My own self

"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".

The president is a product, don’t forget that.

—Pete Campbell, 1x10: Long Weekend

So, I've finally checked out Mad Men, the show that seems to have been harvesting stellar reviews like nobody's business everywhere, and I'm up to date on the current episodes. I decided to write a post on the show so far instead of merely season 1, as I feel the development so far in season 2 is vital to my overall impression of the show.

First off, I have to say I'm impressed that this is on basic cable. I have to more or less continously rub my eyes to even accept that the logo in the corner isn't HBO or at the very least Showtime. That should say a lot about the feel of this show, and what it's saying is indubitably positive.

So yeah, it's well made, the style, feel and dialogue is quite excellent, and with quite the stellar cast, too. Not only is the show brimming with familiar faces from a wide variety of my favourite TV-shows, but the unfamiliar ones are just as awesome. As a period piece, I'd not hold my horses at all in praising this - it's sublime. I buy that I'm watching the early 60's in the US when I'm watching this show, and I buy it so completely I sometimes have difficulty imagining the actors as my contemporaries. The way a world that's 80% like our own is portrayed, here, is nothing short of brilliant in my eyes, as the few differences there are seems gargantuanly huge as a result. Seeing women treated like third-rate citizens in Rome or even Deadwood is sort of okay - it's so far removed from our present reality, you kind of expect that kind of lack of modern values and viewpoints - but seeing it done here makes the hair stand on the back of your neck because almost everything else is so hauntingly familiar and close. My parents were alive when this era was at its height. Of course, the treatment of women is not the only such difference - it's by far the biggest, but there is a score of others, and they all add to this odd feeling of familiarity and strangeness at once.

However, now that I have praised the actors, the world, the setting, the style and the tone of the show to no end, let me tell you why I'm not yet completely in love with this series. First, while as I've made clear done quite excellent, the 1960s United States of America isn't quite my cup of tea. I'm one of those crazy people who think that history is as a rule of thumb more interesting the older it is, and as such something set in "The New World" after both world wars is kind of doubly screwed. That's not the main thing, though, as it is so well done I would be sucked in anyway if not for the second issue I have been having - for a long while, the show felt somewhat empty, gloomy and directionless. Now, this is on purpose, I'm sure, but it didn't work for me. You have no central character with a clear, palpable goal or conflict, no clear-cut storyline to follow, no dynamic that really and truly Matters. The main character's sense of having an empty life and the time and culture's disillusioned feel in general combine into robbing me as the viewer of the spark of "ooh, what will happen, how will it go?!" I need to truly get involed. Simply because there is no big thing that you wonder how will turn out, and there is no big conflict you wonder how will go. It's somewhat remedied by the main character's murky and mysterious past, but we're let in on it so slowly it isn't as big a help as it could be.

And yet, this all gets better. In the second-to-last episode of the first season the shit, as it were, hits the fan, and blissfully, season 2 seems to have grown on this, having more of a... core than the preceding season. It has got the heart, the drive and the ability to get me involved that season 1 only started showing signs of near the end, and this is why it is so important for me to mention it in this review, which would otherwise have been far less positive. As it stands, the gloomy season 1 in fact sets up the mood and the world brilliantly for you to then start caring more later, and while I still think they should have gotten past it a little sooner, it does indeed form quite a good building-block for what's so far been showed of season 2.

It will take the series a long, long time to outweigh the shortcomings the basic premise will forever have in my eyes and the lasting impression of it as empty and directionless the first half of season 1 imposed on me, and so it will probably never reach any top ten TV-shows list of mine even though the quality of the production is actually that good. But unless it now starts disappointing - and I do not see why it would - it is likely to be one of the best shows I'm watching this fall, and that's more than enough reason to keep an eye on it.

And also, while the premise and the gloomyness might not be tailored for my tastes, who knows, maybe it'll suit you. And if not, then, well, if you enjoy good TV, it gets more engaging as it goes and it's well worth waiting around for if you ask me.

Which you clearly do. I mean, you did read my review.

