Moonlight

I caught about half the premiere of Moonlight, CBS's new drama about Los Angeles vampire/P.I. Mick St. John (Alex O'Loughlin) that has already gone through more concept and cast changes than I can remember. Everything about the finished product feels like it's been done before, from the voiceover, to the mortal love interest, to the attempts to keep a secret identity.


Sophia Myles

It's been three years since Angel was canceled, not long enough to make Moonlight seem fresh. Not to mention that Sophia Myles, who plays Mick's girlfriend, resembles Elisabeth Rohm, who played Angel's Kate Lockley.


Elisabeth Rohm

Journeyman, Reaper

I caught encores of Journeyman and Reaper last night. Journeyman is the least original of all the new series I've seen this season. (I say this as a big fan of Quantum Leap and a modest fan of Tru Calling.) Unlike Quantum Leap, Journeyman is short on backstory. Hero Dan Vassar (Kevin McKidd) blacks out and starts tripping through time without warning. Very disorienting to me. This is one I'll skip.

Reaper is about a 21-year-old slacker (Brett Harrison) who learns his parents sold his soul to The Devil (Ray Wise) before he was born. The Devil puts him to work sending escaped souls back to hell. This show has a lot going for it: a vibe similar to Chuck, a perfectly-cast Ray Wise, Missy Peregrym. Its regular timeslot is Tuesdays at 9, opposite House, which could translate to less ratings pressure.

Smallville: "Bizarro"

A quick rundown of the highlights (Caution: Full o' Spoilers):

Aaron Ashmore (Jimmy Olsen) and Laura Vandervoort (Kara) make the credits; Annette O'Toole (Martha Kent) does not.

Chloe's meteor power is not only to sacrifice herself to bring others back to life. She can also rise from the dead.

Supergirl shows up without explanation on Earth and saves a drowning Lex.

Someone drags Lionel off a piece of driftwood.

Bizarro's weakness? The yellow sun.

Lana is living in disguise somewhere in Asia.

After five seasons wanting more realism from Smallville, I've learned to enjoy its over-the-topness. I wonder what's in store this seventh (final?) season.

Bionic Woman, Life

"Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster."

Something about that narration made me believe, made me want to be bionic. NBC's update bears little resemblance to the 1976 original beyond the main character's name. The new Jaime Sommers (Michelle Ryan) is a college dropout bartender rashly fitted with bionics by her surgeon boyfriend after their near-fatal car accident.

The organization behind Jaime's bionics is rather shady, and soon she finds herself pursued by psychopathic previous model Sarah Corvis (Katee Sackhoff). As with most superhero shows, as human as Jaime and Sarah seem, there will always something otherworldly about them that will have to be served, and that ultimately turns me off.

Following Bionic Woman was Life starring Damian Lewis as Charlie Crews, a cop whose wrongful conviction is overturned twelve years into a life sentence. Many of his former colleagues hate him, either because they still suspect him or because he sued for reinstatement. Relying on the Zen he studied in prison, Crews must catch up on twelve years of the American culture while solving crimes including who originally framed him.

Fans of House, Raines, or Blind Justice could find something to like about Life, or could just as easily skip it.

I'll hang in with both shows, at least for another week.

Cliffhanging

Last night I was forced to flip between NCIS and Bones. I had planned to watch Bones and tape NCIS because I figure Bones could use the ratings help (I don't have a Nielsen box, but I like to pretend I do). Anyway, I occasionally forgot which show I needed to watch live, but Bones was basically a wrap-up of last season's storylines: Angela and Hodgins try to locate the man Angela married in Fiji. Brennan has been acting more reclusive since Zack went to Iraq. She resists going into the field and stalls hiring Zack's replacement. Fortunately or unfortunately, Zack returns, deemed a detriment to unit cohesiveness by the military. All in all, it felt like the last episode of the second season, not the first of the third.

