TV: In Memorium - 08-09 - ABC

What I think ABC is guilty of, is trying to go out on a limb with a quirky show and then it just doesn't get the ratings they need to appease the advertisiers. So ultimately a potentially great show dies before it's time. Just look at previous years, shows like The Nine and Invasion, both pretty ambitious, but both needed avid watchers to follow the twists and turns. And now they are set to try again to appease the LOST fanbase with Flash Forward, a show about the whole planet blacking out for 2 minutes and having visions of their futures.

Keep it up ABC, eventually one will stick, like LOST.

Anyway on what we did lose this year...

PUSHING DAISES: I guess we should count ourselves lucky that due to a writer's strike we even got a second season of this brilliant show. By far the most creative and original hour on television, consistantly greta every week. Lee Pace and Anna Friel both had great chemistry and played their parts stongly but at the end of the day they were always outshined by the dour Chi McBride and upbeat Kristen Chenoweth.

This is definately the show I will miss the most out of all that got cancelled this year, due to the fact it was a pure joy to watch every week.

ELI STONE: Like Pushing Daises, this benefited from the writer's strike. The lack of any pilots to use this, despite its low ratings, was brought back. Again this was a show that wasn't afraid to go out on a limb and try something different every week. Featuring cameos from George Michael and Seal, and a myriad of muscial numbers concealed as Eli's visions. This show was blessed with a feel good charm that you just couldn't escape.

It is to be noted that the final 3 episodes of this and Pushing Daises will be broadcast on Saturdays during the Summer. Thank you ABC.

LIFE ON MARS: Based off a UK show of the same name, but retold in a slightly different and longer way. I'm glad they managed to finish out the whole season for this, and for the most part it was enjoyable, especially the whole 70s cop show aspect. Except the ending left a bad taste in my mouth, as it sullied the UK version. Like Prison Break though this is a show that would have had trouble lengthen itself out for 2 or 3 seasons, before the idea became tired.

THE UNUSUALS: A late season arrival, jumping in after LOST. It's oddball enough to be enjoyable, but there are better procedurals out there. It's only a shame because that means Amber Tamblyn is off our screens again.


NEXT: NBC & CBS - I don't think there is much on those two networks.. we'll see.

TV: In Memorium - Shows 08-09 - FOX

Taking a lock back at this past season of TV, I deceided to start with the shows that I watched that have been cancelled.

PRISON BREAK (FOX): Of all the shows I watch that got cancelled this was the longest running, I have yet to watch the Series Finale, but after a long mid-season hiatus and a move from the prime slot Monday nights to being a lead-in to Dollhouse on Fridays, rating plummeted. As did the quality.

When the show started four years ago, it all hinged on a gimmick which would make a great mini-series or movie, but was protracted out for this long. For the most part it worked well, great twists and cliffhangers each week. But once they broke out of prison a second time in the third season, suspension of disbelief became a little harder. The fourth season has begun to feel like an after thought with the writes trying to tie up any loose ends they have presented to us in the big Company conspiracy.

Hopefully members of the cast like Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell will get picked up for other shows, as it is them that have made the show all the more enjoyable. And come on who doesn't love to hate Bagwell, one hand and all.


TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES (FOX): After a strong second season, that would give cause for this show to be nominated as the best sci-fi on TV, it was announced today that it wouldn't be returning.

Lena Headey gave us a look past the harden surface of the Sarah Connor previously portrayed by Linda Hamilton, we were give a psycholoical scarred and troubled woman at times. Driven to protect her son in the hope of saving the whole of mankind. Thomas Dekker's John Connor started out not far from what we saw with Edward Furlong, but over the course of it's 2 seasons he matured and began to look like the leader he was expected to be.

The bigger shocks of the second season was the great acting turns given to us by Brian Austin Green and Shirley Manson. Green had some great moments as Derek Reese (brother of John's father, Kyle), including an "I'm not John Connor" line that will be forever remembered in fandom. Shirley Manson, famous for being the lead singer of rock group Garbage, gave a surprisingly great and chilling turn as the seemingly emotion-less Catherine Weaver/T-1000.


