I have seen the future of Castle … and it is good. Well, the season two premiere is anyway, and the little promises they’ve given us, if they should be fulfilled, will make for a well-developed season, building nicely upon the groundwork laid in season one.

Lots of our favorite elements are back — quotable lines, Beckett / Castle banter, Castle getting advice from his not-like-him daughter, the poker game (yeah, I almost jumped out of my seat!). They’ve added a couple of new dimensions as well, that I think will make the series even stronger. Aryeh would like to see more crimes based on Castle novels. We don’t get that in the premiere, but that would be fun to explore this season.

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When I received the latest Little Einsteins DVD for review, Little Einsteins: Fire Truck Rocket’s Blastoff, complete with never-before-seen episode “Fire Truck Rocket,” I thought I’d just grab a few quotes from my son and be done with it. Why shouldn’t the four-year-old who is the intended viewer be the reviewer, too?

There may be some precious “out of the mouths of babes” gems to follow, but I had to put in my two cents about the real hook on this DVD: the interactive component. No, I’m not talking about interactivity akin to Dora yelling at the pint-sized viewer from inside the screen (though Swiper’s “Oh Man!” sounds awfully cute coming out of a preschooler’s mouth). Think Wii meets your remote, meets Who Wants to be a Millionaire … or maybe Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?.

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Really people, what were you expecting? If you came into this show looking for more than Saved by the Bell meets Greek, then you’ve really got to introduce your expectations to reality.

Honestly, I thought it was rather cute if you are the target audience of 10 Things I Hate About You, but let’s define the target audience. Are you a 14-year-old girl? Check. Yeah, that’s pretty much it. If you’re a fan of the movie, it might be a little rough, although love it for the fact that Larry Miller is back as the girls’ dad, in full, glorious form. He makes it worth watching. If you were, say, an English major who has a fondness for Taming of the Shrew, the Shakespeare play with the original movie is based on, you probably aren’t the target audience, so back off and tune into Leverage or something (not that I’d know anything about either of those things…).

But I’m not a hater, and it was a light romp of a half hour, so without further ado (or should I say Much Ado About Nothing), here’s the 10 things I enjoyed most about the premiere of 10 Things I Hate About You:

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Hmmm … what to say about The Philanthropist…. I was pretty excited by the premise of this show when NBC announced it, simply because it was very different from everything else out there. You’re not going to believe this, but the main character, Teddy Rist, is not a cop, a doctor nor a lawyer. No, I’m not making that up. He’s not a vampire, either.

Businessman, philanderer, philanthropist … no medical degree — did I say that already? Teddy Rist is an interesting character, and what struck me immediately about him is that he’s understatedly spunky. His adventure to get a vaccine to a remote village in Nigeria is juxtaposed with him ordering his assistant to have some decent booze delivered, because all they have is Jim Beam. James Purefoy’s got a great face — expressive, wise-assy, tender, hard.

It gets better, though.

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(Season 2, Episode 12 – “Trapdoor”)

I was going to say that this episode was kind of underwhelming, especially since it’s the last new one until freakin’ February. But then, well, I got to the last three minutes, and holyhellwhatjusthappenedwasthatreal? Talk about a surprise ending.

First things first: I found the actual mystery of the week pretty boring, even though the evil Russian, Roman Nevikov, made a return appearance. Yeah, he threw a girl out of a window, kept a witness in a dog cage and got away with it all because he’s a highly-valued FBI informant, but he just didn’t do it for me this episode — he just reminded me of a slightly more psychotic Chuck Bass.

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(Season 3, Episode 13 – “Chapter 13: Dual”)

The thing about tense situations in Heroes is that they kind of don’t matter. For instance, in tonight’s episode, nearly everyone’s life was in danger at some point in the episode. Since it’s Heroes though, even if they do die, it doesn’t necessarily matter, since no one on this show actually stays dead.

Of course, there are some exceptions to that: Arthur stayed dead throughout this entire episode, and Elle hasn’t gotten up from where Sylar left her on the beach a few episodes ago. But most of the main characters have cheated death so many times, it would be ridiculous to even try and count (I still can’t figure out how Niki got out of that warehouse fire at the end of last season).

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Today’s Office review doubles as a guest clack by Wally Holland: “twice-over MIT grad, freelance writer, balding, awesome. I write the way Barack Obama plays basketball: goofy, a little awkward sometimes, but the guy’s basically the black Jesus so WHO CARES HOW HE PLAYS BASKETBALL.”

(Season 5, Episode 10 – “Moroccan Christmas”)

The Office plays nontraditional games with old-fashioned pieces; this week’s episode, maybe the most oddly-shaped of the show’s whole run and certainly the darkest-toned of a dark season, is a strong example.

The “festive holiday episode,” in which the folks dress up and act genially weird (like “Benihana Christmas,” any of several field-trip episodes in Seasons two to four) turns into a “foolish boss leads very uncomfortable group ritual” episode – standard Office fare really, indeed a canonical office-sitcom setup. Meanwhile, the sideplots feature Dwight being a jerk (version #561) and Phyllis tormenting Angela a little bit — nothing radical there, just hitting the notes the fans need, really. And to top it all off you get another Meredith-is-a-drunk-yay! plot point to ruin everyone’s holiday.

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