Continuing with the autumn TV series pilots that I started in part 1 we reach Into the Badlands. A mighty warrior and a young boy search for enlightenment in a ruthless territory controlled by feudal barons. Even if the series has been advertised, they were smart enough to be vague. The only thing I get from those advertisements and the description is that it might be a post apocalypse, motorcycle knight kind of thing.

Oh, wow! The introduction is great. The knight is played by Daniel Wu, an American-Chinese actor who knows Kung-Fu (pardon the pun) and it shows. The world is indeed a post apocalyptic one, after wars that devastated it. The Badlands are now ruled by 7 barons who banned all firearms (and maybe even all ranged weapons? it's unclear). The show starts with Daniel Wu destroying a group of about 10 armed people with only his hands and feet. And it's not one of those pacifistic knocking people down or hitting their pressure spots or whatever. He breaks hands, arms, legs, necks, spinal columns and kills them all brutally. You know what? Based on that alone and by Daniel Wu's acting as well as fighting, I am going to greenlight this one. Oh, and the main title theme is by Mike Shinoda.

After watching the whole pilot, I remained equally impressed. The actors are good, even the adolescent ones, the production values are high, the battles are impressive and the baroness... hmm hmm hmm. BTW, Orla Brady, the actress playing her, is 54 years old.

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Next on the list: Jekyll and Hide. 10-part drama set in 1930s London focusing on Robert Jekyll, the grandson of the original doctor. The show will follow Robert Jekyll's quest to discover his real identity and the true nature of his family's cursed history. Sounds like an attempt to follow on the success of Penny Dreadful and Sherlock. I kind of dread "the son of..." concepts, but who knows?

The story is set 50 years later, where Robert Jekyll is a doctor in Ceylon. Apparently his adoptive father is hiding him from the world there, until he is lifting a 10 ton lorry of the back of a girl and gets into the attention of a British lawyer. The first 10 minutes set the stage, but I find them amateurish and bland. I can only hope that it goes better than this further along. It seems that this adaptation moves away from the psychological roots of the original story, instead going with a paranormal "old gods" idea. Richard E. Grant is in it, too, as the head of a shady government organisation and there seems to be an evil organization as well.

I am not ready to dismiss this, yet. It might be interesting. After all, I do watch a lot of fantasy and sci fi and I usually like British dramas. I will leave this undecided.

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Limitless. A man gains the ability to use the full extent of his brain's capabilities. A television adaptation of the 2011 film, 'Limitless'. This series I will leave for later. I haven't seen Limitless and it seems bad form to not watch the movie first.

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London Spy Story of a chance romance between two people from very different worlds, one from the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service, the other from a world of clubbing and youthful excess. Oh, my, another spy series. Spies, the new vampires? Anyway, it has an interesting premise, that a young clubber would enter the world of spycraft for love. Funny, that: the two main actors come directly from Spectre and Kingsman.

I like that the romance between the two guys is realistic and drawn out, not just a smile, some adventure and a kiss. Most romantic films could learn from this one. On the other hand... it's being drawn out :) Nothing interesting happening after the first 20 minutes. But the characters are well fleshed out and the acting is good. It gives you that feeling of "if they make so much effort to define the characters, how much more wonderful the story will be?".

I think I am ready to mark this as a keeper. It might grate homophobic people, but the actual homosexual scenes are few and far between. I am really curious on how it will go on.

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Following on the list is Quantico. A look at the lives of young FBI recruits training at the Quantico base in Virginia when one of them is suspected of being a sleeper terrorist. I am already sick of police or other government agency series and it also features a nonwhite female lead. It also has something to do with terrorism. It feels all like a big cliché. I hope I am wrong, of course, after all Homeland was kind of the same and I love it. Let's see what is it like.

