Sci-Fi TV – Fall 2009

While the fall tv season started strong, it was not really because of new science fiction shows. Several of the new series that fit that bill delayed their starts until October and November, so as an addendum to my Fall TV reviews, I want to talk about them here. Sadly I don’t have much good to say.

Stargate: Universe

There’s already been heated discussion on the internet regarding this third series in the Stargate franchise. The premise is that a mixed group of people become stranded on an ancient starship flying through space with no way of getting home to Earth. Producers of the show are pushing it as the gritty, dark, open-ended kind of more-”fi”-than-”sci” kind of show that fans of the other two Stargate series need to give a chance to before judging. Fans and viewers have been saying that they gave the show a chance, but it’s just too slow, and un-fun (among other qualities) for their liking. I definitely fell into the latter camp. I can see how they tried to fill the void left by Battlestar Galactica in the sci-fi realm (not to mention SyFy channel’s programming schedule), but SGU is no BSG. I found the episodes glacially slow and none of the characters were enjoyable (with the noted exception of David Blue’s whimsical Eli). Endless tension on a dimly-lit set are not my idea of great TV. Plus, each episode’s drama seemed to centre around a relatively mundane problem (something like low water or energy supplies, that would genuinely be of great concern to any crew trapped on an ancient spaceship, I’ll grant that, but still not really thrilling to watch). I’m going to stick with the show for a while longer because it seems to be picking up (the most recent episode actually featured a time loop — yay!), and because I need my fix of “people on a spaceship”, but like the Destiny crew’s resources, my patience is in short supply.

V

The latest 80s sci-fi reimagining has not only the legacy of its successful forebear to contend with but also the need to escape the black hole of failure that has drawn others in (R.I.P. Bionic Woman, Knight Rider, and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles). V was the most anticipated sci-fi show on my viewing plate this fall, but sadly it has not lived up. The simple premise of aliens coming to Earth disguising their nefarious plans (and lizard bodies) behind attractive, friendly human-like faces seemed easy enough to pull off. However, the new series seems to want to do too many things at once. Taking a cue from successful genre-crossing shows like Lost (and the new series Flash Forward), V seems more interested in creating some kind of ensemble drama of intersecting story arcs than a single coherent tale of insidious domination and human resistance. Can you believe that even after two episodes, the resistence has not really formed yet? (Well, technically it formed before the ships even arrived, but the main characters have not yet formed/joined the resistence yet.) I seem to recall that being central to the original series. On the other hand, the lizards’ true nature, their presence on Earth before their ships arrived, and their darker plans for humanity have already become well known. Unfortunately, Elizabeth Mitchell (once so great as the sexy-smart Juliet on Lost)is not in a constant state of frowning as an FBI agent trying to figure out who to trust and how to fight after her partner is revealed as a V (which brings me to another fan-boy complaint about how they should never have called the aliens “Vs”. They wanted to be friendly and known as the “visitors” why would they want to be called “Vs”? That’s just ridiculous!) Joel Gretsch is good at playing the sci-fi hero (remember him from The 4400?), but his character being a priest seems ill-suited and heavy-handed (we get it, some people would question faith in God if aliens arrived). Anyway, the plot seems very scattered and I don’t really find that I have anyone to root for among the humans. I actually would prefer if Anna (the always-luminous Morena Baccarin) as the alien leader, would just unleash her endgame already and get rid of so many of the human characters.

Sanctuary

In its premiere season last year, this show surprised me by starting out as just a creature of the week show that started to develop an elaborate and intriguing mythology and world behind it. Unfortunately after the finale and this season’s premiere, most of that has been destroyed and they are now back to being a bunch of creature-catchers. Even so, they could have done that well, but the show splits focus by trying to bring more attention to the human drama surrounding the main characters. Frankly, the characters are not that interesting and the additional emotional ups and downs just seem like soapy elements that don’t fit. This series needs to find its identity and really develop it. There’s potential for Sanctuary to be a unique classic if they can achieve that. (Plus, Amanda Tapping’s accent is still annoying.)

