Category Archives: TV-G[eek]

Percy Jackson and the Olympians S1 E4

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“I Plunge to My Death”

Okay, this was my favorite Percy Jackson episode so far.

And it ended so quickly. It seemed as if I had just started watching it and suddenly the episode was over. 

It was great too. The Mother of Monsters showed up with a creature of some kind, poisoned Percy, chased them through St. Louis and confronted Percy in the St. Louis Arch. 

Then the episode title shows the relevance. Percy plunged from the arch after trying to battle the monster. However, Poseidon whipped some water over to Percy and saved him. We then learned that Percy could breathe under water. 

Walker Scobell continues to be just excellent as the titular character, showing some real heroism and bravery in this episode, and hearing the words spoken to him from his father’s emissary was a real awesome moment.

Moonlighting S3 E11

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“Poltergeist III- DiPesto 0”

At the end of the last episode, The Straight Poop, they promised a new episode next week. It was a new episode, but it was an Agnes DiPesto episode. Worse yet, it was the one that started the Herbert Viola downward spiral.

Miss DiPesto is unhappy when she heard that Herbert was getting case work at the office. When she confronted Dave and Maddie, they dismissed her, saying they needed her in the office. 

A case came in that, Maddie and Dave, agreed to turn down a case. Miss DiPesto overheard this and decided to do the case on her own. Herbert saw this and felt threatened and horned his way into the case.

It is a haunted house story, with Agnes and Herbert trying to Scooby-Doo this adventure.

Again, this episode was fine, but it just is not Moonlighting when they focus the main story on anyone that is not Dave and Maddie.

Picket Fences S4 E17

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“Bye-Bye, Bey-Bey”

Some uncomfortable discussion going on in Rome on the episode “Bye-Bye, Bey-Bey” of Picket Fences. Turns out that Laurie Bey had given birth to the baby for her brother and his husband. Laurie announced this at the baby’s baptism that she was giving the baby to be raised by the gay couple.

This led to so much hatred and homophobia in Rome as this small town has so many hate groups and repressed angry people that it is amazing. 

So many of the comments made throughout the show, including by some of the main cast members, were disgusting and so very much language of the 1990s. In 2024, this sounded way out of touch.

Although they do not come out, during this episode, Jill feels very judgy when she is treating Laurie’s brother. During this rewatch, I have to say that I am not a big fan of Jill Brock. She is very judgmental and does not seem as liberal as I expected her to be. Especially after the episode 15 of this season, I have found myself really disliking the Jill Brock character.

The X-Files S2 E14 E15

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“Die Hard Die Verletzt”

“Fresh Bones”

Boy, what a double feature this was. Satan worshipers and Voodoo practitioners. Spooky.

Episode 15 visited a small town that had a group of parents who were Satan worshipers and terrible things were happening and being covered up by the group. There was another teacher in the school, Mrs. Paddock, who was the true antagonist of the episode. She was a creepy

In Fresh Bones, there also a creepy semi-villain named Pierre Bauvais, who was an imprisoned refugee from Haiti. As well as him, there was a kid running around named Chester Bonaparte who Mulder and Scully discovered at the end of the episode had died weeks earlier. The real villain of this piece was Colonel Wharton, the head of the compound.

Both of these episodes had similar structure to them and both featured Mulder and Scully in real bad situations that looked as if they were doomed, only to sneak by with their lives intact.

Mulder and Scully are lucky to be alive after both of these episodes, neither of which they were able to capture the guilty party. Honestly, neither of them are very good field agents. They are much better in the lab or the profiling area. 

Moonlighting S3 E10

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“The Straight Poop”

Rona Barrett shows up at the Blue Moon Detective Agency to do what only she could do… find out why there is no new episode again.

This was a clever episode that took the rumors and speculation about the on set feud between Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis and poked fun at the random release schedule of episodes. They use this set up to create a clip show of the best moments from the first two and a half seasons of Moonlighting.

Clip shows are a normal thing that happens during seasons when a show needs some extra time, and there was no show that needed time more than Moonlighting. Using Rona Barrett as the transition between the clips is a stroke of genius.

