Saturday, October 6th, 2007
07:50 Bionic Woman
08:40 Bionic Woman
09:20 The Office
10:10 October Road
11:00 Friday Night Lights
11:50 Corner Gas
Bionic Woman. Episodes 1. A truly awful pilot. My first time to see the new version re-affirms my problems with this mess. All of the dialogue is false. It's cut & paste stuff from loads of bad TV and bad movies. Yes, the cast is good and, yes, the action sequences are good. But when people stop to talk it is unwatchable. The minor changes (new actress, new character, new scenes) do nothing to make it any better, because the new stuff is badly written, too! Writer Laeta Kalogridis previously worked on Birds Of Prey, which I've always liked. I may have to go back and re-evaluate my thoughts on that show, as a consequence of this show.
Bionic Woman. Episode 2. Much better than the pilot. With all the exposition (clumsily) out of the way, the characters start to talk like people. Not real people, not yet, but they at least sound like TV people. Isaiah Washington & Kevin Rankin join the cast with this episode, and both are fantastic. The plot used is a direct lift from Episode 1 of The Six Million Dollar Man, and the peripheral characters are fleshed out like the characters on BSG. There's still a long way to go to make this thing "good" but, after seeing the jump made here, I'm happy to stick around and see what will happen. I've pretty much given up on Chuck and the new ABC soaps, but Bionic Woman might, just might, yet be a good TV show.
The Office. Season 4, Episode 2. I'm still loving Jim & Pam. Indeed, the show's other couples got some quality airtime in this outing, and it was all good. Mindy Kaling gave me some big laughs this week, as Kelly faked pregnancy to lure Ryan out on a date! Brilliant.
October Road. Episode 2. When Hannah finds out that Nick is staying in town, she assumes that he is doing this to get to know his son. Her son. She's right. She confronts him. He tells her he has a job. Which is a lie. So he sets about getting the job he told her he already had. This leads to some pretty funny scenes and one or two serious ones also, as Nick begins to confront the part of him that made him run away ten years ago. An absolutely great soap.
Friday Night Lights. Episode 17. From a cool (but very fake) small town to a less 'cool' (but very real) small town: Dillon, Texas. This is the episode where Julie tells Matt that they are going to have sex. Classic! Julie's mother sees him buying condoms and the trouble starts. Four of the scenes stand out for me. (1) Heartfelt conversation between mother & daughter, (2) the evening in the cabin between boyfriend & girlfriend, (3) the conversation between the parents waiting at home, and (4) the final meeting between Julie and her parents. Aimee Teegarden & Connie Britton do the best work they have done on the series so far, and Kyle Chandler & Zach Gilford aren't far behind. It's only when it's all over that you remember you've been watching actors. It's really beautiful what the are doing here: honest, clever and majestic.
Corner Gas. Season 4, Episode 1. Not the funniest outing. Wanda acting like Judge Judy goes on for too long and is overboard for the tone of this series. Likewise, Brent's new haircut, and Oscar's car trouble. Both ideas go on for too long, past the point where it's funny anymore. Rare to find an episode that's short on laughs, but this is it!
Highlight? Friday Night Lights.
Bionic Woman, Corner Gas, Friday Night Lights, October Road, The Office
