K-Squared Ramblings

Sylar Industries

Up in Napa, we found this sign at the entrance to Syar Industries.

Being Heroes fans, we couldn’t resist. Not only was the name just one letter off of the show’s popular villain, but the elongated S in the logo was just begging for a trio of crosspieces to turn it into the helix symbol that appears everywhere in the show. A bit of photo-manipulation later:

TV of the Future

TV Guide has a list of when TV shows are coming back now that the writers’ strike is over. (via ***Dave)

So, what’s happening to the shows we watch?

Battlestar Galactica

Returns April 4 with first half of 20-episode final season. Production on second half could start as early as March. Airdate for those TBD.

Seeing as how we don’t currently get the Sci-Fi Channel (we discovered BSG through DVDs), this means it’s time to figure out whether to mess with cable/satellite, watch it at someone else’s place, or hope that they’ll continue offering episodes online through iTunes or something.

Heroes

No new episodes expected until fall.

Pretty much expected that, given the way they were talking at the end of the “fall season.”

Journeyman

No new episodes expected. Ever.

And I continue my history of discovering interesting TV shows after they’ve already been canceled. (Actually, I have an even longer history of this with comic books. The first comic I ever bought, back in 1984, was issue #19 of Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew, which lasted 20 issues.)

Lost

Six pre-strike episodes remain. Expected to shoot five additional episodes to air in April/May.

TV Guide interviewed Carlton Cuse on this recently (via aeryncrichton). They’d already shot 8 episodes of the 16-episode season, and plan to condense the second half of the season into 5—presumably because that’s how many they can actually finish during this production season.

This could actually work out well for them. One of the reasons season 4 of Babylon 5 was so good (aside from paying off on 4 years of setup) was that JMS shifted up his timetable so that he could wrap up the foreground plotlines by the end of the season he knew he had, instead of ending with a cliffhanger and hoping he could wrap them up in the first third of a season 5 that looked increasingly unlikely. The result was an extremely intense season that is widely regarded as the best year of the show.

And let’s be honest, Lost hasn’t exactly been known for compressed storytelling.

On the other hand, there’s the last few episodes of Angel to consider as a counter-example.

Pushing Daisies

No new episodes until fall.

On the plus side, this means it’s actually been renewed! This had “Too good to last” written all over it!

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Four pre-strike episodes remain. Future beyond that TBD.

I’m honestly not sure how I feel about this one. I enjoy it while I’m watching it, and it’s much, much better than Terminator 3, but I don’t find myself looking forward to it between episodes. Even if it does have Summer Glau beating people up.

Those Glowing Red Eyes

So, how appropriate is it that Lee Thompson Young, who played Cyborg on Smallville, would show up in an episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles?

(Not, as far as we can tell, as a cyborg this time.)

Prim(a)tech Sighting

In honor of the Heroes DVD release, here’s a truck that’s almost, but not quite labeled for Primatech Paper:

Interestingly, it’s been a month for timing pop culture releases with relevant astronomical events. First Stardust, all about catching a falling star, arrived in theaters the same weekend as the Perseids meteor shower. Today, the Heroes Season 1 DVD arrives on the same day as a total eclipse (albeit a lunar one, rather than solar).

Veronica Mars: Tales from the Future

As Veronica Mars approached the end of its third season, the show prepared for two possible futures. They could pick up a fourth season where they left off, with Veronica still in college, or they could jump forward a few years to the start of her career as an FBI agent. They even prepared a trailer demonstrating the possible new direction.

Well, the CW decided to pass on both possibilities and canceled the show. Some good news, though: TV Shows On DVD is reporting that the Season 3 DVD set will include the trailer for the FBI revamp. At least we’ll have a chance to see what could have been.

Lost finale

That makes two very good season finales this week. Lost was more plot-focused, while Heroes was more character-focused.

And we learned some very interesting things about the fate of the islanders.

