REVIEW: Jimmy Fallon's misfired 'Late Night' antics during his first week might yet get progressively better

Seven was the charm for Jimmy Fallon to find his "Late Night" hosting groove by making Emily Blunt comfortable enough to enjoy a pretzel and orienting formerly hard news monologue jokes toward booze and monkeys.

Maybe there really is Vodka in his mug? One can only hope that the young host can keep up this momentum by telling more bawdy jokes, desisting from interrupting his guests and breaking free from catering to the network's need to sell commerical products the way he did during the first six shows.

Fallon's first few monologues were rushed as he was clearly trying very hard to read the cue cards without messing up. His lackluster jokes came with obvious punch lines about the news of the day that were not in accordance with comedy's offensively risky function of chipping away at societal norms.

Airing beyond prime time is an opportunity for Fallon to really let loose a few jokes that would have a few objectionably uptight viewers writing letters to NBC's censors now that he is more comfortable in front of a studio audience and TV cameras.

A promising part of Fallon's first monologue was the sexually suggestive slow jam about the U.S. stimulus package that was hip and novel enough to make a news joke funny.

More often than not, late night talk show hosts become stuttering fools who try to comically digest news stories, the details of which they know very little, instead of just goofing on them the way Jon Stewart does in a humorously collegial manner. Just listen to Fallon mention anything about the U.S. troops in Iraq to see how these news items are too sensitive and intricate for comedians to exploit in order to get a rise out of an audience.

The new host of "Late Night" would do well to adopt something similar to Stewart's comedic formula, poke fun at more mainstream news items too absurd not to be funny such as The Octomom, or talk about tech and TV shows that his 20-something-year-old interns probably love.

Facebook's status function, "Internet Video of the Day" and allowing an audience member to sing one of Jon Bon Jovi's own songs in front of the musician made for fun segments simply because a lot of people are into social networking, surfing for random video-inspired laughs on the Web and rock music.

But why does Fallon have a laptop on his desk? It seems a bit overkill.

If anything, Fallon shines when he appropriately directs his energy toward pleasing the youth demographic by singing with Justin Timberlake and dancing with Cameron Diaz, or he does just as well making light of such pop culture phenomenon such as "Gossip Girl" and Steve Wozniak's dance moves on "Dancing with The Stars."

Pandering to or knocking pop culture should help carry the show at least until Fallon grows into his late night groove and before he and his mid-30-something-year-old celebrity friends come off as sad old people trying to be cool.

Though, having audience members lick consumer products, settle the feud between Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston by pretending to be them and a disruptive history buff in the audience geeking out about The Gadsen Purchase is too sophomoric or pointless to even inspire sympathy chuckles.

What Fallon should take more seriously than anything else is his too casual interviewing style that noticeably causes guests to wonder what to say after he spouts out continuous sentence fragments, struggling to sound somewhat coherently folksy. It is as though Fallon is hanging out with friends, but suddenly remembers he is on TV and freaks out. This is probably why he completely blew any chance of having a stimulating conversation with Robert DeNiro.

Only when Fallon is already well-acquainted with someone such as Tina Fey, Drew Barrymore and Timberlake do the interviews flow well, calling into question whether his staff even bothers conducting pre-interviews with guests with whom he has not already established a rapport.

Further detracting from the show are droll video segments involving blonde suburban moms, an outreach program for struggling corporate CEOs and a flashback competition that are only good for a few, if any, chuckles.

Any momentum Fallon does establishes is quickly diminished when he gets off on a tangent about anything mildly funny that gets a pop out of the audience, sizing up the quality of his own jokes with air bowling, or dwelling on some minor detail just to remind everyone that he is still there.

A possibly catastrophic consequence of Fallon's insistence on being a part of every laugh occurred when he debated a noticeably perturbed Amanda Peet about the proper pronunciation of her film "2010" and then did not seem to know anything about her past cinematic work.

Trivial, but sure to hurt Fallon in the long run is how closely he appears to suck on the network's metaphoric tit by orienting segments around marketing an 108-inch Sharp flat screen and carpet samples, not to mention making sure not to sing verbatim the copyrighted "Happy Birthday" song.

He should just run with whatever is hilarious and apologize thereafter for hurting anyone's feelings, obligating the network to create fake Web sites used in gags, or angering censors the way Conan O'Brien did.

