Last night’s episode of Private Practice was called “In Which Addison Finds a Showerhead.” I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of the unwieldy episode titles this show uses. Can’t they just have normal titles? Anyway, I’m already late in posting this, so let’s move on to the recap.

Addison: Addison confides to Naomi that she’s been having sexual fantasies about Pete. Naomi then tells Violet, who assures Addison that this sort of thing is perfectly normal. In fact, Violet herself has fantasies about… Bill Clinton!

At work, Addison’s patient of the week is none other than Maya, Sam and Naomi’s 13-year-old daughter. Maya called Addison because she thinks she has gonorrhea or some other STD, so Addison agrees to check her out. The lab results come back negative, but Addison still takes time to lecture Maya about the dangers of having sex at such a young age.

Addison then struggles with whether or not she should tell Naomi about this. On the one hand, as Cooper points out, California has very strict patient-doctor confidentiality laws, especially when the patient is a minor. On the other hand, Naomi is Addison’s best friend and probably needs to know that her child is having sex.

Later on, Addison gets another frantic call from Maya. This time it’s not about her, it’s about her friend Ruby who has collapsed. It turns out that Ruby’s the one who’s sexually active, and she is suffering from an ectopic pregnancy as well as gonorrhea.

Addison is able to treat Ruby in time, but Naomi finds out about the whole thing. She’s pissed at Addison for not telling her about this stuff from the beginning, and she’s also angry with Maya — despite the fact that Maya reveals she’s still a virgin and was just making that earlier stuff up in an effort to get her friend to talk to Addison.

Violet/Cooper: Alan finally makes an appearance, and instead of being some incredibly hot and charming guy that Violet would understandably be hung up on, we see that it’s just… Brett Cullen. What a letdown. Anyway, Alan shows up at the OWC because he wants to “be friends” with Violet. Cooper thinks this is a bad idea, but Violet believes she’s ready to handle this step.

They go out for coffee later, and when Alan lets it slip that he and Cami are trying to get pregnant, Violet realizes that he’s just messing around with her. He has no intention of leaving Cami, so he must have some other ulterior motive for wanting to see Violet.

She breaks down, but since Cooper won’t have anything to do with her, she has to turn to Sam for comfort. At the end of the ep, a distraught-looking Violet shows up at Cooper’s door saying, “Why didn’t you check on me?” Cooper looks frustrated as hell, but he lets her in.

Pete: Pete’s patient of the week is a college track-and-field star named Nicole who thinks she’s suffering from a common cold. She’s having trouble breathing and is getting winded a lot quicker recently, but doesn’t want to take meds because they could disqualify her from her meets.

Pete discovers a much bigger problem, and tells Nicole that she has to stop training and running for a while. Nicole won’t hear of it because she’s got an Olympic qualifying event coming up, which is what she’s trained for her whole life.

It turns out that Nicole’s coach goes behind Pete’s back to get some meds from a different doctor. Nicole takes the meds so she can participate in the meet, but then collapses while running. Luckily, Pete is on hand to save her.

Sam: Sam treats a woman named Beth Burton who was the victim of an attempted robbery in her home. The intruder threw her into a table, which left a long gash in her forehead. After getting stitched up by Sam, Beth makes an unusual request: she wants to take a drug called propranolol, which is often given to people suffering from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder to help them “forget” the event.

Sam brings Violet in for a psych consult, and she discovers that the intruder did a lot more to Beth than just push her into a table. Violet also discovers that Beth isn’t worried about herself in all of this. She’s worried that her husband will be wracked with guilt about not being able to protect her, so that’s why she doesn’t want to remember/talk about the event.

But they all work through it in the end, and the couple will likely be fine without the drug.

Dell: Flies solo on pap smears for the first time.

