COWBOY PETE’S TV ROUNDUP: Charmed, Farscape, Veronica Mars, Lost, Smallville, West Wing

Yeeeha, kids. From the depths of space to Kansas cornfields to seat of government power, it’s been an interesting week. Lessee what we’ve got. Spoilers follow:

CHARMED: An attack on one of the Elders is blamed on Leo, until it’s discovered that…for no discernible reason…every fifty years a blue moon turns the menstruating Halliwell sisters into werewolves.

Linking a woman’s period to werewolves isn’t exactly new. If nothing else, Alan Moore did it memorably and better in “Swamp Thing.” Nevertheless, it’s an eminently watchable episode, even if the transformed sisters look a touch too CGI for comfort. Plus we get our first serious look at exactly who the main baddies are for the season, although I’m still a little fuzzy on what their deal is. There’s a sense of forward motion but standing still at the same time. And the split, yet again, between Piper and Leo seems so forced that the seams are starting to show. I find myself wondering if Nick Lachey’s character wound up getting Phoebe pregnant, since they made such a point of establishing that they’d slept together.

FARSCAPE: A four hour film that was literally willed into existence by the fans, and God help you in following it if you haven’t been watching the series until now. If you have, then this show is a major treat as the reconstsituted Crichton and Aeryn hit the ground running and never stop the entire time. There is a constant sense of urgency in terms of the wild and woolly spacecapades of our heroes being caught in the middle of the titular Peacekeeper war. But as is always the case in “Farscape,” it’s the countless character moments and rock solid relationships of the characters that ground the outlandishness in serious, down-to-earth emotion.

Stellar (no pun intended) dialogue abounds, from a sobbing Rigel–a temporary gestator for Aeryn’s fetus (don’t ask)–moaning that he misses the baby, to the laboring Aeryn blasting away with a huge gun while moaning “Shooting makes me feel better”, to the best moment of all: Scorpius, almost orgasmic in his about-to-be-satisfied desire to see a wormhole used as a weapon, will say anything that Crichton wants him to if Crichton will just whip it out, up to and including “Pretty please with sugar on it and a cherry on top.” And that’s not even including the heart-tugging moments of full blown tragedy, climaxing in the death of one of our heroes.

Considering how beautifully they made the Peacekeeper war work within the equivalent of a mere four episodes, you almost wonder why they would have needed the whole season. Presumably there would have been other stories to tell as well. Who knows? Perhaps the Sci-Fi channel will come to its senses and slate more TV movies or miniseries. Maybe if we say pretty please…

VERONICA MARS: Some scamming college guys hosing Veronica’s friends results in her doing a Sydney Bristow and going undercover…including, most hilariously, as a Japanese schoolgirl to catch the attention of the anime-obsessed bad guys. If they released a poster of her in that outfit, they could sell millions.

Even more interesting than this, the most involved case yet, are the flashback sequences that fill out her relationship with her dead friend and gives us for the first time a real sense of her loss. When the cut-together video of her is shown at a memorial service, you can’t help but notice the opposite reactions of her mother and father, with the dad alternately laughing and crying and the mother stone-cold pìššëd øff. They’re definitely going somewhere interesting with the case, and I’m along for the ride.

LOST: It would seem almost impossible to match the sheer emotion of the previous episode…and, sure enough, this outing doesn’t quite accomplish it. Jack’s past is explored and is, frankly, the least interesting or surprising that we’ve seen. Of far greater interest is the growing sense that they’ve landed on the planet from the Star Trek episode “Shore Leave,” encountering people or things that are tailored to their own hopes, needs or aspirations. Then again, if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the first episodes, it’s that things can and will be dropped in that seem inconsequential at first, but will be the subject of major “Ah ha!” reveals down the road.

Most interestingly of all, the castaways are beginning to come to grips with the fact that they could be there for a long time, if not forever. Sooner or later they’ll have to consider shelter, a means of governing themselves, and whether to start eating each other. At the very least, the dog can start looking mighty tasty.

SMALLVILLE: In this season’s nudge-nudge, wink wink episode, Clark Kent encounters the future Flash in a script packed with more in-jokes per minute than, well, one of mine. Identified here as Bart Allen, but he’s not necessarily Impulse since Bart was actually named for Barry Allen, so it might be Barry. Then again, he jokingly identifies himself as being from the future…except, hey, maybe he wasn’t joking. Plus he carries such varied ID as Jay Garrick, Barry Allen and Wally West, so who really knows?

In the same spirit as last season’s Perry White episode, this one was a kick as we see a super-speedster rebel without a clue, actively denying the spark of greatness that Clark is able to see within him. His chipper suggestion that a form a “clue or league” is a hoot, and overall the episode was a hëll of a lot of fun (says the sucker for in-jokes.) Interestingly, Bart’s description of how he acquired his powers is almost identical to Lana’s telling how she wound up with a tattoo. Coincidence? Does the “Smallville” universe’s Flash owe his power to a random lightning bolt…or is there something Kryptonian behind it all?

In addition, Clark learns of some sort of weird Kryptonian map hidden in the pages of an ancient text. Where does the map lead? I dunno…the Fortress of Solitude, maybe? Then again, I keep waiting to find out that Lana’s boyfriend is actually working for one of the Luthors, because in this town, with the exception of Clark, EVERBODY is or has been working for the Luthors at one time or another (except when they’re crashing cars) so why should this guy be any different?

And speaking of Luthors, next week…body switching? Oy. I mean, yeah, okay, they pulled it off with Buffy and Faith, but there was a whole characterization subtext there that made it work. Plus how are they doing it? Red Kryptonite? I guess the timing sucks for me in that Bendis just got done making fun of the body switch as a hoary “Jump the Shark” cliche in “USM,” and now they’re doing it in “Smallville.” Then again, who knew the turn-Angel-into-a-puppet episode would rock as much as it did?

WEST WING: Have to say, I’m stunned: A very strong season debut. While America screams for vengeance over the Gaza bombing, Bartlett defies the advice of dámņëd near everyone (including an increasingly wild-eyed Leo) to try and broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. And why not? Modeling Jeb on Clinton, they had him shut down the government last season in a showdown with the GOP; so why not the abortive Camp David accord this time around?

What’s really fascinating is if you give thought to early in the first season, Bartlett’s doctor friend’s plane was shot down by a hostile nation and Bartlett was practically ready to go thermonuclear on them while the Joint Chiefs tried to talk him down. Now it’s five seasons later, an attack results in the deaths of Fitzwallace, two Congressmen, not to mention Donna being on the critical list, and Bartlett coolly resists retaliation in favor of peace talks. Why the change? Well, you could argue that they just don’t remember. But me, I prefer to think about the fact that the last time Bartlett listened to Leo’s advice on how to deal with terrorism, he arranged for the assassination of that Qumar guy. And the retaliation for it was Zoey being kidnapped. Perhaps it gave Bartlett an up-close-and-personal realization that answering violence with violence simply perpetuates violence, and sooner or later someone has to shout, “Enough, hold enow.” Although I almost wish that Josh had been in the Oval, because I would have loved to see him say, “These bášŧárdš nearly killed Donna. I don’t want to talk to them! I want to blow them to pieces!”

A promising start to what should be a very interesting season.

PAD