I have noticed that Bones is obsessed with punk, emo and metal kids. Not sure why this is the case, but quiet often someone with heavy eyeliner is involved. This week a skeleton is found being used as a prop for a Norwegian metal band. It allows the cast to make all sorts of references to metal bands and underground music. Its all a bit shallow, but its saved by two very important elements.

First off, Bones snagged a great guest star. English actor and legendary comic Stephen Fry returns as Dr. Gordon Wyatt. He’s a fantastic addition to any show. In theory, he’s there to clear Booth for duty after some anger issues emerged. In truth, he’s crucial to the understanding of the psychology of the case and in giving some backstory about Dr Sweets.

Sweets is probably the most maligned character on the show. Bones and Booth constantly pick on him and his profession. This week though, Sweets gets to shine. Its revealed that Sweets himself was a metalhead. We also discover that he was an abused child who has recently lost his loving adoptive family. Sweets is revealed as something more than the affable cherubic doofus. Its a welcome change. I think revealing this will help him settle even more as a regular cast member.

As usual, the actual crime investigation is secondary. The investigation weaves a path through an underground metal scene so obnoxious that its laughable. Everyone of the metalheads want credit for the murder and tries to one up the other by being more glib and horrific about it. It all makes for many eye rolling moments until the killer is revealed to be a singing in a bad in the victim’s band who felt by the victim’s decision to “sell out”.

The episode is excellent but is only made so by the addition of Fry and the surprisingly textured performance of Sweets. If Bones can find a way to tone down the camp just a touch, it might be a better show. Let’s hope we get more episodes like this one.

After the stunning loss of Kutner last week, I expected House to take a week and regroup before throwing the character’s back onscreen without the loved anchor of the show. Instead, they pumped Dr Cameron and Chase back into the story making Cameron the de facto replacement this episode.

Cameron brings in a crazy environmentalist with various conflicting ailments. Everything from toxic inhalants to cancer is considered. He even has a scene where he is in so much pain that his screams peel the paint from the walls. I’m surprised we don’t see that more often on this show.

The whole case is a cover for Cameron though. She discovered that Chase was about to propose and though she doesn’t want to reject him, she doesn’t want to accept either.  She claims to worry that Chase is doing it as a misplaced reaction to Kutner’s suicide. She dodges Chase all episode and when he finally confronts her over it, she forced to admit she isn’t ready. Chase ends their relationship on the spot.

House’s reaction to Kutner’s death is to question his deductive abilities. Wilson new eating habits baffle him, he’s unable to see the real reason Cameron is hiding out with him and he can’t seem to get a hold on the patient’s illness. House finds that Wilson has been toying with him this whole time, and as usual the clouds break and the sunshine of diagnosis shines though. A spore infection from evil store-bought roses are to blame for his illness and the obnoxious environmentalist is vindicated and healed.

Cameron returns to Chase, the two reconcile and are now engaged. The show ends with a montage of happy shots of the couple their announcement. Even House looks happy eating french fries in slow motion. As it ends though, we get a big surprise. Amber, who died in House’s arms in season four, is back. This time as a hallucination. I’m not sure if this is their way of replacing Kutner in the cast since it was made clear that Cameron isn’t coming back. It could be a very provocative storytelling device is ghost-Amber is used properly.

If this wasn’t the week after the landmark suicide episode, I would’ve like it a lot. It was as if House was trying to cram happy and restorative moments into a show that should’ve been more introspective. Though the patient’s involvement was particularly shallow, I liked the banter with Wilson and the Chase Cameron conflict seemed believable enough. Overall though, it felt like a wasted opportunity to really see the actor’s portray themselves as grieving friends.

Thanks to the power of Twitter, it became clear the Fox is bringing the axe down on Dollhouse. No one should be surprised. Dollhouse consistently underperformed in the ratings and was a constant burr in the saddle of Fox executives who had no idea what to do with Wheadon’s prostitute Sci-fi action show. Though the show has been notoriously uneven, there are moments when brilliance shine through. This week was the epitome of that unevenness.

