10 Years Later: The Series Premiere of Alias

The 10th Anniversary of the Pilot Episode of Alias, "Truth Be Told"

Ten years ago today, on Sept. 30, 2001, the pilot episode of Alias premiered on ABC. It's hard to believe it's been 10 years since Sydney Bristow and her friends and enemies came into my life. On one hand, it's stunning that it has been 10 whole years since the pilot aired, as I still vividly remember watching it that night, loving every second and knowing that my entire concept of good television was being revolutionized. On the other hand, it seems like Alias has to have been around for much longer than 10 years, since I find it difficult to comprehend that there was ever a world without Sydney, Vaughn, Jack, Sloane, Dixon, Marshall, Will, Francie, Irina and Sark.

In any event, today is the 10th anniversary of the Alias pilot, a moment that literally changed my life, as the show meant a lot to me when it premiered and continues to mean a lot to me now. I'm celebrating the occasion by re-watching the pilot, "Truth Be Told," which is easily one of the best television pilots ever, in my opinion. Here's a clip from it; skip to minute 4.00 for the legendary "Write this down: E M E T I B. Got that? Now reverse it." Sydney Bristow, you kick so much butt.

Here's to you, Alias. You are loved.

Gossip Girl: Toast Disasters

Gossip Girl:
"Enough About Eve"

So Chuck kissed a dude, and this episode was still kind of a snooze. It's like it's a new rule that at least two of Gossip Girl's plot lines per episode have to be almost painfully dull (Serena/Nate/poker and Vanessa/Dan/Olivia). I was even frustrated with Blair's shenanigans, because I had a hard time believing that everyone cared so much about who gave the speech at a freshman parents' dinner. I'm surprised that NYU could even get people to go to that dinner, let alone that it would spark epic battles over who got to speak at it. I don't know, I just think that if Blair's going to let her ambitions screw up her relationship with Chuck, she might as well be aiming a bit higher than giving the toast at a dinner for NYU parents. (Neither of Blair's parents even attended, which is a disappointment because I love Margaret Colin and John Shea, and Dorota wasn't even there.) Seriously, is anyone going to remember the stupid toast a week from now?

Also, have any of these students who "go to NYU" (or Nate who "goes to Columbia") ever actually gone to a class?

If the whole "Chuck kisses a boy" thing was a stunt to get ratings, it doesn't look like it worked.

One good thing about this episode was that Gina Torres a.k.a. Anna Espinosa of Alias turned up as Vanessa's mother. Unfortunately, the uncoolness of being in a Vanessa storyline tempered the awesomeness that is Anna Espinosa a bit. Here's a reminder of how great she can be. (The video's in German, but who cares: Anna tries to hit Sydney with the arm of a mannequin! Ha!)

Highlights and my observations:

• Chuck: "Bad dream? Don't tell me it was Charade again. I know how terrifying you find Walter Matthau."
• Aww, Chuck is so sweet holding Blair when she told him her dream was "All About Eve."
• Why wait to have Tripp run for Congress? Because he's only like 25 years old?
• Don't worry, Nate has an idea. Oh, I feel so much better now.
• There was a cover story on Vanessa on the cover of the NYU paper? Are you kidding me? Gag.
• Jenny (to Dan): "People like you more when they meet our family." THEY DO?!?! I'm sorry, but meeting Rufus would not make me like anyone better.
• Serena's dress does not really same day-appropriate. It looks like a party dress.
• I cannot believe people actually care who gives the toast at the freshmen dinner. I cannot believe people want to go to that.
• They were playing Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros' "Home" very quietly in the background during Vanessa's phone call. That song was easily the highlight of this whole episode. I'm a big fan of that song. They should have just canned all of this toast nonsense and these poker shenanigans and just played that whole song.
• Uh oh, Vanessa's lying. I thought she didn't lie.
• I didn't know poker could make for such boring television.
• Oh, nice work Serena and Nate. I told you that you should never feel too confident in one of Nate's plans.
• By far the coolest thing about Vanessa ever: her mother is Anna Espinosa (Gina Torres) from Alias. If Anna Espinosa is really supposed to be Vanessa's mother, Vanessa should be a whole a lot cooler.
• Oh, that Nate! Such a little sneak! There's no way Nate came up with this plan on his own. This was definitely Grandpa Vanderbilt's idea.
• Why is Olivia asking Vanessa why Dan doesn't want her to meet his parents, when Dan's standing 20 feet away from her right now!
• Ha ha! Dan just set the kitchen on fire.
• Ha ha, a kiss from Chuck Bass is #27 on the Tribeca Scavenger Hunt.
• Geez, Chuck's haircut is amazing. He looks super hot. I cannot get over it.
• Wow, this distinguished alumni isn't very upstanding. He had the "important job" of picking the speaker and he traded it away for a kiss from Chuck Bass? (Although, I can't say I really blame him...)
• This is quite a fancy freshmen dinner event.
• Why did Olivia change out of that pretty purple dress and into that way too tight orange thing? Ick.
• Chuck: "Keep up, Bambi."
• Wow, Serena can't even follow Nate's grandpa's scheme. It's not that complex, S. If she can keep up with all of Blair's schemes, she should be able to follow this one.
• Geez, Vanessa, piss off the few people left who can still tolerate you. Nice going.
• If Carter thinks Serena's going to give a flying crap about him in three years after he goes away to work on the oil rig, he's got another thing coming.
• Oof, that's rough. Vanessa just got a lecture on being a good person from Anna Espinosa! Ha!
• Rufus: "Dan, was that Blair on the P.A.? She really should have run that speech by someone."
• Damn, Chuck looks hot. It's distracting!
• Yeah, I don't believe that Blair's never going to manipulate Chuck again. Chuck should kick her ass to the curb.
• At least now we get to here some more of "Home"! It's helping to make all of Vanessa's screen time easier to stomach.

(photo: cwtv.com)

Glee: Jolly Good Acafellas

Glee: "Acafellas"

Glee offers up another great episode. Highlights and my observations:

• WHAT?!?! WILL'S DAD IS VICTOR GARBER!!!!! OMG. Does this mean that Will is Sydney Bristow's half-brother?
• And Victor's wearing a bow-tie--how adorable.
• Aww, Victor/Will's dad says he has no guts. (That is very unlike Jack Bristow.)
• The Cheerio spies in glee club have set a plan into action to get a ridiculous choreographer to bring about the downfall of glee club.
• Emma: "They say it takes more certainty than talent to become a star. Look at John Stamos."
• The cake Terri got for the shop teacher whose thumbs got cut off has two hands giving the thumps-up guesture. Oy vey.
• Ken: "I live in a YMCA, and I only have one pair of long pants..."
• Sandy writes Desperate Housewives fan fiction. Ahahaha!
• Will: "Apparently I don't know how to dance."
  Henri: "I have no thumbs!"
  
• Will: "Sandy, we voted: when you're in the group, it's creepy."
  
• Terri: "Will! If I don't get some sleep, I could miscarry." (She is horrendous!!)
  
• Finn: "See anyone else in here with a plate of 'I'm sorry' cookies? I don't. Just you."
  
• Mercedes: "Have you ever kissed anybody?"
  Kurt: "Yes, if by someone you mean the tender crook of my elbow."
  
  
• Why do all of Will's performances (first "Gold Digger" now "Poison") involve him rapping? LOL.
  
  
• Acafella's dance moves aren't bad.
  
  
• I can't believe the Acafellas were written up in the newspaper.
  
  
• Sandy: "'Who is Josh Groban?!' Kill yourself!"
  
  
• Kurt: "My dad got it for my sweet 16 when I swore I'd stop wearing form-fitting sweaters that stop at the knee. What he doesn't know won't hurt him."
  
