My own self

Just for anyone who might wonder, the show (click here for my post about its pilot), whilst miraculously still not formally cancelled, has been moved to this summer, where its piss-poor ratings will look a little less shitty next to exclusively reruns of more popular and far less interesting shows. Also for anyone who might wonder, every single episode that's aired before they moved it has delivered on the promise of the pilot. I watch ungodly amounts of American television, and of all the current shows, this is my favourite by far. (Even Pushing Daisies is a far cry behind, though I will admit that's probably due to it being less up my alley genre-wise than Kings). Of the six episodes aired so far, only the one failed to leave me completely overwhelmed, and even that one was a cut above most other shows I currently watch, especially now that Battlestar is done. I need to go to giants of Television Past to find suitable shows to compare Kings to, but I won't, as it will just crank your after this post unreasonably high expectations even higher than they already are. Suffice to say that if good dialogue, an interesting world, compelling acting and lots of delicious politics and intrigue with a very well done layer of the religious and spiritual sprinkled in sounds made for you - not to mention Ian Mc-bloody-Shane owning every television screen he has ever appeared on - Kings is a show you should go watch, and a show you should go watch now. Though of course you can't, because they booted it to mid-June. So catch it this summer, or get it on DVD once it is cancelled as these ambitious and impeccably well done shows always are. I implore you.

I know, I'm posting very rarely lately. Three reasons for that. One, I'm lazy. Two, I have a ton of writing to do with regards to my master's thesis. And three, I watch a heck of a lot of TV.

On that note, even though I'm full-booked TV-wise until, well, September-ish very likely, I figured I'd have a run-down. You might remember this list from last spring. It's been very thinned out since then, my having seen Brisco County Jr., Dexter, How I Met Your Mother, Mad Men, The Tudors and half of Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (the rest is part of why any new stuff will have to wait until September) since then. A few new ones have been added, of course, so here's the list as it stands right now:

Alias
Brotherhood
Burn Notice
Dark Angel
Dirty Sexy Money
Drive
Dr. Who/Torchwood
Entourage
Farscape
Joan of Arcadia
Life
Medium
Monk
Moonlight
Jericho
Journeyman
Justice League
Oz
The Pretender
Quantum Leap
Red Dwarf
Sanctuary
The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Sharpe
The Shield
Six Feet Under
Supernatural
Tru Calling

Of these, I would currently like to prioritise the following five:

Brotherhood
Burn Notice
Sharpe
Justice League
The Shield

But which one of them first, that's up to you people. There is also the matter of carry-on-votes from last time:

Farscape (2)
The Pretender (1)
The Sarah Connor Chronicles (1)

Thus, I make the following ruling. One remaining vote last time equals qualification for the ones up for considering now. Farscape goes directly on the list with a vote in place due to its two carry-ons. If anyone wants to add another show to this list, let me know - if two of you want to add the same one, I'll even add it to the list of the ones that can be voted for.

Brotherhood
Burn Notice
Farscape (1)
Sharpe
Justice League
The Pretender
The Sarah Connor Chronicles
The Shield



Commence helping me waste more time daily, please!

"Feel free to mock me all you want, but don't you dare ridicule our troops."
"Just so I'm clear, I should feel free to mock you?"

David E. Kelley is probably the most famous for Chicago Hope and Ally McBeal. I never watched the former, but I remember the latter fondly from my teens and whenever I've caught a rerun in recent year, I've never been disappointed. Those are very far from his only escapades into television creation, however, and the long-running The Practice is thus only one out of the many shows of his I've never seen. When it came to its end, it spawned a spin-off, Boston Legal. Despite my inclination to watch everything in proper order, I was recently talked into checking this show out. While I must admit I still wish I'd started at the beginning, with The Practice, I am in no way regretting this, as it is a highly intelligent and highly entertaining piece of televised storytelling.

