Baseball has caused me to fall behind on TV viewing and I’ve only just now gotten caught up on watching taped programs. And yes, I’ll be doing a special CPTRU once “Peacekeeper Wars” is done. So, onward, with the usual spoiler cautions:
LOST: We delve into the background of Locke or, as he was previously called, bald scary guy. Meanwhle, Jack keeps seeing what appears to be Mr.Roarke hiding in the bushes, which would actually explain quite a lot.
Abrams has created the exact kind of storytelling I just love: The kind where, when you watch it in reruns, you see scenes in a whole new way and kind of go, “Ðámņ!” (Kind of what I’m trying to do in “Fallen Angel.”) I am not going to be so cold-hearted as to blab the major reveal except to say that I did not see it coming and Kathleen one hundred percent did. It’s official: I am definitely following this series wherever it’s going. I also like that each episode occupies approximately one day in the life of the castaways. And most impressively of all, not one person has made a comment about voting someone else off the island. And yes, as one poster mentioned, I still keep thinking of the end of “Deep Rising” every time I see parts of the jungle collapsing when the big honking whatever-it-is tromps around. I just hope the eventual reveal on that isn’t too hokey.
SMALLVILLE: Two words: Evil cheerleaders. Two more words: More Kryptonite. Final word: Oy.
So it’s taken four or five episodes, but amazingly, we’ve basicallly gotten back to the status quo, not just of the previous season, but the first season. Clark and Lex are pals. No students know Clark’s secret (since Pete’s out of the picture.) Lana has a jock boyfriend, Clark has ambivalent feelings toward her, and Chloe is odd girl out. WTF? Yes, there are some advancements, but even those are negatives: Part of what made the first season work was Clark’s exploring of his powers. Since his powers are now pretty much locked, even that thrill of discovery is gone, unless they’re planning to build a whole episode around Super-Ventriloquism. As of this point I have absolutely no sense of where the series is going, and not in the good “Lost” way. Please, God, let the “Flash” episode (is he Wally? Bart? Anyone know?) lead to something.
CHARMED: Piper becomes an agent of the Angel of Death, while Phoebe tries to sort out her feelings for her new squeeze and Paige unexpectedly finds herself on Death’s hit list.
Amazingly, “Charmed” continues to plumb the fabled “illusion of change,” in that the basic concept of the show is the same as it was in the first episode, and yet you always have a sense that the show is moving somewhere. We take a nice break from Leo’s ongoing angst and being menaced by a floating evil head to build upon a subplot involving a Fed who wants something from the Charmed Ones, but we don’t know what. Plus a (I’ve decided) half-naked Charisma Carpenter continues to play Cordelia in a sarong…which, frankly, I’ve no problem with. And the last scene with Piper and Leo as the contented parents of a brood was “awwwww” inspiring. Piper and Leo happy. You just know THAT isn’t gonna last.
VERONICA MARS: Veronica is hired by a student to find his long-missing father who has the staggeringly common name of “John Smith”…a name so common that, now that I think about it, I’ve never in my 48 years actually met somebody by that name. Meanwhile Veronica’s ex-boyfriend goes off his meds, leading to a near concussion, hallucinations and, worst of all, an impromptu rendition of “Summer Nights” from “Grease.”
The mystery aspects are small scale and yet have some wonderfuly deft twists and turns, and the entire show is held together by the incredibly appealing performance of Allison Mac…I’m sorry, Kristen Bell. Plus I finally realized where I know Veronica’s father from: I think he was the head wacko alien in “Galaxy Quest?” So I can stop worrying about that. The mystery behind the death of Veronica’s ex-boyfriend’s sister (sheesh) continues to percolate, and my only concern is whether they’re planning to have that as a running subplot for the entire season. Might be tricky to do if there’s not some concrete advancement on it.
PAD
• 
Its Bart, for some crazy reason, despite the fact Barry would be the appropriate Flash for the period when Clark/Supes is growin up. My friends think it might be rights issues, but who knows?
