Hard Work

It's another slight break for me.  I had hoped to put up more about M2E - there's a lot going on with the project and I've been having a ton of fun playing the game, but sometimes life just gets in the way.  And this time, it's in the form of my son.

James Vete, born June 28th.

He's been quite a handful for me.  I had been hoping while I was at home from work helping to get him under control, I'd have time to post or work on other things.  All my friends who were parents before just laughed at me.  I understand why now.

Since his birth, I've gotten only two games in (thanks Dan for giving me a few hours away from the house).  Gaming, as you can imagine, is a bit of a lull.

But where miniatures has fallen, I do find that I have more time for computer games.  Slaz introduced me to the Steam Summer Sale (something I curse his name to eternity for).  Bioshock was discounted 50% for a while, so I picked that up.  Also got the Walking Dead game which I've heard good things about.  And another game, Anno 2070, which seems kinda like a Sim City type game.  The bonus of that one: it's quiet and I can play it with one hand, so holding James doesn't get in the way of that one.

Also been catching up a little on some TV shows.  Almost caught up on Falling Skies and Continuum.  Started watching Justified.

But most of my time is taken up with James.  Hopefully I will have something more to report soon.

Fall Television Shows

It’s fall, and what does fall mean?  Football!  Yeah, but also new television shows.  I’ve been trying out a few new shows this time around.  Two in particular caught my eye a few months back and now both have at least one episode under their belt.

First is Revolution.  I am a big fan of post-apocalyptic stories.  When I saw the first trailer for the new show with the lights going out, and then dealing with the fifteen-year-later aftermath, I was very excited.  As we got closer to showtime, I started getting more nervous.  The new TV spots were showing lots of swordfighting.  Why?  Why would they do that to a science fiction show?  Still, I buried my thoughts and queued up the DVR.

We’re two episodes in to Revolution right now and the best I can say for it is that I’m not willing to give up on it yet.  It’s not the show I was hoping.  I was hoping more for a show like Jericho where the focus of the show largely was dealing with life in this post-apocalyptic world.  Instead we were met with a bit of swashbuckling sword-fighting and a teenager main character who… I just don’t find all that compelling.

The characters that the story has focused on seem pretty stock so far.  There’s the wide-eyed teen, the bad-ass male fighter, the mysterious attractive is-he-an-enemy-or-is-he-a-friend male future love interest, the villainous villain of villain-tastic proportions, etc.  The most compelling characters I find in the story are the British woman and the geek guy who are shoved in the background following the others around.  Why do I find them compelling?  They actually feel a bit more real.  The woman carries around an iPhone with her even though it doesn’t work anymore because it’s the only device that holds pictures of her children in it.  She has no physical pictures to hold on to, and it’s a way to hold on to her past.  The geek guy mentioned being married and talked about the job he had with a computer company in the past.  They’re normal people coping in a world they did not grow up in.  It’s far more interesting to me than the rest of the folks.

With the second episode they did introduce something I like a bit more.  They had brief flashbacks in the first episode but fleshed it out a bit more in the second episode.  We get to see people dealing with the immediate aftermath of the world going to hell.

There are enough mysteries out there to keep me tuning in, at least for the time being, but unless the story improves over the next few episodes I expect it’ll fall off my list of shows.

The other show I was looking forward to, though less-so, was Last Resort.  The premier episode hit last night and good lord did they pack in a lot.  We went from a standard day on a nuclear submarine to full-scale nuclear war in less than an hour.  Then the submarine took over an island.  It actually works better than it sounds.  I got the impression as I was watching that the writers were saying, “Look, we know this is a ridiculous premise.  Just let us rush through the set-up and let us start telling this tale of government conspiracy, military drama, and all the rest.

In a single episode, this show has already managed to portray far more compelling characters than I saw in Revolution.  The captain of the boat is a philosophical, soft-spoken but sincere career submarineman.  And by the end of it, I was questioning just how crazy he really was and what he would be willing to do.  There was the Admiral stateside who I immediately expected would be a villain as soon as I saw him, but turned out that he might become one of the biggest allies in the government they have.

