Category: TV Dramas (Page 162 of 235)

Heroes 2.7 – Mind Games

First off, how cool was it to have Hiro say, “Previously on ‘Heroes,’” except in Japanese rather than English, with the logo translated accordingly as well?

Hiro’s doped up on opium back in the 1600s until his new lady love proves that women should never be underestimated. (How could that not occur to anyone? Surely that little fact was pretty well-documented even then!) Poor Hiro is still hopelessly naïve when it comes to believing in the inherent good in all people. Oh, well, at least it made for a good swordfight…not to mention a hell of an explosion! It didn’t occur to me ‘til Hiro was sorting through the rubble that Kensei had the power to heal and might well have managed to survive the explosion, but when things wrapped up, I began to think I’d been on the wrong track. (More on that in a moment.) I liked how it turned out that the final Kensei story was a metaphorical one, based on Hiro…and for as long and drawn out as I felt Hiro’s storyline in Japan was, it was still a very sad yet sweet ending. But, c’mon, how awesome was his reunion with Ando? Well, I mean, until Ando had to tell him that his dad was murdered, anyway; talk about your buzzkill.

So I’m thinking “making waffles” could be a new sexual euphemism…well, if it isn’t already one, that is. But swinging by Claire’s house for breakfast confirmed for me once and for all that AngelBoy is totally a stalker. Well, okay, maybe he isn’t, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t still relish watching him get comPLETEly freaked out when he realized who Claire’s dad was. Speaking of her pops, it looked like we weren’t going to be getting much of him this week after that scene at the beginning where HRG and Brother Voodoo were going all “burn, baby, burn” on Isaac’s paintings. My question, though, is this: was it really all that great that we got that Bennett family scene toward the end? It was pretty melodramatic and felt less like a “Heroes” moment and more like something from “Dawson’s Creek.”

Mohinder starts out sitting by Molly’s side, with Nikki…erm, Jessica…watching him every minute until Matt and Nathan show up to warn Bob about Matt’s dad. “Now is not the time to recant the past,” says Bob. Yeah? Well, when the hell is? Bob indicates that Matt might share his father’s power, even if he hasn’t exercised it to its fullest. Matt doesn’t believe it, so he goes to vent to Molly, who manages to hear him through her coma. Aw, what a “love conquers all” moment…rather the antithesis of the creeptastic moment when Jessica…erm, Nikki…was visited by her late husband. Actually, Matt’s scene with his dad looked for a second like it was going to get as melodramatic as his “I love you” scene with Molly before it took that rather dark turn toward the end…and, of course, it finally got there with the big Matt / Molly embrace which closed it. “Adam is…complicated,” sayeth Bob, during his decidedly dark conversation with Matt. Yeah, complicated and then some. So Linderman was Adam’s disciple? That little revelation spoke volumes about the dude. I’m sure a lot of people cheered when it was revealed that Nikki…erm, Jessica…oh, screw it, I’m gonna start calling her Nikica again. Anyway, when it was revealed that she was stricken with the Shanti virus, I know a lot folks were, like, “Goodbye to bad rubbish,” but, hey, lately, I’d rather see her story unfold than Claire’s.

Peter and his new Irish lass are in 2008, in a version of New York City that’s been ravaged by disease…the Shanti virus, to be specific. The government official painted a dark picture of the future, but as soon as Peter’s mother showed up, I immediately began wondering, “Is this whole thing just something that’s been constructed by Adam?” And then look who walks in at the end of the episode. Better yet, Adam is Kensei!

Yep. That right there was an “oh, shit” moment.

Friday Night Lights: “Let’s Get It On”

This episode’s title has two meanings. It’s Coach Taylor’s first game back as the Panthers’ head coach and he has to deal with the fractured relationship between Matt and Smash. I thought Matt’s comments over the chili dinner were pretty strong and it looked like Eric took them to heart. Though when it was time to play the game, he played hardball with the two kids and forced them to reconcile. Matt’s “BFF’s once again” line was great.

The second meaning is Eric’s desire to get busy with Tami. His conversation with his assistant coach was hilarious, and I loved his spiel to his wife about Wednesday night: “What happens on Wednesday nights? Well I would know that because of this new chart I created. Gee, Wednesday night is book club night.” I’m happy that we’re getting some more of the classic Taylor banter again. Their dynamic really drives the show.

