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	<title>TV Show News</title>
	<link>http://www.accesstvshows.com</link>
	<description>The latest TV show news, rumors, updates and more</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:18:25 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Lost, &#34;Dr. Linus&#34;: Follow another leader</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ A review of tonight&#8217;s terrific &#8220;Lost&#8221; coming up just as soon as I make another trip to Marshall&#8217;s&#8230; &#8220;Maybe you should be the principal.&#8221; -Locke Whatever issues I&#8217;ve had with this season of &#8220;Lost,&#8221; there is no problem with the series so great that a little Michael Emerson can&#8217;t fix it. Here, Emerson (and a huge group of other creative types, including writers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and special guest director Mario Van Peebles) helped give us easily the most compelling episode of this final season so far, one where all the tumblers clicked into place and I was reminded in so many different ways of why I love &#8220;Lost,&#8221; past, present, future and alternate timeline. Hell, it was even an episode where I enjoyed all the Jack scenes, and given that I&#8217;m told I have a pathological hatred of the character, that&#8217;s saying something. For now, I&#8217;m sticking with my theory that the flash-sideways are an epilogue in advance - that this is where and when the characters all wound up in the aftermath of the war between Smokey and Jacob&#8217;s forces. (I have no idea if I&#8217;m right, nor will I be upset either way when the reveal comes, but right now it&#8217;s important for me to have some idea of what the alt-timeline scenes mean, even if it turns out I&#8217;m completely wrong. Otherwise, there&#8217;s no weight to them this late in the &#8220;real world&#8221; timeline.) During last week&#8217;s discussion of &#8220;Sundown,&#8221; some of you speculated that if I&#8217;m right, we&#8217;re seeing key differences in the endings of the characters who sided with Jacob and those who went with Smokey. Sayid goes with Smokey, and in the alt-timeline has a kind of monkey&#8217;s paw fantasy where he&#8217;s near Nadia but not with her, and still placed in situations where he has to be the killer he doesn&#8217;t want to be. Hurley, meanwhile, goes with Jacob and ends up far happier and luckier than he was in the original timeline. And Ben, who ultimately and movingly turns his back on Smokey at the end of this one, winds up in an alternate life that turns out to be more good than bad. Yes, he&#8217;s only a European History teacher to a mostly-disinterested group of students, but he has a much healthier relationship with his dad than he did in the timeline we know, has the respect and admiration of Alex (even if Alt-Alex was never stolen from her mom), and turns out to be more capable of choosing love over power than the Ben we know ever could&#8230; &#8230;until, that is, we see that our Ben deeply regrets the decision he made with Alex. And faced with the choice of regaining his crown under Smokey or being just another soldier in the army being formed by Jacob&#8217;s chosen, Ben rejects power in favor of penance, of doing the right thing as a pawn rather than the wrong as a king. Ben Linus, really, is a character who shouldn&#8217;t work at all. Because he lies and manipulates at every turn, he could so easily exist solely as crutch of the writers, there to nudge the plot in whatever direction they deem necessary, and to mix lies and truths so deftly that the viewers can never be sure what to believe. But the genius of Michael Emerson&#8217;s performance is the conviction with which he delivers every one of Ben&#8217;s lies and shifts in allegiance. I know I should never believe any words that come out of Ben&#8217;s mouth (at least, not in this timeline), but time and again, I fall for it. And I sure fell hard for that climactic scene with Ilana, as did Ilana herself. I have every reason to distrust Ben, and she has every reason to put a bullet in him, and by the end of his monologue about the reason he killed Jacob(*), I felt for the little weasel, and I believed that he&#8217;s finally abandoned his quest for power and is maybe capable of doing the right thing for its own sake, and not because he might benefit from it. I wouldn&#8217;t be at all surprised to find out Ben played me (and Ilana) once again, but Emerson sold me, just like he always does. (*) One of the unavoidable design flaws of &#8220;Lost&#8221; is that characters drift in and out of the narrative so often that it becomes hard sometimes to keep all the relevant details in mind. By the time Ben got all stabby with Jacob, it had been so long in real time since Alex was killed - and even a month since Smokey-as-Alex laid a guilt trip on Ben in &#8220;Dead is Dead&#8221; - that I left her death out of the equation of vengeance Ben calculated before he put the knife in. At the time, I was just thinking of how frustrated Ben was to have spent