TV Tyrant

‘H50′ Halloween Episode Haunts Danno

November 7th, 2011 | by | cbs, hawaii five-o

Nov
07

By Stu Robinson,

There isn’t much I can say about Hawaii Five-0‘s Halloween episode other that it was silly fun – mostly at Danno’s expense. The plot is confusing, and the audience never has an opportunity to guess the killer, who appears only at the end and never says a word.

The episode begins Blair Witch style, with two young people dying in a Native Hawaiian burial ground while their camera rolls. The running gag is Danno’s refusal to respect the mystical powers that Hawaiian culture places on the site – and how it comes back to “haunt” him.

Robert Englund plays a creep vagrant on Hawaii Five-0's Halloween episode.

That’s especially true when Dr. Gabrielle Asano (Autumn Reeser), the hot museum curator who drew his interest in Episode 4, turns up to safeguard the cultural sensitivity of the crime scene. When Danno is startled to find her there, McGarrett takes the opportunity to draw out information about their first date, which apparently went well.

Another gag involves the guys’ persistent interest in what Halloween costume Lori had to ditch on her way to work the crime scene. “Wonder Woman?” Danno asks. “Slutty Wonder Woman?” And Lori isn’t the only one who dressed up. McGarrett and Danno enter the coroner’s office to find a candelabra and bubbling erlenmeyer flasks on the desk, and Max dressed up like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix.

Danno’s daughter, Grace (Teilor Grubbs), makes her first appearance of the season. A less-than-ideal experience trick-or-treating at his fleebag motel launches a subplot in which Danno tries to score a deal on an apartment where someone was murdered.

Finally, the episode features Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street movies and Willie on the original V) as a creepy homeless guy camped out near the sacred site.

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Stu Robinson, a college friend of the TV Tyrant, is a writer, editor, media-relations practitioner and social-media guy based in Phoenix.

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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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V, the new chapter

November 27th, 2009 | by | science fiction, v

Nov
27

Once in a while, there’s a show I watch where I can’t be online when it’s on. I don’t want to miss anything; I want to concentrate.

v-imageLost, unsurprisingly, is chief among those shows. Battlestar Galactica was another. Fringe almost is like that. I get very absorbed and forget I’m online for most of the show. 24 would be like that, except I live-blog it over at Blogs4Bauer, so that’s an entirely different animal. But don’t do other stuff online while I’m watching 24, at least.

V has filled the void left by Battlestar in that sense (though I suspect Caprica will also be an online-free zone for me).

It doesn’t hurt that two of the main characters are refugees of two of my favorite shows: Elizabeth Mitchell, Juliet from Lost, and Joel Gretsch, Tom Baldwin from The 4400. It doesn’t hurt that I’ve seen the original V miniseries from the ’80s more times than I can even count. Possibly as many times as Star Wars. True story. Oh, and I mean the original miniseries, not the sequel miniseries, in which one of the half-alien babies looked like a puppet I could have made. And I suck at art projects.

This is V for a post-Cold War, post-9/11 world. The original V was very much informed by World War II, the Holocaust and a totalitarian Soviet Union. This V has in mind the divisions so prevalent in our world today. In the U.S., between left and right (and make no mistake, the Vs represent neither side, specifically), and worldwide, between the U.S. and Everyone Else. And c’mon, anyway, this show is produced in the U.S. for a U.S. audience, so the action’s going to take place here. Just like Doctor Who takes place in England and Wales.

I like how the spaceships give a nod to the miniseries, too. They bear more than a passing resemblance to the originals, while looking way cooler.

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V is for Visitors — and Victory

August 11th, 2009 | by | v

Aug
11

I can’t even begin to guess how many times I watched the original V miniseries.

A big part of it was that it was science fiction, and I’d been a sci-fi geek for as long as I could remember.

And a smaller, though not insignificant, part was this massive crush I developed on Marc Singer. Oh, how I was jealous of Faye Grant every time Singer rushed to her rescue.

Seeing him shirtless in Beastmaster? Made up for the craptacularness of the movie. I even watched If You Could See What I Hear multiple times just to see him.

But nothing held a candle to V.

The story of an alien race coming to earth, seeming to seek friendship but in reality seeking to strip the Earth of all its natural resources was compelling.

The parallels to the Holocaust – the Visitors’ symbol, the Holocaust survivor (grandfather of a collaborator) – took it up a notch. (As all the best sci-fi touches on importantissues, topics and historical events.)

Even though the follow-up miniseries V: The Final Battle had more bad special effects than the original Star Trek series (but came nearly 20 years later, so it didn’t have the same excuse), I also recorded that on VCR tape and watched it time and again. I did wish every time, however, that the actress playing the hybrid girl could, well, act.

It all made sense a few years ago when I realized the second miniseries (and the craptacular regular series that followed) had no input from the series creator, Kenneth Johnson.

And though he’s not directly working on the new series, set to premiere this fall, he is being credited as a creator and has only positive things to say about it, so that’s good, anyway.

The new show originally was planned as a midseason replacement, but ABC decided not to bury it and to premiere it instead at 8 p.m. Nov. 3, taking over from the venture capital summer hit, Shark Tank.

Add to that Elizabeth Mitchell – Juliet from Lost – as the female lead? Puh-lease. Like you could keep me away.

If I could program my DVR that far ahead, I would.

Image courtesy of Kenneth Johnson.

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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.

fox_logo1

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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