TV Review: Heroes, "1961"

NOTE: Watch out for spoilers with a bad mood.

In tonight’s episode of Heroes on NBC, “1961,” Angela Petrelli takes her family on a trip down memory lane, and in the process, reveals to us how the idea for the original “Company” came to be. 

During Angela’s flashbacks, we see how she and her sister Alice were taken to an internment camp where Monhinder’s father, Chandra Suresh was researching people with special abilities, presumably with the intent of learning more about them and possibly finding a cure. In the process we see how Angela became acquainted with Charles Deveraux, Daniel Linderman, and Bob Bishop—the founding members of The Company. We also see that Angela had a younger sister named Alice that she never spoke of who had a newly emerging ability to control the weather.


While the young Angela sneaks off with her new friends to try to figure out how to escape the camp (which is weird because they left the camp to try to figure out how to leave the camp?), Alice was taken to be questioned by Chandra Suresh, and ends up starting a chain of events that ends in the massacre of everyone there except Suresh and Alice.


Back in the present day, Angela is trying to find out why she is dreaming about her sister who she presumed was killed with everyone else. Ultimately she finds Alice living as a hermit nearby because Angela had lied to her and told her that if she stayed there she’d be safe. Upon learning that Angela had lied to her, Alice causes a storm that nearly kills Peter and Mohinder and then disappears before Angela can apologize.

Now that I’ve described what the episode was about, can I now tell you how utterly bored I was by it? Throughout much of it I felt like I was watching a stage play put on by a high school drama department. The dramatic moments were so forced and all they seemed to do was sit around and talk about how they felt about themselves and each other!

Lately there's beginning to be so many holes in this series that it makes it look like they can’t make up their minds on what they want this series to be. In the first episodes of Heroes, Chandra Suresh was a geneticist who was seeking out people with special abilities in order to prove a theory he’d been researching, but we were led to believe that he’d never found anyone except for Sylar. Now, according to tonight’s episode, he was involved in this whole government operation back in the early 60s? 

I know someone will probably say that Charles Deveraux most likely erased his memory that he’d ever seen any of them, but I’d say if that’s true, why didn’t they show it? I’ve often heard, and I believe that it’s true, that in storytelling it’s much better to show than it is to tell. Why save a fact for a later episode for someone like Angela to tell Mohinder, “Oh, by the way, your father didn’t remember any of that because Charles erased his memory.” It would have been much more interesting for that to be shown in tonight’s episode. In my opinion, that's where many recent episodes are falling flat. There has been just too much talking about everything when really they need to be out doing things!

It seems to me that the point of tonight’s episode was to show all of the heroes united and ready to begin a new company but I get so frustrated with all of the starting and stopping that this show is doing. I thought the old company was fine, but they destroyed it. Ok, so now we get Danko hunting down the heroes with Mr. Bennet working on the inside as a double agent as they hunt down the fugitives—good, I’m ok with that… that looks interesting. No wait… now we’re changing it again and now the heroes and Mr. Bennet are uniting against Danko? I really wish they’d make up their minds and give us a while to roll with the plotlines they’re giving us before changing things up again.


I’m having such a love/hate relationship with this show that I don’t know how much longer I’ll stick with it. I really love the premise and I want it to do well and be good but there are just some recurring things that keep driving me nuts. Also, the main reasons to stick with an ongoing story like this are because of spectacle and character drama. Well, the shows lately haven’t been very spectacular and all of the characters are so wishy-washy, whiney, pouty and annoying that I’m having a hard time caring whether or not Peter forgives Nathan, if Claire can trust Mr. Bennet, or if Mohinder can forgive or trust himself. I think I just need a really good dose of Hiro and Ando to lift my spirits.

TV Review: Parks and Recreation

When NBC decided to take a British show called The Office and make an American version of it, they took the script from the British pilot and almost remade it word for word. For every character, there was an American counterpart. For every joke, it was either retold verbatim or it was rewritten for American sensibilities. The success or failure of the pilot for the American version of The Office owed more to the creative power of Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant, who created the British version than it did Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, who interpreted it for American audiences.

What could be credited to Greg Daniels and Michael Schur is the subsequent episodes of The Office that took those British version-inspired characters and relationships and put them into very familiar American workplace situations—making it a show that we Yankees could grow to love and appreciate on it’s own merits.


Now NBC brings us “from the team that brought us The Office” a new show starring Amy Poehler (Saturday Night Live) called Parks and Recreation. This show, entirely created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, attempts to take the Documentary/Comedy format of The Office and transplant it into a city’s government agency with an entirely new cast of characters.

As with any new show, it’s hard to get a real sense of how good this one is going to be by the half-hour pilot, alone, but there’s one thing I noticed as they sandwiched it between two new episodes of The Office in an attempt to gain an audience: there wasn’t much laughter happening in my house caused by Parks and Recreation.