  
• First this rival glee club (Vocal Adrenaline) did "Rehab," now it's Duffy's "Mercy." And the dance moves these people do are unreal. I bet half the members of the group don't sing and are just there to do back flips and fancy dance moves. (Obviously in real life their are probably two different sets of performers: the singers we hear and the dancers we see.)
  
  
• I see Lauren from SYTYCD!!!
  
  
• Finn: "I tried to talk some sense into Rachel, but she's gone all chick-batty."
  
  
• Puckerman wants to be in the a cappella group? So he can hit on moms?! Eeeew! I don't doubt that he's tired of dating high school girls, though, since he clearly looks at least 35.
  
  
• Puck: "Dude, my bowels have better moves than you."
  
  
• Rachel: "We need to have a gay-vention. That's a gay intervention."
  
  
• Rachel: "He wore a corset to second period!"
  
  
• Kurt wasn't being "sweet" to Mercedes last week when he was telling her that she looked like a Technicolor zebra.
  
  
• Mercedes' hair looks super cute at the car wash.
  
  
• The Cheerios do make good backup dancers.
  
  
• Mercedes is a fantastic singer.
  
  
• So they guy playing Dakota, the crazy choreographer, played Walter "Duckface" on Full House. Wow.
  
  
• Dakota: "Artie, you're cut. You're not trying hard enough."

  Artie: "At what?"

  Dakota: "At walking."
  
  
• I kinda loved how Finn stood up for Rachel when Dakota said she needed a noise job.
  
  
• Dakota: "What's wrong with me is that you're freakishly tall! I feel like a woodland creature!"
  
  
• Rachel: "Our point is that you're fired. And I'm taller than you."
  
  
• The Acafellas are awfully dressed up for the PTO meeting.
  
  
• Wow, they've got some fancy lighting for this performance. This song ("I'm Going To Sex You Up") is ridiculously inappropriate for the PTO! Ha. All the better to distract the parents from the prison food scandal, I guess.
  
  
• Josh Groban is hitting on Will's mom!
  
  
• Victor's going to law school! Yea!!! (I still wish he'd gotten the chance to sing something though.)
  
  
• Why did the costume department insist on dressing Victor Garber like Tiny Tim thoughout this entire episode?
  
  
• Kurt: "My dad took my baby away after he found my tiara collection in my hope chest."
  
  
• Sue: "I'm revoking your tanning privileges for the rest of the semester."

  Cheerleader (bursts into tears): "No!"
  
  

Episode music list: "This is How We Do It" (Acafellas), "Poison" (Acafellas), "Mercy" (Vocal Adrenaline), "La Camisa Negra," "Bust Your Windows" (Mercedes), "I Wanna Sex You Up" (Acafellas)

Greek: Tomorrow Never Dies

Greek:

"The Day After"

It took me six days to get around to watching the new episode of Greek and there really wasn't even much else on television this week...aside from the U.S. Open, that is, which I've been watching constantly. I'm going to be so screwed next week when Gossip Girl, Glee, SYTYCD, etc. start up new episodes.

Anyway, Greek:

• What time of the year is it on Greek again? Late fall, I guess?
• It's the day after the end of the world. Ha.
• Ha, Jimmy is creepy.
• Why would Cappie and Casey dating be so weird for Jordan? She should be one of the few people for whom it's not weird.
• Casey: "I had some cookies. But they were in the 100-calorie packs...so I had seven of them."
• Ugh, you break up with somebody and the ZBZ sisters come and sing to you about a cat? That's horrendous.
• ZBZ girl (whose name I forgot): "I mean, he was a nerd, but he was hot. It was confusing."
• Why wouldn't Casey just assume that whoever Rebecca was kissing was one of her own former boyfriends?
• Calvin: "Not to mention how they'll react having two gay guys in the house. One is fine, two is just bathhouse."
• Dale: "I had to fake a noise bleed to get out of there."
• Aww, is that Dale's Canadian ex-roommate? (Remember, the one who is deathly pale, has a weird, unplaceable accent and wrote a Dale thank you note for making his own bed.) I'm so glad we finally got to see this kid!
• Dale: "The first rule of living every day like the world's going to end is making sure the world actually ends."
• Good for Rusty giving Casey some grief about the Max situation.
• Rusty: "Yeah, Casey, you can help me with my organic chemistry report on the guy from Entourage."
• If Rusty really wants to see Max, he could just head over to the new Melrose Place.
• Beaver: "Take you marks! Fire at Wil-ber."
• Wade's dressed like an old lady. These KTs...
• Calvin: "Fate? Yeah... Eternity...really?"
• Very smooth, Calvin: "Nothing happened!!"
• Security guard: "Yeah, he does look a little sickly."
  Casey: "Yeah, he's hypoglycemic. That's why he looks that way."
  Rusty: "I'm hypoglycemic, not deaf."
• Cappie: "Wait, did you just say Maxipad? That's still funny!"
  Dale: "I know."
• Betsy guesses that "E.C" is Edward Cullen. Ha.
• Calvin: "Thanks for letting me raid your closet, Dale. You were the only person I know that might have clothes resembling anything close to Austin Powers."
• Dale: "I was at that stupid party and everybody was talking about the end of the world and the apocalypse and blah blah blah and it was like every Easter Sunday back home."
• Say something, Calvin! Aww, poor Dale.
• Cappie clocking Rusty with the door was funny.
• Rebecca looks cute as Sydney Bristow.
• Ashleigh: "And, Evan, you're wearing Banana Republic!"
• Do Cappie and Casey have to stand there and talk while Rusty's trying to work? This is not conducive.
• Cappie: "I'm a ninja!"
• Cappie: "I'm a ninja for the ethnic treatment of animals."
  Security guard: "NETA? Not one of you guys again!"
• Cappie: "Did you know that there are more animals used for testing than there are in the entire world?"
  Security guard: "What? That doesn't sound accurate."
• Sheila is horrendous. Calvin needs to go give poor Dale a hug.
• They should get Sheila fired. It can't be ok for her to sleep with her tenants.
• Who did Becca really make out with? I'm assuming it's someone else's boyfriend. Fisher? Cappie? Max? What other guys are there? Beaver? I can see why she'd want to keep it a secret if she was kissing Beav ;-)
• Evan calls Max "Casey's Enginerd"
• Wow! This is a strange change of pace--Evan talking logic and instilling some morality into a situation? (Reminding Cappie that Casey and Max just broke up and that Cappie has no intention of ever leaving college and Casey does.)
• Called it: Rebecca was kissing Fisher. She seriously needs to find a boy who is not already dating one of her best friends.

Ok, kids, hang on: we're officially doing Cappie/Evan/Casey round 3 (round 4? round 5? I can't keep up.) Sorry, Casey/Cappie shippers, but right now I'm going with Evan. He always sucks me in when he's not acting like a flaming jerk (you know, like the time he hit Rusty in the face with a paddle).

(Photo: abcfamily.com) **BTW, props to the ABC Family web site for posting a mini album of pictures from this episode. Keep it up with all subsequent episodes, please. (Not to take the credit, but I did fill out a survey for their web site several months ago and made the suggestion that they post photo albums for each episode.)

Greek: Spy Games and Traveling Pants

Greek:
"From Rushing with Love"

You have no idea how much I need an episode of Greek after the day I've had. Bless this show for being so perfect and sweet and funny and non-taxing.

I do have one complaint, and I bet you can guess what it is if you've ever read my comments about Greek before. Say it with me: No Dale.

