TV Review: Heroes "Turn and Face the Strange"

Season 3, Episode 22 (Original Air Date: Monday, April 6th 2009, at 9/8c on NBC)

The Plot: (From TV.com) Someone close to Danko (Zeljko Ivanek) is put in the line of fire as he spearheads the anti-superhuman operation. Meanwhile, Noah's (Jack Coleman) marriage continues to crumble while Hiro (Masi Oka) and Ando (James Kyson Lee) continue their journey to save Matt (Greg Grunberg). Angela (Cristine Rose) faces some demons from her past.

The Review: Oh, how the mighty have fallen. What happened to you Heroes? You used to be cool. You were never perfect to be sure (I'm still not quite over you stealing the ending to Watchmen), but you were still one damn good show, at least in the first season. Your storytelling was second-to-none, you never failed to shock me, amaze me, and just generally keep me on the edge of my seat episode after episode. You maintained a genuine sense of menace week after week, something not a lot of shows or even films can claim. You were in line to become the next Lost.

Then came the second season. Ah, the controversy, how I adore the controversy. Most people hated the second season, and I really have neither the words nor reason to counter their arguments. I can only say that I personally enjoyed the second season. Sure it was bad, but it was still fun. It held my interest, it still managed to surprise me often enough, and I was never bored. Sure Hiro's time travel adventure was stupid and overdrawn. Sure Adam Monroe (David Anders) was an unmenacing villain with a boring, cliche master plan. But like I said, it still managed to maintain whatever it was that made me love the show to begin with.

But I say "whatever it was" for a very grim reason: I don't even remember why I watch this show anymore. The show has lost it, completely & utterly lost it. And the worst part is, I can't really figure out how. I can't pinpoint exactly what sucks about Heroes these days. I only know that the show has lost its spirit, its soul. It completely fails to make me give a crap. I just don't care anymore. I don't care what happens, who lives or who dies. I don't even bother to double check back stories when they refer to something I don't remember.

As I matter-of-fact, I barely remember what happened in this episode, nor would I care to look it up if I wasn't writing this review. OK, let's see here...blah blah blah, Sylar f*cks with random people, blah blah blah, speedster bitch can't act, I wish she would die, blah blah blah, Hiro makes an ass of himself, blah blah. Yep, just another typical Season 3 episode.

Seriously, once my two favorite characters, Hiro & Sylar, fail to keep my interest, you know it's hopeless. Hiro used to be so good-hearted and endearing. He was the Peter Parker of the Heroes universe, and one of the few characters who really qualified as a hero (seriously, a better name for the show would've been Powers, but that's taken). Now he's nothing more than comic relief, and what's worse, he's not even funny. Disney Channel would be ashamed to use his jokes. Even worse, Hiro isn't even a likable character anymore. He's a jealous rambling jackass who's now more concerned with getting his powers back than actually helping people. Apparently he's completely forgotten what a "hero" actually is, despite being the personification of it in the first season. Of course, I suppose there is the chance that this is an intentional set up for some character building storyline, but...I...bwahahahaha! Whoa, haha, I'm sorry, I thought I could say that with a straight face.

As for Sylar, well, I realize that he's always been insane, but before there was always a method to his madness. He was always working toward the same goal: power. He wants nothing but to steal every power he can get his hands on. Now...well, I have no idea what the hell he thinks he's doing. He's just making whatever random sh*t the plot requires him to at any given moment. I mean, what the hell was his point in trying to break up Noah Bennett's marriage? What, is he taking a page from the Mephisto Book of Evil? And what's with these idiotic Sylar music videos we're suddenly being subjected too? Suddenly I understand what people were complaining about in Watchmen.

