New winter TV

There is SO MUCH new TV premiering in the next couple of weeks, and an annoyingly large number of them are on Mondays. WTF? What I'll be watching:

1. Battlestar Galactica. Final season, all will be revealed??

2. 24. It's been quite awhile, and I never finished watching the last season of this show, but I kind of liked the Redemption special so I'm definitely planning on watching. I'm a little upset about Tony coming back from the dead and being evil though because he was one of my favorites. I'm secretly hoping he won't turn out to be truly evil?

3. Damages. Originally I wasn't too keen on a second season of this show, but Glenn Close is so damn good I can't complain.

4. Kyle XY. I can't really explain my love for this show...perhaps it's just the teen sci-fi aspect that isn't found elsewhere on TV anymore. In any case, I'm super excited, especially with reports that it'll be more action-packed.

5. Scrubs. Now on ABC, also possibly the final season? What can I say, it's just kooky and fun and the only medical show I watch.

6. Dollhouse. The new Joss Whedon show with Eliza Dushku. It sounds pretty out there, as one would expect from Joss, and it's been doomed to a Friday night timeslot on FOX, which definitely has no qualms about canceling shows right away, and at the same time I wonder if it's been hyped up too much. I remain optimistic though and I can't wait.

7. Friday Night Lights. The season has already been airing on DirecTV but now it's finally coming to NBC. I think it's likely this is the last season but really I'm just thankful we got to a third one at all.

8. The Bachelor. I know, I'm ridiculous. But I really did like Jason from the last season of the Bachelorette....I thought he was truly decent and it sucked that he got down on one knee to propose and then got rejected. I think it'll be interesting to see how he deals with being the one to have to date multiple people now because he seems very honest and genuine. God knows why I still have hope that he found someone for real when the show's track record basically sucks.

9. America's Best Dance Crew. I don't think I mentioned it but I went to the live tour this past fall and it was really pretty awesome. I wasn't a faithful viewer either the first or second seasons but I might tune in this season. Especially with reports that Dominic and Hok from So You Think You Can Dance season 3 and their crew might be on it.

10. Bromance/The City. Yeah, it just gets worse. But I woke up at 3am last night and couldn't sleep and found Bromance on the air. And it was just really kind of hilarious. (Apparently this show and Momma's Boys were both developed by Ryan Seacrest. I'll let you draw your own conclusions from that nugget.) As for The City...I stopped watching The Hills last year because I just couldn't handle Speidi anymore and all of Lauren's self-righteous friendship drama was becoming intolerable, but I always liked Whitney. That said, I'm kind of surprised she agreed to headline her own show because she was always a bit guarded about her personal life. Now she's inviting this weird level of manufactured-ness into her life...I mean, Olivia Palermo is apparently a pretty well-known New York socialite who was basically cast on the show to be Whitney's co-worker, and Whitney met Jay, her Australian musician love interest, on camera and had to kind of ask him if it was ok to have their relationship chronicled on reality TV. Which makes me kind of wonder if he really likes her or if he just wants to be on TV?

11. Big Love. Hm, I haven't finished watching the last season of this show either, and honestly sometimes all the stuff with Roman and Alby and such loses my interest but at this point I'm basically invested in the characters so I will probably keep up.

12. Reaper. Does anyone remember this show? I thought it kind of grew into its own towards the end of its first season and I'm glad it's coming back.

Plus new season of The Amazing Race, Masterpiece Classic, and all the other shows I watched this fall...my DVR is going to be super busy and thank goodness for hulu.com and other online streaming!

Kyle XY and Terminator finales

I have a bad habit of neglecting to post on the finales or important episodes of shows, so these are a couple of weeks late but I did want to comment on them.

Kyle XY: This season has been pretty light on the sci-fi side, but I have to say that I've really enjoyed it regardless. The cast just gels so well, and there really hasn't been a dud episode all season. I really liked how they handled Jessi's evolution through the season and I'm glad that she finally realized that Brian sucked. I was glad to see Sarah finally surface (although was I the only one who thought Ally Sheedy looked almost unrecognizable?) and I hope that she and Jessi aren't actually leaving Seattle. Jessi was definitely irritating at times but I think she's kind of necessary to keep the Latnok storyline going.

