It's a small Twitter world after all

So, I follow Wil Wheaton on his twitter feed. And I laugh at the stuff he tweets. I generally don't understand the responses he sends to people, but that's because I don't know what prompted the response. But I was amused the other day to see that Greg Grunberg of "Heroes" had contacted Wil through Twitter since Greg is on Twitter as well. And I got to see the love-fest between them. And they were really funny as they bantered back and forth. There was this whole thing where Greg said Wil would be great on "Heroes" and that he'd talk to the people there.

Here's Wil's first blog post about the subject.

But, stuff happened, or more correctly, stuff didn't happen, as Wil expected it wouldn't. Here's his followup post about the subject.

OK, so maybe that would have been cool, and having Wil on an episode might have gotten me to actually watch that episode as opposed to me not caring about "Heroes" anymore and at most half-listening while the husband watches the show in the other room.

And then Wil had a blog post today that included a link to this comic strip and commentary. Too frickin' funny!

BTW, "Anne" is Wil's wife. What I really want to know, though, is whether all three of them actually use Apple computers!




On a different note, I laughed really hard at Wil's last tweet today.

Thought I'd lost my keys earlier today. Looked for them for an hour. Turns out I'd left them in my car. In the ignition. At the mall.

"Heroes" - October 6, 2008 episode

It's revealed that Tracy is actually one of triplets, which included Niki, who were separated when their parents died, but not before DNA manipulation was performed on them. Jessica appears to have been a sister that Tracy had in her adoptive family, so who's the third triplet? Tracy is outraged that experiments were performed on her, and she is having a lot of trouble dealing with her "gift". She calls the police and tries to report that she's the one who killed the reporter, but she can't bring herself to it, freezing the phone receiver in the process. After being MIA for a while, she goes into Nathan's office and hands in her resignation. She is about to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge, but after she jumps, she's saved by Nathan. Back at her apartment, since Nathan has admitted that he can fly, she shows him her freezing power. They kiss. It's revealed that four years in the future, Nathan is president, with Tracy (or maybe the third triplet) as his wife.

Matt is still in Africa, and he puts on what are apparently magic headphones because they make him have a vision of the future, in which he is married to Daphne, they have a baby together, and they're also parents to Molly. Daphne is in the vicinity of an explosion when it happens, and she gets away fast enough to show up at her own doorstep, but not fast enough to outrun the blast, as we see that her entire back is scorched open, and she collapses into Matt's arms, seemingly in death. When Matt wakes up out of his vision, he is told that he needs to find his totem, so he ends up following the turtle that he thought had talked to him.

Future-Peter takes present-Peter four years into the future, where the formula has given special powers to everyone who can afford to buy it, but people with the powers are abusing them, using the abilities to commit crimes. Future-Peter says that man cannot control himself and that someone in present-Peter's time is making the formula, and present-Peter needs to stop them. Just then, future-Claire shoots and kills future-Peter but misses present-Peter. Future-Peter is revealed to be regarded as a villain in his time, where future-Claire, future-Daphne and another guy are hunting him per orders.

Mohinder is having his own issues as the serum he created is having more side effects, including increased rage showing in Mohinder. He knows that he is changing, but he also knows there is nothing he can do to stop that now.

Present-Peter is still in the future, and he goes to find Sylar, looking for answers. He finds him in Claire's house, with an apron on, making lunch for his young son Noah. Sylar says that he goes by Gabriel, and when present-Peter says that he wants Gabriel's power, Gabriel says that it creates a hunger in you and turned him into a monster. He says that he fights to control it every day, for Noah, and he doesn't wish it on future-Peter. He also reveals to future-Peter that they're brothers. When future-Peter insists, Gabriel gives him his broken watch and says that if he can fix it, he can figure out Gabriel's power. Future-Peter telekinetically manipulates the watch mechanisms and fixes it, and apparently, that somehow magically gives him Gabriel's powers. No, I have no idea either.

Future-Claire and future-Daphne track down present-Peter with Gabriel, and they hold Noah hostage in exchange for present-Peter. Gabriel tells him to teleport out, but present-Peter refuses to leave them in that bind. In the ensuing fight, Noah is accidentally killed, and with his reason for controlling himself gone, Gabriel gives in to a murderous rage and explodes, taking out several miles of surrounding city with him.

Present-Peter and future-Claire both survive (presumably because both have the power of regeneration), and future-Claire is torturing present-Peter by cutting him when future-Nathan interrupts. After dismissing everyone from the room, he lets present-Peter go, but present-Peter decides he needs information and more from future-Nathan, and in Sylar style, he cuts open future-Nathan's head. Present-Peter then comes out of his trance, is horrified by what he's done, and flees.

Hiro and Ando have been held captive in Level 5 and have been fighting with each other, but when pushed by Angela, Ando says that Hiro will not stop until they get the formula back. They are then seen digging up a grave, presumably Hiro's father's grave, but instead, Hiro and Ando have dug up a very-much-still-alive Adam instead.


I've given this show a chance, but I just cannot get into it anymore. There are just too many characters, too many storylines, too many time periods, and just way too many questions, with almost zero answers. This is exactly what pissed me off about "Lost" and led me to stop watching that show. Giving me no answers doesn't make me more interested and eager to find out the answers - it just irritates the hell out of me. I'm out.

"Heroes" - September 29, 2008 episode

Angela tells Sylar aka Gabriel that she shouldn't have put him up for adoption. She introduces Bridget, who can touch any object and see its entire history and everyone who has touched it, and Angela makes a comment about "feeding" him. From the screams that came after, I'm presuming that means she was sacrificed to him. She seemed awfully calm about the whole thing - did she know what was going to happen to her? And Angela makes a comment about her two boys, and she is apparently putting all her hopes into Gabriel now. Yeah, totally deluded, the evil isn't his fault.

Peter/Jesse and his fellow escapees decide to rob a bank in broad daylight. However, it turns out that one of the inmates has an ulterior motive, and he is just using this as an opportunity to draw out Noah. Peter/Jesse gets busted for not actually being Jesse, but they don't really believe that he has stayed with them to stop them from doing harm to others.

Claire doesn't want to go to school because she's tired of pretending that she's normal, but Sandra Bennett and Meredith clash on what Claire should do. Ultimately Sandra takes charge and orders Claire to school. Claire ends up being intercepted by Meredith, and when Claire says she wants to be taught how to fight, Meredith agrees. They drive to some kind of abandoned metal shack, where Meredith ends up using her powers to get the truth from Claire. Claire has been saying that she wants to go with Noah to help people, but under pressure, she admits that she wants revenge for what Sylar has done to her. Meredith tells Claire that being a regular 17 year old for a while isn't a bad thing. Claire later tells her mothers that she's going to a cheerleading camp, but in truth, she has taken some of Noah's files and is in pursuit.

Noah returns to level 5 and is told by Angela that he has a new partner - who turns out to be Gabriel. Noah at first resists, but when Angela says that she's using Gabriel whether he supervises or not, Noah relents. Noah and Gabriel arrive at the site of the bank robbery, and Noah goes in. He is about to be killed by one of the escaped inmates when Peter/Jesse discovers Jesse's power - he apparently has a voice that can create enough force/wind to knock things over - he reminded me of Vavoom. (Here's a clip of Vavoom with Felix the Cat.) Just as he's scattered people and things, future-Peter stops time and releases present-Peter from Jesse's body and then takes present-Peter away. Time restarts, and Noah is thanking "Peter" for helping him, but Jesse informs him that Peter is gone. But this time, Noah is saved by Gabriel, who keeps two of the escapees at bay while Noah shoots the third. Noah had repeatedly told Gabriel to not go into the bank, apparently as a way to use reverse psychology on him to make sure that he *would* go into the bank. As Noah takes fireball-dude outside, the inmate who wanted revenge on Noah takes off, and Gabriel locks himself in with Jesse, presumably taking Jesse's powers. Fireball-dude is later shown being put back in a cell. Noah says that he will continue to work with Gabriel for now - and then when he's done using him, he will kill him.

Matt is still on his spiritual walk thing with the guy in Africa, who is apparently the new Isaac since he gets this weird eyes-roll-in-the-back-of-your-head-and-then-he-paints-the-future thing. The husband noticed that in a later scene, a turtle is seen pushing along a magazine, which turns out to be a comic book with Hiro on it. I have no idea what's going on in this entire segment or why it's happening, but I just keep thinking that last season, it was Hiro who was banished to a land far, far away in a world where we don't know anyone, and this season, it's apparently Matt who's banished to Siberia. And I keep thinking that Africa dude is calling him "Pacman".

Hiro and Ando are trying to trace Daphne, who is in pursuit of the second half of the formula for her employer. Hiro sees the Haitiian and recognizes him, remembering that his presence negates special powers. They see him getting the second half of the formula (on orders from Angela) from someone else, and they manage to steal it from him - only to have Daphne steal it from them and take off with it. Ando had changed the plan and had bristled at Daphne's comment that he was like Robin to Hiro's Batman. This seems to be the first time that we see Ando acting on his own, rebelling against what Hiro wants.

Tracy is still a little weirded out by her ability to freeze things, and she manages to track down information on Niki. But she arrives at a funeral home - to find Niki in a coffin. She then encounters Micah, who at first mistakes her for his dead mother, but he soon realizes it's not her. (For some reason, when Micah asked if she was his mother, and earlier when Sylar asked Angela a similiar question, I just flashed back to this book. Yeah, I know, my brain makes the weirdest connections.) Micah does a cross-reference between Tracy and Niki and discovers that they were born on the same day, at the same hospital, attended by the same doctor. Tracy then tracks down the doctor, who makes some comment about how he made her. Hmmm, guess we'll find out what that means.


