Lost Girl

Since the weekly Monday afternoon double feature of True Blood and Leverage that I've been enjoying all summer ended I needed something else to take its place. I had hardly heard anything about this show before watching it but boy was I surprised. This is the best new show so far this year and with the great ratings the first episode got I really hope that this show gains popularity and stays on the air for many seasons.

The show centers around a succubus named Bo, played by Anna Silk, and a young girl named Kenzi, played by Ksenia Solo. Bo is unaware of what she actually is, so she has spent her life constantly on the move to get away from the people she kills when she "feeds" using her succubus powers.

She meets up with Kenzi, a young thief and grifter, and is soon introduced to the world of the Fey, people with varying supernatural powers that are divided in two, dark Fey and light Fey. These two factions have been at war for a very long time and since Bo is not part of either of the factions they try to force her into choosing a side. She however refuses and tries to exist outside of the conflict, in an attempt to figure out where she comes from and who her real parents are.

The characters are overall very good and the dialog is funny and clever. Kenzi reminds me a lot of Claudia from Warehouse 13, and she fills sort of the same role in this show as Claudia did, especially in a some of the season two episodes. The three episodes that have aired so far have all been great and the overarching story is taking up just enough of time of each episode to leave room for whatever mission they embark on in each episode.

I cannot recommend this show enough, especially for people that like things like True Blood or Kindred for example. While this show isn't about vampires it has some of the same vibes and it allows itself to be funny at times, which makes it a joy to watch.

Boredwalk Empire

I'm sure he's trying his best!

Excuse the "clever" pun, but after all the hype surrounding this new HBO original, I was really hoping for more than what was delivered.

After watching the first episode I did not really think much of it. Usually the first episode of shows like this (whatever you want to compare it to) are mostly about setting up the characters and the premise of the show, and getting a basic feel for what is going to happen, and that's fine. I am not saying that it's okay for first episodes of shows to be boring and uninteresting, but you should not expect too much.

The main problem however after watching the second episode is that it did not get any better. In fact they managed to slow it down even further. The second episode drudges along at a snails pace with lots of short scenes of different characters talking to each other about many different seemingly unrelated things. 

The word boring continuously comes to mind, and it's the most fitting in the scenes with the prohibition enforcer who speaks in a strained low monotonous voice and sort of embodies the entire show so far. I am guessing that they want that character to appear boring and stiff as a contrast to all the people who are still happy and having fun with their illegal booze, but there is a big difference between a boring character that is interesting or entertaining to watch and a character that is just plain boring.

Steve Buscemi is an excellent actor and has done many great and memorable roles, but I don't feel to sure about him being in a leading role. The character doesn't suit him, it's far too mellow and controlled, even though he does have his outbursts at times, at least in the first episode. I could easily see him becoming more of an omnipresent side character as the show goes along, letting other actors like Michael Pitt (James 'Jimmy' Darmody) or Stephen Graham (Al Capone) be the main focal point of the story.

It really shows that HBO has sunk a lot of money into this show. The sets and costumes and overall atmosphere is exceptional, I certainly cannot fault it in this department.

I do not harbor any ill will against the show and I hope it does well, but I think it is pretty apparent after having watched the first two episodes that this is likely not something that I will be interested in seeing any more of.

Two New Comedies

Shit My Dad Says

The fall season is upon us and with that a lot of new and returning shows. I will write about two of the new comedies: Shit My Dad Says and Outsourced.

First up is Shit My Dad Says, a sitcom based on a Twitter account I've been told, I have not read it myself since I try to stay as far away from Twitter as possible.

It stars William Shatner and a bunch of people I have seen in other sitcoms of varying quality (by varying quality I mean terrible).

There isn't really much to say about it, it's contrived and poorly written, all of the actors are flat except Shatner and even he is struggling to get somewhere with the awful dialog. It does manage to be somewhat funny a few times, but there are too many cringe worthy and obvious jokes to make it overall enjoyable. This show also illustrates one of my pet peeves about sitcoms in general, and that is that the actors often talk slightly louder than they should, this irritates me to no end.

I am going to give it one or two more episodes to see where it goes, it did get a bit better at the end so it might manage to make itself fun to watch, we will see.

Outsourced

Outsourced is an NBC comedy show about an american who moves to India to manage a call center. It is based on a 2006 movie with the same name that I have not seen. The main source of alleged hilarity comes from the cultural differences of the American guy and his novelty products and the Indian employees who are not that versed in the American culture.

I did not get the feeling while watching this show that it really contributes anything new or clever. It is very predictable in its attempts to be funny, with show stoppers like "Indian food gives you diarrhea" or "Indian guy has name that sounds funny in English". It's not that I am outraged about culturally insensitive humor, but I would prefer if it was funny!

To sum up, these new shows aren't very interesting. They're not offensively bad in any way, just rather bland.

Catching Up: Warehouse 13

I had not heard about this show until about a week or two ago when I saw it mentioned in passing on IRC. All I knew going into it was that it was slightly similar to X-Files, combined with the warehouse from the end of Indiana Jones and Raider of the Lost Ark. Being a big X-Files fan that was pretty much all I needed to hear to check it out.

I downloaded all of season 1 and after watching the opening double episode I was completely hooked. I went through the entire first season in two days and I am now halfway through season 2. Going into it without really knowing what to expect I was very pleasantly surprised. The first episodes do a good job of setting up the premise of the show and doesn't linger too long on any particular thing, instead it moves a long at a good pace, even though the two main characters initial befuddlement and reluctance borders on being a bit too much at the start. That is however not something that the following episodes spend any time on so it's fine.

The somewhat lighthearted and self-aware nature of the show makes it easy to watch and the premise makes it possible for them to always come up with new interesting plots and artifacts, since there is no limit to what you can do with supernatural items and how they interact with each other. This is explored in a lot of different ways throughout the episodes and there are always new twists to how the artifacts work and how the warehouse is set up to deal with all the properties of the various items.

The cast is pretty much spot on, the two main characters play off each other really well and the caretaker of the warehouse played by Saul Rubinek does a great job of balancing the roles of protective control freak and mentor to the two agents. During the first season the character Claudia, played by Allison Scagliotti joins the cast and she is a welcome addition with her spunky attitude and humor, the show would maybe have run the risk of getting a bit bland had it not been for her.

Even though the episodes are more or less stand-alone there is an overarching storyline to the first season that continues into the second season. I'm personally not a huge fan of these types of overarching story lines because they are often given either far too much time or they are made completely meaningless and have no bearing on the show (the story arch in Leverage comes to mind). Here it is handled reasonably well and actually impacts the characters and the warehouse, especially at the end of the first season.

To sum it up Warehouse 13 is a show that I highly recommend. It is thoroughly enjoyable and the writing and character interaction is a lot of fun. All the Star Trek jokes and steam punk gadgets just add to the enjoyment.

Welcome!

Welcome to my newly started blog about TV and movies. At least I think it is going to be mostly about TV and movies, there will likely some stuff about games and maybe books as well. I have been catching up on a lot of TV shows lately and I will have some write ups on shows like Warehouse 13 and Rizzoli & Isles. Also writing about the new fall TV shows like Boardwalk Empire and Hawaii Five-O.