And there are plenty of plots and subplots to uncover.  The Marines that they picked up – what was their mission?  What’s happening with the government in the US?  Who has subverted the communication to the sub and tried to get them to bomb Pakistan?  All in all a fun ride and I’m looking forward to the next episode.

My wife and I also started going through a couple other older shows.  She had already seen it, but watched the first season of Once Upon a Time.  I enjoyed it immensely and am looking forward to the next season starting up soon.  We also started watching Dexter’s first season.  We’re only a few episodes in so far.  I’m generally not a fan of procedurals, so I don’t know how long this show will stick with me, but it is pretty interesting.  That Dexter guy is pretty creepy.

On deck for us once we finish off Dexter’s first season is the first season of American Horror Story and Season 7 of Supernatural.

Falling Skies

When this show was first announced, I had a passing interest in it.  That is to say I immediately thought, “That would be cool” and then another more rational voice in my head said, “No, you only want it to be cool.”

I mean, what’s not to like about the concept?  If you’re me, at least.  Post-apocolyptic.  A mystery about what happened and why.  Follows the survivors and deals largely with their survival.  I know there are a lot of shows out there now that seem to be post-disaster shows.  With Walking Dead already in my queue, I figured I’d pass on this one.

Jump to a couple weeks ago when the fourth season of Breaking Bad came out on DVD (my favorite show currently running) and I headed up to Best Buy to grab a copy.  While I was there, I passed by the first season of Falling Skies and it was on sale, so I figured I’d pick it up too.  My wife and I put it on the side and watched through Breaking Bad, but then we picked up Falling Skies.

The first show started a bit differently than I expected.  I thought the show would be kinda like an extended Independence Day or V – we would see the aliens arrive, watch them launch their attack, etc.  But instead they summed all of that up in the first minute or two with a voice-over.  All that stuff didn’t matter to the show.  Or rather it mattered, but it wasn’t the focus.  Instead we were eight months later where the survivors of the attacks were trying to do something.  Fight back, or just survive.

The setting started in Boston with a bunch of soldiers in the 2nd Massachusetts.  But they weren’t all soldiers.  A lot of them were civilians that were now serving alongside the military.  And then there were just the civilians that were staying near the military for protection.  Things were going poorly in Boston, and the army had to split into smaller groups to flee the city.  So straight away we had a hundred soldiers leading two hundred civilians out of Boston trying to avoid the aliens and the like.

Characters came in fast, from the civilian doctor, to the history professor-turned-soldier.  The head of the military stuck the history professor with the captain of the 2nd Mass in order to give someone to watch over the civilians.  Evidently the captain had a more military bend of mind and sometimes saw the civilians as a detriment.

As the story grew, the focus was primarily on the characters.  The writing was surprisingly good, sometimes taking a good amount of time to focus on small conversations that really don’t do much to advance the plot, but really get into the feeling of being a survivor.  What do you talk about when the world is completely changed?

I know there are some complaints about the show.  It’s not strong on action.  The show slows down a bit at times because it focuses on the characters more than the plot.  For me, those are all strengths.  Like another show I recently reviewed, Jericho, the best part of the story isn’t the plot and mystery as much as it is watching the characters involved react to what’s happening.

The second season just started recently.  The wife and I have to rush through the first to get caught up.

Jericho

My wife and I enjoy finding a good television series and watching it through more than we do watching movies.  Movies can be fun and all, but we enjoy the lengthy stories that play out over a season – sometimes more – of television.

I was flipping through Netflicks last month and happened upon a show I had never seen and never heard of, but there was a mushroom cloud on the promotional picture, and that drew my eye.  I read a little more about it – it certainly did sound like a post-apocalyptic show – so I decided to watch the first episode of Jericho.

The show centers around a small Midwest town, Jericho, and starts off working with the people within.  You meet the mayor and his wife.  They have two sons, one of whom is married and stayed in town.  The other has just returned home after being away for 5 years.  He’s just stopping in town long enough to pick up his inheritance and then hit the road again.

He had left behind his best friend who seems to have no idea where he was.  He meets up with his ex-girlfriend who now is engaged to another man.  That guy is flying back into town that night.  Slowly the cast of characters expands as you meet the Sheriff, other deputies, the political opponent for the mayor.  You meet the doctor, a teacher, the bartender.  The town starts to come together with how people all fit together.

