Season Finales

Here we are, at the end of the season for many a show, and we all find ourselves a little bit lost. Fear not, there are still many good shows to keep us satiated, like Game of Thrones and Legend of Korra. But right now I find myself thinking about whether these finales were worth all of the build up and if they've actually made me wanting to see the next season. Since there are quite a few that have just finished up I'll list them all out here:

Once Upon a Time:  What can I say about this show?  It first caught my attention because it's mixing the modern day with magic and another world, which is one of my favorite kind of plots.  But, to be honest, the show is very slow and very boring.  For all the time that we as an audience put into the show there just isn't enough payoff.  Granted, it is the first season, and the show is sold as a mystery, but even as a mystery it feels like nothing of note happens.  In the season finale (spoilers) we find out that August is the grown up version of Pinnochio, and he is turning back into wood because of his life as a hedonist instead of helping our heroine throughout her life, as he promised he would do.  In the episode before it he tried to trick Rumplestiltskin into thinking he was his long lost son, which I kinda wish he was.  There's this stupid line that August says where he asks if he even looks like the lost son, and to be honest, the older actor looks more like the kid who plays Rumplestiltskin's son that the kid who played Pinnochio.  Pretty much all that happens in the finale is that August reveals who he is and the lead runs away with her son.  That's it.  A whole season dedicated to her making that decision, something that could have happened in the first few episodes and only taken 15 minutes of screen time.  I was lost after they killed off the huntsman, him being clearly the coolest actor and character.  But there we are.  Will I watch the second season?  Maybe, in one go, but I won't be waiting for it.

Breakout Kings:  The season two finale was absolutely stunning.  It was chock full of everything that makes a dramatic television series good.  Good acting and characterisation, good writing, good tension, I honestly can't get enough of it.  Because I want you to watch this series I'm not going to give away any spoilers, but I will say that there were so many twists and turns that I had no idea what was going to happen next.  What I love about this series is that everyone seems like a real person, trying to run their lives on logic but having strong emotions and loyalties getting in the way.  If you haven't seen it watch it, it's definitely worth your time.   I can't wait for season 3, especially considering the big question posited at the end of the finale.

Castle:  This is a series that I'm a little bit on the fence for.  It has its good moments and its bad moments.  Because it is a syndicated series that has been around for several seasons it has a formula that it sticks to, which is some random person is murdered, the suspect is something weird or goofy, and then Castle and Becket go and catch the killer with sexual tension thrown in.  A good part of the show is about the sexual tension between Castle and Becket, and (spoiler) they finally get together at the end of the finale.  Yeah, that was nice to see, but you could see it from a mile away.  Honestly, this is really old school writing, and it would have been a much more dynamic show if they were off and on and stuff like that.  A show that does stir up this convention, and does it well, is Dexter.  In a way Castle is like a PG Dexter in a way, a show that's interesting and is a different take on the cop drama, but is safe for prime-time TV.  Now that they're together and Becket has resigned from the force the fifth season is going to be a lot different.  I'm sort of looking forward to it because I like Nathan Fillion, but I sure am not looking forward to the schlocky non main plot episodes I know are going to be there.

The Vampire Diaries:  I know this show is meant to be a high-school dramarama like all of the other stuff on the CW, but I've loved it since the beginning.  Simply because of Ian Somerhalder's portrayal of Damon.  This is going to be very spoiler heavy, you are warned.  I've sort of read the books, so I kind of knew what was going to happen, but the show goes off the book a lot, and in my opinion in a good way.  So, long story short, Klaus's body was killed, but his spirit was moved to Tyler's body.  Weird, but they can do something with that.  Elena trying to make a decision on which Salvator brother to choose was very reminiscent of Catherine's romance with both of them, but Elena was trying to be a good person and choose.  She chose Stephan right before she died, which happened very much the way that it had in the books.  And she turns into a vampire.  The difference is that in the books she was drinking the blood of both of the brothers and just so happened to drink more of Damon's so when she turns she has a sire bond to him.  In the show that one doctor who heals people with vamp blood had taken some of Damon's blood earlier in the series and had given that to Elena when she was taken to the hospital earlier.  You still with me?  So, since the sire bond was introduced with Tyler earlier in the season, and that it's in the book, Elena is for sure going to be sire bonded to Damon.  I'm looking forward to that.  I'm disappointed that Klaus and Alaric are gone, but I'm sure that Elijah, who's still around, is going to have some cool stuff to do.  I am very much looking forward to season 4, and Elena being a vampire, even though I don't much like vampires generally.

So there's still a lot of shows either on or coming out this year, and I'm both looking for stuff and dreading others.  I love how Game of Thrones is bringing the books to life, and I love how Legend of Korra is a big ball of fun, drama, comedy, and some mystery thrown in, and I have no idea what's going to happen in the next episode.  It's going to be an exciting summer.

Weekly Recap

This week's review/ vlog is late because I am sick.  So much so that I have lost my voice and I've pretty much slept straight through since Saturday.  But I did watch the finale of Walking Dead, as well as the new episodes of Once Upon a Time and Breakout Kings.  I've also watched all of the episodes of Spartacus: Blood and Sands, which include Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, and Spartacus: Vengeance.  Like I said, I'm really very sick, so this is going to be very brief.  And point form-ish.

