Reviews

Oh dear! Here's another instance of somebody charging in with a negative review without doing adequate research. "City of Windsor" roses, aka Rosa Korimach, were bred in Germany, by the Kordes nursery in the 1990s. The name has nothing to do with any geographical location in England. They are a beautiful flower, and could have been grown anywhere in England or (more likely) Scotland. The episode itself I felt was OK. The arrival of adult Christy was a shock - I think that could have been handled better - but overall it went right. I look forward to seeing how she blends in with the future storyline.

A good episode. I liked the introduction of the East Asian cultural mix, and the preview of where Paige's relationship with Henry may be heading. I feel that Lo Pan is a particularly sympathetic (and useful) character - it's a shame we probably won't be seeing him again. It's too late now, but I wish the writers had cut back on these scenes on the top of the Golden Gate Bridge. I have a physical revulsion every time. My father had bad experiences as an officer in the RAMC, stretchering wounded soldiers down cliffs in the Italian campaign, and passed his subsequent fear of falling on to me. "Younger me" was one of the auditors of the Forth Road Bridge project, and I was given the opportunity to stand on top of the suspension towers, exactly as in these scenes, (to count the rivets, of course!) ...mmm - I declined.

This is a curious mix, consisting mainly (as you might expect from the title) of a lot of content relating to the sisters' lives before and leading up to their Grandmother's death. It explains the arrival of the cat in the household. It also includes discussion of the sisters' earlier living arrangements, including Phoebe's departure to New York. That ties in tightly with Piper and Leo's current discussions as to where they should live in their new circumstances. The rest of the script is an interesting puzzle, involving a cat turned into a demon, which is eventually solved by a variant of the Fox, Goose and Grain Problem. Didn't see that coming, although I probably should have! Overall, it fills out the background story nicely, and gives us a good amount of character development.

Altogether, a great episode. It has the usual intertwined stories. Previously we have introduced the new DA as an old friend of Erin, but there is clear tension between them. The storyline in this episode starts to resolve their differences - perhaps we will see Kimberly Crawford as a long-term member of the character ensemble? Jamie overcomes serious problems with a reporter obstructing his case, claiming First Amendment protection for her internet work. Danny starts off in usual mode, but dials it back. Is he falling more to Baez's thinking? We already know from S11E3 "Atonement" that they have declared their love for each other, but we don't know if that's love for partners in stressful situations, or if it's something more. I'm relieved to see the backside of the Robert Lewis character - he was really annoying. Having said that, I'm fairly convinced that scriptwriters introduce "annoying" characters intentionally to "scratch up" interest in whatever show is under discussion.

I really wish IMDb didn't impose a six hundred character minimum on reviews. They weren't used to, and it makes it really difficult to make pithy comments about an episode or performance, however well deserved. In this episode, for me the standout performance came from Amy Morton. We see her here exerting her authority as Erin's boss, before transferring to Dick Wolf's Chicago franchise. Her stellar continuing performance there as Trudy Platt surely marks her as one of the world's great actors - she truly commands her station, as one of the characters in that series says, and holds that character fast.

This was another great episode, with good character development for several characters, and great acting from all the cast, particularly Jayne Atkinson as Dr Clay. The real hero of the story was, however, Boomer the dog, who I guess hasn't been to RADA. In the interest of public safety I have to take issue with the reviewer whose review amounts to a defence of all dogs. Sure, most dogs are predictable. My brother has had dogs for as long as I can remember, and I would trust them with my life. My next door neighbour on one side also has dogs, as does my neighbour further up the road, with whom I have friendly relations, and I have nothing to fear from them. To me, these dogs are predictably friendly. Some dogs are predictably unfriendly. I can think of at least two - one a Chihuahua who responded aggressively to anyone who came into her owner's house in Gwent, and the other an under-exercised Doberman called Zen, who was just nasty. Zen bit me as I was leaving his neighbour's property where I was on cat-sitting duty. I reported it to the local Sergeant, who had a word with his owner. Unfortunately for Zen, the street had noted his predictability, and the street contained several children. A few weeks later one of the neighbours (probably one with children) slipped Warfarin into Zen's food dish, and the threat was removed from the street. But despite the claim of Shiryu05, not all dogs are predictable. My next-door neighbours on the other side have a couple of dogs, one of which is OK, but for the other I keep my walking stick ready whenever I see him. The other unpredictable dog I know was owned by the boyfriend of a family member. He was named "Kobe" and was some Japanese fighting breed. We warned them that he was not safe to have around, but they ignored the warnings until Kobe mauled the boyfriend. After that they broke up. Surprise!

