Thumbs Up 4 Chuck & Other Thoughts About TV

Veered dangerously close to an "upchuck" joke there... but I wouldn't stoop to that. No, not me - this blog is the classiest place on the internet.

Right.

Anyhoo... some more musings on the current state of television...

Chuck

• I've seen the pilot episode twice now (once by myself & once with my wife) and I've enjoyed myself both times.
• Here's the best description I've been able to come up with: it's a cross between Alias & Ugly Betty.
• Any show that can manage to hang a major plot point on Zork as well as hiring Adam Baldwin (Jaine from - collective sigh of regret - Firefly) is aces in my book.
• It's incredibly implausible - seriously, it makes Prison Break look like a documentary - but it's a comedy with dramatic undertones rather than a drama with comic moments, so heap on the wild coincidences!
• It also makes a really nice lead-in for Heroes.

Journeyman

• Also on Monday nights (after Heroes, naturally), the pilot was more interesting than I thought it would be.
• Best description I can come up with: Quantum Leap + Early Edition, mixed with a nice, healthy dose of reality. (What would happen to your life if you time-traveled on a regular basis?)
• Shari liked it, too, which is always nice.
• I'm looking forward to the next episode.

Bionic Woman

• Let me start out by saying that I was IN LOVE with Lindsay Wagner as a kid... one vacation we went through Ojai, CA (where Jamie Summers supposedly lived) and I wondered if we'd see her ranch house.
• I'm also a reasonably large fan of the new version of Battlestar Galatica, which was produced/run by the same guy running the new Bionic Woman. You'd figure if anyone could make this work, he could.
• Shari said it really well: "It's relentlessly dark & I don't understand what's going on." I think may understand a bit more than she did, but I watched X-Files religiously as well as collected comic books - secret govt. organizations are 2nd nature to me.
• We've both decided it gets one more episode to see if they can pull it together before we give up on it.

Life

• It's your standard "cop w/a quirk" show - Columbo/Monk/Raines/etc. - but it's well-done.
• The quirk is Zen Buddhism (plus some kind of conspiracy to frame him for murder).
• Interesting trend for TV this year: overt spirituality. Whether it's Reaper (with a slacker whose parents sold his soul to the devil) or Amazing Grace (a messed-up cop who talks to an angel) or Life (with it's Zen Buddhist-quoting hero) or even Survivor (with both a Christian radio talk show host & a self-described "gay Mormon flight attendant"), God stuff is out front this year.

The Closer

• I've now watched the first two seasons on DVD - out here in Podunktania (aka Easton) we don't get cable & I won't spring for dish when I can pick up network TV just fine with an antenna - and I'm sad I missed season 3 (which played this summer on TNT, I think.)
• The combination of murder mystery, police procedural (esp. the interrogations), department politics & the personal life of the Deputy Chief is mixed almost perfectly.
• The series can make me sick at the horrors not only of individual violent acts but also of the horrors of the imperfect system we have to catch & prosecute those people... and, within the same episode, smile & laugh & become intertwined in the lives of the Homicide Squad.