90210 S1E5: "Not everyone is a ho-bot like you."

“Wide Awake and Dreaming”

And 90210 continues in its quest to be the most boring show on television. The implied sex from the commercials is part of the SCHOOL PLAY!

Annie is Adriana’s understudy for the school’s version of Spring Awakening, and Ade is missing rehearsals because she’s under a lot of pressure and is a drug addict. Harry catches Annie and Ty making out backstage, so Debbie has a poorly scripted sex talk with her daughter. The next day, Naomi joins the Annie & Silver at lunch for a chat. When did this happen? The girls tell Annie that Ty “has done everyone” and she’s next. Ethan and Naomi are blissfully happy. Silver tells Annie she’s not ready for sex.

Much like Cindy Walsh in the original 90210, Debbie’s character is kind of pointless. Harry is upset because he doesn’t want Annie to make the same mistakes that he made. I have to say I was wondering about this – they really glossed over the whole “I just found out I have a kid with another woman” storyline. Weird.



Before the play, Adriana’s mom reveals that she has invited a bunch of agents to see her daughter. Buckling under the pressure, Ade gets high and Brenda won’t let her perform. Annie takes her place. I’ve never seen Spring Awakening, but based on the fact that two teen characters have implied sex onstage and one song goes on about “the bitch of living” I do not believe it would be performed in a high school.

Annie asks Dixon for the condom he’s been carrying in his wallet for four years. You have to wonder about its efficacy. She then runs into Ethan, who has brought her flowers. She drops the condom, and Ethan tells her she cannot sleep with Ty. “Wouldn’t you rather save yourself for someone who cares about you?” he asks. “I tried that, it didn’t work out,” Annie sniffles with a meaningful look. Bitch please! These kids have known each other for, like, a month – if that.

At the hotel, Adriana shows up at Ty’s door. She tells him that Annie left the play with Ethan, and she saw the two of them making out. Ty is sad. Lemme guess what happens next. Downstairs, Silver finally attacks Dixon, and they make out on a pool lounge chair. Dixon is bummed that he gave away his condom, but Silver says it doesn’t matter because they’re going to take it slow.

Annie shows up to find Adriana in a towel and the shower running. Ade says that if Annie wants to wait, Ty is “just rinsing off.” Annie runs away. Adriana goes into the bathroom, and Ty isn’t even there. That’s pretty cruel. Annie goes home, puts on a happy face for her parents, and then collapses in tears in her bedroom.

** UPDATE
There is no fucking way Spring Awakening would be a school musical.

HIMYM S4E1: "At what age did you get your first period?"

“Do I Know You?”

I have to say, there wasn’t much to like about this premiere. Ted asks Stella to marry him, and she accepts. Then, when he can’t offer any suggestions about a shower present, he realizes he doesn’t know anything about her (hobbies, favorite color, etc). I know their relationship was underdeveloped due to outside forces, but this seems like a pretty major warning sign that it isn’t going to last.

Ted learns that Stella has never seen Star Wars, and since it’s his favorite movie he decides that if she doesn’t like it, he can’t marry her. Stella tells him she loves it, but later she secretly admits to Marshall (who has truly terrible hair) that she hated it. Marshall asks if she can pretend to love a movie she hates for the rest of her life (“through sickness and health, til death do you part”), and she says, “I do.” So freakin’ cheesy.



Meanwhile, in more cheesiness, Barney admits to Lily that he’s in love with Robin, who looks super hot this season. But Barney’s conflicted – he wants to be with Robin, but he doesn’t want to be her boyfriend. At Lily’s prodding, Barney calls Robin to ask her out. He is so awkward that he ends up asking her when she first got her period after Lily whispers for him to ask something personal. Lily sets up a surprise date for the two of them. Robin wears a fabulous dress, and Barney is sweet and decorous. This freaks Robin out, and at the end of the night she plays “wingwoman” and hooks Barney up with their waitress. Barney tells Lily that if he has to choose between Robin and bimbos, he chooses bimbos. But once Lily storms out of his apartment in frustration, Barney flips on the TV and looks longingly at Robin reporting the news. The end.

Ted and Stella’s relationship is boring. Barney in love is funny, but a tad too pathetic. I am disappointed to say that I was completely underwhelmed by this premiere. It was basically a pointless ½ hour.

Supernatural S4E1: "It's good to see you again, boy."