Highlights and observations:

• Casey and Ash teach the ZBZs the "devil horns" hand signal for girls interested in Frannie's sorority.
• Mykonos sounds like a great idea for Spring Break!
• Beav and Heath (that's what that guy's name is, right?) fighting over Social Chair was funny. Too bad Marissa Cooper's not here to do it.
• Beav with his cymbals. His facial expressions are priceless.
• Cappie: "Now, Mykonos, who knows where it's at?"
• Rebecca: "Frannie took care of her."
  Ash: "Did Frannie kill her? Because that would really help us."
• Casey: "And all that plan got Jerry Maguire was a goldfish and Renee Zellweger, and we don't want either of those."
• Calvin: "Do you have a crush on him?"
  Rusty: "I have a Rush crush."
• Rusty: "So he did say something about me after the lake."
• Wade: "Just testing out the new cleaver."
• I would not stand that close to Cappie while he's holding a chainsaw.
• Evan: "Hey, Rus, I just wanted to say, no hard feelings."

  Rusty: "No, they're still hard...my feelings."
• I don't think Evan even cares anymore. He's heading straight toward Kappa Tau territory.
• Casey: "I'm responsible for our first D+."

  Ash: "Well, if it makes you feel better, it's not my first one..."
• Casey: "That brush was from Titanic. She paid a fortune for it on eBay."
• Cappie: "We just wanted to keep out heart rate up for when your mom comes in town. Seriously, she's foxy."
• Wade drives a Miata? Maybe he has a trust fund and can pay for Mykonos.
• Oh, Betsy. Even you should know not to trust Frannie.
• Aww, Wade's cleaver gimmick didn't work.
• The Sisterhood of the Traveling ZBZ Pants. Ha!
• Awesome time slot rival joke about Gossip Girl:

  Casey: "I wanted to be Heidi Klum again. Now I have to be freaking Blake Lively."

  Ash: "At least you're blond. How's anyone supposed to know I'm America Ferrera?"
• Wow, Cappie is really married to this karmic synergy philosophy, isn't he?
• Cappie: "And that's something we'll never know, like what hot dogs are made of, how Smurfs reproduce..."
• Ash is wearing the Ugly Betty Guadalajara poncho! Ha! And I gotta say that Casey's Blake Lively imitation ain't bad. The long, curly hair and the low cut top are pretty on-target.
• Calvin is so evolved. He just wants Andy to be happy.
• Awesome inside joke about Michael Rady (Max):

  Pledge girl: "And the guy who plays Kostas, so hot!"

  Casey: "Eh."

  Ash: "I wouldn't kick him out of bed."
• Frannie: "Are you two defecting to my sorority or just crossing the border?"
• Rebecca: "Oh my God, I'm 19! I'm not Sydney freaking Bristow!" (And that's at least Greek's second Alias reference.)
• Rebecca is a pretty terrible mole though. You'd think she'd be better at this.
• Rebecca: "Oh, and I'm sorry about your roots."

  Casey: "That's ok, I know you didn't mean it."

  Rebecca: "No, I meant I'm sorry about them."
• Ash: "Oh great, little Debbie Gibson accepted our bid. That's nice."
• Rebecca stole Frannie's Titanic brush! Awesome. Ha! Casey brushing her hair with it to taunt Frannie was amusing.
• Rusty's still trying to make this "Andy-licious" thing happen? I think we've established that that one's not going to fly.

(photo: abcfamily.com)

Quick Round-Up: 02/04

Random (interesting) stuff from the world of television:

• I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thinks that Burn Notice's Fiona is 15 shades of awesome.
• I know this Yale stuff has gotten stressful, but unless B has had some sort of lobotomy, there's no excuse for this behavior: Gossip Girl SPOILER.
• Oh my poor sweet Kyle...
• I don't know why I even tried to watch last week's SNL (hosted by Steve Martin), but I instantly regretted it. I mean, seriously, more MacGruber? Why, God, why? When Laser Cats is far and away the pre-Weekend Update highlight, we've got a serious problem. But, ultimately, I was glad I toughed it out, because during Weekend Update new-ish cast member Abby Elliott unleashed a stellar Angelina Jolie impersonation. As in, she was so good that I spent a few moments wondering if maybe that was the real Angelina after all. And subsequently I've spent a lot of moments wondering why SNL has kept this gem under their hats for so long. They had to have known that this impression was great--I would have used it in the first skit of the night. Or every skit until someone else could come up with something funnier than Laser Cats or whatever annoying character Kristen Wiig is playing.
• I guess sometimes good does prevail over evil? Case in point: Greek SPOILER.
• I don't know who this singer is, and the song is no "Womanizer" (ha!), but the video features Ryan Hansen as a back-up dancer clad in '80s fitness attire. And that is all you really need to know.
• Lie To Me: My love for David Anders (my sweet Sark) has been well documented (by me). And I'm devoted: I stuck it out with Heroes (which was no easy task) until they decomposed/disintegrated him in front of my very eyes. But I just could not take last week's episode of Lie To Me in which DA guest starred. That show is insufferable with a capital "suffer." Granted, I was only trying to watch it during Lost's commercial breaks, but I couldn't even do that! The whole show is: the main investigators ask someone a question, the person answers, the main investigators proceed to verbally analyze every movement the person made while answering, repeat, repeat, repeat. There's only so much that you can take of: "You thrust your chin, which signifies defiance. Then you touched your neck, which signifies lying. Then you looked to the right, which signifies evasiveness. Then you patted your stomach, which signifies that you're hungry. Then you gave us the stink eye, which signifies that you think we're annoying. Etc." If anyone talked to you like that in real life, you'd seriously punch them in the face.
• And I know I'm about a year behind on this (what's a girl without Showtime to do?), but the second series of The Tudors is rocking my world. There's a lot of good television airing right now, but The Tudors is all I want to watch. Oy, how I love Jonathan Rhys Myers! And Natalie Dormer's Anne Boleyn is all kinds of fantastic. I'm considerably distressed by the inevitability of poor Anne getting her head cut off; I want her to stick around forever.
  

  

(photos: usanetwork.com and Showtime)

Kyle XY: Shock Therapy

Kyle XY: "Electric Kiss"

Highlights:

• Lori: "Jessi: 24/7. It's in the house!"
• Whoa, Kyle totally looked at naked Jessi before he left!
• Jessi: "Is she going to do it? You know, open the store and be generous with the merchandise. That's what you said on the phone last night."
• Don't Amanda and her mom wonder how Jessi and Kyle knew to show up the second after she fainted?
• Kyle's pulled up basketball socks make me giggle. His socks and sneakers are so white!
• Well, Declan sure knows Lori.
• Kyle and a dog! Cute overload!
• Stupid Latnok/Cassidy: "I just kidnapped you and your girlfriend (and planted something in the back of her head), but can we start over?"
• Geez, Josh is just so skeezy! Watching porn in the living room?! At least watch it on your computer in your bedroom or something. Eeew.
• Kyle can come give me a neck massage too.
• Kyle: "Why is there a pain in her neck?" Um, because of Jessi? Ha.
• Um, no, Lori, there are definitely games going on here. You have no idea the games that are going on here.
• Josh: "What do I get out of this deal?"
  Kyle: "Knowing that you helped Amanda."
  Jessi: "Yeah, that's no reward for me either."
• Josh's fake hissy fit over the piano music was hilarious. "Mother!" I like Josh so much better when he's doing anything other than talking about having sex with Andie.
• It's amazing that Amanda can still play while she's gawking at Kyle and Jessi.
• I kind of love it when Amanda gets angry. It's a welcome change from her incessant sweetness.
• Kyle looks all kinds of sexy in his brown jacket/black t-shirt/jeans outfit. The pissed off attitude also definitely adds to the effect.
• Well, it's nice to know that Latnok didn't intentionally plant something permanently destructive into Amanda's head. Or so they say, anyhow.
• Jessi: "Long, healthy hair helps signal a prospective male to your reproductive potential."
• Wait, so this Mark/Lori thing wasn't a Latnok plot all along? I had figured it was an Irina Derevko situation.
• Jessi: "That's Amanda's head? It's empty."
• Jessi is sooooooooo much better when she's being snarky and saying funny things than when she's being all I'm-a-wounded-bird.
• Passing the electricity through a kiss. Oh these kids and their crazy ideas...
• Holy crap! Kyle waaaaaay over estimated the correct voltage there! Not that anyone minds seeing Jessi get thrown across the room...
• Look, I realize that kissing Kyle is probably a very distracting experience and that Amanda can be pretty dense sometimes, but do they really think she's not going to notice that he's sending electrically currents through her head? That is definitely something you would notice.
• Um, good luck, Kyle. I know you're cute, but how are you going to get her to kiss you? She's pretty mad, and you were just kissing her arch-rival.
• Andie's moms extended their vacation for another three weeks?! That's lux. (Though I can't say I'm too disappointed that I won't be seeing Andie and Josh for a while.)
• I guess we're going for a sneak attack here. Doesn't Amanda wonder why Kyle just fell from the sky?
• If Kyle's soooo sorry for kissing Amanda, shouldn't he have some sort of explanation for doing it? I feel like she should be asking him to explain.
• She saw the electric sparks in his hands, right? Please tell me she at least saw that.
• Well, that was depressing. At least Amanda's going to get some scholarship money, I guess.
• Oh no! Next week Kyle gets drunk?! Considering how he acts normally, this is going to be a disaster! (And probably awesomely hilarious.)