Its clear that there is a spy inside the Dollhouse. To make matters worse, Mrs Dewitt is on vacation and completely out of pocket. This leaves the overly aggressive Lawrence in charge. Eventually Topher decides to send in the actives as support. He implants Sierra with a super spy’s profile and sends her into the NSA to try to find out who is behind the sabotage.

Agent Ballard has been obsessing over the Dollhouse to the point of near madness. Suddenly, his girlfriend/ active November reappears and tells him that she is indeed an active and that someone on the inside has programed her to spill the beans to him. Thought he now knows that “Millie” is an active, he can’t let on or else the Dollhouse will kill him. Its an interesting turn for a character who has been almost useless up until this point.

Now with Sierra posing as an NSA agent (apparently all asian-ish girls look alike) she breaks in and discovers who the mole is. Unfortunately, she’s captured and it looks like the Dollhouse may have lost an active permanently. In the Dollhouse world though, the NSA isn’t badass enough to keep the actives in check and she’s eventually returned safely to her pine box.

While all of the chaos is raining down on the Dollhouse we finally see where Dewitt is. She has been having Victor come to her programmed as a lover. Its a silly moment, Dewitt is emoting about her role as head of the Dollhouse to one of the Dolls. She even goes so far as to break down and sob. Its all very un-ice queen of her.

Now with Sierra out of the picture, Topher decides to imprint Echo, at her request, with his super spy mojo. After questioning everyone, Echo finally deduces who the real spy is. Its Laurence the super aggro security expert. He’s been working as a mole for the NSA. The NSA is interested in turning the Dollhouse toward their own clandestine spy operations. After a tense scuffle with Echo, Laurence is captured. Dewitt decides that she’s going to put him in the dreaded attic and for the first time, we get to see what that is. It isn’t pretty. Laurence struggles and fights even getting getting access to a gun and shooting DeWitt in the process. Despite the struggles, Laurence is wiped and his body hauled away into storage.

Dewitt promotes Boyd as her new chief of security, severing his ties with Echo. Interestingly, Echo seems to be regaining elements of her free will. And though she is bonded with a new handler, it is clearly with some hesitancy.

A good episode over all, it was a genuine surprise to have Laurence as the culpret. Though I thought his undoing was somewhat anticlimactic, it still was cathartic to see him wiped and boxed. The whole Sierra breaking into the NSA scene (not to mention her escape) was absolute rubbish; but Echo’s involvement in the takedown and Ballard’s betrayal where more entertaining than I would’ve guessed. Sadly, with the end in sight we can only hope the network hatchet men give us a proper finish to the series.

The evidence in this weeks Bones crime is made up entirely of two garbage bags of nearly-liquified human remains. Its a bit far to go to reenforce Bones’ status as THE place to go for network TV corpse-porn. Never the less, the investigation starts strong. Inside the bag, some rare metals and stones are found. This leads to an eccentric blind genius and his laboratory of super smart weirdos. Bones never ceases to make people into insane caricatures. Sometimes its funny, other times its just sad.

Back at the lab, the crew theorizes that a wood chipper isn’t to blame but a deep freeze. The body seems to have been frozen in liquid nitrogen and then shattered. The theory is ruined however, after a Mythbusters-style experiment goes askew after a frozen turkey hits Angela in the face.

Now the investigation takes a turn for the insane. Lab results suggest that the victim was dieing of leukemia, but the victim had a recent exam and was given a clean bill of health. A source of radiation may have been the cause of death. While investigation some sort of massive vibration chamber in the lab, Bones and Booth are locked inside. Someone attempts to kill them, but they escape with the help of the blind scientist. After some seemingly random lab results come in, the investigation settles on the uber-emo pseudo scientist. Again as usual, the capture of the murderer is a total anticlimax. On Bones, catching the murderer isn’t nearly as important as the various corpse shots and inter-laboratory shenanigans.

On that front, Angela’s father is in town. Angela’s dad blames Hodgins for their messy break up and he’s in town to defend his daughter’s honor. Angela’s dad is played by ZZ Top frontman Billy Gibbons. He spends most of episode menacing Hodgins through a restaurant window and trying to look tough for a man in his seventies. Daddy gets his revenge in the final scene when Hodgins wakes up in a desert with a brand new “Angela forever” tattoo.

