Alcatraz! & Touch

January 26th, 2012 | by | 24, alcatraz, fox, lost, new shows, season premiere, series premiere, touch, tv shows

Jan
26

My DVR most likely hates me. It does its duty, and does it well, but I just keep adding more and more shows to it. I wouldn’t be surprized if it slides itself off the television one night and strangles me in my sleep.

 

JJ Abrams can do just about anything and I will tune in with fangirly glee. I am that easy. I do, however, have the sense to expect a big pile of crap along with my glee. No point in having wild expectations, only to have them dashed against The Rock.

Three episodes of Alcatraz have aired so far, and I am finding it pretty entertaining. We have a secret lair (which is mighty inconvenient with all that water surrounding it, if you ask me), some kind of selective time traveling, Hurley being the smart one, Sam Neill just being awesome by being Sam Neill, and for all of you out there who miss Lost, some potential numbers shenanigans. Personally, I don’t think the numbers mean anything this go around, but I thought Fringe was just gonna be a X-Files rehash, so what do I know?

Looks as though each episode will be the appearance of one of the inmates , and our heroes tracking them down. The first two reappeared inmates seemed to have some sort of directive to get something done. Sylvane got a big-ass key from some poor guy, and Cobb shot whatsherface (what? I don’t know names yet!) totally on purpose. This last guy, while insanely CREE-PEE, didn’t seem to have a job to do, and he ended up dead, dead, dead. I wonder how many people thought, like I did, that when they brought that dead guy back to NewAlcatraz, and handed him over to the apparently perpetual Alcatraz doc, that there would be a shot to the neck or something, and the guy would be brought back to life. Anyone? Just me?

Much like Fringe in its early days, Alcatraz seems to be only okay with the MOW stories, but really interesting with the set up of its mythology. I love this kind of storytelling, and I hope that the audience has the patience for us to get to know these characters and find out what the hell is going on.

 

I love New York City. I lived in Brooklyn for 12 years and I miss the damn place on a regular basis.

I adore Kiefer. I own all eight seasons of 24 (including the TV movie, ‘Redemption’). I even sorta, kind of stalked the man not once, but twice on the streets of NYC.

So Fox, a network I keep wanting to hate, handed me me a shiny new show that not only takes place in my beloved city, but stars a lovely and awesome (as usual) Kiefer. Touch.

Now this show made me nervous. I want to laud anything Kiefer is in, but this sucker is from Tim Kring who gave us Heroes, which started out as a fantastic show, and devolved into one hot mess.  The man has great ideas, but seems to have trouble following through.

As far as I’m concerned, so far so good. Was the twisty, turny-ness a little convoluted? Yup. Do I care? Nope. Give me something fantastical to believe in and I will happily jump on board. I was worried that this was gonna be an hour of SadDadKiefer, but there were some nice, light moments, and Kiefer had plenty of edge to keep the character from falling over into self-indulgent woes-is-me’s. And the moment at the end, in the rain, on the cel tower? I teared right up. Well played, sirs!

I liked Touch, and am excited to see if they can pull this off week to week. Unfortunately, we’re gonna have to wait until March(!!) to get our next taste. But you know me, I will sit patiently for another dose of Kiefer-ness.

 

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Mid-Season: Filling The Hole

January 5th, 2011 | by | big love, fox, fringe, nbc, new season, new shows, season premiere, tv shows, v

Jan
05

For years, January was the Best.Month.Ever., television wise. After months of being deprived of my favorite shows, the inevitable post-holiday dreariness, and another two months or more of winter to endure, January brought me back to that mysterious island on Lost, and the high-intensity crack of 24. What is a TV obsessed gal to do this year, now that both of those shows have finished their runs? Instead of being sad and grumpy, I have found some joy in the mid-season television schedule. Read full story

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Fringe is back this week: Expect to become more confused than usual

January 4th, 2010 | by | fringe

Jan
04

I was quite happy to hear Fringe would be back this week and intrigued, to say the least, that the second episode, airing on Monday, Jan. 11, is an unaired one from Season 1. Thursday’s episode is called “Unearthed.”

(Note: Some blogs, including some linked to below, have said Fringe isn’t back until Jan. 11, Monday, but the Fox site itself says it’s this Thursday. I’m going with Fox.)

And to make things even more confusing, Charlie (who was killed twice kind of – once for real and once as his doppelganger) plays a major role in the episode.

