Project Runway: All Stars (Season 2)

Starring: Carolyn Murphy, Georgina Chapman, Isaac Mizrahi, Joanna Coles

Creator: Eli Holzman

Genre: Reality, Competition, Fashion

Rating: B-

I have to confess that while I do really enjoy Project Runway, I have more mixed feelings regarding Project Runway: All Stars.  While I still like the contestants - although I do kind of question just how some of them made it onto Project Runway in the first place let alone the All Stars installment - I really miss the chore people of the original series - Heidi Klum, Tim Gunn, Michael Kors, and Nina Garcia.  Nothing against the people that they bring in for the All Stars, but we just don't love them as much.

Season 2 of All Stars features cast members from every season of Project Runway up to season 9, with the exception of season 4.  What I did like about this is that they had four runner ups this season, although they also had people who came in 10th and 11th on their original season, which contributes to some of the begging the question as to how some of these people are All Stars.  Despite that, though, as the season progressed I really started to like all of the remaining contestants.  I didn't know all, or really most, of them from their original season, but once the weaker designers were weeded out I really came to enjoy most of them and their esthetic.

I have kind of mixed feelings about the finale.  I really liked two of the designers who made it to the final three, but I wasn't really a fan of the third designer.  In the end, while I did like the person who won, it wasn't necessarily the person who I wanted to win.  I also kind of questioned the way they rated the first and second runner up, as I really thought that the person who came in third probably should have won, and the person who won should have come in second.

I did like the overall challenges of this season, with my favourites being the avant-garde androgynous look and the graffiti art challenges.  I was a bit disappointed by the overall celebrity judges.  There were a couple that I thought were great, but overall it seemed a bit subpar for the series.  A bit of a disappointment, really.

Star Trek: The Original Series (Season 1)

Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForrest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Grace Lee Whitney, Majel Barrett, James Doohan

Creator: Gene Roddenberry

Genre: Sci-Fi

Rating: C+

This is going to be a bit sacrelige, but I didn't really enjoy the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series (initially known  as simply Star Trek).  There was a plethora of reasons, but the biggest were simply the overall writing, the horrible special effects, the overall plot (or lack thereof), and the acting.

For those who don't know Star Trek (are in the dark so to speak, probably owing to the rock on the far side of Pluto that they've been living on for the past forty or so years), the original series follows the crew of the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) as they "boldly go where no man has gone before."  The crew is headed by Captain James T. Kirk (Shatner), first officer Spock (Nimoy), and chief medical officer Leonard "Bones" McCoy (Kelley), and rounded out by crew members chief engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (Doohan), communications officer Uhura (Nichols), helmsman Sulu (Takei), yoeman Janice Rand (Whitney), and nurse Christine Chapel (Barett).  In the first series, the crew encounter aliens, defy death (except for when they don't), deal with mutants, and watch as Kirk loses his shirt and sleeps his way through the galaxy.

I don't actually mind the general plot of the story, as it's really rather typical of science fiction (especially of science fiction of this time), and I can appreciate the ways in which it helped the genre.  I'm not a big fan of the writing though, simply because I found myself having to buy into a bit too much.  This probably could have been avoided had the show been less episodic and more serial; each episode essentially carried itself and was unaffected by the episodes that came before it - and thus had no effect on the episodes that came after it.  I'm not a fan of TV tabula rasa, which in my opinion is essentially what happens here.  Every episode the Enterprise crew come up against some new adventure, Kirk sleeps with some new woman, and people (often in red shirts) die.  Every episode the crew learns something - only to conveniently forget it by the next episode.  It is because of this that the show is able to be aired in a non-chronological order, which goes contrary to the order in which they were produced in.

The problem of the special effects is one that can be dismissed by the fact that Star Trek was created in the mid-1960s, until you realize that Planet of the Apes was created around the same time.  Some of the effects are actually pretty cool and I have to admit that I love the backgrounds that fill the show.  What I hate, however, are the aliens.  They're really kind of lame, and often really cheesy.  The worst, in my opinion, is the neural parasites in the season finale, which were literally created by covering novelty vomit in a plastic bladder.  Seriously: the special effects involved dollar store fake vomit.

The worst thing, though, is the acting.  While there are some good, possibly even great actors, here - I really have to say that I love Leonard Nimoy's Spock - most of them are a bit more on the mediocre side of things, and William Shatner... William Shatner is not a good actor.  He's entertaining, yes, but he's not exactly good.  The fact that he's the lead here just makes things worse, as does his manner of enunciating every word and thus making them into their own individual sentence. While I suspect that this is done so as to add emphasis and create dramatic tension, what it actually does is makes him sound as though he's constantly struggling to remember his lines.

Sherlock (Seasons 1 and 2)

Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman

Creator: Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss

Genre: Crime, Drama

Rating: A+

Doctor John Watson (Freeman) is an ex-army doctor who was injured in Afghanistan.  Through a mutual friend he meets  the eccentric Sherlock Holmes (Cumberbatch), whose home at 221B Baker Street he moves into.  Holmes is a much disliked freelance investigator for the police - many of whom see him as a psychopath who will one day snap.  This view is actually really easy to see, but over the course of the first season Sherlock and Watson really begin to develop a friendship, of sorts, as Watson begins to help Sherlock with his cases - or at least go along with them.

Possibly my favourite part about the show, however, is the fact that Sherlock very clearly sets out to be more than simply a buddy cop type show or just another procedural.  Each of the three episodes in the first season take elements of inspiration from the original stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, although only the plot of the first episode, "A Study in Pink" is an adaptation of a Conan Doyle story, in this case A Study in Scarlet - this is different in the second season, when all three episodes are based on the original Sherlock Holmes novels, in order A Scandal in Bohemia, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Final Problem.  I really like that they've done this; there's no dicking around with elements from the novels that people know and love, there's no hinting at them, there's no allusions.  Well, there are allusions but not in a way that leaves you hanging and wanting more.