There were some fun cameos in the episode as well, including Pierce Brosnan as Remington Steele, a Moonlighting-type of detective show that was airing on NBC. They also interviewed Peter Bogdanovich, the director who worked with Cybill Shepherd on several of his movies which led to an affair between them and a several year relationship. The show joked about their relationship and how he took up with Maddie after the relationship with the other model went away. 

They added bloopers at the end over the credits which are always fun.

Moonlighting caught a lot of criticism from the public and the media for the amount of weeks where they did not have a new episode ready to go. There were several reasons behind it, but this is a funny and neat way to address it as well as remind everybody why they loved the show in the first place.  

The X-Files S2 E13

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“Irresistible”

This was a disturbing and scary episode of the X-Files, and it really didn’t have anything to do with aliens or the paranormal. What it had to do with was a frightening man who had a terrible fetish that led him to do atrocious things.

The man started by digging up bodies in the cemetery and defiling them, cutting hair and puling out fingernails. That was disturbing enough without needing to go into it further. Mulder and Scully was called in because the police officer believed that aliens may have been invovled, but Mulder shot that down quickly.

However, Scully was having reactions to the case, having flashbacks to her recent abduction and it was affecting what she did. It showed her own PTSD over the incident that she has clearly not gotten over as of yet.

Nick Chinlund was cast as the ‘monster’ this episode and he was remarkably chilling. His tone and normal feel made him all the more sinister. 

The local police detective involved in this case was a well known face to police show enthusiasts. Bruce Weitz played Sgt. Michael “Mick” Belker for years prior to this on the NBC show Hill Street Blues. He had won a Best Supporting Actor Emmy for the role, and he provided a nice foil for Agent Mulder. It was cool to see a local cop not turn the stink-eye to Mulder for once. It was a different kind of case, but Weitz was very supportive of Mulder, including being a believer at the beginning.

It was cool to see Mulder and how efficient he could be as an agent with his profile skills that was not paranormal related. You could see why Agent Mulder had been regarded as highly as he was at the bureau prior to his involvement with the X-Files.

I do like how Scully was able to fight back before Mulder arrived. I would have liked for her to have been able to subdue the suspect before Mulder came to the rescue, but I guess her fighting back was enough. I do not want Scully to be seen as a victim.

However, the scene at the very end when Scully broke down in tears with Mulder was a very strong scene too. It showed how important the characters were to each other.

Very good episode. Different from other X-Files episodes and that keeps the viewers unsure about what is next.

Picket Fences S4 E16

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“Dante’s Inferno”

This Picket Fences episode was quite the step up from the last one. 

It is also an episode that feels very current day and was filled with hatred. The way Chuck Dante, as played by Charles Rocket, is portrayed here made me think very much about some of the political discourse that happens regularly in our society today.

Admittedly, this episode was certainly pointed more toward Howard Stern than it was Donald Trump, as Chuck Dante was a thinly veiled caricature of the shock jock. Still, it felt very much like something that could happen today.

The influence Dante showed in this episode over his listeners was eerily similar. The anti-feminist hatred that the character spewed on his radio show felt much like some of the hatred that happens on the Internet on a regular basis. 

Wambaugh used the words of Dante to defend his client, a man who shot Maxine who had been appointed as the acting mayor while Laurie Bey was on maternity leave. The shooter was just as unlikable as Dante. As Wambaugh cross examined Dante, the defendant would snicker at some of the outrageous comments he made during his testimony.

Of course the jury found him no guilty which was horrendous. Judge Bone sent the shooter to a mental institution for observation. 

After the case, the people turned on Dante, which is something I wish would happen today to these people who try to use their words to rile up the influential of the country.

By the way, Jill Brock was back to her normal routine after her complete psychotic break last episode. She said things last episode that were really cruel and she said them for no reason. I guess we are meant to forget about that.

Fargo S5 E7

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“Linda”

Dorothy returned to Fargo this week as we discovered exactly what she was after. A woman named Linda.

Whereas last week’s episode was lacking Dorothy, this week we get a lot of her. In fact, we only get a little of the rest of the crew outside of her. We do see how the events have affected Wayne and his new attitude toward the car dealership. We see Gator in an attempt to kill Ole Munch, but who is several steps behind him.

And we have Dorothy nearly wrecking her car when she fell asleep at the wheel. After she wakes up, she finds a card for Camp Utopia, which turns out to be a place where Linda had created a refuge for abused women.

