House has Flatlined, we need paddles, Stat!

Watching this past week’s episode of House, MD, I realized something that I’ve been trying to avoid thinking about: One of my absolute favorite shows is in the tubes. It’s gone downhill so much that it no longer has the appeal and interest that was there when the show began five years ago, before exploding into a hit show that has gained incredible ratings. Far from this being a case of not having enough viewers to keep it going – this show has too much going for it, and it is essentially getting bogged down in its own popularity and storyline. The creative team behind the show needs to really rework the entire thing, or it will continue to sink, quality and story-wise.

There are a couple of things that can be changed that can help bring the show back into line with its former quality. The first is the stories and medical mysteries that the team follows. From day one, there has largely been a formula that most of the episodes follow. Cue patient, misdirect from a nearby person, patient collapses. House doesn’t want to take case, argues with Cuddy, takes case to team, is sarcastic, thinks they find the cure, don’t, House has revelation then it’s discovered that there is a rather simple illness presenting in an odd form. While this can certainly continue, they need to shake things up more – a lot more. Some of the best episodes have been the ones that don’t follow this formula, such as Grey Room, where House talks with a rape victim, as well as a handful of others. What we should see more of is a better focus on the actual medical mysteries and the cure, rather than the bickering of the team.

At the end of Season 3, House fired one member of his team, and had two others leave. This was a bold thing for a television show, to ditch most of its cast, but they didn’t follow through. For the first half of Season 4 had a bloated cast, with 40 people starting out on House’s team, which was fine, until we settled on the remaining three team members and Amber, who was still around through to the end of Season 4 as Wilson’s girlfriend. This worked, to a point, but the main problem was that the creative team kept the original cast, bringing in old dramas from the old team members, and generally crowding everything. As a result, there haven’t been any clinic visits to speak of, which was a great part of the first couple seasons.

With the new team, we have new dramas and problems, and much of what I really liked about the first three seasons has largely been forgotten or ignored. There isn’t as much medical information as it’s spewed out as team members work to try and overcome their counterparts, while House and everyone else attempt to try and figure out what everyone’s motives are. In my mind, it’s largely irrelevant as to what everyone is trying to do – it’s shallow, trite and insulting to the viewer. This isn’t good television.

House himself needs a lot of work. For the first couple of seasons, it was fairly easy to get away with the sarcastic, bitter doctor, but over the course of those three seasons, House has been through a board transition that almost left him without friends and a team, a gunshot wound, and Wilson turning his back on him, not to mention the various storylines with Vicoden. All of these storylines should have worked to improve and bring along some character development. This hasn’t happened – House essentially resets back to normal. After five seasons, it’s beginning to wear thin. All of the characters in the show are smart enough to figure out and prioritize exactly what matters in any given situation. House honestly should know, or be able to figure out what people’s motives are, and people should just be able to tell him motives aren’t going to matter, as long as the end result is achived – generally saving the patient or figuring out what’s killing them. Repeated snarky comments every time just doesn’t work too well, especially over five years.

Best Television of 2008

My top TV episodes of 2008:

10 – Fringe: Pilot / Leverage: The Nigerian Job

This was a bit of a tie, because both these shows aren’t all that great, but they are fun to watch. Fringe was one that I was really looking forwards to, and I’ve been somewhat disappointed by how it’s been handled over the season that I’ve watched thus far. Hopefully I’ll get to marathon the entire thing at some point. That being said, the pilot for the show was very fun to watch – it was interesting, had a fun concept and was so over the top that it’s laughable, but again, fun.
Leverage is a show that I’ve started watching because I like Heist shows, and this one is certainly one of the better ones that I’ve seen, ever since the show Smith a couple years ago. There’s a fun cast dynamic and some good hooks in this episode for future episodes.

9 – Big Bang Theory: The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis
I’ve been wary of this show until this season, and now, I’ve really gotten into it for some reason. The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis really takes the show away from some of the easy jabs at the characters and makes some room for some real character development at the end. Plus, the following quote from Leonard is just plain gold:

Do you know what this means? If I can get a healthy ovum, I can grow my own Leonard Nimoy!

8 – Barack Obama 30 Minute TV Spot
No matter what side of the aisle you support, this TV spot was a brilliant move on the part of the Obama administration. It consumed a news cycle of talk show, talking heads and really outlined the priorities of the incoming administration and helped put Pres/Elect Obama into the lead, furthering his momentum. I personally was a supported of the Democratic Ticket, and while this TV spot showed us nothing terribly new to supporters, and essentially reiterated his position, it was a good introduction to people who still weren’t sure who to support.

7 – John Adams: Join or Die
The John Adams miniseries was a very well done series based off of the book by David McCullough by the same title. This pilot episode demonstrated fantastic production values and is an outstanding adaptation of history, from the characters and casting to the look and feel of the sets. These first episodes showed the American War for Independence, a crucial time in our history, in a way that has largely been glossed over in a few short lessons in school.

6 – Lost: The Constant
This was possibly one of my favorite episodes of the entire series, where Desmond begins his own time jumps back and forth through. While Lost has overdone the lifes of some of the other characters like Jack and Kate, this episode really got into Desmond’s head and proved that the writers could still write compelling and interesting characters, while advancing the story forward while doing so, rather than just exploition on why the characters are the way they are.

