So, first off just want to say thanks to everyone who came out on Saturday for my birthday celebration in Pasadena. Good times were had and we had a fun dinner on the scenic outdoor patio of Gordon Biersch and then brought the party over to Union Cattle for some further revelry.
Now, it's already October and I'm hoping that there will be a lot of good stuff yet to come in the month ahead. Of course, October means Halloween, which likely means an annual trip to Knotts and of course the obligatory Horror Movie Marathon. One thing I've learned from my b-day though - no point in trying to invite a huge group to these types of things, especially here in Hollywood where non-flakey people tend to be few and far between. Keep it to people who genuinely want to do something fun and hang out, and cut off anyone who's lame enough to call around asking who is or isn't attending a party, so they can decide whether a given event is cool enough to grace with their presence. Listen, if I'M there, then of course it's worthy of your time - that should be all you need to know. Yeah, I guess I'm just a little burnt out on people with lame excuses or just no excuses at all not showing up to events, ESPECIALLY those who I myself have gone out of my way to attend THEIR various parties. A lot of people need to grow up and realize that there is a certain etiquette to these things - if I go to your party, you had better make an effort to go to mine, or at the least have the courtesy to give me a reason why you won't be attending.
But the bottom line is ... all of us had a great time on Saturday irregardless, and the 25th bday was certainly one for the books.
TV STUFF:
PRISON BREAK:
Last night, Prison Break kept up the momentum from last week and delivered another kickass episode. Distressingly though, the ratings are starting to really go down, no doubt partly because the show is paired with the going-nowhere K-Ville, and also you've got to factor in Chuck which appeals to the same young male demo as this one. But man, Prison Break was the undisputed king of Monday Night last night ... I guess part of it is that to me Monday night TV has always been about ACTION. From the Monday night wrestling wars of the 90's to 24, I usually sit down on a Monday after a hard day's work and want to see something gritty, badass, and action-packed. And man, Prison Break fits the bill to a T. Again, I love how this show doesn't necessarily follow typical serialized story-telling patterns. I honestly have no idea of the escape from Sona will take all season, a few episodes, or happen next week, which is so refreshing - I love that sense of unpredictability.
At the same time, there is such a great collection of characters here. Of particular note last night was WILLIAM BY-GOD FICHTNER, who owned it as on-the-edge Mahone. His exchange with his public defender ruled it ... "If I don't get that medication ... it won't be good for any of us." Niiiiiiiice. I also really liked Michael Scofield's little character arc here ... it's not often that we see him dejected and hopeless, so it was actually pretty jarring to see him with such a bleak outlook, flashing to the failed escape attempt of a prisoner from the season premiere over and over. But soon enough, the wheels started to turn in his head and we saw that the Scofield of old was slowly returning - and I thought that that whole arc of bringing Scofield down a notch so that he could eventually be propped back up was both very necessary and a lot of fun.
And you've also got to love how well the side characters are being used. T-Bag was so fun to watch in this ep because he is a total ticking timebomb waiting to go off. You just know that at some point, this oddly-lovable psycho killer is going to drop the humble servant pretense and just go ape on Lechero and his goons. Bellick is of course just waiting for his opportunity to get back on top of things, and Mahone is another powder keg waiting to explode. Meanwhile, Lincoln became a lot more proactive this week, raiding the Company's HQ and nearly single-handedly saving Sarah and LJ.
Which brings me to my one big complaint -- if Sarah is going to be in this season, they have either got to get that actress back or else construct the plots so they don't need to show her or have her talk on the phone - it's getting a bit cheesy to only see her from the back or whatever with obvious stunt-doubles in place of the real deal.
