06:30 The Middleman
07:30 The Burning Zone
08:30 Supernatural
01:30 Flying Blind
02:00 Good Morning Miami
The Middleman. Episode 5. "The Flying Fish Zombification" Since I don't like Wendy's roommate very much, I was a tad bored by her storyline in this one. Will her mom show up at her Art Crawl or not? Gee, who cares? Much better was the case-of-the-week: flying fish that turn people into trout-eating zombies. Lots of very funny scenes. My fave? The bit where The Middleman was on the phone (being told about the flying fish for the first time) and we could see Wendy way in the background having a fight to the death with one of the dastardly creatures. That was hilarious in itself but it got funnier as the phone conversation ended and The Middleman was saying how important it was to capture one of the creatures alive while we could see Wendy bashing it to death in the background. Great slapstick comedy in a show where most of the laughs come from the witty dialogue. And Mary Pat Gleason, of course.
The Burning Zone. Episode 1. "The Burning Zone" Some pretty nifty ideas here but, in general, this is a pretty poor pilot. The cast is a mixed bag: Jeffrey Dean Morgan is great as the lead scientist, and Paul Guilfoyle is a fantastic bad guy in this first story. But Tamlyn Tomita is as bland and forgettable here as she was on Babylon 5 and while James Black was great in the series that followed he fails to impress in this opener.
The characters are all pretty dreadful. The writers give the lead hero guy several key scenes to make us think that he is a cool and dangerous rule-breaker. But he comes across as a jerk. We meet him speeding along a highway being chased by local cops and "not having time" to stop and explain himself. Instead he leads them on a merry chase before his security team bails him out. Later he meet his female partner for the first time and sparks fly because he was previously responsible for the death of her fiance. A fact that he has totally forgotten!!
So, the lead scientist hero is an arrogant jerk and his team are also pretty crap. The pretty scientist girl is one of those annoying TV characters who doubts everything the hero says and keeps getting proved wrong every step of the way. They are clearly supposed to be Mulder and Scully, but they are clearly... not!
The tough guy assigned to protect the two scientists proves sadly inept in this first story when he is quickly overcome by a bad guy and possessed by the very intelligent virus the team are trying to stop. I mean he is instantly beaten in a fight and becomes one of the bad guys. In, like, his third scene. In the frakkin' pilot!! How is any of that supposed to make us think he is cool or interesting?
Finally, there is the boss guy that they all work for. He seems to think they are all highly expendable and activates a self-destruct device to blow the compound up when the lead bad guy escapes. I mean, seriously? There's one dangerous bad guy running around and the solution is: blow the place up and kill the two scientists who might save the entire world. Yeah, that makes sense...
So, with all this crap going on, is there anything worthwhile in the pilot? The answer is: Yes. It's a great story. A sentient virus has returned after 14,000 years in hibernation. The virus explains that man's natural place in the scheme of things is as a host for the virus. That's some pretty cool stuff. And there's a mysterious van driver, too. Who appears to be glowing with the light of God. Or something. And it's all very intriguing.
So, a good story and a dynamic leading man (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) made me want to tune in for episode two. Which is when Michael Harris joins the cast, thank goodness!
Supernatural. Season 2, Episode 7. "The Usual Suspects" A great episode and an instant addition to my list of Best Ever Supernatural Episodes. It deviates from formula, has a very strong story, a non-supernatural foe and two of my most favourite actors (Keegan Connor Tracy and Jason Gedrick). Add Linda Blair to the mix and you have a major win for the Supernatural team. I've not seen much of Blair but she's the one carrying this episode (it's from her point of view and she's pretty much in every scene) and she is fantastic.
Yes, it was easy to see who the bad guy would turn out to be (in the big twist ending) but, hey, you can't have everything. They made references to X-Files, CHiPs and Jim Rockford... I'm more than happy!
Flying Blind. Episode 5. "The Week of Living Dangerously" Neil and Alicia have moved on to having sex at her place and things are going great. Until she gets a "I never thought I'd hear from you again" phone call. Her ex-boyfriend - a Latin American guerrilla - threatens Neil's life. Neil, being the man he is, cowers in fear for most of the episode and the laughs flow freely. The dialogue on this show is amazing. "Does he wear a retainer, because I really know how to use that to my advantage?" More than just being funny, there is the fact that this is the first time that Neil has felt like fighting for a woman. Cool stuff.
Good Morning Miami. Episode 6. "Kiss of the Spiderman" A perfect episode. The dynamics between all of the characters are now in place and the romantic "event-in-this-episode" between Jake and Dylan is accidental (so he's not a jerk for trying to break her relationship up).
Jake is secretly in love with Dylan and only two characters know it. His grandmother (who we see in his home life) is in favour of him chasing Dylan and Penny (who he works with) thinks he has to back off and leave Dylan with Gavin. It's an interesting dynamic and it really makes the show come alive. It brings Jake's inner turmoil out into the open and allows it to be discussed out loud. Plus, Jake is now written as being uncertain about what to do next, and this allows the writers to make his grandmother and Penny more extreme. They are pushing him in different directions and this gives the show the conflict in needs to make it fun to watch. And it's got lots of good gags, too, so it's also funny to watch. A perfect mixture, in fact.
The main storyline shows us what happens when Jake and Gavin wear identical costumes at Halloween and Dylan kisses the wrong one. In the sub-plot we learn for the first time that Frank may be gay. Pretty much every scene is laugh out loud funny and the romantic tension at the end comes across as genuine and sweet. Penny, my absolute favourite character, gets some of the best lines and - what I love most - she drops her sarcastic guard on two occasions and is very nice to Jake and his situation.
This makes her more likable, yes, but it is also vital to the success of the show. These moments help validate Jake's position. And, as I found myself on this particular re-watching of the show, Jake's position in the early episodes is not very easy to defend. He could come across as a bit of jerk trying to end (what appears to be) a pretty okay relationship. But, by episode 6, we see that he's not trying to do anything to anyone and he is - in fact - completely trapped by his desperate love for this girl he barely knows. Penny's interaction with him in these scenes serves two functions: it helps makes the whole thing funny (as opposed to sad and lonely) and - when it really counts - it helps us to like Jake. We can see that, for all her teasing, Penny kinda likes him and feels for him. And, at this stage in the series, that is where the audience is, also.
Highlight? Good Morning Miami (Poor Jake)
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Sun, Aug 24, 08 - The Middleman, The Burning Zone, Supernatural, Flying Blind, Good Morning Miami
