Category Archives: Recaps & Reviews

Robot Chicken: The Walking Dead Special Review

Posted on April 2, 2018 by

The stop-motion animated series Robot Chicken has ventured into the worlds of Star Wars and DC Comics for previous specials, but for its latest 22-minute themed special, the series takes on The Walking Dead. As the special opens, a nerd is visiting the U.S. Walking Dead Museum, which was established to honor and celebrate the heroes who saved the humans from the walkers, found a cure to the walker virus, and brought an end to the Walk-pocolypse—the group known as “Rick and the Gang”. The young man acting as the tour guide for the museum is being quite liberal with the facts, getting all sorts of information wrong. This angers an older Carl who is hiding in the shadows. He pulls the nerdy tourist aside to correct this information, and starts to recount the events that really happened.

The special is a collection of shorts based on many of the memorable/major events from the first 7 seasons of The Walking Dead. These are a fun mix of recreations, parodies, comical speculation as to what happened after the moments we saw on the show, and other general craziness set in the The Walking Dead universe. There are some funny running jokes such as people thinking Carl is a girl, due to his long hair. There are also some really hilarious musical moments such as Negan singing about his signature dip move, a chained-up Merle singing a love duet with a walker, and the Terminus folks (led by he voice of Daniel Radcliffe) singing a welcome song to Rick and the gang about how they have no plans to eat them. There is also a really creative sequence that is shot from the POV of a walker—we hear his inner monologue as he searches for food and falls to his death (again). And another sequence gives a Superman-like origin to Lucille the bat. Overall, the writing is quite clever, and you can really tell those involved are big fans of The Walking Dead.

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Review for ABC’s For the People

Posted on March 17, 2018 by

This new legal procedural show is basically How to Get Away with Murder without Viola Davis, and is exactly as disappointing as it sounds!

For the People is so excruciatingly self-conscious that, at times, especially during the pilot, it seems as if every actor is frantically waving their hands about and shouting for you to notice that they are in a TV show, finally!
 
Transparent Emotional Manoeuvring

When friends and roommates Sandra, played by Britt Robertson, and Ali, undertaken by Jasmin Savoy Brown, interact with one another in the stilted first episode. The subtext is very obviously that the best-friend-dynamic needs to be established as quickly as is possible. With the kind of emotional manipulation that it so obvious it is almost cynical, For the People tries to present the Shondaland ideal standard of six-odd youthful overachievers who all talk too fast and are simply smouldering with unresolved sexual tension, but falls very short.

Yawn. Personally, I would rather be spending some time at the kind of online casino New Zealand has to offer!
 
Subtle as a Battleship

Right from the first frame of For the People, the characters are scrambled up together in a variety of heterosexual romantic pairings, like they’ve been shaken up like dice in a cup and thrown down to see what will happen next.

But, unlike Rhimes’ greatest shows, For the People lacks even the pretence of subtlety, which is very often provided by the lead actor, a Kerry Washington, a Viola Davis, or an Ellen Pompeo. It’s spirited, and follows all the correct patterns, but I found For the People very difficult to invest in.
 
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Arrowverse “Crisis on Earth-X” Crossover Recap

Posted on December 5, 2017 by

Okay, last week was another amazing November sweeps crossover extravaganza in the Arrowverse, and this year’s “Crisis on Earth-X” was totally worth the hype! Starting slow on Supergirl, the story initially followed all the pre-wedding preparations. It was an episode that went heavy on the soundtrack, a theme that peaked in Kara singing a beautiful song, that I think(?) was an original tune, at Flash & Iris’s wedding. Until – of course – the alternate dimension Nazi Super Villain Army burst in. For real. It was rad. It was what we signed up for. And this round the good guys won.

