TV Round-Up
Alias
Apparently,
Alias has decided that it's nature over nurture since everyone in the Bristow family somehow or other goes into the spy business. Syd's half-sister, her mom's sister, her mother, her father, her. Heck, at this point I fully expect to find out her grandparents met while on a spy mission somewhere over Istanbul. The shock value of everyone in the family being in the same business wore off a long time ago and it just keeps getting more and more hokey. I've also got to feel sorry for the cousin who sells insurance who has nothing to really contribute to conversations at family reunions. Or else he feels slighted because no one will talk to him about anything simply because he doesn't have the security clearance! As for the episode itself, other than Vaughn going all evil on us (gee, there's a shocker!), nothing really interesting happened and we learned nothing new. Sloane's an evil SOB--yep. Lauren is the worst spy ever--check. Syd and Vaughn are dancing around the sexual tension again--check! Yep, it's all there. This one was pretty much a paint by numbers, phone it in episode that, honestly, felt weak for being the penultimate episode of the season. No matter what else you say,
24 is rocking in the final run of episodes while
Alias just seems content to stumble along--as it has all year. They need to look at the example of the
X-Files where mythology was fun at first but soon became a dead weight to the series as it got so complicated that not even the most devoted fans could or wanted to follow it.
Enterprise--""The Forgotten"
The title of this episode could pretty much refer to how a lot of the Trek nation feels about
Enterprise as a whole these days. Which is a shame really, becuase if you tuned away in disguist that it wasn't really going anywhere in season two, you're really missing on some well done stuff here in season three. My biggest concern going into the final run of episodes is that the entire arc will crash under its own weight. I still don't have enough faith in Berman and Braga to pull off this storyline based on their track record. Dear heavens, I still fear a giant reset button is just out there waiting to be pushed. I was also thinking about how much
Enterprise has evolved into being similiar to the original series in that pretty much most episodes now focus on the big three of Archer, T'Pol and Tripp. Sure, we get some amount of Malcolm subplots and development, but he's really kind of evolved into the Scotty of the show. As for the rest, they pretty much push buttons and open hailing frequences and that's about it.
The Sopranos
Now, I've not had a chance to see Sunday's episode just yet (it's on an average of 17 more times this week!), but so far this season has been really, really good. It's interesting to see how Tony has struggled since day one to balance his family lives--that of his biological family and that of his mafia family. It's also interesting that as he's lost control of his biological family, he's now losing control of the Mafia one. Of course, he's not doing himself any favors really and he's making enemies from friends left and right. It's also interesting that for all the power he seems to have, it's the women in his life who have a lot more. His mother was able to order a hit on him with Uncle Junior, a couple of weeks ago he had to have Carmella help bail him out from the rumors of his sleeping with Adriana, etc. I have always theorized that should Tony go down, Meadow would be the one to step up and run the family..and I still think that could be very, very interesting.
Angel
How did Ben Edlund go from that wacky guy who created the Tick and had the funny episodes to this? It's in a good way, mind you. Edlund has really come a long way over the course of his involvment with Mutant Enemy and this week's episode was no exception. Sure, we had a bit of the
Star Trek thing of jumping through time and Angel caught up in the wake, but it all really worked. And seeing Angel realize that he has to fulfill his bargain to the Senior Partners and not find a loophole out of it was a great coda. I don't care what they tell me that the ending of the season will wrap it all up. It can't. There's just too much good stuff for it to end and I hate the WB now more than ever for cancelling
Angel.
Smallville
OK, I'm behind on this one...I just saw the Christopher Reeve episode from a few weeks ago. And it was OK, but it went back to the same damn pattern of all year--we have this five minute coda where Clark and Lana discuss why they can't be together. This is really getting old here folks! As for Reeve's appareance, last year is felt like an event, this year it felt like we're going back to the well becuase it worked so well. I am not sure what we learned from him that was really that special, other than Jor-El is waiting for someone or something--and we're led to assume it's Jonathan, based on this deal the two made, but we also get to know nothing more about (have I mentioned that is getting almost as frustrating as the Clark/Lana thing?!?). I felt like this one was a one step forward, four steps back type of episode and it may well be setting up some great season finale type of things...but for now, I'm just left scratching my head, wanting more.
posted by Michael Hickerson at 5/05/2004 11:39:00 AM |
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