Bones – The Blood from the Stones

Whether or not it is “real to life”, Bones is by far one of my favorite shows and I look forward to watching it every week.  I am not a follower from the beginning  having only seen a few episodes here and there, but I had gone back and watched every episode before catching up with the current seasons.  The combination of science-y stuff and characters that I love and can relate to just makes it a great show for me.  Plus… David Boreanaz, need I say more?

The crime the team is investigating in this episode involves a somewhat petrified body found in a car.  Of course, they quickly determine that he was murdered and they’re off to the lab to determine who, how, and why.  The one side bit to this episode is that there is a guy video taping the team work in order to get donations for the Jeffersonian.  However, they get Dr. Edison to help with the case, even though he is not part of the crime unit anymore, because he is viewed as more camera friendly and relatable.  Through-out the episode, the camera guy is wandering around which causes Bones to try to compete with Dr. Edison to be more likable.  Bones struggles throughout the episode with the idea that maybe she is “stern and imperious” and maybe even mean or rude.  She talks with Booth at the end to ask if she is always like this and he comforts her to say she is nice and not always like she was on the footage.

Back to the murder, the victim was determined to be an undercover cop, but there is some suspicion that he has gone dirty, since he had swallowed a bag of diamonds before he left.  Bones and Booth meet with the cop, Dinco, who knew the details about the victim’s undercover work.  He was very upset over the suggestion that the victim may have been dirty and he quite upset and passionate, though a little anxious, about wanting to work on the case and does not stir up any suspicion.  That is until the victim’s wife says that it would be his fault, even if he didn’t pull the trigger.

Based on some of the particulates and such on the bullet, they determine where the victim was shot.  While there find a foot that was most likely left by whoever shot the victim in the first place.  Meanwhile, Angela is able to perform some of her technological magic and trace the ATM robberies to a house that is rented by two students.  They suspect that the female student just may be missing a foot.  Booth and Bones go to check it out and they find the female in the bed with her leg starting to gangrene.  Booth questions her before letting the rescue team to the hospital.  Shortly after that, they are able to catch up with the other student and bring him in for questioning, but only after he was roughed up by Dinco.  The kid admits that they were going to buy the diamonds, but the undercover cop took their money and shot his girlfriend.  By this point, they also know that the gun used to kill the victim was one issued by the DC police, so the kids did not kill him.  That turns the gaze on Dinco as the murderer, but that does not last long when Hodges finds particulates of leather, alcohol, and jasmine on some of the gun powder in the bones.

 They bring the victim’s wife in to question her and she finally admits that she killed him because she wanted the money to herself.  She had shot him with his own gun through her leather purse and had broken a bottle of perfume she in there in the process, hence the particulates.

I was a little disappointed that the rest of the team are not in the episode much.  I love Angela, but she was only in the show for a short time.  Even the rest of the team, Sweets and Hodges, were not main characters in this episode.  I do prefer episodes where the whole team gets very involved   Especially where Hodges does experiments!

Overall, I didn’t find this to be one of the best episodes, but it was still good.  The case they were involved in wasn’t as interested and didn’t seem as detailed as others in the past, probably because of the elements of the documentary and such.  I give it 7 bones out of 10.

 

Beauty and the Beast – On Thin Ice

Yes… I know… this is by no means a great show, but hey, it is exactly what you would expect from the CW.  I started watching it with the hope that it would be a clever retelling of Beauty and the Beast.  It is definitely an interesting modification (the “beast” is a genetically engineering soldier who beasts out when he gets mad), but the main focus seems to be the romantic relationship between Vincent (the beast) and Catherine (the beauty).

Honest I have gotten a tad behind in this episode, so I was trying to recall what had happened in the previous one.  I don’t recall the details (it’s so memorable huh?), but Catherine had gotten shot and she is not recovering.  Part of her recovery is talking with a shrink during which she realize and admits that she is in love with Vincent (shocker!).  But for the time being, she has still not been authorized to start working again.  Because she cannot work, she is going crazy and keeps bugging her partner Tess to let her help with a case.  She does end up sneaking around and helping some with the case, but it was not a major part of the episode by any means.  Generally the cases get Vincent involved, but this one was fairly open and shut and completely not interesting.  I think if they were going to have her sneak around, it could have at least been an interesting case like usual.