Finally getting around to checking out the first couple of books of this series, it's about what I expected. Clever little jokes, a rather impressive control of the language, an amusingly present (fictional) author and relatively gripping but predictable plots. Also, as the author puts no small amount of effort into warning the reader about repeatedly, it's rather melancholy and sad.

Still, they're super-quick and easy reads, and while I do realise the target audience is far below my own age, I had fun reading these two books. The first book details the first experiences of the Baudelaire children Violet, Klaus and Sunny after their parents suddenly pass away in a brutal fire. They're sent off to live with a distant (but geographically close) relative, Count Olaf, who quickly turns out to be an evil man with designs on the orphans' great inherited fortune. In the end the children, using their natural gifts of inventing, reading and biting, outwit and defeat the Count, but as the author takes care in pointing out, do not get a happy ending anyway as the villain escapes. The second book follows the children into the care of a new guardian, this one benevolent and amusing, but with a thwarted Olaf furiously on their heels. More tragedies so ensue.

These two books, together with book number 3 as far as I gather, make up the basis for the movie with Jim Carrey, a movie which reading this turns out to have been pleasingly true to the books. Compared to the movie, the adults are a tiny bit less oblivious (though still very much so) and the children a tiny bit more so (though still far more clever than the adults). A main difference, though, is that the antagonist of Count Olaf is, while still very ominous and disgusting, less ridiculous and more intelligent than in the movie. Of course, this might be a result of the children not knowing him very well yet, after just two books, and it might change. Still, the man is genuinely creepy, and somewhat less clueless than the other adults of the tales.

The books have thirteen chapters, and there are thirteen books to the series - hardly a coincidence - and I'm told they keep following the children being sent to a new guardian-formula for a while, gradually starting to spice it up a little more. I'm sure they'll be more enticing once I'm done with the third book and venture into unknown territory, the first three being so close to the movie that I basically know what will happen next in almost every scene. There are also subtle hints to a larger, over-arching plot line in these first two books, and I expect that to become increasingly central to later books in the series.

Good books, really, with the humour making up for the melancholia and the easy, quick read making up for the somewhat predictable plot. I'm sure to keep reading at these and see how it all turns out.

Horribly horribly, no doubt.

When Stargate SG-1 finally ended after its tenth season, it was ironically virtually the only season they hadn't wrapped up all their major plot lines. This was on purpose, though, as they were planning two (or hopefully three) direct-to-DVD-movies to tie up the remaining loose ends. The first one of these, Stargate: Ark of Truth, was alright, but felt more like a double-episode from the show than a movie in its own right. I was excited to see if this movie, which was to tie up a plot-thread a good bit more interesting to me than the ones they tied up in Ark, would do the same.

And it did, but actually a little less so. Continuum does indeed have the feel of a movie in its own right, though it's still plagued with feeling like a high-budget double-episode while you're watching it. It's also involving time-travel, and I've never been a fan of plots where you hit a reset button at the end. If none of the characters will remember, then what is the point of telling us the story?

Those things considered, it was a good ride - better, I'd say, than Ark of Truth. There's a couple of nice guest appearances by many old favourites, including the ever-awesome O'Neill and also one by Hammond, with some nice pieces of dialogue ending up feeling eerily sad considering Don S. Davis recent death. There was humour, there was very good use of continuity, there were twists, politics, betrayals and Baal, my favourite Stargate-villain to date.

Not to mention that it looks damned awesome. A very strong 7,5/10

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...

Courtesy of Obdormio.

Read more...

Well, it's been up for over a day now, and anyone who hasn't seen it yet should go do so immediately. 'Cause MY GODS, with the funny.

The world is a mess and I just... need to rule it.

Dexter, out loud: Yeah, I wound up with some unexpected time on my hands.
Dexter, voice-over: Like twenty years to life.

Dexter season 2 keeps up the dry wit, the strong focus on a season plot, and the intensity of season 1, yet is in many ways very different. Where season 1 was the story of how Dexter started to doubt his purpose in life, how his past was dug up and blended into his present, season 2 is the story of how Dexter is changed by these experiences and how he learns to cope with them.

