TV Tyrant

Lost: The Variable

April 29th, 2009 | by | lost

Apr
29

For a fleeting moment tonight, I thought that my beloved Lost was about to abandon the conceit that you cannot change the future, that what is going to happen is going to happen and there’s damn little you can do about it.

Did I mention how fleeting that moment was?

Remember, if you will, that Desmond tried to save Charlie multiple times. But no matter what he did, he could only change the circumstances – not the end result.

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Have I mentioned yet that you shouldn’t read if you didn’t watch? No? Well, I have now.

We did have a bit of foreshadowing of Daniel’s death, when he told Jack that the present is the present and anyone could still die.

And I think it’s important to note that now everyone who came on the freighter is dead except for Miles. Even Abbadon is dead.

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Kings & Jericho: More in common than the Biblical references

April 27th, 2009 | by | tv shows

Apr
27

I was chatting with a friend on Twitter yesterday about the crime that is the all-but-certain cancellation of Kings.

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I first met Dan during the (partly successful) fan uprising to keep Jericho on the air.

For those of  you unfamiliar with the late, lamented CBS show, here’s the basics in a nutshell:

A tale of a small Kansas town and its residents in the aftermath of a nuclear attack on most of America’s major cities, Jericho debuted in September 2006 to decent ratings, which it held onto through the fall before going on an unannounced winter hiatus.

By the time CBS brought it back in the spring, many people had forgotten about it; some thought it had been canceled. The network didn’t really publicize its return, either, leaving some fans happily surprised to stumble upon it.

It ended its season with OK, if not stellar ratings, but a very passionate fanbase, who were stunned when CBS announced, after the finale aired, that the show would not get a second season.

Harkening to a line spoken by Skeet Ulrich, who played the lead character Jake, in the finale, fans started sending peanuts by the truckload to CBS headquarters.

After receiving enough peanuts to feed every elephant in the world for the rest of their lives, CBS relented, somewhat and greenlit a short second season as a midseason replacement.

Again, the network stumbled, and waited to put it on the air until after the writer’s strike was over and new programming was once again finding its way to the airwaves. In the end, Jericho was canceled a second and final time, though it has found an extended life on The CW and Sci Fi (now SyFy) networks and its creators are still pursuing the possibility of a movie.

An undercurrent to the entire ordeal was this: Jericho did great on DVR ratings and online viewing. The regular old Nielsen ratings weren’t measuring the show’s true viewership, fans argued. The network didn’t listen.

What does any of this have to do with Kings?

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Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

April 24th, 2009 | by | terminator: the sarah connor chronicles, tscc

Apr
24

I haven’t written about this entry into the Terminator canon on this blog yet, primarily because I could only promise to follow so many shows and didn’t want to fall behind.

As it was, I fell very behind on TSCC and only finally watched the season finale last weekend.

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In the interim, there’s been much talk of the likelihood of that episode being a series, rather than season, finale, while Fox decides whether to renew it.

Count me among those who enjoyed TSCC, even when it became rather inscrutable. I’ll admit, there were a couple of episodes when I kind of sat there and said, “Huh?”

We jumped back and forth in time, everyone important to the Connors (except Charlie) was from the future, it seemed. Catherine Weaver was an evil terminator and then, just maybe, a good terminator. But we still don’t REALLY know what the hell is going on.

The whole high school girlfriend who was really a tunnel rat from the future storyline, the whole Jessie hating Cameron storyline (which ended with us learning that something weird had happened on a sub once with a terminator that looked like Ellison, but I can’t figure out wtf, exactly, except that the liquid terminators didn’t want to join with John Connor. Then.) – these left me scratching my head more than once.

And is Sarah dying from cancer or not?

I digress. The fact is, the finale was really fantastic, in part because it made me wonder if the reason John Connor because the leader of the resistance is because he jumps to the future and has in-depth knowledge of the terminators.

It doesn’t really matter, because it’s not truly a part of the canon, with the new Terminator: Salvation coming out soon. That’s the true story about what really happens after Judgement Day anyhow.

TSCC has been fun, has a great cast and has proved that Brian Austin Green is more than just a geeky teenybopper. I mean, we can forgive him 90210 now.

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Breaking Bad: Things are getting darker

April 23rd, 2009 | by | breaking bad

Apr
23

I never really thought Breaking Bad was light fare.

In fact, I thought it was one of the more intense shows on television, the story of a high school chem teacher whose insurance won’t cover the only treatment that might save him from dying of cancer. So he does what anyone in his situation would do, right?

He starts cooking crystal meth with a former student.

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[Cue funky Breaking Bad theme twang.]

But the tagline is “The End Justifies the Extreme” and this season has been utterly extreme so far, never more so than the last couple of episodes.

Even Tuco’s utter insanity was mere prelude.

But you know what? I think it’s brilliant. We usually see the hapless pot dealers and the violent cocaine cartels. But even that cocaine violence sort of makes sense. It’s orderly in its own sort of way.

The violence on this show is so sudden, so schizophrenic, so … utterly startling and scary and — well, just look at Tuco and how he dealt so sensitively with his grandfather (and then so insanely).

The true cost of what Walter and Jesse (Jesse Jackson, was he high? Oh, wait – actually, he wasn’t, for a change.) are doing was heartbreaking in “Peekaboo,” where Spooge’s child was living in such horrible conditions that, as Jesse pointed out, he couldn’t even watch any decent TV.

