A short break from DVDs in review to do two things.

First of all I'd like to salute David Simon for creating The Wire and raising the bar for televisual excellence everywhere. The show has solidly set itself as the top of the premiere TV league. David, I doubt you'll ever read this but I want to thank you here for bringing so much joy into my life. I already miss The Wire and it's only been finished a short time.

Second part is I'm working through lists of shows and seeing which ones I've seen. Here's the list of the Top 100 Best TV Shows as listed by Time

I've marked in red the ones I've seen, White the ones I really want to see, yellow the ones I never want to see and I've commented here and there in itallics.

* The Abbott and Costello Show
* ABC's Wide World of Sports
* Alfred Hitchcock Presents
* All in the Family
* An American Family
* American Idol
* Arrested Development
* Battlestar Galactica
* The Beavis and Butt-Head Show
* The Bob Newhart Show
* Brideshead Revisited
* Buffalo Bill
* Buffy the Vampire Slayer
* The Carol Burnett Show
* The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite
* A Charlie Brown Christmas
* Cheers
* The Cosby Show
* The Daily Show
* Dallas
* The Day After
* Deadwood
* The Dick Van Dyke Show
* Dragnet (I watched the film, does that count? NO!)
* The Ed Sullivan Show
* The Ernie Kovacs Show
* Felicity
* Freaks and Geeks
* The French Chef
* Friends
* General Hospital
* The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show
* Gilmore Girls
* Gunsmoke
* Hill Street Blues
* Homicide: Life on the Street
* The Honeymooners
* I, Claudius
* I Love Lucy
* King of the Hill
* The Larry Sanders Show
* Late Night with David Letterman (NBC) (I want to see this live)
* Leave It to Beaver
* Lost (And now it sucks!)
* Married... With Children
* Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman
* The Mary Tyler Moore Show
* M*A*S*H
* The Monkees
* Monty Python's Flying Circus
* Moonlighting
* MTV 1981-1992
* My So-Called Life
* Mystery Science Theater 3000
* The Odd Couple
* The Office [American]
* The Office [British]
* The Oprah Winfrey Show (Really not fussed on her tbh)
* Pee Wee's Playhouse
* Playhouse 90
* The Price Is Right (I have watched the UK Version though)
* Prime Suspect
* The Prisoner
* The Real World
* Rocky and His Friends
* Roots
* Roseanne
* Sanford and Son
* Saturday Night Live
* Second City Television
* See It Now
* Seinfeld
* Sesame Street
* Sex and the City
* The Shield
* The Simpsons
* The Singing Detective
* Six Feet Under
* 60 Minutes
* Soap
* The Sopranos
* South Park
* SpongeBob SquarePants
* SportsCenter
* Star Trek
* St. Elsewhere
* The Super Bowl (and the Ads)
* Survivor
* Taxi
* The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
* 24 (Really not impressed with anything from Season 3 onwards, Once I heard Tony died I stopped bothering)
* The Twilight Zone
* Twin Peaks
* The West Wing
* What's My Line?
* WKRP in Cincinnati
* The Wire (Of course)
* Wiseguy
* The X-Files
* Your Show of Shows

Not bad, a lot of these shows are exceptionally American or quite old, so there are difficulties in watching them. But I haven't done too badly there - 36/100.

Sometime I'll do the tv.com one.
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Today it's the turn of a British Cult Classic Comedy.


(I've decided to move the Show section to the front, as that makes more sense.)

Spaced is one of those shows that just screams cult classic. It's witty, innovative, has masses of affection for pop culture and it launched Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Nick Frost into the movie Block buster stars that they've become. You can see much of the work that later influenced their movies, in particular there is a scene which directly spawned 'Shaun of the Dead'.

Spaced is essentially a plotless examination of modern life, it's somewhat meaningless and it goes nowhere. But that simply doesn't matter, it's brilliantly written comedy that turns the mundane into something special. Without Spaced we wouldn't have gotten The Green Wing.



The Complete series comes in a simple 3 page fold out book. Each series is placed on one of the DVDs and the third DVD contains some extra material, including a documentry about the show that kind of provides closure for the devoted viewer. It has some excellent art, the box cover can be seen above (an excellent spoof of Star Wars)

It does everything you'd want it too, looks nice and doesn't take up much space on the shelf. The only way it could be better is if it was the same height as a CD case. But that's just the weird convention that DVD makers have decided to use.


Spaced has a lot of extras, there are extras on each DVD. Including Out-takes, commentaries, deleted scenes, raw footage, photo galleries, 'Spaced Jam' (just watch it and cast & crew biographies.

But the real star is the 'Homage-O-meter' setting, which puts a series of captions at the bottom of the show everytime something pop culture is referenced. Including what it is referencing and where it is from. This brought about the a particually amusing drinking game here - where you drink everytime the Homage-O-Meter references something. Due to the quantity of references in some scence this can be a complete killer.




Spaced - The 3 Disc Collectors' Edition will set you back, well... not a lot. You can get it for between £10 and £20. Play.com right now have it up for only £9.99! You get 343 minutes - which about 5h and 45 mins. Short I know, but that's what happens when you have a British show that's only about 20min per episode. Of course because it's so cheap this really works out well for the show. It works out at just under 3p per minute. Not bad at all.



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Arrested Development is the best comedy show to ever get cancelled. Probably the best comedy show of the past ten years. Time for it's DVDs to get assessed..

Arrested Development's packaging isn't really anything that special, the first two seasons come with a cardboard dust sleeve and inside the main box is plastic with the middle cd flip thing so it can hold all 4 DVDs. The first season's box has a decent sized booklet that contains all the episodes and also has a nice large backdrop image on the reverse side of the slip. The second season has less of this and it's clear that Fox decided to spend less, quell surprise there eh?
The Third season is even worse off, the season was cut short so it fits onto just two DVDs and the packaging is really skimped on. It's almost suprising that Fox bothered to release the DVD at all.


Happily the features section of each DVD is not so badly treated. This is where the creators and cast had the opportunity to take control and the quality starts to shine. We're treated to an extended pilot episode, selected episodes with audio commentaries, behind the scenes featurettes, bloopers, Ron Howard's inside look, deleted scenes, original songs and the featurette showing the last day of on location filming.
The commentary isn't bad. It's not up to the standard that Futurama set, but it's still interesting enough to warrant a listen.


Arrested Development is one of those shows. What do I mean by that? It's one of the best shows you've probably never seen (Along with gems like The Wire). I still don't quite understand how it failed and why it was so badly treated by Fox. It's one of the premium examples of quality comedy, I'd hold it up alongside Fawlty Towers at times - it's that damn good. It's simply the funniest thing I've watched ever. But yet hardly anyone has watched it and people still haven't twigged about how good it is.
I find it incredibly frustrating to constantly find people looking blank when I talk about the show. I can understand why not everyone watches The Wire, it's a hard show to get into and it's a little too real and intelligent for many people who want asinine rubbish like CSI drip-fed into their brains instead. But Arrested Development is accessable to all while remaining intelligent enough that you can still be discovering new jokes on the 3rd or 4th watching of it all. The sheer quantity of call-backs and even better call-forwards that this show uses is incredible, it has incredible continuity and subtle jokes are all over the place.

Plus, how can you not love a show that has a character who uses this as his business card to advertise his training as a therapist and an analysist?

Yes, that's right. It does indeed have this card shown in the show.

