Category: TV Sci-Fi (Page 55 of 81)

Heroes 3.11 – Hope Will Fall Tonight with Broken Wings

December 1, 2008 /

Sylar and Elle had a bad case of coitus interruptus, huh? Well, if you’re gonna be shooting up HRG’s little girl, you’ve got to be willing to pay the price. The cat-and-mouse game between HRG and Sylar and Elle was pretty cool, particularly when Sylar threw the money at the guy in the drugstore in the most pitiful attempt ever at buying time, but, wow, I totally did not expect HRG to slit his throat like that.

Claire, meanwhile, was having trouble dealing with her gunshot wound because her body is reacting to infection as if she’s never been sick before…which, given that her healing abilities would’ve kept her in top-notch condition, makes sense. But, wow, I didn’t quite expect her condition to go into as much of a tailspin as it did, nor did I expect them to actually kill her. Granted, it’s not like you didn’t know that both she and Sylar were gonna come back when the eclipse ended, but even so, I was impressed with the way they took both storylines to the edge like that.

I wouldn’t have thought that Peter and Brother Voodoo would make a good team, but I liked Peter’s comment about wanting to prove to his father that he could be a hero even without his powers. Hey, that’s what Papa gets for shrugging off his son just because he wanted to be a nurse! You know, I was actually more intrigued by this storyline than anyone else’s, possibly because it seemed so unlike anything else that’s gone on before, what with the Haitian general and everything; with Pete turning into a gun-toting Rambo and Brother Voodoo cracking heads and then going all apeshit on his brother, I was not disappointed. Nathan’s change in attitude was an unexpected one, but it’s a fascinating one which has a lot of potential.

Mohinder’s stuck in the lab, trying to figure out the connection between the eclipse and the loss of the abilities of the heroes and villains. The good news is that he’s under the watchful eye of Flint, who’s about as much of a dumb lackey as you could hope for, and although he might still be a tough guy even without his powers, he proves to be no match for Mohinder. Well, actually, it looked pretty close there for a second; at first punch, I wasn’t entirely sure that Mohinder’s attack plan was going to succeed. But, hey, he pulled it out, and that’s what counts. Surely I’m not the only one who cringed, however, when he picked up that post-it with Maya’s name and address on it. Thank goodness for the small blessing that his “curse” came back before she had a chance to drag the episode down. I also appreciated the fact that Mohinder’s fly-ish tendencies are downplayed when he’s in the lab.

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Actors, External Entertainment, External TV, Heroes, Reviews, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas, TV Sci-Fi

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles 2.10 – I am trying to break your heart

November 25, 2008 /

It’s one of those moves that we felt like we should have seen coming, though we had no way of knowing, because the writers were holding all the cards. And what few cards they played before tonight’s Big Reveal were blatant misdirections that make no sense in retrospect. You know, kind of like a “Saw” movie.

Jesse finally, allegedly, comes clean to Derek. She claims to be working for the resistance to keep John on the righteous path; Future John is apparently getting too close to Cameron, and behaving erratically. Jesse’s mission: seduce Present John into taking out Cameron with live bait…live bait named Riley. Of course. That’s why we never her saw her family before now – so we wouldn’t know she was a “foster child.” Pretty sneaky, sis.

Credit must be given to genius “Terminator” commenter Eddie Offerman – seriously, read his blog on transform matrices, it’ll make your head spin – who laid out his “splintered universe” theory of time travel as an explanation for Reese not remembering Charles Fischer while Jesse did. I wasn’t convinced at first (I’m a fan of Occam’s Razor, myself), but after Jesse’s comments to Derek this week, it makes sense. Take Cameron out in the past, and get your savior back. This assumes, of course, that Jesse is telling the truth about anything, which is a bet that I’m reluctant to take at the moment.

“Hey robot, is it possible to get a blood stain out of silk?”

But now I have a new question: if Jesse and Riley’s mission is successful, what happens when Future John meets Allison, the girl that the machines duplicated and then killed to create Cameron in the first place? Personally, I’m betting that Future John locks her away the second he meets her so that she never gets caught, since she would literally be his lost childhood in the flesh. Man, what kind of splinter in time would that create, and wouldn’t that screw up Future John even worse than having Cameron around? Also, what happens to the people in the future when one of their own is sent back to change an event? How is reality altered for them? Will John just suddenly start acting differently right before their eyes? Would Future Cameron disappear if she’s terminated in our time? Help us, Obi Wan Ken-Eddie. You’re our only hope.

I’m suddenly thinking of the episode where the Connors were robbed, and it was because Riley forgot to set the alarm. Did she really forget, or was that by design? Will they even make a mention of that incident once John discovers who she really is? And if Jesse is really still working for the resistance, then I’m still perplexed why Jesse killed Future Charlie last week instead of Present Charlie. She could have undone all kinds of hurt by letting Derek kill Present Charlie (or as my wife calls him, Warren, from his days on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) while he was young. She put on this big dog and pony show for Derek by kidnapping both Charlies, but in the end it looks as though she was protecting a bad guy. Hmmm.

