Fringe Renewed, Wonder Woman revealed

Good news for "Fringe" fans. Despite less than stellar numbers on the move to Friday nights, it has been renewed for a fourth season. Maybe, the studio has hopes for weaker opposition next year.
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Unless you're a reality television fan, there is simply not much to watch most days. I find Tuesday to be a deathland other than "Nor Ordinary Family" is often entertaining if badly written but it doesn't look good as the two leads are already working on other pilots. I may end up watching "NCIS" just out of default. Likewise, Wednesday night only has one good show that manages to be both funny and have some heart to it: "Modern Family". I didn't care for the first two episodes, a little too much of reality tv storytelling with the "character" interviews ala "The Office". The solid cast and writing and true comedy arising from the characters and their foibles and cross-interests won me over. The little interviews come across a little more as a bit of Greek Chorus or George Burns breaking the fourth wall than riffing on reality shows. Part of this is the show isn't overbearing in filming so that it looks like a reality tv show and can easily be watched as the sitcom that it truly is. But, the lead-in comedies such as "The Middle" feels like a retread without really offering much to me that I care to try to watch it each week. It's just a step up from leaving the television off. "Mr. Sunshine" which comes on afterwards looks like one of those shows that are bound to appeal to critics but not capture a broad audience. It's wacky and surreal, but not especially witty or endearing. The characters all feel like character types but not real people. Even Matthew Perry seems like he's just playing himself, a watered down Chandler Bing. I find myself just turning the tv off or switching to the omni-present news or the last half of "Criminal Minds". I've seen several episodes of the spin-off "Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior" and I couldn't tell you a single thing about any of the characters, even their names, other than one is a sniper. It's as decently plotted as the other has been in the last season or two, ie not as good or engrossing as the first several seasons as it devolved into going more for shock, but still interesting. It just hasn't taken the time to really develop the characters any. Doesn't help that it shares arguably the least interesting but most flamboyant character from the lead show, the tech guru Penelope. Here, her bright colors and attitude tends to completely overshadow the rest of the cast despite screen time.
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David Kelley ("Ally McBeal", "Harry's Law") is bringing Wonder Woman to the small screen. She'll be played by Adrianne Palicki ("Friday Nights Lights", "Supernatural") and not necessarily a bad choice. Some pics of her in costume have been released and for a superhero translation to film, it's not bad. It's closer to the comics than the Batman and X-Men movies have been and the new versions of Spider-man and Captain America. Or the costumes in "Smallville". It actually looks a bit superheroic. It's way better than the sweat-suit costume Cathy Crosby wore. The only drawback to the costume really is the same for several of the others: there are examples of extremely faithful versions of the costume worn in real life and they worked. As good as the latest Batman movies are, all it takes is to look at "Batman Dead End" to see a faithful adaption of the costume and being perfectly believable and workable. The new Spider-man movie needlessly moves away from everywhere Raimi's movies got the costume right. It wasn't Spider-man's costume fans complained about, it was the Green Goblin's. With Wonder Woman, we've seen Linda Carter easily pull off the costume. Emily Deschanel even wore a more faithful version of the costume on an episode of "Bones" despite not having quite the right curves but still managed to not look ridiculous. Average comic convention has women walking around in faithful versions. So, with the proper attitude in filming, I see no reason that it wouldn't work again. I could even see a tweaking of it with slightly more muted colors, going more for a "Xena" look to it where it looks more like leather and metal. What they chose can work, but I don't see where it's all that more acceptable than the one in comics. It still has many of the same hurdles to overcome as the other one. It's just different in that it covers the legs, something most male viewers don't really mind seeing.


What kills interest in the show really is Kelley's involvement. He has cred for strong women characters, but nothing to suggest a strong action show. Then there's the whole set-up of her as a business woman and looking for love and place to belong. What does that really have to do with Wonder Woman? It makes her sound passive and needy instead of powerful and mysterious. We'd have been better off with Bellisario ("NCIS", "JAG", "Magnum, P.I", "Quantum Leap", "Tales of the Gold Monkey") handling the character. He has under his belt shows with strong women, character and action driven, and often featuring military themes as backdrops. Superhero action combined with NCIS seems just the right combination for Wonder Woman. Oh well, wait and see. "Smallville" didn't seem to be that good of an idea and despite barely exceeding ok on occasion, it has proven to be pretty enduring thanks mostly to a strong and appealing cast.

