Jericho - One if by Land - CBS - 8/7c

Tonight, the escalating civil war between Jericho and New Bern heats up, as citizens of New Bern are shot while trying to steal salt from Jericho’s mine.  If you’re not watching the show, that probably doesn’t sound very compelling, but Jericho does a tremendous job of racketing up the tension every week as we build to a big finale.

American Idol - Results Show - FOX - 8/7c

I talked about Idol at length this morning, so I’ll just say that tonight is bringing some huge names to the show.  Tune into the two hour results show with special appearances by Bono, Celine Dion, Pink, Gwen Stefani, Josh Groban and the African Children’s Choir, Annie Lennox, Il Divo, Hugh Grant, Helen Mirren, Rascal Flatts and Keira Knightley.

Lost - D.O.C. - ABC - 10/9c

After discovering that all of “The Others’” pregnant women died before giving birth on the island, an extremely reticent sun allows Juliet to examine her — and uncovers the identity of the unborn child’s father. Meanwhile, Desmond allows an unlikely nemesis to help save the life of a new, mysterious island inhabitant.

What I imagine will be the big spoiler hit the internets yesterday.  While Spoilerfix said that it would be appearing on next week’s episode, TVGuide’s Ausiello, eOnline’s Kristin, and Entertainment Weekly’s Doc Jensen all hint at it being tonight.  Be sure to check back here tomorrow for our recap and some discussion about what this twist could mean for our Losties.

I don’t make a personal habit of watching The View.  I know, that’s probably hard to believe.  But it’s been kind of hard to miss the obvious attention-grabbing that Rosie’s been doing over there.  Between her 9/11 conspiracy theories to her feud with Donald Trump, she’s done a great job of what I’m sure she was hired for…to make headlines.

It’s reported today that Rosie will be leaving the ABC estrogen-filled talk show, citing “a lack of agreement on contractual issues”.

What a travesty.

I’ll start by saying this…did anyone else seem to get the impression that Simon really just hates the U.S.?  During his visit to ’America’s Second Harvest’, at least six times he said something to the effect of, “I can’t believe that they have something like this in America.” I know that we Yanks have gotten somewhat of a bad rap, but is it really that inconceivable that we would have a food pantry to feed the poor…even in…*gasp*…Los Angeles?!?

On to the performances… 

• This was the first night that I felt that Chris didn’t have the strongest male showing.  Ever since the ‘nasally’ deal last week, his voice just seems to grate on me like it never really did before.
• What can we say about Melinda that hasn’t been said already?  She totally blew away one of my favorite Faith Hill songs, ‘There Will Come A Day’.  She’s in a totally different competition from everybody else in this show.
• Blake will be in the bottom two after tonight.  I think he was kind of hindered by being boxed into the ‘inspirational’ genre…he shines on the upbeat, Jason Mraz type stuff.
• LaKisha has a voice that is tough to beat, but I just feel like there’s something about her attitude that keeps her from really connecting with the audience.  Maybe it’s just me.  Anyway, I feel like she had the weakest performance of the night, and is in danger of going home.
• Man, they were singing some of my favorites tonight.  Phil comes out and does a tremendous rendition of Garth Brooks’ “The Change”.  I’ve had him pegged to go home for a while, but he doesn’t belong in the bottom two after this performance.
• The very first moment I saw Jordin, even before she started singing at the tryout, I turned to my wife and said, “She’s the next American Idol.”  Now that belief may have waivered in the past, especially since Melinda has consistently been so good, but Jordin just continues to impress.  I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to sing when you’re getting choked up, but it’s quite difficult.  Not only did Jordin keep singing, she nailed those big notes.  I voted for her 60 times last night.  That’s the first time I’ve ever done that…I don’t remember if there’s a limit that they place on votes, but they never turned away my call.

The competition is definitely getting fierce on Idol. 

I wish there was something on Tuesday nights that just got me really excited, but unfortunately there’s not.   With the departure of Sanjaya (who was as awkward on Letterman last night as he was on AI), I seem to have lost a lot of my desire to watch Idol. 