After watching the pilot, I can tell you that it is all of the above, but also more. It is not acted badly and the story, while playing on the artificial fears of the Americans, is intriguing. I would have rather seen more about their FBI training at Quantico than see a character being singled out and then the story turning into The Fugitive, though. The perfect physical specimens, the pop music telling you what to feel and the "fancy" editing reminiscent of so many mass produced series didn't help either. Oh, and the second episode starts with "My name is...". As a friend of mine said, one should run away from shows starting like that.

I was tempted to let it undecided and watch a few more episodes, but I realize that it is just me having problems letting go. This is a recipe TV series with all the classic hooks. Just in order to make sure I watched the "previously on Quantico" bits and they sucked. I will remove it from the list and not watch it.

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River. John River, a brilliant police officer whose genius and fault-line is the fragility of his mind - a man haunted by the murder victims whose cases he must lay to rest. Really? A brilliant whatever with emotional problems solving police cases? Again?! I am tempted to not even try it out. However, it is British and stars Stellan Skarsgård.

Well, all respect for his acting, but Stellan alone won't make me watch this series. Retroactively I think for the same reason I should not watch From Darkness. It's about a cop who hallucinates his female partner and obsesses about who killed her. His singular focus makes him able to solve cases, even when his entire department feels sorry for him and wants him to get a compassionate leave.

While it might be a well done series, the subject is completely uninteresting for me. This one I will leave out.

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Next on: The Player. A former intelligence and FBI officer, who now works as a security expert in Las Vegas, is recruited by mysterious pit boss Mr. Johnson to, based on his tips, try to prevent crimes, while the rich place bets on his chances of success. Solving crimes again? The only thing that makes me try this on is that Wesley Snipes is in it.

It starts with action hero strong jaw "security consultant", the obligatory black cop and the professional and compassionate and really cute girlfriend who gets killed and motivates him. Then an all powerful shadow organization which can "predict crime" and employs him as an agent... in order to bet on him.

Wesley Snipes does a fighting routine at the beginning, only to show us how fast he still is, but his role is that of a puppet master, not a really main character. Therefore, dismissed!

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Marvel's Jessica Jones A former super-heroine decides to reboot her life by becoming a private investigator. Now, I feel a little bit hypocritical. It is about special person solving cases, right? In all intents and purposes is yet another of those shows that I don't want to watch. But it is part of the Marvel universe and, best of all, it's another Netflix show, following the footsteps of Daredevil. All episodes in a season arrive at the same day. The very concept of "pilot" loses its meaning. Add to it David Tennant as the bad guy and I can't help myself.

Jessica Jones is an interesting character: a failed female superhero, with PTSD after she was basically mindraped by a villain, hiding as a private investigator in New York, overdrinking and having nightmares. Different from most female fronted shows, this one is well made, with a believable and strong character, without it being a guy with tits or a damsel in distress waiting for the queue of men to save her. I will personally watch this, especially since I can go through a season in a day or two. Plus, Jones is a respectable comic book superhero, not the female version of an already established one, like Super Woman, so there is a ton of material to inspire the screenwriters of the show. Verdict: I am keeping it!

Continued in part 3

It's almost winter and the TV scene is filled with new series, there are new movies at the cinema and there is also what people call "life", whatever that is, apparently something that is not about films or books or even online videos. In order to be able to experience this strange concept, I have to abandon some TV series without even watching them. Unfortunately, after doing that, I am still left with several which sound interesting from their description and could be either great or really awful. In order to make a decision, today I am going through the pilots of several of these television series and blogging about them while doing it. I will watch them in alphabetical order, not sorted by any type of value.

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So here we go. First one in the list: Agent X. Hidden from the view of the public - and even from the President - there is a top secret agent who is trained and ready to serve, deployed only at the careful discretion of the Vice President. Already a pretty annoying description, again putting intrinsic value on government agencies and their decision making prowess rather than on a lawful democratic system. I would have hoped they would present this as an antihero story, where the guy is an interesting person, but works for a shitty agency, but that would be putting too much faith in writers and production companies.

