two stories for the price of one

First an update on this story about South Butt - South Butt is not going away and giving in, but rather, they're fighting the trademark lawsuit filed by The North Face. I had figured that The North Face's act of filing the lawsuit would bring more attention, and popularity, to South Butt, and yep, sales have increased. I think this is a David vs. Goliath thing, and people like to support the Davids of the world. It'll be interesting to see where this lawsuit goes.


The husband mentioned to me tonight that President Obama's state of the union address is supposed to conflict with the premiere of the last season of "Lost" on February 2nd. Well, a White House spokesperson has given assurances that such is not going to happen. I mean, yeah, he's President of the biggest power in the free world and all that, but he does *not* want to go up against rabid "Lost" fans. They might send the smoke monster after him...

"FlashForward" - semi-spoilerish review

I hadn't really been interested in "FlashForward", but the husband and a friend were interested in the show (for slightly different reasons), and I heard a bit more about the premise and thought it interesting enough to give it a try.

We hadn't had a chance to watch the show until tonight. I was surprised to see Brannon Braga's co-creator credit as I hadn't known that he was attached to this show. After watching a bit of it, this was definitely right up his alley, and I think he's found a great outlet for it. I did like his episodes from "Star Trek: The Next Generation", but they didn't always fit in with the feel of the show as a whole. And he could only really do so much on "24". But he might just have found his element here.

I liked the first show a lot - good story, nice setup, and they really put together a terrific cast. I've always liked Courtney B. Vance, and I think Joseph Fiennes is really good in this as well, though I do lament that they didn't let him keep his English accent. Maybe they thought it would appeal to more people if he just had an easy-to-understand generic American accent.

I had heard rumbles about a connection between this show and "Lost", but I hadn't really paid attention to details. It took me looking at imdb to figure out that the lead female/doctor was the same actress who played Penny on "Lost" (and a friend reminded me that she also played Charlie's wife on "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles", which I had seen in her imdb listing but couldn't place her character name), and the husband saw the billboard advertising Oceanic Airlines. I laughed at the tag line about them having the best safety record or something like that. And from the imdb listing on the show, it appears another "Lost" alumnus will soon be appearing on the show.

The ending of the first show was great. All the people crumpled over weren't creepy, but the lone person walking around nonchalantly was definitely so.

I liked the show enough that I wanted to watch the second episode right then, and it didn't disappoint. The little girl who plays the daughter reminds me a bit of Heather O'Rourke from "Poltergeist" - little blonde girls who know things they shouldn't know are creepy. But, I was annoyed that she got in trouble for pushing the boy, but it seems no one else got in trouble when the other kids were the ones taunting her, and the boy was the one taking her stuffed animal away and even damaged it. She didn't hit him, only pushed him, and that's because of what he did. But she's the one who gets in trouble? Not fair.

Wow, Alan Ruck looks different! I recognized him but couldn't think of his name until I saw it in the credits. Cameron sure looks different.

I like all the side stories developing, and I think my hunch is right about girlie tech who saw her ultrasound vision and John Cho's character having no vision at all. That's gotta be unnerving, especially when the woman cop had no vision either and then bang, she's dead. Of course, phone call from random lady (who I know won an Oscar for "House of Sand and Fog", but I know her really from "24") confirming the date of his death probably doesn't do much to cheer him up.

But I think Joseph Fiennes' character is a bit of an ass. His wife is admitting to him her vision of being with another man, so she's wracked with guilt about cheating on him. But he completely withholds from her that he might be giving her a reason to leave him since he was drinking again in his vision, so he's totally letting her take all the blame!

But that last scene was amazing, and the look on Joseph Fiennes' face was perfect. Your blood would be chilled hearing your little daughter say that name too!

I'm hooked!

The website I liked to above also has links to each of the episodes if you didn't see them. I highly recommend it.

"Celebrity Apprentice", "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles", "Survivor", "Law and Order" and "Knight Rider"

"Celebrity Apprentice" - last week

Tito was away at a fight, so the guys were down one person. Carol was appointed project manager of Empresario by Donald Trump, and Piers was chosen as the project manager for Hydra. The task was to develop a program for Crocs in which people could trade old shoes for new shoes, and the old shoes would be recycled and given to people in need of shoes.

Trace came up with the slogan of "Wear them, share them," which Piers immediately loved, so that became Hydra's catch phrase. Piers thought he saw the women next door spying on them, so he decided to do the same thing, and he and Vinnie staged an argument so that Vinnie could go next door as a Trojan horse and spy on them. And sure enough, when they saw Vinnie sitting outside both conference rooms and he told them Piers kicked him out, they decided to take him in. It was amazing to me that they didn't even question that it might have been a setup, that they were duped so easily. They said later that they felt sorry for him, but it sure looked like they didn't have confidence in their own abilities by agreeing to just take him in.

Empresario came up with "Share the love" as their slogan to use, and while Vinnie and Marilu were on their way to the construction site to design their shoe container, he managed to toss a paper to Hydra with his notes on what Empresario was going to do. Stephen was antsy about having the paper, so instead of picking it up himself, he went into their conference room and got Lennox to go outside and pick it up. To me, that seemed hypocritical. It he really wanted nothing to do with Vinnie's note, he would have either just said nothing about it and kicked it to the side or picked it up and just thrown it away, and no one else on Hydra would have known about it. But by getting Lennox to pick up the note, he could benefit from whatever he thought might be on the note, but he could technically keep his hands clean since he wasn't the one who actually picked up the note. He was basically getting someone else to do his dirty work.

On the car ride over to the construction site, Vinnie got an attack of conscience and confessed to Marilu that he was supposed to be a spy, but now, he was really flipping to be on the women's side. He got Marilu to agree to keep his original intentions quiet. But Vinnie didn't know that Piers had already revealed to Nely that he was aware of their slogan by constantly telling her to "share the love", and Nely realized that Vinnie had betrayed them and then told the rest of the women that Vinnie had been telling Hydra everything they were doing. Omarosa called Marilu and then summarily dismissed Vinnie.

