Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Doctor Who (Second Series): “The Impossible Planet” and “The Satan Pit”

It's Doctor Who versus Satan. Plus a few homages to Aliens and The Black Hole as well. These two episodes were among the better episodes of the second season though I still found them to be a bit derivative for my taste.

And one couldn't help feeling sorry for Rose Tyler when she talked about settling down with the Doctor -- and found out that the Doctor isn't really a settling-down-type of guy.

But then we all knew that, right?

I found the whole “let's bypass the morality of slavery question by making the slaves evil” theme to be a bit dubious. But, as a whole, the two episodes were a lot more entertaining than they deserved to be.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Midnight”

My, this was one creepy episode.

My, this was one creepy episode.

No, seriously, it was creepy.

No, seriously, it was creepy.

I've come to have very low expectations when it comes to the episodes of this series that were written by Russell T. Davies, but this one actually manages to be creepier than last week's episode (and last week's was very creepy, indeed.)

I've come to have very low expectations when it comes to the episodes of this series that were written by Russell T. Davies, but this one actually manages to be creepier than last week's episode (and last week's was very creepy, indeed.)

It's not often you see an episode that seems to have been inspired not only by The Twilight Zone but by a recent House episode. Moreover, it's not often that you see such an episode pull off such a plot.

It's not often you see an episode that seems to have been inspired not only by The Twilight Zone but by a recent House episode. Moreover, it's not often that you see such an episode pull off such a plot.

And to think mi mejor amiga has been trying to get me to go on a pleasure cruise.

And to think mi mejor amiga has been trying to get me to go on a pleasure cruise.

Okay, I'll stop.

Okay, I'll st--

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Father's Day”

I always found this to be very easily one of the most problematic episodes of the first season.

On the plus side, it shows us an entirely new side of Jackie Tyler (Rose's mother) and shows us that there is a lot more to her than the silly ninny we saw in the first few episodes of this series.

It also taught us more than a few unpleasant truths about how parents aren't always as noble as they seem, how parents often lie to their children with the best of intentions, and about how such white lies often come back to haunt them when their children discover the truth.

However, it also introduced the Reapers, a rather silly group of monsters who take it upon themselves to avenge all efforts to change time. Not only does their intervention raise the inevitable question of why haven't we seen these entities before (after all, time paradoxes and changed histories aren't all that rare on this series), it inevitably evokes memories of the equally silly Gremlins who used to appear in the godawful cable TV series Dead Like Me.

However, even if the Reapers were more imaginative in nature, they wouldn't really work as a concept in this episode because no one in this episode seems to take the most obvious action against them -- despite all the death and destruction they caused -- until the very end of the episode. Indeed, at one point, their most obvious opponent, the Doctor, chooses to spend more time giving a long, long speech about how nice it is that a couple getting married first met in a particularly cute manner than he does taking the obvious actions to save the life of that same couple.

For that matter, the speech he gives at that moment raises a rather obvious point. Why does it matter to the Doctor how the couple first met anyway? Sure, they seem like nice people, but it would seem more heroic for the Doctor to try and save them merely because they're in danger than because they tell him a particularly nice story. After all, wouldn't their lives still be worth saving if they hadn't met in such a cute fashion? Or is the Doctor now practicing temporal euthanasia?

The episode begins when Rose Tyler borrows the Doctor's time machine (the Tardis) to change the past so that her father avoids getting hit by the van that originally killed him. Unfortunately, her father proves not to be the type of man she had always imagined him to be from her mother's stories. Worse yet, her father's change of fate brings on the Reapers who begin attacking everything in sight and force Rose, the Doctor and Rose's father to flee to a nearby church where a weddding is scheduled to take place.

As the ordeal drags on, it becomes more and more obvious that the only way to end the Reapers' attack is to sacrifice Rose's father to his original fate. Rose is obviously reluctant to do this, and it eventually becomes up to her father to make the needed sacrifice. But not until more than a few people have been needlessly killed by the Reapers.

Rose's father eventually does the right thing and time reverts back to something close to its original pattern. The Reapers disappear and all is saved. For now.

But the bad taste left in my mouth by some of the contrived plot developments in this episode still lingers on. Too bad there's not a thing the Doctor can do to fix that...

