Michael J. Fox: Golfing, Renting, Dating

I know that I have seen a lot of television, but when I just see recycled bits thrown together, I get annoyed. Cory and Shawn pulled the "rent out the house" gag on Boy Meets World, and Ross and Joey got locked on the roof on Friends (and it happens to Daphne on Frasier as well). The sad thing is, even with those memorable moments, the Ian/Eve storyline was still preferable to that of Mike/Annie. The low-yielding fundraiser and disability jokes just weren't that interesting! I could have done with more of Leigh/Graham, but only if it played out the right way... parts of it was predictable, though parts were also adorable. I keep saying I'll give this show one more shot, and here I am reiterating that once again!

The Michael J. Fox Show "Golf" (S01E07): Annie and Mike go golfing in New Jersey and stay in the same hotel they went to when they got engaged. A blind guy cuts in front of Mike at check-in, resulting in Mike getting a garden-view suite instead of an ocean-view suite. [I'm always amazed at how much people care about the view when they're at a hotel. I just want a clean room in a safe place, LoL.] Mike and the blind guy wind up golfing together, and after each makes rude comments, the duo is constantly trying to one-up each other. [only funny for an instant - then it got annoying.] The charity really doesn't raise much money, and the Henrys wind up leaving the banquet early and going into the blind guy's room, having sex and getting caught. [who does that??!?]

Eric Liebowitz/NBC

The older two kids rent out their 4/2, but they can't check into a hotel because they're so young. [18 isn't enough? I remember being 21 and staying in a hotel we booked ourselves, but can't put a finger on a trip any younger that wasn't school- or family-sponsored.] So, they buy a $200 tent to stick on the roof, but it blows away and they get locked out up there... in a thunderstorm. [not impressed.] They try to break into their house but wind up getting caught, and say that their parents are the ones who rented it out and left them with nowhere to go. [and somehow this didn't exactly blow up in their faces? also, shout-out to The Mighty Ducks!]

Leigh watches Graham, and he pretends to be her date for the evening. Though he doesn't impress her, when he calls her to watch a movie with the family the next day, she's happy. [awww.]

Last Man Standing: Similarities and Differences

The racist pokes feel so dated... I don't know what to make of them. (I felt the same way with the first appearance of the Larabees, actually.) With Mike and Vanessa being the main family members featured in this episode, it would help if they acted a little more characteristic. Why does Vanessa insist on acting like the Baxters are BFFs with the Larabees? And I'm also intrigued by Carol's motivation to run for school board when the audience hasn't seen her interact with children much. But that's the main problem that anyone should have with this series: so much must happen off-screen in order for some of the episodes to make sense. I understand it's not a drama and not everything requires a lot of build-up, but unless you want the installments to be purely stand-alone, a little more would go a long way!

Last Man Standing "Larabee for School Board" (S03E06): Carol is running for school board and the Baxters put a sign up for her in their yard. But, it gets stolen, so Chuck brings over another one, feuding with Mike the entire time. Mike tells Vanessa that he's not really a "friends" guy, and then realizes that he hasn't talked to his best man in years... despite the fact that they live in the same city. [yikes! of the ten people in my bridal party, there's one only my husband keeps in touch with, two we only talk with a few times a year, but we otherwise keep up with the other seven... tell me that's not uncommon!] The second time the advertisement is stolen, the guys wind up chaining one to a tree.

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However, when the ladies are out to lunch, Vanessa learns that Carol wants to cut an after-school arts program that Vanessa launched, so she wants to pull her support. [ooh, now I hate Carol, too!] However, although the ladies find out they have many differences, Mike and Chuck discover that they are on the same page about a lot of things. [I'm probably being too hopeful, but maybe this is the set-up I'm looking for?]

Eve tells Mandy and Kristin that a hott guy wants to copy her homework, and both tell her to say "no" so that he will respect her. [when I was in high school, it didn't really matter how attractive someone was... if they wanted to copy, you let them, because sooner or later, you'd need some help, too.] She follows their advice, and he asks her out anyway, but in a group date setting. Kristin thinks that's a good thing, but Mandy says that's a bad thing. Turns out, the date sucks, and Eve only wants to hear Mandy's advice from now on. [but we all know that will change soon enough!]

At the store, Ryan is impressing Ed, and Kyle gets jealous.

Sean Saves the World: Doing as Your Parents Ask

Despite the fact that my mom was obsessed with Dirty Dancing when I was a kid, I totally didn't think about this episode being dance-oriented. The actual dance scenes were pretty short, and the episode really didn't have a lot of substance. If this is the best that the writers can do a mere five episodes into the series, I have little faith that it will last, so I'm out. The trickle-down effect of doing what your parents want wasn't a lost cause from the start, but it didn't play out in the most coherent way, and I wish it was more interesting... the balance between Sean at home and Sean at work interferes sometimes! Are you going to stick it out a little longer?