NEXT: ABC - guilty of ending too many good shows - Pushing Daises, Eli Stone, Life on Mars & The Unusuals

Return to Oz

Okay, so I am going to try and resurrect my blog. Not that anyone really cares, it'll at least keep my occupied whilst bored through the summer, hopefully. I aim to make a big post early next week regarding my thoughts on the past seasons of TV. With the finales of Grey's, Bones, Hell's Kitchen, Housewives and Survivor to get through this week. I'll gather my thoughts on ALL the shows I have been watching this year. Trust me that is alot.

Other than TV watching and video game playing I have discovered twitter. I was little unsure of it at first but once I started following peeps my twitter feed is full of useless, yet sometimes interesting junk. The thing with twitter is that if you don't follow anyone and no one is following you it seems like you are living in a void. One of the highlights of my twitter is the great MajorNelson who offers free codes for DLC on XBL every now and then, if you are quick enough you might get something out of it. Also every one should follow the quite literally HIGH-larious Doug Benson or alternatively you could just follow me.

So with any luck I will follow this blog up with some more stuff, as fitting thoughts and reviews into a 140 character limit is hard.

JOHN RAMBO

WARNING: some violent scenes

TRAILER OF THE WEEK

THE GOLDEN COMPASS

James Bond and dueling Polar bears.. I'm there.

LOST - FINALE finally.

If you have yet to see this one stop reading and go watch. I mean it. Go NOW!!

‘Through the Looking Glass’ is the best episode of this season and one of the best over all 3 seasons. It answered a couple more questions, confirmed a suspicion and threw a whole bunch more in our face. And a end twist that now leaves us with a painful wait until 2008.

Here are the highlights and questions (BEWARE SPOILERS):

1. DEATHS:
Oh my god!! A big body count for these two hours. 7 nameless Others were killed in the Losties surprise attack. Then Ryan, Tom and another other killed by Hurley, Sawyer and Sayid respectively. The two women Others that held Charlie captive in ‘The Looking Glass’ are killed by Mikhael on the orders of Ben. Then, as predicted by Desmond, Charlie drowns after turning off the signal blocker when Mikhael sets off a grenade outside the viewing window, apparently killing himself in the process. Finally new girl Naomi is killed by Locke as he tries to prevent her from contacting her ship.
2. WHERE’S WALT?:
A great brief appearance from Walt. Is he really off the island contacting Locke?
3. TRUTH ABOUT NAOMI:
Ben tries to convince Jack that contacting Naomi’s ship is a mistake and she isn’t who she claims to be. That the arrival of her so called rescue team could mean the end of the island. Jack doesn’t believe him, but unbeknownst to him on board TLG station as Charlie turns off the system he makes contact with Penelope and she says she doesn’t know Naomi. So is Ben telling the truth?
4. AWWWWW:
I love you – Jack to Kate.
This is your mother – Ben to Alex about Danielle.
Do you want to get us killed? - Sawyer to Hurley
5. FLASH FORWARD??:
The flash backs are not what they seem. The final scene of the episode opens up questions and a need to rewatch what has gone before. We see a Jack who is a suicidal drunk and addict. It turns out the flashbacks are really flash forwards, we are seeing a Jack who was rescued from the island, a man who needs to go back. If this is the future of Jack, is his father alive, he mentions him a couple of times during the episode as if he were there, but is Jack just dillusional. Who was in the casket? Whoever it is they were mentioned in the newspaper and a seeming catalyst in Jack’s interuppted sucide attempt. Who does Kate have to get back too? Sawyer?
6. WHERE NOW?:
Where is Season 4 going to begin? Back on the island as they are rescued or not. Is the whole Jack flashforward a red herring, the show will return to the island and they will do battle with whoever is coming. Will that only be step forward toward the real rescue team coming later. Actually after all that do we want to see them get saved if that is what it is going to do to Jack. It pains me to see our hero the way he is after time on the island.


