Community Romantic Expressionism
In "Romantic Expressionism," we get a decent ensemble piece where we get to see the entire cast interact among each other and build...well, community. In the main story, we have Annie falling for Britta's ex-boyfriend Vaughn. Jeff and Britta though, are concerned that the 18 year old Annie is too impressionable and that the over the top hippy Vaughn is just a gateway to even more creepy and dangerous type of men. This leads them to find ways to get her attention away from Vaughn, mainly by redirecting her old crush Troy back towards her.
Meanwhile, Pierce is feeling a bit left out from Tory and Abed's making fun of movies night. We get some classic awkward Chevy Chase scenes as he attempts to keep up with the hilarious mocking of "Kick-Puncher" by everyone else.
It was a pretty standard episode overall that does a lot to help establish the cast as the "dysfunctional family" they've grown to become. There are plenty of throwaway lines in the episode, and they even acknowledge the underlining romantic tension that exists between all the cast members. There was even a quick nod to the fan fantasy of Annie and Britta getting together.
Interesting Observations
- "He never wears a shirt; he never wears shoes. Why hasn't he died of lack of service?" - Jeff about Vaughn
- "It all starts with Vaughn, he's a gateway douche bag." - Jeff
- Pierce referes to making jokes at a movie as "monkey shines at a picture show."
- Senor Chang makes an appearance in a white tuxedo.
- The cast watch "KickPuncher" and "KickPuncher2." They wanted to watch "Runaway" starting Tom Selleck, which is a real movie.
- "He's got her in soe kind of hippie collar. I can hear her armpit hair growing from here." - Jeff
- "Even I know your lame, and I'm a tenured professor sitting in a bean chair." - Chang of Pierce
- "When you guys first came in, we were as wholesome and healthy as the family in the Brady Bunch, and now we are as disfunctional and incestuus as the cast of the Brady Bunch." - Abed
- The ending bit for this week involves a sweeded remake of KickPuncher by Abed and Troy.
Fringe Jacksonville
For tonight's Fringe, we go back to a bit of the alternative universe story that viewer's have been longing for for some time. The episode actually starts out in the other universe at an architecture firm as they work on designs for the new Pentagon which was destroyed in their September 11th attacks. Things end up very gruesome very quickly though as the entire building is ripped out of their reality and thrown into and on top of ours. Both buildings are merged together into one space, occupants and all, leading to grade A freaky demise of the people inside. The art department and builders must have had a field day to make objects and people merged together into a messy pile.
Walter and the team soon realize that the building and occupants came from the other side though the experimentation of Nelson. But like anything in physics and science, there must be equality, and as such there is a race against the clock to figure out which building in their reality is going to be ported to the other side. The only person who can see this though is Olivia due to her days under Walter and Bell's experimentation as she was a child in Jacksonville, Florida. We finally learn exactly what they did to her and the other children when and that their ultimate goal was to prepare them to detect events from the other universe.
While low on the drama, "Jacksonville" presented plenty of suspense and a lot more backstory that fans have been clamoring for the last few months. It doesn't really move forward the concept of why Nelson and the other universe is trying to hard to open a doorway between ours, but it reveals a bit into some of the powers Olivia has and will eventually need to relearn for the coming war. It was definitely one of their more serious episodes to date, but it doesn't really leave us hanging on for more. The final revelation that Peter is in fact from the other universe is pretty unsurprising as there have been allusions to such for the last two seasons. I guess it's nice to know for sure now, and that Olivia knows it as well. We will find out more in a few months, I suppose.
Interesting Observations
- There is no coffee in the other universe. It has gone extinct (or banned?) and there are few supplies left. They do have global warming though.
- All those people fused with other people is a pretty crazy sight. Even Astrid, with all the insane thing she's seen while working with Walter, can't even handle it.
- "Oh it's possible, but if so, God has a far more distrubed sence of humor than I could have imagined" - Walter
- Terrorists destroyed the Pentagon and White House in the other universe.
- Dogs seem to sensitive to these quantum tectonic events.
- Nina Sharp returns, though they never explain where she has been. Though I guess technically, none of the episodes until now involved Massive Dynamics.
- Those EMTs must be seriously confused as to what they saw at the site.
- Double decker cars? That'd be awesome.
- In a funny nod to the MIT hackers, Walter talks about a previous experiment where a car was fused to a statue and blamed on the students.
- What is the significance of the numbers 5, 20, 10?
