TV Recaps: 30 Can't-Miss Moments from the Week Ending Oct. 15, 2010

Mad Men recap: Desperate Times
I've never felt so simultaneously full of hope and despair for Sally as this episode. Dr. Edna is a marvel, and I felt a flush of tears when she held onto that Go Fish card and made sure Sally absorbed her pride and belief in her. Kiernan Shipka played the episode beautifully, her Sally leaping years ahead of Betty in terms of maturity and wisdom. Sally was able to speak frankly of her mother's limitations (''She doesn't care what the truth is, as long as I do what she says'') while also shutting Glenn down from his line of attack. —Karen Valby

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Survivor recap: NaOnka's Pity Party
The Survivor producers and editors are trying to convince us that the woman was simply beaten down by a few raindrops — that a night with no tarp suddenly turned Hurricane NaOnka into a depressed mess who seriously contemplated quitting the game. But I don't buy it. Not for a second. I think we're being sold a pound of phoney baloney, people. To me, NaOnka's emotional downfall had nothing to do with the weather, but rather something far more debilitating — the fact that she no longer had a physically handicapped person to pick on anymore. —Dalton Ross

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The Office recap: Sexually Transmitted Uneasiness
Andy tried to bust out his RA skills and educate everyone about the dangers of unprotected sex. ''The number one sexually transmitted disease is ignorance,'' he reminded them, and later showed some ''perfectly normal'' pictures of herpes-riddled genitalia. His pros/cons list about sex backfired when he moved ''risk'' and ''unplanned pregnancy'' into the pros column, per Creed and the Halperts' requests. —Margaret Lyons

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Dancing With the Stars performance recap: Stripped Down
''I want to see we; I don't want to see me,'' head judge Len Goodman chastised Mark after their rumba, in which Bristol Palin played a business lady who lost her pants and Mark played a hungry dancer auditioning for a solo in Center Stage. He swiftly removed his shirt, offering us a full view of the novel written on one side of his body. (Last week, Mark's tattoo was a mere hidden gem. They grow up so fast!) —Annie Barrett

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Modern Family recap: Battle of the Bulge
Julie Bowen and Jesse Tyler Ferguson — and especially the show's writers — perfectly captured the alternatingly convivial/snippy banter that can happen between siblings. ''I hate it when you do that. You never heard of Troga? You never tried octopus? You never did this amazing thing I just discovered yesterday but I pretend like I've done my whole life?'' The way that, moments later, Mitchell dropped his ''You've never seen Strangers on a Train?'' rant in mid-sentence was a thing of true comic beauty. —Michael Slezak

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The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills recap: California Preenin'
Camille was inoffensive — though Kyle might beg to differ — and ridiculous. She has four similarly beleaguered-looking nannies for her two rosy-cheeked children. She tries to fly commercial every now and then, for the Earth's sake. She is a former stripper dancer for MTV, and she is more than just Kelsey Grammer's wife! She just needs a chance to spread her wings and ... grind true love with a giant stuffed mascot. —Karen Valby

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The Event recap: Signs of Life
Burning question: Are The Whatchamacallums really ETs or not? I wish the show did more to cultivate added intrigue around this question. Ever since putting this idea out there in the second episode, The Event has done little to expand upon it or even make us question it. Why isn't there another character in the story offering a different take on who or what the Whatchamacallums might be? The point is that I think The Event should spur us indulge and consider a variety of dancing thoughts. Even if all alternative theories are proven wrong, and The Whatchamacallums really are proven to be aliens, I think encouraging us to mull and debate multiple possibilities would be good for the show, because it would activate our imagination to dream into the story, and thereby draw us deeper into its creative world and become more invested in it. —Jeff Jensen

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The Amazing Race recap: Boxing Day
It was amateur hour all around. Claire noticed that there were eight bold-word phrases on their slip of paper, and eight African children playing games. ''I think we have to circle small African children,'' she said. (That watermelon really did a number on her.) So Claire picked up a stick and made a circle around the children. The other teams followed suit. The children looked confused. Then Chad terrorized them further by picking up their textbooks and looking for the Decoder. Oh, it was painful, viewers. Katie and Rachel said, ''Where is the Decoder?'' while standing right in front of the Decoder. Ow, my brain hurt. —Darren Franich

