When I saw the previews for this week’s Big Bang Theory, I thought they were making a test tube turkey. Though the episode had some very funny moments, I thought it was a little less well focused than most. Sheldon getting helium voice during his NPR interview was hilarious.
TV shows handle Thanksgiving in many different ways. Some simply ignore it, whereas others twist it around, as on How I Met Your Mother, which had more “slap” puns than you could shake an open hand at. I sided with Lily and thought Marshal was out of line. And the whole “slap happy” game wrapper will probably come back to bite them on the butt. Not one of their best efforts. The “you’re dead to me” clips were well done, though, including the falling coffee pot in the bodega.
And then there’s Dexter, which turns the whole affair into a hundred different kinds of awkward. One of the show’s strengths is the suspense that the writers consistently generate by putting Dexter up against the clock. When “Kyle” is having dinner with Trinity’s family, viewers know that he has to get back home to his real family, so when Trinity says, oh, but we have to watch the football game first, you feel that tension increase automatically. There have been many televised Thanksgiving meals, but I doubt that there’s ever been one like that. Ugh. With only a few episodes left, it’s only natural that things should be heading to something big…but how is it all going to play out? And the final two words of the episode changed the game dramatically. Who saw that coming?
Something happened to the video on ABC last night during Castle, but the sound came through so I listened to the episode while doing other things. The old “more than one wife shows up to claim the body” gag has been done before, but they managed to do something a little different with it, bringing in the corporate espionage subplot. The best moments of the show, though, involve Castle’s interactions with his daughter, and you can just feel him beaming with pride whenever he observes her.
Has any other member of House’s team gotten away with punching him in the mouth before? It’s funny that Chase’s stated motive was simply to get the others to stop bugging him about Cameron, and that House was okay with that. The whole three-hour diversion was a little bit mean, but given House’s intentions I guess Cuddy can be forgiven. Hopefully House will give up this futile quest and move on. That subplot is starting to wear a little thin.
