Star Trek 2009 Red Letter Media review (review on a review)

The review was pretty good – though it is not as enjoyable when he doesn’t hate the movie in question, but there's good criticism there. “So much for your peaceful vision of the future, idiot”

I wouldn’t say he likes it, at least not with some qualifiers. He states that he realizes what it is a film made to make money – basically dumbed down for the “popcorn eating dimwitted masses.” He takes some serious cracks at the characterizations (everyone’s “HYPERCHARGED”).

Star Wars: How George Lucas destroyed a franchise

This particular post may be a bit rambling, as it's a combination of a slew of different conversations I had over the last few months about Star Wars. Red Letter Media's Star Wars prequel reviews sum up most of my problems with the series, but I'd like to touch on a few more. Nothing like clubbing a dead horse a bit more, right?

Reimagined by JJ Abrams: Star Trek The Undiscovered Country

This time I went a bit more subtle and decided against the use of lens flares. I know this goes against J.J. Abrams very liberal use of lens flares or blinding contrast from a sun or explosions, but I figured I'd leave this one a bit untouched.

The battle looks pretty cool:

More to come...

What the heck did I just watch? (June 2010)

I'm not sure which series I should be more confused about: Lexx: Tales from a Parallel Universe or Emmanuelle in Space.

Emmanuelle in Space

Emmanuelle in Space is a late-night (see "Skinemax") 1994 science fiction television series starring Krista Allen as Emmanuelle, a character loosely based on the long standing fictional softcore-character named Emmanuelle. Well going into that territory, Emmanuelle in Space contains quite a bit of nudity. The series lasted 7, roughly 90 minute episodes.

This series kicks off with a hilariously flimsy framing device where aliens, unaware of what "love" is land on Earth to "learn" about us. And by "learn" I mean have lots of sex.

The highlight of the series is the nonsensical transitions (mostly taken from old educational videos about space) and the silly ship computer voices that play over whatever "action" might be going on screen. Even though Krista Allen couldn't act her way out of a paper bag in this series, there's at least some sense that she's taking it in stride, knowing exactly what kind of role she's in. Meathead "Captain Haffron" is as wooden as wooden gets and line-reads like he's auditioning for the role.

Lexx

Lexx is well, just bizarre. Lexx follows a band of misfits including Stanley H. Tweedle a security guard who fails at just about everything in life; Zev Bellringer a human partly converted into a "love slave" with lizard DNA thrown in (though you wouldn't know it by looking); Kai, an undead assassin; and 790, a robot head that received Zev's love slave programming and is madly in love with Zev. As an aside, I completely buy 20 year old Eva Habermann's (Zev) silver hair so much that it's odd looking at her normal blond hair color and would probably be floored if I ever saw her "Tatort" episode (which is unfortunately not a Hauptkommissar Max Ballauf and Freddy Schenk story, but I digress).

The show is laced with a lot of innuendo and borderline-softcore scenes (though only one scene where Eva Habermann's Zev showers nude). Other than that, the gimmick is the odd characters and the (usually) bizarre situations they're thrown into.

Lexx started off as a science-fantasy series consisting of four 90 minute TV movies. It later went on to become a regular series, but I won't talk about those right now. The original movies (or episodes as they're later called) are "I Worship His Shadow," "Super Nova," "Eating Pattern," and "Giga Shadow."

The stories range from mediocre to just plain strange and are mixed with a level of insanity that I just can't measure. I... I just don't know how to classify these. Were the people certifiably insane when they put together these stories or were these entirely honest attempts that were halted by no-budget?

Something that differentiates this from Emmanuelle in Space is that the people behind the show had put at least some effort into creating a very complex and diverse universe. The only problem is, without an outside force or character the audience can put itself into their shoes, I'm at a loss to a lot of the things that have been talked about and introduced. We're not talking about some quirky world like in The Fifth Element, but one that's so alien, so odd, and has a mythology that's complex and largely unexplained. The stories also just can't fill the 90 minute timeslots they've been given. I don't even know if they could fill 42 minutes worth of material if they weren't walking around, staring, or being involved with some unrelated subplot.

Watch the first episode here.

I don't know if I can fully justify why I am watching Lexx, but something, just something odd about it intrigues me enough to keep at it. I watched some of the later episodes a few years ago and frankly I'm not looking forward to the Xenia Seeberg-as-Xev transition once Eva Habermann leaves the series. At any rate, would I buy this? No fraking way. Hats off to HULU for providing this to me.

I still am not sure why I watched Emmanuelle in Space except for the laughs it was able to illicit from me.

FlashForward canceled; at least I can now watch Community

Well, I've just found out that FlashForward has been canceled.

I watched it weekly, but man, the show was a mess.

Had they been able to cut the fat by not introducing some of the minor characters from the show, or having them appear very rarely, the show could have more effectively focused on the plot that every seemed to care about. At the start of the show there was far too much emphasis on Lloyd and his son interacting with Olivia. Even with this heavy interaction I, along with quite a few others, don't buy their relationship. I feel like the introduction of savant Gabriel McDow (James Callis) was thrown in there to try to convince the audience that their contrived relationship "had" to happen.

They really should have decided at the very start whether or not the show was going to:

1. Have a time line that could not be changed.

Pro: Characters would all end up where they saw themselves. Possible chance to "trick" the auidence with twists such as Demetri being unconscious during the blackout instead of being dead.
Con: Show could become predictable with the knowledge that things can't be changed.

