'tis the season for the new season. I'm personally looking forward to the return of Heroes. NBC is apparently taking the sci-fi / fantasy thing a bit over top with three other new dramas: Bionic Woman, Journeyman, and Chuck. The former includes Katie Sackoff (Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica), apparently in the "bad guy" role. Journeyman is some sort of time traveling thing starring Kevin McKid (also the star of HBO's Rome). Chuck is Alias-meets-Circuit City. Or something like that.

I'll tape all of those, but if anything is clear, we're not going to have all these shows by the end of the season...

On other networks, CBS has a new show, "Moonlight" that seems like a direct knockoff of "Angel" (vampire as good guy private investigator in Los Angeles), not to be confused with Fox's "New Amsterdam" that has an immortal police investigator in New York. ABC has another one, "Pushing up the Daiseys" about a police investigator who can ask dead people who killed them. Gaah! Enough with the cop shows!

What I'm wondering is if there's something coming that has clever writing, regardless of genre. I'm continually impressed by Boston Legal for precisely the fact that the writers are hilarious (and for all the shameless things they do to William Shatner).

out of all the pre-airs episodes I have watched so far, Cavemen is my favorite so far, with chuck coming in a close second (looks like its filmed in Canada). The Sarah Connor Chronicles looks quite interesting after the first episode as well. I actually didn't like Bionic Woman at all, kinda reminded me of last years shark boy, filmed the same way at least. Pushing up daisies I could go either way after watching the first episode, not your typical ABC show, thats forsure. Cane looks pretty good though, kinda like a sugar cartel. Aliens in America was pretty funny after the first episode but Big Bangs first episode was very weak!

Californication started off strong, but the writing is going no where fast. Dexter S2 is looking good after just 2 episodes. Weeds S3 isn't really going anywhere but Norm MacDonald more than makes up for that.

My favorite summer show was Burn Notice. If you missed it, it was on USA network.

Did anyone else catch The Larry David Show S6 on Sunday? So glad its back on the air, never expected it to come back on actually.

Honestly, I don't see any compelling new shows at all this fall. I might watch "Moonlight" and/or "New Amsterdam", but I haven't plugged them into the TiVo yet. I might "forget". The new Kelsey Grammer sitcom, "Back to You", might be worth checking out.

There's an apparently complete list of new shows over on MSN.

I too would like to know what you could possibly see in cavemen. Its looks horrible. I thought they decided to not go through with it. If they were gonna go with any of the Geico characters, they really should have given the show to the gecko.

I really dont see many of the shows lasting too long, especially all the sci-fi, comic-hooky ones. Its gonna be like last year when they came out with 50 Lost type shows. They all failed, the worst being that stupid bank one.

I'm an admitted sucker for fantasy-based TV shows (and movies), so I'll be checking many of those out. Pushing Daisies, Bionic Woman, Journeyman, Sarah Conner Chronicles (how can you skip something that has Summer Glau?), and maybe a couple others. I can't check out much more than that, because I already have so many other shows I watch:

Lost
The Simpsons
Bones
Dexter
Heroes
House
Veronica Mars
Family Guy
ER
My Name is Earl
Mythbusters
Smallville
Weeds
Numb3rs
Supernatural
Eureka
Avatar: The Last Airbender
The Dresden Files

And there's a bunch I know I'm forgetting. That doesn't include the summer shows that have ended, though. I second that Burn Notice is really good, and it has Bruce Campbell as a bonus.

Of the summer shows I watch, which mainly consists of USA and Sci-Fi shows, I'd say my favorites would have to be Eureka (this show just makes me smile), The 4400, Burn Notice, and Pysch. Monk is stale and ridiculous (though I still watch it), and they have completely screwed up The Dead Zone.

Is anyone else here extremely excited that Avatar is coming back on the air at the end of this month? I can't express how cool the trailer for season 3 looks.

I just saw the first episode of Chuck in a plane and I gotta say, it looks really funny. Bionic Woman looks cool too.

umm. did anyone else catch k-ville last night? at first I was a bit turned off by Anthony Anderson being in a serious cop drama based in a post katrina New Orleans. The show far exceeded my expectations though. The only problem was almost too much happened in the 1 hour so it will be hard to predict what happens next, but it was very good and I look forward to more.

