By John Keegan
Some might think that having Alan Ball, the current showrunner for the series, write an episode would be a positive development. Unfortunately, this is "True Blood", and all it does is reinforce the notion that Ball has lost sight of what made the series good in the first place. As others have said time and again, "True Blood" has descended into "fang opera", not unlike "Dark Shadows" and "Twilight" before it.
Some might think that having Alan Ball, the current showrunner for the series, write an episode would be a positive development. Unfortunately, this is "True Blood", and all it does is reinforce the notion that Ball has lost sight of what made the series good in the first place. As others have said time and again, "True Blood" has descended into "fang opera", not unlike "Dark Shadows" and "Twilight" before it.
Walt's audacious murder of Gus Fring in last season's finale guaranteed his family's safety. After all, the drug kingpin threatened to kill everyone close to Walt and Walt couldn't allow that to happen. With Gus out of the way, though, the transformation of Walt from meek chemistry teacher to "Heisenberg" is now complete.
This is a tough one to assess. From the get-go, there's a sense of Big Things Happening in this episode and that's definitely borne out by the end, making "Barometz. Trick. Pressure." impossible to discount or ignore, yet the way it all comes together leaves a bad taste in the mouth. It's like the important exposition-packed chapter of a novel, but that doesn't necessarily translate to an episode of television, which still needs to be a self-contained story amidst the larger one, and it's on that front this instalment lets down the audience.
Eureka, which is currently Syfy's longest-running scripted series, is a story about a town full of geniuses that conduct top-secret research for the government. Anything and everything can happen in the Pacific Northwest town.
TNT's hit series Leverage returns tonight with all new episodes. The show focuses on a group of con artists - Sophie (Gina Bellman), the grifter; Hardison (Aldis Hodge), the hacker; Parker (Beth Riesgraf), the thief; Eliot (Christian Kane), the hitter; and Nate (Timothy Hutton), the mastermind - who now use their skills to help those in need.
Aaron Korsh, who has previously written for hit shows such as Everybody Loves Raymond and Just Shoot Me!, is currently the executive producer of USA Network's, Suits, which he also created.
The gloves come off in “The Newsroom” as “The 112th Congress” convenes. Some of the show’s disparate strands come together and the main event comes sharply into focus. What also becomes clear is that, despite the real-world events swirling outside, life inside the Atlantis World Media tower is firmly embedded in the Sorkin-verse. Like ”The West Wing”, this is a show about idealism and wish fulfillment, only this time around with a license to reinterpret the history we already know.
"White Collar" has become one of those old, reliable shows that I can count on for its consistency. The show is never so dramatic or dark as to seriously challenge me as a viewer, but it's also never been disposable fluff, either. It may never be as gripping or emotionally involving as other standbys such as "Fringe" or "Supernatural", but the characters are always given enough depth and development to make the journey a worthwhile one. The return of "White Collar" was a reminder to me of just how fond of the show I've become, and the premiere is a great example of the show's strengths.
It's a bit odd to think that this was intended to be the season 5 finale for "Eureka". If this were an episode from somewhere in the middle of the season, I might have thought of it as being one of the more memorable ones of the season. But as a culmination of the "Matrix" storyline, I found it sorely lacking. And it would have been absolutely inexcusable for this to be the series finale. It sure doesn't help that certain threads are left dangling that were presumably meant to be resolved in a further six episodes. The series finale sure is going to have its work cut out for it.
Despite some of the casting changes that had been announced during the between-season hiatus, I somehow managed to overlook the clear implication that the series was moving towards a major overhaul. So it's understandable that I wound up backtracking more than once during the course of this episode, trying to wrap my brain around the shifts in the status quo. I imagine Annie Walker was in much the same situation.