The thing that really makes this show absolutely amazing, however, is the cast.  The supporting characters are great - from the cops like Sally Donovan (Vinette Robinson) who think that Sherlock is psychotic to Sherlock's brother Mycroft (Gatiss), to Mrs. Hudson (Una Stubbs) who is just pure awesome - but the two leads are even better.  I'm really not sure which I like more, the cold, Aspergerish Sherlock or his much more down to Earth and reasonable friend, Watson.  The dynamic between the two of them is superb and the fact that you really see the influence that Watson has on Sherlock - and that Sherlock has on Watson - is awesome.  I think the idea of a procedural where the main character is someone who doesn't fit into conventional society is my favourite form of the procedural, but when taken with Sherlock it becomes even better.  You can see Sherlock just as easily being the bad guy as he is the good guy, and it's only through his relationship with people like Watson and Mrs. Hudson that keeps him from going over that edge.  In a way, he's kind of like Sheldon Cooper meets Temperance Booth with a British accent and amazing cheek bones, but neither of them really has the balance that Watson provides.  It's great.  I can't wait for season three, even if it isn't coming out until 2014.

Project Runway Australia (Season 4)

Starring: Megan Gale, Alex Perry, Claudia Navone, Peter Morrissey

Creator: Eli Holzman

Genre: Reality, Competition, Fashion

Rating: C+

The fourth season of Project Runway Australia  is, much like all seasons of instalments in the Project Runway franchise, follows a number of designers - primarily from Australia (although two contestants came to Australia from elsewhere, one from San Francisco and one from London), and primarily in their early-to-mid twenties - as they compete to be titled the best designer.

Um., so yeah.  While I really enjoy the American instalments in the Project Runway franchise I wasn't a huge fan of the Australian one.  There was a general culture issue - the big names in celebrity guest judges were names that I had almost entirely never heard of before, and thus was never really wowed or amazed by - nor did I make the link between the challenge and the guest judge, although that's my fault and not the show's.

The season's biggest flaw, in my opinion, was the general unlikeability of the contestants.  There were a few that I did like and found myself rooting for, but for the most part they were all whiny, annoying individuals who seemed to be just out of fashion school.  They often seemed to be either amateurs or costume designers, and as such watching them week after week after awhile got rather dull.  I also disagreed with the winner, whose collection overall I thought was probably the weakest.  In all, I doubt I'll watch the next season (if there is one) of Project Runway Australia.

Homeland (Season 2)

Starring: Claire Danes, Damian Lewis, Morena Baccarin, David Harewood, Diego Klattenhoff, Jackson Pace, Morgan Saylor, Mandy Patinkin, Jamey Sheridan, David Marciano, Navid Negahban

Creator: Gideon Raff

Genre: Psychological Thriller, Serial Drama

Rating: B+

I'm still a bit undecided on the second season of Homeland, owing largely to the sheer  unbelievability of a lot of it.  It kind of lost me about mid-way through the season, only to bring me right back into it at the end.  While I like being brought back, I don't like being lost in the first place.

The second season of Homeland switches things up a bit from the first.  At first things are all about getting Carrie (Danes) back into the business of the CIA, while Brody (Lewis) struggles with the duality of his life and identity, as he acts as both a patriotic family man and a covert terrorist.  Then the CIA finds his suicide video and discover what he's up to - and use Carrie to manipulate Brody into acting as a agent for the CIA against Abu Nazir (Negahban).  Through it all, there is the underlying theme of the relationship, or possibility thereof, between Brody and Carrie, and the implications that it has for both her job and his family.

I really didn't buy Brody's conversion back to being a patriotic American.  I don't think that you can have feelings as strongly as he had in the first season - he was prepared to blow up himself in order to kill the Vice President of the United States - only to very quickly switch back to being a patriot again.  As such, the whole plot with Brody really bothered me because I never really thought that he was being straight with us.  This is in a huge contrast to season one, when I spent the a huge chunk of the season unsure of Brody's motivations and allegiance and hoping that it was one way, but suspecting that it was another - this season I was told it was one way, then another, all while getting a bit bored with it.  I think I liked Brody more as a terrorist than as a former terrorist.

I liked what they did with Carrie a lot more.  Her mental instability really is key here, and I think in a lot of ways the relationship with Brody - and the things that Brody kind of gets away with - is dependant on her being mentally unstable.  I think Danes' character here is probably one of my favourite characters on TV right now, which kind of says a lot because I love a lot of TV's characters.  Danes does a great job, even when I'm not buying the actual plot of the show.  In a manner, while the character's believably is aided heavily by her mental instability it is Danes' skill as an actress that makes that instability believable in itself.  Kudos!

My favourite part about this season, however, has to be Brody's family, namely his daughter Dana (Saylor).  Her struggles were far more believable and relate-able to me than anything else that was going on here.  There was a point when I almost wished that Homeland was not about the plot to say the USA from a terrorist threat (or multiple terrorist threats) but rather about a family dealing with a father's rise into politics (with or without the whole father-is-a-possible-terrorist aspect of the plot).  There was a lot of greatness and potential for even more greatness within that plot.  Furthermore, I kind of see potential for greatness within Morgan Saylor that I expect to see in her future endeavours.

Downton Abbey (2012 Christmas Special)

Starring: Hugh Bonneville, Jessica Brown Findlay, Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter, Brendan Coyle, Michelle Dockery, Siobhan Finneran, Joanne Froggatt, Rob James-Collier, Phyllis Logan, Elizabeth McGovern, Sophie McShera, Lesley Nicol, Maggie Smith, Dan Stevens, Penelope Wilton, Amy Nuttall, Lily James

Creator: Julian Fellowes

Genre: Period Drama

Rating: B+

Okay, so I spent a lot of this episode cringing for various reasons.  It's a bit heavy handed, especially with the foreshadowing,and so a lot of the episode is spent going "don't do this, don't do this."  Set in September 1921, about nine months after the conclusion of season three, this year's Christmas Special followed a number of plots.  The main part of the Crawley family, has gone north to Scotland to see Lady Rose MacClare (James) and her parents, the Marquess and Marchioness of Flintshire (Peter Egan and Phoebe Nicholls).  There Lord and Lady Grantham (Bonneville and McGovern) try to help the Marquess and Marchioness with their failing marriage, Mary (Dockery) and Matthew (Stevens) fret over the impending birth of their child while also worry about the attention that Edith (Carmichael) is getting from her newspaper editor, Michael Gregson (Charles Edwards).  Bates (Coyle), Anna (Froggatt), Molesley (Doyle), and O'Brien (Finneran) all make the trip, with O'Brien coming to head with the Marchioness' lady's maid.  Not invited on the trip is Tom Branson (Leech), who remains behind at Downton with the staff.  Here he's brought to question his role and position in the family, and whether or not he's being true to himself, by new maid Edna (MyAnna Buring), who happens to be attracted to him.  Meanwhile the younger staff, lead by footmen Jimmy (Speleers) and Alfred (Milne) are hoping for some time off while the family's away, but Carson (Carter) has other thoughts about that.  Also back in Downton is Isobel (Wilton), who has begun to get cozy with Dr. Clarkson (David Robb).  Oh! And Mrs. Patmore (Nicol) has a suitor in new grocer Tufton (John Henshaw), although Mrs. Hughes (Logan) isn't too sure of his motives.

