FRED MANTEGHIAN BLOG

When you’re young, life is exciting and you're full of verve, or diet-verve at least. Then you get older and start noticing how crappy things really are. And so goes the TV season. Way back in early November, I penned a blog called Sly-Fi about three new shows, all of them available in high definition, that fell, albeit broadly, into the realm of science fiction. The fact that I originally trashed the shows is no reason to assume I'd stop watching them. Here's the late season prognosis.

In the case of Threshold, late season means funeral parlor late, as CBS cancelled the show in early December. Good for you CBS. You know poo when you smell it. Maybe CBS should have tried to tie the show into its biggest franchise and called it C.S.I. Area 51 but even that wouldn't have helped. Something about human heads splitting into distorted alien forms that speaks to the bad Eighties horror movie scene, a time when the network executives responsible for this mess were likely still in nappies and at their most impressionable. TV Shows on DVD's web site says the show is ranked 669th most desirable of shows as yet unreleased on DVD. This means you're very likely safe from ever accidentally buying it at a store.

Invasion continues to crawl towards inanity on ABC. Were it not for the always enjoyable Kari Matchett (Beth the Lesbian from Wonderfalls), the show would truly be mediocre. We're not really sure who the aliens are and, frankly, we're beginning to lose interest. Chance of a 2nd season looks very poor at this point.

The season finale of Surface was last night and all I can say is, wow, NBC sure knows how stretch the almighty dollar. Look, I know they've had to tighten their belts this year so they could bring us "Yesterday's Olympic Events, Tomorrow," but you need more than two wooden nickels a'rubbin' to put together special effects for a science fiction show. For the climactic Tsunami flood, the main characters hide in a church tower. "Morty, get the spray bottle up here and wet 'em down. We've got another take."

Science fiction is supposed to be thought provoking. These shows, and say 50,000 volts, couldn't muster a brainwave.