TV Talk: Catching Up

A few very, very brief notes about TV stuff that isn't LOST or Battlestar Galactica (whose series finale was amazing - more on that later)...

Heroes - I never did rejoin the show after the winter break, and I deleted my season pass for it, but I heard that Bryan Fuller's first show aired last night, and I was wondering if it was worth him leaving Pushing Daisies? Seriously, was it any good, or any different?

24 - This season has been really good, in case you're wondering.

Fringe - The show returns to Tuesdays on FOX on April 7 (2 weeks from tonight). I'm really looking forward to it starting up again. I miss Walter and Peter, and I'm starting to like Olivia.

Castle - I've seen two episodes so far, and liked them both, mostly on the strength of Nathan Fillion's many charms. It feels like a throwback to 80s shows like Remington Steele and Moonlighting, which is OK. I just sort of wish that the crimes themselves were a little bit more interesting.

Kings - I have heard a lot of good things about this, and I would love to see Al Swearengen back on my TV, but I haven't taken the plunge yet.

American Idol and The Biggest Loser - I dropped both of these shows and I do not miss them at all. What a relief to have those bloated monkeys off of my back! (I just realized it sounds like I'm calling BL contestants "bloated monkeys" - I'm not!)

Rock of Love Bus - Yet I am still watching Bret Michael's Rock of Love Bus. Why? Because it's fascinating, in an almost anthropological way. With an occasional anatomy lesson thrown in for good measure.

TV Talk: Winter Doldrums

I really haven't been watching all that much television in recent weeks. Granted that's partly because I've been buried in work from the office, but there's something else going on here. LOST and Battlestar Galactica are both still stay-at-home-and-DVR-high-def-and-standard-def-and-watch-it-in-real-time-appointment-television for me and, yay for that; but more often than not, I seem to be losing interest in some of my favorite shows. Or perhaps some of these shows just aren't as good as they used to be.

We all know how I feel about Heroes now, but I did give it another shot last night and watched it while I worked on some stuff I brought home from the office. I didn't even turn it on until about a quarter of the way through and it was essentially background noise. There was a time when that was unthinkable, and Heroes was appointment TV like LOST and BSG. Not anymore. And you know what? I don't feel like I missed a thing.

I have two episodes of 24 on the DVR, and I really am not in any hurry to watch them. I was never a big fan of Tony's and I think the fact that they brought him back is actually kind of cheesy, so that's a big stumbling block. I love me some Bill Buchanan and Chloe, and I love that they're operating "off the grid", but I really hate that they've put into place the same "who's the mole" scenario at the FBI and the White House, again. Perhaps if the characters this season weren't so boring, I could handle the repetitious set-up. Bring back the Logans, I say!

Fringe is the other show that has been letting me down. The two episodes they've shown since they came back from the holiday break have been mind-numbingly boring and clumsy, with gaping plotholes and poorly drawn new characters - assholish FBI agent in charge, I'm looking at you. And what's with this sister all of a sudden? This is a show without a plan, and it's starting to really show. It's like they want to be a crime procedural like a CSI and a show like LOST or The X-Files with an overarching mystery and mythology and I don't think the combination is working. There is a lot to love - Asteroid, Walter and Peter, Massive Dynamic, kick-ass Olivia - so I will still watch. But they had better get their act together soon!

Sigh. Thank God for Rock of Love Bus.

I Love and Hate My TV v. 2008

My word, the holidays do seem to overwhelm everything more and more each year. Sorry I've been gone so long!

It's time for my second annual "I Love and Hate My TV" posts, wherein I list all of the things that are on or related to the television that either pissed me off or made me very happy.  

This year, I am happy to report that the "Hate" list is far shorter than than the "Love" one.

Things that made me hate my TV:

1.  The death of Warrick on CSI.   Was Gary Dourdan the best actor on the show?  Absolutely not.  Was he smokin' hot and lovely to look at and incredibly cool? AbsoLUTEly.  I guess if I'm going to hate anyone for this, it's Gary Dourdan.  Dude, get your act together and come back to my TV.

2.  CNN's lame election night "hologram".

First off, it's not a hologram.  Second, she's not reporting from the field but from inside a tent, surrounded by cameras.  And she doesn't appear to Wolf - he's talking to thin air.  My only question:  WHY?

3.  This makes me angry and very, very sad:  The cancellation of Pushing Daisies.  I've gone on and on here about what an amazingly creative, heartwarming and hilarious show it is, and how much everyone who doesn't watch it is missing out on something fantastic, so I won't do that now (oops, just did!);  I will, however, ask that if you haven't watched it, please do yourself a favor and watch it when it comes out on DVD.  You won't be disappointed.

4. The Writers' Strike. My hatred of the strike was not based on its merits but on the effect it had on my favorite shows: abbreviated seasons or in some cases - 24 - no season at all. The strike is also partially responsible for #3 on this list. ABC decided not to bring PD back once the strike was over, and it was gone for so long that it completely fell off of people's TV radar.

