No Ordinary Family 1.10: "No Ordinary Sidekick"

Sarah is taking over "No Ordinary Family" duties until I can get a little more caught up on the rest of the shows I cover here at MTVP, so here's her take on the show's fall finale, "No Ordinary Sidekick."

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“I just wish for once you would consider-”
“Where you’d be without me.”
- Katie and George

So I was also pretty pleased with most of “No Ordinary Sidekick”. The JJ storyline was kind of stupid, but Daphne actually had a reason to exist this week! And as usual, I liked that we saw the powers conspiracy get pushed further. The episode begins with the Powells plus Katie and George out for a night of bowling. Jim uses his super strength to knock a whole mass of pins, including some in another person’s lane. JJ, using his super brain, lands yet another strike, and Stephanie only gets 8 pins down but uses her speed to make it look like a strike. Everyone is in relatively high spirits, though George is a little grumpy when “Will” arrives. Katie introduces him to Jim and reintroduces him to Stephanie and the kids. Once again, Daphne tries to read “Will’s” mind and gets static.

While the rest of the group is schmoozing, George is listening to his police scanner. He ends up convincing Jim to go check out a dry cleaner robbery two blocks away. Jim handily takes out the three bad guys. The shop owner is down for the count and doesn’t see Jim’s face. Jim is about to take a swing at what he thinks is another bad guy, only to narrowly avoid hitting George upside the head. Jim takes off just as the cops arrive, and they find George holding a piece of metal bar. At first, George is worried that he’s about to be arrested, but instead, he becomes a hero.

Jim and Stephanie are watching George give an interview and talking about how at least someone got the credit, even though it would be nice for Jim to be recognized for his efforts. Cordero still treats Jim like crap even though Jim saved his life. Over in teen land, JJ is complaining that he’s basically too smart for all his friends now. They have nothing to talk about. And, Daphne is still concerned that she can’t read “Will’s” mind. It’s the usual Powell family angst all around.

On the conspiracy front, we find “Will” talking to Dr. King. Dr. King is not pleased with “Will’s” progress, or lack thereof. As Dr. King reaches his car, he finds Dr. Chiles, the scientist whose purpose seemed only to be scoffing at Stephanie’s work in the early episodes, waiting for him. Dr. Chiles found a vial of the stuff Dr. King has been injecting into “Will” and threatens to expose it. Unfortunately for him, Dr. King is ready and makes the point that Dr. Chiles was on the team that was doing all the plant research. Things are really not looking good for Dr. Chiles, whose first name is Francis.

The next day at the police station, George shows up and gets lots of applause. Jim warns that George to lay off the publicity because the case got a lot more complicated. The robbers are all career bank robbers. Meanwhile, Cordero is trying to ID the man who saved him and it doesn’t take long to ID Jim. Later, Jim shows up at the dry cleaner to follow up with some questions of his own. He learns from the owner that in addition to some cash being taken, a man’s dry cleaning was also stolen. Jim finds that odd, and when he heads back to the police station, he finds George getting ready to do yet another interview. It’s quite obvious the fame is going to George’s head.

JJ ends up checking out a smart people’s club and feels horribly out of place. For one thing, everyone is older than him. He ends up seeing a cute girl, Natalie, playing chess, and when he sits down to play, his powers fail him. Talk about impotence issues. Later on, JJ offers to help Natalie with homework and fails again. It finally takes a talk with Jim to figure out that JJ needs to think about something other than how cute Natalie is when he’s around her. By the end of the episode, he’s thinking about baseball stats and he can play chess and flirt with the best of the geeky teenage boys. You may have noticed I wrapped JJ’s plot up quickly. It’s pretty stupid and we could have done without the storyline completely in this episode and would have been far better off.

Stephanie walks into the lab to find Katie smiling happily while doing her work, and they end up talking about how much Katie likes “Will”. Dr. King shows up before the conversation can go any further (though Stephanie did explain that Katie mentioning she hadn’t felt so strongly about a guy since she fell for a metrosexual Wookie was too much information) sporting a nasty black eye. He says that it was courtesy of Dr. Chiles and that since his discharge, Frances has been unstable. He informs Stephanie that if she sees Chiles at the office, she should call security. Later, while Stephanie isn’t around, Daphne stops by the lab to chat with Katie. Daphne ends up reading Katie’s mind to find out where she met Will. Obviously, it was the dating site where JJ set up the fake profile. Which becomes the subject of discussion between the mini Powells. They’ll find out more of the pieces of the puzzle by the end of the episode.

Dr. Chiles shows up all crazy and jabbering about the vial. He hands it over to Stephanie and tells her to test it. And boy is she surprised by what she finds. She injects it into a rat and waits. It ends up developing super speed. Just as she’s about to head over to talk with Dr. Chiles at his house, he gets a surprise visitor. “Will” shows up and kills him (makes it look like a suicide, complete with note). It’s rather violent and it makes me sad that “Will” seems to be taking such joy in making Chiles do things against his will. Stephanie shows up not long after and is horrified to find Chiles dead.

With George so preoccupied with his new-found status as “hero”, Jim has to hop rooftops on his own with only the aid of the GPS which lands him in the pool. He finds out that the man whose dry cleaning was stolen works for the transit authority. Meanwhile, Daphne spills the beans about “Will” to Stephanie, who brings it to Katie. Katie can’t believe Stephanie is saying these things and basically quits being her sidekick. At the same time, George ditches Jim, too. Stephanie and Jim briefly commiserate about their being dumped by their respective sidekicks, and Jim makes the comment that sidekicks don’t have to last forever. The next day, Jim goes to work and buddies up to Cordero (which isn’t hard since Cordero is treating Jim like a king for saving his life) and finds out that a few years back there was a train robbery with the same elements as what Jim has found in his snooping around the dry cleaner robbery.

