Category: TV (Page 296 of 595)

Prison Break 4.12: “Selfless”

November 25, 2008 /

Sometimes this show is a victim of its own format.

We’re just past the midpoint of the season, so once the gang passed Scylla off to Don and started in with all the premature celebration, it was obvious that something was going to happen to Don and/or Scylla before it reached the FBI’s (or the Senator’s) hands.

Honestly, when I saw the title of this episode, I thought Don was going to die trying to keep Scylla out of Company hands. Considering the way that Don’s boss was acting, he looked like he might very well be a Company mole. But when the General threw up his hands after being asked what his orders were, it sure seemed like he was out of options, FBI moles included. As soon as Don rendezvoused with Trish Ann – she will always, always be Trish Ann to me – I finally figured out that he was going to go rogue and try to sell Scylla on his own. The writers deserve credit for keeping things fairly unclear that long.

“Did you have onions for lunch?”

Every so often this series has an episode that spins it off into a completely new direction. Sooooooo much happened this week that it’s hard to keep track of it all. And anytime the writers try to cram this many plot points into one hour, there is bound to be some oversights.

For example, why in the world would Gretchen insist that the she and T-Bag wait in his office for Michael and the gang to emerge from the basement with Scylla? T-Bag’s office has glass walls – wouldn’t it be a little conspicuous to try to force them to give up the hardware at gunpoint when everyone at Gate could see them? Why not just wait in the closet? I’ve said before on this blog that I hate it when (supposedly) smart characters do dumb things and this is a great example. These two probably have a combined IQ of 260 and their decision to wait in T-Bag’s office created the situation with his boss, which created the hostage standoff. That is “manufactured conflict” at its very best.

Next, it was Trish Ann’s decision to yell “drop your weapons!” after Gretchen had already killed T-Bag’s boss. Did Trish really think that Gretchen was going to lay her weapons down and surrender? By yelling out, she gave up the only advantage she had – surprise.

And then there was the moment in the garage where Gretchen pulled a gun on T-Bag. A real mercenary would just shoot the guy in the back of the head and run off. Gretchen is supposed to be a major hard ass; she wouldn’t stand there and explain why she’s about to shoot him, allowing for some external event to interrupt the little chat. What does it matter to Gretchen if T-Bag knows why he’s dead?

Of course, we know that “Prison Break” isn’t going to kill off one of its most beloved characters mid-season, so even when someone is holding him at gunpoint and is telling him that they’re going to shoot him, we know that T-Bag is going to escape somehow. (By the way, I wouldn’t consider Bellick to be “beloved” – not like Theodore Bagwell.)

I have to applaud much of the interaction between the General and the gang. The hatred that Michael and Co. had for the General was palpable and it was nice to see the General get his smugness thrown back in his face on several different occasions. The twist with his daughter was a strong plot point, and Sarah Wayne Callies pulled off another nice bit of acting as her character held the daughter at gunpoint.

But I don’t understand why the gang wouldn’t take the General with them as insurance as they went to deliver Scylla. That seems like a no-brainer.

Regular readers know that I have a love/hate relationship with the ol’ switcheroo, and “Prison Break” uses that plot device early and often. When Michael put Scylla into the backpack, I smelled this week’s switcheroo coming a mile away. He took a big risk by giving Scylla to Sucre. Why would the all-powerful company only have enough manpower to follow Michael and Linc? They sent four men to follow the two brothers, not even allowing for the possibility that Sucre or Mahone might have what they want. Don’t they read this blog?!?

“Hold on. I have to stare at this backpack for a while to set up the ol’ switcheroo that I’m going to pull on you later in the episode.”

Lastly, it was kind of goofy that Don’s number would be disconnected so quickly. Why wouldn’t he just toss the phone in the garbage and buy himself more time? Because we needed to have the scene where Michael and the gang realize that they’ve been duped, that’s why. I’d rather have seen Michael put two and two together when the call to Don went to voicemail.

So now Don has Scylla and he’s going to try to use T-Bag to find another buyer. The gang is still on the run and it’s not entirely clear whether or not they should go after Don (because isn’t he the one with all the FBI contacts?) or flee to Mexico. Then there’s the matter of the $125 million that was loaded up into Feng’s truck – what are the odds that we never hear about that again? And how about that million-plus that is sitting at the bottom of the bay in Panama?

