Tv Nibble: Heroes

Well, last season, it would appear I was one of the few people singing Heroes praises. Fugitives was definitely the best season so far, with a deep and interesting story. So far, Redemption is not living up to the standard of Fugitives. It’s certainly watchable and you can see the development of some clever story arcs, but it just feels a little slow getting going.

However, lets not dwell on that, lets look at what I did like from this weeks episode “Ink”. Although Orientation did some of the leg work with introducing the new Heroes, Ink is really about bringing us the new character of Samuel Sullivan. Samuel appears to be a Magneto like character, the head of a brotherhood of mutants, focused on using his powers for a personal vendetta and using other Heroes to achieve that goal. Interesting that he should choose Hiro and Peter to try and subvert, the two character who are firmly devoted to helping others. I think it might be interesting to see where that goes.

However, what interested me more this episode was where the show has taken the character of Sylar. Anyone who followed my updates last season probably knows I’m not a fan. I personally thought Sylar should have either died in season 1 or been retired for a season or two and brought back, like a proper supervillain. However the end of last season made his character much more intriguing.

Matt Parkman took Sylar’s mind from his body and forced him to believe he was Nathan Petrelli, a process that is now unravelling. However, true to all good science fiction, nothing can be unmade, everything goes somewhere and Sylar’s mind somehow bled into Parkman’s. Throughout this episode Sylar offers Parkman a choice, set him free or he will ruin your life.

This is what heroes has always been about for me, forcing good people to make difficult choices and more often that not, watching them fail and having to deal with the consequences. I wasn’t sure that Zachary Quinto would return to the show this season, after his “death” at the end of season 3 and his fame and glory in the world of the big screen, but now, I’m really glad he did. 

Tv Nibble: Supernatural

Welcome to the first of what I am going to call Tv Nibbles. Basically as we go into TV season I have so much to watch and write (not including my three other blogs) that I wont have time to do full page analysis of every episode of every show. So instead I will try to do a daily or every other daily “nibble” covering just a small aspect of a show that I found interesting this week.
First up for a nibble is Supernatural “Free to be You and Me” This weeks episode was interesting. Sam and Dean have split up and gone their separate ways and what’s more it looks like Dean has no desire to reunite them. In the past it was always Dean that believed they were stronger as a family but now it looks like they are headed for the final confrontation with the two brothers fighting on opposite side.  This week, series regular Jeremy Carver, reveals that Sam is destined to be Lucifer’s vessel, in the same way that Dean is destined to be Michael's. Assuming this is true the two brothers will eventually have to destroy one another in order to save the world!
And if Sam is going to become Lucifier, I’m guessing it will be around the time of the midseason break, because Lost will need Mark Pellegrino back to continue his role as the mysterious Jacob as the islanders begin the countdown to the show’s finale! 

Flash Forward

Ok, other than Caprica, this is the new show that I have been looking forward to the most since I heard about it. Flash Forward is a drama with a Sci-Fi twist. At the exact same time, around the globe, everyone blacked out for exactly 2 minutes and 17 seconds, well, almost everyone…

That, however, has nothing to do with why I was looking forward to the show, in fact it has everything to do with the cast, in particular John Cho and Jack Davenport. John Cho is well known for his role in the stoner comedy “Harold and Kumar” however I know him from the short-lived sitcom Kitchen Confidential. He is heart-stoppingly funny in the episode “Teddy Takes Off”. While I love Jack Davenport, not for his role in Pirates of the Caribbean but for his role as Steve in Coupling. Steve’s rants are somewhat legendary and a point of reference for all men everywhere.

So with two such comedic actors on board with project you wouldn’t expect the straight up, no-nonsense pilot that aired on Thursday on ABC.

The show opens with a flash forward to the moment just after the Flash Forward, (man, that’s a confusing sentence), we see the devastation that was caused by the blackouts and then we jump back to “Four Hours Earlier”. The opener of the show is just an attention grabber and nothing more, if you are watching the show because you know about it, it tells you nothing, if you don’t know about the show, it intrigues you enough to watch on, end of story.

