Season finales are exciting, but the summer cable shows don't really get going til about the 10th of June, so it'll be a slow couple weeks in between. But tonight, Bones' season finale along with the last Lost before the big season ending episode next week. My commentary on both after the jump.
Lost: When counting down his top 5 moments in life, I was kinda hoping #1 would be killing Ethan. Would've given a nice incredibly dark edge to Charlie. And I can definitely see him finding that moment extremely satisfying in a slightly crazy way.
Charlie's impending death finally comes to the big payoff. It's amazing how quickly Charlie's good moods can be ruined by a concerned glance from Desmond. But this time Desmond sees Charlie's death leading directly to Claire leaving the island (suspiciously absent are any references to anyone else leaving, or whether Claire's leaving with rescuers or if somehow the Others get hold of her and take her away). Charlie decides that he's willing to sacrifice himself, and accepts the assignment to dive into the looking glass station underwater, where he'll flip a switch and drown. Instead of finding an abandoned hatch with a switch, he finds a manned (or womanned) station, with two young ladies running up to him with guns. 
Rose, to Bernard: "If you're going to be hiding in the bushes, let's get you into something dark." Does it make me a perv and/or racist that I found that hilarious? Anyway the plan is for Bernard, Sayid, and a few others to hide out and when the Others come, to shoot at the tents to set the dynamite off. While Charlie takes out the jamming station, everyone else heads to the radio tower so they can try to call Naomi's ship as soon as communications are un-jammed. Nothing actually gets resolved (including the question of why Jack is being such a dick), leaving the potential for a super exciting final episode. 
Bones: More weddings should feature ZZ Top music. And pie instead of cake (a campaign I've been running for years, long before Turk on Scrubs made that joke). Also, it'd be fun at least once to go to a wedding that ended up like a TV one, in which inevitably something goes horribly wrong, and often no one ends up married.
Such was the case on tonight's Bones (I love a good misleading screencap), which had an ok mystery, a couple of father cameos (Ryan O'Neal getting himself caught on purpose, and Billy Gibbons giving away his daughter, who was wearing some kind of ridiculous looking hood instead of a veil). Pretty fun episode, and they set up plenty of fun little questions for next year. I'm hoping, though, that they play it cool and don't have a big season premiere full of resolutions. But either way, this is how procedurals should work. The case of the week gets wrapped up every week, but the characters are strong and capable of change and growth and they work in plot threads that run over multiple episodes. Also, Sea Chimps!
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Wednesday Night TV
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Wednesday Night TV
ABC is seriously pushing the Traveler series, huh? Seems like they ran the promo during every commercial break on Lost, which, along with Bones, I'll cover after the jump...
Lost: So Ben's a big fat liar and he wasn't born on the island at all. Kinda funny that he was born outside Portland (but "Not In Portland" either). His mother died giving birth, and his father joined the Dharma Initiative when Ben was a young boy. Ben's dad, like everyone else on Lost's dad, was a huge jerk, and blamed Ben (out loud) for killing his mother. One day he sees his mother in the woods, just like Jack had seen his father when he first arrived. He goes wandering into the woods looking for her and sees Richard Alpert, one of the "hostiles," and looking the exact same age he looks today. Ben wants to join run off with them, but it seems to take about 20 years for their plan to pay off, as Ben gasses his father while the rest of the hostiles gas the rest of the Dharma Initiative. So it seems that killing your father is a rite of passage for joining their little clique. 
Locke shows back up with the others carrying the corpse of dear old dad, and demands to see Jacob. There's some resistance, but after Locke beats the snot out of Mikhail, Ben agrees. He takes Locke to a ratty looking cabin and starts talking to an empty chair. Locke starts thinking Ben has lost his mind, but just as he's about to leave he hears "help me" in a decidedly non-Ben voice. Locke shines his flashlight on Ben and all hell breaks loose. Jacob is a Luddite so he invisibly starts throwing stuff around and breaking things, and shoves Ben against the wall. He becomes visible for just a second (above, though I'm sure Lost Easter Eggs will have a much clearer shot, if they don't already) before Locke leaves. Locke thinks it was all a trick, but Ben just wants to know what Jacob said to Locke, so he leads Locke to the mass grave of the gassed Dharma folks and shoots Locke and leaves him for dead.
Back on the beach, Sawyer plays Juliet's tape for Sayid and Kate. They decide to fill everyone in on the tape and Naomi. Just as they play the tape for everyone, Jack and Juliet show up. It seems that Juliet told Jack everything as soon as she returned from the hatch with Sun (so that was probably the subject of the "should we tell her?" conversation last week). Jack's developed an enormous ego, apparently, and figures there isn't any point to telling anyone until he's decided what to do about it. Since, you know, none of those other people could have helpful advice. He says "we have some catching up to do," and that storyline is ignored for the rest of the episode.
Some crazy questions... how is Alpert not aging? Ben still ages, so it's not just the island. Do the other others not age, and if so how long have they been there? Are they the Black Rock pirates? That'd be cool. Who's Jacob and why is he (mostly) invisible? And what's up with Jack's personality change?
Bones: A glow in the dark skeleton seems like a radioactive thing at first, but it turns out to be a sushi thing. The victim looks like a sort of Rachel Ray (but she looks like Saffron from the band Republica with the red streaks in her hair). They dance around a bunch of theories before arriving at the fact that the victim was sleeping with her best friend's boyfriend. 
