Premiere Watch '09: FlashForward

FlashForward: "No More Good Days"

I liked this pilot. Sure, it was trying awfully hard to be Lost at times, and some parts worked better than others. For example, I wasn't particularly infatuated with any of the characters. I'm sure we'll get to know more about them and hopefully grow to like them more in future episodes. It would have been difficult for a show to both showcase its characters and establish this kind of high-concept premise all in the pilot episode. (Not that it's impossible--Lost was able to do it, and I think that Life on Mars did a pretty good job of it last year.)

But I did find the high-concept premise to be really interesting. Everyone time-hopping to the future all at once!? How strange and interesting. It actually seems a bit like a Fringe plot, but I like that it's this one strange occurrence that we're going to deal with in this series, where as Fringe has a never-ending parade of weird events.

One good/bad thing about the FlashForward pilot was that it made me feel very, very nervous. Like Lost, I think FF has the potential to be a very interesting show, but it's not exactly low-stress entertainment. I'm interested to see if FF begins to work in some occasional comedic relief (like Lost has done masterfully), because watching it might give me an anxiety attack if it doesn't.

Play-by-play:

• So apparently everyone blacking out at the same time can cause some major problems.
• Penny has no accent!
• Those balloons are awesome!
• The cinematography looks Lost-esque. Be on the look out for Jacob. I would not be at all surprised if he's behind all this.
• OMG, for a second, I thought the guy talking about his Marine daughter was Richard Hatch!
• Demetri: "I cannot dance to 'Islands in the Stream'! I will never live it down."
• I like the rapid-fire jumping around from person to person to this jazzy music.
• The pickup truck flying through the air wasn't a sign that they needed backup?
• Oh no! There go the balloons!
• Charlie dreamt that "there were no more good days." That's not good.
• Where'd the kangaroo come from? Is that like the polar bear on Lost? Six years from now, are we still going to be wondering where the kangaroo came from?
• Oh geez, airplanes!
• "People probably died walking up the stairs."
• Wow, Mark is perceptive for noticing a calendar and putting together that his consciousness jumped to the future. Well, maybe not--everyone else seems to have noticed a calendar too.
• They jumped to April 29, 2010, 10 p.m. So can there be a second season to this show or does it all become a mute point after April 29?
• Go Demetri! Even with all this going on, he still managed to haul the blonde into the station.
• The guy who saw himself in London during the flash looks familiar. (Holy cow, how mortifying is it to admit that I think I recognize this guy--Lee Thompson Young--from The Famous Jett Jackson? Oh wow.)
• That was not a very realistic looking view of London from the window. It kind of looked like a cartoon.
• OMG! Big Ben's on fire! Put it out!!!
• Convenient that people were undergoing brain scans at the time.
• Uh oh. Demetri saw nothing.
• Aww, this poor dude was in the bathroom. That's embarrassing.
• So who thinks Mark knocks this girl up? She did laugh at his "sweetheart" crack.
• They're going to need a really big web site if everyone's posting their visions on it. I bet someone's already started the web site anyway. Twitter probably crashed from all the traffic.
• You don't always dream when you're asleep, do you? So wouldn't it be possible that someone who saw nothing was asleep?
• So because he's alive in April, does that mean that Bryce wasn't going to kill himself anyway? Or him being alive in April proves that the visions were always supposed to happen? (Oh geez, it feels like we're plunging into the debates we've already had for Lost.)
• Aaron's daughter is Kris Furillo from Wildfire!!!!!!!!!!!
• Whoa, this guy's daughter was alive in the flash forward. That's strange.
• If Olivia (Penny) didn't want to talk about what she saw, she probably shouldn't have asked Mark what he saw. That kind of invited a follow up question.
• I know who the guy Olivia was with was! He was on Swingtown.
• And there's the friendship bracelet. Never has a friendship bracelet seemed so ominous.
• This FBI girl has no life. She's been watching hours and hours and hours of surveillance tapes all day long? Can't anyone else help her with this? And how did she spot that guy? Crazy good eyes!
• I'm very unnerved by all of this.

