03.45 Flight Of The Conchords
08.00 24
09.00 Lost
Flight Of The Conchords. Season 2, Episode 5. "Unnatural Love" Jemaine falls in love with... an Austrailian.
A masterpiece. The best episode, so far, in Season Two, and a serious contender for best ever episode. The songs are wonderful, instant classics, and the comedy is relentless. Sarah Wynter is a revelation. Normally, she plays it classy and beautiful. This time out she aims to be as crass as possible. Consequently, she's impossible to recognise, and simply hysterical.
She just made me in a die-hard fan.
24. Season 7, Episode 9. "4PM - 5PM" Jack and Renee find Dubaku's girlfriend, while Dubaku's tries to engineer his safe exit from the country. Meanwhile, Aaron Pierce shows up to protect the President's daughter.
The highpoint, for me, is the arrival of Aaron Pierce (Glenn Morshower). His first scene, with the camera pan from his badge up to face, makes me confident that the show knows what a beloved and important character this is. His pairing with Sprague Grayden is worrysome. Sometimes I find her very grating to watch (such as in John Doe, when I was relieved to find her killed off) so it's going to have to be a wait-and-see situation. Having said that, her character is selfish and annoying so she's off to a bad start.
Apart from Aaron Pierce, the episode scored major points from me with it's treatment of Colonel Dubaku. I'm a longtime fan of 24 so I know that the bad guy of the early episodes always gives way to a bigger villain for later episodes. That's fine. They always do a fine job with the transition, but I don't think they've ever made me sympathise with the baddie so late in the game. Yes, various evil-doers have been sympathetic all along, but usually the ones painted as black from the get-go... stay black. Not Dubaku. They give him a love interest, demonstrate that he genuinely cares for her and create a new threat in his life when they show him going head-to-head with his former bosses in an effort to secure safe passage from the country.
Finally, on the list of wonderful things about this episode, Chloe gets lots of screentime. Mary Lynn Rajskub is hot and there's a great laugh-out-loud moment when our beloved computer expert speaks her mind about the 'inefficient' setup at FBI HQ.
Oh yeah... Nearly forgot. They finally reveal this season's mole and - I must confess - I completely got it wrong. I hated him, assumed it was too obvious that he was the one and crossed him off my list in favour of Janeane Garofalo. And I was completely wrong. Nicely done, 24, nicely done.
Lost. Season 5, Episode 6. "316" The Oceanic 6 return to the island.
Wow. I wasn't expecting this. Sure, I know Jack and the gang would return to the island but I assumed it would have in the season finale/premier and the episodes between now and then would detail events leading up to the return. Hah! So much for that theory. This will teach me to try and guess what Lost is going to do next.
Playing to it's strength's the show delivers a chaotic and shocking episode through the eyes of one character (in this case: Jack). This is surely one of the reasons the show works as well as it does. Particularly with Jack who is - when you think about it - the one true classic hero that the show has. You can argue that Locke is more the hero, if you want, but - at the end of the day - Jack is that white American male who beats up the bad guys and stands a 50/50 shot of 'getting the girl' at the end. He's just like the majority of heroes in the majority of western action fare so, as a consequence, we are programmed to slightly more invested in his journey than in anyone else's on the show.
Highlight? Lost (back to the island. wow)
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Thu, Feb 19, 09 - Flight Of The Conchords, 24, Lost