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24: The truth about Tony

April 21st, 2009 | by | 24, tony almeida

Apr
21

Didn’t watch? Don’t read. That’s all I’m gonna say.

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They could not have made Tony look any more suspicious last night if they’d said to him, “Hey, Carlos, make Tony look really suspicious tonight.” Actually, that’s probably what they did.

Thing is, Tony knows that if anyone could sniff out his duplicity, it’s Jack. And he also knows that the only way to stop Jack once he knows what you’re up to is to kill him.

Which makes me think that maybe Tony isn’t truly Darth Zombie Tony Almeida, but merely Zombie Tony Almeida, double agent.

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Harper’s Island

April 20th, 2009 | by | harper's island

Apr
20

I was predisposed to liking Harper’s Island for a variety of reasons.

First, it was a good murder mystery in the vein of the finest Agatha Christie.

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Second, it was being exec produced by Jon Turteltaub, who was part of the team that brought us Jericho. Dan Shotz and Karim Zreik are co-exec producers – two names also known to every true fan of Jericho. Add to that a score by David Lawrence – he also scored … Jericho – and all that’s missing is Skeet. And Sprague, but she’s busy on 24 right now.

Whatever the case, I caught up with the first two episodes on Sunday and I was very pleased.

It’s creepy, it’s funny, it’s surprising. Absolutely everyone is a suspect until he or she dies, and they’ve thrown in a little supernatural bit with that little girl who seems to be communing with the dead.

Similar to Jericho, you have the prodigal daughter returning home after a self-imposed exile and the old friends who are thrilled to see her return.

I honestly can’t imagine how this could go past one season, but if anyone can figure it out, it’s this crew.

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Kings: A prince among paupers

April 19th, 2009 | by | ian mcshane, kings

Apr
19

When I first heard the premise for Kings – a modern-day interpretation of the David v. Goliath tale from that old chestnut, The Bible – I was intrigued.

I love it, frankly, when there’s a modern-day take on a classic tale – biblical or not.

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One could argue, of course, that almost everything is a modern-day take on a classic tale if you look at it hard enough. But that’s an issue for another blog post entirely.

picture-4Beyond that, however, was the opportunity to see the great Ian McShane in another role. McShane was the incredible Al Swearingen on the late, great, truly lamented Deadwood.

Hell, if he were in a car commercial, I’d watch it.

McShane as King Silas is brilliant; every time you think you hate him (much like Swearingen), he does or says something that makes you realize he’s more or less a product of his circumstances and is pretty much an alright kinda guy, for what he is.

Add to that you have a hotshot supporting cast – note Miguel Ferrer as the general from Gath? Macaulay Culkin as the king’s nephew-in-law? Maqua from Last of the Mohicans (known in real life as Wes Studi) as the Gilboan general?

So of course it was with no surprise that I read that Kings was kinda sorta canceled. It wasn’t really; just moved from Sunday night to Satuday night.

That’s pretty much the death knell, of course, seeing as no one watches television on Saturday nights. Of course, you’d think that a show wouldn’t have to get good ratings to survive on a Saturday night.

As I’ve said in the past, however, a short run of the show might not be such a bad thing.

But one season for Kings? That seems almost criminal.

I think the powers that be at NBC should be banished to Port Prosperity, just before the turnover to Gath.

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The Carnival of Bauer!!! The Kim & Tony Edition

April 17th, 2009 | by | 24, blog carnival, carnival of bauer

Apr
17

When I volunteered to do this week’s Carnival of Bauer!!! I didn’t realize I’d not only be the lucky one to host a carnival about the (brief) return of Kim Bauer, but also the (possible) turn to the dark side of Darth Zombie Tony Almeida.

But I’m the luckiest girl in the world, as we all know (I am, after all, the only full-fledged female member of Blogs4Bauer). And so, I am hosting a fabulous carnival.

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And now, the carnival:

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Lost: Some Like It Hoth

April 16th, 2009 | by | lost

Apr
16

How totally awesome was it that the title came from a complete sub-sub-plot, wherein Hurley is writing a new and better script for Empire Strikes Back, one that negates the need for the Ewoks in Jedi.

We all know by now that there’s no way to change the future, so he is doomed to never get his script into George Lucas’ hands, or maybe something in his script even sparks the idea of Ewoks; but that’s one I suppose we’ll never know for 100 percent sure.

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What we do know for 100 percent sure now, is something I predicted month and months (maybe eons!) ago: Dr. Marvin Candle (not his real name, but that’s how I always think of him) is Miles’ father.

Toldya.

Of course, that wasn’t too shocking once we knew Dr. Candle had a baby and realized all those recruited for the trip to the island had some sort of connection to it.

So this is the main question I have about Candle/Miles – did Marvin Candle do some weird experiments that led to his son having the ability to commune with the dead? Or was he born with the ability because he was born on the island? Either way, is that why his mom left his dad?

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24: What?

April 13th, 2009 | by | 24

Apr
13

I almost don’t know what to say.

OK, I know one thing to say: If you haven’t watched tonight’s episode of 24 yet, stop reading NOW. NOWWWWWWW.

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Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

In fact, tonight’s episode was so frakkin’ unbelievable that I’m not going to write ANOTHER WORD before the jump in case someone isn’t listening to me.

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