We’re about a month away from the season premiere of Bones, and I am not excited. I swear. Season six was an embarrassment, start to finish, and this pregnancy storyline is just an atrocious piece of storytelling. I feel like …

Oh, holy God, this is adorable.

From the bickery banter IN THE MORNING AT HIS APARTMENT WHERE THEY SLEEP to the sweet puns (“Due this November!”? Pinch me!), this promo suggests that this season is going to be absolutely freaking adorable.

Seeley Booth as a daughterfather? Temperance Brennan as a hormone-crazed pregnant woman? I’ve wanted this since season one, episode two! (What? It took some convincing.)

My concern is — how far can this baby carry the show? Will he or she (she, most definitely) be enough to redeem the wrongs of last season? Or will this baby just be a constant reminder of the out-of-character, almost-cruel-to-patient-fans leap forward these writers made last spring?

I feel like this could be good, actually. The time jump and the enormous (har har) shift in Booth and Brennan’s partnership will immediately distance season seven from its predecessor, and that’s a good thing. But I’ll be curious to see if longtime Bones fans can put the past behind them.

I think I can, if that counts for anything, although I reserve the right to roll my eyes with some frequency. (Brennan’s going to go into labor at a prison during a lockdown? EYES ROLLING SO MUCH.)

Meet new Lily!

After months of knowing that Jaden and Ella Hiller were being replaced as Baby Lily on Modern Family, we finally have our first look at Aubrey Anderson-Emmons in action. And even though I shudder at the idea of her being rapidly-aged to four, this transition is actually kind of great. See, the thing that made Lily one of the top-four best characters on Modern Family was her nonchalance about everything. She always appeared wise beyond her years–completely aware of the insanity going on around her, but choosing not to comment. You always got the idea that she could unleash a tirade, possibly in a language other than English, on these people, but she was just too above it all to care.

I think we learned going forward that that wasn’t necessarily an acting choice, but rather the disposition of the children playing Lily–they really didn’t care too much about being on the show. It’s great to see that they’ve incorporated that into the character going forward, and that “New Lily” seems just as disengaged as her predecessor. The best part isn’t that Cam is a coddling father–it’s that he doesn’t get even as much as a smile in return.

funny. you don't look dead. // abc promotional photo

Castle’s fourth season premieres tonight, and—SPOILER ALERT—Beckett lives. Although we can expect the premiere to deal largely with the fallout of the shootout, what’s really changing the game here is Castle’s confession of love.

Or is it?

Yes, Castle verbalized his feelings for Beckett, and, yes, it probably surprised him a little bit, too. But could this be a classic tree-falls-in-the-woods situation? No one else heard his confession, and it remains to be seen whether or not Kate herself heard those words before completely losing consciousness. (My money’s on no.)

Critical to this show’s future is using the cliffhanger to propel the show forward, instead of just resetting the team to status quo by the end of the premiere. There are hints that they are trying: Castle and Josh aren’t pretending to be friendly anymore, and Beckett—again, she shockingly survives—will be in precinct-mandated therapy this season. The therapy could be a great conceit for this show, because it allows the characters to verbalize those feelings before facing the consequences of doing so. Sydney Bristow was able to talk about Vaughn with her CIA shrink on Alias, and Sweets has been Booth and Brennan’s sounding board for years on Bones.

Stana Katic told TVGuide:

“She’s making an adult decision not to dive into something because she doesn’t want to screw it up. She has real, adult reasons for making the choices she makes. … She cares for him so much. She’s in love with him. She’s dated other guys, but he’s the only guy she’s been in love with.”

That’s all well and good, Stana, but at a certain point, the mature thing for people who are in love with each other to do is to try to be together. It’s what made the last two seasons of Bones so tedious, and it’s part of why Fringe is so good lately. (Would Peter disappearing from Olivia’s life be as heartbreaking if they hadn’t been so publicly, officially, permanently together?)

I wonder if sexual tension could survive indefinitely were writers not in the business of slowly moving the needle. Bones’s fourth season was fun and largely angst-free—it wasn’t until he pushed for a relationship in season five that I started really questioning their logic of being apart. So with Castle now inching its way toward an inevitable hookup (well, one could argue they’ve been inching their way there since the pilot, but it’s definitely more serious now), how much longer can they wait?

Or maybe the real question is — how much longer can you wait?

TVGuide.com reported over the weekend that Don Most (Happy Days) and Valerie Mahaffey (Desperate Housewives and, the last time I was there, LAX) are guest-starring on Glee as Miss Pillsbury’s parents in an episode tentatively “Asian F.” This episode will also feature the introduction of Mike Chang’s parents. Here’s a brief synopsis:

Mike is under pressure to quit New Directions; Rachel and Mercedes face-off for the lead in the school play with unforeseen results; the campaign for class President gets a new candidate; and Will worries that Emma is embarrassed by him.

