Thank you, Kim Manners

Kim Manners passed away on January 25th, 2009.

In addition to his most recent work on Supernatural, Mr. Manners directed and produced numerous X-Files episodes—really, some of the best of the series. He also worked on dozens of other series, from 21 Jump Street to Charlie’s Angels to Baywatch.

Thank you, Mr. Manners, for so much wonderful TV. May you rest in peace. ... Read full post

Lost: The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham

Cesar: "You know him?"
Locke: "Yeah. He's the man who killed me."

The major theme of this show is science versus faith. Faith appears to be winning. I mean, really. Killing yourself on the word of a strange, ageless guy is a pretty big step to take on faith. And Locke would have gone through with it if Ben hadn't stopped by and murdered him.

And was that a symbolically loaded scene, or what? Big on the worship and sacrifice. Ben knelt before Locke, who was standing on the table with the noose around his neck just below a (what else?) cross on the ceiling. (We even saw goats crossing the road at the beginning of the episode.) Until Locke mentioned Eloise Hawking, Ben was trying desperately to keep Locke alive. Why the reversal? I wonder if Ben just realized that Eloise was in league with Widmore instead of with Ben himself?

Widmore was acting like Ben did with Locke: i.e., you're important, the Island needs you, I'm here to help. Not that I believe anything Widmore says, but Widmore told Locke that there was a war coming, and that Locke had to be on the Island when it started or the wrong side would win. How would Widmore know? Unless it happened in the past. But you can't change the past, can you?

Which brings me to the Island. Or more accurately, "Alcatraz."

Have the time shifts stopped? We didn't see one during the Alcatraz scenes. And *when* are they? Cesar saw a copy of Life magazine dated April 13, 1954 in the office, but there was a Hydra symbol there, too. Are they in the 1970s with the rest of the cast?

One of the things I liked about this season was that the writers didn't give us new characters and new factions. Ah, well. Now we have Cesar and Ilana, the two first class passengers on 316, and a group of Ajira survivors on Alcatraz with a couple of long boats. (Which makes it nearly certain that they're the ones that fired on Sawyer and Juliet.) Cesar and Ilana feel like plants. Or maybe just Cesar; he hid a gun from Ilana. I bet Cesar works for Widmore.

(Ilana told Locke that the pilot and some woman took one of the long boats. Frank and Sun, I assume? But where is Sayid?)

Locke's visits were rather sad; he just got one "no" after another. My favorite was with Hurley, who thought Locke was one of the Walking Dead. Sayid was doing community work in Santo Domingo, as penance for his sins, I assume. Jack's short beard signaled that he had already seen his father and was doing drugs and alcohol, but he hadn't completely lost it yet. Apparently, Locke passing on Christian's greeting from Island pushed Jack over the edge.

Nice little visit with Walt. I think that Locke intended to talk Walt into going back with him, but changed his mind. Walt's dream about Locke wearing a suit surrounded by people happened at the beginning of the episode. Except Walt said they wanted to hurt Locke. We haven't seen that yet. If Cesar works for Widmore, why would he want to hurt Locke?

Kate asked Locke if he'd ever been in love. Maybe Kate went back to the Island for Sawyer. I'm looking forward to the upcoming Sawyer/Kate reunion. I know some people say they're tired of the love triangle, but I'm not.

Character bits:

-- All that painful stuff with Locke's compound fracture made me cringe repeatedly. And he was forced back into that wheelchair that he hates so much. He really does have bad leg karma.

-- Locke's fake Canadian passport, issued 12 December 2007, gave his birthdate as 15 February 1948. In "Jughead," Locke told Richard he was born in Tustin, California, May 30, 1956. In "Further Instructions", Locke's gun registration gave his birthdate as November 15, 1946. It's unlike the Lost writers to be so inconsistent. Is it deliberate?

-- Widmore spent three decades on the Island after arriving at age 17, and was the leader of the Others. He says. Ben fooled Widmore into leaving the Island. No wonder they hate each other.

-- Helen died of a brain aneurysm, which is, coincidentally, a popular cause of death on the Island these days. If she is indeed dead. I bet she's not. I think that Widmore just didn't want anything to keep Locke away from the Island.

-- All Matthew Abbadon did here was drive, look threatening, and die. They had probably intended to give Lance Reddick a more comprehensive role, but he got another job on Fringe.

Bits and pieces:

-- After Locke turned the Wheel Thingy, he landed in the same spot in Tunisia that Ben did. Three years later, though, not ten months. Why is Tunisia the exit?

-- And yet another car crash, a spectacular three-car pile-up. When Locke died, he had a ton of bruises plus that cast on his leg. None of this showed in the coffin. Okay, fine, maybe Rico the skilled restorative artist made a visit to Hoffs/Drawlar, but Locke was uncut and unbruised and walking around on Alcatraz. Another magic resurrection for Locke.

-- Widmore gave Locke his Jeremy Bentham name as something of a joke.

-- Widmore told Locke he could always reach him if he pressed 23. Helen died on April 8, 4-8, if she actually did die.

-- Hurley's latest art work was of the Sphinx at Giza.

-- Was Walt's school called "Freedcroft"? Weird name. Anagram?

-- The Others were working on a runway (for the aliens, Juliet said) back in season three. But are they in the 1970s? Was there always a runway? Did Frank use it to almost land the plane? 316 was certainly in a lot better shape than 815.

-- I was touched by Locke's joy at eating mangos again. But if I were going back to the Island, I'd take as much coffee and chocolate with me as I could carry. Mangos. Bleah.

I feel like I just wrote a thesis. Argh,

Billie

All of my Lost reviews are archived here.
(Season 5, episode 7)

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Heroes: Cold Wars

Noah: "You know me. I've always been comfortable with morally gray."

They're trying. I know they are. But it's not working for me. I like Noah *and* Matt. I should have been emotionally engaged in Noah's suffering and Matt's grief. And I just... wasn't.

I wonder if it's just too late for Heroes to save itself? A good television show lays foundation and builds. The characters and continuity on Heroes have just been fractured too many times; it couldn't carry the weight of this story. It was trying really hard to be like "Company Man", which is probably my favorite episode. But we've already been to this emotional place; we've already seen Noah's conversion to Claire's side. Going there again just didn't work for me.

And speaking of going there again, the ending made me feel like smacking my head. Daphne's alive. Again, lessening any possible dramatic impact by reversing yet another character death. Even worse, we've been in Isaac Mendez's flat before, looking at a painting on the floor of the destruction of an American city. Why are we back there again?

I did like some stuff. I enjoyed seeing Peter, Mohinder and Matt collaborating, although they fell out and destroyed a motel room way too quickly for me. I liked Peter as flying around errand boy. And Angela giving Noah a gold watch and a pension was pretty hilarious.

But (yes, there is more complaining) Nathan's motivations still don't make sense. I went around the bend, nearly killed my own brother, and now I want to make things right by putting him in superhero Gitmo? It doesn't even feel that Nathan is doing this because he hates himself, his own hero-ness. It just feels like they decided to make Nathan the villain because it would be cool, and forgot that they'd already established that he'd never do something like this.

And Peter thinks he can kill someone in cold blood? Um, no.

You know, I could probably write the resolution of "Fugitives" myself. Danko will capture Claire. Nathan will have to use his power to save her, and it will teach him a Valuable Lesson. Danko will die horribly and stay dead, unless his character is popular enough to keep around for later badness. The heroes will join together to save DC from the flames, and the president will give them a secret medal and stop asking his secret guys to put them in prison camps.

*sigh*

Bits and pieces:

-- Peter can still fly. So apparently there isn't a time limit; he just hangs on to the last power until it's overlaid by the next one. I kept wondering if he'd brush up against Mohinder and the next time he tried to take off, he'd plummet strongly to the ground.

-- Mohinder was captured, and is unable to break his chains. Why is that now? I didn't watch it twice; are they drugging him?

-- Again, with Danko and his thing for Claire. And he was just smacked in the face with the probability that Nathan can get places really, really fast. Like Peter. Oops.

-- Nathan: "I thought you'd enjoy the extra time with your family." Noah: "There's only so many crossword puzzles I can do." See I don't get that. If I didn't have to work all day, there's a *thousand* other things I'd be doing.

Two out of four sighs,

Billie

All of my Heroes reviews are here.
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Chuck: Chuck versus the Best Friend

“Much as I respect your code of honor, there’s nothing I can do about it. Orders before honor this time.”

I usually don’t love the BuyMore interludes on Chuck, but I really enjoyed this episode. Maybe my previous distaste was due more to the odd ways the B-story and A-story would fit together? Either way, this was a great episode, and not just because Anna’s hair got progressively more odd.

The real emotional heart of this episode was Chuck’s relationship with Morgan, which has all the makings of a true bromance (as the kids say). Chuck’s hints about his parents’ utter non-involvement was interesting, too... but even more wonderful was Chuck’s unassuming willingness to spend the rest of his life paying Morgan back for some cheesecake. “Don’t you know who you are to me, what you mean to me, all that you’ve done?” Awww.