2. Have a time line that could be changed.

Pro: Characters could make assumptions that turn out to not be true, the future would be unpredictable.
Con: The auidence will not see the end results of where they were on April 29th the way they saw it at the start.

3. Have a time line that can be changed, but have "destiny" play a part in keeping events as close to the "way they were supposed to be" as possible.

Pro: Keeps flash forwards or potential flash forwards as close to what the auidence saw, even if major changes occur.
Con: The constant nagging that everything will always turn out a certain way, and that destiny is forcing people to do things or "fix" events that were supposed to happen. If that is not done correctly the show becomes a muddled mess.

4. Having people see events happen slightly differently in each of their flash forwards.

Pro: It would immediately introduce the possibility of different universes and an infinite combination of futures that could happen. It would work best if most of them were about the same, but slightly different such as Mark wearing a red tie in one person's flash forward and a blue one in someone else's or Olivia being on the couch while Lloyd is on the couch in another.
Con: This could be incredibly confusing.

The problem is that the show couldn't decide where it wanted to go.

I honestly think that now, after seeing where the show went, things would have been better with the knowledge that "nothing can be changed" (option one). They could fight their hardest, but that every action they took always made sure that the event happened the exact way it was supposed to (none of this "Final Destination" garbage).

Heck, let's just forgo that conversation at the moment. What else could they have done differently?

The first few episodes where they went case-by-case introducing guest characters like they were a patient in an episode of "House," where they investigate this one-off character's flash forward and slowly add to the main story, is how the show should have gone through the majority of season one. The show could have kept momentum, remaining pretty consistent in the story they were telling, and had ended the season on a cliffhanger months before April 29th even occurred. Having Demetri shot would have made a pretty good cliffhanger. Season 2 could have delved directly into the conspiracy behind the blackout and could have covered the remaining weeks leading up to the blackout.

The plus to doing it slow and methodical would mean that it would have been far less serialized in their first season. People could tune in and out without missing much of the overall storyline, even while they slowly introduced the blackout conspiracy. This could build momentum and a loyal fan base, without immediately neglecting the simple nature that people want something more stand-alone. Once that base is built up, they could jump into the meat of the storyline involving government double agents, secret societies, and rogue scientists full on, and actually have the base to support that kind of show. Basically, I'm talking about making it like the early years of the X-Files.

Lost did the standalone/serialized mix pretty well, even if the show was heavily serialized in season one, you could conceivably miss a few episodes in it's freshman season and not feel like you had completely dropped the ball. You just couldn't do that with FlashForward.

Heck, my blood sugar was so low one night I passed out in the last 15 minutes (not aware I actually missed the end or anything important) the following episode they talked about one of their agents dying... I had no idea what they were talking about! Another episode I walked to the kitchen to get some food, I missed about 5 minutes of the show, and I couldn't follow what the heck was going on later (they even had a flashback that no one watching could remember seeing, even though it happened earlier in the episode).

The show was a jumbled mess. I'll miss it, mostly because of the potential it had.

Reimagined by JJ Abrams: Star Trek V

Since seeing the new Star Trek film, I realized how closely related that film and Star Trek V are. No, I'm not joking. One decent emotional scene (Kelvin's destruction and McCoy's vision), misplaced humor, silly inner workings of the Enterprise, and a madman Vulcan/Romulan as the primary villain. So rev up the absolutely ridiculous lens flares, brightness and contrast used in Star Trek and the results are not that dissimilar:

More to come...

Reimagined by JJ Abrams: Star Trek III

I noticed a while back how the new Enterprise bridge looks quite a lot like the old Excelsior bridge from that 1984 film. Rev up the absolutely ridiculous lens flares, brightness and contrast that J.J. Abrams and his Director of Photography used to cover up the fine details of the extremely expensive sets and the results are not that dissimilar:

Quite a few more are coming...

Doctor Who is back! (The Eleventh Hour and The Beast Below)

Being in America, I just saw "The Eleventh Hour" a week ago and "The Beast Below" tonight - and boy I was not disappointed. It makes "Rose" look amateurish by comparison.

I thought "The Eleventh Hour" was a better 'introduction' than even the first 2005 episode, "Rose." I gauge this on a scale of how likely I would be to suggest this to one of my friends who are unfamiliar with the series, Doctor Who. It was certainly better than the spinning-Christmas trees in "The Christmas Invasion" which had one and only one good sequence once the Doctor was on the space ship, leaving the rest of the story to be pretty useless. The giant eye in "The Elevent Hour" was a little over the top, but I'll take that since the episode was pretty timeless (no reference to any specific time that the story occurred over) and it wasn't strewn with cheap pop-culture references like in years past.

There was just a moment in "The Beast Below" which really hit closest to the original series more than almost anything that was present in the last 5 years of Doctor Who. This makes me optimistic that the series is finally back on track.

The Russell T. Davies era was, by far, my least favorite era of the entire history of Who - and that includes some of the seasons that were full of incredibly terrible episodes. Season 17 which included some pretty lame stories and the dreadful Season 24 which included the lowest points of the entire classic show, but they were by far less disappointing than a huge chunk of Davies' time producing because they just didn't have that potential to be so much greater than they could have been. But hey, I spent an entire post last week complaining about the guy so I should lay off a bit. Maybe just a bit.

