What’s On
By Kent Gibbons, Linda Haugsted and George Vernadakis -- Multichannel News, 6/17/2007 6:00:00 PM MT
Stargate SG-1
Sci Fi Channel • Friday, June 22 (8 p.m.)
Stargate SG-1 ends its 10-year run (half on Showtime, half on Sci Fi Channel) Friday night (June 22) with a season-ender that’s also a series-ender. The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer franchise lives on — two made-for-DVD movies are in the works — but the Sci Fi originals’ run ends here, with an episode called “Unending.”
Where will the SG-1 team be at the end? On Earth, home of the space-travel portal that drove the 1994 movie and the series? On some other world? Or in space, where the action increasingly shifted after the series added Star Trek-like vessels?
That would be spoiling!
I can say a rock song is heard during one sequence, but it’s not by Journey, and the screen doesn’t go black.
As the producers have disclosed, original star Richard Dean Anderson (Jack O’Neill) doesn’t appear, but replacement Ben Browder (Cameron Mitchell) utters some obvious O’Neill homages. Nice touch.
The finale was written and directed by executive producer Robert C. Cooper, who told Web site Gateworld.net he wanted to provide “a little bit of a wrap-up” and to give the fans a chance to see the core actors spend a long period of time alone together.
Let’s just say, mission accomplished. Fans shouldn’t be disappointed, and the story stands well enough on its own for novices to enjoy, too.
— Kent Gibbons
Burn Notice
USA Network • Thursday, June 28 (10 p.m.)
Spies don’t get fired; they get a Burn Notice, according to USA’s new series.
Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan) gets said notice in the middle of a protection-buying deal in Nigeria; his inability to make the final payoff gets him one butt-whipping but, in master spy form, he tricks his way out of certain death and back to Miami. He finds himself stripped of his assets and trailed by the FBI, whose agents conveniently inform him that’s all they’ll do as long as he stays in Florida.
The series is a little of everything: Westen exhibits a touch of MacGyver, a dash of Danny Ocean and a little of Die Hard’s John McClane. What we can’t explain, though, is the he-man leavening agent: the family ties plot device.
Since someone has burned Westen as an untouchable agent, he’s forced to stay in Florida where, in the middle of private-eye jobs he takes to fund his hunt for whoever burned him, he gets calls from his whiny mother (Sharon Gless). In the debut episode, his hunt for his tormentor is almost an afterthought while he deals with snipes from his mom (“You missed your father’s funeral, you know … by eight years!”)
We’re hoping in future episodes for more intrigue and more scenes with Michael’s buddy/enabler Sam (Bruce Campbell of Evil Dead fame, giving the show a fanboy hook) and Michael’s ex, bank-robbing IRA vet Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar).
— Linda Haugsted
The Best Years
The N • Friday, June 29 (8:30 p.m.)
Teen-targeted network The N is growing up — well, a little — in its first college-based dramatic series The Best Years. Created and executive produced by Degrassi writer Aaron Martin, the show is likely to attract fans of that high school-set hit drama who are starting to think about college or actually heading off to universities themselves come fall.
In the debut episode, Samantha Best (a likeable and convincing Charity Shea), who’s spent most of her life in the foster care system, arrives at Charles University with a full scholarship and high hopes of a new beginning. But she hasn’t even unpacked before Sam faces her first challenge – how to pay for the mandatory meal plan. And that’s only the start.
The cast of campus characters include Sam’s socialite roommate, a child actress who aspires to a normal life as a college kid, a basketball-star love interest and a well-to-do charmer who tends bar after school. The uniformly appealing actors give more-than-adequate performances and, while the dialogue could be sharper, the script keeps things moving at a teen-friendly pace. All in all, Best Years is slick and engaging enough to win over target viewers and maybe even boost college applications.
— George Vernadakis
