FlashForward: Scary Monsters and Super Creeps

Why was the Nicole working as a candy giver at the Mark and Olivia's on Halloween?  Doesn't she have something better to do? Is she a live in baby sitter?  They've established that she has a home to go to so I don't quite understand why she was all Raggedy Anne'd and answering doorbells at the Benford's. 

Olivia got Mark to admit that he was drinking in his flash the first time she asked him point blank about if he was hiding something from her and her response was "I don't trust you".  I found that odd.  

Janis getting shot and told she is most likely never going to be able to be with child is the catalyst to her pregnancy.  Was Stan looking at her funny at the end?  The wife thinks he's going to be the father (I think that's crazy but wanted to mention it in case it turned out to be true).

Did Dylan's repeating of the address remind anyone else of Dory from "Finding Nemo"?  Charlie and Dylan were at the Benford house when the flash happened.  That means that D Gibbons is there too.  Is Simon D Gibbons?  He certainly seems insane enough.  His idea of pillow talk is completely repulsive.  

The FBI crew was almost liquidated because of their investigation into the blackout and Mark thought it was a good idea to go trick or treating with his daughter the next night?  Had a feeling Mark's masked men where pedestrian paperers of the high school variety.  Too bad Mark didn't have that same intuition.  

Demetri's persistent pursuit of the blue hand makes me believe he is slowly coming to the realization that he will die as foretold.  Speaking of Mark's board, did we completely forget about Somalia again?  

Agent Gough got a considerable amount of screen time this week.  I must commend this show for doing a decent job of bringing the background characters in the FBI field office into the spotlight.  Last week was Vreede and this week we got Gough, too bad Gough didn't get to sing like Vreede.

Lloyd's moment in the Benford house was interesting.  More intriguing however was his encounter with Simon.  Their "experiment" seems to be a bit more involved than your average chemistry project.  Was that the first time we got a number of the total dead from the blackout? 20 million seems a bit small considering how many people must have been driving/surfing.  

This show is definitely leaning in the direction of Greek Tragedy.  Knowing your future can only cause it to happen.  Everything you do to avert it only leads to your eventual doom.

Stargate Universe: Light

As this episode of SGU ended my wife turned to me and said, "I kind of like this show". I responded, "At the very least it does give me my weekly dose of Scifi".  That's pretty much a review for this entire series thus far.  The plots are serviceable, the characters range from mediocre to likable but still four episodes in I am finding myself emotionally un-invested.  

Since they introduced the plot thread of Destiny out of power it seemed inevitable that the ship would be quite literally solar powered.  The fact, that they were on a collision course with a star confirmed it for me.  Especially since the ship is the only character in the series doing anything of any consequence (at least the only character who isn't already dead).

Destiny gave the humans an opportunity to save themselves with the air situation last episode but obviously was not overly concerned whether the puny humans survived the experience as it only gave them 12 hours to accomplish the task.  The ship chose the stargates to call and ignored the others.  The ship solved the power situation while the humans almost got 17 of their band killed needlessly.

This brings us to the one character that is off the "mediocre to likable" scale and falls into the category of "interesting".  Dr. Rush knew Destiny would survive her encounter with the star.  I know this because I knew that was the most likely way the ship would power up and if I knew Dr. Rush knew.  I must say I was impressed Colonel Young was able to identify the fact that Rush knew so quickly (that makes Young a bit more interesting).

I know this sounds cruel, but I really was hoping that the writer would have killed off all 17 characters on the shuttle.  The SGU crew has not dealt with significant loss relative to the danger they are in.  Losing 17 souls would have considerably raised the stakes in the series, especially considering some of the characters on the shuttle have had a decent amount of screen time.

FlashForward: Gimme Some Truth

That was by far the best episode of the series.  Character development galore made this episode not only watchable but enjoyable to boot!  Mark on the witness stand in the Senate hearing was the highlight of the episode. The new veep was asking the questions that Wedeck should have been demanding of Mark from the start and in a nod to annoyed viewers Wedeck admitted that he should have grilled Mark more as well.