I'm growing a little impatient with the show, a little bored, a little tired of all the weird stuff that doesn't make sense and multiple fragmentations. I'm still sticking with it for now, but it's a struggle.

"Heroes" - September 22, 2008 episode - season premiere

The third season of "Heroes" starts four years in the future, where apparently those with special abilities have been outed but have been put in camps and subjected to experiments, so many are now hiding underground. Peter runs into Claire, who tries to kill her, but Peter thwarts the attempt. Instead, he wants to stop the event that triggered all of this - Nathan's announcement. Back to present day when Nathan is about to announce his powers, but it's actually Peter from the future who shoots Nathan, to prevent him from making the announcement.

Nathan is at first thought to be dead, but his previous injection of healing blood is apparently still working, so he makes a miraculous recovery. He no longer wishes to make the announcement, and he says that he's met God, and that the special abilities are from God, and those with special abilities are like angels, and how can they be angels if everyone knows about them?

Peter is happy to hear that Nathan isn't going to say anything, and he reveals himself to Nathan, that he's actually Peter from the future, and that he was the one who shot Nathan to stop him from talking. He says that he's changed the future more than he wanted to now and doesn't know how to stop it and make things right, but he trusts that Nathan is going to do the right thing. Meanwhile, Peter has discovered that his mother Angela actually sees the future in her dreams, and she knows he's not her Peter. She tells him that he has screwed up everything and to go back to his own time.

Nathan's miraculous recovery and declaration of having seen God was caught on tape by a camera crew and then broadcast all over television, catching the eye of the Governor of New York and consultant/lover Tracy, who looks remarkably like Nikki. Tracy convinces the Governor that he should appoint Nathan as the new senator, since the previous senator died in office. At first, Nathan is stunned that Nikki is coming to visit him, but she puts him straight that she's not Nikki. Nathan thinks about the offer and ends up accepting, which makes Linderman, who has been visiting Nathan, very happy, but there's only one catch - no one else can see Linderman, so is he actually dead and just a figment of Nathan's imagination, or does he somehow have some kind of power to appear only to Nathan?

When Tracy was on her way to speak to Nathan, she was interrupted by a reporter (played by William Katt) who had a still shot of a web page from when Nikki was a porn star on the web. Tracy denied that it was her, and when she returns from talking to Nathan, the reporter is still there and says his story is about to run and shows her video footage of when Nikki (really, Jessica) was having sex with Nathan in his hotel room. The reporter's continued pushing finally angers Tracy, who is apparently ice woman because she ends up freezing the reporter, who then bursts and the bits of The Greatest American Hero left over just start to melt and go down the drain. He shattered kind of like the T-1000 in the second Terminator movie, but he didn't have the benefit of putting himself back together again. Guess that means he won't be in any further episodes. And while I'm glad that Ali Larter is back, I'm not crazy about the existence of Tracy. I'm willing to see how they explain her, and from the timeline, it doesn't seem possible that she could be Nikki anyway. The husband posited that she could be Nikki's twin, but then, we know that Nikki's sister died years ago. A couple of times, Tracy's denial of being Nikki seemed real, but by the end, it did seem like she was hiding something. Lots of questions I'd like answered just in this case alone.

After shooting Nathan, Peter-from-the-future pretended to be regular Peter, and he actually sent present-Peter into the body of a prisoner on Level 5 of the "paper factory". When Matt started nosing around too much, future-Peter ended up wishing him into the cornfield, except it wasn't exactly a cornfield, but rather a desert, which then turned out to be Africa, which was Africa-hot, and he was found by a native who knows his name and can apparently see into the future. I half expected him to hit Matt on the head and then tell him to forget about it since it's in the past. But it was funny when Matt thought the turtle was talking to him, and then the native asked why he was talking to the turtle.

Mohinder had sent Molly away to some anonymous place to keep her safe, and while Maya begs him to continue his experiments to try to cure her, he's ready to throw in the towel and go back to India. However, he ends up triggering her anger and sees her power come into action before she is able to shut it down. He figures out that his father was wrong, that the power wasn't in the blood but rather, exists in the adrenaline instead. He takes a sample from Maya and creates a serum that can actually give people powers, much to Maya's dismay, since she sees her ability as a curse. She is almost able to convince him to get rid of it, but at the last minute, he injects himself and then has a violent reaction. When he wakes up the next day, he discovers that he has super strength, and later, we learn that he can also do things like climb walls, and the serum apparently also makes him no longer shy but rather a confident stud and he beds Maya. The next day, though, he finds that side effects are now occurring, as he plucks out one of what appear to be multiple scales growing on his back. I'm just wondering though - isn't Mohinder a scientist? Shouldn't he expect that side effects might occur, and not immediately? Maybe he's just going to end up turning into The Fly.

Meanwhile, back in Japan, Hiro is now head of the company, and Ando is working for him, still concerned about money whereas Hiro misses having a mission. His family's lawyer delivers a DVD to him that his father had made for him, and when Hiro watches it, his father tells him that he has now inherited being the sentinel for a big secret, one that could destroy the world, and the secret is kept in his safe, which Hiro is not to open. You know what comes next, right? Hiro opens the safe and finds the envelope, and he finds that it contains one-half of a piece of paper which contains a formula. Just as Hiro is looking at it, a rush of air passes and the paper is gone. Hiro quickly thinks to freeze time and follows a trail to a woman who apparently has supersonic speed who had stolen the paper from him. She gets away, and Hiro has to figure out what to do. Ando suggests that he go back to the past to ask his father about the paper, but Hiro doesn't want to do the past thing again. Instead, he decides to go to the future to see the result of what happened. He teleports to some time in the future, where he sees the future of himself arguing with the future Ando over the paper, and in the end, Ando uses lightning to kill Hiro to get the paper. (Yeah, Ando doesn't have any powers, that we know of, at least, but with Mohinder's experiment, it's entirely possible that Ando could have been given powers. The husband thinks that it might not even have been Ando, but rather, someone morphed to look like Ando. Maybe we'll find out sometime. Or maybe not.) The events that Hiro sees in the future unnerve him when he gets back to the present, though he initially doesn't tell Ando about what he saw. He hires a company who ends up finding out that the intruder is a woman named Daphne who lives in Paris. When they're searching her apartment, Hiro finally tells Ando that in the future, Ando is a villain who kills Hiro. I find it interesting that Hiro assumes he's still the good guy and that Ando becomes the bad guy, but how does he know that he himself hasn't turned into the bad guy and Ando instead has to kill him to make it right? Hiro tries to con Daphne into giving up the paper, but she outwits him, but not before revealing that she's working for someone else in the quest for the complete formula.

Sylar has been keeping himself quite busy. He first pays a visit to Claire, and he cuts her forehead and has some kind of device in her and appears to take a part of her brain or something like that (I couldn't tell exactly what he was doing) and then is about to leave. Claire is confused that he doesn't kill her, and he says that she can't be killed, and now, neither can he. He also takes some files that belonged to Claire's adopted father Noah containing information on Level 5 inmates. Some "paper factory" people try to apprehend Sylar, but their epic fail is caught on tape, much to the displeasure of Bob and dismay of Elle. Elle later comes back to tell her father that she knows Sylar will come back to try to get to the Level 5 people, but Elle ends up finding her father dead, obviously at Sylar's hand. She goes to Level 5 and releases one of the prisoners - Noah - and tells him Sylar is there. Indeed, after Noah pumps multiple bullets into Sylar, he is able to heal himself and disable Noah and then goes after Elle. As he's cutting into her forehead, she has a massive electricity burst, which ends up disabling Sylar enough so that they can recapture him, but it also ends up shorting out the electricity in the building, so about a dozen prisoners from Level 5 are able to escape.

Claire is very shaken up by Sylar's visit, but she's even more disturbed when she discovers that she has put her hand on broken glass, and while she does heal, she tells her mother that she didn't feel any pain this time, whereas she always did before, and the pain was what reminded her that she was human. Still disturbed, Claire decides to tape another experiment, and she prepares to let an on-coming train hit her to see what happens, but Peter swoops in and saves her at the last minute. It's actually future-Peter, but he doesn't let her know that. When Claire returns home, she discovers her father there, and she's happy he's back, but she then realizes that he won't be staying. He tells her about all the Level 5 prisoners who escaped, and he says his job had been to find dangerous people like them and lock them up, and he now needs to do that again. Claire wants to go with him, but he refuses, and she tries to convince him by saying that people might come after her or her adopted mother or her brother. Noah says they've solved that problem and reveal that they've asked Claire's mother to stay with them and protect them.

Meanwhile, back at Level 5, Angela reveals that with the death of Bob, she is now in charge, and she summarily dismisses Elle. When Angela encounters future-Peter, she asks why he's there, and she tells him that prisoners have escaped. It turns out that future-Peter had put present-Peter into the body of one of the convicts who escaped, someone named Jesse. Peter/Jesse is now on the run with the other bad guys, but Peter/Jesse can't stomach the torture and murder that the others are committing. Back at Level 5, though, things get curiouser and curiouser as Angela announces to Gabriel/Sylar that she is in fact his mother.


I liked the episodes ok, but I'll admit that I started to get bored at the beginning of the second hour. I also found that they were setting up entirely too many questions and not really giving any answers, and they still have an incredibly large cast of characters (and they didn't even touch on everyone from last year yet) and even added a few new people, all things that I found annoying enough with "Lost" that I eventually gave up on "Lost". Seeing previews of coming episodes of "Heroes" sparked a little bit of interest in me, but not as much as I hoped for, so we'll see if I end up sticking with this show all the way through the season.

