Everybody loves Swarley

Spoilers for, in order, "Heroes," "HIMYM" and "The Class" coming up on the other side of the space-time continuum...

Weakest "Heroes" to date, I thought. Far too much Peter Petrelli, a character who's not remotely as appealing without Mohinder or Isaac around to mock him. (Adrian Pasdar could certainly bring the snark, but most of Nathan's put-downs tilt more towards pure mean.) The pointless return of Simone, the unsurprising revelations that Showkiller Rena Sofer is in a wheelchair and that Parkman's buddy was sleeping with his wife, and yet another cliffhanger that failed to blow my mind.

It wasn't all bad. I liked the Claire scenes, D.L. in an unexpected team-up with Hiro (and either D.L. can't phase other people like Kitty Pryde can, or he doesn't understand the full extent of his powers yet), and Parkman letting the coma wife talk to her husband one last time before letting go was reasonably touching for what's an emotionally two-dimensional show most of the time. I'm even really warming to Ali Larter, both as Niki and as "Jessica." But after weeks and weeks of edge of the seat stuff, I was reclining for most of this. Hopefully, just a blip and not a sign that Tim Kring is turning into a pumpkin (or just back into Tim Kring).

The Swarley running gag on "How I Met Your Mother" gave me so much happiness, it's possibly not even legal. It wasn't even the endless variations on Swarley itself that I loved (though the use of the "Cheers" font for the producer credits was brilliant) as it was Barney's increasing despair at the gag. Solid episode all-around, and I'm pleased to see Morena Baccarin getting non-space-ho acting jobs. (Not that I didn't like her as a space ho; it's just nice to see that barista roles are open to her as well.)

After the last episode of "The Class," I wrote, "Somebody let me know if they ever get around to punting about half the cast and I'll give it another go." Well, while having it on in the background so I could build up enough of a DVR buffer to skip the "Heroes" commercials, I realized that, for one week at least, they did just what I asked -- and yet even without Holly and Kyle and that annoying corner of the show, it still wasn't very funny. Now I need a new operating theory for what's so wrong... think, think, think...