There upon the pages, is the answer to our Never Ending Story! (ahhh, ahhh, ahhhh!)

I’m…really not sure how to feel about this.

Warner Bros. remaking The NeverEnding Story.

On the one hand, I absolutely adore the original movie and think it was fantastic and it’s a classic that warms my heart. Plus, the wonderful awfulness of that theme song by Limahl!

On the other hand…there is SO much potential for that story to be even better. Were this news bite telling us that Peter Jackson were remaking the film, I’d be beyond thrilled. But we’ve got Dieter Geissler who’s resume includes Sleepy Hollow, sure, but also the two god-awful sequels for the original NeverEnding Story, as well as not one but two failed TV shows based on the original story. I can’t speak personally to the quality of the TV ventures, but I did see the sequel and it was awful, but at least it came from the original source material, Michael Ende’s novel. The third installment was a story that was entirely made up and had nothing to do with the original book whatsoever, I never saw it and never plan to because there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that thing’s any good.

But given today’s technology and penchant for fantasy epics, there’s a lot of room for this to be an amazing film. The genuineness of the original costumes and effects can be argued, but hey, we will always have that original. And there’s also Hollywood’s recent penchant for remaking films of the 80′s that don’t really need remaking to consider…how have most of those fared so far? Honest question, I haven’t seen too many of them myself.

So, I’m torn. But I’m almost positive Michael Ende is still pissed. (scroll down to ‘Production’)

We Are Experiencing Delays…

Thoughts on Dollhouse, Heroes and 24 will be going up, I promise! Watch this space for further developments, hopefully starting later this evening.

Heroes 3×16: “Building 26″

I’m not quite sure what the Building 26 in the episode’s title is, but my first guess is that’s where Nathan’s uber-illegal activity is going on.

Quick thoughts on tonight first:
One, Claire didn’t totally annoy me tonight!
Two, Hiro really really did!
Three, How does one violent act change a woman’s morals utterly, seriously?
Four, Sylar and Angry Young Skywalker frakking ROCK. This is by far my favorite storyline!

Claire Bennet: She’s Not Gonna Take It Anymore!
Okay, let’s take a look at Claire and the Bennets first. Blah, blah, lying to mom and Lyle, blah blah. This routine is getting old, and I’m with Claire when she tells daddy dearest: “That’s the thing, dad. You can’t [control me].” You know what, he can’t! That’s entirely correct! Now stop wearing your hair in a french braid like you’re 12 and let’s go save that comic book guy! Alex the Comic Book Guy I kind of like–he’s funny, cute, a geek, wears glasses, has a superpower…okay, yes, I mostly just want him to be my boyfriend, don’t judge me! Their interaction is amusing, as Alex is convinced that Claire’s been put up to this by some friend of his. (Although the ‘cute blondes don’t come in here’ schtick is a little much–all kinds of people go into comic book stores, Tim Kringe [sic], but since you refuse to have real comic book writers on your staff, you wouldn’t know that, so instead you’re going to further the stereotype. Thanks, ass.) Anyways, she shows him she means business just as HRG comes in to try and round up Alex. Now, since the ‘motivation’ in this whole thing is that people with powers (they still refuse to use the M word!) are just too darn dangerous to be allowed to live free, you have to wonder, man, what can this Alex kid do? Turn liquids into solids? Erase your mind? Blow you up by looing at you, walk through walls, what? He can breathe underwater. That’s….that’s it? Seriously? Have those government not heard the numerous jokes out there about how totally not useful Aquaman is? And hey, he can at least talk to fish, too! *facepalm* So Alex the Deep One and Claire run away, and somehow this works because they hide behind a shurbery, and now he’s living in her closet. That’s okay, I already like him more than West.