End of The Cape

Doesn't bode well for The Cape. Not only did it have it's season shortened by several episodes, but it also suffered to have its season, and possibly series, finale aired online only. A couple supporting characters do not show up at all and the hero's son makes only a perfunctory appearance. However, it's a good episode, full of tension and resolving the subplot of the Cape's former cop buddy, Marty Voyt (Dorian Missick), who is in the employ of the master-villain Mr. Fleming aka Chess. Because of evidence that the Cape had uncovered the previous episode linking Fleming's organization ARK to crime, a fall guy is needed and that fall guy is Voyt. The Cape needs the help of Max Malini's Carnival of Crime and the mysterious Orwell to try to protect his Voyt and his family, and Faraday's wife who wants to defend Voyt and uncover evidence that clears her husband's name. It becomes a story of redemption for Voyt, caught between the man he wishes he was and the man he's become through the decisions and compromises he's made along the way. There's considerable tension and it ends where the story began in the first season, along the boxcars of a train.

The return of The Event is not earning any higher numbers. Maybe the networks will learn that what made Lost a success was a little more than being an impenatrable and often highly improbable mystery. I heard the current episodes are better and more linear, but the first couple from last season was just plain bad and boring with a bunch of characters that were little more than character types. There just seemed scores of bad-storytelling, ill-conceived ideas and questions that arose more from the storytelling than intentional to the plot such as why the African-American President is named and portrayed as if he's Hispanic.

So, right now, Monday nights for me is one decent show on at 8 and then a wasteland of nothing until 10 when I have to choose between two actually decent shows. It's enough that I don't feel like I'm missing anything if I just keep the tv off and read a good book.

Monday, Monday

Monday night television is my favorite night of tv. It doesn't have my absolute favorite shows, that'd be Thursday (Big Bang Theory) and Friday (Smallville, Supernatural/Fringe). But, it has the best variety and solid block of shows, from 8-9 a couple of comedies, at 9 an action show, and at 10 a choice between a solid action show and a solid though light-weight mystery.

8pm
I can choose to watch the drama House, and I know that's what my brother is watching. For my wife's sake and my own enjoyment, I choose How I Met Your Mother, a delightful half-hour comedy with one of the more unlikeliest premises. The characters, even as screwed up as they often are, are likable and believable, even in the most unlikeliest of scenarios. The show makes us care about the characters to the point that it can venture into the realms of drama and pathos. Such as this season, the character of Marshall loses his father to a sudden heart-attack. Because you care about the characters, you feel it as a tragedy, even as it explores the humor of relationships between friends and between family members.

To the show's credit, his father's death is not just a one episode plot device. It signals major issues that the character of Marshall has to deal with and by extension, his wife and friends. The episode of the funeral was heart-felt and funny as he must deal with he and his father's last conversation being absolutely mundane and nonsense out of context, forcing the others to deal with the most recent conversations they had with their fathers (and with Barney, the fact he doesn't know his father). But, it's funny as well, as Lily decides to be and do whatever her mother-in-law needs her to be despite their not getting along, Barney and Ted try their best to get Marshall to laugh or even smile again, and Robin, who has been to funerals before, carries a purse with never ending supplies for whatever any of the guests and family members need. Funerals are not normally funny business, and I can only think of two other comedies that have managed to successfully walk that line, the best being the death of Chuckles, the clown on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

But, the show doesn't stop there. We see this as a pivotal point in Marshall's life and his actions in the three episodes that follow are directed by that, from his going home to run away from problems on the pretense that his mother needs him, to working himself to death in trying to reform at least one small part of the company he works for because his dad never saw him become the environmental lawyer he wanted to be, to this week's of him and the gang all getting their hearts checked out.

Yet, the show doesn't become dreary. This week's centering around the heart check-ups, Barney has to wear a heart monitor and the show becomes a flashback within a flashback as he relates the events that explains the odd readings, mainly that he's on a date with a girl that he may or may not actually like and she drops the bomb on him that she wants to get married, settle down and have kids. Something that's in direct opposition to the way he lives his life. It's funny and it serves the double purpose of humanizing his character. His character is so broad, shallow and farcical, it needs episodes that redeem him as a person in the eyes of the views, that we can see why the others are friends of his (something that never comes across as clear with the David Spade character Russell on Rules of Engagement). Otherwise, he runs the risk of becoming simply a caricature of himself.

8:30
I normally watch the above "Rules", an often very funny show that sometimes delivers little nuggets of truth about the nitty-gritty mundane aspects of being in a relationship but doesn't really engage you with the characters or take stylistic challenges in storytelling. It's moved to Thursdays now and a new comedy Mad Love fills that slot. ML is even more generic and less engaging as a comedy. Sarah Chalke is as adorable as ever, but her and Jason Biggs' characters as newly dating, in-love couple is completely by the book and meh. On paper, the more interesting relationship is the one between their best friends who hate each other played by Tyler Labine and Judy Greer. Good on paper, but not on the show as Tyler Labine's fat, slob and slacker character is cliched and annoying to the point that it's no wonder Greer's character doesn't like him. Who would? Their exchange of barbs aren't witty and given with barely perfunctory delivery. Making Labine's character be the narrator is also an interesting hook, but fails because his character is not. It's a show and concept that a writer like Steven Moffat could probably get a lot of mileage out of (and did with similar themes in the original BBC version of Coupling, stay away from the NBC remake which fell completely flat despite working with some of the same scripts). The only saving grace for this show is that the only other thing worth watching is the second half of House.