By its very nature, then, season 2 is much less dark than season 1. Dexter, for the first time since he was three years old in some form of touch with his emotions, is not anymore in denial or ignorance of how things are neither with his memories nor with his present life. However, without those he's also finding himself without the certainty of his behaviour and ice-cold and removed way of treating his life and the people in it. Season 2's Dexter is a Dexter in turmoil - a turmoil he still cannot afford to let the outside world see.

The loss of Brian's towering makes the season far less omnious still, and as the focus now isn't anymore on whether or not Dexter will lose the little threads of humanity in him, the focus becomes whether or not Dexter will be put to justice for his actions instead.

Thus, the viewer's position is shifted, from following Dexter's life with a sense of dread and mistrust in season 1, hoping he'll come through and be more human but fearing he won't, to something else entirely - to following his life while rooting for him. In season 2, the moral ambiguity is a rather sudden presence in Dexter's own head, and with that, the ambiguity is ironically slipping out of focus for the viewer. Watching this, we root for him, wish he'll pull through, and have unequivocally positive feelings for him. In season 1, Dexter balanced a protagonist between hero and monster. In season 2, the monster is gradually and effortlessly made acceptable to the audience, and the hero gets the spotlight as the Miami police department and an immensely capable FBI agent starts investigating who's dropped all these garbage bags of human body parts in the ocean.

This works, though. It's a gradual and subtle change, one I only realised had occurred in hindsight as I was writing this post. It lets the plot shift to something new and less horrifying without making it feel like a loss in tension and quality. When the plot is about Dexter being on the verge of capture, the audience necessarily needs to feel certain they want him to evade it.

The supporting cast is improved over the first season. Debra is going through quite the character arc since her trauma with Rudy, and at the end of the season she's a strong, independent person showing nothing of the erratic and uncertain behaviour of old. Doakes really get to shine in this season as his grudge against Dexter becomes an obsession. Angel, who I somehow failed to mention in my season 1 review, is still as amazingly thoroughly fantastically decent as ever, and is probably one of the most heartbreakingly lovable grown male characters I've ever encountered. That man has not a vicious bone in his body, and he truly gets to show it time and time again over the course of the second season.

Most important among the supporting cast, though, is none of these, but one out of two big additions to the rooster, the special agent, Frank Lundy. In an amazing piece of casting, they've in Keith Carradine found a man who looks a little bit like Harry Morgan, sounds very much like him (as, interestingly, does Dexter in his inner voiceovers) and is a law enforcement prodigy for Debra to look up to - and can act the hell out of any scene he's in as well. (And I thought I was impressed with his Wild Bill Hickok on Deadwood!) Obviously, with her gigantic father issues, she falls for him, head over heels, but their building and growing relationship is among the best things in the season, and by far the best thing they've done with Debra's character so far. Lundy was the character making up for Brian's disappearance from the show, and damn it all if he doesn't fill the hole almost exactly.

The other new character with a lot of screentime is Lila (played memorably by Jaime Murray who I know only from her character on Hustle), the English artist slash ex-addict who starts infringing on Rita's territory when she catches interest in Dexter - and he in her, as he realises she sees through his inner turmoil and helps him figuring out who he really is. The character is tailored to be unlikeable, and she really is, but she's an ominous and sort of veiled scary sort of unlikeable and plays a vital if somewhat obvious part in the season. Rita gets far less to do in this season than in season 1, but she continues to be one of the show's most interesting characters, and grows quite a lot over the course of the episodes.