Katie and “Will” are out to lunch, and Katie tells him about her fight with Stephanie. It looks like she’s figured out his lie when he admits he was just sitting at the bar and watched her look up as every guy walked by. So he figured he’d sit down. He says his name is Joshua (which is obviously a lie because you see him look at the nearest waiter’s nametag). So now we have yet another name for our mysterious Watcher. Have to say, Joshua isn’t as amusing as Will. See, Josh Stewart played a character named Will on Criminal Minds so it just makes me giggle whenever I hear someone call him that on this show.

Jim has gone to the train station to try and avert a robbery and is leaving a rather obnoxious message for George (who is off being given a key to the city or something). Jim ends up actually tackling real train conductors with lunches (not automatic weapons concealed in conductor duffels). It’s kind of a funny scene really. It ends up that George gets over himself and decides to help Jim after all. It turned out that Cordero’s intelligence was off and now Jim’s got to stop a train from leaving the station. Too bad it’s already left. This part is really amusing because you’ve got Jim standing on a bridge above the train tracks and George telling him to stop the train. Great dialogue. So Jim ends up jumping onto the tracks and miraculously stops the train and takes out the bad guys.

At Dr. Chiles’ apartment, Dr. King shows up and lies outright to Stephanie about Dr. Chiles. He says Chiles was working on Volson’s research and that he was using human test subjects. He produces what appear to be Dr. Chiles’ notes. And that’s all not entirely false. We know that Dr. King has been injecting people (i.e. Pyro and “Will/Joshua”) with the stuff to give them abilities.

Meanwhile, Daphne’s big moment finally happens. “Joshua” has shown up at the Powell house looking for Stephanie, but he says Daphne will do fine. She tries to read his mind again, and when she touches his hand, she sees him killing Dr. Chiles. She tries to say she won’t tell anyone and he gives her this creepy smile and says he knows she won’t and grabs her. The next thing we know, Jim and Stephanie are sitting on the couch, and Daphne comes down complaining about not wanting to be dragged to Brazil. Everything that she’s experienced over the last three months is completely gone. What a way to end the first half of the season.

Glee 2.10: "A Very Glee Christmas"

“I’m pretty sure they just added food coloring to real slush from the parking lot.”
-Mike

“A Very Glee Christmas” was a cute episode overall, although I thought it was a bit disjointed and trying to do too much. I think it would have been better had the “Glee” producers saved one of the two major plots in this episode for a future Christmas special. I would have liked to have seen an episode that was either just a “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” parody or just dealing with Artie trying to preserve Brittany’s belief in Santa Claus. The silly Rachel/Finn drama could have worked in either setting, I guess, although it works better with the latter. The result was some good, if a bit saccharine, ideas that just didn’t really have enough time to breathe and develop into something truly great.

The episode opens in the faculty lunch room. Emma invites Will to a Christmas party she and Carl are hosting, and Will (rightfully) declines. Things are still rather awkward between them. The rather easy friendship they had before Emma started seeing Carl just isn’t there anymore. Coach Bieste interrupts the awkwardness with an announcement that it’s time to choose names for the annual faculty Secret Santa. Will is disappointed to see that he chose Sue, and given the sour look on Emma’s face, she’s not happy with her choice either. It will soon become blatantly obvious why.

Meanwhile, Artie is very surprised to discover that Brittany still believes in Santa Claus. He really shouldn’t be all that surprised. Brittany can dance like nobody’s business, but she’s also kind of dumb as rocks. And that might be putting it nicely. We cut to the glee club kids all happily singing Christmas songs as they decorate the choir room. Thankfully, the saccharine is soon cut by some dark humor- the kind of humor that made me like “Glee” in the first place. Will makes a surprised entrance into the choir room and asks the kids where they got all the decorations. All were either found or stolen. For instance, Finn picked up the Christmas tree after it fell off a truck. I thought the misfit-ness of their decorations was finally getting back to the core of the show. In fact, the kids kind of agree. They’re upset that they’re still treated as losers by their classmates, even though they’ve now won Sectionals (sort of) twice.

Will wants to get the kids’ minds off of Christmas colored Slushies in their faces and on to the true meaning of the holiday season. He announces that they’re going to go caroling around the school to raise money for the McKinney-Vento Homeless Children’s Shelter. And I started laughing like a fiend, because clearly one of the “Glee” writers is a lawyer. You see, the McKinney-Vento Act is a law that addresses where homeless children have the right to go to school (and here comes the obligatory disclaimer about how nothing in this blog should be construed as legal advice…and moving on). Suffice it to say, I had a bit of an education law geek out.

To say New Directions’ first attempt at caroling doesn’t go well would be an understatement for sure. The kids in the class they’re singing for are horribly rude. The kids yell at and mock the glee club as they sing. To make matters worse, the teacher doesn’t do a thing about it. In fact, she throws her shoe at the glee club. Back in the choir room, the kids finish decorating a new, not stolen, tree Will bought for them. Brittany mentions that she asked Santa to make it so the glee club isn’t picked on anymore. The rest of the club is shocked that Brittany still believes in Santa, and they gather around Artie for an explanation. Artie begs the kids not to let on that Santa isn’t real. He’s got an idea to make Brittany’s Christmas special, and he doesn’t want them to ruin it. Before the kids go back to work, Rachel asks Finn to meet her in the auditorium the next day.

Artie drags the whole glee club out to see Santa. He thinks that if Brittany sees all of her friends happy and believing in Santa, it will build up her strength enough to withstand any naysayers. There’s a montage of everyone’s time with Santa that is actually pretty funny. The fun stops when Brittany actually gets her time with Santa, though. Brittany asks Santa to make Artie able to walk again. Artie frantically motions to Santa that he should say “no,” but he says “sure.” This causes Artie to go into quite the panic. He and the other boys ask Coach Beiste to dress up as Santa (Brittany only pays attention to the suit- she doesn’t notice who is actually wearing it) and tell Brittany that Artie can’t be “fixed.” Coach Beiste is a little offended and reluctant at first, but the boys are eventually able to convince her. In other relationship news, Rachel has created an elaborate holiday set-up in the auditorium for Finn. She wants to sing him an apology song. Finn refuses, saying he’s not ready to forgive Rachel for fooling around with Puck. After Finn storms off, Rachel sings “Merry Christmas, Darling.”