5 - Battlestar Galactica: Revelations
Episode 410 of Battlestar Galactica brings the show to a point that we’ve been looking for for the past four years on the show : Earth. Four of the last unknown Cylons come forward to their friends, and Kara finally leads the fleet to the people, only to find a devastated landscape. There was a lot of emotion and storylines caught up here. Characters were not what their friends thought they were, and the episode represents a culmination of a number of storylines, and ends on a killer cliffhanger.

4 – Pushing Daisies: Comfort Food
I’m very sad to see this show go – it’s one of my absolute favorites. Comfort Food follows Ned and Olive during a cooking contest, while Chuck has brought her father back to life, at the cost of Dwight Dixon. This was the end/middle of a mini-arc, and it really does a fantastic job with both Ned and Chuck – Chuck with seeing her father return, and Ned for having his trust betrayed. And there’s a Colonel who’s been deep fried.

3 – When We Left Earth: Landing the Eagle / The Explorers
This year was the 50th Anniversary of NASA, and to celebrate, Discovery released a documentary on NASA’s human exploration of the solar system. This episode, Landing the Eagle, details the Apollo program through to Apollo 11, while The Explorers follows the remaining five moon landings. The footage here is absolutely stunning, and even includes interviews with Neil Armstrong. I get chills watching the landing.

2 – Life on Mars: Out Here in the Fields
I was very skeptical about the remake, and the first pilot didn’t leave me with any confidence here at all. But Out Here in the Fields, the second pilot to the UK remake, helped to allay my fears that this would be a poorly done show and showed not only could this re-make be a good one, but one that would stand on its own, with its own qualities. I can’t wait for its return later on.

1 – House, MD : Wilson’s Heart
Season 4 of House was pretty lackluster. The change up with new staff only marginally worked, and while we saw some new characters, they’re not quite to the point of Chase, Cameron and Foreman. The newcomers are interesting, but too similar, except for the fanatic character Amber, whom I can’t stand. This episode made me entirely rethink her character, but also saw an incredible amount into the characters of House and Wilson. These episodes of House are the best ones, when we see real development, and it’s happening fewer and further between episodes now. The last ten or so minutes of this episode are possibly the best minutes of the show that I’ve seen yet.

The Best TV of 2006

Now that Christmas is over and it’ll be the New Year tomorrow, I figure I’d do a bit of looking back on things. So, the best TV of this year:

New TV

This was the year that the television networks picked up on the fact that serialized TV might sell really well. Following the sucesses of LOST and Prison Break, it seemed like a no brainer. Odd thing is, it didn’t really work as well as people’d predicted. Critic favorites like the Nine and Six Degrees bombed and were cancelled, although a couple held on nicely.

1- Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip – I like TV, the industry, writing, everything. I’d heard about the show earlier on in the year and thought that it sounded bad, but when I saw the pilot episode online, it hooked me from then. This show’s the most important one on there. It takes on religous, governmental, politics, broadcasting theory and ethics in its episodes, stuff that you don’t really see. This is smart TV. The dialogue, characters, plots, all fantastic stuff, and it’s a shame that this show didn’t catch on as well as it should have. Hopefully, we’ll see a season 2 to this.

2- Heroes - This is a fun show. Can’t take it too seriously, but it’s just one of the best geek shows out there. There’s a good kick back to the community with references and things like that that makes it fun to watch, as well as a really cool storyline and characters to match it.

3- Day Break – This was cancelled just the other week, which makes me very unhappy. The good news is that this show’s got all the 13 episodes filmed, or so I heard, so they’ll be out sometime. Detective Hopper’s reliving the same bad day, and while this show couldn’t last very long, it’s got the strongest of all the storylines of any tv show. They should have just billed this as a miniseries or something.

TV That Came Back

Battlestar Galactica – I didn’t think that it could get any darker, but it did, and man, the opening five episodes just blew my mind. There’s been a couple of episodes that I wasn’t thrilled with, but on the whole, Battlestar’s back and kicking ass. Can’t wait to see the next ten episodes. As far as Season 2 went, this year’s half of the episodes was weaker than season 1 and the first half, but they really pulled themselves together towards the end.

Veronica Mars – Season 3’s on a new network and doing pretty well, although they’re not going to be doing an overall mystery this time around. The rape mystery was brought to a conclusion, which was pretty good, and the writing and characters are just as good this time around. Can’t wait to see the next half of the season.

House, MD – House was cured! Sort of. After getting shot, he could walk for four months. Then he’s back to drugs again, and he’s got a cop after him, a former actor from the show Hack, who’s one of the cooler new characters that’s been in the show, much better than Vogler from season 1. House is sarcastic still, and downright mean at times, and they’re really pushing his character around, which doesn’t happen that often.

Prison Break – Okay, they broke out of Fox River, and they’re on the run. A good chunk of them have been killed, right from the first episode. It was good to see the show change gears so quickly, but I don’t think that this has much life left in it. While they’re still alive, they’re still running, and they’ve done a terrific job with it.

Other good ones this year – Supernatural, LOST, Stargate SG-1/Atlantis. Supernatural’s gotten into more of an arc, which is interesting, and they’ve really forced some characterizations out of the brothers, LOST has been interesting and Stargate’s really gotten into it’s stride again, only to be cancelled.