In the first 5 minutes we see a CIA agent captured by some Arabs, insisting he is actually a missionary. His Bible is actually a bomb and he kills his captor with his legs only, while hanged by the ceiling by the hands. Why would they think a Christian missionary would be a good cover for a Western agent in an Arab country is not explained. Then he gets recruited and 4 years later he goes after targets completely unprepared, fighting with sloppy movements and without backup, but having a flashy car and making puns. A poor man's version of an American Bond, in those five minutes he manages to shoot a guy in his left shoulder, who then miraculously gets up with a wound in his right one. The lead actor is not charismatic, the series presentation puts Sharon Stone as the first billed cast member and it features pictures with American presidents throughout their history guarded by "agents X". Well, if it's for the president, it must be good...

After five minutes I've decided not to watch this anymore. If it goes on like this, I am going to finish fast.

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Next one in the list: Blood and Oil. A young married couple of newcomers looks to cash in on the modern-day oil boom in North Dakota and becomes involved with sly local oil baron, Hap Briggs, and his troubled family.. Not to be confused with the Blood and Oil 2013 reality show, this serie's description reminds me of Dallas. Let's see if I am wrong.

Set in the present day, in the area of the Bakken formation, a place where almost 10% of the US oil production comes from, the series starts off with a car accident. The actors seem charismatic enough, the setup intriguing, but the accident leaves a lot to be desired. Do they always have to have the scene where someone turns completely to watch the person next to them while they are driving? Doesn't anyone in the movies watch other movies that repeat the same trope over and over again? The show is set in cowboy territory where people wear the hats and have conflicts with the native Americans and the big boss man is played by Don Johnson! The sheriff is played by Delroy Lindo, as well.

To me, the first fifteen minutes of the pilot proved that the show has potential. The actors are decent, the production values are high and, besides some rather amateurishly written scenes, I believe this to be able to become a classic. It feels like the story is about innocence corrupted by money, as evidenced by the young hopeful and loving couple and the roughness and mercantilism of the people and the area. I will try it on my wife, see what she says.

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Next stop: Flesh and Bone. Claire, a talented but emotionally troubled dancer, joins a company in New York City, and soon finds herself immersed in the tough and often cutthroat world of professional ballet. Sounds like an interesting show... but not for me. The wife will have to consider this as well.

I kind of hoped it would be connected with the Flesh and Bone song by The Burning Brides, wonderfully used in the vampire comedy Suck. Well, it wasn't. More likely is an attempt to bank on the success of Black Swan. Although if the show is serializing that, I will watch it!

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Following is From Darkness. The story of Claire Church (Duff), a former police officer who moves away to the remote Western Isles in an attempt to escape the violent past that still haunts her. British show, it sounds like an attempt to continue shows like Broadchurch and put in a female lead while at it, so they can fill their diversity quota. Let's see what it's about.

I was right. Dark, brooding, depressing, about emotionally scarred police people going to solve cases. Verbal and emotional violence, flawed personalities, well fleshed out characters. I may end up watching it, but I am not certain yet. On IMDb it's rated 5.2 and the people's comments are quite negative.

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Oh, dear. Heroes Reborn. A year ago, a terrorist attack in Odessa, Texas, left the city decimated. Blamed for the tragic event, those with extraordinary abilities are in hiding or on the run from those with nefarious motives. A direct followup of the Heroes series that I eventually ended up not watching anymore. If the pilot is good, though, I might keep it to watch it on fast forward. Let's see what we've got.

The pilot starts within a world of hope, where people and "evos" can live in peace. Then... kaboom! Some terrorist attack and the whole world changes. Yeah, I know, it sounds familiar, doesn't it? Maybe it will open up some eyes, but I doubt it. After all, the same message was exposed in the first series and no one cared. The same comic book feel, with the titles and the chapters and so on. I like that Jack Coleman is still in it as Noah Bennet, I am really glad Claire Bennet is not a character anymore and I see Hiro in the cast, which is nice. Let's see where it goes. I am not ready to dismiss it right off the bat, but I believe that is almost identical to the first series, save the different cast.

