Back on Friday, I received a mysterious Amazon gift certificate by email. I say it's mysterious because 1) there was no name in the "from" field, it just said "from: Amazon," 2) it was for a very odd amount: $26.34, and 3) the "message" field said "Payment by gift certificate."

I have no memory of what I might be getting paid for by Amazon. I doubt it's from my Amazon Associates program. I haven't used that in nearly a decade, and when I did use it, it was such a complete failure that it couldn't have generate even twenty-six dollars' worth of income. Or maybe that's what it is and I've simply forgotten, but I prefer to think of it as a mystery.

A mystery that netted me a free DVD of Doctor Who: The Deadly Assassin, with commentary by Tom Baker! Thank you, mysterious Amazon gift certificate! And the vengeful ghost of Mary Whitehouse thanks you too!

This weekend I finally watched AMC's revisionist miniseries of The Prisoner, and it was such a mess I don't even know where to start.

I suppose we should start with Number 6. Or as we eventually learn his name to be, Michael. I'm already bored just writing that, but the miniseries' treatment of 6 is even more boring than his real name. As portrayed by James Caveziel, 6 does precious little throughout the six-hour miniseries except angst out, do some slow-motion noooooooos, and throw handfuls of sand around. He is the least compelling hero I can imagine.

As I see it, the problem stems from changing 6 from a secret agent to an information analyst at one of those shady security corporations that always seem to be up to no good in these things (and with unlimited amounts of money, apparently, to fund that no-goodness!). The issue here is that by not making 6 a secret agent, he no longer has the training to beat Number 2 at his own game, which is where the original Prisoner succeeded. Instead, we get a whiny schlub who's confused and angry a lot, and whose nemesis, Number 2, has nefarious plans for him that include...making him fall in love and go to therapy. But of course, 6 outwits him. He doesn't want to go to therapy, and so he doesn't. How's that for spellbinding action?

Number 6's resignation from said corporation is fetishized to the point of absurdity--he spraypaints the word "resign" on the glass wall of his office; is that how people are doing it nowadays?--and then turns out to be completely unimportant to the plot. No one cares why he resigned. They barely care that he resigned at all. In fact, 2's reasons for bringing 6 to the Village, and making sure he's kept safe from harm, are less than fully realized. His plan for 6 at the very end of the miniseries hardly seems the same as what he had planned for 6 at the start, whatever that was. Therapy, I guess. And a wedding. Look out!

Ian McKellen does a fine job of rising above the material as Number 2 because he's a good actor with tremendous presence. James Caveziel has no presence, at least in this project, and without a strong 6 to oppose 2, it becomes 2's show. And as awesome as Ian McKellen is, The Prisoner can't succeed if it's 2's show, because then we have no one to root for. 2's son? He's a whiny emo hipster with annoying Fallout Boy hair. 2's wife? She's asleep most of the time. Jane Eyre 6's doctor love interest? She's not a well developed enough character to care about, especially since she apparently falls in love with 6 off-camera. The viewer is never treated to any scenes of the chemistry between them, and so her sacrifices in the name of love never ring true.

Like the rest of The Prisoner, fan-favorite Rover has been turned into a mess too. Rover now has no single purpose other than what the story needs at any particular time. Rover as guard that prevents escape? Sure. Rover as transport back to the Village if you get too far? Yup. Rover as killer beach ball? Okay, I guess. Rover as something that can zap people with bright lights and make them disappear? Uh... Rover as something that can zap people with bright lights and make them vaguely remember who they are? Whaaa? The script can't seem to figure Rover out because, as with the resignation, they have fetishized it beyond comprehension. Thus, when 2 tries to convince 6 that 6 conjured Rover himself through the power of his own fear, it makes even less sense than it sounds like because Rover is undefined in any meaningful way.