It is not as though Fallon has not already used the self-deprecating humor the former host of "Late Night" often adopted to downplay bad monologue jokes.

If Fallon learns from his first-week blunders, still unconvinced critics might yet sing his praises seven more shows from now when he possibly becomes a Conan epigone, bearable enough for which to stay up late, or becomes his own man.

God speed Jimmy Fallon!

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REVIEW: 'Watchmen' fails to justify why anyone should care enough to swoon over its amazing visual style

The following is a review of "Watchmen" the film, not an examination of the plot's congruity with its graphic novel source material by writer Alan Moore.

"Watchmen" is a visually stunning film that might easily leave fanboys drooling about the attractiveness of the needless violence and sex it features.

But they might not notice that these Watchmen are nothing more than flamboyantly dressed action stars who fail to justify why they should be riveting enough to watch.

"Watchmen" explores the promising premise of what would happen if superheroes not only lived among humans, but used their extraordinary abilities to win U.S.-waged foreign conflicts such as The Vietnam War and maintain civil order at home caused by people who protest against their interference. A team of retired costumed heroes known as The Watchmen deal with the consequences of such actions in this film.

When a former colleague known as The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is assassinated in 1985, a very paranoid inkblot-masked man named Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) informs fellow Watchmen that the perpetrator might very well do the same to all of the team. As Rorschach investigates, he and three other Watchmen caught in a love triangle continuously recall their past actions that have brought the world close to the brink of a nuclear exchange between The U.S. and The Soviet Union.

Anyone unfamiliar with "Watchmen" will as a result quickly catch on to what is going on in this visual treat that allows its super main characters little time in which to demonstrate the tragedy of how they allowed the opportunity to make the world safer overshadow ethical values that are alluded to, but never throughly explored. 

To be fair, The Watchmen spend a lot of time belaboring, but failing to illustrate that they are characters morally ambiguous enough to care about.

Meaningful character exploration is replaced by needless dry exposition that revels in Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup) showing off his blue penis and causing people to implode, The Comedian amassing a large body count that includes a pregnant Vietnamese woman and Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman) engaging in soft core sex with Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson).

Instead of focusing on scenes that feature attractive exposition, gratuitous violence and sex for two hours and 42 minutes, "Watchmen" would have benefitted substantially if more time were devoted to explaining who The Comedian was before no one cares that he eventually tears up about his past sadistic actions, showing Dr. Manhattan as someone more than just a guy who throws a fit when his girlfriend ends their relationship, Silk Spectre as a character that does not only need to shack up with anyone who will take her in and at least somewhat explored Ozymandias in order for his one-dimensionally ridiculous plan to be of any interest.

Perhaps this would have helped to make Dr. Manhattan as a metaphor for God's harmful effect on mankind not seem so unexpected and hackneyed.

Most of the acting cast as a consequence does not have much to do other than look menacing or fashionable in their superhero attire. Haley is the only actor whose character Rorschach is allowed an opportunity to show how he became such a grumpily violent stalwart for justice, but this as well is reduced to one short, bloody flashback about his run-in with two bullies as a child.

The Comedian's assertion that "Life is a joke" is proven true in "Watchmen" because the film is about super powerful beings whose lack of character depth begs the question as to why they exist at all other than to exploit the success of Alan Moore's graphic novel. Fanboys who were too thrilled by Dr. Manhattan leaving blood and guts in his wake and Akerman showing flashes of her character's naked body against a moonlit background might disagree.

Popcorn rating:

(3 1/2 out of 5 pieces)

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REVIEW: 'Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li' trains, then knocks out its own potentially viable premise

Many people did not expect anything great to come from "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li," which was seen as another frivolous video game adaptation with no reason to exist other than to appease gamers.

And the film appears to deliberately try to fail to meet even this meager expectation.

"Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li" would otherwise be a decent action flick if the initially promising story had not eventually become very frivolous, if one of the main supporting actors had taken his character seriously and if references to the video games had been limited to keeping the names of primary characters involved.

Chun-Li (Kristin Kreuk), whose wealthy and seemingly altruistic father is kidnapped when she is a child, as an adult comes under the tutelage of a martial arts mystical master named Gen (Robin Shou), who like her father was once an agent of the shadowy Bangkok-based Shadoloo corporation later headed by the evil M. Bison (Neal McDonough). Gen trains his student to look beyond her own pain in order to oppose Bison, who plans to bulldoze the city's slums once he muscles his way toward ownership, and helps its people save their homes. 