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan

True, this was not on TV (straight to DVD instead) but I was salivating with anticipation for this addendum to the BSG series. It was going to be recounting events of the series from the Cylon point of view and I have always been a sucker for “the other side of the story”. Sadly, I guess I should have re-watched the entire series (which I plan to do) before watching The Plan, because it was incredibly hard to follow without recalling all the context of the time. Ostensibly we’re following the #1s (a.k.a. Cavill) as they secretly orchestrate the cleanup on humanity’s destruction. Without its own separate story arc, this movie was so disjointed that it really felt more like two hours worth of deleted scenes. There were many scenes of people talking and not much action or suspense. Sadly, I don’t even feel like very much of the Cylon’s true plans were revealed.

Other shows

Just a quick rundown on the rest of sci-fi and fantasy TV on my Tivo: Fringe – still good, but hasn’t paid off season one’s jaw-dropping finale yet; Supernatural – episodes are more fun and whimsical in this potentially final season, and haven’t coalesced around the ultimate apocalyptic showdown just yet; Heroes – stories and characters are worse than bad, I can barely stomach this once-top-ten show anymore; Smallville – despite the positive buzz this season is getting, I dropped this show from my list and I’m not picking it back up (Fool me once, etc. etc.); Vampire Diaries – dropped this one, but picked it up again after much buzz, I’m enjoying it a lot now that they have turned down the soap and turned up the supernatural; Medium – I still love this show very much, they keep coming up with fresh angles and the family drama is still wonderful; Flash Forward – pace is uneven, but I look forward to those morsels that advance the overall mystery, and the characters are alright; Dollhouse was great last season, but just seems really depressing and inconsistent this season, I hope the rest of the now-cancelled series will make its way to air; same goes for the equally cancelled Eastwick, which I was kind of enjoying as the reincarnation of Charmed.

So that’s where things stand with sci-fi. Not the most positive picture, but I’m glad that TV has not given up on sci-fi altogether. I’m looking forward to the return of Lost and also the new Doctor Who telemovie to give us all an additional boost.

Where The Wild Things Are – Movie Review

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I can’t say that I really understood Where The Wild Things Are when I read it as a kid. Sadly, 30 years later, I can’t say that I understand the new Spike Jonze directed big-screen adaptation of this children’s classic either. While the visuals were great, and the characters (especially the Wild Things themselves, of course) were incredible-looking, I’m sure that I was not alone in my head-scratching. At the showing I attended, there were some dad-kid pairs who left quite early in the movie and later there were even little kids wandering around the theatre (having grown bored with the film’s pacing — which was more even more languid and chatty than Jonze’s breakout movie, Being John Malkovich). My guess is that the objective was to capture the hearts and minds of those who may have grown up with Maurice Sendak’s original book, but definitely an audience who had grown up.

Regardless, the story’s not complicated. Imaginative little boy Max is feeling a bit neglected by his mom and sister. After a tantrum and fight with his mom, he makes a break for it and ends up sailing on a magical boat out to another place where large-yet-cuddly monsters all live together in a kind of tribe. Max tells them that he’s their king and they happily agree to accept him. After much play and heart-to-heart conversing, conflicts and frustrations start to creep in and eventually, Max returns home the way he came, having made some new weird friends on in a magical place. As a kid’s story, it didn’t seem to have enough story or drama to fill up a feature length movie, but I guess that’s only if you don’t give the Wild Things all kinds of personalities and issues. In typical indie-film fashion, the character chat a lot about themselves, revealing how they’re driven by oddly off-kilter motivations and behavioural tendencies. I’m reluctant to delve too deeply into this aspect as I have to remind myself that it’s still a kids’ story. I guess part of the problem is that it didn’t really play out like one.

As mentioned, the Wild Things were brought amazingly to life. At first glance they seem like actors in costumes, but it becomes quickly obvious that more movie magic is at work, because they also look fully-realised (as much as a giant cockatoo monster, or a part lion, part muppet creature with horns and a long tail can be fully-realised). Their lips moved naturally and their faces (which really did look like muppets) were subtly expressive and moved very well when they were talking. I would love to see a making-of video for this film. The voices were wonderful as well: James Gandolfini, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker, and Lauren Ambrose made all the dialogue sound very natural. If you closed your eyes, you’d have thought it was normal, contemporary humans speaking.