Rumor has it that known Asian Mike Chang gets an A- on an exam, the equivalent of an F in his family’s eyes. His parents pressure him to spend more time studying and forget about that pesky, distracting Glee Club, to which I say, YOU ARE RIGHT, CHANGS. These New Directions kids are always changing schools, having sex, and spending time with a teacher whose behavior borders on sexual harassment. (What I really want to know is why, then, they allowed Mike to attend the wine cooler party at Rachel’s house.)

Will is worried that Emma is embarrassed by him. Even though she probably should be embarrassed by her boyfriend and his vest collection, I’m sure she’s actually just apprehensive about Will judging her for her upbringing. The question is whether they will depict her parents as warm, loving people who take their children on field trips to dairy farms, or cold-hearted meanfaces who never tried to get help for their daughter’s mental health issues. My guess is that Emma is embarrassed of herself, for having gone through a fiancé and a husband in the course of a year and a half, and she doesn’t want her parents to think of her as the girl who cried I LOVE THIS GUY, even though she knows in her heart that Will is different. Also, introducing a boyfriend to one’s parents is serious business, and with serious business eventually comes sexpectations, etc.

So by the end of the episode, I expect that Emma will have, in fact, introduced Will to her parents, and it will be cute and they will love him. This is the fun part of TV relationships where nothing hurts—the beginning, before the writers decide to add silly angst and drama that can’t be resolved in one episode.

It’s interesting that both of these parental plotlines are happening in the same episode. We should expect that they will in some way be juxtaposed against each other—possibly in relation to having a fear of one’s parents accepting who you are. Bonus points if a guidance session with the Chang family is what gives Emma the courage to bite the bullet and make the introduction.

And now, the fun announcement! This season, I will be producing “Glogical,” a weekly video series chronicling the logical fallacies on Glee. Confused about the Glee Club’s inexplicable budget problems? Me, too! Confused about how the Cheerios continue to win titles while their roster so frequently changes? Me, too! Expect a lot of WHAAAAATs. 

The newest Glee promo is the first to feature new footage from season four, and it contains a big spoiler: Will and Emma are together! It’s presented super-casually in the promo, and Michael Ausiello reported on their togetherness as if it was already old news and not a huge scoop.

Maybe it’s just everyone’s collective enn-Glee (that’s Glee ennui, for those not up on their French-English portmanteaux), but this is big news. The question is — how did this happen? I mean, are those lunchboxes they’re holding? Are they making lunches together? Like, in the morning before work?

Sure, they were back on good terms by season’s end, but there was no indication that they were about to spend their summer getting cozy. Brad Falchuk confirmed that a Will/Emma scene was deleted from “New York,” and there was a rumor that went around that there may have even been a kiss in said scene. So here’s what I think went down:

Will was humbled at Nationals, both because of New Directions’s shame-ridden defeat and his embarrassing performance of “Still Got Tonight.” (By the way, I had to Google the name of that song, because my instinct was to call it “Waiting for Tonight,” but I knew that wrong. Now there’s a song that Glee should cover!) When he gets home, he tells Emma that his real dream is here, with the kids and with her. Bonus points if he actually said, “I came back for you.” So he is back, and he is ready to be in a relationship with her whenever she is ready to be in a relationship with him. And maybe in that scene, we find out that she is probably not ready right this moment, but she could maybe spend the summer getting ready! Perhaps there was even a chaste kiss full of promise, but I’m not really buying that rumor.

It would have at least set the stage for the lunchbox kissing. As it stands, the lunchbox kissing seems super-surprising. But, hey, you don’t see me complaining. You know what else is super-surprising? That Will seems to have gotten a pretty drastic haircut, but he still looks vaguely like a sexual predator.

Glee season two DVDs come out September 13, at which point we may finally learn the truth about what happened to Will and Emma in the finale. There’s also the possibility that we will just NEVER KNOW, and that’s okay, too. Whatever. Enn-Glee.

It’s important that, as series age and their long-running characters become less likeable, they add new characters who can fill that gap. For Grey’s Anatomy, that character is young Zola, the soon-to-be-adopted daughter of Derek and Meredith.

In this clip, a scene from the season premiere (airing three weeks from tonight!), Derek’s in a bad mood mid-surgery while his pager beeps incessantly. He’s snapping at nurses about the distraction, but when someone comes in suggesting that the page is about his baby, Derek puts the scalpel down.

Although he’s near-frantic trying to get ahold of Meredith, we see that she’s not that busy–she and Zola are down in the basement while Meredith mutters her old standard, “What did I do? What did I do? What did I do?”

