The Walking Dead - 2x07 - Pretty Much Dead Already

    The group is told about the barn.  Dale continues his issues with Shane.  Rick helps Hershel lead two new walkers to the barn.  Shane decides that he has to take command of the situation, and distributes weapons, and opens the barn.  The last one out is Sophia, who is shot in the head by Rick.
    It's hard to remember a lot of what happens in this episode, since it all melts away from the final sequence.  What I do remember is that Dale is really, really bizarre in this episode.  He tries to hide their guns, and assumes that this will accomplish something.  But it doesn't make any sense.  Does he consider that everyone in the group would disagree with him?
    The twist at the end of this episode is what makes this half season worthwhile.  But I have to say, the second time through, it doesn't seem to be nearly as impressive.  The only thing that Sophia's reveal does is give them an excuse to leave the farm.  It doesn't feel like a surprise, since most viewers would reasonably think that she's dead if she hasn't come back in a few episodes.

The Walking Dead - 2x06 - Secrets

    Glenn is keeping two secrets - the walkers in the barn, and Lori's pregnancy.  These secrets shape the rest of the episode, as characters confront each other.  Maggie and Glenn go into town to get more stuff for Lori, and Shane and Andrea drive over to a development to search for Sophia.  Most of the characters get some gun training.
    Glenn is treated as comic relief most of the time he's on screen, and it's mostly because he's so kind and charismatic.  Very non-threatening.  This does mean that the episode changes tones a few times.
    It's good to see Andrea become a better shot, but I still resent her interest in Shane.  He's kind of a meathead, and I expect the girls to make better choices.
    But the person who comes across the worst in this episode is Dale.  He confronts Hershel, and does it poorly, with these huge, bugged-out eyes.  He confronts Lori, and he handles that much better, although he still seems overly dramatic.  But when he confronts Shane at the end, he's way out of line.  He effectively accuses Shane of murder, because he hasn't talked about the night that Otis died.  I don't think I'd mind Dale having suspicions, but being willing to act on those suspicions makes him a jerk.
    The only other thing of note is that the effects on the dead in the pharmacy were, by far, the cheapest looking ones the series has had.

    This episode is actually one of the better ones.  Lori also had a scene where she behaved rationally - when she accepted that Glenn told Dale about her pregnancy.  But there was a stronger overall theme to the episode, and this made it feel more cohesive than usual.

The Walking Dead - 2x05 - Chupacabra

    Daryl gets thrown by his horse while he's out looking for Sophia.  He hallucinates his brother picking on him to motivate his way out of his situation.  Maggie and Glenn have some awkwardness, then she decides she likes him, leading to Glenn entering Hershel's barn.  Shane tries to persuade Rick that it's not in their best interest to focus their resources on finding Sophia.
    While this episode isn't evenly great, it does play better than many of this season.  Daryl's situation is interesting, and his ability to get out of it has more tension than many of the other situations of the seasons do.  It's nice that it doesn't come across as a manufactured situation.  He doesn't make any obvious mistakes in handling himself.
    And his getting shot by Andrea on the way back plays out very well.
    On the other side of things, all the other plots are uninteresting.  Lori is still being overly emotional, Hershel is still being weird.  At least Dale doesn't come across like a jerk in this episode.

The Walking Dead - 2x04 - Cherokee Rose

    Maggie and Glenn go into town to pick up some supplies, including a pregnancy test for Lori.  Daryl looks around in the woods for Sophia.  The rest of the crew finds that one of the wells on the farm has a zombie sitting around in it.  They try to pull it out, using Glenn as bait, for some reason.
    Man, this is a dull episode.  The well sequence is pretty fun, but suffers because their plan seems so dumb.  Most of the characters get some conversations, most of which are uninteresting.  It's still nice to see Maggie and Glenn get together, even if it seems a little too fast.
    Still, I did like the abandoned house that Daryl found.

