An interesting affair, Dexter nearly forgives, Will might get disbarred, best kiss of the year, Taylor's son, and hoarders.

Homeland - “The Good Soldiers”
Brody finally punches his best friend for sleeping with his wife. Then he goes right off and sleeps with Carrie. Can you believe it? The encounter lets Carrie know that Brody is really good at taking polygraphs. Did Saul slip the terrorist the razor blade? THAT would be interesting. On any other show, the new affair would be tawdry and silly. On this show, it’s intense and psychologically sick. We love it.

Episode grade: A-

Dexter - “Just Let Go”
Who knew this Brother Sam thing would actually push Dexter even further to the darkness? He has a new person sitting on his shoulder, like his ghost dad. It’s his amoral serial killer brother. Dexter now believes that his dark passenger runs the show after he took revenge on Brother Sam’s killer. Brother Sam’s death made one of us tear up. When he told Dexter that he could see Dexter’s darkness, but he could see his light too, we got choked up. We kind of feel like that’s what God says to people. Brother Sam was the real deal. He had wanted Dexter to deliver a message of forgiveness. Dexter tried, but when the killer wasn't contrite, Dexter decided to off him. It's Dexter, so we'd really have it no other way. Anyway, it’s going to really rev this season up to see Dexter go off the rails and fight his established rules. His snapping and drowning of the murderer in the same lake where the murderer was baptized was amazing. We’re glad Travis let the girl go, but we are even more glad that Travis and Gellar aren’t the only big bads in town, because they aren’t that scary. The Ice Truck Killer is better.

Episode grade: A-

The Good Wife - “Executive Order 13224”
Peter goes after Will for a past indiscretion that could really hurt his firm and cause him to lose his license. Client trust accounts are no joke. Alicia is almost prosecuted for protecting attorney/client privilege, but she gets a good lawyer of her own. This episode wasn’t the show’s best. We had a hard time getting into it, it felt fragmented, and we didn’t feel like the case got enough attention. However, we liked the guy who investigated Alicia. That was an interesting, fun little character. There wasn't enough Eli Gold either.
Episode grade: B-

How I Met Your Mother - “Disaster Averted”
The gang tells Kevin the fun story about how they survived the August hurricane together. Marshall delivered two slaps to Barney and got two more, in exchange for Barney being allowed to remove the ducky tie. He is about to meet Nora’s parents, after all. But the real news of the night is that Barney and Robin totally kissed! More than kissed! Made out. And it was gorgeous. It wasn’t a flashback either. We kind of feel bad for Kevin but not Nora. It’s half because she’s too pretty and half because she keeps trying to change Barney, and Robin likes Barney for who he is. We are huge Barney/Robin shippers, so we were squealing last night. The Marshall and Lily stuff was funny too. It’s been a while since that happened!
Episode grade: A-

Terra Nova - “Nightfall”
This was a B episode of a C+ show, meaning that it was better than usual, but it was still crappy compared to most of the things we watch. It started out slowly, even though there was a lot of action. Action isn’t necessarily interesting. There need to be high stakes and characters we care about. A meteor crashes and wipes out all the power and technology. Jim and Zoe get stuck underground and are out of the action. We get to hear Jim sing a song about spiders to Zoe. Maddy and Reynolds have their first date. Hunter gets operated on and tells Skye that he has feelings for her. Taylor forces Boylan to get the tech up and running. Mira and the Sixers heard dinosaurs into attacking Terra Nova and steal Mira’s box. Mira gives it to Taylor's son! The Taylor’s son stuff is the only reason to stick around, at this point
Episode grade: B

2 Broke Girls - “And Hoarder Culture”
Aww, Johnny. Say it ain’t so. He wronged our girl, Max, but he made up for it in the end. He needs to dump his hot, black, British girlfriend and get with Max, ASAP, but we understand and appreciate that he doesn’t want to be a jerk. Just because he likes Max doesn’t mean that he has to leave his current relationship. Meanwhile, Caroline gets paid to organize the apartment of a hoarder. Max is enthused by this. We like seeing Max that happy every once-in-a-while. The too-mean, depressing Max hasn’t been seen in weeks! We love it. We are also sighing with relief that the show has gotten better in the past couple of weeks. We predicted that it had potential, and we are glad that we weren’t wrong. And not just because we hate to be wrong.
Episode grade: B+

