I Think My Viewpoint Is Needed on the Internet
Tonight, I got to have the rare experience of watching Monday night television with an LJ friend! mutinousmuse and I had dinner first, where I discovered larb, which is like taking ground chicken and soaking it in salt for a week. Then we went back to her apartment, where I was attacked by her extremely hyper dogs but not accosted by her very mellow cat or her two caged lizards. It's quite a menagerie in there.
Luckily, she had been so offline as to have not even known of the existence of all the Office goodies at Target, so she was extremely pleased with the Dwight stress ball and assortment of "I ♥ Jim" paraphernalia I had brought her, the latter of which totally matched her computer's desktop.
We waited for her husband to come home, and then it was time for the much-loved Chuck!
Chuck
I must admit I was really not feeling it at first. There was too much of a disconnect between the supercool spy action and the awkward, not-that-funny nerd action. I did have to give them fucking props for the Zork reference, though. That was fucking awesome.
I became a little more intrigued by the way they showed Chuck's implanted memories. I liked that they were triggered by certain things, and I was amused by the constant shot of that frickin' pie. I...have doubts as to how this works as a premise at all, though. He doesn't even get superspy moves. He just gets...a finicky computer bank. This is not as Jake 2.0 as I thought.
Another interesting aspect was that the central conflict involves two of our own government agencies working against each other. I thought that was neat; I had expected there to be outside interference involved. But, no, we can fight among ourselves just fine.
Sarah looks so much like Olivia Wilde, and yet she is not. But she is still hot, so it all works out. Also, she is a ninja. A totally awesome ninja. That thing with the emergency barricade was FUCKING SWEET. At that point, I decided it might be worth watching the show just to see her do cool ninja stuff. Perhaps even in her underwear.
As the episode progressed, the atonality sort of fixed itself, and I think there was a good mix by the end.
Adam Baldwin is your go-to guy for...that character he always plays.
I loved the way Chuck defused the bomb, but I was really expecting there to be more of a connection between the SERBIAN terrorist and the SERBIAN porn star. That seemed like a random, distracting coincidence. I don't even know where Serbia is.
I was not sold on Zachary Levi, and I'm still not in love with him, but the moment where he walked away from both of them with an assertive "You need me" was great and made me like the character a lot.
I'm not feeling the sidekick at all. He's dull. Tyler Labine on Reaper has now spoiled me for sidekicks of disaffected twentysomething characters who are suddenly given too much responsibility.
The show has potential, but I didn't love it as much as I thought I would. I feel like if you took Chuck and Reaper and smushed them together, you'd have a great show, because they both have a lot of potential despite flawed pilots. I guess we'll have to wait till the second episode to see how this goes.
And then it was time for a Nissan commercial!!
Heroes
I found it to be a very satisfying premiere. It wasn't balls-out awesome, but there was cool stuff as always.
So, Hiro in Japan. I knew David Anders was Takezo Kensei, but I didn't know they were doing the ol' "When you meet your idol, he turns out to be a drunken hooligan" plot. Erin's husband put forth the idea that Hiro will become Takezo Kensei, and I think that's where this story has to be going. It has one of three outcomes:
A) Hiro becomes Takezo Kensei.
B) Hiro actually does all the shit but lets Takezo Kensei take the credit.
C) Hiro teaches Takezo Kensei the true meaning of being a hero, which we already went through last year with Ando and Hiro, so let's not choose option C, okay?
I hate Claire's stupid new love interest guy or whatever. He comes off as a condescending jerk with his alien/robot schtick (even though I found it a moderately interesting way of dichotomozing society), especially because he doesn't even stick to it. How the hell is hiding the fact that you're smart robot behavior? Wouldn't pleasing the teacher be far more robotic? Also, is Claire going to school with MORONS? They're in junior year and have never heard of Darwin?
And what the hell, he can fly? He looks like Peter fucking Pan. And why are they giving him the same power as Nathan? And, indirectly, Peter? Do we really need one more frying man?
I still heart Claire, though. And Mr. Bennet is still awesome. Secret plan to take down the Company! With Mohinder who is showing surprising signs of lack of stupidity!