After that we work through several stories in a matter on minutes because the main aim of this pilot is to get to the “Flash Forward” as quickly as possible. We meet the hero of the story, Mark Benford, played by Joseph Finnes and his wife Olivia, portrayed by Sonya Walger. The show quickly establishes the “not perfect” nature of their marriage and then moves on. Olivia calls her a co-worker of hers, Bryce Varley, he doesn’t answer. We see him walking down the pier, where, four hours later he will attempt to commit suicide. Jump back to Mark at his AA meeting where we meet his sponsor, Aaron Stark. Aaron lost his daughter Tracy in Iraq and her remains could only be identified by her DNA. But we’re not done cramming in characters yet…

We jump back to the house where Mark and Olivia’s babysitter is not doing her job, but is instead jumping her boyfriend's bones. Leaving them behind we jump to Mark and Demetri (John Cho) and it quickly becomes clear they are FBI, tailing terror suspects and discussing Demetri’s wedding plans. A chase breaks out and we know we’re closing in the opening teaser, so the Flash Forward is coming soon. We get a shot of each of the major players, Olivia is about to begin an operation at the hospital, Bryce has the gun beneath his chin, Aaron is up a telegraph pole and Mark and Demetri are racing down the highway.

Ok, all of this happens pretty quickly. There is a fair amount of character development in a short space of time and it doesn’t really feel too forced. The exciting car chase is a little coincidental but I can forgive that because it was pretty cool to watch. However, why cram all this into less than 9 minutes of airtime? Why not use the whole of the first episode to develop the characters before adding the “Flash Forward” element?

Firstly, because they didn’t have to. We got enough information in those nine minutes to get us through to the end of the episode, other details could be filled in later. Secondly, word about this show has been floating around on the internet for months now, as well as the show being based on a novel that’s been around for 10 years, so getting right down to the essence of the show quickly was important, because most people knew where it was going anyway.

What didn’t work for me was the aftermath of the Flash. Sure the destruction was handled well and the tension moments were nice, with Mark and Demetri not knowing if there families were safe. Even the discovery that the black out had been worldwide was handled reasonably well. But then came the exposition bit…

There was a sequence shot in the foyer of the FBI building where boss, Stan Wedeck, Mark, Demetri and Janis Hawk discuss the event and there was so much exposition they might as well have just scrolled text up the screen. Mark’s sudden expression in the board meeting about the Flash felt forced and the resulting confessions from everyone else felt unnatural. I can see why it was done that way, for speed, for simplicity but I think it could have been handled better.

The rest of the pilot revolves around Mark setting up a task force to find out what happened and how and why and if it might happen again. Mark recalls details from his flashback with stunning clarity (although, his training as an FBI agent could account for this, maybe) and he and Demetri begin to put together a “big board”

Meanwhile we get to know what the other characters saw. Olivia, for example, saw herself with another man, Jack Davenport, who it turns out is the father of a child she saved after the Flash. Aaron, discovers that his daughter, Tracy,(Genevieve Cortese a.k.a new Ruby in Supernatural) is alive. Bryce believes his vision was a gift from God that saved him from killing himself, while Demetri believes that he will die in the next six months because he saw nothing.

Finally, the “Doof” moment comes as Janis Hawk, the third member of Mark's new team, discovers that while everyone else was blacked-out someone was still awake.

I’ll be honest, until that moment I wasn’t really seeing where the show was going. Sure we know its heading towards April 29th but other than that the flashes are pretty mundane, the idea that the government can map out the future through an internet blog is kind of interesting but still, it wouldn’t make for a great show. However in the last seconds of the pilot, we finally get a shady character, shrouded in mystery. Is he a good guy bad guy, innocent bystander or something else completely? Well I guess we’ll have to tune in next week and find out.

You would be forgiven for thinking I didn’t enjoy the pilot. I did, it was interesting enough to keep my attention and it was great to see John Cho and Jack Davenport back on the small screen again. I can certainly see potential in the show now that all that pesky explanation is out of the way and we can get down to see real drama. I’m definitely going to give it the benefit of the doubt…

This has been My Two Cents… Coming soon Dollhouse, season 2…

Ooops… I did it again!

