Fringe
This is the best new show of the season, bar none. The show is from J. J. Abrams (the guy who created Lost) and has a distinct “Lost” feel to it (more on that later). The use of John Noble as Dr. Walter Bishop was a great casting decision. Noble plays the sometimes crazy, but always intelligent Dr. Bishop better than anyone else could. He has that unique range in his acting where he can be completely serious or an absolute nut job. Good casting.

What is less pleasing about the show is the interplay between Dr. Bishop and his son Peter Bishop, played by Joshua Jackson. Peter Bishop is supposed to be this low-level playboy turned into entrepreneur turned into businessman or something. His character is supposed to have an air of arrogance about him and Jackson does a good job of bringing that out in his acting. But the writers have Peter constantly annoyed and aggravated at his father and it gets very old, very quick. In fact, I think it got old around the second or third episode.

Anna Torv is Agent Olivia Dunham, a member of the FBI who is charged with investigating events that may be part of “The Pattern.” Sound cryptic yet? Thank you, Mr. Abrams, for bringing some of your Lost thoughts over to Fringe! But that’s part of the problem with this show. And this is definitely an unfair statement, but knowing that J. J. Abrams is behind this show is scary because Abrams has a history of leaving shows and projects half finished. Case in point – Lost. As soon as he left Lost, it began to go downhill. I hope he sticks with Fringe because if he leaves, then this complex show might be doomed.

For now, though, I recommend checking out Fringe or at least DVR’ing it for future viewing. Oh, and BIG kudos go out to the FOX team for bringing us this show with limited commercial interruptions. As the show cuts to commercial, the viewers are told “Fringe will return in __ seconds.” The blank space is either 60 or 90. Imagine that – a great television show with limited commercial interruptions!

House
If Fringe is the best new show on television, the House has to be the best returning show on television. Since I started watching this show last year I’ve been hooked. It’s awesome! So far this season Dr. House, played by Hugh Laurie, has had to face his step father’s death and almost losing his best friend Dr. Wilson. The writers for this show are doing a great job of pushing along the basic storyline of Dr. House being a complete asshole to his co-workers and his patients, yet maintaining a certain air of super intelligence and coolness while doing so.

The latest episode saw “Thirteen” getting fired and rehired by House (and some explicit, yet enjoyable, scenes of Thirteen hooking up with another lady). The games that House plays with his employees and co-workers has been given a nice kick in the ass this season by the introduction of Lucas Douglas (played by Michael Weston) – a private investigator hired by House to spy on everyone.

Douglas does a good job of matching wits with House in the early episodes of this season. He and House become friends and Douglas becomes the doctor’s “on-call” personal investigator. The interaction between the two is fun to watch because it is written very much like a big brother/little brother relationship.

If you haven’t yet gotten hooked on House, then now would be a good time to start. This show is great!

Even more television reviews coming soon!

This guy tried to bribe my former boss (who was also a dolt). He wrote down a number on a napkin, passed it to my boss, and after my boss told him to shove his napkin up his ass Weldon ordered his henchmen to make life a living hell for my former company. I used to work in the rental business and we couldn’t get Certificates of Occupancy without threatening a lawsuit. Our college houses were put at the top of some indefensible “list” created by Weldon and his former Chief of Police. Our tenants received citation after citation. We would have tenants receive parking violation citations while the house NEXT DOOR would not receive them.

Terry Weldon is the epitome of a scumbag and I’m glad that the FBI stung his ass. I only hope that they keep digging deeper and go after the rotten bastards that worked underneath him and acted as his henchmen. Slimy, scuzzy, no good idiots.

And now many of you see where my disgust for Ocean Township stems from…

However, one location where you absolutely cannot lay any blame is on the administration at the university. And, in case you haven’t seen this in the news, both the university Greek Advisor and the Dean of Students were charged with hazing in this case. Now folks, unless these two individuals either were present for this drink-fest or had prior knowledge of the booze night taking place, they are absolutely not liable at all by any stretch of the imagination.

This is akin to your boss getting a reckless driving ticket because you were swerving in and out of lanes the night before. It’s like comparing apples to t-shirts. It’s crazy.

As a fraternity man, I know that many undergraduates hide their less glamorous, local traditions. Incidentally, this is also why I’m glad to be a brother of Sigma Pi Fraternity – we’re systematically eliminating our bad traditions regionally and throughout the nation and replacing them with good ones. It’s a great thing to be a part of, really. That said, there is absolutely no way that these young men would have put this disgusting tradition out there for the school to see AND there is no way that, once knowing about this, the university would have let the students carry on like nothing bad was happening.

It just doesn’t work like that. That would be like Lee Harvey Oswald telling the FBI, “Hey, I’m going to pop Kennedy in the head,” and the FBI letting it happen. The system just doesn’t work that way.

Should the students who facilitated the young man’s death be charged? Of course. Should the administrators? Good Lord no! The people who are to blame here are the young man himself and the students who facilitated the act. That’s it. I fully believe that the administration’s charges will be dropped. And, if the university had any cajones, they’d go after the Mercer County prosecutor just like those young men down at Duke went after Mike Nifong.

Talk about prosecutorial aggrandizement…