all those years as the island&#8217;s leader without ever actually hearing from Jacob, but of course he&#8217;d be consumed with rage that he let his &#8220;daughter&#8221; be killed in service to this man who had so systematically ignored him. So when Ben said it to Ilana, it gave that climactic moment from &#8220;The Incident&#8221; even more resonance. My fear about this final season was that it would devolve into a contest between two supernatural arch-rivals I don&#8217;t care a whit about, but an episode like this one nicely reframed the story as being about the human cost of Jacob and Smokey&#8217;s war. Richard has spent centuries blindly following Jacob&#8217;s orders, and the knowledge that Jacob apparently died with his plan unfinished has made the immortal man a suicidal one. Ben is similarly crushed by sins he committed (or allowed to happen) in Jacob&#8217;s name. And Jack, our man of science, who wants a rational explanation for everything (even though he&#8217;s singularly incapable of asking the sorts of questions that might elicit them), was so transformed by his visit to Jacob&#8217;s lighthouse - finally unable to deny the grand plans of the island any longer - that he was willing to risk his own death because he had faith , deep down, that the dynamite wouldn&#8217;t go off. The scene in the belly of the Black Rock was a great one for Matthew Fox, so well-played that I was mostly able to set aside my usual frustration at how none of the Lostaways are ever able to get a straight answer out of one of The Others. Richard shows up and says &#8220;you wouldn&#8217;t believe me if I told you&#8221; where he was, and when Jack offers to try, Richard says, &#8220;Not yet.&#8221;(**) And when I thought for sure Jack was going to use Richard&#8217;s desperate need for Jack to play Dynamite Dr. Kevorkian to force some answers out of him, he instead lit the fuse, and left their relationship in a place where Richard now considers Jack to be the one with the answers. But because Fox and Nestor Carbonell were so good, I was able to suppress most of my eye-roll reflexes and just go with a very cool moment. (**) Immediately after Richard says his maddening &#8220;Not yet,&#8221; Kitsis and Horowitz provide a very meta exchange between Jack and Hurley, where Hurley asks why Jack would trust Richard, and Jack replies, &#8220;At least he&#8217;s not stalling.&#8221; For that matter, I wonder if Alt-Arzt&#8217;s ability to get Alt-Ben to so quickly explain his plan was also a kind of meta-commentary - that of course Arzt, who in his brief tenure on the show served as a guy who voiced many of the complaints and questions the audience had in season one, would be much better at getting people like Ben to talk than Jack ever was. Suddenly, the idea of an alternate version of the show built around what Arzt, Nikki and Paolo were up to - &#8220;Expose&#8221; as a series - sounds almost intriguing, and not just because Miles finally dug up the diamonds that got buried with those twits. Smokey only has a brief cameo, and we don&#8217;t see any of the people who willingly or reluctantly joined his army, but at least the two sides of the conflict are starting to take shape. Ben has cast his lot with Ilana, and Jack, Hurley and Richard have now joined them (in the kind of dialogue-free, Giacchino-heavy sequence the show so effectively ended many episodes on in seasons past). And in the episode&#8217;s final, mostly chilling(***) moments, we see a wild-card enter the mix, as Charles Widmore arrives in a submarine, intentions unknown. (***) Would have been more chilling, of course, if I hadn&#8217;t spotted Alan Dale&#8217;s name in the guest credits. Lindelof and Cuse have said there&#8217;s no way around that, because of SAG rules - even though &#8220;Battlestar Galactica&#8221; famously managed to circumvent those rules once in an episode where listing the actor in question&#8217;s name would have ruined everything - and it&#8217;s a shame. I&#8217;m sure the Guild has much larger problems to worry about than credit placement, but it would be nice if they could be more flexible on waivers for shows like this that often depend so heavily on surprising you with the return of a familiar face. Clearly, this is the &#8220;someone&#8221; Jacob said was coming to the island, and he has the resources to tip the balance of power one way or the other, or to make things even worse if his agenda runs counter to both parties. Hell of an episode. Can&#8217;t wait for the next one. Some other thoughts on &#8220;Dr. Linus&#8221;: &#8226; One name I was very happy to see in the guest credits: William Atherton , who hit the D-bag trifecta with roles in three of my favorite &#8217;80s movies (&#8221;Ghostbusters,&#8221; &#8220;Die Hard&#8221; and &#8220;Real Genius&#8221;), and who was perfectly cast as Principal Reynolds, a man sleazy enough to deserve Alt-Ben&#8217;s hate, but also slick enough to out-maneuver Ben. When Atherton had a recurring role on the second and final season of &#8220;Life,&#8221; I made it my mission to feature an Atherton &#8217;80s movie quote in each post about an episode he appeared in. I exhausted most of the good ones then, so instead, go watch this scene from &#8220;Real Genius.