Rome - Season 1, Episodes 5-9

I continue to love this series, and though I have not even finished watching the first season, I am very hopeful that the projected movie starring Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) and Titus Pollo (Ray Stevenson) will be greenlighted. Follow the link for the details, but if you have not finished watching the series, don't read the last paragraph.

http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2010/03/04/hbo-rome-movie/

Rome is such an intelligent series, developing the politics of the time with precision. The only thing lacking is a better sense of timing and of waiting. I suppose, with what we know, keeping the series interesting while having it take place in a timeline resembling real time would have been quite boring, and they would not have even got to Caesar (Ciaran Hinds)'s assassination before they had to cancel the show, but there are some moments where I feel like things have happened too fast.

Regardless, the show does develop other things perfectly.

James Purefoy's Mark Anthony continues to show himself as both an impatient ass and a brilliant strategist...though sometimes a little caught up in his own wishes. While it was hard to imagine the Mark Anthony in the first few episodes taking up Caesar's mantle, by the end of episode 9 the cleverness shines through with the ruthlessness, and his priorities are straightened out a little.

Titus Pollo also got to have a great deal of fun. He killed the lover of his best friend's wife, proving himself the best friend imaginable. He also showed a sensitive side in the affection he is developing for their slave girl. Too bad that he's now sunk back into a depressive bender...Still, I have hope for him.

After all, as Caesar pointed out, Pollo and Vorenus have great and powerful gods watching out for them. Not Triton, mind you, but someone able to protect them from him. It made it a whole lot more believable that they would have survived that storm to think of it that way; at first, I had a hard time suspending my disbelief about it.

But regardless of the delight I get from how complicated the politics and wars of the men are, they pale in comparison to the women. I can't help but feel bad for poor idiotic Octavia (Kerry Condon). Atia (Polly Walker) should have left her married to her husband. She would have lived a happy and uninteresting life, but instead, she's getting herself into all kinds of trouble. Being seduced by Servilia (Linsday Duncan) and then seducing her younger brother, Octavian (Max Pirkis), she's a mess. And she is really not cut out for all this intrigue like her mother.

Atia, on the other hand, handled the situation brilliantly. Despite the fact that we know she had Octavia's husband killed (which I think backfired since if Octavia was happily married, she'd be out of the way), she was utterly believable when she told Octavia it was a lie. And despite her own personal hatred and war with Servilia, I can only believe that the horribly beautiful extent to which Atia went for vengeance was not for the injuries Servilia caused to her own person, but for those she caused to her daughter.

Atia is many things, and very vicious in all of them, but the humiliation she forced Servilia to suffer is one that has mama bear written all over it. What remains to be seen is if Servilia has it in her to retaliate, but even if she does, I can't see her winning. Atia has a ruthlessness that is coupled with what she considers necessity, while Servilia's anger is based in violent, angry grief.

Put it proves the rule that, while men can be violent and deceitful, they have nothing on women.

The Mentalist - Red Herring, S02E15

With a title like Red Herring, I was a little disappointed with this episode. Not that it wasn't a good episode; it was solid: well written and well acted. But it was your average episode of the Mentalist where very little that is lasting occurs. Typical of a procedural, but I still think it was a waste of a good title.

What did I want from a title like that? I wanted Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) to be distracted from the truth by a red herring. I wanted Jane to have suspicions about someone that were founded, but that simply weren't actually relevant to the case. There is something about Jane always being right, always manipulating everyone into everything exactly the way he'd planned, that is simply getting boring.

Ouch. I know, that's a harsh statement, but it's true nonetheless. And when this episode was devoid of any Rigsby (Owain Yeoman) and Grace (Amanda Righetti) action - by the way, are they back together and happy and simply back to pretending that nothings going on, or are they still in a fight and that's why Cho (Tim Kang) isn't allowed to mention their relationship - and devoid of more than a few brilliant comments by Cho: "I don't eat anything I can't identify," you need something interesting and new to be going on.

