TV Winter Clearinghouse

Been quiet on this site for a few weeks, because mainly...nothing much to write about. Most shows I love are either being cancelled (I'll miss you, "Pushing Daisies"!) or are otherwise going to bed until January.

But a man needs to write about TV from time to time, so here's what I can offer:

1) Speaking of "Pushing Daisies," the lone bright spot of that show wrapping up is that creator Bryan Fuller will be returning to his old stomping grounds at "Heroes." And what's more, he seems to know what the hell is wrong with that show (something about "it's focused on half-assed mythology, rather than characters people could give a shit about," or some craziness).

Now, granted, last year around this time, it seemed like series creator Tim Kring also understood where the show had gone wrong, but the difference this time is, Bryan Fuller is a good writer, and also not an idiot with a grudge against his show's fanbase. So it is possible I'll check out a few episodes of the upcoming arc when it returns next year. It's the least I owe Fuller for 23 episodes of "Pushing Daisies."

2) "Dexter's" third season finished off strong, pitting our hero the serial killer up against Jimmy Smits, a loose cannon who could've been his friend and maybe even his partner if he wasn't also a power-mad lunatic.

This show is at its best when it explores its recurrent theme of how grown men deal with absent father-figures. Last season ended with Dexter's feelings toward his foster father Harry (who had given him a strict "bad guys only" code through which to channel his murderous urges) colored by new information about Harry's indescretions. This one ended with him making peace with Harry's damaged reputation, as Dexter prepares to become a father himself.

Which is all great, but makes everything non-Dexter-related that much more of a chore. In the end, the only way to view Deb, Angel and Quinn's annoying stories is that they all tie into a "nobody's perfect, not even cops" theme, but man, that's stretching it. Hopefully next year they can finally figure out how to integrate the cop stories into the Dexter character arc. But it's been three seasons, so I'm not holding out hope.

Still, I am looking forward to next year.

3) So, "Leverage," huh? Yeah! No? Nobody watched it? Hm.

I watched TNT's new caper series for two reasons: 1) Showrunner John Rogers developed the lamented "Global Frequency" pilot, and 2) Timothy Hutton's cool. Hutton is an actor who really should get better material, and there are a few sparkling lines of dialogue (Hutton's casual threat to a man making overly-personal observations about him: "You know that part of the conversation where I punch you in the neck nine or ten times? We're coming up on that real soon!").

But ultimately...was anyone clamoring for a new "A-Team" series? I mean, it's okay, but when there's so many better shows on, and TNT usually blows their budget on a show's pilot, thus ensuring subsequent episodes will look pretty crappy...who has time for this?

4) Rather than try to come up with halfway decent shows to run at 10pm, NBC has decided to give Jay Leno a pre-late-night show, presumably to ease the transition into absurdist Conan O'Brien humor old folks just ain't ready for. Good for you, NBC. Because trying is just so damn difficult.

Granted, after all the effort you put into "Knight Rider," "My Own Worst Enemy," "Journeyman," "Raines," "Crusoe," "Kidnapped," "Studio 60," or...wow, we're really putting together quite a list here...okay, you sold me. Who wants to bother with anything new that costs more to produce than "Deal or No Deal"?

5) Okay, so all's quiet until January, when...holy jeebus. "24," "Lost," "Burn Notice," and "Flight of the Conchords" all return, along with premieres of potential curiosities like "Castle" (Nathan Fillion's new ABC show), "Kings" (NBC's 'David and Goliath' in modern times series with Ian McShane). You can forgive me my rest until then.

6) Okay, not exactly. I've been watching "24" from season 1 to view the series on the whole, a la the "Lost" retrospective I did during the summer. Now, apples and oranges, obviously, but it's still interesting to watch the show, knowing how it'll evolve over time (what with most of the cast being killed off and all). So: expect that.

(Also expect this site to move over to Wordpress at some point, because holy crap, can I not abide the shittiness of Blogger anymore.)

So that's it for I Speak TV until after the holidays.

Merry XMas! Ho Ho Ho!

One Down

Aaaand we're done with "Heroes."

Over at the Entertainment Weekly recap, Marc Bernadin mentioned the phrase "Who's carrying the idiot ball this week?" to ask which character will have to do something unreasonably stupid just to move the plot along.

Watching this show is like watching some kind of high-speed Idiot-Dodge-Ball game being played, where characters launch their idiot balls at each other only to get pummeled in the face by three balls themselves.