2 Broke Girls and Terra Nova: Listen, Battlefield Earth

2BG - “And the Pretty Problem”

We’ve heard two main criticisms of this show, and now we’ve heard these criticisms again from a source that we actually like, so we shall name them and respond. They are 1) Max is too mean to Caroline and the show can be mean-spirited in general, and 2) the show is racist. As for the first thing, we agree with half of it. Max can sometimes say cutting things to Caroline in a way that comes across as cold and disrespectful. While we hope that is toned down as the show goes on (the last couple of episodes seem to have gotten rid of it, for the most part), it doesn’t ruin the show for us. We are more concerned with the number of groan-worthy sex jokes. Friends did sex jokes right. This show doesn't really get how to make those funny.

As for the show being mean-spirited in general, we don’t care about that. The world the girls live in is snooty and harsh. Hipsters and hippies always deserve to be mocked. Also, people who are rude to waitresses should be mocked. Regarding the second point, we think Han is funny, so we don’t mind that he is a caricature. The Ukrainian guy (Oleg) needs to go though, stat. Last night, the show stereotyped American/Jersey Italians (not regular Italians. There's a difference). While these criticisms are true, they don’t ruin the show for us, and we can see them becoming less of a problem as the girls bond and more side characters are introduced. We already have Johnny, and he’s pretty cool. The “insult cupcake” idea is perfect for these girls and the show. Decent episode this week.
Episode grade: B-
TN- “Bylaw”

This show is lucky it’s on Mondays, the stalest night of the TV week, except for Saturdays. One thing annoying that we noticed is how Elizabeth is always so perfect in her interactions with the ever-annoying Zoe. When Zoe played sick to visit Elizabeth at work, Elizabeth’s reaction just didn’t feel authentic. That’s not how parents sound. We’re not saying she should have screamed at the kid. She just shouldn’t have sounded so rehearsed and like a Brady Bunch mom. None of the parent/child interactions feel real to us.

Something we like? The female cop. She seems like a no-nonsense professional. And we also still like Taylor. During this episode, we were most interested in Josh’s fight to get his girlfriend to Terra Nova. He described the future as a place so bad that some of his friends killed themselves. That makes sense. There’s a saying that goes, “What you believe about your future controls what you do in the present.” That’s why hope is so important, we guess. It makes sense that Josh would do anything, even work for Mira, for someone he cares about. We like that kid.

We liked that Jim and Elizabeth had a little fight in the episode about what should be done with the prisoner. This family needs to start acting more like a Friday Night Lights family and less like the Cleavers. The plot was decent, but we can’t say the show has hooked both of us yet. It’s halfway through its first season, so that’s not a good sign. And OF COURSE Zoe has a pet dinosaur now. Ugh. Ok, ok. We admit it’s a little cute.

Episode grade: C+

Why didn't enough comedies turn in Halloween episodes? (We're looking at you Modern Family and Up All Night)

Happy Endings - “Spooky Endings”
Jane and Brad decide to spend Halloween in the suburbs to get a look at their future, because Jane doesn’t want to raise kids in the city. Jane dresses as Bacon, but Brad forgets his Egg costume. Things go awry when they don’t have enough candy for the big kids. Then it’s war. Penny has Max’s head sticking out of her stomach in a baby Bjorn for her costume. It’s even funnier than it sounds. Dave dresses as Austin Powers, but that was so ten years ago, so no one knows who he is and thinks he is Elton John. Alex gets a raspy voice because she has a cold, dresses as Marilyn Monroe, and is mistaken for a transvestite. This might be our favorite Halloween episode of the season. We’ve just realized how eternally bummed we will be if this show doesn’t stick around.