Well, at least they finally got rid of the annoying, bratty teen sidekick (even though they denied us the pleasure for watching him suffer and die at Sylar's hands to make him pay for wasting our time). In fact the only joy I get out of this show anymore is watching Sylar murder characters I hate. The best moment of this season by far was when, after almost a season and a half of suffering through her annoying Smallville-style attempts at villainy, we finally got to see Elle Bishop (Kristen Bell) bite the dust. Oh, how I rejoiced as Sylar slowly and sadistically split her skull and her screams of agony filled my heart with vengeful glee, mwahahahaha! Good Sylar, now kill the speedster bitch whose name I won't even dignify by mentioning! We must cull the weak from the herd! We must remove the impure and leave only those in the crucible with the might to expand across the universe! EXTERMINATE!! EXTERMINATE!! EXTERMINAAATE!!!

Click here to visit the official website for Heroes.

TV Review: Castle "A Chill Goes Through Her Veins"

Season 1, Episode 5 (Original Air Date: Monday, April 6th 2009, at 10/9c on ABC)

The Plot: (From TV.com) Castle (Nathan Fillion) and Beckett (Stana Katic) investigate the murder of a women found frozen and tangled in steel bars at a construction site. The case leads them to looking into an old case and also has Beckett thinking about some memories from her past.

The Review: Castle is officially my favorite show currently on TV. For starters, Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic are two of my favorite actors working today, as well as some of the most underrated. Nathan Fillion has been under-utilized since Firefly, but at least he enjoys modest fame as a geek culture icon (possibly the next Bruce Campbell). Stana Katic, on the other hand, has never really had a project of her own. her career thus far has consisted mainly of guest spots in various TV shows, though I know her best from her endearing and drop dead hilarious performance in The Spirit (seriously, she was the best part of the film). You might remember her as the Canadian spy chick from the end of Quantum of Solace, as well as that computer controlling Israeli girl who showed up in the first season of Heroes, only to disappear with no explanation. Both of them are always a joy to watch, and they bring their A-game to everything they do. And fortunately for this show, it turns out they have great chemistry with each other and do well together.

But more than great casting, this show has great...well, everything. The closest thing to a complaint I can come up with is that the buddy cop romance crime show has been done before...a lot. But this common & minor lack of originality never affects the quality of this show, at least not for me. Making one of the main characters a writer is a big bonus for me, being a writer myself. I can relate to how Richard Castle looks at the world. Poet Muriel Rukeyser once said "the universe is made of stories, not atoms", and there's not better way to describe Castle's (or my) thought process. He thinks outside the box, because he's always looking for inspiration, looking for a story. Sure it's pretty implausible that this would routinely lead to him to the truth of every murder week after week, but hey, that's TV for ya.

Castle has only aired five episodes so far, but so far it has never failed to thoroughly entertain me week after week. The humor, the mystery, the romantic tension, it's all great stuff. But this episode is one of the first to really brought the heavy stuff. When Beckett has to choose between letting a murderer go free or dividing a happy family forever, it's truly moving. Her character is one we still know little about, or didn't until this episode. And even though it seems the mystery of her past has more or less been revealed, some thing tells me there's more to it than she's telling us. Maybe it's just the writer in me.

Click here to visit the official website for Castle.

TV Review: Dollhouse "Needs"

Season 1, Episode 8 (Original Air Date: Friday, April 3rd 2009 at 9/8c on FOX)

The Plot: (From TV.com) Awakening within the Dollhouse, with large parts of their original personalities having returned, Echo (Eliza Dushku), Sierra (Dichen Lachman) and Victor (Enver Gjokaj) plan an escape.

The Review: Now that's more like it, Whedon! I knew you wouldn't let me down. Sure last weeks episode was underwhelming, but this weeks episode more than makes up for it. Now I remember why I love Dollhouse so much.

Now this is a difficult episode to review, since the thing that makes it so great is a plot twist that is slowly revealed over the course of the episode, but not fully revealed or explained until the end. I dare not spoil it for you, so let me only saw that the plot is nowhere near as straight forward as the synopsis makes it out to be. It delivers what ultimately this series is about: exploration of character. Not to mention it takes an old cliche' and makes it fresh again, quite a feat in this day & age.

