Jericho: FalloutI'm both intrigued and put off by this episode. Curse this show but it's doing just enough to keep me interesting even though on many levels it's really annoying me.
The biggest thing that bugs me is after two weeks, I don't care about any of these characters. They're all walking cliches and cardboard cut outs. The biggest sign of my apathy is that I don't really know their names, instead calling Skeet's character Skeet. With
Lost (which this show desparately wants to be), I could name off at least four characters and tell you something more about them beyond their physical appearance or who played them by the time we got this far into the show. And that may be
Jericho's big downfall--that while I'm intrigued by the central mystery of what is going on here, the characters aren't worth the time or investment to give the show.
I also find myself wondring how long the series can sustain itself. It's a fascinating concept but how long can we drag this out?
Also, while
Lost assumes we're intelligent enough to put pieces together, at least it gives us enough clue to the roadmap so we don't go--huh? I specifically refer to the birds all on the road from last week, where I guess we're left to assume are all they died from radiation poisoning. So if that's true why is blondie heading away from Jericho instead of back toward it when she runs out of gas? And why did she run out of gas? I mean, why would she set out for the airport and not have a full tank? Or at least enough to get there without running out of gas....
Meanwhile, Skeet is going Jack Bauer in town...he can do it all. I am not sure what he did while away, but there had better be one damn good explanation when and if we do get it.
Oh yeah and the love triangle being set up between Skeet, blondie and the teacher..yeah, could that be any more cliched?
But what I did like was the other elements. I do admit I wonder what Hawkins if up to and if he has another agenda? He has way too many answers and seem to know more than he's saying. While some have said the final scene was his reacting in horror to the cities being taken out, I found it far more sinister. Almost as if he were in on the plan and was charting the success of the attacks. The conversations with his wife and family seemed to indicate he has more of a stake in this than we might think. That other chracters aren't picking up on this is kind of annoying.
Also--it appears D.C. hasn't been wiped out..at least not by what we've heard. But how true any of that info is remains to be seen.
Veronica Mars: Welcome WagonI suppose I could have been patient and waiting to see the third season-premiere of
Veronica Mars on Tuesday night. Yeah, right..that's like putting a guy who has been on a desert island for month in front of the all you can eat buffet and telling him to wait a day or so before he can start eating.
I finally got MSN to cooperate and allow me to see the episode.
And I'm pretty happy with it.
I'll admit that the mystery of the week is fairly routine and there are a few red herrings that are obviously red herrings in the plot. But for what the plot needed, it works well. The mystery is really a backdrop to set things in motion for season three, wrap up things from season two and start the central mystery of the first nine episodes. If you watched season two, this will not be a shocker to you--it's the serial rapist that we heard about when Veronica visited Hearst back in the spring. The rapist strikes again here, though I won't reveal who is the victim this time around.
In a lot of ways, this episode reminded of the start of season four to
Buffy--even down to Veronica taking a class on criminology. I loved seeing her beat the record for solving the case and how she does it. Again, trying to not give away too much here for those of you how either are patient or have lives or both. But it's fun and I can see some great conflict coming with the class this season. Just please not have the professor running an top secret government facility and we can avoid that huge
Buffy season four mis-step.
Oh and any show that uses the word "frak" in it and pays homage to my current favorite TV show is all good in my book. Loved it....
The only bad part of seeing the epiosde early--I have to wait longer for the next installment.
posted by Michael Hickerson at 9/28/2006 10:22:00 AM |
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