Bones decided to go alternate reality on us for its season finale. Bones and Booth are cast as a couple who own a nightclub called “the Lab.” Bones and Booth’s nightclub is the site of a murder and the investigators are Booth’s brother Jared and Cam. The show uses the dream episode as a good excuse to drag in every actor who’s played a lab assistant or bit character to come back for more. While last week the crime was secondary and somewhat lame, in the finale the crime is the centerpiece of the story.

The murder in the bathroom of “the Lab” brings all of the employees into the mix as suspects. Sweets is the bartender. Angela is the hostess. Hodgins is a crime novelist. Even Zach reappears as a goofy busboy. The arrows of the investigation seem to repeatedly point toward Bones and Booth. Their ever loyal employees don’t help matters by concealing evidence and generally acting like detectives. Evidence points everywhere but is all inconclusive. From gang ties to possible infidelity between the fantasy-couple, motives are everywhere. In the counter investigation that Booth is conducting Jared his brother and Bones’ father Max come up as prime suspects.

Bones gets a complete head scratcher of a guest star for its season finale. Motley Crue shows up to play “the Lab” as part of Booth’s head trauma-inspired dream. At the same time, Jared and Cam end up in a standoff in the club’s alley. Jared is exposed as the murderer. He killed the victim protecting his brother wife who the victim had come to kill as retribution over disputed protection money. Bones steps into the fray, thanking Jared for his protection and asking that he now give himself up. He does and is taken into custody just in time to have Motley Crue play “Dr Feelgood.”

Booth awakens in a hospital bed with Bones gently writing at his bedside. Teary and relieved Bones rushes to him. She explains that he’s been a coma for several days but that his operation was a success. Booth looks quizzically at Bones and asks her “who are you?” The season ends.

Bones does a pretty good job of playing up its campy side this week. Keeping track of each character’s new role is a little difficult, and that’s to the episode’s detriment.  Generally though, I found it more fun that it sounds on paper. My general problem with this episode is that it just felt drama-less. I figure most of the audience assumed that this was all an intense dream sequence brought on by Booth’s brain surgery. Thus, where is the tension? The only tension the episode is able to serve up in anticipation of next season is Booth’s amnesia. Though that may play itself into a more interesting set of stories next season, in itself it doesn’t carry enough weight. Here’s looking forward to next season’s round of fresh corpses and unrealized sexual tension.

“Here’s to Future Days/ Now or Never”

This may possibly be the most heart-wrenching season finale that Grey’s Anatomy has ever have. With a two hour episode I can’t possibly provide you with all the incredible details, but the breakdown is as follows.

Derek awakes, the morning after Izzie’s wedding, with the knowledge of how to remove her tumor. After a heated debate that pin Meredith, Cristina and Izzie up against Derek and Karev the groups decides that surgery would be best as opposed to a cocktail of treatments. This, however, put not only Izzy’s life on the line, but her memory and personality as they all know it.

Incredibly enough, the surgery is a success and all parts of the tumor are gone. With a do not resistate hanging in the balance, Izzie wakes up completely alert and any fear of brain damage is quickly forgotten. That is, until she can’t remember what happened five minutes ago and finds herself on constant instant replay mode.

On the other side of the hospital the rest of the team is also elbows deep in drama. Hunt almost joins the army but decides instead to stay and give his relationship with Cristina and his family a fighting chance. George, however, after being inspired by Hunt and a patients tales of acceptance and purpose, decides to enlist. The whole hospital goes crazy forming opinions as to whether George is incredibly or insane and a large group of the asylum favoring crew decide to stage an intervention for the end of the work day in order to convince him to stay.

Other, more minor, dramas that occur results in Bailey bawling her eyes out to the Chief when she admits that her husband gave her an ultimatim. Either she chooses general surgery or she loses him. He fears that a future in pediatrics will keep her from her own child and husband. Unwilling to be in a relationship where she’s forced to decide she opts for general surgery sans husband and realizes that she’s now on the tough path of single motherhood.

After a John Doe patients arrives having been dragged for a block under a bus trying to save a pedestrians life and with Izzie’s life in the balance Meredith decides to take control of her own. Derek and her exchange promises to each other and declare themselves married. At the same time Lexi turns down Sloan’s proposal to start a life together but makes it obvious that she would still like to carry on with their relationship as it is for now.