Mostly a typical episode, except they were much heavier with the sexual tension between Booth and Brennan, some quality mac and cheese banter, and Hodgins and Angela finally getting engaged thanks to a heartfelt non-proposal.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Wednesday Night TV
Managed to catch Lost and Jericho tonight, while Bones goes into the ever growing queue of stuff to catch later in the week. Plus I'll be watching Spider-Man 3 Thursday night. Luckily, I have no life. Lost and Jericho after the jump.
Lost: Not a great episode, but not a bad one either. We had to get the revelation about Locke's father being the original Sawyer out of the way at some point, even though everyone on the internet seems to have figured that one out long ago, and we got some interesting scenes along the way. I don't have as much to say about an episode as I normally do, but here are the things that stuck out:
And so we're left wondering what Jack and Juliet were talking about, how they'll react to Sawyer bringing Locke's tape and warning of the invasion, whether Juliet will get word of Naomi to the Others, and what will happen when the Other "invasion" happens. Lots of new questions, but only one answer we already knew. Still a cool episode though.
Jericho: The confrontation between Jericho and New Bern is finally here. Constantino issues a warning, demanding 7 farms and half the salt mine in exchange for not blowing Jericho up. Gray sends Stanley and a few other men, obviously doomed because neither Jake nor Hawkins went with them, to try to take out their mortars. It goes as expected, with Stanley only surviving thanks to the character shield.
Hawkins and Jake then take their shot at it, enlist the help of Emily's father Jonah, and manage to take out the mortars. They'd agreed to split the food, fuel, and weapons 50/50, but Jonah obviously screws them. Fortunately, Hawkins has had a huge secret armory the whole time. And Gray finally admits that he's not a wartime consiglieri, enlisting Johnston's help in handling the crisis. We leave off with every able bodied person in Jericho over 16 armed and waiting for the New Bernians.
If they had ditched the whole Dale storyline, which always seems to suck, I would like the show a lot more. But this wasn't a bad episode at all. I'm still hoping Heather comes back, but she wasn't mentioned at all.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Wednesday Night TV
During Lost tonight, KFC ran the ad TV Squad mentioned a while back with the high pitched sound that only young people can here. I guess I just barely still count as young for these purposes, and boy was that sound ever annoying. What exactly was the point of that? Nothing makes me crave chicken like irritating noises. But that's got nothing to do with anything, just random griping. Lost and Jericho after the jump.
Lost: Three stories going on this week. First, Sun finds out about Juliet's fertility specialty. After a confrontation where Juliet reveals the truth, they head to the staff hatch, where there's a hidden room with an ultrasound machine. After explaining that men on the island had unnaturally high sperm counts, Juliet determines that the baby is eight weeks old, so the baby is Jin's, but this also means that Sun and her baby will die without some kind of medical miracle. In an entirely expected final scene, Juliet goes off and leaves a message for Ben, indicating what she learned about Sun, and that she would next try to find out if Kate is pregnant (since Sawyer would be pretty potent on the island as well). 
In Sun's flashback, we learn that being Mr. Paik's enforcer was not in fact the deal Jin made to marry her. It was only when Sun borrowed money to pay off a blackmailer that his debt was escalated to where he had to get his hands dirty. The blackmailer in question was Jin's mother, who he thought was dead, but it turns out she was a prostitute. In an effort to save him from that shame, she not only forces him into a life of crime, but when he finds the money Sun is using for the payoff, she manages to make him feel like an inadequate provider for that extra kick in the balls. So in previous flashbacks, when we felt like the tension between them was merely Sun's unhappiness with what Jin had become, we know now that it was also Sun's guilt at her own responsibility for the situation.
Back on last week's camping trip, the guys find that the parachutist has a stick in her chest and that she's dying. When looking for something to use to treat her, Hurley sets off a flare gun. Shortly after, Mikhail comes running to them. This is interesting not only because he managed to survive his encounter with the security fence, but also because it seemed like he was running towards the flare. Was he expecting that woman? If so, why? Mikhail strikes a bargain to save the girl in exchange for his release, and Desmond agrees over Charlie's objections. Mikhail tries running off with the phone, but Jin manages to catch him, but Desmond still honors the agreement to let him go. The parachutist asks where she is, and Hurley explains their situation, and she replies that they can't be from flight 815, since that wreckage was found with no survivors.
We're left with fun questions everywhere. Are we back to the purgatory theory that was so popular in season one? Or is it some kind of Others conspiracy to create fake wreckage and bodies so no one comes searching for them? How close are we to the week deadline for Ben coming back? What about Mikhail and the flares? Whoever thinks Lost has lost it just doesn't know how to sit back and enjoy a cool story.
Jericho: Russell and his friends from New Bern, fresh off their agreement with Dale and Skylar, stage some kind of sit-in at the salt mine, and Mayor Gray threatens to break it up. When Dale refuses to give up any ground, it turns into a shootout, with one New Bernian dead. Russell doesn't seem as aggressive as the rest of New Bern, and warns Gray and Johnston that news of the shooting could start a war between the towns, so Johnston heads out with Russell to save his sons. He meets with Constantino, who explains all about his hatred for Jericho and that he has the Green boys in custody for sabotaging the factory. He demands to see them, but Constantino tells him to take off, so Johnston just kind of wanders around until he finds a truck.