A not-too-bad premise drive this story in which Chun-Li voluntarily leaves behind her wealthy estate in Hong Kong to live in Bankok's slums in order to understand the plight of its poor population, who are either hardworking or thieves, much as a young Bruce Wayne does in 2005's "Batman Begins. 

But this attempt to make Chun-Li earn her "street cred" falls short in that there is no real reason why she would do so other than to meet Gen on a whim to find out the origin of a suspicious scroll.

Perhaps Chun Li's commitment to the Bangkok destitute would have been more convincing if she had made a more intimate connection with one of them instead of simply establishing a reputation for wiping the floor with a few criminals who terrorize the area. Instead, moviegoers are expected to accept that some mystical collection binds Chun-Li to her newfound destitute friends.

Another friend who Chun-Li fails to get to know, but somehow is on the same page with is Chris Kline's Charlie Nash, a Bangkok police detective with past experience in dealing with Shadaloo. 

Kline seems to try hard to not sell the frivolous dialogue meant to portray Nash as a slick cop with a penchant for living on the edge and flirting with his new partner for no other reason than to sell himself as a bad boy.  

But the 96-minute-long film does not need to establish a meaningful connection between its title character and the people who populate her surroundings because her mission again eventually becomes a self-interested bid for revenge once Bison, whose portrayal by McDonough is as seductively charming as it could be considering the abstractness of his character, does away with one of her loved ones. 

Kreuk is as a consequence relegated to spouting out lines meant to make her seem cool before or after helicopter-kicking an opponent into submission.

Somewhere in-between her fighting is a mystical subplot explaining why Bison is so heartless that is a strange attempt to tie the villain's relationship with his daughter to that which Chun-Li shares with her own. Conjuring fireballs to enhance already gravity-defying martial arts moves is also something that could have been left out.

"Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li" sets up its own promising premise simply to disappointedly knock it down in a film that is specifically targeted for nostalgic fans of the video game franchise who are sure to dish out $10 to watch it. More disappointing than anything else is that the film could have delivered much more.

Popcorn rating:

(2 out of 5 pieces)

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REVIEW: 'Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep' and miss Sarah Connor uniquely endure what is required of her mission

"Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep" is a cleverly deceptive episode of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" that forces Sarah Connor (Lena Headey) to tragically face something viewers thought she already did.

Most compelling about the episode are Sarah's nightmares, which feature her talking to the security guard she shot toward the end of "Earthlings Welcome Here." This is because of how its practicality calls into question whether the conversation between Sarah and someone who has since been presumed dead is occurring.

Further adding to this deliberately unclear storytelling formula is the guard's judgmental tone toward Sarah as though her own guilty conscious is manifesting nightmares and a later scene in which fatal gunfire appears to make Judgment Day all but inevitable

Driving home this point for less observant viewers is passing dialogue that suggests nightmares develop when the person having them is avoiding facing something. In other words, do not expect to be able to distinguish reality from nightmarish fantasy from the get-go.

What makes this episode more than just filler is how it forces Sarah to deal with the consequences of her actions even more than she sparingly did in "Desert Cantos." Through the story, viewers learn indirectly that even though Sarah is single-minded in her mission to protect John (Thomas Dekker) and stop Judgement Day, she had not before killed anyone. One would have expected someone so seemingly emotionally absent to have killed many people by now, but this is not the case.

And again, the series exploits Sarah's seeming guilt-ridden conversation with someone she wronged to show how the character looks forward to dying presumably because it is easier than keeping up the fight against SkyNet.

When woven together, the aforementioned story elements serve to reveal in the end that Sarah is forced to live by different ethical standards than most normal people that guide certain actions sure to slowly kill her on the inside over time. Especially hurtful to Sarah is that she inadvertently involves John, the only reason she chooses to keep living, in her misdeeds.

Not working is how Sarah checks herself into a sleep clinic that just happens to be responsible for the red mark she beforehand found on her body. No explanation as to how the clinic's workers managed to sneak into Sarah's house to make the red mark or why it is significant makes this an even more frustrating aspect of the episode that could perhaps be elaborated on later.