In fact, I think this may be the very first episode of the series to stand out in the series as truly great. Sure the series has always been good, but no single episode really rose above the others. The only reason "Man on the Street" stood out was because it finally got the ball rolling on a number of plot lines, principally Ballard's (Tahmoh Penikett), that had been more or less in limbo for most of the series. It was the first time our two main characters actually met each other, and since that's what everyone was waiting for, the episode stood out for that reason alone. But "Needs" is special for a much deeper reason: is touches on the characters. It provides them with much needed depth, and showed all the doubters that the series is actually about something. As much as I don't want to keep comparing this to Firefly, this for me was this series' "Jaynestown". That was the first episode that made me realize how truly great and meaningful that series was, and "Needs" has done the same for Dollhouse.

Well, the good news is that Dollhouse's ratings haven't dropped significantly. The bad news is, they haven't gone up either, and their not very impressive as is. Please, PLEASE people, support this show. I desperately want this to stay on the air. If Buffy the Vampire Slayer can keep going for seven seasons, Dollhouse sure as hell deserves to do just as well, if not better.

Click here to visit the official website for Dollhouse.

TV Review: Dollhouse "Echoes"

Season 1, Episode 7 (Original Air Date: Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 8/7c on FOX)

The Plot: (From TV.com) Echo (Eliza Dushku) abandons an assignment when she is drawn to a nearby college where the entire campus is being affected by a mysterious memory drug.

The Review: I said last week that Dollhouse was a great new science fiction series. And that's still true. But I think now, at the seventh episode, the show has finally produced an episode that I didn't like. I suppose it was inevitable, no show is perfect after all (Although Firefly went it's full season without really disappointing me. Oh, well). Maybe it's just disappointment after the last episode, which was without a doubt the best the series has yet produced.

That said, this is not a terrible episode, it's simply not up to par with everything we've seen so far (hey, that rhymes!) To show's credit, it's entertaining and engaging even on it's off days. I rather watch "Echoes" on a loop for 48 hours straight than 5 minutes of any given reality show or Disney Channel garbage.

The first thing that disappointed me was that it did nothing to advance the Agent Ballard storyline. After "Man on the Street" finally brought Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett) to the forefront of the story in a big way, I was excited to see what he would do this episode. But he didn't do anything, except maybe have a small relationship talk of no real consequence with Mellie (Miracle Laurie). He barely even appeared.

Also, the whole episode was, well, a bit of a mindf*ck. Strike that, it was a total mindf*ck. And not a mindf*ck like the ending to 2001: A Space Odyssey, or the tunnel scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, or the pink elephant scene from Dumbo. I mean a mindf*ck more lick the Architect scene from The Matrix Reloaded: you've got no idea what's going on, and you're not sure the writers do either. The plot is convoluted, and story elements go completely unexplained, or if they were I missed them. There were times when I thought I had been affected by the drug. Probably the biggest WTF moment was when they employ the magic reset button at the end with little to no explanation. (spoiler warning) Almost every employee and Active in the Dollhouse organization is caught with their pants down by the drug, out in the field in a populated area, as are the people back at base...And yet somehow they are able to clean the whole thing up without the authorities even noticing. And no, that's not another mystery to be solved, it's just poor writing. (spoiler ending)

But my major complaint was that this episode was, to be honest, a major waste of potential. This plot basically called for almost every single character to have all inhibitions and memory blocks removed. This is a incredible opportunity for character development, the chances to see these people as they truly are. But it never happens. The memory drugs effects are played almost entirely for laughs (not terribly funny ones at that), and when they aren't, they don't really tell us anything we don't already know. The only real exception is Echo, and frankly, the more I find out about her former self Caroline, the less I like her. Apparently (spoiler warning) she was just some crazy animal rights bitch who got her boyfriend killed just because she didn't like labs using guinea pigs as...well, guinea pigs. Incidentally, when she and her boyfriend do break into the lab, they discover the lab's also experimenting on human infants, but she's still way more concerned with the caged monkeys (spoiler ending). Wow. Not only have they spoiled Echo's secret origin halfway through the first season, but her secret origin makes her completely unlikable. There better be more to this, Whedon.