And then as the president is giving an address to Congress, all the televisions black out.  And off in the distance, a mushroom cloud begins to rise.

From there, the story takes a drastic turn.  The woman who was going to pick up her fiancé from the airport now has to figure out what to do about him.  Neighbors start turning on each other as they become frightened by the darkness and the threat of gas and food shortages.  The mayor has to reclaim control over his city.  Scouting parties have to be sent out to find people outside the town who might be in trouble.

And the town has to slowly start to rebuild.  Find ways to get power.  Deal with the fallout from the bomb.  Get communication with the outside world to find out just what happened.

Slowly the scope of the story expands, starting with the very isolated and cut-off town of Jericho and as they learn more, we learn more about the world and about the past.  Groups come to prey off Jericho’s supplies, and Jericho must find ways to get more supplies themselves.  Help comes from people they may not have turned to prior to the explosions.

Laura and I watched through the first season and then finished off the short 7-episode second season.  It’s another casualty of the networks.  A good show ending long before it should have.  But they had enough warning to tie up some of the loose ends, and leave the story with a good, if not wholly satisfying, conclusion.

If you’re a fan of post-apocalyptic stories, I’d urge you to give this one a try.  I don’t want to talk too much about where Laura and I were hoping they story would progress during the second season and beyond because like so many post-apocalyptic stories, it’s the exploration that is so interesting.  I urge you to take a look at it.  It’s only 29 episodes, so it’s not a huge investment.  For my wife and I, it was very worth it.

Breaking Bad

For Christmas my wife bought me the first two seasons of Breaking Bad. Well, actually I bought them myself, then handed them to her and she wrapped them up and gave them back to me for Christmas. Over this past weekend, Laura was off skiing at a bachelorette party, so I was left to my own devices. With nothing better to do some of the time, I popped in the show and started watching.

The show had been recommended to me by an old college buddy, Adam. The basic premise is that a high school chemistry teacher turns 50, finds out he’s got inoperable terminal lung cancer, and decides he needs to make money to leave his family, and quickly. His brother-in-law works for the DEA and he sees him on TV and sees how much money they had recovered from a drug bust. His brother-in-law invites him to go on a drug raid with them (as an observer safe in the car, etc.) and he finally agrees to take him up on it. There he sees how most meth dealers operate and figures he can probably do this too. He spots one of his former students who escapes from the raid and tracks the guy down and the two start going into business together.



The show is fantastic. While the premise feels a bit stretched, the exploration of all the characters has been great through the first season. Watching the teacher try to keep his drug life and home life separate, watching the former student realizing he’s getting in over his head working with the teacher, etc. The whole story continuously has the teacher put down a new line that he will not cross in his quest for money, but each time he finds a reason that… well… it’s not that bad THIS time and pushes the line just that much more. Once you’re to the end of the season and see how far he’s gone, and how delicate his situation is, it’s crazy, but as you’re taking each step with him, it does seem somewhat reasonable given what he’s going through.

I just ordered the third season, and I think the fifth season is on TV now (or will be starting up soon). Really looking forward to watching more of this one.

TV I'm Watching

Some Spoilers Below – I block out which TV shows I’m talking about when, so if you don’t want any spoilers on any of them, just skip ‘em.

Most television seasons, I’m lucky if I can find one show worth watching. From time to time I’ll hit on a winner, but for the most part I don’t find anything really worth watching and resign myself to watching DVDs of old shows instead.

So to my enjoyment, I have not one, but three shows this season that have captured my interest enough to watch: The Walking Dead, Once Upon a Time, and American Horror Story. Shouldn’t be much of a surprise from those three titles to find what kind of story I like. Give me depressing, give me good characters, give me horror, and give me well-weaved stories.




The Walking Dead
Okay, so really I found this one last season and am only continuing it as it comes out now, but that counts, right? I have heard more than a few gripes about the first couple of episodes of Season 2, but personally I put this current arc at the top of the series, up there with the first couple of episodes last season. I was not a big fan of the CDC part last season – it seemed too… I dunno… off for what I want to be a survival story focusing on the characters.