Did I miss anything? Probably. But isn’t that what rewatching the episode is for.

Blog Resurrected: The Death of Mars

Phew.. okay it's been over 6 months since I posted last on here. And now as I can't get on my Flixster pages at work, blocked by websense, whatever. Maybe i'll go back to posting movie reviews on here first.

It seems it is official Veronica Mars has been killed by the CW. And they didn't make it quick and painless did they? Now this was a long drawn out death rattle. The network has succeded in destroying one of the best shows on TV by mis-representing it. The only reason it did as well as it did was through word of mouth. Even I was skeptical at first, but hearing good things from friends me and the wife rented the first season and got hooked.

Based on commercials during the show and promos that run for episodes the CW was aiming the show at a younger audience, these tweens are the ones who aren't going to the get the hilarious pop culture references that litter Veronica's mythos, especially the Big Lebowksi. A movie, that like Veronica Mars is a homage to the great noir works by writers Chandler.

We can only hope enough of a fuss is raised that like Family Guy on FOX someone will realise the error of their ways and bring back this great show.

VIDEO GAMES: PS3 launches and insanity reigns

I don't see why Sony couldn't have priced their system at $1000 to begin with, at the current $600 price tage they are losing over $200 per unit. The only people making money are the asses who are selling thwe systems on ebay, currently getting twice the price of what they paid. But that doesn't say much for the idiots who are willing to fork out the extra dough to pay for them.

It has been reported that alot more people were just buying the PS3 so that they could make money reselling it. Where as it looks as though the Wii, which didn't completely sell out at all locations until late Sunday, is going to gamers. Well it is less profitable currently only making $200 over it's shelf price.

Just wait until the storm dies down. It is going to be near impossible to get hold of a PS3 before Xmas. Sony just aren't releasing enough systems, they've pushed out only 400,000 compared to 1 million Wiis in the marketplace. And Nintendo hope to make a push upto the holiday with another million or so reaching users.

Or you could just wait five years, when the Ps3, like the PS2 now, will be just getting into it's stride and that is when they will release the next-next-gen systems.

TV: What I am watching... PART 2

WEDNESDAY NIGHTS
Lost (ABC) Season 3 - Well I guess I won't really be watching this until next year but the island left us with a suitable enough cliffhanger. As Jack holds Ben hostage on the operating table to secure the release of Kate and Sawyer, but unbeknownest to him that they are all stranded on a seperate isle.

Bones (FOX) Season 2 - Although not a show on the same level as Lost, Heroes, Veronica Mars and Desperate Housewives what this show succeeds in is the enjoyment of watching it's characters interact. The writing is always top notch, it'll never blow you away but also you'll never be disappointed.

Jericho (CBS) NEW SHOW - Along with Heroes here is another show providing a hugh concept serialised drama as the population of a small mid-west are isolated in the midst or a possible nuclear war.
It's good to see Skeet Ulrich getting work and he is a more than capable lead in a story that has plenty of ongoing mystery and drama.

Medium (NBC) Season 3 - Returning just last night after a extended hiatus to allow the broadcast of other new, but generally alot worse, shows. It was a typically strong episode and a great premiere. I liked the way it was giving more screen time to the other supporting characters giving them more depth.

The Nine (ABC) NEW SHOW - The hostages from a botched bank robbery find that they lives are forever changed as they have to deal with what happened to them. A clever use of revealing flashbacks, a little piece of the ordeal is revealed at a time as a driving force for events in each episode. I just think ABC maybe asking too much of their audience by putting right after Lost, as both shows require alot of attention and emmotion. I hope this show can stick around.

NOTE: I would have also been watching Day Break on ABC but my DVR screwed up and never recorded it.

TV: What I am watching... PART 1

Well here we are running into the November sweeps and all the new shows are falling in to line. But what am I watching this year?

