Star Trek: The Enemy Within

Kirk: "I'll kill you."
Kirk: "Can half a man live?"

And it's the sci-fi/fantasy show staple: the evil double.

About Us: Josie Kafka

Here's the next installment in our silly "meet the writers" series.

What area of the world do you live in, and what do you do? (Because we all know you don't make any money doing this.)

I live in LA. I’m a mercenary: I’ll do anything that requires a smallish bit of intelligence, as long as it pays. Sound awful, I know, but it’s an improvement over the times when I would do anything for money, no matter how dumb.

What show or shows are you covering on the site?

I review Chuck, Fringe, and The Vampire Diaries. Until last week, I also reviewed FlashForward. I just started on The Vampire Diaries, so new reviews will go up over the summer as the episodes become available. I also love to review pilots: it’s like sleeping with someone on the first date. Someone you never plan to see again.

Oh, dear... now I’m reading into the subtext of this question: Will I ever finish reviewing The Dark Tower? Yes, I really want to. Book reviews take me a lot longer than TV reviews, though, so I’ll ask the Stephen King fans out there to bear with me a while longer. (Hey, it took King himself over 20 years to finish the series. I can do better than that.)

Fill in the blanks: "If ______ weren't already doing a great job, I would review _____."

Even though I love Lost and Supernatural, I don’t want to review them: reading Billie’s reviews are part of the viewing experience for me, and I would hate to lose that. I don’t watch Jess’s shows or Paul’s shows because I don’t have cable—although I plan to get it once Game of Thrones starts airing next year (!!!). Serena’s Glee reviews are awesome, but I don’t know enough about musical theatre to review Glee myself. And Dimitri could review soap and still make me laugh.

What's your favorite television show of all time? (Okay, top five will do if you can't narrow it down to one.) What was the first show you fell in love with? What show would you consider to be your guilty pleasure?

Buffy changed my life. I had quit watching TV when I was 17, and enjoyed 7 blissful years of reading high-quality literature and being all smart and stuff. Then I found myself living in a town I didn’t much enjoy, friendless, helpless, hopeless—and dead broke, but with just enough income to afford a Netflix subscription. I queued up the first disc of Buffy as something of a joke, and realized that TV wasn’t what I had always thought: actually, it could be just as good as a novel—with pretty people, to boot. [Bonus points to the first reader to figure out which movie I just stole a quote from.]

A few years ago, I would have said Buffy was my favorite. But as I’ve gotten older I’ve started to connect more with Angel (living in LA probably helps), although I haven’t re-watched it for a couple of years. I’m incredibly impressed by Supernatural, but I haven’t had a chance to watch it again: will it stand up to a second viewing? I certainly hope so. I love Lost, but I love it for the complexity of its philosophical ideas and the way it plays with narrative. I’m less enamored of its characterization, which is what I love most about Buffy, Angel, and Supernatural, and what keeps me engrossed in those shows even after I know how they end (that last bit doesn’t apply to SPN, obviously).

Does The Vampire Diaries not count as a guilty pleasure, now that I’ve started reviewing it? Okay, then: Gossip Girl. That’s right—Gossip Girl. It’s not as good as The O.C., though. (I have no shame.)

Who's your favorite male television character? Same question for female. Favorite television theme song?

Spike and Wesley (the dark version) from Buffy/Angel; Dean Winchester from Supernatural; Sayid and Sawyer from Lost; Logan from Veronica Mars. Is there a trend here?

Willow and Joyce from Buffy; Fred and Lilah from Angel; Juliet from Lost; Veronica Mars; Zoe from Firefly.

TV theme song: I’m not sure this counts, but the 15 seconds of noise that assaults our ears at the beginning of each episode of The Shield just might be it.

What character do you identify with the most, and why?

Wesley in all of his incarnations. Well, I aspire to be as cool as he is in “Reign of Fire.” But we all need to have dreams, don’t we?

Is it weird to identify across gender? I’d love to hear from other female viewers: do you feel like female characters are well-developed enough to relate to?

We love movies, too. What are your top five movies?

The Usual Suspects, The Departed, The Princess Bride, Lord of the Rings, The Long Goodbye. But the first three are head and shoulders above the rest, in my book.

We love books, too. Who are your favorite authors? What are you reading right now?

Stephen King, Raymond Chandler, James Ellroy, Charles Dickens. I admire Michael Chabon’s attempts to bring plot back to high-brow literature, and I think he’s making great, albeit slow, progress with that goal. I don’t have much tolerance for books without stories anymore.

Having said that: Jhumpa Lahiri’s short stories—if you haven’t read them yet, stop reading this blog and run to the bookstore. They’ll wake up something inside you that you didn’t know was sleeping. I’m not a fan of The Namesake, though.

Vladimir Nabokov. Milan Kundera. Fyodor Dostoevsky. Walter Scott. Umberto Eco’s early stuff. Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The poetry of Wallace Stevens, in slow luxurious bites. Fernando Pessoa, in tiny sips. I could write this list for hours.

Right now, I’m reading L.A. Noir by John Buntin, about Mickey Cohen and William H. Parker in LA's dark days; Dennis Lehane’s Any Given Day; Steve Johnson’s The Ghost Map, about a cholera epidemic in London that led to the development of modern epidemiology; Neil Harris’s Humbug: The Art of P.T. Barnum; and Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe. I’ve been reading that last one for over a year; I’m still on the first chapter. I read non-fiction much more slowly than fiction, because non-fiction is rarely nail-biting.

I’ve read some great kid’s lit recently: Catherine Fisher’s Incarceron, and Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games and Catching Fire. The Incarceron sequel comes out in the US in December; the next Collins, in August. I hope to review both series when they’re complete, because I think all you genre fans will like them, too.

When did you realize you were a hopeless geek?

Nothing hopeless about it.

If you were an animal, what would you be?

A sea turtle.

What's your sign?

Stop. Or maybe, Yield. Depends on my mood.

What's in your iPod/MP3 player?

I don’t have one. But Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds are currently keeping me company while driving.

What's your least favorite chore around the house?

Putting the clean clothes away. I usually just have piles: pile o’ clean clothes, pile o’ dirty clothes. Sometimes there’s an ambiguous pile, as well. I just hide the piles in my closet when I have company. Please don't tell my mother.

What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?

Coffee. That’s also my favorite flavor of vegetable, meat, and friend.

Cats or dogs? Elvis or the Beatles? Sam or Dean?

Cats. Beatles. Dean.

Next week: Jess Lynde!

NewsFlash: Dennis Hopper, 1936-2010

Dennis Hopper passed away today at the age of 74 from complications related to prostate cancer. Here is a great explanation of the course of his career (from his wild days to his less-wild days). Here's another one. And another one. Let's thank the man who brought the counter-culture to everyone else's attention. Rock n' roll will never die.

