There's a Light at the End of this Tunnel, Guys

Good news for those of you addicted to this blog: One of us sees a part in the clouds of schoolwork and anticipates that April-May will be lighter. This means daily posts are an option at that time. Until then, here’s your Monday summary. Yeah, we're behind on a few shows. 

Cougar Town - Ain't Love Strange: This show returned to a series low in the ratings. We were sad about that. It’s due to a tough time slot and no powerhouse lead-in like they had last year. That didn’t stop the show from turning in a premiere in its usual adorable, heartfelt style. We weren't digging Laurie's ankle monitor though. It felt like she would have told the gang the story right away, not in exposition in the episode.  
Episode grade: A-

Revenge - Chaos: Leeard was expecting (and wanting) the body to be Tyler, but Ern was completely surprised. Either way, bravo for the twist. In order to fool us, the show used a body double that looked sort of like Tyler and sort of like Daniel as the body that fell to the beach after being shot. We are really glad Revenge kept Daniel alive. One of us thought the Tyler stuff was getting a little too cheesy and overwrought, especially the scenes where he plotted with Emily. There was so much exposition that we expected him to break out in a cliché villain “muah haha.” Leeard hopes Tanaka doesn't kill Emily and is starting to like her.
Episode grade: A

Glee - Heart: Rachel’s dads were delightful, and we like the new Christian character. Ryan Murphy was jonesing for a Christian character so badly on The Glee Project that he was bound to name a Christian kid the winner. Now that he has his Christian, Ryan will be able to pick the most talented, awesome kids when The Glee Project returns. Yeah, we are still sore about Hanna losing. We also liked Quinn’s talk about Christianity and the Bible. For a crazy, flawed character, Quinn can manage to say sensible things when people need advice. She presented the other side of a common argument well. The show continues to avoid demonizing religious people while it pushes for tolerance of gay people. That’s quite a feat. We liked a lot of the songs and performances. It is eerie that Glee chose to do Whitney Houston’s famous song. The decision was made before Whitney died and the episode aired after Whitney’s death. Glee is psychic. That’s probably why it’s so crazy. We can’t believe we were sad for Karofsky. We are also surprised that Rory isn’t leaving! He was lying about his visa being denied. Does that mean Damian gets to be on the show longer than the few episodes he was promised? Strangely, Rachel Berry’s nighttime routine resembles Ern’s, only Ern’s is possibly more elaborate. Ern doesn’t do the ice thing though. That’s the height of insane, Rachel. 
Episode grade: B+

Glee First Listen Friday - Everything is a little forgettable except Blaine’s song, a cover of “Cough Syrup” by Young and the Giant/The Jakes. It’s a cool song. Blaine’s voice is too autotuned in it, but we still can’t decide if we like his cover or the original better. Rachel was given a song that didn’t fit her voice at all and the results were disappointing. The "Fly"/"I Believe I Can Fly" mash-up was ok. Ern is kind of over "I Believe I Can Fly". Leeard will never be.

The River - Los Ciegos: This show improves in its third week and is turning into a really fun show. A few of the characters got more sympathetic this episode, and there was some good humor. 
Episode grade: A-

Parenthood - Tough Love: Whoa, Julia. Being a paralegal is a hard job. They have to read well, pay attention to detail, and be extremely responsible. We love that Julia thinks Coffee Girl is that smart, but we think that’s a stretch. Fortunately for the legal profession, Coffee Girl did not apply. We love the aspect of Julia’s personality that just won’t let go of this girl, but we are bracing ourselves for a possible sad ending to this story. We can’t believe Amber was caught by Kristina so quickly. Haddie, you little rat! We are even more dismayed that Bob was such a pussy and let Kristina take her. They are both adults and the age disparity isn’t that great! Ugh, Kristina. We felt bad for Seth but not Drew in this episode. For some reason, we think Drew is too old to have this reaction. He has progressed to the age where he needs to work on being happy for his mother, getting along with his potential new stepdad, staying quiet about his feelings, and dealing with real life. Maybe we are being too harsh? Meh. 
Episode grade: B+

The Secret Circle - Return: Cassie's dad shows up at her house!! Then Cassie tells Adam, who says something like, "Then he's really alive?!" We wanted to hit him in the face for dumb ass-ery. It's been apparent for weeks. The audience knew in the pilot. Anyway, this episode was almost as good as last week's. The dad stuff did not disappoint. We're not sure we trust him, but we like him. We liked seeing Faye make out with a guy who wasn't Jake. Also, coma girl woke up. We'll see what that's about. 
Episode grade: A

