Enslaved

Well, it’s been a really long time since I last posted. Sorry about that. But, in good news, I actually have comments on a game and I’m not too late to actually chime in on it. Well, except that I beat it over a week ago, so I could have been right on the bleeding edge, but, no, I had to put off writing about it. So, now, there’s already a bunch of stuff written about it and I won’t actually be adding anything new. Darn.

Moving on, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.

When I first heard that title during one of the “Here’s some random stuff we saw at E3” posts, I pretty much dismissed it. That name downright sucks. I mean, even when we shorten it down to just Enslaved, it’s still not very good. It evokes all the wrong images (very MMO feeling). If you even dare try to say Odyssey to the West, you’ll just start feeling foolish. So, yeah, they really should have gone back to the drawing board on that one.

Admittedly, I don’t know what they should have done instead. The main character’s name is Monkey. So, that won’t work. The other main character’s name is Trip. Which is even worse. Trying to use those names in a pun would just be stupid. So, yeah, I give up, let’s stick with Enslaved.

So, let’s start with my reaction to the demo (which, oddly enough, convinced me to go out and buy the game). I didn’t like it. I thought the controls were too loose and the platforming was just weak and the gameplay overall felt incredibly last-gen. Or even older. I mean, even in Super Mario 64, you could fall to your death. But, no, not in this game. Here, you can only go where they want you to go, no matter how hard you try.

Then there was the combat. It skipped locking the camera to hide the fact that it was super simplistic (it feels like you’re doing a lot more when you’re having to always concentrate on where the camera is/should be). But, that was when I saw the first thing I kind of liked (aside from the fact that I rather like simplistic combat since I’m usually pretty bad otherwise).

During one of the fights, I activated one of the slow motion kills that these types of games often have these days. But this one was different. In, let’s say, Batman: Arkham Asylum, the slow-mo effect is used to worship the overwhelming power of the Batman. You can see his grim visage and bulging muscles while the minion is flying backwards, mouth wide open in a silent scream of pain as he is, most likely, not going to be using that limb for a long time. In Enslaved, the focus is on Monkey. And he doesn’t look grim or professional or even all that powerful, really. He looks scared. Desperate. Tired. Probably in a little pain. This wasn’t a celebration of the player character’s power fantasy. This was the look of someone fighting for his life. Again and again and again.

“That was really cool”, I thought to myself. Games don’t normally show me something like that. Later in the demo, the game established that Monkey gets enslaved by Trip and is recruited to help her get back home. His reaction was perfect. Resigned agreement. This character was truly from the world of this game. All he knew was struggle and so it never even occurred to him to question his fate. In this world, everyone deserves whatever they get. It was kind of sad.

And so, I decided that I’d wait and see how the first couple reviews would come out. They all pretty much said the same thing: gameplay sucks but the story is both well-told and worth telling. So, I bought it.

And played through it.

Now, given more time with it, I realized something. Mainly, that the voice of Trip is Lindsey Shaw. Also known as Moze from the Nickelodeon show Ned’s Declassified School Survivor Guide. Which was pretty good. In case you’re curious, she doesn’t really look like Trip. But when I hear her voice, I think of a 14-year old version of her (Lindsey Shaw, not Trip). She’s in her 20s now, though, so...yeah. This isn’t the first time this has happened with a Ninja Theory game, though. Their last game, Heavenly Sword, featured the voice talent of one, Anna Torv, who has now become at least a moderate star since being the lead in Fringe. Interestingly, she didn’t look like her character in that game either. And both characters were both red-heads, oddly enough (although neither of them actually are). I will say that I think Trip is slightly cuter than Nariko, although I don’t think either of their character designs were exactly focused on providing male players with eye candy to convince them to play the respective games. Aside from the exposed mid-riffs.

Gameplay-wise, I actually rather enjoyed the combat as the game continued. Overall, I really liked the pacing of the game, period. I thought that they did a good job of upping the stakes and challenging the player (with the simplistic combat). Early on, the idea of trying to fight more than three of the mechs at the same time was pretty scary, but by the end, you were regularly taking on 5-8 at a time. And you were often in a hurry to get through them, so you were fighting sloppily and Monkey’s post fighting, post damage tired walk felt pretty well earned. The controls stopped feeling loose and started feeling, well, accurate. This was a big guy with a lot of mass and he gets rather beat up. It’s not his fault he can’t stop on a dime (unless there’s an invisible wall, of course).

I thought the big action set piece managed to get a nice variety as well. Also, I liked that we saw bosses in multiple contexts. Most bosses first appeared as, essentially, environmental puzzles that would later on become a true “fight”. The game spent a lot of time building up the “Dog” boss as we kept having to run away from it. Finally getting to face up against it, and eventually have it running away from you, was surprisingly satisfying. That was a well told, well executed boss.

Plus, the environments were, quite often, something special. There’s one point, where you’ve lost Trip and you’re trying to find her in this village. Not long ago, it was a peaceful village and you can see how the buildings are made from century-year-old trash. But, in my hurry to find her, I almost missed the playground made of trash. Or the formerly discarded couch that’s now being used for sitting back and enjoying the view from this mountain village. I had to remember that this game is different from a lot of other games. It’s full of imagination and beauty, and destruction and poverty. It’s worth stopping to take a look around.

Like when you realize the mountain you’ve been climbing for the past level is the back of a giant, long-destroyed mech and now you’re walking on its arm, towards the palm of its ancient hands. There’s a history to this world. A bloody and sad one, but we never really get to know it. It’s not clear that anyone knows it anymore. There’s simply legends and remnants of the world that was and the facts of the world as it is now.