The show is so good I'm giving it a bonus point for being that brilliant. Specifically for the Season 2 jokes involving Buster, his mother and an animal (avoiding spoilers there as much as possible).


Sadly, it ain't cheap to get this show. Outside of dropped sale prices you're looking at £28 per season for a grand total of £86. You get 53 episodes for that price because once again Fox screwed over the show and shorted their second and third season run lengths. F***ing criminal.

The total running time is just over 19 hours which sadly works out at 7.5p per minute. Which is massive compared to the previous scores (5p, 5p and 2p). While every minute is total quality and it's worth paying this price, I can't score it higher than a seven and if I'm honest it deserves the following score...


The problem here is the show is amazing and well worth getting. But Fox have treated it like total s**t at every opportunity. Even when producing the DVDs they still feel a need to stiff the loyal viewer and try and screw them over.
I wish HBO had aired Arrested Development, they understand quality programming.


Note: It's not the fault of the creators of this fine show that it's scored only 77.5%, it's Fox that have managed to drive the score down. Maybe they'll wise up and release a nice smart "Complete Series" box for about £60 and then I can revisit the scores for Price + Packaging and give this show the score it really deserves. Because I feel ashamed at myself for scoring this one so low.

In fact it leaves me feeling:

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My father twigged me onto Skins. He thinks it's utterly brilliant, while he has a strange dislike of American comedies (He'll watch American Sci-Fi no issues...) and as such won't watch Arrested Development... He does have good taste in television, so when I saw the complete series for $24 I thought "Why not?"

Skins comes in the plastic book form packaging. It's a two page book, with a pair of the DVDs on one side and the third one on the other, this comes in the now standard cardboard dust-sleeve. At first I was a little confused by the presence of three DVDs, but once I watched the 3rd DVD I understood why it had 3 instead of 2. It takes up a minimal amount of space on the shelf and is pretty nice to look at. The box art is functional and gives you a good idea of what to expect. Other shows should take note as this a very well put together piece of packaging.


On a side note, which is not related directly to Skins itself. I still don't understand why manufacturers of DVDs feel the need to use such long boxes. They really should switch to CD case sized boxes, especially for films which normally use a single dvd. This would decrease the amount of space a DVD takes up on a shelving unit and allow for more shelves to be used.

At first I wasn't that impressed with the special features on the Skins DVDs, the first two discs are lacking in any such things. They contain only the episodes and subtitles. But that's because the DVD designers decided to place all the special features onto the the third DVD. There are plenty of the usual options here, but the most impressive section is called Ancillary Stories and is essentially deleted scenes that have been edited up and put together then broadcast online. They fit into the main stories very well and if you pay attention to the main episodes you can see the points where they join up. Top stuff.


Skins is essentially a British comedy drama about teens in college. It stars Nicholas Hoult (from about a boy) as Tom, who's supposed to be the desirable & likeable but nasty lad. My first words when I saw him on screen were "Didn't he turn out ugly?" So that made it pretty difficult to swallow how he was supposed to be this heart throb. But I suspended disbelief and carried on.
Of course, the real star of the show is Mike Bailey in the role of Sid, who very much reminded me of Adrian Mole or the lead character in the TV version of "Teenage Health Freak" (whos name escapes me completely). He's very sympathetic, I guess more so for me because he reminds me of me (even if he looks and dresses like my brother).
The show is very much an Ensemble show in nature, with each episode focusing on the problems of one character in close detail. This brings a great deal of variety to the show and allows each cast member to shine in the spotlight.

The show is funny, clever and touching all at once. It reminds me of my times in late adolescence and is quite brilliant. If not as amazing as my Father makes out I still enjoyed it a lot. At some point I'll write a "Why you should watch" on this show. But this month is going to be about DVDs in review.


At £12 for the complete first series this comes out at £1.30 ish per episode, but you also get the Ancillary episodes which work out at around 1 extra episodes worth of viewing. So I'll call this £1.20 per episode which at 1 hour per episode is a very respectable 2p per minute.

That puts it as the current front runner for value (out of 3 shows so far :P) by a huge gap. As such I need to give this:




That's a pretty strong showing for this little British underdog show. The sheer value for money is a huge factor (other companies take note!). As such, I wish it much success and look forward to picking up the next season on DVD.
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The Seinfeld Seasons are identically set out between each season, the only differences being box art and the actual season featured. There are also two versions of the complete collection, one special version in a box that looks like Jerry's fridge and another more normal version. The special fridge version is nothing more than a cardboard box that looks like a fridge, it's rather disappointing tbh. But the fridge magnets that come with it are rather cool.



Each season comes in an outside sleeve, a second box slides out of this sleeve and then you slide out the dvd box out of that. Yeah, you read that right. These babies come double bagged (well boxed)! It seems a little excessive for the needs, just one of the external boxes would have done the job just fine. While it's not much extra packaging, it does mount up when spread over 7 boxes.
The internal DVD tray is quite nicely done, it includes a short pamphlet that tells you about each episode and the tray itself is a book style two page layout. So you only have to open it once to get access to each of the DVDs. This system works well for seasons that fit on 4 DVDs.
The box art is nothing spectacular (as you can see), but it does include a wide range of pictures with no duplications between seasons. It's also kept consistent between each season, there are no sudden changes in style and the only real difference between each season box is the colour of the outside border. This keeps it all looking tidy and a part of the whole.
7/10

The Seinfeld DVDs include the usual selection of features, the wonderful "Play All" button is here and the menus are rather pleasing to look at, consisting of scenes/places related to the show. Most of the usual suspects are present in the extra section, you have deleted scenes, outtakes, a smattering of commentary (but it's not as good as it could have been), featurettes and collections of Jerry's stand up work. There's literally hours of extras.

But the two stand out amazing extras are the Seinimations and the "Notes about Nothing". You can see the Seinimations in the link above, but it's the "Notes about Nothing" that are clever and unique to the Seinfeld DVDs (so far anyway). Notes about nothing are a collection of interesting facts placed like subtitles in each episode. They keep track of some statistics (like the number of relationships everyone has, how many times Kramer enters Jerry's apartment and the like), plus provide a whole range of facts about the show or related subjects linked to the show. It's like watching the show with the worlds biggest Seinfeld nerd telling you all about everything, but without being annoying. It's a brilliant feature and I often now watch the show with it turned on.
9/10 (It would be 10, but the commentary leaves a little to be desired - more people in each commentary and more episodes with commentary please!)


Seinfeld is a genuinely seminal show, it changed the face of sitcoms and altered viewer expectations. It remains a "love it or hate it" show, often provoking extreme reactions from people one way or the other. Which is a sign of how brilliant it is. Really I don't need to go on about how influencial this show is, so many parts of it have crept into popular culture and have influenced later shows.
10/10

While you can pick up the earlier seasons cheap when in sales the RPP tends to be between £28 and £35 per season. That's 7 boxes for lets say £30 each (but as I said you can get it for less), containing 180 episodes. Which works out at £1.17 per episode or 5p per minute. But, that is still comparable to Futurama and as such it's pretty reasonable. The complete collection represents an even larger saving, so it's worth taking this time.
8/10


Watching Seinfeld via the DVDs is better than watching it on television, add to it the sheer bulk of good extras and you have something that's must have for fans of the show. "Notes about Nothing" is one of the best extras on a DVD ever.

Packaging: 7
Features: 9
Show: 10
Price: 8
Overall: 85%

And to wrap up, here's one of my favourite exchanges in the show.