The other major plot line in this episode is Vincent is seeing his ex-fiance Alex.  She has been stealing supplies from the hospital she works at and is helping at a clinic for people who cannot afford treatment.  She brings Vincent with her and he helps with some of the patients (of course Mr. strong, dark and handsome ex-military is also a sweet and compassionate doctor!).  She tells him that they could run away together in a group that does medical treatment in various villages in Africa (or something to that effect).  After they finish at the clinic they sneak into an ice skating rink that they used to get into and get caught.  Since Vincent has no ID and cannot reveal his true identity (since he is technically dead), he calls in Catherine who reluctantly gets him out of trouble by lying to the police that caught them.  At the end of the episode, he tells her that Alex is willing to run away with him and if she would be willing to do the same, but she asks if she would still be willing to do so if she knew the full truth.  Given that it is a romantic “sci-fi” type show, it’s pretty easy to tell that he will end up with Catherine, that’s just how it has to be.

The other minor point in the episode is that J.T. is now working with Evan on the trans-genetic DNA, which is really Vincent’s DNA that has been found on various crime scenes. Evan wants to be able to understand this create and capture it and possibly cure it.  Just when it looks like they are about to have enough evidence to go to the police chief (and J.T. is freaking out about it) the samples show as corrupted.  The last scene of the episode shows Evan’s girlfriend (Claire) meeting up with Dr. Sorenson saying that she had corrupted the samples and that they would get to Vincent first.  I believe that Dr. Sorenson is one of the bad guys from earlier in the episode that wanted to capture Vincent to study him, he looked familiar.

One thing I wanted to mention was the “lab work” they were doing to look at the DNA.  Determining if the trans-genetic DNA was a match took only a few minutes and just came up on the screen saying it was a match and had two DNA strands on the screen.  Then all of a sudden a big flashing “SAMPLES CORRUPTED” came up on the screen.  Because… ya know… science totally works like that.

Overall, it’s a silly show.  I will probably continue to watch it, but it’s low on the totem pole of what I want to watch.  I only watched it now because it was easier to find than some of the episodes of The Walking Dead that I have missed.  I give it 5 DNA strands out of 10.

Family Guy – Chris Cross

I loved Family Guy when it first came out.  Since it’s return, it has good episodes and some are just… ehh… If you watch I’m sure you know what I mean.  I’ve apparently gotten a bit behind on Family Guy.

In general, I tend to like episodes more when they do not focus on Peter.  Let’s face it, Peter is a moron and, while he does have a few funny moments, is generally just annoying.  Based on the name of the episode, it seems like it’s going to be another episode focusing on Chris.  I did enjoy the episode where he went to space camp, so I had decent hopes for this one.

The main story line for this episode is that Chris gets made fun of because he is wearing lame shoes.  He asks his parents for money, but they refuse, so he sneaks in their room when they are gone and steals some money.  Meg sees him and blackmails him into doing things for her, in typical Meg fashion.  She has him watch An Officer and a Gentleman (I’m assuming it’s some romance movie, I have never seen it) and at the end she has him say “That’s going to be you someday Meg”.  The creepiest part was she wanted him to help put contacts in and her eyes rolled up into her head.  Finally Chris cannot take it anymore so he runs away from home.

I was pleasantly surprised that he runs away and ends up staying with Mr. Herbert (that creepy old man that has a crush on Chris).  I love Mr. Herbert, he adds that necessary creepy feel that is just hilarious.  This was one of the better episodes for him.  My favorite scene is when Chris and Mr. Herbert are going to bed, they are both in individual twin size beds that are decently far apart.  Chris keeps turning the light off, then back on to ask a question and the beds keep getting closer and closer.  Chris farts and turns the light back on and Mr. Herbert is back where he started and said that’s one way to waist a Cialis (erection pills for those that are too innocent to know what that is).  Eventually Chris gets so annoying that Mr. Herbert kicks him out.  Meg had ended up looking for him and finally found him and convinced him to come back home.

The other story line for this episode is between Stewie and Brian.  Stewie discover Anne Murray and loves his music.  Brian thinks he’s full of shit, but after Stewie sings to him, he has the same weird visions to the music that Stewie does.  They end up later arguing over a song and go to see her to ask what it really means.  It is here that Stewie finds out that she didn’t actually write the songs so he ties her up.  There was no real end to that story line.

There were two random scenes in the episode that stood out to me too.  One is when Stewie mentioned Buzz Lightyear not showing up and it cuts to Buzz at a scene trying to pick up some girls with the pickup line “Want to go to my apartment? And beyond?”  I thought that was pretty good.  The other was Peter being out on a date with Lois but had forgotten his wallet.  He ran to the payphone to make a call, but it cuts to a live action clip from probably the 80s.  It may have been funny if I had known what the original clip was from, but I just didn’t get it.

