Axiom's Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

By John J. Joex

(THESE REVIEWS CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Heroes (“A Clear and Present Danger”) – So Volume 4 of Heroes has finally arrived and everybody wants to know: does it suck?  Well, I’m here to tell you that the first episode definitely looks promising.  No time travel, no apocalyptic end-of-the-world visions, and nobody died only to come back to by episode’s end.  Instead, as Tim Kring promised, this episode delivered a return to the basics as the heroes are now on the run from a task force set up by Nathan Petrelli, now a Senator, to detain all people with abilities.  Three characters, Nathan, HRG, and Sylar, have all reset to the sinister nature that we saw in the first season while the other principals look like they will become a dissident group fighting against Nathan’s subjugations.  Yeah, we’ve already seen much of this in the X-Men movies and comics and other places as well, but Heroes looks to give its own spin on the concept and I like what I see so far.   (Vote on whether you think Heroes Volume 4 will suck.)

Fringe (“The No-Brainer”) – So basically, this one confirmed all my worst fears from the previous week.  To start out with, in this episode we get a well tread story about a vengeful person who misuses technology to get back at those who have hurt him (by way of Videdrome and Max Headroom’s “Blipverts”).  The story alone I could have tolerated and written off as just a filler episode (the episode title says it all).  But then we have the Sanford Harris character doing nothing more than butting in at every turn, dragging the story down with him.  Then to top (bottom) that off, just as I predicted, the superfluous cute kid introduced previously gets quickly thrown into the expected and horribly contrived child-in-jeopardy situation.  This episode was poor from start to finish, and I will be hard-pressed to keep this one as appointment television through the rest of the season.

Lost (“Jughead”) – Continues to play up the time travel elements with this episode focusing almost exclusively on the group on the island who are apparently on a temporal slide.  They’re doing a good job with the concept so far, so I will continue to give them the benefit of the doubt.  But this time travel stuff just makes me nervous.

Life on Mars (“Take a Look at the Lawmen”) – And speaking of time travel, Life on Mars returned from its hiatus in the Lost lead-out slot and pretty much held up to the quality it showed during the first half of the season.  This episode delivered a minor Sopranos reunion of sorts as Vincent Curatola (Johnny Sack from that series) shared screen-time with Michael Imperioli playing a foil to the 144th Precinct.  The episode was good, but I have to admit that I find the show’s combination of drama with its odd sense of humor and mocking of seventies cop shows a bit off-putting at times.  And the fact that it is raising more questions than it is answering doesn’t bode well considering that its ratings slide indicate that it may not live beyond the current season.

The Eleventh Hour (“Eternal”) – Decided to check in on this one and found the most recent episode decent enough.  However, I have no idea why they feel a need to out-gore Fringe (liquefied brains vs. two hearts and open chest cavities).  A little bit less of the grisly stuff and a little bit more story would be nice.  Still, it seems like this one is playing up more of the speculative fiction side which is nice, though I don’t know why they felt it necessary to throw in an irrelevant care chase scene.  And I could do without the pontificating as well.

Battlestar Galactica (“The Oath”) – Now the fleet has descended into an all-out civil war with Gaeta taking control of the Galactica and the liberated Tom Zarek seizing control of the government.  You knew this series wouldn’t go out with a whimper and it is definitely setting up a potentially apocalyptic standoff.  But why have they dropped the whole issue of Cylons on Earth?  How did they get there?  Was Earth an entire race of Cylons?  Shouldn’t they be trying to get some answers on that?

Supernatural (“After School Special”) – This episode employs the well-worn flashback device to give us a look at Sam and Dean’s life growing up and how their constant relocations with their father affected them.  It was a good episode and played off the idea of revisiting old haunting grounds (pun unintended but accepted).  Some may argue that over the past three episode the series has strayed from the task at hand (you know, saving the universe and stuff), but I have really enjoyed them.  They have presented a nice change of pace while also presenting significant moments of growth and revelation for the show’s two principals.

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