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The third season of The 4400 started out really good, then petered out midway through. And with the season finale, the story made up for lost time.

Spoilers ahead for folks who haven’t watched the episode. Stop reading now.

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The last three episodes of The Closer haven’t been big on the funny.

The best dramatic writing somehow includes the funny in all the righteous indignation. The West Wing managed it with random banter about falling satellites, Andrew Jackson’s big block of cheese and "abstinence-plus".

"Critical Missing" from three weeks back had no funny, and "Heroic Measures" was rehashed Law & Order. "The Other Woman" from last week had some funny but not as much as the shows from the first half of the season.

This past week’s episode, "Borderline" found Sgt. Gabriel channeling a vacationing Lt. Tao, Brenda bumming off everyone’s cell and Lauren Tom guest starring as a really crazy coroner.

Brenda’s indignation about the fender bender, though, was too far out, even for her.

But after some experimentation with the tone, the funny is back on The Closer. In time for the upcoming season finale. So soon?

So at one point in his life, Jeffrey Sebelia was suicidal. After that remarkable display of taking out his frustrations with Angela on her mother, it’s a pity he didn’t act on those urges.

Guess he never learned not to bring other people’s family in his own shit storm. Fucking junkie was just waiting for an excuse to whale on Angela’s mom.

What a fuckwit.

And what the hell? Fucking Vincent won a challenge. Did the judges even look at that damn collar? They complained about the space cadet sleeves on the Miss America dress, but they didn’t notice the damn collar?

As much as I think Vincent has all the talent of lint, Jeffrey’s childish ass needs to be thrown out.

At this point, I’m just watching The 4400 to see how the overall storyline unfolds. This season started out really well, but half-way through, it started to drag.

I wasn’t all that fond of the freak-of-the-week format of last season, and I like the mythology of the show. But man — pick up the pace.

The twists in the plot of tonight’s episode, "Terrible Swift Sword", felt really anti-climactic. Yeah, I didn’t really see Jordan Collier’s ultimate plan either, but the whole build-up to it just felt pedestrian.

I’m prety sure I’ll be tuning in next season to see what happens, but this show is falling off my appointment viewing.

I knew the "Atheist/Christian" episode of 30 Days would infuriate me, but I soldiered through it anyway.

In this particular episode, an athiest named Brenda lives with a Christian family for 30 days.

First, let me disclose my own bias — I’m no fan of organized religion. I like spirituality fine, and I think spirituality and creativity come from the same primeval source. But the organization of spirituality is self-defeating — doctrinizing what’s supposed to be intuitive is counter-intuitive.

Monotheistic systems are the most problematic. There’s an inherent arrogance to the belief in one all-powerful diety, an automatic framing of perception in absolutes. It’s exclusionary and intolerant at the outset, regardless of the content of the tenets. Preach about love and good works all you want — there’s still the first commandment to deal with.

I’ll answer the question of my theism later.

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… because it is infathomable how he keeps dodging the bullet. Has there been any point in the season where he hasn’t been one of the bottom three?

Having a single day to make a dress out of recyclable materials is … kind of dick. But it does make for great television.

Speaking about bullets, some bullet points:

• I really like how Michael has come to the fore with his designs. He started out the season in the background, and now he’s won two challenges in a row.
• Jeffrey needs to shut the hell up. The recyclable challenge was certainly up his alley, and yet I really like Michael Kors comment about Jeffrey’s aesthetic — ugly beautiful. I choose to interpret that as ugly beautiful.
• Laura made a clean dress, which goes a long way in judging. But there isn’t much variety in her style.
• Kayne — boy knew he had an ugly dress, and he made it work as best he could.
• I’m glad Robert shook himself off from that boring streak. Tim disagrees, though.
• Angela has really shifted her game. She started off the season establishing low expectations of her work, but now she’s really fighting back.
• Allison stumbled on this challenge, which is a shame because she’s done such terrific work all season. I wished she could have gone further.
• Vincent is beyond annoying. The magnitude of his delusion is astronomical. And he has no talent. Fashion was bad to him the first time around for a reason.