MONDAY

8pm          ABC         Dancing with the Stars
8pm          FOX         House
8pm          NBC         Heroes (Chuck at midseason)
8pm          CBS          How I Met Your Mother
8pm          CW           Gossip Girl
8:30pm   CBS          Accidentally on Purpose
9pm          FOX         Lie to Me (24 at midseason)
9pm          NBC         Trauma
9pm          CBS          Two and a Half Men
9pm          CW           One Tree Hill
9:30pm   CBS          The Big Bang Theory
10pm       ABC         Castle
10pm       CBS          CSI Miami

TUESDAY

8pm          ABC         Shark Tank
8pm          NBC        The Biggest Loser
8pm          CBS          NCIS
8pm          CW           90210
9pm          ABC         Dancing with the Stars Results
9pm          FOX         So You Think You Can Dance (Past Life at midseason)
9pm          CBS          NCIS: Los Angeles
9pm          CW           Melrose Place
10pm       ABC         The Forgotten
10pm       CBS          The Good Wife

WEDNESDAY

8pm          ABC         Hank
8pm          FOX         So You Think You Can Dance Results (American Idol at midseason)
8pm          NBC         Parenthood
8pm          CBS          New Adventures of Old Christine
8pm          CW           America’s Next Top Model
8:30pm   ABC         The Middle
8:30pm   CBS           Gary Unmarried
9pm          ABC          Modern Family
9pm          FOX          Glee (spring) (Human Target in January)
9pm          NBC          Law & Order: SVU
9pm          CBS           Criminal Minds
9pm          CW            The Beautiful Life
9:30pm   ABC          Cougar Town
10pm       ABC          Eastwick
10pm       CBS           CSI: NY

THURSDAY

8pm          ABC         Flash Forward
8pm          FOX         Bones
8pm          NBC         SNL Weekend Update Thursday
8pm          CBS          Survivor
8pm          CW           Vampire Diaries
8:30pm   NBC         Parks & Recreation
9pm          ABC         Grey’s Anatomy
9pm          FOX         Fringe
9pm          NBC        The Office
9pm          CBS          CSI
9pm          CW           Supernatural
9:30pm   NBC        Community (30 Rock at midseason)
10pm       ABC         Private Practice
10pm       CBS          The Mentalist

FRIDAY

8pm          ABC         Supernanny
8pm          FOX         Brothers
8pm          NBC         Law & Order
8pm          CBS          Ghost Whisperer
8pm          CW           Smallville
8:30pm   FOX         ‘Til Death
9pm          ABC         Ugly Betty
9pm          FOX          Dollhouse
9pm          NBC          Southland
9pm          CBS           Medium (yup, it moved to CBS)
9pm          CW            America’s Next Top Model Repeat
10pm       ABC          20/20
10pm       CBS           Numb3rs

SATURDAY

8pm          ABC         Saturday Night College Football
8pm          FOX         COPS
8pm          NBC         Dateline NBC
8pm          CBS          Crime Drama Repeat
9pm          FOX        America’s Most Wanted
9pm          NBC        Trauma rerun
9pm          CBS         Crime Drama Repeat
10pm       NBC         Law & Order: SVU rerun
10pm       CBS          48 Hours

SUNDAY

8pm          ABC         Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
8pm          FOX         The Simpsons
8pm          CBS          The Amazing Race
8:20pm   NBC         NBC Sunday Night Football
8:30pm   FOX         The Cleveland Show
9pm          ABC         Desperate Housewives
9pm          FOX         Family Guy
9pm          CBS          Three Rivers
9:30pm   FOX        American Dad
10pm       ABC         Brothers & Sisters
10pm       CBS          Cold Case

Wow. Until midseason when new shows like “V” and old favorites like “Lost” show up, that’s not much for sci-fi/genre/fantasy television on the major networks this year. If I discount the sitcoms, that gives us 9 shows in the Fall.

Perhaps cable will deliver some good stuff? AMC, TNT, SyFy, BBCA, Showtime, Adult Swim, HBO? What do they have for us? Fingers crossed!

photo credit: BlackHawkTraffic
photo credit: idovermani

Got any insights on what happened on Lost? What do you hope for from Fringe next year? Any shows we neglect that you’re really enjoying? Chime in here. If there’s anything particularly clever, we may mention it on the podcast and would of course give you full credit for whatever you write.

photo credit: Jezlyn26
photo credit: watchwithkristin

Monday, April 27
Chuck (NBC), 8 p.m.
Heroes (NBC), 9 p.m.

Friday, May 8
Dollhouse (Fox), 9:01 p.m.

Tuesday,  May 12
Fringe (Fox), 9 p.m.
Cupid (ABC), 10 p.m.

Wednesday,  May 13
Lost (ABC), 9 p.m.