This was even more true of NCIS's fifth season premiere, "Bury Your Dead". It picks up just after Tony has gotten into a limousine with Jeanne and Le Grenouille. Jenny's attempt to run her op without Gibbs's knowledge continues to unravel. Shortly after Le Grenouille reveals he knows Tony's true identity, a car bomb destroys Tony's car with the team watching from MTAC. There's some suspense as the team members react to Tony's apparent death, but it turns out Jeanne was the intended target, and Le Grenouille suddenly seeks NCIS's protection from his unknown enemy.

Finally on House, without help from a team, the good doctor treats a woman badly injured in a building collapse. The sudden dissolution of House's team felt arbitrary. Like House's faceoff with Michael Tritter (David Morse), it was more "Hey, what if we did this?" than a naturally-occurring event. I'm curious to see how each team member comes back. I guess they are important to House's success, but how much bigger will their heads be knowing they are?

When One Man Debuts

I haven't posted much about Dave White's When One Man Dies in the year-plus leading up to its on-sale date (today) because, well, I know next to nothing about it. Kevin Burton Smith and I edited several of Dave's short stories for Thrilling Detective, but I haven't read any of Dave's book in advance. I'm curious to see how his writing holds up without me.

Good luck, Dave. :)

Chuck

Chuck (not to be confused with the feature Good Luck Chuck) is NBC's new action comedy starring Zachary Levi as an electronics store techie suddenly thrust into the world of modern espionage when an old rival of his sends him an e-mail encoded with thousands of stolen secrets. Separately tasked with recovering said secrets are Major John Casey of the NSA (Adam Baldwin) and Sarah Walker of the CIA (Yvonne Strzechowski). It's nicely unclear which agency has the better motive.

This show has a good geek factor and appealing leads. It remains to be seen if they'll be fleshed out in a fresh way or if this is Jake 3.0. As a loyal Browncoat, I will tune in next week.

Oh, and who proofread this?:

Starring: Zachary Levi, Adamn Baldwin, Yvonne Strahovski, Joshua Gomez, Sarah Lancaster

Shark: "Gangster Movies"

As Shark's second season opens, a witness to a "simple" break-in and shooting is killed in a bomb blast. Suspecting there are larger forces at work, Stark calls former D.A. Jessica Devlin (Jeri Ryan) for help, and she brings with her Det. Danny Reyes a maverick member of the LAPD's organized crime unit.

Shark is still trying to find the right mix of actors. Sam Page's season one character was written off in favor of Kevin Allejandro as Reyes. James Woods still carries the show, and Stark still shows unexpected vulnerability when it comes to his daughter. I should be able to catch more of the show in its new Sunday 10 p.m. timeslot.

Columnnist

A member of CrimeSeen, editor Joe DeMarco invited me to write a regular column for Mysterical-E, and so was born Mysterical-Eye: On TV and Film. My inaugural column, "Series Burnout (And How to Avoid It)", just went live. Thanks for the opportunity, Joe.

Rating the Supermen

Having watched Superman Doomsday this week, I was curious about two other Superman appearances on Kids WB cartoons this morning. On Legion of Super-Heroes, a clone of Superman lures the Legion to the 41st century to battle Imperiex. Superman X, as he is called, has enhanced powers and an immunity to kryptonite. The catch? He's more pragmatic than altruistic, having been raised in a dystopia. Sorry, badass Superman has never worked for me.

Then on The Batman, Superman delivers a relief check from Metropolis to Gotham, and as he arrives, Metallo shows up. In this retelling of The WB's previous World's Finest movie, Superman is an overconfident loner and Batman is the one who knows the value of teamwork. Reprising their roles from Justice League Unlimited are George Newbern as Clark/Superman, Dana Delany as Lois, and Clancy Brown as Lex. Superman resembles Christopher Reeve, blue eyes and all. Lois has huge eyes. At the end of part one, Lex gains control of Superman with a little help from Poison Ivy. Eh, I didn't think the story needed retelling, especially with many of the same voice actors.

