In the Flesh: A New Take on Zombies

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BBC Three’s series In the Flesh presents a whole new take on the Zombie theme of television and movies. The ideas are wholly unique and highly compelling.

The series protagonist is Kieren Walker,  an 18 year old who committed suicide but then was among those who rose from the grave during The Rising. Unique to this series, though, is the invention of a drug that repairs cognition and awareness in the zombie, making them what the people call sufferers of Partially Deceased Syndrome.

The series follows Kieren, his friends and family as he and others with PDS are integrated back into society. The show is bleak and depressing, but also incredibly sweet and shockingly moving at times. The series portrays the very worst of people and the very best, and there are both of those who are living and dead.

The show deals with mental health, oppression, persecution, hate and love. It’s often difficult viewing, but is very worth it in the end.

Thus far, the series has three episodes in season one, six episodes in season 2, but may or may not have a third season, due to the closure of BBC Three, which aired the show originally in the UK.

Both seasons are available to purchase via Amazon Instant Video. Check your chosen retailers for DVD availability.

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By HodgePodge
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Head-scratching Existence of Extant

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Extant, the new CBS futuristic scifi thriller starring Halle Berry, opened with a sleek but rather head-scratching  premiere Wednesday night.  In the opener, an astronaut returns home after 13 months alone in space, to reunite with her husband and their android son, who is her husband’s R&D project.

Most women would not just be puzzled, but would be legitimately freaked out if they returned pregnant from a space mission in which she wasn’t in contact with any other human beings. Molly Woods (Halle Berry) is shaken, but not as disturbed as is warranted. Later, we discover that while on her mission, she experienced what she assumed to be a hallucination of a former lover/husband being on her spacecraft with her, and when she saw the security footing of herself making out with no one at all, she deleted that embarrassing site from the craft’s system. Obviously, something bizarre happened. Cue the suspenseful sound effects! Or not, because it just wasn’t all that riveting.

Along with the mystery of Halle Berry’s space-bound immaculate/creepy/science project impregnation, the story follows the emerging and creepy patterns of behavior exhibited the young AI son Molly and John are kind of raising as a real boy. If they’re going for a Damien from The Omen kind of vibe for the kid, nailed it! That aspect is admittedly chilling, though it still doesn’t inspire that edge of your seat sensation.

A more coherent tie between the two plot drivers of the AI child and mystery baby would help to bring the story together for a more satisfying block of entertainment.

If it gets some legs under itself and improves in pacing and storytelling cohesion, the potential is enormous. But unless that happens soon, the existence of this series and how it landed a huge talent such as Halle Berry, could remain a boggling mystery.

 

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By HodgePodge
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New Levels of Inanity for Teen Wolf

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Suspension of disbelief in Teen Wolf has the job of allowing viewers to enter the world of werewolves and supernatural creatures that cause mayhem, leave bloody bodies lying around and turn average people into supermodels.  What suspension of disbelief cannot do, is make viewers believe a young werewolf can hold a teenage boy by the arm over the side of a building, with his teeth, and not shred the kid’s arm to ribbons due to a thing we call gravity. Uh oh.

That was the icing on the cake of disbelief in the season 4 Teen Wolf episode titled Muted.

The inanity began with semi-feral werecoyote Malia showing up to math class. Wacky things happening in the supernatural world is one thing, but in what universe would a school place a student who hadn’t been to school past 3rd grade into an advanced high school math class with kids proven to be the brightest in the school?

The bogglingly bad plotting continued with lacrosse tryouts. The kid who is supposed to be so brimming with goodness and remarkable character that he could spontaneously make himself an alpha, was so insecure about making team captain, that he ended up putting a freshman in the hospital, out of jealousy that he isn’t as good as the younger kid without using his werewolf powers.

It was thanks to being put the hospital that the young freshman ended up being stalked by the creature of the week, a wendigo. The wendigo, which subsists on a diet of human flesh,  surprisingly was the most plausible aspect of the episode.

But young, injured freshman lacrosse kid being stalked by the wendigo is how the viewer gets to the ludicrous final scene in which the boy is dangling from the side of the building with the teen alpha screwup trying to save him while preventing them both from becoming wendigo chow.

Is the teen wolf now a Gumby wolf, too? If he was fighting off the wendigo with his hands, just how flexible is he, that he could reach back behind himself while holding a kid by the arm with his fangs, with his head bent over the side of the building?

At this point, all Teen Wolf viewers can do is shake their heads in misery and console themselves that it can’t really get worse.

Or can it? Stay tuned!

Teen Wolf airs on MTV at 10 pm Eastern.

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Lifetime Dishes Up A Second Season of Witches

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Lifetime has begun season two of The Witches of East End, and the new Sunday night episode promises plenty of television crack to come.

The second season picks up with the Beauchamps family dealing the aftermath of the season 1 finale, which finally saw death of evil Penelope, who had opened the portal to Asgard.

Joanna was left deathly ill from the confrontation, and Wendy must deal with knowing she’s used up all of her cat lives. Freya has regained her powers, and is trying to use them to locate Killian, who the dastardly Dash pushed out to sea after he unleashed his newly regained superpowers.

Ingrid has a few things heating up, herself.  In what is the most cracktastic thing to happen on this show– and that is really saying a lot– Ingrid is apparently sleepwalking and meeting a mystery dude who appears to be part dude/ part reptile, whereupon she engages in tentacle sex with said reptilian dude.

This is going to be an amazing, entertaining and utterly wackadoo season of supernatural, witchy goodness.

The Witches of East End airs on Sundays at 9 p.m. Eastern on Lifetime.

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Teen Wolf Turns Teen S&M

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In a turn that has many adult viewers (and some of the more astute younger ones) rather disturbed, Teen Wolf showrunner Jeff Davis has portrayed one of the teenage romances as having an element of dubious consent and a bit of masochism.

Indeed, that is the strong implication in the relationship between semi-feral Malia (Shelley Hennig) and her apparent mate, Stiles (Dylan O’Brien). In the second episode of the season, titled 117, the supposed romance between Malia and Stiles is shown to have a distinctly masochistic tinge that also screams of a frequent lack of consent.

While the relationship seems to be presented as mostly comedic, the attempt not only falls flat, but ends up being quite to disturbing, to those who understand the implications of dubious consent, particularly when those in the relationship are still so young.

In one scene, Stiles is confessing a dilemma to Scott, explaining that Malia just shows up in his room in the middle of the night (for sex, is the obvious implication), and Stiles ends up with something on his back, marks of some kind that he shows Scott, whose eyebrows rise in alarm. Stiles continues and says after that, they end up spooning. Scott at this point says that doesn’t sound so bad (implying the rest certainly does). Stiles explains that he’s always the little spoon. He does not seem thrilled.

It seems that the writers are not quite sure what to do with this relationship, and to what extent to make it funny and versus serious. It would also seem that the actors aren’t quite sure what to do with the dialogue they’re given about it. The result is a disturbing creepfest.

What makes it so irresponsible is that this show is aimed at young people, who are impressionable when it comes to sex and relationships. It’s appalling that writers of a show airing on MTV would create a semi-masochistic relationship and have the characters appear uncertain about their consent to engage in all aspects of the relationship– all the while also trying to present aspects of that disturbing relationship as comic relief.

By all means, MTV, make a joke of dubious consent and a semi-feral teenage girl’s attempts to make an actual animal kingdom mate out of another teenager. Young viewers who have powerful crushes on the actors will spend years of their lives undoing the damage caused by this type of dangerously thoughtless writing aimed at kids who are known to have understandable fan goggles.

Badly done, Jeff Davis, badly done.

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