SCI FI Rewind: Sept 20

Some how I just can’t get the hang of recapping TV shows the night they’re on, so let’s try this – a massive look back at all that happened this past week.  I call it SCI FI Rewind.

Last Saturday it was the season finale (yes, in the UK they call six episodes a full season) of Primeval. A monstrous creature from the future has come through the anomaly and  Helen comes through as well claiming that she’s here to do good but we know Helen’s a bitka so I’m not buying what she’s peddling. Turns out that 3/4 of the species on the planet are bat or rat so this future creature is a bat/rat/predator hybrid that can turn invisible while locating you with its bat signal.  Connor nearly becomes a snack, I get all hot and bothered when Stephen puts his hand over Abby’s mouth and presses her to wall and oh, yes, Helen announces to the entire crew that she and Stephen had an affair while she was married to Cutter and Stephen was his student.  Is this Primeval or Passions, I’m confused.  

Baby predators are discovered (aren’t they cute in an ugly-ass sort of way), Cutter and Helen use the babies to lure mama back through the anomaly and when Cutter returns something’s wrong. Claudia is missing.  Actually, she never existed according to the rest of the team — oops! Looks like Cutter should start singing “If I Could Turn Back Time. . . “  Would be a marvelous cliffhanger but season two of the series begins tonight, so no big sweat.

On Monday, John Connor asserted his independence on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles by inviting a girl home after school.  Riley is a free spirit who likes to build robots out of Legos and stare dreamily at the stars in the sky – or those plastic glow-in-the-dark stars you stick on your ceiling — either way.  While John’s at school, Sarah moves (really) into a house owned by Dawson’s Creek lush Busy Phillips and Cameron starts taking time to think things out before making decisions — hmm, that’s not normal, even for her.

Sarah’s enjoying her new home when a dying man crashes through the doors and tells her she has to go after this guy Greenway who works at a nuclear plant. Wonderful. Sarah and Cameron dress up as janitors and it’s 100% Silkwood for the rest of the episode.  Greenway, it turns out, isn’t a bad guy  He’s trying to stop a nuclear test from being run because he knows the reactor is unstable.  That’s the least of Sarah’s troubles as she’s told to scrub a room full of nuclear waste materials, and oops! Looks like you got some on you, girlie girl.  Stripped, scrubbed and humiliated, it’s all a joke courtesy of one sexiest pig of a supervisor. Time for the test and Greenway’s not himself — maybe that’s because his real self is hanging from a beam in his living room. Terminator Fight!  Cameron and Terminator Greenway have it out.  Guess who wins?  Nuclear plant is shut down but not before Sarah runs through a contaminated room because she’s doomed to die of cancer and there’s nothing she can do to change that.

Moral of the story: Girls are complicated.

Let’s move on.

On Tuesday’s Fringe, it was “The Same Old Story” as a serial killer cut up hookers in order to steal their pituitary gland. But wait, that’s not the weird part.  The weird part is that the guy accidentally impregnates one of the hookers and she goes from hot and heavy to just plain heavy in a few minutes. She’s rushed to the hospital where she delivers a bouncing baby boy who turns into an old man and dies of natural causes within the hour. Sounds like “The Pattern” to me.

Turns out this is all reminiscent of experiments Walter and his partner Penrose used to do where they were “growing” solders for the US army. Actually, the growing part was easy, the problem was stopping them from growing. . .old. . quickly. . and thus the project was abandoned.  But was it?  Turns out Penrose got a little too attached to one of his test tube sons and they’ve been harvesting pituitary gland juice (ew) to keep the “son” from growing old.

Walter uses that cool Jules Verne trick of reading the last image a dead person saw (it’s forever burned on to your cornea) in order to discover where the latest victim is being held and suddenly Peter is left to play doctor (no really) as he creates a make-shift resuscitator in order to restart the victim’s heart.

Bone for the audience, Walter mentions Peter’s special medical history to Olivia but there is no special medical history on Peter so. . . ooh, what’s that all about?  The final, fast image is of three men in beds in a white room.  They look like clones to me. . .we shall see. . . we shall see.

On Thursday, Lazarus wasn’t the only one Rising when Dean returned from the dead on Supernatural. After stocking up on food, water and porn, Dean sets out for Bobby’s house where he’s greeted with a knife and punch and some holy water in the face. Can’t blame a guy for being careful. It’s been four months and Dean’s looking fresh as a daisy except for an incredibly painful looking handprint burned into his incredible gorgeous biceps. They find Sam shacking up with “Kristy” in a no-tell motel and Dean demands an explanation.  Sam doesn’t have one because he didn’t raise Dean from the dead. To find out who did, they enlist the help of super psychic and rocker chick, Pamela. She gropes Dean (who wouldn’t) then gets pushy with the folks behind the veil. All this gets her is the name Castiel and then her eyes get burned out of her skull (ew).

Time for pie! Only everyone in the diner is sporting demon eyes but the Winchesters need not worry.  Dean figures out that he’s in no danger since whatever pulled him out of hell wants him out and so these low level zombies aren’t about to put him back in. Still searching for answers, Dean goes to sleep and Sam goes back to the diner to exorcise a few demons and OH! He doesn’t need to chant in Latin (mores the pity), he can simply raise his palm, concentrate and those buggers ride the carpool lane back to hell. Then Kristy shows up, only now she’s Ruby and I’m confused.

Seriously, are we supposed to believe Kristy was Ruby when Dean appeared at the motel and she didn’t even flinch upon seeing him?  Are we supposed to believe that Sam was shacking up with the body of a poor young woman who’s being controlled by a demon? Did I miss a scene somewhere, because I’m not following this at all.

Meanwhile, Dean gets a shower — of glass from the mirror above his bed — and that pisses him off enough to do a little summoning of his own.  Tada!  Tall, dark and European walks in and I’m loving this show’s casting director. Castiel claims to be an angel of the lord who yanked Dean out of hell because he has work to do. Kind of like when I drag my son out of bed because he forgot to empty the dishwasher.

Dean thinks he’s unworthy.  Castiel says he’s special and it looks to me like Kripke is setting us up for the age old biblical brother vs. brother.  About time. I’ve been waiting for that ever since Dean picked Sam up at Stanford.

Still with me?  Stargate Atlantis was on last night but it’s still on the DVR so that recap will have to wait.

My Cyn-tillating scene of the week? Gotta be that brother hug on Supernatural, followed closely by Row Row Row Your Boat on Fringe.

What was your favorite sci fi scene from the past week?  Let us know in the comments below.