Posts

Showing posts with the label season

GOTHAMIZED: GOT HAM? - PODCAST

Image
Gothamized  is a completely unofficial guide to new series  Gotham  and a debate arena for all things Batman. CLICK HERE TO PLAY THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE In this 22nd episode, we discuss the  Gotham finale, Matthew McConaughey, Suicide Squad set pics, Mesopotamia and we take a quiz. (for my written review of the Gotham Pilot,  click here! ) Hope you enjoy it! You can also find us on podcast  The Big Rewind  (available on iTunes, Stitcher and Player FM) and send us emails with your Bat-questions, Six Degrees challenges and riddles here:  gothamized@gmail.com (for the pilot episode  CLICK HERE )

24: LIVE ANOTHER DAY - REVIEW

Image
Jack Bauer is back and, this time, he's got 12 hours to not let London explode at the hands of some very bad people. Yes, 24: Live Another Day doesn't exactly stay true 100% to the whole 24 hours thing. Well, it does by fast forwarding to 12 hours later right at the end I guess, but, right off the bat, with a different setting and a different time scale to work with, this was set to be a rather unique season of the long-running show. This time, the big threat is an override which allows anyone to control weaponised drones and this terrorist's widow Margot Al-Harazi (Michelle Fairley) is planning to use it on London if the US President (William Devane's James Heller) doesn't give himself up. It's a promising idea and those first six episodes do a really good job of building up that threat and delivering some kickass moments including the dramatic death of a major character (kinda), a full-on chase in which Jack Bauer (the ever enjoyable Kiefer Sutherland) h

HEROES: SEASON 2 - REVIEW

Image
After the way Season 1 left things (messy), you could forgive this follow-up season to struggle for a bit before fixing things and getting started. Unfortunately, Season 2's brand new ideas fail to rise above what the whole season is essentially about: filling up those plotholes. Ironically, in the process, new plotholes are introduced and the new stuff mostly fails to gel convincingly with the old stuff to the point where a lot of episodes bring something up that's quite interesting only to cover it all up by the end of it. Take the whole Harvey Two-Face Nathan Petrelli thing, or the potential death of Noah Bennet as foreseen in one of Isaac Mendez's lost paintings, or even Mohinder possibly turning to the dark side: all subplots with potential but none of them really know where they're going and none of them really delivers. Like Season 1, this is very much a season of two halves. Except here it's much shorter. For one half we're mostly concerned with

HEROES: SEASON 1 - REVIEW

Image
Going through this first season of Heroes sure brought back memories... I remember thinking that was one hell of a show, unlike anything else I'd seen and admiring how fresh, bold and new it all was. To a certain extent, this still sticks. Heroes did jump on the bandwagon of growing superhero movies early making it very much of its time. Since then, we've had grittier, smarter comic book movies and edgier sci-fi series ( Fringe anyone?) so looking back, Heroes almost feels like a kids' show... with the occasional bit of gore, of course. I mean, it's still kinda edgy but in a cute oh-let's-not-go-too-far-with-it type of way, it's restrained but still goes a long way to make this at least a bit more adult-friendly once in a while. Without Sylar, Zachary Quinto's cartoon villain, going around slicing people's heads off, Heroes would be the show Marvel would produce if Marvel was run by your grandfather's dad. The plot sees a group of 'spe

TRUE BLOOD: SEASON 1 - REVIEW

Image
It's crazy to think that True Blood came out the same year as Twilight . It's just nuts. I mean, Twilight is the bad Disney movie take on vampire lore! True Blood is just... Good. The show sees that modernized Twilightness and gives it a very welcome, and very clever, tongue-in-cheek anything-goes rock-n-roll attitude combined with an effortless Near Dark cool you certainly haven't seen in a while when it comes to vamp flicks/series. The first season takes a familiar route with random murders being committed by a mysterious killer, typical TV plot ( Twin Peaks , anyone?), the whole thing being a whodunit that just happens to also be about vampires and a whole hidden world humans have no idea about. The show is set in a time where humans and vampires have learned to live side by side with vampires settling on a blood substitute, a drink conveniently called "Tru Blood", but obviously unspoken tensions between both still exist. As the season goes on, wh

24: SEASON 1 - REVIEW

Image
I know, I'm like 100 years late. But I'm The "Retro" Critic! :P I remember catching a glimpse of this iconic show back in the day and actually finding it pretty entertaining. Sadly, I hadn't followed the thread from the very beginning so it felt like catching the season about halfway through would be a bit of a waste. I decided to wait until I could check it out on DVD. 10 years later... Well I finally made it, that's the main thing, right? So was it worth the wait? What do I make of this very first season? It's good. I thought it would be quite good and it was. Basically I'm rarely taken by a cop-themed series unless you've got a mad scientist in there ( Fringe ), evil twins ( Alias ) or... Columbo ( Columbo ). But 24 did a hell of a good job keeping me entertained throughout and making me care about MOST of what was going on. Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer is a hard one to dislike and is pretty much the glue holding the whole sho

