I liked Dollhouse from the get-go. Like I said before, I don't know if my expectations were lower than everybody else's, but I thought it was entertaining right from the start.

I saw that episode of Top Gear last night. I caught about the last 15 mins of it (the Lambo standing mile faceoff) and it reaired right after, so I watched just long enough to see the AH-1 vs Viper. That segment was great, and it had some pretty humorous bits in it ("Well don't just sit here, GO!"). Even though it was obvious the pilots were playing with the hosts, it was still pretty awesome to watch. For the most part, I couldn't stand the hosts though. The BBC version (what few episodes I've seen), the audience seems pretty engaged and the laughter is genuine. I didn't get that feeling at all from the American version.

I'm glad Human Target is back. Now my DVR record list includes two regular shows on top of hockey.

The Cape... Watched the pilot and second episode (broadcast together) and only got less than half way through the third episode the following week. I deleted the favorite ad the episode. It was just getting painful to watch. This one isn't going to last through sweeps. Poor NBC. At least they have a solid Thursday night of comedies.

Spartacus: Gods of the Arena. Currently living up to expectations, even if it seems a little underproduced compared to the Blood and Sand series. This one is going to be short, but so far looks like it's going to be a nice ride. The big sad/frown face is that Andy Whitfield will apparently not return for the new season. I hope he pulls through.

Medium. It's ended, and what a terrible way to send it off. Seriously, who wrote this? The biggest negative in recent seasons has been the writing staff, and the proved with this last episode how much they suck.

My wife is liking Off the Map, that new jungle doctor show. I haven't watched it yet myself, but the scenery does look nice in the commercials.

Fringe actually kept it's ratings for its Friday night debut. No competition and heavily promoted, but still good news. Would LOVE to see it survive.

Good episode, too. Lloyd was pretty awesome and totally sold the broken old rock and roller perfectly.

Yeah, I have very mixed feelings on The Cape. The primary problem for me is the writing. It's just so cliched and simplistic. There's no imagination. These actors have to try to deliver hackneyed lines like "One man CAN make a difference!" Seriously? You actually put that line in something in 2011? You should be ashamed of yourself.

The rest of the show is pretty much like that. Just nothing new.

Oh, and there's one thing that kept bugging the crap out of me for the entire first hour of the show: he wasn't wearing a mask. We're supposed to believe that he put all this preparation and training into this endeavor, yet he trusted that he'd be concealed enough by a hood that could have easily been pushed back while he's fighting with someone? Hell, his opponent would just have to be within a few feet to tell who he was. It just bothered me so damn much.

Worst of all is the dialog and the entire part given to Summer Glau. That saddens me as a geek.

The entire show feels like it was created by committee. NBC should just stop trying this stuff, and it worries me that nobody will try this in the future. I'd like to think that one day we'll get a good superhero show, but when turds like this and Heroes get on the air and fail miserably despite tons of marketing, it makes me think that nobody will try it...

I forgot my biggest logic complaint from the premiere of The Cape. This isn't really a spoiler, because it happens halfway through the premiere episode.

Anyway, the Cape's mentor decides he's being too careless with the whole Cape persona, and takes the cape and his help from him.

So, the exiled police officer leaves the carnival where he's been training and wanders the streets. He eventually stumbles across a conveniently abandoned underground lair that seems perfect for his purposes.

Okay, up until here, I'm willing to accept this all and suspend disbelief.

But then we see the officer wandering the streets, apparently collecting stuff for his new abode. This appears to consist of random computer equipment, generators, and other things that no homeless person with zero cash could possibly cobble together. We're not given a timeframe for how long it has taken him to put his lair together, but the montage seems to span anywhere from a few days to a couple weeks. In that time he's somehow created a computer system with multiple monitors, connected to an unseen ISP (do I assume he's stealing from a Starbucks or something?), and basically put together a lair that should have cost him thousands of dollars. He also seems to have magically developed hacking skills of his own, because that's what the plot calls for.

Oh, and I'd be surprised if you could put knives in a baseball pitching machine and have it throw those knives how you'd think. And when it goes out of control, why not just step to the side instead of ducking?

Anyway, clearly I have a lot of problems with this show. The more I think about it the more it bothers me. However, I'm going to stick with it for a few more episodes because in general, I find there are very few truly great pilots.