So, yeah, is it a bad game? Well, it’s a godawful platformer, no matter how generous you want to be. But, it’s certainly not a bad game. And you have to give Ninja Theory credit for making a beautiful game with the Unreal 3 Engine. The Batman team couldn’t do it and I’m not sure if Epic themselves has ever really tried. While some people liked the ending, I thought it was a pretty typical Alex Garland ending. He seems to really struggle with endings that actually fit within the world he’s been building. At least when he’s working with Danny Boyle, he gets reigned in a little bit. But, no, this one downright disagrees with the world as it’s been established since the first level.

Also, I was never entirely clear who it was that we were stealing the giant mech from, anyways. And what were they going to do with it, for that matter? But, well, that’s Alex Garland for ya.

I will say that if there’s any opportunity to play with these characters more, either in DLC or sequels, I’ll be ready with my wallet out. So, you know what, I’m just going to go ahead and say it. It was a good game. Maybe not a great game, but closer than most games get to being great. It managed to succeed at almost everything that other games struggle with. The character and voice work is flawless. The story is both epic in scale and carefully focused on a small, well-developed cast. Have I mentioned how good the character and facial animations are? Oh, I did? Well, they’re all really good. They tell the story and develop the characters better than all the dialogue in the world.

I just wished they had checked out some of the other platformers that have been made in the last 5 years to see what people have been doing. Because, well, that part feels rather dated. But then again, I think this whole reaction is fairly similar to the way people thought about the original Uncharted (Drake’s Fortune, hey another weak name for a game). So, who knows, that game significantly improved the gameplay in the second one without sacrificing the story telling skills and voice work and animation that they’d pulled off in the first one.

Man, now I really want there to be a sequel...

That is all.

Francis

Clash of the Titans

Well, I’ve come to the official conclusion that I need to stop doing long summary posts where I talk about a lot of things in very little detail. That’s, like, the exact opposite of what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m supposed to be talking way too much about a single topic that I’ve been obsessing over. And, I have not been obsessing over Chuck. Or House. Or V. Or Stargate Universe. I have been obsessing over Human Target a little bit, but it’s hard not to when you have back to back guest stars in Grace Park and Moon Bloodgood.

In any case, I have been obsessing over Justified.

But, because I spent all that time writing about those shows I didn’t even care about, I didn’t write about nearly enough of the random things I wanted to write about Justified.

Like how the opening theme is extremely reminiscent of True Blood. I don’t know why that should be the case, but it is. I guess they both are set in the South, so there is that. Also, True Blood’s imagery during the theme is meant to be at least a little disturbing while Justified’s just wants something running while the credits roll. I’m not sure if it has a goal at all, in fact. On a related note the country song playing for True Blood is downright awesome while Justified’s song is totally forgettable. And more rap influenced, I think.

Also, I didn’t get to talk about how one of the fellow US Marshals is played by a young women who was in an episode of Firefly. I’m glad that she’s gotten another role. I think it’s funny that she speaks exactly the same way and it fits just as well here. Also, she looked pretty good in his hat. Clearly, the whole team should wear cowboy hats. That would be awesome.

Okay, I think I’m done obsessing over Justified for at least a little while and I’m ready to talk about Clash of the Titans (the topic of this post, in case you forgot; it’s okay, clearly I did). Of course, to be honest, I don’t really have that much to say about it. I just wanted an excuse to put up another post and keep talking about Justified. But, whatever. I saw it. So, I’ll write about it. Probably too much. So, it’ll all work out.

Interestingly, I did not see the original movie. Apparently, I’m a failure and was unable to find it playing on TV and record it, otherwise I would totally have watched it. I wonder why they weren’t playing it all the time during the preceding weeks. I have’t seen that version, so all I can do is guess, but I’m thinking that it’s because the original hasn’t aged very well.

I mean, a lot of those 80s fantasy-esque journey movies haven’t aged very well. I submit Krull as an example. Also Labrynth. Not The Dark Crystal, though, if only because I actually saw it when I was young and therefore the nostalgia helps it out. I think Conan the Barbarian fits as well. I’m thinking Willow was sufficiently tongue-in-cheek so it’s probably aged alright. But, that’s not relevant.

So, yeah, I can’t compare it to its past filmed rendition, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it compared somewhat favorably (how’s that for insulting a movie I haven’t even seen but was sufficiently popular that the studios decided to remake?). For that matter, I never really read any of the Greek mythology stuff, so I can’t even compare it to the past rendition as recorded by somebody whose name I should know from the oral tradition.

As such, I can only judge it by the standards of the action adventure movies of this day and age. Oh, also, I didn’t see it in 3D. So, I won’t be comparing it to the excellence of How to Train Your Dragon either. And it should be thankful for that, because How to Train Your Dragon wins hands down. I mean, even the love interest is cuter and she’s not even real (but she’s wearing a skirt covered in actual skulls, which beats boring old Greek attire every day of the week).

So, did I like it? Eh. It was okay. It was better than the first 5-10 minutes suggested it was going to be, that’s for sure. Once the journey actually started, I think it found its feet pretty well and there was certainly fun to be had by all.

Liam Neeson was pretty cool as Zeus but Hades never really did it for me. I liked that he was pale, but it wasn’t really working with the long hair and beard as well. It just made him look Norse rather than Greek (I swear, I’m not trying to bring How to Train Your Dragon into this review, it just happens all on its own). To be clear, I’m not saying that Hades has to have hair made of blue fire and be voiced by James Woods, but well, I guess, I, um, yeah. I liked Disney’s version of Hades better, okay.