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Adam-12: “Venice Division”
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: “Revenge”
All in the Family: “Archie Is Branded”
All in the Family: “Meet the Bunkers”
All in the Family: “Teresa Moves In”
All in the Family: “The Games Bunkers Play”
All-American Girl: “Take My Family -- Please”
All-American Girl: “The Apartment”
All-American Girl: “Venus de Margaret”
American Family: “Citizen Cisco”
American Family: “Pilot”
Angel: “The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco”
Archie's Place: “Murray's Daughter”
Back to You: “Pilot”
Being Human (U.K.): “Adam's Family”
Being Human (U.K.): “Lia”
Being Human (U.K.): “Type 4”
Bewitched: “To Twitch or Not to Twitch”
Bones: “The Double Death of the Dearly Departed”
Bored to Death: “Pilot”
Boris Karloff's Thriller: “The Grim Reaper”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “Chosen”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “Halloween”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “Hush”
Castle: “Always Buy Retail”
Castle: “Flowers for Your Grave”
Columbo: “A Case of Immunity”
Columbo: “A Deadly State of Mind”
Columbo: “A Matter of Honor”
Columbo: “A Stitch in Crime”
Columbo: “By Dawn's Early Light”
Columbo: “Candidate for Crime”
Columbo: “Fade in to Murder”
Columbo: “Lovely But Lethal”
Columbo: “Make Me a Perfect Murder”
Columbo: “Negative Reaction”
Columbo: “Now You See Him”
Columbo: “The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case”
Columbo: “The Conspirators”
Community: “Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas”
Community: “Biology 101”
Community: “History 101”
Community: “Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps”
Community: “Regional Holiday Music”
Community: “Remedial Chaos Theory”
Creature Comforts: “The Circus”
Cristela: “Mexican Mona Lisa”
Davey and Goliath: “Good Neighbor”
Davey and Goliath: “The Polka Dot Tie”
Desperate Housewives: “Pilot”
Desperate Housewives: “Putting It Together”
Devious Maids: “Pilot”
Dexter: “Blinded by the Light”
Dexter: “Born Free”
Dexter: “Crocodile”
Dexter: “Dex Takes a Holiday”
Dexter: “Dexter”
Dexter: “Father Knows Best”
Dexter: “Hungry Man”
Dexter: “Living the Dream”
Dexter: “Love American Style”
Dexter: “My Bad”
Dexter: “Remains to be Seen”
Dexter: “Seeing Red”
Dexter: “The Getaway”
Dexter: “Those Kinds of Things”
Dexter: “Truth Be Told”
Doctor Who (The First Series): “Genesis of the Daleks”
Doctor Who (The First Series): “Remembrance of the Daleks”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “A Christmas Carol”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “A Good Man Goes to War”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Amy's Choice”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Asylum of the Daleks”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Blink”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Cold Blood”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Closing Time”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Curse of the Black Spot”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Day of the Moon”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Deep Breath”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Father's Day”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Flatline”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Flesh and Stone”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Into the Dalek”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Kill the Moon”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Let's Kill Hitler”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Listen”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Midnight”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Night Terrors”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Partners in Crime”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Planet of the Dead”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Robot of Sherwood”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Rose”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Silence in the Library”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Smith and Jones”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Almost People”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Beast Below”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Caretaker”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Big Bang”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Doctor's Wife”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Eleventh Hour”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The End of Time: Part One”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The End of Time: Part Two”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Fires of Pompeii”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Ghost Monument”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Girl Who