February 19, 2006

A Television Viewer's Diary and News: 2/12-2-18: Battlestar Galactica

Welcome to the latest Diary. Let's dig right in, shall we?

Best show I watched this week: Battlestar Galactica
Worst show I watched this week: Malcolm in the Middle

Sunday 2/12.

  • Malcolm in the Middle (Fox 7pm). Malcolm returns to its original night, but at a lousy time, for the remainder of its final season. The show has sadly become a shadow of its former self, although Bryan Cranston is delightfully over the top, and the best remaining part of the show. This episode has Malcolm and Lois being sick, and sequestered together in a room, which may not be the best of places for them, as they end up lining the room in rhinestones. Hal heads out to the neighborhood parties, has a blast, and almost gets hooked up with another woman because no one likes Lois. Lastly, Reese is trying to turn Jamie into his personal slave, but Dewey is the only one with the power to control him. Mediocre at best, this series should probably have ended a year or two ago. **.5
  • Desperate Housewives (ABC 9pm). I find myself caring less and less about these characters. This episode has 4 interweaving threads. The Scaavo's have to deal with working together, while hubby and the boss turn the office into a frat house. Bree goes and has a nice chat with Caleb, which leads to a confrontation with Mrs. Applewhite. Susan needs health insurance so she can have her wandering spleen surgery, so she hatches a plan to get married, first to a gay man, but that back fires, I guess she will just have to try again next week. Then there is Gaby and Carlos, who take in a former slave, from another lesser known housewife. Gaby is apprehensive at first, but grows to like her, and the young Chinese woman repays the kindness by cleaning the house and cooking. The interweaving tales are interesting, but I am not sure why I should care about any of them. ***
  • Grey's Anatomy (ABC 10pm). Continuing the story started with the explosive post Superbowl slot last week. We have Meredith keeping a bazooka shell from exploding, Bailey not wanting to have her baby yet, Derek working on Bailey's husband, and everyone else waiting to see what is going to happen. Izzie confronts her mortality, George grows a pair and helps Bailey through her child birth, and the chief has a heart attack which ends up as merely an anxiety attack. This show has taken great strides towards the top of the charts. The characters are becoming increasingly more compelling, and the drama has risen, while the heart remains there. It may not be my favorite show, but it is better than I thought it would end up being. Plus, we get to see someone blow up! ***

Monday 2/13.

  • 24 (Fox 8pm). Jack finds himself at a crossroads, his connection to the nerve gas lying dead on the floor, and time slipping away. Fortunately, the bad guys don't know who the guy looks like, so Jack takes his place and goes to the meet. The meet goes bad and Jack ends up an unwilling participant in a plot to release some of the gas in a shopping mall. The decision comes down from the President to allow them to release the gas, but Jack doesn't go along, so his cover is blown. Next is a chase for one of the terrorists, unfortunately he dies before they can get any more information. This season has been very good so far, not sure it is going to reach the heights of season 4, but it could be close. ****

Tuesday 2/14.

  • Supernatural (WB 9pm). While investigating the potential supernatural disappearance of a man in a small town, Sam gets caught himself. This reveals the culprits to be human. The episode takes on a rather Texas Chainsaw Massacre-ish feel to it. Dean passes himself off as a cop, and with a local sheriff goes looking for his brother. Then the sheriff gets caught. Will Sam and the sheriff be the next hunting victims of this backwoods family? Not if Dead has anything to say about it. This was a fun episode, even if it did feel a bit derivative. ***
  • House (Fox 9pm). An off-roading accident is brought to House's attention. So, he goes about looking into why the boy may have crashed. In typical House style, the investigation is a to the upsetting end of the scale. He accuses the parents of not knowing their son, say he may be depressed, or on drugs, even waking him up while he is still healing from the burns. Of course, it takes a few tries before he zeros in on the cause of the accident, but he is right as usual. Then there is the secondary story where he gains a degree of revenge on a former classmate, a plan which includes taking an experimental drug and then dropping acid. This was a decent episode. ***

Wednesday 2/15.