Even worse than a Norse Hades was the most boring Underworld ever imagined. I’m sorry, but I’ve been playing Dante’s Inferno (but was eventually distracted by other games, primarily FFXIII, which is a topic for some other post), and so my standards for visualizations of Hell are kind of high. I know, it’s not Hell, but come on, there should at least be souls somewhere in the Underworld, shouldn’t there? I mean, Hades enters some former king’s private chamber in the Underworld at one point, which is primarily decorated with dead trees, fog and candles. Private chamber! Seriously, that’s what you’re going with? There’s nobody constantly drowning in the River Styx? There’s nobody else around at all, anywhere? It was just a really boring Underworld. I can see why nobody wants to go there, but, it’s hardly menacing.

Also, I don’t know if it’s just me but I wasn’t really into the girls either. Apparently Gemma Arterton (fun fact: I’ve been thinking her name was Gemma Atherton for pretty much forever and I recently realized it’s because there’s a random douche in one episode of Firefly named Atherton) is going to be super popular for being incredibly hot after Prince of Persia comes out (have you seen her in the trailers for that?) but somehow she is not really hot in this. I don’t know why. On the other hand, Alexa Davalos as Io is rather pretty. I don’t have any complaints about her.

Let’s see, then there’s the ragtag team of surviving legion dudes to help Perseus out. Nobody really memorable besides the two hunters who join in out of the goodness of their hearts. They were pretty cool. And I was glad when they recognized that going into the Underworld would be hazardous to their health, except I was sad because they were actually kind of cool and then they weren’t around anymore. Everybody else is pretty cookie-cutter as far as I’m concerned. I guess I was happy to see the battle hardened old dude final die, although I’m not entirely sure exactly which God’s eyes he believed he was spitting in.

On the topic of the cool hunters, I enjoyed watching them confidently kill their scorpion like professionals while Perseus was struggling with his. From a choreography perspective, though, it was a terrible idea. You’ve got two separate groups fighting identical monsters. Who comes up with that? It makes it really hard to follow the action because you’re never sure which scorpion you’re looking at because they look the same. Why not just let the two scorpions be different colors or something? It would have made that extended fight scene much easier to follow.

Man, now that I’m writing about it, I’m realizing that all I have are complaints. I think it gets a fair number of passes on most of those things, though, because the fights were actually pretty well shot and the action was well done. And that’s what I had actually come to see (okay, I had also come to get a preview of the hotness of Gemma Arterton and so was sent home disappointed on that count).

Actually, one more complaint. What is Perseus’s problem with being part God? What’s so terrible about that and, possibly more importantly, how does he think he’s thrown it away? I mean, one of our ending scenes is him bragging about how he’ll continue his (immortal) life living as a man and then we see him riding on the beach on his HORSE WITH WINGS! I feel like someone needs to take him aside and let him know that mortals don’t get to ride those things. Also, they don’t end up with the girl who never ages. Even if she’s not as hot as she will be in her next movie.

But seriously, how can he not take a perspective more along the lines of how he can be better than a God because he’s part human? That would be way better. If he were proving the superiority of demigods rather than trying to prove the superiority of mortals all while not actually being mortal. It’s like he believes there something inherently wrong with the Gods, his creators, just because they’re not very good at looking out for their creations. As if that type of irresponsibility is solely in the realm of the Gods.

Yeah, I don’t know but every time he talked about not wanting to use his immortal side annoyed me. Particularly when it was clear that he was pulling from it all the time without even knowing it.

But, well, I’m moving on. It was fun. The whole “Release the Kraken” line was not as cool as I had been lead to believe it would be. Mt. Olympus was rather cool though. I liked that the floor was a scale model of the land. And that there were clouds at their feet. I liked how it created this sense that the Gods simply believed they were better than the mortals and that was that. Also, the glass tower thing that housed little statues of people was cool too. Particularly when it broke.

And that is all.

Francis

TV Update

Okay, obviously, I’ve been really, really lax about updating this recently, and, to be totally honest, that’s probably not changing anytime soon. But, this is me not caring. Also, this is me then insincerely apologizing immediately after stating that I don’t care. Sorry. About both those things, I swear.

Anyways, what motivated me to actually write a post again? Um, it was a variety of reasons, but really only one good one. It’s called Justified. I’ll get to it in a little while, but I think I should cover some of the other TV thoughts first.

Let’s see. Chuck. I have to admit, I’m falling behind. Five weeks behind at this point. Yeah, I know, it’s too bad. It’s just that, really, season three wasn’t necessary at the end of season two and it’s no more necessary now. I wish it were, but it’s not. Season two was the absolutely correct way to end Chuck’s character arc and so they’ve had to start a new one. But this new one is dark and sad and frustrating, instead of cute and silly. I haven’t given up yet, but I don’t have much hope.

It’s sad to me to be watching Chuck learn to be a real spy who has to sacrifice people for the greater good. Who has to learn not to develop the relationships with others that he is naturally drawn towards. It makes his character depressing as he has to face the fact that he doesn’t like the person he’s being forced to become. That maybe Bryce Larkin was protecting him all along, all those years ago when he prevented Chuck from getting recruited. I guess, I just didn’t want to watch that and now that I am watching it, I’m struggling to force myself to continue watching it.

Also, bringing in two people related to Superman is just kind of random. Although, I mean, I’ll take whatever excuse they can come up with to bring Kristin Kreuk into the show for a couple episodes (and the episode that they introduced her with was one of the best throwbacks to old school Chuck in a long while). Yeah, I wish I had more to say about Chuck. I’m not sure I’ll watch a season four even if there is one.