[Scene: Jerry has answered the phone to a telemarketer]
Jerry: This isn't a good time.
Telemarketer: When would be a good time to call back, sir?
Jerry: I have an idea, why don't you give me your home number and I'll call you back later?
Telemarketer: Umm, we're not allowed to do that.
Jerry: Oh, I guess because you don't want strangers calling you at home.
Telemarketer: Umm, no.
Jerry: Well, now you know how I feel.
[Hangs up phone]

And as a special bonus:
Here's a link to the Seinfeld Poster Challenge there are 38 images related to Seinfeld moments!
(Here are the answers for the impatient or lazy.)
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I thought I'd kick this off with a look at one of my favourite shows and as I'm watching it again right now this seems sensible.

Packaging:
Each of the four seasons of Futurama is packaged in their own season box, which consists of three or four seperate dvd cases. The whole thing comes in a cardboard box that keeps them all together tidy. Essentially you get all four individual season boxes and another box to keep them in. Really this isn't much better than buying them individually. But the Outside box has a lot of original artwork and is quite nice looking.

It's worth noting that the box is rather cumbersome, but that is mostly because I bought the older version of the Complete Collection. The newer one is considerably smaller and I find myself annoyed that they didn't use the smaller size in the first place. As such I have to keep my Futurama collection ontop of my DVD shelving rather than actually on one of the shelves.

Each individual season is a cardboard 3/4 box that the DVDs slide into, wrapped with a plastic sheath which is pretty robust. This means the season dvds can take the odd knock and do just fine when removed from the shelf/big box. Of course, individual dvd boxes, inside another box, inside a sheath and inside a box isn't the most practical way to have a complete collection. But there is original artwork on each of the boxes and the outside boxes so they are nice to look at.
8/10

Features:
Each season of Futurama has quite a lot of features to it. The first two seasons sadly are missing the "Play All" selection on the menu. This is quite an oversight, but seasons 3 + 4 do have "Play All" so it's possible later versions of Season 1 + 2 have corrected this error.

Other features include deleted scenes, draft copies, amusing single frame easter eggs (Season One are movie posters) and concept sketches. There's plenty to keep you occupied and interested if you want to look at it. The deleted scenes are quite nice.

But the crowning jewel in the features/extras section for Futurama are the commentaries. Every single episode has commentary on it including the writers, animators, composers, creators and voice actors. There are plenty of appearances from John DeMaggio and Billy West plus a few from others like Tress MacNeille, Maurice LaMarche, Phill LaMarr and even Dan Castallaneta. All of the commentaries are infomative, interesting and quite often funny. The highlights of the commentary often come from the voice artists, my favourites include "Dueling Professors" and "Dr. John Zoidberg Comments". It's some of the most enthralling commentary and it adds a whole new layer to watching the show.
9/10 (I'd give it 10 but the easter eggs aren't that interesting, where's my easter egg version of the game Fry plays in the first episode?)

Show:
Futurama is a classic show already, it remains fresh even to this day and hasn't had a truely poor moment yet. I can only identify two episodes that I'm not that keen on "A Fishfull of Dollars" and "That's Lobstertainment", but even those episodes have their great moments and remain watchable. The score I give this show is pretty much predictable. It's perfection.
10/10

Price:
Sadly you make no extra saving for purchasing the seasons together. £80 for the complete season or £20 per season. There's no benefit to grabbing the entire collection these days. You get 72 episodes for this price, each episode is approximately 20mins so you end up paying about 5p per minute of watching - just under a pound per episode. Factor in the fact that every episode has excellent commentary and the Futurama seasons are exceptional value for money. The only problem is, the complete collection doesn't really represent any additional value beyond buying each season seperately.
8/10
Overall:
If you're a fan of the show, the DVDs are must haves. The only problem with the Complete Collection is it's not really an improvement over owning the seasons seperately. The box takes up slightly more space and is impractical for atypical DVD shelving. So it's better to purchase each season seperately.

Packaging: 8 Features: 9 Show: 10 Price: 8 Overall: 87.5%
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Well I promised myself I'd come up with something to get me posting again. The TV industry certainly isn't providing much worth talking about, I would write about "The Wire" but I'm happier waiting until it finishes before I look back on the whole thing in reflection.

Instead I'm going to be reviewing the various TV DVDs that I can get my hands on. I shan't go that deeply into the shows as I'm going to be concentrating more on what you get for your money. Each DVD will be rated on the following:

Packaging:
The key points I'll be looking at are the artwork, elegance of use, robustness,

Features:
I'll be noting any extras added, commentary, easter eggs, deleted scenes and the like. Stuff that you don't really need to enjoy the DVD but sometimes it's nice to have.

Show:
The Show itself will get a short review, most of the time I'm going to be talking about shows I like so for the most part these will rate well.

Price:
Very simply I'll look at the recommended retail price and work out how much you pay per episode and minute. Then I'll use some complex equations to factor in how enjoyable the show is and it will result in a number between 1 and 10. (10 being best value possible per minute).

Then I'll put down an overall average score out of 10.
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I haven't really felt like posting recently, mostly because there has been precious little new television to watch (Torchwood, Boston Legal and the Wire) and I've also gotten behind with a few shows I like to watch - Nip/Tuck and Psych most of all.

Not really any good excuses, instead I'm going to fill the time by reviewing DVD boxed sets. I'll try and be as comprehensive as possible. Starting either tonight or tomorrow.

Until then, I just want to register my aprehension about the final few episodes of "The Wire". I don't think it ends on a happy note, I'm rather worried something very bad is going to happen to one of my favourite characters in it. We'll see, 2 weeks and it'll be over.
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I got carried away and watched all the way up to Ep 7 of the Wire (damn you internet leaks) and as such I now no longer remember which parts occured in which episodes. I must go back and watch them again so I can break each one apart and assess. But I won't do that until just before the final two episodes air.

I can say I really enjoyed Munch's cameo, that was ace. But I've enjoyed all of the cameos this season (characters from previous seasons). Fingers crossed that Bunny and Prez turn up, I've missed them both.
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I've been just thinking about some of the very best moments in television I've seen. Those moments which just hit you with the perfection of the story. Sometimes they are up, sometimes down. But always when you see one, you realise that the show has moved from just TV to something more personally important.

I'm going to list a few here:

As a major warning, there will be heavy spoilers to the following shows:
The Shield, The Wire,
Do not read on if you want to experience these moments without having the shock or joy of a fresh moment in them.




Big gap here as these are spoiler-riffic.









1. The Shield - Season 5, Final episode.

This is the single most heartbreaking moment I've ever seen on television. Even now, nearly 2 years after the events of this episode I feel saddened by them. Lem has been hounded all season and is at breaking point. But so far he hasn't turned on Vic and the Strike Team.
Shane meets him out alone, walks up to give him a sandwich and chats a little. Before dropping a grenade in the back of the car and walking off. It detonates and Lem lives just long enough to see Shane breakdown in the realisation of what he's done.

Vic's reaction on discovering Lem's death is iconic, but it's clear that nothing will be the same again and that this signifies the beginning of the end for Vic.