I enjoyed the struggle between the younger staff, who want some time off, and the older staff, who view the family being away as a time to clean the house properly.  I thought it was a really great plot, especially as Mrs. Hughes supports both the younger and the elder staff, depending on which one she's talking to.  I'm really glad that she wasn't the character they decided to kill off last season, simply because I don't think the house would run nearly as efficiently without her.  Actually, I think all around I really enjoyed the various plots for all the main servants, even O'Brien, who's struggles for once make her look like something other than the villain.

What I was a bit more iffy on was the storylines for the Crawleys and Tom in general.  Isobel's was cute and I was really into it throughout and I look forward to how, if at all, they deal with it in the next season.  I hope so; I'm never really a big fan of her storylines, but I think this could be one that I'd really enjoy.  I'm not too sure how I feel about the Ethel plot line - I can't help but think that we're being set up for Ethel being screwed over romantically, which I feel we've done enough at this point.  I get it, Ethel is unhappy in love and going to die an old maid.  Let's move on now, shall we?  I kind of saw the solution to the Flintshire's problem coming a mile away, although I'm not complaining - I think Lady Rose is going to be a good addition to the cast, especially with the departure of Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay).  I think, if given the chance, Rose could become my new favourite of the upstairs ladies.

The two things that I hated the most, however, was the foreshadowing about the Matthew/Mary plot and the overall Tom plot.  Let's do Tom first, because the Matthew/Mary stuff is somewhat spoiler-ish.  I think over the course of this series Tom is one of the characters that has probably grown and changed the most - and it's a growth and change that I really like.  He was a member of the staff who fell in love with the Lord's daughter, got married, unwillingly joined the family, then gradually became accepted by the family.  Now, however, without Sybil he's still a bit lost and left alone, without the family he's beginning to question how much he's changed.  The overall relationship, and flirtation, with Edna, left me worried - I'm not ready to see Tom leave the Crawley family and go back to being the person he was at the start of the series, nor am I ready to see him move on from Sybil.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way.  Now... if you've paid attention to the rumours about Downton since the end of season three, then you kind of new what was coming - and if you didn't pay attention, the show gave you plenty of opportunity to anticipate it (and I'm going to very strongly allude to it in the next bit here).  There's a degree of foreshadowing that's appropriate, then there's what Downton did here.  That's not to say that I didn't like the actual plot, I did and really it's exactly what I was hoping would happen given the rumours, I just didn't like sitting there going "oh, yeah, x is going to happen."  In the end, it was handled nicely, but the lead up was too heavy handed.

Grey's Anatomy (Season 3)

Starring: Ellen Pompeo, Sandra Oh, Katherine Heigl, Justin Chambers, T.R. Knight, Chandra Wilson, James Pickens, Jr, Isaiah Washington, Patrick Dempsey, Kate Walsh, Sara Ramírez, Eric Dane

Creator: Shonda Rhimes

Genre: Medical Drama, Serial Drama
Rating: B-

In many ways the third season of Grey’s Anatomy is one of my favourite seasons of the show, while at the same time in many ways it’s my least favourite.  I love what the show does with some of its more secondary main characters and I love how many characters are introduced or bumped up in this season. I love the dynamic that Callie (Ramírez) and Sloan (Dane) bring to the show, and the way that Meredith’s (Pompeo) father and his other family are introduced more – and the way that Meredith further embraces her other family, and the way in which her relationship with the Chief (Pickens) develops.  I love the whole idea of the Chief being a surrogate father for Meredith, and it’s in this season that we really begin to start to see that.

The third season of Grey’s Anatomy starts with Meredith trying to choose between McDreamy (Dempsey) and McVet (Chris O’Donnell), Izzie (Heigl) trying to cope with Denny’s death, Christina (Oh) and Burke (Washington) deal with the results of the shooting, the Chief is forced to choose between his wife and his job, Bailey (Wilson) tries to reaffirm her status as a surgeon post-becoming a mommy, and George (Knight) tries to figure out his relationship with Callie. And, of course, to mess with it all, Mark Sloan returns to Seattle Grace. As the season progresses there are hook ups and break ups, marriages and divorces, births and deaths, comings and goings. The season seems to go into so many different directions, with so many plots being picked up and dropped, that it’s hard to provide a quick summary of it all without spoiling the way in which things with the earliest plots develop.

Okay, so the McDreamy/McVet thing was great.  As was the addition of McSteamy and the Dirty Mistresses club.  I love McStreamy and the element that he brings to the show.  Somehow, the Mer/Der/Addison (Pompeo) triangle is so much with the addition of a viable love interest for Addison.  I also like the fact that Sloan is as much about getting his friendship with Derek back as he is about doing anything with Addison - and the fact that he's very much about sleeping with as much of the hospital's female staff as possible.  It's such a great element of his character, I love it.  I really enjoyed elements of the George/Callie relationship too.  I love how the crush that George had on Mer is gone, and that he's trying to become an adult and enter into an adult relationship with someone.  I hate where the relationship ended up going, but then my overall dislike of Izzie at this point may have been a huge contributing factor there.  Also, am I right in thinking that George's friends are complete asses for how they treated Callie here?

I didn't like the second half of this season nearly as much as I liked the first half.  Things kind of change following the three parter, "Walk on Water," "Drowning on Dry Land," and Some Kind of Miracle." While I really did like what they did with each of those episodes - and especially the reactions to Mer's situation in "Some Kind of Wonderful" - it marked a turning point in the season where everything just started to go to shit again.  I do like how the season ended, but the steps that they took in getting there just bugged me.  Sometimes I wonder if our Interns are growing up or if our Attendings are simply sinking down to their level.

That being said, I did absolutely love the season's finale.  The relationship between Christina (Oh) and Burke (Washington) has always been an interesting one, and I've found it intriguing to watch how much of herself Christina has been willing to give up for him.  There's a part of me that wonders what would have happened had real life not shaped the direction of the plot here - Washington's controversial behaviour on set had a huge play in things - but I like how they dealt with things as it was.  In my opinion, there was no better way this relationship could have gone.

