It's like Deja Vu on "Heroes"

First, to get this out of the way, the best show on TV last night wasn't "Chuck" or "Life" and it certainly wasn't the "Volume Finale" of "Heroes."

It was the Patriots-Ravens football game, which kept my stomach in knots for nearly three hours. I love that the Ravens players are now whining like thuggy bitches about how the NFL wanted the Patriots to win and conspired. Sure, there were some spotty calls down the stretch, particularly when it became clear that the Pats weren't so eager to win the game by themselves. But the NFL didn't screw over the Ravens' defense by calling a time-out and nullifying a 4th down stop with two minutes left. The NFL wasn't mugging Moss, Stallworth and Welker all game in the secondary. The NFL didn't throw a temper tantrum and get 30 yards of penalties tacked on to the final kickoff. And the NFL didn't provide the wind that knocked down Kyle Boller's last ditch Hail Mary two yards short of the end zone.

The NFL also didn't cause Tony Kornheiser to spend nearly four quarters talking about what a huge upset this would be, as if there were no other subplots to discuss in the game or the wide world of sports. I love "PTI" and I admire Kornheiser, but he comes into every game with one or two talking points and then he has difficulties transitioning and adapting to the requirements of the game.

Meanwhile, if the Patriots can't get back to their previously impenetrable offensive line play soon, they'll get tough games from both the Steelers and Giants down the stretch.

Anyway, "Heroes" wrapped up the first pod of the new season with a series of anti-climaxes, a bunch of mighty familiar plot twists and one appealingly demented twist.

More on that after the bump.

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[Spoilers to follow.]

The one thing I want to give the "Heroes" episode credit for is the ultimate fate of David Anders' Sark... er... Adam. We don't usually think of Hiro as being a sadistic mofo, but burying an immortal guy alive in a tight coffin? that's pretty messed up.

It seems like just last May when "Heroes" left viewers disappointed by a season finale that included...

Nathan Petrelli's life in doubt after using his previously untapped brotherly bond to help contain Peter Petrelli's potentially unruly powers.

Poor technopath Micah having to deal with the death of a parent.

Claire the Cheerleader about to go into hiding to protect her identity.

So imagine my double-disappointment that Monday (Dec. 3) night's "Heroes" had to rely on the exact same plot triggers and that the shocking segue into the hypothetical next Volume -- Sylar's alive and he has all his powers back -- seemed plenty familiar as well.

As chagrinned as many fans may have been to see this latest lot of "Heroes" episodes, imagine being Ali Larter and sitting down with the writers last summer.

"So what do I get to do this season?"

"Nothing."

"Oh. That's disappointing."

"It gets better."

"Well that's a relief."

"Not only will you be a non-factor for most of the episodes, but you'll lose your powers."

"I'm actually not sure what my powers are."

"Neither are we. But we've come up with a great finishing arc."

"Yay!"

"Well, it's not so much as an arc as a great way to finish you."

"Ummm... Do I save the world? Do I defeat a super-villain?"

"No. But you pistol-whip a teenaged hoodlum and appear to die saving a newly introduced character in a subplot that only barely ties in with the main narrative."

"Screw you guys."

Poor Ali Larter. Her arc this season was more demeaning than trying to seduce Dawson Leary in a whipped cream bikini. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Sorry to be all over the map, but can I go back to Sylar for a second. Do you want a microcosm of why this season has been so very, very underwhelming? Last year, everything built to him attempting to destroy the world using every power imaginable. On Monday's episode, he was able to carry out his master plan by holding a 10-year-old girl hostage and waving a gun around. Ah, budget cuts.

And this sets up an upcoming Volume in which Sylar has lots of powers and tries to take over/destroy/manipulate the world? Maybe it's time to start watching "Two and a Half Men" instead.

A few other random thoughts:

Are we just going to leave Peter's Oirish girlfriend in the bizarro alternate future? Or when that future ceases to be viable, does she magically bounce back to her own present? Does anybody care?

And Peter eliminated the virus by squeezing it really hard? That's how Superman makes diamonds. The twist I was hoping for was that the evaporated virus might have negated Peter, Nathan and Matt's powers. That would have been hilarious, if at the press conference Nathan had been all "I have the ability... to fly" and then he'd try flying away from the stage and fallen into the front row of hastily assembled press. Tee-hee.

