The Best TV Season and Series Finales

Clockwise from top left, photos courtesy of tvaddictsblog.com; connectin.com; combom.co.uk; unrealitymag.com.

Sorry to have been MIA for the last week, but I was busy graduating from college. (Your dear writer is now the proud holder of a Bachelor of Arts! Yay!) Today however, as promised, I'll be finishing off FinaleStravaganza with a list of the five best season and series finales of all time. (Well, at least my favorite season and series finales.) Without any further ado, I'll start with the list of season finales.

5. South Park, "Cartman's Mom Is A Dirty Slut"

The first season finale of Trey Parker and Matt Stone's filthy, sharply satirical, button-pushing series both showcased the dirty humor the show was known for, but also provided an on-the-nose parody of cliffhanger season finales. The plot centered on Cartman's quest to find out who his father was, from a lineup of suspects that ranged from Chef to the Denver Broncos. The ending provided an absurd cliffhanger, in which Cartman's test results are delayed because someone shot the geneticist who knew the results. The episode was not only a razor-sharp parody of season finales, but it also provided viewers with the knowledge that, if Cartman ever hears the beginning of the Styx song "Come Sail away," he has to sing the entire song. And thus, a viral video was born.

4. Community, "A Fistful of Paintballs" and "For a Few Paintballs More"

 This finale was recent, but boy was it great. The two-part paintball war was as epic as they come, and the genre parodies - first a Western, then a Star Wars-style action film - were clever without being too all-consuming. You can read my full recap here, but the final hour of Community's second season managed to be laugh-out-loud funny, action-packed and emotional, all within the absurdist framework of a giant paintball war. This finale proved that Community is one of the smartest, funniest, most original shows on TV.

3. Fringe, "Over There Part 2"

Many people prefer the first season finale of Fringe, "There's More Than One of Everything," in which the parallel universe was revealed through a jaw-dropping shot of Olivia in an office in the World Trade Center. I, however, prefer the second season finale, with its action-packed fight between the Fringe team from our world and the team from Over There, the sacrifice of Leonard Nimoy's William Bell, and the final shocking twist. The last image of the episode - Ourlivia staring out of a cell on Liberty Island, begging for her freedom, while the other Olivia was safe on our side - was absolutely chilling, a perfect ending to the season and a great set-up for the war between the universes that culminated in the third season finale.

2. The Vampire Diaries, "Founder's Day"

The first season finale of the CW's addictive drama was, like most other episodes, packed to the gills with revelations, plot twists, emotional moments, and snarky Damon humor. The high point, however, was the final-scene revelation in which the woman we though was Elena, who had just shared a kiss with Damon, was revealed to be none other than Katherine Pierce. Bringing Katherine into the story was brilliant, and made the audience rethink every scene featuring Elena in the episode. The reveal of Tyler's supernatural abilities and Caroline's car accident were also great, and very important for the next season, but even these moments paled in comparison to the Katherine reveal. After the first season finale, the second season kept the action going as fast as possible, and never let up on the twists or the reveals. That's the mark of the good season finale; it kick starts an excellent next season, and The Vampire Diaries certainly did that.

1. Lost, "Through the Looking Glass," parts 1 and 2

The series finale of Lost may have left a bad taste in many viewers' mouths - I certainly felt it was too heavy on the spirituality, and too light on the answers - but no one can deny the power of the third season finale. "Through the Looking Glass" was full of emotional moments, like the tear-jerking death of Charlie Pace and the arrival of the helicopter that, at least for the moment, signaled rescue. However, the real impact of the episode came with the final scene, where a disheveled, alcoholic Jack was revealed to be not in a flashback, but in a flash-forward. The scene completely reinvented the show, introducing a whole new set of questions - how did Jack make it off the island? Who else managed to escape? Who was in the coffin? - while leaving our collective minds reeling. These two episodes were so powerful, they set a new standard for the show, one that the final season never managed to live up to. For the two hours of "Through the Looking Glass," however, the potential was unlimited.

And now, for the my four favorite series finales.

4. Freaks and Geeks, "Discos and Dragons"

Freaks and Geeks is a show that falls firmly in the category of "canceled too soon." The Judd Apatow-produced series featured many of today's leading comedic actors - Seth Rogen, James Franco and Jason Segel to name a few - in a show that was both heartwarming, funny and honest, a fine-grained portrait of the struggles of high school. The series finale was nothing more and nothing less than an encapsulation of the character's struggles, the most poignant being a storyline that featured Linda Cardellini's Lindsay struggling to decide whether to take part in an academic summit, or to spend the summer following the Grateful Dead around the country. It doesn't seem like that big a decision, but in the world of Freaks and Geeks it seemed like it could determine the course of Lindsay's entire life. The final episode was just as deft, funny and touching as the rest of the series, and left the rest of us wondering why this lovely, subtle show would never get a second season.