The Walking Dead:  I have one thing to say.  And if you have read the comics there is one thing in the season finale that made you jump out of your seat and scream 'yes'!  Or clap a lot in my case because I'm sick.  And that one thing is the introduction of Michonne!  The awesome chick with a katana and two zombies (minus their arms and lower jaws) on leashes!  Everything else in this episode pales in comparison.  

Once Upon a Time: I'm honestly losing interest in this show, but it comes on after Walking Dead, and before the auto-rerun of Breakout Kings, so it's no skin off my back to watch it.  I still like Rumpelstiltskin, but the rest of the town is just boring.  A mystery show only really works if they know exactly where they're going with the plot, but you can see this show is both syndicated and episodic, so the writing is waiting for the big company to tell them where they can go and when they can go there.  Which leads to a lot of filler.

Breakout Kings: Although this show is also episodic, it makes sense that it is because of the show's set up.  Also, each episode brings more to the forefront, and the stakes to the characters are always important and very present.  The main plot is also not predicated on a mystery, which works well in its favor.  Everything seems up to the minute, and the characters have a chance to be both reactionary and productive, though mostly reactionary because of the show's base plot, where they go and catch criminals when they break out of jail, which isn't a bad thing.  This episode gave insight to Julia's past and skills, but also her deep psychological problems, and how she finally asked Lloyd for help.  Of course, the commercials have to ruin it for us by showing her kiss Lloyd in a future episode, but when Doctor Who did that when they showed River Song in that eye patch thing, the reason for it turned out to be way different than we expected, so it could still be a little bit of a surprise.

Spartacus: If you haven't watched this show, go and watch it, I dare you.  I love how this show is like a more elegant version of 300.  Yes, you read that right, I said Spartacus was elegant.  And I mean it.  Yeah, there's a ton of sex and gore, like Caligula level of sex and gore, just short of being a hardcore porn.  I'll be honest, I was expecting to see full frontal nudity on women, but I was pleasantly surprised to see there was more on men, and in not specifically sexual moments.  There's even one scene where two guys fight each other nude.  It's great to see something that's a (somewhat) historical portrayal of ancient Roman society.  As for it being like 300, it's either a complete rip-off or a soul sequel.  Every episode has slow-mo action, cartoonish blood, cgi gore, slow-mo sex, etc.  It even has a couple of the same actors.  This show works a lot better here because there is a lot less cgi and a lot more color, and the acting and plot is quite a bit better.  Also, Lucy Lawless!  In nude scenes!  Did that get your attention?

Now I'm going to sleep, because despite I haven't talked yet today, my throat is killing me.  See you next week!

Weekly Recap V-Log 03/12/12

In this v-log I talk about Mass Effect 3 (without spoilers) and how I don't mind admitting my newbage at certain videogames, The Lorax, Breakout Kings, and The Walking Dead.  I also show off my new knitting projects, cuz I'm a dork.

Breakout Kings Season Premiere, and Other Stuff

I'm saving my next vlog outing for the Mass Effect 3 launch tomorrow night.  But this night I watched the newest episodes of The Walking Dead, Once Upon a Time, and the season 2 premiere of Breakout Kings.  As per usual, spoiler alert, but, then again, with most big shows nowadays, you just turn the channel on an hour late and the commercials for the next episode will be a spoiler.  Also, I didn't want to film because I moved my room all around, put up posters, threw out like 3 garbage bags worth of stuff, the whole nine yards, and only now just sat down to chill out and enjoy me some Firefly.  Did I mention I'm going to be Kaylee for the next two comicons coming up soon?

Anyways, tonight I'm going to shake things up and start with Breakout Kings.  I only just started watching this show little over a week ago, but I'm in love with it.  Granted, some of these feelings are coming from my love of Prison Break, for which Breakout Kings is sort of a sequel.  What makes Breakout Kings so much better than the run of the mill detective or cop shows is its cast of characters.  Each and every person brings something important to the team, and the show wouldn't be the same without them. Shea with his street smarts, Charlie being a hardass, Erica being so kickass, Ray being the big strong brooklyn guy, and Lloyd being, well, Lloyd (if you've seen the show you know what I'm talking about, and if not, WATCH IT!).  And that's why the loss of Charlie at the end of the episode was so shocking and heart breaking.  Because he, like everyone else in the show, was compelling and empathetic, his loss really hits us, and all of the other characters, hard.  I'm very interested in seeing how this is going to affect the rest of the season, and all of the characters.  This show is very emotive, compounded by the fact that Lloyd is a behavioral psychologist and his main character focus is looking at such parts of the human psyche.  This season also introduces a main antagonist, Damien, who is a recently escaped serial killer.  Lloyd gave council at his trial so his main focus is revenge against our cute, goofy doctor.  He killed Charlie, stole his badge, and was the first con to evade arrest after they found him.  All I can say is I will be watching this season with apt interest.

