Premiere week in review!
Sep. 29th, 2007 02:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6Most of the new and returning shows premiered this week (and some in the last, and some will be due in the next week), so I figured I'd give my week in review. So, slightly spoilery thoughts on Prison Break, Heroes, Journeyman, Criminal Minds, Bionic Woman, 4400 (new to me), The Office, Grey's Anatomy, Numb3rs, Moonlight, and Stargate Atlantis.
Prison Break: Started last week, but I'm enjoying it on the whole. I like the whole 'back to basics' approach, where instead of being on the run and fighting the conspiracy, there's actually a real prison break to plan and execute, with an enforced space so the characters don't have to keep meeting randomly in increasingly coincidental ways. I'm not sure how long they can keep up the plot, but for now I'm enjoying it. I'm kinda surprised they got rid of the MariCruz subplot so quickly - I was sure Bellick was going to use that as his ticket to join the plan. I still kind of hope he becomes part of it, since for all his faults he's not guilty of the crime he was in there for, and hopefully Michael will take a bit of pity on him. Mahone and Michael'll probably team up just out of necessity.
Heroes: Good first episode, but not great. I was kind of prepared for that though, Heroes isn't the kind of show that blows you away in the first episode, it's a slow burn that pays off later in the season. So the first episode was about setting up some of the new plotlines and such for the future. More than a bit annoyed to see Sulu go, though. Kill the mom first, let Sulu stay on a few more episodes.
Journeyman: Quantum Leap for the 21st century! Except, instead of his information about the future coming from Al, it comes from him coming back to the present now and then to look things up on the internet. That's a detriment, of course, because Al Calavicci rocks. Still, this was the only new show of the season to exceed my expectations. Not by much, mind you, but by a little. Particularly with the revelation that his dead ex is a leaper too, and that they didn't stretch out the "wife thinks he's crazy" for more than the first episode, and actually had him cleverly prove what was happening to her. The actual 'save someone in the past' plot was a little weak, but hopefully they'll get better at that - they had a lot to set up in the first ep. Anyway, I figured I'd be watching one ep and that's it, but it earned a couple more just to see where it's going.
Criminal Minds: Oh no you didn't! I don't care if Mandy Patakin quits the show. I don't care if he did it in the worst possible way by just not showing up to work and potentially ruining his relationship with the rest of the cast. I don't care if he claims he's never coming back. You do _not_ have him suicide to write him out of it. Well, technically they haven't yet, but they implied it. Technically this was an ep from towards the end of last season that got delayed (due to school shooting concerns) and then retrofitted to explain Patakin's disappearance, so it was a little clumsy in that job. I don't know how long I'll want to watch it without him though, since he was 75% of the reason.
Bionic Woman: Met my already low expectations. Rating is Meh, verging on Meh-. Starbuck and Tyrol (and Badger) were the only good parts of the ep. Everything else was weak, particularly the lead's acting. (And was it just me or did they have a lipsynch problem with the audio?). The concept is also so cliche: Secret project, person with no interest blackmailed into it because he/she has the skills they can use and the people they fight are Bad People nobody else knows about. Hell, it felt almost exactly the same as Painkiller Jane, and that sucked. And it did it in cliche ways. And come on, if "Welcome to the game" as the end of the first episode wasn't already, it needs to be taken out into Hollywood's backyard and shot, and buried in concrete after this episode. I'm giving it _one_ more episode, assuming nothing else is on in the timeslot again. If it doesn't wow me, I'm not going to bother paying attention to it anymore and if nothing else is on I'll use the time to do more computer stuff.
4400: Season 4 (I think anyway), just started here, with the outcome of the Promycin injections, with people taking the 50-50 chance of either dying or getting powers. Good setup for the season, but they kinda failed a bit executionwise. Didn't much care for the A plot with the Godkid, and too many of the other changes rankled me. I much preferred the old director of NTAC to the new one, I never liked the 'Diana marries her sister's boyfriend' plot in the first place (she should have just stayed with Marco, she actually did have acting chemistry with him, as opposed to Predestined Boyfriend with whom I feel nothing between them), but what looks like shuffling him and Maya off to the sidelines together seems a bit of a strange choice. Also some of it seemed a bit forced. Marco calls with a report that her sister was one of the people who took a Promycin injection, because the person who gave it out had her name. Except, we saw people lining up in a back alley with no attempt to get names when she got it. Sure there may have been a pre-lineup name-check but that would have been against Collier's peoples interest to take names, IMHO. They should have had her found out another way.