Where The Practice is reputed to have been serious and Ally McBeal was littered with absurd fantasies, funky lawsuits and crazy characters, Boston Legal finds a neat pathway between the two. Almost every episode has at least one, usually several, interesting and intelligent points of social or political commentary, but the characters are quirky and silly enough that the humour - if only rarely the crazy - I recognise from Ally McBeal is apparent in just about every single scene.

The two main draws to this show are William Shatner's eminent performance as Denny Crane, over-the-hill rabid Republican superlawyer with an ego the size of the Atlantic Ocean and a brain that's starting to fail him, and James Spader equally stunning portrayal of the direct, witty, resourceful and, well, intolerably smug Alan Shore, the man whose behaviour as an utter bastard is only matched by the kind and caring heart that drives him deep down. These two characters are legendary on their own, but the interplay and dynamic between them is frequently nigh on perfect television.

These two would be more than enough to make me watch the show, but there's more. The cast of supporting characters, while somewhat underdeveloped as a whole, shows a lot of promise. In particular I hope to see more of Mark Valley's idealistic Brad Chase and Rene Auberjonois' superbly no-nonsense Paul Lewiston as we go along. Another stellar performance is Candice Bergen as senior partner Shirley Schmidt, entering the show halfway through the first season and giving every indication of becoming a major presence as the show continues onwards.

The little peek I've had at season 2 so far promises even more focus on the issues and the politics rather than the inter-office drama, which actually suits me fine, and I look forward to it. The dynamic duo of Spader and Shatner is simply so awesome that their very presence makes every plot they're in character-driven enough.

Every once in a while you start watching a show that just flat out entertains you to the core of your bones, and you fall a little in love with it. I have every awareness that this review is written during such a fit of affection, and is thereby probably a little overly positive. Let me therefore just add that there are some issues with this show, mainly in the underdeveloped and underutilised cast of secondary characters. But honestly, you don't fall this strongly for a show after a single season for no good reason. If you liked the comedy and characterisation of Ally McBeal and think a slightly more realistic take on the same would be for you, or you have an interest in a show that's genuinely fun whilst exploring real-life issues of politics and ideology in today's USA, you should be as excited about this show as I am. And if neither of those things sound appealing, then, well, you should still watch it just for every single scene that ends with the words "Denny Crane".

For reasons unknown even to myself, I've decided to write a post listing seven TV-shows eminently awesome and incredible, but that was always without a shot of reaching my list of my top five absolute favourites no matter how good they'd be. I'll tell you a little bit about each of them, why they're awesome and you should see them, and why they'll sadly never manage to climb to the top of my own lists - often through no real faulting of their own. And why seven? Well, hey, it's a lucky number, maybe it'll give me enough luck to make someone check one of these shows out because of the list.

The Wire
Possibly the best show I've ever seen, if I were to completely ignore my genre-preferences and other biases, though I do think that Deadwood would probably still have it beat. There's never a weak episode on this show, not a one. The the season plots are so vast as to more give an impression of a single gigantic five-episode-miniseries (each episode being an entire season...) than a truly episodic TV-show like I as a viewer have been trained to expect from just about every other show I've ever seen. To me, this show's basically only failing is that it is too real - this isn't a century or a millennium old history, this isn't a story involving witches and warlocks or dragons and griffins, this isn't set in space or featuring larger-than-life people dressing up in costumes and beating up criminals. Characters aren't larger than life in this show, they're just people like everyone else. Which is awesome, by all means. But it isn't my preferred brand of tea.

Blackadder
Brilliantly sarcastic, the different incarnations of E. Blackadder have to a one been entertaining. I do admit to some issues with the very first series, it being halfway too childish for me and halfway too intelligent with all its Shakespearean references, but the rest of this show is a childhood favourite still going strong. The plots aren't always as interesting and the jokes do sometimes seem uninspired or repetitive, but the truly brilliantly funny moments make up for this. My favourite will probably always be the fourth series, Blackadder Marches Forth, set in the First World War, and as educational and poignant as it is silly. Where the other series do try to have some measure of parody or clever presentation of a period long past, I feel none of them manage it as perfectly as the fourth. This show is funny if you like wit, sarcasm and cunning bastards, but it could never reach the top of any list of mine being a comedy show with little to no character development or personal drama.

