24
Status: Returning
Premiered: November 6, 2001
Last Aired: Still Airing
Show Categories:Action/Adventure, Drama
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 204 of 18,005
Series Games: Top 100 List!
(in order of appearance)
11) When Kim discovers her mother is pregnant during the 2pm hour, she first thinks the rape (which just happened a couple hours ago) caused it. Um, Kim, honey, it takes longer than a handful of hours for a pregnancy to show up on a test, dumbass.
12) After the safehouse is attacked, Kim and her mother escape but then are separated. Left to her own devices, Kim refuses to trust Tony when he can't transfer her call to either Jack or Nina. That's atypically smart of Kim, actually, but she's back to being a fucking moron with her next move. Does she go to a police station? Nope. What about a crowded mall with hundreds of witnesses? Nope. Hmmm, well surely Kim (a very hot girl afterall) has plenty of other undead friends from school, right? No? Really? Not a single friend she can turn to for shelter for a couple hours? Well, maybe she doesn't want to endanger them. Okay, then how about her douchebag exboyfriend Vincent? (Jack called him looking for Kim early in this season) Since they're broken up nobody will think of that.
Naw, fuck it, just go to THE MAN WHO JUST KIDNAPPED YOU A COUPLE HOUR AGO! That's my Li'l 'Tard!
13) Okay, fine. Kim's at Rick's house. Okay, fine, Rick's hostile douchey girlfriend isn't enough to convince Kim this is a bad idea. What is Kim gonna do next? I know! Let's look through Dan's books for Gaines' phone number! That's how Kim can find her mother! Wait a minute, what? You mean the Gaines who's dead and already in police custody at the morgue? What the fuck good is his phone number going to do you?
14) Kim finally figures out that it's a bad idea to hang out in this skanky house, but even after she does she has a really long tedious time consuming conversation with Rick that culminates in a kiss ... all of which is just long enough to waste the last remaining seconds before Dan's doucheier brother Frank shows up. Frank immediately demands that Kim stay in the house until Dan comes back. Dan's dead, so it's going to be a while.
15) Kim's repeated demands to tell the raving and dangerous Frank that his brother is dead is almost as retarded as her continued insistence that Rick is anything more than a complete and total fucking LOSER.
16) Kim wastes so much time trying to convince Rick to sneak out of the house with her, she wastes her last chance to get out before all hell breaks loose.
17) An hour later, Kim is at the police station with Rick, Frank, and Rick's psycho girlfriend. Question: How big of a fucking moron do you have to be to not be able to talk yourself out of jail when your father runs CTU and everyone at that office knows you AND is looking for you? Three calm minutes of conversation and ANY of us would be out of there. And yet Kim blows it.
18) Kim again defends Rick to his girlfriend (who is trashing him) in the jail cell. When the girlfriend rightly points out that Kim is defending a man who kidnapped her earlier that day, Kim sticks to her retarded guns.
19) Kim sticks her neck out for no reason to defend Rick's douche girlfriend who has given her nothing but grief. I don't care that it worked and got her out of jail, it was STILL fucking stupid!
20) Kim gets kidnapped AGAIN. I don't care that it wasn't her fault, she's still a fucking moron!
(To Be Continued)
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Day 6: Roswell
Roswell
Status: Ended
Premiered: October 6, 1999
Last Aired: May 14, 2002
Show Categories:Drama, Science-Fiction
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 641 of 18,011
Episode: Heat Wave
Season: 1
Aired: 12/1/1999
TV.com Episode Recap: A freak December heat wave hits the town and sparks romance as Michael's relationship with Maria heats up, and Liz's infatuation with Max intensifies. Meanwhile, Isabel enters one of Alex's dreams to learn if he'll reveal the truth.
Series Games: Hawt and STUPID
Do you know how rare it is to have all six of your main leads be this attractive? Whoever cast this show knew what the hell they were doing. Katherine Heigl of course needs no hype as she went out to bigger and hawter things (when she wasn't pissing off show runners by refusing Emmy nominations, that is). But Shiri Appleby is stone cold hawt as the girl next door and Majandra Delfino knocks the whole Willow Girl Next Door thing out of the fucking park. Consider also that this episode was BEFORE they got Emilie de Ravin, who is hawter than the sun.
The guys are just as hawt. Jason Behr has the clean cut hero down, Brendan Fehr works as the handsome bad boy rogue, and
Colin Hanks is the perfect attractive nerd who's supposed to be ugly.
It's a sexy cast, especially in this episode which takes place during a heat wave so everyone is wet and slick with sweat and just aching to throw down in bed.
There's only one slight problem. It doesn't matter how sexy someone is, sooner or later they HAVE to open their mouths and reveal just how fucking stupid they are. And, friends and neighbors, these six main characters are stupider than a gated trailer park community, a Jewish Santa Claus, and a vegetarian dog all rolled up in one. If brains were toilet paper, all six of them together couldn't wipe a flea's ass. The secret love child of Forest Gump and Nell thinks these people are fucking retarded.
WHAT I'M TRYING TO SAY IS THAT THESE PEOPLE ARE MORE STUPID THAN AN ARTIC BEACH REALTOR!
As proof, I'll close this out with a quote from Fehr's character, who is talking about his girlfriend. You heard me, his girlfriend! "It has gotten complicated. Suddenly, she wants to know where I'm going after school. She wants to have conversations. She wants to talk about my feelings. And now, she wants to go to a party together."
Status: Ended
Premiered: October 6, 1999
Last Aired: May 14, 2002
Show Categories:Drama, Science-Fiction
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 641 of 18,011
Episode: Heat Wave
Season: 1
Aired: 12/1/1999
TV.com Episode Recap: A freak December heat wave hits the town and sparks romance as Michael's relationship with Maria heats up, and Liz's infatuation with Max intensifies. Meanwhile, Isabel enters one of Alex's dreams to learn if he'll reveal the truth.
Series Games: Hawt and STUPID
Do you know how rare it is to have all six of your main leads be this attractive? Whoever cast this show knew what the hell they were doing. Katherine Heigl of course needs no hype as she went out to bigger and hawter things (when she wasn't pissing off show runners by refusing Emmy nominations, that is). But Shiri Appleby is stone cold hawt as the girl next door and Majandra Delfino knocks the whole Willow Girl Next Door thing out of the fucking park. Consider also that this episode was BEFORE they got Emilie de Ravin, who is hawter than the sun.
The guys are just as hawt. Jason Behr has the clean cut hero down, Brendan Fehr works as the handsome bad boy rogue, and
Colin Hanks is the perfect attractive nerd who's supposed to be ugly.
It's a sexy cast, especially in this episode which takes place during a heat wave so everyone is wet and slick with sweat and just aching to throw down in bed.
There's only one slight problem. It doesn't matter how sexy someone is, sooner or later they HAVE to open their mouths and reveal just how fucking stupid they are. And, friends and neighbors, these six main characters are stupider than a gated trailer park community, a Jewish Santa Claus, and a vegetarian dog all rolled up in one. If brains were toilet paper, all six of them together couldn't wipe a flea's ass. The secret love child of Forest Gump and Nell thinks these people are fucking retarded.
WHAT I'M TRYING TO SAY IS THAT THESE PEOPLE ARE MORE STUPID THAN AN ARTIC BEACH REALTOR!
As proof, I'll close this out with a quote from Fehr's character, who is talking about his girlfriend. You heard me, his girlfriend! "It has gotten complicated. Suddenly, she wants to know where I'm going after school. She wants to have conversations. She wants to talk about my feelings. And now, she wants to go to a party together."
Monday, March 9, 2009
Day 5: The Lone Gunmen
The Lone Gunmen
Status: Ended
Premiered: March 4, 2001
Last Aired: June 22, 2001
Show Categories:Action/Adventure, Drama
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 2,364 of 18,011
Episode: Planet of the Frohikes: A Short History of My Demeaning Captivity
Season: 1
Aired: 4/6/2001
TV.com Episode Recap: The Lone Gunmen receive an email from a monkey that has been subjected to secret government tests. The gunmen are shocked to find out that their contact is in fact a genetically altered, super monkey, who requires their help.
Series Games:The Moral Of The Story!
Back somewhere around 1979-81, there was a TV show about a chimp who wore a suit and could talk. That's all I really remember about it. I think he might have been a mayor or some other kind of politician, but who knows. Anyway, as part of the promotion for this hideous show, they had this phone number you could call to hear a message from him and hear one of his jokes. The Chimp had a lot of jokes (and a voice that sounded a little like Frank Welker doing Nibbler on Futurama). What I didn't realize was that it was 75 cents a call. And I burned that fucking phone line UP.
See, I was ten years old, and talking suit wearing chimps were funny to me. At ten years old. Around the time I was twelve that shit was OVER. Never again have talking suit wearing chimps been funny or remotely entertaining to me. As a matter of fact, I think it's safe to say that talking suit wearing chimps SUCK TONS OF ASS.
Especially on TV.
So this talking (through a computer) suit wearing chimp of an episode sucked tons of ass. It was really the only episode of this wonderful way too short TV series to be pretty much unwatchable. I suffered through it again for this blog, the first time I'd seen it since it aired, but boy did it SUCK. The humor was forced and way too chimp reliant. Even Jimmy was lame in this one.
So, while I ponder what in the HELL is TV and movies' fascination with apes and chimps, especially ones who act human or near human, I'll get to the moral:
"If you run up $75 calling a chimp phone line so you can giggle at his lame suit wearing chimp jokes, you're going to get that ass spanked and hate chimp TV for LIFE!"
Status: Ended
Premiered: March 4, 2001
Last Aired: June 22, 2001
Show Categories:Action/Adventure, Drama
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 2,364 of 18,011
Episode: Planet of the Frohikes: A Short History of My Demeaning Captivity
Season: 1
Aired: 4/6/2001
TV.com Episode Recap: The Lone Gunmen receive an email from a monkey that has been subjected to secret government tests. The gunmen are shocked to find out that their contact is in fact a genetically altered, super monkey, who requires their help.
Series Games:The Moral Of The Story!
Back somewhere around 1979-81, there was a TV show about a chimp who wore a suit and could talk. That's all I really remember about it. I think he might have been a mayor or some other kind of politician, but who knows. Anyway, as part of the promotion for this hideous show, they had this phone number you could call to hear a message from him and hear one of his jokes. The Chimp had a lot of jokes (and a voice that sounded a little like Frank Welker doing Nibbler on Futurama). What I didn't realize was that it was 75 cents a call. And I burned that fucking phone line UP.
See, I was ten years old, and talking suit wearing chimps were funny to me. At ten years old. Around the time I was twelve that shit was OVER. Never again have talking suit wearing chimps been funny or remotely entertaining to me. As a matter of fact, I think it's safe to say that talking suit wearing chimps SUCK TONS OF ASS.
Especially on TV.
So this talking (through a computer) suit wearing chimp of an episode sucked tons of ass. It was really the only episode of this wonderful way too short TV series to be pretty much unwatchable. I suffered through it again for this blog, the first time I'd seen it since it aired, but boy did it SUCK. The humor was forced and way too chimp reliant. Even Jimmy was lame in this one.
So, while I ponder what in the HELL is TV and movies' fascination with apes and chimps, especially ones who act human or near human, I'll get to the moral:
"If you run up $75 calling a chimp phone line so you can giggle at his lame suit wearing chimp jokes, you're going to get that ass spanked and hate chimp TV for LIFE!"
Day 4: Airwolf
Airwolf
Status: Ended
Premiered: January 22, 1984
Last Aired: August 7, 1987
Show Categories:Action/Adventure, Science-Fiction
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 2,309 of 18,006
Episode: Blackjack
Season: 4
Aired: 1/23/1987
TV.com Episode Recap: Dom is killed in a helicopter accident that also severely injures String. Dom's niece, Jo, inherits and takes charge of Santini Air. The Company sends Locke to regain possession of Airwolf, he recruits Major Mike Rivers ,an Air Force pilot to help him find and fly the craft. Together they rescue St. John from a jungle prison and he and Jo round out the new Airwolf team.
Series Games: The part will now be played by ...
Management Moron: The excellent action adventure series Airwolf has been cancelled!
Asskissing Lackey: D'oh! Well, okay, I'll clean out your desk, sir.
Management Moron: Not so fast, we've been picked up by some fly by night company! This means our budget has been slashed by 90% meaning we're going to have to deep six our entire cast and drag a $20 bill through a hobo camp to attract a new cast. And we're going to be shooting up in Canada before that become cool. And we'll be airing on all the loser stations that will later become FOX.
Asskissing Lackey: But sir! How can we have a show without any of the main cast?
Management Moron: Easy! We'll blow Dom up in a helicopter after only seeing him from behind! We'll ship Archangel overseas offscreen. So the only one we'll have to actually pay for one final episode is Stringfellow Hawke. WOO HOO!!
Asskissing Lackey: How are you going to write him out of the series?
Management Moron: We won't. He just ... won't be around anymore.
Asskissing Lackey: But sir! That's about as stupid an idea as ending a long running popular series with an abrupt black screen!
Management Moron: What a great idea for when I take over HBO later!
Asskissing Lackey: Well, at least we'll still have all that great arial dogfighting action!
Management Moron: Um, yeah, we're just going to be recycling all the seasons 1-3 footage. Even if it means specifically writing episodes so it matches the footage we want to use that week.
Asskissing Lackey: What the HELL? Who the fuck will put up with this? Why would anyone watch this shit?
Management Moron: Dude, it's 1987! There's only three channels! 33% of people HAVE to watch us! Heheheheheheheheh!
Asskissing Lackey: Good point! Let's do it! Heheheheheheheheh!
Fuckers!
Status: Ended
Premiered: January 22, 1984
Last Aired: August 7, 1987
Show Categories:Action/Adventure, Science-Fiction
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 2,309 of 18,006
Episode: Blackjack
Season: 4
Aired: 1/23/1987
TV.com Episode Recap: Dom is killed in a helicopter accident that also severely injures String. Dom's niece, Jo, inherits and takes charge of Santini Air. The Company sends Locke to regain possession of Airwolf, he recruits Major Mike Rivers ,an Air Force pilot to help him find and fly the craft. Together they rescue St. John from a jungle prison and he and Jo round out the new Airwolf team.
Series Games: The part will now be played by ...
Management Moron: The excellent action adventure series Airwolf has been cancelled!
Asskissing Lackey: D'oh! Well, okay, I'll clean out your desk, sir.
Management Moron: Not so fast, we've been picked up by some fly by night company! This means our budget has been slashed by 90% meaning we're going to have to deep six our entire cast and drag a $20 bill through a hobo camp to attract a new cast. And we're going to be shooting up in Canada before that become cool. And we'll be airing on all the loser stations that will later become FOX.
Asskissing Lackey: But sir! How can we have a show without any of the main cast?
Management Moron: Easy! We'll blow Dom up in a helicopter after only seeing him from behind! We'll ship Archangel overseas offscreen. So the only one we'll have to actually pay for one final episode is Stringfellow Hawke. WOO HOO!!
Asskissing Lackey: How are you going to write him out of the series?
Management Moron: We won't. He just ... won't be around anymore.
Asskissing Lackey: But sir! That's about as stupid an idea as ending a long running popular series with an abrupt black screen!
Management Moron: What a great idea for when I take over HBO later!
Asskissing Lackey: Well, at least we'll still have all that great arial dogfighting action!
Management Moron: Um, yeah, we're just going to be recycling all the seasons 1-3 footage. Even if it means specifically writing episodes so it matches the footage we want to use that week.
Asskissing Lackey: What the HELL? Who the fuck will put up with this? Why would anyone watch this shit?
Management Moron: Dude, it's 1987! There's only three channels! 33% of people HAVE to watch us! Heheheheheheheheh!
Asskissing Lackey: Good point! Let's do it! Heheheheheheheheh!
Fuckers!
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Day 3: Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
Status: Ended
Premiered: January 1, 1993
Last Aired: May 16, 1998
Show Categories:Drama
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 1,753 of 18,006
Episode: A Christmas Tale - Dr. Mike's Dream
Season: 2
Aired: 12/18/1993
Episode Recap: After wishing she could spend Christmas with her family instead of delivering a baby, Dr. Mike is visited by Charlotte Cooper who takes her on a journey to visit Christmases of the past, present and future. Dr. Mike realizes that she would never have come to Colorado Springs and would not have the children in her life if she had made different choices. In the present, Dr. Mike is trying to deliver the baby of a couple who married against their parents' wishes. As Dr. Mike attends the party in her dream with Charlotte, she hears the townspeople speak about her. Some still don't think she fits into their town, but others stick up for her. In the future, Dr. Mike sees that she and her children had promised to always be together on Christmas, and that they kept that promise over the years. She realizes that her life is exactly the way it should be.
