Monday TV: Bits & Pieces

I've been remiss in my blogging duties, due in large part to having a lot of projects to juggle and not having learned to juggle, um, ever. I'll try harder from here on out...I think.

Highlights from Monday night's primetime lineups:

How I Met Your Mother followed up the Barney/Robin breakup with the rather lackluster "The Playbook," which saw Robin throwing herself into work and Barney throwing himself into women with renewed determination. Neil Patrick Harris and Alyson Hannigan were fantastic, as they always are when they're paired up in an episode, but I wasn't bowled over by the episode as a whole. It feels like the Barney/Robin relationship was cut short, and that they're not taking advantage of the mileage it still had in it. Hopefully they'll go back to it in the future.

The Big Bang Theory had a great storyline and a useless one. While Leonard, Koothrappali, and Wolowitz went camping to watch the Leonid meteor shower, Penny falls in the shower, dislocates her shoulder, and has to rely on Sheldon for help. Sheldon 1) feels Penny up, 2) drives a car, 3) takes a gander at the Chinese character tattooed on Penny's butt (it means "soup," apparently), and 4) sings "Soft Kitty" in a round with her. It was five kinds of hysterical, while the boys on their camping trip got high and were only mildly entertaining.

Castle had a solid episode full of ex-cons and call girls. There was a convicted felon-slash-wordsmith who wanted to go to locksmith school, ex-Law & Order: SVU ADA Kim Grayleck as a hooker, and a star prosecutor who turned out to be a pimp. There are some great twists in this episode, and enough comedy to balance out the few eye-rolling moments (courtesy of Scarlett, the call girl). Meanwhile, Castle is concerned because his daughter is keeping a secret from him--but she's willing to talk to Detective Beckett about it. I've said before that I don't generally like characters' teenage offspring (for the latest example, see Erica Evans' son on V), but Alexis Castle and Emily Lightman on Lie to Me are the exceptions: both are intelligent young women who are, more often than not, more sensible and mature than their fathers, and the grounding influences for men who could get big heads while being lauded as brilliant in their respective fields (crime novels and deception). If only all teenagers could be like these girls.

Dancing With the Stars did some sob stories about the semifinalists' lives pre-DWTS (Donny Osmond wasn't taken seriously as an ARTIST, Joanna Krupa's mother brought her to America for a better life, Mya's family didn't even know she could sing until she was 14 and then her parents got divorced, MTV and reality television got Kelly Osbourne addicted to drugs) and there was a lot of glitter and sequins and Bruno Tonioli being outrageous and Len Goodman being chagrined and Carrie-Anne Inaba being critical for no good reason. Then, Samantha Harris was irrelevant. So, really, it was like any other week.

Lie to Me saw Foster and Lightman colluding to do something behind their FBI liaison's back, which I always enjoy, and Loker trying to work his way back into a paying position at the Lightman Group. Torres was annoying, and there was a lot of teenage angst from Emily Lightman and Max, a sixteen-year-old fan of Cal's book who was convinced his parents had kidnapped him as an infant.

I hear House kicked Cameron to the curb, but I gave up on that show halfway through last season, so all I can say is that it's a shame, because I think they wasted Jennifer Morrison for most of seasons four and five.

Trauma was better than last week, which completely underwhelmed me, plus Rabbit not only delivered a baby (in the helicopter!) that came out feet first, but the kid's Hungarian parents named the kid after him. As in, they named the kid "Rabbit," not "Reuben." Marisa threw a hissy fit and then sulked. Tyler and Boone pulled a double and guzzled energy drinks, Nancy had lunch with her father (Christian Shephard of Lost) and brother (Sully of Harper's Island) and then commiserated about "the family business" with Dad. Probie Glenn and Intern Diana discovered they're both from Pennsylvania and they're so happy and giggly and nauseatingly adorable that I sincerely hope they end up together at the end of the tragically-short series.

Heroes finally answered the question that's been bothering many viewers: "Where's Mohinder?" Well, he's in a mental institution (thanks to Hiro), but it's better than where he was before, which was nowhere, because he was dead. Aptly named "Brother's Keeper," this week's episode featured a lot of brothers. The Sullivans (Joseph, deceased in the regular timeline, and Samuel, of whom we've seen a lot this season), in a flashback, frustrate Suresh and then kill him, except not, because Hiro went back in time and put a Kevlar vest on him? Yeah, it was that kind of episode. The Petrellis, meanwhile, find Nathan's dead body in a storage unit, find and save Matt Parkman/Sylar, and may or may not have reunited Sylar's brain with his body. Look, all I know is that Zachary Quinto and his hair have looked even more amazing than usual lately, so I'm all for him sticking around. There was some stuff with Claire and Tracy trying to control Tracy's freezing, but it was so boring that I can't justify wasting space on it.


I'll try out this around-the-dial approach for busy TV nights; comments, queries, suggestions, and criticism should be directed to the comment link below!