Surfing SF: Weekly Round-Up or I’m Glad That Smoky’s Getting Some Work
It’s been a big week here at Surfing SF, as many shows had their season and series premieres and a few summer offerings. We were able to talk about some of them, but I’ve been kept busy by “real life”, whatever that means, and haven’t had much of a chance to talk about the best of the rest of this week’s offerings. So let’s start out going around the horn here in a new segment I like to call Quick Hits, where I briefly discuss some of the shows I didn’t have the chance to write a full entry on this week… Possible spoilers for some of these shows, I guess…
-The fourth season premiere of Chuck wasn’t exactly that show hitting on all cylinders, but it showed why that show still is the place to go for a winning combination of spy hijinks and heart, not to mention hilarity. Perhaps most memorably, this episode taught us the dangers of sexting between CIA agents in the field. Linda Hamilton also made an impression in her debut as Chuck’s mom, the Buy More gang and Captain Awesome and a few others were notably absent, but they’ll feature more in future episodes.
-The Vampire Diaries continued with a trick that us Watchers writers learned long ago… if you don’t really have anything interesting for a character to do, turn them into a vampire. After we had the evil vampire twin show up last week, blonde, annoying Caroline got herself vampirized this week. Now if only this show could turn the vampires into vampires… wait…
-If you missed The Brave and the Bold this week, you missed THIS… p.s. that’s apparently an amnesiac evil Batman in the cape… yeah…
Thanks to io9 for the video. These DC Universe cartoons get away with murder, and it is awesome. This isn’t from completely the same crew, but I really recommend the mid-2000s Justice League series. It is probably the best superhero TV show I’ve ever seen, period.
–Smallville, even when running in top gear, is like a critical mass of doofiness, and that was pretty much how I felt about the season premiere. Some parts were cool, I guess, such as Lois’ reaction to discovering Clark really is “The Blur”, and the “return” of Lex Luthor, but some of the rest, including the inexplicable way that Chloe was written off and the way Lois left for Africa with no explanation and, oh yeah, Darkseid being apparently played by the Smoke Monster from Lost… I’ve never seen a show hate its own premise as much as Smallville does, but that premise is still good enough to merit occasional interest.
-Oh yeah, the Supernatural premiere, which I wanted to write more about but wasn’t able to squeeze in. I was far less happy with this than I thought I would be. It really feels like a different show with Sera Gamble replacing Eric Kripke, and I don’t really think I like this version as much. I do not care about their grandfather’s return from the grave, or all these random third cousins, or the villains and their lame tattoos. I like that they’re trying something different by not having Dean go back on the trail and tying the show down slightly in that way, but they’re really going to have to improve on this or this “extra” season may end up as a disaster.
-The Venture Bros. was its usual self, in a fun episode called “Every Which Way But Zeus”, involving, apparently, the god Zeus (“Maybe he is the real Zeus, and he’s pissed off because people don’t care about Zeus anymore. Is that so weird?”) kidnapping a bunch of tertiary characters (and also 21 and Pete White and Billy Quizboy) and making them fight for his amusement. This precipitates a very fun summit between heroes and villains, the Venture boys pretend kidnapping their own Dad, and the weirdly touching demise of “Ghost Robot” (the name really describes the character).
But really the battle for Pick of the Week came down to two choices. You might have thought that since I was very happy with the Warehouse 13 finale, “Reset”, that show would have its sixth POTW of the season wrapped up, but instead I’m going to give it to Fringe for its third season premiere, “Olivia”. This was a SF classic, the story of a woman trapped in a different world, on the run and gradually losing her identity, trying to hold on to what’s important to her when she’s not even sure what’s real anymore. People in the past complained about Anna Torv’s acting, but she absolutely hit this episode out of the park. She’s pulling off that trick that Grace Park used to on Battlestar Galactica, where she’s playing multiple characters that look the same and yet there’s never any doubt which is which.
Let’s go to this week’s viewing schedule. I’m swamped for time this week and I’ve decided to cut out the “re-runs” portion of the schedule. Those took more research than they may actually be worth and so if people actually use them let me know and I’ll try to bring them back. In the meantime, here’s your new episodes for the next week, all times Eastern as usual.
Tuesday
-The buzz is generally positive for the premiere of No Ordinary Family, ABC’s new light drama about a nuclear family of four that gains superpowers after a plane crash in the Amazon. Michael Chiklis and Julie Benz star as the parents. This show needs to do two things to make me happy. One, it needs to not have absolutely terrible dialogue and nonsensical plots. Hopefully writer/producer Greg Berlanti can do this since he co-wrote the Green Lantern movie. Two, it needs to make superpowers seem like fun. Too often writers like to make it seem like powers are an affliction because it makes for a good metaphor. This can and has worked, but it’s become a little too much. Check this out at 8pm.
-I think I must have missed the last couple episodes of last season of Stargate: Universe, because when the show returns to SyFy at 9pm tonight, they’re talking about the crew fighting the Lucian Alliance, which made me turn my head and go “wait, what?” This show wants so badly to be Battlestar Galactica, but before it gets there it’s going to have to gain confidence in itself and the characters, far more than it ever displayed in the first season.
Wednesday
-The second episode of J.J. Abrams’ Undercovers is on NBC at 8pm. Though I ultimately found the show a little hollow it is still better than a lot of TV today. It’s also possible I’m just on spy overdose right now.
Thursday
-This week’s episode of The Vampire Diaries is purported to be all about Katherine, Elena’s evil vampire twin. Really that’s about what you need to sa to get me watch this show these days. It’s called “Memory Lane”. Yay for crazy flashbacks! It’s on the CW at 8pm.
-I’m looking forward to the second half of the Fringe premiere this week, in which we return to “our” universe and witness what sort of havoc “Fauxlivia” has wrought. I am ready for some wrought-ing. Fox at 9pm, be there.
-I have already lost track of Nikita, as predicted. This week’s episode is on the CW at 9pm and is called “Rough Trade”.
Friday
-Several different versions of the Flash will be showing up in this week’s The Brave and the Bold, called “Requiem for a Scarlet Speedster”. It’s even got Professor Zoom as the villain. Watch it on Cartoon Network at 7pm.
-I know nothing about this week’s Smallville, but it’s called “Shield”. Sadly, this is the DC Universe, not Marvel, so that title is not quite as cool as it sounds. It’s on the CW at 8pm.
-This week on Supernatural, we have “Two and a Half Men”, which apparently involves the guys finding a baby and Grandpa wanting to turn him into a hunter. I’m sure that hilarity will ensue on the CW at 9pm.
-Meanwhile, both Jabba and Greedo reportedly show up on Star Wars: The Clone Wars this week. Word has it George Lucas may even have a voice cameo. You can visit with old friends at 9pm on Cartoon Network.
-Cap off the night with, well, Haven, because why not I guess. The episode is called “Resurfacing”, and it’s on SyFy at 10pm.
Saturday
Nothing. Go read a book.
Sunday
-The Venture Bros. doesn’t really tell you what’s happening in future shows but I do know that this episode’s title is “Everybody Comes to Hank’s”. You will watch at 11:30pm on Cartoon Network.
Monday
-At 8pm on NBC it’s “Chuck vs. the Cubic Z”, featuring the return of Nicole Richie and Steve Austin’s characters, and possibly if I understand correctly Awesome doing spy stuff.
-I officially checked out of The Event about forty minutes into its second episode, but if you didn’t the third episode is on NBC at 9pm. We’ll discuss this more, but let’s just say that in their rush to give answers to the various mysteries they gave a bunch of answers that made absolutely zero sense.
So, what are you looking forward to this week? Let us know in the comments.
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