Constantino is interrogating Jake and Eric. They seem to just be asking Jake questions about Hawkins, but beating the hell out of Eric and asking about Jericho's defenses. One of Jake's cellmates turns out to be Maggie the fake marine, who thinks if she gives up Hawkins' name and whereabouts, they'll take her along, and she can pass information to Hawkins once he kicks their asses. It sounds like a really stupid plan, but it apparently works perfectly, and she meets up with Hawkins and Ted.
The plan is for Maggie to get re-captured, steal some keys like some kind of ninja, then Hawkins sets off some explosions in town and free everyone in the ensuing chaos. But it's a good week for improbable plans, since Hawkins has no trouble getting his hands on explosives and she easily takes some keys from a guard. Ted's supposed to factor into the plan somehow with a rifle, but he's never shot a guy before and bails. So Hawkins has to take on the guards by himself, but luckily they're pretty incompetent. He gets off four shots before anyone reacts. Hawkins and Maggie each catch a flesh wound, but everyone manages to escape, thanks to Johnston conveniently showing up in a truck right as the shootout ends.
The episode ends with Hawkins, Eric, Jake, and Johnston walking back to Jericho after the truck gives out, carrying Maggie, who may bleed out from her leg wound. They actually share a nice family moment at the end, which was one of two high points in an otherwise stupid episode. The other was Jake giving us a sliver of hope that Heather is still alive, saying "We can't even be sure Heather's dead with the lies they're spreading." But at this point, I may not see her come back. I feel like the quality has fallen off enough that I might give up on Jericho if it gets renewed.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Wednesday Night TV
I'm still way behind, but Lost and South Park have to be seen ASAP or else something will get spoiled for me the day after. And almost to prove my point, here's me writing stuff that would spoil both after the jump:
Lost: One of the things that struck me about Desmond's situation running around trying to save Charlie is that it reminded me of those old cartoons where a dog is left to watch a baby, and the baby wanders off distracted by something shiny into dangerous situations, but through sheer luck escapes from every peril completely unharmed, while the dog suffers endless torture trying to save the baby. So Desmond is like the dog, and Charlie the baby. I mentioned TV Funhouse a while back, a long since canceled Comedy Central show featuring crazy animated shorts among other things, and whenever I think of those cartoons, I think of the TV Funhouse spoof of them:
So I found it hilarious that Desmond leads around Charlie, the baby, Jin, the immigrant, and Hurley, who not only could pass for a guy on mushrooms, but actually mentioned them early on in the episode.
But that has nothing at all to do with anything... this was a pretty cool episode. Brian K. Vaughan, comic book god, gets his first co-writing credit this episode, so I had high expectations. Which usually means I'll be disappointed. While it wasn't the best Lost episode ever, it was still cool.
Desmond has a vision of Charlie's death, but also a parachute landing with a picture of Penny on board. But he's torn as to whether Penny arriving is worth letting Charlie die, and the episode draws the parallel to God asking Abraham to kill Isaac. It of course doesn't go exactly according to plan, Charlie lives, and the woman in the parachute is, I think, someone we've never seen before. But she does recognize Desmond before appearing to die. We also learn that Desmond had another fiancee, Ruth, who he left to become a monk (hence the whole "brother" thing), but that didn't work out either. The head monk though had a picture of the lady who told Desmond all about his flashes of the future on his desk (it's not too apparent in my crappy screencap, which I'm not sure is uploading right anyway, since blogger seems to be having issues, but the photoshopping of the two actors together was pretty lousy):
The episode was very centered on the Baby/Immigrant/Guy on Mushrooms story and the flashback, so everything else didn't get much attention. Though the whole Sawyer/Kate/Jack/Juliet love... trapezoid... is getting messy. 
South Park: I'm not a huge fan of zombie movies, but I've seen enough to say that I'm pretty sure they hit just about every zombie movie cliche and managed to make it all pretty hilarious. The points about the homeless, the ridiculous overreactions by Randy, and Cartman's efforts to jump the homeless served to elevate a decent parody into one of the better episodes in recent memory.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Wednesday Night TV
Crazy Lost episode, Friday Night Lights season finale, South Park parodies 300... for a non-sweeps month, this is about as good as it gets. Click below to reveal spoilers for all three:
Lost: Many had theorized that women on the island couldn't have babies, but it's even worse than suspected - other than Claire, every woman who's gotten pregnant has died before giving birth. Juliet explains that the only reason Claire survived was that Ethan had been sneaking her a vaccine, and the only reason Ethan kidnapped her was because the castaways found out he didn't belong, so he could no longer give her the vaccine in secret.
This of course means that they killed Ethan for no good reason. And now Claire's having withdrawals and only Juliet finding a secret stash of medicine can help her. Jack trusts her immediately, of course, but Sawyer and Sayid want answers. She says "If I told you everything that I know, you'd kill me," which is awesome. But she throws Sawyer and Sayid's checkered pasts back in their faces, saying that she won't reveal her past for the same reason they don't reveal theirs. And her vaccine saves Claire almost immediately.
