Review by Elizabeth C. Bunce

Monday night, TNT closed the books on one of the most popular series in its history, and began a new chapter that seems well poised to carry on the tradition of great ensemble casting and storytelling viewers have come to love.

In the series finale of The Closer, we saw the conclusion of seven years of great drama, including the wrap up of storylines sometimes two to three seasons in the making, as well as a neatly-handled setup for the new Major Crimes spinoff.  All our questions were answered, in a complex, slightly bizarre, altogether satisfying final installment featuring Chief Brenda Lee Johnson’s recurring nemesis, evil defense-attorney-slash-rapist Philip Stroh.  Johnson’s relentless pursuit of Stroh, despite an infuriating lack of physical evidence, ultimately drives her to extreme lengths–attacking Stroh and planting evidence (featuring a truly brilliant scene with the excellent but underutilized Coroner Dr. Morales (played artfully by Jonathan Del Arco, who once played our favorite borg, Hugh, on Star Trek: The Next Generation).  It’s all a bit edgy and far-fetched, but Sedgwick pulls it off, bolstered by a history of increasing histrionics over the past two seasons.  Her behavior also provides a neat exit from the series: she’ll leave the LAPD for a new job as chief of investigations for the DA’s office, taking disgraced Detective Gabriel along with her.  (Which conveniently also explains Fritz’s carryover into the new series.)

A couple of logical gaffes didn’t distract from the show’s overall impact.  When did serial rapist Stroh change his (painstakingly well-established through at least two previous episodes) M.O. and become a serial murderer instead?  And young newcomer Graham Patrick Martin pulled off a terrific performance as protected witness Rusty Beck, a teenage hustler as adept at making deals as the Department of Major Crimes–a strong showing despite some improbable moments designed to wrangle his storyline into the new series.

The very best moment in the entire episode comes during the action-packed climax–an over-the-top violent confrontation with Stroh in Johnson’s home (with only Rusty as a witness).  No spoilers, but suffice it to say that the writers concocted brilliant ends for every beloved member of the series–including Brenda’s ubiquitous black bag.

All in all, the finale felt logical, well-paced, and not overly sentimental.  With various threads wrapped up in the last several episodes, writers weren’t forced to cram too much into the finale, keeping the focus on taut storytelling and entertaining performances.  The best thing to say is the best that can be said for any series finale: It felt like a darn good episode of the show.

Despite seamlessly picking up where The Closer left off, series producers wisely gave Major Crimes its own original plotline for the pilot, giving the new show a chance to stretch its legs and introduce some of the changes viewers can expect to see, including a greater focus on action and Law & Order-style justice system manipulation.  The challenge for the new series will be to strike a balance between old and new–giving viewers enough of what we love from The Closer, while becoming more than just The Closer Minus Brenda.  I think most viewers would welcome the latter, frankly–but that’s not fair to the new series, which deserves a chance to develop in its own direction.

The cast dynamic will feel familiar to longtime Closer viewers, as the first episode centers around powerplays between Detective Provenza (G.W. Bailey) and new boss Captain Raydor (Mary McDonnell).  The two have worked together now for at least the last two seasons, so this aspect felt slightly forced and perfunctory, but no more awkward than average TV pilot growing pains.  Also slightly improbable, yet surprisingly well done, was the integration of Graham Patrick Martin’s character of Rusty, the underage witness introduced in The Closer finale.  In return for his testimony against Stroh, Rusty demands that the LAPD find the mother who abandoned him months earlier at the zoo.  Complications with the foster care system land Rusty in Captain Raydor’s custody–a twist that stretches disbelief.  It’s an interesting move, though, and it’s easy to imagine that the Rusty-Raydor relationship will mirror the zany emotional melodrama of Fritz and Brenda.

With so many familiar faces returning for Major Crimes, and the show in its predecessor’s timeslot, everything should be in place to make the new series a success.  Changes are inevitable, and maybe even exciting–with the focus off Chief Johnson, the series is free to explore new directions with the characters and storylines.  It will be interesting to see what this favorite, seasoned crew serves up with their new project!

Reviewed by C.J. Bunce

The first season of Major Crimes was better than the last season of The Closer.  It even had individual episodes that out-performed several episodes of the entire run of The Closer.  Since the production was working with pretty much the entire cast of The Closer sans the series lead, is that a commentary on Kyra Sedgwick’s Brenda Lee Johnson?  Heck no, but the freshman year of Major Crimes convinced me that The Closer picked the right time to end a good thing.  Major Crimes is a good series in its own right that should be judged on its own merits.  Yes, it has its faults, including some clunky writing in its season finale.  Yet considering it was set up for failure from almost the beginning of the last season of The Closer, Major Crimes surpassed the typically lackluster performance of any season one effort.

Mary McDonnell, playing series co-lead Captain Sharon Raydor, expanded her one-note character from The Closer into a multi-faceted, intriguing role.  Raydor has every bit as frenetic a daily schedule and home life as Captain Johnson, yet she chooses to deal with stress differently.  Where Johnson was a drama queen, Raydor compartmentalizes her angst, but up to a point–a point where she can’t hold back and is forced to let loose on the criminal of the week, Assistant Chief Taylor (Robert Gossett), Rusty (Graham Patrick Martin), or her crew.  Raydor is swift and level-headed where Johnson was knee-jerk and reactionary.  Where series fans began tiring of Johnson’s never-ending craziness, Raydor has restored some Dragnet-esque drama that was missing.  The lynchpin of an episode of The Closer was Johnson’s closing the deal with the week’s bad guy and putting off or ignoring her personal life.  The audience for Major Crimes gets to see Raydor connect the dots of the week’s case with a well-oiled ensemble cast, deal with her personal life, and, unlike Brenda, keep her composure.  Her role was further highlighted when contrasted with new addition Kearran Giovanni as the smart but green Detective Sykes, whose annoying nature was finally smoothed out (after a near fatal encounter mid-season which earned her some street cred for viewers) into a good-humored member of the team by season’s end.

McDonnell is facing this leadership role as she did with the role of President in Battlestar Galactica.  At first she seems hesitant and uncertain of her abilities–both as an actor and character–and then she moves comfortably into the role for the remainder of the series.  The key moment of season one for Raydor’s character was co-lead Lieutenant Provenza (G.W. Bailey) admitting to Rusty that he didn’t like Raydor–Provenza felt bad enough for Raydor despite resenting her– and then tells Rusty that he should realize how much she cared about him in a very guilt-inducing manner.  If Provenza could turn the corner, then the audience could, too.  And we did.

G.W Bailey can really do no wrong.  He may be the most likeable and sincere-seeming fellow on television.  And his character reflects something many people feel or at least have felt before–under-appreciation–and here, in the workplace when he doesn’t get the promotion he thinks he deserves.  Provenza has little choice.  He just must “deal with it.”  And instead of whining and kicking the sand with his heels like a little kid, he assumes his own leadership role.  His influence causes the rest of the staff to follow suit.  And no one needs this influence more than his old partner of sorts, Lieutenant Flynn (Tony Denison).  Both Provenza and Flynn were often relegated to Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum roles in The Closer, and here they get to fully show they are detectives in every sense, on par with the cops on the original Law and Order or even Joe Friday and Bill Gannon in Dragnet.

The members of the force that don’t really need the positive influence are Lieutenant Tao (Michael Paul Chan) and Detective Sanchez (Raymond Cruz), who bring to the table their own good work ethic, almost hanging behind the scenes until its time to reveal their hidden genius.  One highlight of Season One was “Dismissed with Prejudice,” an episode centered on Tao, on a case from his past where he supposedly convicted the wrong guy.  Tao is an incredible source of obscure information and his knowledge of the trivial that becomes critical keeps the series exciting.  Challenging this icon of integrity was a little bit jarring, yet typical of a season where the writers shook up each and every character like never before done in The Closer.  No one gets off easy, and throwing the characters and actors into turmoil really brought out a season of great performances.

