Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Time of the Season

Another week and several more season-ending episodes of shows that I watch. Here are a few comments, some of which may be more surly than they should be because I just watched Criminal Minds' finale, one of the worst of the bunch. Here we go:

Criminal Minds - Awful in a bad-comic-book way. The villain acts villainous just to try to stump the heroes, who are particularly slow-witted in this season-ender. And even worse, it's only half a story. If you can't build interest in the next season without relying on a shock-for-shock's-sake cliffhanger, just cancel the show and let 'em air another rerun of CSI or Law & Order, okay?

•House - Another "perception is reality" solipsistic episode that didn't really move forward. When I was twelve, this sort of "all in my mind" storytelling might have seemed really clever; now, it's just annoying.

•24 - A superb episode with an incredibly effective twist. Just when you thought that Jack Bauer had at last failed in his mission, he pulls out a victory, whether the world will ever know about it or not. The real surprise was the addition of an extra five minutes that linked season five to unresolved plot strings in season four, and thus paved the way for season six. Too bad we have to wait until January!...

•Medium - Dreary and uninspired, this lackluster take on It's a Wonderful Life would have made Jimmy Stewart grumpy. This show works best when the writer develops a straight-ahead story and then seasons it with some Dubois family life (she has the best kids on television right now). I really like these people!

1 comment:

Doug G said...

As a viewer new to 24 this season, I was disappointed at the finale's lack of plot resolution. There were WAY too many dangling threads left untied, while Buchanan asks Karen out for breakfast (didn't she have him detained about 10 hours ago?) and Chloe is comforted by her ex-husband.

After 25 minutes of submarine action-for-the-sake-of-action, I felt like they wasted too much of the remaining 90 minutes. I probably won't watch next season.