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.

The Zombie Horde Closes In

Last night while waiting for everyone to get home to get a roleplaying game in, Dan and Ellen headed over to our house and we got another game of No More Room in Hell under our belt. Since we were just playing for fun, we made up our own mission to try to avoid the undead hordes.

I played my three sisters, Alice, Rose and Katie. Laura played four Can Can Girls on tour from France. They had no idea what was happening and couldn't speak the language. They always had to walk in a line and thought the spectacle of zombies was just the greatest thing. Dan played a brute with a cricket bat, and Ellen played Kitty, a gunfighter and excellent fighter.

Our mission was to truck it across town and barricade the building against the zombies so we could rest for the night.

Rose, Katie and Alice all moved out quickly along the outskirts of town, trying to avoid the attention of the zombies nearby. Kitty joined with them and shot down any stragglers that started coming their way. Meanwhile, Dan and the Can Can Girls headed deeper into the town, trying to find a path around the zombies. Pretty quickly they found themselves being beset on all sides. Gunshots kept ringing out, but each shot fired just brought more zombies to the sound.

Rose found a car and lucked out to find keys in the ignition and a full tank of gas. She loaded up Kitty and her sisters and drove the car all the way to the back door of the hotel they were trying to reach. Katie, Alice and Kitty all jumped out and started barricading the front of the building against the zombies. Rose backed up and turned around, heading back to the Can Can Girls and Dan. Dan heroically jumped between the car and the surge of zombies and was tossed to the ground but managed to regain his feet before the zombies swarmed him. The Can Can Girls loaded into the car, filling it up.



Meanwhile, zombies were crashing against the hotel while the girls there kept piling furniture against the windows to brace. A large group of zombies started heading towards Dan and the ones at the hotel decided to head for easier prey.

Dan got bashed by the zombies again and as Rose began to peal out, he leaped on the back of the car, holding on for dear life. Rose spun the car around and drove back to the hotel. Everyone jumped out as the zombies bashed against the barricade. With a full group in the house, it did not take long before the house itself was barricaded up. With the hotel safe, the zombies soon lost interest and headed off.

Three Sisters Against Zombies

Allow me to introduce you to the three sisters who will be fighting against the walking dead once we get our next game of No More Room In Hell campaign going. These three sadly lost their parents when the undead hordes began rising. They found each other and stuck together, fighting for survival against impossible odds. Each one has learned to deal with the nightmarish situation in their own way.



There is Alice, the oldest. Home from college, she was out for a night on the town with her boyfriend when the undead struck. Her date turned undead before her very eyes, but she did not waver. She knew exactly what to do. A card-carrying member of the NRA, she drew her hand cannon out of her purse and blew his head off, followed shortly by the heads of every other zombie in the restaurant. She keeps track of her two sisters, making sure they're safe. Just being near Alice inspires them to stand firm.



Next in line is Rose, who was just entering middle school and suffered greatly from middle child syndrome. Constantly rebelling against her parents, she would often be caught by the cops trying to vandalize or steal. Her parents did not know what to do with her. Numerous trips to the shrink's office just ended up costing money and solving nothing. When the zombie apocalypse struck, she was already sneaking out of the house anyway. Phone books on the seat and tin cans strapped to her feet, she stole her parents' car and went for a joyride. She excels at sneaking around and driving is the only way she feels at peace anymore.



Finally, there is sweet Katie, happy to be entering the third grade. She's something of a tomboy and enjoyed beating up the neighborhood boys and climbing trees. She was, unfortunately, home when the undead struck and her parents were taken. Now undead themselves, her parents tried to catch Katie themselves. The little girl did the first thing she could think of, grabbed her bat and went to town. By the time Alice returned home, Katie had already re-slain over fifteen zombies. Alice shot her way through the horde around the house to get to her sister and when all hope seemed lost, Rose pulled back down the street honking the horn. Alice and Katie jumped out the window, rushed to the car, and sped away with Rose. The three made a pact to never leave another behind and to always look out for each other. Because if you don't have family, you have nothing.

No More Room in Hell

Last night Dan brought a game over to give a try - No More Room in Hell. It's a zombie skirmish miniatures game where everyone makes their character and starts fighting against the zombie hordes. You can make uber-heroes, decent back-ups, or hordes of sheeple, as they call them - relatively useless mobs of people.

We had five players, and to make the intro games go quicker, Dan went ahead and built the characters before the game started based on what people wanted. I loved the idea of the sheeple, but Ellen had a better concept than what I was thinking of (she decided to make a football team based on the poor guys in Beetlejuice - "Coach, I don't think we made it..."). Dan, Eric and Tanya were all playing hero types, so I decided to go with another group of people - the Three Amigos.

Dan did awesome in finding the perfect abilities for them.

Lucky Day was good at leadership and giving inspiring speeches ("In a way all of us have a zombie to face..."). The football team took to calling him 'Coach' because he'd stick near them and make sure they didn't book it.

Ned Needlelander was a crack shot, and had the fast draw abilities letting him shoot more at zombies that were carrying on around him.