Continued in part 2

Yesterday, a CBS original announcement was published stating that a new Star Trek series will be produced to be released in 2017! Yes! Finally! However, I am not all enthused about this. The news item is doing nothing more than promote a generic product. It's like saying "We are going to release the newest detergent brand in 2017" without saying what makes it special or what it is supposed to clean. The entire announcement is about the old Star Trek, the 50 year anniversary (or the 47th of it's cancellation, I guess... morons!) and how the people who wrote the worst Star Trek films yet are on board for it. At least J.J.Abrams is not in. They basically are advertising "Generic Star Trek series. Get you space ship high at the lowest cost in our store".

Yes, I do have a problem with the Kurtzman/Orci team. Take a look of the filthy trash made for the lowest common denominator that they have worked on: Hercules and Xena, Alias, Fringe, Sleepy Hollow, Scorpion; all shows that look interesting, but have no story, no substance, no end. You just watch them for watching's sake, on fast forward, hoping you will see a fun monster or to see how an episode ends. They also worked on the new Star Treks, which personally I disliked with a vengeance.

I mean, look at the announcement. A generic Star Fleet symbol in a shiny, misty light and a text saying nothing. You know what says something? The "Shop" section in the right, where you can already buy T-shirts and Spock ears.

Mr. Kurtzman, Mr. Orci, if you are reading this, please, pretty please, prove me wrong. Show me some light in the pit of cynicism that I fell into. Demonstrate to the world that you are still in it for the stories, for the emotion, for the fun, not just for the money. Make this great concept and then you can say "Ha, Siderite! You're just another moaning critic on the faceless web and you don't know what you are talking about!"

Rumors about a new Star Trek series have appeared and died many times, but the most recent and believable ones stem from March this year, where two pitches seem to be favored: a Michael Straczynski and Bryce Zabel complete reboot, which is highly unlikely, and a further in the future Federation story, where the entire quadrant is at peace and complacent and has to jolt back to action after a surprise new enemy attack. This one seems likely to me for many reasons: Picard is way too old to play any significant role, so is Kirk, while all other attempts at heroic leaders have misfired. CBS doesn't have the guts to make the captain or even the entire vessel alien, so the captain will be a human, like always, and they already went through the phases of black captain, female captain, young captain. Therefore they need a completely new human captain, one that is again a rebel white male and navigates the ship through the moral labyrinth created by alien concepts, which are veiled concepts from other non Western countries. Also, the complacent peaceful empire attacked from outside seems connected to the political reality of the present, which is a constant in the successful Star Trek series.

I don't know how I feel about this. I felt that Star Trek was best when there was no arch enemy in the mix. Next Generation was without question the best Star Trek series ever made and it wasn't based on the war of the Federation with anyone. There were new crises and skirmishes all the time and aliens with long term aggressive intent like the Borg, but the show was never about the war. Deep Space 9 was also like that, until they entered the Dominion War phase, and nobody cared about it much. Enterprise failed terribly with its ridiculous time war, while Voyager started well, then collapsed under the stupid idea that the show needed to be about a strong female character, and therefore they created strong male enemies for her to defeat. Ha, in a way, Voyager's end - the defeat of the Borg Queen - showed not only how stupid it is to try to put females in charge just for the sake of political correctness and no other plot related reasons, but it showed it twice, and then both died at the end, saving the Universe from the great PC threat :) The original series of Star Trek was also not about a specific war and people remember it fondly because of that, regardless of the silly budget and production values. However, that doesn't mean this Star Trek: Federation thing couldn't work. Because it would be anchored in the present, they would always have some ideas on how to go on without having to pull concepts out of their ass while stoned. People would empathize with one side or the other, which I believe to be crucial: paper villains always make bad shows.

There is, of course, the possibility that the new show would be a completely different idea. Perhaps the Star Trek: Star Fleet Academy series that I am expecting for so long, just because it is the last stage of a franchise: adolescent audience, adolescent actors. But the ideas could be fresh as well: think Star Trek meets Harry Potter via Ender's Game (or even better: Fisherman's Hope).