9 pm
The Cape. Not doing well numbers-wise, so I guess I'm one of the few watching and enjoying this. Opposite is the often well-done Lie To Me which is also suffering. Or, to continue with comedies by watching Two-and-a-Half Men which had long since become a caricature of itself before it began to completely self-destruct due not to Sheen's excessive life-style that showed how unfunny the man-child he plays in real life really is, but due to a feud between him and creator Chuck Lorre that has gone completely public and surreal. Over the last week, we've been bombarded with images of Sheen rattling off sentences with bizarre metaphors and analogies to the point that he has morphed from being simply an aging playboy to being simply deranged, a mind that is perpetually stuck in an intoxicated haze of self-worth and denial of reality.

The Cape is a fun super-hero show that manages to have some fun with the concept, while playing it straight and not mocking the concepts. It's a little hokey with the super villains, or at least the concept of a super villain just needing a hokey name and some kind of visual deformity since there are no actual super powers or magic in the show. On that level, one gets the idea that the creators are stuck in the mindset of writing a "superhero" show, instead of opening up the gates of creativity (and reality) a little bit. One of the great things about superhero comics is that it allows for one to have not just men fighting crime in costumes, but also powers, magic and horror. They came close with the two-parter featuring a villain called the Lich, who through the use of chemicals was creating human zombies under his control (that's Zombies as in voodoo and not based on films of George Romero).

The most recent episode was good up to the end as Vince Faraday, aka the Cape, involves himself in a gang war as Scales decides to expand his base of operations to include the territory where the Carnival of Crime makes their home. It allows the show to address at least somewhat the dichotomy of a group of criminals actually sponsoring and helping a superhero and their fragile relationship. After her experiences with the Lich, Orwell does not seem her usual self and the master villain Peter Fleming/Chess struggles with a dual personality. To help his bid for power, Scales brings in a bomber that no one knows what he looks like and Faraday takes the opportunity to take the man's place in Scales' organization.

Ultimately, it proved to be too much going on for the episode as it just sorta ends with no real resolution to any particular plot thread. It says that he got some key information while Orwell seems to be suffering from a complete breakdown. Maybe dear old dad isn't the only one with mental health issues?

10 pm
Now I have to make a serious choice. I enjoy both Castle and Hawaii 5-0 a lot. The former is a light weight mystery with a little humor, romantic tension and a whole lot of charisma and chemistry among the cast and the characters they play. The latter is a solid action show that really doesn't have much in common with the original other than setting and names, but again the characters and actors seem to have a good chemistry among them. Normally, I choose Castle. I have a little more vested in the show having faithfully followed it for a couple seasons now. At least I have a backup during re-run season.

The last two weeks has been a two-parter, advertised as a two-night event. That implies that it would be on two consecutive nights, but it's not the case. A nice bonus is the guest-star is Adrian Pasdar, the flying man of Heroes and my own personal pick to play Lamont Cranston in a Shadow movie. Pasdar plays a driven federal agent brought in to direct a search for a bomb and investigation of a terrorist plot. The stakes are definitely higher for this case and a couple of times, it looks like it could easily have deadly ramifications for Beckett and Castle. It's a good twist on the formula of the show, taking it a little bit out of its normal comfort zones. Sadly, almost completely absent are scenes with Castle and his mother and daughter. Usually, the relationship with them is thematic to the episode and case at hand. Here, their presence is felt more through what it means for Castle as a father and someone with inside knowledge of a terrorist plot. We see his struggle and humanity, but it doesn't really give them much to do.

The two-parter is enough of a departure from the usual formula, it almost feels like it could be testing the waters for a spin-off with Adrian Pasdar's character. Much as Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior was first tested out by appearing in the regular Criminal Minds. The episode was so far off from its normal structure and rhythm and so much emphasis given Forest Whitaker's character and crew, it felt like the try-out episode it was and was an inferior episode in an unremarkable season. The difference here is that Pasdar's character never totally takes over the show. He's a foil for Beckett and Castle and it's the fact that he's more fully developed and given more substance and depth than most characters intended for a one-time appearance are given.

11pm
Go to Wal-Mart to pick up some 9v batteries as the smoke detector has been beeping intermittently all night.

What I've Been Watching

Finally gave up on No Ordinary Family as there just seemed to be at least one phenomenal stupid bit of storytelling per week. Such as Chiklis' character never makes any attempts at keeping his identity a secret except for specific stories that deal with the whole idea of keeping his id a secret and usually have him blowing it anyway.