So there was a love affair and a pregnant wife which were red herrings, and the sous-chef was the killer instead. I hate to say that I thought it was pretty easy to figure out, as was Jane's method of bringing the killer out of the wood work. And the hints about Lisbon (Robin Tunney)'s alcoholic dad were good as forerunners for something pertinent that will happen in a future episode, I want something to be happening now.

So please, The Mentalist, give me something new to get excited about! Someone else who thwarts Jane, or let's just delve into a Red John segment. Are you craving this too?

The Good Wife - Bang, S01E15

The Good Wife is one of the best shows on television, and as such does not necessarily generate as many comments as the worst. It is far easier to pinpoint and mock shows that are abysmally bad than to intelligently express why one is such a success, but I will endeavor to do it nonetheless.

Julianna Margulies.

Does that sum it up well for you? While there can be no denying (thanks to a SAG award) that the ensemble of the Good Wife is excellent, Margulies is the focal point of that talent, and she is able to bring out the best in everyone she works with.

In Bang, when Alicia (Margulies) and Will (Josh Charles) have their brief...discussion, let's call it, about why he removed her from the case she was working, the chemistry and tension between the two was so potent and powerful that I immediately wanted to cast my chips in with the Alicia/Will shippers. But then Peter (Chris Noth) has a scene with Alicia, and I'm right back to wanting the couple to properly reconcile. Must be nice to be able to generate those kind of emotions with two such attractive men, and then go home to your real-life husband at the end of the day.

While I could go on about Margulies' portrayal of Alicia for a good longtime, there were some terrific moments for the other cast members in this episode which I cannot neglect.

First of all, Cary (Matt Czuchry) had a very small, but unforgettable moment with Santa Claus on the stand. That's right, an old man named Nick was testifying, and he was making the prosecution look good because who doesn't love a man who looks like Santa and plays him at malls. But Cary, in a brilliant delivery at the court room, managed to make Santy go from resembling Kris Kringle at the end of Miracle on 34th street to the man Kris replaced as Santa Claus in the parade. Bad on the prosecution for putting someone who couldn't take the heat up on the stand.

I also cannot neglect the appearance of a new character, Eli Gold. Portrayed by the delightful Alan Cumming, Gold immediately set the stage for the kind of character he is - efficient and not willing to put with with any bs - but pulling his pants down so that someone who was pissing him off could kiss his ass. I am very excited about his appearance because it certainly looks like it will be a lot of fun.

Finally, my favourite subplot of the night was between Diane (Christine Baranski) and the ballistics expert, Kurt McVeigh (Gary Cole). The play between their two attitudes and personalities was simply wonderful. And the gifts they sent each other at the end, Going Rogue for Diane; Going Rouge for McVeigh...perfect. Absolutely perfect.

The writers are giving something solid to terrific actors who continue to hit it out of the park. Do you love it?

Republic of Doyle - Blood is Thicker than Blood, S01E04

Republic of Doyle continues to be delightful and excellent. I am quickly catching up the episodes I was behind on and enjoying every minute because of solid writing, excellent acting, and the exoticness of Newfoundland.

That's right, Newfoundland is exotic. Okay, so the episodes were clearly filmed in the summer, and I'm not sure I'd want to spend the winter there, but the East coast music and the beauty of the multicoloured houses, coupled with those accents! It makes a show that would probably be just boring in Ontario great!

Not that the plots don't keep things exciting. In Blood is Thicker than Blood, the best scene had to be when the two brothers were shooting at each other in the junk yard; you were never quite sure if their intention was to actually shoot each other or not. And the ending of the episode, sad and poignant, a reminder that amid the goofiness we are talking about murder and loss of life changing everything.

But what keeps me coming back is how awkward and therefore natural the relationships between the characters are. Everyone is so perfectly flawed that, while lovable, they are all so far from perfect that you can't help but want the best for them. Especially because you know they aren't going to be making the right choices on their own.

Why do you watch?