In what I think is going to become a trend for as long as Kurt is away from McKinley, we next visit Dalton Academy for one rather short scene that seems to exist just for the purpose of making sure Kurt is in the episode. Kurt and Blaine are in a student lounge, and Blaine asks Kurt to help him rehearse for his performance at the upcoming King’s Island holiday show. They sing a rather adorable duet of “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” and just as they wrap up the song, Will shows up. Since Will can’t do anything, even visit a former student, for altruistic reasons, he tells Kurt he needs his help. He wants Kurt to go shopping with him to get something for Sue. As the Secret Santa is about to start, Will and Emma both realize that they’ve shopped for Sue. Sue walks by and says that she’s everyone’s Secret Santa. Will and Emma are, obviously, not happy about that.

Will enacts a plan to try and take all the presents back from Sue. Lauren distracts Sue by wearing a Santa hat (Sue doesn’t approve of such things) while Will organizes the rest of the glee kids to take the presents out of Sue’s office. Sue discovers the plot, though, and she’s not happy. She says she’s going to make a phone call to Gloria Alred. Hate to tell Sue, but I don’t think Gloria Alred would want to get involved in this case. There would be no press conferences in this situation, for starters. I don’t think Sue would be sympathetic enough. Will puts a stop to Sue’s rant by telling her she’s a Grinch.

Sue is outraged that people would take away the presents she scammed from them, which really makes her even a more disgusting human being than she was before. There really isn’t anything redeeming about Sue, and her act got old a long time ago. She dresses up as the Grinch and dresses up Becky as the Grinch’s dog, complete with single antler. They break into the choir room, and not only do they steal all the presents (which the kids were going to give to McKinney-Vento), but they completely trash the place, too. Ruining all those Christmases is really inexcusable. Brittany plays the role of Cindy Lou Who, walking in on this mess while Sue and Becky are about to leave. Sue gives her the classic line about how she’s taking some things back to the North Pole for repairs, and of course Brittany buys it hook, line, and sinker.

Meanwhile, Rachel still hasn’t given up on winning Finn back. After the glee club sees the destruction, she asks Finn to go with her to get (yet another) new Christmas tree. There’s tons of awkwardness and angst as Finn and Rachel sing “Last Christmas” while breezing through the Christmas trees. They come close to kissing, and that’s when Finn has had enough. He’s fed up with Rachel trying to manipulate him, and he’s still deeply hurt that she would even consider hooking up with Puck after what happened with Quinn last year. He breaks up with Rachel officially.

Later, Artie’s plan to maintain Brittany’s belief in Santa goes into effect. Brittany is shocked to see “Santa” in her living room, and she’s devastated when she’s told that she isn’t going to get what she asked for Christmas. The conversation between Brittany and Coach Beiste is very sweet, but it leaves Brittany broken. She takes all of the Christmas decorations down from her locker at school, saying she lost her Christmas spirit. The rest of New Directions are in a similar state. Will walks into the choir room and sees they’re ready to go all “Gift of the Magi,” with the boys putting their watches into a hat and the girls getting ready to cut their hair. Will puts a stop to the silliness and says they should sing their Christmas carols to people who really need Christmas spirit.

That group of people who really need the Christmas spirit turns out to be the McKinley High faculty. The kids (minus Artie, who is busy consoling Brittany) set up a concert in the faculty lounge, and Sue is nearby giving an “Evil Speech of Evil” to Becky when the music starts. The kids sing the song that the Who sing in “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” of course, and of course, Sue’s expression softens as she hears it. When the kids get back to the choir room, they see Artie walking around using this robotic-type device. Apparently it was invented in Israel. Nobody knows where the device came from, but Brittany is convinced that Santa actually came through. Coach Beiste looks on happily, and we’re left to assume that the gift was from her.

Will gets home from a long day at work and hears noises around his apartment (which has been suspiciously decorated for Christmas). It turns out Sue is responsible for all of it. She apologizes (sort of) to Will for Grinching everything up. Not only has Sue tried to make amends, she brought the rest of New Directions with her to help. They’re all determined to try to have a happy holiday season, losers or not. Despite the candy coating, however, all is still not right with New Directions. Finn and Rachel are still broken up, and Kurt is still at another school.

HIMYM 6.11: "The Mermaid Theory"

“Well if I can’t share her lipstick, there’s really no point in even going.”
-Ted

At first, I was mildly entertained by “The Mermaid Theory.” It definitely had its funny moments. Then I noticed a rather unfortunate similarity to “Rabbit or Duck,” arguably one of HIMYM’s worst episodes. This time around, instead of Rabbit or Duck, we had Manatee or Mermaid, complete with stupid visual gags. It was another one of those recent episodes of HIMYM that tries really hard and, unlike “Blitzgiving,” for instance, fails utterly. There was a “Barney has a wacky theory about women” bit, and there was another bit that was more dependent on the fallibility of memory than anything I can recall on the show previously. Like I’ve noticed at least one other time this season, it felt like an attempt to just throw in all the elements that are “supposed” to be in a good episode of HIMYM.

The episode opens with Saget!Ted telling his kids how the gang liked Zoey but found her husband, the Captain, to be more than a little creepy. In a lovely bit of continuity, Marshall has a big poster made to illustrate why. I believe it was the season 3 episode “Intervention” where we first saw Marshall’s love of using big posters to illustrate his point. The Captain can be smiley and have murderous looking eyes all at the same time. While the gang is rather gleefully discussing this phenomenon, Ted gets a phone call from Zoey. She’s going to a Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit, and she wants to know if any of the group wants to join her. Ted, always the architecture nerd, is the only one interested. He agrees to go, but Lily cautions him that there are rules to be followed when a single guy is alone with a married woman. This conversation leads Marshall and Robin to realize they don’t hang out much (apparently we’re supposed to forget season 4’s “Little Minnesota”), so they decide they’re going to have dinner.

