On-Season Week 14

WEEK 14

Ho ho ho, everyone! A present for you all!
   After a slow burn, Christmas is now hitting these roundups quite hard: we're down to just four shows this week. Elementary will air its second character-centric episode in two weeks, this time focusing on Joan Watson and her past as a surgeon; I expect blackmail in the upcoming episode of Incorporated, what with Roger having discovered Ben's secret; Bar Paly as Anna Kolcheck returns in NCIS LA; and reports suggest that one of the Scorpion team will be leaving. The latter two shows draw level again with Hawaii Five-0 and MacGyver for leading shows this season.

Elementary - 5x10 "Pick Your Poison"

"Joan is accused of medical malpractice for filling illegal prescriptions when the body of a drug addict winds up in the morgue, but NYPD's investigation uncovers more than just identity theft."

Elementary's fifth season is proving to be up and down more regularly than a child's behaviour during the Christmas period, but "Pick Your Poison" was one of the up moments. It began with a hilarious scene where Shinwell presented Sherlock with a Christmas gift: a restored chess table he found in the basement. The intention was there, but unfortunately for Shinwell that chess table was evidence in a 1938 murder that Sherlock was still trying to puzzle out. The awkwardness was brilliant.

Shinwell gifts Sherlock a restored chess table

   After that it was on to the two main focuses of the episode. Firstly, the plot. Watson's false prescriptions transpired to be written by a Dr. Krieg who worked in the Rheumatology department at her old hospital; Dr. Krieg was running a pill mill, using Joan's and 3 other identities to deal prescription drugs. She, along with the mother of a patient, were shot dead. The killer: the son, whose mother, using drugs from Dr. Krieg, was poisoning him in a case of reverse Munchausen Syndrome. Dr. Krieg discovered there was nothing wrong with her son and tried to explain her crimes in order to save him, but the son wound up killing both of them instead. Lovely, lovely twist.
   And in Plot B, Shinwell continued his efforts to work as a CI bringing down the South Bronx Killers. I'm finding Shinwell to be a thoroughly underwhelming addition to the cast, and although this arc has taken some unexpected twists, it still seems to be heading down a dull, trodden path towards an uninspired endgame. And lo and behold, where today Sherlock tried to block Shinwell's attempts to become a CI, he ended up offering to train him himself. Well, who better, I suppose?

   VIEWERS: 5.08m

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 0.7

VERDICT: Shinwell continues to add nothing of substance, but the murder plot was great for unseemly twists. 8/10

Incorporated - 1x04 "Cost Containment"

"Ben struggles with Laura's wish to have a baby, while discovering that Roger had his keyhole."

As the dystopian world in which our characters live expands, so does the amount of story needed to keep up with that growth. For now, Incorporated is managing to keep the balance very well. The Inazagi defector from the episode prior finally kept her end of the bargain (after some plastic surgery), and explained that Inazagi are after some sort of sea water irrigation system which could dethrone Spiga as the world's biggest corporation. This sounds like an interesting battle to be had in the near future.
   Meanwhile, the depiction of how babies are "designed" in 2074 is not so detached from the expectations of the current world, but the most disturbing part of it is how "gestators" are used instead of the real mothers. Gestators aged 13-25. My God. That is a horror show! On the upside, Ben's plan doesn't involve getting Laura pregnant, so he takes some male contraceptive behind her back to prevent that, after they outrageously decide to have a baby the normal way.

   As for Roger, who has Ben's keyhole, Roger has now lost the upper hand - without knowing it. Ben discovers through his HR contact Hendricks that Roger had the keyhole, and begins to track him immediately. Roger's goal is to find Elena and uses his father's power to do that. Ben follows him to a hotel and who should turn up? Elena! This cliffhanger leads us to the question: how soon will Ben act now Elena is in his sights? And how did she end up as a sex slave in the first place, after flashbacks showed Elena refusing a similar offer years before in the Red Zone?

   VIEWERS: 0.542

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 0.13
   (Ticks downwards. The result of Christmas? I guess we'll see in the next couple episodes)

VERDICT: There are a number of cat-and-mouse chases on the go now - Spiga vs Inazagi, Roger vs Ben, Ben vs Roger and more - and the build-up of each is both fast and intense. Theo is a bit of an outside character, however, since his storyline has no impact on Ben's. 8/10

NCIS: Los Angeles - 8x11 "Tidings We Bring"

"A Navy officer is kidnapped while Christmas shopping; OSP struggle to work out if the target was her or her reporter boyfriend."