The pregnancy thing has been speculated, of course, because of their fascination with children, their recruitment of Juliet, a fertility specialist, and the fact that a psychic mysteriously told a newly pregnant Claire that she had to get on flight 815. But in the end, Juliet is shown discussing her whole plan with Ben - how to get Kate to accept her with the handcuff plan, that they had activated an implant in Claire to make her sick, and that they'd see each other in a week.
So who knows how much of what we learned about their experimentation on Claire was true? We're sure that women who get pregnant on the island can't carry their babies to term, but Juliet speculated long before the plane crash that the problem was at conception, so a woman who got pregnant elsewhere and came to the island should be fine. What does this mean for Sun? If Jin finds out all this, will he find out that she was impregnated by her boyfriend before the crash? Or did the island heal Jin and he is the father, which would put her at risk for the mystery ailment. Lots of possibilities.
The other thing going on were discussions about the island's cancer preventing abilities and Jacob, the often mentioned but as-yet-unseen leader of the Others. No one on the island had ever gotten cancer, but right before the crash, Juliet discovers that Ben has a tumor on his spine. He had just asked the mysterious Jacob to cure Juliet's sister's cancer, which was successful. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with anything. Or it's possible that, like Locke said, that Ben had "lost touch with the island," and it's cancer prevention doesn't work if you do. And the frequent mentioning of Jacob I'm sure has people continuing to speculate about his identity, with a lot of people suspecting Locke's father, but my money's on Billy Dee Williams.
A really fun episode for mythology buffs, I think, but not much going on for character/drama/humor. I'm cool with either or both, so I enjoyed it a lot.
South Park: 300 parody! Lots of slow motion, "THIS IS LES BOS!", the overly dramatic British accent voiceover, the ridiculously low-pitched voice of the Persian leader... lots of really nice touches. I can't tell if it was a sort of loving parody of the movie or an honest dig at the overly stylized visuals and cartoonish portrayal of the Persions in 300. 
We also got some random gross/funny "scissoring," an essay/esse pun that cracked me up, and a group of Mexican day laborers doing a pretty good job of teaching fractions. Kinda pointless across the board, but funny.
Friday Night Lights: Oh, the commercials. You show Tami telling Eric that she's pregnant, and you show the players in the baseball caps that all sports teams wear after winning championships... that just plain sucks. I guess we got right to the pregnancy thing within the first few minutes, so that's not so bad. Tami takes half the episode to spill the beans, and Eric takes it extremely well.
The players get good tickets, and Riggins offers his to Tyra, so she asked Landry to go to the game with him, and I can definitely see why he thinks it's a date... but boy she was just almost raped. Not really the time to be putting the moves on him. And Riggins ends up giving his good seats to his neighbor and her kid, so he gives Tyra four crappy seats instead. Which means Landry's riding up with Tyra, her mom, and her stripper sister. If this were like Nip/Tuck, getting stuck in a car with two young sisters and their still-hot mother would've played out a whole different way, but it's basically a nightmare for Landry. And they pick up Lyla too, but also Matt's grandmother. Even Nip/Tuck couldn't spin that last part into something fun.
On what looks a lot like a smaller version of Super Bowl media day, a reporter confronts Coach Taylor with the TMU job news, and he doesn't have much choice but to admit it. The players and staff hear about it, and it's seriously affected the mood going into the game. The only one who seems to take it all ok is Buddy Garrity of all people. He has a nice moment with Matt, who is not taking it well, where he understands Matt's frustration but also says "if you're ever lucky enough to have a family like I do, I promise you, you will understand." A great little scene... but forget that, it's game time!
As usual, things start off ugly. 26-0 at the half is really rough. The announcer guy, who a rare element of the show I've never really cared for, places the blame squarely on the news of Coach Taylor's departure. But you can't do a football story without an inspiring halftime speech. It's no "win one for the Gipper," but it was still really well done. The inevitable comeback montage is pretty exciting, but Smash dislocates his shoulder scoring a touchdown. Naturally, he'll play through the pain, and we find the team down 5 points with six seconds to go.
They go with the hook & lateral, and it works perfectly, with Smash just barely crossing the line as time expires, and the Panthers win state. I felt like this show would have a very real chance at ending with a loss, so I'm left with a sour taste in my mouth over the commercials. But it's not the show's fault, so I can't be too unhappy. I just now hate network promotional departments even more.
The win and the baby causes the Eric to re-think his career and he offers to back out at TMU and stay a high school coach, but of coruse Tami won't be the reason he skips out on his dream. So it sounds like if we come back next year (and the word is cautiously optimistic), Coach is off in Austin, but Tami and Julie stay behind, and everyone has to figure out what's next. If this is the series finale, I can handle it, and if it's not, it gives the writers a lot to work with for next year, and a lot of new challenges as well. Here's hoping we get another season (or two or three), because this is one of the best show's out there.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Wednesday Night TV/Catching Up
I'll be playing around with a fancier method for hiding potential spoilers over the next couple days, but until I get that figured out, more spoiler highlighting:
- Lost: If you've ready my review of Shooter, you probably already think I'm a perv, so no harm done with me saying this: tonight's Lost episode was really hot with all the lesbian overtones. And it's hot every time it rains on Kate anyway. Good times. Not only were Kate and Juliet handcuffed together (cat fight!), Kate did quite a bit of bonding with Cassidy in the flashback.
I've never found Kate's backstory all that interesting, but this week's story provided a nice accompaniment to the aftermath of her attempt to rescue Jack.
