31 March 2011

The Watcher: 03/25/11 - 03/31/11


BEING HUMAN S01E11 - "Going Dutch" (28 March 2011) - A terrific episode full of drama, beheadings, a pregnancy, betrayals, and an exorcism! C'mon, how can that not be great? First off, I gotta mention how absolutely terrific it was to watch Sally in a really compelling situation this time around, and to see her physical weakening and transformation as the exorcist was nearly clawing her out of the house - damn, that was chilling, mesmerizing, and simply spectacular. And Aidan had quite a lot on his plate as well, juggling playing nice with the vampire Elders, humoring Bishop, interacting with Rebecca, and in the end, betraying Bishop, running for his life, and then (gasp) killing Rebecca! Gotta admit, I feel bad for the guy. Rebecca was just recently growing on me, and I would have liked to see her arc continued; seems rather anticlimatic, frankly, but still spectacular, mind you. And then we have Josh finding out the extremely hot doctor Nora's eggo is preggo, and holy potatoes, that's a lot of stuff happening in one ep (well, it's nearly the finale so the wheels need to start being turned). I'm actually quite happy with this pregnancy development, and I am excited to see where this goes. At the very least, it ties Nora and Josh together, and they make a cute albeit unlikely couple. Again, great episode! Grade: 10/10


FRINGE S03E18 - "Bloodlines" (25 March 2011) - Now that's what I call a friggin' great episode, especially the last fifteen minutes when Olivia (Alternate Olivia) gets away from her captors and delivers the baby! I'm not usually a sucker for baby-delivery scenes, but this one tugged at my robotic heart just a little. And then the reveal that Walternate was behind the whole deal, accelerating Olivia's pregnancy - um, wowness! I'm simply curious if he accelerated in hopes for having Olivia survive her fatal disease that would have killed her had she delivered on the normal timeframe, or to serve some alternate, evil purpose. And here I thought he was turning out to be such a nice bloke. Now Olivia is a mother, far, far sooner than she anticipated; can't wait to see how she handles this and takes this new responsibility. And also Lincoln and Charlie know something is up with the Secretary of Defense, that he's been hiding valuable information for months. Will their allegiance to their universe falter and end up joining forces with the Other Side? "Bloodlines" was terrific, full of drama and surprises, and it will absolutely suck to have to wait for another three weeks for a new episode. Bloody, bloody hell. Grade: 9.5/10











S02E08 - "The Spoil" (30 March 2011) - Not a bad episode at all. Plenty to cover: the scene at the church (?) where Carol was giving her address and Mags interrupts and gives her own monologue, casting the folks of Harlan County under her spell, reminded me of the great days of THE SHIELD. Chilling, electrifying, and mesmerizing in her performance, Mags Bennett genuinely freaked me out. Boyd and Raylan are on the same side of the fight once again, and although I understand where his animosity is coming from, I'm getting a little tired of Raylan constantly belittling Boyd and reminding him of his past deeds. I know, I get it, let's move on. I dug the extremely hot Carol hitting on Raylan, I dug that for the first time all season nearly all the principle characters were in the same room at the same time, I dug watching Raylan getting the shit beat out of him by Coover [I hope Raylan pays him back], Ava shooting Coover's pig (?) Charlie, and I dug how events are now in motion and the plot is moving forward to whatever finale they have in plan. Oh, and before I go, good news: Justified has been officially renewed for a season three! Rejoice, folks! Raylan Gives will be shooting first and asking questions later fora third year. The world is kind to us. Grade: 9.4/10


STARGATE UNIVERSE S02E14 - "Hope" (28 March 2011) - Holy crap, ladies and gentlemen, we have a fantastic episode on our hands. The trademark humor of the Stargate franchise resurfaced, with plenty of hilarious bits that left me laughing (I will never forget the iPod fiasco), as well as genuine tension and drama in basically everything else. And best of all, I think we can say this is the first true episode of SG-U that is focused entirely on character. There's no great peril that Destiny is heading towards here, there's nothing that's going to destroy the universe, it's a intimate story about these characters facing emotions and bodily limits. And also, for the very first time, I didn't mind Greer! That in on itself is remarkable. It was fantastic to finally see T.J. up and about and actually being central to the story somehow, and I hope to see her character evolve. That's the beauty of this episode: it's about the characters, man! Thank God, the writers did this - except too late, it is. Aside from T.J., Greer and the nerds, we have Rush and Eli being visited by the consciousness of Amanda Perry and Ginn, both who 'died' earlier this season, but their 'soul', for lack of a better term, shoots out of Chloe. Um, cool! I for one love Ginn, so it was great to see her back, and the relationship between her and Eli is sweet and awesome, so for him to have a chance with her again is just spectacular. And Amanda Perry has been saved, and Eli and Rush are going to find bodies for both of them...That's just sweet! However, I do wonder how they're going to go about doing that, the whole getting bodies thing. Whatever, I'm intrigued. Great episode. Grade: 10/10

3 comments:

Rachel said...

I loved this episode of Being Human too. Lots to take in, but what a ride!

Sally being exorcised was amazing. I was just as skeptical as she was in the beginning and thought maybe it would turn out to be more comical as she taunted Danny, Bridget and the exorcist. Then she couldn't pass the salt line and I was like "Shit's about to get real."

Andrew Simon said...

Rachel - Hell yes! I'm quite glad it didn't go the comical route, and I'm actually quite surprised at how far they took it. Of course I didn't expect Sally to be completely exorcised, but when she disappeared right before an act break, I did think, "Did they actually do it? Did they write her off or send her to some Hell dimension? Wow." But alas, she was back and GRUDGE-y like. Can't wait to see her character evolve more!

Colin Biggs said...

When everything blows up on Justified I will be absolutely glued to the screen.