Super M*A*S*H !!!

Hey everyone, it's the summer TV season so we all know what that means...

All those folks whose TV Producer friends said "Yeah, I'll help you get that on TV" have their wishes come true. Sometimes the results of this are awesome, 'The Good Guys' & 'The Unusuals' (I just won't let that dead show die will I? It's like the zombie of cancelled cop shows to me) and sometimes the results are 'The Philanthropist' (yes, I DO remember the plot of that shows pilot) which never did see the light of day again, except in blogs no one reads by desperate screen writers (see how I broke the fourth wall there?)

This summer we have two new entries that warrant mention from the digital ivories (I've been hanging on piano allegories lately). 'Rookie Blue' is back for its sophomore season, which is good for people who watch 'Rookie Blue' (I'm not taking on any more cop shows until the new season starts, still mourning the loss of 'The Chicago Code'.) and the show inspiring today's title 'Combat Hospital'.

[...Now I just want to say that I had the idea for this show a few years ago, probably about the same time the writer/producers on the show were concocting it themselves. In my case it was inspired from watching a Nat Geo doco (feel Australian with all these shortenings) about doctors in Kandahar treating the wounded there. The doctors in the show called the hospital 'Rocket Town' due - remarkably enough - to the persistent rocket attacks from insurgents (or locals, depending on your affiliation) Now MY show would've been called 'Rocket Town', but i suspect after the 'let's rename our niche show in the hopes of making it NOT a niche show 'Cougar Town' debacle that other shows with 'Town' in the title are off limits. So yeah, once again my lack of connections and general past apathy have saved me from an embarrassing situation at Pitch Fest in Banff where two teams with the exact same project run into each other, as if we were wearing the same striped sweater from Old Navy's summer 2010 collection - I saw you at the mall wearing-my-shirt-guy...]

Was I typing about something? Oh yeah, Combat Hospital. Silly me, maybe I was hoping for another M*A*S*H, but then again, why would I? I still have M*A*S*H, every season, every episode, sitting on top of my bookcase, so if I REALLY want to watch it, there it is. Do I expect another show about military surgeons, set in a warzone, during an ongoing war, laced with humour, helicopters delivering wounded and supposedly quirky characters, including a charming womanizing, boozing doctor with a drawer full of pharmaceuticals to be compared to the all classic and critically untouchable masterpiece that was M*A*S*H? Of course not.

But the show is acceptable, for a Canada/US co-production. (you can tell Canada comes first because the main character is Canadian, which is obvious to the audience because she has a Maple Leaf flag on her uniform (a'la what's his name from SG: Atlantis - which I continue to refuse to watch) The production quality is better than I expected, and the direction is certianly on par with a regular season drama. You even have some respectability with the cast, Elias Koteas (the poor man's Canadian Robert DeNiro) as Colonel Xavier Marks (TV name if ever I heard one) - a kind of dry, humourless salute to Colonel Potter - a young Afghan translator named 'Vans' (because he wears a shirt that says 'Vans', get it?) who I suppose could be the approximation of Radar. There's Simon, the boozing British civilian neuro surgeon who manages to bed all the ladies in his private plywood shack with a mock up of the London skyline as a backdrop, and the requisite moralistic rules be damned Rebecca, who may or may not be pregnant, stirring things up. Throw in the Vietnamese decent doctor Bobby (would it be too meta to suggest that the doctors name being Trang is an attempted allusion to M*A*S*H, in that while that show was set during the Korean War, it was really about Vietnam? Yeah, that's too meta). Oh yeah, I also forgot Deborah Kara Unger as the Father Mulcahey/Hot Lips Hullihan hybrid (last I saw DK Unger, she was taking in a young black man who would learn the truth about Reuben 'Hurricane' Carter, and before that she was having things done to her by James Spader that meant I had to keep that movie hidden from my Mom) as the base psychiatrist. (No Sydney Fieldman references so far, but there was a stoic CIA agent in the second episode - whether he was 'like the wind' or not remains to be seen - Everyone getting tired of my obscure M*A*S*H references yet? Yeah, well screw you, this is my pretentious TV blog)

So we get stories about Doctor Rebecca bringing an Afghan girl back to the base, and this is dramatic you see as if her Afghan family finds out they may want to disown/murder her, (would that this part were made up to, yet sadly it's probably the most realistic element of the story). Or there's the episode about the unknown bacteria spreading through the new patients. Could it be that this mysterious ailment could be cured by a local Afghan remedy? How about the episode where Rebecca must plan a party for the base while dealing with the realities of having used the whole installations O- blood supply in a vain attempt to save a young man. Yeah, these all sound original, right?

Okay, it may be difficult to do a medical warzone story that M*A*S*H hasn't done already, but that's the same problem that any family/animated comedy writer has with 'The Simpsons'; if you tried to do something they hadn't already done, you would have nothing to work with.

So yeah, watch 'Combat Hospital'. It's a pleasant, inoffensive yet wants to be edgy drama that takes the plots of M*A*S*H, extends them to half an hour and removes most of the jokes (that sounds like a far more scathing review than it is meant to be.) Seriously people, the show is good fun, a decent modern substitute for a classic age old comedy in the summer months. As a July-September entry, it's a real winner. Just don't stack it against House or Fringe or any main season entry, if you do, you may as well go out and get every episode of M*A*S*H, you'll laugh more.

Sci-Fi in the 20Teens

If anyone out there can tell me just what we're gonna call the 2011-2020 period, please let me know.

So I was watching DirecTV on the Continental flight from Houston to Seattle on my way back from Costa Rica, and I came across the Pilot for "Falling Skies" on TNT, (first of all, this show is what ABC's "V" should have been, which has now been cancelled, thank Gawd) and it got me to thinking about the current state of Sci-Fi in TV & on film (keeping in mind that "actual Sci-Fi", like the literary kind, on paper, is beyond me. If I'm reading, I want it to be non-fiction. Let the moving pictures tell me the fake stories.)

It's well known and accepted (I assume) that Sci-Fi is known for reflecting the collective fears of the society it is generated in. Classic examples abound; In the 50's, with fear of being suddenly and overwhelmingly overrun by communism ran rampant (like it was something that rained from the sky - "Tomorrow, sunny with a 40% chance of communism with some early morning marxism..") and the movies/television (well mostly movies, television had yet to develop itself that far at that point) spoke to this. "The Day The Earth Stood Still" warned us all that if we didn't learn to get along aliens would come from the sky and vaporize our weapons with giant robots controlled by commands from the necronomicon. "Earth vs the Flying Saucers" (or something titled like that) was about plain old alien invasion, same with "War of the Worlds". Aliens come down and threaten to eat our brains, and only a lame deus ex machina can save us (cuz' intergalactic beings with faster than light travel are incapable of protecting themselves from microbes).

The 60's were all about the fear of the potentials of technology. "2001"s Hal 9000 is the classic example. Star Trek often dealt with the failure of technology or the dangers of letting super computers control civilizations; consider episodes like The Apple, Return of the Archons, The Changeling, Spock's Brain, What are Little Girls Made of? etc... Also rife with episodes about the fear of the weapons we built, (The Doomsday Machine being the all time classic). While not dealing directly with technology, "Planet of the Apes" spoke to the dangers of what could happen to our world if we let it get away from us. We would be maniacs, and blow it up (apparently).

The 70's continued this theme of fear, only it expanded beyond technology and into the world of medicine and the body. "Alien" is the prime example here, or "The Omega Man", "Soylent Green", all about what would happen the firmament, the 'material' of the Human race if we let it all get away. This also saw the emergence of the psuedo Sci-Fi/Horror zombie plethora, "Day of the Dead" being the major comment on the consumerism mixed with body horror. Also, watch just about anything David Cronenberg did at the time. (Star Wars notwithstanding in here, I maintain that it belongs in it's own category of 'space fantasy', there's nothing all that scientific about it)

The 80's seemed to be about the fear of being left behind, the fear of the excitement and wealth of society passing us by. "Flight of the Navigator", "The Last Starfighter", "ET", the trend is subtle but present. "Quantum Leap" even took part in this, literally removing Dr. Sam Beckett from his life and making him re-live other peoples lives.

90's Sci-Fi commented on the distrust of the authorities on power. The granddaddy of all conspiracy shows "The X-Files" taught us all that there was a sinister motive behind anything and everything, including Bee's. Other copy cat shows like "Dark Skies" went further with this, attempting to sew every event in history into one giant conspiracy. "TekWar" & "Robocop" also touched on these themes.

9/11 shaped 2000's Sci-Fi pretty clearly. The idea of the dangerous 'others' who live within our midst. "Battlestar Galactica" illustrated this beautifully, so did "Lost" by making the term 'The Others' a common reference. "The Matrix" goes so far as to insinuate that our whole existence is masterminded by someone or something else (blending 60's fear of technology excellently with modern fear of the world around us).

So where does this leave us now in the 20Teens? Let's look at the shows, the examples we have. "The Walking Dead" explores not just a world where zombies rule, but instead of focusing on the horror or the consumerism it deals more with the day to day realities of 'Living Among Them'. Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" while not being completely Sci-Fi, shows us a world where society has collapsed and we must all fear the cannibals. "Cloverfield" gives us the first person account of an invasion we are completely unable to contend with. "Jericho" while a drama, not a Sci-Fi (and cancelled before it's time) depicts the realities of living in a world where you must rely on your neighbours as the foundations of society have been nuked out of existence. Even "Lost" deals with surviving without the support of the systems we have built over the past 6 decades. And while hilarious, "Zombieland" is chilling in also showing us a world where survival is the true horror of the zombie apocalypse. Noah Wylie's latest show, "Falling Skies" deals with the aftermath of being invaded by six legged creatures who contracted out their battle weapons contracts to the Predators and who's spaceships resemble large sawhorses. What does all of this have in common?

Today we fear the collapse of what we have come to count on for our future. Remember in 2008 when the rich took all our money by betting against the people who didn't have any, and this threatened our way of life so much that we had to give over even MORE money so as to prevent us all from losing all the money we had, only now there's no money to pay for anything anymore so now we still have no money? Yeah, that thing. The modern fear seems to be that the future will be a world where there will be no support, no systems we can count on. We'll have to learn to survive on our own with very little, move back to subsistence living and fear our neighbours again. No police, no welfare, no pensions. Just you and whatever you can carry, or whatever you can grow where you stop for a few days. The future has always been shown as being more advanced (even in "Blade Runner" made that advancement look dirty and unpleasant) but we are faced with the reality of going backwards, and being unable to content with what comes next. It's not us being wiped out by aliens, it's about us having to run and hide from the big bad universe/planet which has come home to roost. This I find the scariest of all. I'm a service industry worker. I have very few survival skills. MAYBE I could make due in a zombie holocaust (the apocalypse which I feel most prepared for - fingers crossed!) If our pensions and medical system were to vanish overnight, I don't know what I'd do.

So what's the next trend in Sci-Fi? I dunno. Talk to me about in 2015.

And also ask me just how likely I think a "28 Days/Weeks Later" zombie outbreak is. You might be surprised by how close I fear we are!

Lie to Me: The "insanity" episode

At some point in every TV shows life, they feel compelled to pull out all the psychological stops on the 'insanity' episode.

SIDEBAR - Okay, NOT every TV. I'm pretty sure 'Friends' never did an insanity episode. We are referring to most dramatic television shows that are not simple procedurals. If the show has any 'inventive' fictional elements to it, then it probably has an 'insanity' episode somewhere. Example: I'm pretty sure Law & Order never did an insanity episode, but I'm not convinced that Law & Order: SVU never did. Please correct if wrong.

"What is the insanity episode?" and "Where can I find this marvelous addition to a TV shows legacy you ask?" (if you DID ask that, then you are merely pandering to me, and I appreciate it!) Simply, the insanity episode is the installment of any television series (usually comes by the 3rd season if the show makes it that far) where the audience is left to ponder if anything we have been privy to these past years has been real, or was it all the dream of an insane mind, and our character/or characters has actually been in the looney bin the whole time. OR a lead character is committed for a short time, usually do to something happening in an episode that we cannot be sure whether or not it actually occurred.

I know what you're thinking; "That's total bull crap, every show doesn't have one of those!" Au contrare...

M*A*S*H: Final episode, "Goodbye, farewell, Amen" Hawkeye gets committed for repressing the memory of a Korean woman who smothered her baby to avoid being caught by the North Korean Army.

Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. "Normal Again" from Season 6. Buffy gets hit with some demonic venom which causes her to believe all her Vampire and demon fighting is really the imaginings of a disturbed girl in a mental hospital. Because that would make so much more sense.

The X-Files: (I searched my whole collection for the episode title, but when they're listed with synopsis like "Mulder and Scully investigate a murder" or "Mulder and Scully suspect several people may be being murdered by a dead man" or "Mulder uncovers a conspiracy" it can be hard to pin the actual episode down) - the one with the deadly hallucinogenic fungus, where Mulder and Scully find themselves completing half the episode while buried under the dirt, victim of some uber-deadly magic mind control mushroom.

House: Pretty much the whole end of Season 5 and beginning of season 6, where House hallucinates that Cuddy comes to see him in his hour of need. (note, not to be confused with the end of season 6 and start of season 7 where Cuddy actually DOES come to House in his hour of need)

Star Trek: TOS/TNG/DS9/VGR/ENT - Too many examples to count here, but the most memorable would be TNG's season 5er "Frame of Mind", DS9's "Far Beyond the Stars", VGR's "Projections", you get the idea.

LOST: Hurley spends time in a mental institution, 'nuff said.

You get the idea, examples go on and on and on. Where do these episodes come from? Usually in any dramatic series with a flair for the 'exceptional' there comes a time when the writers want to show just how hip and 'meta' they can be (i've adopted the word 'meta' for the time being, deal with it) they usually try and pull what I call the 'mind fuck' episode, where the audience is supposed to fall for the above stated premise: ie, what IF our character was really crazy all this time, and we just pulled a fast one over on the whole audience? Think when Peg Bundy lost the baby in 'Married, with Children' and they turned it all into one of Al's dreams. (Correction, I should say when Katy Segal lost the baby...) It's meant to show just how creative and 'with it' the writers are.

Personally I find the episodes rather offensive, as they always end the same way: No one was ever really insane in the first place, and its always the result of confusion/alien interference/actual dementia/demonic venom. Yes everything that we saw before actually happened, and now we can proceed knowing that some writer (I'm looking at you Brannon Braga) got to get their rocks off mining their old Psychology classes while filling up another 43 minutes of television.

So with all that being said, it brings us to last nights episode of my current favorite prime time network drama 'Lie to Me'

Lie to Me: "Funhouse"

Written by Jameal Turner

Directed by Daniel Sackheim

Synopsis: Cal investigates a man in a mental hospital who has been kept perpetually demented by muffins poised by his sister and brought to him weekly by his loving daughter. There you go, ruined the whole episode for you.

This episode, while again a B- on the overall scale of what I expect from this show, does something nice by actually bypassing the whole "was it really just dementia?" angle and showing us that Cal actually IS being looney, talking with his long dead mother and all. It follows the tenets of other 'insanity' episodes, ie creative editing where you get confused by where one scene ends and the other begins (much like being insane, I would imagine. You'd almost think those creative muthafuckas planned it that way...), laying cues in the episode long before we suspect there's some intellectual shenanigans going on, so on and so forth. By the end of it all, Cal has the solution (muffins, as said before. A solution he comes to while suffering severe dementia, I might add).

These episodes piss me off. Make angry Steve Angry. It's like Shutter Island. From the previews, I could just tell that Leo DiCaprio was in jail the whole time - sorry again to those who actually haven't seen the movie, but I just saved you 2 hours, + the time it took you to download it. Maybe its the decades of genre television i've absorbed, but the 'insanity' episodes are always so pedestrian and repetitive. Character thinks they are insane, through the course of the show something happens which makes them realize all is not well, and they snap out/are rescued from their delusions. Because if that actually worked, we wouldn't have to fund all the mental health centres that were shut down during the shift to 'societally integrated treatment' the Liberals forced on us in the '90's. (Societally integrated treatment, read: pay for it yo'selves fuckas!)

And while this episode isn't a prime example, these installments usually reek of lazy writing. If the character is insane, and everything is in their heads, that means there's no consequences to their actions. If there's no consequences to their actions, then there's no drama as there is no tension. As the audience we are supposed to be oh-so-confused by all the strange happening's a goin' on, but the truth is we're all pretty smart by now, that's why we're watching these clever shows, after all.

In fact, the only show ever to pull this effect off with any real suspense was 'House', and that's because, as this show often does, it inverted the elements. House actually WAS seeing things (through most of the season, actually) and he did think his actions didn't have consequences, when in the end they really did. Then House spent a few episodes in the nutter cage, and eventually everything worked out. But it took several EPISODES to get us there, it wasn't resolved in the span of a commercial break. So props to them for knowing what to do when you decide to make a character insane. (in all fairness, off the top of my head House is the only character on TV you could do this with legitimately. He's already fucked up enough as it is, it's pretty easy to push him over the edge...)

So yes, 'Lie to Me' has reached the 'insanity episode' benchmark. The 'flashback' and 'TV episode within a TV episode' episodes can't be far off.

V is back! Let the disappointment reign!

Thaaaaaaaaat's right folks, that embarrassing hour of mediocrity you forgot debuted on TV last season is back in the all classic, super respectable Winter replacement timeslot! V!

V, right? You all remember, right? Right? Elizabeth Mitchell? Scott Wolf? Morena Baccarin? She was the ultra hot Companion from 'Firefly'? Was gonna be Wonder Woman for a while before the studios did what they do best and kicked Joss Whedon off the project? No. Oh, okay. Well...

V is that show about the aliens who come to Earth ('V' for Visitors, see how clever they are?) in giant spaceships which float over all of our major cities (Vancouver stands in for New York here, are they saying that Vancouver isn't major enough to attract a six square kilometer alien space ship? Toronto may agree, but fuck them, they're Toronto.) Now I know what you're thinking, "Wait a minute, giant alien spaceships hovering over our cities, here to conquer us. Wasn't that 'Independence Day'?" Well, yes it was. But you see, 'Independence Day' was inspired by A) 50's B-movie invasion movies and B) This miniseries called 'V' from 1983. Now I watched the original -

- SIDEBAR - I would LOVE to say that I watched the original when it aired on TV, to be just that hip, but that means I would've watched a primetime miniseries when I was 2. As awesome as that would've been, it would've meant my parents were pretty irresponsible, so NO, I actually watched 'V' when I learned about the inspirations for 'ID4' before the movie debuted -

- And found it to be an excellent treatise on contemporary sci-fi and late cold war paranoia (yes, I could understand the importance of commentary on paranoia during the waning days of the cold war, I was a damn clever kid smarty pants) So when I heard they were making a modern remake I thought:

Wow, what a great idea. We live in the age where we're scared to ride the bus or train (well I am, at least) in case that backpack left under the next seat is filled with C4 (PS, if you DO see a random discarded backpack, please tell someone - police wise - about it. They'll shut down the train, send in the robot to blow it up only to find it's full of gym clothes, but you'll feel better about it) so a show about aliens who come to Earth, look like us and profess peace while insinuating themselves into our everyday lives would be a smash hit; full of intrigue, veiled commentary on our modern paranoia about our neighbours and speaking to how readily (or steadfastly opposed to) we integrate foreign cultures into our own.

And then I discovered the show would be on ABC. EPIC FAIL.

What's wrong with ABC you ask? Well nothing, really. I mean, they're no CBS (by the way, SUCK IT CBS!!!) But aside from a few shining lights (and their comedy line up, tre' excellent) ABC hasn't lately been able to field a decent drama. The problem - they're still so damned 'family friendly'. I've talked about this before with 'Castle', which I love, but ABC has this requirement (culturally, or self imposed, I'm not sure) to make sure their primetime shows are watchable by the whole family. Sure they try to sex it up with, well, sex and some blood, but it keeps them from REALLY attacking the material with the same gusto that Fox, or say, Syfy (BSG anyone?) does.

But wait Angry Steve, didn't ABC make that wicked cool mind bender 'Lost' that you loved so much. Yes. Yes they did, and that is the exception that proves the rule. We will examine:

V: "Red Rain"

Written by Scott Rosenbaum & Gregg Hurwitz

Directed by Bryan Spicer

We open with bodies littering the streets of faux New York under a 'blood red sky' to borrow from U2. Already, a more poetic scene than I've encountered before in this show. It reminds me of some of the final images from 'Watchmen' (the book, not the movie - not to knock the movie, as it was awesome) so there was actually some wicked thought put into this composition. SURE we cheap out by making it a dream, but whatever, it was still nice, more reminiscent of what we saw in the original show 27 years ago. Then we get a nice CG glimpse of Ryan's half Human, half V baby in the tank on the spaceship (our first real glimpse of a V in any form) and that was pretty cool too. Alright, now we're getting somewhere. Things are gonna puck up this season!

And then they give us scenes of rioting in faux NY. I love watching actors pretend to riot in my home town. It's heartwarming.

But then we get back to Anna's (alien queen, for those who don't watch) 'evil machinations' for the sad people below. I often compare this show to 'Lost' as I feel that's the show it's most trying to emulate. Sure, they come from the same network/studio, both have characters who's allegiances are in question, both have an ongoing serialized plot and both have intrigue and good guys behaving as bad guys. But whereas 'Lost' weaves these elements deftly like a concert violinist, V uses them like a blind man driving a Buick. Anna releases Ryan (one of her children) back to the freedom fighters he came from so she can use his daughter against him later? You bet she says that flat out, so there's no real intrigue. If you were having dinner with someone, stepped up to use the loo, and while you were gone they said out loud 'Now I will use him to have my plans put into action' that isn't all that crafty now is it?

Anyways, at the end of last season, the V's turned the sky blood red, our "5th column" freedom fighters were gearing up for a war and Anna was pissed off in general at Humanity, so when season 2 started, I was ready for some progress, some change, ready for the story to blow wide open.

The title of this episode should've been "GET READY FOR EVERYTHING to stay the same." There's no attack on the V motherships. By the end of the episode the sky is blue again, and Anna is back to 'biding her time' while the wheels in her plan turn. Anybody remember that show 'Earth: Final Conflict"? You shouldn't, it's terrible. But that was another 'aliens invade Earth, very slowly' story line. I think things picked up around season 16 or so.

The show has good 'Lost' characters: Scott Wolf as 'Chad' the reporter who may or may not be interested in helping the freedom fighters. 'Hobbs' the mercenary who is just so bad ass he doesn't NEED to kill someone each episode, those types. It even has Elizabeth Mitchell as Erica, the protagonist, essentially playing Juliette over again but without the subtext. And it has good 'twists' as they were. We discover what the V's really look like when Anna kills one for... sport I guess, when she finds out that some of her followers are worried she's being poisoned by the Human skin she's wearing. (you'd think the big reveal of the appearance of the aliens would be a cliff hanger moment - we've had glimpses before but never a good look - but here we use it at a commercial break. Tells how confident the writers/producers were with the 'impact' of this reveal) We encounter a new, younger guy who's done research on some alien skeleton found in a mass grave in Mexico (that's yet to be explained, really) A guy who, by the way, our ultra secret freedom fighters seem to trust pretty quickly. We also learn of some crazy V plot to cross breed with Humans, which is another element borrowed from that exemplary paranoia granddaddy 'The X-Files' -

- Okay, yes, for all the X-Philes out there, I know the alien plan there was to create Human/alien hybrids that would survive the apocalypse of the killer bees who would sting us all, infect us with the alien black oil and make us all carriers for their reproduction, thus leaving a slave race AND providing a vaccine for the richest Humans so they could work hand in hand with the aliens, but I digress -

But this reveal in V DID give us what could be the first REAL juicy moment in the show, Tyler, Erica's son, might be half V, which is actually pretty decent for a twist. Tyler is also the kid who gets to 'get it on' as it were with one of the blonde alien hotties. If only nailing hot alien chicks was as easy as TV and Captain Kirk made it out to be...

So Angry Steve, why do you keep watching this show? Easy. Underneath the mediocrity of the program 'telling' us everything instead of 'showing' us (a cardinal sin in screenwriting for those not in the know) it has POTENTIAL. Potential that I can see will not be realized with the start of the second season, but that's okay. The V I watch in my head is way better than the one on Tuesdays. It behaves as an episodic show, where we wind up right back where we started at the beginning of each episode and you COULD watch any episode out of order and not miss much, but it wants SO BADLY to be a taught serial the way 'Lost' was. But 'Lost' had it's dedicated fans who came back week after week, season after season to find out if Jack would actually save young Benjamin's life, or what was in that Hatch, or will Kate's reappearance break up the love-in between Sawyer and Juliette. This show does not have that kind of power, character, or draw. The whole thing is bathed in the same neutral lighting (probably to make it easy for all the green-screening they do to recreate alien space ships on a tight budget and make sure no Canadiana makes it into a show filmed *gasp* in Canada) but any first year lighting apprentice can tell you that neutral lighting kills emotion on film (and essentially replaces the cinematographer with a light meter) -

- But it has ALIENS, and SPACESHIPS, and Elizabeth Mitchell is kinda hot, and so is Morena Baccarin and Laura Vandervoort (more hot), and sometimes they shoot at each other, and every once in a while there's some psuedo par-kour chase and it gets exciting up to the commercial break.

I don't watch 'Mad Men', and yet I watch this. Is something wrong with me, or am I just too dedicated to sci-fi? It just seems that spaceships will win out over suits any day.

So yeah, in conclusion, this was meant to pump the show to people, but instead it tore it down. But you bet my PVR will have it recorded next week, and you bet I will watch it. Isn't that endorsement enough?

I've been WHO'd! (and so should you!)

No, I have not had my heart grow three sizes from the singing of all the little ones down in who-ville. Instead, it finally managed to catch up to me. I've become a fan of the ubiquitous British sci-fi legend 'Doctor Who'.

A little background. I grew up with sci-fi. Cut my teeth on sci-fi. Sci-fi is my bread and butter (whatever that really means...) When I was a child I would go grocery shopping with my Mom at the Save-On Foods off #3 road in Richmond, and they had a tiny video rental in there (back in the 80's when video cassettes were a thing - and so was 'renting' come to think of it). If it wasn't Ghostbusters, I'd be looking at all the cassettes of the original 'Trek (cuz' I'm just too hip to use the 'Star' anymore). While other kids would be wanting to see... actually I have no idea what the other kids were watching. What I DO remember is how scared I was when, in the 2nd season episode "By Any Other Name" the sinister Kelvan, Rojan crushed the dehydrated dodecahedron that had been Yeoman Leslie Thompson just moments ago. It's a frightening thought as a child, to think that there are aliens out there who, at any moment, could turn you into a tiny handful of drywall powder and then crush you out of existence. (WHY did I watch this stuff as a kid?)

Anyways, I digress. I watched all the 'Trek I could find, old and new. I played Star Wars in the backyard with the neighbours (my best friend at the time, Jake, even had a water pistol that was a dead ringer for Han Solo's Heavy Blaster. How awesome is that?) I dreamt of spaceships, hoped beyond hope that either Max of the Trimaxian Drone Ship (identify that reference and you get a sugar cube) or Centauri (same for that classic 80's gem) would come along and whisk me away to interstellar adventure. Yet I never watched Doctor Who, which had been around even slightly longer than my beloved Star Trek.

And THAT was even before the debut of 'Trek TNG.

I remember being young and catching tiny bits of Doctor Who on PBS (ah PBS, how else would I know that the British did things...) Which usually involved some wacky haired man in a scarf standing on the deck of some boat with some girl talking about the Silurians or something. I mean really, this is supposed to be sci-fi, who has BOATS? OR SCARVES? Where's the transporters, the storm troopers? The starfighters or the lightsabres? NOWHERE, that's where. Sometimes the Doctor would be talking to a puddle of goo (gotta give props now to the imagination of those production designers though, with the budges they had) or running from what looked like a garbage can on wheels with a whisk and a plunger attached. (Strange, I read somewhere that "hiding behind the couch when the Dalek's appeared" was a shared memory of many British children, while I have only started to find them somewhat unsettling in my adulthood) Seriously, if these things can't climb stairs, how scary can the BE? It was British, it was boring, it didn't have any pitched immense space battles and most of all, no one ever said "Beam me up" or "Engage" or "No time to discuss this as a committee". (I am NOT a committee!)

And then, a few months ago, two entirely separate and unconnected people both said to me "You should watch the new Doctor Who". One was the boyfriend of the misses childhood friend, and the other was my brother. (the same brother I might add, who also told me I should watch 'Buffy', at which I scoffed as well - he says while staring at this 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 1 - 7 sets... and Angel season 1 - 5) "It's just as cheesy and low budget as the original, but it's so awesome" was the selling point from Alex (the misses childhood friends boyfriend).

Now I had read in passing somewhere back in '04 that the BBC was bringing back Doctor Who, so I knew it was out there. The ever amazing (and in dire need of an HD expansion) SPACE network here in Canada was running the new Doctor Who in syndication daily, so I set my PVR for 'New & Repeats' and let 'er rip.

And the rest is history. I'm hooked. I love it. It really is some of the most thought provoking, fun, disturbing and hilarious sci-fi on television currently. Now I may still be Doctor Who neophyte as my only exposure has been the modern incarnation helmed by Russell T Davies, but like my hopes for the latest Star Trek film, this Doctor Who has only made me want to familiarize myself with the original material.

Thanks to the brevity of BBC TV seasons (or series, as they call them there. Bwah?) I've now seen every regular episode of the relaunch series, short a few christmas specials (another uniquely British thing, what show in North America does a SPECIFIC christmas special every year outside of the regular season?) and the David Tennant 2009 'Specials', and I only want more.

[For the totally lost, I will do what I can to bring the uninitiated up to speed: Doctor Who tells the story of ''The Doctor' a 900 (give or take) year old Timelord from the long dead planet Galifrey who travels through time and space in his TARDIS - nerd alert, an acronym for "Time And Relative Dimension In Space" - which looks like a '50's era British Police call box with his rotating cast of 'companions' (invariably an attractive young woman, and sometimes another guy) seeking out adventure and danger.]

The show launched with Christopher Eccleston in 2005 (so is it "Eh-Cles-ton" or "EK-Kel-ston", I'm not sure) who I only remember as the creepy room mate David in Danny Boyle's first feature 'Shallow Grave' and then later as the creepy Major West in Danny Boyles '28 Days Later' (so, is Christopher Eccleston just creepy in general, or is it only in Danny Boyle films?) taking on the enigmatic role as 'The Doctor'. I will never forget his opening line to Rose Tyler: "Nice to meet you Rose, I'm the Doctor. Now run for your life!" Eccleston's Doctor is actually quite a departure from the others (being two) that I've seen. He seems much less patient and understanding of Humanity that his successors, David Tennant and Matt Smith, while still maintaining some strange fascination with us advanced apes. Quicker to anger than the others, he behaves as Humanities sanctimonious nanny. At the same time however, his time on the show exposed a side of Christopher Eccleston I was not familiar with, his smiling, giddy, boyish side. The Doctor is preternaturally exuberant and fun loving, that's how he usually gets himself in the trouble he seems to every week.

Eccleston's 'Companion' was pop star Billie Piper, as Rose Tyler. Rose always seemed a little to smart and self assured to wander off with some strange man in a Police call box. Yes, I understand that her 'sense of adventure' is what led her off around the cosmos with the Doctor, but she was never my favourite. We'll get to her later.

The next season saw Christopher Eccleston replaced (or 'regenerated', as they say in Doctor parlance) by David Tennant, the man who has become synonymous with the success and relaunch of the show. While Eccleston eschewed the Doctors trademark upscale clothing for slacks, a black T and leather jacket, David Tennant brought back the wild hair, sharp pinstripe suits and clever ties that perpetuated the air of sophistication the Doctor is meant to portray. The unique fixture of Tennants converse sneakers belied the anti-authoritarianism of his character. Where as Eccleston's Doctor often seemed down right tired of Humanities foibles through his adventures, David Tennant's Doctor loved and embraced the ludicrosity of Humanity, nary losing his cool or his temper. He always had a sharp barb and rapier wit to bring a laugh to any dire situation, and this may be the reason he ultimately did not sit as well with my as my favorite Doctor (coming up!) There was never a REAL sense of danger with David Tennant around, as it always seemed like he was just a sly witticism away from solving any problem. What he DID bring that I appreciated the most was a real sense of comedic and physical timing. He was fun, he was jovial, he seemed like he was your best friend. Until the Daleks showed up, when he would promptly turn into self righteous orator with many blustery things to say before finding a way to solve the universes problems once again.

Tennant spent two seasons with Rose, a season with Martha Jones, a medical student with great morals but not much in the way of conflict potential, and a final season with Donna Noble. I didn't like Donna at the start. She seemed very boorish, rude and unsophisticated, exactly as she was meant to be presented. A perfect foil for the Doctors gregariousness. She couldn't care less about whether or not the Ood could be saved, but what was great about Donna was she LEARNED as the season went on. Instead of having great moral and ethical sensibilities to start she gained them through experience with the Doctor, developed into the kind of person you would hope exposure to new things would make out of cloistered and socially minded person. Some of the episodes with Donna Noble are the best of the David Tennant set.

And then came Matt Smith. Easily my favorite of the three Doctors I've seen. He brings back the nerdy British book worm with his slacks, suspenders and bow ties (which ARE Cool, he insists). Where David Tennant was confident to a fault, Matt Smith's Doctor seems almost harried, confused, like he's always about to forget something. Often as surprised by the situation he's in as his companion, Matt Smith's Doctor does NOT portray a man who has all the answers. In fact, he plays a Doctor who has even less answers than the others - but it is the means through which he comes to those answers in each episode which is utterly enrapturing and fascinating. When Matt Smith's Doctor is in trouble, the audience can feel it, see it in his frightened expressions. I enjoy watching Matt Smith and being able to share in the emotions of the experience with him, instead of feeling like it's being filtered through nine centuries of know-it-all-ness. He is also the quirkiest of the new Doctors. Eccleston was too cool for Humans and Tennant was like was Human's old college friend come to town. Smith is a nerd, through and through. From his awkward social norms to his gangly physical comedy, Smith is a sci-fi hero for sci-fi fans, unsure, distracted yet totally capable of saving the day when needed.

And his companion is second to none. Amy (Amelia) Pond, The Girl Who Waited. Played by the drop dead cute-as-hell red haired nerd-bomb Karen Gillan, Amy Pond is the perfect yin to Matt Smith's yang. While the other companions with the other Doctors were more 'along for the ride' Amy has just as much adventure in her as the Doctor (some would argue even more so.) Unbalanced, brave to a fault and feisty as you like, Amy Pond compliments Matt Smiths distraction with a sense of adventure and wonder comparable to any other Doctor, and miles ahead of any previous companion. She's the kind of girl I think I should fall in love with (yet not the kind of girl I have fallen in love with) When Matt Smith's Doctor is left scratching his head by some mysterious finding, she's the first to press on ahead, danger be damned. When the Doctor gives her an impossible set of instructions to follow, not only does she execute them, she even finds a way to cheat for her own sake. These two characters make one whole adventure, and I look forward to enjoying them both in the latest series 6, due out in 2011.

Unlike Star Trek, which by the end of its last television incarnation, which had built upon itself a universe with rules and continuity that must be followed, the Doctors ability to travel anywhere in time and space at any time leaves stories wide open and almost limitless. Star Trek does get the edge on Doctor Who for character development and may also edge them out in relevance, it's hard to beat the sheer imagination of an episode of Doctor who, where literally anything can happen. Things like the fat in your body turning into tiny, uber-cute little monsters who get beamed up into an immense flying saucer. Or shadows that will consume your flesh. Or what about weeping stone angels that try to kill you when you don't look at them, even for so much as a blink!

The episodes of Doctor Who can range in quality from Hugo Award winning brilliance (2007's 'Blink') to trite sci-fi fluff (2008's 'Midnight') But they always bring an element of Humanity to them that is hard to find in most television. One week, The Doctor and Amy may help Vincent Van Gogh fight off a lost and alone invisible alien while helping the troubled artist understand that no one need be truly alone, and the next the Doctor may help Rose and the others do battle with the Devil on a planet moments from being torn apart by a black hole. Whether its helping save the Human race from the evils of reality TV to outsmarting a Dalek invasion army in 1930's New York, the writing team of Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss & Robert Shearman have created a means of exploring the universe that is both enlightening and exciting. Wonderous and hilarious, all at the same time. Indeed, it is this irascible sense of humor the permeates the show at every turn, the Doctor always able to turn a joke or capitalize on a comedic moment just when needed most.

It is this element of the show not taking itself so seriously that makes it such a success. So if you make it this far in my Doctor Who treatise, please, check it out wherever you can, and see if you get 'Who'd' too.

MONDAY - TV Rundown

So it was brought to my attention yesterday by my brother-in-law that I shouldn't be presenting myself as a TV expert if I don't watch the single greatest show on TV: "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia". And he was kind enough to stream a few episodes for me over Thanksgiving - namely the episode where they find a baby in a dumpster and the episode where they try out of the Philly Eagles.

Yes. Both episodes were hilarious. And it would now seem that I'm hooked on this sitcom about terrible people leading ethically void lives in 70's styled Philadelphia. Lo & behold to my surprise as well, I discovered that Showcase has been broadcasting the reruns late at night (so as not to offend the kiddies, I'm sure) So I will start catching up then. Won't be blogging anytime soon if I can't find a regular broadcast source for the new episodes (I can't keep up with what my box records for me, let alone what I could stream).

Today we're also gonna start introducing my new rating system! Yay! Let's add some more validity to this process!

Our scale will be a simple one, running the gamut from WINNER! to winner, meh, loser and last & most certainly meant to be least, LOSER.

Let's begin.

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE

Jane Lynch & Bruno Mars

Created by Lorne Michaels

Airdate: 10/9/10 - Viewdate: 10/9/10

All I can say about the Gloria Allred opener is that it wasn't a 'Presidential Address' and that in itself made it unique. If only I knew who Gloria Allred was. - loser

What does one have to do to become a regular on this show? I mean Abby Elliot gets to be a regular but Nasim Pedrad is still only a 'featuring'? If I'm not mistaken Nasim made me laugh many more times last season than Abby did, but maybe that's just me. The 'Gilly/Glee' sketch did show me that Abby Elliot can at least sing, something I didn't know.

Seems to me that when the writers don't have a clue about what makes the host funny, they write a song for them. Sure Jane Lynch carried it well, but was that really the best you could do in a week? - winner

"Damn, My Mom's on Facebook" commercial - winner

Glee/Gilly sketch. Now this is always gold, but that's because Gilly was there. I enjoy her the most because my fiance' hates it when I do my creepy Gilly impression. Score another for Kristen Wigg (who by the way, is more talented now than Molly Shannon ever was). - WINNER

"New Boyfriend Talk Show" - Surprisingly funny for one of their regularly featured 'in the home' talk shows. - winner

"Secret Word" - pretty much always a winner.

Digital short: It's great seeing Jane Lynch back in her creepy personae (a'la "The 40 Year Old Virgin" - winner

Dept store w/ Denzel Washington sketch. - Okay, I know this sketch only exists to showcaseJay Pharoah's uncanny impresonation of Denzel Washington (he eerily sounds EXACTLY like him) and that's okay. I'm hoping that this becomes a regular recurrence on par with 'What's Up With That'. - WINNER

Musical Guest: Bruno Mars - Okay, so I'm a movie,TV, Sci-Fi, discovery/national geographic channel nerd with multiclasses in comic books and WWII trivia - I am not a music nerd for anything post 2004. As this blog isn't meant for music, I will be swift: These guys sounded a Cuban doo-wop version of Maroon 5. Is that a bad thing? Well, for me, it was. - LOSER

Weekend Update: Can you say anything bad about this, ever? Well, maybe the visit from the Mexican travel official did fall a little flat. - winner

Suze Orman show - If only for Kristen Wigg's bizarre preformance - winner.

Sunday Night Foodball on NBC - this gets a pass from me for one reason and one reason only: Bill Hader's amazing Chris Collingsworth voice. - winner

Tax Masters: - Lame. Weak. - LOSER

So all around, factoring in today's scores, the Oct 9th SNL installment was an all around WINNER.

Next time: Amy Poehler & Katy Perry (YAY!)

Just came back from seeing 'The Social Network' and like everyone else, I thought it was brilliant and quite inspired. Is it the new 'Citizen Kane' as some have claimed? Of course not, but is it a contender for 'Best Adapted Screenplay', 'Best Director', & 'Best Picture next year? I do believe so. See it, if you can.

(due to being out watching said film, my updates will be behind once again. I do have a life after all. I do. Seriously.)

FRIDAY - TV Rundown

So I spent the first part of my night organizing all my hockey pool stuff (and by organizing I mean figuring who was on the same team and amalgamating them - I'M NEW AT THIS WHOLE "SPORTS" THING OKAY!?!) and now I actually get a chance to sit down and catch up just a tiny bit, get some reality TV off my list.

GO!

HELL'S KITCHEN

"11 Chef's Compete/10 Chef's Compete"

Directed by Sharon Troja Hollinger

Airdate: 10/6/10 - Viewdate: 10/6/10

If they hadn't done it before, 'Hell's Kitchen has surely jumped the shark by now. Don't get me wrong, I still love it to death - probably has something to do with my man-crush on Gordon Ramsey (or Gordo, as I think of him in my head... actually I don't. And I hope should I ever be famous he would never read this, cuz' 'Gordo' probably wouldn't go over very well) - but it would take Dr. Van Gelder's neural neutralizer on Tantalus V (points if you can identify which show & episode that reference stems from!) to convince me that all the contestants on this season are capable chefs, or that Ramsey is actually considering all of them to run a high-end restaurant in L.A.

Case in point, Sabrina. Can anyone really convince me she's a contender for this? REALLY? (with Seth & Amy!) Sure, she MIGHT be able to cook with some competence, but her attitude is utter garbage, she has no discipline (which Ramsey himself has noticed) and I'm pretty sure the 'Sabrina' we see on TV is totally fake. Why do I think this? In the words of Job "C'MON!" Let's think back to the grand daddy of all reality TV show players - Evil Dr. Wil from Big Brother & Big Brother All Stars. This man knew how to play the game, and play it very, very well. I'm sure if I met him in real life I'd find out he was a total douche (because he seems to be anyways) but when it comes down to competing in the most un-real of all 'reality' TV shows, he had his finger on the pulse of how it was done. Full game mode on the court, complete breaking-the-forth-wall insanity in the confessionals. The Evil Dr. Wil we met in the confessionals was a different animal than the guy who walked around and reacted with the other contestants - and he was the first to admit that. He was present, he was conniving, he was a total bastard, and he won once, and NEARLY won twice, because he could balance the game versus his real intentions.

Now Sabrina shows none of this tact. She plays herself up for the camera as the over-done bratty bimbo both in the confessionals and in the kitchen. She's too unbelievable to be real, and if she let us in on that fact in the confessionals, then I might like her more - but it's obvious she's bought her own hype, and the producers are keeping her around because she makes decent TV, and we don't really need to see the chef's do well until they're all one team anyways, right? But for the sake of my enjoyment of the show, she needs to go, and now.

Who else feels bad for Melissa and Boris? Here I two people I can sympathize with. You can tell they are both decent cooks, but neither of them can handle the pressure Ramsey forces on them. In their drive to work themselves to Gordo's expectations, they're missing the forest for the trees in each dinner service, and it got one of them sent home (Melissa - oh yeah, Melissa went home at the end of the second hour) after she was swapped to the other team, ostensibly to give her a chance, but I believe Ramsey was more interested in getting Trev over to the girls team where he proved just what a whiney bitch he really is. Boris will be gone soon, and it's a shame cuz' you know he really wants to do well and has the drive and desire, just maybe not the head for pressure that others have. Russell is my choice now, though Nona might still pull it off. The Misses has money on Gail, and the ones who fly under the radar like her usually make it all the way to the end.

Emily was sent home in the first hour, and that was just fine with me because when she talked it always looked like she was trying to avoid smudging her lipstick - I HATE that look!

Was anyone else entertained by the narrator's line "Russell's meat has finally made it out to the diners?" Just me, okay. Guess I'm no more mature than those high schoolers that Russell picked a fight with. Because when you're competing for a dream job & a 250K American salary, you really want to be blowing your top at over privileged seventeen year olds.

I'm certain the 'Getty Villa' they used for the reward in the first hour was featured in 'The Godfather'. Had to be, how many places have a reflecting pool like that?

Wicked FOX cross over! Kelli Williams (of 'Lie To Me' fame) sitting at the chef's table? Superb!

NEXT TIME: One of the chef's screws up big time? But which one!?!

AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL

"Karolina Kurkova" Created by Tyra Banks

Airdate: 10/6/10 - Viewdate: 10/6/10

I'm liking this season more than previous ones, and I think it has something to do with the fact that Tyra is barely in it. Dear Tyra, 'The Fresh Prince Of Bell' Air was seventeen years ago, you need to let the bad acting go.

Is anyone else tired of hearing about how the girls want to win this so bad for their son/daughter/husband/family/mother/cat/gynecologist? You're family isn't on the goddamned show, YOU are, so just admit you're doing it because you want to, not because you want to use the money to clothe hungry inuit orphans. (How are the inuit orphans doing these days? Oh... good? They're all good now? Okay, good to know.)

If you want my opinion, (which is probably why you're reading my blog) I think Lexie should've taken the challenge - she nailed it with a straight face. But what do I know? I'm no runway coach, and my eyebrows are of a regular Human size.

Okay, I'll root for the underdog like anyone else, and when it comes to the two meter tall lanky-as-hell dork chosen to compete against the popular girls, it's easy to want Ann to win. But FOUR BEST PHOTO'S IN A ROW? REALLY? I know sometimes Tyra can play favorites (Whitney, with her mouth open all the time?) but this is a little absurd. Sure, Ann's getting some great photo's, (and I personally think that Ann has an edge as she obviously has no conception of how to present herself in an attractive manner, making her a blank slate and a sponge) is one thing, but I feel she's either being set up for failure with all the pressure that's mounting to continue to perform as such, or else Tyra's losing perspective. Surprising the girls haven't turned on Ann... yet.

Anyways, Lexie goes home, which makes me sad, I liked her.

CASTLE

"Under The Gun" Created by Andrew W. Marlowe

Written by Alexi Hawley - Directed by Bryan Spicer

Airdate: 10/4/10 - Viewdate: 10/8/10

This show has to be one of the best examples of what happens when everything goes right with an episodic network prime time drama. Like 'Murder She Wrote' meets 'Moonlighting' the classic irreverence of 'Castle' is heartwarming, comforting and intriguing all at the same time.

There's a certain timeless quality to this show. Aside from a few ubiquitous modern influences (cell phone's, computers) this show could really be set in any decade and not lose any of its relevance or charm. Entering into it's third season you can just feel how comfortable the writers are with the banter between Castle & Beckett (the perfectly nuanced canucks Nathan Fillion & Stana Katic). Nice to see they finally ditched the 'will they/won't they' romance angle and settled into an excellent rhythm of teamwork and antagonism. One of the Exec's, Rob Bowman, is a man of long TV history - I remember him well from when he was a director on 'The X-Files' and along with those quirky sensibilities, another producer from the previous two seasons (missing in the latest episodes credits I might add) Rene Echevarria, hails from another true example of timeless entertainment - Star Trek: The Next Generation. The same class and mature humor displayed by that show is on display in Castle most of the time.

So this week treasure maps and jewel heists. Great story once again. I especially liked the old man ditching his walker (obviously stolen from Pixar's 'UP') at the sign of the cops only to scale a fence and leave Ryan & Esposito holding their collective colostomy bag.

"Bikes are what girls want when they realize they're not going to get a pony". I will remember that one for sure. My only real criticism of this show would be wholly unrealistic relationship between Castle and his jailbait daughter. Unlike coy uncertainty displayed by Cal Lightman's daughter Emily from 'Lie To Me', I find Alexis to be completely unbelievable. She's too smart, to witty and too wise for a seventeen year old girl. Nothing against Molly Quinn, the actor. She does great, her character is just written like the heroine from a bad teen novel about vampires.

I must say I really was hoping to get some clues as to the coming Zombie apocalypse from this episode, but alas, until next time. And how can one not appreciate Ryan's observation of Esposito as they search the dark graveyard with heavy weaponry:

Ryan:

"Hispanic and cocky. You'll surely be the first to die!"

As formula fun as this show is, it still manages to surprise me. In a billion years I never would've called Royce being in on the crime. I will give those writers credit where it is due, and once again they get it all bang on here.

NEXT WEEK: Steampunk mayhem!

The Event

"Protect Them From The Truth" Created by Nick Wauters

Written by David H. Goodman & James Wong - Directed by Jeffrey Reinu

Airdate: 10/4/10 - Viewdate: 10/6/10

I wonder if the James Wong who co-wrote this episode is the same James Wong of early season 'X-Files' fame Glen Morgan & James Wong (who went on to make the underrated 'Space: Above And Beyond'.) IMDB will provide me the answer!

This show is being billed as the successor to Lost. Okay, so it isn't THAT engaging, but I will admit it has managed to keep me riveted across three episodes. The show moves at a pace comparable to '24' with the same quality of 'Left Turns' in the plot if you will (A 'Left Turn' is either something I learned in film school or something I made up thinking I learned it in film school - it refers to the concept that a simple, easy plot will be a straight line that makes three right turns to wind up right back where it started. In this example you can see how a 'Left Turn' would completely break that simplicity) as you would expect from a JJ Abrams production (The "King" of the left turn if you will.

One thing I always liked about 'Lost' was how Abrams, Lindeloff & others made a theme out of having characters behave against their nature, and using that to shock the audience. We don't know Sean Walker or the other characters enough yet to evaluate whether they're really doing this or not, but hiding in the trunk of a car that belongs to a Federal agent you just kidnapped so she can drive you into an FBI detachment where you can hack their system and find out who has kidnapped your girlfriend from the pilot episode seems pretty counter productive when you're wanted for murder. So good on the writers for injecting some alacrity and creativity into the Conspiracy/Mindfuck story arc that one would think was in danger of losing steam at any moment, yet finds new ways to intrigue you at every act break.

New ways to intrigue you like the dead coming back to life. Now THAT, I did not see coming. While it may be lacking in refined character development, this show keeps the audience watching by learning some lessons from its predecessor, mainly 'Lost'. Instead of each episode expanding exponentially upon an ever growing mystery, this shows conspiracy and secrets move in a somewhat more linear manner. We get an answer about the people held at Mt. Inustranka (extraterrestrials apparently) but then we get another mystery - Like men dressed as Federal agents shooting up an FBI branch with MP5's.

As you can tell, I am quite enjoying 'The Event' and I will keep watching until A) it's get cancelled (that's what tends to happen to promising new shows) B) It becomes un-watchable as they stop answering questions and return to the old method of stacking unanswered questions on unanswered questions or finally C) Things get answered too quickly and we start a whole NEW conspiracy half way through the season, a'la '24'.

So for those of you out there who haven't tried it out yet, watch 'The Event'. It's face paced, action filled and with enough surprising moments to keep you coming back from the kitchen while making dinner to ask "What happened now?"

Except for that one part with the traffic stop and the dead cop. Saw that coming a mile away.

Happy Thanksgiving all!