Sensyden’s Sounding Board

A Song of Fire and Ice: I Lost a Couple of Months There

2011-06-20T21:11:00.000-04:00

It has been a good long while since I have had a chance to post to my blog. I could say that fatherhood is the main reason for my extended absence, but I would be lying. When I heard that HBO was developing a television show based on a series of fantasy novels I knew that I would want to check it out. Unfortunately, I do not subscribe to HBO and could not justify the monthly purchase for one television series. I figured I could grab individual episodes via iTunes, however, HBO did not make Game of Thrones available for purchase there or anywhere else on the web.

In an effort to keep ahead of TV spoilers while I waited for DVD (or HBO to get wise and make individual episodes accessible online) I decided to read the book. As a bonus, I figured I could make comments to TV viewers along the lines of, “You really have not experienced GOT (a book snob has to use the acronym) until you’ve read it”. I have heard this series described as, “Lord of the Rings, for adults”. But that is not nearly accurate. This is more like Braveheart, only there are 30 main characters instead of one and also there are dragons.

The first book is especially light on the fantasy aspect of the series and much more focused on the political ins and outs of the Kingdom of Westeros. Which is to say that, for me, this series was like drinking a cup of coffee. I tolerated the less than tasteful aspects, enjoyed it more as I got used to it, and eventually came back to have another serving the next morning. Some of the literary tools which George R.R. Martin wielded in this book series drove me bonkers.

The way he constantly referred to breakfast as, “breaking his fast” or the insistence on counting age as “three and thirty” physically raised my stress level every single time on I read the words. What I hated most throughout the novels, however, was Martin’s insistence on naming every piece of clothing, every character was wearing, every time they appeared on the page. If I never read the words, “He was wearing plain mail over boiled leather”, again it would be too soon.

Yet somehow, the characters of these novels feel like they jump off the page and insert themselves into your psyche. Martin’s choice to have every chapter follow the thoughts and actions of a particular character was a stroke of genius. When characters die, and they will, their death is felt particularly painfully because the reader feels like they have gotten to know them so well. Even characters that do horrendous, unforgivable things can be emphasized with when the world is filtered through their frame of reference. On the flip side, beloved characters can take a sinister turn and become irredeemable in the eyes of the reader.

When we do not get to hear from particular characters for hundreds of pages their absence is felt. Some times I found myself skipping ahead to the next chapter just to see if I was going to finally get to spend some more time in a certain characters head, especially early in the series while drudging through the Sansa chapters.

To make a long odyssey shorter I summarize with this; I read the first four novels in this series in less than a month and a half and only stopped to post these thoughts because the fifth book does not come out for another 20 days or so. I am sure the HBO series is excellent, but I can say for a fact that these books are fantastic (most of the time)!

Baby Thoughts 2

2011-05-14T12:31:00.000-04:00

My parents have gone to considerable lengths to make sure no germ ever touches my pristine skin. It is fairly easy to stymie their efforts because I am currently at the point in my physical development where I threaten to crawl any time I am placed on a moderately flat surface. On a side note, learning to pop my butt in the air and wiggle my feet has been a fair amount of fun for me. However, my parents reaction to my burgeoning mobility is the real treat.

If I moved off the little towel my Mother perfectly placed on the floor, Father would snatch me right off the ground. Then Mommy would say something about Benji dragging feces all over the house. Eventually the towel turned into a bed, but whenever I would move a tad Daddy would snatch me. Then Mommy would say something about bumping my head. Next we tried a mat but that still was not big enough and it was quickly covered by a giant sheet. Of course the sheet was not a perfect fix either because I would roll off it or Benjamin would walk on it and both of those scenarios would illicit a hysterical reaction from both parents.

One day I rolled off my designated spot, reached for (than chewed on) one of Benji’s toys. A heartbeat later, Mommy picked me up, handed Daddy his keys and said, “Don’t come home until you’ve hired someone to install a new rug in this room! While I was excited about the prospect of a new rug, I did not see how it would help Benji proof my life. I thought he might take a bath every time he came into the house now because he did not want to spoil the new rug, but quickly realized that did not seem practical because Benjamin does not like water.

Minutes after the new rug was installed, Daddy made a big joke about how we could build a Benji funnel out of couches, my toys and a baby gate. At least it was a joke to him, Mommy was not laughing. From this point on Benjamin would come in and out his normal entrance, however, we would cut him off at the den by sliding the couch into the center of the room and making a Benji sized run. Mommy would then place a baby gate between the arm of the couch and the small opening at the far side of the room, effectively creating a Benji free zone in the center.

The “Benji Funnel” as Daddy calls it took a few minutes to create but it has provided hours of entertainment for me! I get free range of a massive (massive is a relative term, as I am a foot and a half tall) room and infrequently get pulled off my chosen path due to a germ concern. More amusing than my personal fun, however, is the fun I have at the expense of my parents.

Daddy is too short to walk over the baby gate and had resorted to doing a ridiculous rolling maneuver over the arm of the couch the first few times he went through. Mommy (who is no giant herself) simply stopped going to the office, laundry room, garage, and basement which are the rooms at the end of the funnel. Eventually Daddy realized that his roll was a bit over the top (see what I did just there) so he attempted to walk over the couch. Unfortunately, the arm made a terrible groaning noise when he had all his weight on it so he had to abandon that strategy as well. Mommy began ordering Daddy to fetch whatever it was she needed from the basement which only doubled his trips through the funnel.

Finally, Daddy dealt with the funnel in the same way Benji does. He now goes the long way around, hugging the wall as he walks because the run is only designed for our dog and is not wide enough for him to walk normally through. Sometimes I get a real treat when both Benji and Daddy are attempting to go through the funnel in opposite directions, usually Daddy backs down first because Benji is stubborn!

The best part about this whole situation is that the gate itself is not even wedged in place. Daddy could move and replace the gate in less than 10 seconds but I guess Benji is not the only one in the house who is stubborn!

Baby Thoughts

2011-04-25T21:15:00.000-04:00

OK, what just happened? For five days in a row I have been on my own! Well, not on my own but for the last five days there has been no Daddy when I wake up. He has been there every day I can remember except for the days that Mommy was there to wake me up. Now it is all sorts of people, almost like a “this is your life” scenario.

Monday I was shocked when I woke up because my best friend Jojo was in my crib with me, just sitting there staring at me, sucking her passie! At first I thought I was dreaming but it turned out that Jojo and her mommy were going to spend the day with me while Daddy did something called “work”. Apparently this is where Mommy goes when she is not home also.

I guess it was not too bad as Jojo and I had a good time while Mommy and Daddy hung out without me. At least we were having a good time until she had too much to drink and puked all over my play mat! Then it was on like a baby toy suctioned onto a high chair tray! I did a triple roll belly-back-belly and whacked her across the face with an open palm slap and then I rolled over her for good measure. I thought Jojo’s Mommy might be upset but she just filmed the whole thing on her iPhone and then posted it to the internet.

Everything eventually blew over though when Jojo let me finish her pears at lunch time! I was hungry and she was not so it all worked out. Eventually Mommy came home and then about an hour later Daddy came home too. I found this odd because I figured they would drive to work together.

Tuesday I awoke to Aunt Tete. She said, a lot of words that I did not understand and read me a story off her computer that sounded an awful lot like a physics essay. I really love my Aunt Tete but when she laughs it scares the bejeezes out of me! It is loud and usually I do not see it coming! On the plus side, I was relieved that Aunt Tete did not vomit on my play mat because I’d have hard time steam rolling over her! Again Mommy got home about an hour before Daddy, you’d think that gas prices would get them to drive the same car.

Wednesday was Mommy and me day! It was awesome just spending time with her, but made even better because she took me to the eye doctors. I have perfect vision! Actually they did not test me, I am not sure why I lied, I hope I am not a pathological liar! It was a fun trip though because Mommy’s eye doctor lives in the mall so I got to watch Mommy eat a pretzel while I sat there and drooled!

To my surprise shortly after Daddy got home my Great Aunt Rayni came over. Then she made Daddy and Mommy a gourmet dinner while I ate sweet potatoes without marshmallows! Aunt Rayni was still hanging out with Mommy and Daddy when I went to bed so I was not completely shocked when I awoke to her smiling face the next two mornings. Rayni wears big jewelry so I had a blast trying to grab her necklace and pull out her earrings! I also enjoyed making movies and sending pictures to everyone in Great Aunt Rayni’s cell phone.

While this was an odd week, I think it might be the new normal. What is normal anyway? I doubt a 7 month old baby blogging on the internet from her iPod (I don’t need an iPad my hands are tiny) touch would be considered normal.

Benjamin Linus: An Apt Moniker

2011-04-20T15:06:00.001-04:00

This story begins almost three years ago. About a year after the wife and I purchased our home we adopted a dog. We named him Benjamin Linus after the troubled character from the TV show Lost because he had one blue eye and one brown eye which made him seem a bit nefarious. The name turned out to be a bit prophetic because like the character Benji would spend weeks earning our trust with magnificent behavior only to turn on us when we would least expect it. He has mangled two pairs of my wife’s Uggs, gnawed on couch legs and cushions, stolen countless articles of clothing, and never met a dog bed he could resist eating.

About six months into our adoption of Benji he decided to up the destruction and chewed through the rug in the office and a giant chunk of molding around the office door. I fixed the molding with some putty and decided to simply cover the rug because I anticipated future attacks. Two and a half years later while a lot has change we have not had a recurrence of rug abuse. Our child is approaching the crawling stage so we decided it would be nice to replace our old chewed up rug in favor of something newer and cleaner.

We contracted Home Depot to install new carpets because they advertised a 72 hour installation process. That has turned out to be a bit of a lie because the clock does not start from the time you hire them to do the job. First you pay 35 bucks, then they send someone to your house to measure, then they waste two days, then they send you an email, then you pay a majority of the cost, then you wait a few days until they call you at their convenience to schedule an installation three days from the phone call you are currently having. While that is not the point of this post, I have found it more than a tad bit annoying.

Also, Home Depot recommends you remove the old rug yourself because for them to remove it would be a substantial additional cost, (there words, not mine). Therefore, today in anticipation of my new rug I began to remove the old one from Benji’s room, also known as the office. The rug is going in the office and den and the two rooms are separated by a pocket door. In an effort to properly ventilate the room while I worked, I opened all the doors and windows to and from the office which included the back and garage doors. I then closed the pocket door to keep Benjamin locked inside the house proper.

When I finished my job, I sent Benjamin into the backyard (so he would not destroy the house) and then attempted a quick shower. Mid-shampoo I realized my stupendous error. I had left the doors propped open to continue airing out my workspace! My insane dog could be chewing on anything or anyone in my neighborhood as I had been in the shower at least five minutes before realizing my folly.

I bolted from the shower, slipped on the slick tile floor and gracefully (if you can call falling out of the shower graceful) bounced back up on my feet into the hanger with my towel on it. I wrapped the towel around myself and ran through my house like a crazed person. I banged on the back door in a vain attempt to locate my long gone dog. I ran into the office, doors open as I had feared and found no signs of Benjamin Linus. I went into my garage, looked out the gigantic opening where Benjamin must have sauntered off, still dripping wet, and did not locate my dog.

I rushed through the house and over to my front door in an attempt to get a better view of my street. I flung the door open and to my shock found Benjamin Linus napping on lawn five feet from where I stood. Immediately, I was of two minds. One was relief that my dog had not run off, but the other was a vision of me chasing Benji around my front yard in a towel (the stuff of nightmares). Before I could reconcile my two thoughts I opened the door and told Benji to come into the house, amazingly, he stood up, stretched, and casually walked inside.

The other amazing aspect of this story has to do with my little girl. She managed to nap through the entire experience of rug removal, my quicker than quick shower, me running through the house like a mad man, and Benjamin returning home (though technically he never left). I dried off, put on some clothes and sat on the couch to reflect upon my stupidity when through the front window I saw a woman walking a gigantic dog. Benji saw them too and ran around the house like a hound possessed barking like he wanted to eat the world. This of course promptly roused my child who began sobbing.

Now more than ever I am sure Benjamin Linus is the most aptly named dog in the history of canine domestication.

Literary Criticism: By a 6 Month Old

2011-03-09T19:52:00.002-05:00

Daddy recently read me a few Winnie the Pooh books. I was very excited for this book series because I have a lot of Winnie the Pooh clothing, toys, and games. In fact, if you had asked me six days ago who my hero was, and I could verbally respond, I would have indicated Pooh Bear, hands down. However, upon actual examination I have realized that the tales of Winnie the Pooh pale in comparison to the myth of Winnie the Pooh.

Let us start with Pooh himself. I was flabbergasted to learn that Winnie the Pooh is actually a stuff bear, owned by Christopher Robin, named Edward Bear. If we ignore the fact that A. A. Milne really missed an opportunity by not originally designating him “Theodore Bear” I think we can safely say that A. A. Milne is a liar. I was under the impression that I was going to meet Pooh at some point down the line. Now when I make my way to the Magic Kingdom I’m going to know that the giant yellow bear is an impostor of a fictional character.

Even if I can ignore the fact that Pooh Bear is a figment of Milne’s mind there are significant problems with the stories I have been read. For example, Pooh is often a single minded bear that can do little more than stuff his face full of honey. When he does pull himself out of his sugar induced comas Pooh as a character does not come off as the ideal friend he is often portray as being. Pooh lies to his friends when asked sincere questions and in an effort to bring legitimacy to his fabrications he will usually add, “Christopher Robin told me”.

Christopher Robin, who I am assuming is the only real thing in these books, seems somewhat full of himself. In one instance, he led everyone, including all of Rabbit’s friends and relations, on a quest to find the North Pole. Unfortunately he had no idea where the North Pole was or even what it was so he simply claimed to his crew that Pooh found it when they came across a pole in the woods. I for one would not want to be stumping through the woods with Christopher Robin as the sole keeper of legitimate knowledge.

While on the topic of knowledge I would like to point out the lazy editing of these stories. Certain words are plagued by frequent misspelling. Honey, for instance, is spelled “Huney” as frequently as it is spelled correctly. Capitalization runs afoul of standard grammar rules as well I’m afraid. Words are capitalized without reason, in the middle of sentences, at the end, and everywhere in between.

Perhaps the most disconcerting part of the entire experience of getting to know the actual tales of Winnie the Pooh is what comes after we finish each book. Daddy feels it necessary to impart what he felt the moral of each story was to me. So far they have included; “And that is why you must remember to eat before you leave the house”, “And that is why you must never climb trees without a spotter”, “And that is why it is rarely a good idea to approach a bee hive”, “And that is why we’ve largely abandoned balloon and zeppelin travel in favor of the energy intensive airplanes”, and my personal favorite, “And that is why an umbrella must never be used as a flotation device”.

He completely missed the actual moral of each individual story and the series as a whole. In fact, the moral of Winnie the Pooh is fairly simple. Real friends will always love you despite your flaws. I would also note, in light of this whole Edward Bear debacle, Milne seemed to have indicated that imagination can turn the mundane into the memorable. Maybe there is something worthy of continued exploration in the Winnie the Pooh series after all.

Thoughts on Daddy 5

2011-03-04T17:42:00.001-05:00

We are more than three quarters of the way through Daddy’s paternity leave and I have not had a decent story to write about in a long time. Since I was hoping to get CBS to purchase my musings like they did with a couple Twitter feeds last year I needed to start pulling strings in order to throw Daddy slightly off balance. When my best friend asked me to go to the Baby Gym I knew I had an opportunity to mess with my old man’s world.

In the time I’ve spent with my father I have notice a few things, he’s a horrible singer, he does not enjoying shaving, and he really likes to be on time. In fact, I would go as far as to say he has a fear of being late. All I had to do to get him off track was extend my nap before we left for the gym. Of course, I was not really sleeping, I was using my Daddy monitor to observe all the action.

We were supposed to leave at 10:15 and my plan was to “sleep” right until then. Once I “woke up” he would have to change me, dress me, feed me, and then pack us up to go. That would mean we could not leave until 10:40 at the earliest, which in turn would drive my father crazy.

At approximately 9:50 Daddy started to pace around the living room. Daddy even distractedly tripped over Benji when the dog wandered quietly into the room. I had been waking up from my morning napping at 9:30 like clockwork so he was concerned. By the time 10 AM rolled around the old man must have decided to wake me because he started to put a bottle together. But since my over nap tactic obviously made him frantic he put it together poorly and spilled the contents all over the kitchen! He had to clean that mess immediately so he was unable to resume waking me until 10:20!

Surprisingly, he was able to get everything done while feeding me, it was a tad uncomfortable, and got us out of the door at 10:40. I was able, however, to hack into Daddy’s google account and tweak the directions he printed before we left. Since his knowledge of the local roads is abysmal I was able to make him drive around in a five mile circle through town as he blindly followed my meandering directions.

Once he found his way out of town Daddy was able to follow the rest of the directions and get to the Baby Gym in short order. We got there only five minutes late which was kind of amazing considering all the obstacles I threw at the old man. Our arrival was somewhat awkward as ten women, twelve babies (two set of twins), and one male group leader, seated in a circle, all turned their heads simultaneously to look at my scruffy father and his delightful daughter.

Thankfully my girlfriend was easy to find so I directed Daddy to sit next to her. After that things got off to a really odd start as the leader directed the parents to sing “The Wheels on the Bus”. Normally my Daddy belts out the tunes but for some reason this time he quietly mumbled the words under his breath. Next he was instructed to stretch me out. I thought that was peculiar considering I am fairly spry as it is but the activity was surprisingly pleasant.

Next we were charged with flying in the superman position, Daddy held me in the air, while moving in a circular motion. While I can appreciate that Daddy was doing this for my benefit, I could not help but laugh at the whole experience, watching him run in a circle, while holding me, and trying not to step on all the cameras of the proud mothers that littered the floor of the little gym. He was an absolute clown. After that, they put us on a “parachute” but it looked more like a circular blanket to me.

It was there that I saw Bradly. He was a bit older, nine months, but I felt an instant connection. As we lay there on the parachute, I reached out for his big bald head and stroked him behind the ear. Daddy was a bit flummoxed by this and pulled my hand away. Undeterred, I reached again and this time accidentally stuck my finger up Bradly’s nose, my hand/eye coordination is still developing. Daddy then unfairly ripped me away from my love and plopped me down next to my girlfriend. Suddenly the chute began spinning on the floor and I grabbed my friends hand for balance but my heart was three spots over with Brad, who was now crying because he apparently got motion sick.

I attempted to make contact when we moved over to the balance beam but his twin sister, I forget her name so let’s just call her “Butt-head” jumped between me and my beloved. She wanted to know what the deal was between me and her brother but I explained, through pantomime, that she needed to mind her own business. By the time Daddy and I were rolling down the wedge shaped mat, this was a weird place, I knew I had lost my opportunity. Bradly was now fascinated by some 10 month old floozy who could crawl!

At least I could take solace in the bubbles that were blown around the room. I had never seen a bubble before, but I imagined that it is what a fart would look like if they were not invisible. Of course seeing a bubble pop for the first time was a bit shocking. I realized that bubbles were not like farts, they are like hearts, because the bursting bubbles were the perfect metaphor for how my heart felt. I just realized I might be a bit Emo. That is going to drive my Daddy crazy!

Fringe: 6 Months Later/Subject 13

2011-02-26T10:21:00.002-05:00

Of Note: My television listed this episode as “6 Months Later” while Hulu and TV.com list it as “Subject 13”. Both names apply fine but I wonder why there was a discrepancy.

To say I was thrilled with this episode would be a dramatic understatement. I had literal goosebumps at multiple points during the hour. Olivia’s emotional rage, Peter’s inability to accept his new reality, Walter and Walternate’s struggles to rise to the occasion of their particular circumstances, and Elizabeth’s turmoil over replacing her son were all fantastic stories to follow. Obviously a few things jump out more than others and I would like to talk about the scene that blew my mind.

If you have not seen this episode, please do yourself a favor and watch it, then come back. Oliva’s cathartic moment of sharing her secret with the man that was suppose to protect her was brutally ripped away on an emotional level. On a story level, that was one of the coolest moments I’ve ever experienced on television. Walternate gave up and was content to drink himself into oblivion, only to have Olivia give him the answers he so desperately needed. Walter started the war, but it was Olivia that accepted the responsibility for the blue universe.

After reviewing the season one episode entitled, “The Cure” I was very frustrated with the introduction of Olivia’s abusive step-father only to have it become a dropped plot line as the series progressed. But “6 Months Later” really picked up that ball and ran with it. It was her evil-stepfather that unlocked the potential of cortexephan in Olivia. More importantly it was her stepfather’s abuse that drove her to a career in law enforcement. She wanted to protect people.

Folivia on the other hand did not have an evil stepfather to deal with as far as we know. She was not abused and did not see her mother abused. She did not have any reason to go into law enforcement. Olivia appearance to Walternate helps explain this. Obviously Walternate found Folivia and set her on a path to be useful to him in the future. If our Olivia could cross through universes, it stood to reason that his might too.

That of course is where things get a bit messy for Walternate. Walter did not cause the blight when he took Peter. Somehow, Walter understood the damage he caused and realized he could not continue to cross over in the manor he did originally. Walternate without that knowledge would most likely have attempted to cross into the blue universe using the same type of portal Walter originally did. Unfortunately this action is probably what triggered the destruction of Boston and necessitated the use of Amber. Of course to Walternate it would most likely seem like Walter booby-trapped the portal so he could not take back his son.

Could I complain about the fact that Peter and Olivia had no memory of their original meeting upon seeing other in Iraq in episode one? Sure, I could, but I’m not going to. Could I gripe that Walternate should have had a soft spot for Olivia considering she was the person who clued him into the whereabouts of his son in the first place? I might, but I won’t at the moment.

It was very cool to see how Olivia caused the fire damage in the room we saw way back in the episode entitled “Jacksonville”. It is also interesting that Olivia was able to make it snow. Cortexaphan is really a wonder drug when paired with the right person. I cannot wait to see how Olivia’s latent abilities will manifest as the series progresses. No reason to show us that she has the powers of Storm from the X-Men if she is not going to use them at a crucial point in the future.

Peter’s theory that he could travel back to his home by submerging himself in the frozen lake actually did make sense. Thankfully his “mother” was there to save him.

Walternate and Elizabeth must have split in the red universe. They were pretending to still be together when Peter came back for his sake.

Why was the red universe blue in the 1980’s? In fact there was not much color in the entire episode. Even the tulips were white. The professor that Elizabeth was talking about was Allister the time traveling kindred spirit of Walter from the episode entitled, “White Tulip”.

Sensyden’s: An Open Letter to the Television Industry

2011-02-24T17:31:00.002-05:00

Since it’s premiere I have been a casual fan of the ABC series “V”. I have not loved every episode, characters have been more than a tad annoying at times, and some of the plot lines felt a bit stale. However, in my humble opinion it is better than a large majority of the junk that pollutes the digital television signal on a weekly basis. That said, until recently, if I found myself with an hour less TV time a week I would strongly have considered dropping “V” before any other show.

This season the series was on a slow march towards significant improvement in quality. I was moderately excited to see the episodes each week and even chose to watch them the night after they aired rather than wait till it was the only thing left on my DVR. Unfortunately, somehow, my DVR recorded the episode entitled, “Concordia” without sound. Rather the watch the whole thing closed captioned, I decided to delete the episode and catch it on Netflix, Hulu, or ABC.com. Worst case scenario, I figured I would purchase the episode from iTunes or Amazon.

I was a little surprised when it was not streaming anywhere legally and free on the Internet. I was simply flabbergasted when I realized it was not even available for purchase when I wanted to give the series money to buy it directly. This left me only two options, give up on the series or skip a crucial episode in a highly serialized show. Luckily in my complaining about the lack of “V” availability my sister-in-law mentioned she had the missing episode and I just needed to trek my family to her place to get caught up.

It should not be this hard to keep up with a television series.

Just today I reached my breaking point with “The Vampire Diaries”. When it first premiered I gave it a shot and decided it was not for me, though I admittedly have unreasonably high expectations for vampire shows (I called them the “Whedon Factor”). As the show continued I heard from people I trust that this was a fantastic series. A couple of weeks ago I listened to an interview with one of the show’s stars on the Channel Surfing Podcast and thought “Vampire Diaries” sounded a lot more interesting then the first episode I watched almost two years ago.

I hoped the series would stream on Netflix, Hulu, Hulu Plus, or the new Amazon Prime streaming service. Being a fairly popular show, with good buzz, I assumed they would want as many new eyeballs as they could get. I assumed wrong. It does not stream on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime. It might stream on Hulu Plus but I have no idea how to find out and I’m not paying a monthly fee before I know what is available.

This leaves me a couple of options. I can purchase season one on DVD, purchase season two when it comes out this summer, and start watching new episodes as they air next fall. Or I can purchase season one on DVD and pick up season two on iTunes or Amazon for $2.99 an episode. However, there are already 15 aired episodes of this series so far this season. That’s almost 45 bucks for an incomplete season and I’d have to burn my DVR memory saving the rest of the season while I get caught up. That is a tremendous amount of money when you add in the $28.99 it would cost to pick up season one on DVD.

If I want to download season one of Vampire Diaries it will cost me $32.99 for the standard definition version. This version is a digital copy and requires no shipping, DVD or packaging materials, and very little storage costs because it is sent over the Internet. But it is more expensive then the DVD version on Amazon.com because, why?

But if I really wanted to get caught up with “Vampire Diaries” I could do it. I could not, however, watch “Vampire Diaries” comfortably or with my wife. This is because once we get to our purchased season 2 episodes I would have to watch them on my laptop or my iPod if I purchased them in iTunes. I cannot easily get content off my computer and onto my television. I could purchase a Roku box or Apple TV, but is “Vampire Diaries” worth an additional $70.00 to $100.00 expense on top of the 80+ dollars I would be spending on the episodes? Not likely when you factor in that I already own a PS3 and Wii both of which stream content from Netflix perfectly fine already.

Therefore, instead of watching “Vampire Diaries” as I would like to, I am going to fire up the PS3 navigate over to the Netflix channel and watch “Stargate Atlantis” which I am sure does not appeal to me as much as “Vampire Diaries” would have if I had the chance to check it out. However, it is really simple to do and looks great in high definition. All for about 8 bucks a month.

It is not surprising that television ratings are down. I am forced to stream a show that has been off the air for two years because that is what is convenient and cost effective.

V: Siege

2011-02-21T19:40:00.001-05:00

It has been a long while since I have checked in with this show because I was bored with “V”. Plot lines seemed stale, character motivations were suspect, and the overall plan of the Visitors seemed more convoluted than the plan of the Cylons. I do not even want to get into the fact that the entire active arm of the 5th Column was four people in a basement. Thankfully, the past few episodes have really done a lot to address many of the problems I have had with this series.

Siege in particular was worth noting because it changed the series significantly. Erica is now in charge of an international army, or terrorist organization depending on how you look at it. I think I am comfortable with the term freedom fighters. Eli Cohn gave her the keys to the kingdom and I cannot wait to see what she plans on doing.

Ryan is now dead? I have to admit if that is truly the way he went out as a character it feels a bit anti-climatic. Marcus got to be publicly assassinated and he still might survive, if you are going to go out as a character that is a suspenseful way to do it. Not tied to a chair when a bomb goes off.

Hobes loves someone other than himself. He loves this woman so much he was willing to kill a lot of people to save her. I wonder how much longer he will be able to look Erica in the eyes before confessing his sins.