Fringebloggers had the full text of the press release about Monday’s episode, and it seems that the powers that be don’t really want us to know at this point if this is an alternate universe Charlie or a flashback of some sort:

After a teenage girl is pronounced brain dead, her mother takes her off life support, but when doctors operate quickly to remove her organs, the deceased girl shockingly awakens screaming an alphanumeric code. Equally as perplexing as her resurrection is that she is now somehow able to speak Russian and possesses classified information only a high-ranking soldier would know. While the girl’s mind-bending condition intensifies, Walter dusts off some old lab videos and hypothesizes the unthinkable, sending Olivia and Peter to investigate the bewildering case in an original “Unearthed” episode of FRINGE and here’s another mystery: is it an unaired episode from Season One or is it from an alternate universe? airing Monday, Jan. 11 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. (FRINGE-121) (TV-14 L, V)

We think we know it is an unaired Season One episode, as that’s what Cinemablend and others seemed to have been told.

Of course, that doesn’t mean they were told correct information. That, or after letting the cat out of the bag, the powers that be decided to make it part of the alternate universe storyline. Either way … color me intrigued.

I am kind of ticked, however, that Fox is only putting Fringe back on the air for a few weeks, before yanking it off for midseason replacement Past Life, according to The Futon Critic. It doesn’t come back until April. This is especially wrong, because after moving Fringe to a pretty big night for genre TV (and thus more competition), it’s depriving the show of getting the boost a slot after American Idol could bring it. It doesn’t come back on the air until April 1.

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Fringe, or How I Learned to Be Happy JJ Abrams Is Making Awesome TV Featuring Walter Bishop

November 15th, 2009 | by | fringe

Nov
15

OK, that was a really long title.

But that’s to make up for being so lax in blogging about Fringe so far this season, despite the fact that Walter Bishop is, bar none, my favorite character on television at the moment (that includes shows that are on hiatus right now).

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Aussie John Noble plays Bishop impeccably, with just the right amount of insanity, incredible intelligence and love for his family and friends.

FOX Promotes The New Drama 'FRINGE'


It was obvious from the beginning that Bishop was different. Look, the man’s been in a mental institution for quite some time and is completely estranged from his son. But as we saw him develop over the first season, culminating in the revelation that this universe’s Peter Bishop actually died in childhood – meaning the Peter we know and love is actually from an alternate universe, probably the one where Bell lives at the moment – we came to realize he wasn’t simply a mad scientist.

Sure, he’s pretty wacked out, but what person who’s taken as many hallucinogenics as Walter Bishop wouldn’t be a bit … off-kilter? And the extreme intelligence this man has is almost too much for his head to contain.

But perhaps the best part of Walter Bishop is his relationship with Astrid, his FBI assistant who has adapted to his eccentricities and become the perfect foil for his one-liners.

She understands how to get him back on track when he veers wildly off course; she is no longer grossed out by his desires for food at the most inopportune moments. I’ve grown to really like Astrid. And her hair is very attractive this season, too. It’s a good style for her.

But though I completely adore Walter Bishop beyond all reason, he’s only a small part of why I continue to watch Fringe.

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Supernatural: The End. Kinda.

October 2nd, 2009 | by | supernatural

Oct
02

An interesting episode of Supernatural last night. The main question posed is one that seems to come up on all the shows I watch, somehow.

Can we change our future? Our past? Is the timeline immutable? If you see your future, is it possible to change the past, or are you stuck because you’ve seen it, so whatever you do to avoid it will end up just changing the details but not the end result?

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I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that the five-years-in-the-future zombie-ish apocalyptic reality doesn’t have to happen. First off, the angels as we’ve seen them have not been exactly honest with Sam and Dean up to this point, and I wouldn’t put it past them to show Dean a reality that could, but doesn’t have to happen.

Second, would Eric Kripke really have embarked upon a five-year journey like this and, in the end, let the Devil and his minions win?

Of course, one of the things I’ve liked about Supernatural is that it doesn’t always deliver the nice, happy ending (thinking right now of Season 4′s “Jump the Shark,” when it turns out the Winchester brothers actually did have another brother, but he was killed by the ghouls pretending to be that brother and his mother). So does that mean the world will survive the apocalypse?

I like not knowing. Makes it more interesting to watch.

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Boycotting the Emmys

September 20th, 2009 | by | 30 rock, battlestar galactica, bored to death, curb your enthusiasm, emmys, fringe, hbo, intervention, jericho, kings, the wire

Sep
20

I went back and forth on whether I’d live-blog the Emmys tonight, mainly because, after all, this is a TV blog.

But then I thought about it.

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Where’s Battlestar Galactica? Kings? Did Jericho ever get any love?

Sure, critical darlings 30 Rock and The Office, though relatively low-rated (compared with the CSI juggernaut, anyway) get lots of Emmy love – as they well should. But most of the best shows on television rarely get any attention from the academy, unless they’re on HBO. And even there, The Wire never got recognition and it was, bar none, the best show on television during its run.

And if nothing else, this blog is about quality television (OK, and sometimes Charles in Charge, but I was young, sue me). And the Emmy broadcast itself is not quality television. How does the Oscar ceremony win a freakin’ Emmy every year? (Though I have to admit, choosing Intervention for Best Reality Series is a teensy bit redemptive.)

