No one can ever accuse Captain Obvious of being a big Heroes fan. I think the show is penned by hacks with BS degrees in Shoddy Plotlines from WereRetardedHowBout U. But my lady, bless her soul, likes it so we Tivo 24 and watch every Monday night. The script still lacks natural cohesion, instead relying on artificial links between half-interesting characters to drive its all-questions-no-answers approach. At the end of last week’s episode the indestructible cheerleader Claire finally tracked down her birth mother who, as it turns out, has the power of lighting cigarettes with her fingers. I could see that ability coming in handy when at a bar. Hackishly mirrored is the only character worth watching, Hiro Nakamora, being tracked down by his father, played by George Takei. Oh it’s a twin parent-orientated subplot! I get it!

Insults to the Captain’s intelligence aside we’ve also been monitoring the evil power stealing baddy Sylar’s imprisonment by Claire’s adoptive father. But what ho, it appears he’s outwitted him and we now get to watch him on the prowl again! Maybe he’ll hunt down the producers and get ‘em. Oh wait, that would require the producers obtaining any sort of talents or abilities first. I digress.

On this week’s episode we finally meet Claire’s mom in person. She has absolutely nothing of worth to add to the storyline except to reveal Claire’s biological father in the last moments. If you’re reading this you couldn’t possibly care about spoilers so it turns out to be Nathan Petrelli, Peter’s brother and the dude who can fly. Claire leaves her real mom to head back home but not before her birth mom gives her a necklace and some kind words, telegraphing to the audience that she’ll be dead within an episode or two. Little does Claire know that back at the homestead Sylar, having freshly escaped and nicking her dad’s wallet for an address as already been there and roughed her adoptive mom up a bit. He would’ve killed her but her adoptive dad and his hetero Haitian life partner showed up, shot Sylar a little and then zapped her mom’s memory so that she could never tell another soul about how retardedly unlikely it is that Sylar didn’t just kill her. Fucking writers.

We catch up with SpongeGoth Squareass Peter as he learns the ways of being invisible from his newfound Scottish buddy. The Scotsman, long since jaded and having lost all faith in humanity after reading a few scripts ahead tries to convince Peter to drop all his connections to his friends as they’re just deadweight holding him down. Peter is resistant of course, like any good protagonist should be. It’s not until Groundskeeper Willy tosses him off the roof of a building that we discover Peter has retained the abilities he copied from others. Apparently it wasn’t temporary only. Then he wigs out and thinks he’s going nuclear only to be dropped like a girl scout by Willy with a well placed right hook. Damn son, you been knocked the fuck out!

Elsewhere in the world of Heroes it seems Nikki is resigned to a life behind bars but then she’s mysteriously released by some fat white guy we’ve never met. Marlon Brando was unavailable for comment. We think for a moment that her alter-ego might be contained but hah, of course it isn’t. Instead it’s imprisoned her and has taken over again. So in other words this at-one-time interesting storyline continues to falter and bore going making donuts in this proverbial parking lot of a show.

So where do we stand? Isaac, the prophetic painter is slowly hooking up with Peter’s girlfriend. Peter is being a whiny, sniveling bitch and Claire is setting herself up for a showdown with Sylar, as he undoubtedly will kill her birth mom within a few weeks. Nikki’s spinning her wheels and Hiro really hasn’t made any progress this week. Oh, but remember the list? That very, very important list. Are you on the list?, the show asked. Well, seeing as they didn’t really broach that subject this week I guess we’ll have to wait and see. As usual. Unless it’s a list of people who aren’t buying into the pretentious mockery of interesting television, which if it is then Captain Obvious is number one with a bullet.

I swear to the gods the writers of Battlestar are trying to lose me as a fan. Maybe it’s my bloodthirsty, masculine warrior side that is crying out for stuff blowing up or maybe it’s my dainty, feminine side wishing beautiful, stylish things would explode. Either way I settled in for this week knowing full well there wouldn’t be a ton of action but little did I know I was being set up to watch As The Galaxy Turns starring the Adamas and some random womens.

So tonight’s episode lasted an hour while the actual events occurring in the episode, real time, lasted 15 minutes. So we’re starting with a 4:1 ratio of nonsense to reality already. Coupled with the fact that there were about eight million flashbacks we do the appropriate math and end up with a 14.3:9:1 quotient which translates into a trip down memory lane for very little real effect. Emotional styrofoam, as it were.We enter to see Lee and Helo boxing in present day on Galactica. Colonel Tigh, our favorite cycloptic alcoholic referees. While they fight we fade in and out of Lee flashing back to the early days on New Caprica, hereout referred to as NewCap as I’m already tired of typing the full name and after this episode, hopefully, we won’t hear about it much. Lee’s reminiscing about Kara who in present day wakes up next to on-again off-again husband Anders, gets dressed and tells him she’s still not sure what she wants but isn’t ready to do married life yet. She heads down to ringside to watch Lee fight but ends up in Helo’s corner, an obvious statement that she and Lee are still at odds.