The Mentalist - Blood in, Blood out, S02E14

I was SO happy that we finally got a Cho-centric episode of The Mentalist. I so often feel like Kimball Cho (Tim Kang) is not used to full effect, but in this episode, not only did we get to enjoy his subtle and to-the-point attitude for the entire episode, we also got to see the violence that is, has been, and always will be a huge part of his personality.

We started on a happy note, finally meeting Elise (Sandrine Holt), Cho's girlfriend; what a perfect start to a revelation about the inner working of Kimball Cho. The happiness did not last, as, instead of taking the lovely woman to a restaurant where they had reservation, Cho went instead to find the corpse of a member of his former gang, a man whom he compared to a brother.

Now, it would not be The Mentalist if Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) did not start meddling. Insisting on going with Cho from the beginning, we knew that there would always be a witness to Cho's actions, preventing him from giving into his former "Iceman" days, at least, not too much.

Yet, much as I loved this episode, and loved Cho for every minute - I nearly died when Jane asked him what he did to make his former gang leader so angry, and Cho simply replied "I shot him," in his flat, straight-forward way - there were some major flaws.

In the scene where Cho and Elise were attacked, there was a fair amount of awkwardness of movement that neither showed us what was actually going on or gave us a clear picture of what we were intended to think was going on before we went into the commercial break.

And the last scene, with the big reveal and discovery of the murderer was also a little contrived. It started well, with Cho giving into his anger, but neither Jane nor Rigsby (Owain Yeoman) backed up the sentiment. When the impression was given that Cho had shot the man who refused to tell him what he wanted to know, suddenly the situation stopped escalating. The energy dropped to a point where they were all far too calm. The only thing that really redeemed this moment was when Cho punched out the murderer in the end.

Still, I want more episodes like this. More episodes where we actually get to see Cho at home. And more of Lisbon (Robin Tunney) too. Naturally, we get plenty of Jane. And with Rigsby and Grace (Amanda Righetti)'s relationship, we see a fair amount of them not fully invested in their CBI personae. But Cho and Lisbon let that mask slip far less frequently, and much as I love that part of their character, I want to know them a little better all the same.

What were your thoughts?

Caprica - There is Another Sky, S01E05

Although I was not as big a fan of this episode as I was of the last one, it address some interesting issues in our own culture through the Caprican culture. The episode did not go as far as I might want it to, but hopefully that will happen in upcoming episodes.

The holoband is similar to the internet. More and more people are using it, especially young people, and they are using more and more illegal methods because they want to experience so many things for free. Like us, their younger generation has a sense of entitlement that far exceeds the possibilities the world has to offer.

While Daniel Greystone (Eric Stoltz) may have pulled the rug out from under the illegal aspects of the program by ceasing to profit from the holoband technology, giving it to them for free certainly will not stop the entitlement issues.

We also got the usual pointed comment about being able to be someone, to accomplish something in a virtual world having no real baring on real life. Tamara (Genevieve Buechner) was quite right when she told her new friend that perhaps he would be able to be someone, to accomplish something in the real world if he were not so immersed in the virtual one. How many people have incredibly powerful WoW characters, but have nothing of value to speak of once their computers are turned off?

I also have to wonder how close any modern scientists are to creating artificial intelligence, let alone artificial sentience, given how many times we've been warned that we will end up being weaker than the creatures we create. To create sentience, artificial or otherwise, and to expect unquestioning obedience while giving no rights...well, it's no wonder that the Cylons revolted. Zoe (Alessandra Torresani)'s Avatar so closely resembled the real person, how could she accept such subservience so easily? And how must she have felt to have to tear her own arm off at her father's command? It may not have hurt physically, but Zoe clearly has enough of a mind to be affected.

And why is it that two of the most interesting characters, Zoe and Tamara, were killed within the first hour of the series?

But, while all those technological questions are thought provoking, nothing is more concerning to me that the choices that the writers of Caprica are making in regards to William Adama (Sina Najafi) and his father (Esai Morales). At some point, I am going to have to go back and discover if there was ever any sort of a reference to Bill's uncle in BSG. Hard to believe that a man like that could be easily forgotten. And what about the glorification of Joseph Adama? Does he become a better lawyer and a moral man to be proud of as the show develops?