And in perhaps Claire’s BEST move of the night? She refused to be a party to dad’s lies any longer and told her mother right up front what was going on. Good for her! She’s really NOT letting her dad control her anymore! Mom is understandably pissed and finally tells HRG what he’s won: getting his ass kicked out of the house. Frankly, it’s about time. He had her memory wiped consistently for years, and then still continued to lie to her on a regular basis. He might love his wife, but it really doesn’t matter if he’s going to keep lying to her like this. Mad props to Mrs. Bennet for this one! I would have kind of liked it if Claire had maintained her anger at her father when she told him he was moving out, but I suppose her feeling sad about it also makes sense.

Hiro Nakamura and Ando Masahashi: Whiny Idiot Ball
Hiro and Ando have gone to India, following the path created for them by Parkman’s artwork. Hiro sees a wedding is going on at the location depicted, and immediately decides this means he has to stop the wedding. Um, why? What in that painting says “stop the wedding”?

While Hiro is off being a self-centered dumbass, Ando is getting sh*t done. He happens upon the bride-to-be, who is not looking forward to her arranged marriage, and she interprets him as the sign she’s been praying for that she should not do this. Ando is happy to have done something good, and Hiro’s whining that he was supposed to stop the wedding and get his powers. Meh, meh, meh, cry me a river Hiro, and another thing, how the hell was doing this supposed to give you back your powers??

Ando later accurately pinpoints that Hiro is jeaous because he has powers and Hiro doesn’t, and Hiro has to put up with being the sidekick now. When Ando gets kidnapped (while trying to do the right thing, rather than moping about uselessly), Hiro unfortunately gets the chance to do his loud and yelling and waving his arms so that hey everyone look at me being a hero over here!! thing, and gets to stop the wedding from going through. The image in the painting comes to pass, and Hiro yells that damned “YATTA!” line again and I kind of want to shoot someone. He claims to have learned that one can be a hero with powers(I’m not buying it), then when the bride figures out that their names are familiar because she got in a fax or them from “Rebel” saying to go save Parkman in LA, Hiro loudly exclaims that it is a fax from destiny.

Um, no. It’s from some person calling themselves “Rebel.”

Hiro’s had his hands glued to the Idiot Ball for a while now, starting in earnest with that god awful ‘I’m ten years old’ storyline in Volume 3, but this episode was just awful in regards to his character. It’s like he only managed to age his brain back to 15! I could understand some mild jealousy and resentment of Ando being the “hero” now, but to this degree is just ridiculous, and his repeated idiotic insistence that “Destiny” was faxing him or guiding him or some other bullsh*t stupid response was just irritating beyond belief. I used to like Hiro, but in this episode? Someone could’ve hit him with a truck and I’d have been okay with that. Furthermore, an iPhone? Traveling abroad? What happened to staying off the grid, people?

Nathan Petrelli: My New Power Is Erasing Morals!
In some building, I presume Building 26, Nathan is going on about how dangerous people with powers are (they might stay underwater for hours, or even go swimming less than an hour after eating!) and how they all need to be rounded up to the visiting DHS representitive. Moira “Toe Pick” Kelly is the rep in question, and accurately points out that Nathan is violating human rights like it’s coming into style, and after she sees that the has Tracy Strauss (whom she knows) under hot lamps, she’s made up her mind. This place is getting shut down so fast they’ll be dizzy, there’s no reason that these people don’t still have the same rights as everyone else. And she’s completely right! Then, however, Tracy notices that the chain holding her is weak, so she pulls it free, and breaks out, taking a man hostage, but when she sees that she’s surrounded, she settles for freezing and shattering him instead of trying to get out of there. Why? Who knows. The DHS woman sees all this happen. So Tracy’s locked back up and tells Nathan she knows he left the chain broken and the door unlocked for a reason, and that next time she will get out of there (I argue, what stopped you this time, and also, why didn’t they kill you after they saw you murder someone, but hey, what do I know, right…). Nathan in turn blames The Hunter, who doesn’t so much care and says the sacrifice was necessary. DHS woman has forgotten what the defintion of human rights is, apparently, and tells Nathan he’ll have all the funding he needs.

