Two out of three times

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HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER: 4.09 “The Naked Man”

I’m happy to say that I like Ted again. He’s cute when he flirts with the girl in the elevator. He’s super nervous about their date and, in good Ted fashion, refuses to do anything that will upset his chances, in case she turns out to be The One. Even though she seems pretty horrible at dinner, he even gives the relationship a (brief) second chance when she seems to share his taste in poetry. And when it’s clear that he will never go out with her again, then he goes for broke and goes along with Barney’s experiment. And how awesome was that list of Naked Man poses? I loved that.

I also like that Ted loves Pablo Neruda. Good taste, Ted.

It wasn’t just the Naked Man poses, either: the writers did well with lists tonight. Everyone’s measure of how long it takes to get over a break-up – each one so indicative of his or her personality. Barney’s was borderline cliché and entirely predictable, but I did like that he started out by saying that there’s “a series of steps,” since he does tend to define things in a series of steps. Think of the Platinum Rule or the Chain of Screaming.

And the montage of things Ted has walked into in that apartment was pretty great, too. For one, they included The Goat. With a date! It’s coming, guys. And the robbery scene in which Lily and Marshall cowered while Robin stared down the burglars, gun in hand, made me laugh. My only quibble was that the date on the scene of Lily trying to paint the acrobats (and giving up in favor of a bowl of fruit, ha!) was November 2004. Which puts it before the first episode of the first season by almost a year, but she had her current hairstyle. And yes, okay, maybe her hair has come full circle in four years, but I would have liked to see them pull out the season 1 wig they’ve used in episodes like “The Platinum Rule,” for which the hair and makeup folks were really good about adjusting Lily’s hair to fit the date.

As for Mitch, the Naked Man himself… maybe it was intentional, but I think I felt the same way that most of his dates feel about him: Meh. The concept was amusing once Barney got hold of it, but Mitch’s actual scenes were forgettable. It was almost painful – I feel like we don’t get to see Robin go on any good dates. We just see the pathetic rocker she dated when they were sixteen, or the forty-something guy she brought to Thanksgiving last year, or the guy with the kid (he wasn’t so bad, I guess), or the doctor she made a fool of herself over because she hadn’t shaved her legs. Yikes, Robin.

And tell me if it’s just me, but do you guys feel there’s a lot of potential tension in the Ted and Robin roommate situation that’s being completely ignored by the writers? And I don’t mean sexual tension, I mean good ol’ “I have a new roommate and it’s kind of strange” tension. Maybe with a side of “We talked about moving in together when we were dating, but now we’re broken up and here we are” tension. Doesn’t that seem like an obvious storyline? Are they avoiding it because it’s so obvious?

Another quibble: Are the writers running out of names? Victoria was an important part of season 1, and now we have Vicky? Granted, I don’t expect to see Vicky again, but guys, there are a lot of names out there! Although I suppose it is interesting for Vicky to have such an abrasive personality when Victoria the cupcake girl was so super sweet.

On the other hand, I was happy to see the continuity call-outs all over the place. We practically have enough goat material to make a trailer for the episode about Ted’s next birthday. (Ooh, tempting…) Making Robin’s phone call a job interview was a nice way to slip in the fact that she’s still unemployed. And a bunch of the items on Lily’s list of 50 Reasons to Have Sex are references to stories we know. Even Marshall calling “slut alert” on Robin is an echo of Robin’s reaction to Victoria’s dating history in “Game Night.”

Possible line of the night: “Shut up, I just want my eyes to pop, okay?”

Songs about ghosts

ONE TREE HILL: 6.12 “You’ve Got to Be Joking (Autopsy of the Devil’s Brain)”

You know things won’t go well when one of the first scenes is that of a dead character standing in muddy water.

This episode intrigued me–from the voiceovers to the views of Q. I knew something big was going to happen. Of course, I didn’t know this “big thing” was going to be a cliffhanger that makes us wait until January 5 to find out what happens.

In case you’re wondering, that sucks.

But back to last night. Peyton, of all people, almost had a silent role in the episode, which is odd since she had the most life-endangering storyline of all. She was by far overshadowed by Nathan’s try-out for basketball and the Sam-Brooke issues. I barely noticed her doctor’s appointment–which explained her crabbiness at the now slutty-looking Mia. (By the way, OTH, I commend you for playing and promoting Kate Voegele, but did you need her lying down and rolling on top of a pool table? Seriously.)

