TBBT 7x04: The Raiders Minimization

Amy watches Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time. When explains how Indy has no effect on the outcome, Sheldon's jaw drops.

Since she ruined Raiders for him, he has to ruin something for her. First he tries Pride and Prejudice, but he finds it too perfect.

Then he tries to ruin Marmaduke and Garfield, but winds up falling in love with the latter.

He does a good job of ruining Little House on the Prairie, but Amy gets wise to his tricks and tells him that they're in a relationship, so he should talk to her and not just try to seek vengeance.

He agrees and they talk it out. Then he gets revenge by telling her Garfield has no reason to hate Mondays, since he's a cat and doesn't have a job.

Meanwhile, Penny is reading Leonard's mother's book for her psychology class. He's not happy about it, because it's about his childhood.

The book brings up lots of painful memories that make Leonard sad, so Penny does what she can to make him feel better.

Then he gets greedy and lies about being sad so he can get out of going to a sports bar.

And to get some at-work sex.

Eventually, Howard spills the beans to Bernadette, who tells Penny, who tricks Leonard into talking to his mother. She wants to talk about his sex life, which makes him sad for real.

Elsewhere, Raj needed something to do in this episode, so he and Stuart make online dating profiles. They get a lot of views, but no messages.

So they go to a bar and get shot down by women in real life. It feels even worse.

What I Liked
-They remembered that Penny's going to college. I thought they totally forgot about that.
-One of the chapters in Leonard's mother's book is about how Leonard favoured her left breast when he was a baby, and he still goes left today. Hee-hee.
-On his dating profile, Raj puts down "My parents' money" as his best feature. In reality, that probably would get him a lot of girls. The ladies love a guy with money, even if it's not really his.
-Sheldon's mom got revenge on his dad for staying out all night by putting hamster poop in his chewing tobacco. That's some good vengeance right there. Not too punishing, but fairly disgusting.
-The faces Stuart makes for his profile picture.

I've seen worse.

What I Hated
-Somehow, Amy made it into her 30s without seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark. For someone who hangs out with enormous dorks on an exclusive basis to have not seen that film is preposterous. TV shows do that sort of thing with some regularity: Someone's favourite movie is a hugely popular thing that everyone has seen, and yet their boy/girlfriend has never seen it.
-Bernadette would rather take a bath alone than have sex. That's not a good sign. Her relationship with Howard is about to become one of those stereotypical TV relationships where the man wants sex, but the woman doesn't. It happened to Ray Romano, so it can happen to them, too.

Final Thoughts
Geez, Kevin Sussman really is on the show more when he's in the end credits than he was when he was in the opening credits.

It's a bit weird how Penny busts Leonard by putting on sexy lingerie and starting a video chat with his mother. Sure, men like boobs, so it's a good trick, but I don't know anyone who would sit around in their underwear in front of their boyfriend's mother just to get back at him. At any rate, as I've mentioned...

Men like boobs.

Raj and Stuart's plot was highly underdeveloped; a casualty of once again having three plots in a single episode. It also wasn't terribly realistic. I've used a couple dating sites in the past and I can say that no man gets 162 profile views in two hours. Men outnumber women to such a great extent on those sites that it's just not mathematically possible. Plus, in general, men have to take the initiative and contact the women first. It's basically the same as going to bars, only faster and more convenient.

The whole three plot thing never really works out right. Seven minutes is not enough time to develop things properly, so at least one of them will always seem half-assed. They've been jamming all seven main characters and Stuart into the show lately, and I'm starting to wonder if there's even enough room for them all. Other ensemble shows tend to write people out for a couple episodes rather than trying to fit them all in. But I understand that can be a bit difficult when you're paying someone at least $60,000/episode. You want to get your money's worth and they want to work.

One final point: If not for Indy, the Germans would have tortured and mutilated Marion. He saved the girl. He's a hero.

The Crazy Ones 1x03: Bad Dad

The latest campaign is for Allstate and it revolves around showing people the milestone's in a family's lives.

The first Milestone is learning to drive and it's a commercial about how Simon taught Sydney by switching seats with her in the middle of the freeway.

The focus group thinks the commercials were about how Simon was a bad dad, so he goes in to bully them.

But he realizes they were right and tries to teach Sydney to drive again. It doesn't go well.

Meanwhile, the others have to brainstorm some new ideas.

Sydney gets in a minor accident.