Foreign TV

1- Life on Mars – Aired earlier this year on BBC1 while I was over there. I didn’t catch the show while I was in England, but I did recently. It’s one of the more imaginative and interestin series that I’ve seen, mixing police drama with science fiction and the 1970s. Brilliant show.

2 – Green Wing - This show is hilarious. Simply brilliant show, great acting, really fun sense of humor there.

Misses this year were The Nine, which should have been a movie, Six Degrees, which had an interesting concept, but handled poorly with some bad characters. Smith was promising, but it never took off, which was a shame, that one I actually liked.

In the upcoming year, I’m only looking forwards to one show, and that’s The Dresden Files, airing on SCIFI in January, based off of the books by Jim Butcher. It looks really good, and I can’t wait to watch it.

TV Recap – November 27

This week’s TV. This week seemed to be the one of surprises, at least with Heroes, House, Veronica Mars, Prison Break and Studio 60:

Prison Break, 213: Just when you start to think that a show might start stagnating, it comes back to bite you. Amazing episode this week at the midseason break. The episode was full of surprises, from Lincoln and Michael getting captured in the beginning by Mahone and the Border Patrol, to Bellick getting sent to prison: Fox River, to be precise. That’ll be really odd in upcoming episodes. Plus, Kellerman turns on the company and helps the brothers escape. I didn’t see that coming, although I’ve been guessing that he might turn at some point, ever since he was forced out of the loop. T-Bag finds his old girlfriend, kills another woman, Sucre is in Mexico after bailing out of his airplane. And Mahone was shot, and presumably, killed by Kellerman. I didn’t see that one coming. Gah, I don’t want to wait until January to see the next episode!
Heroes, 110: The flashback episode. The save the cheerleader, save the world arc seems to be somewhat over, and we found out what happened to Hiro when he went back. (Couldn’t save the girl, unfortunently) and talks to himself by mistake (Great Scott!) which was priceless. We also finally get to see Sylar, and the orgins of all the other heroes, Nathan’s car crash, Claire’s accident, Matt meeting up with that girl who can influence people’s thoughts. Great episode, and it really answered some questions.
My prediction – all the Heroes have a gene that allows for mutations, and it’s their own actions that allow the gene to be expressed, due to their circumstances. Claire was injured, Nathan had to jump out of the car, etc. Should be interesting to see how that plays out, if that’s how it happens. It’d fit with the entire adaptation thing that they’ve been pushing. Can’t wait for next week’s, then the midseason finale.
Studio 60, 109: This episode was good, but not as good as the last couple. They take some stabs at the public reactions to box office totals and internet users, and Amanda Peet’s character reveals that she’s pregnant, which pretty much everyone who watches knew, because she was showing last week. The writing crew is down to two people and the cast is downed by the Flu. It was nice to see the show take a very prominent part of the episode this week, down to the writing and acting. Next week’s should be interesting.
Veronica Mars, 309: Last episode of the Herst Rapist. Fantastic episode, I thought. We opened with Veronica very frightened and running away, and then did a two day later cut. The Greek System is reinstated on campus, and they’re doing a bit party, and the rapist posts a message up saying that he’ll be there too. Veronica and company go out, armed with drink mats that can detect roofies and try and find those who’ve been drugged. In the meantime, Dean O’Dell finds that his wife has been sleeping around, thanks to Veronica and her dad doing some looking around, and he goes to confront them with a gun. By the end, we find that it’s Moe and Mercer who were working together, and that there were some tale tell things earlier in the season that tipped us off – The prisoner/guard experiment in a class, which both were in, led to Stalkholm syndrome, and Patty Herst’s casting did the same thing. I thought it came off nicely. The acting and camera for this episode was fantastic, and I believe that it was Rob Thomas at the helm this time. Plus, the next murder is brought in with the murder of Dean O’Dell, which should be interesting.
House, MD, 309: Good episode, as House is getting increasingly irritated at Officer Tridder and Cuddy for keeping him on a leash with a very limited Vicodin Supply, and finally stumbles. A girl is brought in who appears to be allergic to everything. Her body is shutting down and they think that they have the answer with a sort of flesh eating bug, and were about to amputate her arm and leg when Chase came up with the proper diagnosis, which House missed. That was a big moment, and Wilson goes to Tridder with information. Looks like next episode should be very interesting.
Daybreak, 104: Another fantastic episode, I just wish that the ratings would follow this show better. Another day, an Hopper goes to help out his partner, who accidently killed another cop in an argument. This happens a couple of times, and we find out why Andrea was going before Internal Affairs, for giving drug dealers money to keep Eddie safe. We find the significance of the hourglass and that there was a second package – this one with a murder photograph from 1991, which Eddie was on. There’s more things that are linked here, and I love it. And Andrea is starting to carry things over day after day, which is very interesting. Can’t wait for next episode.
Jericho, 110: This was a slightly better episode than usual – There’s still the petty relationships and town things, an election, and the aftermath of Gracie’s death. People in the town go vigilante and finally catch Jonas (?) who has been implicated in the killing. He didn’t do it however, and he’s exiled. Hawkins has some people watching him with a satellite, and apparently people’re coming to meet up with him, which is interesting. Plus, people from a plane crash wander into town, which should be interesting. New episodes in two months, and hopefully, they’ll be focusing more on the bombs and things.
Battlestar Galactica, 309: Very interesting episode this week. Adama sets up a boxing match to get out some agression (And there’s a lot, seeing how many people beat the crap out of each other) and through it all, there’s a ton of flashbacks to life on new Caprica. We learn why Lee and Kara are pissed off at each other – they had a one night stand before Kara went and got married, and a bunch of other random things. It was interesting to see life on New Caprica when it was a hopeful time, and before everyone got angry. The episode really worked in that respect, and it seems to me that this is the last that we’ll see of New Caprica. I suspect that this’ll be a lesser favored episode by fans, due to the standalonish nature of the episode, but it did have some interesting implications, but also some rather silly scenes, such as Lee yelling out into the night sky that he loved Kara. There’s more to that storyline, I’m sure.

