Bidding adieu to shows on their way out

“Royal Pains” closed its second season recently on USA and I have to say I will miss it. They left Divya and Raj in kind of a weird place -- quarantined for plague? Really? -- but weirder still is the timeline of the show.

I thought when Hank got fired from the hospital in Brooklyn and broke off his engagement he moped around for about half a year or so before Evan dragged him to a party in the Hamptons where he became a concierge doctor. Maybe it was four months, but either way, Hank was fired. He wasn’t getting “burned out” and looking to make a change, the way his encounter with a stockbroker-turned-flight instructor suggested.

In any event, that means this has been one full, productive summer for Hank Lawson. He got together with the hospital administrator, Jill, got dumped in favor of Jill’s ex husband who showed up out of nowhere, traveled to Cuba and was replaced by a hot blonde doctor, Emily, and then fell for her, and then Jill fell for him again and then he fell out of love with Emily and back in love with Jill, all with plenty of time to appear in a reality show.

Also, his conman father Eddie shows up and Hank rejects him, but then he reconciles with him just in time for Eddie to embezzle all their funds and then restore them and oh yeah, turn their benefactor Boris against them.

Meanwhile, his physician’s assistant spills the beans about being in an arranged marriage and then plans this wedding and hops back and forth to London a couple of times and oh yeah, manages to discover Raj is devoted to her and then cheats on him in the course of a couple of weeks, and now has called the wedding off because they’re being quarantined for plague.

That’s a lot for two summers. If this was all meant to have happened in one summer, then that’s so much worse. Honestly? We’re moving into soap opera territory. I didn’t even mention his brother being paid to date someone and then fell in love with her after accidentally getting her father running for public office.

I mean, that’s weird, right? Kinda? Seems weird to me, somehow.

'The Cape,' 'The Event'

I also took in the end, or what seems like it’s the end of “The Cape.” NBC is running episodes of “The Event” again starting this week, a two-hour series resume which I hope will just close it up, close up shop, honestly, this murky, muddly, aliens no they’re people, no they’re aliens, they can bend time and space and open wormholes and transport an airplane from Florida to Arizona in the blink of an eye despite being trapped in the Arctic for oh about 70 years, and they’ve got this secret technology squirreled away.

This is all great, so what’s the punchline? I mean, you’re the first humans – I mean, according to the previews you’re not taking over planet Earth, you’re taking it back, you’re planning to kill all 7 billion of us, hey GUYS! Where’ve you BEEN? We kept the light on for you, we baked a cake and everything. I mean Jesus, where’ve you BEEN? We’ve had your leader locked up in Alaska for nearly a century, now, so what’s with all the foot-dragging? You had some kind of plan, yes, that you were coming back? Coming back here to live? You’re able to open wormholes and defy time and space but we’re meant to believe you can’t overcome a lock? You can put your hands through metal, but hairpin technology escapes you.

And what’s the big deal? After at least millions of years, what makes you think the planet wants you back? And by the way, isn’t this a storyline they’re developing on “Fringe”? Seriously, “The Event,” I see you’ve got at least a couple episodes left but you can END anytime now.

I mean, nothing they do on this muddled, muddled mess is likely to be more interesting than the scene at the end of the last episode of “The Cape,” where Summer Glau is sitting on her bed in the middle of a white room above what looks like a chasm to the center of the Earth.

Mind you, I think this last episode, “Razer,” was something of a Hail Mary. For one thing, for as many things the arch criminal mastermind Scales has going on it’s ridiculously easy to infiltrate his operatio. Hell, you don’t even have to get the details right, or left, or right, hell, whichever side of Razer’s face is all scarred up, I mean I realize Officer Faraday was only a cop or something but it seems like he’d know the super criminals – the ones that blow stuff up, that they’d keep tabs on them. Oh well, it’s easy as pie to pretend to be them. Just show up and announce that’s who you are. I mean, they’re expecting you, right, so who’s going to ask questions? And you can sneak around and sabotage all sorts of stuff and make cameo appearances as your alter ego because … well, you’re just magic, at this point.

I guess if I were writing a television program and they gave me a certain number of episodes to film I would try to tell a complete story in that number of episodes. And it’s possible show creator Tom Wheeler did, but NBC then shifted the order from 13 to 10, and so he couldn’t complete the story. But what I probably would not do is completely change the story halfway through. Corporate crime boss Peter Fleming was Chess, for instance, but Chess was more of a nervous breakdown than an alter ego. Meanwhile, there’s all of these lesser ne’er-do-wells out there – including the pack of carnies Faraday’s living with, who developed the Cape and trained him, and they’re fine with him, so long as he fights the crimes of other people. Oh, loophole, since Peter Fleming is eeevil, any crimes they commit against him are fine, just Robin Hood-type hijinks, all very sympathetic. Well, that’s fine because I imagine this show has been given all the chance that it will be given. Certainly I’ve talked about it more than I’ve talked about nearly any other show this season, so if it’s done, it’s done. Unlike other canceled shows, however, I can’t think of many ways this one could’ve been different in order to hang around. It had a great lead-in, although it’s a weird night. Monday night on NBC has been spy dramedy, superhero and then lawyer show. Now it’s going to be unintelligible scifi and lawyer show, and then … oh, who can even guess?