The Walking Dead - 2x03 - Save the Last One

    Picking up from the last one, Shane and Otis make their way out of the school with the medical equipment.  The other plot lines are incidental.  Maggie and Glenn get to meet and talk a bit.  Lori and Rick fret about Carl.  Andrea and Daryl have some time in the forest at night, which isn't romantic.
    Now that I summarize the episode, it's not much of a plot-heavy episode.  Most of it is efforts to build the characters.  The big "shock" point of the episode is a bit annoying.  Shane sacrifices Otis in his efforts to escape.  What I didn't like about this was how much the episode was relying on telling the story out of sequence to put this at the end.
    When I thought about this, I found myself wondering how the episode would play out if they told it in sequence.  Suppose they did.  The biggest difference is that when Shane comes back to the farm, we'd know what it was he was concealing.  We'd' have the tension of wondering how he was planning on playing it.
    Instead, with the way the story is told, we don't know that Shane is hiding something.  I find the experience of knowing that he's lying is much more interesting than twisting his actions after the fact.

The Simpsons - 16x19 - Thank God, It's Doomsday

    Homer watches Left Below, an obvious reference to the Left Behind books.  This makes him convinced that the rapture will be coming soon.  He picks some numbers, and leads a bunch of people to be raptured with him.  When that falls through, he makes an alternate prediction, which no one believes.  Then he winds up being the only person raptured.
    I like the first act of this episode a lot.  Bart and Lisa get their hair cut, all of the scenes of Left Below.  It's always fun when The Simpsons does these movies.  The second act slows down a little, but it's still pretty good.  Then the last act has Homer in heaven.  And that's plenty of fun.
    While the episode is good overall, I think there were many lost opportunities for satire.  I suppose if they have God playing a part, people get nervous about that.

Star Trek: The Next Generation - 4x23 - The Host

    The Enterprise is transporting a negotiator, who has developed a romance with Crusher.  After his shuttle is attacked, it's revealed that his body is actually a host for an organism that is his personality.  Since the existing host body won't survive, the organism is transplanted into Riker's body until a replacement body can arrive.
    Crusher hasn't had too much to do on the show, and this episode focuses almost exclusively on developing her.  I liked this more than I liked the last one, Half a Life, but something still wasn't right.  I think it was mostly that her love interest wasn't worthwhile.  He seemed mildly sleazy, and since we never see them first meet, or have a meaningful conversation, the whole thing seems underdeveloped.
    However, the points that the episode raises about the role that appearance has on love is interesting.  And the final twist - that the new host is a female body - is really an interesting area to explore.  It's a little disappointing that they simply ignore the role that sexual preference has.
    Overall, it's a bit dull.  But it is an interesting idea, and will probably be memorable for that.

The Big Bang Theory - 6x05 - The Holographic Excitation

    Howard has a problem with talking about being in space too much.  Stuart holds a Halloween party, which Raj plans and pays for.  Penny is encouraged to learn more about what Leonard does, and visits him at work.  And Amy and Sheldon have difficulty coming up with a couples costume to dress up in for the party.
    While this wasn't a great episode, it was pretty good.  I don't like seeing Amy and Sheldon having as much difficulty as they do, since Amy seems like she's smart enough to manipulate him more effectively.
    I liked seeing Penny be a bit more fair to Leonard, but it still didn't play right.  She's not just poorly informed, she's actually just a jerk.  When Leonard gave the Magneto line, that's the sort of thing that Cathy would probably like to hear me say.  Instead, Penny just gets annoyed at that sort of thing.
    The one scene that bugged me a lot more was seeing Howard and Bernadette argue near the end.