Waited”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The God Complex”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Hungry Earth”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Impossible Astronaut”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Impossible Planet”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Lodger”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Next Doctor”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Pandorica Opens”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Pilot”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Rebel Flesh”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Runaway Bride”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Satan Pit”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Time of Angels”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Waters of Mars”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Wedding of River Song”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Woman Who Fell to Earth”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Twice Upon a Time”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Utopia”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Vampires of Venice”
Doctor Who (The Second Series: “Victory of the Daleks”
Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Vincent and the Doctor”
Dollhouse: “A Spy in the House of Love”
Dollhouse: “Briar Rose”
Dollhouse: “Echoes”
Dollhouse: “Epitaph One”
Dollhouse: “Ghost”
Dollhouse: “Gray Hour”
Dollhouse: “Haunted”
Dollhouse: “Man on the Street”
Dollhouse: “Needs”
Dollhouse: “Omega”
Dollhouse: “Stage Fright”
Dollhouse: “The Target”
Dollhouse: “True Believer”
Elementary: “Pilot”
Eli Stone: “Freedom”
Eli Stone: “Pilot”
Fresh Off the Boat: “Pilot”
Friday Night Lights: “Pilot”
ER: “24 Hours (Pilot)”
Get Smart: “I Shot 86 Today”
Gilligan's Island: “Beauty Is as Beauty Does”
Gilligan's Island: “Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow”
Glee: “The Rhodes Not Taken”
Grimm: “Pilot”
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys: “The King of Thieves”
Heroes: “An Invisible Thread”
Heroes: “Angels and Monsters”
Heroes: “Dying of the Light”
Heroes: “Eris Quod Sum”
Heroes: “Genesis”
Heroes: “One of Us, One of Them”
Heroes: “The Butterfly Effect”
Heroes: “The Eclipse -- Part 1”
Heroes: “The Eclipse -- Part 2”
Heroes: “The Second Coming”
House M.D.: “Better Half”
House M.D.: “Help Me”
House M.D.: “The Softer Side”
House M.D.: “Three Stories”
House M.D.: “Under My Skin”
Hung: “Pilot”
Joan of Arcadia: “Common Thread”
Joan of Arcadia: “Pilot”
Joan of Arcadia: “Something Wicked This Way Comes”
Joan of Arcadia: “The Uncertainty Principle”
Joan of Arcadia: “Wealth of Nations”
Keen Eddie: “Pilot”
Kolchak: The Night Stalker: “Demon in Lace”
Kolchak: The Night Stalker: “Firefall”
Kolchak: The Night Stalker: “Legacy of Terror”
Kolchak: The Night Stalker: “The Devil's Platform”
Kolchak: The Night Stalker: “The Ripper”
Kolchak: The Night Stalker: “The Spanish Moss Murders”
Kolchak: The Night Stalker: “The Vampire”
Kolchak: The Night Stalker: “They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be...”
Last Man Standing: “Eve's Band”
Last Man Standing: “Mike's Pole”
Last Man Standing: “Pilot”
Lost in Austen (The Mini-Series)
Lost in Space: “The Great Vegetable Rebellion”
Love, American Style: “Love and the Bashful Groom”
Mad Men: “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”
Masters of Horror: “Dreams in the Witch House”
Masters of Horror: “Family”
Masters of Horror: “Haeckel's Tale”
Masters of Horror: “John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns”
Masters of Horror: “Pro-Life”
Masters of Horror: “The Black Cat”
Masters of Horror: “The V Word”
Masters of Horror: “The Washingtonians”
Masters of Horror: “Valerie on the Stairs”
Maude: “Maude's Dilemma: Parts 1 & 2”
Miami Vice: “Free Verse”
Miami Vice: “Trust Fund Pirates”
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries: “Murder Under the Mistletoe”
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries: “Unnatural Habits”
Mockingbird Lane: “Pilot”
Modern Family: “Game Changer”
Modern Family: “My Funky Valentine”
Modern Family: “Pilot”
Modern Family: “The Incident”
Mom: “Dirty Money and a Woman Named Mike”
Night Gallery: “A Matter of Semantics”
Night Gallery: “Cool Air”
Night Gallery: “Pickman's Model”
Night Gallery: “The House”
Night Gallery: “The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes”
Night Gallery: “The Devil Is Not Mocked”
No Ordinary Family: “Pilot”
Once Upon a Time: “Pilot”
One Day at a Time: “J.C. and Julie: Parts 1 & 2”
Parks and Recreation: “The Banquet”
Person of Interest: “If-Then-Else”
Person of Interest: “Pilot”
Pushing Daisies: “Dummy”
Quatermass: “The Quatermass Conclusion”
Red Dwarf: “Tikka to Ride”
Rizzoli & Isles: “See One, Do One, Teach One”
Room 222: “El Genio”
Room 222: “I Love You Charlie, I Love You Abby”
Room 222: “Naked Came We Into the World”
Room 222: “Operation Sandpile”
Room 222: “Richie's Story”