Meanwhile, in Weaverville, our child psychiatrist is found dead after Babylon, renamed John Henry by Dr. Sherman, needed the alternate power during a blackout and inadvertently killed him. To me, Ellison’s comment that “something killed Dr. Sherman but it wasn’t John Henry” could be taken two ways. The obvious answer is that he meant that John Henry just wasn’t properly coded with ethics and morals – best line in the episode: “It runs on commands. Start with the first ten.” – but with the way that Catherine was detailing Dr. Sherman’s death as Ellison was watching the video, I couldn’t help but think that the lady doth protest too much. Maybe the camera footage is bogus, and Catherine killed him with her magic tongue of death, who knows. The important takeaway from Weaverville is that a resurrected Cromartie is now the spokesperson for John Henry. That’s just all kinds of wrong, right there.

Oh, one other thing: Sarah is losing her mind down a paranoid, “Beautiful Mind”-type rabbit hole. Do the three dots mean something, or were they just the last act of a man who was bleeding to death? The Connor’s bathroom mirror hopes they find the answer to that one sooner than later. And God only knows what Sarah would do to Riley if she were to discover Riley’s true intentions while in this “heightened” state. I’m not 100% sure how she’d react, but I’m betting it would look an awful lot like a “Saw” movie.

External TV, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, TV, TV Action, TV Sci-Fi

Heroes 3.10 – The People with the Answers Won’t Tell the People with the Questions the Answers

November 25, 2008 /

When a music geek is handed an episode with a title like “The Eclipse,” you’re given a lot of different choices for lyrical references as the title of your blog entry. Should I go with Pink Floyd (All that you slight, everyone you fight…), or should I go with Bonnie Tyler (Once upon a time, there was love in my life…)? Instead, I went with a relative obscurity – a line from the closing track of the Beta Band’s Hot Shots II – but given the way the series has been going, it seemed rather appropriate.

Let’s split this week’s blog into two parts, shall we?

Before the Eclipse:

Arthur has just been a sketching fool since taking on the power of poor Usutu, but, wow, he’s really let his people skills drop off. Really, though, can you blame him? Thanks to his new abilities, he knows what’s coming…and, yet, he can’t seem to do a damned thing to change it.

The relationship between Sylar and Elle turned darker this week than I expected. I mean, I know I made a comment a few weeks ago about how Sylar’s so freaking wishy-washy that he’ll probably switch sides half a dozen more times before the end of the season, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that he left his touchy-feely side behind, but I just didn’t expect Elle to be the one who turned him. She’s a complex character, that one. (Her throwaway description of HRG as “Glasses himself” was hilarious.)

Mohinder really just isn’t a very good scientist, is he? “I, uh, didn’t think the eclipse had anything to do with it,” he mutters. Whoops. From there, it was back to “Return of the Fly,” unfortunately.

Matt and Daphne’s quest to find Hiro turned out to be a short one when he and Ando turned up, courtesy of their comic book intel. I loved the interplay between Ando and Daphne, not to mention Hiro and the turtle, but I’m wondering how long this whole back-and-forth thing between Matt and Daphne is going to go on. That said, once the boys followed Daphne to Lawrence, Kansas, I had to laugh at Hiro’s exclamation: “Holy crap!”

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Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External TV, Heroes, Reviews, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas, TV Sci-Fi

10 Vampire Films That Should Be Made In The Wake Of The Success of “Twilight”

November 19, 2008 /

“Twilight” is shaping up to be a full-fledged film phenomenon…and whenever there’s a phenomenon, you can count on Hollywood trying to reproduce it quickly and in sub-par fashion, so prepare for a huge glut of new vampire-themed movies in the very near future.

The good news in this case, however, is that there’s a lot of great source material out there already, so let’s hope at least a few of the suits have good taste when it comes to buying up the rights to adapt certain books to film form…but since we have a really bad feeling that they don’t, we figured we’d throw a few suggestions their way for vampire flicks we’d like to see made. And, yes, we know that our #1 pick isn’t a book, but it’s so far ahead of the pack when it comes to the must-make vampire movies that we put it there, anyway.

(P.S. The movie adaptation of Darren Shan’s “Cirque de Freak” is finished and due for release in February 2009, or else it’d be on this list for sure.)

