…spoilers abound.  You have been warned.

The cliffhanger episode has become a staple of the genre show.  It was once used by soap opera type shows like Dallas to pull viewers in and get them [...]]]> So.  The channel formerly known as SciFi hit the ground running once again with some summer programming.  First we had Warehouse 13.

…spoilers abound.  You have been warned.

The cliffhanger episode has become a staple of the genre show.  It was once used by soap opera type shows like Dallas to pull viewers in and get them talking throughout the break about the show and keep that buzz going.  Now, it’s a device that merely just pisses us off.

That’s because the wrap up of the cliffhanger more often than not happens as quickly as possible.  If not in the first moments of the show, then in the first act of the show, which was the case with Warehouse 13.  Last thing we saw was Artie get blowed up real good.  He comes back, of course, and they explain it away really quickly and explain away most everything else really quickly too, which I hate.

The cliffhanger wrap up has become a terrible terrible thing.  Almost always, the writers, producers or studio execs – whoever is passing the notes around, want to get on with it already, so I don’t think it has the impact that it used to.

As for Warehouse 13, it’s a fun show that you can turn your brain off for.  In fact, I would recommend you turn your brain off when watching it or else you’ll drive yourself up a wall over some stuff.  The opening episode for this season had the elements I’ve come to expect from the show; Artie running around thinking he knows everything only to learn, at the last possible moment, that it’s all upside down, Mica and Pete going off on one of their usual missions while Claudia gets in trouble.

The only surprising piece of entertainment was the addition of H.G. Wells as the big bad; and that H.G. is actually female.

Haven is based on some Stephen King story – The Colorado Kid.  The pilot was entertaining.  An FBI agent is sent to a small, coastal town in Maine to retrieve a fugitive only she finds that he’s been killed when she arrives.  She gets caught up in the investigation of his death and soon realizes that there’s some weird things going on in Haven.  Weird like fogs rolling in and blanketing the town in a matter of seconds, like tornadoes appearing out of nowhere and freak electrical storms.

All in all, it was pretty entertaining, but I don’t know if it has any lasting power.  There’s some cool elements, like the detective who feels no pain, the picture in the town paper from twenty or thirty years past that seems to show the FBI agents mother (she’s an orphan, never knew her mother), stuff like that.  Plus, there’s the fact that it is a Stephen King story, but they’ve tried to turn his stories into tv before with lackluster success.

Still, it was nice to see Nicole DeBoer (Dax from DS9, love interest from that other King show on USA network whose name escapes me) again.

As for Eureka – it’s still sitting in my TiVo waiting to be watched.  That is one fun, smart show and I want to savor it and this weekend was dedicated to (mostly) writing.  I’ll catch it one night this week before the next one airs.

~P

Make me famous:

I say it because it’s my way of pointing out the absurdity of the whole name change bs.  I would also ridicule the [...]]]> John Anealio gave me some shit last week on the Functional Nerds podcast because I always say, ‘The channel formerly known as SciFi’ when talking about the former SciFi Channel, now called ‘SyFy’.

I say it because it’s my way of pointing out the absurdity of the whole name change bs.  I would also ridicule the Food Network if they announced they were becoming the Füd Network so they could show music videos featuring Bjorn, ABBA and Ace of Base.

The powers that be justified their stupidity by saying that changing the name would allow them to move beyond science fiction programming and make way for other types of shows and content, broadening their audience.  So, essentially, they didn’t want to be associated with science fiction anymore.  Except when they did, which wouldn’t be a lot.  Just once in a while.  Like, one night a week.  Probably Fridays.

…well, unless something better came along.

Like Wrestling.

I remember when they added wrestling on Tuesdays.  I barfed.  I also died a little bit inside.  Now, they are taking their Friday night lineup and moving it so they can make room for more wrestling.  MORE WRESTLING!

I’m going to be ill.  Again.

Why not just change your name to USA2 and get it over with?  Put us out of our misery?