The West Wing
While a good bit more variable in quality than The Wire, The West Wing is still a true gem of television. The fifth season might be a little hard to endure after the initial brilliance of the first couple of seasons, but I promise you, by the end in the seventh this show was long since gone awesome again. If it had been set in 1850 or on the continent of Westeros, this could probably have a shot to be my favourite show ever. Clever discussion of political issues, partisan characters with different biases, the political quagmire of never getting anything done, idealism met by realism, this show had all that a show about the White House's senior staff should have. (I'll also cheat and throw in a mention of the other show of Sorkin's I've seen and loved, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which does the exact same thing for behind the screen TV-politics as West Wing does for behind the scenes world politics)

Judging Amy
I know, I know, putting that on this list makes me look like a girl, but it was good, people! I have never rewatched it and cannot tell you for sure I'd like it as much today as I did six years ago, when I had watched an admittedly tiny fraction of the good shows I've now seen to compare it with, but I remember this show very fondly as clever, engaging, and very much feeling like it had characters who were, to a one, real people. Balancing very well the protagonist's courtroom cases in the juvenile courts with her and her mother's personal lives, ideals and beliefs, I remember both laughing and crying during several episodes of this show.

Wonderfalls
Incredibly well made, let me tell you that. Witty, intelligent, with fun characters and good plots. It's even got some fantastical elements. But it's just too quirky to ever really completely win me over. The drama is good, but not awesome. The comedy is good, but too off-beat and not the central point. The issues are interesting, but there's not enough action in the execution of the plots surrounding them to drag me in. It's one of those odd shows where I go "yeah, I like this, this is super well done, and I'd like even to rewatch this many times, sure, but I don't think I'll ever quite love it" because it's lacking a certain something ineffable to be the right kind of show for me. It's indubitably awesomely well done, though, and if you haven't, you should check it out.

Dexter
This show does on paper have it all - bigger than life characters, development of said, intricate season plots, engaging individual episodes, humour, drama and action. When I say it could never reach my personal top five list, it's due to the premise - it's a show locked to one protagonist. I prefer ensemble shows for their much wider opportunities for interesting dynamics and less dependency on clever plot twists. Of course, the fact that it's neither a period piece nor fantasy or sci-fi doesn't help much. But the show is truly awesome, and catching up on the first two seasons over the course of two weeks have been one of the more memorable TV-experiences of my life.

The Inside
As I mentioned in my review of the first season of Dexter, The Inside is a dark show, and to me, that's its failing. I'm faint of heart and mind, I can't take watching something too dark or upsetting and still truly enjoy it. That being said, the characters, the plots, the manipulations of the awesome, awesome character played by Peter Coyote, this is something as rare as a police show that's not only watchable, but eminently engaging. It's too dark for me to truly love it though - it might even be too dark for me to ever rewatch it. Certainly not alone. But it's very good, and it's a deserving mention on this list.




That's that. Hope that some of you will end up checking out at least one of 'em. They all deserve it.

Uhm.



Eh.



Er...


I...

Ah, there's...


Hrm.


So, I've seen Dark Knight.

Specific spoiler-free review after the cut (spoilers generalizing about themes or moods of the movie etc will probably abound, difficult to say anything at all about anything without that) followed by a clearly separated paragraph with spoiler-laden comments that should be easy to avoid.

Read more...

This animated science fiction movie from 2000 has an incredibly impressive list of directors and writers - a list I was not aware of myself until after I'd seen it. The directors? Gary Goldman and Don Bluth - the two ex-Disney animators (both were involved in the animtaion of The Rescuers and Pete's Dragon, Bluth additionally had his hands in Robin Hood, The Sword in the Stone, and others) who's made such major animation successes outside of Disney together as The Land Before Time, An American Tail, The Secret of NIMH and Anastasia. And the writers? John August (Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride), Ben Edlund (Firefly, Angel(he wrote Jaynestown and Smile Time!), Point Pleasant and Supernatural) and, well, Joss Whedon.

