TeleChimp | TV Journalism

Considering the strong run that Doctor Who has been enjoying this year, it was somewhat inevitable that at some point, the brakes had to be slammed on.

So it proved with the generally underwhelming Amy’s Choice, for this writer’s money, the weakest instalment of the series to date. What’s particularly disappointing is that the ingredients were solidly in place here for something better. The problem was that the end result – if you’ll forgive the cliche – was less than the sum of its collected parts.

In the first third, Amy’s Choice had the feel of being the low budget episode of the series (not necessarily a bad thing), given that it looked like it was going to be the Doctor versus a bunch of old people (who turned out to be a surprisingly good foe, before they got turned into yet another batch of aliens with a chip on their shoulder).

As the episode progressed, though, that feeling was dispelled, as gradually, more and more effects money made its way to the screen. Some of this work wasn’t too impressive – the creatures coming out of people’s mouths, for instance – but the sequences where the Tardis was gradually freezing were far more impressive. And by the end, it was clear that the low budget episode this was not.

What it turned out to be was an attempt to put together a mind-bending head scratcher, an episode where you’re unsure throughout what is reality and what isn’t. And the catalyst for that is the choice that Amy Pond ultimately has to make.

When we join Amy and Rory, they’re in Upper Ledworth, five years since they’ve last seen the Doctor, and with Amy heavily pregnant. Cue the materialisation of the Tardis, and the Doctor duly arrives to discover that Upper Ledworth is a very quiet place. Too quiet a place, as it turns out, save for the sound of birds that soon start following the Doctor around. It’s thus time to try and get to the bottom of the mystery, because quiet places generally equal deep trouble.

However, before they get a chance to consider this, the Doctor, Rory and Amy promptly fall asleep, and wake up in the Tardis. A bit of dialogue later and we work out that they’ve all had the same ‘dream’, and none of them have been on the pop either.

But is it a dream? Or is what’s going on in the Tardis the dream?

That’s the conundrum posed by Toby Jones as The Dream Lord, a potentially intriguing character who appears inside the Tardis, and knows the Doctor of old. He’s full of mystery, is clearly in control, and for once, knows a lot more than the Doctor seems to.

And yet, sadly, in spite of the clear potential here, the character of the Dream Lord never particularly intrigues enough to have us requesting a return for him in the future. We’ve had the immense pleasure of seeing Toby Jones on stage, and he’s genuinely an outstanding actor. But here, he gets a role that never quite falls the right side of slightly annoying (not helped by the overuse of him cutting in and out of scenes in different places). Certainly the script does him few favours, and by second half of the episode, we felt that the Dream Lord seemed to have outlived his welcome, if not his purpose.

That said, he does seem to hold the key to what’s happening, and he basically explains the rules of the game. One world that we’re seeing is a dream, and if you die in it, then you’re still alive. One world, however, is reality, and if you buy it there, it’s game over. The job? To work out which is a dream, and which real.

The problem is that there’s never really any doubt that the village sequences aren’t reality, and as the episode zips between the two, we have to spend more time in Upper Ledworth, when it’s the story of the Tardis crashing towards a cold star that feels slightly more interesting (albeit admittedly probably not enough to power an episode in its own right).

The core job of the episode ultimately feels like it’s there to bring Rory and Amy back together, which it does via a contrivance where Amy proves that she’ll die for Rory (thus making her choice, and presumably stopping her lurching at the Doctor in the future). Rory, bless him, is even willing to cut off his ponytail to get into the spirit of things.

But it can’t just have been us thinking it would have been far bolder to actually have the Upper Ledworth world be true? Appreciating that it’s an unlikely move for a show that goes out on a Saturday teatime, it would nonetheless have ensured that Amy’s Choice would be talked about and celebrated for some time, as opposed to its more likely life being buried at the back of a box set.

As it was, the episode felt like it cheated a bit, given that both worlds apparently happened to be dreams, caused by, er, psychic pollen that was lying in the Tardis’ time mechanics (sabotage, perhaps?). Thus, the Dream Lord, we’re told, is actually the Doctor. Which explains why the two characters knew each other so well.

Or is he? Is there more to him than that? We always think back to something like The Lazarus Experiment with something like this, where an episode that seemingly was unrelated to others suddenly had a big part to play in the narrative of the series. It’d be lovely if that could happen here.

