Eastwick - Madams and Madames S01E03

Though Eastwick has not received the best ratings (which means you should all start tuning in), it is one of the most enjoyable new shows this Fall.

Rebecca Romijn as Roxie and Paul Gross as Darryl continue to have fantastic chemistry in the will-they-won't-they fashion, only I don't know whether I want them to or not. I don't know whether I supposed to want them to or not, and that makes the sexual tension interesting and different.

I loved how Darryl comforted Roxie when she began seeing the ghost of her daughter's would-be rapist. She felt no guilt over his death, which she had desired, and he told her that it was okay. And really, if someone tried to harm my loved one like that, I'd be glad if he died too.

Of course, by the end of the episode, Roxie realized that while she might be glad that he was gone, she should feel sorry for his mother and the other people in this world who felt pain over it.

Joanna (Lindsay Price) and Penny (Sara Rue) continued to be adorable as they went on a stakeout (for which they needed stakeout outfits) and looked to Nancy Drew to show them how to unravel mysteries. When Joanna found the reverend and not Darryl (whom she thought she was trailing) at a house of ill-fame, she took photos and put a sensational story on the front page. She realized that she'd been manipulated, since Darryl led her to those photos, but she went ahead with the story anyway.

Finally Kat (Jamie Ray Newman) tried to reconcile with Raymond (Jon Bernthal). Things were going well, so well that they found themselves in their undergarments at a public pool together, until Raymond asked Kat to give up her friends. Suddenly the boorish, controlling jerk was back, and Kat again realized she needs to leave him. Unfortunately, after spending a night with Roxie and Joanna to escape Raymond's temper, she came home to find him missing...along with her kids. I hope he ends up dead too, the jerk. What kind of an ass who can't even take care of his own kids without the aid of a nanny takes children away from their mother who used to take care of him equally well.

So keep watching the show or recording it on your DVRs so that the networks know we all appreciate this wonderful show.

Melrose Place - Canon, S01E05

Melrose Place has succeeded in pulling itself away from the dangers of not being watched by me. It is lucky, because as a Tuesday night show it does not have any other competition and therefore can stay on the roster. It is also lucky that I'm the kind of girl who actually has enjoyed soaps in the past (I used to watch General Hospital).

No, it will never be great television, but the characters are a lot of fun, and between Ella (Katie Cassidy), Violet (Ashley Simpson-Wentz), David (Shaun Sipos) and Lauren (Stephanie Jacobsen) I am interested enough to keep watching.

Violet is a terrific psycho. She is so crazy. When she tells Ella of her financial problems, Ella tells her to simply decide what she wants and then get it. To a normal person, that advice would mean work hard and take advantage of every opportunity. Violet took the advice a little too literally. She decided that she wanted to become a bartender, but since the restaurant she and Auggie (Colin Egglesfield) work for was not in need of bartenders, she put $700 from the cash in one of the bartender's purses and then made sure Auggie found it. Having someone insane on the show does make it worth my time.

Katie Cassidy, as Ella, continues to be my main draw. A lot of the evidence is beginning to make her look guilty, which means of course that she did not do it. Instead, she is trying to cover up the fact that she hired a PI to break into Sydney's apartment and take back all the info Sydney was using to ruin Ella's life.

Again, it's her ability to go from completely competent when anyone is looking to vulnerable the minute she is alone. She is working everyone she knows to be a great success, but she is fully aware that she is not untouchable and always in real danger.

She and David continue to grow on me and to people who use the people around them, and therefore truly have the ability to understand one another.

Finally Lauren has signed up to be a call girl. Getting paid $750 an hour to start is not a bad deal, and she should have her med school debt paid off in no time, but we will see how well it works. It won't be long before the hours she is asked to work interfere not only with her leisure time but also the hours she ought to be at the hospital. And how long before someone figures out that she's going somewhere and getting money?

Do you have a show that you watch which is purely candy like this one?

The Good Wife - You Can't Go Home Again, S01E03

I have to wonder what it means that Chris Noth's Peter Florrick is only a recurring character. It plays against my hopes that he will be able to get the charges against him reversed and win back his wife. Not that I am certain I want him to be able to win back our lovely lead, Alicia (Julianna Margulies). If he did cheat on her, that's not something that can easily be forgiven. The problem is, with the whole underlying current of potential conspiracies, I don't know if he did. After all, he and Alicia had such a great connection as this episode demonstrated.