5. If there was one word to sum up the dismal third season of Heroes, it would have to be STUPID. Almost every plot advancement was the result of a character acting stupidly, and the most glaringly stupid example? In the very first episode, Hiro removed the formula from the safe, right after being told not to by his father, for no other reason than he is bored, setting into motion the entire story arc for the season. Characters like Sylar and Nathan and Elle switched allegiances not only from episode to episode, but multiple times within a single episode, with no obvious motivation. And if there was a reason for the shift, it was - yep, you got it - it was stupid. And I have never watched a television show with more superfluous characters. You could kill off Matt, Mohinder, Meredith, Maya, and the girl who runs really fast and whose name escapes me right now without impacting the storyline AT ALL.

I could go on and on about all of the ways that Heroes disappointed me this season, but I would just be repeating myself. I'm still not sure if I'm going to give it another shot when the new chapter starts up, but if I hear that the story arc will involve a future New York City in peril, I'm done with it for good.

So, those are the ways in which my TV pissed me off or disappointed me in 2008. Was there anything that made you hate your TV?

Later, Part II, the "Love" list!

Heroes: "Villains" Finale

I was able to watch it on Hulu last night (yay, Hulu!), and I have to say, it was entertaining. That's mostly because they kept things moving at a quick pace, not really giving me time to think about what each character was actually doing or saying. Heh.

I mean, when Claire shot the phone?  I was like, "Claire!  Nice!  Use one of your 6 bullets to shoot a phone.  You could have accomplished the same thing by unplugging it from the wall."  And when Noah and Meredith had the Puppet Master, et al held at gunpoint, well, that really shouldn't have worked.  Hello! He can physically control people with his mind!

The thing I have the hugest problem with, however, is Nathan's turn to the dark side.  I know he's been walking the line between good and evil since the beginning, but his love for his brother has always led him to do the right thing.  Not anymore, I guess.  He was willing to leave Peter to burn to death in the Pinehearst fire.  Contrast that with him willing to die as he flew away from NYC with Peter-the-Nuclear-Bomb at the end of the first season, and that's quite the turnaround.  Yes, since that happened Peter did shoot and in fact kill him, so I can maybe understand the shift, but they didn't show us.  Imagine how much more sense it would make if we heard Nathan saying something like, "Because you love me?  Did you shoot me at that press conference and kill me because you loved me?  I'm done, Peter.  I'm done with you, with all of this.  People with abilities are too powerful and cause too much damage in the world, and I'm going to make sure that doesn't happen anymore."  That's all I would have needed, just a couple of sentences.  I'm sure he will make a great Big Bad in the next chapter, and I'll be happy to see Adrian Pasdar featured more prominently, but I just wish it was written better.

Worf as the President, however?  Cool beans!  Also great: "Out of my way, Pikachu."  Hee!

Another cool thing:  Ando has a power!  Uncool: His crummy power is to make everyone else's  powers better.  Once a sidekick, always a sidekick, I guess.

The only people I believe are truly dead: Knox, Blue Fire Hands Man, Puppet Master and his fellow prison posse guys.  I am not convinced that we have seen the last of Sylar - in fact, I'm sure that we haven't - or Meredith, and maybe not even Arthur Petrelli (although I think he may actually be dead).  I hope that Hiro cannot time travel again for a LONG time, possibly never.  And I hope Tracy comes to her senses and ditches Mohinder at the first opportunity!

I am SO glad this chapter is finished. Do I think the next one will be better? No, not really.  Will I tune in again, at the risk of being bitterly disappointed, AGAIN? Probably.  But there is still a glimmer of hope and I'm not ready to let go completely.

Just be forewarned: If I am disappointed, I will not hesitate to complain, and complain loudly!

Is anyone still watching Heroes?

I am, although I'm not sure why. It's still a really stupid show, but last night? I actually enjoyed a couple of parts, namely Hiro and Claire's stories. Which is really weird because I haven't been enjoying those characters at all this season.

Oh well, the final episode of this chapter airs next week, and that's when I'll pull the plug and delete my season pass.

You know, the really crappy thing about the end of Pushing Daisies is that Bryan Fuller will now be free to write for Heroes again. The show could very well improve drastically with him behind the scenes again (look at the turn-around the LOST writers pulled off). However, as cool as that would be, I'm not sure I want to even give it a chance after this season. For me, an improved Heroes is just not worth the loss of Pushing Daisies. Let Heroes die and bring back the pie maker, I say!

TV Talk: Playing Catchup

Oh, so much TV Talk to catch up on, so let's just jump right in.

I cannot express to you my heartache at the news that Pushing Daisies has, for all intents and purposes, been cancelled by ABC.  The network has declined to pick up any new episodes besides the 13 that are already in the can, "at this time".  The network hasn't actually officially cancelled the show, but it's as good as gone.  They say they might wrap up the story in comic book form, but that is about as appealing to me as, well, comic books are - which is NOT AT ALL.  Such a shame.