Chuck: A Buy More Christmas

Chuck: "Chuck Versus the Santa Claus"

Just the highlights:

• The Buy More-ians commenting (and betting) on the outcome of a car chase reminds me of first season Alias.
• These elf outfits the poor Buy More employees have to wear are awful. Poor Morgan in the yellow tights!
• Ellie: "So my present to my fiance is a ticket to death?"
• Chuck: "This store has a very strict no-bravery policy."
• General: "It's an electronics store, not Basra. Get it under control, Major!"
• Carl Winslow from Family Matters!!!
• That is a terrible picture of Ned.
• Ellie: "A lot of people get by with 9 toes."
  Jeff: "I'm getting by fine with 8!"
• Jeff: "Yes, I'd like to speak to Prisoner 20158 a.k.a. Mom."
• Why doesn't Ellie have the bracelet that her dad gave her mom when she gave birth to Ellie? Maybe she doesn't want it because she doesn't like the dad?
• Ned: "You've been a really good friend to me, Chuck, so I'm going to let your girlfriend go."
  Chuck: "NO!"
  Jeff: "Ouch!"
  Lester: "It's going to be a cold Christmas at the Bartowski house!"
  Buy More girl: "Oh no he didn't!"
• I knew this hostage negotiator was going to be in the Intersect. Saw that one coming for miles.
• Oh no, Fulcrum is all over this situation. Ugh.
• Oh no, now Fulcrum finally knows that the Intersect is in Chuck's head!
• Ned doesn't find anything suspicious about all the boys huddling up and putting their hands in the middle and saying "break!"
• Oh poor Lester! He took quite the kick!
• I knew Morgan would save the day. He usually does, despite is reputation for being a do-nothing.
• Where's Casey? Why was Sarah in the tree lot alone with the Fulcrum guy? Casey went in there with her. Is he easily distracted by a good Fraser fir?
• I guess Sarah doesn't have much confidence in the CIA being able to keep Fulcrum from breaking an agent out of their detention facility, huh? If the situation is that bad, maybe they should just beef up their security.
• The reunion between Big Mike and Carl Winslow was adorable.
• Oh, poor Morgan.
• Doesn't Sarah notice the look of sheer terror that Chuck keeps giving her? She's not a very perceptive spy...
• Whoa, this episode was actually kind of heavy.
  

The bad news: no new Chuck until February 22nd?!?! That's kind of harsh, especially since Chuck has been flat-out tearing it up this season.

Chuck: Kissing Casey

Chuck:
"Chuck vs. The Ex"

Yea, college flashbacks! I was excited to find out the whole story about Jill. It was interesting to find out that she dumped Chuck and got together with Bryce after Chuck had already been kicked out of Stanford. For some reason, I had been under the impression both of those things kind of happened at once. Also, we found out that she and Chuck had more or less broken up before she got together with Bryce, which was also not my original understanding of the situation. Obviously, though, it makes sense for the storyline, because if they want to make Jill sympathetic at all, she can't have had cheated on Chuck with Bryce while they were still together.

Interestingly, it turns out that Chuck might not be as over Jill and onto Sarah as we thought. Plus, it's nice that for once someone who Chuck knows outside of the CIA actually knows the truth about what he does. That's gotta be a load off his mind. However, I doubt that this situation will last very long, since it seems that Chuck is destined to be lonely.

BTW, this episode was flat-out hysterical. Highlights were: Chuck not realizing that his microphone was live and ending up in Jill's phone conversation; Morgan and Lester getting Jeff to choke on the pen cap on purpose so that they'd find out the answers to the Heimlich maneuver portion of the test; and Chuck kissing Casey in a misguided attempt to save his life. My goodness, it just kept getting funnier and funnier.

Thoughts and observations:

• Chuck was a tall, adult-like college student. He hasn't aged a day in 5 years ;-)
• Oh dear, Chuck still listens to his "Jill 2003" playlist? This is worse than I thought. Hasn't Sarah (and Lou) made him forget all about Jill by now?
• Jill: "Is there someone who can help me with the tech requirements for my lecture?"
  Guy: "Under the table."
• Chuck: "When you say reconnect, you mean send her an e-mail or invite her to be my new Facebook friend, right?"
• Chuck: "And by the way, she slept with Bryce Larkin."
  Casey: "Who hasn't?"
• Morgan: "Please, we lost Big Mike to doughnuts years ago."
• Buster: "I shudder to think how you would respond to a real catastrophe: a fire, an earthquake..."
  Lester: "An all-out race war."
• Wow, that's quite a car the CIA got for Chuck (that he can't drive).
• Casey's disguise is no good. He looks like John Tesh.
• Chuck: "It doesn't matter... now that I'm alarmingly well-known at this particular restaurant."
• Chuck: "I understood completely 'do you remember biochem?' but after that you lost me."
• Jeff: "Man, if I wanted to take tests, I would have been a boat captain."
• Lester: "So what happens if we don't pass?"
  Morgan: "Oh, we get lousy jobs and live a small, under-realized life in the Valley. Oooh, scary."
• Casey: "I'll just tranq her; she'll wake up in an hour thinking nothing of it."
• Lester and Jeff did a terrible job of making a diversion.
• Chuck's reaction at Jill's boss landing on the roof of the CIA van.
• Jill's last name is Roberts? Is she related to Summer?
• I like Sarah's green glasses! And her Australian accent is nice too.
• The guy who released the bioweapon is CIA? Ahh, he's a Fulcrum agent. Wow, I really don't understand this Fulcrum organization at all. I think I better understood the endgames of SD-6 and the Covenant and all the random Alias terrorist organizations.
• Chuck: "I thought I could spread the anti-virals through saliva."
  Jill: "That's ridiculous."
• It's good that Jill showed up when she did, or Chuck would have had to go all around the room kissing everybody ;-)

(photo: nbc.com)

Chuck: Seducing Julie Cooper

Chuck:

"Chuck Versus the Seduction"

Let's start by stating the obvious: Melinda Clarke is hands down awesome. How I miss Julie Cooper and her conniving ways...and, well, The O.C. in general. My thanks goes out to Josh Schwartz for continuing to employ the former residents of Newport Beach. And it looks like the Coopers really are making a comeback, since Melinda's Chuck cameo will be followed by Willa Holland (Kaitlin) showing up on Gossip Girl (which was the no-brainer casting decision of the century).

