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The Collector (2004)
Criminally Underrated
This a rare kind of show, because most genre TV tends not to stray too far from the action-adventure template that usually makes it lucrative, and it shows because it got canceled after three seasons and way too soon in my opinion because this is an excellent supernatural drama, emphasis on "drama".
The premise goes thusly: In the 13th century, at the onset of the Black Plague, a young monk named Morgan Pym (Chris Kramer) is tricked by the Devil into selling his soul to him, in exchange for not going to hell after the 10 year contract has expired, Morgan is tasked with collecting the souls of other people who dealt with the Devil after their 10 years of enjoying the outcome of the deal are up, and is effectively immortal.
However, at the beginning of the new millennium, after meeting with a junkie named Maya (Carly Pope/Sonya Salomaa) and nursing her back to health, he rediscovers his desire to help people and manages to persuade the Devil to allow him a 48 hour window to help find redemption for the people who dealt before their time is up and their souls are sent to hell.
Unfortunately not only is the Devil constantly throwing curveballs in Morgan's direction to distract him and impede his progress in saving souls, but intrepid journalist Jeri Slate (Ellen Dubin) begins to suspect Morgan of being trouble due to him being in the vicinity of several high-profile deaths (from his job as a collector) and serves as a constant annoyance and an impediment to his progress, all the while her autistic son Gabriel (Aidan Drummond) has an unexplained connection to the Devil, Morgan and the people he's trying to save.
If the show seems very formulaic to you, Morgan has 48 hours to save someone before they go to hell, many episodes do something to shake up the formula, the most common method being Morgan failing to save the person from going to hell, as such the show never loses its tension due to a 100% success rating on the part of the main character. Also the running B plot of Maya trying to stay sober and the C plot of Jeri trying to figure out who Morgan is while struggling to care for Gabriel, may seem out of place in a show like this but are always amazingly written and performed by the cast and never feel like they don't belong given the dramatic and mature nature of the series.
And speaking of which, this is not an action series like Buffy or Angel or Supernatural, there are no monsters of the week and Morgan rarely fights something and every time he does we know he won't die since so long as he continues to be a collector (even if he's actively sabotaging his job), he's completely immortal and heals almost immediately from any wound. This is a drama, and the climax usually involves people talking rather than people fighting (even though sometimes fighting happens anyway). If this sounds boring to you then I don't recommend but if you would like your genre TV with more drama and less action then the Collector is the show for you. Just keep in mind that it was canceled before all of its story arcs were resolved so you won't be (crushingly) disappointed once its over and it's really the only thing stopping me from giving it a 10.
The show is only available in its entirety on Amazon Prime, as the third season never got a proper home video release, so if you don't have an Amazon Prime subscription yet, this show (and The Man in the High Castle as well) makes it worth it on its own.
9/10 (Excellent)
Heroes (2006)
Flawed but ultimately worthwhile.
Heroes really is one of those "once-a-generation" genre shows that initially had everything going for it, great cast, great writing, great performances across the board. The only weak link were the very sparse and brief action beats that always felt anti-climactic, but those were forgivable because everything else was so well done, from the set design, through the cinematography, to the eargasm- inducing soundtrack that felt truly unlike any other. So what happened?
To answer that question let me break down the show by season stating, of course, at the beginning with:
Season 1: This is a great season, one of the best season of sci-fi television, period. If Heroes had just this season as its run, the show most likely would've been remembered the same way as Firefly, as a One-Season-Wonder that wascancelled way too soon. Everything about this season just clicked, the individual character and story arcs were all engaging and they all tied together in a three-part season finale in a way I would've thought impossible. It had one of the best main and supporting casts in television history, each and every one interesting and likable if not relatable. The sheer amount of writing skill needed to pull this off could've only been matched by an HBO/AMC show on the same caliber as The Wire, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, etc. and this show, on NBC, pulled it off. The first season was truly excellent and expectations were high for the inevitable second season. Were those expectations met?
Season 2: Short answer: No, Long Answer: It was good but not great by a long shot. Most of season 2's failings can be summed up with the phrase "all setup, no payoff". This season attempted the same kind of multiple intertwining character and story arcs that all build up to a finale that tied them all together but the 2006-2007 WGA strike more or less cut the season in half which in turn rendered half-the subplots irrelevant and left most of the audience feeling like they didn't need to watch half the scenes in every episode, things weren't made any better by writer/co-showrunner Bryan Fuller's departure. His influence is at least 33% the reason the first season was so amazingly written, his replacement at creator Tim Kring's side as co-showrunner was Jeph Loeb who unfortunately was stuck in the comicbook writer's mindset and ended up writing situations that could never be filmed on a network TV budget resulting in a very abridged feel to the action and a very restrained feel to the show in general. Things were made even worse for the writing team when the order came from the network to bring back as many of the original cast members as possible regardless of whether or not the writers could give them anything to do or whether they could keep said characters from becoming overpowered (and they did, resulting in a lot of stupid decisions to justify the characters not ending the threat too soon). This combination of factors made it virtually impossible for the season to be anywhere near as great as the first one but that's not to say the season is bad, it's not. Even though the payoff is shallow and anti-climactic (for the subplots that do get paid off) the buildup is good for what it is, not quite season 1 great or engaging but it's engaging for the most part. The reason why this season is considered by many to be straight up bad is because of what follows.
