A brief interlude...

I started watching "Modern Family" today so you can expect a review of that sometime soon. However, my copy of Gran Turismo 5 just arrived so expect that to distract me for a little bit.

Oh, okay, expect that to distract me for a while.

But you can count on an eventual review of that as well. Later.

On my general milaise this season...

Just to prove I talk about things other than "The Walking Dead," let's talk about "House."

"House" is a show I've been watching since the second season. Recently, I've been a little ambivalent about it. Certainly it trends higher than some of the other shows I feel similarly about ("The Office," "Bones," "30 Rock," "How I Met Your Mother," etc) but I find it difficult to put my finger on the problem.

All of these shows have been on for more than 5 seasons now... have they run out of ideas? Not necessarily. I think they're simply failing to take chances any more. Take a look at "House" for example: they've done a couple crazy things to shake up the status quo. I'm even enthusiastic about the House/Cuddy relationship. So what's the problem then?

I think it's that I don't feel surprised any more. One of the strengths of "House" has always been it's shock value to some degree. House says the things we can't and we love him for it. He's an asshole, and that's what's so compelling. Recently, though, I feel like I've become so used to it that there's no impact. Take for example, last night's episode. All of House's digs were centered on religion. Certainly this would be shocking on any other show but on "House" this is old hat. We get it. Enough already.

What's really been working for me so far this season is exploring the relationship between House and Cuddy. My favorite episode this season was episode 5, "Unplanned Pregnancy," where House (and then Wilson, by proxy) found himself babysitting Cuddy's daughter. Sure, this isn't the territory we normally explore, but that's what makes it so interesting - pushing the envelope. Taking the characters we know and putting them into new situations. It made for a fascinating, not to mention hilarious, episode and I wish they'd give us many more like it. Sure, they pushed the week's case off into the background, but who cares any more? Except for certain standouts, the cases just aren't that interesting any more. What is interesting is the interaction between the characters (and, of course, Houses antics - well at least they used to be).

Don't play it safe! Take chances and explore new themes. Sure we're still watching it but no one's talking about it any more. This means it's good but not great. It's a shame too because I know they can do it if they want to.

I'd rate the season so far a 3.5 out of 5, and last night's episode, "Small Sacrifices" a 2.5.

Also, "How I Met Your Mother," Season 6, Episode 10, "Blitzgiving" rates a 3, and "the Walking Dead," Season 1, Episode 4, " Vatos"rates a 3.

On the ground rules...

Two things I thought I should address before moving forward:

1. Spoilers - Two posts in, I'm already tired of posting "Spoilers" every time I include spoilers. So guess what? I'm not going to. From here on out assume that there might be spoilers for whatever show I'm talking about. Look to see what I'm reviewing before reading it. If you're not caught up, there might be spoilers. Don't worry, though, I'll be sure and limit them to whatever I'm reviewing. You can easily tell by the title image at the beginning of the post.

2. My ratings system - My, somewhat unusual, ratings system is based on whether I'm likely to watch something again. I'm the guy with a billion DVDs because I'll watch stuff I like more than once. Even better, if I like something enough I'll show it to others while I watch it again. So not only do the ratings represent my personal preferences, they also share whether I think you should watch something as well. Generally, since there's so many shows on a given night, I'll do a big review of one show and put my ratings for the rest down at the bottom. Also, I'll put the ratings themselves in bold so they're easy to find.

And so, without further ado, my rating system:

1. Bad: don't ever want to see this again.
2. All Right: wouldn't be the end of the world if I saw this again.
3. Good: would watch it again.
4. Great: want to watch it again.
5. Excellent: want to watch it several more times. Top 100 material.
6. Perfect: everyone should watch this. Extraordinary.

Pretty self-explanatory right? Hopefully that should clear up a few things.

It continues...

"The Walking Dead", Episodes 2 and 3: Well it continues to be good, and I see where it's going - suffice it to say you should never sleep with your partner/best friend's wife, even if you think he died in a zombie apocalypse. Oh, there will be a reckoning.

Something else I keep noticing is that all the episodes seem really short but that's probably because I've been watching a lot of HBO and the BBC of late (the episodes are the standard 40-some minutes long). I guess it's also because, for all intents and purposes, "The Walking Dead" feels like an HBO show (or even a Showtime show), just shorter. It's got the look and the feel - though no gratuitous swearing (as yet) - and violence aplenty.

They also continue to add characters, and it seems like there's no way I'm gonna learn all of their names. But, then again, every time I say that, it never turns out to be true. After all, I made it through LOST didn't I? In my experience the key is to find someone else to talk about the show with and then you have to learn the names, otherwise no one knows what you're talking about. On your own, you simply get by on the characters' appearances.

Whenever we don't know a character's name, though, it's always fun to see what my friends and I come up with to describe them (I think my favorite is still 'Japanese James May'). Though sometimes we'll just stick to actor's names (i.e. Michael Rooker and his brother, the guy from the "Boondock Saints").