Dorothy tried to convince Linda to return and go against Sheriff Roy. Linda says she has to make her puppet first and tell her truth. This was weird and Dorothy did not want to do it at first. However, she finally just basically said screw it and she made a puppet. 

Then, we got the backstory of Dorothy (called Nadine at that time) and how she came to be with Sheriff Roy. It was told with puppets and it was awesome. It did remind me of scenes from The Boys and from Gen V where puppets or animated characters narrated flashbacks. Still, this was beautifully done.

However, this was all apparently a dream as Dorothy had actually crashed her car when she fell asleep and dreamt this whole section. The nurse told her that they were happy that she came to and her husband was here. In walked Roy.

This was a great episode as we learned a lot of truths about Dorothy and her past and we get a chance to see how lowlife Roy Tillman truly was. 

Three more episodes for this season, which has been a lot of fun.

Moonlighting S3 E8

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“It’s a Wonderful Job”

Moonlighting had some great Christmas episodes. We are up to the “It’s A Wonderful Job” episode from season three, which, of course, is a parody of the all-time Christmas classic “It’s A Wonderful Life.”

Everything is set up to have Maddie alone in a bar after making a public wish that she had never kept the agency open. She is approached by her guardian angel, Albert, who goes ahead and shows her what her life would be like had she closed down Blue Moon instead of keeping it open.

Miss DiPesto was a cruel, cold businesswoman running a greeting card company. David married Cheryl Tiegs. Maddie would be fated to kill herself in a car crash.

There are some really good scenes with Cybill Shepherd, especially the scene on the roof of the building with Albert. She was very subtle with her facial expressions, but you could see them change depending on each situation.

Along with Cheryl Tiegs, there were some fun cameos. In particular, Lionel Stander, who played Max on Hart to Hart, an earlier detective show on ABC. Stander was playing Max here as Blue Moon had become Hart Investigations in this alternate future. We also saw Charles Rocket once again as David’s brother Richie. This is the first time in awhile since we saw Jack Blessing as Mr. MacGillicudy, one of the staff workers at Blue Moon.

Again, I found Herbert Viola’s presence in this episode to be fine. I am curious to see when my abject hatred of this character starts because so far I think he has been used very well.

This is a strong episode to follow the best episode they ever had with Atomic Shakespeare. The third season was on fire at this point. Although the kiss at the end of the episode with David and Maddie was confusing, since it felt as if something had changed, but they do not reference it again.

Picket Fences S4 E11, E12, E13, E14, E15

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“Bloodlines”

“Snow Exit”

“My Romance”

“The Z Files”

“Bottled”

I watched a run of the fourth season episodes of Picket Fences this afternoon. They were all fairly low on the overall list of Picket Fences as a group of characters were acting out of character and there was plenty of mean-spiritedness.

The best of these five episodes was “Snow Exit” when a blizzard crippled the city and Mayor Bey had to give birth at the police station. By the way, this was the last time we saw her, She had asked Kenny to help be her Lamaze partner and he had to tromp through the blizzard to get to her. Then she named her child Michael. You know… Michael Bey. Is that a joke or is Michael Bay the son of Marlee Matlin? 

One of this episode’s problems is that everyone had a storyline, but there was no through line. They were all separate. Henry Bone had a heart attack. Max got stuck with Jack Black, who was dressed as a cat. Jill got stuck at a bar with Lydia singing. Nothing was sensible.

Henry and Doug seemed to bury the hatchet with their fight over the Pope, but that changed a few episodes later. 

In another episode, Carter nearly gets run over by a bus, gets electrocuted and is dead for 3 minutes before being revived. It led to an after death moment for him, and caused a major upheaval in his relationship.

The first episode was called “Bloodlines’ and it was actually not bad. Matthew saw a classmate who had killed himself with a shotgun and the sight messed with his head. So Jimmy took him on a trip to chase the Cocaine Bear. Well, it may not have been the Cocaine Bear, but it was a giant bear that was roaming freely around the county. That bear, by the way, left the county and there was never any resolution to that storyline. Matt did some nice acting in that episode. Of course, he then spent time kissing the young girl who Zack liked.