Last week I made some generalisations about one of my favourite shows of the moment; Supernatural. Now with Season 4 sitting on my shelf, watched cover to cover, I feel the need to make a statement.
Please note, the following will contain spoilers from the first 4 seasons of the show and the opening of the fifth. Do not read on if you intend to watch this from the beginning, you wont thank me for it!
Several of the points I made in my 10 reasons to watch were invalidated by watching season 4. For a start, the idea that you could just tune in and watch one episode is a thing of the past. Season 4 is building towards the end of the world, a war between Angels and Demons and more so than any previous season it is mythology driven.
The addition of the Angels to the show is a drastic change, in some ways for the better, but in other ways for the worse. For example, Dean and Sam are now no longer just another pair of hunters, instead they are the very instruments of heaven and hell. In fact, as is revealed at the start of season 5, Dean is supposed to be a vessel for Michael, the Archangel. This drastically ups their level of importance, after all, between them they brought on the apocalypse, and that changes the feel of the show, too much!
No longer are they happy go lucky hunters, they have the weight of the world on their shoulders, a massive death toll on their conscience. The story becomes about which side will Sam and Dean eventually come down on, the side of good or of evil?
Another change for season 4 is the appearance of “good guy demon” Ruby. Originally played by the beautiful Katie Cassidy she is replaced in season 4 by Genevieve Cortese, not as pretty and not as good an actress which causes the character to fall flat; which considering she turns out to have been playing the Winchesters all along, weakens the story and the show. I fully understand why Katie was not asked to return to play Ruby (not only because they killed her off) however Kripke should have brought in someone with a little more attitude, someone who could really bring out Ruby’s “out for herself” attitude. 
Running throughout the season was the threat of Sam turning to the darkside. His psychic powers, completely absent since the demise of the yellowed eyed demon, make a return after Dean is sent to Hell at the end of season 3 and Sam has to get by on his own. Later on in season 4 it is revealed that Sam is drinking demon blood to boost his powers. When I wrote my 10 reasons list, I said that the show manages to walk the fine line of the darker side of these characters, without alienating the audience. However Sam’s fall and Dean’s agonising over the things he did in hell, do alienate us!
I completely understand why it had to be done and it makes sense with the story of the show, but I can’t help feeling that maybe it was a little over done, that maybe we needed a few more light hearted episodes. I was reminded of season 6 of Buffy, where her nihilistic attitude made for some very depressing Tv.
There are further X-files nods this season, in particular the inclusion of staff writers names as character names. X-files writers John Shiban, Frank Spotnitz and Vince Gilligan often killed off a character called John Gilnitz over the shows 9 year run, this time Jeremy Carver and Ben Edlund manage to slip their names into the show as the prophet Carver Edlund. Also the entire season was dedicated to Kim Manners, who sadly passes away in January this year.
Season 4 however was not all bad, there were some excellent episodes, Wishful Thinking for example had me in tears I was laughing so hard.  The Monster at the End of this Book, took a potentially very corny idea for an episode and worked itself almost seamlessly into the mythology. The Angel Castiel (MIsha Collins) is a great addition to the supporting cast. Even the fall of Sam and Dean, although not happy and upbeat is done well.
My only major complaint would be the predictability of the season finale, in that Lucifer would rise, however the show manages to add a twist… the Angels were the ones letting it happen and that God is no where to be found.
With the devil set free we enter season 5 and Kripke manages to pull the show out of its dark depressing hole almost instantly. God, as it is revealed in the second episode of the season, pulled Sam and Dean from the convent and prevented them from being annihilated by Lucifer as he rose from the pit. At the same time God cleanses  Sam of his thirst for demon blood and sets him back down firmly on the side of good. Sam and Dean agree that the past is the past and everything looks hunky dory.
Jo and Ellen return to the show (Alone Tal is hot!), along with X-files star Steven Williams. However Sam quickly learns that he is not completely cured and Dean learns that he cannot forgive Sam for ending the world and trusting Ruby the demon over him. The episode concludes with Sam and Dean going their separate ways, while Castiel goes in search of God.
It certainly seems like season 5 aims to be lighter than 4 as the entire world joins forces to fight Lucifer and destroy evil once and for all. With such an obvious evil to fight, there are going to be fewer shades of grey. However I am interested to know how the separation of the Winchester brothers is going to pan out. If handled well, this season could be a return to the Supernatural we know and love, with all the epic story-telling-ness of season 4, but if it is allowed to wallow in darkness for too much longer it could be a down beat ending to one of the best shows going.
Whatever the case Eric Kripke has said that this is the last season he will be doing, but that others are free to pick up where he left off. Personally, I’d rather have Kripke at the wheel and how can you really top killing Satan? Cos lets face it, that’s where season 5 is going…
This has been My Two Cents, don’t forget Supernatural airs on Thursday on CW. This week has also seen the return of Heroes on Monday, Flash Forward on Thursday and Dollhouse on Friday.