The play-by-play:

• Why does Sarah always pose alluringly at the Buy More door before she walks in? And why does there always appear to be a wind machine pointing at her? ;-)
• Sasha's a girl? Aren't Russian Sashas generally boys?
• The CIA has a "seduction school"? I guess that explains why Sydney Bristow always seemed so good at it.
• It was funny when the hardass NSA lady got all flustered when Roan walked in.
• Chuck: "His liver must look like camouflage!"
• Ha ha, Morgan proving that he knows Ellie better than Awesome was funny.
• I like it when Chuck gets egged into being kind of badass...or if not "badass" at least not as pitiful.
• Casey's expression was great when he overheard Roan say, "Don't worry, Charles. I'll teach you how to get her (Sarah) too."
• Roan: "Why do you think she's known as the Black Widow?"
  Chuck: "Because she's African American and her husband died?"
• Roan: "If he survives the night, it will be a miracle."
  Sarah: "He can hear you!"
• Melinda's Russian accent was hilarious.
• If she doesn't drink, why's she hanging out in a bar?
• Roan: "Aww, poor Anton! That's tragic."
• Ellie: "Why of all the movies in the world would Sister Act be my favorite?"
• Nice Chuck! Stealing her necklace (the Cipher, whatever) was smart.
• Chuck: "Leap from the balcony, landing with a flourish, and the Russian judge gives him a 9.4!"
• Morgan is the wounded gazelle! Oh no, the wheel said he was fired! Wow, it's nice that all the Buy More employees have such an allegiance to Morgan.
• Roan: "Lesson number one about being a spy: Don't fall in love."
• As terms of their return, the Buy More employees demand two hour lunch breaks and unlimited bathroom breaks! Can Lester even given them these privileges? Isn't it company policy?
• Chuck gave the Black Widow directions to the Buy More. Ha ha ha.
• Ha, why does the banner say "New Ass Man" now? Just take the whole thing down.
• Who in the CIA had to spread rose petals all over Ellie's house? That's not a very glamorous job.
• I'm not sure Roan meant for Chuck to wear the white dinner jacket over a graphic tee...
• And: damn that Bryce Larkin! That guy just continuously shows up at the worst moments!

(photo: NBC/Chuck)

Premiere Watch '08: Chuck

Chuck:
"Chuck Versus the First Date"

During it's abridged first season, Chuck got increasing- ly better and better and offered up some tremendously enjoyable episodes (Marshall Flinkman as a gymnast spy, Rachel Bilson as an adorable sandwich maker, Bryce's return, etc.). After a very long, forced hiatus, it was fantastic to see that Chuck's return episode maintained its high standard of last season.

The cast is still across-the-board lovable, the constructs of the show still work, it's still funny, and it's still fun.

• Chuck: "You know what, it's never safe in the car!"
• Chuck portrays the NSA as one heartless bitch of a governmental organization. Chuck, an American civilian, does nothing but help them, and then they just want to off him as soon as the new computer comes online. That's harsh.
• Chuck's reaction to walking in on Ellie and Awesome in the shower was hilarious.
• Nooo, I don't want Chuck to move out of Ellie's place! I think it's sweet that they live together.
• Morgan's hair is looking good.
• Big Mike: "[The assistant manager is] the captain of the ship when I'm not around, which we both know is often."
• Sarah works at the frozen yogurt place now? That's neat. I really don't think she should be licking her fingers while she's serving ice cream though. That's gotta be a health code violation.
• Well, it should certainly help to have Sarah around when Casey comes to kill Chuck.
• Morgan has "a black belt in dumplings." That's my kind of person!
• Wow, Casey has a decontamination shower built into his apartment! Cool!
• Chuck: "Is that a Crown Victoria?"
• Go Casey!
• Chuck: "'Somebody order drive through?' Huh? Did you think that up when you were racing over to save us? Hey, maybe I'll say this after I crash into the restaurant!"
• Chuck (when Jeff starts trying to play footsie with him): "That's not called for, or welcome!"
• Chuck: "Of course you don't see anyone! Who do you think we are, the FBI?"
• Go Chuck! Repeating Morgan's specs (for laser tag or whatever it was; I missed it)--nice!
• Nice catch (of Chuck), Casey! Phew.
• Casey: "Yeah, I know, I catch you when you fall."
• Wow, when he was captured, Chuck handled the situation so well! It was nice to see him not screaming like a girl and deftly dealing with a problem that wasn't a technology issue.
• The song they played at the end was cool, but I don't know what it is.
• So who faked the Sipher thing? Casey? He did take it from Chuck, but he also got awfully close to killing Chuck for someone who knew the new Intersect was going to blow up.
• Lester is not a great assistant manager...
• Chuck: "I want out of Burbank...to--"
  Morgan: "Glendale."

Next week it's Chuck versus Julie Cooper Nichol! If that's what it's coming down to, the fate of the free world isn't looking good--Julie is scary!

Premiere Rating: 8.0/10

(photo: nbc.com)

Premiere Watch '08: Fringe

Fringe: Pilot


J.J. Abrams*, I'm ready for a new Alias. Lay it on me!

And, wow, Fringe presented the kind of pilot that only J.J. can deliver. Brilliant. A truly skillful combination of drama, action, mythology, humor, and evocative cinematography.

The foundation of the show is very Alias: a female agent in a powerful government agency unwittingly unlocks and gets sucked into a secret world a la Alice falling down the rabbit hole. What sets Fringe apart is the initial introduction of the "fringe science" concept, which opens a whole new and humongous can of worms: flesh melting chemicals, telepathic communications, earthquakes on cue, children who don't age, etc. A cornucopia of strange occurrences that are out of the reach of conventional scientific thought. Also known as a world that J.J. Abrams should have a lot of fun playing around in this season.

Alias and Lost certainly delved into the fringe (prophecies, moving islands, time jumping, etc.), but those shows introduced the stranger elements more gradually. Fringe unabashedly presented its sci fi elements right from the get go, which I appreciate. It's just that four years from now, if I'm going to be debating how islands move when you spin a wheel, how a constant works, if polars bears can travel through portals, how injecting the Passenger with green goo causes her to write secret info, why Irina's name is on the Rambaldi artifact, how Sydney fulfilled Rambaldi's prophecy, etc., etc., etc., then I'd like to know that now.

J.J. has promised that this show won't get bogged down in long-term mythologies, but with evil corporations and secret government groups and mind-bending realities, the traps have been set. We'll have to wait and see how it all goes down. Personally, I look forward to finding out.