Premiere Rating: 7.5/10

Greek: Three's Company

Greek:
"Three's a Crowd"

The Phillies are in the World Series for the first time in 15 years, and I've been an avid Phillies fan for 13 long seasons. So, obviously, I'm watching the series when it's on, which means that I have to play catch-up on my other television commitments. It's hectic, but I finally got to this week's Greek, which is the second to last episode before a mini-season finale (and please don't ask me which season it is).

The best part of this episode was the further exploration of Rusty and Dale's "bromance" (to borrow a term from Chuck Bass). Those two are just so adorable. It was fun to see Rusty get jealous of Dale's Purity Pledge brother Kirk (played by guest star Dan Byrd of Aliens In America) who was extremely hyper-active--a.k.a. "totally baked." But it was even better to see Rusty stand up to Kirk and defend Dale when they all landed in the slammer. I'm hoping that Rusty's stay in the Kappa Tau house next year is short and he finds his way back to rooming with Dale quickly.

Highlights:

• Ashleigh did say she wanted fewer responsibilities next year, but now she's got more.
• Thank goodness--there are only two more weeks in this year! This second semester has lasted forever!
• Ha ha ha, Kirk hid behind Dale's bed for 4.5 hours.
• The Omega Chis are really planning a party for next year already? They're really on top of things.
• Beaver: "You've turned into a serial monogamist."
  Cappie: "Where did you even learn that phrase?"
  Beaver: "Wikipedia."
• Cappie: "'Serial monogamist' is just a stone's throw away from being 'the marrying kind'!"
• Kirk hid in Rusty's clothes hamper and jumped out at him ;-) That does sound pretty amusing.
• Dino! There he is again! And then he's gone...
• Dale: "Hey, how 'bout a little Bible Boggle, huh? Remember that time you spelled Leviticus and Harvy Brewbauer cried?"
• I love Rusty's annoyed facial expressions.
• Kirk: "Hey, Dale, your pajamas just blew out the window!"
  Dale: "Huh. Must be the light weight cotton, you know 'cause my winter flannels never have that problem."
• Kirk's on Rumspringa! (Except he's not Amish.)
• Oh my gosh--Rusty wasn't even alive during the '80s. That's depressing.
• Casey overhears Cappie tell Rusty that "there are worse things than being the odd man out of a threesome."
• Casey could get held back like Frannie so that she can run for president again for her super-senior year.
• Casey's big plan was sending girls in bikinis over to the Omega Chi house? Couldn't she have come up with a classier plan?
• They should have invited Max to this '70s party for a nice Swingtown inside joke that no one would get.
• Calvin: "Is Ferret human?"
• Calvin: "And what does one have to do to be labeled the 'house slob' of Kappa Tau?"
• Wow, Heath really goes all out with the costumes for the theme parties.
• Dale: "You know, he once brokered peace between a Presbyterian and a Methodist."
• Poor Casey, she was actually right about this situation, but she just looks bitter.
• I bet Dan Byrd had a fun time playing Kirk. He just got to show up and jump around and act like a crazy person.
• Cops! They do exist in this town! And they're patrolling for underage drinking!
• Dale: "And we'll never watch the E! channel again, because it's full of temptation."
• Uh oh, the new president of ZBZ is Evan Chambers. That's not good.
• Ha, Beaver's not positive that he, Cappie, and the other guy (whose name I don't remember) didn't have a "round one."
• Cappie: "Nice pajamas, Beav."
  Beaver: "Thank you! They floated down from the sky."
• The Omega Chis walk through the street singing? And they're the "number one" frat? Really?
• I think Ash could have won by more than 3 votes if she took off her silly hat.
• Dale: "Hey Chip!"
  Cappie: "Hey Dale!"

So, are we ready for the obligatory mini-season finale make out session between Cappie and Casey (that leads to nothing) next week? Because that never gets old at all...

