Burn Notice 3x11

I can’t tell you how happy I am that Burn Notice is back! Coming home and tuning in is such a giddy delight. Our favorite blacklisted ex-spy, Michael Westen has a meeting with someone named Gilroy who already has killed Michael’s CIA contact. Michael calls him “a freelance psychopath” and Fiona doesn’t believe it’s a good idea to talk to this Gilroy. Gilroy’s idea is to see Michael in action and then decide whether he’s any good going into business with. That’s where Sam comes in, ‘cause an old Navy Seal buddy of his needs help finding a child predator and cop killer, who’s hiding out in Miami’s Little Dominica. What ensues is hilarious, despite the explosively violent action – or perhaps it’s because of the violence... Honestly, I really enjoy the show’s sense of humor. It’s also nice how they are incorporating more elements of the character’s past, and keep toying with the relationship between Michael and Fiona.

Caprica 1x01

Are all you sci-fi fiends watching Caprica? This is the “prequel” to the Battlestar Galactica saga, taking place some six decades earlier, when the first Cylons were designed to perform robotic labor, mainly military, for the extraterrestrial human colony. So, what was life like? Or, rather, what will life be like? Sex, drugs, violence, anarchy! We get droning electronic music, sweat and blood, bare breasts and ritualistic murder. Fuck, fight, kill, or get high. But then it turns out that’s just the holographic virtual world teenagers like to play in after boarding school and uniforms, entitlement and screaming, overbearing parents and gods called Mars and Athena. In real life a suicide bombing on the skyline takes the life of two girls (among others), namely Tamara, daughter of Yosef Adama (William Adama’s father), and Zoe, daughter of Daniel Graystone. The Graystones live in a house like the Cullens of Twilight. (I believe it also is where Gaius Baltar will live when the Cylons attack Caprica.) Daniel is the head of some artificial intelligence corporation. The Adamas are originally from the planet of Tauron. (All Twelve Colonies are named after a zodiac sign.) Yosef, a well respected defense attorney, goes by the name of Joseph Adams to hide his Tauran background. In their shared grief Graystone and Adama are able to download the virtual “avatar” Zoe had created of herself onto a meta-cognitive processor and insert it in a robot – thus creating the first cybernetic life-form node. (Apologies for the sci-fi nonsense.)

The show’s futurism on Caprica City mostly looks just like New York City, midtown Manhattan and the Upper East Side, with some L.A. and Portland, Oregon, thrown in for good measure. (Actually, the show is shot on location in Vancouver). This is supposed to make it more recognizable and easier to identify with... But there are gadgets: holographic spectacles (“holobands”), touch-screens as thin as parchment, and a Cylon prototype playing paintball. Also remarkably contemporary is the ethnic tension. Taurons especially are the outcasts, who speak a different language (sounding like ancient Greek to these ears). Then we have religious fanaticism in the form of terrorism by the dogmatic monotheistic group called the Soldiers of the One. We soon learn that this believe in the absolute truth, in good and evil, and one true god, is propagated by the headmistress of Zoe’s boarding school, Sister Clarice Willow (portrayed by the marvelous Polly Walker, who we all know and love as Rome’s Atia of the Julii). This monotheism is abstract enough to often resemble Christianity or Judaism, but reminiscent enough of Islamic fundamentalism to be highly appropriate in this day and age. Apart from that, it seems that just about everybody’s voice croaks like a hoarse toad. And unfortunately the camera keeps shaking like it was filmed on handheld... Anyway, it looks sufficiently interesting that I’ll be checking this out regularly and will keep you up-to-date.

Dollhouse 2x12

The Dollhouse is inching towards the finale of the second season... Last time we got completely taken by surprise when we found out that Boyd Langton is actually one of the two founders of the Rossum Corporation running the Dollhouse. We’ve been made to believe that Echo/Caroline and her friend are fighting against Rossum, and we have been under the impression that Boyd is perhaps the only trustworthy companion Echo could have hoped for ... and now ... ??? So, let’s return to that meeting two years ago ... when Boyd explains to Caroline that his corporation is on the cutting edge in brain scans and neurological research, blood tests and microscopic examinations, leukemia and Parkinson’s disease. He also explains that by committing an act of terrorism blowing up the lab Caroline might be facing ten, fifteen years in prison. So she might as well offer five years of her life to the Dollhouse, under Boyd’s protection, so they can learn how far they can go with their neuroscientific experiments.