I just watched the premiere of the US version of Kitchen Nightmares last night... Wow. Sure fire way to make a great program absolutely shit... Bring it to the US and give it the USA treatment.

The original show, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares is produced by the BBC and is fantastic, not only for its uncensored approach. This US version took everything that made the original special, including Gordon's own narration and focus on the food, and instead replaced it with a huge chunk of Extreme Makeover Home Edition (though that show is an even bigger pile of garbage). Now we get a ton of 1:1 camera confessionals, over the top theatrics by one or more of the restaurant staff and too generous use of replays.

Also caught the new Kelsey Grammer show, Back to You.... Yawn. This won't likely last the season. The show following it was just above "meh" but markedly better. Both are rather typical multi-camera studio-based sitcoms with annoying laugh tracks.

Lots of stuff premiering but I don't see anything that I think will make it through to next season except perhaps Private Practice. I'm not even sure Lost will make it to next season after the February premier and new short season format (only 16 eps per season from now on).

I'm about to start watching the new season of Weeds - had to download the first 5 episodes because it hasn't premiered in Canada yet. Someone tell Showtime to grow a clue and start producing this show with an additional 15 minutes per episode and more than 12 episodes per season. What's with these cable shows and their super short "seasons?" Do they think they're in the UK or something?

I also watched last night's US "Kitchen Nightmares" and I disagree with Bruno. I see where he's coming from, but it felt a lot like the UK version to me. This one was certainly different, as it seemed that all the problems stemmed from a single individual being a screwed-up jackass. There was significantly less restaurant-related stuff in that episode than in the UK series, but there really wasn't that much of a problem in the restaurant in this case. We'll have to wait and see if that is the way the rest of the series pans out. If so, I'll retract my statement and agree with Bruno, but this might just be the hook to get the idiot US populace to watch.

To me, a significant portion of the appeal is lost simply because of the substituted narrator. There's decidedly less Ramsay in the US version than in the UK version from both an audio as well as video perspective. I'm currently watching the UK series as it's being broadcast on Food Network Canada on Monday nights, so my experience with that version is vary fresh. In fact I had watched an episode just the night before last.

My fiancée who's only seen 1 UK episode so far agrees completely and thinks the Fox version, along with being censored, is simply dumbed down.

Amazon has some of the new season's pilots available for free download.

So far I've watched "Big Bang Theory", "Back To You", "Chuck", and "Bionic Woman".

"Big Bang Theory" is a minstrel show with geeks instead of black folks. It's honestly somewhat offensive. And their jargon is off enough that geeks would just be irritated anyway. It's basically "point at the geeks and laugh".

"Back To You" is no better or worse than any other generic sitcom. Which is to say it's pretty bad.

"Bionic Woman" was just terrible. Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck from the new Battlestar Galactica) is a recurring guest star, apparently, and confirmed my opinion that she's simply a bad actress. The rest of the show is just boring. It honestly failed to keep my attention for the whole 45 minutes, and I didn't even have to bother fast-forwarding through commercials. There's just nothing there to recommend the show.

"Chuck", on the other hand, looks like it's going to be pretty good. It's centered around geeks, just like "Big Bang Theory", but it doesn't unremittingly make fun of them. There's still things to poke fun at, but that's not the whole show, and it's more often done in a more friendly manner. The supporting cast is interesting enough, and the premise is reasonably fun. I don't know for sure that it'll work long-term, but it's worth watching again to find out.

My new favorite show is "The IT Crowd", as it just started its second season. I hear that NBC is working on creating an American version (ala The Office), complete with Richard Ayoade playing Moss, but some say it may never get off the ground. This would be fine by me, as the British version is funny enough.

I watched Chuck and Heroes last night. I was surprised how much I enjoyed Chuck, because I'd heard some bad reviews of it. Bitt, you were right on with your assessment of the geek humor, which is probably calculated on their part, so they don't alienate their target audience.

I only had three problems with the episode, all more suspension of disbelief-related.
- "this computer has a DOS override"
- the CIA woman steals his computer, but discards it when it falls on the floor? She really thought the data was lost? And apparently a three foot fall is utterly disastrous for computers: in the next shot you can clearly see a hard drive with its platters exposed. That's some fall!
- nobody in that club saw the woman throwing sharp objects at guys in suits? It was pretty obvious.