Vinnie then went back to Hydra and had it out with Piers for both "making him" be a spy and then for outing him to the women. I think Vinnie was a total hyprocrite when he said that Piers "made him" spy on the women. Ummm, no, he asked you to, and you were all for it. You went along with the whole charade. You could have said no. You could have gone and then not given any information back to the guys. You made the decision to do what you did, but it's much more convenient to place the blame on Piers instead. Besides, as it was, it was really just a harmless joke. It wasn't like Hydra used the info they got about Empresario to do anything different with their own plan. They already had it worked out. They really just ended up unnerving the women and distracting them by showing they knew their plan. But in the end, it wasn't enough of a distraction because the women's idea to build a giant Croc as a shoe depository with model Carol next to it won the challenge. But Vinnie was still upset, enough that he decided to resign. And then he tried to retract his resignation. And then tendered it again, so Trump accepted his resignation.


"Celebrity Apprentice" - this past week

Fallout from the last challenge continued, and Stephen Baldwin decided to talk to Donald Trump to tell him that he couldn't work with Piers anymore and wanted to quit. What's with the whole quitting thing? But Trump decided to put him on Empresario instead. When Baldwin went back and told Hydra that he would rather be on the women's team even if all they wanted him to do was have him get coffee, Piers and Lennox were disgusted by his declaration. And then it got worse. The women weren't all that happy to have him, but on top of that, Stephen told them he was unavailable for most of the next day because of a prior commitment. Omarasa was particularly angry and told Trump that they didn't want him. I expect they were still stinging from the fiasco with Vinnie. But Trump told them they had to have Stephen.

This time around, the contesants meet Vera Wang and a representative from Serta mattress, for whom Vera Wang is designing a mattress, and their task is to create a living window for this new product. Omarosa was the project manager for Empresario, and Lennox was the project manager for Hydra. Empresario immediately went with a bridal theme which included a little scene with a bride and groom (since Stephen was expected to return later in the evening). Hydra felt that they were at a disadvantage since they knew nothing about Vera Wang, but after their meeting with her, Trace pinpointed the idea of romance and came up with a Cleopatra theme. I find it seriously amusing that Trace is generally fairly quiet, but he then just comes up with these amazing ideas - this is the second week in a row that he's done that.

There was some dissension in Hydra since Lennox as project manager ran everything by a vote, not making any decisions of his own at all, which drove Piers crazy, but even though it also annoyed Trace, and the rest of the group, it mostly seemed good natured overall.

Empresario wasn't necessarily having a better time, and there was some drama with Marilu as she had some trouble communicating with the window construction guy. Omarosa and Nely commiserated together. Stephen finally arrived at 6pm, and he was not so much interested in getting coffee for the women. Instead, he tried to re-work the entire concept that late in the game, which the women didn't particularly appreciate.

When it was time to present their window, Empresario had a whole wedding party scene, with the bridesmaids coming in and throwing rose petals, and then Stephen as the groom carried Carol as the bride in over the threshhold. Vera Wang was really loving the scene.

When it came to Hydra's turn, they had Cleopatra's lair with Cleopatra and Marc Antony being fed fruit by a servant, but there were modern touches as well, like a plasma television and a celphone and a laptop. Vera was ecstatic about the new scene and positioning of her product.

In the end, as much as Vera loved both windows, it appeared that the deciding vote came from the Serta executive, and Hydra won. For me, as much as the bridal theme was beautiful, I would think it would mostly attract just women but the Cleopatra theme would appeal to both men and women.

In the boardroom, Omarosa reverted to form and tried to deflect blame everywhere else. When she was told that the bridal theme was old and uncreative, she admitted to coming up with the idea (sort of - what she actually said was that she "signed off" on the bridal idea rather than outright admitting that it was her idea in the first place) but that she hadn't gotten enough guidance from Nely or help from Marilu, who was too scattered. When it came time for her to decide who to bring back into the boardroom with her, she mentiond Stephen because he wasn't there for most of the day, but then Trump compared her to Gene Simmons and said that she shouldn't bring someone who didn't deserve to be there and who he can't fire because they weren't responsible for the loss. Trump also basically gave her a huge hint by saying that you can't help but remember history when it came to making that decision, that past performance had to be in play. Trump had made it clear that Nely would have been fired if Simmons hadn't been obstinate, so Omarosa did what Simmons wouldn't - she played Trump's game and effectively threw Nely to the lions by bringing her back with Marilu, figuring that Nely was a bigger target than she was. Nely protested her inclusion and rankled at Trump's constant mentions of her prior work, but Trump still ended up firing her.


"Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles"

The show started with Sarah telling the story of Golem, a monster who was created and then turned on his creator, making an obvious comparison to the terminator. The terminator who was after John arrived at the office of a plastic surgeon, and true to form, he killed the doctor as soon as he'd gotten what he wanted. He then had the same face as another of the doctor's patients, and since he was caught on tape leaving the doctor's office, the police ended up picking up the guy himself for questioning. But it wasn't until after he was cleared that the terminator arrived at his house and killed him, taking over his life, so when the FBI agent showed up to tell him he was clear, the FBI agent was unaware he was actuall talking to the terminator.