The Cape is the superior superhero show. In some ways it is a little bit cliche especially as origins go. Cop is framed for a crime he didn't commit, is believed to be killed and thus lets the world believe he's dead while he fights crime disguised as a comicbook superhero, trying to clear his name.

David Lyons plays Vince Faraday, an honest cop and a married man with a young son in a city where the police are almost all corrupt, and the city is being over-run by a master criminal calling himself "Chess". A mysterious person called "Orwell" is posting messages concerning police corruption over the internet and the city is considering to privatize the police force under the control of businessman Peter Fleming. Faraday is convinced by a buddy to go to work for Fleming, but later he receives a message that Fleming and his "police" are not as honest as they are thought to be. Investigating, he discovers that Fleming is as crooked as they come, using the cops as cover. Betrayed by his friend, he is captured and finds that Fleming is Chess himself. Faraday is set up to be disguised as Chess and have his death while resisting arrest be filmed by the news crews. It works out almost as planned, only Faraday manages to survive the attempt and is taken in by Max Malini, ringleader of the Carnival of Crime, circus-types using the Carnival and their own skills to commit flamboyant robberies.

For reasons of his own, Max and Faraday form an alliance to bring down Fleming. To that end, he outfits Vince with a special cape that with the right training can be used as a weapon. Each member of the Carnival inner circle train Vince for his future as a mystery man: hypnosis, fighting (by a midget), and stage magic tricks. Mastering those, he puts on a costume patterned after his son's favorite superhero and sets out to fight crime, letting the world believe he's dead until he can clear his name.

He soon meets up with Orwell in person, who happens to be a young woman with money, sports cars and all sorts of inside information.

There are some interesting bits such as the rather fragile relationship between him and the Carnival of Crime who are unrepentant criminals. The idea behind Orwell will probably remind comic readers of Oracle, DC's former Batgirl who feeds the superhero set with intel. However, the tradition goes back almost a century. Frank Packard's Grey Seal novels had the hero blackmailed into the life of a hero by a mystery woman known as the Tocsin. Over the course of the stories, he slowly figured out who she was and married her. Later, the pulp version of the Green Lama had him likewise helped and fed clues by a mystery woman named Magga. Orwell will most likely turn out to be Fleming's daughter, there have already been a few subtle and not-so subtle hints as to that. I like the idea of a midget being the toughest guy in the show.
It's nice to see a superhero wearing a costume that looks actually believable and not costing millions of dollars. The show also from the start features colorful badguys with names like Chess, Scales, Cain.

The show balances the heroics against the idea of a man who must stay away from his family as well as his wife and son trying to piece together a life against the backdrop of a last name that has become a pariah. You see it eating away at all involved.

The show has some mis-steps. The principle one, if the show is to have a long life, is tying the hero's mission to that of the big villain. Once Fleming is exposed and captured, there's no reason to have the Cape continue. Of course one way to continue that is just have him exposed but escapes, so that Faraday still cannot reveal he's alive nor his identity until Fleming is captured.

The 2 hour-long pilot also throws a lot of different elements and subplots out at one time. In addition to the Carnival and Fleming, we get a couple of other colorful bad-guys and the existence of a secret group of assassins called Tarot. There's the mystery of who Orwell really is (might have been nice to not reveal she's some hot girl for a couple of episodes, letting her just be some mysterious information broker for a while). Other things are painfully left out such as when Cape does stop a villainous assassin hired by Fleming, he only leaves him tied up. What can he effectively do stopping villains when the cops are in the employ of the guy who sends them? Just stopping their deeds isn't really enough. He needs a plan. This becomes clear again in a later episode when he stops a psychopathic Russian and former student of Max's from getting the cape. He won't kill him but it's obvious that he cannot be just let go nor can he turn him over to the police. And, he'd probably escape as he's a master escape artist anyways. And, he'd never stop coming back. Faraday makes a point of saying that he's not willing to kill him but he lets the Carnival take the guy away. What they do with him is unknown.

And, there are the lazy writing bits too. While Vince has a background in Special Forces training, he undergoes extensive training under the Carnival, mastering things that should take years. And, since he does have specialized training, why does he need to learn to outfight the midget Rollo? We have a scene of a villain going across town in a car, yet somehow the Cape manages to get on top of the car AND rip the door off. It's a stupid scene.

The most recent episode has Fleming going to the Tarot group again, only this time to hire a pair of hitmen: one who does the research and provides tech and the other that does the killing. As villains, they are the most charismatic so far and providing a bit of psychosis for the duo as they first must get to know the target and all his secrets before killing him.

However, the show doesn't seem long for this world. NBC has not declared it dead yet, but has already shortened the season by several episodes, indicating a lack of faith that it will catch on.