So anyway, I don't want to jump the gun, but if the series holds up as well as the two episodes did, I could almost forget the last 5 years happened.

It's too soon to say if the most recent season will be a critical success of dismal failure, but I haven't enjoyed Doctor Who this much since I saw the leaked version of "Rose."

Doctor Who: A New Era begins (hopefully)

In less than 24 hours, Doctor Who returns to America with the 5th season (or more accurately, Season 31), with a whole new cast and a new man in the producer's chair.

Russell T. Davies (or as I will refer to him, RTD) did an *okay* job helming the series as producer these past 5 years. However, I wish he could have avoided most of the writing duties and instead penned one or two stories and co-penning one or two others, allowing more seasoned science fiction and fantasy writers to take those duties.

What I want to see with this new series is more two-part stories that allow for proper build-up and additional time devoted to building a stronger plot. This should also help reduce costs for a given episode, as sets, locations scouting, design of props, and cast would be spread across multiple episodes.

The stark difference between the way the old series and the new series have developed their stories is that the story is based almost solely on the Doctor. He's in almost every single scene, with the occasional cold-opening where he doesn't appear. In fact, Blink wouldn't be too out of the ordinary for some of the classic series stories, where the Doctor sometimes didn't appear until almost the 10 minute mark, and occasionally only had brief appearances in a given episode while he's working on this-or-that (allowing for the companion or a minor guest character to be the focus for a short time).

Often times we aren't actually given a reason to like or even *care* about a given guest character, except through melodramatic music and the doctor getting a teary eye every once in a while. I can only imagine if episodes like 42 had had a bit more buildup for the characters, instead of just having them basically be the "stock" characters of the week. Obviously the episode wouldn't be called 42, but something like 84, or something along those lines.

At the very least with additional time, they could reduce the number of scenes where characters have to run to obnoxiously loud Murry Gold music.

Oh and the graphics... they were not phenomenal. Most of the effects were not a problem, but they were far too ambitious and often they end up being, well cheap looking.

They could probably afford to do more "off world" stories if they didn't waste the budget on dodgy graphics like from The Lazarus Experiment or Fear Her, or the unnecessary CGI wasp from "The Unicorn and the Wasp" and the still terrible looking Adipose from "Partners in Crime" and "The End of Time: Part Two."

RTD's biggest complaint was that all the alien planets looked like quarries. I'd take a quarry or two over some contemporary Earth setting which includes a companion with another bitchy mother and idiot siblings. Heck, they used quarries in Utopia and Waters of Mars (at least it appeared so in the latter) and I don't recall a single complaint from people watching those at the time that the were "cheap" by using a rock quarry.



RTD just never really *got* Science fiction. Let's just take a quick look at RTD's final-final story, "The End of Time:"

Personally I thought the psychotic Eric Roberts Master from the FOX television movie was far more believable than the "cartoonish" Harold Saxon version of the master played by John Simm. The Harold Saxon Master may have been "more evil" but he just wasn't a believable character. I couldn't take any of the things he did seriously because of how hammy the performance was written and acted. The "Blond" Master who appeared in the latest story was pretty terrible, but was probably the closest we'll get to a Delgado or Ainley in part two of that story. The character never grew to his full potential and was probably only saved by Simm's acting.

After seeing both parts of "The End of Time," the entire subplot of the Time Lords, the race the Doctor comes from, returning was entirely unnecessary. The story could have been entirely a struggle of the Doctor trying to rescue the Human race from being turned into an abomination. But nope, let's just throw in multiple threads to make it more "epic." If anything the addition of the Time Lords was done to tie the hands of future producers and writers from bringing them back by vilifying them to such a degree that fans of the new series (unfamiliar with the original series) would be in an uproar should anyone attempt to bring them back.

For those who watched, can anyone explain how the Ood's development was affected by the Master or the Timelords? Why did he introduce Donna to the story (and especially the cliffhanger) where she was immune to the Master's huge scheme, only to then ignore her until after the entire crisis was already resolved? How did the white star diamond escape the Time Lock? Wibbly-wobby time-locky-woky. Make stuff up that sounds good and not mention it again. The famous Russell T. Deus Ex Machina.


Most of his stories had huge science fiction buildups and always had disappointing resolutions compared to what they *could* have had. The one exception was Midnight, which was RTD's finest writing of the entire series. Had he written more solid stories like Midnight, people wouldn't be bashing him the way he was bashed since the show returned in 2005. His stories were full of distracting camp, "easy buttons" and plot threads that were dropped almost as fast as they were introduced. Personally I hope the incoming production crew sticks two large fingers up at RTD and retcons nearly all RTD's established "history" that was introduced by him in the series. As someone else put it, "Rot in Hell, Russell T. Douchebag."

Is this the last season of Heroes?

I suspect this is it. That was a perfectly fine series finale. Should the show not continue, I'd suggest they change "Chapter Six" to "Epilogue."

After Season 2's nominal disaster (opinion was much lower than season one), they should have sat down and really mapped out the future seasons right then and there. They weren't able to plan out a suitable ending to that season, even though they had ample chance to actually write it ahead of time, with the assumption that they may not make it to the end of the season. They only got 11 episodes in.

Even today, two seasons later, the writing staff still appear to only be pumping out episodes about 4 episodes ahead of one another, with no foresight into what is coming next. This season has been erratic at best, with "twists" that show up as quickly as they're gone (or as quickly as they are ignored).