In the present day, Sierra/Priya and Victor/ Anthony are returning to the L.A. Dollhouse, only to find the remains of a small battlefield, bodies of a swat team strewn about, guns and damage, flickering computer screens in the darkness... On the rooftop Adelle DeWitt is waiting for a helicopter to take her away with Paul Ballard and November/Madeline. Then Boyd arrives with Topher and Echo, who’s completely gone bonkers now that they’ve dumped Caroline’s original imprint back into her mind. They have to take her to the Rossum Headquarters in Tuscon, where Clyde Randolph (in the body of Whiskey/Claire) gives them an awkward meet and greet. Back in L.A. Topher’s left his own imprint behind, so that Priya and Anthony can figure out what has happened and how to help. Now we learn the Boyd drugged Caroline so that she wouldn’t immediately exclaim he was the enemy. It’s not going to be long, though, before Caroline is going to come to.

Meanwhile Topher and Boyd find that Rossum is already in the process of mass-producing his remote-wipe gizmos with which you can imprint brains. (I know, that annoying sci-fi gibberish...) All it needs is for Topher to fix something twenty researchers weren’t able to crack for weeks. Then Caroline barges in, hitting Boyd to the ground. Clyde breaks them up, pointing guns at Caroline and Adelle, and Topher still hasn’t been able to figure out what’s going on. Caroline wants to know what the whole charade is about. Why bring all those people to the Headquarters if not to kill them? “Don’t you understand I love you guys?” Boyd replies. While Paul and November/Mellie/Madeline are looking to destroy Rossum’s mainframe, Boyd praises his team and tells them the neurological technology that they’ve invented cannot be undone. So, you have to face the fact and chose which side to be on: the imprinted slaves or their masters. “You are spectacularly insane,” Adelle sighs in despair. Now Boyd believes that Echo/Caroline will be humanity’s savior (we westerners always need a savior). He continues that they are going to create a vaccine against imprinting from Caroline’s cerebral spinal fluid... (Uh, what?) Topher, with Anthony and Priya set out to destroy the remote-tech that he invented. Caroline’s chased by Clyde and Boyd, Paul gets distraught when Melly kills herself, fist fights ensue, and then Topher walks in zapping Boyd into his doll state. They use him to blow up the mainframe. Have they saved the world? Switch to ten years in the future, and the neurological apocalypse is still happening. Something must have gone awry... (Stay tuned for more next week: “Epitaph Two.”)

Girls Next Door 6x02

Archetypical Playboy Hugh Heffner claims he couldn’t be happier with his new Girls Next Door. He thought he found the love of his life in Holly Madison. Everyone who watched the show (which must include Hef) knows that Holly wanted marriage with children. She wanted to be sure Hef wasn’t going to replace her, she wanted a sense of security, a sense of certainty, a sense of commitment. He didn’t give her that. So she up and left. He lost her. You can clearly see that he’s hiding his pain and disappointment when he claims to be happy. Maybe he’s even lying to himself about it. Who knows? He’s overly emotional around Barbi Benton, his former girlfriend (notice: not his ex-girlfriend), they have a bond he’ll never have with his latest live-in girlfriend, that airhead Crystal, or with those annoying twin twits Karissa and Kristina. He even admits he can’t keep them apart! Can you imagine this octogenarian is sleeping with girls that are literally barely legal? It’s pathetic, but atrociously fascinating to watch! Apocalyptically ghastly! HA-Hah-hahahah!