But Season 2 has started off fantastically. I was the person who watched Lost for the characters more than the mysteries, so when Walking Dead spends as much time focusing on a conversation between two characters on a porch looking out over a farm as it does on a scene with a fight with dozens of zombies, I’m happy. The show is really taking its time with the story and dealing with how the people are reacting to what’s happening around them more than the gore or horror of zombies. Personally, I think watching some characters looking for hope while others dip into hopelessness is much more interesting than getting in a shootout with zombies.

The cast of characters is great too. Dale’s manipulating the group to stay put while they look for the missing girl and his forcing Andrea’s hand back at the CDC show him to be a bit deeper than I expected. He’s one of the good guys, but he’s clearly not above manipulating situations as he can to do what he thinks is right. T-Dog’s fevered conversation with Dale made me more interested in him too – how terrified he is not only of the zombies, but of his role in the group and how he feels on the outside. Daryl’s development has been very interesting too, though I’m starting to get worried that they’re making him too much of the “I can do anything” character. It’s still believable at the moment, but they’re starting to stretch it. He did have one of my favorite parts of the last episode. When the women were talking about praying to find the lost girl, Daryl replied that praying and hoping was useless and a waste of time. They were going to find the girl and she was going to be alright. No amount of praying or hoping would change that.

By the way, just heard that the series was renewed for Season 3. Yay!




Once Upon a Time
Having completed my run of the Grimm roleplaying game a few months back, we were pretty excited to see that there would be a television show based on all the fairy tales. So now here it is, and I have to admit I was a bit nervous about it going in to Sunday night, but all in all, I was pleasantly surprised.

The story flips back and forth between the real world and the storybook world. Evidently some 28 years ago, a Witch put a curse on the storybook characters wiping their memories clean and bringing them into the real world, a place where there are no happy endings.

Snow White’s daughter was saved from the witch’s curse and sent to the real world without being affected by the curse. She was just born at the time, and now, 28 years later, she has found her way to the town with all the fairy tale characters. Evidently she’s destined to battle the witch and save the world.

I am very curious to see where they’re going with the story. Is she going to be bouncing around “waking up” the fairy tale characters? The witch (as the mayor of the town) has vowed to destroy Snow White’s daughter if she stays around town – how is their conflict going to play out?

I have enjoyed trying to pick up on different fairy tale pieces in the story. Like at the beginning when Emma puts a star-shaped candle on her birthday cake and blows it out, she’s wishing on a star. Or at the end when the witch is standing in front of the mirror – is that the mirror that talks to her (“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?”)?

It’s grabbed my attention and I will be sticking with this show for at least a few more episodes, and hopefully it’ll keep going strong.




American Horror Story
I had never even heard of this show until last week when it popped up on two blogs I read, both with stellar reviews. I love horror stories, the first episode was up on Hulu, so at noon on Sunday, I gave it a try.

I was alone in my house, but all the lights were on. And it was noon, for crying out loud!

But that show freaked me out.

It centers around a haunted house and the family that just moved in. They have their own issues – the mother just miscarried less than a year ago and the husband ended up cheating on her and she caught him in the act. The daughter’s clearly got issues too, though mostly of the adolescent depressed/angst variety. The family moved out west to start over and bought this house – great price for the house.

And slowly we’re learning about its history and the things that have happened in it. I think I can count three or four murders that have all happened in the house. Maybe five? I’m not sure yet. And there are certainly a bunch of different entities in the house, from the voices that compel the husband to sleepwalk and turn on fires throughout the house to the housekeeper who looks like an old hag to women and a young seductress to men. Then you toss in the burned guy with the creepy smile, the down’s syndrome girl who loves telling people that they’re going to die, the nosey neighbor, the twin boys, the gimp, and the kid who’s being treated for his psychological issues (the husband is a psychiatrist) and this show is suitably frightening.

It reminds me a lot of Twin Peaks in a way. There’s a ton going on, some of it supernatural, and it’s all weaving together to form a larger story. I know the second episode is already up on Hulu, so I’ll be watching it soon. But this is certainly a keeper for me, especially around Halloween.




