This week, Happy Endings is great, The Office is ok, and Ringer forces us to drop it by sucking

Happy Endings - The St. Valentine’s Day Maxssacre

This was probably Alex’s finest episode. She was hilarious getting mistaken for a stripper, staying optimistic about love, and reciting all those historical facts about Saint Valentine’s grisly death. They ripped him tip to taint. We weren’t into Dave’s story, especially when it capped off with him missing a threesome. We are getting sick of the whole threesome trope. We did like his middle school email address. threesomechaser@pulaskimiddleschool.org. Very funny. Brad went to the dentist and got a little too much happy juice. He spent Valentine’s night high, drooling, covered in chocolate, and full of really amusing things to say. He also compared the gang to their respective Friends characters. Comical. Penny gets dumped by a guy she wanted to dump, but she felt like it would be kind to not dump him in the “break-up window.” That’s when a holiday or big personal event crops up and it would be cruel to dump someone. Max finds his ex, Grant, and the two share a kiss. Grant is played by the lead of that really good cancelled show, Lone Star. This episode had so many laughs that we are glad we’re not doing a full recap of it. We’re running out of synonyms for “funny.” It was so droll, you guys.

Episode grade: A

Ringer - What Are You Doing Here, Ho-Bag?

We officially do not care about this show anymore or anyone in it. It moves at a glacial pace. The reveals are not shocking. We don’t care about the characters. The episode titles are immature and try too hard to be clever at the same time. The show doesn’t know if its audience is composed of stupid adults or of teenagers who enjoy watching mostly adults. The episodes are too long. We have six other shows that we watch on Tuesday nights. Its situations are implausible and character motivations are unclear. The show is not entertaining to us. For a while, it seemed to get better, but the long break took its toll on our ability to remember this show was even on. The two episodes, including this one, after the hiatus have only served to bore us to tears. We have much better things to watch and not a whole lot of time, especially since we started posting more and doing longer reviews. We may tune in for the finale, just to see the conclusion of this mess. Better luck next time, SMG and The CW.

Episode grade: F because it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

The Office - Special Project

The single best scene of this episode was when Dwight was in the conference room, teaching his new team about Florida. It had great small jokes, especially if you are familiar with Florida. We are. Yes, there are too many mosquitoes. This episode was just ok, but it set up some things that will likely pay off later in the season. Like Kathy being after Jim, sexually. What a whooooooore. We know Jim won’t cheat on Pam, but it will be fun to watch Kathy try to get him, only to fail and then get fired. Also, it will be fun to see Dwight and his team in Florida. Lots of people think Dwight plots are weak, but we can’t get enough Dwight. On The Office anyway. We are still unsure about the Dwight spinoff they are considering.

Episode grade: B-

Ringer - It Just Got Normal

Oh man. That was SUCH a weak midseason opener. This episode wasted so much time and spent so long on stupidity (Juliet and her teacher), and then it ended on a cliffhanger that probably won’t deliver any twists. The episode was hyped for showing the twins in the same location, but they didn’t even exchange words. Siobhan just watched Bridget in the shower. Agent Machado has to be the worst agent of all time if he can’t think, “Hmm, none of this is making sense and they look the same. Maybe I should make sure Siobhan isn’t Bridget.” By this point, with all the clues he’s gotten, why hasn’t the thought crossed his mind?

One of the reasons we hated this episode is that we had to wait so long to watch it. The return was promised on January 10^th and delivered on January 31^st. When the show left us, we still cared, at least a little. The show spent half a season winning us over, slowly. Now we are having trouble remembering where we left off and WHY we cared in the first place. The most intriguing thing in this episode was Bridget’s hair. She has bangs now, and we can’t tell if it’s a win or a fail. We’re leaning toward win, since SMG looked so young near the end of the episode with them. That’s right, douche-y kid at Ern’s school: SMG is not looking “old and saggy.” She’s still got it. Now with bangs. You, however, are still weird-looking.

