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Advance Review: This episode starts in a mysterious fashion, with an unfortunate fellow finding something that some really shady military folks want. Before the guy can be interrogated, Christopher Chance shows up and once again displays his prowess with languages, this time it’s a respectable bit of Spanish. The client, a mousey-looking dude with a British accent, is a Cambridge archeology professor who found something rather valuable deep in a South American forest.

Chance has to deal with a bunch of greedy military types, along with some guerillas, but the main antagonist is a fellow named Bertram, whose specialty is “Salvage and Reclamation.” Meanwhile, Winston and Guerrero have had their escape plan compromised which complicates matters quite a bit.

Chance hooks up with an old lady friend named Maria, which adds most of the subtext in this story. There’s a softer side of Chance we get to see as he tries to rekindle the flame with Maria. One could imagine that guys like Chance don’t get very many opportunities to settle down and be vulnerable with someone, and there are many tender moments for these two, in-between scenes of them getting shot at and running for their lives. It’s cute, but fairly implausible at times, and it’s a theme that has been done to death in Hollywood.

- FOX

As usual, the show flirts with some old cliches that border on cheesiness. There’s the hot exotic gal with a romantic past with the male lead, and a corrupt military leader, etc. It’s all right of the old adventure book bag of tricks. Most of the time, this series can dabble in old tropes and add enough fresh ideas to make it work, but things don’t work out so well here.

This episode has plenty of action, but the story is a bit lacking. It’s too linear, the jokes often feel kind of forced, and I think this episode finally did cross the line into the land of cliches. Worst of all, our bad guy of the week, Bertram, isn’t all that menacing or much of a challenge for Chance, though the door is open for him to make some appearances later in the series. The character is at least interesting enough to warrant some more development.

Despite the flaws, Winston and Guerrero continue to be a treat to watch. The interactions between the two characters give actors Chi McBride and Jackie Earle Haley a chance to show off their comedy skills, which they don’t too often get to do in their more serious roles. The series seems to have a good formula with Chance leading the story while his partners take us through a side-story to provide back-up and/or save Chance from certain doom.

As far as Human Target episodes go, this isn’t one of the best of the series. But it’s still fun, and it provides another link in the long chain of events that slowly reveal the histories of our main characteristics. Although this story is kind of a letdown overall, it’s still an entertaining hour of television and it’s worth a few laughs.

When Smallville was moved to Friday nights last fall, it was widely presumed it was doing so to die – that while The CW had renewed the show, it was certainly in its final season, and with the diminished numbers Friday night would no doubt bring, the final nail would be hammered into the coffin. But lo and behold, Smallville, like the character it’s based around, has a talent for fighting back, and the show held its own on its tough new night. Last week, The CW ended speculation over their next move by renewing Smallville, confirming the show would be back for a rather remarkable Season 10.

So what next? There have been a lot of changes through the years on the series, which began with Clark Kent in high school, surrounded by a supporting cast that are almost entirely gone now. Clark now is actively fighting crime in Metropolis and dating Lois Lane – but still is not Superman. So as the show heads towards its tenth season, IGN TV decided to take a look at the elements the show can and should tackle in the coming year.

The Final SeasonSure, most of us are assuming Season 10 is the final one for Smallville – but we also assumed Season 7 was probably the last one, and Season 8, and Season 9… Are you sensing a pattern?

A long-running series of this sort deserves a true finale and the proper time to build up to it. But that means the network and producers need to decide early on that that is indeed what will happen. A ten-year run is an incredible accomplishment for the series, but we think most fans would agree, it’s also a good time to wrap things up, right?

Hopefully we will get firm word on Smallville: Season 10 indeed being the final one early on next fall – allowing the writers to really go all out, crafting a season that can have plenty of major events occur, that once and for all show us how Clark Kent takes on the Superman identity. As you’ll see, planning on Season 10 being the final year for the show leads us into several of the following entries…

Darkseid (AKA Apokolips Soon)In the nine years it’s been on the air, Smallville has introduced a bevy of notable Superman villains, including the likes of Brainiac, Doomsday and Metallo. Who’s left? Why Darkseid of course! The first tiny hint of the character was already given this season, in the episode “Absolute Justice,” when Amanda Waller says, “Apokolips is coming” – which that episode’s writer, Geoff Johns, has confirmed is indeed meant to be spelled in that manner, not “apocalypse.” Apokolips is of course the home planet of Darkseid in the comics, and fans have been speculating if we might see Darkseid on the show ever since that tantalizing name drop.
The tyrannical supervillain exists in one of the more cosmic arenas of DC Comics, and at this point, we all know Smallville tends to give us a more humanized, earthbound version of most characters. Luckily, there are stories in DC lore that allow for this however, as there have been times when Darkseid was bound to a human, and even was living the life of a gangster – which sounds like just the sort of storyline that would work on Smallville. Of course, eventually, we’d want to see the bad guy in his true form…

The Name’s Luthor… Lex Luthor

This is pretty much a must. Even in some of Smallville’s weakest periods, it was easy to enjoy Michael Rosenbaum’s performance as Lex Luthor, who was portrayed initially as Clark Kent’s friend – destined to take an Anakin Skywalker-style fall from grace, and ultimately, of course, to become Clark’s greatest enemy. By the time Rosenbaum left the show, at the end of Season 7, he’d been involved in some pretty lame storylines – We’re looking at you, “Lex & Lana’s romance, pregnancy, marriage, miscarriage, divorce” – but Lex himself still remained a compelling part of the show, and having another actor play a disfigured Lex in Season 8 (when Lex apparently died, but come on) was not satisfying to fans wanting to truly see Rosenbaum as Luthor again.