There’s also a C plot running through the story that I’ll just quickly recap here so we can move on. This would be the plot that is pretty much only about the fallibility of memory. First Saget!Ted says Lily made Barney upset by refusing to hang out. He then realizes this doesn’t make much sense. It makes even less sense when Lily accuses Barney of being over-sensitive, then saves his life by pushing him out of the way of a car. They briefly make up, then resume figting. Saget!Ted really realizes his memory is faulty when he has Barney telling Lily that you don’t call a woman fat. He remembers that it’s Barney who hurt Lily, but the whole picture still doesn’t make sense. After pondering this from time-to-time for the rest of the episode, it turns out that Barney hurt Lily by explaining that she turned into a manatee (an explanation for what that means will come later in this recap) by becoming pregnant. Lily was pregnant when this part of the story went down, but Saget!Ted tells us that was in “a different year.” We also get Ted in a dress- something for which Saget!Ted promises we’ll get an explanation some day. What I didn’t like about this was that it felt so generic. As if the writer said, “Okay, it’s HIMYM, I’ve got to have some faulty memory and a gag we can come back to eventually. Check!”

Back to the more prominent plots of this episode, Zoey and Ted are enjoying the museum exhibit when Zoey gets a phone call from the Captain. The Captain asks what Zoey is up to, and she says she’s out “with friends.” The fact that Zoey felt she had to lie makes Ted realize there could be a problem. He consults with Lily, who says that the problem will be solved if Ted hangs out with both Zoey and the Captain in the future. Ted decides to accept the Captain’s recent invitation to go out on his boat. When Ted arrives at the boat, he’s disturbed to see that Zoey isn’t there. It’s just going to be Ted and the Captain. At sea. Where, apparently, like in outer space, no one can hear you scream. Understandably, Ted thinks he’s gonna die.

Meanwhile, further throwing away “Little Minnesota,” Robin and Marshall’s dinner is seriously awkward. Apparently they are only capable of discussing three topics. Wonder what they discussed all those times at the Hoser Hut and Marshall’s Minnesotan bar, then. Anyway, Marshall says he hasn’t hung out with Robin much because of what Barney taught him was called the “Mermaid Theory.” Basically, the theory is that whenever a guy spends time one-on-one with a woman, a clock starts ticking. Even if the guy finds her completely unattractive (a “Manatee”) at first, she’ll eventually turn into a “Mermaid,” and he won’t be able to stop thinking about her. This is what happens when guys get desperate, apparently. I found this theory to be very immature and paranoid, although I guess it makes sense in that case that it would originally come from Barney!

On the boat, the Captain is being extra creepy, talking about death and isolation at sea. Ted is more convinced than ever that he’s going to die, especially when the Captain mentions Zoey. The Captain goes into the cabin to fetch something, and Ted climbs up on the side of the boat, seriously considering jumping to get away from him. Ted loosens up when the Captain returns simply with some Scotch, but unfortunately, he loosens up a bit too much and accidentally falls into the very cold water anyway when the boat hits a bump. After the Captain gets Ted back on the boat and wrapped up in a blanket, they have a little heart-to-heart. At the end of the episode, Zoey tells Ted that she specifically arranged the boat trip so Ted could spend time with the Captain, and her guilt could be eased. The mermaid clock starts ticking, which definitely earned an eye roll from me.

At the restaurant, Robin asks if there’s any way to stop the clock or “unmermaid.” In a flashback, we see Barney tell Marshall that the way a woman stops being a mermaid is pregnancy. Back at Robin and Ted’s apartment, Marshall’s beer goggles kick in, and in his eyes, Robin begins the transformation to mermaid. It turns out Robin drank quite a lot to get through the super awkward evening, though, and she throws up on the floor. Apparently that’s another way to unmermaid. Luckily for Marshall. I still think the whole thing seemed like way too much of a Rabbit/Duck rehash. I wasn’t impressed.

Fringe 3.08: "Entrada"

“It’s all because of that temptress. She tricked my son with her carnal manipulations, and he fell right into her vagenda.”
-Walter

“Entrada” finally brought us the long-awaited return of Olivia to our universe. It’s clear that nothing is ever going to be quite the same, but it’s good to have some of the pieces back in place where they belong. I’m curious how much the Other Side will figure into the rest of this season, since some big changes have taken place there. This two universe experiment was intriguing, and it gave many of the actors, especially Anna Torv, great material with which to showcase their talent, but it was time to put the band back together and move forward. And I’ve got a feeling that moving forward is going to be quite painful. It has to be, after what Peter has done. The final scene of this episode is just gut wrenching in that sense. And on that happy note, on with the more recap-y part of this blog post.

This episode picks up right where the last one left off- in fact, there’s some overlap. We once again see Peter answer the phone call from the Statue of Liberty gift shop janitor. But now we get to see what he does about it. First he’s in a bit of shock. Then, when Alt-livia asks him about the phone call, he lies, saying it was a telemarketer. He feigns going back to sleep, deliberately turning away from Alt-livia. Later, when Alt-livia is asleep, Peter starts snooping. First, he fires up Alt-livia’s work computer. My reaction: “Yeah, right…like the DoJ would ever really issue a Mac.” Alt-livia catches him, but Peter pretends that he’s reading e-mail on his own computer, which is a conveniently identical Mac. He then tests Alt-livia, concocting a story about how he first heard the Greek phrase that Olivia uttered when she regained consciousness after her first trip to the Other Side. Not surprisingly, Alt-livia fails the test miserably. She doesn’t recognize the phrase, and she doesn’t know Peter is telling the wrong story.

