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Threshold (spoilers)

gridley

17:30 / 19.09.05

I'm a bit surprised no one's talking about this show yet, given there's a fair nugget of Grant Morrison-style sci-fi at the heart of it. The description of the alien craft as constantly shifting because it was a four-dimensional object in three dimensional space was straight out of the Invisibles, if I remember correctly. And then there's the fact that the aliens are invading the earth by sending us a stream of information; information that can at the very least rewire our brains, if not rewrite our DNA.

This is one of three new alien invasion series this season (the others being Surface and Invasion), and I'm sure will be widely compared and contrasted with the others.

I found the first episode to be very engaging and suitably clever. The second episode was a bit too much like a stereotypical zombie film, so I tuned out a bit. Peter Dinklage was great in it. Brent Spiner was fairly entertaining.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

11:58 / 25.09.05

If the Invisibles were picked for visual ideas for The Matrix, then someone took the catatonic psychotic crew survivor from Orbiter, even if they did then go a different way with it.

I've just watched the first episode and I'm downloading the second now. I like it. It is the main alien conspiracy story from the X-Files, but it's being pretty well written at the moment. I also like the fact that, as of yet, there is no arsehole on the team, who's job is to just be unpleasant and slow things up so that the stories are padded out to fill the alloted time. Though I have only seen the first episode so it could all change.

Very promising.

Tamayyurt

14:21 / 25.09.05

I wanted to watch this for Brent Spiner and the guy from Station Agent, but I've yet to see an episode. Glad to hear it's good though.

MrKismet

18:21 / 26.09.05

I'm not a big fan of Spiner, esp. after INDEPENDENCE PUKE and his enormous miscasting as John Adams in the Broadway revival of 1776 (he has a very annoying voice, much like a cartoon chicken trying to swallow an apple, whole). Carla Gugino is fine, and Peter Dinklage is by far the best actor of the lot. Hope he doesn't get bored (how many times will he ask, "What have you got?" per episode?).

Charles S. Dutton, who I have liked on occasion, is acting in his usual bombastic/reach-the-back-rows style, and it doesn't fit in with the others.

Silver

15:54 / 27.09.05

It's.... okay. Hardly the Greatest Show on Television, but it is certainly an enjoyable way to spend an hour.

What I like most about it (besides the always lovely Carla) is that it is more straightforward than your average multiple-conspiracies-evil-government-run-by-aliens drama. The problem was introduced before the opening credits of the pilot, whereas other shows (Invasion?) dance around the plot and hint at things that the audience figured out by reading the preview. Threshold gets straight to the point.

The pinwheel is a little overdone, and some of the writing is on the painful side, but I'll be watching.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

08:48 / 17.11.05

Shite. Shite shite shite.

Truly hideous script, highly dubious acting, the casting is way off imo, and the whole thing is just a cliche fest gone haywire.

I just don't believe any of it, at all. The suspension is totally absent. The way the characters interact, the way they are reacting to their predicament, everything. If it weren't for the scripted signposts - "I'm really scared!" ; "This is weird!!" - then there would be no sense that these things were the case at all...

So far behind Lost that it actually has no clue what it is, never mind where it is.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

17:32 / 17.11.05

The characters have no lives. Now this is good because considering who's created it, stories involving the main characters families and SOs would be dire, but it's difficult to care about whether the main cast are infected and mutating or what because we haven't been persuaded why we should care. Anyone know how it's doing on American TV, because I suspect it's going to loose the few people still watching it like me if it carries on for much longer.

Silver

16:22 / 22.11.05

I gave up a couple of weeks after my last post. Nothing was happening. Every episode seemed to be following the same formula, and nobody was an interesting enough character to draw me in week after week.

Too bad. The entire budget seems to have been blown on the first hour of the pilot, which was pretty impressive.

Keith, like a scientist

16:35 / 22.11.05

i think it's actually doing well, as they moved out of the Friday night graveyard and into primetime on Tuesday nights this week (it's new regular night). that's a sure sign that they feel it's performing well.

i agree: it's fairly bad and nothing seems to happen. i mainly started watching it because i was intrigued by their whole 3 season storyline idea, where the title of the show would change every season to reflect a new contingency plan that goes into place. but unfortunately the plot doesn't move quickly enough to overshadow it's general lameness.

i unfortunately can see me at least sticking with it til the end of the season, though, just to see where it ends up.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

07:39 / 23.11.05

Already abndoned it. Didn't bother with the third ep. Shite shite shite.

Keith, like a scientist

13:41 / 26.11.05

Oh well, that's that.

Kind of sad that they are cancelling it simply because it didn't perform as well the first week that they moved it. I'm sure that was due to lots of people not knowing it moved.

But, of course, it's not that good, anyway. Just a shame that SF is so tough to get on the air anyway, and the shows that do get on have to claw their way around. There is a lot worse crap on the air.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

14:53 / 26.11.05

Well, at least I don't have to waste a few hours watching the episodes I'd downloaded but not watched yet.

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