Once Upon a Time wasn't on last week due to the Oscars.  Thing is with this show the most interesting parts of it are those that either involve Rumplestiltskin or Emma directly.  When they don't, it's very boring, and that's what this week's episode was like.  Regarding those characters, all we learned was that Mr. Gold (aka Rumplestiltskin) doesn't like the nuns (aka the faeries).  I'm sure that will be important in the future.  And that's all I have to say about this episode.

The Walking Dead is just getting better and better.  A lot of people were saying how it was too slow and boring, but finally we're getting the pay off.  Let me just say, even though I was not expecting Dale to die (which was half the reason it was so shocking, the other half him being such an integral character) I was glad to see him go.  If we're going by survival logic, he was the best one to go.  He was old, a shit-stirrer, and he just didn't live within reality.  I do agree that they shouldn't become savages, but the way I look at it that means they don't rape or kill for pleasure, like the other men that are encountered within the series do.  I'm basing this mostly on the comic, but it looks like that's the way the show is heading too.  Killing a guy who shot at them because he was a liability seems logical to me.  He hasn't shown any signs of capitulating to their domination and following their lead, actually he seems like a strong flight risk.  Rick should have shot him in the head when he fell on that spike, but this show just loves to play with the characters' hindsight.  What I really liked about this episode was people were FINALLY talking in a group.  I wish they had done that a lot earlier, it would have made a lot more sense.  But, now that Dale's gone, and Rick and Shane are agreeing on something (at least for the most part) the group should be gathering some more cohesion.  Daryl also had some cool scenes this episode.  In the preview for the next episode it looks like Laurie tries to reconcile with Shane, which i'm looking forward to.  Only two more episodes left!  Then we'll have to wait until Halloween for season 3.  At least we'll have the comics to tide us over.

And Game of Thrones too!  The new season looks wicked!  I'm going to do an in depth review of each episode.  Speaking of reviews, I do have the scripts written for a few, but I just have to play Mass Effect 3, so until my first play-through is done, I won't be doing much else.  At least my room is clean!

Weekly TV Recap Written Review

So, yet again, I'm not motivated enough to do the vlog.  Oh, and the Oscars are on tonight, which of course I couldn't give two shits about because none of the movies are interesting this year.  They're all just meh.  So I'll just talk about the stuff I did watch and care about this week: The Walking Dead, of course, and Breaking In and Breakout Kings.

     This episode of The Walking Dead tonight was finally worth the wait.  We had all been waiting patiently for the zombies to return, and return they have, in droves.  Finally tonight we had the heart pounding, face smashed in, zombie killing action we've been waiting for.  But what makes this episode most interesting is the interaction between Rick and Shane.  We've been waiting for the tension between them to come to a head ever since we found out that Shane was sleeping with his wife.  In the comics at this point Shane had already been killed, so us as the audience has no idea where this is going.  The sneak preview for the episode next week shows that Shane is still thinking of rebellion, which I really wish he wouldn't, but there we are.  It will definitely be more than interesting to see how everything plays out.

     The next two shows I began to watch this week were Breaking In and Breakout Kings.  Breaking In is about a firm of specialists who break in to various companies for them so that the companies can find out what their weak spots are.  It's a comedy show, so we see a lot of silly stuff happening, but I like that it's not the gross-out humor that is more popular right now.  Which is surprising because it's done by Happy Madison Productions.  A lot of people don't like them or Adam Sandler, but honestly, they do produce some fun stuff.  I still maintain that Little Nicky is one of my favorite comedy movies and I plan to do a scripted video review of it in the future.  I haven't caught up all the way with the episodes, but so far I'm enjoying it.  If you haven't seen it yet, its a lot of fun.  It's also great to see Christian Slater in a decent role again.  Breaking In is owned by and aired on FOX.

     Breakout Kings is the show that has definitely caught my attention this week.  Again, I'm not all caught up to date with it yet, but the new season starts in about a week, so I have time.  I have to say, I am in love with this show.  And I know, I seem to be spreading around my amour for all these different shows, but they really are all worth it.  It's all just adding to my opinion that TV today is better than theatrically released films.      Anyways, the basic plot of the show is that the U.S. Marshals have created a team of convicts with special abilities to help them recover escaped convicts.  Cool idea, great cast, especially Jimmi Simpson who plays Lloyd Lowry, a one time psychiatric doctor turned prison inmate.  I've been watching this actor for a while now and I'm surprised at myself for not having watched this show earlier.  Oh well, at least I get to watch all the episodes in a row right?  But anyways, the show is well worth the watch, if not for the interesting situations they find themselves in but for the great cast.  Here's the link to the IMDB page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1590961/.  Also, T-Bag from Prison Break is in this!  This takes place in the same universe as Prison Break, how cool is that!  Great, now I have to re-watch that show again too.

     So that's it for this week.  I'm currently working on a comedy review for The Blue Lagoon, but it's going super fucking slow because that movie is almost unreviewable.  I swear, half the movie has nudity, while the other half is just inserts of pretty animals.  See you next week!