I guess it's funny how suspension of disbelief is easier for more outlandish plot points (like a guy seeing a bunch of images and now remembering state secrets), than it is to let slip little things like the CIA not being able to recover data off a hard drive that isn't even damaged

Now...about Heroes... I'm excited for the second season. Hopefully they'll have a better sophomore season than Lost, and I have every confidence that they will, but unlike a lot of people, I simply like The 4400 better. It's lower budget, and it might not be quite as fun, but for me it delivers on more than Heroes does. The message is a lot more interesting and thought-provoking to me, and hell, it even delivers more on the powers, as far as I've seen. I think the main difference though is in the characters themselves, in that the characters on The 4400 deal with their new-found powers and with each-other, and aren't nearly as insular and self-absorbed as the characters on Heroes.

At the very least, I can say that this past season finale for The 4400 has left me with a lot to think about, and dying to see what happens next, unlike the first season finale of Heroes, which just left me feeling cheated and underwhelmed...a lot like most episodes of the show.

Sorry to go off on such a tangent...

I watched Journeyman last night. It wasn't great, but it wasn't completely terrible. I don't think it'll hold my attention, but I'll give it one more week to see if it improves.

anyone following prison break s3? I don't know how but they keep this thing going. Its a guilty pleasure of mine.

Yup. I'm still watching. I hope it's better than last season. Last season had a couple good episodes, but some of them seemed like just filler.

I watched the first episode of Chuck as well and while I enjoyed it for the most part, there were a couple of issues I see with it. One, I'm having a bit of trouble with the whole suspension of disbelief thing, and secondly, I can't get past the fact that they tried to find basically the twin of Jim from the Office. Chuck is just waaaaay to similar to Jim for me, to the point where it gets distracting. Not just the look but the way the guy talks and some of his mannerisms.

But so far, it has been the most entertaining of the new shows.

So I didn't miss anything last night with Kitchen Nightmares then. I can't record it any more due to both my PVR's tuners being occupied with other programs. The UK original has about 4 episodes per season and I've already seen the newest ones. I believe there are only 16 total so far and I've probably watched 7. Hopefully the existence of the US-based version doesn't preclude Ramsay making more in the UK.

Last night I think the 9:00 PM time slot consisted of Private Practice and Bionic Woman. PP was pretty good, though not as much fun as the preview episode toward the end of last season's Grey's Anatomy run. Bionic Woman was just watchable. I can't really give it much praise except for having liked the fast running effect (more so than I've seen in any other show that has attempted it). With only the pilot watched, it's reminding me too much of the Nikita TV show (which I don't particularly like, though I quite liked both the original movie and its remake).

Reaper was decent the night before, but I hope it doesn't get too Buffy-like. Journeyman was so-so but I think it'll get the axe before the season runs through - likely before the 13th episode (I'm not sure how many eps were ordered by the network).

Also caught Life late last night before heading to bed. Cop comes back to work after 12 years in jail for a crime he didn't commit. Liked it quite a bit. Not because of the story-arc they're developing, but rather because of the actors and their performances. Instantly likable characters.

Boston Legal and House are still highlights of the week's programming.

I'll hopefully have a trimmed favorites lineup set on the PVR in two weeks or so. I wasn't able to record Chuck, also due to conflicts, so it's being picked up this Saturday instead.

Avatar (animated) got off to a decent start last week, but I didn't find the first episode quite as interesting nor well-written as the last few of last season. Family Guy's 1-hour Star Wars parody was great. I'm going to have to download South Park and buy the past couple of seasons on DVD because the Canadian channel re-broadcasting up here does a piss-poor job of scheduling. No episodes are marked first run, they're not always shown in order and since they air various episodes of the show at least 10 times per week, it's hard to set the PVR to grab just the new ones. Of course they've changed the timeslot for those episodes a few times too just to make it nearly impossible.

I too liked Life, It's fortunate it was on after Bionic Woman, I might not have watched it otherwise.

Bionic Woman didn't really impress. The pilot episode was rushed, I mean she went from denial to acceptance and in charge in what seemed nothing flat.

I'm pretty sure Reaper is my (and my wife's) favorite new show so far. I just found it to be a lot of fun, and Ray Wise is perfect as the Devil.

