My late Fall season review: Chuck.

Chuck is the story of a nerdy guy that works in some mega store and gets power after his parents sold his soul to the devil, wait… that’s not Chuck. Hmm, I seem to have gotten my nerdy-guy-shows-that-get-some-super power confused. Chuck is about a nerdy guy that works in a mega store that got his powers from an e-mail his college room mate, turned rogue spy, sent to him. Did Jake 2.0 work in a store? Anyway, let‘s start with the breakdown of the show.

Main nerd of the show: Chuck
Nerd type: Lovable nerd. The lovable nerd only exists in TV shows or film. He is the dude that tries to always do good but never gets the respect and always ends up in some funny situation.
Superpower: Huge database of sensitive information downloaded into brain, giving him the be ability to have “flashes” which recall information on the specific subject he is staring at, at the moment.

Nerd Sidekick: Morgan Grimes.
Nerd Type: Rodent nerd. He is that little friend that some of us have that actually resembles some type of a rodent in the way they act. My rodent nerd friend acts like a badger, and we actually tell him this. Grimes has the hots for Chuck’s sis. Hilarity ensues

The hot chick: Sarah Walker
Hot chick type: Standard blond hot chick #5. This hot chick has an athletic body. This hot chick tries to do what’s right but when the job requires her to ignore this she eventually does. She means well and so on.

Overall Story.

Chuck was a normal nerd working in the Nerd Herd at Buy More trying to make a living in this cold and harsh world. One day he received an email from a college room mate he never kept in touch with, that e-mailed contained a huge amount of sensitive and classified information about spies and all sorts of dark government stuff. When he opened this e-mail all of that information downloaded into his brain and it turned him into a walking database. Wai, wait… I just figured something out while trying to do this little summary of the show, Chuck as a series cannot exist.

Why? Chuck’s friend stole that info then sent it to him in an e-mail, Chuck saw the email and it downloaded into his head. When the CIA and NSA figured out that a Chuck was contacted by his friend they went to take his comp to figure out what was the message that was sent. The comp was broken and they apparently couldn’t reconstruct the HD to get whatever was sent BUUUUUUT!!! Chuck tells them it was an e-mail. All they need to do is get his email account and password to get the information Chuck got. Then all they need to do is put a bullet in Chuck’s head and it’s all over. Therefore this series is all happening because some how no one in both CIA and the NSA has figured out to check Chuck’s email account for email that contained the stolen info. I’m sorry but out of all the things you can ignore just to keep the story moving forward this HAS to be the dumbest one I have ever seen. These folks have all sort of cool spy devices and no one has thought of checking the mail that downloaded into Chuck all this mess?

Well lets continue the review for those folks that choose to ignore that major fault and keep watching. After the download, and the HUUUUGE plot hole, an agent from the CIA, the hot chick, and one from the NSA are stationed near Chuck to keep an eye on the info and to randomly solve crimes and spy situations that happen to start appearing near where Chuck works and lives in. Each episode turns into a 42 minute spy mini movie that borrows from every spy source ever created. There’s the agent that goes off the grid to save a family member but they have to stop him episode, trying to get back a stolen one of a kind jewel, infiltrating the gala event find out why X person is there, etc, etc. There are some hot chicks show up in each episode and a few cool action scenes but those can’t bring the show up from downer of seeing Chuck fumble through every single scene on every single episode. Seeing this for the pilot and maybe a few episodes after would be ok but after five episodes of the dude fumbling all over the place with the same act is tiring.

I know there’s 20 episodes to a season and that’s lot of time is left to develop the story but if they want me to stick around for the 20 they need to start moving it along and giving me something that I’m going to get hooked into.

For this Chuck gets a

In the Sigh-o-meter.
Chuck’s repetitive fumbling nerd act for 5 straight episodes drags down the spy stories you are familiar with from seeing other spy shows and spy films.

The .5 is for the hot chicks in hot clothing, or lack off, and a few entertaining action scenes.
And for the seventeenth secret Baldwin brother, Adam Baldwin. The dude always does a good job of playing the tough guy that wants to kill you.

Edit- Ok, after a day of holding to this to find possible ways as to why people are ignoring the mail loop hole I got a few probable answers.