FlashForward: Future Shock

“It’s a math problem, right? How would it possibly tie all of those things together?”

The math problem of the week is how to get one train headed towards Chicago to crash with another train headed towards Detroit before the 10 year-old gets sick of doing word problems for homework. The easiest way to cause all the necessary FlashCrashes to happen at precisely the right time? Change the variables, change the constants, change the relationships of distance, rate, and time. Re-write the problem.

Doctor Who: The Hungry Earth (1)

Amy: “Oh please, have you always been this disgusting?”
Doctor: “No, it's recent.”

I've been looking forward to this episode ever since I heard of Chris Chibnall's involvement in it. His writing pedigree is such that, an episode written by him, commands immediate respect. Life on Mars and Torchwood were great shows (with Chibnall's episode's usually high points). I'll admit, I wasn't overly impressed with his first attempt at a Doctor Who script (season three's “42”). It had too much in common with “Planet of Evil”. But “Fragments” and “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” are two of my favourite Torchwood episodes ever. So I know the guy can write.

Lost: The End - Musings from a Non-Lostie

Unlike many of you on this site - writers and readers - I'm not a rabid Lost fan. I know, hard to believe those exist, right? I followed it obsessively the first season, pulled my hair out during the second, and then decided that the only way to enjoy it for what it is was to wait until each season was over, and watch the episodes all in a row. I never had theories on what the Island was, didn't get any of the number stuff unless people pointed it out to me, and had no clue what an Easter egg was - much less, tried to interpret from it. As I often say in my Glee reviews, I don't want to think when I watch TV, I just want to enjoy it.

Star Trek: The Naked Time

Spock: "We have three days to live over again."
Kirk: "Not those last three days."

This episode is so beloved by fans that later Star Trek series incarnations deliberately recreated it. And there's a good reason why: you learn a lot about someone when you get drunk with them. In this episode, we got drunk with most of the crew, and had a fabulous time. Well, except for the six deaths on the planet, Joe Tormolen's suicide by butter knife, and nearly crashing the Enterprise into Psi 2000.

Glee: Theatricality

Finn: "Don't you get it? ... We live in Ohio. Not New York or San Francisco or some other city where people eat vegetables that aren't fried."

I knew it was too much to hope for another smashing success like "The Power of Madonna", but man - "Theatricality" was just a mess. And not in a Lindsay-Lohan-entertaining hot mess kind of way.

Chuck: Chuck versus the Ring, Part 2

“Your brother does have a knack for getting into trouble. You’re going to have to protect Chuck, be there for him no matter what, because you’re his big sister. Can you do that for me?”

Part Deux started off with a flashback that we didn’t entirely need: Ellie’s care and concern for her little brother was not a mystifying part of her character. It’s the natural role of any big sister, and I’ll bet all the big sisters who saw this episode got just as choked up as I did. It does make her concern more complex, though: she’s not just watching out for Chuck, she’s honoring her father.

Chuck: Chuck versus the Subway

“It’s been brought to this committee’s attention that the Intersect is unstable, expensive, and—most of all—dangerous.”

Shaw has gone from CIA golden boy with a dark past, to Ring agent, to dead in the Seine, to super-scary manipulator of all levels of government. Shaw isn’t just back: he’s evil and, like the organization he serves, hell-bent on world domination. Or at least, hell-bent on mean revenge. Shaw returned from the dead, slipped into the CIA’s good graces and managed to wreck havoc on all of our heroes. Really, he caused an impressive amount of damage in just an hour. Here’s a tally:

Lost: The End --- Jess says ...

Note: Given that Lost is a show that invites multiple interpretations, Billie asked her guest writers if we’d like to provide our own perspectives on the recent finale and/or the series as a whole. I’ve put together some thoughts based largely on comments I posted on Billie’s Lost discussion group. If you read both, sorry for the repetition!

Lost: The End

Jack: "I'm fine. Just find me some thread, and I can count to five."

I was deeply moved; I cried and cried. Emotionally, it was an incredibly satisfying finale. But intellectually, I feel cheated, and mildly disappointed.

Why VD Doesn’t Suck

I didn’t like it any more than you did: the Vampire Diaries pilot was, as Billie said, Muppet Babies with fangs. High school only feels overwrought when you’re in it, and the stakes of this show were underwhelming, to say the least. Girl has vampire boyfriend. Vampire boyfriend has snarky vampire brother. Some friends with superpowers, and some friends without. The writing was pedestrian, the acting wooden, the plot redundant. We’d seen this and read this before. But then, somehow, it got better. Here are the top ten reasons you should join us for the Great Vampire Diaries Re-Watch of Summer 2010:

10. The Cast. They have chemistry. The show films in Georgia, which gives the young actors some distance from the fever-dream of Hollywood, and they’ve made it clear in interviews that they’re getting along well. It shows. While Elena’s friends, especially Bonnie, don’t really grab my interest, the interactions between Elena, Stefan, and Damon start to feel natural and honest by about the fifth episode.

9. The Dialogue. It gets better. Some of the sparkly honesty of the interactions has to do with the writing, which definitely improves after the pilot. The kids talk like kids talk. The adults talk like adults (or maybe adults who spend too much time with kids). This isn’t a Joss Whedon show: you don’t watch it and suddenly start adding the letter y to make modifiers out of nouns, or hitting a strange beat in a sentence to make it punchy. It’s not Joss, and it’s not supposed to be.

8. The Labyrinthine Plotting. Borges would have a hard time puzzling it out. There are vampires and maybe-werewolves. Dead ringers and dead parents. Live parents with dark secrets. Events in the past that haunt the events, and people, in the present. On top of all of that, the main characters are high schoolers, so they’re constantly fighting, breaking up, hooking up, lying, and crying. Sure, the mysteries ostensibly shape the plot—but the character’s reactions to those mysteries keep the story moving, and the writers don’t take shortcuts with the ramifications of any major events. Stuff matters, and it doesn’t go away in a week. (See #4).

7. It Takes Place in a Bubble. Well, not really. But Mystic Falls is a small town, and it’s a bit like Hotel California: even the undead can’t seem to leave. There’s no bluster about the End Of The Known World. It’s about people in a small town, dealing with small endings. Maybe it’s just because all of the other shows I review (and watch) are so Cosmically Important, but the miniature scale is a nice break.

6. Sark from Alias. He is in the last few episodes of the first season. He’s delightful, and this show treats him better than Heroes did, although not as well as Alias itself.

5. The Other Adults. Elena’s and Jeremy’s aunt is young and vivacious; history teacher Alaric is far more interesting than he should be (the actor gets points for that); and a few cameos, including one from Mia Kirschner of The L Word, keep the high schoolers interacting with grown-ups. The real adults (the moms and the mayor) have a part to play, too—and they keep the kids out of it, just like in real life. This isn’t Buffy: the whole town is involved.

