Thursday, May 31, 2007
Monday, May 28, 2007
My Must See Again Movies-Part Deux
Finally,
AS I stated before, these are movies that I've seen and loved and will stop everything to see again if I'm surfing Dish Network and one of them is showing.
Grosse Point Blank
From Dusk Till Dawn
Eight Men Out
Miami Blues
Random Harvest
Shane
Malice
The Grifters
Body Double
Body Heat
Office Space
A Few Good Men
and....Anything by the Coen Brothers
That's it for now. I'll add as I remember more.
AS I stated before, these are movies that I've seen and loved and will stop everything to see again if I'm surfing Dish Network and one of them is showing.
Grosse Point Blank
From Dusk Till Dawn
Eight Men Out
Miami Blues
Random Harvest
Shane
Malice
The Grifters
Body Double
Body Heat
Office Space
A Few Good Men
and....Anything by the Coen Brothers
That's it for now. I'll add as I remember more.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Lost vs. Heroes
Very interesting article from CHUD comparing the LOST finale to Heroes.
Last night’s episode of Lost threw down the gauntlet for all of American television, daring other shows to shake up their status quo in as major and exciting way as they did. But coming a couple of days after the finale of Heroes – a finale that even the show’s zombified fans must see as wildly disappointing – the finale of Lost reads like a major fuck you to the sorry attempts at serialized storytelling it has inspired.
Tim Kring’s Heroes has often been seen as an answer to Lost – where ABC’s show is all about the mysteries and teasing things out for as long as possible, NBC’s superhero spectacular is unwilling to leave its viewers in the lurch for more than a couple of episodes. It’s part of the show’s basic modus operandi: where Lost has faith in your intelligence and stamina, Heroes knows that its audience isn’t that bright. Never mind Lost’s ambitious literary and philosophical references (‘You’ve always been a hero!’ is about as philosophical as Kring’s hunk of junk gets), Heroes wants to keep frustration levels at a minimum. To be fair, that isn’t just because the producers know their program appeals to people who hate to think – they’ve watched Lost’s trajectory and understand that it’s easy to lose the luster of being the hot new show in a blink of an eye. It’s good business sense to keep things as simple as possible on Heroes.
But that’s where the show failed in its finale. Well, it’s one of many places. Lost’s finale had more action, excitement and tension in its first twenty minutes than Heroes’ last three episodes had in their entirety. The final battle between Peter Petrelli and Sylar, which has been building for months, was a complete letdown that ended up being a quick fist fight in the street. It’s mystifying that the show didn’t spend more money on those climactic moments (let’s just forget how badly written and directed the finale was – that’s a given with Heroes. Compare how Heroes looks with how Lost looks, just from a cinematography point of view); Heroes is one of NBC’s big hits, and you would think that a couple of extra bucks would be freed up for the big finish. Hell, we’ve seen how other shows deal with limited budgets – shows like Battlestar Galactica set up episodes that can be filmed on the cheap, allowing them to splurge on terrific sequences like the Galactica’s atmospheric drop and rescue in the opening arc of the third season. Instead we get a couple of punches and Hiro dropping into an ancient Japan populated by a handful of people. (PS, they’re ripping off the end of Evil Dead II there)
Still, budgets are a reality. One of my favorite TV shows of all time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, would run headfirst into the budget wall all the time (although almost every season finale of Buffy was more spectacular than the finale of Heroes, and that show was on third rate networks) – you just hope that the writing and acting can make up for the cheesy snake monster or whatever failed effect is highlighted that week. But Heroes, being one of the most consistently poorly written and directed shows on network TV, doesn’t even have that going for it. The finale sucked from a production value point of view, but it also sucked when looked at as a climax of any sort. Most of the characters we’ve been following all year end up together… for no good reason. Rather than having most of these people actually play roles in the finale, Kring and company have them stand around uselessly. By the time the final minutes of the show happen, Kring and his writers have had all the characters do whatever little bits they had to do – kill Linderman, help Horned Rim Glasses Man find a floor in a building (easily the lamest role a ‘hero’ has ever played in an epic), etc – but because of the show’s incredibly poor pacing we’re left with a paradox: all of these events took too long to happen, and occurred only after the show spent hours and hours spinning its wheels, but at the same time they all happened too early. So while it seems like the show slapped about three episodes of filler in there at the end, it still ends up feeling like the non-Peter and Sylar stories blow their loads too early. Instead of having a massive climax where all these stories wrap up in a short time span, we get trickles of wrap up and then a final fight where most of the characters – including at least one character IN the fight – are utterly useless.