A nice, minor touch is how Jesse's previously mentioned mission to keep John away from "her" is complicated when noticeable female tension develops between Sarah, who cannot play overprotective mommy while she is out of commission, and Cameron (Summer Glau), who has seemingly stepped up to be the woman of the house.

Machines apparently have no sense of shame when it comes to how they dress and can cook a decent plate of pancakes.

Though vague and not as exciting as more action-packed episodes, "Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep" is a unique and necessary setup for what is sure to make Sarah an even more interestingly complex character to explore in the future.

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Popcorn rating:

(4 out of 5 pieces)

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REVIEW: 'Slumdog Millionaire' nothing more than needlessly violent, riveting fluff in a unique setting

Anyone who did not know halfway through "Slumdog Millionaire" that the third musketeer's name would be the final inquiry posed to the title character on "Who Want's to be Millionaire?" might love the film.

But everyone else who noted how shallowly formulaic it is might know that "Slumdog Millionarie" itself is a third fellow cinematic musketeer right after "Forrest Gump" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" except that it takes place in Indian slums and utilizes a game show as a storytelling vehicle. This is what makes it a novelly entertaining, but not great film that somehow ended up winning The Academy Award for Best Picture during a year of far superior hits.

As in "Forrest Gump" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," the title character Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) automatically falls in love with the heroine Latika (Freida Pinto), and moviegoers are expected to want them to be together when adversity, which limits their ability to get to know one another, keeps them apart. Destiny in this instance is meant to serve as an abstract explanation as to why Jamal and Latika are in love.

Perhaps more lines of dialogue would have gone a long way to have given Malik and Pinto something more substantial with which to sell their characters' fated romantic relationship. Not to mention Pinto's Latika being allowed to have the story portray her as shacking up with anyone who has enough money to support her instead of a character with great personal qualities who is worth pursuing.

Another aspect of the story that fails to win over more critical moviegoers is that, as in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," Jamal experiences great adversity, but does not exhibit that he learned anything noble enough for him to be worthy of his protagonist status except a few trivia facts that he utilizes to gain the attention of a girl he barely knows on Indian TV. 

Although it is established that Jamal is honest and willing to do anything for love, these are characteristics that he exhibits toward the beginning of the film before fully experiencing the tragic life of a slumdog. This bares the question as to why the presumably heart-of-gold character is worth of exploring at all.

There is nothing wrong with rooting for the underdog, but what is lost in these kind of stories is that moviegoers are expected to become enamored with title characters simply because they suffer a lot, not because they do something honorable. At least "Slum Millionaire" somehow tries to make Jamal seem like a good person when compared to his more licentious brother, Salim (Madhur Mittal), but this pales in comparison to Forrest Gump running back into a bombing zone to save his friend Bubba Gump.

Salim himself is a more developed character in that there is a clear reason why he starts wielding a gun to solve most of his problems, but inexplicably does something that will help his brother achieve happiness in an artistically absurd manner toward the film's end. Further detracting from the character is that he is at one point portrayed as a child wielding a gun in order to commit murder, which was a major nitpick about 1990's "Robocop 2" that Hollywood seems to have allowed to slide with this film.

Violence is also utilized against children for no other end than to have moviegoers access their Mean World Syndrome long enough to care what happens to young Jamal, Salim and Latika.

Most distasteful of all is the perpetuation of the stereotype that Indians work as technicians for customer service phone lines.

Somewhere in all the 120-minute-long fantastical love and unnecessary violence, the film cleverly leads one to suspect that Jamal cheats when Prem Kumar (Anil Kappor) provides him with one answer to a difficult question, but then abruptly has the game show host become a bitter almost mafia-like figure when off camera.

"Slumdog Millionaire," though a uniquely interesting take on the fictional bipoic genre, is one of those meaningless films that people for whatever reason need to love at any given time simply because it serves as a contemporary fairy tale about the downtrodden hero overcoming many obstacles in order to get the girl.

Why the hero loves the heroine and what he learns on the journey to save her is the only thing that apparently is not written.

Popcorn rating:

(31/2 out of 5 pieces)

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REVIEW: Humans and The Final Five Cylons reach a painstakingly faint mutual accord in 'Deadlock'

Meant to convey a deliberately vague sense of camaraderie, "Deadlock," the 16th, season four episode of "Battlestar Galactica," tells a poignant story about how war complicates the identities of both sides that it engages.

