Various unimportant rantings.

American Horror Story is one of my favorite new shows this fall. If you aren’t watching it yet you need to be. The story is centered around the latest family to move into a house in LA where every previous owner has killed their family, and sometimes committed more murders/general creepiness. The stuff that has me drawn in the most is all the stuff about the maid, the creepy cougar neighbor woman, and the teenage boy who are all ghosts and are all connected. We know after this week’s episode the connection between the maid and the creepy cougar lady.

I seriously am obsessed with this show, and am completely sucked in. I look forward to every single episode from week to week. This show along with Person of Interest, and Pan Am are my favorite new shows this fall. I’ll post more about those another time. Seriously though, if you’re not watching American Horror Story, you absolutely need to be. It has everything. Creepiness, check. Horror and Gore, check. Great back stories and mysteries to the characters, check. Hot maid, check! Watch it!

I watched the 5th episode of terra nova today, The 4th to air, but since the pilot was 2 hours that counts as 2 episodes I suppose. As I mentioned in my last post about the pilot, I was really happy with the pilot, despite the annoyance of Josh Shannon, who was the most annoying teenager I’ve ever seen on television. Despite that, there seemed to be enough mystery and big questions for the show to answer to keep me hooked and interested. But then the next two episodes just fell flat and did absolutely nothing to touch on the stuff I liked about the pilot. Seriously the last two episodes were so bad, that I almost didn’t even watch this week’s episode. But then I read a quick summary of the plot, and it sounded like it was going to get back to the story arch of the show, unlike the last two throwaway stand-alone episodes. This week’s episode was an even bigger disappointment.

The story centered around a sixer spy infiltrating the camp to retrieve something for Mira, the leader of the sixers. Unfortunately the spy was a girl the same age as the youngest shannon daughter, so a lot of stuff with her was dressed up in more of the annoying cutesiness that the show has been suffering from. She is welcomed in to terra nova after they find her lost in the woods thinking she unknowingly came through the portal. It turns out that she is a “runaway” sixer. Mira orchestrates some whole song and dance where she kidnaps Wash and another officer as collateral in a fake negotiation to get the girl back, seemingly to convince them that the girl is there of her own free will and not a spy. Only to find out that she was really sent there to steal a box, that we don’t know what is inside of, because Mira threatened to hurt her brother. Naturally, Jim Shannon sets out on his own to find the girl’s brother only to get captured in a sixer trap, and nearly get attacked by a dinosaur while he’s helplessly hanging from a tree. This scene felt pretty pointless, and only really seemed to be there because the producers promised dinosaurs in every episode, and this was the only dinosaur appearance in the episode. The sixers blow the dinosaur away with some sort of pulse gun, and take him to Mira. Mira tries to convince Jim that Taylor is bad, and that he shouldn’t trust him, and he should get his family and join the sixers because he doesn’t want “to be on the wrong side of history”. He starts asking questions about why she thinks these things, and what she knows, and going against all logic for the scene, she just gives him the cryptic answer of “you’ll see”. If she was trying to convince him to join her, why wouldn’t she be telling him everything she knows about Taylor instead of just saying, figure it out for yourself? It’s stupid and it doesn’t make sense. Meanwhile, others in Terra Nova are starting to question the authoritarian rule of Taylor.

Basically my problem with the episode is that even though it jumped back into the story line with the sixers, and the overall mystery arch of the show, it did absolutely nothing to further it. This is why I’m more let down by this episode than the last two that didn’t even feature the story arch at all. There was no story development at all in this episode. The things I did like though, are that it seems as though there is some tension building up within terra nova, and people are starting to question and stand up to Taylor. I feel like more needs to be revealed about the past of Terra nova, more needs to be revealed about Taylor’s past, and the story arch about his son, the sixers, who sent them, etc needs to actually be furthered more. Right now they just seem like a really crappy ripoff of The Others from LOST. Think about how long it took for a big reveal about who The Others were to happen on LOST. That actually worked out fine because they furthered the mystery more and more with each episode that featured them. There weren’t useless episodes that did nothing for the story, each episode gave you a little bit of what you needed to stay interested. This episode of Terra Nova was completely useless, they could have made it so much more satisfying by even just giving us a very small amount of answer to the mystery, like LOST did with The others. Instead they gave us a pointless rejection to an answer. I keep giving this show credit and more chances because I feel like it has what it needs to get good, and to become a great show. But they just need to make it get there with the story. Stop focusing so much on the stupid family drama, and cutesy crap.