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Desperate Housewives recap: Girls' Night Bout
Last night, Vanessa Williams was the highlight of the show — her scenes with Marcia Cross were priceless for the sound bites alone. ''Hey there, I'm ready to party!'' Cross' Bree said in her spritely fashion when Williams' Renee arrived for a night of ''stud hunting'' at the club. Renee's retort to her fellow divorcee-to-be was short, to-the-point, and frankly, harkened back to Williams' four seasons as Wilhelmina Slater on Ugly Betty: ''Are you?'' she asked, with just the perfect level of snideness. ''Because you look like you're ready to tour the Reagan Library!'' Ouch! —Tanner Stransky

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Gossip Girl recap: Schemes Like Old Times
Meanwhile, Dan and Nate set up a date. No, unfortunately, not together. After learning that Dan and Vanessa were back on good terms, Nate invited them to a faculty and friends mixer at Hamilton House. After slight hesitation, Dan was won over by the lure of free appetizers. Dan also invited them to a followup subtitle-free movie, but Nate declined. He and Juliet were finally going to get it on, and he was excited to ditch the nights of Scrabble and long talks. (In other words, he ready to be a man, and not a Dan.) —Sandra Gonzalez

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Top Chef Just Desserts recap: Haute Messes
Taking a cue from Project Runway, the contestants were asked to create edible outfits to match shoes, plus two couture petit fours to complete the ''look.'' When the shoes were rolled out, even the female contestants weren't as ecstatic as Zac. He squealed, he jumped, he clasped his hands — he was quite the happy little Zac, and it turned out that Team Go Diva had something of a fetish for Gail's footwear, because, you know, nothing says ''work it, girl'' like an open-toe black pump. —Archana Ram

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Brothers & Sisters recap: No Country for Old Women
Sarah was upset — it was her [Number Unknown]th birthday and she felt insecure because Luc thought she was only turning 40. Luc initially set her off by comparing her to his grandma darning socks (bad idea on any day, dreamboat) and it was all downhill from there. Kitty and Kevin immediately snuffed out Sarah's last remaining glimmer of hope about life/love/happiness in general by informing her over the phone that her surprise party was that night. ''Ugh, God!'' Sarah moaned for the first of many times all night. What could possibly be worse than hanging out with her FAMILY? —Annie Barrett

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Glee recap: Duo the Right Thing
Speaking of Santana, girl was on a bitch-a-palooza this episode, and I loved every minute of it. My favorite moment was when she finished performing with Mercedes and she asked for the gift certificates, ''Cuz weez be goin' ... to Breadstix.'' I laughed out loud. GEEEENIUS. —Tim Stack

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America's Next Top Model recap: I'm Walkin Here!
Here's a protip, reality show producers: When the host, creator, and one of the EPs of your show says, during an episode, ''you're making this so not interesting!,'' that's a bad bad sign. —Margaret Lyons

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Cougar Town recap: Eat the Sword!
Ellie orchestrated a war between Jules and the one-time hookup-monster of Grayson & Laurie — seemingly just to stir up s--- in the house! (It really is like a reality show at this point — they all pretty much live at Casa Cobb.) Ellie thought she deserved to watch a juicy scandal blow up, because she'd recently bought candy from an inner-city football team. Certainly that was reason enough. —Annie Barrett

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Dancing With the Stars results recap: Ab-Out Last Night
The Florence and the Machine performance struck me as something that in a bizarre alternate universe (or maybe the '80s) might make a cool Sesame Street segment on how to count to three. The quick cuts among the tiny circular platforms with either 1, 2, or 3 dancers ... the quirky music ... the odd, kindly singer-lady floating on a cloud in a rustic gown ... I don't know, it just all seemed to fit. The kids at home would get to shout out how many writhing, ballroom-esque dancers they spotted on the different platforms. It would be fun! I guess you'd just have to bank on the children not cowering in fear from the scary creatures clawing at the camera. This is but a wee issue. —Annie Barrett