Before the show ends, we’ve got to see the true Lex Luthor return to face off with his arch nemesis one more time. It’s doubtful Rosenbaum would be back as a series regular for Season 10, but if he could at least return for the last several episodes (with some nice lead up beforehand) it could make for a very cool storyline. Lex could become involved in the aforementioned Darkseid scenario we’re hoping for, and prove again that what he might lack in superpowers, he more than makes up for with his brilliance and cunning.

Bruce and Diana

Four-Eyes KentIt’s one of the biggest examples of having to suspend your disbelief not just in comic books but in all of fiction – We have to accept that no one can tell Clark Kent is Superman, when all he physically does to change himself is wear a pair of glasses. Of course, on Smallville, Clark Kent has never worn glasses, at least in any ongoing manner (just recently he showed his glasses to Lois, only to not wear them since). But in the 10th season, it’s time to see that change and have Tom Welling’s Clark join the rank of the four-eyed on a consistent basis, better setting up his true dual identity.

On top of that, there’s a notable hurdle to deal with, in that we now have watched a series showing Lex Luthor and Lois Lane, among others, interacting with Clark all of the time, without glasses. Sure, saying the glasses would disguise him at all is funny when really analyzed, but here it’s even more difficult, because of the relationships he’s forged with those around him. So here’s hoping that this is dealt with in some manner on the show. Fans have long pondered whether some sort of magical or superpower-based explanation might be possible, where something happens on Smallville (perhaps a spell by Zatanna?) that makes it so people see The Blur/Superman as looking different from Clark Kent. Whatever it is, we just hope this element of the mythology is not ignored by the end of the series.

Closure for ChloeAh, Chloe Sullivan. The only character from the beginning of Smallville still on the series besides Clark Kent himself, Chloe has garnered a lot of attention from the fandom. Some think the character doesn’t really fit into the series any longer, while there are still some rather passionate fans rooting for a Clark/Chloe romance that appears all but impossible at this point.

With Allison Mack still not signed to return as a regular in Season 10, there’s a lot of speculation about what might happen to Chloe, with many assuming she will be written off (whether by dying or in some other manner) at the end of Season 9.

One thing is clear though – Chloe is too significant a part of this show and its history to not give the character proper closure. Created for Smallville, Chloe doesn’t have the decades of comic book history to fall back on or a clear place in Clark’s future, making it all the more interesting to see where she ends up by the end of her journey.

And whether she’s back next season or not, we’re hoping Clark’s story – since after all, the show is centered around him — and his decision to become Superman is significantly affected by Chloe in some manner in Season 10, especially after the episode “Legion” teased as much. Yes, sorry to say Chloe fans, that very well could be via her death. If Chloe were to die though, we’d want it to be in a particularly meaningful way that properly motivates Clark to want to do more and embrace the destiny we all know is waiting for him. In fact, it should get him to… Well, read the next entry for that.

Flights With a Side of Tights

The “No flights or tights” rule decreed by the producers was fine when Smallville began and the character was in high school – and when most people would have understandably assumed the show would have ended after five seasons or so. But we have now been watching Clark Kent learn more about his abilities and what it means to be a hero for nearly a full decade!

Clark still not being able to fly is just silly at this point. Not only could his cousin Kara (AKA Supergirl) do it on the series, but Zod has had his superpowers for all of two seconds, and he can fly as well! Whatever mental blocks Clark has had stopping him from this fully accessing this one crucial ability need to be gotten past before the show ends – preferably sooner than later in Season 10.

Okay, seeing the full Superman costume in any major capacity is a bit more of a stretch – the show is not called Superman, and it’s about the journey towards that identity. And yes, it is nice to at least see Clark finally wearing the Superman symbol these days, albeit as part of a black, Matrix type outfit. But when you have held onto a fandom for ten years, you have to deliver the payoff the entire series has been working towards. And even if it’s just in the final episode, that includes seeing Tom Welling wearing that famous red and blue costume.

There are times when I’m watching House that I’m reminded of the old Late Night with Conan O’Brien bit, “Secrets”, where super-famous movie stars sat in an interrogation room and admitted terrible (and hilarious) facts about themselves. Every time I watch Hugh Laurie solve another medical mystery in spite of his patient not telling him the entire truth, I want him to turn to the camera and whisper, “Secrets….” I say this because a diagnostician is, at its core, a job about uncovering secrets of one type or another and this episode had plenty of them.

I thought “Private Lives” was a solid episode, less due to the patient of the week and more because the House/Wilson rivalry continues to escalate and amuse. Plus, we got a chance to see the normally stoic Dr. Chase broaden his range in one of the funniest montages in recent history as he, House and Wilson all tried their hand at speed dating. The results were exactly as you’d expect.

This episode did a nice job playing off the “secrets” theme as the patient, Frankie (Laura Prepon of That 70’s Show), was a blogger who detailed the minutia of her daily life for the public to read and comment on, much to her boyfriend’s dismay. “You’ve turned our lives into their entertainment” he says at one point, as Frankie asks her readers to weigh in on the type of artificial heart valve she should choose: plastic or pig. For a patient suffering from a mystery illness she seemingly has nothing to hide. That is of course, until House deduces the one thing she doesn’t write about are her trips to the bathroom, her “crap” being the critical puzzle piece that leads to an accurate diagnosis.

- FOX

On the opposite end of the spectrum, both Wilson and House have plenty to hide. As their friendly battle of pranks got even more serious, House discovered that back in college, Wilson acted as a Mr. Tumnus-like faun in a student film that, unfortunately for him, was later re-cut and turned into a porno without his knowledge. That information (plus a color printer) gave House plenty of ammunition to up the stakes in their feud.

