With burned-out retinas and a fried brain, I come to you today as a man who watched approximately 517 hours of television last night. Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration ... but only slight. Because with a warrior's mentality and nerves of steel, I parked myself on the couch last night to take in a night of primetime television mayhem, as multiple networks did their best to attract my trendsetting 25-year old eyeballs. So here's my Monday night roundup, raw and uncut, baby.
HEROES: Third Season Premiere Review:
- Okay, the big premiere last night was that of HEROES. For some reason, I was really optimistic about the start of Season 3. Maybe it was the positive buzz from Comic-Con, maybe I had just been drinking too much of the NBC kool-aid, I don't know. But I was somehow convinced that the premiere truly would live up to its title and be a "second coming" of sorts for Heroes. And while there were moments of coolness, and some reminders of what made the show so likable in the first place, there was still way too much of the kind of sloppy writing, poor acting, and hair-pulling pacing that made Season 2 such a bust.
Because let me take a second to sum up what I've written many times before here on the blog: I want to like - scratch that - I want to love Heroes. When I first read the pilot script I was blown away - the possibility of a primetime TV show that would create a living, breathing, comic book world with a real-world twist was music to my ears. That first script has so much potential and promise ... that it's been tough watching the show struggle to live up to its epic premise. Season 1 had a handful of the kind of "holy $#%&" moments that should, in theory, be a part of every episode of Heroes. There was the first time we saw Future Hiro, the alternate-future episode that brought shades of Days of Futures Past to the Heroes-verse. There was "Company Man," which finally brought the same kind of narrative drama and character-building that makes shows like LOST so involving to Heroes, in an episode that redefined the show and made Noah Bennet its new de facto star.
But those truly great moments have been few and far between, and the show's drawn-out setups have yet to have truly rewarding payoffs, with two consecutive season finales that failed to provide satisfying closure, or exciting build-up to the next wave of storylines. Similarly, many of the show's characters have yet to grab us. Everyone loved Hiro and Ando when they first debuted, but the pair of would-be world-savers has yet to have that big, great adventure that we've seemingly been promised since Day 1. Sylar debuted as the next great potential TV villain. Two seasons later, he's still got the same old schtick. In last night's season premiere, Claire was till moping around videotaping herself. When is she finally going to kick some ass or do something toreally make us cheer her on?
So back to last night's two hour premiere ... I was ready to have my mind blown but instead had to fight back a headache from all of the plot holes, inconsistent logic, and off-kilter pacing. First, let's talk plot - an area where Heroes has always struggled. We still don't know who exactly the older-generation of heroes are and what exactly their motives are, which makes Hiro's quest to keep some secret formula out of the wrong hands all the more mystifying, since we still don't know what his father's agenda was or how in-league he was with the sinister-seeming Angela Petrelli, Company Bob, etc. Then there was the big reveal that Future Peter travelled back in time and shot his own brother to prevent an apocalyptic future where heroes are hunted down, experimented on, etc. This reveal makes almost no sense. Why travel to that specific moment in time? Why SHOOT and nearly kill your own brother? Why randomly trap your past-self's conciousness in the body of Weevil from Veronica Mars?
One huge problem that has developed on Heroes: time travel. Rather than really having fun and letting loose with the concept, the show has been picking and choosing where and how Hiro and Peter use this ability. And the selective use of the power has already created tons of gaps in logic. For example - Hiro needs to get back his half of his father's formula? Why not travel back to the moment before it was stolen and warn his past-self not to open the safe that held it? Or - Peter feels torn about not being there for Claire when she was attacked by Sylar - an attack which left Sylar near-omnipotent now that he has absorbed Claire's powers. Why not travel back to that moment and intervene? Now, it'd be one thing if the show established clear rules for time-travel. But so far, it's been nothing but a plot-device used only at the writers' discretion. And it makes the storylines feel flimsy and not well-planned-out. They need to fix this soon.