Scrubs: “My Jerks”
Shameless (U.S.): “Pilot”
She-Wolf of London: “Beyond the Beyond”
She-Wolf of London: “Little Bookshop of Horrors”
She-Wolf of London: “Moonlight Becomes You”
She-Wolf of London: “Nice Girls Don't”
She-Wolf of London: “She-Wolf of London”
She-Wolf of London: “The Bogman of Letchmoor Heath”
She-Wolf of London: “The Juggler”
Sherlock: “A Scandal in Belgravia”
Sherlock: “A Study in Pink”
Sherlock: “The Great Game”
Sherlock: “The Reichenbach Fall”
Six Feet Under: “Pilot”
666 Park Avenue: “Pilot”
666 Park Avenue: “The Dead Don't Die”
Speechless: “C-E-- CELEBRITY S-U-- SUITE”
Speechless: “Pilot”
Star Trek: “The Omega Glory”
Suburgatory: “Pilot”
Supergirl: “Pilot”
Supernatural: “Pilot”
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: “Pilot”
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: “Gnothi Seauton”
The Americans: “Pilot”
The Avengers: “A Touch of Brimstone”
The Avengers: “Murdersville”
The Avengers: “Never, Never Say Die”
The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.: “Pilot”
The Beverly Hillbillies: “Clampett's Millions”
The Beverly Hillbillies: “The Clampetts Are Overdrawn”
The Beverly Hillbillies: “The Clampetts Go Hollywood”
The Beverly Hillbillies" “The Clampetts in Court”
The Beverly Hillbillies: “Turkey Day”
The Big Bang Theory: “The Adhesive Duck Deficiency”
The Big Bang Theory: “The Comet Polarization”
The Big Bang Theory: “The Psychic Vortex”
The Big Bang Theory: “The Separation Oscillation”
The Dick Van Dyke Show: “It May Look Like a Walnut”
The 4400: “Becoming”
The 4400: “Pilot”
The 4400: “The New and Improved Carl Morrissey”
The 4400: “Trial by Fire”
The 4400: “Wake-Up Call”
The 4400: “White Light”
The Hunger: “A Matter of Style”
The Hunger: “A River of Night's Dreaming”
The Jeffersons: “My Girl, Louise”
The Middle: “Pilot”
The Monkees: “I Was a Teenage Monster”
The Munsters: “Low-Cal Munster”
The Munsters: “The Fregosi Emerald”
The Neighbors: “Pilot”
The New Avengers: “Complex”
The New Avengers: “Dirtier by the Dozen”
The New Avengers: “K Is for Kill: Part I: The Tiger Awakes”
The New Avengers: “K Is for Kill: Part II: Tiger by the Tail”
The New Avengers: “Obsession”
The New Avengers: “The Eagle's Nest”
The New Normal: “Obama Mama”
The New Statesman: “Happiness Is a Warm Gun”
The Office (U.S.): “Cafe Disco”
The Office (U.S.): “Company Picnic”
The Office (U.S.): “Murder”
The Office (U.S.): “Niagara”
The Office (U.S.): “Secretary's Day”
The Sarah Jane Adventures: “Death of the Doctor”
The Sarah Jane Adventures: “The Day of the Clown”
The Sarah Jane Adventures: “The Empty Planet”
The Sarah Jane Adventures: “The Last Sontaran”
The Sarah Jane Adventures: “The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith”
The Simpsons: “And Maggie Makes Three”
The Simpsons: “Miracle on Evergreen Terrace”
The Simpsons: “The Kid Is All Right”
The Simpsons: “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Guest Star”
The Twilight Zone (1985): “A Little Peace and Quiet”
The Twilight Zone (1985): “Button, Button”
The Twilight Zone (1985): “The Card”
The Twilight Zone (TOS): “Mirror Image”
The Twilight Zone (TOS): “Mute”
The Twilight Zone (TOS): “Perchance to Dream”
The Twilight Zone (TOS): “The Midnight Sun”
The Vicar of Dibly: “The Christmas Lunch Incident”
The Wild Wild West: “The Night of the Assassin”
The Wild Wild West: “The Night of the Inferno”
The Wild Wild West: “The Night of the Steel Assassin”
The Wild Wild West: “The Night the Wizard Shook the Earth”
The X-Files: “Alpha”
The X-Files: “Folie à Deux”
The X-Files: “Ghost in the Machine”
The X-Files: “Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'”
The X-Files: “Kill Switch”
The X-Files: “Monday”
The X-Files: “Mulder & Scully Meet the Were-Monster”
The X-Files: “My Struggle III”
The X-Files: “Nothing Lasts Forever”
The X-Files: “Rm9sbG93ZXJz”
The X-Files: “Space”
The X-Files: “Syzygy”
The X-Files: “Terms of Endearment”
The X-Files: “The Rain King”
30 Rock: “Stone Mountain”
Torchwood: “Children of Earth”
Torchwood: “Everything Changes”
Torchwood: “Out of Time”
True Blood: “Strange Love”
Two and a Half Men: “I Called Him Magoo”
2 Broke Girls: “Pilot”
Ugly Betty: “Back in Her Place”
Ugly Betty: “Hello Goodbye”
Ugly Betty: “Pilot”
Ugly Betty: “Plus None”
Ugly Betty: “The Manhattan Project”
Ugly Betty: “The Past Presents the Future”
United States of Tara: “Pilot”
Veronica Mars: “The Bitch Is Back”
Warehouse 13: “Pilot”
Warehouse 13: “The Greatest Gift”
Weeds: “A Pool and His Money”
Weeds: “All About My Mom”
Weeds: “Corn Snake”
Weeds: “Doing the Backstroke”
Weeds: “Go”
Weeds: “Mother Thinks the Birds Are After Her”
Weeds: “No Man Is Pudding”
Weeds: “Pittsburgh”
Weeds: “The Brick Dance”
Weeds: “The Love Circle Overlap”
Whitney: “Pilot”
Will and Grace: “Eleven Year Later”
Workaholics: “P*ss & S**t”
Xena: Warrior Princess: “Callisto”
Xena: Warrior Princess: “Crusader”
Xena: Warrior Princess: “The Bitter Suite”
Xena: Warrior Princess: “The Convert”
Young Sheldon: “Pilot”

