Best. NYE. Ever.

Happy New Year's Eve! (And happy new year also.)

As a holiday treat, here's a link to my absolute favorite NYE (have people always been using that acronym, or is it a new thing? It drives me a little nuts) television moment ever:

The kiss, the confetti, the music, the set decoration--it's all perfection.

This television moment has singlehandedly led me to feel that no matter what I do for NYE, it will never quite be good enough.

100th Post! (And Happy Birthday!)

Happy 100th post to me. In honor of my own birthday a few weeks ago, I was planning to do a post on good birthday-themed TV episodes, but I never got around to it. However, I think it kind of applies to the blog's 100th post anniversary in that it's some sort of milestone, so I'll give it a whirl now. Plus, December birthdays always get overshadowed by the holiday season, so here's something a little special for all the people with December b-days. (And, yes, I realize that the chances of one of the 1.7 people who occasionally read this blog actually having a December birthday are not good, but oh well.)



Best Birthday TV Episodes:

• Rory turns 16, Gilmore Girls, season 1: Rory's b-day causes a stir among the Gilmore generations (what doesn't?) when she doesn't appreciate the snooty party Emily throws her. All is tenuously patched up though when Richard and Emily agree to attend Rory's Stars Hollow party...even thought Lorelai accidentally yells, "Get your ass in here!" at them.
• Michelle turns 3, Full House, season 3: It sure seemed like Michelle Tanner had a lot of birthdays (the sun sure seemed to shine on that child), especially since I can't remember Stephanie having any. Hmm. That's a topic for another time, I guess. Anyway, my favorite Michelle b-day was when she, Steph and Uncle Jesse accidentally get locked in a gas station on the day of her party. Things initially look dire, but Jesse and Steph dress like clowns, do a sock puppet routine and juggle, so everything turns out awesome.
• Caleb turns ??, The OC, season 1: Ok, I can't make a complication list without including something from The OC, but I sure wasn't going to include the season 3 ep where Ryan turns 18. Anything that seeped in (dead) Johnny, Sadie and Volchok will never find a place on any Best Of... list of mine. The season 1 ep where we meet Caleb for the first time, however, was great, even though it threw a big monkey wrench (in the form of Caleb's hot and very young girlfriend) into the blossoming Ryan/Marissa love affair. Episode highlights include some freaky foreshadowing about Sandy and Kirstin moving back to Berkeley, the obligatory witty banter, the first mention of the "I Wish I Was a Mermaid" poem and Seth and Summer's first kiss.
• Michael turns ??, The Office, season 2: Michael is never good at sharing the spotlight, especially on his birthday, so things go awry when Kevin has a skin cancer scare on Michael's big day. The episode features a trip to the skating rink, Dwight playing a Billy Joel song on a recorder (ugh), a Pam and Jim shopping trip and lots of funny quotes, including my favorite:

Michael: When I was seven, my mother hired a pony and a cart to come to my house for all the kids. And... I got a really bad rash. From the pony. And all the kids got to ride the pony. And I had to go inside, and my mother was rubbing cream on me, for probably three hours, and I never came outside. And by the time I came out, the pony was already in the truck and around the corner. So that was my worst birthday.

• George Michael turns 16, Arrested Development, season 3: I can't remember how much of GM's b-day is even really in the "Mr. F" episode, but I'm including it on the list because of this hilarious exchange:

Michael: Besides I already got George Michael the big present for his birthday...
George Michael: A suit! Dad, is it Jack Welch?
Michael: I want you to look under the pants.
George Michael: Quicken! Premiere! Dad, I hope you kept the receipt.
Michael: You want to return that?
George Michael: What? No, I want to deduct it!

• Fiona turns 21, Shameless, series 1: In the midst of a tearful scene in which he and Fiona profess their devotion to each other, Steve nearly gets carted away to prison when Tony busts him on his car thieving. Steve thankfully manages to talk his way out of the situation (as he usually can), and surprises birthday-girl Fiona by buying the house next door (and promptly blowing it up for the insurance money). Other highlights: Frank fakes his death, Monica and Norma make an appearance (until the kids kick them out) and Sheila's pregnant.

Ugh

This writers' strike is death. I'm watching people weigh themselves in national prime time television.

Getting to see any new scripted show now is a holiday in and of itself. Gossip Girl tomorrow night, everybody! (thank freaking holy goodness.)

Nobody puts Sark in a coffin.

Sorry, but that's definitely my version of "Nobody puts Baby in a corner." Like Patrick Swayze, I am in no mood for this crap. And you thought I hated Hiro before...

Honestly, if I saw Masi Oka walking down the street, I might punch him... which kind of seems akin to kicking a puppy, but that's how annoyed I am.

Ok, yes, Adam/Kensei/Sark/David Anders was trying to unleash a virus to wipe out 93% of the human population, but, frankly, if all the other people in the Heroes world are as stupid and annoying as the ones with super powers, maybe trying to start fresh isn't such a bad idea.

All right, let me try to move on here, because in addition to my adamant belief that David Anders should never, ever be buried alive, I had a few other hang ups about this episode (not that that should surprise anyone)...

First of all, I acknowledge that the Heroes writers had to rush the conclusion of this chapter due to the writers' strike, but that doesn't really give them carte blanche to plagiarize Alias. Or maybe the explanation is that Hiro is a big Alias fan, because his method for disposing of immortal Adam was exactly the same as Jack's method for disposing of immortal Sloane. Can't say it was a bad idea for Hiro to outsource his thinking to Jack Bristow (how much better would this show be if Jack Bristow were doing the thinking for all these people?). The burying-the-immortal-guy plot twist wouldn't have been so obviously a rip off of the Alias series finale if they hadn't have done it to an actor who was in the Alias season finale. Duh. I now fully expect that after the strike, Elle will spend a season trying to figure out who killed her best friend.