In contrast to the prior week’s episode that was more light-hearted fare that dealt in part with Provenza’s self-doubt and entertaining the use of a “life coach” tied to the week’s case, the best episode of the season may have been the best episode on TV period this year.  The fifth episode “Citizen’s Arrest,” focused on the disturbing case of bodies found around L.A. in canisters that become tied to a kidnapping.  Reaching a new level of violence and realism for the Closer/Major Crimes franchise, viewers were frozen to the screen for the entire hour leading up to the final chilling rescue at the end of the episode.  And Detective Sanchez was able to shine with his own mastery of detail and common sense, and show us as both the soul of Major Crimes–and the supercop we almost lost for his heroics in The Closer.

You also have to mention the consistently great yet subordinate roles of regulars Fritz (Jon Tenney), Dr. Morales (Jonathan Del Arco), Buzz (Phillip P. Keene), and Assistant Chief Taylor (Robert Gossett).  Juggling such a huge cast cannot be easy, yet all these characters are fully fleshed out, likeable and watchable.  When given the chance by the writers, these characters upstage the rest of the cast.

Although the last episode of the season “The Long Shot” seemed to be written by a different crew, it came together in the end, in a story element that seems pretty strange when standing back–the cheery and successful removal of a boy from his father.  That boy of course is Rusty, and the father was his father by biology only, who slugs him in the prior episode, “Cheaters Never Prosper.”  In every other series I can think of, my absolute least favorite TV element is the child member of an ensemble cast.   With an ensemble cast all in excess of 40 years old, Rusty still fills that kid role here, albeit this “kid” is a 16-year-old former gigolo played by a 21-year-old.  But here Rusty is the very thread that held the series together all year.  His character reminded us that this L.A. crime stuff has its roots in grim reality.  And it expanded the idea of family in a prime time TV show–a family that goes beyond traditional roles.  Lieutenant Flynn played an uncle of sorts, standing with Rusty waiting for his mother to arrive at the end of the episode “Medical Causes.”  In fact Provenza, Tao and Sanchez stand ready to beat the pulp out of Rusty’s dad in the season finale like wolves ready to protect a member of the pack.  Buzz gets to be that older brother that is tired of taking care of his sibling.  And Raydor gets to fill a void missing in her own life–family at home–while giving Rusty more motherly concern and care than he’s ever known.

This season definitely gave viewers a lot of ups and downs, humor, intrigue–drama–the thing the TNT cable network brags about.  It’s reflected in no better series on the network than Major Crimes.  Happily for fans of the show, the series has been renewed and will return next summer.

Merry Christmas!

It’s the end of December and another year is winding down.  Everywhere you turn someone is talking about the Best of 2012, so here we offer our take, resulting from absorbing more content this year than ever before, from books to movies to TV to comics, we reviewed and previewed entertainment from most of the big comic book publishers, and received screeners of shows and books from different publishing houses.  And we watched a lot of TV and went to a number of movies.  So what was the best of the best this year?  No one will ever have the same list but here’s where we ended up:

Best Genre Movie:  The Hobbit.  We had to wait all year for the release but once we saw it–it was well worth the wait and we want to go back and see it again and again.  How could you possibly follow one of the only fantasy films ever to win a Best Picture Academy Award and expect to come close in quality and entertainment?  Peter Jackson figured it out.  Not even The Avengers came close to touching this epic film with giant sets, special effects, elaborate costumes, a perfect story adaptation, and the best CGI creature to date: a Gollum even better than in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Best Dramatic Film: Argo.  It was an international event more recent in the public psyche than even Watergate, yet it had never been addressed on the silver screen before–the kidnapping of American nationals in Iran.  Ben Affleck served as both director and star of the film and performed both roles brilliantly.  Both exciting and funny–with the incredibly bizarre hook of using Hollywood to create a sci-fi B movie as CIA cover to sneak in to Iran and remove a small group of hostages–it was a story worthy of adapting to screen.  Brilliant!

Best Animated Movie: Brave.  Kelly McDonald’s wonderful Scottish voice, an all-star Brit voice cast including Emma Thompson, Bill Connolly, Julie Walters and Robbie Coltrane, coupled with Brenda Chapman’s story and the best of Walt Disney and Pixar’s animation so far, make Brave the slam dunk animated film winner of 2012.   A gorgeous film about a tough and feisty red-headed girl skilled with a bow and arrow who wants to make her own destiny provided a great story for young and old alike.

Best Animated TV Series: Tron: Uprising.  Disney Television Animation finally figured out a way to bring its Tron franchise forward with Tron: Legacy, and this prequel series gives us what the movie lacked–more Bruce Boxleitner as Tron.  We hardly noticed this wasn’t a live action series, and with voice actors like Frodo’s Elijah Wood, Alien’s Lance Henriksen, Paul Reubens and Tricia Helfer, you could hardly go wrong.  The brilliant choice of lighting, futuristic yet retro light cycles and funky soundtrack made this one worth coming back for each week.

Best Actor: Silas Weir Mitchell, Grimm.  With the updates for the second season of Grimm, Mitchell’s reformed Blutbad Monroe was hard to beat as the sometimes hilarious sometimes dramatic glue that held the series together, setting up new conflicts, like the strange discovery of Renard and Juliette’s relationship, sure to drive the story next year.

Best Actress: Ksenia Solo, Lost Girl.  As succubus and series star Bo’s tagalong human friend and roommate Kenzi, Solo held half of the dramatic workload for the Canadian series first released to U.S. audiences this year on the Syfy Channel.  The Latvian born actress plays it funny and smart–she makes for the ideal kickass girl from the best genre fiction stories.

Best Breakout Role–Female:  Cobie Smulders as S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Maria Hill in The Avengers.  We knew her already from How I Met Your Mother, but Smulders took what could have been a throwaway background role in the biggest movie of the year and instead put her character’s footing almost on par with the Avengers themselves, heading up an early chase scene and appearing with Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury throughout the film.  Now she’s set to come back for the next Avengers films, she’s a character that we never knew about but are glad she’s on the team going forward.

Best Breakout Role–Male: Max Greenfield as Schmidt in New Girl.  Greenfield is one among a handful of great young actors in New Girl, now in its second season, but this season his character Schmidt stepped out to create the craziest, most hysterical moment of nearly every episode.  Whether he is ranting that there is no black Santa Claus, or trying to show a stripper how to lap dance the right way, whether he is wearing his high-cut male kimono, ranting about germs, or his stupid actions result in him putting the most money in the coffee table jar, Greenfield took a funny part and stretched it to insanely funny.  This from the same guy who performed dramatic roles in Veronica Mars, Life and Castle?  Awesome.

Best Guest Appearance:  Scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson’s appearance in Action Comics. It was a bit of a marketing gimmick, but what could tie the education of real science, a popular TV non-fiction series host and comic book readers together better?  The real star-vested Tyson found a possible location for Superman’s home planet of Krypton, revealing it to the Man of Steel in the pages of the ongoing series.

Best TV series: Arrow, CW Network.  We got our first look at the pilot for this series at Comic-Con this year and loved it, but wasn’t sure how it would appeal to a mass audience.  Pretty much everyone we know watches this series, including those who would never otherwise think to look at a series about a masked superhero.  We have a critical eye out for all things Green Arrow, but Arrow, led by a well-cast Stephen Amell, surpassed our expectations.

Best Comedy Series: New Girl, Fox Network.  New Girl wins this category from one simple thing: This series made this writer laugh so hard his gut hurt and corresponding tears shot out of his eyes from the quick humor in so many scenes this year he lost count.  And when the series dipped into dramatic elements it never veered far from the core of what makes the show work–it’s a comedy first.  Tuesday night this year was New Girl night.  Jess, Nick, Schmidt, Winston and Cece could be the next Friends (but funnier) if the series can get a wider audience.

Best Single TV Episode: Sherlock, “A Scandal in Belgravia,” BBC America.  You just have to watch this episode of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman’s brilliant series over and over.  The entry of the beautiful and unpredictable Irene Adler, played by Lara Pulver, was perfection, and Cumberbatch and Martin’s scene with Sherlock’s brother Mycroft in Buckingham Palace can’t be beat.  Sure to be a classic episode for years to come.

Best Cliffhanger: Shawn’s dad gets shot, Psych, USA Network.  It seems like it has been forever since Shawn’s dad Henry, played by Corbin Bernsen was shot at the end of this season’s last episode of the hit USA Network comedy/drama series.  At its core, Psych is a light-hearted pleasure, so they just CAN’T kill off Henry.  We’re really looking forward to finding out.