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, but I can't help but wonder if I'd have been a little let down had I known about this rooster of brilliance before I sat down to watch it due to incredibly high expectations. Heck, I wasn't even aware it was animated before it started up.

So what is it? Well, it's basically the sci-fi-movie everybody who hated the Star Wars-prequels have been begging for. The movie starts with an alien destruction of Earth, where a very influential scientist must stay behind to save the incredibly important Titan-project. His very young son is hurried off planet with other refugees just in the nick of time. Cut a good decade ahead, and the son is grown up. Then an old co-worker of his father's shows up and tells him he has to save mankind and find the lost Titan-project.

The movie is flowing over with odd and funny aliens, something the Star Wars-crowd probably likes but an issue for me. I never like universes where you only see one single individual from three quarters of the alien species you encounter. It feels phony. Still, they're on the whole rather well made.

Despite this, it's a little dark. Not scary horrid dark, but it's closer to Empire Strikes Back than Return of the Jedi, if you know what I mean. This works well though. It's got a somewhat predictable plot, mediated by some twists you see coming and others you might not. The world that's built seems rich and, with the exception of the ridiculous amounts of different kinds of sentients, believable. There was a couple of choices towards the end where I felt they should've gone darker and less child-friendly, but on the whole the movie was surprisingly daring for an animated movie that clearly doesn't exclusively cater to an adult crowd.

Some characters stand out - the father's old co-worker is a distinct Han Solo-rip off (no attempts are made to hide that), but he works well. His first mate Preed is nothing like Chewie, though, but rather a cold, superior, even omnious alien with a posh English accent. The crew on the ship - and thus the cast that gets mentionable screentime in the movie beyond the main character - is filled out with another human, the main character's love interest, another alien, this one female, the grumpy weapons expert that seems to be fifty per cent Zoe, twenty per cent Kaylee and thirty per cent Jayne, and the incredibly eccentric green-skinned scientist Gune who is just so thoroughly lovably silly you have to like him.

The main character himself is very much the traditional hero-in-the-budding type, but maybe a good bit more reluctant and selfish at first than one'd expect, originating with his abandonment issues with regards to his father. He's not going to stick with you for long after the movie, but he works well enough and isn't annoying like such characters often end up being.

The movie of course looks beautiful - I mean, Don Bluth is involved, it had to - and I'd highly recommend to check it out if you're at all interested in entertaining sci-fi movies. It doesn't reinvent the wheel by a long shot, but it gives it a very good spin.

Weak 8.5/10

...which one of these things I will post about next. 'Cause as my list of things to post about is ever-growing, I find it more and more tricky to summon the willpower to sit down and attack it head-on on my own.

Read more...

Maybe two of you remember this post? Way back then, in late December last year, I had a very successful (by this weblog's standards) vote/poll on what shows on my to-watch-list you people thought I should try out first. Well, here comes the sequel.

Since then, I've watched The Sopranos and Arrested Development as well as a Napoleon miniseries, and I'm currently about half-way through The Wire. Additionally, I've started 3rd Rock From the Sun and will continue on and most likely finish that show this summer.

That means I need to decide what to watch once I'm done with The Wire. Right now, I'm leaning in the direction of How I Met Your Mother, as everybody keeps braggin' about it.


Alias
Big Shots
Brisco County Jr
Brotherhood
Burn Notice
Dark Angel
Dexter
Drive
Dr. Who/Torchwood
Entourage
Farscape
How I Met Your Mother
Joan of Arcadia
Life
Mad Men
Medium
Monk
Moonlight
Jericho
Journeyman
Justice League
The Pretender
Red Dwarf
The Shield
The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Sharpe
Supernatural
Tru Calling
The Tudors
Young Indiana Jones

Any shows you feel should be added to or removed from the list, let me know. More importantly, mention the one(s) you want me to watch first and if you feel like it, why. It'll be much appreciated. (I'm also considering adding shows I've always wanted to watch from beginning to end but never did, but have already watched most of the episodes of. Most notably Ally McBeal, Hercules/Xena (cheese! ) and Monty Python's Flying Circus, but unless a lot of you cry out about them I think I'll keep to new stuff for now)

