Anything other than what Andrew Zimmern’s having tonight, probably.
Even so, however, don’t forget to join him for his voyage to Sicily tonight at 10 PM on the Travel Channel. Personally, I can’t wait to see him chow down on that artichoke ice cream. Yum!
Although my esteemed colleague Ross Ruediger may have disagreed with me in his review of “House: Season 4,” as is his God-given right as a TV critic, I have to say that, personally, I probably enjoyed the fourth season of “House” as much as any season of the show to date. After ending Season 3 with the members of House’s team so infuriated with their fearless leader that they were moving on to greener pastures, I think just about everyone figured that Season 4 would’ve begun with them saying, “Okay, we were wrong, we’ll come back.” But they didn’t. Instead, we were treated to House playing his own version of “Survivor” as he selected a new diagnostic team, thereby giving America’s grouchiest doctor the opportunity to interact with a whole new crowd of characters, but we were also still provided with occasional visits from the original team. It was win-win, as far as I was concerned.
It was the two-part season finale (“House’s Head” / “Wilson’s Heart”) that really got me, though. The unfolding of the secrets locked within House’s memory, the tragic ending to the romance between Amber and Wilson, and the realization that the events which led to Amber’s death never would’ve been set into motion if House hadn’t been attempting to take advantage of Wilson for the umpteenth time…it was gripping drama, to be sure. But how on earth can the relationship between House and Wilson ever recover from something like that?
Based on the Season 5 premiere, it’s very possible that it may not…but, then, this is where the optimistic and cynical sides of my brain begin to do battle with each other.
Given the number of times that Michael and Sara used the phrase, the name of this episode should have been “One Day,” but obviously the writers are trying to make a point about how the series should eventually end – the carrot on the proverbial stick, if you will. And in this scenario, the audience is the mule/horse. Sometimes being a fan of this show feels like being a beast of burden, but this episode was relatively headscratcher-free, aside from Sara’s ponderous decision to have her credit cards exposed for the skeezy barfly to conveniently swipe, which (apparently) is the only way that Morpheus would be able to find the gang. Sara gets a pass since she wasn’t thinking straight, mourning the death of her friend and all. Heck, I give her credit for not downing that double bourbon, though the bartender gets an assist. (That bar scene was a nice piece of acting by Sarah Wayne Callies, by the way. It’s good to have her back in the fold.)
I also question the convenience of Gretchen being held somewhere in L.A. That’s a little contrived. She’ll eventually escape and cause a ruckus, no doubt.
Speaking of obvious future plot twists, with the death of Don’s whistleblower, it’s clear that the gang will eventually need to enlist the aid of T-Bag, since he (ponderously) is risking life and limb to infiltrate the Gate Corporation posing as the company’s top salesman. Apparently, this is somehow a part of the Scylla puzzle; methinks that the corner office is important so that the gang can either drill up or down into an adjacent floor.
Back to T-Bag – I was really looking forward to his first meeting with his supervisor, but that was fairly anticlimactic. However, I’ll give you three to one that he’s sliding up next to that well-endowed secretary in the next episode or two.
There was a nice moment between Linc and Bellick after the two had clashed earlier in the episode over Bellick’s constant naysaying. Bellick stepped up and stabbed the Company henchman, effectively saving Linc’s life.
We had another taste of foreshadowing with Michael’s bloody nose. He’s clearly suffering from some illness and it will either come up later in this season or at the end, when they’re setting up Season Four. Whatever the plan, I hope Fox allows the series to end on its own terms, or at least gives the creators enough notice so that they can end the show properly. I know it’s premature to talk about this, as the show is considered a “hit,” but it has happened time and time again to other series, and the conclusion of “Prison Break” needs to be protected. We’ve invested too many goshdarn hours in this show only to have them pull the rug out from underneath us.
Anyway, two cards down, four to go, and Morpheus is hot on the gang’s trail.
“Oh, this isn’t cool.”