Best Series Ender: In Plain Sight, USA Network.*  In a year where several mega-hits wrapped for good, including House, M.D., The Closer, Awake, and Chuck, one series finale tied up all the necessary loose ends the best, and that was the aptly titled “All’s Well that Ends” from In Plain Sight, which ended after five solid seasons.  The writers skipped the gimmicks, with no gut wrenching death scenes for major cast players, but instead honored the characters as they’d been for the entire series, rewarding viewers with an end where everyone wins.  *Update:  Leverage‘s surprise December 25, 2012 series finale came in with a powerhouse finale, slightly trumping In Plain Sight at the last minute after we posted this piece.  See our review here.

Best Series that Cancelled Too Early: Awake, NBC Network.  We only got to see 12 episodes of Awake, but in those episodes we saw a great paranormal drama develop.  Jason Isaacs, like Paul Blackthorne, is one of those actors you want to helm a series every week.  His dual role of father who lost his kid and husband that lost his wife, both in the same auto accident, showed this actor could do anything with a role.  Although they were able to nicely wrap-up Awake in its last episode, we’d prefer to have seen a lot more of it.

Best Surprise in Entertainment: Dallas, TNT Network.  How was this even possible?  Who would think to take THE 1980s primetime soap and bring it forward to 2012, AND think it could work?  TNT mixed a CW Network-inspired young cast with a plot continuing the struggles in the classic series and melded it into something for anyone willing to give it a try.  Larry Hagman’s J.R. Ewing never missed a beat as the ultimate TV villain, even in his 80s.  The writers took bits from the tangents of the original to concoct the main storyline of two young heirs fighting for family and social dominance.  The result was addictive TV.

Best Comeback:  The ensemble cast of Major Crimes.  The great thing about a great ensemble cast is that you like every player equally.  When this is successful, you can stand to lose a character or two and still keep going, or as was the case with the wind-up of The Closer, lose three main characters: Deputy Chief Brenda Lee Johnson, Chief Pope, and Sgt. Gabriel.  Major Crimes added three new replacement characters and never missed a beat, pleasing fans who knew it was too soon for the stories from the L.A. Major Crimes unit to end.

Best Second Wind: Haven, Syfy Channel.  Some cable TV series limp along and just end after a year or two.  Haven’s single theme of solving the riddle of “the troubles” seemed a candidate for this, but something switched on with the 2012 season allowing the rich stories and great cast chemistry to give us the series’ best episodes in its three-year run so far.

Best Genre-Related Advertisement:  Star Wars Super Bowl ad, Volkswagen.  The best Super Bowl ad last January with a dog, a James Brown tune, and a pristine recreation of the Mos Eisley Cantina from the original Star Wars was an instant classic that will be hard to beat in 2013.  Complete with its own recreated hive of scum and villainy, Tom Spina Designs’ creatures gave us something we want to see more of–maybe a new Disney-produced TV series based in Mos Eisley using all these obscure characters fanboys know by name?  Missed it?  See the full ad here.

Best Press Marketing: Coma mini-series press kit, A&E Network.  We at borg.com received tons of content this year, from books to comics to advance screeners, but one marketing gag was so awesome in its own right it surpassed what it was advertising.  The advance marketing for the Coma TV series marked a possible return by A&E to the classic TV shows we used to get in the days of shows like Price and Prejudice or Nero Wolfe.  Sporting an underground conspiracy plotline, print and online ads created a cool concept that the mini-series itself did not quite match.  When we received a human organ carrier in a “thawed” labeled box that we cautiously unzipped to find the screener, well that was just too awesome not to mention again.

Best Costumes: The Hobbit.  The Hobbit already made our Best Genre Movie of 2012, but it’s worth a second nod for having the most incredibly crafted costumes of possibly any film made so far in any year.  Building on the costumes of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the slow panning of the camera in The Hobbit allowed us to see every seam on Bilbo’s patch-work coat, and every new emblem on each dwarf’s tunic.  How can a production make so many unique costumes for one film?  The result sets the standard for all major films to come.

Best Borg Appearance: The Cyborg Gunslinger, Doctor Who episode, “A Town Called Mercy”.  Andrew Brooke’s gunslinger was a slick-looking borg addition, a throwback to Westworld that gave us equal parts of good sci-fi and classic Western movies.  Doctor Who has created the best costumes and make-up of any sci-fi franchise in the past few years and this guy just looked great.

Best Web Series: TableTop bi-weekly Internet series, Geek and Sundry.  Wil Wheaton, known for Star Trek: The Next Generation and more recently his appearances on Big Bang Theory and Leverage, as host of his own online series, brought us all back from the video game world to the boardgame format that allows friends to really interact and have fun for their own game nights.   He chatted over great games like Tsuro, Munchkin and Zombie Dice with friends and celebrities alike, and showed us what could easily translate to its own Game Show Network series.

Best Villain:  The Harp Seal, Battlepug, Mike Norton. Easy choice.  This year’s Eisner Award winner for best digital comic revealed this unexpected villain, a funny surprise for readers.  Imagine a world where the harp seal gets its due–a role reversal where warriors fear him over all other creatures.  A great idea.

Best Ongoing Comic Book Series (tie):  All-Star Western, DC Comics.  Artist Moritat and writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti took a long-dead comic book title and bridged 1800s Gotham City and Jonah Hex to make a gritty and fun book that rose to the top of DC Comics’ New 52 titles first released in September 2011.  Who knew a Western comic could be this good?  Bionic Man, Dynamite Comics.  Phil Hester took a Kevin Smith script and expanded on it, taking the most nostalgic bits of the classic Six Million Dollar Man TV series and updating it for 2012.  The highlight of the fun was an appearance by the classic TV series guest star, Bigfoot.

Best Single Comic Book Issue: Thor, God of Thunder #1, Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic.  How do you reintroduce a classic character like Thor in a new way?  Exactly like Aaron does in this first issue of his new series, breaking up his story into three time periods, and highlighting the changing face of Thor over time.  Ribic’s lush images of Thor and a certain strange new world escalated this book to the top of my year’s reads.

Best Comic Book Art: JK Woodward, Star Trek The Next Generation/Doctor Who: Assimilation².  J.K. Woodward’s painted artwork throughout this limited series was stunning.  Probably the best depiction to-date of Star Trek characters in a comic book, Woodward took a fanboy’s dream job of merging two of the biggest sci-fi franchises together for the first story ever attempted and delivered a great looking story, now available in a trade edition.  We just want to see more.

Best Comic Book Cover Art:  Mystery in Space, Ryan Sook, Vertigo Comics.  Ryan Sook had a big year, providing sensational covers for everything from The Shadow to the new Sword of Sorcery to one of our favorite titles, Justice League Dark.  But his cover for Vertigo Comics’ Mystery in Space #1 blended sci-fi and fantasy in the best way, with a steampunk angel painting the universe inside a spaceship with the help of flitting fairies, or is she creating our actual universe?  A great idea and perfect execution made this a standout on the store shelf this year.

Best Comic Book Cover Art Runner-up:  Hawkeye mini-series, David Aja.  Aja’s six unique Hawkeye series covers served not only to entice us to read this mini-series with great use of simple colors, but his own artwork between the covers made us feel like we were rewarded with what was advertised–a very cool and unusually stylish series.

Best Comics Collected Edition:  Flash Gordon, Volumes 1 and 2, Titan Books.  These were the best presented books we reviewed this year.  Reprinted Sunday comics from the 1930s and 1940s in a giant-sized edition that allowed readers to appreciate the story and art of creator Alex Raymond was a feast for the eyes.  The content allowed readers to see just how relevant and interesting the original mash-up of sci-fi and fantasy could be.

Best Retro Reviewed Book: Moonraker, Ian Fleming.  Casino Royale was a great read, Live and Let Die was a bit of a letdown, but Moonraker was as exciting as any book I’ve read in years.  Far different from the film of the same name, this thriller was packed with spy world intrigue.  Compared to all the other retro reviews this year, including Philip K. Dick classics, this one really stood out.