So much for excusing the details right? I told you they were too good to miss! Now I hope you were paying attention because in the last paragraph I told you about a John Doe patient of Meredith and the crews who was near death. It was clear from the start for me that he recognized Meredith and I suspected that she was unknowingly working on her father. It doesn’t become obvious until right before Izzie recovers her memory that the John Doe is George. He’d been given the day off to spend time with family before shipping off and no one even knew!

Just as Izzie is celebrating her recovered memory with Karev after he completely blew up at her with words he’s sure to regret during a moment of frustration, we see that George is flat lining during surgery. And then she’s gone. Just as was rumored all season, Isabel Stevens was given her curtain call. The elevator opens to Izzie in a beautiful ball gown reminiscent to earlier seasons and she gets on pushing the button awaiting who might open the door. Hoping for Denny, but knowing better, there stands George. Dressed out in full military ensemble the pair are ready to descend into the next life together, somewhat softening the blow that both of their deaths have caused, yet reminding us that two incredible characters are no longer a part of what we know as the love and drama on Grey’s Anatomy.

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.

Bones is back and nasty as it wants to be. A body is found at the bottom of a cliff mutilated and smashed. After ruling out death by bungee, the body is brought into the lab. The show throws in an interesting twist when the body begins to bubble and foam. Out of concern for toxins the crew locks down the lab. The victim’s bones are literally melting and bubbling away before the crews eyes.

Now with time ticking away and the only evidence slowly destroying itself, Bones and Booth get to work. The victim was a car salesman and questioning leads them to his brother who he worked with him at a jungle themed car lot, two shady Indian car salesman and a ludicrous scene in a strip club. The scene is particularly silly as Booth gets a lap dance while Bones watches as if its a show on Animal Planet.

During all this, Bones finally notices that she has poor social skills and decides to get lessons from Sweets. Its a silly turn for the show to take, but at least we get more face time from Dr Sweets. He’s been surprisingly tolerable over the last few weeks and I’m actually getting getting to like the little weasel.

The body’s strange chemical reaction seems to have the crew completely confounded. Everything they try seems to make the problem worse and time is running out. Booth returns his attention to the strange jungle themed car lot. After bringing in the star saleswoman for questioning. Bones decides its time to test out her new social training. Its a massive failure but they are able to follow a trail back to the owner of the lot and his pet monkey. After discovering blood and a solvent that could’ve been used on the foamy corpse, it feels like their close to the killer. As usual, it appears as though the least likely is the killer. The wife of his brother did it after he discovered her having an affair.

Despite it being full of silly plot hooks, I enjoyed the nasty bubbling corpse. It added a certain amount of suspense to what is usually a pretty ho-hum part of the show. Also the concept of Bones trying to learn Booth’s art of persuasion turned out better than I would’ve expected. That’ll do, Bones. That’ll do.

(S05E14) An Honest Mistake

Tonight’s Grey’s Anatomy featured a moment that will surely be highlighted on some future DVD of all amazing Grey’s moments years from now: “The Shepherd and Sloan Smack Down”.

After a whirlwind of emotional surgery Derek is left with self-anger, disbelief and grief, having lost his pregnant patient due to his own medical mistake. With possibly the worst timing known to man Sloan picks just that moment when Derek is taking the quiet time he needs to get his head on straight in order to burst out the truth about his and Lexi’s relationship. Big mistake Steamy. Without even pausing to think about it Derek threw two punches directly at Steamy’s face surely making the man glad he’s in plastics. The fight went on with no mercy shown until Dr. Hunt, the Chief and of course, both Grey sisters split the men apart. Not before, I might add, I had a slight fear Sloan and/or Shepherd would take a head dive off the bridge where the ruckus occurred.

So yes, a lot of other things happened in tonight’s episode. Izzie discovers she was misdiagnosed with anemia and may have cancer, putting her life in the interns hands for the moment. Bailey fights for both respect and an esteemed spot in pediatrics. Dr. Hunt admits to Cristina that he accepts all her faults and wants to spend his life with her anyway. Ooh and shall we not forget Torres’ shameful rejection from Arizona that happened not once, but twice in one day. But really, doesn’t that all just pale in comparison to a crazy wicked fist fight between two very hot men? I thought so.

I’m getting too old for this ship

30 Rock is back this week with guest stars in tow. Jack is desperately trying to ingratiate himself with his girlfriend Elisa’s grandmother. The grandmother will have none of it however as Jack looks exactly like the principle villain (the Generalissimo) from her Spanish language soap operas. Alec Baldwin is playing both jack and the Generalissimo in this episode. Every time I saw Alec with a tan and a pencil thin mustache overacting in Spanish I howled with laughter.