We watched/fast forwarded through the hour show before the premiere, mostly because they were supposed to do a re-cap, and I really needed that. I forgot that Linderman was dead and how he died, and I forgot that Adam Monroe was buried alive. However, I was irritated that they would show scenes from this season. Ummm, no, I don't want to see footage from the show that I'm about to see after this recap show is over. But the main part of the recap show that irritated me is that they indicated all the connections to "Star Trek" in the show (I hadn't noticed the NCC1701 license plate before, so that was cool), but while they mentioned all the people on the show who'd either been in "Star Trek" (like George Takei) or were going to be in "Star Trek" (like Zachary Quinto), THEY COMPLETELY DIDN'T MENTION NICHELLE NICHOLS AT ALL. What, they forgot she was on the show, playing Micah's grandmother, and she did so for more than one episode? Or did they somehow forget that she played Lieutenant Uhura in the original "Star Trek"? I couldn't believe they left her out completely! I am heavily stunned.

2008 fall television season

Since today is Labor Day, that means it's September, and September means that the start of the new fall TV season is imminently upon us. Here's a run-down of the shows that I plan to be watching this year, which means, unless I get another really bad case of writer's block when it comes to TV shows, these are the shows I will be blogging about.


America's Toughest Jobs - Monday, 9pm, NBC - I really don't need another reality show to watch, but the previews for this show intrigued me enough to watch the first episode. I like that this show isn't just about made-up challenges - the challenges are actual jobs that the contestants have to do, and these aren't run-of-the-mill desk jobs. The first episode involved going out on crabbing boats and being on the water for 24 hours with very few breaks and amazing swells and lots of heavy ropes and cages to lift and sorting through crabs and just a ton of work. It definitely made me appreciate all the work that crabbers have to go through, and it made me annoyed with the people who just wouldn't do the work. I did think it was funny that the person on each team who did the best was a woman, especially since some of the guys had been smack-talking about how it was hard work and it was no place for girls to be. Yeah, dude, shut up and just do the work. They've shown previews of the other jobs/challenges that will be coming up, so I'm looking forward to seeing more.

90210 - series premiere Tuesday, Sept. 2, 8pm, CW - I loved the old "Beverly Hills 90210" show, so I'm going to give this new show a shot. I'm not sure I'm still going to be interested in high school antics, but we'll see. If nothing else, I have to see what they do with Kelly's and Donna's characters.

Kitchen Nightmares - season premiere Thursday, Sept. 4, 8pm, Fox - I have to remember not to eat while watching this show, or at least not look at the screen too closely, but I like this alternate side of Gordon Ramsay. The first episode, showing this week, is supposed to revisit some of the restaurants featured on previous shows, to see what has happened to those restaurants since the shows aired. That should be interesting to see.

Hole in the Wall - series premiere Sunday, Sept. 7, 8pm, Fox - This is the American version of the Japanese show Human Tetris. I've been looking forward to seeing this, though I'm not actually sure how long it's going to be able to retain my interest since the games will be fairly repetitive. But maybe watching people trying to contort themself without having to think too hard about the show might be a nice weekly break.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - season premiere Monday, Sept. 8, 8pm, Fox - I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the new season of this show. The end of last season was quite explosive, literally, so I want to see how they explain some of the new developments.

Fringe - series premiere Tuesday, Sept. 9, 8pm, Fox - I'm not entirely sure what the show is about, and I haven't even really seen a trailer for the show, but seeing the billboards has intrigued me. I'm not particularly in the J.J. Abrams fan club, but I'm curious enough to give this show a try.

The Big Bang Theory - season premiere Monday, Sept. 22, 8pm, CBS - I'm looking forward to seeing the show this season, to see where they take the Penny/Leonard thing, and to hopefully see them build on the great start from last year. This is my only sitcom this year, so I need it to provide me with lots of laughs.

Heroes - season premiere Monday, Sept. 22, 9pm, NBC - They've already told us what to expect this year by subtitling the show "Villains", and apparently, Nikki isn't so much dead. I didn't think last season was as good as the first season, but I'm still liking the show, and the previews look great.

Knight Rider - series premiere Wednesday, Sept. 24, 8pm, NBC - I enjoyed the movie earlier this year, so I'm glad the show got picked up. Go, Justin Bruening! Looking forward to seeing this show.

Survivor: Gabon - season premiere Thursday, Sept. 25, 8pm, CBS - I've been watching the show now since the end of the first season, but I actually haven't decided whether I'm going to be watching this season. I've gotten a little tired of it, so it will probably be a matter of whether the previews interest me and if the first couple of episodes make me invested enough to keep watching. Sometimes, the people are just too stupid and aggravating to me for me to enjoy the show.

Desperate Housewives - season premiere Sunday, Sept. 28, 9pm, ABC - Since the new season continues the five-years-ahead jump that ended the last season, I'm interested in seeing what all the new developments are, especially since Edie didn't leave like I thought she had.


There are two other shows that I'm looking forward to seeing, but they won't be on for a while.

24 - Yes, the stupid writers' strike meant that last season didn't happen at all, so I have to wait until January 2009 for the new season to start, though there's supposed to be a movie in November, I think. Need to see Jack Bauer again!

Dollhouse - The show isn't currently on Fox's schedule, but it's expected to start airing probably sometime in January. The premise sounds interesting, and I like both Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku, so I've definitely got to give the show a try.


These are the shows that I'll be watching, and here's an article that has the season/series premiere dates for all the returning and new fall TV shows so you can find the ones you're interested in.

"Heroes" - half-season finale

Overall, I was happy with the episode in that they resolved a number of things. There were some questions that I would have preferred they answer, but I have to remember that this wasn't a season finale, so it really wasn't that much more than a regular episode. It just gained more significance because there are no more episodes coming until after the writers' strike ends.

Maya - I didn't mind her in the beginning and was ready to see where they were going to go with her character, but they pretty much didn't go anywhere. She was entirely too gullible when it came to Sylar and as much as she had relied on her brother, she pretty much just stopped listening to him as soon as her infatuation with Sylar took hold. OK, so she finally found out about Sylar. I would have preferred it to be a bit more clandestine as opposed to just having Sylar holding a gun to Mohinder. And given my indifference to her, I didn't care that much when Sylar shot her. It only mattered to me because Molly witnessed it. So, I wasn't all that pleased when she was brought back to life. I would actually have preferred that Alejandro had been left to live (at least she found out that he's dead), but since he really only had a negative power to hers (it appeared that he could bring people back to life that she had killed, but there was no hint that he could bring just anyone back to life), and she doesn't need him to stop her killing power anymore, there wasn't that much that could be done with him, though I think he was the more interesting character. What Maya needs to learn is to focus her power, so that it doesn't affect everyone in her vicinity, just who she aims her power at. That would make her a major adversary indeed.

Adam/Peter/Hiro - That was the triangle where the demon (Adam) and the angel (Hiro) are basically fighting for the sole of the innocent (Peter). Adam has fed Peter enough lines to get Peter to believe him, but Peter still has his old attachment to Hiro. But nothing can get through to Peter because Peter saw Adam heal Nathan - so the only one who *can* get through to Peter is Nathan himself. Adam's been using Peter as a weapon to get into the holding facility, and it's only Nathan who can help Peter see what's really going on. Peter manages to catch the vial of the deadly virus strain that Adam drops and destroys it for good.

Elle - Her story is at least getting a little more interesting, but I think they either need to make her a better hero or a better villain. At the moment, she's waffling between the two. She seemed fallen when she was dressed down by her father, but then she went to Noah for more information, and Noah told her that her father was willing to push her beyond her limit to test her powers. However, that didn't seem to affect her devotion to her father, nor did finding that her file was completely empty. In the end, it's to win back his approval that prompts her to step in when she sees Sylar in the lab with Mohinder. I expect we'll find out more about her story later.

Niki - I was surprised when she didn't know that Micah had the power to control electronics. Thinking back on it, his father knew, but we never saw Micah telling Niki. I think I figured that during the time that passed when we didn't see them, Micah would have told her or it would have come out in conversation or something. I wasn't entirely happy with the storyline about DL's medal and Micah going back for it and Monica helping. It seemed a bit contrived and out of nowhere and served really to just kill Niki. At least, I presume that Niki is dead. Nothing suggests she would have been able to survive the blast. While I'm kind of sad to see her go, I don't think her character was really going anywhere, and they didn't seem to know what to do with her. I never really understood what her power was. Being a split personality isn't a power. Maybe it was just her super-strength, but that wasn't really all that clear. We'll have to see what the fallout is because now, Micah is an orphan.

Noah - Not really sure what the deal is with him. Obviously, Bob agreed to let Mohinder save him. But why? What purpose does he serve? Eventually, he was used to control Claire, to stop her from exposing her power, but it didn't seem like Bob had that in his mind to begin with. And Noah traded in staying with and helping the company for a normal life for his family, but I'm not sure that's really going to work. One weird thing about the scene between Noah and Bob in Noah's cell - what was with the weird camera angles? At one point, it's like the camera(man) was lying on the floor shooting straight up at them, making Bob even taller, and then right after that, the camera(man) is hanging from the ceiling, looking down on both Bob and Noah.

Adam and Hiro - We knew this showdown had to happen. Adam likens himself to God at the time of Noah's ark (which is an interesting connection since Noah, Claire's father, has basically built an ark just for his own family to save them from the company while the rest of the people are being subjected to what the company will rain down on them), where God decided to start over by destroying everything and everyone with a flood, and Hiro is appalled by Adam's god-complex, probably moreso as he's just learned from his father that sometimes, things just have to happen and you have to not try to change them. I did think it was a serious plot problem, though, when they were in the vault together and Hiro can't really figure out how to stop Adam. Why doesn't he just stop time like he did last time, take the sword and whoosh, Adam is dead? It didn't work last time only because Peter intervened, but Peter wasn't there this time to stop him. Of course, that wasn't the resolution the story was supposed to take, but it seemed like a sloppy bit of writing to me. And in the end, Hiro imprisons Adam in a grave, burying him alive for all of eternity. I wonder, though - OK, so Adam can regenerate, but presumably, he's like a human in that he needs to eat. If he's not able to eat, does his body degenerate over time and will he eventually die? Or even without nourishment, will he still be able to live? If he does live forever, one would expect that he could eventually be set free. Sure, he's in a graveyard, but 100, 200, 300 or more years later, who's to say that ground won't be dug up, and Adam set free with it?

