It's been quite a while since I've posted, though there have been a variety of topics over the past month worth writing about. Here's what earned my love/hatred over the past few weeks.
Was Season Four of 24 the best ever? Probably not...I think that honor is still reserved for Season Two, which had the best overall storyline despite an anticlimactic conclusion and some ill-advised Kim subplots. Season Four loses a few points in my book for featuring a string of largely singular terrorist threats rather than a coherent grand scheme. Even so, it earns a few 24 "best of" honors. Chief among those is "Best Season Finale," taking that prize by far. Historically, the 24 finales haven't had the luster that the rest of the season has, mainly because the format of the show requires most of the plot threads to be resolved prior to the final hour. This year's finale, however, broke that mold by changing the status quo of Jack Bauer's life in a manner that boasts a great deal of promise for Season Five (details withheld for the sake of our DVD viewers). Also, this season may have been the most exciting so far, due largely to Jack's one-man assault on the terrorists' compound to save Audrey as well as his race against the bad guys in to recover the president's nuclear football. Kize season grade: A
This year's Worst Season Finale Ever award goes to Alias, a show whose decline has been documented more than once in this blog. Ever since its inception, Alias has built a complex ongoing storyline about the prophecies and inventions of Milo Rambaldi, a scientist from 500 years ago far ahead of his time. This plot thread apparantly came to a conclusion in the finale, and a disappointing one at that. For a four-year epic to reach an appropriately exciting finish, it deserves a lengthy build-up to the end, not the three-episode arc that this year's continuity-hostile format imposed upon us. Furthermore, the promised epic showdown between Sydney and her sister Nadia turned out to be totally lame. Not only was the fight a let down, but it came about in the most contrived way possible. Rather than give Nadia and Sydney compelling motives to oppose each other, the show resorted to putting Nadia under mind control that turned her into a temporary bad guy. Kize finale grade: D+
Is there any musical act as heavily influenced by its choice of producer as is Dave Matthews Band? Just as occurred on "Everyday" with Glenn Ballard, new producer Mark Batson convinces DMB on its new album "Stand Up" to dumb down its music rather than indulge in the complex instrumental jams that earned them a fan base. This time around, the band adopts the sound of easy listening adult contemporary radio, much like Dave did on his solo effort a few years back. Most of the songs on the album are largely repetitive, with choruses that consist of singing the same line over and over and over. It's probably DMB's worst album, even though some of the tracks are enjoyable. Louisana Bayou is a fun, funky jam, and I like Hunger for the Great Light despite its unabashedly sex-filled lyrics. But considering that I plan on skipping over almost half of the songs every time this disc makes its way into my player, its Kize album grade can't be any higher than a C-.
Joining DMB in the Worst Album of Their Career category is Weezer, with "Make Believe." The good news, however, is that every song on the album is better than Beverly Hills, the first single and Weezer's Worst Song Ever. A good two-thirds of the album still has the trademark Weezer sound, complete with self-depricating lyrics and the singing of various "whoa-oh"s and "oo oo"s. It is only because these songs aren't quite as clever or musically original as much of the band's other catalogue that the album falls short of the mark set by the previous ones. Out of the remaining tracks which depart from Weezer's traditional sound, only one of them avoids sounding overly corny--"This is Such a Pity," in which the band explores what they might sound like if they were The Killers. Kize album grade: C+
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