PUSHING DAISIES
Season 1 Episode 9
“Corpsicle”
Written by Lisa Joy
Directed by Brian Dannelly
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

After an opening sequence where we witness the day of Chuck’s da’s death (during which time Ned’s mum also died, twice), we discover that after Ned’s blurting of the awful truth last episode (like “word vomit,” as he puts it later on to Emerson), Chuck disappears.
As it turns out, she’s hiding out at Olive’s, and she’s so despondent that she feels the need to tell someone about her dark secret, even if that someone won’t believe her.
So she tells Olive.
And Olive doesn’t believe her.

Later on though, Chuck finds out that Oscar Vibenius is still intrigued by her unique smell, which he’s discovered is the same smell he picks up from Digby. (Oscar’s actually shaved off some fur from Digby’s bum to confirm his suspicions; poor Digby!)
Still needing to confide in someone who isn’t Ned, Chuck eventually gives Oscar some of her hair, so he can uncover the truth she’s been keeping to herself.
Eventually though, Oscar returns her hair, wanting Chuck to tell him the truth herself. By that time though, Chuck feels she can safely see Ned already without hating him, so she takes back her hair, and tells Oscar, You should’ve checked out the hair when you had the chance.

Ned and Chuck finally reunite at her da’s grave, where she actually asks Ned to bring back her father, if only for a minute, but Ned refuses, telling her, I can’t bring your father back, then kill him again. I couldn’t do that to you…
It’s a great, sad scene, as Ned wants to comfort her by embracing her, but of course, he can’t…

Meanwhile, since Chuck isn’t spending time at the Pie Hole, she asks Olive to bake a pie for her aunts, and gives her the happy juice she doses her pies with. (Olive is her unsuspecting homeopathic drug mule…)
Thinking it’s vanilla and taking a taste of it but not finding it particularly strong, Olive decides to use the entire bottle.
Later on, Lily eats the whole pie, and in her drugged-out, blissful state, she blurts out to Olive that she is, in fact, Chuck’s mum! (Which is where the episode ends…)

The whodunit portion of the finale involves the murders of Uber-Life Life Insurance adjustors. Notable bits in this subplot include a Blood Simple reference, Bobo the banobo, and Emerson admitting that he has a daughter (which surprises us all, including Ned).

Thus do we close what Bryan Fuller has come to think of as the show’s “teaser season.” Now, due to the strike—and the subsequent time afforded to Fuller to re-think the narrative thus far—the reveal of Lily being Chuck’s mum (a plot development which was originally meant to be resolved mid-season), will apparently “inform much of [Pushing Daisies’] next season’s direction.”
At the Paley Fest ’08, Fuller also confirmed that Chuck will find out who her real mother is next season: "It's going to be interesting to see how she reacts to that information, and how the Pie Maker tries to control her trajectory and how that will complicate their relationship. There are going to be some nice surprises."
Fuller also said that the interruption caused by the WGA strike, "… gave us a chance to look back at the nine episodes and [figure out] what was working and what was not working. The arc of the first nine was a soft, romantic arc. In the second season, we want to do something a little harder and a little more aggressive in the style of storytelling. We learned a lot of lessons."

If you’ve been following these recaps, you’ll know that I love me my Pushing Daisies, and I do think it’s the best new show that emerged from the past strike-truncated season. (Chuck’s a close second.)
I’m looking forward to fall, when Daisies returns, and hopefully, between then and now, people who haven’t tasted of its bittersweet humour and whimsical visuals can catch up on the web. (Or, the Season 1 DVD set, which hits stores in early September.)

Parting shot: At the Paley Fest, Fuller fielded a question regarding the chances Ned and Chuck have of conceiving a child: "I think her egg would die when his sperm hit it."
He also confirmed that Ned is a vegetarian, because if he ever ate meat and it made contact with his insides, the meat would come back to life “and crawl out of him.”

(Image courtesy of pushing-daisies.com.)

HEROES
Season 2
Volume Two: Generations
Chapter Eleven: “Powerless”
Written by Jeph Loeb
Directed by Allan Arkush
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

So this is a far more effective volume ender than last season’s Kirby Plaza showdown, but that’s getting ahead of myself…

Let’s kick off with Peter and Hiro’s face off, as they argue back and forth about whether Kensei/Adam is a goodie or a baddie, till Peter zaps Hiro unconscious.
K/A then takes his sword back…

But first…
Micah finally gets home to Niki but needs to rush back out again to save Monica. Of course, Niki being virused and all, doesn’t have her super strength at the moment, so Micah ropes her in to drive. (Though can’t he just “tell” a car to drive him wherever he wants to go?)
Using his cell phone to locate Monica’s cell, Micah and Niki track Monica down to the shop that the hoods who’ve taken her have been hired to torch. (Thus, St. Joan is about to be burned at the stake in New Orleans…)
They get there just in time for Niki to pistol whip the fleeing hood, and rush into the burning store to save Monica.
But Niki’s powerless at the moment, and though Monica gets out, the shop explodes, apparently taking Niki with it…

Back at the Company, Bob is ticked off with Elle and blames her for Claire’s decision to go whistle blower on their a$$. Bob suspends her from any more field duty, so Little Miss Sociopath turns to Mr. B in his cell.
I was never really a Veronica Mars fan, but the scene between Kristen Bell and Jack Coleman, particularly the beginning of it, with Bell’s fidgety eyes following the ball, is great.
Elle asks Mr. B to tell her what Bob did to her when she was just a little girl, and he begins to, but Bob arrives and tells Mr. B that the Company will have to do something to stop Claire from going public…

… which she’s busy preparing for, putting together all the files Mr. B amassed regarding the dastardly deeds of Bob et al.
Mrs. B tries to convince her otherwise, but Claire has her mind set. Even West tries to tell her he prefers his secrets rather than this going public deal. So Claire gives Flyboy his file, and the break up is official.
It looks like Claire’s got something new to cry about, when who should walk through the door but… Mr. B!
With the Bennets alternately relieved and confused, Mr. B drops the bomb. Claire’s plan to expose the Company’s misdeeds is “unacceptable.”
Instead, he’s made a deal: his family gets to live a quiet, normal life (the only thing he’s ever really wanted for them), and he comes back into the Company’s arms.
Mr. B doesn’t stick around for any discussion. He steps out the door, and tells Bob, “It’s done.”

And even as Mr. B leaves home, the man who shot him dead, Mo, arrives home, to find Maya cooking breakfast and Sylar powerless.
(So I’m wearing the dunce cap this time out, as I really thought Sylar was temporarily powerless due to the trauma his body underwent from the Kirby Plaza wounds. I should have suspected that the Company had actually injected him with the virus. With that turn of events though, why didn’t they just kill him when they had the chance, given how dangerous he’s proven to be… I mean, if he’s gonna die from the virus anyway, right? And actually, while on that train of thought, they should have just killed Kensei/Adam too. Just taken his blood and killed him a long time ago…)
Okay, sorry for the cold blooded digression. I should just take Bob’s job and be done with it.

Back in Mo’s apartment, it becomes all too clear to Maya that Sylar is not the Gabriel she fell for. And, having seen Mo’s data on his laptop, Sylar sees that the cure for the Shanti virus lies in Claire’s blood, and that in theory, this should give him back his powers.
So it’s off to the lab!
At the lab (which of course used to be Isaac’s loft, where Sylar ate poor Isaac’s brain), Mo discovers that Sylar’s been injected with the strain that’s killing poor Niki, and Molly helps Maya “find” Alejandro, only to realize that he’s no longer anywhere to be found, and that Sylar killed poor Alejandro.
So Maya’s about to get all black teary-eyed when Sylar shoots her. Then, before he gets injected himself, Sylar wants to see the vaccine in action, so he has Mo inject Maya first, and Claire’s blood heals her and brings her back to life, just as it did Mr. B.
Sylar takes that as his cue to scamper off with the other vial, even as Elle arrives and starts zapping.
(Elle, by the way, was snooping around Bob’s office, to find the files on her… gone. She then checks the surveillance monitors, to see Sylar terrorizing Mo. So off she goes to make Daddy proud.)
Sadly—and how many times must this happen?—Sylar escapes. With the vial meant for Niki.
Sigh.

