All posts by Chris

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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By HodgePodge
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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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By HodgePodge
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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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By HodgePodge
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The CW Unveils Fall 2014 Schedule

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The line-up and premiere dates are as follows:

Monday September 29 and Tuesday September 30 The CW is airing the IHEARTRADIO music festival. (8-10 pm Eastern)

Monday October 6 The Originals (8-9 pm Eastern)

Monday October 13 Jane the Virgin (9-10 pm Eastern)

Tuesday October 7 The Flash (8-9 pm Eastern)

Tuesday October 7 Supernatural (9-10 pm Eastern)

Wednesday October 8 Arrow (8-9 pm Eastern)

Wednesday October 22 The 100 (9-10 pm Eastern)

Thursday October 2 The Vampire Diaries (8-9 pm Eastern)

Thursday October 2 Reign (9-10 pm Eastern)

Friday August 22 America’s Next Top Model (9-10 pm Eastern)

Friday October 3 Whose Line is it Anyway (8-8:30 pm and 8:30-9 pm Eastern)

The Flash and Jane the Virgin are brand new series. The Flash is especially anticipated, with Grant Gustin starring as Barry Allen, a role that he originated on Arrow. The Flash, like Arrow, is a DC Comics universe series.

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By HodgePodge
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Teen Wolf Mines Fanfic Tropes for Season Premiere

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Known for increasingly wacky plot lines and ploys, Teen Wolf dug full force into standard fan fiction tropes for its season 4 premiere Monday night.

Long known to be a fan fiction favorite, de-aging was trotted out as the opening dilemma/mystery for the teen clique to face early in the new season. After a flashback episode in season 3 in which Ian Nelson played a well-received teen Derek Hale, the young actor has been brought back to play a Derek who has been de-aged to about 16 again.

In a move that indicates a lengthy turn at the crack pipe, the writers had Derek kidnapped and placed in the tomb of a werejaguar god with ancient powers that caused him to morph into his teenage self, with his age (and apparently the memories of himself) only up to the point at which he was secretly dating Kate Argent before she set the fire that wiped out most of Derek’s family.  Yes, you read that correctly.

The plot line could easily have been swiped from any number of fan fiction writers, for just about any TV show or movie.

These de-aging stories are certainly popular with media fans, but there is something the Teen Wolf writers and showrunners probably didn’t consider: The ire of Tyler Hoechlin fans who waited the entire episode for their favorite to appear, only to have the younger actor show up instead.

Pro tip: What works on paper, doesn’t necessarily work on screen.

And don’t underestimate the wrath of fans who have waited months to see their favorite actor in action, only to be served a bait and switch. The one-time flashback episode that featured Ian Nelson in season 3 was enjoyable for many fans, but that did not signal their willingness to trade their beloved Hoechlin for the young cutie beyond that.

Trailers for the remainder of the season indicate the switch isn’t permanent, but neither are there clues for how long viewers will have to wait to see the actor and the much-anticipated hairy chest that Tyler Hoechlin will apparently sport in the season.

The brand new hairy chest is another topic altogether, of course.

Teen Wolf airs on MTV at 10p.m. Eastern/Pacific.

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By HodgePodge
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Clonetastic Orphan Black S2 Finale

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Beware of Spoilers Ahead!

Orphan Black aired its action-packed season 2 finale tonight, and it was not short on surprises and twists.

The episode picked up with Kira having been kidnapped by Rachel, and  Sarah surrendering herself as a bargain for Kira’s safety. Naturally, things didn’t go as Sarah hoped, and Rachel seemed to have no intention of releasing Kira. Siobhan and the rest of the Clone Club had to devise their own way to free both Sarah and Kira, while also doing what they could for Cosima, whose health was noticeably deteriorating.

The scene with clone sisters all safe and sound for the time being, and dancing together, was both a cinematic and emotional high point in the episode.

The twists that continued right until the last frame were all surprising without being ridiculous, and the cliffhanger leaves the viewers with just the right amount of anticipation for a new season and the right amount of the urge to scream, “I want it NOW!”

Always a good sign in a finale.

Well played, Orphan Black. Well played!

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By HodgePodge
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Angelic Train Wreck: Dominion

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The pilot for Dominion is a classic tale of a good idea gone really, really bad. The post-apocalyptic world presented the producers with an unending cache of possibilities, but the developers chose a selection of boring clichés and offensive visuals to create their universe.

Cheap is a good word for this creation, and it describes not just the production values, but the apparent attitude with which the story’s world was built.

Was archangel Michael’s somewhat reluctant participation in an orgy really necessary?  Was it necessary to create a world in which people would throw orphaned children into the lowest caste of a rigidly divided class structure, and put them to work in their laundry facilities?

But most importantly, was it really necessary to have the scary, evil opponent in a gladiator style fight be an obese woman possessed by a homicidal angel?

These types of “creative” choices say an awful lot about the attitudes of the show’s developers and what viewers can expect in the future from them. Hint: nothing good.

This vulgar mess of a production is all the more disappointing given the potential of the show’s premise.

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By HodgePodge
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Syfy Premieres Dominion Tonight

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Tonight, Syfy’s Dominion makes its debut at 9 p.m. Eastern/Pacific.

Apparently set in the universe created by the film Legion (2010) with Paul Bettany, Lucas Black and Adrianne Palicki, the series picks up 25 years later. In a post-apocalyptic world after the battle between archangels Gabriel and Michael, grubby politics rules, and a caste system has taken hold. Having come out victorious from the battle years earlier, Michael sticks around the town of Vega, formerly Las Vegas, to watch over the pathetic remains of humanity.

Some of the residents also await a messiah to save them from the pending reemergence of Gabriel and what they call lower angels, which are actually murderous, beastly looking creatures. There is most certainly one particular character who will turn out to be the intended savior.

This is a Syfy series, and so there are bound to be cheap production values, but a good story could garner interest and a loyal following. Whether the series will actually present a good story remains to be seen.

Check your guide for listings.

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By HodgePodge
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