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[I just finished watching The Angels Take Manhattan - The half-season finale of Doctor Who, which was brilliantly written. By far the best episode that I've seen since
last year's finale. Weird. All the River Song episodes are brilliant. Why is that? And I guess I'm not an alien because I cried during it. First time I ever cried during a Doctor Who episode. I'll review in a separate post if time permits. Discovered something else last night, if I do not go on the internet after 8:30-9pm, I sleep better. Something about the blue light spectrum. TV doesn't bug as much because the concentration isn't as high. So there will no more posts after 9pm. Bloody tired of being sleep deprived.]
Did finally see Last Resort last night, also watched the somewhat lackluster sitcom Ben and Kate. So far the only "New" sitcoms that I can remember or had any chuckle moments during are "Go On" and "The New Normal" - which is saying something. Granted only seen four to date: New Normal (C+) , Go On (C+), Ben and Kate (C), Mindy Kalling Project (D).
Ben and Kate - has a nice twist in that it's about a brother and sister raising a kid, as opposed to a couple. The brother is a never-do-well/screw-up - reminding me a great deal of various screen comedies starring Adam Sandler, Owen Wilson and Paul Rudd as the annoying brother. They do insane things. The comedy is over-the-top and a bit in your face. Subtle its not. So, if you prefer subtle absurdist comedy, over slap-stick/feel-good/over the top comedy - Ben and Kate will most likely not float your boat. In short - it's more like Up All Night and less Raising Hope, the Middle and Modern Family. Granted this is just the pilot, it could get better.
Last Resort has some of the same problems that Revolution does - it too suffers from what I like to call comic book logic, for want of a better term. The premise while intriguing is also...well, let's put it this way, it requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief on part of the viewer in much the same way as Revolution does. The premise does not quite work from a logic perspective - like I said before "comic book logic" or if you prefer "daytime soap opera logic" (actually the latter might be a better description).
The non-spoilery premise? Sort of impossible to do without spoilers. Sorry. Best I can do is an American Nuclear Submarine refuses to fire on Pakistan and holds up shop on an island in the Pacific, which somehow supports both a high-tech NATO Communications Base and a local smuggling ring. Much chaos ensues. If you want to know the specifics read the spoiler version.
It reminds me a little of The Hunt for Red October meets LOST by way of the 1980s flick War Games with more than a little of General Hospital's outlandish plotting thrown in. Note - more General Hospital less 24. Will most likely drive anyone who is an information geek, detail oriented, analytical, or at all fussy about plot, crazy. Particularly if you take it seriously, and don't have an odd sense of humor. In short, if you didn't like Revolution, the plotting of Ringer gave you a headache, and the island plot of Lost bugged you, you most likely won't like this. There are some excellent actors in it though, and it is a bit funny in places, I'm guessing unintentionally so...but oh well.
( spoilery review for those who don't care about spoilers or already saw it )
The other major problem with this series is it has far too many characters, not to mention plot-threads, and as a result, the characters feel fairly stock or flat at this point. Let's see: You have the rebel commander who is just a wee bit nutty, a la Captain Nemo. The cranky Chief who is always questioning him, hates women in the military, and wants to follow the rules no matter what damn it.Nemo Chaplin's second-in-command who adores the commander, but is beginning to wonder about his sanity, and is trying to do the right thing. The wet-behind the ears, rookie sub-commander (who happens to be a woman) who needs to prove herself. And then, there's the "hot" bad-boy navy seals guy with a heart of gold (aka rogue pilot with a heart of gold) - who can kill five men with one-arm behind his back or least convincingly pretend he can do it. The hot island chick who might tame the rogue. The nasty drug smuggler. And the government power brokers/corporate wheeler-dealers that are out of their depth.
That said? There's potential for some interesting character growth and evolution, albeit a bit on the soapy side, and assuming, of course, that we can get past the convoluted and somewhat ludicrous plotting, which has a lot more in common with Lost or 24 than the Sheild, sorry to say. (Actually it reminds me a great deal of General Hospital). Making me wonder about Shawn Murphy. Not all tv shows require research prior to writing them, but this one sort of does. At the moment it's coming across as an unintentional and at times funny satire. ( I laughed at Last Resort and didn't at Ben and Kate.)
Depending on time and how many tv shows I'm DVRing...I may give this one five more episodes. Because it is quite entertaining in its own way. (I found it hilarious in places. But I admittedly watched Ringer for some of the same reasons.). It is in some respects better than Revolution (at least on the acting and dialogue front). But, it is not a Fringe. Nor was Revolution for that matter. Fringe which I gave up on initially because of its similarities to the X-Files, took a left turn by Alburqueue and got interesting. It admittedly did not start out convoluted and had, sorry to say, far better, not to mention fewer characters and a far more believable internal plot structure. The writers actually thought about the details in Fringe, they haven't thought about them in Last Resort. This episode felt quite clunky in places and strung together. How much of that was due to network tampering, we'll never know.
