Warm Glowing Warming Glow

NBC Team-Up

I'm still deciding what I thought about last night's Heroes.  I think I'm going to decide that I liked it and actually, maybe having a lot to think about and discuss is a sign of high quality in a television show, in itself, no matter if the resulting thoughts and comments are mostly negative.  Maybe not.  Anyway, yeah, some problems:

-- We never got a satisfying explanation for D.L. taking the bullet for Niki, when he could have just as easily phazed her out of the path of the bullet.  I think that what really happened was that D.L. didn't have time to think of the best response to a speeding bullet and instinctively put himself in the way of the woman he kind of sort of used to love or something. 

-- Also confusing: why did Peter need Nathan to fly him out of the atmosphere?  I guess maybe he was overwhelmed by the feeling of imminent explosion and couldn't use his other powers?  It seems like someone could have said something about that. 

-- Not clear why Peter was the one who had to face off against Sylar (except dramatic potential): yeah, Peter's much more powerful than any of the other heroes, but as it turns out, the only borrowed power he used was Niki's super-ass-kicking, which he didn't even acquire until mid-fight . . . No big, CGI-laden fight between the two titans, which seems like a missed opportunity.

-- Love, hope, save the cheerleader, yada yada yada . . . So it seems like maybe Claire and Peter saved the day by guilting Nathan into sacrificing himself, thereby foiling Linderman and Angela Lansbury Petrelli's master plan?

-- No real stakes: D.L., Parkman, Ando and Bennet all still alive, despite various wounds, prophecies and dramatic opportunities; Sylar possibly alive (albeit in cockroach form?), Peter and Nathan probably alive, due to deus ex contract, which means saving the world cost everyone exactly nothing, except, assumedly, some radiation from Peter's semi-apocalyptic hissy fit.

BUT:

-- Really impressive and cool how many of the loose ends got wrapped up in 40-some minutes.

-- Big showdown at Kirby Plaza, despite anti-climactic nature, still kind of cool, especially Nathan and Peter zipping off into space.

-- Bennet promising to kill Peter, if need be. 

-- "Call me Noah." 

-- "You look badass."  "Really?"

Dude, Where's Your Other Hand?

I think I liked just about 100% of last night's Heroes.  All week I was thinking, "Oh, Heroes.  Nothing's going to happen on you until the season finale."  Then yesterday afternoon, I thought, "Oh, maybe they'll set up a good cliffhanger to resolve on the finale . . ."  Which they did and actually, I'm almost afraid to talk about the series of plot twists and stunts, for fear of presenting as a gaping fan boy.  Eric Roberts -- dead! Ted -- dead!  Linderman -- dead!  D.L. -- dying?  Candice -- fat?  OK, I actually don't care about Candice's weight that much -- or Ted or D.L., for that matter.  D.L. dispatching Linderman was pretty cool -- it's been nagging at me, though.  Have we seen that move somewhere before?  Did Kitty Pryde ever do something like that? 

Should we talk about the political subtext of Heroes?  I've certainly detected certain messages in recent episodes.  "Five Years Gone," seemed, in part, to be about September 11.   In this episode, we had Micah using his powers to get Nathan into Congress.  I'm not sure what to say about that, except that we really have to consider the dangers of super-powered children tampering with electronic voting machines.

Any thoughts on what's coming next week?  Boom? -- Peter

My Life Before My Liberty

One of the pleasures of Heroes is trying to predict which book or movie the writers will shamelessly rip off next.  I'm trying to remember if they've pulled out The Manchurian Candidate before, and I don't think they have to the extent they did in last night's episode ("The Hard Part").  This was a nice episode for Cristine Rose -- sometimes she's a little too much for me, but scenes like the ones she had with Claire ("Now let's talk about gloves.") and Nathan (almost a complete paraphrase of the famous scene from The Manchurian Candidate) really highlighted her strengths.  I'm kind of slow, though -- I guess I thought that she and Linderman represented rival conspiracies and that she was a force for good.  Now it's clear that Claire escaping from Eric Roberts was really just slipping from the frying pan into the fire. 