With that said, I thought that the season's overall plot was a lot more cohesive than I expected. Way better than Volume 3. It was slightly better than Volume 2, but not as good as Volume 4, and doesn't even reach the greatness of Volume 1. I thought that the Carnival was a good idea, however the season was muddled with way too many subplots, and minor plot points that either never started, or appeared to have no foresight to what was going to happen just a few episodes down the road. There was far too much hesitation from the characters, and in turn, the writers.

I liked the concept behind the Carnival, but the execution of the season was pretty poor (mostly due to Claire's subplots this season). I just felt there was absolutely no "art" in the way they handled the show’s story lines, which is sad. It felt as though they just jumbled a few scenes together with no grace at all. Stories that occurred in adjoining episodes that that would have worked perfectly together, were just thrown by the wayside, losing any kind of deeper meaning that they could have.

They've had numerous chances to write out characters last year and this year, though that goes without saying. Every season shows characters complete their character arc, and could promptly ride off into the sunset. Nathan, Hiro (with Ando), Mohinder, Parkman, all could have been written out of the show entirely at the end of last season. Parkman's out, which was provided in one episode this season would have gone down as one of the best exits ever. Nathan's exit made a lot more sense last year compared to the one given to the character this year. Last season it was a shock when his character died, but this season it was lame. It was the kind of lame that makes you wish they had just killed off the character once and for all a while back. For those who kept up with the show, it was almost as lame as D.L.'s exit, entrance, then exit again in a flashback. Those were “perfect outs" for characters were given that were never taken, and unfortunately that meant that the resolutions were poor.

Hiro's silly tumor subplot which appears to have been resolved. This was without resorting to his acceptance of death, which would have made for a good character departure. Instead he healed by his dead mother, in some mental vision. Huh? Parkman, who would have had the *best* character departures in the show's history had he been gunned down when he tricked the person who was controlling his body, "head Sylar," into a showdown with the police.

But anyway, back to Hiro’s brain tumor. In one episode, Hiro, the time traveling character, with his own wacky "brain tumor" sub-plot, sent Mohinder, one of the original cast members, to an insane asylum presumably to keep him safe from the main villain of the season, Samuel. Of course, the writers are on record for not planning more than 4 or so episodes ahead of themselves, so it may not be too much of a stretch to believe they had absolutely no idea how they would resolve him being in the institution when they filmed the episode, though it did make for a "shocking" cliffhanger. Kind of like the fantastic cliffhangers and lame follow-ups written by Russell T Davies for Doctor Who. Mohinder’s addition in "Close to You" and "Pass/Fail" was filler at best, when he was eventually rescued. I'm still not really sure why the writers didn't just send Mohinder "home" when Hiro made him "disappear for a while" - Samuel didn't appear to really pay attention to the outside world beyond a few people (Claire and everyone surrounding her, Emma, and a handful of other 'specials'). Mohinder would likely have been forgotten by Samuel, like a good storyline is forgotten by the writers from time to time. Claire, the perpetual cheerleader of the series, more than probably any previous season, ate up the screen time. And more than probably any previous season, this was a huge detriment to the overall story.

What is sad is that the show is one of (if not the most) pirated shows on the air today. If people watched the show through legal means on HULU or NBC.com (if they failed to catch the initial broadcast), or watched the show during native country's broadcast (for international viewers), the show could probably survive at least one more season.

Unless we can be sure that Tim Kring (or someone more competent in the role) actually maps out 18-22 episodes FROM THE VERY START OF THE SEASON, it's time to end the show right where it ended. Since I don't think that's going to happen, just change "Volume Six" to "Epilogue" and be done with it.

Lost Season Five Revisited

Lost continues with its explosive Fifth season, staring Matthew Fox, Josh Holloway, Evangeline Lilly, Henry Ian Cusick, Terry O'Quinn, Michael Emerson, Elizabeth Mitchell, Jeremy Davies, Ken Leung, Rebecca Mader, Jeff Fahey and many many more.

If Season Four was the season that really kicked the show back up a few notches in my book, Season Five threw everything in the blender. Things got c-r-a-z-y this season. The previous season represented major change, and the events this season only get weirder. The episodes are so tightly wound, with threads interwoven so tightly, that flashbacks in one episode may be even more pertinent in another, a small mention in one may turn into something huge in another, and so on.

I complained about Rebecca Mader's Charlotte Lewis, last season. I felt that the cultural anthropologist never really pinned down the role exactly. Either because she was given direction to act like a villain, or tried to play mysterious but just couldn't quite do it, I felt like she was given a whole new lease on life at the start of season five. She drops the "villain/mysterious" act, and is instantly more likable.

Jeremy Davies' Daniel Faraday turns even more absent-minded, spacy, and later on, mopey. I still like him. He still keeps the tie on until he wears a jumpsuit. This is Miles Straume's season to shine. Ken Leung plays the character perfectly, unchanged from the previous season.

Frank Lapidus, the freighter helicopter pilot in season 4, returns in a surprising twist. Frank, compared to many of the characters in this show, simply accept the situations he is placed in

In one of the most infuriating scenes in the entire series, Miles tries to explain to Hurley, the time travel situation they are in. The writers, either to mock the less adept members of the auidence, make Hurley even dumber than he normally is. The situation they're in isn't hard to explain, at all. The icing on the cake is that he appears to one up Miles at the end of the conversation by presenting some sort of "touche" response that is even easier to explain away than the entire "time travel" conversation.