“Lazarus Rising”

First off, a very brief recap of the story of Lazarus (translation “God (has) helped”) from Wikipedia. In the Gospel of John, Lazarus was a man who lived in the town of Bethany. His sisters sent word to Jesus that he was ill, but when Jesus finally arrived Lazarus had been in a tomb for four days. Martha reproached him, and when Jesus assured her that Lazarus would rise, she thought he was referring to resurrection on Judgment Day. To this Jesus replied, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” In the presence of a crowd of Jewish mourners, Jesus had the stone rolled away from the tomb and bade Lazarus to come out. This he did, still wrapped in his grave-cloths.

Fourth season of SN feels different right off the bat. Dean wakes up in a coffin and manages to dig himself out, only to find the landscape around him decimated (in a perfect circle, natch). He breaks into a convenience store for some essentials, including water, food, and the latest issue of Busty Asian Beauties. He discovers a red hand print burned into his shoulder. Suddenly, all of the electronic devices in the store switch on and a sustained high-pitched shriek sounds, paining Dean and shattering all glass in the vicinity. He escapes and finds Bobby, who puts him through a number of tests to ensure that he’s really Dean. Bobby hasn’t spoken to Sam in months.

Through the magic of charm & GPS tracking, they find Sam in a hotel room with a brunette girl. Sam is skeptical about Dean’s reappearance, but is easily convinced. Dean is sure that Sam “worked some bad mojo” to get him out of hell, but Sam swears he had nothing to do with it. He gets Dean up to speed: he hasn’t been using his psychic abilities, Ruby is gone, and Lilith tried to kill him but he was immune to her powers. No big deal.



Bobby takes them to see a psychic friend. I was kind of hoping it would be Missouri, but instead it is a hot rock ‘n’ roller who hits on both Dean and Sam. Unfortunately, when she has a séance to see Dean’s rescuer, her eyes liquefy and she is blinded for life. Ouch.

Sam and Dean track down a group of demons in a diner. They don’t know who saved Dean, but they’re spooked. Later, Sam sneaks out to kill the diner demons. Dean is attacked by the high-pitched shriek again. He is convulsing on the floor, blood streaming from his ears, when Bobby rescues him. Then, Sam and Dean start lying to each other.

Dean calls Sam, asking where he is, and he claims to be getting a hamburger. Lie # 1. Sam asks what Dean’s doing, and Dean says something innocuous. Lie # 2. Really, Dean and Bobby are going to summon the being that pulled Dean from hell. At the diner, the demons all have their eyes burned out, and Sam kills the one left alive using only his psychic powers. Lie # 3. The brunette from the hotel appears, saying that his powers have improved. It’s Ruby, in a new body. Lie # 4.



Back to Dean & Bobby, who are summoning the mysterious being. A young man appears, wearing a suit and tie. He knocks Bobby out with a wave of his hand, and none of Dean’s weapons work on him. Uh-oh. Then, he drops the bomb: he is Castiel, an angel of the Lord. He had thought that Dean was special, able to hear his true voice (the shrieking), but he was wrong. He squints, reading Dean’s mind, and realizes that Dean doesn’t think he was worth saving. But he’s wrong: God has a plan for Dean, and he has work to do.

Hmmm. I have high hopes for this twist, although bringing God into the show in this capacity kind of implies that this is the final season. I mean, when God himself gets involved, you gotta figure it’s the final “epic battle.” But this does portend interesting character development for Dean, who we’ve seen time and time again doubt the existence of God or angels. Regardless, I was pleased to see the brotherly strife flare right back up again. All this lying can’t be good, and what’s with Sam’s powers?

ANTM Cycle 11: Makeover Edition

THE RUNDOWN
Not much to say here…it’s the makeover episode. The twist is that they don’t get to hear about what’s going to happen in advance, and all the mirrors in the room are covered so they can’t watch their transformations. Afterward, they all look really good and nobody complains, except Elina, who doesn’t feel like herself anymore. She gets over it quickly, though.

THE CHALLENGE
The girls do the Wal-Mart challenge from last year, but in addition to putting on makeup in under 30 seconds they also have to film an unscripted 30-second short about a foundation matching system Cover Girl is introducing in stores. Surprisingly, a lot of them do very well. The ones who don’t – most of whom are this season’s “golden girls” – are truly awful. Hannah wins.

THE SHOOT
The girls do a swimsuit shoot on the beach. The designer, Susan Homes, is there. And we get another twist – Jay does not direct the shoot. The girls are on their own. Again, most of them do well. Annaleigh, Hannah, Brittany, and Isis do not. Isis is noticeably uncomfortable in her swimsuit, and Jay reminds her that the photographer and designer don’t know about her situation. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help calm her down.