Series Games: Good Things, Bad Things
Top 3 Bad Things
3) "A Christmas Carol" ripoff plots for TV series seasonal episodes ALWAYS suck, and this turd is NO exception.
2) It's always a bad idea to combine magical realism with family friendly horse operas and this crap is NO exception.
1) As emotionally exploitive as most pregnancy episodes are there HAVE been a good one or two in the history of television. Unfortunately, this deep fried cat vomit is NOT one of those exceptions.
Top 3 Good Things
3) It's not a cheesy clip show, at least!
2) Kim Bauer's retarded ass isn't in it! WOO HOO!!!
1) Because of all dream walks or whatever the hell they are, the horribly untalented Shawn Toovey has only a minor role in episode. YAY!
Status: Ended
Premiered: January 1, 1993
Last Aired: May 16, 1998
Show Categories:Drama
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 1,753 of 18,006
Episode: A Christmas Tale - Dr. Mike's Dream
Season: 2
Aired: 12/18/1993
Episode Recap: After wishing she could spend Christmas with her family instead of delivering a baby, Dr. Mike is visited by Charlotte Cooper who takes her on a journey to visit Christmases of the past, present and future. Dr. Mike realizes that she would never have come to Colorado Springs and would not have the children in her life if she had made different choices. In the present, Dr. Mike is trying to deliver the baby of a couple who married against their parents' wishes. As Dr. Mike attends the party in her dream with Charlotte, she hears the townspeople speak about her. Some still don't think she fits into their town, but others stick up for her. In the future, Dr. Mike sees that she and her children had promised to always be together on Christmas, and that they kept that promise over the years. She realizes that her life is exactly the way it should be.
Series Games: Good Things, Bad Things
Top 3 Bad Things
3) "A Christmas Carol" ripoff plots for TV series seasonal episodes ALWAYS suck, and this turd is NO exception.
2) It's always a bad idea to combine magical realism with family friendly horse operas and this crap is NO exception.
1) As emotionally exploitive as most pregnancy episodes are there HAVE been a good one or two in the history of television. Unfortunately, this deep fried cat vomit is NOT one of those exceptions.
Top 3 Good Things
3) It's not a cheesy clip show, at least!
2) Kim Bauer's retarded ass isn't in it! WOO HOO!!!
1) Because of all dream walks or whatever the hell they are, the horribly untalented Shawn Toovey has only a minor role in episode. YAY!
Friday, March 6, 2009
Day 2: Top 100 Reasons Kim Bauer Is A Fucking Moron (Part 1)
24
Status: Returning
Premiered: November 6, 2001
Last Aired: Still Airing
Show Categories:Action/Adventure, Drama
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 204 of 18,005
Series Games: Top 100 List!
(in order of appearance)
1) She decides to sneak out of the house despite the fact that her father runs a fucking covert ops government agency! Um, think he might find out?!?
2) She thinks "LIFESUCKS" is a clever password. Was "CLICHEPASSWORD" already taken?
3) Taste In Friends #1: Janet York. Or, as I like to call her, the 2001 Darwin Award winner. By no small coincidence, Janet was also the 2001 Dumb Assed Teenager first runnerup!
4) Taste In Men #1: Meet Rick, everybody! He looks like a shaved hamster, his balls are going to drop any year now, and he honestly believes nothing bad would come out of kidnapping two teenaged girls! Genius!
5) She sits meekly in the back of a van and allows two stoner losers who can't bust a grape kidnap her. What does it say about your mental capacity when you're stone cold sober and can't outwit high assed Beavis and Butthead?
6) Once she and Janet escape from TweedleStupid and TweedleMoron, she can't find one business crowded full of people to run into, can't flag one cab, and can't find one person with a cell phone in a city filled with 8 million people. Maybe because she wastes 35 minutes trying to talk ONE (1) of those eight million people into helping her instead of moving on to someone else.
7) Kim inevitably gets captured again. In the process, dumbassed Janet inevitably gets severely injured. Her kidnappers take Kim and leave Janet behind where she'll probably get taken to the hospital and not only get her injuries cared for but SHE'LL BE AWAY FROM THE KIDNAPPERS WHO HURT HER! So what does Kim demand of her kidnappers? "You have to go back and get Janet!" ... Um, I'm sorry ... but ... WHAT?
8) When is the first time Kim decides to start making some noise and being a pain in the ass of a kidnap victim? Only AFTER she's been passed off to the ruthless crime boss Gaines. Hyuck!
9) Kim finally turns Rick to her side and he helps her escape. They're at the fence. They dig a hole under it. THEY CAN LEAVE THE COMPOUND. But Kim hears her mother being brought in and refuses to leave. Um, Kim, what is being recaptured going to accomplished besides both of you dying? If Gaines only has one prisoner he can't kill them and keep leverage on Jack, so your Mom is okay until you get far enough away to get help and bring back the calvary. But, no, Kim turns back. Fucking moron.
10) After Jack rescues Kim and her mother, Kim spends half an episode fretting over Rick. Sure, he helped you, but HE ALSO KIDNAPPED YOU! Isn't Stockholm Syndrome supposed to take days or even weeks? You've been kidnapped for 12 hours, Kim!
(To Be Continued)
Status: Returning
Premiered: November 6, 2001
Last Aired: Still Airing
Show Categories:Action/Adventure, Drama
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 204 of 18,005
Series Games: Top 100 List!
(in order of appearance)
1) She decides to sneak out of the house despite the fact that her father runs a fucking covert ops government agency! Um, think he might find out?!?
2) She thinks "LIFESUCKS" is a clever password. Was "CLICHEPASSWORD" already taken?
3) Taste In Friends #1: Janet York. Or, as I like to call her, the 2001 Darwin Award winner. By no small coincidence, Janet was also the 2001 Dumb Assed Teenager first runnerup!
4) Taste In Men #1: Meet Rick, everybody! He looks like a shaved hamster, his balls are going to drop any year now, and he honestly believes nothing bad would come out of kidnapping two teenaged girls! Genius!
5) She sits meekly in the back of a van and allows two stoner losers who can't bust a grape kidnap her. What does it say about your mental capacity when you're stone cold sober and can't outwit high assed Beavis and Butthead?
6) Once she and Janet escape from TweedleStupid and TweedleMoron, she can't find one business crowded full of people to run into, can't flag one cab, and can't find one person with a cell phone in a city filled with 8 million people. Maybe because she wastes 35 minutes trying to talk ONE (1) of those eight million people into helping her instead of moving on to someone else.
7) Kim inevitably gets captured again. In the process, dumbassed Janet inevitably gets severely injured. Her kidnappers take Kim and leave Janet behind where she'll probably get taken to the hospital and not only get her injuries cared for but SHE'LL BE AWAY FROM THE KIDNAPPERS WHO HURT HER! So what does Kim demand of her kidnappers? "You have to go back and get Janet!" ... Um, I'm sorry ... but ... WHAT?
8) When is the first time Kim decides to start making some noise and being a pain in the ass of a kidnap victim? Only AFTER she's been passed off to the ruthless crime boss Gaines. Hyuck!
9) Kim finally turns Rick to her side and he helps her escape. They're at the fence. They dig a hole under it. THEY CAN LEAVE THE COMPOUND. But Kim hears her mother being brought in and refuses to leave. Um, Kim, what is being recaptured going to accomplished besides both of you dying? If Gaines only has one prisoner he can't kill them and keep leverage on Jack, so your Mom is okay until you get far enough away to get help and bring back the calvary. But, no, Kim turns back. Fucking moron.
10) After Jack rescues Kim and her mother, Kim spends half an episode fretting over Rick. Sure, he helped you, but HE ALSO KIDNAPPED YOU! Isn't Stockholm Syndrome supposed to take days or even weeks? You've been kidnapped for 12 hours, Kim!
(To Be Continued)
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Day 1: Stargate: Atlantis
Status: Ended
Premiered: July 16, 2004
Last Aired: January 9, 2009
Show Categories: Science Fiction, Action/Adventure
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 278 of 18,005
Episode: Inquisition
Season: 5
Aired: 10/24/2008
Episode Recap: When Sheppard and his team are brought to trial by a Coalition of human worlds for what they claim are crimes against the people of the galaxy, it's up to Woolsey's legal expertise to clear their names.
Episode Games: The Moral of The Story!
Hey, remember that time I started this blog by talking about The X-Files?
"But those dreams are shattered 90 seconds into the episode when darkness falls, Enya starts weeping, and ghosts fly out of the ground so they can stand in a circle and signal to us that yes, what we are about to receive is going to suck. And suck really really hard.
Roll opening credits, amen."
Yeah, that was great. Oh! And remember that time I talked about Once and Again?
"You know what I want for Christmas from my TV shows? Really really long discussions about how hard it is to make gingerbread houses from scratch. Hey everybody! Jump on my back and I'll fly you away to TVland where single mothers raising two kids, working full time, and dating a new boyfriend during the Christmas season have time to bake a fucking gingerbread house FROM SCRATCH! Mama Brady thinks that's off the chain."
Yeah man, that was really sweet! And remember that time I - ... what's that? What the hell am I doing? Oh, I'm doing a cheesy clip blog instead of a real blog entry. Which is exactly what this episode was! A cheesy fucking clip show! Or, as I like to call them: Fun With My Remote! Cuz that's what I do, fast forward though all the bs repeat stuff so I can enjoy such flashback causing dialogue as:
Dimas: Tell us about your first encounter with the Wraith.
Sheppard: Oh, okay, I see where this is going.
So do I! Straight into a flashback!
So what's the moral of this story? "There is dignity in suffering; nobility in pain; but a cheesy clip show is a salted wound, that burns and burns again!"
Premiered: July 16, 2004
Last Aired: January 9, 2009
Show Categories: Science Fiction, Action/Adventure
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 278 of 18,005
Episode: Inquisition
Season: 5
Aired: 10/24/2008
Episode Recap: When Sheppard and his team are brought to trial by a Coalition of human worlds for what they claim are crimes against the people of the galaxy, it's up to Woolsey's legal expertise to clear their names.
Episode Games: The Moral of The Story!
Hey, remember that time I started this blog by talking about The X-Files?
"But those dreams are shattered 90 seconds into the episode when darkness falls, Enya starts weeping, and ghosts fly out of the ground so they can stand in a circle and signal to us that yes, what we are about to receive is going to suck. And suck really really hard.
Roll opening credits, amen."
Yeah, that was great. Oh! And remember that time I talked about Once and Again?
"You know what I want for Christmas from my TV shows? Really really long discussions about how hard it is to make gingerbread houses from scratch. Hey everybody! Jump on my back and I'll fly you away to TVland where single mothers raising two kids, working full time, and dating a new boyfriend during the Christmas season have time to bake a fucking gingerbread house FROM SCRATCH! Mama Brady thinks that's off the chain."
Yeah man, that was really sweet! And remember that time I - ... what's that? What the hell am I doing? Oh, I'm doing a cheesy clip blog instead of a real blog entry. Which is exactly what this episode was! A cheesy fucking clip show! Or, as I like to call them: Fun With My Remote! Cuz that's what I do, fast forward though all the bs repeat stuff so I can enjoy such flashback causing dialogue as:
Dimas: Tell us about your first encounter with the Wraith.
Sheppard: Oh, okay, I see where this is going.
So do I! Straight into a flashback!
So what's the moral of this story? "There is dignity in suffering; nobility in pain; but a cheesy clip show is a salted wound, that burns and burns again!"
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Back with a format change!
I've been going through a family health crisis. It's still ongoing but I decided I was better off spending some time each day focusing on entertainment, something like this blog which gets me out of my own head. So I'm back at it.
The other issue I had was each episode post was getting longer and LONGER. Not only was it tedious for people to read but it was taking me more and more time each day to write. So I've decided to do what I call, "episode games." These are partly inspired an old message board friend of mine named Blinker and partly of my own creation. You'll see what the hell I'm talking about starting tomorrow! Heh.
The other issue I had was each episode post was getting longer and LONGER. Not only was it tedious for people to read but it was taking me more and more time each day to write. So I've decided to do what I call, "episode games." These are partly inspired an old message board friend of mine named Blinker and partly of my own creation. You'll see what the hell I'm talking about starting tomorrow! Heh.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Day 5: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Status: Ended
Premiered: September 28, 1987
Last Aired: May 29, 1994
Show Categories: Science Fiction, Action/Adventure
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 259 of 17,86
Episode: Skin Of Evil
Season: 1
Aired: 4/25/1988
Ah, Star Trek The Next Generation! Or, as I like to call it, the Star Trek with actual actors playing the roles instead of glistening hams. Or, as I also like to call it, Star Trek Before It REALLY Started To Suck.
Captain's Log, Stardate bunchanumbers. Picard's deep, sexy baritone informs us that we're traveling through the Ya Ya Sisterhood sector on our way to pick up Troi in a shuttle. Ah, the shuttlecraft. Or, as I like to call them, Star Trek's Plot Advancement Pixies! Need a couple crew members to get lost, abducted, raped by tree monsters, etc? Stick em in a shuttle and send them off with a pat on their soon to be abducted and raped asses.
Worf flirts with Tasha Yar. Apparently he saw the same nude photos of her that are (and have been for decades) currently hanging framed on my office wall. Mmmm, mmmmm, MMMMMM! Poor Tasha Yar, stuck with crappy guest star spot after crappy guest star spot after leaving this series to pursue her *snicker* movie career and leaving the rest of us to debate which crappy guest star spot was THE most embarrassing of all. Personally, I think it was her several episode run on Lois and Clark in which she played a cheesy Lex Luthor proxy. (we'll be getting to YOU, Lois and Clark, soon enough!) Though she did get nude again on Dexter and reveal that a WHOLE lot of her body had gone straight to hell in the intervening 25 years between nude sessions. Gadzonks!
AH! Riker without a beard! Noooooo! Get your ass to the holodeck this instant you 12 year old ass looking dude and get yourself decked out with a manly beard NOW! (shudders)
Troi's shuttle calls in. It's having equipment failure. Huh. Too bad we didn't see this coming, huh? Hyuck! This causes a very snippy conversation between Picard and whoever the hell is the Engineer before Jordi gets his promotion. I'd forgotten that Jordi wasn't always the Chief Engineer, but I can see now why he got the promotion.
The shuttle predictably crashes on the planet. Huh.
Cue the opening credits and the hideous change of the opening monologue from the original series. Greedo firing first thinks this is fucked up.
The Enterprise reaches the planet. Data can't find any life signs. Wolf beats his fists against the sensor control panels but can't get them to tell him anything more than the obvious fact that the shuttle is buried under a lot of debris Riker comes over and looks 12 years old without his beard but that doesn't help the situation.
Here's a shocker, they can't beam up the survivors. Well, I guess the episode is going to be the full 44 minutes long, then, folks! If only the transporters worked we could have been out of here in 8 minutes, 10 with the sick bay wrapup! Dammit, Jim.
Wow, the soundtrack at this point sounds like the waiting room of a faith healer or palm reader. What in the HELL were the showrunners thinking with this music?!?
Riker takes Data, Yar, and Dr. Crusher down to the surface. The planet set looks as bad and cheesy as the original series, but hey, it was the first season and their budget was most likely a fraction of what it'd later be, so all is forgiven.
They start walking towards the shuttle and encounter a black oil patch. Tasha has apparently seen The X-Files so she suggests they go around the black oil rather than through it. Utilizing digital effects that would make the old Flash Gordan movie blush with shame, the black oil moves to keep them cut off. Rather than try anything proactive, like have Data toss one of them OVER the 6 inch wide patch of oil, they call Mommy, I mean, Picard.
What follows next is an impotent couple minutes of everyone pounding Data for information and him whining that he knows less than Sgt. Schultz. Finally, Data sullenly tells everyone to go straight to hell and adds that the very next person to ask him something he doesn't know is going to discover how much of his android foot can fit up a human ass.
At this point the black oil speaks. It sounds like a cross between Rodney Dangerfield and Bono, only more irritating and with twice the smugness. The black oil then begins to bulge up into a human form.
"What is it, Number One?" Picard, still up on the bridge of the Enterprise, asks. "What are you seeing?"
"Trouble." Riker replies.
So, this is how a military officer responds to his Captain's request for information? What would have happened if General Patton radioed to one of his officers during the Battle of the Bulge and asked what was going on and the officer simply replied "Trouble." Exactly how much of Patton's android foot would have been up that officer's ass? The Klingons are right, Starfleet is soft.
Ew! Now Tar Baby sounds like Carlos Mencia's Dee Dee Dee voice. "Why-Are-You-Here?" WTF?