Meanwhile, John was still upset about the girl at the school who jumped, that he wasn't able to do anything to help her or stop her. But Cameron had other concerns - she figured out that the terminator who was after John was in their time and still after John, and she relayed this information to Sarah and John. John decided that he wanted to do something this time, not just keep running, and they found out about a shipment of the alloy that the terminator endo skeleton is made from, so they went to where the shipment was to lie in wait for him. However, they ended up finding another terminator who arranged for men to steal the shipment of the alloy. John ended up accidentally getting trapped in the truck, and while Sarah and Cameron initially tracked the truck via John's celphone, they eventually lost him when the phone broke. They ended up questioning one of the accomplices to figure out where the shipment was going. Cameron did something to terrorize the initially-reluctant guy into helping - what the heck did she do to him? He looked terrified of her. Once they get close to where they needed to go, they left him in a minefield. They discovered that the second terminator was stock piling the alloy for use after Judgement Day, and Cameron said that was the very facility where she was built. They all managed to get John out, and the three of them left with the truckful of the alloy and traped the second terminator in the military bunker which eventually became the terminator manufacturing plant. Cameron plunged the truckful of alloy down a cliff - but wasn't she destroying the material that she was eventually made from? How did she know that they wouldn't have then run out of the alloy before they got around to making her?


"Lost"

I watched the first three seasons of the show, and as much as I liked the first season, I was really not happy with the second season, and while the third season was better than the second, there were still things that infuriated me, so I was done with them. I wasn't planning on watching the season premiere this year, but the husband was watching it while I was in the other room, so I heard bits and pieces of it. I liked the scene where they had to tell Claire about Charlie, but other than that, I'm not sorry I didn't really watch it. I didn't see any of the second episode, and the husband said that was a good thing because I would have hated it. I really just want all of them to get eaten by the "Cloverfield" monster.


"Survivor"

When I first heard that it was going to be fans vs. favorites, I thought that would be a lot of fun. And then I heard who the returning people would be. And the list included John, the person I've hated the most in all of "Survivor", who I can't even stand to see, hear about, anything really, unless he's getting his ass kicked by Danny Bonaduce. And as much as I wanted to watch the show, I had a real dilemma because I didn't want to see him. I thought about waiting until he was kicked off, and then I'd start watching. And I'm wondering - he's not a fan, and he's definitely not a favorite - what the heck is he doing on the show?

A couple friends who saw the first episode and knew how I felt about John said that I really needed to watch the show. And the husband happened to spill that John was the one kicked off, so I decided to deal with watching him in one show. When they introduced the favorites, it was nice to see some familiar faces. But Ozzy cut off his nice hair!

It was fun that the fans didn't know they'd be competing against the faves, but I wonder what they thought when they were taking the boat trip over and there were only 10 of them. They're all fans of the show so they would have known that wasn't enough people. I don't remember anything about Tracy, but I loved her line that she wanted just "one moment to kick John". It was kind of funny to watch the torrential downpour during the whole opening. I don't remember that happening before.

Jeff announced that there were two individual immunity idols on the island that could only be used on the owner's first trip to tribal council. The idols were draped over the end of two canoes, but people were looking everywhere on the island for them. John finally got there, and he figured it out, but he picked up the idol from the wrong team. Yau Man saw what he did, and they both went for the other idol, and how funny was it that Yau Man basically slammed John into the boat and got the idol? The little old Chinese man kicked John's ass. Do we even know that John wouldn't have been allowed to keep the other idol, that it was one idol designated for each tribe? John had dropped the other idol, so it was just lying on the ground. As Kathy walked by, Yau Man told her to pick it up, so she ended up with the other one.

But then Kathy is amazed that she's met and will be on the same tribe as a gay man and wonders what it will be like since she's never known one before. Ummm, ok, she was treating him like an alien species. It's not that big a deal. It wasn't like she was going to notice any big differences, any more so in that everyone has their own quirks.

The faves showed that experience helped as they were immediately able to work together to build a shelter and get food. Parvati, the notorious flirt, connected with James, and Amanda bonded with Ozzy.

On the fans' beach, though, their shelter wasn't working so well, and they were beaten up all night by the storm.

Eliza saw the foursome/two couples that had formed, so she made an alliance with Yau Man, Jonathan and Ami. They decided to target Parvati, wisely realizing how much of a threat she was with her social skills and since she was basically wrapping James around her little finger already. Both sides tried to court John, even though they didn't really trust him, and he really ended up playing both sides. They showed that experience helped even more as the faves started a fire with Yau Man's glasses.

When they showed the tree mail, my first thought was - are they all going to practice with the message puzzle wheel, because that's probably going to be important. During the challenge, the faves had a wipeout with their vehicle and Eliza got hurt. I hope she got that looked at. I was laughing as they were all digging in the sand for the planks, and one of the fans was flinging sand onto the faves as they were digging. Even with all the experience and food and rest that the faves had, the fans ended up winning.

John said that he had a girlfriend who was seven months pregnant and he missed her and was concerned about the baby and said that he wanted to be voted off. OK, why would you leave her? If I was seven months pregnant, I wouldn't want the father of my baby to disappear and be basically unreachable for a long period of time. Even with John being voted off first, it's not like he could return home immediately. He wouldn't be able to come back until they were all done or until the first episode had aired, whichever happened first. I loved Yau Man's speech when he made his vote to offer to be a child consultant for John. John was voted out unanimously and hugged a seemingly-reluctant Jeff on the way out, but he was still delusional in his last speech as he talked about how everyone liked him and he had everyone eating out of his hand. Yeah, whatever, at least I don't have to see him again until the reunion episode. Got help his baby with a father like that.

And in the preview for next week's episode, it looks lik Ozzy and Amanda get hot and heavy. Not so much a good idea for the game, but maybe the game becomes not as important if they've made some kind of real connection. We'll see.


"Big Brother"

During "Survivor", there was a preview for the next installment of "Big Brother", and the twist is that apparently, they get paired up and have to live/sleep with another total stranger, and voting might be by the pair as well. Hmmm, wonder how that pans out. It's going to be a very busy schedule, though, "Big Brother" usually only runs during the summer, where three nights a week isn't an issue because not much new content is on anyway. This installment is being aired now because of the writers' strike, but with the strike now settled and writers on their way back to work, we'll see how the show fits into the schedule when the new episodes of regular shows start being available again.


