The Rest of the Dramas! Sorry for all the lateness.

Ringer - “Oh Gawd, There’s Two of Them?”
Bridget has to tell Andrew and Henry that Siobhan had a twin. It turns out the Bridget’s new sponsor is working for Siobhan and he’s the one who killed Gemma. Gasp! Also, Malcolm escapes. After Juliet boozes, parties, and crashes a car in order to help her friend, Andrew cuts her off of her trust fun. Let’s all have a sarcastic slow clap for Andrew for doing the thing he should have done years ago. Good luck buying drugs when you don’t have access to $10 million. The fact that he didn’t do this in the first place means that Juliet should be taken away from him. Also, Juliet was scandalized and hurt that Andrew didn’t trust her motives. No sympathy. You do hard drugs in high school, you lose all expectation of trust. Overall, this show has really gone uphill.

Episode grade: B

American Horror Story - “Halloween 2”
Ok, Hayden was actually genuinely creepy. When she was rotting from the inside out, that was a nice touch. We are SO GLAD the dog wasn’t in the microwave. That would have been too far. Tate’s backstory is amazingly interesting and we look forward to the flashback and more details. Ben has been thrown out of the house by Vivien, but we hope that he has to come back soon. Out of everyone in that family, he is the one who most deserves to live in the haunted house, and it isn’t because he’s a cheater (although that doesn’t help). We feel bad for the way he has to deal with all that shame. He’s the worst because he has a pattern of covering things up. Everyone messes up in life. It’s how you deal with the aftermath, grit your teeth, and own up to things that decides whether you’re scum or not. No one likes a cover-up.

Episode grade: B

Revenge - “Charade”
Man, this was a good one. We had Nolan’s first takedown, and it was successful. The “Tyler is gay and in love with Daniel” theorists were correct. We liked the whole swapped identity thing, but man, Frank got way too close for comfort there. We, like many others, still aren’t buying the Declan/Charlotte romance, and we wish Declan had been cast by a different actor.

Episode grade: A-
The Secret Circle - “Beneath”
The Circle goes to Henry’s house to look for Jane, because Cassie hasn’t heard from her in days. The crew finds the house empty, but Cassie gets a text from Jane, saying that she is on her way home. The Circle decides to stay the night in Henry’s house. Diana experiences jealousy over Adam not being able to bear watching Cassie kiss Jake on a dare. Faye is jealous of Cassie and Jake’s budding romance. Jake rejects Cassie later, though. It seems that he is more into his witch-hunting team than her right now, but that might change. Henry reaches out to Faye from beyond the grave and Cassie finds his body. Meanwhile, Charles erases Jane’s memory and has Henry’s crystal. Most of these episodes have been heavy on the action and light on the character development. We got more quiet time with the characters during this episode, and we loved that. We also like when Diana starts to show her imperfect side, like when she made Cassie and Jake kiss. Most of all, we thought the music in this episode was really beautiful.

Episode grade: A

Fringe - “Novation”
We pretty much know how the Observers erased Peter now, if we hadn’t guessed already. The case of the week was boring, but the Peter/Olivia/Walter stuff was pretty good. Walter has rejected Peter as his son and a family member that he is allowed to keep. That’s sad, but we’re pretty sure he will come around, eventually, and help Peter figure things out. We’re glad to have Peter back.

Episode grade: B

Sons of Anarchy - “Kiss”
The way things are going, it looks like SAMCRO is going to have no choice but to kick Clay out of the club, which is something we are surprised hasn’t happened a long time ago. Clay gets one step closer to taking out Tara for good.

Episode grade: A-

Parenthood - “Forced Family Fun”
The main drama going on right now is the whole Seth thing. We hope he gets better, and he seems sincere, but this had better not affect Sarah’s new relationship, which is getting cuter all the time. Coffee girl needs to not sweat the small stuff and give Julia a break every once in a while. It’s like she gets paid for every awkward moment that she makes even more awkward.

Episode grade: B

Person of Interest - “Witness”
Reese has to protect a school teacher who saw a Russian mob shooting. Of course, Carter has to get all up in everyone’s business. The whole Carter thing had better turn out to be just as good as the rest of the show. It had just better pan out.

