io9
I'm going to try something a bit different starting with this week's TV column. Instead of just telling you what's on TV and letting you make up your own mind, I'm going to recommend stuff. I'm going to explain to you why Kyle XY really is a better show than you ever realized, and why it's time to give Smallville another chance. And why several thousand of your friends should be watching Jericho. Advocacy, and preview clips from Jericho, Smallville and Lost, below the fold.
Monday night now has a Sarah Connor-shaped hole. (And a Heroes-shaped hole, and (sigh) a Journeyman-shaped hole too.) But there's still Kyle XY on ABC Family at 8, for another couple of weeks, and I'm going to explain to why this show is way better than you give it credit for. For one thing, it does the teen-with-superpowers thing better than any show since Buffy. And you can tell the characters care about each other. Plus, even though it's supposedly family friendly, it actually gets pretty raunchy, as in one recent episode where Kyle's stepsister Lori had to deal with her ex-boyfriend wanting to still have the occasional booty call. And this season features a female version of Kyle named Jessi XX, who is crazy and sadistic. Last week, she made Kyle's stepbrother do pushups with an evil leer on her face. But mostly, you should watch for Ally Sheedy, who just started playing Jessi's mom. We featured an awesome clip of Ally in action the other day. Ally Sheedy! I would watch her in anything.
Also today, the Sci Fi Channel is showing a marathon of the underrated show Odyssey 5 all afternoon. Probably right now, as you read this. Ditch work and go home to check it out. It features a car in space. And it did mental time-travel long before Lost.
And FX is showing The Day After Tomorrow at 5:30 PM, in case you saw 10,000 B.C. and want another hit of Emmercrack right away. And there's a new episode of Modern Marvels called "Strange Weapons" on the History Channel at 8 PM. Strange weapons are definitely the best kind.
Tuesday, there's a new episode of post-apocalyptic drama Jericho on CBS at 10 PM. As you can see from the five-minute preview clip below, it picks up right where last week's shocking episode left off. The military contractors that were put in charge of running the plucky town that survived a nuclear attack are openly treating Kansas like Iraq now, and acting as though they're above the law. It's hard to believe there are only two more episodes left after this one — and they may be the last, unless you can convince a few million people to tune in. Check out the first five minutes of the episode, and then start bugging your friends:
Right before Jericho, there's a new episode of The Universe on the History Channel at 9 PM. It's called "Colonizing Space," and it sounds pretty fucking trippy. It explains how we will grow food on Mars, and how we will recycle wastewater (read: drink our own pee) and introduce greenhouse gases to "revive" the red planet. It sounds totally demented, and I bet there will be CGI animations showing how greenhouse gases will make Mars semi-terraformed.
Also on Tuesday/Wednesday at midnight, there's Cherry 2000 on Encore. Robot sex, plus Melanie Griffith doing Mad Max. Come on, you know that's better than sleeping.
Wednesday, ABC Family is showing Pleasantville, which is sort of slipstream, except it's not all that great. But it does feature Joan Allen masturbating and causing a nearby tree to spontaneously combust. Plus Reese Witherspoon is the school slut! (Somehow I doubt ABC Family will show this film uncut.) There's also a rerun of UFO Hunters on History at 10 PM.
Thursday at 8, there's a new Smallville on The CW. The show's back after a brief hiatus, and Pete Ross returns for a guest appearance. Remember him? Clark's best friend? And now he's got superpowers from — I wish I was kidding about this — meteor-laced chewing gum. It's that extra flavor stripe that gives you the power to stretch and sort of teleport your hands, apparently. Actually, I'm not clear on what Pete's superpower is, but it seems to involve a weird noise. Here's an unfinished preview clip from the episode:
And then at 9, there's a new Lost on ABC. If you average out the quality of "The Constant" and "The Other Woman," you get a pretty good couple of episodes. In general, the consensus seems to be that the show's improved a lot this season. And this week, you get to find out who the last two members of the Oceanic Six are (which should surprise nobody.) We also deal more with that "pregnant women die on the island" thing, which always weirds me out. Here's the trailer for the episode, and check out the two preview clips we posted on Friday:
Or if you're over Smallville and Lost, you can watch 12 Monkeys on Encore at 8, and daydream about the days when Terry Gilliam was still great.
