As I’ve been forced to endure disappointing seasons of Lost, NCIS, and Heroes, I’ve welcomed the addition of the new original show, Glee. Let me now begin to squee on a new TV show that premiered last week.  It’s a new take on an old series, called simply V.  If anyone remembers the original (and this TV junkie barely did), it’s a story of aliens coming to Earth and offering peace immediately.  They want to be our friends and they look just like us.  Of course, they really weren’t.  They were a lizard people who were intent on eating us and draining our resources.  It had Beastmaster’s Marc Singer as the main rebel to fight against them.  And the mini-series went into a TV series and then died. I’ve been catching up on reruns on SciFy, and sadly it’s a show that has not held well over time.  It’s dated and cheesy and melodramatic.  But it’s good fun to watch on a rainy day.  But I want more from my primetime lineup.

And so I got it.  The premier started off with a bang, giving us the smallest hint of an average day in the lives of the main characters only to segway into the arrival of the mother ships which turned their worlds upside down.  I think it was a very effective introduction and ABC was very smart to release the first 8 minutes online for the world to see.  I was hooked even before the show started and now I’m quite excited for the next episode.  So far, I like it enough to even go beyond the call of duty and make a character synopsis.  Yes, I’m that much of a fangirl on this.  Hopefully it’s a welcome change from my normal bitching of the letdowns that Survivor and Heroes have brought.

"Visitors are friends who drop by for a drink"

Erica Evans (Elizabeth Mitchell)-I don’t know if Erica is meant to be the lead character but given how much screentime she got in the pilot, I’m guessing she is.  I was upset to find out EM was leaving Lost and hated the way she was “killed off” last May.  I know Juliet wasn’t everyone’s favorite or even somebody they necessarily liked.  But I liked Juliet.  Seeing her with Sawyer, I actually began to love her more and more (as I grew to hate Kate more and more, but that’s another topic).  Knowing she would be on this show, I had reservations but ultimately I could support her because Lost would only be on for one more season.  So far, in her role as Erica, she’s not that much different from Juliet.  She is a mother of a teenaged son whose husband walked out on her, but she’s married to her job (in this case, a FBI agent) just as Juliet is.  I think the reason I like her so much, is because for her, the arrival of the aliens didn’t alter life that much.  She only seemed to care about the Vs, because her son is obsessed with them, making her nervous and worried as any mother would be.  Since her son seems to put most of the blame of the divorce on her, it estranges them more.  She’s still trying to juggle being a single parent while overseeing an intense investigation into a local terrorist cell so the last thing she needs is to get sucked into the world of international mayhem by finding out the visitors have arrived with murderous and seedy intentions.

Tyler Evans (Logan Huffman)-I tend to get annoyed with teenaged characters lately.  But Tyler passes the grade with me, though it might just be because he’s so pretty.  That said, he is still obviously a pain.  Sneaking out in the middle of the night and reminding his mom that Dad left her.  Of course, it’s tough for any kid who’s mom puts her job first, and having a FBI mom, I imagine it makes that ten times more intense.  Before the visitors, his best friend is someone who I can’t stand and refuse to name him here.  I really hope he gets eaten, killed, or vanished  fairly soon as he annoys me to a great degree.  Maybe that’s the point, for us to root for Tyler to really fall in with the alien crowd, since he’s got such a crush on one of them.  He forged his mom’s signature so he can become an “ambassador” on the same night his mom realized her partner was an alien and tried to kill her.  This will no doubt result in the biggest grounding in human history, or wind up causing a larger split between mom and son.

"Just be sure not to ask anything that would paint us in a negative light."

Ana (Morena Baccarin)-I must thank my pal, Slynn, for pointing out Ana is played by Firefly’s Inara.  I knew she looked familiar but was more fixed on how perfect she was for the role.  We don’t know that much of Ana yet, but she’s clearly not on the up and up.  What I really like about her, is she seems to get human behavior, which helped her zone in on how to pick the right reporter for their all important Telecast.  When she made it clear to Chad that if he didn’t go by their rules, the implication felt darker than simply the interview would be off.  Remembering her as Inara on Firefly, I was always underwhelmed by her character unless she was simply doing comedy.  Now I’m enjoying the actresses’ darker side and am chilled to the bone when she comes on screen (so far).