As for the secret of the Village itself, all I can say is ugh. It's an interesting idea, but it belongs in a completely different story. In fact, all the miniseries' interesting ideas--and there are a few, like revealing the flashbacks not to be flashbacks at all but rather simultaneous action, and the concept of the holes that form around the Village whenever Mrs. 2 (or Number 1, I suppose) wakes up from her medically induced disco nap--belong in a different, better story. But by making the Village essentially imaginary--a different plane of consciousness, a different dimension, Mrs. 2's dream, however you want to explain this nonsense--while the real versions of everyone go about their daily lives "outside," there's absolutely nothing at stake. When 2 shoves a grenade in his mouth at the end and his head explodes, we learn that if you die in the Village absolutely nothing happens to you in the outside world. So where's the threat? Everyone who died in the preceding five hours of the miniseries is apparently fine. 6 could have died and still been fine.

Which reminds me, the whole idea of calling people by numbers instead of names in this version rings false. Patrick McGoohan's original Prisoner was a counterculture, antiauthoritarian story, and the numbers had thematic resonance--6's resignation stemmed from wanting to be an individual again rather than a cog in a corrupt machine, and to reduce him to a number was a slap in the face. Here, it's just another fetishized idea left over from the source material. And like everything else in the miniseries, nothing comes of it.

Similarly, when it's revealed in the original that Number 6 is also Number 1, it was McGoohan's way of saying your destiny is in your own hands. The whole series can be interpreted as a therapeutic exploration of one man's psyche. After all, we eventually come to realize that the Village was specifically created for 6; there were no other prisoners. Here, when 6 takes over as Number 2--and as head of the shady security firm--it's an empty gesture. Worse, it's essentially a failure. 6 has basically lost. He's turned into the very thing he was fighting, and the viewer is left with a profoundly unsatisfying ending.

I'm just scratching the surface of all the wrongness here. The TV Nerd says skip AMC's The Prisoner like your life depends on it. In fact, I'm trying very hard to forget I ever saw it myself.

Thanksgiving for me is a day that's filled with childhood nostalgia. As a kid, Thanksgiving was less about the big meal and seeing family, and more about getting two days off from school and, big surprise, what was on TV.

You see, back in the 1970s, New York TV station WWOR used to show the same three movies every Thanksgiving day, and lucky for me, we got that station up in Connecticut, where I lived at the time. Those three movies, which I made sure every year not to miss, were: King Kong, Son of Kong (above), and Mighty Joe Young. It was essentially six hours of the same story over and over again, and the movies were in black and white, but I didn't care, it was freaking giant apes fighting men and/or other monsters!

How awesome was Thanksgiving? Giant ape awesome!

Still, Thanksgiving paled in comparison to Black Friday. On the day after the big meal, WWOR continued its monster mash with three Godzilla movies. Because there were more to choose from, the Godzilla movies varied from year to year, but I remember the lineup often including the original, Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster and Godzilla vs. Mothra (which back then was titled Godzilla vs. the Thing for some reason, and confused me as a kid because I thought Godzilla would be fighting that big stone guy from the Fantastic Four).

How awesome was the day after Thanksgiving? Fire-breathing lizard monster awesome!

WWOR has changed hands a dozen times since then and been rebranded with a dozen new names. Amazingly, it's back to being called WWOR now, but their Thanksgiving slate has changed since the good old days. Now they're spending the holiday showing syndicated programming like The 700 Club, Divorce Court and reruns of That 70s Show. A shame, but of course in this age of home video we don't need King Kong and Godzilla to be on TV today, we can make it happen ourselves.

Still, in the name of nostalgia, I give you this, friends who were in or near NYC in the 1970s and 1980s. A little something to remember a time gone by. Things weren't better then, or simpler, they were just newer and more interesting because I was kid, and everything was new and interesting to me. But the moment I heard that music, it all came rushing back and filled me with that familiar, Thanksgiving nostalgia.

So have a good one, everybody, and I hope this day brings you some sweet pangs of nostalgia as well.

Thanks to my secret inside source, I got a sneak peek at "Waters of Mars," the second of four 2009 Doctor Who specials that are taking the place of a regular season.

No spoilers here--it won't air on BBC America until Saturday, December 19--but I will say that it's quite good overall. I didn't like it much at the start, though. It struck me initially as just another Russell T. Davies zombie episode, and the incidental music is pretty bad, reminiscent of the awful music used during the serials of the 1980s. But by the halfway mark the episode pivots into something much more interesting, an exploration of what happens when the Doctor meddles with important moments in history. Can he prevent something from happening? Can he make things happen? It gets especially cool in the last few minutes when the Doctor goes absolutely apeshit crazy, and then in the final moment we get a completely unexpected visit from a previously seen character.