4. Character Development. The characters have more than one note. Some have two or three. Even supporting players, like Caroline, get mini emotional arcs that affect the rest of the characters in a delightful ripple effect. This is a show that knows what it is doing, and know that sometimes plot has to come from within.

3. Bromances. I love them, and VD has a few. The back-and-forth relationship between Stefan and Damon is the best: those two have more issues than the New Yorker. But Damon’s relationship with Alaric…well, as I said above: this show knows what it is doing in terms of character development and taking things slowly. I do admit it, though: both of these bromances shine because of:

2. Ian Somerhalder is Frakkin’ Awesome. He’s incredibly hot, yes. I’ve noticed. But his character has some depth, and he waffles (see above re: character development). He’s hard to pin down—if some characters get two or three notes, he gets a whole octave. His line delivery is snarky and deadpan and knowingly over-the-top, but he also lets the other actors shine: every scene with him in it is a better scene than it would be otherwise. I stopped thinking of him as Boone after four episodes. I think that says enough.

1. What Else Are Your Going to Do This Summer? For those of us stateside, it looks like the CW will be airing the episodes, starting with the awful pilot, the week after the Lost finale. (Yes, that’s how I mark time.) A few episodes are available for legal streaming at the CW website, too—and for download a few other places. I’ll review the episodes as I can get my hands on them.

About Us: Billie Doux

Since summer is a relatively quiet time here on BillieDoux.com, we thought it might be fun to ask each other silly questions, get to know each other better, and share it with the readers. As Queen of the Site, I volunteered to go first. I'll be posting one silly interview a week until I run out of guest writers.

What area of the world do you live in, and what do you do? (Because we all know you don't make any money doing this.)

Los Angeles, although I'm definitely not from here. I was born in New Jersey and have moved around a lot -- California is my ninth state. I haven't decided yet what I want to be when I grow up; I'm sort of torn between ninja assassin and writing for TV Guide.

What show or shows are you covering on the site?

Lost, Supernatural, True Blood, and Dexter, plus scads of classic shows. I'm doing retro reviews of the original Star Trek this summer.

Fill in the blanks: "If ______ weren't already doing a great job, I would review _____."

This may be harder for me to answer than the rest of the writers, since up until a couple of years ago, I was doing this alone and got to pick any show I wanted. But .... if Serena Yang weren't already doing a great job, I would review Glee.

What's your favorite television show of all time? (Okay, top five will do if you can't narrow it down to one.) What was the first show you fell in love with? What show would you consider to be your guilty pleasure?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my favorite show of all time. Star Trek was the first show I fell in love with, and Babylon 5 was my favorite for several years. Right now, I'm pretty deeply into Supernatural and, of course, Lost. Guilty pleasure? Okay, I give up, I'll confess -- I watch The Biggest Loser and Iron Chef America. Which are sort of two sides of the same coin, aren't they?

Who's your favorite male television character? Same question for female. Favorite television theme song?
Dean Winchester, Methos, Spike, Sayid Jarrah, Dexter Morgan, Captain Jack Harkness, Spock, not necessarily in that order. And I can't believe I forgot Michael Samuelle! Willow Rosenberg, Veronica Mars, Ivanova, Delenn, Debra Morgan, and I wonder why this list is so much shorter?

The Highlander theme song "Princes of the Universe" is my favorite, although the True Blood theme song ("I Want to Do Bad Things with You") is very special, too.

What character do you identify with the most, and why?

Willow Rosenberg. Because of my geekiness, being an A student, and copying my class notes with a system of different colored pens. And her years of suffering unrequited love.  I'm not gay yet.  Maybe that's next.

We love movies, too. What's your top five movies?

Man, this is hard. Who thought up these questions? Oh, right. Blade Runner is my favorite sci-fi movie, and The Princess Bride and Groundhog Day my favorite fantasy movies. My favorite Star Wars movie is Empire, and my favorite Star Trek movie is First Contact. I've probably seen The Big Chill about twenty times. And since I'm here, my favorite old movies are On the Waterfront ("I couldda been a contender") and Casablanca. My mother was deeply into musicals, and her favorite, and mine, was Singin' in the Rain.

We love books, too. Who are your favorite authors? What are you reading right now?

Favorite sci-fi author is John Varley. He manages to be brilliant, amusing and thought-provoking at the same time. He has a web site, and I was thrilled to pieces after I wrote to him with a specific question and he wrote me back. For historical material and thrillers, Ken Follett is my fave. When I was a teenager, I was obsessed with Robert A. Heinlein, but I outgrew him.

My favorite mystery writers are Dick Francis and Robert B. Parker. Parker passed away recently, so as a sort of memorial I am currently re-reading his entire Spenser series. I also just finished the tenth Sookie Stackhouse book, Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris. Eric Northman. Love him.

When did you realize you were a hopeless geek?

My first Star Trek convention, which was Star Con Denver, because I was living in Colorado at the time. I was surrounded by fans in and out of costume obsessing about science fiction and Klingon opera, and I just knew I was home.

If you were an animal, what would you be?

I automatically started to say "cat", but then I thought about it for awhile. And I realized that I'm so deeply into the written and spoken word that I really can't see myself as an animal. And that's odd, because I connect strongly with animals, and they are often immediately comfortable with me. In fact, I was attracted to careers that would involve working with animals, but the lure of the written word was too strong. Leading me to my career as a ninja librarian. Assassin. Whatever.

What's your sign?

Hollywood and Vine.

What's in your iPod/MP3 player?

That's them new-fangled music things, ayuh?

What's your least favorite chore around the house?

Cleaning the litter box.

What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?

Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup. Followed by HaagenDaz vanilla swiss almond. Maybe we shouldn't have put the ice cream question after the chore question.

Cats or dogs? Elvis or the Beatles? Sam or Dean?

Cats. The Beatles. And Dean, Dean, Dean, Dean, Dean.

Next week: Josie Kafka!

Star Trek: Where No Man Has Gone Before

Kirk: "Did you hear him joke about compassion? Above all else, a god needs compassion."

In 1965, they made a pilot for a show called Star Trek. It was entitled "The Cage," and starred Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike, Majel Barrett as Number One, and Leonard Nimoy as Mister Spock. The network thought it was "too cerebral" (maybe it was the aliens with the big heads) but they liked the general idea and in an unprecedented move, ordered a second pilot. Jeffrey Hunter turned it down, and every part was recast -- except for Spock. "Where No Man Has Gone Before" is the second pilot, and it really should have aired first in Star Trek's original run. It's actually pretty damned good.

Stargate Universe: Subversion

‘Subversion’ takes the story arc in some unexpected directions and leaves us with a pretty intense cliffhanger for the next two weeks (no new episode next week due to Memorial Day weekend). Plus, the detour into 24 territory presented some compelling issues to ponder and debate.

Fringe: Over There (Part II)

“Is that what this is about?”

