Castle - Suicide Squeeze, S02E15

Unlike most shows, Castle's popularity is on the rise. Every week, more people discover this gem and get hooked. Not that any of us are surprised, since I have had nothing but praise for this show from the get-go.

Still, the increase must also be attributed to the episodic nature of the show. It is relatively easy to start watching Castle, knowing nothing about it before hand. Sure, you might wonder about the details of Castle (Nathan Fillion) and Beckett (Stana Katic)'s relationship, or who Alexis (Molly Quinn)'s mother is, but the main relationship structures are immediately apparent. And while the banter does not exclude information we have learned previously, it does not rely on it.

This latest episode, Suicide Squeeze, demonstrates perfectly the solidity of the writing, with a wonderful family theme tying together an exploration of Castle's feelings over being fatherless, Beckett's relationship with her own father, and the death of a baseball player.

The plot was fairly political. The victim was a famous baseball player who escaped from Cuba about 18 years before. Recently, he had renewed relations with his homeland, which naturally created some controversy. Throw in the possibility that he had a Cuban mistress whom he was trying to sneak off the island, and there are a whole lot of reasons that he might have ended up dead.

The theme, of course, was the answer. The girl was not his mistress, but the daughter his fiancee who did not make it out of Cuba gave him before she died. Not that he knew of her existence until he returned to Cuba. Then, the father ended up dead in a confrontation with his manager, the man who had not rescued the mother and daughter from Cuba, nor told him the truth about them staying behind (or the daughter having been born).

The regret the baseball player felt that his daughter grew up not knowing him, and thinking that he had abandoned her, was a lovely symmetry to how Castle's father may or may not feel about him. Castle, being the writer that he is, feels no pain over not knowing. He has imagined himself the perfect father, who is both an astronaut and a classical musician. And while he is content with this memory, and Alexis is not too upset over not knowing her ancestry on one side, his daughter regrets the most that her father did not have the chance to have a relationship with his dad the way she does with hers.

How could Alexis give up those moments where she tells her dad that, by eating lots of whipping cream out of a can, he'll spoil his dinner, only to be told "This is my dinner." "No," is Alexis unwavering response.

This was an episode that should be watched again, probably on Father's day.

Past Life - Pilot, S01E01

I don't understand why anyone would decide that premiering a show on a Tuesday, then airing the rest of the episodes on Thursdays, starting to do so that same week, and having the second and third weeks coincide with the Olympics is a good idea.

Even if this was the best show on television, this would still be a ridiculously bad plan. And Past Life is far from being the best. It's no surprise that the network airing it is Fox.

The premiere didn't do a bad job introducing the characters, but they simply were not that interesting. Dr. Kate McGinn (Kelli Giddish) is the past life specialist and Price Whatley -which, by the way is a ridiculous name - (Nicolas Bishop) is a former cop, now PI who works with her. The only thing of note about Kate's personality is that she and her mother both don't like clingy men, and that there might possibly be a past life experience of her own that got her where she is, maybe, but that was not really touched on at all.

Price, on the other hand, has the typical former cop story. His wife died, he began to drink and got fired. Now he's trying to get his life back together with this job. I suppose that points for creativity should be given because, instead of killing her in a car accident, which is usually the case, he convinced her to jump off a cliff, and when she did, she broke her neck.

Okay, so there was water at the bottom of the cliff, and she dove in, but still.

So the main characters aren't enough to get me to watch the show again, but is the science? Well, they spent the episode trying to get clues about who killed the kid in his past life by putting him in situations that might be traumatic enough to get him to bring back his memories. Oh, dogs were barking? Let's get a bunch of dogs to bark while we film you and see if anything interesting happens?

Then, you have the questions of the soul, which they did not at all address. This boy was born one month after the disappearance of the girl he was before. We don't even know in that month when she died. But we do know that less than a month before he was born, her soul entered into his body. Are we talking a soul merger here? Or are we establishing that the soul enters the body only moments before birth, so all you people who don't like abortion, what are you worried about?

If you are going to deal with a question of that nature, you have to be careful. Frankly, I don't think the writers even considered the controversialness of what they were writing. Sigh, grumble, grumble.

So that's what I think of Past Life. Do you think I judged it fairly?

*Addition to Post*

Since I typed this post, Fox has pulled Past Life off the air. It might air the remaining episodes in the summer, but the crappy ratings aren't worth keeping it on. Why they thought this show deserved a Thursday spot, and why they chose to have it compete with the Olympics (to which American Idol's episode determining the top 24 also lost) is beyond me.

When TV resumes after the Olympics

Though there are some shows that I have not blogged about which aired before the Olympics and which I am hoping I will be able to watch and blog about before the Olympics are over, there are few shows on right now which I am missing because of the Olympic priority.

The 3 culprits are White Collar (which you may have noticed I am already significantly behind on), Spartacus: Blood and Sand (which I am missing and will endeavor to watch sometime in the next week in the morning, before any events begin), and Caprica.

Why Caprica, which has failed to capture my heart so far, thinks that it should continue to play through the Olympics can only be explained by the fact that if the momentum stopped for two weeks, it might lose all the viewers it currently has. Caprica has a tenuous hold on me, based only on my love for its predecessor.

But other than these three shows, all my favourites have stopped for at least two weeks. And other shows will be coming back on the air in the beginning of March as well.

Here are the dates to watch for:

Chuck - March 1

The Good Wife - March 2

Republic of Doyle - March 3

The Mentalist - March 4

Flash Forward - March 4

Castle - March 8

Supernatural - March 25

Vampire Diaries - March 25

V - March 30

Bones - April 1

Glee - April 13

Happy Town - April 28

But for now, you have the Olympics to entertain you, what more do you need?

Olympics make for the best reality television

I love watching the Olympics. Maybe it's because, growing up, my family was really into it. Maybe it's because, between the commentary and the years of watching, I understand the rules of the competitions, and can recognize for myself who should win. Or maybe because they only take place every 2 years, so I can be obsessed those two weeks and otherwise not have it affect my life (like following any other sporting event would).

As a Canadian, I was thrilled beyond the understanding of any non-Canadian when we won our first gold medal on Canadian soil the second day of competition. The pride I felt the next day of singing O Canada as our flag went up, knowing that so many Canadians across this country and overseas were joining me. Alexandre Bilodeau, you are amazing, and when this does become a trivial pursuit question, I will know the answer.

Two days later, Maelle Ricker got herself a gold as well, giving us a gold on Canadian soil in both a women's and a men's event. So we are rocking it!

Yes, there are people from Canada who we were hoping would medal and didn't, but there were also some we did not expect to bring us home anything who did (I'm looking at you, Mike Robertson - my, that's a lovely silver).

So far, my only complaint is about our announcers. Watching the men's figure skating short program on Tuesday, where Patrick Chan did well, but not his best, the announcers proceeded to explain his chances of medaling over and over again. He got an 81.12, and the top 3 got over 90. That's bad, we get it. So leave him alone! He's 19, and when he comes to the Olympics again at 23, with 4 more years of training under his belt, then he will be a force to be reckoned with.

And despite the utter unlikelihood of him getting a medal tonight, I am still really excited to see his long program, and to see if the 3 with the 90s are the ones on the podium, and to know (if they are) who will get the gold - Russian, American, or Japanese? Who do you want to win?