Nick C you may not like Heroes and you certainly are entitled to your opinion (and it IS an opinion), but it is uncalled for to tell a poster that if they liked the episode they “have problems”.

I too liked Monday’s episode. But then I am not watching it so hell bent picking it apart and I actually get what is going on with the storyline! Sylar did not open Elle’s skull to gete her power…the moment was purely symbolic as a means to show the viewer that Sylar would never change.

While I would agree Heroes has it’s problems, the fact that there are those of us who are able to watch for the enjoyment it brings does not mean we have problems. We only see it from a different prospective than you do.

I realize you are going to come at me with a zillion reasons why you think Heroes sucks and I have no problem with that. Again…opinions vary. But to outwardly demean Fin in that manner was just insulting.

Terminator on the other hand is one of the most innovative shows I’ve seen in a long while. I hope it will live on because it’s that good. Easily the same category as Firefly, Carnivale, Freaks and Geeks, Dexter and Twin Peaks.

About Chuck, I’ve seen so many shows like that, nothing new. I actually began watching Terminator because of Mr Seidman’s recommendation. Since he stepped over to Chuck I thought it would be great too. Watched the entire first season and I wish I could have those hours back. Ah well, to each his or her own.

TSCC could see at least a small bump in the ratings when moved away from Mondays & Chuck.

From ABCmedianet for week Nov 24th:
“Samantha Who?” Beats CBS’ “Worst Week” in Total Viewers and Adults 18-34 and Wins its Half-hour in Women 18-49 and Women 25-54 for the 6th Time in 7 Telecasts ”

Samantha Who? won 7 weeks straight and then the first week without DWTS, SW is beaten by a repeat of WW.

Ouch.

I agree with Vader – Olivia Dunham is the female lead of Fringe. She’s not a pawned-off version thereof. I agree with Julia on some point soo. For instance, when a female “lead” equates to “love interest” in the story arc, the story becomes a bore. It ruined GA and it’s ruining House to write the lead (and key supporting) female characters this way.

I would say that Anna Torv has finally started to flesh out the Olivia Dunham character quite well. Sure, some “love interest” aspects remain from the premiere episode, but Dunham’s emotional attachment to John Scott has served as a springboard to more interesting paranomal themes. Olivia’s not spending much time sitting around pining for her lost love – she’s literally using John’s memories to help solve cases. Not memories OF John, but actual scenes that played in his head. Dunham and Peter Bishop have got a really good rapport going now…so long as the writers can keep the relationship platonic, Fringe will continue to improve IMHO. Writers are walking to very fine lines here though: Create chemistry between Bishop and Dunham without resorting to sex; and keep “The Pattern” theme running without getting too serialized, too confusing or just too weird for weird’s sake. (LOST fell victim to confusing weirdness, IMHO, and I quit watching halfway through last season).

Also, I watched Terminator last night and will need to watch it again as I was pretty confused. Of course, watching it at one in the morning and having to fight to keep my eyes open at the end of it didn’t help me, but I did like the creativity of the episode.

So give me shows centered around a strong female, and I’ll be happy. But don’t try to pawn shows like Fringe off on me as a strong female lead.

TSCC should hopefully do better again next week, the preview looks pretty good.

One of the reasons I like “Fringe” so much is that two good female FBI agents share the load with the male leads. The show still has work to do in this department, IMHO – Anna Torv has some room to grow as an actor, and they are starting to write more complexity in her character. The character of Astrid deserves a bit more screen time too. She did stand up to Dr. Bishop last night though, with humor, which is a good sign. The worst thing that could happen, is if the female agents are written off as “relationship” fodder, catering to the male fantasies. I stopped wathcing “Gray’s Anatomy” for that reason – the female leads were reduced to lovesick puppies, and medical careers were lost in the shuffle.

Speaking of “relationship” fodder, I think that House is destroying a strong female supporting character in Dr. Cuddy. The only reason she’s so mean to House’s a-hole ways is that she’s got a crush on him? And that she’s so depressed she couldn’t conceive or adopt a child? Come on! A gifted doctor and hospital administrator can’t be written as female without catering to the “all women want is to mate with the bad boys and have babies” mentality. Grrr…

To the TVBTN board team – rant over. I’ll go back on topic next time I visit

As for CBS repeat, well, no surprise, people who watch CBS usually never change their channel even when it’s repeat. I know this for a fact because that’s how my grandpa operate, although he doesn’t watch HIMYM though, it’s too hip for him.

