PCB's Television Round-Up 2008. Part 2

Prison Break

Oh dear. The show got off to a very bad start when Sarah Wayne Callies' decision not to return forced the writers to give Sarah Tancredi an offscreen death. It did not pick up from there. The show has never really been remotely interested in realism but the third season of Prison Break showed that this was a neat idea that had been stretched to breaking point and far far beyond. Factored into that are stupid things like Michael being banged up in Panama, a country where it's always 80 degrees with 90% humidity, but wearing a long sleeved shirt the whole time because the make up for his tattoos takes too long.

Strike shortened to just 13 episodes, it seemed to go on and on forever, as they tried to break out of another prison and I failed to care. I don't think the cast did either, as the acting was terrible, with Jodi Heap O'Crap giving the worst performance in a sea of bad performances. After the stakes uppingly great second season, this was a crashing disappointment. The announcement that there will be a fourth season and that Callies is back on the show (Tancredi's death will be revealed to have been staged) is an even worse decision than letting her leave in the fucking first place. I'll probably still watch it.

Heroes

Maybe because by the time I saw the second season, the backlash was in full effect to the degree that Tim Kring had publicly apologised to fans that the sophomore season wasn't up to scratch. Or maybe it's that I watched the whole season in one big chunk rather than week to week. Whatever it was, I did not think the show took a dip at all. Sure, the new characters in and of themselves aren't the most fascinating of creatures, but meshing their storyline into Sylar's made it all very tense. Some of the storylines seemed a little redundant at first, but they all were paid off, and paid off well.

The biggest problem I had with this season was the absolutely godfuckingawful Oirish family that found Peter Petrelli. Are there no actual Irish actors they could have employed? The accents and the acting (particularly from Katie Carr as Caitlin) were jarringly awful. Other than that, I had no issues with this season. Again strike shortened to 11 episodes, at least they gave the season an ending, and with Sylar regaining his powers, looks like the third season will be quality.

Bones

The season started out better than ever. With this show, it's not the storylines that really hold the interest, it's the characters. The chemistry they all have together is really lightning in a bottle. It's always fun to watch them, even if what they're doing isn't particularly great (and the storyline to find Angela's husband was somewhat irritating).

However, the uproar over the season finale can't be ignored. The opening episode of the season, "The Widow's Son In The Windshield" set out the overall villains for the season, a supremely intelligent and evil killer, known as the Gormagon, and his apprentice. First time the show has attempted such a storyline (the only other recurring plotline has been with Brennan's father) and my hopes were high that it would be done well.

It wasn't. The strike shortened the season by a full 10 episodes and so true justice could not really be done to the Gormagon's story. In the season finale, it was revealed that Zach Addy was the apprentice, while the Gormagon himself was just "a nobody" and was killed off about three seconds after he appeared on screen. For shame! Why didn't they extend the Gormagon into the 4th season and give it room to breathe? Why did they fire Eric Millegan and give him such an unceremonious send off? While the episode was nowhere near as bad as I had feared (the opening with the fake funeral was fucking dreadful though), the Gormagon denouement was rushed and unsatisfying.