Blogcritics The critical lens on today's culture & entertainment
It's often the little things that make me happy. Take last night's Chuck, for instance. The remote that Tang was using as the "master remote" was Logitech's Harmony 880. I have one, and let me tell you that is a "master remote." It can do anything and everything. You plug that bad boy into your computer, download the necessary things from Logitech's website (or use their handy-dandy desktop application) and set up macro after macro after macro.
Except, the genius of the system is that Logitech's software takes you through everything step-by-step, so the process isn't all that complicated. You want to set it up so you can watch your TiVo? No problem, add "Watch TiVo" to the choice of activities, and then the program will ask you, piece by piece, which of your other devices need to be turned on (and to what setting) for that to be accomplished (TV, receiver, amplifier, etc.). You tell it which devices you want on when you watch your TiVo and it does the rest. It is a "master remote." If only mine didn't keep freezing, requiring me to take out and put back in the battery, I'd be thrilled. Well and truly thrilled.
On How I Met Your Mother it was actually the not-so-little things that made me happy. Lily and Marshall signing a mortgage with 18% interest was one of those. Eighteen percent interest is not a "little thing," and it was a great moment. Following it, I did a little calculation. I assumed (very generously, I believe) that the apartment the two were looking at cost $600,000. If they put down one third of that price and then signed a 20-year mortgage their monthly payments would be on the order of $6,173. Wow. That's quite the amount to be paying monthly on one's mortgage. Good for Lily and Marshall thinking they could swing that (if Lily didn't have all that pesky credit card debt).
Heroes, it seems, is all about little things this season. Little bits and pieces and revelations that aren't really revelations. Okay, I didn't know who Adam was going to be, but we all knew that Hiro's Takezo Kensei storyline in the past was going to end up with a major impact on the future. And, the best bit about that storyline so far is that Hiro is back in the present. I guess I like the reveal of who Adam is (I won't spoil it for you until next week at the earliest), but I thought the build up to it was over the top and silly. It was more than was necessary to make the point. Parkman's ever-expanding powers story was good too, and really all the last night stories beat out Claire's petulant teenager nonsense. Can that come to an abrupt halt? Can Claire just wake up tomorrow and say "Hey, I was an ass. I was wrong, I'm sorry."
Is anyone but me still watching Journeyman? Last night they pulled the old Back to the Future, messing with one's past in a seriously detrimental fashion stock time travel storyline. There were moments when it felt like the producers had actually figured out in advance the ways in which his altering his past would change everything about Dan that we have seen previously and tried to engineer work-arounds (like past-Dan's being drunk and not remembering anything about the night in question), but there were other times when I think they just asked the audience to roll with the punches. But, what really shocked me was shocked how easily both past- and present-Dan can go from downing liquor and being absolutely wrecked to being stone cold sober. The best thing about the episode though was a heavier emphasis on Moon Bloodgood and her character, Livia. Seeing her leap in and out of time made me wonder why the people making her flash give her a nice soft colored flash, with yellows and ambers, but Dan get's that harsh blue-white light. He must practically go blind every time he leaps.
Me, I'm leaping away for now, and I'm going to be out of town for a couple of days, but we'll talk again, don't you fret.