Thursday, May 14
Smallville (CW), 8 p.m.
Parks and Recreation (NBC), 8:30 p.m.
The Office (NBC), 9 p.m.
Supernatural (CW), 9 p.m.
30 Rock (NBC), 9:30 p.m.

Friday,  May 15
Ghost Whisperer (CBS), 8 p.m.
Prison Break (Fox), 9 p.m.

Sunday, May 17
The Simpsons (Fox), 8 p.m.
Family Guy (Fox), 9 p.m.

Monday,  May 18
24 (Fox), 8 p.m.
How I Met Your Mother (CBS), 8:30 p.m.

Tuesday, May 26
Reaper (CW), 8 p.m.

Monday, June 1
Medium (NBC), 10 p.m.

Thursday, July 2
Harper’s Island (CBS), 10 p.m.

Time to start looking ahead at what there is this summer!

photo credit: Kadath

Go here for the rules, in a helpful video. There are links to more details and the clips you can use there.

SORTED BY DATE:
1. Prison Break (Fox) Sept. 1
2. 90210 (CW) Sept. 2
3. Bones (Fox) Sept. 3
4. Ghost Hunters (SciFi) Sept. 3
5. Entourage (HBO) Sept. 7
6. True Blood (HBO) Sept. 7
7. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Fox) Sept. 8
8. Fringe (Fox) Sept. 9
9. Smallville (CW) Sept. 18
10. Supernatural (CW) Sept. 18
11. Primeval (BBCA) Sept. 20
12. Big Bang Theory (CBS) Sept. 22
13. Heroes (NBC) Sept. 22
14. How I Met Your Mother (CBS) Sept. 22
15. The Mentalist (CBS) Sept. 23
16. Knight Rider (NBC) Sept. 24
17. The Office (NBC) Sept. 25
18. Dexter (Showtime) Sept. 28
19. Simpsons (Fox) Sept. 28
20. Chuck (NBC) Sept. 29
21. Pushing Daisies (ABC) Oct. 1
22. WWE Smackdown (MyNetwork) Oct. 3
23. Eleventh Hour (CBS) Oct. 9
24. Life On Mars (ABC) Oct. 9
25. SNL Weekend Update Thursday (NBC) Oct. 9
26. My Own Worst Enemy (NBC) Oct. 13
27. Crusoe (NBC) Oct. 17
28. 30 Rock (NBC) Oct. 30

You won't be seeing Sylar or any of the other Heroes regulars in the webisodes.

You don’t want to watch the 3-part Heroes webisodes. Seriously. The title “Going Postal” should hopefully have been deterrent enough. Imagine giving an ADD-addled child high-end cameras and lighting equipment, a few actors, access to the Heroes soundtrack, and no money or apparently script and this is what you get, I guess.

CHAPTER 1: A NIFTY TRICK

A black mailman is running down a California street. He looks behind himself, and is scared and keeps running. He ducks between some houses. At about the 30 second mark of this 3 minute, 26 second show, he drops his bag, turns around, and we hear and see a barking dog. It’s a (not particularly large) angry Doberman.

Instead of leaping on top of him, the dog stands there barking, while the postman tries to reason with it. He tells the dog that “it doesn’t have to be like this” and “look, you had your chance – now back off.” Apparently the dog doesn’t speak English, though and keeps snarling. So the postman says to “Back OOFFFFFF!!!” and an annoying loud noise and squiggly effect come out of his mouth.

He seems to have yelling powers not unlike those of Marvel Comics’ Black Bolt. The dog runs away. Feeling confident, the mailman says, “Next time, don’t mess with the mailman. That’s right.” He delivers this with the arrogance and confidence of a Will Smith who has just punched out an alien. Seriously, dude? You yelled at a dog and it ran away. I can do that, too.

When the mailman picks up his bag, a (pudgy) man in a suit and a powdery, albino looking bald man in a wife beater are standing by him. The albino keeps wiggling like a spastic man who needs to take a dump and the man in the suit says he’s from a company that helps people with special abilities. He also calls him “Mr. DeMille” so I guess the postman has a name.

DeMille says no thanks and takes a step but the albino steps behind him and hugs him. There’s a stretch sound effect, but no actual stretching. Also, the hug looks quite gentle. Nevertheless, the pudgy suit guy says that his friend is a “Constrictor” and that if DeMille keeps struggling, he’ll keep squeezing.

DeMille shouts and Pudge falls to his knees holding his ears, a trickle of blood coming out. He pulls out a gun and aims it at DeMille (why didn’t he just do that first?) and DeMille yells again. He takes his chance and runs away. Pudge is almost dead and Constrictor grabs his gun and shoots at DeMille but misses. Then he takes a phone call and casually shoots Pudge. He says, “Bob, Howard’s dead. It’s worse than we thought.”