Best Reviewed Book: Dracula Cha Cha Cha, Kim Newman.  Although it was initially released in 1998, a new edition was re-released this year.  The best “post-modern steampunk” mash-up and incredibly detailed world building made this novel a great read, full of artful prose and creative crossovers.  Newman also added another level of storytelling, mixing the real world with the world of fiction, and the result is a densely packed, enjoyable volume.

Best Mash-Up of Fiction and Non-Fiction Worlds:  James Bond accompanies the Queen to the Olympics.  2012 was the Year of Bond with his 50th year in film.  How better to highlight the best of Jolly Old England at this year’s Summer Olympics than to begin with a meeting of the current James Bond, Daniel Craig, and the actual Queen Elizabeth II in her 60th year in Buckingham Palace, followed by a faked aerial dive by the Queen over the stadium in London.  The Queen was a real sport, adding herself to the long list of Bond girls.  And don’t forget the real-world borg Oscar Pistorius’s impressive showings at the Olympics this year.

Best Genre Event: The Firefly 10th Anniversary Panel at Comic-Con.  More than 7,000 fans stood in line for only about 5,000 seats but the all-night wait was worth seeing most of the cast of Firefly reunite with creators Joss Whedon and Tom Minnear to talk about the short-lived series.  Firefly fans are a passionate bunch, and were able to get Whedon to make the big-budget movie Serenity a few years after cancellation.  But get most of the stars to come back ten years later?  Pretty cool feat.  With Whedon and series co-star Adam Baldwin (Jayne) dropping by to greet the people sleeping and standing in line overnight it was an event that attendees will never forget.

Best News Story: George Lucas sells Star Wars rights to Disney.  Some liked it and some hated it, but as months go by we’ll see what it all means.  As entertainment goes, this multi-billion dollar exchange was the talk everywhere this year.

Best Science Story: Curiosity lands on Mars.  NASA’s description of dropping a rover on the surface of the planet Mars sounded like threading a needle blind-folded wearing gloves.  Its early morning coverage of the successful landing was something like the moon landing, and made everyone want to see what more we can do in the space program now that the last Space Shuttle has been mothballed.  What will the future hold for NASA and humans in outer space?

Best Nationwide Genre Participation Event: The Avengers Marathon, AMC Theaters.  We only wished for something like this when we were kids–the ability to watch something like all the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies in one screening.  The lead-up to the midnight premiere of The Avengers allowed fans to watch all the lead-in Avengers films so far:  Iron Man I and II, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger.  A great idea that will hopefully continue with other franchise films.

Best Single Thing for Genre Works: The Avengers movie.  Genre, and specifically superhero, films needed a good kickstart.  The dark and dreary Dark Knight trilogy from Christopher Nolan was monopolizing superhero films, and we needed a giant, vibrant superhero film to usher in a new age of comic book films and Joss Whedon delivered the goods.  It’s not a perfect film (and what is?) but was completely fun and entertaining, delivering something every fan could enjoy.  Challenging the top two positions for all-time box office draw also showed everyone that fans want to see more of this kind of movie.

What were your favorites?  We hope a few of these are on your own list.  We at borg.com will be back with more coverage and reviews in 2013.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

TNT’s first season of Major Crimes was the surprise win of 2012.  It accomplished something very rare, taking a series–The Closer–that might otherwise have wound down after seven seasons, and used a change in cast to take the best ensemble cast on TV in a very different direction.  For fans of the series wanting to delve deeper into the decision to move the story of L.A.’s Major Crimes unit from a team bent on getting criminal admissions to settling cases, check out Major Crimes: The Complete First Season, available on DVD, next Tuesday, June 11, 2013.

The DVD set includes the ten season one episodes plus four behind-the-scenes features, deleted scenes showing some good acting by the cast that didn’t make the final cut, and a blooper reel.  The best of the features, “Major Crimes: Major Challenge,” examines the big hurdle for this spinoff series, and series creator/writer and executive producer James Duff reveals the challenges, rationale for story arcs, and casting decisions that resulted in the first season of Major Crimes.  Duff is open about the struggle the writers had, ultimately pulling the reality of national economic crises into the series as a key story element that grounded the first season episodes.  Here are three clips from Season One:

• The System
• Gang Wars
• Your Division Caught a Homicide

Series star Mary McDonnell and the rest of the cast discuss the characters in the feature “Crossing the Tape: Inside the Major Crimes Squad,” touching on Captain Raydor in particular.  Fans of the series actors cannot get enough of these types of interviews, and hopefully future season DVD sets include in-depth interviews with Lieutenant Provenza (G.W. Bailey), Lieutenant Flynn (Tony Denison), Lieutenant Tao (Michael Paul Chan), Detective Sanchez (Raymond Cruz), and Buzz (Phillip P. Keene).  This includes some insightful anecdotes, such as having show writers refer to Detective Tao instead as Mike to personalize the role and cut-through the possible stereotype of Michael Paul Chan’s character as just another Asian on TV.  Instead of focusing on featurettes tied to the characters from The Closer, the DVD set includes two features focusing on the new key roles: witness turned foster teen Rusty (Graham Patrick Martin) and the too-eager-to-please Detective Sykes (Kearran Giovanni).

The feature interviews with Graham Patrick Martin reveal why this smart actor and his character added a new, personal story element to the Major Crimes story, which helped make season one so successful.  The personal story elements found in The Closer that were part of Kyra Sedgwick’s Brenda Lee Johnson came through not in Major Crimes lead Captain Raydor, but through the ongoing plot thread involving Rusty, amounting to an interesting role swap recognized by producer Duff.

The gag/blooper reel includes a handful of botched lines resulting in some good laughs from the cast.  You could watch G.W. Bailey and the deceptively stodgy Mary McDonnell laugh it up all day.  Deleted scenes include some great ensemble performances that were worthy of airing.  The DVD includes performances by former The Closer regulars Robert Gossett’s Assistant Chief Taylor, Jon Tenney’s FBI agent Fritz Howard, and Jonathan Del Arco as coroner Dr. Morales.

The DVD set is a great way to get caught up on the series if you missed out last year, especially with Season Two’s first episode “Final Cut,” premiering next week.  Season One left us with Rusty as a full member of the Major Crimes family, having decided his real father doesn’t measure up to foster mom Sharon.  Provenza and his team are such a well-oiled machine at this point that we hope Season Two highlights each individual’s talents, much like the episode “Dismissed with Prejudice” focused on Lieutenant Mike Tao’s super-genius mad investigation skills, as well as more buddy episodes with Flynn and Provenza, and some development of the Detective Sanchez/Detective Sykes relationship.

Here are previews of Major Crimes Season Two:

Major Crimes Season Two premieres on TNT Monday, June 10, 2013, at 8 p.m. Central Time, and Major Crimes: The Complete First Season is available for pre-order now at Amazon.com with the release date Tuesday, June 11, 2013.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

By C.J. Bunce

Breathtaking.  Gut-wrenching.  This week’s summer season finale of Major Crimes should underscore for any naysayers TNT’s decision last week to renew the series for a third season.  Major Crimes wrapped its eleventh episode of the second season this week with what may be the best dramatic episode of television this year.  Revealing the murders by a “poster boy” model of several innocent victims, the producers took us on a different path through the Major Crimes typical police turf to a place we didn’t really want to go.  Creepy and disturbing in the way Medium once revealed its violent crimes, the audience was left on the edge of their seats not for any grand climax but simply marveling at how each of the cast members aided in solving the crime.

A good balance of crimes of the week and the key thread of teenage informant Rusty kept this amazing 12th year of this ensemble cast fresh, intriguing, and impressive.  Newcomer Rusty (Graham Patrick Martin) made us wonder if he will ultimately be around for his trial or whether he’ll skip out and run away, especially in light of a batch of harassing letters he is receiving that purport to be from The Closer carryover criminal Stroh.

