Television

Fox Launches Fringe Web Series ‘Past + Present + Future’

As a lead-in to the season four
premiere of Fringe, Fox has
launched a recap web series titled Past + Present + Future.
The videos are obviously designed to bring new viewers up to
speed on Fringe, while also
reacquainting regular fans with the essentials before the upcoming
season begins.

The webisodes are narrated by Fringe
star, John Noble, and do not follow the season arcs as they
chronologically unfolded, but rather are organized by themes laid out
over the Fringe time line. Two installments have already been
released and the rest will follow this week. They are available on
the Fringe 101 page and can also be viewed on YouTube.

New Wave of Dramas with a Genre Twist

By
early September, the summer TV season is drawing to a close and the
fall premiere week is just around the corner, so it is time for
dicing and slicing the new crop of shows in the hope of getting some
idea on what to except. Sometimes, in the process of sifting through
them one more time, a previously unnoticed trend is uncovered. Networks
are always looking for the next big thing, the next idea with the
potential to make them lead  — or at least contribute to them leading —
the pack for a while before the others catch up or before the dreaded
viewer fatigue. This fall, it seems some of the networks are betting on
a particular formula for TV series. These new shows are your typical
procedural or medical dramas with a little genre twist spicing things
up and possibly setting them across categories.

Louie – Airport/New Jersey

After twelve brilliant episodes, C.K.
could have gotten away with phoning in this year’s finale, but with
“Airport/New Jersey” he gave us two incredible segments to wrap
up the second season. They were so good in fact, that we’ll forgive
him screwing up their order, as “New Jersey” came first and was
almost nonstop laughter. While “Airport” had a much more
depressing tone, with Louie saying goodbye to his unrequited
love, it still brought the heartbreaking hilarity that has been a big
part of making this season so great.

He may not have been the most memorable
of the two guest starring comedians, but it was a treat seeing Steven
Wright(who, if you aren’t familiar with standup, is probably most
recognizable as the Guy On the Couch from Half Baked). His
deadpan delivery is priceless whether he’s on or off the stage, and
such was the case when he was convincing Louie to stick around after
the show to get some “tail.” Watching Louie troll for eye
contact amongst the ladies had the cringe-inducing humor that comes
with any of Louie’s attempts at socializing. If he had just struck
out at the bar, Louie’s night would not have been so bad, but that
just wouldn’t be enough misery for the hapless comic. It was pretty
much inevitable that Louie’s under-stimulated libido would trump the
voice in his head telling him that getting into a car with a strange
woman offering to expose herself isn’t a good idea. Eunice may have
lacked subtlety, but her blunt offer was certainly enough to get
Louie to bite, and the shock it elicited, in both him and the viewer,
shattered the sultry, seductive air the scene had been building to
get a good laugh out of a bit of blue humor. As did Eunice’s “hands
on” approach to silencing Louie’s protests as they headed into New
Jersey; especially for Louie’s open-mouthed reaction. There was more
laughter to come when they reached her place and the other shoe
dropped.

Wilfred – Identity

The season finale of Wilfred is
here, and it went out in the same bizarre fashion that it began.
Unlike the pilot though, “Identity” wasn’t providing the big
laughs that came with our first introduction to these characters.
It was, thankfully, not from jokes missing their mark, but as with
last week’s episode, simply because there weren’t enough. In fact,
the plot of Ryan’s return to the cutthroat mentality of his days as a
lawyer resulted in more head-scratching confusion than comedy. Of
course when you’re paying homage to Lost, you have to leave
the audience at least a little befuddled.

Over the past dozen episodes the
dislike for Wilfred’s evil doings has turned into full blown hatred,
but with “Identity” the series took a break from the norm and
focused on making Ryan into a character to be despised. In doing so,
the episode showed that perhaps there is something to the yin and
yang relationship the pair have. It’s still crazy -even crazier than
conversing with a dog in the first place- that Ryan would have dealt
with Wilfred for this long, but maybe he needs a companion with no
moral compass to remind him to keep an eye on his own. It’s hard to
be immoral when your cleaning up the messes of someone who brings new
meaning to the word. Ryan may have willingly put his history as a
unscrupulous lawyer aside, but he showed here that he still has it in
himself to be a bad guy. So if Wilfred can keep Ryan on the straight
& narrow, or at least not blazing his own crooked trails, than he
might just be worth all the trouble he causes. Which is why this
series could have life into a second season; if it manages to find
the funny again.

Syfy Renews ‘Alphas’ for a Second Season

Syfy has announced via a press release the renewal of its new superhero show Alphas for a second season of thirteen episodes. Mark Stern, the network’s president of original programming, explains the decision. “Alphas‘
smart, innovative approach to a superhero franchise has clearly caught
on with our audience.” He then goes on to add, “From the first-rate
writing to the outstanding cast lead by David Strathairn, we’re very
proud of what was achieved in its first season and look forward to
seeing this series fulfill even more of its creative potential in a
second season.”

Haven – Friend or Faux

“Friend
or Faux” did one thing extremely well. It allowed Audrey, for the first
time,  to express her feelings about — and expose her understanding of
— her rather unique situation: the fact that she has memories that are
not actually her’s. The issue was elegantly handled in a episode that had very little else to recommend.

The
story involved (one at a time) copies of a man, so it implied a memory
split, but allowed the copy to retain the original’s memories. This was smoothly used by the writers to segue into Audrey’s
own memory condition and craft a beautiful conversation between the
copy and herself. The best line was Audrey’s “My best friend
Brenda used to say I think too hard, in the sixth grade. Except for
that she wasn’t really my best friend, cause I never met her. She was
someone else’s friend. Not mine.” Watching her say it, actually
watching her throughout the scene, shows how good Emily Rose is at
portraying a down to earth, no-nonsense woman, who gives the impression
she cannot fully embrace any emotion.

True Blood – Soul of Fire

True Blood is a special piece of television. Rather than making the show consistently good, the writers have taken it upon themselves to deliver just about the most up-down season of anything in recent history. Throw in the fact that the show deals with the supernatural and things get interesting, but add to that the fact that the supernatural elements of this HBO behemoth lead to some of themost cringe worthy visual effects shots on television, resulting in some of the most appalling acting on television, and you get something special. “Soul of Fire” took that X-factor element of visual ridiculousness to an entirely new level when the vampire-witch throw-down at the Moon Goddess Emporium came to pass. Sadly, when I say thrown-down, I don’t really get to mean it, as the fight that everyone was expecting following the badass ending to last week’s “Burning Down the House” didn’t come close to happening. 

The majority of the episode was, of course, still devoted to the happenings at the home of the coven, bouncing back and forth between the vampires outside and the humans inside, but instead of a battle, we got a negotiation. Arriving at their target with the intention of blowing it to hell, Bill, Eric, Jessica and Pam were stopped in action when Jason informed them that Sookie was inside. Admittedly, the result was probably the single funniest moment in True Blood’s history – both Bill and Eric showing their displeasure with Sookie’s actions in a unique way – but it was also, unfortunately, the beginning of a marginally palatable episode. Seeing that her feud with the vampires was coming to a head, Marnie called upon the coven to back her up. When they refused, she turned violent –  telekinetically throwing a knife into one of their chests. Although she had gone back on her previous desire for exile, Antonia saw the murder as one step to far and tried to bail on the Irish witch.