Father Jack transformed into “Just Jack” by the Pope’s decree. He made an interesting turn this season into the public face of the 5th Column and I wonder how he will leverage his fame now that he is no longer a priest. I think the producers of Prime Focus missed a great casting opportunity for Chad’s counterpoint person.

Chad is still Anna’s head cheerleader in the eyes of the public, but he is finally a member of the 5th Column’s inner circle. I am impressed with the way this character has changed over the course of the series thus far. I wonder if he had anything to do with Erica’s USB key of horrifying anti-V evidence.

While I the subject of Erica’s anti-V dossier, I think it is time she showed that to her new FBI partner. She could always cut him behind the ear first to make sure he is human, but her little slide show was obviously effective. Her ex-husband confessed he had made a mistake in leaving her and was convinced that the DNA evidence which “proved” Tyler was not his son was somehow tampered with by the V’s. Actually forget her partner, Erica needs to put that information out on Youtube. She would have more 5th Column members than she’d know what to do with.

Tyler, I still hate you as a character. Your motivations are muddy, your actions erratic, your conclusions wrong. You want nothing more than to be a V but your parents get back together for one day and you snub your V patrons. Your father, who you now know is not your biological father, died after throwing himself onto a ticking time-bomb and you blamed your mother for not doing her job with the FBI well enough. Your lucky she only slapped you. No person, no matter how self absorbed or cold would react like that. Since the show-runners of V seem intent on purging characters, I think it is time Tyler bit it.

Lisa, in stark contrast, is becoming more and more interesting. She has finally found Diana and I for one think wacky hijinks's will ensue.

My last complaint has to do with the FBI guys closing the investigation into Erica. Was no one interested in how she ended up in that building? Or maybe why Eli took hostages only to allow Erica to escort them out? No one is questioning how her husband got into the building and ended up dead? Why did no one bother to look at the news footage of hostages being taken and realize that there were two additional people exiting the building?

Despite the FBI and Tyler’s regressing intelligence, V seems to be on a significant uptick! For the first time in a long time I am excited to see where this is going.

Fringe: 6B

2011-02-19T13:29:00.002-05:00

That was an excellent episode of television. I know I have been slacking when it comes to writing about Fringe over the past month but I felt I needed to write about 6B. Walter slipped into his mean grandfather defensive patterns that we have not seen since early in season one. Which is actually warranted because he pulled a case file all the way back from episode two or three. While the Fringe team has not spoken about the ZFT in a long time it would seem that the followers of that line of thought provided Walter with the ingredients to “Amber”.

Olivia and Peter had finally had their big moment, good for them, I wonder if it is going to be enough to save the blue universe (red is them, blue is us). The team of Peter and Olivia was able to stop the use of Amber. They approach problems much differently than Walter, in any universe. It would now seem that all the Fringe team has to do to save the world is some very good grief consoling.

Have the Observers (I still believe they are the first people) rid themselves of all emotion because they know that strong emotional connections are what can rip the universe to shreds?

Nina and Walter had a really nice moment. Why has she not told anyone that she personally knows the author of the First People book? Why have we not met Nina’s double in the other universe? Walter referred to Brandon as, “that nervous fellow Brandon”.

According to Peter, a considerable amount of time has passed since our last episode in the blue verse. Why is Folivia not showing any signs of pregnancy? Why is she still going out on possibly dangerous missions with a bun in the oven? Who does she think she is, Sydney Bristow?

In all seriousness, the realization that a more humane way exists to fix proto-vortexes proves a lot. It proves that Walternate is not infallible and that perhaps both universes can co-exist.

Watson: What it Means to Me

2011-02-17T12:10:00.002-05:00

I cannot recall the last time I tuned into Jeopardy! for more than a couple of questions, yet over the last three nights I found myself glued to the television for the “exhibition match” of the century. IBM’s supercomputer “Watson” defeated the two most successful players in Jeopardy! history in a three day, two game, cumulative dollar challenge. Humanity was defeated in the arena that was designed specifically for humans. I should be devastated, rather I should be digging a massive hole in my backyard to house my future Robageddon bunker.

But for some reason I am fairly happy with the success of Watson. There are of course a couple of qualifiers to my somewhat reserved glee. First off, I am assuming that Watson is not the first massive node in a computer network that could achieve sentience. Secondly, I unlike Ken Jennings (sore loser: http://slate.me/fTBtVE), do not believe Watson is a harbinger for the same kind of layoffs in knowledge based work as automation was for factory jobs.

As far as the apocalypse is concerned I believe Watson, impressive as it is, is no where near powerful enough to think independently of its human programmers. Watson’s quirks, minimal as they were, revealed the limitations of its capabilities. Watson was never 100% sure of anything, how could it be, it has never truly learned anything. The people who program Watson learned how to refine and improve the Watson algorithms which in turn made the computer better at correlating information.

However, as any psychology major can tell you, correlation does not equal causation, and it is causation that represents the wall of Watson. Watson knows that a blanket is related to warmth because the words appear near each other a significant amount, but Watson cannot understand “why” they do, because it has never been cold. Watson can see the connections between kiss, hug, love, and need but it could never produce an original sonnet about the joys of love because Watson does not experience emotions or feelings, it reports on them.

Now that I’ve spent some time tearing it down, I ask what is Watson good for? Watson, I believe is good at what we are not. Human beings are fantastic at extending our knowledge base. People have invented, reinvented, combined, recombined, composed and then improved upon ideas since the dawn of our species. Some times our progress has been slow (Dark Ages) while in other times it has been unbelievably fast (Renaissance). The key to progress has always been access to knowledge. No one person can read through all key works on any topic of importance to human advancement and then synthesize the results into an original work because the sheer volume of material would take lifetimes to consume. The amount of knowledge we currently have as a species is mind-numbing, Watson has data banks of 15 terabytes and that only scratches the surface.

What Watson could do (if it works as advertised) is comb through our knowledge base and look for information that correlates to a particular problem. It could then itemize the information according to relevance of the query thus giving humans a useful starting point at the genesis of their research rather than years, or worse lifetimes, into it. Watson can keep us from reinventing the wheel with the same exact problems of the last one. It can show us the best wheel in existence and then we can improve upon that design. Of course, that is my vision for this machine, maybe IBM has other plans for it.

The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay

2011-02-10T10:53:00.000-05:00

The Hunger Games: By Suzanne Collins

Recently I was listening to a Podcast, “The Slate Culture Gabfest”, when one of the critics mentioned this book series in the same breath as Harry Potter and the Philip Pullman novels. I knew that meant this book was something worth investigating but considering the fact that I have my hands more than full at present, I decided the investigation would be put on hold. However, I within a half hour I found myself at BJ’s to do our maintenance shopping and there I found “The Hunger Games” staring me right in the face. It was cheap enough for an impulse buy and it found its way into my basket.

Upon cracking the book open I was immediately put off by Collins choice of writing the book in the present tense. I have a personal disdain for the present tense in the form of the written word. Scanning the book I knew there were hundreds of pages to follow, logically, the action should be taking place in the past. I got over my initial snobbery by reminding myself of the heavy praise that interested me in the book to begin with an pressed onward.

What I found was an interesting world filled with a wonderfully rich narrative, likable characters, and foreign, yet familiar, circumstances. The story grabbed me almost instantly. I am admittedly a sucker for post apocalyptic fair, but I also enjoy a good medieval tale, I consume almost everything Roman, and love science fiction. This book manages to take some of the most interesting bits of all those tropes and wrap them into a neat and engaging package. The string on that package is our heroine.

Katniss is a strong female lead, think Buffy Sommers only more depressed, Lyra Belacqua only more experienced, or Olivia Dunham only younger. If you recognized any of those characters with fondness, I’m fairly certain this book is for you. Katniss leads the story, in fact, the entire book is spent in her present thoughts and conversation, but the supporting cast is just as engaging. Her family, friends, and fellow competitors all serve to make the world of Panem real.

On another, more troubling note, I do find this book series a bit morally disturbing. The premise of the book is fairly simple. In an effort display control over its conquered territory the Capital of Panem rounds up twenty-four eleven to eighteen year old conscripted “competitors” for a fully televised fight to the death in a Truman Show sized and styled arena. The book then goes on to describe in bloody detail the inhuman events that play out on this grotesque stage. Character deaths, be they friend or foe are felt doubly as painful because none of these gladiators would be old enough to drive a car in our world. One character’s demise was so upsetting that I briefly considered putting the book down for good.

This book is aimed at a seventh grade and up audience and is published by Scholastic, one of the most trusted names in education. I would not let my seventh grader read this book unless my wife, myself or a trusted teacher was reading with her and having serious discussions about morals, society, the importance of self governance, and the innocence of youth.

That acknowledged, I have only just finished the first book and I am more than ready to consume books two and three.

Catching Fire: by Suzanne Collins

Let me start by stating, the very second I finished this book I drove the half hour round trip to Barnes and Noble to pick up the third and final book in this series. I would have gone to Target to pick up “Mockingjay” but when I purchased “Catching Fire” there last night they did not have any copies of the final book on the shelves, I took a mental note. I thoroughly enjoyed “Catching Fire” even though it followed a similar story blueprint to its predecessor.

On the other hand even though this story put our heroes back into the Hunger Games the events in this arena are markedly different than that of the previous book. In “Catching Fire” we get to learn more about the world of Panem, including the political system, history, and inner workings of the districts. Katniss is forced to fully process the events of the arena the aftermath of what it means to be a victor.

To say that “Catching Fire” is a quick read is a significant understatement. From the minute I cracked open the book to the minute I left my house for Barnes and Noble I was loath to put the novel down. By the end of “Hunger Games” I had become so familiar and fond of even the minor characters and felt the pace of my reading shift from casually fun distraction to voracious consumer of the material.

The end of the book left me wanting significantly more, the mark of a good middle chapter. But I do worry about the way this series will wrap. The first two books were insular focused on Katniss and her struggles. As I complained in my previous post the reader is literally put in her head in the present tense. This of course was perfect when the stage was the Hunger Games, but I do not know how much I will enjoyed her narrow view of events when the entire world is the arena.

Mockingjay: by Suzanne Collins

I tried not to spoil in this post, but I do touch a few key plot points near the end of the series. If you want to remain spoiler free, don’t read this post right now, read the book and please come back.

Well, that was painful. It certainly took “The Hunger Games” to a logical and real conclusion but it was not a pleasant book to read. I was amazed with how quickly Collins could introduce a character, get me to like this character, and then kill said character off in a brutal way. If you thought the Harry Potter series got dark towards the end, “Mockingjay” made those books like like an episode of Sesame Street by comparison.

In “Mockingjay” our hero takes a horrible downward spiral due to the atrocities of war and the horrors she has inflicted on others since her inspirational actions in the 74th Hunger Games. Her support system is decimated and characters that were once strong, brave, and loving became shells of their former selves. War is hell, this book is clear on that point.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first book and had fun with the second book, though it became obvious that the conclusion would not be buttercups and dandelions. When the smoke clears at the end of the final novel no one is made stronger, better, or more whole. All the characters are so tormented by what they have seen, done, and thought about doing while attempting to break the shackles of the Capitals control.

This is a realistic ending, how real people would react given the circumstances thrust upon them. However, it is not a good ending. I do not feel like I learned something, was genuinely surprised, or even got what I wanted from this book series. The characters who were mentally damaged beyond repair survived while the ones with bright futures perished. The final hundred pages of Mockingjay read more like a “Saw” film than a fantasy novel.

The truth is even the first book was a bloody mess of a story only tempered by the fact that our heroine attempted to be a moral and reasonable human being. By the time she is standing with her final arrow in hand her morality has been stripped away and she killed without feeling, simply making a cold calculation and thus determining her target. She lost my sympathies and a previously revolting scene and while some may call her final act of consequence redemption I thought it was another repulsive act from a broken weapon.

I knew all along the ending the series was headed for, but I had hoped Collins wrote herself into a corner to impress the reader by writing her way out of it. Instead she wrote herself into a corner and then lashed out like a cornered and wounded animal. Good luck to Collins and company on adapting these books into a movie series. I do not know how they can possibly do it without earning an R rating. This series screams death, violence, and sadness to change any of that would alter the very nature of the material.

Thoughts on Daddy 4

2011-01-31T20:27:00.001-05:00

I know it has been a while since I checked in last but for the most part things have been going smoothly and thus I’ve had nothing to complain/write about. That was until two days ago when everything went haywire.

It all started when Daddy and I were having fun on the play mat. It is a pretty comfortable play mat so I figured I could lull the old man to sleep at which point I would then make my way to the computer to play some Bejeweled. Unfortunately he was not sleepy. My next plan was to mess with Daddy by stealing his glasses. I reached out and took them right off his face without any issues. Surprised and excited by my sudden success I did the baby equivalent of a touchdown dance. Embarrassingly, I did not account for my fathers glasses which I now held firmly in my tiny fist and ended up pressing the arm of the glasses under my eye.

To be clear, I did not scream, moan, or sob. I simply realized my kinesthetic error and handed Daddy’s glasses back to him. He, however, freaked out. He ripped me up off my comfy play mat, shinned bright lights into my eyes, and inexplicably started yelling at Benji for looking at him “like that”.

Thankfully after a couple of minutes he calmed down and we went back to play. But the spit hit the fan the second Mommy got home. She looked at my eyes and said, “why is one of her eyes a little red?” She did not realize I had just woken up from a nap and wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep. Daddy then confessed the scenario which I previously described and Mommy insisted he take me to the doctors.

Getting there was not a problem. The pediatrician took one look at my eye, gave me a clean bill of health, and sent us on our way. Things were looking up but then my lovely parents decided they wanted to go to the grocery store. After a brief shop we were back at the car and that’s when I heard Mommy gasp.

I was able to piece together that we had a fat tire which I am going to assume is a bad thing. Because if you have a fat tire people you don’t know come up to you and say, “Hey are you OK, do you need help with changing that fat?” Frustratingly, my father refused help from about six different people in the Shoprite parking lot. After around 20 minutes of metal banging and my Dad saying things like, “stupid tire, stupid fat, stupid hex nut”, he came over to Mommy and I and said, “we need a tire key for this car, there is no way to way get the wheel off without one”.

While I have not been around that long, even I knew that sounded a bit off. But I was not about to say anything so the situation continued to get more desperate by the minute. Daddy tried calling Grandpa for some advice but since he refuses to purchase a new cell phone his phone instantly died, even though he had a full charge. To make things more complicated, Mommy left her phone at home. Now we were in a wet parking lot, with a fat tire, and no way to contact anyone who cared about us!

Then, through what I can only describe as divine intervention, I saw my father run over to a truck that just parked in the lot. It was a Nissan like our car and it seemed like Daddy was trying to get his hands on a magical tire key. I could not see the man Daddy was talking to, but I heard him say, “I have never heard of a tire key for a Nissan Versa, and I am sure I don’t have one”. Daddy then mumbled something about all hope being lost and the man responded, “Well, do you mind if I take a look at it?”.

My father, being in no position to deny help from anyone, any longer, allowed him to approach our fat tire. The man who had just come into my line of sight, can only be described as huge. He picked up the tire iron, which looked like a toothpick in his massive palm, placed it on the wheel, and proceeded to remove each nut as nimbly as an ogre sized elf. Daddy then said something about heroes in our modern world and the man left as quickly as he had come. Thankfully it only took another four minutes 37 seconds for Daddy to get the donut on the car. On a side note, I have been lead to believe that donuts only add to fat problems but I guess cars are different than people.

Thoughts on Fatherhood 8

2011-01-25T08:23:00.001-05:00

The baby and I have spent a lot of time indoors since I have been a stay at home Daddy due in part to nature this winter. It simply is not feasible to go for a leisurely walk when there are more than 2 inches of un-shoveled snow on the ground. Suffice to say, we’ve gotten fairly complacent with our wardrobe choices.

We received some unexpected company recently and after taking a quick glance at myself in the mirror, I realized I needed to make some minor appearance adjustments before they walked in the door. However, my refusal to wear work attire coupled with my inability to fold laundry put me in a bit of a bind. Minutes before my company arrived I turned to my child and said, “wait here, Daddy’s has to go change into his nice pajamas”.

Besides daring clothing moves, it turns out that I’m fairly good at this fatherhood thing, at least so far. We dance, sing, practice sitting up, talk, do the household chores, and roll over (though not as well as Benji does). When my little girl smiles and I know I’m doing well! Of course, at times she when she smiles it leads me to believe she has a different agenda than I.

Just this morning she was sitting in her high chair as I was unloading the dishwasher. I looked over at her and she seemed moments away from dozing off to sleep. I hurried to finish putting everything away, glanced back over, and saw her wide awake with a massive smile. Pleasantly surprised, I went over to her and kissed her on the head. As I approached I noticed the smell of poop. I kissed her as intended and then brought her to the changing table.

What I found was not surprising, however, the quantity was a bit shocking. She must have pooped out 5% of her body weight because it was all over everything. It escaped her diaper, went through her pajamas, and even managed to smear on my arm and shirt in transit from the chair to the table. The entire 20 minute process I spent cleaning and changing her she spent smiling and occasionally stuck her tongue out at me, as if to say, “got you”!

Fringe: The Firefly

2011-01-24T15:53:00.002-05:00

Usually I have to looked up the episode titles after watching an hour of Fringe but for some reason this one stuck. The irony of moving Fringe to a night that has killed three shows I was heavily invested in coupled with this hopefully non-prophetic title was not lost on me. That said, if Fringe got the Sarah Conner treatment and was given a season beyond what its ratings justified that would be fine by me.

Would it have killed the writers of Fringe to have named Christopher Lloyd’s character “Dr. Brown”? While something that on the nose may have been to cute by half, I would have enjoyed it. That out of the way, I did have fun with the character of Roscoe and hope to see him again. Walter had a lot to learn from his fallen idol.

The Observer September was busy this week. Walter’s comment, “they aren’t human, you can’t expect them to think like us” was made crystal clear when September brought down a crew of diamond thieves. I still hold to my theory that the Observers are the first people, from a dimension where their Alpha/Omega machine did not destroy them.

This whole episode was all about Walter being able to sacrifice Peter for the greater good. However, in the end Walter simply had to be willing to sacrifice Peter and because he was willing, Peter survived. It would seem that the Observers will be playing the role of God and Walter will double for Abraham. I guess it was only a matter of time until another JJ Abrams show started overtly comparing characters to biblical figures.

I miss Folivia, Charlie, and Lincoln. Please bring them back. Speaking of Folivia, Peter and Olivia’s relationship slowly on the mend. It could get really uncomfortable if Folivia popped back into the picture and declared her true love for Peter.

This episode was a slow mover as far as the ongoing saga of Fringe is concerned which is odd considering the Observers played such a key role this week. Hopefully next week picks up a head of steam and gets us moving again!

Caprica: Dirteaters

2011-01-24T15:49:00.002-05:00

This was a fantastic show, but I can almost understand why Syfy cancelled it. The flashbacks to Turon started out slow but grew into some of the most dramatic and fraked up television I have seen in a long time. Joseph Adama shot three enemies and then ended the violence by killing his own father. Turon is a complicated place perhaps too complicated for a network that features Ghosthunters International, Warehouse 13, and professional wrestling.

I would have never pegged Samuel as the naive and mostly innocent younger brother but it does makes sense. Samuel failed his father by freezing at a moment where he needed to push forward and has since chosen the path of violence time and time again as a means to make up for his past inaction. Joseph on the other hand did what “needed to be done” and was sickened by it. Therefore he chose the path of law and attempted to leave violence in his past. However, Sam’s latest choices have led to a betrayal of the Guatra and now Joseph must follow him into hell once more.

Avenging Angel’s seems too cute for what Tamara and Zoe are capable of and thankfully this was a realization they were able to come to on their own. There complete destruction/reformation of New Cap City was impressive, though I would have been more impressed if I did not see Inception this summer.

Jordan apparently did not cover all his bases. Two points for his turncoat GDD boss. Amanda is now spying on Clarice in return for what exactly? Perhaps Jordan is truly done, but his actions put Amanda on a collision course with the resurrection program which in turn puts it in the path of Daniel as well. Perhaps this is how we get to apotheosis.

Speaking of apotheosis, it would seem that the only person Clarice is interested in elevating is herself. She fights for the One God and kills in his name but her end game is apotheosis for herself and everyone else can occupy space in her heaven.

Did anyone else forget that Bill Adama was ever featured in this series?

Why I Will Not Purchase a Verizon iPhone

2011-01-20T09:24:00.002-05:00

Since the launch of the iPhone I have always thought it was an awesome device I would purchase the minute it came to another carrier, specifically Verizon. The draconian rules of cell contracts coupled with the throw away nature of cellular phones led me to believe I could never escape the Verizon sphere of influence. This is especially true because I am on a family share plan in which three phones renew the contract in three different seasons. Eventually I came to realize this was not terrible news because the more I learned about the iPhone I realized it had one major weakness, AT&T.

Now that weakness is gone and I am free to purchase an iPhone on Verizon’s robust network, so I may continue my cellular indentured servitude another two years. However, I have decided for a variety of reasons that an iPhone purchase at the point would not be the best decision for me or my family. Specifically, the timing is wrong, the pricing is high, and the competition is fierce.

Apple is notorious for releasing revolutionary new products and then significantly evolving them on a one to two year cycle. This is a major reason why I refuse to purchase a first generation iPad when every fiber of my tech loving being desperately wants one. The iPhone 4 has been out for a while now and it is no secret that this product is tweaked on a yearly basis. Verizon will get their iPhone 4 in the middle of February and it will be old news by late Spring, early Summer. Better to wait a couple of months to get the latest and greatest from Apple, especially since we have waited this long already.

Maybe I am cheap, or maybe my wife is monetarily cautious and I love my wife so I am frugal, but $299.99 (before tax) for a 32 gig phone seems a bit steep. I could purchase a 16 gig phone for 100 bucks less, but I would be cutting my current iPod capacity in half if I do that. Then there is the astronomical monthly data access fee, about 30 bucks a month on top of what I currently pay, which is substantial. Assuming I can get over my parsimonious approach to cellular handsets the iPhone still has to deal with fierce competition from other devices.

While iPhone competitors were negligible in the first few years of the products life cycle, this is no longer the case. The market has dozens of Android powered phones which have all the functionality of iPhone if not the je ne sais quois that makes users smile when playing with that particular handset. I do, however, know that this iteration of the iPhone will not be 4G enabled which means it is actually a generation behind some of its Android competition in terms of internet access speeds. Think of iPhone as DSL browsing while something like the HTC Thunderbolt 4G will be cruising along at cable modem speeds (if you don’t understand what that means I really appreciate you reading this entire posting).

I cannot believe I have come to this point after waiting so long for the magic phone to find its way to Verizon but I will not be purchasing an iPhone any time soon.

Full disclosure I own one share of Apple Inc. and a share of Google as well, I know I’m way to invested in these companies to objectively share my opinions.

Caprica: Blowback

2011-01-14T22:47:00.002-05:00

I cannot believe that the Syfy channel burned all five remaining episodes of Caprica in one marathon night. While this was not the best way for the series to go out, at least they aired the episodes. Thank the gods (or God depending which side you fall on) for DVR functionality.

That out of the way I would like to talk about this specific episode. The hostage scenes were unbelievably powerful. I could not believe Syfy allowed this show to get away executing young people fighting a religious war. In all honesty, I felt very uncomfortably with the scenes as a whole and hard a truly hard time watching.

They then divulged that it was simply the first of many training exercise Lacey and her crew will face in STO boot camp. It was not real so nobody died, all was good, at least for the people who did not fail the exercise. But those deaths were now going to be done off camera. Except it was not done off camera and the audience viewed the executions all over again. Powerful and painful stuff to watch, I can’t believe Syfy canceled this show.

Speaking of painful to watch, how in the worlds did Clarice Willow come to any kind of power within the STO? It is obvious she is willing to kill to achieve her goals, but Mar-Beth was a true believer, possibly more so than Clarice herself. How is she not suspicious of Amanda? I can’t believe cop with a grudge, whose name may be Jordan (I tried to remember this time) completely outplayed Clarice, his boss and possibly the entire STO. Of course the Willow home does now have Zoe’s pin which may in fact be the resurrection program so Clarice is not as dumb as I like to believe she is.

My only question is how in the worlds is Daniel going to come into possession of that pin again? Maybe Clarice will bring it to him in an effort to understand the data, I wouldn’t be surprised if what is on that pin is all Turonese to her. The program he created of his wife was horrendous compared to Zoe’s, however, a grieving family would pay boat loads for it. Daniel does not believe in good enough. Daniel might be a dead man by series end if the Ha’La’Tha has his way.

However, smart money is on the brothers Adama killing off the Ha’La’Tha and perhaps installing Sam as the new big boss. If Joseph hates Daniel for his daughter’s actions how could he let the Ha’La’Tha get away with arming the people who put Zoe up to the deed? Samuel’s moral code will eventually begin to weigh on Joseph, it has to. While Caprica depicts all characters in morally ambiguous shades of grey Joseph has completely gone to the dark side at this point and needs some kind of redemption because at this point I don’t want to believe he fathered Bill Adama.

I did not hate Amanda this week. In fact, I actually enjoyed her storyline a bit. She actually does hate Clarice and is willing to do what it takes to bring her to justice, unless it involves risking her own life. Well, baby steps are important. If this series lived past the first season I wonder if she’d make an impressive Ellen Tigh like transition.

Thoughts on Daddy 3

2011-01-14T17:42:00.002-05:00

Someone needs to have a talk with my Daddy. I would, but as I have previously indicated, I don’t talk yet and I’m doing my best to make sure he does not read my blog. Thankfully, this talk does not need to be about me. In fact, as we round out the first two weeks of Daddy Days he seems to be adjusting nicely (though at present he has been singing a lot from the Wicked soundtrack so not everything is perfect). Someone has to talk to him about his inability to be the pack leader of Benji, Daddy, and me.

I thought I had Daddy wrapped around my finger but it seems I could learn a thing or two from our manipulative dog. Our dog spent a majority of his time downstairs when I was first born. He obviously did not know how to integrate himself into the new family unit. More importantly, I think Mommy scared him a bit so Benji kept his distance.

However, in the two weeks since Daddy’s been home the old man has ceded more and more personal space to Benji than I thought possible. For instance, once Benji realized that Daddy was the parent in the home (a reality I have recently resigned myself to) he began to hang upstairs more. However, the hardwood floor is no place for a dog to nap, so Benjamin Linus (apparently his name is a television reference I don’t get) took one of the pillows off the couch downstairs and made himself a little nest near my play mat.

Daddy’s reaction should have been, “bad Benji” and taken the pillow to put it back on the couch, at least that would have been Mommy’s reaction. Instead, Daddy’s reaction was, “aw, how cute is this dog, he wants to spend more time with us, look he doesn’t quite fit, how adorable, baby feed yourself I’m going to snap a picture and put it on Facebook”, or something to that effect. This all happened seven or eight days ago and as I type this the dog is currently on that disgusting couch cushion.

The rest of what I am about to share happened while I was “sleeping”, but I’ve been able to observe Daddy and dogie’s behavior with my daddy monitor procured from Daddy’s R Dum.com. For some reason, the dog respected me more than my Father because whenever I hang out Benji sits on his pillow and naps. Yet, when it’s just them, if Daddy attempted to recline on his comfy couch and watch TV Benjamin would get right in his face and bark repeatedly.