2. The Wire - Season 2 - Frank Sobotka's death at the hands of 'The Greeks'

Over the course of the season Sobotka grew on me greatly; he had a strong sense of personal honour and wasn't a criminal for his own ends, but to help his fellow Union members. He spent the entire season being fucked by the police all because he pipped a Captain over a stained glass window.
Eventually he begins to turn on the Greeks, but changes his mind and decides to go talk to them instead. Unbeknownst to him, the Greeks have a mole inside the police force. One who notices that Sobotka was talking to the police - despite the fact that Frank didn't actually tell them anything and had changed his mind.

Frank walks alone towards them, having told his nephew to stay back. His body washes up in the harbor later, without its head.

The Union honour his memory by declaring him head of the union for another year. "Sobotka for union president" posters crop up in later seasons.

3. Dead Zone - 205 - Precipitate

I talk about this episode here.

4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003

This show has several fantastic moments. The decapitation of Shredder, the tengu Shredder, Bishop's first appearance and many more.

But the one I'm going to pick is "The Big Brawl" series from the end of the second season. It's a wonderful four parter that has the Turtles and Splinter involved in an ultimate contest of champions. It's high action, immense fun and you'll be suprised at the winner.

5. Boston Legal - Guantanamo by the bay - Cold Opening

This is probably Boston Legal's finest moment. Pretty much shattering the 4th wall in an ironic fashion. Jerry Espenson explains to Shirley Schmidt that he'd love to return to firm and thinking about it makes him want to sing out this happy song. Shirley asks him to hum a few bars of it and he breaks out into the theme song. I love the Boston Legal theme song, the Denny Crane kazoo version was fantastic, but this one is beyond all that. It's funny, enjoyable and just plain cool.

6. Arrested Development - Who is Mr. F?

Arrested Development is so brilliant in it's forshadowing that other shows should take note, the Lucile/Buster/Hand pun of season two was brilliant. But it's season three's Bond-like Mr. F sting that cracks me up repeatedly. Mr. F turns out to have two meanings, but it is the second one that's funniest. A mysterious pimp named Mr. F starts threatening Michael Bluth over a woman who Michael thinks is his sister, but is really a prostitute. Mr F. Turns out to be Franklin, G.O.B.'s offensive hand puppet. Then the Mr F. Sting plays over the top of the moment and it just becomes hysterical.

7. Futurama - The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings (Season 4 final episode) - The final notes.

This episode has it all, it's bittersweet. Has a fantastic musical number and is just sublime. For a long time I'd always feel choked up when watching this episode. The open and hopefull ending showed a real gift for open ended story telling. It could have been the perfect moment to end on, I'm glad it wasn't...
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The first season of Torchwood was a fun and entertaining idea that got mired down in exceedingly poor writing. The show alternated between being some juvenile swingers love-fest and a very poor episode of Scooby-Doo with swearing in it.

One or two episodes were quite good, but for the most part it was trite.

Still, I very much enjoyed watching it. Partly because it was so retardedly stupid at times that I was left speechless that the BBC tolerated such piss-poor programming and partially because I know Cardiff and enjoyed seeing places that I recognised on TV.

By the end of the series I was sick of the various references to "Jack being like Jesus" especially the finale. That made me really angry, and I vowed not to watch it again.

Then I heard that James Marsters would be making an appearance as a rogue Time Agent and I was intrieged. James was the one actor in Buffy and Angel that I quite enjoyed watching, he was consistently entertaining and a fantastic villain come anti-hero.

So I decided; against my better judgement, to give the first episode of season 2 a go. And blow me if it wasn't half bad. In fact it was quite good.

James Marsters was simply brilliant, I really enjoyed him smacking the heck out of John Barrowman and making the entire Torchwood team look like the bunch of idiots they are. While it wasn't the most intelligent of plots, it was a jolly cracking ride.

Sadly, John Barrowman proved to still be a one dimensional and exceptionally wooden actor. I used to enjoy his performance as Captain Jack until I realised it wasn't a performance. It was from the "Sean Connery school of acting" and not even a very good version at that.
Additionally Torchwood still seems to be almost full of almost pointless sexual plotlines, Captain Jack randomly swings more than a saloon door in a badly made western. Maybe I should watch the Children's edit as that will hopefully remove the parts of the show I find pointless. I don't care about Jack being bi and snogging men, that's not the issue. I'm just tired of him bouncing around from person to person like some kind of sexual pinball in a sleezy game. I guess if it was just Captain Jack who did it, I could tolerate it. But it seems the entire cast is totally unable to control their hormones. They are like a bunch of randy drunk teenagers at their school prom. Could at least one or two of them show some ability to get on with the job without lusting after the next quickie? Please?

But, griping about how terrible Barrowman is on screen and the sexual *ahem* "tension" aside. The episode was good enough that I'll watch next weeks. In particular the teaser section at the end indicated that Masters would be returning for at least one more episode. I hope he doesn't get killed off and is instead bumped up to a guest slot in Doctor Who. He was that damn good.

Better than last season for sure. But that wasn't hard.
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Last weeks season opened was solid, but slower than usual (and The Wire is a slow show to start anyway). So I pushed back watching the second episode till today.

I'm only just past the cold opening and credits and I'm already feeling compelled to write about it. The cold opening is a simple piece about Bubbles at an Addicts Anonymous meeting, it opens with a young ish woman talking about her experiences as an addict. The degrading things she did to chase her next high are not explicitly mentioned. But they are hinted at, which makes it all the more disturbing. Bubbles himself doesn't directly talk about his experiences (many of which the viewer has also experienced) instead he attempts to make light of it with amusing metaphors and jokes. But it's clear that things are wearing on him as he keeps it short before sitting down crushed.

Such a powerfull opening scene is part of what makes The Wire so great. We have only two characters talking a lot, one of which is only a bit part. But the writing and acting is so strong that the desperation and decay that is creeping through Baltimore permiates everything.

Then we're onto the season 5 cover of Tom Waits's "Way Down in the Hole". It's really grown on me this past week, I might like it more than The Blind Boys of Alabama's rendition. It has such a wonderful downbeat drive to it.

It seems that lies are a major part of this episode and even season. Both the media and McNulty are creating stories where there are none. McNulty in particular has lost the plot, as his tampering of evidence in a death to make it appear like strangulation (to match earlier post mortem neck damage on another body) is a new low even for Jimmy. Right now I can't really figure out why he's acting out this way, before Jimmy's motives have been clear if a little twisted but now... I don't know, he's gone way beyond his usual levels of bad behaviour into something that could end up with him being tarred as a 'bad guy'. As I said in the previous review, I think he's in for a major fall.

In the other fronts Marlo is pushing out again after the Major Crimes Unit relax their vigilance (having been essentially disbanded last episode) and he strikes out against people who offended him. Omar is on that list, but hasn't appeared yet. It's going to be legendary when Marlo goes up against Omar. Hopefully Snoop catches a bullet in the process.
I'm also hoping that Marlo's conversations with Avon and the "Russian" (Really Ukrainian) result in a return of "The Greek" I loved that guy in season 2 and I'd like to see the return of that organisation as it would tie S2 in nicely before the end.

The media section of the story still remains the weakest, Clark Johnson is fantastic again this episode. But on the whole it doesn't seem to have as much punch as any of the other parts of this story.