So there we have it, the three shows I’m watching this season. And I’ll be giving Alcatraz a try when it comes out in January too. Plus I’m still watching Fringe with my wife and mother, though we’re at the beginning of Season 3 right now, so we’re pretty far behind.

Walking Dead Season Two

Next Sunday at 9PM Eastern, the second season of the Walking Dead will be hitting. A 90 minute zombie extravaganza. It's been a long wait since last December (was that how long ago it was?) after the first season ended. The survivors are on the move, heading out from Atlanta to try to find somewhere new to settle so they can stop being on the run all the time.

If you're interested in seeing a bit of a teaser, check out this link. Looks like they're going to be bringing in a few more of those tense situations and not shying away from the horror and blood. I count in the teaser alone 2-4 characters who are probably soon to be dead. I am very excited to see where this show is heading.

Having been a long-time fan of the comics, I am also excited by some of the things I've heard will be in this season. The Herschal Farm will be a part of this season, and next season I think Michonne will be putting in an appearance. Good things coming down the line.

I have to say, I'm enjoying seeing the series different from the comics. I know there are critics of that, but I like not knowing what's going to happen next, and not knowing who's going to live and who's going to die. All in all, great show if you love zombies and survival stories.

Alcatraz

My wife pointed me towards the new JJ Abrams show coming out mid-season 2012, Alcatraz. I know I'm already a fan of Abrams' work. Alias (before it got too weird), Lost, Fringe. All three are great shows in my book. Now he's coming out with a new show that just looks like a bundle of fun.

I've been looking over the production stills and haven't found any that have offered a great look at what the show's feel will be, but here's the trailer.

Basically the premise is this. Alcatraz closed down back in May 1963 for reasons of deteriorating conditions and expense. At least that's what the public story was. In fact what happened was that all 300+ prisoners simply disappeared into thin air. Now in 2011, they are reappearing, not having aged a day. Well, at least one of them does. Not sure the whole story there. So this guy escapes into the real world through a tour group and starts doing stuff in the real world. Meanwhile, a group of government officials and Alcatraz experts get clued in to what's happening and are trying to stop some of the most dangerous criminals while also trying to piece together what's happening and why.

Overall, looks like a great show. I'll be giving it a try when it comes out next year.

How I Miss You, Carnivale

"Before the Beginning, after the great war between Heaven and Hell, God created the Earth and gave dominion over it to the crafty ape he called Man. And to each generation was born a Creature of Light and a Creature of Darkness... and great armies clashed by night in the ancient war between good and evil. There was magic then. Nobility. And unimaginable cruelty. And so it was until the day that a false sun exploded over Trinity, and man forever traded away wonder for reason."

-Samson in "Milfay"



Carnivale was produced by HBO and it debuted in September of 2003. It lasted only two seasons before being canceled, closing out only two of the intended six seasons of the show.

Set in the wasteland background of Depression-Era United States, horror drama Carnivale features Biblical fight between Good and Evil hidden in the midst of the traveling freak show.

I have watched the series in its entirety three times now, and every time I've felt let down by the fact that the show never continued. In the end, though, its per-episode cost was prohibitively expensive for HBO to continue the show, and when the cost could not be lowered, the series got canceled.



The show was not for the casual viewer. The story built on each previous episode, and for a while early on in the series, you had to trust that something was going to make sense down the road. The first season especially was quite confusing and it's through repeat viewings, after having seen the second season, that I finally understand (I think) most of what was going on.

The show drops you right into the beginning of the mystery alongside a man named Ben whose mother has just died. A traveling carnival happens to pass by and Ben joins with them, having nothing else to do. His family farm has been repossessed by the bank, and he is on the run from the law.

Unusual events begin in earnest and Ben's confusion mirrors our own. He tries to fight against what is happening - the impending fight between good and evil - but the weight of it just rolls him over and he finds himself swept away in the entire event.



The series was designed to be told in three parts, each "book" taking place over two seasons. In essence, we were able to see the entire first book. So the show, thankfully, ends with a satisfying conclusion, but there are still mysteries that are growing. The writer has since released a few details of what was going to happen next, but all it has done is leave me thirsty for more.

