I really like this programme. Now in its 5th season, it’s that rare thing: a Saturday night British TV programme of good quality! My favourite character is the dragon voiced by John Hurt, but that’s another story, and Richard Wilson is in it too, as Merlin’s mentor. Merlin, played by Colin Morgan, is a wizard, and not just any wizard but destined to be the greatest ever in the fictional realm of Albion where the story is set. He is the personal servant to King Arthur, played by Bradley James. They have a really interesting relationship because they are both friends who would willingly give their lives to save the other, but none of them would openly admit their friendship due to social conventions. I love the banter between them, and their friendship is made even more interesting by the fact that Arthur doesn’t know that Merlin is magical and practicing magic has been banned on pain of death since Arthur’s Father (Anthony Head) decreed it (at least for now…). Those who practice magic are considered part of ‘the old religion’. Remnants of it still exist but users of it make their presence known at their own risk, as most people don’t want to get involved in magic and view it with suspicion.

As a Christian I sometimes feel like part of ‘the old religion’. I don’t mean Christianity is magical, but it does feel to me that people are suspicious of it; less likely to trust in Jesus than they used to be and even that more folk are trying to silence Christians from speaking about him. I know that Jesus is still as relevant as he ever was, and that many are missing out on what he has to offer because they haven’t checked him out for themselves. But he will return as the Bible promises to make all things as they should be, and when I do see him face to face I want to say with confidence “I did my best. I would not be silenced.”

Merlin frequently saves Arthur through using magic, but he will have to reveal his true self at some point and Arthur will have to decide what he believes is right. If you haven’t given Jesus much thought, what would it take for you to look? How will you know what’s right if you don’t?

Matt Wright – http://allthewrightwords.wordpress.com/2012/10/10/merlin/

“Arrow” is the new series based on the DC Comics character Green Arrow, basically Robin Hood-as-superhero.   The hero, Oliver Queen, is a spoiled little rich boy wasting his life bouncing from party to party until he becomes shipwrecked on a desert island.  Queen must hone his skills to near superhuman levels in order to survive, particularly those with the bow.  Returning to his home a changed man, he vows to use his skills to clean up the city he and his family had allowed to rot.

Though the character appeared in the recently departed series “Smallville”, this is not a spin-off.  It’s a fresh start for the character with an all-new cast and crew, and an all new beginning and direction.  It sticks close to its CW roots though, with producer/writer Greg Berlanti (Dawson’s Creek, Eli Stone, Everwood), who has done work with DC Comics character Green Lantern before.  (Greg, I’d love to see some Green Lantern / Green Arrow stuff in this series!)

Stephen Amell plays the title role, and he does an acceptable job in the pilot, although I’m going to need to see him do more than glower menacingly to believe he’s the guy to lead a television series over the long haul.  His narration, sadly, leaves much to be desired.  I’d leave that out in the future, were I the series’ producers.  He does well with the action though, and convincingly pulls off Oliver’s moves and shots.  Willa Holland is forgettable as Thea Queen, Oliver’s sister and (possibly?) future sidekick.  Katie Cassidy gives a decent turn as the ridiculously named “Dinah Laurel Lance”, who for no reason is given an unnecessary middle name to go by even though fans know the character as Dinah Lance, aka Black Canary.  Dinah Lance is such a popular character she has appeared in the Justice League of America and headlines her own comic these days, the Birds of Prey.  Dinah is a favorite, and Katie, if you want to convince me you’re ready to play Black Canary, you’ve got a lot of work cut out for you.  I enjoyed her performance in the pilot though, which is obviously a long time before she puts on the costume.  Some other good actors add nice pieces to the cast: Paul Blackthorne (most recently from “The River”) as Detective Lance, Dinah’s father and the cop assigned with bringing down the city’s new vigilante; Susannah Thompson (who I always remember as Star Trek Voyager’s Borg Queen) as Oliver’s mother, who may have some very dark secrets of her own.

I thought the pilot was not bad, setting up the series effectively and giving us a look at who Oliver is this time around.  It takes a more grim and gritty approach than “Smallville”, which may be for the best. Personally, I like the fact that they have gone a little darker with the character than did the previous series.  This is in keeping with some of the best takes on the comic character, particularly the Green Arrow series by Mike Grell, which began with a terrific mini-series entitled “The Longbow Hunters”.  There were other nice touches for comics fans, which I don’t want to spoil, but let’s just say they might be drawing from some of Denny O’Neill’s comics material as well as Grell’s.  They could do worse, if you ask me.  The pilot wasn’t perfect.  Too many characters seemed to be empty suits with nothing to offer the story. (Tommy Merlyn? John Diggle?)  But it was good enough to give it a chance to be more.