Now, what makes The Office work for me are the familiar situations the characters find themselves in as part of an office. For example, when my friend Derek and I worked in the same office space, we had great fun playing pranks on our co-worker, Shirley. One favorite prank of mine was taking a screenshot of all the windows open on her computer and making that her desktop so when she came back to her desk and tried to click on a window or a folder, nothing would happen because it was just an image and not an actual file. This would make her think her computer was frozen and would then have to restart. She did this a couple of times before we broke it to her that we were playing a joke on her. And so I always get a kick out of the pranks Jim plays on Dwight and secretly wish that I would have thought of that, myself.

Part of my problem identifying with Parks and Recreation was that I’ve never attended a public meeting for city planning before so I just had to assume that the meetings portrayed in last night’s pilot episode would ironically ring true and would be funny if I connected with it.


I must admit, though, that it’s not a total loss. Amy Poehler’s character, Leslie Knope, is in some ways similar to Michael Scott in The Office, but without the crude and brash behavior. She is someone who hasn’t let the city government system suck all the enthusiasm and optimism out of her—much to the chagrin of her co-workers. She is the main subject of a fictional documentary that’s being filmed and she is very aware of being on camera and loves sharing her story with the world. Unfortunately, the camera also see’s everyone else’s lack of enthusiasm and their desire just to put in their time so they can go home.


In the pilot, Leslie Knope conducts a public meeting where community members have the opportunity to air their grievances. During this meeting Ann Perkins (played by Rashida Jones who portrayed Karen, the other woman, in The Office season 3,) who has come to complain about a pit next to her home that was dug by a construction company that promptly went out of business. Ann complains that her worthless (my opinion, not hers) boyfriend accidently fell in the pit and broke both of his legs. Leslie decides that this is her opportunity to make a difference in the world and promptly “pinky promises” to take care of the problem and transform the pit into a park, somehow.

It’s clear that the rest of the 6 episodes that have been produced are going to center around her efforts to get this accomplished. I was amused by the fact that they all celebrated so strongly the permission she got to form a “committee.” Well, isn’t a committee just a body of people that sits around and talks about something but doesn’t actually get anything done? I think she has a long way to go in getting her promise fulfilled.

A slight disconnect with the subject of tonight’s episode, though, is that many of Leslie’s character establishing moments were formed in a very nice park. Doesn’t that go against the idea that this town needs another one? I don’t know, maybe that was the point and it was supposed to be funny, but to me it just seemed a bit clumsy.

I’m not the type of person to bail on a show after the first episode, especially one made by the same people partially responsible for my favorite comedy on television, but I sure hope that Parks and Recreation can find its groove soon or I predict it won’t be around for long.

In case you missed it, you can download the pilot for FREE in HD at iTunes.

TV Review: NBC Heroes, "Exposed"

Tonight on NBC’s Heroes:

• Sandra Bennett (Ashley Crow) stops playing the gullible, only concerned about her dog, doormat and helps her Claire’s (Hayden Panettiere) fugitive friend, Alex (Justin Baldoni) get away from the government agents parked outside. 

• Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg) and Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia) follow their noses through Building 26 and find out where Daphne “The Speedster” Millbrook (Brea Grant) is only to have Matt captured in the process. 

• Sylar (Zachary Quinto) wanders down memory lane in an abandoned diner to learn that his father apparently sold him to someone there and then killed his mom for objecting. 

• Peter almost gets himself killed for believing that the government will, in fact, negotiate with terrorists, and afterwards gets shot shortly before being rescued by his flying brother, Nathan. 

• And Matt becomes the fulfillment of his own painted prophecy as the man standing on the National Mall with a bunch of explosives strapped to his body.
  

What I really liked about tonight's Heroes is that everyone became active again instead of just sitting around bickering about this and that. Heroes is the most exciting when the heroes are out doing something and not just trying to deal with their inner angst.

I really like that we’re seeing in Claire’s mom more of what we saw earlier in the series when she was actually out taking risks with Claire. It was frustrating for me to see her at the beginning of this volume looking as if she’d had her mind wiped once again by the Haitian. I hope to see more of her taking charge of this modern day “Underground Railroad.”

I think it’s funny that they picked an actor to portray Claire’s fugitive, Alex, who can breath underwater, someone who looks a lot like Olympic swimmer, Michael Phelps. Oh, that’s right… the 2008 Summer Olympics were on NBC this year. Maybe NBC is still trying to ride his wave.

I’m happy that it looks like we’re finally going to ditch the annoying kid, Luke (Dan Byrd), who’s been tagging along with Sylar. One problem is, I didn’t see anything that happened in their little meeting in the diner that made me think that Sylar had any better idea where to find his dad. If anything, I think he’d want to hang on to the little creep a little longer since he still seems to be the only one who knows how to find Sylar’s evil Daddy. I just hope that when Sylar finally tracks down his dad, that it won’t culminate in an epic talk-off.

