Warm Glowing Warming Glow

Days of Future Past

That was pretty cool.  I was getting impatient with all the "The future might look like this?  He could be dating her?" crap, thinking, "Fine, but we're nowhere nearer to stopping the bomb," but then, and then . . . So the big revelation, for me, was that Ando is supposed to die in the explosion.   Yeah, the other big revelation, the one about the B-O-M-B and P-O-T-U-S, was awesome, mind-bending, scary, cool and smart, but the Ando revelation is possibly a bigger deal.  Both of the plot twists were effective, because they set the stakes -- what will happen if the heroes do not stop the bomb is pretty awful -- but we kind of know that one of those twists can't actually occur, but the other -- Ando could actually die -- as far as I know, James Kyson Lee is not on contract. 

This Is a Glove

On the right, is my current project.  On the left, is what it's replacing.  Any questions?

And Still They Won't Believe Me

So the Thomas Dekker/Heroes promotional campaign mini-scandal rages on.  I don't care anymore, but the 7th Heaven clip is pretty funny. 

Upgrade to "Holy Crap"

I watched the rest of Kidnapped this weekend.  (Yeah, yeah.  I already heard the weather was nice.)  Around about episode five or six, it gets really, really good, and then stays that good, up until about the end.  There are a few timekillers that are a little frustrating -- one entire episode devoted to a hostage negotiation you already know is pointless, from watching similar ones on 24 -- in light of the limited amount of time you know you have with a show that was cancelled before the back nine was even ordered.  Overall, though, a great watch: suspenseful, confusing and occasionally funny.  The last few episodes are Veronica Mars-level good -- it's the same combination of disbelief over the number of loose threads and grudging confidence that a respectable number will be tied up.

Good cast, too.  I never got the appeal of Delroy Lindo before, but he's awesome in this.  And what about Dana Delany?  She's really great, and very beautiful.  I'm trying to figure out why she doesn't appear to have aged at all, and I don't get it.  She can still move her eyebrows and she's not muppety at all.  She must have some amazing surgeon or else the people at Olay should study her.   For real.  -- Peter

Not Brilliant, Still Cancelled

When I was giving my DVD report yesterday, I forgot to mention life as we know it.  This was another show that ABC screwed over -- it got dumped onto Thursdays, before ABC and Grey's Anatomy conquered that night.  (This was 2004.)  Then there was a half-hearted attempt to engage the young people by airing re-runs on MTV, but the show never really caught on, which, again, is too bad.

Another problem life as we know it had, besides the timeslot hustle, was indifference from critics and the online tastemakers who should have been its core audience.  You see, the creators were Jeff Judah and Gabe Sachs, two of the writers of actually brilliant but canceled Freaks & Geeks and not actually brilliant but occasionally very funny and cancelled Undeclared.  I'm not sure what happened, but life as we know it, while interesting and occasionally really satisfying, feels generic and false in ways that those other shows don't.  Did the network micromanage? 

Anyway, if you get past the hyper-attractive cast, the ridiculously glamorous shabby/chic set design and the time-suck storylines devoted to the parents, there are good things.  I got completely caught up in the secondary love story, covering the torrid affair between 15-year-old high school student Ben (Jon Foster) and 24-year-old English teacher Miss Young (Marguerite Moreau).

Surprisingly number of familiar faces: Missy Peregrym, who kind of sucks here, is now playing Candace the shapeshifter-or-something on Heroes; Chris Lowell plays the exact same character he plays on Veronica Mars; Lisa Darr was on The Office last night; Natasha Melnick (Cindy Sanders from Freaks & Geeks) is almost unrecognizable -- and really good -- in a recurring role; Busy Philipps appears to be playing herself; Connie Britton and Ione Skye have small parts; Peter Dinklage and Donnelly Rhodes slum for several episodes a piece.   