They discuss the meaning of life, decide Douglas Adams was probably right, but then Tasha Yar gets impatient. "Enough of this crap! This Tar Baby looks retarded and sounds even more retarded! I'm outta here!" Tasha falls over. She's dead, Picard. See ya in Romulon makeup, bay-bee.
Picard, feeling like a bitchy little girl at this development, orders his team beamed up at once and then retreats to sick bay where Crusher is trying to revive Tasha by telling her horror stories of what happened to the "movie careers" of Suzane Sommers and that cokehead who got kicked off The Love Boat. But Tasha, terrified of Crusher's Crypt Keeper looking assed nurse (Yee GODS is that old bitch fugly), stays dead.
Meanwhile, down at the shuttle, Troi wakes up to Black Oil's childish taunts in a voice that sounds like Darth Vadar at the bottom of Elvis' toilet. "I killed her because it amused me, na na na! It was a meaningless death! na na na!" Never have the writers mocked us fans through a character's voice so completely.
Back on the Enterprise, Picard is pissed. He screams his panicked crew into silence, threatening them with the Star Trek Nemesis script if they don't shut the hell up. Data says that Tar Baby can create "undefined force fields". When Picard asks him to explain how a field can be undefined and yet still be considered a field, Data breaks into tears and says "you'll never be a pimple on Kirk's every widening ass!" Riker's had enough of this fighting and decides to go back down to the planet with a lot more red shirts.
The Away Team discovers that the Black Oil is now covering the shuttle. Inside the shuttle, the creature taunts Troi in a voice that sounds like it's coming from a very personal part of Rosie O'Donnell's body.
Troi psychobables until she pisses off the Black Oil.
Ew! Wesley! What the fuck are YOU doing on the bridge? And why are you talking so damned loud? Worf and Picard are right next to you, boy, use your indoor voice!
The Black Oil morphs back into Tar Baby again and speaks with a voice that sounds like a cross between General Grievous and Hong Kong Phooey. Riker throws caution to the wind and says he'll do anything if only the creature will allow them access to the shuttle. Fortunately for him, Tar Baby doesn't like dudes with no beards who look too young to drive a car. Tar Baby then demands Crusher "say please". When did this turn into Mr. Rogers Neighborhood?
Crusher is allowed to talk to Troi on her communicator so she tells Troi not to freak out when she checks her Myspace page, "I rotated you out of my top 8 because I didn't think you survived the crash. I'll make it right when I get back to the Enterprise."
Data then pisses off Tar Baby by referring to him as "It" and has to retreat by saying he only meant he couldn't see through all that tar to know whether or not Tar Baby had a wiener, so "it" was the safe option.
What follows next is an even more embarrassing sequence than everything ever seen on Invisible Man. Tar Baby makes Jordi crawl around on the ground looking for his glasses like Fearless Fly. "My glasses! I need my glasses!"
It's at this point of the episode when I stop thinking about hanging myself to get out of it and start contemplating serious bodily injury to the writers instead.
Tar Baby retreats back to the shuttle to whine to Troi some more. IT (heh heh) says that it's the discarded evil skin of a beautiful and angelic alien race who apparently never heard of pooper scooper laws. You can't just leave that shit laying around, man, someone might step in it and get banished to a career of cheesy and embarrassing guest star roles! That's not cool!
Troi saying just this makes Tar Baby mad, so it goes after Riker and sucks him into the black oil. When Riker's face pokes out of the oil for a second it almost looks like his beard is back, which is AWESOME.
Meanwhile, Worf and THE BOY have found a pattern in the gobblety goop bullshit bullshit gobblety goop matrix energy repolorizing matrix energy depolorized bullshit field around the shuttle. Picard has had enough futuristic gooblety goop techspeak and decides to get away from it by beaming down to the planet.
Back at the shuttle Troi begs for Riker's life. When pressed, she claims she'd beg for and trade her own life for ANY of the Enterprise crew. I might can dig Riker or any of the other regulars, but would she really trade her life for the buttcrack showing moron who changes the chicken soup nozzles in 10 Forward? I don't think so!
Picard glares his most Kirkian glare at the black oil, who now sounds like John Goodman speaking from out of the Batman suit. The Tar Baby demands entertainment, Picard refuses. So the Tar Baby makes Data DANCE, pointing the phaser at Picard, then Crusher, then Jordi and then back to Picard.
Let's pause here again. It had probably been 15 years since I've seen this episode. That's a long time. To put that into perspective, the first season of The X-Files was 15 years ago. Peyton Manning was in grade school. I was 200 pounds lighter. It's a long time. Long enough to have forgotten the overwhelming and sheer TARDATION of this episode. I mean, okay, you're a writer and you have to kill off a main character for reasons out of your control. That's cool. You want to do it in a different way than it's been happening on TV up to that point. You have to remember that in 1987, few main characters ever got killed off and when they did, it was a MAJOR production. This was before Buffy and it's clones changed TV as far as that goes. A main character death back then was all about two part episodes and Big Bads doing it and complicated plots and schemes and massive musical stings during the actual deaths and then two act revenge arcs after the death to finally defeat the Big Bad who went so far as to kill off somebody special. Usually you'd have the surviving hero with tears streaming down his face pointing his gun at the kneeling Big Bad's head while some secondary character screams for our hero to not do it for God's sake, to just let our courts and police handle his punishment. Finally, perhaps as flashbacks of our fallen friend play out to opera music, our surviving hero drops his gun hand and maybe smacks the Big Bad in the face one last time. As I said, back in the late 80s, the rare times a major character was killed off was a major production of biblical proportions.
It's only with this perspective can you understand the novelty and, yes, genius of this episode. They went the other way! They were probably the first TV series of that generation (heh) to do so! They didn't make a big production out of it! They didn't try to cram any greater meaning down our throats or make her killer some kind of super badass who was going to destroy the universe, starting with Tasha Yar. Instead, they went even further into genius by making her a red shirt. She was the one who gets killed at the beginning of the episode to shock the audience and tell us all that this monster of the week means business. Considering the series this was a sequel to, that was a brilliant idea.
So, for it's time and place, it was actually a very smart and clever way to go. So I've never had a problem with that aspect of things. In fact, the intervening years had washed away my true issues with this episode and left me with a vague unease and general unwillingness to ever watch it again without being able to put my finger on the real problem. But now, 15 years past my last viewing of it, it is very clear to me where it went wrong. They went too far down the meaningless road. Tar Baby is beyond retarded, he's like a two year old with the emotional texture of a coffee cup. Seeing our familiar heroes stand impotently by while a walking lump of dripping Jheri Curl bitch slaps everyone, moves Data around like a puppet, and talks like a 2 year old ... is demeaning and fucking stupid. How can you ever respect them again if all their techonology, training, and intelligence can be rendered moot by a fucking oil stain? It's pathetic. Worse, it's deeply, deeply stupid.
So it was a great idea but enacted with horrible execution. Anyway, back to the pain.
Interesting, somehow Tar Baby knows English, but beyond that he uses a Russian slang such as "comrades" so he's really got our language down. Pissed when Picard mocks him for using the word "comrades", Tar Baby spits out Riker. (the only person who got more hosed in this episode than Tasha is Riker with the being covered head to toe with eclair chocolate). Picard notes that Riker looks delicious and orders him taken up to the ship so his tasty chocolate covering can be removed and stored in jars. Everyone but Picard leaves.
Tar Baby finally gets to the fucking point 33 minutes into the episode. He wants transportation to another planet. Picard strings him along, demanding to see Troi before agreeing. Tar Baby magically transports Picard into the shuttle. Picard checks his watch, sees that this episode is mercifully spinning down to the last reel, and concocts some plan or another with Troi. Basically, piss off the Tar Baby and we get all get the hell out of here. Sweet.
Back on the ship, Worf and THE BOY are still staring mindlessly at their control panel. But 15 seconds of that is enough and we're back to the planet with Picard talking to the Tar Baby, who now sounds like Ming the Merciless right after he's been kicked in the nuts. Picard sets his psychobable to "Smug" and lays into the Tar Baby, who has to resort to the "you humans are weak and puny" speech that was old and tired even in 1987. But it's not enough to combat the sheer power of smugness Picard fires at the Tar Baby, who gets so pissed he lowers his guard enough to allow everyone to beam out.
Now all alone again, Tar Baby shrugs and gets back to doing what made him so incredibly evil in the first place: watching endless reruns of According To Jim.
Captain's Log, stardate bunchanumbers: Despite the fact that crewmen die on this ship every week, this week I'm going to make a really big deal out of Tasha Yar's death.
Oh my fucking God. The music! The pastoral scenery! Data's quit sobbing! Riker's lack of a manly beard! I can't take this funeral! Okay! I admit it! You broke me, STTNG! I REFUSE to finish this episode! You broke me! As far as I'm concerned, I said my goodbyes to Tasha when she gave us that secret wave at the end of the previous episode.
I am OUT of here. Buh bye! Enjoy your trip straight to hell, writers!
Premiered: September 28, 1987
Last Aired: May 29, 1994
Show Categories: Science Fiction, Action/Adventure
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 259 of 17,86
Episode: Skin Of Evil
Season: 1
Aired: 4/25/1988
Ah, Star Trek The Next Generation! Or, as I like to call it, the Star Trek with actual actors playing the roles instead of glistening hams. Or, as I also like to call it, Star Trek Before It REALLY Started To Suck.
Captain's Log, Stardate bunchanumbers. Picard's deep, sexy baritone informs us that we're traveling through the Ya Ya Sisterhood sector on our way to pick up Troi in a shuttle. Ah, the shuttlecraft. Or, as I like to call them, Star Trek's Plot Advancement Pixies! Need a couple crew members to get lost, abducted, raped by tree monsters, etc? Stick em in a shuttle and send them off with a pat on their soon to be abducted and raped asses.
Worf flirts with Tasha Yar. Apparently he saw the same nude photos of her that are (and have been for decades) currently hanging framed on my office wall. Mmmm, mmmmm, MMMMMM! Poor Tasha Yar, stuck with crappy guest star spot after crappy guest star spot after leaving this series to pursue her *snicker* movie career and leaving the rest of us to debate which crappy guest star spot was THE most embarrassing of all. Personally, I think it was her several episode run on Lois and Clark in which she played a cheesy Lex Luthor proxy. (we'll be getting to YOU, Lois and Clark, soon enough!) Though she did get nude again on Dexter and reveal that a WHOLE lot of her body had gone straight to hell in the intervening 25 years between nude sessions. Gadzonks!
AH! Riker without a beard! Noooooo! Get your ass to the holodeck this instant you 12 year old ass looking dude and get yourself decked out with a manly beard NOW! (shudders)
Troi's shuttle calls in. It's having equipment failure. Huh. Too bad we didn't see this coming, huh? Hyuck! This causes a very snippy conversation between Picard and whoever the hell is the Engineer before Jordi gets his promotion. I'd forgotten that Jordi wasn't always the Chief Engineer, but I can see now why he got the promotion.
The shuttle predictably crashes on the planet. Huh.
Cue the opening credits and the hideous change of the opening monologue from the original series. Greedo firing first thinks this is fucked up.
The Enterprise reaches the planet. Data can't find any life signs. Wolf beats his fists against the sensor control panels but can't get them to tell him anything more than the obvious fact that the shuttle is buried under a lot of debris Riker comes over and looks 12 years old without his beard but that doesn't help the situation.
Here's a shocker, they can't beam up the survivors. Well, I guess the episode is going to be the full 44 minutes long, then, folks! If only the transporters worked we could have been out of here in 8 minutes, 10 with the sick bay wrapup! Dammit, Jim.
Wow, the soundtrack at this point sounds like the waiting room of a faith healer or palm reader. What in the HELL were the showrunners thinking with this music?!?
Riker takes Data, Yar, and Dr. Crusher down to the surface. The planet set looks as bad and cheesy as the original series, but hey, it was the first season and their budget was most likely a fraction of what it'd later be, so all is forgiven.
They start walking towards the shuttle and encounter a black oil patch. Tasha has apparently seen The X-Files so she suggests they go around the black oil rather than through it. Utilizing digital effects that would make the old Flash Gordan movie blush with shame, the black oil moves to keep them cut off. Rather than try anything proactive, like have Data toss one of them OVER the 6 inch wide patch of oil, they call Mommy, I mean, Picard.
What follows next is an impotent couple minutes of everyone pounding Data for information and him whining that he knows less than Sgt. Schultz. Finally, Data sullenly tells everyone to go straight to hell and adds that the very next person to ask him something he doesn't know is going to discover how much of his android foot can fit up a human ass.
At this point the black oil speaks. It sounds like a cross between Rodney Dangerfield and Bono, only more irritating and with twice the smugness. The black oil then begins to bulge up into a human form.
"What is it, Number One?" Picard, still up on the bridge of the Enterprise, asks. "What are you seeing?"
"Trouble." Riker replies.
So, this is how a military officer responds to his Captain's request for information? What would have happened if General Patton radioed to one of his officers during the Battle of the Bulge and asked what was going on and the officer simply replied "Trouble." Exactly how much of Patton's android foot would have been up that officer's ass? The Klingons are right, Starfleet is soft.
Ew! Now Tar Baby sounds like Carlos Mencia's Dee Dee Dee voice. "Why-Are-You-Here?" WTF?
They discuss the meaning of life, decide Douglas Adams was probably right, but then Tasha Yar gets impatient. "Enough of this crap! This Tar Baby looks retarded and sounds even more retarded! I'm outta here!" Tasha falls over. She's dead, Picard. See ya in Romulon makeup, bay-bee.
Picard, feeling like a bitchy little girl at this development, orders his team beamed up at once and then retreats to sick bay where Crusher is trying to revive Tasha by telling her horror stories of what happened to the "movie careers" of Suzane Sommers and that cokehead who got kicked off The Love Boat. But Tasha, terrified of Crusher's Crypt Keeper looking assed nurse (Yee GODS is that old bitch fugly), stays dead.
Meanwhile, down at the shuttle, Troi wakes up to Black Oil's childish taunts in a voice that sounds like Darth Vadar at the bottom of Elvis' toilet. "I killed her because it amused me, na na na! It was a meaningless death! na na na!" Never have the writers mocked us fans through a character's voice so completely.
Back on the Enterprise, Picard is pissed. He screams his panicked crew into silence, threatening them with the Star Trek Nemesis script if they don't shut the hell up. Data says that Tar Baby can create "undefined force fields". When Picard asks him to explain how a field can be undefined and yet still be considered a field, Data breaks into tears and says "you'll never be a pimple on Kirk's every widening ass!" Riker's had enough of this fighting and decides to go back down to the planet with a lot more red shirts.
The Away Team discovers that the Black Oil is now covering the shuttle. Inside the shuttle, the creature taunts Troi in a voice that sounds like it's coming from a very personal part of Rosie O'Donnell's body.
Troi psychobables until she pisses off the Black Oil.
Ew! Wesley! What the fuck are YOU doing on the bridge? And why are you talking so damned loud? Worf and Picard are right next to you, boy, use your indoor voice!
The Black Oil morphs back into Tar Baby again and speaks with a voice that sounds like a cross between General Grievous and Hong Kong Phooey. Riker throws caution to the wind and says he'll do anything if only the creature will allow them access to the shuttle. Fortunately for him, Tar Baby doesn't like dudes with no beards who look too young to drive a car. Tar Baby then demands Crusher "say please". When did this turn into Mr. Rogers Neighborhood?
Crusher is allowed to talk to Troi on her communicator so she tells Troi not to freak out when she checks her Myspace page, "I rotated you out of my top 8 because I didn't think you survived the crash. I'll make it right when I get back to the Enterprise."
Data then pisses off Tar Baby by referring to him as "It" and has to retreat by saying he only meant he couldn't see through all that tar to know whether or not Tar Baby had a wiener, so "it" was the safe option.
What follows next is an even more embarrassing sequence than everything ever seen on Invisible Man. Tar Baby makes Jordi crawl around on the ground looking for his glasses like Fearless Fly. "My glasses! I need my glasses!"
It's at this point of the episode when I stop thinking about hanging myself to get out of it and start contemplating serious bodily injury to the writers instead.
Tar Baby retreats back to the shuttle to whine to Troi some more. IT (heh heh) says that it's the discarded evil skin of a beautiful and angelic alien race who apparently never heard of pooper scooper laws. You can't just leave that shit laying around, man, someone might step in it and get banished to a career of cheesy and embarrassing guest star roles! That's not cool!
Troi saying just this makes Tar Baby mad, so it goes after Riker and sucks him into the black oil. When Riker's face pokes out of the oil for a second it almost looks like his beard is back, which is AWESOME.
