Big Love ·
Season 1 ·
Episode 7 ·
Aired April 23, 2006
Finally someone has found out that Nicki owes $58,000. Unfortunately it’s only one person (Barb) and it doesn’t seem like a sure thing that anyone else will find out next week. Roman has shown his hand and it looks like Bill’s brother Joey will be on the hook for the land deal, so it’s unlikely that we’ll see that avenue played out. And since Roman seems to have the upper hand there, he’s taken it one step further and evicted the Henricksons from the compound as well. That might be fun, but again not much else seems to be going on there.
Meanwhile Margene’s new friend has the family on the verge of discovery and Sarah brought home her friend from work, and that can’t be a good thing either, though she has said previously that she wouldn’t get the family in trouble, despite her father being a police officer. Yet still, nothing happens.
Has the world settled into a routine where nothing happens week-to-week and we have to wait for the cliffhanger at the end of the season? It is too much to ask to actually have something interesting happen?
The Sopranos ·
Season 6 ·
Episode 7 ·
Aired April 23, 2006
Vito took a break this episode, and we find that Artie is back to his old tricks of not understanding how the mob works. While this was an interesting exercise a few seasons ago, now it’s just tired. Seeing him go after Bennie was an interesting spin, and even the joke about the martini wasn’t bad - but really it would have been so much better if Artie had killed Bennie or something.
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The Twilight Zone ·
Season 1 ·
Episode 4 ·
Aired October 23, 1959
Once a star, always a star? Not in this case. 25 years past her prime, “Barbie” Trenton wishes for the days of yesteryear when she played the starlet. She turns down roles for mothers and bit parts, wishing she could be the one who has her name in lights.
Instead she spends the day in darkness, with the curtains drawn and the only light she sees comes from the glimmer of the projector as she attempts to relive her glory days. No one can reach her, even her on-screen co-star, who has long ago realized that he is past his prime.
So she takes the only avenue available to her, and joins he co-stars in the film, abandoning the world of the living. A bit strange, but we’re still early in the run. It was refreshing to see an alternate angle here, the different way of thinking. Once the stories pick up, the series became a winner all around.
The Twilight Zone ·
Season 1 ·
Episode 28 ·
Aired April 15, 1960
Career criminal “Rocky” Valentine dies in a shootout with police and then goes to heaven - or so he thinks. At first the place is perfect, with everything he wants. The dice roll his way, he picks the winners, he gets the girls. But everything is too perfect. Even planning a bank robbery is too easy because he knows he can’t get caught. Then he finds out that he’s not exactly in heaven, if you know what I mean…
The Twilight Zone ·
Season 1 ·
Episode 3 ·
Aired October 16, 1959
The town drunk is given a potion by a traveling salesman (conveniently named “Mr. Fate”), and instead of the trembling hand of the town drunk, he returns to the previous form of the fastest gun in the West. Only to recall why he crawled into the bottle in the first place - to avoid ending up dead in the gutter.
At the end of the episode, he meets another, younger, gun, shooting to become famous by taking out the fastest gun in town. Only the young gun also has the potion. They manage to shoot one another in the gun hand, leaving each other alive, but unable to fight any longer.
Notable because of the presence of one Martin Landau, and because it’s just the third episode of the series. But that’s about it. Otherwise it’s slow moving, and a nice story, but there are many better episodes out there.
The Twilight Zone ·
Season 1 ·
Episode 1 ·
Aired October 2, 1959
This is the first episode ever, and it’s actually pretty good. Though it moves slowly, the end isn’t bad. An air force captain awakens to find himself in a town with no one there - throughout the episode it seems as if they are there, but just around the corner. He feels as if he is being watched, but he can never find anyone.
At the end, we find that he is indeed being watched. He has been under observation for about two-and-a-half weeks, or the time it takes to orbit the moon and return to earth, and they are trying to determine the effect on a man’s mind during that time. The subject was locked in a cubicle the whole time.
Not the best episode by far, but a good start to a great series.