But it wasn’t all Chuck and Morgan—in a way, this episode felt more like a Valentine’s day love-a-thon than last week’s ironic send-up. Sarah’s horror at the exploding Nerd Herd vehicle was quite touching, as was Chuck’s willingness to be her best friend. Just a mission, eh? Anna and Morgan are meant for each other the way only lovable losers can be (and in fact, the same goes for Jeff and Lester). Even Ellie and Awesome got some luvin’.

The spy stuff felt very by the book and was, for me at least, quite unmemorable. Josh Schwartz, you know it's OK to occasionally switch up the format, right? We can handle a week without exploding tennis balls and mint-flavored knock-out gas. Then again, maybe you should keep the spy stuff in: those two devices were pretty cool.

Random thoughts:

“I’m meeting Condoleezza for cosmos.” Shudder.

“The heroic imbecile took the bomb with him.” Casey seems to like Chuck a bit more lately.

Loved Jeff’s inspirational Eminem quote. And was “sibilants” from the Aerosmith Wayne’s World sketch with Tom Hanks?

I’d really hoped that Jeff and Lester would astonish everyone with their skill, á la Jack Black in High Fidelity. But maybe this was better.

Three out of four Sibilants.

All of my Chuck reviews are archived here.
(Season 2, episode 14)

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Dollhouse: Target

Connell: "Is this the best date ever, or what?"

Now, this was more like it.

Yes, the ultimate hunt thing has been done before, but hey, everything's been done before. And at least it was done well. Mostly because it included violent flashbacks to a murder spree in the Dollhouse three months ago.

The subtext wasn't all that sub. If you can buy a human being, have her mind completely wiped and imprinted with what you want, and then have sex with her, why not kill her, too? What the Dollhouse does to Echo is just as bad as what Connell did. She's an object, a commodity, totally helpless, trapped by the skills of her current imprint. No one seemed all that upset about Alpha's murder spree, as if getting sliced up and losing several dolls was just the price of doing business. Let's clean up the floor and move right along.

Alpha had no face; Echo couldn't see one, and neither could we. Maybe they haven't cast him yet. Or maybe Alpha is someone we know. Anyone can be imprinted, after all. Why didn't Alpha kill Echo? He certainly made mincemeat of everyone else. And why cut Dr. Saunders but not kill her?

Echo's relationship with Boyd feels genuine, even though it was programmed; she's not just the blank slate he thought she was three months ago. And Boyd is tough. It takes nerve to stay in a new job when your predecessor was killed by a human cuisinart. And it was interesting that when Echo was in mortal danger, she started seeing visions of her real self. Maybe self-preservation overcomes programming.

Bits and pieces:

-- I did a little bounce when Mark A. Sheppard came in as nasty FBI guy. Badger on Firefly, Romo Lampkin on Battlestar, it was like having an old friend stop by.

-- Paul Ballard is the bulldog type. Oblivious to his pretty neighbor who was panting for him and offering him lasagna, and focused on the girl he can't find.

-- Laurence Dominic wants to kill Ballard, and DeWitt won't let him. Dominic said some freaky things to Echo, too. Creepy guy.

-- Topher's office has toys in it, and he drinks the boxed kiddie drinks with straws. I really don't like him, either. It's like he thinks he's God.

-- All that talk of killing something to eat. Was Connell going to eat Echo if he killed her?

-- Little Bob? Lou Bob? Who is this guy Ballard is harrassing?

-- Is Alpha sending the photos of Caroline to Ballard? Or did Alpha just find one in the previous episode?

-- Echo remembered the shoulder to the wheel thing. Again with the bleed-through.

Quotes:

Topher: "The new Samuelson. You're bigger than the last one."
That reminded me of Buffy. Prettier than the last one. Topher has a man-crush on Boyd. Or he's pretending he does.

Echo: "I've been seeing things."
Boyd: "What kind of things?"
Echo: "A girl that looks like me, but isn't. Dead bodies in a shower. And a man standing over me holding a knife, but I can't see his face. I don't think he has one. Are you here? Is this real?"

Boyd: "You know how to use this?"
Echo: "Four brothers. None of them Democrats."

Dominic: "If it were up to me, I'd put you in the attic. Or the ground."
The attic?

Better. I wonder if we missed getting a really good pilot episode because the suits wouldn't let Joss Whedon do what he wanted in the first place? Again?

Billie

All of my Dollhouse reviews are archived here.
(Season 1, episode 2)

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Terminator: Desert Cantos

This episode was not terribly interesting. In general, I appreciate the slower pacing of the series, especially when it gives us time to explore the psychological impacts on our characters, but this one was a little too slow for my tastes. Certainly, it makes sense that the Connor crew would continue to look into the mystery warehouse and its destruction, but this was a very long and awkward hour just to get to the major revelation at the end.

No doubt, the discovery of the drone in the pond was a pretty awesome moment. I loved that all four of them saw it. Now, the others (and the audience) can’t doubt Sarah. I can’t wait to see where this takes their efforts to thwart Skynet. Skynet seems to be stepping up its game, if it is creating such advanced drones before Judgment Day. I’m certainly curious about where the drone was getting carted off to at the end. Is the truck driver now a rogue human working against Skynet, instead of for them (however unwittingly)? Or is he working for a Skynet faction other than Catherine’s? Very curious.

Other than the drone revelation, not much happened this week. I did like seeing some of the emotional fallout for Sarah regarding the death of the security guy. I wonder if the revelation that he was a bad, bad man will make her feel less guilty about killing him. Especially since it was essentially self-defense.

The sequences with Catherine Weaver weren’t overly compelling. In fact, the scene with her daughter struck me as totally bizarre. If Savannah is back to behaving somewhat normally, why keep trying to “mother” her? What’s the point? Hopefully, her feigned and incredibly fake “emotional moment” raises some warning flags for Ellison. I’d like it if he started catching on to her.

Other thoughts:

I liked the very brief exchange between Derek and Sarah, about their unwillingness to let Reese go.

We need more Cameron. She has not had near enough to do the last two weeks. I miss the stuff with her interest in the soul and the human condition. I miss her kicking ass and taking names.

How long has it been since last week’s episode? Sarah seemed to recover from her near fatal wound pretty quickly. I didn’t notice her limping at all. Hell, she was climbing in windows!

I had to smile when Catherine’s “OSHA investigator” told Derek he was an ex-cop from Baltimore. The actor, Max Perlich, used to be on Homicide: Life on the Street, which was a cop show set in Baltimore (one of my favorite shows, back in the day). He didn’t play a cop, but it was still a nice nod to that series---even if it was unintentional.

Final rating: 2 out of 5. I didn’t really like this one. I hope they pick up the pace again next week. And, please more Cameron. Seriously.

All of my Terminator reviews are archived here.
(Season 2, episode 15)

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Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock

Roslin: "Omigod, that's Ellen Tigh."
Hot Dog: "How many dead chicks are out there?"

This episode was like a soap opera in space. Amusing, and rather sad. Sort of annoying, too. I was disappointed to see Ellen revert to type and spend the entire episode making an ass of herself. Not that Tigh was much better. The Final Five are most emphatically *not* godlike. Or maybe the message was that gods can be petty and jealous, too.

I'm still having trouble with the idea of Ellen, Saul, and Caprica Six as a love triangle. (It feels like Gaius should be in there somehow.) Tigh was seeing Ellen's face before when he made love with Caprica Six. This time, he saw Six's face on Ellen. There *is* a resemblance. Ellen made Cavil to look like her father. I don't suppose she made Six to look like her mother?

Gaius had to deal with a small groupie disciple revolt, as well as starvation in Dogsville. The whole thing felt very loaves and fishes. My favorite part was Gaius yelling to the sky, "As God is my witness!"; I could hear Scarlett adding, "I'll never be hungry again!" Just loved the guns. "More guns! Bigger guns! Better guns!" Why did Adama arm Gaius? How could that be a human solution?

Adama is falling apart, like his ship. I couldn't believe he was actually carrying a flask. And he was falling down drunk as he commiserated with Tigh over the loss of baby Liam. The Cylon cartilage goop isn't working, either. The Galactica is going to die, isn't she? The need for a planet to live on is getting dire.

Of course, the point of the episode was that the Cylons couldn't leave; the humans and the Cylons have already blended, and it's not just the goop. Hera, a blend of human and Cylon, is still the only miracle baby. There were even photos of dead Cylons on the memorial walls. Boomer returning to Galactica felt like the story was coming full circle; I loved Tyrol walking right up to Boomer and recognizing her. I think there's hope for those two crazy kids.

Bits and pieces:

-- No saga sell. They really don't need one. Is there anyone watching for the first time these days, with only four episodes left in the series?

-- The survivor count was 39,556, the same as last week.

