Heroes Acceptance

I will begin by saying that I am truly enjoying not reading any other reviews of heroes. It isn’t that people sometimes have good points, only that so many people were so negative that it frustrated me.  I say this in part because i do have some wonders about how people are reacting to the change. i for one am quite happy to see that they have focused considerably on the idea of them having normal lives. It is the small moments of heroes that i have always enjoyed more than anything else.

There were plenty of those small moments in this episode. I really enjoyed Clair in this episode mostly because of her interactions with Noah. she can be a good enough characters when the writers don’t feel the need to make her act rebellious or find more reasons for her to jump out of windows.

In addition I really felt like hiro was in large part back to the character that i have enjoyed in the past. He has been a character for a long time that seemed to have very little reason to be in the show and while he is still almost completely unconnected to the rest of the cast at least he is doing something better than flying to india to break up a wedding and I hope that they have realized that simply having a character in the show with no reason is a mistake and won’t do it again. Instead I am completely content with characters sliding in and out of the show, and while I hope at some point Mohinder returns.

Finally we have Nathan, and in this episode he really did feel more like Nathan which is very interesting because it seems to show that there is nothing physically stopping the character of Sylar from feeling things like remorse and while I have little hope that the character will be redeemed I still like the character that we saw in the future better than the other versions of Sylar. That said I have some fear that they are going to find some way to bring Nathan back in some absurd way, and I have to say that If we see a man who has the ability to split in two I am going to be just a little bit disappointed.  On the other hand, if they finally tell someone who knows about Clairs healing ability that Nathan is dead and they bring him back it will still be a little bit weak but at least using something that has long been on the show.

Stargate Universe — Air

After about twenty seasons combine of stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis I still enjoy the show. And in general it appears that i will enjoy Stargate Universe as well.

One of the things that pleased me is that the characters generally seemed a bit more interesting, and while the last starfighter plot was stretching things a little I am willing to accept it for the sake of enjoying the show. Also I  like the fact that while they are cut off from earth they do have a way to communicate. That should change things enough.

I am also interested in seeing if they have humans on a large number of the planets they visit. I understand that it makes sense both for the shows budget and the ability to tell stories to have humanoids but the explanations will still be interesting.

Finally I really liked the fact that the show really just focused on them trying to survive. There was no real need to set up enemies, at least outside of the crew itself.

This was a good pilot and all the characters seem interesting, and once they get the token large quiet alien, on the team it should be ready to go.

Flashforward: Pilot — compared to book

I recently watched the primer if Flashforward on Hulu. I had seen the previews for the show for quite some time but the first time I tried to put it on my DVR it wasn’t yet programmed and then I forget. It would have been nice to see on the bigger screen but either way it was a good show, and I liked it enough that it inspired me to read the book.

I have no idea how much of the book is spoilers for the TV show, but if you do not want to know anything that happens in the story, or might happen in the story be warned.

The first major difference in the book is that the main character is not an FBI agent, but a man working at the large hadron collider. As you can likely guess from that the mystery of how the flash forward occurred is far less of a mystery. The Other major change is that the flash forward in the book takes them forward twenty one years, not six months.

Typically I do not like it when people take a book and change in, but both of these are very good changes for a TV show and i can understand fully why they would do it. A weekly show can’t really have a twenty one year jump and not knowing what caused the event is quite a lot more important in a TV show.

One of the things I really hope they do not change though is the implicit questions of free will that the flash forward brings to light. If you can see a glimpse of the future does that mean that you have no control over your choices, or is this only a single possible future? This also comes with something that in the book is called the Ebenezer effect. That is that those with the most negative futures are in many ways the ones who are most helped by the events of the flash forward because they can see the need for change.

One thing that does worry me though, is the question of whether they will need to have a flash forward each season. I do not know if this would be a good thing or a bad thing but the idea makes me a little nervous for the show in general if they do, but without knowing how the show will play out, or what caused the flash forward I have no real reason for that fear.

Smallville: Savior review

I almost missed the Premier of Smallville because I wasn’t expecting it. Much of this is because I simply wasn’t all that excited by the finally last year. It simply felt as if it were taking a large step backwards, and as this story begin it felt a little bit the same.

It seems as if every season premier someone is missing. This season it is Lois Lane. She has been gone for several weeks after putting on the Legion ring. I had been hoping to see something more of the legion but that didn’t see to be the point.

Beyond that I just don’t like Clark all that much at the moment. I do not think that we are really supposed to and that doesn’t bother me, so long as we get someone who we can pull for in the show soon. I just don’t have that much interest in a season of him acting cold and pretending he doesn’t care about people. A few episodes perhaps, but no more.

I also really want to see more of the Justice League formation. This was one of the things that really made last season interesting to me because in large part the origin of Clark Kent as superman has long been told.

Overall i didn’t find the first episode of smallville great, but I didn’t hate it and since I’m still watching smallville after as many bad episodes as i have seen one average episode isn’t going to change much.

Warehouse 13: MacPherson

Warehouse 13 had it season finally and it did exactly what it set out to do in this episode it made me excited to see the next season. From the idea that anything can be an artifact, even a human mind, to the ratcheting up of the danger it felt as if everything were clicking in this episode.

I wasn’t all that excited by the pilot of Warehouse 13 and so this is a turn around. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it, I thought it had an interesting premise and characters with some potential but it just felt like it needed some work, and it got it. It seems like in almost every episode of the show they added some new layer onto it. This isn’t a show that is afraid to push itself forward and because of that I am not convinced that some of the changes that were implied by the finally will be undone, though I have a feeling that some of them will be less dramatic than they made them appear.(If you haven’t seen the episode you don’t want me to explain that.)