The agent karaoke in the bar was simply terrific, though I am concerned that they spent so much time getting wasted in a bar with an alcoholic.  On a side note, Vreede and Demetri have terrific chemistry on stage and off.  Their conversation in the hallway about the point of the Senate hearing was terrific.  Speaking of the Senate hearings, they were sadly hilarious as well. Of course the CIA thinks China did it.

The Nazi opportunist was correct in assuming that Janis was gay and the director made a point to zoom in on Janis' thumb ring a few times as if to say, "we know what we're doing".  This obviously makes the Janis being pregnant storyline a bit more interesting and I think her date/morning was some of the best character progression we've been given in the series thus far.  I don't think she'll die in that alley but it should directly relate to how she get pregnant.

I did enjoy the relationship between Wedeck and the President.  I had a feeling when they were playing basketball that the guy was more than an FBI buddy.  I loved how Wedeck put the screws to his presidential buddy to extort the funding for Mosaic.  More illuminating was how much it cost to get Wedeck his funding.  The President promoting his arch nemesis in the Senate to Vice President might out weight the good of the project.  Especially considering the President was about to promote Wedeck to be head of DHS.

Olivia knows that Mark was drinking in his FlashForward.  Only two people should have known that, his sponsor and Wedeck.  My money is on Wedeck sending that text message in the hope that Olivia can keep Mark on the righteous path through April if she is armed with this information.  How pissed is she going to be considering how honest she was about her flash?

My only real gripe of this episode was the start and ending.  The fact that Mark, Demetri, Wedeck, and Vreede all got out of an exploding car without a scratch on them seemed cartoonish in a series that prides itself on being realistic (other than the blackout/see the future element).

Saturday Night Fun

How did you losers spend your Saturday night?

Benjamin Linus: Evil Manipulation has a New Bark

He warned me. He brought me every toy out of his basket and I ignored him. He stared at me for five solid minutes while I looked around him and at the television (shocking I know). He even went into his bedroom and ripped the stuffing out of his bed.

I fixed the bed and continued to ignore him. He ripped the stuffing out of his bed again. I took the bed and hid it in the garage.

All the warning signs were there. I feigned ignorance. Any dog owner with a slightly rambunctious pup knows when the behavioral tsunami is coming and instead of running for higher ground I simply went wandering out towards the newly visible beach.

That's when he struck. I was sitting on the couch upstairs thinking of something witty to put on my blog when I noticed that Benjamin Linus Bonora (whose puppy mug graces this very page) had been gone for an unusually long period of time. I walked down stairs and to my horror saw the insides of my favorite sectional couch (my only sectional couch) scattered all over the living room floor.

After a five minute stare down in which I laid the optical smack down on my dog (see "Modern Family" on Hulu for a full description of how to optically smack someone) I cleaned the mess Benjamin had made in an effort to get my attention (which he did now have).

Rather than continue to fester resentment towards my loyal companion I did the one thing I swore I'd never do. I woke up 40 minutes early this morning so I could walk my dog before work. When I returned home from a long day in the school building I walked him again pound the excess energy out of him.

It is somewhat hilarious how in order to make himself happier my figured out that he must destroy my valuable possessions in order to motivate me. It took my brothers at least 10 years to get that lesson (Benji is a year and a half...).

Supernatural: I Believe the Children are our Future

For the first few minutes of this episode I thought we were in for another sub par episode. Electrocuting hand buzzers, a girl itching through her scalp, and the ugly tooth fairy all were terrible signs that an evil version of Paris Hilton (like another version exists, I know) was about to show up at any moment (again). Yet, this particular episode started slow and built into something that far exceeded my initial expectations.

I will admit that the buzzer in the weaker beginning half of this episode did make for some great moments. I loved Dean frying the ham with the buzzer that fried a man. The fact that Dean then ate the fried ham through the rest of the episode made for a great running gag. Dean proving that the buzzer had no real power by fake zapping Sam was another terrific beat.