Being a lifelong Who fan, I especially enjoyed the Doctor's passing reference to the Ice Warriors, the vaguely turtle-like creatures who built an empire on Mars in the distant past, and who were first seen on the program in the serial "The Ice Warriors" in 1967, when Patrick Troughton played the second Doctor. It would make sense that in returning to Mars the Doctor would mention the Ice Warriors, and it's these little moments of attention to detail that bring out the nerd-joy in me.

I'm hoping that the passing reference means they'll show up again sometime soon.

Also, it's just been announced that the third special, "The End of Time, Part One," will air on BBC America on Saturday, December 26!

Dear Joss Whedon,

So, Dollhouse is over. What can I say? I'm not surprised; in fact, at the risk of sounding unintentionally mean, I was more surprised by the news that the series was renewed for a second season than by the news of its cancelation. I wish you no ill will, nor do I feel the need to rub salt in the wound during this difficult time, but I do think you and I need to talk. Because I feel like you've seriously lost your way.

Let's backtrack a moment. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was, in my opinion, a masterpiece. The reputation you built for yourself on that series was well deserved. I would have followed you anywhere at that point, and in fact I did. But it's all been diminishing returns since Buffy--or, more accurately for me at least, since the end of Buffy's third season.

I felt that Angel always straddled the line between mediocre and unwatchable. Firefly succeeded in creating some of your best characters yet, and then proceeded to plunk them down into stories, and indeed into a whole universe, that, frankly, did absolutely nothing for me. Dollhouse was a misfire from day one entirely due to its premise--who is going to hire a "fake" hostage negotiator from the Dollhouse for a zillion dollars when one can get a real one much more economically and be certain that one is in good hands?--and, though I hate to say it, its leading lady. Eliza Dushku ruled as Faith on Buffy, but she's just doesn't have the acting chops yet to handle as versatile a role as Echo.

But it's not just the concepts that didn't work for me, I'm afraid. It was the writing. My God, Joss, you are a great writer! We see that time and again. Which makes it a crying shame that somewhere along the line you got caught up in replaying the same motifs, themes and sacrifice fetishes over and over again. Somewhere along the line you forgot that things can be both fun and dramatic without adhering to your own now unfortunately transparent formula. For example, just because it's sweeps or a season finale doesn't mean a character has to die, nor does it mean a character has to die every sweeps or season finale. Kill one important character and the audience is stunned and riveted, knowing the stakes have just been upped considerably (Jenny Calendar on Buffy is a great example of this). Keep killing off characters every few months and the audience becomes numb and confused and starts to wonder why they're bothering (c.f., the pointless and mishandled death of Anya in Buffy's final season).

Which brings us to Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog, which is a freaking masterpiece. It's a gorgeous farce, a wonderful send up of superheroes and the villains who fight them. But you couldn't resist your own sacrifice fetish, could you? Killing Penny is a world like this one makes no sense. Aside from the fact that she's not treated as an actual human being so much as a plot point for the two male characters, you bring an element of the all-too-real into a world where a legion of supervillains is ruled by an evil horse, for crying out loud. Why bring the bummer and ruinously alter the entire tone of the piece? Because it seems you have fetishized sacrifice in the form of death, which I feel has become a detriment to your writing abilities.

So, before you become another of the writer/director/producers relegated to my "I used to think you were great but now I'm over you" file--joining the likes of Woody Allen, Spike Lee and Terry Gilliam--I'd like to offer my humble advice on what I think you should do next (after the very welcome news that you're working on a Horrible sequel).

Write a novel. The studio interference in both Firefly and Dollhouse is notorious, so I recommend cutting them out of the equation altogether. Also, the Buffy comics you wrote are amazing. One of the things I like a lot about you is that you're always trying to create new and original concepts, so I'd love to see what you could do with a novel, free of the constraints of budgets, studio suits and the ranges or schedules of your actors. You can write more of the masterpieces that are waiting inside of you with nearly complete freedom. So write, Joss Whedon. It's your strongest talent. Write to your heart's content, and do it in the form of a novel.