I have a recommendation for you: Spaced, Simon Pegg's BBC comedy that originally aired from 1999-2001.  If you're a fan of "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz" (and The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Star Wars Trilogy - but not Phantom Menace! - for that matter), then you will LOVE "Spaced".  I recorded it when BBCAmerica ran a marathon a couple of months ago - and just watched it on Sunday - but you can rent the DVDs. My love for Simon Pegg knows no bounds.

I am this close to dropping Heroes for good.  I can no longer deal with the inconsistent characterizations, the insipid dialogue and the waste of a perfectly good premise.  It makes me sad that I used to eagerly await each new episode of this show, and now I just don't care.  The time will come soon when I will stop watching altogether.

Sons of Anarchy, however, has continued to amaze me, and last week's penultimate episode (the season finale is tomorrow) was just incredible.  The show did an amazing job of building drama over the season and all of the pieces of the story arc are really coming together, in sometimes heartbreaking ways.  I cannot wait to see what happens next.

I'm hoping they put out a SOA soundtrack.  The music in the show is always fantastic, and this song was put to good use in last week's outro:

Lastly, take a look at this - a new promo for Battlestar Galactica's final episodes, which will begin airing in January:

Woohoo!!

Heroes: Episode 3.07

Eris Quod Sum

Sigh. I am actually beginning to ask myself if it's worth watching anymore. I don't hate the show.  No, it's much worse than that - I'm not sure I care what happens anymore.

Robert Forster as Arthur Petrelli - aside from that corny "You're grounded" line - brings some much needed cool to the show, I will give them that. With Nathan and HRG relegated to sub-sub-plots, this show is super-low on cool, so that's a good thing. Unfortunately there aren't many good things left on this show.

Please tell me how in the WORLD Elle got through airport security without setting off every single scanner? She couldn't even keep it under control sitting in Claire's house, for crying out loud. Even if you overlook that little plot hole, who in their right mind would think that putting a human lightning bolt inside a giant, super-conductive metal can at 30,000 feet was a good idea??

And then there's Mohinder. Wasn't he an evil bug man last week? Now suddenly he did it all, including cocooning a couple of perfect strangers in his nesty lab, because he loves Maya? He barely knew her even a day before he injected himself -  because he wanted powers, not because he was trying to find a cure for her - and only after that was he attracted to her. After his experience with The Company last season, why, why, WHY would he even consider working for Pinehearst? I think Mohinder was wrong about himself and he's had a power all this time - the power of Stupidity!

How about Maury Parkman, the man who abandoned his son, has shown absolutely no paternal concern nor any indication that he cares he has a son, who last night was suddenly willing to die to protect him and in fact did just that?  Huh?  Where did that come from?  And I'm sorry, but I just do not buy Matt and Daphne.  Nope.

Sylar used to be scary, like back in season 1.  Now his character is so rudderless that anything he says or does means nothing.  Remember when he was a truly menacing Big Bad, a serial killer with superhero powers and some serious mommy issues?  I suppose he still has the mommy issues, but his transformation into a good guy is way too big a pill for me to swallow.  And to add insult to injury, his arc is written poorly.

OK, so I don't end this on a completely sour note, let's get back to the two other good things in this episode:  Maya may very well be gone for ever and, "Have you met their mother?"  Ha!

By the way, the title means: "You will be what I am".  Do with that what you will.

Is anyone else still watching this show?

Heroes: Episode 3.06

Dying of the Light

So I watched this last night and wow, it was really good! They're still not the brightest bunch of super-powered people, but the storytelling has improved dramatically.

I thought the Russian Roulette scene with Claire and her two mothers was really well done. It had slipped my mind that Claire can heal until she told her mother to shoot her. Knowing that Claire can't die should have drained the scene of suspense or drama, but having her mother be the one to shoot her just amped it up.

I couldn't care less about Parkman, but the turtle is cute. And Daphne's character is developing nicely. A question occurs to me: If in the future that Parkman saw Molly was living with Parkman and Daphne, then where is she now? Wasn't she living with Mohinder and Parkman at the end of last season? Surely she's not still living with Mohinder??

Speaking of Mohinder, I finally realized what it is about him that really bugs: I can't stand his voice and fake accent. He's definitely more interesting as a villainous bug-man, but the voice...it's just so...milquetoast-y? Is that the word I'm looking for?

Tracy continues to outshine Nikki as a character. It doesn't take much to trick Mohinder, but it was still cool when she did.

I'm satisfied with the explanation for Ando's "death" and I'm happy that the situation hasn't made Ando angry towards Hiro. The Pre-Cog shovel antics were hilarious and I'm glad that someone finally told Hiro that he needs to slow down and actually think about what he's doing.

