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24: Day Six, 1 - 2 a.m.The best part of this week's 24 is the surprise return of Secretary Heller. Heller comes in, sees Audrey and then tells Jack to keep clear of his daughter since Jack is, as he puts it, cursed. Nice scene. William DeVane did a nice job, though I wonder how long Jack will respect Heller's wishes to stay far away from Audrey. Seems as if Jack is the only one who can reach Audrey to get any information on Chang's potential whereabouts. Other than that, not a lot really exciting going on this week. Turns out Lisa Miller is not just fooling around with the vice-president but a powerful lobbyist who just happens to be working for the Russians. I guess it's supposed to be a twist on the cute female spy sleeping with someone high up who is male, but honestly it wasn't all that interesting. I kind of felt sorry for her in that the whole encounter with Daniel Jackson (guy from Stargate) lasted approximately two minutes. The good thing is this plotline is not strung out. We quickly find out Lisa is the leak and how it's done. Daniels has to fess up to Tom Lennox that he's also sleeping with Lisa, which now puts the embarrassing things you can hold over the other person's head at 2 for Tom and none for Daniels. Were it not four hours from the end, I'd look to see Tom use this somehow as leverage over the VP. Oh wait, I just thought of it--this is how Karen and Tom will get Bill back in charge of CTU. Man, I should be writing for this show... Speaking of CTU, Nadia is not doing a very good job of leadership. Apparently her leadership style is doormat--as in letting everyone else walk all over you. Unless you're Morris and then she goes into total uber-pyscho mode and tells him he's not transferring because she said so...nyah, nyah, nyah. Poor Morris...he's had a rough day. Made even rougher when he decides that Chloe went too far in chiding him about giving the ability to arm nukes to terrorists. Man, relationships at CTU just do not EVER work out, do they? You'd think they'd keep footage of all these bad break-ups to show to people who go out on a date...just to maybe save them some heartache in the long run. Again, it's another week where we have a lot of focus everywhere but Jack. Doyle allows Jack to overpower him so Jack can take Audrey and find out info. And Doyle also helps Nadia realize she has to stand up for herself and assert some leadership or else no one will take her seriously. And then she does and we get an after-school special like moment when Doyle gives her the verbal high five. Man, you have to think Milo is going to be annoyed at Doyle making a move on Nadia like that. There must be something in the water at CTU that just heightens the sexual tension between co-workers. I think they're on the same water supply system that used to run into the FBI basement. ( X-Files reference!) And I haven't even got to the fact that Russia is able to mobilize for an attack in under ten minutes and that the component is damaged. I have no idea where any of this will all lead in the final four hours of the day, but I can only hope it manages to do something interesting. Or maybe have Jack be the focal point of an episode. Or both. Yeah, that'd be kind of fun. TV Thoughtsposted on other sites: Doctor Who: Daleks in Manhatten (Part 1 of 2) Doctor Who: Evolution of the Daleks (Part 2 of 2) The Shield: Haunts Veronica Mars: Un-American Grafiti Labels: 24, Doctor who, The Shield, tv shows, veronica mars
posted by Michael Hickerson at 5/02/2007 09:19:00 AM |
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Heroes: Unexpected
Well, I guess that's the last we'll see of Christopher Eccleston for a while. A shame really because I was really enjoying his time on the show.
Another week of Heroes where we operate under the less is more theory. Fewer storylines with more development for them is a good thing.
I am guessing that Hiro and Claire are the "stars" of the show since we never have a week that doesn't include their storyline. This week, Claire's adopted mother is having complications from the constant brain wipes and Claire is not happy. So much so that her anger boils over to HRG, in public. At this point, he has to know that the Haitaiin left her memory alone and I am curious to see how that little conversation will play out.
Of course, first they have to survive being held hostage by Nuke Man, Internet Girl and Matt Parkman. Parkman's storyline has interesting the past few weeks. As his wife points out, for a guy who can read minds, he sure doesn't read his own very well. One interesting aspect of this is how easily Matt can convince himself to bend or break the rules--stealing the diamonds, going after HRG and his family, etc. He is easily swayed by the moment and I have to wonder if he'll have second doubts about the path he's on here--esp. the whole going along with Nuke Man and Internet Girl. But I think we'll see more on that next week.
Meanwhile, Peter is betrayed--by Issac. I felt sure when I heard about this it would be Nathan somehow betraying him. Issac lets HRG know how to find Peter and that Claude is still alive. This leads to Claude leaving Peter and fleeing back into hiding, before Peter feels he'd done learning to use his abilities. Well, at least until his back's against the wall or he's angry and then he can go all out with the powers-use. I thought for a bit that Peter was going to kill Issac for his betrayal, but looking back, there were a whole lot of signs pointing to Simone being the one killed off. After all, she had told Nathan she was thinking of going public about their powers...at this point they should have started fitting her for a red-shirt.