I loved the picture of Veronica Mars' dad Ned Ryerson proudly smiling with his fish. I didn't understand why Ned's computer had the only security system in the world where you can actually read the password as it's being typed. Yes. "Midas." Very clever. Ned Ryerson's power didn't really come into play very much, did it?

Tell me that we're done with Obnoxious Flying West forever. Please?

Anyway, I've got some Zap2it work to review. At some point I'll also try to go through my weekend Netflix haul, which was massive.

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Monday 11/26 TV Roundup: NBC Versus the Apple Promos

Several weeks ago, NBC subjected viewers to Green Week, but was Monday (Nov. 26) night the start of Apple Week on NBC?

Though the network has been feuding with Apple's iTunes service, NBC has been more than happy to suckle from Apple's corporate teat.

Of course, everybody on "Bionic Woman" has been using iPhones all season (albeit occasionally incorrectly), but Monday night's onslaught was especially impressive.

First, on "Chuck," we left Sarah choosing between the eponymous hero buzzing her iPhone and Matthew Bomer's not-so-dead Bryce calling on her landline. How could you *not* choose the guy calling on the flashier piece of technology?

Then on "Heroes," Monica's fully loaded iPod made a second appearance, this time teaching her how to break and enter. Yes, if you're an autodidact it's really useful to have that sortta thing at your fingertips. But if it's me and I'm gonna be breaking into a house occasionally populated by armed thugs, I'm gonna wanna watch the video featuring basic hand-to-hand combat first.

Finally, on "Journeyman," Dan found himself in a 1981 hospital emergency room where the doctors were particularly interested in his iPhone.

Anyway, follow through after the bump for my thoughts on last night's dreadful "How I Met Your Mother," plus the actual quality of last night's Apple-sponsored NBC dramas (thumbs up all around) and maybe even a bit on Sunday's rather awesome "Dexter" (but no guarantees)...

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[I will, of course, be including spoilers here. So be wary, if you care-y.]

"How I Met Your Mother" -- I can tolerate that "HIMYM" whipped out a "Let's join a gym!" plot that felt like leftover "Friends" and that segued horribly into the episode's subplots. I mean really, Josh Radnor's in good shape, Alyson Hannigan and Cobie Smulders are tiny and Jason Segel has lost a lot of weight since last season and looks mighty fit. I can tolerate that the return of Wayne Brady as Barney's gay brother only produced punchlines around the meta-irony that Wayne Brady's character is gay, Neil Patrick Harris' character is straight and in real life those roles are in reverse. I can tolerate that the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show after-party looked like the lamest, brightest, worst designed gala in the history of the world (mostly cuz I have a massive crush on Miranda Kerr). You know what I can't tolerate? That the Barney-rebangs-his-First subplot was recycled 100% from last season's "Rules of Engagement," where David Spade's character got,um, intimate with Julie Walters to try reproving his mojo. I don't care if the plotlines were conceived 100% independently of each other and I don't care if the "HIMYM" execution was a smidge funnier than what happened on "Rules." If you're getting sloppy seconds from "Rules of Engagement," something is very, very, very, very, very wrong.

"Chuck" -- Josh Schwartz loves his holiday-themed episodes and it isn't surprising that the best post-pilot episodes of "Chuck" have been the Halloween-y "Chuck Versus the Sandworm" and Monday's "Chuck Versus the Nemesis." The episode's main business -- Bryce Larkin's returned from the dead and Chuck has to deal with his residual anger and decide if he can trust and protect his former friend -- was well-handled, probably a notch above some of the show's spy-of-the-week hijinx. What worked better, though, were the supporting plots -- Ellie Bartowski's family Thanksgiving dinner and Buy More's Black Friday sale. The dinner continued Julia Ling's transition from the show's secret weapon to a not-so-secret resource as her Anna got to showcase some wonderfully timed jealousy about Morgan's lust for Ellie's side dishes. [If you know what I mean.] The ep's two best lines came at dinner with Chuck's reaction to seeing Sarah and Bryce all a-smooch ("I'm thankful that Bryce Larkin is dead and is not currently in my bedroom making out with my new girlfriend.") and Ellie and Awesome's reaction to the disintegration of the festivities ("Honey, no more family dinners, OK?" "What do you think about a destination Christmas?"). Black Friday at the Buy More gave us the episode's best visual gag -- Big Mike's slo-mo counter vault -- plus several priceless moments of cowering from Lester and Jeff.