&#8221; &#8226; Okay, I recognized Chaim Potok&#8217;s &#8220;The Chosen&#8221; (a nice riff on the idea of &#8220;candidates&#8221;) among the books Miles found in Sawyer&#8217;s tent, but could someone tell what the Benjamin Disraeli book was? &#8226; And speaking of candidates, Ilana confirms that they&#8217;re candidates to replace Jacob, not Smokey. &#8226; With a bunch of characters now hanging at the beach, armed with rifles, should I get my hopes up about completing the circuit of the outrigger shoot-out? Or am I better off, again, assuming that&#8217;s one of those things Team Darlton decided to drop for season six? &#8226; A nice touch in the scene with Alt-Ben and Alt-Roger: Ben gives his father gas, only here it&#8217;s something to keep him alive (oxygen), rather than to kill him (the nerve gas from the purge). &#8226; I also liked that, in the final scene between Alt-Ben and Principal Reynolds, it&#8217;s implied that even though Ben dropped his demand to take Reynolds&#8217; job, he&#8217;s still finding ways to exploit the power of those e-mails, here getting him to re-open the History Club. (And five&#8217;ll get ya ten that Arzt winds up having to supervise detention, albeit with a better parking space.) &#8226; Hurley drops his usual &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; references to ask if Richard is a cyborg like from &#8220;Terminator.&#8221; &#8226; The scene on the beach at the end is the first time Sun has seen Hurley or Jack since the Ajira crash, right? Again, characters flit in and out that I&#8217;m worried I might have forgotten something. In character time, it&#8217;s only been a few days (or weeks at most) since she&#8217;s seen them, but it&#8217;s been a while for us. After reminding you about the No Spoilers rule - which extends to discussing the content of the previews for next week&#8217;s episode - let me ask&#8230; what did everybody else think? Originally posted here: Lost, &#34;Dr. Linus&#34;: Follow another leader ]]></description>
		<link>http://www.accesstvshows.com/lost-dr-linus-follow-another-leader/</link>
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		<title>The ‘American Idol’ Watchlist: Will The Guys Mount A Bigger Snoozefest?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ Well, there&#8217;s no last-minute schedule swap, so everything is back to normal! Hooray, I guess. I guess, since we&#8217;re dealing with the guys again. Yes, I said this before, but I&#8217;ll say this again (and yes, I said that line before, but I&#8217;ll say it again): the guys have been disappointing on American Idol this year. Over the past two weeks I never really looked forward to the performances of the guys. I know, some will do good, and some have done good, but they haven&#8217;t really caught my attention. I think it speaks a lot when I say that last night&#8217;s lady snoozefest would be much better than tonight. Here is the original post: The &#8216;American Idol&#8217; Watchlist: Will The Guys Mount A Bigger Snoozefest? ]]></description>
		<link>http://www.accesstvshows.com/the-%e2%80%98american-idol%e2%80%99-watchlist-will-the-guys-mount-a-bigger-snoozefest/</link>
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		<title>The Real Housewives of Orange County: Reunion Special Preview, Part 1</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ The Real Housewives of Orange County may have wrapped up its fifth season but the drama is far from over. Tonight, Tamra Barney, Alexis Bellino, Lynne Curtin, Vicki Gunvalson and Gretchen Rossi, and even former O.C. favorite Jeana Keough reunite to discuss the highlights of the season with Bravo&#8217;s Andy Cohen. Most Memorable Moments of Season 5 Go here to see the original: The Real Housewives of Orange County: Reunion Special Preview, Part 1 ]]></description>
		<link>http://www.accesstvshows.com/the-real-housewives-of-orange-county-reunion-special-preview-part-1/</link>
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		<title>Criminal Minds: Preview of Episode 5.17 &#34;A Solitary Man&#34;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ On tonight&#8217;s episode of Criminal Minds , the team comes across a highway serial killer. A truck driver is kidnapping women and disposing of them in random locations. Hotch (Thomas Gibson) interviews the victim&#8217;s mother who might cross paths with the serial killer. Gabrielle Carteris of Beverly Hills 90210 guest stars as one of the victims. Promo and photos after the jump: See the rest here: Criminal Minds: Preview of Episode 5.17 &#34;A Solitary Man&#34; ]]></description>
		<link>http://www.accesstvshows.com/criminal-minds-preview-of-episode-517-a-solitary-man/</link>