Elsewhere . . . no real forward momentum with Hiro and Ando.  At this point, it's hard to feel a great deal of suspense because we know that nearly all of the characters have to be around for the big season finale conflagration/showdown, not just because it makes sense dramatically, but because we learned they would be in last week's episode, when Hiro and Ando traveled to the future.  Any deviation from that version of the future would steal from the inevitability we're supposed to feel about the apocalypse. So, no, didn't really expect Hiro to be able to kill Sylar.  Did enjoy seeing Ellen Greene (Sylar's Mom) again, however.   

Where the Hell did that gun come from, though?  Peter just found it in the sideboard, wrapped in a napkin, right?  The Hell?  Don't kids live in that house? 

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. 

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. 

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. 

Can One of Them Be Mohinder?

Sci Fi Wire has some minor, not-very-spoilery scoop on the Heroes season finale here.  It's funny how promising to kill off major characters remains a great P.R. move.  What's going on?  Do most viewers hate most of the characters on their favorite shows?  Is it reality television's influence?  It doesn't seem like anything's happening unless someone exits?

"I've been controlling animals since I was six."

Another week of Sweeps stunts:

24.  Wow.  James Cromwell is a bastard.  "Don't make me murder my grandson."  That's the most passive-aggressive threat ever.  Kind of a thrilling chase at the end, with Milo and DoomedSisterInLaw. 

Heroes.  Eh.  Felt like reading water until next week, when, according to the NBC promotions monkeys, "Someone's going to fly, someone's going to die."  I'm trying to think if we learned anything new or saw anything cool.  Oh, Sylar can now melt pots and pans.  That was cool.  Jessica as member of the Linderman equivalent of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad was kind of fun, although it got less fun when Parkman survived being thrown out a window. 

Gilmore Girls.  Chris and Lorelai . . . I wasn't really paying attention during their final break-up scene, because I was listing all the lost opportunities in my head: I think it was a serious mis-step to give Emily that speech about how Lorelai has to learn to compromise if she wanted to save her marriage and then never pay that off.  Rory and Logan . . . I was hoping they were going to play Rory's crush on the T.A. a little differently.  I'm still waiting for Logan to be revealed as the philanderer we all kind of know he is.  Maybe the Rosenthal regime likes Logan?  I still find him smarmy.

Veronica Mars. Well, hell.  A week in which Veronica doesn't do anything completely atrocious.  That alone was an improvement.  Plus, we had some serious progress in the Dean Begley, Jr. mystery.  Plus, an interesting A-plot, although I'm going to be sad next week when we learn that pretty, pretty Josh murdered his father.  Not enough Wallace, either: couldn't we have excised a few scenes of Logan getting life lessons from Little Girl God?

Lost.  Slept through, which is too bad, because it sounds like it was a good one?  Stuff happened?  Should I give it another chance?

Ugly Betty.  Another good episode: some funny stuff from Michael Urie, Mark Indelicato and Becki Newton, continuing excellent handling of the Alex/Alexis subplot, good mix of subplots overall.  I wonder if the network is giving the producers notes about how often Eric Mabius has to be shirtless.  Otherwise, I don't understand his story last night.  Oh, right -- stuntcasting!  Lucy Liu is still kind of lost on me.  On the other hand, Jerry O'Connell was pretty good as the homophobic jackass. 

The O.C.  I totally fell for every minute of that.  I mean, not so much Taylor being helpless and stupid, and not so much Kirsten and Sandy's sense of entitlement, but Julie and Kaitlin bonding in the midst of adversity?  Yes.  Ryan appearing to be about to bleed out for the entire freaking hour?  Oh God.  You know, it's the penultimate episode, so I really kind of half thought that they could kill Ryan off.  Really effective, and the meta-stuff was kind of fun, and the trip down memory lane.  Seth trading the Range Rover for the shopping cart was a nice touch and good foreshadowing of decimation of the Cohen mansion. 

The Office.  This was maybe the best episode of the year?  Jim as a vampire?  Steve Carell channeling Ricky Gervais as a motivational speaker?  Creed?  I think any episode that has Creed in it, at all, is automatically really funny.  -- Peter

This Guy Likes Clown Porn

We're already a full week into Sweeps.  Consequently, we're getting "events" (disasters, gun fights, hostage situations, etc.) in lieu of episodes, for our dramatic television shows.  I'm just about caught up, and have some things to say.