Nathan - I'm not entirely sure I understand why Nathan decided to go public with his power. But obviously, it wasn't something the company wanted to let happen. When Nathan was first shot, and I saw the figure of the man walking away, I thought it was Sylar. But we see later that it wasn't. The husband figured out it was Noah, which seems to be the case since Angela's scene later shows that she knew it was going to happen and that she allowed it, and since Noah is a company man, he had to protect the company. I just didn't think the figure of the man looked like him.

Sylar - So we find out that he has the same virus strain as Niki, which means the company injected him. That means that at the beginning, it was the company who saved him and was taking care of him, but it still doesn't explain how he became his human body again. It also doesn't explain why the company brought him back to life. OK, so they injected him with the virus to take away his powers, but with as evil as he was, why even have him live? But, like all good villains, he does regain his powers, and you know he's going to wreak havoc again. You have to figure he's going to go gunning for Maya, as he's going to want her power. Since the title of the chapter that starts with Sylar regaining his powers is "Villains", we can probably expect his rise and to see what other opposition comes along.

writers' strike - the effect on primetime television

Anyone who watches primetime television either has already been or will be affected by the writers' strike. The strike means that no new scripts are being written or rewritten, so the production companies only have what scripts were completed before the strike started.

Someone on one of the discussion boards I participate in posted
this link to a TV Guide article that details how many episodes there are left of various network television shows, as of November 30, 2007. It's not yet a comprehensive list - he's still trying to track some information down. Have a look, and you can see what to expect from the shows you watch.

I had already heard that "The Big Bang Theory" had exhausted all of their shows, so I wasn't expecting any more. However, I had also heard that "Back To You" was out of episodes, but according to this chart, there are two left. That depends on whether the two episodes have already been shot or if they still need to be shot. Sitcoms were being hit the hardest initially because they tend to need more rewrites, which obviously wouldn't be going on now. If the shows were already shot, we'll likely see them. If they weren't actually shot yet, we might not, if they need any kind of significant work on the script.

"Survivor" is obviously going to be completed, as would "Kitchen Nightmares", for whatever they can produce, since those shows aren't governed by the WGA.

"Desperate Housewives" should have one left, since an episode aired last night. However, after last night's episode, there was no preview of the next episode, and there's no new show this coming Sunday, so not sure when the final available episode will air.

"Heroes" is airing their last show tonight.

"Law and Order: SVU" has five episodes left, plenty for the rest of the year.

"24" - It's already been announced that while they have completed something like 8 episodes, they're not going to run any of them until they know they can run them all consecutively. This is the show that I'm going to miss the most because of the strike.

"Lost" - I know a lot of people watch this show. I haven't heard what they're going to do, whether they're going the "Heroes" route and showing what they have or if they're going the "24" route and holding them until more can be made. I don't personally care. I've already given up on the show. Last year was the final straw for me.

I'm waiting for the return of "Law and Order" itself. Not sure if episodes were already shot before the strike started, so we'll see if it comes back in January. I'm also looking forward to seeing "The Sarah Connor Chronicles", so the same story with those new episodes.

"Desperate Housewives" and "Heroes"

"Desperate Housewives" - I like the "water under the bridge" theme of this episode. We think we've gotten rid of things in the past, but the past always comes back to haunt you. And boy does this episode epitomize that.

There were a lot of funny lines in the episode. When Bree is trying to talk Orson into letting baby Benjamin sleep in their bed, he says the reason people did that was so the baby could be near their milk, and since Bree wasn't lactating, that would mean Benjamin would really need to sleep in the refrigerator. I laughed really hard at that line.

Bree is still so misguided. She is trying so hard to not repeat her past mistakes that she doesn't even see that she's just forging on ahead making brand new ones. OK, so she wants Benjamin to turn out differently, and Danielle is pretty much out of the picture. But Andrew is right there. And virtually invisible. She says that the three of them (her, Orson and Benjamin) are a happy little family - but she completely excludes Andrew, and he's witness to that time and again. And finally, it results in him moving out. But it didn't turn out quite the way I thought. There's a part of him that's still the same person he was as far as personality, but he's not nearly as destructive. And he has already pledged support to his mother, in his own mind. And he's right - she hasn't seen or really acknowledged any of the progress that he's made in the last year or two. But I did like that in the end, he's going to go out on his own, but there's a very different relationship there now between Bree and him - he's his own person now.

And the past coming back to haunt someone is played out beautifully in the cycle of blackmail that follows. Katherine's husband is visited by someone who was obviously involved in the "Chicago incident". You get the feeling there was some kind of affair or something. Mike is witness to this, so Mike takes advantage to ask him for a prescription for his painkillers. The husband in turn asks Orson to write the scrip instead, blackmailing him by reminding Orson that he knows about Danielle being the real mother of Benjamin. Orson is still hesitant, but after talking to Mike, who says the pain originated when he was hit by a truck, Orson readily agrees to hand over the scrip, since Orson knows it was him that hit Mike. Oh, what a tangled web we weave and all that.

And then when Barrett, Mike's dealer, tries to blackmail Mike into letting him keep his date with Julie, Mike rats him out instead, but the dealer rats him out right back about how much business they've done together.

And poor Susan. She's so delusional. First, she tries to set Julie up with Barrett based on superficial information. And then, she wants so hard to believe Mike that he's given up the drugs. But he lies to her again and again. And Susan has to find out the hard way that Mike has not in fact given up on the drugs as he'd promised.

Gabrielle and Carlos - OK, really still don't care that much. But when Gabrielle slipped the sleeping pills in Carlos' drink, I thought it was odd that the pills took effect that quickly. Was that because they were dissolved? Odd. And Victor was found. Ho hum. But the twist there was perfect. Amnesia, he doesn't remember anything that happened on the boat. Oh, yeah, how convenient. That happens on soaps a lot. But then we get that he definitely remembers. And Gabrielle knows it. Usually, they really do have amnesia or they don't, but they're keeping it a secret from everyone. In this case, only Gabrielle knows, for now, anyway, until she's able to tell Carlos. So now, Victor's got that to hold over her and Carlos. What is he going to ask for in return?

And then there's the story of Lynette and her mother and stepfather. I was kind of curious about casting Richard Chamberlain in that role, but he was actually perfect for it. I didn't guess the reveal at all. I figured it was something like he'd had the affair instead of the mother, but his being gay didn't figure into it. Nice twist there, and then with the mother being his new roomie.


"Heroes" - So I guess I hadn't paid enough attention to connect the verbal dots, but getting hit by a clue by four finally did it - the virus is named after Mohinder's sister. So is that why his blood doesn't work to counteract that, because he's a relative?

OK, Noah's healed. What I really want to know, though, is does that mean he doesn't have to wear glasses anymore? Does it heal *everything* or just up to where he was before?

Sylar has managed to wrap Maya around his little finger. He's still evil, but in a purely human way now, without the special powers - yet. He knows just what to say to get Maya to trust him and be attracted to him and think that he's her saviour. He even tries to sacrifice himself to save her, to show her that she can control her own powers. OK, well, if she can control her power now, then why does she still need Mohinder? Didn't she need him because she couldn't control herself and she needed someone to help her do that, other than her brother? And poor Alejandro. He didn't know exactly who he was getting involved with. The shot of Sylar and Maya kissing outside his room as he shuts the door on Alejandro's stabbed dead body in the room was chilling. Body count 1.

I loved the scenes with Claire trying to pack her things. She goes through a litany of the physical harm that's come to her, that she's always healed from, but the one thing her powers can't do is heal her broken heart.

So Mohinder thinks he's found a cure for the virus to save Nikki, but he may not be able to test it since Sylar and Maya are now "babysitting" Molly. Uh oh.

Micah and his copycat cousin get themselves into a mess of trouble. But we knew that was coming when the camera focussed in on the cousin when Nikki was consoling Micah.

And, I win the lottery. That was in fact Joanna Cassidy playing Victoria. When her name came up in the credits, I actually yelled at the television. Her character is there to explain a few things, I guess, and to really show that Peter is completely being mislead. She only lasted one show. Body count 2. But if Victoria left the company when Hiro's dad refused to destroy the virus and decided to hide it instead, when was the picture taken that we've been seeing? That was obviously taken at a later time.

And the ending - it comes down to Hiro versus Peter. Yeah, I knew it was going to be a cliffhanger.




So next Sunday and Monday are going to be action packed. Huge tornado/hurricane on "Desperate Housewives" and the last episode of this arc of "Heroes", to see how much they wrap up. What a way to start December! And if the writers' strike doesn't end soon, we may just be left with what we see next week.

television round-up - "Heroes", "Hell's Kitchen", "Survivor" and "Law and Order"

"Heroes" - I liked this episode, with a few more bits of information revealed to us. I'm finding myself interested again in how the issues will be resolved, at least temporarily.

It was pretty much telegraphed that Matt Parkman was going to go where he ended up going with using more of his power, but I like that they did it in bits, first with him getting Molly to do what he wanted and then getting his boss to let him continue investigating. I think we were left to hope that he wasn't really going to go all the way when Angela Petrelli told him that he was becoming just like his father, but since he did get the name of the mystery woman in the end (and I keep thinking she looks an awful lot like Joanna Cassidy), he must have had to take that from Angela against her will.