Thus, was that an ongoing thread element when we got the reflection of the Dream Lord in the Tardis console at end of the episode? Possibly. For, that aside, we certainly didn’t have any cracks or silences this time round, and aside from that reflection moment, this was every bit an unspectacular middle of the series instalment.

All considered, Amy’s Choice wasn’t a terrible piece of television, but it’s the first episode of this particular run that left us underwhelmed. And it doesn’t help, of course, that the standard had been so high to this point (yup, we still like Victory Of The Daleks).

The messing around with our heads didn’t really work for us, and Simon Nye’s script – surprising, given his pedigree – came across as really quite dry. It had its moments, such as the “what is the point of you” line, for instance. More moments like that would have helped. Amy’s “can we not do the running thing” also felt like a bit of a nod to old Who again, although it’s likely to be more with the fact that she was expecting at that point of the episode.

In short, though, this was script that really could have used a few more sparks (and a bit less Dream Lord).

Sadly, it didn’t really get them. So, while it brought Rory and Amy back together, and while it once again showed that Matt Smith is already utterly owning the title role, this isn’t an episode we can see ourselves returning to many times again in the future.

Popularity: 4% [?]

The one thing you can say for V is that it is never consistent. Usually, that’s been a bad thing, as episodes have varied wildly in tone, filming style, lead character, script quality, acting quality, and (especially) direction of the show. It is a soap opera with aliens? Is it sci-fi 24? Is it a scathing satire of modern media mixed with a police procedural? I don’t know.

Actually, I’m still not sure, but I can say there’s been, for the first time since the first two episodes, two really good episodes of V in a row.

One of the strange things about the show is that every week I was sure that Tyler and Lisa were the weakest members of the ensemble. However, the more they get put into the background (or at least used properly), the more I see they’re actually not bad from an acting standpoint, or from character standpoints.

They’re useful plot pendulums when used by good writers, and this week’s combination of writers (including show runner Scott Rosenbaum and Gregg Hurwitz, who penned last week’s excellent episode) made really good use of the two. Lisa, in particular, was handled very well as a tool for both Anna and Erica to manipulate.

This week’s show was all about dichotomy, both featuring it prominently and actually showing it on screen. For instance, Lisa torn between her real mom and fear of said real mom, and Erica, who represents a loving mother, her loving boyfriend, and loving love. Anna definitely playing both sides, as she has all along, using her daughter’s pretty slashed face and mangled limbs to her advantage. Erica is both working for the V’s and for the Fifth Column. how much longer can she maintain the role?

The scene in which Erica, Anna, and Lisa are all in the interrogation room, while Lisa anxiously tries to decide if she’ll finger the man her mother wants her to frame, was some legitimately tense, really well-done television the likes of which this show has done too little of over its premier season.

Is Hobbes playing both sides, perhaps? What’s his true motivation? He’s edging dangerously close to double-crossing his fellow Fifth Column, despite the fact that the Visitors seem to have it out for him and want to frame him for everything from terrorism to jaywalking.

Speaking of true motivations, Chad Decker knows he’s being manipulated, and plays along in spite of this, but to what end? Is he all about ratings? Does he have some idea of what he’s trifling with? Will he cave in to Anna’s latest public relations campaign attempts?

Plus, there’s always Morris Chestnut. Ryan started out as an emotionless lizard, but developed love for Valerie. Now his love is his greatest weakness. Will he take Hobbes’ advice and burn the love out before it ends the Fifth Column in New York? Will he succumb to Anna’s bliss once again thanks to the advice of an amoral sociopath? More importantly, will Morris Chestnut ever return to not sucking every time he’s forced to do something close to acting? (Seriously, he’s starting to drag the show down when he’s given any emoting to do. There’s underplaying it, and then there’s not having a pulse.)

One of the positive things you can say for the show is that, since the new staff have taken over, they’ve done their best to put things back on track, balance the various storylines, and do some serious juggling.

Erica is back as the show’s primary mover and shaker, while the other characters are falling nicely into the niches prepared for them. Plus, we’re actually getting some teasers for stuff I want to see happen, and the all-important end-of-season-wrap-ups for stuff I’m ready to be rid of.

For one, Anna’s soldier eggs are threatening to hatch, and Lisa is threatening to get pro-choice on their unscrambled asses. While the egg scenes this week looked dodgy, this would be a great opportunity for Laura Vandervoort to get soaked in green slime.