"Law and Order: CI" - The story started out with a homeless guy who was basically extorting money out of people either by in-your-face confrontation or even the threat of violence. He played into the story because Bobby bought the brick he was using, and Bobby ended up using the brick later. They then showed a prison where a guy was tied down in solitary confinement, and he eventually died from that treatment. Then Bobby's homeless brother Frank made a return appearance, and he had come to ask for Bobby's help with his son Donny, though Bobby never knew he had a nephew. The nephew was busted for possession, but Frank said the drugs weren't his, so Bobby agreed to look into it and has Bobby transferred to his precinct temporariy. During Bobby's discussion with Donny, Donny said that the prison he was in was purposely killing people, and it turned out that it was the same jail shown earlier. When Donny was sent back to that jail, Bobby feared for his life and so he got a fake ID, filed off his prints to hide his true identity, and arranged to get himself arrested and sent to that very jail. The prison doctor injected him with sodium pentathol to get answers from her non-responsive patient, and under the effects of the truth serum, Bobby started to give his true identity and true purpose for being there. The doctor denied the allegations and seemed concerned about what Bobby was saying, but she let it go. She does later show that she was trying to protect the prisoners from the torture going on at the prison, though why she didn't report it or actually do anything to stop it was not addressed. Bobby ended up getting sent to isolation and endured the torture we saw inflicted earlier, torture which the warden condoned and presumably even ordered. Alex and their captain get to Bobby in time, and he was able to testify to the torture he was personally subjected to. The authorities said they would investigate the matter but chastised him for his methods, to which he responded that he had no other choice, and that the consequences he endured were necessary and worth being able to expose the torture. He was still suspended under further notice, and Bobby went in search of his nephew, who had escaped from the prison. The abruptness of the ending seemed a bit odd, so I wonder if the nephew will be a continuing story, not to mention having to resolve Bobby's suspension.


"Law and Order"

This week's story was timely in that it involved a guy who scammed people whose houses were in danger of getting foreclosed. Under the guise of helping them with their credit, he got them to "temporarily" quitclaim their houses to him, and while they thought they would eventually get their house back, he sold the house to other people, with the stipulation that $50,000 would be paid in cash, which he pocketed. The detectives set up a sting operation where they were both people in trouble and the buyers to catch him, with the help of the title company employee who had been unwittingly helping him. Soon thereafter, though, both the scammer and the mob guy who was also in on it were found killed. It turn out that the title company employee was in on the deal the whole time, and she was responsible for killing the two people. She was taken to trial but managed to seduce her public defender lawyer into helping her try to escape. When that failed, she turns to the FBI and claimed to have been witness to financial terrorist activity, so the Feds wanted to take her into custody as a potential witness. The detectives than arrested the FBI agents for kidnapping her, and they agreed to trade the FBI agents in return for getting her back into their custody. However, she decided to testify at the grand jury hearing, and she managed to charm the grand jury into feeling sorry for her and believing her lies, so she was not indicted. The public defender then offered to testify that she told him she had killed the people, in exchange for dropping charges against him, which might help him not get dis-barred. The new ADA was willing to go through with it, even though he knew the confession probably didn't happen, but in the courtroom, he couldn't go through with it and withdrew his motion for her indictment. The detectives then discovered that she was using a false identity, so they had no idea who she really was, but she was no longer their problem - she was now in Federal custody.


I haven't been particularly excited about "Criminal Intent" and "Law and Order" this season. I missed last week's episodes because I made a taping mistake, and I kept meaning to go to the website to watch them, but I just never found the motivation. I'm not engaged in the shows like I used to be, and I really miss Jack McCoy. I'm going to give it another week, but with "Big Brother" soon to occupy three hours of my week, I'm not sure I'm going to keep watching these two shows. I do still like "Special Victims Unit" enoughth that I expect to keep watching that.


"Knight Rider"

When I first heard that they were doing a new version of "Knight Rider", I wasn't sure that I'd be watching. Yeah, I liked the old series, and it was fun, but now, I don't know. And then I heard who they had cast as the new "Michael Knight" - Justin Bruening. Many people won't know who he is, but I know him because he had been playing the role of Jamie Martin on "All My Children" for a number of years but left last year. He apparently landed a pretty good gig in getting the lead in this new show, which is just a movie at this point but could be turned into a series. I've like Justin on AMC, but Jamie could be a very limiting character. I want to see how Justin handles the role, so I'll be watching when the movie airs on Sunday, February 17.

Here's a poster for the new show. You can see Justin, but not very well.





Here's a better picture of Justin in character from NBC's website. He definitely looks the part to me, very different than he's looked on AMC.





And here's a picture of Justin with wife Alexa Havins, who he met when they were both on AMC. His hairstyle and look in this picture is definitely not Knight Rider!





Here's a trailer for the new show. I think Justin captures the right mix of scepticism and humour, so I'm looking forward to seeing it.





Here's another trailer I liked.





And here's a good interview with Justin Bruening. If this show takes off, I think Alexa is going to be fighting off a lot of new fans of Justin's!





One very recent development about the show is that they had to go back and re-do all of KITT's lines. Will Arnett (who I'm not really familiar with) had already completed his work as the voice of the talking car, but apparently, he has been doing voice-over work for General Motors for quite a number of years now, and since the new KITT is being "played" by a Ford Mustang, GM objected and asked Arnett to withdraw from the project, which he did. But don't worry. They've found someone else to do KITT's voice - Val Kilmer. They're going to have to work fast to get his lines done! (BTW, I am assuming that the voice of KITT in the trailers is Arnett since I don't think there's been enough time for the changeover to Kilmer.)