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Supernatural: “Pilot”

If subplots involving a missing relative could work for Fox Mulder of X Files fame, why not a similar subplot for the two main characters of the Supernatural series. Better yet, why not toss in a murder mystery involving yet another relative?

Heck, let's start off the series with a charming flashback involving the mother of the two main characters Dean and Sammy. Poor mom doesn't last too long. Just long enough to catch sight of a mysterious stranger -- no reference to Mark Twain intended -- in her infant son's bedroom and then die a very nasty death in a fire that nearly destroys the whole house.

Dean and Sammy survive, of course. Which is a good thing because, after all, they are the two main characters I mentioned earlier. And the boys' father also survives, only to become obsessed with finding out what caused their mother's death. For that matter, the boys become a bit obsessed with finding out what happened to dear old mom for rather obvious reasons.

They never do solve the mystery -- no doubt because then there would be no series -- and eventually the two brothers go their separate ways. Younger brother Sammy chooses to go to college to become a lawyer and old brother Dean chooses to follow in his dad's footsteps as a ghostbuster.

Then one day Dean shows up in Sammy's place with the Mystery of the Missing Dad. Poor Dad didn't die in flames like their mom, but he hasn't been heard from in a while either, and Dean fears the worst.

Sammy, on the other hand, is more worried about an upcoming job interview and his live-in girlfriend. He eventually agrees to help Dean hunt for dear old Dad, but he's not too happy about it.

But first our guys have to solve the Mystery of the Phantom Hitchhiker. Or better yet, the Killer Phantom Hitchhiker. Apparently the last place Dad was heard from is being haunted by an enigmatic Woman in White who appears by the roadside and lures not-so-innocent young men to their doom. The WiW (Woman in White) continually frets about not being able to go home -- not because she's a member of the Shangri-Las -- but because there's a mystery in her house that can't be solved until just after the last commercial break.

In any event, the two brothers eventually solve the Mystery of the Killer Phantom Hitchhiker, only to find -- surprise! -- that the solution brings them no closer to finding out what happened to dear old Dad. However, they do have a clue to yet another mystery involving the vanishing patriarch which will be conveniently explored on next week's episode. And unfortunately, they also have to solve yet another murder mystery involving yet another of their loved ones. However, this particular murder mystery is going to take a while.

Some guys just can't catch a break...

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Fires of Pompeii”

Yet another reference to how dangerous the Doctor can be. (Oh, geez, if you're going to set us all up for yet another reference to the first series' “Trial of a Timelord,” then go ahead and do so. We get it already. The Doctor can be evil. Because he's all about fighting entropy and stuff.)

And, of course, another episode about my current favorite hija de London, Donna Noble. (Okay, Jackie Tyler was a favorite as well but she doesn't appear on the show anymore.)

And, of course, an interesting mishmash of actual history, pseudo-history and historical fantasy. The show, of course, chose to take the rather controversial position that nasty, evil aliens who want to take over the Earth are a bad thing. How dare they?!

And yes, references to so-and-so being a daughter of London or Dallas or New York are going to be on my mind for some time to come. Just the price you pay for watching this kind of stuff.

I did like that ending though. Donna Noble really is a -- oh, you'll see.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Partners in Crime”

Oh, cool. Donna Noble's back.

I heart Donna Noble.

Donna Noble completes me.

Donna Noble is cool. (Oh, wait, I've said that.)

And, oh, yes, there was a bit of a mystery in this episode, but the story didn't really take off until Donna and the Doctor met.

Although I was a bit disappointed that the inevitable allusions to Ghostbusters did not lead to the reappearance of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

Some people just have no sense of history.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Smith and Jones”

I really really really really liked the Doctor's new assistant Martha Jones.

Whether or not I like her better than Rose Tyler is another question.

But it's nice to see that in the Doctor Who universe, dark-skinned English girls get to have as many adventures as light-skinned English girls.

And yes, the show's writing staff is determined to not let us forget that this latest version of the Doctor Who series was initially inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Does this mean the Tardis will be travelling to Sunnydale at some point in the near future?

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Rose”

Narrator: Ladies and gentlemen, it's the Rose Tyler show featuring special guest Christopher Eccleston as Doctor Who. Yaay!

* Cue overture. *

Okay, the first episode of the new Doctor Who series doesn't exactly start like that, but one got the feeling at times that it should have.

And yet I found myself liking the show despite myself. (Of course, this episode wasn't my favorite of the first season, but it was still okay.)

Things I liked:

The way it established Rose Tyler as being a likely candidate for accompanying the Doctor by showing how open she is to new things. She is shown having no fear about crossing lines of either race (though she is white, she has a black boyfriend) or class (though she is from the working class, she has no problems working in a “posh” -- i.e., high-class -- department store).

Things I didn't like:

The way the Doctor was presented as being a supporting character in his own show.

The rather arbitrary way the show's “monster of the week” was first introduced and then destroyed.

*************************************************************

Oh, well. The show does get better.

Thank God!

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Runaway Bride”

Oh, great. A week after my breakup with my former bride-to-be, I broke down crying halfway through a viewing of Sweet Charity. Why? Because I had just gotten to the part when Charity's boyfriend was breaking up with her and for some reason, the scene evoked bad memories.

Yet weeks later, I'm watching an episode of Doctor Who that seems calculated to push all my emotional buttons and I don't even shed a tear. (I did cry the morning after, but I wasn't exactly thinking about the episode at the time.)