~P

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In this weeks ATFMB podcast, I talk about scifi television, including the renewal of Fox hit Fringe for a 3rd season, Chuck’s ratings win that might mean a 4th season and how i09 has a list of 25 books Hollywood should be making movies out of, how HBO has greenlit a new series based on [...]]]> #11

In this weeks ATFMB podcast, I talk about scifi television, including the renewal of Fox hit Fringe for a 3rd season, Chuck’s ratings win that might mean a 4th season and how i09 has a list of 25 books Hollywood should be making movies out of, how HBO has greenlit a new series based on the Song of Fire and Ice fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin, how Bruce Wayne, like every other comic book character who has ever died before him, is ‘coming back’ to the DC Universe and how Comics Should Be Good – which is the title of a new blog that I absolutely love.  In music, I share with you my thoughts on Susan Tedeschi, blues goddess and not so secret crush.

~P

Susan Tedeschi on iTunes

Comics Should be Good

DCU Bruce Wayne Returns

Susan Tedeschi

Make me famous:

Not a lot.

Chuck

Chuck is back on Mondays.  I love this show.  [...]]]> Well.  Kinda looked like a promising year for SciFi and Fantasy shows, didn’t it?  Now we’ve seen a lot of shows come and go and, if you’re like me, you might be wondering what’s left out there for us to watch?

Not a lot.

Network stuff I like first:

Chuck

Chuck is back on Mondays.  I love this show.  It seems to me that they’ve amped up the comedy this year on the spyfi show.  Everybody should watch this show so we get another season.  It’s worth your time.  Luckily, it’s been doing well in the ratings thus far, so I’ve got my fingers crossed.

FlashForward

Despite having that guy I can’t stand in the main role (Joseph Fiennes as FBI guy Mark Benford), and despite some crappy scripts towards the end before the mid-season break, FlashForward still has a lot of potential.  I’m really hoping that they manage to keep it together long enough to give us a decent second half of the season and a season two of the ratings gods are kind.  With Lost ending it’s run this year, ABC will be looking at what it has or might have that could fill the void.  FlashForward could be a contender (if they amp up the writing).

Trouble is, we have to wait til March to see anything more from this show, which means any momentum they may have had has been utterly lost.

Lost

Lost is still around, but this is the last season for the show.  I have high hopes that the series will deliver a strong ending and a satisfying one.  Note that writers and producers of Lost – we want a SATISFYING ending – not that bullcrap we got from Battlestar.

Fringe

Of all the shows that have potential for greatness, Fringe is the potentialynious.  Potentiameter.  Um…

Fantastic characters; Olivia is driven, determined, she is going to figure it all out and stop the bad guys, Peter is the intelligent, some might even say dashing at times, anti-hero who seems to be growing into the role of ‘do gooder’ quite well.  He has his reasons for doing what he’s doing and we don’t really know what they all are.  Yet.  And then there’s Walter, beautiful, mega-smart, absolutely insane Walter who doesn’t have a filter on his mouth and says things that make me laugh and cringe all at the same time.

This show needs to survive because it can be great.  It can go down in the anals of tv history as one of the top genre shows.  If the writers don’t screw it all up.

Supernatural

I’m worried about the boys.  I really am.  I’ve tried to explain why I like this show in the past and I don’t think I’ve ever done it right.  In my mind, I feel like this show worked because they were sort of flipping us off.  Yeah, it’s a buddy show – but with issues.  Yeah, there’s ghosts, but they’re not your momma’s ghosts.  Shit happens.

But, lately, I feel like they haven’t been quite so irreverent, so flippant – they haven’t flipped me off in a while and I miss that.  The whole Angels/Demon war / apocalypse is taking too long.  If you have an apocalypse, they generally don’t stretch out long enough for people to go for pie, if you know what I mean.  Step it up, boys.  I want an ‘oh shit’ scene like Angel stepping off the elevator in LA to learn that the apocalypse has already happened, it’s here, it’s now – fight it or bend over.

V

I don’t know why I have this on the list.  It doesn’t deserve to be on the list at this point.  They gave us 4 friggin episodes – 4! and then they took the damned thing off the air where it has remained.  It’s being ‘retooled’ or ‘rebooted’ or whatever the hell they call it today in lala land.  I reserve the right to hate it just because dumbass people are involved behind the scenes.