Really? Okay one, even if she did now think this was all necessary and above board, then how about the fact that they seem to only have ONE prisoner? ONE! And second of all, okay, ONE prisoner is a killer. Does that mean every single one of these people with powers is a bad guy? Um, no. But hey, thanks for furthering prejudice. Toe pick!

(And one more note: there’s an unmissable line about the Patriot Act giving them a lot of leeway in this whole shady business. Which is just another reminder of, hey thanks for the social commentary….four years later. Late to the party much, Kring?)

Sylar and Angry Young Skywalker: Always two there are, no more, no less. A master and an apprentice.
Now for the storyline of awesome! Sylar is fantastic as always, and I’m liking his sidekick here. Thinking that Luke may be putting him on, he pulls over and informs very carefully of what it is he usually does to people and why he knows if he’s being lied to–he cuts open their heads and takes their powers.

“So you’re…a serial killer?”
“I’m not a serial killer.”
“Well, you have method of how you kill people, there’s a pattern to who you go after…”
“Okay, fine, technically I’m a serial killer!” Hee!

Sylar doesn’t kill him, as he can see that Luke does clearly know the address and that’s no lie. Luke also has some more info on Sylar’s dad: he sold his son for money, and he was really into birds. He used to take Luke hunting for birds with him sometimes, in a red wagon that Sylar suddenly remembers from his youth. This was pretty interesting, because finally Sylar asks Luke, “Why would he tell you all of that?” “I don’t know…maybe because I reminded him of you.” And that’s no lie either, methinks.

In the diner they go to, Sylar starts giving Luke tips on…well, on how to be a serial killer, as far as I can tell!

1. Always have an objective.
2. Know your endagme before you begin.
3. Keep a clear head, emotions make you sloppy.
4. Understand your motivation and what you want.

While Sylar once just wanted powers, now he just wants to find his dad, and hopes to find some answers about himself from that. This whole conversation shows a little more self-awareness than I quite believe from Sylar–or at least, the way it’s presented is a little off coming from him somehow. But Angry Young Skywalker seems touched by his story, so he writes down the address and gives it to Sylar. Sylar accurately points out that he’s got no reason to not kill Luke now, and Luke just says he’s kind of hoping his wannabe mentor won’t do that. as Sylar ponders the pros and cons, he notices that suddenly they’re being surrounded by the same breed of stooges who tried to take him down back at dad’s old digs, and it turns into a dangerous stand-off. Luke distracts the man with a gun on the “sweet spot” on the back of Sylar’s head, and the serial killer makes good on an escape, leaving Luke behind to fend for himself! Which he doesn’t do so well at, quickly falling into the government’s custody. Surprisingly, however, Sylar returns in cognito and slaughters the agents, taking both a laptop (Dude, he’s getting a Dell!), and his padawan. When Luke asks why he bothered rescuing him and taking him with him, Sylar insists it’s nothing and it just makes things easier for him and doesn’t mess up his plans. Which is true–there’s no way for Luke to spill the address to someone else this way. But Sylar then turns on the radio and ends that topic of conversation.

These two I love. I’m so glad they’re still on their road trip, it’s fantastic. I like Luke, he plays off of Quinto pretty well, being neither annoying nor saccharine. He’s not a sidekick to redeem Sylar, he’s a rebellious teen to be lead down the path. Will the apprentice one day try to overcome the master? Or be killed for his insolence? Or when it’s convenient? Or will he indeed succeed in getting under Sylar’s skin, for good or for ill?

Finally, we end on a scene the surprised me a little bit. HRG is getting a few drinks at the hotel bar where he’s staying for now, and then suddenly everything’s going dizzy. I figured the government was taking him in now, but not so! Parkman, Peter and Suresh stand up and go to his “aid,” saying it looks like he’s had too much, but they’ll make sure he gets home okay. Clever move, boys! I’m not sure how they drugged his drink, but regardless, well-played. First smart thing they’ve done in a while!