Other thoughts:

• The opening scene was very reminiscent of Lost. I wonder if there were as many convicts and con artists on that flight as there were on Oceanic 815.
• Eew, at least no one barfed up goo on Oceanic 815. Eeeeeeeeew, or melted! Yuckkkkk.
• The opening credits montage is cool. The music is kind of A Beautiful Mind-esque.
• As soon as John told Olivia he loved her, I knew he was going to end up dead. This isn't the first J.J. Abrams pilot I've ever seen...
• Wow, the 3-D graphic that floats in the middle of the shot with the name of the location is super cool! An innovative update on Alias' black screen with flashing white letters.
• Whoa, the plane can land itself on autopilot. That's cool.
• Abaddon! He seems angrier on this show than on Lost. Less creepy though.
• The background music is very Lost--I kept expecting to see someone opening a hatch or something.
• After Olivia told John that she loved him, it was cemented that he was going to get killed, and two minutes later, he blows up. Yep. J.J., I know your tricks... Oh no, wait, he's just been exposed to some horrific chemicals and put into a drug-induced coma. Eeeesh. It's beginning to look like Sydney's Danny got off easy...
• Sorry, I'm not sure I'm going to buy Pacey as a guy with an IQ 50 points north of genius...
• Why do people keep calling this poor lady "honey" and "sweetheart"? It's offensive.
• Dr. Bishop: "I thought you'd be fatter."
  Peter/Pacey: "You thought I would be fatter? Excellent first words. Perfect."
• So the U.S. government and John's family don't mind that some institutionalized guy came in and took a slice out of him?
• In the face of this kind of horrific terrorism, why isn't everyone in the government running around like Olivia, panicked and following weird leads? Everyone else seemed awfully calm considering the 200 dead people on the plane.
• So why did Pacey go a bit crazy a couple of years ago?
• Peter/Pacey: "Right, because after 6 hours, that's when they're really dead."
• If I had a dollar for every time a female character on a J.J. Abrams show was put in a big tank of liquid with electrodes stuck on her head...
• Pacey: "Yeah, because bootlegging smack in the basement is just the picture of normalcy."
• How does she ask specific questions when her brain is hooked up to her boyfriend's brain if her consciousness is being ripped open by the drugs? I feel like she should have been given more instructions.
• I hope they don't need to get a conviction in a court of law for this chemical guy. "I saw him in a drug-induced state while my consciousness was connected to my solidified boyfriend's" is not going to hold up in court.
• Security's a little lax in the FBI apparently... Peter/Pacey can just wander into the room where the guy accused with killing 200 people is sitting? And beat him up?
• Ha ha, Peter/Pacey threatening the chemical guy was awesome. "No, you can't do this."
• Yea, a blood transfusion! Those are always fun! (See Sark in Alias' 1x21).
• Oh no!!! Olivia saved her boyfriend only to find out that he was a bad guy working with the chemical guy! I didn't see this one coming... Nicely played, J.J. I was seeing his character as a purely Danny Hecht figure, but he's actually kind of a mix between Danny and the Iceman. Very interesting.
• Nice chase scene.
• John's last words: "Ask yourself why Broyles sent you to the storage facility"? Dude, when you're dying, just spit out the important stuff--don't ask critical thinking questions; there's no time! (Honestly, I was a little confused as to why she was sent to the storage facility too, but I thought that was because I wasn't paying enough attention.)
• Well, I did end up being kind of right about John, because he's dead now...
• After John died, I totally expected as scene where Olivia storms into Broyles' office and demands to join his unit in the vein of red-haired Sydney barging into Sloane's office with the circumference, but it never happened. Instead she went to talk to Peter/Pacey to get him on board. Not that I blame her for going to see him; he is easy on the eyes, and she'd had a rough day.
• The show is certainly going to set up a will they/won't they situation with Olivia and Peter. I think it will be interesting to see how well that works. On Alias, it worked very well with Sydney and Vaughn (until the ill-advised post-Super Bowl episode ruined it) because they were agent and handler and thus unequivocally not allowed to get involved with each other. Olivia and Peter would seem to have fewer obstacles: he's not officially in the FBI, so there are no anti-fraternization rules.
• Oh no, another evil corporation, Massive Dynamic. How Darma Initiative/Hanso Foundation.
• "How long has he been dead?" "Five hours." "Question him." Awesome.

On a scale where Alias' flawless, world-rocking pilot episode scores a 10, I think Fringe falls only a little bit behind. In fact, it probably have scored higher if I'd never seen the Alias pilot and this was my first sojourn into the J.J. world, which seems so fresh and exciting the first time you jump in.

Premiere Rating: 9.0/10

*When I refer to J.J. Abrams, I mean him and the entire team of talented people who work with him.

(photos: fox.com/fringe)

Burn Notice: Back in Miami

Burn Notice: "Breaking and Entering"

Yea, Burn Notice is back! It's nice to reclaim at least some of the glory that was last summer's television. Let's just see if I can remember anything that was going on...

The best part about Burn Notice is the characters. Michael, Fiona, and Sam are all extremely likable, and Michael and Fee are so cool that it almost hurts. The second best part about Burn Notice is that it's so freaking fun. It's like Alias before we had to worry about prophecies and entire cities blowing up.

Not that Burn Notice doesn't have it's share of high stakes. After all, Michael is being coerced into working for the people who "burned" him (for some unknown reason) and who do not seem like the nicest bunch of folks you'll ever want to meet. The lady on the phone is all kinds of annoying with her threats, but at least by the end of the episode we got to put a face to her voice. It wasn't a big surprise that the seemingly-random "firecracker" at the bar turned out to be the mystery lady, but it was still entertaining.

Highlights:

• It's nice to see Fiona again since seeing the actress who plays her (Gabrielle Anwar) in The Tudors playing Henry's sister (who ended up being kind of pathetic, which is something Fiona will never be).
• Michael (on airbags): "Gone are the days when you could run through a line of trees without getting a face full of nylon."
• Back to Miami already...Michael had barely left.
• Poor Jimmy. He has quite an unfortunate tale.
• Sam trying to fit into Michael's shirt.
• Ha, nice accent!
• The scene where Mike and Fee were shooting at each other and trying to miss was pretty awesome.
• The Psych commercial of Gus and Shawn singing "Ebony and Ivory" is hilarious.
• Spies have such extensive experience in the strangest stuff (cutting through a floor, for example).
• Michael laughing when Jimmy tells the security guy to take off his jacket and pants.
• Jimmy giving Michael his car as a thank you.
• Ahh, the obligatory beginning-of-season-two break up. This is television; we can't have the couple be together, now can we?

I'm glad to have this show back. Now if only Damages had returned too...

Gossip Girl: Restoring the Natural Order

Gossip Girl: "All About My Brother"
All hail Queen B! It's good thing that Blair didn't go to all the trouble of moving to France, because even without Serena's promised help, it only took B three episodes to fully resume her status at the top of the social pyramid. And thank goodness Jenny has finally socially crashed and burned for what we can only hope is that last time.

I thoroughly enjoyed this episode--at least as much as I can enjoy an episode with no Chuck and plenty of Jenny. Even though he recently developed a fairly pleasing personality, Nate was not particularly missed tonight. Chuck, however, must return. Immediately.

I really liked tonight's renewed focus on the Gossip Girl blog, which, after all, is the premise of the show. It seems to have been slipping into the background for a while now, but I'm glad it was at the forefront tonight. The more I get to hear Kristen Bell, the better (is it wrong that when she says "You know you love me, XOXO" in the opening, it almost brings a tear to my eye?).

Eric's outing was the second coming out I've seen on TV in two days. At least Eric is dealing with it 50-55 years before Uncle Saul got around to it on Brothers and Sisters. But, seriously, Eric met Asher at the Ostroff Center and liked him? Him? Because if the dude was half the asshat in rehab that he is in the outside world, Eric made a major character misjudgement.

And Serena. Oh, Serena, things are not getting better. Early in the episode, when Georgie showed up with the video, it felt very anticlimactic, because all I was getting from the video was that Serena was involved in some sort of orgy. Yes, participating in drunken orgies is not exactly a sign of great moral character, but it did not seem nearly bad enough to cause all this trouble--after all, whatever she did was supposed to scandalize even Chuck...and we all know that an orgy wouldn't phase old Chuck for a second.

But, then, in the final moments, we find out what I've been speculating for weeks: Serena killed someone, or so she says. I think the most remarkable part of the revelation scene was that Serena's tears and eyeliner were combining to make her look eerily like Mia from Heroes. And I want no reminders of Mia from Heroes.