American Idol - Idol Gives Back - FOX - 8/7c

They’re doing “songs of compassion and hope” tonight as they begin their ‘Idol Gives Back’, where a donation will be made for vote cast that will help “young people in need”.  Read more about it here.

Dancing With The Stars - Results Show - ABC - 9/8c

I’m feeling like it’ll be Ratzenberger and Billy Ray in the bottom two tonight, with Cliff going home tonight and Billy Ray next week.

The producers of Lost have said repeatedly that there will be a big twist this season that will make us completely rethink what we know about our castaways.  Spoilerfix posted a spoiler today that I think is the big twist.  I’ll put it in after the break, along with some discussion.  Read the rest of this entry »

I have a real problem with letting my expectations grow so high that they are eventually unattainable.  The past seven weeks served to fuel that fire tremendously, and I thought that, once again, I would be let down.  Fortunately, I was wrong.

Now, I wouldn’t say that .07% was the best episode of Heroes, but it was definitely a worthy return.  The cooperative escape with Bennet, Parkman, and Ted was a high point.  Watching the bomb man discover a new aspect of his power was really interesting, and an idea that I hadn’t thought about before.  I wonder what other aspects of their respective powers our heroes will discover.

The Peter/Sylar showdown reminded me of the Gandalf/Saruman showdown in Lord of the Rings, especially when Peter threw Sylar across the room.  Sylar gloating about having to try out the invisible trick before sending the shards of glass into Peter’s skull made me laugh evilly.  Man, I hate to love and love to hate Sylar.

The entire Linderman/Petrelli exchange was fantastic, too.  I can’t quite get a feel for what Nathan’s motives will be in the future.  We saw at the end of the episode a newspaper clipping from the future that said that he was a help during the dark times…so will he just use the bombs as an excuse to draw more political power, yet still come across as a ‘warm’ leader?  We’ll find out more about that next week.

So, has Candace developed her power to the point where everything around her doesn’t shake like crazy when she changes, or is the show making that change?  I noticed in the “previously on…” part last night, when they showed her shifting in the bathroom from Parasite, she was the only thing that changed, while I specifically remember everything shaking like crazy when she changed in that scene.  Anyway, I’m not sure that I’m crazy about someone having that kind of power in the show, since it always adds that sense of paranoia that the person that’s on screen is not really said person.  But I guess that’s the point.

Poor, poor Isaac.  Dude was pinned down by his own brushes, the very thing that had allowed him to express his power.  I’m sure there’s symoblism there somewhere.  I loved how the moments of his death were intercut with the paintings depicting that very event.  I will truly miss seeing new additions to Isaac’s art portfolio, since I love that style.  But Sylar’s nightmare versions of the paintings was an extremely cool twist.

The only thing I didn’t care for was the way Linderman’s power was handled.  With the release of that information more than a week old for us, I was really expecting to see more done with it than just the healing of a (conveniently) dead flower.  I would have loved to have seen Nathan refusing to join Linderman, then, when he finds Peter is dead, he takes him to Linderman and tells him he will go along with the plan if he will heal his brother.  Kind of the Palpatine/Anakin relationship, I guess.  But maybe something like that is still down the road.

So, great episode.  No ‘Company Man’, but definitely a worthy return.  I can’t wait for next week, though.  It has potential to go straight to the top of everyone’s favorite list.

If you are completely averse to spoilers, you might think twice about reading this.  It deals with some points that we should be learning more about next week.

We open in a devastated New York, five years in the future.  Hiro is battling what appears to be police officers, and his internal dialogue tells us that he is trying to save one of his own.  Having finally gotten rid of them, he tells the girl he was defending, ‘Sparrow’, that the curfew is on and she needs to get off of the streets.  This jives with rumors we’ve heard that in the future, our heroes are hunted, specifically, after the blast. 

Hiro returns to his hideout, which is Isaac’s old apartment.  He has to change what happened.  We come to find out that, after having five years to manipulate time, he has come to understand it.  He has found that time is not a straight line, but rather the interconnection of multiple lines, hence, the strings last night in future Isaac’s apartment, and the name, String Theory. 