So here is my pitch: a well aged alien teacher is training a class of young cadets, too young to do anything, mind you, except learn. While on a training mission with a shitty training ship, they encounter an unexpected situation, one that requires study, for the survival of the Federation. Notice that I didn't define this as "an enemy", but just something that needs to not fall into adversary hands, perhaps, something that would help the Federation, but would threaten it in the hands of anyone else. Unable to communicate or return, the old teacher must become a captain to his students and solve the situation through ingenuity and hard work. Instead of Spock, Data, 7 of 9 as a counterpoint to the human captain, the captain is now utterly non human, the alien voice of reason, while the entire crew of kids would be a young virile emotional counterpoint to the cold calculation of their captain. It would be controversial because it would also put children in situations where children should not be put, making every experience in every episode a coming of age thing, changing all the characters as the show progresses. They would be the rebels, the bringers of new ideas, the brave bodies and minds that would employ unexpected tactics to achieve their task, but also the stupid kids that die needlessly, that put others in danger, that get physically and psychologically abused.

It would be also anchored in the reality of the moment, because it would touch subjects like teaching methods, the way adults often dismiss or discredit the young, the stupidity and beauty of said youth, the traps they fall for and the people who want to take advantage of their untrained minds and souls. It would also bring god damned sexuality in a show that always looked like made for people that are 50 years old. It would have a political side as well, since the reasons why a discovery cannot be shared because it is too powerful, but should not be destroyed because it is knowledge, will always be controversial.

Oh, dear, I knew that writing a Star Trek post would just never end. Perhaps I should start ST fiction and be done with it. I hope my Star Trek reader fans have enjoyed this and that the rest were not utterly bored. Can't wait for 2017! Perhaps if I would run really fast towards the sun...

Continuum is a strange TV series. It starts as some sort of police procedural, only set in the past from the standpoint of a future in 2077, where the corporations won and the future is stateless, corporate run business, where the police is just another private security force, etc. The crisis point is one from which a cell of anticorporate terrorists are sent back in time, together with a Protector (a cop from the future) to the near future (from our perspective). Each season from there on is more or less a different story, where the viewers much suspend their disbelief (again) to understand the new timeline story. As usual, a time travelling idea destroys, rather than rejuvenates, a story. Instead of a steady, involving plot, we get an all you can eat buffet of redefining the story. Each season we get basically a new series, but with the same characters. And it kind of works, but it loses all sense or meaning. (Meaning you would be dumb as fuck - and as me - to watch this)

I was fortunate enough to watch the last episode of the series (season 4, episode 6), when I was inebriated. I have to say that this is the only way Continuum will make sense to you: utterly drunk and on fast forward. This way, the storyline invented by cocaine driven Hollywood execs makes a little bit of sense and gives one the feel that the idea Continuum had has a sort of ... pardon my pun... continuity. Other than that, you should definitely avoid this series.

Rachel Nichols is super sexy and cute. That's the only thing going for the TV show. I am not kidding; I actually watched the series exclusively because she was hot. The story, the characters, the way everybody would get in bed (so to speak) with everybody - without having sex, mind you - was just puerile. And the last episode (read this: the last episode they had the budget to finish) was so underwhelming that it made me cringe with pain and disgust, only I was so piss drunk I didn't care. And I would definitely bone Rachel Nichols if I had the chance, so you, the more moraly advanced human beings, should ignore this series altogether.

Bottom line: everything that happens in Continuum feels natural when you are piss drunk. You should avoid it, if possible, if not inebriated.