I stopped watching Angel after its third season. I nearly gave up on Firefly before the network canceled it. I dropped Dollhouse after its first episode. But a Joss Whedon novel? I would read the hell out of that!

Yours,
Nick Kaufmann

Like many pilot episodes, last night's premiere of V featured exaggerated character traits, clunky dialogue, and emotions that were slightly too big for their contexts. It also featured a heck of a lot of potential, though, and in time these "pilot errors," as I'm starting to think of them, will probably get evened out, as they often do in subsequent episodes of TV programs. So it wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either.

I have fond, if vague, memories of the original V that aired in 1983. I was 14 at the time, so I don't remember much about it except that I had a mild crush on the female leader of the Visitors (Jane Badler as Diana) that led to a lifelong fascination with women who have dark hair and blue eyes--though, come to think of it, that could probably also be traced back to Erin Gray of Buck Rogers and Silver Spoons fame--and of course I remember the famous mouse-eating scene. Then came V: The Final Battle and V the regular series in 1984, which featured Robert "Freddy" Englund as Willie, one of the good Visitors, and the whole thing pretty much ran its course and tumbled into the pit of dead but continually beaten horses that so many high-concept TV series do.

Anyway, knowing the original story pretty much sapped all the suspense for me, since I already knew the Visitors were bad guys masquerading as philanthropists, but I enjoyed last night's remake nonetheless. Still, I'd love to see somebody do something new and exciting with this idea. When are we going to get a movie/TV show about aliens who really do come to Earth with good intentions, only to have the talking head cable TV pundits and reactionary radio talk show hosts fill everyone's minds with racism and mistrust, and ultimately blow Earth's chance at achieving peace and taking its place in the larger universe? That strikes me as a more timely idea!

via suricattus

ITV1 Saves Primeval from Extinction

As you know, I'm a big Primeval fan. Or was, anyway. The third--and until now, presumed final--season of the series turned into a big ol' mess, in my opinion, with the three actors who played the most important characters leaving the show and one of them being replaced by a cartoonish "man of action" as the new leader, and so upon hearing of the show's cancelation I thought, "Well, I suppose it's good riddance then."

But now, apparently, it's coming back after all, with two new seasons slated to begin in 2011. I don't know what they've got planned for the return, but I'd like to offer them this bit of advice. Bring back Nick Cutter, Helen Cutter and Jenny Lewis. Let's have some of that season 1 and 2 magic back and pretend all the narrative letdowns and continuity issues of season 3 didn't happen!

Okay, Heroes, we're done.

I made the mistake of giving you numerous second chances, but like a cheating lover taken back into one's heart, you've mistaken forgiveness for permission not to have to change, not to become better. And so I feel that it's for the best that we make a clean break.

It was fun while it lasted. We had some good times. But you've changed over the years, become progressively worse, increasingly tedious, and now it's over.

I wish you all the best and will only have fond memories of your first season.

Sincerely,
The TV Nerd

As with any concept-heavy TV series, Thursday night's premiere of FlashForward on ABC left me wondering just how they're going to manage to fill up an entire season, let alone a continuing series, with the ramifications of a single, mysterious event. On the other hand, I found the writing pretty good--at least when it wasn't in heavy expository dialogue mode: "It was like a memory of something that hasn't happened yet. What if it wasn't a flashback, but a flashforward?" Yeah, that's how people talk -- and the acting was pretty good too. The cast seems well developed. It's always a pleasure to watch John Cho in action, and Joseph Fiennes, while not entirely settled into the leading role yet, seems only moments away from becoming so. Our old friend Jack Davenport shows up to say, "Look, everyone, I'm more than Steve from Coupling or Norrington from those dreadful pirate movies!" Furthermore, I was surprised to see Family Guy's Seth MacFarlane show up as an FBI agent, looking somewhat uncomfortable with not being allowed to just start doing Stewie or Brian's voice, but I was not at all surprised to see Sonya Walger. I swear to God she must be the hardest working woman in show business right now.