But, that could be a moot point depending on what the episode's cliffhanger ending means. Now, it's funny - Heroes and Prison Break have had a lot of similar plot points, most notably the fact that each show features a mysterious conspiracy known as The Company. But what are the odds that both shows, on the same week, would end with a cliffhanger ending asking viewers to guess "WHAT'S IN THE BOX?!?!" (as NBC's none-too-subtle promos proclaimed)? Well, while I was a bit underwhelmed with Heroes' ending, Prison Break's really hit the spot - I mean, sure, it's over-the-top, but it was pretty shocking to even entertain the possibility that Sarah might be dead (and killedi n quite a gruesome manner), since it seemed like they were going to drag out the "save Sarah and LJ" plotline for a while longer. As far as potentially shocking cliffhangers go, this was one of the best I've seen in a long, long time.
So here's to Prison Break - the show that brings the badass each and every Monday night.
My Grade: A
HEROES:
Well, I am starting to get a bit frustrated with this show, because over the last two weeks it's really commited a sin that no show about super-powered beings should ever be guilty of: it's been boring. The show seems to be wading from one slow-moving plotline to the other, never going too deep into any of them, and making each plotline feel like it's lacking weight and a real sense of palpable conflict or gravity.
I mean - a superpowered killer is picking off the "golden age" group of Heroes-verse characters. That alone should be a BIG plotline, and I kind of wish that everything revolved around that, with tons of exploration into the backstory of these older characters and the mysterious origins of the Company. Now, I'm sure that at some point this will be explored, but we kind of need this info NOW. Without any rhyme or reason to this storyline apparent from the outset, we instead just get a random colleciton of scenes. Last week, it was Hiro's dad being thrown off of a building. Wouldn't this have been cooler if had had some dramatic buildup? Why not have some previously unseen characters get killed off, and then build up to the killer's confrontation with the established ones? This week, Mrs. Petrelli was attacked by our mysterious assailant, but again, we have only the vaguest idea of what's going on, so there's no real hook to draw us in, and precious little new information has been revealed thus far. It all speaks to the show's tendency to keep its plotlines simple and predictable, which kind of prevents Heroes from really reaching the heights of myth-making and storytelling achieved by a show like Lost.
Take Hiro's subplot set in feudal Japan. It's been 100% obvious from Moment 1 of this season that Hiro would usurp the role of his hero from the old stories and himself become the self-same mythic Japanese warrior that he worshipped as a child. So, where is the twist? I mean there has to be more to this, right? As it is, by Episode 2 we have already established Hiro as being this mythic warrior, so ... where do we go from here? The first season really began to pick up when Future Hiro surprisingly entered the picture - it gave the show a renewed sense of unpredictabilty, a feeling that this was a universe where anything could happen. Now, I feel like the show has gotten away from that a bit - and the plotline of Hiro in feudal Japan, which has the most potential to instill that sense of awe and wonder - has instead become kind of a one-note, lightweight subplot played mostly as comic relief.
Meanwhile, Claire's high school adventures just seem very stiffly written. If Claire was trying to stay under the radar, couldn't she have just approached her teacher after class and asked him more questions about self-regeneration? The whole thing just seemed very contrived. And then Claire cutting off her own toe?!?! First of all: gross. Second of all, it just seemed like such an odd scene - I mean, what if it HADN'T grown back? Also, I just get annoyed that HRG has seemingly devolved. I mean, the Company Man episode painted him as such a complex character - sure, he's a family man, but he's also a pretty ruthless guy. So far this season, I just haven't gotten that sense of depth from the character that I was expecting, and Claire's mom just seems to be a total void - I mean, shouldn't there be some real tension between her and her husband? After all she's been through, you'd expect her to be a little more shaken and a lot less "good ol' Mom."