Sons of Anarchy (Season 3)

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Mark Boone Junior, Kim Coates, Tommy Flanagan, Maggie Siff, Ron Perlman, Ryan Hurst, William Lucking, Theo Rossi, Dayton Callie
Creator: Kurt Sutter 

Genre: Crime, Drama, Action, Comedy
Rating: A-

Have I mentioned yet how much I love the music in Sons of Anarchy?  I don’t think that I have.  A lot of the series’ music is stuff from lesser known, newer artists with a traditional rock and roll tone to it, although a few artists who are more established are also briefly used.  There’s also a lot from series composer Bob Thiele’s band The Forest Rangers, often featuring a vocal accompaniment by another artist.  There are also frequent covers, done in a way that feels different but at the same time totally fits with the tone of the show.  If you haven’t already, you should definitely check out the soundtracks.

I think the third season of Sons of Anarchy managed to both improve on the previous seasons and lose some of the charm.  The plot continues to grow in direction and become less overly complicated, but I think some of the elements of it were a bit rushed and I found at some points I really needed to suspend my disbelief.  I really liked the note that the season ended on and the implications that it had for the next season, but some of the journey was a bit bumpy.

Season three picks up a bit after where season two left off: Gemma (Sagal) has fled from Charming and is in hiding with Tig (Coates) and SOA members from another charter guarding her while the other Sons are searching for Cameron (Jamie McShane) and Abel.  The search is not going well, however, as Cameron flees to Belfast, Northern Ireland, where he seeks help from his cousins Maureen Ashby (Paula Malcomson) and Father Kellan Ashby (James Cosmo), the latter whom acts as an intermediary between Jimmy O’Phelan (Titus Welliver) and the Real IRA.  Rather than simply hand Abel over to the Sons, Father Ashby and the IRA begin to weave their own intricate plot in which the Sons of Anarchy are just pawns.  Meanwhile in town all the violence is beginning to catch up to the Sons and following a drive-by shooting at Half-Sack’s wake the townsfolk begin to turn against the club and those associated with it.  In order to maintain their standing the club has to restore order, but they’re being opposed by Jacob Hale, Jr (Jeff Kober), who is now running for mayor and is even more determined to remove SAMCRO from Charming.  Gemma, meanwhile, is longing for her family and, unable to return to Charming, goes to visit her newly widowed father, Nate (Hal Holbrook), who suffers from dementia.  I kind of love how I just wrote a summary of the season’s events while only mentioning two of the series’ stars by name.  The creepiest moment by far, however, is the guest appearance of Stephen King, who plays a man named Bachman.  That man is just… yeah.

So, I'm going to look at this season in two different lights; on the one hand you have the plot with Gemma in the US, and on the other hand you have the plot with the search for Abel in Ireland.  I loved the plot with Gemma and the way that we got to see her relationship with people beyond the Sons.  We got to see a bit of who she was before she became an Old Lady.  I also really love the development of her relationship with the Sons who aren't Jax (Hunnam) and Clay (Perlman).  We really get to see that she is as much a part of the club as the members; we see that she is as loved as any of the men in it, possibly more so.  I really get the feeling that if Clay wasn't around, any one of the older men in the club would make a try for her, even Tig who's sexuality is a reoccurring joke on the show.  I also love that the issues that Gemma is trying to overcome here bring up cause to develop the relationship between her and Tara (Siff).  That's a really great relationship, and I like seeing where it goes.

So, yeah.  While I loved the plot with Gemma, I kind of question the Abel plot.  There were great elements of it, but in the end it was a bit much.  I can really see how this whole thing is going to end up completely screwing the Sons over, especially Jax.  Sometimes, I think the show is being set up for a massive kill-them-all ending - a thought that is only reinforced by the Shakespearean themes to it - and the whole thing with the Irish was one of those moments.  Can't you see the show ending like that, with everyone dead?  I do.

The Big Bang Theory (Season 3)

Starring: Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar
Creator: Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady
Genre: Sitcom
Rating: A

Up to this point, the third season of The Big Bang Theory is in my opinion the best yet; overall I think it’s actually very nicely tied with the fourth season.  The focus in these two seasons seems to be more along the lines of pairing the characters up romantically than their more typical exploits, which I enjoy in itself and find helps expand the show.  Even with this pairing up, however, there’s still a huge will they-won’t they element to the show, as well as the more typical confusions and challenges that exist as the result between the differences of the way that Penny sees the world and the way that the guys see it – this is enhanced further in season four.

The primary overlaying plot this season is the relationship between Leonard (Galecki) and Penny (Cuoco), and the many trials that they’re faced with – including, as usual, the fact that Leonard over thinks things and that he’s more emotionally invested than Penny is. It’s in this season that the difference in age between the two really comes to play; Penny’s only in her (presumably) early twenties, while Leonard is in his thirties. Furthermore, she has dated a lot while Leonard is a bit starved for affection. As a consequence of the relationship between Leonard and Penny, Howard finally gets a girlfriend – Bernadette Rostenkowski (Melissa Rauch), a friend of Penny’s and a microbiologist who is set up with Howard mid-way through the season. Rounding it up is the end of season introduction to Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik), Sheldon’s apparent match, after the guys put Sheldon on an internet dating service.

So, my favourite part of this season is the addition of  Bernadette and, later on, Amy Farrah Fowler.  The two really serve to humanize their male counterparts and, in the case of Bernadette, make him a lot less creepy.  I'm not too sure how I feel about some of their later development, particularly as it pertains to Amy, but for now it's great.  I also really like the development of the relationship between Penny and Leonard.  At tthis point in the game their struggles really make sense, and both the progression and digression are great.  The will-they-won't they isn't yet about to push on being ridiculous and overdone.  It's still really rather tight and understandable.  While I wasn't a huge fan of how things went for them throughout the entire season, I did really love how it played on her development with the other characters - notably Sheldon.  My favourite episode of the season is probably "The Spaghetti Catalyst" just because of the way that it looks into the friendship between Penny and Sheldon.  It's great.

Where the season kind of lost me a bit was with its treatment of Raj.  The "is he gay" thing can only last for so long, as can the general awkwardness around women.  As they're clearly pairing up the other characters in the series it kind of feels like they're just leaving the foreigner out of things.  I would really like to see them do more with him in the future, to develop him more, to give him the same kind of archs that they're giving the other cast.

