• This was the first time I felt any glimmer of interest in Thirteen as a character.  Watching her and Foreman check out the strippers together was hilarious, and when she dug happily into the booze-flavored ice cream, I actually said out loud, “I love Thirteen.”  And then I had to stop and check whether I’d gone insane.  I hadn’t.  She actually was entertaining for once.
• The scene where Chase turned on the kid’s cochlear implant was really striking, kudos to whoever came up with it.  It really made you feel how chaotic it must be to experience sound for the first time.
• I am TOTALLY ON BOARD with the dead!Amber plotline.  House has been having hallucinations and dream sequences and near-death experiences since season one, so it seems perfectly natural at this point.  Her comments gave us real insight into how House’s brain worked… until the whole suddenly went from amusing to really creepy.
• Bachelor party = FUNNIEST SCENE ON HOUSE EVAR, Y/Y?
• Cuddy said to House, “Talk to me,” and he did.  Not the hallucination part, not yet, but still, OMG.
• Promo for next week = aslkdjfalsdfjasodigu.  My brain just exploded.

First of all, let me say I have nothing against Tamara Taylor, who is a very talented actress.  And what’s more, I quite like Cam as a character; she makes a good contrast to flighty Angela and clueless Brennan.  However, most people don’t watch this show every week because of Cam, they watch because of the chemistry between Brennan and Booth, so an episode with almost no interaction between them is off to a rocky start to begin with.  (Really, I think what this episode needed was an ending scene with Booth and Brennan discussing Cam’s decision to adopt the girl, but whatever.)

But the thing is, the lack of Booth/Brennan screentime is not what I really disliked about this episode.  What I really disliked about its episode was the attitude toward gender.  Allow me to elaborate.

So Angela’s going to be celibate for a while; fine, good for her.  But her coming on to every man in sight, and genuinely sexually harassingpoor Clark, was unnecessary and ridiculous.  What’s more, since she’s supposedly bisexual now, shouldn’t she have been coming on to all the women as well?  I won’t go into my whole rant about media portrayals of female bisexuality again, but you can read it here.

What’s more, I’m finding that I really hate this stereotype that ALL WOMEN want babies, and once they hit a certain age become desperate to have them.  (See also: Cuddy on House, Liz Lemon on 30 Rock.)  Cam has said in the past that she absolutely was not interested in having children; now we learn that that was only because she already loved little Michelle so much, or whatever.  Brennan is apparently also going to start going baby-crazy soon, according to the spoilers.  I mean, I’m all for the Booth/Brennan sexy funtimes, but… ugh.

I still like Bones, and I’m looking forward to next week’s episode, which is apparently set in a particle physics lab akin to CERN.  But show, usually you do a fairly good job of portraying smart women who are more than stereotypes.  What were you thinking here???

I’ve been hearing snatches of these songs all over the place, often in parody sorts of things, situations where someone needed a song conveying an OVER THE TOP AMOUNT OF ANGST.  But the first time I actually heard either one was when I watched a Doctor Who fanvid, a shippy Doctor/Rose vid, set to “Goodbye My Lover,” and mock me all you like for my shipper tendencies but the song stuck with me even though I had no idea who it was by.  So today I finally bothered to look them up and listen to them properly and… and… I’m in love.

What is wrong with me???  Clearly I need some Flobots or White Stripes or something to clear my palette and remind me what my usual taste in music is…

When the original BBC cast was so amazing, how do you recast it with Hollywood types without losing that high level of awesomeness?  Whoever did the casting for the remake really rose to the challenge.  Allow me to explain.

John Simm

• I know him as… Sam Tyler in the original version of Life on Mars, and the most recent incarnation of the Master on Doctor Who.
• His character’s been recast as…Russell Crowe.  How awesome is that?

David Morrissey

• I know him as…Ripley Holden from Blackpool (remade for America as the ill-fated Viva Laughlin), and the “other Doctor” from the most recent Doctor Who Christmas special.
• His character’s been recast as…Ben Affleck.  Yeah, just the right touch of sleaziness.

Marc Warren

• I know him as… Elton in the Doctor Who episode “Love and Monsters.”  He also guest-starred on one episode of the original Life on Mars.
• His character’s been recast as…Jason Bateman.  Spot-on.  Apparently in the movie version of State of Play, Jason Bateman is going to have a blonde mohawk.

Philip Glenister

• I know him as… Gene Hunt in the original version of Life on Mars and its sequel, Ashes to Ashes.
• His character’s been recast as…Harry Lennix, a.k.a. Boyd from Dollhouse.  SWEET.  Exchanging one extremely bad-ass law enforcement type for another.

Looking forward to this movie.