The big shake-up this season—and the series thrives on shake-ups—was the entry of D.D.A. Emma Rios, played by Nadine Velazquez.  Velazquez is hard to read.  By all appearances she is playing Rios as an incompetent lawyer.  Rios is completely out of her element in nearly each episode as the team ends up in the autopsy room, as she tries to simply communicate with the detectives (poor Det. Sanchez), or operate in a courtroom.  Where last season we had doubts about Detective Amy Sykes (Kearran Giovanni), and before that even Captain Raydor (Mary McDonnell) herself toward the end of The Closer, this season Sykes fits right in and we’ve been on Raydor’s side for a long time now.  Rios?  Rios is painful to watch.  What do the writers have up their sleeves?  Are we supposed to hate her as we used to hate the scheming tactics of Assistant Chief Taylor (Robert Gossett)?  The bottom line is we’ve grown to like Raydor, and Taylor, and Sykes, so we’re taking it on faith that Rios will come through for us at some point.  She certainly keeps the crime squad on its toes.

A trilogy of episodes this season featured Tom Berenger as Captain Raydor’s semi-ex-husband Jack.  Berenger hasn’t been better and here he played a failed husband who also understood–and seemed to want to help–Raydor’s live-in Rusty in a way that Sharon noted was something he failed to do with his own kids.  Ultimately Sharon pushes Jack away, but we hope we see him in future episodes.

One of the highlights of the season was the completely off-the-wall episode “There’s No Place Like Home,” with a variety of guest stars from classic TV including Tim Conway (McHale’s Navy, The Carol Burnett Show), Marion Ross (Happy Days), Ron Glass (Firefly, Barney Miller), Paul Dooley (Alf, Sixteen Candles, Grace Under Fire), and Doris Roberts (Everybody Loves Raymond, Remington Steele, Barney Miller).  The gritty, sometimes gory nature of the L.A. crimes in the series beg for more comedic episodes like this one.  We’re still holding out for the next episode featuring the comedic duo of Provenza (G.W. Bailey) and Flynn (Tony Denison).  We almost saw this as they were accused of bumbling a witness in the episode “I, Witness,” a fun episode that left the guys playing clean-up and catch-up.

Rusty’s fear and angst grew last week with the episode “Backfire,” as the Major Crimes squad pursued the murderer of a young woman who was an FBI informant. The FBI botched its protection of their witness, and as Rusty followed along at his normal after-school haunt he had more reason to believe neither he, nor those around him, are safe as he waits to testify against Stroh.

Where will Rusty end up now that his friend Kris (Madison McLaughlin, Supernatural) has revealed his secret about the letters?

We’ve got a long wait to find out.  Major Crimes returns November 25, 2013, with the mid-season restart episode “Pick Your Poison.”

Happy New Year!!!

So what do we do now?  How about a look at the start dates for our favorite TV shows?  Many are already in progress, like Almost Human, Arrow, Dracula, Grimm, Major Crimes, The Michael J. Fox Show, New Girl, and Sleepy Hollow.  Some don’t have new season premiere dates yet, like Bates Motel, Continuum, Doctor Who, Heroes of Cosplay, Mr. Selfridge, and Warehouse 13.

The most anticipated series is very likely the three-episode third season of Sherlock starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, finally coming back to PBS this month.

The biggest question is whether Haven will get renewed for a fifth season on Syfy.  The end of Season 4 was really getting better and Syfy just can’t leave us with that cliffhanger finale.

Update yours DVRs!  Here’s what we’re going to be watching in 2014 at borg.com:

Almost Human –  Season 1 continues January 6 on Fox

Arrow – Season 2 continues January 15 on CW

Bates Motel – Season 2 begins in March to A&E

Continuum – renewed for Season 3 but no date yet released by Syfy

Dallas – Season 3 begins February 24 to TNT

Doctor Who – Season 8 begins with new Doctor in second half of 2014 to BBC America

Dracula – Season 1 continues January 3 on NBC

Grimm – Season 3 continues January 3 on NBC

Haven – not yet renewed for a Season 5 by Syfy!

Heroes of Cosplay – renewed for Season 2 but no release date yet by Syfy

Lost Girl – Season 4 begins January 13 on Syfy

Major Crimes – Season 2 continues January 6 on TNT

The Michael J. Fox Show – Season 1 continues January 2 on NBC

Mr. Selfridge – Season 2 begins in January on PBS

Naked Vegas – no announcements for a Season 2 yet from Syfy

New Girl – Season 3 continues January 14 on Fox

Orphan Black – Season 2 begins April 19 on BBC America

Psych – Season 8 begins January 15 on USA

Sherlock – Season 3 begins January 19 on PBS

Sleepy Hollow – Season 1 continues January 13 on Fox

Vikings – Season 2 begins February 27 on History

Warehouse 13 – renewed for final, Season 6, but no release date yet from Syfy

Keep coming back for more reviews here throughout the year on all these shows.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

It always pays to be wary of grandiose statements and definitive pronouncements.  When I first watched Forrest Gump in the theater, one-third of the way through the movie it occurred to me I might be watching the greatest production of all time, and walking out of the theater I carried that thought with me.  But time changes things.  Now I see it as a fun film, but it’s not at the top of any of my “best of” lists.  Professor Schofield advised that you can’t really objectively analyze something, an art movement, a political figure, a fad–anything worth analyzing–unless several years had transpired and you could have the value of time and distance, contemplation and reflection, to look back with.

So it is with a bit of reservation that I am asserting that the series finale to How I Met Your Mother that aired Monday night should top any list of great finales.  The writers, producers, and actors simply got it just right.  Exactly right.  Airing the first episode of season one just before the finale aired really showcased how this ending was exactly what viewers deserved after nine seasons of sticking with the show.  Consider all the series finales that were promoted over the years, and despite the biggest of viewing audiences, you might find that most last hoorahs miss the mark, try too hard, or just do something that didn’t reflect the best of the series.

The granddaddy of all finales was the 1983 M*A*S*H extended episode “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen.”  Although some elements were right, like a bounty of typical and appropriate sad goodbyes, Captain Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce, (one of the best characters of all time) after more than a decade of using laughter to beat the odds and help his unit survive the Korean War, cracks at the very end.  NBC’s comedy spy series Chuck made a similar mistake, wiping the memory of Chuck’s hard-earned love interest Sarah after we cheered him on all those years, requiring the story to basically start over from scratch in some far off place after the series wrapped.  Another less than satisfying but at least appropriate-to-the-series finale was the end of the monumental 20th year of the original Law & Order.  We basically got to see a fairly typical episode of the series, which certainly fit the seriousness of the show’s drama.  But we also got a goodbye scene and were left on a positive note with “Lieut’s” good news about her hard-fought illness.

Before that, you might have seen the last episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show on Nick at Nite or other classic rerun network if you weren’t old enough to catch it in its initial run.  The TV network that was the subject of the series fires everyone including Mary at the end, except Ted Knight’s character Ted Baxter.  The annoying guy that we loved for being annoying gets to stay.  A funny series with a funny end, as well as the requisite bittersweet goodbye scene.  A similarly funny sitcom, Psych, wrapped its eighth and final season last month, tying up all its remaining loose ends.  Psych took a different path, taking its angst-inducing character, Detective-then-Chief Lassiter, and with a redemption of sorts, switched up his role in the last two seasons to become a guy viewers could cheer on.

Another comedy, Newhart, gave us a completely bizarre ending for an otherwise enjoyable comedy series.  Yet it was saved literally in the last two minutes by a brilliantly concocted stunt–bring back Bob’s wife from his original series, The Bob Newhart Show, the lovely Suzanne Pleshette, revealing the whole series was just a dream.  It’s a gimmick that didn’t work for a series like the original Dallas (recall Bobby Ewing died then came back to life with a “poof”), but for a comedy wrap-up, it couldn’t have been better timed.

Sci-fi series haven’t fared much better, with many smaller series not getting a chance at a finale, cut short by network pencil pushers.  The original Star Trek is an example.  But the other Star Trek series finales aren’t in the league of the best of their series runs.  The best is probably from Star Trek: The Next Generation because of some nice flashbacks and recreations of past episodes.  Yet as with M*A*S*H we had to watch our lead captain go through his own mental breakdowns, something that didn’t really track with the character’s past on the series.  The other Trek finales seemed to try too hard to do something grand.

Scott Bakula’s Quantum Leap had a fine ending for purposes of keeping folks watching the series in syndication, but for those that longed for Sam Beckett to finally find his way home, as promised in each week’s introduction, it was a no-go.

