What I'm Watching -- Heroes and Prison Break

Both 24 and Prison Break may have slipped in the ratings some this year, and both have had up and down seasons, they are still appointment viewing for me anyway, so after watching last night's two-hour Prison Break and catching up on Heroes this afternoon, both shows are starting to move in the right direction.

Starting with Prison Break, you had to figure Michael's escape plan wasn't going to go quite as planned. Too early in the season first off, and just as he did in the first season, these false start escapes certainly build a lot of tension. The first hour was definitely more action-packed and exciting than the second, but overall it was a good night. Getting Lechero in on the escape made sense (I wonder why Lechero wasn't interested in escaping earlier, despite his power role inside Sona) and adding the wrinkle that Whistler may not be the innocent prisoner we thought I like a lot. Who is this guy? Is he working with the Company? Is he just a pawn like Michael? And if so, why not tell Michael he's had contact with the Company? Certainly gets me to keep watching.

As for Heroes, finally we are moving in the right direction. As I've written before I've not been a huge fan of this season so far. The stories have been too disconnected, the characters not interacting nearly enough, and there was no over-arching storyline connecting all of the Heroes. A few weeks back I thought they were headed in the right direction but then they fell back again. Maybe I'm just not enjoying the whole killer-twins/Sylar storyline, so the lack of that this week made for a better episode, I don't know.

What I do know is that it was about time for Hiro to come back from Japan, and they wrapped that plotline up pretty well. Now he can get back to avenging the death of his father, who if we believe Bob (and who knows at this point) was caused by Parkman's dead at the behest of this Adam character, who was Hiro's hero-turned-nemesis Takezo Kensei. While David Anders was fine as Kensei, he does his best work (as Alias fans will attest) as a villain, and I'm sure he'll bring a lot of his Sark character from Alias to his new role on the show.

And now, preventing the spread of the Shanti-virus, and saving the world again, will bring the heroes back together. Which may mean that Peter is on the wrong side of things, teaming up with Kensi-turned-Adam. But maybe not. Bob is the one creating the virus (of which Nikki is now infected) so who says he's not the one to release it to the general population. It keeps you guessing, which is exactaly what Mohinder is going through, and that should make Heroes really interesting going forward.

As long as, you know, this current writers strike doesn't short circuit everything, which I'm fearful it might.

What I'm Watching -- Prison Break and Heroes

So it has been a few days since the shocking events on Monday's Prison Break, and at the risk of spoiling the episode for those that have not seen it yet, here are my thoughts on the death of Dr. Sara Tancredi. Kristin of E! Online and TV Guide have interviews with the cast and producers, and as it turns out, Sara's death was planned from the beginning. While the team behind Prison Break would have preferred to push Sara's death back until later in the season, they could not come to an agreement with actress Sarah Wayne Calles, and thus, her head ends up in a box during the show's third episode.

A lot of Prison Break fans, from the message boards I've seen since Monday's episode, are not happy. Many claim they will stop watching the show. Others are equally as outraged at Sara's death, but aren't giving up on the show yet. Myself, I didn't find Sara's death so offensive. Yes, I'll miss the actress Sarah Wayne Calles, who I thought did great work, but I was never as invested in the Sara-Michael relationship as apparently a lot of other people were. People in Michael's life die, on a regular basis, because of The Company, including his father. Sara's death will lead to some great drama down the line, especially when he discovers Sara's dead and finds out Lincoln was hiding that fact from him. Plus, it really adds pressure to Michael and Lincoln's current situation, putting real life and death stakes into their actions, and puts Lincoln in an incredibly difficult yet completely understandable position. He can't tell Michael about Sara's death, because The Company still has his son LJ, but you know Michael won't see it that way when he finds out about Sara's death later in the season. It makes for even more intriguing television in what I think is a great third season so far.

As for Heroes, I'm still uneven about the first few episodes of the season. While the return of Nikki, Micah, and Sylar were good to see, I still don't understand the point of the South American twins who kill people with their tears before bringing them back to life. I have confidence this is leading somewhere, but right now, it's just wasting time I would rather be spending with other characters, like with Sylar, trying to figure out why he lost his powers. Next week looks good too, as Parkman and Nathan look into the mysterious killer haunting the first generation of Heroes. The bits with Hiro in feudal Japan have actually been pretty good too, but knowing that they made David Anders, who plays Takeo Kensei, a series regular, makes me wonder how (or if) he'll travel back to the future with Hiro, or whether once his story in Japan is over, so is Anders time on Heroes.

What I'm Watching -- Prison Break and Heroes

So after attending yet another Detroit Tigers loss last night (and another tonight as a matter of fact, not a loss (well, not for sure a loss) but a game) I finally caught up this afternoon on yesterday's second episode of Prison Break's season and the season premiere of Heroes. After watching all of the bonus features and listening to all the actor/writer/producer commentaries on the Heroes DVD s over the past month or so, I was ready for the start of the new season. And how was it? Good but underwhleming. But, since Prison Break is broadcast earlier, let's deal with that episode first.

Despite sluggish ratings its first two weeks Prison Break has gotten off to a great start in its third season. The show has consistently improved from season-to-season and this year is no different. The problem I had with the first season, despite thinking it was great, was that Michael was two steps ahead of everyone. Sure, he had a slight problem with the false break-out early in the first season, and some other problems along the way, but nothing seemed to really phase him. Season Two, with the introduction of Mahone, the FBI agent on the trial of Michael and Lincoln and the rest of the gang, upped the ante, because in many ways, Mahone was Michael's intellectual equal. It was a fair fight. This year, with the introduction of Lechero, SONA's prisoner/dictator, Michael has to think even more outside the box than he has in the past. Monday's episode, with the potential death of Whistler, the man Michael must help break out of SONA, was exciting, and only two episodes into the season we're already well underway. More people need to start watching this show, because it is continuously improving.

