open your eyes

By now you’ve most likely heard or read the complaints regarding Heroes this season. I had to avoid them because until this past weekend, I had not watched a single episode this season. But a mini-marathon fixed that and got me caught up through episode six and then I looked around the web to find other opinions before writing my own. No doubt I should have written mine first and then read Entertainment Weekly to prevent them from influencing me. Turns out EW thinks just like me, but writes a whole lot better and you can read their in season review here.

An excerpt:

Which is a good phrase to describe Heroes itself. With its larger mythology shunted to the side (no, a mysterious recurring symbol doth not a uniting backstory make), Heroes feels less like Heroes than a horrid combination of T.J. Hooker and Charlie’s Angels: Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia) commits holdups in Ireland; another extraneous new hero, New Orleanian Monica (The Nine’s Dana Davis) is roundhouse-kicking robbers; serial-killing Sylar (Zachary Quinto) has gone fugitive with the weeping twins. What happened to…saving the planet? Like the endangered Earth that’s oft alluded to, Heroes is degrading at a remarkable pace: The dialogue has gone from comic-book cool to Dick-and-Jane obvious, the stylistic angles have turned flat, entire scenes are devoted to Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) and Parkman (Greg Grunberg) bickering around their shared apartment like maiden aunts. It’s a sad day for superheroes when you find yourself actually rooting for the end of the world. C-

A few of my thoughts:
- Peter is a terrible character. For the writers to create a character thats more or less Superman was incredibly shortsighted. Getting him in any sort of trouble requires bending the rules of logic and more cliche’s than I care to watch. I mean, if Peter wants the box with his life story in it, he can get it. He doesn’t have to hold up a bank to get it. If the writers (when they get back from their vacation) know whats good for them, they’ll depower him and then we can all return to stories with fewer holes.

- Wonderless Twins? Yuk! I cannot for the life of me think of a pair of new characters that could have been any worse!

- They can barely show us all the returning regulars so why do we need so many new characters?

- Too many recycled powers. Please be more imaginative. Crying black goo doesn’t count as imaginative. Thats just stupid.

- Too many scenes and mini stories feel like repeats of last season. In many ways it does feel like the characters were reset to their starting positions in season 1.

- The creators of Heroes have no idea how to make premieres and finales. I still haven’t seen a Heroes premiere or finale that felt big, action packed, with a big payoff or a big setup.

- And lastly, Heroes has no big grand plot. It just feels like a bunch of separate stories with no connection. (Edit: Just watched episode 7 and they are starting to pull things together. Peculiar that it took 7 weeks for a plot to form.)

What a depressingly sucky new tv season. None of the new shows on my watch list have become something I have to watch and some of them are sinking down into unwatchable territory. I’ve been trying Chuck, Journeyman, Reaper, Bionic Woman, and Kid Nation and usually at this point in the season at least one would be cancelled, and I would have given up on at least one but this time none of them have risen above the rest, making it hard to figure out which one to cut.

Chuck is awful. Thats what I thought after episode one. After episode two it become Chuck sucks. Then Chuck is a tiny bit amusing after seeing ep 3. Too bad I’ve only had time for three episodes or Chuck might have been chucked by now.

Journeyman has something going on that might become interesting but the producers seem intent on keeping it buried until the viewers quit on it. Right now I’d say it has very little purpose. Our hero just bounces around through time and saves someone each week but it all feels meaningless. There’s very little to tie the season together into a greater story.

Reaper - Reaper is great! Wonderful casting, perfect pilot, and solid episodes thereafter. Ray Wise is awesome as the Devil and Tyler Labine is the perfect wisecracking slacker buddy. Only problem is this is not the type of tv show I like to watch. Comedy/Devil/Underworld combos are just not my thing but its still the best new show I’ve seen this season.

Bionic Woman - Ugh. UGH! This was my most anticipated show and so far (4 eps?) I think its a huge letdown. Michelle Ryan is miscast in the titular role and she has weak dialogue to work with making the show hard to watch. Oh, did I mention that most of the action scenes (already too few) are so fake looking? The bionic woman with the crazies is a lot more interesting. If they hired me to fix the show I’d bring in new writers, team up Jamie and Sarah, kill Jaime, and then Sarah would become the main character who is more good than she is now but still has the crazies sometimes. I’d watch that.