The Walking Dead - 2x02 - Bloodletting

    Carl gets taken to Hershel's farm, where some emergency work is done on him.  Carl is surviving, but in order to get the remaining bullet fragments out, they need some medical supplies.  Rick has gives a few transfusions to help keep Carl alive, while Shane and Otis drive out to gather the medical supplies from a nearby high school.  In the meantime, everyone else makes their way back to the RV on the road, after not finding Sophia.
    Like every Walking Dead episode, it's a real mixed bag.  This one is pretty dull, although it ends on a high note.  Lori remains incredibly useless.  She exists to over-react.  She's surprisingly unappreciative of Hershel, who already saved her son's life.
    I noticed one other thing that I didn't like.  Shane is being a jerk to Otis when they're running to the farm with Carl's body.  I suppose I can't expect a cop to know how to motivate people without being a jerk.
    Andrea is still a pain.  She gets another scene with a zombie, and seems much more helpless than she should be.
    And Dale is bug-eyed and less fatherly than he should be.
    But as I said, the episode ends on a high note.  Shane and Otis have gotten the medical supplies that they need, and are now stuck behind a security gate with lots of zombies trying to reach them.
    Yeah, TV is pretty stingy with the action.

Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist - 6x03 - Wisdom Teeth

    Ben gets his wisdom teeth taken out.
    For those who haven't seen Dr. Katz, each episode has a very incidental plot.  Most of the show is conversations between Dr. Katz, his son, Ben, and his receptionist, Laura.  Katz's patients are guest stars - in this case, Margaret Cho and Will Le Bow.
    The interaction between Katz and his son is just brilliant.  Their relationship is defined perfectly, and somehow, I identify with both of the characters.
    This episode had two sequences I liked.  Ben getting the teeth out was spectacular.  It seemed more traumatic, and a bit more violent than that kind of scene usually would be.  The other thing was a segment from Will Le Bow talking about how he hates jazz.

Star Trek: The Next Generation - 4x22 - Half a Life

    In this very special episode of Star Trek, Troi's mother is around, and develops a relationship with a guy who's visiting the Enterprise to run some experiments.  Troi's mother flips out when she finds out that in his society, people voluntarily kill themselves when they reach 60.
    This is not a great episode.  It seems simultaneously heavy-handed, but also middling.  There's a lot of Lwaxana making a big fuss, and acting morally superior.  Then there's Picard, behaving admirably responsible.  There's a legitimate argument to be made in favor of the custom, but it doesn't play out the way it should.
    It didn't seem like any of the main characters had anything worthwhile to do during the episode.

Bob's Burgers - 1x07 - Bed & Breakfast

    Linda decides to turn their apartment into a bed & breakfast for a long weekend.  Some colorful characters show up, and Linda gets too into having enforced fun with strangers.
    This might be my least favorite episode so far.  There were some very good jokes, but they seemed to be further removed from the main premise.  I liked Gene eating chicken while in bed with the rest of the family.  I liked the strangeness of all of people in animal costumes.  I liked the animation of the bugs crawling all over the house.
    I don't suppose I can expect to be a big fan of the main story, when it centers so firmly on Linda.  Bob even seemed surprisingly absent.  Tina didn't have much to do.

The Simpsons - 2x04 - Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish

    After Bart catches a three-eyed fish, a mutation caused by the nuclear power plant, the plant is inspected.  Burns is angry about how much money it would cost to fix the plant, and at Homer's inadvertent suggestion, Burns decides to run for governor.  This drives a wedge between Homer and Marge.
    This was another episode that I rarely saw in syndication.  I noticed a few animation errors, but despite that, the production is remarkably improved over the first season.
    Burns makes an awkward politician, and it's hard to imagine him being even vaguely likable enough to run for office.  It's great entertainment to hear him appease the base by repeating nonsense about getting the government off our backs, or how taxes are too high.

Star Trek: The Next Generation - 4x21 - The Drumhead

    The Enterprise has discovered a spy, who transmitted sensitive data to the Romulans.  Shortly afterward, there is an explosion in engineering, which appears to be consistent with sabotage.  Picard has an Admiral on board who participates in running an investigation into the possible conspiracy.
    Whenever Starfleet Command gets involved, you know that things aren't going to turn out well.
    The actual conspiracy - the spy, the possibility of collaborators - is incidental.  The meat of the story is the Admiral running the investigation, and being willing to condemn people for unrelated offenses as part of a grander conspiracy.  The whole thing plays out as a McCarthy hearing, although Picard's way out of it is to quote the Admiral's father.
    For an episode that is moderately dark, it's pretty smart.