Is Meredith trying to get Derek’s attention by using their baby as emotional bait? Could she have paged him repeatedly about Zola so he’d drop everything and come looking for them, at which point she could corner him and talk about their marital issues? Even for Meredith, that seems low and probably a bad idea. Could it also be that something is wrong with Zola, and whoever’s calling (say, a tech with bad test results) can’t get ahold of Meredith, either, because she’s being a basketcase not answering her phone?

Whatever the case may be, I’m sure that Zola will be okay, Meredith will get her job back, and Derek and Meredith will work their crap out. And I will keep watching, because Zola is cute.

Damian McGinty, co-winner of The Glee Project, will appear in episode four as a foreign exchange student staying at the Brittany S. Pearce residence. This is funny because on TGP, the first time writer Ian Brennan heard Damian sing, he leaned over to Ryan Murphy and suggested he be a new kid who Brittany can’t understand. So they really don’t noodle on any ideas, do they? They just go for it over there.

When asked about Will and Emma yesterday, TVLine said, “The first part of the season is really about them adjusting to being in a relationship, and Emma making progress working through her considerable issues.” That’s news to me, considering no one knew they were going to start the season together. Does that mean they’re going to start the season together? Who knows. I’m ready to see that storyline become about her pushing through her OCD challenges, rather than the continuing will-they-won’t-they.

Santana and Brittany are re-joining the Cheerios. This is funny because I honestly don’t remember them leaving, and I saw every episode last season. Ah, well. Quinn is likely not a Cheerio at the start of the season, because she is going through a little phase where she hates everything and has pink hair. She has also apparently quit Glee Club over the summer, to which I say–stay strong, Fabray.

In all likelihood, Blaine will be in New Directions very early this season. While this ultimately makes sense plot-wise, I will lament both the loss of the Dalton blazer and the poor judgment of these McKinley parents and their impetuous school-changing. The Glee kids must be doing just terribly in classes.

Speaking of McKinley newcomers, Idina Menzel will be back in episode two as Shelby Corcoran for a decent-sized arc. She’s joining the faculty full-time, and will likely cause drama for Rachel, Quinn, Puck, Will, Emma, and everyone who believed Ryan Murphy when he said “no guest stars” this season. Truthfully, even though that double-talk was irritating, I’m looking forward to her return. The bottom line is that she is a great talent and there are interesting stories to be mined from her return. Puck and Quinn’s sacrifice has barely been mentioned since Shelby adopted Beth, and Rachel’s justifiable jealousy toward the baby her mother chose has never been mentioned. (Whether these are the stories Glee chooses to tell remains to be seen, obviously.)

So … there’s a lot. There are also brand-new characters being introduced and a political campaign for Sue Sylvester, but it’s been promised that Glee will get back to basics this season and focus on its core characters. I’ll be here, not holding my breath.

Aaaaaand go.

It seems pretty clear to me now that Leslie is, indeed, going to run for some elected office. Story-wise, when you think about it, it’s kind of the only choice. Ben is the thing that can linger–campaigning is not. And, yes, it will suck for them, and it will suck for me, too. And, yes, there will probably be a recurring skank somewhere around midseason who snaps Ben out of his inevitable pining and who ultimately teaches Leslie a lesson in shoulda-woulda-coulda. (Hey, she can even get lessons on other-ladying from Rashida Jones! So convenient!) Anyway, my guess is it’ll be okay by February sweeps.

More pressing right now is the introduction of Ron’s first wife (Tammy 1) and his mother (Tammy 0). You’ve probably heard that these characters will be played by Patricia Clarkson and Paula Pell, respectively.

First, here’s what I wrote in May about what Tammy 1′s character should be like:

“She should probably be very different from Tammy 2; ergo, as Tammy 2 wields her power over Ron in a very sexual way, I imagine that Tammy 1 is a frigid, withholding ice queen.”

And here’s how she’s described by Nick Offerman and Amy Poehler:

Offerman: “Tammy 1 and Tammy 2 could not be more different. Tammy 2 … is a raging hellcat who uses her sexual wiles to control Ron.”

Poehler: “Tammy 1 is ice-cold, dangerous, steely, and maternal… She comes in and she pushes Ron around in a way we haven’t seen before… Its the creepiest thing that’s happened to Ron, and, I mean, we’ve seen Ron in cornrows.”

In an early episode, all three Tammys converge on the Parks Department for “an old-fashioned prairie drink-off” that involves shots of moonshine. (Oh, I should mention that Tammy 0 looks like she could have just stepped out of a casting call for Mountain Ladies, a reality show I just invented about the real women who live in a rural town and know how to shoot raccoons and ride bears and make moonshine and such.) Everything about this scenario is awesome, especially the promise of Leslie participating … with messy results.

In terms of the promised haircut conversations, April has a really great haircut, y’all! It makes her look a little more mature, which is a good look for a serious married lady, or really any person who just wants a change. Chris is also sporting a new haircut, which is really weird and involves some awkward bangs. I am not sure what he is going for with that.