Dusty Bottoms had the ability to disguise himself as the zombies and make sure they wouldn't come to kill him. I thought of him as disguising himself as "Jose the zombie!" when he was being hidden.

So the first game we played, we had to either baracade the farmhouse we started in or we had to get the truck outside and get everyone out. Since Dusty could hide from zombies, the Three Amigos rushed out of the house to go for the truck. Meanwhile, the football team started boarding up the farmhouse in case it was out of gas or anything, and the heroes started shooting up the zombies. Dusty got to the truck and found it filled with gas and had keys in the ignitiion. What luck! The Three Amigos started driving the truck around, running over zombies when they could, and Ned and Lucky kept shooting out of the windows while it was moving. We'd pull up to the front door, then drive the truck out of there.

The truck could hold six people in addition to Dusty. The first stop, four football players jumped in the back ("Thanks, coach!"). Couldn't get more because Lucky and Ned were in the truck too. We drove out, leaving the others to the zombie hordes. But Dusty came back with the three Amigos. This time we gathered Dan and the last three football players. At this point, the zombie hordes swarmed the building but Eric and Tanya fought away and jumped into the truck as Dusty brought it back for a third time we booked it off the table as the house was overrun by hordes of zombies.

For the second game, the truck ran out of gas on the highway. We started trying to cross the highway only to have dozens of zombies start jumping out at us. We were trapped! We split into two groups as two of the football players were pulled down and eaten. Eric, Tanya and the rest of the team went around the right side of the highway while the Three Amigos and Dan went around the left. The zombies started swarming after us, so the other side started trying to lure more zombies their way to give us a clear path. Dusty, pretending to be a zombie, managed to clear off the other side of the highway first. The luring of zombies by the football team ended up doing too well and one of them got pulled down and eaten. Meanwhile, the Three Amigos (minus Dusty) and Dan finished off our side of zombies and booked it for the end. The rest of the football team escaped, as did Tanya, but Eric, who had stayed back to try to clear out more zombies with his machine gun, got swarmed by a group of several dozen zombies and eaten.

All in all, a really fun game. It has a campaign system, so we might give that a try. We were looking at Hasslefree Miniatures (great site - check them out here) for some miniatures to use. I think my new trio will be the following:



Alice, the older sister, who acts as the leader to the trio. She is decent with a gun, but more useful for keeping her sisters from going crazy in the face of the zombie hordes.



Katie is too young to realize the danger she's in. She loves smashing zombies with a bat and is fairly reckless.



And finally, Rose. She is the driver of the group (I just love the idea of a 9 year old girl or whatever being the best driver in the group of survivors). Carries around phone books to sit on so she can see over the dash, tin cans to tie to her feet so she can reach the pedals, and the gas mask disguises her from zombies so she can sneak through them easier.

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.

Brains: A Zombie Memoir

So this morning I woke up, picked up my new book, Brains: A Zombie Memoir, and started reading while waiting for the insurance adjuster to arrive. The adjuster arrived around page 150 and since the book's only about 180 pages long, I finished it off before heading in to work today.

It won't be winning any literature awards, and it's clearly an attempt to cash in on the zombie craze that's going around, but it was still a pretty clever take on zombies. The basic premise is this: the zombie outbreak has hit, and our main character is pretty quickly turned into a zombie.

Only he realizes he still has the capacity for higher thinking. He's managed, somehow, to keep his intelligence and his ability to write (the book is his memoir). This doesn't prevent him from craving brains - he consumes quite a few people throughout the course of the book - but it does let him think about what it means to be a zombie, and whether there are other 'thinking' zombies like him.

He does, of course, find some. From a zombie who was a nurse in life and has taken to patching up zombie corpses so they'll last longer, to a kid zombie whose motor functions don't seem to be degrading and can still run. Speech seems beyond them, but they put together some hand signals and start working on the zombie revolution. The humans are winning the war against the undead, after all.

The group of zombies, some thinking and some not but kept around for other reasons, start heading to Chicago where they hope to meet the doctor who created the zombie virus. Meet their maker, as it were.

The book is told in a black-humor style and keeps action happening at a good pace. There are a few surprises in it, but by and large it's pretty easy to see where the story is going. The characters are all surprising vivid for zombies, each one with its own personality that follows through to their actions, though all of them have the overpowering urge for brains.

Its this last piece that's talked about the most. The craving for brains, wrestling humanity with canabilism, and the journey that the main character goes through as he's trying to figure out just where zombies fit in God's plan, or in scientific evolution, for that matter.

Overall, if you're not a fan of zombies, this book's not going to turn you into one. It's a popcorn book meant to entertain and it does a good job of that. I'd recommend it to people who want a quick, brainless read (get it!), and to people who already enjoy the zombie genre.

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!

Hat Trick

For the third post in a row, I'm going to mention zombies. Every red-blooded male considers what might happen in the event of a zombie uprising. It may be a passing thought, or it may be a full-fledged day-dream. But for this guy, it became a massive (and well-thought-out) plan. I can't imagine someone coming up with a better 15-step plan to survive and thrive in the zombie apocalypse.