I think the story of Elle is kind of interesting, but I'm not sure if they're going to be able to give her the depth that she needs. So far, she's a fairly one-dimensional character. She's pretty much been sheltered all her life, and she's been taught that people are toys or pets, which explains her behaviour towards Peter previously and in reference to Mohinder, her comment of "he's adorable - can I keep him?" They tried to give her a little more background by telling you about her life growing up, so that you do start to feel a little sympathy for her, but it's not until the end that you see something might actually be happening to change her. Guess we'll see in the next episode. However, I did think it was great when she woke up and realized she was tied up and then just tried to zap her way out of it - only to elocute herself because her feet were in a bucket of water and she'd been spritzed with water. Priceless.

When Bob was posing as a Board of Education member or whatever and talking to Claire and then calls her "Ms. Bennett" - was that really an accident? From the way he was wording it, it almost seemed like he meant to do it. He was saying things as if to let her know that he was onto her, so what better way than to call her by her real name?

Hiro's travels with his father was a bit of a diversion, but I liked the end result, that his father was taking his death calmly, that Hiro came to accept that he couldn't just save his father because he personally wanted to do it, and the closure that was arrived between father and son before the father's death. But the reveal I've been waiting for happened - Hiro looked into the face of the man who killed his father and saw that it was Adam/Kensei.

Oh, and I liked the explanation of why Adam hasn't aged, that he's regenerated so many times so he stays at that age. I wonder what the threshold is. I mean, how many times has Claire healed herself? And does it have to be completely or just parts? We know she did a lot of experiments in her original high school at least.

And the painting comes true - Mohinder kills Noah. Ummm, well, he shoots Noah at least. But then you get that funky, gross resurrection scene at the end. Hmmm, so Bob got enough blood from Claire to heal Noah *and* Nikki? Is there any left over? If Claire just becomes the sole donor to the Red Cross, everyone's good. Well, at least until that nasty virus hits next week anyway.

And now, Peter has gotten sucked into Adam's plan. Peter, who was given information by his later-ally Hiro has now thrown in with Hiro's arch-nemesis (?) to save the world. Question is, does Peter really know what he's gotten himself into? And did Adam change his ways from wanting to hurt Hiro any way he could, or is that really still the driving force behind his actions?


"Hell's Kitchen" - The episode was pretty much what the previews had promised from the week before. As the owner was talking about how she took all her money and opened this restaurant, and she couldn't figure out what was wrong, I was screaming at the TV that what was wrong was that she was opening a fine dining restaurant in POMONA. Are you kidding me? Did she just pick some random city to open the restaurant in without thinking about what city she'd picked? She can't have been from anywhere around there to think, hey, I know what Pomona needs - a fine dining restaurant!

And she was completely abdicating any responsibility for the place. I've found that interesting in a few of these cases. OK, so you're the owner - shouldn't you know what's going on in your restaurant? Shouldn't you be the one in charge? And if you don't have the guts to be in charge, why did you decide to be the boss?

I thought the test of the chef and sous chef was interesting of whether they could identify cuts of meat while they were blindfolded. I honestly can't imagine how you could mix up beef and chicken - they have completely different texture and taste, even if you cook the beef all the way through. If you've got beef that is the texture of chicken, you've got a problem, and vice versa. I probably don't have pork often enough to know whether or not you should be able to tell the difference.

And I know there are differences in fine dining but powdered mashed potatoes? And frozen everything? And what's the point of having things on the menu that you never actually have available? How can you not see that would be a problem? And again, why didn't the owner know that, and if she did, why did she allow it to continue?

When Gordon was working on the new menu with them and told them to come up with something, I cracked up when he mentioned the Pomona Salad, and how it should evoke and represent Pomona. Ummm, ewwwww. Seeing Pomona Salad on the menu isn't going to make me want to order that, no matter where I am.

I didn't think Gordon would be able to get the executive chef to come around, but it was nice that he did. Demoting him seemed to have done some good, but you get the impression that a lot more happened to make the turnaround in both the executive chef and Gordon. It was nice that Gordon was able to make a change, but apparently, it happened too late in the game since the restaurant didn't survive.


"Survivor" - I wasn't really expecting an episode of the show since it was Thanksgiving, so the fact that they showed a recap show wasn't a big thing, and we didn't really learn anything significant that we didn't already know. Looking forward to seeing what the big twist is on this week's show.


"Law and Order: SVU"

two weeks ago - This was the episode about the crazy woman who was killing to impress her serial killer "boyfriend" who was in prison for life for multiple murders. It's always been a point of discussion to figure out why some people (mostly women) are so fascinated and fixated with men in prison, particularly those who have committed heinous crimes, and who even go to the point of falling in love with them. It was great seeing the disgust on Casey's face when she realized that she would have to work with the serial killer to convict the woman doing the copycat killing. At least they came up with a fairly understandable reason why this woman fell for him as she did - the ones where there is no explanation are the freakier ones.

OK, are the detectives just not paying attention or have I been watching too many of these episodes. As soon as they said there was a pizza delivery for Olivia and she said she didn't order it, I knew there was a problem. But they just all accepted it until it went kablooey. Ummm, ok, asleep at the wheel much?

But then Olivia got great payback. How unlucky do you have to be to choose to attack a police officer in her own home, while she's on the phone with her office so she can immediately call for backup, and then beats you to a bloody pulp with a really thick, heavy book before finally realizing to pull back before she beats you to death with it?

But Casey won it all. I loved that when the serial killer changed his testimony on the witness stand, she managed to play to his ego and have him critique the copycat killing. But her best play was even yet to come. Mr. Serial Killer dude was all smirky because she had made a deal to transfer him to a different prison. But he didn't know that she could keep her deal with him *and* arrange for him to be transferred to a prison with tighter security and more restrictions so that he would be even more isolated and cut off from the world for the remainder of his life sentences.


last week's episode - This was a stellar episode, turning an issue on its head, as they're so famous for. They find out that a man has committed rapes on several young girls, only to discover when they finally catch him that he's been off his psych drugs and committed the crimes while off the drugs, and there are at least extenuating circumstances for what caused him to commit the crimes. However, usually, the argument is that he shouldn't be sent to prison because he wasn't responsible for those crimes since he wasn't on the drugs. In this case, though, when the rapist is on his drugs and lucid, he is absolutely horrified by what he's done, and he's not only ready to face his punishment, but he'd rather be extradicted to a different state that has the death penalty as a consequence of the crimes he has committed. You don't feel sorry for him or feel empathy for him really, but it's the first time you actually feel *their* sorrow and actual remorse. He can't live with himself, so you at least respect that in his medicated form, he is not a monster, but you realize along with him that he can't be trusted to stay that way and that he still needs to pay for what he did.

One of the issues this episode does bring up is that of the death penalty. It's a very short scene, but several of them do go through the pros and cons of having a state that employs the death penalty. And you discover that a cop and a prosecutor are perhaps not surprisingly on opposite sides of that discussion. I didn't much care for the ending though. Casey tries to convince the guy that he needs to forgive himself. But I think he's right. In the light of day and under his meds, he knows how horrible his actions were, how those girls that he hurt are going to be scarred for life, and even if there were extenuating circumstances and he wasn't on meds, he still knows he did it. How can you *ever* forgive yourself for that? How *do* you live with that?

But the best part of the episode was the appearance of Sam Waterston. I had seen his name in the credits earlier, so I knew he'd be in it, but I'd forgotten about Jack McCoy's promotion. Or maybe I just didn't think it had gone through yet. Casey has to defend her very unorthodox and unapproved actions to her new boss, the new District Attorney, Jack McCoy. When the old DA stepped down, Jack was promoted. I've been wondering how that's going to play out on "Law and Order" since he's really my favorite part of that show, and with him being DA, he might not be in it as much, unless they change the format a bit. But it was great seeing him here, dressing down Casey. Welcome back, Jack. Looking forward to seeing more of him on new episodes of "Law and Order" in January.


this week's episode - I didn't think this episode was as good as the last two. You kind of got a little of everything - a little bit about a father's taking justice and revenge in his own hands, little bits about race issues, and quite a bit about the foster kids, but I think they've done better stories about the foster kids. The story of the two brothers was a little too easy, a little too formulaic, and then of course, you had to throw in that the newbie in the squad room was also a foster kid. And the resolution to the murder case itself was fairly convoluted so that the whole story just seemed manufactured to tell the foster children story. Like I said, they've done that story much better before.


"The Big Bang Theory" and "Back to You" - Both of these shows are in reruns early. The writers' strike has hit the comedies early, since they don't tape as far ahead, and they require more on-set rewrites than do dramas. There won't be any new episodes of these shows, if at all, until probably a few weeks after the strike is finally over. Since this is the first season for both shows, that could put them in jeopardy. I hope the strike doesn't tank either one of those shows.

"Desperate Housewives" and "Heroes"

"Desperate Housewives" - This was a fun episode. I was laughing entirely too much when Lynette's mother and her one-night-stand came down the stairs, both of them in robes, and Lynette and Tom just stared at them. It was a nice through-line to learn about the mom and to see Lynette's sisters. On the one hand, I felt sorry for the mom that she had to listen to all that, that she knew she wasn't wanted. On the other hand, I was kind of with the sisters in that I didn't see why the mom had to live with one of them, especially since we saw how she treated her one daughter at the diner. Who would want to be around that kind of toxic behaviour day and night? If the mom wasn't the way she was, maybe her daughters wouldn't be trying to pawn her off on each other. Wonder where she's taking the cab to at the end.

