Dollhouse: Epitaph Two, Return

Adelle: "You're not coming back."
Topher: "Small price to pay. I didn't want to cause any more pain."

Talk about going out with a bang, huh? I'd like to thank Joss Whedon for giving us such a positive ending. I honestly wasn't expecting it.

Supernatural: Swap Meat

Dean: "Okay, who are you and what have you done with Sam?"

Supernatural Lite. I thought it would get darker than it did, possibly with a teen massacre at the end. Instead, Gary and Nora Learned a Valuable Lesson and just might live happily ever after; only their nasty friend got smushed.

Smallville: Disciple

Chloe: "Think like the CIA, with arrows and plaid skirts."

So we had an episode theme and everything -- heroes and their dark sides.

Chuck: Chuck versus First Class

“I think we can all agree this team has been dysfunctional for the past two years.”

Shaw feels like a real spy. None of that namby-pamby feel-good silliness: he’s cold, he’s forthright, and he’s concerned with information—knowing who knows what, and how to get more. Shaw makes this show feel like it has stakes: not just dead-wife stakes, but actual spy-stakes.


Chuck is starting to feel like more of a real spy, too. On his first solo mission he was confronted with his first non-Sarah spy-problem: he had to sacrifice a romantic night in Paris with a beautiful woman because the job demanded that he return to Burbank. Sure, it’s the same ol’ problem of spy life vs. real life, but this felt different. Unless, of course, Hannah turns out to be a secret evil operative like Jill.

Steve Austin didn’t feel much like a real spy. He felt like stone-cold stunt casting. But it was funny. The plane-plot was a nice change of scenery, too: tiny, but not so tiny, and a good excuse to force Chuck to complete his mission without on-site assistance. And it was cute to see Chuck excited about the Eiffel Tower, and first class, and meeting a pretty girl.

Back at the BuyMore, Morgan does still need on-site assistance, and Casey went all Angel of Death on the Fight Club gang. Hence the development of the promised “Yikes” section. It’s odd that the BuyMore scenes felt scarier than the plane scenes—as I’ve said before, the spy-stakes never feel too high (although Brandon Routh is helping with that), perhaps because nothing bad ever happens: no civilians get killed, only empty buildings in Barstow are ever destroyed, etc. It’s just pretty spies versus pretty spies, in a quest for better technology. But in the BuyMore, spy tactics are applied to minimum-wage schmucks who are trying desperately to give meaning to their lives, and it feels a bit like petty tyranny. Funny petty tyranny, but still.

Is it just me, or is Chuck darker this season?

Bytes:

• Chuck: “I’m never going to be able to escape this ridiculous cover…” Is that his goal? But he keeps choosing to be the Intersect. I remain confused about his motivations.

• Casey: “You give me five minutes running this place and we’d be ready.”
Morgan: “Ready for what?”
Chuck: “The Russians.”

• Chuck: “I’m in retail. Of very high-end merchandise. At a very prestigious store.” [Cut to Morgan in the stuffed-animal claw machine.]

• Casey: “Insurgents. I hate insurgents.”

• Chuck: “I’m alive, and I have the key. But unfortunately I did not get to use my nunchucks.”

• Casey: “Bored now.” Great Buffy shout-out.

…And Pieces:

• Chuck ordered his martini shaken instead of stirred.

• Hugo Panzer is a master at close-quarters combat? Do you get some sort of merit badge for that in spy scouts?

• The volleyball incident at the last employee picnic? I want to see that.

• Shaw’s mission control was called “Crystal Palace,” which might be an allusion to the building of the same name that is prominently featured in Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s What Is To Be Done?, a political allegory of nineteenth-century utopias.

• No Ellie or Awesome this week, which I’m pretty sure is a cost-cutting measure.

Yikes:

• I know Jeff is a pathetic loser, but as a former customer-service serf, I’m against assistant managers stealing cups of coffee. Oh, well. Claw-machine karma.

• Chloroform? Abduction? Brainwashing? Plausible deniability? To keep things in line at the BuyMore?