It’s not quite the bull’s-eye we’d want, but then again, it doesn’t miss the target entirely.

Rating: 3/5

Recommendation: Give it a shot.

****

On the other hand, one look at “Supernatural” Season 8 was enough to tell me this series should have exorcised itself and went on to a peaceful afterlife last year.

Tonight’s episode “What’s Up, Tiger Mommy?” is nowhere near as fun as it sounds from the title.  Sam and Dean looked like they were sleepwalking through the whole thing, and honestly, I can’t really tell you one thing the two of them actually did in the episode.  The story is that Crowley is on the loose…again.  There’s a tablet containing the Word of God…again.  There’s a prophet of the lord who can translate it…again.  And somehow this all culminates in a goofy auction where a Willy Wonka look-alike is selling various godly artifacts to an uninteresting collection of nobodies in someone’s cellar.

Actually, this sounds a lot better than it really was.

Please someone set fire to the remains of this series, put a stake through its heart, or whatever you need to do to put monster series to rest.  Supernatural is done, and all that’s left is a pale ghost of a once-good series.

Rating: 1.5/5

Recommendation: Please let it die.

Clarketacular Geek – http://clarketaculargeek.wordpress.com/2012/10/10/tv-review-the-cws-arrow-supernatural/

Supernatural is by far my favourite TV show. It is not only a story about two brothers who travel the US hunting demons, ghouls, ghosts, wendigos, and all of other paranormal baddies in their cool 67 Impala. I loved supernatural since season 1, the chemistry of Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles and their beliability as two brothers were fascinating. The season one to season 3 were mainly on the two brothers hunting down the supernatural things they encountered, but as the story goes on, you can see that all that matters is the family, the love between two brothers and how far can they go to protect each other. This is what make the show special. Two brothers, who apparantly have nothing in common, hit the road together to hunt down the dark side.

My favourite character of Supernatural is Dean Winchester(Jensen Akles) because of his humour, most of the time crude humour, and is kn own to make sexual innuendos. Despite his working knowledge of existence beyond death, he is adversarial towards religion and does not believe in God. He values his family and their safety more than anything else, even going so far as to kill a demon and its human host in order to save his brother’s life as well as sell his own soul to save his brothers’s life. He loves his car(67 Impala, Dean protect and cares for the Impala with almost the same devotion he shows to his family and often talks to it as though it were human.

My favourite quotes from Supernatural:

It’s like they’ve got a contract on us. Do you think it’s because we’re so awesome? I think it’s because we’re so awesome. -Dean Winchester

You fudgin’ touch me again, I’ll fudgin’ kill you! -Dean Winchester

Dean: Bitch.
Sam: Jerk.

-Sam and Dean Winchester

Dean Winchester: Ya’ know she could be faking.

Sam Winchester: Yeah, what do you wanna do, poke her with a stick?

[Dean nods]

Sam Winchester: Dude, you’re not gonna poke her with a stick! -Sam and Dean Winchester

Samuel: This Castiel? You’re scrawnier than I pictured.

Castiel: This is a vessel. My true form is approximately the size of your Chrysler building.

Dean: All right, all right, quit bragging. -Dean Winchester and Castiel

and there are so many more.

Free To Be You and Me – http://ghirish.wordpress.com/2010/12/29/why-supernatural-is-my-favourite-tv-show/

I was flipping through People magazine at my hair salon (please don’t judge me for my low literary standards) and spotted a short blip about Mindy Kaling’s new TV series, “The Mindy Project.” For those of you who aren’t fans of “The Office,” Mindy was a producer/writer/actor for eight seasons and has even written her own book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? I read her charming autobiography this summer, and from the sounds of it, Mindy and I would have a ball gabbing about comedy and clothes and cads… She’s hilarious. The kind of person you’d like to go with on a shopping spree or road trip.

But I digress. Back to the scintillating People article, where Mindy freely admits she’s living vicariously through her show, planning dates she’d like to have and such and such. This reminded me of an essay I read for class by Freud, “Creative Writers and Daydreaming.” (The fact that I linked Mindy Kaling with Sigmund Freud shows you how convoluted my brain is.)