The possibilities are endless. Hopefully, the series won’t be.

External Entertainment, External TV, Prison Break, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas

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!”

Continue reading »

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

Entourage 5.12 – Return to Queens

November 23, 2008 /

Apart from the end of last season, I can’t think of a lower point in Vincent Chase’s career than where it stood at the beginning of tonight’s episode. After being fired from “Smoke Jumpers” only to discover that the entire film was being shut down due to the fact that it was “over budget and overcomplicated,” Vince went on “vacation” to New York and is now living at home with his mother. Though Vince isn’t taking the whole “out of work actor” thing as seriously as he probably should be, Ari and Eric are still busy trying to find him another job. When Vince’s mom tells him that Gus Van Sant is looking for a replacement for the new movie he’s shooting in town, Eric suggests he audition for the part. Ari, however, is quick to inform them that he’s already spoken with Gus, and though he likes Vince’s work, he doesn’t feel that he’s right for the role.

Never one to take rejection so easily, Eric heads to Gus’ office to meet with him about reconsidering. He’s even managed to convince Ari to have Dana Gordon send over some dailies from “Smoke Jumpers” for Gus to check out, but though the director seems sincere about the fact that he really does like Vince as an actor, he still doesn’t want him for the role. Clearly embarrassed and feeling like a failure in front of his friends, Vince blows up at Eric for not trusting Ari, and relieves him of his duties as manager. Personally, I don’t think Vince had any right blaming Eric for his problems, and he came off looking like an ass for doing so. Eric may have made some mistakes in his days, but they’ve been trivial when compared to the things he’s done (or at least tried to do) for Vince’s career. Heck, it was Eric who tried to warn Vince about “Medellin,” and look how that turned out.

Entourage 5.12

Eric has better things to do than sit around and take that kind of shit from Vince, so he heads back to LA to take care of his other clients – namely Charlie, who’s still shopping his pilot around town. I actually thought they already found a studio to produce the show, but maybe things fell through after Charlie sucker punched Seth Green in the waiting room. Whatever the case, it’ll be interesting to see where this subplot goes next season, as it certainly has the potential to take Eric’s career to the next level. Unfortunately, he’s not around for the big news that Ari brings with him to New York, and it’s in the form of a very important phone call that he just knows Vince is going to want to take. And no, it’s not Gus Van Sant on the other line, but – wait for it – Martin fucking Scorsese!

Now, there have been some pretty cool cameos on “Entourage” over the years, but no one even comes close to Scorsese’s appearance on tonight’s episode. And if that wasn’t enough, the Oscar-winning director is actually calling to offer Vince the lead role in his upcoming re-imagining of The Great Gatsby. Apparently, Gus Van Sant forwarded Marty those dailies of Vince from “Smoke Jumpers,” and he was so impressed that he decided to offer him the role. Huh, I guess Vince isn’t the terrible actor that Ari made him out to be. Vince is quick to thank the super agent for whatever voodoo magic he used to convince Scorsese to choose Vince over Leonardo DiCaprio, but Ari actually gives credit where it’s due: “Don’t thank me, thank E. For once in his life, the little McNugget came through.” And that’s all Vince needs to hear before he’s on a plane to LA to apologize to Eric and hire him back. It’s a good thing he did, too, because Vince’s entourage just wouldn’t be the same without his best friend at his side.

Vince isn’t the only one with a happy ending, either. Eric’s association with the project will no doubt earn The Murphy Group a little more recognition, while Ari is probably just glad to have his number one client back. Drama, meanwhile, now owns a local bar (appropriately named Johnny Drama’s), and Turtle’s big secret is finally out of the bag. The scene where Drama intercepted the call from Jamie-Lynn (“Hey Drama, it’s Jamie. We’re fucking.”) was classic, but the one where Turtle’s mom picked up while Jamie-Lynn and him were having phone sex was even better. Plus, did anyone notice the banner that was hanging at the family reunion the gang attended? It read: “Welcome Home International Movie Star Vincent Chase,” and then in small letters, “And TV Star Johnny Chase.” Good stuff.

