Monday, October 29th, 2007
04:00 Aliens In America
07:00 Journeyman
08:00 Life Is Wild
01:00 The Hardy Boys
Aliens In America. Episode 3. They are trying to strike a balance here. This episode attempts to work on three levels: Justin has created a fictional club for him and his friends to use as shield to escape their parents, and - basically - look at porn. Hilariously outdated porn, yes, but porn none-the-less. Raja is dropped into this world of theirs and analyses their objectification of women. This is both funny, and insightful. I love when TV does this. On a second level, we see Raja (hilariously) mistaken for a terrorist, and this leads to some nice observations about personal freedom and vigilance and when/where to draw the line. Some of this is comedy gold. Fantastic. Finally, the shows plays it's teen politics card. Normally, Justin is our guide to this world. But this time out, it is his sister Claire who gets a plotline, as she tries out for cheerleader. The comedy here falls flat. It's been done better elsewhere. Also, the character of Claire is still a bit vague to me. What are they doing with her? The other characters are pretty much locked-in at this stage (and I've grown to appreciate Scott Patterson) but I'm kinda clueless about Claire yet. Is she nice? Mean? Clever? Bimbo? What? For the storyline with the cheerleaders to work, I think we had to empathise with Claire. And we can't do this without knowing her. She certainly seemed cleverer than the other girls, but then I couldn't see why she wanted to be a cheerleader in the first place. Except for the slapstick (of cheerleaders falling down a lot) there wasn't much to laugh at in this storyline, but the rest of the episode was superb. One of the best new shows.
Journeyman. Episode 3. Gretchen Egolf is the best thing about this show. She and her character: the supportive wife of a time-traveller. He went back to the 1989 San Francisco Earthquake in this installment and the story that followed was tedious and a by-the-numbers take on time-travel that we've seen in loads of these shows before. His wife, meanwhile, had to cover for him back in 2007, and do some journalism to help save his job, something that used to be her job. And she was good at it. And I was far more interested in her and what she did than him. And I was hoping he'd run her story unaltered and tell her she was a better writer than him, or something. But that didn't happen. The episode cliffhanger, however, was all about her, so I can't wait to see what happens next. And Egolf was simply fantastic in that final scene. I used to watch her in Martial Law without really noticing her, now I'm smitten. It's a wonder what the right character can do for the right actor.
Life Is Wild. Episode 3. You know a new show is a winner (and inching it's way into your heart) when every character, and every storyline, holds your interest and entertains you. The lodge welcomes it's first guests, the school has a singing contest, the dad helps an elephant, there's a trouble-making kid in town and there's a major decision for Katie to make. Will she chose the boy she fancies over her family's needs? Hmm. I wonder. The cast make the material work. And I adore the love-triangle that's springing up around Katie. She likes the bad-boy, but we know that there's a much nicer guy, a genuine guy, and he really loves her. If only she'd notice him. It's great stuff.
The Hardy Boys. Season 3, Episode 4. Frank and Joe pose as archealogy students on a dig in Greece while they investigate a murder. The setting could be season two (Hardy Boys find adventure in a foreign land!) but the tone is season three (murder, drug smugglers, lies, deceipt!). The producers mis-judged their core audience when they revamped the show so drastically, but the result is, in fact, a very good detective show. The duo work very well together in this episode. And Joe is quite the tough guy now. He survives a cave-in - at one stage - and later over-powers two violent foes without breaking too much of a sweat. The chase thru the archaeological dig site is a series highlight, I think. The bad-guy keeps flinging stuff in Joe's way, but all to no avail. Joe then does a cool slide-along-the-ground at the end, and proceeds to beat the living tar out of his foe. Great stuff.
Highlight? Life Is Wild.
Aliens In America, Journeyman, Life Is Wild, The Hardy Boys Mysteries