Someone else made a connection regarding the new show that I hadn't realized, but I was able to make it go full circle. Michael Knight was previously played by David Hasselhoff, who was at one time married to Catherine Hickland, probably best known for playing Lindsay on "One Life to Live". After they divorced, Hickland was later married to Michael E. Knight, and they are currently in the midst of an amicable divorce after having been married for quite some time. Michael E. Knight has for many, many years played Tad Martin on "All My Children" - father to Jamie Martin, who was played by Justin Bruening, who is now playing the new "Michael Knight". All that and Kevin Bacon wasn't even involved! :)

"Law and Order" and "Celebrity Apprentice"

"Law and Order: SVU"

This was an episode that hit home in a lot of ways.

A container of fertilized eggs was stolen from a fertility clinic. The container had the ability to keep the eggs viable only for a certain amount of time, so the detectives were up against a ticking clock to find the container. They interviewed a number of suspects, including parents who have one child who had a physical ailment that would keep her mentally at the level of a child forever, so they were also allowing her physical growth to be stunted so that she would be easier to handle physically, since she had so many needs. The mother was incapable of having another child, so the parents authorized fertility treatments for their daughter with the plan to harvest one of her eggs so that the parents could have another child.

The eggs in the container that was stolen belonged to all manner of people who were using the clinic for one reason or another. After much investigation, they discovered that two members of a group called the Values Defense League stole the eggs. The clinic screened all fertilized eggs for potential problems and any unused fertilized eggs were sometimes donated to science or just destroyed. The League believed that was cruel, that every fertilized egg was a person, and they'd prefer that any unused fertilized eggs were brought to term and then adopted out - to heterosexual couples. It turned out that they sent the container back to the clinic via a courier service, who were supposed to deliver the package in plenty of time for the eggs to be transferred into a new container. However, the courier service was late in making their delivery and by the time the eggs were brought back to the clinic, the container had already failed, and the eggs were all destroyed.

One of the people with eggs in the container was a woman who was going to be going through chemo and radiation to treat her cancer, so she had eggs removed and fertilized and put into storage before receiving her treatment. She had wanted the eggs implanted, but her doctor didn't want to do it until she had been in remission for six months. Olivia has been speaking to her all along the way, and she was the one who had to relay the news that all of her eggs had been destroyed.

The man who was responsible for actually stealing the eggs (the female served as a diversion) held a press conference to try to personally apologize to all the people whose eggs were destroyed. When he was shot and killed, the detectives eventually found the culprit. A husband had a wife who was being sent to Iraq, and she left eggs behind in case anything happened to her, so her husband would still be able to have a child with her. Her eggs were in the container and thus destroyed - and the detectives found the man as he was meeting the casket that was holding her body as it was being returned to the States.

Throughout the story, the various detectives had been making comments to Olivia, pushing her to have children. She had also heard the fertility doctors say that many women put eggs away because they put off child-bearing until later as they pursue their careers. In her talks with various people during her investigation, they asked why she didn't have any children, and when she tried to explain (not revealing, however, that her being a product of rape and her own mother's treatment of her had contributed to her not knowing if she wanted to have children), they couldn't understand why a woman would postpone having children. In the end, Olivia revealed to Elliot that some time previous, she looked into adopting but was turned down because of her single status and her occupation.

I have my particular feelings about using science to aid in having children, but I won't go into that. What spoke to me about this episode was really about the attitudes being tossed at Olivia because she didn't have children and wasn't necessarily gung-ho to have them. I've encountered that sort of attitude myself. When people ask "do you have any children", it's almost a rhetorical question to them. They assume that you're going to say "yes", and they're startled when you say "no", moreso if conversation continues and you tell them you're not going to have any children. I've run across people who then have no idea what to say to you after that point. They don't know how to deal with someone, especially a woman, who doesn't have children, who has chosen not to have children and who doesn't have any interest in having children.


"Law and Order: CI" - I found this episode to be too convoluted and not all that interesting. An assistant at a company was an aspiring writer, but she was found dead after doing a reading of one of her short stories at a club. Suspicion initially fell on a sleazy agent who approached her after the reading, but eventually, it is discovered that her mentor had been hiding many secrets. He was in danger of having it revealed that he had actually taken her draft book and rewritten it himself, to be released as a book under his name. In addition, he was mentoring another writer who had also published a book with experiences that weren't in fact his. The writer had a volatile temper, and the mentor set him up to kill the aspiring writer. Yeah, ok, didn't really care that much.


"Law and Order" - A teenage white boy and a 10 year old black girl were both found shot in the same vicinity in a neighborhood that had been predominantly black but which was being revitalized, so more white people were moving in and driving up the housing prices, thus driving out a lot of the black people. Tensions between black and white were high in this neighborhood. It's discovered that the boy who was killed was with two other white boys (brothers) who were about to attack a black boy, whose father shot at them in defense of his son and in the process of killing one of the white boys, he also killed the black girl accidentally. As the investigation developed further, it turned out that the black boy was one of a group who had stolen a basketball from the white boys earlier in the day, and the white boys were goaded by the brothers' mother to stand up for themselves. She urged them to go back with baseball bats and even drove them back to the area to get the basketball back. One of her sons said that she told them just to scare the black boys, but when the white boys were chasing the black boy with bats, including swinging the bats at the black boy, there was no way to know they weren't actually going to harm him. The black father who fired the shots and the white mother who goaded the boys were charged with both deaths. With the racial angle and the problems which could arise if one were acquitted while the other was found guilty, the ADA decided to try both cases together - two separate defendants for one single crime. And for the first time this season, the trial actually went all the way through, and the new ADA made a summation speech. He was actually pretty good, but he was no Jack McCoy. Both defendants were found not-guilty for the boy's death but guilty for the girl's death. This was an interesting episode, and I liked the culpability heaped onto both parents. The trial's still not really doing it for me as much as it used to.


"Celebrity Apprentice"

In this episode, the teams would be selling tickets to four Broadway shows. Eight shows were made available, and two people from each team met to negotiate which team would get which show. Empresario with project manager Marilu Henner ended up with "Spring Awakenings", "Hairspray", "Curtains" and "Avenue Q". Hydra with project manager Vinnie (the actor from "The Sopranos") ended up with "Rent", "Spamalot", "Chicago" and one other show that I never found out.

