Early Obituary - Life Unexpected

Life Unexpected will no longer air on the CW after its January 18th two-part finale at 8 p.m. Hellcats will take its spot, which is disappointing. Even though Life Unexpected had its problems, it was more watchable than Hellcats.

The last episode of LUX had Cate and Baze finding out shocking facts about Lux's past, and the mother-daughter dynamic and theme was very touching. Life Unexpected struggled with being boring when it showcased Ryan and Cate's stupid marriage problems in the first half of the season, rather than Lux's struggle to fit into her new family. But the second half of the season has a decently riveting affair with a teacher and Lux's past front-and-center.

The series finale will wrap up that storyline and have Lux fitting into her family more than ever, plus some surprises, so we recommend that you watch. Britt Robertson, who played Lux, did a good job, and we think she has a future. She has a nice, capable presence, and she could find a good home on any other teen show. The Vampire Diaries needs another female human now that Caroline has been turned....

Life Unexpected was a sweet show that tried to emphasize the importance of love and family. The scripts, plots, and the development of Cate were sometimes lacking, but overall, the show was more good than bad. One of us is sad to see it go. The other one is apathetic. We hope another show comes along and tries this sort of thing, only with the success of say, Gilmore Girls, because TV needs this sort of show. Right now, the show that embodies this spirit is Parenthood, another good one. R.I.P.

Series Grade: B-

The Last Tests

Our last tests of the semester are tomorrow. Wish us luck! Anyway, the blog will be back in full swing after that. Thanks to Hatts for all the help, and happy holidays.

Golden Globe TV Nominations

Best TV Series — Drama
Boardwalk Empire
Dexter
The Good Wife
Mad Men - Leeard's pick
The Walking Dead - Ern's pick
Dexter, while always good, was not at its best this season. One of us doesn't care for Mad Men, and The Good Wife is sort of last year. This leaves Boardwalk Empire and The Walking Dead, and they are both worthy. With Scorsese, Buscemi, and the budget, Boardwalk Empire should have been much better than it was. The Walking Dead is the more notable achievement. LOST was robbed of a nomination. While the last season disappointed some, it was a lot better than at least three of these choices. Leeard isn't caught up on Mad Men, but honestly, it's probably always a good choice.

Best TV Series — Musical or Comedy
30 Rock
The Big Bang Theory
The Big C -Ern's pick
Glee
Modern Family - Leeard's pick
Nurse Jackie
30 Rock is good, but overrated. The Big Bang Theory is cute, but not on par with the other choices. Glee is slacking in season two. Nurse Jackie is not funny enough to be a comedy, even a dark one. Modern Family and The Big C are left, and because Modern Family is just repeating the same things, Ern picks The Big C. Leeard is going to go with Modern Family, because it's a very well-received network comedy, though both are worthy shows.

Best Miniseries or Made-for-TV Movie
Carlos
The Pacific
The Pillars of the Earth - Ern's pick
Temple Grandin
You Don’t Know Jack - Leeard's pick

The Pillars of Earth is the only one Ern watched, and she thought it was good. Leeard saw You Don't Know Jack and while it wasn't amazing, she can't physically make herself root against Al Pacino.

Best Actor - Drama
Steve Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire
Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad
Michael C. Hall, Dexter
Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Hugh Laurie, House M.D.
We would be good with any of these winning, especially the first three.

Best Actress - Drama
Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men
Julianna Margulies, The Good Wife
Piper Perabo, Covert Affairs - Ern's pick
Katey Sagal, Sons of Anarchy
Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer - Leeard's pick

Best Actor - Musical or Comedy
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Steve Carell, The Office
Thomas Jane, Hung
Matthew Morrison, Glee
Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory
Either Alec or Jim would be good. Matthew Morrison hasn't had enough material in a while and Steve Carell's Michael Scott is becoming even more uncomfortable to watch, if that's possible.

Best Actress - Musical or Comedy
Toni Collette, United States of Tara
Edie Falco, Nurse Jackie
Tina Fey, 30 Rock
Laura Linney, The Big C
Lea Michele, Glee
You really can't beat Toni Collette at much. The only one we disagree with on this worthy list is Tina Fey. She doesn't have enough charisma for acting, even though she's a funny writer. She just plays herself on that (admittedly funny) show.

Best Supporting Actor in TV Series, Mini-Series, or Made-for-TV Movie
Scott Caan, Hawaii Five-0
Chris Colfer, Glee
Chris Noth, The Good Wife
David Strathairn, Temple Grandin
Eric Stonestreet, Modern Family
Any of these are fine. Chris Colfer might win, but Eric Stonestreet is our pick.

Best Supporting Actress in TV Series, Mini-Series, or Made-for-TV Movie
Hope Davis, The Special Relationship
Jane Lynch, Glee
Kelly Macdonald, Boardwalk Empire
Julia Stiles, Dexter
Sofia Vergara, Modern Family
It's Sofia's turn.

None of these nominations are particularly interesting. Blah.

Commenting on Stephen King's 2010 Favorites

Stephen King put out a list of his top ten TV shows of the past year, with commentary. You can find his list, with pictures and his commentary, on the "recent interesting links" page. We've listened to this man ever since he dogged Stephanie Meyer's "writing." Just kidding. We've listened to him ever since he said, "I'm sick of people saying something is 'Harry Potter for adults.' Harry Potter is Harry Potter for adults." No, wait. We misremembered. We've loved him since our teenaged hands got a copy of The Gunslinger.