So yeah, this latest episode was pretty disappointing. Hope the show doesn't lose viewers for this, they were on a roll. I still love Dollhouse, as demonstrated by the fact that I expected so much more than this. But hey, we've still got a 6:1 ratio in are favor, and in all likelihood, this was just a rare misstep. Although, there is a part of me that's afraid Joss Whedon's already been handed a cancellation notice, and has to cram his five seasons of planned brilliance into this season. Pray to God I'm wrong.

Click here to visit the official website for Dollhouse.

TV Review: Kings "Prosperity"

Season 1, Episode 2 (Original Air Date: Monday, March 22nd, 2009 at 8/7c on NBC)

The Plot: (From TV.com) A peace treaty signing ceremony could be jeopardized when the leader of the Gath military (Steven J. Klaszky) inquires as to why David Shepherd (Christopher Egan) isn't there. Tensions mount as King Silas (Ian McShane) and General Abner (Wes Studi) come up with a plan to get rid of David, while William (Dylan Baker) plans to get rid of King Silas.

The Review: Kings is a very new series, and one of which I have yet to make up my mind about. It's really too early to call it as a good series overall, and I personally don't know whether I like it or not yet. I admire them for trying something new, but still, I have my doubts. It can seem very pretentious and overly dramatic at times (I almost threw up over that awful scene from the pilot where David's brother died, so David runs into the battlefield and waves the white flag while the tragic hero music plays; poorly acted & completely implausible).

My views on the casting are mixed. Ian McShane is consistently brilliant, but more or less everyone is mediocre to horrible. I realize they were going for the blonde-haired, blued-eyed, all-American Boy-type with Christopher Egan, which is appropriate for his character, but to me he just comes across as a cardboard cutout character; he's just boring to watch. However, when Brian Cox suddenly showed up in the latest installment, my mouth dropped open. He was only in one scene, but man, oh man, was it an awesome. He and Ian McShane, two masters on their craft playing off one another, one as a corrupt dictator with a messiah complex, the other as a deposed dictator fallen into madness; it doesn't get much better than that.

In case you haven't figured it out already, Kings is essentially a modern retelling of the Biblical story of David, particularly his rise to power and the fall of his predecessor, King Saul. I like this angle, it's really the shows only selling point outside of Ian McShane. However, the translation is...inconsistent at best. It's very precise, even to the point where it doesn't make sense, which also makes some of the changes made all the more confusing. For example, making Saul, or Silas as the case my be, a modern day monarch of a fictional country seems odd and unnecessary. It would seem more appropriate to make him the democratic leader of Israel in an alternate world where Israel is the dominate superpower of the world. And if they're being that accurate, why bother with any name changes? Saul is a perfectly believable name in modern society, so why is he Silas here? And replacing Jonathan with Jack, seriously (incidentally, Jonathan was supposed to be David's best friend and ally against Saul, not his rival for Saul's attention and a drunken playboy)? Also, what's the deal with Samuel being so...so young? I always pictured him an the wise, ancient old Gandalf-type prophet, but here, Saul/Silas is at least a decade his senior. I'm sorry, but that doesn't really work for me.

Still I must admit, this film has a great visual style about it. It actually manages to create a large and epic feel, something hard to accomplish on a TV budget. Though I'm not sure what butterflies and pigeons have to do with the story of David, I appreciate the poetic imagery. More appropriate animals would have been lions or lambs, but of course it would've been pretty difficult to mount one of those on David's head as a crown. This episode in particular is full of it, from the opening scene where Silas is yelling at the sky in the rain, begging God not to abandon him, and the flock of pigeons flew around him, to a scene in the climax that involved a not-so-subtle crucifix reference (wrong Bible story, guys), it's all good stuff.

Overall, I did think this episode was much better than the pilot, which got abysmal ratings despite a good amount of hype. I think the main problem with the pilot was the two-hour running time. Audiences just aren't willing to devote that much time to a totally new series they know nothing about. Extra long episodes are something you do for series finales, not premieres, because you have to have your audience already on board. Hopefully they've learned they're lesson and haven't completely alienated everyone yet. While I have yet to fully gauge the show, something genuinely fresh and original is rare and worth checking out. I definitely look fore ward to seeing what more this show has to offer.