Let’s see. House. Why am I still watching this show? No, I mean it. I understand why they keep making new ones, but the show is done. But I can’t seem to pull myself away from him. The evil games he plays on those around him are just too much fun to resist. But they shouldn’t be. I have to be strong and just stop watching because I don’t care anymore. Nobody matters and the medical mysteries aren’t even kind of fun. And yet, I continue watching all the same.

Well, at least Castle is still making Mondays into fun days. Season two has really managed to pick up and it’s been a lot of fun. Nothing in particular changed; it’s just Nathan Fillion doing his thing and, well, sometimes they get it even more right than usual. And I appreciate that. The two episode arc with the villain obsessed with Nikki Heat was just okay (it really felt like a James Patterson story, it kind of makes me wonder if he was doing some of the writing for that one, now that I think about it). But, it finished with an awesome Firefly throwback line so everything even remotely just okay about it was immediately forgiven.

Let’s see. V is starting back up and is already making a very strong effort to convince me to give up on it. It’s hard to say no when they’re really trying to convince me that the show is totally inept and all my hopes that it will one day get interesting are perfectly in vain. Morena Baccarin has already informed us that the fleet we saw at the end of the first four episodes is, in fact, hostile. Which is too bad, I preferred them as a foreboding, mysterious image.

I’m also really weirded out by her and the hot blonde V’s plans for the boy. I think they’re trying to brain wash him. Again, it’s kind of weird and it didn’t seem like they were going to have all that much trouble getting him to sleep with her. He might not enjoy it quite as much once she eats him, though. By the way, I did like the image of her pulling out her real teeth and eating her mate at the end of the last episode. It’s always nice to see some properly alien stuff going on up there.

Otherwise, yeah, there’s not much going for this show.

Oh, but next is Human Target. I’ve definitely been having fun with this show. For one, Rorschach’s (sorry, I could call him by his name but I prefer his Watchmen character, but once he plays Freddy Krueger, I guess I’ll have to just refer to him as Jackie Earle Haley since he’ll have too many iconic characters at that point) new character is totally awesome. I love how he seems so harmless and then he gives this look and you realize he means business. He’s by far my favorite part of the team. In particular, I just like how he’s not really a good guy (just your typical bad guy who does good things). I mean, as comparison, Christopher Chance is really just your average former bad guy doing good things. Current bad guy is way more awesome.

Anyways, this show is a lot of fun. I have to admit that it’s a little awkward how they’re having to try to deal with the fact that all the main characters are male by getting hot female guest stars almost every week (we’ve seen two BSG babes as well as Moon Bloodgood, along with many different women that I don’t already know). It seems like they’re trying to start expanding the team by adding the extra tech cutie (she has a name but they primarily call her new girl, so I haven’t learned it yet) as well as the FBI agent that Christopher has a crush on. On the other hand, they’ve also pulled in a fair number of pretty cool male guest stars too (including both Skinner and the Smoking Man from the X-Files, so that was pretty cool, plus the awesome agent dude from Jericho, who is probably actually going to be a recurring character). So, I guess they might be just trying to deal with the fact that it’s a small main cast.

On a related note, both Mark Valley and Chi McBride are a lot of fun as the other two main characters, so really the whole cast is solid. Which is nice.

Next up is Fringe, which is only just restarting. I have to say that I’m always against flashback episodes and so my reaction to the most recent one is no different. It’s a waste of time. I didn’t learn anything new (except how Nina lost her arm, which does not count as new because I already knew she had lost her arm and I didn’t care how). I guess it was kind of interesting to hear how Bishop and Bell had a falling out (and here I was assuming that Leonard Nimoy just didn’t want to have to put on a bunch of make up to look young for some stupid flashback episode).

Also, I just want to say that I’m 100% against whatever thing the show seems to want to have going on between Olivia and Peter. It’s a mistake and here’s hoping to it not actually happening and the writers are just threatening us poor innocent viewers with it. I think it would screw up most of the dynamics in the show and wouldn’t add anything to either character. That’s my two cents, at least.

Lastly, before Justified, Stargate Universe is starting back up. And, well, the first thing they do is break their promise about not being lame and bring pointless aliens into my otherwise perfectly decent sci fi show. Darn. It was so much more interesting when people weren’t diverting power from the shields to the weapons and when the only dangers were those inherent to living on a ship that wasn’t really intended for passengers. Or the dangers of living with people who are really stupid and make bad decisions all the time. That too.

So, we’ll just have to see on this one. It’s looking grim, but I have hope that they’ll get back to the regularly scheduled plot shortly. Although the plots about power plays and politics in the ruling of the ship are almost evening more annoying than the aliens. Why can’t we just have the plots of a group of people trying to work together to make this ship work? That was actually watchable. Now we’re looking at a character who is essentially the head of human resources trying to convince the people to rise up against the head scientist and army commander. It’s all very weird.

Okay. Justified. Wow, I wrote all that just so that I could have the excuse to write about this show. Yes, it is that good. This show is awesome.

Personally, I really wish that this first season was, like, I don’t know, maybe 100 episodes. And they were airing about, three a week. I think at that pace I could maybe be satisfied. To be honest, I almost considered not watching any more after the first episode because I wasn’t sure I could handle just watching one a week and I was thinking that it might be better to just wait and buy the DVD set and watch the entire season in one sitting.

But that required me to make the executive decision not to watch an episode when I could. And that wasn’t feasible. So, here I am. Watching it. And loving it.