To retaliate, Wilson discovered that House was reading a book of sermons, even though we know he’s no fan of organized religion. Wilson distributed copies of the book to the staff and they all playfully joked about his choice of reading material. We soon discovered the author was a minister and House’s dad, a man he’s talked about but never talked to. While House’s prank was silly and fun, Wilson’s seemed like it cut pretty deep. Then again, who can blame him, he’s been House’s whipping boy for six seasons. It’ll be interesting to see where this storyline leads – perhaps it’ll shed more light on why House is the way he is.

This episode contained much of what we expect from the series: a last minute epiphany and more squabbling between House and Wilson. However, the speed dating montage near the beginning of the episode proved once again that this show can be as funny as anything on television. Poor Wilson was deluged with women who were reminded of their dead relatives (or cats) once he revealed he was an oncologist. House didn’t fare much better as he met a Jesus freak and a woman he efficiently exposed as a compulsive liar. But the clincher was Dr. Chase, who despite his best efforts to act like a total loser (in order to win a bet with House) still came away with a dozen phone numbers due to his high cheekbones. Jesse Spencer is usually not asked to be the comic relief in House, but he nailed it in this scene.

“Private Lives” was a fun episode in this uneven season. No, it wasn’t revelatory like last month’s, “5 to 9“, nor was it a game-changer like “The Tyrant“, but it did its job and certainly offered up its share of laughs. Hopefully House’s daddy issues will come to a head soon and we’ll be treated to what should be a very interesting story.

The tenth hour of Day 8 hit on some decent suspense in a fairly implausible situation, while the Dana/Jenny (“Denny”) storyline got another development just when many viewers were hoping for a nail in its coffin.

This week primarily centered on the cornered rookie terrorist, Marcos, who luckily limped into the perfect protected spot at the end of the last episode. As long as you look past all the ridiculous elements involved (Marcos got great cell phone service inside a steel cylinder, he just happened to have a writing utensil to draw a circuit diagram and had enough electrical knowledge to reconfigure the circuits) it was at least an original set-up. Plus, the cylinder-cam gave us the best moment of the episode, when Jack threatened the life of Marcos’s mother if he didn’t surrender and help with the investigation. Jack turned on his full badass mode for an awesome threat that would scare the pants off any mother-loving terrorist. From “I’m going to personally escort her to the blast site and expose her to the radiation” to “So go ahead, blow yourself into a million little pieces — first thing I’m going to do is have your mother clean it up,” the delivery and pacing of the lines was pitch-perfect. The whole “LOOK IN MY EYES!” yell and hard stare from Jack would make anyone snap.

I feel like Hastings voiced my exact thoughts to Denny and Cole this episode: “Look, I don’t know what’s going on with you two and frankly I don’t care. Whatever it is, are you finished?” The answer, unfortunately, is no, they’re not finished. It seems that the deaths of Kevin and Nick were just the next step in an annoying storyline that will never end. To be completely truthful, I’m not as annoyed by the new development of parole officer Bill Prady (Stephen Root) as I am by Dana’s reaction. Despite being the one who purposely sought out Kevin and Nick to kill (or at least threaten) them and her insistence that she didn’t want Cole to be involved (first when he found her, then when it came time to deal with the bodies), Dana’s first reaction is to call Cole and whine about the situation. Cole’s response (“What, lie? Come on, we both know you’re good at it.”) actually wasn’t bad. I’m not sure if the writers expect us to be rooting for Dana to get out of this situation, but I find myself really wanting Bill Prady to catch Dana quickly and get her the hell off this show. But maybe that’s just me.

- FOX

The twist that Tarin is involved with the extremists was pretty predictable (as I talked about in my last review). It’s 24’s standard operating procedure at this point… no matter how nice or good a person seems, if their name isn’t Jack or Chloe, they could very well be evil. It makes one mistrust all characters, and 24’s tactic of getting rid of a villain after an episode or two and introducing the next bad guy makes the bad guys even more disposable/forgettable. At least Marcos had some creepy eyes and a semblance of a conscience (when it came to his mother); Tarin seems rather bland at this point.

This episode once again did a nice job of incorporating the United Nations storyline into the overall mix. To anyone still wondering why President Omar Hassan couldn’t evacuate the UN we got our answer: so he could meet up with Mrs. Hassan and they could talk on the speakerphone with CTU – Not a great answer, but it is an answer. And while Tarin being Evil Tarin isn’t shocking, having him in control of the Hassans’ daughter finally gives us a reason to keep checking in with them, and making their relationship a bit more relatable than it previously was. It feels like everything except the Denny storyline has a place in the overall story right now.

The biggest compliment I can give 24 at this time is at least ”Day 8: 1:00 AM-2:00 AM” kept things moving. Nothing was particularly great about this week’s episode but at least we didn’t get a bunch of pointless political conversations that lead nowhere, or an interrogation that becomes irrelevant by the hour’s end. The pacing this week was decent, even if the content was mostly the same nonsensical collection of developments we’ve been seeing so far this season.

One story element that was definitely improved this week was the integration of the United Nations stories with the overall goings-on. Not only is the UN being evacuated because of the potential radiological attack, but the CTU investigation got vital information from President Omar Hassan, after President Allison Taylor’s urgent pleadings (and an itty bitty threat of attacking Hassan’s country in retaliation for the terrorist event). The only part that really didn’t make any sense was Hassan’s determination not to leave the UN until he finds his daughter. Um, what does that have to do with evacuating the UN? You can’t make cell phone calls while you’re moving to a new location? But hey, maybe more will be explained next week as to why Hassan absolutely had to stay at the UN. (Yeah, probably not.)