Chris Haston/NBC

Sean Saves the World "Nobody Puts Sean in a Corner" (S01E05): Sean wants to take a Christmas photo with Ellie, complete with vintage costumes, but she isn't interested. [I could TOTALLY get on board with this! Guys with Kids did a great job with it last season!] When Sean isn't interested in dancing with his mother in a competition, Ellie thinks she should be allowed to opt-out of things, too, like the Christmas picture. [hahaha. if only.] Because Sean wants the photo, he does the dancing... until Liz convinces him to fake an injury and get Hunter to dance instead. Max is upset that he wasn't offered the chance to dance with Lorna, but it's really just a case of being lonely and wanting to be included on everything... ever. [I can relate, but it is annoying!] As he has outsourced his chore, Ellie doesn't think the Christmas photo still needs to happen, so Sean enters the dance competition with Liz... only she really does get injured at the last second, so Max has to step in to be his partner. They win, and Sean gets his picture, even if Lorna wears go-go boots and a 60s dress in a 50s picture. [eye roll!]

Elementary - Holmes is Anti-Marriage, Unless it's Too Late

An interesting take on a police captain's trials and tribulations, Holmes doesn't seen like a good choice to turn to for moral support. It seems he and Watson are swapping roles to become more like each other, Watson wanting to beef up her analytical detective skills and Holmes left to try out emotional comforting.

Elementary "An Unnatural Arrangement" (S02E06): Holmes takes Watson to watch arrested men in the police station holding cells on a Friday night. Watson runs into a 'night detective' who asks 'just her' for ideas for a string on falafel cart robberies.

Captain Gregson's wife gets threatened with a gun in her house, but she got to a gun and shot him before he fled. After the police and the duo question Gregson and his wife, Gregson reveals he hasn't lived at home in about a month. Holmes and Watson begin going through Gregson's history, which leads into a discussion on Holmes believing marriage is caustic on a detective's career.

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After the invader's blood doesn't turn up a DNA match against anyone in the system, Holmes and Watson check up on a man who's been stalking Gregson and find Henry Bishop passed out on his bathroom floor with a gunshot wound in his shoulder. Bell is sure the invader will back off, but another man is killed by apparently the same person.

Watson gets slightly peeved when she finds out Holmes has solved the falafel cart robbery without her knowing. Upon hearing a witness describe a light-blue pickup truck parked in front of the house, Gregson confronts his wife about seeing a male friend. It does not go over well and they seem to have the same argument about him never being home because of work.

Interviewing the mother of the murder victim, it's revealed that his C.O. (commanding officer) lives near Captain Gregson and Holmes figures out a 'maps' program points to Gregson's house rather than the C.O.'s when when entering the C.O.'s address. Gregson breaks into the C.O.'s house only to find him dead. Afterward, Gregson confines in Holmes that his wife is seeing an old friend. He offers Watson for someone to talk to...

Holmes and Watson head off to visit the woman, Beth, with whom murder victim 1 had an affair while stationed in Afghanistan. Turns out, it wasn't really an affair, which removes the reason given by their first suspect for getting into a fight with victim 1 while stationed there for an archeological dig.

Holmes and Watson deduce that an artifact was taken from the Afganistan dig and identify it as a bowl that Holmes remembers in Beth's display case. Returning to her house with a search warrant and Detective Bell, the bowl is gone and they can't charge her with anything. Feeling bad about solving the falafel cart case and thereby robbing Watson of the opportunity to do so, he gives her access to all his cold cases that he's 'given his all' to.

After hearing witness statements that there were no disturbances having occurred between the duo's two visits, Watson realized that Beth's dog would have barked at any man that would have come in. Since there had been no barking, the dog had to know the man and they deduced it was her ex-husband. They track him down and he confesses to being her accomplice in stealing and fencing the artifacts. They return and arrest her.

Holmes checks into the 'friend' Gregson's wife has been seeing and tells him it seems she is trying to get a reaction out of him and not to give up. Watson opens the trunk with Holmes' old cases, solidifying that he did mean it when he said that they are partners and it does not matter which of them solves the case, as long as their cases get solved.

Fun Friday: Fraggles and Death

Close friends know that I'm really ignorant of YouTube. For example, aside from looking up a music video that everyone was talking about on Facebook, I'm not sure the last time I used YouTube. This is a stark contrast from the average user, who spends an hour and 41 minutes per month on YouTube. (the number might actually be much higher, as this source suggests the average viewer spends 7.7 hours a month watching Google sites, of which YouTube is a part!) This explains how I'm late to the game on viral videos. Oops.

But, the video I'm talking about today isn't even viral... in fact, fewer than 10,000 views have been logged over the past 3+ months. However, it's still pretty exciting (and, therefore, fun), at least for a Muppet lover like myself. I actually have studied Fraggle Rock pretty extensively and even presented a paper on it at a national conference back in 2009, so this compilation fascinates me, and I thought you might find it interesting as well. Now, it's no surprise that Fraggle Rock examined death, as there are a couple episodes (most notably, S01E17 "Marooned") that deal directly with the concept, but the sheer number of mentions in 96 episodes is impressive. (you can skip ahead to 2:19 if you don't want to hear the intro. and there's a minute of commentary at the end, too.)

Some highlights include:
- How many ways to die are mentioned... flattening/crushing, starvation, sacrifice, being eaten, poison, explosion, and freezing.
- Wembley hitting Sprocket in the face when he thinks the dog ate Gobo.
- How lightly Boober takes death... "we've all got to go sometime!"
- Junior Gorg believes that he's killed Mokey, and we see the reactions of Ma Gorg, Gobo and Red.

Rhett Pennell

what stands out to you about this compilation?