MONDAY NIGHTS
Prison Break (FOX) Season 2 - Last year this was a show that had me wondering where they could go with it once they get past the actual breaking out of prison. Well after the disappointing finale which left me with a bad taste in my mouth the second season has picked up alot of the slack, offering the gutwrenching cliffhangers which the first season lived on. Introducing new characters whilst finishing off some familiar faces.
Now we are a couple of weeks away from the forced Fall finale (show returns next March), the Burrows brothers are without their money that they planned to have and are know being tracked by a drug taking Marshall (William Fitchner). It is still hard to see how FOX are going to keep the twists coming, but they have managed it for over 5 years on 24. So let us enjoy the ride for now.

Heroes (NBC) NEW SHOW - A show that is quickly closing in on Lost for the amount of weekly anticipation that it causes in me. My inner, and outer, geek are loving every minute of this great new serialised drama. My initial fears that the theme of the show would lose alot of the audience have been allayed as the show is getting the best ratings of any new show on TV this year.
But even if you aren't a comic book reader this show has enough drama and character to involve you.

Also on Mondays: How I Met Your Mother (CBS) - In it's second season and still very funny.

TUESDAY NIGHTS
Veronica Mars (CW) 3rd season - Gotta love me some Veronica. Now that I've kind of gotten over the horrific changes to the title music and credits this new season has picked up well. The move away from the location of Neptune High to the college reminds me of Buffy's move over. It gives the show a slightly different which at first was unnerving but it has grown on me.
The shame of the whole thing is that in ratings so far this year VM is only beating one or two shows on it's own network. Which could spell trouble come the next season when they'll want to run a few new shows. I just can't understand with the talent and writing behind this show as why it remains largely unwatched. It is just a travesty.

VIDEO GAMES: Rock returns and the gaming of tomorrow now.

The pinnacle of rhythm games has returned this past week. Guitar Hero 2 is in my hands and it is totally rockin'. Red Octane have up the ante this time round with a massive 40 licensed songs and another 15 independent tracks to strum through. And for those people who managed to master the game on the Hard and Expert levels it seems they have upped the difficulty too.

Unfortunately I am not in the number who can play on Hard or even come close to expert. I shredded through the game on Medium, now I am looking for those elusive 100% notes hit. I really have to practice my hammer-ons and pull-offs to master those quicker sections.

Now looking forward to the future and the next-gen consoles. It looks like I am leaning in the direction of getting a Wii, with a price tag 50% of the one on the PS3, it may be the way to go in the meantime until the price drops on the other. Where as the PS3 is about adult gaming the Wii is going to emphasis family gaming.

If the potential is properly harnessed by video games makers Nintendo, with a less powerful system, could be showing the way to go. Getting the player to immerse themself in the game using body movements, you swing the control like a sword your character in the game could be swinging their sword. The possibilities are endless.

One game that has me excited is Trauma Center: Second Opinion, think operation without the buzzer and using the Wii-mote to control the doctor's hands are you operate on patients in a hospital ER.

But then I do see those gorguous screenshots of the PS3 in action and I can help but think what would I be missing.... We'll see what 2007 brings.

VIDEO GAMES: Is that you or is someone strangling the cat?

In a couple of weeks a PS2 game will hit stateside that on the other side of the Atlantic has spawned five sequels. It is game that doesn't require that you be a gaming wiz, all you need is a sense of fun and a set of vocal chords.

SingStar Rocks! is it's name, and it plays much like the Karaoke Revolution series from Konami in that you have to sing in key to rack up the points.

What SingStar excels at is the fact it has fully licensed tracks, which no more second rate re-recordings of the classics. Not that KR's backups were bad, just for some you could tell the difference. Also it has the addition of each song playing it's original video in the background as you play. Plus the fact that for the same price as a KR game you will get Singstar with not one but two microphones.