3. Arrested Development, "Development Arrested"

Another episode that perfectly sums up the series that preceded it, "Development Arrested" was a showcase for the meta humor and absurdist twists that made the series so funny and unpredictable. From Michael finally realizing that he doesn't want to take care of his family, to Buster apparently losing his other hand to the seal with the bowtie, to producer and narrator extraordinaire Ron Howard making a cameo and sparking hope of an Arrested Development movie (hope that just keeps getting destroyed), the episode was everything we loved about this too-short-lived sitcom. Save our Bluths, everyone, and pray for the movie!

2. Doctor Who, "The End of Time" parts 1 and 2

I know that "The End of Time" isn't technically a series finale, but since it marked the end of both David Tennant's performance as the Doctor and Russell T. Davies as showrunner, I'm counting it. The episode wasn't necessarily the best Doctor Who episode ever - that would be the Series Three two-parter "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood" - but it featured great performances by Tennant, John Simm as the Master, and Bernard Cribbins as Wilfred Mott, as well as some memorable visuals and a lovely final sequence in which the Doctor silently bids goodbye to all his past companions. The storyline with the return of the Time Lords - led by Timothy Dalton of all people - may have been a bit silly, but it offered a wonderful moment of redemption for the Master, and the Doctor's death and desperation to hang on to life were sad and, given the way he died to save Wilfred rather than at the hand of the Master, tragically ironic. Plus, there were no Daleks!

1. Scrubs, "My Finale"

Whatever you may think of the later seasons of Scrubs - I for one certainly found them uneven, and Zach Braff's J.D. became much whinier and more self-involved as the series went on - you can't deny the pitch-perfect emotional power of the finale. (And yes, this is the real finale, because I choose to pretend that the strange medical school spinoff never happened.)  From J.D. and Turk's inability to get their goodbye right to Braff's final scene with Dr. Cox. every moment struck a wonderful balance of sadness and laughter. The final scene, in which J.D. imagines his life playing, in a series of home movies, to the sound of Peter Gabriel's cover of "The Book of Love," it is a moment of bittersweet sadness that never fails to bring tears to my eyes. It's a beautiful scene that brings magnificent closure to the show and J.D.'s character, and leaves the audience perfectly satisfied.

Of course, I'm sure you all have opinions about what I did and did not include, so sound off in the comments! (Although if any of you include the Lost finale in the best-of list, we will have words.)

"Glee" Finale: Well, at least Mercedes got to do something...

Mark Salling, Chord Overstreet, Harry Shum Jr. and Kevin McHale in "New York," the second season finale of Glee. Photo courtesy of starpulse.com.

(Warning: SPOILERS ahead for those who haven't yet seen the season finale.)

I've complained about Glee a lot in the past. I've been disappointed by the way this once smart, feel-good show became a parody of itself, a series of seemingly unrelated episodes designed only to shoehorn in Top 40 hits and increase iTunes sales. The finale didn't really do anything to change my mind; while the usual pop hits were eschewed in favor of some uninteresting original songs, a plug for Matthew Morrison's new album, and a truly terrible Madonna song, the story was just as inconsistent as ever, and the characters once again seemed like completely different people than they did last week.

Let's start with the good moments, shall we? First of all, and most exciting, Mercedes (Amber Riley) actually has a love interest in the person of Chord Overstreet's Sam. Let's all just pause and let that sink in for a moment. As I've discussed before, Mercedes is the most ill-used character on the entire show, and until now she has never been allowed to have a love interest, while the rest of the characters have hooked up in a quantity of different permutations that could give the teens on Gossip Girl a run for their money. Does the extremely brief glimpse of Mercedes and Sam's relationship at the end of the episode - not to mention the fact that it seems to have stemmed from their pity date to prom - make up for two seasons of neglect? Well, no, but it's a good sign. Plus, it adds credence to my theory that executives and showrunners at FOX read this blog on a regular basis.

Another nice moment was the resolution of the Brittany/Santana storyline. It's slightly misleading to call it a resolution, since things were left pretty open-ended, but the final conversation between the two characters was sweet and, while they didn't end up together, it did leave the door open for a future romantic relationship while making sure that Santana knew how Brittany felt about her. It was a lovely, understated moment for a show that does not generally appear to know what the word "understated" means.

The third interesting storyline of the episode - and the only one that produced a remotely compelling musical number - was the moment when Kurt and Rachel snuck onto the stage of Wicked and, with the help of the world's most understanding security guard, sang a duet of "For Good." Now, "For Good" is one of my least favorite Wicked songs - it's saccharine and rather boring. However, compared to the rest of music contained in this episode, it was great. Which isn't really a good sign.