Dollhouse 1×01: “Ghost” (the Pilot)

This is exciting times for me. I’m a big Joss Whedon fan, but I’ve never actually gotten to see any of his shows while it was airing on TV. Buffy, Angel, Firefly–I watched them all on DVD in their posthumous days. So this is a first for me, and I’m pumped!

And, thankfully, not let down! I’ve avoided finding out too much about Dollhouse on purpose, really nothing much beyond the cast, the premise, and the premiere date. So every scene was an interesting surprise for me while watching this pilot episode. It IS interesting to note, actually, that the pilot was originally the second episode. Not, however, in the same way that Firefly‘s “pilot” was its second episode. In this case, the swap was done intentionally and by the show’s creators, not by the network making a poor decision to screw with everyone. They rewrote in part, re-shot and edited the episode to make it fit more fully, but it was decided the plot and other elements here would make for a better pilot in the end.

I think it was a good choice.

Let’s begin. We met, in our first scene, Eliza Dushku as Caroline, talking with the composed Adelle DeWitt (Olivia Williams). Caroline looks harried and the few clues we get from here imply that’s very much the case–she goes on about things being a mess, that she just wanted to make a difference, “like she said” though we’re not yet sure who “she” is, and that yes, she knows, actions have consequences. She also seems somewhat familiar with Adelle, from how she addresses her. Adelle proposes something involving a five year term, and suggests, what if actions didn’t have consequences? What will happen at the close of this five year term isn’t stated for us, but on Adelle ominous reply, we cut to the exciting high-speed motrocyle chase that Echo (formerly Caroline) is now a part of, ending in her and a young man arriving at his birthday party, dancing the night away and his sweet gift to her of a gold necklace with a heart pendant on it, reminscent of the ones from Tiffany’s that were very popular five or so years ago. Echo heads back to a black van and hops in, smiling sweetly over her weekend romance, and heading off with the men inside for a “treatment.”

This treatment, naturally, is Echo’s memory and personality being wiped clean, and not for the first time. A pleasant and literally worry-less young woman is here now, and she heads back into the titular Dollhouse while the technician who wiped her memory, Topher (Fran Kanz) and Echo’s handler, an ex-cop named Boyd Langdon (Harry Lennix), catch up the audience with a little exposition. Namely: the actives are the personality-less people who live here, who are imprinted with whatever personality, skills, and memories are needed for an ‘engagement’ with a client, and then afterwards, wiped entirely clean and remade as a blank slate. Langdon is still a little unsure of this whole process, but as we later learn he is indeed an ex-cop (though why ‘ex’ is not yet known), so his reservation makes sense. Topher’s all on board with this, seems to care in part for the actives themselves, and does all the implanting and wiping work. Topher, of note, screams of nervous nerdy guy in extremely powerful position who could be huge trouble for a lot of people as this story continues. I look forward to seeing how that unfolds!

Interesting sidenote: in Caroline’s talk with Adelle earlier on, Adelle mentioned creating a blank slate, to which Caroline replied, “Have you ever tried actually wiping a slate blank? You can always see what used to be on it.” How very true. And telling!

We cut to FBI Agent Paul Ballard, Tahmoh Penikett, better known right now as Captain Karl “Helo” Agathon on BSG. Ballard’s introduction is an interview with some superiors in the FBI on his lack of progress after 14 months of looking into the “Dollhouse,” a list of bad moves and black marks, and mention of his divorce, intercut with scenes from a boxing sparring match of him and some hardcore guy with muscles and tattoos. To show us he don’t quit, Ballard is beaten back big time in the ring while his superiors tell him to back off on a suspected but not proven human trafficker, requesting of him, “Can you do that? Can you back off?” Boxing Ballard gets back up and lays the smackdown on his sparring partner, while FBI Ballard calmly replies, “Yes, I can do that.”