I was actually pretty intrigued by the two twins and their powers, which seem pretty interesting in that they have kind of a symbiotic relationship to each other. But again, just when things with them were getting a bit interesting, the scene shifted to one of the many other plotlines, and there was no real time to focus on these two new characters. In addition to all this, there is a seemingly HUGE storyline going on involving a virus that is killing various heroes. I mean, this should be a giant, epic storyline, but it is running concurrently with about fifteen other storylines, and we're still very much in the dark about what's going on with this after two episodes. It seems like everything and the kitchen sink is being half-heartedly thrown at the viewer, and many of these plot points are getting lost in the shuffle, and they aren't being explored with as much care, focus, or imagination as they should be. I mean, Sylar hasn't even been reintroduced yet, and Nikki/Jessica and her son have yet to appear. It all reminds me of the much-maligned DC series Countdown, which is currently taking a drubbing from critics for these exact same reasons - a rigid structure that jumps abruptly from one plot thread to the next, so that each week only baby steps are taken with each and we never really get invested in any of the plotlines or characters. With Heroes, these many divergent plot threads need to start to converge ASAP or this season could turn out to be a real mess. All this, plus some questionable Irish accents? Here's hoping next week is a return to form.
My Grade: C+
- Have yet to watch last night's CHUCK or JOURNEYMAN. Stay tuned ...
FOX SUNDAY NIGHT Reviews:
So I never got around to reviewing last week's Family Guy or King of the Hill premiere episodes. My thought in brief: The Star Wars themed FAMILY GUY was a lot of fun, even if the humor was a bit hit and miss. Still, I enjoyed it and would definitely love to see Empire and Jedi get the same treatment. MY GRADE: B+
Meanwhile, I thought the season premiere of KING OF THE HILL was excellent. I loved this tightly-written story of Hank's quest to keep Bobby interested in football, and how far Hank was willing to go to make sure Bobby got into the game. Good stuff, a great premiere. MY GRADE:
A -
As for this week's eps ...
THE SIMPSONS:
- Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. Wow, was this episode bad. It actually got off to a good start, with a funny opening in which Homer and his family try to make a quick exit from the church parking lot following Sunday services. There was a great joke in there where Marge rattled off a bunch of funny restaurant names that the Simpsons drove by. When Homer demanded a turn, they pass by ... Dennys. Hahaha - classic. Sadly though, the ep was total downhill from there, and what we got was a horribly disjointed and absurdly random story about Homer injuring his back, and thus gaining the ability to sing with an opera-worthy singing voice, but only while lying flat on his back. Um ... what? From there, the ep was all over the place. Homer of course becomes an unlikely opera star, which was neither funny nor amusing. Then, for some reason, with a scant 10 minutes left in the episode, we get a whole new plot thread about a psychotic opera fan who begins trying to seduce Homer. When he turns down her advances, she then, of course, tries to kill him! So random, and so not funny whatsoever! I mean, this episode really was an embarrasment - and I think FOX-owned IGN hit the nail on the head when they gave this ep a mere 4.5 out of 10. Honestly, if this is the quality of episode we can expect from The Simpsons this season, then please lord put this once-great show out of its misery. And it's so sad, because those few hilarious moments in the beginning give an all-too brief glimpse of how good this show was and can be.
My Grade: C -
KING OF THE HILL:
This was another really solid episode, though a little uneven compared to last week's excellent season premiere. I love Bobby Hill though and tend to really enjoy eps centered around his quests to be accepted and Hank's inevitable disapproval. I think I was just a little thrown here because some aspects of this ep seemed a bit muddled. Was Bobby supposed to be addicted to the soda machines in the begiining, or was it just an act, or what? I initially thought this ep would be a critique of how over-caffienated some ppl are, but then that was kind of dropped to focus on the Bobby using any random cause to win the attentions of a particularly activist girl from school. There was lots to like here though, especially the interplay between Hank and Bobby. Hank's horror at hearing that his son was involved in a protest (anything associated with hippie culture raises an automatic red flag) was just classic.