I suppose you can dismiss it all with a "Bill Adama got hurt during the Cylon war and it changed him so much he forgot his childhood. But you'd think they would have been a little more careful with everything.

What did you think?

Murdoch Mysteries - The Murdoch Identity, S03E01

The premiere of Season 3 of Murdoch Mysteries, though it's likely that most people missed it because they were watching the Olympics or because they simply had not heard it was starting up again, was bloody fantastic.

It started with Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) in Bristol, England, running through the streets wearing no coat and no hat, looking very low class, being chased by two gunman in proper attire. And it turned out that Murdoch had completely lost his memory.

Back in Canada, Crabtree (Jonny Harris) and Inspector Brackenreid (Thomas Craig) are trying to find their detective, who has been missing without word for a week, while Dr. Julia Ogden (Helene Joy) can only feel the pain of missing him. Her lovely little recap of memories of all the moments they have spent together demonstrated perfectly her feelings for him.

With the help of a detective from another division, Crabtree followed the clues, made the decisions, and proved that he is second to Murdoch in talent because he follows the clues so easily discovered by modern methods. The constabulary would not be the same with a different detective, and as crazy and Murdoch might originally have seemed to Brackenreid and Crabtree, they would not replace him for the world.

I also loved that Brackenreid beat up a suspect who was withholding information that might lead to Murdoch's whereabouts. Not only did the delight Brackenreid took in the act show his affection for Murdoch, but these were the sort of police tactics that were acceptable at the turn of the last century and historical shows should play around with historical possibilities.

In England, though some moments seemed a little contrived, such as Murdoch being rescued by Anna (Lisa Faulkner), the use of flashbacks to show Murdoch slowly regaining his memory gave us the exact right amount of detail to understand his head space. And though, again, I lament that Murdoch gave up a good Catholic girl for Julia, when he returned to her, I could not doubt the affection that they felt for one another. As long as I ignore some of the problems from last season, I can quite happily watch their relationship develop.

Did you get to see the premiere? Were you pleased with it? Are you afraid the episode set a high standard for the rest of the season that the show might not fulfill?

Caprica - Gravedancing, S01E04

Although I still think that the opening credits are too cheesy for a show that is related to Battlestar Galactica (and I wonder when/if Caprica will ever earn the right to be know for itself and not just in the shadow of its future), I actually really liked this episode.

I'm still uncertain about the premise. Where is Caprica trying to go? What social commentary are they trying to make? It still feels unstructured, and while that worked for BSG, where the goal was unclear, but certainly survival in the face of constant danger the driving force, we are supposed to be in a world that is Rome during the fall. The structure should be there, fractured and unstable, but there.

Still, we are moving forward with the idea of the Soldiers of the One being terrorists who are trying to corrupt the children. And what does that make Clarice (Polly Walker)? She seems to care so much about everything, but does she care about the children, or are they just a means to an end? And what is that end?

And regardless of what anyone might think about the idea of a group marriage and how it might function, I think that 4 people in a bed that size cannot be comfortable.

On the other hand, I think that the Daniel (Eric Stoltz) and Amanda (Paula Malcomson) Greystone are the perfect couple. Okay, so they messed up with their daughter, but not as badly as they think. Zoey (Alessandra Torresani) never intended for that train to blow up. But the strength of their relationship through the most trying of circumstances shows a deep bond based in real love, and that is not something we often get to see on screen. Happy couples, sometimes, couples destroyed by disaster, frequently, but not perfectly matched people legitimately making it work against the odds.

Their appearance on international TV together brought forth another social comment. On Caprica, they removed the profit from drugs, making it a far safer pass time. Now the Greystones intend to do the same with the haulo band. Will that work? If we removed the profit from things, would that actually make them safer? I mean, certainly, if drugs were available and free, that would take a lot of power away from the mafia, but I don't know that that would make things any safer. I would expect them to fight the loss of profit, and that might end up being even more dangerous.