We begin to get an idea of what happened when the bomb went off.  Sylar was the bomb, and Hiro tried to stab him, but he still detonated.  Sylar was able to regenerate, though, because he had killed Claire and stolen her healing power.  Hiro makes his decision that, if he can keep Claire from being killed, he can stop the bomb.  So he travels back…meets Peter…thus, “Save the cheerleader, save the world.”

Upon returning from the past, he finds that New York has still been ravaged by the bomb.  Confused, he returns to his apartment, and meets his past self in the final scene of last night’s episode.

These issues have been getting better and better, I think, and this one definitely continues the trend.  We get some good flashbackiness and some good setup for next week’s episode, also called String Theory.

Dancing With The Stars - ABC - 8/7c 

Clive had no place in this competition.  While the ones that have been voted off so far had no shot at winning, Clive has just been…well…terrible.  I would expect Ratzenberger to be done after tonight. 

Drive - No Turning Back - FOX - 8/7c

Drive is turning into something that I think I might be able to really enjoy.  The time we spent with Nathan Fillion’s Alex Tully in the ‘interrogation room’ last week was easily the high point.  Tonight, we should finally start to get some answers, hopefully, from the drive-in theater.

24 - Day 6: 12:00 AM - 1:00 AM - FOX - 9/8c

FOX says:

Developments involving Jack Bauer and Agent Mike Doyle have CTU operatives and analysts scrambling to gain control of an intense situation. Vice President Daniels prepares to address the country while presidential advisor Tom Lennox participates in a personnel decision that will shake things up.

Expect to see Reed Pollock (Chad Lowe), who Lennox managed to get arrested several weeks ago, back tonight.  He’s got some information that could definitely shake things up around the Palmer/Daniels administration.

The Real Wedding Crashers - Derek & Johnni - NBC - 10/9c

The premise seems simple enough…various couples’ big days are “ruined” by some amusing calamities.  In one preview, a leafblower walks right through the ceremony…in another, the preacher answers a cell phone call mid-nuptials.  I think it has potential to be somewhat amusing, and it has a great lead-in from Heroes.  Of course, Studio 60 and Black Donnelly’s had that, too, and it didn’t do much for ‘em. 

Heroes - .07% - NBC - 9/8c

So this Heroes show is coming back on tonight.  Kinda excited about that.  I rewatched Company Man and Parasite during the marathon on Saturday, and I’ve gotta say, the show gets better the second time through.  I can’t wait for the season to hit DVD so I can really sink my teeth into it.

The promos for the next few episodes really, really got me excited.  The Matrix-esque Peter was the thing that mainly stands out in my mind, though I don’t expect to see that one until next week, when we take a flash-forward to five years in the future.  Tonight, though, according to AICN, not just one, but two ‘characters we met in the very first episode meet violent deaths at Sylar’s hand’. 

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard or heard about the unbelievable voicemail that Alec Baldwin left for his 11 year old daughter (listen to it here). 

Hearing this and all the press that it’s been getting, it reminded me of a conversation I had with my parents a while back.  I knew that 30 Rock would be a show that they would enjoy, and I recommended that they should check it out.  They both quickly said that they would never watch it.  When I pressed them further, their answer was simple.  “Alec Baldwin.”  See, my parents are very much Republican, while Baldwin is about as red state as a person can be.  His many tirades against the Bush administration drove my parents, along with many others, I’m sure, to the point where they will not have anything to do with anything connected to him.  I’m sure that the recent voicemail tirade against his daughter will serve to further that gap.

So…when do an actor’s actions warrant a boycott?  At what point does the off-screen behavior of a performer bring us to the point where we can’t maintain the ‘temporary suspension of disbelief’ any longer?  I know that it will differ from person to person, but here’s my stance on it.

