Thanks to
Comcast On Demand and the iPod, I have had the opportunity to catch a few new Fall dramas prior to their network television debut, and of the ones I have seen so far, all NBC shows, they all have one thing in common – they owe their existence to the success of NBC’s
Heroes last season.
The pilot episodes I have watched are Chuck, Bionic Woman and Journeyman. Chuck and Journeyman will bookend Heroes on Monday night, for a 3-hour block of sci-fi/geek drama. Of the three, I liked Journeyman the best. Here’s a rundown of the show’s premises and my thoughts on each:
Chuck is about a geek who works a the Nerd Herd (i.e. Best Buy’s Geek Squad) who has downloaded all of the world’s intelligence secrets directly to his brain courtesy of a former college friend, revealed to be a spy. As the holder of all these secrets – which are basically a series of seemingly unconnected visual cues, Chuck is able to connect the dots and foretell major threats before they happen. Needless to say, Chuck becomes a hot commodity. Assigned to protect him – and his secrets – is a hot government agent.
The show has an appealing cast, and premise that isn’t too bad but it seems to be trying a little too hard. The obvious inspiration here is Hiro and Ando from Heroes, two guys immersed in pop culture. The predicting future events angle is not too far removed from Isaac, the painter. The show has potential, but only if the cast remains appealing, and they get away from nerd cliches. It works as an 8:00 lead-in to Heroes.
Journeyman follows
Heroes at 10. Also, like Hiro, this involves a time-traveler tasked with changing the past to make a better future. But the premise reminds me more of
Quantum Leap, without the inhabiting other people’s bodies part. I liked this show. In the pilot, he discovers what us happening to him and his seeming purpose, and struggles between this "mission" and making changes to his own life. There are a few clues in the pilot to indicate that there is a reason he was chosen for this, but it’s mostly still a mystery.
Unlike most time-travel stories, he doesn’t go into the past and arrive back right after he left – he is gone for days at a time, and disappears suddenly, which can be a problem when he is driving at the time. He has to explain his absences to his family and his job, which obviously, is not easy. The show deals with that unfortunate side effect, as well. I think there is some potential here, its too early to tell if this will be a save a different person every week show,, and whether that will grow old or not, but so far, I’m intrigued.
Finally
Bionic Woman, a show about a young woman with super powers, premieres Wednesday at 9. A remake of the
Six Million Dollar Man spin-off with 70s, this show has very little in common with its predecessor, other than the name of the lead character, Jamie Sommers, and the fact that her mangled body is replaced by bionics, specifically her legs, and arm, her ear and her eye (the last an addition the original didn’t have, but one that they obviously plan to make much use out of , based on the pilot. Almost killed in a car accident, her secret scientist boyfriend makes her the latest cyborg prototype for a covert operation. Her predecessor has escaped and for some reason is on a vendetta. No slow motion running or cheesy 70s sound effects (too bad), its really too early tell how this will be. Of the three pilots, I enjoyed this one the least, but I’ll give it a few more episode before I decide.
I think Journeyman has the best chance of survival this season. Chuck tries too hard to be clever and Bionic Woman tries too hard to be edgy.
Either way, it’s a good time to be a geek. At least til November sweeps.
In a two-part interview with TV Guide, Star Wars creator George Lucas talked about a documentary about San Francisco filmmakers, making the next Indiana Jones without Sean Connery. And in part 2 of the interview, the future of Star Wars on telvision.