Not sure what the point of having Billy Gibbons guest star was. I can only assume one of the producers is a ZZ Top fan. It really added nothing to an already stale relationship. Sadly, this episode of Bones was more pointless than most.

I’ve been clamoring for House to change its direction all season. My dissent has been fairly quiet over the last few weeks as House reminded me that good writing and acting can make a repetitive formula into something worth watching.  This week that was made even more clear.

Kal Penn, who plays Dr. Kutner has taken a job in the Obama White House. That’s not a joke or a typo, he’s joining the Obama administration in the office of public liaison. Thus a speedy exit needed to be made for the loved Dr Kutner. House chose to something messy and unexpected. Dr Kutner commits suicide in the first ten minutes.

At the same time a dieing man (played by Meatloaf *sigh*) and his suddenly dieing wife are admitted. When her condition worsens, his improves. Rather than work on his grief, Taub decides to throw his entire energy into the patient. House, clearly rattled, decides to treat Kutner’s suicide just like he would any other mysterious case. He flails, looking for reasons for the suicide, even going so far as to insinuate that it was a murder. Each of the cast deals with it in their own way.

During all the pain and psychobabble being thrown around, a couple is slowly dieing. The husband has been resigned to his fate for some time. In his last days, it appears as though he regrets all the times he ignored his dutiful wife in their marriage. Her illness is killing her liver and she’ll need a new one to survive. The husband volunteers to donate his liver to save her even though it will certainly kill him. It makes sense until its discovered that the husband isn’t actually terminal. He has a curable illness, but sadly, the wife’s condition is too far gone.

Its never made clear why Kutner kills himself and that’s a powerful message in itself. Suicide is often unclear and it makes sense to throw Kutner’s suicide up as a reminder of the fragility of the psyche. It was terribly sad to see him go, but it could be a catalyst for real change. How the show handles the ripples of the suicide could remake it and remind us why we fell in love to begin with.

Dollhouse really dropped the ball last week. Two weeks ago, Dollhouse took a huge turn  for the better and began to move the plot forward in ways that where compelling. Though last week we saw Echo’s origin story, it generally was a mismatched set of plots and silly dead ends. This week, Dollhouse looks primed to bounce back.

Five actives awaken in their pods. Though they aren’t sure who they are or what happened to them, they do know that they want out. Though it appears the Dollhouse higher ups have planned their attempted break out, there are serious risks. As the actives escape, their memories begin to emerge. Much of the episode is an elaborate chase scene but despite that, it works well and tension builds. Just as they’re able to escape, Echo decides that she can’t leave. She feels compelled to return to the Dollhouse and try to save the other actives.

After Echo returns, the Dollhouse believes they’ve got Echo under control until the house goes dark. Now in the dark, Echo takes Topher hostage forcing him to explain the  Dollhouse process. Topher explains that he can give her her memories back, but Echo insists that Topher get the treatment first. Just as she’s about to fry his brain, Mrs Dewit show up. She and Echo discuss the conditions of the actives. Echo forces Dewit to let all the actives out en mass like kids in the sunshine. Suddenly, the revolution ends and the actives are returned to the Dollhouse.

We discover the true reason for the Dollhouse’s subversion. Dr. Saunders decides that the best way to get the troubled actives under control is to give them just a little bit of what their inner consciousness is searching for. The whole scenario allowed them have closure on their internal conflicts.

Though the episode was entertaining and suspenseful, I couldn’t help but feel slightly cheated by the ending. It was clear the Dollhouse had planned this, but I was really hoping that the Dollhouse prison break would have a more substantial impact. Regardless of that complaint, Dollhouse felt like it righted the ship this time around.

While most of the network TV world was salivating over the finale of ER, Bones pushed forward with what was one of the better episodes in a while. A body is found in an animal park half eaten by lions. The episode takes a serious turn as we discover Dr Saroyan once lived with the victim. Booth decides that Saroyan should be his right hand for the investigations giving her an opportunity to find some closure. Despite living together when she was young, the victim’s daughter doesn’t recognize Saroyan when she delivers the bad news. The daughter’s reaction to her father’s death is the most natural and well acted reaction to a Bones murder ever.

