First Impressions - Invasion / Second Impressions - Lost

Invasion

Another day, another new sci-fi premier, the latest, and I believe the last for awhile in the cushy post-Lost time slot is Invasion. It was really hard to get away from the commercials for the show as ABC showed them ad nausea and recently mentioning how every paper in the country says it’s the best drama this year. Granted from the one I’ve seen, that’s not saying much. But when it comes down to it, Invasion really isn’t doesn’t stand above the rest.

The show revolves around a town that has just been hit by a hurricane primarily an extended family that includes a scientist (at least that what I think he does, wasn’t exactly clear) his wife and two children, his ex-wife and her new husband and his daughter. Surprisingly Jerry Springer isn’t involved. The actors that play the characters are pretty much no name with the dude from Tilt being the only person I recognize. And the character themselves are not that likeable tonight asides from the Tilt dude and his reporter wife. His daughter is extremely annoy, maybe is because I’ve her here say things like “Do you see the lights?” and the even worse, “Mommy, you smell different” all summer long. The conspiracy theorist brother-in-law comes off unlikable much unlike the one on Bones who is lot funnier. It becomes obvious early on that the ex-wife’s husband is evil and new about the whole body snatching hurricane scenario before it happened and I have a feeling he set the wife up to be apart of it.

The hurricane theme also makes the show hard to watch. Most people watch television as a form of escapism and with all the 24-hour new station focusing on the damage of Hurricane Katrina and preparing for Hurricane Rita, I really have no desire to see a fake hurricane with all the real one heavily featured everywhere else. Now had ABC had not over-advertise the show, maybe they could have pushed the show to midseason not too mention it would have not watered down the show where everyone knew what was coming before it happened.

Verdict: Everyone will be better off watching Veronica Mars at 9:00 on Wednesday and watching a taped version of Lost at 10:00 (or vice versa depending on your preference). It really sad the Dave's blog is more entertaining than the show he's on.

Lost

After being annoyed all summer because Lost ended on a poor not a couple months ago, the show is finally back with a chance to redeem itself. It started off interesting enough what looked to be a flashback to the 70’s which made me think that Locke might of actually had hair three decades ago, and a nice set of hair to boot. But as the camera panned out to the last scene of the first season with Locke, Jack, Kate, and Hurley looking down the hatch, I realized what we witnessed was what, or to specific, who is in the hatch. I guess I was right in that the hatch was a bomb shelter but I thought it was going to be Boone, Ethan, the marshal, Scott, Arntz, Elvis, and Tupac down there. Oh well.

We are then treated to a bunch of Jack flashback chronicling how he met his wife where Jack is sporting his old Charlie for Party of Five hair. The initial surprise being that she was engaged at the time, but really any one who was paying attention to the last time Carol Vessey was on, she mention that Jack told her she would dance at her wedding. But of course I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t get that until last night. But the stadium flashback was the key one. On a quick side note, how does one get into an empty stadium to run, that really bugged me. But anyways. Near the end of the episode I told the person I was watching, “I bet we see Desmond in more flashbacks this season.” And I wasn’t far off as he turned out to be the one in the bomb shelter. Not that he won't show uip in flashback later. And this makes even more questions, the biggest for me being, if the shows intro suggests, Desmond has been stuck in the shelter since the 70’s, how, and why, does he run into Jack in the late 80’s/early 90’s?

When the band of four get back to the camp, the story turns bad as everyone is still debating about The Others even though we all know where they are. It also seems as if Shannon will get an actual storyline this year because it looks like her, with Vincent’s help, will be the one who rescues Walt.

On a related note, I went back and watch the first season of Alias over the summer because I didn’t start watching it until the third season. I wanted to do so because I didn’t really care too much for the show last season and I wondering if it was because I missed the beginning. As I watch the earlier episodes, it struck me that Alias basically was a big opening followed by a lackluster middle and the show were capped off with a exciting cliffhanger. And with the latest episode of Lost, which is from the guy who brought us Alias, there was the same thing, a great opening and a great ending, but everything in between was lackluster. For me this isn’t a very good sign as I’ve already decided to skip this season of Alias.

Verdict: There is a very good reason while I’ll be watching Veronica Mars and taping Lost.