Kid Nation - Not much to say about this. Its Survivor with kids and I don’t like Survivor so its pretty clear that I’m not liking this one much. But the preview for the next episode I haven’t seen is about elections and that looks amusing so Kid Nation continues on my DVR.

I hope the networks start cancelling some of these shows because I can’t figure out what to do with them.

Heavenly Sword is a mythical tale of revenge in which the heroine Nariko must weild a sword that will kill her in order to protect her people and save her family. After having just finished playing through Heavenly Sword for Playstation 3 I only have one thing to say: WOW! I have never seen presentation and production values in a video game at this high of a level in all my years of gaming. Off the top of my head, only Hideo Kojima and his Metal Gear Solid series come close. The facial animation is the best ever, the voice acting is very good (some of the bosses are too eccentric for my tastes though), the musical score is breathtaking, and the acting is direct-to-dvd quality. I mean that in a good way. Oh, and the graphics are among the best you’ll find on a console this year.

The only thing holding this game back from instant classic status is, well, the gameplay mechanics. Not that there’s anything wrong with the gameplay but its not up to the level of everything else in the game. The fighting is fun and satisfying but definitely not groundbreaking. However, when fighting as the other playable character Kai, you get to guide her arrows in slow motion clear across the levels using motion control. Very fun and a good change of pace from the button mashing. If I could break the score into two parts I’d go with 8 for the gameplay, 10 for presentation/production values, and end up with something around a 9 overall. Now if only the game were more than eight hours long…

I had planned on getting reviews up about a week ago but I spent the first week of the tv season (last week of Sept) watching the entire season of The Black Donnellys with my wife.  Now you guys already know my feelings on TBD but my wife snickered when I told her many months ago that TBD was my #1 show last season and I’d rather it come back than Heroes.  Now her tune has changed and she says Heroes was nothing compared to The Black Donnellys.  Vindication!

Hopefully those reviews will start appearing this week.

New shows on The Watch List

Reaper - [Comedy][Anticipation Level 6] Sam’s parents sold his soul to the Devil and now he must do the Devil’s work by capturing souls who have escaped from the underworld. Normally that description wouldn’t make me interested at all but this one has a few things going for it. Ray Wise looks like he’s got the Devil role down perfectly and from the trailers I can’t imagine someone else in this part - I guess Elizabeth Hurley was booked. Reaper is being described as part comedy, drama, horror, and action, making it somewhat unique on TV.

Bionic Woman - [Drama][Anticipation Level 9] Theres less cheese and more drama in this new version of Bionic Woman then in the old 70s version. Executive producer Glen Morgan describes it like this, “It’s a science-fiction story about someone who became half robot when they didn’t want to be.” I think I’ll go check all the boxes in my Watch List requirements section then sit back and enjoy. I hope this one’s good.

Spoiler warning - this preview gives away quite a few plot points in the pilot

Kid Nation - [reality][anticipation level 3] - Basically survivor in New Mexico with kids age 8-15. The first episode didn’t really grab me and I wasn’t too high on this to start with.

30 Rock - Not a new show but new to me since I never saw an episode last year. Lots of good press and tons of awards have raised my interest level from non-existant to lukewarm. I’ll watch the season 2 opener and decide after that.

The fall season’s rookie class seems weaker than the last few years with only a handful of new shows worth watching. Perhaps this is a good thing since there was too much to watch last year. Of course that was quickly remedied when 75% of the new shows were yanked off the air within 3 months of their pilot. Criteria to make it on The Watch List: 1. No half hour comedies. Those typically bore me to tears. Good for when you’re making dinner or something and dont want to be distracted by anything good. 2. No soaps. Unless its the one that the wife wanted to watch and now I watch it more than her. 3. Action is good. Weird is sort of good. SciFi is real good. Different is very good. 4. No cop/law shows, or CSI and its spinoffs. Unless its good, but thats rare.

The new shows on The Watch List:
Chuck - [Comedy/Action][Anticipation level 9] I’ve read “Alias meets 40 Year Old Virgin” in multiple places and it really does seem to fit. Chuck is a Geek Squad type employee who accidently gains access to all our government’s secrets and is paired with the tv-typical secret agent hottie who kicks all sorts of ass eight days a week. Plus its got Adam Baldwin who was great in Day Break.

Journeyman - [Drama][Anticipation level 4] This one could be really good or really bad but its going to take a few episodes to figure that out. Its got the nice post Heroes time slot so that should give it an audience and buy it some time to keep that audience. Journeyman is about a guy who seems to randomly travel through time to when a past girlfriend was alive and he intends to fix things this time. I have to admit the preview is a little confusing.

