Heroes, the Gates, and Painkiller Jane
Heroes - This season is wrapping up nicely. I think they are really setting up to pit "brother against brother" and - more generally - formerly sympathetic characters against each other. Something tells me that even if Sylar meets his ordained fate in this finale, it won't be the end of supervillains - but with the somewhat sudden exeunt of Thompson and Linderman, there are "only" the selfish Jessica, the tarnished "dynastic Kennedy" Nathan, and the disillusioned BGM left to turn on the nascent team of Mohinder, Peter, Parkman, Hiro, etc. And on one another, of course.
I really liked the way they killed off the coercer early and made the masterminds either unpowered types (Hiro's father, BGM, etc.) or well-hidden mind-healers such as Linderman. I'll wager that eventually Mama Petrelli (Nathan and Peter's "flaky" mother) will turn out to have powers, as may Hiro's (late?) mother and Jessica/Niki's.
On the other hand, I thought Linderman made a weak exit. It was good to take Eden and him out of play early, but he wasn't much of a criminal mastermind, and even if DL dies, it will feel very anticlimactic to have an "aftermath" Season Two where the power vacuume he leaves is fought over, and everyone tries to come up with an exit strategy.
Stargate: SG-1 - Another silly episode. What can I say? It was cutesy, Cam and Vala have their dialogue and banter down pat (partly because they seem almost to be playing reincarnations of their characters from Farscape), and Shanks (Jackson) and Judge (Teal'c) are funny as ever. But this episode was a bit hollow, being a throwaway "Prime Directive/First Contact" episode turned terribly wrong and missing Samantha Carter's optimism and cheer. Vala is getting a little more interesting - it will be a nice challenge, I think, to see how Claudia does as Qetesh reaacendant in the post-S10 movie.
Stargate Atlantis: What is it with these hostage crisis-like situations? When it rains, it pours! All right, there was a little intrigue with Shepherd's shuttle landing, but the ending was rather predictable. Even the "hostage-taking" bit with Teyla was something I saw coming (as one of two options: beam yourself in with a hostage or beam out). In any case, this episode was a near-dud, IMO.
Painkiller Jane - Now this is just getting ridiculous. Jane is becoming a cross between Max from Dark Angel and one of those stupid Highlander immortals of teh week, when as the lead character, she should be part Duncan MacLeod, part Sydney Bristow from Alias! Yes, there is a whole "what really happeend to her mother?" subplot. There's a bit of sexual tension between her and the male lead. And there's this "den mother" relationship she has with the less developed characters, the non-alpha males. But all in all, PJ seems to be a series that delights in giving the leas character a lot of expository voiceover with cutesy dialogue that is at its best Whedonesque and much more often repetitive and unfunny. One other thing, though: have you noticed how often Kristanna Loken subtly suggests that her character out to be bi (as she herself really is)? It's one thing to have a character be bi, or even to have a sapphic subtext a la Xena and Gabrielle. It's another to exploitatively toss out OMG Kristanna is bi as some kind of gratuitous box-office draw. Just my $0.02.
I really liked the way they killed off the coercer early and made the masterminds either unpowered types (Hiro's father, BGM, etc.) or well-hidden mind-healers such as Linderman. I'll wager that eventually Mama Petrelli (Nathan and Peter's "flaky" mother) will turn out to have powers, as may Hiro's (late?) mother and Jessica/Niki's.
On the other hand, I thought Linderman made a weak exit. It was good to take Eden and him out of play early, but he wasn't much of a criminal mastermind, and even if DL dies, it will feel very anticlimactic to have an "aftermath" Season Two where the power vacuume he leaves is fought over, and everyone tries to come up with an exit strategy.
Stargate: SG-1 - Another silly episode. What can I say? It was cutesy, Cam and Vala have their dialogue and banter down pat (partly because they seem almost to be playing reincarnations of their characters from Farscape), and Shanks (Jackson) and Judge (Teal'c) are funny as ever. But this episode was a bit hollow, being a throwaway "Prime Directive/First Contact" episode turned terribly wrong and missing Samantha Carter's optimism and cheer. Vala is getting a little more interesting - it will be a nice challenge, I think, to see how Claudia does as Qetesh reaacendant in the post-S10 movie.
Stargate Atlantis: What is it with these hostage crisis-like situations? When it rains, it pours! All right, there was a little intrigue with Shepherd's shuttle landing, but the ending was rather predictable. Even the "hostage-taking" bit with Teyla was something I saw coming (as one of two options: beam yourself in with a hostage or beam out). In any case, this episode was a near-dud, IMO.
Painkiller Jane - Now this is just getting ridiculous. Jane is becoming a cross between Max from Dark Angel and one of those stupid Highlander immortals of teh week, when as the lead character, she should be part Duncan MacLeod, part Sydney Bristow from Alias! Yes, there is a whole "what really happeend to her mother?" subplot. There's a bit of sexual tension between her and the male lead. And there's this "den mother" relationship she has with the less developed characters, the non-alpha males. But all in all, PJ seems to be a series that delights in giving the leas character a lot of expository voiceover with cutesy dialogue that is at its best Whedonesque and much more often repetitive and unfunny. One other thing, though: have you noticed how often Kristanna Loken subtly suggests that her character out to be bi (as she herself really is)? It's one thing to have a character be bi, or even to have a sapphic subtext a la Xena and Gabrielle. It's another to exploitatively toss out OMG Kristanna is bi as some kind of gratuitous box-office draw. Just my $0.02.