The finale for the reboot of Battlestar Galactica was set up to be the climax of a mystery that built season after season, but the big reveal, returning to the fabled planet Earth, was more of a letdown after so many exciting episodes.

In the action genre, Magnum, P.I. was one of those odd cases where the series had two finales.  The first, the last episode of season seven, was filmed before the series was renewed, and included the death of Thomas, walking off into the clouds to a John Denver song.  Magnum became his own last case.  The show was so popular the network renewed the series for one last year.  Although season eight suffered a bit from lack of fresh story ideas, the actual finale was almost as good as the season seven finale, reuniting Thomas with his wife and daughter, and seeing Magnum back in uniform to move onto some other adventures off-camera.

The series that followed Magnum, P.I. each night, Simon & Simon went off the air in 1988 without showing its finale.  Fans didn’t get to see it until decades later with the DVD release.  But seven years later a reunion movie gave fans a refreshing update to Rick and A.J. and their lives, amounting to a finale TV movie worthy of the series.

Although The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Angel each had completely unmemorable episodes (seriously, who can describe either of these genre series finales?), we’ve discussed other successful series finales here at borg.com, including the brilliant wrap-ups with the completely unpredictable Leverage, the zany House, M.D., the spot-on In Plain Sight, the satisfying Burn Notice, and the short-lived but superb Awake.  We even got a series finale for The Closer, that really was more a midpoint for the cast who went on to build the successful drama Major Crimes.

And back to the present, fans of the unlikely but mega-popular series Breaking Bad seemed to be unanimous in the success of the series finale and wrap-up of Bryan Cranston’s terminally ill Walter White.  10.3 million cable TV viewers watched that series finale.  In comparison, How I Met Your Mother was viewed by 12.9 million viewers–a great feat for a non-cable show, no doubt bolstered by fans brought in by its years of opportunity to catch the show in reruns.

Why was the How I Met Your Mother series finale so good?  The series itself was a set up for the final episode from the first episode.  Another series that had a similar search for the end at its core was Lost, but its finale left most viewers feeling like they just witnessed a train wreck.  The comedy-laced drama Monk also had at its core a mystery to unravel–who killed Monk’s wife Trudy?  Monk’s series finale delivered the goods in a satisfying way, even leaving the needy lead character in the caring hands of his wife’s previously unknown daughter, while bringing back a co-star from past seasons (Bittie Schram’s Sharona) to forge a new romance with goofy and lovable cop Randy and go off on their own off-screen adventure.

The ending for How I Met Your Mother was likely to be somewhat predictable, yet the writers did everything they could, mostly unexpected, to each character, spanning decades of ups and downs in only 40 minutes.  Smartly, the real Mother of the title had been previewed dozens of times before, so we didn’t get a surprise visit at the end from some unexpected celebrity.  And the writers, in a bit of smoke and mirrors magic, masterfully swung the pendulum back to its extreme with the recent wedding of Barney and Robin.  There’s just no way the ending that happened could happen.

Those same forty minutes were infused with equal parts drama and laughs–no different than any past season of the series.  Cobie Smulders’ Robin gets the career success she always wanted.  Neil Patrick Harris’s Barney meets his one, albeit unexpected, true love.  Jason Segel’s Marshall gets to leave his dreaded job to become a judge.  Alyson Hannigan’s Lily builds a huge family.  And Josh Radnor’s Ted seems to get two happy endings.  Happily ever after?  Sure, but not without a lot of bumps along the way.  A failed (or very successful short) marriage, a death, two successful marriages.  But the crowning achievement may be that thing that everyone wants whether they know it or not–the fact that the show goes on after the curtain falls.  We get to watch the series over again in syndication in a new light, and it’s not likely to lose its luster.

Is How I Met Your Mother the best of the series finales?  Ask me again in a few years.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

The tenth season of the Major Crimes team that began with seven years of The Closer, led by Kyra Sedgwick’s Brenda Lee Johnson, and continued with two seasons of Major Crimes under Mary McDonnell’s Captain Sharon Raydor, begins tonight with Major Crimes Season Three.  If you haven’t been watching these two series you don’t really have time for a TV series binge before tonight’s season opener (although TNT will air a Season Two marathon beginning Monday morning at 1 p.m. Central/12 a.m. Eastern), but you can set your DVR and put it on your must-watch list and get caught up later this season.

Each member of Los Angeles’s Major Crimes squad is back: G.W. Bailey’s old school detective Lt. Louis Provenza, his able partner in fighting crime Tony Denison’s Lt. Andy Flynn, Michael Paul Chan’s tech savvy Lt. Mike Tao, Raymond Cruz’s Detective Julio Sanchez, who knows the neighborhoods of L.A. better than anyone, Phillip P. Keene’s evidence gatherer Buzz Watson, Kearran Giovanni’s Detective Amy Sykes, the newest member of the squad, as well as Graham Patrick Martin’s informant trying to be a regular kid Rusty Beck, Jonathan Del Arco’s Dr. Morales from the morgue lab, and Robert Gossett’s Assistant Chief Taylor, who helps keep them all on the right track.  And don’t forget G.W. Bailey tied for Best Actor in our own Best of 2013 end of year wrap-up last year.

It’s arguably the best ensemble cast on television.

Here’s some quick promos from TNT for Season 3:

Check out “Flight Risk,” episode 1 of Major Crimes Season 3 tonight on TNT at 8 p.m. Central, 9 p.m. Eastern.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

Review by C.J. Bunce

If you’re keeping up with the third season of Major Crimes on TNT, you’ll have seen last night’s episode, “Frozen Assets.”  Set up with a preposterous plot–a multi-millionaire who has her head frozen and a poisoning that is foiled by returning detective wannabe Dick Tracy (Andrew Daly) from a 2009 episode of The Closer–Major Crimes yet again proves the show knows no bounds as to what the ensemble cast can get sucked into (and suck viewers into).  Like Season Two’s episode with a comedy twist “There’s No Place Like Home,” which featured Marion Ross, Tim Conway, Ron Glass, Paul Dooley, and Doris Roberts in a plot to murder their landlord, “Frozen Assets” shows the lighter side of a series that usually reflects the violent world of L.A. crime.  If you missed Season Two, the DVD release from Warner Bros. is here, and it’s full of plenty of extras for Major Crimes fans.

Creator and executive producer James Duff delves deep into the story development for Season Two in the special feature “Major Crimes: Personal Conviction,” revealing his vision of a season split between stories about “identity” as a theme–who the characters are and who the culprits of the crimes are and how they all got to where they are–and “character,” growth of the main cast members and learning more about these characters we thought we already knew from the prior eight years on television.  Each cast member discusses their view of the characters they play (except the strangely absent Raymond Cruz).  The crew seems to agree that Graham Patrick Martin’s Rusty Beck became the lynchpin and glue holding together the series for the second season, especially his relationship with series lead Mary McDonnell as Captain Sharon Raydor.

The series begins with the opener “Final Cut,” directed by Roxann Dawson, who sci-fi fans will know as Lt. B’Elanna Torres from Star Trek Voyager, and who also played Detective Ortega in a 2011 episode of The Closer.  This episode introduced D.D.A. Emma Rios, played by Nadine Velazquez, the prosecutor who constantly clashes with the Major Crimes squad (interspersed with a season full of hilarious flirtations by Detective Sanchez).  Duff acknowledges why viewers proclaim how much they hate the character, and also why she fits perfectly into the dynamic of the show.

Highlights of the season include a trio of episodes featuring Raydor’s ex-husband, played by Tom Berenger, G.W. Bailey’s Lt. Provenza and his ongoing wrestling with age and being the last of his class to still be working as a detective on the force, and the series finale focusing on the pursuit of a serial killer after Rusty and Raydor.

Six episodes include deleted scenes that further reveal details of the members of the squad that didn’t make it to the final episode cuts.  The highlight of the deleted scenes can be found with “Return to Sender – Part 2,” featuring Dr. Morales (Jonathan Del Arco) as he encounters Provenza and Rusty after testifying in the Stroh trial.  Another feature, “Behind the Scenes: A Look Forward,” discusses new themes coming ahead in Season Three, and some concepts the creators and cast want to see in future episodes.