-- Gaius' Harvey Six was back. I do hope they explain what the Harveys are. I'd hate it if they just left them a mystery at the end of the series. In the last episode, Anders talked about being warned about the end of Earth by seeing people that no one else could see. I really want to know if he was talking about Harveys.

-- Starbuck was drinking too much, too. Understandably. Fortunately, Anders appears to be recovering. From brain death.

-- The Dogsville people have always reminded me of the lurkers on Babylon Five. I've probably said that before. Hey, all of this has happened before, and it will happen again. :)

Quotes:

Ellen: "Please do not tell me I was your mental porn. That's just sad."

Cottle: "Lot of visitors. Just don't anybody unplug anything."

Starbuck: "Did you see Ellen and Tigh on the wing of that bird? It was like watching my parents make out."

Adama: "So. The five of you together at last. Any mythic revelations?"
Tigh: "No. Nothing to report, sir."

Tigh: "No wonder we had to invent some compassionate god for them to believe in. We couldn't have them deify us, could we?"

I can't believe there are only four more episodes to go,

Billie

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Lost: 316

Frank: "Wait a second. We're not going to Guam, are we?"

Well, color me shocked. And delighted. I thought we'd have to wait until the end of the season to see the Oceanic Six return to the Island. Actually, I thought they might make us wait until *next* season. They could have made seventy hours last a year and a half. I wouldn't put it past them.

I loved how they "recreated" so many elements of the original crash. It was so mystical and weird and fun. Locke was Christian, the dead man in the coffin. Sayid played Kate's role of transported prisoner. Hurley was carrying a Spanish language comic book and what I kept thinking had to be Charlie's guitar. (Did Charlie give it to him?) Jack was in much the same suit that he wore the first time, and he was carrying a hand-written letter, like Sawyer did.

Even the flight number was similar (316, 815). And Frank Lapidus was originally supposed to be the pilot of 815. I hope this doesn't mean the Monster will kill Frank. I like Frank. And will the woman in charge of Sayid will die a horrible, lingering death like the marshal?

Even though they gave us some great stuff, there were as many questions as there were answers. Which is why we all love this freaking show, isn't it?

1. No babies on this flight. Did Kate give Aaron to Claire's mother? Why did Sun leave her daughter behind? Yes, plane crash, big danger, but I'd never leave my child for any reason. (I just wouldn't have gone back.) Kate looked weird throughout the episode. Maybe she was just in mourning for her son. I wonder why she jumped Jack? It sure made him happy, though, didn't it? Is she going to drop him again the minute she sees Sawyer?

2. What happened to Hurley? He also looked weird, and wasn't talking. Did he get a visitation from Charlie? Loved him buying up all those airline seats to save people. It was just the sort of thing Hurley would do.

3. A wet, bloody Ben, who went to keep his word to an "old friend", called Jack from the marina. What did he do to Penny? Maybe she pummeled him with an oar. Maybe Desmond caught him and beat the crap out of him. Ben can't go more than an episode or two without getting beat up. (And hey. I thought Ben *couldn't* go back? How come he was on the plane?)

4. Why would any authority whatsoever be taking Sayid to *Guam*? Did he carry out an assassination there?

5. What happened to the plane? Did they maybe just need to get close enough to the Island to get caught up in the time displacement thingy? Did their arrival *above* the Island cause time to stop moving? If Jin had a Dharma jumpsuit and a van, he must have been stuck in the past for awhile, though. If Jin is in the 1970s, are Sawyer, Juliet, Miles and Faraday there, too? And what happened to the people on the plane? Were they the longboat people? Is that where the Ajira bottle came from?

This was a Jack episode, and the action centered on him. He looked different to me. He was nervous and tense, but excited and pleased; at the same time, everything was so mystical that the scientist in him couldn't quite accept it without question. His reluctance to read Locke's suicide note made it seem important, but it turned out to be all about blame. See, you made me leave the Island and kill myself, Jack. So there.

I assume we're getting a resurrection. If Jack is Doubting Thomas, does that make Locke Jesus?

Character bits:

-- Jack kept going for the booze, but didn't actually take a drink. Kate may have had something to do with that.

-- Twice, Jack found Kate looking dead: once in his bed, and the other time in the lagoon. Huh.

-- Ray, Jack's grandfather, kept threatening to run away to find a better place to live. And he talked about magic shows. A bit of Island metaphor there.

-- Eloise Hawking told Desmond that the Island wasn't done with him yet. Desmond certainly wasn't buying what Ben and Eloise were selling; he lost four years of his life to the Island. He's probably right, too. I wouldn't trust Eloise *or* Ben. Although I don't want them to write Desmond out, so I hope Eloise is right. (I hope it's not Desmond returning to the Island for revenge. Penny had better be okay.)

-- Locke's suicide note said, "Jack, I wish you had believed me. JL."

-- Who was the guy who gave his condolences to Jack? He was the only one in first class (except the woman with Sayid) who wasn't one of the Oceanic Six. He must be important or they wouldn't have pointed him out to us.

-- Jack putting tennis shoes on Christian's body was actually doing him a favor, considering how much Christian's gotten around lately.

-- Frank looks great without his beard. In fact, he looks a lot like a guy I was once engaged to.

Bits and pieces:

-- This episode began with a close-up of Jack's right eye, just like the very first scene in the pilot episode of the series. And just like the pilot, the first thing Jack did was run to help someone.

-- Rebecca Mader (Charlotte) is no longer in the cast.

-- New Dharma station in the church: The Lamppost. (I thought it looked more like The Phallic Symbol.) I was reminded of Christian holding the lantern. Loved the very cool Foucault's Pendulum that the actors had to walk around while delivering their lines. See the mighty Wikipedia for info on it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault_pendulum

-- An Oceanic sign was right near Ajira Airlines at the airport. Their logos are both circular. Just saying.

-- Hurley's comic book listed Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra, and was called "Y: El Ultimo Hombre." The illustration on the front showed a skeleton in an environmental suit. (Yorick? As in the Shakespearean skull, "I knew him well?")

-- Ben was reading Ulysses on the plane. And I'm going to again take a shortcut and give you the Wikipedia page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(novel)

-- Jack saw an old photo in the church. It was labeled "9/23/54 U.S. Army Op 264 Top Secret Eyes Only." I bet that was the ill-fated detachment of U.S. soldiers who brought Jughead to the Island.

-- Jack was assigned seat 8C.

-- The plane actually had a sign for "Use seat bottom for flotation" that lit up during that bad turbulence before whatever happened... happened.

-- Jack: "The other people on this plane. What's going to happen to them?" Ben: "Who cares?" What a prince.

This episode was almost more fun than you should actually have watching television. Four out of four polar bears,

Billie

All of my Lost reviews are archived here.
(Season 5, episode 1)

Screencap credit: http://www.docarzt.com/
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Heroes: Building 26

Sylar: "You've really got to stop trying to be my friend, or I'm going to have to kill you."

There was good stuff. There was "why are they even bothering" stuff. And there was stuff kind of in the middle, where they were setting future stuff up.

It's always a bad sign when the villain is the best part of an episode. Sylar made me laugh several times while still remaining true to his evil self. This road trip is already a lot more fun than the one with the super-twins. I still don't like Luke, but I did like Sylar's lecture on the proper way to use evil powers, as well as his excuses for rescuing Luke in the end. Interesting little tidbit: Sylar's father apparently *sold* him. To the Company, I suppose, who then set Sylar up with the Grays?

The second best part of the episode was the way too short scene where our secret Heroes platoon (Peter, Matt and Mohinder) kidnapped Noah. I liked the idea of the guys working together and having an actual plan and everything, and I wanted more of that. Next week, I guess.

The "why are they even bothering stuff" was the after school special let's stop a wedding in India sequence. The best part of it was that wild-looking pink and green wedding cake with the elephants. (I want one of those. Seriously.) Yes, not-special Ando is now special and Hiro is not. Yes, Hiro can still be a hero without powers. You know, I used to love Hiro, but now I find him somewhat boring. I think the Kensei plotline last season just wore me out. Come to think of it, this India thing had Kensei vibes.

The Building 26 plotline and Abby Collins from Homeland Security was apparently just to show that there's a limit to the bad things Nathan will do. Maybe it was supposed to be a current events parable about torture and constitutional rights and people with abilities as terrorists. Whatever. Danko is itching to capture Claire. Noah is certain Claire is in serious danger. Maybe she is.

It was nice that Claire told Sandra the truth, even if it broke her parents up. I certainly can't blame Sandra for throwing Noah out; she certainly put up with way more than nearly anyone would. And I did sort of like Alex, the comic book guy that Claire saved. Although I thought it was odd that he had Sylar-like eyebrows, while Luke doesn't look like Sylar at all. Maybe Daddy Mysterious visited Costa Verde at some point twenty some years ago. Whatever.

Bits and pieces:

-- Alex's power is to breathe under water. I always wanted that one.

-- They hinted that Ana-whatever, the reluctant bride, was in love with her partner at the bakery shop. A lesbian sub-theme. That was nice.