Now, moving past even that, I still have problems with Adam's burial. He's "immortal"--as in when things happen to him that would kill other people, he does not ultimately die because, like Claire, his cells are able to regenerate. But, the regeneration does not happen until whatever it was that "killed" them is removed from their bodies (the metaphorical arrow must be pulled out of the body)... a.k.a. they do technically die for a while. So, Adam is not going to just lie there in the coffin forever and ever--he's going to suffocate. If someone were to then dig him up and re-expose him to air, then I guess he would come alive again. The point is, though, that the "poetic justice" of the immortal guy living forever in a coffin does not exist, Hiro (and Tim Kring). The way I see it, Hiro just avenged the quick death of a fairly annoying old guy with the slow, torturous death of an extremely beautiful guy...which, in my book, makes him now not just annoying, but also kind of monstrous.

Ok, I guess I've said my piece about the burial. The more I think about Tim Kring's comment, "We've given the audience no reason to believe that Adam can figure a way to get out of there," the more I think he's just trying to be coy and that Adam will probably find a way out of the box within the first episode back from the break.

***Sidebar: doesn't it seem like a bad thing that after Heroes' two big finales, Tim Kring has felt the need to give interviews to try to explain what happened? I occasionally like to complain about the Lost guys too, but their "radio silence" after the momentous Lost Season 3 finale was smart.***

Other stuff:

• Maya and Mohinder in the same place is almost too much stupid for one room to handle.
• Nathan landing while carrying Grunberg was hysterical! "Let's never speak of this again!"--by far the funniest thing ever on Heroes. So funny it seemed like it was in the wrong show and a piece of Chuck had somehow slipped in. Heroes would be oh-so-much more tolerable to me if it developed more of a sense of humor about itself.
• Grunberg doesn't know Hiro either? Did they not meet at some point last year in the square when they were all there trying to take down Sylar?
• So, Maya's death was reversed--thank goodness, because we would have all missed her so much.
• The "deaths" of Nikki and Nathan are both somewhat ambiguous. If that was the end of Nikki, I feel badly, even though I can't really stand her, because her death ended up not really having anything to do with the greater plot. Honestly, although Nathan is one of my more-liked characters on this show, I was kind of glad that someone shot him, if just to end that sappy speech!
• I can't really believe that they all thought that telling people the truth about their powers was the best course of action. Aside from the fact that there are still Old Gen-ers around who don't want that secret out, superheroes never divulge their secret identities! Haven't they ever seen The Incredibles? Your greatest asset is your secret identity! Come on!

All right, friends, that is the last snarky blog entry I'll write about Heroes until it returns in "2008." Hopefully. Though if the strike lasts too long, I may run out of material and have to revisit it and come up with new things to complain about.

Snarky 'Heroes' Retrospective

In honor of tonight's nebulous Heroes "finale" (season finale? arc finale?), I compiled a list of--mostly snarky--comments I made but didn't post about the past 5 or so eps of Heroes. I was going to break them up by episode, but since episodes of Heroes tend to all run together anyway, I'm just going to lump them all in one big list.

While the WGA strike shortening the seasons of all tv shows really stinks, I can't say I'm at all bummed to see the virus/assassinating the older generation story line come to an end prematurely.

I am worried that Adam/Kensei/Sark/David is going to meet an untimely (well, I guess it can't be 'untimely' if you're 400+ years old) demise tonight since we now know he's the superbad (to borrow a term from Seth Rogen, etc.). And I really think he's a goner since it was explained in a heavy-handed manner last week that even the "immortal" cannot survive getting their heads chopped off (so, just in case any of you were wondering if Mary Queen of Scots happened to have the same power as Adam and Claire and maybe survived her execution, there's your answer).

In any event, I have decided to be optimistic and have faith that, if he's killed off Heroes, David will be able to find work somewhere else in a project that doesn't make him speak Japanese/talk about viruses/act opposite Masi Oka. I will gratefully watch whatever it is.

Heroes comments:

• Less than 4 minutes into the episode and I'm already totally bored...
• Why does Claire and Hunter's big plan to disgrace the head cheerleader remind me of that movie with Winona Ryder and Christian Slater where they end up killing everyone?
• YEA! David punched Hiro in the back of the head! That's the best thing I've seen on Heroes since he punched Hiro in episode 1.
• Are "Wicked" and "Hairspray" still going to be playing on Broadway next June?
• So we "saved the world" and it just needs saved all over again? This is frustrating, but at least we've got something else to deal with than Japanese school boy crushes and taking down the head cheerleader...
• Opium stops Hiro from using his powers? Crafty, Sark, crafty.
• Oh, thank God! Sark is finally out of feudal Japan! And, even better, he seems to be the evilest of the evil! Score!
• Now what would have been awesome would be if Sark/Adam had turned out to be KB/Elle's dad! That would have been hilarious and weird (since there's no age difference) and they'd be the coolest evil team ever.
• Ohhhh, so in last season's finale, 'Peter was using all his powers to keep from exploding' therefore he couldn't fly by himself. Nice try at explaining the major logical gap 6 months later...
• This Latino twins storyline was still worthless four months ago.
• Yea, KB! Zap him!
• Can we go back to six years ago when David and Kristen got it on? That's what I want to see! Please!
• This Nikki personality disorder thing is actually pretty interesting. It doesn't explain the disappearing tattoo though. Maybe she just imagined it.
• The company shouldn't let their inmates fraternize with each other. It's a recipe for disaster.
• KB to Mohinder: "What's your super power? Punching bag?" Snap.
• Does Dweebs not mind that his daughter goes around acting like a little hussy?
• A show with David Anders and Kristen Bell as the first two actors listed in the credits should be so much better than this.

(photo: heroes-pictures.com)