Flashback to NewCap by Lee as he sees Kara and Anders walking toward him. What does it mean? We won’t find out until the very end so back to present day we go as Helo gets a clean shot on Lee, sending him sprawling to the floor. He’s just about to stay down for the count when Kara slides his way and tells him to get up, so of course he does but the chain-smoking Doc calls the fight, saying Lee can’t continue. Poor Lee.

Lee is going to leave when Kara comes up to him from behind and challenges him to a fight, we go to the opening credits from there. OMG, they are going to fight! Maybe something will explode! But then again, maybe not.

We return to NewCap and more backstory about how Lee and Kara are all looking at each other. Back and forth. Looking looking looking. I already start tiring of what I know is just leadup to something inevitably happening between the two of them but the show hasn’t the decency to just let it happen and move on to blowing things up. Nope, we get an hour of film school project fodder, boy and girl looking back and forth ad nauseum.

Back in present day Adama gets to explain to Roslin what the fights are all about, basically giving the crew an outlet for their aggression and unresolved feuds. You leave your tags at ringside so rank doesn’t exist in the ring. Roslin blabs about how her dad loved the fights so she does too. Yay giving a character other than an Adama or Starbuck something to say in the episode. Too bad it was a throwaway addition.

Hotdog challenges Starbuck while Lee smolders. More flashes back to more wistful glances on what we next learn is the groundbreaking and our only glance at Balter this episode. It was a simpler time, a time of new beginnings and a lot of glances between Starbuck and Lee. We also get our senior citizen audience interest piece in Adama and Roslin flirting. As if I could lose more interest in this episode, there they go.

Finally a bit of substance arises and we find out Adama initially refused to let the Chief and Cally go have their kid on NewCap, keeping them stationed aboard Galactica. In the end it was a mistake as Chief was stuck planetside while Adama fled after the Cylons reappeared. But at the time Chief was upset as he hadn’t read the spoilers yet so he had no idea what was to come. With Roslin’s help, Adama eventually comes around and lets the Chief settle. A mistake in hindsight, which leads Adama to challenge the Chief to a match back in present day. “Chief,” he begins, “get your fat lazy ass in here.” The bell is just ringing and Chief turning around when Adama blindsides him and drops him to the ground with a hook. It’s not an explosion but it will do, for now. “Get up,” Adama quips, “we’re just getting started.”

Huzzah!

Back on NewCap we continue with the Lee/Starbuck almost doing something inexplicable but mercifully get back to present day as Adama and Chief pummel each other. Adama taunts Chief and then fakes him out, drawing the Chief toward him pretending to be winded and then 1-2s him to the mat. Kara uses it as an excuse, saying the old man still has his chops and knows when to make a move, unlike his son. Ooooh, burn!

We return to NewCap and finally get somewhere with the Lee/Starbuck flashbacks as they’re both drunk and their respective dates are out for the night. Will something finally happen? In short, yes. But not before Adama gets his ass handed to him by a second-winded Chief who beats him without mercy. Adama falls, then is helped back up by Chief and Tigh and gives a fancypants speech about how he gave people too many breaks back in the day and let them go before the fight was really over. He “let this family disband and paid the price in lives, something that can’t happen again.” Then he wanders off to stuff his liver back into his abdomen.

The crowd starts to dissapate when Starbuck realizes she hasn’t had her fight with Lee yet, so she calls him out and the crowd gets back together to watch, Anders and Dualla coming to ringside to watch their lovers go at it. I lean back and take a long sip of Pepsi as I know we’re in for flashback overload at this point. I’ll be kind and only highlight the twelve hours of flashbacks I had to endure.

Starbuck and Lee are alone and drunk after the groundbreaking party. Lee asks if life with Anders on NewCap is what she really wanted for the rest of her life. They kiss, they frak and then realize what they’ve done. “What are we gonna do?” Starbucks asks. Lee responds that they’ll tell their mates what happened and live happily ever after together. Uh-huh. And maybe Tigh will grow back his eye and monkeys will fly out of his manic depressive ass.

Lee rises, no pun intended, and screams out to the desert night that he loves Kara and doesn’t care who frakking knows. He won’t stop til Kara does the same so she reciprocates, saying she loves Lee. This was truly the gayest moment shared by two straight actors in the history of television and my vote for the precise moment this show jumped the shark.

Next morning Lee wakes up alone, heads into town and finds his father who tells him Kara got married to Anders. Lee gets all salty, runs into the couple and congratulates Sam saying “Good luck, you’ll need it” while giving Kara the stinkeye the whole time. C’mon, Lee, you knew what this was going in - mediocre writing on an otherwise outstanding show. Too bad you didn’t get the memo.

The two fighters fall together in the middle of the ring and everyone falls out, seeing the fighting is over. “I missed you,” Kara says. “I missed you too,” says Lee.Captain Obvious? I missed the Cylons. And explosions.

End credits.