Brilliant But Cancelled

I've been watching a lot of TV on DVD lately.  In addition to my obsessive re-viewings of the first season of The O.C., the first four seasons of Buffy the Vampire-Slayer, the first two seasons of Veronica Mars and Battlestar Galactica, etc., I've been renting shows that I somehow missed the first time around.  Here are some thoughts:

Invasion.  I think I've talked about this a little before.  It's the alien invasion show that was Lost's lead-out last season.  Invasion started strong, ratings-wise, but then suffered from Lost's sophomore slump and some time slot jiggering (to make way for Alias's final run).  It's a real pity, because this show was smart and relevant.  It did a really neat job of using its sci-fi plot to talk about a range of topics, including divorce, adolescence, immigration, gentrification, social class anxiety . . . I think there were others.  Great production values, excellent score, some great performances (especially Kari Matchett, currently creeping us out as Powers Boothe's assistant/paramour on 24), strong storytelling . . . I was sorry to finish the discs .

Avatar: The Last Airbender.  Animation is kind of a lightning rod genre for me: either I love it, if it's really beautiful and flawless, or else it drives me insane, if it's at all cheap or repetitive.  Even something like The Tick, that was incredibly funny and literate, irritates me because I've got problems with the visual presentation. Avatar is really, extraordinarily beautiful for a television show.  On top of that, the storytelling is very nice.  For a kids' show, it's adult in kind of a refreshing way: it's not throwing in pop culture references for the adults, but it is using fairly sophisticated characterization and storytelling techniques to tell a kids' story.  Note: this show is actually still on the air.  Season 1 and part of season 2 are on DVD.  Season 3 is coming soon, I believe, on Nickelodeon.  Oh, one thing that really sucks about this: Nickelodeon lards its DVDs with hateful amounts of trailers and other forms of bullshit promotion. 

Kidnapped.  Unfairly cancelled after a weak start in a crappy timeslot on loser network HBO.  It's got some problems -- a lot of clichés, some unnecessarily expository dialogue -- but a lot that's good and compelling, too.  I'm only four episodes into the total 13 NBC ordered.  Apparently, those 13 wrap up the story, which is nice.  -- Peter

Icons Such as Cop and Stripper Mom

This is a really good interview with Bryan Fuller, the creator of some of the best recent death-themed TV shows (ie the ones that aren't Six Feet Under) and also, something called, um, Heroes?  There's what sounds like the real story behind the mysterious departure of gay/not-gay Zach, Claire's missing best friend and -- more importantly -- Milo Ventimiglia's coif. 

Save the Dates

It's not too soon to think about your summer plans, specifically what you'll be watching: 

ABC is premiering Traveler, which was I thought supposed to be a mid-season show, on May 10.  The pilot will air again, on May 30.   It's about two graduate students who have to go on the run after possibly being framed by their friend for possibly blowing up the Met or the Guggenheim or some unnamed, totally fictional New York art museum.  We're interested in this because of the cast: Logan Marshall-Green (he was both Trey #2 on The O.C. and William Devane's weepy, bewigged gay son on 24) and Matthew Bomer (originally tapped by Brett Ratner to play Superman, vanished after quitting the soap he was working on at the time) are the guys on the run.  David Nutter directed the pilot.

Hidden Palms premieres on the CW on May 30.  This is Kevin Williamson's new teen soap.  I'm not sure what to expect from it, except that I find the title deeply troubling.  The cast includes several more O.C. alums: Taylor Handey (Oliver) and Michael Cassidy (Zach). 

Kyle XY returns June 11.  As I think I reported, exhaustively, before, I really enjoyed the first season.  It was surprisingly sophisticated and well-acted, once you got past the horrifying, pedophilitastic pilot.

Season 3 of Doctor Who will premiere on Sci-Fi in July. 

The Hills is supposed to return, already, sometime this summer.  We already know a lot: Lauren and Heidi seem to not be speaking to one another.  Heidi may or may not have tried to leak a Lauren-Jason sex tape (sorry and eww), which may or may not exist.  Heidi's alibi is really, really good. 

Veronica Mars Death Watch III

Now Michael Ausiello quotes both Rob Thomas and a CW flak saying that not only is Veronica Mars not canceled (yet), but Veronica Mars, FBI is still in play. 

Veronica Mars Death Watch II

I don't know what to think.  Earlier in the week, USA Today reported that Veronica Mars had already been canceled.  Today, the Toronto Star says, no, but the Special Agent Mars idea is probably dead.  Who to believe?  Of course, the USA Today report isn't sourced at all, whereas the Star was talking to Sheriff Mars himself, so I'm still optimistic.  I'm thinking we can forget about a Veronica-Piz romance, though: Chris Lowell is on the Grey's Anatomy spin-off.