Meanwhile, Worf and THE BOY have found a pattern in the gobblety goop bullshit bullshit gobblety goop matrix energy repolorizing matrix energy depolorized bullshit field around the shuttle. Picard has had enough futuristic gooblety goop techspeak and decides to get away from it by beaming down to the planet.
Back at the shuttle Troi begs for Riker's life. When pressed, she claims she'd beg for and trade her own life for ANY of the Enterprise crew. I might can dig Riker or any of the other regulars, but would she really trade her life for the buttcrack showing moron who changes the chicken soup nozzles in 10 Forward? I don't think so!
Picard glares his most Kirkian glare at the black oil, who now sounds like John Goodman speaking from out of the Batman suit. The Tar Baby demands entertainment, Picard refuses. So the Tar Baby makes Data DANCE, pointing the phaser at Picard, then Crusher, then Jordi and then back to Picard.
Let's pause here again. It had probably been 15 years since I've seen this episode. That's a long time. To put that into perspective, the first season of The X-Files was 15 years ago. Peyton Manning was in grade school. I was 200 pounds lighter. It's a long time. Long enough to have forgotten the overwhelming and sheer TARDATION of this episode. I mean, okay, you're a writer and you have to kill off a main character for reasons out of your control. That's cool. You want to do it in a different way than it's been happening on TV up to that point. You have to remember that in 1987, few main characters ever got killed off and when they did, it was a MAJOR production. This was before Buffy and it's clones changed TV as far as that goes. A main character death back then was all about two part episodes and Big Bads doing it and complicated plots and schemes and massive musical stings during the actual deaths and then two act revenge arcs after the death to finally defeat the Big Bad who went so far as to kill off somebody special. Usually you'd have the surviving hero with tears streaming down his face pointing his gun at the kneeling Big Bad's head while some secondary character screams for our hero to not do it for God's sake, to just let our courts and police handle his punishment. Finally, perhaps as flashbacks of our fallen friend play out to opera music, our surviving hero drops his gun hand and maybe smacks the Big Bad in the face one last time. As I said, back in the late 80s, the rare times a major character was killed off was a major production of biblical proportions.
It's only with this perspective can you understand the novelty and, yes, genius of this episode. They went the other way! They were probably the first TV series of that generation (heh) to do so! They didn't make a big production out of it! They didn't try to cram any greater meaning down our throats or make her killer some kind of super badass who was going to destroy the universe, starting with Tasha Yar. Instead, they went even further into genius by making her a red shirt. She was the one who gets killed at the beginning of the episode to shock the audience and tell us all that this monster of the week means business. Considering the series this was a sequel to, that was a brilliant idea.
So, for it's time and place, it was actually a very smart and clever way to go. So I've never had a problem with that aspect of things. In fact, the intervening years had washed away my true issues with this episode and left me with a vague unease and general unwillingness to ever watch it again without being able to put my finger on the real problem. But now, 15 years past my last viewing of it, it is very clear to me where it went wrong. They went too far down the meaningless road. Tar Baby is beyond retarded, he's like a two year old with the emotional texture of a coffee cup. Seeing our familiar heroes stand impotently by while a walking lump of dripping Jheri Curl bitch slaps everyone, moves Data around like a puppet, and talks like a 2 year old ... is demeaning and fucking stupid. How can you ever respect them again if all their techonology, training, and intelligence can be rendered moot by a fucking oil stain? It's pathetic. Worse, it's deeply, deeply stupid.
So it was a great idea but enacted with horrible execution. Anyway, back to the pain.
Interesting, somehow Tar Baby knows English, but beyond that he uses a Russian slang such as "comrades" so he's really got our language down. Pissed when Picard mocks him for using the word "comrades", Tar Baby spits out Riker. (the only person who got more hosed in this episode than Tasha is Riker with the being covered head to toe with eclair chocolate). Picard notes that Riker looks delicious and orders him taken up to the ship so his tasty chocolate covering can be removed and stored in jars. Everyone but Picard leaves.
Tar Baby finally gets to the fucking point 33 minutes into the episode. He wants transportation to another planet. Picard strings him along, demanding to see Troi before agreeing. Tar Baby magically transports Picard into the shuttle. Picard checks his watch, sees that this episode is mercifully spinning down to the last reel, and concocts some plan or another with Troi. Basically, piss off the Tar Baby and we get all get the hell out of here. Sweet.
Back on the ship, Worf and THE BOY are still staring mindlessly at their control panel. But 15 seconds of that is enough and we're back to the planet with Picard talking to the Tar Baby, who now sounds like Ming the Merciless right after he's been kicked in the nuts. Picard sets his psychobable to "Smug" and lays into the Tar Baby, who has to resort to the "you humans are weak and puny" speech that was old and tired even in 1987. But it's not enough to combat the sheer power of smugness Picard fires at the Tar Baby, who gets so pissed he lowers his guard enough to allow everyone to beam out.
Now all alone again, Tar Baby shrugs and gets back to doing what made him so incredibly evil in the first place: watching endless reruns of According To Jim.
Captain's Log, stardate bunchanumbers: Despite the fact that crewmen die on this ship every week, this week I'm going to make a really big deal out of Tasha Yar's death.
Oh my fucking God. The music! The pastoral scenery! Data's quit sobbing! Riker's lack of a manly beard! I can't take this funeral! Okay! I admit it! You broke me, STTNG! I REFUSE to finish this episode! You broke me! As far as I'm concerned, I said my goodbyes to Tasha when she gave us that secret wave at the end of the previous episode.
I am OUT of here. Buh bye! Enjoy your trip straight to hell, writers!
Monday, January 5, 2009
Day 4: Bionic Woman
Status: Ended
Premiered: September 26, 2007
Last Aired: November 28, 2007
Show Categories: Science Fiction, Drama
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 1,917 of 17,895
Episode: Sisterhood
Season: 1
Aired:10/10/2007
Ah, The Bionic Woman! I remember it well. It was the 70s and I was in my first decade of life. Lindsay Wagner was smoking hawt and could do that running thing even though she only had one bionic leg. I loved the noise she made when she ran, too. That was cool. I wonder which episode this is? Hopefully this will be one that the Bionic Dog is in. He was badassed! He be barking and kicking bionic ASS! WOO HOO! This is gonna be GREAT!
Whoa. What the fuck is this? This doesn't look like That 70s Show! Where's the 70s blowdried hair? Where are the cheesy neon 70s fashions? WHERE IS LINDSAY WAGNER?!?
A remake? Son of a bitch!
Previously on Bionic Woman: Starbuck is chewing up scenery, Jamie has a kid sister who's really smoking hawt (relax, guys, the actress is over 18, I did something very rare and actually fact checked before drooling) but who is pissed at the world, and that lawyer from Battlestar Galatica is in prison for some reason.
And we're off to the obligatory fight training scene. At least that hasn't changed since the 70s. Okay, okay, I'll admit that the new Jamie Sommers is hawter than that 70s one, but only because of the severe lack of blow dried hair. But at least Jamie finds out that she can circumvent her programming. Whatever the hell that means.
Jamie has lunch with her irritated kid sister, who for some reason eats her lunch with her left hand balled up and pressed against her face. Why in the hell would anyone eat with one hand pressed up against their face? Has she done time in prison and she feels the need to protect her face and plate? Does she have a giamongous zit she's hiding? It's a zit, isn't it?
Okay, they just stated in dialogue that the character is only 15 years old. But I swear to God I looked it up and the actress is over 18. Drool Mode: ENGAGED.
Jamie gets a call from her boss, who demands that she leave her sister at the table and go beat up a guy for ordering a falafel. I tried one of those once. He deserves his ass whipped. And he gets it whipped as Jamie catches his fist and then bounces his head off his own steering wheel. That's what you get for ordering falafels you crazy assed food eating chump! HA HA HA HA HA!!
In the next scene, Jamie's boss beats a lie detector worse than Jamie just beat the falafel eating chump. How did he do it? He's been married. AWESOME line. Heh heh heh.
The lawyer from BSG asks "can you explain the obsession people have with typing little messages to each other with their thumbs instead of just talking?" Huh. Maybe the point is to AVOID talking to people? Ever think of that? Nothing is more tedious than getting trapped in a 20 minute conversation about your girlfriend's Mom's cat when all you needed to know is what time she was coming over for dinner. But that question isn't about that, it's just what I call the TV Seinfeld Syndrome. Since Seinfeld popularized George Carlin's observational style of humor, every TV writer feels the need to insert some everyday observation into every episode. It makes them feel hip, I guess.
The BSG lawyer makes himself feel better by shooting Starbuck up with some Bionic Juice to stop her whining about going crazy. Bionic Juice would be kinda handy to have around the house for those times your old lady thinks she's going insane. This could catch on!
Meanwhile, Jamie is pissed to discover that her eyes are streaming video to her pervy boss as well as acting as a GPS so they always know where she is. For some reason, it doesn't occur to Jamie to just launch into a massive According To Jim marathon. That would ENSURE her boss never watches her streaming video again. Jamie probably discounts this because it would mean that she would have to sit through that same marathon. (shudders)
Jamie is ordered to babysit some rich Canadian bitch named Heaven (because it's oh so funny to name a rich snobby bitch something ironic like Heaven or Sweetikins.) so she goes over to house to talk to the rich snobby bitch's father. The father, who turns out to be just as bitchy as his bitchy daughter, orders Jamie to make sure his rich snobby bitch of a daughter doesn't drink, screw, smoke, suck, do drugs, masturbate, get a tattoo, or anything else even vaguely fun or overtly bitchy. So he apparently expects his rich snobby bitch of a daughter to sit around and play Uno or watch According to Jim.
Jamie celebrates her horrible new assignment by turning on some really horrid music and dancing around like a five year old, much to the annoyance of her sister Hawtie McOldEnough. This rightfully annoys Starbuck, who's peeping through their window from across the street. It's only a matter of time before she breaks out the Matthew Broderick smile chart. Both sisters are dancing now, further fueling the retarded male fantasy that when hawt women are alone in their apartments they dance around jiggling their sexy bods instead of watching the Lifetime Channel and eating Easy Cheese straight from the can. Pissed that these two oh so fine ladies are furthering that childish stereotype, Starbuck leaps across to their building.
Hey! How about a flashback to Starbuck speaking is a husky voice and driving too fast with some girl in the car? No? Okay, back to present day then! Jamie is feeding Hawtie McNonJailBait wine. Now THAT'S more like what women alone in their apartment do! Whoa, back to the flashback! Starbuck wrecks the car and kills what turns out to be her younger sister. Oh well, that's why pencils have erasers.
Now the sisters are talking about ... an old pet. Wow. Can roasted marshmellows and full body PJs be far behind?
Oh, thank God, Jamie's asleep and dreaming. Whoa, wait a minute, this is only the third episode in this series! No fair flashing back to previous episodes this early on! Stupid dream flashbacks. Fortunately Starbuck creeps in for a little one on one time with Jamie. Unfortunately, Starbuck breaks out the ole "I know you better than you know yourself" nugget. Can "This is only the beginning!" be far behind?
Their conversation is cut short so they set up a playdate for the park the next day. This pisses her boss off, but Jamie bitch slaps him a couple times and he agrees to let her keep the meeting. But not before mumbling something about Jamie not letting herself become a wall. Um, yeah, I've successfully kept myself from turning into a wall for 38 years now so I think Jamie can manage. But thanks all the same, Boss!
Speaking is walls, Starbuck beats the hell out of a random wall in the next scene. Maybe there's supposed to be a connection. Huh. Subtle.
Speaking of random, some random Secret Bionic Government Agency office nerd asks Jamie out on a date over the phone while she's babysitting Heaven and gets straight rejected. Nerd. What does he think this is, his own personal VR program? Jamie basks in the glow of being able to shoot the nerd down so much that she loses track of Heaven and has to go outside to look for her with her Bionic Red Circle Vision. A couple people are walking past the sidewalk, okay. Some fat old dude with a loud tie is walking down the sidewalk across the street, okay. Two very attractive women are standing against a row a nasty assed dumpsters. Ok- huh? WTF? They're hawt as hell, I mean, like really hawt. And they're just standing there right up against a long row of dumpsters that you just KNOW smells like Andrew Dice Clay's armpits. Just standing there! Not moving an inch! Huh, must be some kind of stank fetish. I'll look that up on the internet later.
Anyway, her boss calls her to ask about the two hawt women standing next to the dumpsters because he's as freaked out as I am. Jamie again protests the streaming video coming out of her eyes.
Pissed, Jamie uses her super ... oh sorry, Bionic hearing to find Heaven in a tattoo parlor. She has that playdate with Starbuck so Jamie takes Heaven to the Secret Bionic Building, where she gets asked what she's doing bringing Heaven into this secret facility. I dunno, ask your 16 levels of security who let me through with her, dumbass.
Jamie leaves Heaven with the lesbian secretary Ruth (it's not as hawt as it sounds) and goes to talk to that dude who was fired off some show you couldn't pay me to watch because he hates gay people (it's as retarded as it sounds). Hey, ever wonder why I don't bother to learn character names most of the time? The lawyer from BSG is named Anthony Anthros and Starbuck is named Sarah Corvus. Anthros and Corvus. Un huh.
Jamie and Starbuck meet in a trainyard because they couldn't find a pony express station within driving distance. The entire scene Starbuck has her face scrunched up like she's trying to hold in a fart. Or maybe she's trying to be ernest. Starbuck reveals that she was raised from the dead, which pisses off show runner David Eick all over again. (in the pilot commentary, one of the most bitter, angry, and entertaining commentaries ever, David Eick revealed this plot point as being one of many bones of contention between him and the other show runners)
As I watch yet another training montage and marvel at the reality that there are, indeed, some incredibly hawt English women in this world (I know, shocking, isn't it!) it occurs to me how much of a shame it is this series didn't last beyond six episodes. A couple of these training exercises a week and who needs Baywatch?
Starbuck shakes badly as she tries to eat beans straight from a can. I know, girl, WAY too much sodium in that shit. I'd be shaking too. Starbuck slams the beans down and goes the much more healthy route by just injecting her self with some Bionic Juice. Bionic Juice! If you're going shit smearing crazy, try our Bionic Juice! Now in raspberry!
Jamie takes Heaven to get a pedicure, or is it a manicure? Whichever one means that you have too much time and money on your hands. Starbuck shows up to chew more scenery and is quickly followed by four Serbian gangsters who insist they be the ones getting greatly annoyed by Heaven. They've got a Dora The Explorer DVD in their car all ready for her. Jamie proceeds to mop the floor with them while trading childish barbs with Starbuck, who sits by and watches. Four beefsteaks are a little much for Jamie to handle, so she begs Starbuck for help. Starbuck jumps in and much 2 on 4 action is had by all. The Serbians are quickly reminded that not only do we hate Serbia, we've never heard of it before now and we think all guys who live there are bitchy little girls. They're all passed out on the floor with female sized boot prints on their asses, so they don't argue.
As they leave the nail salon, Starbuck mocks Jamie for not knowing how to turn off her GPS and video streaming eye. "They look at you in the shower, you know." "Oh my God!" Jamie replies in a shocked little girl voice. Um, Jamie, these are the same dudes who injected your entire body with Bionic nanites. You were unconscious for days as they worked over your entire body nonstop. They've seen every part of your body, shaved every part of your body, and they even know what your toes smell like. I think we're past the "ZOMG they've seen me neekid in the shower!" stage, don't you?
Starbuck trains Jamie how to turn off her tracking device and streaming eye. Heaven keeps sticking her nose in, which leads to a couple great Starbuck putdown lines, such as "why don't you go hang yourself or something?" LMFAO But Jamie still refuses to help Starbuck, who storms off whining about how she's going to die without that help.
Jamie shrugs and drops off Heaven with her father. Heaven is thankful and submissive. It's funny, I remember her being MUCH more annoying the first time I saw this episode over a year ago. Maybe seeing the actress on Kyle XY since then has softened my opinion of her (her character is repeatedly awesome on that show) Anyway, the episode is almost over so Jamie calls Sisty McSnackable and says she's bringing home some Chinese food. Sure, you know that Starbuck knows where you live and that she's now very pissed at you, but take your time getting home! What's the worst thing that could happen?
Besides Starbuck sitting at the table with Sisty McLunchable when Jamie gets home? Fortunately, Starbuck has drugged Naivey McTrusting (I mean, who lets complete strangers hang out in their house five minutes after meeting them?) so that she'll be good and knocked out before Jamie has to throw down because it's too early in the series for Hawtie McInTheDark to know that her sister is Bionic. It's an old Smallville thing. Clark has to use his superpowers but someone he knows is in danger? No problem, knocked the hell out they come! Every time!
