Posts Tagged ‘tv’

Battlestar Galactica may be over, but Caprica is just beginning. The Sci-Fi Channel, soon to be called SyFy (who the hell thought of that stupid idea?), is releasing the pilot on April 21, 2009 – the show will officially premiere in 2010.

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According to anonymous reports, NBC has canceled two of its high profile shows, Lipstick Jungle and My Own Worst Enemy. I never watched either, but I’m not at all surprised: Lipstick Jungle looked like a crappy (and presumably watered down) rip-off of Sex and the City, and My Own Worst Enemy… well, it was just one of the worst-titled shows of the season.

Honestly, why name a show My Own Worst Enemy? Especially a thriller? It sounds like a sitcom. Thrillers, especially ones about undercover agents or hitmen or whatever Christian Slater played, should have cool one-or-two-word titles, not some cheesy title that immediately will turn audiences off. Think: Alias, Lost, CSI, JAG, Cold Case, NCIS, The Shield and countless others. Regardless of what you think of those individual shows, nice, short, cool names sell. Clever titles that might work as book titles don’t. My Own Worst Enemy was doomed before the marketing ever started.

Of course, the marketing didn’t help. The concept was cool in theory, but the previews prevented it as more of a gimmick than anything else. They needed some slick, action-packed previews, not the stuff that they threw at audiences seemingly every commercial break.

And personally, I almost find that well known actors are often a detractor for new shows. I’d rather see a show based around an idea rather than around an actor, and the fact that Christian Slater hasn’t done anything of significance in ten years was problematic. I have nothing against the guy, but more often then not, if I see previews for a new show led by a truly recognizable actor, I question its quality.

There’s my random blog post today…

Holy crap. How things can change in six months. The top-rated NBC action series Heroes, which was an instant hit two years ago, has been canceled after a 25% drop in viewership with the third season’s premiere. With advertisers dropping off left and right, NBC will air the remaining seven episodes that have already been filmed and, presumably, wrap things up with a quick season finale – if fans are lucky.

No doubt, fans like me are going to protest this like crazy, as Heroes is one of the most refreshing shows on television. It was a risky venture by NBC – after all, even with superheroes being as popular as ever after successful franchises like X-Men and Spider-man, TV audiences can be finicky, and the thought of a television show about “realistic” superheroes was pushing the acceptability factor of people. Nonetheless, it launched with a slam dunk and just went from there, delivering some of the best television we’ve seen in years (OK, not nearly as good as Lost or Battlestar Galactica).

Unfortunately, the second season was a bit weak at times, and the last several episodes were hurried by the writer’s strike, cutting short major season arcs and conveniently wrapping them up in overly ambitious ways. Season Two saw a ridiculously small amount of episodes, and apparently that was more than enough to kill it for audiences. Still, a 25% decrease is pretty shocking, and NBC must have passed the break-even point as I’m sure Heroes is quite pricey (despite having rather crappy special effects by today’s standards).

Anyway, while Heroes did experience a 25% drop with its season premiere, NBC of course is not really canceling one of its most popular shows. Did you really believe that? Did you?

It’s almost September, which means that network television is returning to us once again. The fifth season of The Office premieres on September 25th, which means that Season Four is coming to DVD… on September 2nd, to be precise.

The Office: Season Four starts off where Season Three left off – surprise, surprise – with Pam and Jim bringing their relationship into the public atmosphere of Dundler Mifflin. Engagement is hinted at, but will Jim actually propose? Meanwhile, Dwight is continuing his quest to become head of the office (or at least second-in-charge, now that Jim officially holds that title), while still annoyed by the progressing relationship of Andy and his ex, Angela. And Michael is finding his relationship with Jan strained to the brink. Also, young “Wunderkind” Ryan, who was promoted above Michael last season, is trying to take Dundler Mifflin into the 21st century, further creating tension between him and his former colleagues.

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Heroes: Season Three is almost here, which means Season Two is coming to DVD. The four-disc set contains the shortened, 11-episode season, complete with time traveling, viruses, wedding massacres and more. It’s no question that most Heroes fans will scoop this DVD set up despite what my Bible-like words say below, but what about those on the cusp? What about those poor, pathetic people who haven’t completely embraced the world of Heroes? What about starving African children?