Finally, who is this mysterious “Rebel” who keeps offering insider tips to the heroes on the run and who facilitated the happy reunion between Claire and Eric “The Puppetmaster” Doyle (David H. Lawrence XVII). My guess, and hope, is that “Rebel” is Claude (Christopher Eccleston), the character from season one who can make himself invisible and tutored Peter initially on how to control his powers. He was a cool character and it would be great to see him return.

TV Review: The Biggest Loser

My Biggest Loser Story

NBC's The Biggest Loser is one of the most inspiring shows on TV. It’s also one of the most discouraging. I believe that whether or not this show works for you depends on where you are in your own weight loss journey.

There was a time in my life when I couldn’t stand this show. I was offended by the name when it first came out because it made me think that they were saying that ALL fat people were losers and that they were just looking for the biggest one. Of course, back then I was about 440 pounds and would usually watch the show while balancing a bowl of chocolate ice cream on my belly, so you can probably guess where my negative feelings were coming from.

Now when I watch this show I have nothing but compassion and awe over the accomplishments of the contestants. What created this change in me? Well, it wasn’t in a method that NBC’s The Biggest Loser trainers Bob Harper and Jilian Michaels would approve of—I had Gastric Bypass Surgery.

The decision to have the surgery came after many years of struggling with my weight, losing it only to find myself gaining more not too long after that. What finally tipped the scales (so to speak) was when I saw the following picture of myself that was taken at my daughter’s baptism.


This was what was a special day for my daughter and was definitely something for the family albums, but when I saw this picture, my heart just sank. It really hit me hard how far I had let myself go. Not only did I come to a realization of how bad I looked, but I was also realizing that I was missing many opportunities to spend quality time with my daughters because I was too tired or weak.

So I had the surgery, the Roux-En-Y version, and had very good results. One of the keys to making it a successful experience is to make sure to have a doctor with a great support system—you need to be a part of support groups and there also needs to be a great diet system. The surgery doesn’t magically make everything in your life better, there is a lot you need to do before and after to be successful and it is possible to gain a considerable amount of weight back. It’s more of a great jump-start to get you on a path to losing your weight and it gives you a tool to curb your appetite.

Two years after my oldest daughter’s baptism, my younger daughter had hers and the following picture was taken.


Needless to say, we’re all much happier now. It’s amazing how kids can forget negative things. When my daughters see my “before” picture, they have no memory of me looking like that. But what they do know is how much more we do together. We ride bikes, go on hikes and just spend more time together. We’re all so much happier now.


So, back to the The Biggest Loser, the people on that show have an advantage that I’d say is every bit as “unfair” of an advantage given to someone who wants to lose the weight surgically. How many other times in their lives are they going to be able to have their diets closely monitored and be able to work out for 8 hours or more a day?

Although their methods of weight loss differ from the path that I took, I am very inspired by this show even though my path to weight loss was quite different from theirs. I know what a change losing a significant amount of weight can create in someone’s life. It’s like a whole new world opens up and people start seeing you for who you are and not as some random fat person. For anyone else who struggles with your weight, I’d say just do what it takes and what works for you. Your future is depending on it.

I’m sorry if this “review” hasn’t been as much of a review as a personal testimonial, but I’ve never known my enjoyment of a show to be as affected by my own personal situation as this show has made me feel. I hope that more and more people will continue to be motivated by it to make changes in their lives for the better.

TV Review: Chuck

"Chuck Versus the Best Friend"

Don’t get me wrong, Chuck on NBC is one my favorite shows, but I never know when to take it seriously or to just laugh something off. There was a little bit of that going on last night. Do we take the spy game seriously or do we take it as a comedy and laugh off the inconsistencies?

The show opens with a flashback to young Morgan (sporting an Alf t-shirt, awesome) getting beat up by a girl he likes. Chuck comes to his rescue even back then. That sets up the pattern for the entire show: Chuck has always rescued Morgan, who has never grown up.

Back in the present, we find Morgan still troubled by his breakup with Anna Wu, where he and the boys are planning a little spy mission of their own. The real spies, Casey and Sarah must then engage in a little spy vs. spy action; scratch that, make that spy vs. nerd action. Two of the best lines of the whole episode come during this scene, the first when Jeff informs us that 80% of his female encounters have been without the nerd herd’s knowledge (Chuck is more worried about the other 20% . . . rightly so). The second, Casey’s line, comes during the surveillance mission:

Morgan: “We have visual acquisition of the target.”
Lester: “The subject is on the move.”
Casey: “The idiots are on the move.”