Titanic: Blood and Steel

Starring: Kevin Zegers, Liam Cunningham, Alessandra Mastronardi, Derek Jacobi, Neve Campbell, Chris Noth, Billy Carter, Ophelia Lovibond, Branwell Donaghey, Martin McCann

Creator: Ciaran Donnelly

Genre: Drama, Historical, Miniseries

Rating: C

I have really mixed feelings about this show.  On the one hand, it wasn't poorly acted and a lot of elements of the plot were actually really interesting.  I enjoyed the ongoing labour and religious disputes between the different levels of people building the Titanic.  The struggles of protagonist Mark Muir (Zegers) are really interesting too, both in terms of his personal and work life.  That having been said, however, Titanic: Blood and Steel has very little to do with the Titanic, despite being about the boat.  It misrepresents history in such a way that I can't help but feel it's rather an insult to the real history here.  To the real people who built the Titanic.

Titanic: Blood and Steel is not your traditional Titanic show.  Rather than focus on the events of the sailing and its disastrous ending, Blood and Steel looks at the building of the ship and the people who invested in it before its maiden voyage.  Here we see some of the classic figures in a Titanic story, the big names that we've come to know - Thomas Andrews (Carter), J.P. Morgan (Noth), and Lord Pirrie (Jacobi).  What takes more of a focus, however, than these actual people, is the account of the very fictional Dr. Mark Muir, an Irish immigrant and American engineer who specializes in studying steel.  We also see struggles of the Irish steelworkers, lead by the McCann brothers, Michael (Donaghey) and Conor (McCann), and the Italian artisans, who worked on the boat.

Once again, the thing that really got me here was how much the focus was on highly fictionalized events.  Blood and Steel was at its best when it was looking at the very real problems that Titanic had to overcome in her making, and at its worst when it was focused on Mark complaining about the impurities in the steel.  If this series is to be taken seriously, then it's to be believed that it was these impurities that caused the Titanic to sink and 1,502 people to die, and not the whole hitting an iceberg.  In my opinion there are a lot of really interesting stories that can be told about the Titanic, both during its building and its sailing, that look a lot more at the actual history of the boat.

That being said, I don't think you need to use real people when constructing a work of historical fiction.  There is that "fiction" element to it, and it can be a lot easier to use fictional characters to depict real events.  James Cameron's Titanic is a great example of how this can happen, and I think the other miniseries out this year from the minds of Nigel Strafford-Clark and Julian Fellowes is another good example.  Both works use a basic story that we already know in order to tell us a new story.  They interweave characterizations of real people, that are largely based on documentation about them, and fictional characters, and base it around one very real event.  Jack and Rose were not in themselves real, but the way their story is told gives us an idea of the real Titanic.  Neither Jack nor Rose are elevated in their importance, they are very much the everyman type character (although, in the case of Rose, with a highly elevated class).  The 2012 Titanic is even better in this regards because it spends a lot more time looking at people who actually were real.  Blood and Steel, however, takes the name of the Titanic and a few events that occurred during its making then weaves together this very fictional story, degrading the historical figures in order to elevate the fictional ones.  In the end it just kind of struck a nerve with me.

Speaking of endings, there is also the problem of Blood and Steel's actual ending.  The miniseries ends where most Titanic works begin, with the boat embarking on its doomed voyage, leaving the viewer to wonder just which of the cast members who happen to be on the boat survive.  While I liked the idea of some of the cast being on it, the way they did this was, in a lot of ways, really contrived and a bit forced.  The speculation itself is also rather fun, in a way, but it also leaves the question open as to whether or not there was supposed to be some sort of follow up to this series - Titanic: Blood and Steel part 2.  Because of the way that they did it, it really felt like they weren't ending the series.

Bunheads (Season 1)

Starring: Sutton Foster, Kaitlyn Jenkins, Julia Goldani Telles, Bailey Buntain, Emma Dumont, Kelly Bishop

Creator: Amy Sherman-Palladino

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Rating: B

Michelle Simms (Foster) has fallen in life.  While she used to be a ballerina somehow her life has slipped past her, to the point that she's now a dancer in Vegas - although she is not yet a stripper.  Finally, at an all time low as she comes to the conclusion that her career, and by extension her life, is at an end, Michelle decides to take up the offer of longtime, and persistent, admirer, Hubbell Flowers (Alan Ruck).  The two get married and she moves with him to his sleepy coastal town of Paradise.  Life, however, is not as pleasant as Hubbell promised, particularly after Hubbell dies in a car accident just one day after their marriage.  Now Michelle must decide what to do with her life, figure out how to adjust to Paradise, and come to terms with her mother-in-law, Fanny (Bishop).  Like her, Fanny is also a former dancer, and in Paradise Fanny runs a ballet school, the Paradise Dance Academy, where Michelle very slowly begins to find a new life.

You can really tell that this show comes from the mind of Amy Sherman-Palladino.  The relationship between Michelle and Fanny is very reminiscent of the one between Lorelai and Emily in Gilmore Girls, despite the fact that Fanny is nothing like Emily - asides from being portrayed by the same actress.  There is no Rory here, but you can really see a relationship growing between Michelle and the dance students that is also reminiscent of that.  The other thing that is reminiscent of Gilmore Girls is the small town and the oddballs that come with it.  At times they appear to be a bit much, but I know that with time each one of them is going to really grow on us.  I particularly liked the fact that we got to see some of the old cast members from Gilmore Girls too - it'll help with the attachment to these surreal people.

The plot in itself is a bit questionable, but I like the basic idea.  You can really tell that the marriage is just a tool to get Michelle to Paradise, and I suspect it could have been done without, but it Sherman-Palladino makes it work.  This really feels like a show that is going to grow with time, and looking back at Gilmore Girls again I remember how that grew as well.  There is a lot that I'd like to see happen with Michelle - namely her getting a good friend in Paradise who can support her - and I'm looking forward to seeing how the show plays out.  There's an episode when Michelle's best friend comes to town and I thought it was one of the best episodes of the season - I'd like to see more like that.  Oh, one last thing that I really liked, there are a lot of really random pop culture references here, and they don't simply cover things that are current.  That was one of my favourite features of Gilmore Girls and I'm glad it's being continued here.

