NBC tried an underhanded trick to ruin what could be a nice night of television by having Heroes run a minute long so my DVR won't record the 10:00 Riches and then I'll watch that Wedding Crashers reality show. Fat chance. All they accomplish is that I wait another hour to start watching everything, shortening the gap between Heroes and the 11:00 Riches, skipping more commercials in the process. Sure, I don't have a Nielsen box, so they don't lose anything from it, but I feel like it's a moral victory. Spoilers for those two shows plus Drive after the jump.
Drive: The movie doesn't turn out nearly as informative as I'd hoped, but for improving the most from checkpoint one to checkpoint two, Alex and Corrina get a head start, letting them skip the next checkpoint. But there's a price to pay for their lead: when they arrive at their destination, they find that they have to rob a bank to get their next clue or whatever. 
Winston and Sean decide it'd be faster to just follow them. We learn in the process that Winston was in jail for armed robbery. Which is convenient, since they're tailing someone who needs help in committing armed robbery. Even more convenient, Sean seems to be some kind of hacker. Not the real kind, where it takes actual effort and preparation to break into a computer, but the movie kind where you can sit down and type for a few minutes and gain access. The bank heist is surprisingly easy, until a cop shows up, shoots Sean, and Sean shoots the cop, Dear Sister-style.
Wendy gets a call from Cindy Williams saying her kid might be in trouble. Does this mean Laverne (or Shirley? I never watched that show) doesn't work for the race, and that Wendy just ditched the baby with a friend or something? I dunno, but Wendy decides she wants to quit the race and save her baby. But Ivy wants that money, and amusingly doesn't know how to drive, so she pulls her gun and is forcing Wendy to continue.
Rob checks in with his commanding officer and discovers what Ellie had been hiding from him. Turns out his unit shipped out two weeks ago, so she'd been hiding it for quite a while, huh? Anyway, he's got a court-martial waiting for him if he ever goes back, so Rob is pissed enough to throw the race phone out the window. No idea where this leaves them, but subsequent events lead me to believe that people don't drop out of the race very easily.
Which brings us to Leigh and Susan, Ivy's old partners. They kept coming to Rome, GA, after getting their tires shot out and abandoned by one of their partners, but when they finally make it there, they're told that it's too late. Susan says God has been speaking to her, and that they have to continue. Conveniently, someone just threw their race phone out the window, so now they're back in. Less convenient is the fact that someone runs them off the road shortly after. With her last breath after the wreck, Susan says that God told her that Leigh was going to win. On a mission from God, eh?
It's 106 miles to Appomattox, Leigh's got a full tank of gas, a half a pack of cigarettes... and actually she has none of those things. But she is hitching to Appomattox. Our bank robbers are trying to save Sean, who's now passed out, and Alex has some kind of plan involving a motel. Actually a bit of an improvement over last week, but I was hoping for more. It's still interesting, but Drive hasn't made the leap into can't-miss territory yet. But speaking of can't-miss....
Heroes: Oh, how I've missed it. Hiro has his sword but is trapped in post-disaster New York, Linderman makes an offer Nathan might not be able to refuse, Primatech has Parkman in custody, Claire is on the run, and what everyone's really excited about: the Sylar-Peter face-off. So naturally we pick up with an obviously fake version of Claire trying to mess with Bennett's head and an evil speech from Eric Roberts. But Candice is still really hot, so I don't mind the tease.
Nathan and Linderman are still discussing their proposal. Linderman shows off his own power, which is to heal things. At least plants, but it'd be a boring power if it was just that. But Linderman gives his "here's why I'm evil" speech, and I'm guessing almost every comic book fan watching found the whole thing disturbingly familiar, except that his office has fancy Japanese artifacts instead of Egyptian. Hopefully, it's just an homage and doesn't turn the series into a complete ripoff. I don't think we heard Nathan's response, but he's certainly considering it.