"Is there such a thing as an ugly visitor?"

Chad Decker (Scott Wolf): It’s Bailey!  And he’s all grown up!  Ok, technically Bailey grew up on Party of Five but I never bought him running the restaurant.  But I can buy him as a swarmy news anchor looking to move up the media ladder.  Before the visitors he wasn’t making much headway, but after winning Ana over with his sarcastic charm, he got the interview of the century.  Of course, when given the chance to take the moral high road and walk away or give in to further his career, he chose the latter.  At this time we don’t know if he is so devoid of human conscience that he will simply shrug it away or he will try to tell himself that the supposed gifts the are giving to his world will make up for the blind eye.  I can bet though, since he is the media and TV reporter, he will be the last to realize that the aliens are not really what they say they are.

"Rattlesnakes are God's creatures, too. Doesn't mean they're good for us."

Father Jack (Joel Gretsch)-I was wary of the token christian character.  Hollywood always does a poor job and I end up getting so irritated (see Studio 60).  However, I was pleasantly surprised by Jack’s immediate questioning of the aliens arrivals and everyone’s acceptance.  I do believe in case of such an event, the empty churches would suddenly get filled up as the scared masses try to look to a higher power to explain everything.  The elder priest wants to see their return as a miracle on itself.  Jack, however, wants to use the pulpit to preach against mass devotion to a strange new power.  He’s got some great lines in this episode, including that the world being in a bad state will see the alien arrival as the coming of a new savior, and that idea scares him to death, even before finding out what these beings truly are. I wonder if the show is going to try to pair him with Erica and I’m not against that, but right now the focus needs to be on how to start a revolution with a priest and a FBI agent.  It’s gonna take some time.

"There is hope"

Ryan Nichols (Morris Chestnut)-Holy cow!  This was the one character who had a twist I didn’t see coming.  While I enjoyed seeing Firefly’s Wash (now playing Dale) on screen, I knew he was being setup to be revealed as a bad guy.  I figured he would be “the mole” in the FBI department.  What I didn’t see coming, was that he and Ryan would be of the same species. Unlike the past series, the show threw in a twist where the aliens have been living among us for years, blending in.  What  a wonderful idea!  It creates paranoia in our own population since now, you can’t even trust the people you’ve known for years. Then you go and take one alien named Ryan, and allow him to technically “defect” to the human side while engaged to one of us who isn’t aware she’s engaged to an alien!  That’s just awesomeness IMO.  He’s a good guy now, I’m sure.  But I bet we’re gonna find out he hasn’t always been such and his choices in the past will wind up haunting him.

So all in all, a solid premier episode.  The ratings were really high too, though I expect that to fall some. I’m worried because being a curse for any TV show, whichever character I get attached especially too, will wind up kicking the bucket in some horrible and non enjoyable way.  I also want to make a vow I shall not ship anyone on this show! It’s not about romances and I’m gonna squash any thrill I get from whatever chemistry winds up wrapping certain pairings!

Let me just get this straight. Last night’s episode of Heroes was taking us to a day about three years ago.  Sylar’s face had not been shown yet, they believed Claire was the key to saving everyone, and Noah’s partner was a tall, skinny black man who remained silent most of the time but turned out to be Haitian.

I was telling Nole last night that Hiro should be a cooler character than what he is.  He’s got one of the best powers on the show, just behind Peter and Sylar.  His power can offer us intriguing plot twists or easy exit strategies.  Instead, they use it to block slurpee spills and the copying of naked buttocks.  Last night could have made up for that.  Hiro finally realizes he’s had the ability to save his beloved Charlie all this time, and in spite of the danger it presents for him, he decides to save her.

