The week on TV: Mad Men returns as Revenge, Modern Family and Smash impress

MAD Men's third series earns high praise, while Revenge, Modern Family and Smash are all worth tuning into this week.

neighbours

DIANNE Butler reviews your weekly evening television.

The Good Wife

Wednesday, February 15
The Good Wife
Channel 10, 9pm
Rating: 3 stars

DID you see Julianna Margulies at the Golden Globes? It's like she came straight from The Good Wife set.

If anything, she took off some of her make-up in the limo on the way there. The amount of make-up they put on her for this show is idiotic. I think she reaches a personal best tonight.

Her mouth looks like she has been up a mulberry tree. Maybe it's a strategy - by making Alicia look like she's stuck in the early '90s she can say she's still earning what she was 20 years ago when the fiscal showdown with disgusting husband Peter comes.

For a lawyer, Alicia is pretty dim when it comes to her own life. Well, she's going to learn a few things tonight. She's like, "Oh no, Peter's not going to bilk me out of any money". And there he is looking like a weasel. Didn't she see Sex and the City?

She thinks all he wants is to be governor. He's basically Eli Gold's ventriloquist doll but as David Lee points out, there's no money in that. But Alicia's too busy to worry about that. She has pointless job interviews to do first and a manipulative prisoner to visit who won't talk to any of the other lawyers. ("It's like Clarice Starling," is how a titillated Celeste puts it.)

He turns out to be Dylan Baker, a great actor who really puts the egg beater to this role. If you need a reason to watch this episode, here it is. He plays a wife killer (not important) and finance whiz (important) who Diane and Celeste need evidence from in a class action.

They're in court at the start of the episode when their key witness has second thoughts about getting on the stand and they have to find someone else. It isn't anything to do with Alicia, only inasmuch as everything is.

csi

Thursday, February 16
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Channel 9, 8.30pm
Rating: 2 stars

THIS is Marg Helgenberger's last episode on CSI. After 263, you'd be leaving too. I'm worried, though not very, they may even send Catherine Willows off in a box, because if you've been watching you'll know about Mark Gabriel and what happened last week.

She gets to have several pensive moments before it's all over though, thinking about her early years and how she got off the pole and into the CSI lab. Unit, team or family. More like family.

I've missed a few episodes (259) but I was still able to follow the plot, thanks to Nick Stokes's phone call at the start: "Hey DB, it's Nick. I've got a lead from Mark Gabriel's company to his hit squad via the Swiss bank account, so you need to call me back so I can fill you in."

DB is Ted Danson, the boss. It's already been established he's not in the office, and neither is Catherine. Enter Sara. "You won't be hearing from Catherine for a while," she tells Nick.

Seconds later gun shots are called in and Sara's like, "Uh oh, that's Catherine's neighbourhood, I've got a bad feeling about this". They're so rattled they go into her house and start handling things without gloves on.

I'm concerned what a lawyer could say later to Judge Judy: "Contaminated crime scene, inadmissible evidence, I demand a mistrial."

On the other hand, these people are CSI. They know what they're doing. Surely.

Suddenly Nick's like one of those dogs. "I smell ethanol" OMG.

I don't know the significance of that. Maybe that the criminals are economising on fuel so they can spend up on bio-engineered insects that clean the bones of their victims? Hmmm.

neighbours

Friday, February 17
Neighbours
Eleven, 6.30pm
Rating: 3 stars

TOADIE may need to get his opening credits reshot. He's much thinner than that now. Have you seen those ads he's in?

You would have, they're on all the time, it's like he's running for re-election. He reaches into his refrigerator and gets out a bag of food that resembles something you're handed on a flight.

But let's worry about Toadie later. Right now we need to focus on Paul and Kate and Sophie. And now Susan's in the mix. You would've thought she had enough delinquents on her plate coping with Karl. What's going on there? Is he just waiting to unleash some kind of sociopath? Worse than the simpering one walking around?

Is Karl the Ramsay St Killer? Currently it's Paul scaring the women. Or one woman anyway. Bit rude, the way Erin tells Kate (Ashleigh Brewer) she found Paul "creepy" the way he was hanging around. Um, she's the one dressed in a bedsheet. I wonder if it'll emerge that Erin is a pioneering family of Erins-borough. The way Kate is Kate Ramsay-Street. Paul's still up north, by the way, despite the persuasive suggestion to leave dished out by the local police.

Gee, it'll be something if Paul even gets back to Melbourne. He'll be one of the few on this show who've managed to go to Queensland and return. Not counting Harold.

So now Kate has to choose between going to Vietnam with Lincoln Lewis versus going back to Erinsborough to talk her sister out of wearing so much eye make-up.
 
But back to Toadie. Sonya's wondering how long they have to wait before they face the fact there could be something wrong with her. I say no time at all, Sonya. Which explains why she's gardening on her own in those opening credits.

mad men

Saturday, February 18
Accused
ABC1, 8.30pm
Rating: 2.5 stars

Mad Men
SBS One, 9.15pm
Rating: 5 stars

I WONDER if Don Draper's thinking about his marriage to Betty (January Jones) as he watches a clip of Ann-Margret singing Bye Bye Birdie. Not that I can recall hearing him call his wife "birdie" for a while.

It's the start of the third season, and Don and Salvatore are off to Baltimore on business. Betty's pregnant and having issues with her daughter, her brother, her handful of a father. But gee that's a nice glass of red, isn't it Betty.

Don's called Bill for this trip, and Sal's Sam. As Don says to Shelley the acquiescent flight attendant, "I don't know, I keep going to a lot of places and ending up somewhere I've already been".

