DJariya

By djariya at 2010-09-17

Synopsis:



Episode 9 of 22

Next week (11/29) will be the midseason finale.

Scorpio

This one was the most alien-centered one so far.

Jason

I gotta start DVRing this next season so I can skip through all the Sean and Leila crap. Like the government v. aliens stuff though.

Raul3

Next week is the fall finale. How long is the hiatus?

This episode was so so, thank God for DVRs.

superfro

3 months. It's not back till Feb 28th. I'm sure that'll do wonders for the show.

Scorpio

3 freaking months? They didn't learn with Heroes?

MrSmearkase

/\ A hiatus was always the least of Heroes' problems.

DJariya

Really weird alien-centric episode. I liked seeing Kathleen Quinlan as Mrs. VP, but she totally overacted her part in this episode.

It was interesting seeing Necar Zadegan, who played Mrs. Hassan on 24 last season, as a rebel leader/lover of Thomas and speaking with the American accent. I wonder how many more 24 alumnus Evan Katz will turn to the rest of the season.

I do have to say that Thomas was a pussy in this episode. I know he wasn't going to kill Sophia, but he turned from a cold badass to a cry baby Momma's boy in 2 seconds.

I thought the Sean/Leila scenes were actually the most interesting element to the episode. I want to know more on why Holbrook's character Dempsey is pursuing Leila.

Overall, a so-so episode. Next week's Fall Finale better hit it out of the ballpark.

DJariya

I think I said this last week, but what is NBC supposed to do? Returning in February at least allows them to get more episodes in the can and they can air consecutively until May sweeps. I know Nielsen viewers are fucking stupid and lose track of serialized dramas when they go off the air.

You can't air 22 episodes in a row, unless the show premieres in January. They need to pad out the show until May (36 week schedule) NBC is using the break to premiere the show The Cape in January for 8 weeks, so at least they are filling the timeslot with another original serialized scripted show.

djones6746

They better have one hell of a fall finale next week. At this point, I would not miss this show if it never came back in February. There is a very good chance I will forget about it by February anyway. Not much here for NBC to give this show a break then expect people to pick it up again in three months.

Timber

It's fairly simple really. If you have serialized show you start it in January and run it straight through. If The Cape is only 8 weeks wouldn't it have made sense to run that in the Fall and hold off on The Event?

Like V, Heroes and many others they're going to kill any momentum and good will they've built up with the viewers by expecting them to remember the plot and tune in in 3 months.

JuryDuty

Sure was. With this one episode, they completely blew apart my theory of them being time-travelers who want to prevent themselves from eternal agelessness.

After tonight's episode, I don't see how the anti-aging element ties in with the aliens at all.

To be honest, I'm a little disappointed. By just making them aliens, it makes The Event turn into a bit more of a standard sci-fi fare. Still...it is playing out better than something like V is right now. I just hope people stick with it after the hiatus.

mkdevo

I think next week will decided if I stay or go with this show. The cornfield chase scene was just beyond awful.

gmanca

How did they? I again am not convinced as it's easily explainable as to trying to confuse the viewers. What if they Earth they come from isn't at all like our Earth or they don't know it's the same planet? Or what if "world" means society and if they had come back to chaos, they would have exerted themselves?

Still pretty good of an episode and I keep thinking that Leila is in on the conspiracy. Either that or they intentionally write in the constant stares at Ritter.

Wasn't it? This girl supposedly escaped from that place and yet she's screaming her head off, letting the guy find her and then you have the stupid fight for the gun when Leila took forever to get it and get up.

Red Dog

I'm not ruling out time-traveling yet. Still could be anything - time-traveling, parallel universe, aliens, etc.

mkdevo

Aside from being downright horribly cheesy, there were about a million things wrong with it.

- Apparently there's a gas station in the middle of a cornfield.
- They're all running in a straight line, and the villain can't get a clear shot off.
- He takes a clear shot at Sean and it sounds like it ricochets off a tree or something (IN A CORNFIELD).
- "5 minutes ago I wouldn't let you TALK to my daughter, but I just tripped and fell, so you should take her."
- Sean's gunshot wound is completely healed - so much so that he can now hit someone with a rock with that hand while on his back hard enough to knock them out.

So bad.

DJariya

Yeah I know, but it's a new high profile serial drama/sci-fi and it had to premiere in the Fall to get new viewers to tune in. Plus, it's not an established veteran like a 24, which you could premiere in January and guarantee it will have an audience. The Cape is actually 13 episodes, but they only have enough time to air 8 during The Event's hiatus and will have to move to another night.

I know with so much crap on TV, it's so easy for people to forget about a show and move on to something else.

DJariya

I do have to agree with all of you that the cornfield chase scene was pretty awful, especially with the little girl screaming leading Dempsey's guy directly to them.

and Sean has recovered dramatically in like 48 hours? from a near death gunshot wound.

superfro

The fix is to have faith at the beginning in your projects and stick with them. The current system for network TV is so broken it's not even funny. Which ironically is why its so hard for things to succeed. It's all based on reactionary tactics, and when you're doing that you'll always be behind.

And not that I'm looking forward to The Cape, but that also sucks for them. Here's our new show for 8 weeks! Then the last 5 will be at a different time! And that is their plan out of the gate. What?

DJariya

Yeah very true...You should read tvbythenumbers.com, which posts ratings each day. It's 100% reactionary there.

I'm actually looking forward to The Cape, but it's getting hosed with this oddball scheduling.

JSwarce

Why did it seem like the Sophia/Thomas scenes were in a future time? They had a huge meeting with all of "her" people? Who were all of those people? There were about 300 people in that room, more than the original group that was detained. There were no time stamps at all in this episode, so I got lost.

Agreed that the cornfield scene was really dumb.

--John

brainee

I took it to mean that the aliens had a lot more people "free" in society than the government thought. Who's to say that the group held in captivity in Alaska were the bulk of their numbers? In the absence of time stamps, I just assumed everything was taking place in "present" time.

Raul3

I also wonder if they were asked NOT to reproduce. I mean there were men and women there.

Edit: Forgot the sex scene. So... are there any baby aliens/time-travelers ???

OldDude

The detainees were only the injured (and Sophia). She ordered the able-bodied to walk away, and they became the sleepers at the Sleepers Anonymous meeting. However, I don't think it was clear before how many able-bodied had walked away from the crash site.

Also obviously, a plot hole. 300 people walking away from a crash would leave major tracks in the snow. It is also unclear how they predicted texting cell phones would be invented and that a pre-arranged 8 digit code texted to them would tell them when and where to meet, in a world they had never visited before.

Fist of Doom

Other than the stupid cornfield scene, I really liked this ep. Sophia's pretty tough.

Wasn't it snowing hard? Maybe their tracks got covered. I also don't remember how many soldiers showed up - maybe they didn't have the manpower to track them all. As for the code, that's something they could transmit using old-fashioned telephones, or even come up with years later, since they obviously have all kept in touch.