The Doena Journal

Deutsche Version | CW 04-05 | CW 07

Chuck 3×07 Chuck vs the Mask
This episode has cause quite an Internet Backdraft, for example: Chuck, “Chuck vs. the Mask”: Night at the museum, The Double-Edged Sword Of Devotion: ‘Chuck’ Vs. The Entitled Fan Base.
I agree on the part that Sarah/Clark KentShaw was indeed a bit rushed. But I disagree on the Chuck/Lana LangHannah part. And I think that both couples actually do have chemistry. Maybe that’s the reason people are so irritated about it.
I also agree on the assessment of one of the commentators on the first link that Chuck is trying to wear a mask to become a better spy and that he runs the risk of becoming the mask. My prognosis is that the mask is shattered when (and I’m totally guessing here, I have no actual spoiler infos) something happens to Hannah - she’s only a guest star after all.
So in sum, I liked this episode because I didn’t think it was unbelievable what I saw.

Heroes 4×19 Chapter Eighteen ‘Brave New World’
When a friend told me last week that this would be the season finale I was stumped. I couldn’t fathom how they could bring all these loose ends together in just one episode. They somehow did but it felt very rushed and in my opinion it fell a bit flat - but that seems to be a Heroes tradition since season one.
I liked it when they started slow, I got a bit bored when it didn’t speed up in the middle and then it end abruptly.
To be perfectly honest I wouldn’t care if there were never a fifth season - but if there is I’m probably going to watch it anyway in the slim hope that they manage to return to the quality of the first season (excluding the end).
Heroes seems to be the perfect example of a New Year rocket. It rises fast, burns brightly and is burned out even faster.

House M.D. 6×13 5 to 9
That was a great Cuddy episode, it worked really well. From this point of view it’s even more astonishing how Cuddy can bear House and his games and habits.
What bothered me about this (and also last(?)) episode is Lucas’s behaviour. House is a jerkass (with a heart of gold), he always has been and Cuddy knows that. But Lucas isn’t that much better. We saw him threaten House and Wilson over the condo issue and now he’s betting with House about his sex with Cuddy?! If he isn’t a good person, Cuddy might as well choose the original bad one instead of this copycat…

Human Target 1×05 Run
The show is very predictable; there are no hidden plots or meaning, no surprises: WYSIWYG. For example, it was totally obvious that the D.A. was his daughter. But somehow that is part of the fun. It’s like riding a rollercoaster. You know it’ll be fast, you’ll get two downhills, maybe a looping but in the end you’ll get safely back to the station.

Castle 2×15 Suicide Squeeze
Parts of the reveal were pretty predictable this time, with Castle’s background and all… Apart from that not much else happened either.

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Deutsche Version | CW 01-02 | CW 04

Human Target 1×01 Pilot
The pilot episode certainly looked interesting. The action was well balanced above realistic and below unrealistic. It looks like as if it’s going to be Die Hard or Lethal Weapon in a series format and I certainly will watch more episodes of it.
“You wore a vest? Where’s my vest?” - “I’m your vest.”

24 8×01 - 8×04 4:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Dammit. I should have known better. I decided to watch the season en bloc when it is over. But I just had to peak a little and was already drawn back in…
I love Jack’s new “Are we done here? Can I go home now?” attitude. Of course they aren’t done and Jack can’t go home.
When I read that that Freddie Prince jr. (Wing Commander, Scooby Doo) - He married my Buffy, dammit!!! - would take the part of the leading CTU Field Officer I was a bit worried. But he has gotten older and looks like he can pull it off.
Of course there are again the typical 24 plot points like the incompetent CTU boss, the CTU member who has private problems and I am already wondering who the mole is - but that’s OK, it’s 24 after all.
What I also like is that - aside from the 24 alumni who have returned this season - these episodes feel like a huge School Reunion party: The aforementioned Freddie Prince jr., Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica) - looks gorgeous btw -, Paul Wesley (Stefan in The Vampire Diaries), Cliff Simon (Ba’al in Stargate SG-1), David Anders (Takezo Kensei / Adam Monroe in Heroes, Julian Sark in Alias), Jürgen Prochnow (Dune, Das Boot) and according to the CTU files Callum Keith Rennie (Ray in Due South, Leoben in Battlestar Galactica) will also appear anytime soon.

