This week's special Scorpion Christmas was extra special because it demanded of our nerdy heroes to use their math and physics skills to conjure a Christmas miracle. If you were expecting a sedate and laid back episode, you will be disappointed, but if you were looking for something more intense with perhaps inappropriate bursts of silly humor, then this was the entry for you.
With a provocative title like "Revenge," you better believe that this week's Scorpion was going to get real, but do we watch Scorpion because it's real? That's the question. Although the titular nerd herd cashes checks from Homeland Security, there's very rarely an ominous cloud of death coming any minute for the main characters. But on the occasion that the danger gets very real, it feels like a spasm in the show, as if the writers were asking their program to accept something it didn't want to. "Revenge" was an exception though, the emotional ringer that the episode puts Walter and the crew through felt like an adequate escalation in the stakes as a group of murderous thieves put a key team member in the hospital.
As we approached the midseason finale of The Walking Dead, one question hung over the proceedings: What could happen in the episode to make Norman Reedus cry? The actor, better known to millions of fans as Daryl Dixon, the laconic, sardonic and resourceful member of our core group of survivors, was said to be quite moved by the contents of tonight's episode "Coda," but what could that mean? Who was dying, and in what context would they die? Would the showdown between Team Rick and the increasingly cagey crew of Grady Memorial Hospital be caked in blood, or was there another danger waiting for everyone in Atlanta, something quite unanticipated?
After a couple of weak entries, Scorpion seemed to get its groove back for an adventure that capitalized on the best of what happens the nerd herd are fish out of water, sending them on a perilous mission to Bosnia complete with rebels, gunfire, landmines, and 24-esque torture sequences. It's pretty far from the literal and figurative sunny California adventures, and although I wouldn't want to see Walter and the gang in fatigues and flying into war zones every week, it was nice to finally get the "worldwide" in the worldwide threats that Walter talks about in the opening voiceover. Along the way, we also get some behind the scenes insight into the characters, or at least as much insight as a weekly procedural allows.
This week's episode of The Walking Dead should stand out as it features two of the show's best characters, a pair who internalize a lot and are the outsiders in a group of outsiders. As we've caught up with Beth and Abraham's group over the last couple of weeks, one piece has remained unclear: the journey of Daryl and Carol. We know that Carol ended up injured in Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, and we know that Daryl ended up back at Gabriel's church with... someone. But how did they end up separated, and where do we go from here?
Scorpion always makes it pretty clear that it's not easy being a genius, as you're forced to the protect a world that fears and hates you. Wait, that's the mutants in X-Men. Anyway, the geniuses in the world of Scorpion struggle to find their place in the world, and this week we meet a kindred spirit in the form of Peyton Temple, a musician who's used his ample intelligence to create a program that can create the perfect hit pop song. The case of the week came dangerously close to playing second fiddle though, as the show dealt with the emotional damage of two of its resident geniuses. Apparently, Scorpion now concedes that sometimes smart people can do dumb things for reasons that strain logic.
Leaving Beth and the rape cop hospital behind for the time being, this week's episode of The Walking Dead catches us up on the single-minded mission of Sgt. Abraham Ford, a man on a mission to save the world. Abraham's persistent drive to save the world as we used to know it seems to cause conflict with everyone he comes in contact with, and why wouldn't it? In his charge is the man with the know-how to slay every single last zombie and make the Earth a planet of the living once more. That drive is perhaps the reason why Abraham can't see that there are some holes in Eugene Porter's story, and why even to the ears of a non-scientist, Eugene seems not entirely knowledgeable for a guy employed by the Human Genome Project. The question as to Eugene's veracity comes to a head this week in "Self Help."
