Category: TV Action (Page 125 of 145)

Rome: “Son of Hades”

January 22, 2007 /

About a month passed between episodes and Lucius is still mired in guilt over the deaths of his wife, children and Caesar. Titus continues to be a good and loyal friend, but it’s clear that his new wife doesn’t want to stay with Lucius any longer.

Mark Antony has bit off more than he can chew and is quickly finding that the day-to-day responsibilities of consul are more than he can bear. He has to deal with Octavian, who justifiably wants his inheritance, with Cleopatra, who wants her son proclaimed to be Caesar’s, and with the gangs, who have all tried to fill the power vacuum present after Lucius’ antics last week. For the last bit, Antony enlists Lucius’ help, giving the soldier a swift kick in the ass in the process.

Lucius takes to his new mission with vigor and declares himself a “son of Hades.” Titus continues to worry about the dark path that his friend is taking, but hasn’t shown any signs of leaving Lucius’ side.

Atia’s loyalty to Antony has more to do with her underestimation of her own son than any true affection she has for the consul, though she did throw out a unreturned “I love you” early in the episode. She is still distracted by her hatred for Servilia, but has a new foil in Cleopatra, who has certainly caught Antony’s eye.

Towards the end of the episode, Octavian made his move by promising to deliver the money that Caesar originally pledged to the plebes. He decided to borrow against his inheritance, which caused the throw down between he and Antony. Octavian has decided to leave Rome, and will no doubt return with an army and loads of support from the citizens of Rome.

Now, for a few of the best lines from this episode:

Atia: (to Antony) “I love you.”

Antony: (to Cleopatra) “Your son will eat shit and die before I make him legal.”

Antony: (to Lucius) “Look at the fucking state of you.”

Cleopatra: (to Atia) “I have made a friend for life.”

Lucius: (at the parlay) “I am a son of Hades and I fuck Concord in her ass!”

Cicero: (to Servilia) “I doubt [Octavian] will be more than a nuisance to Antony.”

External TV, Rome, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas

TV DVD QT Special Edition: 2 Miniseries and a Movie

January 19, 2007 /

Another posting to clean house of 2006 releases in this, the first month of 2007. This time, it’s a trio of DVDs that didn’t fit properly into my last posting, since those were / are regular weekly series.

Broken Trail: A 2-part Western – 184 minutes – that originally aired on American Movie Classics, starring Robert Duvall, Thomas Haden Church, and Greta Sacchi, among others. Not everybody enjoys a good Western, but make no mistake, this is a good Western. Then again, it’s not exactly the first time Duvall has been in the saddle (he was fantastic in Kevin Costner’s “Open Range”), and although he was still pretty much a nobody at the time, Church was actually in “Tombstone,” playing Billy Clanton. It also doesn’t hurt “Broken Trail” any that it was helmed by Arthur Hill, who also directed “Wild Bill” and “Geromino: An American Legend.” I mean, hey, who better to tell a cowboys and Indians story, right? Anyway, it might feel a bit long at times, but the performances and scenery make “Broken Trail” absolutely worth renting for fans of the genre.

The Hades Factor: Stephen Dorff and Mira Sorvino take you on a journey through a Robert Ludlum novel that, on occasion, feels much longer than 165 minutes. Blair Underwood, Colm Meaney, and Anjelica Huston are around to class up the joint a bit, but somebody should’ve done some serious streamlining; as it is, “The Hades Factor” is a drag.

Mrs. Harris: And I’m almost ashamed to admit that I feel much the same way about this made-for-HBO film starring Ben Kingsley and Annette Bening. It just did nothing for me, despite the fact that it won an Emmy. Sorry, I just found it to be a snooze.

