More TV

Fall TV is not as promising as I was led to believe.

I was reading some TV preview thing like a month ago, and they mentioned like a half dozen new shows involving aliens, monsters, naked chicks or something. So looking feverishly through my TV listings, I see... one. And I've already told you about it in my last post. The Event. And frankly, I tried to watch it again last night, this would be the second episode already, and I just couldn't get into it. I switched it off.

So let's see for the rest of this season, I have House, and Dexter... and that's it. BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! Between starting this on Tuesday and finishing it on Wednesday, No Ordinary Family has premiered! A show about superheroes! :-o

So I was about to review House (which, with the loss of the hotter female cast members, has had to resort to putting Cuddy in a role as a sex object... not the best decision they've ever made), but instead, I'll just sum up. House is ok. He finally got to sleep with Cuddy, sure, and he's all smiles now. Where does that leave ME? Who do I get to thwack over NOW? Nobody, that's who. Come on guys, find some hot chicks to throw into the mix, willya? A sausage fest is great for all the female viewers, but I'm a straight male who likes his sex objects to be, well, sexy! lol All I can watch house for now is the occasional moderately attractive female guest actress of the week, who is inevitably going to be diagnosed with some deadly disease and spend the entire episode in bed. Which... can be fun, I guess, given the right circumstances? But deathly ill on a hospital bed is not how I picture girls when I spank my monkey. At least, not most of the time.

Dexter started it's fourth season off with something of a whimper. At the beginning of the series, and through seasons 1 through 3, I developed a theory that Dexter and his half-sister would eventually be facing off against each other. He would be outed as a serial killer, and she would make FBI agent, and use her knowledge of him to try and track him down. But now Dex's wife has died (last season surprise ending) and the emotional turmoil that has Dexter in a quandary has also made things a bit awkward between him and Debra. I'm starting to think that somehow, Dex and deb are going to end up in a twisted half-sibling relationship now. The actors are married to each other in real life, sure, but why do I think this is going to happen, you ask? Is it just a product of my perverted, twisted brain? Nah, Dex gave Deb a hug in the season premiere, and it seemed... odd. Maybe it was just the usual "i don't know what to feel because I am a serial killer and you're a cop who has no idea HOW i feel" kind of hug, but it seemed more than that.. and then, Deb suddenly gets into a fling with her partner. This isn't entirely unusual for Deb, her romantic choices haven't always been exactly straightforward. However, she can't seem to stand the guy. Immediately after the sex, instead of the usual "oh god that feels better" response we usually get from her, she acts like her partner walked in on her without her clothes on, like he's some sort of peeping tom and she's trying not to acknowledge it because he's a cop. With literally no other emotion behind it. At one point, he even asks "Aren't we going to talk about this?" and she replies with "Talk about what?" What I think is, Deb has suddenly sprouted, shall we say, "unusual" feelings for Dexter, and has literally no acceptable way to entertain them. So her mind just grabbed the first available thing, her partner, and she took him. Quite literally. In dexter's house, on his just-cleaned kitchen floor, and if that doesn't give a little more weight to my idea, I don't know what does. OR, I am just a psycho and Dex and Deb are still going to end up hunting each other in the end. As for this season, I expect Quinn to become the main problem, but here's the twist ending: Instead of Dexter killing Quinn as a threat, Deb saves Dexter's life by killing Quinn herself. We'll see how accurate I am when the season ends.

Now, as for No Ordinary Family. I like the show. I have never been a big fan of Michael Chiklis, the actor who plays the Dad, but it's more of a thing where's he's basically typecast into the same role over and over than him not having the ability to act it. At least, in the roles I have seen/heard of him playing, he plays a cop, and the Thing from the fantastic four. So in this series he plays a police sketch artist who gains super strength. Not exactly a stretch for him, granted, but I DO like the fact that the Mom, played by Julie Benz, is the breadwinner in the family, and the Dad is basically playing the mom role, staying at home and caring for the kids. In that respect, I almost think the MOM should have been the one with super strength, and the dad been the one with super speed, because the powers they get seem to match their needs and/or wants at the time. For instance, perhaps the dad feels a bit emasculated in his job as susie homemaker, so he can now catch bullets with his hands, leap tall buildings in a single bound, and lift railroad cars, whereas Mom, with a need to be everywhere at once and still have time for her family, develops super speed. Interestingly enough, the adult's powers seem to spring up fairly quickly, as if reacting to an immediate as well as a longstanding need, and the kid's powers tend to develop more slowly, with the daughter only gain the ability to hear thoughts intermittently, and the son, who is having trouble with math or something, suddenly gaining the ability to solve mathematical formulas easily. Perhaps whatever gave them their powers is merely giving them genetic adaptations to their most pressing needs? if so, perhaps they may develop additional powers as the need arises.

Either way, the show seems well done. There's no nudity for Julie Benz so far, much to my personal dismay, but it seems like the husband and wife are discovering a newfound interest in their love life, so a nude scene may not be entirely out of the question. The family appears a typical dysfunctional mess at the start, not unlike most families, but they seem willing to work on it with each other, which seems just this side of Disney to me. I mean, if my family were suddenly given superpowers, we'd end up killing each other. But hey, enough about me. The lighthearted approach to the show mimics the Incredibles movie, which was pretty decent, and even the characters/and or abilities of the heroes are somewhat similar. So I'm not sure if they just ripped this show off from the cartoon or what, but given the success of that movie I'd say it's a decent start. Plus, not only does the show focus on how these normal citizens are taking to their newfound, unheard-of powers, but they introduce a new element as well, that others have powers as well, and aren't afraid to use them for personal gain. Which just nicely sets up the whole superhero/supervillain thing, and adds a secretive element to the show. So, to sum up, perhaps simplistically, a mix of Heroes and the Incredibles. Let's hope it works for them. It seems enjoyable enough to watch on a weekly basis, at least.

I have a plan for the month of October. Okay, it's more a hypothetical guideline than a plan, but I'm going to seriously think about trying it. I am going to watch and review one horror movie per day for the entire month of october. I don't know where the hell I am going to find 31 days worth of acceptable horror movies to watch, or where I will find the time given that they won't let me watch movies in my cubicle (at least not anymore), but I may give it a shot. If AMC or something won't help me with a different horror movie or two every day, then I'll have to resort to my own personal library of horror films or what I can scrounge up online. If I do decide to do it, wish me luck. My life is crazy enough as it is without adding horror flicks and daily posts into the mix.