So, what was our first lesson from watching this show? Apparently, if you want to make a Western and you want to set it in the present, you have to put it in the South. Even though the accents aren’t the same, they feel right. And the countryside is tall green reeds and grass and cattails instead of the low-lying desert shrubbery, but again, it feels untamed.

The key to this show is Timothy Oliphant. I admit I haven’t seen Deadwood but it has risen to the very top of my list, entirely from the first three episodes of this show (yeah, it’s not like his performances in Hitman or Live Free or Die Hard were going to convince me that he is actually awesome). I love his cowboy hat. I love his delivery of his lines. Measured, but intelligent. The dialogue isn’t as lyrical as Joss Whedon’s in Firefly, but it has its own rhythms that feel almost as right.

And I love the idea where the show gets its title. Justified. Timothy Oliphant is so quick on the draw that he always waits until his target has already pulled out his own weapon with an intention to kill and then he shoots and kills him.

“He pulled first. It was Justified.”

His boss just sighs. What more can he do?

The show’s other strength is its bad guys. This show remembers that true Westerns have bad guys who are just as cool as the good guys. Or at least as developed. The dialogue between him and the villains is priceless. Everyone wants out of this crappy town and everyone is working towards that goal in his or her own way. Theirs just happens to be against the law and his just happens to be upholding the law. The conversations are often hostile, but the level of mutual respect is downright sweet.

And then there’s his character itself. His ex-wife describes him as the angriest man she’s ever met. He certainly shoots to kill, but he seems willing to forgive a man at the drop of the hat. It’s hard to know how much he wants to kill the person who he knows is dangerous and is thinking of killing him. It was cool watching him discuss the dangers of the draw to a soon-to-be criminal. How he drew before the guy could even remotely react as a way to talk this guy down instead of risking that the situation were to get out of hand.

I think he’s well on his way to becoming a classic Western hero. He’s a good guy trying to do good things, albeit not necessarily through kind or gentle means. But his first thought is of others. Not necessarily all others. But others. Getting into that main group is easy but so is getting out. All in all, it’s very chivalrous. And I’m totally into it. Probably to the point of obsessive. I can’t wait to watch it again tomorrow.

That is all.

Francis

V Thoughts

So, we’ve now seen the first four episodes of ABC’s remake of V. I think it’s probably safe to assume that they’re going to make more, but for the near future, this is what we have to judge. Now, to be honest, I hadn’t actually seen the original mini-series until SyFy (God, I hate typing that) was kind enough to air it shortly before the first episode premiere. I had always just assumed that it wasn’t very good, not in small part because you rarely hear people talking about how great it was, plus it was a made-for-TV sci-fi mini series from the early 80s. It’s hard to have particularly high expectations for that.

But, as it turned out, the original was actually totally awesome. I mean, of course there’s a huge amount of suspension of disbelief required and the alien’s over-arching goal type stuff is downright stupid, but the basic premise and execution was very good. Okay, fine, what it all comes down to is that I thought an alien invasion as a heavy handed metaphor for the rise of fascism was totally cool.

Even though the idea that an occupation as nebulous as “scientist” could be used as a way to discriminate is totally ridiculous (fun fact: my business card actually states my position as Scientist, clearly, I would be screwed), the portrayal of this world takeover was still really well done. And I know that the strategy in that mini-series was very much based upon the control of information and the isolation of individual human cities so that the aliens could control them, so clearly the update has to take a very different tact.

And I’m okay with that. I’m excited to watch a different alien strategy that still retains the original menace of the peaceful display of clearly overwhelming power.

So, I wouldn’t say that I had high hopes for this show, but after seeing the original it now had something to live up to. And, so, well, does it? To be honest, I’m still on the fence, but that’s actually a step up from my initial impressions. After the first two episodes, I was almost ready to stop watching, but now I can say that I will still be watching it when it starts back up.

Clearly the show has a lot of problems. For one, I don’t like that the Vs have infiltrated humanity for the past twenty years. It’s been done. Plenty of times. Of course, then it gets even worse because there’s V traitors as well, so we don’t know who to trust, on both sides. I’m sorry, but we just finished Battlestar Galactica, can’t we move on with a different starting point? Can't the general American consciousness have a new fear besides the people around us?

Next, I understand that this one is trying to be updating the alien invasion genre with the idea of PR as the primary weapon. And, on the surface, I think I can appreciate that. But, well, that’s not really all that interesting. Plans to poison some of the population with the flu vaccine, are just, weird. I mean, we’ve done that to ourselves (or have we?). Or faking an assassination attempt. By the way, under what kind of ridiculous rules would the FBI hand over a human terrorist to an alien government? That requires some suspension of disbelief I’m not ready to make. But the alien’s plan relied on it.

In watching V, there’s just so many decisions I don’t appreciate or just don’t understand. For one, there’s just no way that the aliens can be expected to keep the whole reptilian thing a secret in today’s world. Especially now that the aliens have passports to walk around the city. Admittedly, the pointless cameras in their jackets could help protect the aliens from getting abducted a little bit, but not much.

All you need is for someone to abduct a V, then film the removal of its face. In the best case, they’ll film it just like a terror execution, except the subject won’t end up dead. The bag will get pulled off its head and that’ll be that. The true face of a V will be apparent for the whole world to see. I want to see that. I admit it’s not very clever, but it’s no more heavy-handed than most of the other things they’re doing on this show.