That’s to be expected, though. I am not giving in to hyperbole when I say that Heroes is one of the worst written shows I have watched (just look at the episode before, when Hiro learns to be a swordsman in an afternoon and yet doesn’t bother popping into the other room to tell his friend that he’ll be working for a couple of hours, thus giving the writers a cheap excuse to send that friend into some half-assed danger), so having the finale be not just filled with badly conceived narrative but also bad dialogue (see the entire exchange between Shaft and Peter Petrelli) is no surprise. What’s most annoying is how the Heroes finale sums up the show’s contempt for its audience, and how it’s completely different from how Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse approach Lost’s viewers.
The anti-climax of Heroes comes not just from the cheap and boring final confrontation, but from the fact that the events of the last minutes – the ‘How to Stop An Exploding Man’ of the episode title – are so transparently obvious to anyone who has watched the show. Heroes has spent most of the season building to this ending, and when the writers got there they chose the single most predictable way to pull it off (despite the thing being full of plot holes. For instance, if Cheerleader shot Peter in the head, he would die but get better as soon as they pulled the bullet out, so that seems like a good way to stop him from blowing up). I think they did this for the simple fact that it makes the fat-headed fans of Heroes feel smart – ‘I called that ending!’ Of course you did… so did anyone who watched any previous episodes and had a concept of basic storytelling clichés.
Meanwhile Lost went the absolute opposite direction, delivering a finale that was a complete mindfuck, an ending that no one could have guessed six weeks ago. That’s because the producers know that the fans of Lost – intelligent, literate people, mostly – love the sense of excitement that comes from having expectations challenged, not met. The crowd that loves Heroes is the same crowd Robert Zemeckis cuts his trailers for – the people who want to know exactly what they’re getting when they walk into a theater, the people who choose McDonalds over local food when traveling for that same reason. These people are the lowest common denominator, and Heroes shovels its shit into their happily gaping maws on a weekly basis.
There are other ways in which the Lost finale spanked Heroes – for one thing Lost has characters that feel three dimensional, who have contradictions and hidden depths, quite the opposite of Heroes’ cheap carboard cut-outs (the character who got closest to having anything resembling depth was Nathan Petrelli, and he got blown up… although I’m sure he’ll get better next year), and these characters evolve and change in interesting – and not predictable (hello, Peter Petrelli and Hiro Nakamura arcs of gaining confidence) – ways. Lost has a more exciting and intriguing concept and set up as opposed to Heroes’ Comic Books’ Greatest Hits stories. But when the dust settles at the end of this week, the truth is that the biggest difference is how the two shows treat their fans. I’d rather have Lindelof and Cuse think of me as so smart that they can throw in tiny hints and also little bits of disinformation to keep me guessing over Kring thinking his fans are too stupid to be able to deal with actual shock or excitement.
Source: CHUD
Last night’s episode of Lost threw down the gauntlet for all of American television, daring other shows to shake up their status quo in as major and exciting way as they did. But coming a couple of days after the finale of Heroes – a finale that even the show’s zombified fans must see as wildly disappointing – the finale of Lost reads like a major fuck you to the sorry attempts at serialized storytelling it has inspired.
Tim Kring’s Heroes has often been seen as an answer to Lost – where ABC’s show is all about the mysteries and teasing things out for as long as possible, NBC’s superhero spectacular is unwilling to leave its viewers in the lurch for more than a couple of episodes. It’s part of the show’s basic modus operandi: where Lost has faith in your intelligence and stamina, Heroes knows that its audience isn’t that bright. Never mind Lost’s ambitious literary and philosophical references (‘You’ve always been a hero!’ is about as philosophical as Kring’s hunk of junk gets), Heroes wants to keep frustration levels at a minimum. To be fair, that isn’t just because the producers know their program appeals to people who hate to think – they’ve watched Lost’s trajectory and understand that it’s easy to lose the luster of being the hot new show in a blink of an eye. It’s good business sense to keep things as simple as possible on Heroes.