External TV, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas, TV DVDs

TV DVD QT, Special Edition: The 2006 Closeout

January 17, 2007 /

I’d just as soon start 2007 with as clean a slate as possible, so I wanted to toss out a few quick takes of stuff that I’d really intended to do longer takes on, except that…well, I just never had the time to watch them in their entirety, basically. I hate to knock out a full-length review on a season of a show if I’ve only watched a few episodes; it results in a composition that’s mostly filler…and if it’s gonna be mostly filler, then why not just do a quick take in the first place? So here goes…

Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist: Season Two: Jonathan Katz’s animated creation returns with another season of stand-up comedians who need therapy. Katz once again returns to do a few audio commentaries, though unlike the previous DVD set, none of his former guest stars took time out to revisit their appearances; they’re barely missed, though, given that Katz is a man who’s always “on,” thereby resulting in always-enjoyable commentary. The biggest question you’ll have after watching this set is, “What the hell happened to Kevin Meaney, and why doesn’t he get more work?” Damn, that guy’s funny.

Criminal Minds: The First Season / Numb3rs: The Complete Second Season: I’m pretty sure CBS has more crime dramas than ABC, NBC, and Fox combined, and here are two of them, both of them about the FBI. “Criminal Minds” focuses on the organization’s criminal profilers, and while the show has an okay ensemble, it’s clearly a vehicle for Mandy Patinkin’s character, Special Agent Jason Gideon, who’ll remind you of Will Graham, from Thomas Harris’s novel, “Red Dragon.” Of the aforementioned ensemble, the character that really stands out is Dr. Spencer Reid – played by Matthew Gray Gubler – who’s a genius with virtually no social skills. It’s an okay show, but it’s not must-see TV. And neither, for that matter, is “Numb3rs”…and, yet, David Krumholz’s performance makes it a show that you’ll almost always stop to watch when you happen to flip by it. Having a supporting cast that includes Peter MacNicol and Judd Hirsch doesn’t hurt any, either…but – and maybe this is just me – I just don’t buy Rob Morrow as a tough-guy FBI agent. It’s worth nothing that both of these DVD sets include decent special features, featurettes, behind-the-scenes docs, commentaries and whatnot, furthering the theory that CBS treats fans of its recent shows better than just about any other studio.

Joan of Arcadia: The Second Season: This is a show that had its one-liner of a premise – teenage girl talks to God – played up way too much. Until I got this set, I had absolutely no idea that Joan’s parents were played by Joe Mantegna and Mary Steenburgen. Hell, if I’d known that, I’d’ve watched the show when it was on the air in the first place! Seriously, though, while Joan’s conversations with God in all his various guises are a major part of the show, “Joan of Arcadia” is a well-written drama that parents could watch with their teens with neither party feeling like the show isn’t aimed at them. It’s philosophical, it’s intelligent, and it provides a positive message without getting mired in schmaltz. Basically, it’s “Touched By An Angel” for the crowd that understands that, in life, every ending isn’t happy.

Ghost Whisperer: The Complete First Season: I think you’re either a “Medium” guy or a “Ghost Whisperer” guy, but you can’t be both. And, frankly, if you’re a guy, you might think you’re not supposed to be either one…but the reality is that “Medium” is awesome. “Ghost Whisperer,” meanwhile, stars Jennifer Love Hewitt, who’s way too perky and cute to be talking to the dead. Sorry, I’m just not buying it. And you probably shouldn’t, either. If you do happen to be a fan, however, you’ll be pleased with all the special features. (Yep, it’s another CBS release.)

Beverly Hills 90210: The Complete First Season: My wife saw this set come in, and while she didn’t exactly grab it with a “Yoink!” and run off to watch it in one sitting, she did find herself wrapped up in the series just as much as she had been during its original release. Me, I was mostly fascinated by how the show’s 2-hour pilot plays less like a teen-angst drama and more like an attempt to reproduce the feel of a John Hughes movie on TV; it doesn’t really succeed on that level, but that’s definitely what it feels like they were going for. While my wife mostly rejoiced in watching episodes she’d already seen half a dozen times on FX, she did observe that “the producers must’ve had a checklist of every teenage problem they could think of and were going through, checking them off as they went through them. And they’re all solved so fast – generally before the end of a single episode – that they must’ve been scared they were gonna get cancelled and didn’t want to leave any cliffhangers.”