Bridget meets an old friend of Siobhan’s named Greer. Shiv and Greer had a falling out, so Greer is acting cold, but Bridget wants to make up with Greer. She volunteers to help Greer’s fundraiser for Juliet’s public school. Bridget hosts a benefit for Greer’s cause. Juliet attends and gets drunk, so Andrew sends Juliet to her bedroom. Bridget intuits that something is going on with Juliet, so she goes into Juliet’s room to talk to her. You don’t get inappropriately drunk and holler across the room at your teacher for no reason. Juliet tells Bridget that she is trying to avoid Logan Carpenter. Juliet also tells a big fat fib that Logan slept with her.

This makes us seriously hate Juliet. Logan has handled this situation almost perfectly. He should have alerted a guidance counselor and another teacher that Juliet was throwing herself at him. Of course, that would have embarrassed Juliet. Bridget believes Juliet, marches out into the middle of the party, and punches Logan in the face. It’s a really good punch. Nice to see you, Buffy. The whole episode kind of built up to this moment, but we knew it was coming, because when the last episode of Ringer aired, we saw the preview for this episode. Then we waited until January 31^st to see the moment, AFTER about 35 minutes of people walking around with their heads in their asses.

Greer and Bridget have a heart-to-heart and make up. Bridget finds out that Greer knew about the Henry affair and resented it. Bridget tells Greer that Henry is no longer in the picture and Andrew never found out. Speaking of Henry, Siobhan is in town and determined to get him back. We watch Siobhan sneak into Andrew’s apartment and then into his home so that she can steal info about his company. We don’t know what her endgame is and this takes up time, so it was more boring than it sounds. Siobhan also steals the ring that Andrew gave to Bridget. Bridget doesn’t know where it went and has to tell Andrew that she got it re-sized.

Andrew and Bridget are getting along swimmingly. While Juliet was mortified at the punching incident, Andrew was impressed with his “wife’s” new motherly tendencies. They are cute together, even though you know it’s all going to come crashing down. Agent Machado might be the reason these two will break up, because he’s getting ever closer, if only as slowly as a three-year-old piecing together a 500-piece Mona Lisa jigsaw puzzle. Henry is helping Machado find Bridget Kelly. At the end of the episode, the real Siobhan seems close to explaining things to Henry. Finally, Malcolm gets a job at Andrew’s firm so that he can keep an eye on Andrew.

You have to keep in mind that nearly everything that we just recapped happened in the last half of the episode. Maybe even the last quarter. We’re not going back to check. So there was a lot of filler and time wasting. There were no new revelations and we really could have skipped this one and watched the “previously” next week. There was a long wait and it was not worth it for this premiere. One of us considered dropping this show on this episode alone, because she’s sick of watching 43 minutes drag by every week with no pay-off. Nothing freaking happened, even though the manic tone of the episode suggested that it did. Also, we still haven't connected with Bridget's motives. We will tune in next week, but it had better be good.

Episode grade: D

SAMCRO Puts On the Best Show (and comments on some other dramas this week)

American Horror Story - “Piggy Piggy”
So, school shootings are horror fodder now? We thought that opening scene was more really sad than scary. Also sad was the cutting scene. Where are Violet’s parents when she is clearly depressed and spending too much time in her room? We are really excited that Violet knows that the house is full of ghosts now, and that Tate is a ghost. This whole Tate being a dead school shooter is going to put a crimp in their love… We are also happy that Vivian is done being nice to Ben. “You’re a disappointment as a man.” Wow, haha. Harsh. Cam from Modern Family guest starred as another ghost patient, and he did a great job. We liked the new medium. We feel bad for Tate, because it seems like the murder house warped his brain and helped cause the shooting. He doesn’t remember doing it, after all.

Episode grade: B

The Walking Dead - “Cherokee Rose”
Rick begs Hershel to let everyone stay at his farm. Maggie and Glenn have sex. Lori realizes that she’s pregnant. AMC is the channel for the “slow burn,” as shown by Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead is going for this. More action, and possibly hope and a plot arc, are probably on the way. In the meantime, people shall grumble that it’s all going slowly and sometimes it can be, at the same time, too bleak and too saccharine. But we’re still invested. We like Rick a lot. When the walker in the well split in two, one of us literally gagged and coughed a little. That was seriously disgusting. Dead guts are nastier than living guts. This show wins the award for grossest show we’ve ever seen, bar none.