I'm not sure what was going on there at the end of the finale though...Amanda being kidnapped is kind of blah, but is Mark the TA part of Latnok?? I haven't really been too taken with Mark...generally I like that sort of adorkable-ness but for some reason I was still holding onto my Lori-Declan ship all season. I had a feeling that Lori was going to reject Declan in the end, but it still made me sad. I do like them as friends too, though, and hopefully this means Declan can stop pining and get more involved with Kyle's stuff. One of my favorite things from the first season of the show was how Declan became the first person Kyle really trusted.

I LOVED how Kyle was researching the prom and rattling off silly statistics about how the prom is portrayed in movies and young adult novels. I loved that last part because hardly anyone ever talks about just how many YA novels are out there and how many of them make important things happen at the prom. I'm not a huge fan of Kyle and Amanda (I mean, I think they're sweet and all but generally they're boring) but their dance at end was so incredibly cute. They floated! It was just perfect, especially after they didn't even spend most of the prom together.

Oh, and Foss showed up! For only a minute or two but man do I love Nick Lea. Haha, I know, I'm pathetic. Eagerly awaiting next season!

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: I can't say that I was as into this show as much as a lot of others I watch, but I truly did enjoy this short first season. Oddly enough, I think it really started to get good when Brian Austin Green joined the cast. I know, David Silver doesn't exactly come to mind when you think of someone who can inject life into a show, but his character, Derek Reese, John's uncle, brought some urgency and intensity to the show that I think was really needed. Sarah's pretty kickass but her demeanor is really sometimes too...calm? I even started getting a little more interested in the FBI part. Agent Ellison's religious side was beginning to get a bit creepy and ominous...but that's probably just because he kept quoting Revelations, which is like inherently ominous.

The finale was maybe a little anti-climactic for me somehow, but the scene with the camera underwater while all the bloody SWAT guys were falling into the pool was really well shot, and the music was eerily perfect. Also loved the scene where Derek took John to the park to see his younger self and Kyle playing baseball. It was so unexpected, for me at least, and really bittersweet. I'm not sure yet if the show is going to come back for another season, but if it does, I'll be watching to see what happens next.

Truly starting to love Kyle XY

I feel like I'm only one of handful of people watching this show, but you know, I'm really loving it this season. I'm kind of glad they've scaled back a bit on all the evil corporation stuff and are focusing more on Kyle and Jessi just learning more about themselves. I've said this before and I'll say it again: Matt Dallas is doing such a phenomenal job as Kyle. Kyle is such a genuinely good and loving person and it never comes off as fake or boring (like say, Clark Kent?) And even though it's sometimes hard to see why...I'm really glad that he refuses to give up on Jessi.

As for Jessi...sometimes I get the feeling that the writers don't really know what to do with her but maybe that's the point...she's really impressionable. Last season she was being told to get closer to Kyle and take his secrets, so she did. And this season she's being told by Taylor that she's special and extraordinary and now she's believing that. I do really like that what's pushing Jessi to stretch her abilities is her wanting to be the best while Kyle is always about other people. He couldn't heal a small cut on his own hand but it kind of looked like he healed Andi's cancer at the end of last week's episode?? At first I was wondering why the two of them were even talking at all, never mind hugging, but I can really believe Kyle just has that affect on people. And the actress who plays Andi did that scene perfectly...she looked a little confused but was just letting herself go with it.

But like any good show, it's the details that really make it all fun. I LOVE that Andi is really short for Andromeda. I love that Declan is all sad that's he's not a part of Kyle's adventures anymore (and did Lori actually reference "Keclan"??). How psyched was he saw that could get back into the action at the bar. And I totally love Hillary. I always like it when TV Shows manage to turn formerly bitchy/jerky characters into lovable ones, and she's just hilarious. Her "reporting" at the bar fight was totally classic. Also really liked that Amanda brought up the fact that Hillary slept with Charlie...she might have a personality after all.

Full episodes of all of season 1 and most of season 2 are online at ABCFamily so for anyone who was a fan of Roswell or even the early seasons of Smallville, I definitely encourage you all to go watch this show!

I kind of love ABC Family

Thank goodness ABC Family has new episodes of Kyle XY, Wildfire, and Greek for this year!

Kyle XY was up first last night. I remember being kind of disappointed back in the fall that they were saving the second of the season for this year, but with the strike and all, I'm so glad they did. Sometime during the first half of the season I started to really love this show...a lot of questions were answered, and they've done a really good job balancing all the Zyzyx-Madacorp-Kyle's brain stuff with the more personal stories.