Kate Vernon's Ellen Tigh's character is able to point out something that toaster-hating fans of the series might not immediately realize, that is, that The Cylons have been withered down to a few survivors since the destruction of the resurrection ship as opposed to thousands of human survivors. That one remark really drives home the point that The Cylons have also suffered as a result of this war, albeit in a different manner.

Less often suffering is Gaius Baltar (James Callis), who appears to be turning a new leaf, but does not to the writers' credit make a dramatic leap from a weasel to a saint. He returns to his flock of female followers, allowing them to believe that the one true god for which the former fleet president claims to speak abandoned them and that his own absence was meant to test their ability to survive. But not all Baltar's myrmidons instantly swoon past his faulty explanation.

Even how and why Baltar chooses to cement his position as their leader by providing the civilian members of the fleet with food is dubious because it is uncertain if his actions are motivated by a need to show up Paula Schaffer (Lara Gilchrist) or to impress an attractive woman. 

Making the character even more ingeniously complex is that he nonetheless seems to enjoy helping others before gaining more influence by the episode's end.

Ellen herself is shown to be more than just a vindictive temptress in backing off once she has done something horrible.

Questionable about the episode is how quick the suddenly loyal again Galen Tyrol (Aaron Douglas) and Tory Foster (Rekha Sharma) are to jump on the band wagon of abandoning the fleet so as to preserve the 13th tribe in its purest form given that they were once mesmerized to even learn that they were Cylons. Maybe this is meant to show their innate duplicity or tendency to view living among their enemies as unacceptable?

What finally comes into perspective in "Deadlock" is the reality that comes with any kind of warfare in the long run. Soldiers crossing borders mate with enemy women, learn one another's cultures and incidentally become one whole microcosm, subtly shown in Saul Tigh (Michael Hogan) and Tricia Helfer's Caprica's Six's baby, the presence of many of her doubles throughout the Galactica battleship and the Cylon goop holding it all together.

Perhaps this is why it is necessary for there to have been in a death in the episode so that both sides could share a common pain, and the last scene really provides this notion with a sense of heart.

"Deadlock" is a surprisingly well-structured transitional episode that is sure to make whatever it is setting up all the more meaningful.

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Popcorn rating:

(4 out of 5 pieces)

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REVIEW: Exploiting Trudy's death so that Monk can needlessly abuse a pregnant woman in season eight's finale

There are not a lot of great things about "Mr. Monk Fights City Hall" because its feature homicide case is uninspired, impractical, ghoulishly handled and reveals nothing worthy of a series' penultimate season finale.

If anything, the 16th, season eight episode is misleading in that one official overview and promo indicated that something new was sure to develop about Trudy's murder when Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub) investigates the disappearance of a city council member (Tamlyn Tomita) key to preserving the site where his wife died. But nothing new comes about from the homicide case once it is solved. It is at best just another run-of-the-mill murder.

Not only does the homicide case in question offer no new clues, but by the 41-minute-long episode's end Monk still does not agree with the prospect of the demolition of the parking garage where Trudy was killed, making it a pointless story to tell given the unfounded behavior he exhibits. He stops the development of a children's playground, only takes on a missing person's case out of self-interest and mistreats an admittedly annoying, but pregnant secretary (Kali Rocha). 

Usually Monk's misbehavior is funny when adversity forces him to grow as a human being by doing something inconvenient other than preserving a decrepit crime scene he himself admits has no further investigate value and that his phobia of germs would otherwise cause him to dislike. 

With that having been established, why does the defective detective spend all his time at Trudy's murder site and not at her grave?

A possible answer is that it is key to a premise that allows Captain Leland Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine) to make inappropriate remarks about two dead German tourists who die on a site that conveniently becomes important later on, Lt. Randy Disher (Jason Gray-Stanford) accept a hot dog bribe and Harold Krenshaw (Tim Bagley) to extoll the strangest theory as to who might be behind his former colleague's ill fate. 

Funny about the premise is that it has Monk interact with Harold at city hall over the former's new therapist, but only so long so as to provide time for several misfired jokes. Monk flirting, dirty hot dogs, Traylor Howard's Natalie Teeger's aversion to certain sex toys and the obnoxious secretary, who lands the job because of the most absurd circumstances, only make for a few light-hearted chuckles.