- "Perception is hardly more than an emotional response. How we feel, affects the way we see the world." - Walter
- Little Olive has an English accent, though that might be more of an North-east United States thing. She also was pyro-telekentic.
- "Unscheduled controlled demolition" with people still inside? That's the best the could come up with?
- "Conspiracy nuts are going to have a field day." - Olivia "You'd be surprised at what you can make hte general public believe" - Broyles
LAX
Lessons in how to write a Lost episode review without massive spoiling and risking physical violence by your readership for merely glancing at your text.
Lesson one. Don't bother.
And as such..for the first time, I will use the more tag.
The Big Bang Theory The Einstein Approximation
As an software developer by trade, I can totally understand the crazy that gets involved when you have to solve a problem and can't sleep till you do. I've spent my fair share of sleepless nights haunted by a coding problem that I just can't solve, only to make things worse as lack of sleep destroys my cognitive reasoning. As such, I can totally relate to Sheldon as he spends day after day trying to solve his electrons though graphite problem.
As he wears on, Sheldon gets further and further into crazy, falling into the throws of being more and more adolescent. This of course, starts to take it's toll on the gang as his crazy has no bounds. Eventually, he finds a solution to his mental roadblock, and it wasn't sleeping. His solution, is to be as Einstein was at the patent office, find a menial job to allow his brain to relax and let upper reasoning bring him an epiphany. Eventually he ends up as a busboy/waiter for the Cheesecake Factory, which provides Leonard ample revenge time for Sheldon's OCD nature of ordering food.
Meanwhile, Raj is starting to get a bit annoyed at the fact that Howard and Leonard both have girlfriends and are spending a lot of time with them, excluding Raj. They are even stealing his ideas for hanging out!
Overall, this was a great Sheldon episode where we get to see a glimpse of how completely crazy he can be. It was very entertaining with plenty of throwaway lines and one hilarious ball pit scene.
Interesting observations
- Leonard sleeps in his socks...I'm sorry but that is so weird to me.
- "How long has he been stuck?" - Howard "Intellectually about 30 hours. Emotionally, abut 29 years." - Leonard
- "I havn't seen him this stuck since he tried to figgure out the third Matrix movie." - Leonard
- Bernadette makes another appearance. She has the experience to control Sheldon with logic and a stern motherly voice.
- Who would want a Joker ringtone like that?
- Sheldon, like many kids, is an expert ball pit swimmer. I think as we grow older, we must lose that basic skill.
- The three most meinal jobs on earth: toll booth attendant, Apple store genius, and what Penny does. (waitress)
- "One bacon cheesburger, breaking two Jewish dietary restrictions at once...Kudos" - Sheldon
- There were two ending bits this episode. The first was the roller skating scene with Raj and Howard. The second was an out of sequence alternative cut of the ball pit scene. It seemed like the episode would have normally have just used the roller skating scene, but I think the producers must have liked the ball pit full cut so much they stuck it on at the end.
How I Met Your Mother The Perfect Week
"The Perfect Week" is another great example of the strength of the ensemble cast when they have the chance to play off each other's characters. In this sports themed episode, everyone is having a lousy week. Marshal and Lilly have scared off another couple by revealing they share a toothbrush, Ted has his first student drop his class due to his horrible treatment of her name, Robin is pining over a geeky guy who won't call her back, and Barney is in risk of getting fired over a merger deal gone south. To take their minds off of everything, they focus on the fact that Barney is quickly approaching a perfect week: a week of seven girls, in seven nights, with zero rejections.
The whole episode plays back as a sports interview story with the very real Jim Nantz of CBS Sports interviewing Barney as he waits for his meeting. Even as they go back over it, there are small hints of being at a game, such as Ted eating a hot dog and calling out for a beer at the bar. The whole game was almost ruined by an overzealous Lilly jinxing the entire week by her cavalier dismissal of jinxes, summoning the real life New York Yankees player Nick Swisher to be some heavy hitting competition for Barney. I thought it was very creative how they were able to keep the whole motif running the entire episode, and it just shows how good the writing is on the show can be.
The B-plot of the episode revolves around the various problems the rest of the gang faced during the week, and provides plenty of moments for one liners amongst the gang. The biggest revelation of the episode is that Marshal, Lilly, Robin, and Ted at one point all shared the same toothbrush together.
Overall it was a pretty creative episode with a lot of good dialog and plenty of interaction amongst the gang. It shows how well everyone fits together and the strong chemistry they all have when they work off of each other.
Interesting Observations
- Cook Pooh is a terrible name. I'm sorry.
