Posts Tagged ‘ 24 ’

I know I haven’t been blogging about Lost - or TV in general – recently ( and I know this because the better half constantly tells me that she doesn’t stop by as often because of it) but I am very excited about Lost returning in a few weeks.

Of  course, I also like 24 even if I haven’t caught up with this season yet, so this…well, this is pretty awesome.

via

I was going to post something about comic characters as Presidents, but I see Newsarama beat me to it.

Bastards.

So I thought I could make some reference to other fictional Presidents, you know, like Battlestar Galactica‘s Laura Roslin…

…or 24‘s David Palmer (I seem to remember that when he was first introduced as running for office in 24‘s first season, there were a number of critics who said having a black man in the role was unrealistic and that was only in 2001)…

But instead, I’ll just hope President Obama doesn’t turn out like one fictional President…

…and does turn out like another.

Okay, enough with the politics.

Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse has shut down production for a few weeks. According to Zap2It, the hiatus is to help Whedon get ahead on scripts:

…because Joss directed two of the three episodes already shot, he has not had sufficient time to be in the writers room and tailor the upcoming scripts to his liking. A rep from 20th Century Fox — the studio behind Dollhouse — said Joss came to them asking for a couple weeks to regroup and they were happy to give it to him…

And…

Said the rep, “We have every confidence that will allow Joss to make the show the best it can possibly be. It’s very rare that you have a head writer who is also directing two episodes in a row. But we are happy that Joss is directing, because this is his vision.”

Sounds good right?

However, according to TV Week, there may be more to it.

However, some executives at the Fox network are worried that Mr. Whedon may not have his “Dollhouse” in order.

A person familiar with the thinking of some Fox executives told TelevisionWeek that there have been concerns raised inside the network about the fundamental underpinnings of the show.

Specifically, because the heroine of the show, played by Eliza Dushku, has no free will or ability to do much beyond what she’s told to do, viewers might find it hard to root for her. In addition, some executives have expressed concerns that early episodes of the series have been confusing and hard to follow.

The report goes on to say that Fox has denied that there are worries over the show.

But then, Fox are the same network that screwed over Firefly years ago by showing the episodes out of order, starting with the weakest of the series and ending with the pilot that explained who everyone was.

And this is the same Fox that gave the promising-if-not-amazing Drive three episodes before announcing cancellation.

And this is the same Fox that continues to churn out enjoyable-but-unchallenging fluff like 24 and Prison Break. I like both shows, but neither of them suffers from an over-abundance of complexity.

So…I’m cautiously worried.

Then again, I’m surprised that Fox showed something like Fringe, which appears to be heading towards Lost-like complexity, given the ARG over at Massive Dynamic (I’ll be damned if its not related to the Hanso Foundation), so what do I know?

Just a quick post to say that my Con photos are now up on Flickr..

See now, this is why you don’t mess with writers – because they can do what you, I, any other mortal men, Middle East terrorists, Chinese torturers, back-stabbing spies, dead wives and crazy Presidents cannot.

They can take out Jack Bauer.

24 has been pulled from Fox’s January schedule until further notice, which will presumably mean that Keifer Sutherland will get to serve his prison sentence a little more consecutively than he thought.

Not only that, but the writers have indirectly resurrected New Amsterdam (whose pilot I loved) even if it is on a Friday night death slot.

On the other hand, we’re also getting a lot more gameshows and reality shows which is fantastic because it’ll give me a reason not to watch TV.

Yay, writers!

…but still gets to save the world.

Spoilers ahead

Is that it?

Really?

After months of build-up, we get that?

Peter’s the bomb; Nathan flies him away, Hiro stabs Sylar but doesn’t achieve much and everyone else in the cast just kinda watches (fair dues to DL, Matt and – gasp! – Noah as they’re all injured). Oh, and there’s nobody else around to see it all happen?!?!

People, you just witnessed what is referred to in our house as a “Charmed ending” – lots of build-up, but basically resolved really quickly with very little emotional impact or apparent difficulty.

“Very little emotional impact” you hear me say? That’s right – because the last ten-twelve minutes of the episode were pure cheese. Terrible, stilted dialogue that the actors looked that like they felt guilty delivering (note to producers: if Adrian Pasdar can’t sell it, it needs rewriting), deus ex machina arrivals from nowhere (Nathan) and enough plot holes to drive a truck through (nobody noticed the injured sociopath crawl down a manhole?). It’s not like you can’t do emotion in a TV show – hell, look at last week’s Lost.

Not that it was all bad – Molly’s unsubtle foreshadowing of season 2′s big bad, Micah flirting with Molly (funny but kind of disturbing given that they’re about eight years old), Richard Roundtree in general, finding out that cute shape changer is actually cute (thank heavens) – all good things.

The ‘Volume’ two teaser was okay too – Hiro in ancient Japan – and if I spied correctly, it looks like Kensei is not actually Hiro as I thought but Hiro’s father, the magnificent George Takei – which adds weight to his comment last week that he has been waiting a long time for a Nakamura to rise.

So not great but not terrible.

But how’d I do on my predictions?

