TV News and Reviews

Wow. NBC outdid themselves tonight with three compelling episodes of our favorite series: Chuck, Heroes, and Medium.

*SPOILER ALERT* Chuck really threw me for a loop on this episode, “Chuck Versus the Dream Job”. After last week’s cliffhanger of Sarah and Chuck finding Chuck’s dad, we discover in this episode that his dad is none other than Scott Bakula (Star Trek: Enterprise, Quantum Leap). Chuck manages to talk his apparently eccentric and slightly crazy dad into returning for Ellie’s wedding.  At the same time, Chuck has to go undercover working for Ted Roark (Chevy Chase), his dad’s old partner who supposedly stole all of his dad’s computing work. Roark’s new software reportedly has a virus in it that could compromise important systems worldwide, and Chuck, Casey, and Sarah need to stop the activation.

When that mission fails, Chuck returns home and notices that the Intersect paperwork Orion sent him matches up with the floorplan of Roark’s headquarters. He attempts to enlist Casey and Sarah’s help, but without knowing his inside source, they refuse to believe him. Chuck sets out on his own to infiltrate Roark’s stronghold, only to find his father there, supposedly trying to get Chuck’s cover job back for him. Chuck stuns all of the guards who started to rough his dad up and confesses to his dad that he’s not who he appears to be. Turns out Chuck’s dad isn’t as he appears to be either–he’s Orion. The reason he left all those years ago was to protect the family, not abandon it.

When Chuck and his dad get caught trying to get the Intersect out of Chuck’s brain, Chuck’s dad trades his computing services to Roark and Fulcrum in exchange for setting Chuck free. Chuck vows to get him back, however, and he, Casey, and Sarah are granted the assignment of trying to get his dad back before Fulcrum gets their own Intersect. This is an exciting twist for Chuck and gives the show a nice arc to pursue again. I’m just hoping that at some point they can tell poor Ellie something. It seems extraordinarily cruel to have her suffer from rejection time and again and never be told the truth.

The Heroes episode “Turn and Face the Strange” also threw a lot at us tonight, as Bennett got tangled up with Sylar’s shapechanging and Danko’s evil plotting. He’s no match for the deadly duo and ends up fleeing for his life, his marriage on the rocks due to Sylar’s shapechanging manipulation. Danko doesn’t get off light, however, as Matt Parkman returns to poison the love Danko has for a former Russian escort he’s been seeing. Parkman lets the woman in on all of Danko’s dirty secrets, using his mind control to force Danko to tell her the truth. Parkman tries to kill her, as revenge for Daphne, but he can’t do it. Feeling he has nothing to live for, he throws down his gun and allows Danko to shoot him.

Enter Hiro, who stops time and saves Parkman–in more ways than one. Ando and Hiro introduce him to his son, and once again Parkman has something to live for. Meanwhile, Angela Petrelli brings her family together to a secret location in the desert where she says everything began. Peter, Claire, and Nathan all dig near some abandoned buildings only to find several buried bodies–one with a gunshot wound to the forehead. It’s a secret she says can no longer be hidden, but we don’t find out yet what it’s all about and have to tune in next week!

Medium’s “All in the Family” gives us an ultra twisted plot scenario this time, as Allison first has a dream where she sees a woman encouraging Allison’s youngest daughter to take a gun into Allison and Joe’s room to kill them. Allison writes this off as a simple, not prophetic, bad dream. But she’s startled to see the woman in the elevator the next day–she’s there with her brother to ask for Devalos’ help in finding their mother. Allison continues to have disturbing dreams of the brother, including one where he kills his sister and enlists the help of his fiancee–a woman Allison comes to find left the brother four years ago, thus confusing her interpretation. (Side note: The sister is played by Firefly’s Morena Baccarin, who is way too skinny with way too short hair. She was exquisite as Inara; I hate to think Hollywood has pressured her to try and look like everyone else.)

A subplot involves Joe’s troubled sister, who’s left her husband because of his cheating and stays with the Dubois family. Ariel gets evicted from her room, adding to her already substantial teen angst over not being allowed to go on an overnight ski trip with a group of her friends and some 18 year old boys. Joe’s ghost father visits Allison, trying to help Joe get his sister back with her husband. Turns out the sister is pregnant, though even she doesn’t know it yet.

The brother/sister murder plot comes to a startling conclusion when it turns out the fiancee was in a near fatal accident while attempting to ditch the dead sister’s car. Since she was in the sister’s car, the hospital assumed she was the sister, and did reconstructive surgery to make her look that way. With this disguise, the two got away with the sister’s murder and then were able to pin the mother’s murder on the “missing” fiancee. With Allison’s help and DNA results, the D.A. was finally able to charge the couple.

Got all that? But the cliffhanger of the episode is after all of this, when Joe and Allison are getting Ariel’s room ready for her again after Joe’s sister has left to go back to her husband. They call for Ariel, only to find out from Bridgette that Ariel never came home from school. Assuming she’s gone off on the ski trip without permission, we see Joe and Allison rush out of the room. We won’t know until next week what’s really happened to her.

So there you have it, an action-packed night on NBC and three very good reasons to tune in next week. Watch Chuck, Heroes, and Medium on Monday nights, beginning at 8/7c on NBC.

PHOTOS:  Zachary Levi as Chuck, Zachary Quinto as Sylar, and Patricia Arquette as Allison Dubois, screencaps c2009 NBC.