I guess the main failing of this film is being too sophisticated for itself. Clearly people came (with their kids) expecting a kids’ movie. And while in many ways it is one, the dialogue and the pacing are totally not kid friendly (unless you’re trying to put them to bed — it would work on adults as well). The original picture book had the right balance of childish wonder and creature fun, with just a touch of sensitivity to a kid’s mindset. The movie, trying to appeal to the child deep down in all of us, ends up becoming a drawn-out, and a bit of a snore. (3 out of 5)

Zombieland – Movie Review

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Zombieland is hardly a zombie movie. Sure, there are throngs of the undead (a zombie-making virus struck down the entire planet — take that, H1N1!) who are happy to disembowel people for fun and snacking; but they don’t appear for large chunks of the movie. This is more of a post-apocalyptic, survival, road movie mash-up. Instead of being an American Shaun of the Dead, it’s more like a humourous I Am Legend. Being someone who doesn’t really like zombie movies (C’mon, entrails for lunch? Aren’t we better than that?), this is good news.

Jesse Eisenberg plays a wimpy, underdog hero who lives through the zombie apocalypse largely due to his set of survival rules (which are written on screen and explained repeatedly to the audience in clever voiceover). Eisenberg’s character Columbus (mistrust leads everyone to name themselves after US cities) meets up with Woody Harrelson’s Tallahassee, a Twinkie-obsessed zombie-hunter, as well as two teenage girls who join forces to make their way to a mythical zombie-free zone at a west-coast amusement park. If you’ve seen other road movies you can pretty much predict the ensuing ups and downs as a rag tag gang become a de facto family. I guess it’s really the humour, laced with pop cultural references and sarcasm, that puts Zombieland above your average B-movie fare, plus the actors all do a pretty convincing job expressing the movie’s central post-apocalyptic nonchalance. There’s even a wonderful cameo that is a great little mid-movie high-point. For my money, I still think Shaun of the Dead had more laughs per minute, but I would take Zombieland over I Am Legend any day (sorry, Will). 4 out of 5

Fall TV 2009 – week 3

Week 3 of this year’s fall TV premieres was a doozy! While it’s nice to see the networks returning to the kind of concentrated premiere schedule that kept me glued to the TV during my youth, I have to say that I put my Tivo and timeshifting to the test. To make things a little simpler I’m going to break down the new series that I watched, then comment on the returning ones (but it’s just going to be one big long post).

New Shows

FlashForward

My, there was quite some pressure on the shoulders of this show! Touted as the new Lost, it needed to strike that sliver-thin balance between geek-friendly and wide-appeal. From the pilot episode, I think it’s going to do great. The high-concept premise is that everyone in the world simultaneously loses consciousness for around 2 minutes. Besides the resulting tragedies and disaster that this can cause, characters also have to deal with the fact that they experienced the future in those 2 minutes. Mystery one is what caused this to happen, and mystery two is for everyone to reconcile their visions of the future with the events of their lives. Joseph Fiennes was less annoying than normal as the FBI lead investigator, partnered with John Cho (one of my faves and the actor that I would choose to play me in a bio-pic, BTW). Amazingly we are introduced to around a dozen characters in the first episode and I feel like I’m interested in all their stories. All I can say is that this show better not get cancelled!

Eastwick

Another adaptation of the John Updike novel, these three actresses (Rebecca Romijn, Lindsay Price, and Jaime Ray Newman) follow in the footsteps of Michelle Pfeiffer, Cher, and Susan Sarandon as three small town women (witches) who conjure up a tall dark stranger. Besides its movie predecessor, the show also has obvious echoes to other girl-power shows like Charmed, Sex and the City, and Desperate Housewives (there’s even a show-opening voiceover). So far the characters are drawn pretty broadly, especially the men (hello, oafish pig husband, and clueless office crush — BTW, the newspaper where Price’s character works apparently believes that everyone should dress like Clark Kent, glasses and all.) The real standout is Paul Gross, whose devilishly fun Darryl Van Horne is charming with a touch of chaos. It was decidedly mediocre, but I’m going to stick with the show for a while. (Hey, I watched all of Charmed and I’m still watching the Housewives!)