Thursday/Friday at 3:00 AM, there's a TV movie called Alien Abduction on Sci Fi. A woman gets abducted by aliens and then winds up in a mental institution. Where the quality of the anal probes is much lower.
Friday night, there's a rerun of a House episode about a boy who claims that he's been abducted by aliens, and he has a tracking device in his neck. Is he right? Are alien abductions going to become part of the ongoing storylines in the hospital? I won't give away the twist ending, but someone on IMDB calls this the "worst House episode ever." Based on the full synopsis, the episode is definitely science fiction in any case.
Also, the Disney Channel has Sky High at 8 PM. Sci Fi has a couple of Stargate: Atlantis reruns at 9 and 10, and Encore has the original Alien at 9:50.
Saturday, there's a new Torchwood at 6 and 9 on BBC America. I'm not sure which episode we're up to in America, but it scarcely matters. The major character who died a while back is still dead, and angsting about it. That goes on for about three episodes in a row, and you may not actually be able to tell them apart even while watching them. Here are our recaps of the most recent episodes. Actually, Torchwood was doing a lot better for a while there, and the main reason to keep watching is to hope it pulls back up again.
Also, on Saturday morning, there's back-to-back Legion of Superheroes and Spectacular Spider-Man, starting at 9:30 AM on The CW. And then at 1 PM, The CW is showing Solaris, the Soderbergh/Clooney remake. At 3:10 on TMC, there's Free Enterprise, the weird movie about Star Trek fans that helped turn William Shatner into the self-mocking figure he is today. And Disney has The Incredibles at 9 PM.
Sunday evening, G4 is showing a bunch of reruns of Wired For Sex, which is worth checking out if you haven't seen it. Find out about that whole cybersex thing the kids are into.
Comments
New Amsterdam is on Monday night, so there's your hole filler of mediocre sci-fi/fantasy. And if you're going to mention Legion of Superheroes, you might want to point out this is the first appearance of Mordru on the show.
I miss SG:A already but at least BSG is coming soon.
I'm glad some people still love Odyssey 5, it's an underrated show in every regard. I was talking with Manny a few months back and we had a brief reminisce of this series, I get the impression that he would love to continue it, or provide some closure if able too.
CHERRY 2000!!! Woo hoo! Wish I had Encore. Oh and Smallville's still going huh? Has Dawson, ah, sorry I mean Clark, learned to fly yet?
Pleasantville "not all that great"?
Great, no. Damn good, yes.
Wow, really... Smallville...
I have no Idea how I've made it through 7 seasons of this show. Last week I gave up, and deleted my season pass. With all the shows on Thursdays I just can't in good conscience keep watching this dreck.
p.s. no Clark still can't fly.
@Macloserboy: See my reply to your comment in the BSG thread...
@Jestyr: Still not!? Man, well someone call me when he can fly, puts on his suit, and is directed by Richard Donner.
@Plague: I'd put it under "nice try" myself. It falls apart at the end getting waaay too preachy and heavy handed and that idea that his sister was going off to find herself in the 50's was pretty silly and you have to wonder if the writers had any inkling of what was happening in the country at that time to just throw her out there.
But big points for any movie that has Joan Allen masturbating.
New Amsterdam isn't science fiction, is it? I think you keep asking us why we're not covering it. And that's why.
If you stuck to a hardcore definition of science fiction on this site, you'd lose half of it. Since when is Buffy science fiction?
And William Shatner became a self-mocking figure with the "Get A Life" SNL sketch, not Free Enterprise.
Charlie - I actually stopped by to comment the same as Macloserboy, regarding New Amsterdam (except I think it's quite a bit better than mediocre). As to whether or not it's science fiction - I guess that depends on how you're defining science fiction. I think anyone considering the first season of Lost, before they got into time travel and the like, scifi, would also need to extend the label to New Amsterdam. It might be most accurate to call it magical realism - but then, that's how I'd classify Lost, too.