Life was pretty good, but was it just me, or was it sometimes difficult to hear what the main character was saying? Not everyone, just him...

To wrap up the ones I've seen:

Bionic Woman - probably the weakest of the premieres. I liked the lead actress in Jekyll (go watch that if you haven't), but she seems a little off here, and it's clear she's having problems with the American accent. There are several points where she puts simply bizarre inflection on what she's saying.

Journeyman - I kinda liked it. I'm hoping it'll improve a little though. I'm a sucker for shows like this.

Chuck - pleasantly surprised. Funny, and has Adam Baldwin.

Reaper - definitely my favorite so far.

Life - probably won't watch past a few episodes. It's interesting how we don't know everything about the case he was framed for. Do we even know WHO died? I'm assuming it's his child, but I'm not sure...

Now I just can't wait for Pushing Daisies.

Oh, and I couldn't believe a series of lines from Bionic Woman. Did I hear this right?

Random nurse: "We've got to get you to rehab"
Jaime Summers: "What for?"
Random nurse: "Rehabilitation"

That's some great writing right there. On par with this.

Being dropped this week from my PVR favorites (auto-record) feature:

Chuck = unimaginative, at least 1 or 2 super-lame tech/geek lines per episode, the semi-hot "girlfriend" CIA agent isn't enough to get by the utter boredom of watching.

Bionic Woman = OMG. This is like an ULTRA-cheap version of Alias combined with the Nikita TV series sets. Serious overuse of dim/gloomy lighting. I don't really give a rat's ass about any characters and I think the lead absolutely stinks. The character is totally flat and the combat sequences are just a notch above the 1960's Batman TV show.

Back to You = dull typical 80's sitcom.

Life is still quite good after 3 episodes. I'm also enjoying Pushing up Daisies, but would be willing to bet it will be cancelled. It's too out there for a mainstream audience. Surprisingly I'm also enjoying Big Shots. It's like a 1 hour men's version of Sex and the City in many ways.

I'm not too sure if anyone else here is hooked on "dexter" but the next 2 episodes (11,12) of season 2 have been posted to usenet as dvdrip pre-airs.

Wonderful. They've cancelled The 4400. In my opinion, it was superior to Heroes in almost every way other than production values and marketing.

Did anyone else watch all the episodes of Journeyman? The show only improved, IMO, particularly when they started setting up some good situations around the time travel stuff. Too bad it's also canceled.

Other shows I wanted to comment on:

Jericho - why was this resurrected and not Veronica Mars?

Bionic Woman - I finally stopped watching this show (only the second show I've stopped watching in the last three years - after Jericho). What was the final straw? In the last episode, Jamie and her annoying CIA boyfriend are fighting some guys in a hotel room. To avoid gunfire, the CIA guy hides behind a chair. Yes, you actually see bullets being stopped by a fancy upholstered chair. This is one of those situations where I'm able to suspend disbelief on big plot points, but little crap like that is just stupid and pointless. I'm done with this show.

Are there any canceled shows (not just strike-affected ones) that you guys are mad about?

I disagree strongly. In my opinion the 4400 has been totally lost for ages (since about mid way through last series). It just seems to wander aimlessly about repeating the same sort of stuff over and over again.

Some of the story lines in the latest episodes really were awful, it was almost as if they have taken the story from three episodes, hacked some chunks out and stuck them together in one episode.

The last episode of Journeyman is on tonight... Hope you don't miss it. When you wrote about them canceling it was on episode 10 and a you mentioned, it looked like they might not air the remaining episodes. Except instead of 2 there were actually 3.

Easily the best new show of 2007, perhaps tied with Life. I also quite like Pushing Daisies. Those are my top 3 new ones. Big Shots, Private Practice and Reaper round out my top 6. I don't think I watch any other new 1 hour programs a those 6 are enough. I've read Big Shots might not get picked up either which is too bad. It's difficult to relate to anything in the show at face value, but it's "fun."

Heroes unfortunately isn't even in my top 3 of returning shows. Those likely being Boston Legal, House and Grey's Anatomy.

I'm not saying I think that too (I don't), but you're saying you don't agree with me on the grounds that half of the 4400's final (4th) season was no good? Heroes started sucking after the "future episode" of season one, and this season has been really bad.