Planet Earth: Jungles

The eighth installment of BBC’s Planet Earth is about jungles. They cover only 3% of the land surface, but are home to about half of the world’s species. (Incidentally, a great argument from nature against any Malthusian complaints about overpopulation!) This time we’re feasted on many beautiful panoramas of the rain forest’s canopy covered in vaporous mist. Additionally, the episode features scenes of decay, moulds, fungi, larvae, ants affected by parasitic spores; a crab spider dangling from its silken threads inside a carnivorous pitcher plant to feed on ant corpses and mosquito larvae; bright green or yellow frogs with bulging eyes, some red or yellow, others blue-veined; elephants, buffalos, hogs and bongos (the antelopes, not the percussive instruments) in the Congo forest; monkeys of all shapes and sizes, swinging from tree to tree, branch to branch, playing and searching for food; the nocturnal colugo (flying lemur) gliding through the rain forest on the island of Borneo; and the magnificent mating dances of the birds of paradise in New Guinea. Perhaps the most astounding and disturbing scenes come at the end when we’re shown how the largest known tribe of chimpanzees is raiding their neighbors’ territory, brutally molesting a young female first and then celebrating their triumph by cannibalistically sharing the carcass of a young male chimp, a gruesome ritual David Attenborough refrains from explaining.

Mad Men 3x04

The Mad Advertising Men on Madison Avenue at Sterling Cooper are listening to a pitch for this (Basque) sport called jai alai ... they’re all doing their best to hide their disbelieve and pretend they’ll sell it to the world! Don Draper smells trouble a mile away, but nobody cares because the client got all the money they need. This “fatted calf” (as Pete calls him) is the son of a close acquaintance of Bertram Cooper, and Don fears “this idiot’s father” won’t be too happy about all the extravagant promotion the guy’s demanding. Fortunately, when called to a meeting, the father doesn’t mind if his son is wasting money on some “Polish handball,” as long as it’s with Sterling Cooper and not some other agency. Salvatore Romano gets a shot at directing the commercial for Pepsi’s Patio Diet Cola. He’s so nervous, his wife Kitty wonders what’s wrong. They talk about his work and he performs the choreography for her... How incredibly endearing! But how painfully awkward that she must realize that her husband is gay! Sal later delivers exactly what Patio clients asked for, frame by frame, but somehow they don’t like it, even if they can’t explain why, it just doesn’t feel right to them... What a bummer, his hopes are crushed! Don encourages him, though, that he’s now a commercial director: he’ll have a bright career ahead.

Up in Connecticut, Grandpa Gene is teaching Sally how to drive: I reckon she’s only six years old! He’s clearly picking favorites over Bobby (although he also enjoys showing his grandson his war paraphernalia). He hopes she won’t grow up to be like her mom, but more like his first wife. Then, when he promised to pick her up at school to take her to ballet, he doesn’t show up. Later a police officer drives up to the Draper residence, informing Betty that her father has passed away. Oh, no! Poor Sally, still in pink tutu, is shattered... That night her grief turns into hysteria, driving the wedge even deeper between her and Bets... On her part, Peggy Olsen is finally thinking about moving to Manhattan: she’s been commuting two hours a day to work! At the office they tease her about her stodgy roommate ad. It’s Joan who gives her sound advice how to post a more carefree, adventurous one. Soon enough she’s attracted a potential roomie called Karen (the actress Carla Gallo, who played Daisy in Californication). When Peggy brings up the courage to tell her mother she’ll be moving to Manhattan, her mom starts yapping about her broken heart and warns Peggy she’ll get raped in the City! Goodness, mothers!

Burn Notice 3x10

Oh, yes, Burn Notice is back! And I can’t tell you how excited I am!! This show is so much fun, y’all should get the season one DVD set if you haven’t been keeping up. But anyway, for those of you who just want to read what your favorite TV Cricket has to say about it (and I know that’s just one of you), here we go. We pick up in mediam res, so to speak, and Michael Westen is following up on yet another lead he’s hoping will get him to “unburn” his burn notice... When he gets to the hotel room hoping to meet this mystery man ... the room is torched! Talk about a first impression!! Hahahaha. Incidentally, I love how Mike spoons his yoghurt. His client this time is another extortion case, someone whose husband died in an insurance scam. Of course, Mike is always fighting the good cause, the vigilante protecting the weak, on the right side of what we think is good and proper, even if it’s illegal what he does. Says a lot about the justice system, by the way. As for his relationship with Fiona, she tells him, “In my experience, things get complicated and people get hurt, no matter what you do,” and there’s a painful truth in that... Does that make you want to watch the show? Probably not, but you should, if you like fun action stuff.