Dexter season 2 is less intense and nerve-wrecking than season 1, but that suits me just fine. It's just as addictive, at least almost as interesting, and probably even a nudge more entertaining. It brought a lot of the supporting cast from season 1 out from the corners to play without shifting the focus from Dexter, by making his present and not his past the main thing about the season. His past was not ignored, though, and his uncovering of new and hidden elements in it is still a very present aspect to the show. Much less original and fresh-feeling than season 1, the reason season 2 works so well is more than anything because it builds on what has gone before. Dexter's inner turmoil is only interesting because of the events of season 1, he's only relatable because of how unrelatable he was before, and so you only root for him because you know what's happened previously. In a very clever way, the show gets away with doing a far more by-the-book story of a charismatic criminal trying to evade a manhunt because it builds on a story which was anything but orthodox. Interestingly, that might be why it works - doing something traditional with this character is rather fresh after season 1.

I'm really psyched for the third season. I have no idea which direction they're going to take this show now, having more or less exhausted his past in season 1, used most of the little frictions baked into his present in season 2, and having the character himself once again at peace - though a new and different peace - with who and what he is. But season 2 has convinced me that odds are they'll have yet another surprising twist of the show done so subtly I only notice once the season is over. I don't like this show more after season 2 than after season 1, it's about the same when it comes down to how much I enjoy it, but I trust it more and feel confident it won't let me down in the future either. Much like as the audience, I don't feel more interested in Dexter, he's still very engaging but not really more so than before, but I trust him more and feel more confident that as the audience, I'm doing the right thing by rooting for him.

Of course, they'll probably pull that second rug there out from under my feet before I knew what hit me.

is a god of pretty, and should draw everything Whedon ever.

People fake a lot of human interactions, but I feel like I fake them all, and I fake them very well. That’s my burden, I guess.

Many people have recommended me this show based on a book called Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsey, but I believe main credit for pushing me past the "will try it out sometime"-block and into the "trying it out now"-zone should be handed to Amras Elensar more than anyone else. By funny coincidence, the day before my scheduled watch of the pilot episode, Shirgaal reviewed it as well, a very positive one that would probably have tipped me over had I not decided to watch it already.


I was strongly skeptical at first mainly due to my lack of interest in and the downright unpleasantness of seeing a lot of explicit violence on screen. Oddly, the show didn't have much of it, and most of what there was happened in the first few episodes. Sure, they don't shy away from it, but they usually cut away from the worse acts of violence, just showing the lead-up and, of course, the results, but even the latter category got a little less horridly vivid as the show progressed. I applaud. No need to speculate, right.

The show, you see, is not at all about the violence. It's about the lack of feeling anything that drives the character(s) to it. The main and title character Dexter Morgan is not just the centre building block of the show, he is its epitome, its foundation and walls both, its carrying pillar, its axis mundi. A quote from Jane Espenson's blog springs to mind - "A House without a House at its centre cannot stand" - nor could a Dexter without a Dexter. With that, as on House, comes a myriad of strengths and weaknesses.

This is, to me, the first of show's two main issues keeping me from unequivocally loving it to, if you'll pardon a quite tasteless pun (and of course you will, you're reading my weblog after all and shouldn't be expecting any better), bits. See, I'm an ensemble cast man. I grew up loving Animals of Farthing Wood and Sinbad the Sailor. I got sold on serialized television in my teens through shows like Friends, Angel, Buffy, Judging Amy and Babylon 5. My present-day top favourite TV-shows are to a one marked by a big family of protagonists, each able to carry an episode on their own if they need to - and they're usually given the chance, too.

That's why a show like Dexter or House M.D. have hard times really climbing the ladder of my list of excellent shows. When this much time and energy is spent on the title character, making him look interesting and give him issues to deal with, the other characters have to suffer, and what's left is only degrees of how much So believe me when I tell you - it's still an excellent show, and you should try it out.

The other issue I have with the show is simply one of genre and premise - it's not really for me. I don't mean I don't enjoy it, I do, but I can never enjoy it as much as I would if this took place in Narnia rather than Miami. It's a mental block, a genre preference, a silly boy's silly tastes, call it what you will, but to me, any premise of a story set in present day in the real world will necessarily be less interesting than something that's not. That need not bother the reader though, and I will not bring that up again in this review. Just keep in mind that this is an additional reason for me to be less-than-excited with the show that's colouring what I think of it.

