Week in TV: August 1-7

True Blood

More Action Tara - I'm particularly impressed by her dogged refusal to forgive Bill for leaving her at the mercy of Franklin and the Mississippi vamps (in addition, as of this episode, to nearly killing Sookie). This season has dragged a bit with the plot-stretching between the more over-the-top sequences - like this week's detour to wherever Sookie went in her blood-free coma (Fairy Heaven? Fairy Purgatory?) - but I'm optimistic about the coming weeks. It looks like most everybody's returning to Bon Temps and Denis O'Hare is really dishing out some scenery-chewing fabulosity, so hopefully the run up to the finale will be as wonderfully crazed as it was last year.

Mad Men

- Man, even for Mad Men that episode was grim. I love that the episode drew on the show's past - Glen Bishop returns to offer Sally the sympathetic ear she's been craving since even before her parents' divorce, Freddy Rumsen gets back into the game with his former employees, newly sober but feet still firmly planted in the prior decade, and the Christmas party recasts Sal's Lee-Garner-placating firing as establishing a dangerous precedent for the men in charge of SCDP. It makes the show's universe feel more lived-in and cohesive, and respects the audience's ability to engage intelligently with the show without being too "hey, check out our righteous continuity" about it.

- The A.V. Club did a great Q&A recently about distracting actors, a concept to me that is particularly relevant in period television. Some actors just don't blend into the Mad Men milieu - they read as too 21st-century, or I've seen them in too many other things - Nora Zehetner (Don's indulgent neighbor), for whatever reason, is one of those for me.

Rubicon

I'm reserving judgement for a few weeks - right now, it's intriguingly oblique, but that could quickly turn into "frustratingly mysterious" depending on how long it takes for the show's conspiracy to unfold.

Friday Night Lights

If this season finale was any indication, next year I'll be drowning in tears when FNL comes to a close. While I liked the new characters introduced this season, I loved that "Thanksgiving" drew upon some of the show's best-established relationships - Matt and Landry, Tim and Billy, the Taylors - for the grandest emotional beats of the finale.

Ongoing:

Deadwood, Season Three, Episodes 5-7

- It feels like Deadwood added a few too many new characters in the third season (I like Brian Cox, but the theater troupe is not working for me) but I'm a big fan of Cleo King as Aunt Lou and the way that she infuses her performance with subtle code-switching based on Lou's varied interpersonal relationships.

- Speaking of distracting actors in period shows, something about Omar Gooding showing up really threw me. I guess I just watched too much Wild & Crazy Kids back in the day.

Star Trek: The Original Series, Season Two, Episodes 1-4

I watched all of the first season in a week-long binge last year right before the movie came out, and this week finally decided to start back up.

- A lot of the Star Trek 2 speculation seems to have focused on which classic villain might get a reboot with the new movie's altered timeline, but I'd really like to see them give the ass-kicking 21st-century makeover treatment to Christine Chapel. An assertively reimagined Chapel could make a great foil for McCoy and/or Kirk.

Also Watched: Degrassi: The Boiling Point, Covert Affairs, Top Chef, So You Think You Can Dance