My One Big Eyeball #2

Battlestar Galactica 3x03 - "Exodus (Part 1)"
Episode Grade: A

PREVIOUSLY: The previous episode ended with 200 people lined up, about to be shot; Cally escaped and ran, and heard gunfire. To Be Continued. Much more previously Helo and Sharon (who is not actually Boomer... It's hard to keep track when you have a bunch of characters who are entirely identical and yet also not) had a cybrid baby, Hera, and Roslin stole her away and convinced them she died in childbirth. There will be hell to pay if and when Sharon finds out about this.

NOW: So, two part episodes on this show are a game of gravitational dart ninjas. First part; throw all your darts in the air. Second part; that shit is going to HURT when it comes down. What the dart tossing actually involved (There is a LOT); Last week's cliffhanger is resolved in a pretty stupid way; ONE HOUR EARLIER, Chief Tyrol and his men snuck up on the toasters, so it was really THEM firing the shots. Except not, because Cally was running right in the way, so Tyrol ran to her and got her down to the floor, then they fired, which totally doesn't make sense because Cally heard the shots with no sign of Tyrol, that was the cliffhanger. Whatever, the episode recovers excellently; Adama and Lee have a teary goodbye as Adama prepares to begin the rescue mission, and gets in one of his most excellent trademark inspirational speeches to the Galactica crew at the end. Sharon touches down on New Caprica to co-ordinate the rescue op and, being a frakkin' toaster herself, has much less difficulty infiltrating the cylon base than the rest of the resistance. Tigh's one eye gets crazy intense when he discovers that his wife totally betrayed him and the entire resistance. Roslin's whole entire face gets crazy intense telling anyone and everyone to protect Hera with their lives. D'Anna Biers (cylon model #3) joins 6 and 8 in the growing list of cylons who are totally losing it, and goes to see a weird drugged up gypsy who tells her that Hera is actually still alive, and she will hold her and she will find love for the first time. She confronts Sharon with this news in the cylon base, but after much intenseness, Sharon totally shoots her in the kneecaps; "Adama wouldn't lie to me." There is seriously going to be so much hell to pay when Sharon finds out, which she so obviously is going to next week. I'm scared.

WHAT I THINK OF IT ALL: Well hey, I kind of shoved that into to the NOW. Oopsie. So yeah; cliffhanger resolution was way stupid, and all the ONE HOUR EARLIER crap just drew it out longer and made the stupid more obvious. You could have just taken five seconds to show Tyrol take out the cylons, then got down to the awesome of the rest of the episode. I wouldn't have minded. But anyway, it means Roslin and Zarek survived, so hurrah for that.
Now, rest of the episode. One thing in particular that struck me; this show has a huge, huge cast of actual major characters. And they are all actual characters, because the cast is way awesome (used to have a weak link in Grace Park as Sharon/Boomer/any other #8s, but she's definitely improved a lot over the last two seasons) and like, so many of them had something to do here. It's really very impressive. And man do I love the way more cylon presence we're getting what with the occupation and all, though why is it the female models all have these crises of faith while the males get to remain terrifyingly remorseless psychos? I do love those remorseless psychos though, particularly Brother Cavill. Dean stockwell is so damn awesome. Other things I love; Cavill's human equivalent, Doc. Cottle, and the fact that makes no distinction between human and cylon in his work on New Caprica; Tigh's "The last thing your child needs is Ellen and me for parents."; this whole entire show, so very much.


Desperate Housewives 3x03 - "Weekend In The Country"
Episode Grade: A-

PREVIOUSLY: Bree left her son Andrew by the roadside because he was an evil little shit, then married ANOTHER psycho, Susan met the husband of a coma patient while attending to her own coma'd SO, and he totally has the hots for her, crazy Nora drove Lynette insane over and over, Gabby had an affair with gardener John long before Carlos had the affair of his own that caused their impending divorce.

NOW: Bree and Orson are about to head off on a honeymoon when she sees a news report about homeless kids interviewing Andrew, which totally destroys her ability to live with her decision, so she cancels the honeymoon to try to bring him back home which, after an interesting talk with Orson, he consents to. Susan heads off for a "totally platonic" weekend alone with coma-husband Ian. After he offends her by making a massive thing out of the fact that she's slept with 11 other men while he's never been with anyone but his wife, and then offends her again for the same reason a few more times, she brings his count up to two. Yeah, I know, but it's Susan. And Lynette and Gabby head off for a relaxing spa weekend of their own, but Lynette's is cut short due to Tom, who's taken the kids on a camping trip, having back problems, forcing her to go along and rescue him. Crazy Nora worms her way into the rescue mission, and they have a massively entertaining eight hour road trip. Gabby, left alone at the spa, meets gardener John who's all grown up into businessman John, and they have a night of passion after which he informs her he's engaged and she is forced to leave the room quick sharp by hiding in a suitcase. Oh, and Mike wakes up from his coma. Knew that had to happen soon.

WHAT I THINK OF IT ALL: So, that was more like it. Bree's inevitable reunion with Andrew was every bit as totally heart-rending for her as I expected, and Orson's talk with Andrew makes me slightly less annoyed about the whole ridiculous rushed wedding thing, though I'm still not much on board with it. Oh, and Danielle got some lines! But still no actual mentioning of how she feels about the whole wedding, which is still annoying. Gabby and John was fun, fun, fun. Usual enjoyable Desperate Housewives fare that's been a little lacking the past couple of weeks. Lynette and Nora forced to occupy one very small car together was an excellent idea that really got the sparks flying as I'd hoped for since they introduced her, and also they are totally starting to bond a tiny, tiny little bit, which I am hoping will very gradually work its way in over the season and lead to good stuff further down the line. Susan and Ian were a little repetitive this time, but Susan did get some pretty great snarky lines in on him, so not too bad. Keep up the good work, guys.