For the record, PAD, the Flash will be…
Spoiler space…
Bart Allen, aka Impulse/Kid Flash.
Veronica Mars is a rather entertaining show. I enjoy a good mystery series now and again. Didn’t see the twist coming with the missing dad at all.
Charmed… Is it me, or does every other episode include a bizarre transformation of some kind? Almost worse than the Krypto freaks on Smallville.
Not following Lost, admittedly. Premise didn’t interest me. But more power to those that do enjoy it.
Curious, PAD… Have you taken a look at “Green Screen”? Almost as good as “Whose Line”. ALMOST.
Now, which WB execs do I hunt down for the end of Angel?
Peter, I agree with you 100% about the last episode of Lost. I didn’t see the big reveal coming either, and yet when you go back and look at it, it’s all there. Bášŧárdš.
And without sounding like too much of a yes-man, I also agree with Charisma Carpenter’s appearances on Charmed. With so little known about the character, one could almost pretend that they took Cordelia Chase out of Angel and dropped her right into Charmed. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Regarding Smallville, I don’t particularly mind the fact that they’ve pretty much used up the debut-of-super-powers episodes, although I think they could still play with the flying a bit. Since Kal-El can fly and Clark can’t, maybe it’s just a matter of getting in touch with his inner Kryptonian.
Now that Clark has become Big Man on the Smallville campus, I can’t help wondering if anybody on the writing staff has ever read Wylie’s Gladiator, the book which is believed in some circles to be one of the sources of inspiration for Superman. The main character is also invulnerable and super-strong, making him a great college football player, but in one game, he loses his cool for just a second and accidentally breaks a player’s neck. It would be very interesting if the writers thought about doing something like that on Smallville as a means of creating some deep-seated responsibility in Clark. Sure, he wants to be just one of the guys, but he can’t be, so it’s a bit disingenuous to be part of a football team where he can win every game single-handedly. Maybe some event is needed to teach him the harsh lesson that he’s more than human, and thus has a great deal more responsibility to deal with, even as a teenager.
JC posted:
“Its Bart, for some crazy reason, despite the fact Barry would be the appropriate Flash for the period when Clark/Supes is growin up. My friends think it might be rights issues, but who knows?”
Likely the episode was written — and fimed — while Carmine Infantino’s (apparently) baseless lawsuit over Barry was still active. That lawsuit has since been dismissed (perhaps not the right legal lingo here, but it ended with the rights still in DC’s hands), but it was probably too late to change anything.
And if they want to change it later, “Bart” could always be a diminutive or nickname. Heck, “Barry” could even be seen as a diminuitive of “Bartholomew.”
Which is ironic, when you consider that the last televised, live-action Flash was Barry, and he was trounced in the ratings by the competition, both THE COSBY SHOW and a little show called THE SIMPSONS, which at the time was still very much centered on another Bart.
Rumors are circulating that WB has/is considered/considering a Flash show. If so, it’s pretty obvious why they would go with Bart over Barry or Wally (pretty dated and unhip names for a character in a WB series.)
Though I seem to recall a mention of the Flash in a newspaper headline waaaaaay back (perhaps in the pilot?) So I wonder if this will be the same character, or if that will be all but forgotten.
Personally I’d prefer it to be Wally (cause lets face it, Wally it the best Flash of em all) as Kid Flash (or go ahead and name him Impulse, because *note to DC and Titans editors* Kid Flash really SUCKS as a name) with Barry being the actual Flash at the time somewhere else.
The dad from VERONICA MARS is played by Enrico Colantoni, who WAS the lead alien from GALAXY QUEST. To the masses, he’s probably better known for his role on the NBC sitcom, JUST SHOOT ME. (He played Elliot, the photographer.)
Fancy logos are nothing these days…although they take a graphic artist some time to do. But they put a fancy logo for “The Flash” on the next-episode promo.