During their spy mission, Chuck flashes on Anna’s new boyfriend, who is a major smuggler, so much so, that he is on the CIA’s radar and in the Intersect. Ok, is Chuck just a major magnet for trouble, or is LA just that dangerous that everyone routinely rubs shoulders with smugglers, spies, and other assorted terrorists. This is one of the areas that I am willing to suspend belief, as it is the premise for the show. I do think the writers mix up this formula enough that it doesn’t get too monotonous. Either way, the mission parameters are great; Chuck must “befriend his best friend’s ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend.”

This episode also has the return of Captain Awesome. I love his mix of confidence, laid back attitude, braininess, and naivety. I laughed so hard when they first introduced him in the Pilot. BTW, did you know that Captain Awesome has a blog?

Here come the little nitpicky comments. Chuck always blows the “covert ops” sections. Why would Sarah ever task Chuck with planting a bug? A little too formulaic to me. Next, after Morgan is discovered as the spy/stalker, a Triad member walks right up to the bug. How did he even know that he should look for a bug? Are all smugglers that sophisticated? Speaking of the Triad members, I for one didn’t buy that Morgan was ever in any real jeopardy. The 2 male Triad members just didn’t come off as very threatening in their actions.

As for being in jeopardy, did anyone ever believe that Chuck was in danger of being blown up? Ok, I was surprised that he was driving the remote, but why wouldn’t he have just stayed in plain view to drive the car away? Obviously it was just to set up the whole cheesy hand-holding scene between Chuck and Sarah (formulaic). Don’t get me wrong, I want to see them together as much as anyone else, but it just came off as a little too easy.

Speaking of easy, why did the Chinese ambassador’s guards focus on Casey and just let Chuck by to uncover the bomb? And why did they believe Sarah was CIA when moments before they didn’t believe Casey’s credentials? It didn’t add up . . . too easy, too neat, but hey, you have to tie up the loose ends quickly in a 1 hour show. That’s why I don’t know when to take the series seriously. I am willing to overlook things in the name of comedy, but other things seem to be glaring holes.

To wind up the show, I liked the idea of the continuing bromance between Morgan and Chuck. It was mostly believable and a nice relationship. Chuck seems to be dependant on Morgan as his only “family,” but Chuck has a sister. What about her? If there is a family relationship between Morgan and Chuck, it would be one with Chuck as the older brother who always has to rescue his younger brother from his own stupidity. Not much of a two way street.

As always though, an entertaining show with plenty of action and comedy to keep me coming back for more.

TV Review: Medium, “…About Last Night”

Medium on NBC is a show that doesn’t get a lot of fanfare. It’s a show that doesn’t have the most glamorous of actors and doesn’t do many stunts to produce a lot of hype. Sometimes I find that it’s even easy to forget that Medium is on and I miss it. It’s interesting, then, how just about every time I watch Medium I come away from it thinking that it’s one of the best shows on television.

Now in it’s fifth season, Medium is about an average family living in Phoenix, Arizona. The dad, Joe Dubois (played by Jake Weber), is an inventor. The mom, Allison Dubois (played by Patricia Arquette), is a consultant for the District Attorney’s office. And they have 3 daughters: Ariel, who’s just learning to drive, Bridgette, who offers much comic relief, and the youngest is Marie. Did I mention that mom, Allison, is a psychic who sees dead people, has visions, and other paranormal experiences?

Yes, the thing that keeps Medium from being a modern day version of Leave It To Beaver, is that it’s really a crime drama centered on a psychic who is trusted by the District Attorney for her paranormal insights. Much of the time Medium is a fantasy grounded in the mundane of every day life, and that seeming mismatch of genres is what makes this show so compelling.

In last night’s episode, “…About Last Night”, Allison blacks out for 6 hours, not realizing how she got from the supermarket in the late afternoon to laying on the sidewalk under a freeway overpass in the middle of the night. As she begins to realize what she’s done, she’s terrified that she may have killed at least one person, maybe two. (SPOILERS FOLLOW) It turns out that she was actually possessed by a recently murdered woman who takes over Allison in the hopes of stopping the deaths of many other people.

Medium is interesting because Allison’s visions and dreams aren’t always clear and she frequently misinterprets them. This leads everyone else to doubt her when her visions don’t make sense, at the same time they realize that her visions often do include important clues that they trust will help them solve whatever mystery they’re facing.

If you’ve never watched Medium, I’d suggest that you give it a try. Often there are great twists at the ends and great writing throughout. Also refreshing about this show is that there are only very minor ongoing storylines. Each episode is a self contained story, so there are no worries that if you miss one or haven’t watched from the beginning, that you’ll be lost, as in ABC’s Lost or NBC’s Heroes.

TV Review: Heroes, "Cold Wars"

"You know me, I've always been comfortable with morally grey."

From the previews last week, we were promised that tonight’s Heroes on NBC would answer the question of whether or not Noah Bennet A.K.A. HRG (Horn-Rimmed Glasses) was a hero or a villain.

