Episode Written by Lee A. Chrimes
Review Written by David A. Bindley
Disclaimer: It’s entirely possible I’m taking the wrong things out of these episodes. It’s entirely possible I’m really not very good at explaining the things going through my mind. It’s entirely possible I lose all sense of coherency when trying for analysis over snark. It’s entirely possible I over-compare things to What I’ve Seen Before. It’s entirely possible I’m an idiot. All things I’m working on. Except for the idiot thing, that’s probably genetic.
This time, I’m going to do stream-of-consciousness reviewing, because my God normal reviewing doesn’t seem to work for me. (And if this doesn’t work either, I’m totally stealing the old XandPro review format.)
…Okay, so. Chrimes. Do I critique harshly and risk getting Lee offside in the lead-up to Leap, or do I go soft and leave everybody except my inner bitch happy? I have no idea.
So it’s something with Boone’s eyes that lets him go all like Robert Patrick Modell, right? Here, it doesn’t seem as though he can immediately get his way, which is a good way of avoiding this being a carbon copy of Pusher and Kitsunegari (though the prison escape was also done like this in KG).
Michael C. Hall seems like an absolutely PERFECT casting choice. Brilliant.
That’s the first time I’ve ever seen anyone give that answer to “Is he armed?”. It seems so damn right that I’m surprised I’ve never seen it before.
Why the hell wasn’t anyone else asking how Boone escaped?
Sudoku? Heh.
Hypnotoad? Double heh. Everybody loves Hypnotoad.
This episode sort of feels like the antithesis of the previous two – here, we feel like we know from the beginning what the Freak Of The Week does and how he does it, but we don’t know why he’s doing it; whereas in the previous weeks it was left as a mystery until the leads themselves figured it out. Both storytelling methods have their advantages, but I think this week’s style seems to gel a bit better compared to the others.
Oh, man. So many used condom jokes, so little time. (What would the Actual TV equivalent be for getting past the censors? A G-string?)
Sooner or later, someone’s going to wind up asking how Kolchak keeps getting to these crime scenes so quickly.
Yeah, I totally got sidetracked by the episode and forgot to keep reviewing. Oops.
It’s always a case of “be careful what you wish for” on genre shows, isn’t it?
So Perri’s doing all this of her own volition? Why? She can’t exactly write about what she’s experiencing – Vincenzo would never let it in the paper – so she’s got no real reason to stay, right? He’s not forcing her? I don’t think I get it.
Simon says get to the damn point of your little show already, Boone.
Oh, cool. He actually does. Nice way to get in some character exposition here. It’s not really development, per se, given we’ve seen and read much of this before, but it’s still hella worth reading. And it’s not a simple all-out brawl scene. Even better.
Convicted killer or not, would anyone really be made to wear blacked out goggles forever? That seems a bit hokey given the rest of the episode.
Rating: Eight used condoms out of ten.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Night Stalker 1.5x02 Traffic
Episode Written by James Jordan
Review Written by David A. Bindley
Now that the weight of the pilot’s necessities have been removed, Night Stalker should be starting to stand on its own two feet, right? Right?
The basic genesis of this episode – the legend of the “haunted highway” – is one of those things that pretty much every sci-fi and supernatural show will cover at some point. It’s just one of those stories. The X-Files did it memorably with season 8’s Roadrunners, and of course Supernatural has tried variations on it a number of times. Luckily, JJ somehow manages to find some original ground to cover in this, one of the biggest horror story clichés. I was a little confused by how the victims could be in two places at once (with Kolchak and back where they were killed), but with this genre of show, it’s best to just go along for the ride, so to speak. And it’s not like much else could have been done whilst still keeping it from being a retread of what we’ve all seen before. The whole method of getting to the actual mystery itself did seem a bit forced, though – would Kolchak really give a hitchhiker a lift on a stretch of road where he knows people have been brutally murdered?