It does make one wonder. And it reminds me of what happened at CBS. At a party, one of the programming heads of the network apologized to the star of the live-action “Flash” series for cancelling his show. Apparently he had just seen a few episodes of it (program execs NEVER watch the stuff they put on the network) and he realized what a huge, stupid mistake he made in cancelling it.
Maybe The WB has decided to see if it, indeed, was a mistake. And it would be a neat trick if they do a series. These days, most of the megacorp execs only want to remake past successes, which always look bad compared to the original. This would be remaking a show that was considered a failure, which stands a slightly better chance of getting approval.
I remember the live Flash show – I loved it, which is probably why they cancelled it. I’m surprised that Smallville has lasted as long as it has, considering how much I like it. 🙂 There’s fair warning for you…
LOST:
I thought this was an excellent episode. (MAJOR SPOILERS follow this paragraph.) I guessed what the Big Surprise was after the 2nd flashback: They worked too hard to not show him standing or walking for it to be anything else. What *was* a surprise was the brilliant transition from him on the phone, explaining what seemed to be a military rendevouz, to him at a dead-end cubicle job. In fact, he’s the first person we’ve seen for whom the crash was nothing but positive. Before he lost the use of his legs; he worked at a dead-end job, picked on by a teenager; his closest female relationship was one he lived by telephone and had to pay for; and he had no military experience and had to play at wargames. Now, on the island, he can walk; he’s turned into Rambo, and no one can check his personnel files to see that he has no background. And, let’s face it, he’s also the first of the survivors we know by name (Locke) rather than by character type (doctor, Arab, fat dude, pregnant lady — how many of you can give the names of these characters without looking them up?). This episode also explained, beautifully, Locke’s wonderment at looking at his toe move in the flashback — AND his telling the young boy that they experienced “a miracle.”
SMALLVILLE
I didn’t see it, but are they hyping the sex this season? The premiere (which I did see) had Clark showing full frontal, Lana’s silhouette in the shower, and Lana tastefully naked under some sheets. The following week seemed obsessed with beauty (and the trailer had a woman kissing a blindfolded woman), and this week’s promos seemed to revolve around something making women horny — including Chloe telling Clark that she would do things Lana never would. Wonder if the SMALLVILLE box set for this season will have NC-17 scenes…
Julio, thanks for the info on the Barry lawsuit. That does put some things in to perspective.
Mike, it doesn’t call him the Flash, but either the pilot or second episode had Clark reading a paper which had a headline about a man shattering the 3 minute mile record.
I have only been watching Smallville so far because I am too cheap to buy any equipment so I can watch both, but hearing everyone talk about it here makes me regret being so cheap. My only question is exactly how much kryptonite is there in Smallville. You’d think Clark couldn’t walk anyware ’cause there’s so much of it!
But Smallville and Danger Bros. are stil the two shows I make sure I watch every week.
Super-ventriloquism– I remember those ads they always had in comic books back in the day for “Ventrillo”, a small plastic device you could shove in your mouth which supposedly gave you the ability to throw your voice. They illustrated it with a picture of a confused man looking at a box from whence came pleas of “Help!” “Please!” “Let me out!” while some smart-ášš kid off to the side smiles with his mouth askew (presumably form “Ventrillo”, though it might have been a stroke.)
There was another one where some cop is about to kick the crap out of some guy who seems to be saying “Hey flatfoot! I DARE you to give me a ticket!” Once again, off to the side, is Greta Van Sustern-Boy, laughing in much merry fun at the prospect of this TOTALLY INNOCENT BYSTANDER about to be pummeled about the head and shoulders with a nightstick.
One of my friends ordered this thing and almost got placed in a psych ward by his parents after about 2 weeks of lurking around the house yelling “Help!” “Please!” “Let me out!” at empty boxes. Apparently–and this genuinely breaks my heart–there is no such thing as throwing your voice. You think that a ventriloquist is throwing his voice only because the dummy is the only one moving his lips (Except for Edger Bergan, who couldn’t keep his lips motionless even when NEITHER of them was speaking. Radio ventriloquist, man THERE’S a great job. If I called myself a comic strip tap dancer would anyone buy it?).
