TV Time

World Series: Phillies in five games

After I got a little behind in my TV watching, I caught up on both Mad Men and Pushing Daisies. Both are taking very interesting paths as one is just getting started, while another is about to wrap things up.

First, Mad Men: who would have guessed a man fearing for his job would set off a series of events where his company, Sterling Cooper, now merges with another ad agency. That's what Duck did, exploiting Roger Sterling's future alimony and health problems to help himself. Meanwhile, the fall of Joan Holloway continues as we see her get date raped by her fiance, Dr. Greg Harris, and she can't fight back. What she does to endure it is heart-breaking, and yet she claims she'll marry him by Christmas. Peggy, meanwhile, pulls off a great presentation for Popsicle by borrowing a bit of religion, and gets rewarded wit her own office. I wonder if, after the merger, she keeps that position. As we will see, a lot of people at Sterling Cooper will be worried about their jobs...except for Duck.

What about Don? He has apparently tuned of and dropped out even before Timothy Leary. Tempted by a bunch of Bohemians into running away to Palm Springs, he decides to go to San Pedro to look up Anna Draper, the wife of them man whose identity he "stole". They get along now. In fact, he acts happier being Dick than he does being Don. Too bad that means forgetting about his family back home. Betty is doing the best she can, especially when she catches her daughter nearly smoking. It also means forgetting Sterling Cooper, which is nearly no more. It should be interesting where things will stand when we see the finale next week. Will Don come back? Will the staff be cut and/or reshuffled at Sterling Cooper? Will Peggy be damned by Father Tom Hanks Jr. because she won't admit she's a sinner and a single mom? Come to think of it, where is her kid? Will Joan get dumped by "Dr. Rape?" Better yet, will Betty dump Don? That is really going to change things. I mean, consider who she is, and what Don is throwing away in favor for the wife of a comic and a careless heiress.

Second: the Whedonistas are happy that Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles will get a full season, mainly because it's part of the re-launch of the Terminator movie franchise with Christian Bale. On the other hand, they are wondering if Dollhouse will premiere in January as the show before 24. Some are hoping it will happen, and TSCC will be shown on another night. Considering American Idol will practically dominate the week, as it always does, the options are limited...and no one wants to be shown on Fridays.

Finally...Pushing Daisies is as bright and cheery as it always is, but with a bit of the dark side, too. Chuck understands how Ned accidentally killed her dad with his Magic Touch, but he still feels bad about it. The cases have been out there, from fatal bee stings, death in a convent, and dead clowns in a circus. The main issue is Lily's big secret that Chuck is her daughter, not her niece, in an explanation that actually sounds like Soapdish. What's more surprising is that Chuck is told, and she's all right with this. Still, I am sure she's thinking about how she can pretend to be a zombie and have a nice long talk with "Aunt" Lily. Olive, of course, was told first last December, and had a real tough time trying not to reveal it. Lily "helped" her by sending her to a convent, and actually it did. She even got a new friend...named Pigby. I'm guessing both will move in with Chuck, or have.

If issues with family are going to be discussed further, they will involve Ned and Emerson more likely than Chuck. Emerson is hoping his daughter will find him through a "Li'l Gumshoe" pop-up book, while there is some suggestion Ned's dad may be alive. Does this mean dad's other family will run into Ned? There's a lot of abandonment issues that will be coming to the surface faster than daisies.

One more thing...I wrote this in TV Without Pity. I was noticing Apple's new TV ads are basically attack ads against Microsoft...

They've released the latest Apple vs. PC ads Sunday. For the first time, they're essentially negative ads against Windows. In one, PC has a buzzer so that people won't say the word "Vista" and get mad because it reminds them Vista's terrible. The other had PC with a pile of money used to advertise "I'm a PC" and a smaller amount to fix Vista. When Mac asks if the smaller pile is enough to fix Vista, PC decides to use all the money for advertising.

It's come to this: the new Apple ads don't promote their own features, but rather tell you Microsoft, Vista and Bill Gates are bad. It's almost as bad as the presidential campaign. The new Apple ads should end with "I'm Steve Jobs, and I approved this message."

Response from that I said has been mixed. I just think Apple should make ads that show how great they are, such as new notebooks that are less than a thousand dollars. Thirty seconds of "Microsoft sucks" doesn't equal "we're a better computer."