Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All

Top Chef Masters—Teams? Ugh. No one wants to see teams.

Project Runway—I’ve enjoyed this year, but I feel that the surprise is not there anymore. Emilio, Seth Aaron, and Mila (because I think she’s better than Jay) are strong but I’m not curious about what their collections are going to look like. The disaster factor is not there nor is the unpredictable factor.

Psych

• The last season really raised the level of this show. I’ve enjoyed Psych right from the beginning, but I was starting to fear that the show was becoming formulaic.
• But season 4 allowed the show to become more serious and inventive without losing any of its charm and humor.
• I liked the ongoing nemesis/mystery move and thought the Hitchcock finale was especially well done.
• I’m looking forward to see how the next season will go. To me, the only thing they have left to do is move the Detective Lassiter character beyond the buffoon stage.

Castle

• This show has really found its footing—mainly by improving the Kate Beckett character and letting Stana Katic go with it. They’ve greatly improved Beckett’s CHarc (Clothing and Hair arc) and allowed her personality to go beyond the tough-nosed New York cop.



• We are going into the how-can-she-afford-those-clothes-and-are-they-even-practical? zone though. Of course I loved the move to a more Scully-do in the lastest episode, but they should pull the wardrobe back to where it was at the start of the season.
• I’m greatly impressed with the maturity of the presentation for the two leads’ relationship. In last Saturday’s episode, Sucker Punch, Richard Castle promised to leave a particularly personal issue of Beckett’s alone. And she later admitted to him that she’s gotten used to him “pulling her pigtails” and actually enjoys having him around. Wow, I love that a lot of shows these days (The Office, Battlestar Galactica, Bones, True Blood, and on and on) are not afraid to move things along. Relationships that stay the same get boring after a while. It’s great to have a show move on before I’m ready. I’m sure the challenge keeps the show makers energized. It certainly keeps me engaged.

Bones

• I’m catching Bones mostly in syndication these days. I’ve lost track of when it actually airs.
• Even though Bones has majorly messed up some of their character progressions in the past, I still enjoy the model of the two strong leads surrounded by an interesting-on-their-own crew. I don’t think Castle is to this level yet.

Dollhouse

• Seriously. When is FOX (or anyone for that matter) going to stop messing around with Joss Whedon and just let him do his thing?
• Through Netflix, I’m done with all the original season 1 episodes except for whatever is on the last disc, and I think those may just be the bonus extras.
• I stopped watching the show live-run because there wasn’t enough to keep me. Of course I knew that this was because of the network’s notes that never end up working. If Joss was left to do storytelling his way, the show may not be necessarily successful ratings-wise, but it sure would be worth me watching in the first place.
• And so it was true. After the sixth episode, what Joss calls the 2nd Pilot, the mytharc took hold, and I was exclaiming What?, What? at every plot reveal there after.

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