What has me most exicted about this game is the song selection. More my style than the KR games have been as of yet. Here is the song list, I have bolded my personal picks to sing:

Girls & Boys - Good Charlotte
Take Your Mama - Scissor Sisters
Every Breath You Take - The Police
Banquet - Bloc Party
Song 2 - Blur
Speed Of Sound - Coldplay
Celebrity Skin - Hole
Are You Gonna Be My Girl? - Jet
Everything's Changing - Keane
Black Horse And The Cherry Tree - KT Tunstall
Wind Of Change - Scorpions
Hate To Say I Told You So - The Hives
Somebody Told Me - The Killers
Self-Esteem - The Offspring
Paint It Black - The Rolling Stones
The Boys Are Back in Town - Thin Lizzy
I Will Survive - I Will Survive
Respect - Aretha Franklin
Love Shack - B52s
Summertime - DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince
Son Of A Preacher Man - Dusty Springfield
Rocket Man - Elton John
Dance, Dance - Fall Out Boy
Cool - Gwen Stefani
Super Duper Love (Are You Diggin On Me?) - Joss Stone
Sweet Home Alabama - Lynyrd Skynyrd
I Heard It Through The Grapevine - Marvin Gaye
(There's) Always Something There To Remind Me - Naked Eyes
Friday I'm in Love - The Cure
Blue Orchid - The White Stripes

Sony are making the PS2 release of SingStar a test run for the full blown PS3 version. Which they claim will have a downloaded able song market, making song choice possibly unlimited.

It seems this year and for the Xmas rush SingStar will be getting the jump on the delayed Karaoke Revolution: American Idol. Even though it has a longer song list it just seems to lacking that rocking punch that SingStar looks to deliver.
Check out the song list:

All My Life - K-Ci and JoJo
Alone - Heart
Always Something There To Remind Me - Naked Eyes
Be Without You - Mary J. Blige
Breakaway - Kelly Clarkson
Build Me Up Buttercup - The Foundations
Can't Help Falling In Love - Elvis Presley
Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Queen
Dilemma - Nelly & Kelly Rowland
Do I Make You Proud - Taylor Hicks
Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me - Elton John
Don't You Want Me - The Human League
Easy - Commodores
Every Rose Has It's Thorn - Poison
Flying Without Wings - Ruben Studdard
Heartbreaker - Pat Benatar
Heaven - Bryan Adams
Hungry Like The Wolf - Duran Duran
If You Don't Know Me By Now - Simply Red
It's Not Unusual - Tom Jones
Just The Way You Are - Billy Joel
Let's Stay Together - Al Green
Love Will Keep Us Together - Captain & Tennille
More Than Words - Extreme
Photograph - Nickelback
Piano Man - Billy Joel
Proud Mary - Tina Turner
Rock With You - Michael Jackson
Saving All My Love For You - Whitney Houston
She Bangs - Ricky Martin
Stand By Me - Ben E. King
Stickwitu - The Pussycat Dolls
Straight Up - Paula Abdul
Sugar We're Going Down - Fall Out Boy
The Real Thing - Bo Bice
Total Eclipse Of The Heart - Bonnie Tyler
Unwritten - Natasha Bedingfield
What A Girl Wants - Christina Aguilera
You And Me - Lifehouse
You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling - The Righteous Brothers

So instead of seeing you in that club you'll have to find me rocking out in my living room. Now only if I could hook my Guitar Hero up at the same time.

NEW TV SEASON 06/07: LOST

So here we are now 7 episodes in, and with one more left before the big break. And where exactly do we stand?

Well Jack has a decision to make, and whatever choice he makes could seem to be the right one. Does he trust Juliet? Is she lying about wanting to revolt against Ben. Well look at this way, there will be flashbacks involving Others this year. So it would stand to reason she is telling the truth and will end up on Jack's side.. but does that mean he has to kill off the show's villain.

Sawyer and Kate are still caged, with Sawyer being the only one who knows that they are not their island anymore, or are they?

Sayid returned to camp after having their boat stolen, no sign of Jin or Sun in episode 7, and he doesn't really mention anything other than saying he just got back. I suppose we are just meant to assume he told Locke and the rest what happened on the trek through the jungle.

