This week’s episode was one of the rare episodes that put the science portion of the show at the forefront and wraps an interesting narrative around it. The Prisoner of Benda has many similarities to the classic Futurama episode, The Farnsworth Paradox. While the former is not quite as good as the latter, the episode succeeds on its own merits.
Summer is drawing to a close and my daily hangover is starting to take its toll. In my defense, I live in England and our sunshine lasted for exactly 2 days in June. We have to drink… it’s science. But before the weather gets even more miserable and I end up with a liver infection, the television Fall season is nearly upon us to distract us from our dreary/drunken lives.
OK, so now that we have gotten the rotten eggs out of the way, we can focus on the good. LOST captivated, infuriated, and mystified fans through 121 episodes and six seasons. Making a list of the top 25 episodes would be a daunting task, so 5 is almost impossible. Like always this is a personal list, but I tried to take into account the opinions of the massive LOST fandom. While you may not agree with the list I welcome comments and discussion. Here we go…
The show has really come into its own. While it may have taken a couple months, I can now say that I genuinely look forward to every episode. The characters are really starting to come into their own. Before they were archetypical and only average, now they are nuanced, with their desires and faults being shown instead of being hidden. Nearly everyone gives a solid performance.
At this point it’s probably time to accept what Leverage is and embrace it, warts and all. The show, in its third season, seems perfectly content to follow the same blueprint, week after week, with nary a bit of growth or development. If you’ve watched Leverage before then you’ll know if you’re a fan or not, and if the show’s positives outweigh it negatives for you, then that’s the best you’re going to get. Those of us who enjoy the show but are still waiting for it to improve on its nagging issues and make a leap in quality should stop holding our breath.
The gloves have been decisively removed tonight and if the start of the season saw the narrative crawl, Everything is Broken charges the defibrillator and sets undead pulses firmly racing again. With one of the most explosive ends to an episode since… well ever, the True Blood Universe has been expanded, as Russell Edgington’s fury is unleashed on the world stage.
With ‘The Rejected’, the Mad Men world finally enters the 60s. True, it’s now 1965, and the entire run of the show has taken place after 1960, but up until this point the counter-culture movement that the decade is remembered for, has been in the background. They’ve been hinting at it, such as last week when Don teased Anna’s niece about the Berkley College sit-ins. But now it’s here, in an episode that is both the strongest and the funniest of the season. The characters are going to need to decide whether to go along with it or hang on to their old ways.