Dollhouse 2x11

At the L.A. Dollhouse it is time to meet Caroline, Echo’s original identity before her brain got wiped blank and subsequently imprinted with a whole series of different personalities. We’re getting very close to the season’s end, but first we go back in time three years ... when Caroline Farrell (Eliza Dushku) broke into Adelle DeWitt’s office to discover information about the Rossum Corporation. Instead she found a file on herself, as well as on Bennett Halverson (that wicked smart, little hottie, played by Summer Glau)... Fascinating! Bennett was a genius neurology student at the Tucson Institute of Technology (very unfortunate glasses, darling), where she met Caroline and they became fast BFFs. Or is Carline simply trying to use Bennett’s access card to the laboratory?

When Bennett finds out about Caroline’s plans to bomb Rossum’s lab, she’s actually hurt that Caroline didn’t ask her to help. When they set out to blow up the lab, Caroline comes across a section she didn’t know about, with preserved bodies inside that come alive... During the explosion a piece of concrete dropped on Bennett (that will eventually cost her the use of her left arm) and Caroline has to leave her behind. She gets caught and send up to “Rossum” which, as it turns out is just a name. She meets one of the founders of the corporation, Clyde (in a different body from the Clyde she saw in the Attic) ... as well as the other founder ... no one other than Boyd Langton (Echo’s former handler, and now the L.A. Dollhouse’s Head of Security)! Whoa!!! That completely caught me sideways!

Back in the here & now, Caroline’s original memory dump, the hard drive that contains her identity is missing from the vault. In order to help them fix a backup that programmer Topher once broke, they abduct Bennett from the D.C. Dollhouse, in the course of which Echo’s handler Paul Ballard also retrieves Madeline. Topher and Bennett giggle uncomfortably around each other. Then Boyd Langton brings back Dr. Saunders a/k/a Whiskey, in the course of which they kiss (what the? When did they get romantically involved?). Later, former chief of security Laurence Dominic resurrected himself from the Attic to inform them that Rossum is sending the troops in. During the evacuation, Boyd is able to shoot Rossum’s gorillas that were sent to fetch Adelle, but he gets shot himself, too.

Now Boyd has to run for his life, while Bennett has to try and bring back Caroline from a broken hard drive. That’s when Dr. Saunders blows her brains out! (Aw, just when I was drooling with adoration!) Probably Rossum got to Saunders and made her a Sleeper (an inactive Doll waiting to be triggered for a mission). With the Dollhouse under siege, electricity failing, Topher sends away his assistant Ivy (another Asian cutie) in the hopes of saving her life ... and her brain from getting shot to pieces ... and now he has to revive Caroline’s memory wedge. Once Echo’s on the chair to get her imprint of Caroline, everyone else runs for their lives ... and then Boyd enters the room to get Echo/Caroline... (Stay tuned! We’re picking up the story next week.)

Girls Next Door 6x03

Wow, whoa, oh my gawd, hahahaha, yay, check out those bikinis, hot stuff, groovy baby, oww, baby, it’s time for the Girls Next Door! What’s up? Well, Hef’s girls want to throw a 70s roller disco party. “We were born in 1989. So we know nothing about the 70s,” the twin twits say in tandem. But, if you don’t know a thing about that time, there’s always Barbi Benton, Hugh Hefner’s former girlfriend from way back when! Barbi always loves to get back in Hef’s limelight and steal some of his girls’ action. You know this is going to get awkward! I’m glued to my screen, gawking. Barbi even brought her daughter (a real two for the price of one deal), who’s their age! It’s strange, Barbi explains, to come up to the Mansion, because the girls change every few years, while she remains the constant. Ouch! So they try on 70s hot pants, but their fake butts are too big, and they practice roller skating. Then it’s time to par-tay! The twins were the only ones wearing G-strings. “We were ass on skates,” Karissa says (or is it Kristina?) ... Oh, my goodness, enough already!