Father and daughter reconcile because his insanity made her strong.

Then they go camping.

Elsewhere, Zach dumps a girl.

And Andrew moves right in to pick her up.

Lauren realizes that Andrew is Zach's remora and feeds off his leftovers.

Andrew can't handle that, so he retires as shoulder to cry on guy.

Until Lauren sees that Zach is Simon's remora, and Andrew realizes that gettin' some is better than not gettin' some.

What I Liked
-Sydney compares Andrew talking to a girl Zach just dumped to a pimp swooping in on a runaway. That's highly accurate, but a little bit sad.
-Andrew took his Spanish teacher to prom and they slow-danced to the theme from Friends. That's the kind of thing you just can't get away with anymore. Not that any of my teachers were really the kind you'd want to slow-dance with. I know some pretty teachers now, though.
-The focus group leader is forced to admit that his word is no longer his bond. I've been in several focus groups and you can never trust the leader. He'll sell you out the moment your back is turned.
-Since Simon's not actually the world's best dad, he wonders if all his mugs are lies and if he really likes Mondays. Maybe he's just like Garfield and has no reason to hate them.
-Simon trashes Sydney's perfect sandwich.

No one likes a braggart.

-A pigeon refuses to move out of the way and Sydney runs over it. I may take some flack for this, but I think if a bird won't fly away from your oncoming tire, it deserves to die. It's probably committing suicide, in fact. You're doing it a favour.
-While they're trying to come up with new ideas for the campaign, Zach keeps drawing boobs. Men love boobs.
-Andrew is the boob. The sad, sad boob. Hee-hee.
-Claire unzips her top a bit when she goes over to talk to Andrew.

Men like boobs.

What I Hated
-Lauren does a weird thing where she just blurts out what she really thinks of people and then has to cover it up. It's good that they gave her something to do, but it seemed really odd and out of place.
-"The good ad about a bad dad made Simon sad?" Booooo.
-They reverse the angle when Sydney gets in the accident. First they're on the left, then they're on the right. That's one of the first things they teach you not to do in film school... at least, I assume it is.

Final Thoughts
Lauren was slightly less like window dressing this week, but they're going to have to find a lot more for her character to do if they don't want her to wind up like almost all the female characters on Boston Legal. The only people who made it through every episode of that show were Shatner and Spader, and I don't think Amanda Setton's going to be winning any Emmys for her work.

They managed to rein in Robin Williams a little bit more this week, but he was still funny. He doesn't always need to riff; sometimes he can just act.

This was the funniest episode so far of this series, but I didn't enjoy the plot quite as much.

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD 1x03: The Asset

Some dudes hijack a SHIELD truck carrying this guy: Franklin Hall, aka Graviton

Skye gets some training, but no montage... booooooo!

Coulson finds a thingy at the scene of the crime.

Billionaire Ian Quinn kidnapped Hall and took him to Malta.

Fitzsimmons explain gravitonium.

It's time to send in the diversionary boobs.

Extraction team.

Hall leaked his location so he could be kidnapped and destroy Quinn's gravitonium generator.

The world goes all fiddle-faddle-foo!

Coulson dumps Hall into the generator and creates a supervillain.

What I Liked
-Fitz recognizes the fact that Skye has boobs and knows how to use 'em. Men like boobs, so the make for a good distraction. It's not rocket science. Later in the episode, they get Chloe Bennet soaking wet and have her run around with her boobs bouncing all over.

Men like boobs.

-After Hall sets the generator to overload, he just hangs out, resigned to his fate, and starts getting drunk. If you're gonna go out, it's not a bad way to go.

What I Hated
-May hands Skye a list of communications she has to read, and it's a giant stack of paper. I know it's a great visual gag, but it's 2013, not 1987: She'd be reading through all that crap on a computer or a tablet. Plus, they work for a super-secret shadowy organization that has future tech. Some fancy algorithm could probably dig out the pertinent details without anyone having to actually read anything. Not that she wound up reading it, anyway.
-Really bad ADR. Like atrociously bad.
-SHIELD agents can't go to Malta for some reason. This may have come from the comics -I don't know- but it's stupid either way. They're shadowy agents with future tech: They can go anywhere they want.
-The laser mesh protecting Quinn's compound is not only wavy for some reason, it has vertical lines that come from nowhere.

Also, throwing a small rock at it makes it visible in a ten-metre radius of the impact for some reason.