He usually has good taste in TV too. He turned us onto Breaking Bad a few years ago, so we will pay attention to his list. The commentary here is ours, duh.

Steve's List
10) Morning Joe - We've never seen it, but it sounds awful. Pat Buchanan is on it? You couldn't pay us to watch something with him, and both of us are Christians (Catholic counts as Christian).

9) Boardwalk Empire - Typical guy pick, Uncle Stevie, but we agree. For the most part.

8) Spongebob Squarepants - Stephen King WOULD like this. Ha. We've laughed at a few episodes before, but it's never been a favorite, even when we were kids.

7) Sons of Anarchy - We have GOT to catch up on that before next season. Way too many people we respect say that it's great.

6) Dexter - Not it's best season this year, but still enjoyable.

5) Damages - One of us has never seen it. The other one watched it like it was her job back in seasons one and two, but it got a bit too ridiculous for her. Should we catch up?

4) The Event - Ugh, disagree. Was he paid to plug this? It's been getting lots of promotion lately (in a lame attempt to save it), especially on E! Take away this life support and let it either survive on its own or die. IF ONLY it were comparable to LOST and 24.

3) Breaking Bad - Agree

2) The Walking Dead - We JUST started catching up on this (we've seen about 1.5 episodes), and so far, we agree. It's better than all the new shows combined.

1) Friday Night Lights - Surprising first pick from Stephen King (over the horror and other weird shows), but we approve. It's nice to see FNL get some love from a celebrity in its final (tear) season.

If you ask us, this list is missing The Vampire Diaries. If he can dredge up some love for Spongebob and Pat Buchanan.... And TVD is WAY more clever than The Event. TVD kept TV good for us this whole lackluster fall season.

Dexter Season 5 Finale

After last season, and with all the madness set up last episode, we expected this season to end with some sort of shocker. Well, it didn't. In fact, it was too happy. We were waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it never did. Deb didn't find out about Dexter, and that curtain thing felt like a cop-out. Everything was too neat. It's not like the people who watch Dexter watch it for a nice love story, a subtle and poignant ending, and a sweet little birthday party. NO! We want dead Ritas, blown up Doakeses, revelations, Dexter hunted, rival serial killers, cliffhangers, mysteries, and some good killings.

However, this interview with the producers makes us feel better about the season: http://insidetv.ew.com/2010/12/13/dexter-season-5-finale-the-big-one-sara-colleton/

We especially like the quote, "Eventually, some season is going to have to deal with Deb finding out about Dexter." Yes, it is. Seriously, every Dexter viewer should read that interview. It doesn't spoil anything that's going to happen next season; it just talks about what happened in this season that is actually important.

After some thought (and reading that interview), we realize that this season was a vital step for the characters, especially Deb, Dexter, and even Harrison. Deb opened her mind to the grey areas in life, and Dexter found healing after Rita's demise. It was appropriate to spend a season on the mourning of Rita. Deb wasn't ready to find out about her brother, and after the finale, she probably is.

But we all wanted the shocker.

Episode grade: B-
Season grade: B-
(All Dexter season grades, for comparison- Season one: B+, Season two: B-, Season three: B, Season four: A)

Bones - The Doctor in the Photo recap/review with help from Hatts

Turkey dinner at Brennan’s house apparently includes a blow-by-blow analysis of the main course’s final moments in the slaughterhouse. Her guests, the whole squint crew (plus Hannah and Booth), were less-than-charmed by this party trick, but we found it adorable. Fortunately, they were saved from choking down their dinner by a call from Cam.

This week’s murder happened in a bad neighborhood about 11 months ago, and the body was found enmeshed in the roots of a growing tree. The female victim was a very sophisticated heart surgeon whose weight and height matched Brennan's. This might not have been enough to creep Bones out had she not found a dolphin ring identical to her own on the victim’s skeletal hand. The rest of this highly anticipated episode followed Brennan's decent into a delusional obsession over the similarities between her and the dead surgeon.

Brennan spent sleepless nights in the lab trying to solve the murder while listening to the victim’s recorded medical journal entries. But when Lauren (the victim) spoke in Brennan’s head, she spoke in Brennan’s own voice. As the episodes progressed, Brennan conducted imaginary conversations with the voice, because she felt that because of the similarities she shared with Lauren, she knew Lauren enough to do “her side.” Brennan was visited by the night guard (played by the same guy who was Keith Mars). This episode was a treat for Veronica Mars fans, because two V-Mars actors graced this Bones episode. The night guard quoted all the free Smithsonian lectures he attended to steer Bones deeper into her self-reflection. One of us thought this was a nicely written, sweet part for the absolutely loveable night guard. The other blogger thought it was weird and out-of-place.

It turned out that, in order to survive the emotional toll of the death of young patients, Lauren had become emotionally detached. Whenever she was under great emotional strain, yet felt numb, she would engage in dangerous activities “in order to feel something.” Her death was the result of a car accident in a bad neighborhood where Lauren was buying heroine from a drug dealer, just for the thrill of it. There was an airplane pilot who was in love with Lauren, and being closed-off emotionally because she was fragile, she rejected him. Brennan told the pilot that not giving him a chance was Lauren’s biggest regret. It was around this moment that Brennan realized that she had made the same mistake when she didn’t say yes to Booth last year.

DUH. Oh Brennan, if we didn’t love you so much….