My Reaction: I thought parts of this episode were decent, but on the whole felt that it was weaker than the last couple of weeks. I was supremely disappointed in the Alan character. Why spend four weeks (plus the non-pilot ep) building this guy up into some living god only to have him turn out to be a run-of-the-mill average-looking Joe in the end? I know this sounds shallow as hell, but all I kept thinking was, “That’s the guy that makes Violet barely able to function? Seriously?” Uh, hello!! You have Cooper right there!!!

I liked the Maya storyline and thought that was a very difficult dilemma for Addison. Do you stick with professional ethics or breach them for a friend? I can’t keep my mouth shut, so I know which route I would have taken, so I guess it’s good that I’m not a doctor, right? I can understand why Naomi is pissed, but once she calms down, she’ll see that Addy really had no choice in the matter.

Pete’s storyline was utterly predictable, and therefore boring. I was checking some of Tim Daly’s info on IMDB.com earlier when I noticed his biographical information. I’d never seen the actor in anything before PP, so I had no reason to research him in the past. Anyway, my jaw just about hit the floor when I saw that he’s 51 years old!!! I seriously thought that was a misprint, so I immediately went and checked several other sources as well to confirm. My god, he looks at least 15 years younger than that!

Anyway, not a great ep, but not a total waste of time either. Hopefully next week’s effort is more consistent!

After a week off because of the MLB playoffs, House was back with an all-new episode last night. It was called “Guardian Angels,” and dealt with some supernatural elements that we usually don’t see on this show. In addition, House had to get rid of one more job candidate, while a former colleague comes back with his tail between his legs.

Patient of the Week: The team gets another referral from Cameron in the ER. This time, the patient is a 20-year-old funeral home worker named Irene (played by Azura Skye) who was brought in after having a seizure. Seizures aren’t something that get House’s attention, so all the job candidates knew that there had to be more to the case than that. There was: Irene was also having hallucinations during which she saw and talked to dead people.

The seven remaining job candidates then go through the standard routine that we’ve seen developing since the beginning of the season. They try to come up with original ideas for what’s ailing Irene, propose tests, get their theories shot down by House, and then go do his bidding as he tries to point them in the right direction. This week, House’s bidding consisted of digging up a corpse without a court order so they could test for Mad Cow Disease.

Along the way, the candidates continue to mess with each other — especially Cutthroat Bitch (the Anne Dudek character, who tries to get inside 13′s head with a nice little stunt), while House chooses to mess with Cole (the Mormon) by trying to incite him to throw a punch, which he does.

Cutthroat Bitch comes up with the right diagnosis this time. It turned out that Irene was suffering from ergot poisoning brought on by eating rotten whole-grain bread or something weird like that.

Character Interactions: Once again, most of the episode was dominated by the candidates competing with each other for the three job positions. I mentioned above that one candidate was let go this week: it was Henry, aka Ridiculously Old Fraud. Even though House liked having Henry around, Henry’s thought processes were too much like House’s. The last thing House needs is someone to tell him what he’s already thinking.

By the way, I thought all the men were fired after the last ep since they lost the competition against the women? I am totally not understanding how this whole thing is supposed to work!

We saw some of Cameron again. She bet House $100 that Cole would stand up for himself and not remain the wuss that House thought he was. Then she basically egged Cole on by telling him that House wouldn’t respect him for just sitting back and taking all that crap, so Cole finally does pop House in the mouth.

13 drifted back into annoying mode this week. I’m not sure why she has to act so mysterious. There better be an excellent backstory there otherwise I’ll be pissed about the writers wasting all this time on her.

And Foreman is now back at PPTH. He was blackballed after word of his insubordination got around, so he couldn’t find another job despite his qualifications. Cuddy invited him back, but not before giving him a bit of a smackdown when he tried to make some salary and office demands.

My Reaction: I didn’t find much to like in this ep. I thought the PoTW and her hallucinations were pretty boring, and I’m really getting tired of the competition playing out for so long. I just want to get down to the final three people that will be on House’s team so the show can get back to the familiar formula that has worked so well for the past three seasons.