We got to see some flashbacks to Alicia's old life as she defended a young man whose mother had been one of her best friends before the scandal broke. In these moments, we saw Peter and Alicia as the perfect couple. Margulies and Noth have great chemistry. It is very hard to understand why Peter would cheat, why he would need anyone else because he and Alicia had everything you need to be sexually satisfied. No wonder Alicia is so hurt.

We also learnt that Cary (Matt Czuchry), the other associate in competition with Alicia at their firm, has never actually been to trial before. He has always settled out of court - something he is quite good at - but he doesn't compare to Alicia on the floor; he gets flustered and forgets the simplest of questions. He's also made it very clear that he's Diane (Christine Baranski)'s favourite and he will continue to cultivate her preference. Alicia, of course, is backed by her former classmate, Will (Josh Charles). He knows that she is a natural litigator. And Diane only doesn't like her because she's competition for the role of best female attorney at the firm.

I continue to be interested and to enjoy the show. It does a brilliant job of remaining episodic while having very strong seasonal story-telling. And we will get to see where it is going now that it's been picked up for the rest of season 1.

What did you think?

The Mentalist - The Scarlett Letter, S02E02

While I liked this episode, everything I liked was character relevant and not murder relevant. This may be because it was so easy to figure out who the murderer was. It was so obvious from the moment Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) mentioned that the Senator and her husband had no sexual chemistry the she was gay. Probably because the rumours said that the husband was the one having the affair with the murder victim.

It might have been cool to see Jane be thwarted when each clue his abilities ought to have revealed was not found. After all, the concept of having someone eavesdrop on our investigative team was pretty neat. The whole affair, however, was not fully realized. Though Jane's reveals kept falling through, he never seemed fazed or confused by this. He had apparently already figured out that there was a fixer from the start. I would have been more interested if, for once, it seemed a case eluded Jane.

But enough about that.

1. Rigsby (Owain Yeoman)'s new hair is terrible. The spikes are so the hair of a 15 year old, not a full grown adult cop. If he doesn't change that soon, then Cho (Tim Kang) is right, he will die alone.

2. Cho is trying to get Rigsby to make a move on Grace (Amanda Righetti) despite it not being allowed. He is the man.

3. Grace was amazing when she decided to embrace her feminine wiles to confuse a suspect.

4. The new opening is garish. Please bring back the clean The Mentalist in white on black.

5. Lisbon (Robin Tunney)is in mandatory counselling after nearly being killed at the end of the first season. She doesn't like it, though she seems to be okay with the almost being shot thing. Is she faking it that well, or is there some other reason she doesn't like therapy?

6. Patrick Jane is an addict. I'd never thought of it that way before, but it is SO true.

7. Cho is going on a date with the daughter of the women he met at the post office of last season's finale. I love Cho and that chick was pretty hot so let's all hope it works out for them.

Castle - Inventing the Girl, S02E03

There ought to be something creepy or ghoulish about how excited Rick Castle (Nathan Fillion) gets when he goes to a crime scene, but there isn't. And it probably is because there is nothing wrong with being excited about the prospect of solving a murder. I'm sure he's be quite distressed if he let one get away, but that is not a challenge the show has needed to fact as of yet...unless you count Beckett (Stana Katic)'s mother.

This episode was interesting enough and played out well, but I never managed to care about the poor model who got herself killed. I don't know - maybe we didn't learn enough about her to think it was truly awful. Maybe the fact that the only person who seemed to actually care about her, her husband Travis (Matt Barr*), was the one who killed her. Maybe I thought she was weak, not watching her back, and yet feeling paranoid because her friend was drugging her.

I was glad, of course, that the murderer was apprehended, but even more so because Sierra (Torrey DeVitto) and Wyatt (Jeffrey Pierce), whose plotting had caused poor dead Jenna all the trouble that landed her stabbed in the middle of a fountain, got what they deserved. They got blackballed, which, for a model or a photographer, is much worse for a career than jail time.

But just because the murder didn't really get me does not mean the episode lacked it's terrific moments. Apparently when Beckett was 17, she modeled for a summer. And now Esposito (Jon Huertas) and Ryan (Seamus Dever) know....the last thing she wants is for Castle to find out. Also, Martha (Susan Sullivan), Castle's mum, landed a role on Broadway. She wanted the lead, and instead got the crazy grandma who died in the first act, off stage. She turned that down. She must have a great agent because she took the role when crazy grandma finished the first act with her death on stage. Yes, actors should stick to their standards. In this case, it sounds like it will make better theatre.

