Doctor Who: The Pyramid at the End of the World (10x07)

Wow! I'm pretty damn happy with this one. The bulk of the episode was nothing all that remarkable, and it definitely reminded me of other episodes of Doctor Who in the past. It wasn't exactly offering anything all that new. However, the ending definitely offered something quite new, and the buildup to it was excellent. Let's take a look!

Cons:

Like I said, there were elements of this episode that felt like I'd seen them before. Aliens show up and threaten to destroy the world, the Doctor says no I'll stop you, and it all comes down to a few key humans making the right decision to prevent disaster. The Doctor is always right, the humans are always wrong, and they fail unless they listen to his advice. In this case, it's the heads of the three largest armies in the world: the U.S., Russia, and China. They decide to work together, which is good, but they decide to capitulate to the aliens, which is bad, and they all die for their trouble. A little simplistic.

We also have this moment where the Doctor encourages the three powers to strike against the mysterious pyramid that has shown up in their midst, to show their strength against this alien threat. Nardole and Bill both act shocked and appalled that the Doctor would want them to try a violent tactic. Okay, yeah. The Doctor is a pacifist and so any hint that he might be violent is seen as a crazy deviation from the norm. Sure, except for I feel like I'm being asked to be shocked about the same thing over and over and over again. Moffat's Doctor frequently resorts to violence, or at least doesn't stop others from trying it. Bill's outrage in particular kind of rubbed me the wrong way, because I feel like we haven't seen enough of Bill learning the Doctor's "code" as it were. Does she really know him well enough yet to understand that this behavior deviates from the norm?

Elementary: Hurt Me, Hurt You (5x24)

Oh boy. I guess I'm really glad we do get a Season Six, because that would be one hell of a way to finish a show... and not in a good way. Let's take a little look.

Cons:

Last week, I almost made a guess as to what the deal was with the woman, May, who seemed to be following Sherlock around. I know there's no way to prove this now, but my guess would have been "May is a hallucination of Sherlock's mother, caused by Sherlock's brain tumor." And... yeah. I'm not saying I'm opposed to this turn for the show, as I think the buildup for it was beautifully executed, and there could be a lot of cool stuff to come out of this. But at the same time, I feel like this was just a little bit too obvious, you know? And too... dramatic, perhaps? This show is so brilliant at being down to earth. The characters are realistically professional when it comes to their cases, in the sense that they don't get personally drawn in to every little story line. I'm okay with some drama, but this show doesn't need to lean on soap opera plot threads like the lead getting a brain tumor. I have faith they will go somewhere good with this, but I'm slightly let down by the premise itself.

Pros:

I'm pretty happy with the take-down of SPK. Wilcox, the head of the group, gives up his entire gang in exchange for immunity, but then screws up by lying about the one murder he actually committed by hand, and they get to put him away too. What I enjoy about this plot is that in some ways, things get tied up in a pretty little bow, which means that we can be pretty satisfied that all of the bad people are going where they belong. But on the other hand, there are some really sinister dangling threads left hanging, specifically relating to Joan Watson's moral compass.

Doctor Who: Extremis (10x06)

Wow. This was a great episode. It made me really excited for the rest of the season, while also standing on its own as a solid outing. And the Doctor is still blind! I'm getting really pumped.

Cons:

Three complaints, to start. One is big, the other two are small.

The big one: Apparently it is Missy in the vault. Literally the first thing we all guessed. I'm not too upset about this, because at least they told us now, instead of waiting and trying to pull it as a big reveal at the end of the season. That would have been a real letdown. But the fact that the thing in the vault was a known entity all along is a little disappointing. The way Nardole talks about her, I was thinking she'd be something a bit more mysterious and unknowable. I get that Missy is really dangerous, but... I don't know. I wanted something new and exciting!

Small one: We see in flashback that at one point, the Doctor was tasked with executing Missy. He of course fails to go through with this, but agrees to watch over her for 1,000 years and make sure she doesn't cause mischief. This is why he's exiled himself to Earth to watch over the vault. Okay, sure. That makes a certain amount of sense. But there was this moment when one of the executioners checked the Doctor's record and saw all the many, many deaths he was responsible for. Moments like this encapsulate everything I hate about Moffat's version of the Doctor. Why does he have to be such a freakin' special snowflake? Any and all deaths that the Doctor is responsible for are his greatest shame. The only names flashing through on that file should be the names of the Gallifrey citizenry that he destroyed. The Doctor does not make a habit of killing people, and to imply that this is a regular part of his legacy is really annoying to me. The Doctor shouldn't be remarkable for anything other than being the last of his kind.

