Tuesday, October 23, 2007

A Long Time Ago, We Used To Be Friends ... Kristen Bell on HEROES, PRISON BREAK, and MORE!

Wow, these Southern California fires are just ridiculous ... All I can say is that let's hope these things are contained ASAP. Right now, there's luckily no real fire activity in Burbank or surrounding areas, but even here, the air is smoky and people are coughing more often than usual. I know I myself have been feeling a bit out of it since Saturday. I really just need a day off to rest and recharge, but as we all know NBC-Universal would fall apart without me, so not sure how much of an option that is ...

PS - Just to prove to everyone that I am actively fighting the good fight when it comes to TV shows, check out Amazon.com RIGHT NOW. Click on the Unbox tab on the upper left corner, then scroll down - see that big promo for Kristen Bell on Heroes? That was all me, baby! (And yes, the text includes the obligatory Veronica Mars shout-out).

On last night's HEROES:

- Well, I thought last night's ep was probably the best yet of the second season. It had a grand entrance for Kristen Bell, who certainly made the best of what she was given, and brought her trademark wit and spunk to the precedings. Was she given any lines to say that at all matched the cleverness of the average dialogue exchange on the late, great, VERONICA MARS? No, not really ... but, man, it was nice to see an actress show up who knows how to milk a line for all it's worth, who through a bat of an eyelash or a crooked half-smile can add oh-so-much to a scene. Ah, here I go, it's just making me miss VM that much more ...

So aside from Ms. Bell's debut as Elle, she of lightning powers, casual sadism, and mysterious parentage, I did like a lot of stuff in this ep. Overall, it just felt tighter, more ably directed, more polished than the show has over the last few weeks. I especially liked the whole sequence where Parkman and Nathan Petrelli visit Parkman's dad, aka the Nightmare Man. I liked the actor they got for this part - he did a great job of walking the line between menacing and likable. The nightmare sequence in which Nathan suddenly finds himself in a post-apocalyptic NYC was really well-done and looked great, and the hallucinagenic fight between Parkman and Petrelli was very cool and kinetically-directed. Finally, though I still find the actress playing Micah's cousin to be a bit annoying, she grew on me a bit this week, and if her storyarc is such that she FINALLY gives this show a character who actively kicks ass and fights crime - well, dayum, s'bout time!

At the same time, there was still a feeling of things being overly-cluttered. I barely missed the likes of Claire and her uber-lame high-school romance with fly-boy, and was all too happy not to revisit the Wonder Twins this week ... but instead we got more of the fairly useless Hiro storyarc, which felt completely disjointed this week. I mean, did ANYTHING actually happen? It was amusing to see good ol' Ando reading Hiro's scrolls, and kudos to whoever chose the cool music for those scenes as well. But that Hiro storyline is totally trading water. If they aren't going to SHOW all of his great adventures in feudal Japan, then what's the point?!?! It's the same feeling I got last year when they teased us with that great painting of Hiro fighting a dinosaur - sure, staging that battle might go a bit over-budget, to say the least, but come on, show some imagination here. Meanwhile, the stuff with Nikki and Mohinder at the Company HQ was kind of meh ... Mohinder has long been the worst overall character on the show, and they're not doing him any favors by once again having him in these lame storylines. They REALLY need to refocus on the murder-mystery, as it feels like they are leaving what should be the season's central storyline by the wayside.

So, this ep showed some definite promise, and even a little bit of artistry with some cool direction and cinematography. We got two new characters loaded with potential in Elle and Parkman Sr. But again, the jumpy structure, a structure that lends itself to lame-duck, go-nowhere storylines and painfully slow pacing, is killin' all sense of momentum. Yes, business picked up this week, but here's hoping these were not simply band-aids that can't, on their own, alleviate the larger issue at hand. Oh, and I can't wait for Peter to ditch those Irish pub-folk ... none of them can act (especially that girl), and I blame them for most of my total disinterest in Peter's storyline up until Ms. Bell swooped in this week.

My Grade: B

PRISON BREAK:

- Last night's ep was a good one, but wasreally just a lot of build up for the upcoming, 2-hour "event." Not to say that that's necessarily a bad thing, but the show just didn't keep me on the edge of my seat like it usually does, especially when it veered into sideplots that felt tacked-on, like Sucre's run-in with a bunch of criminals who want him to be their man inside the prison. I also didn't quite see the point of introducing Random New Inmate who gets harrassed by Mahone (btw - wasn't that same dude also on HEROES this week as one of the Irish guys?). Thirdly, Lincoln again seemed stuck in a rather pointless dead-end story, and after all this time they've yet to do much to make Whistler's girlfriend very interesting (same can be said for Whistler himself). However, as always, there were come great moments scattered throughout. The best scene was probably T-Bag concealing Lechero's whore/nun (TM Mike Myers), with a great line about how we are all prostitutes in this world and she is the Queen (thank you Brian for reminding me of that one). Classic. Also, this episode really reminded me just how great Wentworth Miller is as Michael Scofield. He delivers his lines with a ton of badass gravitas worthy of Jack Bauer, and makes watching Scofield plan and scheme his eventual escape the highlight of the show. Anyways, overall this was a decent ep but it seems like things really kick into high gear in the upcoming 2-hour extravaganza.

My Grade: B

Alright, leave me some well-wishes as I am currently coughing and sniffling my way through this day. Until next time, this has been the best blog on the internet telling it like it is. Yeah, I said it.

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