Whether or not he’s a good guy is something I’ve wondered for a long time, and been frustrated with. He seems to go through spurts where he’s devious and manipulative, and other times he’s playing the part of “inside man” turning the tables in the heroes’ favor. Personally, I’ve always wanted him to be a good guy trying to stay on the inside of a bad situation so he could turn the tables as a double agent.

When we left off last week’s episode, "Building 26," Noah was in the restaurant of the hotel he’s staying in while he works out his family troubles. While there he discovers that he’s been drugged and looses consciousness. We then saw 3 of our on-the-lamb heroes, Matt Parkman, Peter Petrelli and Mohinder Suresh escort him out.

Tonight’s episode, "Cold Wars" began by skipping back a little before the three “supers” drugged Noah where we see that they weren’t all on the same page on the virtues of abducting and interrogating him. Once the abduction takes place, they spend most of their time in a seedy hotel room where Parkman uses his mind powers to probe Noah’s brain for answers about who is pursuing them and what their intentions are.

I’ll admit that Noah Bennet is one of my favorite characters on Heroes. One of the best things about this episode was that it focused primarily on his interrogation and featured many flashbacks from his memories exploring how he came to be involved in the hunt for the supers. There were echoes of what many consider to be one of the best episodes of Heroes from season one, “Company Man.” What both of these episodes have going for them is their focus on Noah and their black and white memories from Noah’s past.

What I think was lacking in this episode were the supposed-to-be tense interactions between the 3 heroes, Parkman, Petrelli and Suresh. I think the writing just isn’t up to par… or maybe it’s the direction. They’re supposed to be having this internal struggle, but to me it just sounds like they’re bickering about who are the good guys and who are the bad. In previous episodes it made sense for Hiro to call others, “heroes,” “villains” or “nemesis” because he was a geek growing up who loved comic books, but when it comes from one of the straight man-ish characters, it just doesn’t seem to fit, in the midst of this tense situation, that they'd be self aware enough to label themselves like they do.

Another thing that bothers me is that, as a viewer, I know about the powers that these heroes possess. I know that Matt Parkman can use his abilities to give those around him illusions that can change their environment and make them believe things are happening that aren’t true. So why didn’t he use his ability to get away from the small army that was coming to take him? I guess how it played-out was appropriate since the episode was trying to focus on Noah, but sometimes the writers seem to conveniently forget details if it supports their storyline.

Oh, and when is someone finally going to blurt out that Nathan can fly?? It seems like that would be one thing that would seriously undermine his efforts to hunt them all!

Tonight’s episode ended with Mohinder Suresh captured, Peter (we assume, but it could have been Nathan) rescuing Matt Parkman, and Noah Bennet finishing a conversation with Angela Petrelli that he started 5 weeks ago in his memory. It’s in this last scene that we learn that Noah is still working for Angela and he still has the same goals that he had when he was working for the company, which seem to be noble enough in that he wants to save the good people with abilities, and only lock up the dangerous ones. He admits that he’ll have to go deep under cover and do even more questionable things to convince is colleagues that he really is on their side, but I think we, as viewers, are supposed to remember this and keep rooting for him to succeed as a “good guy.”

All in all, I think tonight’s episode was satisfying. Heroes is best when the storylines aren’t getting spread too thin amongst all of the main characters. Hopefully this will be a trend revisited in the near future. But please, the final shot with another painting on the floor of a city exploding–this time Washington DC. How many times are they going to build up to an explosion that never happens? Can't they change their formula a little?

Heroes Thoughts: Building 26

Warning: SPOILERS.

At the beginning of the fall season of Heroes on NBC, I was pretty hard on the show. I was worried that they were taking the danger out of the mix by killing characters and then bringing them back as if nothing had happened. Well, anyone who has been watching the series since this season began will have learned, along with myself that many of my criticisms were uncalled for. They actually did kill off Niki/Jessica and it doesn’t look like they’re bringing DL back either. So while the writers of Heroes have done many things to increase my interest in the show, I’m also starting to notice some other things that are really going to bother me if they continue.


In tonight’s episode, Claire goes behind Noah’s back and rescues a potential target and then confesses to her mother what she and Noah were really doing when they were supposed to be college shopping. Hiro learns that he doesn’t need powers to be a hero. Nathan gets a skeptical new boss that he needs to convince that there really are people in the world with almost “magical” abilities. And Sylar learns that his new sidekick, Luke, knows the truth that will lead Sylar to his father.

I really like the apparent direction the show is going. The prospect of having our heroes living in the underground as they try to elude the government has the potential to present some very exciting television. Heroes is definitely a show that I intend to keep my Tivo programmed to record every week and I’m sure I’ll want to buy the rest of the DVDs as they come available.