And I actually really loved the way they handled Jessi's story. I was afraid that she was just going to be Kyle's annoying evil counterpart, but they've built in a lot of nice shades to her story. And I thought last night's premiere was pretty satsifying. They did a bit of a "reset" with Kyle and Jessi and the Tragers bringing down Madacorp (a la Sydney destroying SD-6, Max destroying Manticore), which I was a little worried about because I wasn't sure where the show was going to go from there, but after seeing the previews for the season, I'm pretty excited. As much as I'm glad that Jessi's realized that she can do good now, I think it'll be really interesting to see how her dark side comes out without the influences of Madacorp. BRING ON the Kyle and Jessi showdown!

Also I hope Foss isn't gone forever (because I love Nicholas Lea), I hope Lori and Declan get back together (because they're so obviously meant to be together), and I hope Andi doesn't die (because I like her and that would be way too melodramatic).

And Wildfire is coming back next Monday. You know sometimes I'm not quite sure why I continue to watch this show...Kris is often extremely annoying and stubborn and kind of undeserving of having two guys in love with her. But I still kind of love it. Dani is like Blair from Gossip Girl in that she's kind of a huge bitch but she's kind of awesome anyway, and I kind of love Junior despite all of his pining for Kris and that ridiculous bull riding thing from last season. The promos are showing Junior getting married though which I do not understand whatsoever. NO ONE on this show should be getting married. I guess I prefer Kris and Junior over Kris and Matt, but they definitely should not be getting married. And it better not be someone stupid like Gillian (even though I do like her). Sigh, we'll just have to see!

Finally, last but not least, Greek is coming back in March! I totally loved this show last summer, and I can't wait for it to come back. The last episode had Jen K. (played by lonelygirl15 herself, Jessica Lee Rose) revealed as the person who wrote the article pretty much damning the school's entire Greek system, and Rusty and Casey going home for the holidays with their relationships kind of up in the air. I have to say that I've really enjoyed the Evan/Casey/Cappie love triangle because I really do like both guys. Cappie is totally awesome but I can see why Casey likes Evan too...

Kyle XY!

I know my first review of this show last summer was pretty lukewarm, but as with a lot of shows, I kept watching it and found myself liking it more and more. Once they got past all the silly "oh another funny thing that Kyle discovers he doesn't know about being human" episodes and started getting more into Kyle's past, things started getting a lot more interesting. And the Tragers, who initially just seemed almost like caricatures grew on me throughout the first season, and even Josh is tolerable now. Kyle's effect on everyone around him was really believable. In a way, the show reminds me a little bit of Roswell, and a little bit of Dark Angel too, which is a good thing. I've missed my teen genre TV (sorry, I don't watch Smallville or Supernatural...)

Last night's premiere made me pretty happy. I'm really impressed with the casting job they did on Adam Baylin...he and Kyle really did look so much alike. I kind of wish we could have seen more of him, but the writers were smart in not having Kyle separated from the Tragers for too long. After realizing and seeing how lonely Adam's been all his life, Kyle knew that he had to go back. As for all the Zyzyx stuff, I'm withholding judgment on all that for now, but hopefully it'll get developed properly and not get too convoluted. Though with the introduction of the "XX" girl, who I get the impression might be evil, I'm a little worried. The first season was relatively quiet in terms of intrigue and action and all that and I don't think I necessarily want to see the show stray too far from the family stuff.

Oh, and another familiar face popped up on last night's episode! Martin Cummins, who was on Dark Angel (and was also on Life as We Know It)! And of course Nicholas Lea has been on the show for awhile (Krycek from the X-files and also from Whistler). All Vancouver shows...does Vancouver have like a limited TV casting pool or something? Kandyse McClure (Dualla from Battlestar Galactica) was also on Whistler, and the actor who played Adrien on Whistler was in an early episode of Kyle XY too. Hm it seems like all sci-fi shows shoot in Vancouver...the aforementioned Smallville and Supernatural shoot there too (oh, Jensen Ackles was in Dark Angel too!). Okay, obviously I need to stop my internal IMDB-ing, especially since I seem to be mentioning all sort of random shows that people probably have not watched...