Overall this was a very successful first season for Warehouse 13 and if they are able to keep up the quality I hope to be watching it for many years.

Heroes: Orientation: Jump, Push, Fall

Well the fall season has official started for me with three of my favorite shows starting on the same night.  In fact in order to watch them all I had to record one of them on another TV.

Of the three I suppose Heroes was the biggest question, though I have enjoyed it all along. Which leads me to my first point, I am going to attempt to avoid reading negative reviews this season because it seems to me that a large number of them are giving it negative reviews not because of what the show is but because of what they want it to be, as well as simply complaining because that is what they they think they are supposed to do.

This first episode of Heroes seemed very promising to me. I like the fact that i am not certain if the people in the Carnival are good or bad.  One of the things that do enjoy about heroes is how much of the hero and villain aspect of the show is a matter of perspective. Groups like the company and even Danko are trying to do what they think is right most of the time.

i also thought that they used Zachary Quento very well in this episode. Angela’s dreams were creepy with Sylar doing the lines that Nathan did a moment later, but having him also play the voice of Matt breaking down was good. The question is of course whether it really is Sylar or if Matt is just losing his mind, and either way it could be interesting.

One of the major things the first season had that the others have missed was the guesses about powers. From trying to figure out what it was Peter could do to the guesswork about the visions and the possibility of changing them, I hope that we can experience that again with new characters as we try to decide what it is that they can do. For example I have seen Samuel do two things that feel very different, moving the dirt of a grave and creating odd tattoos. This leads to the question of whether he has more than one power or if it is a single power that the two connect and what it is.

So far I am very excited about heroes and looking forward to Chuck as well.

Eureka: What goes around comes Around

I haven’t loved the second half of this season of Eureka. It isn’t that it is bad in any way, it simply didn’t feel all that much like anything special was happening. In general the Episodes have simply become to predictable. The science changes but no matter what it is the odds are high that you won’t see it again and the next week there will be another scientific mystery.

As a season finally I didn’t expect them to change things all that much. At most you set up a change for next season in a finally and I am not convinced that they see the formula of this show as a problem the way that I do. But they did a couple things that I liked.

One of the major things that they were able to do was bring back on of the pieces of technology. There was no real need for the drones to make an appearance except that it was fun, and a hint that the writers recognize that at some point you might have to acknowledge the science you have shown them to have in past episodes.

The big change that I don’t know will happen next year or not is that of Zoe. She has been accepted into Harvard early and in some ways I think it might be good for her not to be on the show. She has been important to the show in some ways but once she grew out of the problem child role and became more of an adult she became less important. A reoccurring guest star role might simply be a better fit for that character now as well as shaking up a show that needs to be shaken up.

I will be watching Eureka next season but if I discover that it is simply more episodes that are the same episode with a new scientific problem I am likely to drop it to the bottom of my Tivo’s season pass manager.

Fringe: A new day in the old Town

The new fall season is finally here and in addition to watching The Office, I got to see the first episode of the new season of Fringe. Fringe was an odd show for me last year because I started out not liking it very much but it got considerably better by the end of the season, yet there were still a few things that never quite fell into place for me.

This season began with the show taking a step away from the last episode of last season. Olivia has finally discovered an answer and now they have her forget it. All I can say about that is that I hope they won’t allow this to go on too much. On the other hand the shape changing soldier was very interesting and the technology they use was very creepy.

The new FBI agent that ended up helping them was an interesting addition. We don’t know all that much about her so far, but the actress seemed to be doing a good job and having someone who hasn’t went through quite so much weirdness could help ground the show some.

I think that I am going to enjoy Fringe this season and I am certainly glad that it came back for a second season.

Warehouse 13: Nevermore

I have enjoyed Warehouse 13 since its first episode, but that doesn’t mean that i wasn’t able to see that there were a few rough edges to work out, and it is still not perfect but this last week felt as if they had taken a big step into what the show needs to be.

The main thing that this show had that many of the other episodes don’t is a real flesh and blood villain. It isn’t the warehouse trying to break down or some object making people into killing machines. And the second reason that I enjoyed it was that they did something that most shows aren’t willing to do, they allowed their characters to lose.

Warehouse 13 has always done a good job of weaving in historical references and while I get some since I know more about Poe than many of the other characters I got quite a few more and that served to remind me of just how good the writers are at mixing fact and fiction.

It feels to me as if the writers of Warehouse 13 stepped up this week to make a truly good show rather than a summer show I watch because there is nothing else on and with so many other shows returning I am at least as excited to see the next episode of Warehouse 13 as any of them.

Eureka have an ice day

Having watched several seasons of Eureka, and generally enjoying them, I have to say that the show really needs to change something. It simply feels flat. Part of this I fear is the loss of Nathan who always made the show feel interesting but I think a bigger part of it is that the show has simply went to the well a few too many times.

That isn’t to say that there isn’t plenty of stories that could be told about Eureka if they tried to change the story up. I would like too see them solve some real crimes rather than purely technology problems, and perhaps an episode or two that didn’t involve a mystery at all. I am certain that spending more time the writers could come up with more ideas.

This week though we have a guest star who hasn’t been on the show for quite some time.  That alone made “Have an Ice Day” interesting as Tagard has always been someone entertaining even if a little more over the top than the rest of the cast. They also seemed to acknowledge that there are quite a few characters who are no longer on the show though the explanations of where they have went in somewhat thin.

The mystery was fine, but the life threatening emergencies of Eureka no longer feel very dangerous. An odd type of ice that could freeze the town and the solution felt even easier than normal in some ways once they put things together.

The season is almost over and I feel very little about that. Only the hope that the final episode will excite me enough that i will truly care about the shows return.