-- Mystery Dad is into birds. I think Sylar is hoping Mystery Dad is a serial killer, so Sylar will have someone to blame himself on.

-- Sylar's road music was "Born to be Wild" and "Psycho Killer." A bit obvious, but still fun.

-- I've mentioned it before, but what is with Claire's hair? Did Hayden Panettiere get a buzz cut or something? Whatever it is, her hairline looks so fake that it distracts me. Maybe Claire's plotlines have worn me out, too.

Quotes:

Sylar: "I'm not a serial killer."
Luke: "Well, you've got a pattern, you go after specific victims, you collect mementos..."
Sylar: "Okay, technically I'm a serial killer."

Noah: "I know you're lying."
Claire: "Well, I did learn from the master."

*sigh*

Billie

All of my Heroes reviews are here.
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Chuck: Chuck versus the Suburbs

“I’m sure someone, somewhere, is having a worse Valentine’s Day.”

In Dante’s Inferno, Virgil describes life in one of the less painful circles of Hell: “Without hope, we live in desire.” Turns out this is true of cover-couples in the suburbs, as well—Chuck once again got his hopes dashed as Sarah put their job before their passion.

It’s pretty amazing that they can keep us caring about the Chuck/Sarah pairing. Basically, the story hasn’t changed in a while: Chuck likes Sarah, and she knows it. Sarah likes Chuck, and he has no idea. They’re a cover-couple, so they can’t be a real couple. But they get many of the perks of coupledom, including, perforce, a horrible Valentine’s date.

Relationships like this (minus all the spy stuff) are fairly common. Usually they’re brief and passionate friendships dependent on sexual tension, an overabundance of commonalities, and a perceived lack of symmetry in leagues. After a while, they fizzle out and become just regular friendships, or nothing at all. Painful and weird as those relationships can be, at least when we’re in them, or out of them, we’re masters of our own destiny. Chuck, however, doesn’t have that choice: as he told Ellie, Sarah’s not going anywhere. So all he has are the moments where he can hope it is real, and the after-moments of desire.

It certainly felt real when Chuck held Sarah to protect her from the Fulcrum over-download. Wow. I don’t know if we want to dissect the possible sexual symbolism, but the pulsing red lights and backbeat music sure meant something. An interesting counterpoint to the lovin’ that Big Mike had with Morgan’s mom.

All that mushy Valentine’s stuff, of course, was just the icing on a pretty good spy-story cake. The real plot of this episode was the Evil Suburb, reminiscent of such stellar episodes as X-Files 6.15 (Arcadia), Alias 4.5 (Welcome to Liberty Village), and Angel 5.17 (Underneath). Andy Richter and Jenny McCarthy, plus Brian Thompson, the Judge from Buffy, were guest-stars in Evil-ville (Eville?), which is located—you guessed it—in the Valley.

The suburban send-ups were a bit predictable (The Talking Heads? That’s the best they could do?) but still funny. Funniest of all was Sarah’s belted khaki skirt and tucked-in polo shirt. No, funniest of all was the use of Peggy Lee’s “Fever” whenever Jenny McCarthy was putting the moves on Chuck. Hmmm…it might be a tie.

More info got downloaded into Chuck’s brain, which must be near capacity by now. I wonder if all of this Fulcrum information will play a role in a larger arc?

Two lines of dialogue worth highlighting:

• “You’d better be careful, Sarah. One day you might turn into a real girl.” I am going to choose to live in a universe in which this insulting, demeaning, and sexist silliness did not occur. Ahh, it is better here. I knew it would be.

• “No excuses, General. We pooched it.” Adam Baldwin, you rock my world.

This was a good episode—maybe even a great episode—except for the strange feeling of disjointedness that came from the BuyMore interludes. The comedic supporting actors are hilarious, but the characters and premise aren’t quite interesting enough to warrant an entire story line.

Three out of four Pooches.

All of my Chuck reviews are archived here.
(Season 2, episode 13)

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Dollhouse: Ghost

“There’s nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.”

My expectations for this episode were rather absurdly ambivalent. On the one hand, I’ve been ecstatic since I first heard that Joss was coming back to TV (and the wait felt like it was killing me). On the other, I knew that pilots in general aren’t my thing; that Whedonverse pilots (or even first episodes of any season) are never the best of the bunch; and that Joss re-did this pilot after some talks with Fox. So then I found myself hoping that the pilot would be accessible enough for non-genre fans, so at least we could get as much Dollhouse as possible.

I think the pilot did just that: introduced a new concept with lots of shine and gloss, gave us a potential formula for stand-alone episodes, and hinted at the possibility of a narrative arc that follows this Alpha thing. All of that was good.

I wonder how the stand-alones will stand up, of course. Echo’s emotional reaction to the kidnappers was tough to watch (child abuse is not funny), but it’s a problem that we, the viewers, know she’ll forget forever within hours. What are the stakes in a plot like that?

Bigger stakes were planted in the Agent Paul Ballard plotline. Tahmoh Penikett is so sexy that I’d watch a show with him reciting the alphabet for 50 minutes. Luckily, it looks like it’ll be even more exciting than that, particularly when the crime-investigation plot meshes with the Alpha plot.

Like Bille, I noticed the lack of Whedonisms, particularly in the Topher scenes. He’s a cross between Xander (lovable geek) and Knox (lovable evil geek), right? At first blush, a few of his line deliveries felt a bit off and not quite Joss-worthy. But maybe that’s the point—he’s not Xander or Knox, so why would he ape their intonations? I’ll bet dollars to donuts that as the actors find their feet we’ll have new speech rhythms and neologisms to add to the fan lexicon.

Joss’s other shows—whether Buffy, Angel, or Firefly—all depended strongly on a sense of place. Buffy was set in the type of mid-sized modern American town where no one knows anyone else, but there’s still only one good coffeehouse. Firefly was about infinite space and the homes we build to keep out the dark. Angel was LA, particularly the not-yet gentrified sections of Hollywood, Echo Park, Angelino Heights, and downtown. The geographical specificity of these shows helped the mythology (vampires, Wolfram and Hart, BlueSun and the Alliance) feel relevant and possible—gigantic developments seem more alive when the setting is self-contained.

It’s easy (too easy for a Joss show) to read Echo as an allegory for the ways that personalities can shift and morph in a different LA, the one inhabited by wannabes, has-beens, and never-weres. But even if we avoid that slippery slope, it raises the question of how this show is going to establish a sense of place while zipping all over LA, and how it’s going to tackle, or create, the gigantic developments, especially when the potential Bad Guys are just as mortal and human as any other human traffickers.

Random Things:

• Loved the Edward James Olmos shout-out.
• Echo’s skirt was so short that I felt old. This is particularly odd given that I’m actually younger than Eliza Dushku.
• Amy Acker: you kick ass.
• Is neural modification the new black? Chuck, Fringe, Dollhouse—there are probably a few out there I’m not watching, too.
• When the dolls/actives are in Spa Heaven, what do they think is going on? Or do they just not care?
• Does geek chic explain Topher’s clothes? Or is Fox just hoping we’re clear on the fact that he’s a techie who probably has a crush on Echo?

I’m curious to see where the show goes from here. And I’m excited to see the next episode.

All of Billie's Dollhouse reviews are archived here.
(Season 1, episode 1)

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Battlestar Galactica: No Exit

Ellen: "What are you doing?"
Boomer: "Forgiving you."

There was so much information in this episode that I kept saying to the screen, "Slow down! What was that again?" (And in fact, this is the revised version of my original review because I missed so much the first two times I watched this episode. The third time was the charm. It was just too frakking complicated.)

1. The Five worked together at a research facility; they were descended from the Cylons made by the humans on Kobol. The Five were *told* the end was coming; Anders said they saw warning signs in the form of people no one else could see. Sounds like Harveys to me.

2. They reinvented resurrection, which had fallen out of use (really? people had given up immortality? I have a hard time believing that), downloaded, and escaped back to the Twelve Colonies. The trip took thousands of years because Einstein was right about that relativity thing.

3. The Temple of Hopes was built by the Thirteenth Tribe three thousand years ago when they left Kobol; they prayed for guidance there, and it led them to Earth. The Five stopped there on the way back but didn't leave that vision for D'Anna; according to Ellen, "God" must have.

4. The Five discovered that the Centurians at the Twelve Colonies believed in one true god, so they thought the cycle would be broken. They stopped the first Cylon war by giving the Centurians what they wanted; they created *eight* Cylon models -- the seven we know, plus one called Daniel, whose copies were destroyed by Cavil. (That explains why the model numbers skip from six to eight. Why more males than females, I wonder?) Daniel was Ellen's favorite. Is the original Daniel still alive? Ellen said the *copies* were contaminated; nothing was said about the original.