Right there at the end, when they were saying goodbye, there was seriously a moment where I thought Kate was going to lean over and kiss her.
Sawyer can't have been that good of a con artist, could he? You'd think two useful skills in the con game would be spotting someone else's con and getting people to like you. Still, as with just about everything involved with Hurley, it was a pretty amusing storyline. And I would happily use some Dharma generic A1 sauce, but not on pork!
It's interesting to have Sawyer taking on a leader role, but with Jack, Sayid, Kate, and Juliet on the way back, they'll have to take their time if he's going to really establish himself as a leader. More importantly though, will they try to relocate the castaways to the Others' village? Protection from the smoke monster, houses with real roofs and beds, a foosball table... what's not to like?
Overall story-wise, "Welcome to the wonderful world of not knowing what the hell's going on" was a great line, and we didn't learn much about anything going on this week (except that it sounds like Cassidy wasn't lying to Sawyer about having a kid... or if she was, she's really dedicated to the lie). Two new questions: where the hell did the others go, and did they leave Juliet behind to punish her or is she still working with them to infiltrate the crash survivors?
This was not up to the excitement level of the best episodes of this season, but still pretty entertaining. Those who demand big answers every week probably didn't care for it, though, unless they're like me and easily distracted by Evangeline Lilly. 
South Park: Hare Club for Men, bunny Popes, Vatican ninjas, hippitus hoppitus, Bill Donohue (who I actually thought was supposed to be Karl Rove at first), a good Pope hat joke, and exploding peeps. For an episode with almost no Cartman, this was quite good. I'm not sure how many people were aware of Donohue and his shenanigans as part of the Catholic League, but let's just say I'm not a fan, so I appreciated that element.
- House: A fairly Cuddy-centric episode. With House debating a vacation, she sees a little bit of herself in a woman in her 40s having complications with her pregnancy. So she takes on the House role, ignoring most people's opinions, and successfully employing a crazy strategy.
More Chase/Cameron relationship stuff... I'd really like to see this sort of end badly and blow up. Or at least somehow resolve soon. House doesn't do happy sweet cute love stories... or at least it shouldn't.
I was thinking House's attempts to go on vacation were a mask for something along the lines of the fake cancer thing, especially when he went into the decompression chamber (I think that's what it was anyway), which I thought might've been prep for a fake medical condition or to serve some other purpose. But doing it all to get people off his back so he could park on the couch, pop vicodin, and watch the Travel Channel was just as good.
Best House line: "I know you can't talk so I need you to look petrified if you consent."
Still to watch: Friday Night Lights, Bones, Jericho.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Wednesday Night TV
I always fall way behind on Tuesday or Wednesday, and today I only caught two shows. Highlight for spoilers:
- Lost: I seriously enjoyed the opener, making us think Nikki was a stripper before revealing that she starred on a V.I.P./She Spies-type show with Billy Dee Williams, who was awesome. Plus, Nikki's easy on the eyes, which I don't mind at all. But from then on? Eh.
So Nikki and Paulo killed a guy and stole some diamonds, they found out a couple secrets about the island before anyone else, Paulo went to the bathroom that time in the hatch so he could retrieve the diamonds he hid there, and then they're paralyzed and buried alive. Seriously? It seems odd that Paulo was apparently an awesome chef with a nice gig and Nikki had just gotten a pretty big break as an actress, and that's when they'd kill a guy for $8mil? Criminals make sense when they have nothing else going for them, not when their lives are looking pretty promising.
But more than that, I feel like we went through the painful introduction of these two characters for this? It kind of felt like a B-level horror movie concept. I can only assume that when Locke mentioned to Paulo that things buried near the beach will wash up, that leaves the door open for them to somehow survive, but I have mixed feelings on that.
Most of the time, I don't like it when a character appears to die but then shows back up alive. There's nothing really more dramatic than a character facing death, but if the people making a show try to play with you, make you think someone dies and they don't, it feels like they're cheating. Creating an exciting moment that will have big consequences in the characters' world, then pulling back and saying "ha ha, only kidding" is cheap.
But at the same time, if we had the awkward introduction over the course of the season and their own flashback episode, and then they die... that seems like cheap filler material. I have no problem with filler in the form of an episode that doesn't advance the plot but allows us to spend more time with the characters, but if you fill an entire episode with filler about characters that you just now introduced and then kill off, what was the point?
I'm a big Lost fan, and haven't actively disliked many episodes, but I think this one falls in that category. - South Park: I quit watching 24 somewhere in the beginning of the third season, and either the South Park writers did too or the show has remained exactly the same. From the way the phones rang to Kiefer Sutherland's "whispering, but whispering really loudly for dramatic effect" to the visuals and pacing, everything was exactly how I remember it from a few years ago.
The best South Park episodes have either something interesting to say or make you laugh so hard it hurts, and this one did neither. It did have some laughs though, so it was good television, but sub-par by South Park standards.
Still to watch: House, Jericho, Friday Night Lights, Bones.