Bonus: STEPHEN TOBOLOWSKY HAS THE POWER OF ALCHEMY THE MIDAS TOUCH.
At first, I thought Molly was dreaming of Voldemort, but from her pictures of a man with the godsend symbol right between the eyes, it's clear she's dreaming of evil Harry Potter.
Aw, Parkman. He's a real cop now. And a single dad! I wonder what'll happen with his baby. And Nathan's family is gone, too? Heidi and the kids? I guess we're jettisoning supporting characters to make room for all the new ones?
And while we're on that subject, let's thank Alejandro and Maya for adding to the subtitle count! Take that, Diversity Police! Now, it seems Maya has the power to induce promicin death. I wonder why Alejandro remains unaffected, though, and what his power is. Because you know he has a power. We haven't seen an unpowered sibling yet. (It would be hilarious if his power were simply immunity to promicin death.)
Back to Nathan. And his beard. Erin astutely noticed him bumping into Ando, which was cool. I...basically have no idea what the fuck his deal is. What happened? Did people think he died? What happened to his congressional seat? Is he supposed to be in hiding? Why is he still a jackass to Claire?
By far, the most interesting new plotline is the mysterious assassinations of the elder generation. Kaito listed three deaths: Charles Deveaux, Linderman, and Papa Petrelli. Thing is, we know how Linderman died, and there was nothing conspiratorial about it. We know Papa Petrelli didn't commit suicide, and that's about it. We know Charles Deveaux just sort of...got old. Wait, I think I may have misinterpreted him. I hope he wasn't insinuating any foul play in their deaths. I think what he meant was that they weren't suspects.
So there were Twelve, and now there are Nine, leaving Seven potential suspects we have no clue about. I assume the Twelve were behind the planning of the Plot to Blow Up New York. And I don't think we have any clues as to who the unexpected assassin is. Or what the hell Hiro's dad power was, besides the ability to teach swordfighting via montage. I thought the marked photos were a nice touch.
And then there's Peter, still alive after exploding and randomly in fucking Ireland for no discernible reason with no idea who he was, wearing a strange piece of jewelry. They're pulling an Angel on us! What did he shoot out of his hand? Was that new? Or was that just a radiation fireball?
In conclusion, WHERE WAS TY LEE?
Luckily, she had been so offline as to have not even known of the existence of all the Office goodies at Target, so she was extremely pleased with the Dwight stress ball and assortment of "I ♥ Jim" paraphernalia I had brought her, the latter of which totally matched her computer's desktop.
We waited for her husband to come home, and then it was time for the much-loved Chuck!
Chuck
I must admit I was really not feeling it at first. There was too much of a disconnect between the supercool spy action and the awkward, not-that-funny nerd action. I did have to give them fucking props for the Zork reference, though. That was fucking awesome.
I became a little more intrigued by the way they showed Chuck's implanted memories. I liked that they were triggered by certain things, and I was amused by the constant shot of that frickin' pie. I...have doubts as to how this works as a premise at all, though. He doesn't even get superspy moves. He just gets...a finicky computer bank. This is not as Jake 2.0 as I thought.
Another interesting aspect was that the central conflict involves two of our own government agencies working against each other. I thought that was neat; I had expected there to be outside interference involved. But, no, we can fight among ourselves just fine.
Sarah looks so much like Olivia Wilde, and yet she is not. But she is still hot, so it all works out. Also, she is a ninja. A totally awesome ninja. That thing with the emergency barricade was FUCKING SWEET. At that point, I decided it might be worth watching the show just to see her do cool ninja stuff. Perhaps even in her underwear.
As the episode progressed, the atonality sort of fixed itself, and I think there was a good mix by the end.
Adam Baldwin is your go-to guy for...that character he always plays.
I loved the way Chuck defused the bomb, but I was really expecting there to be more of a connection between the SERBIAN terrorist and the SERBIAN porn star. That seemed like a random, distracting coincidence. I don't even know where Serbia is.
I was not sold on Zachary Levi, and I'm still not in love with him, but the moment where he walked away from both of them with an assertive "You need me" was great and made me like the character a lot.