I was sort of disappointed that Adam was killed, but only because he's essentially Sark and who doesn't like Sark, right? But then I thought, this show has WAY too much going on and WAY too many characters, so the loss of one, even a likable one, is almost welcome.

It appears that Arthur Petrelli is the original "power absorber" and his sons Peter and Sylar inherited diluted versions of his ability. Arthur not only takes someone's power - he seems to take it completely away from a person (via touch), unlike Peter who is more of a mimic and "absorbs" someone's powers just by being near them. Sylar also "absorbs" powers, but by learning how a person's brain produces it; like with Peter, the person still has their power, but unfortunately, tin-canning someone's skull and poking around in their brain usually proves lethal.

Anyhoo, I say YAY to the power re-set for Peter! Way to dig yourself out of that hole, writers! But do you think Arthur also took the power Peter was born with? Is Peter a non-Hero now?

Lots of questions, but for the first time this season I am actually looking forward to next week.

Heroes

I haven't watched yet - I'm sick again and spent the evening lying in my bed next to my humidifier. I'll get a post up about this week's episode as soon as I feel up to it!

Heroes: Episode 3.05

Angels and Monsters

Maybe it's because I've accepted that the show isn't what it once was - and perhaps that it never really was what it once was - and my expectations for it are lower now, or maybe last night's episode was actually pretty good, or maybe it's because Peter was in a drug-induced coma; whatever the reason, I enjoyed it.

For me, the show is usually at its best when things get dark and creepy, and there was some seriously dark shit last night: Peter trying to kill his mother, the Vortex man killing himself (or making himself disappear), Mohinder's nest of victims, HRG's old ruthlessness, the Puppet Master's spaghetti-eating-forced-makeout scene, and Mrs. P's bloody vision of Nathan, Tracy and Peter's murders and her paralysis at the hands of Mr. P were all high points of the episode. I'm sick of hearing these people whine about their abilities and it's fun to see them actually use them, even if it's for nefarious purposes.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: When they give the heavy-lifting acting jobs to the better actors - e.g., HRG, Mrs. P, Nathan - the entertainment level rises to point where the writing inconsistencies don't matter a whit to me.

That's not to say I didn't have issues with certain aspects of the episode. Mohinder's story has now shifted from being what could be called a ripoff of The Fly to something resembling the movie Aliens. If some little monster Baby Mohinder pops out of the chests of Maya and the other cocooned people, I'm outta here!

Speaking of Mohinder, what is he supposed to be turning into? The soundtrack plays what I thought was rattlesnake-ish noises during his scenes, but he seems to be acting more like a bug or spider.

I'm not sure what to say about Hiro killing Ando.   It pisses me off because it seems unnecessary and completely out of character.  Hiro has pledged to not go back in time anymore because it causes so many problems, so how does he get out of this one?

One other issue I have is with the formula, and it's a big one: Supposedly, there was only one hand-written copy of the formula in existence, right?  Nothing on a computer?  Considering Nathan and Tracy's probable ages, the formula was used 30 - 40 years ago, which would be some time in the 70s, so maybe this evil high-tech superhero company didn't have computers in the 70s.  Mhm.  Even if I buy that, why in the WORLD would they keep the only hand-written copy when it could be so easily destroyed?

See, now I've gone and started thinking too much and it's seriously harshing my Heroes buzz. You can't do that with this show anymore, or you'll make yourself crazy.

How did you like the episode?

Heroes: Episode 3.04

I Am Become Death

Fun Fact: Upon witnessing the first test of a nuclear bomb(Trinity), Oppenheimer was reminded of a line from Hindu scripture: I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

So, am I the only one not feeling the love anymore? I have not ranted here about all the ways that I think this show is losing it and just adding new heroes so we don't notice that they're doing the same freaking story arc every season, or about the stupidity of the characters -- wait, maybe I did talk about that a little - but all of that has certainly been on my mind.  My point is I am not enjoying this show nearly as much as I used to. At all.  I'm trying to keep an open mind, so I'm going to give this recap thing one more shot.  If the show pisses me off again next week, I'm done.  I'll still watch and will occasionally post about something I might find notable in an episode, or if the writers actually come up with something good, but these recaps are a lot of work and, well, the thrill is just about gone.

This episode was all over the place, so we'll break it up into Present and Future.  Here we go:

Present

Mohinder is still molting and the power injection he gave himself is also making him more aggressive, which scares Maya away.  Yay!  He then takes his aggression out on an upstairs neighbor who beats his wife by beating the crap out of him.  He realizes that giving himself that injection was probably a mistake.  Oh, you think?