Supernatural: Who We Are/All Along the Watchtower (12x22/23)

Uhhhhhhhhh okay. I remember last season's finale was a big ol' anticlimax, although it did set up some potentially interesting ideas. This season finale was... is... I mean... not an anticlimax, let's just say that. Yikes. I'm going to review both episodes in this same post, but I'm going to break it up into sections.

Who We Are

Cons:

I know I complained about this in last week's review, but it bears repeating: Sam and Dean being trapped in the bunker really doesn't make sense. We didn't get any explanation here as to why Ketch thought that was a good idea. Like. What. Of course they got out. They just blew up a small part of the bunker, and they were free and clear. Oy. This felt like a bit of a wasted opportunity, also, in the sense that it took all of ten minutes for Sam, Dean, and Toni to escape from their near-death. There could have been more material with this, if they were going to go this route.

Toni agrees to help Dean try and un-brainwash Mary, but only with the promise from Dean that he'll let her get a head start so she can try and escape. Cool. Unfortunately, while Mary and Dean are both unconscious and hanging out in Mary's brain somehow, Ketch shows up and kills Toni. We don't actually get to see it happen, we just see Dean waking up and he notices Toni lying there with her throat slit. All of the baggage that they built up with Ketch and Toni... leads to nothing. I feel like this should have been a bigger moment somehow.

Grey's Anatomy: Ring of Fire (13x24)

Grey's Anatomy is at its best when improbable disasters are occurring. Last week was a good example of that, and this week is a great example. I'll start with a couple of things I didn't like, but for the most part I was totally drawn in to this season's finale. I can't believe this show is going to be starting its fourteenth season in the fall! Nuts!

Cons:

In big story-line news, I am super not thrilled about the idea of Jackson and Maggie. I know they've been hinting it for a while, but I just cannot reconcile myself to that one. Sorry, but no way. Maggie is too annoying for Jackson. Jackson and April have too much chemistry. I'm just not in support of this. Maggie manages to find a moment in the middle of the chaos to awkwardly apologize to April for yelling at Jackson when Jackson risked his life, and April then has to give Maggie permission to have feelings for Jackson, and it's just so... Maggie. She is incapable of understanding that sometimes things are not about her. She's just so self-centered.

And then in even bigger story-line news, we've got Minnick getting fired because she forgot to tell the police that Stephanie was missing during the chaos of the explosion and the fire and all that. Okay. I'm pissed about this from every different angle. First of all, Minnick ended up being a boring failure of a character who I don't understand or empathize with at all. And yet oddly that somehow makes me even more annoyed that she's been fired, because... because... if she's just gone from the hospital now, what was the point of all of that? On a more minute level, it's stupid that nobody else thought to mention to the police that Stephanie was missing. I know Jackson told Minnick to tell them, but all of the other doctors couldn't take half a second to let somebody know? And in any case, they were looking for the little girl, Erin, already. It's not like they didn't know anybody was missing. They were already looking for somebody.

Modern Family: The Graduates (8x22)

Yeah, okay, this was an alright episode. Maybe not one of the greatest episodes this show has ever done, but it had a lot of heartfelt moments as well as some good laughs. Let's get started.

Cons:

The fact that this episode is a graduation episode for Luke and Manny is fine, but it does sort of highlight one of this show's ongoing problems. We did a graduation episode for Alex, and it felt like the start of a new chapter for her character. In reality, she's been floundering with no direction for seasons and seasons now. I'd love to believe that in the next season, Luke and Manny will truly be spreading their wings and exploring new avenues of their lives, but if history is anything to go by, I'm worried they just won't have anything to do.

Whenever Manny's father pops in to the story, it always feels a little forced. Just like every other time we've seen him, Javier is there to make sure that Manny and Jay have a cute father/son moment. Not complaining about the sentiment on its face, but... did we really need Javier to come in to make that happen?