Celebrity contacts definitely played a huge roll in this challenge, even more so than in the hot dog challenge. Piers (the talent show judge) called Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic, who agreed to buy $10,000 worth of tickets. Marilu Henner arranged for David Hyde-Pierce, who was starring in "Curtains", to come to Empresario's booth and meet people to draw more attention to them. Bob Saget visited Hydra's booth for no reason that was explained. Trace, the country singer, contacted some people at EMI, who came through with $5,000. Nely contacted people that she knew to buy tickets as well.

When it came time to announce the winner, it turned out that Hydra had beat Empresario again, but this time, only by a narrow margin of about $2,000. Some of the people that Nely contacted showed up after the deadline, so their contribution didn't count. Had they made it there in time, Empresario would have won.

Marilu brought Carol and Jennie back into the boardroom. Empresario had already been told that they did a poor job of properly using their assets. David Hyde-Pierce was there, but he was wearing a baseball cap and there wasn't enough attempt to make his presence known. Carol and Jennie, two of the more beautiful women of the group, were kept inside the tent doing administrative work instead of being out front and attracting attention. Hydra had been praised for doing a great job in attracting attention with their use of a bullhorn but also because they managed to get a knight's costume for Piers, who was advertising "Spamalot". As has been the pattern when Empresario has lost, except in the case of Gene Simmons, the least aggressive and quietest person was kicked off, this time, in the form of Jennie. Ivanka noted to Donald that Marilu couldn't bring Nely back into the boardroom because Empresario needs her if they have any hope of winning, and Marilu even admitted that she had brought back the two people she thought were most expendable. Wonder how well that comment is going to sit with Carol.

This week's episode runs for two hours. I'm not sure if that's necessited by the episode itself or because NBC is trying to counter against the season premiere of "Lost" on ABC tonight.

writers' strike - the effect on primetime television

Anyone who watches primetime television either has already been or will be affected by the writers' strike. The strike means that no new scripts are being written or rewritten, so the production companies only have what scripts were completed before the strike started.

Someone on one of the discussion boards I participate in posted
this link to a TV Guide article that details how many episodes there are left of various network television shows, as of November 30, 2007. It's not yet a comprehensive list - he's still trying to track some information down. Have a look, and you can see what to expect from the shows you watch.

I had already heard that "The Big Bang Theory" had exhausted all of their shows, so I wasn't expecting any more. However, I had also heard that "Back To You" was out of episodes, but according to this chart, there are two left. That depends on whether the two episodes have already been shot or if they still need to be shot. Sitcoms were being hit the hardest initially because they tend to need more rewrites, which obviously wouldn't be going on now. If the shows were already shot, we'll likely see them. If they weren't actually shot yet, we might not, if they need any kind of significant work on the script.

"Survivor" is obviously going to be completed, as would "Kitchen Nightmares", for whatever they can produce, since those shows aren't governed by the WGA.

"Desperate Housewives" should have one left, since an episode aired last night. However, after last night's episode, there was no preview of the next episode, and there's no new show this coming Sunday, so not sure when the final available episode will air.

"Heroes" is airing their last show tonight.

"Law and Order: SVU" has five episodes left, plenty for the rest of the year.

"24" - It's already been announced that while they have completed something like 8 episodes, they're not going to run any of them until they know they can run them all consecutively. This is the show that I'm going to miss the most because of the strike.

"Lost" - I know a lot of people watch this show. I haven't heard what they're going to do, whether they're going the "Heroes" route and showing what they have or if they're going the "24" route and holding them until more can be made. I don't personally care. I've already given up on the show. Last year was the final straw for me.

I'm waiting for the return of "Law and Order" itself. Not sure if episodes were already shot before the strike started, so we'll see if it comes back in January. I'm also looking forward to seeing "The Sarah Connor Chronicles", so the same story with those new episodes.

television round-up - "Desperate Housewives", "Heroes", "Law and Order", "Survivor" and "The Big Bang Theory"

"Desperate Housewives" - This show has some of the most clever arcs and bookends that I've seen. There is often some kind of theme that is presented in the opening narration and then revisited in the closing narration, with the action in between highlighting that particular theme.

The previous week's episode was about pests. It started with how pests of the bug and rodent kind are what drove Bob and Lee to Wisteria Lane, only to encounter a "pest" in the form of Susan. Teri Hatcher is terrific in her role of the well-meaning but poor-execution neighbor. I know, I'll save their dog - right after I hold it hostage in the garage without knowing there's open yellow paint in there. And of course, she has no idea how utterly ridiculous she sounds in explaining that she knows all about gay people because she watches a lot of cable.

And then we saw the return of Bree's former mother-in-law, who is trying to buy her way into her grandchildren's good graces while simultaneously trying to circumvent their mother. I'm not finding her antics nearly as funny as I might have a year or two ago. I lurk on a board where there's a lot of discussion about problematic relations with various family members, especially mother-in-laws, and the kinds of things that Phyllis was saying and doing were textbook of the kinds of attitudes, tricks and passive-aggressive moves that the people on that board talk about all the time, so rather than finding that kind of stuff amusing, I find myself getting irritated and mad on behalf of the people on that board, and I'm hoping that Bree can see right through it. I loved the ending, though, that while some pests can be a nuisance, others are downright dangerous, as Phyllis has just showed up at the convent where pregnant granddaughter Danielle has been stashed.