Alt-livia figures out pretty quickly that Peter is on to her, and she points a gun at him. She makes him inject a paralytic into himself, and then she makes her escape. Alt-livia’s first stop, naturally, is the old typewriter shop. She forcibly makes the shopkeeper give her the key to the typewriter that connects to the Other Side, and she uses the typewriter to request an extraction due to her blown cover. Meanwhile, a whole FBI team, led by Broyles, responds to a finally-regaining-feeling Peter. I guess Walter must have alerted them or something, even though Peter was at Olivia’s apartment. I know it’s Olivia’s apartment, because Broyles questions what Peter was doing there. Walter tries to cover Peter, telling Broyles that Olivia had called them about possible intruders. I thought that was kind of cute. Walter is such a Peter/Olivia shipper. Peter decides to come clean, though, and he admits to Broyles that he and Alt-livia were more than friends. More importantly, when Alt-livia escaped, she mistakenly took Peter’s computer instead of her own, so the FBI now potentially has a lot of data about the Other Side. It doesn’t take Alt-livia very long to realize her mistake.

Over on the Other Side, Brandon takes a meeting with Walternate, and they discuss the immanent extraction of Alt-livia. Specifically, Brandon wants to know what to do with Olivia once they have Alt-livia back. In order to extract Alt-livia, they have to send something of equal mass across the universes. Brandon wants to know if Walternate wants Olivia to be alive or dead when she’s sent over in exchange for Alt-livia. He’d prefer dead because she has “valuable parts to study.” Alt-Brandon is one sick, sick puppy. Alt-Broyles gets the next meeting with Walternate, and on his way out of DoD headquarters, he sees what has become of Olivia. She’s back in the white gown, screaming as she’s being manhandled by soldiers. He looks horrified for a second, but he plays it off and leaves.

Back in our universe, Astrid has been able to break into Alt-livia’s computer enough that she can see video of Alt-livia’s regular debriefings. Walter is still really frustrated, though, because he can’t find a way to cross to the Other Side safely without Olivia. Broyles arrives with an update. Not only has Alt-livia escaped, but she’s stolen a piece of the doomsday device, too. There’s a breakthrough, though, when Walter starts to eat a pastry. The pastry is from a bakery in the Bronx, and Alt-livia, impersonating an FBI agent in Boston, had no reason to be in the Bronx. The team heads to New York immediately, and it doesn’t take Peter long to find the infamous typewriter shop. He has no doubt that the shop is connected to Alt-livia and the Other Side when he sees his own computer there.

On the Other Side, we see Alt-Broyles in a bar. On the TV, there’s a news story about how it’s the anniversary of a deadly vortex that cropped up in the East River. Alt-Broyles was clearly personally affected by this event, because the news story makes him even more surly than he already was. He is moved to go visit Olivia, and she unsuccessfully begs him to help her escape. He has creepy marks drawn all over her, because before she’s sent back to our universe, Brandon is going to do surgery on her to remove her brain and most of her organs. It’s really rather horrific. It’s even more horrific when we get to the scene where the surgery is about to start. Olivia is immobilized in clear plastic, and she’s not fully anesthetized, because apparently that would ruin her organs. She’s going to be taken apart while only somewhat sedated. Like I said, Brandon is one sick puppy. Luckily, just as Brandon is firing up some sort of nasty looking saw, Alt-Broyles has a change of heart, arrives in the OR, and shoots Alt-Brandon dead.

Alt-Broyles has to give Olivia adrenaline to counteract the sedative, then they begin their frantic run down to the laboratory. Olivia is hoping to jump in the tank one last time and travel home. She sees that they’re already reproducing Cortexaphan in higher quantities- there are bags of it in the lab. Then Olivia discovers something much worse. The tank is empty, so she can’t use it. As she makes this discovery, alarms start going off. She and Alt-Broyles have to come up with another plan quickly. They’re going to go to Boston. Olivia hypothesizes that since Walternate once had a lab there just like our Walter, there might be an abandoned sensory deprivation tank just like the one Walter had Olivia use way back in Season 1.

In our universe, Alt-livia meets up with a shapeshifter at a train station in Newark. They go into a bathroom, and the shapeshifter gives her some painful looking injections, presumably to prepare her for the extraction. An unfortunate woman happens to walk into the rest room. Peter and the FBI team soon arrive at the train station too, thanks to a clue from the typewriter, and Peter spots Alt-livia as she leaves the rest room. Alt-livia sees Peter, too, but she has a plan. She has the unfortunate woman as a hostage. It doesn’t take Peter long to figure out what’s really going on, though, and over her daughter’s screams, Peter shoots the hostage. It turns out that it was the shapeshifter. Peter has no kind words for Alt-livia as she’s led away in handcuffs, although he softens a bit when he sees opens Alt-livia’s bag and sees she kept a strip of photos they took together at one of those cheesy machines.

On the Other Side, Olivia fills and gets in the tank while Alt-Broyles stands guard. They hear soldiers approaching. The soldiers were drawn to their location because Alt-Broyles has a subcutaneous tracking device. Alt-Broyles is able to hold them off long enough for Olivia to finally go home. She winds up in Walter’s lab, where Astrid is just working and minding her own business. To say Astrid is shocked to see Olivia is an understatement. She drops the glass she was holding on the floor. Olivia then passes out.

In New York, Alt-livia is being transported to some sort of holding facility when the extraction kicks in. The Fringe team checks out the now destroyed van, and Peter warns Broyles that he may not want to look inside the van. Inside is the dead body of Alt-Broyles. Remember, in order to extract someone, equal mass had to be sent in the other direction. I guess that was Alt-Broyles. Over on the Other Side, his loss is already being felt. Alt-livia strides into Fringe headquarters feeling mighty pleased with herself. After some banter with Lincoln, she sees Astrid is frantically perseverating on the fact that she can’t contact Colonel Broyles. His wife doesn’t know where he is, either.