Next up, Echo’s new assignment: a 12-year-old girl has been kidnapped from her father’s richly appointed and secure mansion on a ransom of 5 million dollars. Echo’s new negotiator personality is created, we learn, from scans and memories and accounts of real people. This is how they create the perfect whatever-is-needed for each engagement. Interesting! And the show loses no time in giving usan obvious potential flaw in this otherwise brilliant system: Echo’s personality, Ms. Penn, gained some of her background from a girl who was kidnapped and abused by one of her kidnappers in her youth. The heavy implication is some seriously frakked up sexual abuse, to be specific, and when that guy turns out to be one the hried guns for the bad guys, she freaks out, gets an asthma attack, and the exchange goes awry. The client is shot, the money is taken, and the girl is not delivered. Uh-oh.

While Langdon pleads with Adelle that Echo can in fact figure this one out and locate the girl before its too late, we revisit Ballard, who is naturally not backing off at all, but trailing the trafficker Victor into a classy bar. He puts a gun to Victor’s head from behind him at the urinal, and tells him he wants Victor to get info on the Dollhouse and he’ll never bother him again. Ballard’s a man who wants to get sh*t done!

I’m curious about his dedication to the case, naturally–we can assume his obsession with it is what brought his marriage to an end, and the interview earlier in the episode made it clear that this man is dedicated to hunting down human traffickers. This isn’t his first such case. But as Topher tells us while explaining Echo’s kidnap negotiating personality, they pull in real experiences so that they can make the personality damn dedicated to the cause. Ms. Penn had memories of a horrible kidnapping experience (so awful, in fact, that the person they were pulled from killed herself), so she was the best damn negotiator for kidnappings that they could create. What happened in Ballard’s past to make him so good at hunting down human traffickers? Hmm, indeed. Nice parallels made there, and not actually commented on in the episode itself. Hey, go me, I had insight!

Between Langdon’s appealing to Adelle and perhaps even some of the determinedness of Echo’s Ms. Penn personality, they’re going in to get this job done. Penn goes into the safehouse that they locate and gets the kidnappers to turn on one another when she informs that the creepy older guy is going to kill them and take the girl until he’s done with her. He’s the “Ghost” of the title: “He told me he was a ghost. How do you fight a ghost?” Penn says in a chillingly scared tone after first recognizing him. So far, Dushku’s portrayal of the various personalities is going well. They start shooting an she retrieves the girl, and the man left standing tells her to go ahead and leave.

But on the way out, the door’s blown down, and a SWAT-like squad led by another active comes in, kills the remaining man, and start cleaning up the scene while Echo carries the girl out, assuring her everything’s okay now. This segues straight into Echo walking away from the chair that cleans and imprints their memories, empty-minded and happy again, her brave task forgotten entirely, though we do hear that the client is recovering, they got to keep that extra 8 million (the amount went up from 5), and both actives performed admirably. The actives shower and go to bed (which is also kind of creepy–if you’ve seen the previews or pictures, you’ve seen the beds in the floor that have a glass covering that slides over them, making them roomy but still coffin-like), and we get a whole other creepy scene.

A man who is clearly nude, but who’s face is unseen, is watching a video of Caroline back when she was graduting college, probably one made by a friend. She talks about what she wants to do with her life now–she wants to do something of note, it seems, but there’s no set and solidly outlined answer beyond, “I want to do everything!” In the darkened room around the man are two dead and bleeding out bodies, faces also unseen, and he’s sliding a picture of Caroline into a manilla envelope with “Paul Ballard” written on one side, and “keep looking” on the other. Dun dun duh!