Meanwhile, Parkman reports to Granny P and Nathan that Victoria Pratt is dead. (So that’s where Parkman was, while Molly was left alone to be used as a bargaining chip by Sylar… Bad Parkman!)
Nathan tells Granny P that Peter’s still alive, and that he’s apparently in cahoots with Kensei/Adam, as their fingerprints were all over the crime scene. Granny P tells them that they’re after the virus and that it’s in Odessa.
She also says that she actually helped K/A once (did she sleep with him too?), but stopped before it was too late, when she realized that K/A was mad, mad, mad. (And she wasn’t for wanting to blow New York up. Hmmm…)
Before they go, Granny P shoots off a thought in Parkman’s direction: if you can’t stop Peter, you may have to kill him. Bullet in the head. Only way to be sure. (Go, Granny P!!!)

Amusingly, we see the tail end of Nathan and Parkman’s flight to Odessa, as they land, and vow never to talk about what went on, ever again. Parkman also tells Nathan what Granny P “thought” him earlier, about just maybe needing to off Peter if he should prove a stubborn handful. Nathan says, “… nothing good ever came from listening to my mother,” and “… leave my brother to me.”
Conveniently, they touch down at Primatech just in time to be met at the door by Hiro. The three then rush in to find Peter having already TK’d the vault door open. Hiro tries to stop K/A, but Peter TK’s him, slams him to the wall, and looks about to telekinetically throttle him, when Parkman arrives and does the Jedi mind trick: K/A is using you, go deal with him.
But Peter fights back with his mind, and is quite literally sweeping the floor with Parkman’s a$$ when Nathan arrives and the brothers stand face to face. Nathan (bless his soul) talks reason to Peter, asking him, “Can you really trust K/A?”

While all that psychodrama’s going on, Hiro steals into the vault and has his own face to face with K/A. Heartfelt and bitter words are exchanged, and Hiro ‘ports them both away.* But even as he does so, K/A drops the vial containing the virus (which he was holding behind his back).
Luckily, Peter arrives in time to telekinetically catch it before it hits the floor. He then incinerates it between his palms, using Ted’s nuclear power.
Standing in a vault containing a whole lot of other mysterious items, the current generation realizes they’ve had enough of cleaning up their parents’ messes. Nathan decisively announces that he’s going public, about everything (ironically, what he once argued with Simone would be the wrong thing to do). He even tells Parkman to make sure people listen to what he has to say.
Of course, a hidden surveillance camera catches this pivotal announcement…

… and at the press conference, I get the sense of what’s about to happen as Nathan gets into a weepy speech, accompanied by shots of episodes past.
Just as he’s about to say, “I can fly,” he’s shot.
In the panic, we see someone walk away, though said someone is too far away to identify. (Parkman though should have been able to catch the killer’s thoughts, right?)

Granny P then gets a call on her cell, and she replies, “It was inevitable.”
She then says, “You do realize you’ve opened Pandora’s box, don’t you?”
End of Volume Two.

We then get a tease for Volume Three, entitled “Villains.”
Sylar injects himself in some back alley, like a heroin junkie.
First, his wounds heal, then, he uses his TK to pull an empty tin of spinach across the alley into his hand.
The big, bad brain eater’s back…

* We see later on that Hiro actually ‘ported Kensei/Adam into a coffin, buried in the same cemetery Papa Sulu’s grave is found. Once again, these people leave a dangerous fellow alive…
Will they ever learn?

Parting shot: So that’s it for this volume, and as fallout courtesy of the WGA strike, that’s it for the season too; Volume Three will be with us in the fall.
I’ll be back soon with the first installment of something I’ve decided to call In-Between Seasons, where I’ll give my assessment of a TV show’s recently completed season (including my thoughts on the finale), and give my two cents on where we should go from here…

(Behind the scenes images courtesy of gregbeeman.blogspot.com.)

JUNO
(Review)

Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) is pregnant by her track nerd best friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). Certain she can’t possibly be mature enough to raise a child, she scours the Penny Saver for some “Desperately Seeking Spawn” ads, and finds apparently picture perfect couple Mark and Vanessa Loring (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner) to be the adoptive parents.
The rest is all gestation, hormones, and the vagaries of the human heart.

Jason Reitman’s follow-up to Thank You For Smoking, Juno, displays a snarkily sensitive charm thanks in large part to an Oscar-nominated script by Diablo Cody. Informing the film with a likewise Oscar-nominated turn, Page’s on-point performance has also helped Juno take the Little Movie That Could road previously traveled by Little Miss Sunshine, a road that’s taken it all the way to Oscar Night.
Aside from Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay nominations, the film also got nods for Best Director and Best Picture.
At the time of this review’s writing, it’s also grossed more than $100 million at the US box office, thus turning out to be, much like its title character, a charming anomaly. Little indie movies like this don’t normally gross in the nine figure range. But Juno’s found its audience, and for small movies like this, that’s always a good thing.

As much as Ellen Page takes center stage here (and has got the Oscar nomination to prove it), the rest of Juno’s cast is likewise fantastic, made up of comic gems like Arrested Development’s Bateman and Cera, and Spider-Man‘s J.K. Simmons and The West Wing‘s Allison Janney, who play Mac and Bren, Juno’s father and stepmother. Even Garner—as the woman who has everything she could want, except the possibility of ever being a biological mother—is good here, and I’m not normally a big Garner fan.
Naturally, it helps when the script actually provides the cast with interesting characters to portray. It’s refreshing when a film about a teen-ager doesn’t depict its adult characters (particularly the teen-ager’s parents) as well-meaning, bumbling idiots. Mac and Bren are the sort of parents you’d want to have in your corner, if you ever found yourself in a tight spot: capable, no-nonsense, and funny.
The prospective adoptive couple are likewise not your cookie cutter rich fat cats hungry for a cute little bundle of joy, though they may first appear to be.
And then there’s Juno…

Apparently, Juno has struck a major chord with the American youth. As the film has achieved the movie Nirvana of mainstream crossover success (even its soundtrack has sold remarkably well), it’s turned out that Juno is the sort of teen-aged girl a lot of teen-aged girls wish they could be.
Juno isn’t the kind of teen-ager other young actresses get to play on the big screen. You won’t find Juno in a Lindsey Lohan or Amanda Bynes movie. Think the confidence and self-assurance of Julia Stiles in 10 Things I Hate About You and the alterna-geekiness of Thora Birch in Ghost World, and you’d get a very rough idea of Juno.
Diablo Cody has inadvertently created a surprising role model for young girls, and Reitman found just the right Juno in Page. Film geeks will know her from David Slade’s Hard Candy. Mainstream movie-going audiences will know her as Kitty Pride/Shadowcat from Brett Ratner’s X-Men: The Last Stand. From this point on though, Juno will be the character she’ll be remembered for for the foreseeable future.

Now, when I say that Juno’s become a role model for the youth, I certainly don’t mean 16-year-olds who get to see Juno will suddenly want to get knocked up. I’m saying that in Juno, teen-aged girls can see that if they do end up in a hairy situation (like, though not limited to, pregnancy), that, given a certain level of maturity and a great support system, they can come out the other side of a potentially life-altering turn of events, their sanity and snark intact.

Admittedly though, Juno is, like the Lorings, not exactly picture perfect.
The first scene where we see Juno interact with someone (The Office’s Rainn Wilson) comes off as a tad clunky, with dialogue that feels slightly contrived. But thankfully, things smoothen out as we progress into the film.
Then there’s also the narrative’s approach to the pregnancy itself. There’s a brief flirtation with the reality of abortion, and a cursory reference to it during Juno’s conversation with her parents about her condition, then she’s decided on her course of action, and that’s it. The story’s pretty much locked in on that, and Juno never seems to acknowledge the possibility of how she’ll feel once the child is born, that there will be no succumbing to some inherent maternal instinct that will kick in once her water breaks.
Somehow, this scenario doesn’t quite play out the way the situation would probably unfold in real life. Given the perennially hot-button seriousness of what this film is about, the slightly fanciful approach to the subject matter may strike some as being inappropriate.
Granted, there are some bumps on this road, but by and large, the world Juno lives in seems a whole lot less messy than real life, and the character seems a whole lot more certain than all us normal folk.
Which is probably why she’s become such a role model. So I guess in the end that’s probably a good thing.
(And if it makes any sort of difference, I have less issues with Juno than I did with Little Miss Sunshine.)