But time-travel is just the tip of the iceberg. The show needs to simply focus and zone in on its most compelling plot points, which it rarely seems to do. Last year, the fact that there was a deadly virus out there affecting people with abilities got totally lost in the shuffle. So far this year, we have a season called Villains. We have a breakout of the world's most sinister super-powered beings. THAT should be the focus. Let's see Claire, Noah, Hiro, Peter, etc. team up to take down the badguys. It's not complicated, and it'd be a lot of fun. But already, the prison break out seems to be getting lost in the shuffle.
Part of the clutter, is, as usual, thanks to an already-groan-inducing subplot featuring Mohinder. Long the show's most annoying character, he's now teamed with Maya, last season's candidate for new most annoying character. I guess their scenes at least kill two birds with one stone, but man, were they hard to watch. We get Mohinder prancing around like Spiderman thanks to a serum that gives anyone who injects it superpowers (but with horrifying side-effects yet to be fully revealed! never seen THAT before!), and the start of a pretty sudden romantic tryst with Maya, who we can only hope soon joins her brother as a victim of Sylar's evil, brain-snatching ways. And ... holy lord ... is this show STILL doing that godawful pretentious narration from Mohinder? I mean, seriously, WTF was he talking about at the end of Hour 1? Something about the lambs of Bethlehem? Oh man, for the love of all that is sacred, please never subject us to Mohinder's narration again.
Meanwhile, Ali Larter is back, but with a new identity. In a mere two seasons, Larter's characters on Heroes have had to endure so many crazy twists and turns that the effect is now numbing. I can't imagine many Heroes fanboys out there are chomping at the bit to find out the mystery of Tracy Strauss. And it's too bad, because Larter has done an admirable job playing so many characters ... she's just a victim of the show's tendency to lower all interest in a given character by subjecting them to an endless series of confusing and ultimately pointless twists.
Case in point: Nathan Petrelli. I mean, wow, I think his personality and physical state shifted about 30 times in this season premiere alone. First he was dead, then alive but barely, then walking around in a suit looking healthy, then back in a hospital bed looking sickly. He went from going to theb rink of causing annihilation last season to fighting for the cause of good to muttering something about being an angel of God to signing up to fill a vacant seat in the U.S. Senate. When Future-Peter revealed to Nathan that it was him who had shot him to prevent a horrible future, the revelation landed with all the intensity of a typical episode of Ghost Whisperer.
Now, what did I like? I liked most of the scenes with Hiro, Ando, and their new speedster nemesis. Light and fun, these were the kinds of moments that allowed Heroes to first capture people's imaginations. The cameo from George Takei was hilarious - it's too bad they killed him off because he added a TON to the show. The new speed-freak villain seems ripped straight from SMALLVILLE, but you know what, with so much of the premiere being a relatively bleak mess, it was a welcome change of pace, so to speak.
I know for me this is stating the obvious, but Kristen Bell kicked ass as usual with what small screentime she had. It's clear that her character, Elle, is pretty underwritten, but it's cool to see Bell making the most of what she's got to work with. She singlehandedly made the big confrontation between Elle and Sylar the premiere's coolest and most kickass moment, by FAR. And yeah, it warmed this still-in-mourning fan of VERONICA MARS happy to see Veronica and Weevil reunited via Heroes. GREAT chemistry between the two actors, and you could feel the shared history between them on screen.
Also great in that scene was Jack Coleman as Noah. Long the show's MVP, Coleman was given little screen time but immediately brought some MUCH-NEEDED GRAVITAS to the precedings. The show seriously needs to remember which characters work best for it - and their go-to-guy should clearly be Coleman.
Speaking of great actors, it's almost sad to see the great Malcolm McDowell pop up and proceed to be completely boring and useless. In all the time I've watched Heroes, I still have no real idea who Linderman is and don't know why I should care about him.
I thought the Sylar-Claire confrontation was interesting, but honestly I don't see why they had to go so graphic with it. And Sylar is really wearing thin as a character, especially by episode's end. Him being a long-lost Petrelli brother is kind of interesting, but Peter and Nathan are now so broken as characters that it's hard to get too excited about either of their storylines. Again - SIMPLIFY. We'd all love to see Sylar leading a band of supervillains. Just skip to that already and give us some epic hero vs. villain battles. The intense action of the Elle vs. Sylar scene was the one moment that truly had that super-powered spark (pun intended).