I see why Serena maybe doesn't want to tell Dan that she killed someone during some sort of orgy, but not telling him anything isn't working any better. It seems like she could come up with some kind of half-truth ("I knew Georgina when I was really wild and she's a horrible influence and knows things that I did that I'm not proud of.") that would at least buy her some more time.

Highlights!

• Nelly Yuki is now part of Blair's gang! Yea! This is awesome news! (Look, she's in the picture on the far left!) That girl rocks some seriously wicked glasses. I'm surprised she has time for these events, parties, and scheming sessions, what with being a concert pianist, scholar and all, but I'm not complaining.


• Wow, "Sarah" really latched on to Dan/Vanessa. They should find that suspicious. They (especially Vanessa) are not that interesting.


• I called that Eric and Asher had a relationship even before Dan saw Asher kissing a boy on the street.


• Lilly: "When you revise the seating chart, don't forget to put Mr. Spitzer as far away from Serena's table as possible."


• Jenny's not a very good bitch. Her delivery on "Even you should know that jealously clashes with L.L. Bean pants" was off. Or maybe it's just a really weird thing to say. I don't know, something about that was weird.


• Dan: "And she dissed my pants."


• Hazel (?) (when Gossip Girl reported that Jenny's bf is gay): "Now you know how Vanessa Hudgens feels."


• Like the girls in Blair's posse, I'm glad Gossip Girl "got her balls back" too.


• Blair said "endgame"! For an Alias fan, that's pretty exciting.


• Why would Nelly Yuki be displaying such loyalty to Blair one week after she messed up her ability to do well on the SATs? I guess Nelly has yet to figure out the extent of Blair's scheming.


• Georgina! Outing Eric at dinner was way harsh! Wow, I knew he was gay and I knew he was going to be outed, but I didn't think she was going to do it. Poor Eric always gets dragged into Serena's battles


• Rufus should knock Jenny over the head with something. He's about the worst parent ever. She weighs like 90 pounds--how hard is it to keep her from going out a door?


• Aw, Eric confides in Chuck! That's so sweet.


• Blair's party dress was fantastic.


• Blair (dispensing life lessons): "The most important parties to attend are the ones you're not invited to."


• It's nice to see Blair's agenda finally lining up on the side of truth and justice for once. She's acting like a superhero tonight by avenging Eric and taking down Asher and Little J.


• Izzy: "And to think, I almost asked you to wear a matching dress!"


• Gossip Girl: "Don't worry, Little J, the sun will come out tomorrow, even though your boyfriend did today."


• If it's an consolation after her fall from grace, Jenny's dress was pretty. I wonder what she had to steal/pawn to get that one.


• And this line wasn't funny, but I thought it was sweet and rather beautiful. Blair: "We're sisters, we're family, what's you is me. There's nothing you could say that would ever make me let go."

And next week, it seems that Serena decides that the best way to keep her horrible secret drink heavily and sleep around. That's brilliant, S.

(photo: cwtv.com)

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.

Chuck: More of a Shoe Occasion

Chuck:
Episode 3

This was a really good episode. Sending Chuck on missions a la Alias season 1 is genius.

Bullets:

• I liked the scene with Ellie, Morgan, and Awesome debating Chuck's future.
• Chuck: "So, sneakers? Or is this more of a shoe occasion?"
• Chuck's becoming more and more Seth-Cohen sarcastic.
• Chuck learning to tango from Captain Awesome was great.
• Waterman: "I'm too young to retire; too rich to work."
  Chuck: "That's quite a pickle you find yourself in, Waterman."
• Chuck: "It has a Bob Ross-ian quality. Bob Ross? You know, the guy from PBS..."
• Chuck: "Right, apparently, I learned the girl's part of this dance."
• Villain: "Now I have to kill you."
  Chuck: "Have to? No, no, I disagree. I disagree vehemently!"
• Chuck's boss gave him extra points for style since he fixed the computers in his tux.
• Casey: (after throwing a microwave at a bad guy) "Now that's what I call moving some merchandise."

Premiere Watch '07: Moonlight

I didn't really know what to expect from the Moonlight pilot since it sounds like they've been reworking it until very recently. I've never been a big vampire show fan. I did like the very few episodes of Angel I've seen, but I think that was primarily because David Boreanaz is cute. Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised by Moonlight. I guess it's not the best show ever, but I was entertained and I think it could turn into something pretty cool. It's definitely better than NBC's Friday night offering of Las Vegas.

First things first, it was nice to have Jason Dohring back. It seemed like his Moonlight character was basically Logan Echolls as a 400-year-old vampire, and that's fine with me. So now we know that there are apparently at least two ways to become the "obligatory psychotic jackass":

• a) being the abused son of a famous movie star, or
• b) being a 400-year-old rich vampire.

Interesting how that works out. I thought it was impressive that although Logan was only in about 10 minutes of the episode, he got about 85% of all the good one-liners. That's Logan for you. My favorites were:

• "You're only 90; you haven't been chased through the streets with torches."
• "What is this, like nonfat soy vegan blood?"
• "Now we got the food mouthing off about the farmer."

And, I loved that in addition to giving Jason Dohring another job, the Moonlight people gave Veronica Mars fans a shout-out by having the murdered girl be a student at Hearst College, which is none other than the college of choice for Veronica, Logan, Mac, Wallace, and Piz. But, seriously, how messed up is this poor fictional college? First there were the rapes, than the murder of the dean, and now the vampire-esque murders of two students? Geez. Stay the heck away from this school, people! And especially its teaching assistants, who as it turned out were behind the dean's murder and the murder of the two girls! (Seriously, how great would it have been if Mick had run across a certain tiny blond P.I. also investigating the murders?)

Another thing I loved about Moonlight, as the hardcore Alias fan that I am, was the appearance of Marshall Flinkman as Beth's camera guy! Yea for Marshall! I had just wondering when and where he'd show up again. Now Moonlight just has to increase his role a bit. Heck, let's recenter the show around Marshall and Logan. That would be hilarious.

Otherwise, Mick (Alex O'Loughlin) was easy on the eyes and did a pretty good job as the broody hero. I was left a bit confused though about whether Beth is Mick's love interest or like a surrogate daughter. Because if she's both, that's pretty gross. And I don't see how she could have witnessed that epic vampire-on-vampire battle and doesn't really seem to remember it. Seriously, she of all people should know vampires exist.

And I could live without the Celine Dion and Evanescence...although I guess I should just be thankful that they didn't use "Young Folks" too.

Premiere Rating: 6.5 / 10

Premiere Watch '07: Chuck

Well, Chuck was the second Josh Schwartz pilot to debut this fall (read my take on Gossip Girl here), and--not surprisingly--it was pretty darn good too. Chuck is certainly less likely of the two to garner comparisons to The OC, but, for the record, there were several fights, a party, and a trip to a Bait Shop-esque club.

Anyway, Chuck was delightful. Namely because of, well, Chuck. What's not to love about a character who is a little bit Seth Cohen, a little bit Jim Halpert, and a little bit Ed Stevens? That's a pretty unbeatable combination in my book (see? I still subconsciously quote The OC).

But, here again, Josh has created another "nerd" or "outsider" that is just too darn adorable to be a nerd or outsider (just like Dan from Gossip Girl). I was beside myself to understand why Chuck doesn't have women lined up around the block to go out with him--his date behavior was so cute. I suppose the secret to Chuck's isolation is that he never puts himself out in the world, as he still hasn't recovered from his college girlfriend dumping him for his roommate Bryce. (Speaking of the college girlfriend, can that please be who Rachel Bilson is going to play when she shows up for a multi-episode arc? That would be fantastic!)