BURN NOTICE Wraps First Season

I've been a fan of this show from the start. The chemistry among the characters only grew, and the pacing of each episode as part of the season's larger mystery proved perfect. Last night's two-hour finale was edge-of-your-seat viewing at its best. Hurry with those DVDs!

Stay tuned for Season Two next summer.

SUPERMAN DOOMSDAY

The first of a new line of direct-to-DVD DC animated features deals with one of the most popular Superman storylines, the death and return of Superman.

I confess I haven't read the comics. Truth be told, I find the Man of Steel too powerful a character, so anything that kills him has to be that much more powerful, and that's impossible to show in any medium. That said, the animators do a nice job showing Superman tired, out of breath, bleeding.

The heart of the story to me is the more mature relationship between Lois and Clark, with Lois pushing Superman to admit the identity she's already deduced, and Clark holding back that last bit, afraid of commitment.

Adam Baldwin, Anne Heche, and James Marsters do justice to the three principal characters, sublimating my memory of previous voice actors. Baldwin is warm as Clark and macho as Superman. Heche is take-charge as Lois. Marsters is slick as Lex.

Great dramatization of an epic event, right down to the musical score.

K-Ville Okay, But...

I just watched a tape of the premiere of Fox's new post-Katrina cop drama K-Ville, starring Anthony Anderson and Cole (son of Wings) Hauser. It was fine, good action, good atmosphere, but...

Hauser's character, Trevor Cobb, is supposedly a former Army Ranger who served in Afghanistan before joining the NOPD. At the end of the episode, though, we discover that Cobb was in a New Orleans prison when Katrina hit. With police records lost, he resolved to change his life and joined the Army. He tells Anderson's character, "With no computer records and all the wars we're fighting, nobody asked me any questions."

Would not happen. The military questions and vets anyone who enlists. It has access to records that have been sealed or expunged by other authorities. Lying to the military in this process is against the law, not behavior you'd expect from a criminal trying to reform. I'm sure some writer thought it a nice spin on the theme of new beginnings, but the logistics don't wash.

Robert B. Parker at 75

Today is Robert B. Parker's birthday. I just read the paperback of Hundred-Dollar Baby, the return of April Kyle. In recent years Parker has tried various techniques to freeze Spenser's age, but this book is once again filled with cultural and period markers, from the Red Sox 2004 championship to iPods to Paris Hilton. The story is grounded in the now, yet Spenser doesn't seem too old. The dialog doesn't seem as repetitive. One wonders why Parker ever shied away from such markers.

Parker's output shows no signs of slowing; however, I believe I've hit on the most crucial element missing from his recent books. Many have made the point that Parker no longer writes mysteries. His culprits are revealed fairly early, and you know his heroes will succeed in the end. The lack of mystery doesn't concern me as much as the lack of urgency.

Parker's protags conveniently get as much time as they need to solve a case. In recent books, Spenser and Hawk have been shot almost to death, but have taken a year off to recover and picked up the trail. I think this is because Parker needed time to see where the plot was going. Because he no longer plans ahead or revises, he can't take full advantage of a classic suspense-building technique—the ticking clock. Parker's books, though physically shorter, read needlessly longer.

Time pressure is a basic component of reality, and the lack of it has relegated Parker's once thought-provoking books to escapist beach reads. What self-respecting professional couldn't complete all his tasks given unlimited time?

Emmy Wrap

I actually watched some of the Emmys last night, enough to see Jaime Pressly win for My Name is Earl, Terry O'Quinn win for Lost, Katherine Heigl win for Grey's Anatomy, and Ray Romano be censored for a comedy routine that had already bombed.

In other news, James Spader inexplicably beat Hugh Laurie, Ricky Gervais inexplicably beat Alec Baldwin, but at least 30 Rock won for Outstanding Comedy Series. Tom Selleck did not win for Sea Change, but Thomas Haden Church won for Broken Trail. And those are all the awards I care about.