I Am Legend (the book)

When I'm getting ready for a long drive, usually I like to have a book set up on my iPod. Music is fun, but tends to get a little mindless. Books keep me engaged and awake throughout the whole trip. This weekend I was making the short jaunt up to my brother's place, but I thought it would be nice to have a new book. After my post about zombies, I figured I wanted a horror or supernatural book of some kind. My first thought was to try the Dresdon Files series, but when I pulled up the first book of it, it was $20! Not really interested in spending that much. Dejected, I putzed around until I saw the poster for I Am Legend somewhere online. I decided to pick up the book, since I knew it was based on a book. Popped it in, it wasn't too expensive, and I downloaded it.

Written in 1954 by Richard Matheson, it was a pretty quick book, finishing out in about 5 hours. I had never seen the Will Smith movie, nor Omega Man, nor Last Man on Earth, so I didn't really know anything about it other than it was post-apocalyptic and involved vampires (or zombies, depending on who you asked).

The book was really solid, obviously relying heavily on the strength of the main character, Robert Neville, since most of the time he's alone and dealing with his thoughts. It opens talking about his repetitive days - waking up, repairing the damage done to his house by the vampire attacks the previous night, and then, depending on the day, working on other projects. Making wooden stakes, gathering supplies, or heading out into the city to seek out vampires and kill them. In daylight, they go dormant and he finds as many as he can and puts a stake through them. Then, when it gets close to nightfall, he heads home and stays in his house until the next morning.

The vampires know where he is, but he's done a lot to make his house secure. As the book goes on, it explains why the vampires are choosing certain tactics over others, and leaves me satisfied that in the world constructed, he could actually survive.

Eventually after several fits of depression and particularly bad drunk nights, he decides to try to learn about the vampire and how everything happened. There are flashback hints as to what was happening during the time just leading up to the outbreak of vampirism, and throughout the story, clues are scattered that you can put together to come to your own conclusions.

I don't want to tell too much in case anyone wants to read it for themselves, but I have to say I really enjoyed it. I was a little worried early on that dealing with Robert's mind for five hours would become tedious, but the author keeps it fresh and while you can watch him going slowly insane and slowly losing his humanity, Robert's thoughts are always interesting and I kept wanting to know what he'd do next. If you're interested in a quick read that gives a new perspective on the whole vampire/zombie thing, give this one a try.

Undead Delight

Every Halloween my friends and I put together a horror-based roleplaying game just to have a bit of fun. Generally, people die, and much fun is had. A few years back I ran a particular game about a zombie apocalypse. It began with everyone creating each other as characters, and then everyone got to play themselves. I, being the GM, was the first person to be killed and their first introduction to zombies. Appropriately, I think Mary killed me, both hating zombies and in particular being my nemesis. The group had to escape Brian and Mary’s house, find transportation, and then navigate the dangerous route to escape. I had no long-term plans, just put them in a world of zombies and see what happened. They headed for the airport. In a fight near a fueling station at the airport, Dan was killed and came back as a zombie. Things got hectic, the fuel ignited, and I don’t remember how many people survived.

I don’t know what it is about zombies, but I love the concept of them. It might be my fascination with post-apocalyptic stories or survival stories or dealing with a situation that seems so hopelessly beyond your ability to survive and somehow coming out alive. Whatever it is, I can’t seem to get enough of them. I wanted to talk about three treatments of zombies that I consider among the best out there.

First is the movie 28 Days Later. For me, this was the trigger to my really enjoying zombies. Before this they were just lame horror monsters, but this was the first movie I saw where I was really freaked out by the zombies in it. It was pretty much exactly what I look for now in a good zombie adaptation. Focus on a small group of survivors and the terror that they particularly go through. The zombies form a backdrop for the story and help propel the characters forward and through different scenes, but the focus is really on the characters. I still can’t listen to the soundtrack (In the House – In a Heartbeat) without my heart racing. It spawned a few follow ups, but none of them came close to the original.

Second is the comic Walking Dead which started being published in 2003 by Image comics, a year after 28 Days Later came out. I can see the similarities and style. While Walking Dead has more traditional zombies that shamble slowly, again, the focus is entirely on the characters and how they deal with an impossible survival situation. Often times, humans are far more dangerous to each other than the zombies themselves are. People die all the time and sometimes in very unexpected ways, and through it all, the characters keep struggling to survive.

Finally is the book World War Z by Max Brooks. I admit I never read the book myself, I only heard the abridged version on the books on tape. But even with that treatment, it was fantastic. It’s a book that takes the form of a documentary. The author is interviewing people from all over the world who survived the zombie apocalypse that ended just years ago. Each person recounts their own horror stories and how the world responded to such a bizarre situation. Humanity is stripped away and many people cringe still at the things they had to do to just survive. Some of the parts are not for the faint of heart.

If you are a fan of character-driven stories and zombies, all three of these are musts. Enjoy!

Just Because You're Undead Doesn't Mean You Can't Be Socially Conscious

I was over on CNN and found this article about a charity walk done by the living dead. Way to take part in the society that feeds you!

Reminds me of the time Laura and I happened to find a ninja marathon when we were on vacation. If only we'd brought our garb.