Daniel's TV Blog

For a few seasons I wondered why I watched Smallville. This season wasn't one of those. This season rocked. Clark began his destiny with a cool black suit with a long coat reminiscent of a cape. This season the mythology they took on was the city in a bottle, Kandor. In the comic books, Kandor was an actual city that wad shrunk and exists in the fortress of solitude. The Smallville Kandor is a metaphoric city in a bottle. A group of Kandorians were digitally stored and cloned on Earth long after their death on Krypton. They were lead by Zod and the writers took every opportunity to say "Kneel before Zod" they could. The show is now as much about Green Arrow and Watchtower as it is about Superman, and that is what makes the show good. This season also was the introduction of Checkmate. A super great twist was the identity of The Red Queen, a mysterious powerful person referred to by Checkmate. It turned out to be Clark's mom, junior senator from Kansas Martha Kent. It turns out she's ben pulling strings in the government to keep Clark's identity safe. In the end she gave his iconic blue and red costume. Next season will be the last so we should see him in it by the end of show. That's if survives his Kryptonite infected fall from a very high building.

Labels: Smallville

Chuck began with him training in Universal Studios/Czech Republic but of course he returned to the Buy More. He needed to control his emotions to jeep the intersect working properly. During the season, all the main characters found out his secret and he continued to fight the strangely well-funded Ring. At the season finale, his dad died (which was unnecessary), he captured the ring leadership, he discovered a huge cache of experimental tech his dad invented, and a new bad guy was introduced: his mother! Very Alias. Also John Casey found his daughter (new character next season?) and the Buy More blew up.  I'm excited about next season.

Labels: Chuck

The season before this last season SNL was riding high on election jokes, specifically Sara Palin jokes. This was another very solid year with many memorable moments. Of course the highlight of the season was Betty white. Possibly the best line of the season was "let her just stay home and lez out." Other than that, my favorite skit of the year was the one where Smashmouth was the monster in the closet of the little girl. Besides being wonderfully random, it just was funny from start to finish. JLo was great as the mom. The look on Smashmouth mouth faces as they almost get caught was brilliant. And I just loved the way the girl yelled Smash Mouth. Then Jason Sudeikis comes in as the tired dad and the skit got even funnier. Just great from start to finish. My second favorite skit wad the Gerard butler episode where the 300 army ended Don't Ask Don't Tell. My favorite new recurring sketch was Jenny Slate as Tina Tina in Doorbells and More, Car Horns and More, and Alarm Clocks and More. Become a fan of her on Facebook! Weekend Update had the great new character: Stefon. I can watch this over and over.



Here's my list of the top ten people who should host next season:

1. Jeffrey Donovan (lead actor on Burn Notice…What is Burn Notice?)
2. Steven Colbert (maybe as his Colbert Report character)
3. Steve Carell (why has this never happened?)
4. Carol Burnett (queen of sketch comedy in the 70's)
5. Ricky Martin (newly out, either as musical guest or both)
6. Russell Brand and Katy Perry (host and musical guest, respectively)
7. Joy Behar (before Fred Armisen leaves the cast)
8. Jane Lynch (or anyone from Glee but Matthew Morison)
9. Jorge Garcia (now that Lost is over)
10. Kathy Griffin (also, why hasn't this happened?)

Kathy Griffin, Steve Carell, and Jeffrey Donovan are all on NBC networks so these are perfect for cross promotion. I predict at least one of these in the first half of the next season. I want Kathy the most.