10. “Bloodsucking Fiends,” by Christopher Moore. Not only is this a solid mixture of horror and humor, focusing on a hot young redhead who moves to San Francisco, is promptly bitten by a vampire, and has to learn to adapt to her new lifestyle, but it already has a sequel ready to roll. Better yet, it’s called “You Suck”!
9. “Fevre Dream,” by George R.R. Martin. Are you kidding? I’m a fan of pretty much anything written by the guy who created the “Wild Cards” series, but this novel about vampires on a steamboat has earned reviews which feature the phrase “Bram Stoker meets Mark Twain,” which is high praise by most people’s standards.
8. “Lost Souls,” by Poppy Z. Brite. Maybe it’s just because I enjoy pretty much any film revolving around a band, but I’d love to see the adventures of Lost Souls? make it to the big screen.
7. “Jonathan Barrett, Gentleman Vampire,” by P.N. Elrod. It’s set during the American Revolution, with Barrett on the side of the British. Surely the success of HBO’s “John Adams” has made history cool again, and what better way to make it even cooler than to add vampires to it?
6. “Riley Jensen, Guardian,” by Keri Arthur. A half-vampire, half-werewolf in Australia who works for Melbourne’s Directorate of Other Races. “Underworld” meets “Torchwood,” anyone? I’m sold already.
5. “Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter,” by Laurell K. Hamilton. It’s already got a huge fan base between the sixteen novels and various comic books, but for those who don’t know Ms. Baker, she can re-animate the dead, licensed vampire hunter/executioner, and she has a lot of sex. I’m simplifying, of course, but, hey, it got your attention, didn’t it?
4. “They Thirst,” by Robert R. McCammon. The dastardly Prince Vulkan, master of the vampires, is hell bent on taking over Los Angeles as part of his quest to transform the entire population of the planet into the undead. Their opposition? A police captain, a comedian, a reporter, a junior high school student, and a Catholic priest who’s a former heroin addict and has just been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
3. “Carrion Comfort,” by Dan Simmons. Actually, this is such an epic tale that it might warrant a full-fledged mini-series rather than just a film.
2. “Vampire Academy,” by Richelle Mead. Rose Hathaway is a half-vampire / half-human teenager who’s simultaneously finishing high school and training to fight evil vampires determined to destroy the Moroi vampire race, a.k.a. the good vampires. Bonus superhero-ish aspect: each Moroi can control an element, either fire, earth, water, air, or – on rare occasions – spirit.There are two other books in the saga, with a fourth set for release next year. Surely someone has already started work on a script, because it seems tailor-made for a film.
1. “Angel.” Come on, Joss, you and I both know that the time couldn’t be more right. The kids love the vampires, and although David Boreanaz is on his fourth season of “Bones” and has now officially escaped permanent typecasting, he ain’t getting any younger, so if he’s going to play the immortal undead, it’s time to make your move and make an “Angel” movie. In fact, while you’re at it, you might as well go ahead and make it a big ol’ epic that incorporates “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” as well. We’re really excited about “Dollhouse,” Mr. Whedon, but, c’mon, it’s Fox. Your schedule will be free and clear within a few weeks of its premiere, so let’s go ahead and get this ball rolling right now.

Action Movies, Actors, External Entertainment, External Movies, Horror Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movies, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas, TV Sci-Fi

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles 2.9 – Pleased to meet me

November 18, 2008 /

Is it wrong of me to think Sarah Connor’s doomsday nightmares are awesome? Seriously, is there anything cooler than a T-1000 cactus? Or Cameron breast-feeding a tortoise? If that is wrong, then I don’t wanna be right.

As the producers of the show continue to treat the story arc like their private garden, planting seeds here and there – Cameron’s constant talk about her sensory perception, Sarah’s walking nightmares – they used this week’s main plot to explore two concepts of time travel that I’m not sure can peacefully coexist. Jesse captures a “Gray” (machine-assisting human) named Charles Fischer (Richard Schiff in a bit of inspired casting), but Derek doesn’t remember him. Jesse explains the relentless interrogation techniques Fischer used on his prisoners, and finally makes the big reveal that, dunt dunt duuuuuuunh, she knows this because Fischer used those techniques on Derek in the future, and Derek told her all about it.

Here’s where it gets tricky.

“All right, tell me right now what it’s like to win an Emmy. Tell me, damn it!”

Derek seems to think that the reason he doesn’t remember this is because the future she left behind is now different than the one he left behind, and he attributes the change to the various things he’s done in the present to undo Skynet’s evil scheme. It’s an interesting concept, but riddled with holes – does this mean his memory is just randomly erased when the future changes? – and leads me to think that there are two, far more likely explanations: either Derek has blocked the memory as a defense mechanism – Fischer did admit shortly before Jesse killed him that he knew who Derek was, and wondered how Derek didn’t recognize him – or Jesse is lying. Actually, both could be true.

Now here’s the part I’m having a reeeeeeeeaally hard time with. Future Fischer breaks into Present Fischer’s place of work and does all kinds of nasty computer stuff that lands Present Fischer in the slammer. Future Fischer explains, like some sufferer of Stockholm Syndrome, that he never would have survived Judgment Day had he not been in prison when it happened, implying that it is the return of Future Fischer that puts Present Fischer on the path to that prison cell to begin with. But is that even possible? The Connors change people’s futures all the time, but only certain aspects of it; the rest is still up to the individuals. Can someone travel back in time and put himself on the path to evil? And while we’re talking about the case against Present Fischer, are there no security cameras at this supposedly data-sensitive company where he works? Jeesh.

One last stating-the-obvious story problem this week: how the hell did John and Cameron not think to check Ellison’s trunk when they were looking for Cromartie? Heck, they didn’t even need to knock on the door. Just pop the trunk, take the body, and go. Surely Cameron would have thought of that, right? Sigh. I hate it when characters do everything but the one thing they’re most likely to do in real life.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, TV, TV Action, TV Sci-Fi

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