Anyway, the single, mysterious event in question is that everyone all over the world suddenly falls asleep at exactly the same moment, for two minutes and seventeen seconds, and has a brief glimpse into their shared future. This might seem like hippy flowerchild nirvana--sleep! dreams! the world coming together as one!--until you realize our happy dreamers might actually be flying planes and driving cars and performing surgeries when sleepytime hits. So a lot of people die in the first episode, and in a narratively convincing manner too.

So how can the series keep up the tension if this blackout event was just a one-time thing (which, admittedly, I don't know it is)? I wonder that myself, though the last few seconds of the premiere offered an interesting clue in the form of some footage a surveillance camera. No spoilers here--it's actually a great moment of suspense--but it opens the door for some neat ideas and directions for the series to go in. And of course there's the promise of watching these characters get to the point in their lives that they witnessed in their flashforwards, that date of which conveniently also happens to be the scheduled date of the first season's finale.

Despite some moments of heavy-handedness, the TV Nerd is intrigued.

Jonathan Ames' (Jason Schwartzman) girlfriend of undetermined length moves out on him one day, and in the world of quirky indie filmmaking, that would be enough to launch an entire film's worth of plot about soul-searching and growing up, since the woman in these relationships is generally perfect and the man is a walking mess of arrested development. In Bored to Death, this is exactly what happens because it is, in essence, a quirky indie film turned into an HBO Sunday night series. It's everything you've seen in every quirky indie film from The Squid and the Whale to I Heart Huckabees, only not as well developed.

The show isn't entirely bad. Some of the writing is clever, and I really love the idea--a frustrated Brooklyn novelist decides to become a private detective by advertising his services on Craigslist. (Though the cliché of a writer struggling to write his second novel after a successful first one has become overused, in my opinion, and no longer welcome.) In some ways it reminded me pleasantly of pgtremblay's novel The Little Sleep, in that both protagonists are actually terrible detectives. However, the reason for Jonathan's decision to place the ad is left mostly unexplored. We do see him reading Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely after his girlfriend leaves him, but that's hardly enough. In a later scene there are hints Jonathan wants to be a hero, wants to matter to someone, but narratively that revelation should have come before he takes the action to change his life, not after. It's an "I want" moment, not an "I wanted" moment.

Still, with Ted Danson's involvement as a drugged-out social guru and Schwartzman's likability, Bored to Death has the potential to be something better. The only question is, will this overly self-conscious series reach that potential before its title comes true?

Watching the season premiere of my beloved The Office last night, your trusty TV Nerd realized he had yet to discuss the new fall season--in particular what I'll tune in for, what I might give a chance to, and what they couldn't possibly pay me enough to watch. As with the last few years, you'll note there are actually very few new shows that are catching my eye. And now, onward!

Monday
Not a whole heck of a lot going on Mondays for me. I'm delighted that Castle (ABC) is back and looking forward to watching Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic resume their witty banter as a bestselling mystery author and the police detective who reluctantly tolerates his presence as a consultant. I'm also going to do something stupid and give Heroes (NBC) another shot, though I find myself at a loss as to why I would bother. To say this series has produced diminishing returns over the last two seasons is an understatement, and we've heard the producers' "we're getting back to basics" line a million times before already to no avail. Still, something keeps pulling me back. I suspect it's my love for Hiro and Ando. I could watch those two on their own for hours. The new show they couldn't pay me enough to watch on Mondays? CBS' Accidentally On Purpose, a sitcom where Jenna Elfman gets knocked up after a one-night stand with a much younger man. The show also stars Grant Show of the original Melrose Place as her boss/boyfriend. Let the funny commence. Or not.

Tuesday
Remarkably, the Tuesday night schedule is pretty much a wasteland for me. The only series of possible interest for me is the new V (ABC), and that's mostly because it looks like it's got a strong cast. I enjoyed the old V when I was 14, but how will the new one stand up now that I'm 40? I'm willing to watch the premiere and find out. The new series they couldn't pay me enough to watch on Tuesday nights? The new Melrose Place (The CW). Sorry, guys, but even the old series outstayed its welcome by the time it ended in 1998. Also, it stars Ashlee Simpson. 'Nuff said.