Brennan hurried to the neighborhood where the murder occurred and bent down to check out a road reflector that had possibly tripped Lauren. Lost in the task of blindly following her intuition (a first for Brennan), she didn’t notice a car racing toward her in the pouring rain. Fortunately, Booth appeared to pull her out of harm’s way. He said he was “following her into a bad part of town and saving her life, you know, the usual.” On the ride home, Brennan told Booth that turning him down was something she regrets. A pained Booth quietly insisted that he had moved on, Hannah was not a consolation prize, and that Brennan would get over the pain, because he did. Brennan burst into tears, which isn’t common.

If you like the quippy, “git r done” Booth a la season one, he was back in this episode. This Brennan-centric episode had most of the side characters benched. It looks like Hannah is sticking around, so those of you who have grown fond of her despite her DATING BOOTH WHEN HE SHOULD BE WITH BONES are lucky. This episode had a different tone than most episodes, but it was a long time coming. Brennan reflected at the end that, during the time covered in the episode (three days), the world turned upside down. It was a strange one, that’s for sure.

It left us really sad, because Lauren helped us understand Brennan, and they are both pretty tragic figures. Plus, we really want Booth with Brennan. We can’t believe she reached out and then got her heart broken. UGH. We like a Bones episode that pays attention to the Booth/Brennan imminent love relationship though. This was less of a procedural episode, and more of an intrinsic, character-driven episode for longtime watchers of Bones. We think Brennan's realization and admission will, in the long run, propel the two closer toward a relationship, so we are happy, overall. Even so, that was tragic.

Episode grade: B. We missed the humor and side characters.

The Office - Classy Christmas review

Be still our hearts. That was an actual good episode of The Office last night. Last week’s was about a B, and this week raised it to an A-. Can the show keep this streak of decency up? Here's hoping.

This week, Holly came back, which was great, but she re-broke Michael’s heart. Fortunately, Kelly and the girls planted the idea of an ultimatum to her boyfriend in Holly’s head, so Michael might get her later. We loved Erin not understanding what the big deal about Holly was. Michael’s idea of a classy Christmas party was funny, and Michael had a lot of good lines.

Another great thing about this episode involved a (long) snowball fight between Dwight and Jim…that Dwight absolutely won. We love it when these two go up against each other. Also, Jim absolutely deserved it. He started it by pelting Dwight right in the face with a snowball while Dwight was working. A) Battery, and B) Ouch. We loved how Dwight has a wig to help him impersonate everyone in the office.

Rainn Wilson should direct more episodes. And episode writer Mindy Kaling can just go ahead and write them all as far as we are concerned because, judging from the rest of this season, she's the only funny writer left.

Episode Grade: A-

The Vampire Diaries - By the Light of the Moon review

Stefan got out of the tomb, and Katherine didn’t even get to kiss him. She barely got to taunt him. And, as much as we loathe getting into body talk, does anyone else think that Katherine’s body would have looked less awkward with five-to-ten more pounds on it? She’s so long that her bones can make her look too harsh and angular when they stick out from being a stick. If this is Nina Dobrev's natural weight, then fine. But if (as we suspect) she has to kill herself to have it, she shouldn't work so hard. She'd look better with some LBs. Not worth it. We saw another reviewer compliment her "curves." Sorry, but hip bones are not curves. Hip bones are hips, and most women have them.

During Tyler’s transformation weren’t sure if we wanted Caroline to leave or for her to stay as long as possible. The transformation scene was about as hard-core and satisfying (no, not that way, even though Tyler has a great body) as one could expect from this show. The end of the ordeal, where Tyler cried and Caroline held him, hammered in the fact that these two are going to get closer after this episode. We know the rift is going to be when he finds out that Caroline has been lying to him about being the only vampire in town and about the death of his uncle. Jules is going to tell him. There, show predicted.

Speaking of Jules, we both hate her. But if her bite kills off the annoying English Rose, we will start liking Jules more. We like seeing Damon have to wrestle with his feelings, and Rose dying would bring more of those to the forefront. As far as the two newest love triangles go, we are still shipping Caroline and Matt (mostly). And Jeremy is much hotter (and more well-intentioned) than Luka. And also hotter.

We will have until January to wonder what Elijah is up to, how he can slither through the loopholes of his verbal contract just enough to wreak havoc without breaking his word, and get really excited for the second half of this raucous season.

Episode grade: A-

The Best Christmas Episode of 2010

We’ve decided that Community had the best Christmas episode this season. If you haven’t seen Community yet, we don’t recommend this as your first episode, unless you love stop-motion animation, but everyone else should feel free to watch it. We know some people will object to the show’s conclusion about Christmas, but we don’t. Jesus is about as much the reason for the season as Mithras is, because, yes, he wasn’t born in December.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/199579/community-abeds-uncontrollable-christmas#s-p1-so-i0

The most depressing Christmas episode? Bones. Was that even a Christmas episode? Probably not. But still. Bleak.

We Hate Misleading, Out-of-Context Promos.

One of us usually doesn’t watch promos at the end of the episode. Why? Because they are cheap advertisements trying to get you to watch the next episode. They take footage out of the context of the next episode and make you think something is a) going to happen or b) that something is going to be a big deal. You should never trust someone who is trying to sell you something, and promos are no exception.