What else did I like? I liked that Bryce and Chuck's fluency in Klingon had both a set-up and a payoff. I liked the arsenal that Casey has set up in the Home Theater room at the Buy More. I liked that Bryce pretended he went to Penn. Oh and I like that NBC has picked up "Chuck" and "Life" for full seasons, assuming that anybody's ever allowed to write again.



"Heroes" -- Here's the thing: If you waste five or six episodes at the beginning of the season and then suddenly start a countdown to a payoff, it's hard to make me feel like I'm ready for everything to tie up. "Heroes" tells me that next week will be the moment I've been waiting for, the climax to all of this season's excitement, but I've only been enjoying this season's plot for the past two or three weeks. Nothing they do next week is going to pay off wasting six weeks on Hiro in Feudal Japan. Nothing is going to pay off wasting six weeks on Peter forgetting his memory and hanging out on a bar set masquerading as Ireland. Nothing is going to pay off the slow journey of the Ying-Yang Twins across Mexico or the slow flirtation of Claire with Annoying Flying West. All of those things could have been covered in the season premiere and then we'd have gotten four or five more episodes to unfold the action. Grumble.

My favorite line of the episode was Peter's "The last time I saw my mother was a year from now," which reminded me of the time-twisting "Primer" bon mot, "You got anything to eat? I haven't eaten anything since later this afternoon."

But what I really want at this point is for "Heroes" to become two spin-offs: In one, Kristen Bell and Hayden Panettiere roam the country being short, blonde, perky and superpowered and everybody keeps thinking they're sisters. It'd be like a spunky distaff "Supernatural." In the other, Mohinder, Parkman and Sylar try their hardest to raise Molly while trying to avoid killing each other. It's be like "Three Men and a Little Lady" if Steve Guttenberg were a superpowered sociopath.

"Journeyman" -- With Miami and Pittsburgh playing the ugliest Monday Night Football game ever, all of NBC's Monday shows got a ratings boost. Except for "Journeyman." That there's the kiss of death. Too bad. It was another fine episode, though the amateur shrink psychoanalyzing of attempted killer/misunderstood child Aeden Bennett was a bit second rate. The big reveal of Dan's gift/curse to Jack was done so well that I liked Reed Diamond for the first time this season and I got exactly the desired shiver of recognition when it became clear that Paul Schulze's FBI Agent had been investigating time hoppers for a while. That character's fate was left up in the air at the end of the episode, though it's unlikely to matter.

"Dexter" -- At this moment, "Dexter" is the best show on TV. Even if we were subjected, on Sunday, to Keith Carradine's ass.

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Of Mars and Ned: Monday's "Heroes," "Chuck," "HIMYM" and more...

I've never watched a single full episode of "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" even though FOX is on my Zap2it beat. Does that make me a bad person? That being said, I'm sorely tempted to watch this Thursday's celebrity "5th Grader" with former "American Idol" bubblehead Kellie Pickler [even though I know that Pickler's an evil genius and she would never unveil her vast tracts of... um... "knowledge" just for a FOX game show]. Does that make me a worse person? Yeah. Figured.

Anyway, Monday night features an insane amount of television, probably more than I plow through on any other night.

Follow through after the bump as I talk about Rachel Bilson on "Chuck," Kristen Bell on "Heroes," a shocking revelation about Moon Bloodgood on "Journeyman" and probably one or two things involving less attractive women.

Click through...

So yeah. Let's take things show-by-show until I get bored. [I should mention that spoilers are coming...]

"Chuck" -- With "Heroes" stumbling (two good weeks don't equal a good season) and "How I Met Your Mother" proving increasingly erratic (more on that later), "Chuck" is probably the Monday show I'm finding most pleasurable. I've described it as souffle in the past, but that may be selling it short. It's not that you turn your brain off to watch "Chuck," just that you set it to "Chuck" Mode, a very different gear in which you become ultra-vigilant about attempting to catch each and every pop culture reference and you don't worry quite so much about the International Adversary of the Week. Tonight's episode was the second straight to deal heavily in exposition, relying on that ever-popular device of the Truth Serum That Causes People To Expose Their Inner Feelings. But with "Chuck," the "whys" don't matter so much as the "hows," as in "how" well Zachary Levi, Adam Baldwin and particularly Sarah Lancaster (her best episode of the season by far) handled their temporary truthiness. But really, give me Kevin Weisman as an ass-kicking rogue gymnast-turned-poisoner and I can be content. Throw in the introduction of Rachel Bilson -- capable of wringing maximum cuteness and tartness out of the simplest of dialogue -- and it was a good week for "Chuck."