Episode grade: B-

Gossip Girl - “I Am Number Nine”
Blair has a “minion-off” where her former “friends” competed for bridesmaids positions. Charlie gets lobbed into the competition when Nelly Yuki doesn’t show, and she wins the spot. Diana and Nate go public while Charlie seems to have developed feelings for him. Serena torpedoes the move deal with Dan when she realizes her boss is going to paint Dan’s character in a negative light. Louis conspires to drive Chuck back into crazytown by bribing Chuck’s therapist. It turns out the baby actually is Louis’. Louis is bad at scheming, so the therapist simply has to close her practice and Blair freaks that Louis is turning into an insecure trickster. Then, the best thing ever happened: Chuck came to Blair and apologized, sincerely, for literally everything wrong he did to her. It was pretty powerful. That scene gets an A+, but the whole episode gets a B. Chuck growing up and healing is just as interesting as Chuck the bad boy. Keep it coming.

Episode grade: B

Ringer - “Maybe We Can Get a Dog Instead”
Andrew thinks that Siobhan had a miscarriage now. Mr. Carpenter does the RIGHT thing and transfers Juliet out of his class when she comes onto him. But Juliet isn’t giving up yet… Malcolm comes to New York and Agent Machado hounds him like he’s Osama Bin Ladin (or whoever the biggest terrorist around now is). Tyler’s affair with Siobhan is over after he comes to New York and sees Bridget with his boss…and thinks it’s Siobhan. Bridget’s new sponsor is tasked with taking care of Malcolm. When Malcolm comes to Bridget for help with his drug addiction, she takes him right to her helpful sponsor. Uh oh… This episode was ok. Things are moving along. The last couple were better.

Episode grade: B-

Sons of Anarchy - “Hands”
This is going to be short, because all there is to say is “OMG” and “this was the best episode of the season so far.”

Episode grade: A

Parenthood - “In-Between”
Seth was actually on the level!!! And he made a major sacrifice for his family and did a sweet thing for his kids. We were touched by this episode. We are also starting to feel for and like Crosby again.

Episode grade: A-

Pan Am - “Truth or Dare”
This could be the best, and most fun, episode yet. The civil rights stuff was too black-and-white and “after school special,” as well-argued by this blog. However, Leeard loves Niko, and it was just a really cute episode.

Episode grade: B+

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-

Ringer continues its "not pissing us off" streak

Ringer - "The Poor Kids Do It Every Day"

Bridget and Andrew try to get Gemma on the phone, but they keep getting her demanding voicemail. When Juliet hands Bridget her stash of drugs, Bridget had to get rid of it. She nearly jizzed in her addict pants just holding the drugs. She called her Narcotics Anonymous friend, Charlie, and he met her at a restaurant. She gave him the drugs and he threw them in the garbage for her. He later agrees to be her sponsor if Bridget agrees to meet him regularly. Man, all of Bridget’s NA sponsors are hella-cute. We’re not fooled into going to a meeting though. This is the CW, where everyone is pretty. And we’ve seen Faces of Meth.

Henry takes Bridget into his home and tells her that Gemma is missing and he found blood! And he freaked out and cleaned it up! Bridget tells him that was a terrible idea that would make him look guilty. Henry accuses Bridget of killing his wife, and Bridget, in turn, is pretty convinced that Henry did it. We’re pretty sure Henry did it, at this point in the episode. Henry tells Bridget about an incident where Siobhan suggested getting rid of both Gemma and Andrew. When Henry wasn’t into that. Siobhan acted like she was joking. Finally, Henry decides that Siobhan wasn’t capable of murdering her best friend, so he tells Bridget that he threw the cleaning supplies, broken pot, and bloody rags in a dumpster.

Bridget goes dumpster diving. Then she calls the police, anonymously, and says that Gemma was probably a victim of foul play. She offers up the location of the evidence as proof of her claims. The cops investigate and question Henry. They stop when they find Bridget Kelly’s fingerprints on the pot. No, Bridget isn’t that dumb. In fact, she’s thinking way more than she usually does. She left the fingerprint on purpose in order to get the cops’ scent off of herself and Henry. Agent Machado received a call from the cops investigating the Gemma Butler matter, and they give him the information about Bridget’s fingerprint.