I have liked that they seem to have dropped the whole whiny teenager crap with Josh Shannon’s character, but seeing how next week’s episode focuses on him meeting the sixers to try and get his girlfriend from back in the future through the portal, It seems like it’s going to lead to more whininess from him. Hopefully I’m wrong, and hopefully this leads to some furthering of the story arch that I am desperate for as a viewer, and Terra Nova is desperate for if it wants to continue past this season. If we get another episode that is as useless and forgettable as these last few, it might just be the nail in the coffin for me.

I watched the 2 hour Terra Nova pilot episode today and for the most part I am impressed. It is visually stunning, and the story is very engaging, and it definitely has me interested enough to keep coming back to see how it answers some of the questions raised in the pilot. They definitely did a good job of making me care about a few of the characters enough to come back, and keeping me interested enough in the plot to come back. I would definitely recommend it, and I hope that this show is able to continue beyond just one season, and that it is able to keep furthering the plot and story without getting bogged down, or without slowing down. Momentum is the key to serialized shows like this, and lack of momentum is the reason so many other Sci Fi shows have failed recently such as V, and Terminator:The Sarah Connor Chronicles (most of the second season did nothing for the overall story).

The story line with the faction that broke off from the main group, known as the sixers was great and I’m interested to learn more about them, who they are, why they were sent there, who sent them. The story line with Taylor’s son who disappeared seems like it’s going to be an interesting one, especially if they reveal what the cave drawings that are supposedly done by him mean, and why they look so old. Also, why is Taylor trying to cover these drawings up? I am also enjoying the relationship between Taylor, the autocratic military leader, and Jim Shannon, the former cop/escaped convict. The story has a lot of great material, and if it is able to expand on these plot lines and keep the momentum going, I think it will make for a great show. 

What I didn’t like about the episode is mostly Jim Shannon’s teenage son, Josh. It’s like they took the whininess and brattiness of Tyler from V and amplified him by 1,000. He is quite possibly the most annoying character I’ve ever seen on television. Not to mention the fact that his brattiness seems to come out of absolutely nowhere. The first half hour which takes place in the dystopian future and shows Jim and family being searched for an illegal third child and getting caught after hiding little Zoe in the air vent. Jim punches a cop and goes to jail. He then breaks out with the help of his wife, rescues Zoe, and manages to sneak his way through the time portal to escape the dystopian future. This whole time Josh is seen complaining that they can’t leave without his dear old dad, and he genuinely seems to care about him. As soon as they get to Terra Nova, and are shown to their new home, there’s a disgustingly heart-warming scene with Jim and little Zoe, with the whole family watching in the background lovingly. Overwhelming amounts of Spielbergian cheese in this scene, but it is touching, as much as it is annoying. Immediately after this however is when my first real problem comes up, Josh suddenly out of nowhere blows up and says “if dad didn’t freak out and punch a cop he wouldn’t have been gone, now I just have to act like nothing happened, and love him and blah blah blah?!?” …. BAD CHARACTERIZATION! Seriously… none of the writers got to this part and thought “wait, he’s been nothing but a loving son up til this point, why would he blow up out of nowhere like this?” This was terrible. Hopefully after this episode, which also featured Josh running off with some new friends and almost getting killed by dinosaurs only to be rescued at the absolute last minute by Jim and Taylor, Josh will drop this obnoxious, whiny brattiness. This character was terrible, and absolutely one of the worst in television history in my mind, but I was still able to look past it and really enjoy this pilot episode. I am excited to see where the series goes from here. 

I haven’t posted any sci fi stuff in quite some time. 