The brothers are gelling back into the duo they were before heaven and hell made them pawns. Sam and Dean are starting to get over their childhood trauma and in essence this episode was a long metaphor explaining it. Dean and Sam's brief conversation at the end of the episode demonstrated once again how messed up life with Daddy Winchester really was.

The truly amazing aspect of this episode however was Dylan. Dylan adds another biblical stalwart to season five of Supernatural, the Anti-Christ. Dylan has the power to do anything and that makes him the most dangerous figure in the whole history of the series, more than even Lucifer. I loved that Cas, tried and failed to kill Dylan and was thwarted when Dylan turned him into a knife wielding action figure. Speaking of Cas, when he explained that the bible got a lot wrong, I began to wonder what he was referring to because at this point it seems that the bible has been fairly spot on describing the key players.

While I am thrilled that the episode introduced Dylan I'm glad it also benched him indefinitely in Australia. Dylan is a neat concept but he is far to strong to have on the side of Lucifer and if the brothers adopted the little turnip head I would have to assume that Supernatural had jumped the shark.

I do have a few lingering questions. If Dylan is so strong, why did your average run of the mill dark eyed demon get to create him? Additionally, why wouldn't more demons create anti-Christ's if all it takes is nine months and a virgin?

Whoot Watch: Damn you Nintendo

My nephew is a prolific bowler within the confines of Wii Sports. He is such a strong bowler that he consistently beats me with relative ease. This is extremely frustrating because I have been gaming on a fairly regular basis since the release of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and Johnny is not yet five years old (though he will be by the months end). In any event today after dropping another game to my pint sized pal I off handedly remarked, "Well, I could beat you in real bowling" (and suddenly I became my father).

This was the stupidest thing I could have possibly uttered for a few reasons. First off, I'm not entirely sure that Johnny was even aware that a game called bowling existed in places other than his home video game console. Secondly, and more importantly, I hate bowling with a passion. So obviously, two seconds after my bowling statement left my mouth, Johnny retorted with, "bowling? We can go bowling? Let's go bowling".

At that point I immediately started yelling at my dog for something he had done around three hours before Johnny got to my house. But the kid would not be distracted, "Uncle, let's go bowling" was repeated around four times before my wife could take it no more and dragged my ass to the bowling alley.

In an effort to make bowling fairer for everyone involved I ensured that we found a lane with bumpers. Incidentally, this was more for my own benefit than my nephew's as I have scored as low as six pins at the alley in the past (one roll away from a most imperfect game). Anyway, after 10 frames I was able to beat my nephew 97 to 68 (it is hard to throw a game with bumpers). At the end of the game I "accidentally" dropped a 10 pound bowling ball on my nephew's foot and it seems to have discouraged him from wanting to bowl again any time soon.

Fringe: Dream Logic

This episode was bad and a terrible way to set the series up for a mini-break while the baseball season plays out over the next few weeks. After last weeks terrific episode this episode felt like a massive dosage of filler. The case of the week was silly and it seemed like the good Dr. Dream was the perpetrator the entire time.

Let me get one thing straight though. William Bell pulled Olivia from a moving car through an inter dimensional portal to inform her not to loose one specific head to the enemy and she failed to do it. So obviously she wants to head out to Seattle for a completely unrelated case. Makes perfect sense.

On a brighter note, I was happy with the way Olivia was dealing with the loss of Charlie. The bowling guru still seems like he could be a super interesting character and I enjoy the business card fetch quest he sent Olivia on. It was pretty neat how the message she needed to hear was the first words Charlie ever spoke to her. Of course that all may be for naught as I am still hoping we get doppleganger Charlie from dimension "X" back by the end of this season.

Continuing along the bright side Peter's encounter with Dr. Dream seems to have awoken some childhood nightmares which most likely are the key to remembering that Walter has been lying to him since the age of eight. Creepy.

Where is Olivia's sister and niece? Did the writers simply drop them out of the story as quickly as they were dropped into it? Speaking of the writers, I recently found out the two of the three co-creators of Fringe were responsible for writing this summers "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen". I am wondering if that knowledge has so discolored my opinion of the series that I will never again love a single episode as much as I loved last week's (before I knew they were responsible for the worst summer movie turd ever).

