You Look Hot Enough To Cook A Pizza On... In

Here’s the rundown from Tuesday and Wednesday.

Spoilers.

Modern Family – “Bixby’s Back” (A-)

Modern Family was back this week with another hilarious Valentine’s Day episode. This show really knows how to commemorate the special occasions, and for a show centered around three couples Valentine’s Day constitutes as a special occasion. Luckily for us, each couple brought something funny to the table in this episode.

Phil and Claire brought back Clive and Julianna again this year, and the result was just as disastrous as the year before. Phil was absolutely hilarious in this episode. Ty Burrell basically put on a clinic in physical comedy, with Phil tripping and falling over pretty much everything. My personal favourite was the champagne cork popping as he was trying to explain to the old lady why he’s naked in her room. I also loved watching him drive around in circles on the old man’s scooter, in the process convincing Claire that they needed some more excitement in their marriage.

And while they were mostly relegated to the sidelines this week Cam and Mitchell’s argument over who Mitchell’s assistant had the crush on was great too. Eric Stonestreet really stole the show here, playing the passive aggressive Cameron to perfection. My favourite line:

MITCHELL’S ASSISTANT: Did I validate you?
CAMERON: Oh yes.

Also in this episode, Jay and Gloria demonstrated one of the foundations of any great relationship – the calculated manoeuvring to win. And yes, in case you were wondering, I have been single for a very, very long time. Nevertheless, the storyline was hilarious, with each of them coming up with a few hilarious lines around that theme.

JAY: Honey, I love all this, but you can’t win Valentine’s Day. I mean you defeat the whole idea if you make it into some silly competition.
GLORIA: Shut up I win.

You tell him Gloria.

But my personal favourite moment of the episode was the return of Dylan. This is the second hilarious song that Dylan has given us and blasting it through the whole neighbourhood had to be the perfect way to debut it. Claire’s reaction was the best:

CLAIRE: Am I a bad enough parent to ignore that?

I’m glad Dylan and Hailey are back together. I miss those two and their crazy shenanigans.

Off the Map – “I’m Here” (B+)

The problem with pilots is they are generally a terrible way of gauging how good a show will be. Good pilots are certainly a good sign, but there’s no way you can really see the ins and outs of a series from just one episode. Now that we’re 5 episodes into the run of Off the Map, I’m starting to see a clearer picture of what the show is turning out to be.

Off the Map doesn’t add much to the genre, but it takes all of its familiar elements and does them really well. One of those elements has to be the crazy patient of the week, and this week’s episode had one of the craziest – an underwater amputation. The scene where they had to explain to the young girl (underwater) that they were going to have to amputate her leg was a particularly great scene. I couldn’t imagine losing a limb awake without the doctors who were performing the procedure able to tell me what they were doing. I guess that’s what made the young girl’s realization all the more painful.

As consequence from this daring procedure Clark got the bends, which might I add, I diagnosed before any of the fake TV doctors, further proving that I shouldn’t need one of those pesky medical degrees to practice medicine (stupid board of physicians). Anyways, because of the mysterious circumstances surrounding the development of her symptoms we learned that Dr. Clark is hiding some sort of medical ailment. She’s quickly becoming one of my favourite characters so I hope it’s nothing too serious. I’m sure she’ll be fine (that’s my medical opinion).

Brenner also had a good story this week, when she finds out that the man she’s been crushing on may be a criminal. “When did your life become a Spanish soap opera” asks Mina, causing Brenner to wonder that very question. Eventually she found herself lying to the police in an attempt to protect the guy, with Keeton covering for her with the cops.

After this episode it looks like the two of them won’t be getting together any time soon. Or who knows, maybe the turmoil in each of their lives will drive them together... and then apart again... and then probably together after that. That’s not a metaphor for sex either, that’s just generally how these things go.

And again this week Mina proved herself to be one of the more interesting doctors on this show. Her defence of the amputee girl’s father, a character a lot of shows would villanize, was a highlight for me. I think a lot of people would compare Mina to Christina from Grey’s Anatomy because of her self described coldness, but I think the comparison is misguided. Christina is cold because of her competitiveness, where as Mina seems to care quite a bit about her patients, she just has trouble expressing it. I said this last week too, but it’s nice to see this type of character being represented on a show like this, where characters are quite often on the opposite extreme. Plus I laughed at this little exchange:

MINA: I just had a conversation with a hat.
LILY: What?
MINA: I don’t want to talk about it.

Well done by both actresses.

And I can’t leave without at least mentioning Tommy’s vow of celibacy. It was a great recurring gag throughout the whole episode, and I loved the way it kept creeping into all the other characters’ storylines. The final scene in the bar was awesome too. I thought it was hilarious the way the group (including Charlie, the like 12 year old interpreter) lambasted him over sending his girl away.

CHARLIE: You got to hit that.

V – “Concordia” (B)

After discussing much of my displeasure about Tyler’s character in last week’s review, I was far from thrilled when I discovered this week’s episode would be centered on Travis’s 18^th birthday. And early on in the episode, this storyline was true to form, with plenty of ridiculous scenes to prove it (including an unintentionally funny scene where all the big players in the V hierarchy were huddled around a monitor discussing Tyler’s birthday gifts).

But then the gala happened, and the awkward scenes early in the episode all started coming together. The assassination attempt was an exciting sequence, and the fact that they actually got Marcus (though I’m sure he’ll be fine in the same way that Joshua is up and moving again) lent the storyline some legitimacy.

I was glad to see Erica come back to Cohn with some conditions rather than simply trying to thwart his attempt at the assassination.  Each week Erica and the gang seem to move closer and closer to all out working with Cohn which I think is a good thing. Like I’ve said on numerous occasions, this show is better when its heroes flirt with questionable moral decisions.

Ryan also had a good part in this episode, organizing the assassination attempt only to sabotage it later in the episode. Ryan’s motives have been questionable for the last couple of episodes now, but this is the first time he’s actively betrayed the group in favour of helping his daughter.

Which brings me to my next exciting development – the return of Hobbes. Just last week I was commenting on how soft he had gone this season. Well he’s soft no more, and from the looks of it he and the like minded Cohn will be looking for a little revenge on Ryan. Obviously I don’t want them kill him or anything, but just the fact that these relationships are becoming more complicated is a good sign for the show. Now all they have to do is send Tyler on his motorcycle trip and we may have something here.