Other incidents of note that weren’t part of the plot-storyline were Echo’s flashes of the imprinting/erasure process while telling the client about her kidnapped past as Ms. Penn. Of course, Ms.Penn knows these to be her “treatment” that she has to go through, but the flashes seem a bit more ominous than that. As well, we see that the Dollhouse has its own medical staff, in the form of another Whedn-alum, Amy Acker! Sporting a mysterious scar across her face, Dr. Claire Saunders doesn’t seem quite at ease with the actives like other staff members of the House. Echo seems a little fixated on that something fell on her knee and caused some damage, but she doesn’t remember what it was (the motorcycle from the opening scene, in fact). The beginnings, no doubt, of Echo’s promised persistent memory, the blank slate that is not in fact entirely blank at all. And finally, while wondering around when she should’ve been going to her massage appointment, Echo gave us a glimpse of what looks like the initiation of a new active–a woman crying out in pain, strapped to a table with needles in her, in an acupuncture-esque way, as well as a River Tam-style needle in the forehead, while some machine seemed to be doing some kind of scan. Topher shoos her out and tells her they’re ‘helping’ this woman and that soon Echo will have a new friend, Sierra. Sierra may have been the active leading the SWAT team at the end–it was a little hard to tell.

Overall, I enjoyed this. The episode’s story pulled me in as I hoped they’d rescue that poor little girl, and the intrigue of Echo/Caroline, the Dollhouse and its anonomity, and the mysterious dedication of Ballard to his case are also pulling me in. Blown away? No–it didn’t break complete and utter new ground just yet. But it was a good, solid episode and if it’s no more than consistent in this kind of quality, I’m a happy camper.

But seriously, Fox, get rid of those god-awful promos and lead-ins of Summer Glau and Eliza Dushku chatting like they give a sh*t about what they’re saying. They don’t. We don’t. And are the lingering shots of Dushku’s near-naked body at commercials really necessary? Really?

24: 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM

24 is continuing to impress me this season. We had a close call when Agent Walker had hers, but it’s recovered well from that in the last two episodes. Last night brought us more good stuff, including hard core Jack action!

After the president’s press conference admitting that yes, there were some terrorist attacks today, but they’ve also been contained and are now over, we move on to her learning that her husband is in Dubaku’s hands. Not good. Even worse? Dubaku has the guy’s finger cut off while they’re still on the phone! Damn! But I am glad that the First Gentleman’s storyline got interesting, and moved away from the boring plodding along it was doing earlier in the day.

Bill, Jack and Walker convince the President that they can make the effort to quietly retrieve her husband while she buys them time by pretending like she’s pulling back the troops and sends in a Matobo-alike to fool them. I, however, give props to Allison Taylor for not caving when they made it clear what would happen to Henry if she didn’t back off with the troops. She tells us she can’t ask the nation’s people to make sacrifices and accept risks and losses that she herself isn’t willing or able to also make and accept, with tears in her eyes and her shoulders back. I’m starting to get the charisma of her character now, and I’m liking it.

Jack and Walker were action central this episode, and she fell once more into the role of being his protegee. Much to Boss Moss’s dismay, as he was brought in on the secrets of what was going on, and saw Renee follow Jack’s footsteps and lead without much hesitation. She made like she was going to torture an innocent woman and even more innocent 11-month-old so Jack could get the FG’s location out of Vossler, our second SS agent gone bad. It worked without anyone being harmed, but then Vossler tried to get fancy, and got his own knife in his gut for his troubles. That was a rough fight in the personal space for Jack, and after he knifed the guy while he still held the weapon I thought “It’s the forearm choke with knife! Now leg reap him!” This is what happens when ninjas watch 24. All this, on the heels of Day 7′s second intentional car crash between these same two combatants! Action packed Bauer Power Hour!

Renee, now hearing that Vossler was dead, looked with trembling eyes on the terrified mother and child. This woman’s good. I like her and I like her character and I want her hair. Jack tried to give her an out–if this was too hard for her, he understood that, but he had an FG to rescue. Renee shouldered it, bottled it up, and pressed on.