Phil crying over a slideshow of Luke growing up was funny, but I felt like the buildup didn't have a good punchline. Seeing him emotionless at Luke's graduation wasn't particularly funny or rewarding.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: World's End (4x22)

Man, what is it with ABC shows ending their seasons with show-altering shakeups? First we had Once Upon a Time with the time skip, and now we've got S.H.I.E.L.D. sending everybody into outer space? But setting aside the last few minutes of the episode, which I'll talk about later, we should first look at how this finale worked as a wrap-up for the best season of this show to date.

Cons:

Like I said, this was the best season of the show we've yet seen, and the finale had a lot to live up to. Consequently, things felt just a tad crowded. We had to deal with the resolution of the Framework plot, along with getting Mack and Yo-Yo out of there. We had to deal with the return of Robbie Reyes, and somehow resolve the whole Darkhold business. Also, the world is still suspicious of Inhumans, and nobody knows what to think of S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore, so there's that. Oh yeah, and Ophelia/Aida is running around trying to kill everybody. Oh yeah and we've got to deal with relationship drama between Fitz and Simmons, as well as between May and Coulson. With so much going on, I felt like several very important things didn't get enough resolution.

First of all, Robbie is awesome, but he felt really shoe-horned in here. We've spent two thirds of the season building up Aida as a great villain, and pitting our various characters against her in unique and interesting ways. And then we get a Deus Ex Flame-Skull guy to come in and be the answer to the question of how to kill her. A little disappointing? Yeah, maybe. And Robbie basically pops in, helps to defeat Aida, and pops back out again, taking the Darkhold with him to keep it somewhere safe, apparently. How is he going to manage it? Where exactly is he leaving this all-powerful book of magic? And is that really the end for his character and the Darkhold? If not, then I'm still holding out hope for a cool resolution. If yes, then... lame.

Elementary: Scrambled (5x23)

Yay for focus on Joan! The news that Elementary had been renewed for another season came as a bit of a surprise for me, but I guess I'm mostly happy about it. I constantly feel that this show is failing to live up to its full potential, but the dynamic between Sherlock and Joan is so delicious that I want more no matter what. And it's episodes like this that remind me what this show is capable of when it's at its best.

Cons:

This was a pretty stellar episode, but I do admit that the "twist" was a little transparent. In the wake of Shinwell's death, Joan and Sherlock go up against the head of SPK himself. Along the way, they meet the brother of SPK's leader, a respectable businessman who is ostensibly not connected in any way with his brother's exploits. So... of course he's actually the genius behind it all the whole time. Not a particularly shocking twist, all things considered. I guess I was just annoyed by how extraordinarily evil this guy seemed. This whole time, we think we're dealing with a ruthless street gang. And, we are. But also, look out - there's a Moriarty-level criminal mastermind pulling the strings from the shadows. Was that really necessary?

There's this woman named May who is part of Sherlock's support group, and she follows Sherlock around and seems to interfere in creepy ways. I'm reserving judgment, I just wanted to say that I'd better like where this is going. I can conceive of a lot of different and quite stupid scenarios for this, and I do hope they manage to bring something cool to the table.

Once Upon a Time: The Final Battle (6x21/22)

This is going to be one of those really long reviews where I have a lot of things in the "Cons" section, but I come out the other side thinking this episode was pretty much great. Let's start with a long list of complaints that I'll mostly sweep under the rug after ranting about them.

Cons:

So, as far as curses and plot consistency goes, this episode was a big ol' mess, where many of the characters' actions didn't mean squat. We have the bulk of our heroes swept off to the Enchanted Forest, where we learn that the Black Fairy's curse is tied to Emma's belief, and that once that belief is dead, all the story realms will disappear. Back in Storybrooke, Emma is convinced that her fairytale family are delusions, and Henry tries to convince her that everything is real, as he seems to be the only one to know what's going on.

Alright, great. So we see Hook and David make a daring trip to find a magic bean, we watch the Evil Queen make a noble sacrifice to try and help the heroes get back to Henry and Emma, and we watch Henry struggle to make his mother believe again. My problem? None of this matters in the least. All of the struggles we see to try and get back to Emma and make her believe again are not at all essential to the plot. In the end, Rumple just has to kill his mother. Once the Black Fairy is dead, Emma believes again, and the realms are restored, no problem. Gideon tries to kill Emma, as the Black Fairy still has his heart and had ordered him to, and Emma fights him for a while before letting herself be killed. Henry then wakes her with a True Love's Kiss to the forehead. My problem here is that everything came back around to the Gideon vs. Emma thing, with the first 75% of this episode having very little bearing on the actual events at the end.