What I don’t like / won’t watch on the networks:

Heroes

Jumped the shark.  Lost the Force.  Got it’s Mojo stolen.

Smallville

I’m surprised this is still on the air simply because the actors aren’t 13 anymore, and the CW likes it’s shows with 13 year olds.  I am going to watch the Justice Society episode because I want to see how badly they screw it up.

The Vampire Diaries

NO. Just… no.

Cable Stuff

Stargate: Universe

The channel formerly known as SciFi knows how to do one thing really, really well: annoy us.

I absolutely friggin HATE the way they do their ’seasons’.  I swear they shoot themselves in the foot with this ‘1.0′ ‘1.5′ ‘2.0′ ‘.5 and three quarters’ season crapola.  Just when the show starts to get good, they break.  They’ll bring back 5 new episodes or some such shit later on this year, then break again, then bring a couple more – it’s moranic.  I hate it.

Did I mention that I hate it?

The show itself was great! I’d love to see more episodes! And maybe, just maybe, sometime in 2010, I will.  After they repeat the first few twenty seven times.

Warehouse 13

See above ‘Stargate: Universe’.

Eureka

(points to the two shows above)

What I don’t like / won’t watch on cable:

Sanctuary

I’ll comment now.  Oh, still see my rant above, but let me add: I really liked the 1st season of this show  It was new and different, had a decent backstory/mythology and I dug it.  2nd season – not so much.  I don’t know what happened, I don’t know if they fired some people or got some ‘notes’ from the network or what – but whatever it is, has really hurt this show in it’s 2nd season, so much so that I haven’t watched the last few episodes because I don’t want to put myself through that misery.

Caprica.

Unless someone very eloquent can talk me into it, I am not interested in this.  And I admit – part of me is afraid that I might like it a little and then the channel formerly known as SciFi will rape my up the  butt by screwing it up.

Syndication

Legend of the Seeker

What can I say? Hmmm.  In order to watch this show, I have to forget that the books exist.  It’s the only way.  If I do that, if I consider it a stand alone piece that has nothing whatsoever to do with the novels as written by Terry Goodkind, then, and only then, can I allow myself to enjoy it.

Sad, but true.

That’s what’s left out there that I see or want to comment on.  There’s some other stuff, but not on my radar at the moment.

Thoughts?  What are you watching?

~P

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When Lost first hit the airwaves, I thought for sure it was going to be stupid.  I had visions of people running around making coconut radios and concocting impossible silly schemes for rescue.  Yes.  I’m saying that I thought it was going to be a modern day Giligan’s Island.

Boy, I could not have been more [...]]]> So.

When Lost first hit the airwaves, I thought for sure it was going to be stupid.  I had visions of people running around making coconut radios and concocting impossible silly schemes for rescue.  Yes.  I’m saying that I thought it was going to be a modern day Giligan’s Island.

Boy, I could not have been more wrong.

Unfortunately (or, fortunately, depending on your point of view (thank you very much, Obi-Wan)), I only watched the 1st season, and not any of the subsequent seasons.  This was due to a lot of things.

The World of Warcraft. I was heavy into this at the time, I mean really, really heavy.  Played every night after work for hours, played on weekends – you name it, I was playing.

Self-imposed television hiatus. I decided I was watching too much of the old boob tube and needed to break from it.  I picked a handful of shows – like 4, to watch every week and that was it.  When one of those shows was on, the tv was on, but other than that, the tv was off.  Lost wasn’t on the list.

Writing again.  I’d started writing again – simple enough.  I was inspired by several things, so I wanted to write and I didn’t want to be distracted by tv.

Anyway, with the final season of Lost looming, I’d been thinking that now might be a good time to get caught up on the series.

As is my habit, I’ve been watching for the Lost DVD’s to come down in price for quite some time.  I enjoy buying a full season of a show and watching as many or as few episodes as I want when I want.  Honestly, if I could get new shows on demand I would (not 1 episode at a time – 1 SEASON at a time) because I just prefer it.  Unfortunately for me, the more popular the show, the less likely that show’s DVD’s will be reasonably priced.

