Criminal Minds’ changing of the guard
Today’s Guest-clacker is JJ, who lives in Austin, TX and is a Systems Engineer. He claims he watches waaaayyyy too much TV and he’s always looking for the next “better” show. To date, he’s never found anything better than Showtime’s Brotherhood.
First off I think I should preface by saying I’m a pretty big fan of Criminal Minds. I started watching it religiously, probably back mid-season two, and have watched Aaron Hotchner (Thomas Gibson) grow as a leader then turn around and fall as a failure. This episode is the first episode where Hotchner is no longer the team lead and in the “changing of the guards” Derek Morgan (Shemar Moore) becomes the lead FBI agent.
This episode is pretty straight forward; it’s focused on the new leadership style of Morgan and didn’t have many — if any — twists in the episode, which is very unlike Criminal Minds. It had the typical start of the dark and depressing “killer beginning” attempting to set the mood of the episode, but honestly feels as if it fell short.
I did notice something that isn’t very typical for Criminal Minds which is we actually see a majority of the killer’s face in the first few scenes; the show usually attempts to hide the killer with overcasting shadows. This actually turned me off from the episode almost instantly because unlike the norm for the show, they concentrated on the character development instead of the crime.
Separated at birth: Stargate Universe and Arrested Development – Guest Clack
First-time guest clacker Ryan enjoyed snowy Northeast winters for a few years, but now lives back home in humid Hawaii. He wishes it were still cold enough to wear a suit and tie when going out.
Before Friday’s episode of Stargate Universe, I was certain that Robert C. Cooper and Brad Wright had merely taken the Battlestar Galactica character sketches, filed off the serial numbers, and tossed them through the Stargate. I now know the truth, which is that they stole them from Arrested Development instead.
Three reasons to watch Sanctuary – Guest Clack
Santuary’s on Syfy tonight, and frequent reader of CliqueClack, Ruby T., is Guest Clacking today with a few reasons why you should be tuning in to the show. Ruby is a writer from Chicago and a science-fiction/fantasy aficionado (all right, a geek).
1) It’s derivative, but in a fun way. I always enjoy spotting a nice sci-fi homage (or rip-off, if you prefer). Sanctuary as a whole is a kind of mash-up of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and X-Men, with the ageless Helen Magnus as a Mina Harker/Prof. X character. But it gets better. I don’t even have to know the actual names of the episodes anymore. It’s just “that Tribbles episode” or “the Fight Club episode” or “the Cloverfield episode.” Tell me, what self-respecting geek would not be intrigued by this? (Okay, if you want to look up those episodes, their real titles are “Nubbins,” “Warriors,” and “Instinct.”) On a side note, you can also play “Spot-the-Syfy-Star” with Sanctuary’s guest roster featuring names like Rekha Sharma of Battlestar Galactica and Michael Shanks of Stargate.
Fringe: There’s more than one season of everything
Elizabeth’s back, sharing her ideas about Fringe this time, after musing on the musical TV shows and Glee’s success so far.
So now we’ve spent all summer shocked, amazed and desperate to know just why William Bell wanted to talk to Olivia in the still-existing World Trade Center. And … they waited another two and a half episodes to show us. It’s a strange cliffhanger, to be sure, being drawn out like that, but now at least she’s finally remembered her conversation with Bell, and the shapeshifting-soldier plot is moving forward — not to mention poor Charlie Francis is off the show for sure now. As character sendoffs go, it’s a pretty good one — both important to the plot and emotionally effective. He even gets Olivia to mourn him. At least he got one last chance to do something other than give exposition and act baffled.
Speaking of characters getting to do something more, Peter’s stepped up to take more of a leadership role while Olivia was out of circulation, which is a big step for his character but a welcome one. For now he’s gone back to helping out Olivia and making excuses for his father, so we’ll see what happens later on — especially if he finds out he’s not the “real” Peter, as that Rebecca woman Walter also used to experiment on saw without realizing. Now that he’s starting to have dreams that might be memories of having been taken by this world’s Walter, this new assertiveness of Peter’s could start causing trouble for everybody.
Glee: Can a musical show work where others have failed? – Guest Clack
Elizabeth Gendler, today’s Guest-clacker, is another aspiring writer who came to LA from the Midwest after college. She’s worked as an intern, script reader, secretary, and shipping clerk (most of it even for pay!). Not having done much in the way of blogging before, she’s excited to be using her compulsive TV-watching for good rather than evil.
Probably the most interesting thing about Glee is that it’s already done so much better with the audience than anything else centered around music. As some of us are lucky — or maybe unlucky — enough to know, that pretty much consists of Cop Rock and Viva Laughlin (If you don’t know either of those shows, well, that’s my point.)
The Goode Family belongs on FOX – Guest Clack
We’ve got some fresh meat … er, new Guest Clacking coming at you today. Cameron Archer is a freelance writer from Ontario. He writes for his site at URBMN and has also contributed to blogcritics.org.
I didn’t enjoy The Goode Family’s pilot episode. As a longtime King of the Hill fan, The Goode Family felt like a weaker King of the Hill with political leanings reversed. Ubuntu came across as an idiot savant, while Gerald and Helen Goode were ciphers. The pilot had a subplot about purity rings, something South Park covered to greater comedic effect in its thirteenth-season premiere.
Having followed the show since the pilot, I have a higher opinion of The Goode Family. Ubuntu is more an awkward enigma at this point. Gerald is more competent than his employer, the Hank Hill of academia. The Goode Family is starting to feel like King of the Hill without being its blown-up negative. It’s just too bad no one watches the show.
Whoopi diagnosed by Romo Lampkin: serial contrarian
Long-time commenter bsgfan2003 (or Rosie, if you prefer) is back guest clacking for us today….
Much of my spare time is spent in mystic contemplation in the bathtub, very similar to a Battlestar Galactica hybrid in a goo tank. I ponder many mysteries like: Why do men shave their legs? (No good epiphanies yet), what is better than a young Clint Eastwood? (That’s easy, an older Clint Eastwood.) Tonight, I was thinking about Romo Lamkin’s (BSG) assertion that Apollo is a serial contrarian because he always takes up for the other side, much to the aggravation of everyone else.
I, myself, suffer the agonies of a serial contrarian. For example, I used to visit Perez Hilton’s site until he wore a Halloween costume mocking Jesus. After I saw that, I never went back to his site. Then, when he was recently punched in the face, and it became cool to hate him, and enjoy his misery, I felt really sorry for him. I found myself hoping that Carrie Prejean would reach out to him, to show him that it is biblically correct to show love, mercy and compassion.
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