Three out of four roomy reclining seats with complimentary champagne and lobster.

(Season Three, Episode Five)

NewsFlash: A new La Femme Nikita on the CW?

According to my favorite news source, McG may be rebooting La Femme Nikita for the CW. Of course, if it doesn't star Roy Dupuis (and I'm sure it won't, since he's busy making movies), I'm not sure it's worth the trouble. It's always been my impression that the fans want more LFN, but only if it's a movie with Roy and Peta.

NewsFlash: Supernatural web spinoff

According to Variety, McG and Warner Bros. are planning to do three webisodes featuring the satirical ghost-hunting reality show characters, the Ghostfacers, who have been in three episodes of Supernatural. I'm not a fan of the webisode format, but this might be fun.

Buffy Season Eight: Turbulence

(Hey, are you impressed with how fast I did it for a change?)

Xander: "Cat's out, Dawnie."
Buffy: "And I approve. I'm Buffy, and I approve this kissage."

Synopsis:

On her way back to the temple, Buffy decides to keep her brand new superpowers a secret. The powers -- flying and super strength -- feel right to her, somehow.

Fringe: What Lies Below

“Some things are meant to be left alone, Agent Farnsworth.”

A Dutchman and a bike courier walk into an office. “Nice day,” says the courier. The Dutchman responds by dying, spraying blood on kindly and comely office workers. Turns out, it’s a 75,000 year old virus that is, quite possible, responsible for the extinction not just of one Dutchman, but all of the Ice Age animals, too. No joke, that.

Supernatural: Sam, Interrupted

Dean: "You're my shrink? Lucky me."
Dr. Cartwright: "And you're my paranoid schizophrenic with narcissistic personality disorder and religious psychosis. Lucky me."

So if they don't die young, or bring about the end of the world, they'll wind up institutionalized. There's not only no happy ending for the Winchesters; there's really no happy ending for the Winchesters.

Chuck: Chuck versus Operation Awesome

“What’s it like being a world-class spy?”

Chuck doesn’t usually have a Theme of the Week. But—wow!—this week’s episode was all about duality and foils: the people who bring out own skills and foibles into sharp relief just by being so very different from us. Usually, Awesome is Chuck’s foil because Awesome is suave, financially solvent, together, and the kind of guy you want to bring home to mom. But this week…



Turns out, Awesome is a terrible liar, uncomfortable with violence, overwhelmed by husbandly duty, and not so great under non-cardiac-surgeon pressure. He’s also incredibly trusting: the only reason I would put my life in Chuck’s hands is the knowledge that this show rarely kills bloggers. Basically, Awesome is Chuck, back when he was “scared and new to this.”

Chuck was unwilling, to say the least, to let his brother-in-law in on the spy games: his protectiveness might be the biggest clue we get this week to what’s really going on in Chuck’s head, which is something I’ve been rather shaky on since this season began. He seems to know the risks of spying, and he doesn’t want Devon to lose what really matters in life: family, truthfulness, Ellie.

On the other end of the spectrum, Shaw is no-nonsense, hardcore, and hates vulnerability. He’s willing to shoot himself in the chest to get the job done, and he’s definitely a fan of both tough love and the sink-or-swim pedagogical method. But he knows what he’s missing, too: he was sad about something related to the wedding/engagement ring when he watched Chuck’s family on the cctv. I kept expecting a reveal that he was in love with Angie Harmon, but that didn’t happen.

Meanwhile, the first rule of the BuyMore is that you don’t talk about Fight Club. Instead, you hit people, electrify fences, and wear dated sunglasses. Fight Club (the movie: I haven’t read the book because I don’t want to financially support the brand of angry young manhood that Chuck Palahniuk peddles, although I think the movie is darn cool) is all about the duality within us all that must resolve, violently, into a happy synthesis for us to become actualized revolutionaries. Or something. Anyway: at the BuyMore the staff feels alive for the first time since their bar mitzvahs, and they get their jollies calling Morgan Ass-Man.