My final thought, though, are for the Adamas. Between Joseph (Esai Morales) fighting his conscious about whether or not Amanda should die, Sam (Sasha Roiz) allowing him to deal with the turmoil, certain that he couldn't go through with it, and Grandma Adama who is clearly insane, how poor William is going to grow up to be Bill Adama, I don't know.

And was it just me, or did Grandma seem normal until now, when she's chopping up chicken, talking about wringing people's necks and saying that you get the best things from your enemies because they are scared of you. I would not want to meet her in a dark alley.

So it seems to me like Caprica may be improving? What do you think?

Chuck - Chuck vs the Fake Name, S03E08

Though it was not apparently intentional to end up with a break between episode 7 and 8 this season, I thought that the time away, to allow us to absorb Chuck (Zachary Levi)'s new relationship with Hannah (Kristin Kreuk) and Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski)'s new relationship with Shaw (Brandon Routh) was aptly timed.

Yes, it was a little confusing when the events that we saw happen two weeks ago appear to have been only a day or so to the folk who live in Burbank, but sometimes it is very good to allow time to pass for the viewers, and I think this was one of those cases.

This episode was so bad ass. I loved how much Casey (Adam Baldwin) we got, though it still wasn't really enough. How can you not love a man who is happy you pulled out his tooth because it maintained your cover! And who is one of the 5 snipers in the world who can make that shot?

And that Chuck actually pulled that tooth, and then beat up Sarah and Shaw because he had to! LOVE IT.

What I am not loving is Sarah, though. I'm not sure how I feel about her admitting to Shaw that her real name is Sam, and I'm not sure how I feel about her knowingly falling into her old patterns. And I'm really not sure how I feel about her being with Shaw. I liked it before, but now I'm not so sure. I think that Strahovski must be playing Sarah/Sam's confusion about her identity very well because it's hard to know how I should be feeling about the choices she is making.

As for Chuck ending things with Hannah, he obviously made the right call. He was never going to stop lying to her, and much as he liked her, we all know that his feelings for Sarah will never go away. Or at least, they won't go away because he's found someone else. Jeff (Scott Krinsky) of all characters had it right when he said that Chuck's eyes light up when Sarah is around.

And I really didn't feel for her. She was mad, understandably, that this seemingly nice guy slept with her and then dumped her, but logically, she should never have thought so well of Chuck.

After all, he abandoned her at the museum so that he could talk to Sarah, but she forgot all that because he saved her life. And then she slept with him on the first date.

I'm not saying you can't expect a guy to be better than that, but if it's going to hurt you so much, don't do it regardless of how certain you are that it isn't going to happen. Frankly, I thought that relationship was developing way too fast, and I'm glad it ended.

And so, where does that leave us? Well, with the thoughts that I have given to Chuck at http://www.couchcampus.com/television/tv-talk/chuck-season-3-recap/. Chuck is changing. He is becoming more and more of a spy, while Sarah seems to be the one wanting to run from the life. So where does that leave our favourite will they/won't they couple?

And on that note, the best line of the show was definitely the mobster telling Chuck that he hates those will they/won't they things.

The Good Wife - Hi, S01E14

This episode, the last before the two week Olympic hiatus, was an obvious game changer. The structure of the show must now pull the focus away from Alicia (Julianna Margulies)'s independent life as a lawyer, and focus on her family life, because Peter (Chris Noth) came home.

Despite Peter's hearing, Alicia was working a case - one in which a baby sitter had been murdered, and the father of the children looked to be guilty. As always, the case gave us mystery. Who had killed the girl? Why? What could be proven? And even more interesting, the case brought up questions of ethics. Was there anything actually illegal about Alicia removing certain items from a studio that would likely soon be called a crime scene? After all, it wasn't a crime scene yet, so while morally ambiguous, the Law did not come into play.

But those aspects were not the most interesting of the episode.