Now, onto the bad. I suspect that one of the reasons I disliked this episode so much is because I don't buy into the romanticized version of New York that was the focus of so much of this episode. My personal experience of New York has been that the city is filthy, crowded and hostile. I get stressed out just from being there. Based on my time in the city, if a group of Ohio teenagers suddenly burst into a terrible mash-up of some awful Madonna song and "New York, New York," they would be mocked and possibly spit on. (Also, can we talk about the unreality of a glee club who, only a few episodes ago, didn't have any money to go to Nationals, would be staying the Intercontinental Times Square? Or Finn taking Rachel to Sardi's, where an appetizer will run you between $15 and $20?) To me, New York City has never been a city of artistic inspiration, but rather a city of people yelling at me because I had the audacity to be from somewhere other than NYC. It's apparently my own personal failing.

However, despite my infinite dislike of New York City, the major problem I had with this episode was the general inconsistency of the characters. Will Schuester, who is perhaps the most inconsistent character on the show, had a baffling character arc. First he wanted to stay in New York to work on April Rhode's broadway show, a decision he made clear in the last episode; then, all of a sudden, after singing a song off of Matthew Morrison's new album in the theater and being told, in the corniest way possible, that he "had real talent" by an usher, he decided to quit on his Broadway dreams and go back to Lima, thanks to some backstabbing by Vocal Adrenaline coach Dustin Goolsby (a wasted Cheyenne Jackson).

Rachel's character arc was just as confounding. First she was in love with Finn, then she refused to be with him because she thought it would conflict with her "career" (at which point I wanted to yell "You're still in high school! You don't have a career), because she apparently forgot that she's still a year away from graduation and their last shot a relationship lasted considerably less than a year. Then they kissed on stage, which apparently somehow cost the glee club the competition - which they lost, by the way, although it was a fairly unimportant plot point - and then they made out in the library and decided to get back together anyway, and you know what, I really don't care anymore.

A few other random things happened: Quinn wanted to destroy the glee club's chances at winning (because apparently their hastily written, insipid original songs weren't going to do that anyway) but settled for getting a haircut instead; Brittany wrote an awesome song about a cup; and Puck, Sam, Mike and Artie serenaded Finn and Rachel with a song from The Aristocats. Other stuff probably happened, but this episode was such a grab bag of random plots and moments that, as Todd VanDerWerff pointed out in his recap for the AV Club, seemed to have dropped in from another show entirely, that I'm having hard time remembering what it was.

All in all, this episode encapsulated the problems of the extremely uneven second season. There were moments that were lovely, and brought back the original sense of the show as a series about a group of misfit kids and their hopes and dreams, but the vast majority of moments were just a grab for attention, ratings and iTunes sales. I'm looking forward to next year's NBC musical series Smash, which appears to feature original songs that are largely related to the plot and characterizations that are consistent from episode to episode. However, in order to make time for Smash, I might have to jettison Glee, and I'm really okay with that. A this point, even the promise of Mercedes getting a story can't keep me interested. The writers will probably just forget about it two episodes in anyway.

"Game of Thrones" Generates Even MORE Controversy (this time, it's racial)

Jason Momoa as Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones. Photo courtesy of blastr.com.

As HBO's Game of Thrones continues to get better and better, it also continues to generate controversy. The latest complaint (coming after Ginia Bellafante's argument that Game of Thrones is just for boys and allegations that the show was glorifying rape) is that the show's portrayal of the nomadic Dothraki is racially problematic. (Warning: SPOILERS ahead for those who have not yet seen Episode 6.) According to Maureen Ryan's recap of "A Golden Crown," the Dothraki scenes "contain a lot of people of color, and they also contain a lot of gratuitous nudity, and it all makes for a problematic aesthetic and message." Ryan goes on to say, "there was absolutely no need for that many dancing women in Viserys' death scene to be topless."

Ryan's argument sounds, at least to me, very similar to arguments that are often leveled at the Haradrim, the Southrons and the Easterlings in Lord of the Rings. (For a fairly comprehensive overview of the subject, check out the discussion at TolkienGateway.net.) These faceless antagonists are generally described as either "swarthy" or "dark-skinned," and the problem was only exacerbated by the film versions, in which the Haradrim and Easterlings had a distinctly African and Middle Eastern appearance, respectively. The film's portrayal in particular caused many groups to cry foul, accusing Tolkien and director Peter Jackson of dividing the good and evil forces along racial lines.