That's a pretty big structural problem, but I can set it aside fairly easily as I did like so many of the details the episode offered. But by "so many," I definitely do not mean "all." Let's start with the worst thing in this episode:

Doctor Who: Oxygen (10x05)

Hmm. I think this was my least favorite of the season so far. It wasn't terrible or even really bad in any way, it just felt like a lot of recycled ideas. Both not enough and too much happened at once. Let's take a look.

Cons:

So, there's a mostly abandoned space ship, a zombie crew trying to pick off the remaining members, a ticking clock, the Doctor comes up with a brilliant plan to save everybody but he lies about it, a companion appears for a short time to be dead, but of course there's a way to save her, there's a lesson about capitalism being evil and the dangers of trusting too much in machines... I feel like I've seen many of these elements in multiple Doctor Who episodes, often with greater success.

For example, the cold open shows a bunch of space zombies, and then later when Bill, the Doctor, and Nardole show up we see some of the space zombies in action, and then - surprise, surprise, there are other survivors that essentially become red shirts while the heroes figure out the scenario. Sooo many episodes of Doctor Who do this same thing.

The red shirts themselves were pretty unremarkable, I've got to say. There was a romance between two of them, one of whom died in the cold open, and there's this moment at the end where I think we're supposed to be touched by their tragic love, but I really wasn't. Not enough time was given to fleshing out these characters. There was this blue humanoid alien who accused Bill of racism when she had a surprised reaction to his presence. And then she brought up that she's usually on the receiving end of racism. Okay, cool, but where are they going with this? Apparently nowhere. The two don't share any more dialogue, and the blue guy gets killed off.

Supernatural: There's Something About Mary (12x21)

Yeah, okay, fuck you Buckleming.

Cons:

Eileen is dead. These writers are the jackasses who killed Charlie, and they're back again for another ridiculous move. I get what they're trying to go for here. The idea is that Sam and Dean need to feel totally alone as they face down the big bad at the end of this season, so we've got to axe off some allies so they feel that desperation. It worked really well when Bobby tragically died. Doesn't work so well when you start axing off female characters for no good reason. If you wanted Eileen out of the way, just keep her in Ireland. Why the fuck would you bring her back just to kill her in the first minute? She got a cold open death and then we saw her body on a slab in the morgue. Like, are you serious? And I'm assuming Bevell was lying when she said that Jody and Claire were dead, because if they really are, then... I literally... I mean I'd literally fucking punch my computer screen.

Like, somebody explain to me how killing Eileen is a good idea in any sense of the word. People loved her. She was interesting. She was a character who could pop in and out of the story without problem, like Jody or Claire. Or like Charlie, before the frankly ridiculous death of her character. Why don't they learn? Are they incapable of using their heads?

Oh yeah, and Eileen's death, in the first fucking minute of the show, is only the beginning of the problems I have with this episode. The thing is, it makes no sense.

Grey's Anatomy: True Colors (13x23)

Of course this happens. God, these people are cursed, I tell you! This was a good episode of Grey's Anatomy, in that it delivered I think exactly what this show is supposed to deliver. A lot of melodrama with some really compelling characters. Let's dive in.

Cons:

Okay, so the big "twist" here is that Megan, Owen's sister, is alive and his being transported to Grey Sloan Memorial as we speak. I'm not sure how to feel, because DUH. God, I wish there could have been some way to not make it super obvious that this was going to happen. I'm excited to meet Megan, but they did this in the most trite way. Owen's having a panic attack about it, and they try to keep faking you out like maybe they just found Megan's body, and she's been dead all along. But no of course not. And we see all these happy scenes of Meredith and Nathan ready to take bigger steps into their relationship, so of course timing-wise this is the perfect time for Nathan's long-lost love to make a reappearance. C'mon.