We finally pick up with the big fight. Peter quickly recovers from the telekinetic buzzsaw to the forehead, uses some telekinesis of his own, and turns invisible, but Sylar sends shards of glass in all directions, and one goes through the back of Peter's skull, killing him. Mohinder knocks Sylar out and takes Peter's body and the list to Mrs. Petrelli... but did anyone think he wouldn't be coming right back to life?
It sounds like Mrs. Petrelli has some powers of her own, and had a bad experience in Linderman's old group of crime busters or whatever, so she wants to keep Claire away from that world until she can make an informed choices. But they leave us hanging as to what Mrs. Petrelli's powers are. When Peter's body shows up, he comes back to life pretty quickly, and Claire gets to meet her father. They share a familial moment, but they hint with some ominous music that he wants Claire to run to Paris not to protect her from the hero mess, but because he's going to go along with Linderman.
Sylar shows up at Isaac's studio, and of course Isaac knows he's coming. So we finally see Isaac's death that Hiro saw so early on. But Isaac ships off a bunch of his artwork before he dies, and implies that that will show everyone how to kill Sylar.
Bennett thinks loud enough to give Parkman instructions on how to break out, and Parkman finds out something scary on the way out, stopping to pick up nuclear Ted. The plan is for Ted to generate an EMP to get them out. Which apparently only Bennett knew he could do. But it works. And they discuss their future plans at the Burnt Toast Cafe, naturally. We get the amusing revelation that Bennett's a middle manager and knew nothing about his organization. Their plan is first to go to New York to destroy the system that tracks powered people, then go after Linderman (who, in the least interesting subplot, has just kidnapped Micah).
We conclude with Hiro and Ando in the future. Hiro decides that the way to prevent the disaster it is to figure out their mistakes from the future before traveling back to fix them. When poking around for clues in Isaac's apartment, he finds his own future self, perfect English and all, who seems unhappy to see our more familiar Hiro, and that's where we leave off.
I'm a little concerned about the lack of originality from the villain (I'm being vague because comic book fans will know what I'm talking about, while those not in the know might find the comic and its inevitable movie adaptation at some point in the future to be less fun if they're thinking the bad guy is just like Linderman the whole time... but if you're curious, and don't mind spoilers, click on this link for the bio of the Linderman-like character), but the show is still slickly done and exciting, so I'll try not to think too much about it.
The Riches: Dale calls Dahlia in (fake) tears to report on his father's death. Dahlia was close to Earl, so she wants to go to the funeral, which means scrounging up some cash to pay back at least most of the money they stole so that Dale won't immediately kill them.
The Malloys aren't exactly greeted warmly when they return home by anyone except Dale's mother. Lots of menacing glares and even a little spitting at their feet. After the funeral, two big things going on: traveler funerals are frequently accompanied by traveler weddings so Di Di's in trouble, and Dahlia confronts Dale about Earl's death.
It doesn't take much to figure out that Earl's guilty, so Dahlia tries to convince everyone else, but Dale's mother is in denial, so all Dahlia can do is get really pissed, shoot holes in Dale's roof, and leave.
Between selling out the location of the Malloys to Dale, and the fact that Dahlia's out of state on parole, Ginny has the family by the balls, but Di Di can't quite say "I do" ("No, I can't. What the hell is wrong with you people?" is the closest she can get). Still, Ginny won't sell them out if Di Di fulfills Ken's dream to "consummate." There is no "I" in team, but their might be an "ewwww," cause Di Di sounds willing to bite that bullet. But when Ken comes in to enjoy his non-wedding night, Di Di explains the situation, and Ken shows that while his sister might be a huge bitch, he's still a pretty nice guy, and refuses to go along with the blackmail. Whew.
But you have to feel for Ken, who could've had his dream come true, but has his heart broken instead, and even though his entire family being a bunch of evil bastards, he's still a good guy. And his reward for his good deeds is a savage beating from Dale, who now knows that Ken knows where the Malloys live.