I consider $20-30 for a full season of a show (22-24 episodes) to be reasonable.  I will wait out a show for those prices to drop, and that’s what I’ve been doing with Lost.  But Lost hasn’t been coming down – at least not at the retailers (the instant gratification monster inside of me hates waiting for mail orders to come) that I frequent.

Then, along comes Netflix.  I tried it as a lark, really.  Moved into the new house, I don’t know yet where I am going to put my DVD collection, nor my books, for that matter, so I haven’t setup any book shelves or the curio cabinet I have for DVD’s.  So when I wanted something to watch, I tried Netflix and found Lost on there.  I’ve been slowly streaming episodes ever since, direct to my tv thanks to TiVo.

So, what do I think?

I think they’ve done an excellent job with the show.  It’s better than I thought it would ever be, obviously.  I like that the island isn’t just an island, and it keeps throwing them (and us, as viewers), curve balls.

After the 1st season, I was firmly entrenched in the belief that there were 3 factions: survivors, Others & Monsters.  Since then, we’ve learned that there’s the Dharma Initiative, and this British guy, and these other people, and divisions within the Survivors, and divisions within the Others and the island itself has divisions.  It’s all very complex, but not so much that you can’t follow it and enjoy it.

I was upset (as I’m sure many others were) when Kate apparently chose Sawyer.  Then I was happy that Jack and Kate looked like they were going to get it together only for Jack to screw it all up (at which point I groaned).  When some people got off the island, it was bittersweet.  When people started flashing back and forth in time, I was just as confused as I was mesmerized.

Questions I’d like to see get answers:

Who or what is Jaycob?

Why did Claire just walk away from her son?

Who or what is Richard Alpert?  How old is he?

Why was Jack’s dad’s coffin empty?  Why is he walking around talking to people?

Why was Locke’s coffin occupied when he is up and around walking and talking to people?  What’s the difference here?

Just a few questions I have.  I’m sure there’s more I haven’t thought of.  Yet.

I think the writers do a fantastic job with this show and the actors give it their all.  I’m impressed and looking forward to this final season, and that’s what scares the living hell out of me.

You see, I was just as impressed and enamored with the writers, producers & actors involved with Battlestar Galactica.

…and look what that got me in the end.

~P

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I think it’s sort of a staple of the genre now.  If you’re going to have a futuristic/scifi [...]]]> If, like me, you’re an avid watcher of tv and movies, and a reader of books, you may have noticed a trend towards the disastrous future.  Apocalypse is in and in big.  I mean, it’s everywhere we look.

I think it’s sort of a staple of the genre now.  If you’re going to have a futuristic/scifi story, it damned well better show us how badly we, as a species, have screwed everything up.  Right now at theaters around the country, we have ‘The Book of Eli’, a post-apocalyptic tale of the future.  On TV we have ‘Dollhouse’ that depicts (in Epitaph One and supposedly, Epitaph Two airing this week), a future where science and technology have caused an apocalypse and the overall destruction of all civilization as we know it.

It’s the end all be all of trends.

So I ask you – where has the positive future gone?

In Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek (rebooted last summer and done so quite successfully), we have a future where yes, bad stuff happened and we humans were the cause, but we’ve moved passed that and are now soaring through the stars exploring strange new worlds and all that jazz.  Kinda positive, right?  But it’s the exception to the rule anymore.  I mean, look at what we’ve seen from Hollywood in the past few years:

Jericho

Post apocalypse America where the folks of a small town struggle to survive after nuclear bomb s have destroyed civilization as we know it.

The City of Ember

Based on the Young Adult novels of Jeanne DuPrau, The City of Ember shows a world that was torn by war, so they built a city underground for protection.

The Road

Another post-apocalyptic tale – this one about a father and his young son across a landscape blasted by an unnamed cataclysm that destroyed all civilization and, apparently, almost all life on earth.

