Jawaballs TV Review: Heroes and SGU

All of the coolness that could have been as hinted at in this picture just became an epic fail intead that happened for 30 seconds behind a closed door. Shame.


I am not much of a TV fan. I would much rather spend my time painting Blood Angels. But I do make time for a few shows. The recent heyday of my TV watching was a few years ago when Journeyman, Battlestar, Heroes, Jericho were all on. I found myself skipping events and making plans to watch TV 3 or 4 nights a week when previously I watched zero. But the stuff was good! First of all, Jericho and Journeyman. Both were cancelled after their first season. I loved them both. Jericho was great for its post apocalyptic mystery... What the heck was up with the rest of the world? I wish they had just let it die. The half-ass second season was an embarassment. Journeyman never had a chance. It was a great story... a little like Quantum Leap, but still great. I personally liked it because while Quantum Leap had Sam jumping back into time before I was born, therefore disconected from it, Journeyman had him jumping back only a few years. In one episode he walked into a Microbrew Pub and Bittersweet Symphony was playing... holy blast from 1997! I liked the subtle attention to detail they showed in jumping back just a decade or so, and how drasticly things change and we didnt even know.

Battlestar was my all time favorite show ever. I wept after the final episode and had an empty spot in my heart for days. But I am not here to talk about cancelled TV shows. I am here to discuss the two that I am watching now.

I really only plan to watch TV on Monday and Friday nights. On monday I watch Heroes and on Friday I watch a new show called Stargate SGU. Heroes first. What the hell happened to it???? What used to be a great show with compelling characters, mystery, intrigue and fun has just bellied up. Screw jumping the shark. They jumped the void, and fell in. It's terrible now! Season 1 was fantastic and always had me wanting more after each episode. Season 2... well, was a bit weak. Season 3 brought me back. I wasnt crazy about it, but by the end of season 3, I was not going to Battle for Salvation on Mondays to play 40k, in part so I could watch Heroes again! This year? Screw it. Any thing that was cool about last year they just did away with.

What ever happened to Hiro coming back in time to find Peter in the Subway. Save the Cheerleader Save the world? Did that just go away? Or was that actually resolved? What about the Irish girl that Peter supposedly fell in love with. He teleported her to future Montreal and she was taken prisoner, and poof. Not another mention of that whole plot line. Some sort of virus scare... gone. All replaced with a stupid bunch of carnies. At any rate. I've decided to give it up again. Time to go back to 40k on Mondays. :)

The big reason why I am posting about TV today is to talk about the new Stargate series. I never got into Stargate. I have only ever watched a few episodes, and while I enjoyed them, I never liked them enough to try to watch the series. But Something about this new one has sucked me in. Maybe I was lucky to have caught the premier. Who knows. But if you don't know about it, it goes like this.

The Stargate was found on earth in a movie staring Kurt Russel. Great movie. It spawned a series on Sci-fi, then two more I think. The premise is that you can step through this gate and instantly travel across the universe, but by doing this, they gained the attention of evil races and made lots of enemies and friends. Drama ensues followed by 15 years of television.

In this new series, the humans have set up a base on a remote planet, but the base is attacked by an alien fleet. In the battle, the energy core of the stargate is ruptured, and a chain reaction is sent to the core of the planet ala the Death Star, and the planet explodes. In a frantic attempt to escape, some of the people input an untried and experimental coordinate into the Stargate then leap through, arriving on an ancient star ship. So now the survivors are on some ancient ship that they have very little understanding of, and it is deserted and falling apart, but still zooming across the universe. They are out of range to use the Stargate to get home and have limited communication capacity. The ship is on a heading that they cannot change, and periodicly starts up its stargate for a few hours to allow them to go to some planets for unspecified reasons, presumably to find natural resources to fix the ship. Then it shuts it off, and jumps back into hyperspace.

One of the characters is a math nerd college drop out who cracked a code on some MMO video game which was actually a trojan placed by the military to find genius minds. They happened to be introducing him to the program when the planet was attacked and he is now unwittingly one of the main decision makers on a space ship he had no idea existed weeks before. Another character is the guy from 28 weeks later, who is pretty much playing the same snivling character, only he is also a super genius. But he is manipulating things and not letting the other people know what he knows.

I think the show is fresh and fun, with an interesting blend of stereotype characters who dont quite fit stereotypes. The best part of it is that most of these people could be you or me. A medic who was short time in the military and was planning on going to college when she ended up the chief medical officer of this new ship, a Sergeant who had trouble with the law, the nerd who dreams of saving the day, a schizo rambling scottish genius, a politicians daughter who watched her father sacrifice himself for the others, the insecure leutenant who is gaining experience and confidence, the silent and brooding commander... it goes on and on.

Bottom line, forget Heroes, Miss Battlestar and watch SGU.

If you guys like my TV reviews, let me know and I will write more!