NCIS, "Faith": Merry Christmas, DiNozzo

Been a while since I did an "NCIS" post, but the sweet Christmas episode feels like a good opportunity to take the temperature of the room on both the episode (featuring the return of Pa Walton as Gibbs' dad, Gibbs and McGee both doing a great job at playing Santa, an entertaining bar brawl with Tony and Ziva, and Blue October's "Kangaroo City" over the closing montage) and how the season's been thus far.

What do you guys think?

Scrubs, "Our Histories": His last words

A quick review of tonight's "Scrubs" coming up just as soon as I hear Ted and Gooch's song for West Virginia...

Though the show is still struggling to serve too many masters - telling the story of the med students, saying goodbye to characters like Ted and Gooch, keeping JD a prominent part of the picture - when a clean break might have been wiser, "Our Histories" was a definite improvement on last week's episode. (Also Cole with Dr. Cox is a pairing that we must see as much as we can.) I imagine we can't really judge the show till after Zach Braff's gone and the focus narrows, but this one gave me the same feeling as the season-opening double-feature: I didn't love it all but was glad to still be spending time at Sacred Heart.

We got more concentrated time with the med students (even if Aussie Supermodel Doc still doesn't have a defining character trait other than being hot and Australian) and Cole managed to not be a complete tool without taking away from what can make the character funny. By confronting JD's age head-on and making his denial of it the point of the JD/Turk story this week, their antics went over much better than they did in the first three episodes(*). And while Ted's goodbye wasn't really necessary - landing Gooch was essentially Sam Lloyd's farewell last season - I'll never object to some Ted/Kelso time.

(*) Also confronted head-on: the obvious similarities between the Paul Dooley story and last season's incredible "My Last Words." The problem with a show that's on this long is that all the stories get repeated, even if they're being repeated on new characters - even "My Last Words" was designed as a sequel to "My Old Lady" from the first season. This wasn't as effective as either of those, but it ultimately wasn't going for tears as much as it was trying to put these four characters together to see what happened.

What did everybody else think?

Better Off Ted, "The Lawyer, the Lemur and the Little Listener": I've never known you to pay money for any kind of capade

Again, I'm off this week, so most posts will be brief, particularly in the case of something like tonight's "Better Off Ted" where I reviewed it in a column last week. I thought this one was an improvement on the premiere, in that it gave us a Veridian ad and put more focus on Lem and Phil (the tail/antler conversation being a highlight), but this is two episodes in a row where the Ted plot felt like it just dragged on and on.

What did everybody else think?

New 'Chuck' poster: Kick it!

The first few "Chuck" season three episodes are supposed to arrive within the next day or two, and I'll do a quick, spoiler-free write-up as soon as I get through whatever they sent. In the meantime, enjoy a gander at the new key art for season 3.

Big Bang Theory, "The Maternal Congruence": My mother! My girlfriend! My mother! My girlfriend!

The return of Leonard's mother on last night's "Big Bang Theory" wasn't quite as strong as her original appearance last year, I thought. Inherently funny as Christine Baranski is, and as good as she is with Jim Parsons, it felt a bit one-note - or, at least, like it was repeating the same note we heard last year. Funny in spots, particularly in the car ride back from the airport, but not one of the season's best.

What did everybody else think?

Lie to Me, "Tractor Man": White lies

Last night gave us the last new "Lie to Me" before the show goes wandering in the wilderness, waiting for some other Fox show to fail so it can claim its timeslot. And if this is it for a while, "Tractor Man" was a pretty good episode to go out on, with both an effective thriller A-story and a surprisingly sweet B-story with the radically honest Loker and guest star Felicia Day(*) telling a lot of white lies to keep some kids from being scared, then making it all better with the very catchy "White Lie" song.

(*) Day is, unsurprisingly, trying to harness her social media might to get "White Lie" released on iTunes.

What did everybody else think?

Men of a Certain Age, "Let It Go": It's justice time!

I'm mostly off this week and trying to take things light, but I'm curious what people thought of "Men of a Certain" age episode two. Even though I like the show, I was surprised response was mostly positive last week, until I realized that to watch a show with that title you have to be at least somewhat predisposed to like a show with this subject matter.

Episode two did a nice job with all three leads, and in particular found a way to have its cake and eat it with the Scott Bakula storyline. I feel like the show gets stronger as it goes on, but this was a solid build on the pilot.

What did you guys think?