Smallville 9×10 – “Disciple”
January 30th, 2010
Smallville returns with a bit of an appetizer before the show presents us with the first 2-hour movie next week. It’s another heavy Oliver-centric episode, where we learn how Oliver gained the skills to become the Green Arrow. There’s some Clark stuff in there as well, but “Disciple” is another episode of the Green Arrow Show. If you don’t mind that, it was pretty good. Read the rest of this entry »
HYGOTS No. 68
January 29th, 2010
Well, it’s not as if we weren’t warned in advance. Since the third season, we’ve known that ‘Lost’ was coming to an end with its sixth season. From the introduction of flashforwards onward, it’s been one breathless sprint to this moment. The fourth and fifth seasons were abbreviated runs that were broadcast during the winter and springs of 2008 and 2009, and now that the same point has been reached in 2010, you know that it’s time to begin saying goodbye…
Fringe 2×14 “The Bishop Revival” review
January 29th, 2010
The following contains spoilers through the episode “The Bishop Revival,” originally broadcast 1/28/10.
Well, I gotta say, all that negative talk I had going on last week is completely irrelevant this week. This was a wickedly good episode all the way around, not only terrifically compelling but a good one for both a casual and committed fan of the show. It’s funny, because on the surface, there are a lot of common elements between “What Lies Beneath” and “The Bishop Revival.” But where the former episode teases things we know, the latter exploits them in new and interesting ways, and even tells us some new ones.
Heroes 4×16 “The Art of Deception” review
January 26th, 2010
The following contains spoilers through the episode “The Art of Deception,” originally broadcast 1/25/10.
‘Defying Gravity’ (now on DVD, by the way) creator James Parriott, in a recent interview, recently divulged an anecdote when explaining what the series arc for his show would have been had ABC not cancelled his show. He related how, during the first season of ‘Lost,’ when he was working press for ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ that its creators admitted they didn’t know where their show was headed. He said he couldn’t imagine how ‘Lost’ could operate that way. As much as I admire and miss ‘Defying Gravity’ and what Parriott had intended to do, I can’t say that I agree that the best and only way to tell a rich and engrossing story is to know exactly how it’s going to end from the moment you begin it. Maybe that makes me a bad storyteller in my own regard, I don’t know. A lot of folks have been wondering the same sort of thing about ‘Heroes’ for a long time now, whether or not its creators know what they’re doing. I can’t say what Tim Kring and company’s approach has been, either from the start of the series or even during this fourth season, but what I can say is that “The Art of Deception” does go a long way in justifying a particular course of action that wasn’t followed earlier in the season, when it was decided Matt Parkman wasn’t going to be responsible, at least then, for the destruction of Sylar.
HYGOTS No. 67
January 22nd, 2010
Here’s one of the big ones. I know, it’s called “How I Got These Scars.” Most of the topics I’ve covered in this column since I launched it two falls ago have been big ones. I’ve found it surprisingly easy to find material to sustain the column. I don’t know what exactly that says about me. Anyway, this week’s topic is ‘Star Trek: Voyager,’ the one element of the franchise I haven’t covered yet because, well, it’s the one that really counts where this column is concerned. You could call ‘Voyager’ the series that broke the franchise’s back.
Fringe 2×13 “What Lies Beneath” review
January 22nd, 2010
The following contains spoilers through the episode “What Lies Beneath,” originally broadcast 1/21/10.
Wow, so I’ve never really had a problem with Wikipedia before, but now I’m starting to think it hates me. That or the ‘Fringe’ creators do. This week I found new episode entries that remove “Unearthed” from the official second season listings and changed the title of “Edina County Limits” to “Johari Window,” and has become almost a tradition this season, postponing another episode (“Jacksonville”) to a later date. I just thought I’d make a note of this stuff, in case the way I list some of this stuff here at Lower Decks begins to confuse anyone, y’know, the way Walter Bishop confounds local authorities who aren’t prepared to deal with his eccentricities.
Heroes 4×15 “Pass/Fail” review
January 19th, 2010
The following contains spoilers through the episode “Pass/Fail,” originally broadcast 1/18/10.
The whole season has been called ‘Redemption,’ of course, but this would sort of be the money episode if you were looking for a single one to define it by. The fans who’ve stuck around, curious to see if there really was some redemption to be found, despite all their doubts, which’ve only continued throughout the season, might at the very least sit up and pay attention to this one.
Fringe 2×12 “Edina County Limits” review
January 16th, 2010
The following contains spoilers through the episode “Edina County Limits,” originally broadcast 1/14/10.
Returning to the small town tactics of “Night of Desirable Objects” (the first regular episode of the season), “Edina County Limits” is probably the most enjoyable standalone episode of the series to date.
HYGOTS No. 66
January 14th, 2010
One of pop culture’s perennial figures for the past forty years, Terry Gilliam has done a good job of hiding in plain sight. He’s the American in Monty Python. Along with John Cleese and Eric Idle, he’s managed to make a career of the success he enjoyed from the handful of TV seasons and movies the famed British comedy troupe, except unlike them, he did it behind the camera, as a director, where he tried to make a modern interpretation of fantasy storytelling.
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