Week in Review, Feb 1 to 7

The Week in Video Games

I finished Mass Effect 2 this week after 42 hours of gameplay. That includes the completion of all optional quests (or at least all that I found). Like the original Mass Effect, the ending sequence was impressively cinematic and left me begging for more. In terms of pure storytelling, I prefer Mass Effect's surprise-packed conclusion, but Mass Effect 2 definitely nailed the drama and intensity of a foolhardy suicide mission. Since you spend most of Mass Effect 2's playtime bonding with your crew and earning their loyalty, I appreciated how you were able to make use of all of them in the final mission, much like Dragon Age's conclusion. That's an element that Mass Effect never had. Also improved from Mass Effect: being able to get almost all of the achievements in one playthrough, instead of requiring FOUR. And, despite the simplification of the RPG elements and the loss of the planet exploration, it is also hard to argue that Mass Effect 2 doesn't kick the shit out of the gameplay of the original.

There are a lot of things that are impressive about Mass Effect 2, but the aspect that I think is most interesting and most promising for Mass Effect 3 is how many of the choices made in Mass Effect affected events in Mass Effect 2. This concept is so brilliant that it makes me want to go back and play through Mass Effect again to make different choices and see how that carries into Mass Effect 2. None of these changes were hugely significant in the big scheme of things, but they affected the details. I can't even imagine playing Mass Effect 2 without having played Mass Effect; the callbacks are some of the best and most satisfying moments. And, looking forward to Mass Effect 3, there is a choice made at the end of Mass Effect 2 that should have major consequences on the coming war, so I can't wait to see how that plays out.

Already this year I have taken two days off from work for the sole purpose of playing video games, one day for Dragon Age (and then a genuine sick day a week later to finish it off) and one day to finish off Mass Effect 2. This is only noteworthy because I can't remember the last time before 2010 that I took a day off to specifically play video games. In fact, I barely played video games at all in the year 2009, excepting music games, work coffee-breaks (fuck yeah!), and the post-Christmas period. All it takes to flip my switch from casual gamer to hardcore gamer is Bioware releasing two masterpieces in three months. It'll be interesting to see where my renewed video game interest takes me for the rest of this year without new Bioware games to suck me in. Well, for starters, I definitely have to revisit Mass Effect 1...

The Week in Television

Monday, February 1st
Liked: The Big Bang Theory (3x14), Chuck (3x6)
Meh: Heroes (4x18), How I Met Your Mother (5x14)

"Chuck Versus Nacho Sampler" was a bit disappointing in execution considering the excellent premise of Chuck having to be Sarah to his own Chuck. It's hard to explain what was wrong with it, but I think I just didn't buy into the character of Manoosh at all. I did, however, really enjoy Morgan's storyline this week, especially his shift from Hannah stalker to Chuck stalker due to some suspicious activities.

Last week's Heroes was pretty good and the series seemed to have good momentum heading into the final two episodes of the season. Ha!--I should have known better. "The Wall" squandered all of that potential by focusing on some filler nonsense involving Peter and Sylar and a mental brick wall. And despite the fact that Noah is my favourite character on the show, his retcon flashbacks in this episode were bizarrely irrelevant.

The Big Bang Theory's "The Einstein Approximation" was another over-the-top Sheldon episode, but this one worked better for me than the last because this time his obsession was a difficult physics problem. Also, Penny's reactions to Sheldon's antics were much funnier, and there was a hilarious scene with Bernadette playing stern mother.

How I Met Your Mother's "The Perfect Week" was an okay episode. It was well structured and the baseball metaphor wasn't lost on me, but it also wasn't particularly funny. The jokes were very hit and miss this week.

Tuesday, February 2nd
Loved: Lost (6x1/6x2)

The premiere of Lost's final season was undoubtedly the TV highlight of the week, both in terms of anticipation and delivery. It's hard to talk about "LA X" without some minor spoilers, so spoiler alert! If you don't want spoilers, skip the next two paragraphs entirely. And, what are you waiting for? Watch the damn episode already! It's fucking great!