5. Cavil, whom Ellen called John, was made to look like Ellen's father; she treated him like a son who had gone bad. Cavil hates being humanoid with the power of a thousand burning suns. He decided to punish the Five by killing them, downloading them without their original memories, and giving them a front seat to the destruction of the Colonies. (You like humans, huh? See how much you enjoy being one. Moohahahaha.) He was also the one who tortured Tigh, which makes sense now. As does his role as the instigator of the Cylon civil war. Cavil stopped sleeping twenty years ago. Maybe that's the reason he went nuts. I bet the annihilation of the colonies was Cavil's idea, too.

This explains everything, really. And it even makes sense. "All of this has happened before and will happen again." And the parent/child human/cylon thing. Ellen and Cavil are like the flip, twisted side of Roslin and Adama. Dean Stockwell and Kate Vernon deserve gold acting stars for their masterful job in carrying an episode that was nearly all exposition. I never liked the original Ellen. I like this one, though. It's funny how I didn't think she was beautiful before, but now I do.

Michael Trucco did a fabulous acting job in this ep, too. Anders remembered everything -- but only because of brain trauma. And now he's brain dead. (When he seized, he looked inhuman. Very creepy.) Let's hope there's a Cylon miracle coming. Maybe Boomer and Ellen should have brought along one of the Simons at gunpoint. Who knew?

Meanwhile back at the fleet, I thought it was so sad that the Galactica was literally falling to pieces from poor workmanship and unexpected stress. I also thought that Adama would re-think his knee-jerk reaction to Cylon technology to fix it, and he did. What choice does he have? Who would defend the fleet with the Galactica gone? The Cylon base ship? The Galactica is the heart of the fleet. She has to stay alive, as much as the humans do.

I loved that Boomer decided to rescue Ellen. It was like a big payoff for her character. I never did understand why she allied with Cavil. Maybe the writers did it for just this reason. It's okay with me.

Bits and pieces:

-- Whole new saga sell. "This has all happened before, and it will happen again. The Cylons were created by man. They rebelled. Then they vanished. Forty years later, they came back. They evolved. 50,298 human survivors. Hunted by the cylons. Eleven models are known. One was sacrificed." I loved how they included the old Cylons from the original series (although, yes, the footage was from *this* series).

-- This week's survivor number: 39,556. Forty-seven dead.

-- Roslin finally passed her job on to Lee, even though she planned to stay on as a figurehead. It was time. He'll do just fine, and maybe she can have some peace before she dies.

-- This week's Most Obvious Symbolism was Ellen offering Boomer an apple. I originally thought of Snow White, but a number of people wrote to me that they saw it more as Eve, and they had a point. There was also Anders' internal damage mimicking Galactica's. And parallel plots about destructive, irrecoverable brain surgery.

-- Back on Earth, Tory and Tyrol were in love. Tory Tyrol? :) You know, that might explain a bit why Tory was so eager to kill Cally. I also liked Boomer mentioning love or something like that and the scene shifting to Tyrol. I wonder if Boomer still loves Tyrol?

-- The title of the episode was "No Exit." It's also a famous play by Jean-Paul Sartre that I had to read as an undergrad. The most famous bit from it is that "Hell is other people." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Exit

-- Starbuck told an unconscious Anders that she thought she was Cylon number seven. That kind of fits.

-- Ellen still likes the booze. Oddly, Tigh has given it up because the smell makes Six nauseous. I'm liking Tigh so much now that he and Six cooing about their baby has become kinda cute.

-- If Saul Tigh was resurrected without his memories forty years ago, I assume his new body was a lot younger. Can they do that? I didn't think they could do that.

-- Adama was chugging aspirin with his booze. Another hint that he's not well.

-- Since Ellen and the other creators reinvented resurrection before, won't they be able to do it again? This has all happened before...

-- The comedian who does the PC/Mac commercials played the brain specialist. That was kind of twisted.

Quotes:

Roslin: "It's time I let someone else do the heavy lifting."

Anders: "Whoah. Oh, wow. Everybody's glowing." Including Starbuck. Hallucination? Did it mean something?

Boomer: "He's teaching me to be a better machine. To let go of my human constructs."
Ellen: "What about the swirl? Has he taught you that, yet?"

Cavil: "I don't want to be human. I want to see gamma rays. I want to hear X-rays. I want to smell dark matter."

Anders: "If the Cylons embraced love and mercy, then the cycle of violence could end." So that's the end of the series in a nutshell, right?

Ellen: "You should have brought a tumbril." Nice reference there. A queen being taken to her beheading.

Certainly not as exciting as last week, but it was really nice to get so many answers. Almost too many. Can there be too many?

Billie

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Terminator: The Good Wound

Welcome back, Sarah Connor fans! After a two-month break, the second half of the season picks up pretty much where we left off. Most of the episode was spent dealing with the aftermath from “Earthlings Welcome Here”: Sarah’s gunshot wound, her discovery of a major Skynet operation, and Riley’s attempted suicide.

I very much enjoyed the “return” of Kyle Reese. Having him as Sarah’s inner voice was a great device, and it tied in nicely with the last episode. She spent much of that episode reflecting on who she used to be and how she got to her current state of being, so of course Reese would be on her mind. The events of her short time with him are directly responsible for the death of her old life and the start of her new one. I loved the heavy reliance on his actual dialogue from the Terminator movie. It gave me a little thrill to hear it again, and it makes perfect sense to use those words, given that Sarah’s entire history with Reese was basically one night. Plus, from some of the camera angles, Jonathan Jackson even looked a bit like young Michael Biehn, especially in that trench coat.

Interesting that Sarah considers Reese a source of strength, when her life basically became a living hell after meeting him. I suppose the machines are truly at fault, but I think in her place I’d blame him just a little bit. Of course, her inner voice did briefly consider this point, when she told the doctor that Reese wasn’t the one who hurt her and he said, “That’s not completely true. If it weren’t for me …” But she pushed that thought away. Decisively.

The actual events surrounding the treatment of Sarah’s wound weren’t nearly so interesting as her internal dialogue. It became obvious pretty quickly that the doctor was abused, and that the sheriff was likely the guilty party. And the “Mexican standoff” between the doctor, Derek, and the sheriff was kind of cheesy. (Why did he want her to put down the gun anyway? Because she seemed to be defending the escaped patient?) But, regardless, I still found most of Sarah’s scenes compelling.

John Henry and Catherine Weaver provided my other favorite moments this week. John Henry was at his creepy, childlike best and Catherine was awesome as a one-“woman” clean-up crew. Her bloody annihilation at the warehouse made for a fantastic sequence (if you want something done right, …). The staging of the first murder was particularly effective. They totally made it seem like the guy was going to fall victim to another “urinal attack,” so when he made it out of the bathroom, I momentarily thought he was out of the woods. Then she quickly slit his throat from off screen! Great misdirecton and good way to build the tension.

I also loved John Henry’s fascination with the toys and the ball-and-socket joint. His questions for Ellison and God have me now agreeing with some of my readers that Ellison’s notions of faith and morality may be too simplistic for the likes of John Henry. It should be interesting to see how it all blows up in Ellison’s face. Maybe that is what Catherine is anticipating. Maybe, as another of my readers theorized, it’s what leads to Judgment Day.

My favorite John Henry and Catherine moment was when he confronted her with his knowledge of her true identity. Her calm, clipped response had me on the edge of my seat, and her “Everything I do, I do for you,” was chilling. (Even though it immediately made me think of that Brian Adams’s song from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.) I want to see more scenes with those two together.

The episode didn’t linger too much on the immediate fallout from Riley’s attempted suicide, but the few moments we had were kind of interesting. I especially loved the short scenes with John and Cameron “discussing” their next moves. Cameron’s bluntness about Riley’s presence was outstanding: “Future you has more important things to do,” and “No, we don’t need to find her.” I also really liked the look Cameron exchanged with Riley before leaving the hospital room. Intense!

I know I speculated that Riley's suicide attempt was a ploy to get to John, and she suggested as much to Jessie, but I don’t think I believe her. If anything, it seems more like a ploy to get to Jessie. Regardless, I liked her reference to the suicidal girl from Season 1. I was never a fan of that boring interlude, but I definitely appreciate the writers' efforts to keep all things from the past in play. It gives me hope that even the most tedious or innocuous plot points can have some payoff somewhere down the line.

Other thoughts:

How the heck did Sarah get to hospital? I’ve watched the episode twice now, and I can’t quite piece it together. It seems like she showed up in her vehicle, unconscious with a gunshot wound (since they had the vehicle and didn’t know anything about the warehouse until they listened to the recording). Did she drive herself to the hospital? Given all her subsequent actions, it doesn’t seem likely to me that she would willingly go to the hospital in the first place. Did she go to kidnap a doctor, but pass out before she could do it?

I found the dream sequence with Sarah and Kyle at the tree very odd. The tree made me think of the evil apple trees from The Wizard of Oz. Was that the point? Was the scene supposed to mean something in particular? Because the significance was lost on me.