10 Reasons to Watch Supernatural

Supernatural is a show that passed me by almost completely for the first three years of its five year stint, that was until last year when I ordered Season 1 – 3 from Amazon, I think I paid £23 pounds total which was excellent value. (Currently in My Store at £28.47)
Season 5 started last Thursday over on CW, although I have yet to start watching season 4 on DVD. As with my last 10 reasons post, which encouraged non-sci-fi geeks to give Battlestar a go, this post is aimed at those who naturally shy away from the Horror genre. So here goes…

1. Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles. If you watch this show for no other reason, then watch it for this pairing. The ladies will find these two endearing, while the men can enjoy their shoot first ask questions later approach. As with the x-files, Supernatural relies solely on two cast members and I doubt if casting has ever been more successful than this. Sam and Dean (Jared and Jensen) are certainly more convincing as siblings than say, David and Wayne Palmer or Ross and Monica Gellar and their on screen relationship is an excellent source of tension and humour.
2. Love, Bullets and Blacktops – As a product of the world famous Warner Brothers outfit, Supernatural looks awesome. The Chevrolet Impala they drive everywhere in is a thing of beauty, even for non-petrol headed geeks like me. The show is action packed, filled with sawn-off, salt flinging, shotguns, wooden stakes, silver knives and lots      and lots of holy water. Demons, Ghost, even the occasional Zombie, all beautifully rendered with top-notch CGI and special FX.
3. The Laughs – The beauty of Supernatural, like its predecessors Buffy, Angel, the X-Files, is that the writers and producers are not afraid to laugh at themselves. Season 2 in particular features episodes which take a comical view of the show and the nature of the genre. However, the reason that this show can do that is because of the integrity, ingenuity and intelligence that forms the backbone of the writing. And like Buffy and Angel and the X-Files, much of the humour is derived from the intimate partnership that Jared and Jenson form. Their brotherly companionship and camaraderie is top notch.  
4. The Screams – Running parallel to the laughs are the frightening horrors that Sam and Dean face in their daily  fight against evil. Unlike the other shows I’ve mentioned so far however, Supernatural is a “no holds barred” show when its comes to frightening our pants right off. However unlike the Horror films we see at the pictures Supernatural focuses its attention on detail, stories and relationships, rather than on what might be considered “scary” or worse “cool”.  
5. The Plot – Without giving too much away Supernatural is a show about two brothers who go in search of the Demon that killed their mom, fighting spirits and saving as many lives as they can along the way. Within that, each season has a self contained plotline that forms a part of the greater  mythology of the show and unlike, for example, the X-files, there are not “Mythology” episodes and “Monster of the Week” episodes, but instead the mythology is interwoven into every episode. This overarching plotline is truly epic and because the show features only two main cast, it always directly affects them.
6. Monsters of the Week – Because Supernatural doesn’t lump all its Mythology into one episode its reasonably easy to dip into and out of if you just fancy a little bit of light-hearted Horror. All the episodes conclude the story they start within 45 minutes, so as a casual watch Supernatural is excellent, although I highly recommend watching it all! 
7. The Creative Team – Ok so I’ve mentioned the X-files quite  a bit so far and here’s why. Kim Manners and John Shiban, sound familiar? They were both producers on the X-files, with Manners directing 52 episodes (more than any other series director) while Shiban wrote 24 of the 201 episodes. To me Supernatural feels like the show the X-files should have been. Add to this Ben Edlund, writer and producer on Angel, Firefly and the under-appreciated Point Pleasant. Ben wrote the episode Trash for Firefly, which ranks amongst my top three episodes, as well as Smile Time for Angel, which was my favourite episode of all time. Throw in the creative genius of Eric Kripke, series creator and writer on 83 episodes and you have a recipe for success, sprinkle with David Nutter and Sera Gamble and serve with a big budget!
8. The Squigglies – The writing on Supernatural is brilliant. The shows ability to mix humour and horror, whilst delivering a depth of human character is just spell-binding. The central theme for the show is often revenge, after all that is what sets Sam and Dean on their quest. Unfortunately vengeance is one of the most alienating of character motivations. However the writers on Supernatural always manage to walk the fine line that keeps the spirit of the show true to the original vision, without alienating the audience. The writers take us on an emotional journey filled with joy and sadness, love and loss, fear and anger, companionship and betrayal. They are not afraid to push the boundaries and think outside the box, putting Sam and Dean in situations where they must choose the lesser of two evils.
9. The Supporting Cast – As good as Jared and Jenson are   (and they really are) they would be nothing without the supporting cast. Geoffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen) plays their absentee father, hell bent on destroying the demon that killed his wife. While the demon is brought to life by Fred Lehne (The Marshal from Lost). The undeniably beautiful Alona Tal (Cane) features as the amateur hunter Jo, while Jim Beaver (Harper's Island) plays supernatural’s answer to Giles in the role of the all-knowing Bobby Singer. Joining them is a whole host of guest stars; Amy Acker (Angel), Julie Benz  (Dexter), Tricia Helfer (BSG) and so many more.
10. Yes, reason 10, well, I know there was one, but you know, it seems to have slipped my mind… ;)