The storyline for Omar’s daughter, Kayla, and her boyfriend, Tarin, is mildly interesting. I suspect that we’ll eventually find out that Tarin really is with the terrorists, as a little twist. Or maybe he really is innocent, and the lawyer he’s going to meet with will help him out after Kayla and Tarin are done with their alone time. They’re meeting the laywer in two hours, by the way. Because in the City That Never Sleeps, meetings with your attorney are regularly scheduled around 3:30 AM.

Last we saw Omar’s treacherous brother, Farhad Hassan (about 10 minutes before the end of last hour), he was on the phone with CTU. So it seems a little odd that about seven minutes into this episode, CTU gets a call from Farhad and transfers it to Jack. Did CTU lose his call earlier? Did they tell him to hang up and call if he gets nervous? Was he worried about using up the minutes on his cell phone plan? Luke Wilson would love to tell him about AT&T’s great plan rates for unlimited minutes — as well as their 3G coverage.

- FOX

Marcos also has a knife, a grenade, and throwing stars. Just in case.

It makes total sense that Farhad would hide where he was for 20 minutes and then just decide to run into the open so he could get shot. That’s exactly what anyone would do in that situation. My favorite part of Farhad’s death scene was Jack’s yelling. “ARE THOSE FILES UPLOADED YET? COME ON!” was just standard Jack being impatient. But I was very amused that his scream of “KEEP THAT MAN ALIVE!” was followed by a (rightfully put-upon) medical worker yelling back, “Let me do my job!”

The Dana/Jenny (a.k.a. Denny) and Cole story continued exactly as expected this week, with the two of them deciding to hide the bodies of Kevin and Nick so neither of them goes to jail. Their involvement this hour was minimal, and my favorite part is how the CTU office seems to have completely forgotten that the two of them even work there at the moment. I’m totally fine with that — the less Denny story we have, the better.

The hour’s big story focus was the new low-terrorist-on-the-totem-pole, American-born Marcos Al-Zacar. It was pretty obvious that Chloe would figure out how to remotely disable the bomb vest Marcos was wearing, the only question was whether he would kill sweaty junior CTU agent Owen, who’s busy waiting for his voice to change when he isn’t being nervous about a counter-terrorist operation. Why exactly would Marcos have a gun as well as his big bomb vest? That’s some pretty good planning on the terrorists’ part. Although having a gun as a backup wasn’t nearly as far-fetched as what happened next: Marcos jumped out the window, survived the fall, and slowly limped away… and still no one caught up with him until he luckily found the pressure chamber to seal himself into. Come on, Jack. You can run faster than that.

All things considered, this was a major improvement over last hour, but considering how many things annoyed me that episode, that’s not an enormous accomplishment.

Let’s face it, guys and gals. The televisual landscape can be pretty bumpy and it seems as though as soon as you find yourself a series that you can tolerate the network yanks it because it’s getting crap ratings. And why was the show getting crap ratings? Because TV viewers are hesitant to invest in anything new because it might wind up getting pre-maturely cancelled. It’s a vicious circle. A snake eating its own tail.

With everyone coming off of their respective Winter Olympic highs and ready to sink down into a somber, sulking depression over Jay Leno returning to the tarnished, bastardized Tonight Show this evening, we thought we’d send some good vibes out your way and list off 5 shows that we think you all might like/love/get a kick out of. Most of these are smaller-scale shows that would be lucky to pull off a million or two viewer so there is a bit of an agenda hidden in these recommendations. We’re hoping to spread the word about these kickass series so that they’ll, you know, stick around for a couple more seasons. So here are one pay-cable show, one network show and three cablers that we think everyone should be tuning in to on a weekly basis.

Breaking BadBreaking Bad is one of the most joyfully wretched shows on TV. Let’s just say that watching cancer-stricken chemistry teacher, Walter White (Emmy-Award winner Bryan Cranston) brave the dark and perilous world of New Mexican underworld meth cooking is a “good pain.” We’re all very happy that showrunner Vince Gilligan makes it a point to include gallows’ humor and macabre laughs every so often to break up the brilliant despair and palpable intrigue. At the Winter TCA press tour, Cranston’s co-star Aaron Paul, who plays White’s hapless, yet sympathetic apprentice Jesse Pinkman, confided to us that the third season will get even darker than its predecessors. And after watching the first two new episodes of this year, we can hardly wait for the freight train of tension and torment headed our way.

With an amazing supporting cast, haunted desert landscapes, merciless drug enforcers and a once-noble high-school teacher on the brink of being buried under his own secrets and lies, Breaking Bad offers some of the best and riveting TV that we’ve ever seen. Hell, it was so good that it won the IGN TV Best Series and Best Drama awards for 2009.

Breaking Bad returns Sunday, March 21st at 10PM/9C on AMC. You can catch up with Season 1 on DVD right now – and Season 2 on DVD and Blu-ray on March 16th.

Archer“Because that’s how you get ants!”

Step into the action-packed world of secret ISIS agent Sterling Archer, a self-absorbed prick of an international super-spy with a knack for pissing off everyone he meets. Do you like your engaging espionage tales littered with subversive humor and profanity? Do you get a boner at the thought of your mother’s murder? Do you like to verbally eviscerate your elderly dogsbody, Woodhouse? Do you forget the name of most everyone in your office or accidentally set your co-workers on fire while testing out new gadgetry? Then Archer is the show for you.

For those of you who lapped up the surreal, bats*** humor of Sealab 2021 and Frisky Dingo, then you should know that Archer also comes to us from the wonderfully demented mind of Adam Reed. Aisha Tyler, Chris Parnell, Jessica Walter and Judy Greer round out the stellar supporting voice cast for H. Jon Benjamin’s sickeningly vain, Oedipally-stricken Super Agent.There are only two more episodes of Archer this season, with the next episode coming up this Thursday, Mach 4th at 10pm on FX. But the good news is that Archer has been picked up for a second season.