So, what IS this show? Well, without spoiling much beyond the pilot, it's a show following Dexter, a man shaped by a horrid and suppressed childhood trauma and a freakishly intelligent, hard, caring and morally free-thinking adoptive father into a trained killer. He has no emotions, having only the urge to kill, but he channels his need to do so into carefully planned out and just as carefully executed entrapments and killings of other serial killers on the Code his adoptive father taught him. Simultaneously, he was trained to blend in as a normal person, faking emotions, faking human relations, faking affection and attachment. And he's damned good at it, too, just about everybody loves Dexter. But Dexter, sadly, loves no-one.

Or at least, that's how the season starts out. Dexter is living an emotionless life in the forensics of the Miami police by day, being almost a prodigy at analysing dead bodies and blood splatters. By night he is killing off the scum of the Earth, and feeling good about it too. Then comes along the Ice Truck Killer, an, in Dexter's eyes, true artist of murder, and Dexter gets caught up in his game.

The cast is good for a title-character-focused show. Dexter's sister is lacking a little bit in charisma, but I honestly feel that's mostly because her character is an off-putting combination of insecure and overly sure of herself, and not through any fault of the actress'. The policemen in Dexter's life are all interesting enough, the exception maybe being a character I grew quite the distaste for, the local lieutenant. Thankfully she has a superior officer who is a far more classy brand of jackass (reminding me every so slightly of the awesome Rawls of The Wire) and knows how to put her into her place, which produced some of my favourite non-Dexter scenes of the show.

There are only two truly fascinating characters beyond Dexter himself, though - the Ice Truck Killer, and Dexter's girlfriend, Rita. A long-time victim of spousal abuse and single mum to two, Dexter chooses to spend time with Rita because she is damaged and, in a way, empty like him. The awkwardness and tentative steps of their relationship is beautiful and my by far favourite aspect of the show.

The show is heavy on the season mystery while following smaller episode-by-episode plots as well, much like Veronica Mars used to be, but in that comparison, the mystery is a little less captivating and more predictable than Veronica's was despite (or because) getting more attention during the entire season's run. It's still very good, though, and the show as a whole is incredibly addictive.


Now follows the spoilery part of the review, those who haven't seen the season yet and think they will at some point should skip to the last paragraph.

As the season progresses the Ice Truck Killer keeps attempting to undermine Harry's Code in Dexter's head, keeps trying to open up his suppressed memories to reveal, among other things, his adoptive father's somewhat less than truthful behaviour with regards to Dexter's childhood.

Rudy/Brian was very interesting. The problem was, of course, that I felt pretty confident that he was the Ice Truck Killer the second the character came on scene. You could tell that the man in the white coat was a character actor, and not just some random guy, and that was really enough. It's a sad fact, but, dramatically, they HAVE to make the killer into someone that's already introduced on the show to make the reveal exciting enough, and he was the only character who not only grew from a background-character with two lines into one with as much screentime as any other supporting actor, but who was clearly not cast by a nobody-actor.

When they started heaping on hints on him in addition, I actually started thinking he might not be the guy after all, but an intentional mislead. So that the Big Mystery Of The Season really only ever had one real candidate among the cast was saddening. The character himself, though, was awesome, as was the actor. I have to admit that while I obviously realized he had some connection to Dexter’s childhood, once I saw how young he was (and thus he couldn't possibly have been the killer of Dexter's mum) I stopped thinking about that and thus didn’t see his being Dexter’s brother coming until just a short while before it was revealed. So at least they got me a little there.

As loose ends go, the season didn't really leave many except obvious start-ups for season 2, but I do wonder a lot on Brian's need to kill their biological father. It felt as though there was something there that should've been revealed but never was, which bugs me.

The unblocking of Dexter's memories also leading him to feel a little again, thus starting to care for his sister beyond Harry's Code just as Harry's authority was broken down enough in his head for him to consider breaking it, was a very nice and ironic twist. Brian would probably have succeeded in his scheme had he confronted Dexter with Harry's lies without also unblocking his memories - he would've lost faith in his father's Code without regaining some sense of emotion.