Another excellent story, with strong performances from all concerned. In particular, Mimi Michaels as the dying wife. The episode is a biting condemnation of the US healthcare "system". Who would choose to live in a country that treated its citizens in such a manner? Tracy Spiridakos was handed the main load of the story and lifted it effortlessly. She seems to have fitted very comfortably into the role of Hailey Upton, and is a serious asset to the cast. I guess I'm puzzled by the naming of her character: although she herself is Canadian, her family is Greek, she has strong ties to Greece, and she actually looks like a Greek goddess. In previous scripts it was made clear that her character also is Greek. "Hailey Upton"? Could the writers not have found a more ethnically appropriate name for the character?

From her first appearance, Miranda Rae Mayo has done an excellent job of projecting Stella Kidd onto our screens. Were I on her team, I would follow her to hell and back. We have got her commitment to the calling, her physical strength, intellectual capability and her determination to succeed. We have got her ability to lead and her drive to pass on all her innate qualities to a future generation. Kidd is surely (at least nearly) the most outstanding character on the show. Apart from Kidd's result the rest of the episode was for me pretty much filler, although the dumping story and the Veronicat line were entertaining enough to justify an episode on their own.

Having a sense for an appropriate mix of story strands is one of the characteristics that make Dick Wolf's team so successful. We have ongoing romantic tension, particularly between Brett and Casey, but that is really secondary to the ongoing family atmosphere, centred around the obvious father of the house, Chief Boden, but including his actual family, the Herrmann family and now the Cruz family. As I have said in other reviews, I believe that it is the successful incorporation of the aspect of family that results in a world-beating TV series. Law and Order: SVU, Bones, Castle, The Mentalist, they all fall into that mould of a suspenseful storyline peopled by actors who successfully present a family group. UK productions such as Silent Witness, Vera, and the Endeavour/Morse/Lewis series hold to that model. I have to think that there may not have been such a family aspect in the original Law & Order series., and that it why it didn't survive, while SVU is soldiering on to series ?23? The UK series of Silent Witness is now heading for its 27th year. As for present viewing, the suspense of individual episodes keeps us viewing these individual episodes, but it's the ongoing family that keeps us viewing long-term. Then again we have the comedy aspect, with the swaddling contest, and the Veronicat storyline concluding later. It all keeps us coming back for more!

I congratulate Jane Brody on successfully conveying one of the most loathesome characters I have ever seen on my screen, and the subsequent storyline is really satisfying. I think this is one of my favourite episodes: kudos to the writers, actors and the entire team! I have always known that one of the key factors in the success of any television series is the casting department. On Kelly Deadmon's initial appearance as Sylvie Brett's mother I was impressed by how closely casting had matched the physical traits of the two actors. However, it is only in this episode, in particular in the scene in the estate agent's office when the camera captures the parallel headshot of the two women - they might have been twin sisters - that I realised the genius that had brought them together. I'm sure that Dick Wolf knows the talent that he has in his casting department, but the outside world (me, at least!) wants to salute it as well.

Another great episode. But there are aspects of the storyline that fall into the "Really, really... ?" category, possibly not through any error of the writers, but maybe through some glaring deficiencies in regulations. How would a city not legislate to ensure that any managed building should keep a list of vulnerable occupants, let alone high-rise buildings, let alone those above ladder-height? That someone in a wheelchair might be living on the 25th floor is (I suppose) just credible, but that the emergency services were not immediately presented with a list of vulnerable occupants is not. However, congratulations to the writers on giving us another exciting story, and for all cities, if you don't have legislation requiring such lists, do it now!

Oh, here we go! Casey has become infected by the dreaded Whiteshirt Virus. I fear there are still too many managers around today who take that approach, otherwise I would be asking "In what century are the writers living? "I don't expect you to be thrilled by my rank, but you need to respect it." Nah, nowadays, whoever you are, it is the capability of the person expect you to be thrilled by my rank, thatcher than your go fit need to respect it." Nah, nowadays, whoever you are, it is the need to respect it." it is the It is quite clear that at the start of the nineteenth century the top two management consultants of the age, Napoleon and Wellington, were in total agreement that actual talent overwhelmed any nominal rank, and they were not the first to realise it. Unfortunately, deference to nominal rank has been built into human culture for thousands of years. It has been fading over the last five centuries or more in many parts of the world (look at the way Henry VIII of England, having the power himself, threw off the authority of the Roman Pope), but still exists in many cultures. Examples are the Dalits in Indian culture, and women, wherever their rights are held to be subordinate to a man. "YOU MUST RESPECT MY RIGHTS BECAUSE THEY ARE MINE." No, no longer. If you are to be respected, it is going to be because You are worthy of respect. I hope that this is going to be I think Dick Wolf picked absolutely the right aspect of public service to launch his OneChicago franchise: of the fire, police, ambulance and justice services none could attract public sympathy more than the fire service, launching themselves into danger on a daily basis. The other series followed logically.