Anna Kolcheck appeared at the start of the season and gave a hand to OSP after Kensi's injury, but after a couple of episodes disappeared without any explanation. I presumed that her ATF application had been successful, but there hadn't been any mention. Until "Tidings We Bring", where Anna, still waiting for the results of her ATF background check, checked back in with OSP by baking them a cake, before offering to lend a hand while they searched for a kidnapped Navy officer.

OSP celebrate at HQ

   She was pushed romantically with Callen, culminating in him inviting her to Christmas dinner, but they weren't the only relationship potential here: Eric and Nell's increasing closeness was expanded on after Eric's disappointment that her acceptance into a Mentoring Programme meant she would miss their Dickens night. The pair cooked up some cute British accents, though.
   The main murder was decent enough: the kidnapped Navy officer was only the leverage, as her reporter boyfriend had a file containing the names of many important worldwide figures who laundered money through Panama banks. The premise was a little wasted on the Christmas episode as nothing came of it, but it was a good distraction from the festive celebrations.
   Lastly, Kensi's reappearance at the end led to a hilarious dream fight sequence where she battled it out with an Anna who was gleeful at having temporarily taken over her position. That being a dream, I really did not see coming.

   VIEWERS: 10.37m

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 1.4
   (Both tick slightly down)

VERDICT: It's always fun when Anna shows up; add some festive flair and some sexual tension, mix it with a decent plot premise and you get a decent Christmas episode. 8/10

Scorpion - 3x11 "Wreck the Halls"

"Scorpion head to a cabin in the woods for a Christmas weekend, but come across gunrunners. Meanwhile, things between Walter and Tim come to a head."

Scorpion has always had a bit of a boner for the "relaxing-group-getaway-oh-look-now-there's-a-case-of-the-week" trope, and "Wreck the Halls" was another perfect example. But it was actually one of the better examples. The gunrunning plot itself was condensed nicely into the middle 25 minutes, leaving close to another 20 spare for character building, something else Scorpion is not averse to doing (although this was quite an extreme).
   Either side of (and during) the gunrunning plot, which had enough twists and turns and culminated in the actually-not-an-ATF-agent kidnapping Ralph and trying to escape, there were some great scenes. Happy's reluctantly helping Sly with his campaign to be President on his online game was hilarious, Cabe built a grandfatherly bond with Ralph and Toby had his unsatisfied need for reassurance from Happy met when she gave him an "Attaboy!" key fob, which would shout the praise every time he pressed the button. But the best scene of all was Walter and Tim's confrontation while the Scorpion team were building their Home Alone-esque traps.

Happy is unhappy with her elf outfit

   The Tim and Paige relationship had been heating up recently, as had the Tim and Walter beef, and in Tim's final episode it all came to a head. Tim called Walter's attempts at disrupting his and Paige's relationship "pathetic", so Walter told him he never liked Tim; Tim said Walter never made him feel welcome, so Walter told him he never wanted him here and he wasn't a real member of the team. Every insult had an instant emotional effect on both men, until Paige intervened. And in the end, Tim decided to leave the team. I should give the episode a high score just for that! Good riddance!
   VIEWERS: 7.45m

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 1.2
   (Both tick up nicely)

VERDICT: Every character got a good Christmas plot wrapped around a short case-of-the-week storyline and it all just came together very smoothly. Goodbye Tim. 8.5/10

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

Scorpion - Happy (on her elf outfit): "If anyone takes a picture of me in this get-up, I'm gonna roast your chestnuts on an open fire."

LAST WEEK'S ROUNDUP: On-Season Week 13

NEXT WEEK'S ROUNDUP: (will be posted here when complete)

Final thoughts

There was no blackmail in Incorporated, as instead Roger decided to try and delve into Ben's secret a little further, while the rumours of Tim's departure from the Scorpion team held true, proving TV can give viewers some excellent Christmas presents.
   As for ratings, Christmas has hit hard this week, as nearly every show was down in the ratings, despite all of them having very good episodes. CBS were laughably optimistic when first ratings said Elementary had scored a season high 0.9 demo share, and in the final ratings it reverted back to its usual horrific performance.

WORD TO CHRISTMAS WEEK: I brought in Incorporated in the hopes that over Christmas there wouldn't be a week where it would be the only show I would have to review, but that's coming to pass in Week 15. So what I'll do is double up: the front part will contain a condensed review of Incorporated's fifth episode, and the rest of next week's roundup will be previews to the 3 midseason shows I'm adding (A.P.B., Making History and Powerless), plus renewal predictions for all 3 and Incorporated.

Thank you all for reading, everybody have a wonderful merry Christmas and I'll see you New Year's Eve!

Sam