The TV, it beckons
We're several weeks into the new television season and I've managed to find two new shows to add to my DVR queue: Flashforward and Glee. Both of them manage to satisfy my craving for good stories in completely different ways.
Flashforward is based on a book by Robert J. Sawyer by the same name. I've not read the book, but from what I understand the premise is basically the same: everyone in the world blacks out at the same time and sees a moment of their future. The details diverge from here--the book flashforwards 20 years and the show 6 months, for example--but the implications are the same. If you saw your future, would you change it? Or try to make it come true? Would you base all your decisions on the future: "Well, six months from now I'm doing X, so that must mean now I do Y"? Or would you make decisions in spite of it? So far, the writers have given us likable characters with complicating futures (a wife sees herself with another man; a man sees himself reunited with his dead daughter; an engaged man has no flashforward, etc.) and little hints of conspiracy. ABC wanted an heir apparent to Lost ... and I think they've found it. (As long as they don't run out of steam in the second season ala Heroes, that is.)
Where Flashforward is thought-provoking and filled with enough mythological nuggets to keep the internet fanbase humming, Glee is pure, jazz-hands fun. If you've ever sang yourself hoarse in the car or danced with your vacuum cleaner, this show is for you. It subscribes to a comedic approach to the teen-angst soap-opera genre. A thirty-something high-school spanish teacher wants to relive his glory days and start up a Glee club at his school. There's an archnemesis, two love triangles, a bat-shit crazy wife, a Barbra Streisand wannabe, a bitchy pregnant cheerleader, jocks (both boy-next-door and asshole varieties), and a wonderful gay guy who is just starting to come out of the closet. (The scene where he comes out to his dad was well-done: emotional and funny at once.) Oh, and did I mention the SINGING? A show where random scenes turn into song-and-dance numbers? A+ in my book.
How about you guys? Any new shows you can't live without?
Flashforward is based on a book by Robert J. Sawyer by the same name. I've not read the book, but from what I understand the premise is basically the same: everyone in the world blacks out at the same time and sees a moment of their future. The details diverge from here--the book flashforwards 20 years and the show 6 months, for example--but the implications are the same. If you saw your future, would you change it? Or try to make it come true? Would you base all your decisions on the future: "Well, six months from now I'm doing X, so that must mean now I do Y"? Or would you make decisions in spite of it? So far, the writers have given us likable characters with complicating futures (a wife sees herself with another man; a man sees himself reunited with his dead daughter; an engaged man has no flashforward, etc.) and little hints of conspiracy. ABC wanted an heir apparent to Lost ... and I think they've found it. (As long as they don't run out of steam in the second season ala Heroes, that is.)
Where Flashforward is thought-provoking and filled with enough mythological nuggets to keep the internet fanbase humming, Glee is pure, jazz-hands fun. If you've ever sang yourself hoarse in the car or danced with your vacuum cleaner, this show is for you. It subscribes to a comedic approach to the teen-angst soap-opera genre. A thirty-something high-school spanish teacher wants to relive his glory days and start up a Glee club at his school. There's an archnemesis, two love triangles, a bat-shit crazy wife, a Barbra Streisand wannabe, a bitchy pregnant cheerleader, jocks (both boy-next-door and asshole varieties), and a wonderful gay guy who is just starting to come out of the closet. (The scene where he comes out to his dad was well-done: emotional and funny at once.) Oh, and did I mention the SINGING? A show where random scenes turn into song-and-dance numbers? A+ in my book.
How about you guys? Any new shows you can't live without?