This week's episode had a lot of interesting developments and some really great moments. One of the things I really like about this show is how some of the relationships are portrayed, and how they really involve realistic situations that people deal with fairly sensibly but not always perfectly. I love the friendships that have been built among the four women (I don't think Edie counts) and how they support each other, and yet, each is (or at least was, since Lynette's secret about her cancer is out) still keeping a secret from the others for various reasons. I love the dilemma that Susan was caught in between doing what's best for her and Mike (voting for Katherine, who has vowed to get rid of Bob and Lee's art sculpture fountain, for Homeowners' Association president - and had they previously said that Wisteria Lane had an HOA, because I don't recall hearing anything about that before) or voting for her very good friend Lynette. In the end, she votes for Katherine, and Lynette gives her a hard time about it, but Susan calls her on making her choose between her friend's children and her own husband. Lynette finally realizes how unfair that actually is, but she also explains what the treehouse means to her kids, which melts our hearts along with Susan's. I also liked in previous episodes when Lynette was going to her chemo appointments and she couldn't figure out why good friend Gabrielle wouldn't go with her - until Gabrielle admits what it was like watching her father die and not being able to show any emotion about it, and how difficult it is seeing Lynette in a similar position and not knowing if she can survive not showing any emotion about that. My favorite scene of the friendships, though, was from season one, I believe, when Lynette has just had it with her unruly kids that she has no idea how to handle, and she's sitting in a field/park against a tree, crying, where Susan and Bree find her. Lynette finally admits to how hard she's finding being a mother, and when Susan and Bree tell her they felt the same way, she's so relieved because she thought they were perfect parents who didn't feel any of that. They agree that you're not supposed to say how hard it is, but that as friends, it would help so much if they did. The other relationship I really like is that between Lynette and Tom. They have the most "real" marriage on the show, I think - it's not perfect, and they've certainly had their ups and downs, with Lynette's almost/kinda affair and Tom's out-of-nowhere daughter from a previous relationship, not to mention said daughter's psycho mother, and then there was the work tension when Tom worked for Lynette at the ad agency and then when Lynette worked for Tom at the pizza place. They had scenes last week with the trepidation that Tom felt trying to make love to Lynette after she took her wig off, revealing her bald head, and Lynette's attempt at role-playing by getting a new and different wig, which got out of hand, and then the realization that Tom's place with regard to her cancer had never been addressed. These are all situations where real issues are addressed and resolved realistically, and people learn to forgive each other. Hmmm, all of these situations involve Lynette - but then, I do think she is the most grounded of all of them. Maybe that's why Felicity Huffman won her Emmy - for portraying a real woman.

It's interesting to see the change in Bree, especially with regard to her children. She was the one with the perfect home - but she was completely oblivious to the fact that her husband was having an affair and that her children had turned out to be monsters, much due to her own behaviour. It was refreshing to hear her admit that she knew she'd done a horrible job with Andrew and Danielle and that she was hoping to get a second chance by raising Danielle's baby. This week, it was fun to watch her and Orson trick Danielle into doing what they want (thanks to Andrew's advice), but at the end, when Bree softened a bit towards Phyllis and offered to perhaps let her babysit on a weekend, part of me screamed "no" inside, that she was just giving Phyllis the opportunity to wreak more havoc. Yep, I think I've been conditioned.

I'm finding myself not that interested in the whole Gabrielle and Carlos thing or even the Gabrielle and Victor thing. And I'm not really sure the point of bringing back John this week - maybe just to show Carlos the parallels? But I still don't understand why John is trapped. Yeah, there's a baby on the way, so he would still need to do what he needs to do about that, but why stay with a shrew of a wife who thinks she did you a favor by letting you "marry up"?

However, I *loved* last week's bit at Bree's baby shower when the server brought a tray of food around and offered it to various people. We watched along with Edie as the waiter offered crab cakes to Carlos, then Gabrielle, then Victor - and Edie made the connection that the familiar smell she couldn't identify on Victor was the smell of the genital crab medication that she herself had to use, and the travelling crab cakes showed her exactly how Victor had gotten the same affliction. Bravo for that bit of writing. This week, Carlos tells Gabrielle he's going to break it off with Edie, but I thought he was stuck because of the off-shore account. I guess we'll see if that accountant he hired can actually do anything.

And I'll say it again - I am absolutely loving Dana Delaney on the show. As much as I love Alfre Woodard, I never felt her character went anywhere, whereas Dana's Katherine has hit the ground running. She provided a great foil to Bree in the Homemaker of the Year running, especially with the pie competition. This week, she was a great adversary to Lynnette in the HOA presidential election. And she's got that smile down pat - that smile that both says everything's fine and I'm trying not to scream or kill you. We've been learning little by little about her, but I'm dying to know what happened in that room involving Dillon's father and what Katherine's aunt's part was in it. Not to mention why Dillion doesn't remember anything about being on Wisteria Lane. And then there's the whole matter of Chicago. I loved when Bob and Lee said they knew all about it and basically used it as a blackmailing point. I'm still interested enough in the suspense not to mind it, but I'm hoping they reveal bits and pieces at a time, because I need some kind of payoff, even little ones.

Oh, and I loved the comments from one of the older neighbors about Bob and Lee, so that not everyone on Wisteria Lane was 100% accepting of the gay couple that had moved into the neighborhood. But seriously, that art thing was awful. It didn't fit in at all. Ugly, out-of-place and obnoxiously loud to boot.


"Heroes" - I loved season one, and I'd been liking season two, but this past week is the first time I've been kind of bored and consciously waiting for the episode to be over. I hope they're not falling into the same trap that "Lost" fell into in their second season. Season one of this show culminated in bringing them all together, but season two has seemingly scattered them to the four winds. Hiro has been banished not just to another place but another time, and he's now with completely different people - the gaijin hero Takezo and Yaeko, the woman they're both fighting for. I've enjoyed the Cyrano story to some degree, but I also hate that since Hiro's father died, Ando is reduced to doing nothing but reading restored scrolls. Meanwhile, Peter is in the same time, but on a different continent and unaware of who he is, also now with completely different people, including his new Irish girlfriend. Claire and her father are also in a totally different place, with totally different people, including Claire's new I-can-fly boyfriend and cheerleader group at school. Mohinder is now undercover at the company, but with the problem with Molly, you're sometimes not sure where he stands. There's the new head of the company. There's the twins with the power of life and death. There's the girl in New Orleans who immediately learns everything she sees. (Oh, by the way, when she and cousin Micah revealed to each other that they had powers and wondered where they came from, especially since Micah said his mother and father both had powers, I was yelling that they needed to ask Uhura what the heck was going on, cause you gotta figure that she knows.) There's newbie I'm-made-of-electricity girl who works for the company who is tracking down Peter. Horned-rim-guy, Claire's dad, is traipsing off to other parts of the world with the Haitian trying to track down the lost/missing paintings. There's Matt's dad, who is not the Daddy-dearest he initially posited himself to be. There's the picture of the original group of "superheroes". And there's that mysterious sign. And we have been given zero hint as to what happened to Peter and Nathan and Sylar from the end of last season and how Peter and Sylar ended up who and how they are at the beginning of this season.