Flashforward: Black Swan

Something about this episode stuck a cord with me. I really enjoyed it. I'm starting to invest in these characters and feel as those their decisions make some sense.

Nicole had an interesting flash and her interaction with the priest was illuminating to say the least. I loved the church had such an influx of volunteers they simply couldn't place anyone else. It's completely surreal to see a man of the cloth blow off a young person who was interested in taking an active role in his flock.

I'm relieved that Demetri unleashed the full force of his knowledge (and right hook) about his impending doom to Mark. Selfish bastard that Mark is turned it around on Demetri and talked him into believing Mosaic would be his salvation. Seems more like Mosaic will lead Demetri to his doom, but at least he's honest about it now.

The blond terrorist was fascinating this week. Maybe she's the Benjamin Linus of the group seeing as she was able to play Demetri's emotions against him. Additionally, she did send our dynamic duo on a fetch quest that ended up with them scoring some righteous weed.

I wanted wannabe "Shaft" to end up dead on the operating table. I know that's a bit dark, but I think the series would be more interesting if someone was to break the rules the flashes established thus far.

Simon finally made his much anticipated appearance and he's claiming responsibility for the blackout! Maybe Simon is D' Gibbons. While it seems that Dylan's dad isn't D' Gibbons at least I was on point with calling him out as a potential source of malice in this series. On the other hand, he did perform magic to make his sick kid happy, so he can't be all bad.

Remember when D' Gibbons was a valuable clue worthy of follow up? Have Mark and Olivia still not asked Charlie about her creepy little flash? What's wrong with Mark?

Maybe I just liked this series more tonight because they didn't do what I completely expected them to do by going to Somalia. Of course they've been able to do whatever lame brain idea has come to their minds up to this point in the series so it is a bit odd that Wedeck would choose to deny this request.

Still holding out hope for "V" to pick up the mantle of coolest Scifi show on the air once November roles around!

An Ode to the Lowly Landline

The following post contains adult language and is intended for mature audiences only.

First and foremost, I must tell you that I am not going to purchase a landline (home phone line that does not rely on the cellular network) phone but I must admit that I am nearer to taking that plunge as a result of my 2 year old niece.

Since moving out of my childhood home I have completely shunned the landline. While I had a room phone all through college, I was a resident assistant and that was more my “office phone”. From the time I left school I’ve been very vocal my phone snobbery, looking down my nose at those of you stuck in the 20th century every chance I have gotten. In fact, when I moved into my first house a few years ago I had to argue with Comcast for 20 minutes in order to get the internet/cable double play (which did not exist back then) over the triple play which we are all familiar with (thus began my rocky relationship with that company).

All those feelings of hate towards the landline began to thaw out a bit last night when I looked at my phone and noticed I had a voicemail, which I will transcribe for you here.

“Hello, this is the Glassboro police department. Your phone just dialed 911 and we heard a bit of commotion. It did not seem like an emergency, but if it was please feel free to dial us back at 911.”

I shit you not folks, 911 called to check up on my cell phone last night! Turns out, while I was wrestling with my nephew, my niece picked my phone up off the floor and started dialing random numbers. If it she had used a landline the police would have been at my house in a matter of minutes. However, since it was a cell they could not easily identify the location of the pint sized caller and were unable to verify whether or not any police assistance was truly needed.

In any event, the moral of this story is; if you ever need to dial 911, use the landline if you can’t speak otherwise you’re SOL folks!

Fringe: Momentum Deferred

That was an episode of television that you could really sink your teeth into (or your three pronged mandible piercing device). Faux Charlie was outed as a spy, quicker than I thought he would be, and Olivia killed him. We got a brighter glimpse of what Olivia did on the other side and it turned out that she mostly gave Bell a hard time. Additionally, we got a clearer understanding of what the the alternate dimension has in store for our reality, which isn't anything good.