This was a beautifully written, beautifully acted, beautifully directed, and beautifully scored episode. Sure, this was about the coming storm, rifts between realities, and the end of the world. It’s also about individual characters encountering each other and realizing things about themselves. I didn’t know a Fringe episode could make me cry. This one did.

FlashForward: CountDown

“I gave you a choice, and you chose the wrong path.”

The Bad Guy said that every option, every possible future leads to one point: what Mark saw in his flashforward. This episode took that idea and ran with it: even disparate strands suddenly got wound up in the big rubber-band ball of plot. Tracy, Jericho, Aaron—turns out, that actually matters. The entire arc of the show ran with the idea, too: characters suddenly found themselves, through occasionally unbelievable machinations of fate (read: writers) exactly where they were supposed to be, and then exactly where they weren’t supposed to be. Is this a good thing?

Doctor Who: Amy's Choice

Doctor: “Look at you both, five years later and you haven't changed a bit. Apart from age... and size.”

I read an interesting thing on a Doctor Who forum last week. Someone made the comment “The difference between a good episode of Doctor Who and a bad one is how much people want to talk about it afterwards". There's probably some truth to that. When an episode's bad, many see it as a call to arms. Some find ripping into the writers/actors/production team a satisfying and cathartic way of expressing their displeasure. Others choose the more traditional route of identifying an episode's faults, and then proposing a potential fix. Whichever method you choose, the point is, dissatisfaction and confusion increase discussion exponentially.

NewsFlash: The CW’s Fall Schedule

The CW remains the genre-friendliest place this year: Smallville, Supernatural, and the Vampire Diaries have all been renewed. That doesn’t leave much room for new entries, but click below for one exciting show and some scheduling details about old favorites.

Nikita (Thursday 9-10):

Official Description: When she was a deeply troubled teenager, Nikita was rescued from death row by a secret U.S. agency known only as Division, who faked her execution and told her she was being given a second chance to start a new life and serve her country. What they didn’t tell her was that she was being trained as a spy and assassin. Ultimately, Nikita was betrayed and her dreams shattered by the only people she thought she could trust. Now, after three years in hiding, Nikita is seeking retribution and making it clear to her former bosses that she will stop at nothing to expose and destroy their covert operation. For the time being, however, Division continues to recruit and train other young people, erasing all evidence of their former lives and turning them into cold and efficient killers. One of these new recruits, Alex, is just beginning to understand what lies ahead for her and why the legendary Nikita made the desperate decision to run. The series stars Maggie Q as Nikita, Lyndsy Fonseca as Alex, Shane West as Michael, Aaron Stanford as Birkhoff, Ashton Holmes as Thom, Tiffany Hines as Jaden, with Melinda Clarke as Amanda and Xander Berkeley as Percy. Nikita is from Warner Bros. Television in association with Wonderland Sound and Vision, with executive producers Craig Silverstein (“Bones,” “K-Ville”), Danny Cannon (“CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” “Chuck”), McG (“Supernatural,” “Chuck,” “The O.C.,” “Charlie’s Angels”), and Peter Johnson (“Supernatural,” “Chuck”).

Billie reviewed the original La Femme Nikita and loved it enough to proselytize its awesomeness. Maybe we should all catch up over the summer?

In other CW news, the Vampire Diaries stays on Thursday from 8-9, followed by Nikita. Smallville and Supernatural have moved to Fridays at 8-9 and 9-10 respectively, which is wonderful news for my two-at-a-time DVR.

Lost: What They Died For

Locke: "Maybe this is happening for a reason. Maybe you're supposed to fix me."
Jack: "Mr. Locke, I want to fix you. But I think you're mistaking coincidence for fate."

I decided to let go of my anger with "Across the Sea" and just let the last few hours of this show wash over me. Might as well enjoy it since this is it. If they don't tell us stuff, so be it.

NewsFlash: CBS’s Fall Schedule

It’s hard for me to get too excited about the CBS upfront. I don’t watch a single CBS show; here in LA it’s channel #2, so it usually slides off the channel guide before I even have a chance to look at it. And, now that the Ghost Whisperer has been canceled, Medium is their only genre show (although I have always wondered if perhaps the half-man of Two and a Half Men is a cyborg hybrid). Read on for some underwhelming news.

Hawaii Five-0 (Monday 10-11):

Official description: Hawaii Five-0 is a contemporary take on the classic series about a new elite federalized task force whose mission is to wipe out the crime that washes up on the Islands’ sun-drenched beaches. Detective Steve McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin), a decorated Naval officer turned cop, returns to Oahu to investigate his father’s murder and stays after Hawaii’s governor persuades him to head up the new team: his rules, her backing, no red tape and full blanket immunity to hunt down the biggest “game” in town. Joining McGarrett is Detective Danny “Danno” Williams (Scott Caan), a newly relocated ex-New Jersey cop who prefers skyscrapers to the coastline but is committed to keeping the Islands safe for his 8-year-old daughter; and Chin Ho Kelly (Daniel Dae Kim), an ex-Honolulu Police Detective wrongly accused of corruption and relegated to a federal security patrol, who is also a former protege of McGarrett’s father. Chin’s cousin, Kono (Grace Park), is a beautiful and fearless native, fresh out of the academy and eager to establish herself among the department’s elite. McGarrett vows to bring closure to his father’s case while the state’s brash new FIVE-0 unit, who may spar and jest among themselves, is determined to eliminate the seedy elements from the 50th state. Peter Lenkov, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are executive producers for CBS Television Studios.

Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park—that’s exciting! Alex Kutzman and Roberto Orci both work on Fringe, so that’s mildly exciting, as well.


Criminal Minds Spinoff (Mid-season replacement):

Official Description: Criminal Minds Spinoff stars Academy Award-winner Forest Whitaker in a drama about an elite team of agents within the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit who use unconventional methods of investigation and aggressive tactics to capture the nation’s most nefarious criminals. Unit chief Special Agent Sam Cooper (Whitaker) is a mentally and physically fierce natural leader who is not afraid to put his career on the line in order to stand by his convictions. Cooper strives to avoid political bureaucracy and has handpicked an eclectic group of profilers to work outside the confines of Quantico: Former British Special Forces soldier Mick Rawson (Matt Ryan), confident and handsome, works as a highly-skilled marksman with an undiluted eye for rooting out evil; John “Prophet” Sims (Michael Kelly), a former convict with a street-smart edge and a calm, Zen-like presence, who is determined to make amends for past sins; and Gina LaSalle (Beau Garrett), an attractive, tough agent armed with a cunning sense of perception. This exceptional group of FBI operatives is strong in their beliefs and steadfast in their mission to bring the country’s most dangerous criminals to justice.

I am only including this one because Forest Whitaker is fabulous. Well, and because I’m dying to know if “Criminal Minds Spinoff” is actually the name of the show. That’s like registering a business under the name Manufacturer of Off-Brand Gelatin.