Through all of this, Morgan is forced to resolve the complex Hegelian dialectic interplay between his former self and his future, assistant manager self. In other words, he must go from just being a guy to becoming The Man. In a vest.

The score this week was really strange. Parts of it sounded like the great Muse song “Knights of Cydonia,” other parts (especially with Angie Harmon in the BuyMore) sounded like the Terminator theme, and the scene in the CIA penthouse office sounded a bit like the Usual Suspects score, which might have been a Bryan Singer homage.

Bytes:

• The exploding earpiece was hilarious. Well, how it got into Awesome's ear was hilarious.

• So were the labeled watches.

• Chuck uses tranq guns, just like Alias did for the first couple of seasons.

• Brandon Routh was Superman in Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns.

• The BuyMore cagefight scene made me miss Anna for the first time this season. She could have mopped the floor with those mooks.

• I enjoy girl-on-girl fights. Is that a strange thing for a straight woman to say?

• We’re supposed to cheer for Morgan becoming a manager who toys with his employees’ futures to get them to conform. I’m on his side in this one, because the electrified fence thing must have really scared that teenager, but it’s our politically-objectionable, let’s-maintain-the-status-quo moment of the week. After Gustavo’s comment last week, and an in-depth conversation with my little brother about how television determines what is considered 'normal' and what isn't, to the detriment of those of us who fly our freak flags with pride, I’m considering adding a “Yikes!” section to the rest of my Chuck review. We’ll see how next week goes.


…and Pieces:

• Julius: “Okay, pal. Take it easy. I’m building security; my name’s Julius. What’s the problem?”
Awesome: “I’m involved in something really messed up. I’ve been lying to my wife, lying to everybody. I can’t take it anymore.”
Julius: “Because of this Chuck guy?”
Awesome: “Yes, Chuck.”
Julius: “I think I understand. Look, pal, if you really love this Chuck, you have to tell your wife. You can’t live a lie. Trust me, I’ve been there.”

• Awesome: “Chuck, you killed Julius!”

• Chuck: “Bad guys don’t count carbs, buddy.”

• Casey: “This guy? I’ve got back issues of Guns and Ammo older than he is.”

• Chuck: “You know, sometimes what I like to do is open up a problem, really examine it, find its weak points, and then not be afraid to just attack it head on.” This line scores a zero on the sense-o-meter. I love it.

• Angie Harmon: “Spies don’t say please.” I like Angie Harmon.


A lot of character development and symbolism in this episode. It felt a little rushed, but was enjoyable. I’m glad Awesome isn’t dead.

Three out of four labeled watches.

(Season Three, Episode Four)

(Thanks to Chuck-Media.org for the photo.)

Lost: the Crash of Oceanic 815

This might be the best Lost fan video I've ever seen. It's the crash of 815, taken from a number of episodes and webisodes. It's awesome.

Human Target: Pilot (premiere)

Tricia Helfer: "You wore a vest? Where's my vest?"
Chance: "I'm your vest."

Except for the fact that I hate heroes with names like "Chance," I really enjoyed the pilot episode of Human Target. It moved like a high-speed train (in more ways than one) and it made me laugh out loud, over and over.

Human Target is an action show with a twist, the twist being that our hero Chance (Mark Valley) takes on clients who are in serious danger of being killed, and puts them in even more danger so that he can catch whomever's doing it. Another of Chance's quirks is that he enjoys unusual forms of payment for his services.

There are explosions and action sequences. There's Chi McBride as his partner (or possibly his boss, it was hard to tell). There's Jackie Earle Haley, whose character Guerrero was remarkably funny and fun to watch. The wonderful Tricia Helfer (Six from Battlestar Galactica) guest starred in the pilot as Chance's latest client, pretty much ensuring that sci-fi geeks would at least give the series a try. (Worked for me.)

Chance got pretty well banged up in the opener as well as the last few minutes, and the subtext seems to be that he's not only reckless, but possibly suicidal. Maybe he's just driven to save people, though. Or he's challenged by nearly impossible, unusually dangerous tasks. Whatever. I understand this one is based on a comic book (what isn't, these days) and I sort of expected Chance to have a superpower. Guess not. Unless they're keeping it a secret for the first season finale.

