Thursday, October 15, 2009

Week 4 (Oct 4th-10th)

CBS's: NCIS- The Inside Man

A crispy dead body is found while lifting a pig at the yearly suburban Luau. B&B fight through the fake lifestyle of the neighborhood and find multiple sex scandals with the victim and women of the neighborhood. The team finds that a group of three neighbors outraged by the victim's actions finally had enough and killed him. In this episode we are also exposed to the real Arastoo and his fake accent.

FOX's: Bones- The beautiful day in the neighborhood:

Burns, a blogger, who recently blogged about NCIS covering up a case was found dead. The team now has to find Burns's killer and they have to prove their recent ruling of Arnett's death an accident to be correct. The team found that Burns was killed when Arnett's partner, in a $2 mil scam, heard Arnett's death might not have been an accident. However, Arnett's death was an accident and his partner, Sutton, scared to lose his money killed Burns.


NBC's: Law & Order- Great Satan

A man in attempt to save his "kidnapped" daughter shot a man, Caruso, while searching in a trashcan. The trashcan contained the ransom money for his daughter's kidnapper. Caruso lived through the shooting. The phone of the daughter's fake kidnapper was tapped and from it planned terrorist events were overheard. The kidnapper, Sameer, was in conspiracy with other bombers to blow up a synagogue. However, the cops managed to prevent the synagogue from being bombed but accidentally aided in another bombing.

Summary:

The episode that I felt was the best this week was Bones. The episode included twists such as the victim, Kurt, was having sexual relations with multiple people two of which were mother and daughter. An unexpected event happened in the end of the episode when the murder turned out to be murders (a group of angry neighbors). Also, a sense of suspense was created with the large amount of possible suspects. This episode made it difficult to guess who was guilty which is good for any mystery.

Each week in my post I argue which episode is the best and in doing so I consider what makes a good mystery and which episode to me was most entertaining. However, let's take a look at what a fellow blogger thinks makes a good mystery.

In early 2008, blogger Peggy Ehrhart depicts her experience at a program run by the New York chapter of Mystery Writers of America. The purpose of this event and the point that Ehrhart is explaining in her blog is the components of a good mystery. She says this is one of the things that a successful mystery needs:
No matter what the subgenre, mentors cautioned that police work must be handled believably.
Several pointed out that even if a project is an amateur-sleuth cozy, police will show up when there is a murder. A scene in which a dead body is discovered but police never appear will strike the reader as unbelievable. And when police come, they have to do things that police would realistically do, such as establish a crime scene and summon detectives and CSI people, even if, because of the nature of the project, the technical details of these tasks aren’t dwelled on.

Erhart is stating that when criminal events such as murder occur and a dead body is found police need to be present in a story and they need to act in a manor that police do. I agree with this in order for a mystery to be well written the events that occur should not only occur to benefit the plot but also be true to nature.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Week 3 (Sept. 27- Oct. 3)

NCIS: Reunion

Recap:
The show opens with a stripper busting into a hotel room, dressed as a cop and finds three dead bodies. The camera then moves to Gibbs's basement where Ziva tells Gibbs that she wants back in. Moving back to the hotel room the three dead men are scattered throughout. The first lying on the ground as soon as you enter, the second found dead with his head in the toilet, and the third tied to the bed with a backpack on his head. The first man (the one found in the toilet) ran an auction house and he told a coworker, Elena, that he felt as if he was being followed. McGee and Tony discovered the three were being followed by officer Shelley, a man the three use to bully in high school. The team thought that he was the guy until he too was murdered.His computer contained a suicide note that was traced back to Elena. Upon arriving at the auction house, a fellow worker was taking the antique gun, the murder weapon, out of the back of Elena's car; They arrested her. Tony and McGee arrive back at the office to find Ziva sitting back at her desk.

I found this episode particularly interesting because of Gibbs's and Ziva's confrontation. It was nice to truly see how Ziva felt about killing her brother and why she did it. Also, I liked Tony's scene in the bathroom.


Bones: The Plain in the Prodigy

Recap:
B&B are investigating the skeleton of a young man found on train tracks. The boy was killed before the train had scattered his bones. The body looks as if it lived several centuries ago and from this Bones discovered the teen was Amish. It was the boys Rumspringa, a time when adolescents "sow their oats," during this time Levi called weekly which stopped about two months ago. Sweets discovers that Levi plays the piano so Booth went to see the local piano teacher. The teacher gave Booth a video of Levi and tells him that Levi planned to try out for the National conservatory. Levi was planning to return, to the church, he crushed his own hand so he wouldn't change his mind. A thief in the building that Levi was staying in robbed Levi and took a fake gold trinket. The medal had sentimental value to Levi so he fought for it and fell over the railing of the apartment. Bones shows Levi's parents the video of him playing the piano and tells them he was going to return to the church.

This episode had a great story line but it was kind of boring. The only entertaining part of this episode was when Michelle stormed out away from Camille when she was questioned about having sex.