At first Daddy would freak out and tackle the dog because he did not want Benji to wake me. But eventually Daddy noticed that Benji’s tail would wag the whole time they were wrestling, even when he used his “stern voice”. His next approach while more effective in the short term only served to reinforce bad Benjamin behavior. Every time Benjamin would start to get a little antsy Daddy would give him a treat. If Benji remained crazy for more than a few treats Daddy would give him wet food, his favorite. After three days of this conditioning Daddy realized that Benji remained in a state of hyperactivity the entire time Mommy was at work in an attempt to earn constant treats.

Breaking that cycle took some significant effort but I think Daddy finally figured out a system which is workable, if uncomfortable. It is kind of ironic that Benji started this whole series of events by bringing a pillow onto the hardwood floor because that is now where Daddy relaxes while I sleep. Now, when Benji gets that look in his eyes Daddy climbs onto the floor and Benji is content with Daddy’s discomfort. Humorously Benji rests on his pillow while Daddy lays on the floor. I can’t make this stuff up, but I think I can claim the title of pack leader!

Caprica: False Labor

2011-01-13T17:49:00.000-05:00

Ironic that an actual child was born in an episode entitled “False Labor”. Of course the falsity referred to in the title was Daniel’s stalled progress on Zoe’s resurrection program. That said, in order to have a false labor a women must actually be pregnant. Therefore it is only a matter of time before Daniel figures this program out and actually resurrects the resurrection machine.

Amanda Greystone is actually enjoying her time in the group household, I don’t care what she told the police officer with a grudge. Also, I completely believe that she had postpartum depression after giving birth, let’s remember that she has had significant mental issues in her past. While it was nice that Clarice was not prominently featured in this episode, a double dose of Amanda was almost a little too much to bear.

I love that Zoe is taunting her father from beyond the grave. That said, she did have angelic help with the coding if we are to believe she has her very own head-character. Which kind of bums me out a little. The Cylons are supposed to be the children of humanity, not the children of God by way of humanity. Yet, Zoe designed the Cylon body with prophetic support and her father stole it. She then coded the resurrection program with heavenly help and her father is about to steal that as well.

While Zoe was responsible for the first Cylon taste of human blood, Samuel really just let the flood gates open. He killed a dozen people. While the Cylon stated, “By your command”, I added in my head, “But not for much longer”. Sam sees himself as a freedom fighter, but he is living on a world where he is the only one who cares. I wonder when he’ll hop a shuttle for Turon, Cylon in the cargo hold, and start settling things the way he knows how. Shouldn’t someone from Greystone Industries notice that the Cylon got shot up?

Joseph made a human connection again. I wonder how long before she reveals her virtual persona to him. Also, if she continues going into New Cap City shouldn’t she have news to share with him regarding his daughter? Joseph’s conversation with Daniel in the smoking section outside of the building was fantastic, I wish they would give those two screen time together.

Caprica: The Things We Lock Away

2011-01-13T14:17:00.001-05:00

I finally caught up on this long neglected episode of television. I had this on my DVR for a week or so, because sometimes life gets busy. I completely intended to watch it as I truly did love this show when I heard the news that Caprica was cancelled by Syfy. I was disheartened and put off watching this episode even further into the future. The future turned into more than a couple of months, but here I am finally getting around to this series once again.

While this particular episode was no masterpiece it did serve as a reminder that this was a series cut down too soon. There are some amazingly complex and interesting concepts in Caprica. The scene where Zoe is confronted by family members of those who died in the Maglev bombing was powerful and thought provoking. “This won’t bring him back” she said to her soon to be attacker, “Yeah, but it might feel good”. The young man who stabbed her in the stomach didn’t even know if what he was doing was right. But he did it anyway because there are no perceived consequences for actions in New Cap City.

From a philosophical point of view I would argue that that man had nightmares about what he did to Zoe. In fact, all of the people who viciously attacked her in the arena should have had nightmares about what they did to her. When does a game cease to be a game? When you feel as though it is real. New Cap City is a real place, you just don’t take a car, plane, or train to get there. You power up the holoband and you have been transported to a real destination. If you die there you are done, you’ve gone on to another life, an afterlife.

A lot was made in this episode about the humanity of Zoe. Zoe is human. In fact, she is so human that she gets her very own head-character. Since she has not made a “meaningful” connection with another human being, her head-character comes in the form of herself. While I like the concept I cannot help but feel as though it is a little stale considering we now know what these projections are, if you saw the series finale of Battlestar Galactica (if you haven’t, what’s wrong with you).

The King is dead, long live the King! If Daniel wanted to keep the blood off his hands he should have never attempted a military coup. Virgis turned out to be a few cards short of a deck, because Daniel’s plan was not a terrible one. How much power could this mob family possibly have? Of course, I would like to give the writers credit for giving Virgis the courage to carry out his misguided convictions. He came there with a plan and would not be deterred from it, unlike Tamara.

Tamara was convinced in short order that she needed to befriend Zoe. If she truly believed that Zoe was responsible for the Maglev disaster she should have needed considerably more time to get over it. Especially considering the fact that she died in the tragedy.

Clarice and Amanda are still not interesting and now Lacey isn’t interesting either. That is all I have to say about that story line for now.

Fallout New Vegas

2011-01-12T14:25:00.005-05:00

This pains me to write but Fallout New Vegas is a broken game. I can say that with authority because I played this game for easily 50 hours (according to my wife it was considerably more time). I know what you are thinking, “why in the world would anyone play a broken game for more than 50 hours?” The answer to that question is complicated so I’ll do my best to explain.

My desire to push forward with New Vegas stems from my love of Fallout 3. I picked that game up and instantly fell in love with the story, action, and inventory system. The phrase “you are over encumbered and cannot run” meant it was time to slow down the breakneck pace of the game and figure out which items to combine, use, or toss. It sounds mundane, I know, but it was seriously fun for some odd reason. Action was intense, almost any weapon ever imagined was available for use to kill mutated insects, feral animals, and other crazy creatures you’d come across in the irradiated waste of post nuclear war USA. The story was pitch perfect, you play as a naive young man looking for his father in the remnants of the nations capital.

Fallout New Vegas had the action and the inventory system but the story was convoluted to say the least. You play as a courier who was left for dead then basically raised from it. You then go into the wastes of Nevada and meet all the groups vying for power. They all want you to work towards their goals to feed their ambitions for the area. It is a really neat setup for a game but I could not help but feel as though my choices were ultimately forced upon me and the openness promised was nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

There is a a karma system in the game which tells you whether or not your actions are good or evil. If I was attacked by a group, meaning they shot first, and I managed to survive I would receive bad karma not for killing people but from stealing by stealing their possessions after they died. I found that to be an odd moral code. But if that was my only problem I’d soon get over it. Non-playable-character’s (NPC’s) want your head on a stick if you shoot another NPC in front of them which makes sense, however, they also attempt to kill you if you take a soda out of their fridge. What’s worse, if you fight back and kill them after they’ve attacked you for being a mooch you’ll get back karma for the soda and the NPC deaths on your hands.

However, it was not until I came across a character known as E-DE that I realized New Vegas was not held to same quality control standards as Fallout 3 (which admittedly had problems of its own). I loved E-DE. It was a flying robot which brought death from above to all who dared to attack me. It was encoded with a message from the Enclave that I was attempting to piece together when it disappeared. I don’t mean wandered off and forgot to come back, I mean literally disappeared from the game. The robot showed up on my map, at the Boomer Base, but everywhere I wandered it would elude me.

I spent hours searching for that bot until I finally broke down and consulted an online guide. On message boards I found out that E-DE was not gone because of something I did, but rather this was a frequent glitch with the game. The only suggested remedy was going back to a previous save. Sadly I did not have a previous save, because in my search I did various other tasks to break the boredom and I lost E-DE permanently. Since E-DE was technically in my party, meaning I still had the perks of its company, I was unable to recruit another character to my cause.

Once E-DE was gone, the bloom was off the rose. The game crashed almost hourly with no rhyme or reason. This would hamper my progress significantly and put me in a catch 22. I could save often and possibly add another bug to my play through or not save until I know everything was kosher but risk a freeze and lose all progress. On other occasions, I would complete a task only it would still be active on my Pipboy and characters would act as if we were right in the middle of action that was not happening. It got so bad that I began to assume things that were actually supposed to happen in game were glitches.

For example, the NCR kept attacking me even though I did nothing aggressive to them and I reset the game half a dozen times trying to get it to work right. It turned out that I was wearing armor of a faction that they were at war with and that is why I was accosted, which is actually a really neat game mechanic. Unfortunately, because of my continued frustrations with this game I thought, “this game is so busted” and tried an external remedy.

The next paragraph contains spoilers about events near the end of the game. Skip if you are sensitive to such things!

Currently I am at Hoover Dam about to go the independent route to victory. I spent the entire game courting the NCR and even got them to begrudgingly spare the Brotherhood of Steel. Yet for reason, which I cannot explain, the mission to save President Kimball ended without ending. The characters froze in time and no amount of resetting could bring them to the present. Being unable to finish that mission meant I had to beat the game with help from Yes Man, whom I dislike passionately. Once the NCR started shooting at me for following Yes Man’s directions I powered my Playstation down and started writing down my thoughts as a way to release my frustrations with this unfinished game.

Fallout New Vegas could have been spectacular, unfortunately in my experience it is mostly just a broken game.

Thoughts on Daddy 2

2011-01-08T11:39:00.000-05:00

No Mommy again yesterday, that makes a full week! I think something major has changed. We all had about ten days together and then it seems as if Mommy and Daddy switched schedules. In any event it is very odd and I’m not sure I love the situation. Mommy is fun, comforting, and chatty. Daddy on the other hand is gruff, hairy, and primarily speaks to me in song.

I started taking extra naps this week just so I wouldn’t have to hear him sing the full soundtrack of the Lion King acapella for the fifth time in one day (btw I Googled spelling for acapella and it varies so please don’t send me harassing emails). In ridiculous buffoon news, the lint roller got stuck to Daddy’s back and he walked around with it there for a full five minutes before he noticed!

Along those same lines Daddy seems to be taking over household chores a bit more this week. I saw him do almost ten loads of laundry, curiously he did not fold anything he just piled clean clothes in the guest bedroom. He has been cooking more too which is usually his strong suit, at least according to Mommy (she’s probably just being polite). But the other day he made a mess in the oven when he spilled an uncooked pizza whilst trying to transfer it to his pizza stone.

Daddy told me last night before he put me to bed that he was going to clean the oven. Unfortunately he did not consult me on how to do it. He seemed to believe he could simply hit the “self cleaning” button and go to bed. Whelp, he had a literal rude awakening when the smoke detector started beeping! Actually, the detector did not wake him so I had to start screaming to get his lazy butt out of bed. Before you call me a baby, I smelled smoke and thought the house was on fire.

After rolling over and attempting to quiet my calls for help by shoving a pacifier in my mouth, he also realized that the house was on fire. He sprang from the bead and I did see him again for almost 20 minutes. I did hear some conversation bits which I would like to share with you now. “They should have a warning sticker on that effing button”, “No, you have to do it I can’t reach the ceiling”, “I swear I am going to hit this piece of (I did not recognize this word so I did not remember it) with a hammer”.

Correction: When I was composing my blog in Google Docs I had fully intended to create my own website and post there. However, time constraints coupled with Google’s refusal to monetize my blog because I’m not technically old enough to use the web made the cost/benefit equation tip towards piggy backing off Daddy’s blog. It does pain me to share digital space with his awful reviews of the equally awful show FlashForward (I was in utero for part of that series and even I knew they were not going anywhere).

Thoughts on Daddy

2011-01-03T19:06:00.002-05:00

He finally put me in my crib so I am able to post to my blog! I was lucky enough to “procure” my Mommy’s iPod Touch and I’ve seen Daddy write in Google Docs/post to Blogger so frequently that this was easier than learning to crawl, talk, or poop on the potty (all skills which I have yet to master, or minor for that matter). Thankfully the written word comes easily to me and I figured it was time to let the world know what I am thinking.

First off, I would like to thank my Mommy for taking such good care of me from birth through today! No one understands my needs more than Mom! Which brings me to my Daddy. What is up with this guy?

He woke me up early this morning because I coughed and he thought I was going to stop breathing, nincompoop. Then he put on my Pandora station, which I usually love, and proceeded to butcher every song that was played because he figured I would not tell the world how terrible he sounded belting out “Everything” by Michael Buble (Buble is a funny name to say, it’s like bubble, only French). Whelp, Dad, the joke is on you because I’m telling everyone!

How am I going to have any shot at musical talent if he continues to sing so poorly and loud? I cannot even hear the actual version of the song over his obnoxious warbling. I think he is going to make me tone deaf before I can even speak. Not to mention the way he musically mumbles when he does not know the actual words to the song! All I’m saying is maybe Daddy should just read me a book and leave the music to actual musicians.

While I am complaining, I would like to note that I am not allowed to watch TV. The television is shiny, loud, and stimulating which is a perfect recipe to help my brain develop and expand my vocabulary, yet they won’t let me anywhere near it! It is a terrible irony considering the fact that Daddy’s blog has four times as many posts on Fringe as it does on me!

Speaking of things to do online, I think it is time I was allowed to get my own Facebook page. I mean, I’m 17 weeks old today and I really need to connect with people. I know for a fact that there are already hundreds of pictures of me online and I believe I need to start managing my image before it spirals out of my control.

Fringe: The Cure

2011-01-03T11:32:00.001-05:00

This was a fantastic episode in many respects and a puzzling one in others. Olivia’s speech to Broyles at the end of the episode was a perfect example of how impressive she is as a person. Peter’s little grin as Walter made Mr. Papaya’s (the friendliest of all fruits) head explode was a perfectly understated way to clue the audience into the fact that he actually is beginning to like his father.

I loved the scene with Nina Sharp and Peter at the horse park (I bet there is a fancier name for it but I am not searching). Nina knows more about Peter’s past than almost any other character on the show. He made fruitful contact with Peruvian natives, really? She also clued the Peter into Walter’s relationship with the Massive Dynamic crew, which was significantly more meaningful than Peter originally thought.

Let’s ignore the fact that a person who attempted to kill a man at the age of nine might have a hard time getting into the FBI. The issue with Olivia’s stepfather seemed a bit out of left field to me, which is really odd considering I’ve seen many episodes beyond this one and I don’t recall them mentioning it ever again. Was Olivia’s sister born after she shot this man?

If she was that makes Rachel Olivia’s half sister? I seem to remember something about Olivia’s mother dying in child birth but I could be confusing that with Rachel dying shortly after being born on the other side. On a side note, who knew a yearly birthday card could be so creepy?

More to the point, who is Olivia’s father? We’ve never met Mr. Dunham and he has never been directly referenced by any character in the series. Wouldn’t it be crazy if Walter created her in a test tube? Of course that isn’t extremely likely for a variety of reason, the foremost being she exists in both universes. I am more than a little curious as to who Olivia’s father actually is.

I did not spot the Observer in this episode, minus ten cool points for me!

Fringe: Power Hungry

2011-01-02T14:57:00.001-05:00

Our friend Meegar was a living conduit of electricity. Neat ability if he could figure out how to control it. I think Meegar was a cortexaphan kid, but I don’t remember for sure. This episode as a whole was a bit slow, the story of the week was less than thrilling, and our progress on the John Scott/Pattern front while considerable was a bit uninteresting. In short, this episode laid groundwork for story to come.

I enjoyed Walter and Astrid’s interaction where she called him out on not knowing her name. He did at least know it started with an “A”. The Observer got off the elevator early in this episode. I’m really having fun with the where’s Waldo aspect of the Observer story line considering I missed it completely the first time around.

Charlie was a good friend to Olivia. He did not judge Olivia when she told him about seeing John Scott and he gave her good advice on how to get over her trauma. It is telling that she confided in Charlie over Walter or Peter at this point in the series. I truly hope they are able to bring Charlternate back from the other universe and into ours.

Fringe: The Arrival

2011-01-02T14:55:00.001-05:00

Well the Observers showed up in a big way in this particular episode. I believe this week’s featured Observer goes by the name September but I cannot be sure until I get to the episode “August”. It took Olivia three weeks to spot the Observer which is fairly impressive considering it took me three episodes and I knew of their existence when I began my re-watch.

It is amazing to see Walter and Peter interact at this stage in their relationship. Walter wants to connect with Peter, but he simply does not know how to go about it. Where as Peter wants nothing to do with the old man but is drawn to him like a magnet.

Olivia began to fall in love with Peter in this episode. He, as per usual, is oblivious. Unfortunately she is going to have to deal with quite a bit before she and Peter have an actual shot at a relationship.

My favorite moment of this episode was the Walter/Astrid interaction, post injection. In the present of this series no one understands Walter better or enjoys his company more than Astrid. They have come a remarkably long way!

The “bad guy” in this episode seemed an awful lot like a rouge Observer. He wore a hat with a green, green, green, red dotted pattern so we could not tell whether or not he was bald. His eyebrows could easily have been drawn on his face. But the most telling sign was that his weapon was certainly not of this world. Additionally he had the ability to read thoughts of people, albeit with a bit of mechanical help.

We now know that this device was not the reason the September saved Walter and Peter. He saved them because Peter has a greater purpose to bring about the end of one world. With a device I believe the Observers themselves created.

The canister in this episode vibrated on a radio frequency of 2400 megahertz. I wonder if that is anywhere near the frequency of the numbers stations that gave our Fringe team the locations of the pieces of the doomsday machine. It would certainly explain the Observers interest in this particular device.

Fringe: Ghost Network

2011-01-02T14:54:00.001-05:00

Well that was interesting. Ghost Network gave us a significant preview of things to come, specifically Amber. Walter even said that the people on the bus seemed like flies caught in amber. Watching this episode again truly made me believe in the plan of the writers to tell a wonderfully coherent story from beginning to end.

The whole ghost network idea seemed a bit odd. I know often the audience has to simply buy into the the “science” of Fringe but why was Roy picking up phone conversations? If he was tapped into that mans mind he should be able to see all his thoughts not just the evil actions he is a part of.

I forgot that Charlie was funny! He joked with Olivia about John Scott telling him he loved him as well!

I finally caught the Observer! He was on the train in a half second flash as Olivia was walking by. I did a bit of research and picked up a Fringe Podcast called “The Fringe Podcast” and they inferred that the Observer shows up in every single episode of Fringe. If I have time I’ll go back and re-re-watch episodes one and two.

Fringe: Same Old Story

2010-12-28T23:09:00.002-05:00

Nina offered Olivia a job. She explicitly stated that Olivia’s quest for answers could be made simpler by the resources of Massive Dynamic. Nina then went on to flaunt the obvious power of the company in the U.S.A. and abroad. It is absolutely amazing that Walter Bishop is now the man in charge of such a powerful company. It is also somewhat mind blowing that Massive Dynamic has been so impotent in the face of the threat posed by Walternate.

Who expunged Peter’s medical records? One would think that a death certificate would be a fairly easy document for the FBI to obtain. Massive Dynamic would have the juice to hide something like that and considering the fact that Bell basically mutilated Walter’s brain maybe he felt he owed Walter one.

Broyles was more Broyles this episode. Thankfully there were no ridiculous “liaison” references. That said, he still does not know Olivia yet, he was surprised she turned down Nina’s job offer. Walter has seemed a bit off, yelling at Olivia and referring to her as a silly little girl. Maybe John Nobel was still trying to find Walter’s crazy sweet spot, or maybe Walter was flashing back to Olivia’s time as Olive at the daycare center in Jacksonville. Either way I’m glad they moved away from Walter as mostly irreverent and occasionally mean to mostly irreverent and occasionally inappropriately morbid.

I am so impressed that Fringe knew that Peter came from an alternate universe all the way back in episode two of the first season. That kind of foresight is extremely impressive for a series that many consider to be J.J. Abrams tiniest success.

Odd that the evil scientist in this episode worked with Walter. I’m glad they did not make a habit out of this type of storyline for the rest of the series. It would have been interesting to see Walter meet up with him so they could have a moment to get caught up. Of course now that I’ve written the last sentence I remember that the scientist was not captured and therefore the aforementioned meeting may have occurred later in season one.

No sign of August or the other observers as of yet. I’m sure they will show up shortly.

Fringe: Pilot

2010-12-28T11:00:00.001-05:00

I am writing about this episode with an eye to the present of Fringe. I may reference events that have taken place in this series through the end of 2010. Also, I would like to thank my family members for reading my blog and purchasing Fringe season’s 1 and 2 for me as a Christmas present.

Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, I need to give some thoughts on my re-watch of the Fringe Pilot episode. Before I do that, however, I should probably admit that I was not a huge fan of Fringe early in the life cycle of this series. I thought that the science was too easy/magic, I thought the characters were too cute by half, and I was frustrated by what I thought were pedestrian story lines.

I was wrong. Upon review the Pilot holds up remarkably well. Every key piece of the series was placed with care in the very first episode. William Bell, Nina Sharp, Astrid, Broyles, Charlie, and the Pattern were all introduced in this episode and given enough screen time to note their importance to the series as a whole. As I continue to revisit early episodes in this series the major question will have to be whether or not “the Pattern” is solely the work of Walternate or if it is something that the series will have to return to after his story is wrapped.

The plane of gelatin skeletons were not as gross this time around as I remembered it originally. In fact, I initially felt it was so repulsive that I was seriously considering dropping this series due to what I thought was an unnecessary desire to shock. I do not remember where all the pieces eventually ended up tying, but the bad guy in this episode seemed a bit lacking. What was his motivation, money, fame, or fratricide for the sake of it? How did Agent Scott tie into all of this?

I do not have the resources in studying Fringe that I did with a show like Lost. The popularity of Lost afforded me multiple podcasts which all did episode summaries (sometimes running as long as the 42 minute episode themselves), not to mention the formidable Lostapedia. Fringe does not have the massive fan community Lost did, and if it does I have not tapped into it. This is why I have decided my Fringe re-watch is my top television priority for the next few weeks.

I am a science fiction fan, with the Syfy Network’s boneheaded mishandling of Caprica and SGU, the only shows that could have challenged Fringe for the title of best show on television have now gone the way of the Firefly. Memo to FOX, please don’t cancel Fringe!

Broyles was all wrong in this first episode. His personality adjustment could be explained away by saying that he had yet to invite Olivia into his Fringe team and upon noticing her almost superhuman talent decided to not be an ass to her. However, as I have discussed in season three, Broyles is a good man and he had no excuse for make liaison a dirty word.

What was with Agent Scott’s cryptic warning about Broyles to Olivia? “Ask yourself, why did Broyles send you”. I would like to say it was one more misdirection he was sending her way, but if I remember correctly he really did love her. It was almost shocking to see how much Olivia loved Scott. She has spent so much of this series miserable, distant, and cold that her sense of overwhelming joy with Scott in that bedroom scene was more Folivia than Olivia.

The only key series aspect missing in this premier episode was an appearance from an Observer. I’ll try to make a note when that happens!

Fringe: Marionette

2010-12-13T20:01:00.000-05:00

Good for you Olivia. Of course you could not let everything out at the moment Peter told you, it is not your way. You need to process information, you need to deal with it. The scene at the end where you completely unloaded on Peter was poignant, beautiful, and heartbreaking. I wanted to cheer for your bravery at confronting Peter’s inability to see Folivia for who she was, but I was also devastated that you had to go through this terrible injustice with no one to comfort you. This is a science fiction television show, how did it make the audience care so much for the characters?

Other than the emotional catharsis at the end of the episode this week’s storyline was fairly weak. After wonderfully connected stories all season long the Frankenstein's monster stuff just was not doing it for me. On the bright side the episode was sufficiently creepy. My wife could not look at the television in quite a few tension filled moments.

I missed Lincoln and Charlie. I even missed the cab driver that inexplicably helped Olivia after she took him hostage.

The Observer is back! I almost forgot they existed. After the amazing drama that played out between Folivia’s universe and ours my view of the fiction of Fringe significantly narrowed to focus on the two worlds we became familiar with. The mere existence of two worlds necessitates the existence of infinite worlds (I’m sure there is a a sound scientific theory to back up my wild assertion).

If the pieces of Walternate’s doomsday device are truly as ancient as we’ve been led to believe it is plausible that in one of the infinite paths the history of planet earth has taken the people who built that device never used it. Therefore they continued and prospered, possibly becoming the beings we know as Observers. If the Observers are in fact decedents of an ancient race of humans 1.0 they must have vast knowledge of the workings of the universes which would explain their ability to seemingly phase in and out of our world.

Walternate feels as though only one universe can survive, which leads me to believe that his reality has not caught on to the Observer visits. Unless Observers can only safely travel to our dimension for some reason or another. I love Fringe, I don’t understand it, but I love it. Actually, I’m making an executive decision, Fringe is at the top of my list for a series re-watch. Quick someone buy it for me for Christmas.

Fringe: Entrada

2010-12-06T21:24:00.002-05:00

Loved this episode. In fact, I’ve loved every episode of Fringe this season. It has simultaneously become the show I want to watch and write about more than any other show on television. While not directly related to this episode, I feel the need to lament FOX’s decision to move Fringe to Fridays. I’ve watched a lot of terrific programing die at FOX on Friday (Terminator: TSCC and Firefly spring to mind) and I hope that Fringe can somehow dodge that bullet.

Broyles was the star of this episode and it cost the character his life. I know I’ve said this before but you really have to commend Fringe on the creative direction it has taken. In what other fictional universe can you kill a character, then have that character lay himself to rest, all while somehow feeling the impact of his death? I spent my last post going on and on about what a good man Broyles was innately, genetically and it was his goodness that got him killed.

Brandon the scientist took a dark turn. Even Walternate seemed initially shocked with Brandon’s thought process, though he did eventually approve of it. If Broyles is innately a good soul what does that say for Brandon? Even Folivia for all the innocent murdering she did on this side seemed to really have warmed to Peter and wanted to do right by him.

Olivia does not give herself enough credit for escaping her very own hell dimension. Sure an apparition of Peter gave her the strength she needed to find her way out of mental prison, but it could have manifested as anyone, her niece would have been just as believable for the viewer. Admittedly not nearly as emotionally fulfilling or appropriate/inappropriate considering what/who Peter was doing. On an unrelated note, Walter’s discomfort with the Peter/Folivia relationship was extremely endearing.

If Broyles was able to trust Olivia and sacrifice himself to bring peace between dimensions, how long will it take before Folivia does the same? I’ll assume that she will take his place in the big chair now that she is privy to knowledge of the other side that no one else in Fringe Division possesses. I wonder what Walternate will tell Fringe Division about the death of Broyles. Most likely he’ll tell the team that Broyles bravely died in a Fringe event while reserving the really good lie for Folivia. Walternate will tell her that Olivia killed him.

Fringe: The Abducted

2010-11-23T19:08:00.003-05:00

Olivia is an awesome FBI agent and an even more impressive human being. She was able to draw out key information from Chris while no one else in the Fringe division had the spine to even ask Broyles for permission to talk to him. She knew that the old man, plus young man, plus spinal tap equaled an anti aging concoction and even managed to impress Lincoln with her grasp of medical knowledge. On a side note, she memorized the path the patrols take around the harbor while she was fleeing for her life.

What is up with that crazy cab driver? He was totally fine with taxing the woman who cab napped him out into the middle of the Hudson River on a boat he had no knowledge of how to sail. He better be acting on behalf of William Bell’s estate. If he truly is an independent figure doing this out of the goodness of his heart, his character makes absolutely no sense to me.