FOX seems unsure about the Human Target as it rushed its season by showing two episodes a week and thus the show has its season finale episode in time for the roll-out of mid-season replacements. A shame as it has been an entertaining action/adventure show with interesting character dynamics. The addition of Indira Varma and Janet Montgomery have added a little more character conflict of the group although both women seem to suffer from being strong and capable in one episode and liabilities in the next. And, sometimes both in the same episode.

So far, unlike most of the action and thriller oriented shows, it has minor sub-plots weaved through the show but no over-arcing plotline to drive the episodes to the point if you miss one, you are behind in the story. I love shows like Supernatural and Fringe, but their mega-story plot lines bog down the episodes, the best ones being those done-in-one. A little ironic since I could have swore that Abrams originally conceived Fringe as not having all of that internal continuity that ultimately plagued Alias to the point that even he had a hard time following along and realized it would be impossible for new viewers coming to the show halfway through a season a couple of years into the series.

The season finale was typical of Human Target and to that end, enjoyable to watch. It centered on finding the truth behind the death of Mrs. Pucci's husband and they find themselves against a rogue CIA agent with all of their technology and resources at their disposal. Like most of the episodes this season, the situation for the group doesn't seem merely dangerous but with them completely behind the eight ball for most of show. Thankfully, it does not end on a cliffhanger, indicating that its status may be up in the air. Jack Earle Haley's character Guerrero is the most fascinating of the group as he is always comes across as the most dangerous man in the room despite everyone else towering over him. His association with Chance and the group and working for the greater good threatens to soften the edges of the character, but the finale takes care of that. When seeking leverage against him it is uncovered that he has a son, he goes off the reservation, becoming a one man strike force and then killing in cold-blood the mastermind that uncovered this chink in his invulnerability. It both humanizes Guerrero while also reminding us that he's not a man to look up to, he's not a "good" man.

Haley's performance reminds me a bit of James Nesbitt in BBC's Jekyll and Murphy's Law. Like Haley, he isn't physically imposing, but he is able to impart the unquantifiable air that he's someone not to be messed with just by standing still. In Jekyll especially where his transformation from a harried family man caught up in an insane situation to dangerous sociopathic madman with nothing more than changing his hair style was utterly convincing and unnerving.

Big Bang Theory is finally back on with new episodes! Yay! Still, one of the funniest shows on tv. I especially loved the scenes of this past week's episodes with Raj day-dreaming all the different situations of Howard giving him his girlfriend to "take care of". The final daydream is a parody of a Bollywood music-dance number. However, being Indian, Raj would not have made a comment about a dance number being gay though as that's a staple of their culture's cinema much as the Greek Chorus. Notice, even the acclaimed Slumdog Millionaire despite much of its stark realistic depictions manages to include a dance number though it's not part of the plot or story. So, it's interesting that the writers managed to do a scene that made sense for the character while also getting it wrong and out of character at the same time.
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Does it seem cruel to anyone else that Courtney Cox's screwball comedy Cougar Town would be bumped by Matthew Perry's new show Mr. Sunshine? Hope he sent his former on-screen wife flowers.

Undercovers, new season of USA

I came a little late to the J. J. Abrams show Undercovers. But, thanks to there not being much else on in the time slot that interested me, I decided to give it a chance even though I had missed the first couple of episodes.

It is interesting that it does what Abrams' other show Fringe was supposed to do, be a show that the casual viewer could watch. He realized that as Alias went on, the show became so continuity heavy that if viewers didn't watch it from the beginning or missed part of a season, it was too dense to get into. Fringe was supposed to address that, be a bit like The X-Files in that there was an over arcing back story and continuity but succeeded on the individual week to week individual menaces. However, more and more the back story and continuity of Fringe became important to the point that this season is completely impenetrable to anyone that wasn't already following from the previous week. It's a great show, but I am one of the people watching from the beginning.
Undercovers has an easy back story that is easy to pick up and there is an underlying subplot but one that so far has not highjacked the easy to follow self-contained missions each week. This week, we actually get to see the side-kick Hoyt show he has a little more secret-agent training than just being a tech geek. It's also a fun smart show that doesn't require you to check your mind at the door such as half of the story elements of Covert Affairs.

I think what's also important is that the characters of Samantha and Steven Bloom are an attractive, smart and charismatic couple who just so happen to be African-American. Nothing about the show dictates they have to be, the show isn't written to be about race or to attract just one racial demographic. Instead it crosses boundaries, it's written to appeal to anyone that likes the genre of the show. The actors have a great chemistry together on screen and come across as a likable couple who are trying to make a marriage work but happen to carry a lot of baggage from their past and previous relationships. Only in this case it's because they both were at one time spies and have pasts that they aren't always at liberty to divulge.

So, you have a smart and action packed show that crosses boundaries. Naturally, it's been canceled with no new episodes ordered. No attempt at trying the show in a different slot, maybe airing it at two different times to see if it would do better on a different night or different time. A shame, because we could use more shows like this one. But, good shows get canceled all the time. I still miss Life.