Episode grade: A

South Park - “Broadway Bro Down”
The South Park guys have gotten a second wind since they don’t have to focus so much on The Book of Mormon and it seems they have re-committed to making the show good. This episode spoofs many Broadway shows, Sondheim, and veganism. For people who like Broadway and recognize the shows and how similar the mock tunes sound to the actual scores, this episode is an even bigger treat. This episode featured less Cartman than we usually like, but it more than made up for it in plentiful crass humor and theater references.

Episode grade: A

Community - “Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps”
Britta gets the gang to share scary stories in order to determine who got a score of “psycho” on her personality test she gave out for psychology class. It turns out Britta put the tests into the scoring machine the wrong way, so when she re-scored them, she found that all of the group’s members were crazy except for one. We love that it was Abed who isn’t the psycho one! That makes the most sense, anyway. This was really funny for people who know the characters of this show, because each person’s scary story fit them so well. We died laughing at Pierce’s. Shirley’s made us hate her a little, but it was still funny.

Episode grade: A-

2 Broke Girls - “And the Disappearing Bed”
Caroline has to put together a Murphy bed without the help of a man. Max has to work up the stones to give Peach a business card for the cupcake business, because Peach is having a birthday party for her children. Both girls succeed in their tasks, with mixed results. Max develops an adorable crush on Johnny from the bar. We like where this was going. This episode was one of the show’s best, and it’s one that we wish had aired early on in the show’s run, so that people checking it out could have used this episode in order to judge the show. Also, what is up with vision boards on TV lately? Who is the lobbyist who got vision boards on multiple shows in less than a week? They should have vision boards on, like, Terra Nova. What is up with vision boards' increasing popularity? The Secret came out years ago, and it's still stupid now.

Episode grade: B+

The Office - “Spooked”
Oh, Office. We dropped you, but then we were bored and marathoned your newest episodes. Not bad. Not good either, but not bad. Good enough to get you back on our watch list. The episode “Garden Party” was the best of the bunch, because it had lots of good Dwight/Jim interactions. The Halloween episode wasn’t too shabby either. The writers nailed the costume choices. We enjoyed Robert California’s plot to figure out everyone’s deepest fears in order to tell the perfect ghost story. We are liking Andy better, especially since he got that tattoo. We still don’t like Erin though. And it looks like we never will.

Episode grade: B

Parks and Recreation - “Meet ‘n Greet”
This episode had way too much Tom, and that’s why it’s gotten the lowest grade of the season so far. While all the characters on this show are necessary and funny, Tom is the least so (even though we love Aziz Ansari). Tom emcees an event for Leslie’s campaign, but it ends up being all about him and his company. In the end, Tom admits to Leslie that his company has failed. We didn’t think this plotline was funny. We were just embarrassed for Tom and Leslie. Fortunately, the B-plot saved it. Andy and April threw a Halloween party to Ben’s displeasure, because they didn’t warn him first. Ron Swanson and Ann fix things around Andy and April’s house rather than join the party. With most of our strongest characters bringing laughs at the Halloween party, Tom had no chance of stealing this show.

Episode grade: B

Suburgatory - “Halloween”
This creatively named episode had Tessa dressing as a mock suburban girl, complete with a bump-it, track suit, and heels. But then her friends tell her that she looks and speaks just like the girl who used to live in Tessa’s house, who went to "a better place". Tessa’s friends perform an exorcism, but then their long-gone classmate returns. Crisis averted? George tries to convince Dallas that being scared can be fun so that Dallas will give him permission to decorate his lawn for Halloween. Yep, there’s a home-owner’s association. George finally meets Dallas’ husband, Steven. Neither of the plots really worked for us, but they were interspersed with good enough jokes that this episode squeaked by with an above average grade. The guillotine helped.

Episode grade: B-

How I Met Your Mother - “Noretta”
It’s finally time for Barney to sleep with Nora, but things on their date keep going wrong and ruining their date. Barney always finds a way to turn it around though. Also, the gang ponders the weirdness of how people tend to end up with someone with similarities to their parents. One of us thought this episode was funny. The end tag was pretty great, and the episode didn’t try to shoehorn a bunch of things in. The other blogger wanted to slap this episode with a big F for being unoriginal and unnecessary filler, but even she has to admit that the concept has merit. People DO end up with their parents a lot of the time. After all, Ern has always been attracted to Republican guys.