But that’s where the show failed in its finale. Well, it’s one of many places. Lost’s finale had more action, excitement and tension in its first twenty minutes than Heroes’ last three episodes had in their entirety. The final battle between Peter Petrelli and Sylar, which has been building for months, was a complete letdown that ended up being a quick fist fight in the street. It’s mystifying that the show didn’t spend more money on those climactic moments (let’s just forget how badly written and directed the finale was – that’s a given with Heroes. Compare how Heroes looks with how Lost looks, just from a cinematography point of view); Heroes is one of NBC’s big hits, and you would think that a couple of extra bucks would be freed up for the big finish. Hell, we’ve seen how other shows deal with limited budgets – shows like Battlestar Galactica set up episodes that can be filmed on the cheap, allowing them to splurge on terrific sequences like the Galactica’s atmospheric drop and rescue in the opening arc of the third season. Instead we get a couple of punches and Hiro dropping into an ancient Japan populated by a handful of people. (PS, they’re ripping off the end of Evil Dead II there)
Still, budgets are a reality. One of my favorite TV shows of all time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, would run headfirst into the budget wall all the time (although almost every season finale of Buffy was more spectacular than the finale of Heroes, and that show was on third rate networks) – you just hope that the writing and acting can make up for the cheesy snake monster or whatever failed effect is highlighted that week. But Heroes, being one of the most consistently poorly written and directed shows on network TV, doesn’t even have that going for it. The finale sucked from a production value point of view, but it also sucked when looked at as a climax of any sort. Most of the characters we’ve been following all year end up together… for no good reason. Rather than having most of these people actually play roles in the finale, Kring and company have them stand around uselessly. By the time the final minutes of the show happen, Kring and his writers have had all the characters do whatever little bits they had to do – kill Linderman, help Horned Rim Glasses Man find a floor in a building (easily the lamest role a ‘hero’ has ever played in an epic), etc – but because of the show’s incredibly poor pacing we’re left with a paradox: all of these events took too long to happen, and occurred only after the show spent hours and hours spinning its wheels, but at the same time they all happened too early. So while it seems like the show slapped about three episodes of filler in there at the end, it still ends up feeling like the non-Peter and Sylar stories blow their loads too early. Instead of having a massive climax where all these stories wrap up in a short time span, we get trickles of wrap up and then a final fight where most of the characters – including at least one character IN the fight – are utterly useless.
That’s to be expected, though. I am not giving in to hyperbole when I say that Heroes is one of the worst written shows I have watched (just look at the episode before, when Hiro learns to be a swordsman in an afternoon and yet doesn’t bother popping into the other room to tell his friend that he’ll be working for a couple of hours, thus giving the writers a cheap excuse to send that friend into some half-assed danger), so having the finale be not just filled with badly conceived narrative but also bad dialogue (see the entire exchange between Shaft and Peter Petrelli) is no surprise. What’s most annoying is how the Heroes finale sums up the show’s contempt for its audience, and how it’s completely different from how Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse approach Lost’s viewers.
The anti-climax of Heroes comes not just from the cheap and boring final confrontation, but from the fact that the events of the last minutes – the ‘How to Stop An Exploding Man’ of the episode title – are so transparently obvious to anyone who has watched the show. Heroes has spent most of the season building to this ending, and when the writers got there they chose the single most predictable way to pull it off (despite the thing being full of plot holes. For instance, if Cheerleader shot Peter in the head, he would die but get better as soon as they pulled the bullet out, so that seems like a good way to stop him from blowing up). I think they did this for the simple fact that it makes the fat-headed fans of Heroes feel smart – ‘I called that ending!’ Of course you did… so did anyone who watched any previous episodes and had a concept of basic storytelling clichés.
Meanwhile Lost went the absolute opposite direction, delivering a finale that was a complete mindfuck, an ending that no one could have guessed six weeks ago. That’s because the producers know that the fans of Lost – intelligent, literate people, mostly – love the sense of excitement that comes from having expectations challenged, not met. The crowd that loves Heroes is the same crowd Robert Zemeckis cuts his trailers for – the people who want to know exactly what they’re getting when they walk into a theater, the people who choose McDonalds over local food when traveling for that same reason. These people are the lowest common denominator, and Heroes shovels its shit into their happily gaping maws on a weekly basis.
