Can spring shows save television?

I may go so far as to say that this fall’s television schedule was less than exciting. Aside from some neat surprises in that of Fringe and Sanctuary, most of the new shows were pretty boring and of course there are my favorites that either haven’t come back yet or are yet to make their season debut. As for the former, I won’t even get into the whole Jericho argument. It’s not that it’s old and done, but it’s old and done.

I am excited for a few shows that will begin airing in the next few weeks. I just finished watching season 4 of LOST and I thought it was as thought-provoking as ever and I’m pretty excited to see where they can go with a full season. Additionally, I like the direction of 24 and thought that Redemption gave us a glimpse of the old "Jack." And finally, it is with excitement and some sadness that I think about the last remaining episodes of Battlestar Galactica. I don’t know how many episodes that are planning to air, but SciFi is going to take a big hit without viewers having this and the Stargate franchise to look forward to. Yes, I know that Caprica and Stargate Universe are in the cards, but they’re both untested and unseen. Only time will tell.

Can Heroes Really Deliver This Season?

The producers, writers, and actors from NBC’s hit show, Heroes, say that season three is meant to get back the audience they lost during the erratic and cut short second season. The formula, they say is non-stop action thanks to the introduction of the “villains” that escape from Level 5. To me, this means introducing us to as bunch of new characters when season 2 basically left us all wondering what the hell happened to the original characters. Personally, I would have preferred to have had a continuation of the storyline from season 2 because while it was far out there, I was getting used to it, but now they take the show into a whole new direction and once again, it’s confusing.

Is anyone else confused about what the hell is going on with the good guys? Is Peter good or not? Is Sylar evil or not? Does Claire really matter to the plot? Personally, the only interesting character right now is Dr. Mohinder Suresh. He’s the constant and he delivers with every scene he’s in, but the rest of the cast is mercurial at best.

All that said; I want to be fair as the show as only had a couple of man episodes this season and even in season 1, no one had a clue what was going on to this point. So unlike some other shows making a return, I will leave total judgment for a while. After all, I’m a fan of the show and I want it to be successful. To be continued…

The West Beverly gang is back, well sort of!

As most of you know, I was pretty big on the political bandwagons the past couple of weeks. With all the convention activity, most networks stayed away from airing any new television episodes or show pilots, everyone except for The CW. Yes, that little network that has such mellow dramatic hits as Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, and Supernatural. Given the roots of FOX and then UPN, The CW was long-rumored to be ready to air the new 90210 series, to lukewarm fanfare. Why lukewarm? Why not? Beverly Hills 90210 was a staple hit of the early 90’s and had 10 pretty darned successful seasons, but why try to remake the show? Ah ha, money. Gotcha!

Well, West Beverly High is back and much raunchier than ever. Now let’s get one things straight; I’m a 90210 fan. It was on when I was in high school and then college. I related to some of the situations and characters, but for the long of all that’s hold, if any teen can related to what’s going on in the new version, we need some serious parenting shows to take over. That’s right, I’ve watched the pilot to the new series and I think they totally overdid it. Too much glam and lights for anyone, in my opinion. The new show has a potentially strong cast of characters and some have some vague similarities to the original, but the casting of Brenda and Kelly is odd to me without the others. I mean how can you have this show without Steve Sanders? Sure, some would argue that Dylan or Brandon were more important, but we all had our favorites. My question is whether the target audience will take hold of these characters like we did 16 years ago. If not, the show is sunk, but I can’t really opine as it’s pretty much a different generation.

At least no one can argue whether or not this was the finest crew in the fleet!

