Lost

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) • "Chuck" gets a premiere date, and Chris Fedak explains (sort of) how they'll incorporate the extra six episodes into the 13 they already wrote. (Also, I neglected in either post to link to this video that's both a teaser trailer for the new season and a message to the audience from Zachary L...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Pierce got to be right several times (and briefly usurp Jeff's role in the group), Shirley got to give everyone a sandwich, Abed got to question other people's level of reality, and Troy got to squeal like a little girl - a lot. Strong, funny, very satisfying episode.

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) I want to like "Fringe" more than I do. John Noble is wonderful, Joshua Jackson plays off him well, and the mix of obsolete technology and 21st century filmmaking techniques has led to a lot of memorably creepy images. But I never quite feel as attached to the show as I want to. When the standalon...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Just got off the phone with "Chuck" co-creator Chris Fedak, who was very pumped about the early premiere date, and the fact that they'll get to produce six additional episodes, bringing season 3's total up to 19. I imagine that if NBC had somehow tacked an extra six episodes onto season two a...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) 3)This is more a personal interest, but it means the episodes (other than the two-hour premiere and finale) will be done airing at 10. The periods when "Lost" has aired from 10-11 have been a killer for me in terms of staying up to write about it. Plus, it means you'll get to read said reviews ear...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) • I'm glad to see that Landry has learned a lot from his time with Tyra about what not to do - and what to do - around a girl he likes. The awkward Landry of season one wouldn't have been able to so confidently plant a kiss on Jess and then walk away like that. (The Landry of season two just would have ki...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) I more or less know what most of the series contenders are - and if you've been reading me for a while, you can figure some obvious ones out, like "The Wire," "The Sopranos," "Freaks & Geeks," "Arrested Development," etc. - and just have to figure out how to divvy them up. But the lists for be...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) As we head into the home stretch, let me remind you about the commenting rules - specifically, the No Spoilers passage, which includes the part about not discussing anything in the previews. Period. Any comment in violation of that will be deleted.

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Spoilers for last night's "How I Met Your Mother" coming up just as soon as I focus on my "Star Trek" fanfiction... "You're a real boy now. You can't to back to these cheap tricks." -LilyI will say this upfront: "The Playbook" was very funny, as you would expect any episode with this many Barney Sti...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) As mentioned previously, "Lie to Me" is a show that, due to its nature, I'm not going to blog about every week, but tonight's episode was a pretty strong one, and I want to talk briefly about why. Spoilers coming up just as soon as I run away to that place where all the cool teenagers hide out...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Spoilers for tonight's "Friday Night Lights" coming up just as soon as I take a plate of responsibility... "See, you're the only one that didn't get the joke." -Levi BurnwellHaving established the new world of East Dillon and its most notable residents over the first two episodes, a busier-t...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) I haven't written about "Glee" since the season premiere, but Fox has sent out enough episodes on review screeners - and I've had enough cleaning of my desk and/or inbox to do - that I've seen a decent amount of this season. And tonight's episode represented a show I... well, that I at least didn'...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) • It's still not clear whether Chuck and/or Darby perished in the Caracara fire, in part because some material about it had to be cut for time from last week's episode, according to Kurt Sutter. The matter will be explained in an upcoming episode.

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) FX’s “Sons of Anarchy” has somehow reached that higher gear without having the finish line anywhere in sight. It’s in only its second season, one of the most successful scripted shows on cable (it made headlines a few weeks ago for finishing ahead of Jay Leno in the 18-to-49 demographic), a...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) I never saw myself working in a place like this." -DonFor much of this season, we wondered exactly when the show would get around to dealing with the Kennedy assassination - whether Matt Weiner would wait till the finale, or get to it ahead of that. He took the latter approach, and many of us ass...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Parks and Rec" co-creator Mike Schur says the poster, and the talking head about it, were came from a happy accident of sorts. In season one, Ron had a poster of Bobby Knight up in his office, which they had to remove for legal reasons, so the production team spent a long time combing through th...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) • As the reluctant judge, Hey, It's That Guy! Michael O'Neill adds a new item to the list of acceptable occupations for which he may be cast. Others include cop, FBI agent, CIA agent, special forces soldier and, possibly, stern private school headmaster or stuffy dean.

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Spoilers for the penultimate episode of "Mad Men" season three coming up just as soon as I take you to see "Singin' in the Rain"... "The Kennedy assassination is very well-trod territory, and I just don't see myself adding (anything) new to that." -Matthew Weiner, at the end of season twoWeine...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) In particular, I want this "real America" storyline to go away, immediately. All the jokes about it feel angry and uncomfortable, like Fey has had a lot of bad meetings with the real-life versions of Jack Donaghy of late and wants to vent. It feels like watching those episodes of "Designing W...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) On top of getting the balance right, this episode also improved on some specific things that weren't working too well lately. Senor Chang had become really, really broad, and here he occasionally seemed like an actual person, and one who can be used outside of Spanish class scenes. And whil...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) 1)Do the first 13 as planned, then continue the story with six more episodes after that. 2)End the season as planned, only in the 19th episode, and try to wedge in a bunch of additional stories (some self-contained, some not) in episodes 13-18.