Also, Beckett spent the whole episode slightly miffed at Castle. And, of course, he had no clue why. Finally, we figure out that she wants to read his book, which he allowed a reporter to read for an article. Sigh, the more I watch Castle, the more I realize that as a woman, if I want something from a man, I have to ask for it. I'll likely get it if I ask, but there is no hope that he will think of it on his own.

What did you think of this week's Castle?

Mad Men - Souvenir, S03E08

I would never have thought to consider Don (John Hamm) and Betty (January Jones)'s relationship in parallel to Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) and Trudy (Alison Brie)'s. I don't know that I ever realized how much and how little they had in common.

While Trudy went to visit family and friends in the country, Pete remained in town - a temporary bachelor. Don and Betty, on the other hand, had stayed together at home with the kids all summer, and were now taking advantage of one of Hilton's international meetings to spend a few days in Rome, just the two of them.

At the start of the episode, I was disposed to thinking highly of Pete. He and Hildy (Julie McNiven), his secretary, with whom he has never previously had a positive interaction, had a very pleasant chat as he told her to enjoy her weekend. Maybe he's stopped behaving like a (insert appropriate word here) for once, and his secretary was no longer treating him like one. Well that impression did not last long.

He was lonely, and after he helped a neighbouring nanny with a small problem, he expected what he wanted in return. She refused him at first, but he persisted. How many rapes went on in the 60s that no one admitted were rapes?

Betty was on the receiving end of such attention. She knew she was playing with fire when she asked Henry Francis (Christopher Stanley) to help out her women's group's cause, but she was so very unimpressed when he stopped acting the gentleman and went for what he wanted. Good thing she was able to drive away from the situation.

Then she and Don had the most romantic time together in Rome. They're love was in full blossom, so apparent. When I see Don and Betty together like that, I completely understand how their relationship began. They were happy. Truly and genuinely happy.

Of course, as soon as she got home, she was back to the Betty we've seen all season. Almost surly, she is as miserable as she was in season 1 but not nearly so concerned about showing it. Poor Don. He is very confused.

Trudy is also to be pitied. Pete felt extreme guilt over what he had done, though perhaps it was because he got called out for his behaviour by the father who had hired the nanny. She sensed something was really wrong, though he never actually said a word about it. And when he said that he no longer wanted her to go away without him...well, isn't that sweet. He can't be faithful to you when you two are apart. Guess that means you can't part.

With all the focus on these two marriages, my favourite scene had nothing to do with these couples (though I did adore the segment in Rome where Betty and Don pretended not to know each other at the restaurant). Betty, for once, was a proper mother to Sally (Kiernan Shipka). She gave her a very sweet lecture about the importance of every first kiss and how girls shouldn't kiss boys - they should let the boys kiss them.

What was your favourite part?

Three Rivers - Pilot, Place of Life, S01E01

I think I'm just not a big fan of medical drama. I used to watch Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice and I liked them a fair amount, but then I missed an episode and I just never made the effort to catch up.

I also love House. Maybe because I am a huge fan of Hugh Laurie. But I've only really watched until somewhere in the third season, and with all the new doctors and changes the last couple seasons...well one day I'll make time and go back, but I won't just jump into season 6.

I thought I would give some of the new medical dramas trying to replace ER a chance, and I wasn't totally disappointed, but I just can't seem to care.

Three Rivers wasn't bad. It seems like a nice show, with some interesting characters...but mostly it felt flat. I didn't get drawn in or start to care about anyone, patient or doctor. Even the pregnant mother with heart failure didn't worry me, even when they feared she might be brain damaged.

It's too nice. It started well, with a man we liked falling to his death, but after that, there were no surprises or upsets. Even when the man's family postponed giving up his organs, I just didn't feel like that was going to end up being a problem.

What I think is that these would be good doctors, and if I was sick or injured, I'd want their help. They didn't get stressed out. They dealt with patients and their relatives intelligently, giving as much information as necessary, and creating no pressure. I never feared that they'd make a mistake. But as awesome as that would be in reality, it makes for boring television.

Did Three Rivers' pilot capture you attention? Are you watching any medical shows this season?