Well, I've often said that truly good combinations of mystery and comedy are as scarce as hen's teeth, and none do it better than Bones, as tonight's episode 5.6 about a murder in a chicken coop so tastily shows.

The chicken part led to fine puns, which I'll just let simmer without… Read full post »

Kenneth Johnson's original 1983 mini-series V - along with its 1984 sequel V: The Final Battle - was oddly one of my favorite television shows. Actually, it still is. But I say "oddly," because although the story was trite - aliens landing on Earth, claiming they want to help us, only… Read full post »

Skeeter Davis's The End of the World played under the closing credits of Mad Men 3.12 tonight, and it came pretty close to that in many, but not all, ways...

We knew it would be coming. But the logical time was the Season 3 finale - which will be on next week.… Read full post »

I thought it was long since time that I checked in with a review of Lie to Me, which last night aired episode 5 of its second season on Fox.

It's one of my and my wife's favorite shows, and along with 24, Bones, House, and (formerly) The Shield, makes Fox easily… Read full post »

My wife and I just got home from an afternoon showing of This Is It - just in time to see the World Series, but I wanted to write this first.

What a wonderful, heartfelt, inspiring, original movie. All of it was great, here are some of the highights for me:

.Michael… Read full post »

I've been saying for years that Shep Smith, who anchors the Fox Report on Fox News, is a class act. He did an heroic job - along Anderson Cooper of CNN, Geraldo Rivera of Fox News, and other reporters on the scene -- in holding the Bush government to account for… Read full post »

Well, Betty finally brings it all up to Don on Mad Men 3.11 last night, in an evening's confrontation that puts her in the superior, stronger position, and may well change everything in the series.

With Suzanne waiting in the car outside for a week away with Don - Betty doesn't know… Read full post »

Back with clockwork weekly reviews of Dexter Season 4. Episode 5 was on tonight, the first new episode since my sneak preview non-spoiler review of the first four episodes last month.

What I couldn't tell you in that non-spoiler review was that Lundy and Debra would be shot at the end… Read full post »

A memorably media-savvy episode 3.10 of Mad Men tonight - come to think of it, just about every episode is - which quotes the Chinese proverb that is the basis of the invention and flourishing of writing ... "the faintest ink is more powerful than the strongest memory."

Actually, Kinsey paraphrases th… Read full post »

This is the third post in my continuing series, What's Newer Than New New Media, published in different blogs, which examines developments in the world of blogging, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc - what I call "new new media" - since the publication of New New Media in September 2009.… Read full post »

One fine House 6.4 last night, with a central story that pits the diagnosis of House against the karma of the cosmos.

A multi-billionaire's son is dying. No one, including House and the team led by Foreman, can come up with the right diagnosis. When House does, it's an incurable malady that… Read full post »

An even more emotionally brutal, powerful Mad Men 3.9 tonight, which gave us the worst side of Don this season...

Sal rebuffs the advance of the head Lucky Strike man, Lee Garner, Jr., who consequently calls upon hapless Harry Crane to fire Sal. It all comes to Don, who ... fires Sal.… Read full post »

Fringe 2.4 finally dished out some significant answers last week. In the process, we got a tender romantic moment for Walter, a resolution for the shape-shifter Charlie, and a good, welcome dose of William Bell (Leonard Nimoy) - all in all, making for the second best episode of the entire series… Read full post »

Last week, Bones and Booth visited Amish country. Tonight's case - 5.4 - took the two, and us, to somewhere between Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives. Suburbia, that is, with all its lovemaking and murder.

We also get a good contest of anthropology vs. psychology, in Bones vs. Sweet's analyses of… Read full post »

The riveting paradoxes of FlashForward continue to be lit most clearly in the person of Agent Demetri Noh, who in episode 1.3 sees his possible futures ratcheted up one additional, wrenching level. A foreign agent (played by Shohreh Aghdashloo, Behrooz's mother of 24, Day 4 fame) calls Demetri and te… Read full post »

A classic ethical quandary for doctors is: If you were able to go back in time, and found Hitler suffering from an illness that could be fatal, would you save him, as your profession's ethics require, or let him die, as an ethics geared to the general good of humanity suggests.… Read full post »

This is the second post in my continuing series, What's Newer Than New New Media, which examines developments in the world of blogging, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc - what I call "new new media" - since the publication of New New Media in September 2009.


The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announc… Read full post »

Almost nothing took place in the office of Mad Men 3.8 tonight, which only makes sense, since it's August 1963, and everyone is literally or figuratively on vacation.

Betty Draper is actually on both, and given a tour-de-force performance by January Jones. She lets Rockefeller's assistant kiss her - a… Read full post »

The Amish have long fascinated me, ever since my parents took me to Lancaster on a summer trip back in 1960s. Witness is one of my favorite movies. My first novel, The Silk Code, is still one favorites, and the Amish play major role in the story. As an… Read full post »

A powerful second episode of FlashForward tonight, which pulled all the right emotional strings, and bodes well for the continuing success of the series.

Boding - for well or otherwise - is what FlashForward is all about, and the single most riveting story of foreboding tonight was Demetri's - Mark Be… Read full post »

I mentioned in my review of the FlashForward’s fine premiere last week the Oceanic Airlines billboard that appeared in a Los Angeles scene. I said it was a nod to Lost. I think it’s worth another blog post to say it’s much more.

What that billboard does is proclaim that… Read full post »

Well, the gang's back at the hospital on House 6.2 tonight, but House is not, and that means neither will the gang before too long.

House has his license back, but quits his job at the hospital, on the logic that he can't just go back to his old way… Read full post »

A brutally honest episode 3.7 of Mad Men tonight, that starts with Peggy out cold with a man in bed, Don beaten unconscious on some hotel room floor, and centers around Don's unwillingness to sign a three-year contract with Sterling Cooper.

In the flashbacks which mostly roll out the story, Conrad Hil… Read full post »

I thought the two best parts of Bones 5.2 tonight were outside of the central James Bondian story, but crucial to the story of the central characters.

Wendell, one of the group of brilliant assistants, is losing his scholarship - not because of any bad work, but because of the bad economy.… Read full post »