Week in Review, Jan 11 to 17

The Week in Video Games

This week in video gaming continued to be almost all about Dragon Age. (More accurate: this week in general continued to be almost all about Dragon Age. Addicted, remember?) I fit in a little more Assassin's Creed II time, and also completed the Lego Rock Band story, but there is nothing I spent more hours on this week than Dragon Age. And I'm still not done with the game. Getting there, though.

On my Friday day off, I completed all of the available DLC quests and finished the Mages Tower and Brecilian Forest storylines. Over the course of the weekend, I completed the long Orzammar storyline. Since reducing the difficulty to Easy, I haven't had much trouble with the battles, and since adding golem Shale to my party, I haven't had a single Your Journey Ends screen. (I think Shale might be invincible on Easy difficulty.) The game is much less frustrating and much more enjoyable when you aren't constantly dying. My main interest is in experiencing the story and characters, both of which continue to be top notch in their presentation, but in the Normal difficulty level, the dying was getting in the way of the experience.

The Week in Television

Monday, January 11th
Loved: The Big Bang Theory (3x12), Chuck (3x3), How I Met Your Mother (5x12)
Meh: Fringe (2x11), Heroes (4x15), House (6x10)

This week I watched my first How I Met Your Mother in real time. And it was an excellent episode to start with: the 100th episode, "Girls Vs. Suits." Actually, I knew this episode was coming, which is one of the main reasons I marathoned the shit out of this series over the holidays. The obvious highlight was Neil Patrick Harris's musical moment, but I really enjoyed the progression in Ted's storyline as well. (I realize, sadly, that it'll probably be another 10 episodes before we get any more progression there.)

I also really enjoyed The Big Bang Theory's "The Psychic Vortex." Both storylines were quite strong. In a storyline that was played pretty straight, other than brief interjections of craziness from Howard and Bernadette, Leonard and Penny had a realistic conflict about Penny's belief in psychics. Most of the episode's comedy came from Sheldon and Raj's storyline, where Sheldon somehow met the perfect girl for him. I hope we see more of Martha, but I suspect we will not.

Chuck's third season has been great so far. "Chuck Versus the Angel de la Muerte" was very entertaining, awesomely featuring Awesome prominently. Also awesome: no time wasted in the Buy More this week.

"Close to You" was an okay episode of Heroes. The gang is finally coming together to do something about Samuel, so that's good, I guess. It's too bad so little of this makes any sense. Parkman was back after an extended absence, but considering what went down last we saw him, he should be in jail. After borrowing his mother's power to see Emma's ugly future, Peter smashed Emma's cello, without considering that her power probably works with any instrument, or that his smashing of the cello leads to the very future he was trying to stop. Stupid, stupid Peter. Hiro and Ando rescuing Mohinder from the asylum was pretty funny, but so, so stupid in so, so many ways. And Noah was just spinning his wheels when he could have just talked to his daughter. Oh, Heroes, when is NBC going to fucking cancel you, already?

Fringe's "Unearthed" wasn't a bad episode. It was actually a pretty good standalone story. However, it was an episode from the first season that was not previously aired for unknown reasons (and was also not on the first season DVD set... WTF?), and Fox just aired it in the middle of the second season on a random Monday night without explanation. It was especially jarring because of the presence of a certain dead character. WTF, Fox, WTF?

Tuesday, January 12th
Loved: Better Off Ted (2x8/2x9)

I feel a little like I'm repeating myself when I say that Better Off Ted had another two great episodes this week: "The Impertence of Communicationizing" and "The Long and Winding High Road." The misspelling of the first episode title is deliberate, as the story was about the fallout from a typo in an official memo. There were numerous hilarious moments throughout both episodes. As far as I'm concerned, the cast and crew of Better Off Ted can do no wrong.

Wednesday, January 13th
Loved: Modern Family (1x12)

"Not in My House" brought back my Modern Family love. I especially appreciated the absurdity of the dog butler statue. And Phil's talking head moments are always gold. I didn't get much out of Mitchell and Cameron's storyline this week, but that didn't affect my enjoyment of the show.

Thursday, January 14th
Liked: 30 Rock (4x9/4x10), Fringe (2x12), Parks and Recreation (2x13)

What? No Office this week? Why? Instead, we got two times the 30 Rock, so I won't complain too much. Both episodes of 30 Rock were pretty good. "Klaus and Greta" was better than "Black Light Attack!" for me. But Parks and Recreation had the best 30 minutes of the night with "The Set Up." where Leslie was set up with one of Ann's horrible co-workers (Will Arnett!). We also got some more movement on the super cute (pretend I didn't just say that) Andy and April front.

The first Fringe episode this week was arguably a better standalone story than Thursday night's "Johari Window," but, well, I already ranted about that nonsense above. This actual second season Fringe episode told a decent X-Files-style "town with a secret" story, while also providing some excellent character moments for Walter.

Friday, January 15th
Loved: Dollhouse (2x12)

"The Hollow Man" was effectively the season finale to Dollhouse's second season, tying up all of the season's storylines with a bang--or two. This episode didn't feel as rushed as last week's, but there are definitely elements that I would have liked to have seen more of (for example: Boyd), if the series had been given more time to tell this story. The next episode, airing in two weeks--is it insensitive of me to whine about a Haiti telethon?--is the series finale, "Epitaph Two: The Return." I can't believe that Fox never aired the first season's awesome "Epitaph One," really undermining (for fans that didn't buy the season one DVD set) the impending doom that season two was all about.

Saturday, January 16th
Liked: Legend of the Seeker (2x8)

It was around this time last season that the writers of Legend of the Seeker brought us "Denna" and "Puppeteer," two of the rare episodes of this series that actually (half-assedly in the case of "Denna") follow key plotlines from the Sword of Truth books. Now there's "Light," which introduced the Sisters of the Light and Verna to the series. Richard's ordeals in the Palace of the Prophets is my second favourite storyline in the entire book series, so I'm a little worried... but that's next week's episode. For this week, we just got Richard and Verna traveling, and Richard getting distracted on the way by another village needing his help. And there was a bunch of weird stuff with Zedd and Denna, and Kahlan and Cara--but who cares about that? Verna! Sisters of the Light! Don't screw this up, writers of Legend of the Seeker!