When Olivia told the little boy that she was with the FBI it sounded odd to me and I did not know why. Her conversation with him in the hospital was a nice resolution for my tired brain.

My favorite parts about the alternate universe are the subtle distinctions between their world and ours. This week they quietly let it slip that in their United States of America there are three major political parties. I wonder which party President Obama belongs to in Walternate’s world.

Olivia made contact with Peter, but she was not able to will herself permanently home. It was similar to when William Bell brought her out of her car accident on what was seemingly borrowed time. Of course when she went back to our world after that experience she was placed back into the same space, at the same velocity, and only time moved without her. Of course Bell was doing the heavy lifting then and I am guessing that somewhat different rules govern her own transitions between worlds.

Broyles is a good man no matter which dimension he inhabits. Olivia helped his son and he helped her by turning a blind eye to her obvious awakening. Of course, you could argue that Broyles’ discretion could bring about the end of his world at the hands of the woman he let walk away. However, I prefer to think that he realized Olivia was not the threat he was led to believe and he was able to recognize the goodness in her.

Peter you dumb love sick puppy. You never put the pieces together. Folivia confused Carey Grant for Ronald Fraking Reagan and you did not take that as a hint that something was amiss. The woman you actually love is trapped in an alternate dimension and you did not even notice until she had a janitor call to inform you. Minus 10 character points!

Thoughts on Fatherhood 7

2010-11-22T19:29:00.001-05:00

Yesterday my wife approached me and said, “I have to go to Target for an eye exam, do you and the baby want to come?” I responded, “Not really” and then quickly added, “unless you want us to”. My lovely wife then said, “I want you to” and off we all went to Target.

We pulled into the parking lot, walked into the store, and instantly my wife ran away from the baby and I. My little one was in her travel seat which snapped into the kid carrier section of the shopping cart. This seemed a bit dangerous so I placed her in the cart itself which resulted in making me feel like she was safer, though empirically I have no evidence that is the truth. Placing my child inside the basket also had the unintended consequence of her being her invisible to casual observers.

As we strolled through the store I felt confident in my parenting abilities, well semi-confident as I was absolutely terrified she would start screaming which would lead a police officer to confiscate her from me. We went through the clothing department with little incident, save for her staring at the halogen lighting as if it were the most impressive thing ever created. We strolled through electronics and I watched her little head rotate to follow a 50 inch LCD TV as we slowly rolled by. Next up was the toy section and somewhat unsurprisingly, that was where we started to have issues.

We were next to the life sized Nerf weapons when she screamed, “Whah!” sharply and suddenly. I did my best to softly shush her but figured we should quickly relocate to another, less stimulating, aisle. In board games it happened again, “Whah!” I shushed, but nothing came of it, and I shushed again. Board games were about to send me to jail without passing go or collecting two hundred dollars so I rushed into more familiar territory, video games.

Though my child remained upset, the fact that Fable III was already out distracted me significantly and I blurted, audibly, not loudly, “awesome” upon realizing this fortuitous news. Oddly, it was at that point that I notice my child was quiet. While I was somewhat bemused by the fact that my little girl might be an XBOX fan at this young an age, I surmised that was not the calming factor as showing her the box of the game only served to upset her.

We moved into the candy and junkfood section of the store and at this point her little cry of “Whah!” was being complimented with a guttural, “Meh!”. Shushing did not work, the pacifier only served to annoy, and every timed to rubbed her forehead she angrily slung her head in the opposite direction. Again Target distracted me from my child when I noticed the insane amount of calories that were in a particular breakfast cereal I enjoy. This time I simply stated, “can you believe this?” to my child and she stopped making noise.

It was at this point I realized my child was made happier with the simple sound of my voice. The fact that my girl was responding, positively, to my voice made me a very proud poppy but the fact that it looked as though I was talking to a shopping cart made me slightly self-conscience. At first I tried to speak softly to her when no one was looking, but that proved to be too inconsistent to keep her happy.

I swallowed my pride and by the time I reached the pet supply aisle I began to talk my shopping cart with alarming regularity. I read names of products, lists of ingredients, and even remarked on whether our dog would enjoy the chewiness of various products. My child went from “Whah!-ing” to smiling broadly and even laughing occasionally. By the time we got to the vision center we were both having such a good time I was hoping my wife was not ready for us. Turns out that embracing my inner crazy person in a crowded store was a freeing experience.

The Event: For the Good of Our Country

2010-11-17T20:30:00.000-05:00

Is it wrong that I was rooting for Sean to die? The way he got shot literally made me laugh out loud. The assassin somehow survived the explosion inside the house, crawled out to the roof top, climbed down to street level, and managed to shoot Sean in the shoulder. Sean then must have been eating the same spinach that his would be killer had consumed because with a bullet wound the managed to bait and disarm his attacker. All while his girlfriend cried and threw a rock.

Layla got her, strong character moment when she kidnapped a doctor and forced him to perform emergency surgery on Sean in an alley that was bisected by a river of urine. The sad thing is that this storyline was by far the strongest part of the episode.

I guess I should be happy that I called the Vice President’s involvement in the plot to kill Martinez in my thoughts on “Protect them from the Truth”. That noted, I simply employed the “he who smelt it dealt it” theorem of television prognosticating which as any TV snob can tell you is only slightly more respected than the, “never trust a man with a mustache, who is not Tom Selleck” theorem.

Sadly, as the VP had his “come to Jesus” moment, he also had a “diarrhea of the mouth moment” and managed to get himself killed before spilling the beans. On a side not I’ll try not to include the words diarrhea and beans in the same sentence again in the future. Why would the VP not have exited the building using the same secure means he used when entering?

The disappearing plane gag in the first episode was pretty cool looking and the building being sucked into a black hole was not a terrible effect either. However, every time they attempt to do something to people, make them look sick, age them prematurely or allow them to find the fountain of youth, I feel like the special effects wizards were all downgraded to house elves.

Fringe: 6995 kHz

2010-11-14T13:15:00.002-05:00

My only problem with this episode is that the numbers were not, 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42. While I did notice an 8 and a 42 it was not the full Abrams connection I was looking for! That said, I am now positive that this show is by far the best “Lost” replacement I am going to get!

This episode marked a serious turning point for the series in a couple of key places. Folivia is slowly realizing that people (namely Peter and Walter) on this side may not be a blood thirsty as she has been led to believe. The success of Folivia in our world has led to Olivia’s expandability in the other universe. Astrid has come into her own as a character and a valuable part of the team.

With Folivia actively working against Fringe division, Astrid has transformed from Walter’s assistant to the person who cracked the most important mystery in the history of this series. It is an impressive journey for a character who I theorized was a figment of Walter’s imagination back in the days when she it seemed only existed as conscience for his crazier schemes. I find it interesting that her strength as a character is codes/patterns in both universes, did we have any indication of that before we saw her alternate?

Walternate’s machine is not his at all, it is a creation of people that evolved millions of years ago? It is another interesting twist on storytelling convention. Most shows would make the ancient technology alien in nature or placed their by time travelers. But Fringe is proposing that human beings lived before the dinosaurs and erased themselves from the fossil record because they created a vacuum that sucked their existence into a veritable black hole.

After discovering cortexaphan last week, I am disappointed with Walternate’s decision to discard Olivia so quickly. I guess that is the difference between he and Walter. Walternate creates to pursue goals while Walter creates because he is interested in what is possible.

Peter gets the “big dumb nincompoop” award this week. Olivia did not know the book store owner and could barely recall the string of numbers. She has a photographic memory Peter, why have no red flags been raised? More importantly, the Olivia he knows would never advocate the destruction of an entire universe of people.

I cannot wait to see how Olivia gets home. Her reunion with Peter will be... well bittersweet does not even come close to summing that up. The only good thing about Peter not figuring out that he is literally sleeping with the enemy is that Olivia as a character will become possibly the most bad ass female in the history of television. She is in another universe and may find her way home without the assistance of a single person. Even Buffy had to significantly on her friends when the going got tough.

The Event: I Know Who You Are

2010-11-09T20:33:00.002-05:00

As I was watching this episode I could not help but be put off by the back story of Blake Sterling. He is the man he is because he had daddy issues, shocker (unless you watched Lost and then you know that all television characters have complicated issues with their fathers). We got the point that Blake and his old man had a strained relationship because he referred to Sterling Sr. as “Father”. Of course then to drive the point home we saw “Father” assassinate Blake’s wife in a move that felt absolutely nutty as a plot point.

How could they do such a wonderful job with Simon’s flashback and then go on to completely miss the ball with Blake the very next episode? While I’m complaining, did anyone else think the Martinez/Sterling “Beer Summit” was way too on the nose? I wish the creative forces of the show had the nerve to call the President character Obama.

Sophia as “mother” may be the most intriguing aspect brought up in this episode. Is she only Thomas’ mother or is she the mother of all of the 1%’ers? If she is the mother of all the aliens “The Event” seems to be borrowing liberally from the ABC series “V”. I would prefer Thomas to be her only child, it would make their relationship more important.

I was effectively creeped out by the little girls at the end of the episode. That is until they showed us their faces. It was at that point I realized that “The Event” is a terrible B movie masquerading as a slick modern television series. While on the subject of creepy, I guess we have to assume that the 1%ers are connected to the creepy old man. The flowers he was gushing about to his security officer happened to be in Thomas’ fortress of solitude as well. I doubt even Thomas would approve of the old man’s methods (or agree with his goals) so I am going to guess that he is the “man in the Midwest” Thomas did his investing through.

Sean and Layla had their own B movie moment as they ran out of a building as it exploded. Of course that was only moments after they met “exposition man” and seconds before they realized he and “crazy not stupid reporter woman” left them for dead on the rooftop. I officially hate their story line completely and have decided to start a “Kill off Sean and Layla” campaign. Of course considering the readership of this blog I’ll have to assume that the campaign will be a little lonely but I will persist, unless I forget I started it when I write about “The Event” next week.

Fringe: Amber 31422

2010-11-06T15:46:00.000-04:00

Olivia has finally figured out that she is not who she thought she was, kudos! Considering she is taking anti-psychotics without Walternate’s knowledge, I would bet that they are the key to unlocking to the Peter vision’s she’s having. The more she takes the pills the more he appears and guides her in the right direction. I cannot decide if the Twin Towers as a key plot point in this series is cool homage or gross abuse of our obvious emotional connection to those buildings. That acknowledged, Olivia’s journey to the NYC gift shop was one of the coolest moments in the history of this series.

Peter better discover Folivia for who she is in the next episode. Then maybe we can finally do what is needed to bring our characters back together.

Walternate seeks to bring balance to world by any means necessary. The Amber is a stopgap keeping his universe from ultimate destruction. The Fringe equivalent of sticking their finger in the dyke. If people have jumped back and forth between dimensions from both sides, why is only one being sucked into oblivion? Additionally, if the bank robber was able to create mini-black holes which required Amber plugging why has nothing Walter has done in our world needed the same treatment?

I am assuming that this will be one of the big questions answered at the end of this season. Otherwise it is an obvious plot hole, almost as big as bringing back a dead character by accident because episodes aired out of order.

Broyles knew that Olivia was not his Olivia and thus was willing to sacrifice her when the chips were down. Charlie and Lincoln believe she is their Olivia and forced Broyles to give them the time they needed to save her. I know I have said this before, but I really like Charlie and Lincoln and would love to see their participation in this series continue beyond this story arch.

Walternate discovered cotrexaphan in Olivia’s head. Of course he does not know what it is as of yet, but he must know it has something to do with her ability to traverse worlds. I have a bad feeling about what Walternate will do with the knowledge he now has. I feel like this show has something interesting to say about psychotropic drugs. Whenever a character has to do something superhuman Walter or Walternate simply doses them with psychotropics. It just seems worth noting.

The Polio outbreaks in our alternate universe are perplexing to me. Polio is a virus that was thoroughly researched by many people in our history and two effective vaccines were created in the 1950’s. How could the researchers on the other side not come up with similar results or at least create one of the two? Inconsistencies between the two universes should be caused by acts of chance, like the difference between a successful/unsuccessful assassination attempt, not the complete absence of human inquisitiveness.

Thoughts on Fatherhood 6

2010-11-03T20:10:00.002-04:00

It was time. The baby had to get out of our bed and into her own. She just turned eight weeks and if that is not old enough to poop on the bowl it is certainly old enough to sleep in her own space. We did everything right. I gently bounced her to sleep whilst listening to Disney music through my iPod’s tiny speaker. The wife prepared the crib by removing all stuffed animals, blankets, and clothing. The baby went dutifully to sleep after approximately one and a half hours of daddy time and I carefully placed her in the crib.

This is when things started to trend downward. Almost immediately I realized I left my iPod in the room. This would have been OK but Pandora started to play the “Glee” version of “Don’t Stop Believing”, apparently “Glee” is musically similar to Disney, and it was rocking too hard for a child to sleep in that little space. I crept back in the room and the floor squeaked, I took another step and the floor creaked. Mercifully the room is tiny so I was able to quickly pick up the iPod and silence it. I snuck out of the room and, I kid you not, the floor squealed, “Time to make the donuts”.

Finally out of the room I closed the door with a gentle “click” and gasped a sigh of relief. I proudly walked down the steps and informed my wife of how easily I had put our child to sleep and as I got the last word out of my mouth we heard the baby screaming. This effectively removed the wind from my sails and I tagged out, allowing my wife to pick up the angry ball (sorry for the mixed metaphors).

My wife locked herself in our child’s room for the next 40 minutes at the end of which she emerged visibly tired but victorious. The baby was sleeping and it was time for us to follow suit. We entered our bed, which was now baby free, and celebrated our success in hushed tones. I whispered to my wife, “turn on the monitor, I want to see what our child looks like in night vision”. Considering I made her register for the expensive hand held unit I thought it was fair to be geeking out a little.

Unfortunately my technologically challenged better half could not figure out how to power the monitor on. After 30 seconds of watching my wife struggle, I wrestled the unit away from her and began banging on random buttons. I knew almost instantly that the monitor was busted but attempted to resuscitate it through all the usual means. I tapped the power button, held the power button, pushed and held multiple buttons at once, I even plugged the unit into the wall and tried everything all over again. When nothing worked I slammed it a few times into the bed post, but admittedly that was more of a stress relief than a troubleshoot.

When I finally decided all hope was lost I became nervous that we could not see or hear our child. I worried that she would wake up, feel abandoned and alone, and begin to resent us. My patient wife tried to allay my fears but had little success. I must have been convincing though because the second we heard “boo” from the babies bedroom we both jumped up and brought her back to ours. Everyone was sleeping in minutes.

We planned to return the defective baby device the next day but I had disposed of the box it came in, along with the receipt various other materials because it was super expensive and I assumed it would work. I gathered the monitor, the camera, and the power cords for each, placed them in a plastic bag and drove to Babies R Us. Expecting the worst my wife and I got our story straight on the ride over because confrontation makes me nervous. We decided “the story” should be the truth which was more or less; “this monitor is broken and it should not be, what can you do for us”.

Unbelievably, Babies R Us was receptive to our cause. The pleasant cashier looked at our Shoprite bag full of parts and ran down a check list of possible ways she could accept this as a return. “Do you have a receipt?” she asked with a broad smile. “We, I mean, I threw that out” I answered. “Did you pay with a credit card?” she helpfully inquired. “No it was a gift” I sullenly responded. “Oh, was it on your registry?” she excitedly questioned. “Well, yes it was” I quizzically replied. Unbelievably she then asked “Do you want store credit or an even exchange?” Before she could finish the statement, I screamed “Babies R Us for the win!” loud enough for the entire store to hear.

Ironically, even with the fancy new/working monitor our child has still not slept a night out of our bedroom.

Thoughts on Fatherhood 5

2010-10-30T20:29:00.000-04:00

I was sitting on my couch this morning, baby on my lap, watching the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” and having a fantastic time. The baby was happy, daddy was happy, and mommy was happy. Things were great until my lovely wife asked me if she could feed our wonderful child. I passed her the little bundle of joy and saw my wife’s expression changed from contentment to confusion.

“Why is the baby wet?” she asked me. “She can’t be wet”, I responded, “I’m not wet”. She gave me the once over and laughed, “Yeah you are you big dope!” My shorts were soaked, my shirt was soaked, and if I was wearing socks they would have been soaked as well. Rather than attend to myself I did the noble thing and unwrapped my soggy child.

I unbuttoned her outfit and noticed that the moisture did not smell like baby pee. I unfastened her undershirt and the smell of poop quaffed into my unprotected nose. I stripped my child down to her diaper and saw streaks of feces running up and down her tiny little body and when I removed the diaper I turned to my wife and “tagged” out. In the process of switching clean up crew captains my spirited child reached down to her waist and retrieved a handful of baby mud. My wife then rationally explained (she reads the blog) that it would take the two of us to deal with the unbelievably messy situation.

I feel as though I have done lot of complaining on the challenges encountered in my fatherhood experience thus far so I would like to change the pace a bit. In fact, things progressed significantly better from that point forward. After we removed as much of the poop as possible, considering how much of it there was, we decided it was time for an unscheduled baby bath. We ran the water and plopped her in the sink and the kid literally smiled from ear to ear.

She loves her bath time so much that I am beginning to think that she purposely saves her poop for hours on end. Therefore, by the time she has decided to unleash it upon the world the buildup is so massive that no diaper could possibly contain it therefore leading her to a bath. I know that would mean my child is some kind of poop/parent manipulating prodigy but I firmly and proudly believe it is possible.

If it seems odd to use the word “proudly” when describing my daughters bowel movement, consider all the other peculiar accomplishments we as parents ascribe to our littlest babies. We cheer for their burps and farts because they were able to move air out of their tiny gastrointestinal systems. We call our own parents and brag when our little ones sleep uninterrupted for more than 20 minutes. We wax poetic about how brilliant they are when they focus their eyes on a person or object. We count the seconds they are able to hold their heads up without assistance and then tweet their record times for the world to see (maybe that last one is just me).

The stars truly seem to align when my child looks directly at me and smiles. That moment is quite possibly the best feeling in the world and one I truly cherish every time my little girl makes it happen.

The Event: Loyalty

2010-10-26T21:49:00.000-04:00

While this episode was not perfect it finally accomplished one important goal that all television shows aspire to: I finally care about one of the characters. To be fair I doubt all television shows write at the center of their story bibles, “Make the author of Sensyden’s Sounding Board care about our characters”, but I would like think television would be better if they did! Simon is interesting and I must admit I am a sucker for the undying lover at the bedside of his elderly companion I thought it was done well in this episode.

Speaking of this episode it would seem that Simon’s loyalties are with “his” people but also to the people of this world. He is a good man even if he is 1% genetically different than the rest of the men on this planet. He went back for the faceless FBI agent and radioed frantically for everyone to evacuate the building. However, Simon will always be loyal to the people he landed with in Alaska. The series would be a bit boring if he simply came out and gave away all the secrets of his people when the next episode airs. I do think he is going to have a few interesting conversations with the agent he graduated the academy with and that should make for good TV!

The Sean and Layla stuff feels like an entirely different series which is of inferior quality to the rest of the show. Between last weeks shootout and this weeks introduction of the “former journalist who’s been discredited because she got too close to the truth and happens to be a bit crazy from the life experiences she has had since her fall” I feel like their story is just one poorly done cliche. Even Sean’s desire to hide Layla followed by her insistence on staying in the fight could be seen coming from a mile away.

According to Simon, where he comes from “has no water”. Is that literal or do they simply not have large bodies of water? Have they completely tamed the planet and stripped it for parts? If that is true why would Thomas want to return so badly?

I had guessed that Thomas and Sophia were in a relationship and their reunion did nothing to prove or deny that assumption. Sophia was genuinely happy to see him if a little disappointed about the circumstances. Though for all her talk she was willing to escape with him down into the spider hole.

On an unrelated story note, I was thrilled that Simon did not get away with his impressive plan to dose unsuspecting civilians with the radioactive isotope. While is was great thinking on his part it would simply be too convenient for it to work and for him to keep his cover.

Thoughts on Fatherhood 4

2010-10-21T21:38:00.002-04:00

I really should not complain about my recent lack of sleep. People who know me well can tell you that I have been banking excess sleep for approximately 28 years. Parents of children who had colic or were constantly agitated from age zero through two have a lot more valid issues to lament. For the most part, my child has been wonderful and simply prefers sleeping during the day to the night.

However, a few nights ago my child went away and was replaced by an alien sent to planet earth to perform sleep deprivation exercises on new human parents. She was fed, clean, gas free, and screamed until her tiny little head turned the color of a turnip. I guess sometimes babies are uncomfortable for the sake of being uncomfortable but the intensity of her discomfort was simply unbearable for my wife and I. After repeated attempts to feed, burp, and clean failed I searched my sleep deprived shadow of a brain for sleepless baby remedies that family and friends had offered up upon hearing we were having a child.

The first fix I remembered involved placing the baby on the dryer. Apparently the warmth and rhythmic noise does wonders for angst ridden babies. I grabbed the little screamer off my wife’s chest, picked up her car seat on my way down the steps, and made a beeline for the dryer. My child was obviously confused because as I strapped her into the car seat she stopped crying for the first time in what seem like days. Emboldened by the unexpected success I placed her on top of the dryer and spun it on.

Unfortunately, the baby was roused by the laundry room while I was quickly drifting into dream land. After I picked myself up of the floor I realized this was not a sustainable plan. Even though she was happy, I figured she would cry uncontrollably if her slick seat bottom slid off the dryer while daddy was counting sheep.

As I lumbered back up the stairs the baby immediately started to scream. I began to think about the properties that made the laundry room a viable sleeping place for my child and searched for a safer, simpler, analog. I passed the throne room and realized I what I needed was kept in there! My fussing child made it difficult but I managed to nab the hair dryer before we entered the bedroom.

The simple act of powering on the blow dryer did nothing to sooth my raging child. I was disheartened but hopeful that I could somehow crack baby code. I decided that the blow dryer was outputting a consistent rather than rhythmic sound and soon came up with a winning method. I blocked the air output from the nozzle with my pillow case and then pulled it away at half second intervals. Instantly my little girl calmed down.

My big girl however, began complaining about the intense heat being produced from overclocking the hair product. When I noticed red glow inside the machine growing brighter with every wheeze I forced upon it, it became clear that the blow dryer was not my answer either. The second I stopped, the screaming picked up without missing a beat.

Now hours into the marathon I was becoming desperate. I was begging for answers that would not come and it was then that I came up with my most ridiculous plan. I ran to the living room closet and retrieved my vacuum cleaner. I knew from my last experience that I needed to add a beat to this mechanical monster and I did just that. Tapping the hose as it sucked in air brought the baby sleep inducing noise I needed. Peace coupled with a groaning vacuumous percussion filled the air.

As did heat and about three weeks worth of dust and other household unmentionables that a sucking machine picks up in the over the course of doing business. My nose began to run, my eyes began it itch, and my throat felt as if it was about to close. Strike three!

I lay in bed, defeated, ears ringing with the sound of crazy baby noises blended with crazy electric percussion. As I was about to give into a good cry myself my exasperated wife turned to me and said, “You could try her humidifier”. “We have a humidifier”, I responded, but before I got an answer I leap from bed and raced to our child’s room. After locating the box I tore at it like a bear with a freshly caught salmon.

My groggy brain could not comprehend the photo directions, but thankfully the mechanical skills I inherited from my handy father kicked into gear and after around 20 minutes I managed to decode how the three pieces of this plastic paragon placed together. I filled it with water imagined how quickly and efficiently it would lull my child to sleep. When I returned to the bedroom what I found simply dumbfounded me, my wife and child were soundly asleep.

I climbed in bed content with the knowledge that the two most important people in the world were finally resting. Approximately 43 seconds later my alarm went off and I got dressed for work. Ironically, while the alarm finally brought the water works to my face, my girls stayed peacefully sleeping.

The Event: Casualties of War

2010-10-20T20:21:00.002-04:00

It is never a good thing when a series pushes its action scenes to such an absurd point that I break down in a hysterical fit of laughter. Thankfully I did not get quite there, however, I did giggle audibly as the FBI agent pulled up in front of Sean and Layla and screamed “Get in!” After learning that suddenly Vicky had a heart of gold and seeing Sean and Layla make out for 20 minutes in the middle of a gun battle, that cliche line was too much to bare with a straight face.

On the plus side I am happy that Vicky was offing the bad guys, not Sean. If he went from being super nerd to Rambo I think I would have to be done with this series.

I would be happier if President Martinez was not a obvious analog for President Obama. Martinez has a strong and opinionated wife who tempers his rougher qualities. He has rich cultural ties to a country other than the United States, in fact, I bet people are clamoring to see his birth certificate! While the Inastrongka detainee population is not a perfect correlation to Guantanamo Bay President Martinez’s desire to release them only to have political reality smack him in the face echos our national conversation loudly. As are Martinez’s character traits, according to his adversaries, of being a good yet inexperienced man with high morals who waivers when faced with a tough decision.

I believe one of the reasons “The West Wing” was such a powerful piece of fiction was because it depicted a fairly liberal president while the reality of U.S. leadership was the exact opposite. In short, if “The Event” wanted to go for true drama they should have written the role of U.S. president more George Bush and less Barack Obama. That would have seemed edgy and made for fantastic storytelling.

Maybe I have seen to much science fiction but why is no one petitioning President Martinez to study the detainees? Last time I checked, we were fairly certain they were aliens and the only really good bit of science we have about them is that they are genetically 1% different than the human population of Earth. Where is the slimy, lab coated, mouth breather with a syringe lamenting the fact that the president will not let him/her attempt their somewhat risky experiment that might scientifically answer all the president’s questions, or make the detainees heads explode.

I have read more than my fair share about the Manhattan Project and I do not remember any scientist named “Thomas” working at Los Alamos. I absolutely hate it when writers give away humanities most impressive, amazing, and horrifying accomplishments and atrocities. As if it would be better if we did not take responsibility for our own decisions as a species.

Caprica: Retribution

2010-10-18T20:53:00.002-04:00

Sir Arthur C. Clark once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” I would like to extend the good sir’s quotation one step further and say that any sufficiently impressive magic is indistinguishable from religion. Clarice Willow is attempting to spin Zoe’s magic into an afterlife that her followers can taste, smell, touch, and truly live eternally in, at least until the Cylons destroy the servers.

This was a bloody and depressing episode of Caprica. While I usually do not turn to this show for high comedy I expect a moment or two per episode that is not the emotional equivalent of beating puppies to death with kittens. Basically an appearance from Surge in which he offered Sam and Joe a glass of fruit punch while they were trying to get Daniel to more effectively blackmail a board member would have gone a long way to ease some of the tension.

What happened to Clarice’s plural marriage? I think the man she brought with her on the killing spree was one of her husbands, but why is she living in a cabin with Amanda?

Why would Clarice not kill Lacy unless she feels that Lacy can still lead her to Zoe. Speaking of, how are they going to show us that scene at the end of last week’s episode and not give us more of Zoe the Dead Walker this week. Two minutes in New Cap City is all I ask.

Why does the entire Caprican police department think Clarice is not worth investigating? How does the one guy who is on to her become a professional pariah because his partner does not agree with him? Considering the evidence he presented to Amanda I am appalled that he is unable to get his superiors to arrest Clarice, sure it is circumstantial but it would be enough to hold a suspect on Law and Order for at least 24 hours.