And yet ... they don't fight. They just talk. And not just ordinary talking, pure Hallmark garbage dialogue. In the end, Jamie finally convinces Starbuck that her sister is just way too hawt to kill. I, and every other red blooded male, agree, and Starbuck leaves quietly. By quietly I mean weepily mouthing more threats and paranoia, but for her that's quietly.
TO BE CONTINUED! Dun dun dun.
Um, I hate to break it to you, Bionic Woman remake, but no it's NOT.
Premiered: September 26, 2007
Last Aired: November 28, 2007
Show Categories: Science Fiction, Drama
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 1,917 of 17,895
Episode: Sisterhood
Season: 1
Aired:10/10/2007
Ah, The Bionic Woman! I remember it well. It was the 70s and I was in my first decade of life. Lindsay Wagner was smoking hawt and could do that running thing even though she only had one bionic leg. I loved the noise she made when she ran, too. That was cool. I wonder which episode this is? Hopefully this will be one that the Bionic Dog is in. He was badassed! He be barking and kicking bionic ASS! WOO HOO! This is gonna be GREAT!
Whoa. What the fuck is this? This doesn't look like That 70s Show! Where's the 70s blowdried hair? Where are the cheesy neon 70s fashions? WHERE IS LINDSAY WAGNER?!?
A remake? Son of a bitch!
Previously on Bionic Woman: Starbuck is chewing up scenery, Jamie has a kid sister who's really smoking hawt (relax, guys, the actress is over 18, I did something very rare and actually fact checked before drooling) but who is pissed at the world, and that lawyer from Battlestar Galatica is in prison for some reason.
And we're off to the obligatory fight training scene. At least that hasn't changed since the 70s. Okay, okay, I'll admit that the new Jamie Sommers is hawter than that 70s one, but only because of the severe lack of blow dried hair. But at least Jamie finds out that she can circumvent her programming. Whatever the hell that means.
Jamie has lunch with her irritated kid sister, who for some reason eats her lunch with her left hand balled up and pressed against her face. Why in the hell would anyone eat with one hand pressed up against their face? Has she done time in prison and she feels the need to protect her face and plate? Does she have a giamongous zit she's hiding? It's a zit, isn't it?
Okay, they just stated in dialogue that the character is only 15 years old. But I swear to God I looked it up and the actress is over 18. Drool Mode: ENGAGED.
Jamie gets a call from her boss, who demands that she leave her sister at the table and go beat up a guy for ordering a falafel. I tried one of those once. He deserves his ass whipped. And he gets it whipped as Jamie catches his fist and then bounces his head off his own steering wheel. That's what you get for ordering falafels you crazy assed food eating chump! HA HA HA HA HA!!
In the next scene, Jamie's boss beats a lie detector worse than Jamie just beat the falafel eating chump. How did he do it? He's been married. AWESOME line. Heh heh heh.
The lawyer from BSG asks "can you explain the obsession people have with typing little messages to each other with their thumbs instead of just talking?" Huh. Maybe the point is to AVOID talking to people? Ever think of that? Nothing is more tedious than getting trapped in a 20 minute conversation about your girlfriend's Mom's cat when all you needed to know is what time she was coming over for dinner. But that question isn't about that, it's just what I call the TV Seinfeld Syndrome. Since Seinfeld popularized George Carlin's observational style of humor, every TV writer feels the need to insert some everyday observation into every episode. It makes them feel hip, I guess.
The BSG lawyer makes himself feel better by shooting Starbuck up with some Bionic Juice to stop her whining about going crazy. Bionic Juice would be kinda handy to have around the house for those times your old lady thinks she's going insane. This could catch on!
Meanwhile, Jamie is pissed to discover that her eyes are streaming video to her pervy boss as well as acting as a GPS so they always know where she is. For some reason, it doesn't occur to Jamie to just launch into a massive According To Jim marathon. That would ENSURE her boss never watches her streaming video again. Jamie probably discounts this because it would mean that she would have to sit through that same marathon. (shudders)
Jamie is ordered to babysit some rich Canadian bitch named Heaven (because it's oh so funny to name a rich snobby bitch something ironic like Heaven or Sweetikins.) so she goes over to house to talk to the rich snobby bitch's father. The father, who turns out to be just as bitchy as his bitchy daughter, orders Jamie to make sure his rich snobby bitch of a daughter doesn't drink, screw, smoke, suck, do drugs, masturbate, get a tattoo, or anything else even vaguely fun or overtly bitchy. So he apparently expects his rich snobby bitch of a daughter to sit around and play Uno or watch According to Jim.
Jamie celebrates her horrible new assignment by turning on some really horrid music and dancing around like a five year old, much to the annoyance of her sister Hawtie McOldEnough. This rightfully annoys Starbuck, who's peeping through their window from across the street. It's only a matter of time before she breaks out the Matthew Broderick smile chart. Both sisters are dancing now, further fueling the retarded male fantasy that when hawt women are alone in their apartments they dance around jiggling their sexy bods instead of watching the Lifetime Channel and eating Easy Cheese straight from the can. Pissed that these two oh so fine ladies are furthering that childish stereotype, Starbuck leaps across to their building.
Hey! How about a flashback to Starbuck speaking is a husky voice and driving too fast with some girl in the car? No? Okay, back to present day then! Jamie is feeding Hawtie McNonJailBait wine. Now THAT'S more like what women alone in their apartment do! Whoa, back to the flashback! Starbuck wrecks the car and kills what turns out to be her younger sister. Oh well, that's why pencils have erasers.
Now the sisters are talking about ... an old pet. Wow. Can roasted marshmellows and full body PJs be far behind?
Oh, thank God, Jamie's asleep and dreaming. Whoa, wait a minute, this is only the third episode in this series! No fair flashing back to previous episodes this early on! Stupid dream flashbacks. Fortunately Starbuck creeps in for a little one on one time with Jamie. Unfortunately, Starbuck breaks out the ole "I know you better than you know yourself" nugget. Can "This is only the beginning!" be far behind?
Their conversation is cut short so they set up a playdate for the park the next day. This pisses her boss off, but Jamie bitch slaps him a couple times and he agrees to let her keep the meeting. But not before mumbling something about Jamie not letting herself become a wall. Um, yeah, I've successfully kept myself from turning into a wall for 38 years now so I think Jamie can manage. But thanks all the same, Boss!
Speaking is walls, Starbuck beats the hell out of a random wall in the next scene. Maybe there's supposed to be a connection. Huh. Subtle.
Speaking of random, some random Secret Bionic Government Agency office nerd asks Jamie out on a date over the phone while she's babysitting Heaven and gets straight rejected. Nerd. What does he think this is, his own personal VR program? Jamie basks in the glow of being able to shoot the nerd down so much that she loses track of Heaven and has to go outside to look for her with her Bionic Red Circle Vision. A couple people are walking past the sidewalk, okay. Some fat old dude with a loud tie is walking down the sidewalk across the street, okay. Two very attractive women are standing against a row a nasty assed dumpsters. Ok- huh? WTF? They're hawt as hell, I mean, like really hawt. And they're just standing there right up against a long row of dumpsters that you just KNOW smells like Andrew Dice Clay's armpits. Just standing there! Not moving an inch! Huh, must be some kind of stank fetish. I'll look that up on the internet later.
Anyway, her boss calls her to ask about the two hawt women standing next to the dumpsters because he's as freaked out as I am. Jamie again protests the streaming video coming out of her eyes.
Pissed, Jamie uses her super ... oh sorry, Bionic hearing to find Heaven in a tattoo parlor. She has that playdate with Starbuck so Jamie takes Heaven to the Secret Bionic Building, where she gets asked what she's doing bringing Heaven into this secret facility. I dunno, ask your 16 levels of security who let me through with her, dumbass.
Jamie leaves Heaven with the lesbian secretary Ruth (it's not as hawt as it sounds) and goes to talk to that dude who was fired off some show you couldn't pay me to watch because he hates gay people (it's as retarded as it sounds). Hey, ever wonder why I don't bother to learn character names most of the time? The lawyer from BSG is named Anthony Anthros and Starbuck is named Sarah Corvus. Anthros and Corvus. Un huh.
Jamie and Starbuck meet in a trainyard because they couldn't find a pony express station within driving distance. The entire scene Starbuck has her face scrunched up like she's trying to hold in a fart. Or maybe she's trying to be ernest. Starbuck reveals that she was raised from the dead, which pisses off show runner David Eick all over again. (in the pilot commentary, one of the most bitter, angry, and entertaining commentaries ever, David Eick revealed this plot point as being one of many bones of contention between him and the other show runners)
As I watch yet another training montage and marvel at the reality that there are, indeed, some incredibly hawt English women in this world (I know, shocking, isn't it!) it occurs to me how much of a shame it is this series didn't last beyond six episodes. A couple of these training exercises a week and who needs Baywatch?
Starbuck shakes badly as she tries to eat beans straight from a can. I know, girl, WAY too much sodium in that shit. I'd be shaking too. Starbuck slams the beans down and goes the much more healthy route by just injecting her self with some Bionic Juice. Bionic Juice! If you're going shit smearing crazy, try our Bionic Juice! Now in raspberry!
Jamie takes Heaven to get a pedicure, or is it a manicure? Whichever one means that you have too much time and money on your hands. Starbuck shows up to chew more scenery and is quickly followed by four Serbian gangsters who insist they be the ones getting greatly annoyed by Heaven. They've got a Dora The Explorer DVD in their car all ready for her. Jamie proceeds to mop the floor with them while trading childish barbs with Starbuck, who sits by and watches. Four beefsteaks are a little much for Jamie to handle, so she begs Starbuck for help. Starbuck jumps in and much 2 on 4 action is had by all. The Serbians are quickly reminded that not only do we hate Serbia, we've never heard of it before now and we think all guys who live there are bitchy little girls. They're all passed out on the floor with female sized boot prints on their asses, so they don't argue.
As they leave the nail salon, Starbuck mocks Jamie for not knowing how to turn off her GPS and video streaming eye. "They look at you in the shower, you know." "Oh my God!" Jamie replies in a shocked little girl voice. Um, Jamie, these are the same dudes who injected your entire body with Bionic nanites. You were unconscious for days as they worked over your entire body nonstop. They've seen every part of your body, shaved every part of your body, and they even know what your toes smell like. I think we're past the "ZOMG they've seen me neekid in the shower!" stage, don't you?
Starbuck trains Jamie how to turn off her tracking device and streaming eye. Heaven keeps sticking her nose in, which leads to a couple great Starbuck putdown lines, such as "why don't you go hang yourself or something?" LMFAO But Jamie still refuses to help Starbuck, who storms off whining about how she's going to die without that help.
Jamie shrugs and drops off Heaven with her father. Heaven is thankful and submissive. It's funny, I remember her being MUCH more annoying the first time I saw this episode over a year ago. Maybe seeing the actress on Kyle XY since then has softened my opinion of her (her character is repeatedly awesome on that show) Anyway, the episode is almost over so Jamie calls Sisty McSnackable and says she's bringing home some Chinese food. Sure, you know that Starbuck knows where you live and that she's now very pissed at you, but take your time getting home! What's the worst thing that could happen?
Besides Starbuck sitting at the table with Sisty McLunchable when Jamie gets home? Fortunately, Starbuck has drugged Naivey McTrusting (I mean, who lets complete strangers hang out in their house five minutes after meeting them?) so that she'll be good and knocked out before Jamie has to throw down because it's too early in the series for Hawtie McInTheDark to know that her sister is Bionic. It's an old Smallville thing. Clark has to use his superpowers but someone he knows is in danger? No problem, knocked the hell out they come! Every time!
And yet ... they don't fight. They just talk. And not just ordinary talking, pure Hallmark garbage dialogue. In the end, Jamie finally convinces Starbuck that her sister is just way too hawt to kill. I, and every other red blooded male, agree, and Starbuck leaves quietly. By quietly I mean weepily mouthing more threats and paranoia, but for her that's quietly.
TO BE CONTINUED! Dun dun dun.
Um, I hate to break it to you, Bionic Woman remake, but no it's NOT.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Day 3: The Outer Limits
Status: Ended
Premiered: March 26, 1995
Last Aired: January 18, 2002
Show Categories: Science Fiction, Drama
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 973 of 17,890
Episode: Bits of Love
Season: 3
Aired: 1/19/1997
Ah, The Outer Limits! You want so badly to grow up and be The Twilight Zone, don't you? Don't you? Coochie coochie coo! Yes you do! Yes you do, you cute widdle SF anthology series! Anyway, let's get to it.
We get started with a woman who looks like Scully's mother opening the windows to reveal a peaceful, majestic outdoors while classical music plays. Scully's mother asks our hero, whatever his name is, to get his sleepy ass out of bed. I don't know about you but it takes death metal to dynamite my fat ass out of bed in the morning. Classical music just isn't going to cut it.
In the kitchen another sweaty beefsteak is busy stretching and putting his nasty shoes on the kitchen counter. BeefSteak then makes the exact same point about the music as I just did, which makes me more than a little uncomfortable. (Ed. Note: I don't "prewatch" these episodes before blogging about them. In same cases, I haven't seen these episodes for a decade or more, and I think watching them ahead of time would destroy the spontaneity of my comments. So I watch, pause it to write, then watch more, pause again, and so on.) I don't like being on the same wavelength as effeminate beefsteaks. Fortunately their endless homoerotic banter quickly makes me so uncomfortable watching them I forget to be uncomfortable about me.
Our hero, whatever the hell his name is, calls everyone over to look at his painting. His father, Scully's mother, the beefsteak, and Natasha Henstridge (playing Emma) all magically appear from thin air. So that makes our hero, whatever the hell his name is, a double loser for living with fake parents and friends.
Ah, the opening credits! You want so badly for them to be as cool as the Twilight Zone credits, don't you? Coochie coochie coo! Yes you do! Heh heh. Speaking of the credits, what exactly is "beyond crystal clarity"? I never got that.
Jesus Christ this painting critique scene is taking forever! Can we just skip to the part where it sucks so we can see Natasha in something besides a full suit? Finally, after an interminable amount of time, our hero, whatever the hell his name is, banishes his parents and BSF (BeefSteakForever) with one command. I take it back. Being able to order your parents around actually does seem cool, even if they are fake.
Natasha says it's June 5th, 2047, which means that the Cubs have now gone 139 years without winning a World Series. From our hero's snippy journal entry we gather that Chicago had finally had enough of this and went to war with the rest of the world, dropping enough bombs to end life as we know it. There's nothing more bitter than a long suffering sports fan.
In the next scene the Beefsteak shows up with two blondes in a desperate attempt to convince us of his masculinity. He finally tells us our hero's name but the cheesy jazz music is so loud and the Beefsteak speaks so softly that it sounds like our hero's name is "Ape." That can't be right, can it? But, then again, he DOES look like an Ape so maybe it's an affectionate nickname.
His nickname SHOULD be Lamey McDumbass though because he's in a room with two blondes, is the master of all that happens since this is his virtual reality dealio, and ... he's happy with the blondes standing around fully clothed talking about a painting. Somewhere, Hugh Hefner is laughing his old, incredibly lucky ass off.
Ten hours later we finally get down to the slow dancing. At this pace it'll be 2057 before anybody gets to second base. On second thought, maybe the less I see of BeefSteak and Ape, the better.
Whoa! Hey! Nudity? WTF? This is TV, man! Holy crap, I need to watch more cable TV shows! ROWL! So anyway, Ape has a "sensory pod" with which he's able to have sex with his virtual reality blonde girl.
...
Wait. What? Okay, here's what we know:
Fact #1: Ape has been living alone in this bunker for 247 days, since the rest of humanity was wiped out.
Fact #2: As specifically stated in dialogue, the only virtual reality characters he's been interacting with all this time are his mom, his dad, BeefSteak, and Emma who is the caretaker.
Fact #3: Ape and Emma haven't had sex yet.
Question #1: With whom has Ape been using this sensory pod up until now?!?
On second thought, never mind. Sometimes it's better to let the mystery be. Instead, let's have another snippy conversation between Ape and his virtual father, a man so bitter and irritating he makes Al Bundy look preferable.
Emma consoles Ape, telling him that, in her stupid computer opinion, he IS a good artist. Ape reveals that he found her image in a fashion magazine, which begs the question, is she a computer program modeled after the real model Natasha Henstridge being played by the model/actress Natasha Henstridge? My head hurts thinking about it and I long for more naked blondes.