Overall, it was a decent episode.  I love Mr. Herbert being all creepy and I was amused by the fact that he eventually got tired of Chris.  At the end, it showed Mr. Herbert arriving at a cabin (that he had planned on going to with Chris) to meet with another guy and his small child/boyfriend crying that they had broken up.  I give it 7 evil monkeys out of 10.

Whitney – Crazy, Stupid, Words

Whitney is another one of the shows that is more of a guilty pleasure, and not so geeky.  The geekiest part of the show is Whitney’s husband/boyfriend Alex who is a bit of a nerd and created and sold a website for a good deal of money.  While he is a geek, he is also a bit of a hipster looking guy, though I suppose the two “types” can often merge.

The theme behind this weeks episode is trust in couples and couples sneaking in and reading each others email.  It starts off by talking about it while watching a couple at a restaurant fight about it.  Later, they go to Marks bar where they are talking about trigger words (a word that upsets you due to a past experience) and it progresses to Whitney taking a picture of her butt as a funny photo with her friends, which upsets Alex because that is *his* butt and only *he* should get to see it…  Right.  That part irked me a bit because it came off much too controlling than I felt the situation needed to be.  It honestly made me like Alex less as a character because it made him much more close minded than the hipstery nerd I saw him as. Moving along… after fighting, Alex decided to take a picture of his junk and of course at that moment Roxanne and Lily walk in to see him in all of his glory and he proceeds to slam the laptop shut… on his dick.

Once you are done cringing at the thought of that, it moves on to Whitney joking with her friends about the situation and Alex sneaking onto her email to read it (Who saw that coming? Oh wait… everyone).  After a bit of fighting, they finally sit down and discuss it like adults and they both discuss their trigger words and explain why they are triggers.

Overall, not one of the stronger episodes and there have been some that are quite funny, but this one just didn’t push that boundary for me, though the part of Alex being controlling and acting like he owns Whitney did push it down a bit as well.  I give it 4 nerd glasses out of 10.

Firefly – Serenity (Rewatch)

It has been a while since I have watched Firefly, at least in it’s entirety and I will admit, I have only seen it all the way through once.  I am usually late to the cool shows and it took several people pressuring me to watch it before I did.  I decided to work on re-watching it, not only because it is great show, but I am going to cosplay as Jayne at an upcoming con (RavenCon if anyone is going!), so I thought a re-watch could not hurt.

The first episode (in the proper order that is) is Serenity and starts off in a battle.  Having seen it all before, I already knew that this is where Captain Malcolm Reynolds is forced to surrender.  He does have a good quote in telling one of his men that “we are just too pretty for God to let us die.”  That is the one thing that I have forgotten, or I suppose just not realizing, but how many good quotes there are in this series.  It is here we are also introduced to Zoe and the relationship between Mal and Zoe as browncoats is a lasting one through out the series.

After the surrender, we meet up with the crew six years later as they are breaking into a ship to steal some goods.  We are introduced to Wash, Jayne, and Kaylee and Wash is at the helm playing with his dinosaurs (“Curse you sudden bu inevitable betrayal!”).  An Alliance cruiser comes along and the crew is able to distract them long enough to grab the goods and run.  We find out later that the goods they nabbed are for a character named Badger.  They stash the goods and head for Persephone to finish the deal with Badger.

As soon as I saw Badger, I realized that this is where I knew the actor from.  Mark Sheppard, who plays Badger, also played Romo in Battlestar Galactica and some characters in Doctor Who and Supernatural.  Seeing him here, I realized that is why I kept feeling like he was a sleezebag in Battlestar, because he really is here.  Badger refuses to pay Mal or even accept the goods, which leaves them in a bit of a rut.  Trying to decide what to do with it, Mal suggests going to Patience on Whitefall.  Zoe reminds Mal that she shot him the last time they met and he said that it was kind of a legitimate reason.

During this, Kaylee is looking for passengers and it is here that we meet Shepherd Book and Simon.  Inara also rejoins the crew and her profession becomes clear when Mal introduces her as a whore.   Later at dinner (with real food!) Simon is asking a lot of questions.  This was not something that stood out in my memory and it makes him seem very suspicious.  Knowing why he is there and what is in his crate, this seems like a poor move on his part.  Smuggling a family member seems like the best time to keep your mouth shut.  It’s also here that Kaylee starts to become interested in Simon.

