Picks of the Week: September 20th-24th

Friday night means the week is pretty much done with. Normally, I'd be over at a friend's house, explaining exactly why the player's pitiful character can't use a tranquilizer gun on a demigod – or at the very least, why it wouldn't work if he were to take such an ill-advised action.

Unfortunately for me, and for some of the other players in the session, we had a scheduling conflict this week and couldn't session. Which leaves me without an awful lot to do this evening. The Scars of Mirrodin prerelease is tonight, but I find myself with only barely enough funding for it – and no one to accompany me, which doesn't exactly sound like a phenomenal time, despite the new cards to be had. I'll go for the release next week and be content with that.

This week wasn't entirely a bust though. Notably, there was new television, and none of that reality show junk. This was good old scripted drama. Lets take a look at my week's highlights, in my opinion. Note that there ARE going to be SPOILERS ahead, so if you haven't watched one of these shows and plan on it, you might want to turn back at the heading for that show.

Bones:

We're gonna start off the highlight reel with what's certainly this week's weakest showing. The humor seems like it went out of this show over the hiatus, and the time-jump seems eerie and unnatural. I felt like I was watching a story told by someone who had never seen any of the cliches before. The story seems like it's on wooden rails – veering inevitably towards the conclusion. Booth is going to have an extremely traumatic choice between Bones and this plot-device girl back in Iraq. I don't think that it's going to surprise anyone what he picks. Angela's having a baby! Oh how wonderful. I wonder if she'll go into labor at a predictably high-stress-in-the-plot time? Lance wants to find himself and broke up with his recurring character fiance? Eh, they'll get back together by the end. Cam's angry because Bones went off to pursue her career instead of staying with her! She'll get over it by episode 4 at the latest. It just seems like the show decided that – instead of resetting to the status quo or moving the plot forward in an interesting manner, they threw a bunch of faux drama in that'll all be resolved quickly so we can make room for the real season plot. Thumbs down, Bones.

Castle:

Coming in just above Bones is Castle, which did what it normally did with a little bit less humor than usual. It was a solid episode, but I couldn't help but feel like they were struggling to make ends meet. They had to go to some pretty extreme lengths to make the preview-drama (Did anyone think they were gonna seriously shoot at each other?) come to pass. This one didn't introduce a bunch of pointless dead-end plots like Bones did, which makes me hope we can start to see a season plot start up as soon as this coming Monday. Altogether, not a terrible showing, but far from Castle's best.

Glee:

Yes, my guilty pleasure makes the number 2 spot on my list this week. Glee did a good job of making this a new jumping on point for new viewers, which is what it seemed like this episode was. It was a little heavy handed, but that's part of the show's charm, and so I won't fault them for it. Song choices were hit-or-miss. The snark was spot on though. Some predictable plot developments (Schu and Sue not getting along? Go on.), and some not-so-predictible ones. (Asians? That's racist!). Three new cast members joined. I'm refraining from making a call on two of them – Beiste and Blondie-guy (Though, EJ, I agree, he is pretty.). The third one is a little phillipino girl named Sunshine who has some pretty awesome pipes to her credit. I'm gonna look forward to seeing her do some of the songs this season, and the inevitable conflict between her and Rachel (which please dear god I hope doesn't involve Finn) should be good. My hopes for this season include seeing the new characters get some spotlight, take some of the light off Rachel and Finn, give some to the supporting cast (especially Quinn, who remains my favorite character on the show.) There's also some talk that other-Asian will get a solo sometime during this season, which will be a feat, because that'll be more lines than he's had in the whole show thusfar. Looking forward to seeing how it all turns out, especially the two newbies.

House:

Now here's an episode. Hands down the best of the week. This one managed to avoid the issues of the first two shows by just not skipping any time. This episode starts instants after the last season ended, and it shows. Also, instead of trying to restore the status quo, House seems determined to completely shatter it. New theme song for the first time since the show started? Check. Thirteen going on an indefinite 'leave of absence'? Check. House and Cuddy dating? Check. We got a lot of heavy plot development coming off of last season, and for better or worse, the writers grabbed us right away by keeping the ball rolling. This is not a good season to start watching house, but given that it is the seventh season, I don't think they're really aiming towards the newer viewers.

Thumbs up all the way. If you love House, I can't think of a single reason in this episode that you wouldn't agree. Everything just seemed really crisp and well executed. Go watch this episode, now.

Now, it's also worth mentioning that I did finish Angel, well ahead of schedule too. I plan on doing a write-up of it at some point in the near future, just to give my impressions of a few key points. My next task is going to be Warehouse 13 (which was chosen because of both recommendations and the relatively low commitment. There's only 22 episodes, and I've already seen the first four.) Close runners up included True Blood and Fringe, which might be handled pretty soon anyways.

What did you all think of this week's television? Did anything really "wow" you? Anything disappoint you? It's a new season, and there are hearts to be won and lost! Voice your opinion down below!