The Weeksly Late Edition – 28/09/07

Good Evening Ladies & Gentlemen, it’s been far too long between “Weeksly Late Editions”, but I thought this week, I would kick off discussing mainly the beginning of a new TV season, followed up by this weeks edition of the Mailbag – so lets get started:

OK, so the way this is gonna work is me giving you my thoughts on some of the bigger premieres that have happened, and a few little tidbits here and there, starting of with –

“Prison Break” – otherwise known around Weeksy’s house as, “the one that they were supposed to do in the second season”. It’s true, they might deny it, they probably won’t care, but the first two episodes back are near identical to a studio outline that I read for season two, way back when the first season was just about to finish. In this outline – and I’m going purely on memory here – the Abruzzi character, about to go over the wall in S1, turns to Michael and lets him know that if he wants to ever see Dr. Sarah alive again, he has to stay behind, and find a certain someone that has been hiding within the prison walls – and he only has a week to do it (I just hope they’ve changed the ending – it was horrible, and would kill any chance of another season)….. I don’t know, sounds pretty similar to me – but I guess they wanted to get Wentworth out in the sun for at least one season in between stints in the joint.

By the way, can I just once again say how absolutely horrible “Bionic Woman” is? I watched the pilot a while ago, and having now seen the reworked version, let me tell you – the editing didn’t help it. Honestly, I could just give less of a shit about each and every character on it, with the sole exception being Katee Sackhoff, who actually does a great job in it – I just think it would have been so much better if she was the titular character, and they get rid of all the other junk. I’m gonna stick by my original prediction that this is getting cancelled early – I’ll bet the ratings next week are more than halved what they picked up on opening night.

Having only just gotten into watching HBO’s “Rome” very recently, I didn’t really know anything about Kevin McKidd before I watched “Journeyman” – and I was both surprised & slightly disappointed. I’m not one of those guys that nitpicks on Time Travel and all the things that couldn’t happen, wouldn’t be able to occur – any of that shit – let’s remember what we are debating is the concept of TIME TRAVEL. But I have to admit – McKidd is great in it, but I fear this is going to very quickly become “Quantum Leap” – and the problem with that is….. well, we’ve already had “Quantum Leap”. I would stick to the “Frequency” type vibe that I started to get near the end of the first episode (digging up the back porch to find the old buried deal), and it could be a show that I really get into.

“Chuck” I loved from start to finish. I thought it was funny, I thought it was paced well – I just liked it all. The funniest thing I read online about “Chuck” was on a message board, which was posted at 2:30am by “WoWKing90”, and here’s the unedited cut & paste for you – “it was allright, but thaty blonde chick was fuckin ugly. She ha d bad skin and way too much makeup. I woldn’t touch her if you paid me” – now, a quick look at this gentleman’s profile clarifies that his full name is indeed “World of Warcraft King”, and that having been born late in 1990, this 17 year old lad is apparently a young Brad Pitt that has picked up tail in his life such as I have never seen. That is unless he happens to be either A). Fulfilling his monarchal duties in the “World of Warcraft”, or, B). Posting online to message boards at 2:30am. – Just for the record, even though I have not seen the Blonde lady in question close up – she’s smokin’ hot and whatever I would do to her would last all of 5 seconds.

As with last season, I’ve become fascinated with “Beauty & The Geek” – I have no idea why – I mean, it’s not exactly hard on the eyes to watch the “Beauties”, and the “Geeks” are all pretty funny in their own right – unfortunately, a buddy of mine who works for the CW sent me an e-mail pretty much telling me who won this season of it, and I’m desperately hoping it’s not true after watching the first two episodes, but it’s those friggin’ season previews that they do at the end of every opening episode sucker me right in. Four seasons later, and I still can’t believe that Ashton Kutcher is an Exec. Producer on such a sweet show.

While trolling the CW – I also was thoroughly entertained by “Reaper”, especially due to the presence of Leland Palmer himself, Ray Wise as the Devil. I feel bad for anyone that has never watched “Twin Peaks” back in its heyday, because you can’t begin to realize how perfect the casting is there. In the same e-mail spoiling “Beauty” for me however, I also read that Ray may not be a regular on the show as one would hope, but again – I’m praying that isn’t true either.

And finally for the CW, one that I only just happened to watch out of sheer boredom was “Gossip Girl”. I never got into “Veronica Mars”, so I don’t ride along with all that Kristen Bell nonsense of – “She’s only narrating it – she should be back in front of the camera!”. I actually enjoyed “Gossip Girl” – along with “Chuck”, I think Josh Schwartz has done well for himself this season. There’s no doubt that “Gossip” is the snooty New York cousin of “The O.C.”, but I’m getting a distinct “Cruel Intentions” vibe from this one, and that’s a good thing in my book.

Speaking of Kristin Bell, I’m assuming everyone is well aware of her having a recurring role on “Heroes” this season, starting in episode 5 (coincidentally the same episode that introduces the badder-than-Sylar baddie for the season?). I’ve watched the season opener twice now – and…. I don’t know how I feel about it. Even with the (supposed) death of one of my favorites (being a Howard Stern fan, you’ll know who I mean), I’m definitely not feeling the Jack Sparrow-ified David Anders as Kensei in it – and I thought he was great in “Alias” during his run. That aside, I like the implications of power with the little South American border jumpers – that was a creepy looking scene in the truck – and of course, right at the end we find out the fate of one of our faves, along with the introduction of yet another Hero – more on that in next weeks episode, but if you think about it long enough, and remember the casting breakdowns, you’ll pick who it is.

“Dirty Sexy Money” – one of those shows that has been hyped endlessly on the likes of Perez Hilton, E!, E.T. etc. Watched it – was bored out of my skull by it. Blah, blah, blah.

Anyhow, there’s a bunch of other shows that I’ve been watching, “K-Ville”, “Life”, “Kid Nation” – I’ll talk more about those next time – but just a quick shout-out to two friends of Moviehole, Stephen Tobolowsky, a terrific character actor who’s picked up a recurring gig on “Heroes” as a man with the Midas touch apparently & also to Adam Scott who is getting rave reviews on the new HBO drama, “Tell Me You Love Me” – congratulations guys, you deserve it.