Alex Karev is a fink

Yes, Alex Karev, otherwise bad boy of Seattle Mercy Grace hospital on ABC's “Grey’s Anatomy” is a beady-eyed rat fink.

Based on nothing, and I mean zero evidence (if a camera hadn’t been on her we wouldn’t have any idea what Meredith was up to), he gets a couple of shots in him (because Lucy, the obstetrician he’s been seeing for a couple of months, weaseled into a job he didn’t even think of wanting before earlier that day) and tells Owen that Meredith messed with the double-blind test results to better his chances of being chief resident.

So he already goes to the trouble of arranging and funding an intercontinental outreach to give needed surgeries to sick kids from Africa, he gets them assigned to care-givers and in one case possibly a family, he broke all sorts of rules and protocols and committed fraud himself in the doing of it, but Meredith switched a couple files around under a huge amount of pressure from the chief so Karev puts her study in the crosshairs.

And it would be quite a bit less bad if we didn’t have Alex Karev on record from season two when his now estranged wife Izzie Stevens cut the LVAD wire on her then about-to-be-fiance Denny Duquette to make him a stronger candidate for a needed heart transplant, at which point Karev said:

"Let's say you were drafted to a team that wasn’t your first pick. You know, you don't like the players. You hate the way they play the game. You even think the quarterback is full of crap. The quarterback's a pain in the ass you don't owe a damn' thing to. But, it's your team. You don't quit. You don't talk to the press. You don't (complain) to the coach. You just... you go out there on Sunday and you make the blocks and you take the hits and you play to win. You show up and you suit up and you play, because it's your freaking team."

He was playing to win, alright, except for two things. First, this stunt hurts the hospital, which is still a teaching hospital, and is still the actual team he’s on. Secondly, he’s got no talking room. He and Christina are lucking out these days because they take huge risks that work out for them but they’re not magic.

The corners they cut are there for a reason. If Karev had stranded a bunch of exotically sick kids in an airport in Washington D.C. – easily could’ve happened – there could’ve been pandemics of G-d only knows what, and probably they’d need to call in the CDC. And if Yang’s patient had had lung cancer she’d probably have been at sea without Dr. Altman.

The writers wrote happier endings for these mad gambles than the characters or we the viewers deserved, and if I’m defending Meredith too strongly for switching a couple of patient files so that the chief’s wife gets the active agent – which might or might not work, it is a study, after all – so be it, but oh man the previews for next week’s season finale made me mad.

Doctor Who

“Doctor Who” was amazing this week, which made a nice change from last week’s pirate-themed hyperspace fiasco. The Doctor responded to a distress call from a bubble universe and discovered a planet-like creature that ate time-machines such as his own – but only after its living soul had been removed and stored in a humanoid creature.

As you might anticipate, a time-machine exists in a completely different relationship to time than more linear creatures like ourselves and even the Doctor, who hasn’t experienced his own timeline all the way yet, so the creature, a woman, a rather mad and batty woman, anticipates entire speeches the Doctor is about to give and is amazed to discover human beings are bigger on the inside.

Meanwhile the planet-like creature intent on eating the time-machine is chasing the Doctor’s companions Amy and Rory about in it and messing with their heads. They revisited the engine room from the last Doctor, but I wouldn’t have minded seeing the engine room from the Tom Baker days. She said she had it on file. It would’ve been fun.

Nevertheless I think it’s clear from the means by which writer Neil Gaiman was able to create this rather magnificent character of the Doctor’s true “wife” for all these years – choosing the Doctor not unlike the way in which the ship “Serenity” chose Captain Mal in the “Firefly” series – that Neil’s mad skills and capabilities must be drawn upon again as the series continues.

In defense of Will Ferrell

Apart from that I did not get a chance to watch “The Office” this week to see how they’re carrying on after Will Ferrell hit his head – oh, sorry, I mean his character hit his head, fell down and went mad, but I’m sure it was a marked improvement …

[Guest and Will Ferrell fan John Allen: ]

...

How dare ANYONE make fun of Will Farrell! After all he’s done? ”Anchorman?” “Stranger Than Fiction?” “Step Brothers?”

All you care about, Terry, is more readers! HE’S A HUMAN! What you don’t realize is that without him you wouldn’t even have anything to talk about! LEAVE HIM ALONE! You’re lucky he even performs for you you bastage! LEAVE WILL ALONE!!!!! please….*sobbing*

You talk about annoying? Well how annoying is it that you just trash a genius comedic actor all over the Internet? LEAVE WILL ALONE!!! please… *sobbing* Leave Will Farrell alone RIGHT NOW! I mean it! If you have a problem with Will Farrell you can deal with me! Because he’s very fragile right now with that new part and he’s giving it everything he has! LEAVE HIM ALONE!! please….

...

Thank you, John, that was John Allen everyone, providing a much needed counterpoint on my repeated and I see potentially wrong-headed attacks on comedian Will Ferrell, who I am sure is lovely at parties.

Coming up

Coming up, I’ve come so far around on this show I cannot wait to see the next installment on “The Killing.” AMC’s multifaceted murder mystery just gets deeper and more interesting every week, that’s Sunday at 10/9c.

I can’t believe I’m still recording “The Event” which this week is titled “The Beginning of the End” and my response to that is “If. Only.” At least “Chuck” will be good no matter what, and that starts at 8/7c on NBC.

I actually did watch “Better With You” on ABC last Wednesday when they delivered the sister of the baby and it was a quest episode, with the parents heading to the gift shop, the boyfriend-in-law-to-be running with the suddenly affianced about-to-be father to get a marriage license at City Hall, and the suddenly bride all but delivered of her child. It was a photo finish and they’d stepped up their game a little bit for the season – series? Why is this not series? – finale, but I still can’t recommend tuning in when it returns.

Also, can’t say my opinion of “Modern Family” has improved by my having watched an episode of it last week. Strictly meh.

However, the reference “Raising Hope” drew from it to install a war between Virginia and guest neighbors Ethan Suplee and Jaime Pressly based on dueling baby monitors, that was a thing of genius. “Raising Hope” is just a superior viewing experience in every possible way.

Also, now I feel bad for “Bones,” but I appreciate how the season-arc and recurring big-bads tend to fit the storylines. In this case, the sniper who trained Booth has gone right off his nut and is killing people. Getting in the line of fire was one of the guest squints that cycle through the Jeffersonian, and the episode ended with a sort of tuneless presentation of his favorite song, which did not make that song, “Lime in the Coconut” any more profound – especially with those voices. I think it was just perfectly well demonstrated for us why we never had a musical episode of “Angel.”

If I ever forgot to mention you should be watching the Sports Show with Norm McDonald on Comedy Central, you should totally be watching the Sports Show with Norm McDonald on Comedy Central. Oh, and “Supernatural” on the CW has been turning in some very solid episodes of late. Nice retcon on Castiel’s character this past week. Well done.