The second episode in the series was on Arrow, which revealed some key plot points to us but didn’t end great per se for the good guys. We learned that the army of genetic purists from Earth-X were led by that dimension’s version of Oliver “Green Arrow” Queen & Kara “Supergirl” Danver, who were also in evil-love and unhappily married. Unhappy why? Cause of a super-cancer that was destroying her heart. So they needed Earth-3 Kara’s heart. A veritable War of the Worlds erupted, and by the end of this one, everybody but Iris & Felicity were in an Earth-X concentration camp.

Next up in The Flash, they got rescued from certain death by that Nazi boot stomp dimension’s version of Captain Cold. And as if him being a good guy wasn’t surprising enough, he was also there to rescue his gay lover and fellow fascist fighting superhero, The Ray. But Kara was still held by the evil version of Oliver and would soon go under the knife. Professor Stein took a bullet (that would eventually kill him), saving the day in this chapter, and at the end, tables were slightly turned with only Kara, Iris, & Felicity being captured. But everyone else didn’t have it easy – they were fighting the Red Tornado, who was summarily kicking their collective asses.

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My Latest Must-Watch: Hulu’s Future Man

Posted on November 22, 2017 by

I have not been a huge fan of Hulu in recent years. They used to be a go-to platform for me when they had a bunch of my favorite shows, morning after they aired, on major network comedies & Bones. Then they started wanting to charge me money at the same time they provided LESS new content. So I strayed from the site. But this past week, two things have brought me back ready to rave about their content: Marvel’s Runaways with its hawt debut episodes, and the best comedy sci-fi since Red Dwarf, (huge statement there if ya didn’t know) is clearly Future Man. They dropped it like a Netfilx show, all thirteen episodes at once. I started last Friday and finished Sunday afternoon. Two minutes in and I was hooked.

The story revolves around Joosh Future Man (né Josh Futterman), young adult, in the year 2017 working with Tiger and Wolf, two deadly warriors from the year 2143, naive to the ways of the distant past they have come to. They seek to employ Josh’s help in toppling the “evil” plans of scientist Dr. Kronish. We learn that Kronish really just wants to cure herpes, but the way his cure effects the deep future is a bit insane. The show has an all-star cast featuring Ed Begley Jr. and the recently departed Glenne Headly as Josh’s parents and Haley Joel Fucking Osment (6th Sense) as a bumbling but important-in-some-moments-of-history scientist Dr. Stu Camillo.

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Recap/Review – Dragon’s Den – 08/15/17

Posted on October 20, 2017 by

Dragon’s Den first aired back in 2005 and has since contributed 15 series of investment entertainment to the world. In the most recent episode, five investors pitch their ideas to the Dragons, with ideas ranging from gluten-free cakes to colorful pocket squares. The judges decide on who to invest in based on the product, the numbers, and the people. It’s all or nothing in the cut-throat business world!

It must be a daunting prospect to enter the realm of seriously successful investors and come under their scrutiny, but that is exactly what each entrepreneur must do if they are to secure the cash and assistance they need to carry their business to the next level. The odds of becoming rich are not great, but with a Dragon on your side, they are pretty much guaranteed.

The first entrepreneur to enter the Den was Australian Sarah Hilary with her “Be Tempted” range of gluten-free cakes. She came prepared with a temptress whose role it was to hand out snacks and wink at the Dragons to sweeten them up. Sarah presented a pretty classic story: She went gluten-free but couldn’t find enough delicious cakes on the market, so she made her own. We’ve heard it all before, and so had the Dragons, but did her numbers add up and would they be willing to invest £75,000 for just 5% of her business?

Hilary stumbled and fumbled over her figures; never a good move in the Den. Despite outlining a £500,000 turnover since 2012 and describing her connections with high-end stores like Harrods, she stuttered when asked to share her gross profits, and it quickly became obvious that her £1.5 million valuation of the business simply didn’t add up.

That was enough to turn off most of the Dragons, who couldn’t see an opportunity to make their money back and weren’t satisfied with the overvaluation and lack of business strategy. Tej Lalvani picked up the pieces of her shattered pitch, offering the full amount of money but demanding 40% of her business. The pair settled with a 10% buy-back, and the first deal of the day was made!

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