Episode grade: C+

She’s a whole lotta ball of fire with no flame.

How I Met Your Mother - “History v. Mystery”
Everyone bought smartphones, causing Barney and Robin to research all of Ted’s dates before he goes out with them. Ted goes out with the perfect woman, and Robin and Barney ruin it by letting him know that she is perfect. Thus, he is too intimidated to talk to her. Of course, because it’s Ted. Marshall and Lily try to keep their baby’s gender a secret from everyone, including themselves. But Barney doesn’t like that plan. Turns out, it’s a boy, so now Marshall and Lily can get that ugly yellow color off the nursery walls. We thought the flashback to Ted’s horrible dates were funny, and we like Robin’s boyfriend and think he’s fitting in a lot better than Zoey did. However, pregnancy has been done to death on TV and Ted’s main date was kind of boring. This one wasn’t bad, but it was forgettable.

Episode grade: C

2 Broke Girls - “And the ‘90s Horse Party”
Caroline plans a ‘90s party at the diner when she realizes that rich hipsters will come and pay money to ride her horse. This takes care of both Max’s bad credit and her student loans (Max was an art major). Man, how come our mutual friend named Caroline doesn’t own a horse that can help us pay off our debts? Caroline’s ex-boyfriend shows up at the diner multiple times. He stopped calling when Caroline lost her old life and money. Caroline was not yet ready to face him, but Max was more than ready and willing to be a total jerk to him. It was wonderful. An episode where a filthy, cowardly ex gets told off, the girls bond even more, and hipsters get made fun of? We like.

Episode grade: B+

America’s Next Top Model - “Coco Rocha”
Now THERE’S a photo shoot we like. However, we think it’s pretty funny that these girls are always having to do these dramatic photo shoots with emotions and character. Every time we flip through a Vogue magazine, the models are just standing there, with no expression, wearing clothes that would look better on a little boy’s body than any woman’s. But it is fun to watch. Kayla and Alison sucked on set, but because they are so dang photogenic, it worked out for them. It was down to Alexandria and Bre for the cut. Of course they wouldn’t get rid of drama/entertainment source Alexandria. So it was Bre’s turn to go. We don’t mind. As long as Alison wins, this Cycle will justify its existence. Also, the quote in the title was from this episode. Haha, these models don’t even know what they are saying.

Episode grade: B

Up All Night - “Birth”
We get a whole flashback episode where Reagan is still pregnant and has to have a C-section when her birthing plan goes awry. Chris debates leaving his law firm and Ava makes it all about herself, as per usual. Yeah, this stuff happened. But we don’t remember ever asking to see it. We still like this show, but we didn’t laugh much in the episode. Maybe we’ve just seen too many TV births. Unless they were going to have something crazy happen, this was unnecessary. Leeard liked it a lot more than Ern did.

Episode grade: B-

Suburgatory - “Don’t Call Me Shirley”
Sheila’s daughter steals her Shirley Temple doll collection, and Sheila thinks it was an intruder who stole them. This makes the whole town a little crazy. Dallas and Dalia stay at Tessa’s house for protection. Tessa tries to take the blame so that her dad will think the suburbs are having a bad influence on her, but he’s no dummy. We thought it was really sweet how Tessa’s dad joked at the end about how well he knows her. We loved Tessa’s line when Dalia was sleeping.

Episode grade: B

Modern Family - “Go Bullfrogs!”
Phil takes Haley to his old college to try and spark her interest in higher education. Gloria worries that Manny is hiding Playboys. It turns out that he simply bought a device on the internet that was supposed to make him taller so that he could win the affections of a female classmate. Finally, Claire tries to have a night out with Mitchell, Cameron, and some other gay guys. But Mitchell and Cameron are too old for late nights out and they leave Claire with a straight French guy who she flirts with because she thinks he’s gay. Jay gets hooked on a soap opera. Why did we love this so much? Because we got to see Claire not being uptight! We got a few nods to her wilder younger days. Finally, Julie Bowen got to have a fun storyline all to herself. The Jay/Gloria/Manny stuff was the weakest storyline. We also liked that Haley was nice to her dad for most of the trip. And Phil’s bulldog noise.