Let’s see, obviously, we’re still waiting to find out what the aliens larger scale goals are, so, while they can’t be more ridiculous than the original ones, they can certainly be worse. And I definitely don’t know how I should feel about that armada they showed at the end. Of course, assuming they can’t go faster than light, there’s probably a couple years till they get here. Personally, I’d like to think that the 29 ships here are not the first wave, but rather some crazy off shoot that are addicted to that weird power that Morena Baccarin has (I admit, I would probably follow Morena Baccarin across the galaxy to destroy another civilization, so it’s hardly unbelievable).

But otherwise, it’s just little things. Like they’ve got that cool homing device that kills people and it’s got video, but the quality is too poor to identify the target. I mean, really? Really? Is that what you’re going with? It transmit video, but not to the point where it might actually be useful? How about, it’s just heat sensing. There, almost no picture and it doesn’t have to be stupid.

Or, torturing a human by making him think that he’s covered with snakes. Are you kidding me? That’s the lamest torture I’ve ever heard of. I mean, it would suck for, at max, a minute or so. Then you’d just get used to being covered with snakes and wait for the real torture. In the original, that torture chair was covered with instruments of pain. Just looking at that chair seemed like a good enough reason to talk.

But, it all really comes down to the fact that, much like Battlestar Galactica, there’s almost no one to like. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t like the FBI agent, and I don’t like the black V who is obsessed with John May, and I definitely don’t like the news reporter or Georgie or the FBI agent’s kid either. There’s just not any humans to root for besides Joel Gretsch and I think he’s only going to start getting interesting once he decides to become a soldier. Okay, I am kind of rooting for the FBI agent’s kid to get it on with the cute blonde V, but I don’t think that entirely counts.

So, with all these complaints, what managed to push me from dropping the show all the way up to on the fence? The idea of skinning a V as the ultimate punishment. There seems to be a, possibly strong, suggestion that the Vs are actually kind of obsessed with humanity or at least the idea of “humans”.

In the original, the aliens looked down on humanity absolutely. They viewed themselves as putting on a costume in order to lull the prey into a false sense of security. They hated the skin they were wearing and removed it on the ship at the earliest convenience. In this version, it seems like they almost view their human faces as their true faces. And they all have human names by which they address even each other. And this goes back to the beginning, considering that the original insurgent was simply named John May.

Of course, we have no idea what this means or why, but it’s promising. Quite simply, it’s a reason to keep watching. Because, I can imagine some interesting stuff coming from that basic fact. That the aliens want to be human.

And, I would like to finish on the one brilliant decision made for this show. That would be the casting of the V Threat Assessment agent. I immediately recognized her as a Cylon from Battlestar. I love how that immediately made me completely not trust her and fear that new organization. Just because she had already been a fake human in an entirely different universe. That casting decision gives that character so much extra background that I couldn’t help but applaud it. I hope she’s not actually an alien, but I love that she has to prove it, just because of who the actress is. Good job, guys.

That is all.

Francis

This Fall’s Lineup

So, I know it’s been awhile, but it’s getting to be time for me to put my thoughts down on the shows that have been on for the past two months (wow, that’s a lot of procrastinating). Anyways, I’m just going to go by day of the week, starting with Monday. Not just because that’s the start of the work week, but also because there’s nothing on on Sundays, since I don’t watch The Simpsons or anything by Seth MacFarlane (okay, I watch them, but I don’t watch them, watch them).

So, Mondays. Here we go.

Fox was kind enough to front load the week with House and Lie to Me. With House, I don’t know, it’s not doing that much for me this season. I mean, I like having the old team back together, but it mainly serves to remind me why they felt the pressure to get a new team in the first place. Cameron is boring now and she’s been boring for a long time. Maybe she should have gotten AIDS. Maybe that’s a terrible thing for me to say. Hmm, on second thought, definitely that’s a terrible thing for me to say. Obviously, Hugh Laurie remains ridiculously awesome. And I enjoyed the two hour premiere in the mental hospital. I thought it was an interesting look at House as someone who is being forced to recognize that he really is broken. Realizing that he’s actually not God, just like everyone’s been trying to tell him for the last however many seasons. The problem, though, is that we all still want him to actually be God, which kind of throws everything through a loop. Really, though, there just hasn’t been that much excitement. And, no, Chase killing James Earl Jones does not count as exciting. Admittedly, the presence of James Earl Jones does count as exciting, but that doesn’t count.

Lie to Me is pretty much the same as ever. Tim Roth is awesome (I love the way Lightman walks, he looks like such a misanthropic freak). His daughter continues to annoy me. So, no complaints, but it’s hardly breaking any ground.

Let’s see, I do watch two of the four comedies that CBS puts out. That would be How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory. The former has been stuck in a rut for awhile, but Dr. Horrible makes everything at least awesome. I think my favorite thing about it remains the way they continue to play with the idea of telling stories. In a weird way, this is the only sitcom where I think it’s okay for the characters to constantly have witty lines and comebacks, because that’s the way they remember it (which means it’s not necessarily the way it actually happened, just to be clear). I like how whenever two different people tell the same story, everything is slightly different. I think it’s cool. In a weird way, I hope that the final episode of the show is something like How I Met Your Father and we get to hear things from that perspective as well.

Then there’s Big Bang Theory. I cannot understand why this show has some of the best ratings of the season. I mean, the highest praise I can give it is something along the lines of: it doesn’t totally suck. It’s watchable. For the most part, at least. Seriously, that’s the nicest thing I can say about it. It’s definitely better than Two and a Half Men, but that’s what is commonly called a “back-handed compliment”. That show is terrible (and it has like the 3rd highest ratings of the season, so maybe it’s not surprising that Big Bang Theory is doing so well).