Sure, we are glad that promos don’t give away the next episode, but we don’t think they should mislead us. The most recent culprit is The Vampire Diaries promo (see previous post). Even WE were fooled on that one, but it was a cop-out. Even the blogger who said that she hoped it was a dream sequence or prophecy was disappointed. Grey’s Anatomy is another culprit. Remember the promo that showed Owen catching Cristina giving a lap dance? We thought that was going to be a big relationship issue by the look on his face. But, in context, it was next to nothing, and Owen didn’t run any drama about it at all. In fact, the real aftermath is pictured. (Realistically, would any guy react like this if he had any nut sack whatsoever? No wonder we believed that promo.)

Misleading promos make some viewers lose respect for the quality of the show. They come off as desperate. And The Vampire Diaries and Grey’s Anatomy are both having good seasons, so they shouldn’t have to stoop to that level.

Glee - Christmas episode

Nothing happened in this week’s Glee, except Brittany still believes in Santa, Sue was “The Grinch,” Blaine and Kurt sang a romantic song together, and Artie got a creepy contraption that enables him to walk…slowly. There was one really funny part: when Sue gave Will shears for Christmas so he could shave off his sheep hair.

It was too cheesy, cliche, and childlike for us, except for the obligatory holiday romances, because TV often tries to turn Christmas into a less-lame Valentine's Day. We had to hear Wham!'s "Last Christmas," and the boring "Merry Christmas, Darling." Then Will pointed out that Christmas isn't magical when you are an adult, and we got depressed. There might have been some good lines, but how are we supposed to catch them with all the mumblers on the screen?

With the exception of two or three charming moments, the Glee Christmas episode was icky to watch. This episode was one big excuse to sell us a Christmas album, which one of us bought, so the joke's on us.

Episode grade: Somewhere between a C and a D+ (one might say a C-?)

Watch it here, if you wish:
http://www.megavideo.com/?v=9IG3GO6T

Glee will be on hiatus until February 6th. It's going to be a theme episode (ughhh), because it's the Super Bowl opener.

Too many more theme episodes, and at least one of the bloggers will shun this show for good and just download the singles from iTunes, story be darned.

Edit:

Okay, the other blogger had to comment on this now, because she just watched the episode last night. She liked it a LOT more than the writer of this post did. Christmas episodes are always different, and since Glee didn't do one last year, this blogger is a lot more willing to allow this particular theme episode. Also, the duet between Blaine and Kurt is probably her second favorite moment this whole season.

Her grade: B+

A Quick Thought On the Boardwalk Empire Finale

Pretty well-done. We liked the reconciliation between Nucky and the widow, since that's what the whole show is about. And we like the new Jimmy/Eli betrayal of Nucky. We wish there had been some action and a little of the riotous, dark tone of the pilot.

We don't think we will follow the show live next year. This is a good show, but it would be easier to get/stay into on a DVD binge. We will watch it, but we will wait until we can see many episodes at once. So, goodbye BE weekly recaps. You have been a pain in the neck to write anyway. (Some shows are easier than others to write about. Easy shows to write about: Glee, America's Next Top Model, Grey's Anatomy, Dexter, Breaking Bad, and LOST, which we are still writing about, even though it's over. South Park, Bones, and HIMYM are surprisingly difficult. The Vampire Diaries is difficult for one of us to write about, but we both love it too much to stop.)

Episode grade: B

How I Met Your Mother - The Mermaid Theory recap review with help from Hatts

Zoey is hanging out with the gang now (collective sigh from everyone who dislikes her), but they are all creeped out by her husband, The Captain. Zoey is the only one who wanted to join Ted on a trip to an architectural exhibit (which proves that she’s attracted to him), and that brought up the subject of whether married people can spend a significant amount of time alone with a single person of the opposite gender. (Ern’s vote is decidedly no, in almost all cases, as is Leeard's.)

Marshall and Robin realized that the two of them never hang out, and they decided to go out to dinner together. Lily decreed that Ted had to become friends with The Captain if he wanted to hang out with Zoey. That left Lily and Barney, and they supposedly got into a fight, the cause of which narrator Ted said he could not remember. Marshall and Robin's dinner went terribly, as they have nothing to talk about together. Marshall revealed that the reason they don't hang out is because of Barney's “Mermaid Theory.” It stated, "Every women, no matter how repulsive, has a mermaid clock - the time it takes for you to realize you want to bang her." According to Barney Stinson's history of the world, when sailors are deprived of feminine company for long enough, even the manatees at sea start to look like attractive mermaids. Marshall was afraid Robin's mermaid clock would start if they hung out to much. This explains powerful men and their unattractive mistresses, we guess.

Ted went out to sea with The Captain but was terrified that The Captain was jealous and was taking him out to sea to kill him. He wasn't; he just wanted to bond with Ted, because he usually can't connect with his wife's younger friends. Ted and Zoe agreed that since neither of them had any romantic feelings for the other it was ok to continue hanging out. At that moment, we heard Zoe's Mermaid Clock start ticking. This neither surprises nor especially pleases us. Heck, Stella was cooler than Zoey. We hope she is not the mother, and we might be rewarded, because older Ted kept calling her “Zoey” in his narration, not “the mother.” And we don’t think Zoey recently lived with roommate Rachel Bilson. Zoey has been married for a while, right?

Lily and Barney had the best story of the episode. In classic HIMYM form, Narrator Ted kept telling the story differently as he tried to remember what really happened. In the end, he realized that the whole fight had actually happened a few years later when Lily was pregnant and Barney told her that pregnancy had changed her from a mermaid into a manatee. Yeah, we would be mad at him too. There were hints dropped in the "wrong" version of the story, and it was a cute way to announce that Lily would be pregnant.

