WHITE COLLAR on the USA Network

Since Zack Gibbs asked for it, a thread for USA Network's new sleuth dramedy "White Collar". I liked the pilot alright, but I'm not sure the "Monk" lead-in will be enough to keep me into the show. We all love Tiffani Thiessen from "Saved by the Bell" or "Beverly Hills: 90210", but her range is limited and her character is worse than useless. Alexandra Daddario is more compelling as Kate in security cam footage and a couple photographs, and the character holds a lot more promise. Tim DeKay gives a hero's effort trying to transform his straight-laced FBI protagonist into someone interesting. Matthew Bomer is the only one whose role has any meat, and he does a compelling job with it. I have to wonder what Willie Garson's character gets out of doing Bomer's grunt work for him.

He also looked far too young four years ago when they were casting the film.

Yeah, the show's still not quite working for me. If it weren't on directly after "Monk", I wouldn't seek it out. The Kate macro mystery has captured my interest.

I still can't say I'd stick around if it wasn't airing following "Monk", but after tonight's episode I am prepared to say that White Collar's Kate has the most beautiful eyes on television.

After a pretty bland half the a season, the fall finale finally got me to sit up and take notice. Since I was planning on dumping the show once the pair-up with "Monk" was over, I guess it happened just in time.

The whole episode was brilliantly played. We were misdirected to believe that Noah Emmerich's character was rotten, but nothing they showed us specifically tied his character to anything dirty. Because Neil been so consistently more interesting than Peter's, I just naturally assumed they were tapping his phone to get to Neil -- never considering that they were tapping Peter's phone to get to Peter. Likewise, all of the evidence used to frame Neil was tied to Peter and Noah Emmerich's character. But because we were there in real time as Peter collected all of the evidence used to frame Neil, I assumed that it had to be Noah Emmerich's character with the nefarious motive. Instead, Noah Emmerich's character was following the same paper trail that Neil was -- only slightly ahead of him.

It casts everything in a new light: the thief wasn't refusing to turn state's witness because Noah Emmerich's character, peering in, made it futile. He was refusing to turn state's witness because the guy sitting across the table from him was the one who set the whole thing up.

I have no idea where the show is going from here, since the revelation at the end makes it impossible to return to the status quo. And that's what's going to bring me back in January.

In one episode, they reverse who's the straight man that provides the window into this world and enigmatic character that keeps us watching. Brilliant.

The question is: what form of status quo will that be? I envision two possible scenarios: 1) everything that the fall finale implicated about Peter is true, and we go back to solving cases of the week knowing that Peter actually can't be trusted, and Neil knowing that Peter can't actually be trusted.  2) everything about the fall finale played as we originally thought it had before the reveal at the end, and Peter's rendezvous with Kate is the first time they're meeting; he's actually trying to help Kate, and he was just better at tracking her down than Neil has been.

And, of course, the third option: everything doesn't return to the status quo in a slightly different tenor, and the rhythm of the show changes dramatically. Point #2 would be the most disappointing for me, but even that would leave the show in a more interesting place than we were at before.

A reminder that "White Collar" premieres the second half of its freshman season tonight at 10/9c.

Forgive me for quoting myself, but... They went with the safe choice, number 2. Peter's rendezvous with Kate is the first time they're meeting, at least since Neil got out of prison. Noah Emmerich actually is the bad guy despite the midseason finale making that basically impossible. And the status quo resumes, with the music box now being the continuing thread instead of locating Kate.