Let's run down a partial list - from THE LAST THREE EPISODES:
- Hiro opens a vault his dad specifically told him NOT to open because he "Wants a quest." Because Hiro has the emotional complexity of an exceptionally stupid 5-year-old.
- A strange man in an African desert he hands Parkman a bowl, which he drinks out of without question. THEN he asks, "Hey, what was in this?"
- Nathan survives multiple gunshot wounds and suddenly becomes religious. Even though last year he was brought back from massive burns and had no such epiphany.
- Mohinder drinks a special potion and then is surprised it has dangerous side effects.
- Sylar hangs around the Company to "see where this goes," even though all he's ever wanted to do prior to this episode was to escape the Company so he can keep killing for powers.

I could keep going, or focus on all the bungled plotlines (Clone-Nikki, show? REALLY.) but honestly, why? A clean break, that's what's needed. Besides, "24" will be back on at the same time in a few months, and I'm gonna have my hands full keeping track of all the nonsense on that show.

I mean, they just proudly boasted that they even came up with an ending for this year's arc, like that's a novel new idea to them that stories should have beginnings, middles, and ALSO endings.

So I get the feeling that idiot ball's gonna be getting a lot of use over there.

Be Smarter, TV! (Part 2): "Heroes"

Characters realizing they have some essential skill sets they’re not using – like, say, basic human intelligence – would reeeeallly help out “Heroes,” which just returned with a bombastic two-hour premiere.

There’s a lot to like about “Heroes” – for one thing, there’s nothing else like it on TV right now. It is a full-on superhero soap opera. But that's part of the problem - it seems to be taking a lot of cues from similarly-soapy mid-70’s Marvel comics, ignoring the fact that those stories were based less on logic and more on the limited amount of pages they had to tell a tale.

So the writers have a lot of real live people behaving as stupidly as a hastily-written comic book character might, while hoping real live viewers will accept it.

Let’s take the series’ most consistently stupid character: resident scientist Dr. Mohinder Suresh, ironically enough. The writers seem to be following the character template of X-Men character Dr. Henry McCoy, The Beast.

Way back when, McCoy concocted what he thought was a cure to his mutant genes. When bad guys came to his lab looking to kill him and steal the formula for nefarious ends, he hastily swallowed the potion, and as a result mutated further, growing blue fur and fangs.

Now on “Heroes” we have Mohinder, who – after studying the body chemistry of a girl who is basically a walking plague whenever she gets upset – develops a potion he thinks would give anyone superpowers. Which is all of a sudden important to him for some reason that's never come up before.

Plague-Girl quite rightly points out that this formula at least needs further study, and at best should be destroyed. So let’s play “Choose Your Own Adventure.” Does Mohinder:
A) Dispose of the no-doubt toxic sample in a proper, EPA-approved way, like any half-smart scientist would know how to;
B) Contemplate tossing the sample into New York Harbor despite its potentially catastrophic effects on the local sea life, or
C) Cram the whole thing straight into his veins for no apparent reason?

If you guessed A, I’m sorry, you terribly smart readers. That was a trick - on this show, it was never even an option. No, our genius sticks it straight into his veins.

Then, after an initial high of superpowers, he’s surprised – shocked, even! – to find bits of skin peeling off him. Well, yeah, MOHINDER.

With very few exceptions, every character on the show exhibits highly variable levels of intelligence. This is not rare on TV, unfortunately. Dramatic tension is usually a byproduct of people not asking obvious questions at opportune times (see: "Lost," season 2).

But…come on. This isn’t “Why didn’t Peter use his telepathy to see if a guy’s telling the truth?” That’s the nitpicking you just have to ignore with a show like this.

This is “What self-respecting scientist would inject himself with a chemical even he admitted needed more testing?” It’s a character ignoring basic human reasoning skills for the sake of a character arc.

The well-founded complaint of season 2 was that things moved too slowly, that old characters treaded water while new unconnected characters were introduced haphazardly (see: complaints about “Lost: Season 2”). But in its haste to course-correct, “Heroes” has started season 3 by overcompensating and having its characters Doing Stuff, no matter how poorly-conceived.

I still have high hopes for the season, because, well, I’m an optimist at heart (ha ha). Also it’s got Kristen Bell guest-starring. And lest we forget, things didn’t look so rosy on “Lost” at the outset of season 3, either.

But then, “Lost” didn’t seem to be tying all of its stories into the fact that half the characters were actually related (Sylar's a Petrelli? C'mon, what does that add?) and the grim fate of the world needed to be averted yet a third time (thanks to yet a third nightmarish vision of the future).