The Big Bang Theory - 6x04 - The Re-Entry Minimization

    Howard comes back from space.  Since he's supposed to spend his first day back with Bernadette, everyone else has plans.  The problem is that Bernadette seems to be pretty sick.  Amy, Penny, Sheldon and Leonard play Pictionary, then a bunch of other games.  Raj plans on going to a Sound of Music sing-a-long with Stuart.  Howard's mother is also busy, sleeping with Howard's old dentist.
    Like most episodes of Big Bang Theory, this one was a mix of some good stuff, and some bad stuff.  First, I didn't like Howard in space.  None of those stories were worthwhile.  This just continues in that same vein, giving Howard a string of bad luck with his friends.  But the plot of Amy, Penny, Leonard and Sheldon all playing games was very fun.
    There has been a long-running suggestion that Raj is gay.  Sometime last season, he specified that he is not gay, that he's metrosexual.  I have a hard time buying that, since they've been upping the closeted gay references.  I think I'd be glad to see Raj turn out to be gay.  It might allow them to get past the gag of him not being able to talk with women around.

The Simpsons - 2x06 - Dead Putting Society

    Homer gets angry with how much better Flanders' life is, and decides he wants to show him up by having Bart beat Todd at a mini-golf tournament.
    I've been listening to commentaries for the first few seasons, and when I talked about this episode, Cathy didn't remember it.  She remembered a few gags from it, but the main plot didn't sound familiar.  The second season of The Simpsons is a really interesting one.  Much of the animation and designs had been smoothed out enough that it looks close to being 'right.'  But the characters, particularly secondary ones, had not yet been fully defined.  Flanders isn't on target yet, since he drinks beer, and doesn't mind wearing a dress, saying that it reminds him of his fraternity days.
    The mini-golf holes are wonderful designs.  And Bart gets some great scenes with Lisa, who preps him for his tournament.  This was something that the commentary mentions - that the giant ape on the golf course, despite being obviously designed to look like Homer, is something that they got complaints about.  People thought it was too scary, and they thought it would eat Maggie.
    The commentary also points out that Homer is flipping out about everything that happens in the episode.  Every scene has him overreacting to something.

Star Trek: The Next Generation - 4x20 - Qpid

    Picard is going to give a keynote address on the archeological discoveries of the ruins on a planet.  He runs into Vash, who was his love interest from a vacation he took earlier in the series.  Q shows up, and interrupts Picard's speech, transporting most of the core crew, and Vash, into a Robin Hood scenario.
    This is a guilty pleasure.  I've seen this episode many times, and it's great fun.  There are different costumes, sets.  We get to see Geordi trying to strum a lute.
    Over time, I've come to not care for this episode as much.  It's still good, but it takes a long time to get to the Robin Hood setup.  And the writing seems a little more forced.  There's an exposition-heavy scene early on that seems really sloppy.

Star Trek: The Next Generation - 4x19 - The Nth Degree

    While looking at a malfunctioning scientific array, Lt. Barclay gets zapped by a strange probe.  From there on, he becomes much more confident, and much more intelligent.  Then he links himself into the ship's computer.
    I like this episode a lot.  I've watched it several times, and even though some of the campiness of the script comes out, it plays wonderfully.  Much of the success of the episode has to do with how enjoyable Barclay-centric episodes are.  He doesn't show up often, but he's a wonderfully flawed character.  He's a perfect stand-in for the stereotypical dateless Trekkie.
    Barclay actually makes Troi a useful character as well.

