Site Presented By
Saturday, Nov 28, 2009
"Friends"
Rachel finally gives birth to a baby girl as Monica and Chandler scamper around the hospital looking for a bed. (Haven't we seen this episode before?) Meanwhile, Rachel has a conversation with Chandler's ex, Janice, with whom she shares a labor room, that leaves her feeling a little glum about her marital status. Sure, Ross will stick around for a while, Janice warns, but eventually, he'll move on to start his "real" family. Unbeknownst to them, Ross' mother has given him his grandmother's ring to give to Rachel. Ross puts the ring in his coat pocket but loses it in the delivery room, where Joey finds it while kneeling on the floor looking for a tissue. The hair-pulling moment of the season arrives when a speechless Joey holds the ring up to Rachel, and Rachel says OK. (If it looks like a proposal and smells like a proposal ... ) Ross comes out of the elevator holding a bouquet of flowers. Can we stand it? Probably.
III. Unresolved National Issues
"Law & Order: Criminal Intent"
Vincent D'Onofrio wraps up an issue we only wish could be resolved this satisfyingly. A persnickety small-time stockholder in a crooked corporate behemoth called the Mattawin Corp., which buys and sells water and land rights, raises a red flag within the corporation when he demands that his broker explain something fishy in the company's financial statement. Mattawin is using an offshore company owned by the company's top executives to hide losses from its employees and stockholders. The upright V.P. of corporate finance refuses to sign the earnings statement until the matter is cleared up and winds up unconscious in her car. She wakes up accused of murdering her boyfriend. (Amnesia, don't you know.) Her reptilian boss offers to help her if she helps the company. Luckily for everyone except the nefarious CFO of the company -- which is entirely fictitious and bears absolutely no resemblance to the real-world Enron Corp. -- D'Onofrio expertly dismantles the entire scheme, managing to get the V.P. exonerated, the company in trouble and the shareholders in the black, all in one fell sweep. For dessert, he humiliates the CFO in front of his smug fiancée just before arresting him for murder. If only.
"The West Wing"
President Bartlet wrestles with his morals once again -- only this time they pin him to the floor. Pressured by his staff to knock off a known terrorist who's operating under diplomatic cover, he weighs the moral pros and cons during a charity benefit performance of Shakespeare's "Henry VI." (Why, this show has more layers than a strawberry shortcake!) During intermission, Bartlet has an impromptu rap session with Florida Gov. Robert Ritchie, his Republican rival in the upcoming presidential election. A self-styled man of the people (read: ignorant, prejudiced and dumb), Ritchie is a one-note threat to Bartlet's ongoing emotional symphony. Realizing this, Bartlet authorizes the assassination, then poses, backlit, behind a curtain, perhaps signaling that he's gone over to the dark side. Meanwhile, relationships end and people die. Josh supports the welfare-reform bill that his lover, Amy Gardner, is fighting against. Everyone knows what that'll do to a relationship. C.J.'s Secret Service bodyguard and love interest, played by the sensitive-yet-manly Mark Harmon, is shot during an armed robbery.
IV. Unresolved Casting Issues
"The Practice"
Amnesia strikes again -- this time, it's psychological -- after Lindsey shoots and kills a former client, who also happens to be a cannibal and a serial killer. The firm defends Lindsey using the "battered woman syndrome defense." After having been stalked, stabbed and threatened by three crazy clients -- she can certainly pick 'em -- Lindsey snaps, first in her apartment and then in the courtroom. In the dramatic finale, the jury convicts her of first-degree murder. And after Bobby beat his murder rap, too!
"ER"
The E.R. is quarantined after smallpox pays a visit. Highlights: Some very nasty pustules and an emergency tracheotomy. Lowlights: Mark Green is already dead, but everybody else may survive.
"Law & Order"
A Yemeni Jiffy-Lube employee dies in a gas explosion in his building. There's something funny about this dead guy. He paid his rent in cash, he stayed away from women, he turned down promotions at Jiffy-Lube, he entered the country on a tourist visa and was seeking asylum on religious grounds and -- hey! -- he had $90,000 in his bank account. It can only mean one thing: Another day, another news-based dramatization.
"Third Watch"
The "other" angsty John Wells show about all the awful things that can happen to people, and the New York police, paramedics and firefighters who run around gruffly trying to save them. In the season finale, a tribute to '70s New York-during-a-blackout movies, it's hot and all the nasty things happen that we expect from the city that never sleeps when there's no air conditioning. "Third Watch" has always been big on yin and yang: Novice cops are paired with experienced cops, hotheads with levelheaded types, etc. The season ender shows what happens when the balance gets out of whack. As gruff-but-likable Sully yells when confronted with the broken A/C in his patrol car, "It's blowing hot air!" Yes indeedy. Meanwhile, Faith and Fred get stuck in a clinic elevator after Faith forces Fred to get a physical because she's afraid he'll have a heart attack. Doc and Carlos visit two emphysemic geezers, one rich and one poor, and Doc must confront his wealth-ist attitudes. Bosco arrests a black man for possession of marijuana, then uncuffs him so he can save the life of a shoplifter who's been shot through a window onto his patrol car. It turns out that the weed-packing man was a medic in the Marines. When he's finished saving the shoplifter, Bosco arrests him again. Is it fair? Is it right? Is it moral? Is it ethical? Is it hot/cold, dark/light, rich/poor in here or what? Tension abounds, riots ensue, lives of principal cast members are endangered. Guess what happens to Fred in that elevator?