Law & Order: Just a Girl in the World

Recap:
A crime scene investigator, Daisy Chao, was found dead in her home. Her unfaithful fiance looks guilty until a similar attack on another Asian woman, Emma Kim. Kim claims she was attacked by a cab driver. Detective Lupo gets quite personal with Kim; Lupo sees a Victoria Secret piece of lingerie in her closet and suspects she was involved with Daisy's fiance, Jim. Jim tells detectives that he was using Daisy's money to help pay for Emma's kidney disease. DNA from a feminine wipe matched both Emma and Jim and it also falsified Emma's kidney disease. Emma is charged with Daisy's death and during the trial she uses every lie possible to get a mistrial.

This was truly the best episode of Law & Order that I have seen in a long time. The use of detective's personal life is refreshing compared to the boring, cut and dry cases that have been airing. The one thing that this episode did wrong that many television shows do, is automatically jump from cheater to murder. Just because he is wrong to sleep around doesn't mean he has the ability to commit murder. I find that shows do this often, jump to conclusion the cheater is the murderer and it bugs me.


Summary:

Out of these three episodes the best show this week, in my opinion, was Law & Order. This week's episode was quite intriguing for many reasons. One of the reasons this episode was so intriguing was the personal lives of detectives was illustrated greatly. My four factors for episodes being the best for the week are limited this week. The plot did include twists one being the other girlfriend was the killer which was by me expected. No unexpected events happening to characters, no sense of suspense, and no return of a familiar character.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Week 2 (Sept. 20th-26th)

NCIS: Truth or Consequence

Recap: The episode opens with a torturer, Saleem Ulman, saying "you will talk soon" then mixes a truth serum. Camera then moves to a bruised and beaten Tony. Tony is narrating throughout the show by using flashbacks. He brings the audience back to June and then tells his story up to present date, in Somalia. In June, the team works to "fill the empty chair" because of Ziva's departure. Tony and McGee find an agent they think is eligible and present her file to Gibbs, he disapproves. Back to current date Tony tells Saleem why he is there to kill him and also how he found him, through a shipment Saleem ordered. Saleem at this point very angry leaves the room and returns with a hooded prisoner. Saleem says "the first to talk will live, the other will die" and removes the hood. It's Ziva! Tony knocks Saleem to the ground and Saleem pulls out a gun. Tony explains to Saleem that there is a "wild card" and he will die. Saleem calls him a liar and is shot by a sniper, Gibbs, through the window.

Bones: The Bond in the Boot

Recap: A man with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist is shot to death in a parking lot. The killer cuts of the dead mans hand steals the briefcase then runs over his body. B&B arrive at the scene about two days later and find cats chowing away at the corps. The dead man entered the country, from Russia, with a diplomatic clearance. No one knew how he received a diplomatic clearance and because his suitcase was missing the case was to be treated as a national security threat. Paint samples on the dead body led the lab to James Bond's car. Upon arrival at the car B&B found a dead liquefying CIA member in the trunk and on him Bond's gun. Investigation led them to find the CIA analyst knew about the diamonds killed the Russian and stole and hide the briefcase. Later the Analyst was killed by the diamond cutter in order to find the briefcase which she never did. The team located the briefcase and inside was a USB drive.

Law & Order: Memo from the Darkside

Recap:Greg Tanner, a war veteran, was found dead in a university parking garage. On the body was a parking pass belonging to a student that Greg was staying with. Detectives searched where he was staying and found a military bag. Law Professor Kevin Franklin has ties to Tanner and is the prime suspect. Tanner felt that it was because of Franklin that he had to torture during interrogation while on duty. The torturing caused Tanner mental anguish and he felt that Franklin should pay for his mental illness. Tanner asked for Franklin to pay for his damage; however, Franklin disagreed and then killed him. During the prosecution Franklin claimed self defense and explained he only set in law what was allowed to be done during interrogations; He claimed the Bush Administration allowed it to be done not him.

Summary

All episodes this week were good, however; there was one that was better than the rest. In my opinion, NCIS was the best this week. As for the 4 arguments why this was the best episode:
1. The plot entailed twists: First, was a minor twist I was surprised to see McGee was the man lying on the ground. Another plot twist near the end of the episode Gibbs snipped Saleem.
2. Unexpected events happening to characters: In this episode the bruised and beaten Ziva, lived; Also Tony and McGee also captured and tortured.
3. A sense of suspense: Tony's flashbacks created a sense of suspense. where was he going with it? How did they locate Saleem?
4. The return of a familiar character: This is something that is not going to occur often because it would lose its affect if it did.
Favorite line:(NCIS) Tony said "Well, how was your summer?" I know not a creative line but the amusing part was how he said it, in the middle of being tortured.

An added note:
Growing up my mother didn't let me watch very much television. She always had me playing outside for some unknown reason and she use to tell me television was bad for me. Well, television isn't bad for you and it doesn't rot your brain. A relatively recent study done by the National Bureau of Economic Research states that there is no evidence of negative affect of television exposure of which I completely agree.