Sons of Anarchy (Season 5)

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Mark Boone Junior, Kim Coates, Tommy Flanagan, Maggie Siff, Ron Perlman, Ryan Hurst, Theo Rossi, Dayton Callie
Creator: Kurt Sutter 

Genre: Crime, Drama, Action, Comedy
Rating: A-

Holy shit.  That's all I can say after having watched this season of Sons of Anarchy. Holy shit.  Season five shows us what happens to the MC following Jax's rise to power.  Jax's sovereignty is shaky from the start; Tig (Coates)'s actions in season four have pitted SAMCRO against the crew of Damon Pope (Harold Perrineau), a man who has a lot more power and in many ways is a lot scarier than Jax.   A series of home invasions have begun to rock Charming, with the police looking to blame SAMCRO at least in part for them.  Jax must also find a way to get rid of Clay (Perlman) once and for all, while Clay is trying to figure out how to regain his power.  Gemma (Sagal), meanwhile, is on a path to hitting rock bottom as she begins drinking and smoking heavier than before, and ends up in the bed of a pimp, Nero (Jimmy Smits), who uses his relationship with Gemma to forge a relationship with Jax and the club.  Tara (Siff) closes herself off to Gemma once again, and is still looking to get her and her family away from the club, while also using her doctoring services in an attempt to get closer to Otto (Sutter).  Oh, and Opie (Hurst) is beginning to question the club even more, and his future within it.

Every episode this season had me starring at the screen going "what the fuck".  I was never really sure just what was about to happen, and every twist that came shocked me.  I laughed, I cried, I got angry, I cried some more.  Even though it's only just ended, I'm already eager for the next season to start up so that I can find out what happens next.  I think I am now more convinced than ever that by series end everyone will be dead - I also think that by the end of it all, Otto will have no more body parts, at least on his face.

This season was a bit jumpy at points, and at times the direction was a bit confusing.  Things seemed to happen not necessarily because they made sense but because they had to happen and it's TV.  I also spent a lot of time watching what was happening with Jax and really questioning the decisions that he was making.  This season is about the descent of Jax and his transition into the kind of man that Clay is.  There's also a lot of fighting between Gemma and Tara, and I can't help but feel that the show is setting things up for one of their departures from things as well, if not both of them.  Once again, everyone's going to die, that's my prediction.

If you've seen this series, or at least the first few episodes, I really recommend watching this video released by EW - clicking it has some very strongly implied spoilers, though, so don't do so unless you already know what happens or don't mind figuring it out.

Sons of Anarchy (Season 2)

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Mark Boone Junior, Kim Coates, Tommy Flanagan, Maggie Siff, Ron Perlman, Ryan Hurst, William Lucking, Theo Rossi, Dayton Callie, Johnny Lewis
Creator: Kurt Sutter 

Genre: Crime, Drama, Action, Comedy
Rating: A

The second season of Sons of Anarchy nicely takes the set up that was the first season and expands on it.  This season is far better than the first, with a more concise and clearer plot and a higher degree of threat to the club.  The issues surrounding the first season are still at force here, especially the threat of ATF and the way that Tara (Siff) fits into Jax (Hunnam)’s world, but there are also whole new threats to the world of Sam Crow and the issues between Clay (Perlman) and Jax begin to really come into the light.  Jax, meanwhile, learns that Donna’s death was at the hands of a club member on the order of Clay and begins to use this as a means of challenging Clay, although never so severely so as to outright challenge Clay’s continued leadership.  Rounding things out is the club’s involvement in the pornography studio run by Big Otto (Sutter)’s wife, Luanne (Dendrie Taylor), who is being threatened by another studio run by Georgie Caruso (Tom Arnold), and the reparation of the relationship between SAMCRO and the Real IRA when its head Jimmy O’Phelan (Titus Welliver) comes stateside.

The big threat of the season is the new-to-Charming white separatists group, the League of American Nationalists (LOAN), who quickly begin to try to drive the Sons out of Charming – early on in the series, this results in the kidnapping and gang rape of Gemma Morrow (Sagal).  Gemma hides the rape from Clay, Jax, and other SAMCRO members, telling only Unster (Callie) and Tara, who try to help her deal with the attack throughout the season.  Tara, meanwhile is trying to figure out just what her role is as Jax’s Old Lady, and how to reconcile it with her role as a doctor at the hospital. 

I think, so far, my favourite moment of this series has to be when Gemma and Tara finally bonded. Over guns. In the parking lot behind a porn film studio run in part by the club. The whole idea of Gemma being this over protective bitchy mother who spends a lot of time trying to control how her son lives his life got old really fast. Really, really fast. I love how this season Gemma seems to have decided to accept Tara and the role that she now plays in Jax’s life and has set out to help Tara adjust to life as an “old lady.” There are a lot of moments that really showed this transition, but my favourite was definitely when Gemma re-armed Tara and taught her how to shoot – and provided her with a way to take out some of her stress and assert her dominance. It was an interesting development and I think really showed just how Gemma went from being a girl not unlike Tara to the matriarch that she is now, as well as suggesting that with time Tara will fill in the role of matriarch herself.

 I also really like the journey that you can see each of the characters embarking on.  This season is a lot easier to follow than the first one, with things seeming to make a lot more sense and being a lot more cohesive.  I also really, really like the whole idea of Tara and Jax being together and dealing with that, instead of not being together and wanting to but pretending to not want to... yeah, that part got annoying really fast last season.  I know things aren't going to be all hunky dory for the lovers and their MC in the future, but somehow the fact that they at least have each other gives me hope.  That is, until you consider the fact that this is supposed to be inspired by Hamlet, where everyone dies horribly.

Face Off (Season 3)

Starring: McKenzie Westmore, Ve Neill, Glenn Hetrick, Neville Page, Patrick Tatopoulos

Genre: Reality, Competition

Rating: B

Face Off is a Project Runway-esque show on the SyFy channel about special effects makeup artists.  Each week contestants are given a challenge to create something original - covering everything from a character that could belong in the universe of Star Wars to video game characters to zombies based on Alice's Wonderland.  Some of the things that they create are absolutely awesome, some of the things that they create are absolutely horrid.  At the end of each episode, one person is sent home, and at the end of the season one person wins it all.