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) A new season of "Friday Night Lights" has begun, and, like last year, I'm going to review each episode as it airs on DirecTV, then repost these reviews whenever NBC gets around to showing each episode. Spoilers for the season premiere coming up just as soon as I embark upon my hero's journey... "...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) • Between Chuck's return and Half-Sack displaying his nuticle for all to see, this was a pretty funny episode, considering how many bad things also happened in it. (Tig: "Is it gay that I want to see it?" Bobby: "Gay-curious.") • I don't know how it played out with sponsored interruptions, bu...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) • For a half-second, I thought the episode's title might be an allusion to Cher's "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" (tramp is another word for hobo, and Don's an identity thief), but the song came out 8 years after the episode, so... ? And given how close we are to the end of the season, let me again re...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) But this isn't an ideal world. Fox has pulled "Dollhouse" from its November sweeps schedule, and will burn through the next six episodes by airing them as Friday double features for three straight weeks in early December. That'll leave three episodes left on the initial order of 13, and whi...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) As soon as I realized Michael was going to have sex with Pam's mom in the wedding episode, I started anticipating what the fall-out episode would be like. We had to wait a week (and suffer through an episode I really disliked), but the end product absolutely lived up to, and in some ways surpas...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) • This episode was the directorial debut for "Mad Men" executive producer Scott Hornbacher, who, like Weiner, used to work on "The Sopranos." I'm guessing, but don't know, that it was Hornbacher's choice to put Miss Farrell in the Bowdoin t-shirt, since it was one of the two schools Tony an...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) The episode itself starts with the indirect approach, as we get glimpses of Betty, Peggy and Don in situations that won't explain themselves until much later in the hour. It's not really necessary - I'm not fond of non-chronological storytelling, or in media res openings, unless they rev...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Watching the season's early episodes, I kept wondering when the chaos and immediate problems would begin. Now, having watched "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency" - the highlight of season three to date, and one of the best "Mad Men" episodes ever - I know. If we're going to consider, as I s...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Now, to get there, a lot is going to have to happen, starting with the Dharma sub making a u-turn to deposit Sawyer, Juliet and Kate back onto Craphole Island. • Locke gets to kill another boar, and to return to Others camp with another corpse on his back.

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) • Cuse and Lindelof have referred to "The Variable" as a sequel of sorts to "The Constant," so it made sense to feature Desmond and Penny, even if they only appeared at the beginning and end of the hour. Those two are awesome. I really have nothing else to say. But I hope the writers can find a way to...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) You do?" -MilesWhat is it about TV writers and father issues? And, specifically, what is it about "Lost" and father issues? Amongst the notably bad dads we've met and/or heard about over the years (and I'm sure I'm leaving out somebody like Boone or Mr. Eko's father):

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) • If we had only found out that Penny survived Ben's attempt on her life and gotten to watch Terry O'Quinn be so serenely and supremely confident as the resurrected Locke... dayenu. • If we had only seen Penny's survival, O'Quinn being so awesome and Michael Emerson being just as awesome at play...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Spoilers for tonight's "Lost" coming up just as soon as I ask Miles about time travel..."I'm going back to find your daughter." -KateMiracle of miracles, a Kate episode I liked. One I really liked, in fact. • This episode was a bit lighter on Sawyer than the last few, but Josh Holloway still had a ve...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Quick straw poll: I know there are (or were) Kate/Sawyer fans, but after the last few episodes, how many people actually want Sawyer to leave Juliet for Freckles? And how many people groaned when Sawyer turned left from his front door to try to catch up with Kate?

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) • If the name Radzinsky (the guy running The Flame and building the scale model of The Swan, aka the hatch) sounds familiar, it's because Kelvin spent a lot of time telling Desmond about him during the flashbacks in the season two finale, "Live Together, Die Alone." He had been Kelvin's part...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) The look of pure joy on his face as Juliet told him about the successful delivery (see above) was matched only by the look of relief on Juliet's face. Josh Holloway and Elizabeth Mitchell played so well off each other throughout the episode, and sold all of the emotions as the two of them slowl...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Cuse and Lindelof like to talk about how they believe the characters are more important to the show than the island mythology, and an episode like this bears that out. We got a few clues about the island -- the Tunisian desert is always where the frozen donkey wheel spits out its movers, Ben tr...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) Again, this is definitely a Desmond/Daniel episode, but I don't want to gloss over the material between Locke (who has now definitively thrown in his lot with The Others) and the 1954 version of Richard Alpert. Operating under the show's closed-loop theory of time-travel, Locke takes th...

By Alan Sepinwall(asepinwall@starledger.com) You'll note that the column contains some thoughts from "Lost" co-creator and my sometime arch-nemesis Damon Lindelof (pictured, above right, at press tour with Carlton Cuse). We spoke at length last week about last season, this season, and how the worst episode in "Lost" history may al...

By Alan Sepinwall(noreply@blogger.com) I don't blog on "Desperate Housewives" that often (haven't since this season's premiere, I believe), but as I did devote a good chunk of time to watching the finale, might as well offer up some thoughts, just as soon as I remember to always bet on Nathan Fillion in a fair fight...

By Alan Sepinwall(noreply@blogger.com) Or take the relieved and yet happy way Jim says "I'm so glad you didn't," when he finds out that Michael restrained himself from kissing Holly. Jim's coaching of Michael throughout was wonderful. I don't know if it's that, as he's decided to fight for his job at Dunder-Mifflin, he's grown pro...

By Alan Sepinwall Spoilers for "Lost" coming up just as soon as I get my dry cleaner to remove the blood and sand from my parka... If they had only given us Smokey's rampage, teleportation, the Sayid explanation and Michael Emerson playing Ben's reaction to Alex's death, Dayenu.