Ultimately, Juno is one of those great little indies that has a prickly sense of humour, encased around a heart and soul that’s all warm and toasty.
It’s fun, it’s smart, and hey, it’s crashed the Oscar party.
Now if only the strike would end, so there will be a party for Juno to crash…*

* This review was written before February 12, when the WGA announced that they were ending the strike; see Afterthoughts (51).

Parting shot: Diablo Cody was honoured with the WGA Best Original Screenplay Award, coming out on top of a category that included Tony Gilroy’s Michael Clayton, Tamara Jenkins’ The Savages, Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up, and Nancy Oliver’s Lars and the Real Girl.
Check out Afterthoughts (48) in the Archive for the other wins that made me go “Woot!”

Parting shot 2: Jason Reitman again teams-up with Diablo Cody (this time as producer) for the next movie to be made from a screenplay written by her. Jennifer’s Body (which found a spot for itself on the Black List 2007), has been described by Reitman as “what if Juno was possessed and started eating her classmates,” or something to that effect.
Last I heard, Transformers hottie Megan Gale was playing Jennifer.

(Juno OS courtesy of impawards.com; Ellen Page EW cover courtesy of ew.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (51)

51.1 THUS ENDETH THE STRIKE
So the count last Tuesday night: 3,492 to 283, in favour of ending the strike during the ratification process.
It’s officially over and the writers can get back to work Wednesday. Some, in fact (like the writers for the upcoming Oscar night) were already in the thick of things late Tuesday night.
Now, as the two week ratification of the proposed three-year deal takes place (votes for that to be tallied on February 26), Hollywood gets back into the swing of things, which leads us rather neatly to…

51.2 REVVING THE POST-STRIKE ENGINE (1)
LOST
Showrunner Carlton Cuse has already made the announcement that they’re aiming to come up with 5 post-strike episodes, so this season will end with 13 episodes.
Intending to wrap the season up at the same narrative point it was originally supposed to end at, there will be some storyline compression required. Hopefully, that won’t have an adverse effect on the story’s rhythm. And hopefully, writers, cast, and crew won’t run themselves ragged to get those episodes ready to keep the consecutive airing of Lost an on-going concern.
Cuse also indicated that the 3 AWOL episodes (since season 4 was meant to be comprised of 16 installments) will pop up somewhere down the road, so we’re still going to get the same number of Lost episodes we were meant to get, before the strike stepped on the brakes.
In an ABC press release, the network has also announced it’s picking up Lost for a fifth season, though I’m uncertain if that season kicks off this Fall, or will have a delayed start date, as per the current season.

PUSHING DAISIES
In the same ABC press release, Pushing Daisies was also announced as having been picked up for a second season.
Thus, there will be no more episodes beyond the 9 pre-strike installments for the current season.

CHUCK
NBC’s Chuck is also expected to return in the Fall, so the first season topped off at 13 pre-strike episodes.

HEROES
Meanwhile, Volume Two’s 11 episodes are pretty much Season 2.
Volume Three: “Villains” will presumably kick off Season 3 when Heroes returns in the Fall.
In preparation, Tim Kring is reportedly getting busy on a series Bible, an always indispensable tool for shows like Heroes.

So with the picket signs being put aside, I’ll be having irregular updates for any strike-affected projects that are on my radar (like the Justice League film) as reports and announcements are made.

Let’s all breathe a huge sigh of relief that it’s over, and that apparently, the writers got a deal they can call a triumph.
Admittedly, not the total victory they were first targetting (reality and animation writers—who have been likened to the sweatshop equivalents of the Hollywood writers world—are still not covered by the guild, one of the aims the WGA had hoped to achieve), but the strides forward in new media seem to be cause to cheer.

Now let’s all hope the upcoming SAG negotiations don’t run into any speed bumps…

(Images courtesy of variety.com [WGA strike is over]; impawards.com [Lost]; avclub.com [Pushing Daisies]; aintitcool.com [Chuck]; and yahoo.com [Heroes].)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (48)

48.1 WGA 2008 (2)
Just a few minutes before the start of the crucial WGA meeting last Saturday night to discuss the details of the tentative agreement that could put an end to the three-month long strike, this year’s recipients for the WGA awards were announced, and I’d just like to congratulate Joel and Ethan Coen, for winning Best Adapted Screenplay for No Country For Old Men, and Diablo Cody, for winning Best Original Screenplay, for Juno.
You can check out the complete list of winners here.

Now let’s all hope for the best with the on-going WGA ratification of the current on-the-table deal…

48.2 IN OTHER AWARDS NEWS…
… No Country For Old Men was also honoured at this year’s Producers Guild Awards. It’s now received awards from all four major guilds, SAG, DGA, WGA, and PGA.

Meanwhile, over in London, where the BAFTAs were handed out Sunday night (check out Afterthoughts (49) in the Archive), Guillermo Del Toro’s El Laberinto Del Fauno was honoured with this year’s BBC Four World Cinema Award, emerging at the top of a shortlist that included Turkey’s Iklimler (Climates), Germany’s Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others), Thailand’s Sang Sattawat (Syndromes and a Century), and the French-Italian co-production, La Science Des Reves (The Science of Sleep).

To all involved in both films, a hearty round of congratulations.

And on a BAFTA sidenote, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Das Leben der Anderen took home the Film Not in the English Language Award last Sunday, as it did the Best Foreign Language Oscar last year.

Parting shot: Reviews of El Laberinto Del Fauno, Juno and No Country For Old Men can be found in the Archive.

(All OS’s and Pan’s Labyrinth UK quad [design by All City] courtesy of impawards.com.)

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA:
RAZOR
(Review)

I’m honestly not sure if I’ve said this ‘round these parts before, but I honestly find it a strange and wonderful thing that the one television show I’m into at the moment that has the most relevance to the post-9/11 world I actually live in is the show that’s not even set on this planet, the show that takes place in the deeps of outer space, which boasts spaceships and killer robots.
I am, of course, talking about Ronald D. Moore’s redux of Battlestar Galactica, and with the fourth and final season on its way, Moore and company decided to produce the feature-length Razor, which was broadcast on the SciFi Channel, then subsequently released on DVD.

Kicking off with a montage of scenes from past BSG episodes which take us from the Galactica’s initial discovery of the ill-fated Battlestar Pegasus, on through the deaths of three of its skippers (Cain, Fisk, and Garner), till it gets Lee Adama at its helm, Razor quickly settles down to its narrative’s “present,” which sees Lee re-organizing the Pegasus under his command.
We then cut back and forth between that present, and Razor’s other main timeframe—ten months earlier, where we witness what Admiral Cain (a thoroughly magnetic Michelle Forbes) had only previously recounted in the BSG episode, “Pegasus”: how the Pegasus survived the initial Cylon surprise attack, and the events on-board in the aftermath of the attack. (There are also brief jaunts to two other timeframes—the first 41 years earlier, where we see the tail end of the Razor webisodes, as a young William Adama stumbles on a Cylon secret; the second depicting an event also mentioned in “Pegasus”—but for the most part, we shuttle back and forth across that 10-month divide.)
Serving as the narrative bridge between those timeframes is Kendra Shaw (Stephanie Chaves-Jacobsen, from TV’s Home and Away), who comes on board the Pegasus on the day of the attack, and through the catastrophic trial-by-fire, becomes a kind of protégé to Cain. Ten months later, she is chosen by Lee to be his X.O.
Given her function as the bridge, Shaw becomes Razor’s main focus, and the means by which the narrative explores its main themes: the difficult choices that are made in times of war, and whether the cold, inhuman mask worn by the military during wartime is indeed a necessary evil.

