Threshold
I’m a little behind on my TiVo viewing so I only just watched the first two episodes of the CBS’s version of alien invasions, Threshold. It’s early to pass judgement on the series as a whole, but at this point I am certain of at least a couple of things:
1. It is way -way- better thanABC’s Invasion.
2. It’s very reminiscent of the movie Sphere (based on the Michael Crichton novel)
3. It’s about time Brent Spiner is back on TV.
4. That kidnapper guy from Lost is officially type cast as a psychopath.
5. This show has offically scared the ever lovin’ shit out of me.
Yes, I know. I’m a collassal wuss. But I’ve been sitting in the dark the past three hours, the kids are to bed and my wife is zonked out on the couch. At one point the lights flickered when the fractal signal was on screen. Despite having the nerves of puddy at that point I am proud of myself for not screaming like a school girl. I will however be sleeping with at least one light on tonight and if one of the kids wakes up screaming before dawn I’m not going in there without protection.
September 27th, 2005 at 3:35 am
I too like it. After the X-Files (which is still for me the ultimate lights out show) i was afraid there would be no more shows like it. But i guess after the success of Lost and.. umm. some other shows that i can’t think of right now, networks stood up and saw the light. Amen and about time!
Plus it has Data on it. So it is automatically better than Invasion anyways. Although i will still watch Invasion for awhile and see how it goes.
September 27th, 2005 at 10:56 am
Of the 3 new sci-fi shows, I ranked them in this order after viewing the pilot episodes:
1. Threshold
2. Invasion
3. Surface
After a strong 2hr pilot of Threshold, I thought the 2nd episode (technically the 3rd I guess) was a bit weak and it felt to me like they’re already on fumes. Based on what I saw of hour 3, I can’t see a 5-8yr TV series run with this one. Unfortunately, it looks like Threshold is going to go with a “venue of the week” theme. Last week it was a military school, this week they’ll be in a mental hospital, the week following it’s off to some Miami rave/party. If episode four and five are weak, I may be at my… um, threshold with this one.
Invasion’s pilot was a bit weak, but I think it has a better chance at being a long-term successful show compared to Threshold (especially following Lost).
I didn’t put much weight behind Surface going in, but the pilot was decent and the 2nd episode was even better.
Re-ranking them (IMO) after 2nd episodes:
1. Surface (really grew on me)
2. Invasion (2nd episode hasn’t aired yet, so this is based on previews and plot summaries on the 2nd episode)
3. Threshold (hopefully the writing will get some more depth).
You might also take a look at “Supernatural” on the WB (Tue nights). It’s pretty good and has a X-files feel to it (with a hint of Buffy).
September 27th, 2005 at 11:48 am
Jon, you had me at Buffy (even if it’s just a “hint” of it). Supernatural gets added to my pass list tonight.
I see where you’re going with Threshold and agree a venue of the week thing could be trouble. But I’m going to hope that A) they execute well (much more important than originality to me) and B) it’ll deviate from gettin formulaic after a few episodes. I just love the characters and the more “high-level” mentality in Threshold as opposed to Invasion’s prototypical American family fights the Aliens apparant premise.
The first ep. of Invasion felt to me like they were checking off a cliche list and not really doing it in a way that I at least find at all compelling. (The estranged husband/wife thing, for example.) I don’t mind writers jerking my emotions around if they do it well, but it bugs me when they’re blatant about it. Like the scene where the little girl runs out into the hurricane to find her cat.
Girl: “Did you see the lights?”
Me: “No, but I’ll put your lights out if you don’t shut the hell up and get inside!”
That stuff really doesn’t click for me. But hey, different strokes and like you said, it’s early yet. I’ve got Surface on TiVo and hope to get to it later this week. Thanks again for the tip about Supernatural!
September 27th, 2005 at 4:45 pm
Yeah, Invasion’s pilot wasn’t nearly as good as Threshold’s, I’m hoping it builds up more steam in the 2nd episode tomorrow night. I’m giving all of these new shows at least 3-4 hours before keeping/deleting them on the Tivo Season Pass (although, “Bones” only lasted for 2 episodes before the wife and I both wanted to nix it).
As for Supernatural, the pilot was very good (creeped my wife out enough that she almost didn’t want to watch the 2nd episode), and you kinda need to see it to understand the motivations of the main characters. It has an X-files type of theme (2 people traveling around investigating the Supernatural) and a Buffy feel to it as well (like Buffy, the main characters are out to kill/remove the demons/ghosts/etc… not document or find evidence of their existence ala X-files).
However, I don’t think they’re showing the pilot rerun anymore on WB (tonight is week 3) but you can download it online in the usual places (newsgroups, bittorrent, p2p, etc).
September 27th, 2005 at 11:40 pm
I missed both threshhold and surface, didn’t tivo them either. Do you know how I would find them on bit torrent?
September 28th, 2005 at 12:36 am
Not really sure, I haven’t used bittorrent in a long time. I usually just grab shows that I forget to Tivo on usenet.
alt.binaries.tv or alt.binaries.multimedia if it’s not in the TV group. newzbin.com is a great search engine.
As a bonus, usually the HDTV versions are uploaded, and all of the commercials cut.
Case in point, our power was out all tonight and my Tivo missed our shows. Had to grab Earl, Supernatural and Nip/Tuck off of the a.b.tv All of them were uploaded within hours of broadcast. Pretty cool. 1hr is only a ~350MB too (usually they compress them with xvid to get down to that size, but the quality is pretty good, even on a big screen HDTV).