Sad news today, V was cancelled. As frustrated as I was by the pacing and it’s tendency to become overly formulaic, I really liked where they were going with the second season, and now series finale. I’m not really mad at ABC for their decision, the entire time the season was airing I wasn’t expecting a third season, and was hoping that the writers would do more to wrap up the stories and possibly give some decent amount of closure. Instead the season dragged along and got extremely boring around the middle episodes. There was plenty of filler that could have been axed to make way for episodes that would bring the stories to a close. Instead they dragged the fifth column shenanigans out too long and then ended on an awesome cliffhanger in what seems to be a desperate attempt to prove to the network execs that they need and deserve a third season. Instead of closure we wound up with a season that was mostly failed terrorist-esque attacks by the fifth column. 

That being said I liked V, I REALLY liked V. I was just frustrated because almost half of the episodes of the series were garbage. But when V was good it was AWESOME.

It seems like all my favorite Sci Fi shows are getting canned. First Caprica then V. At least I still have Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome to look forward to! Also, I’m excited for the new SyFy series Alphas that’s coming out this summer, it looks like Heroes if it had continued to be a good show after the first season. 

I just finished watching all three seasons of Veronica Mars on netflix. To be honest, I initially only watched it because of the reference to it in the Motion City Soundtrack song “Her Words Destroyed My Planet”, and because it was on netflix instant stream so I figured if I didn’t like it, that I could just watch something else. But I LOVED IT! I was pretty much hooked instantly! This show blends Mystery, and drama perfectly and with a hilarious witty comedy element as well. I’ve seen other mystery shows that have tried to pull off a blend with comedic relief and fall flat on their faces, cough… happy town… cough…. But Veronica Mars did an amazing job of it without it feeling like comedic relief. The key was that it was quick and witty remarks rather than goofy characters and actions like on other shows. Acting was solid from pretty much everybody on the cast throughout all 3 seasons as well, except for maybe a few scenes with Logan when he was the depressed, nice guy. 

The first two seasons were perfect, I loved the large, season-long story arcs, that culminated in a huge season finale. Each episode was clearly focused, with it’s own individual story arc that would resolve by the end of the episode, but the episode would still further the overall season’s story arc. Season 3 seemed to lose it’s focus, and most people seem to unfairly blame it on the change from a high school setting to a college setting. I disagree, I think it still could have worked in a college setting, but I think it was worse in the third season because of the network change. The first two seasons were on UPN, but when the network changed to the CW they made them switch up their style to shorter story arcs, so it had 2 short 6-7 episode story arcs which didn’t work out to be too interesting, and the season wound up ending in 5 non-serialized episodes. The final 2 or 3 episodes were great even though they were more self contained and didn’t work towards a big story arc or anything, it was carried by it’s characters and their interactions and it seemed like it could have been working towards getting back to where it was in seasons 1 and 2 if it had gotten picked up for another season. Unfortunately the changes the network made to the show in season 3 killed the show. I would love to see more, and the creator has written a script for a movie but apparently low dvd sales have killed any hope of that ever seeing the light of day. But, we did get 2 great seasons, and even though season 3 wasn’t as good as the first 2 seasons, it was still pretty damn good, and we got a decent amount of character and story resolution. 

I highly recommend watching this show on netflix! 

Aubrey Plaza is one of my new favorite actresses. I’ve been a fan since I started watching Parks and Recreation, and am just reminded about how much I love her character on that show because I watched a marathon of it yesterday! She was also awesome in Scott Pilgrim Vs The World which was one of my favorite movies last year. 

I briefly touched on my thoughts about Firefly in my post about Dollhouse, but as promised, here is my full review of Firefly.

