(S02E13) There was a lot of action is this penultimate episode of Army Wives. After the ripples created by all these stones in the water, I expect that next week's season finale will be a humdinger, although I don't think the finale can equal the punch of last year's suicide bomber at the Hump Bar.

It's clear that the writers like to keep us on our toes, surprising us, and I don't mind the unexpected. But the twist in tonight's show really came out of left field. I'll be frank; it was bad. I won't talk about it further until after the jump, but suffice to say I felt very manipulated, and not in a good way.

The Trevor/Roxy drug story has been building and it's definitely coming to a realistic boil. I feel for Roxy. She's doing her best to keep it together and Trevor has been like another person since returning from Iraq, guilt ridden and injured.

(S02E04) If there's one thing about Army Wives that bothers me, it's that life is rarely this tidy. With a few exceptions, this episode was about as neat and organized as Frank Sherwood's sock drawer. If you know that character, you know what I mean.

The really good part of the show dealt not with the wives, but with the husbands. Michael Holden, usually the Rock of Gibraltar, finally was shown to be in pain.

It was fitting that Michael wouldn't make it easy for Claudia Joy to find out what was bothering him. A general doesn't show his soft underbelly, not even to his wife.

The twist of having George's sister, Leah, appear was a good development. It was unexpected that the sister of the guy who bombed the Hump Bar would approach the Holdens, but it worked because it gave Claudia Joy a chance to counsel Michael.

%Gallery-26330%

Comcast, Cox, and TiVo have been working on deploying TiVo software on cable company hardware for well over a year now. But while the original goal was to let cable operators flip a switch and automatically send the TiVo software to a customer's box, the reality has been a bit trickier. For the most part, if you've been one of the lucky few people who even had access to Comcast's TiVo service, you probably had to wait for a guy in a truck to roll up to your house and work some magic.

But now TiVo CEO Tom Rogers says the days of auto-flip activation are nearly upon us. This feature will make it much less expensive for cable operators to deploy the TiVo service, which means it's likely we'll see the service expand beyond its current test markets in New England.

[via Gizmo Lovers]

I don't envy military parents, especially those with young kids. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to explain to a child why their mother or father has to leave for long stretches at a time. Sesame Workshop has produced a new DVD that will be distributed free of charge to military families next month that is geared towards helping parents talk with their children about the various stages of deployment. The DVD features Elmo and his father as Elmo's father prepares to leave, though it's never revealed where his father is going. The DVD will also feature interviews with military families, and was created mainly for those new to the military who are left behind and aren't always sure what exactly to say to their kids, or how much is too much. Wal-Mat has contributed $1.5 million to the project.