HUMAN TARGETFinally a show that comes from the same warm, fuzzy and violent place as our love for ’80s action films like Lethal Weapon and Die Hard. Meet Christopher Chance (Mark Valley), a more uniquely TV accessible adaptation than his Hard R-Rated DC Comics Human Target counterpart. Chance is the absolute best “bodyguard-for-hire” in the business, with a recklessly intelligent way of assimilating himself into his clients lives in order to purposefully lure the villains and stalkers out of hiding. But Chance doesn’t just do babysitting gigs each week. The missions vary, giving FOX’s Human Target the chance to venture out into the world of bullet trains, out of control upside-down 747s and secluded snow-bound monasteries to produce an enormously fun hour-long throwback action movie each week.

As Chance, Valley provides the breezy, confident action-star charm while the cautious Winston (Chi McBride) and the mysteriously menacing Guerrero (Jackie Earle Haley) provide the best hero-support in the business. And how about that opening credit sequence and score? Majorly rad! Even though Human Target is seen by millions of more people than any other series on this list, the fact that it’s on a major network means that its ratings still might not be enough to ensure its continual existence. The next episode of Target airs next Wednesday, March 10th at 8/7C and we implore everyone to tune in. Let it be known that we want more clever escapist violence in our lives!

SPARTACUSAre there ever moments when you see a dude get his head cut off and then you’re all like “that was cool, but can’t I see some t**s too?” Well, it’s as if the gods of ancient Rome heard your emphatic plea and answered. In spades! Yes, at first this Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, Drag Me To Hell) and Rob Tapert (Xena: Warrior Princess) produced show was known as the roguish series with lots of blood and lots of boobs. But now it’s known as the show with lots of blood, lots of boobs, lots of ding dongs…and lots of heart. If you’re in the mood for some good, old-fashioned “sword and shield” storytelling, with lots of vengeance and wrath at its core, then you should be watching Spartacus: Blood and Sand on Starz. Take all the brutally best parts of Gladiator, Troy and, well, Spartacus and throw in some semi-explicit sheet rustling every quarter hour and you’ve got a definite guilty pleasure – which episode by episode has begun to feel less and less “guilty.”

Episode 7 of Season 1, “Great and Unfortunate Things,” airs this Friday at 10pm on Starz, but you can catch up with the first six on Netflix Online. And for those of you who do wind up with an insatiable bloodlust after watching Blood and Sand there’s some outstanding news. Starz has already ordered a second season of Spartacus, which will be called Spartacus: Vengeance.

DAMAGESWe know. It’s hard to get yourself pumped up over a legal drama. It seems like if a show doesn’t feature a dancing celebrity these days then it most definitely features some sort of nebulous, driven doctorlawyercop. But what if you took the courtroom out of the legal drama? What if there were no juries or closing arguments or “objection, you honors?” What if there were just a streamline of affluent miscreants ready to inflict pain and suffering on each other like you’ve never seen before? And what if your lead heroine, Patty Hewes (Emmy-Award winner Glenn Close) was a cold-hearted tigress whose unscrupulous ambition has led to suicide, murder and the absolute ruin of other people’s lives? Then you’ve got yourselves a heaping helping of FX’s mesmerizingly woeful Damages – one of the rare shows on TV that makes you want to boil yourself after watching.

Now in its third season and suffering shaky ratings, we’re unsure if Damages will make it back for a fourth round. And while we wouldn’t exactly suggest that you all start tuning in immediately if you’ve never seen the show, we do highly recommend that y’all head out and get Season 1 on Blu-ray and watch the delectable Rose Byrne along with Ted Danson and Zeljko Ivanek tangle with Close’s dragon-lady extraordinaire. After Season 1 we’re pretty sure that you’ll find it simply impossible to not immediately head into Season 2. And so on and so forth. The next episode of Damages, “Don’t Forget to Thank Mr. Zedeck,” airs tonight, March the 1st at 10pm on FX.

With Zod’s plans to change the Earth into a red sun paradise now crushed his followers are left with little choice but to embrace Clark’s plans of integrating with the human population. Unfortunately for the Kandorians, their experiments on humans come back to haunt them as three of them are abducted as part of a madman’s plans to reveal this alien threat to the world.

The Lois and Clark relationship is starting to feel a little strained. Both are committed to their job while desperately trying to find time for each other, which of course isn’t working out as they’d hoped. It’s good to see that they have a sense of humor about it though and that their playful banter hasn’t subsided. As for Chloe and Ollie, their whatever-it-is-at-this-point, feels unnatural. Emotionally they seem like a good fit for each other. Both are self-loathing (Yes, I think Chloe hates herself for what happened with Jimmy) loners who have found companionship with each other. Yet, it just doesn’t seem to translate well on screen. Even if it is nothing more than purely sexual, they still seem a little too awkward around each other.

It was good to see that Chloe was stockpiling a large amount of kryptonite weapons “just in case” Clark can’t bring himself to do what needs to be done. At this point, there is a lot of precedence for Clark waiting around before doing what needs to be done so Chloe’s justifications are certainly valid. Even with his more assertive attitude this season, Clark still believes in Jor-El’s last wishes and that Zod needs to be saved instead of slain. Season 8 saw the death of Jimmy Olsen; who has to die this season? In that respect, Clark is a lot like Chloe was last season as well. Chloe did everything to protect Davis and ultimately it cost her dearly.

Dr. Bernard Chisholm was a decent, “home grown,” villain of the week. The gas mask was a really good touch but it didn’t seem to have a purpose other than being scary. Too bad they didn’t actually put kryptonite bolts in his head to give him a bit more of a Frankenstein’s monster look. The make-up work done on Chisholm’s head was great though. I do wish they had expanded on the dialogue dealing with his resurrection and the maddening thoughts going through his head. It would have been interesting to know more about what was driving his insanity.

