Entries Tagged 'Fox' ↓

John’s getting close to classmate Riley, but he’s surprised to find out she left without restarting the security system–and the Connors were robbed. Turns out Cameron was skeptical of Riley but “no one likes a nag.” Of course, Jody, Cameron’s robber friend from a run-in isn’t so trustworthy either. She runs into a Terminator and tells the android where to find the family. Meanwhile, Ellison is surprised to find himself under arrest for a murder committed by a Terminator in “Brothers of Nablus,” Episode 2.7 of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Continue reading →

Dust off your theremins, folks! The Simpsons are back for their 19th stab at the “Treehouse of Horror” series—and while much of it had little to do with Halloween, compared to the lackluster entries in recent years, I thought this episode was frightfully good. As always, it features a trio of terror:

• In “Untitled Robot Parody,” Bart unwittingly gives Lisa a sentient transforming robot for Christmas, and before long Springfield is caught in the middle of an extraterrestrial throwdown between warring cyborg factions.
• Homer is approached by unscrupulous ad men who want him to off celebrities so they don’t have to pay to use their likenesses in commercials in “How to Get Ahead in Dead-vertising.”
• Finally, the parody fans have been waiting for (whether they knew it or not): Charles Schulz’s beloved Halloween special gets Simpson-ed in “It’s the Grand Pumpkin, Milhouse.”

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[Thanks to the ear infection mentioned last week, I can’t hear very well.  So this will be broad strokes, as I’d have to rewatch the episode a few times with the volume turned up to 11 to catch all the fun dialogue.]

A well-conceived episode, but a victim of the show’s predictability.  Olivia Wilde is doing a fine job with the role of Thirteen, but for some reason I feel somewhat detached from that ongoing storyline.  There was good chemistry between Angela Gots and Wilde; the problem is that the episode followed the traditional pattern–it was kind of interesting watching the two bonding over dying, but one look at the clock and we know that at the last minute, House will determine that Thirteen’s conquest isn’t dying after all.  It’s hard to see where they’re headed, unless perhaps the plan is to have House unravel at having to watch one of his own doctors die.  Dunno.  Clearly, the storyline is going to be crammed down our throats, so let’s hope for the best. Continue reading →

Oh, they were so close to completing their mission and nabbing the final Scylla card that I hope fits together with the rest to form a map to the Ark of the Covenant or something. But as it is in the world of Prison Break–which so closely mirrors our own–the best-laid plans are discarded and urinated on.

On the upside, African-American Terminator, the terrifying bringer of death and despair, finds himself in a predicament and a major character is dispatched with extreme prejudice.

Power Rankings after the jump!

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Sarah, John, and Cameron go into counseling in “The Tower is Tall but the Fall is Short,” Season 2, Episode 6, of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It’s to check out a counselor who’s somehow linked to SkyNet. The link seems to be Catherine Weaver (the Terminatrix played by Shirley Manson), who is taking her daughter to the same counselor. The doc, who worked at the VA, notices that John’s checking the exits. Nice touch.

The doc gets called in when the AI that Weaver’s corporation is working on asks a question: “Why is a math book so sad?” Continue reading →

What’s better than winning the lottery or trading places with your rich doppelganger? Getting an episode of The Simpsons that’s a coherent story from beginning to end.

Bart Simpson has always been a bad boy, but he crosses the line at the beginning of “Double, Double Boy in Trouble” not once, not twice, but three times. First, his antics at the Kwik-E-Mart cost Homer the chance to purchase a winning lottery ticket, which Lenny buys instead. Then he ruins his mother’s dress just as the family is about to leave for Lenny’s celebratory party — a fancy soiree Bart dismantles with the help of a legion of sentient vacuum robots. But just as Bart is contemplating the worst choking of his life, he meets a dorky rich kid named Simon Woosterfield who not only looks exactly like him, but is also itching to see how the other half lives. So Bart and Simon trade places, Mark Twain-style, only to discover that the grass isn’t necessarily as green on the other side of the high-security fence. In fact, life can be downright deadly.

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Fringe is an interesting conundrum. We as viewers are asked to be obsessively prying out the mysteries of conspiracies from the get go, as opposed to allowing audiences to come to this crazy behavior all on their own. Take The X-Files for example; a show that bears an ever-increasing resemblance to Fringe with every passing episode. It earned a die-hard audiences of pryers, believers and diggers through, patience, time and a stubborn refusal to reveal anything of significance, over multiple seasons. Lost is doing the same thing to us poor, long-suffering fans.

With Fringe, well. We’re asked to buy into the hype in the pilot episode. Frankly, it’s a lot to ask.

(Author’s note: yes, I suck. No more delayed reviews, I promise.)

Episode recaps and sardonic commentary after the jump.

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Disclaimer:  I’m currently suffering from a severe ear infection and am currently whacked out on Lortab, lest I take a fondue fork to my eardrums.  so this will be (mercifully) brief.

A first rate episode on all fronts, and an incredible way to reconcile House and Wilson.  If Hugh Laurie doesn’t get an Emmy for this performance, they might as well just stop giving the awards.  We didn’t really get any more details of House’s childhood–the writers just played off of what had been established in season 2’s “Daddy’s Boy.”  From his voice cracking at the funeral, to the impish grin as he goads Wilson to think about the PotW, to the heartbreaking “My dad’s dead” to Wilson, right after House has proven that he is not his father’s biological child.  And bizarrely, when Wilson responded, “I know,” I flashed on Han Solo to Leia in The Empire Strikes Back.  I’m going to assume that was the Lortab talking.

As a bonus, for the first time we get some real interaction between the old guard and the new guard, with  everyone getting some decent screen time.  All in all, a magnificent conclusion to the Wilson’s Grief arc.

The gang jetsets to Vegas to track down the fifth Super Secret Evil Data Card. With just one card remaining–and the PSP now MIA because of a plot contrivance–the Breaky Bunch will have their work cut out for them if they wish to wrap up their crazy plot in a manageable time frame.

Meanwhile, the Company is closing in Agent Don Self, forcing him to take the fight to General Zod (sp?) and African-American Terminator. And what is this? T-Bag and Gretchen in cahoots? Wow! No one cares!

Power Rankings after the jump.

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“Two Sarah Connors were murdered before they found me.”

Now the Terminators from tomorrow are looking up Martin Bedells. One’s dead, and there are two others in the phone book. If the right Martin Bedell gets killed, John will lose an important Resistance ally in the future. In Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Season 2, Episode 5, “Goodbye to All That,” John goes to a military prep school to keep an eye out for Terminators, and the school hires Reese. Meanwhile, Sarah and Cameron arrive just in time to save a boy from the cyborgs. Continue reading →