Of course, the premise of the show is that Chuck accidentally absorbs all of the government's intelligence secrets into his head and unwittingly finds himself caught up in the dangerous world of spies and secret agents. The spy stuff turned out to be a lot of fun too. I loved how when Bryce was trying to escape, he did everything in the most complicated way possible (sliding under the table, going through the window above the door, etc.) ...because, seriously, how many times did Sydney Bristow make things harder on herself than she needed to? The ridiculousness continued when Sarah showed up dressed in black and was able to throw Chuck's computer in the air, beat everyone up, and still easily catch the computer. I guess the CIA has begun to recruit rhythmic gymnasts.

Another way Chuck spoofed previous spy shows was in having all the intelligence people speak in as many hard-boiled cliches as possible. This was really funny at first, but my concern is that the agents may have been a little too cliched. It looks like Sarah is well on her way to sprouting more of a personality (since we saw that Bryce was her boyfriend), and I hope that at least some of the other intel people become a bit more multifaceted.

Random question: do NSA agents really run around killing CIA agents willy-nilly? That seems kind of wrong. And is Sarah even allowed to be doing any of this spy stuff in the U.S. because my understanding was the the CIA can only operate outside of our borders? And why did Bryce clandestinely download his own government's secrets? Didn't the CIA already know that stuff? Ok, I realize that hardcore fans will tolerate some loose-ends when watching spy shows (see Rambaldi's "endgame"), but Chuck should maybe make more of an effort to not lose us all right off the bat.

Like The OC, much of the charm of Chuck is in the little witty comments, such as:

• Chuck: "Pedal safe!"
• Harry: "Do you know what 5 minutes is in Buy More dollars?"
  Chuck: "I didn't know we had our own currency."
• Chuck to the 'ninji' robbing his house: "Please, not the computer!"
• Chuck's coworker hypothesizing that the break in might be some sort of "ninji vendetta" and Chuck's response: "That's super. Thanks for thinking outside of the box on that one."
• Chuck asking the LargeMart employee to get "the guy at the front who's checking receipts" to come help. (I hate it when they do that at Circuit City!)
• CIA guy: "Nice guys aren't sent government secrets."
• NSA guy: "Don't puke on the C4."

And my other favorite parts and random observations:

• Was that the clip of Ryan carrying Marissa after her overdose in Tijuana in there amongst the other pictures encoded with government secrets? It sure looked like them. Does that mean that we were absorbing dangerous secrets while watching The OC? Because if it does, I'm in trouble.
• I loved that Chuck calls his sister's boyfriend "Captain Awesome."
• Is Agent Scardino (from Lois & Clark) Josh Schwartz's new best friend or something? First he showed up in The OC finale, and now he's the dad who didn't tape his daughter's ballet recital on Chuck. He's become the Greg Grunberg to Josh's J.J. Abrams!
• How smart was Chuck to use the porn site virus to crash the computer hooked up to the bomb! See, nerds make good CIA agents.
• The episode featured some good music: "Cobrastyle" by the Teddybears and then The Shins.

Premiere Rating: 8.0 / 10

(image from nbc.com)

Best TV of Summer 2007

Well, quite honestly, I didn't do much of value this summer. I did, however, watch an awful lot of television, so I figure I might as well handicap it down to a nice little "Best Of" list. Here goes:

Best Reality Show:
So You Think You Can Dance -- For the second straight summer, I've been captivated by this show's great dancers with fun personalities who hip hop, mambo, waltz, quick step, krump, cha cha, swing, jazz, and contemporary (ok, I realize those last two aren't really verbs) their way into our hearts. My Season 3 highlights: Pasha, Sara, Pasha and Sara's West Coast Swing, Pasha and Lauren's Transformers hip hop, Neil and Sabra's table jazz dance, Danny and Lacey's mambo, Pasha and Lacey's mannequin hip hop, and of course the two guys swing dancing during the auditions.

Best New Show and Best Drama:
Damages -- Yea for FX giving us a show this intelligent and this exciting and this well-made in the summer! The great thing about this show is the characters keep getting smarter and more willing to do absolutely anything to get their way. The stakes have been ratcheted up so high that the audience feels like it's all about to hit the fan at any moment. Patty Hewes steals the show (she is being portrayed by Glenn Close, after all), but many of the other characters are amazingly fascinating--and amazing flawed--from Frobisher to Katie to Gregory to Tom to Fisk.

Funnest New Show:
Greek -- It's not the smartest show and it's probably not going to change the world, but Greek is pretty darn fun and there's nothing wrong with that. The characters are varied, interesting, and mostly likable (and many seem like people you'd actually find on any college campus). Greek is funnier than you'd expect and, on occasion, actually shows physics geeks discussing physics.

Best Show I Now Realize I Should Have Been Watching All Along:
Burn Notice -- After catching a few reruns last week, I now regret not being on the Burn Notice bandwagon all summer. The show has the "fun spy" feel of Alias and its well-utilized, often comedic voice-over smacks of Veronica Mars. Congrats to USA for finally finding Jeffrey Donovan a vehicle that showcases his talent and total hotness. And I love that this USA series is doing a season-long story arc (unlike Monk and Psych which have become terminally serial).

New Show That I Totally Respect Yet Have No Desire To Watch For Any Extended Period Of Time:

Mad Men -- Something about watching this show makes me feel yucky...which is exactly what they are going for. It's intricate, sneaky, and gorgeous. And the whole thing makes me feel fantastically uneasy, much like I imagine actually having to spend time in an ad agency in the 1950s would.

Best Character:
Cliff, Hidden Palms -- While Hidden Palms was nothing to write home about (and had possibly the worst main title sequence ever), the character of Cliff was a revelation. Michael Cassidy masterfully walked the line between devastatingly charming and possibly dangerous in a tour de force performance that transcended the series. It turned out that Cliff wasn't as nefarious as we originally were led to believe, but still, he had a knack for making bad look very appealing.

Funniest Lines of the Summer:

Cappie, Greek: "We may be puking, but the Omega Chis are not used to running on puke like we are."

Gus, Psych: "Some people are just born evil...like the kid from The Omen, the Children of the Corn, Chad Michael Murray."

Ellen, Damages: "Emily Dickinson. That bitch will say anything."

Pawn Shop Guy, Kyle XY: "Ok, easy, Veronica Mars!"

Best Unintentionally Funny Moment:

"I Don't Dance" baseball number, High School Musical 2. Ok, in my opinion, there wasn't much to redeem HSM2. Trite, sappy, rather poorly acted, etc., etc. But, I am more than willing to declare the "I Don't Dance" baseball song and dance number an instant classic. Because, I mean, what makes more sense than a boy adamantly claiming that he doesn't dance while dancing his way through a baseball game? Factor in some strong, if unintended, homoerotic overtones and this scene ranks as one of the funniest moments of the summer.

Stand-out episodes:
"Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan" Monk -- In my favorite episode of Monk this season, Sarah Silverman (who I don't always enjoy) guest stars as Monk's obsessed fan and shows us her Monk-centric dioramas complete with a Troll doll serving as Natalie. And, yes, those are Monk's pants she's wearing...

(more to come)

Woot! More David Anders!

According to TVGuide.com's Michael Ausiello, the Heroes execs are promoting David Anders (my favorite Alias-ian of them all) from recurring character to series regular already, before any of his episodes have even aired! Yea David! I'm glad the Heroes people have recognized what I've been saying to everyone who will listen for years: David Anders is a freakin star. Now if only he could figure out how to look less goofy in red carpet pictures (like the one in Ausiello's blog). How such a gorgeous boy can take such dorky pictures is beyond me.

And major kudos to the Heroes execs for figuring out that the only way to get me at all interested in the happenings of feudal Japan was to put Julian Sark smack in the middle of it. That was genius.