Some of this week's ep reactions/general reactions to the new season
House 4x04, Grey's Anatomy 4x05:
Okay, so on both shows we have fresh cast members, newbies referred to by numbers. On both shows one of the new guys is significantly older - Ridiculously Old Fraud vs. Richard Gilmore the Intern - and on both shows, they're let go on the same week. Just sayin'.
But really, Grey's: Yay for Callie's new apartment, for Mark & Derek, for the unreal-but-I'm-still-hoping prospect of more Mark/Callie, and an especially big YAY for Ava! I was so happy to see her again, with bonus smooching. I hope she returns for more episodes. Meredith's mom was too morbid for my taste, but that's because just the idea of touching ashes like that makes me shudder. Big boo for the way they treated the guy with body dysmorphic disorder. I immediately recognized what he had because - well, because someone wrote a great House fic about it once - so I'd guessed what he was going to do, and wanted to yell at the doctors for the way they were treating him. I mean, if I predicted he'd try to self amputate, Bailey should have too.
House: I like the new season! I like all the new characters, except for Steve Carell the plastic surgeon and the other useless white guy. And I don't really like Cutthroat Bitch, but I enjoy her scenes, wanting to slap her and all. I love the old fellows' cameos, ridiculous as they may be (*ahem*Surgeon!Chase*ahem*), and, ooh, Cole is a single dad! I really love that.
And House and Wilson and Cuddy are all awesome. Cameron's trying to wedge herself into Wilson's territory with the banter and the betting and so forth, but I see Wilson as more of a "you have much to learn, grasshopper" type than a "get yo' skinny ass off my turf, biatch" kind of guy, so all is well for no.
Ugly Betty
Mark's new boyfriend is so cuuuuute! Look, I multiple 'u'ed and I never do that. Daniel knowing Betty's lucky sweater and worried about her and Henry in the meeting made me aw. Clair and Yoga are awesome. Alexis & Daniel fighting again = sad :-( Hilda and Justin's reconciliation was too quick for me - for a bratty teenager going through a phase, the resolution was entirely unbelievable, which leads me to one done well:
Friday Night Lights:
He's back! Coach is back! I was so happy when you could see Julie was happy to see him, and I was especially happy when Julie and Tami finally took that one step back towards one another. I hope this isn't followed by two steps back.
If Coach gets into trouble, I will KILL Buddy. I like Lilah's new guy. I feel so, so sad for Jason, because on every other TV show on earth they would have let him walk again but on this show he never will.
I am scared for the Taylors and for Landry and Tyra - the watch! what about Landry's watch? - I think this is the only show I watch where I'm actually worried for the characters, both for what direction the writers will decide to take their plots, and for how events will affect the characters themselves. On every other show I more or less trust the writers and don't really care where they take us in canon, knowing that they'll usually get somewhat satisfying endings and that in any case, anything can be fixed in fanfic. But fanfic can't fix FNL. They're too real for that. It can expand on the characters, it can give missing scenes, it can invent futures - but it can't mess with the canon of the show. I am entirely uninterested in reading "what if?" FNL fic that's contradicted by episodes aired later on. This is new for me.
Also, Coach is back! :D :D :D
SGA 4x05:
Okay, I wrote all that just before watching the ep, so - gonna watch the ep now.
Typed while watching:
-First five minutes: I need to turn the volume up to hear over the thousands of McShep fangirls virtually squealing in my head. shut up, guys, I'm trying to watch.
-Yay! Kavan Smith is in this ep. As is the SGA version of Serenity?
-Inertial dampners --> clever Shep! Excellent.
-Okay, writers, would it have been that hard to have the bad guys argue about whether or not to trust John in, like, a different room? Less dramatic, yes, but watching them whisper in front of him is like fingernails on a chalkboard.
-SOS! Clever Shep again.
-Eep! Did the two scientists/bodyguards die? I liked them.
-Ooh, drones and SFX! Very pretty, and more importantly vital potential footage for Project-queenzulu-I-am-looking-at-you.
-Okay, saying "give it up, they're gone" in that tone is kind of cruel.
-I kind of love John being a superhero in this ep, but I kind of hate that he had to save her from that Wraith. It only took a split second for her to suddenly become helpless.
-Ronon: "Even if there were a fleet of hive ships..." Aw!
-"I really don't need the guilt". Aw! I like a lot of one-liners in this episode. The Sheppard-Larrin bickering is kind of annoying, in the way it always is when adults start playing the blame game, especially in times of emergencies.
-John-Wraith scene: whoa. 1. The wraith (wraith or Wraith? obviously I don't write enough about SGA) didn't ask for proof that John was holding a stunner to his head and not a ballpoint pen. Maybe he could hear it hum? 2. NEGOTIATING WITH WRAITH AGAIN! This makes me happy and sad. Happy, if there is ever any follow through, and sad, if this is all they're going to leave it at: Wraith can be negotiated with, even if it means being threatened into leaving, and yet we will continue killing them anyway.
The thing is, we don't know anything about the Wraith. On the one hand, they're set up as nothing but animals in the food chain, totally unapproachable, incommunicable, even evil. On the other hand, they're technologically advanced. How did they get to that level? Do they have a home world? Are their Wraith children? Where are they educated? Are there schools and universities? They have science; do they have philosophy, religions? How do Wraith reproduce; do any of them love? (And one of the most important questions; can they survive on anything but humans? Have they even experimented with substitutes?)
I hope some of these are eventually answered. Until I know the answers, though, I can't decide what the correct ethcal approach to the war with the Wraith is, other than of course self-defense, for now. And then there's the so far forgotten Michael and his army of half-breeds, who are a whole other matter.
In any case, I like it when we get reminders like these - even though this was a pretty bad example, seeing as the Wraith, unlike the one in Common Enemy, didn't really have a choice here - but still, a reminder that they can at least be talked to. That small exchange is so tempting with its potential for more.
-Last scene - and there go the fangirls again. I am just happy with any scene that gives me the team having lunch together :-)
-And I miss Sam and Keller and Zelenka! Hope we see 'em next week.
Pushing Daisies: remains awesome, is all I have to say.