Agent Machado almost finds Malcolm, but like a STUPID DUMBASS goes to the strip club without a warrant and asks to look around. This gives the gangsters plenty of time to clean up their basement and move Malcolm. By the time Agent Machado returns with his warrant, it's too late. Malcolm, meanwhile, is close to breaking and telling the gangsters where Bridget Kelly is. The last part of the episode blew our minds (well, as much as this show can blow our minds). Siobhan takes a phone call from someone who lets her know that “the Gemma problem has been taken care of.” Siobhan replies, “I didn’t want it to have come to this.” We can’t believe it wasn’t Henry!

In subplot, Juliet has her first day of public school, and she’s decided that since the poor kids don’t have enough clothes, she shouldn’t wear too many. It’s more likely that she wore a short skirt was in order to get a rise out of her dad, whom she is clearly seeking attention from. Bridget reminded her that this is a fresh start, and who in the world doesn’t want a fresh start? So Juliet changed clothes. She should have taken off one of her 50 pieces of jewelry. Too much bling is tacky, distracting, and, in Juliet’s case, it screamed, “I’m a rich girl.”

When Juliet gets to her first class, a mean girl demands five dollars. Juliet gives the girl a 20 and makes a crack about it being enough to feed her family for a week. Oh, Juliet. The best tactic would have been to refuse her any money, give her some intense eye contact while doing so, and then to turn around and ignore her. But teens on The CW never make the best choices, do they? Juliet’s teacher is Logan Echolls from Veronica Mars (YAY!), and we saw sparks between him and Juliet in their second scene together. Oh dear. Another teacher/student thing. But we actually think this might be healthy for a girl as messed up as Juliet, so you won’t see us whining like we do with Pretty Little Liars. Also, one of us will always love Logan Echolls.

The mean girl shoves Juliet in the hallway, and Juliet retaliates. The girls are pulled apart mid-fight, and the students tell the principal that Juliet started it, because they are all on the mean girls’ side. Andrew is called to the school, and Juliet is scandalized when he doesn’t believe that she didn’t start the fight. We are a little sick of how devastated Juliet is when her father doesn’t trust her. When your permanent record “reads like a rap sheet” (thank you, clichéd dialogue writers) and you keep hard drugs in your room, you have lost the right to have your word taken at face value. The teacher, Mr. Carpenter, backs Juliet’s story up, even though he didn’t actually see how the fight started. He just felt bad because Juliet cried to him about being the new kid who couldn’t ditch her sordid past.

This was one of the best (if not THE best) episode of Ringer yet. We like that Gemma is gone, because we never really liked that character. Our main complaint at this point is that they are wasting LOST’s Nestor Carbonell on a character who is not very savvy and is given very little to do. Agent Machado needs to step it up. They need to involve his character in the doings of the others on an emotional level. Also, Henry needs to die.

Episode grade: A-

Some shows got picked up. We love it.

Full seasons have been ordered for The Secret Circle, Ringer, Hart of Dixie, Revenge, and Suburgatory. Also, ABC has ordered 6 more scripts of Happy Endings. We're pretty excited about all of them. Except for maybe Hart of Dixie.

http://www.eonline.com/news/watch_with_kristin/cw_picks_up_all_its_new_shows_plus_more/269078

http://www.eonline.com/news/watch_with_kristin/abc_picks_up_revenge_suburgatory_full/269293

It's time for Bridget to sleep with Andrew. We know his relationship sucked, but how long can they plausibly go without doing it now?

Ringer - "A Whole New Kind of Bitch"

Gemma doesn’t believe Bridget at first, but then she notes that Bridget doesn’t have a burn scar on her wrist like Siobhan did. At this point, Gemma turns into a raging bitch. She says that she wants a divorce, but she’s looking ahead to the settlement part of the whole debacle. She wants all of her money and custody of the kids. Fortunately for her, there is an infidelity clause in their prenuptial agreement. Unfortunately for her, infidelity is hard to prove in a court of law when you have no evidence and your husband will just deny it.