And while I liked the confrontation between Peter and Issac, I felt that the way they killed Simone (or at least seriously wounded her) stunk of a contrivance. Oh, HRG gives Issac a gun early on and it comes into the killing of Simone later. Yeah, didn't really see that huge twist coming.
All that and we even got a Stan Lee cameo.
Veronica Mars: Mars, Bars
With only a week left until we find out who killed Dean O'Dell and I've got no idea who the culprit is. All that and another solid episode of the show. And a big death! Read more of my thoughts on it here. Labels: heroes, tv shows, veronica mars
posted by Michael Hickerson at 2/21/2007 09:52:00 AM |
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Battlestar Galactica: The Woman King
I've posted thoughts here about this week's Battlestar episode.
Veronica Mars: Postgame Mortem
Best episode since the hiatus. More thoughts at the Television Reviews Blog.
Heroes: Run
I think the producers are finally getting the idea that the audience is along for the ride and they don't have to throw everything and the kitchen sink into these episodes to keep our interest. The last two weeks have been a lot better because the storytelling focus has narrowed a bit. Maybe part of it is that we finally have all the characters in play and now their storylines are crossing more. Whatever the explanation, I'm happy to see that Heroes is becoming better, though it's still not close to delivering as consistently on its promise as I'd like.
Any time you can take the plotline that until now I found a distraction and rather useless to the show and make it actually relevant and interesting, you've done something. I refer to the Jessica storyline, which crosses the Matt Parkman storyline in an interesting way. Matt's hired on to be security. He gets paid more if he carries his gun. His first assignment is protecting a guy who is apparently up to no good and has crossed the mysterious, never-seen but often alluded to Linderman. Linderman is so annoyed that he's sending Jessica to take out the guy--and Matt is in the way.
And suddenly, this plotline is interesting. Watching Niki plead with Jessica in the reflective surface of mirrored floor sign was great. As I watched the episode, I was interested that Matt could both Niki and Jessica talking. I am guessing not everyone can and does hear this (the show has given us no indication of this up to this point), so Parkman's ability is an interesting one.
Meanwhile, the show takes another character who I'd lost interest in and makes him interesting as well--namely, Mohinder. Mohinder has the list and is trying to make contact with the various heroes on it. He gets a call back from one and heads out to meet him. This guy's power is making things melt into blobby puddles of goo...how this is exactly useful, I'm not exactly sure. Thing is we don't meet the guy long enough to find out. The one strain of credibility in this plotline comes when Sylar somehow magically gets there before Mohinder, pretends to be him and kills the guy. Sylar now has the power and passes himself off as melty things guy to Mohinder. All the while, the dead body is out in the kitchen. Luckily Mohinder never wanders out there so it leaves the door open for Sylar to join the crusade and have access to the list. Now, that's a potentially very interesting plot development. Especially if Mohinder figures out that Sylar forced Eden to kill herself.
Elsewhere, Claire wants to see her birth father and find out her birth mother is on the run. Is it because of her powers? We're not really sure. This plotline didn't exactly thrill me, but I did find the twist of there are consequences to the Haitaiin wiping your mind to be a nice one. It also continues to reinforce to us the growing rift between Claire and Mr. Bennett, as he slowly takes away all the things in her life she values.
Want to know the ironic thing about this week's episode? The one plotline I usually love is the one I cared about the least. I'm finding the Hiro's storyline is going no where fast. I'm not sure exactly why we went down this sidepath, except maybe to give Ando something to do besides be the sidekick. But I feel as if this storyline is spinning its wheels a bit this week. We need to move somewhere closer to the sword and restoring Hiro's powers soon or else this plotline could easily derail.
So, an enjoyable Heroes and no Christopher Ecceleston, which should have annoyed me more than it did. But when you've got at least two other interesting plots unfolding, I can see why you'd sideline the Claude/Peter plotline for a week. Which it should be back next week, though I don't know since I've been avoiding the previews for Heroes like the plague. Better to not know what's happening in the last three minutes before the episode starts.Labels: battlestar galactica, heroes, tv shows, veronica mars
posted by Michael Hickerson at 2/15/2007 10:33:00 AM |
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24: Day Six, 11 a.m - 12 p.m.
Ummmmm, guys you do remember that small detail that a nuclear bomb just went off in an L.A. suburb, right? Because from what I've seen the last two weeks, with the exception of some shots of a dissapating mushroom cloud, we've not really dealt with this.
I've read in various places that 24 tends to break down the day into arcs. So, I wonder if this epiosde was about changing arcs. It really felt like we were moving characters into place for the next big 24 event to happen.
I will give 24 credit--it's calmed my fears of a shark-fin sighting a good deal this week. Having Graem reveal he's been playing both Jack and Daddy Bauer was a nice reveal. And 24 is just one of those shows that excels at giving you little details you wish they'd follow up on--like Graem's line of "Remember when you abandoned Dad, Jack?" I sat up, wanting to know more about this. I assume we'll find out about it later, but it's still pretty cool.
