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Veronica Mars gets all charged up.

It would’ve probably been a more appropriate title had someone actually flown, but “Fight or Flight” seems to fit with where this show is going. Rather than just kinda keeping the snail’s pace that it has been, the powers that be decided to finally start moving things ahead a little bit, with three of the four plots getting much needed boosts by the end. There was a small amount of backstory given, regarding Parkman’s Dad, and they thankfully gave the week off to the stories that weren’t going anywhere (Claire, Wondertwins). It really feels like there are hints that things are starting to go somewhere. We finally got our first really awesome sequence, but also some really lame sequences. There was some stuff that didn’t need to be there at all, but an awesome new character. This might be the episode where things start to turn around (I hope). What was good and what was bad? Find out after the jump…

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Finally, the show is getting kinda good again. Not great, mind you, but pretty solid. It’s almost as if they figured out what was bad about the first three episodes, and in the span of a week, did what they could to rectify those issues. They pared down the number of major plots to a manageable four-ish (three of the four had a few side-scenes with other characters) stories. They moved some things ahead a bit, even if we don’t know where it’s all headed. More after the jump…

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Lost?

I don’t know what it is about this season (maybe the sophomore slump?) but I’m just not digging it this year. If it weren’t for the superpowers and colorful, flashy , and incredibly easy-to-watch cinematography, I’d probably be bailing right now. The storylines are either unfocused and all over the place, or they’re not going anywhere. Out of the five stories that were continued from the last two episodes, only two of them progressed at all, despite the fact the the other three dominated the running time. The return of Sylar was minorly underwhelming, and I don’t really know who was looking forward to Nikki and the kid coming back. More after the jump…

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Why is it that I enjoy watching this show, but, with one or two notable exceptions, never feel like I enjoyed it a few hours later? It’s completely entertaining and engaging, yet seems to never leave its audience fulfilled. Even the cliffhangers, which inexplicably tell us that the story is “to be continued” when we already assume that, don’t seem to make me want to watch next week’s installment immediately, the way that LOST or 24 in their primes did. I think this all comes down to story structure. More after the jump…

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For as weak and unfulfilling as last year’s finale was, this episode was everything a season premiere should be. It took nearly all of the incredibly good-looking characters from last year (seriously, are there any average-looking people besides Parkman and Hiro in this world?) and put them into new and intriguing storylines, with mostly success, and it introduced a bunch of new faces into the mix as well. It effectively created plenty of new mysteries and raised lots of questions, but as we’ve learned in the past, how well they pay off is anyone’s guess. More after the jump…

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After last season’s horribly uninteresting Heroes finale, I was fully prepared to cut my losses and walk away from the show altogether. Unfortunately, Kristin Bell’s loveliness has thwarted my plans once again with its beautiful blonde locks and snappy come-backs by joining the cast (for a few episodes anyway) in its second season (so says TV Guide.com). Not nearly as exciting as the almost-news a few weeks back that she would be spending time on the Lost island, it is nonetheless good to know that we won’t have to wait until her movie with Jason Segel to catch a glimpse of Ms. Veronica Mars acting all sassy.

Her character on Heroes is described as a “sexy, myserious young lady” which sounds like a role she could play while in a coma. I for one can’t wait until next week when we find out this news was bogus and that she’ll actually be joining the cast of Jericho.

Thanks Andrea for the tip!

“If I hear ’save the cheerleader’ one more time I’m gonna execute every last one of you m@therf#ckers.”

What the hell was that?

A few months ago Wired magazine did a profile of Heroes creator Tim Kring, and it kind of confirmed what I had long suspected: Kring is the weakest link in the Heroes food chain. He seems uninterested in the material he produced and instead hands off most of the heavy lifting to a staff of incredibly talented comic book writers. When I saw that last night’s season finale was written by Kring, I new we were screwed. More on that after the break…

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Show lots of things happenin’ at once…MONTAGE!

First and foremost, how lame is it that Nathan Petrelli uses “All Night Long”* “All Right Now” as his campaign song when the episode is called “Landslide” and we all know that Fleetwood Mac make for the best political celebrations. But enough of about that, I’m totally swamped so let’s get right to the good stuff (after the break…).

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Mommy issues.