- The CW

Chisholm’s accidental death was about as convenient as Lois being knocked out every other week. The next time he’s resurrected he might want to invest in a mask with more mobility so he can look up and see hanging wires overhead. As for Lois, she may want to consider getting her head examined for permanent brain damage. I’m pretty sure that by the time Lana was marrying Lex, she was suffering from some sort of delusion brought on by getting hit in the head so many times.

Clark healing Zod with one drop of his blood was a little too convenient. However there is some precedence set for this being possible, it just seems a little too convenient for Clark’s blood to have these “quick” healing properties. We’ve seen it before though; the Lazarus Serum from way back in season three was created using Clark’s blood, but it only allowed the recipient to live for twelve hours. Faux-Bruce Wayne, Adam Knight, was resurrected using this serum. We even saw it used this season to cure the zombies in “Rabid.”

Maybe Clark should have had clone Jor-El drink some of his blood to survive. Too bad there were no kryptonite nails around to cut his own hand with. Then again, I’m pretty sure he keeps some kryptonite locked in a lead case on the farm. No reason he couldn’t have super-sped to get it and a knife to cut himself with. The more you think about it, the wider the plot-hole gets. A vampiric father-son relationship; now there’s something Smallville hasn’t tackled yet. Not only did Clark’s blood heal Zod it also gave him his powers back and we can only assume that he’s hatching a plan to drain more of Kal-El’s blood to do the same for the rest of the Kandorians. This should inject some new life into a storyline that seems to be all over the place at the moment.

After improving some storylines last hour, it seemed like 24: Day 8 was fixing problems and getting better. Jack was back to kicking ass, Josef Bazhaev turned into a sneaky bad guy looking for revenge against his father, and Dana Walsh/Jenny Scott (a.k.a. “Denny”) was gearing up for some long-necessary revenge. I rather miss the optimistic me of last week, who was blissfully unaware that all of those storylines would crumble so horrifically in this week’s episode.

Everything I liked about the twist at the end of last hour — Josef had stolen the uranium rods and made his own deal on the side with Farhad to get back at his dad — was completely dashed within the first six minutes of “12:00 AM-1:00 AM.” As Samir lined up Josef in his cross-hairs, all I could think was, “Why did they even bother casting David Anders in this role?” Now we’ve moved on to a completely vague bad guy who starts the hour as Farhad’s sniper and turns into the one calling the shots and ordering people around as they move the rods and track down a runaway Farhad. I realize the 24 writers are often making up the story as they go, but this time it feels more apparent than ever that they really had no idea who the bad guys would end up being, even when they started this hour.

The story at CTU this episode was messy, over the top and even more nonsensical than usual. Only in the world of 24 would a person from the Justice Department show up after midnight in order to “interrogate” a person the government can pin the day’s disaster on. It just feels like something that would happen, I don’t know, in the morning. The statements and questions from “Kristin Smith from Justice” were just ridiculous, with most insane one being “It’s not fair or right that CTU should be taken down because you took out your personal revenge.” Wait, who said CTU is being taken down? Why would this lady from Justice use those words with Renee? Especially on a video record, that would presumably be used in court? This is all because of something that happened less than two hours ago and there hasn’t even been any actual fall-out (so to speak) yet from this enriched uranium that’s out there somewhere, yet they need someone to blame — immediately.

I never have a problem watching Jack Bauer kick some ass… but when those people are CTU employees and an attorney just asking his friend questions? It’s a little weird. Granted, it’s nothing Jack hasn’t done in the past, but for Hastings to go from ordering Jack from the building to suddenly having him work for CTU in order to retrieve Farhad, you get a little dizzy watching people’s trust of Jack ping pong from zero to full. It’s probably best not think about the fact that a man who was just tasered by CTU security personnel (his second tasering of the day, no less) is now leading a team of CTU agents in the field. It’ll just make you cry and want to change the channel.

- FOX

Last but certainly not least we have the Denny storyline. Oh, Denny. To be fair, I think the only effective way they could have fixed Denny’s story was to have her kill both Kevin and Nick and then go on the lam, never to be seen again for the rest of the series. Or even better, they could have had the three of them get in a gunfight, and all three could have died, with Cole arriving too late, finding the dead bodies and wondering what the hell happened. I would have been happy with that. Instead, they used one of the biggest clich&233;s in TV/movies: Cole showed up at exactly the right time. You just knew he was going to pull up as soon as Denny finally started walking toward Kevin’s van, and sure enough, he did. Then Cole and Denny finally had their big talk, oddly placed over the commercial break (or were we supposed to be shocked when Denny said, “My name is not Dana Walsh, it’s Jenny Scott” and the clock showed up ticking at 12:45? ‘Cause, um, we already knew that).

The best thing about this hour is that both Kevin and Nick ended up dead. The worst part is that now we’re going to have to watch the aftermath — not only are Denny and Cole going to want to cover it up in order to save each other but they’re going to have to deal with the even-more-annoying Arlo, who knows exactly where the two of them are and has been covering for them at CTU. I can’t imagine that going anywhere entertaining. If I wasn’t reviewing this show I would totally be fast-forwarding through this storyline. Instead, I’ll stick it out for you, dear reader. We can wallow in our misery together, as Arlo makes creepy sexual innuendos, Freddie Prinze Jr. tries to emote, and Katee Sackhoff bides her time until she starts starring in a new detective series (hopefully one that’s worthy of her acting skills).

Heroes ended its fourth season with dismal ratings and weak reviews, but NBC still might bring the troubled mutant soap opera back for one more year. Here are five reasons why.