But the action is back and the ball is already rolling. Things are looking bleak in Baltimore and that means good television.
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[Spoiler Heavy]
First Appearances:
Major returning characters from previous seasons: McNulty, Bunk, Carver, Marlo, Freamon, Carcetti, "Beadie" Russell, Kima, Daniels, Sydnor, Snoop, Prop Joe, Carver, Rhonda Pearlman, Jay Landsman.
New Characters of note: Editor: Gus Haynes (Clark Johnson)

The Wire is easily one of the best shows that America (and possibly humanity) has ever produced. It's a pinnacle of storytelling that is for the most part unrivaled in the media. Only Dexter, The Shield and Six Feet Under come close to touching it for sheer perfection.

Sadly, this year will be The Wire's final season. This landmark television show that is hardly watched by the public will one day be discovered and held up for what it is. Seminal. But until then I'm going to mark the passing of the first of "The Trio" (The Trio is the nickname for the three best shows in the media right now, Dexter and The Shield are the other two) by reviewing , rating and commenting on every single episode this season. I'll duplicate these over at tv.com because I aim to review every episode of The Wire there (eventually).

Episode One - More With Less

The episode opens on one of my favourite characters; "Bunk" Moreland, interviewing a suspect. A section of the interviewing technique employed is one that first made it's TV debut in Homicide: Life on the Street (and additionally appeared in the book of the same title). While the scene is still funny even here, for myself some of the impact was lost because honestly - Homicide did it better. I feel a little dirty for even writing that; don't get me wrong Homicide is an amazing show, but The Wire is normally perfection. I guess that having seen the Homicide version last year, the humour just wasn't fresh. If you haven't seen it before elsewhere I'm sure it was more entertaining. For the record, I believe it originated from an actual incident at a police station - but don't quote me on that, I could be wrong.

Still as Bunk himself says "The bigger the lie, the more they believe."

I love that each season of The Wire has a new rendition of Tom Waits's "Way Down in the Hole". While it is still the First Season rendition by "Way Down in the Hole" The Blind Boys of Alabama that I love the most, this season's cover by Steve Earle is fantastic. It's got a real laid back feel to it that is simultaneously downbeat and lifting. It sets the tone for the show wonderfully and the title credits make it clear that the media is an important subject for this season (as previously indicated in various interviews).

The episode opens after the credits with McNulty and the rest in surveillance of Marlo's crew. Marlo is bright enough not to do anything in public and is even aware that the detail are keeping close tabs on him. Snoop continues to be one of the most unpleasant and detestable female villain characters in television history. I'm hoping she catches a nasty end this season, it would make putting up with her horrible voice and crimes all worthwhile. She's fantastic in this role as she's brought such a viseral response from me, I'd like to beat her (character's) head flat against the curb.

Meanwhile, Carver's promotion has proven to be a double edged sword. It is clear that his men have a lack of respect for him as their Sergant, but also they are in an exceedingly foul mood over the lack of overtime. Conversation hinted at in the previous scene becomes a hard reality as it becomes clear that the police department's moral is at an all time low. Considering some of the previous seasons, this is an achievement. The odds of being able to cover all of the police departments back pay AND future pay seem slim. Also, is Carver really wearing an official Baltimore Sergant's uniform? Cause I laughed every time I saw his hat badge. Regardless, it is clear the city and the police force are in serious trouble.

At Mayor Carcetti's office financial issues are clearly a massive problem for the city of Baltimore. Carcetti's response is to continue to cut and gouge the Police budget without providing any compensation for the force. It becomes clear that the major crimes unit is going to be disbanded in an attempt to save a few dollars. The FBI are also unwilling to get involved and help out unless Carcetti will release Clay Davies for federal prosecution.

The Baltimore Sun is a new arena for The Wire to tackle, it is where the issues concerning media will most likely be played out and it also gives us our first experience of Clark Johnson's character Gus. The same financial theme continues even here, with the staff concerned about layoffs. Clark's perfomance is immediately magnetic, if very similar to his perfomance in Homicide (but that is not a problem imo).

While the police force is struggling, life is continuing as usual on the street. Prop Joe and his co-op continue to go from strength to strength. But Marlo is clearly a disruptive element in this unit. He attempts to drive a wedge between Prop Joe and his Lieutenants. Something that may flare up later this season.
Also on the street, Bubbles is trying to get his life back on track. But previous mistakes and misdeeds mean it's hard for him to escape and move on. He is physically trapped in the desperation that many of the other characters feel. He makes ends meet by shifting papers on the street.

McNulty has discovered that Marlo's man Chris Partlow is interested in Sergei Malatov (a Ukrainian enforcer for the Greek from season 2). Does this show have a deep tapestry that reaches back into it's own history or what? I'm consistently impressed with touches like that (The Frank Sobotka posters are another such touch. I'd love to own one of those.)
In his private life he is still living with the lovely Beadie Russell, but various problems (including guilt over Bodies death) have caused him to return to previous form. He's drinking heavily and cheating on her. The shift back to homicide (where he started in this show) causes him to lash out. More than any other character McNulty has fallen since the previous season and if he continues then he's got a lot further to fall.

Herc has gotten out of the police force and is now working for Maury Levy as an investigator for the defense attorney. He's now sort of on the side of the criminals (helping defending them in court at least) and this could bring him (or his cop buddies) into serious trouble or conflict.

We end with McNulty back where he started, at his desk in homicide. Looking as fed up and depressed as many of the other characters must feel.

This season opener is less of a shocker - many shows like to open with a shock first episode - and instead it is in the traditional slow burn style of The Wire. Many potential conflicts and issues are groomed, it's hard to tell which ones will flare up and which will fizzle. That's part of the magic in The Wire, it's happy to tell a realistic story with human characters. People make mistakes, get frustrated, move on.

8.5/10 - Room for improvement in the pacing front. But that's to be expected in this show. A solid (if slow) start to what looks like an incredible season.

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Well apparently USA has cancelled both The Dead Zone and The 4400, two of it's flagship summer shows (and the reason why I started watching Burn Notice & Psych) now. Without giving either show a chance to wrap up.

It's not been officially announced yet, but inside sources are talking about it. So, well I'm pretty bummed out. The 4400's latest season was fantastic and while TDZ struggled in it's 6th Season, it ended on an incredible note that promised excitement next season.

I could take an announcement saying "Next season will be their last." As they'd then get a chance to deliver high octane episodes that finished up their big story arcs. But this just sucks hard as it's an incredibly lousy time to do this, it's going to be like watching Carnivale or John Doe now. You just end unsatisfied because the story hasn't ended.

I probably won't be posting until the 6th/7th of January as all the good TV has pretty much wrapped up due to the WGA strike and Christmas. But Season 5 of The Wire premieres on the 6th so I'll review every single episode in a spoiler-tastic orgasm of love. At least they are getting a decent final season to finish up.

FU USA!
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Right, well the final two episodes of Dexter were leaked across the internet and the sites I go to started to get so choked with potential spoilers that I decided to watch them and avoid having the experience spoiled.

If you want to avoid any spoilers walk away now....







Ok well what to say? This season was nothing short of amazing, it was tense and heartbreaking to watch. There were so many things that could have happened, once Lila started to act up it was inevitable that she'd kill a major cast member - the only question was who. For a while Angel Batista was looking like the likely target, then there was the worry of Rita or even Debs who Lila had shown distaste for.
In the end it turned out to be Sgt. Doakes, who is one of my favourite characters in the show. I appreciate that he wasn't slaughtered like a criminal and the moments where Dexter and Doakes talked openly were some of the best in the series. Losing Doakes almost hurt as much asa part of The Shield that I'm not going to talk about here to avoid spoilers. If you watch The Shield you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

I'm not feeling too good so I won't go into it in much more detail right now, but suffice to say Dexter was the best show this fall season and in 2007. It spanked the hell out of everything else in the Fall section.