Well, that is My Two Cents, remember that Supernatural Season 5 is now airing on Thursdays on the CW. 

Fantasy is Back

I just read that HBO has commissioned a new pilot for a US Fantasy show called Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones is based on the A Song of Fire and Ice series by George R. R. Martin which has been adapted into a very successful Card Game and Board Game by none other than Fantasy Flight Games.

David Benioff (X-men Origins: Wolverine) and Dan Weiss (Re-wrote Halo the Movie) are writers and exec producers.

The Cast is rumoured to include Peter Dinklage, Jennifer Ehle, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Tamzin Merchant and Lena Headey, none of whom I know the first thing about!

Whatever the case, Fantasy is back and that’s what matters. Certainly in the Uk we’ve had the atrocious Robin Hood (2006-2008) and the reasonable well done Merlin (2008) but with a proper Us studio budget, especially an HBO budget (the company behind the most-expensive-mini-series-ever-made, Band of Brothers) I hope that the genre can finally have something to be proud of and claim as its own.   

The shooting of the pilot is due to begin on the 26th October in Belfast, so we can probably expect to see the pilot in late 2010. 

For all those in the Uk Merlin season 2 is due to start back on the 19th September…

Dollhouse on DVD

Hurrah! At last Dollhouse sees its Uk DVD release today. Whilst surfing over at Amazon I found this review that I thought I’d share with you guys…

Ok, so the series starts off with Joss Whedon, celebrated writer-director-composer, except no-one wants to work with him, then he has a hit web show and he catches the attention of the dark and shadowy Fox Corporation. Fox wipe Joss's brain to make him forget that he worked for them before when they became mortal enemies.

So now Fox can make Joss do whatever they want, everyday they activate Joss and set him to work making a television series for them called Dollhouse. Everything works out fine for them. The show is flashy, cool, sexy, confusing, humourless, disconnected and unengaging. Without the real Joss to complain Fox don't even have to spend much cash on it. But can the technology Fox has used really remove all of a person's memories, their sense of self, their soul?

As he works from episode to episode it becomes apparent that Joss starts to remember who he is, but knowing he shouldn't draw attention to this fact he keeps it to himself and works slowly to improve Dollhouse from within. From episode 6 `Man on the Street' flashes of brilliance begin to save the show, culminating in the superb episode 9 `A Spy in the House of Love', by now Dollhouse has become gripping, funny, dark and touching with an intelligent and complex storyline that has people thinking. Joss is even able to help other people taken over by Fox and makes Eliza Dushku realise that she is an actress.