The Vampire Diaries - All My Children: We have yet another Alaric death fake-out as a cliffhanger. Meredith shoots a gun in his direction. He'll live. He always does. We loved watching resourceful Elena face off against Rebekah, and it was nice to see Damon protecting his brother's returning humanity. Bonnie's mom is a vampire, yawn. Good job for fighting back, Elijah. Don't let this show take you from us again so quickly. This episode was fine, but it wasn't among this show's best. We weren't surprised by anything or particularly touched. 
Episode grade: B

Grey’s Anatomy - Have You Seen Me Lately?: Hey, you know what's awkward and sad? Watching Owen and Cristina in couples counseling. Owen is kind of jealous of Meredith, showing that he misses the point of this show, which is the friendship between Meredith and Cristina, DUH. You have to give them credit for trying with this marriage thing though. Lots of people would throw in the towel and no one would blame them, under these circumstances. Amy comes to Seattle Grace and tries to get her brother, Derek, to do a surgery. They do the surgery in the Private Practice hour (it's a crossover event), but we didn't care enough to watch Private Practice and see how it turned out. If someone else saw it, let us know. The good news this week is that Meredith and Callie might be friends now. Callie is going to help Meredith study after Meredith rocked a case where a man got his hand ground up in a meat grinder. Yuck. 
Episode grade: B

The Office - Tallahassee: The only time we laughed was during Jim's early-morning prank on Dwight. Part of the Scranton branch went down to Florida to design Sabre retail stores. Packer was there too. Dwight got appendicitis. Stanley is acting like this business trip is a month-long paid vacation. That's about it. We miss this show being hilarious.
Episode grade: C

Parks and Recreation - Dave Returns: First of all, Team Ben. Second, we also like Dave. He's so honest. We are still raising our eyebrows at the whole Ann/Ben thing, which is apparently still happening, but it was funny this episode. That song Andy wrote was appropriately hideous. Finally, we have exactly the same reaction to cops as Ben does: we never break the law, because we are terrified of cops. Ern can't even look at them when passing them on the street! 
Episode grade: A-

New Girl - Valentine: We got to see True Blood's Ryan Kwanten guest star as a guy Jess tries to have a one-night stand with. Jess's quest to "get some strange" ends badly. Wait, no, it ends adorable, because it ends with Nick dragging Jess to her bedroom when she contemplates sleeping with Schmidt. She brought an entire (and very large) box of condoms for the occasion. Guess who did sleep with Schmidt? No, not Leeard, even though he is her soulmate. Cece! We can't believe it, guys. This was a funny episode, but we don't really dig the one night stand topic. 
Episode grade: B+

Awake - Pilot: This episode is up on hulu, so you can watch it early, and you should. There isn't much here that wasn't shown in the preview, but we loved what was in the preview, so you can guess what we thought of the whole episode. The main triumph of the pilot is that we already care about the characters. We will be tuning into the second episode when it airs in March. This show reminds us a little of Journeyman, only we care more. Sadly, it seems like just the thing that could be cancelled well before it's time. NBC loves to give us great shows that don't hit it out of the ballpark, ratings-wise. With this show, we just hope there is a satisfying conclusion to what will probably be a short run. 
Episode grade: A

Modern Family - Aunt Mommy: We haven't been mentioning this show in the last couple of weeks, because most episodes are the same. People are saying this show is stuck in a rut and we agree. At least it's a relatively funny rut. However, this episode had some pleasing factors that made it stick out. For once, Cam and Mitchell's plotline didn't involve them having a fight/bickering. We got to see multiple characters drunk. The only thing that could have made this episode better would be if we had gotten to see Luke try to reanimate that dead squirrel. Even though Modern Family refuses to give us something that feels new, it's still a funny show.
Episode grade: B+

Happy Endings - Everybody Loves Grant: One of us watched this episode yesterday when she had a fever and no energy, and this show still managed to pull some chuckles out of the haze that was that day. Dave trying to be "the cool guy" made him the MVP of the night. If you like this show, you probably liked this episode. 
Episode grade: B+