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		<title>Parenthood, &#34;Man Versus Possum&#34;: The Bob Dylan of autism</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ A review of tonight&#8217;s &#8220;Parenthood&#8221; coming up just as soon as I forget my worry beads&#8230; &#8220;Parenthood&#8221; has a huge cast, and this early in the series, I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;s both internal and external pressure to service them all as much as possible. Down the road, I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised to see episodes where, say, we focus largely on Sarah and her kids, with the other family members seen only from Sarah&#8217;s perspective. For now, though, Jason Katims and company want &#8220;Parenthood&#8221; to be clearly an ensemble, and that means some stories wind up more undercooked than others. Once again, the plot with the strongest sense of focus was Adam coping with Max&#8217;s Asperger diagnosis - or, rather, living in denial of it until being set straight by &#8220;the Bob Dylan of autism.&#8221;(*) Peter Krause did a very good job at playing the confusion and need for a quick-fix that many dads would feel in that situation, and I thought Adam and Kristina&#8217;s half-intimidated, half-horrified visit to meet the Asperger-veteran parents was really funny without really seeming to make too much fun of the other couple. (By the end, you could tell the Braverman&#8217;s were suffering from information overload but were also kind of impressed that the Lessings know so much, even if sometimes they just let their own kid jump around the house and play loud music.) (*) Bob Dylan did, in fact, have several albums hit number one, both here and in the UK, so is Max limiting his definition of &#8220;record&#8221; to mean &#8220;single&#8221; (where he got as high as #2 a few times)? Or did the creative team screw up not with the Asperger&#8217;s, but with the music knowledge? I also found it interesting that, after the pilot featured Dylan&#8217;s &#8220;Forever Young&#8221; at several points, an episode that repeatedly namechecked Dylan instead closed with Paul Simon&#8217;s &#8220;St. Judy&#8217;s Comet.&#8221; I suppose they don&#8217;t want to get pigeon-holed as &#8220;that show with the Dylan soundtrack.&#8221; That, or his songs ain&#8217;t cheap enough to license every week. There was also another very entertaining scene with all the siblings (plus their mom) coming together after the auction, and partaking of the weed Adam found in his yard. These actors work very well together, and while seeing the whole clan get together this often is probably the show&#8217;s biggest fantasy, seeing the brothers and sisters interact helps give us a clearer sense of who they are when they&#8217;re each off in their own stories. And those other individual plotlines were a bit sketchier than Adam&#8217;s. Crosby, in particular, feels like he&#8217;s not getting enough screen-time - and I&#8217;m surprised to be making that complaint about the Dax Shepard character in a show that co-stars Peter Krause, Lauren Graham and Erika Christensen - as I really enjoyed his breakfast date with his son (the grown-up questions thing, delivered deadpan by Shepard, was quite funny) and want to have a better sense of his relationship with Katie, which is mostly played as a goof. I feel like I&#8217;ve seen the exact story with Julia feeling jealous of the stay-at-home mom on another show, but I&#8217;m blanking on what show that was. (Did Rachel Griffiths go through the same thing on &#8220;Brothers &#38; Sisters,&#8221; maybe?) Right now, Julia&#8217;s the sibling who most verges on cliche, so I want to see where they take her in the future. And Sarah actually got two stories in one, with her losing out on the dream job (though it was ambiguous whether she ever really had a shot, or if even the positive first interview was the guy sucking up to Adam by proxy) and then going to bat for Amber with her principal. Graham has the most experience of anyone in the cast on trying to do comedy and drama simultaneously, and you can see the creative team leaning on her for that, as we get to see Sarah be amusingly bumbling at picking out a good interview outfit, then awkward but ultimately charming in that interview, and then full-on mama bear in trying to get Amber out of the 10th grade. I also think Graham and Christensen play well off each other (or appear to, since their interactions are usually over the phone). What did everybody else think? Here is the original: Parenthood, &#34;Man Versus Possum&#34;: The Bob Dylan of autism ]]></description>
		<link>http://www.accesstvshows.com/parenthood-man-versus-possum-the-bob-dylan-of-autism/</link>