Before I get into my run down of what I’m watching this fall, here’s a list of what I was watching last fall. It looks like a lot but I didnt watch many of the new shows very long and thanks to having a DVR, each hour long episode is reduced to 42 minutes.

These was my list of new shows to definitely watch:
Heroes - The only new show that is back for a second season.

Vanished/Kidnapped - Had planned to watch one but not both. Vanished sucked, and both were cancelled quickly.

Smith - Awesome pilot, somewhat lackluster next 2-3 eps, then disappeared. Had high hopes for this one since it had Ray Liotta.

The Unit - Tried it, didnt like the family stuff but really liked the actual combat. Couldnt get into it due to the family stuff.

The Nine - Actually watched this one until it was yanked from the schedule. Had tons of hype but didn’t appear to have any desire to move the plot forward more than a couple steps per episode which made it hard to watch. Had the problem of characters knowing infinitely more than the viewers. Very Lost-ish in those aspects but a lot worse.

Jericho - Tried it, didnt like Little House on the Nuclear Wasteland type stories. Just awful so I gave up. Props to the fans for getting a partial second season after it was cancelled.

New shows that I was going to watch if I had time:
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - Some impressive dialogue but overall boring. Actually surprised no one watched it, didnt expect cancellation.

Justice - This one was very good and I hate lawyer shows (but love a good Denny Crane scene). Unfortunately didnt make it past midseason aftering being yanked around on Fox’s schedule.

Survivor - Not a new show but I never watched much before. And I didn’t watch this one either.

Returning shows:
Desperate Housewives
Amazing Race
Prison Break
Lost
Nip/Tuck

1a. Mass Effect [Xbox 360] - I sort of feel like saying go play Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire and then you’ll know why this game is anticipated so greatly. Those two games are very high on my list of favorite games of all time and I expect Mass Effect to be every bit as good and deliver some extra wow due to being on the Xbox 360.

I’ll try to explain. KOTOR and JE are epic RPGs - well maybe JE isn’t quite long enough to be epic but it was perfect in my opinion. In traditional RPG fashion, you start off weak and confused about your past and future. Over the course of the game you become more powerful, learn more about your past, figure out where your future lies, and basically kick a whole lot of ass on your way to becoming the most kickass ass kicker around.

But Bioware also adds top notch storytelling, excellent graphics, good dialogue (maybe great for a game), and an overall fun experience. I feel what pushes KOTOR and JE, and hopefully Mass Effect, into the greatness category is the story. Simply put, those games could be tweaked into movies and I’d gladly pay to see them. Jade Empire’s music was stuck in my head for days after finishing it.

Mass Effect is a shooter/rpg hybrid and while I’m not crazy about that combo, Bioware’s track record of excellence has me trusting them completely. A must buy.

1b. The Orange Box [PC] - There can only be one except in the case of not being able to decide and therefore making two games #1. If you never played Half Life 2, go stand in line for this release now! The Orange Box includes Half Life 2, Episode One, Episode Two, Portal, and the most important part of the new stuff, Team Fortress 2. I believe Counter Strike Source is a free download for HL2 owners so toss that in the list also.

Team Fortress 2 has been in various stages of development since 1999. The one set for release next month is at least the third design as the other two were scrapped before release. I have to admit that I was super excited about the 1999 TF2 version but this one looks to be the true successor to Team Fortress Classic with its cartoon look and whimsical attitude. TF2 is all about class based warfare, sort of like rock, paper, scissors where each class has advantages and disadvantages thus forcing a team to be balanced.

If you play one online first person shooter this year, it needs to be Team Fortress 2.

And you get all that other stuff with it too.

Before the top two, here are the games that didnt quite make the cut.

Honorable Mention:

Guitar Hero 3/Rock Band - At $100 and $200 respectively, these games are just too pricey to earn top 10 status in my book. But they sure do look like fun don’t they?

Bioshock - Very good reviews so far but the demo didn’t blow me away.

Halo 3 - I gave into the pressure. Nothing about the Halo franchise excites me but there has to be something good for all those gamers to be this excited about. Right?

Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

Games bumped to next year that might have been top 10 material:

Grand Theft Auto 4 - Would have been #1. Just killed me when I found out about the delay.

Mercenaries 2
Splinter Cell Conviction