Parkman is still in Africa.  His cute African friend sets him up with some psychic goop and a set of headphones (huh?) and he gets Isaac-y white eyes and sees his future.  He's living with Daphne (married?) in that same nasty-ass NY apartment with Molly and a baby that I assume is theirs.  But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Dr. Zimmerman tells Tracy that she is one of a set of identical triplets - Nikki, Tracy and Barbara (?) - who were given powers via DNA manipulation by order of a nameless Company.  It has a name, but I bet the Haitian made Dr. Z forget.  Tracy is distraught when she returns to DC and tries to call the police and turn herself in for the murder of the (Greatest American) reporter but she's so upset she freezes the phone.  Meanwhile, Nathan is setting up his new office in DC while Linderman's ghost hovers around nagging him about his "path" to the Presidency.  Tracy comes to Nathan's office to tender her resignation, says she "can't do this anymore" and leaves.  Linderman tells Nathan that he has to save her, that it's all a part of his path.  So as Tracy is about to jump to her death from a bridge, Nathan swoops in and catches her.  Later (at his apartment?), Tracy shows her icy powers to Nathan who is all Hell Yeah and they kiss.  I like these two kids together, they have great chemistry.

OK, now for the FUTURE.

This is going to get ugly.

Future Peter (FP) teleports with Present Peter (PP) from the bank job to 4 years hence.  FP tells PP that he needs to fix the future because he (FP) is too dumb to travel back in time and fix it without royally screwing the timeline.  Well, at least he can recognize his faults.  FP says that in this future everyone has powers because someone invented a formula that would bestow powers on anyone who wanted them.  Why is that bad?  He wasn't clear on that, I don't think.  Something about people causing earthquakes or something.

Allow me to digress a bit here and say that you know how Milo V. is at best a mediocre actor even when he has other, better actors to play against?  Imagine how bad he is in this scene where has to act with himself.  GAH!

FP tells PP he has to find Sylar, whose power will help him to see how forces in the past work together to create the future and how he can prevent it.  Just then Claire shows up and shoots FP, who dies because The Haitian is there suppressing his healing ability.  PP gets away.

He goes to Mohinder's lab to get Sylar's location.  Mohinder's all monster-y and hiding under a hoodie in the shadows.  And he makes a funny rattlesnake-ish sound.  He tells PP he can find Sylar at the Bennett house in Costa Verde.

Evil Claire, together with Daphne and Knox, are after Peter.  Daphne convinces Matt to let her use Molly to find Peter.

Peter goes to the Costa Verde house and finds Sylar - who now calls himself Gabriel, his given name - has set up house there.  And he has a son!  Named Noah!  And there isn't a Bennett in sight.  Peter wants his power but Gabriel tells him that with the knowledge of how things work also comes the hunger for other people's power.  Peter ultimately convinces him to give him his power anyway.  Then Claire, Daphne and Knox show up and there's a fight and little Noah gets killed.  Gabriel goes nuclear, literally, destroying all of Costa Verde and over 200,000 people.  Except, inexplicably, Claire, Peter, Knox and Daphne all survive.  Claire holds Peter prisoner in a morgue, with The Haitian in the room to keep Peter from using his powers.

[Oops - my friend Holly pointed out to me that I forgot an important scene.  Daphne did survive the blast, but only long enough to return injured to Matt and Molly and the baby in the NY apartment.  She tried to run away from the blast, but she was "too slow" and the blast caught her from behind.  She falls into Matt's arms and dies, just like in the African's painting.  Thanks for keeping me honest, Hol!] 

Nathan is President in this future, and Tracy is his First Lady (and she wears some amazing sunglasses!).  As Claire is about to torture and kill Peter, Nathan shows up.  He tells everyone, including The Haitian, to leave the room. Nathan tells Peter that because of the bad things being caused by everyone having powers he has had to create a special army of power-possessing people.  This gets Peter all riled up and he loses control and tries to tin-can Nathan.  He stops himself before he kills Nathan, however, and teleports out of there.

Finally, BACK IN THE PRESENT.

Hiro and Ando are being held in a cell on Level 2 of the Company.  I'd have to assume that The Haitian is nearby, otherwise they would be able to teleport out of there instead of trying to escape through the A/C vent.  My assumption is proven correct when The Haitian catches them trying to escape and brings them to Mrs. P.  In an admittedly awesome scene, Mrs. P tells Hiro and Ando that she needs their help to fix the mess they made with the formula and they possess the key to the problem.  Cut to Hiro and Ando digging up a grave.  They open the coffin and there's Adam, who Hiro buried alive last season.  He opens his eyes and says, "Hiro, you son of a b--!"

Heroes: Episode 3.02

One of Us, One of Them

Brief Recap and then some thoughts:

Tracy tracks Nikki Sanders down to a New Orleans address and heads down there to find out who she is and why she looks so much like her.  She meets Micah and they have a sweet scene together.  Using his computer, he helps her learn that she and Nikki were born on the same day, in the same hospital in Los Angles.  Tracy tracks down the doctor (Dr. Zimmerman) on their birth certificates.  He tells her that he "created" them.

