Now that some shows I watch are on Christmas break [?!] apparently, I thought I'd update my opinions on them.

Bones. I should mention that, after a soporific start to season 4, Bones has begun a return to its earlier cleverness, based on tighter screenplays with more banter between Brennan and Booth, the main characters. Without Zach, the core cast members still suffer a gap that the show tries to fill with a rotating cast of interim employees, each defined by one annoying trait. This is quite dull, as is the show's increasing focus on Angela and Hodgins getting over their break-up. I enjoy the fact that the show has more time to devote to the nice, young, pushover, frustrated psychologist Sweets, but they haven't found him anything solid to do, so the show's not really cohering the way it used to.

Fringe. As much as I initially ragged on Fringe for its poor attempts at recreating a Boston setting, I have grown much more interested in this show. It started off with three stereotypes: the tough FBI agent [Olivia], the nutty professor [Walter] and the reluctant genius son [Peter]. Over time, though, the characters have become more fleshed out.

Much of my greater interest derives from John Noble's nuanced portrayal of Walter. The character has an incredibly powerful mind, but who is also vulnerable due to his memory lapses, and Noble plays him as gleefully sadistic in his experiments, but also intensely sorrowful at the gaps in his life. Additionally, Noble's chemistry with Joshua Jackson, who plays Peter, brings out real dimensions of tenderness and ambivalence in Walter's relationship with Peter.

I also find Peter a sympathetic and interesting character, very even-keeled and understated for a person who has no problem jerry-rigging a defibrillator out of a car battery or beating up a stalker of his ex-girlfriend. Anna Torv as Olivia is still as stiff as Styrofoam, but she has a bit of personality, and she's more interesting, now that some of her dead partner's memories are fused with hers. Now Fringe is getting to be as good as Heroes was in its first season.

Heroes. As I've noted, this show has devolved into incoherency ever since season 2, but now, recently, it's really hit the shitter.  There was something about last week's ep, The Eclipse Part 1, that broke my brain, but I can't remember quite what it was, probably because it was so atrocious. Now, besides undoing all character consistency, making everyone as stupid as a box of shriveled celery AND leaving plot holes big enough for a Winnebago to drive through, the show is also just hovering in a holding pattern and not doing anything with potentially interesting plot threads.

The two-parter about the eclipse that sapped everyone's powers is a good example. Many characters anticipated the eclipse with anxiety; it was drummed up as a pivotal event during which everything would change. Nothing changed. People just temporarily lost their powers, bumbled around stupidly, then regained said powers when the eclipse was done. We learned nothing new about anything, and the supposedly central event was a huge wash.

Watching this show is like watching tired people throw cooked spaghetti at the wall lethargically. Sometimes it sticks, but most of the time their aim is off, so the noodles don't stick, and there's a big mess afterward.

Pushing Daisies. It's canceled, after a truncated first season due to the writers' strike and a truncated second season. Well, shit. I knew that would happen. Detractors said it was gooey and superficial, but I always liked the underlying solemn currents of loss and grief and disentanglement of the past, which gave gravitas to the sparkling exteriors.

Supernatural. After a strong start to the season and an interesting new arc about Dean as the hero chosen by angels to do God's dirty work [saving Sam, maybe?], Supernatural recently tanked with its two-parter about the angels and devils. Basically, Sam told Dean about his past with the demon Ruby, who is apparently so tender and loving and good that she fucked sense back into Sam [??!??!] when he was depressed and suicidal over the summer. For purposes of convenient parallels, the brothers meet up with Anna, who forgot she used to be an angel, and she and Dean screw before she retrieves her grace [which was stuck in a tree until another angel, Uriel, put it around his neck?!?!?!?!?] and goes back up to the big Playland in the Sky.

So, to recap, as Supernatural breaks for the holidays, we have Sam screwing a demon, Dean screwing an angel, Ruby's goodness and redemption practically being rammed down our eyeballs, not to mention some incredibly stupid plot about Anna's grace getting stuck in a tree. Yeeeeeeehaw!

The plot about Anna was simplistic and poorly done, but I think I could have handled it better if I weren't being hit over the head to like Ruby, a character who has been a) selfish, whiny and evil from the beginning and b) consistently played by people with less talent than Jensen Ackles has in his left big toenail. I'm temporarily disappointed, but I hope the show gets back on track early next year.