I want to see what happens next and hold out hope that one day the story will be told, but I fear it has gone the way of another great supernatural mystery show: Twin Peaks. Be happy with what you got, because there won't be any more.

Finished Out the Wire

After Lost ended I was quite sad - it was one of the only television shows I had seen that held me from beginning to end with very few hiccups. I searched around for another show that could replace it and kept coming up with one name: the Wire.

Now I used to watch Lost with my wife and my mother every week, and from what I had read, the Wire would not be a show my mother would have enjoyed, but the fact that it was constantly given high praise convinced me to go out and pick it up anyway. Laura and I just finished watching the last season last night and at the end of everything, I can say the show was incredible. Easily slides into my list of top shows ever.

When listening to a description of the show, it doesn’t sound like it should be the kind I would like. It involves police and drug dealers on the streets of Baltimore. First, I hate cop shows. I hate procedurals. They’re just not my type of show. I’m more of the Buffy/Supernatural kind of television watcher. Second, I’m not overly interested in the street-life style story. I never really cared much for things like Boys N the Hood or anything like that. They also just don’t interest me. So when I was told there was a story about police and drug dealers, my first instinct was to pass.

But then I saw who one of the actors was when I was looking through a few still shots.



I don't know his name, but I've loved him in every show I've seen him. That, plus finding the whole series for pretty cheap, convinced me to give it a try.

Boy am I glad I did.

The show starts you off in the middle of the action, uses a lot of lingo and patterns that, for the beginning, you're just trying to make sense of. "What the heck is a re-up?" "Why aren't the police having any success?" As the police learn the depth of the foes they are up against, they learn and start to make changes to their patterns. Which, of course, the drug dealers learn and start adapting themselves. As the show continues, things that worked flawlessly in season one become outdated by season three and it's a constant battle where each side is waiting for the other to slip up.

Soon in season one they're trying to track down the mysterious leader of this drug organization and find out what he's doing (if he even exists at all or is just a puppet). If the drugs are bringing in over a million dollars a week, where is this money going? The police have to follow everyone from the lowest drug dealers on the corners all the way to the top, follow them with wiretaps, eyeballs, and paper trails.

Each season expands the overall story while moving into a different aspect of the city as well. Schools, newspapers, dockworkers, politics - it's all tied together. And by the end of the story, you get a good idea of how interconnected this whole city really is.

If you haven't seen the show, you owe it to yourself to give it a try. The seasons are only 10-13 episodes long, each one an hour in length (and since it's HBO, they are each actually a full hour long rather than 45 minutes). Five out of five.

Turns Out Joss Whedon Is Funny... Who Knew?

So if you missed the news, there's evidently going to be a new Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie coming out. Only it's not going to have Joss involved at all. Entertainment Weekly asked Joss for his opinion. You can follow this link to see the article about it, or if you're too lazy, just read Joss' response below.

Kristin, I'm glad you asked for my thoughts on the announcement of Buffy the cinema film. This is a sad, sad reflection on our times, when people must feed off the carcasses of beloved stories from their youths—just because they can't think of an original idea of their own, like I did with my Avengers idea that I made up myself.

Obviously I have strong, mixed emotions about something like this. My first reaction upon hearing who was writing it was, "Whit Stillman AND Wes Anderson? This is gonna be the most sardonically adorable movie EVER." Apparently I was misinformed. Then I thought, "I'll make a mint! This is worth more than all my Toy Story residuals combined!" Apparently I am seldom informed of anything. And possibly a little slow. But seriously, are vampires even popular any more?

I always hoped that Buffy would live on even after my death. But, you know, AFTER. I don't love the idea of my creation in other hands, but I'm also well aware that many more hands than mine went into making that show what it was. And there is no legal grounds for doing anything other than sighing audibly. I can't wish people who are passionate about my little myth ill. I can, however, take this time to announce that I'm making a Batman movie. Because there's a franchise that truly needs updating. So look for The Dark Knight Rises Way Earlier Than That Other One And Also More Cheaply And In Toronto, rebooting into a theater near you.

Leave me to my pain! Sincerely, Joss Whedon.