To me, the portrayal of the Dothraki is considerably less problematic than the portrayal of the Haradrim and the Easterlings in Tolkien. Even though Tolkien repeatedly stated that he didn't want his books to be read as an allegory, people have spent the years since the trilogy's publication reading it as an allegory of everything from the Cold War to World War I. The faceless quality of the forces of evil invites comparisons to propaganda painting "enemy" groups as nothing more than an inhuman, faceless multitude, and Tolkien's stark good vs. evil dichotomy leaves little room for sympathy. Game of Thrones, on the other hand, has already portrayed the Dothraki as a much more sympathetic group than, say, the Lannisters (with the exception of Tyrion). I was certainly rooting for Khal Drogo when he poured a pot of molten gold on Viserys' head, despite the brutality of the act. Of course, that could have been because Viserys is, with the exception of Joffrey and the creepily still breast-feeding Robert Arryn, the most unlikeable character in the show.

To me, the two scenes that heavily focused on the Dothraki in this episode - Viserys' death scene, and the earlier scene in which Daenerys eats a horse's heart - were intended to highlight the differences between Daenerys and Viserys by showing their reaction to the seemingly strange Dothraki customs. Viserys is, as always, appalled by the Dothraki rituals because he is convinced that he is better than these people, that as the heir to the house of Targaryen he is entitled to their loyalty and servility. Daenerys, on the other hand, has spent the series coming into her own as a woman, a Khaleesi, and now a Targaryen, and her acceptance by the Dothraki is a result of the way she has embraced their culture, eating horse hearts and topless women and all. Indeed, I generally feel that the Dothraki come off much better than many of their counterparts across the Narrow Sea, and Daenerys understands that.

I also take issue with Ryan's insistence that the bare-breasted women in the Dothraki court are reflecting badly on the Dothraki in racial terms, making them look more primitive than the Northerners. First of all, it's not like there's a shortage of breasts and vaginas on display in King's Landing; we've already seen both King Robert and Littlefinger cavorting with multiple prostitutes at once, and in the next episode (which is available a week early on the HBOGo App, and which I would strongly suggest watching if you have the chance) we are treated to a non-Dothraki display of girl-on-girl action that far surpasses the scene between Daenerys and Doreah in the second episode.

Second, I wouldn't argue that its necessarily incorrect to show a group of culturally different people who have different attitudes about bare breasts and sex. There are many groups of people who exist or have existed in our world who have completely different conceptions of what is taboo or not; I wrote my undergraduate thesis about an oral epic from the Siberian Republic of Tuva which features descriptions of breasts and genitalia, and is commonly told in front of young children. The Dothraki are not the people of Westeros - if you read the series as an allegory of medieval Europe, they're comparable to the Mongols, who hail from the same region as modern Tuva - and it wouldn't be surprising if their attitudes toward sex were more along the lines of Tuvan attitudes, rather than European ones.

Third, despite the fact that Game of Thrones can be read as an allegory of medieval Europe, and is based at least in part on the historical War of the Roses, it is important to remember that it is a fantasy series. This isn't England and Africa, this is Westeros and Dothrak, and as such is distanced from any sort of racial statement about the actual world. Yes, the Dothraki can be read as a counterpart to the Mongols, but they can also be read purely on their own terms as nomadic horse lords who have a chance of taking over the Seven Kingdoms. After all, it's not like the people of Westeros are anything resembling Christian - there are two major religions in Westeros, distinguished by whether the adherent prays to the old gods or the new, and neither of them resembles Christianity. This makes any sort of allegorical reading, particularly in terms of race and primitive/advanced cultures, problematic.

Of course, some of you probably agree with me, and you have every right to. Sound off in the comments, and let me know if you think that Game of Thrones has a race problem.

The Most Exciting (New) Fall Shows

Clockwise from top left: James Caviezel and Michael Emerson in Person of Interest (photo courtesy of thevoiceoftv.com); Stephen Lang in Terra Nova (photo courtesy of blastr.com); Sarah Jones and Sam Neill in Alcatraz (photo courtesy of zap2it.com); and Christina Applegate and Will Arnett in Up All Night (photo courtesy of daemonstv.com)

As one TV season wraps up, so the buzz for the next season begins. Pilot season is over, folks, and networks are finalizing their fall schedules. Without further ado, I bring you the new shows that I'm most excited to see next fall.

Alcatraz (FOX)

Alcatraz doesn't start until midseason, but it has a pedigree that is worth the wait. The show was created by J.J. Abrams, and thanks to Fringe and the new Star Trek movie, I will watch anything featuring that name, despite the quickly forgotten debacle that was Undercovers. The trailer promises twisty sci-fi craziness, centering around a time-traveling prison break being investigated by Jorge Garcia and Sarah Jones. Throw in Jurassic Park's Sam Neill as a mysterious tycoon attempting to get to the bottom of the mystery, plus some seriously creepy images of the newly abandoned prison and the bewildered, violent inmates, and Alcatraz promises to be one of the most intriguing new shows of the fall.