Mad Men 3x03

Back in TV land, Mad Men continues to captivate me! One of the nicest, sweetest, kindest things Don Draper – the man, the husband, the son-in-law – does is telling Betty’s brother to suggest that their father moves in at the Draper residence, now that his second wife’s left him, that they’ll look after him (so that Betty will seem the caring daughter and her brother William won’t be able to lay his hands on the house). But do they know what they’ll be in for? That night they catch him flush all the liquor down the drain! Sheesus! When he loses five bucks all hell breaks loose! I love that he lets his granddaughter read to him from Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire! Hahahah!

At Sterling Cooper, the creative team is working on the new ad for Pepsi Patio Diet Cola ... but on top of that they’re told they’ll need to brainstorm ideas for the Bacardi account. Peggy, Paul and Smitty will have to work together over the weekend to come up with concepts by Monday. Naturally, they don’t feel much like working, the session goes nowhere. Alcohol isn’t getting them anywhere, so the guys suggest getting some marijuana for inspiration! Even Peggy participates. Paul tells her she’s won’t like it, and she retorts he has no idea what she likes. There! Later, Paul and his weed running pal sing “Hello My Baby.” Peggy stares at them and says “I am so high.” Heehee!! Peggy’s new, matronly secretary is worried, but Peggy tells her she needn’t be afraid. I love that Peggy Olson!

Meanwhile grey old man Roger Sterling is throwing a party at the country club with his adorable bride-to-be Jane (one of Don’s former secretaries). Betty bought a dress for the occasion (she’s highly pregnant, of course) and looks ever the angelic vision. What a stunning beauty! The party’s an awkward event. Roger sings “My Home in Kentucky” to Jane in blackface. The whole party Jane’s playing the happy gal, getting drunk. (She’s cute as a button and quite convincing; I can imagine why Roger wants to believe they’re in love.) Don tells Roger that no one thinks they are happy, “They think you’re foolish.” At the end of the party, while Roger slow dances with Jane, Don and Bets embrace on the lawn. Oh, how sweet love is! Meanwhile, Bets has been approached by a man, and Don met someone, too. We don’t yet know who they are, but stay tuned...

Dollhouse 2x10

When we last heard of Echo, she was sent to the Dollhouse’s Attic, together with Victor/ Anthony and Sierra/ Priya. There, in the Attic, they are left in tubs in a vegetative state with their worst nightmares running over and over in their heads. Echo soon enough learns to overcome her fears and ignore the nightmares. Eventually she comes across the old Head of Security, Laurence Dominic, who is chasing a dark figure he calls Arcane. (Here comes more sci-fi rubbish!) Apparently, their minds are somehow connected and they can find others by tuning into fear. In Anthony’s recurring nightmare, he’s a soldier in Afghanistan, locked in hand-to-hand combat with himself; Priya dreams of making love with Anthony but every time he turns into a zombie rapist...

Echo and Dominic team up to find and release Anthony and Priya from their nightmares and catch Arcane. Turns out the latter is merely a man called Clyde, also locked up in the Attic, who has been trying to kill as many people as possible, because he knows that all their connected minds are being used as Rossum’s mainframe – not only from the L.A. Dollhouse, but all houses across the globe. With Clyde they walk straight into his own personal nightmare of things to come – the neurological Armageddon, the apocalyptic anarchy, the final battle between the rebel “Actuals” (those who haven’t imprinted) and the “Imprints” (those humans, or what’s left of them, whose minds have been programmed to butcher the rebels).

Echo then decides that if she flatlines, she will be taken off the mainframe, and if she can then revive herself she can rescue the others and take down Rossum. Meanwhile boy-genius Topher has successfully imprinted Paul Ballard to release him from his coma. Echo squares off with Adelle DeWitt, but then we get a flashback telling us that the two agreed to this whole scenario so that they would learn Rossum’s darkest secret and finally get a real advantage over the corporation. Adelle, Boyd, Topher and his assistant Ivy (another cutie, by the way), together with Ballard, Echo, Victor/Anthony and Sierra/Priya are eager to overthrow Rossum. But they need one more person: Caroline Farrell (Echo’s original personality, who knows certain things no one else seems to know). Things are heating up! This show is really starting to become worthwhile.

