The Mentalist, anyone?

Is anyone watching the new mystery show The Mentalist? I watched the pilot online over the weekend, and I thought it had potential. The detective reminds me of Sherlock Holmes, which is always a good sign!

Link to Bones Recap: The Finger in the Nest

I haven't been happy with my Bones reviews, but I also haven't had the energy or wit lately to do the sort of recaps I've been wanting to do. I was browsing around Bones sites tonight and discovered that The Recapist does nice long recaps that are pretty awesome. So I'm going to link you to those for a while instead of trying to reinvent the wheel. Here's last week's episode, 4.04, "The Finger in the Nest."

TV: Bones 4.3: The Man in the Outhouse

(Note: I'll get the review out more quickly next week, I promise. I realize I'm right under the wire here as far as my self-imposed "post review before the next episode airs" rule goes.)

I liked this second episode of Bones Much more than I did the season premiere. Agree? Disagree? Comment below and weigh in!

Plot: A trucker uses an abandoned outhouse - and it explodes. (I forget why, exactly. That part wasn't very clear.) The trucker survives, but a body is found stuck in the outhouse and Booth and Brennan are called in. They eventually figure out that the dead man is the host of a TV show dedicated to busting cheating spouses. This, of course, opens up a whole new area of potential suspects: the busted spouses (mostly husbands). The usual suspects - family, friends, coworkers - are around, too. The case is fairly straightforward, with no suggestion of a relationship to ongoing plots, but it's an entertaining one-off.

Booth/Brennan: At the beginning of the episode, Booth realizes that Brennan is dating two men at the same time, and the fallout from this is hilarious. Brennan sees nothing wrong with, or even odd about, her situation, but Booth can't even comprehend acting as she does. His Catholic faith is really reflected in his view of relationships - it's nice to see that bit of verisimilitude. Their on-and-off conversation about the situation continues throughout the episode, and Booth uses the example of the cheating spouses in the case to extol the virtues of monogamy.

Perhaps inevitably, Booth and the two men all end up meeting, hilarity ensues, and Brennan ends up single by the end of the episode. This sets up one of the cutest ever of their often-cute episode-ending scenes, in which Booth tells Brennan that he knows the one right person for her is out there and she just has to be open to seeing it, and shippers everywhere squee. Then Booth offers to buy Brennan dinner, and tells Sweets not to come along because he wants it to be just the two of them. Awww.

The Squints: There was virtually nothing about the major Hodgins/Angela drama of last week, so that was annoying. The main squint subplot revolved around the grad student of the week, Daisy, and her attempts to make Brennan like her. The other squints are alternately amused and annoyed by these efforts, and Daisy ends up getting fired. The very last scene of the episode, though, involves a very cute interaction that suggests that we may see, or at least hear about, Daisy again.

Overall Grade: A

TV: Bones 4.1-2: Yanks in the UK (Part 1 and 2)

Yay, Bones is back! What did everyone think of the first episode? My (spoiler-free) thoughts below...

Plot: Booth and Brennan are in England to give speeches, but they get roped into helping their British counterparts with a few cases. The first case involves a murdered American heiress and her aristocratic British boyfriend and their complicated families. I found it a little hard to follow, but I couldn't put my finger on why. This was another one where it seemed like they came up with a punchline along the lines of "Hey, wouldn't it be funny if they were in England and had [xyz famous mystery cliche] happen?" So it was fine, but kind of... eh.

In the second hour, the murder victim was Brennan's UK counterpart himself. This case involves all sorts of delving into British academia, crew teams, industrialization vs. preservation debates, and more. Booth and Brennan do their thing - sending data and evidence back to the squints for help - and, of course, solve the case. This case was more satisfying than the first one.

Booth/Brennan: There was a lot of nonsense about Booth being completely out of his depth in England - not able to understand driving laws, incapable of successfully talking to people, generally being non-functional. This seemed completely ridiculous - he was a big important secret military sniper, right? He can't be this bumbling whenever he's put into an unfamiliar setting. It just seemed completely out of character.

There was some interesting stuff with Booth's reaction to Brennan considering getting involved with her UK counterpart. His reaction was not as unsubtle as I'd feared it would be, and I think their interaction boded well for the development of the relationship this season.

The Squints: I was less-than-thrilled with the various squint subplots this episode, too. Angela's long-lost husband finally resurfaces and throws everyone into turmoil, with results that I really didn't like. (Sorry to be vague, but I'm trying to avoid spoiling too much here.) Sweets did actually have some good insights, but isn't he supposed to be there to actually consult on cases at this point? It's kind of hilarious that this department of half a dozen people seems to need a full-time shrink just to deal with their interpersonal issues. I did like the Grad Student of the Week, but at the end of the night he announced that he was leaving because he couldn't take all the drama involved in working there. Yeah. I was kind of sympathetic with him on that one.