Jeremiah

This series takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where most of the adult population has been wiped out by a deadly virus.

I mean, the list goes on and on.

So I ask you again – where has the positive gone?

Are we done with the feel good adventure tale?  With the bright, shining future of the human race, all full of potential and excitement?

What do you think?

~P

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If you’ve read this blog for a bit, you probably have a sense of what my humor is like and what my writing voice tends to be.  I’ve been influenced by [...]]]> Everyone is influenced by the people in their lives, by the things they enjoy; movies, books, tv shows – you name it. I’m no different.

If you’ve read this blog for a bit, you probably have a sense of what my humor is like and what my writing voice tends to be.  I’ve been influenced by a great many things in my life and I wanted to share just a bit of that with you this week.

In no particular order, let’s dive in.

Television as a Babysitter.

I’m of that generation whose parents used the old boob tube as a babysitter; plop your kid down and let The Muppets take care of the rest.

I was born in ‘72, so that means I watched a lot of tv growing up. I mean, a lot.  I learned my ABC’s from PBS, watching Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Reading Rainbow (With LeVar Burton), Mister Rogers and 3-2-1 Contact, among others. I had Muppets in the morning and Muppets at night (The Muppet Show).

It didn’t end there, though. Thanks to WGN in Chicago, I went on many an adventure with The Lone Ranger and Tonto, swashed a little buckle with Zorro and learned a couple words of Spanish thanks to The Cisco Kid.

On weekends I would watch old movies with my grandmother, stuff like: Topper (1937 movie about a pair of ghosts ( Constance Bennett as Marion Kerby & Cary Grant as George Kerby ) who haunt a stuffy man named Cosmo Topper ( played by Roland Young ) and teach him to have a little fun), Harvey (1950 movie starring Jimmy Stewart as a mild mannered man, Elwood P. Dowd, with his head in the clouds. His sister, Veta Louise Simmons, and niece, Myrtle Mae, thinks he should be institutionalized because he’s nuts – no sane man walks around talking to a 6′3.5″ tall, invisible rabbit named Harvey, after all…), The Charlie Chan flicks (the series began in 1931 with a white guy ( stupid, I know – but Hollywood was stupid back in the day. Wait… ‘was stupid’…? Um… ) playing the detective created by Earl Derr Biggers in 1923 for a novel published in 1925. He and his ‘Number One Son’ ( I wonder if Roddenberry was influenced by this series? ), would run around solving crimes. Grams loved these. She was also a massive fan of Agatha Christie), Agatha Christie (tons of stuff appeared based on her characters. Masterpiece Theater often ran series or movies featuring Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple and even though these were probably more adult orientated, I often watched with Grams or my mom).

In addition to all of that, I was often left alone to search the dial for whatever was on, and I’d come across things like: The Three Stooges ( my aunt forbid my cousin and I from watching these shorts because she said they were too violent, so we always made a point of watching them whenever we could… ), The Bowery Boys, The Honeymooners, The Little Rascals, I Love Lucy, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, My Three Sons, Gidget, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, Scooby Doo, The Waltons, The Monkees, The Land of the Lost, Lost in Space and The Time Tunnel.

A lot of tv, I know – but that was the way it was done back then. When you had parents who both worked or stuff going on, setting your kid down in front of the tv for a couple hours so you could get stuff done just worked.

And it didn’t stop there.  Very young, I was exposed to things like: Spider-Man (both the animated series from the 60’s and the live action show from the 70’s), The Super Friends, The Incredible Hulk, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, Space: 1999, UFO, Batman, Wonder Woman, Shazam!, Buck Rogers, Whiz Kids (spin-off of Simon & Simon?), Automan, The Greatest American Hero, The Avengers, Doctor Who ( Saturday nights on PBS ), Captain America, Planet of the Apes, Logan’s Run, Battlestar Galactica and The Saint, to name just a few.

All of these shows and movies had a hand in forming certain parts of me including; my sense of humor, my love of adventure stories and mysteries and, of course, science fiction and the incredible.

