Gossip Girl 3x07

It’s Halloween on the Upper East Side and the Gossip Girl crew is hovering like specters around town! Chuck still wants to make a deal, open a club, and strike a profit before he turns twenty-one – and he hopes no one will spoil it for him ... again ... certainly not Blair. But Blair being the busybody that she is ... hmmm... Serena tells her to back off and trust him. Dan’s love life continues to get messed up when he watches the six-hour DVD of Olivia making vampire love like a fiend; and it doesn’t get any better when for publicity she wants to go to the opening party of Chuck’s speakeasy with her pretend Hollywood boyfriend rather than with Dan. Also we finally learn what Jenny’s been up to now that she rules supreme as Queen Bee (diva) at the all-girls Constance Billard School. Talk about the Witching Hour!

Dollhouse 2x03

This new Dollhouse episode starts out really weird and dark and disturbed. I can’t even describe it. Doctor Saunders (a/k/a Whiskey) is gone missing. There’s nothing this week about former operative Madeline, nor about the political campaign against the mysterious medical corporation Rossum that runs the Dollhouse. But a new patient arrives after being hit by a car, but even Topher (the boy genius who imprints Actuals for their engagements) has ethical problems waking this guy up from his coma, when he discovers the patient has the brain of a serial killer. Uhuh.

The patient’s uncle (yet another Battlestar Gallactica veteran) is apparently close to the Rossum Corporation, but I missed that part. They mind-dump the nephew’s brain on Victor, who’s then accidentally let loose on the streets of L.A. (not that anyone would know or care) and now boy genius has to come up with a method to mind-swipe Victor remotely. (This, we who’ve seen episode “Epitaph One” know, is the beginning of the Apocalypse...) That means Victor will become a mindless robot wandering in Hollywood (not that anyone would know or care) ... Except that Topher’s attempt causes a power failure at the lab...

On her part, Echo is starting to recollect more and more of her past missions, although not much of the time when she was still Caroline. This time she becomes Kiki, a college student, who figures she take Medieval Lit, rather than Advanced Eval and skip Intro to Eval, or whatever, because how hard can it be? but maybe she should never have taken this course, but really this Chauncy guy he doesn’t even know how to spell! Heehee! Seeing that I am (well, was) a college professor, I find that very funny :-) Kiki comes to the professor’s office, reads some Chaucer, dances and flirts ... and then stabs a knife in his neck as she glitches just when Topher caused that power failure at the lab... Now Kiki and Victor have swapped minds, so she has become the serial killer on a rampage, and he’s become a mindless twerp in some L.A. club! Hahahaha! What fun!

Gossip Girl 3x06

Let’s return to the scandalous lives of the Upper East Side elite! Gossip Girl here! Blair bluddy Waldorf still wants to rule NYU like the Queen B she was in high school, while Brooklynite Vanessa is stealing the spotlight with her social and environmental awareness. Fellow Brooklynite Dan is back to dating Hollywood movie star Olivia, but will she be ready to meet the parents? Nate Archibald has an idea how to save Carter Baizen from the clutches of the Buckleys. Except that it involves Serena van der Woodsen playing poker. There’s always so much fun to be had – rather shallow and fairly meaningless, but fun nonetheless. Oh, and the New York backdrops! What a miracle!

Dollhouse 2x02

In last week’s episode, Echo (Eliza Dushku), one of the Dollhouse’s Actives, has been imprinted to thinks she’s just given birth, and now she lactates! To explain, we’re told that “the human mind is like Van Halen, if you just pull out one piece and keep replacing it, it just degenerates.” Genius! Interesting that Echo and Sierra (the very attractive Dichen Lachman) are employed on the same engagement... Why? Anyway, Echo is married to this guy who’s never home, but who locks his office behind him at home, and now she’s getting paranoid. She wants to know what the guy is up to. She’s suspecting that he’s having an affair and finds photos of him with another woman... He tells her that’s someone he loved before but she died...

And just when it’s getting too boring ... she overhears him saying, “This isn’t working, get rid of her and I’ll get rid of the baby.” Echo flees with the kid, and her husband complains to the Dollhouse that instead of a wife they sent him a kidnapping freak. (Oh, the woman he loved died in childbirth and he paid the Dollhouse to give him a replacement mother!) Her “handler” returns her to the lab, but after her mind-swiping treatment she punches geek boy Topher in the nose. She runs out, gets in a car, because her maternal instincts from the engagement couldn’t be wiped out... A sudden spell of thunder and lightning, and a power outage later and the baby is gone! “Mommy’s home.”

Oh, gosh, does it really sound as sci-fi crap as I think it does? This show is a lot of fun, though, with some effort at psychological, ethical and philosophical depth, even if you have to try hard catching it. We also continue to get bits and pieces of other plot-lines. There’s the senator who’s out to get the company behind the Dollhouse for their unethical, inhuman practices. And now we also get another plot: that of former Dollhouse operative Madeline. Hmmm, where is all of this going to take us?