I’ll start with what I liked. The idea behind the show is that the main characters are outlaws, whose home planets were taken over by an intergalactic alliance that they didn’t fought and lost a war to. They are outlaws, smuggling, and taking whatever jobs they can to get by. It is a great concept, and the western mixed with space travel sounded like a really weird idea to me, but it made sense because most of the planets where they are traveling with less fear of running into the alliance are on the outer rim of the system and were terraformed planets that had gone wrong. So they were more primitive, and almost old west like. It makes sense and it definitely works, although it does still feel a little weird at times, and my favorite episodes didn’t focus much on the western aspect of the show. I also loved the mysterious backstory of River being experimented on by the alliance. I wish they had spent more time on it, as she was my favorite character on the show, partly because of her awesome story, and partly because I love Summer Glau! All of the characters were likable, even the bad boy Jayne Cobb. Everybody did a good job of playing their parts and acting was solid throughout, basically the only person I didn’t care for too much as an actor was Simon, River’s brother. I also liked that it was easy to watch in shorter bursts, and if it were still on the air it would be a good weekly sci fi fix. It gives story resolution at the end of each episode, and each one is easy to watch, even if you kind of drift in and out of paying attention.

So now what I didn’t like, and since I know this show is so beloved by many, this might be controversial. Many of the things that I sited as what I liked, are actually what lead to why I didn’t LOVE the series. I was actually quite frustrated by it as a tv series, because I felt it had everything it needed to be great, but didn’t quite get there until it was cancelled and made into the movie Serenity. It had me interested enough that I liked it, but not so thrilled about it that I loved it. I liked the characters, and Firefly is often praised for being a show that proved that the secondary characters can be just as important as the main characters. I definitely disagree there, I liked the characters, but to me, Captain Malcolm Reynolds, and River Tam, were the only characters interesting enough to have entire episodes devoted to their stories. The episode focusing on part of Jayne Cobb’s backstory and him being praised by sewage farmers, was boring. The episode focusing on Kaylee and Inarra and them going to an old timey ball, was boring. They are secondary characters and should have been kept that way, they really were not interesting enough to be pushed as if they were just as important and interesting as the main characters. If you want to praise a Joss Whedon show that has interesting supporting characters that are just as important, it is Dollhouse, not Firefly. Dollhouse actually pulls that off successfully. The episodes of Firefly that focused mostly on the Captain and his backstory and River and her backstory were really the only ones that had me interested enough to keep going through the series, and are really the only reason I liked the series. My biggest problem was how under-utilized River was in the series. They hardly touch on her backstory, just drop small hints at it here or there, and there are only a few instances where they let her badassness out… until the show was cancelled and brought back as the movie Serenity! Serenity focused on all the parts of Firefly that I liked and cut back on the supporting characters in the spotlight. It also cut back on things that I found cheesy and weird about Firefly, like how they would start talking in chinese all of a sudden when they were swearing. This was overdone on the show and always felt odd to me. Also, in firefly, clearly the most interesting villains were the reevers, which were BARELY touched on in the series! They brought back the reevers for Serenity, focused on the alliance’s control of the galaxy and their history with River, and focused on the Captain as the main character and leader. These were the strengths that the show desperately needed to take more advantage of! I think because they knew they only had 1 and a half to two hours to pull off that movie and wrap everything up, it caused them to focus on the strengths and highlight them, which is what it did, and that is why I LOVE Serenity and only kind of like Firefly. 

Now, most Firefly fans blame fox for it’s cancellation and failure to establish success. Fox aired the episodes out of order, and also disproved of Joss’s first Pilot, and forced him to write another one in the span of a weekend or the show would be cancelled. The pilot fiasco, is the only bad move I think Fox made. The first episode and original pilot was awesome! I really liked it. It established the characters and the story and let it unfold for the viewer to experience it for themselves. Fox didn’t like that and forced a rewrite which lead to “The Train Job” which is one of the worst episodes of the series. Instead of letting the viewers actually meet and figure out who the characters are for themselves, it basically just has them walking around talking to each other and saying things like “Hey you, this is who your character is and this is what you do. It would normally be weird for me to be talking like this, but for the sake of being lazy and establishing characters quickly instead of developing depth, this is how we’re introducing you.” So there’s that, but that’s the only mistake I think Fox made. As far as the episodes being aired out of order arguement, I really don’t think there’s a problem with that. Since most episodes are not part of a larger story arch, and they all give story resolution at the end of each episode, the series really can be viewed out of order, with the exception of only a few episodes. Watching Firefly out of order is like watching The Simpsons out of order, there’s nothing wrong with it. 