I finally figured out as I was watching tonight’s episode, however, why my enthusiasm for this show sometimes wavers. It came to me as I thought of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Most of that movie seemed to be centered around the build-up to the climactic battle at Helm’s Deep and the associated tension that went along with it. As long as that build-up continued, every element of it ratcheted up the tension more and more until, when the battle actually commenced, all of that tension was released and the resulting energy paid off all of my expectations, and more.

It seems to me that Heroes is forever stuck in the “build-up” mode and the eventual releasing of the tension that is supposed to happen at the end of their volumes isn’t as satisfying as it should be. This goes back all the way to the very first season which I loved, but by the time the season finale arrived, the climactic battle that had been hyped for the entire season, just kind of happened in a very staged way that left me feeling kind of cheated out of all of my efforts as a viewer.

So you might be asking, what do I like about this show? Well, I do like the Peter Petrelli, Matt Parkman, and Mohinder Suresh team-up. I still really enjoy Hiro and Ando and I hope that Hiro gets his powers back soon. I really like the threat of the government hunting down people with abilities and I think some exciting times are in store with that storyline.


What don’t I like? I’m not thrilled with Sylar. Personally I think Sylar should have died at the end of the first season so the heroes could encounter a new and different threat. I don’t like Noah’s flip-flopping between is-he-good-or-is-he-bad? I like him when he’s good, and I like him when he’s bad, I just wish they’d make up their freakin’ mind! (Something that the preview for next week is promising to resolve… yeah, we’ll see.) And I’m starting to get really annoyed by Claire. She’s starting to seem like one of those annoying kids you see in movies who’s always wandering off chasing their lost pet and getting into trouble that almost kills everyone, but nobody ever does anything to stop the kid in the first place. They either need to lock Claire up like they keep threatening to, or Claire needs to finally go out on her own and get over her misguided loyalty to Noah and her attachment to her real father/creep Nathan.

I still have high-hopes for this show. I think the storylines have real potential but I think that the writers need to be brave enough to break out of some of the seemingly crippling formulas they’ve developed. And for crying out loud, it’s OK not to show us every one of the main characters in every episode. You can cover just one storyline from start to finish in a show and I don’t think the world would end.

But really… I do like this show.

What's Wrong With Heroes?

What's wrong with Heroes? No, I don’t mean the kind of heroes that inspire you to be better than you are—we need more of those. No, I mean Heroes, the NBC series that’s due to start it’s next season on Monday with a three hour event which includes a one hour recap show and two new episodes.

So, what do I think is wrong with Heroes? Simply put, there’s no danger anymore! They’ve already shown us in recent commercials that the Nicki/Jessica character, who supposedly perished in a fiery explosion at the end of last season, is alive and well. They’ve shown us that Nathan Petrelli, who was gunned down at the end of last season is also very much sporting a pulse.


So why is this a problem? There’s no danger to the show anymore. If you take away the possibility that a character can actually die, then you take away what makes a show suspenseful and thrilling.

Take ABC’s Lost, for example. How many characters who were set up to be series regulars have we seen get killed and actually stay dead? There was Boone and his sister Shannon who seemed to be almost as well rooted into the story as the three main characters and they died. We sadly saw my personal favorite character Charlie Pace drown at the end of the third season. With all of these deaths, I have no doubt that Michael actually did die in the boat explosion at the end of the last season. Additionally, whenever any of the characters is facing danger, there’s an added edge to the fact that it could really be the end for them.

So, back to Heroes: the first time this non-dying problem bothered me was at the end of season one where Sylar should have died. It would have been appropriate for that to be the end and for a new and badder villain to be introduced at the beginning of season two, but instead, they just had him lay low for a while only to come back stronger than ever in this upcoming season. For me, that’s when they lost it. They could have made it into a high-stakes show where nobody is safe, but instead they left it an episodic romp where everybody is literally invincible. Where’s the excitement in that?


What can they do to fix it? Well, I don’t mean to sound bloodthirsty or anything, but they need to kill off a major character and really mean it! Any angst the Peter experiences would mean so much more if it were because he was dealing with the hole left in his life by Nathan’s death. How much more would we root for Micah and his cousin and their fight against evil if we knew that they really had seen his mother die in that explosion (which, by the way, I’m convinced that we’ll see the once-believed-dead DL pull her out just before the big boom).

Anyway, I’ll still watch the show because I’m hoping that they can improve it, but if they don’t change something soon and make it a lot more engaging, it’ll quickly change from a “Gotta See It” show to a “I’ll Catch It If I Can” one.

DVD Review: The Office, Season 4

I've been a fan of NBC's The Office since season one, and I have all of them on DVD. I'm also a compulsive collector, so when Season Four was recently released, my completist tendencies compelled me to buy it immediately.

I'll admit that this wasn't my favorite season of all, probably because of it's abbreviated length due to the angst caused by the writer's strike. But I was hoping that the relatively high price of $29.99 at Target (on sale) was a sign that there were some great bonus features included on the set.