There’s also the V fleet on the cusp of entering our solar system, which Anna will have to hide from the world by using more of her contacts, thereby giving her and Chad more chance to spar mentally.

Plus, Hobbes is approaching the delightfully evil Marcus to save his own bacon and fatten his bottom line (or so they’ve teased. Will they really let the show’s best character walk away?).

Oh yeah, there’s also the issue of Val’s lizard baby, which is finally starting to hatch/crown/whatever, the reptile-killing deus ex machina Hobbes has the formula for in his possession, and the only question that really has to be answered by next week’s episode: will the show be renewed for next season, and does it deserve to be renewed?

Two weeks ago, I would’ve said no. Until last week’s episode, I was basically counting the days down until the show was over so I could find something else to do with my Tuesday 10:00pm hour, but now?

I think if ABC chooses to bring the show back for a second season, I’ll be around for the ride. Unless they really drop the ball in the upcoming season finale, which is always a possibility, I think the show is moving into a good direction and I’d like to see how Rosenbaum and company play out these plot strings.

Popularity: 4% [?]

It was perhaps inevitable after two storming weeks of Ashes To Ashes that, sooner or later, a lull was on the way. As it turned out, the third episode of the show’s final series didn’t match up to the opening instalments, although it still had plenty in the tank to keep the momentum going.

This week, the reach of DCI Jim Keats was perhaps a little less concentrated, but increasingly broad and influential instead. Brilliantly played by Daniel Mays, Keats is now a regular and unnerving presence in the CID office, and he’s gone beyond investigating the past and more towards taking a day-to-day involvement in present cases. Furthermore, his policy of trying to divide the team this week focuses on Ray.

Last week, we saw Shaz stepping into the limelight as her character was subtlety developed. And the highlights of this week were all about Ray Carling, superbly played here by Dean Andrews. If you want a lesson in character progression, it’s worth seeing just how far Carling has come since we first met him in Life On Mars. In this episode, we dug far into his background, his father’s story and why he never ended up in the army, supplanting plenty of added flesh on top of already-impressive bones.

The catalyst to this is a series of arson attacks, set around the 1983 General Election. This gives Ray a moment where he runs into a blazing building to be the hero, against all common sense. He’s pulled out eventually by a fireman played by Joe Absolom, and for me, that’s when the alarm bells started blaring.

Joe Absolom is a very good actor, but the problem is that I’ve never seen him in a role where he didn’t turn out to be some kind of unhinged nutter. His character here developed very well, but from the moment his face appeared, there wasn’t really much doubt as to what direction the crime of the week was heading.

Where the script particularly worked, though, was in tying Ray’s story to the main case, specifically in relation to the end moment where he talks Absolom’s character out of sending another place up in flames. That was a good end to what had been quite a routine crime story by standards, although it did offer a solid excuse to throw up some terrific and scary archive footage of the 1983 election.

But there are one or two questions. Ray’s been arguably the most loyal sidekick to Gene Hunt since these adventures began, and thus I never really bought that DCI Keats’ attempts to drive a wedge between Carling and Hunt was ever going to work. It was spun out well enough, but the ending never really seemed in much doubt from where I was sitting. Granted, that didn’t stop me screaming at the television again when the Life On Mars music kicked in again, and I’m guessing that in the weeks ahead, that we’re going to get a Chris-centric episode where the same thing happens.

What didn’t ultimately move forward was Drake’s checking out of Sam Tyler, nor the overall investigation into Hunt. But that didn’t mean more clues to the overall story arc weren’t thrown in. What’s the relevance, for instance, to the numbers carved into Drake’s desk? And what about Shaz’s story about the stars? Are we supposed to think that she’s now going through something similar to Drake? Are these Life On Mars clips and stares to cameras the pieces of the Gene Hunt jigsaw slotting into place?

And who’s the cop with half a face? Is it Keats? Hunt? Someone linked to them? Or are we going to get something akin to the clown from series one?

Bluntly, your guess right now is as good as ours. But what does seem clear is that Ashes To Ashes is continuing to lay down some narrative threads that we can’t wait to see resolved. This was the weakest episode of the three we’ve had of series three to date, but the standard was still good, and the decision to give Ray some spotlight time was a well rewarded one.