"How I Met Your Mother" -- Finally figured out the problem. Last season, with Ted and Robin in a relationship, the show could just concentrate on the warm embrace of each of its core characters. The dynamic was simple: One long-term couple, one new couple and one Barney -- it was "Rules of Engagement" minus the suck! This season, though, they've had to keep introducing a cavalcade of not-even-vaguely-worthy foils for Ted and the show has suffered as a result, since parading out so many flawed and crazy women has verged on misogyny at times, since it's not like Ted is such a great catch that he should be able to cast aside Mandy Moore, Busy Philips, Lindsay Price, et al. Adding to the tip-toeing around the misogyny is the fact that while Ted has rejected one hottie after another for minor imperfections, Robin has mostly been responsible for sabotaging her own brief flings, all with a much more worthy assortment of men. This isn't optional: I don't care if the show's writers get Ted a wife/future-mother yet, but they NEED for that character to find a potential partner.



"Heroes" -- There's something quite marvelous about what Kristen Bell is doing here. I spent the first 30 minutes of the episode pondering if her spark-throwing Elle was mentally handicapped, if the show was doing some sort of "Of Mice and Men" thing where she was Lennie and Stephen Tobolowski was George and Milo Ventigmiglia was the bunny. I'd call it "Of Mars and Ned." Then they had to go and explain the character's psychological profile -- that she'd pretty much been locked up since she was 10 and therefore hadn't had the chance to go through any of the normal rites and rituals of puberty and young adulthood. That was less exciting than my theory, but it didn't make Bell's performance any less intriguing.

The episode had plenty of other good moments, including the origin story for the Ying Yang Twins, in which she laid waste to an entire Dominican wedding. We also didn't spend a single second in Feudal Japan. I was a little disappointed that they didn't give an origin story for Adrian Pasdar's beard (or, for that matter, for his bear). The biggest disappointment, though, was the absence of a tear-filled courtroom scene explaining how Parkman and Mohinder got custody of Molly. I imagine a judge saying, "Yes, I know you're a pair of confirmed bachelors who no clear source of income who only met a week or two ago under shady circumstances, but the court grants you full custody of this little girl with demonstrated emotional problems. Good day!"

"Journeyman" -- Last week, I'd intended to write about both "Heroes" and "Journeyman" with a concentration on "Journeyman." After all, last week's episode featured some Dan-on-Dan brawling. That was awesome. But I was too lazy for that blog post. Or else too busy. Opportunity missed. After three or four really decent episodes in a row, last night's "Journeyman" was a small step back, owing to some of the cheesiest cinematic depictions of hippies since either "American Dreams" or "The '60s."

This week had less time-bending "Back to the Future"-style fun, though we finally got a lot of information about Moon Bloodgood's Livia, including the knowledge that really lives in 1948 and then when she got stuck mysteriously in the '80s, she was able to just go to law school without impediments like the LSATs or undergrad transcripts. Then again, as paths to legal practice go, that's no more or less believable than Marshall interviewing for high powered firms after already graduating from law school and taken the bar (those interviews would have happened nearly a year earlier in the real world). And we've now added "quartz" to "tachyons" as magic words the writers are using to hint around the causes for Dan's time travel.

My biggest disappointment? That Dan has yet to vanish in the middle of sex. Last night would have offered the perfect opportunity and the writers didn't take it. Curses!

Oh and it may be time for a moratorium on usage of Three Dog Night's "Shambala."

"Big Bang Theory" -- 22 minutes of Indian (dot, not feather) jokes? Count me in. Not much has been written about the fact that, unlike "The Class" last year, "Big Bang Theory" has begun to consistently improve on its "HIMYM" lead-in and that its demos have basically been improving every week. Jim Parsons still makes me laugh and what else am I going to do with this time period? My DVR will feel rejected if it doesn't record something.

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Hey "Heroes" -- Why so dull?

It was back in July that the Television Critics Association voted "Heroes" as its Program of the Year, the key award we present annually. Me, I voted for Spike Lee's "When the Levees Broke," though "The Wire" would have been a worthy alternative.

The problems with giving such a relatively prestigious honor to a new show are becoming increasingly evident with each episode of "Heroes," which has followed up its nimble and intriguing first season with a second season that has, thus far, been nothing short of a plodding mess.