Pan Am - 1964 (and the series as a whole): Well, this show wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it had a nice little (probably) close to the series. We were left with Kate moving up in the CIA, Laura and Ted are in love (and one of us is so glad we didn't have to see Ted tell her that Amanda is pregnant), Dean and Collette are on the road to reconciliation, and Maggie is by herself. While we can kind of see hints of where the show would go if it's given a second season (Collette's search for her brother, Laura and Ted trying to figure out their relationship, Kate becoming an actual spy, Maggie hopefully dying), we think that 1964 works as a decent series finale. Pan Am was a nice diversion, but we won't miss it too much.
Episode grade: B
Series grade: C

Casting news: The Good Wife didn’t have a new episode this week, but news emerged that Matthew Perry will join the show as a lawyer who is trying to win over Alicia. Alicia and Bing-a-ling? We really don’t see it, but we like the idea of Alicia getting another love interest. Breaking Bad’s Giancarlo Esposito will play a business associate of Pierce’s dead dad on Community. We’re sure it will be perfect and hilarious, like that show always is.

Books - The White Devil: If nothing else, this book will make you deathly afraid of getting TB. The White Devil is a ghost story featuring an American teenager who has to go to a British boarding school. If you are familiar with Lord Byron as a historical figure or as a poet, you will enjoy this book a lot more than your average reader. This book was entertaining, for the most part, there was good writing, and it had some really creepy moments. But it never grabbed us and we will forget about the characters by the next week. 
Book grade: C+

As for movies, we re-watched Warrior, which is the best movie of 2011 that you never saw. Yeah, some of it isn't very original, but it is so intense Ern almost had a panic attack watching it, there's lots of emotion, you care about the characters, and it's never boring. Even if you aren't interested in MMA or fighting as a topic, you should give this one a shot. Grade: A We also saw The Other Woman with Natalie Portman. Despite mixed reviews, we enjoyed it enough that we're glad we watched it. Grade: B- Then, finally, one of us saw The Paper Chase. Like a typical law student, Ern nearly screamed at the end when the main character did what he did (no spoilers here, but if you've seen it, you know what we mean). How could he do that?!! We would NEVER do that. Also, plenty of Ern's law professors are just as bad as Kingsfield, seriously. Grade: B

Pan Am and Man Up! Effectively Canceled

Tvbythenumbers is reporting that Pan Am and Man Up! are really close to being canceled, which is not unexpected news. Leeard is truly (and unexpectedly) bummed about Pan Am.

UPDATE: Karine Vanasse tweeted- "Well, we received THE call. Pan Am is only coming back for one more episode after Christmas. But up to the end, we'll give it our all.

Later, it was revealed that the show will actually have 14 episodes total for its first season. ABC ordered one more. Things are looking grim for a season 2 though.

Go here and scroll down to the chart for the status of your favorite shows.

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/11/20/bubble-watch-grimm-upgraded-should-the-mentalist-be-on-the-bubble/111291/

Pan Am: Catch Her If You Can

“The Genuine Article”

Maggie spent the episode worrying about losing her job after making that crack to her boss last week. You know, the thing where Maggie told the mean girdle-lover to get on the scale? We weren’t worried, because it’s obvious that Christina Ricci is the biggest (and only) star on this show, and her character would not get permanently canned. Also, when you have a job, you have to follow the rules and respect your boss. That's just reality. No matter how much of an independent, trailblazing woman you are.

The bloggers were split on liking Maggie in the last couple of weeks, but we are both starting to hate her now. She really is out for herself, and she’s a liar. She’s not a liar in a brilliant, funny, Frank Abagnale way. It’s like the writers are trying too hard to make Maggie a smart, feminist icon, and it isn’t coming off as authentic.

It was nice to get some background on the character though. Maggie is like a poor man’s Joan from Mad Men. It’s possible that this is the actress’ fault. With a character like this, you need someone adorable who has charisma. Someone cocky, but in a way that you love her. Not someone who is obnoxious and whose speech is always stilted when she’s trying to show the world her gumption. The best example of this was when Maggie arrived at her Pan Am interview late.

Christina Ricci is a little toothpick suffering from Up All Night’s aforementioned face v. ass complex. As you age, you have to decide whether you want your face to look too thin and haggard, or if you want to put a little weight on, have a nice face, and lose your tight little behind. Christina went with saving her bum, and her face is looking too harsh. We miss her round cheeks. On her face.

We liked the way her college professor took the roll. That’s how we are going to do it, if we ever have to. Only, instead of favorite book (because lots of people don’t read), we will ask for a favorite TV show. The mutants who don’t own TVs can just get out of our classes.