Life Unexpected 1×01 Pilot
I was made aware of this series at least twice. The second time was a few days ago when blogs reviewed the pilot episode. But I’ve seen bits and pieces of this episode before - most likely in a trailer a few months back. And even though I had forgotten the show in the meantime I now remember that I decided back then that I’d give it a try.
I really liked the pilot. The characters are believable and down-to-earth. Even though the show runs on The CW this isn’t Beverly Hills 90210 or Gossip Girl, this is different. As with every show it now depends on what kind of storylines they are going to tell and how this triangle+attachments is going to work out.

Spartacus: Blood and Sand 1×01 / 1×02 The Red Serpent / Sacramentum Gladiatorum
Lots of nudity (male and female). Even more blood. Better you put a bucket below your telly in case it spills out of the screen. The optic leans more towards 300 than Gladiator, especially when there’s blood flowing. The problem is the story. These first two episodes show how Spartacus became a Gladiator but it didn’t give the viewer an idea what the entire show is going to be about. And that’s why I am not yet convinced. To quote Buffy’s Spike: “I love a good slaughter as much as the next bloke” but I also need a real story in between.
Time will tell … at least you now get the chance you never got with Xena: To see Lucy Lawless in the nude.

Chuck 3×04 Chuck vs Operation Awesome
The only thing I’ve ever seen Brandon Routh in was Superman Returns but here he didn’t remind me of his character there. I like him as addition to the team because he could stir things up a little.
I don’t know if it’s just my imagination because they announced it but the show actually feels a bit less funny and a bit more serious. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still an Action Comedy and there’s plenty of fun in it. But the general tone during the spy action seems to have darkened a little since last year. I’m not complaining - I like it.

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Deutsche Version

Since everybody seems to be starting to count at zero instead of one the first decade of this century and millennium is now over. So it’s time to recap these past ten years and take a look at the TV Shows it has given us.

Let me give my résumé at the beginning: Of the four decades I know TV Shows from (70s - 00s) this was without question the best decade for us TV junkies. When you read my review you might say in the end “Hey what about <insert your favourite here>?” (e.g. The Sopranos, Dexter, The Wire, Six Feet Under, …) but that’s exactly my point. This decade has given us so many outstanding shows that it was impossible to watch them all. Also, everybody has a different set of favourite genres but I’d say that every genre got their fair share of excellent series in the last years.

But let’s face it: There’s rarely any series (if there’s one at all) that could keep up the quality and it’s appeal for its entire run. Some had a bad year in between, some fell short at the end. But even in these “bad years” they had more quality episodes in it than entire shows from previous decades. So all the shows I am going to name have of course aspects that can be criticized and I invite you to do so.

For me the most outstanding characteristic of this past decade’s shows is that they are more often than not more about the “journey” of the character(s) than the actual events. It’s not the character who shines a light upon the unfolding events but it’s the events that shine a light upon the character and his development. I have to say that shows (hereby excluding comedy shows that work with stereo- and archetypes) that don’t have a real character development don’t interest me at all. But if the character development is interesting I might even watch shows from genres that usually don’t interest me at all.

If the character development is interesting enough I might even set the fact aside that my second favourite characteristic is missing: A real story-arc. The first TV Show in my TV universe that had a real story-arc, was Babylon 5. Later Star Trek: DS9 did the same albeit not in that quality and complexity. But these shows were two of the rare exception in the 90s (another famous exception would be Twin Peaks, but I never watched it). It seemed that viewers weren’t interested in either developing characters or story-arcs.

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Deutsche Version | Season 1: Disc 1

You Can’t Go Home Again

Synopsis: During the last attack Starbuck’s Viper was heavily damaged and she had to eject in the atmosphere of a small moon. But she also shot down the Raider that shot her down and it crashed on a near-by site. The problem is that she has no means of communication, Galactica does not know where to look for her and she’s running out of oxygen in 46 hours. Luckily for her, Adama is not willing to leave her behind.

My Opinion: I love this episode because it showed perfectly the triumvirate Adama²-Starbuck who would do anything for one another and once again Starbuck was awesome. Could you be more cool than return home with a commandeered enemy ship even when you stink like a latrine? But I also liked how the Cylons on Caprica (especially Caprica-Eight) manipulate Helo. Their scheming shows how human they really are.

Litmus

Synopsis: It is not yet publicly known that Cylons can look like Humans and another Number Five (looks like the reporter Aaron Doral) walks into Galactica and kills himself in a suicide bombing after he was cornered. Adama orders an investigation on how Doral got his hands on explosives and a detonator and the Master-at-Arms discovers that Chief Tyrol is lying about his wherabouts during the time of the bombing which makes him a suspect of treason.