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		<title>American Idol: Give it a Wurlitzer</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ Okay, with &#8220;American Idol&#8221; airing its only hour-long Tuesday performance episode for a long stretch, I&#8217;m gonna offer up some quick thoughts on the top 8 women while &#8220;Lost&#8221; buffers in the DVR&#8230; As Simon and Ryan said (and as Adam Bonin at Throwing Things likes to point out), this is one of the most dangerous weeks of the season, where each contestant has the worst odds for going home until Top 4 night of the finals. Of the 8 performances, there were two complete duds in Katie Stevens wavering, sharp, froggy &#8220;Breakaway&#8221; and Paige Miles&#8217; fumbling &#8220;Smile,&#8221; but as we know, it&#8217;s often better to be bad on &#8220;Idol&#8221; than to be mediocre, and if either of those two have any kind of fanbase, they&#8217;ll be dialing like crazy. Crystal Bowersox was once again clearly the best of the night, and talent-wise the class of the competition. She picked what could have been an incredibly predictable song for her in Tracy Chapman&#8217;s &#8220;Give Me One Reason,&#8221; but she changed it up with the electric guitar and her phrasing and poise and, as the judges say, made it her own. I don&#8217;t know that Simon&#8217;s right that she&#8217;s the one to beat, because I&#8217;m still not sure her style will have wide enough appeal, but she&#8217;s in no danger of going home anytime soon. Lilly Scott should also be safe, though I&#8217;m surprised they felt the need to give her the pimp spot tonight. Usually, that spot in week 3 of the semis goes to a singer the producers want to help make it to the finals - and who they feel needs that help - and I had assumed Lily was one of the female frontrunners. So either her vote totals aren&#8217;t as impressive as I had thought, or the producers just want to goose her to give Crystal some obvious competition. I thought Lilly was very good, but she tends to come across to me as a bit more predictable and affected than Crystal does. Still, she&#8217;s safe. As for the rest? Didi Benami finally got her act together, picked up her guitar and did a lovely, sultry rendition of &#8220;Rhiannon.&#8221; Hopefully it wasn&#8217;t too little, too late for her. After being slightly overpraised by the judges last week on the basis of a single power note, Siobhan Magnus was actually much stronger technically this week on &#8220;House of the Rising Sun,&#8221; I thought, but the judges were for some reason not that impressed, and I&#8217;m worried about the lukewarm praise. I&#8217;m also worried for Katelyn Epperly, who didn&#8217;t get the praise she deserved last week and then was weirdly karaoke tonight. And Lacey Brown is still by far my least favorite of the baby doll-voiced trio of herself, Lilly and Didi. Ideally, Lacey and one of Katie or Pagie would go home (one from the Mediocre and Forgettable column, one from the Bad and Deservingly ousted column), but the only two I feel completely confident in are Crystal (based on track record) and Lilly (based on the power of the pimp spot). What did everybody else think? See more here: American Idol: Give it a Wurlitzer ]]></description>
		<link>http://www.accesstvshows.com/american-idol-give-it-a-wurlitzer/</link>
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		<title>Gossip Girl: Episode 3.14 &#34;The Lady Vanished&#34; Clips and Promos</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ On the next episode of Gossip Girl , Rufus (Matthew Settle) and Lily (Kelly Rutherford) are growing suspicious of Jenny&#8217;s (Taylor Momsen) relationship with Damien. At least they have something to concern themselves with after the little falling out. Rufus was last spotted on the precipice of a full-blown affair as he enters the hotel room of this woman, and on the same hotel, too. Way smart, Rufus. Anybody else noticed the Life Unexpected -ness of the &#8220;It was just a kiss&#8221; line Lily threw? Elsewhere on &#8220;The Lady Vanished&#8221; Chuck (Ed Westwick) learns even more things about the mysterious woman, the &#8220;floozie&#8221; (Blair&#8217;s words) who may or may not be Chuck&#8217;s mom. Finally, Dan (Penn Badgley) who was mostly MIA on &#8220;The Hurt Locket&#8221; and Vanessa (Jessica Szohr) struggle through the awkwardness of dating other people. These two seem to be complete detached from the central Chuck&#8217;s-mom-Serenate-Jenny-the-drug-mule storyline right now. Promos after the jump: Excerpt from: Gossip Girl: Episode 3.14 &#34;The Lady Vanished&#34; Clips and Promos ]]></description>
		<link>http://www.accesstvshows.com/gossip-girl-episode-314-the-lady-vanished-clips-and-promos/</link>
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		<title>Big Bang Theory, &#34;The Precious Fragmentation&#34;: It’s one ring in a box!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ Very funny &#8220;Big Bang Theory&#8221; last night, I thought. I probably would have watched an entire episode that was nothing but the guys pulling different items out of their cardboard box of geek treasures, and/or an entire episode of the guys trying to psych each other out in their hands-on-a-hard-ring competition, while still making the effort to move together (&#8221;And plie! And releve!&#8221;). As things stand, it probably worked that we only got a bit of each, but I enjoyed both greatly. The one flaw, as usual, was that Leonard and Penny as a couple just don&#8217;t work at all, and having Penny constantly ask herself why she&#8217;s dating Leonard doesn&#8217;t really solve that problem. What did everybody else think? The rest is here:  Big Bang Theory, &#34;The Precious Fragmentation&#34;: It&#8217;s one ring in a box! ]]></description>