A lot more intense than usual, but not as funny either, which is an ok trade off. Lots of great scenes for people other than Wayne, which is a nice change from him normally stealing the show. As with every episode, I think, since the pilot, it wasn't perfect, but still pretty good.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Monday Night TV
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Catching Up
A loooong weekend away from home. I caught a couple shows... Painkiller Jane was as bad as I'd heard it was. And SNL with Shia LaBeouf was pretty dull, except for the digital short (Dear Sister, featuring Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek"), and Sofa King. Also, I'm twice the age and half the X-chromosomes of Avril Lavigne's target demographic, so that didn't do much for me. The big thing I missed out on was the three hours over two nights premiere of Drive.
Spoilers for that after the jump:
Drive: A cross-country race run by a mysterious organization that took extreme measures to coax people into the race, I knew about. Clues about each stop on the way, sinister penalties for finishing last, I did not know. Three hours in, we've got plenty of mystery, and relatively exciting car chases and things. The effects aren't movie-quality, but they're passable. It doesn't seem as well-written as Tim Minnear's earlier efforts, but I think this is meant for a broader audience. Still, it's well above the Fast and the Furious-type dialogue that is normally associated with car stories.
So far we've met seven people (above), as far as we know, that work for the race officials, and we're familiar with several teams:
Nathan Fillion and Kristin Lehman play Alex and Corrina. Corrina was kidnapped 27 years ago for the race, and her parents died just shy of the finish line trying to win her back. Former semi-pro auto racer Alex is in it to win back his wife (Angel's Amy Acker) who was kidnapped by the powers that be. A cop (Law & Order's Richard Brooks) and Alex's sister (Katie Finneran from The Inside and Wonderfalls) are back in Nebraska looking into the disappearance of his wife and subsequent disappearance of him.
They have a leg up on the competition, since Corrina seems to know more about the race than anyone else, and has a USB drive with apparently info on the other racers. But the leg up isn't much help, since Alex apparently was the wheelman on a number of bank robberies and on the hook for some murders, and it looked like he was getting arrested, but it was just an excuse to get him out of his crappy truck and into his old racing car. 
Wendy Patrakas (Melanie Lynskey) just had a baby, who the race people took. It sounds like her husband is crazy, jeolous, a workaholic, and abusive. She kinda sucks at the whole racing thing, but she's obviously motivated. She ended up coming in last in the first leg, which earned her a gun and the assignment to "eliminate" Ivy (Taryn Manning). We don't know much about Ivy at this point, except that she was in New Orleans during Katrina, and apparently has no money. Wendy gets around her elimination task on a technicality by getting Ivy to join up with her.
Winston Salazar (Kevin Alejandro) just got out of jail. We have no idea what he did (or didn't do). His rich father abandoned his family when Winston was seven. After getting invited to the race, he goes to pick up some pocket money by stealing from his dad. But instead he finds his half brother, Sean, who didn't even know Winston existed. They team up, but Winston is on parole, so a bounty hunter is after him. He gets picked up, but Sean calls in his father's yes man and gets him out.
Elle and Rob Laird (Mircea Monroe and Riley Smith) are our only husband and wife team. He's in the Army, she wants him out. So she grabs his cell phone and deletes the message letting him know that his unit's being redeployed to Iraq. Which I guess makes him AWOL. They've probably gotten the least development so far, with a lot of the scenes featuring them focusing on showing off Elle's body, which I am all for.
John Trimble ("That Guy" Dylan Baker) is an Astrophysicist who's dying. The only thing keeping him alive are his meds, and he doesn't have enough to last the whole race, apparently. He's driving along with his daughter Violet (Emma Stone), who... is a teenager, but otherwise isn't remarkable in any way. But she and her father have a nice relationship, and it looks like Sean Salazar is hot for her, so I'm sure that'll show up later.