Claire really wants to go and kill some bad guys - especially Sylar - and asks her biological mother Meredith to teach her how to fight.  Meredith takes her to a shipping container and shuts them both inside.  She then proceeds to turn up the heat and suck all of the oxigen out of the container, suffocating Claire until she admits that she doesn't want to kill Sylar in order to help people - she wants revenge.  Later, Claire pretends to go on an overnight cheerleading retreat when in fact she hits the road in pursuit of Sylar.

Hiro and Ando's pursuit of Daphne brings them to a movie house (in Berlin?) that's having a Buster Keaton festival (a bit heavy-handed).  Daphne tells them that she's already handed over the half of the formula that she stole from them to her boss, and she was at the theater because there was going to be a handover of the other half and she was going to steal it.  Turns out, it's The Haitian who is there to retrieve the half (from some brunette) for Mrs. P.  Hiro and Ando almost get the paper from The Haitian, but then they bungle things and Daphne makes off with it.  The Haitian takes both Hiro and Ando back to Level 5, where they are locked up.

Angela Petrelli is just as creepy-touchy-feely with Sylar as she is with her other sons.  She tells Sylar she regrets giving him up for adoption.  She offers him a job as HRG's partner and he accepts.  The escaped Villains have robbed a bank and taken hostages.  The plan is to lure HRG to them so they can exact revenge on him for capturing them and locking them up on Level 5.  HRG and Sylar arrive on the scene and pretend to be FBI.  HRG trades himself for the hostages, telling Sylar he is to stay away from the bank ( and the "buffet" of powers the Villains present to Sylar) and debrief the hostages.  Inside the bank, things deteriorate quickly: Peter uses Jesse's power of sound wave manipulation to take out a couple of bad guys (does Peter have that power now?); then FuturePeter shows up, stops time, pushes Peter out of Jesse's body and teleports away with him.  When time resumes to normal, Sylar comes into the bank, saves HRG, and kills Jesse and takes his power.  In the end, the German and Jesse are dead (Weevil is gone already!), the blue-fire guy is back in Level 5 and Knox, the black guy whose power is super-strength that feeds off of people's fear, is on the loose.  Back at Level 5, HRG and The Haitian are reunited and HRG tells him that he plans on killing Sylar.

Some thoughts that I'll break down by pairs:

Tracy/Micah - I like this version of Nikki SO much better. Look at how big Micah's gotten! Did anyone else think when Tracy heard that Micah can speak to and control machines that she was thinking about how he could tamper with voting machines?  Just me?  The coffin/wake for Nikki in the house is completely out of the timeline, isn't it? Nikki died in the season finale and they haven't even buried her yet? Are they saying that everything that's happened in the first three episodes of this season has taken place in a couple of days? Maybe, I guess. If so, then Nathan has made an amazing recovery and he has also managed to move to DC and get sworn in as a Senator in just a couple of days. Anyway, I digress...Remind me of how Nikki died. Didn't she die when the building she was in blew up? Her dead body looked awfully good for someone who died in an explosion/fire.

Claire/Meredith - I think making Claire's character darker makes a lot of sense, but I'm not sure I'm on board with the mother thing. Why in world would she ask Meredith to teach her to fight? Has she ever seen her fight? I suppose Claire was looking for guidance from a Hero and Meredith was the closest at hand? They need to tone down Claire's makeup and get rid of the borderline mom jeans and heels, please. She can be badass without looking like she just stepped out of an 80s hair band video.

Hiro/Ando - You know I love these guys, but Hiro is starting to annoy me. How old is he? 12? If he keeps up like this, by the time we reach the future I'm going to be routing for Ando to zap him to death. (Alright, I exaggerate). I was delighted, however, to see The Haitian again! He makes things so much more interesting for me. I'm happy to see he's still around and with The Company.

Parkman/African Guy - The paintings were interesting, even if we've seen this all before. The white-haired girl must be Daphne, right? So in the "original" future, Parkman and Daphne were supposed to get together and have a baby, but now that FuturePeter effed everything up, something terrible will happen to her? I had trouble making out some of the other paintings. Could you tell what they were? I'm assuming the goop that Parkman ate that gave him the painting power is chemically similar to the formula that Mohinder injected himself with, and possibly related to The Formula that Hiro and Ando are chasing around.

HRG/Sylar - I'm not so sure about this as a premise.  Why would Sylar agree to partnering up with HRG?  Why is he suddenly so docile?  Why didn't he just use his super powers to toss aside all of the cops, go into the bank, and "feed" on the villains?  What am I not getting?  Please tell me he has some nefarious plan up his sleeve.  And I'm really confused about what powers he actually has now, since had that virus.  He still has his original power (figuring out how things work), he has telekenesis, he has Claire's invincibility, and...can he teleport now, too?  Oh, wait - I forgot that Mrs. P "fed" him that woman whose power was to know the history of objects.  That must come into play later on, especially considering Mrs. P's knowledge of the future.