Mal is washing up from dinner when Wash calls him, saying that he had stopped a hail from inside the ship for an Alliance cruiser.  Given his suspicious behavior at dinner, Mal assumes it is Simon, when really it was the thus far unnamed third passenger (his name ended up being Lawrence, if you were curious).  The spy tries to take over and Kaylee ends up getting shot just as the Alliance ship is ordering them to release the wanted prisoners.  Simon rushes to help her then backs away, threatening to let her die if they do not run, so they hightail it out of there and Simon patches up Kaylee.  I kind of think if Kaylee was very aware of his actions, she may not have liked him quite as much later on.  After Kaylee is stable, Mal charges out to see what Simon has in storage only to discover River.  This is where Simon explains his story and why the Alliance are after him and his sister.

As they approach Whitefall, Patience talks to them and agrees to deal.  However, Mal thinks she’s not actually going to pay him and will probably shoot him again, so they prepare to be screwed over.  They meet with Patience and she does try to take the money and the goods and a gun fight breaks out.  Zoe is shot, but we find later she was wearing armor that protected her.  Patience is the only one left standing on her side and Mal takes the money from her.  About that time, Jayne comes running in because the Reavers had followed them.  They rush back to the ship and Mal shoots the Alliance spy (who had escaped and was holding River hostage) and they take off.  Trying to outrun the Reavers, Jayne and Shepherd get Kaylee to the engine room and she gives them orders on what to do.  Wash say they are going to pull a Crazy Ivan (which is apparently an actual military thing relating to submarines).  With a Firefly class ship though, it’s having one engine forward and another in reverse to quickly spin around.  The Crazy Ivan was successful and allowed them to escape from the Reavers (after which lead to Zoe stating that she needed Wash to tear all her clothes off).

After the dust settles, so to speak, Mal allows Jayne to interrogate the Alliance spy.  It is here that the spy offers Jayne money to turn River in along with the rest of the crew.  At the end of the episode, Mal asked why Jayne didn’t turn on him to which Jayne replied that the money wasn’t good enough.  Mal then asked what would happen when it was and Jayne said it would be an interesting day.  In my first watch of the show, I never really questioned Jayne’s loyalty to Mal, but it does make me wonder if the money could ever be good enough.

Simon comes up to talk to Mal, who out of no where asks him to join the crew.  The best place for Simon and River to be is on the run, plus they could use a medic.  Simon’s concern is that Mal will try to kill him in his sleep to which Mal says that if he was going to kill him he’d be awake, looking at him, and armed.

During the episode, Shepherd and Inara have a few conversations.  During the first one Shepherd brings her dinner and she expects him to lecture her about her sinful ways.  However, they end up discussing Mal and mention how loyal he is to his own crew.  The second conversation is after they have escaped the Reavers, gotten their payment, and gotten rid of the Alliance mole.  Shepherd talks about how he has only been out of the abbey for two days and how he was not sure he was on the right ship.  His major dilemma is that Mal shot the mole and he was not sure that he could say that it was wrong.  Looking back on it, this shows a lot of his character and I think by the end, it will really show how his morality as a Shepherd and a member of the crew will evolve.

Overall, there was a lot of character building done in this episode, which makes it interesting that this was actually the 11th episode when it aired on TV originally (way to go FOX).  I never really paid much attention to how characters are set up, but the values and thoughts of the characters is definitely set up well for the rest of the series.  I give this episode 9 Serenitys out of 10.

The Neighbors – Mo Purses Mo Money Mo Problems

I am almost ashamed to admit that I watch this show, but I am less ashamed of this than… well I’ll save that for later.  If you haven’t see it, the only “sci-fi” element is that it is a neighborhood full of crash landed aliens and one human family moves in.  It’s a quick watch and doesn’t make me angry, so it’s kind of relaxing and just silly.

This episode starts by the Debbie Weavers (human family) wanting to have a yard sale and Jackie (alien mom) wants to help out, but Larry Bird says that women cannot work outside the home.  Jackie proceeds to help anyways and they make a deal to sell handmade purses to a business woman and Larry Bird is helping with the girl scout like troop and ends up getting them to help make purses in a sweat shop style setting.  Meanwhile, Amber Weaver’s ex-boyfriend is trying hard to get her back.

It all comes to a climax when Marty Weaver “solves the puzzle” and lays everyone’s problem out on the table for them.  The best part is Reggie’s nerdy little girlfriend telling Amber that she will fight for the things she really likes, which is total a nerd thing.  Overall, I give it 4.5 aliens out of 10.

Arrow – The Huntress Returns

I need to start this off with a disclaimer.  I have been watching Arrow fairly regularly since it began and I quite enjoy it.  That being said, I have not read the original comic that it is based on (as is true for pretty much all superhero comics… and comics in general).  Any of my writing will come from the view as Arrow as it’s own thing, since I cannot compare it to the comic.  I also watch because it has John Barrowman in it… mmmm… Oh right… Arrow.