All of the intrigue between the two universes is nowhere near over. A shapeshifter visits the typewriter shopkeeper, The shopkeeper has the piece of the doomsday device that Alt-livia stole, and in exchange for that piece of the device, the shapeshifter gives the shopkeeper injections that allow the shopkeeper to walk again. Meanwhile, Peter visits Olivia in the hospital. He’s the first person she sees when she regains consciousness. Right off the bat, he tells her that he’s sorry, but since she has no clue (yet) how stupid and hurtful he’s been, she thanks him for saving her life. She tells him that the thought of him was what kept her going on the Other Side. Olivia is going to be so destroyed when she learns the truth.

No Ordinary Family 1.09: "No Ordinary Anniversary"

Sarah's helping me out a bit with some "No Ordinary Family" as well, since this is another show we both watch. Enjoy her take on "No Ordinary Anniversary."

***
“This is what I’ve been missing with my crime fighting. You.”
- Jim

Overall, I found “No Ordinary Anniversary” to be rather entertaining. I especially enjoyed the continuation of the powers conspiracy. Mostly because we get more of Josh Stewart (The Watcher/ “Will”). So, the episode opens with Jim buying roses for Stephanie for their anniversary. Jim says he just wants a night of no kids and no crime fighting. George is with him and as they are leaving the florist, fire engines whiz by. With only minimal prodding by George, Jim goes off to try and see what he can do to help with the fire. Of course, he doesn’t know if he can even survive fire but I guess that’s not all that important when you’re generally invincible. He ends up rescuing a trapped kid and skipping out on getting examined by paramedics. As Jim is leaving the scene, he sees a sufficiently creepy guy watching the fire behind the barricade [ed. note: most obvious TV arsonist EVER!].

Jim gets home to find Stephanie and Daphne arguing about whether Daphne is old enough to supervise when Stephanie and Jim go out overnight for their anniversary. Daphne really doesn’t want the usual babysitter, who is over eighty-years-old. Plus, J.J. wants a new super-fast computer but Stephanie says no. He’ll have to save up the money from his allowance (which leads to the rather annoying Powell junior plot of the episode). They end up deciding that Daphne can be in charge. Jim quickly spills to Stephanie about his flame-retardant abilities and she happily notes it in her little black book of powers, careful to refer to Jim only as “Subject Y.”

The next day at the lab, Stephanie and Katie are examining Jim’s tissue sample when Katie asks Stephanie how she knew Jim was “the one”. Katie really likes “Will” but she thinks he is hard to read sometimes. If only she knew he was working for the bad guy! Anyway, their conversation is interrupted by Dr. Chiles. He’s not happy that Stephanie is once again shutting him out of her research. The poor guy just doesn’t know what’s coming. Meanwhile, we find J.J. at school formulating a plan about how he’s going to get the money for his computer. He overhears some older guys talking about a poker game. He ends up convincing them to have it at the Powell house that night since his parents will be out for their anniversary.

That night, Jim gives Stephanie her anniversary present, a sculpture of their hands he made out of marble. She loves it and it’s a cute scene that shows just how good they are together. In short order, they leave the kids by themselves for the night. Jim gets a call from George as he and Stephanie are heading to the car and Jim is rather insistent that he doesn’t want to know that the fire he helped out with was the fourth major arson in the city that month. Intercut we see the creepy guy from the fire at the beginning of the episode setting a new one in what appears to be an abandoned building using a superpower. It reminded me a little of Pyro (from X-Men).

Jim and Stephanie arrive at the restaurant to find they have a 45-minute wait. Neither is happy about it and, Stephanie calls Katie to go check on the kids. And of course, Katie gets to bring “Will” along because they’ll be stopping before their own dinner date. About the time Stephanie and Jim arrived at the restaurant, J.J.’s poker buddies (well okay so not really buddies but you get the point) show up. After arguing with Daphne, J.J. agrees to cut her in, 50/50 if she allows the game to happen and helps clean up.

Back at the restaurant, Stephanie ends up using her power to switch their name on the list and get a table. It doesn’t last long though, because the name she switched with theirs shows up and the guy is going to propose to his girlfriend. So, Stephanie and Jim give up the table and opt for hot dogs instead. Not quite as romantic as an expensive dinner but whatever floats your boat. As Jim and Stephanie are walking along the street after eating, they come across the latest fire (all put out), and Jim goes to confront the arsonist. Jim tries to beat up the arsonist but ends up getting blasted by lots of fire. Stephanie shows up just in time and uses her speed to knock the guy out. Looks like they could make a pretty good team.

Meanwhile, the nefarious Dr. King calls Dr. Chiles into his office and fires him when Chiles refuses to spy on Stephanie. And thus because the slow demise of one Dr. Frances Chiles. But more on that in the next post. Jim and Stephanie end up at George’s house in the “lair.” They want to get the arsonist out of the hospital so he doesn’t hurt anyone. Stephanie also believes she can find a way to neutralize his powers. They pop by the lab so Stephanie can make a compound to neutralize the bad guy when Chiles comes to the lab to collect his stuff and gives a vague warning that they’re all expendable.

Back at the Powell Estate (sorry, couldn’t resist the Doctor Who play on words), JJ is wiping the floor with the other guys. They end up switching the game to 5 card draw where J.J. can’t see the cards. Things aren’t going well until J.J. enlists Daphne to read the guys’ minds. The lucky streak doesn’t last for long, though. Katie and “Will” have show up and things go downhill fast. They end up finding the poker game and Katie throws the guys out, or so she thinks. It’s really “Will” using his telepathy on one of the guys. Katie does, however, promise not to say anything about it to Stephanie in exchange for Daphne reading “Will’s” mind. Perhaps the most important thing is that Daphne can’t read “Will’s” mind- she just hears static. “Will” does some snooping and finds Stephanie’s journal, shoes and food. As they are cleaning up the mess, Daphne and J.J. discover Jim’s sculpture has been broken. Between now and the end of the episode they make a daring trip to the school art department (which involves bribing a night guard) and fixing it.