Gemma calls Bridget out for being a drug-addict, stripper whore who she doesn’t know from Eve. She agrees to keep Bridget’s secret if Bridget will sleep with her husband at a certain time so that Gemma can burst in and catch them. Bridget, knowing what kind of shame that will bring into her psyche, freaks and doesn’t want to do it. She meets up with another addict she met at New York’s Narcotics Anonymous chapter. He tells her not to do something she can’t live with. Juliet follows Bridget and sees her at the group.

Juliet, who earlier painted the word “whore” on the big, vain picture of Siobhan’s face and had a drug party while Andrew was away, still hates Siobhan. Bridget finds out that this is because Siobhan slept with Andrew while he was still married to Juliet’s mom. Juliet assumes that Bridget/Siobhan is going to the NA group to snoop and get information about addicts to use against Juliet. Juliet is being threatened with rehab, which sounds like a good idea to us. Instead, Andrew decides to send her to public school. And the worst parent award goes to…. Also, if your daughter has abused your trust by clearly doing drugs and trashing your house, her privacy privileges go bye-bye.

Bridget meets Henry at a bar and tells him that his wife knows about the affair and wanted to set him up to get caught. Great solution, Bridget! Palm your problem off to the jerk and tell him to take care of things. Henry is reeling from his book deal being dropped by his publisher, so his impending divorce is less than welcome news. Who is having the worst week ever? Turns out, it is Gemma, because it looks like Henry just killed her at the end of the episode.

Bridget and Andrew have to go collect Juliet from a nightclub. She acts like a brat at first, but then Bridget apologizes to Juliet and says that Siobhan should never have slept with Andrew while he was still married. Andrew seems flabbergasted that an actual adult has to own up to a real mistake and apologize to a child. It worked like a charm with Juliet, and it should. We are starting to like Bridget, Juliet, and Andrew. This episode helped us like the girls in that trio even more. Bridget’s decisions this week, for the most part, went a long way in helping us care what happens to her character.

This was probably the most fun and twisty episode so far. There were some real stakes. Plus, you know we like when people die on our TV shows. Death always moves things along! What this show needs to do now is make Siobhan’s side of the story interesting. What is she even doing? The show needs to give us a little hint as to her master plan if they are going to show her again. Agent Machado needs to be integrated into the story more. The whole Malcolm captured by the bad guys thing needs to end.

This show has gotten a lot better since the premiere, so if you tuned out after that, catch up. What do we always say (since Nikita and Mad Men) about five episodes? That’s how long you need to stick around to get the measure of most shows. It’s still a frothy, ridiculous soap opera. But for what it is, last night’s episode was good.

Episode grade: A-

And this show just got a full season pickup

Dear Henry, Go Away

Ringer - "It’s Gonna Kill Me, But I’ll Do It"

Ringer, you sneaky show! Way to do something a little fun. The show is little more than a soap opera with more onscreen action and Sarah Michelle Gellar, but it got a lot better since the pilot. We don’t know how much that says, since we gave the pilot a C+, but it’s promising.

It’s certainly not what we would call an intelligent thriller. Those looking for that should head over to Showtime and watch Homeland. But this was probably our favorite episode so far. Most importantly, we still want to know what happens enough to keep watching. Now more than ever. This is only the fourth episode, after all.

Spoilers start here.

Gemma finds out that Siobhan had a sister! But that’s not all. Gemma heard Henry talking to Siobhan (really Bridget) about their love and love child. But THAT’S not all. Bridget had to tell Gemma that she was Bridget and not Siobhan! Dun dun dunnnnn. End of episode. Now we actually can’t wait to see what happens on this show next week.

Someone got slapped, Andrew’s accent gets cuter every week, there’s no terrible green screen in sight, Agent Machado is still on the trail and is getting closer, and we got some flashbacks of the sisterhood gone wrong.

The only boring thing at this point is Siobhan. She’s off whoring and trying to not get kicked out of her hotel. But “the plan’s back on.” It’s about time she does something besides sit around in Paris.