Liz has been getting her neighbors mail and encouraged by Jenna, she opens it While returning it she discovers that her neighbor (played by the uber-handsome Jon Hamm of Mad Men) may in fact be the man of her dreams. He’s handsome, a doctor and loves to bake. Liz nearly melts in the hallway.

Back at the studio, Jack has hired a bunch of laid-off young financial industry workers as interns. The interns love Tracey and ask him to go out and party with them. Tracey is overwhelmed by their stamina, but can’t keep let anyone know that these wall street frat boys can out party him. Watching Tracey come nearly to tears while drinking a flaming shot of liquor might be the high point for him.

Jack decides to have NBC buy the Spanish soap opera in order to kill off the evil Generalissimo. The General isn’t going easily though, refusing to allow his character to be killed off. The Generalissimo offers a better solution. He believes he can change. By being the ideal man for an elderly puerto rican woman, the grandmother changes her mind about the Generalissimo. Finally grandma accepts Jack.

Inspired by the Generalissimo, Liz plots to trick her new crush into a love affair. Pretending she lost a dog and inviting the neighbor to a non existent party (accidentally drugging him) only leads her to the realization that she has become a low rent soap opera villain. After the full reveal of her duplicity, Liz catches a break and her neighbor-crush decides to give her another chance. As someone who loves Liz, it was nice to see Lemon get another shot. Surely it’ll all go wrong soon enough.

Dozens of viewers watched with rapt attention last week as Crusoe built toward its finale. The evil uncle Blackthorn’s true plan for the murder of Crusoe and his children was revealed as was Crusoe’s place as the proper heir to his fortune. Back in England, Susannah and Olivia where united and sought to free the Crusoe children from enslavement in an orphanage. Now, with Blackthorn’s betrayal revealed, we get what is at once both the best episode of the season and probably the last episode of the series.

After being shot at by Blackthorn’s men, Crusoe and Friday race into the jungle to escape. Blackthorn and his two cronies make a bee line to the treehouse in search of Crusoe’s prized bible. Unbeknown to Crusoe, inside his father’s bible is proof of his lineage and thus proof of his fortune. After some bumbling, Blackthorn beats Crusoe and Friday back to the treehouse where he torches it. After watching their treehouse burn, Crusoe and Friday find the bible and the birth notice. Only then does Crusoe really understand why Blackthorn has betrayed him. Their interaction is perhaps the best acting of the entire series. Now filled with rage, Crusoe and Friday commit themselves to killing Blackthorn and his men.

Soon, the duo are tracking Blackthorn through the jungle, revenge hot on Crusoe’s mind. Crusoe separates Blackthorn from his brother-in-law and frat boy-esque toady. Friday continues to shadow Blackthorn back to the ship. Robin confronts his wife’s brother on the beach and kills his buddy, using his body as piranha bait.

The brother in law reveals the last of the details of Blackthorn’s plot. Killing Robin is only half of it. After he returns to England, he plans on adopting his children (the new rightful heirs after Robin) and kill them. Thus, Blackthorn’s fortune will be his regardless of any legal intervention.

Robin makes his way onto the ship and confronts Blackthorn face to face. He demands Blackthorn’s word (such as it is) that his wife and children will be protected and the he be granted safe return in exchange for his birth papers. After agreeing, Robin tears his the papers up in Blackthorn’s face. In a final act of viciousness, Blackthorn produces Friday and begins to force him into the ocean to drown. Crusoe pulls his sword attempting to free Friday. Now in combat with the crew, he sees blood in the eyes of a crewman. Crusoe then immediately grabs Friday and leaps from the ship, swimming for shore. It becomes clear that the whole ship is infected with the black death and no one about will make it to England alive.

In England, the Crusoe children are being forced to work as slaves by a corrupted monk. Susannah, along with Olivia’s help, find her children and frees them Now with Blackthorn dieing of the plague at sea, the children are the sole heirs to the fortune. Yet still, Crusoe and Friday are alone on their private paradise.