So: no genre here, and while I might check out Hawaii Five-0 for the first episode, I don’t think I’ll start remembering that CBS exists anytime soon. What about you?

NewsFlash: Smallville will actually end

Yes, folks, I know you probably thought Smallville would run for eternity, but they've just announced that next season will be the last.

Now the big questions: Will Clark ever tell Lois the truth, since she already knows his face too well to be fooled? And will Clark ever freaking fly?

Glee: Dream On

Jesse: “That’s not a dream. A dream is something that fills up the emptiness inside. The one thing that you know that if it comes true all the hurt would go away.”

I enjoyed "Dream On", but I have to admit that I was kind of disappointed. This was the much hyped Joss Whedon directed episode. I don't know what I was expecting, but I had all these visions of the Buffy musical episode running around in my head. Joss, Neil, Glee - it should have been legen-wait for it-dary.

Star Trek: Charlie X

Charlie: "Are you a girl? Is that a girl?"

No subtlety or suspense at all. From the first moment the Antares party beamed aboard, the audience could tell there was something seriously wrong with castaway Charlie Evans.

NewsFlash: ABC’s Fall Schedule

ABC canceled nearly all of its new scripted hour-long programs this year. (Farewell: Happy Town, FlashForward, The Forgotten, Eastwick…) The good news is that, even in the wake of losing Lost, we’ll still have V, which returns mid-season. And all those canceled programs just mean more room for new goodness. The bad news: ABC seems to have lost its genre mojo. Click for the redacted version of ABC’s fall press release. What will you be watching?

No Ordinary Family (Tuesday 8-9):

Official Description: The Powells are about to go from ordinary to extraordinary. After 16 years of marriage, Jim and Stephanie’s relationship lacks the spark it once had, and their family life now consists of balancing work and their two children, leaving little time for family bonding. During a family vacation set up by Jim in an attempt to reconnect, their plane crashes into the Amazon River. But this is where the fun starts for the Powells, as they soon discover that something’s not quite right. Each of them now possesses unique and distinct superpowers. But saving and savoring their family life will be equally important, as they try to find purpose for their new powers and embark on a journey to find out what defines and unifies them. The Powells are a totally relatable family who happen to be a little bit amazing. With Michael Chiklis (“The Shield”), Julie Benz (“Dexter); Tate Donavan (“Damages”).

How much is ABC paying the intern who included the phrase “totally relatable” in a press release? Inappropriate registers aside, this sounds like another happy-family show designed to pick up on the Heroes market. (Is there a Heroes market?). Perhaps the casts of Terra Nova (FOX) and No Ordinary Family can have a smack-down during November sweeps. A family-friendly smack-down, of course.


Detroit 1-8-7 (Tuesday 10-11):

Official Description: What does it take to be a detective on America’s most dangerous streets? Get ready to be part of the action when a documentary crew rolls with some of Detroit’s finest, offering an insider’s glimpse behind the curtain of a Homicide Unit. The cameras unearth the crisis and revelation, heartbreak and heroism of these inner city cops — moments of raw exposure when they address us directly, as well as private moments when they forget they’re being filmed. The men and women of Detroit Homicide are as smart and tough as they come. They have to be, working the neighborhoods of the once and future Motor City, a rebounding bastion of middle America still saddled with the highest murder rate in the country.

In case you haven’t figured this out, when I’m in charge of the upfront newsflashes, I like to sneak a few crime shows in. This sounds interesting: it’s mockumentary style, like The Office—this is not a reality show. It might be a new Wire. But didn’t I say that about FOX’s Ride-Along just yesterday?


And…that’s it. There are new comedies, new reality shows, a new Shonda Grimes (Grey's Anatomy) drama. A medico-legal thriller, and a legal thriller. But ABC seems a little ray-gun-shy: no SF, no genre-bending excitement. After their programming woes this year, can we really blame them?

Then again, we do have a summer show: The Gates, about a community of supernatural beings who live in a gated community, and the average Joe sheriff who is hired to police them. It premieres Sunday, June 20th.

Chuck: Chuck versus the Living Dead

Chuck: “The mission’s over, Dad.”
Dad: “It’s never over.”

The camera pans over low-lying, woodsy mountains. We move towards Mammoth Lake. The viewer is disoriented—this is not how a usual Chuck episode starts. We zoom in to a rustic, dilapidated cabin. It’s out of the way, but there are signs of life. From inside, an ominous sawing noise. We enter through the door, and the camera focuses in on an unseen man sharpening an axe on a whetstone. A new villain? A Deliverance extra on the wrong set? The camera pans up… The big reveal… It’s Scott Bakula!

Stargate Universe: Pain

‘Pain’ was a perfectly serviceable episode featuring “alien ticks” that caused hallucinations and wreaked havoc on some members of the crew. The action was reasonably engaging, but the most interesting aspect of the episode was the light it shed on the psyches of several characters. In particular, I was fascinated by the wide range of emotional states tapped into by the hallucinations --- fear, guilt, grief, anger, paranoia --- and the reactions of each character.

NewsFlash: FOX’s Fall Schedule

Glee, Fringe and Human Target, our favorite FOX shows, have already been renewed. But will the top network have something new for genre fans? Maybe—read on for more details about FOX’s fall lineup.

Terra Nova (mid-season replacement):

Official description: Terra Nova, an epic family adventure 85 million years in the making, is the new event drama slated for midseason from executive producers Steven Spielberg (“Jurassic Park,” “The Pacific”), Peter Chernin, Brannon Braga (24, “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and David Fury (24, “Lost”). The action-adventure series follows an ordinary family on an extraordinary journey back in time to prehistoric Earth as a part of a massive expedition to save the human race.

This sounds like an 8pm on Friday kind of show to me: the phrase “family adventure” makes me a little hesitant. Then again, it’s got David Fury and Brannon Braga. And maybe saber-tooth tigers, too!


Ride-Along (mid-season replacement):

Official description: The new drama scheduled for a midseason debut is Ride-Along. From creator Shawn Ryan (“The Shield,” “The Unit”), the fast-paced series, shot on location in Chicago and starring Jason Clarke (“Public Enemies”), Jennifer Beals (Lie to Me) and Delroy Lindo (“Kidnapped”), will take audiences on an unflinching and unpredictable ride through the streets of Chicago to navigate crime and corruption with the most respected – and notorious – cops in the city.

It could be a new Wire, with a bit of Shield-level violence and man-angst thrown in. Or it could be a new procedural.


Lonestar (Monday 9-10):

Official description: Lonestar, a sophisticated and provocative drama set against the sprawling backdrop of big Texas oil, will premiere this fall. From Chris Keyser and Amy Lippman (“Party of Five”), writer Kyle Killen and directed by Marc Webb (“(500) Days of Summer”), the compelling series stars newcomer James Wolk as a charismatic and brilliant schemer who has entangled himself in a deep, complex web from which he can’t break free. He’s caught between two very different lives and two very different women.