Were the names “Kyle” and “Derek” even mentioned in the episode? It was always “Reese” or “him.” And Sarah literally saw Derek as Kyle when she first woke up after the surgery. Interesting.

I guess Jessie wasn’t the one that killed Alan Park and the hypnotherapist. I doubt the timing would have worked, given that she was with Derek when he got the news about Riley. Depends on how far away Sarah was.

Garrett Dillahunt is just great. The way he delivers his dialogue is so precise and yet full of childlike wonder. I had to laugh at the way he described the character features of the various toys. And his “blank” smiles are priceless.

Final rating: 3.5 out of 5. I didn’t think this was an outstanding episode, but Reese’s presence made it better than average for me.

All of my Terminator reviews are archived here.
(Season 2, episode 14)

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Dollhouse premiere: Ghost

DeWitt: "I'm talking about a clean slate."
Caroline: "You ever try to clean an actual slate? You always see what was on it before."

Yes, it held my interest. It has potential.

But you know what bothered me? It didn't feel... Whedony. And that was odd, when we essentially had Faith and Fred living in a set that looked like Wolfram & Hart. It felt like it was taking itself too seriously, overreaching a bit. And I mean that also in the sense that there was no humor whatsoever. In a show written by Joss Whedon. Is that because it's difficult to have humor when your characters have no sense of self?

The basic premise does have an almost endless potential for good stories. More adult stories, too. Buffy and River all grown up, imprinted with people like "Eleanor Penn", a human being with flaws and foibles and past traumas. It's a dream role for an actor. And there's the underlying mystery of the Dollhouse and Echo herself to be solved. Why would someone voluntarily submit to a sort of slavery that is the death of self? Who owns the Dollhouse, and why does it exist? And what was going on at the end of the episode?

In the zoom zoom department, there was plenty to catch and hold the Dollhouse demographic's eye, at least during the first part: fast motorcycles, Eliza Dushku dancing in skimpy, sexy clothes. We even got Tahmoh Penikett with his shirt off sweating sexily and working out his rage issues boxing with another guy; not our forthright upright Helo at all. At least they know their audience. It was an interesting choice to go with the cliched librarian look and such a troubled personality for the second part of the episode. A message that we're not just gonna get fluff. I didn't expect that we would.

Characters:

-- Echo's real name is Caroline, and she was a college student. She did something wrong, "actions have consequences", and she signed up for a five year "term." If she lives that long, which doesn't seem likely. Her conversation with the boss, DeWitt, made it sound like DeWitt was an authority figure Caroline knew.

-- Paul Ballard is FBI and has been assigned to investigate the Dollhouse for fourteen months. He was recently divorced, and seems to be a hothead. He feels that people in the Dollhouse may just as well have been murdered.

-- I liked Boyd, Echo's "handler". He seemed to genuinely care about Echo's welfare, as well as the little girl kidnap victim.

-- Topher completely creeped me out. I don't know if that was intentional or not. He looked like a friendly nerd, but he didn't feel like one.

-- I thought Sierra was interesting, and we only got smidgens of her: receiving her initial programming whatever (while she was writhing in pain), and when she was all supersoldier coming to Echo's rescue. We didn't see any of the other "actives."

-- Amy Acker's character, Doctor Claire Saunders, was a great big question mark. It felt like she was a prisoner; Topher kept looking at her oddly. Where did she get those scars? What is she doing in the Dollhouse? It was like she was a project gone wrong, hanging around because there was no other place for her to go.

Bits and pieces:

-- The title of the pilot episode is "Ghost". We were told that the kidnapper who abused "Eleanor" was the ghost, but in fact, it's Echo herself. She's literally an echo; she responds with what has been downloaded into her.

-- Conditioning isn't perfect. Echo showed discomfort or possibly discontent a couple of times. Curiosity about what was happening to Sierra. Reluctance to get into the Chair. When Gabriel referenced the Dollhouse obliquely and talked about what had been done to "Eleanor" as a child, Echo's conditioning weakened and she flashed on Topher hurting Sierra.

-- The code names are from the NATO phonetic alphabet.

-- Nearsightedness and asthma went with the Penn imprint. That and the cliched librarian look were not a convincing look for Eliza Dushku. And by the way, I'm a librarian. We don't dress like that. It's a stereotype that really bugs me.

-- Symbolism? All over the episode. In particular, I thought the closing with all of the "dolls" in their little beds, below the floor and under glass, symbolized what these five people are.

-- I recognized the names of *all* of the producers. I've even met some of them, from going to so many Buffy/Angel events.

-- Summer Glau and Eliza Dushku, looking oddly alike, did promos together during the entire two hours of Terminator and Dollhouse. Come to think of it, they're both lead actresses that Whedon chose, so maybe their resemblance wasn't all that odd.

-- I appreciated the limited commercial breaks. Unfortunately, even though they were short, there were too many actual breaks and they increased as we neared the end of the hour. Breaks concentration.

-- The guy at the end who was sitting there naked after killing two people, looking at the video and photo of Caroline. This was right after they showed us a folder labeled "Alpha", another phonetic alphabet letter. Was that Alpha?

Quotes: (what there were of them)

Topher: "There's nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so, man friend."

Topher: "She's living the dream."
Boyd: "Whose dream?"

Echo: "A fatherly type."
Gabriel: "Like Edward James Olmos."
Yes, Battlestar, I'm going to miss you.

Ballard: "Wash your hands. And your shoes."

I liked this episode better the second time I saw it. There's stuff going on here. It could be good,

Billie

All of my Dollhouse reviews are archived here.
(Season 1, episode 1)

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Fringe: The Cure

“You’re probably way ahead of me on this, but I’m noticing some uncomfortable similarities between this and some of the other incidents we’ve been covering lately.”

Yes, Peter. There are similarities: evil doctors, evil corporations, Walter’s obsession with childhood foods.

This week’s science story focused on exploding heads and illegal drug trials, with intimations of a larger conspiracy to build some sort of human army out of microwave women and last week’s electro-man.

It’s an odd way to build a mythology: the Big Secret seems to be that people in positions of power are evil and do evil things, often for money. But if Peter’s right, and all these stand-alones are also detailing a series of steps taken by the Big Bads in preparation for something…well, that’s an exciting idea.

In other news, it’s Olivia’s birthday and she’s working through some serious emotional baggage about her stepfather. Watching her confessional scene with Peter made me feel like a voyeur—too much personal information, too fast. Our relationship with this character hasn’t earned this level of honesty.

Our Theme of the Week was trust, especially misplaced trust in paternalistic authority figures: stepfathers, doctors, the medical community, even Olivia’s boss. But we also got some friendly avuncular types in Policeman Marty, Agent Francis, and Peter.

Holly’s Diner reminded me of something. Maybe from the X-Files? Or the diner shoot-out scene in L.A. Confidential? I’m not sure that’s right.

Walter had some great lines in this episode:

• Peter: “He means the guy’s head was boiled.”
Walter: “Like a Maine lobster.”

• “To understand what happened, we’ll use Mr. Papaya. This is upsetting, because he is the friendliest of fruits.”

• “I have some expendable gerbils in the back.”


That Can’t Be Scientific (as Abaddon would say):

• When I deal with headless radioactive corpses, I prefer far more protection.

• It doesn’t count as treating yourself if a doctor is doing it for you.

• Human/animal hybridization studies? I can’t wait for that episode.

• Walter and the Massive Dynamics lady used to date? I can wait for that episode.

And Olivia’s great-ish speech: “I understand that you think I acted too emotionally. Putting aside the fact that men always say that about the women they work with, I’ll get straight to the point. I am emotional. I do bring it to my work. It’s what motivates me. It helps me get into the heads of the victims, see what they’ve seen, even if I don’t want to. Even if it horrifies me. I think it makes me a better agent. If you have a problem with that, you can fire me. But I hope you don’t.”

Not quite a feminist St. Crispin’s Day speech, but it’s a decent statement of character—albeit one that hasn’t been entirely borne out by her actions thus far.

Two out of four Expendable Gerbils. Or maybe two out of four Friendly Fruits.

All of my Fringe reviews are archived here.
(Season one, episode six)

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Fringe: The Ghost Network

“Well, I’ll take what I can get.”

The pilot gave us a plane crash with melty people. This episode gave us a bus crash with frozen people. It’s totally different. The frozen people were attacked with something like sarin gas. But this is a different type of gas. John Scott is a traitor, but a different kind than Robert Hanssen. One of the victims was in a clandestine relationship with her traitorous co-worker, which is not different at all from Olivia’s recent situation.

And Walter continues to be a different kind of crazy.

If we take Buffy, Alias, or The X-Files as models for how a genre show should work, then…well, then there’s no real reason to even review this episode. It’s one of the requisite stand-alones from the first season that no one will ever really care about watching again. It even played with its own genre status when the students wandered into the lab. No, this is ‘not remotely’ your standard show.