The Magic 100
Giving the show one final full season – or, perhaps, two shorter seasons – would let Heroes make it past 100 episodes, the oft-cited number of episodes needed for a show to make it to syndication. Given the amount of time and money NBC has spent on the franchise to date, it’d be surprising if they weren’t willing to try and make that happen to recoup money even after its original lifespan.

What Do You Replace It With?
Thanks to the Jay Leno furore, NBC may have more hours to fill than it expected next season, and even though they’ve ordered a high number of pilots, there’s no denying that the ability to count on even a fading favorite like Heroes is probably going to be more attractive to advertisers than a schedule full of entirely unknown quantities. Heroes may survive for one final season based on NBC’s need to show some semblance of stability and continuity, as well as its desire not to piss off another vocal online fanbase for awhile.

People Still Want To Watch It, Even If They’re Not Necessarily Watching It On NBC
There’s definitely still an audience for Heroes, even if it appears to be in ratings freefall in its original home: It’s the most illegally downloaded show online, has a strong international following and, in terms of DVD sales, it outperforms other similar shows. The problem may not necessarily be the show itself, but the way that it’s presented on NBC.

Everyone Else Is Doing It
While Heroes‘ falling ratings may suggest otherwise, it’s beginning to look like superheroes may be about to become a television trend, with two superhero drama pilots being offered up for next season: ABC’s No Ordinary Family (about a family with superpowers, starring Michael Chiklis) and NBC’s own The Cape, about a former cop turned superhero. Add to this the buzz for “real life superhero” stories that could follow the release of this summer’s Kick-Ass movie, and there may be a renewed hunger for superhero stories amongst the television audience next season.

Let It Go Out With A Bang
We may not be the biggest fans of the show’s creative direction, but that could easily change – especially if the show’s creators know exactly how long they have left and can work towards a particular (preferably dramatic) conclusion. Setting end dates for the show has been discussed before, once it was seen how well doing so impacted Lost, and it’d be the right decision for Heroes. Clearly, given the end of the fourth season, the story is not over yet, but letting everyone know that it soon will be, and managing to go for broke getting there, could be the kick in the pants that Heroes needs to become necessary viewing again.

I’m not arguing that Heroes has been the greatest show recently, but it could be great once more — if treated properly (which, it has to be said, may involve more creative changes behind the scenes, even if it’s just someone to curb the show’s tendency towards melodrama and lack of subtlety). But despite the show’s more painful period lately, I’d like to see it given a last chance to redeem itself, and remind everyone why we liked it in the first place.

Here are ten shows in the pipeline that we think could bring science fiction and fantasy back to their place of preeminence on your TV set.

Steven Spielberg’s untitled alien invasion series, starring Noah Wylie. We can’t wait until this show gets a title that’s less of a mouthful. Besides Wylie, this also features Moon Bloodgood, of Journeyman and Terminator Salvation fame. TNT has already greenlit 10 episodes up front. Aliens have already wiped out most of the human race, and they’re rounding up the survivors. But Wylie, a college professor, rallies a group of survivors to fight back, including his two sons, and Karen (Jessy Schram), one of the group’s “motorcycle scouts.”

No Ordinary Family Michael Chiklis (The Shield) stars in this ABC drama about a family discovering that it has superpowers. And it sounds like Chiklis’ wife on the show (who’s not cast yet) is some kind of mad scientist. The show just cast Autumn Reeser (Entourage) as the wife’s lab assistant. David Semel, who directed the pilot for Heroes, is directing this one.

La Femme Nikita. The CW just announced that Maggie Q is in line to take on the role played by Anne Parrilaud in the original Luc Besson film, Bridget Fonda in the U.S. remake, and Peta Wilson in the 1997 cable TV series. In the new series, the CIA trains a new Nikita to replace the original, who has gone rogue. Creator Craig Silverstein says he wrote the new Nikita as “beautiful and exotic,” and he wants to use the Asian actress to bust stereotypes (despite that “exotic” thing.) The Hollywood Reporter notes that Q’s casting would be “the highest-profile series role for an Asian actress on a broadcast drama series.”

Betwixt Another CW series, this one is based on the novel by Tara Bray Smith about three Portland, OR teenagers:

During a surreal, drug-filled summer, the three must come to terms with an incredible revelation: they’re all supernatural entities known as changelings. The futures of artistic Ondine Mason, troubled Alaskan runaway Nix Saint-Michael and beautiful, ambitious Morgan D’Amici become irrevocably intertwined during a secret rave in the woods around Mt. Hood. They think they’ve come to a party, but a terrifying arcane ritual called the Ring of Fire reveals their true natures as well as their critical roles in a looming and potentially deadly other-worldy conflict.

I love the fact that they go to a rave and discover their supernatural destinies. The TV pilot, just greenlit, is being written by Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants‘ Elizabeth Chandler. So, you know, guilty pleasure.

Tower Prep and/or Unnatural History. I figure at least one of these two live-action shows on the Cartoon Network will turn out to have science fiction/fantasy elements. Tower Prep is about a rebellious teen who wakes up to find himself trapped at a mysterious boarding school that’s full of arcane secrets, and he has to figure out the school’s mysteries and escape. Paul Dini is producing, plus it sounds like a teen The Prisoner, so it should be pretty awesome. Unnatural History is about a teen, the son of anthropologists, who moves to Washington, D.C. and explores weird mysteries at the Museum of Natural History.

Riverworld. This Syfy miniseries filmed ages ago — we interviewed star Tahmoh Penikett about it last summer — but Syfy just announced an airdate for the first episode: Sunday April 18. Syfy is hoping the miniseries will spawn a new ongoing series, not unlike Penikett’s last Syfy series, Battlestar Galactica. Sure, Syfy already made a stab at doing a Riverworld adapatation a few years ago, but this time Robert Hewitt Wolfe (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Andromeda) is writing. Also co-starring in the miniseries: Laura Vandervoort (Smallville, V). If this is even remotely as great as Philip Jose Farmer’s books, then we hope it does become a series.