By the end of the series we have been taken to a place we little imagined in the beginning. I won't give any spoilers but Dollhouse does end with Joss improbably winning renewal for a second series, this time will he be out to revenge himself on the people who did this to him and turn out a flawless piece of work from the start?

Well, it made me laugh! This release hopefully contains all twelve of the episodes FOX aired along with the original pilot and the unaired episode 13 Epitaph One and a bunch of other special features but until my copy arrives I can’t confirm that. As always you can buy it here in my store and remember season 2 starts 25th September.

Looking Back on 24

Anticipating a lot of down time on my recent family holiday (last year I managed to watch seasons 2&3 of Alias) I picked up a copy of 24 season 1 (I already owned 2 through 6). So I thought it would be interesting to do a post about looking back at 24 from a season 6 perspective.

I remember, nostalgically, tuning in week after week to watch as Mr Bauer struggled to save the world, while Mr. Palmer had a tiny crisis that no one cared about. (Ps. I have a huge respect for Mr Haysbert, but David Palmer was not exactly the bag of excitement that Jonas “Snake Doc” Blane was, was he?") And I remember watching the last moments of the series with shock and awe as Nina turns out to be a traitor and Teri Bauer turns out to be dead.

And now, I can’t see why. When it started out, the first 13 episodes were pretty exciting as Jack rescues Kim and Teri from the evil clutches of Ira Gaines.

It had the tension building episodes where they knew there was a mole but they didn’t know who. Is it Nina, is it Tony? No its the softly spoken Jamie who no one would have suspected. It was good and tense and Jamie’s suicide rounded that section out nicely. At the time it was like nothing else on the air.

We had Jack under the control of the baddies, who made him do things against his will, including shooting Nina and leaving her for dead. Jack was motivated with two clear goals, both of which were being obstructed by CTU and the bad guys, but we liked that right?

We had Kim, who, while nice to look at, was, and continued to be for the next two seasons, highly irritating. In fact, had Jack turned on the TV and seen how irritating she was being, he probably would have let Ira shoot her!

However, then we hit episode 14 and things began to fall apart. For a start, Jack spent this episode sat a table. First in the interrogation suite, then in the conference room, then back in the interrogation suite. Which after the high octane rescue in the previous episode left the show feeling flat, but at least it was still focused. The next ten episodes really began to wander off course as the show struggled to find plausible plotlines.

Teri and Kim were kidnapped, again. This time they escaped without Jack’s help. After a car explosion Teri looses her memory, but in show time, this memory loss is cured in hours, without a trip to hospital. Meanwhile Kim is taken prisoner, again, this time by the police, before being finally re-kidnapped (and then escaping again, without help.).

At CTU the cast repeat the earlier storylines of “Who is the mole?” now with George Mason being cast in the part. I don't think, in the history of 24, that the person everyone thinks is the mole, has ever actually turned out to be one. You’d think that an agency, founded to fight terrorism, would develop a better screening process to weed out double agents?

Meanwhile, Jack falls back under the influence of the bad guys, however this time he is a little more carefree about it, clearly Victor was less likely to kill his daughter than Ira.

This cyclic use of storylines riddles the second half of season one like a cancer. The character development is all over the place too. Tony switches sides, from CTU’s golden boy, to Jack’s best pal at the drop of a hat. Nina switches sides with no warning at all. In fact the only major character who suffers little in the way of character degradation is George Mason and because of that he is painted as a mole!

The real reason why 24 season 1 is so memorable is that shock moment when the clock strikes 10:59:57 when Nina is revealed as a double agent and then again when the clock turns 11:59:57 when Teri Bauer turns up dead. However, the reason Nina’s betrayal comes as a shock is because it makes no logical sense. She has been way too helpful! The final episode reveals that she was not working for Victor Drazen, still, she had enough invested in his release to compromise her cover, which begs the question, why did she go out of her way to help Jack? After all she put her job (and cover) on the line for him too! In fact, watching it knowing she is a traitor, forces you to look for those clues that point to her true nature. Those little signs were abundant in the first 8 or so episodes (when she was being painted as a possible traitor), a little glance here etc, but entirely absent from the last 11.