Walking Dead

I missed the premier episode of this series on Halloween because I was running my Halloween roleplaying game instead, but last week Laura and I managed to catch the second episode. I went back onto Hulu and saw the first episode after that, and figured I'd give my opinion of the show.

I really like it.

I'll add a disclaimer here that I am a huge fan of the comic and of the horror/survival genre, so this show was almost tailor made for me, but I think they could have really screwed it up, and I'm glad to see they did not.

The show, rightly so, focuses on the characters more than the zombies and horror. Watching the show I feel like they're going to be paying far more attention to how the people react to their entire world changing and the daily goal being just survive to the next day. The zombies offer a constant threat, but my impression is that they won't be there all the time. Sometimes the survivors will make their way to someplace safe for a little while, and then they'll be dealing with each other. From watching the show, this whole concept could do just as well and moving the setting into space (like the Cylons chasing the humans in BSG's first episode) or by removing the zombies entirely (making more of a post-apocalyptic setting). The focus is on the characters and the zombies provide a vehicle to tell the story of these people. The biggest threat to survival is not the zombies themselves, but the people and how they'll react to them.

I have to say, I was happy watching the second episode of the show. While I know the show is based on the comic, nearly the entire second episode was original, not at all drawn from the comic that inspired it. It was an early warning to those fans of the comic that this is going to be different. Different things might happen - different people might show up. Don't expect that just because the comic did a particular thing that the show will too.

As a warning, I did try to show my mother the first episode, and while she likes post-apocalyptic shows and character-driven shows, she could not get through the episode. Not for lack of quality of the show, but because the suspense of the zombie threat was too much. If you're not a fan of horror or suspense, this might not be the show for you. I'd recommend giving it a try with the lights on in the afternoon at some point - it's worth checking out.

Brittany S. Pierce

Having very little to do with my topic, I wanted to start by saying I think the whole trend of releasing half of a season on DVD before releasing the whole thing is just annoying.



Laura and I have started watching Glee on DVD now that it finally came out (and we find ourselves with a little free time now and then). We're through over half of the season so far and really enjoying it. The music is fun, and the random cheesy high school drama keeps me entertained. But if I had to rank my reasons for liking the show, the very top would be three characters: the principal, Sue, and my personal favorite, Brittany S. Pierce. Simply put, she has all the best lines.

Did you know dolphins are just gay sharks?

I find recipes... confusing.

When I pulled my hamstring, I went to a misogynist.

Since she started talking more in the show, it has just gotten better and better. I love watching Sue's tirades (really - I would love to be on set and see all the other ones she does, because no doubt these have to be ad libbed each take). The principal is just a great bit character to bounce everyone else off. But Brittany takes the prize.

The Wire: Season One

So in our hunt to find a new television show to watch now that LOST is done, I ended up stumbling upon The Wire. Not sure why it took me so long. Everything I'd ever heard about the show was good. But with LOST finally over, it was time to find a new solid show to take its place.

Man, does The Wire deliver! Laura and I finished up the first season over this past weekend, and the show really does not let up at all. There are some scenes that have humor to them, but it's really dark humor when it shows up at all.

So the premise is this: the show follows the police force in Baltimore as they're trying to take down a huge drug ring. It does a really good job of balancing the cops' side of the story with the drug dealers' side of the story, and follows dozens of characters around. You see how the cops start trying to break in to the ring, then you see how the dealers react to that, sometimes correctly figuring out what the cops are doing and sometimes not, and then see the cops try to pick up what they can after having things change up on them, and on down the line.

And to make it harder, it's not like either side is really tight. You've got cops fighting against cops, some trying to make the case with others trying to make their careers, crooked politicians who are trying to steer attention away from them, and the drug dealers with people trying to steal from them and all. Great stuff from beginning to end. I can't recommend it highly enough, though you've got to be ready for a show that doesn't give you a break.

Just picked up the first episode of Season Two last night. Starts out a bit slower, but Adam says it picks up after 3-4 episodes. I can't wait to see what happens next.

Some Zombies from Walking Dead

AMC has put up a few pictures of extras in zombie make-up for their upcoming Walking Dead television show. I'm stoked!