As the investigation unfolds, a disgruntled patient of the murder victim is hypnotized by Sweets. The scene is typical silly Bones fare as Sweets and Angela wander through an imagined cocktail party filled with animals. The eyewitness leads them to a philanthropist who was arguing with the victim at the party. In turn that leads to the philanthropist’s son who the victim denied a residency. That too turns up a dead end.

Saroyan tries to return to the victim’s daughter, pressing her about her memory. The young girl still carries anger toward for Saroyan for leaving her when she was a child. Its an excellent and powerfully emotional scene. That’s a rare feat for this show.

Undercutting this well-acted plot is Angela and her lame celibacy decision. Its a waste of screen time and our attention. It sucks up an infuriating amount of momentum away from what was a pretty compelling investigation.

As usual, Bones finds the murderer in the last possible place. A nurse who the victim was cheating on proves to be the killer. This gives Saroyan and the victim’s daughter a chance to reconcile. In the final scene, Saroyan invites the newly orphaned teenager to live with her and the two embrace.

Bones is fluff. Often what makes it fluff is the way moments as grave as death and loss are glossed over to give us close up views of corpses and jokes about horny forensic scientists. Bones didn’t lack for the gooey bodies or the silly inter-cast banter, but the addition of some believable emotions made for an episode that stood out. Bones might want to consider the trend.

House decided to go all “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” on us this week. Rapper/ actor Mos Def guest stars as man who is thought to be brain dead, but due to the good fortune of being in bed next to House in the hospital (House was in a motorcycle accident) his misdiagnosis is turned over to the team.

After determining that his fully paralyzed state wasn’t caused by his accident, the team flails around trying to figure a diagnosis. As usual, the path to treatment is full of twists and turns, false positives and dashed hopes. Eventually, it looks like the patient has had   a complex infection which killed his liver and caused his locked in syndrome. After treatment, he begins to come out of his state and the happy ending is achieved.

While all this is going on with the patient, Taub has a crisis about what he really wants to do and its revealed that House is in therapy. Though there are some interesting details in the revelation that House is in therapy, it generally it feels like another dead end. Taub’s midlife crisis felt propped up as well, though judging from the preview of next week’s episode it could be made much more important.

Much of the episode is shot from the patient’s perspective. Its a gimmick but it works. Mos Def does a fine job of conveying the desperation of the patient trapped inside his own body. The perspective shots are interesting without overwhelming the rest of the story. It really did go a long way in setting the mood.

Despite matching the standard line for the show, this was an excellent episode of House. Fine acting from the guest star and a truly compelling illness made for an episode that showed that House still has a lot of vinegar inside its beaten up premise.

Whedon delivered on his promise last week of a compelling episode last week and I had my hopes up that the momentum would carry over this week. Unfortunately, it was a miss match of an outbreak-like plot and an attempt at filling in some backstory.

A shady company run by a shady nobel prize winner has a created a drug that has gotten loose. Because of the doll’s vegetative states, Topher believes they can infiltrate the campus to recover the drug, or something like that. It really didn’t make much sense. Echo is the only doll excluded as the campus is the same as the one we’ve seen in her flashback segments.

Former agent Ballard is confronted by his planted active/ girlfriend who wants him to quit the case after her assault last week. He refuses and she leaves in tears. Its an understandable move but it seemed unconvincing.

The super dangerous drug is proven to be passed by touch. No I’m serious, by touch. It also seems that the effects wear off after a few hours. So then why all the urgency if all they have to do is quarantine everyone?

Echo suddenly breaks off from a fantasy gig thus allowing her to wear a ridiculously sultry outfit and turns her attention to the campus. That too is never really explained properly. While she journeys back we get lots of insight into her life leading up to the mind wipe. A hippie dippy Echo, real name Caroline, along with her boyfriend was attempting to get video of the shady corporation’s evil treatment of lab animals.Caroline and her boyfriend were caught by security and the boyfriend gets shot trying to escape. In turn, Caroline is captured and forced into becoming a dollhouse zombie for a few years as payment. That’s the big surprise?