Anyways, why do I watch it? Because it’s kind of an interesting perspective on how cool Hollywood-types think nerds are. It’s interesting because they typically get the activities right (with the exception of Klingon Boggle, that’s above and beyond), but they don’t know how nerds participate in those activities. They get excited about the wrong parts of the things they do. Here’s an example: in one show they’re playing Rock Band and all trying to look totally into it and pretending they’re rock stars. But, that’s not how these nerds would actually play Rock Band. They would be standing there, essentially motionless, and getting near perfect scores, totally focused. When the song ended, they would all give a bunch of crap to the one guy who got a 98%. Okay, one more example, in another episode, they’re playing some CCG and they get excited when they win (which intuitively makes sense), but again, that’s not what would really get them excited. They’d be totally into the crazy, non-intuitive strategy they’d come up with that allowed them to win. In the show, the nerdiest character is always counting cards and knows what’s in his opponents hand, but the way he would actually win would be by using two or three cards together in a way that the rules barely allow and completely destroying his opponent in a way that no one else present even fully understands. That’s how nerds play those games.

Alright, that was another digression. Anyways, that’s the main reason I watch it. I guess I have to give it credit that the only two jokes it knows are occasionally funny. The first joke is that the most ridiculously socially inept one is ridiculously socially inept and at least two of them think the fact that they’re not quite as incapable of interacting with people as him makes them cooler than him, but any normal people they interact with can’t actually tell the difference. The second joke is, um, that Penny’s hot, maybe, okay, fine there is no second joke. Everything even remotely funny is contained in that first one.

And lastly, ABC has Castle. Or, more accurately, 43 minutes of Nathan Fillion filled goodness. Aside from the previous episode in which he dressed up as one Malcolm Reynolds, the season hasn’t been quite as much fun as last season. He doesn’t get to be cutely annoying as often. But he’s still hilarious, of course. That can never change. Nor would we want it to. So, I still love it. Also, his daughter doesn’t annoy me, and it’s not just because she’s a really cute redhead (dammit, just looked up her age, scratch that), it’s because she doesn’t get in the way of Nathan Fillion being awesome, as opposed to the daughter in Lie to Me, who is constantly interfering with Tim Roth being awesome.

Alright, Tuesdays.

Oh, yeah, Tuesdays are totally empty until V next week. I really hope that it’s both a) watchable and b) watched, so that there will be something to actually watch on Tuesdays. My main concern is that they clearly spent a lot of time and effort making sure that Morena Baccarin is not ridiculously hot. Okay, fine, all they did was cut her hair, but seriously, who made that decision? Is he or she still working? If so, why? Really a terrible call. But, they kind of made up for it by bringing in Joel Gretsch, because he’s cool. On a random, pointless digression, he was in that random sci-fi action bomb Push. When I finally got around to seeing it on Blu-ray, I actually kind of liked it, to my surprise. I mean, it was clearly pretty bad, but it had some real positives. For example, Dakota Fanning was not relentlessly annoying. See: real positive, right there. In all seriousness, I liked the world and the rules it was creating, even though it kept getting tripped up by it’s own stupidity. And I must admit that I was surprised that Dakota Fanning never got around to telling Chris Evans that she’s his sister (okay, I don’t actually know that, but come on, she has to be, and no I didn’t spoil anything). Sorry about that, back to TV.

Ye olde Wednesday. I admit I sorta gave Modern Family a change. I think I lasted for almost a full minute before stopping it. So, yeah, sorry, I hear it’s funny. Otherwise, it’s just Glee, which has a tough time walking the thin line between making fun of its cliches and just being one of those cliches. In fact, I’m not even sure they’re batting .500 on that one, to be honest. Wow, that was a strange set of mixed metaphors right there, my apologies. Of course I still watch it, for the times when they get it right (like this one ballad where, out of nowhere, there’s all these sparkly-things floating behind the girl, just to make it that much more dramatic). For the most part, though, I think this show peaked at its pilot. Which is too bad.

Okay, Thursdays.

So, Fringe, yeah. Ratings kinda dropped when they moved it out of Tuesday. Maybe that’s because it didn’t have any competition on Tuesday. But, my thoughts. I’m sorry to see Agent Francis die. And not just because of his last name, which is clearly ridiculously awesome. I think his character brought a lot to the team as the “real” FBI agent that they coordinate with. I’m guessing that maybe they’re planning to use the random hot FBI agent from the first episode of the season to do his old job, but they haven’t gotten around to actually making that transition yet (otherwise, I have no idea why they introduced her for two episodes and then totally forgot about her, except maybe because they realized they didn’t need another hot FBI agent what with Olivia and Astrid already meeting the required two hot regular female special agents per show). Otherwise, I don’t know how strongly I feel about this show. It’s still fun though. And I’ve enjoyed the multiple, clearly-stated references to the X-Files. I think it’s interesting that they view themselves as taking place in the same universe. I wonder if they’ll do anything with that (I vote for a Skinner cameo, personally). Also, I think it’s extra interesting that during Fringe, the Fox/Fringe logos around the commercial breaks have the black goo in them. I can’t help but wonder, most likely idly, whether that has any significance.

Let’s see, beyond Fringe, there’s Community and FlashForward. Let’s start with Community. This show is awesome. Very hilarious. And I don’t even get most of the 80s teen comedy references (I should really watch The Breakfast Club sometime). I really appreciate just the basic idea of this sitcom. It’s a great eclectic group of people that become friends and support each other in community college. All while telling jokes at a ridiculously fast pace. This is the funniest show on television right now (sorry, The Office can’t win because I cannot handle those episodes when half of it is Michael making an ass of himself, which is, like every episode).