I often find the same is true in scifi/fantasy books; there's usually a name or two I have no idea how to pronounce and I unconsciously get by on word recognition alone. It's only when I try to talk about it with someone else that I realize I've never thought about it before.

But back to things such as plots: I'll admit that I'm a little disappointed to see the same old horror-archetype characters emerging (we've already got the racist guy and the wife-abusing sexist!) but I guess it's to be expected. They've also flirted around a couple themes I could care less about, such as the gender roles the survivors have fallen into. Given the right circumstances, this could be an interesting topic, but just hasn't been handled well so far:

For example, the women question why they're the ones doing the men's laundry. In my opinion, the only reason they're doing the laundry is because they decided to do the laundry. No one made them, to our knowledge, and yet they're acting like it's forced labor or something. If you don't want to do it, feel free to stop any time. Instead, they just stand around and complain about it. Plus, I remain a little dubious about the amount of laundry they're doing. From the way they're acting, doing the laundry is a fairly frequent occurrence (at least every other day) and yet it appears they're doing a week's worth of laundry. I can see where they're going with this but these plot threads feel a little forced.

However, I am always amused when a show really plays up some plot element - through music or editing - and then acts like it's some huge revelation - except it's something we've all been expecting forever.

*spoiler* Take for example, the end of episode 3: We're provided with the 'shocking' revelation that Michael Rooker has cut off his hand in order to get out of the handcuffs! Except... we all knew that was coming since we first saw there was a hacksaw nearby. But 'A' for effort! *end spoiler*
I also find it funny that apparently the guy that does the "previously on AMC's 'the Walking Dead'," voice-over is the same guy that does it for "Mad Man" and the programs couldn't be more dissimilar. Every time I hear him, I can't help but think of "Mad Men" - that is, right until someone's eaten.


So far, though, the show's definitely staying strong. However, for the most part, they've primarily been running from the zombies, only taking down a few when they have to. I remain interested to see how they handle things when shit really starts going down.


Rating: Maintains a solid 3.5 out of 5.

Hospitals: the last refuge of the unconscious

So I just finished the first episode of AMC's "The Walking Dead" and it seems pretty good so far. I've been meaning to watch it for a bit but held off so I could watch a couple episodes at once. Consequently, I've got four saved up so far. I never read the original graphic novel but it seems the show is good enough to keep me watching.

The effects are good, as is the acting it seems, and they definitely do a good job of creating suspense. Also, since it (well, the graphic novel at least) has a reputation for its willingness to kill characters, as an audience member I can never feel completely safe. Multiple times already, I was positive characters were going to die only to be proven wrong. However, there's no "he's a main character so of course he's not gonna die" in the back of my mind to keep these thoughts away - which is good in this type of series.

The main thing I wanted to bring up, though, is this whole notion of people in hospitals surviving zombie apocalypses. In this, "The Walking Dead" is certainly no pioneer. Indeed we've seen it before, be it "28 Days Later" or the end of the first "Resident Evil" movie. You'd think, in the event of a zombie attack, that hospitals, being full of the injured and infirm would be the first to go. And, yet it always seems that these places somehow protect the lone survivor - who, I might add, is always unconscious and entirely defenseless. But time and time again, these people are the ones that survive, against all odds, only to wake up and wonder what the hell's going on.

Well, Chris, you'll say, really it's just a convenient plot device so the character isn't aware of what's transpired and so we, as the audience, form a connection to them as we both learn what's happening together (not to mention the fact that having someone wake up after the fact is much cheaper than having to show the end of the world).

Yes, it's quite an effective introduction and can be used in a variety of different ways: Look at the beginning of "Harry Potter;" our introduction to the wizarding world is the same as Harry's and so it makes sense dramatically without feeling forced. In this case it works really well.

But this whole unconscious thing?

In the "The Hobbit," Bilbo wakes up to find he's missed the epic Battle of the Five Armies, as have we, the audience. You can bet, though, the whole battle's gonna be in the second movie. That's because film is a visual medium and is works best when it's showing people cool stuff. This is not to say that this approach isn't effective, you just can't use it all the time. And, at this point (at least in the zombie genre) we've already used it so many times, can't we find a new way to accomplish the same goal?

Thus far I give it a 3.5 out 5; it's interesting but I don't feel that it's treading new ground in the genre as yet (aside from being a TV series instead of a movie), nor do I feel compelled to keep watching. However, I will keep watching because it's still interesting. We'll see what develops.

It begins...

So I got this thing up and running yesterday. I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet but I have a few ideas. It does seem that if you want a job in a writing-related field nowadays, people want you to have a blog so here it is.

I'm thinking it will serve as a place for me to review a bunch of stuff as well as comment on some general news as pertains to my interests. I'm sure I'll eventually cobble together a unified front for the whole thing and try and define some sort of purpose but, at least for now, there you are. Enjoy.