Last night, Chuck had to break a villain out of prison. He went in undercover as another prisoner. Complete with orange jumpsuit. I noticed the prisoner number was a bit odd. 092980. Turns out that is the birthday of the actor that portrays Chuck.

I haven't seen the episode, but this still sounds within the realm of suspension of disbelief. As a student, I managed to find myself (on more than one occasion) in the dumpster outside the university warehouse, amid very interesting stuff, including a working centrifuge, for example. Apparently, dumpster diving around MIT is even better. For a long time, I upgraded my computers by taking the cast-offs people were leaving at the side of the road on garbage night -- I was happily running linux in text mode at the time, so I didn't need the latest fancy hardware. I've also known of people who got drunk, stole stuff from a construction sites (such as a generator), got tired of (or thought better of) carrying the stuff home, and left it at the side of the road. Things also do legitimately fall off the back of trucks -- my first two digital cameras were found (one in a gutter, one on a highway). Having zero cash isn't necessarily the show stopper you make it out to be.

Internet connection. In an apparently (huge) abandoned room in a subway station. Generator makes NO SOUND.

The money/free thing I can overlook since the circus guys rob banks and would have likely shared some cash with the main character.

None of this changes the fact the show simply sucks though.

I'm sure it isn't, and I'm sure you can find all kinds of good stuff, but not to the extent that this guy does and not in the span of time we're left to assume (I could be wrong about it being a short amount of time, but the show doesn't help me out here).

And how did he stumble across an automatic baseball pitching machine?

So if you see the episode, let me know if it still seems plausible to you

Craigslist, once he got his implausible internet?

Does anyone know why the network schedules are so screwy this month? Most shows were off for December, then many returned for only a single episode before going off for a week or two more. Example: House, V, How I Met Your Mother, the Defenders, Modern Family, etc...

I'm already taking into account a couple of special circumstances like the memorial from Arizona and the State of the Union...

I will never understand the ridiculous scheduling that these studios decide on. I don't understand the purpose of airing a single new episode in what is essentially the middle of a 2-3 month break. Hell, I don't understand why they take a break that long in the first place.

It makes me appreciate Dexter so much more. Sure, I hate that I have to wait 9 months to get a new season, but I love knowing that in August or September, Showtime is going to start airing a new episode every single week, no matter what. I think it was the only show to have a new episode on the week of this past Thanksgiving.

By the way, my wife and I have both stopped watching The Cape. Sometimes she'll stop watching something and I'll keep going, but there was something about the preview at the end of last week's episode that made me think "man, that just looks like it's going to be awful," and I immediately canceled the season pass.

I have a continuity issue to raise with anyone who saw last week's episode that you might be able to help clarify with me:

Toward the end of the episode, The Cape and Scales are fighting on top of the last car on the train. Their fight ends with Scales knocking The Cape over the side of the train. Scales then climbs down the ladder of that car and stands in-between the last two cars. After a little talk between him and Chess, the last car gets separated from the train.

A moment later, we get The Cape returning to the top of the second to last car (which is now the last car).

My problem with this is that it's either lazy or they just screwed up. They either forgot where The Cape fell off the train, or they just didn't want to show him climbing along the side to the next car.

Please let me know if I'm remembering this wrong...

I was watching V, having gotten into it by viewing it via the ABC iPad app. For some reason though, Warner Brothers (the producer of the show) didn't want it to be viewable online for this second half. It went from being available on iTunes, ABC.com, Hulu, and the app to not available legally anywhere online, pretty stupid for a scifi show.

Assuming the show survives, guess I'll watch it on DVD via Netflix one day.

Tom, you're not missing much. I don't know how anyone at ABC could have decided to keep V over Flashforward.

Yup, even my wife, who grossly dislikes most sci-fi stuff, was into Flashforward. Clearly, any show like that must be canceled!

Sci-Fi and concept aside, it was just better produced, written and acted. I suppose directed as well, but that one's harder to judge for me.

Just started watching the US version of Being Human. So far so good, much better than expected. The first two episodes were essentially a reworking of the original UK pilot script, with the characters changed from that pilot to more closely match those of the regular UK series episodes.

Characters' names have changed, some backgrounds altered, jobs altered, but overall the show still has a lot of the same feeling as the non-pilot episodes of the UK series.