Grey's Anatomy: Never Felt So Alone (20x05)

Man, Nick sucks so much as a character I cannot believe.

Cons:

I'm going to be a broken record about Jo and Link, but wow, I don't care about their relationship. This pregnancy scare is a cheap way to introduce a shot of lightly-comedic drama into their honeymoon period and I'm bored to tears by all of it. It's a shame, because I actually think both actors are really charming and funny, and yet when they're playing off of each other in a scene, I feel absolutely nothing. The idea of going through a Jo/Link marriage and babies story just fills me with a sense of defeat and ennui. Alex Karev I miss you so much.

I feel like the takeaway from this episode is supposed to be that Meredith is being unreasonable about the Nick situation, but... nah. Nick is a boring lump of coal and Meredith has a lot of trauma around the death of loved ones, and Nick should have called sooner. I just wish that Meredith had been settled off-screen with a less annoying endgame love interest. It feels like we've lost our chance for Meredith to find a new forever person on screen, because Ellen Pompeo isn't interested in doing that anymore, and fair enough, but Nick? God, he sucks so hard.

Grey's Anatomy: Baby Can I Hold You (20x04)

It was lovely to see Arizona, but I kind of feel like her guest starring here was a bit of a waste, in some ways!

Cons:

This show is usually so good at fanservice, to the point where I find myself rolling my eyes sometimes at it... but damn it all to hell, I can't believe we got Arizona on our screens and nobody mentioned Callie or Sofia?? What the heck is that about! Not even a passing mention to give people hope that they ended up back together, even if they didn't want to confirm it?

This show has been playing chicken with the idea of Richard retiring for such a long time now that it really does get tiresome. We see that he gets frazzled in the OR and has to step out, but Teddy promises to have his back and tell him if he doesn't belong there anymore. I don't know, man, let the dude retire! I don't want to watch him dealing with his sobriety and his age and his career for the bajillionth time, actually.

Grey's Anatomy: Walk on the Ocean (20x03)

Man, lotsa juicy drama in this one.

Cons:

I thought Winston having a subplot about giving up on his marriage with Maggie was a little weird and unnecessary. I legit hadn't realized we were supposed to think they were still trying to work on their relationship. Maggie left him and Winston seemed pretty firm on what that meant. Or am I misremembering?

The main catastrophe of this episode features a man who gets extravagantly injured trying to imitate the jet-setting adventurous behavior of his wife's ex-husband, in order to prove to himself and to her that he's cool enough. I felt like thematically this was kind of basic and didn't really connect to the characters as much as I wanted, and then the poor wife at the end when she shows up and learns that her husband is dead... she wasn't the strongest actor, unfortunately. The crying needed some work.

Grey's Anatomy: Keep the Family Close (20x02)

"Discretion is my middle name. Actually, it's Elaine." Yasuda, I love you. Let's dive in!

Cons:

Schmitt and his patient Dante call it "The Great Bake-Off" instead of "The Great British Baking Show" or "The Great British Bake-Off" and I'd just like to lodge a complaint on that. What the hell? Who says that?

Link and Jo's subplot this week is about Link being more romantic and sentimental, and a somewhat joke-y exchange where Link is offended that Jo doesn't remember the details of how they met. In the end, Jo makes a romantic meal and lights candles to reinforce that she appreciates the romance in their relationship. There's nothing offensive about this necessarily, but it just feeds into the worst vibes I have about this pairing. It feels forced, it feels proscribed, it feels like they need to come up with over the top sappy moments to try and convince the audience that they're really in love. And I'm not convinced. I did kind of like the Amelia and Jo scene, though. I think it's sweet that Amelia clocked the relationship issue and took a risk by saying something.

Grey's Anatomy: We've Only Just Begun (20x01)

And we're back! Crazy that this is the 20th season. I saw that Station 19 is ending after this season, which means Grey's has a very solid chance of outlasting another spinoff! Let's dive right in.

Cons:

I am still repulsed by Jo and Link, I cannot help it. They just do absolutely nothing for me and it feels like such a forced, lazy writing choice. I think part of it is just that Jo and Alex, and Amelia and Link, both felt like real, organic, interesting romances to me that were earned over a long period of time, and this is just like... eh, throw the leftovers together I guess.