All in all, I thought this was a good episode, and better than the season premiere.  And I think it's no coincidence that there was very little Peter and absolutely no Mohinder and Maya in it.

What did you think?

Anyone else see a resemblance?

On the left, Angela Petrelli, matriarch of the powerful - politically and otherwise - Petrelli family in NBC's Heroes, mother of Nathan and Peter (and possibly Sylar) and all-around badass; on the right, well, you know.

As vaguely evil as she is, I would rather have Angela Petrelli running for VP than Sarah Palin.  Wouldn't that be awesome?  She'd have Washington straightened out before the first State of the Union address!

Heroes: Episodes 3.01 and 3.02

Well, I'll start off by saying that the one-hour recap thing that was on at 8:00 absolutely blew. Or at least the first ten minutes did. That's all I could watch. I thought it was going to be a "what's happened so far/where we left off" show, when in fact it was just a gigantic, hype-filled commercial for the season premiere. And that was only so-so.

They aired two episodes back-to-back last night: The Second Coming and The Butterfly Effect.  And they jammed a lot of stuff into them and frankly, not all of it made sense.

This is what I think happened.

Things start in the future (another apocalyptic future?  really?), where things aren't going so well for our heroes.  It's 4 years after Nathan told the world about their powers in that press conference in the season finale where he got shot and never got the chance to tell the world about their powers. The heroes are being persecuted, tested and hunted down, Claire is a brunette and bad and wants to shoot Peter.  So FuturePeter travels back in time to the press conference and shoots Nathan to prevent him from telling the world about their powers.  OK, so the mystery of who shot Nathan is solved.  But tell me this: why couldn't Peter travel back a few minutes earlier and just tell Nathan that he ruins the future by revealing their secret?  He has to kill him?  Sometimes I think Peter is actually slightly impaired, if you know what I mean.

FuturePeter spends the entire two episodes pretty much f*cking everything up by meddling with the timeline.  He hides PresentPeter in The Company's Level 5 containment area (where HRG is being held) by "putting him into" a prisoner who is already there (I'm assuming this is a power that FuturePeter acquires in the future) - some guy named Jesse whose power is sound manipulation - and spends the rest of the time screwing things up.  He tells Claire to stay home when she wants to come and see Nathan in the hospital and because of that, Sylar is able to find her (how did he find her?) and take her power, making him pretty much indestructible.  I really liked the scene where he was poking around in her brain, especially when he tells her she's disgusting for suggesting that he eats people's brains.

FuturePeter's presence also messed up Matt's timeline.  Matt's suspicious of FPeter when he finds him trying to hide the gun he used to shoot Nathan, so FPeter blinks him to Africa, where he spends both episodes wandering around and hilariously reading turtles' minds.  But then a cute magical African guy (a possible Hero) finds him, gives him water and tells him to follow him.

Nathan doesn't die.  Well, he does, officially, but then he miraculously recovers.  Just sits up on his gurney and takes a big breath.  He's convinced it was God who saved him and he gets sort of preachy and I don't really like Nathan like that.  The press picks up the story, and the Governor of NY notices.  He needs to appoint a replacement U.S. Senator (the one they had died, I guess) and the Gov.'s aide suggests Nathan.  The Gov.'s aide, by the way, is Nikki!  Who died in the season finale!  But wait, it's not Nikki, it's someone named Tracy Strauss who is identical to Nikki but who is a much better character.  She's an ice queen, both literally and figuratively - her power is freezing people with her touch.  Shout out to her first victim: William Katt, the Greatest American Hero!

So anyway, while in the hospital, Nathan has been seeing dead people.  Well just one: Linderman, who advises Nathan to take the job.  He does.

Meanwhile, Mohinder and Maya.  Sigh.  These two are so STUPID.  I can barely watch them.  I really cannot believe they have kept Maya around, I really can't.  I didn't follow any of the supposed "science" that Mohinder was spouting, I have no idea what the hell he's supposed to be doing, all I know is he is the dumbest scientist in the world.  He suddenly realizes that the powers are connected to the "flight or fight" response and the adrenal gland and with that discovery he concocts some sort of serum that he injects into himself.  He was supposed to be finding a way to cure people of these powers but instead he does a 180 and makes a serum that will actually give powers to anyone who wants them.  Maya is reasonably pissed about that, until she comes over to his place the next day and finds him acting out scenes from "The Fly".  Almost verbatim.  (Was that an homage, or a ripoff?)  She likes the new Mohinder and they have hot insect sex.  Then Mohinder starts to peel in the mirror, just like Jeff Goldblum.

I have to say that I also found Hiro and Ando's portion of the story to be really poorly written and in fact kind of boring.  To sum up: Hiro is now head of his father's company, he disobeys his father and opens a safe containing a scrap of paper that has half of some formula on it.  As soon as he removes the paper from the safe (if it's so dangerous, why keep it??), some girl who runs really fast steals it.  Hiro and Ando are now chasing her around the world.  Oh, and Hiro jumped to the (apocalyptic) future at one point and saw Ando kill him, so now he doesn't trust Ando.  I don't like that - Hiro and Ando should always be best friends.