- That girl must be really down in the dumps. You really smeared the pooh name. Did you ask if all the pooh is out of our system? ... Pooh dropped out? She's flushing her education down the toilet.
- "I think i'm going to go small boobs tonight." - Barney "You're disgusting" - Lilly "Lilly, they're people too." - Barney
- Wendy the waitress is back!!
- Once he realizes that for 8 years, all three of them shared one toothbrush, Ted starts eating a napkin.
- "Let me try to Canada up this, eh?" - Lilly
- "I'm totlay gonna sit my kids down one day and tell them about how barney nailed 7 chicks in a row." - Ted "Am I bad dad?" - Future Ted They finally make a reference to the fact that Ted is telling his kids all these stories of his and his friends sex lives, which is probably not what a normal dad would be talking to their kids about.
- The memorial hat: Seven Up, Seven Down
- Barneyism of the Week: The Perfect Week: 7 Girls, 7 Nights, 0 Rejections.
Chuck Chuck vs. The Nacho Sampler
In tonight's episode, "Chuck vs. The Nacho Sampler", we see the return of Hannah (played by Kirstin Kreuk) as Chuck continues his growth into being a real spy. In this week's mission, Chuck has to make contact with and build an geeky asset who has been building some weapon for the Ring. Using this motif, the writers give us a bit of insight into the thought processes of Sarah when she first appeared to Chuck three years ago. Like Sarah, Chuck now has to work a geeky loner guy with the skills and know how be a serious threat to the world.
Manoosh is a loner and a geek very much like Chuck. It's pretty easy for Chuck to become friends with him as they are really one in the same, though Chuck has had a few years to smooth out some of the geeky rough edges. Chuck's mission is to contact and find out what he was building for the Ring, which happens to be a new intersect. On the other hand, Manoosh, at heart, is nothing like Chuck. While they may share a lot of the same intellect and backstory, Manoosh is what Chuck would have been had he spent all his time alone. Out to make a quick buck, Manoosh is willing to sell the technology to the highest bidder, and it's up to Chuck and the team to stop him.
Back in the BuyMore, we have Morgan quietly pining for Hannah, who makes her first appearance as the latest Nerd Herd employee. Hannah has one more episode for this season of Chuck, and I'm sad to see the writers didn't really use her for anything this episode. Other than some opportunity to showcase how really creepy the BuyMore employees can be, especially Jeff and Lester, Hannah didn't have much of a part of this episode. Hopefully, she'll have a bit more for her last appearance next week.
On the other side story, we are finally starting to see Chucks web of secrets and coverups starting to unravel as Ellie finds Chuck's ticket from Paris. This makes an already frazzled Devon even more on edge as he tries to cover up what Chuck really does for a living. Even Morgan, who already has been suspicious of Chuck for some time, now has even more zeal to find out what's going on. As a result, he is now enlisting Jeff and Lester to use their superior stalking skills to find out what's going on with Chuck.
Overall, "Chuck vs. The Nacho Sampler" was a pretty simple episode with plenty of throwaway lines and silliness to appeal to the Chuck fan. It does set up a new theme of Ellie and Morgan working together to find out what is going on with Chuck, which I'm sure will put them in great danger later on.
Interesting Observations
- One day I hope to meet a girl with her own personal wind machine.
- Chuck is always really lax in his uniform. He's the only one with it untucked, and his tie is always loose.
- "May the best stalker win." - Jeff
- One of the BuyMore's neighbors is "Underpants, Etc." I'm not sure why I never saw that before.
- "What are you doing Friday? Wanna hangout in my van?" - Jeff, in his extra sleazy voice.
- "It's my constitutional right to fornicate." - Jeff
- As Sarah walks into the bar (with wind machine), there is a distinct chatter of "Oh my God" in the background from the other patrons.
- "Frak Off" is a reference to the modern revival of "Battlestar Galactica."
- Fighting with dark glasses while loaded with combat skills is a bit Matrix-y perhaps.
- Weap-Con, the greatest weapon convention in the world.
- "You aim caerfuly, Bartowski. Don't you make me a eunuch, else i'll teach you the meaning of an eye for an eye." - Casey
- Casey has a golden gun.
- Just like bartowski, bring a knife to a gun fight." - Casey
- I know that NBC needs to make promos that are appealing, but do they have to spoil all the really cool parts of the episode in the promo? It's like if ABC made a promo for Lost that showed everyone waking up from a dream in a lab.
- Flash skills of the week: Throwing weapons, disk throwing.
- Gratuitous shot of Sarah: see above.