The emotional buttons in question:

1. Disrupted wedding? Check.

2. Bride-to-be who has issues with her parents. Check.

3. Reminder of a past girlfriend (Doctor Who's, of course, not the bride's, though that certainly would have made for an interesting subplot). Check.

4. Torrent of endless heartbreak. Check, check and check.

And yet again, I note, I did not shed a tear.

I don't know how to explain it. I still go off when I see certain reminders of my bride-to-be though I do not go off as often as I did two weeks ago. But it seems a trifle unfair to take it out on the show and I must admit that “The Runaway Bride” was one of the better episodes I've seen. (Someday, I'll give my thoughts on earlier episodes but not right now.)

Anyway, the story proved to be very entertaining. I must admit to having a soft spot for spunky redheads and while the runaway bride of the episode's title was not hardly the brightest companion the Doctor has ever had, she was certainly one of the most memorable.

I'm not sure what to say about the not-so-subtle anti-marriage subtext (after all the romantic rhetoric about marriage in Season One's "Father's Day" episode, this episode's take on marriage seems a bit harsh). Nor do I really want to comment on the subplot concerning a deadly single mother. (Yes, another single mom. Apparently the show's writers have a weakness for such characters.)

And what's with the episode's last-minute deus ex machina? Could it be connected to a future episode?

It's interesting to compare this series' “so what?” attitude to interracial relationships to the “let's shock the bourgeois” attitude seen in Borat. Of course, it would be argued that any series that has an alien as its protagonist and Earthwomen as its secondary characters would have to have a liberal attitude towards interracial relationships lest it suffer a charge of hypocrisy. After all, who would want to watch a show that expects you to buy the lead female character mooning over an alien but has trouble depicting a relationship between a black Earth man and a white Earth woman? Okay, some people probably would, but not the type that I prefer to know.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Dexter: “Born Free”

Well, Dexter is already on record as having the most interesting opening credits of any TV show I have ever seen. Indeed, the opening montage of shots portraying Dexter's daily morning routine -- making breakfast, flossing his teeth, getting dressed, etc. -- in a creepy manner prove that a good director and film editor can take even the most mundane of activities and make them seem quite horrible. Which, needless to say, is a lot harder than taking activities that are already horrible and portraying them in a horrific fashion.

So it is hardly a surprise that this series also has one of the most memorable season finales.

When we last saw Dexter, he was in frantic pursuit of the Ice Truck Killer. In this episode, he catches up with him.

But the show doesn't end there. Nor does the eventual demise of this week's bad guy prove to be the conclusion of this episode.

Instead, we get a vision of Dexter's ideal world. A world in which he no longer has to conceal his true identity. A world in which his work as a serial killer elicits not condemnation but applause from the people around him including his fellow cops.

It's tempting to see this vision as a takeoff on the recent spat of vigilante films put out by Hollywood. But actually this episode aired long before those vigilante films came out. And frankly, it would have been just as effective if they had never been released.

It does, however, seem to question the whole pro-vigilante mentality which has become popular as of late. The mentality that argues that it doesn't really matter what rights an individual suspect may have if he's undeniably guilty. The mentality that argues that it's perfectly okay to torture and even kill such a suspect if it saves lives or tax dollars.

The funny thing about “Born Free” is that it seems to applaud such a mentality. And yet through Dexter, the “evil” serial killer who kills only “bad” people, it also argues against it.

Let's face it. Not many of us would like to live in the type of society that Dexter dreams about. And not many of us would necessarily feel comfortable in a society in which the likes of Dexter no longer felt compelled to hide.

There are times when we think we do because we're convinced that such a society would only inconvenience the “bad” people. But unfortunately, such societies have a bad habit of expanding their definition of “bad” people. And even if they didn't, one can't help but wonder: would you want to live next-door to a person like Dexter?

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Dexter: “Truth Be Told”

In the last episode, “Seeing Red,” the identity of the mysterious Ice Truck Killer, a serial killer who has been plaguing Miami and teasing our favorite monster Dexter, was finally revealed.

I must confess that I had an edge when it came to guessing at least one of the Ice Truck Killer's secrets thanks to the book. But as I noted in my last post on Dexter, not everything in this series follows the exact same pattern as the book. Still the writers did a good job of keeping this particular audience member guessing as to the killer's true identity. I guessed it a few episodes before it was finally revealed, but hey, it's still nice to be proven right.

Anyway, in this episode, other people -- including Dexter's sister -- find out the Ice Truck Killer's identity as well. Unfortunately, they don't all find out in time to do anything about it, but hey, that's what season finales are for.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Dexter: “Father Knows Best” and “Seeing Red”

As one of the few people in America who read the Dexter books before the start of this show, I must confess to having an unfair advantage over most of this show's viewers in that I already had a rough idea which way the show's plot is going. True, they have changed things up a little. But all in all, they've done a good job of trying to be true to the spirit of the books while at the same time exploring facets of Dexter Morgan's character that were never adequately explored by the original author.