'Mad Love,' 'Mr. Sunshine'

I will say this, however, “Mad Love” is holding up a little better than “Mr. Sunshine.” I still love the Matthew Perry vehicle, but Tyler Labine is bringing it, and for story depth, the fact that they installed some backstory on Larry and Connie this past week was nothing short of brilliant. The dialogue is still the weakest part but no one on “Mad Love” needs to worry about “Mr. Sunshine” on that score. Despite the creation of Crystal, a character who could be expected to say literally anything at all at any moment, the dialogue on “Mr. Sunshine” is just vacant. What they need to do is play to some strengths. Wherever they’ve got Andrea Anders she’s still coming completely out of nowhere. I’d like her to be struggling with the fact that she’s dating her former boyfriend’s best friend. That isn’t coming across as awkward at all. And Matthew Perry can deliver four lines’ worth of dialogue in the course of a single line. That’s how they should be writing him. He should honestly be talking too quickly to realize what he’s saying sometimes, which would drive the comedy a little better. The fact that we needed flashcards with photos and insults on them and a giant fan this past week means someone isn’t thinking hard enough about where the comedy is coming from, and they should be thinking about it harder.

CBS crime dramas and 'Castle'

I watched more “Criminal Minds” this week and “Suspect Behavior” and they do not need “Suspect Behavior.” They developed “Suspect Behavior” to be more like “NCIS” and those viewers already have two “NCISes.” Which incidentally, interesting guest spot by Agent Dinozzo on “Castle” recently, oh, sorry, that was Nathan Petrelli from “Heroes.” That federal agent look sometimes puts the deer in the headlights, y’know I was wondering why he seemed vaguely competent in this appearance.

Sorry, sorry. I’ve been seeing “NCIS” when I come home for lunch, not watching it, but it’s on when I turn on my tv, there it is, so .. where was I? Oh, yeah, the two-parter episode of “Castle,” with the terrorists and the bombing, and the domestic terrorists who were actually ex-military, y’know, I’m a screaming liberal. I am, well, certainly for North Dakota I am, and it seems to me that it would take more than multiple tours -- tours fighting actual terrorism overseas -- to break a brain that much. Think of the endgame on framing a Saudi national for a second bombing in Times Square. If it worked exactly the way they had in mind, they’d be CALLED BACK INTO SERVICE!

The logic was that Americans don’t realize the sacrifices being made on our behalf and we don’t. But this seemed pretty dark, and I’m not in a place where I can comfortably imagine American veterans lashing out at the people they swore an oath to protect, even just getting everyone all riled up against Middle Easterners again, which again, how would that be helping? You should convince us that Brazilian terrorists bombed us and you could be deployed in time for Carnivale. Hey, since it was complete fiction anyway … no, and that’s just the latest reason no one’s hiring me to work in the State Department.

Musical episodes

It looks like they’re planning a musical episode on “House” so I’m absolutely tuning in for that one. They did a musical episode on “Scrubs,” and they’re planning a musical episode of “Grey’s Anatomy,” which honestly, I’d proposed a musical episode of “Desperate Housewives” a few years back, but I don’t know if I’d really care anymore. Oh, of course I’d watch it, but it’s less exciting these days, somehow. It feels like it would be more like the “7th Heaven” musical which didn’t work at all, more than the musical episode of “Buffy,” which was simply brilliant. I don’t know what I’m expecting from the “Grey’s” musical, but certainly the “House” musical looks like it should be a good one. I guess we’ll see.

Coming up

Speaking of musicals, Gwyneth Paltrow is back as a sex ed teacher on “Glee” this week and in that Finn thought he got Quinn pregnant by sharing a hot-tub with her, it’s not a second too soon. Elsewhere on FOX, the network is still clutching its pearls over 1970s leftist radicalism on “The Chicago Code” -- eek, William Ayers and the Weather Underground -- when the biggest criminal the Left has produced in the past 20 years is Winona Ryder.

“Off the Map” is still on ABC Wednesdays, leading me to wonder if any of them still bother to wear clothing. On CBS they moved “Rules of Engagement” to Thursday in case anyone in the world was wondering, The only thing worth watching over there just now is “Mad Love” and “The Big Bang Theory,” although I am going to keep watching “Criminal Minds.” I noticed they added Rachel Nichols to the opening credits. Nicely done, Agent Seaver. Now, if they could stop with this ridiculous international terrorist stalking Agent Prentiss, that’s not working even a little.

A&E’s premiering something called “Breakout Kings,” more on that later, and at this point I’m still watching “Bones” and “Fairly Legal” but I’ve completely forgotten why. “Fringe” is moving into even weirder territory with gravity-defying hoodlums. We’ve suspected, knowing what we do about atomic structure that if we only got things resonating correctly we could pass easily through solid walls unharmed, but anti-gravity seems ... new. Can’t say I’m not looking forward to it, of course.

Two years

And with this installment we reach the two-year mark on the “TV is the New Reading” podcast. The stats on this thing are hard to figure -- some months seem to generate an incredible amount of traffic, lately there seems to be something of a slump, but in any event, I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts on this thing. “TV is the New Reading” has been available on iTunes for two years and has gotten two comments, so hey, for anyone with an iTunes account, if you enjoy this thing, if it drives you up a tree, I know I’d appreciate hearing from you. Log in, comment, rate the thing, it takes minutes, minutes out of your busy life and heck, maybe it’ll give me a better idea what to do in my third season. Have at you!

Beyond that, wonderful weeks everyone and enjoy!