Despite the narrative focus on Shaw though, we do get to have the father and son Adamas, as well as some Starbuck, some Roslin, and very briefly, some Cylon Sharon.
Razor also gives us back some of Pegasus’ dearly departed, notably, Cylon Gina. One of Razor’s most provocative elements, in fact, revolves around the reason for Cain’s cold and brutal treatment of Gina (as seen in “Pegasus”).
We also get to see some old school toaster Cylons (yahoo!), and that tantalizing climactic reveal regarding Starbuck and her so-called “destiny.” (Of course, admittedly, the source is suspect; this wouldn’t be the first time a Cylon distorted the truth—or outright lied—to confuse and mislead. Still, the claim must give one pause, considering Season 3’s finale shows us Starbuck telling Lee she knows where Earth is, and she can lead the fleet there…)

Now if all this is a bit heady for the uninitiated, yes, Razor may very well be a load of gobbledygook for anyone who’s never seen a BSG episode before. But take my word for it, the show is most definitely about something. This is science fiction with substance, timely and mature, which is a whole lot more than can be said for your average Hollywood SF.
So if you haven’t yet been immersed in the world of BSG, the three previous seasons are all available on DVD, so get on out there, check them out, then catch Razor, so all the above will make sense.
And if you’re already strapped in for the BSG ride, then you know exactly what I mean, and you’ve probably already seen Razor.
And like me, you’re also probably chomping at the bit to see Season 4.
Well, not too long left to go.
Now if only the Lords of Kobol would see fit to have the WGA strike reach a quick and fair resolution, so we can all see those final 20 episodes sooner rather than later.
So say we all.

(Battlestar Galactica: Razor DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com; image courtesy of ew.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (45)
BETTER WATCH THAT SAG 2008 (2)

Just two questions before I get down to the congratulations.
One: where were the Stunt Ensemble awards? I mean, if you’re gonna establish a couple of brand new awards, you could at most, include it in the show, or at least, mention the winners in passing during the live telecast (like the Oscar sci-tech awards).
Two: where was Sarah Polley?

Okay, with that out of the way, congratulations to Javier Bardem and the cast of No Country For Old Men, for taking home the Actors for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role and Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
And though Daniel Day-Lewis walked off with the Male Actor in a Leading Role, I can almost forgive him for snatching the honour once again from good old Viggo, for his acceptance speech/tribute to actors who’ve inspired him, the late Heath Ledger in particular.
Congratulations must also go out to Julie Christie, who made reference in her acceptance speech to both the WGA strike, and the writer/director of Away From Her, the brilliant Sarah Polley. (Again, where was she?)
And of course, to the recipients of the Stunt Ensemble awards, The Bourne Ultimatum (for Motion Picture) and 24 (for Television Series).

A happy 75th to the Screen Actors Guild, and congratulations to all the nominees and winners. (You can check out a list of all the winners, err, I mean recipients, here.)

Parting shot: A review of No Country For Old Men can be found in the Archive.

(SAG crest courtesy of variety.com; No Country For Old Men OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (44)
HEY, IF IT ISN’T OSCAR! 2008 (2)

So after last night’s post, I searched for a complete complete Oscar nominations list, and was successful at both aintitcool.com and variety.com.
For the sake of completion, here’s a list of all the Oscar nominations I’m excited about this year…

Across The Universe:
Best Costume Design (Albert Wolsky)

Eastern Promises:
Best Actor (Viggo Mortensen)

No Country For Old Men:
Best Picture
Best Director (Joel & Ethan Coen)
Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem)
Best Adapted Screenplay (Joel & Ethan Coen)
Best Cinematography (Roger Deakins)
Best Film Editing (Joel &Ethan Coen)
Best Sound Editing (Skip Lievsay)
Best Sound Mixing (Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff, and Peter Kurland)

Once:
Best Song (“Falling Slowly”)

Transformers:
Best Sound Editing (Ethan Van der Ryn and Mike Hopkins)
Best Sound Mixing (Kevin O’Connell, Greg P. Russell, and Peter J. Devlin)
Best Visual Effects (Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Russell Earl, and John Frazier)

And the nominations from films I’ve mentioned here at the Iguana, but have yet to see are…

Away From Her:
Best Actress (Julie Christie)
Best Adapted Screenplay (Sarah Polley)

The Golden Compass:
Best Art Direction (Dennis Gassner, Art Direction; Anna Pinnock, Set Decoration)
Best Visual Effects (Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris, and Trevor Wood)

Juno:
Best Picture
Best Director (Jason Reitman)
Best Actress (Ellen Page)
Best Original Screenplay (Diablo Cody)

Lars and the Real Girl:
Best Original Screenplay (Nancy Oliver)

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street:
Best Actor (Johnny Depp)
Best Art Direction (Dante Ferretti, Art Direction; Francesca Lo Schiavo, Set Decoration)
Best Costume Design (Colleen Atwood)

I’m still bummed by Eastern Promises’ lack of Oscar presence, and concerned about the chances of “Falling Slowly,” though one must recall last year, when Dreamgirls had three songs up for the award, and Melissa Etheridge swooped in for the kill.
You never know, really.
Having mentioned “Falling Slowly,” though, here’s what Glen Hansard had to say about the nomination:

"It's insane. God, what a day it's been! I'd like to say I was out having a walk and wasn't bothered and took it all in stride but the truth is I didn't sleep last night and we just killed time until it came on TV, but then they only announced the major categories. We're in the Czech Republic so my friend in the States called me and we couldn't believe it. We were jumping up and down. It was hugely melodramatic and Irish. We cracked a bottle of champagne and got drunk before 3:00. It was only in the shower I realized what a riot this has been. We made the film in January 2006. We went to Sundance and won an award in January 2007 and now we have an Oscar nomination so I'm thinking January is my lucky month.”

Good on you, Glen!
Now if only the WGA strike gets resolved—fairly—within a month, so we can actually have an Oscar night, instead of an unattended event people won’t cross picket lines for…

Again, congratulations, one and all. (You can check out the now complete list here.)
Awards will be presented on February 24, 2008.

Parting shot: Reviews of Across The Universe, Eastern Promises, No Country For Old Men, Once, and Transformers can be found in the Archive.

(Oscar OS courtesy of hollywoodreporter.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (42)

42.1 WHO CRUSHED THE JUSTICE LEAGUE?!
So how all-mighty is the Writers Guild? They’ve already reduced the recently concluded Golden Globes night to a whimpering, awkward mess, and now, they’ve just whupped the collective a$$ of the world’s greatest superheroes.
Is that scarier than Darkseid, or what?

As of January 16, Wednesday, George Miller’s Justice League film adaptation is on “indefinite hold,” this confirmed by Warner Bros., and reported by Variety.
The studio has also allowed the options on the cast chosen by Miller to lapse, leaving them free to take on other projects, though the studio did inform the actors that they are “determined to make the film with them in it.”
To be completely fair though, aside from admitting that the present script could “benefit from a little more work” (impossible at the moment due to the WGA strike), there was also the matter of tax breaks, or some such financial gobbledygook, as the reasons for the project’s failure to be greenlit.

Of course, the Australian government has already made this subsequent statement: “We understand the postponement of filming is absolutely confined to creative issues and especially to delays in refining the script due to the writers’ strike,” this, from a spokeswoman for arts minister Peter Garrett. (Naturally, they’d say that. I mean, who wants to be keeping company with the likes of Lex Luthor and the Joker, right?)
This has shed some light on the whole “let’s film in Australia” deal, at any rate, as it seems like WB was going for some sort of Aussie quota, to get that 40% rebate. (And some people wondered why Australian model Megan Gale was in the mix…)

Whatever the case may be regarding all that money talk though, the production of the Justice League film could begin, at the earliest, in late summer or early fall (provided the WGA strike is resolved soon).
All of which leaves WB, for the time being, without a superhero tentpole for 2009 (one of the main reasons why they were so hot to get Justice League in gear in the first place).
There still hasn’t been any movement or official word regarding Bryan Singer’s next project following the Tom Cruise-starrer Valkyrie. It’s still unclear whether his next film will indeed be the previously reported The Mayor of Castro Street, as Gus Van Sant’s Milk (also about slain San Francisco mayor Harvey Milk) is supposedly still an active proposition. If Castro Street stalls, then Singer could get serious about The Man of Steel again.
But there’s a whole lotta “ifs” in there.

Which leaves me a sad little camper at the moment. If there wasn’t gonna be any Man of Steel in ’09, then I could at least have looked forward to Miller’s take on the League.
Right now though, things are so up in the air, it isn’t even funny.