At the hospital, George is trying to convince Det. Cordero to let the arsonist go but fails. He’s released into police custody which eventually does allow Jim and Stephanie to save the day. “Will” ends up getting the guy out of the van, but not before flipping it and leaving Cordero and the driver for dead. Jim ends up saving Cordero before one final showdown where Stephanie ends up engulfing pyro-guy in what looks like some kind of flame retardant substance. In any case, he’s not alive anymore. Jim and Stephanie get home to find J.J. and Daphne (and the sculpture) in one piece. If only they knew what kind of trouble lay lurking ahead of them.

TV Things I'm Excited About for 2011 (but probably won't have time to blog about)

As I’m getting ready to leave for a New Year’s party that happens to be (what else?) a TV marathon, I’m thinking about the television I’m really excited for in the new year. Unfortunately, because of my schedule, I probably won’t be adding any of these to the blogging rotation, but I thought they deserved a little mention here on the blog, at least.

Doctor Who Series 6

Although I was kind of lukewarm on “new-new Doctor Who” as we saw it in series 5, I saw the preview for the new series while watching the “Christmas Carol” themed new Christmas special earlier this week, and it made me pretty excited. First of all, the Christmas special itself was pretty decent (although still not quite to the level of “The Christmas Invasion”). As far as the preview goes, I like that the Doctor’s obsession with odd clothing choices continues, and I like that we’re going to be seeing more of River Song. I think Alex Kingston has more chemistry with Matt Smith than David Tennant, so I enjoy her interactions with Eleven. Although I’m a bit wary of trying to import British television ideas in any way, because the original product is so much better, I’m intrigued that at least a few episodes will take place and were filmed here in the United States. The new series will premiere on BBC America in Spring 2011.




Off the Map

“Off the Map,” premiering January 12 on ABC, is the newest show to be produced by Shonda Rhimes, of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Private Practice” fame. If you’ve read this blog from the beginning, you’ll know that I was once a big-time “Grey’s” fan, but Shonda and I had a bit of a “falling out.” Why am I seriously considering going back to Shondaland? First of all, Rhimes will not be writing on this series. The pilot was written by former “Grey’s” writer Jenna Bans. Second, it stars two of my absolute favorite actors, Caroline Dhavernas (Jaye from “Wonderfalls”) and Zach Gilford (Matt Saracen from “Friday Night Lights”). I’ll deal with the trademark Shonda melodrama for quite a while to see these two actors work, especially Dhavernas, who has not been on American television (she’s French Canadian) on a regular basis since her “Wonderfalls” days.




Torchwood: The New World

As I mentioned when talking about the new series of "Doctor Who," I’m a little wary of the “International” scope of the new series of "Torchwood," but it will be good to see Jack and Gwen back on my television screen, and I’m curious to see how the team gets back together after the tragic events that ended the last series. The last series of “Torchwood,” called “Children of Earth,” was fantastic. I’m also missing Russell T. Davies’ unique voice since he is no longer head writer for “Doctor Who.” I’m hoping that since Davies is still head writer of “Torchwood” this will give me my fix of what I’ve been missing so much with Moffat-run “Doctor Who.” Jane Espenson, who has written wonderful episodes for every TV series created by Joss Whedon, will also be writing for this series of "Torchwood." "Torchwood: The New World" is set to premiere on Starz in Summer 2011.




Being Human Series 3

The American version of this wonderful BBC Three series will be debuting on Syfy on January 13, but we won’t speak of that here. I’m talking about the original. The third series of “Being Human” is currently filming in Cardiff, Wales, and although there doesn’t appear to be an official premiere date available yet, it is slated to premiere at some point in 2011. “Being Human” tells the story of a vampire named Mitchell (Aidan Turner), a werewolf named George (Russell Tovey), and a ghost named Annie (Lenora Crichlow), who are roommates. The trio try to blend in with the rest of society as best they can while dealing with big supernatural threats at the same time. To whet your appetite, here’s a behind the scenes video of the first read-through of the new series (which took place over the summer) from the BBC.




The Cape

“The Cape,” which premieres January 9 on NBC, is this television season’s second superhero-themed show, and even though I’ve been kind of up and down on “No Ordinary Family,” I’m really looking forward to this one. The trailers are intriguing- they make it seem a little more grown up than I originally thought it would be. I’m also excited that fabulous Joss Whedon alum Summer Glau (major Whedon roles being River Tam in “Firefly” and Bennett on “Dollhouse”) has a major role. Glau brings a fascinating physicality and grace to any role she inhabits. Overall, “The Cape” looks like it will be good fun with some intelligence, and we need more of that on television. Sarah may be blogging this one for MTVP depending on her school schedule, so you may get recaps of “The Cape” despite what I said at the beginning of this post.

Glee 2.09: "Special Education"

Always entertaining guest blogger Sarah is back again, helping me catch up on fall blogging before winter shows start. She'll be blogging a couple of episodes of "No Ordinary Family" too, so keep an eye out for that. Meanwhile, here's her take on the "Glee" episode "Special Education."

***

“I don’t care if you guys hate each other. All I want is for you guys to go out there and sing together. Get up there and for six minutes, remind yourselves that you’re not alone.”

- Will

So, I liked “Special Education." For one thing, it was mercifully void of one Sue Sylvester. I mean she was entertaining to a point last season but now she’s just obnoxious and irritating most of the time. I know I said she was nice last episode with sticking to her word about expelling Karofsky, but generally, she gets on my nerves.

Anyway, the episode starts off with Will talking to Emma in the teacher’s lounge. He’s offered her tickets to Sectionals, saying she’s their good luck charm. When he starts to go through their killer set list, Emma interrupts by saying he’s going to have Rachel and Finn sing a ballad and then the rest of the group join in with a rock song with Mercedes ending it. Will’s a little surprised by her statement but soon realizes she’s right. He’s not letting all of the talent be showcased. He brings this up at Glee rehearsal and Finn and Rachel (well mostly Rachel) are thrown. Mike Chang and Brittany are going to do a dance number and Sam and Quinn are going to be doing the ballad. To make things worse, Santana outs Finn for sleeping with her last year.