When the screen flashed white at the end of the fifth season, the big question for fans of Lost was whether the writers of the show would have the guts to push the big flashing reset button for the entire series going into the final season. And the answer is a surprisingly genius "Yes and no." Bravo, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof! Bravo! When the flashback structure of the first three seasons became dull, season four's flashforward structure rejuvenated the series. Season five cleverly relied on time travel for most of its flashes. And now season six is flashing to an alternate timeline. In retrospect, that is an obvious solution to the season five finale, but I didn't see it coming.

So, anyway, the structure and flash-parallels of this premiere episode were the highlight, but those weren't the only good things about it. We met another group of Others that seem to know more about what's going on with the island than Ben's group did. We got a little bit more information about Jacob and Richard and Not!Locke. And in the episode's biggest "answer," we got definitive proof of the smoke monster's identity. Awesome!

Wednesday, February 3rd
Liked: Modern Family (1x14)

Modern Family's "Moon Landing" had some of the spark of my favourite episode, "Fizbo," in the way that a number of disparate elements built to a hilarious pay-off in Claire and Phil's storyline. The other two storylines in this episode featured new character pairings, which was a nice change, with Jay and Cameron's storyline hitting its mark but Mitchell and Gloria's storyline feeling like filler.

Thursday, February 4th
Loved: Fringe (2x15)
Liked: 30 Rock (4x12), Parks and Recreation (2x15), The Office (6x15)

I enjoyed most of The Office's inconsistent "Sabre," especially Andy and Erin's song tribute to their new employer, unsafe "Scissor me!" scissor-tossing, and Michael's visit to the newly unemployed David Wallace's house. Less good: Jim and Pam unsuccessfully trying to get their kid into the best daycare in town.

Parks and Recreation had another solid week with "Sweetums." I laughed loudly at the brief visit to the library (nice callback!) and how Tom dealt with moving his stuff. Also very good: the progress on April and Andy. Less good: the main plot dealing with the evil candy company was only intermittently funny, and the silly town meeting didn't help.

30 Rock's "Verna" was my least favourite of the Thursday comedies this week, focusing as it did on Jenna and her annoying mother, but there were still plenty of good laughs to be had, mostly from Liz and Frank and their brief time as roommates.

I complained last week that Fringe needed to get back to the alternate universe storyline already, and this week they delivered--just in time for another long hiatus. (Fuck you, Fox.) "Jacksonville" was an excellent and important episode, establishing new rules for interaction with the alternate universe and reestablishing Olivia's special powers. I saw the ending coming from the first moment Walter mentioned the glimmer, but that didn't make it any less awesome.

Friday, February 5th
Liked: Caprica (1x3), Spartacus (1x3)

"Legends" was the first episode of Spartacus to actually make smart use of the over-the-top 300-style fight sequences by employing them primarily for the myth-based stories of various gladiators. The rest of the episode was quite similar to last week's in content and execution. The machinations and struggles of Batiatus and Lucretia are still the highlight of the series, although I am also enjoying the rivalry between Spartacus and Crixus.

With Mass Effect 2 out of the way, I had some spare time this weekend to catch up on Caprica. I wasn't a huge fan of the movie-length pilot, but it had enough interesting content and ideas--and, hey, it's the Battlestar Galactica universe!--to convince me to try the second episode. And "Rebirth" was quite good. At first, the dramatic conceit of Cylon Zoe appearing to the audience frequently as human Zoe was weird and distracting, but by the end of the episode, I was enjoying the creepy visuals this conceit brilliantly leads to. The second episode also introduced two enjoyable new characters, gave us our first look at the cool as shit opening titles, and ended with the shit hitting the fan--already! This week's third Caprica episode, "Reins of a Waterfall," continued that shit hitting the fan motif. Plus, more new characters and an entertaining look at Caprica's media circus.