Episode grade: A+

Happy Endings - “Secrets and Limos”
Jane is into The Secret, it seems. She convinces everyone to make “vision boards” so that they can focus on what they want in life, and the universe will sense that force of desire they create and give them their desires. Penny wishes for outlandish things, and Jane tries to deliver so that Penny keeps believing in the boards/is happy. Brad has trouble telling his boss that he has food on his face. Max does not share this problem. Max and Brad’s boss get along well, until Max misreads a moment and kisses him on the cheek….awkward. Dave gets a horrible, vapid, and offensive girlfriend. She was funny, so we hope she will be back. There’s a good chance he won’t hang onto this one for more than one episode though.

Episode grade: A

South Park - “Bass to Mouth”
The Gerbil on a Mission thing is back. And so is the singing that goes with it. That’s cool though. You expect a certain amount of weird when you watch South Park. The best thing for us (as usual) was the Cartman storyline. We think the lesson of this episode, the midseason premiere, and Scott Tenorman must die is clear: NEVER EAT ANYTHING GIVEN TO YOU BY ERIC CARTMAN. We chuckled more than a few times in this one. So far, South Park is three-for-three with the second half of season 15.

Episode Grade: B+

Also, we caved and caught up on The Office. The Dinner Party episode was good. There was no new episode this week though. Same with Community. We're both bummed.

Our Top Three New Fall Shows (Plus Two Other Favorites Per Blogger)

These are the new shows that we agree are the cream of the crop. After much grumbling, list making, debating, and ranking, we have come up with these three as our joint favorites. And this is without factoring in Grimm and Once Upon a Time, which premiere shortly. In total, Leeard has picked up 13 new shows and Ern has picked up 14. Of these, we agree that these are the ones we mutually enjoy.

• New Girl: What can we say? We both find Zooey Deschanel to be adorable. We like the supporting cast, and the jokes bring forth laughs. Also, her wardrobe is to die for. We both wish baseball would just quit now so we could have new episodes.
• American Horror Story: This show doesn’t know the word “subtlety,” but it’s a weekly sideshow, so maybe subtlety would just try everyone’s patience. But it’s a great gallery of homages for horror fans, we like the cast (ok, we like the daughter, Jessica Lange, and Connie Britton), and it gets to play with a lot of themes. It’s funny, it’s creepy, and, most of all, it's entertaining.
• Suburgatory: New Girl and American Horror Story made this list quickly. Suburgatory had to fight off Prime Suspect, but its likable, snarky heroine, plentiful jokes, and funny cast lifted it to top three status. Best of all? No laugh track.

To placate ourselves, we were allowed one independent pick each and an honorable mention.

Leeard’s pick: Revenge
Leeard would date this show. She would lose her virginity to this show. She’d have a one-night stand with this show, and she’d be really disappointed when it didn’t call her a few days later. But she’d understand, because it’s THAT good and she doesn’t deserve it. Who doesn’t love a plot about revenge? The female characters in this show are the kind of WASPy, passive aggressive evil that WASPs everywhere THINK they are, but they are not. Because the women here are evil, gorgeous geniuses, and when they come down on the competition, it’s delicious. Then we have Nolan, a character who could carry this show all by himself. The show is just so intriguing; we don't know who Emily/Amanda is going to destroy next, but it doesn't really matter. We know it's going to be awesome.

Leeard's Honorable Mention: 2 Broke Girls

This show definitely isn't for everyone, but it's absolutely for Leeard. The banter between Max and Caroline is great, and the show is random without being absurd (well, the horse is a little absurd).

Ern’s pick: Homeland
This was a “duh” thing for Ern. There’s so much interesting stuff going on in this thriller that it threatens to blow Ern’s head off every Sunday. It’s something both guys and girls can enjoy. Half of the sex can cross into “unnecessary”’ territory, but the other half is totally necessary and helps with character development. If you’re looking for humor, this is really not your show. But if you are looking for thrilling, adult drama with multilayered characters and good acting, this will be your favorite fall show. Usually the only shows Ern can't find much to complain about with are Breaking Bad and The Vampire Diaries (ok, the back story is ridiculously complicated), but Homeland is joining that list.