Cougar Town

I wasn’t sure that I was going to watch this show either. I love Courtney Cox, but her last series (Dirt) was a bust. Nevertheless, Cougar Town is pretty funny. As the title suggests, Cox plays an older woman getting out into the dating scene, trying to nab a younger guy. From this show, you could guess that older women are quite randy, however, the men in this show seem to be also. Cox is same attractive-yet-bumbling beauty she perfected on Friends, but it’s her co-stars that really made this show a delight. Busy Philipps as the younger assistant, chumming the waters for her boss, Christa Miller-Lawrence plays the best friend who envies her single pal’s sexual freedom, Brian Van Holt as Cox’s arrested-development ex-husband, and Dan Byrd as her eye-rolling teenage son.

Returning Shows

The Big Bang Theory

The gang return from their polar expedition with no changes except for their shaggy beards, until Leonard goes across the hall and gets a big kiss from Penny. Despite that watershed moment, I trust that here too, the more things change, the more they stay the same. That’s fine by me, since I find this show hilarious as is.

How I Met Your Mother

Ted becomes a professor, and Robin and Barney finally become a couple. To me, neither event was long-awaited, and I don’t think it changes much of the dynamic (except it might declaw Barney a bit). We’ll see. This show consistently elicits a soft chuckle for me, so I’m sticking with it, at least until we finally meet the mother (or die trying!).

Heroes

This show walks such a tightrope between the awesomeness of season one, and the spoiled potential of all the other seasons. The metaphor’s a good one since the season-opener immediately introduces us to an intriguing carnival of superpowered folk (no wonder I can never toss those rings around the coke bottles!). Meanwhile all the other characters are scattered, but I’m enjoying their individual stories so far (except for Claire, who seems to have some potential single-white-female action in college — good roommates are so hard to come by). There’s a couple of great fight scenes between Tracy, then Peter against Ray “Darth Maul” Park as a mysterious, speedy, machete-wielding new enemy. I’m especially glad that Sylar’s still around (kind of) even after last season’s cop-out finale. You know this show can’t survive without him!

Smallville

Gosh, I can’t stand this show. Why do I keep watching? I hate the super-closeups, and the overwrought morality plays, and the melodramatic conversations, not to mention the apathy- and confusion-breeding plotlines. Fight club again? Zod again? Tess Mercer still? Lois Lane, whatever!

Medium

After last season’s coma-finale, you knew they were going to put everything right again, but it was wonderfully dramatic to watch Allison go through the frustration of losing her sixth sense (not to mention mobility on her right side) because of her surgery. After the little shocked-awake montage that they showed last season, who knew that they were going to get rid of her need to sleep to dream visions of the future. Such a subtle change, but it opens even more storytelling possibilities for the wonderful writers on this show. I wish it were the future already!

Dollhouse

A nice opener with so many special elements, not the least of which was a Battlestar Galactica reunion between Tahmoh Penikett (Agent Ballard), and his BSG brother-in-arms Jamie Bamber (sporting his natural British accent as a husband/client for Echo). The writing/dialogue is still top-notch, especially a melancholic conversation between Topher and the now self-aware Whiskey/Dr. Saunders. This show has surprisingly so many directions to take and it really tries to take as many as possible. I can’t wait for more of Alexis Denisof as the senator who goes after the Dollhouse, and for Ray Wise and Summer Glau to arrive from another house.

The Simpsons

This show has been consistently keeping a soft pulse on the laff-o-meter for a number of years now, but I’m still enjoying it. You’ve just got to put aside the fact that they have gone from merely reusing plots to making an art out of story recycling. In the season opener, Homer (not Milhouse) stars as a movie superhero (not a real superhero like he was before) and gets a personal trainer (not like when Homer was a trainer for Moe). Got it?

Castle

Nathan Fillion’s still got the charm and he uses it to win back Det. Beckett’s good graces after digging into her mom’s death last season. My only police procedural, this show’s characters have chemistry to spare. From the two side-kick detectives, to Castle’s mom and daughter, the connections are palpable.

