REVIEW: One Discriptive Best Fits SG-U's Preultimate Season 1 Episode, Intense

I don't even know where to begin. SG-U's penultimate Season 1 episode Incursion Pt.1 just proved it is the 2nd most intense TV show currently being broadcast (next to only Breaking Bad). Seriously, it is very difficult to talk about the episode w/o leaking spoilers like Destiny leaks atmosphere.


Photo from SyFy.com

One of the tells of a great serialized series is the episodes bleed into one another, making it difficult to distinguish when one episode ends & the follow up begins. Such is the case w/ "Subversion" & "Incursion Pt. 1". Young does vent the cell effectively killing Telford (whose in Rush's body...it is a communication stones thing, makes perfect sense if you watch SG-U from the beginning). That is the opening scene, & the episode does not slow down from there.

Incursion also ties the loose end of who attacked the base in SG-U's premiere episode. This is the event that landed our marooned characters onto Destiny to begin with. The Lucian, an opposition group hell bent on getting their hands on alien technology, are using Rush (whose in Telford's body) to get onto Destiny. They do just that. After easily breaking through Col. Young's defenses, the resulting battle not only lands the pregnant T.J. as a Lucian hostage, but also leaves Cloe shot & lost in a previously unexplored portion of the ship w/ Eli (who is not known for his cool headedness in intense situations).

SG-U also does a great job in leaving certain plot elements unspoken. Though briefly acknowledged by Rush (now back in his own body), Destiny has obviously taken a disliking to the Lucian. Whether or not they play the Destiny card in the finale, certain events furthered my suspicion that Destiny is an A.I.

So strong the suspense and drama, I found myself sitting at the edge of my seat throughout the entire episode. I was so engrossed into Incursion that it was a physical shock when the screen blacked out after the final scene.

Stargate has come a long way since the planet of the week episodes of SG-1. SG-U not only proves it can be an amazing situational character drama, but also is raising the bar of what a serialized series can do.

Here's a clip from Incursion Pt. 2:

IMHO, a scene is the best "preview" to entice viewer interest & curiosity

REVIEW: Burn Notice's 4th Season Premiere Disappoints...Well Up Until the Last 10 Minutes, That Is

I'd like to start w/ a disclaimer, I have a love/hate thing w/ Burn Notice. There is no "it was an okay episode," "it could have been better," or "not the worst, not the best" here. By the end of an episode, I am either exhilarated or annoyed.


Photo from friskytuna via Flickr

If you're unfamiliar with Burn Notice, the catalyst of the series is Michael Weston, a burnt spy trying to get back into the spy game. He is marooned in this wasteland known as Miami. Each episode includes 3 basic plot elements. First is Michael's personal life, which involves his overly intrusive chain smoking Mom, Madelyn, his on again/off again gun toting girlfriend Fiona, & the charismatic ex-military intel operative Sam (played by Bruce "Evil Dead" Campbell). Each week, he takes on a client who has gotten themselves into some serious trouble w/ some serious people. Finally, there is the serialized story arc, which involves Michael solving the ever burning question, how to get his job as a spy back. It is a formula, but one that has proved to work really well in balancing out all the aspects of Michael's life.

In the 1st couple of seasons, the writers utilized this formula and created some amazing, entertaining, & hilarious episodes. Then, throughout most of the 3rd season, that spark (for a lack of a better word)wasn't there. The formula stagnated, as formulas can do.

That is my impression of season 4's premiere, Friends and Enemies. While watching the episode, I felt as if I was being forcibly shoved from scene to scene. The episode lacked development & process. From Michael & his new contact, Vaughn, suddenly locating & on location of the remote jungle hideout of Gregory Hart (a painfully underused gun trafficer played by Michael Ironside) to Fiona waltzing into the headquarters of a biker gang so cliche in its portrayal I can't even remember what the gang was called. She of course easily locates and steals the information the team needed from an unguarded office on the second floor. Then magically that information is conveniently ties Winston, the client, to Big Ed, the biker gang leader who's the only one who can lift the kill on sight tag off of Winston's head. Aside from a righteous chase/firefight scene, the whole biker/lawyer story was anti-climatic, & really nothing close to the mind blowing intense action & drama you'd expect from a season premiere. Even the actors themselves had this air of just going through the motions about them.

Overall, I spent most of the episode thinking it is the 3rd Season all over again. Then, probably the last 5 - 10 minutes of the episode, a sequence of events occurred. Vaughn had Micheal break into a government building in order to steal data on an investigation of Gregory Hart. The consequences of the break in resulted in a spy getting burned. It was a subtle but insane twist. Classic Burn Notice. The episode closed leaving me exhilarated & looking forward to next week's installment.