Work continues to pound away at my available time, so I continue to be slow, here. Here are some spoiler-free tidbits:
THE GOOD: Back when it first aired, the Household really tried to get into
SUPERNATURAL. After half a dozen episodes, we gave up...it wasn't bad, it just wasn't grabbing us.
We left before it got good. And it got good in spades.
We're currently on Season 3 of the DVDs. The show has serious, well done arcs, the writing is superb, and the actors really gel with each other (they didn't early on, but it appears this was due to character arcs...the brothers didn't just "not get along," they were completely estranged, but once they start to re-bond, they work...big time). The filming and effects are surprisingly great for a third tier network.
And while I like Chris Evans, Jensen Ackles should be Captain America. He's fantastic in this show. Jared Padalecki, last seen as Dean in
Gilmore Girls, looks like he left his acting ability behind with Rory & Lorelei until an episode in 2nd season where you find out how good of an actor the kid is...it's just his character can be annoying. (One of the great things about this series is they let characters grow. Too many shows keep their characters stagnant. That rarely works,
The Simpsons aside.)
The show also does a great job of bringing in guest stars, everyone from the wonderful Jeffrey Dean Morgan (
Watchmen, The Losers) as their father, to a host of "Oh, HIM/HER!" appearances (including an appearance by Tricia Helfer than proves that girl has some serious range).
And it constantly makes fun of itself, usually in situations rather than Whedon-esque self-depreciation dialog. For example, the panicked look on Jared's face when they're on a WB studio tour and the guide mentions they may see some folks from
Gilmore Girls is, in-character, an indication of "gawd, not that chick-show" but has a real-life joke quality as well. The show does a great job of balancing humor and serious horror.
Once you get over the initial hump, this is one of the best shows of the decade. And I can't believe I just typed that.
THE BAD: Not even Joel (my favorite) and the bots at MST3K can make
Monster A-Go-Go watchable.
THE UGLY: Tonight
LOST ends. And I'm afraid it's not going to end well.
Up until a month or two ago, I had been a staunch supporter of this show. I believed that Lindelof & Cuse had a plan and were weaving a grand story....previous seasons had supported that, aside from a few "well, THAT was sloppy" moments (Michael's 2nd victim, anyone?)
Sadly, the name of the show may wind up being descriptive of the writers, an apt appellation. The show suffers from too many loose ends and a penchant for badly killing off characters when they're not sure what to do with them. L&C seem to have this bad attitude of "Well, we're going to leave most things unanswered, because we're always going to answer things with more questions." Someone needs to hammer into their heads that it's not about answer, it's about
resolution. Things you make a big deal of need to be tied up (well, not just knocking off the characters randomly and making the audience wonder why they were even in this season. They even had an episode called "Why They Died" and the answer basically translated to "Because." The characters learned a few things we already knew, that was it. The audience never really found out anything new). These two are fantastic at world building but horrible at weaving a story. They're also addicted to adding elements for no real story purpose but because they had a cool idea. Most successful speculative fiction authors have a ton of world-building story elements they'd love to introduce that they hold back because it wouldn't serve the story. Not these guys.
I used to think J.J. Abrams distanced himself from the show out of respect for L&C's creativity. "It's THEIR show, not mine," he would say.
Now I'm thinking that he knew the show was heading for a train wreck because the heads couldn't get their act together.
I really hope tonight's episode proves me horribly wrong. I would love that.
PS: A bonus Good: This season's
Fringe kicked all sorts of ass.