Joss Whedon is by far one of the greatest television writers of all time. The genius behind the acclaimed  Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as the movie Serenity and the brand new series on Fox called Dollhouse. Which is starting to kick serious ass as the season progresses.

Whedon has this incredible ability to create characters that viewers actually care about.  I can hardly think of a character on his show that I didn’t like, or at least respect the creepiness of.  This being said, Joss Whedon also has a tendency to put his characters through the emotional wringer, and death is more often than not a very large part of the story ending.

Spoilers for all of his various shows/movies/etc below.

Read more

Along with all the perks of Easter — Easter egg hunts, free chocolate, half price Indian buffets — comes the most delightful moment of all. Watching the Doctor Who Easter special! Technically, it came out Saturday night, but for everyone in America, it’s probably up today.  Spoilers for all of Doctor Who are fair game, plus theories about the upcoming few episodes. Brace yourself.

Read more

Let’s face it – pretty much the whole world has a crush on Nathan Fillion. And if they don’t, they really should. He crashed onto the television scene as the lovable, badass-arific Captain Malcom Reynolds on the amazing (but sadly cancelled) show Firefly. Since then, he’s done a few movies that didn’t do too well and an odd TV show themed after The Amazing Race, lamely named Drive. Oh! And Joss Whedon’s amazing short web series Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog. That too.

But now he’s back! And awesome! He’s in a new show called Castle, which airs Monday night’s at 9c on ABC (so all of those like me who don’t have cable can watch it!)

Read more

The Sci Fi channel announced this week that they would be changing their name to “SyFy.” The change was made because the channel is attempting to make themselves sleeker, and less geeky. Apparently the name “Sci Fi” conjured up images of 30 year old men, living in their parents’ basements, eating Doritos and watching endless reruns of Next Gen.

Frankly, the channel has been spiralling down for a while now. Ever since Monday night wrestling moved in and the weekends becamse a stream of Sci Fi Channel Original Movies (gag), there is hardly anything worth watching, especailly now that Battlestar Galactica is ending. Still, I don’t see the need to bring in a brand new name. They won’t add super models and important business people into their viewership just by changing the name. It’s the Sci Fi channel for a reason - it plays science fiction shows. And who watches sci fi shows? Nerds.

Stupid marketing division.

There seems to be a trend emerging.  More often in television we’re finding protagonists that seem to have preternatural awareness of their environments.  I’m thinking specifically of characters like Dr. Gregory House from House.  The trend continues in Dr. Cal Lightman of the new FOX series Lie to Me.  Whereas House’s skills lie in medical diagnosis, Dr. Lightman has extensively studied body language and facial expression, which enables him to very accurately determine the emotion that an individual is feeling, and also if they are being deceptive.  He’s a human lie detector, basically.  The science is certainly interesting, and Tim Roth cuts a mean form on the screen, but can the show hold up over the course of a season?

Read more

I figured out how to use torrents yesterday, and managed to score the last 10 minutes of Blood on the Scales. I felt a revised review needed to be given. Events and characters unfolded in a way I did not expect, and they definitely deserve another look.

All under the cut, so as not to spoil.

Read more

Thanks to a saint who posted the episodes on Youtube, I have finally caught up with Battlestar Galactica. (Almost. I am missing the last ten minutes of “Blood on the Scales.”) I have to admit, I was getting a little worried about the final ten episodes, thinking they couldn’t do the rest of the series justice. There are so many loose ends to tie up, so many plot points to reckon with. So far though, I am LOVING IT.

Spoilers below the cut. You have been warned.

Read more

As an avid reader, I have read all sorts of novels: books that made me laugh, cry, hide under the covers and put the book in the freezer, and inevitably cringe at how terrible the writing is. I’ve read plenty of excellent books, books I wanted to read over and over. The Harry Potter series, despite its atrocious epilogue, I’ve adored beyond belief.  I never thought I would find a book that would surpase the HP as #1 in my heart.

Then I read Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind, and my preconceived notions of good literature were blown out of the water.

Read more

Tomorrow night starts the final episodes of the epic science fiction series, Battlestar Galactica. (Technically a remake of an old show from 1978, but that sucked so hardcore, its hardly worth mentioning.)  4 years have led us up to this moment. Thanks to the shitty internet of Europe, I get to enjoy this masterpiece on YouTube. But for the rest of you, glue yourselves to the Sci Fi channel at 10/9c, and prepare to have your minds blown.

Never seen the series? (You fail.) Redeem yourself!
A highly entertaining recap of the first three seasons.
YOU WILL BE SPOILED.
Read more

If you go back and examine the entertainment narratives from the past century, it’s always fairly easy to determine who is the bad guy and who is the good guy. They were necessary niches that a story needed to have filled. There’s that old adage in the comics about how heroes are defined by their villains. The stalwart hero needed a blackly dressed villain, perhaps with a wickedly-curving mustache or an aptitude for evil science. At the very least, it had been common practice to give a protagonist a clear antagonist. This is one of the first things you’ll learn in a fiction writing class; both are necessary.

And it seems like, in the past decade or more, this notion of clearly-demarcated good and evil has begun to blur a little.

Read more