TV Tyrant

Lost: Jughead

January 30th, 2009 | by | tv shows

Jan
30

I wondered why the episode was named after a character from the Archie comics until tonight, when I stumbled upon TV.com’s breakdown of the episode:

Forsythe Pendleton “Jughead” Jones III was a regularly featured character in Archie Comics, notable as the lead character in a 1990 cartoon series, Jughead’s Time Police. In the series, Jughead, using a special beanie given by an unknown benefactor, travels through time fixing disturbances in the timeline with the help of one of his own descendants from the 29th century.

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Missed that series, but it doesn’t appear to have been on very long. I didn’t realize, however, that alternate universes of one sort or another were extremely common in Archie comics, despite the fact that I loved reading them as a kid.

Chalk up another point in the “alternate reality/time travel” theories to explain wtf is going on.

Before I get to what I believe to be the most interesting and probably accurate Lost theory floating around cyberspace this week, I want to just comment on a few things I noticed in watching Wednesday night:

• If you tell me that your jaw did not drop when Richard Alpert said, “Widmore,” you are frakkin’ lying. That’s it. You’re just a big fat liar, liar pants on fire. It explained so much and yet made it all the more confusing. As usual for Lost, naturally. So, did Widmore have to leave the island? Did he choose to leave the island? Is that blonde chica holding a gun on Faraday Penny’s mom, maybe, and they left because otherwise the baby would have died?

• Did the blonde chica recognize Faraday? Did Alpert? Their initial reactions to him seemed to be that they did, but then they seemed as if they’d never met him before. I couldn’t tell if they were trying to hide that they knew he personally had been to the island before or if they were just assuming he was part of the bad guys (U.S. soldiers, to them). I mean, Faraday doesn’t look like a soldier in any way, shape or form.

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Because everyone loves a carnival …

January 29th, 2009 | by | 24, blog carnival, lost, supernatural

Jan
29

Two blog carnivals for TV Tyrant today:

• The Carnival of Bauer!!! (cotton candy bullets!) over at The Jack Sack. Adam’s one of my oldest blogger friends and is always funny, so I’ll even forgive him for continuing to harass me over the silent clock issue.

• Visions of Winchesters: The Supernatural Variety, over at Pop Culture Curmudgeon. Reviews, news and clips galore this week.

I still have some pondering to do over yesterday’s episode of Lost; I’ll have something posted in the next day or so. Just one thing (SPOILER ALERT – don’t read if you didn’t watch): Did your jaw drop when Richard Alpert said, “Widmore”? If you say no, you’re a big, fat stinking liar.

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24: What happened

January 28th, 2009 | by | 24, blog carnival, jack bauer

Jan
28

Don’t read if you didn’t watch. THERE’S NOT ENOUGH TIME!!!

OK, got that out of the way, so I can say this: Damn the gods of 24 for lying about the silent clock.
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I know that some people say you could hear her breathing over the clock, so it wasn’t TRULY silent. But it was a lie. They tried to make us believe she was dead.

But, I guess, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. It’s been a long time since 24 was able to surprise us about anything. Sure, there were plenty of fans who didn’t believe Walker was dead; but no one really knew for sure.

And that’s been a rarity on 24 in the past few years. It’s what made Day 5 so stunning, in fact, when we learned President Logan was the big bad. Sure, that’s only two seasons ago, but it seems much longer ago than that. (Maybe because we lost a season, dammit!)

But back to Monday’s ep.

Jack finally got a kill. Finally. I mean, we’ve had five hours of the episode before this and he hadn’t killed anyone yet?

And Tony got a kill, even. I’m glad they got rid of Emerson. The actor had finally just flat-out given up even pretending to have a British accent. I mean, he’s dead, right?

OK, so the high points:
• They blowed up airplanes within view of the White House. The bad guys mean business. I couldn’t tell, however, if the president’s chief of staff was surprised by it or not. I’m totally convinced he’s a bad guy.
• Chloe said, “Please.” Really? Chloe? Motherhood’s softened you.
• The First Husband is pretty badass. I mean, you had to see that coming. they weren’t going to kill him so early on, and when the 12-year-old Secret Service agent started taking his grand old time to set up the noose and the First Husband started getting feeling back…
• It never ceases to amaze me how someone can be all, “Sure, we’ll blow up the chemical plant and kill lots of people.” Sure, the head honcho bad terrorist guy, but what about his minions, who apparently are American (or, at least the sure as hell speak like Americans)…
• President Taylor is a hardass. I like this woman. She’s not taking crap from anyone. She kicked out that one cabinet member and was all, it’s my way or the highway.

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So Say We All: The Battlestar Galactica Blog Carnival, Ed. 4.5.2

January 27th, 2009 | by | battlestar galactica, blog carnival, so say we all

Jan
27

With only eight episodes left ever of this fabulous show, there’s not much time to waste. Though Friday’s installment didn’t have a lot of action, it advanced many elements toward their painful conculsions.