Know what my favourite part about this season of Face Off was?  The almost complete lack of inter-contestant drama.  I really hate competition shows that are based on what a contestant can produce and yet still spend half the show focused on the contestants bickering with each other or badmouthing the creations of other contestants.  More so than in just about any other competition based reality show, this season of Face Off was just about the actual work being created.  Sure there was a little bit of drama in the first episode and a bit in the last two, and there was definitely some poor crafting, but for the most part the contestants at least pretended to get along.  Heck, they even helped each other out, which is something you almost never seem to see in these shows.

The second thing that I really liked about this season was the sheer skill of the competitors and the fact that almost everyone seemed to go home right when they deserved it.  There was one elimination where I didn't agree with who went home, not because I thought that they hadn't done poorly but because I thought that someone else had done worse.  Early on I picked a favourite, and by midway through I picked a second, then a third, and when my first favourite was eliminated I was actually happy - not because I didn't still love that person's work or because I wanted someone else to win more, but because based on that challenge I really thought that my favourite was the person who deserved to go home the most.

The only thing I didn't like about this season was the fact that the final winner was determined not by the judges but by an audience vote in.  I don't really agree with audience vote ins for a few reasons.  In Survivor-esque shows, I think there's a lot that goes into the editing of the final show that can manipulate the way the cast is portrayed and, as such, the way that the public is going to vote.  The same thing can happen in shows like Face Off or Project Runway where the editing portrays the contestants in a certain way.  Furthermore, in a show like Face Off or So You Think You Can Dance a huge part of the competition is based on some skill that the viewing audience isn't all that likely to be an expertise in.  I can vote for something I liked to see or watch, but when you look at things closer or from a more technical standpoint I have no clue.  The judges, however, do.  There are a lot of dancers in SYTCD who appear to progress simply because they're fan favourites, but it's people like the judges who will give them a job.  It's the same thing with Face Off - the fans aren't the ones who know the technical stuff, nor do we get to really see things close up, but the judges do.  I'd rather see them pick a winner than America pick one.

Downton Abbey (Season 3)

Starring: Hugh Bonneville, Jessica Brown Findlay, Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter, Brendan Coyle, Michelle Dockery, Siobhan Finneran, Joanne Froggatt, Rob James-Collier, Phyllis Logan, Elizabeth McGovern, Sophie McShera, Lesley Nicol, Maggie Smith, Dan Stevens, Penelope Wilton, Amy Nuttall, Allen Leech, Kevin Doyle, Matt Milne, Ed Speleers, Cara Theobold

Creator: Julian Fellowes

Genre: Period Drama

Rating: A

What to say about this season of Downton Abbey.... Going into the season, I knew that "Somebody will be born, and somebody will die" and that there would be a wedding - I hadn't read the full article where executive producer Rebecca Eaton had said as much, so I didn't know exactly who was getting married, but I had my guesses about that and about the birth, as well as a huge list of "I hope they don't kill X."

Downton opens with the preparations for the wedding of Matthew (Stevens) and Mary (Dockery), with Cora (McGovern)'s mother, Martha Livenson (Shirley MacLaine) sweeping in from America for it, to the great distaste of the Dowager Countess (Smith).  Just to interject, the scenes between MacLaine and Smith were possibly the funniest scenes this season and I really hope that they find some excuse to bring MacLaine back later.  Tragedy, however, strikes the family, and Robert (Bonneville) discovers that his attempts at investment have left almost entirely bankrupted the family.  At the same time, Matthew has discovered that he has possibly inherited a large amount of money from Lavinia (Zoe Boyle)'s father, although he is certain that it is not ethical to accept it. Sybil (Brown Findlay) is still pregnant, and Tom (Leech) still a revolutionary, which leads to problems for the two of them. Edith (Carmichael), meanwhile, is determined to change her status as an old maid and has set her sights on Sir Anthony Strallan (Robert Bathurst), despite the objections of both Sir Anthony and her family.  Downstairs, things are no less chaotic; O'Brien (Finneran) has arranged to have her nephew, Alfred (Milne) hired, and Alfred struggles to meet the standards of Carson (Carter) and avoid the vindiction of Thomas (James-Collier).  Daisy (McShera) develops a crush on Alfred, who in turn has feelings for new kitchen maid Ivy (Theobold), who likes fellow new footman Jimmy (Speleers), who isn't revealing who he likes but has also drawn the attention of Thomas.  Mrs. Hughes (Logan) has found a lump which she thinks might be cancer, although she insists on keeping it a secret, telling only Mrs. Patmore (Nicol) - a secret which Mrs. Patmore struggles to keep.  Anna (Froggatt) continues the struggle to find the evidence to prove that Bates (Coyle) isn't a murderer, while Bates struggles to survive in prison.  Combining the upstairs with the downstairs, Isobel (Wilton) discovers that Ethel (Nuttall) has become a prostitute and sets out to save her.  Oh, and while he doesn't get any big plot lines, Molesley (Doyle) has been upgraded to main cast.

I loved, loved, loved this season.  It brought up all the issues that remained at the end of the 2011 Christmas Special, while also introducing issues specific to this season.  The show seems to become more and more intricate as times passes, while still remembering to pay tribute to the little things that made this show great in the first place.  I love the way the Crawleys come together to fight for what they want, while also fighting within each other.  It seems like there is never really a point in this family where they're all getting along.  I also really love how Tom fits into it all as well.  It isn't simply a case of the Crawleys versus Tom, and right from the start he makes alliances and friends within the family.

Speaking of alliances, the alliance between Thomas and O'Brien is broken here.  I wasn't really a fan of either character in the first two seasons, but I really love the war that the two of them carry out this season.  When it was them against the world things just got boring after, but with it being them against each other I really got captivated.  There are points when you even feel sorry for Thomas just because he seems so much on his own this season - O'Brien had her share of allies, but Thomas was all alone.

Two things that I didn't really like about this season.  One is the story with Ethel.  While I understood where Isobel was coming from, I think she tends to not think through the consequences of her actions.  I did like the way the story was handled in the end, but getting to it was rather painful.  The other thing was Edith.  Poor Lady Edith.  The girl is so desperate to not be an old maid anymore that she seems willing to throw herself at anyone - and her family seems determined to keep her as one.   I love the character in general, but I'm anxious to see them do more with her.  The second half of the season seemed to be interested in opening up things a bit more with her, but I'm not holding my breath.