The Office: Good ep, probably not as good as much of last season, but still fun. Kinda liked the secret romance plotline. We'll have to see if it ruined the chemistry of the show on the long term, but so far so good. Ryan seemed to just be shoved in there because he's a regular, though.
Grey's Anatomy: The show still hasn't recovered from last season for me, where pretty much every character was screwed up or over, and they made even George/Izzy unpalatable for me. The only plotline I'm even halfway interested in is George among the interns.
Numb3rs: I never much cared for Colby, so I actually really liked the surprise in last year's finale that he was a double agent all along. So, naturally, this season undoes all that by making him secretly a triple agent, and paving the way for his return. Meh. I'll still watch it, but disappointed. Bring back Sabrina Lloyd.
Moonlight: I'm not going to complain that this show is a ripoff of Angel or Forever Knight, because, really, it isn't. It's closer to FK than Angel, but it's different from both, it's more just a case of going to the same well. The problem is, they didn't do anything interesting with what they pulled up, and it's too close to the other too shows, timewise, for its basic plot to provide enough novelty to cover that up. The first few minutes they _almost_ had me interested, with the whole 'interview' thing. I thought maybe they were going to go with a situation where the show was to be building up to vampires being revealed to the public, and the series would sort of be the main character's reminisces of the long string of events leading up to that. But no, it was just a crap fantasy sequence to quickly summarize his powers and how he's different than traditional vampires. Note to screenwriters: You use narration in your show. You can do it that way. Otherwise, it was nice to see a Veronica Mars shoutout in the first few minutes (the murdered student was said to be from Hearst College), but all it did was make me think how cool it would be if Veronica was investigating the murder (and eventually learning that one of Logan's great great great grandfathers is still alive and a vampire that looks just like him), which naturally disappointed me that he wasn't. The only other scenes of worth were with Jason Dohring himself. But I figured out all the twists almost immediately, and all in all the show just felt _lame_. I can't see this show lasting very long, so I'm not going to bother with another episode of it.
Stargate Atlantis: Yay for Canadiana reference with McKay and Sheppard's "I'll give you the Coles Notes Version." "The What?" "The Cliffnotes version." "Why didn't you just say that?". I love that the show's willing to make obscure Canadian references. On the minus side, they seem to have made the classic "Hollywood Asteroid Belt" mistake, which assumes that asteroid belts will be all packed together so tightly that nothing could get past it. Our Solar System's asteroid belt is so widely sparsed it's unlikely you'd hit anything if you were passing through it, even if you were the size of a city (micrometeorites, perhaps, but not the full blown ones). Since the city couldn't maneuver, they could have done something, instead of having it be an 'asteroid belt', have it be something like a (very) recently exploded planet, that the city just happened to be headed for, which might hint at a big, undiscovered threat, or just a single asteroid that needed to be cut up so they could dodge it. So that kind of soured my enjoyment.
On the whole though, enjoyable episode, good use of previous episode continuity, and Bill! Yay for Bill! I kinda hope he moves over to Pegasus full time. Or he becomes a supporting cast member on the third stargate series, whenever it appears. Oh, Samantha Carter was also nice too, but she only got to interact much with Bill, who steals every scene. Oh, and "healing Dr. Weir is too impossibly risky to risk!", but they're planning a heist on the Replicator homeworld, and that's okay? Suuure. I hope they at least consider the safer option of going to a nearby stargate, contacting Midway, and just informing them of where they are and "hey, needing rescue plz", but come up with some technobabble reason why that's impractical.
Prison Break: Started last week, but I'm enjoying it on the whole. I like the whole 'back to basics' approach, where instead of being on the run and fighting the conspiracy, there's actually a real prison break to plan and execute, with an enforced space so the characters don't have to keep meeting randomly in increasingly coincidental ways. I'm not sure how long they can keep up the plot, but for now I'm enjoying it. I'm kinda surprised they got rid of the MariCruz subplot so quickly - I was sure Bellick was going to use that as his ticket to join the plan. I still kind of hope he becomes part of it, since for all his faults he's not guilty of the crime he was in there for, and hopefully Michael will take a bit of pity on him. Mahone and Michael'll probably team up just out of necessity.