Terra Nova (FOX)

Fox's Terra Nova doesn't have the best buzz right now; the Steven Spielberg-produced prehistoric epic has been in development for quite a while now, and was supposed to be Fox's big new show last season. However, with Spielberg at the helm and Jason O'Mara (Life on Mars) and Stephen Lang (Avatar) starring, it sounds quite promising. The first look trailer is great, with images of a smog-covered, convincingly dystopian future contrasted with the lush jungles of prehistoric Earth. The premise is certainly interesting; colonists from the future are being sent to the time of the dinosaurs in an attempt to change the past and save the polluted world of the future. (Between this, Alcatraz and Fringe, next year is going be time travel-heavy). Plus, dinosaurs! And fights with dinosaurs!

Up All Night (NBC)

This one's pretty simple: Will Arnett and Christina Applegate starring in a comedy about a couple having their first baby, accompanied by the hilarious Maya Rudolph in a supporting role, is just about everything you need to make a show really funny. The copious profanity on display in the trailer is just the cherry on top.

Smash (NBC)

I'm hesitant to recommend this show, mostly because I suffer from a symptom I like to call Post-Traumatic Glee Disorder, and any musical TV show is likely to trigger flashbacks of excessively auto-tuned renditions of the latest Top 40 hits, whether or not they are relevant to the plot. However, I'm tentatively prepared to recommend NBC's Smash. After all, it stars Debra Messing, Jack Davenport (FlashForward) and Anjelica Huston as Broadway producers working to produce a show about Marilyn Monroe. Ingenue Katherine McPhee (of American Idol fame) may not be able to act, but we at least know she can sing. And since the show will feature original music, we know that it won't rely on rehashes of Top 40 hits that derail the plot in order to sell more songs on iTunes.

Person of Interest (CBS)

This show is perhaps the single most exciting offering on the fall schedule. First of all, it stars Michael Emerson (Lost's Ben Linus) as a mysterious figure who uses existing government surveillance equipment to monitor crimes and prevent them before they happen. I would honestly watch Emerson read the phone book aloud for twenty episodes, but I suspect Person of Interest might be more interesting than that; it's a collaboration between J.J. Abrams (who is ever so prolific this season) and Jonathan Nolan (Christopher's brother, and a writer of The Dark Knight). Admittedly, I'm a bit concerned over whether J.J. Abrams can handle three shows at once, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Bonus points for co-star Jesus (James Caviezel from The Passion of the Christ).

Torchwood: Miracle Day (STARZ)

Torchwood isn't exactly a new show; it ran for two seasons and the excellent Children of Earth miniseries on BBC. Fans have been waiting forever for the next season, which is set in America and being shown on Starz. The bigger American TV budget should allow for bigger action sequences, and the premise is suitably creepy; an entire day goes by in which not a single person dies on Earth. Watch the fantastically eerie teaser trailer, and tell me you're not insanely excited for this.

"The Big Bang Theory" Finale: And Then There Was Raj

Kaley Cuoco, Jim Parsons and Kunal Nayyar in "The Roomate Transmogrification." Photo courtesy of toomuchtotivo.com.

I have to admit, for most of this season I felt that The Big Bang Theory was in a serious slump. The premise was growing stale, Jim Parson's Sheldon, while still entertaining, was even more one-note than before, and Kunal Nayyar's Raj was too often sidelined as a result of a new focus on Howard (Simon Helberg) and his girlfriend, Bernadette (Melissa Rauch). I don't know if the season finale necessarily turned the show around - after all, there is every chance that these problems will come back full force next season - but tonight's episode was a return to form. Tightly plotted and full of laughs, the episode had its flaws, but overall it was an entertaining throwback to the first or second season. (Warning: SPOILERS ahead for those who haven't yet seen "The Roommate Transmogrification.")

There were a few moments in the episode that didn't click for me, and I want to get them out of the way so I can get to the good stuff. The biggest problem I had with the episode - and a problem I've had with the season in general - is the way that Sheldon's character has somehow become even more neurotic and socially inept than he was originally. While there were moments in the episode that featured typical Sheldon humor without going over the top, like his jokes about Leonard's flatulence in the opening Cheesecake Factory scene, much of the story reduced him to the one-note awkward scientist who hasn't changed since the first season. The roommate paperwork he gave to Raj in particular was a joke that has been repeated ad nauseam, and while Parson's delivery still earned a few chuckles, the joke has worn a little thin.

I understand why the show chooses to showcase Parsons - he's an extremely talented comic actor, and Sheldon is the show's breakout character - but I wish they would give the character something more to do than just be neurotic and socially incompetent. Parsons is a great comic talent, but he's also capable of much more range, as the rave reviews he's earning in the Broadway revival of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart demonstrate. Obviously, The Big Bang Theory is a broad comedy, and there isn't a lot of room in the episodic sitcom format for serious character development; however, Parsons is a talented enough actor that the writers could give him a little more to do without upsetting the balance of the show.