Emma and Ape go on a picnic, complete with a zany Ape story about one of his past romantic failures. Enough with the Must Love Virtual Dogs crap, can she just turn evil already? Sheesh. Yeah, yeah, it's all warm yellow outfits revealing most of her computerized breasts and meaningful looks and smiles now ... but ten minutes from now it's going to be all about "What are you doing, Dave, er, Ape?"
Up next we have Ape laying in bed in the dark (but for some reason still wearing his long pants. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, it's just odd) moaning about how all his other VR environments were damaged by the end of the world. Um, yeah. Six billion people dead but the real tragedy is that you can't walk in the moonlight in a virtual Central Park. Boo fucking hoo! Oh, and I guess you should have packed the Complete Stargate SG1 series on DVD or something, huh? Taking up only the space of a lunch box, you'd have 250 hours of entertainment, counting the special features. Dumbass.
Ape's next brilliant move is to put the blast on Emma, his artificial intelligence caretaker, which gets him straight rejected. So then Ape settles for the next best thing. No, not a nude backrub or a breast hoggie, no he's going to paint her. Naked of course. Because Ape is the only dude ... um ... the only dude ... um sorry, I gotta find a different frame on which to pause this shit. I just can't think with a naked Natasha Henstridge freeze framed all over my TV screen. Zoinks! So, anyway, Ape is the only dude on the PLANET more sex obsessed than I am because the end of the world and death of untold billions isn't going to get in the way of his naked painting freak show.
After a cheesy painting montage, we get to see his depiction of her. I'll give Ape this, he has a stupid name, a hideously annoying father, a mother who looks like Scully's mom, and a stupid sweaty semimasculine BeefSteak for a BFF, but the dude can paint. It's badass.
So much so that it's enough to get into Emma's soon to be crazy as HELL electronic pants. Into the Sensory Pod they go to fuck like minks just out of prison. I have to say, I LOVE how much sex and nudity there is in THE FUTURE. It's awesome! Also, I still don't know if Androids dream of electric sheep but I do now know that Artificial Intelligences are built like brick shithouses and cum like freight trains.
The next morning Emma drops the first hint that we're in a fast car in the passing lane headed straight for CrazyTown, home of Sean Young, Whitney Houston, that toothless chick who was in a couple Superman movies, and people who think According To Jim is freaking hilarious.
While chewing on that, Ape is visited by his VR parents and BeefSteak. They demand to know what his intentions are towards Emma. Ape banishes them abruptly, making me wish I'd had that kind of power whenever my exwife asked me annoying assed questions. Ape then stomps over to Emma, doucheily mocks her unhumaness, dumps her so brutally that high school Quarterbacks are blushing, and commands her to go back to being his caretaker only. Now, keep in mind, she's already dropped a few chillingly crazy comments, so clearly Ape wants to get a HAL sized mudhole stomped in his ass. That, or he's the world's biggest douche.
To really rub it in Emma's face, Ape calls up his old girlfriend's VR image for a date that night. This is the girl he once told Emma is the love of his life. Apparently a HAL sized ass whipping isn't good enough, he wants to get drumrolled Skynet style. Yeah, genius, let's piss off the computer program that's keeping you alive! Hyuck!
Emma, pissed off (surprise, surprise!), vaporizes Ape's old girlfriend and swaps herself into the sensory pod o' lovin' instead. This leads to a shouting match between Ape and Emma and before we know it, Emma is saying "no one can love you like I can." Oh boy. Time to hide under the bed for the rest of this episode!
Rightfully scared, Ape rushes over to his computer terminal to shut down Emma. "Ape, what are you doing?" She cries in classic HAL style. My spine tingles at this. "Can't we just talk about this?" She asks. I grip my teddy bear and close my eyes. "Fine, talk." Ape says.
"I'm pregnant." Emma reveals.
NOOOOOOOO! I'm outta here! Ya'll can watch the rest of this one by yourselves!
Ape fails to get rid of Emma through the terminal so he has to take a hotgun to the physical mainframe while BeefSteak begs for his life. BeefSteak's pleas fail and he's vaporized. WOO HOO!!! YEAH! Buh bye, BeefSteak!
But it doesn't work. Emma's still alive and murders Ape's exgirlfriend. What? Yeah, I know, she's just a VR program like everyone else but Emma still murders her ... just shut up. You had to be here.
Grrrr, BeefSteak and everyone else is back. Dammit! Emma says another bone chillingly familiar line, "all I wanted was for us to be together." Oh boy, back under the bed!
After a childish shouting match with his VR family and Emma, Ape is back in the mainframe room with his hotgun, creepily channeling Roddy McDowel's voice. Stop THAT at once, Ape! But soon the point gets hammered home the more Ape thrashes about, rants, sobs, raves, and laughs hysterically. It is not the computer who has gone insane, you see, it is the human being! How's that for a twist, huh? Nice.
(pssst, I still think Artificial Intelligences are creepy and scary as hell so you eggheads out there, please don't create them and thus cause the Robopocalypse! Kthx!)
Premiered: March 26, 1995
Last Aired: January 18, 2002
Show Categories: Science Fiction, Drama
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 973 of 17,890
Episode: Bits of Love
Season: 3
Aired: 1/19/1997
Ah, The Outer Limits! You want so badly to grow up and be The Twilight Zone, don't you? Don't you? Coochie coochie coo! Yes you do! Yes you do, you cute widdle SF anthology series! Anyway, let's get to it.
We get started with a woman who looks like Scully's mother opening the windows to reveal a peaceful, majestic outdoors while classical music plays. Scully's mother asks our hero, whatever his name is, to get his sleepy ass out of bed. I don't know about you but it takes death metal to dynamite my fat ass out of bed in the morning. Classical music just isn't going to cut it.
In the kitchen another sweaty beefsteak is busy stretching and putting his nasty shoes on the kitchen counter. BeefSteak then makes the exact same point about the music as I just did, which makes me more than a little uncomfortable. (Ed. Note: I don't "prewatch" these episodes before blogging about them. In same cases, I haven't seen these episodes for a decade or more, and I think watching them ahead of time would destroy the spontaneity of my comments. So I watch, pause it to write, then watch more, pause again, and so on.) I don't like being on the same wavelength as effeminate beefsteaks. Fortunately their endless homoerotic banter quickly makes me so uncomfortable watching them I forget to be uncomfortable about me.
Our hero, whatever the hell his name is, calls everyone over to look at his painting. His father, Scully's mother, the beefsteak, and Natasha Henstridge (playing Emma) all magically appear from thin air. So that makes our hero, whatever the hell his name is, a double loser for living with fake parents and friends.
Ah, the opening credits! You want so badly for them to be as cool as the Twilight Zone credits, don't you? Coochie coochie coo! Yes you do! Heh heh. Speaking of the credits, what exactly is "beyond crystal clarity"? I never got that.
Jesus Christ this painting critique scene is taking forever! Can we just skip to the part where it sucks so we can see Natasha in something besides a full suit? Finally, after an interminable amount of time, our hero, whatever the hell his name is, banishes his parents and BSF (BeefSteakForever) with one command. I take it back. Being able to order your parents around actually does seem cool, even if they are fake.
Natasha says it's June 5th, 2047, which means that the Cubs have now gone 139 years without winning a World Series. From our hero's snippy journal entry we gather that Chicago had finally had enough of this and went to war with the rest of the world, dropping enough bombs to end life as we know it. There's nothing more bitter than a long suffering sports fan.
In the next scene the Beefsteak shows up with two blondes in a desperate attempt to convince us of his masculinity. He finally tells us our hero's name but the cheesy jazz music is so loud and the Beefsteak speaks so softly that it sounds like our hero's name is "Ape." That can't be right, can it? But, then again, he DOES look like an Ape so maybe it's an affectionate nickname.
His nickname SHOULD be Lamey McDumbass though because he's in a room with two blondes, is the master of all that happens since this is his virtual reality dealio, and ... he's happy with the blondes standing around fully clothed talking about a painting. Somewhere, Hugh Hefner is laughing his old, incredibly lucky ass off.
Ten hours later we finally get down to the slow dancing. At this pace it'll be 2057 before anybody gets to second base. On second thought, maybe the less I see of BeefSteak and Ape, the better.
Whoa! Hey! Nudity? WTF? This is TV, man! Holy crap, I need to watch more cable TV shows! ROWL! So anyway, Ape has a "sensory pod" with which he's able to have sex with his virtual reality blonde girl.
...
Wait. What? Okay, here's what we know:
Fact #1: Ape has been living alone in this bunker for 247 days, since the rest of humanity was wiped out.
Fact #2: As specifically stated in dialogue, the only virtual reality characters he's been interacting with all this time are his mom, his dad, BeefSteak, and Emma who is the caretaker.
Fact #3: Ape and Emma haven't had sex yet.
Question #1: With whom has Ape been using this sensory pod up until now?!?
On second thought, never mind. Sometimes it's better to let the mystery be. Instead, let's have another snippy conversation between Ape and his virtual father, a man so bitter and irritating he makes Al Bundy look preferable.
Emma consoles Ape, telling him that, in her stupid computer opinion, he IS a good artist. Ape reveals that he found her image in a fashion magazine, which begs the question, is she a computer program modeled after the real model Natasha Henstridge being played by the model/actress Natasha Henstridge? My head hurts thinking about it and I long for more naked blondes.
Emma and Ape go on a picnic, complete with a zany Ape story about one of his past romantic failures. Enough with the Must Love Virtual Dogs crap, can she just turn evil already? Sheesh. Yeah, yeah, it's all warm yellow outfits revealing most of her computerized breasts and meaningful looks and smiles now ... but ten minutes from now it's going to be all about "What are you doing, Dave, er, Ape?"
Up next we have Ape laying in bed in the dark (but for some reason still wearing his long pants. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, it's just odd) moaning about how all his other VR environments were damaged by the end of the world. Um, yeah. Six billion people dead but the real tragedy is that you can't walk in the moonlight in a virtual Central Park. Boo fucking hoo! Oh, and I guess you should have packed the Complete Stargate SG1 series on DVD or something, huh? Taking up only the space of a lunch box, you'd have 250 hours of entertainment, counting the special features. Dumbass.
Ape's next brilliant move is to put the blast on Emma, his artificial intelligence caretaker, which gets him straight rejected. So then Ape settles for the next best thing. No, not a nude backrub or a breast hoggie, no he's going to paint her. Naked of course. Because Ape is the only dude ... um ... the only dude ... um sorry, I gotta find a different frame on which to pause this shit. I just can't think with a naked Natasha Henstridge freeze framed all over my TV screen. Zoinks! So, anyway, Ape is the only dude on the PLANET more sex obsessed than I am because the end of the world and death of untold billions isn't going to get in the way of his naked painting freak show.
After a cheesy painting montage, we get to see his depiction of her. I'll give Ape this, he has a stupid name, a hideously annoying father, a mother who looks like Scully's mom, and a stupid sweaty semimasculine BeefSteak for a BFF, but the dude can paint. It's badass.
So much so that it's enough to get into Emma's soon to be crazy as HELL electronic pants. Into the Sensory Pod they go to fuck like minks just out of prison. I have to say, I LOVE how much sex and nudity there is in THE FUTURE. It's awesome! Also, I still don't know if Androids dream of electric sheep but I do now know that Artificial Intelligences are built like brick shithouses and cum like freight trains.
The next morning Emma drops the first hint that we're in a fast car in the passing lane headed straight for CrazyTown, home of Sean Young, Whitney Houston, that toothless chick who was in a couple Superman movies, and people who think According To Jim is freaking hilarious.
While chewing on that, Ape is visited by his VR parents and BeefSteak. They demand to know what his intentions are towards Emma. Ape banishes them abruptly, making me wish I'd had that kind of power whenever my exwife asked me annoying assed questions. Ape then stomps over to Emma, doucheily mocks her unhumaness, dumps her so brutally that high school Quarterbacks are blushing, and commands her to go back to being his caretaker only. Now, keep in mind, she's already dropped a few chillingly crazy comments, so clearly Ape wants to get a HAL sized mudhole stomped in his ass. That, or he's the world's biggest douche.
To really rub it in Emma's face, Ape calls up his old girlfriend's VR image for a date that night. This is the girl he once told Emma is the love of his life. Apparently a HAL sized ass whipping isn't good enough, he wants to get drumrolled Skynet style. Yeah, genius, let's piss off the computer program that's keeping you alive! Hyuck!
Emma, pissed off (surprise, surprise!), vaporizes Ape's old girlfriend and swaps herself into the sensory pod o' lovin' instead. This leads to a shouting match between Ape and Emma and before we know it, Emma is saying "no one can love you like I can." Oh boy. Time to hide under the bed for the rest of this episode!
Rightfully scared, Ape rushes over to his computer terminal to shut down Emma. "Ape, what are you doing?" She cries in classic HAL style. My spine tingles at this. "Can't we just talk about this?" She asks. I grip my teddy bear and close my eyes. "Fine, talk." Ape says.
"I'm pregnant." Emma reveals.
NOOOOOOOO! I'm outta here! Ya'll can watch the rest of this one by yourselves!
Ape fails to get rid of Emma through the terminal so he has to take a hotgun to the physical mainframe while BeefSteak begs for his life. BeefSteak's pleas fail and he's vaporized. WOO HOO!!! YEAH! Buh bye, BeefSteak!
But it doesn't work. Emma's still alive and murders Ape's exgirlfriend. What? Yeah, I know, she's just a VR program like everyone else but Emma still murders her ... just shut up. You had to be here.
Grrrr, BeefSteak and everyone else is back. Dammit! Emma says another bone chillingly familiar line, "all I wanted was for us to be together." Oh boy, back under the bed!
After a childish shouting match with his VR family and Emma, Ape is back in the mainframe room with his hotgun, creepily channeling Roddy McDowel's voice. Stop THAT at once, Ape! But soon the point gets hammered home the more Ape thrashes about, rants, sobs, raves, and laughs hysterically. It is not the computer who has gone insane, you see, it is the human being! How's that for a twist, huh? Nice.
(pssst, I still think Artificial Intelligences are creepy and scary as hell so you eggheads out there, please don't create them and thus cause the Robopocalypse! Kthx!)
Friday, January 2, 2009
Day 2: Once And Again
Status: Ended
Premiered: September 21, 1999
Last Aired: April 15, 2002
Show Categories: Drama
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 638 of 17,889
Episode: The Gingerbread House
Season: 1
Aired: 12/21/1999
Ya know, when a fat older man such as myself sits down to watch an episode of TV and the very first thing he hears is a Tori Amos melody, he immediately understands two things:
1) This is going to be a LONG fucking 45 minutes, dude.
2) Take two shots of the Lifetime Channel, stir in some Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, and throw in a 30 Something chaser and you can approximate how much pain you're about to endure.
Buck up, because it's going to be as bad as you thought it would.
All jokes aside, though, I have to admit the single take, 90 second around and around and around opening Sela Ward slowly breaks down is a master class of both acting and camerawork. I can't imagine how many takes they needed to get is this perfect. It's very well done. Anyway, back to the pain.
Next we have the first (and only, oddly enough) interview segment. A clever idea for a drama, and it definitely sets this series apart from most of it's ilk, but it makes me too uncomfortable when they look straight at me. DON'T LOOK AT ME! I'M SITTING HERE NAKED ON MY SOFA AND I'M AS FAT AS I'VE EVER BEEN! STOP LOOKING AT ME!!!
But maybe that's just me.
Ahhhh, Billy Campbell before he becomes the incredibly wifebeating controlling douchebag in Enough. Before he becomes the incredibly hairy and controlling douchebag in The 4400. And well WELL before he becomes the incredibly self absorbed and controlling douchebag in Ghost Town. I don't know how to act with him being so clean shaven and uncontrolling and undouchey.
I see the music for this episode is by W. G. Snuffy Walden. Okay, stop the show, we need to talk about this. That can't be a real name, right? Please tell me that's some John Smithy boolsheet cuz ain't nobody real EVER been named some shit like that. And just how bad did the W and G have to be for him to be too ashamed of that to spell it out while steady thinking that "Snuffy" was badassed and to be shared with the world? WTF has never been so fitting. But alright. Fine. The composer's name is W. G. Snuffy Walden.
You know what I want for Christmas from my TV shows? Really really long discussions about how hard it is to make gingerbread houses from scratch. Hey everybody! Jump on my back and I'll fly you away to TVland where single mothers raising two kids, working full time, and dating a new boyfriend during the Christmas season have time to bake a fucking gingerbread house FROM SCRATCH! Mama Brady thinks that's off the chain.
Sela Ward's chump exhusband shows up having already gotten the two daughters all excited about a log cabin visit for Christmas. That's the way back into her pants, buddy. Straight through your children. Assuming she was a complete moron who couldn't see that coming from a mile away, that is. Sela declines his generous offer. Sela 1, Blue Balls 0.
