I know, that doesn’t rhyme, but it’s as close I could come.

I would be a lot more excited about Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku teaming up for a new show if it wasn’t on Fox. Don’t these two remember their previous experiences with Fox?

I’ve said in the past that Whedon should just stop writing, simply because it would be utterly impossible to even come close to matching the masterpiece that is Firefly^[a], but still, I love his writing and I’ll take a new Whedon show over 95% of the trash on TV today.

My problem is just that there’s only a seven-episode order, and with Fox’s previous record on shows I really enjoyed, I estimate we’ll see two of those. Maybe Firefly will be replaced as the “most cancelled television show ever.” Hopefully, Joss has learned from previous experience (and the experience of Tim Minear with Drive and Wonderfalls) and he’ll make these seven episodes a complete arc, just in case.

1. My saying that is something that has gotten me in trouble Buffy fans in the past. I loved Buffy, but I would happily trade every single memory and episode from the Buffy-verse (that includes all five seasons of Angel for a single new episode of Firefly [↩]

I still haven’t gotten around to watching “Double Down”, the newest episode of Journeyman, but since I promised to write something about it today, I’d just like to point out that if you’re not watching this show, you should be. Think of it as something of a cross between Early Edition and Quantum Leap, and you’ve got a decent idea of the tone of it.

Dan has a secret: he’s randomly jumping through time, apparently on “assignments” for… well, something… to “help put right what once went wrong”. The problem is that when he jumps back in time, he disappears in the present, and at least as much time passes in the present as he spends in the past. That leaves him with missing time he has to explain to his brother and his employer (thankfully, they had him explain it to his wife very early on, so that’s at least one person helping him to cover things.

I love this show so far; I’m really pleased that it was chosen to follow Heroes.

The professor who kicked Chuck out of school turns out to be a CIA “asset”, and when he gets in trouble, Casey, Sarah, and Chuck try to save him and retrieve the data he’s put at risk, which leads to Chuck learning a few secrets… about himself. Meanwhile, Morgan rebels against Harry Tang’s new rule at the Buy More.

Heroes has been somewhat disappointing this season, and probably more so because the shows surrounding it have been so good. Chuck is a very fun show. I expected to like it from the original descriptions, and I like it far more than I expected. Zachary Levi does an excellent job selling Chuck as a nice guy who genuinely wants to help, even when he knows he’s so far out of his league.

This episode finally gave us some information about why Chuck was kicked out of college, and gives us a few more questions to worry about.

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On last night’s Heroes, Hiro had to deal with the consequences of his betrayal of Takeso Kensei. Peter learned about yet another future tragedy that he has to stop. Mohinder, Nathan, Matt, and Niki faced off against “The Nightmare Man”, and Claire’s boyfriend stopped by her house.

Odd as it sounds, the last of those storylines was the only one I was really excited about, and that was mostly because I wanted to see Mr. Bennet deal with West. Permanently.

This season, Heroes hasn’t been nearly as interesting to me as it was previously. This episode did a lot to change that, but not until the very end. Spoilers, as always, below the cut.

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I certainly sympathize with people who want to stop intrusive cellphone usage, but I’m not sure this is the best way to do it.

Let me clarify that. I have a little sympathy for “Andrew”, who blocked a fellow passenger’s cell phone signal just because she was annoying him, but I think he was wrong to do what he did. On the other hand, I have a lot of sympathy for the restaurant owner who wanted to block his staff (and his customers?) from using cell phones in his restaurant.

I have to wonder, though, is jamming the signal the best way to go about it? For private business owners, wouldn’t it be possible (and legal?) to design your business to make cell phones extremely difficult, if not impossible, to use? Would it be against the law to build a giant Faraday cage into the walls of your building? (Would that even stop a cell phone?)