I was glad to see Amanda has put together all her Clarice Willow puzzle pieces now that the Caprican police officer showed her the picture on the box. I was completely thrilled when she grabbed a gun to kill Clarice. I am willing to reserve judgment as to whether or not I care that she will be a double agent for a rouge Caprican police officer.

This episode was presented in an extremely annoying fashion. What was with the repeated scenes and dialogue? At least when the board member killed himself they placed a commercial break between the scene retreads. It was simply unbearable when Amanda was shown reflecting on the conversation she had with the officer seconds after she had it.

Fringe: Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep?

2010-10-17T21:35:00.000-04:00

Fantastic episode of Fringe. As we get to learn more about the people and creatures from the other side it becomes clear that they are remarkably like ourselves. The shapeshifter Newton is of course the obvious exception, but he managed to lead a solitary life away from the charms of our world. Who knows how long his head was dismembered from his body before they came together at some point last season.

I find it odd that Folivia was Newton’s superior in the field. All the events that had to happen to bring him together, the fact that he was the agent that actually brought Walternate to this dimension, and that he seemed to be pulling so many strings at once made it seem like he should have been significantly more valuable to Walternate than Folivia. Yet, when Folivia handed him his, whatever passes for shapeshifter cyanide he took it with a smile on his face.

The police officer and Senator shifters were much more interesting than Newton on a character scale. Walter classified the shifters as something between human and machine but emotionally it would seem they are human. The Senator did not have to buy lemonade from those little girls, nor did he have to over pay for it, he did it because making those little girls happy brought him joy.

This was made even clearer when the officer did everything he could to make sure his family was not harmed. That boy must have been six or seven years old meaning the shifter was the nearest thing to a father he ever had. Shockingly the shifter was actually a good dad and husband, even if he saw himself as a monster.

How does Peter go from basically calling out Folivia, on being Folivia to sleeping with her by episodes end without finishing the conversation he started before Walter almost died? Actually I think the answer to my question was hidden somewhere in it. That acknowledged, it is more than a bit frustrating that Peter has not put all the pieces he has stated he has about the whereabouts of the actual Olivia together.

Two points for Folivia stating she was on the phone with Rachel. I’ll award four points to the Fringe creative team if that is how Peter finally catches Folivia as the spy she truly is. Knowing Folivia as well as I do, which is to say not entirely well, I am comfortable making an inference on her personality type. I bet she has been unwilling to make contact with Rachel since she has crossed over to this side. It would be too painful for her to see or speak with the sister she has buried in her reality.

When Peter finally gets around to talking to Rachel and realizes that she has not seen or or heard from her sister since the events of last season Peter can finally take care of business.

Thoughts on Fatherhood 3

2010-10-17T09:02:00.001-04:00

Recently I smelled poop. Thankfully it was the baby and not the dog that did it so I began the process of changing her. Shockingly, when I opened the diaper I found no poop, yet the smell persisted. I put her back together, picked her up, and felt the all to familiar wet spot on her bottom. After inspecting the diaper once more I could locate no signs of poop or peep. It was then that I removed the diaper and found a massive poop streak on her pajamas. However, since the diaper was securely placed on her butt, I have only one explanation, magic poop.

The wife, the baby, and I went up to my hometown to welcome home my youngest brother, Rob, home from his Coast to Coast walk ( www.coasttocoastforacure.com ). We picked up my other brother, Mikey, at my parents house and drove into the center of town. It was a wonderful celebration, with a police escort, and support from the local high school, firemen, and political figures. When all was said and done lots of money was raised for the worthy causes that Rob and his friend Anthony supported as they walked from San Diego to Nutley, NJ.

At the end of the celebration, the wife and I grabbed the baby, ran to the car, and drove back to my parents house. Our child was passed around like a football and was in desperate need of a bath. It was not until I carried the baby through the threshold of the house that I realized we had completely forgotten my brother Mikey and stranded him in the center of town. He took it pretty well.

At our child’s one month pediatrician visit we were nervous because she was getting a vaccine. The wife does not do well with needles going into her and it turns out having someone puncture the skin of our little girl is significantly more painful for her. That said, as we walked into the office things were going remarkably well. The baby was quiet and happy while other children ran roughshod over the office. A pair of twins were complaining about not getting what they wanted from the toy store, an eight year old girl bullied two younger siblings, and one little boy was inexplicably tearing pages out of a magazine and sticking them in his pocket.

Our little one sat comfortably in her car seat, taking it all in. After about 15 minutes she started to squirm a little and since I wanted to hold her anyway I unbuckled her and reached in to pick her up. What I found in that seat still haunts me today.

My hand instantly felt warm and wet. I pulled it out to see what I had discovered and to my horror found that my hand was covered in poop, which uncannily resembled German mustard in both texture and color. Fighting the urge to vomit and panicking a bit as to how I should proceed, I did the only thing that came naturally to me. I stuck my mustard covered hand in my wife’s face and awaited instruction.

She screamed, “pick her up!” and I complied, then I think she vomited a little bit in her mouth. At that point, instinct finally kicked in and I ran to the family restroom, which in a pediatrician’s office is basically the only restroom. It was then that I was able to do a little triage. Her outfit, cute as it was, went in the trash as did her poop covered socks and her headband which sported some mustard colored stains after I slide her outfit over her tiny head. Then my wife and I used an entire box of baby butt wipes all over her poop smeared body. To say the least it was my most trying experience I have had as a parent yet.

Thankfully my brilliant wife packed a change of clothing for our itsy bitsy poop machine! I pulled them out of the diaper bag, got distracted when I noticed a poop slick in the baby’s armpit and promptly dropped them on the bathroom floor. Obviously I was not going to dress my semi-clean baby in bathroom floor smeared attire, thus we went with plan C. Wrap her in a blanket and hope for the best.

By the time we were called in for our visit the shot was the last thing on our minds and the baby took it with minimal fussing. I’d apologize for beginning and ending this post with a poop story, but these are the experiences that scar me enough to necessitate writing therapy!

Caprica: Unvanquished

2010-10-09T08:38:00.002-04:00

I know it’s been a while since the last time Caprica was on the air so I expected a little confusion going into this episode, but I must admit that I felt more than slightly lost as to how things were playing out on screen.

When we last saw Barnebus his operation was significantly disrupted by Clarice but now he is leading the brat pack version of Al Queda in a green house.

Then we have Clarice whose storyline significantly expanded the view we have gotten of the 12 Colonies thus far. Did we have any indication that an entire colony was under the control of the Church of the One? Based on the conversation between Clarice and the STO general, it would seem that Gemenon at this point in the series is governed by a monotheistic cult. This government is under threat of being toppled by the polytheistic rebels, internal strife, and weak leadership at the top. Side note, the execution at the hands of the STO was very Caesar on the floor of the Senate.

How did Amanda survive her jump off the bridge with only a broken foot? Why is she shacking up with Clarice? Was anyone else really happy when it seemed that Amanda would be dead, for good?

Zoe’s metallic body was destroyed when her truck blew up. Once the body was destroyed the chip became reprogrammable and Virgis was able to create a dumb Cylon army. Is this Cylon army being made to invade Gemenon? Why build an army if you do not plan to use it? Considering the people of Gemenon were literal believers in the pagan prophecies on the Battlestar Galactica, I’m thinking the STO might be the first victims of the Cylons.

The erasure of the chip thankfully did not kill Zoe, she managed to somehow escape into New Cap City where she is now one of two immortal beings. Tamara being the other immortal seems to have begun recruiting and branding players with her flower symbol. Zoe knows that Tamara is important, I wonder how she plans to use her.

What is up with Joseph Adama? He has completely given into his Turon mobster roots? What was the deal with the car bomb gag? He said he was trying to prove that Daniel was more humane than he was because he could not kill his own mother, but I think he was just messing with Dan. While on the subject of Turon mobsters, I would definitely have enjoyed this episode a bit more if Sam had a bigger role.

Why does Clairce think she can recreate the Zoe program? More importantly what makes her think that Zoe will help her bring eternal life to people that killed her human counterpart? I am betting that Daniel thinks he can re-create the program for the Turons because if his teenage daughter could do it, with enough time he must be able to as well.

Fringe: The Plateau

2010-10-08T17:28:00.000-04:00

This episode is a bit of a conundrum for me to grapple with. On one hand it was a straight forward self contained story with limited relevance to the overall arch of Fringe. On the other, it took place entirely in a world we are unfamiliar with. This particular world is so foreign that pens have been completed phased out of use by ubiquitous technology yet they have not come up with a vaccine for smallpox.

While the overall story, man with unique ability goes on a killing spree, could have taken place in either universe it was fun to see it unfold in Folivia’s home turf. Charlie is no dummy, he knows how how government works, and is suspicious of Olivia. Side note, it is fantastic to have him back in the fold, even if it is not the Charlie we originally grew to love. Folivia’s boyfriend/tattoo pal seems to have more invested in the relationship than she does. She left him without saying goodbye and is making out with Peter on the other side. I like Agent Lee and hope he somehow continues to be a part of the Fringe story beyond this current storyline. What is going on with Astrid in this world? Was she mentally abused or altered? She is the exact opposite of the Astrid we know. Broyles on the other hand is pretty much himself in either universe.

I guess it is time to call fumble on the Charlie episode that aired after he died. The world that episode took place in was ours, not this one.

Walternate is a bad dude. When he said, “I still am a scientist, I just have a bigger laboratory”, I believed him. He is the puppet master putting all the pieces into play, and in that respect was a lot like this episodes antagonist. Too bad William Bell did not remove half his brain matter in this universe as well. At least now we know why Walternate is attempting to turn Olivia into Folivia.

The Event: Protect Them From the Truth

2010-10-05T19:41:00.002-04:00

Sean is starting to grow on me as a character. He is hacker who turned his recreational attempt to hack the government into a legitimate career, the geek shall inherit the earth. I now understand why NBC paired this show with Chuck!

I would like to know, however, how Sean got in that trunk. The FBI car he was in exploded so that meant he would have had to have stolen an agents key less entry fob, located the car, and climbed into the trunk. That all had to be accomplished while the agent did not realize his key was stolen, otherwise there is no way Sean would have been able to release himself from the trunk at the FBI building.

It would seem to be obvious that Director Sterling is connected to the plot to assassinate the president. However, the evidence is circumstantial at best. Sterling is way too much of a red herring to be the series villain. The Vice President accused Sterling of the plot but, as an elementary student in the 1990’s would say, “he who smelt it, dealt it”. No one has more to gain from the death of a sitting President than the Vice President.

I wish I could say that I did not see the ending coming but I was thinking that the passengers were not dead last week. I understand that I would be a lot cooler if I bothered to mention that in my blog for last week’s episode. Chalk my oversight up to the fact that I have a 4 week old child and I am fortunate enough to have a wonderful wife whom attends to the child while her husband blogs about television.

The 1% seem a bit less menacing considering they did not kill a plane full of people. On the other hand they are not angels sent to save humanity from itself and obviously have an agenda. An agenda they were willing to kill one of their own to keep secret.

Thoughts on Fatherhood 2

2010-10-03T20:29:00.000-04:00

I know I talked about poop in my previous “Thoughts on Fatherhood” posting but it has constantly been on my mind as of late. For instance, today she pooped and I changed her. The second I finished changing her she pooped again. After changing her a third time she made the most awful sound I had ever heard from an infants rear end. Assuming she pooped for a third time I unwrapped her only to find a remarkable lack of poop. It was at that point I swear she smiled at me and mouthed the words “got you, loser”.

People have told me, as far back I can remember, that babies cry. I really did not comprehend how true that statement was until the birth of my little girl. She cries when she is cold, she cries when she is warm, she cries when she is hungry, she cries when she is full, she cries when she poops, she cries when she pees, she cries when she farts (unless she is laughing at me), she cries when you are not pacing with her back and fourth while bouncing her head and butt at slightly differing speeds. No wonder people invented language, human expression through blood curling sobs induces untold amounts of stress.

After painstakingly attempting to keep my daughters name in-google-able I did a g-check this morning to see how it was going. Turns out my brother congratulating her on her birth at his website coasttocoastforacure.com officially broke her Google streak. Damn him and his good intentions/causes, damn him.

I have really expanded my Disney music repertoire as of late. Pandora is my friend because it makes my little girl so happy. I have even gone so far as to purchase music via iTunes, which is something I do on rare occasions (I’m more of an app guy). I knew the Lion King had spectacular music but I had no idea how much fun dancing to Lilo and Stitch’s Hawaiian music with my little girl would be.

Fringe: The Box

2010-10-02T12:02:00.002-04:00

I am amazed with this show. Every episode raises ratchets up the intensity of the battle between worlds. I thought I would be bored with the Folivia story line almost immediately. It had been done previously in this series with the fake Charlie of season two and it seemed they squeezed all the drama out the doppleganger from another dimension they could.

I was wrong, however, because the fake Charlie was in fact a fake Charlie. Folivia is Olivia, just raised under different circumstances in a different world. In the great child rearing debate, Fringe seems to be throwing in for nurture. As proven when Folivia killed the deaf man with almost no remorse.

Two points for the Fringe creative forces for erasing Folivia’s tattoo. That two second scene made this storyline much more plausible. That noted, I would have liked to see how she got Peter out of that apartment without him seeing the blood seeping into the living room.

Walter is now the sole owner of Massive Dynamic, which changes things considerably. It remarkable how the depiction of that company morphed from evil empire to the most significant defender of this world over the course of this series. It’s almost as dramatic a turn as Wolfram and Heart made on Angel. Will Massive Dynamic change Walter or will Walter change Massive Dynamic? I am guessing that for now, Walter will leave Nina in charge of the day to day operations.

I would like to compliment the Fringe creative powers on creating a wonderful villain for this series. Walternate and the world he inhabits are familiar enough for us to emphasize with, different enough to serve as a cautionary tale, and fictional enough as to not offend, alienate, or smear any nationality, religion, or ethnic group. Fringe is not “us against them”, it’s “us against us”, and it makes for fantastic drama.

The Event: To Keep Us Safe

2010-09-28T19:11:00.000-04:00

Aliens? Some people hear “extra terrestrials” and check out. I however just got a lot more interested in this series. I guess the question at this point is, what the marketing material has been pointing us towards all along, “what is the event”? A disappearing plane, the existence of aliens, the fact that they are genetically 1% different than humans, the odd detail that the President of the United States seems to be Cuban, I doubt that any of these are the event.

I believe the event is something that will happen in the future of this series. In fact I think the event will be the revelation that the people who landed in Alaska in 1944 are humans from the future of planet earth. I know that seems to be the exact storyline of the USA show “The 4400”, but I also know you didn’t watch that show and NBC is banking on that.

The 1% people on the outside seem to be radicalized, while the 1%ers that have been imprisoned for 60 years apparently value life. Why kill everyone on that plane, were they responsible for the hijacking to begin with? The man in the middle is their man on the inside officer Simon Lee. While it was clear he was involved with the 1%ers after his conversation with Sophia in the pilot, the scene where he pulled the tube out of his arm was pretty cool.

I thought Sean and Leila were the weakest part of the first episode, and while I am not completely warmed up to them as a couple the scene they shared in the pool five years ago brought me to a place where I was almost in their corner.

I hate to compare “The Event” to “Lost” because it is kind of like comparing Alexander the Great to Ulysses S. Grant. They operate on different economies of scale. That said, why does this show feel the need to tell us the exact time and date of every flashback. “Lost” kept us guessing and that was half the fun.

Supernatural: Exile on Main Street

2010-09-25T19:25:00.002-04:00

If I had to describe this episode in one word it would be “odd”. Everything felt too easy, too simple, nothing seems earned. Dean went to hell and he spent the better part of a season dealing with it. Sam went to hell and his “recovery” happened completely off screen. Grandpa Campbell died when Dean went back in time yet he magically is pulled down at the exact time Sam is dragged up.

What could be important enough to the players in heaven or hell to put the Winchesters back into play? They killed the Devil and they spoiled the plans of the angels so who would bring them back? I would get it if it was Castiel, but only if he brought back Sam. There is no need to bring grandpa back as well, especially if he was happy upstairs.

Grandpa Campbell already has a secret he is keeping from the Winchester side of his family. Why capture the Djinn? Sammy seems to have completely accepted his extended family and has proven he is morally flexible, so why keep him in the dark? If I had to guess granddaddy knows what brought him back, why it brought him back, and what he needs to do to stay back.

Is Castiel gone this season? That would be a shame, it’s bad enough we are not going to see the prophet Chuck, considering he was God and all. It also seems odd that a new female character would be introduced that is related to Sam and Dean. Speaking of odd why would trained hunters accept two ghosts into their ranks? I’m thinking that the Campbell’s are not who they say they are.

It’s going to be hard to get psyched about the next big bad considering the last one was the Devil himself.

Fringe: Olivia

2010-09-25T18:02:00.000-04:00

It would seem that Fringe is my favorite show of the 2010 fall season. The strength of this episode combined with the passing of Lost and the absence of Caprica has made Fringe the most important appointment television on my DVR (appointment DRV is kind of like jumbo shrimp, I know).

Olivia has been medically transformed into believing she is Folivia with apparently no way of getting back to her universe. That said, I believe her new friend the cab driver with the heart of gold will help her find her way once again. He had no real reason to help her as much as he did considering she would have been locked up with ease if he turned on her. He most certainly did not have to toss his cab’s geo-location device out the window. He also stuck around after she told him to go which leads me to believe he either believes her or he is somehow connected to the real world.

Folivia, on the other hand, has settled in to Olivia’s life without incident. I wonder when she will meet her “sister” and “niece”. That should have some effect on her desire to end our world. That and Walter’s good nature compared to Walternate. I did not know I cared so much about the Peter/Olivia relationship until Folivia kissed Peter on the steps of the capital building and I felt completely robbed.

Speaking of Peter, if he and Olivia are having an intimate relationship, how long before Peter notices her discreetly placed tatoo? How long before Peter realizes she is not the woman he fell in love with? Knowing Peter it should not take too long, he is a genius after all.

Anyway, Fringe is back, and I’m excited!

Thoughts on Fatherhood

2010-09-23T22:11:00.002-04:00

My lovely wife and I recently had the most wonderful experience of our lives as we welcomed our first child into this world. From the moment I met her (in the delivery room, which may require a blog post of its own) I knew my priorities had completely changed for the better. Unfortunately this means less time for coherent blogging. So in place of a well written and edited essay I give you a rushed and random report that paradoxically took me two weeks and three days to compile.

The other night my little lady woke up screaming around 3:30 in the morning. Being the super Dad I am I picked her up and noticed she had peed through her diaper, night shirt, and sleep sack (operator error, I poorly placed the last diaper on her tiny body). In an effort sooth her and get my wife some much needed sleep, I took the baby to her bedroom and began changing her. She must have realized I wanted to help her feel more comfortable and she quietly allowed me to get her out of her wet clothes and diaper. Once stripped down the baby immediately began screaming again and I felt obligated to calm her. I swooped her off the changing table rocked her back and forth and felt the tension melt out of her. Unfortunately, that was not the only thing that melted out of her. Turned out that she pooped all over my lower half and still had enough in the tank to cover fully a square foot of the hardwood floor.

Should I give my child a digital identity? Her name is unique enough that the very act of using it on my blog would make her instantly Google-able. Would she resent me in 15 years if the first thing a new boy learns about her is the fact that she pooped on her Dad when she was less than a week old? Should I sign her up for a Gmail account? Does she need her own Twitter feed, example tweet, “woke up, cried, ate... I love boobs, took a nap, plan to repeat that for a few more days”.

She’s already all over Facebook which means Mark Zuckerberg believes he legally owns the right to her life story should it be made into a movie. Should I make her a profile and friend her, only to give her the reins on her tenth birthday, maybe fifteenth, or twenty-first birthday. If I friend her now, that means I have the keys to her profile, especially if I link it to the aforementioned Gmail address which I can then create a backdoor into if I ever need to spy on my child even after I give up control of the profile.

I loved the Lion King as a child and even though my baby can’t even focus long enough to look directly at me that doesn’t mean I can’t expose her to the most amazing Disney music ever. I would like to warn all future parents however not to listen to the “Circle of Life” while rocking your baby. I’ve had to seriously battle the overwhelming urge to lift her up by her little arm pits and point her towards the sun every time the music hits its crescendo! That’s not even considering the amount of grape jelly I’ve rubbed into her head in the shape of a lion during the break!

Glee is Dead!

2010-09-01T19:57:00.000-04:00

Glee is dead (not the emotion, the show). It hit its proverbial high note in the first half of its inaugural season and more or less declined in quality on a weekly basis after it came back from the mid-season break. I cannot point to any specific episode or moment when the show began to falter but I know it happened. At some point Glee went from being a show with a story that spent a good portion of its airtime on music to an iTunes promotional vehicle that has less of a plot than your average Puff Daddy music video (is he still relevant, should I have gone with Justin Beiber).

Even though the ratings keep climbing and it seems to be the scripted spiritual successor to American Idol this show has fallen off a cliff when it comes to quality and it is only a matter of time before the viewers notice that a night of Rock Band is just as musically fulfilling.

I mean, I’ll keep watching it, but still...

Political Thought

2010-08-22T11:11:00.000-04:00

I was sitting in my comfy chair (it’s more of a couch really), pondering politics (as is often the case), pipe in mouth, (it was actually a Blow Pop) when Governor Chris Christie of NJ popped into my head. Christie is a Republican governor in a blue state, that Tea Party Conservatives have yet to label a RINO (Republican In Name Only) which makes him a bit of an oddity in the party. Whether or not you agree with the governor you must admit that he is an executive that seems to be getting things done in the state of NJ by using his Bully Pulpit to its maximum value.

The National Republican party is in disarray. Its leading figures are a relic of the past, Newt Gingrich, executives that failed to ignite passion in the base in 2008, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, and a woman that 55% of the population is certain has some kind of mental deficiency, draw your own conclusion. Republicans are in need of a fresh face who can capitalize on Tea Party energy while not alienating people that do not identify with their radical philosophy.

It seems to me that someone will soon recruit Chris Christie to run as the 2012 Republican Nominee for President of the United States of America. The governor does have a few drawbacks, he’s been in office less than a year, he has every union the government touches ready to run him out of the state at the end of a pitch fork, and his demeanor, at least from what I have observed, is more akin to that of a porcupine than politician. That said, those drawbacks have all proven to be good things in the eyes of the Tea Party.

Christie is at the height of his popularity. He is riding a wave of anti-incumbent, anti-government, anti-everything that, in my humble opinion, should be cresting soon. He has stated more than once that he has no problems being a one term governor and it is my belief he will be, one way or another. By the time he goes up for re-election the new governor smell will have worn off. The population of the Garden State will see him as the man that eviscerated its ability to effectively govern on the issues of education, public safety, road maintenance, child protection, poverty relief, and a host of other areas (not that I have an opinion).

If Christie has national aspirations (and what governor does not) he needs to make big moves now, while the majority of New Jersey’s population still supports him. Republicans are looking to have a real chance against President Obama in 2012. Therefore, they need a candidate with recent work experience (FOX News commentator does not count) and a proven track record in places they tend to consistently not win.

If Christie is forced to resign his governorship as a result of overwhelming campaign responsibilities that is just something the state of New Jersey will have to deal with.

Red Dead Redemption: Return of the King

2010-08-05T17:43:00.002-04:00

I just finished “Red Dead Redemption” and I must confess it felt a lot like I was watching Peter Jackson’s “Return of the King”. The experience overall was simply fantastic, but the ending seemed to drag forever.

At one point I actually ejected the disk from the XBOX and declared to my wife “I beat it, I guess”. However, I did not see credits roll so I got on the Internet and googled “I think I beat Red Dead Redemption”. This led me to a handy Gamespot forum which informed me I did not. Around six hours after I beat the big boss “bad guy” I stumbled upon the hidden (at the very least hidden from me) final mission and after four of five attempts I beat the game.

“Red Dead Redemption” is an excellent game. Riding a horse through the vast game space and hunting is a simple pleasure. Additionally, fun, off main story, missions pop up randomly as you ride. Stopping a thief, saving a man from a pack of wolves, having your horse eaten by a cougar and only your reflexes to save you from its fate are some of the most memorable moments I have had in gaming in a long time.

The main story is fun, if meandering. You will meet various characters that add, humor, depth, sorrow, and spunk to your “Redemption”. Some characters are more memorable than others and sometimes you are forced by them to do some terrible things.

Which is where my major problem comes into play with “Red Dead Redemption”. Everything regarding the main story of this game is a forced choice. There is no good/evil when it comes to playing out the plot points that the writers came up with. If you want to progress in the game you are required to deal with everyone and do exactly what they say. After playing games like “Fable”, “Fallout”, and “Mass Effect” simply going along with what an immoral NPC tells you to do feels like a major oversight.

That said the game does employ an “Honor System” whereby you can be respected or feared by the populous. But that system only applies to how you behave while wondering the country side. If you kill a man you are docked honor, inversely, if you save someone you are awarded honor points. Unfortunately event the most “honorable” player is forced to help completely immoral characters.

Mini-games range from fun to passable. I loved hunting/skinning animals and taming wild horses. I was perturbed that the horses I tamed I could not sell for profit (or at least did not figure out how to do so). I also really enjoyed playing poker and blackjack. I never bothered with five finger fillet, dice, or horseshoes. I tried a movie once and walked out after twenty seconds.

In the end, I must say that I really enjoyed the overall package of “Red Dead Redemption” and cannot wait until the next installment.

The Pillars of the Earth: Anarchy

2010-07-26T11:20:00.002-04:00

In my unending quest to seek out high quality television, which streams on Netflix, and I have not seen I found myself searching through the new series from the Stars network. The obvious first choice was Spartacus: Blood in the Sand. Generally speaking I am a sucker for anything ancient Rome so I checked it out.

Over the course of three months I was able to work my way through as many episodes. It was gratuitously brutal, needlessly sexual, and most importantly had no one to root for or care about. By the time a gladiator cuts the face off another and shows it to the crowd as a prize in the The Pit I knew without a doubt that Spartacus was not a show I was going to get into.

Reviewing my “Instant Que” I came across The Pillars of the Earth a TV show based on the book by the same name with the author of said book’s name prominently displayed in all the promotional material. I decided to check it out considering The Pillars of the Earth is a book I have been meaning to read for a while.

While Anarchy did not make me a super-fan of this story it certainly piqued my interest. Characters were introduced and explained. The story had a clear narrative and never left me bored or questioning the progression of events. Most importantly the violence served the story as opposed to Spartacus where, as far as I can tell, the story served the violence.

The cast is impressive. Ian McShane who you know from Deadwood, but I enjoyed him in Kings, plays an ambitious priest. Donald Sutherland plays an Earl on the wrong side of a civil war before it starts. While the rest of the crew seems to be more than up to the task of carrying an interesting tale to conclusion.

Which brings me to my next point. The Pillars of the Earth is being advertised as a mini-series event, which means it should be able to tell the story of the book in a satisfying way. It also means the creators of the show will not feel the pull to needlessly pad this series with superfluous filler.

Inception: What a Concept

2010-07-22T00:58:00.002-04:00

I want to start this post by saying “Not since The Matrix have I viewed a film so unique, engaging, and thought provoking”. Unfortunately, that type of statement is so iterative that I feel I would be doing the movie a huge disservice. Therefore I will simply open with, Inception what a concept!