I picked up the Blu Ray for season 5. I found this very interesting when I got to the end of the first disc (included are screen shots of the first and fourth discs):

To help out a bit, here's a episode-by-episode recap of Season Five to catch anyone up before Season Six starts:

"Because You Left" - The Losties who didn't make it off the island, become "unstuck" in time, jumping into the past, present, and possibly future. Lock sees The drug running beechcraft airplane crash and is shot in the leg by Ethan Rom. Juliet, Sawyer, Charlotte, Miles, Faraday head to the old Swan station to ascertain exactly where they are at "in time." Charlotte begins to get terrible headaches and bloody noses begin. The Oceanic Six picks up where they left off at the end of Season 3 and Season 4.

"The Lie" - The Losties on the island head back to camp, and find that a barrage of flaming arrows wait them. All the survivors of 815 run into the jungle to escape certain death. "Frogurt" gets one right to the chest. Men dressed in military uniforms capture the "significant" Losties, but are saved at the last minute by a limping John Locke. Off island, Ben and Jack separate to prepare their return to the island. Ben tries to convince Hurley to return, but instead turns himself in, trying to implicate himself in multiple murders so that he can be locked away, presumably safe.

"Jughead" - This was a phenomenal episode. The Losties interrogate their former captors, and deduce they are in 1954 and that they are Others, one of which is none other than Charles Widmore. Locke talks to a "youthful" Richard Alpert, convincing him to visit himself in two years when he's born (Which occurred in Season 4's "Cabin Fever"). Charlotte's not doing well. Faraday finds the titular Jughead, a thermonuclear device. He's convinced he recognizes Ellie, an Other. Instructions are given to bury it.

"The Little Prince" - More time jumps. Charlotte gets worse. 1988: A French team of scientists come across a floating body, Jin. Pregnant Danielle Rousseau. Norton, suspicious lawyer hired by Ben. Hurley released from jail. Kate convinced that Claire's mom knows the truth, but actually doesn't.

"This Place Is Death" - Sun plans to kill Ben, Ben convinces her that Jin is alive. Eloise is at the Dharma station, "The Lamp Post," a way to get back to the station. James, Juliet, Jin, Miles, Locke get to the Orchid. Faraday stays behind to comfort a incapacitated Charlotte. With her last words being "not allowed to eat chocolate before dinner," she dies. Locke makes it down a old well, but another time flash occurs, sending them way into the past (The Statue is whole). Locke turns the wheel, which had been slightly dislodged when Ben moved the island, and leaves the island.

"316" - opens just like "Pilot, Part 1." Jack, Hurley, and Kate are back on the island. Hours earlier, all the Oceanic Six, Ben and the body of Locke, are on the Ajira Airways Flight 316, piloted by Frank Lapidus. They fly, big flash, they're back on the island. Van pulls up, Jin in Dharma uniform. Frak.

"The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" - Locke's time from when he left the island to when he got back to the island. Ben killed him. Woah. Frank saves the day by landing the plane on the smaller, Hydra island. Ben is on the island again.

"LaFleur" - James, Juliet, Faraday, Jin, Miles back in 1974. Convince Dharma to let them stay on by claiming they crashed their boat and saving Amy's (Reiko Aylesworth) life. James and Juliet are together. 1977. Everything seems fine until Jack, Hurley, and Kate show up.

"Namaste" - James has to con everyone in the Dharma initiate to convince them that Jack, Hurley and Kate are new recruits. Amy's baby is Ethan Rom. Frak!

"He's Our You" - Sayid Jarrah, now captured and presumed a Hostile (Other). Episode full of flashbacks of what brought him to this point (childhood, working for Ben, being captured by 'bounty hunter,' Ilana). Creepy young Ben returns, breaks Sayid out of Dharma jail. Sayid returns the favor by shooting Ben in the chest.

"Whatever Happened, Happened" - Kate and James try to save young Ben. In a flashback, Kate tells Carole Littleton that she has a grandson named Aaron. Kate also visited Cassidy Phillips, the mother of James' daughter, Clementine. Cassidy is still bitter. Back in 1977, Ben is taken to Richard, to save his life.

"Dead Is Dead" - Dead really is dead. Ben struggles to come to grips with his past, tries to summon the Smoke Monster to be "judged." Flashbacks of Ben taking Alex from Danielle, banishing Charles Widmore from the island. Caesar is unexpectedly killed. Ilana and Bram threaten Frank. "What lies in the shadow of the statue?" Ilana is more than just a bounty hunter.

"Some Like It Hoth" - Miles-centric story. Miles fantastic character. Hurley is an idiot and beginning to test my patience. The construction site of the Swan is finally seen. 4 8 15 16 23 42. "Long time no see," Daniel Faraday is back from Ann Arbor.

"The Variable" - Faraday centric episode. Poor, poor Faraday. Upon second viewing the entire episode is tragic, probably far more than any whole episode up to this point. He seems to forget in this episode that, "whatever happened, happened." *Everything* so far, save Desmond's odd time-travel adventures, has been in keeping with this very basic premise. They always went into the past, Ben always was shot, "I'm not allowed to eat chocolate before dinner" always happened, Eloise always shaped her son into the same man who would travel into the past, and his plan will always result in.... well, keep watching.