Melrose Place: The Complete First Season: Has any guy ever watched a complete episode of this show and not felt guilty about it? Yeah, maybe. After all, the cast includes Courtney Thorne-Smith, Daphne Zuniga, Heather Locklear, and Josie Bissett, making it pretty easy to keep your eyes on the screen and still live with yourself. Actually, this first season of the show – which, FYI, was a spin-off from “90210,” thanks to Jennie Garth’s character from “90210,” Kelly, dating studly carpenter Jake Hanson (played by Grant Snow) – is before things went so far over the top that Locklear was willing to mock the show on “Saturday Night Live.” It was actually a pretty decent nighttime soap at this point. And can you believe there were 32 episodes in the first season? That’s a lot of backstabbing and bedhopping in a year’s time.

Def Comedy Jam Classics, Volume 1 & 2: What’s that? You say that you love comedy, but you can only afford to buy one of these volumes and you want to make sure you get the one that’s got the highest ratio of f-word usage to funny material? Well, I don’t want to make your decision for you, but Volume 2 features James Hannah, Arnez J, and Rich Vos, and it’s hosted by Steve Harvey, while Volume 1 features Dave Chappelle, D.L. Hughley, and Chris Tucker, and it’s hosted by Martin Lawrence. Go ahead, pick.

External TV, TV, TV Action, TV Comedies, TV Dramas, TV DVDs

“24,” Hours 3 & 4: If it’s not love, then it’s the bomb that will bring us together

January 16, 2007 /

The last ten minutes of the tonight’s episode of “24” almost completely erase the lazy conveniences of the season’s first three hours and 50 minutes. This, quite simply, is how last night’s show should have ended, and I can’t imagine that it would have been any more difficult to manufacture the conflict (another phrase patent pending by the former Eli Cash) that delayed the plot up to this point after the bomb went off than it would have been to do so beforehand. Picture the first two hours of “24” ending with the death of Curtis (more on that later) and the detonation of a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles: wouldn’t that have been spectacular? You bet your ass it would have. And if a simple caveman like me can see that, why couldn’t the producers?

Once again, Fox gives us an empty promise with the whole “something will happen that will change everything” tease from last night. Curtis was as good as bagged and tagged from his first minute onscreen this season, and it had nothing to do with the “Simpsons”-esque eye darting he did every time Hamir Al-Assad’s name came up: It was because the two words preceding his name in the credits were “Guest Starring.” In the “24” universe, that’s code for “short life expectancy.” If you need any clarification, you can ask Kal Penn, who was also quickly dispatched after taking Aaron Burr, Mrs. Burr and Baby Ben McKenzie hostage. And speaking of that whole ordeal: is there really a chance in hell that her case falls into Bauer’s hands that quickly? I have to think that the local police probably get calls like that by the ton – especially if terror attacks are occurring that frequently – and they wouldn’t dare to burden the Feds with every call that came in to their 911 call center. That was a stretch of Elastigirl proportions.

So we learn that “visitor” is code for weapon, and we learn from the illegally detained but nonetheless traitorous foreigners (as tempting as it is to offer some personal political commentary on that subplot, I will refrain) that there are in fact five visitors waiting to make their formal introduction. Here’s the part that I’m confused about, though: as the master bomb maker was connecting the suitcase nuke to the detonator, the Feds came in, guns a-blazing. Fayed ordered him to set off the weapon at once, which he did, and that was cool. But wouldn’t that mean that Fayed was killed in the blast? I could swear that the scenes for next week’s episode showed him with the other four “visitors,” threatening to detonate all of them within the hour. If that’s true, then I have two questions: how was he able to escape the blast radius, and how is he going to set off the other four bombs? He just waited four hours for the first detonator. Where does he think he’s going to get four more detonators in an hour’s time?