My Opinion: Now the secret is out. This episode reminded me of Star Trek TNG’s The Drumhead which also featured a witch hunt but here it wasn’t fully believable. Yes she may be the Master-at-Arms and Adama gave her command authorization but she went over the line too quickly for someone who isn’t used to boss Commanders around.

Six Degrees of Separation

Synopsis: Another Number Six copy with the name Shelly Godfrey comes aboard Galactica and claims that she has evidence that connects Dr. Baltar to the failure of the colonial defences and that in fact he planted a bomb in the defence computer system. Baltar finds this outrageous (he didn’t plant a bomb after all, he just unknowingly slept with the enemy) but he can’t tell anybody that Shelly is a Cylon (Why would he know that?).

My Opinion: Baltar and Head-Six, what a lovely pair. It was such a great scene when Baltar was in CIC and was introduced to Shelly and he searched for her, totally ignoring the woman standing in front of him - assuming that this was his imaginary Six. I like Head-Six scenes in general because she gets him in awkward situations where he has to simultaneously* talk to her and the other (real) person in the room. And once again he managed to wind himself out of a tight spot. Even if he isn’t a real villain like the classic Baltar, he’s my favourite villain on the show.

* I wonder if I will ever write that word correctly, spellchecker has to correct me every time…

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Deutsche Version | Battlestar Galactica (2003) | Season 1: Disc 2

33

Synopsis: The Cylons somehow always know the position of the fleet and follows it mercilessly. 33 minutes after the fleet has arrived at the new jump coordinates a Cylon fleet arrives also and starts to attack. The fleet has just commenced its 237th jump and the pilots and the crew of the Galactica have been awake for more than 5 days straight without relieve or pause. They have to put an end to this or they will make one final, deadly mistake.
Meanwhile another Number Eight (numerical designation of human copies that look like Boomer) pretends to have come back to Caprica to get Karl “Helo” Agathon out of there.

My Opinion: This was a great start to the show because you are thrown right in. One doesn’t know how much time lay between their jump over the “red line” and the first time the Cylons found them again but it can’t have been much. And then we see them already 5 days into this 33 minutes rhythm, all exhausted and on duty for over 130 hours and no hope of release except death. It was only the first of many hard situations to come but it showed directly that this won’t be an easy journey.

Water

Synopsis: When Boomer (a Cylon who doesn’t know she is one) regains consciousness she finds herself soaking wet and she also has a plastic explosive plus a detonator in her hands. When she secretly brings it back she discovers that 6 more are missing from an arms locker. Soon after a huge explosion erupts in Galactica and 60% of the water tanks are emptied into space. If the fleet doesn’t find a new water source it won’t survive.

My Opinion: This was also a good episode, I liked it how Boomer struggled with herself, how she tried to override her Cylon programming without even knowing that it’s there. I also liked it how both Adama and Roslin didn’t really like the ceremonial pomp but both did it to make the other one feel better. I also took notice of Alex “Crashdown” Quartararo for the first time, because now I know his actor Sam Witwer from the eight season of Smallville.

Bastille Day

Synopsis: They have found water, but in its liquid form it is to salty to be used, but there are also huge masses of frozen fresh water. It will be hard and dangerous work to mine that water and Apollo offers freedom points for the men on the prison ship if they are willing to help. But the prisoners stand united behind former terrorist Tom Zarek who uses the situation to take hostages and demands elections.

My Opinion: While I liked to see the classic BSG alumni Richard Hatch (Apollo in classic BSG), I never cared much for Tom Zarek or his “mission”. At no time this character was somehow likeable, he’s simply a bad guy who happens to be human. This was also the first episode that Starbuck becomes an all-purpose Swiss knife (Is that a pleonasm?) because otherwise there would be no reason why she would lead the marines to rescue the hostages and it’s also her who carries the sniper rifle. But I am not mad about this, because it gives her more screen time.

But I really love this quote from Adama: “There’s a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.”

Act of Contrition

Synopsis: An accident on the landing deck occurs which kills twelve Viper pilots and injures seven more. Adama gives Starbuck the task of training pilots to become Viper pilots since Starbuck had been an instructor before the war. What Adama doesn’t know is that Starbuck passed Adama’s son Zek in basic flight even though he should have failed because she was engaged to him. Soon after he died in his plane.