Desperate Housewives

In seconds we find out who Mike is marrying in last season’s finale (no big surprise). Plus, the plots continue as Gabrielle has to handle her mini-me (i.e. Carlos’s hottie niece), Bree and Richard seek to consummate their illicit affair, and Lynette brings the downer again with her un-mom-like feelings towards her twin uterus-dwellers. Drea DiMateo and Jeffrey Nordling arrive as the new mysterious neighbours (gross scar, Drea!) and hopefully Catherine returns to her delicious old ways.

Phew! Thanks for sticking with me. Enjoy the rest of the new season as remaining shows trickle in. Stargate: Universe, V, and 30 Rock still wait in the wings.

The Informant! – Movie Review

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Seeing the trailer and premise for The Informant! (plus the tongue-in-cheek exclamation point), I expected Matt Damon’s character to be goofy and bumbling (Paul Blart: FBI snitch), but leave it to director Steven Soderbergh to pull off an interesting and thought-provoking character study laced with odd, retro humour. (Is it my imagination, or do the 1990s look like the 70s (or even the 50s) in Soderbergh’s hands?) Damon plays agri-business executive Mark Whitacre at first as a somewhat naive man with a possibly good heart, trying to come clean and help the FBI bust his own company for illegal price-fixing. Before long, though, we the audience along with his government handlers start to wonder what’s really going on with this guy.

The movie itself (though carrying a slightly subtler and less-slick version of they typical Soderbergh style — see the Ocean’s trilogy for a point of reference) is as difficult to pin down as Whitacre himself. You think you know what’s going on, but you really can’t be sure you’ve been given the facts (at least not the right ones). Don’t get me wrong, it’s not one of those twisty, jaw-dropping suspense films where everything you know is proven wrong in a quick flashback montage. Without too much spoilage, it’s difficult when your main character is not a reliable voice. Speaking of which, the most humourous element to this movie is Whitacre’s voiceovers. The way his mind takes the most trivial trains of thought at inappropriate times is so dead on to what so many of us do it’s bitterly funny. If you’re a Soderbergh fan, I think The Informant! is a nice addition to his collected works. If you’re a Damon fan, you’ll be surprised at his performance (not only because he shows an unexpected sense of humour, but despite the walrus-mustache, prosthetic nose, and extra weight, he plays Whitacre as an incredibly natural and lived-in cartoon character). (4 out of 5)

9, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, and Dragon Hunters – Capsule Reviews

Recently I’ve seen a few animated movies, and while they don’t have anything in common, I thought I’d present them together in a set of capsule reviews.

9

When Elijah Wood last played a diminutive hero courageously seeking to save the world (in Lord of the Rings), it took over 10 hours to tell the epic story. In 9, Wood voices another little hero, but unfortunately the tale is told in only 80 minutes. With the support of such box-office-friendly geek-gods as producers Timur Bekmambetov (director of Wanted and Night Watch) and Tim Burton (director of Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline, etc.) newcomer Shane Acker gets to turn his Oscar-nominated short animated film into a full-length feature. The animation is wonderful, and the characters interesting and fun, but unfortunately the world he has created deserves a much longer treatment. (Granted, 9 II and 9 III would have been extremely confusing titles if there had been sequels.) 9 is the name of the last of a group of rag dolls created and imbued with life by a scientist trying to pass on a legacy as the human world comes to an end. As 9 awakens, he discovers others of his kind, each with different personalities and skills, who have formed a tribe. #1 is the self-appointed patriarch-leader (voiced by Christopher Plummer). #2 is the old shaman (Martin Landau), #5 is the crazy one with a touch of insight (John C. Reilly), #7 is the warrior woman (Jennifer Connelly) and they all play a role in discovering more about themselves and why and how they were created. I enjoyed these characters and their world a lot, and I wish we could go back to get more of their story, but the ending does kind of wrap up quite tightly. Maybe Acker will follow Peter Jackson’s footsteps and release an extended version on the DVD. If I learned anything from this movie, it’s that we must not give up hope.4 out of 5

