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Reviews
Reaper (2007)
Worst of 2007
Reaper is the worst "comedy" of 2007. It's as unfunny as unfunny gets unfunny. This show pulls out all the stops by recycling every bit of hackneyed bits from animal cruelty to homophobia jokes to the DMV as "hell on earth" and the Kevin Smith-standard sidekick, the obligatory over-weight Neanderthal who is so unpleasant, rude, and ignorant that it's a wonder that anyone is friends with him, much less confides in him about anything. Ever. Apparently such a troglodyte is the height of humor in Reaper's sophomoric, perpetually 1994 world. In the real world it makes the "hero", Sam seem unsympathetic and moronic - a deliberate loser who surrounds himself with even more pathetic and sad people ostensibly to simultaneously make himself look good by comparison and to keep him from making any attempt to be a decent human being.
The lowest of the low has to be the sight-gag of Bert aggressively hitting a small dog with the car door. The show then treats viewers to the dulcet tones of the dog whimpering and crying...hardy-har-har.
The only highlights to this poorly written and miserably executed show are Ray Wise as Satan and Christing Willes, the DMV employee who is pulling double duty for the Devil. Their timing and line delivery are, as always, impeccable.
Bionic Woman (2007)
The New Bionic Woman
It turns out that the early previews of Bionic Woman were misleading to say the least and, disappointingly, the pilot is weaker for the changes. The stunts are leaden and the special effects are amateur, at best, and frequently laughable.
Jaime Sommers as embodied by Michelle Ryan is a lovely, naive, and, apparently direly insecure woman working as a bartender in San Francisco. Despite her bland personality short-comings, she's attracted the attention of a brilliant surgeon and professor who is the catalyst for transforming her into the bionic woman after a spectacular car accident (that somehow left him unharmed).
Jaime's younger sister, Becca, has been recast with Lucy Hale and is no longer deaf. Instead she is ham-fistedly written as a stereotypical angst-ridden, yet genius, teenager.
The thrust of the pilot is to set up the on-going conflict between Jaime Sommers and the first bionic woman, Sarah Corvis. Unfortunately, the pilot misses everything that smacks of realism, from Sarah Corvis's instability or motivations to Jaime Sommers' reaction to or acceptance of her transplants. I love cheesy scifi as much, or more, as the next person, but this show is unwatchable.
Flash Gordon (2007)
Flash Gordon Revised and Reprised
The new Flash Gordon series on SciFi is a delightful show. Flash Gordon strikes the right balance between science fiction, comedy, and action-adventure in an enjoyable hour of programming. While it's certainly a more humorous and tongue-in-cheek version than hard- core devotees of the classic comic book and earlier televised incarnations of the series might like, the show is paced well, nicely written, and offers intriguing performances from a solid (and beautiful) cast. Comparatively, Battlestar Galactica was frequently uneven and overly soap-operatic due to gratuitous attempts to write complicated over-arcing story lines that devolved into incomprehensible, obtuse episodes preventing new or casual viewers from joining the series if they missed an episode, Flash Gordon dovetails well with the lighter-side of SciFi's programming aligning with Eureka to give much needed respite from hours of back-to-back Star Trek reruns. The science and special effects, while simplistic, are not so obviously absurd as to be distracting. Overall, it's a nice way to unwind for an hour. The only real complaint is that, as usual, SciFi doesn't offer archived episodes on their website or through on-line providers, such as iTunes.