TV Report: Weekly Drama Rankings

As you will be able to tell once you read my thoughts on this week's drama shows, I have a lot of feelings and I just needed to get them out.

1. Loyalty (Revenge) - Is it just me or are you also starting to feel sorry for a bunch of people on this show? You know who I feel sorry for the most? Fake!Amanda. She's the epitome of a pawn and while Real!Amanda (now Emily) met her in jail, deep down all she really wants is something to love her and at the moment she has found that in Jack. Granted their relationship is all based on lies, but I'm oddly finding myself pulling for those two if only because they are hopelessly caught in this war that Emily is currently engaging. Another person I'm starting to feel sorry for? Victoria. I actually look to the day when she and Emily team up against Conrad, but that's probably way into the future, but right now she's in an empty house forced to ally herself with Ashley of all people. Then there's poor lovesick Nolan. The fact that he was actually starting to feel things for Tyler is a little bit ridiculous (which is one reason I love this show), but my heart goes out to him. Finally, poor oblivious Daniel. Sorry you can't speak Japanese so you can tell your girlfriend is totally carrying on a completely different conversation over dinner with some other guy! Whew, that was longer than I expected but I felt the need to get my feelings out. And who saw the teaser for next new episode? Brilliant or BRILLIANT?

2. The Shepherd (Once Upon A Time) - Don't ask me when I've gotten excited about watching new episodes for this show. It just happened. I think most of it has to do with my crazy crush on Josh Dallas aka Prince Charming. If you've seen him, you'd understand. For some reason people are already tired of the will they/won't they plot this show is taking Snow and James, but people forget it's only been five episodes. I love the chemistry between Dallas and Goodwin and they may be my favorite part of the show at the moment. I also quite enjoyed seeing James' background aka being the twin who grew up as a shepherd and had to replace his dragon-slaying brother to save the kingdom. It felt familiarly fairy-tale-ish and epic at the same time.

3. Parenting Made Easy (The Good Wife) - How great were those ten or so minutes when we thought something awful happened to Grace? Yes, she's not one of my favorite characters on the show, but I was hoping for something crazy tragic to happen just to see how it'd affect the rest of the character especially on Alicia. We got a glimpse of it (Alicia regretting her sexual dalliance with Will, Peter stepping up, Kalinda always being a friend to Alicia), but of course when we find out she's just off getting baptized, I was duly disappointed. That said, I knew they would never have done something as radical as what I had wanted, so que sera. I always enjoy when Michael J. Fox guest stars as his verbal spars with Julianna Margulies are very entertaining. It was great seeing him once again seem like a good guy (helping Alicia when she found out about Grace) only to go back to being the cutthroat lawyer he's known for. It was also great seeing Dexter's Jennifer Carpenter play against type as the uptight conservative as well as bringing back the scorned Megan who Alicia failed to hire earlier this season. All in all a solid episode with Will's investigation, Kalinda's relationship with Dana, and Eli's role in the organization simmering on the surface, but never really going anywhere yet.

4. Cuffed (Castle) - I'm actually not a hardcore Castle/Beckett shipper even if I think Fillion and Katic have chemistry to spare, but I bet those who are were absolutely giddy at the prospect of having both of these characters handcuffed to each other all episode. For their part, the actors really did do well to keep the audience interested and invested in their plight as the layers slowly peeled away to reveal the real story. For me though, as soon as we got to the tiger reveal, my attention started waning. I think what cost this episode was my expectation. I was truly expecting something a bit more tense and visceral, but it actually turned out to be a pretty light, banter-ful episode. I'm usually the first to praise the show for its deft ability to balance humor and drama, but I think with the stakes that have been raised in this season in particular, I expected something with a bit more heft than what we ended up getting with this episode.

5. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Pan Am) - I'm decidedly mixed on this episode. As usual I love anything and everything to do with Collette and this episode in particular gave her much to work with from her flirty and exciting trip with Dean to that awkward and tense scene with Dean's parents to that bow chicka bow wow hay scene in the end. This show is bound to be canceled, but PLEASE someone, anyone find Karine Vanasse a headliner. I also, for probably the first time, found Laura and Ted's relationship/characters interesting. I don't have a pulse as to why exactly, but I definitely paid more attention to their scenes than I usually did. But the show faltered when it came to Kate and Maggie's storylines. Kate's drama with the agency is getting mighty tiresome even if I was a BIG fan of it earlier on. The ending, with her shooting someone, was exciting and that might make me feel love for this part of the story again, but for most of the episode I couldn't wait for it to be over. I also liked where Maggie's story ended, with the Senator wanting to see her again. But her struggling to coincide her beatnik side with her mainstream side rang hollow to me and setting the bathroom on fire was the height of slapstick.

6. Hold On to Sixteen (Glee) - They say when you have nothing nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all. [crickets]. Okay, this episode wasn't that bad. It was at least much better than last week's travesty. I've already forgotten to care about the whole Santana/Finn dynamics at play though of course Santana is back to being her grade-A bitch self when Sam comes back. Speaking of, I'm oddly happy that Chord Overstreet and his abs are back if only so we can pretend that this first half of S3 never happened and in hopes that Mercedes will have an interesting love interest. His return was a bit forced and not at all believable, but that's hardly a misdemeanor in Glee-world. The Finn/Blaine faux drama was exciting for about a second when sweaty Darren Criss was pounding the punching bag (I don't mean Finn). Most of the episode revolved around Sectionals. I actually loved all of the numbers performed during it and while I still prefer the Troubletones (they make me think gross heterosexual thoughts) over New Directions, I don't think the former team was incredulously robbed. I wished they had prepped us more on the Michael Jackson medley, but springing that up on the audience is the Glee way. In the end, the writers seem to want a big re-do. The group is back together, Shelley is leaving, they are going to Nationals, and all is right with the world. Notice I didn't mention anything having to do with Quinn's character. Please refer back to my first sentence.