Finally, there’s a quick shot of Ben in the offices at Entertainment 720 (the multimedia production company owned by Tom and Jean-Ralphio), which can only mean good things. Those guys obviously need some serious budget help, and Ben’s just the man to do it–thanklessly, and while taking a lot of unwarranted crap. For instance, they are really not going to be happy when Ben takes Detlef Schrempf off the books. But you never know–Entertainment 720 could totally take off, and Ben could become their CFO, providing a way for Ben and Leslie to be together again, without having to keep secrets.

Noodle on that, now.

Booth and Brennan arrive at a crime scene, where Brennan is dressed in her typical Jeffersonian jumpsuit—pulled tight over her huge baby bump. Booth is, as expected, doing a pretty good anxious father routine, complaining about her traipsing through the woods. Brennan is, as expected, using anthropology to refute his concerns: women have been squatting in the woods popping out babies for centuries. Booth is, as expected, traumatized by all discussion of squatting.

“I’m never going to be able to survive this pregnancy, I’m telling ya.”

It’s predictable, it’s not particularly clever—but it’s also freaking adorable.

I mean, you guys! Booth and Brennan are having a baby together! They are opposites and they are having a baby together! They have been will-they-won’t-they-ing for six seasons and they are having a baby together!

Question is, after the novelty of squatting conversations wears off, what’s left? Well, then there’s the actual baby, but then what? The writers seem certain that skipping the first six or so months of Booth and Brennan’s romance will allow them to beat the Moonlighting Curse—which, until they actually paired them up, they swore did not exist—but I maintain that good stories can be told whether the characters are together or apart, and bad stories can be told whether the characters are together or apart.

The challenge they have to deal with this season, in my opinion, isn’t writing an interesting post-hookup Booth/Brennan, but rather writing good stories—period. Maybe it will give them a fresh burst of creativity—it sure did for Friends back in the day—but they’re only going to be able to rely on cute baby cuteness for so long.

Last thing—do you want to hear my theory? I think episode six—the last before Emily Deschanel’s maternity hiatus kicks in—will end with a “Booth, I’m in labor” cliffhanger. And it’ll probably happen at a really inopportune time. Maybe it’ll even be related to this season’s serial killer. Booth thinks squatting in the fields to birth a baby is an unsavory idea? See what he thinks when she starts having contractions in a killer’s dungeon lair or something. Then they can decide when they get back if they want to:

(A)   Say it was false labor and get Booth and Brennan the heck out of that dungeon lair!

(B)   Start right back in the dungeon lair and have Booth deliver that messy baby by himself, all the while holding a gun on the killer!

(C)   Skip more time to where the baby is born and fine and like three years old!

Good times all around.

“We all get really good at pretending that the loneliness isn’t there, and then something comes along to remind us. I know what it’s like to have a hole in my life. It’s been there as long as I can remember.”

I am willing to follow any storyline these writers want to write, because this, Olivia? This is all I want. I want you to feel empty and not understand why. I want your life to feel unfulfilled. I want you to be like Goldilocks, where nothing is ever good enough for you, except that BABY BEAR NEVER EXISTED and everything is either too big or too small, and thus you are perpetually frustrated by life and men and your entire existence.

(Is it possible that my husband also got sucked into the machine or the crack in Amy Pond’s wall, as well?)

The question, in my mind, is now … what happens when he comes back? Will Olivia and Walter automatically feel like the hole is filled? Life goes on with Naked Tuesdays and the like? Or will it be the opposite–our heroes don’t recognize that this is the piece of their lives that has been missing for so long?

My bet is that it’ll be something of a hybrid. Our folks will be curious about him, but he won’t completely fill that gap at first. The love won’t just come pouring back–it’ll take some time. John Noble told E! Online:

“What’s happening is we’re going to bring Josh back in as Peter, but not in the same way. Not as a person that’s been there with us all the time, but as a person that comes in our lives at this stage. That’s very different, because the relationship that the audiences know won’t be there. Olivia won’t be in love with him, at least to start with. So we’ve started a whole possibility for relationship growth.”

And so THEN the question is … when Peter comes back, is he just some guy who pops into existence as a grown man, with no recollection of his life or his character or his personality? Or will he know everything? Will he know about 2026? Will he know enough to be devastated that Olivia doesn’t recognize him?

I imagine that if you sacrificed your existence for a person and then dragged yourself back into reality to be with them, you’d be pretty disappointed if you looked into that person’s eyes and were met only with confusion. I hope that, no matter how much Peter knows, there’s still a moment–whether it happens organically or by some machine-related intervention–when it all rushes back for Olivia and Walter. When this enigmatic stranger becomes Walter’s son, Olivia’s husband, the boy in the tulip field again.

Twenty seconds of new footage and I could go on for pages.

We’re 30 days away from the premiere … can you wait?