This halfling we had in one of my RP groups was a complete and utter jackass (the guy who played him played his own jackassery up, rather than down as usual), but his loss meant losing the cook. You have any idea how horrible it is to find yourself in level -15 of a Moria-like place with nobody who can cook? From that point on, our biggest motivation to go through the orcs, goblins and assorted strange lifeforms like hot knives through butter was not racial hate, no, nor was it greed - it was the thought of a huge. Pile. Of golden. Pancakes.
Watched a couple more episodes. It’s okay. Gary is growing on me. Liked the episode with the girl. Still annoyed by Bill, but he’s tamed a couple of the most annoying characteristics. Apparently he’s got issues with protocol and, like said, being the real FBI agent.
Still not sure I’m happy with the setup that the government may not be all happy joy-joy. I don’t know, I’ll watch it for now.
But I’m not a fan of shared universes. Especially ones that don’t make sense. It generally seems too forced. “HEY LOOK, we’ve got another show over here, come watch it, too!” Maybe at one time they were novel and I thought they were cute, but now I find most crossovers to be tiresome. This one was subtle, they didn’t name drop “the Warehouse” or Eureka - yet. If you didn’t know Lindsay Wagner was on Warehouse 13, you probably would have missed the crossover. So I’m not that upset yet - it’s essentially ignorable right now.
It’s one thing if the crossover universes are similar enough that it makes sense. I don’t watch Eureka, so I’m not positive, but I can sorta see how that and Warehouse 13 can tie together without too much pain. But Alphas in the same universe as Warehouse objects just doesn’t make sense. The two are totally different things, forcing them into the same universe seems like trying too hard and making neither work well. Plus, the tones of the two shows are different enough that it clashes.
Watched the first few episodes. They were OK, not great. To me this show does not have the feel of a hit, i.e., there’s a good chance it’ll get canceled like so many other Syfy shows. For that reason, I’ve stopped watching. Just don’t want to invest time into a show that’ll get hacked after I get into it. If it’s renewed I may go back and watch this season’s episodes.
Having just caught several episodes on On Demand, I’m sorta agreeing. Maybe it is mostly David Strathairn ( who I keep flashing back to as the Hatfield sheriff in Matewan ) and a little bit Azita Ghanizada, but this one feels like a definite upgrade over Warehouse 13.
Ok, they really need to stop the whole “Bill asks questions for five minutes, gets nowhere, then Nina steps in and does her persuasion thing.” It’s her power, let her use it. When the bad guy starts to run away, they don’t go “Quick Gary, run after him first!”
It’s weird. Normally a character like Gary would annoy the hell out of me, but he’s not bugging me at all. I don’t know if I have the writers, actor, or both to thank for that. He’s certainly nothing like his character on Bones, so I assume he’s got at lease some talent there.
And yeah, this show being in the same universe as Eureka and Warehouse 13 is very bizarre. It’s like finding out that Dexter takes place in a shared universe with Chuck.
My biggest issue with them being in the same universe is that it means that Mark Sheppard can’t guest star. Unless he plays Volda’s twin brother or something.
I’m watching it on Hulu. They had the pilot, then nothing, then yesterday the Summer Glau episode. That’s it. Not sure what the thinking is there. Put me down in the pro-Gary column.
Well, Saul Rubinek played Carl Carlson (oddly no Lenny Leonard in sight…) in an early Eureka episode, so I wouldn’t rule someone out for a different role on Alphas just because of the shared universe.
While true, that was before there was a Warehouse 13 and obviously before the universes became shared. I could be wrong, but I doubt when they started W13 that the writers thought they were going to occupy the same universe as Eureka. Now that have established that they operate in the same universe, sharing actors becomes problematic.
But we’re talking about three television shows where any one of them could provide a completely plausible in-universe explanation for having him wandering around. Or the show could just declare that Sheppard is simply too awesome to let the issue get in the way. Law & Order would recycle actors whenever it felt like it, and it didn’t even have a whiff of sci-fi to fall back on.
Yep, me too. After the pilot I would have happily wished him into the cornfield but he’s got a lot more watchable - his interactions with the team vs. his interations with his mother are interesting too. And as growth in an episode goes a glass of water was nicely subtle.
I’ve been assuming that he has major anger management issues and that these are tied directly to his power.
Pro Gary camp. I was upset when SciFy ruined my Friday nights but now I found the Monday night grove and all is good. Until next season when Eureka is gone.
This week’s (season-ender?) episode was pretty dark, but very good. I loved Dr. Rosen’s act of rebellion.
I’ll spoiler these comments just in case. They only refer to the events of the 9/26/2011 episode:
[spoiler]I was sorry that they killed Anna. She was an interesting character and I liked her interaction, such as it was, with Gary. It was so sad and disturbing to see Gary find her and then go berserk on that SWAT guy.
The fight scenes in the warehouse were well done. Especially Hicks fighting that woman who appeared to have the same kind of ability as he has. Only “better.”
The penultimate scene (Dr. Rosen broadcasting his speech to Congress) was well done and opens up many possibilities for next season.
The final scene–revealing that Rosen’s daughter is in cahoots with Stanton Parrish–caught me by surprise, but since she is a new character anyway it wasn’t a huge OMG moment. BTW, I recognized the actress who is playing Rosen’s daughter as having also played the quadraplegic physicist from Earth who visits Destiny via the stones in Stargate: Universe.[/spoiler]
I thought it was kinda lame that the Red Flag guys basically just mirrored the abilities of the team, strong guy and uber reflexes girl, although they did have a guy that apparently had some kind of burning power. They could have done a lot better with that though.