Let’s all face it: Heroes: Season Two wasn’t as good as series one. Writer’s strike aside, it was still a tad rushed, a little weak in the writing department at times, and so on and so forth. Some characters were taken down some strange paths (Mohinder), and others were introduced that just weren’t very interesting (like the New Orleans girl who can learn anything). The writer’s strike made the last several episodes even more accelerated than the earlier ones, leading to rough transitions, undeveloped stories and a resolution to the season-wide story arc that should have come 13 episodes later. All that being said, Heroes is still one of the best shows on television.

But that’s not what I’m here to review. There are plenty of websites devoted to just how good (or bad) Heroes is, so I’m focusing the rest of this review on the bonus features. As is typical with TV releases these days, the bonus features are annoyingly spread across multiple discs, which is probably fine for most – except for when you’re trying to review the bonus features and have to swap the disc out every fifteen minutes, damn it.

Anyway, the highlight of the box set is the deleted scenes, of which there are plenty. Practically every episode has a couple of deleted scenes, some of which are quite revealing. As always, you won’t miss too much if you never see these, but as far as deleted scenes go, they’re pretty good. The highlight… of the highlights… is an alternate ending, which truly is an alternate ending. SPOILER ALERT. Whereas in the actual final episode of the season, Peter, Nathan and Hiro stop the virus from being unleashed – only to have Nathan get shot while attempting to announce that he has special powers. In the alternate ending, the writers take the darker approach by letting the virus get released, causing Odessa, Texas to go into quarantine. Ultimately, the actual ending is tighter and more effective, but it would have been pretty cool had Peter not caught the vial at the end of Season Two.

Beyond the alternate ending and deleted scenes, Heroes: Season Two comes with some pretty good “Genetics of a Scene” clips, which are pretty entertaining and slightly insightful. I’d recommend these. There are also some NBC featurettes, which I didn’t watch, and a series of “Untold Episodes,” which are pretty good. There are also audio commentaries for the episodes.

Unfortunately, the rest of the bonus features aren’t all that good. There’s a ridiculously cheesy “documentary” about Takezo Kensei, which is so bad I could only watch a minute of it. I mean, it’s about as bad as faux documentaries can get. A “news reel” about Richard Drucker is also quite terrible, and rather pointless unless I completely missed something. The “Season 2: A New Beginning” featurette is just a promotional, “you’re going to see things you’ve never seen before” kind of featurette, and the Season 3 preview is, as expected, nothing special.

Heroes: Season Two is worth the purchase because, yes, it contains all of the episodes from season 2. The deleted scenes, alternate endings and “Genetics of a Scene” bonus features are well worth it; at the same time, NBC would have done well to save themselves some money and not include their “original” bonus features, as they are downright terrible and just a waste of money. Still, recommended for the overall value of the show.

A&E is remaking Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain, which premieres on Monday, May 26th at 9pm as a TV mini-series. TV mini-series always worry me, but The Andromeda Strain is a cool enough story that I figured I’d better see it for myself. Thankfully, A&E sent me Part One of the series to review.

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I hadn’t heard anything one way or another about the new season of Lost (Lost: Season 4), but it looks like Lost is arriving on TV as planned on January 31, 2008. Having written that sentence, I looked up the show on Wikipedia and found that Lost has indeed been hit by the writer’s strike – which means we get an eight episode season. This was the same trouble that the show ran into last year, so we’ll see how it fares. What is unclear is whether the other eight episodes that have not yet been filmed will appear at a later time, or if the writers – when they return – will simply shorten the three 16-episode remaining seasons by eight.

Anyway, the preview for Lost: Season 4 is now online, and I must say it’s quite impressive. After not liking the season three finale all that much, I’ve grown to appreciate it a lot more over the last few months. Obviously the writers have something clever up their sleeves, and, as it is quite clear, the rescuers aren’t Heaven-sent as the survivors think they are.

