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“Fringe” – one of those odd, yet fascinating episodes because it’s all about the characters (and less of EvilCharlie):

Walter realizes it’s time to live in a real apartment;

military veterans who become ticking time bombs and not even know it;

crazy colonel thinks he’s right that there’s a Big Threat Out There (and even if he is, he can’t even be specific enough to convince Broyles of anything);

Broyle’s is a tough but kind man, telling Peter and Olivia to look out for each other as they head to Iraq to speak with informants;

Olivia’s still trying to recover from the car crash and the horrifying trip to the Alternate Universe (aka “over there” or “other side”) – at a bowling alley;

Peter can speak Arabic because he was apparently involved in some kind of unspecified shenanigans in Iraq;

and Astrid… doesn’t want Walter to use fruit in the experiments. Umm, wasn’t Astrid supposed to be an FBI agent herself? Huh?

Been watching chunks of Ken Burns’ National Parks documentary. Especially enjoyed the parts about Teddy Roosevelt’s style of big government power – the style of a NY progressive Republican – to preserve nature and history. Ken Burns was using film-making to make some kind of political statement indeed.

Am I glad that I don’t live in NJ – I’d hate to watch that gubernatorial debate and actually have to decide to vote in that election. Ironically, the commercial for the third party candidate, Christopher Daggett, was funny for making fun (in a funny way, not necessarily the mudslinging way that is traditional for NJ) of both Jon Corzine (for being a former financier) and Chris Christie (umm, for being a large loud man). Being in the NYC tv market, we get way more NJ political ads than I’d want to stomach, but I doubt it’s easy for the NJ Voter to deal with.

This video below that Eyewitness News had has to be one of the stranger Only In New York type stories – someone’s cuddly furry dog is on the ledge. Fortunately, the dog finally went back inside, but very odd scene.

Sesame Street’s parody of “Mad Men” – to teach kids to understand emotions:

Vermeer at the Met:

Oh, and Justice Sotomayor throwing the first pitch at last Saturday’s Yankee game.

Otherwise, get ready for First Monday!

Fell behind on stuff.

I did see “The Informant!” on Sunday — Matt Damon is terribly amusing, but it’s a weird feeling to realize that the way to portray corporate malfeasance and one man’s financial corruption is via comedy. Damon showed how his character was so average, yet clever, and mentally ill (probably). Scott Bakula as the good FBI agent was pretty cool. Steven Soderbergh (and producer George Clooney) had a whole bunch of people in the movie, even the Smothers Brothers.

Sam Yoon didn’t exactly get to go forward in the Boston mayoral race, but he seemed to have a decent showing. At least there’s progress f or APA candidates o the east coast.

Lack of sleep doesn’t help the immune system. Hmmm…

A little frightening to think that McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish might have caused serious fish problems.

Well, isn’t this exciting: Monet at MoMA!

Meanwhile, William Blake at the Morgan — weird stuff, that bloke.

This whole celebration of NYC’s Dutch past is a bit more than I thought – somehow feeling a bit superficial and wistful – and trying to be deep – all at once. Some exhibition, something over at Governor’s Island, Vermeer at the Met, and “Dutch New York” on Channel 13.

Fall preview of the coming season of “How I Met Your Mother”…

That season premiere was pretty good. Except… Ted’s supposed to be an architecture instructor at Columbia. And, they did throw in some exterior shots of the Columbia campus. But, the scene where Ted is running through campus to get to the correct classroom clearly has Ted in a Californian campus (viewers on one of the bulletin boards on-line say it’s either UCLA, USC, and I kind of thought it looked a lot like Stanford). Plus, no, the buildings at Columbia are not named as “Building No. 5.” As a Columbia alumnus, I was a little disappointed about that. Otherwise, thought it was cool that “Barnman and Robin” will be in their version of a relationship.

The season premiere of “Fringe” was entertaining — although, I’m not all that pleased with what they did to Charlie, the FBI agent who was Olivia’s friend. It was a J.J. Abrams-redux thing, really, and I do wonder whether this will just about crush Olivia’s spirit – to harm her FBI friend like that.

And the boss, Broyles, with an unusual sort-of romance with the mysterious Nina Sharp? I kind of called that last season – they had some amusing chemistry vibes and I’m glad “Fringe” would touch on that.

I didn’t watch the season premiere of “Heroes.” Television Without Pity covers the storylines that “Heroes” dropped the ball on. Those reasons — well, the whole dropping the ball on Claude and Lindermann and the alternate universe of Plague — along with what they did to Nathan last season are why I can’t watch this show anymore. You have to respect your characters; you have to come to a proper resolution to your stories, or you just have a pretty show to watch, but not much of a show. Just saying, that’s all.