USA's fall season has started. Last night with Psych and tonight with Burn Notice. While Psych has become more of a farce and parody than the light-hearted mystery it started off as, it is still an immensely enjoyable show. Cary Elwes was excellent reprising his role as an extremely capable gentleman art thief and a delight to watch. "Skydiving Judy Denches" indeed. More importantly was the forward movement on the possible romance between Shawn and Juliet. In some shows, such a movement is the kiss of death. But, others with shows that have extremely strong supporting casts like Friends and the recent Big Bang Theory have proven that it need not be. In fact, it can be just as dangerous to continually skirt the issue, losing all momentum and become a caricature of itself as it constantly plays out the exact same beats week in and week out. Covering new ground can help keep the show fresh just as much as it can become a jump the shark moment. In fact Friends also showed that as well with the character of Ross as he ultimately became a parody of himself, with one doomed relationship after another, never getting past the influence of Rachel on his storylines. Characters sometimes need to be allowed to grow some, and we're getting that chance with Shawn in Psych. The relationship may not work out, but it's an aspect of the characters that need to be worked out so that the story lines can move on. Now, if we can get a little bit more back to the whole solving mysteries with the illusion that it's him being psychic with light touches, a mystery show with comedic touches vs a comedy with a mystery backdrop, I'd be a very happy camper. And, I've long given up on spotting the pineapple. I never see it. Won't be until January for the return of Royal Pains unfortunately.

Hawaii 5-O has been the surprise hit for me this season. The power and chemistry between the actors and characters has really worked so I don't mind it's a total re-imagining/retconning of the original series. I don't mind that Grace Park is yet again playing a character that was originally a guy. One of the big plusses is that it makes Hawaii a part of the character of the show. It's not just simply the backdrop, but an integral part of the show. It has its own culture, history and racial mixes and the show tries to get a bit of that across. The import and impact of Pearl Harbor is part of the character of Steve McGarrett as his grandfather was (and is) on the Arizona as is his growing up there, though still considered a bit of an outsider while Danny is still a fish out of water, the mainland cop newly arrived to the island. It's more of an action show than a cop show, but it is a good and fun action show. Wish we'd see a bit more for Daniel Dae Kim to do than to be given some information gathering task that takes him off screen for most of the show. And, there are some subplot elements from the first episode that haven't been touched on since, it would be nice to see some followup there before it's all completely forgotten.

Smallville, Vampires in Hawaii?

Smallville: For the 2ooth episode, James Marsters will return to the show but not quite in the role he originally played. When before he was the recurring character of Milton Fine/Brainiac, he will now appear as Brainiac 5. As Brainiac 5 is of the Legion of Superheroes (first seen at the start of last season) and Marsters is obviously not a teen, this must be even further along the Legion's future.

For non-comic book fans, Brainiac 5 was a descendant of sorts from the Superman villain Brainiac. Only this time, he was a teen and a hero, serving with the Legion of Superheroes. Which set up an interesting time-travel wrinkle as it meant in the comics Superboy would meet Brainiac 5 before he ever heard of Brainiac. Supergirl, also a member of the Legion, would have known the villain first and recognizes the resemblance to the villain her cousin fought. The two would have a long history of time-crossed crushes.

Last week's episode with the re-appearance of Kara/Supergirl and the introduction of Glorious Godfrey was a lot of fun. Although, Godfrey was hardly glorious and flamboyant. The character should have been more along the lines of Kenneth Branagh as Professor Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, only not as a buffoon but charmingly insidious.

We have more of the tiresome Clark's destiny to do this and not do this. Meanwhile, we see other heroes actually leading the way with Oliver going public with his identity and Kara performing superheroics in public. We need less talk about seeming pre-ordained destiny. We, as viewers, already know what Clark's destiny is, so we don't need literalizing it in the stories themselves. We're interested more in the obstacles and growth.

The end with seeing Kara in her "Linda Lee" look was a nice nod to the comics, but it manages to sabotage it as well. One, Laura Vandervoot was too made up in her disguise, too glamourous looking for a disguise that is supposed to be making her fit in. Two, Clark recognizes her right away, highlighting the ineffectiveness of such a disguise. Another nice nod was Lois trying to come up with a name for her and the first two were Supergirl and Powergirl. Powergirl is the identity of a Kara from an alternate history.

Erica Durance does a good job as Lois with what they give her. A pity it's someone that is too often a goofball and love-sick school girl instead of a competent and driven journalist. In this one episode, she violates journalist rules right and left. As they are looking back at the early seasons for the upcoming 200th episode, the writers and creators need to look at how Chloe Sullivan was written and portrayed. That passion for seeking and reporting the truth and fighting against cover-ups and corruption, that needs to be Lois Lane.