TV Recap: 11-20

Bit of a light week, with no Battlestar and Supernatural this time around, but still some interesting stuff out there:

Prison Break, 212: The show’s dragging a little, but it’s still got some momentum. C-Note’s wife is captured, and Mahone finally gets Linc and Michael while Sucre gets away by plane. I wonder if that jet caught up to them? Bellick almost found a love interest. I would have completely believed that if the woman didn’t dig further into his actions in the place. And Michael/Linc’s dad is shot and killed. I thought that was a bit of a waste, but he was an awefully convinent character to have around, but it makes me wonder what they’ll be doing with that storyline now. It was also really good to see Michael really twisting over how everyone’s died thus far and how it’s been his fault. Sara ironed Kellerman, that’s gotta hurt, and it’s good to see that she’ll be around longer.
Heroes, 109: Major fangasm here. This show rocks, and we finally get to the Save the Cheerleader, Save the World thing, and we don’t have to twist over that too much. Peter gets to Texas and finally links up with Claire, and Hiro’s friend is hanging around as well. Claire’s dad is still trying to protect her, and his buddies get Syler, which should prove to be interesting. Nathan’s still an ass, and Nikki’s family are running from her, for good reason. This show is also really seeped in fandom. I could have sworn that I saw a Battlestar Galactica T-Shirt in there somewhere, and the scenes with the Freaks & Geeks was great. And Claire punches the other cheerleader. This show just goes to prove that most cheerleaders are evil. CANNOT wait until next week.
Studio 60, 108: AMAZING episode tonight. They not only knock down Jessica Simpson (A gag about her wishing for peace in the MidWEST) and FOX, about a show that’ll likely get cancelled, but they also go into NBC’s recently announced budget cuts, which makes me wonder if they’ve written it in, or if that’s just a coincidence. Matt and Danny fire a couple writers, and discuss product placement, which was a fantastic storyline, with some great points brought up. Harriet’s storyline about a photospread was also pretty interesting. Next week should be interesting.
3lbs, 101: The pilot for this new show came online at iTunes for free, so I checked it out. Basically, House MD – Lite. It’s about two brain surgeons with conflicting personalities, and yep, one of them is dark and brooding and has some injury, as seen in his own brain scans that he doesn’t want anyone to know about. Looks slick, but there’s way to many similatities between this and House, that I’ll pass on it.
Veronica Mars, 308: Great episode tonight! Veronica’s paranoid after being drugged, and does some searching for the granddaughter of the founder of Herst College when she goes missing – right before a vote on the fate of the Fraternities on campus. In addition, Chip (Who was seen earlier in Season 2 Rapes of Graf and 301), who’s had his own head shaved and it’s turning out that a number of the rapes were faked in revenge for something that happened a couple years ago. Wallace was back in his helpful role, which was nice to see, and Veronica’s and Logan’s relationship is in the rocks. Lamb was dumped on again, and his scene when Veronica was pretending to be a newscaster was just brilliant. Next week ends the rape storyline, and starts the next mystery, a murder. Can’t wait.
House MD, 308: Good episode tonight. The cop wasn’t around, but people’re certainly being affected by his actions, mainly Wilson, who can bearly perform his job. He and House are at odds with each other now, which I’m guessing will have some lasting repercussions. In the meantime, a kid is brought in with a huge number of things wrong with him, lots of infections and various other problems that just won’t go away. Boo to Fox for the previews for this episode, really bad. House had some great moments, like when he swapped out canes with the other guy, and a couple of other random moments. This episode didn’t really stand out, but it was interesting.
Daybreak, 103: Wow, I’m really enjoying and surprised by this show, it’s really something. Hopper is still reliving the same day, which makes this easy because the plot’s essentially the same. Here, he’s getting used to it a bit more, adapting, and trying to get to the bottom of things. He manages to save the girl again, twice, once by stopping her with some questions and the other time by calling her, and preventing her from getting hit by the bus. He also finds that one of his partners is messed up with the guys who are following him in the black cars, and that he’s also helping him out with the secret case that he’s coming up with, and that Garza sent him the package and hourglass. It’s complicated, but I can’t wait to see what happens next. Great songs being used here, which makes me happy, and it’s looking like this is a sort of 13 episode miniseries, which is fantastic. No open ended story – nice ending, etc. If you haven’t checked this out, you can watch both episodes through ABC.com, where the first three are up.
Jericho, 109: Decent episode this week. The town has food, medical supplies, a generator and some other things like that dropped on it, with Chinese writing on the side, in Russian planes and with American tracking devices on them. What the hell? If they were to focus on this sort of thing more, this would be a helluva show. Instead, we have to worry about Eric’s cheating on his wife, a bunch of other relationships and other things like that. Not all that interesting, which is a little irritating. Shop keeper was stabbed though, so I guess that’s one irritating character down, another to go, although we haven’t seen much of bitchy!girl lately. That’s a good thing.
Supernatural: Rerun this week.
Battlestar Galactica: Returning next week.

