Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Heroes and Castle and House: Oh My!

Everybody knows that Wednesday is the new Monday, right? Here we go...

Heroes: Despite the sinking feeling I have throughout every episode (or maybe that's just the vacuum cause by their ratings), I still dug a couple things about "Acceptance". Masi Oka, who deserves better, capped off a giant turd of a storyline with a couple of really nice moments at the end of the episode. Now maybe if they'd spent a little more time letting him act instead of putting him through the Groundhog Day of copy machine sabotage, they'd be able to string together a consistent episode once in a while. Oh, and his sister is wicked hot.

No Parkman to go with no Mohinder! Oh Heroes, you're spoiling me.

Triple Fake Nathan manifests another of Sylar's stolen powers, accessing Nathan's memories through his psycho...eh, who cares what it's called, it's probably ripped off from a Grant Morrison X-Men comic. Anyway, Nathan pulled a Teddy Kennedy-lite back in his youth, and Mom Petrelli covered it up. Sylathan's conscience drives him to confess his crime, which would be an interesting character development in a better show, but for Heroes is probably just another stop on the Plot Tram. The dead girl's mom hires an assassin to off Nathan, who gets buried in a shallow grave for about 20 minutes, then Sylar's eyebrows dig him out. The whole "Sylar emerging from the ground" was pretty cool, mostly because it means Zachary Quinto is back. No, I don't count any scene with Parkman.

Claire and HRG were on screen, and I'm sure said words and performed actions, but Claire is screen death for me at this point, so the less said about her, the better.


Castle wasn't as sharp as usual, but the overblown Fashion Week storyline drove most of the visuals, to the detriment of the story. The performances were fun to watch, as always, and there were a couple of nice scenes between Castle and his mother, a dynamic that usually gets lost in the shuffle. This is the first episode that I'd give a B to, if I graded these things. I expect it to jump back to A material next week, just because I do.


House, on the other hand, knocked it out of the freaking park! James Earl Jones, the return of the original team, House's shenanigans with the downstairs neighbor, Chase's actions at the end...just wow. I hope they don't drag the fallout from this out for the whole season, but this is the meat of a good 4-5 episode arc if they play it right. A lot of different views were explored without any one thing being crammed down our throats, which is the biggest surprise of the episode. House's efforts to change as a person are really well done, and Hugh Laurie needs a boatload of Emmy's. Well, he doesn't need them, but he should get them, dammit. Just when you think the character had hit the wall creatively, they turn on a dime and create a whole new set of things to explore. House has worked its way into my regular rotation starting next week. I may need to touch myself now.

3 comments:

  1. I always need to do that after watching House.

    ...probably TMI... hmm...

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  2. Something that I find really interesting and disturbing, re: Heroes.

    Sylar, with Nathan's memories, is a much more moral person than Nathan ever was.

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  3. Yes, Beth...or is it NEI?

    In a better show, I'd think that a hot Nathan injection would add another dimension to Sylar, making him far and away the best character on the show. In the real world, we're three episodes away from going right back to One liner-Bloody forehead line-Ticking noise again.

    I have other theories, but they are wasted on a show that can't manage anything more complicated than two episodes of temporary character development, followed by a poop joke.

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