TVSquad

(S03E24) Prom is over and enter the aftermath. But surprise, surprise...Volchok? Not dead. Thank God. Don't get me wrong, I don't particularly care if the guy lives or dies, but it would have just been bizarro times infinity if another one of Marissa's love interests ended up in the morgue. She does seem to like them on the brink of death.

But nope, Ryan rushes (not really, more like leisurely drives) Volchok to the hospital during a trippy, light-filled montage, and Volchok awakes without even seeing a doctor. Volchok (ever the good guy) doesn't sell Ryan out and claims he was jumped by a group of thugs. But it turns out that Volchok is not "ever the good guy."

Yup, it's true. The short-lived CBS series is coming to DVD this summer, confirming the rumors that we talked about here shortly after the show was canceled.

The entire series will be released in one set. No word yet on extras or whether or not they'll include episodes that were filmed and never aired, though I assume there will be both.

Now ABC: what about Eyes?

The Good Stuff

5. Lost: I really don't think this needs an explanation. Fantastic ensemble, great writing, interesting backstory... okay, so I gave an explanation.

4. Rescue Me: I would have never pegged Denis Leary as someone who could piece together a hit drama, but he's done it and season two was outstanding.

3. Entourage: This show gave me more one-liners to endlessly repeat from its second season than some shows give you in their entire run.

2. Nip/Tuck: If you don't watch this show then you're missing out. Seriously.

1. 24: I can't get enough of this show. I fall asleep with the DVDs on. Season 5, just a few more weeks. Deep breaths.

 

Threshold producer Brannon Braga gave an interview to If magazine before the show was canceled, and he revealed some spoilers. Of course, now that the show is gone, these aren't spoilers as much as they're "oh, so that's what would have happened" revelations. Including:

• Lucas' fiancee would have been a recurring character on the show, and would have butted heads with Molly when Lucas started to be affected by the alien video he watched.
• Gunnison would have returned.
• The ship at the bottom of the ocean would cause trouble for the team and the world.
• Catherine Bell's character would have been an expert in genetic engineering, brought in to help with food contamination.
• The aliens get together and try to break out of their prison.

Well, not good news for fans of good TV shows tonight, eh? What sanna said in the Alias post has been confirmed by Kristin over at E! Threshold has been canceled.

Weird timing. Not only did the show get moved to Tuesdays, but they also just signed Catherine Bell. Now she's gonna have to find another job.

More details here.

So much for Apple. Now CBS confirms it is in talks with Google and Yahoo! for on-demand video service. The network started streaming episodes of Threshold off its own website earlier this fall, but it apparently has bigger plans. CBS president Les Moonves (one of my favorite Letterman phone guests) said the network wants to offer episodes of its CSI franchise online. He doesn't mention whether there will be a charge for such episodes, but that seems to be how these things work. One article about CBS' online plans says that 40 percent of American households now view video on the internet, and these television networks want a piece of that pie, darnit! It also appears that the other big networks saw how popular Lost and Desperate Housewives were on iTunes and jumped on the bandwagon.

Whoa. This show is getting wild. In the first three minutes, Cavennaugh wakes up next to a naked woman after having a dream of the glass forest; then Elizabeth Berkley attacks a bank teller; a wife rips her husband's head off with her bare hands; and then a woman butts in line at a hot dog stand, shoves a bunch of hot dogs into her mouth, then explodes. Welcome to The Wonderful World Of Disney. Cafferty and Cavennaugh investigate.

For you fans who are still going through JAG withdrawal, you're in luck: Bell joins the cast of the CBS sci-fi show in a recurring role. She'll play a genetic engineer who joins team Threshold. Hopefully there will lots of catfights with Carla Gugino, and they'll have to don bikinis to fight the alien invasion for some reason.

By the way, starting tonight, the show can now be seen Tuesdays at 10. (Close To Home is now on Fridays at 10).

This seems awfully risky. Mid-way through ratings, CBS is reportedly going to swap time slots for Close to Home and Threshold. Both dramas are in their first season and have the fewest viewers of any CBS dramas. Starting November 22, Threshold will move from its 9 pm slot on Fridays to the 10 pm slot on Tuesdays and vice versa for Close to Home.

I watched the first few episodes of Threshold but I gave up because it felt like the writers took an extraordinary premise and made it typical and boring. And I was surprised to see that Close to Home isn't doing very well because it's a Jerry Bruckheimer production and he seems to be ratings gold for CBS (admittedly, I've never seen it).

[Via The Futon Critic]

I think if we were to use a phrase that would be the moral for tonight's episode - hell, maybe even the entire series - we'd have to take it from a very popular show from a few years ago: "Trust No One." Seriously, don't trust anybody. Don't trust security men, even if they have little earphones in their ears, because they might be aliens. And don't trust sweet little moms who donate to churches and serve you tea in nice china cups, because she might suddenly appear in the room with a shotgun like an action hero and attempt to blow you away.

The networks, slowly but surely, are beginning to "get" this whole interweb thing. CBS has now made the third episode of Threshold available online, and future episodes of the Friday night sci-fi show will be put up five days after the episode airs.

CBS has really amped up its online endeavors, with clips of Survivor and The Amazing Race online, as well as podcasts of Guiding Light episodes. (Though how does audio-only work, anyway, when a TV show, especially soaps, rely on silent scenes and scenes where an actor isn't doing anything except looking around or frowning or smiling?)

[via TV Tattle]

I guess that The West Wing's White House isn't the only TV government building that has a leak. Though this one doesn't turn out to be someone doing it on purpose. The Washington D.C. paper (I think it's The Globe) has a column about Threshold, though not the details of the alien invasion. The restaurant where Fenway eats all the time has been bugged by a private eye working for one of his ex-wives because she's curious about his new job and his alimony payments. Maybe Cafferty was right when she said she wants to keep the entire team together away from the public.

So by now you've noticed that each of the big 3 networks seem to have an "alien invasion" series that premiered this season. We've got Invasion on ABC, Threshold on CBS and Surface on NBC. Each has similar underlying themes: the aliens are very ambiguous, none have revealed a clear-cut "plan" yet; they all have water as a center theme; and all three have groups of incredibly attractive people trying to figure out what is going on. We here at TVSquad are curious which you are more interested in? Personally, I like Surface on NBC the best, it got off to kind of a slow start, but it's the one that's intrigued me the most. Now if I could only somehow get Carla Gugino from Threshold and Lisa Sheridan from Invasion to join Surface's cast, I'd have my alien "ubershow"...

Let us know what you think and which you like the best.

You have to hand it to this show. Just when you think they're really stretching the kinds of plots for each episode - in this case, the alien signal is mixed into a song and a bunch of clubgoers are exposed to it - they do it with juuuuuust enough of  twist to keep it interesting. And touches like that and combine it with the fact that it has an enjoyable cast and you have one of the better sci/fi horror shows of the seasons (along with Surface, which is the best, and Supernatural, which is getting better).

I like how this show can be so unbelievably cartoonish and goofy, yet so smart in its storytelling. I truly believe - eve more than Invasion or Supernatural - that the writers know where this story is going. They're dropping little hints about certain aspects of characters (Arthur's engagement and eyesight suddenly becoming better), Caffrey's nose bleeding, etc) that you know are going to be important later in the series. It's not just standalone episodes set in a different city every week, with mindless action or explosions. It's a fun show, but one with some cleverness too.