Heroes Season 2.
Oh man I'm glad the WGA strike cut Heroes short, the writers need to get their act together and figure out what they're doing. Removing Sylar's powers, dumping in extra characters. Adding a "Get out of Death free" card and having Peter continue to do dumb stuff when he has powers that are better for the situation (most notable, him pulling the door open to the vault. When he could have walked through it. Peter isn't too bright, let's be honest. How he qualified as a nurse is beyond me, he's a freaking idiot.

But, the final couple of episodes did a lot to redeem the series. Returning Sylar to full strength was an excellent move, the entire Adam/Hiro arc was the best character interaction this show has ever had and the ending scenes were superb.

Of course, I can't help but feel that what they've tried to do is reset to start. Nathan is dead - again (he flanged his way past death in a wtf moment this season) - but immortality juice (aka Claire and Suresh's blood cocktail) is a total dodge on that if needed. Sylar is back with his powers, Noah is back with the Company.
I'm hoping the gap during the protest allows them to sit down and work out exactly what they're doing. Then write a decent plot that doesn't have big holes and jilted dialog. Because I really want to like Heroes a lot, but right now I just watch it for the scenes with Syla

Oh and hooray that bad Irish accent woman is lost in an alternate future! Begone!

Correct calls:
Dexter killing Lila - It was obvious from the moment she started acting up that she was a borderline personality. Her fate was sealed the moment she turned that gas tap and lit that stove.
Sylar killing Alejandro but not Maya - I'm interested to see if Sylar took Alejandro's ability (it would be prudent of him if he did) and also to see if he has Candice's (as he took it when 'sick'). If he has Candice's ability then he's going to be a major power for the rest to face.
Bennett not dying - I think a lot of people saw this one coming.

Incorrect calls:
Elle (Kirsten Bell) dying - I didn't want to see this happen, but her character seemed too one dimensional to keep. It seems now they're aiming at the redemption curve for her. So I think she'll have a reasonable shelf life.
Doakes surviving - This was made more in the vain hope that he would survive, I had no idea how he would. I'm gutted it happened as Eric King was incredible as Doakes.
Rita - I thought that Julie would be leaving Dexter this season, I'm very glad she didn't.
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I know some might feel this is a little early, but as the WGA strike has demolished most of the fall season I feel like posting my top show seasons right now.

I'm going to post them in categories rather than just a list, then I'll try and go with an overall top ten. Everything will be posted in reverse order for my amusement.

Top Drama of 2007
(The season must have started in 2007, so anything carrying on from 2006 Fall is disallowed)

4. Boston Legal - Season 4
Ah, Boston Legal. A shining example of brilliance adrift in a sea of mediocre 'reality TV/phone voting shows'. I've gushed over this show several times before, I'm not mindlessly in thrall to it, the switching up of characters does grate at me. But season 4's selection of characters has been brilliant. Shatner and Spader are still the main reason to watch, but Christian Clemenson is a close third.
3. The Shield - Season 6
Season 6 of The Shield was intense and a white knuckle ride from start to finish. While it was little shorter than I hoped it would be, it was originally intended to be the last season. So I'll forgive it as it means one more year of Vic Mackey. The Shield is quality from start to finish, I'm both looking forward to and dreading season 7.
2. House - Season 4
House has successfully shaken things up and kept the format interesting by the competition and I'm really twisting my arm by letting it get into second place. But it just pips The Shield and I can't really put my finger on why. I think most of all it's because I'm seriously impressed that the show was willing to switch up House's diagnostic team and manage to do it in a way that was both enthralling and natural feeling.
1. Dexter - Season 2
Wow, just. Wow. Last year's best show has once again taken the top slot without even pausing to breathe. We're two episodes from the end and things are set to become even tenser before we're through. Last year put the viewer right through the wringer emotionally and this season is attempting to up the ante.

Next year I'll be interested to see if Dexter can do it again, because it'll be facing the final season of both The Wire and The Shield. 2008 will be a massive year for fans of good drama.

Best Comedy
6. Scrubs - Season 7
I'm slightly astounded that I'm listing this here. I really thought that Scrubs was going to be tired and out of jokes by this stage, but it's not. It's still managing to deliver that bittersweet mix of wacky comedy and serious messages with ease. It isn't as fresh as the first few seasons, but short of some serious character shake ups no show can reinvent itself.
5. My Name is Earl - Season 3
Or can it? My Name is Earl has indeed attempted to reinvent itself, which was a bold move after only two seasons. Dropping the subject of 'Earl's List' this season has focused on his time spent in prison for confessing to a crime he did not commit. While the core concept hasn't changed as Earl continues to perform good deeds, the fresh location has resulted in new characters joining the older ones. My one complaint is there doesn't seem to be enough of Nadine Velazquez as Catalina this year.
4. Family Guy - Season 6/7 (I always lose track of the seasons here)
Family Guy has had a very short run before it's hiatus due to the WGA strike. So it's mostly made it in on the basis of the Star Wars homage 'Blue Harvest' and the two parter Stewie kills Lois/Lois kills Stewie. The cameo from Stan Smith and Bullock in particular was brilliant.
3. 30 Rock - Season 2
I watched the first season of this show in 2007 as well, but I'm disallowing it and just basing this off the second season. 30 Rock contains sublime comedy and the second season has been just as good as the first one. Jerry Seinfeld's episode 'Sein-vision' was such an amazing opener to the season and I always look forward to this show.
2. Curb Your Enthusiasm - Season 6
I almost missed the release of Curb Season 6. Despite the fair hiatus the show was back on top form. Cheryl Hines was achingly beautiful and put upon in this season, but the real stars were 'The Blacks' and the season finale was brilliantly hilarious. The show is always such quality and it's astounding to think that they are mostly improvised lines.
1. The Office - Season 4
It's a staggering testament to the power of this show that the fourth season that they're taking my top spot with less than a dozen episodes AND they're on hiatus right now. The show is still just brilliant and is holding up exceedingly with it's longer length episodes.

Best Newcomers
2007 has been a lean year for good new shows :(
2. Burn Notice - USA
Burn Notice was a fantastic breath of fresh air in the summer months that don't often bring interesting new shows. Following a similar format to Life with 'Case of the week' plus metaplot it delivered witty and exciting episodes from start to finish. Bruce Campbell was nothing short of amazing as Sam Axe.
1. Life - Wednesdays - NBC
While Life has only had 9 episodes - 8 of which I've seen so far - it has consistently impressed me with its quality scripting and acting tied into a solid 'crime of the week' format that has a strong and compelling metaplot tying everything together. Damian Lewis manages to portray a very interesting, complex and compelling character who you can't help but like.

Best DVD Shows
These shows are based on the best of the DVDs I've purchased over 2007. In order for me to have even purchased them in the first place they must have been priced for a reasonable amount. So each one of these represents acceptable bang for the buck.