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs

Even from the 30+ character title, you can tell that Cloudy is going to be different from 9. This is a more kiddy movie (though 9 was also kid-friendly), the premise of an unsuccessful inventor catching a break when he invents a machine that turns rain into food is not exactly high-concept. However, contrary to first impressions, this movie does have a respectable number of “jokes that go over kids heads” (I know because I found myself occasionally laughing alone in a theatre full of kids.) The animation is nothing too spectacular (even in enjoyable 3D) but this movie definitely does a better job at depicting the cartoonishly big-headed characters than Monsters vs. Aliens. Bill Hader is charmingly knebbish as the nerdy scientist Flint Lockwood. Anna Faris (even her voice is cute) is perfectly cast as the perky weather girl Sam Sparks, and the definite scene-stealer is Mr. T as the gruff cop Earl Devereaux. This movie is not quite up to Pixar’s standards, but it’s a whole lot of fun and definitely worth checking out (even if you don’t have kids to go with) 4 out of 5

Dragon Hunters

This movie is not in the theatres (it might have been, but I missed it) but it’s out on DVD. It’s a French-produced animated film that takes a traditional quest to slay a dragon and tells it in a slightly different way. Lian-Chu is the big-hearted bruiser and Gwizdo his sarcastic buddy. Together they look for ways to make a living in a world of little islands floating in the sky (with plenty of monsters to fight). Unfortunately no one takes them seriously until Lian-Chu happens to save little princess Zoe from a couple of lightning dragons. Believing him to be a knight like the ones she’s read about in fairy tales, she recruits them to help her blind uncle defeat the dragon that plagues their kingdom. What follows is a comical and heart-felt adventure that is surprisingly enjoyable. 4 out of 5

Fall TV 2009 – week 2

After only one week, my first Tivo casualty of the new season is The Vampire Diaries. I just couldn’t keep caring about the teenage melodrama if they didn’t give me more interesting supernatural stuff. The vampire storyline was way too cliche.

Fringe

It was probably too much to ask to have a season premiere that answered all questions raised by last season’s amazing finale, but couldn’t we have had any? When Anna Torv’s Agent Olivia Dunham returned to this universe from the alternate one that we’d left her in at the end of last season, she flew through a stationary car windshield no less! The rest of the episode was spent  letting her recover and getting new agent Jessup (not to mention new fans/viewers) up to speed. More and more, Fringe is showing its Lost pedigree. Not only did last season build up a critical mass of head-scratching questions, similar to Lost’s season two (when the mystique of the hatch was thrown away as they started crawling around inside it), in this season of Fringe, the idea of two realities seems old hat. There’s two of everything? What else is new? Well there’s also a new form-stealing enemy (so maybe there’s three of everything, eh?) who is more-than-mildly reminiscent of X-Files’s alien hunter. I’m glad that they don’t seem to be letting up on the weirdness. (Just when you thought it was safe to eat in front of the TV again.)

The Beautiful Life: TBL

I don’t understand the “TBL” part of the show’s name, but it does kind of fit with the type of posturing this show seems to be about. The series tells the tales (still not sure who the focal character is) of pretty young things trying to make their way in the cutthroat world of modelling in NYC. I was actually more interested in this show than I expected. The two leads are not bad: the fresh-faced farm boy (who I assume is a stand-in for executive producer Ashton Kutcher’s own experiences as a model) Chris Andrews, and golden-hearted rising star Raina Marinelli (both played by unknown actors). In the background there are also Mischa Barton (remember her from the O.C.) as a star model slipping over the hill, Elle MacPherson (lovely as always) as a powerful agent, and Corbin Bleu (from High School Musical) as a naive wannabe forced to compromise his morals.

Community

I was prepared to write off Community (an ensemble sitcom about a community-college study group) as a silly collection of broad caricatures, but instead, it’s a fairly well-written comedy with a real indie-film feel. Danny Pudi is an immediate standout as Abed, leading man Jeff’s unwanted sidekick. A scene that had me in stitches was when some of the group are mouthing words to each other behind Jeff’s back and Abed starts to freak out, thinking that he’s lost his hearing. We’ll see, but this may be my surprise fave of the season.