We are getting a little disenchanted with this show. Where is it all going? We care about Collette and sometimes Ted, but we’re not overly attached to anyone on this show. How can this stay and Off the Map get cancelled? Does anyone else wonder if one of the actresses playing Collette and Kate should have had Christina Ricci’s role?

One thing we liked a lot? Kate’s new mission to turn her lover into a spy. Welcome to the big leagues, indeed. Dean and Ginny are in love, but Maggie ratted them out to Pan Am’s VP to save her own job. That won’t go well for Dean and Ginny in the future, will it? All the stuff with Laura and Maggie getting arrested for buying stolen goods was a waste of our time. In the end, Maggie is a fake, but she’s trying to become the real deal. We can admire that. We like that the character has flaws. But because of the performance and line delivery, we can’t like the character completely.

Episode grade: C+

Eli Gold, Evil Cupid

Revenge - “Intrigue”
Even the blogger who isn’t super into Revenge had to admit that this was a strong, intense episode. Emily and Nolan sent the video of Frank trying to kill Lydia to Conrad. Conrad fires Frank and tells Frank to stay away from Victoria. Nolan and Declan push Jack until Jack goes to Emily and tells him how he feels about her. Emily rejects him, and we are sad. Lydia is alive! Just in a coma. Tyler continues to ruin Daniel’s life (WHY? Just jealousy? Or is Tyler infatuated with Daniel?), so Daniel ends up passed out on Jack’s bed on his first night of work at the bar. Ouch. Emily tells Tyler off while on a double date with Daniel and her British friend. We like seeing her lose control, especially when it’s directed at douchebags. We loved that the show took a break from the “revenge procedural” formula. If Emily always succeeded in her perfect revenge plots and if that were all that was causing trouble, things wouldn’t be gripping. Now things are a mess, and we like it. We especially want to know what Frank is going to do now.

Episode grade: A-

The Good Wife - “Marthas and Caitlins”
Alicia has to ask Colin Sweeney for help when the firm’s key witness in an important case commits suicide. Sweeney gets info for Cary and, in return, is released from prison. Alicia is asked to hire a new associate, but the girl she picks is ousted in favor of David’s niece. It’s not what you know, but who you know. Just about every subplot was advanced in this episode. Celeste was a lot more fun than usual this last week. Also, most interestingly, Eli Gold promised someone from the Democratic party that Alicia and Peter would be together soon. What dastardly deeds will he have to commit to pull this off?

Episode grade: A-

Sons of Anarchy - “Family Recipe”
Tara wants to relocate for the children’s safety, and Jax thinks this is a good idea. The club gets attacked and realizes that the drug dealing might not have been such a good idea. Clay kill Piney Winston to stop the letters from getting out. Chibs makes progress with Juice on the emotional front (aws). Overall, we were pleased with this one.

Episode grade: A-

The Walking Dead - “Bloodletting”
We will actually respect this show if it kills one of the children. Not that we usually like dead children, but children on a zombie show are just cutesy distractions and potential causes for doom. We liked seeing Shane tell Lori that Rick was shot (this was in a flashback). The man who shot Carl turns out to be Otis, a man who lives nearby and hunts for food. Otis takes Rick, Shane, and Carl to a veterinarian, Hershel Greene, who takes one of six bullet fragments out of Carl. Hershel’s daughter goes to find Lori and saves Andrea from a walker. Hershel’s daughter is kind of a bad ass with a horse. We hope she sticks around. Rick donates blood to Carl and is weakened. Otis and Shane go to the local abandoned school to get FEMA’s supplies that were stored there so that Hershel can operate on Carl. Unfortunately, the high school is overrun with walkers. Otis and Shane locate the medical supplies and gather what they need, but they are chased by a ton of walkers and have to lock themselves into the school to stay alive. That last chase by the walkers and the subsequent barricading of themselves into the school was delightfully frightening. When the show does things like that, it is at its best.

Episode grade: B

Nikita - “343 Walnut Lane”
Percy gains leverage against Alex. Percy also tricks Nikita into thinking she’s found her father, but the man turns out to be a Division agent who infiltrates Birkoff’s house and nearly gets everyone killed. The reason this episode gets a B is that Nikita told Michael about his son. The show didn’t drag the secret out for even one full episode! We are excited by this, and we admire Nikita’s intelligence and honesty. That is not a secret she should have kept for long, and on most shows, she would have. We continue to be amazed that Maggie Q looks to weigh about 75 pounds, but the showrunners expect us to buy that she could beat up a several full-grown men at one time.