Samuel showing up was not shocking.  It’s not been made clear to us at all what he’s really wanting from the Heroes gang, other than have them become the most wicked circus this side of Ringling Brothers.  Mr. Mascara also has proven himself to be the only hero that can get the job done, and thus his popularity has increased, at least for me.  But I don’t understand what he’s trying to do.  Why does needing Hiro, Tracey, Sylar, Claire and Peter become so important for a gypsy carnival and especially now?  And, what, does this have to do with Mohinder’s death (please, nobody resurrect him)?

Of course, I digress, last night Samuel needed to come and remind Hiro that there is a butterfly effect and he could very well wind up undoing the work in the past that prevented the previous possible catastrophes.  At this point, I’d almost welcome they blow everybody up and just start over.  But I know they don’t have the balls to do that.

Hiro talking Sylar into saving Charlie’s life seemed too neat.  I knew Hiro didn’t have any special answers for Sylar that would appease him, and even though our favorite little psycho didn’t know what a complete buffoon Hiro was, it was hard to believe he fell for this.  Or even cared.  I would have loved it if Sylar had just walked away from Hiro to go find the cheerleader.

Speaking of which, Claire was in this episode, complete with a new set of bosoms I don’t remember her having 3 seasons ago.  Noah nearly had an affair during this time, with a random “company” coworker named Laura, played by Elizabeth Rohm, better known as Serena “Is it because I’m a lesbian?” Southerlyn on Law and Order.  It was actually hilarious to see her here, she played her character so enthusiastically I felt like it was more out of desperation than skill.  What was the point of this?  I think this part of the episode bothered me way more than the Hiro part.  Though I’ve grown to hate him, Hiro is a part of the show, always has been and Charlie was a real character.  Of course Hiro misses her, she’s the one person who seemed to connect the best with him and they had a certain chemistry (at least back then).  Why the hell did they need to introduce yet another totally new character from the past that has no place now?  She’s a perfect replica to Tracey.  Are we supposed to now believe HRG has a thing for blondes?  Doesn’t every heterosexual man?

I think this was the worst episode of the season.  90% of Hiro + horny HRG does not make me happy.  Not even with a random “Great Scott” shout out to Back to the Future.

Sorry I haven’t written in awhile.  My two main shows I’ve blogged about lately have been Heroes and Survivor.  On the former, I honestly can’t imagine expressing anything differently than what my pal Nolebucgrl has already written while on the latter, the majority of the last two episodes have been about rain and contestants named Russell.  Of course, it was sad when Russell was let go, but how can I expand on that?  It was sad, next!

So instead I shall talk about Glee!  I feel the need to squeal a bit.  In spite of some weaknesses, I really enjoy this show.  It’s concept is pretty original and fun.  It’s like Desperate Housewives meets American Idol.  The dark humor takes you by surprise, and for this cynical hard-nosed TV viewer, that’s not easy.  They have created a cast of characters that can be rooted for one minute, or against the next.  Each character also brings a refreshing set of weaknesses to the table, and is a welcome change after having “perfect” characters such as Grissom from CSI, Horatio from CSI: Miami, Marlena from Days and Jack from Lost.  (Did I mention Grissom from CSI?  He needs to be mentioned twice).

That said, I’ve refrained from blogging about it.  It’s such a new show I’m not sure where I stand on current storylines.  A few I love such as Sue’s segment on the news, Glee Club in general, Emma’s weird germophobia, and any singing/dance number.  On the flip side, the pregnancy stories have run their course for me, Emma and Coach getting married is just too OOC and Finn is as dumb as a rock.  Or a stone.  Or a stick.  

But what has inspired me to write this blog is because I loved watching Rachel/Puck together.  Yes, the courtship was rushed way too fast (would it have killed them to allow a snarky moment in an earlier episode?) but the scene in the bathroom was more tender than anything I’ve witnessed between her and Finn.  I can let the Emma/Will coupling go because they are adults who have spent a lot of time together now and gotten to realize they really do click together (though I am not crazy about them either).  But Finn and Rachel make about as much sense as Joey and Rachel did on Friends.  Finn is a great singer and he’s really sweet.  In the end, though, you have someone who is dumb and basically an underacheiver.  I don’t know what Rachel and Finn have in common other than their singing.