Sterling Cooper, now owned by a London firm, is restructuring, that is sacking people. Which is good news for Pete Campbell, who tells his wife, and mentions he should call his mother. "Oh Peter," Trudy says. "Don't go to the well, there's no water there."

Roger Sterling is embroiled in his daughter's wedding plans with his newly ex-wife. His current wife, about his daughter's age, shows him the invitations: November 23, 1963.

I would've liked to have been able to recommend Accused as a Saturday night option, but I'm afraid I can't. Good acting, but I found the story pretty manipulative. And you'll know what's going to happen well before it does.

Loosely: Little girl gets touched up by some guy at the local park, tells her parents, father rallies his mates and they hunt him down. See? Already you know how this ends. It's funny, though, because the father's name is Kenny Armstrong but then he breaks his arm.

modern family

Sunday, February 19
Modern Family
Channel 10, 7.30pm
Rating: 3.5 stars

THE neighbours lose everything they own when their house burns down; Jay puts his back out; Cameron drives a truck.

The truck is Jay's. I have missed a few episodes of Modern Family and I have never been sure what it is Jay does for a crust, and I think I had just assumed it was borderline illegal. And of course it still could be. But the truck has Pritchett Closets & Blinds written on the side of it. Which Cameron gets to drive tonight.

Bearing in mind how invested Cameron is in keeping his childhood status as a strapping farm boy healthy. But who knew there was so much money in closets and blinds? And did we know Phil was a licensed masseur?

Apparently. Before he heard the siren song of residential real estate, is how he puts it. But he absolutely still walks the walk, as we find out when he is called upon to give Jay an emergency massage. Yes, Jay.

A very reluctant client. And Phil, the opposite of reluctant. He even does that thing exorcists also do, where they wave a burning bouquet garni around the room before they get going. I think Phil cites one of the Native American cultures as his rationale.

The fire at the neighbours has traumatised Cameron. It was only a block away, so you can imagine.

Driving the truck later, really, is remedial. But as the rest of them rally at Phil and Claire's to help sort through clothes, furniture, appliances, toys and stuff the other neighbours have sent over, Cam and Mitchell are late. Cameron's been having trouble sleeping. And this morning he had a wardrobe crisis. "It's a sombre occasion and all my tops are too joyful," he says. Actually something did survive the fire. You will not be surprised when you hear what it is.

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Monday, February 20
Revenge
Channel 7, 8.45pm
Rating: 3.5 stars

OOH, what do you think that clear liquid was "Becky" put in Conrad Grayson's soup at the end of last week's episode of Revenge? And by soup obviously I mean bisque.

This is not a tax bracket that wastes its time on soup. And where did the actual Becky wind up? Dead in a linen cupboard? Probably not. Emily (Emily VanCamp) is rich. She would think nothing of spending $12.50 on a pair of glasses from the chemist. Anyway, it is Conrad who is on her kill list.

Sure, there is bound to be some collateral damage, but it is unlikely to be a room service maid in a hotel. Or you just do not know. Emily does seem angry. A spell in an institution, forced to wear a hoodie, no access to proper hairdressers, it can make a girl irrational.

But before Conrad can have his soup, clutch his chest and fall heaving and sweating on top of Lydia for the last time?, we are skipped back three months to a polo match, where Emily "meets" Bill Harmon.

He is a hedge funds manager, a billionaire on paper at least with a degree of swagger that suggests he is going to be susceptible to being taken down. Conrad and Victoria's rehabilitated son Daniel is there playing a few chukkas, giving Emily further opportunity to get closer, and as decent and chagrined as he seems, his proximity to his parents doesn't augur well for his life expectancy.

And remember how last week Victoria (Madeleine Stowe) got Frank her security guy to check Emily out? He reports back tonight. You would want to hope Emily has covered all eventualities.

I would say having Victoria Grayson come after you would be somewhat problematic. I mean, you saw what she did to Lydia, and she was her friend.

AP on TV Smash

Tuesday, February 21
Smash
W, Foxtel/Austar, 7.30pm
Rating: 3.5 stars

Packed to the Rafters
Channel 7, 8.30pm
Rating: 2.5 stars

I THOUGHT I'd start bleeding from the ears if I heard that ukulele version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow again.

I've often found watching Packed to the Rafters a trial and tonight, as Dave Rafter dreams of a Hawaiian holiday, or its southern hemisphere equivalent, with umbrella drinks, a back rub and Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's voice on a loop in his head, it was almost too much for me.

And then I put Smash on, and the first words on that? Somewhere Over The Rainbow. I can only agree with songwriter Julia Houston (Debra Messing) when she complains all everyone wants to do is revivals, nobody's interested in anything new.

Both songs end quickly. Not quickly enough for me obviously but you'll enjoy the way it's shut down in Smash.

Unless there's something wrong with you. It's a hard show not to like. Getting you there will be the issue: a series about putting on a Broadway musical about Marilyn Monroe. I can't sit through too much singing and dancing or worse, rehearsing. But so far it's pretty light on.

Just about everyone in it's a drama queen, but that's because there's drama. The work/family tussle, egos large and thin, office politics, the debilitating pain of watching dreams turn to dust. You're going to love it.

Messing's great, but so is Anjelica Huston, and I have a policy to watch everything I can that she's in.

But you're wondering about Dave Rafter.

He takes his recurring dream as a sign he needs a holiday. "I just want to go somewhere where everything stops," he tells Julie. "That sounds like heaven," she says.