And I wish I could've come up with a better image of Nikki, cause that's really low quality, but she looked great all through the episode.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Wednesday Night TV
A fine night of television, and I've only watched half of it. Highlight for spoilers:
- Lost: A Locke flashback this week, with a couple nice touches. They start with him seated, talking about disability payments, making us think it was post-paralysis, but he was actually collecting for depression. And this played into the theory that Locke lost use of his legs due to a suicide attempt (Hurley owned the box company Locke worked for, and we saw that guy fly out a window during Hurley's first flashback at his accountant's, leading people to connect the two). Though given the awesome sudden turn when his dad pushes him out the window (a nice parallel to Locke pushing Mikhail into the brown noise fence last week), it's possible Hurley was on one of the floors beneath.
On the island, Jack's chumminess with the Others is because they're going to follow through on the deal to take him home, and will be taking Juliet along with him. But Locke's going to blow up the sub, making departure impossible, and playing right into Ben's hands. Locke, Sayid, and Kate all get caught, so after all this bargaining and escaping, there are actually more people in the Others' custody than there were before.
The big spooky part of this episode is the discussion of the box on the island that contains anything you can imagine. Somehow, this results in Locke's dad appearing. More importantly, this raises a bunch of questions about which island oddities are box-related, assuming the box isn't bullshit to begin with. Were the various hallucinations (Jack seeing his father, Kate seeing a horse, etc) because of the box? Was the plane crashing a result of Ben wishing for a spinal surgeon? Interesting.
Another solid episode. I don't know what was going on in the fall, but since the return from hiatus, the show's been just about as good as ever. I'm too spoiler-paranoid to watch the teasers for the next episode, but the guys I was watching the show with seemed really excited about next week. And until then, keep an eye on the Lost Easter Eggs blog for cool stuff from this episode. - South Park: They really like making fun of generic action movie plots, huh? For a minute, I thought it was going to be a Superman origin story parody. The parents of a new son believing their world is about to end, the government not believing them, Clyde's doctor early on mentioning the fly as a way to travel from one scalp to another seemed like a good way to get little louse Kal-El off of Clyde/Krypton... but yeah they went with a more Bruckheimer-type plot.
Not bad, but not a great episode by South Park standards. The reveal that they all had lice was nice, and I liked the "sock bath" joke. I was sure the fly was going to take the louse to someone's crotch, but I thought it would be Mrs. Cartman.
On the Tivo: Friday Night Lights, Bones.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Wednesday Night TV
A break, finally, from all the reruns that have been on this week. Highlight for spoilers:
- Lost: A Claire flashback this week... is this only her second one, or third? She's been ignored a lot, but given the Others' obsession with fertility and babies, I have to assume she'll end up being really important in the grand scheme.
Do I just not remember the parts where Charlie redeemed himself for acting all crazy and almost getting the baby killed? Claire certainly seems all chummy with him again in the first half of the episode.
Her tagged bird plan is actually pretty smart (except for not covering it in some kind of scotch tape or plastic), but as soon as Desmond showed up (after a second of him looking like a c-blocker), you kind of new where that was headed. I thought the note was a little wordy, though. But I guess it was a dramatic moment so they wanted poetic sounding words rather than just cramming as much information as they could fit on the page, which is probably what they'd actually do.
Jack's dad paying for Claire's Mom's hospital stay was a nice spooky thing when he was a mystery benefactor, but I could've sworn Australia had some kind of universal health care system. Nice, I guess, to get the Jack's father/Claire thing out of the way, since the fans had picked up on that during the Ana Lucia flashback.
Over in the crew headed to rescue Jack, we get a nice spooky scene where Captain Eyepatch reveals all the creepy stuff he knows about the castaways, including Locke's paralysis, but naturally that get's cut off. That security perimeter was pretty messed up. Would've been more dramatic if it hadn't reminded me of the "brown noise" from South Park though. I get Locke taking the C4, I guess, though it makes his actions last week even stupider, but why didn't he take more of it? It's certainly a lot nicer to have around than that dynamite if you ask me (or Arzt). Jack playing football at the end was a fun twist to end the episode.
Is it messed up that my first thought about the opening car wreck scene was that Claire looks much hotter with dark hair? And speaking of hot, I'll admit it. Kate climbing that tree was strangely appealing. I'm pretty easy to please in that respect.
Another quality episode. With the exception of the incredibly boring tattoo episode, this half of the season has been really good. Lost-haters be damned, I still love this show. - Bones: I was disappointed to see Bones' super handy agent boyfriend return (and he calls her Tempy?), and with their temporary partnership over, they now come up with flimsy excuses to involve him in the investigation so he has something to do. But I was happy to see Jonathan Slavin (Byron from Andy Richter Controls the Universe) make an appearance. But as usual with these shows, you have to immediately suspect the familiar actor. I didn't see the Strangers on a Train (or... on a chat room) aspect coming, but I was not the least bit surprised that Slavin's character was involved.
We go with a plot that I'm guessing they've been saving for a week when they were out of ideas: someone's killing people in the same way Brennan's described in her books. Not that exciting, but they have a few nice scenes. The part where they were determining how to get the bullet out of the rat was excellent. - South Park: Hoooooo-lyyyyy cow. The reveal of Butters' accountabili-buddy hanging himself managed to not be one of the wrongest jokes in the episode. "A secluded camp where lots of bi-curious boys are all put together? That sounds like a good idea!" just about killed me.