He looks at his phone and there’s a nice lingering shot of a Sprint cell phone with a photo of DeMille kissing a beautiful girl. “It’s a shame. She’s so pretty,” says Constrictor, as the camera showcases the phone AGAIN. The time is 2:46 and oh my god, there are credits. Yeah. About 40 seconds of CREDITS. Apparently the director is Yule Caise. He also co-wrote this atrocity. That’s who I blame. Strange shots and bad acting? Yeah…

CHAPTER 2: THE HOUSE GUEST

Before the episode begins, I have to sit through a Sprint phone commercial that makes fun of product placement. Right after the last episode so lovingly featured Sprint in totally serious product placement. Weird.

Mr. DeMille runs home. He gets inside and locks the door. “Gina?!” he calls, breathlessly. He’s tired from running. He rushes through the house searching for Gina. He steps into the bedroom and a ridiculously hot girl is standing there in her underwear. “You’re late,” she says. This is simultaneously the best and worst moment of this show. On the plus side, we get to see a pretty girl and that’s better than the awful show itself. On the other hand, the concept of a mailman having this gorgeous trophy wife (girlfriend?) is less plausible to me than his yelling powers.

She is all over him but he desperately tries to explain that he thinks he just killed someone and can make loud sounds. “Sounds?” she says, confused. Also, it’s edited rapid-fire with extreme close-ups that do nothing to help hide the fact that this is some of the worst acting ever. It’s sort of like what you see on Saved by the Bell or maybe a really dull part of a soap opera where the actors just don’t give a shit. “Get dressed,” he tells Gina. “You gotta trust me.” To get dressed? Well, she says she trusts him and he steps out of the bedroom.

DeMille digs through some desk drawers for a pair of ear buds and notices the front door is open. He runs the 3 feet to the bedroom (this is a SMALL house) and Gina’s not there. So he picks up a guitar from the floor and brandishes it like a baseball bat. He sneaks through the house and enters a living room and I swear this really happens – the camera zooms in on a cat. It’s the strangest shot choice. DeMille hears a gasp and steps back into the other room and Constrictor is hugging Gina.

DeMille drops the guitar and says, “Ok. Just let her go.”

“Why would I let her go? I’m just getting to the fun part,” answers Constrictor.

DeMille notices that Constrictor is covering Gina’s ears by holding her and roars. The Constrictor drops to his knees in pain and lets Gina go. DeMille kneels down next to Constrictor’s head and asks if this is the fun part and then yells and splatters Constrictor’s brains all over the wall. Seriously.

Gina looks horrified but she lets him hug her. Then there’s a knock at the door and DeMille says, “oh shit!”

That’s the end of part 2. It cannot get any worse. It jut can’t.

CHAPTER 3: LET’S TALK

When I clicked the link to watch this (I watch it so you don’t have to), it said this was the latest adventure of Echo DeMille. I haven’t heard anyone call him Echo, so I guess it’s not important. Did his parents know he would grow up to have superpowers? If not, this must be the greatest coincidence of all time. Or do superpowers develop based on your name? Like, if he had been named Doug would he have had super-digging powers?

There’s a knock at the door and Echo tells Gina that they’re out of time and she has to go. How does he know it isn’t a concerned neighbor or maybe the paperboy needs to collect? He gives Gina earplugs and tells her to get the car and meet him at some street or other later. If he’s not there, he’ll find her.

“What are you gonna do?” Gina asks.

“Tell these guys to get off my front porch!” says Echo. By the way, Echo does not have a front porch. That’s the kind of thing a competent director sees and goes, “Oh, the location doesn’t have a front porch? Let’s make a note of that in the script.”

They kiss like dead fish and off Gina goes. A classy shot of the Nissan Gina drives is next.

FINALLY, Echo opens the door for two generic guys in suits. They see the dead Constrictor guy and say they just wanna talk. But no. Echo says they’re gonna listen. Then he yells. Not very reasonable, really. The guy is an ass.

13 Weeks Later. Echo wakes up tied to a chair and gagged, in a prison cell. Mama Petrelli looks at him from outside. “Echo, Echo, Echo… you always were the mouthy one. Welcome home.”

Echo tries to yell, but he can’t. That’s it. Pretty satisfying resolution, right? No. It was painful.

I give it 1/2 ball gags out of 5. And that’s just because it’s kind of funny to see how bad it is. Like that shot that zooms in on the cat that I’m still puzzled over.