Carry-over votes from the results last time that I haven't seen yet:

How I Met Your Mother (2)
Farscape (1)
Dexter (1)

Vote away, people. It'd make me happy. ^^

Or is it just the second part of Chapter Two? There was no "Chapter Three" heading in the style of the "One" and "Two"-headings some pages into the previous two issues - it might be significant, and it might not. It sorta makes sense if it is, with the #2 cliffhanger being way more lame and commercial-like than the endings of #1 and #3... but more likely, they've just (stupidly, if you ask me) decided to stop it. EDIT: Mr. Lynch's answer to me on his podcast seemed to imply that my hopes might be right - it might be that issue 4 will start chapter 3. He didn't say so straight out, but his answer could definitely imply that. Also, apparently, I need to get myself an icon, 'cause the lack of it is suspicious.


That tiny little thing aside, I loved this issue. Loved. This. Issue.


I didn't think this comic could deliver on the level of the opening issue ever again - it'd simply be too much to hope for. And while this issue isn't quite there, it has certainly made me readjust my hopes. It now seems very much within reach. 'Cause this issue was rock-solid, and more than made up for the second issue which was pretty okay-but-rather-bland in my tastes - it now rather well serves as a mellow lead-in to this anyway, which retroactively improves it.

So what did I like? Well, I'm not gonna spoil anything, but I loved the ending. (Doubt that more than 5% of the fans reading these comics didn't.) I loved seeing the Loan Shark again, though I didn't really register that that was who it was 'til the second read, I was all caught up in the plot the first time around. By way of the Internet I've also realized (didn't notice it on my own, shamefully) one of the quiet lords in the back is the demon sorcerer who owed Giles a favour back in Buffy's season 3 - or one of his kind, anyway (maybe his wife... ;D) - which is not only a cool throwback, but an interesting portent. Because it would seem like there'd be a reason to choose the one demon capable of removing someone's soul to do a cameo like that...

Oh and what more, what more... right. Illyria and the Big Scaly Person. A dragged-out-fight which could've risked being boring on the drawn page like that if the main focus of the panels turned into incredibly captivating background-action behind Angel grumpily untangling some plotthreads for himself and us in the front. All in all, I'd say this was a fabulous issue, and if someone reading this aren't reading this comic already, they should damn sure start. I loved this show, a tiny bit more than what's healthy I suspect, and it would take a lot for me to be happy with a continuation in any other format than the original - heck, it'd take a damn lot for me to be happy with a continuation in the SAME format, too - but this comic has officially pleasantly impressed and suprised me twice in three issues. (And the second one hit the mark just barely beneath what I'd dare hope for, too.)

Go. Read. Love.

Now THIS is simple, people. The blind spawn of an impotent maggot could (almost) do this.


And yes, this is a reaction of outrage after learning the 4400 after their best season to date got, unsurprisingly, cancelled. I'm coping by moving on hurriedly.

I'm gonna list TV-shows I'm currently considering watching from beginning to end when I finish Dead Like Me, and whichever one gets the most votes from people commenting here will be The One I Next Watch - though I reserve the right to break ties as well as the right to give up on a show after the first four or five episodes if I don't like it. Feel free to add shows as suggestions and I'll add them to the list of possibles if I want to. I'd also appreciate it if you described what about a show is good and why you think I should watch it, but I'm not gonna require it.



3rd Rock from the Sun
Alias
Arrested Development
Dark Angel
Dexter
Drive
Farscape
How I Met Your Mother
Journeyman
Justice League
The Pretender
Red Dwarf
The Shield
The Sopranos
Tru Calling
Young Indiana Jones
The Wire




And no. I don't really expect any big surge of people commenting. But hope springs eternal.

Twenty-two clips gathering all the flashbacks of Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer into a chronological movie prequel to both series - it's simply awesome. Oh, if only I could watch it all in one go instead of having to get up to click on the next clip all the time... Everybody should watch this.