The Office

I’m not sure we’ll ever know how the Scranton branch did in the volleyball finals from last season, but they took no time addressing the topic of Pam’s pregnancy. I’m glad that they got back down to earth by couching the comedy in normal office issues (in this case, gossip). It bodes well for a grounded but still-funny upcoming season. My only question now is when they’re going to start the layoffs. In this kind of economy, Dunder Mifflin might have the most bloated staff around — especially considering none of them do any work!

Next week is mega-premiere week, featuring the return of How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, Heroes, Castle, Smallville, Medium, and Dollhouse to my Tivo, and the probationary additions of new series Modern Family, Cougar Town, and Eastwick. It’s going to be crazy!

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Fall TV 2009 – week 1

Summer is fun and all, but nothing beats the start of a new fall TV season. This year has many returning faves, but also a large batch of promising new series. Most premieres are slated for later in the month, but Fox and the CW have taken the lead with some hype-worthy starts.

Glee

For me, this is the year’s most anticipated series. Fox’s stroke of genius was to debut the pilot episode before the summer hiatus, so there were several months for the show to build a lot of buzz and for us fans (aka Gleeks) to listen to the songs repeatedly. The second episode (first of the main season) did not disappoint. The show is a tongue-in-cheek dramedy about melodrama in the lives of the members of a high school glee club. I won’t pretend that there isn’t hamminess or broad humour, but there’s definitely something fresh and enjoyable about these characters. Plus we’re amazingly deep into their lives (especially teacher/coach Mr. Schuester) after only two episodes. They top it all off with some catchy, fun musical performances each week. Lea Michele, who plays the ambitious and driven Rachel Berry, is a great singer. Plus I’m loving the bitchy characters: Sue Sylvester, the gym-teacher nemesis; Quinn Fabray, the ice-queen cheerleader girlfriend of male lead Finn Hudson; and Terri, Mr. Schuester’s passive-aggressively manipulative wife. I gotta admit, I am addicted to Glee.

Melrose Place

The CW came on strong this week, not only with the season premiere of a refreshed 90210 (though I didn’t watch it) as well as the debut of another remake, Melrose Place. Despite the fact that they’ve already featured the return of some of the original cast members (and have a few more on tap) they could easily have picked any sunny apartment complex to throw their pretty young people into. Perhaps they figured that if they’re going to make a Melrose Place clone, they might as well use the actual brand. It’s no surprise that even after one episode there’s all kinds of soapy mystery for our sexy cast. My favourite cast member is the obvious Heather Locklear stand-in, Katie Cassidy (who I really didn’t enjoy as Ruby on Supernatural) as the blond vixen Ella Simms. I hate to sound snooty about this, but I’m obviously not their target audience. As much as I didn’t care about the lives of the Gossip Girls or the 90210 kids, I find myself not caring about the doctor with her financial woes, or the struggling filmmaker and his newly-engaged fiancee. I especially don’t care about the lost little rich boy. With all this apathy, you can bet that I won’t be tuning in for long.

The Vampire Diaries

Being the genre geek that I am, I wonder if the CW soap would be more appealing coated in some element of the supernatural. The Vampire Diaries, a new series about the lives and loves of a couple of vampires, from Dawson’s Creek creator Kevin Williamson, gave me my answer. I’m a huge fan of the latest trend in bloodsuckers, but even with dialogue-friendly Williamson at the helm the debut of this series had less of a pulse than a v.. (don’t make me say it). Anyway, I believe in Williamson and I think there must be some potential (especially since the show is based on a series of successful novels) for this show to end up being good. Unfortunately it’s off to a [... ahem ...] lifeless start (which is too bad for Ian Somerhalder — the only actor whose character I don’t think should have died on Lost — who plays evil vampire brother Damon).

Supernatural

Until that show picks up, CW still has one of my favourite series, Supernatural, going for at least one more season. Could there have been any bigger finale than last season, as the Winchester brothers waited with fear and anxiety as they set Lucifer loose (oops!) on Earth? The premiere episode basically took its time to tie up some loose ends and unravel a few more. Lucifer was seeking his human vessel, and apparently has the same taste as the producers of Lost who also chose actor Mark Pelligrino to play their devil(?) figure Jacob. The best news of this season is that Misha Collins, who plays the soft-spoken angel Castiel, is on as a series regular.