Next one? The trailer looked a little bit muddled, but it seems to involve Keats and Hunt clashing a little bit. Given that Keats is proving to be arguably the most intriguing foe that Hunt has faced in the five years that we’ve known him, we’re happy to look forward to it.

Popularity: 3% [?]

After seven months, the battle for the junior associate position at Stern, Lockhart & Gardner will finally come to an end on Tuesday’s episode of The Good Wife (10/9c, CBS). Win or lose, things are going to get even more complicated for Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies).

“She’s worried that she’s going to lose the battle with Cary, so she comes to Eli asking for help,” Alan Cumming, who plays devious campaign manager Eli Gold, tells TVGuide.com. “Basically, she reaches out to him and then, just at that point where they’re about to go into the office and find out who won, you see Eli coming out and you realize he gives his own business to the firm.”

The Good Wife’s junior associate competition gets cutthroat

Eli may help her out in a time of need, but being in debt to her husband’s right-hand man will cost Alicia much more than she bargained for, especially now that Peter (Chris Noth) has begun plotting a return to politics. Although Alicia has voiced her apprehension about Peter’s ambition to re-enter public service, Eli’s favor won’t be easily forgotten.

“Now she owes him and she’s got to cooperate with what he wants her to do in terms of Peter’s campaign,” Cumming says. “He’s still got to work her a little bit to get her to do interviews and stuff, but he keeps reminding her that she owes him and at the very, very end of the season, she’s got to be the good wife.”

Watch full episodes of The Good Wife

Cumming says his characters’ less-than-virtuous actions aren’t as devious as they appear.

“There’s goodness and a real desire to change the world for the better, and it’s just all shrouded in this manipulative, rather antisocial man,” Cumming says. “I think that’s what’s in his heart — his desire to get Peter elected so he will make the world a better place. For that, he’s willing to be very manipulative and dastardly.”

All that said, Cumming, who will be promoted to series regular for Season 2, is the first to admit he’s still figuring Eli out. “I don’t really know anyone like him, and that made it very exciting for me and quite good because he is a guarded person, so I had to be quite guarded in playing him,” he says.

Alan Cumming promoted to series regular on The Good Wife

The real question is whether Alicia will go along for Eli and Peter’s ride and stand by her husband’s side again. The end of the competition is a crossroads for Alicia, between her new life at the firm and her old life as a politician’s wife, as well as whether or not to leave Peter altogether.

“Their relationship is really fascinating because it’s obvious it’s not in very good shape, but there are the children and his campaign. … Everybody is sort of being very cautious,” Cumming says. “In some ways, she does want him to run and be the hero again. But she’s suddenly back working and she really likes working. … So she’s got a lot of things to think about.”

Popularity: 3% [?]

It’s not hard to see what ABC is trying to do with its new show “Castle” (Mondays at 10 p.m. Eastern). From “Remington Steele” to “Moonlighting” to “The X Files” to “Bones,” the idea of a mismatched guy-gal team solving crimes has been a go-to concept for the networks. So the pairing of crime novelist Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion of “Firefly”) and tough-but-pretty detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic in her first lead TV role) in “Castle,” a procedural with a huge helping of comic one-liners thrown in, must have looked awfully good on paper to ABC.

Unfortunately, on paper is probably where this series should have stayed.So much of “Castle” seems borrowed from other programs. In the debut, Castle is about to release a new crime novel that kills off his long-running hero, something everyone thinks is a big mistake, especially his ex-wife, who is also his publisher. Outwardly, Castle is confident he has done the right thing, but we find out he is in the midst of writer’s block, unable to deliver his next novel. Watching Castle struggle to write, booze it up, hit on women (including signing a fan’s breast, followed by the groaner of a line, “Call me when you’re ready to wash that off”), act self-destructively, care for his wise-beyond-her-years daughter (Alexis, played by Molly Quinn), and use his rakish charm to try and get what he wants, I couldn’t help but wonder if “Californication” executive producer Tom Kapinos had already contacted his attorney about a possible lawsuit. Castle, to me, seems like a less interesting rip-off of Hank Moody (David Duchovny’s character in “Californication”). At least Hank is supposed to be a serious novelist, as opposed to Castle writing crime fiction for the masses.