Girls Next Door 6x01

Are you ready for the scantily clad, empty-headed Girls Next Door? For five seasons I have watched this series with my jaw ajar, completely aghast at the utter stupidity of these girls. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, the show is about three live-in girlfriends of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. For me personally, as I profoundly loathe reality shows, the only reason I could bear watching this particular show was because it is so atrociously awful. Kendra especially is disturbingly dumb: she’s a tomboy with fake boobs, who shakes her booty at every chance she gets (even though she has a flat ass) and flashes her tits at every turn. Sorry if my sexism offends anyone, but that’s what this show is about. When last season ended Kendra was moving out and soon announced her relation with some Philly Eagle football player; Bridget left to host her own program (Bridget’s Sexiest Beaches); and Holly broke up with Hef, briefly dated illusionist Chris Angel, and will now host her own program, too (Holly’s World).

Now we’re supposed to care about twin sisters Kristina and Karissa, and their newest best-friend-forever Crystal... The Playboy Mansion is alive with sunny cheer and barely legal babes! 23-year old Crystal is an annoyingly high-pitched Val Gal airhead, whose boobs keep falling out. She’s not the new Holly, she says, Holly is the old her... The indistinguishable 19-year old twins are like Bridget and Kendra rolled into one, being neither one nor the other. They talk at the same time and say the same things, in the same voice, and even admit they have the same personality... They have two indistinguishable dogs which they died pink... Then they go to Las Vegas and meet up with Holly, they party and tweet and giggle. “Oh, my gawd, like, freakin’ damn, I was like, whassup, that’s awesome!” Enough, right? Yeah, I thought so.

Planet Earth: Ice Worlds

After an episode about deserts, it’s only natural that Planet Earth moves towards the worlds of ice and snow. Our entry into the Antarctic continent is marked by giant cathedrals of ice. We learn that 90% of the Earth’s ice is found on the South Pole and that even at the height of summer just about 3% is not covered in ice or snow, and that is mostly exposed rock at the northern-most peninsula. We witness the splendor of the Midnight Sun and of Aurora Australis. In addition we’re shown a great many magnificent animals: humpback whales harvesting krill in their “net” of bubbles; herds of walruses; “half a ton of mad hairy cow not to be trifled with” also known as muskoxen; polar wolves, foxes, and rabbits; emperor penguins marching almost a hundred miles inland; crane birds from New Mexico raising their chicks in the tundra; petrels preyed on by skuas; and ducks feeding on mussels through permanent holes in the arctic ice. We see more of the polar bear with her two cute cubs the likes of which you’ve never seen. And we also get a glimpse of what lies ahead as more and more of the ice caps melts due to global warming: a male polar bear unable to find firm footing has to resort to swimming. In this new environment, he is remarkably adept! But however well he swims, he cannot go on indefinitely – out in the open ocean, without food, he will drown if he doesn’t find land in time. Fewer polar bears will survive as a result of the changing climate.

Mad Men 3x02

Ooh, Mad Men is so goooood!!! Ken Cosgrove is trying to land a deal with Pespi’s Patio Diet Cola, hoping to have lunch with the head honchos and royally piss off Pete Campbell! How I love where this is going! Peggy Olsen’s catching on to the sexism involved in the advertisement, facing comments like, “you don’t have to deal with this, you’re not fat anymore.” She asks if they really need a knock-off sex bomb who looks twenty five but plays fourteen, and tells her colleagues that customers don’t always know what’s right. She’s upset that it’s phony, that the commercial is selling a male fantasy to a female audience, and that it’s aiming at the wrong target. And you wanted to know why I like her?

Meanwhile Pete just about loses the new Madison Square Garden and Penn Station account because Paul Kinsey threw a (righteous and rightful) fit of nostalgic preservationism instead of a sales pitch. Hahahah! And Don is sent into the lion’s den to tame the uproar! And he does it so well, so elegantly: the protesters can’t stop construction; change is neither good nor bad; if you don’t like the conversation, change the topic. So simple, straightforward, to the point, rational, logical! I love this guy. He saves the account, only to learn the next day that the London office killed the deal... whoa! Old Europe missed out on the New New York. What’s so marvelous about the show is how they include our anachronistic hindsight. No one then could have known what the Garden would become, but we do. Very smart.