I’m not a friend of Freud, but he does have one point in his favor: he’s very reader-friendly. I followed his argument with ease. One point against him: he’s nuts. In “Creative Writers and Daydreaming,” he essentially says that writers disguise their personal fantasies (which are often sketchy) as fiction, allowing them to live out their daydreams without offending anyone. Freud made creative writers seem like tricky, selfish people, who foist their fantasies on unsuspecting readers. I found this very, very offensive at first, but then I thought of some of the popular fiction out there. (Cough, Twilight.)

After some reflection, I decided I track with Freud to an extent. Like Mindy with her show, we creative writers do live out our daydreams in our writing. How many of us haven’t written an ideal version of ourselves? How many of us haven’t cast ourselves as heroine or created our perfect “literary boyfriend” or described scenes filled with courage and word play and romance that we wish we could live out? If you haven’t, you’re lying. (If you really haven’t, just say you have so I don’t feel bad about myself.)

What do you think? Surely fiction should be more than an escapist fantasy, but don’t we often read books to escape reality? Is it necessarily a bad thing that writers inject their own daydreams into their fiction? Or should we be looking for more depth in good literature?

elkallgren – http://inksplotchlearningtowrite.wordpress.com/2012/10/10/what-i-learned-from-mindy-kaling-and-sigmund-freud/

After months of anticipation, we finally got to know what happened to Carrie after she has gone though the treatment procedure for her bipolar disorder. I am not sure how many months have passed since how season 1 ended but in the premiere, we saw Carrie as an English teacher (to mostly Mediterranean students), obviously off CIA duties, and Agent Brody as a Congressman (like what he and Abu Nazir has agreed on). Both of them living separate lives… but not for long I suppose.

Carrie has been given a special assignment by the CIA, despite her not being ready yet. And Congressman Brody is being wooed to run for Vice President in the next elections, again to be more influential in the defense arm of the US government. We would have to see how these turn out but the show has just gotten more exciting than ever!

It was a great premiere, and we are reminded why it won Best Drama in the recently-concluded Emmys. Aside from top of the class performances from both Claire Danes and Adam Brody, we are treated to a very gripping and well-written episode. Were you close to having a heart attack when Brody was getting the codes from Estes’ safe? Or when Carrie was trying to escape from the man trying to catch her in the flee market? Great stuff. Reminds me of the brush passes from Alias.

Best quote from the episode: Terrorism is not equal to a justifiable act of retaliation.

iamdavidbernal – http://sometvjunkie.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/and-the-best-drama-returns/

It’s kind of weird to be starting an SOA commentary on the episode following such a massive, show-altering event. Yes. I’m talking about the tragic, violent death of Opie Winston. RIP.

Now at episode four, we find that SAMCRO is grieving, Gemma is clueless about Opie’s fate, Tara is becoming increasingly bitter, and a prostitute on the run for being falsely accused of calling the cops on Nero’s escort operation.

At first watch, the episode was serviceable.  The ending montage of Opie’s funeral, especially with that song overlayed, was powerful and heartbreaking.

Looking back, though, the episode feels a little….off. All of the components were…fine. The prostitute-on-the-run storyline was ho-hum. Gemma’s line of, “What’s happening to us?” felt real and true for her character—she’s spinning out of control, and now the violence her generation perpetuated is taking a devastating toll on her son’s. I think Gemma thought that by now either SAMCRO would be kings of Charming, or at least have some sort of stability. Now they’re thick in the quicksand of machinations they might not be able to control. The song, Lonely Boy by Greg Holden, played over a haunting memorial for Opie.

But putting those elements together—adding in a dispute between Tara and Wendy, as well as Tara, Gemma and Carla—came off as clunky. As a fan, I would have liked a whole episode to process Opie’s death and see the effect on the club and Jax.

Oh, Tara…

This season I’m most concerned about Tara. I don’t want Tara to become a little Gemma-Frankenstein. She’s smarter than that, and she’s not Gemma. Tara is sad, bitter, angry and giving in to hysterics (like dealing with Wendy) that are similar to how worked up Gemma would get in previous seasons. In this season’s opening monologue, as Jax talks about what doesn’t kill us makes us angry but what holds us together is family and work, we see Tara sitting in a tub, smoking a joint, with a gun. At the end of the episode we see Tara, once again smoking a joint, turning off the baby monitor as Thomas starts to cry. We see her dissatisfaction with work. When Jax is contemplating anger, it’s obvious that we should look to Tara. I can understand why she latches on to the only model she has of a woman in the club life. Probably the most powerful woman ever in motorcycle club life. But I hope that she can find a way to transcend Gemma, and pray-to-the-Lord she doesn’t have an affair and tamper with Jax’s motorcycle. (Hah. Just kidding…right?!)

