TV Tyrant

24: What happened to the last guys who tried to be like Jack

May 28th, 2009 | by | 24, jack bauer, liveblog, tv shows

May
28

Yep, it’s official: Freddie Prinze Jr. will be a Jack wanna-be on Day 8.

He’ll play “Davis Cole, a U.S. Marine who wants to follow in the footsteps” of our man Jack.freddie_prinze_jr_by_david_shankbone

Guess what happened to the last guys who tried to be the next Jack:

• Day 3: Chase Edmunds: Dated Kim Bauer. Secretly had a child from a previous relationship. Nearly got shot in the head by Jack, who was trying to prove himself to the Salazars. Jack cut off his hand to remove a vial of a nasty flesh-eating virus. We last saw him being wheeled into the ER, hoping he could get his hand back. At the start of Day 4, we were told he had taken a job with some private consulting firm and was living with Kim. Status: No hand, no girl, no Jack.

• Days 4-6: Curtis Manning: Poor Curtis. He starts Day 4 as the Chief of Staff of CTU Los Angeles. Day 5, he’s promoted to Director of Field Operations (Field Ops, as we say in the biz). In the first hours of Day 6, he’s shot and killed by Jack, because Jack’s trying to protect a former terrorist gone good who was responsible for the death of some of the members of Curtis’ Special Forces Unit after Desert Storm. In between, he’s knocked out by Jack at least twice and handcuffed at least once. Status: No life.

• Day 6: Mike Doyle: Replaces the just-killed Curtis Morgan as Director of Field Ops. Something happened in Denver, and Milo’s pissed off about it. Hottie Nadia Yassir has to decide between the two of them, for some reason. A bomb blows up in Doyle’s face just before the day ends. Status: No sight.

The good news? The actor best known for being the son of Chico and his own roles in “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” “She’s All That” and “Scooby-Doo” probably has the life expectancy of a mayfly.

Photo by David Shankbone, Creative Commons

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Damages – It sucked me right back in …

May 26th, 2009 | by | damages

May
26

We never got around to watching Damages this year when it was actually on the air, but we dutifully recorded it to catch up with some time.

There, an entire season sat, taunting us.

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I remembered that last year, with Season 1, we knew, somehow, that we were going to like the show, but just couldn’t get ourselves to hit “play” on the first episode.

We’re not big on the procedural in our house. Only the star power of the cast – Glenn Close, Rose Byrne, Ted Danson – and the fact that it was on FX made us take a second look.

About five minutes into the first episode, we were completely hooked.

Oddly enough, the same thing happened this season.

It ended weeks ago – April 1 – and we hadn’t started watching it until over the Memorial Day weekend. We’d exhausted most of the other shows and movies on the DVR that we watch together.

So we finally caved in and started watching Season 2 of Damages.

About 5 minutes into it, we were completely sucked in.

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Better Off Ted: Pretty funny, actually

May 25th, 2009 | by | abc, better off ted, sitcom

May
25

Over two or three days last week, we watched the entire first season of one of the few sitcoms left on television, Better Off Ted.

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Part of why it works, I think, is because it doesn’t try to ground itself in reality. It is a satire of the corporate world and does not pretend to be anything other than satire.

Oddly enough, the least realistic part of it is not the thought that a corporation would try to quick-freeze one of its scientists for a year just to see what would happen. It was that Ted, the head of R&D for this corporation, is not a blood-sucking leech of a man.

He’s actually rather decent, though he does have his rather corporate moments.

It would be a little difficult to develop a show people would want to watch if the main character were thoroughly unlikable.

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The state of science fiction on TV

May 24th, 2009 | by | human target, new season, new shows, past life, schedule

May
24

As it is with every year, a whole bunch of science fiction-y shows were canceled at the end of the season, but I have to give it to the networks for trying a bunch of new ones next year.

It was so hard to keep track of the comings and goings during the upfronts, but SciFi Wire thankfully charted it all in a very understandable fashion.

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The clear winner, IMHO, is Fox.