Ern's Honorable Mention: The Secret Circle

Ern is a sucker for stuff with magic and shows that move quickly.

Treat Yo Self

2 Broke Girls - "And the Rich People Problems"
Caroline’s advanced Bruxism is acting up, so she and Max sneak into her old place to get her night guard. The cheap dentist is scary. Max is blown away by Caroline’s old things, particularly her bathtub. Then run off with tons of furs and purses that they can’t sell, because they were inventoried. They did get some good sushi though. Lots of good visual comedy in this episode. The girls’ chemistry was at its best in this episode, and this might be the show’s strongest outing so far.

Episode grade: B+

Up All Night - “Mr. Bob’s Toddler Kaleidoscope”
Chris and Reagan take Amy to an advanced playgroup, and Reagan isn’t good at it. Ava feels like Reagan isn’t spending enough time with her and freaks out. One problem: we can’t remember laughing in this episode. Leeard really enjoyed this episode, though.

Episode grade: B-

Suburgatory - “The Chatterer”
George clashes with a mom on his street, Sheila, who is butting in and trying to co-parent Tessa. He joins the PTA to show that he has what it takes to be a good parent. All of the women like him and his advice on how to get along with their husbands, but Sheila is upset that everyone is listening to him. She quits the PTA. George finally realizes that she is the better PTA leader and resigns. Tessa joins the school paper for her elective requirement and turns it into a tabloid full of high school gossip. We liked that plot better when it was on a Nickelodeon cartoon. She eventually regrets her actions and puts the paper back to its original, boring form. Not a great episode, but not bad either.

Episode grade: B

Happy Endings - “Yesandwitch”
If we were casting directors (and we should be), we would totally pick Megan Mullally to play Penny’s mom. Fortunately, the showrunners were thinking the right way and put her on the show as a party singer. When Penny learns that her mother’s positive attitude is a front for hiding her problems (a recent divorce and a career that’s going nowhere), she tries to snap her mother back to reality. Instead, she crushes her, and it took a nice speech plus a musical number to bring her mom back to normal. Jane and Brad take a couples improv class.

Episode grade: B+

South Park -“The Last of the Meheecans”
The boys have a game where half of them pretend to be U.S. border patrol agents. The other half pretend to be Mexicans trying to sneak across the border. When Butters gets lost and is mistaken for a real Mexican, he starts a revolution where all of the Mexicans want to go back to Mexico, because America’s economy sucks now. Cartman volunteers for the real border patrol and is very good at keeping Mexicans from crossing the border. He fails to keep Butters from coming back to the U.S. though. His team loses the game. None of this makes any sense, but it’s South Park, so that’s not surprising. Plus, it was pretty funny.

Episode Grade: B+

Community - “Remedial Chaos Theory”

Troy and Abed invite the rest of their gang to dinner at their new pad. But Jeff starts six different timelines/parallel realities. There are no real plot consequences to this, but this episode was still one of the show’s strongest and funniest, especially for people who know the characters well. We are extremely impressed with this one. The show's still got it, and then some.

Episode grade: A+

Parks and Recreation - “Pawnee Rangers”
Ron Swanson and Leslie Knope have competing children’s clubs, one for boys and one for girls. Leslie’s is more fun. Ron’s is more awesome. The kids don’t know that though, so the boys join the “Pawnee Goddesses,” leaving Ron alone until Leslie starts him a new, unisex club. Meanwhile, Tom and Donna try to teach Ben to relax and shop. He buys a Batman costume and cries over Leslie. That cowl does nothing for him… This was really funny episode, as usual.

Episode grade: A-

Suck It Up, Robin. We're currently sober and above our desks, and we've been single for YEARS. Also, what are you wearing?

How I Met Your Mother - “The Stinson Missile Crisis”
Neil Patrick Harris plays a straight man way more convincingly than he played a gay man. Anyway, this episode was really cute. Especially the Robin stuff. Not so much the Ted stuff. But, overall, we liked it.