42.2 BUT THEN AGAIN…
On the other side of the coin though, with NBC searching high and low for fresh programming in this lean, struck TV season, the network has indicated to the SciFi Channel to take the Battlestar Galactica prequel, Caprica, off the limbo shelf for a serious second look, to determine whether it should be greenlit for production.
After all, there is a complete script ready to go.
And we, of the BSG faithful, are keenly aware of the final 20 episodes before we will be forced to bid adieu to the crew of the Galactica, so maybe a little love in this lean, struck TV season could be a good thing, yes?

42.3 AND SPEAKING OF A LITTLE LOVE…
So word has come down the pike that the DGA and the AMPTP have signed on the dotted lines, which, hopefully, will encourage negotiations with the WGA to be rekindled.
Variety’s got extensive coverage of the DGA deal, and you can go here (“DGA makes big gains in new media”) for a lotta numbers and mathematical whatchamahoozies outlining the agreement, here (“Industry reacts to DGA deal”) for, well, industry reactions to the agreement, and here (“Showrunners showing enthusiasm”) for, uhhh, showrunners’ reactions to the deal.
In that article is the following passage:

“Meanwhile, should a deal [with the WGA] be hammered out within the next month, network and studio insiders have said that portions of this TV season—as well as pilot season—could still be salvaged.
“It would be on a case-by-case basis. Some series could power back up relatively quickly and churn out at least a few more episodes this year, if not an entire back nine order.”

So here’s hoping, right?
I mean, come on, the fate of the Justice League depends on it!

(JLA artwork by Ariel Olivetti, courtesy of upperdeck.com; Battlestar Galactica image courtesy of scifi.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (41)

41.1 WGA STRIKE
As we hit the midpoint of January, the WGA strike moves into its 11th week, and while talks haven’t yet been resumed since the December 7 collapse, there has been some headway in getting the Hollywood machine up and running again.
Following an interim agreement with Worldwide Pants (which allowed David Letterman to get back on the air with his writers in tow), similar deals have been struck with Tom Cruise’s United Artists, the Weinstein Co., Spyglass Entertainment, and Media Rights Capital.
What this means, of course, is that these companies can resume production and development of whatever projects they have on their slate, getting a jump on the majors who are still mired in the backwash of the WGA strike.
It isn’t the all-encompassing resolution that will end the strike, but it is movement that will hopefully spark a full-fledged return to the bargaining table.
You can read the full Variety story (“WGA pacts with Spyglass, MRC”) here, which partially details the terms of the interim agreement.

41.2 WHAT THE BAFTA?! 2008 (2)
And here are the nominations from the final BAFTA 2008 ballot that have got me excited.

Control:
Best British Film (Orian Williams/Todd Eckert/Anton Corbijn/Matt Greenhalgh)
The Carl Foreman Award [for Special Achievement by a British Director, Writer or Producer in their First Feature Film] (Matt Greenhalgh, Writer)
Supporting Actress (Samantha Morton)

Eastern Promises:
Best British Film (Paul Webster/Robert Lantos/David Cronenberg/Steve Knight)
Leading Actor (Viggo Mortensen)

No Country For Old Men:
Film
Director (Joel Coen/Ethan Coen)
Adapted Screenplay (Joel Coen/Ethan Coen)
Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem)
Supporting Actor (Tommy Lee Jones)
Supporting Actress (Kelly Macdonald)
Cinematography (Roger Deakins)
Editing (Roderick Jaynes)
Sound (Peter Kurland/Skip Lievsay/Craig Berkey/Greg Orloff)

This Is England:
Best British Film (Mark Herbert/Shane Meadows)
Original Screenplay (Shane Meadows)

Control’s Sam Riley was also nominated for The Orange Rising Star Award, which is voted for by the public. Riley is up against Disturbia and Transformers star Shia LaBeouf, Juno’s Ellen Page, and Stardust’s Sienna Miller for the award.

Other nominations for films I’ve mentioned ‘round these parts before, though have yet to see are:

Away From Her:
Leading Actress (Julie Christie)

The Golden Compass:
Special Visual Effects (Michael Fink/Bill Westenhofer/Ben Morris/Trevor Woods)

Juno:
Original Screenplay (Diablo Cody)
Leading Actress (Ellen Page)

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street:
Costume Design (Colleen Atwood)
Make Up & Hair (Ivana Primorac)

Spider-Man 3 was also nominated for Special Visual Effects.

The film with the most nominations is Joe Wright’s Atonement (14), with No Country For Old Men and Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood coming in second (9 nominations each).
Congratulations, one and all. (For the complete list of nominees, go here.)

BAFTA night is on February 10, at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London.

Parting shot: I must say though, that it’s a shame that Once (which was on 3 of the BAFTA longlists prior to the last cut) didn’t get onto the final ballot. Sad, sad shame.

Parting shot 2: Reviews of Control, Eastern Promises, No Country For Old Men, This Is England, Once, Stardust, Transformers, Disturbia and Spider-Man 3 can be found in the Archive.

(Control UK quad and Eastern Promises, No Country For Old Men, and This Is England OS’s courtesy of impawards.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (40)
CHECK OUT THOSE GLOBES! 2008

So in light of the WGA strike and the terribly awkward and minimalist affair that was this year’s Golden Globes, I’d just like to say “Congratulations” to the following, for taking home the gold.

To the Coen brothers and Javier Bardem, for winning Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture, for the awesome No Country For Old Men. (See, Senor Bardem, that dodgy haircut was worth it.)

To Jeremy Piven, for winning Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries, or TV Movie, for his great work on Entourage.

And though I have yet to see either film, to Julie Christie for winning Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama, for her work on Sarah Polley’s Away From Her; and to Johnny Depp, for winning Best Actor in a Motion Picture Comedy or Musical, for his work on Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, which also nabbed Best Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

To one and all the rest of the Globe winners this year, congratulations! You can check out the complete list of nominees and winners here.

Parting shot: A review of No Country For Old Men can be found in the Archive, where episodic recaps and reactions of Entourage are also situated.

(No Country For Old Men and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street OS’s courtesy of impawards.com; Entourage image courtesy of hbo.com; and Away From Her image courtesy of sundance.org.)

HEROES
Season 2
Volume Two: Generations
Chapter Ten: “Truths and Consequences”
Written by Jesse Alexander
Directed by Adam Kane
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

They may as well have called this one “A Tale of Two Dunces.”

Dunce #1: Wonder Twin Maya, who is pretty much wrapped around Sylar’s grubby little finger.
Sylar undermines the bond between the Wonder Twins, getting Maya to think that Alejandro hates her for killing his cheating bride, and getting her to admit that she really did want to see the white-clad floozy dead.
He even takes a calculated risk to convince Maya that she can control her power without resorting to Alejandro, which he does by getting her riled up, then as he’s wheezing to death, pleads with Maya to help him. She does of course, getting herself to calm down and keeping the scheming Sylar alive.
When Maya gets back to the motel room though, Alejandro’s been a busy little bee and gone on the Internet and fished out the story of Sylar being wanted by the authorities for murdering his mother.
Tearily, Maya confronts Sylar, and he admits to the killing, saying his mother attacked him when she learned about his powers, and an “accident” happened. Well, Maya relates, and she falls right into Sylar’s open arms.
She then tells Alejandro to hit the road, which he does, at first.
But he returns to face Sylar, only to get stabbed and dead.
And Maya, oblivious to Alejandro’s grisly fate, succumbs to the mounting emotions she feels for Sylar. (Eewwww.)
We see the pair again a little later, but for now…