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The Real Housewives of Atlanta recap: All the Singing Ladies
Kandi hit the studio with Ne-Yo, a man with little patience for Auto-Tune. That afforded her the opportunity to grimace over her participation in making Kim an iTunes one-hit wonder. Turns out Kim volunteered to split proceeds of the song 50/50, but that was kind of like how she offered NeNe a crack at the chorus. She was drunk when she said it, or giving Poppa a pedi, or smoking a cigarette in a yoga class. She didn't really mean it, and then she just let her attorney handle the fallout. —Karen Valby

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30 Rock recap: Live From New York!
What the blerg? This week's episode of 30 Rock was liiiiiiiiiiiiiive, just like Dancing With the Stars! Instead of the usual lighting-paced scripted jokes, the humor relied more on physical comedy — Jack's magic tricks, Jon Hamm vs. his hands, Jack smelling Jenna's wino mouth, Jadwiga the Polish Cleaning Lady fighting Pete for her Fonz cake, and everything Kenneth did or said (though to be fair, that's always the case). The studio audience's laughter freaked me out a little, but I got past it. Overall, I find taped 30 Rock far more brilliant, but I loved what they did with the live show. It was like SNL, but funny! —Annie Barrett

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Hell's Kitchen recap: 100? Grand!
A deadly green risotto became everyone's villain. ''LOOK AT ME, YOU DIRTY LITTLE F---ER!'' Chef Ramsay screamed at Vinny, whose tally of mistakes is rapidly approaching his tally of delusions of grandeur. ''I'd make your family, your children, your wife a fresh f---ing risotto.'' Meanwhile, Jillian approached the risotto the way she treats all nefarious opponents. ''The freaking risotto, man, that s--- hates me,'' she complained. ''I just want to kick risotto's ass.'' —Annie Barrett

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Dexter recap: Witness for the Execution
As he sunk the knife into Fowler, Dexter waited briefly for a feeling of normalcy. But it didn't come. ''No church bells. No Hallelujah chorus. Nothing feels different. If anything, I'm emptier,'' he said. The only thing he did hear was a noise from a locked closet in the corner. Dexter approached and opened the door. In it was, presumably, Fowler's next victim (guest star Stiles). She tried to escape but passed out as Dexter foiled her attempt. ''She saw everything. She saw me,'' Dexter said. —Sandra Gonzalez

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90210 recap: To Catch a Predator
When Ian touched him in a totally platonic, clearly asexual way, Teddy freaked out again, and rushed home to West Bev's resident harlot, who had invited Teddy over for some afternoon delight. Predictably so, Teddy failed to get into it, sending even more panic through his unaroused blood. —Archana Ram

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Jersey Shore recap: Don't Let the Outfit Confuse You
Last night, J-Woww wore a dress that made full-frontal nudity look like G-rated Pixar stuff. It was like seeing those black ''censored'' bars in dress form. As if she had stolen netting from a sadomasochist barbarian fisherman, cut out a couple strips roughly as wide as a crayon, and then rubber-cemented those strips over her lady parts. In what I can only call a demure moment, she decided to cover her girls with glow-stickers. ''I look at her, and I think, this girl's a f---ing whore!'' said Snooki, sounding like the proud mother of the first female President of the United States. —Darren Franich

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Grey's Anatomy recap: Trouble on the Homefront
These doctors should spend more time at home. Their places of residence feel so warm and inviting, I want to move in with all of them (and there are so many people living at Meredith's these days that they probably wouldn't even notice me there). Our all-too-brief time at home in the morning brought us an overcrowded, co-ed dorm atmosphere in the bathroom at Mer's (Jackson, April, Lexie, Alex...) and, come to think of it, a co-ed dorm atmosphere at Arizona and Callie's, where Mark came by to get Callie for a morning workout and found the lovebirds in bed mid-makeout. —Jennifer Armstrong