American Horror Story: Asylum - 2x01 - Welcome to Briarcliff

    I don't think a summary can be done.  We are introduced to a series of characters, and some plots and mysteries are set up.  In the present, a couple of honeymooners break into the abandoned asylum.  Then we get to go back in time, where we get more background about the rich cast of characters that the asylum hosted.  We get a strange nun that runs the place, a guy who gets abducted by aliens, then is accused of being a serial killer.  A reporter is investigating that guy, and gets captured, and held by the nun who runs the place.  Then there's also a mad scientist doctor doing experiments or something.  It's implied that there are mutants or something running around the grounds.

    I wasn't entirely thrilled with the first season of American Horror Story.  The characters were absurd, the twists seemed to be forced, and every time they introduced someone, it was clear that they would usually figure into the story in more than one way.  The number of connections between characters got a little too unbelievable.  No one made reasonable decisions.
    (A side note - horror is much more effective if you can realize that the victims are doing everything right.  When they start making dumb mistakes that we all see coming, they lose the respect of the viewer.)
    After I finished watching the first season of American Horror Story, I actually forgot almost everything about it.  I remember the rubber suit.  I can remember a few broad things, like that there was the neighbor next-door.  There was a gay couple.  But for a show with so many characters, it was just a mess of plots, each of which would get rewritten every couple episodes.
    So, I like horror movies set in asylums.  I think they provide an easy-to-use set that promotes wonderful and creepy shots.  And some of that shows up in this episode.  Unfortunately, there's also this bizarre alien abduction plot, which doesn't just seem out of  place, but it makes the show laughable.
    I also have one other complaint about the show.  There's way too much sex.  I'm hardly prudish, but I'm also all in favor of sex scenes having something to offer, in terms of moving the story along, or developing characters.  Usually there are certain mixings of sex and death in horror movies, but usually they make death a consequence of sex.  That's followed here, except that the people having sex are married.  There's also a strange sex-ish scene with the lead nun, which was more puzzling than erotic.

    I've kind of resigned myself to that I'll probably keep watching the show.  But every episode will end roughly the same way.  I'll be confused, and probably a little annoyed by it. 

Bob's Burgers - 2x08 - Bad Tina

    Tina falls in with a girl who is a bad influence at school.  While this does get her a little closer to Jimmy, Jr., she's getting in trouble with her parents, and her siblings are blackmailing her.  When she tries to break it off with the girl at school, the girl blackmails her.
    I jumped ahead to watch this one, since I really like Tina.  Her awkwardness is endearing.  And I wasn't disappointed.  This was a pretty fun episode.
    Tina gets some great scenes, and her fascination with writing erotic fan fiction is realized in the perfect way.  Her sensibilities are peculiar, but surprisingly non-sexual.  Her preoccupation with butt-touching is as far as it goes.  The inclusion of zombies seems mostly irrelevant, but it adds more of the horror fandom of the act.
    Her new friend is something I wouldn't notice, but I really liked how that character was written as well.  Having worked in high schools for about a year and a half, I feel confident in saying that they nailed exactly what the kind of girl is like.
    The other characters don't get huge plots.  Bob gets fascinated with a Blue Man Group-like show that focuses on pattycake.  It's not hilarious, but it's a nice side plot, and it doesn't take up too much time.

The Big Bang Theory - 6x03 - The Higgs Boson Observation

    Sheldon hires an assistant to look through all of his old notebooks to see if he's made an important discovery that was overlooked.  Amy gets a bit nervous about Sheldon working with this lady, until she sees her flirting with Leonard.  This forces Penny into having to admit her feelings for Leonard.  Howard is still on the space station, and is breaking down.
    I was a bit more indifferent to this episode than I expected, but it's not bad.  In fact, it's usually better when the show doesn't try to find a plot or a task for every character to do.  Raj only has a few lines, but they're all fairly good.  The plots are usually more concrete when they focus on the girls.
    I'm getting tired of Howard in space.  Something seems very forced about the whole plot, and it was actually more fun looking forward to the event than actually seeing it happen.  Shouldn't he have plenty of work to keep him busy?
    I like seeing Penny be forced into making decisions.  She's been too fluid a character, changing her opinions and her relationships to fit whatever the writers feel like, and giving her character a bit of humanity - and weakness - goes a long way to making her more interesting and useful.  I'm always a bit annoyed with the way she treats Leonard as being some kind of pet.