My Opinion: Another thing I like about this show: Past events are rarely forgotten, no pushing of the reset button after the episode has ended. And also the occasional flashback to a pre-war Caprica. This episode also introduces two new pilots: Brendan “Hot Dog” Costanza and Louanne “Kat” Katraine and the latter one will become a worthy challenger of Starbuck’s and she will call Starbuck out when no one else dares to. Starbuck needs that on occasion and that’s why I like Kat.

Season 1: Disc 2

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Deutsche Version | Season 2: Disc 4 - 6

Won’t Get Fooled Again

Synopsis: John awakes in a hospital and is told that it’s shortly after he crashed Farscape-1 and blew the experiment. But John is not falling for this again. Still, in the beginning everything is much more realistic than the holo show the Ancients created. But then his shrink is a blue woman that looks suspiciously like Zhaan. Now the question is where is he and what does the person want that keeps him there.

My Opinion: One of these wacky episodes take that place in John’s head and where even more weird things happen than in a usual episode. Funny to see this episode one day after Galactica’s Six Degrees of Separation with the difference that John ignores Head-Scorpius (or “Harvey”) in his head and Baltar ignored a real Six in the real world. What I also find really enjoyable, is when these alien characters are placed in a real-world environment. On Moya it all feels natural but when Dargo and Chiana ride a cabriolet on a highway somehow that looks really strange.

The Locket

Synopsis: In order to hide from the Peacekeepers, Moya has entered a nebula that strongly reduces sensor range and makes it hard to navigate. Aeryn takes a shuttle to take a look at the other side but when she returns she is 165 cycles older and claims to have lived a long and peaceful life on a planet. Then she returns to her granddaughter. But John won’t give up on her and follows her only to get stuck, too. But it’s not them who live in the wrong time frame, it’s the nebula where time stands still and Moya has to get out of there quickly.

My Opinion: Faster aging (at least from the POV of the viewer). Another common theme throughout science-fiction series. I like this kind of episodes, especially when more than one character is involved, even when it’s always undone at the end of the episode. It gives the authors and the characters a chance to undergo a certain developement, to create a relationship that might not be possible under normal circumstances (e.g. when they are both military) or that so far is only an allusion. So yes, that was a good episode.

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V @ IMDb
V @ Wikipedia

Out of the blue huge spaceships appear above the major cities all over the world. In 29 ships the Visitors - as they call themselves - came to Earth to make trade. They need a mineral that exists in abundance on Earth and they are willing to give technologies and cures that don’t exist on Earth. But are they really putting all their cards on the table?

It wasn’t bad. And I bet for someone who doesn’t know the original it’s a cool start. But this wasn’t a restart like the one from Battlestar Galactica. Somehow this felt a bit too indistinctive, even when they used a slightly different back story. But all the other elements were there. The Human spokesperson, the secret resistance, the resistance within the aliens, the “Hitler Youth”-alike youth organization, … Don’t get me wrong I will watch it, but so far the only thing that surprised me was the identity of resistance alien.

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Since I ama fan of sword movies, I am going to watch the new show Spartacus: Blood and Sand this autumn even though it looks like a mix of Gladiator and 300.

Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead, Spider-Man) and Robert Tapert (Hercules, Xena) are producing this and Lucy Lawless (Xena, Battlestar Galactica) is starring - that makes it basically a must-see for me.

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Deutsche Version | Galactica 1980 | Season 1: Disc 1

Synopsis: Many years ago the Humans in the Twelve Colonies of Kobol build themselves advanced machines that would work for them. But these machines developed and one day they began a war against their masters.
40 years has it been since the war has ended and the Cylons disappeared. Now they are back and they want the total annihilation of mankind. They have hacked into colonial defences and disabled it. The attack comes swift and deadly. Only a handful of ships under the lead of the Battlestar Galactica survives this holocaust. Now they want to find the mystical thirteenth colony of Kobol: Earth.