Alright, FlashForward. I guess I like it. It’s better than I thought it would be. I mean, I’m watching it, so that’s something. Admittedly, I keep falling behind, but I’m not lost yet. So, yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how many people’s visions come true on whenever that is. I’m not sure if I’ll keep watching after that point. Of course, that’s like April or something, so I guess they’ve got me for more than a little while. Whatever, moving on, I guess (wow, I didn’t realize how apathetic I was about this show until I tried to write about it).

And, last but not least, Friday.

Let’s see, Friday’s actually been pretty busy, what with: Dollhouse, Psych, White Collar, Sanctuary, Eureka, and Stargate Universe. Yes, I actually watch some cable TV shows as well. I think I’ll skip over Psych and Eureka since they both started long before the fall and finished up in September/early October. Oh, wait, I have to say that Psych needs to come up with more excuses to have Rachel Leigh Cook show up because she is way too hot to only show up occasionally as Shawn’s girlfriend. I have no strong feelings for Eureka, or Warehouse 13 for that matter (except that I think it’s awesome to see Mindy Crenshaw from Nickelodeon’s Drake and Josh still working...and getting hotter and, um, older). And, I think I’ll skip White Collar too, since there’s only been one episode and all I can say for sure is that I think I’ll keep watching it, but I don’t think it’s anything special. And it’s hard to like it too much since it’s starring Bryce Larkin and he was mean to Chuck.

Alright, that narrows it down to just Dollhouse, Sanctuary and Stargate Universe. I think I can do Sanctuary pretty quick: what are they thinking? I have not appreciated a single decision they’ve made so far this season, except, maybe, and I really mean maybe, killing the chick who could turn invisible. I didn’t like her as a love interest for the main guy (since he should be pining unsuccessfully for the hot blonde), but that didn’t mean I wanted her dead. Jeez, what’s with you people? Plus, it’s looking like we’re going to have multiple episodes without the hot blonde because we think she’s dead right now. That’s annoying, because the hot blonde is, um, hot. Also, the random chick they came up with to substitute for her is more than slightly annoying. So, yeah, I’m not happy right now. They really need to undo a lot of the stupid decisions they’ve made.

Hmm, that wasn’t quite as quick as I was expecting it to be. Well, on to Stargate Universe. This is the first Stargate show I’ve watched. I thought the movie was terrible when it came out 15 years ago. That means I was sufficiently young to only barely even be able to recognize when a movie is terrible. But I could still tell. But, well, I thought I’d give this one a chance. They pretty much promised that it wouldn’t really be about Stargates and stuff like that and, so far, that has proven true. Per normal for SyFy (sigh) space shows (*cough* BSG *cough*), I don’t actually like anyone in the show. Anyone. But, I’m still watching it for some reason. Because I like the ship. And they treat it respectfully and so I’ll continue to watch it for the sake of learning about this ship and its history and mission. If I have to tolerate a bunch of annoying, bickering and oftentimes downright stupid people, then so be it.

And we’ll finish this up with Dollhouse. It’s been an interesting season for Dollhouse. Too bad it’s almost certainly the last. Epitaph One was one of the weirdest decisions I’ve ever seen. I mean, it’s really set sometime in, like, season 3 or 4, but Joss was apparently worried he’d never get that far and the ideas were so cool he just had to make it now. At least, that’s the story I’m telling. And it’s certainly interesting. The idea that you can remotely wipe someone and steal their body is downright cool and scary. The idea that someone decided to make Stephen King’s Cell a reality is, well, odd, but we know he just misses the Reavers.

But, because we’ve seen Epitaph One, everything in season two becomes about how we get there. So, things like Topher working on remote wiping as a way to deal with instances when dolls go out of control becomes much more sinister than it necessarily should be. Speaking of Topher, I would just like to give him a gold star as most improved character of the season. Last season, he was just some dude who wished he was Alan Tudyk (and then Alan Tudyk came along and showed us all that no one can be Alan Tudyk except Alan Tudyk). But, now, he’s my favorite character. I loved the episode when Dr. Saunders was torturing him and asking him why he made her hate him. I loved that his response was that he didn’t. He gave her the ability to decide for herself and she chose to hate him. His greatest creation was a fully functioning, independent-thinking being. And she hated him to her core.

Oh, I also like the notes that Echo is keeping inside her sleeping chamber. In summary, Dollhouse has gotten a lot better than it was at the start. Too bad it’s all finishing up. Also, I have to admit that I’m not that excited about Summer Glau showing up (not because I’m not excited to see River again, though). I’m just worried because I don’t really want to watch her be evil. Or if she is going to be evil, I want her to be really hot while being evil. So, I’ll reserve judgement until I find out just how hot she turns out. On a side note, she was very hot in her cameo in The Big Bang Theory. Not that that’s a surprise or anything.

Okay, I’m caught up. And I can look forward to more Chuck (for better or worse, I thought the end of season two provided very nice closure for the show, but apparently other people desperately wanted more). And, more importantly, I can continue patiently waiting for Day One. I know, it’s gone from an exciting post-apocalypse show, to a 13-episode event run, to a four episode mini-series with the possibility of getting picked up for the following season. But, I still have hope, okay. Give me a break alright. Yeah, I don’t have that much hope. Maybe a little more hope than I had for Virtuality. A little.

Well, that is all.

Francis