(photo: abcfamily.com)

Premiere Watch '08: Greek*

Greek: Crush Landing

*Tech- nically, last night's episode of Greek was not it's premiere. Unfor- tunately, when Greek did premiere it's fall series last week, I was in the midst of a complete computer breakdown, and no blogging was getting done. Also, it's so hard to figure out what season it is on Greek anyway. Did it just premiere it's 2nd season? Is this just season 1, part 3? I'm sure I could find out if I really wanted to, but instead I'm blogging this episode and calling it a day.

Just a quick note on last week's episode: Dale stole the show (shocker). Calvin is also quite funny, and the Rusty/Dale/Calvin odd trio makes for some entertaining TV.

Also, it bugs me to no end that we're still supposedly in the second half of the second semester of the school year that started in real time last summer. This has been the most eventful school year ever.

Anyway, last night's episode: Not a bad effort. I liked the Casey/Ashleigh/Hotness Monster interactions and also enjoyed Rusty's identity crises. I'm glad he got himself sorted out (it made me smile when was already up and dressed when his alarm went off the next morning).

Oddly, or not oddly, Cappie is back to being Super Immature Cappie, who pops up every once in awhile until Sage and Wise Cappie turns up. That kid is kind of hot and cold. I've seen nothing to suggest that Cappie isn't perfectly emotionally capable of sensitively helping Rebecca through her parents' divorce, but he sure ain't doing it. He's helped plenty of people through plenty of problems over the past couple semesters, but now he's worthless. Is he just having an off night, or does it somehow involve who he's helping? In next week's promo, Rebecca implies that, were she Casey, Cappie would be perfectly capable of being the serious, helpful boyfriend. Let's hope she sticks to that rationale and we get rid of Rebeppie (Cabecca?) for good.

Also, Evan is now totally back to being all kinds of sleazy. Remember those four episodes where he was the sweetest guy in the world? Ahh, those were the days...

I always scream bloody murder when Dale isn't in an episode, and I'd like to expand that condemnation to now include episodes with no Calvin.

I'd also like to raise a question: how many boyfriends/love interests does Casey need in one semester? Holy cow. By my count in the spring semester, she's had: Evan, Cappie, the 16-year-old, Junior from Wildfire, the Mr. Purrfect guy, and now Hotness Monster. I mean, good for her, but doesn't that seem a little excessive?

Highlights and observations:

• Ashleigh: "I have a lot of nice things in here, and I don't want blood on them."
• Rusty: "Can't talk, Cappie. I'm late for class."
  Cappie: "Are your pants already down there?"
• Hmm, an RA who hides in his room...I had one of those too, actually.
• Rebecca: "I have new respect of Chelsea Clinton."
  Cappie: "Me too! Now that she's grown into her face, she's foxy."
• Drew Collins: "I have a favor to ask you. Please save me from having to read about the pregnant man by telling me your life story."
• Dale: I'm about to regurgitate if this RA doesn't show up soon."
• Sorry, this Max character is a way better RA than mine was. (And Max is pretty darn cute...it's too bad the actor is still rocking his Swingtown hairdo.)
• Cappie: "Your skipping classes, you're avoiding schoolwork... It's like you're a real, live boy."
• Casey: "I believe that's a case of the flip flop calling the sandal black."
• Ashleigh: "Maybe we can share him. I'll take the top half--wait, let me think that through."
• Max: "Is it too hard for you?"
  Rusty: "Not really."
  Max: "Well, that's pretty arrogant."
• Ashleigh: "Tell you what, I'll wear flats if you take out your chicken cutlets!"
• Dale: "Oh, well, I used my last bottle of chloroform when I was on Murder, She Wrote."
• Casey: "Ash likes to keep little mementos too, don't you?"
  Ashleigh: "I keep things that mean something to me--objects, not ex-boyfriends."
• Ashleigh: "Yeah, we've seen each other through good times and bad. Like that time you hooked up with that 16-year-old! Oops!" (Ha, go Ashleigh!)
• Dale (after describing Samir's failed attempt with the "dynamite"): "But I ended up getting in with this clothes hanger. I mean, it really couldn't have been easier."
• Wow, all of a sudden Dobbler's doesn't serve alcohol underage people.
• I think Max is Rusty's sole mate.

Premiere* Rating: 6.5/10

(photo: abcfamily.com)