This Week in Television - Sept. 21-25, 2009

Heroes
Heroes has been somewhat declining since its first season, but I have still been watching and the season 4 premiere was actually a lot better than I was expecting. Although the segments with Claire going to college were bland, luckily the rest of the episode made up for it. I think the writers are aware that season one was their best season, and so they have cleverly attempted to replicate their golden era by having the characters go back into hiding and try not to use their powers in public (or at all). The guy with the tattoo power should make for an interesting villain, and while I wasn't really a fan of the "turning Sylar into Nathan" plotline, I think they handled it better here. Still disappointed that they killed off Elle last season though.

Glee
Now I remember why I like Glee: football players dancing to Beyoncé in the middle of a game! Oh, wait, I didn't like that part so much. I pretty much just watch the show for Jane Lynch's character Sue Sylvester now, which is a name I find funny for some reason. The rest of the show is too much teen soap opera mixed with after school special about having self esteem. For example, this episode featured a woman who is lying to her husband about being pregnant trying to scam a pregnant cheerleader who is lying about her baby's daddy into giving her the baby so her husband won't know she's lying about the pregnancy. Sounds like a soap to me. And it seems that every episode is about someone being ashamed of themselves and then learning not to be. I have nothing against the message, but does it have to be in every episode?

Survivor: Samoa
I don't understand how Russell has so much power. He's aggressively conning everyone and there are those who don't even trust him, yet he ends up deciding all the votes. The worst part is that he's getting rid of the smart ones who don't trust him in order to make himself even more powerful. And he pre-emptively found the immunity idol before anyone knew about it. I still don't think he's going to win though.

Fringe
That was a little creepy when that monster thing was gnawing on Peter and Olivia. Olivia should have noticed there was something wrong with Flancis though. He was noticeably monotonous and distant. At least "Hank Scudder" was in this episode!

Parks and Recreation
Ron Swanson is also a funny sounding name. Especially when you're using it to try and threaten a police officer like Leslie was. Not as good an episode as last week, but not bad.

The Office
I wonder where they're headed with the whole Jim and Michael as co-managers thing. I say this because at the beginning of the series, Jim stated that he didn't want a promotion because it would turn his job into a career and he didn't want to make a career out of selling paper. I guess he's doing it to support his new family. Also Dwight and Toby make for a funny team. But then Dwight and anyone usually makes for a funny team. Kudos to Michael in this episode for trying to sneak into a classified meeting on the bottom of a cheese cart, but not until the end of the meeting, thereby learning nothing.

Flash Forward
ABC is clearly trying to produce a new mystery/sci-fi show to replace Lost when it ends, but they may have made a good choice. It just started so it needs a little more time to develop, but I think Flash Forward has potential. Just like Lost's future visions, they create suspense rather than ruin it, because while we see what happens, the mystery is in how and why it happens. And of course the best part of all was the ending: why was there someone up and walking around while the rest of the world was blacked out?!

Overall rating for this week's shows: A-