Hawaii Five-O: Finally caught these on the In-Demand channels as it normally airs opposite something else we watch. I don't remember much of the original series other than the opening theme and Jack Lord. So, I was surprised to see this is more along the lines of an action series than a cop drama set in Hawaii.

It's a fun show, with plenty of fast moving action. I've always liked Daniel Dae Kim as an actor and Grace Park is always a delight. More importantly, their characters as cousins, with Kim as the experienced but disgraced cop and Park as the fresh out of academy and surprisingly tough rookie are fun to follow and have a chemistry together that works well. Likewise, the bickering and chemistry between military intelligence McGarrett and experienced cop and father Dano Williams as played by actors Alex O'Loughlin and Scott Caan play well.

The only real groaners are the attempts at working in the classic "Book 'em, Dano" in every episode and how they gain the Hawaii Five-O name.

An interesting trivia, James Marsters (shown as Brainiac above) is the villain in the first episode and we see him fight against O'Loughlin's McGarrett and ultimately is set up to be possibly dead but open for a future return. Marsters' big claim to fame is his role as the initially villainous vampire Spike in the tv series Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Angel. O'Loughlin played the heroic vampire Mick St. John in the tv series Moonlight. Maybe, we'll see other television vampires pop in.

No Ordinary Family: Still enjoying this look at a family trying to cope with powers. But, each episode tends to have a scene that bugs me. Last week it was Julie Benz running at superspeed in high heels. No wonder she tripped

This week, we get several that just throw me out of the show. Chiklis throws a man off the top of a top building and he lands on his back on top of a police car and not only does the guy survive, but he's up and walking with no problem within 24 hrs.

The the whole use of superspeed to break into a high security building, the sorta thing that works in a comic but not really when you have to portray it. And, at the end, her swapping the blood vials shows a little blurring on the security tape on just the vial swapped but not the fact that she was standing there. If it's because that particular vial was swapped, instead of a little blurring for a second, we'd just see it suddenly "jump" as its position was changed between frames.

The humor was also a bit over the top at places, with characters doing just stupid things. The stars of the week that salvaged it were the kids just trying to navigate the world of teenagers and generally acting like teenagers. The angst and humor there felt spot on and natural without being over-wrought.

Supernatural: We have the return of Misha Collins as the angel Castiel. He's not quite his charming self with the new responsibilities and restoration of powers though.

Doesn't look like Sam came back from his prison completely intact. If not for Cas not seeming to notice, I'd wonder if it was Sam at all and not a copy. In several places, it implies that Sam went to Hell like Dean did, but that wasn't really the case. We're not exactly sure what kind of place Sam went to. But, the future previews suggest an explanation is in the offering. And, when did Jared Padalecki get so buff?

Had a few problems with this episode, mainly that they seemed to forget their mission, to get the Staff of Moses, and the fact that other weapons from Heaven were stolen. They got one piece of the staff and freed one soul, but that was it after all the hoopla and build-up of how dangerous that multiple people had the pieces and other weapons were out there. I'm sure we'll see other weapons pop up, but it seemed off kilter that the reason they were there was all so conveniently forgotten at the end of the episode.

Interesting, at the Supernatural listing at IMDB, their car is listed as a character/actor.

Other shows shows: After watching two episodes of The Event, I bailed. I wasn't a big fan of Lie to Me but at least it gives something else to watch. Plus another channel has started showing this season's Bones as a second run which is great as it is on opposite other shows I like plus being on a channel that doesn't have their shows on In Demand for later viewing. $#*! My Dad Says continues to be surprisingly enjoyable and not the one-note show it so could easily have been. I wonder about the return of Tim Bagley's character and establishing him as house-keeper though. The actor and character are a riot but it's a sign of a show still trying to find itself when it adds new characters to the status quo. Hopefully, he'll be kept to a minimum and not wear out his welcome. Law & Order: UK is a worthy addition to the franchise and had more of the feel and pacing of the original than the first episode of Law & Order: Los Angeles did. Realized one of the problems I have with really getting into and keeping track of the characters in SGU Stargate Universe is that they don't use each others' names very often and add to it that there is an omnipresent brown-ness and dimness to the sets, costumes and lighting, and a whole lot of secondary and tertiary characters who are often there in scenes episode to episode but not used much. Look at other shows, you'll notice that there is usually a steady use of calling people by name, reinforcing the characters' identities throughout a show as well as references to a tag that describes the role of the character. They need to work more on truly differentiating the various characters, making each memorably stand out.

BBC Shows

Aahh... the joys of digital television and On Demand. I love catching up on old shows that I missed due to being out of town or just gotten behind on such as Being Human or just the ones that I miss due to being on opposite of other shows that I like such as Rules of Engagement. Although, it is a little annoying in how some channels don't show up on the On Demand channels or just are absent for whatever reason such as CBS has the tired Two and a Half Men but not the superior How I Met Your Mother or Big Bang Theory.