Dunce #2: Peter, who is pretty much wrapped around Kensei/Adam’s grubby (and indestructible) little finger.
Peter tries to get back to the future, and lands in the very moment he and Caitlin are taken in by the containment suit people, but all he returns to the present with is one of those damned evacuation flyers.
When Peter tells K/A about the Shanti Virus—which just so happens will get released the following day!—K/A shows Peter a picture of the earlier generation, and points to the Woman Formerly Known As The Mystery Woman in the Photo Who Looks Like Joanna Cassidy, a.k.a. Victoria Pratt.
K/A says this woman is responsible for the Shanti Virus and she would know where samples of the virus are being kept. So Peter thinks, if I can’t get to the future to save Caitlin, I can try and stop the virus from getting released, thus taking away the danger that threatens Caitlin a year from now.
So K/A and Peter track down VP, who’s pretty shotgun happy, and when she sees that Peter’s working with K/A, she shoots both of them. But of course, both of them can regenerate. D’oh!
To be fair, VP is just about to blow K/A’s head off (no coming back from that!), when Peter knocks her out.
When she comes to, Peter and K/A try and wheedle the information out of her, Peter claiming they want to destroy the virus, VP saying K/A wants to release it, in fact, already tried to 30 years ago.
Dunce #2 will have none of this poppycock, and resorts to reading VP’s mind, and he finds out that the virus strain 138 (the one lethal enough to decimate humanity as we know it) is being kept in the Primatech facility in Odessa, Texas!
K/A unties VP, knowing full well she’ll go for her shotgun, giving him justification to shoot her, just as she’s about to fill Dunce #2 with some buckshot.
K/A and Peter get on down to Odessa, and sashay into Primatech like they own the damned place (despite Bob’s claim of superior security), but who should they meet but…
A little later for that. In the meantime…

The very sick Niki (though she claims she can’t get anyone else sick) goes to New Orleans and has a reunion with Micah, just in time to have Damon (Carlon Jeffrey) steal off with Micah’s backpack, a backpack containing a bunch of Micah’s expensive 9th Wonders issues, and the medal D.L. was awarded for bravery.
Micah smacks Damon a couple of times and wants to go off to get the medal back, but Niki will have none of this costumed gallivanting around.
Monica though, will have some of this costumed gallivanting around.
Taking a cue from St. Joan’s costume, Monica sneaks Micah out of the house to go off and retrieve the backpack.
The Double M make a nice team, but Monica insists Micah stay outside, out of harm’s way. Monica does some Yamikazi, and grabs the backpack, but the hoods arrive. Monica does a Spider-Man, but the dang St. Joan issue falls, and the hoods draw their guns.
We last see Monica being pushed into the hoods’ van, and Micah hightails it outta there.

And in Costa Verde, Mrs. B points a gun at Bob. (Go, Mrs. B!)
Bob’s making a condolence call, with what are supposed to be Mr. B’s ashes in an urn. (We know better, of course.)
The Bennets are distraught, and Bob is apologetic. Bob says they’re free to go and live a normal life now, but Claire rightly points out that her father is dead. There no longer is any “normal.”
Outside, Bob instructs Elle to keep an eye on Claire, so he can learn to trust her again, as Bob’s laying all the blame for the snafu on her. (She may be sociopathic, but Bob’s an a$$hole.)
Even as the Bennets are busy packing for their move, Claire is hurting, and is even willing to resort to having the Haitian delete her memories of Mr. B, so the pain can go away. West, of course, will have none of that kind of talk.
Later, at the impromptu service where Claire scatters her father’s “ashes” into the sea, we have the first time Hayden Panetierre has let me down in a big way in Heroes. There’s just something about the scene and the lines and the performance that rings hollow. And it’s not because I know Mr. B’s not really dead. The scene just doesn’t feel genuine.
Claire then says her goodbyes to West when she sees Elle in a nearby car. (Elle, by the way, is slurping a Slusho!)
Claire confronts Anti-Claire, while everyone else (including Mr. Muggles) watches. The face off ends with Claire smashing her fist into the car window, threatening to go public with her abilities, ‘cause when she does that, it’s Elle and the Company that are gonna be running for cover.

Meanwhile, Mo is there as Mr. B returns to the land of the living. Mo explains that Mr. B’s back because of Claire’s blood, and that now, he’s pretty sure the blood can help to find a cure for Niki.
Mo leaves Mr. B in restraints as he goes off to his lab.
After some off-screen lab work, Mo comes up with a vaccine. Yahoo!
He calls Niki to tell her he’s got the cure, but then someone else calls him: Sylar!
Calling him from: Mo’s apartment! To be precise, Molly’s bedside! (Where the hell is Parkman?!)
Sylar wants Mo back there ASAP, while Dunce #1 grins like the idiot that she is, waiting for the good Doctor Suresh to inject her power away.

And in another meanwhile, Hiro tracks down K/A and discovers his alias of Adam Monroe. Ando finds the record on K/A’s imprisonment, and Hiro ‘ports to that day, the day K/A tried to release the virus.
We see a young Papa Sulu and a young VP, and though VP disgustedly walks away from this madness, Papa S will have none of this “Let’s destroy the virus, for Heaven’s sake” blather, and instead, decides to store strain 138 in Odessa, Texas.
Which is where Hiro goes, just in time to freeze time and confront… Peter!
Hiro says, Outta my way, Dunce #2, that man killed my father.
Peter says, No way, geek.
We wrap the Volume’s penultimate episode as Hiro charges, sword drawn, while Peter charges up an electric ball…

So on the one hand, it’s great to have Adam Kane back in the director’s chair, but this episode feels like it’s moving just a tad too fast for it’s own good.
Yes, we are headed towards the volume’s finale, but still…
Not only are we made to bid adieu to poor Alejandro, but we’re given the genre treat of having Joanna Cassidy as a guest star, only to have her bite the dust as well.
Now, it’s one thing to do that and still have a character that actually registers as a real person, with a sense of history (as with Elya Baskin’s Ivan in Chapter Six). But in this case, a combination of Jesse Alexander’s script and Cassidy’s performance results in a bland character coming on-screen for a few minutes, then shuffling off to Buffalo before we have a chance to get to know her.
Given what’s present in this chapter, the actress playing Victoria Pratt could very well have been any other actress and it really wouldn’t have mattered.
It just feels like a bit of nasty stunt casting, to get a genre name in there so the geekboys (myself included) will get all pumped up for the episode, just to have it all be an annoying anti-climax.

Having said that though, this is, admittedly, a better episode than some of the season’s earliest. And they are labouring under the WGA strike and the less-than-stellar ratings and the fans’ less-than-enthusiastic comments about this sophomore season.
So fine, I’ll go easy, but I do wish some people would quit taking the stupid pills and look really closely at the people they think are their friends…
(I did get a kick out of the Slusho! bit, though.)

(All behind the scene images courtesy of gregbeeman.blogspot.com, except image #5, courtesy of superherohype.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (37)
TOP TV SHOWS FOR 2007

It’s that time of year when Top 10 lists breed like rabbits, and though the sheer number do make the head spin, I still check out a lot of them, just to see what others have to say about the shows that I love (if and when my top choices happen to coincide with theirs).

Time had two lists of top TV shows, and Lost crashed into the #2 spot on Time’s Top 10 Returning TV Shows, while Pushing Daisies took root in the #5 spot of their Top 10 New TV Series.

#2. Lost (from Time’s Top 10 Returning TV Shows)
Like a boulder on a desert-island mountain, a Lost season starts slow, but after a dithering first six episodes, season 3 was an awesome force. This spring's episodes delved deeper into the mythology of the mysterious island, then vaulted years ahead in an astonishing, forehead-smacking finale that set the bar even higher for next season. In between, we got Desmond's mind-blowing premonitions, invisible mystic island honcho, Jacob, and the moving death of doomed romantic junkie Charlie. What more could you want? Only more Lost, and soon.

#5. Pushing Daisies (from Time’s Top 10 New TV Shows)
It's whimsational! It's twee-riffic! It's preciously precious! In this grown-up fairy-tale, a piemaker (Lee Pace) can raise the dead with a touch, but kills them if he ever touches them again. This complicates matters when he resurrects the love of his life, whom he can never kiss, at pain of her life. Playful, fantastical, and art-directed within an inch of its life in candy colors by Barry Sonnenfeld, Daisies is as romantic as it is outlandish.

Pushing Daisies also sprouted in the #2 spot on Entertainment Weekly’s Best TV Shows of 2007.

2. Pushing Daisies (from Entertainment Weekly’s Best TV Shows of 2007)
Filled with mermaid divers and windmill farms, Pushing Daisies is a fantastically fantastical, bubble-gum-colored fable about a pie maker named Ned (Lee Pace), who magically brings his childhood love, Chuck (Anna Friel), back to life with his touch but will kill her if he ever makes contact again. Between solving oddball mysteries involving puppy cloning and scratch-'n'-sniff empires, Chuck and Ned banter and moon at each other. (As Ned's gruff detective buddy, wonderful Chi McBride undercuts any excess sweet.) When so many TV couples are bickery brats, there's something strangely mature about this chaste pair. It's easy to whip up a juicy drama about evildoing bastards — it takes a boatload of creativity to make all this niceness so mesmerizing.