This episode feels much more packed than the previous one. Not only is the haunted highway aspect explored in greater detail than the Sphinx was, but this time around we also got more in the way of character development from Perri and Jain (whom I already love). Perri does come off a bit Scully-esque at times, but she’s much snarkier with her disbelief than Scully usually was, and it serves her well. (Admittedly, the bizarre pseudo-sunniness Gabrielle Union usually brings to scenes, warranted or not, may be foisting itself upon my imagination here, and warping my views.) On the other hand, Jain pretty much defies analogies. Which is a wonderful thing in this case. It helps him to stand out a bit more compared to the others, thus allowing the writers to focus on everyone else for a bit to get them away from the comparisons without too many readers feeling like he’s going to get shafted. Jain’s Kolchak-fanboy streak was an amusing piece of minor character development in the meantime, though. It’s great that JJ appears, at this stage at least, to be thinking along these lines, even though it’s probably more due to Kolchak and Perri being main characters while Jain is the Token Comic Relief. Now all we need is some way to stop me from imagining Mitch Pileggi playing Vincenzo.
Grade: 7.5 idolising newspaper photographers out of 10. (You may choose whether to keep the top or bottom half of the eighth idolising newspaper photographer.)
Review Written by David A. Bindley
Now that the weight of the pilot’s necessities have been removed, Night Stalker should be starting to stand on its own two feet, right? Right?
The basic genesis of this episode – the legend of the “haunted highway” – is one of those things that pretty much every sci-fi and supernatural show will cover at some point. It’s just one of those stories. The X-Files did it memorably with season 8’s Roadrunners, and of course Supernatural has tried variations on it a number of times. Luckily, JJ somehow manages to find some original ground to cover in this, one of the biggest horror story clichés. I was a little confused by how the victims could be in two places at once (with Kolchak and back where they were killed), but with this genre of show, it’s best to just go along for the ride, so to speak. And it’s not like much else could have been done whilst still keeping it from being a retread of what we’ve all seen before. The whole method of getting to the actual mystery itself did seem a bit forced, though – would Kolchak really give a hitchhiker a lift on a stretch of road where he knows people have been brutally murdered?
This episode feels much more packed than the previous one. Not only is the haunted highway aspect explored in greater detail than the Sphinx was, but this time around we also got more in the way of character development from Perri and Jain (whom I already love). Perri does come off a bit Scully-esque at times, but she’s much snarkier with her disbelief than Scully usually was, and it serves her well. (Admittedly, the bizarre pseudo-sunniness Gabrielle Union usually brings to scenes, warranted or not, may be foisting itself upon my imagination here, and warping my views.) On the other hand, Jain pretty much defies analogies. Which is a wonderful thing in this case. It helps him to stand out a bit more compared to the others, thus allowing the writers to focus on everyone else for a bit to get them away from the comparisons without too many readers feeling like he’s going to get shafted. Jain’s Kolchak-fanboy streak was an amusing piece of minor character development in the meantime, though. It’s great that JJ appears, at this stage at least, to be thinking along these lines, even though it’s probably more due to Kolchak and Perri being main characters while Jain is the Token Comic Relief. Now all we need is some way to stop me from imagining Mitch Pileggi playing Vincenzo.
Grade: 7.5 idolising newspaper photographers out of 10. (You may choose whether to keep the top or bottom half of the eighth idolising newspaper photographer.)
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Night Stalker 1.5x01 Paradigm
Episode Written by James Jordan
Review Written by David A. Bindley
Hey, look, I’m actually reviewing something! Gasp!
This episode certainly has a lot to live up to. It’s gotta function as a pilot for a completely new series for the Night Stalker newbies, it’s gotta function as the next episode in the chronology of the series it’s based on for the hardcore fans, and it’s gotta reintroduce the basic concept of the original series for those who are vaguely familiar with it (like myself). It also needs to be a decent standalone effort on its own merits. Does it do that?