Overall Grade: B

Sad news about Women's Murder Club

Kristin at E! says it's probably not coming back next season. Bah. I really like that show!

TV: Bones 3.12 - The Baby in the Bough

Brennan with a baby. Hah. Yeah.

Plot: Booth and Brennan get called to the scene of a car accident, because the driver of the car was set on fire and the body is therefore unrecognizable. Booth hears crying, and they find a baby. In a tree. Yeah. Apparently, when the car crashed, the baby's carseat flew up into the tree and stayed there. So they get the baby out, and then they find a key that might provide vital evidence, and then - shocking! - the baby swallows the key, and therefore has to stay with Booth and Brennan until the evidence comes out the other end. (And, by happy coincidence, Brennan is registered as a foster parent! Yeah.) Brennan and Booth, with baby in tow, follow the clues to a small town in West Virginia and eventually figure out what happened to the baby's mother. The whole set up is rather more unbelievable than usual - it's like they said "Hey, let's make them have to interact with a baby!" and then just made stuff up to get there. But the actual mystery is decent.

Booth/Brennan: The baby stuff was actually pretty cute, but there was something even more interesting to the Booth/Brennan relationship. At the beginning of the episode, Booth realizes that Brennan's books and movie deal have made her pretty wealthy, so he spends the rest of the episode trying to convince her to buy a vacation house so he can fish. She keeps shooting down the idea, of course, but neither of them questions his assumption that her vacation house would be for their joint use. Hmmm...

The Squints: There was some hilarious stuff with Angela saying she wanted "a million" kids and Hodgins panicking and then subtly trying to reduce the number.

Overall Grade: B+

TV: Without a Trace 6:15 - Deja Vu

This episode aired on April 24. Recap by Amy W.

WARNING: SPOILERS! WARNING: SPOILERS!

This week's missing person: Jay McCann
A coma patient named Jay McCann awakens three years after the car crash that put him in the hospital. His awakening and subsequent recovery is deemed a miracle, and while taking a walk outside of the rehab center, he "fades" out. The team follows several false leads, including that his wife was having an affair, and a father of another coma patient asking Jay to "unlock" his coma-ridden son.

Through their investigation, the team finds that a mistress was blackmailing Jay – a mistress that has been missing since Jay's accident. Jay was carrying a cashier's check to pay the woman off. However, he was delayed by the accident, and she lost her temper. His brother, on site to take her to the airport after the payoff, accidentally killed her in a struggle. When his brother confirms this memory to Jay, Jay insists on going to the police. His brother refuses, but Jay leaves his brother under the impression that he is going to the authorities. He is later found, unconscious and missing his wallet, on the subway. The episode ends with him back in a coma, in another hospital.

Ongoing plot development: Jack and Jen Long
Jack is still in the hospital recovering from his gunshot wounds. While awaiting his sponge bath, his iPhone rings and he listens to a panicked voice mail message from Jen Long. Through the episode, Jack keeps asking Sam to check in on Jen, but Sam puts him off, telling him that she is too busy with the McCann case. Jack gets fed up, doses himself on his pain pills and breaks out of the hospital.

Jack confronts Jen's mother first, who is fairly hostile with him since Jen has been put on a witness list to testify against her abductor. She believes however that Jen is safe, as she has been sent to stay with her aunt. Jack makes her listen to the panicked message, and she tells him how to find the aunt. When he arrives, the apartment is open and he finds the aunt locked in the closet. The abductor had been there, beating the aunt, until she let it slip that Jen might be at the park. Jack goes to the park and talks to a group of punks (with horrible drawn-on tattoos) and they tell him that the abductor had also been there looking for her as well. He tries to talk to other people, but his health is failing quickly. He eventually tracks her to a diner that he "remembers" and hears her struggling in the back. She's being forced into a van, which Jack shoots at. The van loses control and hits Jack, but the driver manages to get out with a gun. From the ground Jack fires off shots and kills him. Jen thanks Sam, who has finally managed to arrive on the scene, as her ordeal is now over.

Want to know about Bones season four?

No, I'm not going to spoil you here. But if you want to know, you should go read the April 30 edition of Ask Ausiello.

No Bones for me.