Even worse, Castle lives with his mother, Martha (Susan Sullivan of “Dharma & Greg”), who is a boozing actress, past her prime, with a checkered history with men. Not only is the character a dead ringer for the grandmother played by Jessica Walter in “90210″ (which is already a take on Walter’s mother from hell in “Arrested Development”), but Sullivan even looks disturbingly like Walter in “Castle” (and seems to be channeling Walter’s performance, too).

I can only guess that ABC was hoping that witty banter would carry the program above the sea of police procedurals currently on the networks’ schedules. But creator/writer Andrew Marlowe (in one of his first stabs at television after writing films like “Air Force One” and “Hollow Man”) just doesn’t deliver the kind of smart, funny dialogue that is needed to make up for the plot and character problems. Instead, I found myself rolling my eyes at forced exchanges, like a cop, upon seeing a female murder victim covered in flowers, saying, “Who says romance is dead?”, with Kate replying, “I do, every Saturday night.” Not only does the line not work, but the idea that someone who looks like Kate would be alone on Saturday night for any reason other than her own choice is kind of preposterous (and certainly not inducing any sympathy in the viewers).

Nothing quite feels right in the world that Marlowe has constructed. Castle and Kate are brought together when a murderer kills two victims in the manner described in two of Castle’s books. Kate, a fan, recognizes the correlation and seeks out Castle for more information. Eventually, he wants to be involved (for the thrill and to help his writer’s block) more than she wants him around (she thinks he’s a “bad boy” who jeopardizes her investigation). They end up trying to one-up each other, with Castle trying to show that he knows as much as Kate does, and Kate trying to make it clear that she is the professional who knows better how to do the job.

I found myself asking, Is there such a thing as rock star crime novelists? I doubt a glance at TMZ would reveal many writers amongst the paparazzi photos. And is it me, or is there no humor left to be mined out of a horny older woman? “Castle” wants you to howl in laughter at Martha being on the make, but it just felt a bit degrading and exceptionally silly and done-to-death to me. It doesn’t help when Martha is given dead-on-arrival zingers to spit out, like “I just got a hit on my greydar” when she sees an attractive older man she wants to try and pick up.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Iron Man 2 is the perfect way to kick off the summer of 2010 movie season which, frankly, is something I didn’t anticipate I’d be saying. Why? Because the trailers for Iron Man 2 turned me off. Love Robert Downey Jr and I gave the first Iron Man movie a B+, but the trailers for Iron Man 2 lacked the humor of the first film. In its place the trailers served up what appeared to be battling robots. All I could think was, “Is this a teaser for an Iron Man movie or Transformers 3?” However, those trailers were completely misleading and, thankfully, Iron Man 2 is as good as its predecessor – and in some ways even better.

And here’s the deal, my other worry was that Iron Man 2 would just be used to set-up The Avengers and that the story would suffer from doing so. This was a case of hearing too much about a film before seeing it. Where normally I pay no attention to advance reviews – I, like I assume most critics do, refuse to read any reviews before I write my own – it was impossible to escape the blurbs declaring this a filler between the first Iron Man and the 2012 release of The Avengers. And because I know nothing – I repeat, nothing – about the source material other than what I’ve learned from the film adaptations, I figured I’d be completely lost watching a movie loaded with references comic book fans would understand but that would go right over my head. Wrong again. Iron Man 2 does set-up The Avengers, but it does so in an unobtrusive, oh by the way manner that’s organically woven into the story. There’s a reason Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) is in Iron Man 2, and it’s not just Avengers-related.

So if you, like I, were worried that as a person who doesn’t read comic books Iron Man 2 was going to let you down, relax. Iron Man 2 delivers the goods, and the action/CGI – my chief complaint about the first movie – is infinitely better this time around. It’s like night and day, and in fact the robots surrounding Iron Man and War Machine scene from the trailer turned out to be one of my favorites.

Popularity: 36% [?]

Last night’s Lost will go down as one of the most epic episodes in the history of the series. “The Candidate” was full of big moments: Deaths! Bad Guys! Smoke Attack! But it’s most titanic (and Titanic-like) moments, the tragic loss of three (maybe four) major characters, felt a tad underserved, particularly for one character who can snap a dude’s neck with his legs!