But enough of that soap opera, lets go visit Billy Campbell and his exwife and their two children. It's no coincidence that among the four children, three of them are female. That 3-1 female to male ratio also perfectly describes the audience for this show, the ratio of painful to cool moments, and the number of times I thought of hanging myself (3) with the number of times an adult females who were actually hawt appeared in the episode (1). Even Evan Rachel Wood, who's hawt now, was prepubescent back then. Damn the luck!
After Billy finishes a very snippy conversation with his exwife, he meets Sela for a late night rendezvous in which he springs his surprise gift on her: two tickets to some kind of fancy lodge. The perfect romantic getaway! Sela pisses and moans about what to do with the children, Billy grovels because it's been far too long since he's been able to really tap that ass hard so he amps up the pressure, but Sela breaks wide without giving him an answer. This leaves Billy and his blue balls suspicious as HELL. Sela 2, Blue Balls 0.
The next day Sela whines to her smoking fine sister Marin Hinkle (the one hawt woman on the show) that she doesn't know what to get Billy. Which is odd because he's already made it clear that all he wants to do is take her away to the lodge so he can TAP THAT ASS deep, hard, and continuous. I mean, DUH. After missing the obvious, Sela admits what's been bothering her all episode. At the end of the previous episode, after the closing credits, she slept with her exhusband. Which just proves what I already knew, Billy Campbell is only sexy enough to keep a woman when he's sporting his Jesus Beard. I mean, DUH. If Barry White were hair instead of panty dropping music, it would be Billy Campbell's Jesus Beard.
Anyway, Marin makes Sela swear that she'll never tell Billy that she cheated on him.
This becomes harder when Billy's son tells him he saw Sela out with her exhusband, but Sela tells Billy she hasn't seen her exhusband for days. Confused yet? Let me simplify. The bitch stepped out and then lied about it, yo, but she's straight busted because Billy's backup snitched her out like the lying ho she is!
Billy and his even bluer balls are even more suspicious as HELL as he rants to his work bro the next day. Having caught her in a lie, Billy eats Christmas cookies and rants about how he can't trust her now.
Oh enough of that manly heart to heart, let's have some more gingerbread house baking! As noted in this scene, making food for decoration instead of for eating is an insult to all that is obese! I know, I know, this scene is really about how Grace, the eldest daughter also knows her mommy's a cheating whore but I can't get beyond this waste of perfectly good gingerbread cookies.
Two excruciatingly awkward conversations between Billy and Sela later, he confronts her about her lie and she admits it. She was with her exhusband but she wasn't WITH him. It's one of those logic puzzles that certain scatterbrains seem to get away with from the sheer force of their tardation. The more you argue with them the more THEY seem like geniuses and YOU seem like the short bus kid. So, as Billy does here, you just drop it because you're exhausted.
After Sela has a panic attack at the mall (either because she's spending too much money or because Grace saw her kissing her ex, she can't seem to make up her mind which), it's back to more gingerbread house cooking. Look, I love a good metaphor as much as anyone but can it at least be one that isn't stupid? Yes, we know, she's obsessing over this stupid cookie house because the cookie house isn't really a cookie house. Billy saves us by showing up to smell her cookies. Well, and to tell her in a very sweet way that he trusts her even though she lied to him.
Her reply? "I slept with Jake." The look on Billy Campbell's face at this is AWESOME! Aw man, it's all worth it for this! 30 minutes that felt like 300, but this is spectacular! But she doesn't stop there. "I don't even know how it happened, and I'm not sure I even think it was completely wrong." as Billy's face melts more and more. Cute, loyal puppies being kicked down stairs haven't looked this crushed. Kittens being teased with catnip bags only to get smacked in their cute little mouths haven't looked this crushed. I take it all back! It's all worth it and this show is AWESOME! HA HA HA HA HA HA!
Billy leaves to contemplate how unwise it was to not grow out the Jesus Beard in this series.
The next night, Christmas Eve, the exhusband comes over to grovel for more sex. Apparently Sela is supermom in bed because everybody wants a nice warm slice. Again she denies a hungry man. Sela 3, Blue Balls 0.
Oh yeah, apparently there's been a subplot all episode about the youngest daughter Zoe still believing in Santa Claus and during this fight about the ex wanting Sela's hawt ass Zoe discovered that her father, the ex, has been pretending all these years to be Santa Claus. But this is really a metaphor for the older daughter finally accepting the fact that her parents are never getting back together. This might feel a little less heavy handed if the two girls didn't have their revelations within ten seconds of each other, but probably not. But then again maybe I'm just angry about everyone eating Santa's cookies except for me. But then again, my rage is probably fueled by the obligatory snowfall that happens right at cue because, you know, this is a Christmas episode. Ugh. Gag me with a snowball.
The gingerbread house ended up looking like ass, but the cracks and mistakes on it are held together by the metaphor so it's allllll good. The sister, Marin, shows up to confirm that the gingerbread house looks like ass. Sela reveals that she told Billy about the indiscretion. Marin responds by peering through the gingerbread house and says, "Wow, there's a tiny little gingerbread woman in there, putting a teeny-tiny gumdrop gun to her head because she didn't listen to her sister." Close enough, it's actually a really fat gingerbread man sitting in front of a TV with a teeny-tiny gumdrop gun to his head, but whatever.
Sela puts on her gingerbread coat and rushes out to talk to Billy. What follows is one of the most pathetic attempts at an affair apology ever captured on film. Predictably, it fails. Billy is pissed and he's not having it. He walks away from her as she sobs out his name. The episode ends on her tear streaked face.
YES! YES! They're not getting back together! WOO HOO!! This nauseating couple has broken up forever! YES! AH HA HA HA HA HA HA!! This is awesome! I love it! Hold on to that grudge forever, Billy, you magnificent bastard!
Oh, wait, this is a chick flick series. They're obviously getting back together. Merry Fucking Christmas!
Premiered: September 21, 1999
Last Aired: April 15, 2002
Show Categories: Drama
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 638 of 17,889
Episode: The Gingerbread House
Season: 1
Aired: 12/21/1999
Ya know, when a fat older man such as myself sits down to watch an episode of TV and the very first thing he hears is a Tori Amos melody, he immediately understands two things:
1) This is going to be a LONG fucking 45 minutes, dude.
2) Take two shots of the Lifetime Channel, stir in some Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, and throw in a 30 Something chaser and you can approximate how much pain you're about to endure.
Buck up, because it's going to be as bad as you thought it would.
All jokes aside, though, I have to admit the single take, 90 second around and around and around opening Sela Ward slowly breaks down is a master class of both acting and camerawork. I can't imagine how many takes they needed to get is this perfect. It's very well done. Anyway, back to the pain.
Next we have the first (and only, oddly enough) interview segment. A clever idea for a drama, and it definitely sets this series apart from most of it's ilk, but it makes me too uncomfortable when they look straight at me. DON'T LOOK AT ME! I'M SITTING HERE NAKED ON MY SOFA AND I'M AS FAT AS I'VE EVER BEEN! STOP LOOKING AT ME!!!
But maybe that's just me.
Ahhhh, Billy Campbell before he becomes the incredibly wifebeating controlling douchebag in Enough. Before he becomes the incredibly hairy and controlling douchebag in The 4400. And well WELL before he becomes the incredibly self absorbed and controlling douchebag in Ghost Town. I don't know how to act with him being so clean shaven and uncontrolling and undouchey.
I see the music for this episode is by W. G. Snuffy Walden. Okay, stop the show, we need to talk about this. That can't be a real name, right? Please tell me that's some John Smithy boolsheet cuz ain't nobody real EVER been named some shit like that. And just how bad did the W and G have to be for him to be too ashamed of that to spell it out while steady thinking that "Snuffy" was badassed and to be shared with the world? WTF has never been so fitting. But alright. Fine. The composer's name is W. G. Snuffy Walden.
You know what I want for Christmas from my TV shows? Really really long discussions about how hard it is to make gingerbread houses from scratch. Hey everybody! Jump on my back and I'll fly you away to TVland where single mothers raising two kids, working full time, and dating a new boyfriend during the Christmas season have time to bake a fucking gingerbread house FROM SCRATCH! Mama Brady thinks that's off the chain.
Sela Ward's chump exhusband shows up having already gotten the two daughters all excited about a log cabin visit for Christmas. That's the way back into her pants, buddy. Straight through your children. Assuming she was a complete moron who couldn't see that coming from a mile away, that is. Sela declines his generous offer. Sela 1, Blue Balls 0.
But enough of that soap opera, lets go visit Billy Campbell and his exwife and their two children. It's no coincidence that among the four children, three of them are female. That 3-1 female to male ratio also perfectly describes the audience for this show, the ratio of painful to cool moments, and the number of times I thought of hanging myself (3) with the number of times an adult females who were actually hawt appeared in the episode (1). Even Evan Rachel Wood, who's hawt now, was prepubescent back then. Damn the luck!
After Billy finishes a very snippy conversation with his exwife, he meets Sela for a late night rendezvous in which he springs his surprise gift on her: two tickets to some kind of fancy lodge. The perfect romantic getaway! Sela pisses and moans about what to do with the children, Billy grovels because it's been far too long since he's been able to really tap that ass hard so he amps up the pressure, but Sela breaks wide without giving him an answer. This leaves Billy and his blue balls suspicious as HELL. Sela 2, Blue Balls 0.
The next day Sela whines to her smoking fine sister Marin Hinkle (the one hawt woman on the show) that she doesn't know what to get Billy. Which is odd because he's already made it clear that all he wants to do is take her away to the lodge so he can TAP THAT ASS deep, hard, and continuous. I mean, DUH. After missing the obvious, Sela admits what's been bothering her all episode. At the end of the previous episode, after the closing credits, she slept with her exhusband. Which just proves what I already knew, Billy Campbell is only sexy enough to keep a woman when he's sporting his Jesus Beard. I mean, DUH. If Barry White were hair instead of panty dropping music, it would be Billy Campbell's Jesus Beard.
Anyway, Marin makes Sela swear that she'll never tell Billy that she cheated on him.
This becomes harder when Billy's son tells him he saw Sela out with her exhusband, but Sela tells Billy she hasn't seen her exhusband for days. Confused yet? Let me simplify. The bitch stepped out and then lied about it, yo, but she's straight busted because Billy's backup snitched her out like the lying ho she is!
Billy and his even bluer balls are even more suspicious as HELL as he rants to his work bro the next day. Having caught her in a lie, Billy eats Christmas cookies and rants about how he can't trust her now.
Oh enough of that manly heart to heart, let's have some more gingerbread house baking! As noted in this scene, making food for decoration instead of for eating is an insult to all that is obese! I know, I know, this scene is really about how Grace, the eldest daughter also knows her mommy's a cheating whore but I can't get beyond this waste of perfectly good gingerbread cookies.
Two excruciatingly awkward conversations between Billy and Sela later, he confronts her about her lie and she admits it. She was with her exhusband but she wasn't WITH him. It's one of those logic puzzles that certain scatterbrains seem to get away with from the sheer force of their tardation. The more you argue with them the more THEY seem like geniuses and YOU seem like the short bus kid. So, as Billy does here, you just drop it because you're exhausted.
After Sela has a panic attack at the mall (either because she's spending too much money or because Grace saw her kissing her ex, she can't seem to make up her mind which), it's back to more gingerbread house cooking. Look, I love a good metaphor as much as anyone but can it at least be one that isn't stupid? Yes, we know, she's obsessing over this stupid cookie house because the cookie house isn't really a cookie house. Billy saves us by showing up to smell her cookies. Well, and to tell her in a very sweet way that he trusts her even though she lied to him.
Her reply? "I slept with Jake." The look on Billy Campbell's face at this is AWESOME! Aw man, it's all worth it for this! 30 minutes that felt like 300, but this is spectacular! But she doesn't stop there. "I don't even know how it happened, and I'm not sure I even think it was completely wrong." as Billy's face melts more and more. Cute, loyal puppies being kicked down stairs haven't looked this crushed. Kittens being teased with catnip bags only to get smacked in their cute little mouths haven't looked this crushed. I take it all back! It's all worth it and this show is AWESOME! HA HA HA HA HA HA!
Billy leaves to contemplate how unwise it was to not grow out the Jesus Beard in this series.
The next night, Christmas Eve, the exhusband comes over to grovel for more sex. Apparently Sela is supermom in bed because everybody wants a nice warm slice. Again she denies a hungry man. Sela 3, Blue Balls 0.
Oh yeah, apparently there's been a subplot all episode about the youngest daughter Zoe still believing in Santa Claus and during this fight about the ex wanting Sela's hawt ass Zoe discovered that her father, the ex, has been pretending all these years to be Santa Claus. But this is really a metaphor for the older daughter finally accepting the fact that her parents are never getting back together. This might feel a little less heavy handed if the two girls didn't have their revelations within ten seconds of each other, but probably not. But then again maybe I'm just angry about everyone eating Santa's cookies except for me. But then again, my rage is probably fueled by the obligatory snowfall that happens right at cue because, you know, this is a Christmas episode. Ugh. Gag me with a snowball.
The gingerbread house ended up looking like ass, but the cracks and mistakes on it are held together by the metaphor so it's allllll good. The sister, Marin, shows up to confirm that the gingerbread house looks like ass. Sela reveals that she told Billy about the indiscretion. Marin responds by peering through the gingerbread house and says, "Wow, there's a tiny little gingerbread woman in there, putting a teeny-tiny gumdrop gun to her head because she didn't listen to her sister." Close enough, it's actually a really fat gingerbread man sitting in front of a TV with a teeny-tiny gumdrop gun to his head, but whatever.
Sela puts on her gingerbread coat and rushes out to talk to Billy. What follows is one of the most pathetic attempts at an affair apology ever captured on film. Predictably, it fails. Billy is pissed and he's not having it. He walks away from her as she sobs out his name. The episode ends on her tear streaked face.
YES! YES! They're not getting back together! WOO HOO!! This nauseating couple has broken up forever! YES! AH HA HA HA HA HA HA!! This is awesome! I love it! Hold on to that grudge forever, Billy, you magnificent bastard!
Oh, wait, this is a chick flick series. They're obviously getting back together. Merry Fucking Christmas!
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Day 1: The X-Files
Status: Ended
Premiered: September 10, 1993
Last Aired: May 19, 2002
Show Categories: Science-Fiction, Drama
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 248 of 17,887
Episode: Closure
Season: 7
Aired: 2/13/2000
The episode opens on a smoke filled hill as a bunch of workers uncover and take away the bodies Mulder discovered at the end of the previous episode. Mulder starts quoting crappy poetry in a bored voice that suggests he's already skimming the Evolution script in his mind and wondering if he should get his plane tickets the hell out of X-Filesland from Cheaptickets or Priceline. Are they still dreaming of ice creams and monkeybars, Mulder? No, they're NOT! They're dreaming of some real fucking closure on your sister after 7 years of lies, cheap tricks, damned lies, retcons, and boolsheet.
But those dreams are shattered 90 seconds into the episode when darkness falls, Enya starts weeping, and ghosts fly out of the ground so they can stand in a circle and signal to us that yes, what we are about to receive is going to suck. And suck really really hard.
Roll opening credits, amen.
Believe to understand? You don't want to know what I believe right now, TV show.
Coming out of the credits we watch people ... watch TV. I believe this practice of watching people watch TV began in the 80s. Until then show runners understood that if we wanted to watch people watch TV we'd turn our heads to the right or left. Or look in the mirror if we're one of those sad, weeping millions who live alone.
In the next scene we meet Harold Pillar, played by the man who played the douchebag Vice Principal on Boston Public. Ah, Boston Public. I'll be getting to YOU, sweetie, later this year. And it's going to suck. And suck really really hard. This actor also played a longer haired douchebag on Silence of the Lambs and one or two of those sequels/prequels.
Harold is a police psychic and wants to help Mulder find the missing girl in this current case. Harold mentions "walk-ins", which, according to Stephen King's Dark Tower series, are people with names like Roland and Eddie and Jake. These are different kinds of people than "Walk-Outs", which are the millions of people who stopped watching The X-Files after this episode.
Scully response to this is familiar to longtime fans of the show. She leaves. She abandons Mulder. If I remember right, she started leaving him during cases in Season 2 and did it with more and more frequency as the series wore on. More, she threatened to leave him on many more occasions than she actually did so. This disloyal character trait is very unendearing and reminds one of a battered wife who continuously leaves and returns to her abuser. Which is probably intentional because Scully's belief in science is so strong that repeated proofs that more is out there probably does feel like abuse to her.