This also lead to a very nice - and long in the coming - turn in Dexter's relationship with Rita, as he is genuinely starting to need company in his life. The season finale is very, very good.



On the whole, the season is a beautifully crafted story with very good visuals and at times very funny little mental remarks from Dexter, and my only real complaint isn't truly valid - as it is that I don't think this particular story could be told much better, but that I think they could have made a story more suited to my tastes in stead. As it stands, it is a very successful and almost equally daring piece of work. The only thing I've seen that's remotely similar to this is the very excellent and thoroughly canceled The Inside, but even that wasn't quite as dark as the mere premise of this show. I might not have heard of James Manos Jr. before (Wikipedia claims he's been involved on The Sopranos and The Shield though), but he's made what's easily one of the best made shows I've ever seen, and certainly one of the more addictive ones. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and look forward to the second season - which I will of course be watching right away.

Gods beneath us - how did I manage not to notice that RAY STEVENSON is to be Punisher in the upcoming movie before today?!


Suddenly, I'm looking enormously forward to it.

I've been wanting to write a review of this season, but then I realised, what's the point? Everyone who is likely to check out the show would (and should) start at the first season anyway, which I already wrote at length about. All that needs doing here is telling those who saw season 1 what I thought of season 2.

And I quite liked it. In some ways it is weaker than season 1, mainly due to the lack of a very, very interesting character from that season for obvious reasons. Cromwell and More makes up for it a good bit, though, and Queen Anne and her diabolical father are quite well done too. Henry, sadly, is starting to bore me a bit - through no fault of the actor. He never seems to have any agendas anymore, he's just jumping from one fit of rage to the next, from one new obsession or pet peeve to the other. Still, seeing the harsh decisions he took this and last season torment him is quite awesome - they should do that even more and play up his personal religious issues more as well. A pet peeve of mine in this season is how several of the regulars in season 1 never showed up and never or barely got mentioned for no apparent reason - but it's really not that noticeable.

All in all I'm looking a lot forward to season 3. This is no Rome - but how could it be, with a main character nailed to the indisputably monarchical throne a lot of the potential excitement is gone from the plots. It's still well done and well worth watching. Season 2 is in some ways better than season 1, in some ways a little weaker, but on the whole it's just more of the same, and after all, that's what you want.

Wow. The show's great.




Before you wonder, no, I won't add an "again". Lost has had several great episodes - foremost among which, for ever and ever, will always be season one's Walkabout - but it's never before had an entire season's worth of episodes where I'd call the general level of quality "great". Season one as good. Season two was very uneven. Season 3 had less bad or boring episodes than 2, but the overall quality-level didn't get back up at the first season's level.


Season 4, ladies and gentlemen, is great. Probably at least partially due to some welcome additions on the writing staff, but likely more important also due to an increased focus. Shorter seasons, a set number of remaining seasons, a plot clearly mapped out beforehand to a degree it hasn't been before.

First off - I love Ben. Absolutely love him. Best character the show has. Second, Locke is improving. He was kind of out there in seasons 2 and 3, but he seems to be regaining some focus and cool. Nowhere near as much as he had in season 1, but still, a good turn for my original favourite character. Of the actual airplane-survivors, Sayid is now my favourite, and he has been for a long while. Finally, he gets some decent amounts of screentime again. Desmond is probably my number three guy after Sayid and Ben these days, and he really got to shine this season. Of my remaining favourite characters from earlier seasons, Sawyer and Juliet is dropped a little to the background, but that makes sense with the plot and is thus completely okay. Infuriatingly, and as expected, Jack gets as much attention as ever. Still, I have to admit, he's somewhat less boring than he used to be. Just somewhat, but still. Additionally, his late father keeps popping up, and he's always been awesome.