I certainly liked the pilot enough to tune in next week. This one might just make it. Although I can tell that Chance's chances of surviving mission after mission will eventually seem *really* improbable.

NewsFlash: Torchwood jumping the pond?

I love Torchwood. I love it a lot. Their miniseries Children of Earth was the best thing I saw last summer, and John Barrowman is nearly my favorite hot guy on the tube (after Jensen Ackles, of course). Being a Torchwood fan in the states can be difficult, though; we have to wait for it to air on BBC America. The Sci-Fi Channel carries Doctor Who (but late, late, late) but hasn't chosen to run its spinoff series (some say for a reason that rhymes with shmomophobia).

Well, according to LiveFeed, we might be getting Torchwood in the U.S., on Fox -- with the original production team *and*, most critically, John Barrowman as Captain Jack. Frankly, if Barrowman isn't on board, forget it.

I'm feeling apprehensive about this whole thing. It's Fox, and I hate Fox. I hate the possibility of Torchwood without John Barrowman, too. And what about Eve Myles?

Fringe: Johari Window

“I guess that folks with that kind of deformity don’t tend to leave home.”

This episode was supposed to have been about freaks pulling together. Walter, Peter, Olivia, and Astrid forming a tight little bond of society’s outcasts, and the people of Edina doing the same. But, instead, it was a disastrous, offensive, and clumsy example of how cruelly the world treats people who are different, and it seems completely unaware of exactly how offensive it is.

Dollhouse: The Hollow Man

Boyd: "Topher. Think."
Topher: "That's what got us here in the first place. I'm going for mindless destruction now."

NewsFlash: John Carter of Mars starts shooting

I sort of have to put this one in context.

When I was eleven, my parents were in the middle of an extremely messy divorce, and I saw my father infrequently (before he took off for another state with his next future wife, after which I barely saw him at all). One day when I was at his new apartment, I was fascinated by a stack of lurid-looking paperbacks sitting on his coffee table. The covers featured a guy with a sword, a scantily-clad woman, and exotic, alien creatures. My father said he was done with them and handed them to me. They were six of the ten books in the Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first of which was originally published in 1912.

I took them home, started the first one, and could not put it down. I was so enthralled that when I finished it (that same evening -- I've always been a fast reader, even as a child) I turned back to the first page and read it again. I acquired the rest of the series, and read it several times when I was a teenager.

Edgar Rice Burroughs was the author of eighty novels, many of which I've read at some time or another. (Except for the ones that were his true claim to fame, the Tarzan series. Tarzan never did much for me. I liked his novels set on other planets and at the earth's core: Mars, Venus, the moon, Pellucidar.) I don't read Burroughs any more; I outgrew him long ago. But his imaginative vision of Mars was the beginning of my life-long love affair with science fiction. Edgar Rice Burroughs got me in the bookstore and the library perusing the sci-fi shelves. When I was a teenager, science fiction was nearly all I read. It wasn't long afterward when I discovered Star Trek, another hugely important thing in my life.

Anyway. Over the years, there have been rumors about movies, none of which have ever gotten off the ground. Creating fifteen-foot-tall green people with four arms riding immense creatures with eight legs was just too massive an undertaking. An animated movie? Forget it. This is a live-action story; it just is.

Technology has finally caught up with imagination. Today they finally started shooting John Carter of Mars. Here's a piece of the press release that was posted on the Sci-Fi Wire:

Principal photography is underway in London for Walt Disney Pictures' "JOHN CARTER OF MARS." Academy Award-winning filmmaker Andrew Stanton brings this captivating hero to the big screen in a stunning adventure epic set on the wounded planet of Mars, a world inhabited by warrior tribes and exotic desert beings. Based on the first of Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Barsoom Series," the film chronicles the journey of Civil-War veteran John Carter, who finds himself battling a new and mysterious war amidst a host of strange Martian inhabitants.