The worst of all of these episode was the old Brock party episode in “Bottled.” Jill thought she was going through menopause and she spent the whole episode being cruel and totally out of control. Even after she discovered that she was not going through the change, she was just as cruel and as crazy, saying such horrendous things as you could imagine to Jimmy and her kids. It was totally inexcusable and there was no reason given for her behavior. If I did not know better, I’d say these people all hate each other. This went well beyond family squabbling or saying unhappy truths to work through issues. This was just obscene.

Matthew had the best joke, saying that they always make up at five minutes to 11, which was a breaking of the fourth wall type joke as that was the time the show aired. Of course, there was no resolution of the arguments or anything but apologies that felt empty. This was not the Jill Brock that I have watched for three seasons + before this.

Henry was also going crazy as he was being totally rude to Douglas, who began to take his rudeness to heart. They came to an understand, sort of, but I got the implication that Wambaugh was not a forgiving as he usually was.

By the way, Zack was allowed to invite four people to his birthday party and he chose Wambaugh, Henry Bone, Maxine and Kenny. Why did he not pick Mayor Bey? Weren’t they so close that she got caught as the Dancing Bandit coming back to see Zack on his last birthday?

I did not mention about the Z Files, where Zack used an internet site to create a dirty picture of his teacher and then he gave it to his friend Kevin who put it on the internet. 

Honestly, this Brock family probably all grew up to become serial killers or master criminals. 

It is a good thing that this is in the middle of the final season of Picket Fences because if this show continued to rape these characters as it has been doing, I’d be ready to stop watching. As of now, I have only seven more episodes left so no sense in stopping now. 

Sad fact is this is just not the same series as it was in the first three seasons.

The X-Files S2 E12

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“Aubrey”

I thought that I was done with X-Files episodes that I had not seen. Then I started watching “Aubrey” and I realized quickly that I was not done with unseen X-Files shows.

The show kicked off right away with John Locke! My ever favorite LOST star, Terry O’Quinn, was playing a police detective involved in the case that Mulder and Scully would be involved in.

A female detective stumbled into the desert and digs up the bones of a missing FBI agent from the 40s. This leads to a look at a serial killer from the time and how it connected to three murders from the present.

I did like the story. It was inventive and the answer was a surprise. It had that same X-Files feel to it, but it was unlike other episodes.

What If…? S2 E9

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“What If… Strange Supreme Intervened?”

Well, here we are. The finale of season two of What If…?, and it has been a glorious season. Several of these episodes truly took a leap from season one. I shouldn’t say that I disliked season one, because I liked it enough. It just does not stand out. It’s fine.

That is why season two has been so great. Because it went beyond what was before and improved everything: storytelling, animation, characterization… all of it.

The 1602 episode was the highlight of a fantastic season and its placement just before the finale raised the stakes for the finale. 

The finale turned out to be a step back from the best episodes of the season, but was a lot of crazy fun. 

Strange Supreme returned to his goal of saving his universe, especially Christine, and he tried to fool Captain Carter into helping him by retrieving Kahhori, who had slipped from his grasp. However, together Captain Carter and Kahhori fought against the Doctor.

Most of the episode was taken up by the two powerhouses battling the demonic doctor with their powers. Peggy seemingly kept acquiring even more power, through other MCU weapons that she obtained through the episode.

What was the most fun about the episode was the Cabin in the Woods type situation that happened. Supreme Strange had been collecting and imprisoning powerful forces from the multiverse. In order to distract Strange, Peggy freed them all, leading to a wild brawl among all of these Easter eggs. 

While this was a lot of fun, I kind of wanted more because the season had been so good. I’m not calling this a bad episode. It just did not quite reach the level of so many of the other episodes of the year. 

Though the final shot of the Watcher and Captain Carter standing in front of the Tree of Life from Loki season 2 finale presents a lot of possibilities for the third season, which has been confirmed by Marvel.

Final Episode Order:

E8  ”What If… the Avengers Assembled in 1602?”

E3  ”What If… Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?”

E1  “What If… Nebula Joined the Nova Corps?”

E5  ”What If… Captain Carter Fought the Hydra Stomper”

E9  ”What If… Strange Supreme Intervened?“

E6  ”What If…Kahhori Reshaped the World?”

E7  ”What If…Hela Found the Ten Rings?”

