Shows are beginning to pile up, so there are a lot of shows missing and a lot of one-liners. Maybe I'll adjust the schedule of posting in the future.
House of Lies's second episode is a lot like the first. The characters are assholes who get the job done. It's amusing at times, but the content isn't anything to write home about.
A mix of Shameless's season premiere and this week's episode, bridging the gap between crazy behavior and actual drama, would be a solid episode. It would have all fun of the pot plot from last week while introducing the plot of the Gallagher's crumbling foundation as the younger ones grow up. As it stands, each episode is incomplete, with good stuff altogether but not as individual episodes. But I think that's the hardest thing for the writers. There isn't really an ongoing plot for the episodes to hang on, so the episodes maintain stand alone qualities, which will have the wackier behavior. At the same time, as we see in this episode, the writers want to add some drama to the family, something that might not happen if they're off making money.
With great awkwardness and spotty character building, Hell on Wheels finished its first season. Am I impressed? No. Do I think it's better than The Killing? No, actually. However, I think the show has more promise than The Killing. The cast is good, sets are great to look at, and there are plenty of story to tell.
Leverage brought back some old friends/enemies from the past to help with the last con of the season. It was supposed to be dramatic or something, but I found it mostly tedious since the plot sprang up out of nowhere. In fact, I think the overarching plot for this season was handled worse than Burn Notice's, as bad as it has been. So Nate gets justice and doesn't have to kill anyone, and they're back to their merry selves.
Once Upon a Time: How long will the exposition continue? How long with humor be barred from the script? The ratings are still exceptional, but man are the writers taking their time to develop whatever they want. Surely they can't introduce a different fairy tale character every week.
The Good Wife had another ripped from the headline story with a Bitcoin episode and while it wasn't as good as last week's plot, it was still enjoyable. Another fun thing was the three Mr. Bitcoins, one of whom was an "econophysicist." If you want to do physics, do physics, and if you want to do economics, do economics.
Pan Am's trip to Moscow was pretty funny. The Soviets are out of control authoritarian and is prepared to imprison Laura and Bridgett forever, but Kate manages to slip past them and save the day. Problem solved!
I think I'm done with Blue Bloods. Its Reagan elitism and in elitism in general is too nauseating to bear on a weekly basis.
Fringe is getting back into the swing of things (finally) with Lincoln and Peter heading to the alternate universe. Walternate might not be evil? Lots of thoughts to chew on during the episode which was equal parts exciting.
Ignoring the time travel mechanics, Supernatural's time travel episode was awesome from beginning to end.
The most important thing about last week's Grimm episode was Eddie finding the Grimm stash and using the rifle. But it's importance towards the show at large is dependent on what the writers want it to be. It seems like, from the dropped storylines (the captain, Eddie about to attack Nick's aunt at the hospital), all the writers want the show to be is a police story where they hunt fairy tale characters. At this time, I'd say it's a bit better than OUAT, which has less interesting stories and has globs of exposition.
Argh, we'll have to wait until February for Nikita's return when we'll find out what happens at Division. Nikita and Michael will probably be fine, so the writers, at least with them, are not going for a status quo change. On the other hand, plenty can happen with Oversight or Division... or not.
Chuck pulls another big bad out of nowhere... Yeah, yeah, he has parallels with Chuck, etc, becomes deranged and will have to be defeated. There's only two weeks left, so we can stop walking around in circles soon and end our dizziness.
The Mentalist showed its limitation, trying to balance Red John stuff with a crime story. The crime story was far too brief to get anything from it, with Jane popping in at the last second to save the day. The stuff with Jane getting Darcy off Red John's trail was great, though.
After the terrible backdoor pilot to The Finder last year, the actual pilot of The Finder was surprisingly refreshing. The story moved nicely and the setting was much different than usual procedurals. Add Geoff Stults portraying Walter's quirks and the pilot was quite good.
Bones once again managed to infuriate me. The plot was epic, if not completely implausible, with an evil genius as a villain, unseen since the great Gormogon days. Then there was Booth and Brennan. They're so annoying. Booth should just suck it up and realize that Brennan is loaded and can buy any house. That means she can buy whatever Booth wants and more. Choices, Booth, choices. No need to be a character from ABC's MAN comedies.
Caroline is my favorite character on The Vampire Diaries, so I hope Klaus doesn't damage her irreparably
The Secret Circle needs to kick one of the plots into high gear, because the teen drama isn't cutting it. And Jake returning isn't exactly not teen drama (double negative, I know).
The Office took a trip out of the office, and it was lots of fun, like most of the times when they're out of their usual setting. We got to see different sides of the characters and for once we see that the "dumber" characters might just have different skillsets.
Leslie's campaign on Parks and Recreation kicked off with her team and it wasn't pretty. But it was very, very funny and that's why we watch.
Rob is a show where Rob Schneider makes Mexican jokes and Mexicans made Rob Schneider jokes. Yeah, I don't think this will work.
Revenge returned to the target of the week format and Emily took down an author. Meanwhile, the other elements of the show continue to be developed, with Daniel wanting to marry Emily for money reasons and love, Conrad and Victoria plotting against each other, and Amanda possibly getting in big trouble soon.
It's been a few days short of a week since I watch Are You There, Chelsea? Honestly, I don't remember much about it other than talk about sex and alcohol, and very few laughs.
In the easiest possible twist to get rid of a romantic rival, NCIS ditches CI Ray by making him the murderer. Now that gives Ziva an easy choice...
Castle laid on the Castle/Beckett marriage stuff really thick, in an otherwise enjoyable episode.