But the show needs to avoid the kind of meandering pointlessness embodied by Greg Grunberg being teleported to Africa and wandering around aimlessly for an hour. I cringed along with everyone else in America when he promptly meets random African Guy who wastes no time in making a crack plugging Sprint cell phone service. Come on, Heroes, give us some credit as an audience.
It's interesting, because in a way a LOT was packed into the first two hours of Heroes' third season. But a lot of it seemed to just go in circles. I didn't sense a lot of real, forward momentum. The kind of legitimate drama that makes you rally around the characters and really root for them, the kind that makes you anticipate the next episode with bated breath. Heroes needs to stop, take a breath, and figure out what its grand plan is. Give us a plot we can sink our teeth into, powers that leave us awed rather than scratching our heads, characters we root for or love to hate. So far, it looks like a "second coming" is still a ways away.
My Grade: C+
PRISON BREAK:
- All hail to the still-reigning king of adrenaline-fueled Monday night TV: Prison Break (well, at least until Jack Bauer makes his glorious return in '09 ...). While the first two eps of Season 4 have been fun but a bit bland, Ep #3 really kicked things up a notch, and I finally felt like I was watching the same Prison Break that has kicked my ass so many times before. Yes folks, I'm still sore.
What more can one say about William F'n Fichtner? Last night's ep shifted the spotlight a bit more to Mahone, and once again everyone's favorite psycho-Fed-turned-Con-turned-black ops agent looks ready to take names, with his sights sent on the Company's big bad SBD hitman. Mahone's single-minded pursuit of his son's killer brings me back to when the character was first introduced in Season 2, and there's that same feeling of anticipation as we watch Mahone teeter on the edge and go all out in his quest for unholy vengeance. Awesome. As my brother pointed out ... where is Fichtner's Emmy? Do they even give an award that honors Most Badass Actor Ever?
But yeah, I guess maybe it's just third time's the charm, but I thought this week's break-in plot was ultimately a lot of fun. Everything gelled well, and it was fun seeing Michael Rappaport get a bit more hands-on with the action. Although he was introduced as the generic obnoxious boss type, I'm really liking Rappaport more and more with each passing episode. It's a fun dynamic seeing the scrappy Jewish guy from New York teaming up with a bunch of hardened ex-cons.
Also, this week saw even more vintage, over-the-top dialogue from T-Bag. His story to his secretary about Leprachauns was hilariously random yet awesome.
I'm also liking that the show is finally addressing my earlier complaint - that we still don't know much about The Company or its goals. It looks like the curtain is finally being pulled back, and we're getting into the bigger picture of what the Company's nefarious plans actually are.
The Scofield-is-sick subplot ... hopefully they won't leave us hanging too long on that one.
Also: Gretchen's escape = awesome. Most badass female character on TV.
My one complaint is really just that I feel like two of the show's former best characters, Bellick and Sucre, seem kind of wasted this season so far. And also, that computer hacker guy is still pretty lame and annoying.
But overall, this was a fairly badass episode that, to me, signalled that PB is back.
My Grade: A -
GOSSIP GIRL:
- I know some people lump in Gossip Girl with other teen shows like One Tree Hill or the new 90210. But what I love about GG is that, like The OC, it's both teen drama as well as self-aware satire of teen drama. Sure, the show has its share of soap-opera twists, but oftentimes, it's just hilarious.
I was completely cracking up last night over Chuck Bass' manipulative antics. He is such an over the top character, and seriously one of TV's best antagonists. Every line of Chuck's had me laughing - has there ever been a more flamboyantly Machiavellian high school student in the history of primetime?
Anyways, I thought this was a really fun episode of Gossip Girl that finally returned the show's setting to high school, thus taking it back to basics a bit. I wouldn't call it a guilty pleasure, because the show always offers up its melodrama with a wink and a smile.
My Grade: A-
- Alright, back with more soon. Let me know what you think - Heroes: soared or sunk? Prison Break: still a powerhouse or a shadow of its former self? Gossip Girl: should I be ashamed for watching or are you also on the bandwagon?
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