One thing I didn’t realize at the time was that Ron Moore directed the episode, his first time in the four years he’s co-run the show with David Eick.

And so we round up the action in this week’s blog carnival:

Audra was glad the show finally addressed little Nicky’s parentage and why no one was making a big deal about his half-Cylon-ness, in BSG Countdown- 2 down, 8 to go posted at True Science Fiction.

Norman Doering laments the import given to the Zarek storyline, believing there are more important things to resolve, in Battlestar Galactica: “The Disquiet That Follows My Soul” posted at A Blog from Hell. Norman says, ” Well, it seems Adm. Adama and Apollo are being ignorant and authoritarian pricks. They are not telling people everything they know.”

Ms. Smarty Pants charts the important points of “Disquiet” in This Is Not a Show for the Addle-Minded posted at Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All.

Nina recaps the episode in the only way she can – with style and … attitude, in  Battlestar Galactica Season 4.5 Epi 12: The Disquiet That Follows My Soul posted at Blog It Out Bitch. I personally agree with her assessment of how Adama is likely to react when he finds out the truth about Gaeta.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of so say we all using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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Supernatural: How can you not love an episode titled “Criss Angel is a Douche”?

January 26th, 2009 | by | supernatural

Jan
26

First off, I would like to say that I had no idea that you could call someone a douche on broadcast television. I mean, it’s not one of George Carlin’s “seven words,” but it sure is nasty.

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That said, I think they outdid themselves in the number of times they said it. (Anyone have a count?)

I realized in watching Supernatural last week why, exactly, I like watching the show.

You get the “monster of the week” type thing that any procedural gives you. A crime/mystery/whatever that is wrapped up in one neat episode, start to finish. But either the ghoul somehow fits into SPN’s overarching mythology of the show or there’s some tidbit that happens that moves the backstory along. Sometimes it moves along faster than others, but – unlike, say, Lost before its creators finally got an end date – you actually get some answers from time to time and get the sense that you’re moving toward some resolution.

Though, I suppose, there never will be full resolution, or else that would mean there were no more demons. And I can’t imagine this show ever trying to go all Pollyanna in that regard.

Anyhow, my favorite scene last week was when Sam & Dean were holding their guns on the suddenly successful old magician, realize he’s telling the truth that he’s not using black magic and start discussing with each other what they should do.

Very classic, sibling bickering over guns. Nice.

I expect this week’s ep, “After School Special,” to be lots of fun – they go undercover in their old high school to investigate a string of murders. Flashbacks ensue, and guess what? Dean was Mr. Popular and Sam was picked on.

Thing is, I never really got the sense they actually went to high school because of their itinerant lifestyle — though, I suppose, if Sam went to college, he must have had a high school degree.

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Battlestar Galactica: Things fall apart

January 25th, 2009 | by | battlestar galactica

Jan
25

The words to the William Butler Yeats poem kept running through my head today as I pondered last night’s installment of BSG.

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”

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Since the discovery that Earth was a complete ruin, everyone in the fleet has been on edge. We saw that last week, but their inability to move onto the next step – i.e., finding a new place to live – combined with the now-unnecessary alliance with the Six faction of the Cylons and the threat of the Cavil faction still being out there has proven to be too much for anyone to handle.

Baltar has gone from preaching the word of the One True God to berating any god that would punish its followers for no reason. He basically has his followers good and riled up, with no riot to attend. At least Tyrol attacking Hot Dog relieved some of the crowd’s pent-up rage.

Will Baltar’s followers become the footsoldiers in Tom Zarek/Felix Gaeta’s revolution?

I honestly didn’t think Gaeta had it in him. But after being reviled for working for Baltar on New Caprica and losing his leg because he had to wait for Starbuck to return (and she was married to a Cylon, etc.) and almost being airlocked by two Cylons and Starbuck, he isn’t about to roll over and let Cylon have ANY say in the fleet.

His throwing in with Zarek isn’t all that shocking. But because Roslin has been MIA since Earth, Zarek’s had a bully pulpit from which to seize the ring of leadership and shut down any dissenting voices (Lee). There’s going to be a civilian v. military showdown, and nothing’s certain as to who’s gonna win.

On the one hand, you have to pull for the civilians, because in the real world, we know how well military coups work out. On the other hand, because this is television, we know that Adama’s right and is more likely to have the best interest of everyone involved and should emerge victorious. Should. Doesn’t mean he will.

As for the show’s mythology, we actually learned a couple of interesting things:

• Hera, the human/Cylon hybrid, truly is the only human/Cylon hybrid. Nicholas, son of Tyrol/Callie, isn’t actually Tyrol’s son. Who knew Callie was sleeping around? Certainly not Tyrol. That knowledge, however, certainly colors her behavior toward Tyrol in the weeks before her death. Was she regretting that she married Galen instead of Hot Dog?