I’d say the hard part is going to be convincing an audience that there are still surprises left in a series that has all ready told us how thing may or may not end up. After last week’s relentlessly amazing look at a possible future, its expectedly rough to go back and have to wade through action that will inevitably lead to a moment we are all certain will transpire one way or another. So over the next two episodes (three hours), we’ll have to try to convince ourselves we’re having a good time even though there is only one moment we really want to see: does someone go nuclear and level Manhattan or not?

Regardless of which event transpires, it can’t possibly be all that exciting. We know its coming. Unless of course, the writers do the right thing and take us in a direction none of us expected, which is what they’re being paid for in the first place, right?  At this stage in the game, that’s what I’m rooting for and I’m afraid anything shy of the complete unexpected will be a tremendous let-down (I wonder if this would still be the case if “Five Years Gone” hadn’t blown me away?). Monday’s episode was surprise and suspence free. Everyone did exactly what the paintings and comic books said they needed to do, leaving me, the viewer, bored beyond belief. There’s more after the jump…

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Okay, I’ve made it very well known that I am not a Heroes die-hard and that nine times out of ten when matching Heroes against just about anything else that I watch regularly I’d probably chose the unknown latter… but last night’s episode was f—ing awesome. It was so awesome I’m contemplating never watching the show again.

The episode did exactly what you want from televised narrative entertainment: in 20 short weeks it took a character like Peter Petrelli, the world’s biggest pansy/whiner and transformed him into the ultimate badass. The end sequence with future Hiro and Peter storming the homeland security building was right out of the first Matrix and yet better. Perhaps its because we never really see anything — only flashes of what might have just happened. Heroes does a terrific job at misdirection. You’d think a show about people with super powers would be chalk full of special effects, but if you watch closely we rarely see the goods. You know what that’s called? Filmmaking.

Now, the awesomeness of “Five Years Gone” was largely due to the episode taking place five years in the future — a future that we likely will not see again assuming Hiro does, in fact, save the day. This is why I may jump ship on the show. What we saw in the episode, complete with its X-Men themes on hunting down those who are different, almost came off as something of a tease. I mean, is this show really capable of delivering that week in and week out. The track record suggests the answer is no, so why not go out on top.

The problem is that Future Heroes is far more interesting to watch than Regular Heroes, in that it makes the show actually about something on a bigger scale. Suddenly the series could be as much about the war on terror as it is on saving the damn cheerleader. There’s HRG and his underground railroad. There’s Parkman working for the man. And there’s The Man who may or may not always be Sylar. Most importantly though, there’s politics, which have always had a significance in the comic-book world. It would be an absolute shame if we never go back here, but HERE is really really good.

Arrrgh! I guess I’m locked in for the rest of the season. You have to see if the day is in fact saved, though right now I’ll be rooting for evil. Evil promises the best future for television drama.

Whoo! We did it! We did it!

As the 2006/2007 TV season winds to a close, it’s kind of interesting/sobering to look at the network schedule and see which of those “highly toted” new shows from last fall actually made it all the way. Even more interesting is to try to figure out which of those shows impressed people enough to get second seasons.

According to my count the following were clearly strong enough (or at least received well enough by critics) to make it from the fall to the spring mostly intact: Jericho, Shark, Ugly Betty, Heroes, 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights, ‘Til Death and The Game. Of those, you can really only grant the distinction of being a “hit new show” to Heroes, Ugly Betty and Shark — all of which are expected to return next fall.

Also interesting is that Heroes is the only true serial (perhaps Ugly Betty to a lesser degree) that caught viewer’s attention this year despite “the serialized drama” being the hot genre going into the fall of 2006 (The Nine, Six Degrees, Other Number Based Drama anyone?). Apparently people who are not myself only have so much tolerance for interweaving storylines.

As for those shows that didn’t make it out alive, they’re numbers are too plentiful to count. Not like we’re really missing anything too significant. Outside of Friday Night Lights, which made it from start to finish despite still being on the bubble for a season two, there really weren’t that many new shows this season that broke any significant ground artistically. Are there people out there still wiping away tears because Kidnapped didn’t make it past its fourth week? Probably, but we didn’t really want to be friends with those people anyway, did we? Look, at least they’re got a DVD release, which is more than I can say for fans of Andy Richter Controls the Universe.

May sweeps, the period in which network television tries to pull out all the stops in an attempt to skewer their ratings higher so they can charge more for advertising, started last Thursday, April 26th. Why Thursday? I’m not entirely sure, but would imagine it is due to the desire to keep the four week period clear of Memorial Day weekend, where the only people watching televsion are fans of mid-round NBA playoffs and losers like me. Sweeps concludes on Wednesday, May 23rd.