Overall rating? C+
last year's finale. Weird. All the River Song episodes are brilliant. Why is that? And I guess I'm not an alien because I cried during it. First time I ever cried during a Doctor Who episode. I'll review in a separate post if time permits. Discovered something else last night, if I do not go on the internet after 8:30-9pm, I sleep better. Something about the blue light spectrum. TV doesn't bug as much because the concentration isn't as high. So there will no more posts after 9pm. Bloody tired of being sleep deprived.]
Did finally see Last Resort last night, also watched the somewhat lackluster sitcom Ben and Kate. So far the only "New" sitcoms that I can remember or had any chuckle moments during are "Go On" and "The New Normal" - which is saying something. Granted only seen four to date: New Normal (C+) , Go On (C+), Ben and Kate (C), Mindy Kalling Project (D).
Ben and Kate - has a nice twist in that it's about a brother and sister raising a kid, as opposed to a couple. The brother is a never-do-well/screw-up - reminding me a great deal of various screen comedies starring Adam Sandler, Owen Wilson and Paul Rudd as the annoying brother. They do insane things. The comedy is over-the-top and a bit in your face. Subtle its not. So, if you prefer subtle absurdist comedy, over slap-stick/feel-good/over the top comedy - Ben and Kate will most likely not float your boat. In short - it's more like Up All Night and less Raising Hope, the Middle and Modern Family. Granted this is just the pilot, it could get better.
Last Resort has some of the same problems that Revolution does - it too suffers from what I like to call comic book logic, for want of a better term. The premise while intriguing is also...well, let's put it this way, it requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief on part of the viewer in much the same way as Revolution does. The premise does not quite work from a logic perspective - like I said before "comic book logic" or if you prefer "daytime soap opera logic" (actually the latter might be a better description).
The non-spoilery premise? Sort of impossible to do without spoilers. Sorry. Best I can do is an American Nuclear Submarine refuses to fire on Pakistan and holds up shop on an island in the Pacific, which somehow supports both a high-tech NATO Communications Base and a local smuggling ring. Much chaos ensues. If you want to know the specifics read the spoiler version.
It reminds me a little of The Hunt for Red October meets LOST by way of the 1980s flick War Games with more than a little of General Hospital's outlandish plotting thrown in. Note - more General Hospital less 24. Will most likely drive anyone who is an information geek, detail oriented, analytical, or at all fussy about plot, crazy. Particularly if you take it seriously, and don't have an odd sense of humor. In short, if you didn't like Revolution, the plotting of Ringer gave you a headache, and the island plot of Lost bugged you, you most likely won't like this. There are some excellent actors in it though, and it is a bit funny in places, I'm guessing unintentionally so...but oh well.
( spoilery review for those who don't care about spoilers or already saw it )
The other major problem with this series is it has far too many characters, not to mention plot-threads, and as a result, the characters feel fairly stock or flat at this point. Let's see: You have the rebel commander who is just a wee bit nutty, a la Captain Nemo. The cranky Chief who is always questioning him, hates women in the military, and wants to follow the rules no matter what damn it.
That said? There's potential for some interesting character growth and evolution, albeit a bit on the soapy side, and assuming, of course, that we can get past the convoluted and somewhat ludicrous plotting, which has a lot more in common with Lost or 24 than the Sheild, sorry to say. (Actually it reminds me a great deal of General Hospital). Making me wonder about Shawn Murphy. Not all tv shows require research prior to writing them, but this one sort of does. At the moment it's coming across as an unintentional and at times funny satire. ( I laughed at Last Resort and didn't at Ben and Kate.)
Depending on time and how many tv shows I'm DVRing...I may give this one five more episodes. Because it is quite entertaining in its own way. (I found it hilarious in places. But I admittedly watched Ringer for some of the same reasons.). It is in some respects better than Revolution (at least on the acting and dialogue front). But, it is not a Fringe. Nor was Revolution for that matter. Fringe which I gave up on initially because of its similarities to the X-Files, took a left turn by Alburqueue and got interesting. It admittedly did not start out convoluted and had, sorry to say, far better, not to mention fewer characters and a far more believable internal plot structure. The writers actually thought about the details in Fringe, they haven't thought about them in Last Resort. This episode felt quite clunky in places and strung together. How much of that was due to network tampering, we'll never know.
Overall rating? C+