In any event, it was inevitable that the show would tackle the issue of how Dexter got to be the way he is and for that matter, reveal the fate of his missing parents. First, Dexter's biological father turns up dead in the “Father Knows Best” episode; then the show reveals what happens to Dexter's mom in “Seeing Red.” And given the fact that the show established early on that Dexter was an orphan adopted by a local policeman whose only known living relative is his foster sister Debra, even those viewers who have not read the books can guess that whatever happened to Dexter's mother was not a good thing.

And at the risk of posting yet another spoiler, it is safe to say that those viewers would be right.

In fact, describing the fate of Dexter's mother as “not a good thing” is an understatement.

After years of enigmatic visions, Dexter suddenly remembers the whole experience in “Seeing Red” and almost goes catatonic as a result. If you've seen the episode, you can guess why.

Even monsters can have mothers and even mothers can die in monstrous ways. Dexter Morgan finds all that out the hard way in this episode which contains one of the most emotionally powerful moments I've seen on a TV show this year.

And the bad times for poor monstrous Dexter are just beginning...

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Dexter: “Love American Style”

It's Dexter Morgan the immigrant avenger as America's favorite serial killer goes after an illegal immigrant smuggler who has a nasty way of reducing overhead.

Okay, this episode doesn't especially claim to have any unique perspective into the illegal immigrant problem, apart from the oh-so-brave position that people who smuggle illegal immigrants are not nice people.

But the series itself does have an interesting take on the whole vigilante issue that has been explored in so many recent movies.

On one hand, Dexter Morgan is a vigilante enthusiast's dream. A self-appointed vigilante who only kills “bad” people and who never ever kills an innocent by mistake.

On the other hand, his story poses unwelcome questions that most vigilante movies would rather not deal with. Questions like, what kind of person would want to kill such people in the first place? Is society really better off with people like Dexter Morgan around? Would any sane person want to encourage a real-life Dexter Morgan, and if so, why?

I'm not sure this show has all the answers to such questions, but at least the show's writers are posing such questions and not merely attempting to portray a right-wing wish-fulfillment fantasy.

More power to them.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: “Revenge”

One of the more famous episodes of the series and one that continues to have an influence on today's directors as well. (Christopher Nolan being the most obvious example.)

Directed by Hitchcock himself and based on a teleplay by Francis M. Cockrell (which in turn was based on a story by Samuel Blas), “Revenge” tells a simple story about a man who finds out that his wife has been attacked in his absence. Since the spouse had been recovering from a nervous breakdown, she is not the most useful of witnesses, but the man is nonetheless determined to use her to help track down her assailant. Unfortunately, he makes a fatal error in judgment....

The episode stars a pre-Psycho Vera Miles as the wronged wife and a pre-Andy Griffith Show Francis Bavier (aka Aunt Bea) as a nosy neighbor.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Heroes: “Genesis”

You just gotta love a TV show in which the first scene reminds you of the beginning of Run, Lola, Run.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Ugly Betty: “Pilot”

I really wanted to hate this series with a white-hot passion when I first heard about it. I wanted to hate it even more when I heard about the illegal alien subplot the show's writers added midway through the first season.

And yet now that I'm watching it on DVD...

I've grown to love it.

Not just because it's one of the few shows on the air with a Hispanic protagonist. After all, The George Lopez Show could have made a similar boast and yet I was never really attracted to that show.

And not just because star America Ferrera manages to be oh so cute in spite of her character's “ugliness.” (Though that certainly doesn't hurt.)

I suspect the reason I most love the show is the way it handles the issue of class anxiety. The feeling that one really isn't supposed to be working in a certain environment and the fear that the upper-class folks with which one works really are laughing at one behind one's back. I've heard quite a few fellow Hispanics express just such feelings and I'm kinda glad to see a TV show deal with such feelings instead of merely sweeping them under the rug.

It might be argued that this show takes an especially sunny view of such anxiety. And that it is a bit unrealistic when it comes to depicting the way Ms. Ferrera's character Betty Suarez manages to overcome the various obstacles in her new environment.

But at least it manages to acknowledge these issues instead of pretending everyone who matters is a white, non-Hispanic executive who lives in the suburbs. And that all Hispanics are gang members, drug dealers or servants.

Though the show is a bit cartoonish at times, it also manages to be quite intriguing in a way that most Anglocentric TV fare is not anymore.

I'm sure I'll have more to say about this show in the future.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Weeds: “Corn Snake”

Wow, I was just getting used to all the ethnic clichés on the first season of Weeds: the jive-talking black people, the uptight white people, the inevitable Latina housekeeper and the even more inevitable Latino drug dealer.

Now we got a new cliché to deal with: the uppity Latina maid. Oh, wait, that's just a variation on last season's favorite ethnic cliché.

