William the Bloody looks for missing kids and Connor smokes

Earlier this week, it was reported all over the blogosphere that William the Bloody, AKA Spike, (James Marsters) will be joining the cast of Without a Trace. TV Guide's Aussiello notes it here. Though it's a recurring role, it could turn out to be series regular gig in time. At the bottom of this post, I briefly recounted my experience with the show, which I watched for a while as my "go to bed procedural." I gave up -- opting instead for the honey-baked properties of the Caruso ("You need.....to watch.....MY show........instead." YYYYYEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHH! screams Roger Daltrey). However, given the addition of the brilliant Marsters, I may check out WOAT again just to see what's going on. But if it turns out to be like watching the back of a milk carton for an hour again, even The Bloody Awful Poet won't keep me tuned in. Oh, and who saw Marsters recently on Saving Grace in a small role as the bad guy? Dark hair, no english accent. Guy is a solid actor and it's nice to see him pop up in some mainstream roles.

Speaking of the Whedonverse, Angel alum Vincent Kartheiser has been playing oily adman Pete on AMC's engrossing, richly drawn Mad Men (he had a chance to shine in last week's ep which further explored Pete's marriage, family life and precarious work situation -- adding some needed depth to the character). I was never the biggest fan of Connor the character (Shan's TV rule: no spawning) though at least we only suffered through a handful of "baby" episodes (including one of the bottom five of the series: "Provider") before Angel's son became a whiny teen, surrogate mom fucker (ew), acolyte of Jasmine and sporting goods store suicide bomber. The character was somewhat "redeemed" late in Season 5, but through it all, Kartheiser did a good job with the occasionally annoying material he was given. Here's a short TV Guide interview with VK.

And finally, after missing the appointment by 3 and a half hours last night, Comcast responded with a new DVR. "Oh," said the technician, "you had the older model. We had a lot of problems with those. When you described your symptoms, I knew what it was. This new one doesn't have nearly as many resets." Hmmm. "nearly as many." That is truly comforting. It reminds me a bit of Aliens:

Bishop: Well, that explains it then. The A2s always were a bit twitchy. That could never happen now with our behavioral inhibitors. It is impossible for me to harm or by omission of action, allow to be harmed, a human being.

We'll see if the new DVR follows the rules of robotics and doesn't allow anyone to be harmed (like, say, folks in a nearby apartment caught by a stray bullet as a deranged, over-the-edge viewer goes all Scarface on his malfunctioning DVR the next time PTI doesn't record).