We leave off at a cliffhanger, where everyone (including us, we hope) is about to learn a lot about the race. I, for one, am excited.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Last Night's TV
With Battlestar Galactica and Extras and the Fox animation lineup, Sunday's a pretty sweet TV day:
- The Simpsons: Bart gets a driver's license and a pregnant girlfriend (Natalie Portman), Lisa lies about having Native American heritage. Ho-hum in the story department. A few solid jokes (Ultimate Fighting Zoo, for example) and a cool car-ified version of the opening credits. They've been doing a lot more montages set to popular music lately (that Allman Brothers instrumental and Low Rider in this one), which is probably another sign that the show is running out of steam. Still better than most shows though.
- King of the Hill: Unlike The Simpsons, King of the Hill is still in its prime. A snake down the toilet makes Hank a pariah and sends Dale to join Team Snake at the Animal Control office. I love John Goodman. Couldn't place his partner's voice though. My favorite character on this show changes episode to episode, but how can you not love Peggy here? She basically does nothing the whole episode, but has the throwaway line "You know, I always thought we'd be on tv for being murdered in our sleep."
- Family Guy: I'm actually surprised they could get away with the "Stewie the submissive" storyline. But this is another one that's not what it used to be. Two or three good gags (the Irish runway covered in empties being the best), but the show used to make up for it's always week stories with a dozen laugh out loud gags, or at least one that made you laugh so hard you had pause the tv to catch your breath. Not anymore.
- American Dad: As Family Guy has fallen apart, American Dad has hit its stride. Mr. Pibb jokes always make me laugh (see the Venture Bros. season one finale for another example), and the E.T. parody kinda worked. Plus I like how they started with a Lifetime Original Movie joke, and Roger's storyline turned into one. And unlike Family Guy, they can make a reference without cutting the story off. "This is one sweet ride, what is she, a Huffy?" (the other bike-related joke, Rogers' "ehhh" sound when he pushed it over at the end, was damn funny too). And I thought that was Hugh Downs at first as Mr. Pibb, but I guess it was Peter Graves. Cool either way.
- Extras: As far as cringe-factor goes, I complained about the last Office episode, but this was worse. Yet, something about Ricky Gervais makes it still funny even when it's just painful. And the scenes with Maggie and Lamb were fun. Ian McKellan was excellent, as almost every guest star is. For some reason, this show gets almost no attention, but it is damn funny.
- Battlestar Galactica: So the Sagittarons are a Christian Scientist type people who don't believe in modern medicine, and they bring an illness on board. Conveniently for the drama, it's easily cured but fatal if untreated. Sen. Kelly from the first X-Men movie plays the civillian doc treating some people with or without their permission, and the people he treats end up dying. So what happens when you try to help people who don't want your help and it all goes wrong? And boy do they hate him. I wonder what unpopular war is the subject of this metaphor? But in the end, Sen. Kelly admits to killing them on purpose, but because this show is awesome, he's not just mindlessly evil. He has a practical (cold and hateful, yes, but still practical) reason for doing it.
Quick hit thoughts:- Dee totally throws like a girl.
- Does Athena know the Prez is listening in on her visits with Capira Six? Six seems to not know, at least.
- I don't like the bonus scene thing. If it's worth a scene it should fit with the episode.
Tivo: Empty.
Fox ran a promo for Drive, the highly anticipated (among tv geeks) cross country race drama from Tim Minnear (Angel, Wonderfalls, Firefly, and the hugely underrated The Inside), during the animation block. I'm pretty sure that it will be spectacular or spectacularly bad, and there's almost no way it could be anywhere in between.
The other one they were plugging hard was the Rob Corddry show The Winner from Seth McFarlane and Ricky Blitt (both from Family Guy). Probably will end up sucking, but I'll watch it. Corddry was always good on The Daily Show and his turn as Frank Wrench on Arrested Development convinced me he can handle a show like this.
And Sci-Fi continues to run Painkiller Jane spots during BSG. I'm curious enough to check it out, I guess. Kristanna Loken's easy on the eyes, and it might be mindless fun.