Episode grade: B

Prime Suspect - “Regrets, I’ve Had a Few”
A young woman is killed and her body is found in a park, covered with flowers. Jane first suspects her stepfather, but it turns out the stepfather loved her, and it was a park employee who did the deed. He also killed a bunch of other women. The first half of this episode was really slow and tried our patience, but it was worth watching in the end.

Episode grade: B-

Pan Am - “One Coin in a Fountain”
Someone on this show finally has sex that we get to see. It’s Kate, and she steals a crush of Maggie’s for her spy duties, ends up liking him, and sleeps with him. Kate actually acts as a competent spy this week. One of us has decided that Maggie is a bitch and one of us still loves her. Laura spends the episode trying to find the engagement ring she pawned so that she can give it back to her ex-fiancé. Ted helps her get it back. One of us likes Ted, and one of us thinks he’s kind of a creeper. Dean romances Ginny, a passenger who is also the mistress of Pan Am’s vice-president. We loved Ginny and thought she was especially gorgeous. We are still lamenting the lack of Collette storylines.

Episode grade: B-

Person of Interest - “The Fix”
Reese has to protect a professional fixer (like on Michael Clayton) named Zoe. Zoe has information that she shouldn’t. Carter gets closer to Reese while investigating a murder. This episode was pretty average, but we enjoyed seeing Finch face down a bad guy over drinks in a restaurant. Finch can be scary. Just watch him when he was Ben.

Episode grade: B-

Grey’s Anatomy - “Put Me In, Coach”
Because these doctors have tons of free time, Owen enters Seattle Grace into a softball league to compete with other hospitals. They lose horribly. Richard forces Meredith and Bailey to work together in his old trial. Jackson is angered when he sees Lexie become jealous of Mark, who is dating someone new. Alex attempts to get a judge to speed up Zola’s court date and succeeds. This episode is the definition of filler. Alex is just asking to get sued at every turn. What he did was against HIPPA laws, as well as an attempt to influence a judge. Also, who freaking cares about Bailey, Kepner, and Meredith’s trial? Meredith shouldn’t be on a trial! There are no consequences in this hospital. Some of the softball stuff was funny, and we liked that Cristina put a patient first and is in Teddy’s good graces. Now Teddy wants to find dream surgeries for Cristina, and we can’t wait to see that.

Episode grade: C+

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-

Actually, JFK didn't make a mistake in his speech/call himself a jelly doughnut. Just fyi.

Pan Am - "Ich bin ein Berliner"

Which Pan Am do you guys prefer? The fluffy, fun period piece with girls avoiding their moms and standing up for their rights against that old lady who forces them to wear girdles? Or the Cold War spy drama? Critics seem to prefer the fluff, and while that is better done, without the Cold War drama, it might come off as shallow or stakes-free. Because what real problems do these women have other than that?

Ern loved this episode because there was German in it. Ern is trying to learn German, and it’s slow going, but it will happen. Leeard likes this show partly because she thinks the CIA handler is cute. We’re not liking Laura yet. She’s still a bit dim and helpless for our tastes, but in the ‘60s she was probably raised to be that way, and maybe she will get a little bolder as the series goes on and she gets more life experience.

Laura turned down a kiss from Pilot Ted, who excuses his attempt by saying that she’s so pretty he cannot be blamed. Later, they talk and Laura gives him a smile, so it seems like she’s not completely turned off by this guy. We are.

Maggie is a die-hard JFK fan. She knows he is going to be in Berlin where her layover is, and so she does not give up until she convinces one of the reporters on her flight to hook her up with a press pass. We are not Christina Ricci fans (she should have stopped after The Addams Family), but Maggie is a fun and very tenacious character. She gets a wave from Kennedy for all her trouble. The silhouette looks nothing like him. The shadow is a little bigger than we would have thought Kennedy was, anyway.

But we did feel for Colette in the last scene when she said that she came to try to forgive, but it wasn’t possible. She and Dean are getting closer, which will cause triangular drama if and when Bridget comes back. We feel like she should. The Dean character should get both information and closure there.