Here’s the preview:

Now that Sopranos, Deadwood, Carnivale and several other classics are retired for good, I have been considering canceling my HBO subscription to save a few bucks. However, each time I consider that move, I think of The Wire, the absolutely sensational cop drama the station has flown under the radar for several years. And, guess what? On January 6th, The Wire returns for its final season…

The Wire Trailer

The Wire Behind-the-Scenes Footage

Lost: Season 3 comes to DVD next Tuesday, and with it another very good season of Lost adventure -thankfully without the three month gap partway through. Sure, nothing can quite compare to the mysticism of the first season, but Lost is a great entry in the series, and one that answers many, many, many questions that fans have been wondering about – and of course raises even more.

Some fans weren’t overly crazy about the first eight episodes of the show, which focus exclusively on Jack, Kate and Sawyer and just about ignore the rest of the cast. This was a major departure from the past two seasons, where each episode focused on a different character, but these episode still do a lot: they set the stage for what is to come, they introduce us to The Others and give us some insight into the truth about the island. The series starts off great, with a shockingly suburban scene, and the first half of the season ends great as well, with the amazingly tense scene where Jack holds Ben hostage and orders Kate to run. From there, the show returns to its more ordinary format, focusing on different characters as it sees fit to develop the story. Still, there are a lot more of The Others, and now, instead of making them an elusive shadow people, they are themselves people and characters who just happen to have twisted morals. The introduction of Jacob (if you can call it that) is terrific, and there are plenty of other highlights in the series as well. While there are a few stumbles (Hurley’s van episode), but hey, no one’s perfect.

The DVD, as you might imagine, has a lot of little bonus features, all of which are gathered onto Disc 7. Much like with Lost itself, you have to work to find the features, as the DVD lacks labels for the most part. While I normally don’t like this approach, it fits in with the theme of the show, and also gives you a chance to explore for easter eggs, of which there are several. Some of these easter eggs are pretty lame (one where various cast and crew members talk with sentiment to everyone who has made the experience so great), but there are a few that are entertaining.

The real meat of the special features are these:

• The World of the The Others
  A look at different aspects of the revelations about the bitter enemies of the survivors. Fans will be delighted that the cast and crew reveal a lot of little tidbits you may not have thought about.
• Lost Flashbacks
  Nothing too spectacular here. There are a couple additional flashbacks that provide a little more detail into certain stories, but there’s nothing that wasn’t removed without a purpose.
• Lost On Location
  This is an entertaining featurette that explores several episodes from behind-the-scenes. There are a lot of cast and crew interviews and looks at how sequences were filmed. The most interesting part is where we see how the original crash scene is reconstructed to add in new actors that weren’t around in the first season.
• The Lost Book Club
  Watch this one. The writers reveal that every book shown in the show has significance, and they let slip a few details about what’s to come. There are definitely a few things in here that had me wanting the fourth season to come along right now.
• Lost in a day
  This is a look at 24 hours in the day of the production. I honestly can’t remember if I found this one insightful or not, but I think I did.
• Deleted Scenes
  There are a few decent deleted scenes, but, of course, there’s nothing too spectacular to be found here.
• Bloopers
  Hey, who doesn’t like bloopers?

I’m not quite sure where this is on the DVD – it may be an easter egg – but the best part of the features is a brief instructional video a la the Dharma Initiative. Does this explain the truth behind Lost? Read more here.

One of the special features on the Lost: Season 3 DVD may not answer all of the questions of the mysterious show, but does it reveal a good chunk? If you click on the fourth screen you can actually click on, you’ll see an entry for “Orchid Instructional Video”, which has that Asian scientist guy preparing to shoot an instructional film. He’s getting makeup applied to reduce the shine, and is also holding a bunny rabbit.

However, the video is quickly disrupted – and by that I mean that the scientists begin to freak out – when a second bunny rabbit appears. What’s so strange or notable about these events are these:

• The bunny rabbit that the scientist is holding has a “15″ branded on its side. When the other bunny appears, it too has “15″ on its side.
• The scientist shouts in desperation, “Keep them away from each other!”
• The scientist then asks an assistance how far “the shift was set?” She responds, “Minus twenty.”

