TV Reviews

Terra Nova – Genesis

Terra Nova made up for all the delays and bad press that spurred skepticism by delivering a strong two-part premiere. “Genesis” wasn’t perfect, but it conveyed a distinctive sense of desperation while in the 22nd century and an appropriately restrained sense of awe when introducing the Late Cretaceous. In addition, the second part laid out enough for us to actually care about what will happen to our settlers of a new kind.

A few minutes into the episode, the show was already impressive, featuring strong performances by all cast members and fine attention to details in the rendition of the 22nd century. However, it must be said that between the obviously fake moon shot right at the beginning and the baffling raid of the Shannons’ apartment, things didn’t start that well. What was baffling wasn’t that the raid happened at all, but how clumsily the family tried to hide Zoe despite clearly having anticipated the event. Everyone apparently assumed the toddler would understand the situation and stay quiet! A similarly contrived premise was used when in Terra Nova (the settlement), the teenage son, Josh, suddenly started acting up by showing anger toward his father, though none of that was apparent while in the 22nd century. The two events seemed to have happened only because the writers desired the consequences: get the father in jail and justify a rebellious behavior.

Breaking Bad – Crawl Space

Chickens were coming home to roost for
Walter White in the latest episode of Breaking Bad, and he was
the one ending up in the fryer. With “Crawl Space” no matter
what the doomed chemist did, he couldn’t escape the fate he’s been
fearing since even before he saw what Gustavo can do with a box
cutter. Powerful doesn’t begin to describe the performance we
received from Bryan Cranston as he portrayed the meltdown that has
been building for more than a season and that can only be described
as nuclear.

How I Met Your Mother – Ducky Tie

Lily’s boobs, another Barney-Marshall bet and Ted’s encounter with a Season 1 girlfriend as told in flashback — score more points early in the game for the seventh season of How I Met Your Mother.

Person of Interest – Pilot

If you’ve decided to take the first steps with CBS’ new primetime drama Person of Interest, you can’t be blamed. For one thing, the track record of J.J. Abrams’ name and his company Bad Robot have been stellar, especially if you forget about last year’s Undercovers. With the creator of Alias, Lost and Fringe involved, you can’t help but be interested. Throw in Jonathan Nolan, brother of Christopher and co-writer of The Dark Knight and The Prestige, and things really get interesting.

Haven – Business as Usual

 “Business as Usual” was not business as usual. In fact, it was completely the opposite. The episode was, unlike any other before it, built around a story with a personal connection to all three leads, which explains why it did very well. But ultimately, the reason why it came very close to becoming the best episode to date is simply because much of what happened advanced the overarching story arc in a dramatic way.

After watching the episode, I can comfortably discuss the story now, but when things started rolling, there was no clear sense of convergence in the various, apparently unrelated events. At first, the hour did not seem to start that well. To me, a man collapsing and losing all the water in his body in a few seconds doesn’t have the same visual appeal as, say, a house being consumed by a fire (without flames) in a few seconds. The second image is fascinating without the creepy details (people inside?) jumping to the viewer’s face. Being used to creepy doesn’t mean watching it with indifference. So, when we move from the dried out body to a conversation apparently shelving the shooting (and subsequent death) of a major antagonist in a couple of sentences, we don’t necessarily think we are on our way to a memorable hour.

How I Met Your Mother – The Best Man/The Naked Truth

How I Met Your Mother begins its seventh season with the show’s first doubleheader. Season 7 already should feel less like filler and more like a destination, with the million-dollar question being who will Barney be marrying come season’s end? His foreign flame Nora (Nazanin Boniadi) or Robin? Or someone else entirely?

Community – Biology 101

Community returned with an interesting episode, which did well to introduce the many season changes and new players, but felt a little light on the jokes, which is unusual for the typically entertaining, offbeat comedy.