Episode grade: B-

Nikita - “Clawback”
Michael is mad at Nikita for not telling him about his son, even though she told him and pretty much did it right away. Ugh. We are kind of hating the whole Michael’s son thing. The son needs to die. We liked Alex’s plot this week, and we loved that Ryan came back.

Episode grade: B-

Prime Suspect - “Shame”
This episode featured a prostitute who killed, but we were less interested in her than the cop shenanigans that went on in this episode (like when two of them pretended that they were going to hit one of their informants). The team is getting along better, and we like that. The shooter from Grey’s Anatomy guest starred, and he was creepy in this, too.

Episode grade: B-

Grey’s Anatomy - “Heart-Shaped Box”
George’s mom returns and isn’t scandalized by Callie’s lesbianism. She just wants to see pictures of the baby. Aww. We enjoyed all the discussion and memories of George. We like when this show acknowledges its outlandishly crazy past. Jackson dumped Lexie because she doesn’t love him. She should, but she loves Mark instead. Finally, Henry is puking up blood, and that’s not good. We’re not saying we’d be devastated or anything, but it would be sad. Filler, but lighthearted, mature filler.

Episode grade: B-

Bones - “Memories in the Shallow Grave”
This was an average, “meh” episode, but it’s adorable to see Bones and Booth as a couple.

Episode grade: C+

A Gifted Man - “In Case of Memory Loss”
Michael comes across a former football player that he operated on a long time ago. The football player has since lost a lot of his memory and become homeless. Also, Michael has to treat a teenage girl who is having trouble coping with her best friend’s murder. Michael helps people. His wife haunts him. This was all par-for-the-course for this show.

Episode grade: B-

Eight years, and Derek Shepherd still doesn’t have a house built on that lot.

Grey’s Anatomy - “Poker Face”

April puts on a deeper voice, punishes Alex Karev for his rudeness, and finally becomes a competent chief resident. She’s still mostly annoying though. We’ve defended her for a while, but now we are just annoyed that she seems to be dead weight on this show. The show needs to ditch either April or Bailey, because Bailey has become unlikable over the past few years. Callie performs a challenging spinal surgery with little help from Cristina, who is scared that the surgery will fail and hurt her stats. She learns her lesson though. Meredith proves that Derek needs her at work when she finds him a cool surgery and helps him save the life of a new mother.

Derek doesn’t know that Meredith was involved, because she did all this through Lexie, who is on Derek’s service. We were so, so happy that Derek’s patient lived. Derek was really tolerable this episode too. Bailey is still mad at Meredith and Dr. Weber. Mark, lacking a sex life, starts cooking with Arizona, distracting Arizona from her marriage, much to Callie’s dismay. Lastly, Owen and Cristina are avoiding conversation by having tons of sex, everywhere. Yeah, that’s gonna end well… They look like they are embarking on a long storyline that may have a breakup in the middle of it, but it will probably end with both of them forgiving each other. For the most part, this episode got us emotionally and we were entertained. There were a few laughs too.

Not everyone is as pleased with this season as we are. Lots of people are getting sick of this show. They say that it’s repeating storylines, the show lacks “family values”, Bailey has too many rants, the characters having nothing to do, the characters are written so that they are annoying, and that the show has just been on too long. Lots of people don’t like all the new characters and miss the “Fab Five.” We understand that a show like this has to add and drop characters though. It’s never good to mourn for how a TV show used to be in its first and second seasons when the show is on season eight. You just have to either accept it or drop it. Tons of fans are dropping out. But, while we agree with some of the complaints, we still enjoy it, and we love how the show slowly grew Meredith up. She is a good and tolerable person now. We hope she gets Zola back too.