Conclusion

So far, this season is going well.  Stolen Huffy (did Jax and Opie steal a Huffy bike as kids?) felt like treading water, where I wish it had pushed the emotional arc of the season forward. Opie’s loss, as a character and the loss of Ryan Hurst, is immense. However,  you can’t fully judge an episode’s content without tying it to the subsequent ones, and you can’t judge a season without it one, being over, and two, in relation to the series arc as a whole. There are most likely reverberations we just haven’t seen yet.

Also, I want to note (as I’m sure I will throughout the season) that the cast is phenomenal. A special note to Ryan Hurst, who made Opie the character I always looked to as the canary in the coalmine, so to speak. He played Opie with an amazing half-concealed brokenness. Charlie Hunnam and Maggie Siff…I mean. The way Hunnam imbues Jax with barely-contained rage, it’s a breathtaking portrayal of a man on edge, a man desperately trying to be good, to be honorable, to do right. Siff’s fragile-but-steely Tara, always on the brink, always bringing herself back—sometimes barely—and maybe not even able to anymore—always commands my attention.

Betty – http://bettythebard.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/sons-of-anarchy-s05-e04-stolen-huffy/

I’ve watched and enjoyed various TV shows over the years, more recently I have watched Lost & Heroes avidly, although I think both have lost their way a little. Lost may redeem itself in its next, and I believe final season, as it left viewers with a brilliant cliff hanger. Fingers crossed.

The last show that I watched was Tudors season 2, which I finished last week, I know that due to the subject matter its always going to be predictable, but even still I felt like I was going through the motions watching most of the episodes.  I’m in no rush to watch season 3, history cant have changed that much, can it?

After mentioning this to a friend of mine, he said that his favorite show “Dexter” never had that problem and he was always left wanting more. This guy is a big Dexter fan and he has told me about it a bunch of times, but I’d still never watched any. It was on my ‘to watch’ list.

As it turns out someone down here has a copy of the first 3 seasons that they are done with so they have lent it to me, I’ve just watched the first episode and I’m impressed. I didn’t really know what to expect, all I knew was that it was about a forensics guy who kills people. It sounded to me like he was just creating his own work. But it seems well cast and I do really want to watch the next episode. I’ll let you know what I think as the season progresses; apparently a new season is just starting on TV so I have a lot of catching up to do.

thoughtherder – http://thethoughtherder.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/dexter-my-new-tv-show/

If you enjoy conspiracy dramas and nautical thrillers such as “The Hunt For Red October”, ABC’s Last Resort will certainly pique your interest. Created by Shawn Ryan (The Shield) and Karl Gajdusek, Last Resort is a refreshing change of pace from the plethora of crime procedural and medical dramas dominating prime time network television. Cinematic in visual scope and storytelling, Last Resort is poised to become the most highly acclaimed new television show debuting this fall.

The ambitious story of Last Resort could be taken right out of the pages of a Tom Clancy novel. The USS Colorado is a four billion dollar Ohio-class nuclear submarine armed to the teeth with torpedoes, tomahawks and 18 trident nuclear missiles. In addition to producing its own air and power, the USS Colorado is equiped with a prototype that can mask its magnetic signature. When an authenticated fire order intended to annihilate millions of Pakistani is received on a secondary channel designed to be used only in the event DC command is taken out, Captain Marcus Chaplin (Andre Braugher) and executive officer Lt. Commander Sam Kendall (Scott Speedman) are faced with a paramount moral dilemma.

There are many interesting elements at play in the premiere episode entitled “Captain” which will strike a chord with viewers. The tension between obeying the chain of command which is deeply indoctrinated in officers and following one’s own moral compass forms the core of the first and second act. After refusing orders, 150 American men and women of the USS Colorado escape to and occupy the fictional exotic island of Sainte Marina, declaring itself a sovereign nation with the nuclear capacity to secure its independence and decimate their enemies at will. On the home front, the U.S. president is facing an impeachment vote and Washington is revealed to be corrupt at the highest levels of office. For a nation dealing with the erosion of personal freedoms, disillusionment of government and a highly scrutinized foreign policy, Last Resort zeroes in on themes that hit close to home as well as political issues abroad in an incredibly entertaining manner.