Heroes 1x03 - "One Giant Leap"
Episode Grade: B

PREVIOUSLY: A bunch of emos around the world discovered they have "what can only be described as 'special' abilities."

NOW: Hiro still has the comic book that reveals his destiny from his brief foray into the future, and uses this and his ability to stop time and save a schoolgirl to convince his pal Ando to join him in a trip to New York to save the world. Peter tries to fly again, but can't because Nathan is nowhere near and his superpower is quite clearly actualllly borrowing other people's powers. Nathan is a horrible bitch and, in order to gain sympathy points in his election campaign, claims Peter's roof jump was a suicide attempt, which Peter is not best pleased with. He drowns his sorrows... in Simone's throat! Which Isaac wakes up from a heroin induced future-painting binge to find he has painted, and is not best pleased either. Niki's husband was some sort of evil gangster or summat, I'm sure we'll meet him and find out more soon. Matt clears his charges by proving that he can read thoughts, and uses said power to discover that his wife is totally leaving him. Also, mysterious-evil-guy-who-still-may-or-may-not-be-the-same-mysterious-evil-guy-as-Claire's-dad, Sylar attacks the police station trying to take the girl Matt rescued last week, and gets a few of Matt's bullets in his face for his trouble. But that is not enough to keep him down, so he lives to skulk around in the shadows so we still can't figure out who he is another day. And a football player gets a little rapey with Claire, ends up impaling her head on a sharp... something, which apparently does result in Claire's death, at least until it's removed, so she's not entirely invicible. Anyway, she wakes up in a morgue with HER CHEST ALL CUT OPEN AND SHIT. In her words, "Holy sh-". Quite.

WHAT I THINK OF IT ALL: Hiro is still just the greatest character ever created ever, and his moment of actual Heroism was way, way awesome. Claire's ability to twice now get herself would-be-killed-if-she-wasn't-invincible is pretty goddamn ridiculous. But that's mostly a complaint about last week, when her whole head-twisting round neck breakage was entirely unnecessary. I still also really enjoy Matt who, aside from Hiro, is totally the least emo about it all, and him holding off Sylar was totally tense and excellent.
Less good; Niki's plot really didn't go anywhere much this week. Though it still went further than Mohinder's which... There's a reason I made no actual mention of it in the "NOW" section; NOTHING HAPPENED. And Peter, Nathan and most especially Simone just aren't that interesting as of yet. Good enough, but something more would be nice.
Next episode is called "Come Together", which can surely only mean good things.


Lost 3x02 - "The Glass Ballerina"
Episode Grade: B+

PREVIOUSLY: Jack, Kate & Sawyer were kidnapped by the Others, having been lead into a trap by Michael "WAAAAAAAAAAAAALT!!!" Dawson, despite the fact that they totally KNEW he was leading them into a trap. Though they only knew this because Sayid is the only lostaway with any intelligence at all and actually picked up on Michael's exceedingly sketchy behaviour. Sayid took Desmond's boat along the shore, for which he needed the aid of sailors Jin and Sun, as part of Jack's "plan" or something. It's been a while. There's a whole bunch of other lostaways, but it seems we're only catching up on three per episode. Next week; the adventures of Rose, whichever of Scott and Steve is not dead and "you there!"?

NOW: Flashbacks concern Sun and Jin who, aside from Jack, of course, are surprisingly the first to reach 5 on the flashback count. I was totally expecting Kate and probably Locke to get there first. Anyway, Sun actualy did cheat on Jin, so her pregnancy is not such a miracle. Her evil mob boss daddy found out, and sent Jin to kill Jae, the guy she was cheating with, for "stealing from him". Jin beats the crap out of the guy but can't actually go through with it (maybe he would if he actually knew why he was doing it), but Jae finishes the work for him by leaping (or being pushed) out the window and landing on Jin's car.
On island; Kate and Swayer are forced at gunpoint by an angry "NO TOUCHING!" Other to break rocks, which Sawyer interrupts to start making out with Kate, but really he's doing this to start a fight and test their strength which is apparently pretty lacking, in most cases.
Sayid turns out to be as dumb as the rest of them, because his plan amounts to; light a fire to draw the Others' attention then me and Jin will hardcore Rambo style ambush them while Sun hides in the boat because women can't possibly be useful in a fight. Unfortunately, the others come by sea and steal the boat, but only after Sun is startled into shooting one of them in the chest, Michael style. Atta girl. Oh, and Benry Gale reveals to Jack that the Others totally know what's going on in the outside world.

WHAT I THINK OF IT ALL: Unlike Jack's six identical flashbacks, Jin and Sun have now managed five with four shedding at least some interesting new light on the characters (particularly "...In Translation" which remains by far the greatest use of the flashback format on the show thus far) and the other one being entertaining if unnecessary, so that alone brings this episode way up from the previous. But the on island stuff was also mostly an improvement because; minimal Jack, and when he was there, it was mostly to listen to Benry being creepy in an awesome way, which was the awesome ending that was one of the many things the first episode was entirely missing. Sawyer was as great as he's ever been throughout, and the "You taste like strawberries" "...You taste like fish biscuits" exchange was so damn cute. And I will always love scenes of Jin and Sun trying to make the best of their situation and Jin's general insecurities and anger management issues on the island. Sayid's plan was way out of characterly dumb though. Oh, and all of the Sawyer teeling Kate that Juliette would totally have killed Kate in a second in the world is not going to convince me that she is anything but dull and pointless, y'all. And what is up with the episode titles this season; last time it bore no apparent relevance at all, this week, the titular ballerina appeared for a random five second flashback of Sun breaking it and lying to her father about it afterwards at the start of the episode and was never brought up again. I'm sure there's deep spiritual relevance to it all, but, what?