The problems I had with the Sheldon storyline, however, didn't detract from the episode as a whole. There were some great, laugh-out-loud funny moments that were grounded by some good plot threads. One of my favorite scenes the scene where Raj, having taken off his noise-canceling headphones to get a snack, overhears Leonard and Priya (Aarti Mann) having extremely nerdy, Star Trek-themed sex. Hearing Leonard and Priya's banter through the door was hilarious, and Nayyar's reactions completely sold the scene. I've always been a big Kunal Nayyar fan, and one of my favorite things about this episode was his central role.

Of course, a discussion of Raj's role in the finale wouldn't be complete without his surely buzz-inducing hookup with Penny. Kunal Nayyar and Kaley Cuoco are my two favorite actors from the show, and even though I could see their hookup coming from a mile away, they have such great chemistry and comic timing that it didn't matter. I particularly liked the moment when Penny, having woken up in bed with Raj, first sees his hand, then follows his arm with her eyes until she reaches his face. The moment went on for a long time, but not too long, and Cuoco's dawning expression of dismay was priceless.

While one pair hooked up, two other couples were falling apart. Leonard, who was bothered that Priya refused to tell her parents about him, got a shock when he found out that she was planning on moving back to India in a month. Raj was feeling threatened because Bernadette had just received her doctorate and had been offered a high-paying job at a pharmaceutical company, thus making her both the more educated and higher-earning half of the couple. Neither of these plot threads were particularly groundbreaking, but they were played well by Johnny Galecki, Mann, Helberg and Rauch. The Leonard/Priya story in particular was compelling because Leonard is really the audience's stand-in; he may be smart and geeky, but he's the character, even more so than Penny, who really stand back from the group and comments on their social awkwardness. (Of course, it's possible that Penny is the real audience stand-in, and that I identify with Leonard because I'm also a geek, and I have my socially awkward moments.)

The Big Bang Theory will never be a groundbreaking show in the way that Community or 30 Rock can be (although the latter's better days are behind it). It is generally, however, a solid half-hour of laughs that, in episodes like this, is well put-together and streamlined, and it has a cast of excellent comic actors. The show can't attain the insane heights of a "Modern Warfare" or "MILF Island," but when it's good, there isn't a more consistent comedy on TV. Let's hope that the show uses the momentum from this episode to bring season 5 back up to the level of the first two seasons.

A few random notes that didn't come up in the review:

• The moment when Penny confessed to Raj that she made a mistake in dumping Leonard was sweet, and filled with the kind of sentiment that doesn't usually come up on this show. Props to Kaley Cuoco for making the moment seem organic.
• The writers are clearly trying to start season 5 with a clean slate, but I really hope that Leonard's relationship doesn't crash and burn. I don't always like Priya, but Johnny Galecki brings such identifiable sadness to his character that it hurts when he's unhappy.
• Bernadette giving Howard a Rolex was funny; her comment, "I just want my baby to have pretty things" seemed forced.
• Speaking of Howard, any character progress made by his unseen mother in last week's episode was negated by her lewd come-ons to Raj.
• Penny's reaction when she realized that Raj couldn't talk to her even after sleeping with her was great.
• Loved that while Penny and Raj were drinking wine, Sheldon was drinking filtered water.
• The moment when Leonard shuts the computer on Priya's parents was really funny in an understated way.

"Castle" Finale: Beckett's Betrayal

Stana Katic in "Knockout," the season finale of Castle. Photo courtesy of wetpaint.com.

I've mentioned before that I prefer Castle when it doesn't take itself too seriously. I like that the show can be fun and light-hearted despite the murder that opens every episode. While I do enjoy some of the more serious episodes - the second season two-parter "Tick, Tick, Tick..." and "Boom!" is excellent - I prefer it when even those episodes have some humor, such as the entertaining interaction between Dana Delaney's Jordan Shaw and Castle in the aforementioned two-parter.

This week's finale, however, was extremely light on the humor. Other than an early moment in which Castle brags to Ryan and Esposito about the upcoming publication of a graphic novel based on his characters (which is a real thing, apparently), the episode's tone was one of ominous seriousness, akin to one of the more dramatic episodes of Law & Order: SVU. Which is exactly the sort of thing I don't like to see on a normally lighthearted show like Castle.

I'm not saying the season finale was bad - it had a lot of scenes that worked, and the two major twists were extremely well-executed - but there were moments when the tone veered too far toward the dramatic, and those moments rang hollow. For me, the two most jarring scenes were Castle's confrontation with Beckett and his removal of Beckett from the hangar before Captain Montgomery's last stand. The first scene in particular, in which Castle tells Beckett she needs to stop investigating her mother's murder, and accuses her of having "crawled inside [her] mother's murder" to hide, rang false to me. While the beginning of the scene was good, addressing the tension between Castle and Beckett in a straightforward way, the moment escalated quickly into melodrama, with Castle blaming everything from Beckett's endangerment of her own life to her bad relationships with men on her mother's murder.