How about super-hypnosis? I still have my Johnson-Smith Hypno-coin…
Yeah, I was wondering about the suggestive scenes in Smallville as well. Normally that sort of thing wouldn’t bother me in the slightest, but after seeing the number of PG-rated shower scenes in just a handful of episodes, I couldn’t help thinking if there was a directive coming down from somewhere. Let’s all meet back here after this week’s episode and see if it happened again.
Joe!
You looked so much better on Sky One’s Top Ten Sci-Fi Lists than I did. Come to think of it, Jabba the Hutt would have looked better than I did given the lighting.
John Mosby.
IIRC, the Flash TV show suffered multiple pre-emptions due to the Gulf War.
One of my friends still, to this day, complains about when they interrupted the show for an update that said “nothing has happened today.”
Regarding the Flash’s identity I believe (stop reading here if you don’t want to know) that it will be Bart, Wally and Jay (fake ids). So thats that. His real name might be Barry Allen, it could be Mxyzptlk, but he calls himself Bart, and he has IDs for lots of famous speedsters.
John Mosby:
At least you didn’t have to do a three-and-a-half-hour on-camera interview perched on a giant resin hand!
Smallville
Didn’t watch the episode yet. Baseball seems more important than another kryptonite disaster. You have to wonder how Clark keeps his mid-west values with all the freaks drawn to the area. They should just rename the school ‘Xavier’s School for Gifted Children’.
As for ‘Bart’, Smallville is not tied to the continuity of the golden, silver, or current age comics. For all we know, Superman may only be a code name for Clark as trying to use the slouch and glasses may not work in the hip WB.
Yeah, the sex is getting gratuitous.Now you know how Trek fans felt went it went to a network. Just imagine;
On a special WB Wednesday, Clark truly tests his stamina and hits the trifecta.
You were all thinking it.
RE: “Posted by: S Yarish at October 17, 2004 07:22 PM
I have only been watching Smallville so far because I am too cheap to buy any equipment so I can watch both, but hearing everyone talk about it here makes me regret being so cheap. My only question is exactly how much kryptonite is there in Smallville. You’d think Clark couldn’t walk anyware ’cause there’s so much of it!”
It doesn’t really matter how much kryptonite there is in Smallville because on the show, kryptonite radiation is blocked by everything. Glass tubes, plastic drink coolers, a blanket, a rock, dirt. It only affects Clark once he sees it. I think if he closed his eyes he would be immune to the stuff.
“And if they want to change it later, ‘Bart’ could always be a diminutive or nickname. Heck, ‘Barry’ could even be seen as a diminuitive of ‘Bartholomew.'”
Barry’s full name was Bartholomew Henry Allen, and Bart was named after him. Like you say, different nicknames for the same given name.
And as for powers, Clark still hasn’t discovered cold breath, microscopic vision, or telescopic vision (although they did have him use the latter one once). So there are at least three other good powers worth discovering. Plus, STAS made use of super-ventriloquism, so maybe Smallville could too.
Aaron Thall wrote:
Charmed… Is it me, or does every other episode include a bizarre transformation of some kind?
And what’s wrong with that? Some people get into bizarre transformations, y’know. (Remember all the “strange lives” of Jimmy Olsen?)
If anyone is interested in more on TF, go here:
http://doc.furvect.com/links.html
Posted by: S Yarish at October 17, 2004 07:22 PM
But Smallville and Danger Bros. are stil the two shows I make sure I watch every week.
Do you mean Venture Bros.? And Peter, have you seen the Venture Bros.? It’s a VERY twisted parody of Johnny Quest and it is BRILLIANT. I think that you would love the show. It’s on during Adult Swim on Saturday nights at 11:30 PM on Cartoon Network.
Posted by: JamesLynch at October 17, 2004 07:06 PM
LOST:
And, let’s face it, he’s also the first of the survivors we know by name (Locke) rather than by character type (doctor, Arab, fat dude, pregnant lady — how many of you can give the names of these characters without looking them up?).
A challenge eh? Doctor – Jack, Arab – Sayid, Fat Dude – Hurley, Pregnant Lady – Claire, Hot Chick/Figitive from justice – Kate, Ex- rock & roller – Charlie, Dark Haired Brother – Boone (Ian Sommerholder who played Adam on Smallville last year), Blonde Sister/Shallow Woman – Shannon, Long Haired Jerk – Sawyer, Black Father – Michael, Black Kid – Walt.
I can’t remember what I walked into the kitchen for but I can remember all of these names. 🙂
According to the write-up in Entertainment Weekly, the dead best friend sub-plot in VERONICA MARS will last all season but will be concluded this season.
RE: Lost
PAD nailed all of the reasons I love Lost and am hooked on it. One thing (warnging, mild spoiler) I did see coming was that the character seen in danger did indeed survive. I know Abrams wants us to be guessing that he could kill of anyone at anytime, but I was confident this character would not be gone this soon. The major spoilier I only guessed right before it was revealed.
RE: Smallville,
I posted last time my disagreement with it becoming “Sexville”. I think it is inappropriate and irresponsible for a show aimed at kids and early teens (but guess it has not been worse than Dawson’s Creek). I may watch next week to catch The Flash, but doubt I will watch much more this season.
Jim in Iowa
Charmed… Is it me, or does every other episode include a bizarre transformation of some kind?
And what’s wrong with that? Some people get into bizarre transformations, y’know. (Remember all the “strange lives” of Jimmy Olsen?)
If anyone is interested in more on TF, go here:
http://doc.furvect.com/links.html
It just seems like they’re recycling the exact same plot over and over again, and it’s tiresome.
And for the record, never read any Jimmy Olsen. Not really much of a DC fan outside Batman Beyond.
Lost has become must viewing for the very fact that it is incredibly unpredictable.
Locke’s character was just so…..original.
Great stuff.
It’s going to get cancelled isn’t it?
My thoughts on Smallville (taken from my LJ)
-the only good the potion was used in a good way was when Chloe drank some and put the moves on Clark who shot her down.
-Man I seriously hope they go back to using Clark’s Kryptonian heritage story arc line…seriously much more interesting that another Kryptonite Freak of the Week episode.
-Oh and by God Clark how do you explain the heated pipe falling down on the players to Lois…I wouldn’t have accepted pure luck…apparently Clark used his heat vision to drop the pipe so the football players could get out of their trance and Lois was right there.
-Anyways hopefully things should be up to notch when Kid Flash whizzes on by Clark in this week’s episode.
I put blame on Peter David for getting me into Lost and Veronica Mars (both shows whom Entertainment Weekly have dubbed the best this season)…Lost man oh man is it me or did it have a Sixth Sense-esque ending….in that the with the twist at the end, you have to go back and watch the episode QUITE carefully since Locke is strategically positioned if you know what I mean. Veronica Mars, my jaw dropped at the revelation of John Smith..sure it might seem redundant (since that type of thing appeared on Nip/Tuck) but still shocked the hëll out of me.
Maybe I’m showing my age, but my favorite DC silver age stories when I was a kid (aside from the JLA-JSA team-ups) were the Superman/Flash races. Sure they were hokey and contrived, but cool as hëll. Let’s hope for a couple of super-speed chases Wednesday night.
Not Mr. Roarke, Peter. Prospero. It’s “The Tempest”. We have Caliban running about the Island, shipwrecked survivors (okay, planewrecked) and magic (Locke walks).
I don’t think it will follow Shakespeare’s plot, just an inspiration.
Regarding the Flash’s identity I believe (stop reading here if you don’t want to know) that it will be Bart, Wally and Jay (fake ids). So thats that. His real name might be Barry Allen, it could be Mxyzptlk, but he calls himself Bart, and he has IDs for lots of famous speedsters.
Well, not Mxy…he’s showin’ up later this season, too. Not as an imp from the 5th dimension, but as a foreign exchange student.
No, seriously.
Actually, I’m starting to think this whole thing of reimagining the classic DC characters for the show holds promise. Imagine running into the following at one point or another:
Hal Jordan got his pilot’s license at the age of 11. His great love is flying home-built “experimental” craft – his great personal hero is Burt Rutan. One day, during a disastrous test flight of his newest design, Hal runs across the wreckage of an alien craft, whose dying occupant gives him a mysterious ring…
Oliver Queen hit it lucky as a kid, during the dot-com boom, becoming the second-youngest billionaire in the US (behind Bruce Wayne, who inherited his family fortune at the age of 8). He was also smart enough to get out of it before it went dot-bust. Now, he’s a college archery champ, prepping for the Olympic trials – and hiding a secret night life…
I’m sure you can take this further. I’m really hoping right now that if Smallville survives long enough to ship Clark off to college, he runs into a girl with a hidden past, by the name of Diana Prince… 🙂
I have a question…since we have Kid Flash whizzing on by Smallville, could you see a possible Kid Flash spinoff series from the show?
LOST –
Best show on TV. Period. I’m still thinking they are in some kind of purgatory and I cannot help but compare what is going on there on some level to Philip Jose Farmer’s TO YOU SCATTERED BODIES GO
SMALLVILLE –
Its getting to the point where I’ll tape Smallville and watch LOST. There are still quite a few things they can do, and most importantly in my mind, is further exploring how Clark resolves his Kryptonian Heritage with his Human upbringing. They often only touch on this aspect of it on the surface, basically to remind us. Bart/Flash this week could be played well, though. Bart IS from the future, so who knows.
Re: “Smallville,” I suspect they used “Bart Allen” as the future “Flash” because this episode was being penned around the time of the Carmine Infantino trademark lawsuit (i.e. question of ownership for the creation of the “Barry Allen Flash” and “Wally West Kid Flash/Flash”) and in order to avoid any legal entanglements with the show, DC may have “requested” that Bart Allen be used, which Infantino did not create in any way, shape, or form. On a side note, since the season 2 ender for “Justice League” revealed that WW was “Flash,” it would have been in trouble as it was done pre-suit.
Just supposition on my part. Carry on.
> Veronica is hired by a student to find his
> long-missing father who has the
> staggeringly common name of “John
> Smith”…a name so common that, now that I
> think about it, I’ve never in my 48 years
> actually met somebody by that name.
I’m 49 and I’ve known a John Smith for over twenty years, a St. Louis actor with an incredibly rich baritone (he does a lot of local radio voice work) — he did a marvelous Henry in a local production of The Lion in Winter some years ago.
I didn’t believe it, either, when I first met him, but not only is it his birth name, he is in fact John Smith, Junior.
SMALLVILLE:Okay didnt like the kryptonite spiked gatorade too much.The only good thing this episode was Alison Mack.Her cheerleading sequence when Clark was getting pounded was very funny.Also Clarks face when she came on to him in the loft was priceless.Besides she looked sexy as all get out in the football jersey:)
Glad Lois is leaving only because her asskicking skills were becoming a bit much.What is she Lois Lane or Buffy?She was just a little to competent at times.Any body but me remember the Superman family books where at one Lois and Jimmy were dynamic buttkicking ,hardhitting joutnalists?They were almost on a level with batgirl and dìçk grayson.Anyays Clark should be the only real hero around except for the occasional Lex assist.
I must say was PLEASANTLY surprised by the Kid Flash episode last night..:) I’ll write more of my thoughts after Peter David posts his thoughts on it..
I love Smallville, but I really believe they have a big issue with the thing that EVERYONE has kryptonite in their backyard, and EVERYONE can get superpowers. For a small town, they sure know how to have fun. Anyway, I think the interesting thing to watch in this show, is the relationship between Lex and Clark. What are writers planning to do? When, how and why will everything crumble between them? Now, THAT’S what we should pay attention to.
I love you ALLISON (4EVER)!!!!! eMAIL me, please.