Damages, Reaper and a Little Recap

Okay, I'm sorry, I apologize, I missed writing this column Monday and Tuesday, so let's quickly recap my thoughts there before moving on to last night.

Desperate Housewives.  I know that Carlos actually paying someone to kill Edie was highly unlikely, but I'm still disappointed that it's just a financial thing and not death.  Aren't you?  I may harp on this every week, but don't we all want Edie gone?  And I mean dead and gone.  It would be great if she had the ability to do the voiceover narration for the show.

NBC's Monday night lineup.  I'm liking Chuck still and thought Heroes was better this week than in past weeks.  It's just a little too fortuitous for me that Sylar should just happen to end up in the car with our newest super-powered buddies, but I still like the idea that the story is slowly, ever so slowly, starting to creep forward.  And, good for the producers giving Matt Parkman something of a more complete storyline.  I wonder if his father really is the Bogeyman, it would be great if that were the case.  Maybe Parkman himself is a little evil.  I don't think he is, but it would be a fun turn of events. 

Did you notice on Journeyman that they actually threw a nod to Quantum Leap?  Dan wakes up in the church at the beginning of the episode, clearly having just leaped back in time, the priest sees him and utters Sam Beckett's famous words, "oh boy." 

I think I figured out what bothers me about the show — the stories of the people he has to save are completely boring.  Because the show has to try and balance what's happening in Dan's present with what he is trying to do in the past, neither gets explored deeply in a single episode.  However, because the present remains constant from one episode to the next, the producers are able to add a little bit of depth to that story in every episode.  The same is not true of the past.  The stories in the past are little one-offs.  They don't role over from week to week and consequently they are never explored with any depth.  I think the show tries to get away with this by having the viewer see the past from Dan's perspective and having him be completely in the dark, but that got old after the first two episodes.  I will give the show that they are trying to do something hard here, but I still think they need to work on either the balance between past and present or the way the stories in the past are developed.

Last night, watching Reaper, I couldn't help but wonder if I'm getting too old.  Maybe it's me, I'm not sure, but the Sam and Andi will-they-or-won't-they storyline is already tired.  Every week Sam laments the fact that he isn't together with her and how much he wants to be, and every week something ruins it.  Okay, so we have only seen four episodes, but it's there every time and I'm getting more than a little sick of it.  Frankly, I think the Devil ought to start smacking Sam around about his attitude toward Andi.  I know that Sam and the Devil have spoken repeatedly about her, and the Devil has chastised Sam for not acting, but I think he really needs to be a little more forceful.  Or, perhaps, Sock should write Andi a love note and pretend it's from Sam.  I can see absolutely no reason why the story can't progress with the two of them either dating or completely uninterested in each other.  I can see no reason why we have to be subjected weak after weak to Sam's whining on the topic. 

And then there was Damages, a show I will now whine about.  Ah, Damages.  I still can't help but feel that things aren't being fully thought out with the show.  Last week David saw people in his apartment screwing in light bulbs.  Three different workers just happened to be there when he got home, and one was screwing in a light bulb.  Now, I know I watch a lot of TV, but if you didn't instantly know upon seeing these three weirdos in David and Ellen's apartment that the apartment was now bugged I can't help you.  And certainly no one can help David.  Readers — if you ever come home and find weird people in your apartment, no matter the reason, you call the police.  If you see them messing with your lamp you check your lamp and see what they did.  Personally, I would imagine you look for a microphone.  David, apparently being a moron, did nothing of the sort.  He booted the three men and then went about his daily routine.  He almost deserved to get robbed last night because of it.  He didn't deserve to die, very few people do, but he did deserve some sort of awakening for his stupidity.

The real problem here is that I can't imagine anyone ever behaving as David did, which is why I blame the producers.  David's complete inaction upon finding men in his apartment is ridiculous.  No one would have done what David did, which troubles me greatly.  He didn't need to catch the people in his apartment, it wasn't necessary for the story, and his having done so ruins it for me.  It would have been just as easy for him to open the door as the people in the apartment to climb out the window and go down the fire escape unspotted.  Why that didn't happen I don't know, maybe we'll find out next week in the finale.  I certainly hope so.