After arriving on campus, Echo meets one of the earliest victims of the drug and the two try to infiltrate the lab the same path as she had taken as Caroline. Finally making her way to the lab with her new friend in tow, he doses her with the drug. He turns out to be a the source of the entire crisis. He wanted to steal the formula and sell it to the highest bidder. After getting punched out by a sobered up Boyd, he too ends up rounded up by the Dollhouse and in the end, he looks to become another active on their roster.

It all felt anticlimactic. The drug was essentially a short term danger with only minor consequences and all we learned about Echo and the Dollhouse was that they came together through an ridiculously mundane set of circumstances. Though the doped up dialogue between Topher and the English ice queen where pretty funny, it wasn’t enough to save this one. Hopefully the teased-at active uprising in Dollhouse’s preview cashes in more of the promise of last weeks episode.

The promotional ads for Dollhouse have been promising some big action this week. Whedon said interviews that episode six is the one where the plot all begins to come together. Its about time. Dollhouse has generally been a disappointment even to those that bought the special edition DVD of Dr Horrible. This episode seemed to be the best so far.

The so far useless Ballard seems to actually be making some progress in his case.  Helped along with tips sent in by Alpha he’s getting closer to Echo. He’s even begun to find a money trail, leading to an internet mogul Joel Mynor, played by the ever awesome Patton Oswalt.

Back at the Dollhouse, Sierra has a very strange reaction when the other active Victor (the one with the inappropriate boner) touches her. Victor and Sierra seem to have had sex, which throws the whole balance of the passive actives off. This odd sexual undercurrent to the actives had better make some sense, because otherwise it just seems silly.

Ballard arrives at Mr Mynor’s house just as Echo comes calling and he comes face to face with Echo for the first time. After Echo escapes and Mr Minor’s bodyguards get subduded by Ballard (who can’t even be stopped by a tazer) he interrogate Mr Mynor. Mynor turns the tables on Ballard and exposes his own fantasy about being heroic. Not surprisingly, Whedon gives Patton a wide berth as Mynor and it pays off big time. He’s just great on camera and its one of the most memorable scenes in the series so far.

After some internal Dollhouse investigation, it appears as though Victor and Sierra have been having sex with the implication that it might not be consensual. After some twists, its clear that Sierra isn’t being abused by Victor, but by one of the sleazier handlers. The handler now caught, is given a chance to keep himself out of “the attic”. He’s charged with killing agent Ballard’s neighbor/new girlfriend.

I should mention that throughout the episode there are vignettes of a faux news story about the urban legend of the Dollhouse. Its a forced bit of theater to drive home the subtexts of the story. Namely, human trafficking, the fantasy life versus reality and the morality of changing identity. Its pretty hollow but it gives voice to some views that should be considered when trying to follow Whedon’s morality play.

After the close call with agent Ballard, the Dollhouse decides to send in Echo. After leaving his new neighbor girlfriend to get some egg rolls, Echo attacks. Programed to be a super kung fu bad ass, Echo and Ballard fight until Echo finally gets the upper hand. Suddenly, Echo’s secondary layer of programing begins and she communicates with Ballard openly about the Dollhouse. There is someone inside who wants to feed Ballard info, and that person has set up Echo as a messenger. Either this is a ploy, or it adds yet another layer of subterfuge.

As Ballard realizes that his new girl is in danger he races back to the apartment. Sure enough the sleazy rapist Handler is beating her up and trying to kill her. Just as he begins to choke her out, a call arrives and the mousy neighbor springs to life. She too is an active. She kills the handler and then reverts to the mousy neighbor imprint again.

Now inspired by Echo’s messages, Ballard quits the FBI to go lone wolf in his investigation. He is completely boxed in, but he doesn’t know it yet. His new active/girlfriend will continue to shadow him and the Dollhouse is sure he’s not finished yet.

It was interesting to have Ballard catch a fleeting glimpse of his white wale in this episode. For the first time, Ballard was actually relevant. Also interesting to have yet another force, aside from Alpha and Ballard, trying to bring down the Dollhouse; this time from within. Dollhouse didn’t lie when it promised a good episode. It delivered this time. We should all hope that the show gains some consistent footing from here on.