I realize Rachel/Puck aren’t exactly the most obvious couple either, but at least there is some common ground between them (religion, singing, can read).  In the last few years, I’ve been pretty much bored with the good girl/bad guy concept, believing it’s never going to get better than the Steve/Kayla romance from the 80s.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t jump on such a ship when the chemistry is right.  And it’s right here.

So, I’m sure I’ve doomed the idea of PuckR (or whatever they could be called) forever by simply hitching my wagon up to it.  Most of the couples I love have gotten screwed in many different ways (see Days, Lost, Heroes).  But hope springs eternal, right?  I bet I could find a showtune somewhere that supports that idea.  Regardless, I just don’t see me ever supporting Rachel/Finn after seeing the alternative. I have compared this show a bit to the Archie comics and I think I’m as doomed because I’m wanting Betty to be with Ronnie instead of Archie, except maybe Finn is actually closer to Moose.

Did anyone like the doomed ex-girlfriend of Nathan’s better than half of the cast?

I never thought they could make Hiro more annoying than the time he thought he was 7 years old, but watching him try to save random extra actor over and over again was the worst episode for him ever.

HRG and Claire having what I suppose was a bonding “heart to heart” was pointless and boring.  It’s a waste of HRG and even more than Claire (though thankfully Wretchen Gretchen wasn’t anywhere around.)

I don’t know what to make of the carnies, but there is no way in hell I’m going to check out the extra online feature to find out how Lydia’s phone conversation went.

I think Peter needs to verify the compass is really gone by stripping butt naked.  We have to be sure.

Why are they dressing Hiro’s sister in blouses that were once worn by Heidi?

Answer this question, would it be better to take a pointless bombshell who has occasional psycho tendencies and learn A) Self Esteem or B) Murder obnoxious former political lovers?  I think this answer is obvious but Heroes chose the wrong one.

Are the writers having fun with Tracy constantly saying phrases like “I can’t be late” or “In my position”?

And I see Emma is back next week. I want her to be likable.  She can have potential and it could be interesting to have a handicapped character with a power no matter how useless that power.

Can the relationship between Tracy and HRG be anymore forced?  I know many of us, including me, have insisted HRG is one of the hotter guys on the show, but I’m worried they are going to give us a huge love scene with the two of them.  I need to prepare myself.

Angela’s hair is going from Audrey Hepburn inspired to soda can twist off.  Can they  find something new for her please?

I realize now that Nathan is probably gone for good, but I would love for Sylar to morph back into Nathan and show himself to Swoosie Kurtz so she can be shocked enough that maybe she can start using her entire mouth instead of just the right side of it.

Ben is gone, and I’m sure not going to miss him.  Though Russell is clearly the evil person, I know his time will last longer then just a mere three weeks, given that the show has decided to promote him as “The worst villain in Survivor history”.

It was funny to watch the girl between Jaison and Ben last night while they argued (there are so many girls on this season I’ve not learned their names).  It’s highly possible that Ben is a racist, but he is certainly an egoist, and he appears to look down upon EVERYONE (hilariously except Russell). Whatever high esteem he has for himself, Ben is a gigantic jerk, and I can’t believe he was telling that one girl she shouldn’t try to do the fire because her hands weren’t big enough or whatever.  However, I want to give Jaison props for going immediately to calling Ben out by name, instead of coyly dodging any type of direct accusation like they usually do.  That was awesome.

Now onto Shambo, her issues with them all doing Yoga might have gone over a lot better if the show hadn’t featured her goofing off while trying to find food and hanging out in a swamp (which really, I’d rather do yoga then get in that filthy water she looked like she was swimming while hiding from her tribe).  That said, I’m glad to see she made friends with Fao Fao.

Russell is still surviving (does anyone else think he look like a giant toad?)  When Ben confronted Ashley, I had to laugh when she asked who told him and he said, “Well it wasn’t Russell” which should have been a clear sign it was, but of course she fell for it because so far Russell has been right and everybody on this tribe are idiots.  Then in Ben’s closing remarks, he made a point to say he thought little of everyone on his tribe EXCEPT Russell who was a hard worker.  Please don’t tell me this is going to be a repeat of Big Brother where you have especially evil people manipulating extremely moronic people?