Sure, Fox canceled Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, better known as TSCC because it’s a lot freakin’ shorter. But it did keep Dollhouse around for at least another 13 episodes. (Side note: This comic is probably a bit too close to reality for comfort when it comes to how the decision was made.) I’m thinking that Fox didn’t feel like incurring the wrath of the Whedonverse again, whereas TSCC ended at a spot that could full well be the series’ end. (Not that I wouldn’t have loved to see where it would have picked up in the fall.)

Fox also kept Fringe, which is one of my favorite shows. So the net gets brownie points for that. It’s also picked up Human Target and Past Life, each for 13 episodes and for midseason.

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Ratings: Worst. Season. Ever.

May 22nd, 2009 | by | ratings, season

May
22

OK, I guess the TV seasons before most people had televisions were worse, but this season was for the birds, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

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The four major networks (that’d be CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox – sorry CW) lost an average of 16 percent of viewership in the coveted “demo” – adults 18-49. That includes DVR use.

Fox was on top, followed by CBS, ABC and NBC. But “on top” still includes a steep drop.

Why is this?

A whole mess of things.

First off, a lot of people are watching online – legally and illegally (Hulu an example of the former, BitTorrent an example of the latter). I know some folks who don’t have televisions, even, and only watch what they like online.

Second, a lot of people watch on DVR, but not within that 7-day window included in ratings. For example, my husband and I haven’t watched Season 2 of Damages yet. The entire season is sitting there on our DVR. We just finished up the entire first seasons of Dollhouse and Better off Ted in a few days in marathon viewing sessions. (I’ll be writing about BoT in a couple days). I still have episodes of Reaper, the season finale of Supernatural and Sunday’s episode of Breaking Bad on my DVR, waiting for me to have a chance to sit down and watch ‘em.

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24: Season finale

May 19th, 2009 | by | 24, season finale

May
19

I know there are many people out there who don’t agree with me, but I thought last night’s finale was rather good.

Look, it’s 24, and it’s been written so deep into a corner over the past several years that it’s amazing they’ve been able to write their way back out.

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But the rebound from last season was nothing short of spectacular.

Over the course of the season, there have been more twists in the plot than on a strand of DNA.

But the finale managed to bring them all together, albeit with a whining Tony who is a mere shadow of the shell of the man he once was. We all knew that Michelle’s death hit him hard. And, OK, she was pregnant, so that makes it even harder. But watching Tony was like going back to the TV show Pretender, when Jared was doing a patented Triple Pretend.

Except for one thing: On Pretender, we always were in on Jared’s pretending. We knew he wasn’t a doctor. Or a car thief. Or whatever.

Tony? It shifted almost from week to week. Gave me a headache. Was Tony bad? Was he good? Was he bad? Was he good? Was he badly good? Goodly bad? Just plain ol’ bat-guano crazy??

Ding ding ding ding! We have a winner! Bat-guano crazy.

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Dollhouse: Renewed?

May 17th, 2009 | by | dollhouse

May
17

The official announcement won’t come until tomorrow, but The Hollywood Reporter says Fox has ordered another 13 episodes of the low-rated sci-fi drama, Dollhouse.

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At the start of the season, I was a bit take-it-or-leave it about the show. But as the season progressed, it got far more complex and, frankly, sinister. I still haven’t seen the season (not series!) finale, but I’ll be watching that tonight.

I loved that Joss Whedon brought in Wash from Firefly to be Alpha. I’ve mourned Wash’s death ever since he was impaled in Serenity. And I love that Alpha is basically bat-guano crazy because he’s in love with Echo.

That goes back to the whole idea they explored with Victor and Sierra a few episodes back, where even when they were in their blank state and even when they were given some of their own memories, Victor stuck by Sierra and cared nothing for his own life, only for helping her.

The idea that love knows no boundaries and can break through all barriers is actually rather lovely, particularly for science fiction.

What will next season bring? Not sure, but it should be interesting. I wonder, however, if the unaired Episode 14, Epitaph One, will kick off the second season, and we’ll find ourselves in a post-apocalyptic world.

That’d be pretty cool.

So, Fox, will we finally learn the fate of TSCC tomorrow?

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Lost: Mindfrak

May 13th, 2009 | by | lost

May
13

I keep starting and erasing this blog post because I hardly know what to say. I need to let all this sink in.

Wow.

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(BTW, I cried when you-know-who fell you-know-where and the other you-know-who cried.)

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