Episode Grade: B+

Two Broke Girls - “And Strokes of Goodwill”
Some of the puns in this episode were just painful. It was ok when Samantha Jones on Sex and City did them, but we think Michael Patrick King should leave them with her. Although we liked this series at first, it needs to shake things up, add some characters, add a few storylines, and brush up on its jokes at this point in order to move forward. We’re still watching though, and one of us liked the episode. It’s going to get a full season to improve. That’s right: a full season was ordered.

Episode Grade: C+

Hart of Dixie - “Parades and Pariahs”
We couldn’t decide if we were going to watch a second episode of this show at first, but then we decided to buckle down and give it another try. After two episodes, we’ve realized that our schedules are too full for a show this mediocre. If we give it another chance, it will be after a full season has aired (if it even gets a full season), and we will watch it in the summer.

Episode grade: C-

How is Robin Still the Dream Girl with that Haircut?

Two Broke Girls - "And the Break-up Scene"

We’re pretty sure Max is at risk of offing herself, what with her cutting and suicide note jokes this week. Even though this is a lighthearted comedy, you can see the theme coming around where Caroline actually lifts Max’s self-esteem and forces her to try for things. We expect Caroline to make further progress with Max as the series goes on.

There weren’t as many good zingers this time, but we enjoyed the half hour and still like the characters. We will be back next week, even though New Girl and Up All Night are better new comedies than this one. We are a little sick of the girls talking about how poor they are. Show how they are poor. Don't have them keep mentioning it.

How I Met Your Mother - "Ducky Tie"

Only Ted is gay enough to look at Lily’s boobs and think of a butt. We loved the line, “The party in my wife’s shirt is a private affair and I’m the bouncer.” Marshall remains a consistently likeable and funny character through this roller coaster of a show. In reality, the whole plot with Barney competing to touch Lily’s boobs would be really, really creepy. On the show, it was funny, and a way to get Barney to wear a dorky tie for a year. We also liked the reminder of how diabolical Barney is, what with the elaborate psychological plan and everything.

We got to find out what happened with Ted and Victoria. They went to wash her cupcake dishes (Ted’s atonement for cheating), she told him that she was about to get engaged to a German guy, they kissed, and she left. But before she left, Victoria told Ted that she thinks he and Barney are being weird always hanging out with Robin. They are hanging out as friends, but it’s not really working, and that’s why Ted’s relationships haven’t worked out. Ted denies this, but future Ted confirmed Victoria was right about them, “they just didn’t know it yet.”

Victoria just changed this game, only it’s like in Monopoly where you land on the wrong spot and have to go to jail. Somehow we are back to where this show was years ago. This must be yet another way to stall meeting the mother. We are pretty sure that Barney is going to get Robin. And yet, there is speculation that Victoria just meant that Robin is too involved in his life, scaring away all the ladies or something. They do live together, after all.

We think that Victoria meant that Ted needs to stop being hung up on Robin so that he’s open and ready to meet the mother. Maybe he holds her in a high regard to the point that his other dates aren’t comparable to his “dream girl.” We hope it’s something like that, because if Ted actually tries to get Robin back and this turns into yet another love triangle, we are going to be annoyed. Hopefully this is going to a place that takes us forward, not backward.

2BG grade: B-

HIMYM grade: B

Two Broke Girls and The Playboy Club - pilots (Spoiler-free)

Two Broke Girls

The main thing we were worried about with this show was Beth Behrs’ heiress character, but we shouldn’t have worried. Caroline is a sweet character who has a point about her nasty uniform. She’s likeable. Of course Kat Dennings is likeable too. That makes two leads who pull of their characters in a way that rises above the “types” they are playing and bring laughs. They had good chemistry.

The woman Max nannies for was really funny too, and she was the exaggerated rich girl we thought Caroline was going to be. Fortunately, she’s a side character and not one of the main twosome. A little of that goes a long way. There were some good one-liners. We like the way the leads tease each other. Of course we didn’t like the laugh track. Why do they keep making laugh track comedies? If we need to be told where to laugh, the show isn’t funny. If we need other people laughing with us in order to get us to laugh, the show is not that funny. This one was, for the most part, so it should have ditched the laugh track.