As for Heroes, the season premier was good, but certainly not great. Even airing with limited commercial interruption, it seemed they tried to pack too much into the little less than an hour that they had. Obviously, things have changed in the past four months (Matt Parkman survived his attack from Sylar, is living with Mohinder and caring for Molly after divorcing his wife, Nathan is a drunk and (not in Congress? Maybe in Congress?) after saving New York from his brother Peter, who showed up at the end of the episode in Ireland with no memory, Claire and her family have relocated and gone underground, and Mohinder is working with HRG to take down the Company from the inside) and they introduced a few new characters as well. It almost seemed like too much. And I hated how they handled the death of Hiro's father. The storyline of people going after the first generation of Heroes (or, maybe the "older" generation is more accurate) is fine. But how it actually came off, with a small masked figure tackling George Takei off the famed Heroes rooftop wasn't great. Maybe the masked-person seemed too small or non-threatening but it was somewhat mediocre for such a large and important death and story-point.

I did, though, like Hiro's storyline in feudal Japan. Having David Anders play Hiro's hero Takezo Kensei is an interesting but really intrigued choice and his character, as a drunk Englishman who somehow becomes a legendary Japanese hero, adds all sorts of interesting directions for them to go. And as a big Alias fan back in the day, Anders, who was great as Sark, should be good to go here. Curiously, the California born Anders, who played a British con-man on Alias, and is now playing a British con-man on Heroes, is doing so with a completely different British accent than he had on Alias. It should be fun to see Hiro try to "coach-up" his own hero and how he'll interact with Ando in the future.

Overall, a good start, but hopefully it'll get better, and less cluttered and rushed, in weeks to come (but with such a big cast and so many storylines, it may be hard to do so).

What I'm Watching -- Prison Break & 24

That was quite the episode of Prison Break and now, as I type this, 24 has started and based on the episode previews, Jack Bauer is about to get some shocking news about Audrey Raines, played by Kim Raver. But, before 24 gets going, reviewing the great episode of Prison Break seems appropriate.

Prison Break has been a great show since it came on the air last season. The first season was, well, the show's title. Breaking out of prison. This season has been more Fugitive-esque and has been much better. For those that don't know the specifics, Prison Break follows two brothers, Lincoln Burrows and Michael Scofield. Burrows, a tough street thug with a heart of gold (or something like that), was framed for the shooting death of the Vice President's brother, who needed to fake his death in order to subvert tax evasion and other similar charges. Scoffield, a highly educated structural engineer, is a genius, and just so happened to work at the architectural firm which designed the prison his brother was being held at. With weeks to go before his brothers execution, Scofield commits an armed robbery of a bank in order to get himself thrown into the same jail his brother is being held at. But, before he does, he has the blueprints of the prison (and a bunch of other encoded messages) tattooed on his body in an elaborate design. Overhanging the show is a vast government conspiracy whose aim is now to kill Lincoln, Michael, and the other convicts which escaped with them from Fox River Penitentiary.

While season one was really good, this season has been even better. Last year, Michael was one step ahead of everyone, which was fine, he needed to break out of the prison after all. But this season, Michael met his match with FBI agent Alexander Mahone, played brilliantly by the great William Fichtner. Playing Sam Gerard to Scofield's Richard Kimble, Mahone has kept step-for-step with Scofield, which has added an added element of anticipation and equality to the show. While we understand Michael is the "good guy", him no longer being the smartest guy in the room has been a pleasant change. Even better is that Mahone, like Gerard in the Fugitive, is multi-dimensional, and is not just a bad guy. In many ways, he's a good guy put in an awful position.

Another great thing we saw tonight, which we've seen a little bit this season, is a sense of regret from Michael's character. Yes, he saved his brother's life, but in the last two years, a lot of people have died, and in breaking out of prison, some good guys (like Sucre and C-Note -- by the way, nice job tonight giving somebody a happy ending (at least seemingly) with C-Note being released to be with his wife and daughter. Hopefully they let him escape freely and actually send someone away instead of killing them) escaped, but so did some bad guys (like T-Bag). In the end, Michael wanted to save his brother, and while he does think everything through and has a plan for everything, showing that he has regret for all the people that have died in the wake of the brothers' escape, is important to redeem his overall character. And, with the previews for next week showing Mahone using this sense of regret by Michael against him, we have a heckuva setup for the last two weeks of the season.

As for 24, we are most of the way through this episode now, and it's just, well, eh. Without repeating my complaints from a previous post, I'm just not into this whole storyline with the Vice President threatening to use a nuclear weapon to respond to the terrorist attacks. And last week, President Logan was stabbed by his wife, and flat lined in the ambulance heading to the hospital, and this week, neither he, nor his wife, are even mentioned. And the "shocking twist" involving Audrey? I won't reveal it for those that haven't seen the episode yet, but its in many ways disappointing. And a mole in CTU who may not really be a mole? We've seen this before. Almost every season as a matter of fact. Oh well, maybe 24 will break out of its slump next week. Despite struggling a bit this season, I'll still be watching.