The success of any ensemble drama relies on engaging character dynamics and the proficiency of the respective actors. Actor Andre Braugher (Homicide: Life on the Street) infuses Cpt. Chaplin with an understated charisma and a gravitas that commands immediate respect. There’s a weight to his performance that lends credibility to an otherwise implausible premise. Second-in-command is XO Sam Kendall played by a likable Scott Speedman (Underworld, Felicity). Speedman’s comfort zone is evident in a flashback scene with his teary-eyed wife (Jessy Schram) lamenting her husband’s impending tour of duty aboard a submarine. It will be intriguing to watch Speedman come into his own as a convincing commanding navy officer and lead actor as the series progresses. The show’s other main characters include navigator Lt. Grace Shepard (Daisy Betts), NATO scientist Sophie Girard (Camille de Pazzis), Navy Seal James King (Daniel Lissing), defense contractor Kylie Sinclair (Autumn Resser), Sainte Marina islander Tani (Dichen Lachman) and the nefarious Julian Serrat (Sahr Ngaujah).

In an interview with Buddy TV , co-creator Gadjusek explains, ” We think of it as a large dramatic epic adventure, if you will. Although the military intrigue and the political intrigue is a huge sort of juicy part of our show. Hopefully, it will lead to some great mysteries and some great thriller tension moments.” Ryan adds, “Another kind of threat is the population on the island, the people who are on the island when they arrived. There can be people there who are not thrilled with the presence of these people who view them a little bit as an occupying force endangering them. And as a result, they’re going to look for relief in dangerous ways that will provide some stories.”

The series premiere bristles with an urgency and confidence that most other shows take a couple of seasons to attain. As promising as the show may be, we have to keep in mind that the most time and money is spent on the pilot compared to any other episode produced. On top of that, how each episode will play out and if the conspiracy element of the show can be sustained remains to be revealed. If Last Resort can deliver on the exciting formula of action, adventure, military and political drama without relying on television tropes, the future will be very bright for this show.

sidekickreviews- http://sidekickreviews.wordpress.com/2012/09/27/last-resort-captain-premiere-episode-review/

So I usually write just about movies but I’ve always been fascinated by the paranormal, when I heard of the new TV series 666 Park Avenue featuring the ever enthralling Vanessa Williams and Industry veteran Terry O’Quinn, I thought, I must see it even before DSTV starts airing it.

It’s about a grand building in New York, “999 Park Avenue” which when cast with light reads 666 Park Avenue. I guess that goes to show how evil is masked as normal until you look deeper. The owners are involved in some mystical stuff and whoever lives there clearly signed their soul to the devil, sometimes knowingly and in most cases unknowingly. In the first episode, you’re shown hints of eeriness but things get really weird when a new couple move in as the building managers and start “rattling their cage”, it also shows classically how people are roped into negativity.

As with all TV series, events and intentions unfold as the episodes go but whenever you do come across it, you might like to see it, it’s quite interesting. Have 4n.,

veer520 - http://veer520.wordpress.com/2012/10/02/666-park-avenue/

This was most definitely the summer of cable when it came to original programming.  Networks like USA and SyFy slaughtered their older broadcast siblings in not only ratings, but also quality.  One of the big winners was Warehouse 13.  The new original series was launched by SyFy right around the time that they actually became SyFy, leaving the plainly original SciFi name behind.

Sci Fi geeks everywhere created an uproar over the new name and even the way they went about getting the rights to the name.  Many out there, critics too, claimed Warehouse 13 was just mindless zone-out style entertainment…Then the ratings started rolling out.  W13 was a hit.  A big hit.

We are proud to say that DVR Life was not one of those  that called Warehouse 13 mindless.  We dug the quirky artifacts and love-hate relations from the beginning.  And so here we are now.  The fall season is taking over TV schedules and the first season finale of Warehouse 13 airs tonight.  Don’t worry, though, as the show has already been renewed for a second season to air in summer 2010.  Here’s a quick peek at tonight’s season finale:

DVR Life – http://dvrlife.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/warehouse-13-season-finale-tonight/