I’m not sure why this sounds good—maybe it’s the Sawyer-esque hero. Or maybe I just needed something to round out this paltry list.

It’s hard to get too excited about this, but FOX’s schedule doesn’t have much room for newbies this year--they've had a successful run.

NewsFlash: NBC's Fall Schedule

It's the beginning of "upfront" week, in which the major networks debut their fall schedules--and set their ad rates. NBC leaked their upfront info early: we'll get many new scripted hour-long shows to join our friend Chuck (renewed for 13 episodes and set to premiere in the fall). Click for the genre-friendly version of the official press release, and let us know in the comments which shows you're looking forward to, which shows you'll skip, or whether it's just too early to say.


The Event (Monday 9-10, after Chuck):

Official description: The Event is an emotional high-octane conspiracy thriller that follows Sean Walker (Parenthood‘s Jason Ritter), an Everyman who investigates the mysterious disappearance of his fiancée, Leila (Sarah Roemer), and unwittingly begins to expose the biggest cover-up in U.S. history. Sean’s quest will send ripples through the lives of an eclectic band of strangers, including: newly elected U.S. President Martinez (Blair Underwood); Sophia (Laura Innes), who is the leader of a mysterious group of detainees; and Sean’s shadowy father-in-law (Gilmore Girls‘ Scott Patterson). Their futures are on a collision course in a global conspiracy that could ultimately change the fate of mankind. Ian Anthony Dale (Daybreak) and Emmy winner Željko Ivanek (Damages) also star in the ensemble drama.

I like the sound of a global conspiracy, although I'm confused about how the fate of mankind can be changed--that implies we know what the fate of mankind is...Do we know that? (Could someone clue me in?)


Undercovers (Wednesday 8-9):

Official description: Outwardly, Steven Bloom (Kodjoe) and his wife, Samantha (Mbatha-Raw), are a typical married couple who own a small catering company in Los Angeles and are helped by Samantha’s easily frazzled younger sister, Lizzy (Jessica Parker Kennedy). Secretly, the duo were two of the CIA’s best spies until they fell in love on the job five years ago and retired. When fellow spy and friend Nash (Carter MacIntyre) goes missing while on the trail of a Russian arms dealer, the Blooms are reinstated by boss Carlton Shaw (Gerald McRaney) to locate and rescue Nash. The pair is thrust back into the world of espionage as they follow leads that span the globe — and Steven and Samantha realize that this supercharged, undercover lifestyle provides the excitement and romance that their marriage has been missing

This is the J.J. Abrams Alias/Chuck mash-up we've heard so much about. The early time slot means this will be lighter fare than, say, Lost and Fringe. But do we need another happy spy show?


Law & Order: Los Angeles (Wednesday 10-11):

There's no official description for this one--do we really need it? In fact, the only reason this show is listed here in Genre Heaven is that I really, really want to review the pilot. L&O, in all of its incarnations, is a New York show. Can it really handle all the LA sunshine?


The Cape (mid-season replacement):

Official description: The Cape is a one-hour drama series starring David Lyons (ER) as Vince Faraday, an honest cop on a corrupt police force, who finds himself framed for a series of murders and presumed dead. He is forced into hiding, leaving behind his wife, Dana (Jennifer Ferrin, Life on Mars) and son, Trip (Ryan Wynott, FlashForward). Fueled by a desire to reunite with his family and to battle the criminal forces that have overtaken Palm City, Faraday becomes The Cape, his son’s favorite comic book superhero — and takes the law into his own hands. Rounding out the cast are James Frain (The Tudors) as billionaire Peter Fleming, The Cape’s nemesis, who moonlights as the twisted killer Chess; Keith David (Death at a Funeral) as Max Malini, the ringleader of a circus gang of bank robbers who mentors Vince Faraday and trains him to be The Cape; Summer Glau (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) as Orwell, an investigative blogger who wages war on crime and corruption in Palm City; and Dorian Missick (Six Degrees) as Marty Voyt, a former police detective and friend to Faraday.

Summer Glau? A "circus ring of bank robbers"? An average joe who becomes a superhero? What's not to love?

So, superfans? What do you think?

Star Trek: The Man Trap

Spock: "Something wrong, Captain?"
Kirk: "I was thinking about the buffalo, Mister Spock."

Why, oh why didn't they run the pilot first?

FlashForward: The Negotiation

“Questions get you killed, sweetpea.”

Demetri and Mark had a Big Talk this week. Actually, everyone had a Big Talk this week, but Dem’s and Mark’s was the most important: Was changing the future a bad thing? Is Demetri’s existence ruining everything? And, more importantly, how can you go back to the way things were, when you can’t erase the future that has now become the past? These are the big questions, and both Mark and Demetri were haunted by their love lives: can Mark and Olivia get past the Lloyd Simcoe problem? (Does Olivia even want to?) Will Demetri and Zoey make it, or are they not supposed to?

Fringe: Over There (Part I)

“I’m quite confident we don’t have much time.”

My friends, I think the storm is a-comin’. Our Fringe team finally made it to the other side, in search of the beloved Peter. Turns out, the other side is uniquely prepared to deal with such an invasion: Over There, Fringe Division has the public profile and man-power of ICE or Homeland Security in our world, because they have experienced what they thought were naturally occurring rifts in the fabric of reality, a la Walter’s (well, Walternate’s) bestselling ZFT guidebook to the apocalypse. This first half of the season finale was nearly all set-up for the next hour, so let’s take it one piece at a time:

The original, classic, really old Star Trek

I'm writing reviews of the original Star Trek this summer. Here's something of an introduction to the approach I plan to take.

I saw the original Trek many, many times when I was a kid, and I know it well. I swore I'd never review it. It's been done so many times, and it's such a daunting task, reviewing a beloved classic that started such a huge franchise. But the 2009 movie got me renting the digitally remastered version that came out recently, with re-recorded music and new, faithfully recreated special effects. And I just found myself writing reviews.

Vampire Diaries: Founder’s Day

“I came to this town wanting to destroy it. Tonight, I found myself wanting to protect it.”

Last week, I made a few predictions. What I didn’t count on was this show’s willingness to kill off so many people. Sure, I should have known: some of the early cast members have already died, after all, and in the course of one season, the vampires and the secret council have nearly destroyed the entire town (some with the goal of saving it). But still...color me impressed. Either way, let’s run down what I got right, and what I got very, very wrong:

Supernatural: Swan Song

Sam: "I let him out. I gotta put him back in."

I'm glad they didn't go for a big CGI fight scene extravaganza. It was like they were saying simply that this is where the story began, this is how it ends, and this is what it means.