Laterz

I'm not much for slang, but on my entry announcing the reprint of "Stunts", the supposedly random letters I have to enter to prove I'm not a spammer spelled out "laterz".

"Stunts"

Reprinted in the latest online edition of Mouth Full of Bullets is my 2005 story "Stunts". Thanks to editor BJ Bourg.

September 11

I was working from home on September 11, 2001 and heard via instant message that a plane had struck the World Trade Center. Nothing was visible in the sky from Long Island. I remember how sunny and quiet it seemed the next day at Hofstra. I remember how vulnerable I felt and still feel since that day. Still, the anniversary is for me a day to be thankful I was nowhere near the impact and no one I knew was affected.

In the summer of 2002, Dave White submitted "Closure" to Thrilling Detective, and editing it was my privilege, my small contribution to our national mourning.

Remember those things?

Received my copy of remark. Issue 57, featuring my poem "The Magic Eye Puzzle". Thanks to editor Kathleen Paul-Flanagan.

Coming May '08, Indiana Jones and...

...The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?

Well, whatever, I guess. It's Indy. It's Marion. I'll watch, but the title reminds me of Chandler Bing saying, "Remember back in college when he fell in love with Carol and bought her that ridiculously expensive crystal duck?"

Never on Sunday

With pancake wishes and syrup dreams, my brother and I began a foolhardy quest for breakfast at IHOP this morning. We stopped by not one but two IHOPs with lines out the door. In between, we stopped by Ayhan's Shish Kebab as they were setting up for brunch.

Finally we returned home, where Henry had microwaved Bagel Bites and I had leftover chicken eggrolls and a bowl of Special K Chocolatey Delight.

Looking back on Smallville

Crimespree's Jon Jordan posted his thoughts after watching Seasons 1 through 5 of Smallville on DVD, which led me to ponder my own experience of the series.

Season 1 of Smallville was one of the first DVD sets I bought. Very impressive introduction to the relationships and good foreshadowing to Clark's future.

Looking back, seasons 2 and 3 had less momentum, which is why I think Lois was introduced in Season 4. Lois Lane engages Clark Kent like no one else, a nice change from his close-mouthed staring and pining for Lana.

As uneven as I've found the series, I still watch each week. The production values are great, and there's always the chance the writers will riff on classic relationships like Clark and Jonathan, Lex and Clark, Lana and Clark, Lois and Clark.

The Kim Possible Every Possible Episode Ever Event

I couldn't possibly keep up with this week-long Disney Channel marathon from 12 noon to 6 A.M. each day, but I thought it worth a mention. It includes an all-new hour-long graduation episode tonight at 8.

An Odd List of Favorite P.I. Movies

Brought to mind by a post to CrimeSeen, here are my seven favorite P.I. movies of the past nine years. (Odd, get it?):

The Big Lebowski (Jeff Bridges)

Twilight (Paul Newman, James Garner, Susan Sarandon)

Zero Effect (Bill Pullman, Ben Stiller)

Memento (Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss)

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (Woody Allen)

Brick (Joseph Gordon-Leavitt)

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer)

New review for Crimespree Cinema

Jeremy Lynch has posted my DVD review of Bones Season Two, due out September 11. Thanks again, Jeremy.

Federer Beats Roddick (Again)

There's nothing like a U.S. Open match that lasts well into the night. I thought this was Roddick's best chance in years to beat Federer. The first two sets went 7-6 to Federer, and in the middle of the third, Roddick once again talked himself out of the match. He's just not as mentally tough as Federer.

Duh

The word that most grates on my English-teacher ears is "Duh." No other word connotes an utter lack of imagination. Surely you can think of something more creative to say than "Duh." Apparently, Hyundai's marketing people can't. See their "Big Duh" Sales Event commercials with an a capella chorus "duh"-ing out such classics as The Pink Panther and Mission: Impossible themes. Does Hyundai really want its cars associated with such a mind-numbing word?