The circumcision talk between Orson and Bree (Bree biting down on the top of the eggroll - oh my goodness, I laughed so hard) was funny and interesting, but it eventually turned into a telling example of how Bree was viewing the baby and Orson's role. When Bree couldn't find a doctor to perform the circumcision, it had occurred to me that she could find a Jewish rabbi to do it, but I had forgotten about the bris that they'd been invited to.

The dinner table discussion among Bree and Orson and Susan and Mike about pre-schools and their costs and applications was just too dead on. $10,000 for a pre-school? But I've heard people who do that. They know that their children need to get into X college to eventually get a good job, and Y prep school is a known feeder into X college, and Z private school is a feeder to Y prep school, and Q school is a feeder to Z private school, and M elementary school is a feeder to Q school, and R pre-school is a feeder to M elementary school, and you have to know someone or be someone to get into R pre-school, and you have to apply as soon as you have proof that you're pregnant, and it's going to cost the equivalent of a brand new car for yearly tuition and baby better have lots of extracurricular activities or baby won't be accepted. It's absolutely ridiculous - but absolutely real.

So I had thought Mike was taking blood pressure medication, but apparently, he's taking some kind of painkiller thing. When he poured the bottle of pills down the drain, my first thought was that he didn't run any water after it nor did he turn on a garbage disposal. I knew the pills were still there, so when he later went to retrieve them, I wasn't surprised. (BTW, I loved Bree's demonstration to Susan about how sneaky and devious addicts can be in hiding their addiction.)

Gabrielle...Victor...boat...overboard...Carlos...rescue...knife...overboard...Carlos...Gabrielle...boat...bye-bye. Yeah, not so much care.

Loved the scene between Dillon and Katherine when Dillon finally pushes back against Katherine. And then when Katherine tearfully explains to Dillon what happened with her father - I knew there was nothing on the piece of paper. She was counting on Dillon buying her story. There is no finding dad for Dillon. Dad is dead. It may be true that he was abusive - that might explain some things. But that particular branch of the family tree has been pruned.


"Heroes" - OK, I forgive them, for now. They didn't explain anything about how Sylar survived or how and why he was where he was at the beginning of this season, but they answered enough other questions that I'll let that go for now.

Nathan - Now we know why he's continued to have these visions of the burned man. I wonder, though, that he didn't die since it looked like he had third-degree burns over so much of his body. And does he or his mother know how he was healed? And does having Adam's blood in him have any other effects on him other than having healed his burns, like can he now regenerate as well? And what the heck is mom's power?

Peter - His mother told Nathan that Peter was still missing and that they were still searching for him. But lots of people saw Peter bring Nathan into the hospital. Wouldn't someone, especially the cop, remember him and have been able to describe him enough so that his mother knew it was him who had brought Nathan in? Nathan was probably too out of it to remember any time that Peter was there.

Adam - So apparently, he's hundreds of years old but doesn't age because of his regenerative powers. Since Claire also has regenerative powers, does that mean she won't age either? Is she going to be high-school age for the rest of her life? And is Adam ultimately going to be revealed to somehow be related to Claire? Do we know for a *fact* that Nathan is Claire's bio-dad? Adam obviously knew Nathan's mom - who's to say Adam didn't have a thing with Claire's bio-mom?

Niki - So Jessica's gone, but party girl Gina came out to play, and Niki is now racked with guilt because she knows that she was responsible for D.L.'s death.

Maya - It was weird that she ended up killing everyone in the vicinity. The other times we've seen it happen, it's been concentrated to where she is. Wonder how far her killing ability reaches.

Elle - She was really irritating me with her "can't keep her hands off Peter" thing. She did become a little more sympathetic when she told her backstory. She's been isolated from society - no wonder she's going to pounce on Peter. In a previous episode, she was on the phone with her "boss", who she also referred to as "dad". Is that Bob? And at the end, when Elle is going after escaped Adam and Peter, she uses her lightning power as the Haitian is standing right by her. I thought the Haitian neutralizes powers. Why was she able to use hers around him?

I'm looking forward to the further developments in Hiro's story, and at some point, you know he's going to see Kensei/Adam.

television round-up - "Desperate Housewives", "Heroes", "The Big Bang Theory", "Back to You", "Kitchen Nightmares" and "Survivor"

"Desperate Housewives" - This week was a pretty light episode overal. I'm not sure I entirely get the deal with Susan and Mike's dad. I mean, yeah, ok, genetics and all that, but before she starts to worry about whether Mike and his dad have passed along any homicidal or psychotic genes to her unborn baby, maybe she ought to think about the seriously neurotic genes that she's passing along to the poor child. But then, look at Susan and her ex-husband, and Julie turned out ok.

I did love the bit with Bree and Danielle at the end. The scenes at the Halloween party pretty much continued to set them up as adversaries, but it was pretty sweet when Bree was encouraging Danielle to hold her newborn baby, and you could see the conflict in Danielle's eyes, and the worry on Bree's face at the very end when Danielle was leaving.

Gabrielle is so fickle about Carlos and Victor. At least Carlos finally had the nerve to leave Edie. But now that Victor knows about Gabrielle and Carlos? Guess we'll find out.

And then, we find out that Lynette's cancer is in remission. The whole storyline with the possum was actually quite nice. You knew something was wrong, but you weren't quite sure what. It wasn't until the night of the party and the conversation between Tom and Lynette about the possum that you're told what exactly is going on. And Lynette sobbing at the end.

But on a lighter note, I loved it when Lynette's trick-or-treating kids saw "Frankenstein" holding up the new baby! ;)


"Heroes" - There were parts of this week's episode that I liked, but it was losing me with all the popping around that Peter was doing. Great, *yet* another time period.

When Hiro was talking to Yaeko about Kensei, I kept expecting him to say, "There is still good in him. I have felt it." Shades of Vader much? But at least Hiro is back with Ando, and the look on Hiro's face when Ando had to tell him about this father was heartbreaking.

I liked the resolution of Matt's story with his dad and how that saves Molly. I also liked the stuff with Niki. And we found out who Adam Monroe is. I had a feeling that the explosion wouldn't be the end of him.

Apparently, at least one of the creators/writers of the show realizes the mistakes that they've made so far this season, so that bodes well for the future of "Heroes" - after the current writers' strike is over, that is.

Here's the article.

The teaser for next week's episode better be right. I expect ANSWERS.


"The Big Bang Theory" - Another stellar episode. Another one where we had to stop the DVR and go back so we could watch a scene again. I loved the Chinese restaurant episode. Chinese waiter dude is like the only working Chinese actor in Hollywood, if you don't count Chow Yun Fat and Jet Li, and you won't find either of them pretending to be a waiter in a Chinese restaurant. (I think this is the same guy who was in the Chinese restaurant episode of "Seinfeld", one of like two episodes of that show that I saw. I think I also saw the "we can't remember where we parked our car in the parking structure at the mall so we have to wander around everywhere looking for it" episode. But I digress...) I loved his retort when Sheldon was talking about "where he comes from": "I come from Sacramento," and then the look of utter embarrassment on Sheldon's face as he tries to hide. As Sheldon listed off what they usually order (steamed dumplings, general so's chicken, beef with broccoli, shrimp with lobster sauce and vegetable lo mein), and he then asked what was wrong, my response was "you're ordering BORING food!" It didn't get any better when either Leonard or Raj suggested ordering soup instead, and what would they be ordering? Won ton soup. Puhleeze.

I loved how anal Sheldon was being about not being able to divide everything evenly since Spock was with his new girlfriend. When Raj suggested cutting the fourth dumpling, Sheldon's response was that it's then no longer a dumpling, "at best, it's a very small open-face sandwich". And when waiter dude suggested "accidentally" dropping the fourth dumpling, and Leonard said, "No one will know," Sheldon was emphatic about "I will know."

I loved Penny's look when Leonard made her promise not to gnaw the meat off their bones after Leonard's and Sheldon's earthquake supplies discussion. And what the heck was up with Raj still munching on a sandwich in the kitchen? Too funny.

But the best bit really was when they were playing Halo 3, and Penny was kicking the crap out of Sheldon on her first try. Leonard: "Penny, you're on fire." Penny: "So is Sheldon." And then Sheldon tried to walk away, but Penny convinced him to come back - only so he could witness her nuking him. Priceless.


"Back to You" - It was an ok episode, nothing too spectacular. It was funny watching weather girl practicing with station manager to say that weird name, and her repeated failure to do so, and then the later payoff with the little girl saying the same thing like 3 times. The casting of Charisma Carpenter as the boy's mother was inspired - the husband and I chuckled that the son's name was Xander. Oh, and Mr. Investigative Reporter having to instead cover the birth of the baby hippo was probably funnier to me than most people.


"Kitchen Nightmares" - I think all of the restaurant owners/managers are vying for "most pigheaded restaurant person of the year". What amazes me is that this is the second person who has run a restaurant and admitted that they didn't care about the quality of the food. In the first case, the person just cared that the food was sent out. In this case, he just cared that it was "unique". Nothing about the quality. Umm, ok, great "concept" for operating a restaurant.

We couldn't figure out the whole "this restaurant will probably close down in 6 months" thought, followed by "we can franchise!" Yeah, franchise serving frozen food? Blech.

And I couldn't believe that the sign for the restaurant was advertising the wood-burning pizza ovens - that they weren't even using! What, you figure having them as decoration was enough?

Apparently, the makeover didn't last - Sebastian apparently went back to his "20 flavors combination" utterly confusing menu. Here's the link to the menu. I'm mildly curious, but I don't think I'm curious enough to actually go and try it.