• Peter’s the bomb. Not in a ‘Yo, you’re the bomb!’ kind of way but in a ‘boom’ kind of way.BINGO!
• Nathan will flick corpse Linderman (er, can he heal that?) – and his mom – a figurative finger by flying him out of New York – and maybe die in the process. BINGO!
• Ando will die, thereby causing Hiro to ‘cut out his heart’ and stab Sylar… Er, no. But almost. And Hiro did stab him…so we’ll say half right!
• …who will live to fight another day anyway. Yes.
• Simone will be back from the dead and a baddie – but not in a zombie-ish kind of way, unfortunately. And her on-screen dad, Richard Roundtree, will also be back. Shut yo’ mouth. HALF-RIGHT – they were both back on screen, but they’re still dead.
• Dropped plotlines will be ignored, and creators will tell online pundits that they were always meant to be resolved in the online ‘graphic novels’ anyway. YET TO SEE. But what did happen to Hana?
• Invisible Claude will be there, but we won’t see him as Christopher Eccleston is off filming. I’m standing by it – prove me wrong!
• Matt Parkman may be in danger for his life – or dead – by episode’s end, causing Greg Grunberg to kick JJ Abrams around until he creates a show where he isn’t either a sidekick or secondary character. CORRECT, dammit. JJ – cast Greg as Scotty on the new Star Trek movie and all will be forgiven.
• Mohnider will slap his forehead and say ‘duh’ when Molly points out that his sister is quite obviously alive and well. WRONG. But just you wait till season 2…
• DL and ridiculously hot Jessica/Niki will find Micah if only to make him get a haircut. RIGHT. Haircut pending…
• Claire will rue the day she traded in her cheerleader’s outfit for a horrible blue blazer, but she and HRG will still not wonder what happened to her surrogate mom (his wife). BINGO. Seriously, the fact that neither have even mentioned her since she was replaced by cutie shape changer is really annoying me.
• Rena Sofer will smile smugly at being in two finales on the same night. WRONG. The lovely Rena sat this one out (ho ho).
• The previous generation of Heroes – George Takei, Richard Roundtree, the Petrelli’s mother and unseen father, Niki’s dad and Mohinder’s father – will gather in a coffee house to discuss how they could get a spin-off if not for the fact that they’re all too damn old for this shit. It could happen. But probably not.

Well at least I wasn’t disappointed by 24 – because I haven’t seen it yet…

And, er, I have been told that I should really give credit where credit is due…and that half these theories and reactions really belong to my lovely wife.

Should keep me out of trouble…

It’s a double dose of finale fever tonight as both 24 and Heroes have double-episode bonanzas to round out the season. Regrettably due to the lack of TiVo/DVR in our household, we won’t be seeing one of them until tomorrow (my money’s on 24 being the delayed view) but that doesn’t stop me from posting a couple of theories as to what’s what!

24

• Jack will get very angry when he learns of eeeevil VP (isn’t he Acting President now? Why doesn’t anyone call him that?) Noah Daniels’ plan to trade his nephew Josh to his eeeevil Dad in return for the circuit board.
• Josh Bauer will turn out to be the son not of baldy Graem ‘Bluetooth’ Bauer but of very-slightly-more hirsute ‘grandpa’ Phillip Bauer due to a wrongy-wrong-wrong relationship between Phillip and hot new widow Rena Sofer (I know her character has a name but damned if I know what it is!) many years ago – possibly even as a result of rape or some such.
• Chloe O’Brian will not sit still for being dumped by badly-accented but strangely likable Morris O’Brian.
• Milo Pressman’s ghost will ruefully count off the number of series that Eric Balfour has been in and either been killed off in, written out of, or had cancelled.
• Jack’s daddy issues will be further exacerbated when he kills his dad.
• Too-pretty-for-CTU Nadia Yasser will chew out the dick from Division when he lays into her, then melt into the arms of former Silver Spoons-er Rick Schroeder, easily forgetting that he tried to strangle her about eight hours ago.
• Not a lot will happen to the White House cast – except that Tom Lennox will look shifty and mildly disapproving of the VP while Karen Hayes will make an apologetic call to too-cool-for-her Bill Buchanan and beg forgiveness for firing him.
• Someone will show in the final minute of the show and tell Jack they have a lot to talk about. Odds are, sadly, that it will not be Soul Patch Tony Almeida but instead will be the quite pretty but perpetually endangered Kim Bauer.

Heroes

• Peter’s the bomb. Not in a ‘Yo, you’re the bomb!’ kind of way but in a ‘boom’ kind of way.
• Nathan will flick corpse Linderman (er, can he heal that?) – and his mom – a figurative finger by flying him out of New York – and maybe die in the process.
• Ando will die, thereby causing Hiro to ‘cut out his heart’ and stab Sylar…
• …who will live to fight another day anyway.
• Simone will be back from the dead and a baddie – but not in a zombie-ish kind of way, unfortunately. And her on-screen dad, Richard Roundtree, will also be back. Shut yo’ mouth.
• Dropped plotlines will be ignored, and creators will tell online pundits that they were always meant to be resolved in the online ‘graphic novels’ anyway.
• Invisible Claude will be there, but we won’t see him as Christopher Eccleston is off filming.
• Matt Parkman may be in danger for his life – or dead – by episode’s end, causing Greg Grunberg to kick JJ Abrams around until he creates a show where he isn’t either a sidekick or secondary character.
• Mohnider will slap his forehead and say ‘duh’ when Molly points out that his sister is quite obviously alive and well.
• DL and ridiculously hot Jessica/Niki will find Micah if only to make him get a haircut.
• Claire will rue the day she traded in her cheerleader’s outfit for a horrible blue blazer, but she and HRG will still not wonder what happened to her surrogate mom (his wife).
• Rena Sofer will smile smugly at being in two finales on the same night.
• The previous generation of Heroes – George Takei, Richard Roundtree, the Petrelli’s mother and unseen father, Niki’s dad and Mohinder’s father – will gather in a coffee house to discuss how they could get a spin-off if not for the fact that they’re all too damn old for this shit.