It is at this point in my thought process where I usually say something like, “spoilers to follow” but in all honesty I am not entirely sure that what I got out of that movie will be what you might. As I left the theater I was already arguing with my wife about how the movie ended, what was real, and what was not. This is most certainly a movie that demands repeated viewing.

However, before I get a second look at this film I would like to lay out what I believe to be the three possible explanations for the course of events in this movie.

The first and most simple explanation would seem to be that Mal was right and the world Cobb “lived” in was in fact a construct of his own mind. Therefore when Cobb went four layers deep at the end of the movie he was in reality at least five dreams in. This would be supported by the fact that the top was not pictured falling at the end of the movie. Additionally, Cobb seemed to float between locales in the “real” world as easily as he did in the dream. Finally, how could Cobb’s father be a professor in Paris and raise his children in L.A.?

The second way events may have played out would have simply been that the real world was real but Cobb got stuck in the limbo state when he went back to save Saito. We saw Cobb spin the top many times during the course of the movie and the only time it was not depicted falling was in the last scene. Cobb’s children were wearing the same clothing he had visualized them in throughout the course of the movie and they appeared to not have aged a day.

Finally, it is possible that Cobb succeeded and his wife was wrong. Saito woke from his 50 year limbo state and immediately dialed his contact at the US State department to clear Cobb of his crimes. While the top did not fall as the credits cut onto the screen it was wobbling and could have fallen over.

I certainly have my favorite explanation, but I would love to hear what other people have to say about this movie! Which path do you believe is the one that accurately describes the course of events? I would like to end on three words which alone would have made this movie worth the price of admission (steep as it was), “floating fight sequence”!

Avatar: The Last Airbender

2010-07-06T20:51:00.000-04:00

I am not anti-cartoon. I watched an obscene amount “Dragonball Z” in college, I love Pixar movies, and I firmly believe “The Lion King” represents a high point in cinema. But I have not bothered to tune into Nickelodeon since the days of “Double Dare” and “David the Gnome”. Therefore when “Avatar: The Last Airbender” first aired it managed to stay clear off my radar.

This was a mistake I began to remedy last summer when I managed to view the first season thanks to the magic of Netflix. I saw, over that summer, a series which had a tremendous heart and a wonderful story. I also found myself more than a little annoyed by the over the top characters, simplistic world view, and the imitative deference shown to Japanese anime.

I was not opposed to continued viewing, but I was not compelled to do so. Therefore I let an entire year slip before diving back into the story of Aang, Sokka, and Kitara. I noticed that the entire series was streaming on Netflix, in preparation for the abysmally reviewed movie no doubt, and decided to give season two a try. Suddenly I was hooked.

The characters came to life, the story grew up a bit, and the series as a whole really gelled together in a unique and engaging way. Sokka was a character that I could not stand in season one, but by the end of the series I was rooting for him more than almost anyone. Zuko had a character evolution nearly equal to that of Wesley from the Buffy/Angel universe. Kitara went from being a the plucky sidekick who needed protection to the plucky sidekick that arguably is the second most powerful person in the series. Aang was fun, but I would have to say that I found him the most uninteresting of our core characters.

A spark of brilliance that came early in season two was the introduction of Toph, the blind earthbender that “sees” with her feet. Toph is a wonderful depiction of a strong self assured female that I would be proud to have my future children model themselves after, minus the nose picking. It is possible that the existence of Toph is what made me go from casual viewer to ravenous consumer of this series.

I will admit that “Avatar: The Last Airbender” takes some getting used to. It is likely that the first season was just as good as the second and third but I simply did not “get” the show until I had spent enough time with it. I reluctantly concede that watching this show with my wife was a bit embarrassing as I am sure she could not see the brilliance of this epic series from the out of sequence episodes she sat in from of while surfing the internet. It did not help that each episode has an orange “Nickelodeon” tag plastered prominently above the opening credits.

Do yourself a favor though and check this series out. If you have a little one to watch it with they act as wonderful cover from your family and friends snide and uninformed remarks. If you do not have a child willing to watch this series with you do it anyway, you will be happy you did!

Benjamin Linus: Tussles with Disney's Best

2010-06-13T21:36:00.000-04:00

Last Friday I was driving home from work when I received a frantic phone call from my wife (which I answered via my headset). "Where are you?" she gasped. "About five minutes away" I responded. "Hurry, come right to the backyard". Then I heard the cell phone shut off and I was stuck alone in my car with my thoughts. Obviously I was a bit distraught over the myriad of possibilities that I might face as I stepped foot into my backyard.

Maybe the roof collapsed and she was taking pictures for the insurance company. Perhaps a giant sinkhole formed and was threatening to suck my entire yard into a bottomless abyss. An even worse scenario my mind conjured up had a fallen tree which pinned my wife and dog underneath it. Maybe she lit the fire pit and flames had unexpectedly engulfed 3/4 of my dry yard.

I pulled in front of the house, slammed the car into park, and ran into the yard as quickly as I could (with a pinched nerve in my neck). My wife then instructed me to run into the house and lock Benji in his room. I did a brief once over of the yard and surmised that their was no sink hole, fire, or fallen tree. I ran into the house and locked Benji in his room.

Benjamin secured, I went back to my wife who told me that she caught Benji using a chipmunk as a chew toy. She managed to dislodge Alvin from Benjamin's jaws and trick the pup into the house. But during the scuffle she lost sight of the little woodland creature and feared him dead. I cautiously went back to the scene of the crime and found zero evidence of the scuffle.

I decided the chipmunk had survived but I did not have proof until just a few minutes ago.

My wife and I were sitting in front of the TV streaming "Arrested Development" through our XBOX on Netflix (it's not important to the story, but I still think it's so freaking cool to do this) when the dog ran into the living room. He was soaking wet, it had just poured outside, and did the traditional dogie wiggle which coated the living room in a light mist. I looked the pup in the eye, in order to yell at him, when I noticed a drenched fur ball hanging from his mouth rapidly kicking its little feet.

My wife must have noticed it also because she let out an inhuman shriek, got off the couch and then hopped up onto a different couch. Then she roared, "Drop it Benji"! Oddly enough, our dog complied dropped the mouse with a soaking splat on our living room floor. Mickey then ran in circles on our rug for around five minutes until I was able to trap him with a drinking glass and a rubber tire. Benji watched the whole scene with an expressive dogie face I can only describe as amusement.

I then took my mouse outside and deposited him in my front yard. He promptly ran away proving that Benjamin Linus does not kill furry little animals, he simply captures and toys with them.

FlashForward: Future Shock

2010-06-01T17:38:00.002-04:00

Everyone's FlashForward's basically happened, more or less how they were foreseen. Mark was in a shoot out with the masked three stars, Olivia and Lloyd were in bed, Nicole fought for her life, Wedeck was in the stall, Vreede forgot something in the building and needed to go back for it, Keimko and Bryce met in the Japanese restaurant. Also, the entire world blacked out for an undetermined period of time, again, and saw events as far as five years into the future.

Considering this was a series finale I have decided to write its epilogue in order to send FlashForward out "right". You can call it fan fiction if you want, but please do not not call me a fan. Demetri's flash forward had him ascending to the presidency. As president Dem makes terrible decisions and then decides to publicly confess to them at an ill-advised moment, say like an election year. Zoe's flash forward shows her as the most respected lawyer in the world. She spearheads a case against Demetri's White House which ultimately leads him to the previously mentioned "bad decision". Perhaps Jericho is behind the former FBI agents rapid rise to the political top.

Aaron does not have a flash because he and Tracy died in Afghanistan minutes after they wake up from flash 2.0. Apparently Jericho's reach is further than expected. Mark obviously did not flash because he mercifully died in the explosion of the FBI building. Sadly Janice was kidnapped and killed by the kabal behind the flash forwards. Only because every good finale kills off at least one character that was actually likable.

Stan and his wife have a flash of themselves sitting on a beach in the Florida keys. It turned out that Mrs. President used him to get his friend to resign and then gave Stan a nice retirement package.

Olivia and Lloyd are having their second baby in the flash 2.0. They are happy, except for the fact that Dylan was kidnapped minutes after the flash on the 29th of April. Gabriel is 100% recovered from his torture, though still extremely quirky, and somehow became the series lead. The "he" adult Charlie is referring to as being "found" is not Mark, because he is deader than a door nail. They found Dylan, who has, though a series of unfortunate events come to believe that his father has abandoned him. Dylan has become Dyson Frost 2.0.

Simon leads a promising career as chief science officer in the Noh cabinet. The next president will more than likely keep him on the new team.

FlashForward: Countdown

2010-05-31T20:33:00.002-04:00

Mark Benford must die. Not because it makes sense narratively and not because it would make for riveting emotionally charged television. Mark must bite the big one simply because he is a miserable human being with a deficit of redeeming qualities. I will shed no tears for Mark if he does not make it out of this series alive, but I may cry a bit if he does because I will have been robbed of the only satisfaction I fear this series has in store for me.

Let us take stock of our characters positions relative to their flashes. Olivia and Charlie are going to ride out the flash on a beach? Something tells me they will be back home in time for their futures. Dylan and Lloyd are waiting for Olivia and Charlie to return so Dylan can have a cookie while his father roams topless around the house. Meanwhile, Mark is sobering up in a drunk tank. Hopefully he stays there long enough to stumble to the FBI where he can be killed. Janice is on her way to the particle accelerator, but she just grabbed her stomach as if something was wrong with the baby, perhaps she needs to get an ultrasound.

Wedeck is at the FBI which makes it likely that he will need to hit the toilet in that building, but I believe he will be too nervous to read the paper. His wife saw an adopted son, but we have not seen her since the one episode she was in and I fear that she is a dropped plot thread. The President is well on his way to resigning in order for his Vice President to take the oath of office. Aaron's daughter just died which means his flash was wrong, maybe he is on his way to D.C. to assassinate the president who obviously had a hand in the Jericho debacle.

Simon and Demetri are wild-cards because one did not flash and one could not flash. Hopefully together they can make something interesting happen.

Nicole confessed to Bryce that she knew the whereabouts of Kimeko. Which sent him running into the arms of Kimeko. No wonder she wanted to keep that a secret. Bryce is a jerk, maybe he and Mark should end of together.

Fringe: Over There (Part II)

2010-05-30T20:24:00.002-04:00

Olivia is in serious trouble, I cannot believe how broken she was after what seemed like less than a day in captivity. Alivia (I know it doesn't have the same je ne sais quoi as "Walternate" but it will suffice) on the other hand managed to make contact with the mirror typewriter in record time.

I am fairly certain that Alivia will not be working for Walternate in the long term. I would have to assume that 10 minutes with her new niece will make Alivia a staunch supporter of our universe. I wonder if we will be spending a significant portion of Fringe season three with Alivia as our main character or if Walter and Peter will figure her out sooner. If their track record with Charlie's doppleganger is any indication it may not be until season 10 when someone notices that something is off with their good friend.

I loved all the little touches that made Peter's home dimension so different than our own. The picture of Walternate and an aged John F. Kennedy being my favorite touch.

I know William Bell has the numbers of stars in the universe multiplied by an overpowered nuclear bomb's worth of energy in his body, and he's crossed between worlds in the past, but Olivia was supposed to crack open the door home, not him. He should have noticed something was up right away when she was not pulling her weight. Maybe he did and then he exploded.

Peter and Olivia had their first kiss. It seems like it may be their last one for a while. I really liked this episode but my enjoyment of it was hampered by the fact that this was the first episode of television I watched since the series finale of "Lost" and nothing compares to that ending. Nothing.

Lost: The End

2010-05-24T22:49:00.002-04:00

It seems obvious now. The flash sideways are in fact purgatory but the action on the island was real and important. One of the first theories I ever considered about Lost, way back in season one, was that the island was purgatory. When I heard the executive producers of Lost swear that the island was not the afterlife I took them at their word and dismissed that notion completely. I am extremely thrilled I did because my refusal to believe anything on the show was after death allowed my brain to create a blind spot for it even though the entire concept of "flash sideways" not "alternate dimension" now seems to scream "dead people".

I would like to clarify however, that what happened on the island really did happen. The events we have witnessed over the last six years on and off the island were the actual lives of the characters we have grown to love. What they did on the island mattered and had an impact on the course of the island's history and possibly the world. The only after life(s) depicted on screen were those shown over the course of season six as "flash sideways". If you do not want to take my word for it review the scene with Jack and Christian at the end of the episode.

I would now like to take stock of exactly what happened at the conclusion of this series. Desmond was able to stop the heart of the island by draining the flow of water and light. Once the power was off, all of the "special properties" ceased to have an effect and Smokey was no longer immortal or powerful.

Since the rules no longer applied, Un-Locke was able to stab and mortally wound Jack. Thankfully that was only seconds before Kate shot and killed the Nemesis who was no longer under the protection of the islands magical properties. Jack made Hurley the newest Jacob (as predicted) and re-corked the bottle before dying in the spot he first showed up on the island. As the light left Jack's eyes Kate, Sawyer, Claire, Miles, Frank, and Richard flew away on the Ajira plane. Hurley made a deal to share some responsibility with Ben who in turn convinced him that he was now able to make his own rules and send Desmond home to his wife and son.

Characters like Michael, Walt, Ecko, Ana Lucia, Cindy and the kids were not in the Church because they were not ready to move on or perhaps they had already moved on. More significantly, the most important aspects of their particular lives did not revolve around events on the Island. Their lives were not as interconnected to the core group of characters and therefore they did not need to show up at that particular church.

Ben decided to stay behind because even though he knew the truth he was not ready to move along. This in spite of the fact that he most likely lived a long and prosperous post-series life as Hurley's, Richard Alpert. Widmore, Eloise, Chang, Miles, Charlotte, Frank, and Daniel most likely had their own departure scheduled from the flash sideways.

Bernard had such a knowing conversation with Jack in his office because he was aware like Desmond that he needed to move on. He found Rose prior to getting on flight 815 so it stands to reason that they both knew where they were and what was happening.

While some questions remain: Why was Walt so important, why did the light create the Smoke Monster, what was the Man in Blacks name, who raised Jin and Sun's baby, why could the others not give birth on the island? None of that truly matters anymore.

When it comes down to it I can say without any disclaimer that I loved the finale of Lost. Not only did the action on the island come to a satisfying conclusion but the flash sideways provided the perfect sense of lasting peace that I usually find missing in such epic stories. This series did such a marvelous job wrapping up key questions without pandering to the audience in such a way to give them every answer formatted nicely into a check list, even though that is what some people thought/think they wanted.

While this series is over I feel I have no written my last words on Lost. Eventually when the dust settles and I have checked in with some other opinions brain may need to work out a few more puzzles with the written word.

Random Life: The Reel Problem

2010-05-22T23:13:00.002-04:00

I was mowing my lawn about two weeks ago when my hand-me-down mower decided to quit. I was perturbed, especially considering I finished everything except an approximately 20 square foot section located dead center of my front lawn. I pulled the starter three times, pumped the primer twice, checked to make sure there was still gas in the tank, and then decided to call a time of death. I had been looking for an excuse to purchase a new mower and finally the old beast provided me one.

My wife, however, did not take the death of the lawn mower well. She insisted that I attempt a more serious resuscitation (like the time Jack pounded on Charlie's chest after Ethan hung him from a tree). A week later I took my socket set, a screw driver, and a single beer to the back yard in an effort to reassess the situation. I placed all the items on the ground but was distracted by my lovable dog, Benjamin Linus.

Benji decided he could not tolerate the presence of the mower in the yard so he barked repeatedly and loudly at it. I decided to throw him a stick in an effort to earn some quiet. The first few tosses went well, I threw and he fetched, it was like I had a well trained puppy. After about the fifth toss Benji came at me with purpose and it seemed as if the stick would have taken my feet out from under me if I had not moved. His intention was to fool me because at the last second Benji banked hard right, avoiding me altogether. Then he effortlessly spilled my beer, exploded my socket set, dropped the stick and ran off with my screw driver in a matter of nano seconds.

After retrieving all my scattered tools, minus most of the screw driver's handle with was now in pieces all over the yard I banished Benjamin inside and got to the task of fixing my mower. I removed a screw and was able to take out the filter. It was caked with at least an inch of dark, oily, plant material. When I had sufficiently cleaned it with my bare hands I then wiped my hands on my shirt, and attempted to start the mower. No luck.

I then took a bolt off the engine and attempted to remove the entire block but it would not budge. Next I proceeded to take every visible bolt out of my lawn mower in an attempt to reach something I could clean or replace. Unfortunately it seemed as if with every bolt I removed the engine somehow managed to anchor itself more firmly to the body of the mower. By the time I had unscrewed 16 fasteners of varying sizes I realized I had no idea where any of them came from. I pulled the mower one more time and the engine suddenly broke free of the machine and flew with incredible force until it stopped with a painful thud as it hit me in the stomach.

Once again I declared the beast dead and this time my wife agreed. I immediately grabbed my laptop and hit the internet searching for the best mower replacement I could find for a reasonable price. I quickly decided that I was done with gas powered beasts and narrowed my options to a battery powered electric mower or a human powered reel mower. I figured the best way to get my lawn its greenest was to purchase a green machine.

After some debate with the wife and several YouTube videos I settled on a "Scotts Classic Reel Mower 18 Inch". At $94.00 from Home Depot it was an economical alternative to the $299.00 off-brand battery powered mower they were selling. Assembly was simple and I was ready to mow my now out of control lawn. I took a pass at an especially tall section and felt instant gratification. Grass clippings flew everywhere and I spontaneously sprinted with the mower to take in my moment of triumph.

As I turned to survey the damage I saw to my dismay that the mower had missed 50% of blades of grass. I rallied my support for my new toy and took another pass. This time the mower missed everything. I nervously ran the mower all over the yard, attempting to make a dent in the greenery. It handled the short grass fine, but anything over 6 inches was bent over and then sprung back up after the mower moved on. I mowed the entire lawn as best I could and then used my Toro to cut the majority of the tall grass that the Scotts Reel ignored. Four hours later I decided it was time to return the reel.

The Home Depot had a helpful sign hanging over the returns area which offered possible reasons for returning a product. I decided to go with "Didn't like it". As I heaved the mower onto the counter the helpful worker asked, "Is there something wrong with it?" Reflexively I replied "No" then thought better of it and corrected, "Well, it doesn't cut grass".

Lost: What They Died For

2010-05-18T22:45:00.001-04:00

What they died for indeed! Jacob's master plan was bringing dozens, maybe hundreds, of candidates to the island in an effort to give one of them a choice that he did not have. Jacob's decision to give his replacement a chance to say "no" effectively explains the course of the entire series. Jacob will be gone as soon as the fire fads but Jack must now shepherd the inhabitants of the island as long as he can.

I loved Sawyer complaining about Jack's god complex as he was in essence becoming a god. I believe that Jack's tenure as the custodian of the island will be brief. In order to defeat The Man in Black I think Jack must sacrifice himself.

Hurley recognized Ana Lucia! He is now a disciple of Desmond's in the flash sideways. To the point of what the flash sideways actually are, I still contend they are some form of psychic psychotherapy. Though it is worth noting that Un-Locke's newest master plan involves Desmond destroying the island.

We did see a sunken island in the first scene of season six. I truly hope that the flash sideways are not a series epilogue due to the Smoke Monster resetting time and space. I think I would feel cheated if the sideways proved to be the enduring lives of our characters.

For reasons previously explained I do not think that is the case. In fact, Jack's inexplicably bleeding neck (for the second time) is one of the most glaring signs that the flash sideways are giving way to our real reality.

It is ironic that Desmond, on island is a human fail safe considering his turning of the fail safe key was such a pivotal moment in the history of this series.

I feel I must defend "the light" of the island. I have heard some people (i.e. my wife) complain that "the light" is dumb and needs further explanation. But for me, the light is important simply because it is important. To go into the details of what the light is, how it got there, why precisely it is important, the process it would take to put it out, and how a man could stand to profit from it would take the magic out of the series. More importantly to spend time on the light would be time not spent on our characters which would be a misappropriation of valuable series finale time.

Speaking of valuable, lives are being snuffed out like candles after Sunday church services. Zoe, Widmore, and Alpert are all no longer among the islands living. That noted, if anyone can get up from a Smokey smackdown my money would be on Alpert. Miles somehow continues to defy the odds and survive each episode and make me laugh as he does it.

Is Ben playing Un-Locke or has he given in to his inner Sayid? I want to believe he is redeemable considering how wonderful of a person he is in the flash sideways. I almost believed him, Daniel, and Alex could become a family.

Were Jack and crew able to get Desmond out of the well after Jacob passed on his responsibilities? Or did someone else pull him from the well? Claire is still out there and she should have a new found fear of Smokey.

I cannot wait to see Kate show up at David's recital! More importantly I am ready to meet David's mother. Smart money is on Juliet considering she is the most significant character we have yet to see a flash sideways of. That and she still owes Sawyer that cup of coffee.

The Event

2010-05-18T20:27:00.002-04:00

This could be the show to watch in the Fall!

V: Fruition

2010-05-18T20:15:00.002-04:00

This was a pretty good episode. Ryan is slowly falling under the sway of Anna's bliss once more while Lisa seems to be rapidly breaking away. Erica was able to get valuable intelligence from Hobbes which allowed her to single handedly arrest a key anti-V figured, even if she would have rather recruited him into the Fifth Column. The arrest made Erica a household name and a hero to her son. Chad knows when he is being completely manipulated by Anna and he is knowingly going to give Father Jack's name to her. The Father had jack to do in this particular episode and his story line needs some pep. Hobbes on the other hand was moving and shaking all over the place which made his character a bit more interesting.

If Hobbes is the type of man who would accept payment for murder, why would he not already have been on the FBI's most wanted list? This guy is bad news so why is Erica and crew so willing to trust him? Would it be the worst thing if the Fifth Column dropped from four members to three? Would anyone notice?

Is Lisa going to sabotage the soldiers in an effort to save the Fifth Column? Would she bother saving them if she knew the entire Fifth Column was four people planet side, two doctors, and the guy that Joshua talked to that one time?

Val's water broke which means the entire gestational period of a human/V hybrid is approximately four weeks. It would follow then that the Val/Ryan baby, we will call him "Van", should have a speaking part by the second or third episode of season two. Hopefully heart to hearts with Van should pull Ryan out of Anna's bliss permanently. Unless of course giving birth to Van kills Val, in which case I am assuming Ryan will be less than emotionally available.

For someone that is not supposed to exhibit human emotion Anna smiles an awful lot. Maybe she is just a pathological lier and the only time Anna feels any type of emotion is when she lies. That would explain the ear to ear grins whenever she is pulling one over on the planet as a whole. Perhaps Anna needs big pharma to help her genuinely smile more often.

Speaking of happiness, I am fairly certain that was the first time we have seen Joshua smile on camera. When Lisa looked at him while she was supposed to be "blissing out" I assumed he was going to do a moon walk, which might have a different meaning in this context considering he is an alien.

FlashForward: The Negotiation

2010-05-15T22:49:00.000-04:00

This episode inhabits the unfair position of being the first I have viewed since learning that FlashForward is officially canceled. While there were some strong moments I must say that I still do not love this show. Janice was outed as C.I.A. to Mark and she resigned her position at the F.B.I.? I know there has to be more to it but I was eating chips and the crunching sound in my head was louder than the volume on the T.V. and I did not care to jump back and watch the scene over again.

According to Gabriel, Demetri is bound to die one way or another. I wonder if Zoe is going to literally kill him when she finds out he is the father of Janice's baby. That would make for interesting television.

I still do not buy Aaron as Rambo. Do the creators of this show really expect us to believe he is capable of sniping two private military contractors quicker than a 12 year old could snipe the flood in a co-op game of Halo? Because I do not, especially considering he had the presence of mind to injure one of them rather than kill him.

Olivia and Mark are done and he does not care because the stakes are too high. He is the most unlikable "hero" in the history of network television. Lloyd, save his inability to divulge critical information until the required point in the story, is a much more pleasant person. I hope he finds himself in bed with Olivia at the moment of the FlashForward.

Wedeck just Watergated the president of the United States right? Which means Stan removed the man whose trust he had implicitly and replaced him with a woman who literally hates his guts. Maybe I am a bit jaded, but would the most powerful man in the world really resign over a pictures of an off the books private military contractor site?

Simon met with "senior management" unfortunately there is no way that guy was actually important. If he was truly a player he would not have scrambled to delete files, he would have instead have someone less important do that and he would have gotten out of dodge. Which leads me to speculate there were at least two dozen more important people than him in that building alone.

Will Simon and Janice save the world? Do I care at this point? I guess. What was negotiated in this episode anyway?

Fringe: Over There

2010-05-15T20:59:00.002-04:00

Fringe pretends for 75% of the season that it is C.S.I. and subscribes to a case of the week formula. When in reality those episodes are all, albeit minor, preparation for the other 25% of Fringe episodes. It is that 25% which helps Fringe transcend from decent television to epic drama. "Over There" was a terrific episode of television and cemented "Fringe" as the series to beat in my "what will fill the Lost void" competition for the 2010 - 2011 television season.

We have known for a while that Walter is responsible for terrible atrocities in his past. We even had really good hints that his trip to the other side led to the destruction of the entire city of Boston. Now we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Walter's pursuit of Peter is responsible for the bleeding between worlds and may bring about the end of one or both of them. No wonder William Bell removed a significant chunk of Walter's brain.

Who is Lee? I know he must have been a cortexaphan kid but I do not remember the exact circumstances of his episode. Was he the brother of the empath? Lee did recognize the him and call him by name. Fringe is definitely headed towards a place where I will need to re-watch the series in order to keep up with the twists and turns. The healer/disease giver was featured only a few episodes ago but the empath and fire girl I believe reach back to season one.

Charlie! You are alive, though not well, in zeppelin-verse. Charlie has spiders and needs to inject himself every few hours in order to keep them under control. I guess it is official that the episode which featured Charlie post-death was simply an episode aired out of order as the Charlie in that episode had hair and did not need to inject himself.

Olivia in zeppelin-verse seems to have a fairly good life. Though I was a bit upset that she was not with Agent Scott in this version of reality. Astrid, however, seems to have it a bit rough. She reminded me of the precog's in "Minority Report". On the other hand, Broyles certainly has more respect on the other side of the window.

The universes are actually much more different than they seemed at first glance. While Peter's kidnapping initiated the world collision, it did not create the point where they diverged. Lee did not know President Jackson who, for our non-history buffs, was the seventh president of the United States of America. It was pretty awesome to see Martin Luther King Jr. on the 20 dollar bill though.

I thought the scenes with Peter and his actual mother were emotionally intense. It seems like she will save him and both worlds from the machinations of his obviously crazy father.

Supernatural: Swan Song

2010-05-14T21:28:00.002-04:00

A lot about this episode was absolutely terrific. Sam said "yes" to Lucifer in a culmination of the series arch that has been driving this show for the better part of the past five seasons. Chuck and Castiel had strong moments where they were depicted at their highest of highs and lowest of lows. Bobby shot the devil with a revolver which instantly makes him the coolest human to ever live. Dean grew up and allowed his brother to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Castiel's line about trading freedom for peace was definitely an allegory for the world today. That said it did not seem heavy handed or preachy. It felt uncomfortable and hard to swallow, which is what gave his departing words such weight. That said, he really is terrible at goodbyes.

I enjoyed Chuck's dual role as both consultant to Dean and narrator of this episode. While he could never be as direct as Cas, his words did a wonderful job bookending this portion of the series. Though I am not sure what message they were going for when he disappeared into a cloud of smoke. Was he truly a prophet or something more?

