Weekly TV Thoughts: 02/01 - 02/07

After a great weekend of sports television (Penn-St. Pierre, Federer-Nadal, that Super Bowl thing), there was another solid week of scripted TV, which saw the return of a couple of shows that had still been on winter hiatus.

-Chuck, Monday: I love this show, and I'm glad its finally back on the air. Pound for pound, Chuck might be the most entertaining show on television (mixing great story, great characters, drama, suspense, action, and comedy). Its also an incredibly geeky show, which is another reason I love it. I mean, what other show could seamlessly blend a semi-meta Lost crossover (Dominic Monaghan guest starring as a rock star), a This Is Spinal Tap reference (“Hello Cleveland!”), a Shawshank Redemption allusion (the playing of Mozart when talking about freedom, Zihuatanejo), and an ex-NFL player cameo (Jerome Bettis… fucking Steelers) into a single episode? Great show, terribly underrated. Now, to the issue of the episode being in 3D; didn't hate it, but definitely didn't love it. Yeah, sure, it was kinda neat, but it was also very off-putting because it seemed that some scenes were shot in 3D (the action scenes, Big Mike eating the donut, Yvonne Strahovski crawling on the bed.... the link is for those of you who don't know who Yvonne Strahovski is), and some weren't. Watching a non-3D scene with the 3D glasses on just gives you a headache. So unless the whole thing is in 3D (and they do something about the glasses), I don't think its an idea that's going to take off.

-Heroes, Monday: Another show making its return this week, with Heroes starting a new volume and trying trying to reboot the show. They even went so far as to recreate the Peter/Mohinder cab ride from the pilot; I thought that was a nice, if not heavy-handed, touch. I like them setting up all the main characters to work together right from the start instead of stringing it out throughout the season. They've made that mistake in the past (multiple times), so its good to see them trying something different. Having a lot of characters in your story isn't a problem; having too many stories in your story is. As to this specific episode, I don't like how they've all of a sudden given Parkman the ability to draw the future; they better be a good explaination for that one, otherwise its silly. I do like that Sylar's storyline (the hunt to find his biological father) isn't separate from the main storyline (the government rounding up people with abilities); he's on the hunt, but he's also still being hunted. I also like that he's too powerful to be captured because that's the way it should be. Overall, I like the direction and I hope they can keep it up.

-24, Monday: Question- how many times can you storm the enemy compound and kill everyone there expect the one guy you need to? I think its happened to Jack Bauer at leat a dozen times. Also, how many hostage situations can you encounter in a day? In this hour, they just replaced one (the Sangalan Prime Minister) with another (the First Gentleman…. man, that sounds stupid). I'm glad the CIP device storyline is over as well, because you can only hold that threat of danger so many times before it just gets ridiculous. Still waiting for Jon Voight to enter the picture. And what's going on with Tony- he seemed awful hesitant to go to the govenment in anyway. Is he just afraid of having to anwser for his crimes, or is he still hiding something? My guess is that when the day's over, Tony either runs or *actually* dies in some act of redemption for him. Still not certain about who's the mole the President's circle; I'm sticking with the Chief of Staff until things become clearer.

-Lost, Wednesday: I think its interesting that they showed it was Kate's idea to make Aaron her son, and that was done *before* they all decided to lie about the island. It wasn't something they needed to say, but its good information that adds to the character. Staying off island, I guess it should've have been obvious that it was Ben behind the Kate-Aaron paternity test; what better way to get Kate on the run and potentially back to the island than to threaten her family? Nefarious, evil... just the thing Ben's capable of. Speaking of evil, Sun falls squarely into that category. Babysitting Aaron and also planning a hit (either Jack or Ben... or both; it was kind of unclear). The showdown they previewed for next week should be cool, especially with some many of the characters in one scene again. Which leave Hurley, who's currently in lockup. According to Ben's lawyer, Hurley's stay in jail shouldn't be that long, and I hope that's the case, because otherwise, the "Hurley in jail" storyline becomes a roadblock for the sake of being a roadblock. Okay, now to what's happening *on* the island. I love how they jumped back to a time when the survivors were already on the island. It made for nice character scenes with Locke and Sawyer and Sawyer and Juliet. The nosebleed thing intrigues me. At this point, we have no reason to doubt anything Faraday's says about the island. That may change later, but as of now, I'm believing whatever he says. Given that, plus the spread of the nosebleeds, it means that Miles has been on the island before, and spent a significant amount of time there, less than Charlotte, but more than Juliet. One popluar rumor is that Miles is the son of Pierre Chang (the guy in all the orientation videos) and was the child in the crib that we saw at the start of this season. Another perfect example of Chekhov's gun- why bother showing that Dr. Chang has a son if it weren't going to be important later? I thought the introduction of the second airline was nice- Ajira Airways. Another interweb theory suggests that Ajira is the airline that the Oceanic 6 takes to get back to the island, and that the people chasing/firing at Locke and company in the ocean was the Oceanic 6 themselves (or perhaps the people they came with). That one's pretty crazy, but I like it. It explains why the boat was beached right there, right at their camp (the O6 was looking for them) and it sets up the possibility of seeing that same scene again, but from the a point of view (like the did with the Jin/Sun flashbacks back in the first season; they seem to like to do that). And finally, speaking of Jin, he is indeed alive, which is good to see (well, I knew he wasn't off the show, but you never know with Lost; you can be dead and not actually be dead, so I'm glad that Jin is neither and is just alive). And as soon as the survivors recognized the wreakage as being French, you had to know that it would belong to Rousseau and her crew. But from the promos, it doesn't look like Jin will be spending much time with them and will quickly meet up with the rest of the survivors. I like how they are using the time jumping as a way to show the history of the island, instead of just having to tell it. I really hope they jump back to when the Black Rock crashed on the island; that would be cool. But one can only guess where they'll jump next.

-Battestar Galactica, Friday: Man, what an intense hour. I knew the mutiny/revolution wouldn't last that long, but I honestly didn't think it was be over in this episode. I thought this episode would end with a showdown between the two sides, to be decided next week, but I was wrong. Adama retook command without much incident because, as they showed throughout the episode, the revolution was losing traction. Gaeta clearly didn't have the chops for it, and Kelly went so far as to switch sides. Good to see Kelly come to his senses; the scene with him and Tyrol was nice in that it seemed horribly awkward and out of place give the circumstances. But given the positions these guys used to hold and how much time they would have spent working on the launch deck, it makes sense that they would be friends and that Kelly would be reluctant to pull the trigger. The only person that seemed all in with the revolution was (not surprising) Tom Zarek, but even I was shocked that he would have the entire quorum (save Lee) murdered right there on Colonial One. That was nuts. It so great to see Starback back to being Starbuck, and I am really intrigued by what's going to happen with Anders now that he's been shot. That scene showed that Kara still cares for him and that Romo Lampkin isn't a total selfish bastard. We also got to see Baltar in a rare moment of actual self awareness, which was surprising (though the fact that he was in bed with a 6 at the time wasn't). The one thing that bothered me a little was where the hell did Adama get so many followers so quickly? Were there just that many people against the mutiny? It just seemed like a little weird. Also, what exactly did Tyrol see in the engine room? Was that crack in the hull? Well, whatever it is, I'm sure its not a good thing. And finally, the promo for next week, where we get back to the final Cylon storyline. It showed Ellen in a resurrection tub- what the fuck? You can't tell me that the Final Five resurrect the same way as the other 7 do, that just wouldn't make any sense. Was that just another red herring (like seeing Adama get executed)? Man, I can't wait to find out.