This sort of thing echoed in this episode a lot. Starting with the President asking Jack how she could trust where his loyalties truly lay, he replied simply, “With all due respect, Madam President, ask around.” Jack’s done everything he’s done for the good ol’ US of A. He’s done what others couldn’t or wouldn’t do, and he’s aware that he’s not like other people. He’s aware that there needs to be someone like him, as much as there needs to be someone like Boss Moss hating what he does. Like he told Moss, those guys aren’t playing by your rules and doing it by the book, so why should he (Jack) do that either? By the book, one days like this, takes too long and means they get away with killing the FG. And Renee is starting to see that, and understand Jack more and more. And as we can all see, she’s slowly becoming more like him. I’m intrigued to see where she stands at the end of the day on all this–will 24 continue with a new lead, Renee Walker, She Who Does What Others Can’t?

They find the hideout and bust on in to rescue FG eventually, taking out the bad guys there in but not before FG takes a bullet right as 4 PM hits and Jack screams for Renee to call an ambulance ASAP. Will one bullet to the mid-torso really take that much longer than a knife to the abdomen to kill you? I’m actually asking, I have no idea.

Meanwhile, Dubaku’s girlfriend’s wheelchair bound sister doesn’t like him (can’t blame her), or how he pays their rent and so forth. She’s discovered on her own that his fake name is fake, because no one of that name ever immigrated (legally) to the states. But if he breaks up with her sister Marika that night, she’ll let it slide and no one need ever know about this. Oh Dubaku, bitches ain’t nothing but trouble! Dubaku leaves the safehouse with a gun minutes before Jack and Renee arrive, so he escapes their wrath. But a few things about Dubaku’s actions in this fifteen minute span make no sense, and that’s pointed out to him while he goes about doing them anyways:
1) Why kill the sister? She JUST told you if you break up with Marika, she’ll never bring it up again.Follow-up, why kill the sister right now? Now is kind of an important time of day for you, if you hadn’t noticed. There are big things going on. If nothing else, tell her sure, we’ll break up, and take of that business tomorrow, man.
2) Why kill the FG? As his own henchman points out, kill the FG and we’ve got nothing to hold over the President. Which…is completely true. Then you’re just an illegal alien with big dreams, deep pockets and nothing to show for it.

It’s possible he’s not going off to kill the sister, but it sure looks like it, and I’m sure wondering what new crisis will take the place of this one which took the place of the CIP device plot. These have been some action-packed and really good hours the last few weeks, though, so I’m happy right now! And we’ve still got some moles to route out of the woodwork, though, so there is that. But if the rest of the day is just some probing of personel, I’m going to get bored real quick. “Are you now, or have you ever been…”

Heroes, 3×15: “Trust and Blood”

First things first, welcome to the new digs! I hope to have a long and fruitful stay here at wordpress, and Jump the Snark.

But down to business. The second installment in Volume 4 “Fugitives” drives the idea of the heroes being fugitives through our skulls with a sharp pointy stake in the form of Peter’s overdone speech at the end of the episode. You know, just in case we hadn’t been paying attention to the commercials and previews and interviews and pretty much every damn thing there is out there about this show since halfway through Volume 3.

Right off the bat, I didn’t like the framing of this episode with Nathan’s phone call to an “unknown” person. Anyone surprised that it was his mom, …well, actually, you may be the target audience if you actually didn’t see that coming. His half of the conversation was incredibly contrived and told us nothing we didn’t know, or couldn’t have learned just by watching what happened. In fact, it took away from the drama in places where it should’ve been awesome and amazing! But in any case, he’s chatting away on the phone and being all ‘uh, my life is hard now that I’ve betrayed all my friends, uh’, so let’s get to the more interesting stuff.

Plane crashes, the main cast survives. Shocker–actually, it is, because they landed on land. This ain’t no Hudson River touchdown, people. I’m torn as to whether I should be irked they didn’t actually show us the crash, or if I should be glad since we should all face it, no one’s going to outdo Lost as far as dramatic plane crashes on TV go for a generation here! On this show, better off with the latter. Maybe they’re learning! Weirdly, it’s daylight in very short order and Clare’s stubby legs haven’t gotten her very far away from the crash site, unlike Mohinder, Matt and Hiro who booked it out of there while the getting was good and the light was low. Conveniently they found an empty redneck home that had clothing on the lines that fit both Hiro and Mohinder, while white-eyed Matt was satisfied with breaking and entering and stealing their redneck child’s very nice watercolor set. No really, why won’t this show just drop the Paint the Future thing already? Seriously people!