So there’s my review. I liked Firefly, but overall I think it is largely overrated among Sci Fi fans. It failed in so many aspects that were not corrected until they made the movie Serenity. I think it is an awesome thing that Firefly was cancelled, because it gave us Serenity. 

I’m trying to update this blog more often as you can tell, by my multiple postings this week. 

I just finished watching both seasons of Dollhouse at the suggestion of a friend. I had no interest in this show while it was on the air mostly because I wasn’t a very huge Eliza Dushku fan, I had only seen her in Buffy back in the day, but I never really cared for her, I always thought she wasn’t that great of an actress and that she wasn’t that hot (although she was up against Sarah Michelle Gellar who was my teenage crush!) Also, I didn’t have much interest in this show because of the way that I remember Fox advertising it. I never really got the impression that it was a sci fi show. They always made it out as if the show was about crime fighting prostitutes. I was skeptical about it but I usually trust my friend’s taste when it comes to sci fi. Plus, it is on Netflix instant stream, so it was available immediately to me! 

From the very first episode I was hooked! Immediately the concept behind the show, programmable humans whose brains are programmed (or imprinted as they say on the show) to think they are whoever you want or need them to be, and are then erased when their job is done, and the dolls whose brains are being toyed with and hacked struggling with their own realities, seemed very reminiscent of Phillip K Dick’s stories. Dollhouse definitely has one of the best concepts behind a Science Fiction television show in a long time! All the actors on the show are great, they have to be great actors in order to play different characters in every episode and be able to make you care about them. It completely changed my mind about Eliza Dushku, she really pulls the role off really well! It was awesome to see so many Battlestar Galactica cast members make cameos and even Helo as one of the main characters! And then they throw Summer Glau in as a hot nerdy scientist in the second season! Come on! This show has everything good sci fi should have! It has evil corporations doing weird, scary experiments on human beings. It has corrupt political officials that are involved. It has the technology behind imprinting humans with personalities leading to the apocalypse. It has questions of ethics and morals, questions about reality, and crazy out of this world (although not too unbelievable) concepts! It has cool gadgets and technology, It has characters that you care about, just the right amount of humor and action and special effects. And most importantly it has hot girls kicking ass! It’s like somebody was watching me and was like “what would billy like to see in a sci fi show?” and then somehow failed to advertise it to me in a way that would draw me to the show until after it’s cancelled!

Speaking of it being cancelled, here is the part of my normal non-sensical rants where I would complain about it being cancelled. While I would love for this show to still be on the air, because I really did love every moment of it, I don’t think it is actually necessary after the finale of the second season. They must have seen their cancellation coming because they really wrapped it up well! All the characters got closure, all the storylines were tied up, and the final episode even flashes into the future with the crew saving the human race from killing themselves off. The only part I didn’t like about the series was in the finale though, after Paul (helo) dies, Caroline imprints him in her brain so that they can still be together. Total lame, cheeseball moment. Other than that the series was perfect in my opinion! 

Also, this will be the controversial part of my post with sci fi fans: DOLLHOUSE IS INFINITELY BETTER THAN FIREFLY! It is definitely Joss Whedon’s most underrated show! Don’t get me wrong, I thought Firefly was good, but overrated, I’ll write more about Firefly later in another post, because I’d like to keep this post about Dollhouse. But In my opinion Firefly didn’t work as a series, it was messy, and kinda boring and corny at parts and didn’t focus on what I thought was the most interesting part of the show (cough…Summer Glau… cough). The characters and story of Firefly really worked better in the movie Serenity, which was awesome! I’ll make another post about this later.

If you haven’t already seen it, GO WATCH DOLLHOUSE NOW! You won’t regret it! I have heard that all the Joss Whedon shows are going to be taken down from Netflix’s instant streaming on April 1st, so go watch it quickly! It’s only 26 episodes so it’s pretty easy to watch, and I flew through all the episodes in about 4 or 5 days! 