Heroes: Good first episode, but not great. I was kind of prepared for that though, Heroes isn't the kind of show that blows you away in the first episode, it's a slow burn that pays off later in the season. So the first episode was about setting up some of the new plotlines and such for the future. More than a bit annoyed to see Sulu go, though. Kill the mom first, let Sulu stay on a few more episodes.
Journeyman: Quantum Leap for the 21st century! Except, instead of his information about the future coming from Al, it comes from him coming back to the present now and then to look things up on the internet. That's a detriment, of course, because Al Calavicci rocks. Still, this was the only new show of the season to exceed my expectations. Not by much, mind you, but by a little. Particularly with the revelation that his dead ex is a leaper too, and that they didn't stretch out the "wife thinks he's crazy" for more than the first episode, and actually had him cleverly prove what was happening to her. The actual 'save someone in the past' plot was a little weak, but hopefully they'll get better at that - they had a lot to set up in the first ep. Anyway, I figured I'd be watching one ep and that's it, but it earned a couple more just to see where it's going.
Criminal Minds: Oh no you didn't! I don't care if Mandy Patakin quits the show. I don't care if he did it in the worst possible way by just not showing up to work and potentially ruining his relationship with the rest of the cast. I don't care if he claims he's never coming back. You do _not_ have him suicide to write him out of it. Well, technically they haven't yet, but they implied it. Technically this was an ep from towards the end of last season that got delayed (due to school shooting concerns) and then retrofitted to explain Patakin's disappearance, so it was a little clumsy in that job. I don't know how long I'll want to watch it without him though, since he was 75% of the reason.
Bionic Woman: Met my already low expectations. Rating is Meh, verging on Meh-. Starbuck and Tyrol (and Badger) were the only good parts of the ep. Everything else was weak, particularly the lead's acting. (And was it just me or did they have a lipsynch problem with the audio?). The concept is also so cliche: Secret project, person with no interest blackmailed into it because he/she has the skills they can use and the people they fight are Bad People nobody else knows about. Hell, it felt almost exactly the same as Painkiller Jane, and that sucked. And it did it in cliche ways. And come on, if "Welcome to the game" as the end of the first episode wasn't already, it needs to be taken out into Hollywood's backyard and shot, and buried in concrete after this episode. I'm giving it _one_ more episode, assuming nothing else is on in the timeslot again. If it doesn't wow me, I'm not going to bother paying attention to it anymore and if nothing else is on I'll use the time to do more computer stuff.
4400: Season 4 (I think anyway), just started here, with the outcome of the Promycin injections, with people taking the 50-50 chance of either dying or getting powers. Good setup for the season, but they kinda failed a bit executionwise. Didn't much care for the A plot with the Godkid, and too many of the other changes rankled me. I much preferred the old director of NTAC to the new one, I never liked the 'Diana marries her sister's boyfriend' plot in the first place (she should have just stayed with Marco, she actually did have acting chemistry with him, as opposed to Predestined Boyfriend with whom I feel nothing between them), but what looks like shuffling him and Maya off to the sidelines together seems a bit of a strange choice. Also some of it seemed a bit forced. Marco calls with a report that her sister was one of the people who took a Promycin injection, because the person who gave it out had her name. Except, we saw people lining up in a back alley with no attempt to get names when she got it. Sure there may have been a pre-lineup name-check but that would have been against Collier's peoples interest to take names, IMHO. They should have had her found out another way.
The Office: Good ep, probably not as good as much of last season, but still fun. Kinda liked the secret romance plotline. We'll have to see if it ruined the chemistry of the show on the long term, but so far so good. Ryan seemed to just be shoved in there because he's a regular, though.
Grey's Anatomy: The show still hasn't recovered from last season for me, where pretty much every character was screwed up or over, and they made even George/Izzy unpalatable for me. The only plotline I'm even halfway interested in is George among the interns.