Um… so what the hell does this mean? Cloning? That would explain the “15″ on both bunnies. But “keep them away from each other”? Does that mean alternate realities? Time travel? This instructional video definitely raises some questions and possibly answers them, but of course we won’t know for sure. Near the end of Season 3, it is revealed that rescuers found an airplane they believed to be the survivor’s flight at the bottom of a deep underwater chasm, with all bodies on board. If this airplane is indeed the correct flight, then how are the survivors still alive? Are they alternate versions of themselves? What the heck?

Anyway, I’m intrigued.

Yesterday, I posted 8 Reasons Why Heroes: Season Two Was a Disappointment, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t think it was a good season. It just wasn’t nearly as good as the first season, and not just due to higher expectations. Here are some aspects of Heroes: Season Two that I did like quite a bit (DO NOT READ THESE UNTIL AFTER YOU WATCH THE SEASON):

• Maya. Not only is she scorching hot, but she has a killer ability – literally.
• Hiro’s journey back to 17th century Japan. While it seems like some random story at first, as we later find out, it’s all setting the stage for what is to come (or what would have come had the writer’s strike not rushed things). This is the one true storyline that feels very developed.
• Any episodes alluding to the Nightmare Man as worse than Sylar. Too bad he turned out to be no such thing.
• The episode where Claire fakes her death to discredit the head cheerleader.
• The scene where Sylar talks to Maya’s brother Alejandro and tells him that he is going to kill both he and his sister; too bad Alejandro doesn’t speak English.
• Peter goes into the future. Too bad the storyline ends up going nowhere.
• The scene where flying boy West reveals to his girlfriend Claire that he was abducted when he was younger by a man with horn-rimmed glasses. Does it sound like Claire’s dad? Does it?
• The revelation that Takezo Kensei may not be as pleasant as he first appeared, and that he didn’t actually die in 17th century Japan.
• The episode “Four Months Ago”. While it rushed a lot of back story, it did treat us to a pleasant sequence where Maya kills her brother’s wife and everyone else at the wedding. Peter’s back story is also quite interesting.
• The moment where the mastermind killer of the season is none other than Adam Monroe.
• The scene where Bob and Suresh go up against HRG and West to fight over Claire.
• The scene where we learn of Kristen Bell’s weakness: put her in water and she’ll electrify herself.
• Maya learns how to control her powers and Sylar makes his move. There’s nothing sweeter than Sylar making out with Maya while her brother lay stabbed to death just a few feet away. This was a great moment in the series.
• The part where Molly tells Maya that she can’t find her brother anywhere, which means he’s one dead duck.
• Claire threatens to go public.
• Hiro attempts to kill Adam and must go up against Peter in the process.
• Adam Monroe stuck in a coffin. Does this fit within Hiro’s personality, though?
• The assassination of Nathan Petrelli. We saw it coming, but this was another great moment of the series. If I were Peter, I would have froze time right there, right? Oh, and was that Claire’s dad who pulled the trigger?
• The moment where Sylar regains his power, setting the stage for Volume III. However, in all seriousness, I wouldn’t have had Sylar experiment on a can. It would have been much more effective had he done some work on a cat, and while the explosion is off screen, we see blood splatter across Sylar’s smiling face.

While not a great season, Heroes: Season Two was still better than most of the television out there. It’s a shame the writer’s strike cut it short, as they did have some good storylines going. I hope they figure out a way to bring back the biological disaster, as they set too much of the stage to just throw it away.

Heroes: Season Two has come and gone, thanks to the writer’s strike that cut the show short. Even before the writer’s strike was inevitable, however, Heroes: Season Two seemed rushed at times.

First off, let me say that the first Heroes season was a spectacular piece of filmmaking. It was original, entertaining, increasingly dark with humor and lighthearted moments thrown in along the way. It was the most refreshing thing we’ve seen on TV since Lost, and, amazingly, it somehow became a hit. I almost didn’t get into the show but my roommate forced me to watch the season premiere, and instantly, I was hooked.

