Short cuts.

Avatar: Beautiful pictures (Pandora at night in 3D? Yes, please). Cheesy dialogue ("I see you"). Unoriginal script occasionally bordering on the ridiculous (your Home-Tree is sitting on my Unobtainium!). About forty-five minutes too long (let's bond with another jungle creature). Glad I saw it, but I never need to see it again.

Dollhouse: That last episode sucked. I mean, magic spinal fluid? That was the whole point of Caroline? Not to mention, they successfully assassinated Boyd's character ("you're my family") faster than the Battlestar writers killed Tory's, which I didn't think possible. If you're going to make him the Surprise Villian, he needs to have an actual motivation. A big, unfortunate mess. That said, I'm still optimistic they can salvage what's left for the finale.

The House of the Spirits: "In almost every family there's a fool or a crazy person . . . Here the madness was divided up equally, and there was nothing left over for us to have our own lunatic." Beautifully written, with more moving parts than you can hope to keep track. The narrative unfolds like a series of Russian dolls, linked by love and blood. It reminded me of The Corrections in the sense that Allende captures the life of an entire family using language that often reads as meandering, when in reality she's plotted every movement with a poet's precision.