Click here to visit the official website for Kings.

TV Review: Dollhouse "Man on the Street"

The Plot: (from TV.com) Echo (Eliza Dushku) tries to help a client (Patton Oswalt) heal the ache of a lost love as a TV reporter (Patrick Stinson) prepares an expose on the Dollhouse.

The Review: Dollhouse is still a fairly new show, but it's one I've come to love. It's an interesting science fiction premise that opens up world of possibilities. Our main character can literally go anywhere, do anything, and be anyone. Of course, this also present an enormous challenge to the actress, who must literally reinvent herself with each new episode. It's a difficult feat that Eliza Dushku pulls of admirably if not quite perfectly. It's definitely a chance to show her range, and she's already surprised me over and over again. The only place she really falters any is when she's in her "tabula rasa" mode, but in her defense it's very difficult to pull of a state of complete mindlessness.

That's not to say the show is perfect, however. One of my initial fears going in was that the show would be just like the promotional material, which focused almost entirely on Echo's sex appeal. As it turns out, these fears were not entirely unjustified. No matter how interesting and complex Echo's character is, almost every episode has to take a moment to remind us how physically attractive she is, as if we'd forgotten. There's always that bit were she's gotta seduce somebody, or somebody ogles or hits on her, or when she gotta get naked, etc. It's like the show keeps saying to the audience, "Hey, by the way, she's HOT! And not only that, she's HOT! Oh, we forgot to tell you, she's HOT!". Enough already!

I had another complaint, but this episode more than makes up for it, as I knew they eventually would. My complaint was the Agent Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett) and his plot line didn't seem very relevant to the story. It was like every episode had the same old b-plot: Ballard running around in circles trying to find the Dollhouse, while DeWitt (Olivia Williams) supplies him with false lead after false lead. While the assumption was always that eventually Ballard's and Echo's paths would cross and he would actually become part of the a-plot, he was getting a little repetitive, and I was beginning to wish they would just get on with it.

But not only did this episode mark the first face-to-face encounter between Ballard and Echo, but is also featured a number of new mysteries, and twist I never saw coming. Now we not only have the questions revolving around the rogue active Alpha and his intentions, but now we're told (spoiler warning) that there's a mysterious insider in the Dollhouse organization working to expose them. Who is it? Is it Boyd? He certainly believes that what is done to the Dolls is wrong. Dr. Saunders? She obviously has some kinda past we don't know about, I mean what's with those scars? Topher? He seemed shaken up after he was told Alpha was still alive, no telling what he may do with his upgraded clearance. Or maybe Alpha is the informant, manipulating Ballard as well as Echo? Can't wait to find out. (spoiler end)

The news expose angle was interesting, inter cutting scenes with clips of random people being interviewed on the street about the much-rumored Dollhouse. It the first time the show really dealt with how, to the world at large, the Dollhouse is nothing more and an urban legend. In general, it didn't lend anything to the plot other than a few laughs, but it did help establish the Dollhouse's place in the world.

The show's creator, Joss Whedon, is greatly beloved by the geek community for creating shows such as Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But despite his widespread and devoted fan base, for some reason his work often doesn't make money. Firefly was cancelled after the first season, and even it's cinematic revival Serenity didn't do well financially. Dollhouse had also been performing poorly in the rating for the first four episodes, and it looked like it was doomed to be another of Whedon's lost gems. Last episode, when the ratings went up, I thought it might've been just a fluke. But wonder of wonders, the ratings remained high this episode! They didn't really rise, but still that's pretty impressive considering it was going up again the NCAA Basketball Tournament and the series finale of Battlestar Galactica. Please support this show, guys. We don't want this cancelled in the first season like Firefly, especially with Whedon saying he's got the first five seasons already mapped out.

Click here to visit the official website for Dollhouse.