I will give them credit for the dynamic they’ve set up between Wayne Palmer and the Biscuit. The Biscuit clearly does not see eye to eye with Palmer on, well, anything, but he is much more diplomatic and cooperative than previous “24” White House chicken hawks have been…which means that he is probably the least trustworthy of them all (notice how he intervened between President Palmer and his recently fabricated “sister”). I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Lastly, we must discuss the ridiculous ad promoting the fact that these first four episodes of “24” will be available on DVD on Tuesday. Who on earth absolutely must own the first four episodes of “24” right this very second? Never mind the fact that the episodes weren’t that good: are we really so consumed by instant gratification that we can’t wait until the entire season is released on DVD next year? More importantly, aren’t our landfills overflowing as it is? “The Simpsons” joked about this years ago, when they did a pan across a landfill to an empty space, where there was a sign that said, “Reserved for DVDs.” That’s not a joke, my friends: that is prophecy.

24, Actors, Actresses, External TV, TV, TV Action

Rome: “Passover”

January 15, 2007 /

It’s been more than a year since we’ve had a new episode of “Rome” to watch, and I always find it interesting, especially with these shows on HBO, how our everyday lives roll on as the cast and crew work furiously to but together twelve or thirteen episodes to entertain us for three months before the process starts all over again for another season.

Tonight’s episode picks up moments after Caesar’s murder, and all hell’s breaking loose in the city. For the most part, the creators did a beautiful job of seamlessly rolling the first season into the second. But Atia (Polly Walker) looks quite different to me, so much so that I almost didn’t recognize her when she first hit the screen. It’s possible that they wanted her character to look like she’s aged five to ten years and gained ten to twenty pounds, but something tells me that was an issue the creators had to deal with when they started shooting for the second season.

This episode dealt with the aftermath of not only Caesar’s death, but Niobe’s as well. It’s not often that a show will kill off two of their main characters at the same time, but the parallel storylines make for compelling television.

First, the political implications of Caesar’s death had to be dealt with and it was clear right from the start that Octavian was stepping up his role in the political realm. He’s extremely savvy, so it’s no wonder why Caesar bequeathed his estate to the young man, effectively making Octavian his son. As his mother tres to get the family out of the city, he quickly formulates a plan, and with Mark Antony’s help (and his mother’s approval), he effectively seizes control of the city. Brutus made the mistake of trusting Antony against the advice of all of his advisors, including Servilia. When she put in her two cents, his line – “You too, mother?” – was priceless.

Meanwhile, Lucius is reeling from Niobe’s suicide, but it was clear that he was going to kill her anyway for having a child by another man while he was away at war. He made the mistake of cursing and banishing his children and almost immediately regrets it.

Titus and his slave girl have a nice moment in the woods when he had the best line of the show: “I know I didn’t get us started off on the right foot, killing your man, and I’m sorry for that.” He proposes to her and she agrees to be his wife, but it’s clear that she’s having a tough time understanding that she’s a free woman now. Anyway, once someone rides by yelling about Caesar’s death, Titus hilariously knocks the guy off his horse and uses it to head back to the city.

There, he finds Lucius in a serious tailspin, but helps his friend pull things together. Lucius is torn up about placing a curse his children and the two men discover that their old boss abducted them. After a bloody attack on the boss’ hideout, the man informs the duo that for Lucius’ past transgressions, he “f*cked them, killed them and threw them in the river.” And that was the end of that guy.

It may take a while for Lucius to recover from he day’s events, and he’s not unlike the city of Rome trying to recover from Caesar’s death. Brutus has been sent to the country, so it looks like Antony, Octavian and Atia will control the city for the time being. Octavian and Titus also had words during the episode and it’s clear that kid trusts the big man. Over the season, Octavian is going to develop into more of a leader and it will be interesting to see what role Titus (and Lucius, for that matter) play in the future of the empire.

All in all, it was a great premiere and I can’t wait to see more.

External TV, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas

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