Dollhouse 2x09

At the Dollhouse they’re facing more and more problems with ghost emotions persisting after wiping an Active’s brain that’s supposed to turn them into mental blank slates... Victor, for instance, has fallen in love with Sierra (ew, dude, I don’t want you near her, she’s too cute for you) ... and remains so even on mission... Meanwhile, Alpha’s spiel has rendered Paul Ballard brain dead, physically he’s alright, but his mental architecture is empty, there’s no neurological activity left ... and Echo’s worried about him. Now Victor is released from the Dollhouse. His contract has run its five-year course and he is allowed (under supervision) to return to his life as Anthony Ceccoli... Not long after falling asleep (in the bathtub), he’s attacked by some swat-team who blindfold him and take him to a bunker.

The team is part of some sort of para-military project, called Scytheon, run by the Rossum Corporation, that uses a “Mind Whisper” program that links all soldiers with a neurological radio so they can hear what the others are thinking. (I know, more sci-fi gibberish...) When Head of Security Boyd Langton and genius programmer Topher realize what has happened to Victor/ Anthony, they arrange for Echo to rescue him from Rossum’s clutches, and she takes Sierra/ Priya with her because of the emotional bond she has with him. Although eventually Echo is successful in getting Anthony out safe, Adelle DeWitt has come out of her drunken stupor and orders the use of that disruptor gizmo to get all three back into the Dollhouse. Once back into the house, Adelle sends them to the Attic ... where they are left to vegetate in tubs with their own worst nightmares running over and over in their heads.

Mad Men 3x01

Now, let’s head to TV land, where I’ve been slyly catching a couple of Mad Men episodes per week because it’s so incredibly good. (When I first wrote this paragraph it was actually November 1st ... I just didn’t want to inundate you with all my reviews... hehe...) Let’s turn to Season Three, shall we? And what a season premiere it is! Whoa! We start off with flashbacks to Don’s mysterious and disturbing past ... I love those moments. This time we learn something about his birth. Back in 1963, Don and Bets are happily expecting.

There are new faces at Sterling Cooper, due to the international merger. Lane Pryce is the new financial officer, who’s been causing much stress by cutting personnel. However, he also makes snailface Pete head of accounts. When Pete did his little victory dance I finally realized who he reminds of: Pee Wee Herman! Moments later Pryce also offers the position to Ken! Uhoh! When Pete finds out next day, he’s absolutely livid, while Ken is genuinely happy to be offered the chance to prove himself. Everybody calls Pryce’s secretary simply John, but he wants to be addressed as “Mr. Hooker”! (Ahahaha! How do you come up with this stuff?)

Don and Salvatore visit the raincoat maker London Fog in Baltimore. In the airplane, the stewardess candidly flirts with them and proposes they meet in the hotel. Naturally she joins Don to his room at the end of the night. Meanwhile Salvatore finally gives in to his homosexual urges with the bellhop! Yay him! Then, right when Don is making out with the girl, and Salvatore with the boy ... the fire alarm rings loudly throughout the hotel! Hahaha! LMAO! Saved by the bell, shall we say?

Dollhouse 2x08

Adele DeWitt was pretty miffed when Harding took over her position at the L.A. Dollhouse, so when Topher’s latest invention (not just to remotely wipe an active Doll, but to imprint just any random person with a simple zap without consent), she saw an opportunity to regain control and grabbed it with both hands. Now she reigns the house with an iron fist. So, when Paul Ballard finally returns with Echo, DeWitt has her thrown into an isolation cell just to see how she’d hold out! That, and to check how torturing Echo affects Ballard. Then DeWitt finally decides to employ Echo again on an engagement, and Topher, Boyd (the head of security) and Ballard witness that she doesn’t even need her imprint for the mission, she can just access it herself. Finally, on her next two missions, we hear from Alpha again, the Dollhouse’s first Active Missing in Action, who became obsessed with Echo and escaped after violently running amok. Now he’s back and ready to cause some serious rampage with his own little device that turns all the Dolls into black-belt martial artists! In the confusion, Alpha vents his jealous frustration about Echo’s affection for Ballard ... causing Ballard to go brain-dead... Ouch!