There are other ways in which the Lost finale spanked Heroes – for one thing Lost has characters that feel three dimensional, who have contradictions and hidden depths, quite the opposite of Heroes’ cheap carboard cut-outs (the character who got closest to having anything resembling depth was Nathan Petrelli, and he got blown up… although I’m sure he’ll get better next year), and these characters evolve and change in interesting – and not predictable (hello, Peter Petrelli and Hiro Nakamura arcs of gaining confidence) – ways. Lost has a more exciting and intriguing concept and set up as opposed to Heroes’ Comic Books’ Greatest Hits stories. But when the dust settles at the end of this week, the truth is that the biggest difference is how the two shows treat their fans. I’d rather have Lindelof and Cuse think of me as so smart that they can throw in tiny hints and also little bits of disinformation to keep me guessing over Kring thinking his fans are too stupid to be able to deal with actual shock or excitement.
Source: CHUD
Friday, May 25, 2007
Too Cool
From Variety:
'Family Guy' meets 'Star Wars'
Toon kicking off season with approved spoof
By JOSEF ADALIANThe Force is with "Family Guy."
Fox's animated hit will kick off its fifth season this September with an hourlong episode that retells the "Star Wars" saga using "Family Guy" characters.
Lucasfilm has blessed the event, which will have the Griffin family acting out all the key scenes and narrative from "Star Wars: A New Hope," the first installment of the franchise. "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane is a major "Star Wars" fan and was personally involved in getting Lucasfilm on board, an exec from 20th Century Fox TV said.
Not surprisingly, family patriarch Peter Griffin will play the role of Han Solo, while mom Lois will appear as Princess Leia. Evil baby Stewie will be Darth Vader, natch.
Brian the family dog will serve as Chewbaca, while son Chris is Luke. Robots R2-D2 and C-3PO will be handled by Cleveland and Quagmire, respectively, while creepy old guy Herbert gets the Obi- Wan character.
Plot of the episode has the Griffin family stuck at home during a blackout. With no TV to entertain them, Peter decides to tell a story --- leading to the "Star Wars" flashback.
Planning for the seg began more than a year ago, with the "Family Guy" execs getting Lucasfilm on board. MacFarlane is set to show off footage from the episode at this weekend's Star Wars mega-convention in Los Angeles.
MacFarlane and the "Family Guy" writers have shown a strong interest in "Star Wars," serving up several mini-spoofs of the franchise in years past.
In addition to the "Star Wars" tribute, "Family Guy" will also mark its 100th episode next season, with a two-part special set to air in November.
'Family Guy' meets 'Star Wars'
Toon kicking off season with approved spoof
By JOSEF ADALIANThe Force is with "Family Guy."
Fox's animated hit will kick off its fifth season this September with an hourlong episode that retells the "Star Wars" saga using "Family Guy" characters.
Lucasfilm has blessed the event, which will have the Griffin family acting out all the key scenes and narrative from "Star Wars: A New Hope," the first installment of the franchise. "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane is a major "Star Wars" fan and was personally involved in getting Lucasfilm on board, an exec from 20th Century Fox TV said.
Not surprisingly, family patriarch Peter Griffin will play the role of Han Solo, while mom Lois will appear as Princess Leia. Evil baby Stewie will be Darth Vader, natch.
Brian the family dog will serve as Chewbaca, while son Chris is Luke. Robots R2-D2 and C-3PO will be handled by Cleveland and Quagmire, respectively, while creepy old guy Herbert gets the Obi- Wan character.
Plot of the episode has the Griffin family stuck at home during a blackout. With no TV to entertain them, Peter decides to tell a story --- leading to the "Star Wars" flashback.
Planning for the seg began more than a year ago, with the "Family Guy" execs getting Lucasfilm on board. MacFarlane is set to show off footage from the episode at this weekend's Star Wars mega-convention in Los Angeles.
MacFarlane and the "Family Guy" writers have shown a strong interest in "Star Wars," serving up several mini-spoofs of the franchise in years past.
In addition to the "Star Wars" tribute, "Family Guy" will also mark its 100th episode next season, with a two-part special set to air in November.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Lost Finale Review by Tim Goodman
"Lost" season finale: No one gets out of here alive.
Coming out of story hell and a long night with a sick kid, so you'll have to cut me some slack for the slight delay in getting to Matthew Fox as Jim Morrison and the rest of the hijinks that happened on the two-hour "Lost" season finale last night.
