HYGOTS No. 78
April 9th, 2010
With ‘Lost’ coming to a close in little over a month and the word that ‘Fringe’ has gotten a third season, I thought it was a good time to write about another series I’ve frequently referenced in my reviews of the latter show but never actually gotten around to discussing at length, even though for its five seasons I was as loyal a fan of it as I’ve been with any other TV experience. I’m talking about ‘Alias,’ of course, the show that got J.J. Abrams onto the pop culture map (with apologies to ‘Felicity’).
Comics I Like Vol. II No. 1
April 9th, 2010
For the past few months, I’ve been tagging on a supplemental feature to my regular column, HYGOTS, in an attempt to further justify why I include the QB comics awards every year for a guy who doesn’t seem to talk about comics all that often. As I’ve explained in the past, prior to the relaunch of Lower Decks and the start of HYGOTS, I previously wrote a weekly column (in its final phase actually called ‘Weekly’) about comics for Paperback Reader.com, and it was there I began the QBs (where they started out as a top ten of my favorite comics from 2005, and expanded to fifty in 2006). During the transition between the two sites, I actually posted the same format at my semi-regular blog, Scouring Monk, and that’s where I really started to featured the QB designation (“QB” being short for ‘Quarter Bin,’ which was the original name of my comics column). But since HYGOTS, I haven’t really written, as I said, a whole lot about my comics experience beyond the QBs (first week of January for the past two years). It was sort of okay, because a previous contributor was writing a column about comics here, and he did a fine job of keeping the pulse alive. Except, now ‘Comics I Like’ has been absent for some time now, and as I said, I started to feel a little funny. And then I got to thinking, tacking something at the end of a column and not really acknowledging it in the front page teaser doesn’t do that much more justice, does it? Who’s really going to know? The solution seemed obvious.
LOST 6×11 – “Happily Ever After”
April 7th, 2010
Let’s not kid ourselves – LOST has entered its final stretch. And with just a handful of episodes left, there’s still an awful lot to get done. From this season’s storylines to character questions to the BIG questions of the entire show, there’s a whole lot left to do. But this episode moves us toward one of the bigger questions that we have left – what, exactly, is the purpose of the flash-sideways universe?
Smallville 9×15 – “Escape”
April 4th, 2010
I’m going to keep this short because there wasn’t a whole lot here that needs to be discussed. Again, Smallville decides to do a romantic-based story, while trying to bring in another relatively-obscure Superman villain. And, again, you really have to look to the B-story to find the good stuff. But at least that stuff is really good.
Fringe 2×16 “Peter” review
April 2nd, 2010
The following contains spoilers through the episode “Peter,” originally broadcast 4/1/10.
I don’t want to say I’ve been backing the right horse, but hey, I’ve been backing the right horse. From the start, I knew the creators of ‘Fringe,’ had a pedigree that would at least result in something intriguing, but for the past two years they’ve developed one of the most emotionally complex and compelling shows on TV today. Much of this has centered around Walter Bishop, the brilliant mind released from a mental asylum in the first episode, and his relationship not only to the mysteries investigated every week, but his son Peter, whom viewers gradually learned wasn’t who he seemed. But as misdirections go, it wasn’t Peter’s own ambiguous talents and activities that ultimately proved to serve as the driving force of his story, but where he came from and how he came to be here.
HYGOTS No. 77
April 2nd, 2010
Last week, I talked about a cult-sized hit from 1997 that had a possible sequel in the works. Well, this week, I’m talking about a 1996 giant-sized hit that also has a potential sequel in the works, one that’s been rumored for years, too. The difference between ‘The Fifth Element’ and ‘Independence Day’ is, however, that while ‘Fifth Element’ has been able to sustain a cult-sized following since its beginning, you’d hardly know just how big ‘ID-4’ was when it was released. It has become, largely, just a step toward Will Smith’s rise to box office staple. I for one find that a little disappointing.
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