My main argument for the 4400 over Heroes is that Heroes isn't saying anything. Hell, 99% of the time it doesn't even deliver on a geeky superpower level. At the very least, the 4400 has social commentary (that seems based in reality, IMO), and compelling plot developments. I've heard people say "well, Heroes is going to get to that stuff." I don't think they are. The show seems to relish in its characters' anonymity and "inner struggle" (ha!). They're all self-absorbed, whiny, and (*spoiler alert*) the first time they try to expose the existence of superpowered people, look what happens.

Sorry for the rant, but I'm really disliking the show now. The writing is simply terrible.


Oh, I know! I'm going to watch it in a little bit (have to build up some Tivo time).


Yeah, the creator said that when they looked at the ratings and the impending strike, they decided that the end was nigh. At least they retooled the scripts for the final episodes to wrap up some plot points. Supposedly we're going to get some answers (which I feel the show has been doling out fairly well as it is!).


Pushing Daisies is easily my favorite. At the moment it's my third favorite show overall (behind Avatar and Dexter). Life is better than I expected (the pilot didn't impress me), and it really kicked it up a bit in the final few episodes.

After watching the 13th episode of Journeyman I can only say again what I said in my previous post. I wouldn't change a single thing about the show. Not any of the writing, plots, actors, direction, etc. It's been a brilliant run of 13 episodes that have only gotten stronger as they progressed. I'll be very sad to see it go.

I've got all 13 episodes recorded on my PVR which I'll have to have my fiancée watch sometime. It's one of the only shows I watch that he doesn't. The others being Reaper and Avatar.

When I mentioned Journeyman being part of my strong top 3, I wasn't including 30-minute shows nor animated series. Avatar is phenomenal and the lat few episodes have been great. I think they got off to a really slow start this season. But even last season, the second half was definitely where the money was. It's also a returning series and I mentioned Journeyman a a new series. Animation-wise I still highly rank South Park and to a lesser extent American Dad, Family Guy and King of the Hill - I no longer watch the Simpsons.

Oh well, looks like there's nothing on for another few weeks. Time to catch up on some movies.

FWIW, The Simpsons has been really good this season. And I agree that the last ... five? ... seasons were mediocre at best.

I wonder is Journeyman has been strong enough to warrant another network picking it up?

Edit: apparently not by the following analysis

http://www.syfyportal.com/news424554.html

If Aint it Cool's coverage of it over the last few weeks is to be believed...no.

It's been pretty clear for a long while that the show wasn't getting the ratings, and as Bruno and I were hinting at, at one point NBC wasn't even going to air the last few episodes. I think they wanted to play out all their new content before the holiday break, and the only way they were able to do that was to give Journeyman and Life each 3 episodes in 10 days.


Likewise. I thought the ending was rather beautiful and a fitting finale to a show that had a lot of promise. It's a shame that it gained steam late. I think some people might have bailed early on.


Oh, I know what you were saying in your rankings I just wanted to stress that not only was Pushing Daisies my favorite new show, it's in my top three over-all. I guess that technically, Avatar got off to a slow start, but that's never been an issue with me, as I don't believe I've been let down by a single episode. Each one has more great writing, character development, fun, and heart than any other show I've ever seen. I'm going to have to see how the third season plays out, but if it's able to top the last two episodes, and they stop the series there, then Avatar has a chance at being my favorite show of all time...


This period of time is going to be killer for a TV junkie like me! I'm going to have to go outside! Ugh!

Luckily I just started reading again (which has never been big with me). If you're a superhero geek, I highly recommend "Soon I Will Be Invincible" by Austin Grossman. It's a lot of fun.

Yep the series ended very well.

No, when I said "last series" I meant "previous series", so I'm saying the whole of series 4 and most of series 3 was badly written.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. The 4th "season" (as we call it over here more often), ended in September, so to me, that was "last season."

I still disagree, though

I said it ended well. It wasn't till the next morning I realized the final episode still has the seeds of a new season.

Old thread alert....

Just watched the whole first season of Californication starring David Duchovny. Brilliant from start to finish. Easily his best work ever on small or large screen.

I'm also so glad they cast Evan Handler as I've always thought he was the shorter, chubbier and bald version of Duchovny.