1. He could be using POP email and after he got the mail it automatically got erased from the server.

2. It could have been the Mission Impossible, “This email will self destruct in 5 seconds.”

Sort of makes sense, but the problem remains that an explanation of a major part of the plot was basically neglected. The hot chick DID say that the HD wasn’t recoverable but come on, the dude works for the Nerd Herd… he could probably a computer that fell 4 four feet or something.

Anyway, the series still gets its rating. That semi-plot hole wasn’t really factored into the rating of the show.

My late Fall season review: Heroes Season 1, I mean 2.

Since I am one of you, the normal viewing public, I don’t get to see the screeners and tell you what to expect for the first few episodes of the season. I watch it along you brothers and sisters, and after a month of episodes its time to tell you folks what’s going down with this season’s sci-fi, and sci-fi related shows.

We start with the goliath of shows, the world wide sensation that blah, blah, blah, its Heroes, most of you people know what I’m talking about. So from what we were told before the season started we were expecting a new story with new heroes, something totally different from what we saw last season and….. I’m still waiting. It looks like what the creators were trying to do and what the network was pushing came together and ended up with mixed results.

The first episode was ok as the star of the story, there were some ok things but there were some wrong turns that obviously happened because this story began “Four months later…” This meant that there would be no explanation for certain events, things were like this and we have to move this point on. One of those “Stuff is just like this” events was what happened with Parkman. In fourth months he had completely healed from four bullet shots to his chest and he was already finishing his detective test, are we sure that he doesn’t have the ability to heal fast too? On top of all that the dude had the time to divorce his chick leaving her with a super baby? Which ended up not being his according to later episodes. He also somehow got custody of Molly and got her into a school. This guy was very busy in those four months eh?

Other things introduced of importance were “The wonder twins.” Which I called by the second episode that they would end up being a repeat of the Nikki/Jess mess from season one. You know the Nikki passing out then having Jess do some evil crap and when Nik came back she would cry about it? This happened almost exactly the same for the first six episodes or so. For this season we got Maya and Alejandro crossing a border to a new country then getting separated and finally Maya bugging out and having her powers activated. This dance seemed to have stopped after four episodes when they finally came in contact some one else with a storyline.

A final point was that we learned which of the superpowers (Pete, Sylar) from the show got the reset. A reset of one of those two HAD to happen for the second season because you cannot have those two titans not go at it if they both were left at full strength. One would eventually do something to draw the other, so one had to have his powers taken away, or curtailed to some degree to keep them separated for a while. In the first episode we learn that this was Peter by having a touch of amnesia which affected the little training he got from season one.

On the second episode we got Maya and Alejandro do their version of the Nikki/Jess dance, Peter (re)learn that he is special, that he has super abilities and he doesn’t know why or how. Claire trying to fit in a world that she no longer belongs to because she is different from everyone and she cant say anything about it. Now is it just me or did that just sound like … the beginning of season one? Yes I know I didn’t talk about the other half of the episode but this half DOES sound a LOT like the storylines from season one. Wait, actually having a mysterious person killing super powered folks is also similar to a certain storyline from the last season. This little repeating problem continues to develop bit by bit as the show goes on, and for me its taking a LOT away from what Heroes can actually be.

On the third episode we got the Maya/Alejandro with the Nikki/Jess Dance, Peter trying to figure out his powers, again, but this time he isn’t jumping off things, and Claire being annoyed by having to hide herself from everyone. More repeating, more digging themselves into the hole and in fact a fatal mistake was made in this episode. We learn that the other superpower of the show was also reset. Sylar has to start bashing brains again to get more powers because he apparently can’t use the ones he had before. The titans were both castrated and they both have to, AGAIN, go on a path to (re)gain their powers. They are both taking the same trip they took last season. This was a HUGE mistake and it just adds to the other stories that are repeating what we saw THE LAST SEASON.