Those are the words I uttered when the beginning-of-episode recap came and went this week with neither a glimpse nor even a mention of the sexy T-1000 who made such a memorable appearance in the final moments of the season premiere. And I can’t imagine I’m the only one. When Shirley Manson transformed from a urinal into a liquid-metal killing machine last week, it was – to paraphrase David Medsker – a moment of the “hell, yes” variety, and to follow that up with an episode which mostly acts like it never happened…?
Frankly, it verges on the unforgivable.
So yet another guy from the future comes back to send a message to the Connor clan, barely surviving long enough to spit out his message that they should go to their friendly neighborhood nuclear power plant. We get a brief flash-forward…we’re talking about five seconds long…so that we can get an idea of the importance of this plant, but while glimpses of the future always look awesome, you can’t help but look at the brief scenes and think, “Well, that was nice. Too bad they probably blew 95% of this week’s special-effects budget on that sequence.” In this case, it was apparently more like 99%, since the FX otherwise remain at a bare minimum this week…but I digress. Sarah and Cameron quickly get jobs at the plant, with Sarah almost managing to act more suspicious than Cameron in her attempts to ingratiate herself to the boss man, Carl. (It’s bad enough when she does it in the office, but when she turns up at the local watering hole, it’s even worse.)
John’s freak-out at the end of last episode apparently wasn’t as profound as it might’ve looked from his haircut, but he’s clearly still a changed (young) man. Although it was done a little heavy-handedly, his return to school made a very good point: how do you just go through the motions when you already know what the future holds? With the help of a new female friend, apparently. It’s funny that Busy Phillips should play the very pregnant realtor who shows Sarah Connor their new digs, since even before she made her appearance, I was already thinking that Riley (Leven Rambin), totally reminded me of Kim Kelly in “Freaks and Geeks.” At the moment, though, there’s not much to the character of Riley, aside from the fact that she’s kind of cute and she clearly thinks John is, too.
There was an ungodly amount of conversation in this episode, much of it stupefying in its banality. The worst offenders were the conversations between Sarah and Carl, of course, though the drivel being spouted between John and Riley wasn’t much better. The scenes with Agent Ellison and Charley Dixon were interesting in a let’s-get-all-the-loose-ends-from-last-season-wrapped-up kind of way, but they weren’t overly satisfying, mostly because Charley was a great character. I’m sure we’ll see him return, because I refuse to believe that he won’t eventually kick his wife to the curb in favor of Sarah, but it was a shame to see him go nonetheless.
This may well have been the most boring episode of “The Sarah Connor Chronicles” to date, and after the success of last week’s season premiere (granted, I liked it better than David did, but, still, even he admitted that there was plenty of action to be had), it could prove to be a momentum-killer of gargantuan proportions. Virtually nothing of real note happened until the final quarter of the episode, and when things finally did get rolling, with the near-meltdown of the power plant, it still wasn’t very exciting. Even the one moment which should’ve been creepy – the shot of Carl’s body hanging from the ceiling of his living room – was ineffective, since the “Carl” at the plant was acting so mechanical and robotic that you already knew he had been replaced by a Terminator.
When Shirley Manson finally reared her head at the very last second to make a liquid-metal appearance that was even shorter than last week’s, it felt like a slap in the face to those who had just sat through the previous 50+ minutes waiting for her arrival. Better she should never have showed up at all.
In today’s world of 500 cable channels, the television documentary has become very common. Few, however, rival the consistent quality of “The American Experience” on PBS. Now, with the release of “The Presidents” on DVD, some of the best documentaries from this series are available in one collection. This award-winning series includes documentaries of the following presidents: FDR, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. The series is comprised of 52 hours of broadcast programming detailing the lives of these men. There are several interesting omissions, one being John F. Kennedy. The series never included a documentary that just covered JFK, instead doing one on the Kennedys, hence the omission. Also, the Ike episode was also not included. Each documentary provides an intensely personal portrait of the person, not just a chronology of their presidencies. Most of these men were very complex figures, and each documentary digs deeply into their triumphs and failures. I would recommend this series to anyone who loves history, and it’s an excellent resource for young people who want to learn about the history of America in the 20th century.
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