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Television

Fall Sci-fi review ’09

I usually put up my thoughts of the new sci-fi season a little earlier than this, but life has been busy and so I have been neglecting my blogal duties. This reprieve has given me ample time to watch the various science fiction television series that have come out this fall though to give it an honest review, not just of one episode of each series, but on most of them I have seen a few.

First off, one my favorite sci-fi series over the last few years has been Heroes. Everyone knows the plight of Heroes by now I am sure. The show had a spectacular first season and ever since then it has been downhill. Book two was horrendous, book three wasn’t much better, but then book four finally started to get decent. It was curious to me, and likely others, how they would do starting into their forth season, and fifth book.

So far, I must say that I am liking it. I really do feel like they have returned to the common everyday issues of real people, just mixed in with super powers. I really felt this is what made the first season so great and that this is also where they lost their way. Now, Hiro is coping with a brain tumor that is interfering with his powers, Claire is dealing with college and being Claire Bennett again, Noah is coping with life after divorce, Peter is trying to live life a little more normally while trying to save people one person at a time, and Nathan is coping with being Sylar (and now visa versa). The only story line I don’t really care for is Parkman dealing with Sylar in his brain and honestly I really wish they’d be done with Sylar already. I also really love the addition of the circus family, they are all very interesting with cool powers and I like the idea of a family to offset the Petrelli family, a circus seems appropriate and needed in a comic book world. I think that so far season four is the best one [amazonify]B000QDLSR0::text::::since the first[/amazonify], though not as good as the first obviously.

Then we move onto Dollhouse. I was really jazzed going into season two of Dollhouse. The first season started slow but the last four or five episodes were stellar and then when I heard they were picking it up for a second season I got excited. However, they first started airing it with no fanfare or commercials so who even knew that it was on. And then when I finally started watching it, it was back to the awfulness of the beginning of the first season. The last episode with the serial killer was clever but it wasn’t to the caliber of the end of last season still. It thus far has been more than a little disappointing.

There were also a couple of Lost clones, both weirdly coming from ABC. Defying Gravity was a summer series that was actually pretty good, I think the show could have stood up without the Lost aspects, but even with them it still was decent. The acting is great, the writing is great, the story is great, too bad about the lost parts, but oh well it is still good. It has already been canceled, but it is definitely worth a look on Hulu.

The other Lost-like show is Flash Forward which they debuted the first 17 minutes on Hulu about a week before it aired. That first 17 minutes made the show look great and I eagerly watched it. The idea behind the show is the “what if” of everyone being able to see a little chunk of their future. Because of this, what kind of happens is instead of looking behind like Lost did, it has the characters constantly looking forward instead. Get it Flash Forward instead of Flash Back? Clever eh? Nah, it turns out to be a fairly poor excuse for television and not really worth watching. It’s too bad really.

Finally, there is Stargate Universe, which as I stated previously in a blog entry is just a splendid science fiction show all the way around. As of now, it has had four full episodes and I would rate it as the best sci-fi currently on television. It really does have a feel of the original Battlestar Gallactica, it is somber, a struggle, and yet full of hope and humor that the new BSG severely lacked. I am glad to see it on TV and look forward to where the show goes from here.

Looking forward, the remaining bit of sci fi that I think we have coming up still is Chuck and Day One, both on NBC. Chuck I am sure will continue to impress and I have high hopes on the post-apocalyptic Day One (at least hopes that it will be better than Jericho).