I'm afraid that I have never liked the character of Benny Severide. In previous episodes he has struck me as as a feckless, immature, self-centred, self-satisfied and probably deceitful blowhard, with no real thought except to his own benefit. This episode does nothing to change that view. Before the introduction of Benny, I had decided that Kelly Severide is pretty much the same personality, certainly feckless, immature and self-centred, and strongly disliked him. I think that with this episode I came to realise that the poor guy is hugely the product of Benny, by either nature or nurture. But there is more to him than that, particularly an innate protective urge, as shown in this episode, and I await his growth in following episodes and seasons. No matter what Benny's failings may be, or how much he may be a model politician, McLeod is worse, and I look forward to her imminent downfall. I just hope that Kelly Severide will grow to full adulthood as rapidly as the scriptwriters can manage.

I know there is a lot of pressure on the staff of a series such as this, but it really detracts from the audience's experience if the fourth wall is shattered by gross errors of language, making us step back from the story we have been absorbed in and say "Hey, what on earth did that line mean?". A few minutes in, Maura declares of the deceased: "He was a smithy... a blacksmith ". Surely, most of the English speaking world, particularly those in possession of a dictionary, knows that a blacksmith is one who works in iron (tick!) but that a smithy is his place of work - the premises in which he has his forge. It is almost unbelievable that such an incorrect line could have been written in the first place, then it got through the studio's proof-reading and Quality Control processes without anyone raising a flag, to be dumped on poor Sasha Alexander to deliver... ? After the Euler/Yooler gaffe she was dropped into in the previous season, I'm starting to wonder if someone is trying to undermine her. Either that or the studio's QA procedures just aren't working.

Now that we know that Stana Katic and Tamala Jones have refused contracts/been fired for season nine, we can see where the scriptwriters are going. There are two options to the network and production company. One is to cancel the show and run down season eight to a comfortable ending, sorting out LokSat and finishing with a cosy closure for the fans. The alternative is to have Beckett die tragically in a final battle with LokSat, allowing the show to continue to season nine without her. I would see Alexis Castle becoming the focus of the show, rather than the still (irritatingly) childish Richard, partnered by Hayley Shipton. Molly Quinn and Toks Olagundoye have shown that they are clearly able to support the burden of lead roles. I wish we could see them down that pathway, and I know that their detective characters could develop into something special. A secondary problem is the loss of the Lanie Parrish character: she was really needed as ME - the Perlmutter character is just too angry and annoying for me. However, it was established over several seasons that she and Esposito had real difficulties maintaining a relationship, so it would not be a surprise to find that she had taken a post as Chief Medical Examiner in Seattle, or some such. Then in s8e16:Hertbreaker the writers introduced the Sonia Ruiz character, between whom there were clearly reciprocal feelings with Javi. OK, she was going to have to go back to prison for a while, but not for very long, and there would be ways of getting her out anyway to work with the team, having shown what a valuable undercover asset she could be. So from the existing cast (minus Katic and Jones), pedal back Fillion and push forward Quinn and Olagundoye, keeping Angélica Celaya as the Ruiz character in reserve: you have at least a good solid season ahead. The audience profile may change, but Alexis Castle could carry this series on for some years yet. Oh dear!

I think this may be the most irritating episode in the entire, otherwise enjoyable, Castle series. In other countries we stand aghast at the possibility that a purely political entity such as City Hall might be able to meddle in a police investigation to the extent that non-forensic camera crews could be allowed on a crime scene. Any notion of whatever might be an episode plot is lost in the muddle of the "documentary following". I found myself so distracted by the "documentary techniques" that I completely lost track of what the characters were actually saying. So now I will have to watch the episode again, and filter down the forty minutes of paddling to the five minutes of actual story.

I have to accept that this is a very amusing episode. The Slaughter character is so over the top that we have to laugh at him, and it shows Castle the dangers of working outside the team of which he has worked so hard to be a part. Except that the events of the last decade or so have made Slaughter perhaps not so over the top - there may still be too many police officers with Slaughter's mentality. I've realised that what turns me off this episode is the presence of Slaughter. I was bullied at school, and have come across bullies in later life - I have come to be able to deal with them. To be presented with an entitled bully like Slaughter is a trigger to which I react badly. He reminds me of too many of the real people I know who infest society, and against whom it must be defended. Castle is right in taking a stand.