DURING PANEL
More girls are praised than critiqued:
Sheena has so much fire in person, but her shots are beautiful and serene.
Lauren Brie’s shot is amazing.
McKey’s makeover has totally changed her look; her pose is original and unique.
Marjorie looks like a page from a magazine.
Samantha’s makeover has made her look like a real model.
Elina is stunning; her makeover took her out of her comfort zone and it worked.
Joslyn has a great pose full of movement.

IN PRIVATE DELIBERATION
The judges are concerned about Annaleigh, Clark, Brittany, Hannah, and Isis. They talk about how Clark and Lauren Brie are opposites – Clark is gorgeous in person but takes poor shots, while Lauren Brie is plain in person but takes amazing shots. Lauren Brie reminds them of CarriDee.

The first photo is Elina. Ironically, you can’t even see the swimsuit in her shot.
The bottom two are Annaleigh and Brittany.
Brittany is pretty, but she’s “just pretty.” There is no connection in her photos.
Annaleigh is tanking. They expect more from her.
Brittany is eliminated.

Fringe S1E2: "All of this connects to the magical man-baby how?"

“The Same Old Story”

People seem to be giving up on this show quickly – at least, people I know. I found this episode entertaining, but did notice a drop in quality from the pilot. “The Same Old Story” was all over the place, lacking a specific focus and under-developing several main characters. The best part of the show, so far, is the fractured relationship between Walter and Peter. When Peter sang his dad to sleep at the end … oh my.

We open on a guy and a hooker lounging in bed. The guy is creepy and steals off to the bathroom with a set of surgical tools. Suddenly, the hooker starts screaming bloody murder as her stomach ripples grotesquely. Creepy Guy drives her to the hospital and abandons her. The doctors ask how long she’s been pregnant, she insists she isn’t, there is a huge ripping noise, and she dies. The doctors cut out the baby and look horrified. By the time our intrepid team shows up, the baby has aged into an old man and died.

Frankly, this episode did not go the way I anticipated, which is good as far as the surprise factor but I liked my way better. After John Scott’s betrayal, Olivia is conflicted. She doubts her intuition, and she doubts the outcome of every case she and John worked on together. She becomes obsessed with the idea that Creepy Guy is a serial killer that she and John hunted. Since the killer’s MO didn’t match the first scene, I figured Olivia was just wrestling with her own personal demons to the detriment of her work. Alas, it turns out that she is correct.

After less research than I would have liked, the team learns that an old colleague of Walter’s named Penrose had engineered a “son” by tinkering with human growth hormone. Government experiments in the seventies attempted to grow an army of young men that would rapidly age to 21 years and then stop. However, the “stopping” proved to be a problem. Creepy Guy has to use other people’s pituitary glands to keep himself young. In the end, they vanquish him simply by interrupting his attempts to extract a victim’s gland, and he ages and dies in front of Olivia. The whole thing was a little blah. Much more interesting were the small, suggestive moments throughout.

Peter is an interesting character. There have been several hints about his weird past, but seeing as he is basically supposed to be a regular guy (albeit a genius) I find it interesting (if somewhat unbelievable) that he can collect evidence at a crime scene, shoot a gun at another human being with no hesitation, and rig a makeshift defibrillator in less than a minute. In this episode Walter casually says to Olivia, “If you’ve read my file, then you know the truth about Peter’s medical history.” She looks blank, and Walter quickly backtracks. There is much buzz in the blogosphere that Peter was “engineered” much like Creepy Guy. Walter’s comment, combined with the throwaway line earlier in the episode when he says, “95% of babies are born with blue eyes. Yours were green,” lends some credence to that, though I have my doubts.

Walter was underused in this episode, which meant it was less humorous than the pilot, but there were some interesting bits I’m not ready to speculate on yet: Walter had no memory of them re-opening his Harvard lab, yet he remembered where he hid his car 17 years earlier. Penrose saying that Walter “knows things no one in power should know,” and Walter’s subsequent comment that “the pitfall of a scientist is differentiating between god’s domain and our own.” And JJ Abrams sure does love shows that revolve around father issues, so I’m curious to see how the Walter/Peter relationship will develop.

Also learned in this episode: Bionic Arm Woman (Nina) is connected with Broyles in what looks like some sort of board-member capacity. She offers Olivia a job at Massive Dynamic, which O. refuses. Broyles then tells Olivia that though Nina knows about the pattern, certain knowledge is classified beyond her level.

Finally, we come to the end. While Peter is singing Walter to sleep, there is a shutter-flash image of three bodies lying on what look like hospital beds. Unable to rewind and pause live TV, I don’t have much to go on here. More engineered human beings? A Walter flashback, or real-time? I’ll just have to wait and see. If you have any speculation, please leave my poor TiVo-less self a comment!