Hell motherfuckin yeah, I thought. Scrubs is back!
We half-watched Earl, thoroughly enjoyed The Office and then settled in for a post-dinner treat - the season premiere of our favorite hospital-based comedy! JD, Turk, Dr. Cox and all the rest had been patiently waiting for prime time to welcome them back into the fold. And here we were in the onset of the blustery winter all set and looking forward to the warm, welcome confines of Sacred Heart and the laughs and poignant moments we’ve come to expect.
Someone tell me when we can expect those good times to return, tonight’s premiere episode really fell flat. I’m the first to admit to being a Scrubs fanatic. I love me some Scrubs and have for a long time. Yet as I sat watching I found myself intentionally laughing at things I wouldn’t normally find funny, trying to jump start the episode across the ether. The damn engine just wouldn’t turn over.
We were brought up to speed on our characters with the pregnancy storylines encircling the three main characters Perry Cox, JD and Turk/Carla. Perry and his ex-wife Jordan were expecting their second, Turk and Carla expecting their first delivery of twins and JD just having found out he knocked up a co-worker, Kim on a one night stand.

Dr. Cox (and his craptacular new jeri curl hairdo) is in his usual fine form of being antagonistic and sardonic toward Jordan while trying to be an on-again, off-again good father toward their son Jack. Jack, in turn, is being a kid and making Perry’s life a living hell. Perry loses his cool and dumps some spaghetti on Jack and in any other sitcom I’d try and remember that for later but this is Scrubs - it’s just funny and meaningless, right? Not so as Jordan mentions it later, taking some of the spontaneous slapstick humor out of this normally good show.

JD is freaking out over the news from Kim. He ends up drinking himself stupid on his porch (still a flocking spot for gay seniors) and ends up passing out after mentioning he’d be better off gay. This leads to a quick montage where he’s dragged out to Vegas and almost marries a dude, making a last minute escape culminating in a cameo by The Blue Man Group. Something blue, all right. This episode.
Sarah Chalke apparently had nothing better to do in the premier episode so she was given a stereotypical storyline of wishing she was having a baby to fit in with everyone else. Because apparently all the work done by the writers in the 5 previous seasons hasn’t done anything toward fleshing her out to be more than a common, baby-wisting chick all knee-jerking and sighing. I just refuse to believe Elliot had nothing more to contribute to the episode than that and I hope they more with her next week.

Turk and Carla were also not featured prominently. Sure they’ve having twins but let’s focus on a trilogy of subplots dealing with Cox, JD and the Janitor all wondering if there’s more to life than what their shortsightedness allows them to see. I think that was supposed to serve as the usual fix of emotional relevance but it seemed not only forced but amateur with the use of the same actors in latex makeup as alternate characters confronting their younger versions to serve as some sort of example of what not to do. Oooh Cox’s dies of anger, the Janitor’s of regret over obsession … blah blah blah.

Give me My Day At The Races from last season where JD faces turning 30 and panics, trying to run a decathalon and ending up almost failing, only to be helped to the finish line by Elliot where Turk and Carla are waiting for him. It has pretexts of despair, mortality, friendship and a million facets of regret and dreams that this season premiere completely lacked. I felt nothing for it while even thinking about that episode from last year gives me goosebumps. That was good television. This was not.

Knock knock. Oh fuck it, Ten Items Or Less is coming in and it doesn’t matter if you want them here or not, they’re here and they’re not funny and I just wish to fucking christ they’d go away.

TBS, the self-proclaimed “funny” network has vomited this piece of shit onto our Monday night lineup like a bad punchline to a racist joke. There’s no taking it back and everyone is squirming uncomfortably wondering if they heard wrong or just missed the point. The show tries, I’ll give the writers that much, but it fails on so many levels that there’s no coming back once it’s buried itself. I tried to pay attention but I kept finding excuses not to watch. Even so, it left a bad taste in my mouth and here’s why:

THEY. DO. NOT. FUCKING. TALK. LIKE. THAT. ANY. FUCKING. WHERE.

Seriously. Captain Obvious has worked a lot of retail and shopped for a lot of groceries and the artificial depths to which the dialog plunges sweeps you right off your feet and out of any sort of believability you may have been duped into. It’s fake, it stinks of 1995 sitcom and I fucking hate it.

Convinced yet? Let’s meet the cast and writer/director.

John Lehr (last seen in… uh… nothing of any worth) has inherited Greens & Grains, a grocery store, from his recently departed father. Also inherited is the most unbelievable staff of character actors pretending to be real actors on a television show about people working at a grocery store. There are a couple bright spots to the cast, one in the form of Scrubs veteran Robert Clendenin (oh btw, Scrubs returns this Thursday and Captain Obvious is on that like brown on brown rice) and Jennifer Elise Cox, better known as Jan Brady from The Brady Bunch remakes that mercifully stopped being excreted a few years back. And that’s about it. Toss in our latina stereotype who prances in and out of spanish, add our token gay checkout boy and voila!

Instant must-miss TV.

If this show is ever going to get better, it has to realize that The Office succeeds because it takes place in an office where there is no public to deal with and the wages are higher. Wageslaves barely scraping by on retail money aren’t witty, they’re tired and irritable and don’t appreciate being mocked by F-list actors on a grade Z sitcom.
This piece of shit show was penned by Nancy Hower who also penned the corporate mockumentary Memron from which she recruited Lehr and Chris Moore, another forgettable character on the show.

Will Ten Items Or Less succeed? Well it sucks ass so find some seed, we’re halfway there.