Television

The Walking Dead – Secrets

With only one episode left until The
Walking Dead goes on hiatus, one would expect this latest
installment to be kicking things into high gear. That wasn’t quite
the case however, as while the tension did rise a few notches, not
much was happening plot-wise. “Secrets” turned out to be a
character focused episode, and as the name implied, the only story
developments came from some truths coming to light.

With so much time spent on the
characters this season – this episode included – it doesn’t even
seem possible that we would still know so little about them. That’s
where we are though, and in a scene like Glen and Maggie discussing
the morality of killing Walkers, what ends up standing out is Maggie
shakily recanting all the people she has lost when we still don’t
know anything about Glen.

How I Met Your Mother – The Rebound Girl

Just when you thought this season of How I Met Your Mother was done dropping the bombs, off goes another. A seemingly average episode ended in explosion with a twist only a soap opera could do better — or worse.

Fringe – Wallflower

After an abundance of Peter in the previous two episodes, “Wallflower” took a little break and focused more on Olivia in the first story to truly explore the latest iteration of the character in the new timeline. She was led to question her emotional balance and her ability to find her place in life while the team investigated an invisible man whose ultimate life’s purpose was simply to be seen, to be acknowledged as being alive, no matter the cost.

In spite of the spectacular attack (and murder) very early into the episode, the intriguing case developed rather slowly. The Fringe division team followed the trail of a “ghost” stealing its victims’ pigmentation and turning them into albinos in their death. As often with Fringe, the team was quickly onto the murderer, because what really mattered was his story and not his identity, which incidentally he didn’t quite have. As a baby, he was known as baby boy Bryan in the hospital and as U. Gen (from Unknown Genetic Disorder) when picked up by Syprox, a subsidiary of Massive Dynamic, which experimented on him, turning the dying baby into a “healthy” invisible being. Because of her own past experience with the cortexiphan trials and her newfound worries of emotional detachment, Olivia could empathize with the tragedy of U. Gen’s life in a way that the viewers could not, considering his murder spree.

Supernatural – How to Win Friends and Influence Monsters

After weeks of supporting Supernatural in the hopes that something big was coming in season seven’s future, I all but gave up on the show last week. Perhaps more so than in any other season, the show had lacked what one might call a cohesive narrative, substituting logical (or even illogical) storytelling for weekly standalone outings that, while vaguely entertaining, mattered not one bit to the show on a more grand scale. With just a couple of episodes left until the mid-season break, it is pretty much do-or-die for Supernatural at this point and I’m happy to report, that for at least this week, they did.

For those of you that haven’t seen the episode, I wouldn’t go getting your hopes up just yet. While “How to Win Friends and Influence Monsters” was an improvement upon the show in recent weeks, it still didn’t live up to what I’ve come to expect of it over its run. Unsurprisingly to really anyone capable of cognition, the reason that the episode was better was because it wasn’t a standalone. Whilst there have been passing references to the Leviathan throughout the season, fewer episodes have focussed on them than not, and Friday’s outing used that deficit to full effect, making us think that the episode wasn’t about what it was clearly all about.

Dexter Renewed for Seventh and Eighth Seasons

After months of drawn out contract negotiations with the series’ star Michael C. Hall, serial killer drama Dexter has been picked up for two more seasons by Showtime, taking its total run to at least eight seasons. Whilst there is no official word of confirmation, it seems likely that the eighth outing would be intended as the show’s last, giving it a likely end date of December 2013.

Showtime president David Nevins said: “Dexter‘s enormous success is a real tribute to the great achievements of its cast, producers, and the powerhouse performance of Michael C. Hall. The series is bigger than it’s ever been in its sixth season, both in terms of audience and its impact on the cultural landscape

Terra Nova – Proof

After three episodes that tried — and essentially failed — to recreate the appeal of the beginning of the season, Terra Nova‘s got back on its feet. “Proof” not only worked as an episode, but it did so by succeeding where “Nightfall” and others failed: it developed several independent storylines that each had some value and that definitely put the Shannon family at the heart of things, a combination I was starting to doubt the show could achieve.

Maddy showed some promise at the beginning of the season, but then was either underused or paired with her soldier, which never quite brought the best out of Naomi Scott, who plays the teenager. With the love interest away, things looked much better as her story had no choice but to draw from her brainy side, one of the two things that made the character appealing in the first place. Her encounter with Ken Horton and the investigation that followed was, above all, a well-structured story. It brought in a character (Horton) that had enough gravitas to actually be seen as a great figure to prospective scientists. Then in an early move, the story showed he didn’t get along with Malcolm, smoothly planting the seeds for one of the funniest moments of the hour (Malcolm, upon discovering the unauthorized DNA test Maddy was performing was on Horton: It’ll go faster if I help!). Finally, the integration of Zoe into the story was clever, providing more humor, but also clearly building on the relationship between the two sisters and on the other appealing thing about Maddy: her personality.

Dexter – Nebraska

If you’re reading this a brief time after it’s posted or just have some appreciation of how a calender works in retrospect, you’ll notice that this review is coming pretty late, there is however a reason for that. No, my life isn’t so incredibly hectic that watching Dexter was put on the back burner this week, rather, it took me this long to figure out if I liked “Nebraska” or not. In short, I’d have to say that I did, but it is entirely possible that, that stems from an overall appreciation of the show and of all things Michael C. Hall, rather than because the episode was particularly good. 

We had previously left off with an episode ending reveal that Dexter’s inner mentor had switched from his adoptive father Harry to his mass murdering brother Brian who he had personally offed at the close to season one. After a brief appearance in season two we hadn’t seen Christian Camargo on screen as Brian since, and as a bigger fan of season one than perhaps any other, I was needless to say, extremely excited to see where things were going to go. It is from that exact point that my conflict over whether the episode was actually good or not arises; Dexter and Brian on screen together is always good to me, so regardless of whether or not it sucked objectively, I might still enjoy what I’m seeing. In light of this I had to approach the episode from both an objective and subjective stance to arrive at some ultimate conclusion.