Produced for Walt Disney Pictures by Jim Morris ("WALL•E," "Ratatouille") and Colin Wilson ("Avatar," "War of the Worlds"), the live action/animation film marks Academy Award-winning director/writer Andrew Stanton's ("Finding Nemo," "WALL•E") first foray into live action. Stanton directed and co-wrote the screenplay for Disney-Pixar's "WALL•E," which earned the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature (2008); Stanton was nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay. He made his directorial debut with Disney•Pixar's "Finding Nemo," garnering an Academy Award-nomination for Best Original Screenplay and winning the Oscar for Best Animated Feature (2003). He has worked as a screenwriter and/or executive producer on Disney•Pixar's "Toy Story," "A Bug's Life" (which he also co-directed), "Toy Story 2," "Monsters, Inc.," "Ratatouille" and "Up."

"I have been waiting my whole life to see the characters and worlds of 'John Carter of Mars' realized on the big screen," says Stanton. "It is just a wonderful bonus that I have anything to do with it."

The stellar ensemble cast is led by Taylor Kitsch (NBC'S "Friday Night Lights", "X-Men Origins: Wolverine") in the title role, Lynn Collins ("50 First Dates," "X-Men Origins: Wolverine") as the warrior princess Dejah Thoris and Oscar® nominee Willem Dafoe ("Spider-Man 3," "Shadow of a Vampire") as Martian inhabitant Tars Tarkas. The cast also includes Thomas Haden Church ("Sideways," Spider-Man 3), Polly Walker (upcoming "Clash of the Titans," "Patriot Games"), Samantha Morton ("Elizabeth: The Golden Age," "In America"), Mark Strong ("Sherlock Holmes," "Body of Lies"), Ciaran Hinds ("Munich," "There Will Be Blood"), British actor Dominic West ("300," "Chicago"), James Purefoy ("Vanity Fair," "Resident Evil") and Bryan Cranston ("Breaking Bad"). Daryl Sabara ("Disney's A Christmas Carol," "Spy Kids") takes the role of John Carter's teenaged nephew, Edgar Rice Burroughs.

I'm sort of excited, but I feel a bit sick, too. I'm not trying to compare Burroughs to Tolkien, but Burroughs' Mars series was an important part of my childhood. I feel about this movie the way my cousin must have felt when she heard about Peter Jackson taking on LoTR.

If they screw this up and make a mediocre mess, it'll be tremendously disappointing. But if they don't -- I may finally see one of my first favorite fictional worlds on screen. I'm crossing my fingers.

Chuck: Chuck versus the Angel of Death

“I think I scratched my espionage itch.”

Awesome is awesome. (Although whenever he speaks, I think of the dog with the talking collar from the movie Up.) Despite his massive screw-up, Awesome found a solution to the problem of his own creation and re-found his marital satisfaction while doing so.


This week was all about the great switcheroo. Costa Gravas was switching to capitalism and democracy, Casey switched from the Angel of Death to the Angel of Life, and Chuck played a doctor while Awesome played a spy. Thanks to the Intersect, Chuck is better at doctoring than Awesome is at the spy games.

Awesome’s realization that the spy life wasn’t for him seemed to hit Chuck pretty hard. It also shows some essential differences between their two characters: Awesome likes action, but he values Ellie over thrills. Chuck, on the other hand, definitely enjoys action—and says he wants to save people—and keeps choosing the life of espionage over the life of love.

I liked the girl talk between Ellie and Sarah. It’s easy to see how they would be friends once Sarah and Chuck get married. The connections between Ellie and Sarah, and Chuck and Awesome, made the last few minutes seem pretty serious. Even though the previews for next week answered the question of whether or not Awesome is dead, I’m still interested to see how it all plays out next week. (Let's try to keep that spoiler out of the comments.)

In the middle of it all, we got a fairly interesting spy story. The dancing scene was hilarious (the Generalissimo is an ass-man, I guess), the decoys were funny, and everyone looked super-pretty. Armand Assante was a great dictator. This was a stellar episode.