Mission: Impossible - 5x21 - A Ghost Story

    The team wants to get a man to reveal where he buried the body of his son, who was contaminated with a new nerve gas, in order to prevent the formula from falling into the wrong hands.  In order to accomplish this, they want to make the target think that he's being haunted by his son's ghost.
    A good episode, especially near the end.  There are a few twists that weren't needed, but they redirected the ending just enough to make it not predictable.
    I think I had a few reservations about the technology in this episode.  In one case, they use two lasers to create some illusions.  The lasers have been integrated into the target's bedposts.  While the replacement posts are identical, they have a shiny, glass lens instead of a curved wooden surface at one point.  This seems sloppy for the team.  I suppose that the audience needed to know it was there.
    I also felt like the villain wasn't sufficiently established.  I'm not sure why that was.  We see him kill his son at the beginning of the episode.  Then he talks about how his son needs discipline.  But most of it, he's not continuing his pattern of evil as strongly as I would like.

Star Trek: The Next Generation - 4x18 - Identity Crisis

    Years ago, Geordi was part of an away team, investigating the disappearance of everyone from a research station.  Now, almost everyone who was part of that away team have been acting strange, and eventually disappearing.
    This is an unusual episode, since it centers on Geordi, but it isn't an engineering related plot.  It's one of the medical mystery episodes.  It also doesn't use the other characters too much, which makes it seem like something is missing.  Even Picard doesn't do much in this one.
    The direction that the episode takes is a little far-fetched.  An alien that reproduces by rewriting a host's DNA?  The brood changes that are needed aren't as plausible.  The moment where we're supposed to discover that there's an invisible life form on the planet doesn't work well.  The shadow isn't obvious at all, and this just leaves the viewer puzzled about what it is that we're supposed to be seeing.
    By the end, the story is kind of fun, but something isn't right about it.  It doesn't stand out in my memory very well.

American Dad - 8x02 - Killer Vacation

    The family goes on a tropical vacation.  Stan tells Francine that he won't be distracted by work while they're away, and she wants to do all the activities the resort offers.  Steve is persuaded by another guy's accent to follow on a dangerous trip to peak at a nude beach.  Roger disguises himself as an elderly lady, and develops a senior romance.  And Hayley and Jeff are disenchanted with their sex life, and want to rekindle things.
    This is a busy episode.  None of the plots are strong enough to drive everything along, but there's always something fun going on.  I usually like Steve's plots more than the other characters, but here, it felt a bit thinner than I'd like.  But everything was being cut thinly, and jumping between the plots made a some lesser material much more enjoyable.
    AV Club gave this a C+.  That seems a little harsh, considering that nothing actually did badly.

American Dad - 8x01 - Love, AD Style

    Roger opens a nightclub in the attic, and hires Hayley to sing.  This causes Roger to have a possessive crush on her.  In the meantime, Jeff is off filming The Deadliest Catch, and Stan tries to sell his old SUV for 15K, so that he can afford to switch to a new SUV.
    Not a bad episode, but it gets a little grisly at the end.  I don't mind that, and I've come to expect a certain amount of darkness and gore.  I think what I find unsettling is that Roger is actually too unpredictable.  He's too willing to do outrageously violent things on a whim, and his motivation for doing these things is never something that you can see coming.  That does make for broad storytelling possibilities, but it also raises the possibility that you'll see some horrific violence unexpectedly.
    I didn't care for either plot specifically, but I did like many of the gags that appeared in either story.  The inflatable tube man attacking Stan, Hayley's singing, Steve's muscles.