For some completely inexplicable reason, my TiVo told me it was recording Bones last night but actually recorded Dancing with the Stars. Um, what? It's never done anything like that before, and it was quite disappointing to discover the error when I sat down all ready to watch. Oh well. I'll watch it online tonight.

TV: Bones 3.11 - Player Under Pressure

This episode was supposed to air in season two, but it was postponed because of the shootings at Virginia Tech. They redid some of the character development stuff to make it fit into the third season, and it finally aired last Monday.

Plot: The decomposing body of a star basketball player is found in a university gym, and Booth and Brennan must explore the world of elite athletes to figure out who killed the star. The mystery this week was set up pretty well: there were a nice number of suspects with reasonable motives, but it wasn't too convoluted. And I guessed what the solution was going to be, but it was a "Wow, that was set up very well and now I feel clever" sort of thing rather than an "Aww, that was way too obvious" thing.

Booth/Brennan: Still no mention of the kiss in the Christmas episode! Bah. It seems that recently Brennan had been getting better at dealing with people, but in this episode she was back to being completely socially inept, to the point of messing up the investigation (by telling people they were suspects, etc.). Some of this might have been because this was an old, updated episode, but it was still annoying. They also had another instance of the "One of them inadvertantly insults 'people like' the other, and then they kiss [not literally, unfortunately!] and make up at the end" meme, which is getting a little old but still works, I think.

The Squints: Not too much going on there this week - I read that the subplot was supposed to be about Hodgins trying to propose, but obviously they had to take that out when the episode was postponed. There was some weird stuff about Angela being touchy about taking messages for Hodgins, and then Camille yelling at Angela for having sex in the storeroom and being caught on the security camera, and blah blah. Enh.

Overall Grade: B+

Women's Murder Club is coming back!

I just saw a commercial on ABC for new episodes of Women's Murder Club. The first new episode will be aired on Tuesday (4/29) at 10 p.m. Yay! I've missed this show. Anyone else watch?

TV: The Murder at the Vicarage (McEwan)

First, two caveats: 1) I have never read this book, although I have read other Miss Marples and 2) I have not seen any of the Joan Hickson Miss Marple adaptations since I was a child, so Geraldine McEwan is my default Miss Marple, although I know these versions are somewhat controversial.

This is the first Miss Marple book, and so also the first in the McEwan TV series. I loved it, mostly. It's set right in St. Mary Mead, so it has all that lovely village life with cottages and flowers and tea and vicarages. It's my favorite type of escapist books/TV, really. An abrasive local squire (Derek Jacobi!) is found dead in the vicarage, and Miss Marple must help the police figure out what happened. Considering the small number of characters, there are a fair number of plot twists and the solution is pretty complex.

There was one element I didn't like: the nightmarish flashbacks that Miss Marple kept having. Sure, it was interesting to have some context for her, but they really pulled me out of the story. I'm not sure the flashbacks occur in any but the first episode; the only other episode I can think of with flashbacks is At Bertram's Hotel, and those flashbacks are to her childhood and fit in better with the story, I think.

Despite the flashbacks, I really enjoyed this and I'm looking forward to watching the whole series in order. (I saw a few scattered episodes when they aired on PBS.) I think Geraldine McEwan is a perfect Miss Marple: she's witty and sharp, but also gentle and caring, and really looks perfect for the role. And, of course, there's the knitting!

Masterpiece: Mystery Schedule

It seems that PBS has changed the name of Mystery! to Masterpiece: Mystery! in order to fit in with their other new names (Masterpiece: Classic and Masterpiece: Contemporary). But, more excitingly, they have posted their schedule for the summer. It includes:

Foyle's War: Series V: Yay yay yay yay yay! This series about a police detective on the southern coast of England during World War II is probably my very favorite British TV mystery series ever.

Lewis: Series I: This is a spinoff of the popular Morse series. I've never seen Morse (it's in my Netflix queue), but I liked the pilot of Lewis they showed last year, so I'll be giving this a try.

The Inspector Lynley Mysteries: Series VII: These are based on the popular Lynley series by Elizabeth George, although I think the episodes they're producing now are not actually based on the books. I love the books, but I'm way behind - I've only read the first three. And only seen one of the adaptations. I wonder if I could catch up by the time these air?

The Shadow in the North: For some reason, this isn't on the schedule page, but it's on the main Masterpiece page so I'm assuming it will be aired. This is the second mystery featuring Sally Lockhart, a Victorian teen detective. I loved these books as a teenager. I'll have to watch the first adaptation (The Ruby in the Smoke) soon in preparation for this.

All in all, looks like a great season! Any opinions? What are you looking forward to?