Titanic (2012 Miniseries)

Starring: Linus Roache, Geraldine Somerville, Celia Imrie, Toby Jones, Perdita Weeks, Lee Ross, Jenna-Louise Coleman, Sophie Winkleman, Steve Waddington, David Calder, James Wilby, Antonio Magro, Stephen Campbell Moore, Noah Reid, Lyndsey Marshal, Mark Lewis Jones, Ruth Bradley, Peter McDonald, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Glen Blackhall, Dragos Bucur, Maria Doyle Kennedy, David Eisner, Linda Kash, Brian McCardie, Peter Wright

Creator: Nigel Strafford-Clark

Genre: Miniseries, Period Drama

Rating: B-

I'm still a bit undecided on this show. There are elements that I really enjoyed - particularly in the way they ended it. I don't just mean in that the boat sank and some people died while others didn't, I mean that after three rather disjointed and confusing episodes they still managed to make it suspenseful and make me care about who lived and who died.

The basic story behind this is obvious, and because of the sheer volume of characters within it I'm not going to really summarize things too much. Basically, the show is four episodes long with each of the first three episodes introducing the audience to the characters as they embark on the Titanic and leading up to the hitting of the iceberg. Each of these first episodes ends with this moment, and as such each episode introduces things differently and largely covers the same span of time. The final episode is the sinking and we find out the fates of the characters we've kind of gotten to know.

Because of the nature of the show things get a bit confusing. There are characters in the first episode who seem to disappear until the fourth, and there are events that happen multiple times in the series, with each repetition being altered to follow a different point of view. I really like what they tried to do here overall, but it gets a bit bogged down after awhile. The short length of the series doesn't mesh well with the sheer volume of the cast. The creators were trying to tell too much of a story in too little of a time.

That being said, because of the nature of the show I did still manage to get attached to the characters, and as the boat sunk I was anxious about who would survive and who wouldn't, particularly among the male and lower class characters. If you think about it, that's what a show about the Titanic is supposed to do.

Project Runway (Season 10)

Starring: Heidi Klum, Tim Gunn, Michael Kors, Nina Garcia

Creator: Eli Holzman

Genre: Reality, Competition, Fashion

Rating: B

I really enjoyed the designers on the 10th regular season of Project Runway, even if I also absolutely hated some of them.  If you're not familiar with the show, the series takes a group of aspiring designers (this year 16), puts them through a series of tasks (this year 12), eliminating designers along the way.  At the end of it all, the top designers are given the opportunity to create a collection for Fashion Week with the best collection winning and presumably pushing forward the careers of the winning designer.  Along the way there are a vast number of celebrity guests judges, ranging from people in the fashion industry, to famous business owners, to actors and singers.

This year's guests judges included Lauren Graham, Krysten Ritter, Hayden Panettiere, Debra Messing, Hilary Duff, Zoe Saldana, and Jennifer Hudson.  The thing that I really like about this show is that the guest judges are more than just random celebrities come to promote their newest project; they're usually people who are somehow involved in the fashion industry, if only because they have an interest in clothes, and the tasks that they judge on are often somehow tied to their personal life.  As such, they're not typically sitting there gushing about how awesome the designers are; often they can be as critical and harsh as the regular judges.

The designers this season were not all really good designers, nor would I say they were all necessarily sane.  The first few episodes of this show is always about weeding out the weak, and I was really happy to see that the designers who I thought were the weakest overall were weeded out fairly quickly.  Sure there were a few whose personalities I liked, but you could tell that they weren't as strong as some of the others.  Granted, there were a few designers who carried on whose personalities I didn't like, but I did have to admit that they were skilled.

That's actually exactly how I felt about this season's winner.  I really didn't like the person, I hated their attitude although I didn't mind their aesthetic.  I understood why they won, and when it came down to it I have to admit that they did present the best (and most cohesive) show, even if going into the finale I had listed who I wanted to win most in order, and the person who won was at the bottom of that list.  Actually, my list ended up being the exact opposite of how the results went down, but I admit I know nothing about fashion and had based that list entirely on who I liked as a person most.  While I wasn't a fan, the right person probably won, which doesn't often happen in reality tv shows.

Franklin & Bash (Season 2)

Starring: Breckin Meyer, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Dana Davis, Garcelle Beauvais, Kumail Nanjani, Malcolm McDowell, Reed Diamond

Creator: Kevin Falls and Bill Chais

Genre: Comedy, Legal Drama

Rating: B

I wasn’t as much of a fan of this season of Franklin and Bash as I was the first.  While it’s still a great buddy lawyer type show and still maintains the hijinks that I enjoyed in the first season – and continues on with the awesome guest stars, stepping it up in a great way by having Jane Seymour (who I love) play Peter (Gosselaar)’s mother – it’s starting to lose a bit of the charm, at least for me.  There’s a line between childish immaturity and fun, and I’m not exactly sure which side of it F and B are on.

This season shows us… well, Franklin (Meyer) remains short with daddy issues, Bash remains tall with ex-girlfriend issues, Pindar (Nanjiani) is working on not being a shut in with a gazillion phobias, Infeld (McDowell) is an excentric old guy with too much money, Karp (Diamond) is a douche, and Hanna (Beauvais)… actually, I’m really not sure what’s going on with Hanna.  I think my problem with the show could really be surmised by her in general: sometimes she seems to be on the side of Franklin and Bash, other times she’s with Karp in the quest to have them removed.  To be honest, I really don’t get the quest in itself anymore.  The two of them have had plenty of opportunities to prove themselves and despite their questionable antics have done so rather successfully; it really just seems like the show writers have given Karp this bone and let him chew on it incessantly.  It’s boring – if you’re going to make a character semi-villainous, give him a reason for being so.  As for Hanna… well, in general, I really have no clue what her motivation is.  During the first season she seemed to go back and forth on the issue for no apparent reason, during this second season she’s all anti-Franklin and Bash but her motivation is never revealed.

This stagnation is the shows problem in general.  While I understand it’s trying to be more episodic than serial the complete lack of any overarching plot is a disability for the show, as is the complete inconsistency in it.  The feelings of the characters seem to only really serve the plot-of-the-week, which gets annoying very quickly.  Franklin’s daddy issues only really come out when his father’s appearing in an episode, Bash’s feelings for Janie (Claire Coffee) only come out when she’s appearing – the rest of the time he’s really a bit of a pig when it comes to women, as is his counterpart.  The show in general feels almost like it should be a sitcom, but for some reason it isn’t.  From this side of season two, I’m not entirely sure if I care enough about the show anymore to watch season three… I guess we’ll have to wait and see how I feel about it all next summer.