Mulder and Harold return to the field where the kids died (reminding fans of a much better Mulder poetry reading in a previous, much better season). Harold drops all pretense of masculinity during a sobbing exposition scene about Starlight and matter to energy conversion. The actor pretends he's weeping for the children, but it's clear that he's regretting his decision to forever be linked to the second worst series long mystery arc resolution behind Twin Peaks.
In the next scene we're back to watching people ... watch TV. I can't identify what show Scully and the creepy old man are watching but it features Mulder wearing a very bad wig. Maybe Mulder shoots Alf fan films in his spare time, with him in the title role of course, and Scully found his tapes. At the end of the scene Scully name drops the title of the episode by saying "Mulder deserves closure just like anyone." Notice she didn't say he deserved intelligent, creative, or nonretarded closure. Just closure. More foreshadowing that this closure is going to suck. And suck really really hard.
And ... we're back to watching people ... watch TV. This time it's Planet of the Apes, as if the show runners want to rub in the difference between a brilliant resolution to a mystery and a stupid one. Harold storms into Mulder's room babbling about visitors being present wanting to tell us something. Mulder protests that it's 3am but refuses to explain why he's still so well dressed. Anyone busting in on my fat ass at 3am is going to receive their righteous punishment for such an offense by being forced to gaze upon my nude, pudgy body.
Mulder's mother appears in a very creepy and well done way. But, like most old people, she insists she wants to say something but refuses to speak up. Mulder gets pissed and demands Harold leave his room. At this point, what the brilliant but sadly long gone Phil Farrand used to refer to as "The Pixies of Plot Advancement" step in and make Mulder write a note to himself. And we're off to the second act!
Meanwhile, Scully is creeping around Mulder's mother's bedroom, apparently trying to discover what 70 year old women wear to feel sexy in bed. We're almost choking on Pixie Dust when she finds a crucial scrap of paper that escaped a trashcan burning. Scully calls Mulder with this but he's snippy and hangs up on her.
Mulder and Harold arrive at one of five million fenced in military bases it's our pleasure to visit during the course of this series. Mulder's snippy to Harold before they're run off by the police. (Mulder's mood by this point in the episode rivals that one vacation I didn't have time to eat before a 6 hour flight, wasn't fed on the flight, then had to endure an eternal wait for a shuttle to my hotel only to find their restaurant had just closed and it was a 20 minute cab drive to the nearest fast food place.)
Meanwhile, Scully, who's mood isn't much better, arrives home to find Cancerman waiting for her. As always on this show, the sexual tension between these two is almost unbearable. After telling her a whole lotta nothing, he gives her one last steamy look before letting himself out.
And YES. Another scene at a military base chain link fence. Mulder and Harold easily scale it and invade the premises. This doesn't improve Mulder's mood, however, which now rivals the time I had to go 20 straight hours without urinating (it's a long story). They find Mulder's sister's name immortalized on the sidewalk. You heard me. This secret government conspiracy that hid the truth about Samantha for 25 years couldn't make sure their kidnapped children didn't write their names on the new concrete and apparently couldn't afford to replace that square once it happened. It's a miracle we don't all know the truth about the aliens by now.
Mulder and Scully scream at each other in the next scene. The interesting thing is that Mulder starts off calm and almost smiling but just a minute of Scully's skepticism is enough to make him angrier than a poor soul stuck on an international flight with only Beverly Hills Chihuahua as the inflight entertainment.
Once Mulder and Scully make up, they confront Harold. They tell him that they know he just took this role for the paycheck and that he's been secretly giggling about how retarded the script is. Harold starts weeping again and says he couldn't tell them the truth upfront or he'd have never been hired for the role. But he can prove his commitment to this role by crying again like the little puss he is. He pulls it off wonderfully.
And we're back in the military base AGAIN. Why Mulder and Harold didn't search the house last time can only be explained by the Pixies. Or Starlight, I guess. Harold demands that they hold hands. Scully's defensiveness at this suggests a lingering heat from her meeting with Cancerman. Or maybe Scully's in a bad mood because of the supernova taking place in the yard outside their house. (it was dark as hell as they run in but seconds later every window is flooded with light)
Ghosts start appearing. They don't look pissed about what's happening this season on Ghost Whisperer, which is odd. A boy ghost shows up and leads Mulder away. Apparently Mulder has never seen any of the thousands of Japanese horror movies which clearly warn about the dangers of following creepy assed ghost children away from your friends. But this time the ghost child doesn't drown him in gallons of nasty water or turn him into a stain on the wall, just shows him where Samantha's diary has been hidden.
Mulder reads from the diary, but he's so sad and depressed I suspect he's really reading the final pages of this script. There, there, Mulder. We're right here with you, buddy.
They go out and look up at the stars and pretend this scene hasn't been done a million times before. Yes, starlight is old. We get it. But no, they're NOT souls. They're light generated by stars. Duh.
Mulder's visited by a ghost in bed. Unfortunately for him, it's not the ghost of Marilyn Monroe but of his creepy looking mother. She whispers in his ear. From reading her lips, she says "why don't you follow my lead and force them to write you out of this show before it REALLY starts to suck? This episode is a portent of the doom to come!"
Scully wakes Mulder up the next morning and takes him to a police records room, where they have evidence that his sister ran away from the military base. It's Scully's turn to be snippy as she lobs one weak protest after the next. Mulder brushes all that aside and drives to the house of the nurse who admitted Samantha. As Mulder, Scully, and Harold get out of the car, Mulder stands frozen. The expression on his face is clear: he does NOT want to finish this episode. He knows that we're only minutes away now from some really brutal, life altering, series defining SUCK. Mulder even says out loud that this is, indeed, the end of the road for this series. But Scully leaves him behind and forces the action to continue. The end of this episode, like the fact that Keanu Reaves movies are going to suck and that there is never enough PIE in the world, is inevitable. Might as well get it over with.
Let's pause here and marvel at the nurse's first name. Arbutus. Ah, Arbutus. A first name worthy of the spawn of overrich, undereducated celebrities. If only a girl had been named Arbutus in my high school. That would have been a guaranteed date every time I was running short because every other boy would have been a total laughing douchebag to her.
Anyway, let's get back to the suck.
Unable to contain his mirth at her name, Mulder wanders off. Enya starts up again. Horror movie ghost boy is back and he leads Mulder to a starlit field. A starlit field where ghost children are dancing and playing. Starlight Samantha (played by the millionth different actress during the run of this series) runs up and hugs Mulder.
So. Um. After 7 years of drama, searching, lies, misleads, serial killers taking credit, alien abductions, Veronica Cartwright lying, and various other assorted boolsheet the answer is ... Starlight.
Fucking Starlight.
The 5th season of Sliders thinks that's retarded, but okay. Starlight it is.
Mulder comes back and confronts Harold. But Harold refuses to admit how much this resolution sucks and runs off into the dark to apparently walk 100 miles home on foot. I'm right there with him, I'd rather walk a 100 miles than face this resolution.
But Mulder's free. Not free of the weight of his sister's mystery, just free of most of the final two seasons after this one. Thinking of how close this final season is to being over, he lifts his tear streaked face to the sky and whispers gratefully, "I'm free."
If only Starlight had come to take me right before this episode aired.
Premiered: September 10, 1993
Last Aired: May 19, 2002
Show Categories: Science-Fiction, Drama
TV.Com Ratings Rank: 248 of 17,887
Episode: Closure
Season: 7
Aired: 2/13/2000
The episode opens on a smoke filled hill as a bunch of workers uncover and take away the bodies Mulder discovered at the end of the previous episode. Mulder starts quoting crappy poetry in a bored voice that suggests he's already skimming the Evolution script in his mind and wondering if he should get his plane tickets the hell out of X-Filesland from Cheaptickets or Priceline. Are they still dreaming of ice creams and monkeybars, Mulder? No, they're NOT! They're dreaming of some real fucking closure on your sister after 7 years of lies, cheap tricks, damned lies, retcons, and boolsheet.
But those dreams are shattered 90 seconds into the episode when darkness falls, Enya starts weeping, and ghosts fly out of the ground so they can stand in a circle and signal to us that yes, what we are about to receive is going to suck. And suck really really hard.
Roll opening credits, amen.
Believe to understand? You don't want to know what I believe right now, TV show.
Coming out of the credits we watch people ... watch TV. I believe this practice of watching people watch TV began in the 80s. Until then show runners understood that if we wanted to watch people watch TV we'd turn our heads to the right or left. Or look in the mirror if we're one of those sad, weeping millions who live alone.
In the next scene we meet Harold Pillar, played by the man who played the douchebag Vice Principal on Boston Public. Ah, Boston Public. I'll be getting to YOU, sweetie, later this year. And it's going to suck. And suck really really hard. This actor also played a longer haired douchebag on Silence of the Lambs and one or two of those sequels/prequels.
Harold is a police psychic and wants to help Mulder find the missing girl in this current case. Harold mentions "walk-ins", which, according to Stephen King's Dark Tower series, are people with names like Roland and Eddie and Jake. These are different kinds of people than "Walk-Outs", which are the millions of people who stopped watching The X-Files after this episode.
Scully response to this is familiar to longtime fans of the show. She leaves. She abandons Mulder. If I remember right, she started leaving him during cases in Season 2 and did it with more and more frequency as the series wore on. More, she threatened to leave him on many more occasions than she actually did so. This disloyal character trait is very unendearing and reminds one of a battered wife who continuously leaves and returns to her abuser. Which is probably intentional because Scully's belief in science is so strong that repeated proofs that more is out there probably does feel like abuse to her.
Mulder and Harold return to the field where the kids died (reminding fans of a much better Mulder poetry reading in a previous, much better season). Harold drops all pretense of masculinity during a sobbing exposition scene about Starlight and matter to energy conversion. The actor pretends he's weeping for the children, but it's clear that he's regretting his decision to forever be linked to the second worst series long mystery arc resolution behind Twin Peaks.
In the next scene we're back to watching people ... watch TV. I can't identify what show Scully and the creepy old man are watching but it features Mulder wearing a very bad wig. Maybe Mulder shoots Alf fan films in his spare time, with him in the title role of course, and Scully found his tapes. At the end of the scene Scully name drops the title of the episode by saying "Mulder deserves closure just like anyone." Notice she didn't say he deserved intelligent, creative, or nonretarded closure. Just closure. More foreshadowing that this closure is going to suck. And suck really really hard.
And ... we're back to watching people ... watch TV. This time it's Planet of the Apes, as if the show runners want to rub in the difference between a brilliant resolution to a mystery and a stupid one. Harold storms into Mulder's room babbling about visitors being present wanting to tell us something. Mulder protests that it's 3am but refuses to explain why he's still so well dressed. Anyone busting in on my fat ass at 3am is going to receive their righteous punishment for such an offense by being forced to gaze upon my nude, pudgy body.
Mulder's mother appears in a very creepy and well done way. But, like most old people, she insists she wants to say something but refuses to speak up. Mulder gets pissed and demands Harold leave his room. At this point, what the brilliant but sadly long gone Phil Farrand used to refer to as "The Pixies of Plot Advancement" step in and make Mulder write a note to himself. And we're off to the second act!
Meanwhile, Scully is creeping around Mulder's mother's bedroom, apparently trying to discover what 70 year old women wear to feel sexy in bed. We're almost choking on Pixie Dust when she finds a crucial scrap of paper that escaped a trashcan burning. Scully calls Mulder with this but he's snippy and hangs up on her.
Mulder and Harold arrive at one of five million fenced in military bases it's our pleasure to visit during the course of this series. Mulder's snippy to Harold before they're run off by the police. (Mulder's mood by this point in the episode rivals that one vacation I didn't have time to eat before a 6 hour flight, wasn't fed on the flight, then had to endure an eternal wait for a shuttle to my hotel only to find their restaurant had just closed and it was a 20 minute cab drive to the nearest fast food place.)
Meanwhile, Scully, who's mood isn't much better, arrives home to find Cancerman waiting for her. As always on this show, the sexual tension between these two is almost unbearable. After telling her a whole lotta nothing, he gives her one last steamy look before letting himself out.
And YES. Another scene at a military base chain link fence. Mulder and Harold easily scale it and invade the premises. This doesn't improve Mulder's mood, however, which now rivals the time I had to go 20 straight hours without urinating (it's a long story). They find Mulder's sister's name immortalized on the sidewalk. You heard me. This secret government conspiracy that hid the truth about Samantha for 25 years couldn't make sure their kidnapped children didn't write their names on the new concrete and apparently couldn't afford to replace that square once it happened. It's a miracle we don't all know the truth about the aliens by now.
Mulder and Scully scream at each other in the next scene. The interesting thing is that Mulder starts off calm and almost smiling but just a minute of Scully's skepticism is enough to make him angrier than a poor soul stuck on an international flight with only Beverly Hills Chihuahua as the inflight entertainment.
Once Mulder and Scully make up, they confront Harold. They tell him that they know he just took this role for the paycheck and that he's been secretly giggling about how retarded the script is. Harold starts weeping again and says he couldn't tell them the truth upfront or he'd have never been hired for the role. But he can prove his commitment to this role by crying again like the little puss he is. He pulls it off wonderfully.
And we're back in the military base AGAIN. Why Mulder and Harold didn't search the house last time can only be explained by the Pixies. Or Starlight, I guess. Harold demands that they hold hands. Scully's defensiveness at this suggests a lingering heat from her meeting with Cancerman. Or maybe Scully's in a bad mood because of the supernova taking place in the yard outside their house. (it was dark as hell as they run in but seconds later every window is flooded with light)
Ghosts start appearing. They don't look pissed about what's happening this season on Ghost Whisperer, which is odd. A boy ghost shows up and leads Mulder away. Apparently Mulder has never seen any of the thousands of Japanese horror movies which clearly warn about the dangers of following creepy assed ghost children away from your friends. But this time the ghost child doesn't drown him in gallons of nasty water or turn him into a stain on the wall, just shows him where Samantha's diary has been hidden.
Mulder reads from the diary, but he's so sad and depressed I suspect he's really reading the final pages of this script. There, there, Mulder. We're right here with you, buddy.
They go out and look up at the stars and pretend this scene hasn't been done a million times before. Yes, starlight is old. We get it. But no, they're NOT souls. They're light generated by stars. Duh.
Mulder's visited by a ghost in bed. Unfortunately for him, it's not the ghost of Marilyn Monroe but of his creepy looking mother. She whispers in his ear. From reading her lips, she says "why don't you follow my lead and force them to write you out of this show before it REALLY starts to suck? This episode is a portent of the doom to come!"
Scully wakes Mulder up the next morning and takes him to a police records room, where they have evidence that his sister ran away from the military base. It's Scully's turn to be snippy as she lobs one weak protest after the next. Mulder brushes all that aside and drives to the house of the nurse who admitted Samantha. As Mulder, Scully, and Harold get out of the car, Mulder stands frozen. The expression on his face is clear: he does NOT want to finish this episode. He knows that we're only minutes away now from some really brutal, life altering, series defining SUCK. Mulder even says out loud that this is, indeed, the end of the road for this series. But Scully leaves him behind and forces the action to continue. The end of this episode, like the fact that Keanu Reaves movies are going to suck and that there is never enough PIE in the world, is inevitable. Might as well get it over with.
Let's pause here and marvel at the nurse's first name. Arbutus. Ah, Arbutus. A first name worthy of the spawn of overrich, undereducated celebrities. If only a girl had been named Arbutus in my high school. That would have been a guaranteed date every time I was running short because every other boy would have been a total laughing douchebag to her.
Anyway, let's get back to the suck.
Unable to contain his mirth at her name, Mulder wanders off. Enya starts up again. Horror movie ghost boy is back and he leads Mulder to a starlit field. A starlit field where ghost children are dancing and playing. Starlight Samantha (played by the millionth different actress during the run of this series) runs up and hugs Mulder.
So. Um. After 7 years of drama, searching, lies, misleads, serial killers taking credit, alien abductions, Veronica Cartwright lying, and various other assorted boolsheet the answer is ... Starlight.
Fucking Starlight.
The 5th season of Sliders thinks that's retarded, but okay. Starlight it is.
Mulder comes back and confronts Harold. But Harold refuses to admit how much this resolution sucks and runs off into the dark to apparently walk 100 miles home on foot. I'm right there with him, I'd rather walk a 100 miles than face this resolution.
But Mulder's free. Not free of the weight of his sister's mystery, just free of most of the final two seasons after this one. Thinking of how close this final season is to being over, he lifts his tear streaked face to the sky and whispers gratefully, "I'm free."
If only Starlight had come to take me right before this episode aired.
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