Besides the unnecessary melodrama, I didn't like this scene because it didn't fit with the previously established relationship between the two protagonists. I don't buy for a second that Castle really thinks Beckett refuses to open up to him because of her mother's murder, and I also don't buy that Castle would really try to convince her to stop pursuing the man who killed her mother. He knows what this case means to her, and he also knows from previous experience that any attempt to tell her what to do on this case will be ignored. The scene seemed less like an interaction that sprang organically from the characters, a more like a plot device added to the episode to create drama.

The thing was, the writers certainly didn't need to create drama. The revelation that Captain Montgomery (Ruben Santiago-Hudson) was involved with the case and was betraying Beckett, and his final decision to sacrifice himself in order to save her, was a dramatic enough arc in itself, and one that earned the emotional payoff much more than Beckett and Castle's fight. (The arc even worked despite the clichéd "good cop dies right before his retirement" element that I sensed was coming ever since Montgomery announced that he was retiring.) This arc led to one of the best emotional scenes in the episode - the fight between Ryan and Esposito. Jon Huertas and Seamus Dever played that scene beautifully, but the real reason the scene worked was because it was completely organic to the characters and the situation: their betrayal at finding out that their boss and role model was dirty was honest, and it didn't even seem over the top when Esposito punched Ryan.

Of course, the scene that everyone will be talking about during the hiatus is the final scene, in which Beckett is shot by a sniper while speaking at Captain Montgomery's funeral and Castle finally tells her that he loves her. That moment, like the Captain's death, was an emotional scene that felt earned rather than forced; it made perfect sense that Castle would articulate his feelings for Beckett only when he realized he might have lost her forever, and I hope that this revelation will lead to some actual movement in the will they/won't they relationship between the characters. If Beckett wakes up in the hospital next season and doesn't remember Castle's words (and yes, she will wake up in the hospital; I knew all along she wouldn't be killed, even before I read an interview with creator Andrew W. Marlowe in which he revealed that she would be back next season), again stalling the resolution to that particular plot thread, I'm going to be majorly annoyed.

I've been fairly hard on the episode, largely because of the over-dramatic scenes and lack of humor (although Castle acting as a pallbearer in a suit and sunglasses, while the other pallbearers were all cops wearing dress blues, was a nice visual gag), but I seem to be in the minority here. Sandra Gonzalez of Entertainment Weekly loved the episode, finding it completely devastating and emotionally fraught. Indeed, her two favorite scenes were my two least favorite scenes, demonstrating that one person's melodrama can easily be another person's emotional impact. My boyfriend, an avid Castle fan himself, was also quite fond of the episode, and didn't find the more emotional scenes jarring or melodramatic.

I think the difference between my take on the episode and the takes of those who thought it was great (and I'll repeat here, I didn't think it was bad, just uneven) is that I'm a recent Castle convert. I started watching the show midway through the current season, and while I've seen a number of episodes, they haven't been in any particular order and I certainly haven't seen all of them. In particular, I wasn't as involved in the Johanna Beckett murder storyline as someone who had seen the show from the beginning, and was thus unaffected by scenes that, to those who were more invested in the plot thread, were important and moving.

I think this underlines problem for a show like Castle, a problem that will leave viewers divided on serious episodes devoted to long-term story arcs. Castle falls squarely on the episodic end of the serialized/episodic continuum, which makes it easy for viewers to dive in at any point in the series without having to catch up on everything that has happened so far. This makes it much easier for the show to pick up viewers in later seasons (unlike, say, Fringe or The Vampire Diaries, for which you need to have a knowledge of all the previous episodes in order to follow the show), but it also makes it problematic to have an episode that, like this one, is so focused on the serialized arc.

For viewers who have been watching from the beginning its a great, emotional episode that answers a lot of questions, but for latecomers it is confusing (luckily for me, I had someone to explain the story) and overly dramatic, because viewers who only started tuning in later, or who missed a previous Johanna Beckett episode, aren't particularly invested in the story. An episode like this walks a fine line between accessible and incomprehensible, and the finale definitely stepped over that line a few times. That said, I still love Castle, and I'm excited to see what changes are in store for next season. I for one would like to see Ryan and Esposito promoted (together) to Captain. Or, alternately, Jane Lynch could leave her grating, increasingly inconsistent Sue Sylvester behind and come work for the NYPD. How cool would that be?

"Fringe" Finale: A Paradox Explains (almost) Everything

Emily Meade, Jasika Nicole, Joshua Jackson and Anna Torv in "The Day We Died." Photo courtesy of fringetelevision.com.