I have to say that I am quite disappointed. Out of the 14 episodes that make up this season (many of which were double-length) only 5 have commentaries. I haven't gotten into the deleted scenes, but I know there are quite a few of those. There are a couple of other bonuses, but all in all, not enough to justify the high price.

I don't regret buying it, but I think if I had known I might have waited for the inevitable after Thanksgiving doorbuster sales to buy a copy at a really great price.

TV Review: Journeyman

Topping off the hero sandwich that makes up just about the most perfect night of television is Journeyman on NBC, Mondays at 10:00 (PST).  At first, one might think that this is a re-imagining of the NBC show from years back, Quantum Leap. I’ll admit, it has it’s similarities, but the major and most important difference is that our hero Dan Vassar, played by Kevin McKidd, is attempting to have a normal life with a wife and kid as he uncontrollably jumps away on time-traveling trips.

It’s the uncontrollable nature of his traveling that makes for some of the most interesting drama on the show. In the first episode he was able to provide some proof to his wife Katie, played by Gretchen Egolf, that his time-traveling tales are true, but that still doesn’t make it easy when he jumps away on one of his trips in the middle of an airplane ride, or on the way to one of his wife’s black tie functions.

The more Dan travels back into the past, the more determined he’s becoming to try to help people. As we saw in last night’s episode, “Emily,” he was feeling committed to helping the title character, but he also felt a need to see some justice done to one of her tormenters. As he did so, his ex-fiancee/co-time-traveler, Livia, played by Moon Bloodgood, warns him not to stray too far off track, because sometimes that can lead to disaster.

(SPOILER) Dan feels vindicated when he learns that his actions had brought justice to the man who had abused, but then he quickly realizes that by making sure the bad guy got caught, he had changed the timeline and in doing so took away an event that was helping his disbelieving brother believe Dan’s time-traveling stories.

From the previews of next week’s episode, “Blowback,” we also see that the man that Dan was instrumental in locking up in prison is out and has tracked down Dan and his family. It looks to be an exciting installment in this show that keeps getting better every week.

My only complaint about Journeyman is the fact that it was relatively easy for him to prove to his wife that his time-traveling problem was real, but he rarely, if ever makes any attempt to prove what he’s saying is true to his brother, Jack, played by Reed Diamond. While it makes for an interesting plot device to have this conflict between the two brothers, sometimes it seems a bit too obvious that if he just made a little effort, he could have his brother on his side, which would provide a valuable asset.

All in all, in this age of excellent television, Journeyman ranks up there with the best of the new shows this season and is definitely worth checking out!

New TV Round Up

I remember a few years back when there were only one or two shows on that I’d bother taking the time to program my VCR to record. Most everything else I could take or leave. Some of these shows, like Survivor, I’d start watching regularly out of habit more than actually seeking it out because I was a fan.

Nowadays, though, television has changed dramatically… and for the better! There are so many good returning and new shows on now that I’m seriously considering letting some fall by the wayside simply because I don’t have the time for all of them.

Returning Shows

I’ve enjoyed NBC’s The Office since it’s American premier. I think it’s grown beyond what the original creators thought it could and it doesn’t show any signs of wrapping up or wearing down. I was worried a bit about how they were going to handle the show now that the two main romantic hopefuls were finally together, but from the looks of it I think the office antics will keep the show from falling into the hole that most shows experience when the romantic tension is gone.

My Name is Earl is another show on NBC that is going strong. I really enjoy these “sit-coms” that don’t feel the need to beat you over the head with a laugh track every time the writers felt they were being funny. Instead they deliver a more subtle humor that in many cases tends to be more intelligent.

If you’ve never seen My Name is Earl, check it out. It seems to fly just below many people’s radars while it’s possibly one of the best-written comedies out there.

It seems like a few years ago, a show like NBC’s Heroes wouldn’t have had enough support from the network enough to give it a fair chance to grow an audience. I’m glad that such a well-conceptualized show is being given so much network respect. I think this is positive fallout from the success of ABC’s Lost, which is supposed to return in January or February sometime.

Heroes is definitely a show that I make a point of to see every episode even if I have to record it or buy it online. (Although I don’t think I’ll be buying it anytime soon since it’s no longer available on the iTunes Music Store.)

New Shows

The first show that made me start to feel very optimistic about the new TV season is NBC’s Chuck starring Zachary Levi (Less Than Perfect). Chuck is a well-written, frequently very funny show about a computer repair nerd who accidentally get’s thousands of the nation’s secrets implanted in his brain. Since he then becomes the only “copy” of the materials the government has he becomes enlisted by two competing spy agencies to assist them in protecting the country. This is a show that doesn’t try to take itself too seriously but is a lot of fun!

The Bionic Woman, which is also on NBC (a trend?), was developed by The SciFi Channel’s Battlestar Galactica co-executive producer David Eick, and I think the connection shows. Beyond the obvious connection of being a campy 70’s show that’s been updated for modern audiences, it also has the same dark feel of BSG, and many of the minor actors.

