This Week in Television - May 3-7, 2010

Lost
This week's episode of Lost was dark and sad, giving us three (possibly four) major character deaths, some injuries, and a Locke sob story in the flash-sideways universe. I have a possible theory that the Man in Black cannot become the smoke monster when he is wet, because after getting out of the water he pulled out a gun and shot those dudes instead of giving them the Mr. Eko treatment. Sawyer should've listened to Jack and left the bomb alone. If Richard had been there, he probably would have agreed given his dynamite experience with Jack at the Black Rock.

Glee
Whenever Mr. Schuester performs rap songs, they stand out as trying way too hard to be cool and appeal to a certain audience (namely the audience that wouldn't be caught dead watching Glee in the first place), so yeah, that never works. And obviously neither did Kurt and company's pathetic attempts at being bad, but at least that part was intended not to work. But scenes with Sue and her sister are always cute.

V
Chad Decker, you tool! I hope the Fifth Column deals with him. The best scene was Erica and Jack at the FBI station, where she was pretending to interrogate him. It's been done before, but I feel it is a step in the right direction toward the characters being cooler and more cunning.

Happy Town
Ok, so I was wrong about Sheriff Conroy killing the dude in the shack (surprised to see that answer revealed in the second episode), but at the moment I can still believe the rest of my theory to be true. It was highly ridiculous that Henley (Chloe?) was able to steal, mold, and copy a key in the amount of time that it took the old redhead to change her socks, but other parts of the episode were trippy and kind of cool, like the bird crashing through the car window at the end.

Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains
Finally, Rupert and Colby made a smart move! Candice is still as much of a traitor as she always was, so I didn't mind seeing her go even though she was on the Heroes team. And even though I would've preferred Parvati gone, Danielle going home was also acceptable. And Sandra was the only villain I would've wanted to get the immunity idol, so that was good news too. Overall an episode that succeeded in not pissing me off in what has been an increasingly aggravating season.

Flash Forward
I kind of like Bryce and Nicole as a couple, if only because Nicole's clearly liked him for a while and Bryce only knows the Japanese girl from his flash forward. The second blackout better happen soon though, because I'm not sure Flash Forward will be around much longer.

Parks and Recreation
Being so unfamiliar with sports, I was unaware that Detlef Schrempf was a real person. His name was so hilarious-sounding that I thought it was made up. One thing I enjoy about Parks and Recreation is the various story ideas explored, especially in the second season. An episode about working the crappy late shift on a local cable access telethon was a fun one and a comedy goldmine. As awesome as Ron Swanson is, I wouldn't want to watch him caning a chair either.

The Office
We don't get Dwight pranks as often anymore, so it was nice to see one again this week. And it's always great when Darryl pranks someone because he has as much fun with it as Jim does (except when it backfired, as Andy turned out to be onto something and Darryl was suddenly involved in a serious matter). Also I saw it coming when Donna revealed she was married and Michael was the "mistress".

30 Rock
The two best lines in this episode: "...like a cantaloupe and a ziploc bag of mushroom soup" (Jack describing the difference between Jenna's mother's breasts); and "It's the daytime, idiot!" (Liz yelling at the moon with Buzz Aldrin).

Fringe
This week's episode was heavier on drama than it was on action or cool/weird sci-fi stuff, but I guess we needed one to see how Peter was doing on his end. "Walternate" is back! This could be cool, but I'm really, really hoping it doesn't lead to that cliche moment that happens every time there are clones or twins or imposters in a movie/TV show. You know what I mean: Both of them standing next to each other at gunpoint, going "Shoot him, I'm the real one!" "He's lying, shoot him!" I would hope that Fringe is above that.

Hero of the Week: Jack from Lost, because I cheered when he shoved Fake Locke into the water.

Douchebag of the Week: Chad from V, for being a traitor and putting his trust in Anna just because she claims to have cured him.