I loved it. I picked up immediately that it was a fast-forward situation with Jack in a full beard, all gone to hell and hooked on pills, discovering he couldn't live life off the island. That's right, off the island. It was a great twist and a good tease to a series that has been a lot more assured the last month or so and began moving with real confidence. Last night there was an assured swagger to the finale. Not only was the pace fast, the teases taut, and the answers plenty, the writers took a compelling gamble (though one not too difficult to unravel or further complicate). They told viewers that in the future, all (or maybe all) of the people on the "Lost" island get off. They get their wish. But in Jack, our guide through this series, the writers definitively say, "Be careful what you wish for."
Again, it can't be said enough that this is a series that at least tries, it swings the bat. After meandering a bit and getting spanked for it, "Lost" has been one very motivated series. The question, though, is was this finale a good idea? We know they get off the island (or, just to be safe, that SOME of them get off). How much drama does that suck out of the coming seasons? I'm willing to bet that there's plenty of smart ways to tweak the drama and keep fans captivated. So don't sweat it.
Getting off the island, as seen through the looking glass, was the major twist. But Charlie also died - with some dignity, no less. (Of course, I'm not totally convinced he had to go out that way. If he could get to the hatch door before Desmond - and trying to save Desmond seemed to be the point - couldn't he have just closed it from the other side? Weren't there enough wet suits? And let's say that a grenade CAN explode underwater, because I guess that makes some sense, didn't Charlie think both he and Desmond could withstand the blast and get out alive? Would the substation fill up that fast? Just thinking out loud here.) Oh, a lot of Others got all blowed up. That was fun. Hurley ran some dude down in a VW Van. Jack beat the bejesus out of Ben, which was loooooong overdue. Rousseau and Alex were united and tied up dear old dad. Penny's still out there (which hopefully means more Desmond next season, brother). Walt showed up (and growed up). Locke couldn't walk, then could walk. In the future, someone is in a casket and nobody shows up for the funeral. Who is it? Oh, much happened. (And yes I used blowed and growed in this paragraph on purpose.) Much happened indeed.
"Lost" returns in January of 2008. I'm actually all for that. No reruns. No "Day Break" breaking things up. And it will be fun to muse about what happened. Starting now.
Posted By: Tim Goodman (Email) | May 24 at 01:58 PM
Listed Under: Lost | Permalink | Comments (63) : Post Comment
Coming out of story hell and a long night with a sick kid, so you'll have to cut me some slack for the slight delay in getting to Matthew Fox as Jim Morrison and the rest of the hijinks that happened on the two-hour "Lost" season finale last night.
I loved it. I picked up immediately that it was a fast-forward situation with Jack in a full beard, all gone to hell and hooked on pills, discovering he couldn't live life off the island. That's right, off the island. It was a great twist and a good tease to a series that has been a lot more assured the last month or so and began moving with real confidence. Last night there was an assured swagger to the finale. Not only was the pace fast, the teases taut, and the answers plenty, the writers took a compelling gamble (though one not too difficult to unravel or further complicate). They told viewers that in the future, all (or maybe all) of the people on the "Lost" island get off. They get their wish. But in Jack, our guide through this series, the writers definitively say, "Be careful what you wish for."
Again, it can't be said enough that this is a series that at least tries, it swings the bat. After meandering a bit and getting spanked for it, "Lost" has been one very motivated series. The question, though, is was this finale a good idea? We know they get off the island (or, just to be safe, that SOME of them get off). How much drama does that suck out of the coming seasons? I'm willing to bet that there's plenty of smart ways to tweak the drama and keep fans captivated. So don't sweat it.
Getting off the island, as seen through the looking glass, was the major twist. But Charlie also died - with some dignity, no less. (Of course, I'm not totally convinced he had to go out that way. If he could get to the hatch door before Desmond - and trying to save Desmond seemed to be the point - couldn't he have just closed it from the other side? Weren't there enough wet suits? And let's say that a grenade CAN explode underwater, because I guess that makes some sense, didn't Charlie think both he and Desmond could withstand the blast and get out alive? Would the substation fill up that fast? Just thinking out loud here.) Oh, a lot of Others got all blowed up. That was fun. Hurley ran some dude down in a VW Van. Jack beat the bejesus out of Ben, which was loooooong overdue. Rousseau and Alex were united and tied up dear old dad. Penny's still out there (which hopefully means more Desmond next season, brother). Walt showed up (and growed up). Locke couldn't walk, then could walk. In the future, someone is in a casket and nobody shows up for the funeral. Who is it? Oh, much happened. (And yes I used blowed and growed in this paragraph on purpose.) Much happened indeed.