E2  “What If… Peter Quill Fought Earth’s Mightiest Heroes?”

E4  ”What If… Iron Man Crashed into the Gamemaster?”

Moonlighting S3 E7

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“Atomic Shakespeare”

One of my favorite hours of television of all-time is next up for Moonlighting. It is the iconic “Atomic Shakespeare” episode that saw David and Maddie taking the place of Petruchio and Katharina, respectfully. It was a show that understood that it did not matter the setting or the format of the show as long as there was David and Maddie.

The show was written in iambic pentameter, honoring the Shakespeare play of The Taming of the Shrew, in which it was based. 

The episode went full throttle into the Shakespeare of it all in dialogue, costuming and sets. Yet, it maintained the certain flair that made this Moonlighting.

Bruce Willis performed “Good Lovin'” after his “wedding” to a bound and gagged Katharina as the entire church sang along. The wedding itself is hilarious, especially the grunts of Cybill Shepherd at the antics of he soon-to-be husband. 

Petruchio, for his part, wore his Rayban sunglasses (so did his horse, btw) and showed himself to be the one man that could handle his Kate. The ending in the town square when Petruchio speaks about how he and Kate were partners and how much better it was than keeping her under his thumb was a fantastic end to the show. It was a great message and gave Kate some strength after being forced to marry him.

This was clever, funny as can be, and still gave us the flavor of David and Maddie, advancing their characters, without even having it be their characters. 

This is one of my favorite episodes of TV ever, right up there with “The Constant” of LOST and the pilot of Twin Peaks. The risks the show took with this episode were great, but this provided a remarkable result.

And Cybill Shepherd was meant for this time, because she absolutely rocked those dresses. They could not have been comfortable, but she was unbelievably gorgeous in them.

I did not want to put it at the top of my Moonlighting episode list until I saw it again, to see if it held up. After finishing the episode, I can safely say that this is the best episode of Moonlighting ever made and that it holds up beautifully.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters S1 E8

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“Birthright”

Things went really wrong with the 2015 crew as we discover what Shaw’s plan was. He was going to close up the passageways from the Titans’ world to protect the humans and the Titans from each other.

Unfortunately, both May, Lee and Cate looked to fall into the pit to their deaths. Well, it clearly was not to their deaths. I don’t think that cliffhanger was shocking in any way. In fact, I think we will absolutely find that Keiko is still alive. It is obvious that when she got pulled to her death (or so we thought) way back in the first episode, she was just going to be living in the Hollow earth. My guess is that is the reason that Shaw has a long life and Keiko will be the same.

We barely get any monsters on this monster show. We got one at the very end. It’s like that seemingly each week. 

Only a few more weeks for this show. It has been an okay ride so far. I hope it picks up a bit as we approach the finale.

Moonlighting S3 E6

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“Big Man on Mulberry Street”

This was where I was introduced to Billy Joel’s hit “Big Man on Mulberry Street” in yet another classic Moonlighting dream sequence.

I love Billy Joel and I enjoy many of his songs. I would not be lying if I said that every time I hear this song, I think of the huge dance routine with Bruce Willis on this episode. 

Bruce Willis showed off his moves in this dance routine, and the director really highlighted his strengths while using the other experienced dancers to make the routine look great. Bruce may not be a great dancer, but they made him look like a million bucks.

Then, there was a story involving David’s ex-wife and the obsession that it created in the mind of Maddie. Who was this woman? What happened? Why had she never heard about this before? It took this relationship to yet another level as it all built to later in the season.

The episode did start off oddly as Maddie was meeting for breakfast with a client waiting for David to show up with the photos they had been hired to take. David slinked in, hungover and without the photos.

This, of course, led to an argument between David and Maddie, and, to be honest, most of the time I am with David when he is arguing with Maddie, but there was no excuse this time and his laissez faire attitude really felt like it was inappropriate. It was as if David could not accept that he was fully in the wrong and that what he had done was a betrayal.

This whole story aspect just went away completely when David had received a phone call telling him that his former brother-in-law had died. Meaning that there was, at one time, a Mrs. Addison.

There were several really strong monologues in the episode delivered by our two leads and it took a deeper look at the individual characters and the budding relationship with Maddie and David.