Well, NBC posted a tiny peek at Amy Poehler’s new mockumentary Parks and Recreation. I did get a small giggle out of it, but it’s not really enough of a clip to tell if this is going to be a show I want to watch. I’m willing to give Amy Poehler the benefit of the doubt, but I hope we can see some more substantial clips to better judge Parks and Recreation. I’m not a fan of The Office, so this one will have to do something a little bit different in order to win my viewership.

As for TV in the near future, we’re up to our first Manic Monday. Other days of the week are completely useless as far as programming, but Monday is overpacked with interesting TV.

7-8pm (Central): Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother on CBS. Two of the few remaining true comedy sitcoms left on television, these shows are always good for a laugh. Neil Patrick Harris often steals the show on How I Met Your Mother, but the rest of the cast have their moments of pure silliness too. Big Bang Theory offers the biggest laughs I’ve had from TV in years, but you may need to be a little bit Geek to get the best jokes.

7-8pm: Chuck on NBC. In the worst conflicting programming decision ever, we have another Geek!love comedy/spy show. The same audience that enjoys the sitcoms on CBS would watch this show fervently if they weren’t too busy watching, you know, the sitcoms on CBS. The good news is that you can watch full episodes of Chuck online. This Monday’s episode is in 3D and includes guest star Dom Monaghan (Lost, Lord of the Rings) being his delightfully nutty self.

8-9pm: Heroes on NBC. Yes, it’s true, Heroes hasn’t been living up to its first season, but there are still moments to enjoy with our favorite characters like Peter, Parkman, and Hiro. Next season is going to be revamped in an attempt to bring back the Heroes love, so I’m hanging on till then to see how it all plays out.

8-9pm: The Closer on TNT. Brenda’s back, but only for a limited engagement as a teaser for the full summer season, so this won’t be a conflict for too long. And the good news is that TNT replays the show at 11pm so you can watch Heroes and catch The Closer later in the evening.

9-10pm: Finally, Medium is back! Our favorite lady who sees dead people has returned to TV to make up slightly for the unfortunate cancellation of Christian Slater’s My Own Worste Enemy. Medium offers consistent quality, great mysteries, engaging characters, and heartwrenching stories of bad things happening to good people–and sometimes to bad people.

Well, it seems my fascination with the handsome actor that played young Nick Vera in last night’s Cold Case was shared by other viewers. My stats showed line after line of google searches like “young nick vera actor cold case” that led them to last night’s blog entry. So I poked around a bit to find you all some more info, sketchy as it is. Click for Daniel Gordh’s IMDB resume. Seems he’s a writer, actor, and…skilled springboard diver. If you search YouTube for “Daniel Vincent Gordh ” you’ll find an Actor Short he’s in for about 5 seconds. If you search without the middle name, you’ll find some diving vids. Definitely an ecclectic mix. Looks like he’s also got a Facebook page.

IMDB says his  “STARmeter” has gone up 53% since last week. I’m sure this Cold Case guest turn had something to do with it. Good luck to Gordh in swinging some more gigs from this excellent exposure.

Now, as for the Monday night line-up, Chuck worried me there for the first part of the show. Chuck is enjoyable because it’s quirky and strange and lots of unexpected action and twists spring up out of the geeky and mundane. To throw in conventional sitcom stuff where the girlfriend walks in at just the worng moment and misinterprets what Chuck’s doing…ugghhhh. This show is better than that. They saved this element by adding a twist to it at the end, but still, it wasn’t one of their better episodes. And though it’s basically a comedy, and the viewer’s willing to suspend disbelief on a lot of things, it starts to strain the credibility of the show when the agents covering Chuck break all kinds of rules without consequence over and over. It’s how Alias jumped the shark to me, when every single person in the unit was somehow related to and/or visciously estranged from each other–because that’s just the right elements for a crack team of professional spies. Granted, Chuck has more leeway to bend reality for humor’s sake, but it’s a good idea if they don’t bend until it breaks.

Complaints abound online about Heroes‘ neverending flip-flopping of heroes and villians. Viewers and critics alike should be glad, then, that tonight the show appeared to take a stand on who is on which side. Sylar’s still a wildcard in my book, though–at least I hope he is. His complicated arc is one of the most believable that Heroes has going, and I’d like to see it continue. It was also good to see Claire and Peter back together again–their real-life chemistry shows through on screen, and their characters have always had a strong connection. I love that Ando got to be the Hero in this episode as well, though I’m not sure how enjoyable it’s going to be to watch a regressed Hiro. With the showrunners fired, it’ll be interesting to see how future arcs of Heroes pan out.

Though it’s been cancelled, I couldn’t help but watch My Own Worst Enemy again tonight. NBC is going to air 9 episodes apparently, and who knows if we’ll end on a cliffhanger or not. I’m still going to watch them, since Christian Slater and Alfre Woodard are excellent in it, the plot is engaging, and the emotional angle is just starting to get good. I’ll draw as much out of it as I can before it leaves the airwaves. Maybe the show wasn’t perfect, but there’s something wrong when shows like Kath& Kim get picked up for a full season and My Own Worst Enemy gets axed.

Watch Chuck, Heroes, and what’s left of My Own Worst Enemy on NBC Monday nights, starting at 8pm Eastern/7pm Central.

(Daniel Gordh photo c2008 Paul Smith Photography)