The Playboy Club

The Playboy Club is a dumb version of Mad Men. However, it wasn’t as bad as we expected it to be. One thing we liked was the fact that this show has '60s musical numbers and will feature musical guest stars. Adele would fit in just fine. Also, it features Simon Tam as the husband of one of the bunnies! (Ok, when your reviewers recognize Simon Tam, and call him Simon Tam, you know they are the wrong audience for The Playboy Club.) Lastly, it’s nothing to get our panties in a twist about. It got low ratings, so it will probably be canceled soon, and it’s just a lightweight soap.

Hugh Heffner’s voice narrated (just for the pilot) and he called the place he created “perfect” and “a place where anything could happen to anybody.” Well, as a woman, that just sounds like someone’s getting raped. At the end of the episode, Heffner said, “Bunnies were the only women in the ‘60s who could be anyone they wanted, because they had no last names.” That makes it all ok then! If the women enjoy it! (Sarcasm, obvi.) Bah haha. About six minutes in, the mob already got involved and not in a good(fellas) way. In a stupid way, even though it was smart to go for girl power early by having the main chauvinist pig get killed by a Bunny’s stiletto.

We don’t like Eddie Cibrian either. He’s supposed to come across as mysterious, but he really comes across as stiff and uncharismatic. (He should have just told Carol-Lynne the truth about what happened, right? She’s supposedly smart and in love with him, so she could probably be trusted.) Speaking of Carol-Lynne, the resident “aging bunny” with issues about getting old: Her storylines make us laugh, because she could pass for 25. She’s the best character on the show so far though.

This show is about flirtation, a glamorous men’s club, and the girls, who have secrets, schemes, and significant others. Also, it’s about the guys who ride in like white knights to save them, try to marry them to lock them down, admire them, or just try to sleep with them. It’s not horrible, but we are dropping it, because we just aren’t interested.

We really aren’t digging the main plot with the mob, the lawyer, and Maureen. We also think it will be a waste of time to watch a show that premiered to only 5 million viewers and will probably be off the air soon. It's like a Lifetime movie: A crowd-pleaser for the mainstream. It's not good enough to make us forget that we don't like the Playboy brand.

Two Broke Girls Grade: B+
The Playboy Club Grade: C+

New Show: Two Broke Girls

Two Broke Girls
CBS. Debuts on September 19, 2011 at 9:30, and then moves to Mondays, September 26, 2011 at 8:30.

Starring: Kat Dennings (of Thor, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist) as Max and Beth Behrs (of one of those awful American Pie straight-to-DVD sequels) as Caroline.

Plot: Two broke girls waitress in Brooklyn and become friends. Max has always had to work and came from a poor family and Caroline was an heiress, but now she has lost everything. They both dream of raising $250,000 and opening a cupcake shop. One of the showrunners described it as “ranging from heartwarming to Laverne and Shirley on crack.”

Why We Are Excited: We both like Kat Dennings. Also, Whitney Cummings is the executive producer, and this show looks fresher than Whitney, so we will hopefully get to see the best of Cummings here. Michael Patrick King is also involved, and he did Sex and the City. We’re also a little sick of shows about rich people and people who went to Harvard. It’s recession time. Let’s see some people in the same boat as the rest of us! Plus, it looks fun.

Why We Are Not Excited: The blonde former heiress character is already annoying. Hopefully they flesh her out more. We have enough of those in this world, as well as enough female characters who are stereotypes. It’s like the TV thinks there are two types of women: Weak, sorority-girl clichés and Strong Women with masculine names, who like to do what guys do, and have loud mouths. In real life, guys usually go for the girls, because it makes them feel manly. This show looks like it’s aimed at women, and women like to see a girl that makes them feel superior or a girl they would actually want to be friends with. Here, we have both, so there is a chance that the blonde will still be wailing about colors not matching her skin tone for weeks to come.

Preview:


Anticipation Score: 8

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!