Bytes:

• Awesome: “We’re not strangers, remember? I’m Devon.”

• Awesome: “I have nine years of post-graduate education. I’m sure I can figure out a TV set…that’s a job for a professional.”

• Chuck: “You’re an adventure sports cardiologist.”
Awesome: “Whatever, man. I can do that in my sleep.”

• The Generalissimo: “Such delicate features. Much more suitable on a woman.”

• Awesome: “That must be hard. Not just the not-having-sex part—that must be excruciating.”

• Awesome: “You and what army?”
Chuck: “That would be Sarah and her fists.”



And Pieces:

• Wait, they live in Echo Park? That’s not the same thing as Los Feliz!

• I more-or-less speak Spanish, but the generalissimo’s right-hand man spoke way, way to fast for me. Something about “obviously he is alive…life…of the country.” I think the close-captioner had the same problem, as he managed to close-caption Awesome’s Spanish (and the reporter’s) but not the right-hand man’s.

• My DVR is calling this episode Chuck vs. the Angel of Death, but nbc.com is calling is Chuck vs. the Angel de la Muerte.


Four out of four cigars hand-rolled on virgin thighs.

(Season Three, Episode Three)

Fringe: Unearthed

“Unless you believe, you will not understand.”

The rumors about this episode were flying all over the internet. It’s from last season but never aired! It’s from an alternate universe! It’s a ploy to steal ratings from Heroes! Well, as Peter says, “People are free to believe whatever they want.” My thoughts? It’s just an episode and there is no master plan.

NewsFlash: Glee picked up for a second season!

Glee has been picked up for a second season, according to Fox Flash and The Live Feed. The show will return on April 13th, 2010, with all-new episodes. Earlier today Lea Michele tweeted... "We got picked up for season 2!!!! I couldn't be more thrilled. Thank you so much to all of our amazing fans for making all this possible."

Amazing fans? That's us! Well done us. We were truly awesome!

Chuck: Chuck versus the Three Words

“I know it felt like I chose being a spy over you, but that’s not what happened.”

Aha! I’d forgotten something very, very important as I watched the previous episode—and I don’t think you’ll blame me. Chuck enjoys the spy life, but his real motivation for being the Intesect, not running away with Sarah, and trying to be the best spy he can be is…goodwill towards mankind? While fun, the spy vs. spy stuff on Chuck feels divorced from reality, at least for me. But for Chuck, the stakes are high, and that motivated his decision to choose intrigue over intimacy.


This time around, we got more of Sarah’s perspective. She’s broken the “cardinal rule of spying” and fallen in love, but she—like me—didn’t know that Chuck chose saving the world over her. She just thought he didn’t love her. Props to Carina for being a friend and showing Sarah Chuck’s speech.

That speech in the vault was both amusing (the henchmen’s reactions were great) and touching. The three words that he struggled to say were, on the face of it, ‘I love you,’ but those words are one big ‘yes,’ aren’t they? A more important ‘yes’ than the 730 Japanese words that lead to BuyMore sales records.

This episode, despite charm of Chuck’s speech, felt like a gigantic in-joke. Josh Schwartz’s other hit show, Gossip Girl, featured a plot last year about a different Chuck unable to say the same three words. The girls-in-lingerie scene was such a blatant ratings ploy that for a second I thought I was watching Fox, which made it funny. The laser-acrobatics felt like Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment, as well as something else I’m not putting my finger on. And the restoration of Big Mike, Chuck and Morgan to the BuyMore (sans Anna), as well as the non-effects of Casey’s promotion to colonel, felt like a gigantic re-set to take us back to the same conflicts of the previous two seasons.

I really like this show, but I think it might be time to set an end-date. Will they or won’t they? What will get in the way now? Can anything change? These questions were approaching resolution at the end of last season, but the CIA has effectively turned back the clock so we can re-tread the same emotional ground that we know so well. (Wow: that is an impressively mixed metaphor.)