If you’re a loyal follower of HIMYM, you'll want to know that at the end of the corrected/ future Lily-Barney fight scene, Ted marched into the bar in a lovely green dress, and said, “Ha! Now we're even" and Narrator Ted promised that he will explain that story later. We can’t wait for that one, but we will have to, because this is HIMYM, where we have to wait forever for anything to happen.

Ern really liked this episode, and Leeard thought it was average, so it averages out to:

Episode grade: B-

Gossip Girl - The Townie recap/review, with help from Hatts

Gossip Girl's mid-season finale was full of reveals…and lots of exposition, starting with Blair and Dan walking and recapping Juliet’s misdeeds. Seriously, there were so many back stories, explanations and recaps in this episode that it was distracting. The clumsiest one was when Lily and Chuck recapped a meeting with a member of the media while sharing drinks. It felt so forced. And is Chuck 21 yet, Lily? Never mind, because we found out that Lily has much bigger problems than allowing an underage boozer to drink more. Lily is a slimy, cowardly elitist who feels entitled to let others suffer for her own comfort. We’ve always liked Lily, but this will be hard to forgive.

At the beginning of the episode, Blair and Dan were on the hunt for Juliet. Serena was in the Ostroff Center, reliving her past in therapy sessions, and Nate and his mother were dealing with his father's most recent betrayal. It looked like The Captain was only pretending to want to reconcile with his wife to get parole.

In a nice little twist, Dan and Blair turned to Gossip Girl for help locating Juliet. This was Dan's idea, by the way. Gossip Girl was none too happy with Juliet's persecution of her girl, Serena, and the fake photo she was sent. She emailed the unholy alliance an address, and they headed out of the city to track it down, bickering all the way. We ship Chuck and Blair forever, but, as we’ve said before, we wouldn’t mind a brief Blair/Dan hook up that would leave the pair mortified and still enemies...later. Their trip took them to Cornwall, Connecticut, the town where Serena went to boarding school just before to season one. The address was the home of Damian. Remember the drug dealer that used and abused Jenny a while ago? That's Damian. Yeah, we forgot too. Apparently, he sold Juliet, who is a Cornwall 'townie', the drugs she used on Serena. We guess it never hurts to bring an attractive, recurring character back for the finale, no matter how forgettable he is.

While Dan and Blair and Damian visited with Juliet's mother, learning half of the story, Serena's therapy sessions sent us into flashbacks from her boarding school days, and the full story of how Serena wronged Ben and Juliet was revealed. Here's the gist of it - Ben was Serena's teacher (this is something everyone had already figured out). They started hanging out a lot and developed feelings for each other, and here is where we were surprised by Serena’s story. When Serena tried to move their relationship into a full-on romance (oh Serena, you would), Ben declined, because it would have been inappropriate (take note FNL, Pretty Little Liars and Life Unexpected). He was the first and only man to turn her down (besides her own abandoning father, of course). After that encounter, Serena was so embarrassed that she headed back to New York City, but the rumors that there had been an affair and the record of her wild behavior were enough to keep her out of all the best Manhattan prep schools. When Lily went to Cornwall to try to rectify the situation, she overheard gossip about a possible Ben/Serena affair, and she used the information to force the school to stop badmouthing Serena. She forged Serena's signature on an affidavit claiming the affair was real. That was the paper that Juliet and her family saw when Ben was fired, prosecuted, and sent to jail. Lily only meant to bring it up to the school as leverage, but the school got the law involved. The next time Lily could have stopped it was at the time of the forgery, and she chose not to.

Meanwhile Juliet snuck into Serena's room at Ostroff. She was planning something terribly bad (we don't know what), but when she told Serena who she was and why she was trying to destroy her, Serena knew immediately that it must have been her mother who gave the false report and forged her signature. Ahh, the classic “villain monologue.” Although it would have been nice to know Juliet’s plan. Was she going to hurt Serena? “Finish the job?” It makes little sense that Juliet would just go confess everything to Serena. There had to be more to that…because that would just be unbelievably stupid, even for this show.

And so the season drew to a close with a classic Gossip Girl party scene, complete with Serena calling out Lily in front of all the guests. Post-party Rufus revealed to Chuck that Lily was trying sell Bass industries behind his back, and the whole GG cast started a van der Woodsen-Bass-Humphry showdown. Even Rufus was short on forgiveness for her. Lily turning out to be the big bad in the Juliet plot? We were not expecting that....And we don’t know if we like it.

It turned out that Nate's father's house purchase was for a romantic vacation for him and his wife, not a getaway plan. Unfortunately, by the time this was revealed, he and Ms. Archibald both realized that they were not going to get back together. A sad Nate was left watching TV in jail with his father. Feeling guilty for wrongly accusing his father of betrayal, Nate invited his dad to stay at the empire in his suite when he gets out of jail. We wonder how THAT’S going to go. Poor Nate, you need to learn that you just can’t save people. (We would like to take this moment to defend the unappreciated Nate Archibald: sure his stories have never managed to be very gripping, but the fact is, short of Dorota, unless Dorota is Gossip Girl, which we maintain is possible and likely, Nate might be the nicest, and most honorable, of the Gossip Girl crew, unless we are forgetting some unflattering plot from years past? Oh yeah…the married woman affair.)