We have a few brief scenes with Maggie and Jackson bonding. I do not want this to be a thing. Maggie is annoying when she's in any sort of relationship plot thread. And Jackson and April should really get back together. I can't believe we still haven't seen them explore the consequences of their hookup. Whatever.

The Big Bang Theory: The Long Distance Dissonance (10x24)

I mean, yeah, okay. I'm alright with this latest development. I really wish that this were the last season of The Big Bang Theory so I could finally be free from this cursed show, but since it's not, I guess I'm glad we're going this route!

Cons:

We focus entirely on Amy and Sheldon's relationship now that Amy is across the country, and that's fine, but it feels odd that this finale didn't really touch on any of the other characters. We barely mentioned Howard and Bernadette's baby... Leonard and Penny's weird relationship troubles were absent... it felt like a regular old episode, not like a season finale (until the final seconds, that is).

This is a complaint that I lodge in my head every time I watch this show, but I always forget to mention it. They do "previously on" sections wrong. It's supposed to be the bare minimum to remind viewers of details they may have forgotten. Or, it can sometimes be a replay of the last minute or so of a previous episode, leading up to a shocking cliffhanger. The Big Bang Theory uses these recap moments to pad the run-time by like two minutes, and they just repeat jokes wholesale because they think they're funny enough to do twice. Super irritating, honestly.

Modern Family: Alone Time (8x21)

Yeah, this was a cute episode. Modern Family is often strongest when it has a theme that ties together the various plot threads that doesn't overshadow the story and character work going on. So while each of the plot threads had something to do with escaping, the stories also stood on their own.

Cons:

The most slap-stick of the plot threads was Cam's. He feels lonely without Mitchell, so he goes over to spend time with Gloria, Manny, and Joe, causing various hilarious problems and then quickly stepping in to fix them. I didn't have a big problem with this plot thread, but it also had the least amount of laughs and the most amount of over-the-top goofiness that just didn't really work for me in this instance. I think I mainly didn't like it because I feel like I have a better idea for what could have been done with this plot thread. If we're looking at a need to escape from familial obligations in the other plot threads, why not use this chance to explore Cam's new dynamic as an uncle, with his sister staying in the unit above Cam and Mitchell's house? Maybe Pam is gearing up to have her first day away from the baby, and Cam has to babysit? I feel like maybe there was a better story lurking around here that could have fit the episode's themes.

Pros:

I did like the stuff with Joe and his cape, though. It was cute how Cam made the burns and oil stains into badges of honor for Joe the superhero. Also, I liked the girl that Manny was attempting to court. When Cam tries to make conversation and then starts freaking out about the burning cape while the girl is talking about how she's not going to a school dance, she just says, without looking up from her phone: "It's not that big a deal, I mean people are starving." I just really liked her line delivery.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: The Return (4x21)

Oh boy. The finale is looking to be a teeny bit intense, isn't it? In this episode, we're back to the real world, and my oh my is it a disaster.

Cons:

Coulson decides to not tell May that he and her robot version totally made out, which... I mean, I get where he's coming from, but I really do hope the deception doesn't last very long. There's really no advantage to dragging this one out, guys.

We learn that all the other LMDs were destroyed by LMD!May's explosion that happened right before the Framework arc. Our heroes show up now to the destroyed base to find Talbot pointing guns and being all authoritarian but not having any idea what's going on. This was a funny scene in some ways, as I do always like seeing Talbot stick his nose where it doesn't belong. But the destruction of the other LMDs seems a bit too tidy, and Talbot was really just distracting us from the more prescient concerns of the episode, in my opinion.

I don't find the Russian to be interesting in any way shape or form, even when there are multiples of him and he's threatening to kill all the heroes. He's pretty bland.

Elementary: Moving Targets (5x22)

Oh man. Oh no. I'm having feelings. Is this show going to end after this season? I really want to know. I need to prepare myself!

Cons:

So... spoiler alert... Shinwell dies in this episode. A little bit of an anticlimax, don't you think? Oh, I'm not all surprised that he's dead, but I'm a little surprised it didn't happen in the finale, and that it happens off-screen, with none of the principal characters around, or in any danger because of Shinwell. Of course, he dies just when it looks like he might be redeemed, which is just how these things go. I guess I wanted a little bit more out of this whole thing.