I'm not feeling the sidekick at all. He's dull. Tyler Labine on Reaper has now spoiled me for sidekicks of disaffected twentysomething characters who are suddenly given too much responsibility.
The show has potential, but I didn't love it as much as I thought I would. I feel like if you took Chuck and Reaper and smushed them together, you'd have a great show, because they both have a lot of potential despite flawed pilots. I guess we'll have to wait till the second episode to see how this goes.
And then it was time for a Nissan commercial!!
Heroes
I found it to be a very satisfying premiere. It wasn't balls-out awesome, but there was cool stuff as always.
So, Hiro in Japan. I knew David Anders was Takezo Kensei, but I didn't know they were doing the ol' "When you meet your idol, he turns out to be a drunken hooligan" plot. Erin's husband put forth the idea that Hiro will become Takezo Kensei, and I think that's where this story has to be going. It has one of three outcomes:
A) Hiro becomes Takezo Kensei.
B) Hiro actually does all the shit but lets Takezo Kensei take the credit.
C) Hiro teaches Takezo Kensei the true meaning of being a hero, which we already went through last year with Ando and Hiro, so let's not choose option C, okay?
I hate Claire's stupid new love interest guy or whatever. He comes off as a condescending jerk with his alien/robot schtick (even though I found it a moderately interesting way of dichotomozing society), especially because he doesn't even stick to it. How the hell is hiding the fact that you're smart robot behavior? Wouldn't pleasing the teacher be far more robotic? Also, is Claire going to school with MORONS? They're in junior year and have never heard of Darwin?
And what the hell, he can fly? He looks like Peter fucking Pan. And why are they giving him the same power as Nathan? And, indirectly, Peter? Do we really need one more frying man?
I still heart Claire, though. And Mr. Bennet is still awesome. Secret plan to take down the Company! With Mohinder who is showing surprising signs of lack of stupidity!
Bonus: STEPHEN TOBOLOWSKY HAS THE POWER OF ALCHEMY THE MIDAS TOUCH.
At first, I thought Molly was dreaming of Voldemort, but from her pictures of a man with the godsend symbol right between the eyes, it's clear she's dreaming of evil Harry Potter.
Aw, Parkman. He's a real cop now. And a single dad! I wonder what'll happen with his baby. And Nathan's family is gone, too? Heidi and the kids? I guess we're jettisoning supporting characters to make room for all the new ones?
And while we're on that subject, let's thank Alejandro and Maya for adding to the subtitle count! Take that, Diversity Police! Now, it seems Maya has the power to induce promicin death. I wonder why Alejandro remains unaffected, though, and what his power is. Because you know he has a power. We haven't seen an unpowered sibling yet. (It would be hilarious if his power were simply immunity to promicin death.)
Back to Nathan. And his beard. Erin astutely noticed him bumping into Ando, which was cool. I...basically have no idea what the fuck his deal is. What happened? Did people think he died? What happened to his congressional seat? Is he supposed to be in hiding? Why is he still a jackass to Claire?
By far, the most interesting new plotline is the mysterious assassinations of the elder generation. Kaito listed three deaths: Charles Deveaux, Linderman, and Papa Petrelli. Thing is, we know how Linderman died, and there was nothing conspiratorial about it. We know Papa Petrelli didn't commit suicide, and that's about it. We know Charles Deveaux just sort of...got old. Wait, I think I may have misinterpreted him. I hope he wasn't insinuating any foul play in their deaths. I think what he meant was that they weren't suspects.
So there were Twelve, and now there are Nine, leaving Seven potential suspects we have no clue about. I assume the Twelve were behind the planning of the Plot to Blow Up New York. And I don't think we have any clues as to who the unexpected assassin is. Or what the hell Hiro's dad power was, besides the ability to teach swordfighting via montage. I thought the marked photos were a nice touch.
And then there's Peter, still alive after exploding and randomly in fucking Ireland for no discernible reason with no idea who he was, wearing a strange piece of jewelry. They're pulling an Angel on us! What did he shoot out of his hand? Was that new? Or was that just a radiation fireball?
In conclusion, WHERE WAS TY LEE?