It seems inevitable that Crusoe will be canceled. Its a high budget show and the coming change in economics for broadcast television will probably mean more low risk reality shows and fewer high risk investments like Crusoe. Crusoe wasn’t what it could’ve been, but the moxy to make a swashbuckling deserted island show based on an eighteenth century novel has to be applauded. I haven’t talked about the novel at all as I thought the best way to give the show a chance is to take the show on its own merits. Any literary person would tell you that comparing Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe to this thirteen part NBC series would be a like comparing Pride and Prejudice to Kath and Kim. Aside form the names Crusoe and Friday, there is little that is similar to the novel. Taken on its own merits though, Crusoe did have some things to offer. Absolutely stunning scenery was standard in almost every episode, the acting was spot-on and there where several episodes that could keep you on the edge of your seat. In the final estimate however, Crusoe fell victim to poor scripts, bad plot development and perhaps the worst scheduling of a high profile show in some time by NBC. Farewell Crusoe, may you find a port of safe harbor.

House drops us right in the middle of a several story lines bent on collision this week. Cuddy has anointed Cameron as her replacement House-sitter while she stays home with her new baby, Thirteen and Foreman’s budding romance is strained while Foreman wrestles with his medical ethics and most pressingly, a young special education teacher spitting up blood from every direction. Truth is, the legs of this episode lie entirely in two ideas and as usual, the patient is just a prop. The first, Cuddy isn’t adapting to her new role as adopted mother; and second, that Cameron as Cuddy’s surrogate just isn’t up to the mental gymnastics that House puts her through.

Cameron, flushed with new power, throws House a curveball by playing his mind games to a stalemate. Answering “yes” when he predicts “no” and “left” when he imagines “right , she keeps House off guard for a while. He orders tests the patient doesn’t need, not performing them when Cameron approves them and generally makes an ass of himself. The patient’s mysterious sickness only grows as the various insane tests (performed and not) turn up very little. It all comes to a head in the climax where, given the approval to cut the top of the patient’s skull off, House is finally stopped by a screaming Cuddy over the phone. House’s epiphany finally comes, realizing that the patient’s problem is actually in her heart. Its pretty vague how cracking opening up a patient’s noggin’ would help this diagnosis, but then again, this show is a quarter step away from Sci-Fi anyway.

Speaking of Cuddy, now at home with her newly adopted daughter she isn’t bonding with the baby. She wonders if she is up to motherhood at all, even considering returning the child. Again, I am annoyed by the woman as helpless in the face of the motherhood/ career conflict. Cuddy as a medical professional would know that emotional bonds take time, even with a child that isn’t adopted. There seems no way that she’d be in the throws of this kind of depression so soon. The bond does arrive though as the special ed teacher with the missing skull soothes Cuddy and her child over the phone during the previously mentioned brain test. Consequently, Cameron quits he job as House-sitter and Cuddy is forced to return to work, but with her new motherly bond cemented.

In the closing moments of the show, we see a conflicted Foreman changing the labels on new girlfriend Thirteen’s medication. All episode he has talked with friends and colleagues about Thirteen’s placement in the placebo group of his drug trial. To a person, they all agree that his tampering with the trial will put his career at risk. He seems resigned to remain uninvolved, until he speaks with House. House suggests that “people in love to stupid things” and Foreman takes it to heart. Next week’s episode looks like an exciting (if predictable) barn burner.

Surely you’ve heard by now about the big digital signal switchover that’s was supposed to be coming in a few days. You know, the one that effectively kills over-the-air broadcasting without the converter box? Well, the Senate voted unanimously yesterday to delay the cutover until June 12, 2009.

I have to ask why. They say that there are “more than 6.2 million U.S. households that rely on analog television sets to pick up over-the-air broadcast signals”. Well, I say to them…time’s up. The Digital Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005 was enacted on October 20, 2005. As a frame of reference for me, personally, I had no kids then. Now I have three. I’m just sayin’.

Look, I have a DVR, so I hardly ever watch commercials, but I STILL see the stupid ads for this cutover all the time. Our local ABC affiliate has a little 5 second blurb that they run at least once every 30 minutes between their commercials and programming, saying how many days are left until the switchover (and brought to you by the local electronics store, where you can buy the converter box). I saw one just last night that had Pat Sayjak, Vanna White and Alex Trebeck all walking arm in arm talking about the switchover. So if I see them all the time, you can’t tell me that grandma and grandpa haven’t gotten the message yet.

I know the economy is rough right now, but by my count, we’ve had roughly 1,211 days between the signing of the legislation and the deadline. You’ve had plenty of time. And if 3 1/2 years wasn’t long enough for you to take your Rascal scooter out to Wal-Mart to get the magic box that will let you still watch Jeopardy, I don’t think four months is going to make much difference.

But maybe that’s just me.