And I do wonder some things--is Graem more involved in the bringing the suitcase devices to th United States than just as the broker for the deal? And if he is, how long until Jack goes completely Bauer on him. You have to admit, these two know how to get under each other's skin with Graem taunting Jack about Terry's death. (Playing dirty there...do any TV siblings get along?)
There were a few things about this episode I didn't buy. One is how easily Tom got Karen to resign. It didn't seem in character for her and while she's loyal to Bill, it's hard to believe she'd so easily step down, especially in the light of how wary she is of Tom's agenda. She just found out Tom has railroaded in extra secruity measures for those of Arab-descent and she quickly steps down. I felt like the scene when she went to talk to Wayne would be her revealing what had happned to Wayne and asking for help, not resigning. Did I miss something here?
I am glad the Waylid plotline is over. Talk about a complete blind alley. Was there any point to this other than to give the Palmer sister something to do? Could we please write her of the show yesterday? She's really getting on my last nerve and that plotline adds nothing to the show. Nada, zip, zilch, zero..you get the point.
And anyone else think that Milo giving Nadia his security clearance won't come back to bite him? Yeah, I didn't think so. Though I do get a weird Tony/Michelle type of romantic tension between these two. I guess an intense day like that will do that for you....
Heroes: The Fix
I hate NBC's marketing department. First of all, they leak out that George Takai will guest-start as Hiro's father, thus ruining all the intrigue of the Hiro plotline. Knowing that George Takai would be in the episode and who he was took all the mystery out of who was pursuing Hiro and Ando. It took what should have been a fun reveal and completely ruined it.
The second this is--I avoided the television promos for the show, having been burned by Friday Night Lights last week. But then, they advertise on the radio and give away that Claire finds her birth mother during my morning commute on Monday! Ugh! I hate you NBC marketing department.
That said, the episode itself was not a lot to write home about. It's another place holder, content to tread water as it attempts to set up some things for the next few weeks. I find it hard to believe that DL could slip into and out of prison at will to see Niki like he does here. And Micah's power is what we all suspected. And how long until the police show up to ask questions on that based on the security camera footage of the ATM he ripped off? You'd think the kid might have thought the plan to take the money through a bit more.
At least Christopher Eccleston is given a bit more to do. He's apparently going to be some kind of Obi-Wan to Peter's Luke. I did enjoy the nice homage to Doctor Who with Eccleston's "Fantatsic!" But again, this plotline stagnates until the last three minutes when suddenly it all revs up just in time to say "To Be Continued"
And along the way, it goes as predictably as possible. Matt and his wife are expecting now (umm, weren't they barely speaking two weeks ago? Is the kid actually his? Will they bring this up or just hope we forget?) and Micah's being a brat. Sylar escapes and HRG is up to no good. Yeah, anything new there? Not really.
So far, this whole "Who is on the list" question hasn't proved nearly as interesting as the "Save the cheerleader, save the world" plotline from the first 11 episodes. I can see that we're trying to expand the Heroes universe a bit, but so far I'm just not that interested.
Dresden Files: The Boone Identity
I found out this week that SciFi is airing these episodes out of order, which explains a lot. Seems that last week's episode wasn't intended to be a pilot--that will come in late February.
Frustrating, but not unexpected. They pulled the same stunt with Eureka. When will these networks ever learn?
This week's episode stumbled a bit. It was too derivative. I'm not sure what it is with genre shows and having the second episode be one about some entity jumping from person to person, but the pattern holds true here. Angel did it, Torchwood did it and now Dresden Files.
I think part of it was that every time they mentioned Anubis, I kept wondering where the Stargate team was. Were there no other ancient gods whose names we could have used?
I wanted to like the episode, but found it a bit lacking. It was predictable and I guessed early on what the game was. I also found myself having issues with the differences between the novels and the show (esp. Harry's use of black magic here). But that is more a personal thing and I try not to hold it against the show. (The show is different and changes must be made...but I don't have to like all of them) It felt like more of a way to pass time until Battlestar came on and the Baltar plotline just blew this out of the water.
The best part of the show was Bob. Terrance Mann steals every scene he's in as Bob. Let's hope we get more of him in the future.
Battlestar Galactica: Taking a Break From All Your Worries
I wrote about it for the 2 Guys Talking TV Blog. So, please check out what I said there.
Veronica Mars: Poughkeepsie, Tramps & Thieves
I wrote about it for the 2 Guys Talking TV Blog. So, please surf over and read my thoughts, if you're interested.Labels: 24, battlestar galactica, dresden files, heroes, tv shows, veronica mars
posted by Michael Hickerson at 1/31/2007 09:17:00 AM |
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