catching up
I am going to try to catch up on tv episode thoughts for a few different series from last week, so that I can head into tomorrow night at least caught up.
Or at least, that was my plan until I realized --- I still haven't watched last week's FlashForward. I did have a busy weekend, though, so it sort of makes sense. Okay, so no Flashforward thoughts tonight. But I can still deal with Heroes and Smallville, right?
Laugh at me all you want: I really liked "Hysterical Blindness." I thought the episode was fairly tightly scripted, and I thought the direction / cinematography kept everything nicely off-kilter. It reminded me not of the cable series "Carnivale" that I've referenced before so much as the Disney version of Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes." I'm sure more astute students of the cinema than I will be able to pull out all kinds of points where Heroes paid "homage" to "Something Wicked." Not that Bradbury was the first to come up with the idea of a dark, evil carnival coming to town and stealing innocence / harbingering doom ... but he did it well, and Disney actually did some nice work on the adaptation.
But I digress. Once again, I liked the fact that the writers did not feel the need to shoe-horn in every single main character. We got more of the Carnival family (at least glimpses), we got at least hints that the Carnival has had run-ins with The Company in the past. They still feel somewhat like stock characters (and as I am not falling for the "istory" commercial component, I feel like whatever drama is happening with Lydia and her missing child is just the writers thumbing their noses at us and saying "BUY ALL THE CROSSOVER ISSUES, OR YOU WON'T EVER GET THE FULL STORY." Which is, of course, exactly what DC and Marvel do on a yearly basis, so the Heroes crew is just following form there.
I know I've ranted about how the writers have rushed The Return of Sylar, and taken all of the potential drama out of it by doing so ... but at least now that they've committed to it, they've given us a quick partial resolution and tied it into the main story. I don't think mind-wiping Gabriel Gray back to his pre-awareness-of-his-powers days is going to redeem him. I'm sure he'll be up to his old tricks again by December, in fact. But at least they gave Zachary Quinto some good scenes to work with again.
Apparently, the Gretchen-kisses-Claire experimentation scene was all Hayden Panetierre's idea. I don't think it really either added to or detracted from the episode overall. Claire having a lesbian friend who has a crush on her doesn't really make up for writing Zach out in season one, but at least it gets an openly gay character onto the show for the short term (not that I really expect Gretchen to last beyond the end of this arc, mind you). And again, at least the goings-on involving Claire this episode are now tied into the carnival act. Not in any logical way that I can discern, but still tied.
Why not logical? We've been led to believe that the Carnival is a somewhat nomadic and definitely insular community -- outsiders get brought into the family when the family needs new blood, but that's about it. So the presence of a "niece" of Samuel's, already ensconced at the same sorority Claire's mother attended, at the same college campus Claire decides to attend somewhat stretches my credibility cord. Especially when we saw earlier in the season that Samuel didn't even really know he'd be looking for Claire, Peter or "Nathan" until after Claire had started at that college. In order to be a sorority head, one has to assume Rebecca is at least a junior at the school -- talk about Samuel planning ahead for something he didn't seem to know was going to even happen! There is the possibility they'll explain it by saying the various Petrellis are connected to the Carnival and so Samuel has always had his eye on Claire, but still ... how would he know where Claire was going to end up going to college?
And then there's the Peter-Emma storyline. Nice bonding moments over the piano. Nice reveal that Louise Fletcher is Emma's Mom and not just her doctor. Nice reveal that apparently seeing sound as colored waves means being able to manipulate them as solid force. We've seen sound manipulators in comics for years from both major companies. Not sure the power has ever been represented this way before, although Marvel's bad-guy Klaw used to be able to make "solid sound constructs," I think. And perhaps DC's villain Sonar could too. My memory is shot --- Mindbender, can you clarify?
Apparently next episode will pick up directly from this one, so we'll see where this goes.
Yep, you guessed it -- I still haven't gone back to watch the season premiere. Last week was just hectic. At least for this episode, they covered almost everything I needed to know in the "Previously On ..." segment. I knew they had used Toyman last season as a villain. Nice to see them bringing old baddies back again. Once again, Justin Hartley steals the episode. Clark postures, and Clark mis-uses the new power he's been temporarily given. Ollie stays on what he thinks is a pressure-release bomb until everyone in the room is out safely. Granted, when he steps off it's because he thinks he can pay for his previous "sins," but he doesn't even attempt to take his own life until the civilians are safe.
I'm still not really clear on where Clark's temporary mind-reading abilities came from. The bomb goes off, the place is wrecked, Clark seems a little shell-shocked ... and then Clark can suddenly read Lois' mind. And several scenes later it turns out the powers are a gift from Jor-El to teach Clark a lesson. So why give the powers at that particular moment? Or better yet, why make it seem like the power comes from the explosion? Shoddy writing.
I will say that I liked the portrayal of Toyman. The actor has a great look and voice for the part.
Short and sweet - but really, having missed most of two seasons of Smallville, I'm not into doing in-depth episode analysis anymore.