Episode grade: A-

A Gifted Man - “In Case of Loss of Control”

Michael makes a decision that jeopardizes his license and practice, but it saves a boy’s life and Michael is not prosecuted for it. Michael is upset with the doctors at the clinic because they lied to him in order to trick him into breaking the law, but he goes along with it anyway. Meanwhile, a teenage girl keeps her sexual activity from her father at the risk of her health. Things get hairier when an old flame shoots her for rejecting him. The father finally comes around to her new beau and Michael fixes everything. This episode wasn’t as good as last week’s and there was little in the way of character development for our long-range players. But both cases were pretty good, especially Monica, the teenage girl.

Episode grade: B-

Peter Is Back!

Friday Shows

Nikita - “Partners”
Nikita’s old Division partner, Kelly, escaped from a Turkish prison. Nikita thought Kelly was dead and blamed herself, because Kelly was arrested during the same mission that Nikita used to escape Division. Nikita convinces Michael to go to Turkey and help Kelly. Meanwhile, Amanda sends Alex and the guy who melts people in chemicals to kill Kelly. Kelly turns out to be working for Gogol and seeks to capture Alex for them. Nikita has to shoot Kelly, and Alex sees Nikita protecting her. Kelly was played by Katheryn Winnick (Hannah in Bones), and we still hate her because of Bones. We are glad she died quickly on Nikita. This was an average episode of Nikita. Nothing too gripping here, but Gogol did find out Alex’s identity.

Episode grade: C+

Fringe - “Subject 9”
Some blue force stalks and burns Olivia, and Walter surmises that it has to do with his experiments on kids in the past. Olivia and Walter go looking for “Subject 9,” one of the kids. It turns out that he isn’t doing it, but this escapade does get Walt out of the lab. He needed to convince Olivia not to recommend that he be hospitalized. It was really sweet when we saw that Olivia advised against Walter’s commitment, even as the heartless, Peterless version of herself that we are seeing this season. Olivia uses her powers to bring Peter fully back into this world. However, Olivia and Walter have no memory of him, and Peter seems to remember everything. Do we get to see Olivia fall in love with him all over again? Actually, we smell a triangle with Lee. The Walter stuff in this episode was great, and so was the ending. The case of the week and the rest of the stuff was weak.

Episode grade: B-

A Gifted Man - “In Case of Separation Anxiety”
Michael treats a patient who is hearing voices and gets Shaman Anton’s help. Dr. Kate starts at the clinic on the day when a car accidentally crashes into it. Michael’s sister is back. We guess she didn’t quit the show. This episode emphasized the ghostiness/spiritual more than the medical, and we liked that. We’d like to see this get a full season pickup, because we think more time and an ability to make a large story arc is what this show needs.

Episode grade: B

Sunday Shows

Dexter - “Smokey and the Bandit”
When a prostitute is murdered and left with half a tooth, Dexter recognizes signs of an old serial killer from the ‘80s that Dexter revered in his teen years. Dexter tracks the man down, and it turns out that he lives in a retirement home, has a grown son, hates life, and is extremely crotchety. He’s also smart, because he checks Dexter out and realizes that Dexter is with the cops. Fortunately, Dexter is able to kill the man. Debra hires a new detective against LaGuerta’s advice, and Debra also struggles with insecurity in her new job and Quinn being a dipwad. Quinn is boning everything in sight in an effort to get over Deb, and he thinks that she dumped him because of her new job. The two “religious murderers” try to get the guy they kidnapped to repent of his sins. Once he does it sincerely enough, they kill him and do something very interesting with his body. These guys are crazypants. Mos Def invites Dexter to a baptism and picnic, and we think he will go. This episode briefly ponders the places where people seek meaning in their lives. We were entertained by this one, but it’s not one for the ages or anything. We kind of hate Masuka’s intern. What a weirdo.

Episode grade: B

Pan Am - “Eastern Exposure”
We are rooting for this show, and we really like it, but this episode was kind of a huge mess. It focused on the lamest characters (rather than Maggie and Colette), and Kate is pretty much the worst spy of all time. The first half was fairly slow. One of us teared up in this episode, however, so it does get points for emotion (in case you were wondering, it was when Ted was talking about his desire to be an astronaut. She's originally from central Florida, so the space program has a special place in her heart). The flight crew spent time in Indonesia. Maggie tried to show Laura a good time, but it ended up sparking a huge fight between Laura and Kate. When the girls return, Laura moves in with Maggie. We find out that Ted’s father had a chance to save Ted’s past job and reputation, but his father chose to protect himself. Dean and Ted fight and Ted punches Dean, but they make up at the end of the episode.