TV Recap – November 13

This week’s episodes:

Studio 60, 107: Wow, this was a fantastic episode. I love the guy who played the Judge, and how he didn’t take any crap from the suits. Very good performance. And they made fun of Ann Coulter! That was one of the many highlights of the episode. (I hate that bitch). Harriet and Matt tangled up with the religion and anti-homosexuality arguments, bringing out some really heavy hitting things, and exposing some of the flaws that a lot of anti-gay marriage supporters throw out there. (“How does it matter to you if you’re married and the couple two doors down also happen to be gay and married?”) Harriet, and the religious right didn’t have an answer to that. Not to say that this is a purely leftist show, it’s not. They poked some fun at democrats with Matt sputtering about them at some point. I’m loving how political and accurate this show is. Tom got out of jail because of finally explaining why he was going a 125 mph which landed him there in the first place, and even Jack stood up for the group. That was a pleasant surprise. Can’t wait for next week’s episode. And holy crap! The girl who plays Harriet was in Serenity. Whoa.
Prison Break, 211: More company stuff, Linc and Michael are reunited, and we learned what Michael needed the nitro for, which was interesting. Mahone is still on their trail, and from the looks of it, he’s always just a little behind. We see the tattoo CGI magic again, turning into what the letters/numbers mean and then transpose onto something real, something that we haven’t really seen a whole lot of since the first season. T-Bag’s down a hand again, which was coming too him. Hope that it hurt. Plus, Sara’s getting tortured. By the looks of it, she might bite it this coming episode, although I’m suspecting that’s not gonna happen.
The one concern that I have is how fragmented the series is coming, between two storylines, the actual escape and the government conspiracy story, with the two of them running together, but not really interacting. It’ll be interesting to see how they’ll eventually work together, if that happens at all.
Heroes, 108: Whoo, another interesting episode – Some clues about why everyone’s getting the powers that they have, that there might be some sort of connection. We see Sylar in action, which was kind interesting, and saddening to see the waitress with the perfect memory die. But it does open some very interesting points up for the next episode. More with Greg Grunberg’s scenes, hopefully he’ll meet up with the rest of the group later. Where was Nikki and Peter this episode? They were curiously absent, although hopefully they’ll be around next week. Next week’s episode looks to be a lot of things happening all at once, with everybody converging on Claire. That’ll be cool.
Veronica Mars, 307: This was a good episode, but where’s Weevil, Wallace and Tina? Veronica helps out a girl who’s boyfriend goes missing in this ep, usual chasing leads around, she gets an application to work for the FBI, and has some issues with her father and Logan. It was cool to see the Fitzpatricks again, and Vinny, who hasn’t been seen much of at all. Plus, Lamb’s getting to be a likable character now. That’s a surprise.
The ending was the big shocker – Veronica was drugged and almost assaulted, before Logan finds her. That was a scare. I’m getting a little annoyed at how fragmented the cast is – Wallace was nowhere to be seen this episode.
House, MD, 307: Wow, this was a troubling episode. House is in with a vegatative patient, when his son comes down with an illness. To get information, House revives the patient,, who’s been under for ten years. Happy about his newfound wakefullness, he gets House and Wilson to go to Atlantic City for a sandwich, all the while House is asking him questions. They find one thing that might be the cause of the son’s illness, but that didn’t pan out, until the son developes heart problems. The father commits suicide, in order to give his son his heart, after Cuddy had told them that they can’t kill him for it.
This was a troubling episode, but it didn’t feel like it. It was a House and Wilson episode, something that really hasn’t been around for a little while, and seeing the two of them work together was pretty good. Plus, there were a couple of great Houseisms “I guess you wouldn’t have heard that the latest Star Wars movies were dissapointing”. Even the coma guy (sorry, vegatative guy) had a couple. “What’s this? It says ih Pod.” And the cop’s back, hounding the team and freezing Wilson’s bank accounts. Good episode.
Daybreak, 101/102: A cop, Brett Hopper, is havin the worst day of his life, and he’s repeating it every time he goes to sleep, waking up again the same morning. He’s having a bad day because he’s been framed for killing an assistant DA. Adam Baldwin (Jayne from Firefly) is in this, so it’s good to see another Firefly alum working in a show as well as Mitch Peggli, from Stargate Atlantis. Plus, it’s looking like they’ve really done some work on the cinematography here, with some stunning imagry. Hopper has to find out why he’s being framed, who’s behind it and trying to save those closest to him in the process. It appears to be ABC’s version of 24, mixed with some Prison Break and a couple other random shows. I like it, and will definently tune in next week.
Jericho, 108: Give me a break, please. After I was hoping that we’d have a good run of episodes after last week’s, we’re back to the usual drugery of characters making stupid decisions and pointless arguing. The Raven Wood unit advances on the town and the argument is whether to blow the bridge or not. The mayor argues that they’d be cut off if they blew it up. What? Are they on an island? I’m sure if they went down and around a bit, they’d find another bridge or place to cross. I’m also not buying the Ravenwood guys backing down from an additional three people showing up with guns behind them. The entire storyline with the girl having visions of her fiancee and wedding day was equally pointless. Next week’s looks better, as it appears that the Chinese will be dropping things on the town, and someone’s gonna die.
Supernatural, 208: More deals with Demons. Dean and Sam investigate a rash of people dropping dead after seemingly going crazy, and after all of them having ten productive years. Turns out they’d all made deals with various demons, and the brothers go off to try and save at least one of them. This felt like one of the more arcy episodes dealing with the Demon and their Father, as Dean was tempted to trade his life away to bring John Winchester back. He also found a really fun way to trap a demon. They seem to like trapping them this season. There wasn’t as much research or any of the very typical elements of the show in this episode, but it stood up nicely. It was a good episode though. The reference to the Musician was also paticularly cool. They’re really pulling out the real world references this time around. Check out the guy’s music, it’s really quite something.
Battlestar Galactica, 209: Wow, this was a heavy episode, as it might as well have been entitled guilt. The episode opens with Adama’s speech way back in the miniseries, about not being able to hide what you’ve done. Back in the present, the fleet comes across a surprise, Bulldog, a pilot thought dead, having recently stolen a Raider and escaped captivity on a Basestar over the past three years. He’d been shot down during a Black Ops mission into Cylon Space, violating the treaty, and in Adama’s mind, starting the entire mess that they were in. The worse thing is is that Adama himself ordered Bulldog to be shot down to avoid detection. When he learns this, Bulldog flips, and tries to kill Adama before Tigh stops him, having been warned by Kara.
This was a really well done character driven episode, really looking into the character of Adama. We can just see his guilt at this, especially when he learns that Bulldog is alive. It’s also nice to see Adama and Tigh back on good terms, although Tigh was a bit of an ass throughout the episode. Kara also seems to be back to her normal self, which is nice, and Roslin was paticularly good as well.
Who was also interesting to watch was Bulldog, from the brilliant introduction that they started with, and with Carl Lumbly’s performance. It was outstanding to see him, and I’ve been a fan of his since I’ve seen him in Alias, as Marcus Dixon.
The idea that Adama was the cause of the war is something that’s really dark, and something that I’m hoping that they might bring up again, although I suspect that this will be one of the more standalonish episodes, but hopefully, Bulldog will be back as a recurring character.