@Macloserboy: Buffy isn't science fiction... except when she has a robot twin or visits the 24th century. And I think we've been pretty careful to reference only those parts of Buffy. Otherwise, it'd just be Buffy Buffy Buffy on io9, trust me!
@rocza: Doesn't he have a spell put on him? And that's why he's immortal-ish?
@Macloserboy: I feel like the "Get a life" skit was Shatner mocking the fans. With Free Enterprise, it turned into self-mockery. And he never looked back.
@Charlie Jane Anders: Well, a robot spell. From the future.
@Charlie Jane Anders: And a lesbian kiss in a comic book is sci-fi how exactly? Was the other girl a robot? Alien? From the future?
@Macloserboy: Did you read that post? It was all about how Buffy's getting attention for her lesbian kiss, but what's really exciting is that she's going to be visiting the 24th century.
@Macloserboy: I thought the lesbian girl in that story was from the future?
@Charlie Jane Anders: See my comment about Smallville in the Morning Spoilers thread.
I wish I could find the clip on youtube or something, but last night, Fracture aired for a second time in Canada on the Space Channel and it was followed by a preview of the next episode which showed Pete using his Stretch Armstrong powers.
@Charlie Jane Anders: Uh-huh. Not even remotely buying that being the real reason for the post. But it's your site. Play in the gray areas all you like.
@PriorMarcus
Please be serious. Even a hint of a conclusion to Odyssey 5 gets me excited. That show did AI better than any other show. The way AIs had evolved as aliens on the net was freaking brilliant.
@theOmegaMan: I'm totally serious. I know that he wants to bring some closure to the series, and I know a lot of other people want it too, but whether he is given the chance, well, that's another story. Personally, with shows like Dead Like Me and Farscape set to make some sort of return I wouldn't be surprised at anything right now.
@PriorMarcus:
Some sort of a return? DLM is a one off movie minus several of the original actors (which I haven't heard a peep about in ages now), but I haven't heard a thing about a Farscape return. Fill me in.
@Plague: Dead Like Me is still a return in some sense, and it's at least a chance to give the series some sort of conclusion, I suppose that all counts on what your definition of a return is. And Farscape is producing a series of webisodes for the SciFi Channel, although who, what, how and when is still unknown. They were meant to be out by now but the writers strike means we might not see them until next year. Think of something like the Resistance episodes for BSG and your on the right track.
(a little late, but:) Terry Gilliam can still be pretty great: Tideland.
... and there's my token pointless opinion about that.
@Charlie Jane Anders: Spell, magic, something. From the two episodes I've caught so far, since I watch delayed, it's at least somewhat suggested that there's more than just a spell at work - might just be *really* early transfusion technology, but they managed to change his blood type (to RzRz, which made the geek in me so very happy). Like I said, I'd probably grant it the label of magical realism more than scifi or fantasy, except that leaves it without a pigeonhole for sites like this.
I think my general reasoning for why it should be at least included in the "what to consider watching this week" roundup is that it has the potential to drift into science fiction, and it's only hindsight that's going to make it clear when it does (much like Buffy). I can understand not covering every aspect of the show, recapping it, etc - but it certainly seems like something that would catch the interest of people reading the site.
I am unclear on how the blurb posted for Smallville is supposed to make me want to watch it. Aside from Pete's return which, since it involves meteor rock super powers and, I'm imagining, some sort of confrontation in Lex Luthor's single-room'd mansion, doesn't quite say "exciting new twist" to me.
Why have I never seen Jericho? My friends are all fired. And was that DB Sweeney? I LOVES me some DB Sweeney, though I prefer him not evil.
And Torchwood just fills up my DVR, and I have so much trouble bringing myself to actually watch it. *sigh*
never watched kyle XY due to the trailers the main character was really funny lookin with odd eyes .A personal predjudice but its stood me in good stead so far
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