. And though the episode is not that long, it seems to stretch things out to the point I am almost scared to see what the movie adds to the storyline because even the short version seems way longer than it really needs to be.

It does not help that the show portrays its two main characters more unsympathetically than the short story does -- thus removing a key element of suspense from the ending. Thus, instead of wondering if the young couple will resist the urge to give in to temptation, I could not help but wonder what was taking them so long. And since they were so unlikable in the first place, it was a bit hard to worry too much about what would happen to them -- and that is not really the type of reaction I should have been having if the episode had been made correctly.

Gee, I miss Rod Serling. He may have been a bit heavy-handed at times when he was writing the original Twilight Zone, but at least he knew how to hire writers who knew something about storytelling.

And think that this episode was part of the same anthology series writer Harlan Ellison was involved with. What happened?

Edited to add:

Apparently Richard Matheson wrote the screenplay for this episode but was so dissatisfied with the version that eventually aired -- especially its new ending -- that he had his name in the screenwriting credits changed to Logan Swanson. After seeing this episode, I can understand why.

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The Office (U.S.): “Murder”

Oh, my. It is yet another episode about the possibility of the people at the Dunder-Mifflin paper company losing their jobs. I do not know how the good folks in TVland can possibly expect me to relate to that.

Okay, I am being unduly cynical. But I am not sure that the show's decision to endorse Michael Scott's “bread and circuses” approach to bad news -- he reacts to a rumor the company might declare bankruptcy by holding an impromptu session of a mystery role-playing game in order to distract his employees -- is all that good an idea --even when Jim Halpert -- ordinarily the most logical guy in the office -- chooses to endorse it as well.

But we will see. I once thought a certain subplot last season would be bad and it ended up surprising me so maybe they will pull off a similar trick this time.

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Castle: “Flowers for Your Grave”

Should I find it a bit disturbing that the creepiest part of this episode came not in the obligatory pre-credit sequence in which a young woman was killed in “colorful” fashion to amuse all the bored TV viewers out there but in the scene in which it was revealed that the victim was seen naked by one of the few people who really should not have been seeing her naked?

For that matter, should I not find it a bit disturbing that co-star Susan Sullivan went from playing a female doctor in the 1978 show Having Babies -- aka Julie Farr, M.D. -- to playing a wacky mother in this show? Granted, TV does not have a whole lot of roles for people Ms. Sullivan's age but then that is not necessarily a good thing now, is it?

Oh, well. It's tempting to see this show as a variation on Bones, only this time it is the man who is the eccentric and unrealistically rich author who helps solves crimes and it is the woman who is on the side of law enforcement.

Nathan Fillion of Firefly fame plays Rick Castle, an eccentric millionaire writer who gets involved in a murder investigation when the investigating police detective Kate Beckett (played by Stana Katic) discovers parallels between two real-life murders and similar crimes in Mr. Castle's books. Ms. Beckett and Mr. Castle meet cute, have all sorts of amusing arguments and at last solve the crime.

Of course, the story doesn't end there and Mr. Castle uses his clout to bring about a sequ -- er, a gig as Ms. Beckett's constant companion in the name of “research.”

The result is not a bad series -- apart from the elements I've mentioned above -- but not a terribly exciting one, either. A lot of the appeal of the show depends upon how one feels about the chemistry between Fillion and Katic.

It is nice to see Mr. Fillion star on a TV series for more than one season. And Ms. Katic is nice to look at as well.

If nothing else, this show -- like Bones -- seems to be a throwback to those old movies in which impossibly rich writers with amazing clout threw their weight around in ways that would be more amusing to watch on screen than to experience in person. But, fortunately for all the straight women and gay men who might be watching this series, Rick Castle is a lot easier on the eyes than Sheridan Whiteside.

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Parks and Recreation: “The Banquet”

I initially hated this show when it looked like little more than The Amy Poehler Show. Yes, it seemed nice to take the same approach to actual politics that the original Office took to office politics but the show still didn't seem all that appealing. Then I discovered that former Office cast member Rashida Jones was on it and my interest was piqued.

Even when I started watching the actual show, it took a while for my interest to build up. On one side, Amy Poehler's female bureaucrat Leslie Knope was a lot more sympathetic than Steve Carrell's Michael Scott character in The Office. She acted a bit childish at times but unlike Michael Scott, she really did seem to have the best interests of others in mind. On the other hand, the show's writers seemed to initially overestimate Ms. Poehler's appeal for it wasn't until they started fleshing out supporting characters like Ms. Jones' Ann Perkins that the show started to seem worth watching.

The show is still a bit cartoonish and it's hard to believe that a real-life version of Ms. Knope could be as clueless as Ms. Poehler portrays her. But around the time that this episode aired, the writing seemed to be improving and the sight of Pamela Reed playing Ms. Knope's mother made for a nice touch. Plus this episode came up with a valid excuse to put Ms. Jones in a hot evening gown and I can't really find fault with that.

So we'll see.