Archives for September 2008

Heroes Premiere Blogging

September 23, 2008 By Michael G. Munz 1 Comment

As I mentioned a few entries back, I’m trying to decide which Fall show to follow regularly in my blog. Heroes is the second contender. Tonight I’m going to experiment a bit and try some stream of consciousness comments. So here we go, the Heroes 2-hour third season premiere…

Nathan’s dead. But I’m sure he’ll be fine. Yup. He’s fine–and quicker than I expected.

MISHTOH MUGGWLES! Mishtoh Muggwles is the herald of doom! (Okay, I’m sorry, I won’t do that again.)

Sylar’s sacrificing opportunities to grab Claire in order to be creepy for the audience’s benefit. Boo!

There better be a good reason for keeping Hiro’s half of the formula in existence at all if it’s so dangerous. (And for the record, I’d be almost as bad at Hiro’s first quest as he was.)

“Save ourselves. Save the world.” Sounds like their next catch phrase. (Frankly those have bugged me ever since the beginning.)

There’s the damn 10% brain usage myth again. Writers Guild membership should come with a card that states something like “This is just plain wrong. Stating this in anything you write is like stating that Hawaii is adjacent to Kansas. DON’T DO IT.”

Mohinder’s being an idiot. No, wait, he’s being Mohinder-Fly! Someone get Jeff Goldblum, they can double-date and compare scripts.

Well, the world’s blowing up. Again. Come on, folks. Is this all you can come up with? (“Look out, Radioactive Man! The sun is exploding again!”)

Mrs. Petrelli is the Kwisatz Haderach!

A talking space coyote tells Matt to find his soul mate! (Well, not really, but that’s what I was thinking when he started talking to the turtle.)

Linderman’s turned Harvey.

Sylar’s still alive…WHY? (Same question for all of the people held in Level 5, really. The Company has had no problem with putting OTHER heroes down.)

I don’t think I’m going to blog on Heroes too much—at least not weekly. There’s so much stuff going on that I’d just lose track in all the nitpicking. I don’t envy the chaos the writers have created for themselves, though. Two people warping around in time? It’s hard enough to keep things logical and coherent with just one, and Hiro at least knew what he was doing. I think Ain’t It Cool News puts it quite well: “I think we just have to assume at this point that Peter is the stupidest guy ever to graduate nursing school.” With characters that can do so much, they need to be REALLY careful that their plots don’t require constant use of the idiot-ball, and I’m not so sure they’re off to a great start.

I guess we’ll see.

Someone get Mister Muggles a syringe of that formula.

Michael G. Munz
www.michaelgmunz.com

(Technorati tags: Heroes, NBC)

Have a watch: New Knight Rider

September 21, 2008 By Michael G. Munz 1 Comment

Okay, I am NOT going to do a full blog on this one, but in the interest of keeping people informed, the new Knight Rider series has released its first post-pilot movie episode on Hulu, a week before it actually premieres. If you’re entertained by things that are so bad they’re good, you should check it out.

This show is gleefully terrible. That’s the best way I can think of to describe it. As someone commented on Hulu, “It looks like KITT can now turn into a train and a wreck.”

I’m thinking there’s definitely a reason Val Kilmer, who voices KITT, doesn’t let his name show up in the credits. I honestly hope this show makes it. It’s so awful that it’s hilarious.

Michael G. Munz
www.michaelgmunz.com

(Technorati tags: Knight Rider)

Sarah Connor Chronicles: Samson and Delilah

September 9, 2008 By Michael G. Munz 2 Comments

I’m looking to do an episode-by-episode blog of one of the shows premiering this fall, but I’ve not yet decided which, so I’ll try doing so with each of the premieres and see which feels the best. I’ve never tried to do this sort of thing before. I’ll be learning as I go, so bear with me, if anyone’s actually reading this. For the first, the second season premiere of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. There WILL be unmarked spoilers.

My mental state:
I’ve been borderline on this show since it began, torn between my desire to see the expanded back story (or future-story) that it promises to reveal and my inability to find the actual storytelling or characters compelling a majority of the time.

Thoughts while watching:
The very beginning is reminiscent of the end of the first season finale what with the semi-slo-mo and music. It feels like it’s trying too hard to recreate that, but maybe it’s just me. Then again, I didn’t like it the first time, either. On the other hand, this SHOWS what’s going on instead of having it happen all off-screen for an extended period of time. (I suspect they just couldn’t come up with a reason for Cromartie to kill everyone and throw them into the pool, so they just did it off-screen and got “artistic.”) THIS, however, just goes on too long while showing us everything. “Yes, episode, you’re very smart. Shut up.”

Cameron looks pretty unscorched for just having been in an exploding car. And an exploding house. Perhaps Skynet adds a little asbestos to the human flesh terminator coverings now.

For some reason Cameron needs Sarah to call to John. It’s odd how they keep doing this (happened in T2, too) after showing us that terminators can imitate voices easily enough.

I’m noticing that Cameron continues flip between being be less able and more able to pass for human than the T-800, as she has during the entire series. In her defense, she is a little scrambled right now, I suppose. But then she’s back to being all convincingly emotional when she’s smashed between the trucks. So hmm. I guess it’s dependent on the needs of the script.

John’s cut off his hair, going back to the Samson and Delilah theme. If Cameron’s secret plan is not to kill John but instead to make him emotionally attached to her and weaken him thusly, I shall be very put out.

Post-viewing thoughts:
It was average, with much of it just being an extended chase scene. I have to admit the surprise at the end with the G-1000 (that’s the lead singer of Garbage crossed with the T-1000, though a friend of mine just wanted to call her Dick Jones after this scene) was pretty darned high on the cool factor. Not sure if they’ll ever explain why there’s a second prototype, but I guess the timeline’s been mucked around with so much that it’s not a detail to worry about.

John’s an idiot for putting the chip back in, of course. He’s clearly still having issues from dropping Daddy Terminator in the molten iron in T2. Call me crazy, but giving a gun to a terminator only moments (from her perspective) after she tried to throw a wrench through his head just isn’t the best idea. If being blown up can flip her from good to evil, and being hit by a truck can flip her back, do you REALLY want her walking around with you, John? What if you accidentally bump into her in the hall or sneeze in the wrong direction? All back to evil! I can understand John doing this. It makes sense for his character, but I can’t understand Sarah not trying to stop him.

So…meh. The characters still continue to bug me, being as foolish or intelligent as the writers need at the time. I’ve never cut the writers much slack in this show, and that cynical attitude may be why I can’t seem to get into it very much. It’s possible I’m still stuck on something that’s bugged me for the entire run of the show: the dual question of just what sort of terminator Cameron is (we know she’s “special,” but have been given few details) and, more importantly, why she refuses to say. Her refusal magnifies the mystery, and yet it’s now the beginning of the second season and we’ve gotten no progression on this. You can only string the audience along on a mystery so far before you have to pay it off, at least partially, and they’ve strung us along so far on this one that I’m now thinking that a bit of intrigue that got me to watch before was just some gimmick of audience manipulation that they had no idea what to do with.

“Hmm, how can we make it more mysterious? People love mysterious, look how well Lost is doing!”
“Uhh, how about we have her refuse to give details about herself?”
“Ooh, that’s GREAT! I love it! Why doesn’t she give details?”
“What, are you writing a book? Who cares? It’s cool!”

So I guess we’ll see. Bit of a jumbled mess, this blog, but hey, I’m still getting my recap-legs. I don’t know that I like Sarah Connor Chronicles enough to do this every week, though…

Michael G. Munz
www.michaelgmunz.com

(Technorati tags: Terminator, Sarah Connor Chronicles)