"Follow the Leader" - Richard centric episode. Too many leaders to count in this episode. Locke, James, Jack, Ben, Locke, Widmore, Eloise, Radzinsky, Horace, and even Richard all lead something in this episode. I like to repeat again, "whatever happened, happened." Jack's an idiot, convinced that Faraday's crazy ramblings actually can change the future, even though his final moments are a realization that his own Mother always knew that she would send her son back in time to be killed, by her. To his credit Jack is not exactly aware of this, but it doesn't change that he hasn't once thought that this entire plan may be The Incident that he first became aware of when he first watched the orientation film back in Season two. Locke plans to kill Jacob. Ooooh.

"The Incident, Parts 1 & 2" - Locke plans to get Ben to kill Jacob. Ooooh. Rose and Bernard! Their cabin looks like Jacob's, but I don't think it is. Oh, cabin burnt now by Ilana. Oh frak, inside the box is.... Locke! Oh and, The Incident just happened. Poor Juliet. "They're coming..."

But if the above wasn't good enough for you, here's the last 5 seasons in 8 minutes and 15 seconds, enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3zvM0EzT7c

Just two more days until Season Six starts.

Lost Season Four Revisited

Lost continues with its explosive Fourth season, staring Matthew Fox, Josh Holloway, Evangeline Lilly, Henry Ian Cusick, Terry O'Quinn, Michael Emerson, Elizabeth Mitchell, Emilie de Ravin, and many many more.

Season Four is the season that really kicked the show back up a few notches in my book. This is where things got interesting again, or more aptly, where they became even more interesting to me.

This season represents major change. Gone were the flashbacks to pointless Jack and Kate back stories. The show was looking forward, three years forward to be exact, following the survivors who made it off the island, the "Oceanic Six." These survivors, Jack Shephard, Kate Austen, Hurley Reyes, Sayid Jarrah, Sun-Hwa Kwon, and baby Aaron made it back to civilization. You'd think they'd be happy, right? Well they're all miserable. Sun is racked with guilt and anger over the fate of her husband, Kate is in constant fear that they'll discover that she's not the mother of Aaron, Jack has survivor guilt and falls into a heavy drinking habit, Hurley goes back into his old mental institution, and Sayid takes out his anger on the orders of Ben. Major action occurs off island, years after the events on the island occurred. Jack who fought so hard to get off the island wants back on and is a broken, sad mess of a man. Ben even realizes this when the "rules were changed" in one of the most depressing scenes in the entire show's history.

The antagonists this season come from a freighter docked a few miles offshore. Kevin Durand's portrayal as Martin Keamy, the leader of a group of mercenaries, is chilling. Durand has always played the wacked out weirdo or bad guy, so his talents are not wasted.

Rebecca Mader joins the cast as Charlotte Lewis, a cultural anthropologist and part of the freighter team. I personally had a hard time accepting her performance, at times it felt bland and silted. It was hard to tell if she was instructed to "play both sides" in her performance, as her role greatly improves later in the season, even though we hardly know the character and have little reason to start liking her any more later on in season 4 than when we're first introduced to her.

Jeremy Davies also joins the cast as another member of the freighter team, Dr. Daniel Faraday, a seemingly absent-minded, almost bumbling physicist. Faraday takes less time getting used to, and I personally took to his character certainly by the 3rd episode of the season, The Economist. I think he wears a tie the entire season.

Miles Straume, played by Ken Leung, is another new face to the cast, a snarky and cocky spiritualist who I really wanted to hate, but grew to like in much the same way that Sawyer grew on me as the show progressed.

Helicopter pilot Frank Lapidus, played by Jeff Fahey, is simply awesome.

The season is truncated, shortened like most shows which came out during the same season, due to the writers strike. Personally, the writers strike may have been the best thing for the show. It forced them to focus on where they wanted to go, figure out what they wanted to do with the show, and allowed them time to really focus on a reasonable endgame for the entire series. By this point they had decided that they wanted to go out in six seasons, and unlike Jay Leno, they're going to stick to it (one can hope).

One last thing to note, I found it quite interesting that the previous season ended and this season ended practically minutes apart from each other.

Now on to Season Five. Just one more week until Season Six starts.

Lost Season Three Revisited

Season Three continues the epic storyline with Matthew Fox, Josh Holloway, Evangeline Lilly, Henry Ian Cusick, Terry O'Quinn, Michael Emerson, Elizabeth Mitchell, Dominic Monaghan, Emilie de Ravin, and many many more.

The first time I watched Season three, I felt that it started off VERY poorly. It in no way felt like it had come off the high point created by the end of the previous season, "Live Together, Die Alone." It almost felt like the series had lost focus.

Looking back, my issues probably stem from the fact that the "mini-season" was a sham. The story is left hanging mid-stream, and doesn't provide any reasonable conclusion or cliffhanger to wrap the "mini-season" up. Perhaps it was just a misnomer, perhaps the people who decided upon that name just didn't care and wanted a cheap answer to explain why they were airing 6 episodes and then taking a three month break before returning with new stories.

If I had some control over the show, I would have put the Jack centric episode, "Stranger in a Strange Land" as the "finale" and started the season off with the Desmond centric episode, "Flashes Before Your Eyes." Desmond's episode is by far the most notable and fantastic episode of the season, it features Flashbacks from my favorite character of the series.