TV Recap: October 30

Some good episodes this week:

Prison Break, 209: Fantastic episode – Several surprises throughout. Lincoln was captured at the end. I didn’t see that coming at all. Mahone’s secret, the guy he’d been chasing buried in his back yard, which was a very nice tie in to where the guy was mentioned earlier in the season, which really makes Mahone’s character more interesting. C-Note’s bringing his family together was interesting, and finally, T-Bag runs into Bellick and gets knocked around a bit. The bastard finally has something of what’s been coming to him. There was a lot going in this episode, and the next episode should be good. This is definently one of the best shows on TV.
Heroes, 106: This seemed to focus mostly on Nikki, which I was a little worried about. She’s not my favourite character in the group, but this episode made me like her a little more. Her husband comes back, and we learn a bit of their background, and it was also interesting to see insane!Nikki and Hiro’s paths cross in the poker game. Claire’s father setting up the fake parents was interesting, as was the relevation about her illness as a kid. Peter and the Painter was interesting, advancing the story a little bit. And where’s Greg? I hope that he links up with the group sometime soon. Good episode though, still really loving this show.
Studio 60: This was on haitus this week, which annoyed me. NBC is assuring us that the show’s not going to be cancelled any time soon, but this isn’t the best of moves. I’m really waiting for next episode.
House, 305: I only caught the last half of this episode, but House seems to be back to normal, and he’s been arrested! Yikes. Hopefully, I’ll get more from the recap or find it on Youtube, but it’s good to have the doctor back.
Veronica Mars, 305: I love Veronica. Where last week’s episode was fairly lackluster, this one came back with a bang. Veronica went to find Logan in an illegal gambling room on campus, only to be there when two guys, dressed up in masks and fake guns stormed in, stole all the money and Veronica’s necklace – A gift from Lilly. Much of the episode is spent on solving that case, but there’s a little progression made with the rape case, as Veronica identifies the guy in the ATM photo, and on Keith Mar’s side of things, he helps the Dean of Herst College find a former husband of his wife’s, only to get tangled in a bit of a mess there. Couple of really funny things, Veronica using Weevil as a presentation in her class. “He said we could use audio/visual components. He’s audio, ‘Yo!’ and visual.” Lamb was pretty funny this episode, as was the interactions between everyone and himself.
The only weird thing was with Wallace. He’s clearly having trouble in class, but the entire storyline just didn’t fit with the rest of the episode. It was good to see a lot of the regular cast though, although Piz is still nowhere to be seen, and Logan had a pretty small role. Great episode though.
LOST, 305: Finally! A couple answers – we learn why Jack (At least sorta, kinda) was brought to the Other’s place, to treat Ben, but that there’s factions within the group. I’ll be interested to learn more about that in upcoming episodes. Plus, Ecko died, right with a great backstory on him. ‘Tis a shame, but I guess we’ve all sorta seen that coming since he was arrested for some sort of driving charge. It really is a curse. And we get another good look at the smoke monster! It’s back, and it can make a fist and slam people around. Weird and interesting.
Jericho, 107: Well, that sucked. This episode seemed to be “People taking a stand”. They’re still dealing with people being unlawful and hording food and things. Jake tries to deal with the guys, and they sort of come to an arrangement. We learn that NYC wasn’t nuked, and that they stopped the people before hand- We learned that this was the actions of three person teams in trucks, which is interesting. Bitchy!Girl is still here, and with more screentime than ever, which is annoying, as with the shop keeper. Even Hawkins wasn’t that interesting this episode. The dad’s about to die, and from the preview of next week, the brothers are going out to find meds, and run into soldiers, who’ve either gone crazy or someting random like that.
CSI, 705: I don’t usually watch CSI, becuase I find it too formulaic. However, Alan Tyduk was in this episode, as a child sex offender, which was really odd to see. The characters look a bit different from when I last saw the show. Two children went missing, and the CSI team goes out after them. Really creepy episode.
Supernatural, 206: Wow, I think this was one of the best episodes in the season thus far, if not the entire series. A lot of the episodes have followed a lot of plots and taken elements from horror movies, this one is the first that I can recall that takes the camera work to that level. Lots of handheld work, and it really was pretty creepy at times. In this episode, the US’s first Serial Killer, H.H. Holmes, (Who was real – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._H._Holmes) who was killed where there was an apartment building. He’s now gone to kidnapping and killing blonde women in the place. The Brothers are joined by Jo, who went against her mother’s wishes and tagged along, and ends up getting captured herself. They end up tracking the spirit down, but instead of killing it, they trap it in place in a ring of salt. Very cool plan, and the spirit definently didn’t like that. Plus, they made fun of Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise.