My Owen and Teddy dislike will never go away, but in this episode it wasn't so much that they annoyed me as that the storyline felt completely unnecessary? Teddy collapsing and needing emergency surgery and potentially dying felt like even more of a lazy tacked on drama for the cliffhanger last season than I'm used to with this show.

Bob's Burgers: Jade in the Shade (14x12)

This one was really cute! You know I love a good Louise-centric episode.

Cons:

I was wishing for a little bit more of a punchline with Cynthia and Logan being there. It was sort of funny to have them follow Linda and Louise, but the conclusion had nothing to do with them, just saw them fooled by Louise once and then sitting around eating raisins. I felt like there could have been more punch there, like maybe Logan realizes the deception and decides to go tell on Louise to Fischoeder, thus continuing their distaste for each other in future episodes due to the betrayal.

Bob's Burgers: Mission Impossi-Bob (14x11)

A very fun episode!

Cons:

I really have no complaints at all. I could have used even more fun weird times with the crazy bunker man, I wanted to know his whole deal. Maybe if Teddy keeps doing work for him, he'll come back later.

Pros:

The main plot features Bob going on a rescue mission to find Teddy, who has trapped himself in a panic room/safe thing that a wealthy client has asked him to help with. There's all this convoluted information presented to us over a series of phone calls with Teddy, whose phone is in danger of dying as he rambles on about seemingly irrelevant things in an attempt to explain to Bob how to find and rescue him.

Doctor Who: The Church on Ruby Road (2023 Christmas Special)

Ahhh welcome Ncuti Gatwa to the role!!

Cons:

I'm not sure if I want to call this a "con" or not, more just something I noticed. We saw Ruby's life with her mom and grandma as being pretty perfect in terms of emotional fulfillment. Yes, they're poor and just barely scraping by, but it's the cheerful kind of poverty where the warmth of their connection sees them through and the house is full of love. We then see the version where Ruby was never taken in by her mom or adopted, and was instead captured by the goblins, and in that version, her foster mother is unhappy and kind of unfeeling, only taking in an occasional foster kid when she needs the extra money. So I guess my issue is more something I wish they could have done to add a bit of nuance. What if we saw some real hardship, some emotional friction, between Ruby and her family, instead of just good nature and teasing and joy? And what if the Ruby-less life was a little less 100% depressing? Like, maybe the foster mother does take in fewer kids, but she still puts them up on the fridge and has a connection to them? What if the lesson is that Ruby finding that family made things better, but not necessarily this enormous shift from totally depressing to totally wonderful? I like the idea that Ruby finding this family was the right thing for her and for her mom, but there's something a little over the top about her presence being that dramatic of a shift.

Bob's Burgers: The Nightmare 2 Days Before Christmas (14x10)

A very cute episode!

Cons:

I was having this weird experience of imagining a whole different episode that could have played out, but that didn't: where the Belchers have to stay at home in their freezing cold home without electricity for Christmas. There's almost a whole other episode concept there, of everyone trying to keep busy and have an unplugged Christmas while also dealing with the winter chill. I liked what we got, but I almost wish there had been time to play around with that concept more as well!

Pros:

Linda being the most sentimental about the tree, while Louise is worried about the practical consideration of Santa not being able to find them, was a great contrast. I think Bob was just trying to keep the family together, and Gene and Tina were mostly along for the ride! Another "what this episode could have been" moment was the family getting stuck in their car, and I was pleasantly surprised at the subversion there, where just as things looked really dire, they did in fact arrive at the cabin where Mr. Fischoeder had sent them. And, in another subversion of expectations, despite some creepy wall art and strange instructions for maintaining the property, nothing super spooky or dangerous happened to them once they were there!

Doctor Who: The Giggle (2023 Special 3)

Well... I'm having some feelings!

 Cons:

Last week's special was about as perfect an episode as I could have imagined, so some of my complaints about this one are just in how it compares with the last one. I thought the tension and threat to Donna and the Doctor was so expertly portrayed in the last episode, that in this one, when once again there's a beat where the bad guy separates them to subject them to separate psychological tortures, it felt like a less-good retread of what we saw last time.