ALIAS: SEASON 1 - REVIEW

Image
I resisted. Honestly I did. Before watching Alias I only knew it involved some girl running around corridors with wigs and I refused to believe there was anything more to it than that. I refused to allow myself to like it. To be fair, there is a LOT of Jennifer Garner running around in wigs down corridors. That's like a given for any episode: that WILL happen. Accept it now and you'll feel better about it very quickly. So what is Alias? And how can I even begin to explain without spoiling the whole thing for you guys? Lets just say it's a European-style spy thriller series created by Lost / Fringe maestro J.J. Abrams with a terrific cast of characters, some of the best twists and cliffhangers you'll find in any show, a kinda supernatural underbelly (so good) and one of the all time great TV villains. Being an early noughties thing, expect the odd shitty pop song, copious amounts of techno music and Brosnan-era Bond-style technology. Season 1 is quick to get

JACK BRISTOW: HAT DENIER - ALIAS

Image

TWIN PEAKS SEASON 1 - REVIEW

Image
I remember first hearing that David Lynch had made a TV series. It was crazy clown time. I couldn't wait to check it out. So here we are, 2011, and finally I have allowed myself to sit through the whole first season of Twin Peaks . Was it worth the wait? Oh yes. That Twin Peaks only lasted two seasons is both shocking and unsurprising. Sure it was great but how long could a soap opera satire about dreams, lumber... oh and one little murder last for longer than more accessible shows like Sabrina The Teenage Witch ? Oh 90's, you complicated mistress you... The Twin Peaks Pilot episode gets the show on the road in a dramatic yet positively gloomy way with Kyle McLachlan's jolly detective, strong contender for best guy ever, only popping by about halfway through. The show revolves around the murder of high school student Laura Palmer, it's a whodunit where the usual CSI rules do not apply. It's a show in which birds, coconuts and logs often hold more eviden

LOST SEASON 3 - REVIEW

Image
Now this is what I'm talking about! After a frankly dull first season and an uneven (if promising) second here we finally have a focused, genuinely well-made, wholly entertaining season which benefits from being a little darker and a little less all about that boring old beach we've grown so accustomed to! It's an island. There's sand. We get it. Again, a lot of the wrongs of season 1 are put right and now the show finally finds itself with not only a great villain, dodgy "Other" leader Benjamin Linus, but interesting main characters you actually do care about (...and Kate). Everyone's backstories are fleshed out a bit more and interlinked with each other in clever ways, characters face real conflicts and have an immediate purpose. This time, these guys are shown no mercy. Long gone are the days when Charlie would worry about peanut butter, long gone are the boring "lets-all-sit-around!" episodes: no, this is the season where the smo

LOST SEASON 2 - REVIEW

Image
Those familiar with my less-than-glowing review of Lost's first season already know my stance on that snooze fest. Whoop-dee-freakin'-doo! We're looking down a hole! That was TOTALLY worth a million episodes! Grrrr... Anyway, onto Season 2 and, you know what? I have to hand it to the show: it learns from its mistakes. A heck of a lot of my criticisms are tended to in a superior second season which not only has an awesome subplot (which amazingly does deliver!) and things actually happening (almost) every episode but it introduces two of the show's best ever characters and disposes of some unwelcome cast members. It all begins in the "hatch" found at the end of the first season and although not nearly enough is done with the whole subplot that goes with it, it provides a new equilibrium for our colorful crew of troubled assholes with good hearts to struggle with. A lot of time is spent introducing the Anna-Lucia character, played by notorious tough-co

THE BEN LINUS GLITCH 2

Image

THE BEN LINUS GLITCH

Image

SEASON OF THE WITCH - REVIEW

Image
Oddball genius Nic Cage returns with yet another supernatural effort and although we're not getting the delightfully madcap Cage of Bad Lieutenant or Vampire's Kiss , this is restrained but silly NC. Always entertaining. He stars alongside Ron Perlman in this adventure which sees both knights/crusaders escort a witch to some castle. From the offset we get bad hair, silly helmets, dumb one-liners, American accents and epic slo-mo: all the ingredients of a true epic fail. And yet, from the genuinely very good opening sequence, this is a really fun ride from start to finish.  In what other film can you see Ron Perlman headbutting a demon repeatedly in the face? Well, perhaps Hellboy... But still, it's awesome! The whole thing feels very Hammer from the start and this feeling is confirmed when Christopher Lee himself shows up for a creepy but effective cameo. Everyone seems to be having a ball and although the ending relies way too much on CGI, it's well wor