Elementary often attempts to tackle some challenging subject matter, and sometimes I think they're being too subtle about it to really get their point across. The link between mental illness and gun violence, for example, is a difficult thing to talk about because it often seems like people are pinning all of the blame for gun-related death on the mentally ill, instead of talking about gun availability and the systemic prejudices that lead to a disproportionate number of minorities being the victims of such assaults. Also, one of the suspects in the main murder of the episode is a former child soldier, and that made me a tad bit uncomfortable considering the highly politicized issue of immigrants and refugees. Elementary should be careful - if it wants to talk about these things, then great. But if it does, then it needs to be more thoughtful about it.

Once Upon a Time: The Song in Your Heart (6x20)

Last week, I said that musical episodes are usually either really bad, or really good, and almost never fall in between. I'm forced to go back on that now, because this was... an okay musical episode. It had some high moments, a few cringe-y moments, and some shrug moments.

Cons:

The music in this episode comes from the Blue Fairy granting Snow's wish to find a way to help her daughter. Everybody bursts into uncontrollable song, and the idea is that this music will permeate into Emma's life and help her realize she's not alone when she faces the final battle years later. Okay, good enough as far as excuses for singing go. But because of this, the music should have been kept to the flash-backs. When Emma finally sings at the end, it doesn't really work, despite Jennifer Morrison having a good voice, and the song at Emma and Hook's wedding at the end is the epitome of too cheesy, and could have been cut entirely.

Of the songs in the flashbacks, all of them were surprisingly a lot of fun. The one weak link was Regina's song "Love Doesn't Stand a Chance." It wasn't awful, but it was a tad cringe-y. Lana Parrilla, woman of many talents, doesn't have much vocal skill, and this song was tailored for a low register and didn't have enough going for it. Again, not the worst thing ever, but it was definitely the weakest of the bunch.

So, when Emma realizes (with Henry's help) that the power of her family's music has been within her the whole time, she sings a song that releases her family from the Black Fairy's frozen spell. While Emma is singing, her heart is just lying there on the ground because the Black Fairy wasn't able to crush it for some unexplained reason, and the Black Fairy is just kind of standing there waiting for Emma to finish singing so she can react. It was pretty darn clumsy.

Doctor Who: Knock Knock (10x04)

Okay, yeah. Another good one. I'm really liking Bill, and her dynamic with the Doctor. It's something we haven't quite seen yet from the Doctor Who reboot, and it's working out wonderfully.

Cons:

My most consistent plot-based complaint about Doctor Who seems to be that the resolutions can feel a bit abrupt. Here, we find out that the evil creepiness going on is all a son trying to protect and preserve his supernaturally living mother. When the mother realizes that her son has been killing people to keep her alive, she immediately puts a stop to it, the recent evils are undone, and everything just sort of resolves itself. I like a happy ending, and I'm glad Bill hasn't lost any more schoolmates. But sometimes I feel like the climaxes of Doctor Who episodes could benefit from like three more minutes of breathing room. It's just a little bit of a pacing issue.

Bill moves in with some roommates in this episode. There are six of them total. I hope these characters are actually recurring and we get to know them a bit more. As it is, there were too many to get to know in the space of a single episode, and I found myself wondering: why six? Would four not be plenty to get along with? I connected with Shireen and Paul, but I don't really remember any of the other characters' names. They basically functioned as plot fodder, and that's too bad, honestly.

Supernatural: Twigs & Twine & Tasha Banes (12x20)

Oh my goodness, my emotions. But also some things were annoying.

Cons:

Let's start with Mary and Mr. Ketch. They continue to hunt together, but Mary finally gets the hint that Mr. Ketch is a bad guy after he tortures a shifter and seems to enjoy it. She then discovers Mick's body, and finds the room where Sam, Dean, and several of their friends (Garth, Claire, and Eileen) are being kept under surveillance. They have a brutal showdown, but Ketch hits Mary with a taser and she wakes up tied to a chair so that Toni Bevell can question her.

Things that annoy me: Toni. Obviously. She made no sense at the beginning of this season and I doubt she'll make much more sense now. Also, the fact that Mary took this long to figure out that Ketch was no good? I mean, come on. There's this whole tension going on in this episode about family and how Mary disappears into a hunt and isn't there for her boys. I get why they're going for that tension, but the justification for it seems nonexistent. Can't Mary just try a little harder to answer her phone or call her sons back in a timely fashion? It seems like such an easy problem to rectify.

