TV Week: 'Heroes,' '24,' 'Lost,' '30 Rock' & 'Grey's'

So many good shows were aired this week that I thought I'd weigh in on some of them:

*Warning, big spoilers from recently aired episodes*

Heroes

Back after a rather lackluster first half of the season, Heroes seems as though it might be able to successfully reboot itself. Here's to hoping.

The pre-Christmas episodes seemed too crowded, too erratic, too . . . I don't know, too not like the first stellar season. But Heroes is beginning a new chapter -- where those with powers are being rounded up at the order of the senator-hypocrite who himself has powers and, in earlier episodes, wanted to manufacture an army of superheroes to serve him --and many of the original characters are banding together. And that's a good thing.

I found it ironic that in the last episode, the heroes had to be saved by the cheerleader. Maybe the cheerleader can save Heroes.

24

The previous season of 24 was so disappointing. I was the designated 24 blogger for a TV web site during season six and was running out of ways to say that Jack Bauer & Co., as well as the second Palmer president, were completely unbelievable, almost laughable.

When this season started, my expectations were very low. I wasn't even sure if I'd be sticking around, given what happened during season six. During the past season, a nuclear bomb was detonated in hour four, and after that, nothing could really match that moment's intensity and it all seemed downhill, dramatically speaking, as the Bauer family of thugs storyline landed with an unimpressive thud. But I think the writers may have learned from that mistake and have made a strategically good move thus far in having the tension and major "wow" moments unfold gradually, as they ratchet up the intensity. Plus this season's president isn't a wimp, a weasel or succumbing to weird medical conditions. She just has a wacky spouse. But then again, we've been down that the wacky presidential spouse road before.

One completely unrelated observation: As an admirerer of the canceled Once & Again, I found it amusing to see the actors who played Jake and Tiffany reunited on this show, with both of them working for the FBI.

Lost

Finally! Ben Linus has returned to his evil manipulative form in trying to engineer the circumstances that would inevitable lead to the reunion of the Oceanic 6 and, he's planning, a return to the island. (That return part remains to be seen.) The most recent episode was much more to my liking than the last one as it focused more on the original Lost castaways, plus Ben & Juliet. There was emotionally poignancy (Sawyer seeing Kate and Claire when the island time traveled to Aaron's birth) and we learned that Jin did indeed survive.

While reading up on the last episode, I found this funny, sarcastic video , featuring the Lost crew in the form of action figures and cardboard cut-outs, plus a box of chocolates, which attempts to "untangle" some of the confusing aspects of the show:



30 Rock

Are you a Generalissimo? If you are, then you too stand of chance of dating Jon Hamm, that is if you're Liz Lemon's brand of Generalissimo. While I'm a huge Tina Fey and Hamm fan (that phrase just sounds funny doesn't it, "Hamm fan?"), Alec Baldwin absolutely stole this 30 Rock episode with his obsession with a Telemundo soap. Played to perfection. Made Hamm almost an afterthought. ALMOST.

Grey's Anatomy

Attention Grey's writers: I, a fan from day one, am sick of seeing dead and deathly ill children and their parents in nearly every episode recently. (This applies to Private Practice as well.) I want to be dazzled by characters' wordplay, sarcasm, crazy antics and Meredith's introspective darkness (I'm one of the approximately three Grey's fans who find her tendency to overanalyze charming). No mas with the dead or nearly dead kids. Okay? Or do I have to sick the Generalissimo on Seattle Grace?

By the way, anyone notice that Hamm's longtime girlfriend, Jennifer Westfeldt, was also featured on a guest spot on a show airing Thursday night at the same time as 30 Rock? She was the pregnant woman on Grey's, which was also ironic because she was the lead for the sitcom Notes from the Underbelly, about a woman pregnant for the first time, and, as far as I know, Westfeldt doesn't have kids. Nothing like a little friendly competition between guest stars.