Eric’s interaction with Landry was pretty funny. He called “Lance” into his office and Landry replied, “Lance? You mean Landry?” He called him Lance again during the game, but you have to give Landry credit, he went in there and made a couple of good plays to turn the game around for Dillon.

Things, however, are not as good at home as the manslaughter seems to be catching up to him. Old Yeller has put two and two together and decided that it added up to Tyra being out of Landry’s league. I thought Tyra missed a chance to squash that by saying “Sir, I love your son” when he dropped by her house, but she was probably so thrown by his visit (and request) that she didn’t have the cojones to respond that way. She was really harsh when she broke up with him, but she probably had to be. The tears she shed afterwards spoke volumes about her true feelings for Landry. What a bittersweet feeling for him though, getting dumped and then going back inside the restaurant where the Dillon faithful were still chanting his name.

Thankfully, it looks like the Mexico trip is finally over. It was pretty funny when Lyla asked Riggins about his plan and he presented his booze cruise idea. I did like the fact that Riggins stepped up and spoke candidly about his feelings for Jason and how he wouldn’t let him go under the knife. It was a weird moment when Jason threw himself in the water, but maybe he needed to face death to discover that he really wanted to live. I’m not sure what the whole double kiss thing meant at the end, but there seems to be a lot of sexual tension between Lyla and Riggins.

By the way, did Jason ever find out that Eric returned to Dillon? If so, you’d think he’d feel a little better about his life now that there was a coach there that respected his ability to bring something to the team. Maybe Lyla should have mentioned it.

It was good to see Matt stand up to Julie. Sure, he still has feelings for her, but she can’t just expect to get him back after the thing with the Swede fell through. I expect the two will get back together at some point, but I’d like to see the breakup drag out for a while (and Matt to get a little action from Carlota, though there was no progress on that front this week).

Overall, I really liked the episode. It feels like the old “Friday Night Lights” again, but let’s hope that Landry can dodge the law and get Tyra back at some point. Whatever Old Yeller thinks, they make a great couple.

Will “Origins” ever be revealed?

It doesn’t look good at the moment, anyway. Whether it’s the fault of the impending writer’s strike or the recent drop in the ratings of “Heroes,” but the show’s heavily-hyped spin-off – “Heroes: Origins” – has been yanked from NBC’s early-2008 schedule, with no suggestion as to when we might expect to see the series…if, indeed, we ever will.

This is actually rather shocking news, given how much advance publicity the network had given the show, including the signing of high-profile directors like Kevin Smith and Eli Roth to helm segments within the 6-episode commitment; it’s also really going to piss off “Heroes” fans, who’d been getting psyched about the concept ever since it was first announced this past summer. Most odd, though, is that this seems to completely fly in the face of the new status quo with networks paying more attention to the bottom line of how a series will play both in its initial network airing and when it’s released on DVD…and lord knows the “Heroes: Season 1” set was a huge sales success. This is a show that the geek community – of which I am a proud member – has been embracing all along, and it’s a given that they’d continue to do so with the spin-off, especially with those two big names already associated with it.

I’d like to think that things will change for the better when this strike is rectified, and that NBC will come to their senses and reschedule “Heroes: Origins,” but at the moment, I’m grumpy as hell.

Journeyman 1.6: “Keepers”

This week’s installment of “Journeyman” was really hard to follow. There was so much going on, from pretty much every angle of the series as presented thus far, that unless you’ve been following the show from week to week, you’d have no idea what was going on. Yes, faithful viewers, the series has finally entered “The Continuity Zone.”

And that’s fine, because a series with a setup like this needs to go down these roads sooner rather than later. What’s frustrating is that the questions an average viewer has aren’t being answered: What’s Livia’s function?; Who’s behind Dan’s travels?; Is Dan restricted to traveling within the last 30 or so years?

The biggest problem with this episode was that it attempted to do so many things at once, and as a result left something of a hole in its core theme: The relationships between brothers. Dan found himself dealing with two brothers in the past that echoed the current gap in his relationship with his own brother, Jack. Aside from that, we saw references to the money stash last week, Katie trying to reignite her TV anchor career – which seems inexplicably ballsy given the life she’s been thrust into, and the assertion from a genius that time travel isn’t even possible. What does it all mean?

I did a little surfing and found an interview with creator Kevin Falls that was conducted last week. Go check it out by clicking here and then come back and see what I have to say.

Kevin Falls said: “Alex Graves and I are two guys who don’t believe in time travel, but we have a great respect for that genre.”