I’m not sure what Foreman’s going to do now that he’s back at PPTH. Is he going to be working with House again, or will he go in a different direction like Cameron and Chase? I’m unspoiled for this show, so I really have no clue here.

As for the candidates, I didn’t care that Henry got canned, and I now have no preference as to which three win the job. If I had to pick one, I’d say CTB is my favorite; but again, I’m not really impressed by any of them.

Overall, this was kind of a boring episode. I’m telling you, it’s a bad idea to have the job interview last this long!! Let’s get it over with once and for all. Next week, perhaps? I doubt it, but there’s nothing wrong with hoping.

Last night’s episode of Prison Break was called “Interference,” and seemed to set up all (or most) of the elements for Michael, Whistler, and Mahone’s escape. That being said, the ep moved incredibly slowly for me, and wasn’t as interesting or exciting as it should have been. Here’s a quick recap of what happened in 3×05.

Michael/Whistler: Michael spends a majority of the episode in scheming mode, which means that he asks for obscure items (two watches, binoculars, a microwave oven) without revealing what he’s going to use them for. We do eventually see that he uses the binoculars to observe the guards’ habits and he uses the microwave to cause interference that disrupts television and radio signals. Michael also spends some time looking out the window of his cell while tossing bits of chocolate to a rat that eventually gets shot by the prison guards.

Of course, no plan of Michael’s ever goes down without a hitch, and the pre-escape preparation was no exception. One of the guards caught sight of Michael looking out his cell through a single binocular lens, and mistaking the lens for a rifle scope, opened fire. The guard didn’t hit anybody, but the incident was enough to prompt the warden to make an unexpected appearance inside SONA.

On the warden’s orders, the guards search SONA looking for a rifle scope, and find the binocular lens in Michael’s cell. Michael admits it was his, but insists he wasn’t looking at the guards. When the guard in question puts a gun to Michael’s head, Scofield suddenly blanks out and doesn’t know what to say. Fortunately, Whistler comes to the rescue, piping up that it was actually his binocular lens and that he was just looking at birds. He whips out his handy bird reference book to prove his point, and that’s that.

Later on, Michael sees that his cell has been locked. That means he can’t get to the rope that he and Whistler were making, which will probably throw further wrenches into the whole plan.

Mahone: Mahone goes into debt with Teddy for more drugs. That’s apparently right where Teddy wants Mahone to be, which makes me wonder what T-Bag is up to here. When he’s not strung out, Mahone notices that one of the guards drinks coffee before his shift every day. He shows this to Michael and Whistler, who decide that they need to drug the guard’s coffee in order to have a better chance to escape.

Sucre: Sucre gets mixed up with some shady looking characters who pay him $5,000 to smuggle something into SONA via the food delivery crates. Sucre, you’ll remember, now has access since he’s the new gravedigger. He goes along with the plan the first time in order to make a quick 5k, but doesn’t want this to become a regular gig. Too bad the shady character has other ideas in mind. He (and his large bodyguard) force Sucre to take on another assignment.

We don’t get to see what’s in the packet, but we do see one of Lechero’s henchmen scooping it up once it’s inside SONA.

Linc/Sofia: They make preparations for the getaway once Michael. Whistler, and Mahone escape from SONA. This involves finding some mode of transport, which Linc puts in a cooler and buries on the beach near the prison. We don’t see exactly what’s inside the cooler, but it’s gotta be an inflatable boat, right?

My Reaction: I realize this was just a set-up episode that was required to lay the groundwork for the impending escape, but I still felt like it was incredibly boring. I mean, it highlighted the one thing I hate most about Prison Break: the way everything happens at a freakin’ snail’s pace.

For example, did we really need that whole subplot about the guards storming SONA to look for a rifle scope? Was it necessary for that long scene of the guard interrogating Michael and holding a gun to his head? While I admit I was wrong about the writers dispatching Sara, I think it’s 100 percent safe to say that they cannot kill off Scofield at this point! In short, there was zero tension in that scene, which made it feel like a big waste of time.