I wasn’t always left alone with the tv, a lot of shows I watched with my mom, my grams, my older brother, my dad or my uncle, who lived with us for a time.  The things that they liked to watch, I ended up watching with them.  Memories can be tricky things, colored by our own emotions and thinking. Part of me remembers not always being treated like a kid – almost like I was older than I was and, therefore, it was okay to expose me to stuff other kids weren’t watching/exposed to. Another part of me thinks that’s probably stupid and it was more likely that I was just in the room and they (adults) weren’t thinking that I was paying any attention.

My mom likes to tell the story of her watching a movie about babies being switched in the hospital. She didn’t think I was paying any attention at all when I suddenly got up, walked over to the front door, grabbed the knob, looked at her and said, “You tell me right now who my REAL mother is!”  So, apparently, I WAS paying attention and intended to leave right then and there to find my ‘real mom’…

I don’t want to give you the wrong impression and think that my life was filled with television, I had a lot of other stuff going on too (usual stuff like soccer, baseball, basketball, boy scouts), but it’s important to give you an idea of the kinds of things I was exposed to early on because they did have an impact.

Other things came along as well, and we’ll talk about those tomorrow.

~P

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It seems like every show on these days has a quick logo/name splash scene and then it cuts right to the ‘entertainment’. Not too long ago, shows began with theme songs that were catchy, humworthy and got stuck in your head.  When you heard it, you were [...]]]> Do you remember when tv shows had theme songs?

It seems like every show on these days has a quick logo/name splash scene and then it cuts right to the ‘entertainment’. Not too long ago, shows began with theme songs that were catchy, humworthy and got stuck in your head.  When you heard it, you were instantly reminded of the show.  Sometimes, they even made it onto the radio, became hits of a sort.

Heck, I remember buying a certain song by the Rembrandts for a little show called ‘Friends’.  Going back further, there was the theme for ‘Cheers’, ‘The Dukes of Hazzard’ – even a little diddy from ‘The Greatest American Hero’.

Whatever happened to theme songs for tv shows?  I, for one, miss them.

So, with that in mind, let’s take a look at some of my favorites from a bygone era.

The Greatest American Hero (Believe it or not)

Cheers (Where everybody knows your name)

The Dukes of Hazzard (Good ‘ol boys)

Friends (I’ll be there for you)

Airwolf

Growing Pains (As Long As We’ve Got Each Other)

Magnum P.I.

…and who can forget this one?

Miami Vice

~P

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Leading up to this whole thing, I rewatched (mostly) the original V mini-series, aired Sunday on the channel formerly known as SciFi, to refresh my memory on the whole thing.

In the original, the Visitor’s come to Earth speaking of [...]]]> So, last night, V premiered on ABC and I, like many of you, watched with much anticipation.

Leading up to this whole thing, I rewatched (mostly) the original V mini-series, aired Sunday on the channel formerly known as SciFi, to refresh my memory on the whole thing.

In the original, the Visitor’s come to Earth speaking of friendship and offering advancements in medical knowledge and technology in exchange for our helping them refine a chemical they depend on for their existence.  We agree (a little too easily) and the Visitors setup processing plants all across the planet.  Scientists get too nosy and quickly get singled out as whackadoos.  People start disappearing and weird stuff starts happening.  Skeptics investigate and learn that the Visitors are actually reptilian, wearing human faces and are here to take our water and our people – the latter for food.

Resistance ensues.  It was a great series.  Kind of dated now, but still worthwhile.

Knowing that V was on at 7, I set my TiVo to record it starting at 6:59 – this was because I had stuff to do, knew I would be late getting home and so, I didn’t want to miss anything.  I have avoided reading anything about this particular reboot because I wanted to be surprised (kinda hard when you ‘know’ the story already).

ABC, of course, doesn’t give a shit.  I walked in the door at 6:55 and turned the tv on.  At 6:58, the freaking show started.  I realized this as I was trying to get dinner going.  SCREW YOU ABC!

*cough* Sorry.

I saw something flash across the screen, but it happened while I was distracted.  I think it asked, “Where were you when 9/11 happened?”