The episode opened with a traditionally bizarre scene, which made me think that it was about to lead into a full-blown musical episode, Glee style. Although everyone knows that it’s coming, this wasn’t it (Community loves its theme episodes, and a musical one seems to be inevitable, considering how the show doesn’t shy away from the strange. Perhaps they will combine a paint-ball episode with a musical?)

Fringe – Neither Here nor There

The season premiere of Fringe, “Neither Here nor There,” is a woven tapestry that put a lot of effort into hiding its intricate parts. By the end of the breathtaking third season, the writers had led the audience — and themselves to a degree — into a corner, so they now have to gently lead us back out to, well, Peter. With this episode, they tried and succeeded in kick-starting that process while making sure newcomers to the series are not put off. They first reminded everyone (including regular viewers) of the realities of the new timeline before delicately setting things up for the new season. The result of those necessary steps is an episode that works as an introduction, but is only a promise of better things.

The previous season’s premiere had to deal with Olivia trapped in the other universe, so it was left with very little room for explanations. It quickly used her session with a psychiatrist to bring viewers up to speed before getting right back into business. “Neither Here nor There,” on the other hand, opens with the previous story arc all but complete and only has to deal with its consequence: a reset of the series offering a wonderful opportunity to pull in new viewers. The problem is that dealing with said consequence involves trying to bring back a major character from the abyss of erasure from time. This is why it was necessary to let new viewers know how important the character was, just as it was necessary to make sure everyone understood the impact of Peter Bishop’s disappearance from the rewritten timeline. The writers achieved that double goal by first bringing in a character to whom things could be explained, then sprinkling comments from the Observers here and there, and finally by using an overabundance of sentences with a double meaning.

Supernatural – Meet the New Boss

Last year, Supernatural had a bit of an up-down season to say the least. Following the departure of the series’ creator and show-runner Eric Kripke, Sera Gamble had a lot to deal with. Not only was she now in charge of a fairly long running show with a strong cult following, but the Winchesters had just thrown down with Lucifer himself and trying to top that is, well, hard. As the sixth season picked up, no one was all that sure what was happening. Dead people were alive and Sam had no soul, creating a seriously interesting, but massively confusing set of circumstances. As the season progressed, we got the lay of the new land, discovering Purgatory and the characters’ battle to get there first. We learnt about the power of souls and even the mother of all evil threw her hat in the ring before being unceremoniously killed off. 

The back half of the season heated up the civil war in Heaven, as the resurrected Castiel and the Archangel Raphael vied for control, one wanting peace on Earth, the other wanting to carry out his brother’s legacy and begin the apocalypse. With battle lines drawn, deals were made and everything came to a head on the night of an eclipse, after the location of Purgatory and its millions of souls were discovered. The double cross of all double crosses left once heroic angel Castiel wielding the power of the in-between, which he used to smite his competitor for Heaven’s throne and declare himself to be God. With all of that out of the way, so arrives the seventh season of Supernatural.

The Office – The List

The Office is back for its
eighth season and Steve Carrell is long gone, but the rest of the
gang from Scranton were doing all they could to make us forget that
fact. They came close to succeeding with the much anticipated reveal
of who would be filling those regional manager shoes, as well as
James Spader’s first episode as CEO, and a pair of new pregnancies to
boot. Though there were hopes that this change in leadership would
actually bring a revival to the series that had already gone past
it’s prime before losing its biggest star, that hasn’t come to be
just yet. “The List” was by no means a bad episode, but it also
didn’t renew any faith that The Office can return to its glory
days.

Personal preferences aside, it was a
bit surprising to see Andy sitting in the big office and not out in
the bullpen. His own equally shocked grin said it all, and was
amusing enough to distract from the disbelief at the job not going to
Darryl; who seemed like he had been being groomed for the spot since
Jo hauled him out of the warehouse. Certainly preferable to Jim or
Dwight, who have both proven on more than one occasion that their
characters just don’t work as manager. Helms also has the best
chance of recapturing the charmingly annoying aspects of Michael
Scott with his own energetic personality. Of course if he wants to
keep that job he’s going to have to work on getting the new head
honcho to like him.