Wednesday
You're not going to believe this, but there is nothing on the current Wednesday network schedule that your faithful TV Nerd is interested in! I'll tune in to Comedy Central for the return of South Park, but that's pretty much all that's calling to me. The show they couldn't pay enough to watch? Eastwick on ABC. Here's a winning formula: Take a John Updike novel, blend it with a hip, Sex and the City vibe and turn it into an hourlong dramedy starring Rebecca Romijn. The countdown to cancelation starts...now.

Thursday
As if to make up for the dearth of series I'm interested in on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the networks seemed to have crammed everything into Thursday night. NBC still dominates with Weekend Update Thursday, a six-episode series from SNL that mostly succeeds because it's only a half hour long instead of an interminable three times that length, Parks and Recreation, which is definitely improving if last night's season premiere about gay penguin marriage was any indication, the aforementioned The Office, 30 Rock, now the best comedy on network TV (yes, even above The Office!), and new series Community. Last night's premiere of Community was okay, not great. There was very little innovation involved in the story or humor, and Gillian Jacobs as Britta, the ostensible love interest, leaves me cold, but star Joel McHale (best knows as the host of E!'s The Soup) and costars Chevy Chase and John Oliver (from The Daily Show) all lend this series the potential to become something pretty good once it finds its voice. I wasn't bowled over, I think I only laughed once--when a student starts shouting lines from The Breakfast Club in class--but the potential's there. Hopefully they'll nurture the series into something special.

Also on Thursdays, The Mentalist (CBS) returns, and hopefully they will have ironed out season one's kinks about who Simon Baker's Patrick Jane is and how he acts. Last season, he was like a different character in each episode, and I'm hoping they've found the consistency necessary to make Jane work as a protagonist. Also of possible interest on Thursdays is the new series FlashForward. It didn't sound like much to me at first, but the more I read about it the more intrigued I became with the idea. Also, the cast looks pretty darn good. We'll see how this one plays out. The series they couldn't pay me enough to watch? The Vampire Diaries (The CW). Yes, it's got monsters and scariness, two things I enjoy, but it just doesn't look like anything I'd actually be interested in watching. I've got my hands full already when it comes to vampire romance with HBO's True Blood--and in TB's favor, the characters are adults, not high school students. Despite my being a horror fan, The Vampire Diaries is clearly not made for me.

Friday
Smallville (The CW) returns in the death row timeslot of Fridays at 8 P.M. Looks like they won't even need Zod's help to bring this once mighty series down! Still, I tune in because I am addicted. Admitting it is the first step toward recovery. And also because I keep hoping Lex Luthor will come back and liven things up again. The new series they couldn't pay me enough to watch? It's a tough call, because there aren't many new series being launched on Friday night, so I'm going to go with Brothers (Fox). It stars former football player and sports commentator Michael Strahan as a grown man who moves back in with his "wacky" family. Despite the inclusion of CCH Pounder and Carl Weathers, I'm going to say no thanks.

Sunday
Skipping the TV wasteland of Saturday, unless BBC America comes up with something good to show in Torchwood or Primeval's old timeslots, we come to Sunday nights. If I had Showtime, I'd be all over the new season of Dexter, but I'm HBO's bitch (to borrow a phrase from jewellwelles), so I'll be tuning in to the return of Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm and checking out the new series Bored to Death, about a writer who decides to become a private detective. While I no longer believe HBO automatically means high quality the way it used to (The Life and Times of Tim, anyone?), Bored looks like it could be fun, especially with Parker Posey and Kristen Wiig guest starring.

Aside from HBO, my Sunday nights are also all about Fox, with the return of The Simpsons for its four-thousandth season and Family Guy for, well, it's hard to know when to stop and start counting seasons there. I'll also be checking out The Cleveland Show, a Family Guy spinoff from creator Seth MacFarlane. Here's hoping the end result is closer to Family Guy than to American Dad, which I still can't get into.

And there you have it, the TV Nerd's surprisingly slim picks for the new fall TV season. As always, your own mileage may vary.