Episode Grade: B+

But Could You Really Sleep with Someone Who Has Also Slept with Your Twin Sister? How Could That Not Be Some Sort of Incest?

Parenthood - “Step Right Up”

The Alex drama has ended! Haddie’s daddy came through and was able to talk the couple pressing charges into dropping them. Julia made peace with the coffee girl, who said that she needed to have a closed adoption, because giving her baby to someone she knew and liked would be too hard, which is understandable. Zeek helped Drew ask out a girl, which was adorable. The man has game.

HOWEVER, one should not give a girl more than one compliment when using Zeek’s techniques. One good one is more than enough. An implied compliment is better if the girl is smart. Many or obvious compliments make the guy seem untrustworthy and like he's coming on too strong. Beware guys: Someone recently made this mistake with Ern. It is irreparable.

Episode grade: B+

Ringer - “If You Ever Want a French Lesson…”

This episode didn’t advance the plot much other than to get rid of Bridget’s bestie and let us know that Andrew isn’t behind the hit on Siobhan/Bridget. Like we even suspected him in the first place? So he and Bridget ended up even cozier. Siobhan knows she is pregnant now. This is turning out like a romance novel you could buy in the grocery store, but we kind of like it. We still want to know what happens.

Episode grade: C+

Sons of Anarchy- “Una Venta”

SAMTAZ is lame, right? Gemma needs better things to do lately, other than running around and making sure John Teller’s secrets are never told and signing up Tara to help her save the park. The past couple of episodes have had one of the best characters on what we would call the sidelines. We’re digging her unlikely ally though. This drug-running thing is bothering us as much as it does some of the club members.

Episode Grade: B-

Comments on some dramas this week: Ringer, Sons of Anarchy, Parenthood, The Lying Game

Ringer was a little better this week. It made a little more sense. Not much, but a little, and it slowed down a bit. What we really liked was the scene where Bridget comforted Siobhan’s stepdaughter and Andrew saw it. Andrew and Bridget are going to fall in love, and we like the idea of that a lot better than the idea of Bridget falling for Siobhan’s best friend’s husband, who is clearly a douchebag.

The ratings for Ringer this week were low, so it may not stay on long enough to continue improving. At this point, we have stopped hating Bridget, Andrew, and Juliet, and we still want to know what happens and what Siobhan is up to.

Sons of Anarchy was very character develop-y and quiet this week, building to something bloody, no doubt. Clay is a liar, but at least he saved someone from being devoured by flesh-eating ants. Ahh, mercy killings. Have we mentioned that we love Tara? We definitely have.

Parenthood continues to be real and sweet and totally enjoyable. There were few surprises this week, but we loved watching Max trying to fit in at his new school. We liked when he indignantly yelled, “I looked you in the eyes!” after being shunned by classmates, as if following the social rules set out by his mother should be enough to absolutely earn friendship. And poor Julia. We think there was a better way to ask the coffee girl for her baby. Not at work, first of all. We think she will get that baby yet.

The only thing we have to say about The Lying Game is this: We hate unnecessary breakups. But we were surprised at Justin's secret. We thought he was evil or devious or something. Sure fooled us, show.

Ringer: B
Sons of Anarchy: A-
Parenthood: A-

The Lying Game: B

Ringer pilot - It has potential...to be either good or really, really disappointing

This is spoiler-free, but stay out of the comments

Ringer is a crowd-pleaser. If your crowd has ADHD, doesn't look at things closely, and doesn't care about the thought processes and feelings of characters. The show has many twists, a pretty blonde lead, the makings of a decent love triangle, danger, and fast pacing. The scenes are very short, like in Sex and the City or X-Men First Class. The showrunners know that the viewers’ attention span is short before they are hooked on a show, so the pilot did a lot of jumping around between characters and did a lot in a short period of time. While some might have found this distracting and confusing, we liked it.

You know what's going to happen in the set-up of this show, so it's best that they get on with it as quickly as possible. If you saw the preview or have been reading anything about this one, you pretty much know everything about the pilot. If you haven’t seen the preview and if you are completely lost as to what happens on this show, you will be entertained by the pilot, but underwhelmed by the flat characters. We hope they become interesting later on. It’s not just plot that needs to have layers.