Spoilers follow. Read the rest of this entry »

Thoughts on Heroes: “How to Stop an Exploding Man”

The Heroes season finale was excellent. They did a good job of resolving the main story arc established at the beginning of the season (the bomb threatening New York City), balanced action and characterization, answered some questions while still leaving things open—and set up a really interesting situation for season 2.

It’s also nice to see that they’re keeping the weekly online comics going between seasons—and that they mentioned it during the broadcast. I think that’s a good move for keeping fan interest going until fall. I’m still hoping they’ll collect them in print, though. They could probably put everything concurrent with season 1 into a ~200-page trade paperback and sell it in bookstores. It would be a great companion item to go with the DVD set.

Now for more detailed thoughts on the episode. Spoilers follow: Read the rest of this entry »

Mohindiana

Ever notice the similarities between Mohinder Suresh on Heroes and Indiana Jones?

No, seriously. His first arc is straight out of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Both are teaching professors (Mohinder: biology; Indy: archaeology)

Their fathers are both academicians as well (Dr. Chandra Suresh: biology; Dr. Henry Jones, Sr.: medieval studies).

Both are estranged from their fathers, in part due to the death of a female relative (Indy’s mother, Mohinder’s sister) and in part due to the fathers’ obsessions with their own personal quests (Suresh: evolved humans; Jones: the Holy Grail).

Nonetheless, each pursued his father half-way across the world when that quest got him into trouble.

They both found their fathers’ notes, which had been missed when their homes were ransacked.

Each encountered a female associate of his father, close to his own age, who later turned out to be a spy. Moreover, both women’s first names were four letters long and started with an E (Dr. Elsa Schneider, Eden McCain).

Each shares his name with a family pet. (Indiana Jones took his nickname from the dog. The elder Dr. Suresh named a lizard after his son.)

Lost renewed (and thoughts on TV season structure)

Here’s a surprise: Lost has been renewed for a three-season deal… but each season is only 16 episodes long. The writers are glad that they have an endpoint, because now they know how long they have to tell the rest of the story they have in mind. (Call me credulous, but I’m inclined to believe that they do have at least some of their plans worked out ahead of time.)

Though I have to say, I hope they’ve checked their contract for loopholes. Farscape thought they had a two-season deal, so they took their characters and story to some really dark places in Season 4, figuring they had another year to dig them out. Instead they got canceled, and it took a fan campaign and the sale of the Jim Henson company to get even a four-hour miniseries to wrap things up.

As for the structure, this is actually probably better than two 24-episode seasons. It makes it easier to show an entire season through without interruptions. This season’s schedule, with just 6 episodes at the beginning followed by months of reruns, was terrible. Of course, once they came back from hiatus, it was much better than the sporadic episodes they showed in Season 2.

Arc vs. Scheduling

This brings up a problem with trying to run a TV series with an arc to it: Scheduling can seriously mess it up.

Babylon 5 suffered from PTEN’s decision to hold the last four episodes of each season until fall, followed immediately by the following season. It undermined the season-ending cliffhangers, and broke the narrative in the middle. Eventually they started anticipating it: JMS would write a mini-cliffhanger five episodes before the end of the season, and in one case even wrote a recap into the script for episode 19.

Veronica Mars and Heroes have done a good job this year of breaking the season into mini-arcs that match the schedule. Veronica Mars had a 9-part mystery, followed by a 6-part mystery, followed by a series of one-shots at the end of the season, and each arc was shown without interruption.

Heroes told the initial “Save the Cheerleader, Save the World” storyline, followed it up with some backstory, and finished the first run with a teaser for the main arc for the rest of the season. (Heroeswiki breaks it down further, by tagline.) The second arc deepened the plot, and brought everything to a high point: the revelation of Linderman’s and Bennett’s agendas, plus cliffhangers in Hiro’s and Peter’s journeys. Now we’re in the home stretch. As the tagline says, “It’s time to save the world.”

That seems to be the way to go: If you don’t have the clout to change the schedule (like 24), find some way to work within it. Plowing straight through without regard to when the episodes are going to be shown, like Lost did with Season 2, is just going to frustrate your audience.