-May decides she really does want to do field work. Why bother having her reject it in the first place if they were just going to ignore that aspect of her personality three episodes in? My guess is that they probably found it to be too restrictive, and having her accidentally get into combat situations every week would've seemed ridiculous after a while.

Final Thoughts
They finally got around to mining some of the decades of backstory they have to work with... sort of. From what I understand, Graviton's sort of a mid-level supervillain, who could be a good foe for a season-long arc. Unfortunately, they didn't actually fight Graviton. Franklin Hall is basically an amorphous blob of black goo at this point, and there's no indication that he'll actually show up any time in the near future. Beyond that, I'm not sure the team could even put up a realistic fight against him. Fitzsimmons may have fancy future technology, but it's not combat-related. There are only three combat-ready team members and aside from Ward's stupid repulser wave thing, the only weapons they have are guns. I don't see how they could possibly fight anyone, really.

Quinn will probably be back as an antagonist. He's a crazy billionaire, and the team seems to be a less-capable squad of Pierce Brosnan-era James Bonds, so he'd make a good recurring enemy.

All the hints about how Coulson is a robot or something need to end. It's not all that interesting a mystery.

This was a better episode than last week's. They were actually doing something that seemed like it might require SHIELD to get involved, rather than just fighting South American rebels. It was more fun and interesting and felt more like a comic book show than a bad ripoff of NCIS. They got a full-season pickup a day or two ago, so if they can maintain this level of quality, I'll keep watching it at least until the end of the season.

Hawaii Five-0 4x02: Aʻale Maʻa Wau

The Yakuza attack Kono and Adam, And Kono steals McGarrett's move.

Random bikini girls.

Strange cowboy flies into town, beats his driver, stuffs him in the trunk, then later, his corpse washes up on the beach

Peewee baseball dispute.

Maury says Steve is not the brother.

Fancy new computer.

The killer's a Texas Ranger.

Bitchin' Camaro Jr.

Dumbass kid got the Ranger's daughter kidnapped.

Kidnappers are the real killers, plus they double-crossed the kid and sold the girl.

Big hugs before she can be shipped to Asia.

Game 7 home run.

What I Liked
-McGarrett kicks dirt on Kamekona's shoes at the baseball game. That's some old school manger-umpire fighting.
-Danny thinks it's funny that Steve thinks Wo Fat's a psychopath, so they must automatically be brothers. That's a fair point.
-Some good banter in the new Camaro. New car, same banter. Good.
-Michelle Borth in jorts.

I do love me some jorts.

What I Hated
-Steve won't let Danno drive his brand new car. That's just not cool. Also he grinds the gears.
-Despite the fact that he's locked in an interrogation room, and time is of the essence, the cowboy still won't talk. They tried to play it off by having him say he doesn't trust anyone, but it still doesn't make any damn sense. How's he supposed to save his daughter if he's in jail?
-They used the 'kid hits a homer in the big game' cliché. C'mon, really?

Final Thoughts
I find myself struggling to care about what's happening with Adam and Kono. Now they're apparently going to go off and fight the Yakuza on their turf, which doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense since there are only two of them and they have very limited resources. Also, wasn't Adam basically the head of the Hawaii Yakuza? Shouldn't he have been able to kill his brother with impunity? I know there are some elements who would be pissed off, but enough people should be making legitimate money at this point that he should have a lot more clout than it seems like he does.

The upgraded computer and car are certainly flashier than the old stuff, but I don't know if people would be able to tell the old from the new just by looking at them. Certainly, from a product placement standpoint it makes sense to show off the latest and greatest stuff, but it's not like the average person who watches Hawaii Five-0 is going to go out and buy a $20,000 computer. I've always preferred black cars to silver ones, though, so I'm a fan of the car upgrade.

It's been far too long since Danno last booked someone. I'm not saying it has to happen every week, but every three episodes or so would be nice. These days it seems like they just kill everyone.

This particular episode focused quite a lot on a guest character who moved very slowly most of the time and didn't say very much. I think they were trying to make him come off as some kind of silent badass, but it really didn't work. During the shootout, he just walks at the bad guys without ducking, dodging, or even firing his gun. And he's moving so slowly that everyone's dead before he even gets anywhere near them. That's not badass, it's just stupid.

Overall I didn't like this one as much as the season premiere. It wasn't bad, but it spent so much time on a bad character that I can't say it was good, either.