Gossip Girl 3x05

Gossip Girl is all about love this week! Serena is still with Carter Baizen (what a worm, that guy)! Nate is still with whats that chicks face? Bree (the only good thing about her is that she hates Carter), but for how long? Vanessa keeps in touch with Scott (the half brother of Dan and Serena). Dan still has a crush on Hilary Duff, uh, no, sorry, Olivia. Chuck and Blair are so cute together. Rufus and Lily, are they in cold war? and if so, why? are they jumping aboard the marital ship? And Georgina? (she’s being the gratuitous manipulative byatch she’s always been). Is she going to spill the news that Scott is the lovechild of Lily and Rufus right when they are about to get married? But where the hell is Jenny? and where’s Eric? (They’re there, but only to say a few lines ... and ... whoosh ... they’re gone again...)

Dollhouse 2x01

I told you about that unaired episode of the Dollhouse, “Epitaph One,” which in a way tells us what the future holds in store: an apocalyptic world in which “imprinted” humans wage war against “actuals” (those who have not been “mind-swiped”). But the story we saw was told through the memory of people working for the Dollhouse. Their recollection may be unreliable, partial, distorted, or otherwise incorrect... Shall we move on to Season Two? What’s Echo’s “engagement” this time? To be the bride of Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Gallactica’s Apollo!) ... whoa! Okay...? For reasons too mhmhmhm, mumble-mumble, incoherent to comprehend, former FBI agent Paul Ballard (Battlestar Gallactica’s Helo) now becomes Echo’s “handler”... They’re trying to set up the groom, who’s apparently a big arms dealer... Meanwhile Dr. Saunders (a/k/a Whiskey) is pulling hilarious pranks on genius programmer boy Topher! Heehee! New this season is the political campaign against the corporation that runs the Dollhouse. There’s also more philosophical depth than before, and more than I can write down. Moreover, if I would try to put it in words, it would sound real silly. The action was pretty exciting, too, this episode. Watch it, if you can!

Gossip Girl 3x04

“And who am I? That’s a secret I never tell.” OMG! Gossip Girl goes to college, and do you know who else goes to NYU? Hilary Duff!!! OMG! OMG!! OMG!!! No, seriously, calm down. Some so-called famous movie actress, who played in a billion-dollar grossing series that’s like King Arthur with vampires (and she would be the hot, blood-sucking Guinevere), she, this so-called famous actress (as I was saying), called Olivia Burke (played by Hilary Duff) is also going to NYU. Dan has no idea who she is (because he’s a nerd like that). But she’s Vanessa’s new roommate. We’re in for a blockbuster! Nate, who knows exactly who Olivia is, encourages Dan to ask her for a date. Heehee! Unbelievable. Meanwhile, Serena, who deferred from Brown, lands a job as a publicist assistant for Olivia’s co-star Ursula (played by Tyra Banks). “Sometimes, even fairy tales can come true.”

Dollhouse 1x13

I’ve mentioned before that I enjoyed the first season of the Dollhouse earlier this year. I feel it’s very much a guys’ show, that is to say, a show for guys who like watching scantily clad, sexy girls in fast action. And let’s be honest, that’s most straight guys. So, I don’t understand why this show isn’t more popular, but what the hey. At any rate, I was so excited for the season two premiere that I found the unaired thirteenth episode of the first season to hold me over! I promise you that the first few minutes are very confusing: Los Angeles 2019, riots in the street, fires and burning cars, people shooting, flashlights in the dark ... huh? But then we’re back in the Dollhouse, the facility for inactive operatives who are abiding in their blank state of mind until they are imprinted for a mission – of any nature, professional, criminal, recreational, romantic, as long as someone pays the bill. Somehow the plot involves flashbacks that give clues about the characters we knew from season one, and about what’s happened to the Dollhouse in those ten years. In this post-apocalyptic chaos Whiskey (the doctor who once treated the operatives) suddenly appears in her mind-swiped state, talking about Safe Haven to people who consider themselves “Actuals” (i.e., not imprinted)! And the rest would sound like even more gibberish if I tried to explain... So, let’s forget about it.

Gossip Girl 3x03

It’s time, of course, for Gossip Girl, “your one and only source into the scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite.” Ew, Dan & Georgina, nasty ... but kinky! “Ew, ew! I’m wearing gloves and I still want to wash my hands,” as Blair puts it so poignantly when she walks in on them making out! Did I tell you about Scott? I probably didn’t and you probably don’t care either. But, hey, we’re here and I’m doing all the talking, so, Scott is the love child of Serena’s mother and Dan’s father, and strangely just about as old as they are. He’s also going to NYU (or pretending he is) and is dating Vanessa (that’s Dan’s on-and-off girlfriend when he’s not with Serena). Oh, and no one knows he is their half-brother... At least, not yet, because Vanessa is starting to suspect something’s wrong with this dude. Everything and everyone comes together at this Sotheby’s auction, it’s too much to explain, but it’s fun, it’s awkward, it’s over the top, it’s melodrama, it’s Gossip Girl! Scott wants to fess up, but doesn’t... Then Georgina catches the truth... Plus Carter Baizen apparently has a history with Nate’s new girlfriend... Inneressing! But what about Jenny, huh? I mean, it’s the third episode and we haven’t really seen much of her at all...