We wouldn’t say this is high quality, artistic stuff. It’s guilty-pleasure mystery/noir. We liked the presence of Richard Alpert from LOST, and Sarah Michelle Gellar is more than fine. A commenter pointed out earlier that she played both characters too similarly, but we think we haven’t seen enough of Siobhan to determine that yet. Siobhan was clearly putting on an act for her sister, and her reputation with her family is completely different from the Siobhan we saw interacting with Bridget when the reunited for the first time in six years.

We wonder if many people would like the idea of trading lives with someone else. You know how it’s so much easier to give advice about other people’s problems than do the right thing in your own life? Someone else’s life would be less painful and easier. The people wouldn’t grate on you like the people you’ve have to live with for years or grow up with. The problems would be simpler, if only because you wouldn’t care as much and the emotions, good and bad, would be gone. You’d have a little more freedom. You wouldn’t be too worried about messing things up, because it’s not even your life. Everything would be new and exciting. Of course, for Bridget, things aren’t going to be easy or fun, or that just wouldn’t make a good TV show.

This show really needs to find its emotional center, fast. Soapy intrigue and twists are nice, but we need to genuinely care about the characters, eventually. Also, we seriously question Bridget’s decisions and their logic. She does some dumb stuff for dumb reasons. (We explain more about this in the spoiler-y comments.) The show is unoriginal and the dialogue is bad so far. The writers said that they want to be like the Breaking Bad writers, but Breaking Bad’s genius isn’t just in its twists, but in its atmosphere, imagery, foreshadowing, characters, dialogue, and just scene-by-scene precision and excellence. We should really hold off our final judgment of Ringer until seeing a few more episodes though. Pilots can be clunky.

We wouldn’t say this was a great episode, but it does get the ball rolling with lots of action and set-up. We won’t have to wait around and watch things we already know are going to happen when next week rolls by, because the pilot got through most of the exposition early (like most pilots do). It definitely made us want to tune in again to see what happens next, and what more could you really ask for in a pilot? Maybe better special effects on the boat scene, but we don’t care that much about special effects. Maybe a better opera singer in the fundraiser scene? Because that wasn’t pretty and was every negative stereotype people associate with opera, except that the singer was thin and pretty.

Ringer has some big problems that will take talent, effort, and taste to fix. They aren't easy problems to fix either. Just putting five twists in an episode won't make up for everything else being sloppy. We hope the writers were just trying to sell a dumb pilot to the networks, who usually underestimate the viewers' intelligence. We hope they dig deeper next week and in the coming weeks. We really want to like this show and we want it to succeed and get better.

Episode Grade: C+

But it has earned a pass for the next couple of weeks.

New Show #22: Ringer

Ringer
The CW. Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Starring: Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Grudge, Cruel Intentions), Nestor Carbonell (LOST, The Dark Knight), and Kristoffer Polaha (Life Unexpected).

Plot: It’s like The Lying Game, only way more adult. We have two twins, Bridget and Siobhan. What is it with twin shows and insisting on giving one of the twins a ridiculous name? Bridget is a recovering addict who used to be in the sex industry. She’s getting better, but, sadly, she just witnessed a murder so she has to spend a lot of time hiding from the mob. Bridget goes to her twin’s home to hide, but then Siobhan disappears. Believing Siobhan is dead (falsely), Bridget assumes her life. But Siobhan’s life is crazy and dangerous.

Why We Are Excited: What’s great about THESE twins is that they don’t really like each other. Enemy twins are a lot more exciting than twins in cahoots. It looks super fun. And Sarah Michelle Gellar! This looks dark and it’s a serial. We love that.

Why We Are Not Excited: The premise is a tad outlandish. What we are most worried about is that it will get cancelled. This is a CW show that doesn’t prominently feature teenage girls. That’s off-brand for this channel. Hopefully the kiddies will embrace it and the adults will tune in. It worked with Nikita (even though one character was a young girl).

Preview:


Anticipation Score: 9/10

Be sure to click on the "##Upcoming Shows## link in the cloud so you can stay apprised. And let us know if you think you will be watching any of them!