TVSquad

(S05E03) Three episodes in and while Top Chef has been fun with really good challenges and interesting food, something is missing. Or maybe it just hasn't simmered to the surface yet. I'm talking about conflict, drama, hatred. Everybody is just too damn happy with each other.

I mean, last night the only nasty interaction was one chef flipping a finger at the other -- which Bravo actually blurred out, give me a break -- and Jamie commenting that she's fed up with Dave. Compared to previous seasons, that's pretty tame. Turn up the heat, guys and gals. Let's see that "too many cooks spoil the broth" energy.

I usually hate reruns. Hate 'em. You've built some momentum watching a show, especially when the season starts, then suddenly you're faced with an episode from last year that you already saw. That can be especially incongruous when you're a fan of a show like How I Met Your Mother, which ended last week's episode with a number of monumental character developments.

However, reruns allow you to explore shows that you've wanted to watch but never get a chance to, even in this day and age of DVRs and online viewing. Take Chuck, for instance. I DVR HIMYM just in case I miss something when I watched it live and want to include it in my review. So I don't even record Chuck, a show I enjoyed last year and I've heard has gotten even better in its second season.

You knew they'd have to get around to it sooner or later. The final segment of the upcoming Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror" episode on November 5 will take a few not-so-subtle shots at the current conflict in Iraq as aliens Kang and Kodos (who are featured in every "Treehouse of Horror") attack Springfield before the humans can get their hands on "weapons of mass disintegration". The connection to the Iraq war is made obvious, and there's even a line at the end in which a character evokes the actual Iraq debacle. Executive producer Al Jean says the line may be too obvious and not make it into the episode. It'll be interesting to see how the show handles the segment, though I wonder why they didn't try to tackle this subject as a full "regular" episode, which I think they could have done fairly easily. Then again, they may still have plenty of time to do just that.

(S02E17) When you spend at least 40 hours in a confined area with the same people five days a week, it would not be a stretch to say that some conflicts will arise. At the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of Dunder Mifflin, the term "conflict" rises to a new level when we learn of some of the seemingly hundreds of issues the staff has with each other. Of course, Dwight, the resident psycho (who asks "Can you imagine if I was deranged?"), has a regularly scheduled time when he submits a complaint about Jim (Fridays at 4 pm) which he thinks are being sent to the corporate office, but end up in a box under Toby's desk.

Michael is not pleased with Toby's method of conflict resolution, so he decides to take matters into his own hands and whips out his "Mediator's Tool Chest" which he basically leverages to make sure that he comes out ahead, no matter what. The issues that the staff members have with each other are quite novel, including Angela and Oscar's dispute over her poster featuring two babies playing saxophones, and Ryan stating that Creed "smells like death."