The second season is still good, but when expectations are high, there are bound to be disappointments. Heroes: Season Two just felt flat at times, with rushed storylines, poor character development and the introduction of new heroes who really aren’t that interesting. A lot of decisions were made with the characters that just didn’t make that much sense.

What, exactly, bothered me? Let me list them, as much as I can remember:

• Mohinder Suresh is just plain stupid this season
  The writers come up with the great idea of having Mohinder go undercover in the company, but then turn him into an idiot by making him become a quasi bad guy. This is all fine and good, but the transition and reasons for doing so just don’t make a lick of sense. Basically, Mohinder acts like a fool, and I’ve really grown to not like the character (when I liked him quite a bit in the previous season). Kill him off already.
• Bringing the dad, Noah (Jack Coleman), back to life
  In one of the better episodes of the season, the dad seemingly gets killed, and it’s a pretty sure thing: he gets a bullet through the eye. At the end of the episode, he is brought back to life. I have three problems with this: one, with his daughter’s blood in him, does that make him a “hero” permanently? If so, aren’t there enough already? Two, the show needs to learn how to keep characters dead. The drama is much more powerful that way. And three, if you are going to bring him back to life, wait a couple episodes and have it be a surprise. If there’s one thing that Heroes is not good at, it’s leading us down one path and then revealing that we were wrong all along. Even comic books do this.
• Niki Sanders (Ali Larter) is just plain stupid
  Having one of the more intriguing powers (and still not fully explained) of the group, I’ve always found Niki’s character interesting, but this season does away with all that. She subjects herself to getting rid of her powers, helps the Company and just does all kinds of weird things. Her behavior is almost understandable, but there’s just something that doesn’t click about the way her character develops. The writers missed a few beats here.
• Peter Petrelli is just plain stupid
  Here’s another character whose motivations almost seem right, only they don’t. The writers messed up here as well, doing the kiss-of-death amnesia storyline and turning Peter into an overly gullible (from just gullible in Season One) idiot who falls into allegiance with a mass killer and doesn’t listen even when Hiro goes out of his way to try to kill Adam. One sight of Hiro, who warned him about impending doom last season, should have been enough to convince Peter that he was on the wrong side.
• Monica isn’t a very interesting hero
  Sure, Monica (the cousin of Micah) has some interesting powers, but her character always seemed a bit forced and was never very interesting. Also, her realizations that she is something special seemed a year out of date, as all of the other characters found out LAST season. Basically, there was no reason to introduce her into the mix when there are so many good characters already.
• Kristen Bell’s character not as dark as she should have been
  They hinted at Bell’s electricity villain being rather nuts (in sequences where she’s with Peter in the prison cell), but then the writer shied away from doing anything really cool with the character. In the end, they make her almost good and try to get the audience to sympathize with her, when in reality it would have been much better to let her play a hot but psychotic “girl” with some very dangerous powers.
• Rushing storylines
  There are just a lot of things that went a little too quickly this season, even before the strike. Peter’s memories coming back to him in a split second seemed like a get-out-of-jail-free card. Peter’s visit to the future feels rushed, too. I can’t think of other specific examples, but the whole season just felt off kilter, as if the writers were afraid to develop things and let them “drag” a little.
• Cutting the season short
  OK, it sucks that the writers went on strike, but I think it was a poor choice to wrap things up with a nice little bow (somewhat). Destroying the virus was not a very good ending. They should have left it open, either with Adam escaping with the virus in hand or something along those lines. We should have been left with a sense of dread and destruction at the end of the final episode. Killing Niki also seemed rather sudden and out of nowhere. I would have much rather them chopped the season in half and end with a few big cliffhangers rather than wrap up stories prematurely.

All in all, this was still pretty good television, but the second season was a noticeable step down from the valiant first season. That being said, read what we liked specifically about the second season!