Sam: What’s in Los Angeles?
Dean: Young girl’s been kidnapped by an evil cult.
Sam: Girl got a name?
Dean: Katie Holmes

Battlestar Galactica, 306: Another fantastic episode – We’ve left behind New Caprica, but there are repercussions. Tigh and Kara are bitter about their experiences, and I suspect that despite the talking to that they got from Adama. Baltar is with the Cylons, and being busy, and Lee lost all that weight that he gained. Finally, Sharon is now Athena, which is an interesting touch for her.
The most interesting part of this episode was the interior workings of the Cylons. There was a lot in this episode, from how the Cylons percieve things, the interiors of the Basestars, the Hybrids, the controls, some more information about the remaining five unknown Cylon models.
Finally, there’s the beacon from Earth, and the fleet seems to be on the way to Earth, and it could prove to be a race. That’s assuming that the Cylons aren’t wiped out by the disease, which is very interesting. Looks like the Humans on Earth are pretty advanced, to some extent. Next episode is looking good.
And did anyone get a Minority Repot vibe with the Hybrids?

TV Recap: 7-25

Decent week week of television again this week. My thoughts:

Studio 60, 102: I missed the first couple of minutes, but this show is fun to watch. For someone who likes TV, it’s an interesting insight to how shows are made, I’m assuming generally, but the show has a good balance of humour and drama. This episode dealt with the main characters trying to come up with a show at very short notice, and pulling some personal things out with each other.

Smith, 102: This is a fun show. Really. I love heists, and this show is like an entire candystore. There’s several storylines here, trailing off from the pilot episode, with the group being investigated by the FBI, as well as a man coming after one of the characters after he shot two people. There’s some weaker characters, but we see a really fun heist with a hummer and a building, as well as setup for the next big heist.

Jericho, 102: I like the idea behind the show, but it’s too much like LOST at times, but with worse characters and writing. I’ll give this another episode or two, mainly because I want to learn why every major city in the country was bombed.

Veronica Mars, 301: This is one of the two big shows that I’ve been looking forwards to all summer -Veronica Mars. Coming back for a third season, the first episode picks up an older storyline while Veronica is at college. The humour and brilliant storytelling is back, and it’s great to see.

Six Degrees, 102: Another decent episode. Characters are getting more and more intertwined, and they have got a pretty decent soundtrack along with the series. I’m just wondering what direction they’ll take the series. I’m assuming that they’re going to delve into character’s pasts and what not, but what is the show working towards? The backstories worked really well in LOST, but if this show doesn’t have any ultimate goal, it’ll be fairly pointless.

Heroes, 101: I was really looking forwards to this show. A number of people around the world all of a sudden find that they have powers. One can fly, another can be unharmed, while another can manipulate time and space. As a comic fan, this is good stuff. Decent enough writing for a pilot, and I can’t wait to see episode 2.

House, MD, 304: House is getting back to his old ways. Wilson is being evil and annoying, and House finds a patient that he identifies himself with- An Autistic kid who’s screaming for no reason. Good episode, really interesting to see Cameron and the other ducklings trying to analys House’s interactions with Cuddy, as well as the entire team working in what seemed to be every room in the hospital.

Supernatural, 201: Caught this one on Youtube. Last season ended with a cliffhanger of the brothers and father caught in a bad car accident. This picks up with Dean on his deathbed, wandering around the hospital, trying to avoid a reaper. Their father makes a deal with a demon and dies, but Dean’s alive. Kind of a downer for the season opener, but the show’s just as good as before. Hoepfully they’ll be making more of an arc this season. Can’t wait to see the rest of the episodes! Plus, they’ve got a cool new title opener.