The article is about the increasing emphasis on accurate portrayals of science and scientists in the media – it mentions Doctor Manhattan’s quantum physics in Watchmen, the antimatter bomb in Angels and Demons, etc.  It’s an interesting read, but in annoyed me a bit because it seems to be dissing Spock, my favorite-ever fictional character.  Someone is quoted as saying, “The scientists you see today are not Mr. Spock, they’re human, and that’s a real change.  Even if they’re depicted as über-geeks, they are still interesting people you’d probably like.”  Excuse me?  Are you implying that Spock is not an interesting person I’d probably like?  What universe’s version of Star Trek have you been watching?

This week found Charlie and new-girl Jane investigating the death of this unlucky bloodless guy, who happened to work at the coroner’s office; an interesting twist, since it made all the people who worked there suspects, throwing every murder case they’d handled into doubt.  The mystery even included the classic melting-murder-weapon-made-of-ice trope.

Oh, Charlie.  Such a complex character.  When he’s meeting with Bodner, trying to get to the bottom of the show’s overarching conspiracy, we see a different and much more bad-ass side of him then we generally see when he’s on the job as a cop.  He plays everything so close to the chest; seeing how calmly he lied to cover for Tidwell and Dani when Jane asked about their relationship was interesting, as was his revelation that there aren’t a lot of people close to him.  “I guess there should be more… but I’ve been away.”

Meanwhile, Ted’s storyline was wandering off in a completely unrelated direction.  He was reconnecting with his estranged daughter, and their emotional conversation was (to my surprise) played mostly for laughs; seeing Ted dissolve into sobs when he learned he has a grandson named after him is just weird (and if you look closely, I think both actors are actually trying not to laugh).  But like Charlie, prison left him with a stone-cold brutality he can pull out unexpectedly, as when he went to see his daughter’s deadbeat ex at the end of the episode.

In the final scenes, we saw Charlie and Dani both making the decision to tear up the photos that had caused them to doubt each other.  (And Dani was listening to one of Charlie’s Zen tapes – squee!)  I love how far those two have come since the beginning of the show, when Dani’s attitude toward Charlie could best be described as mistrust and hostility.  But at the very end, when Dani was taken away in that van, supposedly to participate in an FBI investigation in San Diego – were they really taking her where they said they were???  I’m suddenly very concerned for Dani’s safety.

Also: “exsanguinated” may be my new favorite word.  Right up there with “defenestration” and “schadenfreude.”

Quotable:

• Charlie: “Your scene.  Is it Goth?  It is, isn’t it?”
  Goth Girl: “I don’t have a scene.”
  Charlie: “We all have a scene.”
  Goth Girl: “Yeah?  What’s yours?”
  Charlie: “It’s… complicated.  Like a puzzle.  With a missing piece.”
• Ted [to his daughter]: “Your eyes are very red.  You’re not on drugs?  I’m not prying, this is a legal matter, I’m on parole.”
• Charlie [trying to recreate a murder scene]: “Pretend I’m dead.”
  Jane: “Should I pretend to be sad?”

• McCoy saying “Damnit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a [whatever]!”
• Scotty having an “I’m giving it all I’ve got, Cap’n!” moment
• Kirk cheating on the Kobayashi Maru test
• A bitch fight (okay, the phrase they used was “insult fight”) between Spock and McCoy

This list pretty much proves to me that these guys do “get” Star Trek.  I’m so excited to see this movie.  Quinto’s Spock and Urban’s McCoy in a TOS-style battle of the wits!  That’s going to be a joy to watch.

The subtle, deadpan humor made such a great contrast to the over-the-top musical numbers, and the two leads didn’t hog all the great lines – Murray, Mel, Dave, and even less-important characters like Doug and Greg all made contributions.  And that’s not even mentioning all the excellent guest characters, like Jemaine’s friend the mugger, the Crazy Dogggz, the members of the Tough Brets, Brian the Prime Minister, all the various girlfriends… each one was a memorable part of the show.

Another thing I always loved was the attention to detail.  I mean, even the costumes are part of the humor – Jemaine’s denim shirts, Bret’s penguin-print pajamas, Murray’s 1970s suits.  Whoever was in charge of this sort of thing clearly made a big effort at continuity, and continuity warms the cockles of my TV-lovin’ heart.  Whether it was Bret’s hair-helmet or Jemaine’s “camera phone,” the same little site gags would pop up over and over again, rewarding consistent viewers and making the Conchords’ world feel like a real (if bizarre) place.

Any successful show has a lot of elements that make it what it is.  In any case, my Sunday nights will seem empty without my weekly dose of Bret and Jemaine.

C’mon, NASA.  The man already has a species of trapdoor spider named after him, and you’ve been trying to show how you’re all hip lately, what with that MMORPG and all – could there be a better way to show your hipness than naming something after Stephen?