Monday Musings

House
I really enjoyed the new format. I really don't like procedurals in general. Other than House and The Mentalist, I haven't gotten into any. This week's two hour premier was pretty much just a solid House movie. It was a nice break from the ordinary dynamic we see of House with his team. He was so good in the Cuckoo's Nest role. It's too bad that next week and every week there after is just going to back to the regular procedural format that we know and like.

The two moments I enjoyed most: The first was when I went from so happy with what House did for the Freedom Master (taking him to the carnival so he could fly), to so sad for what the Freedom Master did (jumping off the parking garage) because of House in a quick minute. The second was when House got the No-Talker and Freedom Master out of their funks. It was so awesome that he didn't just make Run Lola Run tear up, he got the kid to as well.

One Tree Hill
I used to think this show was great because of its dramatic moments and the ability to use music fantastically well. Whether it is because I have been watching a lot of Beverly Hills 90210 lately or something about One Tree Hill has changed, but I have been more and more unimpressed with Schwan's ability to hit me with the intense moment. The problem I realized last night, and JJ realized upon his first and presumably only watch of an episode last year, is that music plays throughout almost the entire episode. And not score mind you, but actual songs that could be used a gut wrenching anthems. When you play songs through the entire episode it takes away from the moments that could use it the most. When I watch an episode of 90210, I'd say 1/3 of it has no sound, 1/3 has score and 1/3 has songs. That is the ideal way to build up the action of an episode and portray certain moments as calm and comical or highly dramatic. One Tree Hill's technique of playing music throughout gives the impression of the entire episode being important, but all this week's ep did for me, was downplay the entire 45 minutes.

Greek
Unlike Gossip Girl, in which Jaydon explained has been lost on him because of the way everyone just trades off boyfriends and girlfriends, I feel Greek portrays the relationships of their characters in a realistic fashion. First let's take what happened earlier in the season with Rusty, Jordan and Andy-licious. After Rusty steals Jordan away from his friend Andy, we never see Andy again. That is definitely what would happen. Then we have Casey who went from Cappie, before the show started, to Evan who she then broke up with for Max. Cappie and Evan have been mad at each other for the entire series because of the Casey triangle. Sure they're slowly becoming friends again, and Casey may end up back with Cappie at some point in the future, but it's a very plausible situation. In Gossip, Nate and Blaire are an item forever, he cheats on her, she gets with Chuck in a strange non-relationship and then all of a sudden gets back with Nate, and then back to Chuck. Besides a semi-arc of a storyline where Nate and Chuck hate each other, they act like the two of them are completely okay with all of this, and that isn't right.

Heroes
It's like they're trying to start over, but it's way too late. They've screwed up the flow of the series enough that a feeling of new beginnings now seems too weird. Hiro used to be so focused on saving the world and thinking about the grand scheme of life, and now he has started 'Dial a Hero'? Interesting. I was so excited to see the Haitian, even if it was only for two seconds. Parkman's dream Syler is absolutely the best character on the show, and might even be better than the real Syler. He might be the only reason I will stick with this show 'til the end.