Maybe, for midseason at least they should just give up on Monday Night? Discounting some kind of miraculous turn of events leaving Chuck and Heroes on Monday nights is just going to kill two shows that NBC probably can’t afford to lose right now so switch them into stronger and/or less competitive slots elsewhere in the week and move shows that are already on their last legs into the Monday night slot, ultimately turn Monday into a second Friday until you can launch a brand new slate of shows there next year. And its always possible that they might do better on Mondays.

Switch Chuck to Thursdays as a lead-in for The Office and move Earl and Kath and Kim to 8PM on Monday Nights as counter programming to CBS’ comedy line-up. Or alternatively switch Chuck and Knight Rider around, I’d imagine given the choice NBC would prefer to keep Chuck around rather than Knight Rider next year. Where exactly you’d put Heroes is another question completely, although I guess the only real options are Tuesday or Wednesday.

If you want to see a show with a female lead take off the writers might want to make that lead, rather than strong, a horrible person. Writers just don’t have the heart to make female leads bad people because they don’t want to be seen as misogynists.

TSCC will be on Fridays by then, so I don’t think it’ll have to worry about DWTS at least.

And TSCC or Chuck fans, don’t get so confident – when CBS and DWTS are back, early next year…

Unfortunately, since Hollywood is apparently run by woman-hating, closeted gay dickweeds, these types of shows either get ruined by the mysterious conversion of charming, woman-loving characters into woman-hating, closeted gay dickweeds (i.e., Chuck on Chuck or Joe on Lipstick Jungle) or they get panned on gay male dominated fan sites and eventually canceled for resisting the pressure to do so.

Anyway, if there is one thing I’ve learned in my recent foray into all-things TV, Nielsen ratings are obviously easily manipulated to be biased against women viewers and shows featuring strong female characters. Not my problem, but I find it funny that people keep saying Hollywood is driven by advertising and money. Obviously, when it comes to misogynism, factors other than advertising and money come into play as it is clear many men in positions of power (like 99% of TV and advertising executives) would rather take a hit financially than support a strong female lead character in a TV series.

Consider this: In what amounted to minutes (because eclipses don’t last that long) Sylar: made love to Elle, lots of pillow talk, ran away with her after she got shot, lovingly bandaged her up, tricked her into the freight elevator to sacrifice himself so she could get away. He died for her.

Then he rises from the dead and decides to cut open her head. He already had her power so the hunger couldn’t have been the answer. It just made no sense at all. Well it does when you consider this:

HEROES WRITING DEPARTMENT

Kring: The fans just aren’t accepting him as having a good side. We need to make him evil again. We had higher ratings when he was evil. Did you hear the bastards threatened to take my golf cart away? How will I move around the lot? We must make Sylar evil again.

Loeb: We can’t. Right now there just isn’t a catalyst for that. We’d have to rewrite…

Kring: Loeb, you’re fired!

Alexander: Wait a minute Tim! Jeph is right. We don’t have a reason for a switch right now. We’d have to rewrite a couple episodes and they’re about to shoot THE ECLIPSE PART 2.

Kring: Perfect! Have Sylar kill Elle when he gets his powers back! She’s too expensive to keep around anyway.

Alexander: Wait a second, why would he do that? He loves her! She is going to be the mother of his child!

Kring: Jesse you’re fired too! Everyone else this is the plan, we have Sylar kill Elle and return to being evil! The fans will love it! NBC will love that I’ve dropped the costs by writing off Bell! This is perfect!

OTHER WRITERS: Sure thing boss! (Kring leaves room) Damn. I sure hope after he sinks this ship we can get another job.

lol…so true. I believe the consensus in the office break room this morning was “WTF?”

And actually, I agree with canning the TSCC renew/cancel talk for now. I mean, I don’t think we can even judge it properly right now since it’s moving to Fridays in February, and that’s where the numbers will matter and determine whether it sees another season. Sure these numbers can play a part in the Friday numbers, but we won’t know for sure until it gets there.

HEROES has not improved in quality at all. It continues to make the same mistakes. It also makes the mistake of making things pointless. What was the point of HRG chasing down and killing Sylar? There was none. It was pointless. As soon as the eclipse ended he was back. That made all the “suspense,” created before nothing more than a giant circle jerk.

Sorry HEROES continues to drop in quality and it appears in the demo.