Then again, Chuck is still a pleasure to watch. Adam Baldwin knocks it out of the park every time, the dialogue is great, and the new sight-gags that center on Chuck’s powers are hilarious. The writers still need to find their footing for some of the more emotional stuff (the pole fight between Sarah and Chuck was awkward), but overall this was fun to watch, even if it did feel really, really long.

Bytes:

• Adam Baldwin’s obsession with being young.

• Adam Baldwin’s gleeful hosing of the nerdy party-goers, and the sign describing him. He’s the button, for sure.

• Those poor henchmen: all the spies around them were gaga for beautiful ladies.

• Big Mike is a good step-father.

• Chuck and Morgan (and the absent Ellie and Awesome) live in Los Feliz. Did we know this?

• Morgan and Carina. Way to go, buddy!


And Pieces:

• Carina: “Los Angeles has all the cultural panache of a port-a-potty.”

• Morgan: “There’s gotta be—what—two million ladies in Los Angeles? They can’t all say no to us.”

• Carina: “He keeps the access key in a secured area of his pants.”

• Evil Brit: “May our first child be a masculine child.”


Two and a half out of four highly flammable cups of jail juice.

(Season Three, Episode Two).

NewsFlash: J.J. Abrams's New Spy Pilot

J.J. Abrams is developing a new spy-drama called Undercovers. According to SciFi Wire, the New York Times of us genre folks, it won't just be an Alias-redux. Instead, we can expect mostly stand-alones and charmingly cute drama. NBC's desperation to fill up space hopefully means that the network can handle two cute spy shows. Right, Chuck fans?

And here is the rest of it.

Chuck: Chuck versus the Pink Slip

“The problem is not with the computer. It’s with you.”

Chuck is right: his emotions screw everything up. He thought he’d hit rock bottom (which, it turns out, is liberally sprinkled with cheese balls) in LA, but reached a truly abysmal low in Mexico. They key flash wasn’t an Intersect-flash, but a flashback to his disastrous decision to choose the life of the spy over a real life being Sarah’s boyfriend.


I was extremely curious to see how Josh Schwartz would solve the “I know kung-fu” problem: how could this show be as charming and dopey-sweet if the hero was a superhero? Luckily, Chuck’s still a doofus. He chose spy school over Sarah, and didn’t just come to regret his choice, but actually flunked out of a spy school designed specifically for him. Yikes.

The first 50 minutes of this episode were depressing. I almost cried when Chuck turned Sarah down at the train station until I realized that he needed to want to be separate from her—he’s been in puppy-love for so long that the tables needed to be turned, however briefly.

All the bells and whistles of the new Intersect gave Chuck the delusion of power, but in learning to harness it—and to use his power for the force of good—he began to really come into his own. We’ve seen Chuck choose spy-life over real-life before, and as long as he has Sarah at his side he seems more or less okay with that choice. Am I? I’m still not sure.

The General’s warning note set an interesting tone for the rest of the season: is Chuck really a danger to the world? Is Sarah really the right person to keep his emotions in check?


Bytes:

• Olympics product placement? Oh, no…that was a Honda commercial about the Olympics featuring Chuck cast members in character. I am officially confused.

• It’s so great that Adam Baldwin gets so many roles that require he refer to guns with female pronouns.

• Slo-mo sparring scenes are awesome.

• Let’s all have a moment of silence for the passing of Emmett. And a moment of silent thanks to Subway, whose sponsorship made Chuck un-canceled.


And Pieces:

• Jeff: “Hello, sir. How may I service you?” Some of my co-workers constantly say “service” when they mean “serve.” It always makes me think of dirty, dirty things.

• Emmett: “Sneaking back into the BuyMore like some vagrant Serpico…goodness, you’re a hot mess.”

• Awesome: “Oh, wait. This is really you?”

• Chuck: “I think I have documentation somewhere that proves I am an official nobody.”

This wasn’t a traditional Chuck episode, but it covered a lot of emotional ground that needed to be covered. In cheese balls.

Three out of four lemons.

About Heroes...

