Weekly TV Review: Nov 1 to Nov 7

Dexter- If I Had A Hammer: Another week, another good Dexter episode. We find Dexter moving closer to Trinity in order to get a better feel for his current target. He gets to know the family, and even starts pushing Trinity's buttons to see what sets him off. We are still seeing the fallout from Rita discovering Dexter's apartment, so the couple is in counseling, and Dexter makes some interesting strides with being open to her. The issue for where he can store his stuff is settled as well. The real question is how long Dexter can sit by idly and deny his sister some of the info he has on Trinity. He's bound to break at some point, even if it's just a little bit. ☆☆☆☆

Heroes- Once Upon A Time In Texas: This is not a great episode, but it's solid, and sticks to what this season is doing well. We find Hiro trying to save Charlie, and there's a very interesting encounter with Syler (season 1 style) in the process. Samual once again pulls out the stops though, pulling a trick on Hiro in hopes of gaining his family a new time traveler/teleporter. The story following Noah seemed out of place, since it goes against the character that we've known for so long. After that whole story line is wrapped up by the end, it seems pointless right now, but with the way this season is going, maybe it means something more. ☆☆☆

V- Pilot: Well, ABC has hyped the crap out of this show, and with 14.3 millions viewers, it clearly worked. The episode isn't amazing, but really, what pilot ever is? The pilot does do a good job of setting up the show for a promising future. The acting is solid, the visuals are cool, and it seems there will be lots of twists along the way. Overall, it's fairly impressive and should pan out to be a pretty decent show. Plus, it's sci-fi, which I love, and most sci-fi shows don't last on anything but SyFy. ☆☆☆1/2

Community- Home Economics: After the group realizes that Jeff is living out of his car since being locked out of his condo, they all jump to his help. After much reluctance, he ends up bunking with Abed in the dorms. As you can imagine, his way of life quickly diminishes to the point where even Abed wants him to get his act together. They tell Britta to offer him sex, but she would prefer to use other methods to shape Jeff up. The episode doesn't overdo the humor, delivering just enough to properly compliment the story line. ☆☆☆1/2

FlashForward- The Gift: This show is starting to get frustrating. It never delivers an amazing episode, yet does just enough each week to prevent me from giving up on it. This week they are closing in on the blue hand group, finally leading to them getting on the inside. This could have been more interesting, but it was only decent. The saving grace of the episode is that it had a character make a life-or-death attempt to change the future. I hate to spoil too much, so I'll just say that there is a suicide. I like that the show is addressing the fact that these characters could very easily change their futures through drastic, or even a few simple measures. ☆☆☆

The Office- Double Date: Half of this episode was good, the other half quite bad. What was good was Pam and Jim being forced on a double date with Michael to celebrate Pam's mom's birthday. There's some great tension here, and Pam even seems to start coming around to the idea. Of course, the show quickly takes care of that development. What was bad was the stuff back at the office. Dwight wants to get Jim fired by doing nice things for people so that they owe him a favor. This idea is stupid, even for Dwight. Andy then gets involved, and the whole situation just blows up. The attempt really fell flat and didn't make sense for the characters or the show. ☆☆1/2