		<link>http://www.accesstvshows.com/big-bang-theory-the-precious-fragmentation-it%e2%80%99s-one-ring-in-a-box/</link>
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		<title>How I Met Your Mother, &#34;Of Course&#34;: Butt, um</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ A review of last night&#8217;s &#8220;How I Met Your Mother&#8221; coming up just as soon as I get on a stool so I can fall off it&#8230; &#8220;Of Course&#8221; was frustrating me for a good chunk of its running time, then saved itself in the final minutes with a reminder that &#8220;HIMYM&#8221; can lean on its romantic side even when the comedy isn&#8217;t quite working. Jennifer Lopez was fine (far more lifelike and definitely more adept with comedy than Carrie Underwood) and worked well as a woman Barney would go to great lengths to bed.(*) But the comedy surrounding Barney&#8217;s quest, and around Ted and Marshall recognizing how badly they&#8217;d treated Robin, was incredibly broad and/or weird. Even though the show&#8217;s established that the gang for some reason cheers on Barney&#8217;s slutty ways, I don&#8217;t buy the guys actually singing a song about it, and going on and on with it in front of Robin. (*) I&#8217;m not sure if everybody&#8217;s commercial pattern was the same as in NY/NJ, but immediate after Barney threw up into the Stormtrooper helmet, we got an ad for J-Lo&#8217;s awful-looking new movie, which began with her vomiting as well. They&#8217;re puke kindred spirits! And speaking of songs, Ted&#8217;s ode to the Super-Date was just bizarre. &#8220;Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit&#8221; worked in the context of the show because Barney&#8217;s a larger-than-life character, and also because the number took place entirely in Barney&#8217;s head. But Ted&#8217;s supposed to be more down to earth, and he was doing it in the middle of the bar, even though the rapidly shifting settings suggested we were supposed to view it as another kind of fantasy. I was amused briefly, but tonally, it didn&#8217;t work.(**) (**) And I know you can wave off either song as being a product of Future Ted the unreliable narrator, but I think there comes a point where that becomes a crutch for the writers and/or the fans to excuse anything that shouldn&#8217;t fit - particularly when we don&#8217;t hear Saget talking about how this isn&#8217;t really what happened, but how he&#8217;d like to remember it. There were still some funny moments here and there - the casual return of Robin&#8217;s &#8220;But, um&#8221; catchphrase, Anita putting poor Mike the cameraman on her hook (only an episode after Robin allegedly let him off hers), Barney discussing the tininess and softness of his fiber - but &#8220;Of Course&#8221; really didn&#8217;t start to work until we got the scenes from previous episodes intercut with new scenes of Robin being upset about Barney. Robin&#8217;s seeming ease with seeing her ex-boyfriend turn into the biggest himbo in Manhattan has stuck out like a sore thumb since the break-up episode, and it needed to be dealt with. Beyond that, the closing scenes of &#8220;Of Course&#8221; gave Barney back some necessary depth and humanity for the first time since he and Robin split. I&#8217;d like to think this is all greasing the wheels for a Barney/Robin reunion - that the break-up, and then all the talk by the producers that they missed telling stories about Barney seducing random women, were actually a fake-out before a Barn-man &#38; Robin 2.0 turns out to be a much more successful and fun relationship - but even if it doesn&#8217;t, Barney as two-dimensional character gets old after a while, even when played by NPH. What did everybody else think? Read the original here: How I Met Your Mother, &#34;Of Course&#34;: Butt, um ]]></description>
		<link>http://www.accesstvshows.com/how-i-met-your-mother-of-course-butt-um/</link>
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		<title>Chuck, &#34;Chuck vs. the Beard&#34;: Do you hear the people sing?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ A review of tonight&#8217;s &#8220;Chuck&#8221; coming up just as soon as I hear the sound of liberty&#8230; &#8220;My best friend is a spy? This is unbelievable. This is the best news I&#8217;ve ever heard!