I’ve read spoilers and I think I know what happens to Peyton–unless people are messing with my head again. To be honest, it makes me wonder about how great these doctors in Tree Hill are, but I won’t mention anything until I know for sure…in January.

I’m curious to know whether Mia will stay on Peyton’s label. I think she will. It’d be suicide for Peyton if she left.

In other news, Nathan had a rock solid try-out. I think he’ll make it–at least be put on the bench. I think his storylines without basketball have been drying up a little, so we need something a little new. Plus, it’d make Jamie happy, and we all love seeing Jamie smile.

Speaking of, I think his talent show performance was not quite true to life. I think we’re giving this 5-year-old a little too much cleverness. I realize he’s supposed to be supersmart, but that all sounded too scripted and not something a 5-year-old would think of.

Oh, and right. James van der Beek was in the show. I wasn’t too impressed. Was anyone? That seemed…um…not really worth watching. Didn’t really care. I kinda just wanted to get back to Nathan’s try-out, which is odd, since I usually found the basketball part of the show boring.

Then there’s Mouth and Millie. Personally, I’d be just as pissed as Millie was, except perhaps Mouth would have gotten a fat lip. But that doesn’t mean I believe she’s just hop in bed with the first guy she ran across. Knowing Millie, she probably wouldn’t have confessed her virginity and just told Owen to put the shot down! Drinking’s not worth it!

But we need drama, right? I also felt that Owen and Brooke’s encounter seemed out of character. I could see Brooke that upset, but Owen bringing up that they didn’t expect Sam to be with her forever seemed like an odd statement when someone’s crying. And her yelling at him wouldn’t push him to drink. Hell, it’s happened before.

Oh, and must I say this: I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT!!

I knew that the guy who attacked Brooke was the same one that killed Q. I just KNEW it. I couldn’t put my finger on the link, but I knew it was going to happen that way. Because then, Brooke can feel guilty once others find out about not calling the police. In essence, getting Q killed. I knew it.

The link might be a stretch. I’d find it more a realistic situation if it was just a guy needing money, but I knew it. Plus, it really made you realize why we were getting such haunting views of Q. Someone needs to get him out of this limbo. It definitely made you have a much saddened feel at the end of the show…and possibly a little scared for Sam.

Even nerds like facebook–and doctors like digital sheep!

THE BIG BANG THEORY: 2.09 “The White Asparagus Triangulation”

TV Squad has started to call it “The Sheldon Show,” and to be honest, last night’s episode really started to make it look like that. As much as I enjoyed seeing him figure out where the best place in the movie theater was acoustically (ok, that was actually really funny), the eccentricities of Sheldon are getting a little overdone.

He is a person, right? We’ve made him so over the top now that certain facts or events just seem unbelievable. Like, for example, the fact that Sheldon would think the only reason he’d be invited into Penny’s was if he had food. Sure, it’s socially done, but he’s been there before, he has a loose definition of “friends” that he’s going by, and hell, they watched The Lakehouse together. Which, by the way, seemed completely improbable considering Sheldon, too. First, he wouldn’t have watched it. Second, if he did, he’d just make comments about how it all was completely impossible based on the space-time continuum and basic physics. Which means that Penny would have turned it off early to shut him up or would have at least not had that smug smile on her face when she referenced it due to frustration.

They need to find the balance of quirk versus normal to make us believe that day-to-day or “normal” occurrences could actually happen!

But the rest of the episode was pretty good. I thoroughly enjoyed how much of a relationship is defined by a status on Facebook. Not only is this completely true to life, but it’s just something that I wouldn’t expect the writers to bring out. Sure, Facebook is around, but who would think that we’d get relationship “DTRs” (“Define the Relationship”) from it–and that they’d point out that people are throwing digital sheep.

Personally, any show that mentions digital sheep is a good one by me.

The one question, though, is why are we supposed to care about Leonard and his new galpal? She hasn’t really given me anything to make her completely likable yet. Perhaps it’s because our first glimpse of her was screwing over Howard.

Meanwhile, our supporting cast is getting smaller and smaller. I think Howard and Raj were only in about two scenes this episode. Plus, Penny has become a little meaner as of late–her crack to Raj referencing Lassie is funny considering he can’t speak around women, but it was almost a little meaner than usual. She’s usually so nice to him about it. Could Sheldon be hitting a nerve too hard?

Anyway, I’m afraid that the high ratings and great press for the show might be making it a little less original and taking the finesse out of it for me. What do you all think?