Congratulations to all involved with Lost and Pushing Daisies. Onward, ho, to 2008. And let’s get the WGA strike resolved soon so we can all breathe easier…

Entries quoted above are from time.com and ew.com. To see the other Top 10 shows, the complete lists can be accessed from the links above.

(Images courtesy of abc, fanpop.com [Lost] and about.com [Pushing Daisies].)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (36)

36.1 PIMP MY BOOK (5)
Chapter 10 is up at the Pelicula website, where you can find out exactly what goes on at all those Manila Basketball League games. Mosey on over to the website to see what the frak I’m blathering on about.
And thanx to everyone who’s checked Pelicula out.

36.2 BETTER WATCH THAT SAG 2008
Unlike the Golden Globes, which is on shaky ground with the on-going WGA strike, next year’s 14th Annual SAG Awards (scheduled for January 27), looks to be a go, though whether or not nominees will cross the picket lines to attend the show remains to be seen.
At any rate, the SAG award nominees that got my attention are:

Motion Pictures

Away From Her:
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role (Julie Christie as Fiona)

Eastern Promises:
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role (Viggo Mortensen as Nikolai)

Juno:
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role (Ellen Page as Juno MacGuff)

Lars and the Real Girl:
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role (Ryan Gosling as Lars Lindstrom)

Television

Dexter:
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series (Michael C. Hall as Dexter Morgan)

Entourage:
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series (Jeremy Piven as Ari Gold)
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
Rhys Coiro / Billy Walsh
Kevin Connolly / Eric Murphy
Kevin Dillon / Johnny Drama
Jerry Ferrara / Turtle
Adrian Grenier / Vincent Chase
Rex Lee / Lloyd
Jeremy Piven / Ari Gold
Perrey Reeves / Mrs. Ari

SAG has also established a new stunt award category for both film and TV, with the respective categories looking like this:

Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture
300
The Bourne Ultimatum
I Am Legend
The Kingdom
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series
24
Heroes
Lost
Rome
The Unit

Congratulations, one and all, and hurrah for the stunt people!

You can check out the entire list of nominees for the 14th Annual SAGs here, a list which features a frighteningly thorough fact sheet, and the SAG Award histories of the nominees. So if you always wanted to know whether or not George Clooney won an Actor for his work on ER (he won four Actors as part of the show’s ensemble, but failed to win Actor in a Drama Series the two times he was nominated; sorry, George), this cheat sheet is the place to go.

36.3 TO RATE THE UNDERRATED
And congratulations to C.S. Lee (of Dexter and Chuck) and Pushing Daisies’ Orbit, for making zap2it.com’s The Underrated of 2007 list.
Recognizing the sometimes overlooked supporting players of our favourite shows, the list did well to note Orbit’s very tangible contribution to Pushing Daisies, as Ned’s faithful golden retriever, Digby.

Yeah, Orbit! Break down those gender barriers! You go, girl!

The complete Underrated of 2007 list can be found here.

(Image from Pelicula website, website designed by Carl Vergara, Habagat icon designed by Ian Sta. Maria; other images courtesy of variety.com and SAG [SAG crest]; and zap2it.com, showtime, and abc [C.S. Lee and Orbit with Kristin Chenoweth].)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (34)

34.1 a.k.a. PIMP MY BOOK (4)

Experience the Habagat Mall Tour, now, at the Pelicula website!
Chapter 9 is up at the website, so get on over there if you want to see what the hell I’m blathering on about.
And thanx to everyone who’s checked the book out.

34.2 2008 WRITERS GUILD AWARDS (I’m excited about)

Meanwhile, as the strike keeps on keepin’ on, the WGA have released the TV and radio nominee list for the 2008 awards.
And just as the Golden Globe recognized them, so did the WGA:

Dexter:
Dramatic Series Written by Scott Buck, Daniel Cerone, Drew Z. Greenberg, Lauren Gussis, Kevin Maynard, Clyde Phillips, Melissa Rosenberg, and Tim Schlattman
Episodic Drama “The Dark Defender”; written by Tim Schlattmann

Entourage:
Comedy Series Written by Marc Abrams, Lisa Alden, Michael Benson, Brian Burns, Doug Ellin, Alex Gansa, Tim Griffin, Dusty Kay, Stephen Levinson, Ally Musika, Wes Nickerson, and Rob Weiss

Pushing Daisies:
New Series Written by Chad Gomez Creasey, Dara Resnik Creasey, Bryan Fuller, Abby Gewanter, Jim Danger Gray, Lisa Joy, Kath Lingenfelter, Rina Mimoun, Jack Monaco, Scott Nimerfro, and Peter Ocko
Episodic Comedy “Pie-Lette”; written by Bryan Fuller

And for good measure…

Lost:
Episodic Drama “Flashes Before Your Eyes”; written by Damon Lindelof & Drew Goddard

Congratulations, one and all. Winners will be announced on February 9, 2008, at the 60th WGA Awards. (The complete list of radio and TV nominees can be found here.)

Parting shot: Another round of congratulations must also go out to everyone behind Dexter and Pushing Daisies, for securing spots on the American Film Institute's Official Selections for TV Programs of the Year. Brilliant. (See the entire list here.)

(Image from Pelicula website, website designed by Carl Vergara, Habagat icon designed by Ian Sta. Maria; series images courtesy of about.com [Dexter]; hbo.com [Entourage]; avclub.com [Pushing Daisies]; and fanpop.com [Lost].)

HEROES
Season 2
Volume Two: “Generations”
Chapter Seven: “Out Of Time”
Written by Aron Eli Coleite
Directed by Daniel Attias
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

So a number of emotional pay-offs coincide with some subplots’ semi-resolutions, and a tremendous amount of narrative ground is covered in this chapter, making up for some of the earlier meandering in this season’s opening chapters.

And perhaps the most satisfying stride taken by this episode: Hiro finally blows the over-long pop stand that has been Feudal Japan.
Like Hiro though, let’s go back in time first.
So Kensei’s heartbroken and turned Hiro, Yaeko, and her father over to White Beard. His reward: half of the land.
Baddie Kensei’s smart enough to keep Hiro disorientated with some opium in the face, but underestimates Yaeko, who picks her locks, gets the opium away, and gets Hiro to ‘port them to freedom. He then returns to destroy the guns, which is where he has his duel with Kensei (Isaac painting fulfilled).
During their battle, a lantern is up-ended, and with all that gunpowder in the tent…
Hiro offers his hand to Kensei, to save both of them, but Kensei refuses to be saved, and vows embittered vengeance.
Hiro has no choice but to ‘port away, leaving the tent (and White Beard’s plans) to go BOOM. (And it’s at this point that the question “Who is Adam Monroe?” becomes glaringly clear, while at the same time putting a bullet in the head of my theory as to the killer’s identity. More on that later…)
Hiro returns to the camp’s ruins to retrieve Kensei’s helmet, then meets up with Yaeko, who says that Hiro is the one true Takezo Kensei (thus making my very first theory regarding Kensei come to pass). Yaeko then says maybe now Hiro can spend some time with his princess, and for an instant, Hiro allows himself to bask in the glow of that thought.
But he knows how Kensei’s story ends: he cuts his heart out to save his princess.
Hiro knows what he has to do. He’s just narrowly averted historic catastrophe, and he can’t risk any more frak-ups.
So Yaeko makes her own vow: that she will spread the story of Takezo Kensei far and wide, so that little Hiro Nakamura can hear the stories as he grows up.
They kiss one last time, and bam, Hiro’s back in Japan, giving the charred helmet to Ando. The joyous reunion is cut short though when Ando tells Hiro Papa Sulu’s been murdered. (And we don’t have to wonder why he was the first to die. The important question now is, why did the killer wait all that while before killing Papa Sulu?)

Back in the Ukraine, Mr. B takes pictures of all the Isaac paintings-yet-to-take-place, then torches them. He also calls Mo, to help make sense of them, and to ask him if he’s been issued a Company gun (as the man-with-the-broken nose-holding-a-gun painting is apparently of Mo; didn’t recognize him last chapter). Mo says he’s being watched, and in Mr. B’s insistence, Mo begins to feel he’s expendable to Mr. B, and wonders whether they’re still on the same page.