"Lost" returns in January of 2008. I'm actually all for that. No reruns. No "Day Break" breaking things up. And it will be fun to muse about what happened. Starting now.
Posted By: Tim Goodman (Email) | May 24 at 01:58 PM
Listed Under: Lost | Permalink | Comments (63) : Post Comment
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
One Last Word (or 2) About The Heroes Finale
from http://tomthedog.blogspot.com
Two things about Heroes, one very spoiler-filled
This is not the spoiler-filled one.
Lisa Schmeiser over at Teevee writes about how serialized shows like Lost and Heroes have driven away viewers -- including herself -- with long mid-season hiatuses.
What I think is funny about the article is that she uses her background as a comic book fan to illustrate why she won't wait for Heroes to take seven weeks off. Comic books, she says, keep a regular schedule, and wouldn't dare lose readers by taking hiatuses.
Everyone who reads comics is already laughing, I'm sure, but I'll explain what's funny to you non-comics readers. This comes a week after the release of new issues of two enormously popular comics, Mark Millar's Ultimates 2, and Frank Miller's All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder. The punchline: the previous issue of Ultimates 2 was released eight months ago, and the last All-Star Batman and Robin came out a full year ago.
Long, unscheduled, and mostly unexplained breaks between new issues of comics have become the norm for the industry. Ask anyone who has waited way longer than they should have for Wonder Woman, or Astonishing X-Men, or All-Star Superman. Or take Civil War, a massive crossover event, on which several other tie-in comics depended. Each issue of Civil War that was late impacted every other comic that connected to it, making them late as well. Basically, Marvel's entire roster of books was disrupted by Civil War's perpetual lateness.
Quite the contrary to Lisa Schmeiser's argument, comic book fans should be trained by now to be the most tolerant of hiatuses in TV shows. Ask anyone who is still waiting for Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk, which has taken over a year between issues, with no sign of the next one in sight. Bonus punchline: Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk is written by Damon Lindelof... co-creator of Lost.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the spoiler-filled one. It talks about the end of the season finale.
Here are three other ways Peter Petrelli could have been stopped at the end of the episode, rather than having Nathan fly him away. Three ways which make me think the show's characters, and the writers, have not been paying attention this past season.
1. Hiro could've frozen Peter in time. Or teleported Peter to a safe distance, then teleported back out of the blast zone. Hiro has had all season to think about what he would do when the explosive crisis arrived. These things never occurred to him? And when Peter sees Hiro, does he ask him to use his miraculous powers to save the day? No, he asks him to kill him with his sword, which makes Hiro hesitate long enough for Sylar to attack. If either of them had a brain, they would've had it done before Sylar made his final move.
2. Claire could've just shot him in the goddam head already. We've already seen it demonstrated twice this season that a head wound only hinders the regeneration of either Claire (big stick) or Peter (shard of glass) until the foreign object is removed from their brains. Shoot Peter in the brain, then take the bullet out later either when they're sure the danger of Peter exploding has passed, or until they get Peter to an area of safety where he can explode without harming anyone else. [EDITED to note: of course, considering the size of the gun she was carrying, rather than lodging a bullet in Peter's brain, she might've blown half of his head off. Which might be slightly tougher to regenerate from.]
3. Or, duh, Peter could've flown away all on his own. Has everyone forgotten he's got the same power as Nathan?? It's so simple, so obvious, that it makes the writers look like chumps for not exploring it. Or it makes it seem the writers think the audience are chumps, and won't think of it. If Peter can't use his other powers while he's going nuclear, that has to be explained. (Maybe it has been, but I haven't seen it; we already know Peter can combine other powers, like invisibility and telekinesis.) The same goes for Peter using Hiro's powers. Maybe Peter hasn't mastered Hiro's powers, but I think we've seen him freeze time once. If he can use Hiro's powers, he could've teleported himself away.
