Reviews and More

With all the other TV shows I have to watch, it’s been practically impossible to fit Season Two episodes of Boston Legal into my schedule. I actually own this DVD set, which makes it that much easier for me to put the show on the backburner while I try to go through my borrowed DVDs and TiVo stuff first. That’s why I’ve only been able to watch 22 episodes out of the 27 that were aired during Season 2. Here are a few random thoughts from the last batch I saw.

– I thought the “Hands” mini-arc was very well done. I can totally see how an attorney like that, while perfectly competent and extremely knowledgeable of the law, might not make it as a partner in a high-profile firm like Crane, Poole, & Schmidt. Of course, after Hands pulled that knife on Shirley in the conference room, she probably wishes she had just given him an employee self evaluation form instead of doing the review herself!

– Tom Selleck’s guest appearances as Shirley’s ex-husband were fun. I think those two actually made a good couple and wish he could have stuck around longer than he did. I’m only on Season Two here, so maybe he does come back later on and I just don’t know it yet!

– Hmm, Catherine Piper is back. I’ve got mixed feelings about this storyline because while I love Betty White and thought her first turn on BL was great, I don’t know where this second appearance can be heading. Alan successfully defends her against the robbery charge, then sets her up selling sandwiches from a cart? And she takes over Garrett’s office without anyone from the firm saying a word? I don’t think so!

– I kind of liked seeing Brad impersonate an FBI agent to get information about the missing boy out of that priest. I mean, on the surface it seems like Brad would be way too by-the-book to do anything like that. But when you consider that A) Denise needed help; and B) Brad is ex-military and has a total gung-ho attitude when he believes in something, then his actions were true to character.

– I’m not liking the storyline with Paul and his daughter. Lewiston is one of those characters that just has to remain in the background because he’s just too boring to warrant so much camera time.

– Denny and Alan’s friendship continues to be the biggest draw of the show for me. I always stick around until the end to see their talk on the balcony, even if the rest of the episode was a complete bore!

Well, that’s all I can think of for now. Hopefully I’ll finish the last five eps of Season 2 within the next month or so. Who puts out 27 episodes in one season anyway? I thought 22-24 was the norm!

Last night’s episode of Desperate Housewives was called “The Game,” and while there were some funny moments, I found that I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I did the first two eps of the season. But that’s probably because this was used more as a setup episode to put some different storylines into place and gets things moving for the rest of the season. Hopefully a lot of the stuff alluded to here will pay off big as S4 progresses. Here’s a quick look at what happened during 4×03.

Susan/Mike: Susan asks Bree for the number to her OB/GYN because she thinks it would be fun if they went to the same place. Bree tries to put Susan off by saying she doesn’t want to share that information, but Susan insists. Bree finally just goes back in the house and selects an ad from the Yellow Pages at random. It turns out that she picked a shady establishment in the seediest section of town.

Then at the party, Susan tries to confront Bree about it, but Bree snaps at her, saying things aren’t always about Susan. Later on, Susan goes to Bree’s with a peace offering of cake, and the two women talk about what it’s going to be like to have a baby at their age.

Mike was barely in this one. The only thing he did was make a crib for the baby, which Susan thinks will jinx them since it hasn’t been three months yet.

Edie/Carlos: Edie wants to tell everyone at the party that she and Carlos are engaged, but he forbids it. That doesn’t stop her from from putting on a huge rock of an engagement ring (that she bought herself) and waving her hand around so everyone notices it. Carlos is so pissed by that move that he calls Al, the guy he met in the bar last week to tell him to step up the action on Edie. We finally see that the lettering on Al’s office door reads: “Al Kaminsky, Certified Public Accountant”.

Lynette/Stella: Lynette still doesn’t have any energy thanks to her chemo treatments. She doesn’t even want to go to the charades party even though she kicks ass at that game. When Stella (her mother) hears that the anti-nausea medication Lynette is taking doesn’t work very well, she tries to convince Lynette to self-medicate with pot instead. Lynette refuses, but I guess Stella knows from experience with her own cancer that pot works wonders on the pain.

Stella goes behind Lynette’s back to buy pot from Andrew. She then bakes the stuff into brownies, which she has Parker take up to Lynette. Lynette eats a couple of squares, and actually does start feeling better. She makes it over to Susan’s house after all, and acts all loopy while she’s over there.

Gabby/Victor: Victor finally makes an appearance this season, but all he does the whole episode is check emails on his cell phone. Gabby, meanwhile, is still getting busy with Carlos at every opportunity — that is, until she sees Edie’s engagement ring at Susan’s party. After that, she throws a jealous fit and starts flirting with Adam Mayfair, which invokes not only Carlos’ ire, but also Katherine’s.

Katherine, who had been “warned” by Edie about Gabby’s reputation, then confronts Gabby, at which point she tells the entire party about Gabby’s fling with the teenage gardener from S1. Victor overhears this, and casually mentions to Carlos that if Gabby ever cheated on him, the other guy would end up dead.

Bree/Orson: Bree gets a phone call from Danielle’s convent. Apparently, Danielle is so bored that she’s taken up Rollerblading, despite the fact that she’s eight months pregnant. She took a spill, and for a while, it looked like the baby’s life might be in jeopardy. That freaked Bree out, but at the end Danielle’s doctor called to say everything was going to be ok after all.

Katherine/Adam: Katherine kept chastising Adam about talking to other women. Although what he was doing in this ep barely constituted flirting, Katherine kept bringing up Chicago, so it seems that he has a history of cheating.

Katherine also mentions something about her aunt coming home next week, so she starts getting an extra room ready in the house. The room used to be Dylan’s the first time the family lived on Wisteria Lane, and as Katherine is cleaning, we see a deep gash in the hardwood floor that looks like it was made from an axe.

My Reaction: Like I said, there were some fun scenes in this ep, but I wasn’t really into it as a whole. For instance, I thought Lynette’s rendition of Hang ‘Em High — while pointing at Edie the whole time — was hysterical! I also liked how she realized about 10 minutes later that the movie title had 3 syllables in it, not 1.

Another part I liked was when Susan went to that rundown OB/GYN place — and stayed there despite the fact that she could see it was a total hole. Oh, and that woman who said she was just there to buy clean urine? Classic!

There are a couple of good setups too: I wonder if Al is truly a CPA or if he’s really a hitman and is using that office as a cover. The way Carlos keeps talking about the situation (”Take care of Edie” rather than “Take care of the money) makes me think it could go either way at this point.

Is it just me, or does it seem like the writers are setting Susan up for a miscarriage? All the talk of jinxing the baby by telling people before 3 months felt a bit heavy-handed at times. And speaking of babies, I wish Danielle would just have hers already, as I’m getting pretty sick of seeing Bree walk around with that fake belly.

Well, here’s hoping that the payoffs to all these setups come steadily throughout the season, because I can’t imagine having to wait until the finale for all the resolutions!