There are stories to be told here. Invincible Claire starting to question her own humanity if she can’t feel pain. Whatever arc Noah Bennet is going to go through. The existential dilemma represented by the fact that the mere presence of all these superpowered folk means the world is on the brink of destruction no matter what they do. These all point to a show with a bit of cleverness.

But somehow I’m lacking confidence. It might be because the guy who should have a faint clue as to what’s going on is absolutely confounded why he’s sloughing off skin after sticking Plague-Girl’s blood inside him.

ISTV Classic: "Heroes, Season 2"

Since "Heroes: Season 2" has been released on DVD this week, I thought I'd use the opportunity to offer again a post written a few months before this site went active. So this one is for all you new "Heroes" fans just getting into the show via DVD and may not know what you're in for; and all you old "Heroes" fans who, thanks to the blissful haze of passing time, may have forgotten what a fricking slog Season 2 became, and to go into season 3 with eyes wide open:


"I Have Some Questions, 'Heroes' Producers"

Now that I've finished re-watching the first season of "Heroes," and NBC will be airing the finale of "Volume II" tonight, I thought it might be a good idea to pose 10 questions to the producers that, 1.5 seasons in, haven't really been answered. Initially this list numbered in the high 20's, but I then realized asking "Where did Claude go?" is really just asking, "Why couldn't you and Christopher Eccleston's agent come to an agreement?" so I've decided to choose my battles.

1) Didn't Mrs. Bennet have some pretty scary-looking brain damage thanks to the Hatian? Because she looks fine now.

2) Why in the hell would a multinational organization like The Company have a big office in Odessa, TX? For that matter, why don't they have a proper name?

3) So does Kensei's sword have powers allowing Hiro to focus his, or was that just an annoying bullshit plot device to let Hiro waste half the first season? Because he just went to Japan, met Kensei, and came back, and that never really came up.

4) Why would Isaac Mendez do a series of paintings depicting events that directly contradict his own previously-painted prophecies?

5) Eden, Candice, and now Elle...exactly how many sociopathic pixie girls does The Company have in its employ? Are they particularly reliable? Because two of them are dead now.

6) So remember how you told us Linderman had manipulated every aspect of Nikki and DL's lives to get them to produce a kid with Micah's computer-communicating abilities? A question in two parts, part A) being, Is that like how a Frankenstein and a Vampire had a Werewolf on "The Munsters"? Or is it part B), because you noticed, like I did, that it turns out the characters had virtually no connection to the overarching plot otherwise?

7) Am I to take it that at the end of the season 1 finale, everyone was so transfixed by the pretty explosion in the night sky that NOBODY noticed a grievously-wounded Sylar slowly dragging himself towards a manhole?

8) So if Linderman was in charge of The Company, wouldn't he have a problem with his mentor being imprisoned in one of their facilities for like 30 years? Or did he just not notice? And if he just didn't notice, I have a follow-up: just how stupid is was Linderman, anyway?

9) Exactly who in the FUCK gave custody of Molly to Matt Parkman and Mohinder Suresh? Y'know, the Parkman that got shot point blank multiple times in the chest and would have been recouperating for months and in no condition to care for a child? This would be the same Parkman that had recently been fired from the LAPD for being a total flake, and oh yeah, just left his wife and unborn child. Did they think that these negatives would be offset by Mohinder, who is NOT A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES, frequently travels giving lectures as part of his "job," and has known both Molly and Parkman for a grand total of like two hours? Seriously. I would like to talk to agency that thought these would be suitable guardians. Is this agency the Department of JESUS FUCK, REALLY?! (The DoJFR?)

10) Okay, let me see if I've got the timeline down. For three months, Nathan Petrelli sat burnt to a crisp in a hospital bed. Once healed, he managed, in under a month, to 1. Get divorced and lose custody of his kids, 2. Become a full-on drunk, and 3. Grow a big fuck-off superbeard in which woodland creatures could nest? I guess my question here is, are we to take from this that Nathan is SO VIRILE, that he hits rock-bottom with more efficiency and accuracy than most men can succeed?




I suppose I have one more follow-up question: Since you guys are gonna have a little time between finishing volume 2 and starting up volume 3, do you think you could spend an extra couple days hashing out story points that make between a dash and a lick of sense? Or perhaps characters that do not routinely make the dumbest choice available to them?


When the scale of smartest to dumbest ranges from Peter Petrelli (who despite having mind-reading powers, does not bother reading the mind of the man everyone keeps telling him wants to destroy the world) to Maya (who speaks fluent English, but yet is completely unable to interpret Sylar's vocal inflections or body language, which say nothing but "Eeeviiiilllllmwahahahahaah!"), you've got some issues to iron out.