Chuck headed off to New Zealand, with a very disappointing comment about finding loose women, made right in front of Blair. Can you believe that? He chose to make a callous "man-ho" comment rather than a Lord of the Rings reference, and he is going to NEW ZEALAND. This is why Chuck isn't cool. Blair, however, was more concerned with the fact that Jack Bass is in Australia, and she rightly accused Chuck of looking for his help. Heedless of her warning, Chuck left with a fairly cold farewell to her. Why? Why, Gossip Girl writers, can't you just let B and C be together? There is no Moonlighting syndrome , we love them as an on-screen couple, as long as you give them decent plots! Sadly, “good plots” usually don’t involve Jack trying to take the empire or Blair playing second fiddle to Chuck’s business affairs. Even worse (as far as we are concerned), Dan declined to join Serena on her road trip to rectify Ben's situation. This left him alone in the city with Blair, and we are afraid that the last scene between Dan and Blair was a teaser for the fans who are 'shipping' these two as a couple. It’s too soon, it’s too awkward, and it needs to just be funny, not a real thing, if it happens. Well, at least it's surprising, at this point. Who else thinks that Serena is going to get another shot with Ben after he is released?

This episode barely made sense at times, and it felt clunky. But there was plot development. Hopefully next year we will see a different plot, now that the Juliet scheme has fizzled and died.

Episode grade: B-

Dexter vs. Boardwalk Empire

The Sunday night recapper only had time for one of these shows (her first exam is tonight), and when the rubber meets the road, Dexter isn't road kill.

This is a strong statement, because the Boardwalk Empire episode was the finale. Don't spoil it, we're going to watch it later in the week and bring you some thoughts.

Why Dexter? No, it's not because the guys on Dexter are better looking (not hard, with uggos like Steve Buscemi populating BE), but if you guessed that, you are paying attention. We've just been following Dexter longer, this season is more intense than BE's season (we feel more of an urge to find out what happens on this show), and we care more about the characters. Ok, just Dexter, Lumen, and Deb, but that's two people more than on Boardwalk Empire.

As for Dexter, it was a great episode, but the cliffhanger ending left us spitting and unsatisfied. Dexter season finale next week.

Episode Grade: A

Dexter has been renewed for a sixth season.

Facebook Cartoons Craze

It seems that many people are changing their Facebook profile pictures to cartoons they love, whether they are from movies (like Disney movies) or from TV.

Ern picked Hey Arnold (pictured), because Ern can still watch and enjoy that, to this day. Leeard refuses to play any Facebook games that are not Bejeweled Blitz (Ern and Leeard have a fierce-ish Bejeweled competition going, usually). Ern's sister picked Ahh! Real Monsters. We've seen some Disney princesses, Doug, Dragonball Z, and Rugrats.

We have not confirmed why people are doing this. It's either to promote awareness regarding child abuse or to celebrate your favorite childhood shows.

We wonder how long we are supposed to keep the pictures up. We wonder a lot of things about this new trend. We like the celebrities thing better, but this is cute too.

If you are reading and changed your picture, let us know what you picked.

Grey's Anatomy - Adrift and at Peace review

Yay! It looks like the end for Pathetic Cristina. She went fishing with Derek, learned to stop thinking and be Zen, and she caught a fish. Holding the fish (life!) in her hands for the obligatory Big Catch Picture, she realized that she had healed and wanted to be a doctor again. At least that’s what we go from her expression and Meredith’s voiceover as she hung the picture on the refrigerator.

This episode had unlikely people working together and hanging out. We had Cristina and Derek fishing. We had Mark and Callie hilariously bickering about their casual sex. We had Callie and Alex working together and making jokes. We had Meredith and Owen in the operating room together, fighting. And then after the operation, they were fighting. We can see both of their points a little bit. Meredith thought that Owen was an enabler. He married Cristina, so now Cristina could just live off of him and mope around the house rather than face up to her problems. Owen told Meredith that she shouldn’t hold Cristina to her standards. This is true. Meredith and Derek are so perfect right now that she shouldn’t be judging our new Resident Dark and Twisty Couple. But the rest of their arguments made no sense and seemed to just be an opportunity for the writers to have someone point out that Meredith is fearless. Meredith is “reckless” and Owen doesn’t want her around Cristina? Where did that come from?

Owen and Meredith have never gotten along, and we have no idea why. Think about it: When have they ever liked each other? Is Meredith not over the choking thing? Why on earth would she blame him for Cristina’s problems? Maybe Owen doesn’t like Meredith because she never gives him a break and hollers at him about personal problems in his O.R. while he’s trying to think and maintain his authority at the same time. We actually like that they dislike each other. Some of these doctors get along too well. In real life, personalities clash, and sometimes your best friend marries someone you don’t approve of. We just want the writers to give them real reasons to fight besides their gargantuan amounts of stubbornness. How about the fact that Owen dyed his hair blonde, ruining his entire head? Why hasn’t anyone yelled at him about that? When Lexie and the chief changed their head colors, they got crap for it.

What was with Teddy? She is so desperate that she asked some patient (Scott Foley) to marry her because he needs health insurance to live? Wow. Pathetic Cristina dies and Pathetic Teddy is born. Admittedly, this could have been a solid idea. Teddy marries a cute patient to save his life. Arranged marriages work all the time. It could have been cute. But we think the scene was poorly written, and Teddy came off as crazy. That was so awkward. We guess the guy is going to say yes though.