The only explanation I feel comfortable accepting at this point is that Chuck was God. If God truly was MIA and residing on planet earth Chuck was as good a cover as anything. It would explain Chuck's ability to stay alive this long and his inability to help Sam and Dean in any seemingly meaningful way considering he knew the future.

The only problem I have with this episode is that it was not a series finale. How dare the creative forces (as transitional as they may be at this point) of Supernatural bring Luci-Sam back from the pit mere minutes after they jumped in! Castiel and Bobby's sacrifice was for nothing because they were brought back instantly as well. The picture of Dean settling down for a nice normal life is completely marred by the fact that Luci-Sam is going to ruin it minutes into season six and I find that more than a little depressing.

That said, I'll keep watching.

V: Hearts and Minds

2010-05-12T20:20:00.002-04:00

Lisa has become a member of the Fifth Column whether she knows it or not. Jack proved he is the Achilles heel of the organization while Hobbes demonstrated he is the guy who can get a big gun and use it. Chad made a choice that throws him further into Anna's talons and he does not even know it. Anna won the award for most effective fibber in the history of human/V relations. Ryan, Joshua, and Erica all appeared in this episode and Tyler was dumped.

I feel like I could spend some time picking this episode apart and complaining about details. Details like erasing a picture from the FBI database equalling the erasure of the object itself. I could complain about the fact that Father Jack was taken in for questioning since he did a "dry run" of the attack but the time table of events was so quick there was simply no time for a dry run. I could nit-pick that Father Jack should have known that Chad leaked his information right away and instead it took him an unbearable amount of time to make that connection. But I will not complain, much.

I will focus on the terrific Father Jack interrogation where I though he was going to spill all the beans but Erica saved the day and stiffened his spine. I shall cheer the fact that Lisa is feeling emotion to the point where bringing Tyler pain prompts her break up with him. I will note that I recoiled in shock when Anna unflinchingly sucker punched her daughter and prompted her guards to "break her legs", because it will endear Tyler to Lisa.

Sadly though I must state the obvious. With each of the last few episodes, V is drifting further away from Lost territory and approaching that of FlashForward. I want to like this show, I really do, but it is simply not gripping me in a meaningful way. I cheer for Erica partly because she is a cool character, but mostly because she looks like Juliet. I want Father Jack to succeed because he reminds me of an FBI agent from Seattle that I used to know. Hobbes and Ryan have no emotional connection for me at all and while I find them watchable, I am not riveted when the appear on screen. I would recommend V should kill somebody, but they did that already.

Lost: Across the Sea

2010-05-12T18:46:00.002-04:00

Before I say anything else, kudos to Lost on having the gumption to air the third to last episode of the entire series and not have a single new scene with a series regular character in the entire episode.

For the most part the bold move worked out masterfully. Alison Janning did strong work as the pre-Jacob, Jacob. However, the child actors who played Jacob and the Man in Black simply stole the show. The Boy/Man in Black was such a fully realized character that I began to feel sympathy for him by the time his "mother" slammed his head into the walls of the well. That in itself is an amazing bit of emotional manipulation considering one week ago he was responsible for the deaths of four beloved characters.

I will now eat crow for emphatically stating that the Man in Black is Jacob. He is not, but he is about as near to Jacob as any one person can be considering they are twin brothers. It is curious that Jacob was not the distinguished sibling. In every respect, the Boy in Black is superior to Jacob. He more inquisitive, has a natural understanding of the island, and things in general come easily to him. To perfectly punctuate The Boy in Black's superiority, in Jacob's strongest scene, possibly ever, he has to ask his mother "why do you love him more than me?" To which she cannot deny that her love for not-Jacob is stronger.

Yet when she explains to mopey adult Jacob that he is the one to replace her, I believe her. She said it was always supposed to be him, she just did not know it at the time. It would seem that the innate goodness in Jacob is what the island was craving in a custodian. The Man in Black was the first person to exploit the power of the island and it would seem that the "light" of the island could see that coming.

Who dug the wells and built the wheel which moves the island? The Man in Black did because he understood that the "light" of the island could warp him somewhere else, he completed it after he was made into Smokey. Whose bodies were "Adam and Eve's"? They belonged to the Man in Black and his mother and they were placed there by Jacob. How did Jacob come to be on the island and how did he get his power? His pregnant mother was ship wrecked there centuries ago and after 43 (give or take) years on the island he took over for what I can only imagine is a long line of island protectors. How was the Smoke Monster created? The Man in Black was sent into the light as punishment by Jacob after murdering his mother, this was a fate worse than death and turned him into Smokey. Why could The Man in Black not kill Jacob? Because their mother put the hex on them, which incidentally is probably what Jacob did to Ben and Widmore.

Did anyone else find it odd that after Claudia drank the liquid "mother" gave her she instantly began speaking English? How much easier for Jin would this whole series have been if Jacob gave him a glass of that magic juice? Claudia only picked one name, seriously? Is there any chance The Man in Black's name is actually "Brother"?

Speaking of long shots, it is worth noting that the only regular characters to appear in this episode are Locke, Jack, and Kate. We already know the significance of Locke and it certainly seems like Jack is the Jacob replacement, but what if it is Kate. The previous custodian of the island was a female and it stands to reason that a gender rotation is not altogether out of the question. It just seems so purposeful that only those three characters are depicted in this episode. Kate's "who are they, where did they come from" could have easily been cut from this episode, so why make the point to include her if she was not extremely important to this part of the story?

FlashForward: Course Correction

2010-05-09T21:03:00.001-04:00

In an unbelievable turn of events Mark was presented with a terrible scenario and he did not freak out or otherwise cause mayhem and carnage. To clarify, when Mark found out that his wife may have an affair in the future with a man she has never met he instantaneously began the process of pushing her away from him. Yet, when she was sharing a bottle of wine with a man she admitted to having feelings for in his house at night and he happened to walk in on the two of them, he is totally OK except for a little stink face expression.

In the "totally convenient" department the FBI decided to crosscheck Simon's biometrics with Suspect 0's as Simon ran away. Additionally it would seem that Lloyd has absolutely no common sense. He did not think it was important to mention to the FBI that Simon uncharacteristically insisted that Lloyd run the "wanna be LHC" exactly at 11 AM when he could not be there to witness it and he learned that his father had died moments earlier.

Also frustrating was the fact that the FBI did not think it was important to keep an eye on the creator of the "Blue Hand". Did no one realize that someone with that kind of influence over people might also foster a nihilistic messianic complex (I'm pretty sure it's a thing). What was worse was watching Dem and the British agent completely botch the interview with him. Actually, the most terrible part of this episode was Dem screaming to the scared woman "run" and then radioing to the Brit "drive uncontrollably fast".

Why would Nicole not tell Bryce that his Japanese friend was in deportation detention? She recently stop his advances because she thought his head was not in her game and all she had to do with that file folder was hand it to him. If she had I am fairly certain Bryce would have met Kimeko, said hello and then gone back to Nicole. Now they are going to go on an awkward date, realize they are not meant to be together, and Nicole is going to be drowned in less than a week.

Gabriel continues to be a bright spot in this series. His bit with the hamburger was fantastically funny. I hope that Gabriel and Vreede are the team that end up saving the world. I do find it odd that Olivia felt the need to keep Gabriel in the hospital rather than send him into the FBI for questioning. Maybe Vreede cannot handle the responsibility of babysitting Gabe.

We did not get any mention of Janice or Vogel this episode. Last week it made sense to write out Demetri considering he survived his death date the week before, but there is no excuse for keeping Janice and Vogel out of the action this time around. Ironically, "Course Correction" was a sloppy return to form for a show that had been turning towards a better direction.

Supernatural: Two Minutes to Midnight

2010-05-09T17:56:00.000-04:00

The first half of this episode seemed somehow slow and rushed at the same time. The stalking and subsequent death of Pestilence could have and should have been an episode unto itself. Instead Pestilence was squished into last episode and this one and in both cases the other parts of the episode were much more interesting. Therefore while Pestilence was telling an old woman she was going to die I was wondering if Bobby had sold his soul for information on Death's whereabouts.

The scene at Niveous Pharmaceuticals was fun. Bobby called the trio of himself, Cas, and Sam "domestic terrorists" and I got a huge kick out of that. The fact that Croatoan is not an airborne virus seems like a major defect in Pestilence's design. Actually it would appear that Croatoan is not contagious at all considering Sam had his eyes and mouth completely splattered with the blood of a Coatoan infected man.

If Lucifer has managed to put Death on a leash does it stand to reason that Michael has done the same to God? Death drew a direct comparison between himself and God more or less explaining that God would be more clearly understood if was called Birth. Birth and Death bring balance to the universe because as Birth continuously creates Death systematically makes room for more creation. Perhaps when Lucifer "raised" Death he actually managed to summon and trap him. He did this by killing a towns worth of people all at once, effectively doing the work of Death.

What if Michael has tethered Birth in the same way? Perhaps he has created new life and thus was able to take the momentum out of Gods sails. The obvious question then is; What did Michael "birth"? The answer is demons. We have always assumed that Lucifer created the demons but as far as I know, at least in the world of Supernatural, we have no firm confirmation on that. What if Michael created the demons and or other "evil" things that Sam and Dean have been killing since season the start of this series?

If Crowley thinks Lucifer wants all demons dead maybe he knows that Lucifer did not create them. What if Death gave Crowley the sickle in order to lead Dean to him? Perhaps Crowley truly is an enlightened demon, aware of his genesis because he was spared by Death.

The scene between Death and Dean in Chicago was simply fantastic. The actor they had portray Death was pitch perfect, he truly seemed otherworldly and menacing.

How Supernatural is going to continue after this season. The stakes have been raised so high at this point that fighting Wendigo's in season 6 simply is not going to cut it anymore. Are they going to feel the need to do some kind of series "reset" after this arch plays out? How in the world are they going to get Sam out of the pit after he jumps in? Will the third Winchester brother have a full time role in future seasons?

On a huge side note, did anyone else notice that Death confirmed alien life?

Friday Night Lights: East of Dillon

2010-05-09T00:02:00.002-04:00

I must tell you that I am not a Direct TV subscriber so I am watching Friday Night Lights season four on NBC as if it is airing for the first time. I realize that FNL is not the type of television show I normally care about as there are no aliens, magical islands, demons, or mutant creatures. Yet for some reason, I have loved every story line this show has ever put to the screen, excluding one major misstep in the second season.

If you are not watching Friday Night Lights, you are not alone. The only reason I even checked out Friday Night Lights was that I realized the newly released (at the time) first season DVD's could be bought for less than 20 bucks and I thought that was a steal. Most people have tuned this show out for some reason, which is why the odd deal with Direct TV exists. However, FNL is always in the top tier of television shows on the air even if they do not have the viewership to go along with it.

East of Dillon picks up a fair bit after the events of season three. Coach Taylor was forced out of Panther land, when he refused to play the football prodigy and ridiculously rich kid JD during the big state final, in a coup d'etat by JD's father. Taylor was sent by the generous board of education to East Dillon which was recently reopened without much fan fair.

Watching Eric Taylor walk onto a field with more beer bottles than blades of grass was heartbreaking. Seeing him end his first practice after only 18 minutes was demoralizing. Experiencing real fear when he stood up to the "player" that attacked Landry during practice was epic television. How could a show about such a depressing turn of events be so riveting to watch?

That is not to imply there were no moments of levity in this season opener. The new assistant coach was a lot of fun. I wonder if he will turn out to have any sort of value as an actual coach or if he will simply be a place holder until Tim or Matt take over. Tammy's protest of winning the coin toss with the wrong call and then then taking offense over D had me smiling ear to ear. Julie's decision to attend East Dillon this school year had me simultaneously cheering and wondering how she will be able to go against the new zoning laws when police officers are physically ejecting students from West Dillon.

I do not watch Friday Night Lights with the same microscope I use when viewing Lost but I would be remiss if I did not mention one inconsistency with this episode. JD as a freshman was controlled by his father to the point where he was not allowed to have a girlfriend because it interfered with football. His dad forced him to apologize to Coach the one time he drank during football season. Yet JD as a sophomore is drinking the week of the season opener, consorting with girls and assaulting his former coaches daughter in an effort to prove he is better than Matt. Why has his father not punched him in the face again?

When Taylor came back to Dillon and ousted the new coach before he got a chance to really make the team his own, that coach told him that action would come back to haunt him. Karma has a way of working and that coach could be called a prophet because no one could have predicted that less than two years later Coach Taylor would be forfeiting his season opener down at the half 45 to zip. Well no one other than the writers of Friday Night Lights I guess.

The good news for Taylor is that no one with any real power expects him to succeed. They are hoping he simply quits his job in frustration and shame. That said, I am guessing that Buddy's ego is not going to let him play second banana to JD's father. Even though Buddy bleeds Panther blue I am thinking he is going to be a booster for the Lions by the end of this season.

Fringe: Northwest Passage

2010-05-08T08:54:00.002-04:00

This one focused on Peter and I must say that I enjoyed the episode immensely. Oddly, this did not feel like an episode of Fringe. This hour played like a psychological suspense film more than the scifi action show we are usually treated to each week. Even if Peter was not questioning his ability to unwind fact from fiction, I was starting to believe that maybe he was hallucinating a bit.

That all changed with the terrific ending when the Director was revealed to be Walternate! If I had a system where I earned points for every correct prediction I made on the blog I would award myself 20 points for saying I believed the Director was Walternate in my post on "The Man from the Other Side". That would likely bring my all time points total to somewhere around, 20 points. I guess that is why I do not have a system like that.

Sheriff Mathis was a terrific guest star and I would love to see her fully cooperate with the FBI in a future episode. I am guessing Nelson did something to Ferguson which would give her an excuse to show up at some point next season when Peter eventually returns to Boston.

A lot has to happen before the Fringe story slows to the point where Mathis can show up again. Peter has to decide which universe he will fight for, Olivia must find a way to use her special powers, Walternate must confront Walter, and maybe we can get an explanation of what was up with the Charlie episode.

Walternate is the William Bell of the other side. He pushed technology to the limit in service of finding his stolen son. Walternate's wife must have given him enough information to ferret out the truth of what happened that night. That all noted, Walternate is a very dangerous man.

Lost: The Candidate

2010-05-05T20:13:00.000-04:00

Sayid, Jin, Sun, and Frank all died in what I can only describe as the most catastrophic Lost episode in the history of the series. Sayid found some form of redemption even though it was not what he hoped for. Frank died in almost an Illana type way without explanation or motivation when the sub door blew off its hinges and smacked him in the head. While Jin and Sun passed on in much the same way we lost Charlie. This time the blood is on Sawyers hands and I wonder how he will deal with it when he wakes up.

I am fairly certain the entity we call Un-Locke, the Man in Black, the Smoke Monster, Smokey the Nemesis, Smokey, Man in Locke is Jacob. Somehow the island split the original Jacob in two, certain qualities manifested in the being we know as Jacob while others concentrated to create the Man in Black. This would explain "Jacob's" occasional violent streak which was exemplified by mass murder of the Dharma Initiative, the killing of the soldiers that brought Judgehead, and Widmore's decision to kill baby Alex rather than bring her into the fold. Un-Locke could not kill Jacob because he could not kill himself and be allowed to leave the island. In order to replace Jacob on the island Jack must kill Smokey then the island will split him in two.

More than anyone else on the island we have seen the light and dark sides of Jack Shepard. In literally the same episode we have seen him portrayed as a shinning hero and a drunken suicidal addict. We have seen the erratic "let's blow up the island with a thermonuclear device" Jack and the more zen, "Locke cannot kill us so he is trying to get us to kill each other" Jack. Jack has obvious daddy issues, while Smokey has confessed to having serious mommy issues. Jack is already of two minds, they might as well make it two bodies.

While I am happy that Jin and Sun have evolved from the seemingly abusive couple to the couple that refuses to leave its other half behind I was dying on the inside when Jin refused to leave Sun. He decided to orphan his 3 year old daughter. While he was faced with an impossible choice he should have listened to Sun and gotten off that submarine. That said, the scene made me cry and I therefore feel emotionally manipulated and used.

Claire did not know Un-Locke's plan for her friends. She seemed genuinely shocked when Smokey told her he was going to finish what he started.

Widmore is still out there though his camp has been decimated by Smokey the Nemesis. He would have killed Kate, there is no doubt about that, but is he really the good guy in this story?

Sayid told Jack that he had to find Desmond in the well because Jack was going to be the one to replace Jacob. I still am not positive how Desmond fits into this whole narrative but I cannot wait to find out. Is it possible that Desmond is the catalyst by which Jack is split in two or is he simply the weapon Jack must use to kill Un-Locke? I just hope they do not kill him off in some cold disconnected flash of a scene like they did with poor Frank. Hurley and Kate did not even bother to ask Jack if Frank made it out of the sub.

Miles, Richard, and Ben are still out there hatching some kind of anti-Un-Locke plan. I hope they blow up the plane before Smokey can finish what he started.

I am now convinced more than ever that the Flash sideways are some form of therapy and the connections between the characters are forming the perforations that will slowly and deliberately tear the therapeutic world apart. Claire's music box from Christian played "Catch a Falling Star" which is the song she asked the couple who were going to adopt Aaron to sing to him if he could not sleep (right before she ran out of the room and headed to L.A.). Locke rambled about the on island world in his sleep and had frequent moments of reality tearing. Even Jin made a cameo in the Mr. Locke/Dr. Shepard conversation minutes after his own watery death.

Were the flash sideways created for Jack specifically? A window onto a world without Jacob? While it seems obvious that Jack will replace Jacob at this point it is worth noting that both Sawyer and Hurley are still alive and candidates.

FlashForward: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

2010-05-02T21:48:00.002-04:00

Well it has taken seventeen episodes but I thoroughly enjoyed this hour of FlashForward. Vogel is a despicable human being and Janice is working for him. Mark and Olivia were never meant to be together because she was supposed to go to Harvard and meet Lloyd. Aaron does not blend in Afghanistan as well as he thinks he does. Vreede had a wonderful character moment where he double clicked a flashlight in Olivia's face just because it was funny to him. In an unbelievable demonstration of restraint, for FlashForward, they even kept Demetri out of this episode because his character obviously took a much deserved rest after surviving his expiration date.

Gabriel is a key piece of the puzzle, I hope Vreede is a cunning enough FBI agent to coax him into coming to the bureau. I also hope that Gabriel can gain some semblance of sanity back and become an analyst or something. I would not want to infer that James Callis singlehandedly turned FlashForward around, but I will not argue against it either.

Olivia was supposed to go to Harvard. Which means she was never supposed to end up with Mark or give birth to Charlie. I know that at some point Olivia explained on screen why she chose to go to the University of California Sunnydale (I do not remember which California school she went to, so I for now we will just say she went to the school Buffy and Willow did) but the reason is slipping my mind. If she went to Harvard would she have switched majors to physics? If Olivia was a physicist would she have been able to prevent the blackout or would she have been the cause of it along with Lloyd and Simon?

I will give the show credit for pissing me off so severely when it was revealed that Janice was a double agent only to make me extremely happy when they reveal that Janice was in fact a triple agent. Though I find it odd that she has been collecting tons of information of the shadowy organization that engineered the FlashForward for two years and seemingly has not done anything to impede the progress of their nefarious goals. What in the world is Vogel waiting for, what could be worse than killing 20 million people in a single day? Unless Vogel truly believes, like Dyson Frost did, that the world will end in 2016.

I cannot believe I am writing this but please ABC do not cancel FlashForward! It has only now hit its creative stride and I would love to see this series play itself out for at least another season.

Supernatural: The Devil You Know

2010-05-01T22:08:00.000-04:00

Crowley is a terrific addition to the Supernatural cast of characters. He delivered the boys the Colt and now he is attempting to round up the remaining horsemen. He is the devil they know and I'm hoping that means they will be able to manage and control him. Of course at this point it seems like Crowley is in the drivers seat while Sam and Dean are tussling over shotgun.

Crowley's master plan also includes possessing Bobby's soul for some unknown purpose. While I loved Bobby shooting him repeatedly I fear he will give into the demon's logic and sell his soul for the whereabouts of Death. Crowley demonstrated his feelings about humans he does not need when he slit the throats of the guards at the medical company. I fear Bobby will long be disconnected from his soul if he gives into Crowley's plan. In any event it was a nice change of pace to end an episode with something other than an emotionally charged, if brief, conversation between Sam and Dean.

I was extremely upset when Sam killed the demon that was possessing his college roommate. I thought it would serve as proof that Sam was falling down the devil's rabbit hole. Then I remembered that even though demons cannot be killed by normal mortal weapons, their hosts bodies cannot survive without the demonic possession. Therefore I am assuming that the body was dead even though the demon was not and that is why Sam killed the demon.

Fringe: Brown Betty

2010-05-01T11:31:00.000-04:00

I was prepared to absolutely hate this one. The film noir thing has been done many times and I simply did not think Fringe of all story vehicles would be a good fit for it. When I heard they were going to mix that with some musical numbers in order to cross promote "Glee" I almost did not even bother to watch the episode. That said I was completely enthralled with this odd little hour of television from the moment Walter whipped out his label maker after getting acquainted with "Brown Betty".

The actress who plays Olivia's niece gets a gold star. She was terrific in this episode because her interactions with Walter seemed genuine. The scene where she was being rocked by the cow while feeding him from that tiny bucket was hilarious. The way she soberly talked to Walter while being jostled like a rag doll made for a visually ironic moment.

That said, real star of this episode was Walter. He created a story for Ella that was perfect therapy for his mangled psyche. Walternate 2.0 created magical things at the expense of children and Walter judged him beyond saving. Walternate 2.0 shared a heart with Peter, inferring that Walter's only goodness comes from Peter. Walter was ready to have Walternate 2.0 die but Ella would not stand for that. She saved Walternate 2.0 and hopefully gave Walter a glimmer of hope regarding Peter's return.

What did the Observer mean when he was on the "phone" call at the end of the episode? Perhaps Peter needs to live in this world for some reason, if he goes back could there be consequences? I doubt he was hinting that Peter and Walter need to be with each other at all times because there was that long period where Walter was in a mental hospital without any contact whatsoever with Peter.

I believe that Peter and Olivia are in contact. I think when Olivia left she went to see Peter and they decided together what he might want to do next. While they are not an item yet, this episode did a lot to remind the audience of their wonderful chemistry. Therefore, I doubt Peter would punish Olivia for the sins of his father.

I know it is not true because other characters talk to her almost every episode, but does anyone else get the feeling Astrid is a figment of Walter's imagination? When Olivia first showed up she barely acknowledged Astrid being in the room and Astrid does demonstrate a knack for being Walter's one woman Greek chorus. Consider she was the first character that got a hint of Peter's true identity. Maybe that was Walter's way of bringing it up to himself.

To those of you who say, "But like you just mentioned, other characters talk to Astrid", I would say, "not often". I would then say, "keep in mind that this is the show that brought Charlie back from the double dead for an episode like it was no big deal only to have him never show up again".

V: Heretic's Fork

2010-04-29T20:18:00.002-04:00

I think they missed a couple of big opportunities in this one. Ryan got voted out of the runaway group even though it would have been a bold decision to keep him off the series for a few episodes. Lisa is already waffling between her conflicting commitments to her mother and Tyler when Joshua's test last episode was more than enough to inform the audience that Lisa's loyalty was up for grabs. Tyler continues to be a two dimensional character who sees the world in black and white when he should be growing as a person.

Hobbes is definitely a brilliant substitute for Georgie. I love that he does not trust or care about our core group of three heroes. Hobbes is smart enough not to torture the prisoner in front of the priest but does not shy away from saying what he feels needs to be done. Though I must admit I am more than a little annoyed by the television troupe of torture as effective means for information acquisition. Of course, if the torture victim gave false information Ryan, Val, and the Dr. would all be dead, I guess that would not make for happy TV.

The twice repeated chorus of "tell me one bad thing they've done" seems to have a simple answer and yet Erica chooses not to give a response either time the question is raised. The V's have killed an entire warehouse full of people who simply grouped together to consider that Visitors were a threat, they have secretly implemented a human tracking program through their healing centers, and target their own for death once they display human emotion. Those are just a few things Erica has seen first hand and yet she decides the the appropriate non-verbal response is deer in the headlights.

Did anyone else think that Ryan's chemistry with Dr. "V" is much better than the vibes he has with Val? Is anyone else curious as to why those two kids did not get together? Why in the world would Val run away with a woman Ryan has basically kept a secret from her for who knows how long?

I must say that I was unimpressed with the skills of the V soldier. It sees in bubble vision and has sonar capabilities but it certainly did not make a wave of destruction as Anna had inferred it would. Also, I am fairly certain all V's would be able to get up from that ax blow considering their hearts are on the other side of the body.

Chad has decided to through in completely with Anna. Good for him, bad for humanity, I wonder if he cares. He obviously knows that Father Jack is connected somehow to the Fifth Column as per their previous conversation. I am curious as to how long it will take for him to drop Jack's name to Anna. If Chad is willing to run a story on the Fifth Column, why would Anna not automatically give him Val's picture? Plastering her face on the highly rated television show would certainly make locating her much easier.

Speaking of the Fifth Column, where is it? We met two V members in this hour only to have them killed quickly. I am not frustrated with this show in the same way I was frustrated with FlashForward, but this episode did a bit to lessen my love for it.

Supernatural: Hammer of the Gods

2010-04-24T21:05:00.000-04:00

I love that the fictional world of Supernatural is big enough to include non-Judo-Christian gods. Hammer of the Gods, like the episode where our heroes went to heaven conforms perfectly with a vision of gods that I have had dancing in my head for a very long time. The gods are people powered. Lucifer is stronger than all the other gods at the party because a larger portion of the human population believes in the Judo-Christian tradition than believe in the Norse warriors or the gods of Mount Olympus.

I think it is worth noting that Kali, a Hindu goddess of fairly significant importance, managed to survive her encounter with Lucifer. Perhaps that was because Hinduism is the third largest religion in the world and the largest group that do not believe in the god of Abraham. Or maybe it is because Gabriel saved her life by trading for his.

If it was that simple for Lucifer to kill Gabriel I wonder what kind of chance Michael truly has against him. Consider that Lucifer is currently in his imperfect vessel and has only "walked" the planet for a few months while Gabriel has been among the humans for thousands of years. It is too bad that Castiel was missing in action due to the events of the last episode. Castiel and Gabriel may have had a fighting chance against the devil.

Will Kali come back to help the boys at a key moment? I hope this was not the last we have seen of her. Maybe Kali went back to mourn the death of Gabriel and found the "Arch Angel" sword. If that sword can kill Gabriel, it must be able to kill his brother Lucifer. Unlike last week, I am now guessing that the sword that killed Zachariah (not a brother of Lucifer) would not be of a high enough level to kill the angel that God loved most.

While on the subject of wild conjecture that I was well off the mark with, now would be a good time for me to admit that Conquest is not coming. I thought that Conquest may replace Pestilence as a horseman based off some brief Wikipedia research because Conquest seemed to be more interesting than a rotting ball of disease. While I would like to reserve the possibility that I may have been right, the writers of Supernatural have decided to go with snot.

Did anyone else geek out when Gabriel tried to convince Kali to run to Pandora with him?

Fringe: The Man from the Other Side

2010-04-24T18:22:00.002-04:00

The pieces of the Fringe season two puzzle are slowly falling into place. Peter finally knows his true origin, but he does not know the circumstances under which he came to this world. The "Director" must be important considering multiple shape shifters were sent cross dimensions to set up his arrival. Smart money is on the director being someone we already know, someone like Walternate perhaps.