Even though I found "Stranger in a Strange Land" incredibly weak, with an unnecessary and boring flashback, and seemed to only exist to give a guest starring role to irrelevant-but-somehow-notable actress Bai Ling, the episode at least had a half-way interesting on-island story, with some relatively crucial and interesting information provided to the audience. And no, I'm not talking about explaining what Jack's stupid tattoo stood for, which the producers claimed that hard-core Lost fans cared about for some reason. "Stranger in a Strange Land" also provided a real conclusion to the Hydra Island storyline, with Jack finally accepting his place with the Others and traveling off into the horizon, shrouded in shadow as the episode ended. I found this ending leaps and bounds more exciting than "Kate, RUN!" which served as the actual "cliffhanger" of that mini-season when it first aired.

However, with all the trash talk I give towards "Stranger in a Strange Land," it is not the biggest crime that the season thrust upon the viewers. This season introduced people who I would consider the least developed "main" characters EVER introduced into a popular television series in at least a decade. Niki and Paulo, two people added to the regular cast at the start of Season three have no real introduction, they're just *there* one day. "Wait, who the hell are these people?" is what went through my mind the first time I noticed them on screen. They never really develop beyond frustrating, annoying, and terrible characters. I do almost feel bad for the "Brazilian Tom Cruse," who was introduced by the heads of the series as a huge player to the show, only to bomb horribly. Their arc was only marginally resolved in their final episode, "Expose," which turned out to be a really fantastic dark episode.

The season really picks up after "Flashes Before Your Eyes" (aside from my previous mention of the terribly pointless "Stranger in a Strange Land"). From that point on the season is terrific and almost reaches the quality and consistency presented in Season one.

The season finale, "Through the Looking Glass," is riveting, exciting, and shocking. Charlie, a character that I pretty much despised most of season two, and even the first episodes of season three, was fully redeemed in the end. I finally feel like he's grown completely into his character, and his reaction when being beaten by Greta and Bonnie is wonderful. The season ends in something that I can only compare to some mobster's baseball bat slamming into my gut after I neglected to pay someone protection money.

The best episodes of the season were "Through the Looking Glass," "The Man Behind the Curtain," and "Flashes Before Your Eyes." The worst episodes of the season were "Stranger in a Strange Land" and "Left Behind" (side note: why the hell don't they shower and change their clothes at the Barracks before heading back?).

The final season returns February 2nd.

Lost Season Two Revisited

Well Season Two of Lost kicked off with cast, Matthew Fox, Josh Holloway, Evangeline Lilly, Henry Ian Cusick, Terry O'Quinn, Michael Emerson, Dominic Monaghan, Emilie de Ravin, and many many more opening up Pandora's Box, and a plethora of new and exciting storylines.

When I first watched season two, I felt it started off relatively strong, with a number of interesting twists at the very beginning of the season. Unfortunately the show suffered somewhat in its sophomore season, which I thought became obvious towards the middle of the season.

I also thought that "The Other 48 Days" was one the best stories the series aired, which in retrospect I can't agree with watching it again. It wasn't as entertaining as I found it the first time around, and it felt like the entire episode was just a recap of scenes we've already seen. This is disheartening because we haven't seen any of these scenes yet. When first watching the season, I thought the "Henry Gale" arc was pretty terrible. It was drawn out, frustrating, and I thought it was slapped together without thinking more than two episodes ahead.

Well as many may know, this character is not who he seems and takes part of the spotlight in future seasons. This character wasn't originally planned, and if not for Michael Emerson's portrayal, the character would never have been. In retrospect it is an even better set up for season 3 than I originally thought.

My biggest qualm with the season is Michelle Rodriguez. I've never been particularly fond of her in any of her other work. Her characters are generally abrasive, annoying, and I can't take her "tough guy" attitude. So it came to no surprise that Ana Lucia comes off harsh, unlikable, and irritating to me. Partly Michelle Rodriguez's acting, and partly the writing. Her introduction backfires and the character never really is able to shake the initial perceptions cast on her by the audience until her swansong flashback episode.

A joke that stated to gain more and more momentum by this point was that nothing ever happens in the episodes. That you could watch the first 5 minutes and last 5 minutes of an episode and not miss anything. People appear to keep secrets for no particular reason other than to spring them on the unsuspecting party in the closing moments of an episode. Some of the flashbacks this season were pretty, well, underwhelming. Kate's back story had been sucked dry and Jack, well Jack's are starting to look a bit thin. Thankfully the introduction of additional characters and on-island flashbacks added enough meat to the season to keep things fresh.

The Dharma Initiative is introduced. This puzzle really adds to Lost's mythos, a wonderful introduction that pays off quite a lot down the road in subsequent seasons and explains away some "oddities" that appear on an otherwise deserted island.

The best episodes of the season were "Man of Science, Man of Faith," "Lockdown," "?," and "Live Together, Die Alone." The worst of the season were "Fire + Water" and "Dave."

Has The Asylum done it right for once?

On my birthday this past weekend, my buddy Jonathan and I were perusing The Asylum, the wonderful company who has made wonderful movies which were knock-offs of films such as:

100,000,000 BC ... 10,000 BC
Alien Vs Hunter ... Alien Vs Predator
I Am Omega ... (A mix of "Omega Man" and "I am Legend")
Snakes on a Train ... Snakes on a Plane
Transmorphers ... Transformers
The Da Vinci Treasure ... The DaVinci Code

Well we came across the trailer for the upcoming Princess of Mars, based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs science fiction novel.