In New York, we get into the most significant subplot chunk of the chapter, as Parkman and No Longer Beardo Nathan tell Bob that Maury’s after him, getting Bob to evacuate everyone else from the premises.
To stop him, Bob plans to inject Maury with the experimental virus to render him powerless, after which Mo will save him with his antibodies. But they’ll need Parkman to man up and realize he can do more than just read minds.
Parkman is initially dubious, and wants to talk to the comatose Molly first. It’s as Parkman is talking to her that he realizes he’s projecting his thoughts of love directly to her mind. (“Thoughts of love.” Yeesh.)

Meanwhile, as Mo is getting the syringe with the virus in it, Maury gets inside Niki’s head, and she begins to see D.L. who is demoralizing her, telling her she’ll never see Micah again.
She then sees Bob shoot D.L., which is about the time Mo realizes something is terribly wrong. But Niki super-swats Mo (bingo, broken nose) and goes after Bob.

Meanwhile still, Bob is with Nathan and he explains that Maury’s just the “blunt instrument,” and the mastermind is actually Adam Monroe, who was the “visionary” of their group, Linderman merely a “disciple” of Adam.
Bob also says that Peter is alive, and that they lost him in Cork, Ireland. (And though Bob doesn’t get a chance to say it, this is what I guess took place: Peter fell in with Adam, and to get Peter away from Adam, the Company had the Haitian wipe Peter’s memories, explaining, a) Peter’s amnesia, b) Peter having the Haitian’s necklace, and c) the Haitian’s guilt when Mo came across him. This could also be the tip-off that Elle is indeed Bob’s daughter.)
Niki then starts bashing the door open (another Isaac painting fulfilled). Just as Niki is about to attack with the syringe, Nathan tries to talk her down. He gets through enough to make her come to her senses, and she instead injects herself with the virus.

And meanwhile still some more, as Parkman continues to project his thoughts to Molly, he suddenly finds himself in a dreary apartment with Molly, who says this is where the Nightmare Man trapped her.
Parkman then pulls Maury into the apartment, and it’s revealed that this is the Parkman apartment, on the day Maury left them. Maury then says he’s sorry, and that he really loved Matt, etc. boo hoo. So Matt says, Fine, if that’s true, you give yourself in.
Maury says, No way, tubby. (Not those exact words, of course.)
Matt says, “I can keep you here. Look around. This is your nightmare, not mine.”
Maury says again, No way, tubby. You’re not that powerful.
But Matt is, of course, and he walks out of the apartment with Molly in tow, leaving Maury in there.
In Molly’s room, Matt and Molly come to, while Maury lies on the floor, comatose.

Over in Costa Verde, West drops by unannounced to make breakfast for Claire, Mrs. B, Mr. Muggles, and Lyle. He also shows Claire the newspaper item about Debbie‘s suspension and her story about the flying masked man.
West gets the thumbs-up from Mrs. B, and Claire tries to tell West that her father’s the man with the horn-rimmed glasses who jumped out of the bushes to abduct him. But Mr. B gets back from the Ukraine, and when West spots him, he panics.
When Claire finally gets to tell West that that’s her dad, West flips out and flies off. He also refuses to reply to her texts. (Now that’s just plain rude!)
When Mrs. B mentions Claire having a boyfriend, and when Mr. B spots the newspaper article, he confronts Claire. He then lays down the law and says they’re going to have to leave Costa Verde. But Claire lays down her own law: they can leave, but she’s staying.

Back in New York, it turns out that (gasp!) Mo’s antibodies aren’t working on the virus that’s been injected into Niki. She’s (gulp) dying.
So Bob shows Mo the key to help Niki survive the virus: a file on Claire, who has cellular regeneration. Mo is tasked to retrieve Claire, and to that end, he is, a) given a Company gun (double gulp), and b) shown a file of the dead Ivan (apparently, Mr. B left a fingerprint), proof of just how far Mr. B is willing to go.
So now Mo’s in a moral quandary, and he even tells Bob that he’s been working with Mr. B to take down the Company.
Poor, sad-a$$ Mo’s there, holding the gun, wondering what’s the right thing to do.

Meanwhile, in the future, Peter and Caitlin are rounded up by some containment suit dudes. They go through the usual quarantine protocol, including the forced showering of the indignant and violated; you know, the stuff you’ve seen in virus movies.
Peter’s then interrogated by a man who tells him, 1) he’s supposed to be dead, and 2) Caitlin’s going to be deported back to Ireland.
He’s then shown lots and lots of body bags, and is told that the virus has wiped out 93% of the world’s population.
Peter is then reunited with… Granny P! (And all I could think at that moment was, She survived! Yahoo!)
Peter of course, can’t remember her, but she begins to tell him about what he can do, and that he’s here because of Hiro’s power. She tells him he had a brother, who died in the first wave of the virus. (Oh, no! Nathan!) She also tells him he’s good and noble and selfless and that he has to remember.
Peter remembers her, and they hug. Granny P is then leading Peter somewhere when he sees Caitlin, but the young lovebirds are separated by a fence. They pull Caitlin away, and Peter, in his tortured anguish, inadvertently ‘ports away, and he ends up back in Montreal, leaving Caitlin stranded in the future. (Idiot.)
He tries to ‘port back to the future, when he hears someone enter. He zaps, scorching a hand.
A hand which heals itself.
A hand attached to… Kensei!
Who introduces himself as… Adam!

Thus, in the shadow of flagging ratings and the WGA strike, Heroes regains its narrative footing with a vengeance.
Even some of the more convenient bits, like Parkman suddenly getting a kick-a$$ handle on his powers, go down just a tad smoother, because of the emotional underpinnings of the episode; in Matt’s case, his love for Molly colliding with his Daddy issues.
(Though I must go on record: just as the whole viral future bit recalls the NY bomb, the whole character must learn the warrior way in an extremely short period of time was also done in Season 1 with the Papa Sulu-Hiro samurai montage.)

What is also annoying me to no end is all the moral hand-wringing: I mean, there’s Mo holding the gun, wondering if he’s gonna have to use it on the murdering Mr. B, when can’t he just ask Claire to help Niki? (In this light, it’s also unfortunate Bob “lost” Peter in Ireland. And if they had Adam/Kensei prisoner, why did they never get samples of his blood? He does regenerate too, ya’ know.)
Then there’s Hiro, who, not only inadvertently clued Kensei into the Dark Side, but actually assumed that a man who can regenerate would die in an explosion. Sigh.
And as I asked above, if Kensei/Adam knew the earlier generation back when they were young, why didn’t he off Papa Sulu way back when? Or was it because he needed to bide his time, to wait for Hiro to reach adulthood and travel back into the past to meet him, so as not to change anything at all?
Was the Dark Side that cooshy that he didn’t want a second chance? He could have offed not just Papa Sulu years ago, but Hiro as well. Was Kensei/Adam that happy to be bad that he didn’t want to risk what would have been of his life had he never met Hiro? (Ach, the head-aches of time travel.)

Now, as for my killer theory gone kaputz, remember that shot in the montage of future episode scenes in the season opener where we see Nathan on the post-explosion Deveaux rooftop? Well, that scene struck me and somehow, I thought the killer would be, like, some baddie future Nathan, come back to wipe out the earlier generation, and that somehow, that would tie in to Monster Face Nathan.
Aside from that scene, other things started to pop up to incriminate Nathan: a) the killer could apparently fly; b) who should bump into Ando right before he meets Papa Sulu with the death threat in the newspaper, but Beardo Nathan; c) who should have a heated confrontation with Granny P, right before she sees her death threat, but Beardo Nathan; and d) it seemed that following the attack in the police station, Granny P was protecting whoever did the attacking.
But we now know of course, that that scene I fixated on was actually part of Nathan’s greatest fear as pulled out by Maury Parkman, and that the real killer is Kensei/Adam.
Ah well. I tried.

(Behind the scene images courtesy of gregbeeman.blogspot.com; TV Guide Heroes cover art [2 of 4] by Phil Jimenez, courtesy of tvguide.com.)