5. Dead Like Me - Season 2
I love DLM, so I was very happy to finally purchase it on DVD. It was every bit as good as I remember and had some rather excellent episodes as well. I'm hoping the straight to DVD movie remains on form as Ellen Muth needs to be on my big screen more often.
4. Arrested Development - Season 3
Arrested Development is the single best American Comedy show in, well this millenium. It's deep, very funny, clever and highly rewarding. Also it's one of those shows which has provided material for you to catch on later showings, in fact it's the best show for doing this I've ever seen. Every rewatching reveals something new. Add to this David Cross demonstrating why he is one of the funniest men in television (with almost entirely improvised lines) and you have one hell of a show. The final season is no exception.
3. Seinfeld - Multiple Seasons
Seinfeld has some of the best extras in any DVD, I can't stress that enough. Between the Sein-Imations, Notes about Nothing (two of the best extra's ever) and Commentary these DVDs have some of the best extras ever stocked ontop of a fantastic show.
2. Six Feet Under - The Complete Series
I wept uncontrollably when watching the finale. It's the only time in the past 7 years I've cried without control, I was even able to hold most of it back for my Grandmother's funeral. The end of the series was the most bittersweet and heartwrenching television I've ever seen.
1. Futurama - Bender's Big Score
I semi reviewed this here so I won't go into it again, suffice to say just thinking about it has me wanting to watch it all again. The Hypnotoad extra is genius brilliant as well. All hail the Hypnotoad!
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Official Website
TV.Com's page

Well, what to say? Pushing Daisies is the latest offering from Bryan Fuller, creator of Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls. I love Dead Like Me, so I felt I should give Bryan's newest creation a decent shot. Of course I am aware that Bryan walked out on DLM after 5 episodes, so a lot of the stuff I love about DLM isn't his work.

Regardless, I read a little about the show and liked enough of it to give it a go. I'm really trying to find a second decent new show this Fall season, Life is the only one that's stuck so far.

Unfortunately I have an immediate problem with Pushing Daisies (PD) - the Narrator, Jim Dale. His delivery is just way off, I found myself immediately disliking him and then fondly hoping he wouldn't appear outside of the pilot. He does. There's something so grating and annoying about every single line of narration, I'm not sure if it's Jim Dale's voice or the exceedingly annoying X is Y years, Z Months, M Days, WTFF Hours and WHOCARES? Seconds old bit that set me immediately against the narrator. I want something really unpleasant to happen to him (the narrator, not Jim) and normally I like shows with narration. I find it very traditional story telling and cool.

Visually Pushing Daisies is the definition of whimsical, everything is idealised, stylised in a rather mom and pop 1950s retro feel and completely clean - even the dead people! It's like the whole world has been put through a CGI cleaner upper. This makes the show feel like a fairy tale, which is somewhat endearing. But it's the premise of the show that initially drew me; Ned (the main character) has the ability to touch a dead person and bring them back to life, he touches them again, they stay dead forever. Additionally, if he doesn't touch them again within 60 seconds something else dies, them's the price you pays.
That seems like a very cool idea for a show, with plenty of potential for solving murders and the like. It certainly results in some very cool visuals:


But the most interesting murder so far - Chuck (Ned's Childhood sweetheart) is solved in the pilot episode and you end up with 'murder of the week' minus an ongoing metaplot. I'm not happy with a series of unlinked episodes, that's exceedingly 1980s. The only ongoing thing is Chuck is still alive, in love with Ned and they can't touch each other cause she'll die. *eyeroll*

The cast is adequete and likeable (apart from the narration) but they all feel soulless and artificial. It might be the fault of the lighting/look of the show that does this, but they remind me of a bunch of dolls in a house. All perfect and neat.

I could go on further, but right now this show has not impressed me that much. It's just failed to have any substance and as such is a nice idea, pretty productions and (rarely) funny lines mixed together into something that comes out very humdrum. I will watch a bit more to try and change my mind, but when a show this new has me thinking "This show needs a shake up" it's in trouble and will probably depart from my viewing. Going the way of the polished turds "Lost" and "24".
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I purchased the first season of this show purely on the strength of The Wire, plus David Simon and the awards that Homicide has won.

While I'll get into it in more detail at a later date I just wanted to express how happy I was to find series 2 + 3 for $60 (total) instead of the $160 I would normally have to pay.

I've only watched the first episode of series 2 so far, but it was a doozy.
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[This post will contain nuts - and spoilers]

Well what to say? In a wasteland of poor new shows, weak returning shows and the WGA strike Life has been a little giant ray of zen sunshine into my life. Wednesday's episode "Farthingale" is a prime example of this. Within moments of the episode starting we're treated with one of the more bizzare and oddly amusing images I've seen in a while. The top half of a man standing on the floor in front of an open fridge. At first I wasn't too sure how he'd died, did he fall through the floor? Where were his legs? Then it becomes rapidly clear that they have been shredded, as explained the fridge door protected his top half. So I'd assume his lower half was pretty much instantly vapourised and he immediately died of shock. Before falling to the ground and landing upright like some tablecloth trick.

From there things just become more wierd, it turns out he has two sets of ID, which leads to two wives and from there we progress into understanding how he lived, why he had two wives and why he was killed.

Meanwhile the metaplot continues onward, the lead detective that put Charlie away turns up dead in the police station garage. Charlie is naturally accused and contacts his lawyer Constance, only to discover she's been drafted by the DA. Which takes her away from Charlies side in any potential problems, isolating him further.

We're given a few more insights into the conspiracy that got Charlie imprisioned. We meet Dani's (Charlie's partner) father in this episode, a man who Charlie has been told was involved in making a large amount of money disappear somehow. The plot thickens greatly and I'm interested to see where the metaplot goes, they need to resolve this conspiracy in a reasonable timeframe - dragging it out will just result in "who cares?" Lost syndrome. But they can't afford to resolve it too fast as it's the driving force behind the show. Without it Life would just be a set of unrelated cases, which can work but it would involve a serious rehaul of the show's style.

I'm thinking Season 2 or 3 for the big reveal.

But until then I'm happy to ride along on Charlie's Zen coattails. Especially when they're going to keep putting out quality lines like:

Dani: That's your theory?
Charlie: It makes sense.
Dani: That's why I'm surprised it's your theory.

Top stuff.
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Well I finally got my hands on a list of shows that are shut/shutting down due to the writers strike.

It's located here:

The relevant ones for me are:
Boston Legal: 15 episodes completed out of 22 episode order. Episode 8 to go out December 4.
Family Guy: Production shut down.
House: Repeats to air after American Idol in January.
Prison Break: On hiatus until January 14. (Maybe they'll get better writers for after the hiatus :P )
30 Rock: 10 episodes of a 22 episode season taped. Production shut down. Last scheduled episode, 9, airs on December 13.
Heroes: Heroes: Origins spinoff suspended. December 3 episode to serve as finale of volume two.
My Name Is Earl: All season 3 episodes completed.
Scrubs: 12 episodes shot. NBC rumoured to have wanted 12th episode to serve as series finale; creator Bill Lawrence refused to wrap series early.
The Office: On hiatus.
The Colbert Report: On hiatus.
Nip/Tuck: 14 episodes in the can; filming on 8 more postponed. Episode 5 scheduled to air November 27

That's a hell of a lot of shows I watch hit one way or another. Pretty soon all I'm going to have to view and write about will be My Name is Earl, Seinfeld + Homicide DVDs and of course - Benders Big Score!

27th of November is the return of Futurama people, and I could not be happier.
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Well, finally the second season of Heroes has managed to pull it's thumb out of it's ass and get up to speed. After a giant pile of filler we've started to reach some answers and interesting points.