In a small marathon system, I watched the last several episodes of the BBC show Being Human. The Sy-fy channel is developing an American version though I wonder why. If it was being developed for the major networks such as the CW I could see their concern. But, Sy-fy is already a niche channel and most that watch the station aren't really going to care about the pedigree of the actors and shows. I also wonder if it will follow the BBC scripts like NBC did with Coupling or just use it as a starting point? NBC showed that it is possible to recreate a show using the exact same scripts and still manage to produce a complete dud where the original sparked and sizzled.

The premise of the show was originally about three people with mental issues (a sex addict, agoraphobe, and a guy with anger management problems) sharing a house but changed to a supernatural show about a vampire, ghost, and a werewolf sharing a house. In the last few episodes, the werewolf George decides to move in with a girlfriend and her daughter though he hasn't told them about his problems. Meanwhile Mitchell is struggling with the role of leadership he has found himself as he tries to guide other vampires in giving up blood just as he has. This leaves the ghost Annie with the possibility of spending eternity alone as she is once again invisible to most humans. On top of this are the exterior pressures of Kemp, an elderly priest who heads an organization that has targeted them, and Lucy, the female doctor who is working for him but developing a relationship with Mitchell. The organization lures Nina, George's ex- who is also cursed with lycanthropy, with promises of a false cure in hopes to also get George.

Daylight savings time screws things up for George and he practically wolfs out at Parent's Night at his girlfriend's daughter's school. He realizes that his dreams of normalcy will never come true while he is cursed and he agrees to accompany Nina to the secret labs and be cured. The organization also promises Nina to secretly help her move on. Due to finding out more about Mitchell and his group of vampires and when and where they are holding their self-help group meetings, the organization plants bombs, killing all the vampires on site saving Mitchell. As Mitchell hunts the bombers, he discovers the betrayal of Lucy which sets him off on a killing spree. It all culminates with much bloodshed though Lucy and Kemp manage to escape. In a surprising twist, before he leaves, Kemp kills one of his own men in order for a door to the afterlife to be opened, pulling Annie through.

It ends with Nina, George, and Mitchell in a cabin trying to find clues to the whereabouts of Lucy and the priest when Lucy shows up, apologetic for her role, that she really did want to find a cure for lycanthropy. However, if Lucy could find them, is Kemp far behind? He shows up to kill Lucy but then out of the blue in a shockingly creepy scene, Annie blips in, grabs Kemp and takes him through the door of the afterlife while still alive! She then shows up on the television set and pretty much informs them that the waiting room of the afterlife is fairly terrible. It ends with them vowing to some way get Annie back. And, a ritual in a cemetery bringing back Herrick, the vampire adversary of the first season.

A nice season with the characters growing and suffering setbacks of their basic nature. Mitchell's devolvement is especially troubling in accepting him as a sympathetic character. He's akin to the person that is fine as long as he stays off drugs or stays on his proper medication, but his condition makes him a time-bomb waiting to go off. No matter his best intentions, eventually he's going to slip and kill someone. Knowing this should he be held accountable for those he killed? Kemp starts off as the typical holier than thou priest adversary in such shows, but we get a nice scene that explains what set him on this path, seeing vampires slaughter his wife and daughter. Now decades later, he has gone so far as to become a monster himself, valuing human life less than those he hunts. Although, in several scenes it's hard to take him as a credible physical threat considering his age.

In the future season, it would be nice to see an exploration of what other supernatural beings are out there other than just these three.

Good News: It appears that BBC America will soon be showing Law & Order: UK. I like the original and being in a setting like London sounds like an interesting variation and providing a look at a nuts and bolts side of culture and life of the UK that doesn't really get much inspection. It also has the beautiful Freema Agyeman of Doctor Who fame. On the flip side, the opening episode of Law & Order: Los Angeles was flat and dull despite having several actors that I like including the usual excellent Alfred Molina, Oded Fehr, and Jim Beaver (apparently part of his contract now is that his wardrobe must consist of a baseball cap and plaid shirt regardless of his role).

Strangely, BBC's Sherlock is coming to PBS as part of their Mystery Series on Oct. 24 instead of BBC America. As a big Sherlock Holmes fan it looks to be an interesting adaptation, seeing the fact that Holmes & Watson were not written as archaeological artifact but as being contemporary to the time of the original audience. Thus this adaptation gives viewers the chance to experience Holmes in much the same manner as original readers did, a compelling detective of contemporary times. I prefer my Holmes as a Victorian detective, but this move helps avoiding the trap of turning him into strictly a pastiche and capturing some of the original spirit of the characters. The trailer online definitely seems like an enjoyable show with great characters. It has to be truer to the characters than the Robert Downey Jr. movie was.