Oh, True Blood, I hate when you leave me hanging. Especially when your cliffhanger is more interesting in its five-second action than I found this season's major story arc to be.

After an incredibly strong start, and a plotline that brought the marvelous Alexander Skarsgard to the forefront as Eric, things burned out fast on the Maryann front, at least for me. Michelle Forbes was great in the role, but the problem, at least as I saw it, was that the whole maenad story arc was one of diminishing returns, until by the end we had a cliché ritual scene right out of a 1980s direct-to-video horror movie about Satanism and a villain who suddenly can't tell the difference between a god she's trying to summon and a shapeshifting human that she's desperate to kill as a sacrifice--a bait and switch the show had actually done already just a few episodes earlier when Jason (Ryan Kwanten, who continues to steal every scene he's in) took a turn pretending to be the horned god. Still, it remained a satisfying end to what I thought was a weak story arc because it at least allowed the characters to do what they do best.

Strangely, we then had fifteen-twenty minutes of character wrap up after the plotline came to an end. And I kind of liked it! The only thing we didn't get to see was Tara (Rutina Wesley) reunited with her troubled mother, and I would have liked to see that, but instead we get Eggs (Mehcad Brooks) who, though an interesting character with potential, was never really given much to do except have his eyes CGI'd black, get it on and do the stabby-stabby, and so it was as if the writers decided to just wrap up his story entirely instead of saving him for some good season three use. A shame.

Then there's Nelsan Allis as Lafayette, who continues to light up the show, and always gets the best lines (like this entry's subject line, spoken during the climactic sacrifice scene)--or at least the best lines that Jason doesn't. Forget Sookie and Bill, how about the Lafayette and Eric show? With lots of guest appearances by Deborah Ann Woll's charmingly messed up teenage vampire Jessica, please!

I'm trying to avoid spoilers here, so I won't go into details about the cliffhanger but it does make me wonder who's involved. Eric? Evan Rachel Wood's Sophie-Ann? Another nutjob from the Fellowship of the Sun? Or maybe some new threat that will take over the season? Time will tell, but I have to admit, I'm already more excited about it than I ever was about the Maryann arc.

Hooray, the new Dexter season three discs are here from Netflix!

I've only watched the first episode so far, and I can already feel that old familiar sensation of being hooked by a show I love. Dexter just keeps being awesome.

Plus, Jimmy Smits!

(One note: It's weird watching Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter playing brother and sister when I know they're married in real life.)

Miraculously, enough work has been coming in this summer that I was finally able to afford a 32" flat screen HDTV (the Sharp Aquos, for those who want to know), and boy is she a beauty. Now I can't stop watching. Unfortunately, with it being summer, there's nothing on, so I do a lot of channel flipping and the putting on of random DVDs just to see how they look, basking in the soft, irradiating glow of 32 inches of awesome, flat screen, HD love.

My old TV was purchased in 1995, which I discovered when I threw out the receipt I'd kept, and was only 21", but weighed about twice the amount the new flat screen does. Jesus, these things are amazing pieces of machinery.

I also went to the Time Warner center on 23rd Street in Manhattan and traded in my regular old cable box for an HD cable box -- and then spent over an hour trying to set it up because I'm a moron. But now it's working perfectly and the HD channels are fucking amazing! This upgrade is a dream come true for the TV Nerd! I can only imagine how gone-but-not-forgotten shows like Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles would have played in widescreen HD on this thing, and I can't wait for this Sunday's True Blood on the HBO HD channel so I can inspect every pore on Sam's face!

My love affair with television has been reignited!

Snoozefest!

Imagine every cliche you've ever heard about vampires, werewolves and ghosts and then make them live together in an apartment, and you've got Being Human, the 2008 UK fantasy-horror series that premiered this past weekend on BBC America. The vampire is handsome but tortured and chooses the company of humans over his own kind, all of whom are vicious predators except him. Because he has conscience, man. Now add in a terrible CGI werewolf and an annoying, emotionally needy ghost, and you've got a recipe for pandering to the fantasy and monsters crowd without actually offering them anything new or interesting.