I just finished watching Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles on netflix. I watched part of the first season on tv when they were airing a marathon before season 2 started, but then I just stopped watching because as Fox does with every good show that they have ever had, they moved it around timeslots constantly, took it off the air without telling anyone, brought it back without promoting it properly… etc. 

Anyway, I saw it up on Netflix instant stream so I added it to me queue and watched through the whole series. I went through Season 1 in about 2 days, it was so good! It picks up with the end of T2: Judgment Day, and completely ignores the events of T3 and Terminator Salvation, which is a great thing in my opinion. The only good thing to come of T3 was the hot girl terminator, played by Kristanna Loken, so the series took note of that and added their own hot girl terminator, played by Summer Glau. And so that you will like the hot girl terminator, they made her a good guy who protects John Connor. Obviously to enjoy anything in the Terminator series you have to ignore the major plothole that Kyle Reese is John Connor’s father who was sent back in time by future John Connor to protect Sarah Connor, and that’s when he impregnates her with John. So in order for John Connor to exist, Kyle Reese has to travel back in time to impregnate Sarah Connor with John Connor, but in order for him to do that, John Connor already has to already exist to send him back in time. Does that make any sense at all James Cameron? No it doesn’t, but it doesn’t change the fact that the story is interesting. So ignore the gaping plotholes in the Terminator franchise and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is a great show. The first season is intense, edge of your seat action just like the movies were. You get to see John Connor in his development from whiny, annoying teenager to leader of the resistance. The creation of Skynet is further explored, and the show was serialized in a way that it all flowed really well together. There was a core group of characters, and it wasn’t a “terminator of the week” or “mission of what to destroy of the week” storyline. 

That brings us to season 2 where Fox ruins the show. The first season was successful and interesting, and just plain good television. It was a perfect example of “don’t fix what isn’t broken”, but that’s not what Fox does. Fox doesn’t take something that’s already good and leave it alone to keep being good, they start meddling. During Season 2 the show got less serialized, there were more random terminator of the week characters coming after them and there was a different mission of who the Connor’s needed to protect or who they needed to kill, and what companies they needed to keep their eye on, and there was pretty much resolution at the end of each episode. It was less interesting, and seriously slowed the momentum of the show down. Especially with episodes like the “what Cameron does at night” episode with her researching about a terminator that got sent back in time to the wrong date and then tracking him down inside the wall of some building where he’s laid dormant for 50 years. Dumb. Or the 3 or 4 episode arch focusing on Sarah Connor’s obsession with the 3 dots. Dumb. But by the end of the season momentum picked back up and the last few episodes were really really good! Shirley Manson’s character was very interesting but it took entirely too long for her story to merge with the connor’s storyline. It was interesting to see her turn out to appear to be a good terminator, despite the fact that it seemed they were setting her up to be a villain who was trying to oversee and ensure the creation of skynet. The season ended with her saving the connor’s lives, and her and John jumping into the future during the resistance where apparently the name John Connor is not known, and dogs are not afraid of Cameron. 

Unfortunately, this is where the series ends. Fox cancelled it because the second season didn’t perform as well as they had hoped, because of their own actions, but hey Fox is dumb and will probably never understand why they have 20 shows a year that get cancelled after one season. This ending leaves a lot open to interpretation. Does the fact that John Connor’s name is not known mean that they changed the future for the better? And if so why does it still appear as though they are fighting the machines? Is this the point where John Connor meets up with the resistance and becomes their leader? Did he jump forward to a point where Summer Glau’s character is still the human version, Allison young, and not the terminator that the machines modeled after her? And what does Sarah Connor go on to do after they jumped in time? Where did Shirley Manson go? Is she really good? There’s so many questions left unanswered and I feel as though there is enough of a strong fan base for the show that they could make a mini-series or straight to DVD feature to tie up the loose ends and give a bit more of closure to this show that had so much potential. SyFy channel has picked up the rights to air re-runs of the episode which, combined with netflix instant stream, could be a positive force in bringing in new fans to the show, and possibly generating interest in a mini series, dvd or even a new season. I’m probably just getting my hopes up though.