I was hoping for more drama to come from Peter's revelation. He seems to be playing out the, "This information is too much for me to handle, therefore I must run away" trope. Fringe has been building up to this reveal for the better part of a season and a half, I guess I was expecting fireballs or a giant Icelandic volcano.

The shape shifter "embryo" was unbelievably disgusting. I cannot believe they attempted to wake that thing up without back up. I seem to remember the shape shifters having super-human strength to go along with their metallic blood. After seeing how they cross over to this dimension, in much the same way a "Terminator" does, the three pronged body transfer box seems to be completely out of sync with the rest of the organism. It is an almost retro device for such an advanced creature.

I know it has been a few month since I checked in with plot line, but I wonder if they ever plan on bringing Charlie back to this series? Or at the very least explaining the completely incongruous episode in which Charlie appeared after the death of both his character and his character's doppleganger.

FlashForward: The Garden of Forking Paths

2010-04-24T18:16:00.001-04:00

Dyson Frost we barely knew you! This one was probably the best episode of the series. It set Frost up as an almost sympathetic scientist whose research accidentally led him down a path that ultimately led to his death. He was the man who discovered the process of flash forwards and more than likely projected himself into the future thousands of times. Each flash brought him to a slightly different vision of the future, "The garden of forking paths".

I wanted to cry foul on Dyson seeing his own murder, because Demetri simply did not flash but then I remembered Nicole's flash. Nicole felt herself drowning because was going to happen at the exact time of the flash. Since Frost could calibrate the time jump, he may have conceivably plotted a flash forward to the exact moment (or moments) of his death.

Demetri survived his predicted death because Dyson Frost did not. I must say, while I like Dem I think it would have been much more useful to the FBI had Demetri bit the big one and Frost lived. I think the Oedipus reference was pitch perfect. Frost attempted to warn Mark with the painting of the Greek who killed his father and married his mother, but he should have taken that warning to heart himself. Speaking of warnings, Frost did seem to infer that either Charlie or Olivia would be the key to saving the world.

Elsa played Zoe like a fiddle. Why else would she need a specific day in court? I find it hard to swallow that one of the many FBI agents escorting Zoe and Elsa did not think it important to get the window washers away from the window. On a separate note, Elsa is important, I really thought she was a red herring.

James Callis (the actor, I didn't catch his characters name) appeared as a crazy savant! He is a wonderful actor and I would not have even recognized him if his name did not appear in the credits at beginning of the episode.

According to FlashForward lore, it would now seem that the world is destined to end in December of 2016. I wonder if this show is going to get to its second season in order to inch closer to realizing that new end date. It is definitely a bold move to call a series finale date in the very first season of a television show. In fact, it is a move I wish more series would attempt.

V: We Can't Win

2010-04-22T19:54:00.000-04:00

The pace of this show is lightning quick. Valerie managed to leave Ryan, through herself into the clutches of the V's, and be rescued by Ryan well within the 42 minutes of this episode. If this was "Lost" that storyline would take an entire season to tell. I cannot decided if I love the breakneck pace or feel completely overwhelmed by it, especially when we take into account that the plot I just summarized was the C or D storyline in this week's episode.

I find it interesting that Chad dreamed of Anna murdering him yet decided to jump into her camp so readily. If his motivation is simply self promotion, he's reached the peak of the mountain. If he desires world peace and prosperity his subconscious is trying to tell him Anna is not the real answer. If Chad is attempting to get closer to Anna as a means to help the V resistance he is going to have to significantly step up his game. As far as Mr. Decker knows the leader of the Fifth Column is a priest named Jack.

Tyler and Lisa are actually in an interesting predicament. Tyler is obviously important because he was born through the process of parthenogenesis which has only been demonstrated in sharks. Lisa is obviously important because she is Anna's daughter and as far as we know the only one Anna recognizes. Lisa failed Joshua's "empathy test" which makes her recruitment material for the Fifth Column.

Speaking of the Fifth Column, why would anyone in their right mind choose to join it? Erica is losing her son because of it, Ryan almost lost the mother of his future lizard child, Father Jack has had his faith shaken, and Georgie, Alex, and at least 10 others are dead because of their association with it. What is worse is the fact that John May does not live, again because Ryan killed him. I find it slightly disappointing that their was no mention of John May's stepson in this episode. One would assume that after what he went through last episode he would be primed for a key spot in the Fifth Column.

Since Erica knows how to test for human authenticity, why would she not subjugate her superiors and coworkers to the ear test? If she cloraphorms her boss and cuts his ear to find he is actually human she can bring him into the Fifth Column, which is in desperate need of new recruits. If the test proves his V-hood she can kill or interrogate him which does a considerable amount to help the cause as well.

A human sniper is doing the dirty work of the V's because he believes that the humans cannot win in the coming war and he would rather be on the winning side. Interesting, but it would seem to be more prudent of the V's to trust their assassination work to actual V's at this point. Why would the V's even bother to scare this particular human into working for them when they could just kill him and assign his hits to a V?

Anna's plan is to get the humans to power the planet with "Blue Energy" and then take it away when we are dependent on it. Seems like a fairly obtuse plan. Why not just use some of the "V weapons" that Ryan hinted at to take the planet in a few short hours?

Lost: The Last Recruit

2010-04-21T17:56:00.000-04:00

"It's gonna be OK, you're with me now". That was the creepiest line I have ever heard uttered on television. Smokey is telling truths when it suits him, however, I believe he is lying nearly as often. The smoke monster said he was Jack's dad and he proved it by confirming the result of Jack chasing his "white rabbit". Locke, however, is more than a broken shell that Smokey chooses to inhabit. The Man in Black has spoken ill of John Locke every time the actual man is mentioned, maybe it is because some measure of the man still exists.

When Jack and Un-Locke met at the beginning of this episode electricity was in the air. Their conversation on the outskirts of camp as dawn was approaching did not fail to deliver. I find it interesting that Jack checked with Hurley before heading into the jungle with Locke, because it is possible that may be the last time Jack decides to let someone else render judgment about important life altering decisions. Smokey the Nemesis was his normal confident self but Jack was approaching a Desmond like level of Zen that has been absent in his character since he convinced Kate to stitch up his back in the pilot episode of this series. Jack's decision to make his case to Sawyer and then jump off the boat seemed to make perfect sense after seeing the progression of his character over the course of the past two seasons.

Desmond did not die in that well. Sayid is heartless but he is not without reason and considering deep down he really knows he does not deserve Nadia I am positive Des will be with us for at least one more episode.

Widmore it seems is as cold as ever despite the hope that he was doing something selfless. If Widmore is the man I believe him to be, it would make sense that he plans to execute Sawyer, Jin, Sun, Kate, Claire, and Frank. It is the only way to keep Smokey from leaving the island with the candidates. Unless of course killing the candidates frees the Man in Black automatically.

Off island the action was as interesting as ever. Claire and Jack met and now know they are siblings and Jack has grown well into his role as father of the year (though we still do not know who David's mother is). Desmond continues to work his magic, thankfully he did not need to hit pregnant Claire with a bus to make his point! Semi-conscious Sun took one look at semi-conscious Locke and freaked out right before Jack attempted to make Locke walk again.

On the other side of L.A. Kate and Sawyer still have chemistry even if they are on opposite sides of the law and even though Miles and Sawyer have a better relationship. Sayid still feels, which is good, except for the fact that he felt Sawyer handcuff him, which is bad for Sayid.

I know I have been harping on this but the flash sideways as some kind of psychic psycho therapy seems more likely with each passing episode. I do not trust Widmore or the Man in Black and even Jacob seems suspect considering how much better the Lostie's lives would be without his influence. The island itself must be powering the flash sideways.

FlashForward: Let No Man Put Asunder

2010-04-18T21:12:00.002-04:00

While this episode continued to push towards a marked increase in quality I can find several things to complain about. Olivia and Lloyd are now an item simply because they were an item in their flash forward? Mark Benford cannot find his best friend in the whole world because he went "off the grid" but Stan can find him in less than a day? Also, Mark cares enough about Aaron to keep his secret, but not enough to look for him? The Vice President decided to go to the one man she obviously hates and mistrusts for help on an issue of the utmost importance to her and possibly the nation?

But the biggest thing I have a problem with is the fact that Janice is pregnant with Demetri's child. Janice obviously has a skewed moral core (at least as far back as the last episode) but Demetri should not have done that, and by "that" I guess I mean Janice. It could not be more than a few weeks since Somalia and now Dem wants to fast forward to his wedding in an effort to stop the future from coming true.

However, in a perfect example of Greek tragedy the decision to avoid the future is what ultimately brings it about and Dyson Frost has captured Demetri on the day of his expedited marriage. That I liked, even if I could see it coming. I could complain that Dem said he wanted to go away yet decided to get married in L.A. but I will not. Obviously the guy has complex commitment issues.

It was wonderful to see Al again. His death still represents the highlight of this series and it was refreshing to reconnect with a character that did not repulse me on sight. I also liked that Vreede was an ordained minister, somehow that made sense. I was disappointed that we did not get more than a brief mention of how many people Marcie shot. Was the "WOW" knock off player killed?

Marcie became a double agent because she was not assigned a partner upon entry into the FBI. Additionally, Janice became a double agent because she was not assigned a partner upon entry into the FBI. Does anyone else find that to be weak motivation?

Fringe: White Tulip

2010-04-17T23:05:00.001-04:00

The universe has a way of course correcting. Even though Fringe and Lost are not in the same story sphere, those words spoken by Eloise Hawkings should have been the words that Walter used when attempting to talk Alistair out of going back in time to save his wife. That would have been the only thing that could have made this particular episode of Fringe any cooler. Suffice to say I immensely enjoyed this one.

After Alistair went back in time and we started to see the same scene play out again with minuscule variations I thought I was going to flat out hate this episode. Yet once we got away from the train and Alistair was located off the print I completely let go of my trepidation. By the time Walter was in a deep conversation with the professor I was completely hooked into this story. My only worry was that Peter was going to find out his true identity in this episode only to have it washed away by Alistair's actions.

That was where the real brilliance of this episode played out. Walter confessed his sins in order to connect to our time traveler not to subdue him. He was the only person in the world who truly would understand and sympathize with Walter. That sympathy paid off because the white tulip was delivered without the final version of Walter that never told anyone about his personal sign from God. Of course by delivering a white tulip to Walter, Alistair proved his point that science is God. Unfortunately for Alistair, the universe course corrected and Walter must assume that his unspoken prayer was answered.

I am aware that the time travel in this episode made no sense whatsoever. If Alistair from 10 months in the future went back and died in a car crash, Alistair from that present must still exist. Additionally dead body with that much "modification" would have certainly showed up in the Bishops laboratory at some point. That noted, I still find this to be a superior episode of an excellent show. Perhaps Alistair of that present did a little course correcting of his own.

Fringe has done a wonderful job slowly building to the Walter/Peter confrontation and it would seem like the story stars have aligned and it should happen soon. I, for one, cannot wait to see it finally play out!

Supernatural: Point of No Return

2010-04-17T11:55:00.000-04:00

This episode delivered on a ton of fronts! Dean found a way to get over his pain (looking at Sam's stupid face is more or less what he needed to do), Adam was reintroduced as a true Winchester (he came back from the dead), Castiel proved he was a hero (we will get to that later), and even Bobby had a great character moment (which have been few and far between as of late). All that and Zackariah was spiked through the head.

Zachariah has been a great villain for this series. He perfectly portrayed the angels as holier than thou and extremely flawed. Zach seemed to have a human moment in the bar at the beginning of this episode and then Michael delivered his new marching orders. Zachariah did not even blink when those orders obliterated the human he was drinking with thus cementing for the audience what a detestable entity he is, or was considering how this episode ended! While I did enjoy the character arch of Zachariah I was thrilled to see Dean stand up to him then kill him in such an epic fashion. No matter how many millennia Zach was around for that as got to be a painful way to go.

Speaking of pain, I am hoping that Bobby's admission of his internal struggle will allow him to power through it. As I have mentioned in the past, depressed Bobby is not fun Bobby and fun Bobby has been one of the highlights of the series as a whole. Dean did manage to cut him deeply when he told Bobby that he was not his son.

The highlight of this episode was Castiel. Castiel has given up more than anyone in heaven and earth to help Sam and Dean and his sense of betrayal when Dean decided to give up was palpable. In the eyes of heaven, Cas and Lucifer are the same and that has got to be a tremendous weight for him to carry. His brutal beating of Dean felt justified and the only reason Cas did not kill him was because it would put Dean right back into heaven's hands. The ease with which Castiel killed three angels and the fact he is in open rebellion against heaven leads me to believe that after Lucifer is killed Castiel may become the new dark lord. He is certainly smart enough to be heaven's competition. Sending four angels halfway around the world was a brilliant maneuver and one I honestly did not see coming, even after Dean zapped Cas earlier in the episode.

If Castiel was able to kill angels with the "God Spike" and Lucifer is an angel, does it not stand to reason that one of those spikes could kill the devil? When Dean dispatched of Zach it became clear that even humans could kill angels with that weapon in hand.

I am glad the creative forces behind Supernatural brought Adam back into the narrative. I felt manipulated when he was introduced as a character only to be killed off technically before we got to meet him. I wonder where in time or space Adam is existing at this moment. I have to assume he is no longer at his homecoming dance because I doubt he is dead. Michael knows how valuable Adam is and he will be smarter about using him in the future than Zachariah was in this episode.

I am glad Sam and Dean are back on track. Hopefully it is for good this time!

V: John May

2010-04-15T21:40:00.002-04:00

Is the narrative of this show moving swiftly or did I spend too much time with the first half of Stargate Universe season one? Speaking of shows on the Syfy network, John May is Michael Trucco, but you might know him as Sam Anders from BSG! That was an inspired bit of casting considering this actor is no stranger to fighting in resistance movements. Unfortunately, Ryan had to go and kill John May 10 years ago thus negating the awesome factor almost entirely.

Ryan was a V sent by Anna to kill John May. John May somehow escaped Ryan and moved his entire family to an undisclosed location for a period of one year. After a year had passed Ryan caught up to John May and killed him. By this point Ryan was feeling human emotion and felt bad about killing him. At John's funeral, which he inexplicably attended, Ryan touched John's step-sons face while he was crying and had a moment of understanding. That moment was observed by Valerie, thus beginning their relationship.

A relationship that may have just ended due to that locksmith's decision to let a wife into her husband's secret vault. The passports with fake names would most likely freak a spouse out. The gun that she did not know existed could cause a rift. The fact that the safe was behind a false wall that she only just discovered does not build trust. I would have to say that the ultrasound picture of the baby with the giant tail is the most damning discovery Val made. Ryan made his bed last episode with the spiked tea and now he has to sleep in it.

I would now like to pat myself on the back for calling that Tyler's dad was not Tyler's dad. Except I cannot say that I saw the parthenogenesis angle coming, that twist was new. Tyler's girlfriend is a bit of a spy and a manipulator. Why is she more important to Anna than the rest of her children?

Now to eulogize Georgie. You were responsible for getting Erica to meet Ryan. Well that about sums it up. I will say that scourge bugs were horribly nasty and I am glad you do not have to deal with them anymore.

Lost: Everybody Loves Hugo

2010-04-13T22:45:00.004-04:00

Libby you did it! You managed to puncture the wall in Hurley's mind which separates the two realities, with a little nudging from Desmond. Speaking of Desmond apparently once the wall is perforated the holes start to open rapidly. Desmond knew that John Locke was evil on the island so he attempted to eliminate him off the island. Bold gambit considering UnLocke did the same thing to Desmond on the island, of course I'm fairly certain neither of them were successful in attempting to eliminate the other.

My initial theory about the flash sideways being some form of therapy (see my post, Lost: A Theory) still holds water only now the participants are actively fighting against it. Of course it still does not answer the question of who placed them in this therapy. Maybe it was Libby's doctor at Santa Rosa.

Illana, we barely knew you. I am a bit miffed at the creative forces behind Lost over the casual offing of Illana. She was the Artz of season six. I must admit that I was just as shocked when she blew up as I was when Artz exploded. That said, I liked Illana and took no morbid joy in her ridiculous fire ball death. It was funny when Artz exploded because he managed to be such an annoying character in such a short amount of time. I predicted that Illana may have been an immortal like Richard a few posts ago and now I have egg on my face, or Artz on my shirt, you can decided which metaphor you prefer.

The boy in the forest returned. This time I am fairly certain he was a bit older. He also upset Smokey considerably more this time around. Is it Jacob, a manifestation of the island itself, or young Smokey? Was the boy a created when Jughead exploded? Could he be the entity that powers the flash sideways?

Speaking of power on the island, the whispers were finally explained! They are the dead that are unable to move off the island because of the bad choices they made in their lives on the island. Michael finally got some redemption.

Smokey the Nemesis told Desmond that Widmore was after the power of the island and I tend to believe him considering he tried to kill Desmond a moment later, no reason to lie to a man about to die. More interestingly though was the fact that Smokey was visibly perturbed by the fact that Desmond did not fear him. Did Desmond know that Locke was actually UnLocke? If he did, does Desmond believe that a large part of John Locke still exists in Smokey? Is that why Altesmond (it's a naming convention I'm ripping off Fringe) attempted to kill John Locke?

I am going to miss this show. I refuse to even think about the television landscape without it next season.

V: Pound of Flesh

2010-04-13T19:17:00.002-04:00

Is there actually a point to Tyler's character other than blatant opposition to his mother? It seems obvious that the man we met as Tyler's father in "Pound of Flesh" is not actually his father. So the question then, who or what is Tyler's father? Maybe Tyler is the son of John May. It would certainly explain the V's uncharacteristic interest in the otherwise dull boy.

Who is John May? How did he begin the rebellion? Is he still alive or is that just the rallying call for the Fifth Column? If V's do not have emotion why in the world has Ana not killed all the humans on the planet? Is Ana Ferdinand and Isabella or Columbus?

Ryan just dug himself a tremendous hole. I understand that emotion is a new thing for some of the V's but deciding unilaterally to put the phosphorus into his fiancee's tea without explaining the consequences of that drink was unconscionable. How will he explain the lizard child to Valerie?

Poor Georgie was captured. He is going to have a rough time of it if the the V's really do not plan on killing him. They were about to go full on Braveheart on him.

Maybe I am preemptively longing for a show to replace my weekly Lost dose but I think I love this show a little. I care about all of the characters and want to see them succeed. The fact that the V's look human give this show a bit of a Battlestar Galactica feel to it as well, which can only help a show succeed in my book.

FlashForward: Queen Sacrifice

2010-04-13T18:39:00.003-04:00

The whole time I was watching this episode I thought to myself that it was in contention to be the best episode of FlashForward ever. They finally addressed the mole issue which had been known to exist since episode two or three. A fire was lit in Lloyd to actually decipher what he experienced in his flash. Mark was thankfully in a role that suited his sour disposition and informed all his colleagues that he was truly a two faced jerk. Bryce and Nicole shared a first kiss. Keiko gave up a life of sexism in Japan for a life of sexism in the USA, at least temporarily. Olivia and Charlie got to go to the park and have a fun day. Heck, even Dyson Frost had some interesting character bits considering he can see almost two decades into the future!

That was all welcome and good until the final reveal that Janice is the other double agent. I know it is trendy to through a twist into television shows every so often in order to keep them fresh, but Janice, really? Janice is the one character on this show that has not had a consistent flaw which I have found unbearably annoying. In fact, when Janice apprehended the rouge agent after shooting her driver off the bike I turned to my wife and said, "figures it was Janice the rest of them are idiots".

Janice's turn was not hinted at in anyway until this episode. Some people may argue that the unpredictability of this twist is what makes it awesome. However, I would counter that a good twist is one that is uncalled upon initial viewing yet obvious to the viewer upon reflection of a characters past actions revealing that he/she was up to something more. Unfortunately, this is not the case with Janice. The only hints that Janice was up to something nefarious were dropped in this episode and that is simply poor story telling.

My only hope for Janice is that she is a super cop. Perhaps she realized something with up with Simon and baited him into confessing. She never admitted that she knew anything other than the fact that she thought Simon killed his uncle. Beyond that she just talked about the importance of redundant moles.

Supernatural: 99 Problems

2010-04-13T17:56:00.001-04:00

I loved seeing drunk Cas almost as much as I loved the recorded name on his cell phone. The actor that plays Castiel is fantastic and he portrayed an abandoned drunk angel to perfection. Castiel is hopeless and does not know what to do with himself. Is Cas fighting the influence of Michael or God at this point? Does he even know?

Dean has decided to make a deal with Michael. While logically I can see the character progression I do not feel like Dean should be at this point. Dean has been dumping God and John in the same "dead beat dad" territory and I am not sure why exactly. John was obviously far from perfect, but he cared deeply for both his children and died making a deal to save Dean's life.

I really feel like all of the tension is taken out of the fight scenes in this show. Sam and Dean can be killed and brought back to life instantly based on what we saw last episode.

This is the second time we have seen agents of evil take over a small town and turn the citizens against each other on this show. However, the Bleep of Babylon was an interesting concept. Loved her as a false prophet.

Speaking of prophets, when are we going to get more Chuck? Speaking of the future for this show, what in the world can they do after the Apocalypse? Supernatural has been on a slow burn for five seasons are we going to see Sam and Dean start families? Would that be interesting?

Speaking of families I thought it was touching that Dean made a point to go back to the woman he truly loved one more time before succumbing to Michael. Is Sam strong enough to fight the influence of Lucifer without Dean? I hope he is!

Supernatural: The Dark Side of the Moon

2010-04-10T22:15:00.002-04:00

I loved this episode of Supernatural. Heaven was explained by Ash in a way that made perfect sense. Zachariah outed himself as heaven's pettiest angel. Sam and Dean got a glimpse of what made the other one tick.

I, like Sam and Dean, trust Joshua. He has no reason to lie because he does not have an agenda. Which brings us to God. God told our heroes to "Back Off!" Why? What is God planning? Joshua mentioned that God is on Earth, but to what end? Does God want to watch the battle between the forces of Michael and the forces of Lucifer? Is he having second thought about throwing Lucifer out of the garden?

If God really does want to be left alone, why did he zap the boys out of harms way and onto that plane? Why would he bring Cas back from the dead? Does someone have God cornered? Is anyone else reminded of the movie Dogma?

Heaven as a personal place of perfection was very cool. In the afterlife you get what you want. If you have a soul mate you get them too but heaven is for the most part single serving. If you put too many independent thinkers in the same space it does not remain heaven. Ash, due to the fact that he was a genius, who also happened to be a hunter, figured out how to move between heaven dimensions but he is the exception that proves the rule.

I find it interesting that Ellen, Jo, Mary, and John Winchester were all missing in heaven. If we go by Christian beliefs Ellen and Jo would not make it to heaven because they performed a suicide mission. John may not have made it to heaven because he chose to end his life to save Dean's. Mary might not have made it to heaven because she effectively lied to her spouse about her identity during their entire marriage. Maybe the people most important to our heroes are in some kind of post life penalty box, held as pawns to be played as needed by the powers of good and evil.

Unless the place that the boys went to was not heaven. Pamela was strongly making the case to Dean that he needed to give into Michael, which I found extremely odd. Ash seemed to be himself but even he should have had a harder time finding his way into other peoples personal heavens. Plus if he truly had a tap on the Angel's "police scanner" you would think one of them would have turned it off by now.

Fringe: Olivia. In the Lab. With the Revolver.

2010-04-10T21:48:00.002-04:00

I thought this was a terrific episode of Fringe. Olivia had not been sleeping well because she was keeping Walter's tremendous secret about the origin of Peter. In an effort to find a cure for her insomnia she sought out Sam the bowling ally guru who helped her work out her problems earlier this season. Sam was folksy as per usual but did not give her much to work her woes and she went about her merry way.

This left Olivia to have very tense moments with Peter throughout the episode. I guess Nina was right about Olivia going to her to be talked out of informing Peter of his true identity. Olivia is very happy with her pseudo family unit and does not want to mess with it. Even though her and Peter could obviously be something more.

On a side note, when did Astrid become comic relief? Her warning Walter to "not mix up the spoons" was about the only humorous thing that happened in this entire episode. Good for Walter for wanting to come clean to Peter. I cannot wait to see what happens when Peter goes back to the alternate universe all grown up! Are both his parents dead in his dimension or will Walter get to meet Walternate and have to answer for his crimes?

I was slightly frustrated because the audience knew this was a "Cortexaphan" case well before our heroes but I was extremely happy with the resolution of our case of the week. Olivia had a "Gregory House" moment while talking to Sam the second time around which was a lot of fun. Unfortunately Sam was about to reveal something much more interesting than the "Cortexaphan" connection.

Sam said to Olivia, "I'm much older than I look, much taller too". Olivia was originally referred to Sam by Nina Sharp, William Bell's right hand. Sam and Olivia have an odd relationship which I first thought was sexual tension but now realize is something much different. Sam looks towards Olivia in the way a father would look towards a daughter and she reciprocates by seeking his advice and guidance. Olivia does not know it yet, but it is my belief that Sam is William Bell.

The biggest hint that Sam is William Bell is the title of this episode. Why would the creative forces behind this show pinpoint the "Clue" scene as the title if something extremely important was not insinuated in it?

Lost: Happily Ever After

2010-04-06T22:49:00.002-04:00

I have often considered Desmond and Penny to be the emotional heart of this series. Where other characters have had serious relationship deficiencies, Desmond and Penny have always been the pair I cheered for. With "Happily Ever After", their love seems to be the root that supports the tree of "Lost".

Desmond, off island, has figured out, with a lot of help from his friends, that he is living in a false reality. It would seem that Widmore's plan with Desmond was to get him to break the glamor of the flash sideways. If that is the case, is Smokey the Nemesis the driving force behind this seasons off island action?

Eloise cannot help but scold Desmond. She always informs him when he is breaking the rules of his delusion/situation. He tried to seek out Penny and she pulled him away. She said that his life was perfect and that he should not mess with things. Eloise as always knows more than she is letting on, but how does she have that power in this version of the world?

I love that Charlie knew what was happening way back in the season premier. His near death experience brought him to Claire on the island and that glimpse of true love was what eventually set Desmond on a collision course with Penny. It was great to see George Minkowski again. He was a character that I felt was killed off well before we really got to know him. It made perfect sense that he would play an integral part in Desmond's flash sideways considering he was the first person we met that could mentally time travel.

Daniel Faraday, I mean Daniel Widmore, is a character I have missed a great deal. Of course he became a musician without his mother's constant prodding towards physics! It was nice to see she still bought him that journal and even better to see he is still brilliant even without the Oxford degree. Again, love is what brought Daniel out of his flash sideways coma and made him realize there was something more out there for him.

Sawyer and Kate did not knock sense into each other when they met in sideways land, nor did Jack and Kate. That must mean that Kate is not destined to find true love on this series. Will the sight of Juliet make James realize that he is missing something in this idealized version of his life? Of course Sun and Jin have been together this whole time and they have not realized there is another version of themselves out there. How does this work?

What happens when Desmond and UnLocke meet? Can Smokey hurt Desmond? Will the Man in Black even realize the value of Desmond or ignore him because his name is not on the list? What is the sacrifice that Desmond must make? Does he have to stay on the island as the new Jacob? Where would that leave Jack?