Eko has sadly been lost to the island. Another sacrifice. Also another one proceeded by visions. Note how Dave tried to get Hurley to kill himself and when Jack saw his father in the first season he almost fell off a cliff too. It seems that the monster can take forms to play mind games on people. Jack's father, Dave, Eko's brother and even Kate's horse.

Do you think critics even watch the show anymore? As this morning in the USA today William Keck writes an small sidebar on the loss of Eko and mentions that he is the last of the tailes to die. Wrong. What happened to Bernard and Rose?

Now we have the new mysterious one-eyed man hiding in possibly the unseen Flame station. The buzz is that he is played by Andrew Divoff (Wishmaster), who also had a couple of guest stars on Alias.

We only found out about him thanks to the quick thinking of new lostie Nikki. Her and Paulo right now only seem to function as a form of narrative, they haven't done much so they have to keep asking questions thus keeping new audiences clued in on what is happening. The writers better think fast about doing something interesting with them or fans are gonna hope they come to a nasty end before the end of the year. Maybe Michael can come back and just shoot them on principle, now that would redeem him.

LOST - More questions asked then answered

Are The Others naieve (sp?) or just child like? Ben/Henry said to Jack that he spent his whole life on the island, could this be true for some of the other Others. As I was surprised at Pickett's reaction to his wife's death at the hands of Sun. Honestly, what do you expect will happen when you get on their boat with guns and kidnap Losties?

Is there really another island? Or could it be the biggest con Sawyer has ever seen. Just one more thing to keep him compliant. Hopefully we'll find out before the end of the year.

Next week will mark another turning point as we are due to lose another character.

The remaining 2 episodes before the break are going to be first an Eko-centric followed by a Kate-centric. When it comes back next year on 7th Febuary we'll be treated to the first Other flashback as Juliet gets her time.

MOVIE REVIEW - A Bittersweet Life (2005 / S Korea)

aka Dalkomhan insaeng (Korean title)

Director: Ji-woon Kim
Starring: Byung-hun Lee, Min-a Shin, Jeong-min Hwang, Kim Young-Chul

Revenge tales are nothing new to Korean cinema so with every new one the creators have to look to ways of injecting something fresh into a genre that could go stale very fast. With A Bittersweet Life it can be safely said that Ji-woon Kim is more than capable of doing that.

The source of the film's vengeance is Sun-woo (Byung-hun), he by outward appearance is neatly presented hotel manager but as we find out in the opening few minutes he is a deadly and seemingly emmotionless enforcer. When his boss, President Kang (Young-chul), asks him to keep a eye on his girlfriend Hee-soo (Min-a) to see if she is being faithful to him alos telling him if she is cheating that he must kill her and her lover. But all this does not go to plan as Sun-woo's feelings get in the way of his job and his loyalty to his boss, now he has to deal with the repercussions of his actions.

Firstly let it be said that on screen the city of Seoul is striking in it's outward cleanliness and beauty whilst under the surface seems to be a vicious underworld. It works as a match to the character of Sun-woo who is clean cut and smart in his business but underneath the sharp veneer is a potential for violence which when unleashed becomes an unstoppable machine.

I loved how the story didn't try to pretend to be anything more than a revenge tale, the plots moves along in a linear fashion, thankfully avoiding alot of the cliches or potential twists. It is enjoyable in it's simplicity. Yes you can tell where the story is going and to what ends it may bring, but in the case of this film is completely satisfying. I suppose it could be equated with going to a restaurant, ordering great food, getting what you wanted and it tasting just as you expected.

Although having said that the final shot of the film does suggest something but you can take it as you want. As with most Korean or other eastern movies it sows seeds for discussion and gives the viewer more of a choice in deceiding what they have just seen.

Visually, like the story, it is simple, stark yet rich and easy on the eye. When the blood does flow, and it flows alot, it is bold and in your face. The fight scenes are fantastic especially the final shoot out in the hotel restaurant. The acting is equally good Byung-hun Lee makes Sun-woo a believeable, likable guy through all his violent outbursts and his chemistry with his unrequited love Hee-soo is great.

Overall: Another winner for Korean cinema. 9/10