Or at least, that was my plan until I realized --- I still haven't watched last week's FlashForward. I did have a busy weekend, though, so it sort of makes sense. Okay, so no Flashforward thoughts tonight. But I can still deal with Heroes and Smallville, right?
Laugh at me all you want: I really liked "Hysterical Blindness." I thought the episode was fairly tightly scripted, and I thought the direction / cinematography kept everything nicely off-kilter. It reminded me not of the cable series "Carnivale" that I've referenced before so much as the Disney version of Bradbury's "Something Wicked This Way Comes." I'm sure more astute students of the cinema than I will be able to pull out all kinds of points where Heroes paid "homage" to "Something Wicked." Not that Bradbury was the first to come up with the idea of a dark, evil carnival coming to town and stealing innocence / harbingering doom ... but he did it well, and Disney actually did some nice work on the adaptation.
But I digress. Once again, I liked the fact that the writers did not feel the need to shoe-horn in every single main character. We got more of the Carnival family (at least glimpses), we got at least hints that the Carnival has had run-ins with The Company in the past. They still feel somewhat like stock characters (and as I am not falling for the "istory" commercial component, I feel like whatever drama is happening with Lydia and her missing child is just the writers thumbing their noses at us and saying "BUY ALL THE CROSSOVER ISSUES, OR YOU WON'T EVER GET THE FULL STORY." Which is, of course, exactly what DC and Marvel do on a yearly basis, so the Heroes crew is just following form there.
I know I've ranted about how the writers have rushed The Return of Sylar, and taken all of the potential drama out of it by doing so ... but at least now that they've committed to it, they've given us a quick partial resolution and tied it into the main story. I don't think mind-wiping Gabriel Gray back to his pre-awareness-of-his-powers days is going to redeem him. I'm sure he'll be up to his old tricks again by December, in fact. But at least they gave Zachary Quinto some good scenes to work with again.
Apparently, the Gretchen-kisses-Claire experimentation scene was all Hayden Panetierre's idea. I don't think it really either added to or detracted from the episode overall. Claire having a lesbian friend who has a crush on her doesn't really make up for writing Zach out in season one, but at least it gets an openly gay character onto the show for the short term (not that I really expect Gretchen to last beyond the end of this arc, mind you). And again, at least the goings-on involving Claire this episode are now tied into the carnival act. Not in any logical way that I can discern, but still tied.
Why not logical? We've been led to believe that the Carnival is a somewhat nomadic and definitely insular community -- outsiders get brought into the family when the family needs new blood, but that's about it. So the presence of a "niece" of Samuel's, already ensconced at the same sorority Claire's mother attended, at the same college campus Claire decides to attend somewhat stretches my credibility cord. Especially when we saw earlier in the season that Samuel didn't even really know he'd be looking for Claire, Peter or "Nathan" until after Claire had started at that college. In order to be a sorority head, one has to assume Rebecca is at least a junior at the school -- talk about Samuel planning ahead for something he didn't seem to know was going to even happen! There is the possibility they'll explain it by saying the various Petrellis are connected to the Carnival and so Samuel has always had his eye on Claire, but still ... how would he know where Claire was going to end up going to college?
And then there's the Peter-Emma storyline. Nice bonding moments over the piano. Nice reveal that Louise Fletcher is Emma's Mom and not just her doctor. Nice reveal that apparently seeing sound as colored waves means being able to manipulate them as solid force. We've seen sound manipulators in comics for years from both major companies. Not sure the power has ever been represented this way before, although Marvel's bad-guy Klaw used to be able to make "solid sound constructs," I think. And perhaps DC's villain Sonar could too. My memory is shot --- Mindbender, can you clarify?
Apparently next episode will pick up directly from this one, so we'll see where this goes.
Yep, you guessed it -- I still haven't gone back to watch the season premiere. Last week was just hectic. At least for this episode, they covered almost everything I needed to know in the "Previously On ..." segment. I knew they had used Toyman last season as a villain. Nice to see them bringing old baddies back again. Once again, Justin Hartley steals the episode. Clark postures, and Clark mis-uses the new power he's been temporarily given. Ollie stays on what he thinks is a pressure-release bomb until everyone in the room is out safely. Granted, when he steps off it's because he thinks he can pay for his previous "sins," but he doesn't even attempt to take his own life until the civilians are safe.
I'm still not really clear on where Clark's temporary mind-reading abilities came from. The bomb goes off, the place is wrecked, Clark seems a little shell-shocked ... and then Clark can suddenly read Lois' mind. And several scenes later it turns out the powers are a gift from Jor-El to teach Clark a lesson. So why give the powers at that particular moment? Or better yet, why make it seem like the power comes from the explosion? Shoddy writing.
I will say that I liked the portrayal of Toyman. The actor has a great look and voice for the part.
Short and sweet - but really, having missed most of two seasons of Smallville, I'm not into doing in-depth episode analysis anymore.