In general, I think this episode might have been served better with an entirely original bad guy instead of a callback to old-school Doctor Who. Maybe that's not very in keeping with the spirit of things, I know this is a show with a long history and it's fun to do callbacks, but the episode had to sit there and explain why we should be afraid of the Toymaker, and that felt like it undercut the threat. I shouldn't need to have exposition explain to me that this bad guy is super bad, more bad than most of the badness we have to face. I should just be able to feel that. And I did, with the concept of the creepy doll with the arpeggio laugh. It's almost like the episode would have worked without a puppet master behind it at all?

Doctor Who: Wild Blue Yonder (2023 Special 2)

Well, that was about as perfect an episode of this TV show I've ever seen, if I'm being super honest!

Cons:

Hmm. Difficult to say. There were maybe a few things where I would have wished for more, like just an extra dash of something we already got. Like, the clues that the words were a countdown, and the robot was moving to initiate something? I guess the evidence was right there, but I think the counting down bit would have been more satisfying if there had been some way that it was possible for me to suss that out on my own before the Doctor realized it. Like what if there were numbers on a door somewhere and the Doctor does say one of the numbers out loud at some point because he figured out the translation, and it's the number six or something, and then later when we hear it, you might be able to grasp that you've heard that word before? Just a few more breadcrumbs to make the moment when the truth comes out feel really satisfying.

Bob's Burgers: Fraud of the Dead: Zombie-docu-pocalypse (14x09)

Okay... this had to have been an episode planned for closer to the end of October, right? So weird how the episodes have been scheduled!

Cons:

Nothing much to complain about, this was great spooky ridiculous fun! The one thing that was a little odd was that the conceit of this scenario is that Gene and Tina don't know Louise, that they are just a documentary crew, and then there were times later in the episode where they continued to reference that they don't know each other. Like, at the end, Tina calls Bob and Linda "your parents" when talking to Louise, as if she's still being the documentary crew and not herself. That feels like a bit of a muddled premise to me, I would have loved to do a bit more with it.

Doctor Who: The Star Beast (2023 Special 1)

I mean, I'm going to be emotional no matter what about seeing David Tennant and Catherine Tate back on my screen as the Doctor and Donna Noble. To be frank, this episode didn't have to be that good to draw me in and make me sentimental! Let's see how it went.

Cons:

I think the little prologue thing where we get reminded on the history of Donna and the Doctor as characters was a little strange. I almost would have rather just had a "previously on" with Tennant doing voiceover or something. Especially since the Doctor later explains the whole "Donna took in the mind of a time lord and had to have her memory erased" bit, on screen, to another character.

While I overall want to praise the way pronouns and gender were quite casually discussed in this episode, I did think the fact that Rose was the one to speak up and basically say "did you just assume this alien's gender" was a little clunky. I wish the Meep had just corrected the Doctor outright instead of the one trans person in the room needing to intervene? That's the smallest of nitpicks, though.

Bob's Burgers: Wharf, Me Worry? (14x08)

Aww, an episode about the kids' grandpa! That's a fun concept.

Cons:

I don't have a ton to say in the "con" category here, to be honest. The gift of this show is that if certain characters take the a backseat, we know we'll see a bigger focus on them soon enough. So the kids didn't have a TON of character moments in this episode, it was really mostly about Bob's feelings with his dad, but that's okay because we'll get back to the youngsters more in another episode!

Pros:

I guess I'll start with the subplot here: Linda helps Teddy back at the restaurant to take an actually good picture of himself to advertise his business online. I loved the comedy of both Bob and Linda grimacing in horror when they'd seen the pictures he'd taken so far. He's holding a hammer and it looks like he's a serial killer, not a handyman! This is deeply relatable to me as a person who is bad at getting my picture taken! The bit with the woman in the diner who was shown example pictures was funny too. She tried to push back against her instincts, but yeah, based on what she was seeing of Teddy, she wasn't about to let him into her house alone. In the end, the key to success proves to be to snap a picture of Teddy right after he's taken a bite of a burger! I thought that was sweet, a way of focusing in on the fact that Teddy is their most regular customer and really gets some true happiness out of the food and company.