Smallville: Sacrifice

Zod: "Krypton will rise again. And all humankind will kneel before Zod."
Clark: "I'll never let that happen!"

The continuing drama with the Kandorians and Zod has really been a bore. Add in Checkmate and the overly done mysterious element, and you have a season that doesn't work. Bring these two dysfunctional plots together, and suddenly there is cohesion... who'd a thunk it. Still the largest chunk of this episode took place in the Watchtower, continuing the slightly suggestive interplay between Chloe and Tess.

NewsFlash: Chuck, V, FlashForward, Heroes

We're finally getting some news about renewals and cancellations, and there's good news and expected news.

Chuck and V have both been renewed, and both for only thirteen episodes.

And FlashForward has been canceled. I'd had such high hopes for that show. Props to Josie for hanging in there and continuing to review it.

The rest of the renewal/cancellation announcements should be coming soon. We'll post them here.

Update: NBC has canceled Heroes. Another update: There may be a TV movie to sew up open plot threads. Stay tuned.

Lost: Across the Sea

Mother: "If the light goes out here, it goes out everywhere."

Yes, I got all of the mythology and symbolism and we know who Adam and Eve are now and what the stones are and where the donkey wheel came from. But did they have to give us a dozen more unanswered questions when we're so close to the finale?

Chuck: Chuck versus the Tooth

“I need you to believe that I’m not crazy.”

This episode had so many meta-jokes: Awesome’s love of (all 15 seasons) of ER; Monday night TV wasteland; Chevy Chase; the cable-news motif; “Merlin.” But the highlight of the episode was definitely the mere presence of Christopher Lloyd, who is the coolest septuagenarian working in TV today. It introduced an interesting dramatic twist to three seasons of blissful Intersectiness, too. What will this mean for our hero?

Doctor Who: The Vampires of Venice

Rory: “You know what's dangerous about you? It's not that you make people take risks. It's that you make them want to impress you.”

It's been four years since Toby Whithouse last wrote an episode of Doctor Who. I know he's been busy with No Angels and Being Human, but, after the unmitigated success of “School Reunion” (one of my favourite episodes, ever), it's been a long and frustrating wait. After the debacle that was “Victory of the Daleks” my expectations this week were low. So far this season, the only episode not penned by Moffat, turned out to be an absolute turkey. Thankfully, Whithouse's script was streets ahead of Gatiss' dreck. The story was solid, the vampires were frightening, and the humour was bang on the money. Even Rory made me chuckle. I take back what I said about him being the new Mickey. He's so not! Well... not so much.

Smallville: Salvation

Chloe: "Maybe your true purpose is to lead your own people."

The whole Zod and the Kandorian clones plot never quite worked for me. Was it the story? The pacing? Callum Blue not quite pulling off the bad as Zod? It's too bad, because it could have been quite cool. At least it appears to be over. And yes, Clark may have been stabbed with blue K before plummeting to the earth, but I'm fairly confident he'll survive. It's his show, after all.

Stargate Universe: Sabotage

Another very enjoyable episode with some tense action and a few nice character beats. I was somewhat apprehensive going into ‘Sabotage,’ because I had heard a bit about the basic premise with Dr. Perry and Camille back before the series even premiered. A lot of folks in the internet community took exception with some of the casting materials that were leaked during production for the episode, and there was quite a hue and cry about the writers being insensitive to both the physically challenged and lesbian communities. At the time, I took a wait and see stance, feeling it wasn’t really fair to cast dispersions or pass judgment on an unfinished product, particularly outside the context of the series as a whole. And now that I’ve seen the episode and the series to date, I think the premature backlash was much ado about nothing. I don’t know if the creative team adjusted the direction of the story after the internet firestorm, but I didn’t see anything here that should cause massive offense to anyone. In fact, my biggest beef with the episode is the seeming ease with which they resolved last week’s massive cliffhanger.

Glee: Home

April: "Will Schuester?!? I just had a sex dream about you!"

I was pleasantly surprised by "Home". To be honest, my expectations were low. Actually - I don't know what I expected. Whether you loved it or hated it, you have to admit that "The Power of Madonna" was a dynamic explosion of pop culture energy. How could they possibly follow that crazy episode?

FlashForward: Course Correction

“The future does have a way of fighting back.”

According to Lloyd Simcoe, any situation can be altered just by being observed. By that logic, the futures that people have seen—although they are just possible futures—are given more weight because they were seen. The viewed futures want to happen, even if it seems impossible. The universe has a way of course-correcting, in other words. Or ‘destiny’ has a way of happening.

Fringe: Northwest Passage

“It’s a long road to ‘I don’t know yet.’”

Please indulge me while I get a little ‘meta.’ This was basically an X-Files episode: a standalone in which our hero played G-man with local law enforcement in a rainy locale as they were forced to deal with the inexplicable. There were even some de rigueur autopsy scenes. The solution to the local mystery wound up being sadly explicable, but we got something more: in the procedural homage, Peter got a glimpse of real answers, and finally found what he didn’t know he was looking for.

Supernatural: Two Minutes to Midnight

Dean: "Good luck stopping the whole zombie apocalypse."
Sam: "Yeah. Good luck killing Death."

I love it when they surprise me. I was expecting fireworks and blood and action, and what did we get? A philosophical discussion over deep dish pizza.

Vampire Diaries: Isobel

“This is going in an interesting direction.”

Last week, we saw Stefan and Damon working through some of their daddy issues. This week, Anna dealt with her grief, and Uncle John played on Jeremy’s love for his dead father to convince him to join the Vampires Are Evil club. Elena, meanwhile, finally got to meet her birth-mother, the “monumentally disappointing” Isobel, Alaric’s vampire wife. Isobel was more than just disappointing: she was both actively and passively evil, and she caused some damage that certainly can’t be undone by the season finale.

Exit Through The Gift Shop

“The joke’s on…well, I’m not sure who the joke is on. I’m not sure there even is a joke.”

I knew almost nothing about this movie when I went to see it, and I knew even less about the street-art movement that it covers. But a few different people had recommended it to me: they all did so obliquely, refusing to tell me much about it, but urging me to experience it myself. So I dragged a friend to the ArcLight theatre on Sunset. I’m incredibly glad that I did. This review definitely gives away more than my friends did, but this isn’t a nail-biter plot. Anyway, as always, caveat lector.

What’s this movie about? Hard to say. And that’s sort of the point. It’s about the commodification of something that was never meant, at first, to be a commodity: street art—those guerilla graffiti stencils, paintings, drawings, and sculptures that began as an urban sub-culture in the 1990s and ballooned into an art movement with the rise of Shepard Fairey (an American currently being sued by the Associated Press for his appropriation of an Obama image) and Banksy (who decorated the wall surrounding the West Bank with the image above, among others). By the aughts, works by these stars and other street-artists were selling for insane amounts of money to real art collectors. Brangelina went to a Banksy show.