All in all, I found the fourth season did a lot of interesting stuff. It shook the flashback-system up more than any previous season ever did without ever letting go of the somewhat eccentric standard episode-set up they've always had, and this was both refreshing and effective. Additionally, we learn a lot of very interesting and intriguing stuff about the old mysteries and the nature of island.

To put it simply - the show feels fresher while still feeling true to itself, and it now not only feels like it is going forward, but actually has a ton of very good episodes while doing so.

If the remaining seasons keep up this level of quality, I'll be forced to buy the damned thing.

Wow this was good. It started out good, got better, and then, sadly, it lost a little momentum towards the end. Still a very good comedy.

Alternatively, it gained momentum towards the end. If you're the sort of person who like the endless "will they or won't they"-plots, whether it is about hook-ups or break-ups. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

How I Met Your Mother is something rare. It's a sitcom that resembles Friends to the degree that I catch my absentminded considerings of it to often suddenly be shifting into pondering some old Friends-episode instead. At the same time, it's a sitcom about a gang of friends that does not feel like a Friends-ripoff.

You following? It actually reminds me of my favourite sitation comedy show growing up (I'm just young enough to have lost the Seinfeld-wave) without feeling like just another of the hundreds of bleak copies. That's rare.

Furthermore, it's got a cast that actually rivals the Friends-cast - even the main character and straight man is funny (for a straight man, anyway). The dynamics as the show start out and in the following episodes are really good - you have the old, well-working couple of the responsible but fun woman Lily and the intelligent but childish man Marshall, their best friend and roommate Ted the straight man with romantic ideas of marriage, house, kids and dogs, who is the show's main character, you have their wacky, shallow and sometimes mysterious pal Barney who somehow manages to alternate between the dork, the dirtbag, the oddball, the sarcastic bastard and the supportive friend seamlessly. And you have the New Girl in the gang, Robin, a girl with rather materialistic priorities and on whom Ted has a huge crush.

So, basically, this is Friends season one with some personalities shifted around. And yet it somehow feels fresh, too. This impressed me, and I watched most of this season in a mere half-week - though that might have had something to do with it being the week of my exams.

It's also funny - very funny. The show gets increasingly funnier in its first five episodes or so, and then it stays on that level for about ten episodes more. Then, sadly, it loses a lot of the comedic flair in favour of soapy plots as the Robin-Ted-plot intensifies just as the Lily-Marshall-pairing starts getting issues. I was okay with one of the two, but both annoyed me and felt speculative. I'm kind of sick of tv-shows not being able to portray happy relationships for more than a few episodes at a time before they have to screw something up - it's honestly just exploitive. But be that as it may, it does make your interest in the show more intense, because while less funny now, by this time you're hooked on the characters and want to see how they do, now that they're in trouble more than ever. Still, I hope the show will get as funny as it used to be again at some point in the second season. Fingers crossed.

I mentioned Barney, right? The most awesome comedy-character since The Janitor on Scrubs, I shit you not.

Anyway, the show also has an interesting set-up, being mainly flashbacks to 2005/2006 told by Ted to his children at some point in the far future. This has some implications about what may happen and what may not that add a level of interest to the show, and it works well - and Bob Saget's probably never been funnier than in his doing the narration as the older Ted off screen.

All in all, it's a show that feels fresh and modern while subconsciously having me tricked into thinking I'm watching new Friends-episodes. And, of course, there's the fact that the season finale has Amy Acker, Alexis Denishof and Alyson Hannigan in the same episode of tv (though admittedly not sharing any scenes), something that hasn't happened since Angel's "Orpheus" in March 2003. Whedon-geeks everywhere rejoice.

Also, Barney. I mean really. The guy is legendary.

This show started out as a mediocre Smallville/Buffy-ripoff that had only one mentionable strength - it's being funny.

Then, at some point about half-way through the season, it started actually taking advantage of a virtually unlimited amount of potential mythology to delve into and make use of, and since that, the show's been Pretty Good, at times even Very Good. This season finale is a great example of how much this show has risen to the occasion, and I'll even go so far