But before we get to that, let’s talk about *gasp* the side-flash. Despite all that happened on the island, Deaths! Bad Guys! Smoke Attack!, the side-flash gives us the most to talk about. And it starts almost immediately, with Jack hovering over a recovering John Locke and Locke instantly recognizing Jack. We’re led to believe it’s from their meeting at the lost luggage depot at LAX (missing: Locke’s knives and the body of Jack’s dead dad), but there’s clearly more to it than that as John’s near-death experience allowed him to see the “other side” that we’ve been watching for five and a half seasons: the island and its events.

And for some reason I’m stuck on the scene where Jack goes to visit Bernard, DDS. Was I imagining a far-too sentient Bernard pushing Jack along a path? Though Bernard said it was weird that he and Jack both happened to be on Oceanic 815 (the one that didn’t crash), he sure didn’t act like it. I may be overanalyzing that scene a bit too much, but it gave me weird visions of Bernard being a much bigger player in this thing than we first expected. Pipe up in the comments below if you got a similar tingling.

Jack then tracks down Anthony Cooper and the truth about how John was hurt (plane crash, courtesy of John’s new pilot license). It’s should be interesting to note that John, at least in the alternate timeline, can fly a plane, according to whatever aviation committee gave him a license. That kind of talent could come in handy should real John be able to wrestle control from Smoke Monster Locke. Just sayin’.

I was also a big fan of Jack and John’s final scene in the corridor. When was the last time we saw Terry O’Quinn and (more importantly) Matthew Fox just be able to relax and act? It may not have had the fireworks the rest of the episode had, but I couldn’t take my eyes off these two thesps, the cornerstones of the series we’ve been entranced with for six years.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Week 7 elimination episode of Dancing With the Stars, one couple was beamed from Planet Mirrorballus back to a world in which the wearing of shirts and pants at the same time is more prevalent and encouraged. Catch the fallen Star after the jump; in the meantime, relive Monday’s performance episode with today’s full TV Watch recap and my Week 7 Crazy Costume Watch photo gallery! 

Pamela Anderson and Damian Whitewood were eliminated in Week 7. Erin Andrews and Maksim Chmerkovskiy, cutest showmantic couple ever, joined them in the bottom two. Meanwhile, Chad Ochocinco and Cheryl Burke had quite a scare but were not necessarily in the bottom three.

Evan Lysacek got the first post-show Pam hug. I thought that seemed relevant.

Popularity: 4% [?]

24 fans who were counting the minutes until Katee Sackhoff’s CTU analyst/mole, Dana Walsh, was wiped off the face of the earth can start celebrating: The double-crossing evildoer found herself on the wrong end of Jack Bauer’s pistol in last night’s pulse-pounding episode. Her death brings to end one of the show’s most ridiculed story arcs since Kim Bauer’s took a detour to cougar town in season 2. But what did Sackhoff think of the tall tale and the backlash it triggered? In the following exclusive interview, the Battlestar Galactica superstar tackles that question and about 10 others with such hilarious candor that she practically redeemed the whole damn storyline!

Dana just got killed. Reaction?
KATEE SACKHOFF: That’s so sad. Poor Dana.

Do you genuinely feel sympathy for her?
SACKHOFF: None whatsoever. [Laughs]. She doesn’t have one redeeming quality. I tried desperately to give her a redeeming quality. I really tried. The only thing I could come up with was that she didn’t crack when she was tortured.

What was it like playing someone like that?
SACKHOFF: It was weird. I kind of figured if I couldn’t give her a redeeming quality, I was just going to be the most ridiculously unsympathetic villain ever. I was going to try and make everyone hate her. That was my goal, and I think I succeeded.

Were you looking to play a one-note baddie when you signed on?
SACKHOFF: [Before 24] I always had to give tons of thought to my characters. They had so many layers and they were exhausting to play. By the time [Battlestar] was over I was so tired. I was like, “Can I please play a character that’s just cut and dry?” [Laughs] With Dana, I just kind of went to work and played what was on the page. It was a much easier process.

The Dana plot was not well-received. Were you aware that it wasn’t going over well?
SACKHOFF: I didn’t realize that. [Pause] I don’t care. I played a character [Starbuck] who was hated from the very beginning just because she was a woman, so I learned a long time ago not to read [the feedback]. It’s counterproductive to doing your job… I respect the fans and I respect their opinions but it’s sad that they’re not happy when it’s the last season.