Why does Bailey always get asked out by young, hot, tall men? She always gets a guy who looks like he stepped out of the pages of a men’s magazine. It’s unrealistic, and not just because she looks like a little brown mushroom. It’s unrealistic because hot, nice, smart guys are pretty rare for just about anyone.

We can’t believe Callie shut the door in Arizona’s face! Nooooo. Arizona is going to have to work hard to win Callie back, because Callie’s heart is cold and closed right now. We can’t believe she didn’t take Arizona back after Arizona left her fancy Africa job for Callie.

This was the last episode until January, and that’s like four weeks later. The preview of next week excited us. We can’t believe we have to wait this long. At least we got a Mark and Lexie kiss to tide us over. Lexie looked really cute in this episode.

We wonder if Bailey will be over the fistula thing by next year.

Funny episode, for the most part. And we’re glad Alex returned to peds.

Episode grade: B+

The Vampire Diaries - The Sacrifice recap/review

This episode wasn’t as jaw-dropping as episodes of this show usually are. Sure, we had our weekly dish of hot guys, a few twists, some heat between Damon and Elena, and a bit of drama, but we weren’t awed. Also, one of us thinks that Ian’s acting was odd this episode. He overplayed Damon’s mischievous intensity. After three weeks of missing this show, we were expecting more for our patience.

Elena woke up in the middle of the night, because she heard Luka's father snooping around her house. When she got up to investigate, all she found was Alaric walking around in his boxers with a bowl of chubby hubby (have you ever noticed that ice cream on TV is ALWAYS Ben and Jerry's?) Lucky Elena. We would like to wake up to half-naked Alaric any day. Looks like he and Jenna are getting on well. Meanwhile, Team Salvatore was visiting Katherine in the tomb. They were after the moonstone, which Katherine unsuccessfully tried to barter for her freedom. We guess she's decided that starving in a tomb is not a fate better than running from Klaus.

The boys showed up at Elena's to tell her their plan. They were going to have Bonnie open the tomb so they could go in and get the stone. Elena was still spooked by what Katherine had told her in the last episode: that Klaus would take any resistance out on her friends and family. Elena went the Salvatore house looking for Rose, and found Rose in her lingerie, still keeping Damon company. Elena got Rose to take her to Slater’s apartment, so that she could get information from Slater. They found Slater, the “vampire almanac,” dead, staked through the heart. They also found his idiotic girlfriend, and she helped them get into his computer system. Elena found out who Slater’s contact to Klaus was, and she immediately sent him a message announcing her intention to surrender and sacrifice herself. Rose was horrified, and we weren’t sure why. It would solve all of her problems. In any case, she called Damon.

Jeremy, wanting to save Bonnie from the dangerous over-exertion of opening the tomb, stole some of the magic Katherine-paralyzing ashes Bonnie had made for Stefan and Damon’s use. He headed into the cave with his supernatural ring, disabled Katherine, got the stone. The time he took to find the stone gave Katherine the opportunity to wake up and bite him. We can forgive him for this stupid lollygagging, because he had the sense to toss the moonstone out of the tomb whilst being chewed on by the villainess. Stefan, Damon, and Bonnie headed over to the tomb, but Damon was called away by Rose, and he disappeared. Stefan and Bonnie found Jeremy held in the tomb by Katherine, being toyed with. She could kill him over-and-over because of his ring. Horrified, Bonnie tried to open the tomb. Bonnie channeled energy from Luka, a trick he taught her earlier in order to bond with her. We guess he didn’t anticipate that she was a power thief. Even with the extra juice, Bonnie failed, got a nosebleed, and passed out. Useless. Katherine opened the loud hole in her head for another bite of Jeremy, and Stefan rushed in, threw Jeremy out, and trapped himself in the tomb with a very happy Katherine.

Damon showed up at Slater's apartment, and he was not onboard with Elena’s plan. Klaus's goons appeared to take Elena, and Rose bolted. Elijah, who had tracked Elena down with help from Luka’s warlock father, also arrived. In a surprise twist (man, there are tons of those on this show), Elijah killed Klaus’ men by ripping out their hearts. Apparently, he wants Elena safe and (seemingly) isn’t working for Klaus.

Caroline and Tyler bonded when she helped him to prepare for his first full moon. They found Mason’s diary in the Lockwood cellar in which he chronicled all of his experiences with lycanthropy. Mason also left a video he made of his first transformation. Caroline and Tyler watched it together, and they found out that Tyler’s new curse will be horrifying, painful, and hours long. Tyler, understandably, flipped out. Caroline comforted him but was interrupted by Matt at the door. Matt told Caroline that he misses her, she smiled, and then Tyler stepped into the doorway. Matt looked sad. End scene. Uh oh. Obviously Matt is going to think that Caroline moved on with Tyler. It’s not like they can tell Matt the truth. But Tyler didn’t start reassuring Matt that there was nothing going on. There could be another decent love triangle forming here, in addition to the main one and the Bonnie/Luka/Jeremy one.

When Damon and Elena got home, Jeremy was there to tell them what happened to Stefan. If you didn't watch this episode, but you are following the show you might want to at least take a second to check out the last scene in addition to reading this recap, because it is going to be pivotal for our triangle. Elena rushed to the tomb, cried out for Stefan, but he wouldn’t come to the entrance to speak with her. Damon held the flailing Elena away from the entrance. When she realized that she was never going to get to Stefan with Damon in the tomb, she stormed out.