"Four Months ago" (Ep 208) filled in the blanks between the end of the last season and the start of this one. There are still a few unanswered questions, the most important of which are "When will Sylar regain his powers?", "Which side is 'good' the company or Adam?" and "What will happen when Adam sees Hiro again?"

The Sylar question is just a case of frustration and waiting. Zachary Quinto is one of the most interesting and deep actors in the show. Sylar is easily the deepest and most intriguing of the various 'heroes' and my favourite by a long margin. In part because I always prefer the bad guy. One of the reasons I'm rather fond of Adam, he's quite possibly bad, but it's hard to tell at this stage. Hiro thought he was essentially good, he is helping and working with Peter against the Company (not to be confused with The Company in Prison Break) who it seems are responsable for the plague. Oh mankind when will you learn that scientists will always tinker until they create something that can wipe us all out? Hubris, thy name is science!

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that Kirsten Bell's character Elle is not going to survive beyond the end of December (shame, she's a talented actress - but her character is to sociopathic to make it long term). Plus at least one of the twins Maya and Alejandro is going to go down. Most likely Alejandro as he's really felt like nothing more than wall furnishings. I'm predicting some possible Sylar involved death and then Sylar manipulating Maya for her ability (as it needs two to work and cancel).

All in all, it was an excellent episode. Best one of the season so far, but that's not saying a lot tbh. :P
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In some utterly incomprehensible move the BBC has decided to put the first episode of The Mighty Boosh up online before it's aired.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mighty-boosh

I'm not sure why they did this. Mind you, when I tried to watch it the sound cut out several times during the episode and the picture quality was awful. So I'm still going to watch it again on Thursday.

[I'd say this post contains spoilers, but it really doesn't matter with The Mighty Boosh]

The first episode of this series (sadly it's a 6 episode series - laaaame!) is titled Eels. Vince, Howard, Naboo and Bollo have moved on (as is traditional each series) and are now running a shop. Needless to say the format is still the same - Vince and Howard are idiots, Vince is loveable and successfull, Howard is a loser. So if you enjoy the show then you'll get more of the great stuff.

On the whole the episode wasn't amazing, there were many old characters returning - some of them proving you can get better from death in the world of The Mighty Boosh. While Tony Harrison (the tentacled head), the excellent Richard Ayoade as Saboo were welcome returnees and Rich Fulcher was so disturbingly brilliant as the woman - it's the return of the cockney hitchhiker that I found dull and boring. This is probably why I didn't enjoy the episode so much, because it was very much based around him.

It had some excellent moments, but it doesn't compare to last seasons Nanatoo, Old Greg or The Nightmare of Milky Joe

7/10
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[This will contain spoilers]

Ok, so now we're halfway through season two of Dexter. It's pretty much got Prison Break and Heroes beat hands down by this stage. But I have mixed feelings about it as a whole.

The big problem for me comes down to the issue that season two is just too early for this story. We've had a single season to establish and like Dexter and he's already being threatened with discovery and changed in personality? It feels too early for this, the threat to Dexter has come too soon and as such it doesn't feel like he has the remotest chance of being caught. Season three on the other hand would have really piled the pressure on for this, in the third season of a show (and onwards) all bets are off.

So instead I'm left looking at which other cast members are likely to leave. Rita is an almost certain loss. There have been off screen cast comments that indicated as such. The other major potential loss is Doakes*. Which I think would be a serious loss to the show, Doakes is an excellent foil for Dexter - the premise of the second book by Jeff Lindsey is "What happens when Doakes and Dexter are forced to work together?" That's something I want to see happen.
Mind you, it is a lot of fun watching Dexter set Doakes up repeatedly. Eventually things will need to come to a head between them, but season two is just too soon for it. There's so much more to learn about Doakes before we do that.

Lila is the major issue in this. It's still unclear exactly what her agenda is, she's obviously a schemer and somewhat disturbed. But exactly how and what she has to gain is another pair of questions. She's systematically driven Dexter away from Rita and the kids, it could just be simple desire that's made her do this. But it feels far more cold and calculating. I wouldn't be suprised if we discover that she's a killer in her own right. It would certainly fit the way she behaves and the bond she seems to share with Dexter. It would also provide a suitably ironic end to the season. Dexter once again being forced to kill someone very close to him.

The show feels like a train hurtling towards a dramatic confrontation & crash. The problem I'm having is I still don't know what this confrontation is going to be. What's going to bring things to a head? By this time last year a solid direction had shaped up and we were prepared for the Rudy/Dexter head to head.

I'm sure once I know where this season is going, and look back on it all in hindsight it will be a much more enjoyable experience. Till then I'm just going to have to sit back and enjoy the ride.

*Anyone else noticed that Eric King's name is the only one which flashes and disappears in the opening credits? Is that relevant/important in some way?
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Frankly I don't blame the Writers Guild of America for going on strike. Writers really are the life blood of television; no matter how good your actors/producers/directors/editors/best boy etc are, the writing is the foundation.

I can't help but wonder how disruptive this will be. A lot of the new shows are going to get crucified through this. It's quite possible a huge swathe of promising new TV will get killed off, with a little luck Lost will die as well.

That would be a nice bonus.

Yeah Lost sucks, you heard me.

Anyway, like I said - I don't blame them. Not one bit, it's criminal how little the writers get per sale. Frankly the entire entertainment business is a horrible place when it comes to money. The entire thing seems to be a giant mess of money chute, with the largest one dumping cash right into the hands of non-creatives.
The amount the public gets gouged for DVDs is a great example. $100 for a season in some countries - that's just ridiculous... Especially when the writers are getting what? Cents?

So good for them, no matter what kind of damage this does I can live with it.

Unless Dexter, The Wire, The Shield, The Office or 30 Rock get destroyed as a consequence... Then there will be hell to pay WGA, HELL!
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I'm going to quickly sum up each show I've been watching from this fall season in a single sentence.

Prison Break - Getting close to jumping the shark.

Heroes - Not very gripping, needs work.

House - The new shake up has made things very interesting

The Office - Comedy gold all the way.

30 Rock - Sein-vision was the single funniest concept I've seen so far this year.

My Name is Earl - Unsure about the new direction of the show, didn't think it needed this much of a switch up.

Scrubs - Funny but looking tired.

Nip/Tuck - Only seen the one episode so far, but it was a doozy.

Dexter - As outstanding as ever, but the plot would have been better served in season three.

Family Guy - Amazingly it's still funny.

American Dad - Not so great this year so far.

Life - The stand out new show so far, cast is a little thin in quantity though.

On the whole I'm a bit disappointed with the various drama shows, especially the Monday night pair (Prison Break + Heroes). Very few of the new shows have been interesting and as such it feels like a lean season for quality tv. In particular Dexter hasn't been as good as it's first season, it's still miles better than Heroes & Prison Break. But there just seems to be that edge missing to the show. I'll write about it more after this Sundays episode.

Or maybe it's because I'm sat on the edge of my seat waiting for the final seasons for The Wire and The Shield. I don't know. I've also been watching seasons 1 to 8 of Seinfeld again (thanks to 30 Rock having Jerry as a guest star...)
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Well my computer blew up, literally. So I had to replace it. Then I forgot my login details for this blog and ridiculously old fraud got fired on House M.D. so I've been too depressed to write about anything.

I hope he gets a permanent role in the show somehow, he was awesome.

Something more coherent tomorrow when I've caught up with Heroes, Life, Prison Break and watched all of Thursday's awesome comedy line up.
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