And there's a fourth way this could've gone, which, for all I know, we'll find out next season is what happened:
4. Fine, have Nathan fly Peter away, so they can have their brotherly bonding moment. But when Nathan gets Peter out of harm's way, he lets him go and flies away from where the explosion's going to be. After all, Nathan knows Peter can regenerate, so why wouldn't Nathan just toss him in the air and take off to save himself? Maybe he did -- we'll have to wait and see.
P.S. In case you were wondering, I still really, really liked the episode (despite other quibbles I won't go into), and can't wait for season two.
Two things about Heroes, one very spoiler-filled
This is not the spoiler-filled one.
Lisa Schmeiser over at Teevee writes about how serialized shows like Lost and Heroes have driven away viewers -- including herself -- with long mid-season hiatuses.
What I think is funny about the article is that she uses her background as a comic book fan to illustrate why she won't wait for Heroes to take seven weeks off. Comic books, she says, keep a regular schedule, and wouldn't dare lose readers by taking hiatuses.
Everyone who reads comics is already laughing, I'm sure, but I'll explain what's funny to you non-comics readers. This comes a week after the release of new issues of two enormously popular comics, Mark Millar's Ultimates 2, and Frank Miller's All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder. The punchline: the previous issue of Ultimates 2 was released eight months ago, and the last All-Star Batman and Robin came out a full year ago.
Long, unscheduled, and mostly unexplained breaks between new issues of comics have become the norm for the industry. Ask anyone who has waited way longer than they should have for Wonder Woman, or Astonishing X-Men, or All-Star Superman. Or take Civil War, a massive crossover event, on which several other tie-in comics depended. Each issue of Civil War that was late impacted every other comic that connected to it, making them late as well. Basically, Marvel's entire roster of books was disrupted by Civil War's perpetual lateness.
Quite the contrary to Lisa Schmeiser's argument, comic book fans should be trained by now to be the most tolerant of hiatuses in TV shows. Ask anyone who is still waiting for Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk, which has taken over a year between issues, with no sign of the next one in sight. Bonus punchline: Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk is written by Damon Lindelof... co-creator of Lost.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the spoiler-filled one. It talks about the end of the season finale.
Here are three other ways Peter Petrelli could have been stopped at the end of the episode, rather than having Nathan fly him away. Three ways which make me think the show's characters, and the writers, have not been paying attention this past season.
1. Hiro could've frozen Peter in time. Or teleported Peter to a safe distance, then teleported back out of the blast zone. Hiro has had all season to think about what he would do when the explosive crisis arrived. These things never occurred to him? And when Peter sees Hiro, does he ask him to use his miraculous powers to save the day? No, he asks him to kill him with his sword, which makes Hiro hesitate long enough for Sylar to attack. If either of them had a brain, they would've had it done before Sylar made his final move.
2. Claire could've just shot him in the goddam head already. We've already seen it demonstrated twice this season that a head wound only hinders the regeneration of either Claire (big stick) or Peter (shard of glass) until the foreign object is removed from their brains. Shoot Peter in the brain, then take the bullet out later either when they're sure the danger of Peter exploding has passed, or until they get Peter to an area of safety where he can explode without harming anyone else. [EDITED to note: of course, considering the size of the gun she was carrying, rather than lodging a bullet in Peter's brain, she might've blown half of his head off. Which might be slightly tougher to regenerate from.]
3. Or, duh, Peter could've flown away all on his own. Has everyone forgotten he's got the same power as Nathan?? It's so simple, so obvious, that it makes the writers look like chumps for not exploring it. Or it makes it seem the writers think the audience are chumps, and won't think of it. If Peter can't use his other powers while he's going nuclear, that has to be explained. (Maybe it has been, but I haven't seen it; we already know Peter can combine other powers, like invisibility and telekinesis.) The same goes for Peter using Hiro's powers. Maybe Peter hasn't mastered Hiro's powers, but I think we've seen him freeze time once. If he can use Hiro's powers, he could've teleported himself away.
And there's a fourth way this could've gone, which, for all I know, we'll find out next season is what happened:
4. Fine, have Nathan fly Peter away, so they can have their brotherly bonding moment. But when Nathan gets Peter out of harm's way, he lets him go and flies away from where the explosion's going to be. After all, Nathan knows Peter can regenerate, so why wouldn't Nathan just toss him in the air and take off to save himself? Maybe he did -- we'll have to wait and see.
P.S. In case you were wondering, I still really, really liked the episode (despite other quibbles I won't go into), and can't wait for season two.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
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