There are some touches of humor that I like -- George the werewolf is a shy, insecure, clumsy guy in his human form, Annie the ghost laments that she's still wearing the frumpy clothes she died in -- but it isn't enough. When you watch a show with one eye on the clock, wondering if you're going to make it all the way through before turning it off, that's not a good sign. Despite a promising premise, Being Human just isn't for me.

The TV Nerd says: Yawnsville.

I must admit to the fact that this image of Matt Smith, the new actor to play the Doctor starting in 2010, and Karen Gillian, who plays his new companion Amy Pond, fills me with dread.

It looks like Doctor Who by way of Stephenie Meyer. Or what would happen if The CW decided to remake the franchise.

I hate the bow tie. HATE it. It's a mistake of Colin Baker-level costuming proportions and makes Smith look like he belongs to his school's chess club. In 1948.

Gillian is adorable, and I would love to be introduced...to her mother.

Together they look like they're hanging out behind the gym, waiting for the bell to ring so they can go to Trig class.

The only thing that gives me a glimmer of hope for the new season and beyond is that Steven Moffat's in charge, and he seems to know what he's doing when it comes to Who. If anyone can make this work, it's him. But still, I can't help feeling I'm being "aged out" of my favorite show.

I guess forty-year-olds don't buy as much merchandising as the young 'uns do.

Well, maybe not shocking, but it was still pretty good. I was able to guess the (second) killer's identity about an hour before it was revealed. Not because there were any clues pointing in that person's direction -- there weren't -- but because this character was literally the last person left that it could be, barring the Agatha Christie-like reappearance of someone we thought was dead.

Harper's Island was excellent at setting up clues, but only ever for red herrings, I found. They did a splendid job making you think Abby's ex-boyfriend was in on the killing spree, but kind of a terrible job at leaving any clues as to the second killer's true identity. Which kind of came out of nowhere, in my opinion. We knew John Wakefield had a child because of his journal, a child who literally could have been anyone except the black guy, but they didn't leave us a trail of crumbs to follow to the truth. Instead, they sprang the revelation on us as expository dialogue, with nothing we previously witnessed to back it up.

Still, the scene where the true second killer is revealed was absolutely brutal. And that was Harper's Island's true strength. In 13-hour long form, it took the time to let you really get to know the characters, something your average 90-minute slasher movie tends not to, so when characters you've grown to like get offed, you feel it in a way you don't when Freddy rakes some cardboard character with his glove and spouts a kooky one-liner. Also, though Harper's was cheesy as hell (but such delicious cheese!), there was some writing talent behind it. The dialogue was a lot better here than in your average slasher, especially in the later episodes -- again, this is probably because they had time to develop the characters instead of just giving them quick defining characteristics before turning them into puddles of goo.

Anyway, Harper's Island is over, and as an experiment in using a finite thirteen episodes to tell an entire story on American television, I think it was a success. It didn't get much viewership, but I liked it quite a bit and would love to see more horror and mystery miniseries make their way to the airwaves digital transmission system. After Harper's failure to capture a sizable audience, though, I'm not holding my breath that it'll happen anytime soon.

Still, kudos to CBS for giving it a shot, and for showing all the episodes (in order!) even after announcing its cancellation so all five of us who were watching could see it through to its conclusion.

Eleven Time Lords Unite for Doctor Who Special.

While I would much rather see a full episode, or even a two-parter, uniting all the Doctors in celebration of the, um, 46th anniversary of the series, this news still fills me with the same childlike glee I felt when I first saw "The Five Doctors" in 1983.

It's a shame Patrick Troughton is no longer with us. He and David Tennant would have gotten on so well together. Still, the prospect of my three favorite actors in the role -- Tennant, Christopher Eccleston and Tom Baker -- all sharing the screen at the same time makes me embarrassingly giddy.

This Saturday, the 27th, the Doctor Who Christmas 2008 special, "The Next Doctor," will air on BBC America from 9-10:15 PM -- not on SciFi.

As I mentioned before, I think it's the best Christmas special they've done (I haven't been a fan of the previous ones). It also has the best first ten minutes of a Doctor Who episode ever.

Catch it if you can.