Another thing that is bothering me in season 2 is that we get previews that end up being way better than the episode itself. We get hype up to something that ends up having nothing to do with the episode, what was in that mysterious box!??!?! Naaah, I’m not going to open it. And when they do, “ Oh is just a passport, a plane ticket and 17 bucks.” Some one is killing heroes, who is next blah, blah, blah, and we get Parkman ask Mama Petrelli a few questions that she doesn’t answer. We still don’t know if saving the cheerleader saved the world but at least that hyping lasted for half of the season and could be stretched for that long because of the mad chase everyone was part of to get to her. And because of the future ramifications and so on.

For the episode that just aired…. I don’t know man, that Hiro storyline is not entertaining me at all. There is no draw to it and by having that semi-flashback episode retelling what we saw the first two episodes in episode three didn’t help this at all. I think the problem with it was what I said earlier, that what the creators wanted for the series and what the network execs ended up demanding later clashed and his story, which I think was supposed to be a main one, and it ended up being a third or fourth story down the line.

I didn’t really need to see the “How I figure out how to use my powers.” Storyline from Micah’s hot cousin, at least not having it be longer than 2 or 3 minutes. The stormtroppers finally roasted Uncle Owen so this would probably, and finally, send Pete Skywalker in an adventure across the galaxy and away that backwater pub. Bennet seemed to be having all the fun this episode but we didn’t see any of that. Parkman and Nathan were playing grab ass for a bid which lead to us learning that Parkman probably has some extra abilities that he might develop later on.

After 5 episode these are the problems I see with the show.

1. Too many storylines repeating from the last season

2. I should’ve said this first but, WHERE is the story?
Tim Kring did an interview with G4tv saying that the “volumes” were going to be shorter this season, that the second volume was going to consist of only 11 episodes instead of drawing it all the way to the end of the season. So if we got 6 episodes left till the end of volume 2… where is the story? The only thing we have close to an overall story is the dude/dudette killing a specific group of powered people.

Everything else we get outside of this is seeing the everyday life of these “Heroes” running around and stuff. Is kinda like coming in on a Monday to work and hearing stories from a couple of people telling you what they did during the weekend. One person might have something really interesting happen but most have nothing that I want to hear.

3. Get to the story ALREADY!

So for this season so far Heroes gets a,

In the sigh-o-meter.
5 episodes in and there has been almost no build up to anything.
The only reason it didn’t get a two is that it’s Heroes and something might still happen that might be good. It really should’ve gotten a two.

Pretty funny and on the point Halo 3 review

While surfing through the internet tubes I found this cool review for Halo 3.

It basically follows what I’ve said about Halo 3 in my earlier post but it adds a funny spin, some animation, and music !

chhhhhhhhhheck it out!

Why is Halo 3 getting all these near perfect scores when everyone says campaign mode sucks?

  

        Basically every review out there for this game follows the same pattern of praising the multiplayer to different degrees, from being MEGA AWESOME to being a good upgrade, but when they get to the campaign mode a problem arises. The problem isn’t that some people don’t like the campaign, one reviewer even said that a certain level would actually make them just drop the controller and not finish if they tried the campaign mode again, the problem is that the campaign section of the review always end, or start too, with, “ But lets face it, you didn’t by the game for the campaign mode. The main draw is the multiplayer.” And they continue on.  

 Your job is to review the WHOOOOOLE game guys, not just the part that draws the crowd in. If you are treating Halo like this why not other games? Does Eureka 7: New Wave get a higher score if you ignore the story? Or …the gameplay? I don’t remember which was the part that sucked. There are plenty of examples out there of games that get destroyed just for having one really bad part, so why not just ignore that and rate the rest? There needs to be re-reviews for a whole bunch of game out there.  

   All these scores seem, to me, to be “The hype” ratings instead of actual ratings. I just don’t see how a game that has one chunk be substandard still get perfect/close to perfect scores. I’m not a Halo hater by the way, I played both Halo and Halo 2, its just that I didn’t get carried by this Halo Tsunami that apparently makes this game into the best shooter since Doom or something. It’s a good system shooter but calm down, don’t just look at the improvements and ignore the rest.    

    It’s kinda like a butterface chick getting a boob job. Its sort of like Sam Raimi with Spider-man movies. Spider-man 3 is still considered better than 80% of hero films because its Sam Raimi and a Spider-man film. No…. if the movie is bad it’s bad. It doesn’t matter who made it or what it is.