First, I want to personally thank Nolebucgrl.  Without her, I would have missed the first hour of the show. Yes, I have it tivo’d, but it’s not high definition, and I would want to watch all the hot guys episode in the best video quality as possible.

So after waiting a whole summer, we finally get to see how the show is going to confront the issue of having Sylar pretending to be dead Nathan.  Since they have Zachary Quinto on contract, I knew they were going to have to come up with something to have his form on the show (and what a pretty pretty form that is).  I’m not that much of a Sylar fan.  Nole hates me to say it.  I feel his character has been overexposed and they have no idea what to do with him.  That said, he pretty much saved the first half of S3, and there is good potential there if the show would get their heads out of their butts and figure it out.  He is by far much more interesting to watch then loads of other “good guy” characters like Hiro, Tracey (well, not sure if she’s a good guy), Claire, and Mohinder, the latter being thankfully missing from this episode.  However, I’m not looking forward to watching him pop up in Parkman’s guilty mind and argue with him.  It’s really a disservice to the memory of Sylar who for now, is considered dead, and I hope this doesn’t last too long.  That said, I’m all for Parkman to act a little more evil, sort of a Luke Skywalker destiny for him considering the gap between him and his father.  (Yes, Heroes and a SW reference!)

That said, did anyone see Rachel Melvin last night?  Wasn’t she cute?  Playing slightly different then the Chelsea Brady for Days, she was an overachiever but still sporting that bitchface which she used on Claire’s annoying new possible lesbian love interest.  MZ is from The Nanny and while she isn’t acting bad, her character is creepy and homely, and I have no doubts she played a part in Annie’s demise.  She’s obviously got a crush on Claire (which sadly so does every other person who meets her) and though I appreciate the forensic geeky perception, I really am not that curious about her.

Speaking of new characters, so far the carnival people don’t bother me.  There are a lot of them, Zorro, Samuel, and a couple of others.  I’m not sure what to think of them, Samuel has the most freakish power and I give the show lots of credit for coming up with something so outside the box.  He also time traveled as well, but that may have more to do with the carnival itself and I’m sure we will learn more about that and the magic compass.

Speaking of which, did anyone get a deja vu from Pirates of the Caribbean when they brought out a compass that doesn’t work?  And Samuel seems to be summoning Jack Sparrow to some degree given how much eye liner he has on.  I’m glad to see Peter had something to do, he wasn’t whining like he did so much last year.  Of course, he could take his shirt off a bit more but we can’t have everything.  I liked watching him with HRG.  I don’t like seeing HRG with Tracey who appears just as lost and directionless as she’s always been. How can a woman as hot as her have no chemistry with any male actor?  Weird.

Finally, there is Hiro.  As Nolebucgrl says, he’s dying and we all rooting for him to kick the bucket, but I’m sure that won’t happen.  I don’t get why Hiro blocking the icee spill that would have ruined her dress, now his sister is madly in love with Ando.  What a bitch.  I’m not against romances, this show probably needs them in the worst way, but instead of having Ando and Hiro’s sister (Whatever her name is) reluctantly work together to save Hiro’s life (and thus fall in love) now they are instantly in love.  Why would I get invested in this?

So overall not a bad episode.  We’ve had much worse.  Just too bad it’s the premiere and sets the tone for the whole season.  Hopefully it will improve.  We all know it can much worse.

A new season of Survivor has started.  Low and behold, just when we think you can’t get more OOT than Coach from last season, they bring us Russell the Rat.  (Not to be confused with Leader Russell on Galu’s tribe).  My cynical self always loves to hate on people in these shows, but I was quite taken aback by this guy.  It’s not so much his pretending to being a Katrina victim (but let me say, that’s ten times worse than Johnny’s dead grandmother story), but the fact he’s emptying water and burning socks.  How does this really benefit him?  He says he wants to weed out the weak, which means he wants to lose?  The idea of sabotaging your own tribe at the very beginning of the game is either someone who is truly evil or has been told by the producers to stop at nothing to be hated by the audience.