So that’s it for week one. Stay tuned for the return of The Office next week, and the CW brings more beautiful people to the tube in the not-too-cleverly-titled The Beautiful Life.

Inglourious Basterds – Movie Review

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Most of us come to a Tarantino movie expecting the usual trademark elements: visceral, somewhat gratuitous violence; complicated, witty, scummy, razor-sharp dialogue; and complex, interweaving storyline featuring interestingly off-colour characters. So how does that blend against a backdrop as often-used as WW2/Nazi-occupied France? Well, let’s just say he makes it work (for the most part). Though their nickname is used as the movie’s title, this platoon of Jewish-American guerrilla Nazi-killers is not the only story. We also follow a Jewish-French girl who survived the execution of her family only to find herself (and her Paris movie theatre) at the heart of a revenge plot against the Nazis a few years later.

A story like that is incredibly apt for Tarantino to maneuver the various characters into crossing paths at the grand finale. However, it’s the Basterds and their cartoonishness that does not fit well with a serious subject such as the Nazis and their oppression of Jews. Sure, Mel Brooks and many others have made the Nazis objects of ridicule, but Tarantino doesn’t exactly do that. In fact, his main Nazi character is a very intelligent, well-mannered, almost charming man (it doesn’t hurt that Christoph Waltz gave an amazing, Cannes-actor-prize-winning, polyglot performance as the conniving but crafty Col. Hans Landa) who is facing off against a group of boorish Americans who are essentially thugs. If this movie had been set in high school rather than WW2, the Basterds would probably be giving wedgies and swirlies rather than shooting and scalping.

The worst offender is Brad Pitt’s character, team commander Aldo Raine. We know Pitt can do better, so I believe any blame for his character has to fall at Tarantino’s feet. Everything from his strap-on Tennessee accent, his “cheap disguise” moustache, to his oddly-contrived smirk make him seem ridiculously comical. (They make me long for the relative realism of his CGI-rendered 80-year-old body from Benjamin Button.) The only reason we take him at all seriously is because he leads a team of deadly-violent men. (I’m so put off by this theme of brutality over brains.) Is this supposed to be ironic? Inasmuch as the entire movie seems to be ironic, I guess so, but otherwise I don’t see how. It also comes back to the question of why this story is set in the Nazi/WW2 context anyway? It’s obviously not a true story. While I can see the marketing value of having the Inglourious Basterds take centre stage (when they’re on), by not individualizing the Basterds more, Tarantino missed an opportunity to create a few more unique characters as only he can. I preferred the story of Shoshanna the Jewish-French cinema owner much more. Her plot had its unbelievable moments as well, but it did balance-off the Basterds’ plot line.

I give Tarantino props for trying to squeeze a Nazi story into his unique cookie cutter. However, there are just some parts that don’t quite gel. The broadness of the characters (especially the Basterds) just doesn’t compensate for (in fact it kind of exacerbates) those short-comings. Far from a failure, Inglourious Basterds is also far from perfect (at least compared to some of his previous hits — see Kill Bill vols. 1 and 2). (3.5 out of 5)

“Don’t Stop Believing” – 2009’s pop anthem?

For some reason, “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey, has had a surprising resurgence in popular culture this year, 28 years after its debut (two years after it capped the finale of The Sopranos TV series). It’s been featured on American Idol, it was the number selected from hit Broadway musical Rock of Ages to be performed at the Tony Awards, and it was released for the video game Rock Band. Where I first rediscovered the song was in the pilot episode for the hot new Fox TV series Glee, where a cover of the song made the show-stopping finale (and probably helped that single episode win many eager fans for a series that would not show its second episode until more than 3 months later — less than a week from tonight!) Last but not least, I find this YouTube video with an inventive presentation of the song. I wonder how many more instances of it I will be seeing/hearing this year. Frankly I can’t get enough of it, so rock on!