Was there anything Dana did that made you go, “WTF?”?
SACKHOFF: I think when I had a gun and [onscreen hubby] Freddie [Prince Jr.] shot it for me. I was like, “Wow, I’m completely playing a new character here.” For the first five or six episodes I was like, “Guys, you’ve got to give me a gun. I don’t do the whole stand here and look pretty thing very well.” And then they finally give me a gun and the man standing next to me shot it for me.

Did you object?
SACKHOFF: Of course I did. But then I was told I was a Russian spy and I was like, “Okay, I get it.”

I thought you were going to say hiding Bill Prady’s dead body in the wall at CTU was the craziest thing Dana did.
SACKHOFF: [Mock contempt] Where else was she going to put it?! Was she going to drag it down the hallway? She had to figure out something really quick, and the grate in the wall seemed like a perfect place. The only thing we were joking about was can you imagine when they start turning the heat on in the winter? Six months later everyone’s like, “What is that smell?!” And they’re like, “Damn that Dana!” [Laughs]

How was the whole 24 experience?
SACKHOFF: It was fantastic. Because of the way they shoot 24 you feel like you’re never there. I kind of felt like I could go hang out at Coffee Bean with all the unemployed actors. Every time I’d get a paycheck I was like, “Oh, that’s right. I have a job!” It was pretty easy compared to what I was used to. I’ve been so spoiled. I moved to L.A. when I was 17 and I constantly worked on television, so I’ve always been able to have, in a sense, a normal job where you go to work every day. And after Battlestar ended and [my NBC] pilot [Lost & Found] wasn’t picked up I got completely disillusioned by the business. I had never done a pilot that hadn’t been picked up, so I was like, “What?!” So I wanted to go back to something that felt safe and exciting and well-received, and 24 was a perfect fit. It’s what I needed to get my footing and go tackle another pilot season.

Why did you have so much time off? It’s not like Dana disappeared for long stretches. Did you shoot all your scenes in one day?
SACKHOFF: Yeah, that’s what they do. And it’s not just one episode, it’s two episodes. I would shoot all my stuff for episodes 5 and 6, which would normally take 18 days, in one day. So I’d have off for three weeks. I think I had the whole month of November off.

Was that frustrating at all? Because it’s not like you can go off and commit to another gig.
SACKHOFF: It was frustrating. I felt unemployed. I had all my chores done by 9 a.m. and I’m like, “What do I do now?” I’d call up my ex-boyfriend at work and go, “It’s 9 a.m. and I’m done. Is it too early to start drinking at noon?”

Popularity: 3% [?]

In the aftermath of J.T.’s boot and Parvati playing like 27 immunity idols, the Heroes are depressed and Li’l Russell is angry that there was an immunity idol in the game that he didn’t have control over. While Rupert hopes to lure Sandra onto the Heroes’ side, Li’l Russell tries to win Candice over to the Villains. Candice is so happy to have something resembling an intelligent conversation that she seriously considers it. Colby, Amanda, and Danielle win a reward of a night at Robert Louis Stevenson’s house, sharing a bed and a bowl of popcorn while watching the classic film Treasure Island.

Amanda and Danielle end up wrestling over the latest hidden immunity idol clue until Colby, who has clearly checked out and just wants to watch the movie, tells Amanda to give it to Danielle. So she does, without so much as reading the damn thing first or making any kind of plan to follow the Villains to try to get the idol instead of one of them. Sigh. Danielle shares the clue with her alliance, and naturally, Li’l Russell winds up with his 3,532,673rd idol and no one else is the wiser. Until three seconds later, when he tells Candice to win her vote. Sandra, meanwhile, hates Li’l Russell and wants him gone, and so tries to mount a campaign with the Heroes. Which Candice then tells Li’l Russell all about because after being silent for the past 26 days, she can’t keep her mouth
shut. Li’l Russell confronts Sandra, the entire plan is blown to hell, and Sandra decides that the Heroes should vote for Parvarti just in case Li’l Russell has the idol. The Villains, on the other hand, want to vote Amanda out. It all comes down to whose side Candice is on, and in the end she apparently had enough of the Heroes and their utter refusal to play this game or even pretend they like her, and so she sides with the Villains. Li’l Russell plays the idol unnecessarily (he’ll just get another one next week, though, so who cares?), and Amanda’s torch is snuffed for the first time.

Popularity: 2% [?]