Well, while I don't know how good or bad the script is based on this teaser, nor do I know how well acted it is, I do have to say that the effects do appear to be of much higher quality than I'm normally used to (the ones in the War of the Worlds films they made were "terrible"). It also has filters applied to it and something other than the "set the camera down and shoot" style that many of these films have.

I'm not that familiar with the work itself, but I'm not sure that Antonio Sabato Jr. can really pass himself off as Virginian Confederate soldier, John Carter. Though judging on one of the screen shots I saw, I'm guessing he's just going to be a modern day US Soldier.

The film will be released December 29, 2009. We'll then be able to see if they've infused a little passion into this production.

12 Days of Christmas: The Avengers

Too Many Christmas Trees is an episode of the Avengers, the classic 1960s british detective and spy show staring Diana Rigg as Emma Peel and Patick Macnee as John Steed.

Too Many Christmas Trees doesn't contain a lot of "Christmas" in the story, but is set in December, with Steed and Mrs. Peel traveling to a Christmas party. The story mainly consists of a group of people who are trying to psychically control John Steed's actions. The story heavily involves Dickens, with notable instances of "A Christmas Carol" being introduced into the story during the Christmas party.

The episode deviates slightly from the normal formula that the show normally revolves around, where the team is brought in to solve a case or mystery. The story involves an organization going after Steed himself. The episode prior to this "Two's a Crowd" also follows this same formula.

Lost: Season One Revisited

Spurred on by my Brother's quest to watch all the episodes of Lost before the Season 6 premiere in February, I've joined in as well. This started on December 6th. I finished Season one on December 11, only delayed slightly by the fact I have a good paying job that I have to go to and that I had to catch up on the first nine episodes of "Better Off Ted" on Hulu (before the episodes expired). This Grand Lost Viewing has pushed back my upcoming Christmas viewing slightly, but only by a few days. However, 5 days is nothing. I was able to watch this season in roughly 19 hours straight, with a short break for pizza for dinner with some of my good college friends, Matt, Ellis, and Stephanie (though she chickened out and didn't stick around for the entire thing).

Well Season One of Lost kicks off with a cast comprising of Matthew Fox, Josh Holloway, Evangeline Lilly, Terry O'Quinn, Dominic Monaghan, Emilie de Ravin, Naveen Andrews, Emilie de Ravin, Jorge Garcia, Maggie Grace, Yunjin Kim, Daniel Dae Kim, Harold Perrineau, Malcolm David Kelley, and Ian Somerhalder.

So Season one is over, and it didn't fail to impress, just as always. Lost's first season is at the moment the strongest season they made. Full of emotional highs and lows, even in the weakest episodes there are worthwhile moments. Essentially it was almost completely flawless, which as I've said before is something that very few series are capable of and every show yearns for.

The episodes I found to be strongest this season were Walkabout, with one of the most heart wrenching moments I've seen on a television show; The explosive Pilot, with the greatest opening to a television series ever; and the season finale, Exodus. The episodes I found to be weakest this season were Charlie's flashback-centric episodes and "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues" which I just couldn't quite connect with.

Something that my brother noticed that I have to agree with was that the flashbacks are handled quite differently in this season than later seasons. The first batch of episodes were primarily filled with flashbacks that focused on brief glimpses of the character's pasts. Most of the back stories presented were well integrated into their respective stories, allowing for a good idea of where the character was, and where they were now. The few that didn't do this well were Charlie centric-flashback episodes.

The cliffhanger ending of season one caused one of the most painful and long waits I had to endure in my entire television-watching life.

The Prisoner

The Prisoner: Checkmate

Hour Six of The Prisoner remake, Checkmate, is the final hour of the third night's Prisoner episode. The Prisoner remake stars Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellen as Number Six and Number Two.

Checkmate is trippy. The only thing this could have made this more complicated and bizarre would have been a speech by Kenneth Griffith in the final episode of the original series. Or a rendition of "Dry Bones" and a gun fight to the tune of "All You Need Is Love." Will have to think and let the story sink in before passing final judgment. I really don't know.

The title is also the title of original series episode, "Checkmate," though it bears no resemblance to it. It's more similar in tone with "Once Upon a Time" and "Fall Out."

*** 1/2 out of *****

The Prisoner: Schizoid

Hour Five of The Prisoner remake, Schizoid, is the first hour of the third night's Prisoner episode. The Prisoner remake stars Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellen as Number Six and Number Two.

Following 4-15's death, Six seeks out Two and announces his intentions of revenge.

313's dreams continue. The following day Six tries to confide in 313 about how devistated he is at the loss of 4-15. 313 claims that Six was at her house the previous night and is annoyed as to why he appears upset now when he wasn't just hours earlier. Six is confused as to why she, and others claim to have seen him in places he wasn't, or in conversations he doesn't recall having. Could there be another Six? Two announces an imposer Two in The Villages midst. M2 and 11-12 reconnect for a short time while M2 is off drugs.

The conversation between the shop owner and Two is probably the best yet. The episode's eventual revelation at the end is an interesting twist. The show is really coming together.

The title is a shortened version of the original series title, "The Schizoid Man," though it only bears a slight resemblance to it. Next up, "Checkmate." One hour to go.

**** out of *****