Check out our wrap-up of Season Two on borg.com here.

Another great season for Major Crimes, the Season Two DVD provides not only four discs full of the 19 episodes from the series, but some extra content fans of the series will want to check out.   Major Crimes Season Two on DVD is available here at Amazon.com.

If you aren’t watching this season of Major Crimes, last night you likely missed the best episode of television this year, which made us do a double take as to whether this was a midseason finale special cliffhanger ratings booster.  It wasn’t.  Likewise, it was the best TV pilot we’ve seen in ages (more on that later).  And add to that one of the most satisfying conclusions that The Closer and Major Crimes writers James Duff and Mike Bercham have concocted yet.

Directed by The Closer, Major Crimes, Dallas, and NYPD Blue director Michael M. Robin, the episode “Two Options” took an almost Dragnet approach to a police procedural and crammed more drama into an hour of TV than we thought possible.  And the climax might have caused someone to claim it as the best stand-and-cheer moment since Eowyn killed the Witch-King at the end of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Reviewers write about new seasons and finale episodes all the time, but it takes a great hour of regular programming to cause you to stop in your tracks and tell everyone about it, especially in the week full of press briefings leading up to Comic-Con.

For regulars of the series who haven’t watched the episode yet, we’ll just note that everyone gets his and her moment–Sharon, Louie, Andy, Mike, Julio, Buzz, Amy, Taylor, Rusty, Dr. Joe, Cooper, and even Fritz.  Although if we worked in the actual district attorneys’ office in Los Angeles we’d probably not be too happy with the portrayals of last years’ Deputy D.A. Rios or last night’s D.D.A. Gloria Lim.

That brings us to our prediction.  Allow us to summon the ghost of Carnac the Magnificent.  (Drum roll, please).

We watch enough of Major Crimes to think we know when something is going on that is not entirely… overt.  After ten years of this team at the LAPD it’s sort of like the back-of-your-hand kind of familiarity.  Sort of like being able to solve cases via medicine we learned from Dr. House to predict outcomes successfully before House’s team does by the last few seasons of watching House, M.D.  Sort of like using years of watching Law & Order to pass the criminal section of the bar exam after law school.

Angel Oquendo as an ice cream man or a new Major Crimes deputy?

So here’s the prediction–A new TNT Network drama called S.O.B.–Strategic Operations Bureau or maybe James Duff will follow the Law & Order spinoffs and call this new series Major Crimes-S.O.B. 

It’s just too good to pass up an opportunity to have Jon Tenney’s FBI Agent Fritz Howard team up with the tough-but-instantly-likeable acting deputy director Ann McGinnis, played by Laurie Holden.   Especially since Tenney hit it off so well opposite Rebecca Romijn in the great and fun but short-lived King & Maxwell.  And Holden has her own following, coming off her role as Andrea in The Walking Dead, Agent Murray in The Shield, and Mulder informant Marita Covarrubias in ten episodes of The X-Files.   A spinoff is a sure-fire win.  TNT, “boom” is right.

And how do you pass up a title like S.O.B.?

Here’s a quick intro for last night’s episode:

It’s episodes like “Two Options” that should make the executives at TNT happy they signed the Major Crimes crew for an eleventh season together last week.  Bravo, TNT.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

When we last left the Los Angeles Major Crimes division at the mid-season break in August, the team was busy closing cases in their own signature style of action-filled drama.  In its third season, week after week Major Crimes continued delivering the unexpected, a police procedural whose crew, now well into their tenth year working together, melds into a seamless ensemble.  Major Crimes returns to TNT tomorrow night with many questions for fans.  The biggest?  Will the producers and network spin off Jon Tenney’s FBI agent Fritz Howard and Laurie Holden’s acting deputy director Ann McGinnis into their own Strategic Operations Bureau (S.O.B.) series?

The core of the series this season revolves around Mary McDonnell’s Captain Sharon Raydor and her live-in teen Rusty (Graham Patrick Martin).  Raydor’s son opposed Sharon’s attempts to adopt Rusty.  Rusty revealed to his friends in the division that he is gay.  Rusty’s mom continued her confrontation with addiction via the jail cell and Rusty must deal with her recurring attempts to manipulate him.  And Fritz began to try to find a balance with his stressful new duties in light of his recent heart attack.

Tomorrow night at 7 p.m. Central we’ll find out what’s next, with the new episode “Down the Drain.”  After the break, watch some promotional previews for the coming shows:

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

We love good TV.  Nothing is better than looking forward each week to a show you can trust to have great writing and great acting.  We’ve made our way through several series again this year, trying out pilots for new shows and adding them into the DVR queue–if they made the cut.  Many didn’t.  We also re-try series that didn’t prompt us to watch in prior years.  Most lose out because they rely on shock over substance and storytelling.  Where we ended up was a list of what we love, and what we have recommended all year.  These series are our Best of the Best for 2014.

Our biggest disappointments?  The cancellations of the brilliant, futuristic Almost Human and the reboot of the TV classic Dallas–these shows were written by the best script writers around and will be sorely missed.  We hope you’ll give some of the following shows a try next year, or catch them on streaming media, if you’re not watching already.

Forever — Best TV Series, Best TV Fantasy Fix, Best Actor (Ioan Gruffudd), Best Actress (Alana de la Garza), Best Supporting Actor (Judd Hirsch), Best Villain (Burn Gorman).  Contenders for the year’s best series were easy to spot:  ABC’s Forever or NBC’s Gotham.  In years past at borg.com we have favored cable programming, yet this year the networks surged ahead with these two superb series.  Forever nudged out Gotham for top prize because of its straightforward storytelling, small talented cast, superb dialogue, and fun situations.  Ioan Gruffudd (Horatio Hornblower, Ringer, Fantastic Four) and Alana de la Garza (Law and Order) were perfect foils for each other in the lead roles, and each created compelling characters.  Judd Hirsch played son to younger Gruffudd’s unsinkable doctor and gave us the best father and son team on TV in years.  Burn Gorman’s chilling performances toward the end of this season were a great addition, setting us up for more fun next year.

Gotham — Best TV Series Runner-up, Best Supporting Actress (Jada Pinkett Smith as Fish Mooney), Best Supporting Actor Runner-up (Donal Logue as Harvey Bullock).  NBC’s Gotham did many things we normally wouldn’t like, including taking source material and standing it on end and adding new characters to a classic story’s established cast.  Yet it all worked somehow with this intriguing re-imagining of Bruce Wayne’s backstory.  Catwoman and Batman were friends as kids?  The Penguin was a mole and stooge for key crime families?  Commissioner Gordon took Bruce Wayne under his wing as a child?  All of this worked, yet the best view into Gotham life was provided by Gordon’s partner, played by Donal Logue (Life, Vikings), and Jada Pinkett Smith’s sultry and ruthless gangster Fish Mooney.

Dallas — Best Retro Fix, Best Writing, Best Supporting Actress Runner-up (Judith Light).  Only a popular series like Dallas could have re-emerged decades later with the same gusto as the original.  The best writing on TV for the past three years came from this series, which could wind us in and out of several major events in each weekly episode, keeping what was a long-dead series fresh and new.  Both older cast members from the original and the new cast led by J.R.’s son John Ross, played by Josh Henderson (an up and coming actor to watch), never failed to surprise us.  An Emmy contender can be found in Judith Light who played the vile mother of trucking magnate Harris Ryland (The X-Files’ Mitch Pileggi), a cutthroat manipulator of anyone getting in her way.  So many plot threads are left, for now, with the cancellation of this incredible show.

Arrow – Best TV Superhero Fix, Best Actress Runner-up (Emily Bett Rickards as Felicity Smoak), Best New Character (Ray Palmer, played by Brandon Routh).  CW’s Arrow forged ahead this year with the addition of sister show The Flash, and its crossover episodes were a series highlight.  The death of a key character set up Katie Cassidy’s Laurel Lance to finally pursue her destiny as Black Canary.  The writers listened to fans, with more episode time on Emily Bett Rickards’ plucky Felicity Smoak than in prior years, giving us a look at her home life, her dark hacker past, and sending her over to S.T.A.R. Labs for even more screentime.  With Brandon Routh’s smartly played Ray Palmer aka The Atom, we can’t wait to see what is in store for 2015.