&#8221; -Morgan I&#8217;m absolutely on-board with the darker direction &#8220;Chuck&#8221; has taken this season. If the characters don&#8217;t grow and the stakes don&#8217;t get raised, then we might as well be watching repeats from season two. But for one week, &#8220;Chuck&#8221; was back to being 100% fun - even in the midst of an episode with a huge status quo change and a chilling cliffhanger - and it was a pleasure to watch. Because Morgan is Chuck&#8217;s best friend, he seemed like an obvious choice to be the first civilian to find out about Chuck&#8217;s secret identity. Instead, the show zig-zagged and let Captain Awesome in on the truth, and got some very good comic and dramatic mileage out of Devon struggling to reclaim his awesomeness in the face of entering this dangerous new world. And once Awesome found out, it seemed like we had missed our window for the little bearded one to also join in. Instead, Morgan Guillermo Grimes became an unofficial member of Operation Bartowski in the most raucous way possible, helping Chuck foil the siege of Castle and giving his best friend back his mojo by providing him a sympathetic ear to listen to. Awesome&#8217;s no good because he&#8217;s too busy freaking out, Casey&#8217;s not exactly empathetic, and Sarah and Shaw are useless because they&#8217;re causing so much of Chuck&#8217;s emotional turmoil. So bringing Morgan into the circle of trust, and that in turn leading the Intersect 2.0 to come back on-line (and finally help Chuck use the bo staff that caused him so many difficulties back in &#8220;Chuck vs. the Three Words&#8221; ) felt perfect, as did Morgan&#8217;s ecstatic reaction to greeting Sarah and company outside the Orange-Orange freezer. I had a smile roughly the size of Morgan&#8217;s for the entire second half of &#8220;Beard,&#8221; going back to when Morgan first followed the bad guys into the Castle tunnels. And I loved how, even within the revelation, the show again zigged where I expected a zag. We were being set up for Morgan to feel hurt and betrayed at the news that Chuck kept this enormous secret from him, but instead was both relieved to get a good explanation for all of Chuck&#8217;s shadiness, and happy for his friend that Chuck is doing something, well, awesome. It&#8217;s hard to remember now, but at the start of the series, Morgan was easily the least-popular regular character, always getting in the way of Chuck&#8217;s missions and generally being mopey and weird. When the show came back for season 2, Schwartz, Fedak and company figured out that the character worked much better when he was supporting Chuck (even when he didn&#8217;t realize he was). Letting him in on Chuck&#8217;s secret, and making him excited about it - accepting that, while he&#8217;s never destined for greatness, he can assist in Chuck&#8217;s greatness - was a wonderful continuation of that trend, and an outstanding showcase for Josh Gomez. I particularly liked that period in between when Morgan discovered Castle and when he learned about Charles Carmichael. It would have been really easy to play it as Morgan acting smug and superior to what he thought was his cowardly pal Chuck, but Gomez low-keyed it. You can&#8217;t say he reacted the way a real person would in that situation, because &#8220;Chuck&#8221; is frankly so ridiculous - and the Buy More corner of &#8220;Chuck&#8221; even more ridiculous - that reality doesn&#8217;t really figure into it, but within the show&#8217;s universe, I believed that this is how Morgan would react, and that he&#8217;d try to help Chuck get through this ordeal while he played hero. &#8220;Beard&#8221; was the last &#8220;Chuck&#8221; episode written by Scott Rosenbaum (who&#8217;s now hopefully salvaging &#8220;V&#8221;), and very much in the vein of the Rosenbaum-scripted &#8220;Chuck vs. the Santa Claus&#8221; from season two, with bad guys again infiltrating the Buy More because it&#8217;s so obvious there&#8217;s a spy base of some kind hidden there(*). (*) Which brings us to our &#8220;Chuck&#8221; Plot Hole of the Week, if not of the series: now that two different evil spy organizations have twigged to the place&#8217;s existence, what exactly is the point of Chuck still working there as a cover identity? Other than, of course, nobody on the show rightly wanting to say goodbye to Morgan, Big Mike and Jeffster? It was also the first episode of anything directed by Zachary Levi. That&#8217;s a big risk to hand such a crucial, mythology-altering episode to a rookie, but I thought Levi acquitted himself really well, even if there were some inevitable growing pains from a first-timer. The scene where Casey throws the flash-bang grenade into the Ring agent&#8217;s hotel room was shot in an impressionistic, Hey, look at how much I&#8217;m directing! style, and the montage of Buy More employees cocking their toy guns in the midst of their revolt also called attention to itself. But I thought Levi nailed most of the humor (loved the way the camera initially drifted past Jeff shoving the apple into his mouth, as if this lunacy is so typical of the Buy More that it&#8217;s not worth dwelling on) as well as the more human stuff involving Chuck and Morgan. Give him another turn or three behind the camera and I suspect the self-consciously showy stuff will go away and Levi will give us an episode that feels entirely on-format. And I can never complain about a Jeffster! performance being filmed like a rock concert, now can I? And in the meantime, Morgan knowing Chuck&#8217;s secret opens up a world of fun possibilities for the show, just as the cliffhanger with Casey getting a call on