We get some shots of Hiro on an Indian vacation, or the set of Raiders of the Lost Ark, one of the two, Mohinder or Peter yelling (I honestly wasn’t entirely sure who it was), Daphne getting shot in the shoulder, and another image that I didn’t quite catch. Later on Hiro jumps to the conclusion that this means he must get his powers back. Um, why? India exists in the here and now, too, dude. if you want your powers back, just say it, no one here will judge you for it. I mean, let’s have a look at your current allies: Matt, who’s gained a new power for no reason as well as having expanded on his existing ones last year, Peter who went nuts collecting them and then lost them all and then got version 2.0 of his own power back, Mohinder who…you know, I don’t have enough time in the day for this. Speaking of wishy-washy, Mohinder seems to think Hiro doesn’t owe his friends anything because he doesn’t have powers anymore. Good to know everything we hate about you is true, MohinderFly!

While this team-up is okay but kind of lame, we get a taste of something awesome: Ando and Daphne teaming up! I love that he still calls her nemesis, it’s funny and kind of cute even, and I’m kind of amused that it just goes without saying Daphne’s fast enough to run on water. I guess when you can travel through time, water’s no big. She hooks up with him in Tokyo, they head on down to Arkansas (GPS, FTW!), and…well, why beat around the bush. In a hugely STUPID move, they riddle Daphne with bulletholes and kill her off.

Dammit Heroes! WTF? Let’s get something straight: you need to stop killing the interesting characters!!! Daphne was fun and quirky and had weird hair I could never figure out, she almost made Parkman interesting even, and then you go and kill her! For what? That’s right, no reason! Yet Ali Larter is not only still here, she’s got round three already lined up even when Tracy finally bites it! Ugh! Then, just when it might get interesting and Parkman could go all Dark Willow, DENIED. Instead we get Nathan narrating how Parkman was awesome and made the soldiers shoot one another, which totally kills the action in the scene. It should’ve been dark and thrilling, and instead it was ‘mommy, then the mean hero made my paid-for-friends kill each other!’ UGH. Shut up, Nathan. No one likes a whiner, as you should know, considering who your brother is.

Long story short, the team is back together, oh yeah Claire was here and indignant and surprise, HRG is doing what he’s doing to keep her safe. Again. Can we give her another storyline already? And lines that don’t require righteous indignance so I can figure whether or not this girl can act or not?

Save the best for last, right? Sylar is totally evil again and it’s frakking awesome! He takes an innocent mom and her son hostage to torture in front of the agent he started torturing last week. Damn. That’s Jack Bauer levels of cold right there. We soon enough find out, though, that Luke, the teenaged son, has the power of acting like a microwave. I was gonna say nuking, but then I remembered poor Nuclear Ted. Different power! So he can melt plastic, boil and explode coffee right out of Sylar’s smirking evil hands, and most intriguing of all, he (not entirely on purpose, granted) boils the agent’s blood in his body and kills him. Holy crap! I want the Sylar hour all the time! Zachary Quinto is just about the only person who can act left on this show (RIP, Elle), and he’s frakking amazing. He makes any scene interesting and makes me not even care if what he’s doing doesn’t make sense. So Sylar and Angry Young Skywalker take off together after Sylar twists everything around to show Luke that they’re so very much alike and decides he wants a padawan all his own. Luke apparently knows where Sylar’s real dad is, so, road trip!

An okay episode. I was okay with most of this one, aside from killig Daphne, letting Tracy continue to live, and the overdone speechifying by Peter. Oh right, and Claire’s texting with “Rebel”, who left his caps lack on…if that’s West, I just may be done with this show for real.

Line of the night:
“I didn’t kill you, and that’s kind of a big deal for me.” – Sylar to Luke