All in all, those hoping for a more uplifting ending to an otherwise bleak season had their wish come true, but I can’t help but feel like Vince’s fall from grace should have been a little more difficult. That isn’t to say that I’m not happy with how things turned out – in fact, it was probably one of the best episodes of the year – but if the writers wanted to put Vince through the ringer before making his big comeback, why not just stick with the idea that he would earn back the respect of his careers with an award-worthy performance in “Smoke Jumpers”? The result is the same, and it wouldn’t feel so damn unrealistic. Nevertheless, it’s nice to know that Vince will be back to work when the show returns next summer, and it’ll be curious to see what kind of spoils (money, fame, awards?) brings him by working with the greatest director in American cinema.

Entourage, TV, TV Comedies

24: Redemption: Escape 2 Africa

November 23, 2008 /

Somebody on the “24” staff is clearly a music fan. The first sign of this was when a sinister corporation was named McLennan & Foster, after the leaders of the late, great Go-Betweens. (A moment of silence, please, for Grant McLennan, who passed away in 2005. Thank you.) In “24: Redemption,” tonight’s bridge episode between Day 6 and the long-gestating Day 7, the President-elect’s son is named Roger Taylor (double word score, as the drummers for both Queen and Duran Duran share that name), and Roger’s trader friend is named Chris Whitley. You’ll appreciate the irony of that one later. And now that we think about the music references, this might explain why Jon Voight’s evil schemer has the first name of Jonas. Roger’s wife, meanwhile, is named Samantha. Pity her last name isn’t Fox.

Anyway, the story begins in Afrika-ka-ka-ka-ka – hey, if the show’s producers are throwing in musical references, I may as well throw in a shout-out to the Chemical Brothers – where Jack is helping out Carl Benton, a former soldier buddy, run a state-funded school in Sangala as a means of doing penance for his many, many crimes against humanity. The problem is that the brutal Colonel Juma (played by Tony Todd, and henceforth known as Colonel Candyman) is planning a coup, thanks to a generous donation by the aforementioned Jonas brother (Jonas Hodges, technically). Candyman is stealing children and “enlisting” them to fight for him. He catches two kids from Benton’s school and comes a-calling for the rest. Jack had just been served with a subpoena by Frank Tramell (Gil Bellows, sporting a tragic widow’s peak) and was about to go dark again – this is at least his third stop since he left Big Dick Heller’s house at the end of Day 6 – when the Colonel’s men show up. Benton tells Jack where the dynamite is. Sweeeeet.

I’m gonna blow shit up! Mama said blow shit up!

After singlehandedly killing half of the henchmen sent to abduct the boys, Jack is naturally captured and tortured – the show maintains its one-torture-per-hour requirement, don’t worry – and while that red-hot sword to the ear had to hurt, we were surprised that the guy didn’t just cut off one of Jack’s arms. He was planning to kill him anyway, and even said he would make it as painful as possible. Jack has four limbs, just sayin’. Jack ultimately used two of those limbs to snap the guy’s neck…and they weren’t his arms. I have to learn how to do that.

The most important things to take away from this episode as we head into Day 7 is that newly inaugurated President Allison Taylor has one hell of a mess waiting for her, and it’s quite possible that Senator Roark (outgoing President Noah Daniels for newcomers) is in cahoots with the mysterious Jonas brother, because one of his last Presidential orders was to evacuate Sangala, rather than call in some nearby troops and fight the insurgence. Jonas brother, meanwhile, saw to it that Chris Whitley, the trader assigned to erase Jonas’ ties to Colonel Candyman but suspected something was amiss, was thoroughly examined (read: tortured) and then buried in cement. I will admit that I do not know the real Chris Whitley’s music very well, but he surely deserved a better fictional death than that.

The other thing to remember is that Jack agreed to surrender to authorities in order for the boys in Benton’s school to gain entry into Sangala’s US embassy, which serves as the redemption part of the episode title and the reason that Jack was seen in those teasers a year ago explaining his actions to an indifferent, if not hostile, government committee. Damn paper-pushing bureaucrats. They have no idea what it means to be Jack freaking Bauer. Maybe they’ll get some perspective when they realize that their next supervillain is…Tony Almeida? Whaaaaaa? Yeah, we’re just as curious as you are as to how they explain that. See you in January.

24, TV, TV Action

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