Add to this the fact that they shot an ending where Teri lived and you have a recipe for disaster. Had they aired that ending I’m not sure 24 would have survived past season 2.

Season 1 had some bad acting (Elisha Cuthbert can’t cry, period!), bad accents (Dennis Hopper) and bad editing (Check out the camera man in the episode entitled 07:00).

All that said, season1 gave birth to what we now know as 24. The high octane drama with the world’s most forgiving audience. Each new series has been filled with those great moments we find in the first half of this season. New stories (and some recycled old ones), a new cast (except for Jack.) and new special effects.

When I mentioned writing this review a friend of mine pointed out that it is only natural that the later seasons would be bigger (and better), it is just the nature of television. However, it is not the “bigger” that interests me so much as the “better”. Because of the expectations of the fans for 24 to deliver “heart stopping cliff hangers” and “impossible to predict twists” the writers have had to become very clever about how and when these occur, about the development leading up to them, and the final execution. That is something that season 1 created, but didn’t have as a driving factor.

Each subsequent series has had those “I can’t believe they did that moments” that season 1 laid the way for, but they have been much better integrated into the shows overall storyline. For example George Mason’s radiation exposure in season 2, or Ryan Chappelle’s execution by Jack in season 3, or the detonation of a nuclear device on US soil in season 5.

24 still has its problems, but it has become a show that is allowed to take risks, to go to places that other shows dare not tread and the more it does, the more the audience loves it in return. That is the legacy of season 1.

This has been My Two Cents…

Look out for season 7 in the My Two Cents Store on the 19th Oct

Ker-ching

Coming This September

So its Tv time again and so I have done my research and I can bring you my guide for the end of the month…

ABC ‘s new series Flash Forward starts on the 24th, originally pitched as a companion to Lost it seems that ABC want to see if it can stand on its own feet first. John Cho, Sonya Walger and Jack Davenport are just three reasons I’m looking forward to this new sci-fi-esk show, the kind of mysterious drama we are beginning to expect from our Tv sets.

The fourth series of Heroes starts on the 21st and as yet I can’t tell you if it will be in two smaller chapters or one big one, but I can tell you that I’m looking forward to how they deal with the Nathan/Sylar issue.

The excellent Dollhouse returns on the 25th and I’ll be interested to see if it can stay afloat for another season. The information I have is that there will be 13 episodes but I wonder if FOX might extend that based on viewing figures to a full 22 episode series after christmas… (You realise this FOX Chris? They’ll probably cancel it before the first episode airs!)

Fox’s other sci-fi show Fringe starts on the 17th and they have a lot of explaining to do if a new audience is going to buy into the story.

Bones starts on the 17th as well, however I wont be tuning in as I’m still waiting on the third series to arrive on DVD, but for those of you keeping up to date with Angel’s… er…. I mean Booths travels with Temperance then you will be getting your fix soon.

The Cw’s Supernatural starts on the 10th and in my opinion one of the best shows of the last five years. However I’m still waiting for season 4 to be released in the slimline case so this one is off my watch list too!

For the Brits, Merlin is also due to start up again in September and Top Gear is due to return in November. Merlin in particular surprised me with its quality, especially after the terrible fall into depravity that was the latest series of Robin Hood. However Merlin will struggle to recover from the poorly executed series finale.

BSG: The Plan is due to air sometime in November, after the DVD release on October 27th and I can’t wait to get my Battlestar fix. I discovered the show only weeks after it was locked away in the dark cabinet forever and with a new release I feel like I can finally be part of the in-crowd…

The pilot for V is apparently due to air 3rd November, which seems odd as the rest of the series wont air for a significant time after that. I’ll keep you updated on this…

Caprica has been moved back to January, Day 8 of 24 will begin in January, along with Lost and hopefully Chuck, as well as Scrubs: Interns.

So that’s it. If I missed something let me know. If there is a show you think I should check out just comment on this post and I’ll do my best to get round to it.

This has been My Two Cents Tv Guide, not long to go now… :)