Reilly Grant

Last Tuesday Fox premiered a new series, Glee.  Set in an Ohio high school where the jocks and the cheerleaders rule the school, Glee tells the story of a Spanish teacher who dreams of restoring the school’s glee club to the glory it had when he was a student.  At the outset this sounds like it could make for some pretty good television.  I’ve always been a fan of the musical comedy and despite the work of Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Dollhouse) popular series in this genre have always been hard to find.  Unfortunately for Glee, this series might not be one I’ll continue watching. continue reading…

ABC’s drama department is a strange place to be finding this season’s new Sci-Fi show,  but since the Sci-Fi channel’s decided to rename itself “SyFy” anything’s possible.  I haven’t quite gotten through the first episode, but it seems alright so far, like an updated Apollo 13.  Perhaps it may even get the public thinking about space exploration again. continue reading…

I missed this show when it first came out, thanks to Rafi for pointing it out to me later.  Chuck combines a good techy comedy (ala Dilbert) with the thrill of the spy show and a good mix of romance and drama as well.  The main character, Chuck Bartowski finds himself implanted with all of the U.S.’s most top secret intelligence through some sort of subliminal encoding computer known as the “Intersect.”  As far as I can tell the idea is that this system was designed to “intersect” information collected by the different U.S. spy agencies.  He is guarded by agents Sarah Walker and John Casey of the CIA and NSA.  Those familiar with Joss Wendon’s Firefly will appreciate the return of Adam Baldwin, as his familiar trigger happy character.  Quantum Leap fans will also appreciate the surprise appearance of Scott Bakula late in the series, no spoilers though. continue reading…

If you find blood and guts disturbing, then Dexter is not for you.  If you are willing, however, to look beyond that the show offers an interest reexamination of the meaning of “hero.”  After all, the main character is a serial killer.  He cuts people up, because he likes to, or maybe he has to.  Now, he only cuts up bad guys, but does that make him good, or just less evil?  This show manages to make the everyday creepy (the opening credits are very David Lynch) and the creepy seem perfectly normal.

I was expecting the series to be more episodic, a one murder per episode sort of thing, sortof like like Monk, but well, different.  Instead the series immediately jumps into an overarching plot that drives it through it’s first season.  There’s still time for catching the occasional bad guy and doing the whole Seran wrap thing.  An overarching plot gives much more opportunity for cliffhangers.  I’m only one episode into the second season and it’s already shown that’s going to be a roller coaster ride of suspense. continue reading…