While normally this would be the type of show I would be excited to embrace, when placed up against all of the other great shows on the air, this is surprisingly one that I’m thinking of making a conscious effort to skip. Really, how much time can I spend watching TV every week? Especially considering the three shows that I’ve saved for last—

At first glance, NBC’s Journeyman would appear to be a re-imagining of the show Quantum Leap. While in some aspects this is true, the creators have done an excellent job of making the characters and situations seem very real and believable (within the reality of the show), so that I feel much more of a connection with the time traveling Dan Vassar, played by Kevin McKidd (Rome, Nicholas Nickleby).

Journeyman has enough of an episodic flow with self-contained storylines that it should be an easy show for viewers to pick up on without feeling too lost, but there’s also the ongoing mystery of why he’s time traveling in the first place, that should be an interesting topic to explore. This show is quickly becoming one of my favorites.

One new show that I really didn’t expect to like as much as I do is NBC’s Life. The premise of the show is that a former police officer returns to the force after having been framed and wrongfully imprisoned for years. While in prison Charlie Crews, played by Damian Lewis (Band of Brothers), gets a keen insight into the criminal mind, and also develops his own unique perspective on life. All of this combines into an investigative technique that is really fun to watch unfold.

I really think that I’ve saved the best for last with ABC’s Pushing Daisies. I must confess that the thing that initially turned me onto the show is that it was going to be narrated by one of my favorite, but rarely seen, actors Jim Dale (Pete’s Dragon, The Harry Potter Audiobooks—by the way, Jim, if you’re reading this, e-mail me. I’d love to design a Web site for you).

Watching Pushing Daisies is like watching Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It is so well written in a storybook style and the art direction and acting is so charming that it’s a real treat! It really seems like the producers take as much time and care with all aspects of this show that they would normally take on a feature film.

Pushing Daisies is about a pie maker named Ned, subtly played by Lee Pace (Infamous, The Good Shepherd), who has the unusual ability to bring people back from the dead with a touch. He uses this talent by teaming up with a private investigator and touching crime victims and asking them how they died, and then he touches them again and they go back to their dead state. The problem is that if he keeps them alive for longer than a minute, then someone randomly in the vicinity dies instead. Also, in waking up his recently dead childhood sweetheart and keeping her alive, he in unable to touch her or else she’ll become dead again.

I watch every episode of this show with the fear that it’s going to be cancelled because I’ve seen too many good shows that seemed too unique to be embraced by the general public. (Ever heard of Firefly?). I can also imagine that this show would have very high production costs which would mean it would have to do really REALLY well for the network to keep it going.

I’m sure there’s much more out there to watch, but I’m going to try to keep it reasonable. These are the shows that I’m hoping will be embraced by the world at large and have long and fruitful lives. I know that by letting shows like The Bionic Woman go off of my schedule I run the risk of getting wrapped up in a different show that gets cancelled and then having to catch up with this also-ran (if it survives), but I guess that’s a chance I’m going to have to take.

TV Review: The Black Donnellys

When my wife and I first saw commercials for NBC’s The Black Donnellys, we immediately thought that we’d pass. We’ve never been much interested in violent gangster shows and the “family above all” theme that was being tagged to the previews didn’t get us interested. But when Heroes was over and we hadn’t changed the channel yet, we got hooked into watching the premier episode.

What caught our attention was the brief family history as told by Joey “Ice Cream” during his deposition. You see, Joey, in prison, narrates every episode. He’s either talking to his lawyer, the cops, his cell mate, anyone who’ll listen. Actually he has such a motor mouth it’s a wonder he didn’t bring down the family years ago, but that’s the charm of it—there's enough comic relief to lighten-up what would otherwise be a very dark show.

The Black Donnellys is about 4 Irish-American brothers whose family has ties to the Irish Mafia. The oldest of the boys, Tommy, has good intentions, but constantly has to clean up the messes his delinquent brothers are making, and in the process he inadvertently positions himself to be the leader of the neighborhood—ultimately destined to command the Irish mobs, in time.


As the weeks have gone by we’ve enjoyed this show more and more. Last Monday, unfortunately, it wasn’t on! After some digging around on the Internet I’ve learned to my great disappointment that NBC appears to have cancelled it. I thought for sure, that with the success of The Sopranos and The Godfather, that this show was bound to be a hit. I thought that the fact that none of my family or friends were watching it was just a reflection on my family and friends, not the country at large!

Currently NBC is continuing to show the unaired episodes of the show online at www.nbc.com. the are also available on iTunes. I know that networks track the traffic they get in such systems, so consider this my appeal to the world to visit NBC, watch at least the pilot episode and see if you don’t agree that it is a great show. Maybe we can get NBC to give The Black Donnellys another chance!