On the 12th day of December, with only 12 days (gulp) until Christmas Eve, here's a dozen topics of interest — or possibly disinterest — regarding today's unusually busy, for mid-December, TV lineup.
Mother's Day: On CBS's biggest Monday hit, Two and a Half Men (9/8c), Mimi Rogers drops by the Malibu manse as Walden's mom. Alan, naturally, is smitten (ewwww), but in the opposite-of-nurturing tradition of mothers ...
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In his role as a professional eater and drinker on Travel Channel's No Reservations, Anthony Bourdain's omnivorous bacchanals across the globe have become the stuff of foodie legend. So I braced myself for our meal at NYC's Takashi, a Japanese/Korean restaurant that's known for specialties like beef heart and flash-boiled Achilles' tendon. Would I be able to keep up with his infinite appetite for offal and sake? As it turned out, Bourdain is considerably more tame when he's off duty — and readily admits that these days, he'd rather get home to his wife and kid than stay out late being a bada--.
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On No Reservations' mid-season finale, snarky world traveler Anthony Bourdain visits Japan's island of Hokkaido. Having filmed the episode prior to March's deadly earthquake, the host hopes to share with audiences "a sense of what we've lost and what's probably been changed forever."
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The Chicago Code (Monday, 9/8c, Fox)
As often happens in the best crime dramas, the bad guy often gets some of the meatiest material. And Ronin Gibbons, the Chicago Alderman played so deliciously by Delroy Lindo, is no ordinary adversary. We get a better sense of what makes him tick in this episode, when the powerful politician is confronted by an armed teenage robber, causing Gibbons to look back on his own upbringing, back before he became so cynical about the city's corrupt ways. In another storyline, a bomber blows up a city building and promises more mayhem, putting a ticking clock on Jarek and Caleb's efforts to track down the culprit. This situation is not unlike the dilemma on ABC's Castle an hour later (10/9c), in the conclusion of a tense two-parter that finds Beckett and Castle teaming up with a fed (Adrian Pasdar) to avert a terrorist calamity....
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Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations (Monday, 10/9c, Travel Channel)
The outspoken culinary expert and world traveler celebrates his 100th episode with a return to Paris — hitting all the foodie hot spots in the City of Lights with the renowed chef Eric Ripert (whose chops Bourdain busted while guest-judging Top Chef last week). A daylong marathon of favorite episodes ends at 9/8c, with a "What Were We Thinking?" retrospective special that looks back at five years of filming the show in locales all across the world...
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