My Grade: B+
FAMILY GUY:
Holy crap, Family Guy was hilarious this week, in what may have been the best overall episode in a long time. About halfway through the ep, I realized something - I was very concious of the fact that up to that point, there had been virtually NO cutaways in the vein of "this is even worse than the time when ...", etc. Amazing! In that respect, this really felt like a Season 1-style ep (to me still the show's funniest), in that it focused on plot and character-centric humor, without the random "hey look! a movie star from the 80's!" style of joke that has come to dominate the show in the last few seasons. And man, there was some funny stuff here. This ep gave me my biggest TV-induced laugh in a long time when usually-soft-spoken Chris went on a sudden rant about the various stages of Jennifer Connelly's hotness. That dialogue was just so authentic-sounding, and yet so atypical of Chris, that it left me dying of laughter, and the ongoing movie analysis between Chris and his straight-outta-Clerks boss was comedic gold. There were some really great gags here - Meg's random phone-sex convo with her dad was pretty hilarious, to name one. The plot was actually pretty solid as well, as Brian had a failed attempt to move in withh is ditzy girlfriend, amusingly voiced by Drew Barrymore. This wasn't the best ep ever, but it was really enjoyable, and it was awesome to see a new Family Guy ep that hearkened back to the good ol' days when this show was the funniest thing going.
My Grade: A -
MORE REVIEWS:
GOSSIP GIRL, ep #2:
I actually really liked the 2nd ep of Gossip Girl despite feeling so-so when I re-watched the pilot the other week. This episode just did a great job of sucking me into the universe of the show, and like all good soapy programs, it got me invested in all of its various intersecting plotlines and characters. This is smartly-written, well acted, and had plenty of twists, turns, and potential for a lot of fun melodrama. I've gotta say, even though it's a small part of the show on the surface, the expertly-done narration by Ms. Veronica Mars, aka Kristen Bell, adds so much to this show. It's fun to think of these characters as being constantly spied upon by some unseen gossip queen, and it gives all of the events on the show a feeling of constant paranoia - everyone is watching everyone else - it gives whole new meaning to the term keeping up appearances. I still feel like there's no true entry point character like Ryan and Seth were on The OC - but the characters are mostly fun and I'm onboard for at least a few more eps.
My Grade: B+
DIRTY SEXY MONEY - Pilot Review:
This was one of the few pilots that I never got to watch over the summer, and I had heard good things, so I was curious to finally see it. Overall, I enjoyed what I saw, but I'm not sure if I feel compelled to keep up on the series. I mean, to me, as well-written and acted as this show is, I only have so much interest in following the exploits of a rich clan that mixes the tabloid-fodder celebutard quality of the Hiltons with the political prestige of the Kennedys. But compare this to Big Shots, which has an unappealing premise coupled with totally obnoxious writing. With Dirty Sexy, there is a lot to like. Donald Sutherland was especially awesome as the patriarch to the family, playing each scene with a really fun sense of passive-aggressive menace. He was surrounded by a pretty good cast too, with the whole thing playing out like a more dramatic version of Arrested Development. I felt like Peter Krause as the lead though was perhaps a bit lacking. I'm a fan of Krause, and part of it was the writing, but he just seemed to not be the most accesible character, and the script seemed to have him go back and forth in terms of whether he was this kind of grounded, moral center or was he someone who could easily be seduced by the fame and fortune of working with the notorious Darling clan. All in all, I might be inclined to check out one or two more episodes, and there was a pretty intriguing mystery set up about Krause's true parentage and how it ties into the mystery surrounding his father's death. So the show has some good mystery. I'm just not sure if it's likable enough to win me over. As a pilot though, this was a very solid effort.
My Grade: B+
- Alllright, that's a lot of TV. Oh yeah, I was going to review SNL but I can't even bring myself to at this point, let's just say the less said the better. But at least I'm caught up for now. Stay tuned for a look at REAPER's second ep, CHUCK, Journeyman, and more.
- ROCK ON, and once again, thanks to all those who left me Happy Birthday wishes, and happy birthday to Liz L, who shares the great birthday of September 28th, the day that Champions Were Born. Hahahaha ........... oh man, leave me a comment, cya all later.
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