Brothers in arms

Product placement meets it’s inverse. Last night’s CBS comedies featured a series of commercials featuring Lara Spencer (formerly of Antiques Roadshow) discussing the shows we were watching as she prepared some instant meal. So, rather than injecting the brand name of the product into the show, they injected the plot of the show into the ad. Interesting approach.

Big Bang Theory was hilarious, as usual. Sheldon is Felix Unger and Oscar Madison at the same time. How I Met Your Mother was a little odd. It seemed like the writers had to come up with a quick fix for Ted’s serious relationship. Tossing Stella back into the arms of her former lover seemed abrupt. And has Two and a Half Men found a substitute for Rose, another stalker? This season seems to be about karma. Some of Charlie’s old crimes are coming back to haunt him, from the woman he’s paying off because he thinks she has his son, to the nutjob teacher whose life he destroyed. Still makes me laugh out loud.

I’ve finally figured out the analogy: The Unit is a 21^st century remake of Mission: Impossible. Each week it’s a new caper where the guys (and sometimes the gals) have to pretend to be someone else, sometimes in disguise, to get the bad guys. The tape doesn’t self-destruct in 15 seconds, but everything else is there. I like that the missions don’t always succeed, at least not in the way they planned. This week, they got some of the job done, but ended up going home empty-handed instead of extracting the narcoterrorists.

Just when it doesn’t seem possible that Dexter can’t get any better, it does. It becomes richer, more nuanced, and finds new directions to go.

I find it interesting that the writers always manage to pluck something from the Jeff Lindsay books, and in this case the commonality between Season 3 and Book 3 is marriage. Dexter is about to get married when the third book opens, and this week he proposed marriage. The commonality ends there.

I like Jimmy Smits in the role of surrogate brother and Angel’s quandary was nicely executed. Dueling badges. I wonder if he’s going to hook up with the vice cop or if she’s just passing through. Then there’s the new guy, Detective Quinn, he of the confidential informant and the burgeoning Internal Affairs investigation. Is he really as good as he seems to be? If so, will Yuki’s goading turn Deb suspicious of an innocent man? Or will a sordid truth about him be revealed?

The bit where Dexter sees himself as an actor embarking on the role of a lifetime sounded a bit like a coded message between Hall and the audience. The one thing that I always say about the show is that Dexter is much better at pretending emotions, and thereby creating “real” relationships, than most normal people. He showed that yet again when he used the dialog of the delusional stalker to woo Rita.

Of course, nothing is ever smooth in Dexterville, and it looks like dark days ahead for Rita.