"Survivor" - Tonight was a fun episode. The constant flipping by Todd was interesting, but it did make sense, even though Amanda was confused by it. Who would have thought that Courtney would *ever* have been able to win a challenge? She must weigh like 4 pounds. I don't think there's ever been anyone skinnier than her on a Survivor. When Jeff put the immunity necklace around her, it was bigger than her and probably heavier than her. The husband and I applauded loudly when Jean-Robert was kicked off. The look on Todd's face as he was trying not to bust out laughing was priceless. It was also fun to watch P.G.'s face as she began to realize that she wasn't being kicked off that night. Jean-Robert was still delusional though. In his farewell speech, he talked about him being the biggest threat. No, dude, they really didn't like you and only kept you around because they needed the numbers. And what was with being a poker player and being used to using strategy and stuff and then just being a big lumbering oaf who just kept threatening people?

But you know something happened to Denise. First, she wasn't picked by either side for the reward challenge. And then she was the only one who voted for P.G. because "her tribe" didn't tell her what they were doing. You could see how mad she was. It'll be interesting to see how alliances might change next week.

television round-up - "Desperate Housewives", "Heroes", "Law and Order", "Survivor" and "The Big Bang Theory"

"Desperate Housewives" - This show has some of the most clever arcs and bookends that I've seen. There is often some kind of theme that is presented in the opening narration and then revisited in the closing narration, with the action in between highlighting that particular theme.

The previous week's episode was about pests. It started with how pests of the bug and rodent kind are what drove Bob and Lee to Wisteria Lane, only to encounter a "pest" in the form of Susan. Teri Hatcher is terrific in her role of the well-meaning but poor-execution neighbor. I know, I'll save their dog - right after I hold it hostage in the garage without knowing there's open yellow paint in there. And of course, she has no idea how utterly ridiculous she sounds in explaining that she knows all about gay people because she watches a lot of cable.

And then we saw the return of Bree's former mother-in-law, who is trying to buy her way into her grandchildren's good graces while simultaneously trying to circumvent their mother. I'm not finding her antics nearly as funny as I might have a year or two ago. I lurk on a board where there's a lot of discussion about problematic relations with various family members, especially mother-in-laws, and the kinds of things that Phyllis was saying and doing were textbook of the kinds of attitudes, tricks and passive-aggressive moves that the people on that board talk about all the time, so rather than finding that kind of stuff amusing, I find myself getting irritated and mad on behalf of the people on that board, and I'm hoping that Bree can see right through it. I loved the ending, though, that while some pests can be a nuisance, others are downright dangerous, as Phyllis has just showed up at the convent where pregnant granddaughter Danielle has been stashed.

This week's episode had a lot of interesting developments and some really great moments. One of the things I really like about this show is how some of the relationships are portrayed, and how they really involve realistic situations that people deal with fairly sensibly but not always perfectly. I love the friendships that have been built among the four women (I don't think Edie counts) and how they support each other, and yet, each is (or at least was, since Lynette's secret about her cancer is out) still keeping a secret from the others for various reasons. I love the dilemma that Susan was caught in between doing what's best for her and Mike (voting for Katherine, who has vowed to get rid of Bob and Lee's art sculpture fountain, for Homeowners' Association president - and had they previously said that Wisteria Lane had an HOA, because I don't recall hearing anything about that before) or voting for her very good friend Lynette. In the end, she votes for Katherine, and Lynette gives her a hard time about it, but Susan calls her on making her choose between her friend's children and her own husband. Lynette finally realizes how unfair that actually is, but she also explains what the treehouse means to her kids, which melts our hearts along with Susan's. I also liked in previous episodes when Lynette was going to her chemo appointments and she couldn't figure out why good friend Gabrielle wouldn't go with her - until Gabrielle admits what it was like watching her father die and not being able to show any emotion about it, and how difficult it is seeing Lynette in a similar position and not knowing if she can survive not showing any emotion about that. My favorite scene of the friendships, though, was from season one, I believe, when Lynette has just had it with her unruly kids that she has no idea how to handle, and she's sitting in a field/park against a tree, crying, where Susan and Bree find her. Lynette finally admits to how hard she's finding being a mother, and when Susan and Bree tell her they felt the same way, she's so relieved because she thought they were perfect parents who didn't feel any of that. They agree that you're not supposed to say how hard it is, but that as friends, it would help so much if they did. The other relationship I really like is that between Lynette and Tom. They have the most "real" marriage on the show, I think - it's not perfect, and they've certainly had their ups and downs, with Lynette's almost/kinda affair and Tom's out-of-nowhere daughter from a previous relationship, not to mention said daughter's psycho mother, and then there was the work tension when Tom worked for Lynette at the ad agency and then when Lynette worked for Tom at the pizza place. They had scenes last week with the trepidation that Tom felt trying to make love to Lynette after she took her wig off, revealing her bald head, and Lynette's attempt at role-playing by getting a new and different wig, which got out of hand, and then the realization that Tom's place with regard to her cancer had never been addressed. These are all situations where real issues are addressed and resolved realistically, and people learn to forgive each other. Hmmm, all of these situations involve Lynette - but then, I do think she is the most grounded of all of them. Maybe that's why Felicity Huffman won her Emmy - for portraying a real woman.

It's interesting to see the change in Bree, especially with regard to her children. She was the one with the perfect home - but she was completely oblivious to the fact that her husband was having an affair and that her children had turned out to be monsters, much due to her own behaviour. It was refreshing to hear her admit that she knew she'd done a horrible job with Andrew and Danielle and that she was hoping to get a second chance by raising Danielle's baby. This week, it was fun to watch her and Orson trick Danielle into doing what they want (thanks to Andrew's advice), but at the end, when Bree softened a bit towards Phyllis and offered to perhaps let her babysit on a weekend, part of me screamed "no" inside, that she was just giving Phyllis the opportunity to wreak more havoc. Yep, I think I've been conditioned.

I'm finding myself not that interested in the whole Gabrielle and Carlos thing or even the Gabrielle and Victor thing. And I'm not really sure the point of bringing back John this week - maybe just to show Carlos the parallels? But I still don't understand why John is trapped. Yeah, there's a baby on the way, so he would still need to do what he needs to do about that, but why stay with a shrew of a wife who thinks she did you a favor by letting you "marry up"?

However, I *loved* last week's bit at Bree's baby shower when the server brought a tray of food around and offered it to various people. We watched along with Edie as the waiter offered crab cakes to Carlos, then Gabrielle, then Victor - and Edie made the connection that the familiar smell she couldn't identify on Victor was the smell of the genital crab medication that she herself had to use, and the travelling crab cakes showed her exactly how Victor had gotten the same affliction. Bravo for that bit of writing. This week, Carlos tells Gabrielle he's going to break it off with Edie, but I thought he was stuck because of the off-shore account. I guess we'll see if that accountant he hired can actually do anything.

And I'll say it again - I am absolutely loving Dana Delaney on the show. As much as I love Alfre Woodard, I never felt her character went anywhere, whereas Dana's Katherine has hit the ground running. She provided a great foil to Bree in the Homemaker of the Year running, especially with the pie competition. This week, she was a great adversary to Lynnette in the HOA presidential election. And she's got that smile down pat - that smile that both says everything's fine and I'm trying not to scream or kill you. We've been learning little by little about her, but I'm dying to know what happened in that room involving Dillon's father and what Katherine's aunt's part was in it. Not to mention why Dillion doesn't remember anything about being on Wisteria Lane. And then there's the whole matter of Chicago. I loved when Bob and Lee said they knew all about it and basically used it as a blackmailing point. I'm still interested enough in the suspense not to mind it, but I'm hoping they reveal bits and pieces at a time, because I need some kind of payoff, even little ones.

Oh, and I loved the comments from one of the older neighbors about Bob and Lee, so that not everyone on Wisteria Lane was 100% accepting of the gay couple that had moved into the neighborhood. But seriously, that art thing was awful. It didn't fit in at all. Ugly, out-of-place and obnoxiously loud to boot.


"Heroes" - I loved season one, and I'd been liking season two, but this past week is the first time I've been kind of bored and consciously waiting for the episode to be over. I hope they're not falling into the same trap that "Lost" fell into in their second season. Season one of this show culminated in bringing them all together, but season two has seemingly scattered them to the four winds. Hiro has been banished not just to another place but another time, and he's now with completely different people - the gaijin hero Takezo and Yaeko, the woman they're both fighting for. I've enjoyed the Cyrano story to some degree, but I also hate that since Hiro's father died, Ando is reduced to doing nothing but reading restored scrolls. Meanwhile, Peter is in the same time, but on a different continent and unaware of who he is, also now with completely different people, including his new Irish girlfriend. Claire and her father are also in a totally different place, with totally different people, including Claire's new I-can-fly boyfriend and cheerleader group at school. Mohinder is now undercover at the company, but with the problem with Molly, you're sometimes not sure where he stands. There's the new head of the company. There's the twins with the power of life and death. There's the girl in New Orleans who immediately learns everything she sees. (Oh, by the way, when she and cousin Micah revealed to each other that they had powers and wondered where they came from, especially since Micah said his mother and father both had powers, I was yelling that they needed to ask Uhura what the heck was going on, cause you gotta figure that she knows.) There's newbie I'm-made-of-electricity girl who works for the company who is tracking down Peter. Horned-rim-guy, Claire's dad, is traipsing off to other parts of the world with the Haitian trying to track down the lost/missing paintings. There's Matt's dad, who is not the Daddy-dearest he initially posited himself to be. There's the picture of the original group of "superheroes". And there's that mysterious sign. And we have been given zero hint as to what happened to Peter and Nathan and Sylar from the end of last season and how Peter and Sylar ended up who and how they are at the beginning of this season.

One of the biggest mistakes that the "Lost" people did was bringing on the Tailies and completely abandoning the original cast in the process. "Heroes" isn't quite doing that, but it keeps adding more and more players and opening more and more questions, and unlike last year, they so far have provided zero answers. Having continuous smaller payoffs worked really well. Here's hoping they haven't forgotten how to do that.


