Week in TV: January 23-29

Big Love

- I was a little worried after the premiere, but this episode was much more reminiscent of Season Three in focusing on women and the different ways that they're affected by the patriarchal hierarchies that shape society in the show. I especially liked the way this episode brought in Barb's mother - sometimes new information introduced late in a show's run can feel implausible or overly convenient, but Nancy's history as a former ERA advocate both made a lot of sense and explained a lot about her and her relationships with Barb and Cindy.

- This might just be me not remembering anything that happened in the fourth season, but what happened to Joey and Wanda? I didn't realize until this episode that Shawn Doyle and Melora Walters aren't listed in the opening credits anymore.

Greek

If nothing else, this last stretch of episodes was totally validated by the excellence of this week's Beaver-centric episode. Not only was it a great showcase for Aaron Hill, who's been an all-star of a supporting player throughout the show's run, but it was also stuffed full of Greek-type awesomeness, like the return of Katherine and Stripper Heath. If you'd asked me during the preceding hiatus whether I missed Greek, I probably would've shrugged indifferently, but this episode really exemplified the way the show created and perfected its own little niche in the television schedule.

RuPaul's Drag Race

- Before this season started, I was thinking to myself, "You know, I kind of wish they would bring Shangela back like Daniel Franco on Project Runway. If nothing else, that totally excellent turn on Terriers seems like more than enough justification for a second chance." AND THEN MY WISH CAME TRUE!

- Vanessa Williams is kind of perfect as far as guest judges go. I don't know about you, but I think presenting at the Golden Globes plus being a Drag Race judge makes up for the fact that she was totally shafted by not being included in the Miss America 90th anniversary reunion. (I also liked how Delta Work's "Kwanzaa realness" dovetailed so nicely with my December 26 post.)

Skins

I'm of two minds about Tea's role as the one American character who appears to be dramatically different from their UK counterpart. On the one hand, television can definitely use more young lesbian characters (this EW timeline that accompanied their recent Gay Teens on TV cover story really clearly marks the disparity), and while the plot of this episode felt laid on a little thick at times, the scene with Tea's grandmother describing her past was genuinely affecting. On the other hand, the show draws so significantly from its predecessor that it feels strange to have just one character who's so different from their antecedent. Tea's relationship with the boys in the group is tinged with a sort of wink-wink lasciviousness that makes it a disappointing companion to Maxxie's relative place within the UK group, and I wish they would've maintained Maxxie's interest in theater in the translation, as opposed to making her a cheerleader.

Off the Map

I want to like this show - there are actors I really, really like in it - but after three episodes, the premise remains a bit off-putting. I understand wanting to give each character a compelling backstory, but the collective tragedy of it all makes it seem like the only doctors the people of this unnamed South American country can get are unbelievably emotionally damaged. Like...well-adjusted people who've worked through their issues (and speak Spanish) are too good for this jungle clinic? Or the people running the clinic don't care if the doctors use the patients to work through their heavy personal business?

Nikita

Can I be totally shallow/lame for a minute? As a former viewer of The Young and the Restless, (okay, I still watch sometimes but not very frequently) I was really excited that they reunited Thad Luckinbill and Lyndsey Fonseca here. They always had really great chemistry, which is part of why I've never really been able to buy anyone else playing Colleen on Y&R. I mostly approach shows with serious intent and an analytical mind, but I'll be honest - there's a part of me that's just a big softy shipper at heart.

Parks and Recreation

Speaking of which, I'm pretty sure this is the episode where Ben Wyatt became my new Fake TV Boyfriend. And sick Leslie Knope became my new most favorite thing ever.

Also Watched: 90210, Gossip Girl, Hellcats, Cougar Town, Community, The Office, 30 Rock, Bones

Week in TV: January 2-8

How I Met Your Mother

There were a lot of things to like about this episode - after watching a lot of Angel this past summer, I was thrilled to see Alexis Denisof return as Sandy Rivers - but I ultimately can't get behind the countdown. Using such a distracting gimmick to lead up to such a grave moment felt callous, and made me wonder if the show's writers are no longer sure of how best to utilize the tools at their disposal. Hopefully, the coming weeks will show that they still know how to maintain the balance between broad comedy and emotional authenticity that served the show so well in its early seasons.

Greek

As the series-concluding half-season continues, I imagine that I'll decide whether I think the show is pushing it narratively or not. The premiere made the almost-everyone-stays-at-CRU premise seem a little plausibility-stretching, but they've managed to do a lot within a relatively formulaic structure before, so we'll see.

Grey's Anatomy

- It was not at all surprising, and felt like it might have been ripped from an old ER, but I have to admit that I teared up a bit when they had the big reveal of Christina in the back of the ambulance. The Grey's writers haven't squandered any of the emotional potential of the fallout from last season's finale, and Sandra Oh continues to do some of her best work in the entire series.

- Today in Shallow Observations: It's been like a decade since Felicity, but Scott Foley is still totally cute.

Rewatched

Skins, Third Series

- Both the upcoming fourth series DVD release and the premiere of MTV's American version prompted me to rewatch the third series of Skins for the first time since it aired on BBC America in 2009. I was pleasantly surprised by how much more I liked it this time around - maybe it's the pacing, or that my first viewings of the first two series were fresher. While I still have some narrative quibbles, I was better able to appreciate the work of the young actors and the episodes as individual showcases, and I find now that I'm genuinely curious about the fourth series.

- What narrative quibbles, you say? Namely, this: I can appreciate any show that's willing to do something as dramatic as a season-to-season full cast change. However, the ties that remained between the first and second generations of Skins characters at times served to undercut the narrative arc of the third series. I understand that Nicholas Hoult was off becoming Tom Ford's new favorite person, but to me it seemed completely implausible that the dissolution of the Stonem's marriage and Effy's subsequent down-spiral would all occur with no intervention whatsoever from Tony.

- It seems to me that it's a major failing of American English that we have no pejorative equivalent to "wanker."

- One of the things that's been interesting about the press regarding the MTV remake and what distinguishes Skins from American teen shows is the tendency to classify the characters' actions as consequence-free. And while Skins tends to eschew the kind of immediate cause-and-effect framing of actions and consequences that one sees in a show like, say, 90210, watching any stretch of the show reminds me that a lot of really terrible things happen to any number of the characters. They may party like there's no tomorrow, but one of the great things about the show is that the writers don't harbor any illusions about the characters' actions not being unbelievably self-destructive. The greatest crime in the show's universe is avoiding confrontation with deeper emotional truths about oneself, and that, much more than any tawdriness, is what truly distinguishes Skins from its contemporaries.

Also Watched: Detroit 1-8-7, Modern Family, Cougar Town, Top Chef, Private Practice