The Simpsons - 17x02 - The Girl Who Knew Too Little

    A stamp museum is being constructed just past the Simpsons' backyard.  After protesting it, the stamp museum is moved, and instead, a huge cemetery moves in.  This is very scary for Lisa, who has trouble getting past her fears.
    I like this episode a lot, even though it feels a little aimless.  I like that there's a lot of creepy designs, and clever work with shadows.  And there are some strange sidebars with Eddie and Lou and Chief Wiggum.  The overall message that shows up at the end feels a little less like an eventuality, and more like something they needed to insert to give the episode the appearance of being complete.

The Simpsons - 17x12 - My Fair Laddy

    In an adaptation of My Fair Lady, Lisa takes Groundskeeper Willie under her wing, in an effort to turn him into a proper gentleman.  Homer's blue pants have worn out, and he's desperate to replace them.  He becomes a human billboard for them.
    I'm not a fan of the direction that Groundskeeper Willie has taken.  They've taken the same gags as they do with Moe, and just put an accent on them.  One of my favorite, early gags with Willie was when he tears his shirt open to reveal that he's incredibly muscular.  As a result, I don't care for the A story in this episode.  But there are a lot of good gags in here.  The cruel replacement gym teacher who just pummels students with dodge balls.
    But Homer's B story is very good, and I don't remember it at all.  I know that I must have seen this episode before, because I remember the A story, but Homer's quest for replacement blue pants is great.

The Simpsons - 24x02 - Treehouse of Horror XXIII

    Another Halloween anthology.  In the first story, Springfield's Supercollider creates a black hole.  Lisa takes it in, which eventually leads to the end of Springfield.  In the second story, the Simpsons are haunted by a ghost in a found-footage parody of Paranormal Activity.  The last story is a version of Back to the Future, where Bart prevents Homer and Marge from getting married, and she ends up with Artie Ziff.
    I was really happy with this episode.  Normally I have some reservations about the Halloween episodes, since they focus on ideas that are just too non-horror.  Despite that weakness, I liked this one.  The first story, even though it had a stronger sci-fi bent, it was fairly horrific.  Seeing things get sucked into non-existence was pretty dark, as well as Homer's hand getting warped.
    The second story, even though I haven't seen Paranormal Activity, was really funny.  When we see such short snippets of the Simpsons, it implies this bizarre family life that's even more hilarious than the longer gags.
    The third story is more firmly not a horror story, but it still has something that I'm a real sucker for - duplicates of people.  This isn't quite the same as Homer being cloned, but a collection of versions of Homer from different time periods is still a real joy to behold.

Star Trek: The Next Generation - 4x17 - Night Terrors

    The Enterprise runs into a ship that has been drifting for awhile.  Almost everyone on board is dead, there's just a single Betazoid person alive, but he seems pretty messed up.  Everyone on board the Enterprise starts to start acting weird, hallucinating, and snapping at each other.  And their engines aren't working.  Troi is having nightmares.
    I've seen this episode many times, and it's a lot of fun.  It's one of the creepier episodes of TNG, and that alone makes it worthwhile.  There's a great sequence where Crusher is in the Enterprise's morgue, and starts hallucinating that all the bodies are sitting upright.
    The more I think about the plot of the episode, the more it seems like a stretch.  Troi is getting a dream message from some other species that's stuck in the same trap?  And they give a vague message about how to get out of the trap by using a simile?  They're already speaking English!

Bob's Burgers - 1x06 - Sheesh! Cab, Bob?