Ah, ABC goes with the extremely annoying moving ad in the corner of the screen to plug Dancing With the Stars. I hoped that after Family Guy annoyed the crap out of Arrested Development viewers, the networks might abandon those. But alas, no.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Wednesday Night TV
Late night last night, but I managed to catch these. Highlight for spoilers:
- Lost: A lot of people had criticized the Lost writers for not having the castaways ask many questions. And it did seem kind of odd that all this crazy stuff was going on but they didn't seem quite as concerned about it as they should've been. But in this one, Sayid (and to a lesser extent, Locke) asked a lot of questions of Captain Eyepatch, who turns out to be a Russian guy, posing as a Project Dharma guy, when in fact he's just another Other. We do learn, I think, that the Others (or "hostiles" as the Dharma folks call them) aren't with Project Dharma, and that they inhabited the island before the Dharma people got there. Which I thought was interesting.
One complaint: I understand why Locke could've gotten wrapped up with the chess game, but I don't see him as quite that stupid as to leave Mikhail unattended. I could see him wanting to play the chess game, but I'd expect him to move Mikhail to a more observable place before sitting down. But when he was debating the game, I thought of Dreamcatchers, a pretty awful movie, but with one great scene. Jason Lee is sitting on top of a toilet to keep the lid closed, since some evil alien monster was trying to kill him. After trying to force the lid open for a while, the alien goes silent for a few minutes. Lee's character, who plays with toothpicks in his mouth when he's nervous, reaches for his pocket to get one, only to find that he spilled them on the floor. He tries reaching for them without getting off the toilet, but can't quite reach them, and you start to see the debate on his face. "It's been quite for a while now, I can just get up for a second to grab a toothpick and get right back on." Of course, the audience knows the second he gets up, he's going to get killed. It's a great scene in an otherwise bad movie. That's quite a tangent... but my point is that Jason Lee's character in that movie wasn't so bright, but Locke's been generally pretty smart in the series so far, so it didn't really fit.
Also, Sayid was seriously Monk-ish with his attention to detail in the Flame area. And I hadn't noticed how much Mrs. Clue looked like the leader of the Bloodhound Gang (from 3-2-1 Contact, not the musicians). - South Park: As usual, a timely episode. And the overall message that people who don't belong to groups that have words that are truly offensive can't understand what it's like? I like that. Also, I thought during the ass kissing scene, that Jesse Jackson would fart in Randy's face, just cause it's South Park and they like to do that kinda thing.
- Sarah Silverman Program: Finally, the episode with Hiro! I wonder if this was the pilot, cause they showed Laura's cop boyfriend, but he didn't act like he knew Sarah at all. And the sequence with Sarah fleeing from the convenience store was great.
On the Tivo: Jericho.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Wednesday Night TV
Will have to play a lot of catch-up tomorrow, cause I missed most of tonight's stuff. Highlight for spoilers:
- Lost: I suspect that a lot of people in forums and all that will complain about another episode that does little to answer any questions, but I hope they were able to just enjoy this episode. Cause it was interesting, well-written, well-acted, and funny.
The scene with Hurley and Cheech in the fortune teller's shop was hilarious, and Hurley's just such a likable character that even with all the bad stuff he's going through, the whole episode was just plain fun. Maybe I'm crazy, but if what's on screen is compelling, I don't care how it relates to the overall plot. If it answers puzzles about the island, great, if not, that's great too.
My one complaint though, was the opening credits, which listed Mira Furlan. I try not to pay attention, but one of the guys I was watching with didn't believe that that was Cheech Marin playing Hurley's dad, so we were watching for his name to prove him wrong. Then Mira Furlan shows up, and I know Rousseau's going to make an appearance.
The weirdest moment of the episode was when Hurley came up to the beach to announce that he'd found the car, at some point there was a bunch of commotion, there was a very brief shot of Nikki being pulled backwards, seemingly against her will, by the back of her shorts. There have been hints about a relationship between Nikki and Paulo, the two most uninteresting characters ever, but if they have some kind of weird dysfunctional relationship, I might actually become interested in them. Anyway, I thought it was strange, and couldn't have been for no reason.
Random complaint: Attention, makers of "K20 Protein Water," if a beverage is flavored, colored, and has calories, there is no possible way to call it water. I realize you're trying to brand it as a health drink or whatever, but it seems like somebody ought to step in and stop this before Anheiser-Busch starts advertising their "Carbonated, Fermented Barley Water."
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Wednesday Night TV
Lots of stuff left to watch, but so far (highlight for spoilers):
- Lost: What the hell was that? So Jack's flashback revealed what his tattoo means... sort of? He walks among us but isn't one of us, or Jack's a leader but lonely? Also getting that tattoo means he gets his ass kicked for some reason. And I'm totally unclear why he became so insistent on getting one upon learning that it was Bai Ling's "gift" that he looked ready to beat on her.
And the Jack/Ben/Juliet thing kinda played out how one would expect it to play, with Jack continuing to use his expertise as leverage, but they do introduce a new character, Isabel "the sheriff" (played by Diana Scarwid, who was awesome on Wonderfalls, and was pretty awesome here). The branding of Juliet was kinda unusual.
On the Sawyer/Kate front, nothing interesting happened. Plus it was capped by a cheesy An American Tail shot showing Alex and Karl looking at their same teddy bear constellation. I don't remember a worse Lost episode.