One of the biggest mistakes that the "Lost" people did was bringing on the Tailies and completely abandoning the original cast in the process. "Heroes" isn't quite doing that, but it keeps adding more and more players and opening more and more questions, and unlike last year, they so far have provided zero answers. Having continuous smaller payoffs worked really well. Here's hoping they haven't forgotten how to do that.


"Law and Order: SVU" - The episode about the doctor who created/instituted "benign" torture methods for prisoners was ok, but it was one of those that was entirely too political for my taste. It did touch on the hippocratic oath aspect of the story, but I thought there was entirely too much about the war. I have my own opinions about the use of torture for certain purposes, which I won't go into too much here. Basically, I don't object to torture when it's used in the right situations. The dilemma comes in knowing when the right situations are.


"Survivor"

last week's episode - I liked Sherea sometimes, but she got too cocky. Her farewell speech was a bit weird. Delusional much?

I'm really surprised that in the immunity challenge, the thousand-year-old egg was considered worse than the balut, at least based on that it came after. The chicken hearts would have been easy to eat because I love them anyway, but I'm not sure I could have eaten them fast enough. I might have been able to eat the small turtles - depends on the texture of the first one I tried to eat. I didn't realize they were that small until one of them was popping them in her mouth. With how terrified I am of snakes, I don't think I could have picked up, let alone eaten, the eel, especially since their heads were still on them. I would have absolutely refused to even attempt to eat the balut. (I couldn't even watch most of that segment.) I didn't think they usually came with actual feathers. And I love thousand-year-old egg. I think it's usually made from a duck egg. I love it in porridge.

this week's episode - It took almost a year for the payoff since when Yao-Man created the fake idol last time, no one found it and tried to use it, but this time, it was too funny watching Jamie present the piece of wood as an immunity idol to Jeff. It was great watching Todd and James trying to control their laughter. And how funny was it that Jeff threw it into the fire! You know that when Jamie said on camera that she wasn't as dumb as they think she is, that she was doomed. I loved that the immunity challenge was done at the camp itself, with Jeff coming to them. I don't think they've ever done that before. Maybe they figured that they'd all be too drunk from the wine to go anywhere. And since the challenge was just about answering questions anyway, it wasn't a problem doing it there.

I was laughing really hard when Todd was calling Courtney a bitch. Yep, both she and Jean-Robert need to go soon. They can spend all kinds of time together when they're sequestered on the jury.


"The Big Bang Theory"

last week's episode - I can't tell you how much the episode made me laugh. Some of the writing on the show is absolutely brilliant. Clever and quick. However, I was completely distracted by the fact that when we visited where Penny works, that is so *not* The Cheesecake Factory. I could swear the show was supposed to be set in Los Angeles, and then they also talked about Bob's Big Boy. The Cheesecake Factory is so not a little sandwich place. That seriously bothered me, and it changed my perception of Penny a little since The Cheesecake Factory is a much more upscale place, so her working there is different than where we saw her working. Why didn't they just come up with a random fake restaurant name? But there were so many great moments: Leslie's line of "come for the breasts, stay for the brains" in response to Penny's comment about her being a woman in that field, Mr. Spock beatboxing, Leslie's comments to Leonard about her real reason for staying after to practice, Leonard completely fumbling with his instrument, what Penny and Sheldon overhear Leslie saying from behind the closed door (BTW, why did Leonard still have his shirt on the next morning?), the flash-frozen banana that Leslie makes to break and put in her cereal (but seriously, she can't possible eat that - the banana bits would still be rock hard), Sheldon's line about Souplantation - "you can't grow soup". But my absolutely favorite bit is when Leonard is questioning what Penny meant by he and Leslie making a cute couple, and Sheldon's retort is about Leonard and Leslie manufacturing a couple - "Mr. and Mrs. Goldfarb - aren't they adorable?" We laughed so hard at that line that we had to rewind, partly so we could hear it again and partly because we missed what came after.

The stairs bug me though. I think I've figured out that they live on the fourth floor, and I get that the broken elevator is really a device so they can have a conversation as they're climbing the stairs, but watching them walk in the same redressed set as their conversation continues is just bugging me.

Oh, and we figured out that the end card blog is a two-card thing. "Two and a Half Men" has new cards as well.

this week's episode - I didn't find this one nearly as funny as last week's but it was still fun to watch. How many shows get to work in the Doppler Effect as an integral part of their storyline? I loved the bit about them all dressed as The Flash. Sheldon's comments about a costume parade and contest were just too funny. And Leonard's interaction and intellectual put-down's of Penny's ex-boyfriend were just a riot. Poor Leonard, though. Penny kisses him, but he has to be the good guy and tell her that she's probably doing it because she's mad at her ex and because she's been drinking. She tells him how smart he is. "Yeah, I'm a frickin' genius," he sarcastically replies. You feel for him, wanting to take advantage of her, but he just can't do it. It's funny that Sheldon is the overly-geeky one, but Leonard is almost in denial about his geekiness some of the time, especially when it comes to Penny.