Undercovers. J.J. Abrams is creating another new TV series, this time about two married spies. Is it science fiction? We don’t know. Given his track record of inserting science fiction elements into most of his shows, including the spy-focused Alias and even the soap-opera Felicity, we’re betting it’ll be at least somewhat in the “spy-fi” genre. Undercovers is a comedy about a husband-and-wife spy duo, Steven (Boris Kodjoe) and Samantha (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who are recalled out of retirement by the CIA, and rekindle their relationship as they investigate different cases every week. Carter MacIntyre just joined this show’s cast, as a CIA agent with a drinking problem, who goes missing on assignment. (There are also a few other new spy/conspiracy shows coming on this fall, including NBC’s The Event, which is about the biggest government cover-up in U.S. history, involving a “secret facility in Alaska.” and Ridley Scott’s Nomads, for the CW.)

Terra Nova. Another Spielberg show, this time for Fox. It’s about a family from 100 years in the future, who travel back in time 150 million years to the time of the dinosaurs. Spielberg may actually direct some of it, and reports suggest that the special effects will be so expensive and awesome, the show may get greenlit as a series right away, to avoid the expense of filming a pilot, shutting down, and then starting up for the regular series. Dinosaurs! Dude! And as we reported the other day, Spielberg is also reviving his old TV series pitch, Nine Lives, about people who have near-death experiences to reconnect with their dead loved ones.

Being Human (U.S. remake). For those of you who’ve been living under a rock, this is a remake of the intense British drama about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost sharing a house. Syfy’s Craig Engler tweeted about this remake a lot yesterday, saying that work is progressing, and he expects to see a script “soon-ish.” Various twitter followers asked the same question we’ve all been asking — why remake the show instead of just showing the British version? Engler replied, “1. We don’t have the rights 2. The Brit version would only get a modest rating on us 3. The creator wants to do an American version.” In any case, if original creator Toby Whithouse really does stay involved, we’re all for more Being Human on our screens.

Torchwood (the U.S. remake). Another American revamp of a British show, another original creator in the mix — since Russell T. Davies moved to Los Angeles, this is reportedly going to be one of his pet projects. We’d been assuming that this is a remake, starting over from scratch, but the Guardian seems to believe that Davies might just pick up the story where it left off at the end of “Children Of Earth,” the five-hour miniseries that aired last year. With the Hub destroyed in Cardiff, there’s no reason for alien-fighting organization Torchwood to be tied to that location any more. So maybe Captain Jack (and his new boyfriend Alonso) will just come back to Earth and travel the globe fighting monsters? Will Fox actually let RTD make this show the way he wants to? We can’t wait to find out.

The Cape. Another superhero show — this NBC show involves a cop who’s accused of a crime he didn’t commit, who turns himself into a superhero to prove his innocence. Simon West, who directed the Human Target pilot, is on board to direct this one. According to the Hollywood Reporter, this show will have a “comic book sensibility.” No info yet on who’s starring.

The Walking Dead. Frank Darabont writes, directs and produces this adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s masterful zombie apocalypse comic, in which policeman Rick Grimes leads a group of survivors in search of a new home. Gale Ann Hurd (Terminator) is also producing. In the TV version, Grimes is seriously injured in a police incident in south Georgia, going into a coma. When he awakes, he finds that shit has gotten real while he was out. He goes in search of his family, only to find his neighborhood trashed. He finds two survivors, who tell him the government was setting up a “safety zone” in Atlanta. So he heads there alone, to try and find his family.

A Game Of Thrones. HBO’s adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s acclaimed novel series. HBO has already greenlit a pilot, starring Sean Bean and Jennifer Ehle, and hopes to do seven seasons — one for each novel in the series. Producer D.B. Weiss says it won’t be a huge, splashy series with thousands of orcs stampeding across the screen. Instead, it’ll stay true to the books, and most of the battles will take place offstage.

Gates. This ABC series involves a big-city cop (Frank Grillo) who becomes the chief of police in a “sleepy planned community” and discovers there is more to the residents than meets the eye. Luke Mably plays a cardiologist who’s secretly a “vampire-like creature.”

Haven. Another book adaptation, this Syfy series is based on the Stephen King novella about a spooky town in (where else?) Maine, where “cursed folk” live normal lives in exile. The curses start coming back, so FBI agent Audrey Parker is brought in to help rein them in again, while untangling the mysteries of Haven. The production team all worked on The Dead Zone, so this spooky King territory is second nature for them.

Star Wars: The Live-Action Series. Who knows when we’ll actually see this? Plus, of course, George Lucas’ previous attempts at doing live-action Star Wars TV actually made The Phantom Menace look like Citizen Kane. Still, we can’t help being excited by the idea of this show — maybe it’s the fact that it’s supposed to be more noir, focussing on the underbelly of bounty hunters and smugglers after the rise of the Empire. Any show that features a big role for Boba Fett can’t be all bad. Not to mention, we hope Lucas finds a way to include Jedi-gone-rogue Quinlan Vos. Plus there are all those whispers that Lucas was recruiting some of Britain’s best drama writers to pitch in. So let’s hope it happens.

Plus there are also those rumbles that Joss Whedon is having lunch with the folks at FX, and possibly pitching them a show. (And possibly that missing “O” in the network’s name will make a huge difference.) And Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman just signed a development deal with Fox, meaning there’ll be shows coming down the pike from them. So don’t give up yet! Television hasn’t abandoned you.