the Ring communicator opens up a host of scary ones. Terrific episode (and next week&#8217;s is even better). Some other thoughts: &#8226; Fienberg was much less happy with the episode than I was, taking more of an issue with the direction and tone than I did. He does raise one point with which I wholly agree, and that&#8217;s that it felt redundant to have two episodes in a row climax with Chuck realizing he still loves Sarah. That&#8217;s why I feel like &#8220;Chuck vs. the Fake Name&#8221; would have been better off playing up the Peter Parker/Mary Jane scenario with Chuck&#8217;s reasons for dumping Hannah, and/or why I think this episode&#8217;s climax could have worked just as well if Chuck got his mojo back simply from being able to unburden himself to Morgan, having already recognized his Sarah-love. &#8226; Interesting that Casey and company are all so convinced that Awesome can handle Chuck&#8217;s secret better than Morgan, when so far all the evidence points to the contrary. Looks can be deceiving. I&#8217;m still as confused about what The Ring does and doesn&#8217;t know about Awesome, Chuck, etc. as I was back in &#8220;Chuck vs. Operation Awesome&#8221; , though. &#8226; This week in &#8220;Chuck&#8221; music: Jesus Alejandro El Nino&#8217;s &#8220;Bululu&#8221; (Chuck calls Awesome during his vacation), the Billy Idol &#38; Generation X version of &#8220;Dancing with Myself&#8221; (Chuck bored in Castle), Dawes&#8217; &#8220;Bedside Manner&#8221; (the final montage), Martin Padilla&#8217;s &#8220;Arroz Con Pollo&#8221; (Shaw and Sarah locked out of Castle), and, of course, Jeffster! covering Credence Clearwater Revival&#8217;s &#8220;Fortunate Son.&#8221; &#8226; This week in &#8220;Chuck&#8221; pop culture references: pick an iconic revolutionary or counter-culture movie moment, and the Buy More revolution had it, but most notably Big Mike paraphrasing the &#8220;they will never take&#8230; our FREEDOM!&#8221; speech from &#8220;Braveheart.&#8221; The Buy More staffers all take a blood oath, which itself is an idea from countless movies and shows, but which I always attach to this scene from &#8220;The Untouchables.&#8221; The staff also raises a Buy Moria flag like the Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima , and two Buy More staffers recreate the iconic Times Square kiss from the end of World War II. &#8226; Between the Buy Moria flag and the mace collection, it&#8217;s nice to see that Millbarge is dead but not forgotten at the Buy More. &#8226; The revolution was fairly silly, but at least it gave us Casey convincingly talking his way into it by telling Big Mike and company, &#8220;The only thing I hate more than hippy, neo-liberal fascist anarchists are the hypocrite fat cat suits they eventually grow up to become.&#8221; &#8226; With Hannah having quit (not surprising, since she only took the job to be around Chuck) and Anna Wu still in Hawaii with Morgan&#8217;s Benihana rival, the Buy More could use a little estrogen. If there&#8217;s a fourth season, and if Chuck is somehow still working there, I&#8217;d love to see even a recurring female Nerd Herd&#8217;er - or, failing that, to have General Beckman decide to have Sarah and Casey swap jobs. (That&#8217;s a win-win, come to think of it: Casey would grunt even more about having to push yogurt instead of Beastmasters, and Sarah would get to dust off her old Nerd Herd uniform from &#8220;Chuck vs. Tom Sawyer.&#8221;) &#8226; I remember Brandon Routh having a few funny moments in &#8220;Zack and Miri Make a Porno,&#8221; but it was still a little startling to see Shaw being so goofy while posing as the Buy More CEO to calm down Big Mike&#8217;s revolutionaries. &#8226; Has someone been keeping a running tally of the number of times characters have had to don or remove rings this season? Here, it&#8217;s Shaw and Sarah briefly posing as newlyweds while off on the decoy mission. &#8226; Another, more minor plot hole about the Castle siege: how did the bad guys not find the hatch in the floor of the Buy More&#8217;s AV room? That&#8217;s way more obvious than the secret passage behind Casey&#8217;s locker. &#8226; First Subway product integration of the season, with Chuck and Morgan scarfing down meatball marinara subs while playing a little Duck Hunt. Mmm&#8230; meatball marinara&#8230; Finally, I want to thank everybody for, as of this writing, keeping such a clear head in the discussion of &#8220;Chuck vs. the Fake Name.&#8221; Some liked it more than others, but everyone was able to disagree without attacking each other or going crazy, and that&#8217;s much appreciated. Given the Casey cliffhanger, let me remind you of another of the commenting rules : the No Spoiler policy, which extends to discussing the previews for upcoming episodes. Please refrain, and don&#8217;t even allude to the contents of it, okay? What did everybody else think? Read more from the original source:  Chuck, &#34;Chuck vs. the Beard&#34;: Do you hear the people sing? ]]></description>
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