There have only been two episodes, but so far I'm really enjoying Breaking Bad. Interesting that there's a good amount of cursing in it that is blanked out. I'm guessing it was intended for pay TV and not basic cable.

I've just seen that advertised on AMC up here in Canada and thought it might be a god watch. Will set the PVR to record it since I think it hasn't yet premiered (here).

breaking bad is really good, the wire season 5 is also a good watch. If you havn't seen hbo:the wire before season 1 and 2 are so very captivating.

Based on Bitt's recommendation, I've started watching Breaking Bad. My wife calls it "the druggie show." So far (two episodes), I'm impressed. It's a bit creepy, yet funny.

Still need to check that (Breaking Bad) out as well as Dexter. On related news, the writer's strike is apparently coming to an end, with an agreement reached last Friday. No idea if shows halted in mid-season will come back to finish off their current seasons though. I'd like to see the full run of Life and Pushing Daisies though, among others.

vh1's freeradio is very good.

That's what I've been wondering the whole strike. I've been thinking that it will be interesting to see how long it takes to put out new episodes.

Unfortunately, the latest I've heard is that they'd only be able to produce three or four more episodes before they wrapped up for the summer. I'll never understand the imaginary TV wall that is May.

Ok, I was wrong about Lost. Somewhat anyway. I still didn't like the way they handled last season's finale, but this season is off to a very good start. I wasn't sure the new twist on the format was going to work, but surprisingly I'm finding it really enjoyable.

There have been a few things in the past couple of episodes that were meant to keep the audience guessing, but unfortunately I figured them out early on and didn't get hit with the writer's planned shocker at/near the end of the episodes.

On another positive TV note, new episodes of the UK's Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares have just started on Food TV Canada a couple of weeks ago. So far they've been great. Who can I write to about making sure the new US season sticks to the original UK format? I can live with editing out the swearing, but putting in some obnoxious US narrator and constantly repeating the same video clips over and over is really annoying. On top of the previously mentioned drama/makeover angle the US version is pushing as well.

Have also been enjoying episodes of Last One Standing on Discovery. 6 guys, 3 from the UK and 3 from the US travel around the world to compete in various indigenous competitions/events, some fighting-based and some endurance/sports-based so far. Likable real-life cast and some very interesting locales.

I'm just praying that they don't decided to apply any of the nonsense in the US format to the next series of the UK show.

I've just watched the last ep of the Sarah Connor Chronicles and I have to say I found the series really good. It's been showing on Virgin 1 over here in the UK and when I found out I set the Myth box to record it for me thinking I'd probably watch an ep decide it was worse than T3 and not bother watching the rest. I ended up loving it so much I downloaded the remaining ep's and watched them back to back.

There has always been a special place in my heart for the Terminator franchise. I remember watching the first film long before I was really old enough (about 9 or 10) and it scared the living crap out of me. Admittedly not as much as Robocop did, I still cannot watch the scene where Murphy is gunned down, it makes me feel physically sick.

I then watched Terminator 2 when it came to video (I was about 13) and that inspired me to watch the original again and I loved it..... and that was that, I thought, the tale was told.

Fast forward 12 years and I read about T3 being in production, I read all the articles about it, watched the trailer and went to see it on it's opening day, and I hated it. I don't know what it was, maybe it was the fact Arnie is really too old to play the part convincingly, or maybe that skynet is powered by Dell, or that the movie annoyingly ends on a cliffhanger, something the previous two films didn't do. Or was it that fact they injected too much humour.... Talk to the hand? Give me a fucking break.

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned the third film hasn't happened and this series is where it's at. I only hope they don't cancel it before they make a second series.

Oh, and Summer Glau is 'so' hot. Something I never really picked up on in Firefly, maybe because she was seriously odd in it, or perhaps she was overshadowed by Jewel Staite.

That's the only thing I can agree with you (wholeheartedly so) on in regards to this show. I just don't think it's very good, and then they brought in a 90210 kid. I agree that T3 was bad, though.

I'm hoping the fourth movie is good.

Weird. I think it started off pretty mediocre and got better and better. It's not excellent, but it's pretty good, I think. I could have stood an actor other than the 90210 guy, though.

Okay, it's not perfect but I'm worried T4 will actually be worse than T3. I've lost faith in the films.

I'll agree it got better and better, but it could only go up. I think the acting is pretty bad (except for Summer Glau - I think she pulls it off perfectly), and the writing is pretty awful as well.