It would seem to me that if two dimensions exist there would have to an infinite amount of possible dimensions. But from the conversation Olivia had with Bell it seems like he believes the only dimensions are the two he's walked in, which seems counterintuitive. Nina Sharp seems to subscribe to the same theory. Her snow globe illustration was powerfully demonstrative of the result of failing to stop two worlds from becoming one. How the second dimension plans on keeping their world from getting smashed needs to be explained at some point soon though.

Did the mercury doppelgangers remind anyone else of the "Terminator" movies?

Did Bell admit to writing the ZFT?

I loved the title of this episode. It is wild that Bell pulled her out of a moving car knowing the consequences of his action. Am I crazy or didn't Olivia travel to Bell's dimensions via an elevator at the end of last season?

Walter has a love interest. That was surprising but also welcome, it would be nice if this new character could help Walter become lucid with a bit more regularity. Pretty cool how she noticed Peter was from another dimension! Too bad she didn't give him more of a hint about it. I'm ready to see that story play out.

Speaking of new characters, I know he only had a scene but I loved the tech guy at Massive Dynamic. Give that dude more to do please. He reminded me of the Andrew from Buffy.

Supernatural: Fallen Idol

I must admit that from the moment I heard Supernatural was going to have an episode featuring Paris Hilton my mind immediately went into battle mode with itself. My first thought was, "this is bad and gimmicky". I then countered with, "but I trust the Supernatural crew to pull this off". My internal retort was, "no seriously it's Paris Hilton, this can't be good". And thus my brain battled with itself for approximately 3 minutes before I got distracted by something shiny.

After viewing this episode I can satisfactorily say that Paris Hilton did not ruin this episode! Unfortunately the case of the week was, well, extremely weak and you've got to subtract major points for homicidal Gandhi and Lincoln. I did love Hilton calling out the American public for worshiping celebrities like "gods" but that certainly was not enough to balance the overall feel of cheese that this episode produced.

That's not to say there was not some good parts. The stuff between Dean and Sam was really good. I was happy that Sam stood up for himself and got Dean to analyze the way he treats him. I was shocked to hear Dean admit at the end of the episode that he is in many ways just as guilty of bringing about the apocalypse as Sam. I was mostly jarred because I had forgotten (or deeply buried) that it was in fact Dean who broke the first seal and kicked off the chain of events that led to the rising of the devil.

Unfortunately that admission of guilt by Dean reminded me of what this episode wasn't. This wasn't an episode with Bobby, Cas, or the Prophet Chuck which in my book (or blog) makes it an episode that felt lacking. Basically this was a season one plot shoved into a season five episode and it slowed the momentum this season was building.

I'd be happy to Advertise

Considering the FTC is now mandating that I reveal all payments/presents that I receive from the companies I cover in the blog (or on Facebook and Twitter for that matter) I feel it is my job to disclose all the favors I’ve accepted over the past few months…

Now that I’ve exposed all my secret financiers I would like to extend an invitation to a few companies I would be comfortable blogging positively about if only they would give me some financial support or a really cool gadget.

In the phone space I am already a mostly content customer of Verizon but I would blog glowingly about the new Android phones they are planning on releasing in a few weeks if only they would send me one to test out!

While I’ve typed most of my blog entries on a dell laptop it is more of a utilitarian device than a sexy/fun product like a Macbook Air or Dell Adamo either of which I would be more than happy to shill for on future posts.

I have posted previously posted glowing reviews about the XBOX 360/Netflix relationship and would not mind compensation even it that means reposting those thoughts with a new disclaimer stating how much money I made retroactively.

If Damon or Carlton would like to compensate me for my positive thoughts on Lost (past, present, and/or future) I would be more than happy to accept and divulge that I was paid.

I’m still processing what my next personal media device should be. The choice is between an IPOD Touch which I currently own (but my head phone jack is screwy so I need to replace it) or a Zune HD. If either Apple or Microsoft would like to send me player I would be more than happy to review it and inform my reading public that I was sent it as a gift.