This hit me harder than anything else in the interview. Only the most involved of scientists and theorists are qualified to comment on the possibility of time travel, but I think the reason the genre survives is because of the romance that surrounds the premise. Why, as a showrunner, would you point out that you don’t even believe in the basis of your series? Do you at least believe in it insofar as the concept of the series allows? In qualifying your disbelief, does that inform viewers as to what they should expect as the series moves forward? I may be reading too much into Falls’ statement, but I can’t help but wonder what it means for “Journeyman” as a whole.

Kevin Falls said: “I think we owe it to the audience to find who Livia is, and who Dan is. I mean they were dating, and they are time travelers – why those two? That’s what we’re going to address in sweeps. You’ll know by episode 9, or actually 7 or 8 who Livia is. Then we’ll get into Langley and who he is up until episode 12, then god willing, towards the end of the season we’ll get into what this is all about in a global sense.”

So there’s a plan – a plan that involves the numerous elements we’ve been exposed to thus far. The Livia questions could be answered within the next two episodes. Langley, as I predicted, will be a major force. This is all great to know ahead of time, because there’s nothing worse than investing time in a series that ultimately fails to deliver. But frankly, statements about sweeps give me the cold shivers, even though I understand that’s how showrunners have to think.

Kevin Falls said: “I never watched ‘Quantum Leap’. I read the first 50 pages of ‘Time Traveler’s Wife’… “

Despite my constant comparisons to “Quantum Leap”, this doesn’t surprise me. But I think Falls and Graves could learn a lot by going back and checking out old episodes of THE series that did something of the same oh so successfully. My biggest criticisms thus far of “Journeyman” have been that I feel uninvested in Dan’s journeys outside of how they affect Dan and those close to him. Dan needs to be affected by those he comes into contact with and his journeys should mean more to him than “Another week, another leap”. That was always something “Quantum Leap” excelled at: You felt the weight of the travels on Sam Beckett’s shoulders.

Oh, don’t get me wrong – I love “Journeyman”, but you’ll not find a more critical time travel devotee than the guy who’s trying to guide you on these journeys [i.e. me]. When all is said and done, I expect this show will deliver, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried that it might not. Luckily, Falls seems to indicate that NBC loves the series, so here’s to hoping that they continue to stay behind it.

Heroes 2.6 – One Less Bell To Answer

So Claire’s back, but Kristen Bell’s nowhere to be found. Is there some sort of ruling that the two can’t appear in the same episode? And as long as we’re asking questions, did cheers get dumber since I was in high school? I mean, they were never Shakespeare to begin with, but are they really busting rhymes about planting trees now…? Claire is so prone to being swayed by peer pressure…or, specifically, the words of one cute boy…that it’s a wonder she hasn’t been captured and utilized by The Company by now. Her avenging angel is clearly a man who’s in love with his power, but despite her concerns about his plan to get her onto the cheerleading squad, you can’t argue with the results.

HRG and Brother Voodoo are off chillin’ in the Ukraine, and it’s like Starsky and Hutch reunited. HRG is back to his bad-ass ways…and, worse, he’s intimidating the man who trained him in the first place. You know the guy’s not screwing around when he’s threatening to have Brother Voodoo removed all of his most treasured memories…and he starts with the day the guy met his wife! I like the ongoing comparison between Claire and HRG and how neither of them are being truthful to the other. And speaking of a lack of honesty, did anyone really think that Ivan was being truthful when he said that the company had changed…? Well, I guess it doesn’t matter now, after that “oh, shit” moment when HRG popped a cap right into Ivan’s forehead. (“That’s a hell of a powerful gun,” said my wife, when Ivan went flying backwards after the shot.)

Mohinder’s really between a rock and a hard place when the fate of Monica’s abilities are placed in his hands, but the big revelation is that Bob (Stephen Tobolowsky) isn’t just a bad-ass; he’s a DICK. When Mohinder finally snapped, I think it was fair to say that no-one believed Bob’s sudden recanting of his earlier threats toward Mohinder; Tobolowsky’s just too damned good at playing a complete skeeve, and Nikki’s appearance at the end of the episode was suitably ominous.

Sylar’s trying to sway Maya over to the dark side, but Alejandro’s not having any of it. To watch Sylar seem to soak up Maya’s power, though, was to witness sheer evil bliss, and his speech to Alejandro was downright chilling.

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