The good news is that all of your favorite shows (and even more of your least favorite shows) will be brand spankin’ new, complete with didn’t-see-that-coming twists and turns as well as celebrity cameos, shocking allegations, animals, trick photography and CG talking appliances. In other words, all the reasons in the world to avoid enjoying the outdoors for these few weeks when the weather isn’t suppose to be rainy or so hot you’re convinced you just might take home the pot in your Apocalypse is Nigh pool at work.

Here’s what I’m looking forward to watching:

• Seeing whether those crazy S.O.B.s over there at Lost can actually pull off the unimaginable: making some sense of this sometimes maddening season.
• Enjoying Heroes a few more times before it joins Lost in the category of shows that fell victim to second season frustrations.
• Jordin or Melinda?
• There are still more episodes of How I Met Your Mother, right? Seriously, that show has been especially MIA these past few months.
• Tony Soprano gets wacked or joins the witness protection program or retires to Vermont or god-forbid just goes on with his life as we’re left holding the cable bill

What are you anxious for? Or perhaps the better question would be, are you just anxious for the season to be over all ready?

Mark your calendars!

Mohinder knocked out Sylar with a world map?

All in all a good episode, though I suspect it would have been better had I not read Watchmen years ago. Not that the two are all that similar, but having a villain whose goal is wreak havoc “for the greater good” seems curiously familiar — almost to the point of distraction. How can you make a comic book television show with a rabid fan-boy base and not have people connect the dots back to one of the seminal achievements in graphic storytelling? Look, we still have a few episodes left and maybe things won’t head in this direction, but for a show that took as long as it did to prove itself to me as a serious force, squandering all of this on a great ending we’ve all ready seen would be quite the kick in the balls.

All that being said, Malcolm McDowell is rightfully awesome as Linderman. I anxiously await his plans execution, or whatever may be in store.

The Petrelli family reunion was expectedly cold on all fronts. Claire did her best to put a friendly midwestern face on the proceedings, but was met with shrugs and general upper-class under-the-rug sweeping.

Personally, my favorite parts of this week’s episode involved HRG and Parkman’s game of wordless follow-the-leader. Good stuff. I look forward to their adventures in the coming weeks with the Molecular Man.

As for everyone-but-me’s favorite, Hiro, he’s probably making the time-travel fans salivating over his space-time-continuum bending exploratory side-adventure… with himself. Confused? I was. I can’t wait until I have to draw a flowchart to keep track of which alternate future we’re currently enjoying.

So sad about Isaac, but you can only paint so much before you’re ready for the lobotomy. Just ask Edvard Münch.

Remember when…

It’s been a long time. Too long. Honestly, I can’t even remember how things ended when we last saw our super-powered friends. Was Peter about to die, or was it Mohinder? Either way the momentum was completely killed. Now it’s three months later and we’re suppose to still be excited. Not so.

Look, at 9:59:59 PM EDT tonight, I’ll probably have been won over to the point of girly squealing, but right now at 4:48:05 PM EDT I just couldn’t care less. I’m far more interested in seeing if Drive can continue to win me over or what’s in store on Everybody Hates Chris (which is also returning after a long haitus). This is a problem. I would also suspect that this is a problem facing many Heroes fans.

I have friend(s) at work who have been spending the past few weeks enjoying the Heroes web-comic which NBC has been posting on-line since the show went off the air (actually all season), and whose story has continued despite the show being off-air. I hear they are very good and fill in a lot of details the show wouldn’t have had time to explore. I’m for this, but also against it. I’m glad there’s a place we can go to get stories involving the characters we like, but I find all of this tangential material tedious. What do they really want from us? That being said, my web-comic-reading friends are still very enthusiastic about the show and are anxiously awaiting its return… in five hours.

How about you? What lengths are you willing to go to for entertainment. Personally, last summer’s very lame Office Accountants shorts kind of turned me off to the whole idea. I feel like suplemental material could be effective if it wasn’t produced as something of an afterthought.

“Is that a whale?”

I finally sat down and watched some television last night. It was a pleasurable experience. Enjoyed some Heroes, a little Friday Night Lights, some Lost, Knights of Prosperity, and even managed to formulate some thoughts on the shows, which I’d like to share with you right after the break…

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