TVSquad

(S01E05) We get a new guest star this week when Greta's dad (Kyle Secor) pops into town, not only does he know something about Greta's mysterious past (does anyone in town not know about this by now?), but he's a bit of a bastard as well. Suffice it to say, if you find yourself guest-starring on Hidden Palms, your character is probably going to have problems. You'll either be a substance abuser, have something to do with Eddie's murder / suicide, or you'll be part of Johnny's past ... or some combination of the three.

(S01E04) Holy cow ... this episode took a turn for the weird. I really didn't picture Liza as the weirdly stalkery kind of person. That Photoshopped picture of her and Eddie together sure was a slap in the face. Plus, what exactly is she concocting in that garage of hers? I'm a sucker for science geek girls, but I'd also hope they weren't going to end up blowing themselves up at some point, or spend too much time with toxic fumes. I thought we'd find out what Liza beneath, but what she reveals is just about the most predictable thing you could imagine. What happened to all the mystery and intrigue from the pilot?

NBC had a special event on the set of Heroes today to announce that they're going global ... literally. The cast and creators will be traveling to at least seven major cities to promote the first season of the show in places it hasn't premiered yet. Although according to Tim Kring it's been watched (sometimes illegally, *gasp*) worldwide over the internet. Cities confirmed so far are: Toyko, Hong Kong, Singapore, Munich, Paris, London, and New York. We're fairly sure they've heard of it in New York City, call us crazy.

Nissan will be sponsoring the tour, which will also be going green in an effort to "reduce the carbon footprint," Kring said, although he wasn't quite sure how, since jets and cars eat are on the forefront of global polluting. Maybe they can bike around Europe? That'd be a nice special feature on next season's DVD. Greg Grunberg, who plays the mind-reading Matt Parkman, said he was visiting Paris with his wife recently, and the show hasn't even premiered on the air there. However, he had people coming up to him left and right who recognized him from seeing the show on their computers. Sacrebleu!

First I thought this would be a summer filled with possibly watching one or two summer series, and then catching up on the growing stack of books in my "to be read" pile ... but somehow it's morphed into the "DVR + TV shows on DVD Summer of Rock " *fanfare*. It's actually not that dramatic, but I like to stick fanfare in whenever I can. Theme songs are one thing, but fanfare can pepper mundane events with joy. "Here's your latte, sir." *fanfare* See what I mean?

(S01E03) And we're back! Due to a little syndrome called "My TiVo decided to record the Lifetime channel instead of Hidden Palms," this week's episode review was a bit late. Hopefully you've been tiding yourself over by watching this bee-yotch filled episode a couple of times.

Cliff managed to get popped in the face a couple of times, once by Greta and once by Johnny, but man ... I really wanted to see someone bitchslap the "hee hee I'm a drunken floozy" look right off of Nikki's face. That girl is trouble with a capital Jack Daniels. Who knew she'd be throwing a rager at Johnny's house in the short period of time he took to go see Greta. Plus, wasn't it Cliff who invited all the other delinquents? Still, all things considered, the part I felt the worst about was poor Liza getting snubbed, yet again. At least she got to rub lotion on Johnny this time.

According to a press release from The CW, Supergirl will be joining the cast of Smallville next season. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Some people might call this a possible shark-jumping moment ... but for me that already happened back when Jonathan Kent kicked the bucket *sniffle*.

Straight from the network -- "On Smallville, the seventh season premiere kicks off with the arrival of Supergirl, whose name is Kara, as Clark's (Tom Welling) 19-year-old cousin. She was born on Krypton and is the daughter of Zor-El, Jor-El's brother. Kara possesses all of Clark's powers and one he doesn't yet have ? she can fly! Kara also has a strong, rebellious streak that puts her at odds with Clark, and puts her onto Lex's (Michael Rosenbaum) radar. In addition, she takes a romantic interest in Jimmy Olsen (Aaron Ashmore)."

(S01E02) Okay, I should probably point out that I live in Los Angeles, which is a mere two hours from Palm Springs. I've been out to the sunbaked resort-land of palm trees and golf courses ... and the place is hot. I mean, really, really hot. They push triple digits constantly, and everything outside is blasted by the sunlight. If you're not inside sitting inside near an arctic air conditioner, then you're outside trying to stay as submerged as possible in a (hopefully) cool swimming pool.

This episode made me feel some of that heat. When they visit the pool in this episode at the country club, you can almost feel it pouring out of the screen, and you'll start to sweat despite yourself. Am I crazy? Quite possibly. Delirious? For sure ... but I blame it on the heat.

Okay, we're back with the second half of Wednesday night's Battlestar extravaganza, and I think I've recovered most of my memories, got the feeling back in my writing hand, and decided I wasn't Cylon. For now.

After Lucy Lawless was done loosely emceeing the event, they opened up the floor to questions from the audience. Now, keep in mind that this event was really for the fans, so I expected a lot of "Um ... in Episode 9 from last season, Starbuck clearly had her pilot's wings on upside down ... does that have special meaning?" type questions, but thankfully all of the questions were stuff we thought we'd be asking ourselves, and only one person got up and asked for a job.

Warning: there are a few spoilers ahead for those of you who haven't seen the entire series up-to-date, so beware!

When the powers that be at TV Squad ask you to attend a Battlestar Galactica event in your town, you don't really hesitate before responding. Actually, you fire up your own FTL drives and go for broke. That was the scene last night when I invaded the SciFi Channel event held in Los Angeles at the Arclight Theater.

I'll do my best at setting the scene for you. If I leave anything out, or omit certain facts, it's only because I've just returned and am doing my best at recapping the entire evening based on my addled brain's memory of everything. I took a camera and a handheld audio recorder, but they literally had guards eagle-eyeing us, and we were told that if we were caught taking photos or recording anything, they would confiscate every device we owned (even my iPod shuffle?!) and eject us from the building. Or nearest airlock, I wasn't quite clear on that.

So I turned to my backup device, a notebook and a handy pen with quick-drying ink, and these are the results. Plus I got a few shots off before the Cylon Centurion made me shut everything down, and I'll be sharing those as well.

(S01E01) Since it's been several months since I took a first look at Kevin Williamson's Hidden Palms, I decided to watch tonight's premiere episode again, just in case. Except for a few music cues (you know how The CW really loves their dramatic musical moments), everything was the same. Not that that's a bad thing, though. This is the show that I first dismissed as a cheap knockoff of The O.C., and then got sucked into after three episodes.