30 Rock is not ‘The Alec Baldwin Show’.  It’s a show with many talented individuals that Baldwin just happens to also be on.  Personally, I don’t think it’s fair to not give an entire show a chance simply because of one actor’s actions.  Now, if a talk-show host said some of the same things, you might have a case, since that person largely is the show.  Case in point, the Bush-bashing that the country group Dixie Chicks gave a couple of years ago.  (Don’t take this post as being political…these two events were just the first couple of things that popped into my mind.)  Their actions resulted in being banished by the majority of country radio.  This makes a little more sense, with the boycott affecting the ones that performed the offending action, rather than penalizing a large production for the actions of one small portion.

So there’s my rant for the day.  What do you think?

We’re just a few days away now from the much anticipiated return of the biggest new show of the season, Heroes.  If you’re like me, you might be a bit rusty on your facts about the show, so here’s a few things you need to keep in mind.

1. Where we left off…

Since it’s been a little while, let’s reestablish where all of our main characters were at the end of Parasite.  HRG had been captured by his former boss, Thompson, after he had told Candace, a shapeshifter masquerading as his wife, that The Company had to be stopped.  Claire had just made her way to New York to find her biological father, Nathan, but found her grandmother, the evil Mrs. Petrelli, instead.  Nathan, on the other hand, was with Mr. Linderman in Las Vegas, where he had just been told that, with Linderman’s help, Nathan would be in the White House in two years.  Hiro and Ando had just transported from Linderman’s vault, where Hiro had retrieved his Kensei sword, to a vision of the future, where he saw a demolished New York skyline (which also appeared to be under some sort of reconstruction).  Finally, Sylar, having escaped Mohinder, was about to go all human can-opener on Peter’s head (finally getting rid of Peter’s ridiculous hair, hopefully).

2.  Every prediction has come true…

Going all the way back to the beginning of the season, we’ve seen that every painting that Isaac has painted has come true, without fail.  And the predictions were not the kind that you can explain away as being metaphorical or symbolic…the exact thing portrayed in the painting is what occurs.  So what does that tell us about what’s coming up?  The only paintings that we haven’t seen happen are the exploding man, and the giant mushroom cloud over New York.  If the paintings are an absolute vision of the future, then we have to expect to see a mushroom cloud over New York, and more than likely before the end of the season.

On the reverse side of that argument though, we did technically see the explosion in Hiro’s first time travelling adventure.  But I would still expect to see an explosion again.

3.  Linderman and Petrelli are buddies…

…and we’re not just talking about Nathan and Linderman here, we’re talking Nathan’s daddy and Linderman.  Granted, we did already know this, somewhat.  During Parasite, we learned that Mr. Petrelli Sr. and Linderman were “good friends”, but we have since learned in the online graphic novels that they served together in Vietnam, where Petrelli was Linderman’s superior officer.  After Petrelli’s discharge and Linderman’s departure from the army, they struck up a cryptic deal, with Linderman saying that great sacrifices would have to be made.  Could it be that they were somehow behind whatever it was that has somehow created these abilities in seemingly random individuals?

4.  Everyone has powers…

…or so it would seem.  Linderman has the ability to heal others, as seen in the online novels.  This will be featured in the first few minutes of .07%, if reports are to be believed.  From everything I’ve seen, it seems that virtually every other character that we’ve encountered has a power of some sort, as well.  eOnline also reports that, even though she died in Parasite, Simone is set to return with powers of her own.  And even Hiro’s father displays some uncanny abilities.

5.  Don’t get too attached…

Everyone is expendable.  People will die.  Major characters will die…and die for good.  At least one will die on April 23…some reports say two.  Show creator Tim Kring had this to say:

The thing is, people knew fairly early on that they might not make it through the season…we’ve spoken about this idea, that on this show the story is king and everybody is in service of that story. It’s not a star vehicle.

As for .07%, here’s what spoilers point to:  Peter and Isaac will both die.  If you’ve seen the previews that NBC has been playing the heck out of, you’ve seen both of the quotes:  Mohinder telling Ms. Petrelli that Peter is dead (pictures of her mourning over his body were leaked earlier), and Isaac saying that he can die for something.  Now, the official descriptions for the next several episodes feature Peter prominently, but Isaac is nowhere to be seen.  So, expect Isaac to die on Monday night.

Heroes airs Monday night at 9/8c.

(photos from HeroSite and Heroes-Forum)