I've had the two episodes that aired last Monday sitting in my DVR, glaring at me, but I just can't make myself watch them. And I don't want to watch tonight's, either.

It's no secret that I've been disenchanted with Heroes for awhile. I thought that I could keep writing reviews if this season were the last. But rumors have started to circulate that Heroes is going to get another season. And that's great for fans of the show, don't get me wrong. This season has been an improvement, and they may have another one to get it right. Or righter.

But I'm afraid it's going to be without me. I've written my last Heroes review for awhile, and it's officially on hiatus for me. There's a possibility that at some point I might pick it up again. I tend to feel strongly about the completion thing, and even after I've become disenchanted with a show that originally enchanted me, I tend to stick with it, or go back to it. (The Dead Zone being a prime example.) But I can't make any promises.

I do apologize for leaving you hanging. Please don't hate me.

Dollhouse: Getting Closer

Topher: "I always had a crush on you even when I thought you were a dude. (pause) This is better."

This episode was like plotty-paloosa. All those terrific returning characters. Huge happenings. A shocking reveal that I found confusing.

Buffy Season Eight: Retreat, Part V

Dawn: "Were my pores that big when I was--?"
Xander: "No. No no no no. Not at all."

Synopsis:

As expected, the giant Tibetan goddesses wreak havoc on Twilight's army. Xander and Dawn are still in charge; they tell everyone to beware of the rampaging goddesses and not to leave their home base undefended as the rout continues. Oz talks with the wounded Bayarmaa, who is worried about the goddesses. She says that the goddesses don't recognize the ones who feed them.

Buffy Season Eight: Retreat, Part IV

Willow: "Buffy, look. We're not even slowing them down."
Buffy: "Yeah. I'm starting to think there's a reason no one's written a suspense novel where the conflict is wolves vs. tanks."

Synopsis:

The Scoobies, slayers and Wiccans try to prepare for war without powers and magic.

The Lost Supper

Yes, Battlestar already did it, but there are two photos of the Lost cast doing DaVinci's Last Supper on the internet. Are there any more versions? If you see one, please post a comment with a link!

Clicking on these guys gives us a wealth of detail. Skulls. The Swan station Dharma logo. I'm not even going to talk about Locke as Christ and Jack as Doubting Thomas. What do you see?

Buffy Season Eight: Retreat, Part III

Willow: "We can all have futures, Buffy. Even you."

Synopsis:

It's "Storyteller" part two.

After trying unsuccessfully to convince Giles that Twilight has a spy amongst the hidden slayers, Andrew decides to expose said spy with his trusty videocamera. He starts with Bayarmaa, "Oz's exotic mate," who explains how the slayers are working on channeling their powers into nature through meditation and hard physical labor on the land, weaving and churning and taking apart the half-buried submarine.

Doctor Who: The End of Time (2)

Doctor: “I don't want to go.”

I'm not sure what I was expecting from this episode. A humongous battle between the Doctor and the Time Lords, perhaps? An alliance between the Doctor and The Master, eventually culminating in the defeat of Rassilon? What I wasn't expecting was the Doctor dying such an intimate, low-key death. In the end it wasn't the Master or Rassilon who destroyed the Doctor. It was Wilf. And of course, despite the absolute certainty of irreparable radiation damage, the Doctor went to his aid.

Buffy Season Eight: Retreat, Part II

Buffy: "Twilight is tracking us. We need to learn to not be magical."
Bayarmaa: "Really? Because not teleporting submarines is a good first step."

Synopsis:

The Scoobies are now in Tibet drinking butter tea with Oz and his other half, Bayarmaa, and are shocked when Oz reveals that he's also a father of a baby boy named Kelden. (Kelden?)

Buffy Season Eight: Retreat, Part I

Buffy: "Giles, are they right? Are we the bad guys? We've killed. Since the beginning. All of us. Even the best of us."

Synopsis:

Willow, flying disguised as a sea gull, carries Buffy, disguised as a fish, to a secret island base protected by Wiccan magicks and disguised to look uninhabited.