Grimm — Best Horror Fix, Best Second Wind.  With the addition of new character Trubel (Jacqueline Toboni), Grimm went from a show that seemed to be slowing down last year, to one catching a second wind this season.  Stealing Adalind’s baby, the introduction of Captain Renard’s mom, Nick losing his powers, and Monroe and Rosalee struggling with Wesen culture all kept the series alive and jumping.

Doctor Who — Best TV Borg (the Half-Face Clockwork Man, from “Deep Breath”), Best Makeup, Best Actor Runner-up (Peter Capaldi), Best Guest Star (Nick Frost as Santa Claus).  We were already fans of Peter Capaldi, yet we didn’t know what to expect from his new Doctor on BBC America’s Doctor Who.  Capaldi accomplished what he needed to, replacing a beloved actor and making the part his own.   The year’s best Doctor Who episode aired on Christmas Day, with Nick Frost as a surprisingly good Saint Nick.  No other franchise, TV or movies, can compare to the work of the series’ make-up artists.  Stuck in a world of bipedal actors, the make-up shop at Doctor Who always creates characters that are unique and not mere knock-offs of other franchises’ monsters.  The show offered up our favorite TV borg of the year in the pilot episode’s incredibly rendered Clockwork Man.

Major Crimes — Best TV Episode (Season 3/Episode 7, “Two Options”).  An episode like no other from the entire run of The Closer and Major Crimes, the search for the bad guys begins with a helicopter pursuit over Los Angeles and ends with FBI Agent Fritz Howard coming into his own.  Tons of breathless moments showing the potential of the show and begging for a spinoff starring Jon Tenney, it was simply the best hour of TV this year.

White Collar — Best Series Finale.  Series enders don’t often satisfy. Usually they are canned, gimmicky wind-ups that leave you feeling like you wasted years watching the series. Not so with the finale to the USA Network’s White Collar.  Neil Caffery (Matt Bomer) left all his friends living large and got almost everything he hoped for.  All the loose ends were tied up and fans were left completely happy. A well done series all around.

Orphan Black — Best British TV Series. Although the second season of the clone series didn’t quite match its first season, there was plenty to love on season two of BBC America’s Orphan Black, including the entire character development of Helena over the season and Donny accidentally killing Dr. Leakey as high points of the show.

Star Wars Rebels — Best Animated Series. The sneak-peek YouTube videos did not leave us thinking we should watch this series, but luckily the series was far better than expected, with high stakes and interesting new characters.  Although we’re still not sure about the rebels, the way Disney XD is giving us great scenes with the dark Empire, complete with music and sound effects, has so far made us enjoy its episodes over the Star Wars Clone Wars series.

Secrets of the Dead “Resurrecting King Richard III” — Best Cosplay Fix.  Best Real Science.  The discovery of Richard III’s body under a parking lot in England was amazing enough.  But when scientists rebuilt what he actually looked, like they never thought they’d encounter a local cosplayer/medieval re-enactor with the same spinal condition who could help them solve other mysteries about this famous King of Shakespearean lore.  No use of cosplay was better–or cooler–this year.

Mythbusters — Best Reality TV Fix, Best Nerd Moment (The Star Wars Special).  Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman topped 15 years of shows this year with their Discovery Channel Star Wars special, testing myths shown in the original trilogy.  Mixing science with science fiction was like peanut butter and chocolate.  If only all reality TV was like this series.

The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon — Best Music Video.  Jimmy Fallon and band The Roots playing on toy instruments with pop singer Meghan Trainor in Fallon’s SNL days selfie style was great fun.  And it looks like the toy band bit going to be a recurring item for the show.  Fallon really made late night TV relevant again this year, for the first time in decades.

My Bionic Pet — Best Borg Tech — Animal Bionics.  The PBS documentary we discussed here was the best news on borg science this year–helping animals with bionics.  Check out this show for some great stories.

Come back tomorrow as we reveal the best of the comic book world and other books for 2015, as well as a few other Best of the Best entries.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

If you like modern noir or pulp throwback stories, as we did with last year’s The X-Files: Year Zero comic book series, ABC’s new Marvel Universe series Agent Carter is pretty much going to be a sure win.

Actors take note:  When you take on a supporting character role in your next film or TV series and do better-than-expected job at it, make sure you love the part as you may just end up living with the role for a while.  Along with a first film and franchise that also was taking off to parts unknown thanks to it success, Hayley Atwell’s tough 1940s British Secret Intelligence agent Peggy Carter pulled off that rare chance at a second life.  Tomorrow night she gets her own spotlight as her own weekly series begins.  Aside from the brief return of Dominic Cooper’s Howard Stark (father to Tony aka Iron Man), Atwell’s Carter will be forging ahead on her own.

Some of TV’s best characters were the results of a spin-off from one of those supporting characters who, because of great acting and great writing, popped with viewers beyond any expectation of the show’s creators.  Going back to the 1970s whether unintended surprises or gambled backdoor spin-offs, we wouldn’t have seen more Jeffersons or Maude, or J.J. Evans and his family from Good Times, but for their standout performances spun out of All in the Family.  We wouldn’t know Buddy Epsen’s seven years of sleuthing as Barnaby Jones without his guest role on Cannon, a decade of the kids in Facts of Life if not for Diff’rent Strokes, or spend primetime with the cops and firefighters on Adam-12 or Emergency! if not for some cool guest spots on Dragnet.

What would our TV night fun have been like without years of Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy resulting from guest star bits on Happy Days, or, let’s not forget, our fave Lindsay Wagner’s Bionic Woman took on her own series from the episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man?  Modern genre fans’ reactions helped propel John Barrowman’s Captain Jack Harkness from Doctor Who into multiple Torchwood series.  Other coming spin-offs are Breaking Bad’s Better Call Saul and Walking Dead’s in-the-works spin-off (with the working title Cobalt), and we’re still hoping for a Special Operations Bureau spin-off from The Closer’s own spinoff, Major Crimes.

Atwell has already reprised Agent Carter in the short film Agent Carter, which can be found with the Iron Man 3 Blu-ray extras, as well as the second season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and she’ll be back in both Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the series:

Our only doubt for the TV series is the likely letdown of the show’s MacGuffin, usually the secret nature of the story’s enigmatic villain, which tends to be the weakest part of every entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  But those kinds of more minor failings haven’t yet torpedoed an otherwise exciting blockbuster film from Marvel Studios (Iron Man 2 aside).

Agent Carter appears tomorrow night, Tuesday, January 6, 2015, on ABC at 7 p.m. Central, with the first two hours back-to-back, so set your DVRs accordingly.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

It’s pretty rare–we’ve been able to watch the goings on at the LAPD of Lt. Provenza (G.W. Bailey), Lt. Flynn (Tony Denison), Lt. Tao (Michael Paul Chan), Assistant Chief Taylor (Robert Gossett), Detective Sanchez (Raymond Cruz), and Buzz (Phillip P. Keene) for eleven years now.  Bridging their exploits in The Closer and three seasons to Major Crimes, it’s just remarkable for any series to successfully marry a group of writers and a solid ensemble cast to continue to provide us with more to look forward to each year for eleven seasons.  Tonight, they’re all back, with Captain Raydor (Mary McDonnell), Dr. Morales (Jonathan Del Arco), Detective Sykes (Kearran Giovanni), and Rusty Beck (Graham Patrick Martin) rounding out the cast, as the fourth season of Major Crimes begins on TNT.

The bad news is that we hear the spin-off series featuring the S.O.B. (Strategic Operations Bureau) is officially off the table, with what would have been star Laurie Holden off on another series.  But look for Jon Tenney’s Fritz Howard to be back at least once this year, and the return of Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Jeri Ryan, and maybe even Tom Berenger.

The network has hinted that we can expect less of the Phillip Stroh threat after last year’s finale, and more of the Flynn and Raydor relationship, but better yet, a focus on Raymond Cruz’s Detective Sanchez as he finally must deal with his anger issues.

Here’s some quick previews of the season premiere:

Catch up on last season’s episodes of Major Crimes at the TNT Network website here.

Don’t miss Major Crimes tonight at 8 p.m. Central on TNT.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com