Fringe fans certainly have a reason to be grateful this summer. I'm sure everyone who watched the finale heaved a huge sigh of relief that there will be a fourth season, because while "The Day We Died" was an excellent season finale, it would have been a terrible series finale. (Note: SPOILERS ahead, so if you haven't seen the finale yet, stop reading.)

There was a lot to love about this episode of Fringe, and I want to focus on those. So, I'm going to get my minor quibbles with the episode out of the way first. The biggest problem I had with "The Day We Died" was the explanation for why Walter can't change that he sent the machine back in time, but Peter is perfectly capable of recalling his consciousness to the present and changing his actions. I'm normally okay with the pseudo-science of Fringe - in fact, I find it quite entertaining - but there was something blatantly wrong with Walter's I can't change the time frame, but you can work within the time frame explanation. It seemed too much like the writers just invented it to push the plot along, rather than seeming organic to the Fringe-verse. It also worries me slightly; many other shows have gotten bogged down in time travel storylines (I'm looking at you, Lost), and I hope the writers handle this development well.

My other (much less important) quibble with the episode was the distracting whiteness of Walternate's hair. I know that he was made up to look older (although, with the exception of Ella, everyone else looked the same age), but his hair looked like it had been made into a bio-luminescent trap by a colony of glow worms. I could barely focus on anything he was saying.

Enough complaints. I really, really liked this episode. I really enjoyed Future Earth, and I would love to go back there someday. As I mentioned previously, I was hoping that Fringe would just go for broke and set a good chunk of next season in the future. I knew that wasn't going to happen as soon as Olivia got shot, but I stand by that line of reasoning. There are so many teases of events - like what happened in Detroit, and that shot of the vortex in the Thames - that I would have loved to find out more about, and I really enjoyed the dynamics of the future Fringe team. There were also some great character development moments in the episode; one of my favorites was watching Olivia effortlessly use her telepathic abilities to catch a box that was about to crash to the ground. I wanted to spend more time with that Olivia, a strong, confident woman who is now in charge of Fringe Division and who has honed her powers to the point where she can perform such delicate maneuvers. Anna Torv portrayed Olivia with an effortless confidence that she doesn't usually have, and I loved every second of it.

It was an episode of all-around outstanding performances - besides Torv's portrayal of Olivia, Joshua Jackson did a great job showing Peter's anger and despair at Olivia's death, and Lance Reddick was even more imposing than usual with a badass glass eye - but, as usual, one stood out. John Noble's performance as the imprisoned Walter (a man who, in fifteen years time, is blamed for everything that is going wrong with the world) was a delicate balance between a man who has been completely broken and the old Walter, a man with a childlike sense of wonder and scientist's drive to find all the answers. The scene between Walter and Olivia is a lovely, quiet moment in an action-packed episode, beautifully acted by both Torv and Noble.

Noble also does a great job with Walternate in this episode, and showing the ways in which Walter and Walternate differ. At their core, they are the same broken man; Walter is broken because of his guilt over the destruction of the other universe, while Walternate is broken because he is the only one left from his world. Their reactions to their grief, however, are completely different. While Walter philosophically waits in prison, accepting his punishment, Walternate becomes more calloused, more willing to take the other world down with him at all costs. The scene between Peter and Walternate is wonderful in spite of the bio-luminescent hair, because it shows that Walternate is a man who has lost everything, and is now willing to do absolutely everything in his power to exact his vengeance. This is not a man who would take joy in the long-missed pleasures of a swivel chair.

Of course, while the future storyline was great, the major talking point of the episode was the ending, which I thought was great and promises good things for next season. I really like the idea of the two worlds being forced to work together in order to save both universes, and I look forward to seeing the interactions between Walter and Walternate, Olivia and Fauxlivia next season. In particular, I think that the two Olivias are going to make a great team; they're much less divided than Walter and Walternate to begin with, and we've recently seen Fauxlivia and the rest of the Earth-2 Fringe team becoming suspicious of Walternate's agenda. Plus, the charming and delightful Lincoln Lee (Seth Gabel) was upgraded to series regular for next year, which almost certainly means more involvement for the other Fringe team.

I do have a few questions about the ramifications of Peter's disappearance. (And speaking of the disappearance, I really dug the creepy scene in which the Observers, gathered on Liberty Island, explain that he's gone now. It was well done, eerie and explanatory at the same time.) What reasons do the two Walters have for their conflict now? Does baby Henry still exist? Does Peter's non-existence mean that we will no longer have to deal with the love triangle between the younger Bishop and the two Olivias? (God I hope so). I'm assuming that Peter is going to be found/rematerialized eventually, as I can't imagine that Joshua Jackson would be completely written off the show, so what happens when he comes back? Will the others' memories of him come back as well, or will he be a stranger? Basically, I can't wait for Fringe's return in the fall, and I'm so thankful for it's renewal. Because seriously, how terrible would it have been if that was the note the show left us on?