So Sylar's on the loose.  He finds a file when he's at the Bennett house that contains info on the "villains" that are being held on Level 5 and decides he would like to take their powers.  When he goes to Level 5, all hell breaks loose.  And so do the prisoners: When Sylar attacks Elle (after killing her father Bob), she freaks and releases some kind of electrical pulse (very cool) that fries the security systems and the bad guys get out, including Jesse with PresentPeter inside. (the guy who plays Jesse also played Weevil on Veronica Mars and it was neat to see him yelling to Elle (Veronica), if only briefly).  So now JessePeter is stuck with another group of bad guys.  Hopefully none of them have bad Irish accents.

HRG also escaped and headed back home to California, where he told Claire that he had to leave again and hunt down the villains who escaped.  He did get a babysitter for her, though: her firestarter mother.

One of the best parts of the show, as always, was Angela Petrelli, who spent almost all of the 2 episodes trying to convince her dim son to get the hell back to the future and stop messing with the timeline.  She's also the head of The Company now that boring bureaucratic Bob is dead.  Sylar was captured during the melee on Level 5, and Angela has taken a particular interest in him.  Like, the kind of interest a mother takes in her son.  Hey, she said it, not me!

To sum up: a few things I liked, and quite a few that I didn't.  There was WAY too much going on.  I hope they calm things down for the next episode.

TV Talk: 'Heroes' is back!

Just a reminder that season 3 of Heroes premieres tonight at 9:00 on NBC. The new season opens with "Volume 3: Villains", but it's not all that clear who's a good guy and who isn't.

It's been so long since the show's been on that I have completely forgotten what happened! If you're like me, then you'll need to tune into NBC one hour earlier, at 8:00 PM, for a clip show/recap that should bring us up to speed. You can also go back and read some of my Heroes posts.

I do remember that Nathan got shot. I hope he's OK!

Choose a side.

OMG, new Heroes trailer!

Ew.

Milo Ventimiglia & Hayden Panettiere Are an Item: "Having previously denied a relationship, the two Heroes stars are now considered an item."

I'm sorry, that's creepy.

I love and hate my TV, Part II. The happier part.

There was a lot to love on TV this year, and it wasn't easy narrowing my choices to 5 (so I didn't).

5 Reasons I Loved My TV This Year

1. The best new show on television, Pushing Daisies, had many memorable moments, but this sublime scene of a lovesick Olive Snook was by far my favorite:



2. The last 4 episodes of season 3 of Battlestar Galactica and the revelation of four of the Final Five:



3. Desmond. (and that show he's on)



4. Reruns of Futurama on Cartoon Network. Without them I would never have known that Nibblonians poop little balls of rocket fuel, or that Al Gore becomes Emperor of the Moon, or even that robots run on beer.



4.5. Nathan Petrelli is still my favorite character on Heroes, even if we didn't get to see very much of him during this shortened season (or maybe because we didn't, considering how the show's been struggling). I love it when he flies, but not when he dies. He had better NOT DIE.



5. Bad Girls on Logo. A British drama about a women's prison that airs on the "gay" channel and which features a lesbian love story as one of its main storylines does not sound like it's something for everyone, I know. And that's too bad, because it's good. A bit soapy and occasionally campy, but mostly it's just good (at least the first three seasons are). Here's a sampling:



The quality of the video isn't that great, but it gives you a good idea of what the show is about.

So, that's it. May 2008 bring you and me more to love than hate on our TVs!

Oh no they di'n't!!

I can't get a recap up fast enough, and I'm busy at work, and I know you guys will want to talk about last night's episode of Heroes, so...discuss!!

Adrian Pasdar Q&A

EW.com has an interview with Adrian Pasdar in which he talks about his life outside of Heroes, including his Civil War musical, his children's show for Nick, Jr. and his YouTube videos of behind-the-scenes antics of his co-stars (which are awesome!).

Here's what he has to say about the show:

We all have great faith in the writing team that puts together Heroes. Season 3 is going to be very interesting to see what happens and how they're able to take the lessons that we've learned, and really tell the story that they want to tell without losing an audience. Because the goal at the end of the day is to have as many people watch the show as you can. What's challenging is: It's not stupid TV, it's not a reality program. It actually is complex. There's many layers to Heroes. Tim's not averse to risk-taking, as he has proven in the episodes of season 2. I think it turns a corner; the last three or four episodes have really gotten back to the core of what the show is about.

Well, I hope tonight's (possibly season) finale peels back some of those layers and makes me eat my stupid words.

Here's a sampling of his YouTube videos:

Zachary Quinto and Kristin Bell at the Emmys:



And David Anders doing Peter O'Toole: