Slowly Catching Up to TV Reviews, Part II of an Even Larger Number: Fridays

Yes, I'm stilling doing TV blogging. It just sort of fell out from under me and I'm trying to get back on the wagon (or off the wagon. I forget which is the good one). This one's a double, because one of the shows is new and the other I'm only one episode behind on.

Friday Night Lights, "New York, New York":

So what happened was, I was watching these on the premium, snooty, watch-before-everyone else DirecTV* versions, on an tivo**. I got up to here, and they just stopped recording. Not dicking around. That's really how it happened. DirecTV has one show that you can only watch on their boxes, and they can't make it show up in the guide to record right. So I watched this one on Hulu like five minutes ago.

I could go on about how the main theme of this episode is perserverance stubbornness, and how that gets exemplified in Jason and Coach et cetera, but instead how awesome was that part with Street and Riggins in New Yrok? Seriously. Five minutes of the best fish-out-of-water stuff ever to show on television. Somehow both hilarious and enlightenating how little those guys have seen outside of Dillon. Awesome.

*Sadly, that's actually how they spell it.
**TiVO: brand name. Tivo: generic name for any similar device. Tell your freinds, if you have any.

Dollhouse, "Ghost" through "The Gray Hour":

"Ghost":


Well, I liked it. The general--or at least the most vocal-- consensus is that the show is terrible but we should stick around until it gets really good, which is supposed to happen in episode six. The remarkable thing about this opininon is how little basis it has in actual fact. It reminds me how much people seem to hate the "cage" episodes on Lost (the first six from season three) despite the fact that at least five of them are pretty good, and the real worst episode came after they were over. I think it's more about expectations than it is about the actual show.

Let's be honest. "Ghost" is not the best episode of television ever. That's not what I'm talking about. But it was very good on its own merits, and it sets up a lot of cool stuff for later.

I think the problem a lot of people are having with this one, especially, is that people are used to seeing cop shows every week*. So the nerds (the ones who bother to go on the internet and complain about shows) think, new sci-fi show is doing a kidnap story? Lame. Crime stories are for old people. We can see those anywhere.

As a nerd, I can sort of understand this viewpoint. But at the same time I can see what they were trying to do here. It's a wolf in sheep's clothing: in order to make kooky sci-fi show accessible to people who haven't been reading about it on the internet for the last six months**, they present it as something familiar: a crime story. Anyway, next episode.

*It should be noted that there aren't actually any cops in this episode.
**Or was that just me?

"The Target":


The problem I've been having with this show is, like I said, it feels like I already know what was coming. I half blame the internet and half blame Fox's promo people. This show seems to like its twists, and I feel like too many of them have already been spoiled to me. Maybe you'll be luckier.

That said, everything else here was good, better than the last one. I liked that they're setting up Boyd as the sympathetic guy, but it does raise the question of why he still works for all these assholes (my Crazy Theory is that he's also been brainwashed. What's yours?). The other thing I like here is that they're not wasting any time moving the Alpha story forward, which was a nice surprise.

"Stage Fright":


Again, what was interesting here wasn't the Active-ing itself, which so far has been pretty good but not noteworthy (and here was probably the weakest of the first four) so much as the little details piling up around the edges: the Actives have both their own personalities and their missions, and one hand might not always know what the other's doing (it makes more sense if you just watch it). This sort of lends more support to my Crazy Theory (see above). Also cool: the suggestion that Echo might be evolving or something. My Crazy Theory Number 2 is that she turns into a crazy psychic who kills people with her brain, because, hey, why not? And the Victor thing was pretty cool, probably 'cause I managed to not have it spoiled. So yeah.

"The Gray Hour":


This one sort of answers the question about why hire an Active when you can just hire the world's best safecracker. The world's best safecracker will take the money and run; the active won't. Although this raises the similar question of why not just hire four actives, but whatever.

These ran kind of short. Hopefully I can go into more detail with later episodes.