Season 3: It's bad, it is really bad, well the first half's bad anyway and the second half is just boooooooring. Why? Because it pretty much takes everything that season 2 set up and just throws it in the garbage can. Every single new character introduced in season 2 is either unceremoniously killed or written off the show rendering all of their screen time in that season completely pointless. But it isn't just the wasted potential that makes this season a fail, its that the storyline they did have this season was just ill conceived and handicapped by a shrinking budget and scheduling conflicts with several cast members. And even without these handicaps the overall quality of writing completely lapsed this season. Characters acted like idiots, the villain was so ridiculously overpowered that its defeat was just pathetic. The second half is an improvement over the first but it isn't good. Its relentlessly boring, handicapped again by its budget, almost to the point where Smallville was a better execution of its premise than Heroes. The only thing that makes the second half tolerable is Bryan Fuller undoing some of the mistakes made by Loeb but ultimately his mark on the season wasn't enough to make it good. The ratings for the show plummeted like a stone during this season and unfortunately those lost viewers wouldn't come back next season despite it being better than the last two combined.
Season 4: It's better than the last two seasons but still nowhere near as great as the first one, again the budget and the writing staff still being shackled to the season 1 cast didn't help matters but on balance the season did a much better job of giving the season 1 characters something to do and minimized the screen time of those that they couldn't do anything with (namely Tracy, Matt and Suresh). The main villain was a great foil to Peter (arguably THE main character of the series) and the overall premise was better executed than that of the last season. Unfortunately the season feels rather diluted as the pacing was too slow and the truly great moments of drama or action were too sparse and too short. The season was worthwhile in the end, the character and story arcs were better executed and tied together, the villain was stronger the new cast members were interesting.
Overall I'm recommending at least the first season. 7/10.
12 Monkeys: Splinter (2015)
Surprisingly good
Out of the three new Syfy shows (Ascension, 12 Monkeys and The Expanse) I had expected Ascension to be decent but not great, 12 Monkeys to suck hard and The Expanse to be really awesome (and I'm still looking forward to it). I was right about Ascension being decent but I was wrong about 12 Monkeys sucking.
12 Monkeys is really good (well at least it starts off on the right track) surprisingly enough given its creators Terry Matalas and Travis Fickett's resume including the unmitigated disaster that is Terra Nova (okay they didn't make it but they did write two of its worst episodes).
"What makes it so good?", you ask? Well the answer is that it's the best kind of a remake, one that keeps the elements that made the source material great but does just enough of a fresh spin on it to not feel pointless.
The premise, as with the movie, concerns a post-apocalyptic future where the Earth was ravaged by a deadly incurable virus, killing most of the human population and driving the survivors underground. When a team of surviving scientists revive an abandoned time travel experiment they devise a mission to send scavenger James Cole (Aaron Stanford) back in time to the present times to find the man responsible for the outbreak and kill him before he can (unwittingly or not) kill the human race.
Stanford is no Bruce Willis that much is clear but he does play the character his own way and is a damn fine actor, definitely skilled enough to carry the show, while Cole as a character remains just sympathetic and intelligent enough to not come across like an unjustified murderer.
The rest of the main cast however is a mixed bag, the virologist lady has the phrase "future love interest" written with a permanent marker all over her, Cole's future BFF doesn't show any personality traits aside from the ones in the "post-apocalyptic best friend" archetype and virologist lady's ex-boyfriend doesn't seem like he has any purpose in the story at all aside from artificially inserting a love triangle in it.
But while the characters are a little under cooked, the show makes up for it by being an engaging mystery and yes I know they are changing stuff from the original film but then again a mystery wouldn't have the same punch if it's retold the exact same way with the exact same plot twists and reveals.
And speaking of making up for shortcomings, the show's production values are just as great as you'd expect from a Syfy TV series, and say what you will about their low budget b-movies, when they actually put some effort into making a show it always looks as legit as possible, from the ravaged future to the elaborate CG effects.
Overall the show isn't perfect, the characters don't quite click just yet and the story sometimes resorts to conspiracy thriller clichés and the time travel storytelling can be hard to wrap your head around especially when a time paradox appears to generate an explosion comparable to a hand grenade instead of, you know, destroying 2/3rds of the universe and causing the main character to go bald, but now I'm just nitpicking.
7/10.