I missed Prison Break this week, although I’m going to catch up on the last two episodes soon. Next week, House is on a break, Heroes, Six Degrees, Battlestar Galactica, Smith and Jericho.

Show Title, Episode Number (Season #, then episode #)

TV Recap

This week’s TV watching:

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: The pilot episode for this show aired this week, and I’m really impressed with it thus far. Very dry, witty sense of humour, and it’s got quite a bit of potential. It has a bit of work to improve upon with some of the characters, but I’m interested to see where the show will be going.
House, MD: Another interesting episode of House. They’re really doing a lot of the character stuff this season. House is pretty much back to normal, Cameron kills a patient, and House is getting hit on by a 17 year old girl. This has some potential for humour.
Smith: I like heist movies, and this show looks to be a heist show. That’ll be fun to watch – the first episode was a lot of fun to watch, as the crew robbed an art museum. They’ve got some good storylines set up from this first episode, so hopefully they’ll do some fun stuff.
Jericho: I only caught the last couple minutes of this one, but it looks interesting. That’s about all I got out of it.
Six Degrees: This show I’ve been looking forwards to – one of the things that I liked about LOST (both shows have the same creator) is the back stories behind the characters and how they interconnect. That seems to be what this entire show is about, and six characters will become intertwined, which’ll be interesting to see where it’ll be going. I’m not sure where the story will go, but the characters are interesting.
Stargate SG-1: Midseason ender. I love Vala. “Riddles? I love riddles!”. Daniel and the rest of the team were awesome, great midseason break point. And it’s got a dragon! And Inara was in this episode. But seriously, I love Vala’s character.
Stargate Atlantis: Very sad episode, and a better episode from last week – The Atlantis team was kicked out of Atlantis, but then in turn it was taken over by Replicators. Where the hell did they come from?

Internet TV: New Season

Last year, and earlier this year, I posted up a series of essays on television’s increase in quality, as well as the changing role of television programmes and the internet. iTunes has increased it’s number of television shows from just a couple of ABC shows to two-hundred twenty. They’ve also picked up shows such as Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Prison Break, Law and Order, CSI, The Office, and have added a feature called a Season Pass, which will allow you to purchase the entire season ahead of time, all that you have to do is download the episode when it’s put online. In addition to the huge number of shows that have been added online, Apple Corp. has just revamped the iPod and iTunes. The new iPods have a better screen and longer battery life, aimed specifically at being able to watch videos on the devices. They’re not the full screen iPods as had been rumoured, but iTunes has become more visual. CD Cover art is more prominant, and the video quality has gone up. Towards the end of the typical TV seasons earlier this spring, where ABC put several of their shows online free, streaming, with limited ads. FOX and CBS have followed suit with some of their shows thus far. Fox put up four of the first episodes of Prison Break, Vanished, and has followed with a couple of other shows. CBS has placed their new show Smith, CSI: Miami, and the Unit online. I’m sure that several other networks (Please, please, please, CW, put up Supernatural and Veronica Mars online).
So what does this mean? Television is breaking further into the internet. NBC, SciFi, ABC, CW, and CBS have all added online video hubs. These hubs offer a number of different options, ranging from the full episodes of television episodes to behind the scenes and promos for upcoming episodes. I don’t think that it needs to be said, but TV is here on the internet to stay.
There’s a couple of reasons for content being provided online. The technology is here, with broadband connections becoming ever more powerful. I, for the first time, have Cable internet, and as a result, I’ve been watching Prison Break, Battlestar Galactica, and currently, Smith, streaming. It’s a cool thing.
I’m also extremely pleased with it because I can now watch the episode a day or so after it airs, which is very nice because my job will be taking me away from the tube, and for shows with content that relied heavily on the story aspect, it’s nice to have the option to be able to catch up without waiting half the year for a re-run.
There are, with all good thing, some drawbacks. iTunes music files are fairly large, ranging from 396 megabytes to 912 megabytes. These are huge files, and they have the potential to really eat up your hard drive in huge bites. No pun intended. But currently, I’m down to about 7 free gigabytes on my own hard drive. In addition, the streaming shows are just that, streaming. The quality level on the full screen settings are pretty weak, and if your connection is spotty, you’re likely to have trouble.
Security is another drawback. with sites like Youtube, Google Video and Myspace videos gaining in popularity, it’ll be a matter of time before there will be some news about television networks and their programs ending up on these sites. I know that House has made an appearance as a six part upload, as I’m sure that several other shows have done. Warner Brothers has signed a deal with Youtube for their content, while another has condemned the site.
Finally, not all shows are online. Fox, much to my annoyance, hasn’t put up House for download on iTunes, nor streaming. So, if there’s really one show that you have your heart set on, it might be hit or miss whether it’ll be online for viewing or not. Well, there’s always the DVDs, or you know, making sure that you’ll be able to make the TV date.
I generally get around that little problem by watching the episodes while I’m doing other things, like writing, talking with other people, and with it in a small corner of my screen.
Things are likely to improve. Image quality has a little ways to go, but I’m betting that we’ll see some slower progress, as with higher quality episodes, we’ll have bigger megabyte sizes. Bigger sizes mean longer download times and more space taken up on your computer.

Next up: Lost Clones, the TV/Movie Barrier and high quality storylines.