  • Bones (Fox 9pm). A gang shooting puts Bones in the middle of a war. As she works towards identifying the victim, the investigation implicates a prominent senator. So the team has gang members and politicians on the hit list. The deeper the investigation goes, the more danger arises. A hit is placed on the life of Bones, this leads Booth to set aside his badge for a few moments. This was a good episode, bringing more in your face danger to the lead duo, and some emotion from Booth. ***
  • Lost (ABC 9pm). Tensions mount on the island. The French woman returns, showing Sayid her latest prize, a captured "other." Sayid liberates him and brings him back to the hatch, where he works with Locke in order to find out who this guy really is. He goes so far as to be locked in a room where he can go about his torture. Jack isn't too thrilled with this development, and his disagreements almost allow the mysterious timer to run out. Actually, it did for a second, and a series of hieroglyphs appeared while it sounded like something was powering up, but Locke put a stop to it. Sawyer is learning that he doesn't have many friends anymore while he hunts for a noisy tree frog. He uncovers a secret of Hurley's, he is hiding food, including a 5 gallon jar of ranch dressing. This was one of the better episodes of recent weeks, it also shows that the show is better when Sayid is involved. ***
  • Invasion (ABC 10pm). That annoying girl from those migraine commercials is now a character on the show. She is portraying this rather psychopathic alien that is not adjusting all that well, and is getting the sheriff's daughter in trouble along the way. This series is still managing to hold a little bit of interest, even if I can't remember everyone's name. ***

Thursday 2/16.

  • Smallville (WB 8pm). We start with a subject of a Luthor Corp lab escapes, and proceeds to get hit by Lana. The accident leaves the guy without a scratch. She calls Clark his there to check it out. Clark finds the guy to be a former football player who had been thought to be dead. After his death he became a subject in a cybernetics experiment. Meanwhile, Martha is experiencing first hand the problems of being a Senator. I liked this episode. ***
  • Everybody Hates Chris (UPN 8pm). Chris' parents are trying to cut back on expenditures, which means no more chocolate turtles or lottery tickets. The pair start looking for ways to sneak them in. Chris, on the other hand, is the best Asteroids player on the block, until he gets beat and is suckered into betting money on the game. Great show. ***
  • WWE: Raw (USA 9pm). Pre-empted from its usual Monday slot by a dog show, we get some Thursday night wrestling. This is top lined by the Road to Wrestlemania tournament which sees Triple H and Big Show go to a double count out and RVD defeating Carlito. ***

Friday 2/17.

  • WWE: Friday Night Smackdown (UPN 8pm). Decent final build up towards the No Way Out pay per view. Matt Hardy accepts a Tag title challenge, he just needs to find a partner. Gregory Helms gets mugged by the other cruiserweights. Taker and Angle team to defeat MNM and Mark Henry. ***
  • Stargate SG-1 (Sci-Fi 8pm). SG-1 is assigned a baby sitting job, taking some international delegates to the delta site for a tour. Before long the trip goes awry. An experiment on some insects gets out of hand, and they start eating everybody. Then the news comes down that their ship is coming to bomb the planet to get rid of the bugs. Fortunately, they get out in time and return to Earth with minor injuries. ***
  • Stargate: Atlantis (Sci-Fi 9pm). Features the return of the Genii, as one of their number contacts Atlantis to obtain weapons in exchange for a ZPM. He wants to stage a coup against their current leader. This doesn't go as planned, as Sheppard and McKay are held prisoner, and may end up getting executed. Fortunately, Atlantis has Genii hostages of their own, which happen to be sick, and the plan was to trade them for the good guys, after Beckett heals them, of course. In the end all is well. This was an OK episode. **.5
  • Battlestar Galactica (Sci-Fi 10pm). The Pegasus has a new commander in an engineer named Gartner. Apparently, Gartner is having some issues with Kara, so the newly promoted Major Adama get sent over to help get things in order. They end up having a major conflict as two Raptors have gone missing. When they are found, they also find 3 base stars set to attack the Pegasus. Back on Galactica, Baltar announces his candidacy for president while he opposes the current president on an abortion issue involving a young woman and the religious faction of the fleet. ****

Saturday 1/21.

  • TNA: Wrestling Impact (Spike 11pm). Christian starts the show, with his newly won Heavyweight Championship. The Fallen Angel takes on Austin Aries, but is interrupted by Samoa Joe and AJ Styles. The main event was Team Canada taking on Team 3D and The Truth, but they get interrupted by AMW and Rhino. ***

That is all for this week. Did you see anything worthwhile?

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