Episode grade: C+

The Good Wife - “Feeding the Rat”
Diane takes Legal Aid and makes it a part of her firm after it loses its funding. Eli Gold tries to poach Kalinda and Alicia for his exclusive, full-time use. Alicia defends a pro bono case. The defendant is innocent of robbing a convenience store, and Kalinda’s snooping proves it. Will turns down a job offer from Celeste and accidentally says, “I love you” to Alicia. They both agree to forget it happened and not discuss it. This episode was enjoyable. We like having Eli in the firm, but we think the show needs to give him better things to do. Also, confession: We’ve never been Kalinda fans, nor are we really that interested in finding out about her character. She could leave the show and we wouldn’t care.

Episode grade: A

Homeland - “Clean Skin”
Carrie’s asset was killed (everyone saw that coming). Brody and his family spent most of the episode preparing for an interview. The daughter knows that the mom slept with Brody’s best friend, but she didn’t tell her dad in this episode. Brody and his daughter bonded a little bit. We got no clues as to what Brody is up to, but we know someone is up to something, because an expensive necklace was smuggled into the country and used to get terrorists cash. Then a couple purchased a home near the airport … and the husband’s skin is very brown. There was a pretty sad scene where Brody had his wife take off her shirt and then he just jacked off. We were depressed for her, but it’s understandable. There’s a theme to these sex scenes: Brody is not in the right place to have sex with another person and be aware that the other person is there and involved. This episode was mostly filler, but it was good filler. It continued what is, so far, a pretty great first season for this thriller.

Episode grade: A-

The Walking Dead - “What Lies Ahead”
The little girl, Sophia, goes missing after the gang is attacked by a herd of zombies. Rick’s son Carl is shot during the search. Shane contemplates leaving the group, and Andrea wants to go with him. She’s also really ticked at Dale for forcing her to live in the season finale last year. This was a solid premiere, but we certainly weren’t blown away. The monologue at the beginning tried our patience. Who wrote that?

Episode grade: B-

Thanks for telling us Nikita got better, readers.

Person of Interest - “Mission Creep”
This show is definitely a procedural, but it’s a decent one, so we watch it, even though there are pouts on our faces about the 24-like serial that might have been. In this episode, the machine coughed up the number of a former Marine named Joey. When he returned from the Middle East, he joined a crew of former soldiers who have become thieves for hire, because he wanted to get money for his dead solider buddy’s little girl. Reese saves Joey, duh. The man behind it all is named “Elias M.” and a man named Latimer works for him. We have a feeling that these two are going to crop up again. We also see that Reese used to have a girlfriend, and they clearly still have feelings for each other. We want to see the machine flashback now.

Episode grade: B+

Nikita - “Knightfall”
We’re finally caught up on this show. It got better around episode five. The first episode was all about sex appeal and stick-thin women inexplicably kicking the asses of large guys, and that turned us off. We’re not really the audience for that. But we marathoned the show once the whole season was out, and had developed enough of a story and fun pacing that it hooked us. There have been some changes since the first season. Notably, Alex is now with Division as a mercenary and Amanda is running the whole thing.

We enjoy the game change, but we look forward to Percy getting out of his Magneto prison. During this episode, Nikita foiled a Division op yet again! Even though one of us hates Shane West, we like Michael and Nikita together. The end opened up new possibilities for Alex’s character. That’s good. It’s nice to keep things moving while having week-to-week missions. We'd really like to see some follow-up with the Nathan character. Last we saw him, he had found out about Alex's secret and shot Alex's rival, killing her. What happened to that guy? Doesn't Alex still want to make babies with him?

