THAT Scene: how Castle betrayed its main character (and the audience)

When Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) tortures an injured man for information, it sells out the character in the name of plot momentum.

THAT Scene is a recurring feature that takes a closer look at a single scene that exemplifies a particular show, theme or moment in time. The scene might be good or bad, but it will always be memorable and worth talking about.

When judged alongside other serious Castle episodes (for the record, the worst kind of Castle episodes), "Target," the first half of the Alexis-gets-kidnapped two-parter that ends tonight with "Hunt," is actually pretty solid. The hour does a good job of building to the reveal that Alexis (Molly Quinn) is missing, first by playing Castle's increasing paranoia over the Columbia-set mystery for laughs, then having Castle and Beckett discover that Alexis was with Sara El-Masri (Karen David) the night she went missing, and finally revealing that Castle's daughter was the kidnappers' second victim. It was also a good episode for Alexis, who has been increasingly grating as of late; Quinn did a great job leaving behind the character's neuroses and showing that she can be calm and collected under pressure while remaining vulnerable. Plus, we got a surprisingly detailed and accurate depiction of how to pick a lock in the bargain!

One incredibly jarring moment, however, nearly soured the whole experience for me. After finding the injured driver of the kidnappers' getaway vehicle in a local hospital, Beckett (Stana Katic) and Castle (whose presence at the interrogation of a man involved in his daughter's kidnapping would bother me more if it weren't consistent with Castle's usual blatant disregard for actual police procedure) try to get the man to tell them where Alexis and Sara are being held. After an immunity offer fails to entice, Castle asks Beckett to give him a moment alone with the man. We see Castle threaten the suspect, and then cut to Beckett outside, as we hear the injured man scream. A moment later, Castle emerges with the address of a farmhouse north of New York City.

THAT Scene: the problem with The Newsroom's use of real news

The News Night team's coverage of the Gabrielle Giffords tragedy doesn't just sap dramatic tension; it exploits real grief in the service of its own message.

Jeff Daniel's Will McAvoy reports on the shooting of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on The Newsroom.

THAT Scene is a recurring feature that takes a closer look at a single scene that exemplifies a particular show, theme or moment in time. The scene might be good or bad, but it will always be memorable and worth talking about.

Television Without Pity's recaplet of the (pretty terrible) fourth episode of The Newsroom, "I'll Try To Fix You," hits the nail on the head when it comes to the biggest problem with the series' much-discussed decision to have Will McAvoy and co. cover actual news stories from the recent past: in this case, the shooting of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. The results were not only uncomfortable to watch, but also undercut any point the sequence was trying to make about how the news should be covered:

When the other outlets start reporting that Giffords is dead but there hasn't been any official confirmation, Will has to decide if he should join them and risk being wrong or hold off and risk being the last news outlet to report Giffords' death. Of course, we all know that she survived, and Will's decision to wait is the right one, even though Reese is screaming at him to join in and pronounce her dead. Reese is the Bad Guy. Charlie, Will, and his staff and even Don are the Good Guys, so they realize that Giffords is a person and shouldn't just be used for news ratings or as part of a race to report the news first. No, although apparently it's totally cool to use her for an HBO show's sleazy and hypocritical attempt to elicit an emotional response from the viewers, titular Coldplay songs and all.

The entire sequence, which begins with Maggie (Alison Pill) sprinting to tell Will and MacKenzie (Emily Mortimer) and ends with Will's refusal to announce Gifford's death vindicated by the news that she isn't actually dead, is a perfect example of the ways in which reporting on real news can be incredibly damaging, both to The Newsroom's dramatic structure and the show's credibility as a moral authority. (And if you think the series isn't aiming for moral authority status, re-watch the episode and count the number of times Will says he's on a "mission to civilize.")

  

THAT Scene: The men of Up All Night bring the funny

THAT Scene is a recurring feature that takes a closer look at a single scene that exemplifies a particular show, theme or moment in time. The scene might be good or bad, but it will always be memorable and worth talking about.

Many of the best sitcoms, both current and past, thrive on the strength of their ensembles. Happy Endings, Arrested Development, Cheers and Seinfeld are some of the best-known examples of half-hour comedies that work the best when they put their large casts in the same place and let them bounce them off one another.

Up All Night doesn't work the same way. The core ensemble of Will Arnett, Christina Applegate and Maya Rudolph is half the size of Community's or Friends' six- and seven-person casts. The show has also been hit-or-miss at developing its secondary characters; for every Missy or Kevin there's a Luke or B-Ro who doesn't quite fit. That alone makes today's scene - which comes from the show's season finale, "The Proposals" - unique; not only does it not feature Reagan or Ava, but it succeeds on the chemistry between Chris and two recurring characters, the aforementioned Kevin (Jason Lee) and Chris Diamantopoulous' amazing Julian.

THAT Scene: A Bollywood number exemplifies the highs and many lows of Smash

Katharine McPhee in "A Thousand and One Nights," a Bollywood number from Smash's "Publicity."

THAT Scene is a new recurring feature that takes a closer look at a single scene that exemplifies a particular show, theme or moment in time. The scene might be good or bad, but it will always be memorable and worth talking about.

Smash is an incredibly frustrating series. It contains certain moments that are absolutely sublime and transporting in the way that only musical theater can be, but those moments are surrounded by absurdly over-the-top drama and conflicts that, rather than feeling like a natural outgrowth of the storytelling, seem as if they were dropped into the action to create false conflict. And while some of the characters - notably Tom, Derek and Eileen - are fascinating creations, they tend to get overshadowed by the soapier elements.

"A Thousand and One Nights" (also known as "the Bollywood number") encapsulates Smash's wildly uneven tone and and lazy storytelling perfectly. The number starts out as a bizarre exercise in WTF-ness, escalates into a wildly entertaining piece of musical theater, and completely falls apart after a moment of sober analysis. Plus, it's derailed in the middle by the appearance of Julia, Frank and the hilariously inept actor who plays their equally inept son.

I'm not going to lie; I really, really enjoyed this number the first time or five I watched it. And I continue to enjoy the hell out of it now, despite the many, many problematic elements at play. The tune is catchy enough that I've been singing it in the shower for two days, the choreography is incredibly fun (as a dancer, I'm a huge sucker for good choreography), and the costumes are shiny and brightly colored. "A Thousand and One Nights" is no "The Higher You Get, The Farther The Fall" or "Let's Be Bad," but it is a solid piece of theatricality, which is something I greatly appreciate.