Bob's Burgers: The (Raccoon) King and I (14x07)

This one was so fun! The return of Little King Trash-Mouth!

Cons:

I don't really have many complaints, other than that I thought the shenanigan-level could have been higher with the kids? When Louise realized her bid to sell a concert experience for candy wasn't going to work out as planned, I was sort of expecting her to go way more wild with it. I wanted those kids sneaking around backstage, tripping over wires, interrupting the concert, all that jazz. As it was, it was a dinky little subplot that was just fine, but nothing special or memorable.

Bob's Burgers: Escape from Which Island? (14x06)

This was a fun one! Whenever Mr. Fischoeder gets involved you know it's going to be a wild time.

Cons:

I did think that the subplot with Linda and the kids could have had a better punch line. There were lots of funny jokes within the scenario, but the conclusion was just, Tina is stressed out about how to be a proper adult, then realizes she's memorized all of Linda's advice, so she's set. That didn't really land for me.

Pros:

But starting with that subplot, I loved the comedy of Linda being self-aware about bad cocktail party etiquette because she definitely has been that bad guest many times in the past. At first I thought maybe the joke would be that she gives bad advice because she's no good at it, but actually it's that she gives good advice because of all the practice she has at being an inconsiderate guest.

Bob's Burgers: Bully-ieve It or Not (14x05)

Hey, I've been saying for the past four weeks that I wanted a school-centric episode and I got it. I'm happy!

Cons:

This is just a personal thing but the gross-out humor that this show sometimes employs is not my favorite. The pee stuff, fine, but then licking the booger wall and the idea that Zeke might throw up? I did have to look away from the screen during that part. Not a fan.

Pros:

I liked how both the subplot with the kids and the plot with Bob back at the diner had like, real life lessons to learn, but it never felt after school special-y. This show can sometimes decide to tackle a real issue in a way that still preserves the comedy and still remains broadly palatable and enjoyable.

Bob's Burgers: Running Down a Gene (14x04)

Cute episode! I love Tina and Louise getting some sister bonding time in the subplot.

Cons:

Still banging that drum and hoping we'll get a school episode soon. At least we got the library in this one! Also, and I don't mean to harp on things that this episode isn't, instead of appreciating what it is, but... why no Halloween episode? This came out on October 29th!

Pros:

Gene's music aspirations are always so fun to see, I love that he's a blend of genuine talent with silly little kid explorations. The support his family shows him is always touching to me. That's a general theme with this show, that Bob might be exasperated or overwhelmed by the antics of his children, but he never stifles their dreams, either.

Bob's Burgers: The Pickleorette (14x03)

Lots of fun shenanigans on this one!

Cons:

I feel like I've said this after the first two episodes of the season too, but I do hope we get a school-based episode soon so we can check in with the kids' friends. I miss that crowd.

Pros:

I love how Bob is just down for whatever Linda asks him to do. He's not thrilled about it, in fact he's completely petrified by the situation he's found himself in, but yeah, he'll do it. He'll drive a limo and he'll pretend to be a different guy with an accent and he'll call the strippers and he'll let stripping happen in the restaurant. It's just a funny trait to have this grumpy, overwhelmed man also be down for whatever shenanigans his wife gets him into at any point.

Bob's Burgers: The Amazing Rudy (14x02)

Aww, a Rudy episode! This was sweet.

Cons:

I really can't think of much I would change? Maybe as a nitpick, it was a little silly that the episode made the purpose of the dinner a "reveal" after an opening scene where Rudy and his dad don't directly mention where they're going and why. I'm not sure holding that card close to the chest added much of anything.

Pros:

I would love to see more episodes like this, filling out details of the rest of this community, where the Belcher family plays side characters who come into the story in a couple of pivotal moments! It was so effective to start with Rudy and then hear the kids' voices at the mall. And then when Rudy runs out of the restaurant, I knew he'd end up at Bob's Burgers and that he'd find safety and kindness there. I really felt the family as a refuge, somewhere you could go to feel better.