But before that explosion, this guerilla art was ephemeral. Graffiti gets painted over. Sculptures of BT telephone booths get removed. Billboards are refaced. So when Thierry Guetta, a dopey French family-man living large in LA off the proceeds of a high-market vintage clothing store, decided to start filming street artists, they welcomed him—even the secretive Banksy. He was handy, he was charmingly confused, he was documenting art that might disappear at any moment.

Thierry filmed compulsively. The first half of the film documents his burgeoning relationships with these artists, and the risks they (and he) take to put their art in high-up and out-of-the-way places. There are a few altercations with police officers, and a hilarious narrative involving Banksy’s placement of a Guantanamo-dummy near the Thunder Mountain ride at Disneyland, which results in Thierry, who filmed the whole thing, being detained by a Mickey Mouse squad and interrogated—ineptly. (The idea that someone could be detained by Disneyland personnel…)

All that is interesting enough. Halfway through the film, everything changes. Banksy had encouraged Thierry to finally make his film. But what the street-artist didn’t realize was that he wasn’t actually making a documentary. He just stacked the thousands of un-watched and un-edited tapes in large boxes, and filmed more. When he finally did cobble something together, it was an unwatchable mess, like a mad person with a remote control (as Banksy describes it).

So Banksy decides to re-make the film, and Thierry moves onto something bigger: now, he’s no longer content being a documentarian. Instead, he wants to be an artist himself. He re-mortgages his home and stages a gigantic show in the old CBS building on Sunset, just blocks from where I watched the film. It’s huge. Enormous. Hundreds of pieces, every one of which is un-original copying of other artists, especially Warhol—many of which were made by assistants, working from imprecise Gallic instructions. As Banksy says, dryly: Andy Warhol used repetition to make images meaningless, and Thierry used even more repetition to make them even more meaningless.

Sounds like a pretentious disaster in the making, right? Somehow, Thierry (who is now calling himself Mr. Brain Wash) pulls it off. He makes the cover of LA Weekly, the event-magazine of Los Angeles. He sells over a million dollars worth of art. Sean Lennon comes to the show. He speaks, without irony, of being an artist.

Street art is about irony, which is not to say that it is only ironic. Shephard Fairey used images of Andre the Giant over the word ‘Obey’ to highlight the emotive power of advertising, art, and the repetitive placement of branded images. Banksy’s politics were expressed through images meant to highlight social and corporate injustices: sometimes, he would place his own paintings in galleries next to paintings by the masters. Space Invader (Thierry’s cousin, and his entree into this world) re-fashioned iconic images into decorative mosaics that are quite pretty. Street art is about the power of art and imagery, and how troublesome that power can be. It’s also darn fun for the artist and for the viewer (probably less fun for the building owners who must re-paint their property, of course).

Street art is also about the experience of viewing: of glancing at a billboard, expecting an advertisement without thinking of it, and instead seeing a sly social commentary. Thierry, though, seems to miss all of this: he wants to be financially successful, he wants to be popular, he wants to be an Artist. And he does it.

Is Thierry the last word in street-art? Is his all-hype no-art show a nuanced social commentary, or the lucky break of a bumbler who steals from the best? Is this movie a hoax, as was rumored before its release? Was it all devised by Banksy as a crazy commentary on the art world that already loves him? Is this a prank, or a movie about a prank, or a movie by a prankster about a guy who doesn’t even get that he’s both the creator and the object of a gigantic joke?

We’re supposed to ask those questions, and we’re not really supposed to answer them. (Well, I think the hoax theory has been discredited with certainty.) But we are supposed to think about them, and about the status of this film as a critical darling in the context of the inanity of criticism. This film’s covert star is the viewer—of both the film itself and the art it portrays.

Many scenes in this movie take place in LA, and Thierry’s show was the talk of the art world here when it happened. At the ArcLight, in Hollywood, a team of people (PR? Guerilla artists? Theatre employees?) set up a booth at the exit: a table covered in free posters of Thierry’s art. I didn’t take one, but my friend looked at them. “I need to get something for my brother,” he said. “Can you really give such an ironic gift without showing him the movie?” I asked. “What do you mean?” he responded, looking at the posters, “oh, well. They’re not very good, anyway.”

Four out of four stars.

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Lost: The Candidate

Jin: "I won't leave you. I will never leave you again."

Okay, now I'm really upset. This was too much.

Doctor Who: Flesh and Stone (2)

Doctor: “I wish I'd known you better.”
Octavian: “I think, Sir, you know me at my best.

Doctor Who's really tapping into its fantasy roots this season. In “The Eleventh Hour” the Doctor commented that Amy's name sounded like something out of a fairy tale. Couple that with Amy's gingerbread house, the Raggedy Man, the Byzantium's forest-like interior, and Amy walking through it like some kind of modern day Little Red Riding Hood, and the imagery's really quite striking. Is the Pandorica a fairy tale, too? How much do you want to bet that it isn't?

Chuck: Chuck versus the Role Models

“When these two spies first met, it was love at first fight.”

Okay, so this was a fun episode. But it was hard to get over my initial disappointment: after the wacky credit sequence, I’d hoped that the entire show would be from Morgan’s point of view, with a hackneyed voice-over and lots of shenanigans. We did get some shenanigans, anyway—it just wouldn’t be Chuck without them. And now that we’re in the point-two part of the season, we got hi-jinks in spy-land, BuyMore-land, and Africa-land. (Also known as just Africa.)

Smallville: Charade

Blur: "Our relationship puts you at risk. I know that we would do anything to protect each other. What if, one day, I'm too late?"
Lois: "But you don't understand. I don't care about the risk. When I'm working with you, I'm doing something good, something right."

Stargate Universe: Lost

‘Lost’ primarily focused on the efforts to rescue the stranded away team, but added depth to what could have been a fairly standard Stargate plot by delving into Greer’s backstory. Plus, it ended with a doozy of a cliffhanger, leaving three main cast members still stranded and with even less hope of rescue.

I was completely stunned by the ending. I fully expected that everyone would be rescued and returned to Destiny by the end of this hour. A “stranded team” cliffhanger is to be expected for at least one episode, but to sustain the jeopardy through a second episode? Now that’s surprising. I thought for certain that Eli would connect to the ship the second time, so when he didn’t and said “That’s it. We’re done,” my jaw was on the floor. Given how dire they made it seem if Destiny left the galaxy, I’m not sure how this situation will resolve. Perhaps our favorite insect aliens will be involved somehow.

FlashForward: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

“I envy that you believe in the possibility of good.”

Let’s talk about FlashBacks. This episode had three flavors: the flashbacks to Janis’s life, designed to help us understand more about her; the flashbacks to events we’ve already seen; and the flashbacks that substitute for effective exposition and that little-known art of acting and directing. Some were more effective than others. But that’s rather the way of it on this show, isn’t it?