This is why I don’t watch live television anymore. After TiVo/DVR technology and DVD, I rarely, if ever, watch live television unless it involves sporting events, and tonight, NBC reminded me why. My roommate and I sat down to watch NBC’s broadcast of The Incredibles, one of the few good movies I don’t already own. Things were going fine, until the movie got within 35 minutes of the ending.

NBC proceeded to jump into two to three minute commercial breaks every SIX F**KING minutes. Literally, ever six to seven minutes (I think they made it up with a five minute stint at one point before I started counting), NBC would launch into a commercial break, completely disrupting the flow of the movie. This, people, is why network stations are struggling so much. They are so focused on their advertisers that they neglect their end customers – the viewers. Sure, NBC has a business to run, but a broadcaster’s job is to deliver quality entertaining, and NBC has clearly forgotten this. Their respect for the viewer obsolete, why should I respect or give my business (i.e. my eyes to their advertisements) to a company that does not treat me with any?

Maybe this explains why every upcoming episode of “E.R.” is the “must see” episode of the season…

I just watched the Unrated Extended Edition of the new Battlestar Galactica: Razor TV movie, which premieres later tonight and will subsequently be released on DVD (which includes deleted scenes, commentary, an examination of the show, a featurette titled “My Favorite Episode So Far” and a sneak peak of Season 4). I haven’t watched any of the special features yet, but have watched the actual movie, which, I have to say, is a bit of a letdown.

I was never really expecting a whole lot from this TV movie, which seems like more of a ploy to make some money and pitch the new season; after all, if it was a legitimate entry in the Battlestar Galactica series, then it would have been the season premiere. Still, considering that Battlestar Galactica is one of the best, if not the best, television shows in recent memory, expectations were high.

Razor is not bad by any means, and it is certainly entertaining, but it suffers from chaotic storytelling and poor focus. It tries to do too much and delivers too little, and the end all you can do is shrug your shoulders and look forward to the actual season premiere in a couple of months. It has plenty of action, but it lacks the depth, intrigue and politics that make Battlestar Galactica so great; without those elements, it just feels like your standard sci-fi television show.

Razor focuses on one new character, Kendra Shaw, a young a woman who rises quickly in the ranks of the Battlestar Pegasus, commanded by Admiral Cain (the bitchy, merciless admiral who took over the fleet in Season Two only to find her life cut short when the Cylon she was torturing broke free – okay, was released – to shoot her in the head). The movie is essentially a flashback episode, and it uses Shaw as a vehicle to see how and why Cain made the decisions she made, and how those decisions reflected on her crew. At the same time, we also get to see some glimpses of the first Cylon War with a young Adama, and some more “modern day” character interactions from when the Pegasus was still in existence.

Razor suffers from a few issues, most of which that it just seems out of place from the rest of Battlestar Galactica. While most of the Galactica characters and actors are involved with this picture, the very fact that its “modern day” is set in the past seems a bit odd – and it’s also sort of confusing. The focus of the story jumps between two many things, from the present day attack on a Cylon ship to the early days on the Pegasus to Adama as a fighter pilot, and none of the storylines tie together as well as the writers were hoping for. The character of Kendra Shaw is also quite disappointing, and seems to serve as more of a tie to connect the modern day story with the flashbacks to Cain’s Pegasus. I was hoping to see a movie that focused solely on Cain and that explains how she came to make tough decisions, but instead Cain really doesn’t get much screen time, and we don’t get to see much we didn’t already know. Furthermore, Shaw herself is an unlikable character, and you never really feel empathy for her.

I also didn’t like that the movie depicted Cain as a lesbian. Why do all tough, badass women in power have to be lesbians? It seems a bit sexist to me, although the lesbian bit does provide an interesting “twist” in a certain relationship (albeit an underdeveloped one).

Again, Razor does feature some good action scenes, and does show us a few things we haven’t seen before, but the whole affair feels like a bloated, watered down version of the regular show. Even the special effects seem slightly off, a little less edgy.

Fans of Battlestar Galactica don’t need to read this review to decide whether to watch Razor or not – they will watch it, as they should. But if you’re using this movie as an entry point into the series, I suggest otherwise: rent the pilot and start from the beginning. Razor does not do the series justice.