"I don't negotiate with terrorists."
Tonight we had the season premieres of House and the Unit -- which unfortunately meant that I couldn't get the premiere of Reaper, which I had also heard good things about. However, both these shows were consistently excellent last season and I really can't sacrifice either one for an untested new show.
Yesterday, when I went over Heroes and How I Met Your Mother, I feel like I didn't really give them a good review because I was going out of my way to avoid spoilers. So I'm going to be completely spoileriffic today, and just put them behind the cut. So....
Morrie, don't look at the whole post here! ,)
Yesterday, when I went over Heroes and How I Met Your Mother, I feel like I didn't really give them a good review because I was going out of my way to avoid spoilers. So I'm going to be completely spoileriffic today, and just put them behind the cut. So....
Morrie, don't look at the whole post here! ,)
House's premiere was simply excellent. Despite the fact that we no
longer have House's "ducklings," as the RPGnet parlance goes, we did
have considerably more Cuddy and Wilson, who I think are much more fun
characters to focus on than Chase, Cameron, and Foreman half the time.
The highlight, of course, was not the patient, it was Wilson's kidnapping of House's sweet guitar (it's the same one I use in Guitar Hero!). Or should I say, the ingenious kidnapping of House's guitar by a fiendish criminal mastermind who was definitely not Wilson. House's TiVo terrorism in response was most excellent as well. I'm curious if the use of the janitor at the beginning of the episode was a subtle nod to Scrubs, though.
The Unit is one of those shows I was interested in but I wasn't able to watch, since it conflicted with Veronica Mars and House. However, during the break in Veronica Mars last season, i managed to catch a bunch of episodes and I liked the characters and the action a great deal. I realize that the Delta Force operators are highly idealized -- educated, highly competent, honorable -- but it is still compelling television, and really, it's what I want to believe the people who are in charge of our military are like (see my previous article on Gen. Petraeus' testimony). On the other hand, the other thing I like about the show is that it shows that people like this are often forced to do things they don't agree with, and it also does not end up as a rah-rah, "everything about the military is great and heroic" piece of jingoism, as I think things like 24 have a tendency to be. If there's a show it comes closest to, it's probably the British Spooks (or MI-5).
Last season ended with a bit of a convoluted "evil government conspiracy" cliffhanger, and I wasn't quite sure if they were really going to keep the new season as grounded as I wanted it to be. Still, this episode, despite dwelling on that theme (and apparently setting the CIA up to be the big bad guys here), I think it came off as very good. Now, I'm late to the party, but has Col. Ryan's wife always been such a conniving little bitch? Because Jesus...she is as bad as Nathan and Peter's mom on Heroes. Anyway, the big secret turning out to be a dumping ground for dead bodies was a very unexpected twist for me, and I'm looking forward to the next episode to see how that plays out, and how Mack and Hector fare. I can't imagine Hector would roll on Jonas and the rest, but we'll have to see. All in all, a good episode and a good start to my first full season of watching The Unit.
The Unit is one of those shows I was interested in but I wasn't able to watch, since it conflicted with Veronica Mars and House. However, during the break in Veronica Mars last season, i managed to catch a bunch of episodes and I liked the characters and the action a great deal. I realize that the Delta Force operators are highly idealized -- educated, highly competent, honorable -- but it is still compelling television, and really, it's what I want to believe the people who are in charge of our military are like (see my previous article on Gen. Petraeus' testimony). On the other hand, the other thing I like about the show is that it shows that people like this are often forced to do things they don't agree with, and it also does not end up as a rah-rah, "everything about the military is great and heroic" piece of jingoism, as I think things like 24 have a tendency to be. If there's a show it comes closest to, it's probably the British Spooks (or MI-5).
Last season ended with a bit of a convoluted "evil government conspiracy" cliffhanger, and I wasn't quite sure if they were really going to keep the new season as grounded as I wanted it to be. Still, this episode, despite dwelling on that theme (and apparently setting the CIA up to be the big bad guys here), I think it came off as very good. Now, I'm late to the party, but has Col. Ryan's wife always been such a conniving little bitch? Because Jesus...she is as bad as Nathan and Peter's mom on Heroes. Anyway, the big secret turning out to be a dumping ground for dead bodies was a very unexpected twist for me, and I'm looking forward to the next episode to see how that plays out, and how Mack and Hector fare. I can't imagine Hector would roll on Jonas and the rest, but we'll have to see. All in all, a good episode and a good start to my first full season of watching The Unit.
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You didn't miss anything by not catching Reaper, at least not in my opinion. I tried to watch it last night and only got about 15 minutes in before deleting it and the "series recording" (Season Pass to those of you with real DVRs) from my DVR. It was crappy in terms of production values (I guess that should be expected from the CW), poorly written (the jokes were very junior high school, and not funny), and poorly acted (although Ray Wise as the devil is casting brilliance, the rest of the cast sucked). I decided I was just watching it because Kevin Smith directed the pilot and I have an affinity for Ray Wise (particularly in evil roles) from his Leyland Palmer days, but that wasn't enough to make me suffer through a boring, childish episode of a poorly-made new series. Maybe it got good after the second commercial break, but the beginning of it was so dumb I never made it that far. I'd say you made the right decision for your Tuesday night viewing.
That's disappointing I guess -- though comments from people on RPGnet said it gets better later in the episode. Still, I'm glad that I didn't miss the beginning of a new Firefly or something.