I guess if we're comparing it to other new shows that improved during their short run this year, I'm saying that it doesn't hold a candle to Journeyman. That show started off very so-so, and got really freaking good at the end. That one won't be coming back, though.

I had the realization the other day that Battlestar Galactica and Terminator have essentially the same plot device (the bad guys, they look like us, and they're bad ass) but have taken it in very, very different directions. Galactica has politics and just a sense of largeness. Things are always afoot, and even though we follow many of the same characters, they're always acting in some kind of larger context. Terminator, on the other hand, is very small. The world at large has no idea what's going on.

Also, (spoiler free) the Terminator season ending cliffhanger, if you really want to call it that, was hardly cliffhanging. It's not like you can't easily predict what happens next. The Galactica cliffhanger, Jimi Hendrix allusions aside, was a total mental screwup and leaves us wondering what the frak is going on.

I liked the Sarah Conner Chronicles, but I'm not sure why. It has joined Heroes as being the only two shows I watch on TV besides hockey. That means it will probably be canceled.

Terminator 3 sucked because it was essentially the exact same story as T2 but with a much worse script, lower budget, lack of direction, different John Connor, no Sarah Connor. A lot of people were expecting the whole thing to take place in the dark Skynet future. That, at least, would have made it different.

Here's hoping that along with a new Matrix, we never see a Terminator sequel.

I've caught a few bits of a few episodes of the TV show and while I can't comment on the series as a whole, I can say what I saw was far better than Terminator 3.

This season of Heroes was complete trash. In some ways I think it may have been saved by the writer's strike. Let's hope they don't hire back any of the same writers who worked on it in the fall. But it's a shame a number of the quality new shows aren't coming back until late this year (Life, Pushing Daisies among others)

I wouldn't go that far. It was certainly a giant step backwards from the first season, which was a truly brilliant thing.


Interestingly, they make various allusions in the TV show to the movies, but it's all very tangential. They can't help but refer to the first movie often. Discussion of either subsequent film is circumspect at best (e.g., they've mentioned a previous "friendly" Terminator (or Terminators), but it's not clear whether they're talking about the Governator in T2 or something else. Certainly, we've seen no sign of "liquid metal", which is probably a good thing.)

The scientific technobabble in the Terminator TV show is starting to annoy me. If, for example, time travel only works on living people, then how did the bad-guy head manage to make the jump with our cast of characters, when it had no skin left on it? Likewise, "hey kid, can you whip up a virus to take out this thing" is kinda silly. How do you engineer a virus when you don't know anything about what you're attacking? And, ultimately, all of this craziness about getting the Turk is a bit silly. It's not a rare gem. It's a piece of software. There should be copies. Backups. Branches.

Now, the question is whether I'm more experiencing trouble suspending my disbelief at Terminator's technobabble, or whether I'm experiencing trouble suspending my disbelief at some of the more fantastic / religious elements of Battlestar Galactica.

Come to think of it, how did the baddies in both T2 and T3 come back if that's the case? I haven't got inclination to read the scripts of all the films, but maybe that 'field generated by a living organism' was only true in the first film?


Maybe he was so busy drinking coffee and cracking open xbox's he forgot to put it in all in an svn repository.

I'd like to think of myself as a technical person, so nowadays I just try and ignore the technobabble. But don't get me started on CSI, how they can take 4 pixels out of a CCTV framegrab and make a whole new picture is beyond me!

I don't think it was ever mentioned in the second film. Of course, I thought nothing else could come through - wasn't it destroyed after Kyle was sent back?

I think Fox said that they originally intended the head to travel with full tissue but it was deemed too gory for tv so theyb were forced to re-think it. Whether that's true or not I don't know.

I find its best not to think too hard about things - just accept it!

In the Sarah Connor Chronicles, what's the deal with them being chained up in that house in the future, then getting led downstairs and hearing piano music and then released next day??

All this stuff would probably have been addressed if the scheduled run of episodes were made - it was cut short due to the writers strike.

One of the things I enjoyed about T3 was the story about how the apocolypse began, and how John survived it. That was the part of the story I was waiting for, and T3 explained it.

Well, the TV show retconned the entirety of T3, so now you don't know again. Sorta.