Labels: Saturday Night Live

I loved Glee from the first time I saw the Pilot a little over a year ago. The show is the worst great show ever. The musical numbers are what we watch it for. But sometimes this show has worse writing than Jerry, Blairs cousin from Facts of Life. For instance, in the penultimate episode of the season the timeline was just completely off. The establish at the start of the show that the Cheerleading Nations are the upcoming weekend and that Quinn is going to sing her song on Friday. Then Will asks Sue on a date for Wednesday. After rejecting her he goes to school to find that Sue canceled the last two practices. The he convinces her to return, she does, they win nations. Next Quinn performs her song and then the group preforms their Funk song for Vocal Adrenaline, the end. So Sue canceled multiple practices after the Wednesday date? This would move the timeline to Friday at the earliest, but then they win the Nations before Quinn sings her song on Friday. And the obvious timeline problem wasn't even the worse thing about the episode. There was the way-too-mean egging of Rachel and the much-to-hard punishment for the tire vandalism. There was no way they should have been caught for that crime. It was just a bad-bad episode.

And they had some bad arc stories as well. The Rachel and her mother story was terrible. Yay we meet! No I don't want to get to know you right now! OK, I'll just adopt another baby and forget about you! It went way to fast and I never believed the characters (or any characters) would ever act like that. The worst thing about the show is Will Schuester singing Hip-Hop. He is on the bottom of the list of people I want to hear singing. Sue is better than him, and she clearly can't sing. She kinda talk-sings through Vogue and Physical and she's great. I want more.

But even with the numerous problems, this is one of my favorite shows ever. That's mostly because of the fun factor of the songs. I love the songs in the choir room (such as My Life Would Suck Without You), I like the fantasy numbers (such as The Safety Dance), I love the performance numbers (such as Don't Rain On My Parade) and I love the special guest numbers (such as I Dreamed a Dream). It's just very lucky this show has so much going for it I don't mind putting up with the foolishness.

Labels: Glee

Last fall my friends Brian and Ethan loaned me season one of Supernatural. I caught up to the current season around episode 15. This season was an epic they had probably planned for since the start of the season. The brothers were destined to be the vessels for the battling angels Michael and Lucifer. In the end Lucifer in Sam's body was dropped back into the cell that had been holding him. But Sam somehow got out. Not sure how that happened. But now that they have battled angels, what is left? I guess they could go on to fight God. And Horseman Death seemed to imply he was older than God. So maybe they will find there are things out there bigger than angels and demons. My favorite moments from this season were when they attended the Supernatural convention with people dressed up like them and when they were brought to the summit of the lesser gods. Sadly, The Trickster/Gabriel/Loki died in that episode and he was a great not too threatening recurring bad guy turned ally.

Labels: Supernatural

This is the first in my series of season in review for the 2009-2010 season.
Last season fringe ended with Olivia in the parallel world and started the season with cliched amnesia. Eventually she remembered meeting mirror mirror Spock sans goatee. During the season we and all the characters discovered Peter was from the parallel world as real Peter died as a child. This season they also moved the production from NYC to Vancouver, where all sci-fi should be made. I'm embarrassed I didn't figure that out until the third to the last episode.

The season ended with an epic two parter where Walter and Olivia travel to the parallel world to get Peter back before he helps Walternate destroy the world.

The more I think about the finale, the less impressed I get about it. Here are my gripes.

1. The main thing is Olivia was altered by drugs as a child in order to be able to transit between worlds. How then did Olivia B make the jump?
2. Peter just seemed way to willing to go to World B and also to come back.
3. How did Olivia B escape? No one was looking for her and Olivia A tied her up well.
4. When did their goal change from capturing them to infiltration? That is a rather big mission to agree to with no time to consider. What about her hunky boyfriend? How long is his business trip because she might be gone a long, long time.
5. The characters from World B just seem way too evil. While it's true that alternate universe people are typically evil versions of the main universe characters, it's just too predictable.
6. If Olivia can transit universes, why can't she just escape her prison back to her world?
7. If Olivia B had studied Olivia A for a while she might be able to impersonate her. As it is now, she should have already be found out. There is no one I spend as much time with as Peter, Walter, or Astrid spend with her. But I would be able to spot an alternate Matt C or Jeff P or David O within a short time if I knew such alternates existed. She had no time to prepare for the impersonation. Also, when did she had time to change into Olivia A's clothes.

The writing at the end of the season was so poor I'm not sure I'll be watching next season.

Labels: Fringe