    Tina's 13th birthday is coming up, and in order to pay for the special party she wants to have, Bob drives a cab on the night shift after work.  Tina wants to invite the son of the owner of the restaurant across the street, and intends to have her first kiss with him.
    This was a very good episode, especially since the premise doesn't sound that interesting.  I like Tina.  She's awkward, but she's very nice about it.  She doesn't seem to be as embarrassed about herself as other girls would be.  And she doesn't have the same absurd tendencies that her siblings have.  Her desire to kiss Jimmy Pesto, Jr is surprisingly well defined, and there's something sweet about that.
    It's also interesting how there's no clear B-story.  Every aspect of the episode stems from the one event.  Bob gets to meet a segment of the city's nightlife that he didn't know existed.  Bob has his conflict with Jimmy Pesto.  Tina is being taught how to kiss.
    And the episode ends with everything working out fine!  I would normally think there would be an ending that didn't have Tina getting her wish, but it all came together fine.
    The character designs are really getting weirder than usual.  Without his mustache, Bob looks like a Richard Scarry worm, same as his wife.

The Big Bang Theory - 6x02 - The Decoupling Fluctuation

    After Penny confides in Amy and Bernadette that she isn't too sure about her relationship with Leonard, Amy tells Sheldon.  Sheldon has an impossible time keeping a secret, and winds up trying to tell Leonard.  Then asks Penny not to break up with him.  Meanwhile, Howard is still in space, and is dealing with being picked on by the other astronauts.
    I watched these episodes back-to-back, and I realized that I barely laughed at any of it.  The show is moving away from being a comedy, and more toward being a relationship drama.  And it's not even a very good relationship drama.
    I think I cared about Leonard and Penny at first, because Leonard was more of a nerd, and a show about the two of them making each other better people would be much more touching.  Instead, Leonard is not a nerd when he's with her - he's just an insecure, fairly unattractive guy.  Penny rarely has shown any improvement.  If anything, she clings to her dumb behaviors more than she did before.
    The plot about a secret making the rounds in a group has been done, and it doesn't seem to be important in this episode.  Stuart has replaced Howard in their clique, and just gives Sheldon more of an opportunity to pick on him.  Which is exactly as unfunny as it usually is.
    Howard's story about dealing with the other astronauts is just… absurd.  They're desperate for story, and it shows.
    Any development in the relationships?  We got one line that indicated that Sheldon cares about Leonard.

The Big Bang Theory - 6x01 - The Date Night Variable

    With Howard in space, Raj is now a 5th wheel.  He tries to fit in with Sheldon and Amy, then with Leonard and Penny, while both pairs try to work through different issues.
    It's been a long time since I saw Big Bang Theory.  I had pretty much just forgotten about the show since the last season ended.  My feelings about the show mutate with nearly every episode, and I constantly feel disappointed.  But I keep watch for the occasional bit that feels good.
    Sheldon has an anniversary date with Amy.  This is as painful as it sounds.  Amy wants to have a certain amount of romance, and Sheldon doesn't want to have anything to do with it.  he ultimately keeps her from walking out by quoting a line from Spider-Man.
    Leonard and Penny also have a peculiar night in, but it's nowhere near as unpalatable as Sheldon and Amy.  Leonard wants the two of them to work through their issues, and put their relationship in order.  Penny isn't comfortable with that.  No further development here.
    Raj is actually just a common thread to allow them to present these distinct stories.  They close off Raj's night by having him stop by the comic shop, where he invites Stuart to join their clique  at a movie the next night.
    There's an implication that Stuart is gay (just as there have been implications of Raj being gay).  Stuart is another painful character.  He exists only to give self-depreciating remarks about how unsuccessful he is, and how lonely he is.  He's Moe, but without any of the fun.

Night Gallery - 3x04 - Rare Objects

    A mobster (played by Mickey Rooney!) is shot in an attempt on his life.  The doctor who patches him up refers him to a man who can help him retire from mob life safely.
    This script was written by Serling, who usually has good ideas, and his writing is solid, but tends to suffer under the pressure to create.  And this one does too.  It jumps around a bit more than expected, especially for a story that moves as slowly as this.  From the first five minutes, I didn't know where it would go during the next five, and so forth.  I wasn't sure if this was intentional or not.
    Of course, the story leads up to a twist.  The twist wasn't what I was expecting, since it seemed a little too science-fiction for the plot that had been building up.  Because of the out-of-the-blue quality, it isn't that satisfying.