So tonight, I’ll be watching the Curb Your Enthusiasm season premiere and the series premiere of Bored to Death. We’ll probably catch up with the season premiere of Fringe, which I was waiting for my husband’s return to watch.

The Emmys? I’ll probably glance on Twitter every now and again. Or maybe I’ll just wait ’til morning.

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Fringe + Leonard Nimoy = Awe.Some.

August 9th, 2009 | by | fringe

Aug
09

Heard some awesome news this weekend – Leonard Nimoy is going to reprise his role as William Bell as much as he wants to in Fringe’s second season.

The show started a bit slowly, but built up to an incredibly astoundingly jaw-dropping finale that blew my mind not one, but TWO times.

Part of that, of course, was Bell’s office, with a lovely view of the Twin Towers. And the recognition that Bell was in another universe, a parallel universe where history took a slightly different route.

Most of the season, show creators said at the TCA panels last week, will take place in the universe we know. But some will take place “over there,” and events in both universes will affect the others.

Wonder what happened to the version of Walter Bishop in the other universe? If he could bring Peter back from Over There to here, what does that mean about Peter’s family Over There? Did Walter Bishop and his wife die? Did he just snatch Peter from them without telling his doppelganger?

Hmmm. Something tells me the answer to this question is not going to be simple. Of course.

Nimoy’s already shot one episode of Season Two.  w00t!

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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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Fringe: A big freakin’ cup of awesome

May 12th, 2009 | by | fringe

May
12

Every Tuesday night, I sit with my laptop, futzing around on the Internet while watching Fringe.

I knew I’d like it – it is J.J. Abrams, after all – but the first couple of episodes promised to be as infuriatingly mysterious as Lost, but not nearly as interesting and character-driven. Whoa – was I wrong.

picture-3Fringe_frog

Even characters who seemed almost a throwaway at the start of the series – Agent Charlie Francis and Astrid Farnsworth – have developed into interesting people. Astrid’s interactions with Walter Bishop (who is absolutely my favorite character on television at the moment – if I were 20 years older and unmarried, as I remarked on Twitter this evening, I’d totally propose to him) are truly enjoyable. She takes Walter’s complete insanity so well and even manages to keep her lunch down.

Perhaps the most shocking thing about Fringe, however, is how much was answered in tonight’s finale, while still leaving the door open for plenty more that could be answered in another season. Plenty. Puh-lenty.

Seeing as the powers that be hadn’t decided whether it’d be picked up for a second season when it was filmed, I appreciate that.

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NBC brings us a new post-apocalyptic drama: Day One

May 4th, 2009 | by | day one, nbc, science fiction

May
04

Just got the news that NBC Universal is going to have a show that should be very cool in the fall (still no word on Chuck, though Heroes got renewed): Day One.

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Here’s the official description:

From executive producer/writer Jesse Alexander (“Heroes,” “Lost,” “Alias”) and director Alex Graves (“Fringe,” “Journeyman”), “Day One” tells the story of life on earth following a global catastrophe that has devastated the world’s infrastructures. Beginning with the immediate aftermath of the cataclysmic event, an eclectic band of survivors — played by Adam Campbell (“Date Movie”), Catherine Dent (“The Shield”), Julie Gonzalo (“Eli Stone”), David Lyons (“ER”), Derek Mio (“Greek”), Carly Pope (“24″), Thekla Reuten (“Sleeper Cell”) and Addison Timlin (“Cashmere Mafia”) — strives to rebuild society as they unravel the mysteries of what happened and face their uncertain future. The group, all residents of one apartment building in suburban Van Nuys, Calif., embarks on a quest for survival and discovers that hope is found in small victories — and heroes are born every day. “Day One” is a Universal Media Studios production.

The pedigree is great – folks behind Lost, Alias, Heroes (hey, it has had its moments), Fringe and Journeyman? That’s a scifi geek’s dream!

I just hope that it goes on in the fall, isn’t bumped all over the scheduling map and is given an actual chance to catch on. Given that all of the above shows except Journeyman was a success (Fringe hasn’t been renewed yet, but TV Guide says it is likely to be), there’s hope yet. I must take note, however, that most of the aforementioned shows were smash hits almost from the start.

And as for Journeyman, I have to admit that it took a while to grow on me. I’d almost erased it from my DVR season pass a couple of times, but it just caught me enough to give it another go. It finally sank its hooks into me for good about mid-season, but that was too late for some, I’m afraid.

So, sci-fi fans, take heart. We’re not being abandoned. Now, dammit, you just have to actually WATCH the show. I don’t care if you DVR it, watch it live or watch it online. Just watch it.

Photo courtesy NBC Universal.

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