Honestly, I’m not entirely convinced it does. Sure, it fits the style of the show – devoid of cheesy love triangles, pop-culture references, and sci-fi fanwank, but with the stylistic elements preserved – and it dovetails in with the existing mytharc nicely, but… like, there were times there where, if I wasn’t aware of the “real” show or what had happened on it, I wouldn’t have been able to follow the script. I get that you can’t dumb it down for the people who know the show inside and out, but… this wasn’t a huge success as a show, and it’s far more likely that people had no idea what happened on this show. To use a reality TV analogy, you’d have probably been fine going down this path had the show been as high on the pop-culture recognition scale as Dancing With The Stars or American Idol, but this show’s really more of a Celebrity Survivor: Vanuatu (which even I barely remember, and I’m in the process of writing about it). SPAG was a fairly minor issue, but one that does need a little bit of work – ambulance only has one E, won’t needs an apostrophe throughout, and the second period in the abbreviation b.g. doesn’t actually function as a full stop on its own merits – and a couple of bits of exposition were clunky, but that’s to be expected given the circumstances.
Having said that, of course, I still found it thoroughly enjoyable to read. The idea of using a concept as instantly recognisable as the Sphinx and turning it into a monster-of-the-week style killer was a clever idea, as was the not entirely revealing it’s motivations for killing the people it did. If I’m not mistaken, I counted homages to at least four X-Files episodes – Within (a killer tracking down one particular kid at a school), Badlaa (the idea of someone killing because of genetics, and of not explaining why it was killing the people it did), Existence (the whole rooftop climax), and Dod Kalm (the flashback to the people in a vehicle aging rapidly). And yet, none of them stuck out waving signs like “Hey! Rip-off! Over here!” So congratulations for that. And thanks for having the cojones to kill off kids. Helps make this stand out a little bit from the televised series, and makes the Sphinx more menacing at the same time. Great work.
Grade: Seven kiddie corpses out of ten.
Review Written by David A. Bindley
Hey, look, I’m actually reviewing something! Gasp!
This episode certainly has a lot to live up to. It’s gotta function as a pilot for a completely new series for the Night Stalker newbies, it’s gotta function as the next episode in the chronology of the series it’s based on for the hardcore fans, and it’s gotta reintroduce the basic concept of the original series for those who are vaguely familiar with it (like myself). It also needs to be a decent standalone effort on its own merits. Does it do that?
Honestly, I’m not entirely convinced it does. Sure, it fits the style of the show – devoid of cheesy love triangles, pop-culture references, and sci-fi fanwank, but with the stylistic elements preserved – and it dovetails in with the existing mytharc nicely, but… like, there were times there where, if I wasn’t aware of the “real” show or what had happened on it, I wouldn’t have been able to follow the script. I get that you can’t dumb it down for the people who know the show inside and out, but… this wasn’t a huge success as a show, and it’s far more likely that people had no idea what happened on this show. To use a reality TV analogy, you’d have probably been fine going down this path had the show been as high on the pop-culture recognition scale as Dancing With The Stars or American Idol, but this show’s really more of a Celebrity Survivor: Vanuatu (which even I barely remember, and I’m in the process of writing about it). SPAG was a fairly minor issue, but one that does need a little bit of work – ambulance only has one E, won’t needs an apostrophe throughout, and the second period in the abbreviation b.g. doesn’t actually function as a full stop on its own merits – and a couple of bits of exposition were clunky, but that’s to be expected given the circumstances.
Having said that, of course, I still found it thoroughly enjoyable to read. The idea of using a concept as instantly recognisable as the Sphinx and turning it into a monster-of-the-week style killer was a clever idea, as was the not entirely revealing it’s motivations for killing the people it did. If I’m not mistaken, I counted homages to at least four X-Files episodes – Within (a killer tracking down one particular kid at a school), Badlaa (the idea of someone killing because of genetics, and of not explaining why it was killing the people it did), Existence (the whole rooftop climax), and Dod Kalm (the flashback to the people in a vehicle aging rapidly). And yet, none of them stuck out waving signs like “Hey! Rip-off! Over here!” So congratulations for that. And thanks for having the cojones to kill off kids. Helps make this stand out a little bit from the televised series, and makes the Sphinx more menacing at the same time. Great work.
Grade: Seven kiddie corpses out of ten.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
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