When it comes to "Heroes," I'm not yet at the point where I'm ready to drop out entirely, but after Monday (Oct. 29) night's episode, I'm left wondering how a show that did so many right things its first season has made so many poor choices so fast. Throw in a similar poor judgment spiral on "Friday Night Lights" and somebody -- certainly not me -- might begin to wonder about the quality of notes percolating down from the new creative administration at NBC. I'd be worried about "30 Rock" too, except that the scene of Alec Baldwin at the therapist's office last week was the funniest television scene since... I dunno when.

Follow through after the bump for the usual ramblings.

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So what has gone wrong with "Heroes"?

You start all over again... In my rant about my "FNL" disappointment, I reflected on who the nine-month gap between the events of the first season and the events of the second season had allowed the writers to basically throw out all of the character growth from the first season, returning to the original unevolved archetypes. "Heroes," unfortunately, did something similar. When "Heroes" began, it was about all of these characters, in disparate locations, coming to understand their special gifts and ultimately come together and save the world. After doing that, though, everybody scattered again. Yes, Matt and Mohinder are living in sin together, raising a small superpowered girl. But otherwise, for the most part, the character were all sent spinning off in their own directions. The problem: If you assemble your heroes in three or four heroic clumps, it allows you to follow those three or four narrative strains on a week-to-week basis. As it is now, the writers are stuck juggling a dozen plotlines that will eventually have to come together again, which is why you can go weeks without Niki or Hiro or Parkman, which is either bad if you love those characters, or an unfair tease if you happen to hate them. They've made no storytelling progress, only regression. Plus, since most of the characters got to know their powers last season, we've had to meet five or six new heroes and reexperience that "Getting to know me/ Getting to know all about me..." process all over again. Plus, somebody must have told the producers that Milo Ventimiglia is especially good at furrowing his brow in confusion, because they wiped his memory and he's rediscovering everything all over again. So if everything that's happened feels like a drag, it's because you've seen it all before. It doesn't help that the "Heroes" lead-in, "Chuck," is a fast-paced TV souffle.

Mo' characters, mo' problems... One week you introduce Veronica Mars as a spark-spitting killer with daddy issues and feed into the wet dreams of geeks everywhere and then she's gone? That's not maintaining momentum. Who, exactly, has been enthralled by Copycat N'awlins Girl or the Ying Yang Twins? Much less Claire's Flying Prick of a Boyfriend? We get it. He's gonna be evil. And since the revelation that the Great Hero Kensei is actually a drunk Brit played by an American speaking broken Japanese with a British accent, has anybody cared for a second about anything happening back in the Japanese past? I can't be the only person who lets loose an audible grown each and every time Ando shows up and starts reading a scroll.

You start all over again, Part II... The big reveal at the end of Monday's episode was that Peter found himself standing in the middle of Time Square looking at New York City in ruins. AGAIN! Yes, we're well aware that Manhattan in ruins is a haunting image, that it conjures up subconscious post-9/11 fears and therefore it's a potent narrative shortcut. Why not go a different direction? Why not Fake Paris in ruins? Or Fake Moscow? Or why not find a threat to humanity that can't be easily encapsulated with a single short of a depopulated urban area? I mean, it's not like ANYBODY liked the way New York City was ultimately saved last season. Why not distance yourself that dud of a finale?

But speaking of Fake Paris and Fake Moscow... If you can't go to foreign locations, maybe you shouldn't go to foreign locations. The special effects last season were always hit and miss. Sometimes the superpowers would manifest themselves in awesome ways and other times I'd yearn for the sophisticated effects of, say, "Smallville." Since the superpowers have been generally deprioritized this season -- mostly mental stuff, blackening eyes and cheesy electrical sparks -- most of the FX has been poured into... I don't know what. Most of last season's plots took place in domestic locations, Las Vegas or New York or Texas, locations that could be easily replicated in the environs around LA. This year, in an effort to expand the story, I suppose, we've been treated to Mexico, Ireland, Feudal Japan and, in the past couple weeks Fauxdessa and Mock-treal. That has mostly meant cheap sets and flat, inept green screen work. When Peter and his Irish Rose got to Mock-real last night, I think they may have been standing in front of a matte painting, while Hiro's Japanese Adventure feels like it's all been shot in the same green corner of Griffith Park. Potentially Intriguing Supposition: What if, at some point during sweeps, it's revealed that the characters who have been stuck on soundstages this season, have all just been bouncing around in a virtual world in the mind of Molly or the Haitian or somebody else with amazing mental gifts. I prefer the idea of Molly being the intellectual fabricator of the season. A young girl wouldn't know what Ireland or New Orleans or Feudal Japan or Montreal would look like, so she would invent them in the broadest and flattest of terms. If the answer isn't that, there's no excuse.