"Law and Order: SVU" - The episode about the doctor who created/instituted "benign" torture methods for prisoners was ok, but it was one of those that was entirely too political for my taste. It did touch on the hippocratic oath aspect of the story, but I thought there was entirely too much about the war. I have my own opinions about the use of torture for certain purposes, which I won't go into too much here. Basically, I don't object to torture when it's used in the right situations. The dilemma comes in knowing when the right situations are.


"Survivor"

last week's episode - I liked Sherea sometimes, but she got too cocky. Her farewell speech was a bit weird. Delusional much?

I'm really surprised that in the immunity challenge, the thousand-year-old egg was considered worse than the balut, at least based on that it came after. The chicken hearts would have been easy to eat because I love them anyway, but I'm not sure I could have eaten them fast enough. I might have been able to eat the small turtles - depends on the texture of the first one I tried to eat. I didn't realize they were that small until one of them was popping them in her mouth. With how terrified I am of snakes, I don't think I could have picked up, let alone eaten, the eel, especially since their heads were still on them. I would have absolutely refused to even attempt to eat the balut. (I couldn't even watch most of that segment.) I didn't think they usually came with actual feathers. And I love thousand-year-old egg. I think it's usually made from a duck egg. I love it in porridge.

this week's episode - It took almost a year for the payoff since when Yao-Man created the fake idol last time, no one found it and tried to use it, but this time, it was too funny watching Jamie present the piece of wood as an immunity idol to Jeff. It was great watching Todd and James trying to control their laughter. And how funny was it that Jeff threw it into the fire! You know that when Jamie said on camera that she wasn't as dumb as they think she is, that she was doomed. I loved that the immunity challenge was done at the camp itself, with Jeff coming to them. I don't think they've ever done that before. Maybe they figured that they'd all be too drunk from the wine to go anywhere. And since the challenge was just about answering questions anyway, it wasn't a problem doing it there.

I was laughing really hard when Todd was calling Courtney a bitch. Yep, both she and Jean-Robert need to go soon. They can spend all kinds of time together when they're sequestered on the jury.


"The Big Bang Theory"

last week's episode - I can't tell you how much the episode made me laugh. Some of the writing on the show is absolutely brilliant. Clever and quick. However, I was completely distracted by the fact that when we visited where Penny works, that is so *not* The Cheesecake Factory. I could swear the show was supposed to be set in Los Angeles, and then they also talked about Bob's Big Boy. The Cheesecake Factory is so not a little sandwich place. That seriously bothered me, and it changed my perception of Penny a little since The Cheesecake Factory is a much more upscale place, so her working there is different than where we saw her working. Why didn't they just come up with a random fake restaurant name? But there were so many great moments: Leslie's line of "come for the breasts, stay for the brains" in response to Penny's comment about her being a woman in that field, Mr. Spock beatboxing, Leslie's comments to Leonard about her real reason for staying after to practice, Leonard completely fumbling with his instrument, what Penny and Sheldon overhear Leslie saying from behind the closed door (BTW, why did Leonard still have his shirt on the next morning?), the flash-frozen banana that Leslie makes to break and put in her cereal (but seriously, she can't possible eat that - the banana bits would still be rock hard), Sheldon's line about Souplantation - "you can't grow soup". But my absolutely favorite bit is when Leonard is questioning what Penny meant by he and Leslie making a cute couple, and Sheldon's retort is about Leonard and Leslie manufacturing a couple - "Mr. and Mrs. Goldfarb - aren't they adorable?" We laughed so hard at that line that we had to rewind, partly so we could hear it again and partly because we missed what came after.

The stairs bug me though. I think I've figured out that they live on the fourth floor, and I get that the broken elevator is really a device so they can have a conversation as they're climbing the stairs, but watching them walk in the same redressed set as their conversation continues is just bugging me.

Oh, and we figured out that the end card blog is a two-card thing. "Two and a Half Men" has new cards as well.

this week's episode - I didn't find this one nearly as funny as last week's but it was still fun to watch. How many shows get to work in the Doppler Effect as an integral part of their storyline? I loved the bit about them all dressed as The Flash. Sheldon's comments about a costume parade and contest were just too funny. And Leonard's interaction and intellectual put-down's of Penny's ex-boyfriend were just a riot. Poor Leonard, though. Penny kisses him, but he has to be the good guy and tell her that she's probably doing it because she's mad at her ex and because she's been drinking. She tells him how smart he is. "Yeah, I'm a frickin' genius," he sarcastically replies. You feel for him, wanting to take advantage of her, but he just can't do it. It's funny that Sheldon is the overly-geeky one, but Leonard is almost in denial about his geekiness some of the time, especially when it comes to Penny.

"Desperate Housewives" and "Heroes"

"Desperate Housewives" - A good start to the new season. Bree with the whole baby thing was pretty funny. You knew something was going to happen. The bbq fork was pretty intense. Interesting to have her admit that she knows what kind of kids she's raised (at least in her daughter). Kudos to Felicity Huffman for having almost no makeup on to show the effects of the chemo on Lynette. The look on the faces of the other women when they saw her bald was priceless. I'm not all that invested in the story of Gabrielle and her rich husband, nor do I care all that much about her and Carlos, or Carlos and Edie for that matter, but psycho-Edie who won't let Carlos go and almost killed herself in her ploy is kinda interesting. Susan's complete insecurity made me laugh every time she told Mike "we're doomed". I loved Dana Delaney and look forward to seeing more of her. The last scene in the show made me literally scream at the TV because I want to know more. What happened in that attic? Why did they have no choice but to move back? What's with the daughter not remembering anything or it not even being the same girl? (At first, I thought it was some kind of Stepford thing. But then, all of Wisteria Lane has a kind of "Tales from the Dark Side" version of Stepford feel to it.) And why did they leave in the middle of the night? Oh, and I really like Julie.

"Heroes" - I enjoyed tonight's episode. Between the Japanese, Spanish and French, I think more of the show was subtitled than not! Still tickles me about that. Interesting about the twins - one kills and one heals. Wonder twin powers activate, my word. At the end of last season, I wasn't happy about where Hiro ended up, but I'm rather liking the story, and the Cyrano-esque tale is kinda interesting too. But I couldn't figure out if Hiro healed the gaijin or if the gaijin healed himself. And I think it's getting into one of those weird time-travel paradoxes where Hiro really was the Japanese hero that he learned about when he was a child. Oh, and I forgot to mention - I love seeing Stephen Tobolowsky. He's been in a bunch of stuff, but he's most memorable for me from "Sneakers". "Passport"!

TV shows - roundup

"Law and Order: SVU" - This is my favorite of the "Law and Order" franchise. Now that "Criminal Intent" has been moved to cable, I won't be able to watch it, being cably-challenged and all, except that I think I did hear that second-run episodes would be shown on NBC sometime, so maybe I'll catch it then. I'm looking forward with some trepidation to the beginning of "Law and Order" given Sam Waterston's character's job promotion and the departure of Fred Dalton Thompson as he pursues the (real) presidency. I thought the episode was ok, with a script obviously designed to showcase a tour-de-force performance by the guest star (in this case, Cynthia Nixon). The whole thing with the sargeant seemed really odd. OK, so he's gone for like 15 minutes and then he's back on the job. Ummm, ok, so who did he have pictures of?

"Heroes" - I thought it was a good start to the much-anticipated second season. I hope they don't fall into the same pitfall that "Lost" fell into in their sophomore year, though the "Heroes" writers have figured out that small payoffs are necessary instead of just generating more and more questions and never giving any answers. I liked the introduction of the two new characters, especially that there wasn't a whole onslaught of new characters, except that with the combo of them and Ando and Hiro, it means I actually have to keep my eyes glued to the TV to read the subtitles. "Lost" was a huge part of this as well, with Jin and Sun, but who knew that hugely successful primetime shows could sustain forcing its viewers to read subtitles when so many people seem resistant to reading subtitles when going to the movies? I laughed when Hiro's hero turned out to be a white dude - and yes, I happen to know what "gaijin" means. With so many characters, I'm ok with them not having talked about all of them in the first episode. From the previews, we're going to see more familiar faces in the second episode. Looking forward to seeing what the deal is with Peter, but poor Mr. Sulu. Sayonara.

"Dirty Sexy Money" - I had heard that this was almost a throwback to the days of "Dallas" and "Dynasty", and being huge fans of those shows, I decided to give this one a try. To me, the writers just tried entirely too hard - and it showed and almost reeked of desperation. It was so over-the-top, even for a soap opera, but with none of the camp of "Dallas" or "Dynasty" and really none of the sincerity of a real daytime soap opera. I was almost out before the first half-hour was up, but then came the spectacular scene with Donald Sutherland that had me glued to the screen. Donald is not only the best part of the show, but he's really wonderful, and he was really the only reason I even watched the entire episode. However, the appeal of watching Donald week after week isn't enough to get me through the rest of the show. This is the show that has one character who is a raving asshole priest who has an illegitimate child on the side that his wife and kids don't know about and that his mistress has just dropped on his doorstep and another character (brother to the priest character) who is a married would-be Senatorial candidate who is having a torrid affair with a transsexual. Trying entirely too hard.

"Journeyman" - I only gave this show a chance because it was on after "Heroes" and the husband was going to try it out. I was able to last 20 minutes into the show before I was out. It had the initial appeal of "Quantum Leap" to me, but I really disliked not knowing why this stuff was happening to him, and after a while, I didn't care about him or what he was doing. I heard the rest of the show from the other room because the husband was still watching it, but it still didn't keep my attention enough to keep watching it.