I’m only mildly curious about what Sucre is bringing into the prison. Knowing the way this show works, I’m sure it’s going to be something that comes back to bite Michael in the ass. Also, the new prisoner? Gah, do we need another one? If the writers took the time to put someone new in there, does that mean the escape isn’t going to go off as planned next week? Cuz the last thing I want is to see these people spending more time in SONA. Nothing happens there!!!

Oh, well. I guess PB isn’t going to be on next week (thanks to baseball), but will return with back-to-back eps two weeks from now. Gee, will I be able to hold out that long?

Last night’s episode of How I Met Your Mother was a throwback to the classic formula that worked so well for the show during its first two seasons. We had the entire gang sitting in the bar for the whole episode just interacting with each other and telling the same story from different perspectives. We had flashbacks and flashforwards, some great lines, and funny graphics from Barney. Episode 3×05, called “How I Met Everyone Else,” is easily the best of Season 3 thus far. Here’s what happened during the 30 minutes.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Ted brings a date to McLaren’s to meet the gang. The woman, whose name Future Ted has forgotten by the time he gets around to telling his kids the story, is simply referred to as Blah Blah the entire time. When Ted reveals that he met her over the Internet, Barney immediately assumes that she’s crazy. The reason? She’s hot, which means she shouldn’t have to “resort” to meeting people online unless she has some serious issues.

That’s when Barney starts air-drawing the Crazy-Hot scale to show demonstrate that a woman’s craziness is only acceptable if her hotness correlates proportionately. The graph is a bit difficult to explain in words here, but suffice it to say that when Barney was air-drawing, viewers could see his graph on the screen — in the same way that football commentators draw out a play on the telestrator during a game.

We get the first inkling that Barney is on to something when Blah Blah insists on telling the group that she and Ted met in cooking class. She didn’t know that Ted already told his friends the truth, so she had this whole elaborate story prepared.

After that, Lily and Marshall tell the story of how they met, and then everyone starts telling about how they met everyone else just to keep things from getting awkward. This is where the flashbacks come into play, and we see several scenes that we already saw in previous episodes (like Ted and Marshall meeting for the first time as roommates), but this time they’re extended to give us more details.

At the end of the ep, we get a flashforward to Ted, Lily, and Marshall’s 20-year college reunion, and at one point Ted says, “Where’s my wife?” but that’s the only mention we get of her.

As for Blah Blah, it became clear that she fell below the Mendoza line on the Crazy-Hot graph, so I’m sure she’s history!

My Reaction: There were so many great moments in this episode that I’m sure I’m going to forget to mention some of them. I haven’t liked the previous use of graphics in earlier episodes from this season (like the mini Barneys from last week), but the Crazy-Hot chart was awesome! In fact, Barney was excellent this whole ep — especially when he said,”Sixteen ‘nos,’ Robin? Really?” Those two have a ton of chemistry, and I’m betting that they hook up sometime soon!

Blah Blah’s psychotic accusations were hilarious! I cracked up when she said that Robin was laughing at her, and then the camera panned over to show Robin looking bored, not saying anything at all, and just eating peanuts. Ha!

Oh, and I’m so glad that it turned out that Lily and Ted did not kiss during freshman year. That would have just been wrong in so many ways!

Anyway, it was episodes like this one that got me hooked on HIMYM in the first place, so I hope the writers go back to this formula some more. As I wrote way back in January of this year,

I personally feel that this show works best when it shows the main characters interacting with each other — much like Friends used to be. Outsiders do not make the cast of HIMYM more interesting, unlike, say, Seinfeld where the characters’ strengths were making fun of other people.

Please keep the gang together like this more often and just have other people drop in once in a while. It’s much better than having an A, B, and C plot to try to keep up with!