Prison Break.  I picked the wrong week to skip, apparently.  Michael and Sara back together?  Sara beating up on Kellermann?  I would have liked to have seen both of those things. 

Heroes.  Dear Jeff Zucker, congratulations on your promotion.  Now, please fire the people who put together the promotional clips for this show, because they suck.  I hate that, week after week, we get the entire episode sketched out for us, during the first minute.  This week alone, those jackasses ruined two potentially suspenseful plot points: the confrontation between Sylar and Horn-Rimmed Glasses and the revelation of Claire's paternity.

24.  After a few boring weeks, I feel like we're back on track.  Yeah, the revelation of who's really behind Graem was heavily, heavily telegraphed, and I also don't really care about where that story's going.  On the other hand, McCarthy nabbing Morris is promising. 

Gilmore Girls.  A pretty dour episode, but not bad.  I actually mis-read the Emily ghoul/loving wife flip-flop they pulled and felt a little ripped off by it.  Kelly Bishop really rocked the whole episode, though.  Chris has completely devolved in -- what?  -- two episodes?  That reads as a little fast for my tastes, although I'm also completely ready for the Luke-Lorelai reconciliation, which says something : at the end of last season, I was ready to give up on Luke.  Meanwhile, when are we going to get the rug pulled out from under us with Logan?  I still don't trust him, but time is running out. 

Veronica Mars.  Two episodes in a row in which Veronica does something really, really bad: last week, it was blackmailing that judge, this week it was ordering Madison's car stolen.  I want Wallace to come back -- from wherever he is -- and kick her ass. 

Lost.  Less boring than I was expecting.  I liked the Juliet flashbacks.  Did anyone else notice that she was married to Edmund Burke?  First we had Locke, then Rousseau . . . How long until we meet Desmond's friend Frank Voltaire?

Ugly Betty.  Holy crap.  Best episode yet.  I can't believe how deftly they're handling the Alex/Alexis plot twist.  It's not just how cleverly and sensitively they're doing the gender reassignment subplot, it's how perfectly they're pacing the show right now.  It's rare to see a show where a fast pace and sensationalist storylines are balanced with character stuff, at all, let alone this well.  Michael Urie gets better and better, too. 

The O.C.  This is an example of bad pacing.  Just give us the damned earthquake already.  Oh, but the Kaitlin stuff was really good -- funny, not too tedious (unlike the Taylor-Ryan stuff), and well-acted.  -- Peter

Come Back, TV!

Television is starting to trickle back from this long hiatus around Christmas.  I thought it might be helpful to start trying to keep track of when we can expect new episodes of important shows:

Sunday, January 14: 24.  Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.  Kiefer's beard looks suitably grody.  (Remember, we've got two whole hours on Sunday and then two more on Monday.)  Spoiler Alert: This season's day begins at 6:00 AM, possibly Eastern Time and Chloe might have a new hairstyle.  That's all we know.  Also tonight: Brothers & Sisters, for what it's worth.  Tonight's episode begins Jason Lewis's arc as a closeted soap star/love interest for Kevin. 

Monday, January 15: More 24.  Also, the Golden Globes, which -- huh.  I had no idea they were already here.  Another spoiler: because they are on NBC, no one will watch them.

Thursday, January 18: The Office, My Name Is Earl, Scrubs, 30 Rock, Ugly Betty and The O.C. are all new. 

Sunday, January 21: Battlestar Galactica returns!  The new episode is entitled "Rapture," which is scary, because remember, when last we left off, Adama was going to nuke the crap out of everything in order to keep the Cylons away from that McGuffin that has something to do with everyone finding their way to Earth.  Meanwhile, on Brothers & Sisters, Marion Ross does what she does best -- stink up the joint as a difficult matriarch.

Monday, January 22: Prison Break returns and so does Heroes.  Prison Break will be picking up the whole lame conspiracy/Terrence Steadman non-murder non-mystery.  Christopher Eccleston joins Heroes.

Tuesday, January 23: Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars are both back.  Gilmore Girls is a Christmas episode, apparently.  The Hell?  I guess we're skipping over Rory's Christmas in London with Logan, despite all the anvils being dropped this spring about the Orbit girl.  Veronica Mars is a Mac episode (yay!) as well as -- duh -- the beginning of the Ed Begley, Jr. murder mystery. -- Peter