Spoilers abound from this point on.

Looks like the main characters are going to be: Erica and her son, Tyler, Jack, Brian, Anna & Chad.  Erica is an FBI agent investigating a sleeper cell of terrorists who always manage to escape just before they can be caught.  Her son is rebelling against her and his absent father, getting into a lot of trouble at school and in life in general.  Then there’s Jack, a Priest (Roman Catholic, I think), who is preaching to an empty house.

Next, there’s Brian, who I totally pegged for what he was (I’ll explain that in a second).  Our first glimpse of him has him buying an engagement ring.  Lastly, we see Chad, a news anchor who wants to be more than a teleprompter reader.

Earthquakes abound, everyone gets shaken – then we see the shadow moving across the city.  People look up – what’s that?  Reflected in the windows of the skyscrapers?!  Could it be…?  SUPERMAN?! No… wait…

Anna, Supreme Commander of the Visitors appears, her face plastered on the underbelly of every ship hovering over all the major cities of the world.  She brings a message of peace in every language.

“She’s hot,” one of the boys said.  Well, DUH! She’s Monica Baccarin!  I do like how they managed to make her look hot, yet still alien.  If you have the episode recorded, watch it again – look at her face.  Tell me that she doesn’t look just a little alien, a little off…

The Visitor’s promise peaceful coexistence.  There’s just a few things that they need, things that we have in abundance – water and an unnamed mineral, so they want to trade.  They’ll give us advances in medicine and technology (that old hat again) in return for the stuff they need.

I was delighted to see Alan Tudyk (Wash from Firefly) in the show as Erica’s partner, but I got an Evil Charlie (Fringe) vibe from him, which ended up being justified in the end.  I was also surprised (but not delighted) to see Supergirl (Laura Vandervoot) as one of the Visitors.  I’ll have to see if I like her any better in this versus Smallville.

Very quickly, people embrace the Visitors; something I find difficult to believe.  I don’t think we’d be quite so accepting, humans being humans and all.  I think we’d bitch and freak out just a little bit more than they give us credit for.  I especially felt that the acceptance of the Visitor’s by the Vatican stretched things a lot.  Fortunately, they had a (plausible) explanation for this later in the show.

I liked Chad’s question to Anna near the beginning, “Is there such a thing as an ‘ugly Visitor’?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You all seem to be what we consider ‘attractive’.”

“Thank you… You’re not so bad yourself.”

Okay – (plausible) explanation time.  See, there’s this sleeper cell of terrorists that Erica’s been investigating.  As the episode progresses, we are led down the path that a mysterious dude and Brian could be a part of this terrorist cell.  Erica continues to investigate and eventually comes across a secret meeting that the mystery dude (I don’t know his name – sorry) is hosting.  She crashes the meeting and learns that these people aren’t the terrorists – they believe that the Visitors are invaders, that they are the sleeper cells Erica’s been tracking and that they’ve been here for years, planting the seeds for their eventual ‘arrival’ to ‘save’ the people of Earth.

The meeting gets attacked by Visitors who are trying to quickly kill everyone in attendance – quickly and quietly (mostly).  Brian turns out to be (I guessed it), a deserter/traitor living on Earth in secret.  His arm gets cut – there’s a reptile underneath – mystery dude freaks at seeing this.  Also, Alan Tudyk’s character ends up being one of them too, revealed as a meeting crasher as he tries to kill Erica for what she’s learned.

Jack and Erica escape while Chad’s character gets an exclusive interview but isn’t allowed to ask anything that will make the Visitor’s look bad.  Tyler gets all lusty over Supergirl (Lisa) and joins the youth league or whatever they’re calling it in this version.  Erica and Jack vow to resist and spread the knowledge that the Visitor’s are bad guys with bad plans for the Earth.

Overall, it was a nice setup for new people with enough changes to make it interesting to anyone familiar with the original series.  There’s enough ‘pretty people’ to make the whole thing a CW show instead of an ABC show, though…

I’ll be interested to see where they take it, and I’ll be watching next week.  2 minutes early.  Frakking ABC…

~P

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