- Jericho: Another show that had a long hiatus, and I have to admit, I forgot what was going on where we left off. But this episode gives us some pre-bomb action, mostly following Hawkins and Jake. Jake's in Southern California or something, struggling to find work after some mystery incident in Iraq ruined his reputation, and then he has to flee from the evil Haliburton like company. Meanwhile, Hawkins has to abduct his family to keep them out of the way of all the bombs, and there's some stuff involving the chick he was living with (including an inexplicable online chat where they have full motion video but no audio). And then we catch back up with where they left off before the hiatus, with the plane crash people showing up, including Roger, Emily's fiancee with a ridiculous fake beard, and Hawkins' girlfriend in the dramatic reveal at the end. Yawn. I've never loved this show, but keep watching for some reason
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Wednesday Night TV
Second straight night out, so I'm way behind. Highlight for spoilers:
- Lost: I'm sure everyone caught the Wizard of Oz thing with the red shoes, but I wonder how many people got the Out of Sight reference... Desmond should've gone and robbed a bank.
Anyway, I tend not to like including time travel in stories that aren't entirely about time travel... it ruins the continuity of things. But I kinda saw this coming with the backwards talk and History of Time stuff that popped up on the interweb this week, and it's not so bad cause at least he can't change the past really. But hey, a question asked (how is Desmond seeing the future?) and answered! Lost is moving forward. Good times.
For some reason, I'm picturing the Desmond/Charlie thing going forward like one of those cartoons. You know... the ones where the dog gets left in charge of the baby, and the baby gets distracted by something shiny wanders off into a series of improbable near accidents, and the dog keeps barely rescuing the baby, but the dog takes a beating in the process? Robert Smigel's Comedy Central show TV Funhouse did an awesome parody of those where instead of just a baby, it was a baby, an immigrant, and a guy on mushrooms. And a ridiculous tangent seems like a good place to wrap this up.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Last Night's TV
A little catchup, plus last night's viewing. As always, spoilers. Highlight to reveal:
- Law & Order: CI: Well, cutting straight from the L&O "...these are their stories..." intro to Under Pressure (most overused soundtrack song ever? Or is it Baba O'Reily?) and some guys in 18th century garb about to duel made me think the Tivo somehow switched channels mid-recording. But then the cut to a sniper, so at least I know it wasn't a period drama with weird music choices. Xander Berkely is a pretty good actor, huh? He should be in more stuff.
- House: So was the wheelchair bound woman just messing with House, or is she a lesbian? Either way, I hope she hangs around. Despite only a few lines, she was pretty likable. And a few episodes ago, House had quite a bit of sexual tension with a little person, now with a woman in a wheelchair. I could definitely see him having a thing for... atypical women. I liked the case of the week. It's cool to see a solution end up being much more simple that everyone expected it to be. Also, this episode reminded me that I use the word "gyp," and never remember that it's derived from an ethnic stereotype. So I should stop that.
- Bones: I liked the scenes with Booth and the shrink. Replacement partner guy, though? Not so much. And it looks like he'll be back for more. As soon as French Stewart popped up in the credits, I was worried. Partly because he's not the kind of actor you want to see in a drama. Ever. But mostly because anytime someone that famous shows up, you know they're going to play an important role. And when they show up for half a second early on and aren't heard from for 30 minutes, you know they're probably going to be the key to the case. Most likely the murderer. But on the plus side, he wasn't nearly as bad as I thought he'd be. At least he didn't do the eyes half closed 3rd Rock from the Sun thing. Oh, and Hodgins' line about getting caught in a pornado? Excellent.
- Lost: Sweet reveal at the beginning with the Miami skyline. Overall a pretty great episode. I can't say I cared all that much about Juliet, but now I'm warming to her. A few really cool parts. I liked that Ben wakes up mid-surgery. And when Tom explains how it happened, I pictured Jack like Bones from Star Trek: "Dammit, Tom, I'm a spinal surgeon not an anesthesiologist!" The octopus hatch thing was new, and it seems to be where they condition people with music and crazy film montages. Eventually, that'll make sense, I'm sure, and it'll be as clear as an azure sky of deepest summer. I thought the "tell me the story I told you" thing was incredibly lame. I get that they needed some way that she could easily lie without the others knowing, but the 2 minute speech for emotional impact was forced. And she told the story while she was still on dry land, which was just a little stupid, since Juliet could've shot Kate in the face as soon as she got off the radio. And I've always loved the spontaneous car accident... Meet Joe Black is still my favorite, but this one was up there (even if it was just like the one Nip/Tuck did this season), especially cause of the sinister possibilities
We did get some fun guest stars. Zeljko Ivanek, Deadwood's Robin Wiegert, a visit from William "Ethan" Mapother, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Rob McElhenny, and Nestor Carbonell. I hadn't seen Nestor Carbonell for a while... I first remember seeing him in Muscle, one of the original WB shows that was sort of a daytime soap opera spoof, like Soap. He later popped up in one of those bad NBC sitcoms that was sandwiched between good shows, (maybe Suddenly Susan?), then as Batmanuel on the live action Tick. But then nothing memorable for a few years, and now he's in Lost and Smokin' Aces one right after the other. He was surprisingly good in both, especially since I had previously only thought of him as a comedic actor with a gimmick accent.
Still parked on the Tivo: Friday Night Lights, Knights of Prosperity (which I'm getting close to dumping).