Check the link for the full story on the FTC regulations http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10368064-36.html?tag=mncol;txt

FlashForward: 137 Sekunden

This episode was weak. Nazi’s, crows, Kabala, and lies of the unnecessary kind permeated this episode. The worst part was that I was completely bored. Additionally they keep teasing the fact that Dominic Monaghan is going to show up at any minute in increase the quality of the show by a factor of 10, but it’s yet to happen.

Anytime a show feels the need to tie Nazi’s into the mythology within the first few episodes it is either try too hard to be a great show or not trying hard enough. I can’t help but feel like FlashForward is not trying hard enough to be creative in this instance. Additionally, the fact that the Nazi brings up Kabala as a possible explanation of the FlashForward seemed super tacky (I was waiting for Madonna’s Ray of Light to start playing in the background). Completely beyond reality is the fact that the US and German governments could not figure out a way to the Nazi in jail when his information proved to be useless.

Why is Demetri lying to his fiancée? He needed to question her to see if he really was in her flash or if it was just inference making on her part. Aren’t FBI agents supposed to be good at getting facts?

The crow thing… actually I liked the crow thing but I would have liked it more if they threw the Nazi back in jail after he gave them the crow thing.

Mark is an a-hole. He obviously does not care about anything but making sure his flash comes to fruition. Even if making the flash come true is going to cost him his life and his wife.

The stuff with Aaron and his ex was fairly compelling. I wonder if their daughter’s leg was approximately 30 lbs. If that’s the case she could still be alive minus one leg and found in that tent on April 29th as shown. I might be wrong but is Aarons daughter played by the actress that was Alex (The French Woman’s daughter) on Lost?

It’s nice to see Gina Torres get work.

No new information on D. Gibbons or Suspect Zero this week.

There’s something seriously wrong when the most interesting thing about the FlashForward episode tonight were the commercials for “V”… That might not be fair, I am pegging “V” to be my next big Scifi (not Syfy) series.

Stargate Universe: Air (Pilot)

“Stargate” is possibly the geekiest long running science fiction series that I have had the time and desire to watch. That being said, of the 10 or so seasons of “Stargate” (original flavor) I managed to view four. Those four seasons I watched on the days I was not called in to substitute teach during a less than exciting stretch of my life (at least I wasn’t living in my parent’s basement). While “Stargate” didn’t exactly change the way I think about television I did manage to mostly enjoy my time with the series. However, once I landed a real job I decided I didn’t need to spend any more time with the show.

It’s rare that I begin a series, invest multiple seasons, and then stop watching. But for me, something was missing with “Stargate” and each episode I consumed somehow brought diminished returns. The overall story of the series did not produce in me a desire to return for more at the end of a season. In fact, I felt that the big stories that were of value and worth telling were always crammed into the last two episode of a season and all the other episodes were simply filler. My opinion on “Stargate” had so calcified that I didn’t even bother to check out the spin off series “Stargate Atlantis” which to this day I have not seen a single episode of.

I give you that background to demonstrate how surprised I was when I found myself interested in the concept of “Stargate Universe”. Unlike previous incarnations of “Stargate” there is no mission to explore or learn new things about exotic planets. The only priority these people have is survival and possibly finding a route back home to earth. I’m sure the pitch meeting in which the Stargate people sold the SyFy people on the new series included a line like “it is Stargate but grittier, more intense, think Stargate plus Battlestar Galactica”.

That being said, while “Stargate Universe” is an obvious retooling of the Stargate formula to capitalize on the Battlestar success I really liked Battlestar and I felt as though the Stargate recipe was missing a tasty key ingredient.

I did have some problems with the 2 hour pilot. I know it seems like a minor complaint but I completely despise the spaceship designs in this series. The designs of the ships seem impractical, everything seems overly ornate to the point of being non-functional. A spaceship which looks anything like a pyramid is completely out of my realm of believability.

Not all the characters were interesting or likeable. For example, the crazy marine that was released from the brig during the attack is a problem. He seems like he’s about to shoot half of the escapees and smacks of lazy writing to me (something I’m very familiar with as half my blog entries smack of lazy writing). Actually over the course of the two hour premier I felt like I only really got to know two characters out of the cast of about a dozen.