Instead, a conversation between Alicia and Cary (Matt Czuchry) reminds us that these two are on probation, and at the end of that 6 months, one of them is going to go. We finally get to see the tender side of Cary, who despite wanting the job so badly, admits that he doesn't want Alicia to go. And she feels the same way. What will the writers to do keep Cary in the picture, while not making us, the audience, roll our eyes if it is contrived?

And then Peter had his trial. Was I the only person cheering when Kalinda (Archie Panjabi), who seemed to have sided with Glenn Childs (Titus Welliver), used her knowledge to alert the judge that if he allowed the evidence in, he would be on the list of clients? Client 12 was pissed off, and I have to think that he granted Peter a new trial not only because he did not want that evidence to be admissible, but because he refused to allow another man to be manipulated by someone or something that could manipulate him too.

And so, Peter comes home. What a brilliant end to the episode, with Peter at the door, home at long last.

So what happens now? How do Peter and Alicia, who still have so much love for each other, but still have so much scar tissue, move forward? Tune in tomorrow night and we can find out together.

Olympics are over, Back to nonreality TV

As a proud Canadian, I consider the last two weeks some of the most exciting and joyous of my life. I realize that I did not bring home a single one of those 14 Gold Canada acquired, so it is not because of me that Canada now has the record for most Gold won during the Winter Olympics, not just for a home country, but of any country ever! Still, I like to think that my yelling at the TV screen encouraged Charles Hamelin to finally get his Gold (two in fact) and convinced Sidney Crosby to score that final goal to win the Hockey game and not force us to revoke the citizenship of all those players.

But, much as I love the Olympics, 17 days have passed, and normal life and normal television must resume.

This week, Chuck, The Good Wife, Republic of Doyle, The Mentalist and FlashForward are back. Spartacus, Caprica and White Collar need to be caught up and reviewed, as does Murdoch Mysteries; Season 3 premiered last week, in the middle of the Olympics, and fans of the show such as myself were not even aware. Bad advertising for a good show. Sigh.

So join me for these reviews, and you can now also join me at http://www.couchcampus.com/ where I will be doing guest posts on television. The posts will be of a slightly different nature than those you find here, so remember to read both! And more writing for me!

One more day of Olympics - The hockey game

What a fantastic Olympic games this has been for us. I feel SO much pride for my country, for how well our athletes have done, and for how well we have distinguished ourselves.

You might think that winning Gold after Gold after Gold would become boring - I always thought the American's must be completely uninterested, knowing how often they would medal - but every time I saw the results, saw the little gold symbol beside the Canadian flag, I felt like jumping. In fact, more than once, I did jump and squeal and rejoice loudly for my countrymen and women.

Canada has 13 Gold medals. All of which were well earned, and I will never forget the performances of Alexandre Bilodeau, of Maelle Ricker, of our women's hockey team, of Virtue and Moir, and of Charles Hamelin twice. To have Olympic Gold on our own land, something that we could no achieve in the previous two occasions we hosted the Olympics, is nothing short of awesome. And to now have enough Gold medals that we have 4 for every Olympics we've ever hosted, and one to spare, is even better.

And now we turn to the final event. Men's hockey, Canada vs USA. If authorities were worried about what might happen when the last game took place - the liquor stores were closed early - imagine what may happen today. Every person who owns a TV in the entirety of the US and of Canada will be watching. Not because the win would allow Canada to have more medals than the US, and not because the loss would allow the US to have more Golds than Canada. Neither of these things matter, only pride in hockey.

Though the Americans beat our team at their last encounter, that is by no means guaranteed to happen again today. Sports commentators had said we would not get past Russia, maybe not even past Germany, the way we had been playing. But we slammed the Germans and the Russians, and dominated the Slovaks until the last 5 minutes of the game, when we were given a reminder that we must always stay alert, always play our best. And if we do that, we can win.

All I want, though, is a good hockey game, both teams demonstrating their strength, their right to be in the Gold medal game. If we get that, it will be worth watching, no matter the outcome. But, like every good Canadian, I am cheering for the Canadians to win, and the Americans to fail.

Good luck!