• The Cylons actually can reproduce, but perhaps only the Earth Cylons and the new Cylons. Good thing, seeing as the Resurrection Hub is gone. And, I wonder, is Six based on the old-school Ellen Cylon?

And a couple of questions:

• How come the Cylons can’t build a new Resurrection Hub? This just occurred to me now.

• Why is Sharon a model 8? Why was model 7 skipped? That’s driven me crazy for years now. Will that question ever be answered?

Come back Tuesday for the So Say We All blog carnival. You can submit entries here.

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Lost: … in time, … in lies

January 22nd, 2009 | by | lost, tv shows

Jan
22

What an astounding return Lost made last night.

The show went off in all sorts of new directions and for the first time actually gave us a sense of time. The “Three years earlier” screens we got a couple of times were rather startling, as Lost’s creators have absolutely never attempted to be transparent with the time frame they’re working in.

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Those of us paying attention always knew Lost was all about time travel. And we knew that time on the island ran on a different track than everywhere else. But why the island should be skipping about like a scratched record (nice imagery at the beginning of the episode, eh?) is beyond me for the moment.

I thought I’d round up what I learned yesterday and what I now wonder, along with all the other things that I already wondered.

• The island didn’t move in location, just in time. And the others are not just “indigenous,” but rather somehow a part of the island, for they are not skipping about with our Losties. They are almost outgrowths of the island, as much a part of it as the trees.

• Did the biological weapon unleashed by the Others on the Dharma initiative somehow cause the phenomenon where women cannot give birth on the island? Obviously, at some point, they could. And that could explain why Desmond and Kelvin, locked up in the Hatch, wore those hazmat suits. Or thought they needed to wear them. Or not.

• Did Daniel insist on seeing Desmond only to have him visit his mommy at Oxford, or did he also need to touch base with Desmond, b/c Des is his constant? Desmond needed to speak to Penny in order to stablize in time. So did Daniel have to talk to Desmond?

• Why is Charlotte the only one so far to have the nosebleed from the time travel? And why isn’t Daniel her constant? And why doesn’t Daniel tell her she needs a constant and make himself her constant? Or, is Ben her constant because she’s Annie? Hmmm? Oh, c’mon, I’m not even close to the first person to think she’s Ben’s childhood girlfriend.

• Speaking of Daniel (yeah, he was one of the most key characters of the episode), how and why was he there when Dr. Candle/Wick/whatever was near the donkey wheel wall? Did he somehow get in there during one of the time skips? Is that why he was gone for so long? Not just visiting Desmond, but also checking out the donkey wheel?

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The Carnival of Bauer!!! Day 7

January 22nd, 2009 | by | 24, blog carnival, jack bauer, miscellaneous, supernatural, talk like jack bauer day, tv shows

Jan
22

Welcome to the January 22, 2009 edition of the Carnival of Bauer!!! (been such a long time coming!)

We needed a week to get our act together after last week’s stunning four-hour premiere, but we’re raring to go.

We’ll start off with the man himself, Jack Bauer, who recaps the episode in his inimitable fashion TivoBlogging: The Following Takes Place Between 12:00 PM and 1:00 PM posted at Blogs4Bauer. Not sure what everyone’s new nickname is for the season? They’re all here. And as mean as it might seem to call Alison Taylor President Cankles, it’ll still make you giggle.

Next up, you know you missed it – we all did – Adam over at The Jack Sack gives us a 24 picture book, “Renee Walker tracks down a rare DVD.” If you don’t laugh, you have no sense of humor. By the way, President Cankles has much better taste in movies than her husband.

Wesley M. gives us a peek at what 24 would be like if it were, say, a celebreality dating show. With Nina Meyers to boot. Check it out at 24 Shots at Love: The Lost Episode posted at In My Copious Free Time.

Jarett Wieselman waxes poetic about Agent Walker and her Baueristic tendencies – and he’s also loving Janis Gold, whom he dubs the New Chloe, which I would say might possibly be accurate, except that Old Chloe is still around, hello!!! – in his post I’m Loving “24′s” Female Jack Bauer posted at POPWRAP.

Then, there’s me. First off, I’m still all confused about what happened to Agent Walker. Is she dead? Alive? The silent clock, for the first time, may have lied. Bastards. Check out my thoughts on the matter at 24: Silent clock subterfuge? And here’s my overall thoughts on Day 7, after seeing the four-hour premiere.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of bauer!!! using our carnival submission form. Past and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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The Carnival of Bauer!!! returns

January 21st, 2009 | by | 24, blog carnival

Jan
21

picture-11Yours truly, the only female member of Blogs4Bauer, has the extreme honor of hosting the first Carnival of Bauer!!! of Season 7.

It’s been a very long time since the last carnival — heck, we were still on Blogspot then —  but it’s very welcome. It posts tomorrow (Thursday) sometime… Basically, once I have a chance to get through all the posts and write it up.

I’m the luckiest girl in the world!

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