I loved Eli. I think he’s a great addition to the cast and extremely likeable. The fact that he’s a gamer scores him points immediately, and the fact that he has a Hurley-like outlook on life makes him a character worth cheering for. Additionally, it’s terrific that during a terrible moment where everyone is assuming they are about to die he can find a floating camera, give it a pet name, and then make it useful to the mission.

Chloe (Senators daughter), Matthew (marine in command when the commander passed out), Everett (the actually military man in charge) and Rush (the scientist/mathematician) all had moments that made them seem interesting but I’d like to see a bit more before I give them the glowing praise that I heaped upon Eli. I am secretly hoping that Rush is the John Locke of the crew in that he doesn’t want people the die, but if the ship demands it…

In case I haven’t made it clear enough, I do plan to continue with this show. Whether or not I make it through the rest of this season/series depends on how much the writing focuses on the interesting (the ship decides when its time for a pit stop) and minimizes exposure to inane (the actual look of the ship).

FlashForward: White to Play

That was more like it! The FBI task force was about to get smashed by the higher ups because it was not their job to investigate the flash. Score one for protocol! National Guard was brought into the cities to keep the peace after the catastrophic events and the hospitals were full to the brim of patients (though Olivia did have time to pick her kid up at school and then stitch a stuffed animal).

The show got me psyched in a few key places tonight. I’m enjoying the way that Mark’s flash has been worked into the series thus far and look forward to seeing the rest of the pieces get placed on his board. Demetri being warned of his impending doom was pretty awesome and I look forward to seeing how he avoids it (unless he can’t in which case it’ll be a Charlie drowning moment which simply means it’ll be sad).

Charlie (the daughter not the drowned character from Lost) had the line of the night! “D. Gibbons is a bad man.” But this had me a bit confused. Because Charlie knows D. Gibbons from her flash but also knows the son (Dylan) of her mother’s (Olivia) lover (Dylan’s dad) from her mothers flash. But Dylan knows Olivia and feels safer with her than his distant and confused father (whose name I can’t recall).

What if D. Gibbons is Dylan’s dad? And when Olivia is walking from the bedroom to the room where Dylan’s dad is sitting, he is shoving the kids into a box or out of Olivia’s line of sight?

Supernatural: Free to be You and Me

Spoilers for oddly enough His Dark Materials (the Phillip Pullman series) start in paragraph four.

Why aren’t you watching this show? Supernatural is without question in the middle of one of the boldest story arches in television history. The angels and demons are quite literally at war and the viewer can’t cheer for the angels because they are the reason the fight is on in the first place.

Raphael (not a mutant turtle in this series) the Arch Angel wants the war to happen so existence itself will end. He’s trying to end the world because he believes God is dead. Cas believes God is alive because he was raised from the dead and warped Sam and Dean away from Lucifer. Raphael tells him that Lucifer must have brought Cas back and “saved” the brothers.

Sam defiantly telling Lucifer that he would rather die than become the unholy vessel was brave, believable, and a moment of triumph for the character. Lucifer retorting that he would bring Sam back from the dead every time he killed himself was chilling.

Does anyone else seek the similarities to the Phillip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” (The Golden Compass) series? As a fan of both I can’t help but point out a few ways I think the Supernatural crew is paying a bit of homage to this excellent trilogy.

In the Pullman series, God’s hammer Metatron is waging war on the non-obedient and positioning to become God himself. Meanwhile the actual “God” is not really a creator, just the first angel anyone knows of and about to poof out of existence. In the Supernatural universe, the angels believe God is dead and the most powerful among them Michael has set up an all out war with Lucifer to end existence.

In “The Golden Compass” Lyra and Will are small and simple humans who can change the tide of the battle depending on which side they back. On the Supernatural side of things Sam and Dead have become so integral to the battle that they are the road by which it will actually play out. I feel like there is a lot more here but it’s been a few years since I’ve read “His Dark Materials”.