Kate’s mission goes awry this week when her contact, Greta, is compromised, and Kate wants to save her from the Commies. But her handler is all, “That’s not our problem.” Kate makes it her problem. She sneaks Greta into a party dressed as a Pan Am stewardess and hands her off to someone who can get her out of the country. Her handler is not pleased, but Kate is still allowed to be a courier.

This episode went for our emotions by referencing the German occupation of France/the Holocaust/WW2. It was only a little more than 20 years ago that this happened, so it seems fitting that the show addressed it while the girls were in Germany. We were a little annoyed with Colette having to sing in German and cry in front of everyone. Also, she was rude to several German people who may or may not have had anything to do with the terrible events that caused Colette to lose her parents.

Colette also got all up in Greta’s lederhosen for delivering bread to the enemy when she was about five years old. Like she had a choice. Colette is still adorable though. And her singing voice is decent too. All the bad things happen to her! Getting lied to by a married man, having no family, and possibly crushing on Dean, who is in love with Bridget is a lot. Unfortunate things need to happen to other girls, because Colette is stealing the ensemble show.

We actually like both the spy stuff and the fluff stuff. We think they both need to be done better though. The spy stuff needs to be fleshed out a little, we need to hear or see what happens as a result of one of Kate’s deliveries, and it needs to make more sense. Maybe Kate should hook up with her handler too. We did not like the flashforward. Overall, we liked the episode.

Episode grade: B

Pan Am Makes Us Glad Our Mothers Aren't Controlling

Pan Am - "We’ll Always Have Paris"
Now that Laura’s hair has been dyed blonde to distinguish her from her sister, she’s a dead ringer for Britt on Community, isn’t she? We enjoyed this episode more than the pilot, and the pilot was decent. This isn’t classic TV yet or anything, but it’s entertaining and fun.

Episode grade: B

The Good Wife - "The Death Zone"
Well, it was just cruel not to show us Alicia and Will’s Revolutionary War role playing. However, we will settle for Kalinda and Eli hooking up, because they are clearly made for each other. We wonder why we didn’t see it before. And please, they can’t fire Alicia.

Episode grade: B-

Pan Am pilot and The Good Wife season 3 premiere

Did we really go to bed last night without mentioning Pan Am and The Good Wife? We know you are devastated (sarcasm, since this isn’t Glee or The Vampire Diaries), but both shows deserved a mention.

Pan Am’s premiere was pretty good. We liked it. We didn’t really like it or love it, but we liked it. We like the female characters so far (all of them), and that’s a huge thing for a show like this. We aren’t really sure where the show is going. There’s a romance angle, a friendship angle, a slight feminist angle, and an espionage/Cold War angle. It works alright, and we were entertained by the pilot. But there are few pilots that have given us less of a sense of what we are going to like or hate about this show in the future. It’s too soon to tell with this one, so it’s going to stay on the list until we figure it out. People are saying, "Oh, it's no Mad Men." But it's not even comparable to Mad Men in terms of subject and tone; just era. It's not trying for what Mad Men is trying for. It's more lighthearted. It's really nothing like Mad Men, except for the clothes.

The Good Wife premiere had a case we didn’t really care about, but it had a lot of Eli Gold, which is always a plus. Alicia has a new attitude: rule breaker. We aren’t sure if we like it. She implicitly advised a client to lie, and that went as lies usually do (badly). We liked Grace’s new tutor even before Grace did. But after the thing that made Grace like her, we loved her. “You know that has as many calories as three bags of buttered popcorn?” “But I don’t want three bags of popcorn.” Ha. As always, this show remains watchable and entertaining, but the premiere didn’t wow us.

Pan Am grade: B-
The Good Wife grade: B

New Show: Pan Am

Pan Am
ABC. Sunday, September 25 at 10:00 P.M.

Starring: Christina Ricci (The Addams Family, Sleepy Hollow, Monster), Mike Vogel (Cloverfield), and Karine Vanasse (Midnight In Paris).

Plot: It’s about flight attendants in 1963.

Why We Are Excited: Rumor has it that this is a pretty fun show. It’s certainly well-advertised. We’ve seen more ads for this show than any of the other newbies. Plus, fun 60s clothes! We kind of think this looks like Grey’s Anatomy on planes in the 60s. And they play Sinatra in the trailer. It’s worth checking out, we think.

Why We Are Not Excited: It’s not the best looking show of the new season…We really can’t think of much more to put here. We really don’t like Christina Ricci, we guess.

Preview:


Anticipation Score: 7.5

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