The episode starts off in a fitting manner with the title of the episode and we see The Huntress (Helena) kill her father’s attorney to try to get his location, I am assuming she wants to break him out.  Later in the episode she shows up in Oliver’s house asking for help to find her father to kill him.  When Oliver refuses, Helena threatens his friends and family.  At the club opening, she captures Tommy and convinces him to help her.  The heist is planned and Helena gets caught and Oliver breaks her out and leaves her.  She breaks in and forces Felicity to give her the address to the safe house where her dad is held and takes off and of course, Oliver goes after her and epic battle between the Arrow and The Huntress ensues.  Okay, maybe not so epic, but they fight a bit.  To make things even more messy and complicated, Oliver’s detective girlfriend shows up and ends up getting shot.  No, she doesn’t die, but she does decide to move away for rehabilitation due to her injury.  I think her death would had added to the animosity between Arrow and The Huntress that could really be drawn on later, but perhaps there is a part for her later in the series.

In the last episode, we are introduced to Laurell’s mother, River Song, well at least the actress that plays River Song (Alex Kingston).  Here Laurell’s mother confronts her dad with her idea that her sister may still be alive.  She even has proof with a picture that was taken by a tourist.  It takes some convincing from Laurell, but her dad finally agrees to sit down and listen to her mother’s ideas.  I am quite curious as to how this will play out.  This plot point will have to tie into the main idea, perhaps relating to who caused the boat to sink in the first place.  Maybe the sister was in on it and was used almost as bait.  Otherwise, it seems unnecessary to the show.

Another side story is Oliver talking to Tommy about him now knowing his identity.  Tommy refuses to see past the idea that Oliver is a murder and said he would not believe any of his reasons or justifications.  Tommy is mostly upset that Oliver would keep a huge secret from him.  It seemed like he would never come around to it, but by the end of the episode, especially after what happens with Oliver’s girlfriend.  Yey they are friends again!

The flashback scenes in this episode were few, but seemed unrelated to the overall progress of the show.  It starts by Slade and Oliver observing one of Flynn’s camps where he has managed to acquire a missile launcher and Slade suspects he is trying to start a war with someone.  They sneak into the camp to destroy it, but Oliver removes a circuit board (I don’t know much about missile launchers, though I’m sure they have them, but this seems like a simple way out) to use for leverage.  It ends by trying to barter with Flynn to trade the circuit board for a way off the island.  We will have to wait to see how this plays out.  I do not think Flynn will give a way off the island so easily and I’m sure he has some tricks up his sleeve.

I was a bit disappointed because Felicity had very little screen time.  Her geek girl personality really appeals to me and one of my favorite episodes was when she upgraded Oliver’s hideout and essentially forced herself in, at least until they find his step-dad.

Overall, this episode lead to some interesting thoughts for me.  The Huntress is back and wants to kill her father and there is growing tension between her and Arrow.  I am sure that we have not seen the last of her.  I give it 8 out of 10 arrows.

Glee – Guilty Pleasures

So I’m not starting off with a horribly geeky series, but Glee has been a show I have loved since the beginning   I will admit it, I have a horrible addiction to musicals… Granted it has been a little rough lately, I still keep up with it pretty well.

This week’s Glee started with Blaine confronting Sam about stealing from the cafeteria only to find out that Sam has a guilty pleasure for creating portraits out of macaroni.  Yes… macaroni.  The portraits are pretty cool, but it was kind of a bizarre way to start off the show, but what more do you expect from Glee?  This scene sets the theme for the rest of the show: Guilty Pleasures.

With this theme, I can’t help but think of the first book in the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series by Laurel K. Hamilton by the same name, which amuses me, but moving on.  The weeks homework for glee club is to sing songs from your guilty pleasure artist and it included Barry Malow, the Spice Girls, and Wham!.  It’s shocking that with the Spice Girls they didn’t include some Backstreet Boys or *NYSNC, oh wait… they did that last week.

The two major plot points were that Blaine is in love with Sam and Rachael finding out that Brody was a male escort to pay for school.  Neither are very in depth and they both seem like filler to me.  It was nice that Sam is okay with Blaine’s feelings, but the part with Rachael and Brody was disappointing.  Rachael freaks out over Brody’s method of paying for school, rather than trying to understand that not everyone has parents that are well-off.  It would have been nice to see more of an understanding, even if they do break up, rather than shaming him for what he does to get by.

All in all, it was an okay episode.  My favorite part was the creepy boyfriend arm pillow.  Especially since Kurt named his Bruce *snickers*  I give it 6 nerd glasses out of 10.