Weekly TV Thoughts: 01/18 - 01/24

I watched a lot of TV this week, which makes it absolutely no different than any other week.

-We Are One, Sunday: Interesting mix of speakers and performers. Weird set up, too, switching back and forth between celebrity speaker reciting lines from past presidents and musical performances. Some speakers made sense (Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks, Martin Luther King III); others not so much (Jack Black, Steve Carrell, Tiger Woods). Loved Jamie Foxx dropping some humor into the proceedings with his spot-on Obama impersonation. Enjoyed most of the music as well, though not the opening piece. I'm a big Bruce Springsteen fan, and I love The Rising, but that version was terrible. Acoustic version of The Rising, good. Gospel chior singing backup on The Rising, good. Acoustic version plus gospel chior, fail. At least Springsteen got a chance at redemption with the This Land Is Your Land perforamce with Pete Seeger. That was the highlight of the show.

-Steelers vs. Ravens, Sunday: I've read this elsewhere (Bill Simmons, Dan Patrick), and I'm glad I wasn't the only one that caught this: what the hell was the Heinz Field PA guy thinking when he let Creedence Clearwater Revival play over the stadium while Willis McGhee and Ryan Clark were laid out on the field? Monster helmet-to-helmet hit, medical staff on the field, players gathered around, stretcher rolled out.... sounds like a time for CCR! You stay classy, PA guy.

-24, Monday: Might be wrong about Agent Moss being the mole in the FBI. Now, I'm going with the blond chick that Hillinger (Rhys Coiro) apparently hooked up with. She's got the perfect setup to be a traitor- a seemingly incidental background character with ties to someone important that starts off with only a few throw away lines but is eventually exposed to be working for the bad guys. Its a twist I've seen waaaay too many times. Hopefully they're more creative than that. I don't care at all for the president's dead son storyline. I know it ties into the whole Sangala story, but they need to advance that story and get Jon Voight into the fold. I also don't know if I like evil Secret Services guys. I mean, they're the ones that have to jump infront of bullets; I don't know if I like villifying them. Another random thought- why was the silent clock used at the end of the episode? I thought that was only used when someone either dies or appears to have died (ie- it creates tension); what tension was there at the end of this episode? Jack didn't actually shoot Agent Walker, and Jack and Tony aren't going to bury her alive, so what gives?

-Inaguration Ceremonies, Tuesday: I'll just say, there was something fitting and seriously funny about Dick Cheney leaving office in a wheelchair. "MEIN FUHRER!! I CAN WALK!!" Dr. Strangelove indeed.

-Lost, Wednesday: Thank God this show is back. I wasn't sure what a "flash-present" was; know I know. So which moving through time, the people or the island? I think the people are the ones moving, Quantum Leap-style, but I'm not entirely certain it makes a difference. And what's up with Desmond? Why is he special, why can his past be changed? Was it because he was exposed to the island's energy when he turned the fail safe key? If so, what exactly does it mean? We've already seen Faraday interact with Desmond in the past to create a new "memory" for Desmond in the future. I wonder how often they can exploit that. So Desmond is now on a quest to find Faraday's mother at Oxford; could she potentially be Ms. Whitaker, a.k.a. the lady he meet in the jewelry store and the same lady Ben talked to in the church? I don't think so, but its a popular theory. And speaking of Faraday, what was he doing as a worker helping to build the Orchid station? I think its part of the time traveling being experienced by the survivors; at some point, they travel to the time of the Dharma Initiative, and Faraday, being knowledgable of the island's workings, infiltrates the work force to get a closer look. Why? No idea, but I'm sure it has something to do with stopping all the time travel. And a quick note about Hot Pockets. This was the second show this week where I saw a character pull a Hot Pocket of a microwave (the other being on TNT's Leverage). There, it was dropped because, hey, it was hot, and on Lost, Hurely turned and chucked it at Ben (to which he apparently said, "What a waste of a Hot Pocket", but the line got cut). My point is, in neither case was the Hot Pocket cooked in the crisping sleeve or on a plate; what's up with that? Does anyone else cook a Hot Pocket that way?

-Battlestar Galactica, Friday: So Gaeta and Zarek are going to start a revolution. Story-wise, its the next logical step. Without any outside conflict, you have to create it from within. Nothing does that like a little mutiny. I think it'll last until the Cavil-led Cylons return and force the fleet to reunite under Adama to survive. I like the ret-conning out of baby Nicky. When they made Tryol a Cylon, it instantly raised questions about his hybrid son. We already have an important hybrid child in Hera, so if she's special, why isn't Nicky? Well, that's because Tryol isn't actually the boy's father; that would be Hotdog. That does two things- not only does it eliminate any hybrid questions, it also frees Tryol up to be more involved in the story. Now he can do things without the spector of "gee, what about Nicky?" hanging over his head. Finally, I wonder how Baltar is going to figure into all of this. With discovery Earth and essentially debunking the prophecy, will more and more of the fleet turn away from the old religion and embrace Baltar's monotheistic message? If so, how would effect the fleet's mission of finding a new home? Don't know. I guess there are bigger issues to deal with right now, like mutiny.