Meanwhile, we see Kurt settling in at Dalton Academy, complete with blue and red uniform. I have to say, the uniform just isn’t Kurt. I miss his cute style. So he’s sitting in on the Warblers rehearsal and they hand him a canary named Pavarotti to take care of. He makes a joke about taking it to work with him in a coal mine with stray cats but it falls on deaf ears. Then, the council comes to order. Blaine explains that they select three upperclassmen each year to be the council since they don’t have a director. Kurt jumps in with his ideas for a Sectionals set list when the council promptly shuts him down. Instead, the council decides to do their entire set list in 8-part harmony. How they actually have enough singers to double parts is a little suspect but whatever. You need a little suspension of disbelief.

Back at McKinley, Rachel confronts Finn about what Santana said. It’s obvious she’s hoping it isn’t true, but Finn can’t lie. It turns out they are in Emma’s office for a counseling session. Rachel is pretty caught up with the fact that Finn slept with Santana. It seems she’s not all that pissed that he lied about having sex. It’s more the who than the what. I guess it’s not that surprising that she’s so obsessed. Things end with Rachel storming out. Meanwhile, Artie finds Brittany hiding in a classroom. She says she’s scared about performing at Sectionals because she doesn’t want to be responsible for if they win or lose. Artie cheers her up by giving her his “magic comb”.

Will tasks Puck with finding a new member for the Glee club. Since Kurt left, they’re a member short, and if they don’t find someone else, they can’t compete at Sectionals. Puck tries to recruit from the football team and gets locked in a port-a-potty for his troubles. He’s rescued by Lauren (Typhoid Mary from “The Substitute”). Will and Rachel kind of have it out when she protests not getting a solo for Sectionals. Will’s tired of all the kids being about themselves and says rather sternly that they will be good sports at Sectionals. They’ll cheer on the other teams and if either of them wins, the New Directions will congratulate them.

After rehearsal, Tina shows up at Artie’s locker, dressed like a cheerleader zombie (according to Artie) and tells Artie that she thinks Brittany and Mike Chang are cheating on them. Artie doesn’t want to believe it but Brittany has been avoiding him a little and when he goes to confront her, she says she has to go rehearse with Mike.

Kurt is in slightly higher spirits when Blaine tells him he can audition for a solo at Sectionals. Kurt pops by McKinley to ask Rachel for help in picking out a solo, and they end up doing a rather odd duet of “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”. Don’t get me wrong, I loved their duet of “Defying Gravity” but this one just didn’t live up to the past performances. Another thing I don’t get is that it was really Rachel’s song. Kurt doesn’t get the solo and he’s again rather put out by his lack of success with the Warblers.

Emma ends up telling Will that she can’t go to Sectionals with him and the kids as they board the bus. She told Carl about everything and after a fight; Emma says that she can’t lie to him anymore. With a rather dull call from Rachel, Will boards the bus and they head off to Sectionals. Rachel runs into Kurt before performances start and she tries to be sympathetic that he didn’t get his solo. They share a sort of sweet moment before Blaine comes to collect Kurt.

We first see the Hipsters do “In the Living Years,” which is okay and kind of reminded me of the movie “Young At Heart.” Not a great performance but amusing enough. The looks on the New Directions are pretty amusing as well. Next we get the Warblers doing a very good rendition of Train’s “Hey Soul Sister”. I have to say, I adore this song and I really like Darren Criss’s voice. For those of you who watched “The Sing-Off” on NBC, my favorite group (Street Corner Symphony) did a great version of this song as well. Apparently, the background singers that make up the Warblers are actually a group from last year’s “Sing-Off.” Kurt is a little straight-faced at first but Rachel motions to him to smile and he does. Now it’s time for the New Directions to go on, and things still are pretty tense behind the scenes. Artie confronts Brittany about her supposed cheating and it’s revealed that she was avoiding Artie because she lost his “magic comb”. He’s relieved to say the least and admits that it was just a comb he found on the floor and was going to throw away. Rachel and Finn have it out as well and Finn makes the very good point that Rachel was dating Jesse at the time so she has no right to be mad at him. So true. Will comes and tries to rally the troops and stop the in-fighting.

Sam and Quinn do a duet of “Time of My Life”. It was pretty good. I liked their costumes more this year than last year. Chord Overstreet and Diana Agron actually have a good harmony. It would be nice if they laid off the Autotune a bit. Kurt enjoys the performance and ends up giving a standing ovation. The next song they do is “Valerie” that Santana sings the lead on. It’s an okay song but I’d never heard it before, and so it wasn’t all that memorable for me. I did enjoy that it was someone other than Rachel. I do have to say the dancing by Mike Chang and Brittany was really good and impressive.

It’s voting time, and it turns out that the Hipsters came in last place. Not surprising really. And both New Directions and the Warblers are going on to Regionals. They had to keep everyone in the storyline somehow. It seems a little odd that both got to move on. Wouldn’t it mess up how Regionals work? Anyway, it will be nice to see Kurt and the Warblers again. I’m hoping we get Kurt back at McKinley soon.

Will shows Emma the trophy and she reveals that Carl took her to Vegas and they got married. Will is really not happy with the news and I have to say it was kind of out the blue and rather stupid as storylines go. He feigns happiness and leaves. Next we find Rachel talking to Finn. She admits that she messed around with Puck after she found out about Santana because she was mad at Finn. Surprisingly, Puck was the one to break it off before it went too far. She doesn’t seem to get that this isn’t the same as what Finn did. She actually did cheat on him. I would hate to be Finn. He really needs a new best friend. Puck has a tendency to steal his girlfriends. Finn leaves Rachel standing in the hallway looking horrified that he’s just broken up with her.

Kurt has a weird little scene with Blaine discussing Pavarotti molting. It seems like they are trying to show some sort of twisted metaphor that Kurt is like the bird stuck in its cage of uniformity and I really doubt that will last, no matter how smitten he is with Blaine. We close out the episode with the Glee kids doing “Dog Days Are Over” with Mercedes and Tina singing lead.