Adrian Pasdar shaved his beard... My man-crush on Adrian Pasdar's bear [EDIT: Or, well, his "beard"] is well established. Then he shaved it. In the end, it served no purpose. He was drunk and depressed, so he grew a beard? And then his kids didn't like it, so he shaved it? For that they made Pasdar look like a hobo for four months? What a waste.

OK. That's all I feel like writing.

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"Heroes" Premiere: The American Actors Strike Back

All spring long, they were pushed around by the influx of immigrant laborers. All summer, they idled their time, watching the immigrants attempt to assimilate, learning our actions, our mannerisms. All fall, they've have to listen to the press rave about how the immigrants are better than the indigenous work force.

But on September 24, on the season premiere of NBC's "Heroes," the American actors finally struck back!

Follow through after the bump for more hyperbolic rambling about the "Heroes" premiere.

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[Spoilers coming here, obviously...]

Sorry, but I'm just loving that fact that after a development season in which NBC's casting department said "Go British!" for every possible American lead role (regardless of whether or not the otherwise excellent Kevin McKidd is even vaguely capable of speaking with a Yankee accent [he isn't]), "Heroes" finally unveiled the 17th Century Japanese warrior Kensei and not only did he turn out to be a gaijin, but he turned out to be a Brit. But rather than actually casting a British actor? Nice! They go with Oregon-born David Anders, working a different Limey accent from the one he used for years on "Alias." I like Anders, because he starred in my friend Mike Arquilla's musical, but in a world where he's British and McKidd is from San Francisco, this writer is just very confused.

"Heroes" already has Chicago-born Sendhil Ramamurthy playing Indian academic Mohinder Suresh and Sepinwall notes that the hammy Irishman -- who went looking in a crate for his Lucky Charms and instead found the unclothed (but newly buff?) Peter Patrelli covering in the corner -- was played by New York-born Holt McCallany, who in real life doesn't talk like he's auditioning for an Irish Spring commercial.

I still imagine Anders, Ramamurthy and McCallany (and Masi Oka as well, I guess, though there hasn't been a run of Japanese actors rushing to steal parts on American series) standing up, Bill Pullman-style, and declaring, "And should we win the day, the 24th of September will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the American actors declared in one voice: 'We will not go quietly into the night!' We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!"

OK. I'm done with that. Really, the "Heroes" premiere was just an episode of "Heroes," which came as a pretty big relief after a finale that everybody but the show's creators knows was disastrous. Monday's episode laid the groundwork for the season, introduced oodles of new characters and never once caused me to yell at my TV, "Stop being so stupid, 'Heroes'!"

My favorite part of the episode may have been something we didn't see, namely Matt and Mohinder raising little Molly as a well-adjusted gay couple. I would love to have been a fly on the wall (or able to read minds) at *that* custody hearing. I imagine that it was like "Chuck and Larry" only without the positives of Jessica Biel in her undies, but also the negatives of Rob Schneider as an ethnic caricature.

Or else my favorite thing in the episode may have been Adrian Pasdar's beard. As faithful Zap2it blog readers know, I had a brief and awkward discussion with Pasdar at this year's TCA press tour. The long and short of the conversation was that as an owner of a newly acquired beard, I wanted to know if his own lustrous facial hair was conditioned in some way. The long and short of his answer (as he apparently spat chaw in a cup) was that his glow was all natural. The truth, it turns out, is that his beard was conditioned by beer and tears of grief at the death of his brother.

Of course, Peter isn't actually dead. He's just become Angel from the start of Season 3 of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," all half-feral, forgetful and naked. That plotline doesn't interest me so much, sorry.

There are, of course, myriad other things to discuss. Who threw Sulu off the rooftop? Who knew that Ned Ryerson was an alchemist? What is it that A.J. Soprano's ex-near-fiance is able to do? Why was Claire's chemistry teacher lecturing on Darwin (and why did nobody else know the answer)? And can we please have more Barry Shabaka Henley in upcoming episodes?

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