One has to wonder why the series' writers came up with this episode other than that they are saving the best for the last season, having nothing creative left to bring to the table, or simply decided to entirely phone it in for a change.

"Mr. Monk Fights City Hall" is the definition a filler episode if ever there was one that is not necessary to watch if it can be helped. Just know that the season eight finale features a small trinket of "Monk" trivia and move on.

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Popcorn rating:

(2 out of 5 pieces)

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REVIEW: Mournful events of 'Desert Cantos' emphatically weigh in on Sarah Connor's conscience

"Desert Cantos" is a cleverly formulaic way to have the title character of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" smell the roses of tragedy that might transform her from a victim to the cause of suffering.

Also notable about the 15th, season two episode of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" is that it provides promising opportunities for the development of its lesser utilized main characters. 

Instead of moving on with some other episode, "Desert Cantos" features Sarah Connor (Lena Headey) confronting her actions from tracking down the source of the three dots in her dreams. With John Connor (Thomas Dekker), Derek Reese (Brian Austin Green) and Cameron Phillips (Summer Glau), she visits the town of Charm Acres to track down anyone who knows anything about what was being built at the blown-up factory.

While there, Sarah meets the wife of the security officer who she killed when he attacked her at the end of "Earthlings Welcome Here." Perhaps what works most about this episode's premise is that the title character is not allowed to live by some convenient code of TV morality and allow viewers to assume her homicide was justified. Forcing Sarah to confront her past demons in this instance also provides a setting of grieving suitable for the victims' families to extol a lot of exposition.

A member of one of these families, Zoe McCarthy (Alanna Masterson), noticeably does not grieve so much as she does not seems to care that her father was apparently killed in the explosion. 

Serving the episode well, Zoe provides a sense of uncertainty as to whether she is handling her distress in some frivolously adolescent manner or has reason not to fly off the deep end of depression. As difficult as it to find the character compelling, her annoyingly erratic presence does serve a purpose.

Zoe, and Diana Winston (Cyd Strittmatter), the dead security guard's wife, represent a possible foreshadowing of how anybody seemingly normal can suddenly become a rogue. Who in the main cast this is meant to allude to might be Sarah, who remarks, "Decent people get caught up in things."

Off, but also relevant to the episode is a line suddenly said by Cameron out of nowhere about Native Americans' belief that photos steal people's souls. Her comment alludes to something that has been implied in past episodes about Sarah having died as a person when her picture was taken at the end of 1984's "The Terminator." She thereafter became a soldier solely dedicated to protecting her son John Connor from termination.

One parallel to this aspect of Sarah Connor is the mentioning of the death of Lachlan Weaver, who was a great guy, a genius and funny man along with his wife while alive. 

Attributing this pathetic fallacy to Catherine Weaver (Shirley Manson) is a subtle allusion to how Sarah is becoming very much like the machines against which she is fighting.

Another parallel is Sarah and Derek commenting to each other that they should let go of the memory of the late Kyle Reese, hinted as being an important element in the story when Cameron asks Derek whether he would always look at a picture of his brother if he had one.

Cameron's comment about Zoe's feelings about her father, and toward Henry, in this regard cleverly utilizes the character for a change as a dispassionate observer among people who have lost sight of their own priorities in tragedy's wake.

Strange about Sarah and Derek's interaction is this uneasy tension between the two that hopefully is only there because the two characters have become paranoid of trusting anyone. Having them hook up would be very difficult to justify in terms of being suitable for the overall story being told. While they are both battle-hardened, having Sarah and Derek struggle with their ability to dismiss Kyle as a war casualty makes them more than just action stars.

Not too serious of an episode, Derek of all characters in the supporting cast is allowed to do more than just act intense. He is allowed to crack a few subtle jokes at the expense of Cameron and the absurdity of spending time at a funeral chasing what is hitherto considered to be nothing more than Sarah's bad dream.

Though frustrating, only a bit more is known about the three-dot spacecraft by the end of the episode because presumably the series is building toward something worth the wait. Hopefully, patience may pay off in a shocking revelation that any other TV series would diminish in importance via needlessly expositional dialogue.

Only four, season two episodes remain to see if the deeply methodical "Desert Cantos" lays down further the foundations of worthwhile character and overall story development.

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Popcorn rating:

(4 1/2 out of 5 pieces)

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