Thursday, July 24

10 –11am: Kings

11:45am –12:45pm: Knight Rider

5:45–6:45pm: Dexter

Friday, July 25

10:15 – 11:15am: The Big Bang Theory

12:15 – 1:15pm: Stargate Atlantis

3 – 4pm: Ghost Hunters

Times to be announced: 24, Prison Break

Saturday, July 26

10:45 – 11:45am: Heroes

11:30 – 12:30pm: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

“Noonish”: Lost

12:45 – 1:45pm: The Office writers with Rainn Wilson

2:15 – 3:15pm: Battlestar Galactica

3:15 – 4:15pm: Pushing Daisies

3:30 – 4:30pm : Chuck

4:45 – 5:45pm: Fringe

4:45 – 5:45pm: Eureka

6 – 7pm: Jason Smilovic of My Own Worst Enemy and Ronald D. Moore of Virtuality, TV Guide panel

7:15 – 8:15pm: MythBusters

Time to be announced: Dollhouse

Sunday, July 27

10 – 11am: Smallville

10:30 – 11:30am: It’s Always Sunny in Philadephia

11:15am – 12:15pm: Supernatural

1:45 – 2:45pm: Ghost Whisperer

Here’s the basics:

Universal Media Studios is behind the sci-fi drama, which follows 12 astronauts who are sent on a 10-year journey to find a distant solar system. The explorers pass the time by hooking up to advanced virtual reality modules to explore self-created worlds. But they discover someone has downloaded a computer bug into the system — and one of them may be the saboteur.

Moore, Taylor, Lloyd Braun and Gail Berman are on board to exec produce “Virtuality,” which originally came from an idea kicked around by Braun; both Braun and Berman shaped the idea and pitched it to writers around town. Moore and Taylor floated toward the idea.

“Virtuality” also comes with a hefty online component: As part of the plot, the space voyage is funded by a reality show that features the trip being streamed back to Earth. That “reality show” will be produced as webisodes, featuring the same cast members.

NBC passed on the concept, which insiders said was too sci-fi for Peacock tastes. Over at Fox, entertainment prexy Kevin Reilly bought the project almost immediately.

Okay, call me a skeptic, but I’m not sure a show set strictly within the confines of a space ship on a long journey can hold up. The hidden saboteur is both a throwback to some of the themes of both Battlestar Galactica and Lost in Space, so this is a road we’ve already walked several times before. Self-created virtual worlds designed to keep the crew amused over the long journey is a straight rip from Charles Stross’ bold, but strongly disappointing, post-human epic Accelerando. A significant chunk of that book takes place in virtual worlds aboard a ship. I know this will be a device used to get the crew off the ship from time to time, but my feeling is that virtual reality is a concept that’s had its day.

Will this be Ronald Moore’s Harsh Realm, or have I become too jaded? I have a feeling that this is a show we’ll be talking about in TVZ Episode 38.

I have mixed feelings — the first two thirds of the season were underwhelming at best. There were some real probelms with characters and their motives, ridiculous plotting and glacial pacing. They did, however, manage to turn it around by the end. Although the finale seemed rushed, in some ways it was more satisfying than last season’s ending. The Adam story is over, and it would appear Sylar’s story is about to resume.

Hiro’s revenge, Niki’s non-powered (final?) sacrifice, Peter’s realization about Adam, Elle’s unintended act of heroism, Nathan’s decision to go public — it all played out very nicely. Heck, even Matt Parkman and Molly were used well. Claire’s storyline, however, seemed pointless to the season as a whole, and Noah’s fate was equally muddled. I’m still left wondering if Caitlyn, Peter’s “girlfriend” from Ireland, will be abandoned forever in an alternate future — not that she was a very compelling character, but I hate loose ends like that. Having her floating off in the ether is similar to what happened to Amy on Buffy — although Buffy ultimately resolved Amy’s story (in the end, I would have preferred she stayed a rat in Willow’s dorm room), I’m not sure Caitlyn will ever be mentioned again.

So, I guess they’ve pulled themselves from the edge of the abyss. How they handle Vol. 3, “Villains,” will determine whether the show has been salvaged. Unlike Lost‘s incredible third season finale, when I was certain that show had finally redeemed itself, I’m not so sure about this one. Heroes has disappointed spectacularly this season — I want it to be great, again, but I’m not sure I have faith that the writing staff can sustain a good story. We’ll see.

The good:

• Adam’s introduction
• Peter’s interactions with Adam in the Company prison
• The establishment of Elle as a Sylar-style sociopath and her twisted relationship with Peter
• DL’s transformation into a true hero
• The revelations about what happened to Nathan after the finale and his restoration

The bad:

• The anticlimactic death of DL at the hands of a random club rat
• The revelation of Nikki’s party girl persona
• Next to nothing about Matt
• Maya and Alejandro’s “origin”
• The Haitian’s “plan” to save Peter by wiping his memory and putting him inside an empty cargo container

It will take a few episodes to see for sure if Heroes is fixed, but I’m very interested to learn what Adam has in store for us, as well as further developments in Peter’s twisted relationship with Elle. When Elle was introduced, she seemed like a homicidal Veronica Mars, but this week she’s more of a defined character, sort of a female counterpoint to Sylar (without all the powers, that is).

Anyone else think Adam reminds them of Adrian Veidt from Watchmen?