Episode grade: B

A Gifted Man - “In Case of Discomfort”
The formula for this show seems to be “one rich patient, one poor patient.” The rich patient had some sort of bug in her brain from eating pork (aaaand we’ve just picked up the pork-eating habits of Jews and Muslims) and the poor patient had heart problems. Rachel Lefevre showed up to run the clinic. We don’t know why we are enjoying this show, because it has a lot of the factors we usually hate. Case-by-case, not too attached to the characters (what happened to Michael’s sister and nephew?), and nothing too unique. And yet, we continue to enjoy.

Episode grade: B

We Wish We Could Meet Our Parallel Universe Selves...Or Do We?

A Gifted Man - "In Case of All Hell Breaking Loose"

What kind of medical show really only has one doctor? How can we have multiple hookups and other drama? All we have here are cases. The weird thing is, this show makes you care anyway. We’re still liking it this week. The quality has stayed the same. It has a good tone and a strong central performance. It still needs to find itself in a lot of ways, but we hope it gets a chance to do it. Side note: We love his secretary. His sister and nephew were missing though. Episode grade: B

Fringe - "One Night in October"

Why wasn’t this the premiere? What an interesting case! The show pulled a Grey’s Anatomy when it related the case to Peter’s disappearance/the main characters’ own lives. Yup, Peter’s indelible. And he needs help? Hoo boy. We liked this one a lot.

Episode Grade: A-

Prime Suspect and A Gifted Man

Both of these shows have familiar premises with a twist. A Gifted Man is a medical show and Prime Suspect is a cop show. The twists, respectively, are that a neurosurgeon is being haunted by his ex-wife and a detective is a strong woman in a boys’ club at work.

We didn’t expect to love either of these shows, but we ended up liking them. They probably won’t be must-watches that generate many water-cooler moments, but they both entertained us. Procedurals have a hard road with us, especially medical and cop ones. It’s just been done before.

A Gifted Man - We chuckled at the shaman on this show, because one of us has met shamans, and this show was right-on as to what their practice actually looks like. What was interesting was that the show seems to paint its shaman as credible, rather than mocking him outright. Patrick Wilson is very appealing in this role and this show had its sweet moments. We also like Jennifer Ehle.

Prime Suspect - We loved the main character’s marriage and the way she handles tough situations. The case of the week was boring, but this was good introduction to the characters. The only thing we weren’t digging about Maria Bello (a real woman if there ever was one) was her fedora. You really can’t bring those back at this point. Maybe someday. But she’s a cool cat, and this was a decent cop show pilot. This is much better than Unforgettable.

Even though we are pretty sure these won’t reach our list of top 30 shows, we will be watching both a second time. They were entertaining enough, especially since A Gifted Man is on Fridays.

Prime Suspect Grade: B-
A Gifted Man Grade: B

New Show: A Gifted Man

A Gifted Man
CBS, September 23

Starring: Patrick Wilson (Insidious, Little Children, Phantom of the Opera, Hard Candy, Watchmen), Jennifer Ehle (The King’s Speech), Julie Benz (Dexter), Liam Aiken (Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, Road to Perdition, Stepmom), Rachelle Lefevre (Off the Map, Twilight), Pablo Tell Schreiber (The Wire, Lords of Dogtown), and Margo Martindale (Dexter, Justified)

Plot: A selfish, cold, and disconnected surgeon, Michael Holt, lives a privileged life treating rich clients and buying nice things, because he has a real gift for medicine. Then his ex-wife, Anna, is killed in a car accident, and her ghost starts visiting him and pressuring him into treating poor people. While helping people, Michael starts to see things differently. Also taking up screen time are Michael’s sister, who knows about Michael’s ghost, and her troubled teenage son.

Why We Are Excited: This set-up is rife for opportunities for warm, gushy moments, and we are suckers for that. We enjoy supernatural set-ups, and there is a good (or at least experience) cast. It is described as a scary, psychological love story.

Why We Are Not Excited: We just really aren’t as excited for this show as we feel like we should be. And a character turning into a saint is wonderful and interesting in real life, but on TV, the “let’s help people and get better” storyline can get boring. Once the surgeon becomes good, the premise will have to change. It looks like something we've seen before, and we think this show is going to get canceled if it isn't an excellent crowd-pleaser.

Preview:


Anticipation Score: 6.5/10

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