My Opinion: When I heard that there would be a new Battlestar Galactica series, I was excited. This series is nothing like the old one except for the basic story. Some of the characters have changed gender and/or skin colour, their names have become call signs and Adama is no longer the lone leader of the fleet. He’s now a military commander who was about to retire. The role of the civilian leader was taken by President Laura Roslin who is a counterpoise to Adama. Also, the characters aren’t so upright anymore: Lee “Apollo” Adama dislikes his father because of what happened to his brother, Kara “Starbuck” Thrace hits “superior assholes” once in a while, Colonel Tigh is a drunk, Baltar is the egocentric scientist who inadvertently let the Cylons into the defence mainframe and Sharon “Boomer” Valerii is a Cylon sleeper agent. Ah yes: And some Cylons look like Humans now. Of these 12 human models we know 4 so far.
What I like about this mini-series and the following series was that they didn’t overdo the Sci-Fi elements. When they use FX it looks great but they decided to don’t make everything futuristic. The interior and the normal stuff looks pretty much normal. No fancy laser pistols, no communicators, no spacy music instruments.

Season 1: Disc 1

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Deutsche Version | Battlestar Galactica (1978) | Battlestar Galactica (2003)

Disc 1

Galactica Discovers Earth

Synopsis: After many yahren, the Galactica has finally discovered Earth. But Earth isn’t the save heaven they had hoped for. They are technologically inferior and wouldn’t survive a Cylon attack. Adama decides to send small teams down there to speed up Earth’s development while he leads the fleet away from Earth since they are still followed by the Cylons. Troy (who was called Boxey when he was a child) and Dillon are being send to a country called “United States of America” where they want to meet with a leading nuclear scientist. And the local TV reporter Jamie Hamilton becomes their “tour guide”.

My Opinion: And once again Los Angeles was destroyed by aliens - even though it was only a simulation. I liked this first episode of the series, it showed promise. To bad the bridge sets seemed to be destroyed. The new bridge looked far inferior to the old one, but I liked to see Colonel Boomer again. I had forgotten that another recurring character (besides Adama) from the old show reappeared in this show. I also like the new two-seated Vipers because I like Jamie and that gives her the chance to ride along.

Galactica Discovers Earth, Part II

Synopsis: Troy and Dillon have been ordered back to the Galactica and they brought Jamie along (they didn’t have much choice). Dr. Xaviar has travelled back in time to advance Earth’s development in th past. He’s gone into the year 1944 and to Peenemünde in Nazi-Germany. He’s helping to develop the V2 and must be stopped. Troy, Dillon and Jamie follow him there.

My Opinion: The whole plot doesn’t make much sense. Even if he could change the past, 36 years are clearly not enough to catapult Earth’s technology forward in a way that it would be of any use in 1980. And even though the Nazis were the most advanced in regards to rocket science at this point in time I think it’s very unlikely that the “Master Race” would be very open-minded towards a truly superior alien race.

Galactica Discovers Earth, Part III

Synopsis: Troy and Dillon can successfully sabotage the start of the V2 and it explodes shortly after launch. Xaviar is accused of being a spy and gets arrested but can escape, returns to his Viper and travels back to his own time. Jamie, Dillon and Troy follow him but lose his trail. After they successfully returned Jamie to California a new problem arises: The cloaking field has deactivated and made the Vipers visible. They are now in the hand of the US military and they need to get them back.

My Opinion: Even if the V2 test had worked (btw: the V2 tests started in 1942, in 1944 they were already mass-produced in slave labour), one year later a nuclear bomb over Europe would have still ended the war.
Also: They won’t kill german soldiers because that would change the future but they free an entire train of Jews who were about to be brought to Auschwitz. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t critizise the break-out but then they might as well shoot the Germans.

The Super Scouts

Synopsis: After the Cylons have attacked and destroyed the fleet’s school ship, Dillon and Troy have to evacuate 12 of the children down to Earth. There they disguise themselves as boy (and girl) scouts. Due to the higher gravity and the denser atmosphere in the fleet the children are stronger and faster as normal children of Earth. But that doesn’t protect them from Earth’s diseases and especially not from water that is poisoned by a chemical plant.

My Opinion: C’mon, gimme a break! Kids that jump 30 foot high? How high can Troy and Dillon jump? The Empire States Building? It’s always a good idea to critizise how we treat our environment, but to shift the focus in a Sci-Fi show from their main protagonists to a bunch of kids who (of course) do childish things isn’t a good idea.

The Super Scouts, Part II

Synopsis: Troy and Dillon have to care for three of their children who are very ill. But that’s not their only problem. The military is after them because they detected the landing of the shuttle. The police is after them because they are accused of bank robbery. And the local workers are after them because they threaten the chemical plant.

My Opinion: And now a real “flying saucer”, too. This ship looks nothing like a ship from the colonies. Why would they use such a design? No, these two episodes didn’t work for me at all.
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