What we should do.
Whom it should be done to.
How we should do it.
Where it should be done.


And no. We don't need to state the 'why'.

Friends, Whedonites, Countrymen, lend this your eyes!

And do not stop 'til you've read it all, people.

So, I'm on my first year of my master's degree, this term being the boring compulsory shit. Next year is the writing of the actual master's thesis. But next term is all up for grabs, I can do almost whatever I want with it. Hence my total lack of making my mind up. Keep in mind that no matter what I'll do, these three suggestions are all full-time suggestions but that I'll still take an additional course (in Norse Religion, I've always wanted to and this is kind of my last chance for a long while) bringing the total workload up to 150% in all scenarios).

So... next term... should I...

A. Take fun courses that I know with reasonable certainty I'll get good grades in and learn useful stuff in, but that won't in any way alter or improve my range or depth of knowledge - for instance, should I take courses in, say, Archeology, Rhetorics, Philosophy and/or Classical Literature to improve my knowledge of the Ancient Mediterranean world and supplement the courses I have in Religious Science and History? This is what I WANT to do from a short term-perspective, as this would be both fun and interesting and relatively easy work-load wise. It would, however, limit my ability to write a particularily "serious" master's thesis, as I would not be able to discuss any aspect of any primary source in its original form. Most likely, this would lead to me writing a "fun" assignment on, say, the uses of Ancient Greek religion in modern comic books, for instance, which while fun I'm doubting will really get me anywhere afterwards.

B. Take Classical Greek - that is, the language. Upside is, this'd allow me to work on Greek mythology, which I find to be fun. Downside is, I have no idea whether or not I'll do okay in this, and I know it'll be a lot of work. Upside is, beyond the having great use for some insight into the language as stated above, having some minimal knowledge of Classical Greek is more or less expected if you write your master's thesis on Ancient Greece, and this way I'd not feel like a complete idiot every time someone expected me to know something I don't.

C. Take Latin, full term. This would basically be choosing to work on Roman religion instead of Greek, but that would maybe not be so bad - due to having had a course in the history of the Roman Republic, I feel much more familiar with Roman history anyway. It would mean re-taking a course in Latin I already have before continuing with new stuff, but that might be smart, as I don't remember any of it.

D. Take Latin, half the term as well as one of the fun courses from A. Upsides would then be same as in A and C above, only assuming of myself that I'll remember stuff from last time I took Latin so I won't have to re-take it. However, while this sound enticing, I'm thinking that it might end up being very taxing work-load-wise...

E. Combining B, C or D with attending a lot of lectures from courses in A throughout the term, but not signing up for exams in them.

F. Combining B, C or D with signing up for a couple of A-exams without compulsory activities and attending their lectures throughout the term, but not do any reading or book-purchasing at all and show up for the exams just for the heck of it.


Any suggestions? B&C would be the smart choices, A the fun choice, D and F the attempted compromise combining the best of the two, and E is more of an ideal I won't be able to live up to as there's no way I'll have the self-control to attend lectures I won't have exams in on a regular basis.

I'd really like some input, who knows, maybe some of you'll say something which'll be all helpful. Stranger things have happened...

;_;


It's ooover.


Sniffle.



So, what'd I think? I think the show rocked, is what I think. True, the third season could've been better wrapped up, but it's not like they chose to end it there. I really don't have anything to say that I haven't said before. The plot's solid. The characters rock - E.B. Farnham's personage is only exceeded in how deplorable it is by how dryly hilarious he can be, Seth Bullock is a nice, believable twist on the stalwart hero, Mr. Elseworth is as loveable an old man as Mr. Hearst is eerie, Mr. Richardson is so naïve as to be funny, sweet and sad at the same time, Trixy has a really good character-arc self-reliancy-wise throughout the series, etc, etc, etc. And, as mentioned time and time again, Al Swearengen rocks.

Rocks, I tell you.



So go and watch and stop wasting your time reading this post which is little more than a fan-rave. Imploration given.