I mean, okay, I'm not, like, thrilled that three female characters were murdered in this episode. One was the bad evil witch lady, so, okay I guess I can let that one go. But the other two were Alicia Banes and her mother Tasha. Alicia got brought back - sort of - but Tasha didn't. And while Supernatural has been better lately about its female characters, there are still far too few of them and they still appear far too infrequently. To bring Alicia and Max, the twins, back into the story only to murder their mom and then kill off Alicia? Two black women, mind you? Just maybe not the best idea at this juncture.

Grey's Anatomy: Leave It Inside (13x22)

Ugh. Minnick is kind of the worst again. Which bums me out. But I liked a lot of the other stuff going on here!

Cons:

So, Minnick spends this episode being really sanctimonious and up in everybody's business. Which I guess is how she was at the start of the season, but this time around I feel like she doesn't have as much of a point, so she comes across really super obnoxious. A little boy named Liam shows up at the hospital asking for help. Turns out his parents won't allow him to have surgery or any other kind of intervention because of their faith. Alex and Stephanie really want to help the kid, but they can't. Minnick is snippy and uptight about the whole thing, refusing to consider Alex and Stephanie's point of view, and saying things like "who taught you to talk to a patient like that?" when Stephanie is a bit cold to the sick boy's mother. She just annoyed the heck out of me. We see in the end that Eliza and Arizona finally have sex, and while I was rooting for these crazy kids initially, now I feel sort of weird about it. Eliza seems like kind of a bad person, and I don't really get why Arizona is so into her.

Maggie didn't annoy me in this episode, and somehow that slightly annoyed me? Apparently she's decided to support Meredith and Nathan's relationship now, since she sees that it might be serious. But the thing is, where did this come from? If somebody were to watch this episode by itself, they wouldn't even really know that Maggie had a thing for Riggs. We were forced to sit through so much whining and drama with this whole thing, and now we're just done with it? I guess I'm glad... but I'm also confused.

The Big Bang Theory: The Gyroscopic Collapse (10x23)

This episode felt a tad bit unbalanced, as two very big ideas were introduced and the one sort of supplanted the other. That being said, it's so rare that we have substantive plot in an episode of The Big Bang Theory, so I'm not going to complain.

Cons:

As the episode begins, Howard, Sheldon, and Leonard are celebrating the completion of Phase One on their guidance system. They then discover that the military has swooped in and taken over, and that they are off the project. The guys have to wrestle with the fact that the thing they've worked so hard on is now out of their control, and they might not get recognized for their hard work. This seemed like a really meaty subject to explore, and we did get some hints of exploration. But for the most part, the episode pivoted and became about Amy's impending departure instead. I'm not complaining about the Amy-centric focus, but I found it odd that the next piece of the guidance system plot was thrown in here and then sort of left to flounder.

Modern Family: All Things Being Equal (8x20)

Ehhhhh whyyyyyy. I seriously hate it when sitcoms take on a political or social issue and they're not willing to go far enough to actually do anything good with it. This episode was a bummer, although it did have a couple of successful elements.

Cons:

Okay, so, the girls are going to a women's march. Gloria, Claire, Alex, Haley, and Lily all pile into the car, but they are stopped by a flat tire. They decide, in the spirit of feminism, to try and change the tire themselves. They are helped by a bad-ass girl named Joey who spouts off feminist one-liners like "we're stronger together." But then she steals Gloria's car. This was a super obvious punchline, and actually undermines the whole message. It wasn't offensive in its lameness, necessarily, but it was a bit of a letdown.

Now let's talk about the offensive part: Luke and Manny are volunteering at the march, and Luke ends up bonding with a feminist named Danielle, a girl who Manny apparently has a crush on. As Danielle talks to Luke about the issues facing women, Luke is blown away by all of this stuff he'd never thought about before. She really gets through to him, and Luke is genuinely supportive. And then, the punch-line. Danielle says that she will be celibate until women achieve true equality, and Luke runs off, giving up on her instantly. I hated that they went that route. I was so excited to see a moment of true growth for Luke's character, as he made a genuinely human connection with somebody, and seemed interested in learning more about a complex social issue. But... nope! Teenage boy wants sex, so all character development goes out the window. Also, Manny had the unfortunate trend in this episode of acting like he deserved women's attention because he was a feminist. Kind of missing the point on that one, Manny.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Farewell, Cruel World! (4x20)

Oh God. Yikes yikes yikes. Let's just... wow.