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Project Runway recap: Witch Way Home
There was no way wet-behind-the-ears April was going to steal the place of season 8's almost-villain, the woman who declared herself ''a force to be reckoned with'' in week two. Not even after Gretchen produced a totally FUG number that did indeed look like it came from a tacky, Eighth Avenue wholesale shop. From the vomitous black-lace-over-red skirt, to the soporific white top, to the unfortunate leather jacket, the ensemble was so atrocious, Nina had to borrow MK's Metamucil Face. ''I don't think it looks downtown, I don't think it looks uptown — I think it looks midtown,'' said Kors, brilliantly. —Missy Schwartz

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Big Bang Theory recap: His Super Ex-Girlfriend
Howard settled in for a swanky evening of self-geek-love starring his semi-regular fantasy/romantic conscience Katee Sackhoff, this time fully clothed in her Battlestar Galactica flightsuit. (Fellow BSG geeks, am I wrong, or did that flight-suit not look quite right to you? I don't recall them being that shiny, for one thing.) (And yes, I am flying right by the eye-scalding sight of Howard in too-short silk boxer shorts, and I hope you will too.) But then Bernadette popped up, too, followed by Star Trek helmsman George Takei, entering with his trademark ''Oh my!'' The openly gay activist's presence caused Sackhoff to profess confusion as to Howard's latent homosexual tendencies, only proving that her function as a manifestation of Howard's conscience does not extend to his relationship with Raj. Or his outrageously skin-tight wardrobe. —Adam B. Vary

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Supernatural recap: Three's Company
Sam had tried to contact [Castiel] after getting out of Hell, but Cas never answered his call. (Sam, he's just not that into you.) Cas told them that the angels have no idea what brought Sam back, but he could help them with the plague-like situation they found themselves in. Turned out that some of Heaven's weapons had gone missing during their recent civil war. In this case, they were dealing with The Staff of Moses, but it wasn't operating at full power. As Sam pointed out, the stick could normally ''turn a whole river into blood.'' Nevertheless, it was dangerous to leave the Staff in someone's hands, so Cas asked for Sam and Dean's help. Sam scoffed, but ultimately caved to the poor de-acclimated angel who doesn't know how to use air quotes. —Sandra Gonzalez

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The Real Housewives of D.C. recap: Reunion, Part 1
The problem with Michaele is that she is a liar, and a very good one at that, so she is often too smart and cagey to get trapped in her web of nonsense. And so she was able to sit there with a benign smile on her face, pleading obliviousness, as Andy said there was no documentation that she had been a Redskins cheerleader, that the head of the Redskins cheerleaders denied her participation, and that Michaele's own brother had come out and said his sis didn't bleed burgundy and gold. And yet Michaele remained calm, and said she had in fact trotted out on the field for a game or two and alumni sch-mlumli and if you have love in your heart you can cheer for the world. —Karen Valby

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The Biggest Loser recap: Roll Models
This week, a golden disc of extra poundage much like Survivor's ''medallion of power'' was introduced, celebrity chef Curtis Stone and his asymmetrical collar showed the contestants how to bake low-calorie cupcakes, Bob had everyone below the yellow line over to his house (!!!) for a colorful vegan feast, and two women had an intense come-to-Jillian moment during training. Is it any wonder this show is TWO HOURS LONG? —Annie Barrett

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Bones recap: The Science Dude Abides
Doomsayers and mopey-dopes, the whole lot of them! Give me Dr. Dude and Hodgins building themselves a makeshift ribcage with paint-stir sticks. (Household objects are often used on The Science Dude to mimic body parts. Think cantaloupe melons and pudding.) They threw a baseball at the fake-ribs. They shot a golf ball out of a slingshot. They threw an axe. (Don't you want to work at the Jeffersonian?) ''Wow, ribs are really tough!'' said Dr. Hodgins, who is a doctor. Finally, Dr. Dude built a potato bazooka using PVC tube and commercial hair spray. Can his show get cancelled so he can become the Number One Squintern, please? —Darren Franich

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