Numb3rs: I never much cared for Colby, so I actually really liked the surprise in last year's finale that he was a double agent all along. So, naturally, this season undoes all that by making him secretly a triple agent, and paving the way for his return. Meh. I'll still watch it, but disappointed. Bring back Sabrina Lloyd.
Moonlight: I'm not going to complain that this show is a ripoff of Angel or Forever Knight, because, really, it isn't. It's closer to FK than Angel, but it's different from both, it's more just a case of going to the same well. The problem is, they didn't do anything interesting with what they pulled up, and it's too close to the other too shows, timewise, for its basic plot to provide enough novelty to cover that up. The first few minutes they _almost_ had me interested, with the whole 'interview' thing. I thought maybe they were going to go with a situation where the show was to be building up to vampires being revealed to the public, and the series would sort of be the main character's reminisces of the long string of events leading up to that. But no, it was just a crap fantasy sequence to quickly summarize his powers and how he's different than traditional vampires. Note to screenwriters: You use narration in your show. You can do it that way. Otherwise, it was nice to see a Veronica Mars shoutout in the first few minutes (the murdered student was said to be from Hearst College), but all it did was make me think how cool it would be if Veronica was investigating the murder (and eventually learning that one of Logan's great great great grandfathers is still alive and a vampire that looks just like him), which naturally disappointed me that he wasn't. The only other scenes of worth were with Jason Dohring himself. But I figured out all the twists almost immediately, and all in all the show just felt _lame_. I can't see this show lasting very long, so I'm not going to bother with another episode of it.
Stargate Atlantis: Yay for Canadiana reference with McKay and Sheppard's "I'll give you the Coles Notes Version." "The What?" "The Cliffnotes version." "Why didn't you just say that?". I love that the show's willing to make obscure Canadian references. On the minus side, they seem to have made the classic "Hollywood Asteroid Belt" mistake, which assumes that asteroid belts will be all packed together so tightly that nothing could get past it. Our Solar System's asteroid belt is so widely sparsed it's unlikely you'd hit anything if you were passing through it, even if you were the size of a city (micrometeorites, perhaps, but not the full blown ones). Since the city couldn't maneuver, they could have done something, instead of having it be an 'asteroid belt', have it be something like a (very) recently exploded planet, that the city just happened to be headed for, which might hint at a big, undiscovered threat, or just a single asteroid that needed to be cut up so they could dodge it. So that kind of soured my enjoyment.
On the whole though, enjoyable episode, good use of previous episode continuity, and Bill! Yay for Bill! I kinda hope he moves over to Pegasus full time. Or he becomes a supporting cast member on the third stargate series, whenever it appears. Oh, Samantha Carter was also nice too, but she only got to interact much with Bill, who steals every scene. Oh, and "healing Dr. Weir is too impossibly risky to risk!", but they're planning a heist on the Replicator homeworld, and that's okay? Suuure. I hope they at least consider the safer option of going to a nearby stargate, contacting Midway, and just informing them of where they are and "hey, needing rescue plz", but come up with some technobabble reason why that's impractical.
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-29 07:28 pm (UTC)If they moved Dr. Lee over to Atlantis, would that be too many quirky scientists? They already have Rodney and Radek who play so wonderfully off each other. Well, the third series would need a science character, right? Maybe that spot is reserved for Dr. Lee. As for risking a heist, well, Ronon and Teyla need something to do so now it's time for a big action piece. :-)
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Date: 2007-09-29 08:09 pm (UTC)Motto! One of my favorite bits in that episode of Atlantis was the conversation between McKay and Zelenka where neither was finishing sentences because they understand one another so well. It was like an argument between an old married couple. XD
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Date: 2007-09-29 08:26 pm (UTC)And I can understand the non-story reasons for wanting to do a big heist, but in-universe it's still fantastically risky to even attempt, and there are other options, so it's a bit silly. But ah well, we'll see. As to Dr. Lee, true there are enough quirky scientists, but I like seeing him. Maybe he'll just appear now and then, or be Midway Station's permanent technician or something. The third series could use a science guy, but he's too non-conventional to be a lead, I think. I bet _if_ he was on it he'd be more like Radek - the secondary scientist who plays second fiddle to the lead sci-guy.