Back to Galu, other than losing their first challenge, things seem to be fine for the most part.  The only person who has a real problem is Shambo who contradicts herself by loving Leader Russell when he took charge but then being angry when he agreed to a “5 minute break” and get out into the water. Now, chances are, this break lasted more than five minutes, but I don’t seem the harm in taking one as long as they were able to get back to work and complete everything in a reasonable time.  Since the show never went back to them, I guess that’s just what they did.

I see we have another “Rocket Scientist” on this show.  Haven’t we had one before?  Is that really a job that is so available we are able to fulfill the profession twice before we ever have a garbage collector, receptionist, and web site designer?  I admit I’m not 100% sure we haven’t had these other occupations represented on the show but my point is I know there are numerous jobs you would expect to see more often than rocket scientist and now we’ve had two?

So Big Brother is winding down…thank God.  I have to admit this season was decent and for a few short days I actually was riveted.  Now that Michelle is out of the house because Jeff and Jordan proved to be the stupidest partnership since Beavis and Butthead, I’m not sure I even want to watch the finale.  I can live with watching people I dislike wind up in the final two, like Natalie and Kevin.  But their despicable game is only known to be 100% deplorable by the audience.  Some of the HGs have no idea how dirty these two have played it, even if they slightly suspect it’s not enough to think they are that detestable.  (I feel like I should get a reward for using “d” words to describe their derogatory behavior.)

So what’s coming up?  Heroes I’m trying to get excited about.  Rachel Melvin will show up in the season premiere and I’m curious to see her scenes.  I’m mildly interested in the carnival but this show has disappointed almost as often as Days has, and I quit watching that.  Can they take this season and make me enjoy it like I did way back in the first season?  Well, let’s see, Hiro is not done finding his “inner child” while at the carnival, Claire will have a huge storyline, and Tracy is not only still around but probably going to be showing herself to be naked and wet most of the time.  Sylar appears like a ghost of himself and I’m sure Peter will be whining before long.  I’m just not moved to really watch (don’t worry, I will).

The new season of Survivor (19!) is coming along, but I’m more interested in All Stars which is the Spring.  Not sure why I want to see all the returning favorites, most of them are people I’ve seen not once before but at least twice before (Colby, Jerri, James, Rupert, Amanda and more).  How many chances do these people get to play this game?  Oh, let’s not forget Coach will be returning.  Let’s all rave at how excited we are that!  *crickets*  Alrighty then.  We already know one person from S19 will be returning to S20, so we can expect that person to be memorable.

CSI is coming up and I’m still so relieved Grissom is gone.  Now that GSR was no longer around to torture me, I could sit back and watch.  I miss Warrick a bit, but not too much.  I still have Greg on there who does have chemistry with Riley and I’m doing my best not to ship them since I got my first big dose of shipping disappointment which jump started me on this streak of losing ships from Days (Nick/Chelsea) to Lost (Dan/Charlotte, Juliet/Sawyer).  Frankly, I’m scared to like any character now.  Greg is the only real survivor in this, but let’s not forget he’s had the crap beaten out of him and basically set on fire like a flare.  I have heard Jorja Fox is returning which amuses me, I still say she left the show because she didn’t want to continue playing the suffering love interest of William Peterson, and now that he’s left, she longs to return.

Lastly, there’s The Office.  I don’t know any spoilers.  We know Pam and Jim are pregnant which should be hilarious once Michael finds out, as well as Dwight.  It would certainly behoove them not to mention it to anyone until the kid graduates from college.

So, I know it’s been forever since I wrote anything.  I had to take some time off because of obvious reasons.

Now I’ve been able to write what I hope is a satisfying ending to the Chick story.  Since BB did such an awesome job with the drug addiction, I decided to incorporate that here. It would have been an awesome way to allow Chelsea prove she was worthy of Nick’s love.  Please, read the gigantic epic story, let me know what you think!

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