True Blood's latest batch of troubles,Mad Men's season six finale and getting caught Under The Dome

When we last left Pam and Tara on True Blood, Fangtasia had been shut down by the law and Tara was shot with a nasty new bullet that burns vampires up from the inside out.

Fortunately, Eric and Nora stopped by to check in on things and Eric took charge in removing the bullet,which is silver and sends out UV rays to boot. Talk about your deadly double whammy there!

 As Eric goes off to figure out his next move(which involves glamoring the governor's daughter), Sookie and Jason run into a member of their fae family, their grandfather Niall(played by the awesome Rutger Hauer).

 Niall is willing to give them a hand with Warlow,who is now in our reality after being zapped into another dimension by Sookie's late godmother Claudine. On top of that, Bill's strange new power status is freaking poor Jessica out and hopefully,everyone will get their act together before more craziness occurs:

Mad Men wrapped up season six with Pete's power play against Bob Benson backfiring on him, Joan allowing Roger to spend more time with their son and Don getting temporarily kicked out of the agency after a meltdown with the Hershey people.

Don claimed that he did that in order to let Ted start up the West Coast version of SC&P(love the new logo!), an idea he swiped from Stan in the first place,but there was more to it than that.

All this season,Don's been flirting with the idea of self destruction(that ad work for the Hawaiian hotel,the too close to home affair with Sylvia,his near drowning at a Hollywood party) and the straw that broke the camel's back for him is his recent estrangement with Sally. I think that this point in his life, Don is realizing that running away from your problems is no longer going to work for him and maybe this crash and burn will finally earn him some inner peace.

Speaking of running away, Ted practically begs Don to let him take the California job after he can't decide between staying with his wife and kids or going off with Peggy. It seems to me that Ted is not as strong or solid as he projects to others(particularly Peggy) and prefers to lean on someone else to handle things when crucial decisions are needed.

Peggy is better off without him,although she doesn't feel that way right now. Hopefully, she'll be able to find a romantic partner who doesn't insist upon imposing his emotional needs over hers by the next season rolls around(which I believe may be the last one for the show). For now, we have much to look forward to from SC&P in 2014:

  The premiere of Under The Dome aired this week,earning huge ratings and the interest of many. The show started off with a literal bang as the mysterious barrier traps the residents of Chester's Mill(along with a few passers-by) and while everyone is scrambling to figure out what's happening, a few signs of creepy power play are beginning to emerge.

Those who read the Stephen King book this is based upon have already caught to several changes from the original material(most of which were to be expected as UTD is on CBS rather than Showtime as once intended) but it's good to have something to figure out as we go along for this very bumpy ride:

RANDOM NOTES:

THE AMERICAN BAKING COMPETITION: It was dessert week and the sweets were rather bitter as Brian is still in the game,despite two of this challenges falling flat. The worst by far was his chocolate souffle,which failed due to his insistence on tweaking the ingredients-next time, follow the recipe,dude or you'll wind up with more than egg on your face from the judges: