Franco Nero, Renée Soutendijk. The story doesn’t engage, but the visuals are very impressive. Not just spooky and unsettling, but also very inventive. Great performances, too. But the story is basic and the ending is very anti-climactic. 4/10
Bo Hopkins, Stephen McHattie, Kim Lankford, John Ireland. Superb cast, lots of tension and atmosphere. Story doesn’t go anywhere much, but it’s a fun ride. 8/10
Gregg Henry, Shannon Tweed. Good fun. Story is basic and predictable, but the build-up of tension is superb. The ‘video art’ backdrop gives everything an unexpected depth. Great performances, too. Especially Tweed, who is very sexy and very unhinged. Terrific. 9/10
07.30 Worst Week
08.00 The Sarah Connor Chronicles
09.00 The Hitchhiker
09.30 Swamp Thing
Worst Week. Episode 6. "The Ring" Olympia Dukakis is somewhat wasted in this average episode. After six episodes we know what to expect: Sam means well, but is dogged by bad luck. You get the feeling that the writers have decided to cut the guy a small break, as Dick seems to have grown tolerant of him at this stage. It's nice, but it takes some of the edge off.
Anyway, in this chapter... Sam lets the baby swallow the wedding ring and has to wait for it to poop. When this does happen events conspire and he ends up destroying the Wedding Dress. Which suits Melanie who hated the dress.
The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Season 2, Episode 13. "Earthlings Welcome Here" The weakest episode of the season so far. Sarah is off on her own, obsessed with her vision of the three dots and unsupported by the rest of her team. She winds up in the middle of a group of UFO abductees, befriends one of them and ends up getting shot at some secret facility. It lacks the tension and coherence of most episodes of this great show. In general, I'm not enjoying this Sarah-is-obsessed-and-nobody-believes-her storyline.
The sub-plot, meanwhile, tells us Riley's backstory. It is much as we suspected. It's not great, but it is much better than all the Sarah stuff.
The Hitchhiker. Season 3, Episode 6. "Ghostwriter" One of the very best episodes. Willem Dafoe fakes his death to make his books sell better. His wife and his agent are happy to find him dead, since they are lovers, but his return complicates things. So a real murder is planned. However, all is not as it seems and the fast-paced script keeps you guessing as to who is really working with whom.
Swamp Thing. Episode 2. "Falco" It's an odd world, the world of the Swamp Thing. The bad guy of this one is a former bird who has been turned into a man by the evil Dr. Arcane. He makes an attempt on the evil scientist's life and then... does nothing much for a while. He just kinda wanders aimlessly. A bit like the script, really.
Jim, possibly the most annoying child ever featured in a TV series, falls out of a boat later on. And the bird/man saves him and learns a valuable lesson: it's not so bad being human.
Swamp Thing appears, too, and talks to the bird/man a couple of times without really accomplishing anything.
A very strange series.
Highlight? The Hitchhiker (twists galore)
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11.00 The Hitchhiker
11.30 My Secret Identity
The Hitchhiker. Season 3, Episode 5. "Man's Best Friend" One of the best and most memorable of Hitchhiker episodes. Michael O'Keefe is kicked out by his wife (Jennifer Cooke of V) and goes to house sit for a buddy from college. He takes in a stray dog and the two of them form a very close, very strange, relationship: turning the house they are staying in into a giant 'lair' of overturned furniture and rubbish. One by one the man's enemies start turning up dead... victims of a strange animal attack...
Good performances (especially from Cooke) and nice camera work make this an enjoyable outing, even when you can see the 'twist' coming a mile away. O'Keefe and the dog are never shown in shot together (except in reflection), all of their scenes together are point-of-view shots. Touches like that make this one very enjoyable.
My Secret Identity. Episode 2. "A Walk on the Wild Side" A few funny lines and winning performances from the leads make this enjoyable, even if the story is lame. Dr. J is robbed of some vital scientific equipment, Andrew stumbles onto the thief and - through a fluke - is asked to join the gang that he belongs to. So Andrew Clements, teenage superhero, finds himself going undercover inside a gang of tough youths, led by David Hewlett (of Stargate: Atlantis).
It's nonsense, but sweet and amusing. Many, many lines will raise a smile: "I'm trying to cut down on my mugging" is a prime example.
Highlight? The Hitchhiker (it turns out that the dog is...)
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08.30 NCIS
09.30 It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia
10.00 Supernatural
11.00 The Twilight Zone
11.30 The Hitchhiker
NCIS. Season 5, Episode 3. "Ex-File" One of the best episodes. The case-of-the-week is so-so, and the twist is the exact same as one the pulled in Season Three, but this one introduces us to Gibbs' ex-wife and shows that his relationship with Hollis Mann is alive and well (I like this character and enjoy her relationship with Gibbs).
Kathleen York (looking amazing, as ever) is perfectly cast as the ex-wife and she gets several great scenes (particularly the last one, where she and Gibbs are nice to one another). A lot of the stuff that we knew anyway is pieced together in this episode and Hollis Mann learns a lot of Gibbs past for the first time. Their scenes together are great. Particularly the final moments of the episode where she finds the tape cassette with Gibbs daughter playing the piano.
The case-of-the-week is pedestrian and the twist (the the person working with Abby in the lab is the bad guy) is a repeat of a much better twist used back in Season Three.
It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. Season 3, Episode 6. "The Gang Solves the North Korea Situation" Not only is this very funny, not only is Kaitlin Olson hilarious in scene after scene but this is a very, very clever script/episode. In order to sell the unlikely twist at the end (that the girl that Charlie is dating is actually 12 years old) the show casts a woman to play her father and makes great stock in her/his odd appearance. They even blatantly question the girl's age in her opening scene. Yet, they are able to pull of a hilarious twist at the end. When a twist is brilliant, it works and shocks you, even when the clues where there. How clever of them.
Kaitlin Olson is hilarious in this episode. When her character gets drunk and passes herself off as a health inspector it is pretty much the highlight of the episode. And that is saying a heck of a lot.
Supernatural. Season 2, Episode 19. "Folsom Prison Blues" Solid case-of-the-week with a great gimmick/change-of-pace (the boys are in prison). When they were arrested I was fooled for a minute or two, but I quickly remembered the opening lines of dialogue and realised (just before the script told me) that this was all part of the plan. Wonderful. I don't like heroes who stumble into cases, it's much cooler that the guys are masters of their own destiny and plan everything.
Garwin Sanford, Jeff Kober and Charles Malik Whitfield are three of my favourite performers and each one gets great material in this episode. Sanford usually plays assholes. Not this time. He's a great good guy in this one. And gets to be the source of the episode's other twist. This one I did not see coming, but I had my suspicions.
Had I been the writer of this story, I would have kept the boys from making direct contact with Kober's character for much longer and made the audience think for longer that he was their inside man.
The Twilight Zone. Season 3, Episode 3. "The Crossing" Another pretty good story from the dark corners of the Twilight Zone. It's a story about - shock, horror - good decent priests who work hard for the good of their community. Something you almost never see on TV. Ted Shackelford is perfectly cast as the hard-working hero with a weight on his shoulder. He let a friend/lover die in a car crash many years before becoming a priest. He was thrown free in the crash and the flames kept him back. He's always felt guilty. And this is the story of what happens when she comes back... still driving the same car.
Not as strong as the two stories which opened the season, this is still a memorable and enjoyable tale.
The Hitchhiker. Season 3, Episode 4. "W.G.O.D." Gary Busey is superb in this top-notch tale from the wandering mystery man. He's a radio preacher, who seems genuine in his attempts to reach/help people but his home life is a nightmare: his mother idolises his brother, who went missing years earlier...
Our hero recently invested in a powerful new transmitter for his successful radio station and it seems as if it is allowing a voice to speak from beyond the grave. The voice of the missing brother, who wants to name his murderer...
Things get a bit OTT at the very end, with lots of running around in thunderstorms and blood pouring from the walls/equipment but none of this can distract from Busey's superb performance and the fact that this is a great episode. Watching this I remembered why I loved The Hitchhiker all those years ago.
Highlight? The Hitchhiker (Gary Busey)
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06.00 The Sarah Connor Chronicles
07.00 The Twilight Zone
07.30 The Hitchhiker
08.00 Logan's Run
The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Season 2, Episode 7. "Brothers of Nablus" Another winner. No big events in this one, but a solid advancement of several running themes. Cameron gets to be bad-add cool (again) and kill some kids who picked the wrong house to rob. Sarah gets to make a very bad decision (from the heart) and give Cromartie a solid lead towards finding them. Derek gets to hold some secrets from the others and voice his dissatisfaction about how John is growing up, and how Sarah is handling things. Ellison gets attacked, but saved.
The Twilight Zone. Season 3, Episode 2. "Extra Innings" DELIGHTFUL. Marc Singer stars as a time-travelling baseball player. He lives a double life: in modern times, he is a failure with a broken marriage, but in the past he is the star of his baseball team. It's a real treat. I love time-travel stories in general but this one is a hoot. Usually, I hate the boring story-device of the cranky unsupportive wife/girlfriend who just doesn't 'get' the importance of what the male hero does. Yes, I know that the world does have women just like that, but on TV it's a lazy storytelling device.
In this story, however, it works. For several reasons. Singer's character is an obsessive collector of baseball cards. He's a hobbyist. And it doesn't matter if it is baseball cards or comic books (my own weakness) the sad fact of it is: women don't get it. They don't understand the hobby, or why you must keep these things in mint condition or why you must always be searching for ways to complete the collection. When TV Cops or TV Doctors are saddled with unsupporive wives it bores me. While many real-life relationships can have problems caused by work committment, I think TV storytelling uses this device a disproportionate amount of times. So much so that it doesn't always work.
But it works here. He collects babeball cards, he's obsessed with them and he's refusing to move on with his life. I totally understand why his wife is ready to bail. But, cos it's Marc Singer, I still like the guy and root for him. Plus, he time travels and that's frakkin' cool.
The story has other elements that really work, too. His best friend is a twelve-year-old girl. And the tale makes no point on this. It just happens that that is the case. And that's refreshing to see, too. A grown man who had a friendship with a child. Why not? A female child, too. Even better. It's a pretty cool friendship. She's wise beyond her years and he's basically a kid at heart. I liked all of their scenes together and the ending of cool, too (he stays in the past forever and becomes a star).
State Of Mind was the last TV show (I remember) to make the point that's it's okay, normal and healthy for grown men to like children and make friends with them. He's a perfect example. A strong friendship forged over a common hobby.
Another great little story from the syndicated version of The Twilight Zone. Another reminder that the CBS seasons were rather poor by comparison.
The Hitchhiker. Season 3, Episode 2. "Out of the Night" Stylish and interesting. A man (Ricky Paull Goldin) who appears to be on the run from a cop for an unspecified crime takes refuge in - what appears to be - a very odd hotel. He runs from room to room having a series of surreal encounters and is tormented on an ongoing basis by a strange magician (a superb Kirstie Alley). It's odd stuff. It looks great. The whole thing has a peculiar dreamlike quality and the ending predictable. But still satisfying.
Logan's Run. Episode 6. "Half Life" Guest work from Kim Cattrall and William Smith can't help this weak episode. It pays lip service to deep themes and feels like a rip-off of much better Star Trek episodes. Logan, Rem and Jessica take refuge in a society where each person has been divided into two seperate beings: the good half and the bad half. The good ones live inside the gleaming city and the bad ones live outside like savages. There's not much in the way of logic to the events of the story. Only Jessica is processed for some reason and this means Logan and Rem spend the episode trying to rescue her. Along the way they are (somehow) able to convince the entire society that this is not the correct way to live, that they should reunite and destroy the technology.
Huh?
Daft, simplistic nonsenese. Easily the weakest episode so far in the run. It doesn't really have anything to say. Logan's half-hearted observations that you need both halves of yourself to be a complete person (or something) are hardly profound and it seems incredible that this one thought is enough to unravel an entire belief system and unite both factions.
Highlight? The Twilight Zone (delightful)
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07.00 Friday Night Lights
08.00 Cavemen
08.30 She Spies
09.30 The Twilight Zone
10.00 The Hitchhiker
Friday Night Lights. Season 2, Episode 5. "Let's Get It On" After a disappointing start to the second season, FNL delivers a perfect episode. Wow. Quite a ride this one. Every scene, every storyline, is a zinger. I loved it. The Tyra-Landry stuff is the best. He finds himself, suddenly, the star of the team (and all the best scenes in this episode are Landry scenes) and she finds herself in a confrontation with Landry's father (the always superb Glenn Morshower) and in a heart-breaking final scene, she breaks up with him. Then, quietly, goes to her car and cries her heart out.
Coach Taylor and Tami have some great scenes. He wants to kick-start the romance in the marriage again (after the arrival of the new baby) and it's hilarious to watch his plans in action. They really are the Best Couple on TV. Having Coach back with the team makes perfect sense, too. The whole storyline that had him living in another city was a waste of time/space. I'm glad it's over.
The complex friendship between Jason, Riggins and Lyla yields some wonderful scenes/moments in Mexico. The highlight was Riggins letting his guard down long enough to tell his friend that he loves him. Powerful moment.
Finally, Julie makes a play to get back with Matt and (very wisely) tells her to forget it. The Julie storyline has been superbly written and played. She's been behaving like a spoiled teenage bitch, but the writing has given us depth and motivation for every stupid thing she has done. Consequently our sympathies have always been with her. I feel a little sorry for her, as Matt walks away, but I still think he was doing the right thing.
In every way, this was the first perfect episode of the season. Every joke was funny, every shocking twist makes sense and every heartbreaking moment sends you reaching for the tissues. When the show does episodes like this, there is nothing on television that can touch it. Not even Lost.
Cavemen. "Caveman Holiday" Another of those episodes with a pretty good idea but not enough jokes to make it work. Early episodes were like this, then the show overcame it and managed to turn out a succession of very funny installments. This is not one of those.
It is the Caveman holiday of Long Night. Basically, it's Christmas. All Cavemen gather and celebrate the traditions that came from the time when they survived the Ice Age. Andy (the innocent one) is over-eager, Nick (the cynical one) is happy to sit back and make fun of it all, while Joel (the mature one) is trying to put it all behind him and act like this is just any other day. He goes to work as normal. And then... guess what? Towards the end of the story he has a glorious epiphany and rushes home to join in the festivities. Yuck. The episode is trying hard to be a send-up of Christmas episodes but there aren't enough jokes to make it work and it ends up being an example of a bad Christmas episode.
She Spies. Episode 1. "First Episode" The writers of this (Ron Osborn & Jeff Reno) worked on shows like Duckman, Moonlighting and The West Wing. And it shows. This is fast, funny and smart. It breaks the fourth wall in sly ways and has a lot of nods to the fact that it's a television show that knows it's on television. Three beautiful ex-cons are hired by the government to form a team to fight for justice. In one scene, the stumble onto the set of television show. About three beautiful ex-cons who have been hired by the government to form a team that fights for justice.
Moments like that abound. There's on-screen captions, shameless plugging of the Universal Studios Tour and a million other things that tell you this is not a typical action/spy series. The cast are superb, particularly Natasha Henstridge who seems totally clued into the tone of the show and plays every scene/joke to perfection. She reminds me of Bruce Willis and the way he played David Addison. David could take the seriousness of the crime seriously and then make a joke about the upcoming commercial break. Henstridge does that here. She's worried about the senator's live in one scene and criticising the conventions of television in the next. And the audience is with her every step of the way.
Good fun.
The Twilight Zone. Season 3, Episode 1. "The Curious Case of Edgar Witherspoon" In 1988 the CBS Twilight Zone revival jumped to syndication, a much-lower budget and into the hands of a story editor called J. Michael Straczynski. I have a love-hate relationship with the 45 episodes that aired on CBS. Some were brilliant, some were awful. It was all over the place. Some tales were too long, and some were way too short. The visual style didn't appeal to me, either. The CBS series lacked direction. It lacked focus. It produced many classics, but there were many stories that just didn't work at all.
The third season is different. JMS wrote 12 of the scripts himself. And - I suspect - had a firm hand in the creation of the other 18. No matter how they came to be, the fact remains that this final season of The Twilight Zone is terrific. Each episode is driven by a very strong story idea (and many of them are supremely cool). I love this version with a passion.
The season gets off to a great start with "The Curious Case of Edgar Witherspoon". It's a classic. Every bit as good as the best of the original run. J. Michael Straczynski wrote it. Cedric Smith stars as a doctor sent to investigate a very unusual man (Harry Morgan) who has built a large Rube Goldberg machine in his apartment and insists that he must keep tending to it, or the world will fall into chaos and destruction.
What a brilliant story idea. Typical of JMS. Smith and Morgan play their parts to perfection. Stripped of the high budgets of the first two seasons, there's nothing left but story. And with talent like this, you need very little else.
A cool little tale that will stay with you for years...
The Hitchhiker. Season 3, Episode 1. "Nightshift" Unsatisfying opening episode to the third season. The cast are great. Margot Kidder is very good as a mean nurse who treats the elderly people under her care with an iron fist. Darren McGavin never utters one word of dialogue and yet totally manages to steal the whole show because he's so good. He is Darren McGavin after all, so you would expect that. Finally, there's Stephen McHattie (one of my favourite actors) at his sleazy best as the nurse's crook boyfriend. So, yeah, the cast are great.
And the visuals are great. Every shot is beautiful, dark and scary. It looks like something special.
But the whole thing seems somehow unfinished. When the closing credits roll, you feel that there is much more the story. It feels like the opening 30 minutes of a movie, or the opening gambit on an episode of The X-Files. It's interesting and exciting. It's even scary in places (when the creature chases the evil nurse, for instance) but the ending is too open-ended for my liking. It's all a bit vague and random. Maybe if McGavin's character had said something, or we got the sense that the old people had summoned up the creature or something.
It's good enough, in many ways, but certainly not an example of The Hitchhiker at it's best.
Highlight? Friday Night Lights (perfect)
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