Cons:

I really don't have too much to complain about, other than an absence of Ward in this one. Are we to take it that he defended Coulson and the others during their broadcast last week, and then just went about his business? Is he in hiding? It felt a bit disappointing not to see him at all, even if last week was a pretty good sendoff. I don't want to be done with him!

Also, last week Coulson incited a rebellion, but this week we don't really see the ramifications of this. Aida/Ophelia sends somebody after Simmons and the gang, but we don't see citizens causing trouble for Hydra, or any other signs of unrest. We get a hint of it, as Trip decides that maybe he'll take on the mantle of the Patriot and lead the resistance. But if this is the end of the Framework for most of our main characters, it would have been nice to see more of how that rebellion would play out.

Elementary: Flying into a Rage, Make a Bad Landing (5x21)

Okay, so... I have questions. Also, is this show coming back next year or what? I want to know!

Cons:

Last week I expressed concerns that Chantal's assault was being used as plot motivation for her boyfriend. While I'm happy to report that Chantal was not killed off, I'm sad to report that my concerns were warranted. It turns out that Chantal was assaulted for motivations utterly disconnected from her life and career. She was brutally beaten in order to frame her ex-husband Roy, who had information that a bad man wanted to keep secret. She's unconscious for the whole episode, and we only hear from Bell at the end that she's starting to recover. It's just not an ideal way to treat a female character.

And speaking of, Joan was barely in this episode. I wanted a lot more from her, and it bothered me that she sat on the sidelines while Sherlock and Bell bonded. Don't get me wrong - I love the dynamic between Sherlock and Bell. But Joan is the one who's actually friends with Marcus, and it seems like a shame that there was no chance to explore that in this episode.

Oh, also, Sherlock assaults somebody with a tire iron? And... Marcus is a bit shocked but everybody just sort of moves on from that reallllly quickly. I wanted to see the scene where Sherlock explained himself to Joan. I can't imagine she'd be okay with that kind of behavior.

Once Upon a Time: The Black Fairy (6x19)

Oh boy. Ohhhh boy. Let's take a look.

Cons:

Emma and Hook's wedding is apparently supposed to be the next day? They were putting it off because of the impending threat of the Black Fairy, but when they believe (mistakenly) that the threat has been neutralized, Snow says basically "yay, the wedding can happen tomorrow after all." Did I miss something? It's a small detail, but I just feel strange about it. If the threat's gone, then what the heck is the big giant rush?

Lodging my typical plea: Belle, please stay away from Rumple. Please, please don't get back together with him. I'm begging you.

Also, Rumple pulls a switcheroo in this episode, which... well... I'm hoping he's got another double-cross up his sleeve. But even if he doesn't, I am a little annoyed with the rest of the gang for just believing him so easily about something as serious as the Black Fairy's demise. Rumple has lied to everybody so many times by now. Maybe don't trust him to go off on his own and make the right choice?

Doctor Who: Thin Ice (10x03)

Definitely a solid episode. I really enjoyed the story, and there were a lot of great lines. We even got another piece of the puzzle filled in concerning the vault. Let's take a closer look.

Cons:

I am not complaining that Doctor Who is choosing to tackle issues of racism, but I do have to be the person who raises her eyebrows at a few of the implications here. First of all, we have Bill sitting by and being quietly hurt when a man spews racist vitriol at her, while the Doctor gallantly - and quite out of character for a pacifist - punches the racist white guy in the face. Maybe it would have been nice to see Bill stand up for herself in this matter? Also, it was slightly eye-roll-y that the one racist person we saw was an evil caricature. The implication seemed to be "look how bad people were in the past. I'm so glad things are all fixed now." I would have liked to see Bill encounter some more subtle forms of racism in this world, so that she could remark on how things both have and haven't changed in the intervening centuries. It's just... if you're going to go there, maybe try and paint a more accurate picture of the struggles people of color are facing.