I recently felt compelled to go the Sci-Fi Channel website to see when the remaining episodes of the last season of Battlestar Galatica are going to be aired. Sci-Fi likes to place shows like this on Fridays 'cause, well, apparently the audience likes it more edgy on Fridays. And yet with Stargate Atlantis the only show currently airing new episodes on Fridays right now, I was and am curious as to who will be paired with Battlestar Galactica on Fridays when it comes back for the last segment, so to speak. I found it odd that the only information provided was that there would be new episodes coming soon. Of course, I know that this means little because they haven’t aired any trailers form upcoming episodes and Sci-Fi always heavily promotes new episodes of popular shows. While there, I watched the trailer for Caprica, which is a prequel series set a generation before the current series. While I am very much looking for ward to this show, the trailer didn’t portray it to be anything like BSG and I didn’t see one “Toaster,” although they mentioned a cloned person. Perhaps NBC plans to have the end of BSG air in the fall and then Caprica start right on it’s heals to carry the audience over. Regardless of what they do, the writers, producers, and actors are going have a really hard time filling the shoes of Battlestar Galatica. Several years back when Sci-Fi announced that they were making a mini-series based on the original show, science fiction fans laughed it off. How could anyone recreate such an iconic show? The show's two biggest stars had different takes as well. Dirk Benedict (Starbuck) thought it was great, and he seemed to love that the new Starbuck was a woman. Richard Hatch, (Apollo) on the other hand wasn't so keen on the idea. Whether he felt insulted or just didn't like it, who knows, but after a while even he gave in and became a regular on the show when it became a series, albeit not as Apollo. After the two-part mini-series, there was a lot of buzz about a possible show, but Sci-Fi didn’t confirm anything. A year later they began to air trailers for the series and four seasons later, millions of American speculated that it may be the best overall science fiction series ever. I personally think that such a moniker shouldn’t be given to shows that are still on the air and only time will tell. No one really cared about Firefly until the show had been off the air for a couple of years. Now there are a lot of fans and sales of the series on DVD were so good that Serenity was made. If all those fans had been around to watch when the show was on Fox, it may not have been cancelled after 13 episodes. That all being said, I think I’ll wait reserve judgment for Caprica until it actually airs and will judge BSG’s place in history, well, when it is history.

Television's Seasons To Remember

For most, summer is the time when they flock to the theaters to see blockbuster films every weekend, but me, it’s when I catch up on the seasons of television shows I’ve missed over the past year. Some shows I’ve heard about and want to try out and others I just didn’t have the time to watch and thus put them in the Netflix queue and await their arrival. It’s not that I watch more TV in the summer ‘cause I probably watch less, but I do tend to stay up a little later night, especially if the episodes of a particular show are really good or a storyline has really grabbed me. Besides, we know that network television is either on hiatus or just bad and thus The Deadliest Catch is the only regularly scheduled summer show I watch. With that now over, I’ve got season one of Criminal Minds coming in the mail. I got a few episodes of this show in the past two years and thought I would give it an honest try from the beginning. I like the writing and intelligence of the show, but always found the time slot to be hard to watch and never was able to get into it. Given that AJ Cook is one of my favorite actresses, you’d think the opposite would be the case, but perhaps we’ll chalk that up to better late than never. Finally, I have to at least mention a show that I’ve long been a fan of and admittedly had pretty much given up on last year. The Dead Zone was a show I used to watch every Sunday night along with The 4400, but after five seasons, I grew increasingly tired of the show and was also saddened by the departure of one of the show’s main characters. Knowing that season five had really gone away from the original premise, I wasn’t expecting all that much from the sixth and final season, but decided to give it a shot anyway. I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised with the storylines, the production, and the acting. I truly thought that with the end of the show’s run already decided, that it would have been a poor production, but in 13 episodes they were able to tie up five years worth of loose ends and do it in a respectful way. This is a show that I am sad to see go, but am pleased that I took a final chance on.

A dedication of sorts

I had the idea that creating a blog which has most of its' content devoted to movies and television and alas, here it is. While I had said I wouldn't use Blogger, well... What can I say, it's easy and free. Nonetheless, the title of the blog is a dedication to David Lynch's Twin Peaks. Any fan of the show will see that I added "still" and an "s" so that I wouldn't be stomping into copyright territory, but something tells me that Mr. Lynch wouldn't minds. So anyway, it's clear that I am a big fan of the show and many others. I hope that through this blog I will be able to share my thoughts on movies - new and old, as well as television shows, also new and old. I'd love to share ideas, picture, guest writers, you name it. And if you have a movie or show you are curious about or wanted reviewed, send a note via the comment section and I will surely hook you up. Thanks for reading and enjoy! ~Jerry