I almost never rate ten, on the principle that nothing is perfect, but this has to be one of my exceptions. This was a brilliant piece of television for its time, and nearly two decades later still is. With only two actors and a professional TV anchor really involved, it was essentially a fifty minute dialogue between the Santos and Vinick characters, a massive task for Smits and Alda. They rose to the challenge admirably - as another reviewer has suggested, we lost sight of the fact that it was scripted. This may have been helped by the fact that (in my understanding) it was indeed at least partly improvised. Even more kudos to the actors! What we saw was two honourable men, representing possibly the best of the two sides of the polarised US political system, presenting their ideas in a clear, logical fashion. I found myself caught up, waving at the screen and saying "Oh, come on, pull him up on that! You can't let him get away with that!". I found myself sympathising with much of what both were saying. And I found myself saddened by the thought that this maybe could not happen today. The events of the last decade have further increased the polarisation of the US, politically, socially, economically, ethically, technically, and probably a few other "...ally"s. But this episode still holds up the banner of hope and possibility. Long may it wave!

I'll ignore (no, I won't!) the fact that the Federal use of the motto "In God We Trust" is arguably unconstitutional - they should have stuck with "E Pluribus Unum". The motto is an implicit breach of the first amendment. It may not establish any Roman Catholic, Celtic Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Greek Orthodox, Coptic, or any other variety of the many sects of the Christian religion: nor does it establish establish any Jewish or Islamic sect. But it does imply recognition of an Abrahamic God, cutting off all religions which do not adhere to that single-god model of a universal creator, or none at all. In 1789 the framers of the Constitution may all have been of that mindset, but I'm fairly certain they weren't. Meanwhile, back at the script, I have never trusted the Gianelli character and was pleased to see him kicked into touch. As another reviewer has remarked, the high point of the episode is the two (essentially humanist) pragmatists, Bartlet and Winnick, settling their differences over a selection of ice creams.

Two things catch my attention in this episode. The more obvious is that it marks the departure of Rob Lowe. I am not surprised. Have you ever attended a class in drawing? One of the skills you are (almost always) made to develop is the ability to draw negative space. That is, to identify the universe that does not include your flower, castle or other item of interest. So it is for me with Sam Seaborn. Whenever he appeared, I could sense the world around him, but as for the character, no - just an empty space. Often when Sam appeared I didn't actually recognise him. (Who's this guy?) Any character seen by the public in a dramatic role is actually a team, in this case critically the writers, the directors and the actor. So this cannot be attributed to Rob Lowe, rather to a mismatch between the actor and the rest of the team. And this is where I think we have to delve further into the team, to the producers and the casting department. Lowe had principal billing for the best part of four years, with an essentially vacant character and then got axed? WTF? Something was wrong somewhere, and I don't think we (the audience) have a clue about it. The second aspect of this episode to catch my attention is the question of privateers. Why should anyone attract execration because of their relationship to a privateer? Back in the 16th-18th-ish centuries, governments would issue Letters of Marque to appropriate bold sea-captains, authorising them to attack and seize any vessel belonging to a nation at war with the issuing government. (So Elizabeth I gave Francis Drake a Letter of Marque authorising him to attack and seize any Spanish vessel.) Privateers were essentially the naval equivalent of "a well-regulated militia", operating under the licence and conditions of their Letters of Marque, and relieving governments of the need to maintain an independent navy. In the late eighteenth century the British government realised that there was a significant threat from France, and decided that there was a need for a consolidated national navy. This led to the cutting down of all the trees in most of the forests of the UK. But it gave us the Royal Navy. Since then, the UK has not needed privateers, but they were a welcome addition to any country's naval force in their time. No one need be ashamed because one of their ancestors was a privateer - they were (generally) honourable men, fighting in defence of their country.

I really have to straighten out another reviewer who complains that this was a poor season opener - that we should have had an antiterrorist based episode instead. This was not the season opener - that honour goes to "Isaac and Ishmael", and this can be seen as a relaxed recovery back into the main storyline after the tensions of that episode. Over the last two seasons parallels have become obvious between Jed Bartlet and Franklin Roosevelt. Aided by the communications of the time, FDR successfully kept quiet the fact that he had been smitten by polio or Guillaume-Barré Syndrome in the 1920s. Many Americans to this day are unaware that he was confined to a wheelchair. All his famous wartime photographs show him seated. Like Bartlet, he won on the basis of his immense personal charm and popular support. It was because of his 4th-term re-election, shortly before his death, that it was felt necessary, by the 22nd Amendment, to amend the Constitution to limit Presidents to two terms.

Here we have confirmation of a critical aspect of Bartlet's character: that he would surround himself with people whom he could trust to tell him the truth, even if that truth might be distasteful, rather than with sycophants who would feed him the information they thought he wanted to hear. The episode is a worthy follow-on from the series opening two-part premiere, with many strands visible apart from the main script. The obvious question was, if Bartlet wasn't the target, who was? The only convincing ones were Zöe and Charlie, although some of the administration assistants might just have scraped in. I guess we'll see in upcoming episodes just exactly who is responsible, and why.