Oh, well. Everyone knows that Latinos don't live in the suburbs. And if you do see them there, they're either servants or criminals as far as this show is concerned.

What a nice progressive viewpoint for a 21st Century TV show. Almost awe-inspiring, in fact.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

All-American Girl: “The Apartment”

I rented a DVD of the old Margaret Cho sitcom, All-American Girl, a few months ago in the hopes that maybe the show has improved with time.

It hasn't.

To be fair, Margaret Cho isn't exactly my favorite comedienne. I once bought one of her comedy albums on CD and found myself at best underwhelmed.

But even she deserved better than this generic mess.

And even the funniest woman who ever lived would have difficulty getting laughs from this show's dull-as-dust scripts.

The most shameless example of why this show was destined to become a failure was the episode “The Apartment.” The whole premise of the episode had Margaret's character (imaginatively named Margaret) moving into an apartment with two female friends.

Once there, the three friends began having “wacky” roommate problems. Not funny roommate problems like one might see on Buffy The Vampire Slayer's fourth season. That would imply that the episode was amusing.

No, these were “wacky” roommate problems. The type of problems that Hollywood scriptwriters found funny but no one else found amusing.

The oddest of these problems was a certain roommate's sudden desire for indoor nudism. Interestingly enough, such a desire was never hinted at in previous episodes. Nor was it hinted at in subsequent episodes. For that matter, it was never really explained in this episode why the roommate in question had such a sudden burning desire to take off her clothes in front of her roommates. Indeed, the only reason that made sense was a simple one: the scriptwriters' desire to provoke interest in the show from heterosexual male viewers.

Of course, seeing that this program aired on commercial TV, the show's creators were forced to hedge their bets by having said roommate's less family-friendly body parts obscured from TV viewers via pixelization. Thus we're supposed to be intrigued that said woman was naked but frustrated that said portions of the woman's anatomy weren't visible to the TV audience as anything but a strategically placed blur.

In any event, the episode still managed to be boring. Even insultingly boring.

Jodie Long (the actress that played Margaret's mother) showed a touch of class in a scene toward the end, in which she talked Margaret into moving back home, but as a whole, the episode, nudity and all, was still part of a generic TV sitcom -- and worse yet, part of an unfunny generic TV sitcom.

I suppose the one thing worse than seeing a naked actress used to elicit cheap laughes was having to see said actress elicit no reaction at all. Except, perhaps, pity for seeing her stuck on such an awful TV show.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Dexter: “Dexter” and “Crocodile”

When I first watched these episodes, I thought the producers of the Showtime cable series Dexter had a thing for the color green, either because it represented the tropical atmosphere of Miami (the city where the events of Dexter take place) or the ghoulishness of the show's protagonist, Dexter Morgan, who is a self-confessed “lab rat” and blood splatter analyst for the Miami police department. The faces of almost every other character would turn green every so often and even the most austere of backgrounds would come across as slightly olive.

Then I realized that there was something wrong with my TV set. I have since corrected the problem, but for a while there, I thought the producers of Dexter were being more visually creative than I expected.

Not that the show itself was all that boring. If you have read Jeff Lindsay's Darkly Dreaming Dexter (like I have), you can probably guess where the plot was leading. But apart from that, the show wasn't too predictable. And actor Michael C. Hall of Six Feet Under, who played the title character, did a good job of making a rather unbelievable character (a police department “lab rat” who “moonlighted” as a “justice”-seeking serial killer) seem believable.

Even more interesting was the attention paid to the show's supporting characters. True, there did seem to be an anti-affirmative-action subtext in the way the show presented a black police sergeant (Doakes) and a Hispanic police lieutenant (Laguerta) as Dexter's two main antagonists in the Miami police department. (Actually, Laguerta was more an antagonist of Dexter's foster sister, who also worked for the Miami police department, but she might as well have been Dexter's antagonist.) However, both Doakes and Laguerta had scenes which made them seem more sympathetic than their counterparts in the original novel and Laguerta especially had an interesting scene in the second episode which seemed to imply that the reason Laguerta was being so hard on Dexter's foster sister was Laguerta's resentment of the Anglo (white non-Hispanic) superiors who showed an open friendliness to Dexter's foster sister that they never quite showed to her.

Moreover, it's hard to complain about ethnic stereotypes too much in a show that (1) paid more attention to Hispanic characters than most cable shows I've seen since Six Feet Under; (2) featured a scene in which two Hispanic characters speak in Spanish without having their words translated or subtitled for the benefit of Anglo TV watchers; (3) featured more Anglo evildoers than Hispanic evildoers; and (4) had an Anglo protagonist who is a serial killer.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this show develops. I wasn't quite happy with the way Lindsay developed the character of Dexter Morgan in his novel (there's something at best questionable about the whole concept of a “heroic” serial killer), but I think it will be intriguing to see if the TV show follows a different route. At least it won't be dull.