(Thanks to aeryncrichton for the news!)

Lost on Avenue Q

So, did anyone else have the song “Mix Tape” pop into their heads in connection with tonight’s Lost?

Incidentally, on the question that so vexed Hurley and Charlie—namely, who would win in a race, the Flash or Superman… it’s the Flash. That’s not just a fan reaction, I have documented evidence.

Locke’s Office?

Here’s one for the Lost fans out there: a box company in Tustin, California!

Okay, actually, they’re a moving company, but check out this sign:

This is in a business/light industrial area on Walnut Ave.

The Secret Life of the Invulnerable Cheerleader

I was browsing the DVD releases at Target this weekend, and saw the box for Bring it On: All or Nothing. I did a double-take, because right there on the cover was Claire Bennet from Heroes:

Yes, shortly before Hayden Panettiere played a cheerleader with super-powers on Heroes, she played a cheerleader in a direct-to-video sequel to Bring it On. The uniform is even the same color scheme!

She’s probably safe from being typecast, though. She’s done quite a bit of work, and something tells me Claire isn’t going to be cheering—or particularly cheerful, for that matter—anytime soon.

Edit: Forgot to mention, the Heroes Wiki is a fascinating and addictive site.

Smallville Flash

With Bart Allen returning to Smallville tonight—alongside Cyborg, Green Arrow, and Aquaman—I find myself wondering about the best way to hang onto just a few episodes. Last night I went looking for my tape of “Run,” the first episode in which he appeared, and I couldn’t find it.

I have no interest in buying full seasons of Smallville, but I’d like to have copies of the two episodes with Bart (partly for character research, partly for completism). Warner Bros. has no reason to release individual episode DVDs, but downloadable episodes (as in iTunes) might be an option.

Another possibility: themed collections. There have been enough episodes guest-starring other DC heroes that WB could do something similar to Buffy’s Slayer Collection, or The Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror” set. A single disc featuring, let’s say, the Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman episodes (Green Arrow might need his own disc), followed by tonight’s big team-up, “Justice.”

Hey, I’d buy it.

Hey, Kids!

Start your own cable company like Jack and Jill* did!

This showed up in our latest cable bill. Time Warner is taking over from Comcast, and while their “Hello, my name is ____” campaign makes sense in a sort of cutesy way, I can’t figure out the logic of this one.

Though I imagine many people would agree that their cable company acts like it was run by eight-year-olds.

*I was trying to think of something to name the kids. My first thought was something like Wakko and Dot, but it didn’t fit the tone. Then I thought of Jack Warner, and Jill was obvious.

Flash DVD Out!

I picked up the complete Flash TV series on DVD today. It’s been a long wait since it was announced last October, but an even longer wait since the show aired in 1990. I haven’t had time to watch any of it yet, but it turns out that Best Buy is selling an exclusive package with a bundled comic book.

That “exclusive” comic book isn’t anything totally new—it’s an abridged version of 2002’s DC First: Superman/The Flash featuring the first race between Superman and the original Flash, Jay Garrick. The original book is 38 pages, and it’s been cut down to 24 by removing a subplot involving the Pied Piper (which was essentially really early setup for “Rogue War”) and trimming a few pages from the main story in which two Flashes and Superman combat Abra Kadabra.

The funny thing is that the TV show features Barry Allen (more or less), but the comic they chose features the other two Flashes!* If it had been up to me, I would have chosen the Flash TV Special, which used the TV version of the characters, but I guess they wanted something closer to the current version of the character. The whole thing is printed small enough to fit inside the box.

Now if only they’d included the Smallville episode, “Run”, which guest-starred another version of the Flash, the set would really be complete. One of the Smallville DVD sets did include an episode of The Flash as an extra, for no apparent reason.

*There’ve been three Flashes: Jay Garrick from 1940-1951, Barry Allen from 1956-1986, and Wally West from 1986-2006. Rumor has it that Wally will be replaced after Infinite Crisis, with Barry’s grandson Bart Allen—who got to be the Flash in Smallville—the current front runner.