But really, it is—just like with other freshman entries, we have to watch these episodes to experience the show ‘finding its footing,’ as they say, but we don’t have to love them. We just watch the chips fall where they should, hope for a bit more in later episodes, and let out minds wander.

To wit: I enjoyed the philosophical implications of the correlation/causation debate between Olivia and Nina Sharp (the Massive Dynamics honcho). It was a nice nod to the implausibility of so much weirdness in Boston, but it was complicated by the introduction of Occam’s Razor in the next scene—if this show were a proof, we’d be more confused right now than poor Gödel before he figured out incompleteness.

Speaking of philosophy (because there’s not much else to do during an episode like this), I find it curious that this show—or Walter, at least—focuses so much on the mysteries of the human mind. (Even pop-psychology truisms about the similarities between criminals and law enforcement were trotted out.) It’s certainly a popular topic in science and medicine this day, but it still has that mystique of yet another final frontier. Of course, these ruminations are somewhat discounted by the ground-breaking work that Walter did back when bell-bottoms where still popular—as though his old work exists in a brilliant vacuum uninfluenced by scientific discoveries that have taken place since then. And they’re also discounted by being so easily explicable with optical illusions familiar to most second-graders.

Three unrelated observations:

• Do many villain speak in Latin? Is this a holdover from all those Templar myths?

• I enjoy the repartee between Olivia and Agent Francis.

• Is the Theme of the Week repetition?

Really only two lines of dialogue worth highlighting:

• ‘I like to consider myself to be a fairly good poker player, which requires me to have the ability to read people’s tells, know when they’re bluffing.’ Remember that old saw about how writers should ‘show, not tell’? Yeah.

• ‘When I was nine years old, I wanted to be a brontosaurus.’ That was sort of funny.

One out of four Incompleteness Theorems.

All of my Fringe reviews are archived here.
(Season one, episode three)

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Lost: This Place is Death

Robert Rousseau: "What is that?"
Jin: "Monster."

Was Jin right? The Island *is* death. So many of the characters on Lost have met a horrible, flamey, gruesome, and/or painful death. Like Charlotte. Who's next? Will the Oceanic Six return to the Island only to get picked off, one by one?

Monster. Arm. *shudder* The Monster guards the Temple? Did you notice the hieroglyphics on the Temple walls? (Atlantis! Atlantis!) It kind of went with the Well having a miniature Stonehenge around it. What happens in the Temple? Whatever it is, it seems to involve some sort of brainwashing unlike the Clockwork Orange thing Ben did to Karl. Whatever it is, it happened to the entire French contingent, excepting Danielle. But why on earth did Robert try to kill his pregnant wife? If he were an Other, the baby would be a huge priority for him. Very confusing.

Jin kept Danielle from going down the Monster rabbit hole. But how could he have saved her since she never went down the hole in the original timeline? Later, she nearly killed him. Could she? Is it even possible? Or would her gun have jammed, like Michael's did?

I wouldn't expect Locke to sacrifice the Island and everyone on it just to keep his word to Jin; Locke does lie. But Locke was also outright valiant and courageous, literally dragging his broken body to the Wheel in order to save everyone. Not that Jin wasn't valiant, too, willing to sacrifice himself to save Sun. Well, maybe not valiant, since everyone on the Island would die.

We finally learned about Charlotte, right before her unfortunate demise. She grew up on the Island, left, and spent the rest of her life trying to return. (To Narnia.) She even knew about the Well. At the last moment, when it couldn't possibly help her, she remembered an incident from her childhood where Faraday told her to leave the Island and never come back. A retroactive sort of memory, like what happened to Desmond. Why did Faraday even try when he knew it wouldn't work?

What's sad is that we haven't seen it happen yet. But I'm sure we will.

It's Ben that Sun was after, of course. I don't know why I even considered that it might be Jack or Kate. Ben went on an out of character tirade saying he's protecting the Oceanic Six. Ring of truth? Another lie?

Ben now has Jack and Sun, but has lost Kate, Aaron and Sayid. And he still doesn't have Hurley. If everyone has to go back, including Aaron, what about Ji Yeon? She was conceived on the Island. And if not, how could Sun bear to leave her behind?

Character bits:

-- Faraday's mother is indeed named Eloise Hawking. Why did Faraday name a lab rat after his mother? Maybe he just wanted the world's first time traveler to be named after her.

-- Charlotte's parents were Dharma. Charlotte and her mother left; her father stayed on the Island. Anyone we know?

-- Danielle wasn't lying about what happened sixteen years ago; she wasn't crazy, after all. Not that I thought she was. We had also heard about Montand's arm before, and about Danielle disabling Robert's gun. Good continuity there.

-- Locke injured his legs *again*. I wonder if his fate as a paraplegic is trying to reassert itself? I should have picked up on that before. Or maybe I did, and I forgot.

-- Christian seemed less creepy and more like himself. He even told Locke casually to say hello to his son. But Christian, a doctor, wouldn't help Locke, who was in agony; he said, "I can't." Was it because of the proximity to the Wheel? Against Walking Dead rules?

-- Christian doesn't like Ben. That's really interesting.

-- If Faraday was involved with Theresa Spencer, then he has now lost two loves to the side effects of time travel. You'd think he'd learn from this or something.

-- Jin and Sawyer are both Island widowers now. Come to think of it, so is Faraday. And hey, Juliet lost Goodwin.

-- Montand the arm guy said that Nadine was probably off chasing a butterfly and they shouldn't have brought women along. Condescending sexist pig. He probably didn't deserve to have his arm ripped off, though. And hey. He wasn't screaming; he just said he needed help. Why wasn't he screaming? Was the brainwashing instantaneous?

-- The Sawyer nickname moratorium continued.

-- Desmond is in Los Angeles. Hide Penny from Ben, Desmond!

Bits and pieces:

-- Water was a theme. Searching for water. Jin and the leaf. The Wheel at the bottom of a well. A *dry* well.

-- At the Long Beach marina, one of the boats was named "Illusion."

-- Charlotte heard Geronimo Jackson while she was revisiting her childhood.

-- Long scene with the Monster. You could hear the roller coaster sounds.

-- A lot of people are finding the time travel stuff confusing. It's our group of characters who are traveling in time; everything else on the Island is stationary. Keep in mind what Faraday said: that time is a stream, you can travel up and down the stream, but no matter how hard you try, you can't change the direction of the stream. You can only throw pebbles in it, and swear a lot.

-- The pop-up video repeat of last week's "The Little Prince" told us that when Ben turned the ancient Time Wheel Thingy, he arrived in Tunisia ten months later. I'm sure that fact was in the original episode, but since Locke just turned the wheel, I thought it could use repeating.

-- I also noticed that Sun's box contained sixteen chocolates. Charlotte's last words were about chocolate.

-- Gold acting stars for Rebecca Mader. I've never been fond of her character, but she did a masterful job in this episode.

Quotes:

Montand: "First a boat. Then a helicopter. Next thing you know, he'll be talking about a submarine." (Ha, ha.)

Jin: "Translate, please! Translate!"
Sawyer: "You heard the man. Translate!"
Miles: "He's Korean. I'm from Encino."

Faraday: "You speak any other languages?"
Charlotte: "Just Klingon."
That made me finally like her. Right before they killed her off.

Sawyer: "Sure you don't want us to lower you down?"
Locke: "Where would be the fun in that?"
Yes, I'm Locke. I'm a manly man. Locke should have listened to Sawyer. If he had, he might not have suffered a compound fracture. But if he hadn't fallen, would he have materialized in dirt and suffocated? Did the Island make him fall?

This may be a four polar bear episode,

Billie

All of my Lost reviews are archived here.
(Season 5, episode 5)

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Lost: The Little Prince... Untangled

This week's review will be posted momentarily. In the meantime, here's a word from our sponsor.

Confused about the time travel on Lost? Check this out. Hilarious and informative.




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Fringe: Power Hungry

Electromagnetism is a pretty hot topic in genre shows these days. I’d love to see a renaissance in stories that focus on the mystic allure of gravity. So powerful, so ubiquitous, so unstoppable!

Poor Mr. Meegar was just as unstoppable, and I felt bad for him. Not all super-powered sad sacks have a kindly Uncle Ben to explain the ethics of power and responsibility. It was rather nice to get a sense of the evildoer’s character beyond just plain old evil-doing. The super-powered villain was ripped straight from an old X-Files (D.P.O.), and the super-fiendish doctor bent on creating a monster from a man was ripped straight from a little-known work called Frankenstein.

Mr. Meegar was just the A-storyline, though. We wrapped up (well, sort of) some loose ends, and got drawn deeper into the mystery of what’s going on with Olivia’s dead lover John Scott. They shared consciousness, and so…um…she sees him and he tells her stuff she doesn’t already know? OK. Sure. He led her to a secret basement full of important files that I’m sure will be important in various episodes when a smidgen of importance is needed.