Stefan came out to speak with Damon.
Damon- "Of all the idiot plans Stefan...I'll find a way to get you out."
Stefan- "Keep Elena away from here. Promise me. No matter what happens, promise me you'll protect her."
Exit Damon
Katherine "That right there was the biggest mistake you've ever made."
We sure hope so.

There was lots of good Elena/Damon interaction, and we loved the ending, so we’ll give this one a B+.

Bones - The Twisted Bones in the Melted Truck recap/review

This episode opened with the spontaneous combustion of a truck as the sun rose over a field where it was parked. When he got the call, Booth was getting out of bed with Hannah, and they were talking about when she should meet Parker. Hannah was worried because she thinks she’s bad with children. We don’t trust people who are usually bad with kids. It’s a sign. Dump her already, Booth. Booth reassured her, but later on he revealed to Sweets that Parker 'hates' Hannah, in spite of not having met her. We feel the same way, Parker. Sweets tells him not to worry. By the way, if you’re a Sweets fan, this is a fun episode for him. Leeard is, Ern isn’t.

At the crime scene, Bones and Booth found a skeleton 'melted' to the dashboard of the car. Since melting is not something that bones can usually do, all the squints were intrigued. Back at the lab, Daisy worried about a psych evaluation that she had to pass in order the get higher clearance. This makes sense, because Daisy is a looney tune. She seduced Sweets into helping her in some very cutesie scenes. The couple is apparently very much together again. Daisy also assisted Hodgins in one of his infamous experiments. This one, unfortunately, resulted in a minor gunshot wound for him....Still, we love Hodgins’ experiments.

It turned out that the truck had magnesium scraps in it, which the heat from the sunrise caused to burst into flame. This burned the skeleton at a heat high enough to cause the bones to appear melted. Booth and Brennan visited the victim’s wife at a high school where she worked. While Booth interrogated her, Brennan went into the class room to question a suspicious looking student. The student was sleeping with his teacher, the victim’s wife. To make a long and very typical Bones story short, the kid’s ex-girlfriend, who Brennan meets in detention, was the killer. We suppose the fun of the Bones formula is guessing which minor character did it, but its wasn't too hard this week. But what is with the teacher/student relationships in our shows this fall?

Parker and Hannah's meeting went swimmingly once Hannah told Booth to get lost and leave her alone with Parker. When Booth reported this back to Brennan, her congratulations where mixed with some not-too-subtle jealousy. We spent the entire Parker-Hannah scene wanting Parker to tell her that he wanted his dad to be with Brennan. That would have been fantastic for the fans, and it would have thrown a wrench into this boring relationship. It would have been so cute if Parker could see what we see watching these people every week. Alas, the episode ended with Booth, Parker, Brennan, and Hannah at dinner together. Parker declared his affection for both Hannah and Brennan. Brennan invited them all to her house with a smile that quickly melted into a frown as she watched Booth holding Hannah’s hand. Well, we like where THAT is going.

Now that the Bones writers have put off teasing us with sexual tension, they've taken up teasing us with Brennen tension. When will she realize that she's in love with him? Has she already? Is she just too afraid of abandonment after her past? Does she think it’s too late since she stomped on Booth’s heart last season? We guess we will have to take what we can get, as usual with this show. We have high hopes for next week’s episode, which is rumored to be a psychologically probing Brennan-centric episode. Whatever realizations Brennan comes to about herself, they need to push her more closely toward Booth, stat.

It really has been too long. It's past the point of annoying.

Episode grade: B

Ann Ward is America's Next Top Model

We are angry at this season of America’s Next Top Model for being predictable throughout the entire season. We almost always knew who was going home. And last night, we knew who was going to win as well. The show makes it easy by what it shows in the girls’ interview clips.

Chelsey’s clips: Showed her talking herself up, talking about her own confidence, and talking about how much she wanted to win and how she should win. At one point, her voiceover said that she couldn’t imagine NOT winning.

Ann’s clips: Showed her confident, not crying (for once), and speaking with humility and a few “aw shucks, it was nice just to get this far" comments.

We could just see, via these clips, that the show was trying to make us root for Ann so that we would be happy when she did win. They have done the same thing in years past. Never, ever say something nice about yourself or talk about why you should win on this show, because they will take that sound bit out of the context of what was probably a reasonable speech (unless you’re Jade or Melrose), and air it if you are going to lose. Why? Because Americans hate arrogance in others (oh, the irony), and can’t stand to see someone praise themselves. Most people prefer false humility (this blogger finds that to be disgusting).

This whole thing made the winner predictable. No way would they show unflattering clips of the winner. No way. So we knew it was going to be Ann.

But the show actually got us onboard with its decision. We lamented that unconfident, pathetic Ann was going to win when Chelsey had more experience and wanted it more. But the judges made a great point: Ann is unique and has the potential to be a star, whereas the perfectly reliable Chelsey would end up another face in the crowd. That doesn’t scream “Top Model,” it just screams “Bookable Model.” We thought Ann would win so that Tyra could celebrate the different people, the underdogs, and patronize Ann to give her self-esteem. But the judges gave a reason why Ann was the best bet to being successful and famous. We felt really bad for Chelsey though.

Oh well. Ann was a worthy winner, photos-wise. We just wish the season had been more memorable and surprising. The only shockers of this season were the prizes and how much an awkward, funny-looking girl who reminded us of a female Lurch can be improved by makeup.

Season grade: B-

Also, can someone tell us why this is our most popular post of all time??? Weird.