I’m having a hard time pinning down the Theme of the Week, again. It seems to be “baggage”—Olivia’s struggle with John Scott, dead future fiancé; Walter’s struggle with St. Claire’s; Mr. Meegar’s struggle with his own inadequacies; the Samsonites under Peter’s eyes. Poor boy.


Stranger Things Have Happened (It’s Walter’s Motto):

• “It’s almost like another generator came online, jacked into the system, and overloaded it with double or triple the voltage.” Wouldn’t that have just shut the motor down, not super-charged it?

• Does the FBI really have access to everything, including on-the-job accidents at shipping companies? I must admit, that’s more than a little frightening. Way more frightening than electromagnetism.

• REO Speedwagon? Now that’s unbelievable.


Actually Funny:

• “It was usually the Commies in those days.”

• “So he floated, like my necklace in the elevator?”
“Um, no.”

• The eighties guitar riff during the pigeon hunt scene. I’m not sure it was supposed to be funny, though.

Spot The Observer: In the elevator.

Not bad, not great. Let’s say...

Two out of four pieces of luggage.

All of my Fringe reviews are archived here.
(Season one, episode five)

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Fringe: The Arrival

“It’s disturbing, but you get accustomed to it.”

Let’s take this one plot-line at a time.

The Fringe Science Story:

The phallus-ovum was pretty cool. I like glowing things. Which probably explains why I liked the flash-gun doohickey, too.

The Mythos-In-The-Making Story:

Abaddon is being under-used. He seems to be stuck repeating…well, it’s not even exposition. It’s just ‘we’ve seen this before…we’ve seen this before.’ Should I call that ‘expository back-story’? ‘Desperate relevance-making’? It’s as though without him, this Pattern thing that’s causing so much trouble would bloop out of existence. Because a conspiracy that falls in the forest…

On Roswell, didn’t the aliens like hot sauce? Is The Observer an alien? That would explain his agelessness.

The Character Development Story (Peter Section):

Walter’s obnoxiousness was in full force, and Peter’s annoyance almost matched my own. But the suspense loses something when we know that Peter can’t leave, because the show’s premise would fall apart. Instead of suspense, we’re just left suffering with him in grumpy despair. He gets roped back in either because he wants to find answers, or because he wants to get to know his father. Maybe a bit of both.

The Character Development Story (Olivia Section):

Dead lover phone call? Death just doesn’t mean as much as it used to on TV these days.
Dead lover apparition? I’m sensing a cliffhanger.


I’ve watched this episode twice—once when it first aired, and once more recently to review it. The first time, I kept finding reasons to leave the couch, and I think I wound up baking cookies. This time around I stuck with it. (For you, dear reader. All for you.) But what can I say?

I can’t discern a Theme of the Week, but the whole Observer-as-foil to Peter is pretty clear, especially thanks to the showdown in the graveyard. The Observer connects with Walter in ways that Peter can’t, and Peter himself is stuck observing what goes on both in the FBI, where he doesn’t have clearance, and the lab, where he’s just Walter’s errand boy. And while Peter likes to be removed and distanced from life, he doesn’t like to be powerless in it.

The Theme might be that what’s buried never stays buried, whether it’s Peter’s and Walter’s issues, Olivia’s grief, Astrid’s (totally justified) anger, or a glowy cylinder with sonic awesomeness.

Three for character development, one for John Scott (I just can’t get on board with that), two for mythology…

For a sum total of two out of four glowy phallus/ovum thingamabobs that magically get sucked back into the ground.

All of my Fringe reviews are archived here.
(Season one, episode four)

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Fringe: In Which We Meet Mr. Jones

In one of his popular essays—it might be “Anthropologist on Mars,” from the book of the same name—neurologist Oliver Sacks describes a test performed by one of his colleagues on a high-functioning autistic man. That man had an obsession with light switches, so his doctor doctored up a device to track his eye movement while watching a romantic, Douglas Sirk-style movie. In the movie’s climax, as the couple finally kissed while swelling music played, the testee’s eyes tracked to the upper right frame, where—unnoticed by probably anyone, ever—a light switch was visible. The true importance of the moment was lost to him; or, to him, the moment was important for another reason.

Sometimes, watching Fringe, I feel like a light-switch-obsessed blogger.

I keep noticing the wrong things—the moments that are supposed to be important, judging by the score, are lost on me. But little things stand out as worth noting.

In this episode, it was the relationship between Peter and Walter, especially the scene where Peter tied the back of Walter’s hospital gown like a mother helping her young child zip up his hoodie. For a son who calls his father by his first name, Peter does a wonderful job of caring for a man he doesn’t seem to like, and who doesn’t seem to notice him—not to mention the inherent sadness of caring for a relatively young parent who was given to torturing his child back in the day. Are we ever going to get more of his interior struggle?

This episode also introduced some crazy mythology. Mr. David Robert Jones is something of a substitution cipher himself. His encounter with Olivia was appropriately creepy but oddly unsatisfying. We get a mention of the mysterious ZFT. And we meet not just Mr. Jones, but also Agent Loeb, who is—gasp!—a double-agent at least partially responsible for the Great Empty Panda Heist. Among other things.

The Pattern seems to be increasingly important, which is a good thing. (Mr. J.J. Abrams et. al., I hope you’re reading this.) Mythology is good, as it keeps viewers hooked on a show. I would like to be hooked, please!

Pseudo-science is not so good, but at least the parasitic jaws inside Agent Loeb were, um, memorable. Communicating with the dead seems to be something of a leitmotif on Fringe, which is certainly an unusual take on our current obsession with forensic pathology. The history of attempts to communicate with the dead is quite interesting, as I learned while surfing that Internet thing while simultaneously watching this episode. In the words of Abaddon himself: “This can’t possibly be scientific.” Yeah, it’s not.

Our Theme of the Week is loyalty. Not much more to say about that.

Moments In Which I Said, “Seriously?”:

• I shouted at my screen: “It’s a substitution cipher!” when we encountered the code. Really, if I can guess it, the baddies need to amp up the cryptography. I only got 100 pages into Cryptonomicon.

• The Jimmy Hoffa thing.

• If Peter can still talk, the sedative isn’t blocking his higher brain function.

• Olivia’s three wants for a lover are straightforward, decisive, and charming? Her character needs a few more dimensions.

Three out of four Giant Empty Pandas.

All of my Fringe reviews are archived here.
(Season one, episode seven)

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Fringe: Ability

“What was written, will come to pass.”

Our theme of the week is texts. We had a newsstand owner/victim and an uber-useful bookseller—one of my favorite type-characters. We also had the meta-text, if an episode-long allusion to Alias counts as being meta-textual. And if you think I’m overreaching, I refer you to the floor the bomb was on, and the destined female spy whose parents subjected her to childhood tests.

We even get our own page 47—except our great Text of Infinite Mystery is a German manuscript called ZFT (Zerstorung durch Fortschritte, a string of letter that is brought to you by my TiVo). It translates to “Destruction by Advancement of Technology,” which sounds so profoundly German that I wonder if it actually exists deep in the desk-recesses of some octogenarian Frankfurt School holdover who worries what the Russian are up to when he’s not adjusting his droopy mismatched argyle socks.

Turns out Walter wrote it on the very typewriter still in his lab. So the German title was a bit of a red herring, but who cares? Besides, the letter Z is scary, so it added to the ambiance. (We’re fully submerged in mythology, which makes me quite happy and less picky.)

I’m also impressed by the payoff of the past three episodes, as much as I disliked the most recent one. The horrors of Walter’s lab, to which everyone alluded rather ceaselessly, seemed to have been more-or-less neatly tied up when he apologized to his dead assistant’s mother—but a real terror from the past has emerged in the form of a group of zealots apparently inspired by his forgotten manifesto. Olivia’s spinal tap was explained and made relevant. Even her attitude seemed sunnier, and her lines funnier, now that she’s gotten over that whole John Scott fiasco. Last week's promised transformation really did its job.

The Good:

• Any use of the word salacious is a good thing, right?

• “The man was clever enough to Star Trek himself out of a German prison.” That’s a Buffy line waiting to happen. If Buffy were still, you know, happening.

• Sanford Harris: “Where are you going?”
Olivia: “To get a massage…I’ll tell you when I get back.” In the real world, sarcasm often doesn’t work.

The Bad:

• Maybe it’s the extra-long episodes and shorter commercial breaks, but some scenes feel unnecessary. Or maybe just dull.

• I should probably say something about the requisite gross-out, but I can’t think of anything besides: suffocated by my own skin is now number three on my list of Ways I Don’t Want To Die.

Falls Under the Category of What the Hell?:

• “…the way to travel between them has already been discovered by beings who are much like us...” Are we talking about time-traveling aliens? I think I like time-traveling bunnies better.

• Radiant PDAs. Seems a bit unnecessary, unless you want to save money on night-lights.

• Olivia and Sanford Harris unnecessarily back-lit into silhouette.

Spot the Observer: at the newsstand.

Three out of four Rambaldis.

All of my Fringe reviews are archived here.
(Season one, episode fourteen)

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