Update 31 December 2018: After five seasons, Z Nation was cancelled. It had its ups and downs, with inconsistent levels of quality and storytelling, but it was very nice overall and I am glad to have watched it. Personally, I loved the innovation in the sci-fi and the way the show did not take itself too seriously, but sometimes tackling serious and contemporary social issues was important, too. The last season, for example, was all about democracy and egomaniacs trying to subvert it. Perhaps it wasn't the right show to try that on, but I appreciate that the creators thought it was worth it. So, no Z Nation in 2019, but maybe SyFy will learn from this and continue with fun and intelligent storytelling. I certainly hope so.

And now for the original post:

Due to the sheer number of TV series I am watching, I've abandoned the list format, in which I would give a short review of each. I am thinking that I will periodically review shows that I think are exceptional in some way or another. Z Nation is something that sounds stupid from the get go: a low budget Walking Dead clone from SyFy, made by The Asylum. I mean, can this be good at all? The Asylum are famous for the low budget rip-offs and SyFy... well, they changed their name from SciFi Channel to reflect their utter disrespect for the genre that they were supposed to promote. And, to paraphrase Woody Allen, it involves zombies.

The answer to the question is a resolute YES. While it doesn't take itself seriously at all, it is not a comedy. It is not like Sharknado, for example. Most humor in it is ironic with some occasional and subtle references to other work in the genre. The characters are complex and wacky, the story gets more original as we go and the show is full of death and gore. Let me tell you this: Walking Dead is a boring piece of crap compared to Z Nation.

Is it also bad? Yes. Some of the non permanent actors can barely act, the pacing is all over the place, the budget is low and the things that go on in the series don't always make a lot of sense. But compare it with, say... Farscape, which was much better funded, it is more consistent and more fun.

Bottom line: I don't believe this is a show for everybody, but it certainly is not a fringe thing, either. It's like somebody said "We know TV series are mostly crap and instead of trying to pretend they are not, we accept it. But we will make fun crap!". It is a really refreshing TV series and I enjoyed every episode. Give it a go!

A day ago there was a "leak" of three TV series pilots. I know, it sounds like someone out there is pissing TV series, but a look at most of them and you start seeing the truth of it. I don't really believe they were stolen or anything, either. I think they were deliberately distributed to gauge viewer reaction. The three shows in question are Blindspot, Lucifer and Minority Report. What do they all have in common? Law enforcement. It gets ridiculous from here on, you've been warned.

Blindspot is about a young woman (lovely Jaimie Alexander - the actress playing the Asgardian warrior Lady Sif in the Thor Marvel universe) found naked, without memories and tattooed all over her body. The tattoos are clues about future crimes and our Jane Doe helps the FBI solve them. The series has the obvious hallmarks of the post Lost era, with just enough artificial mystery to keep one guessing, but not really caring. Anyway, all I can say is that if you make a show about Jaimie Alexander found naked you should bloody show her naked! Stupid Americans! The French should start remaking these shows and demonstrate how it is done!

Lucifer is about... the devil. He comes to Earth because he got tired of ruling Hell - which was his divine punishment from his father, God. And by Earth I mean Los Angeles. Yes, very subtle. He teams up with another lovely (Lauren German) who is a police detective. Why, you might ask? Devil may care, he just loves solving crimes and has daddy issues. The show is so ridiculously pompous that it raises hackles. It reminds me of the well deservedly cancelled The Transporter series.

Minority Report is based on a movie about "precogs" used to stop crime by predicting it, leading to the paradox of arresting and incarcerating people because of crimes they did not commit. Yet. I haven't watched it. Yet. But since the movie was based itself on the works of famous paranoid sci-fi writer Phillip K. Dick, it is the only one that I have hopes for. Of course the detective will be a young attractive person, teamed with another young attractive person with some special power that helps solving some type of crisis, probably crimes and possibly related to terror attacks. I can see it... in the future...

Update: I was right. One of the precogs in the movie helps a young black female police detective to prevent crimes. This is a horrible perversion of the film, which ended with showing the precog system not working and putting innocent people in jail. In the series, the police is frustrated that the precog era has ended and is convinced that every released arrestee from the program would have become a killer. Yuck!

Shinsekai Yori, translated as From the New World in English, is the anime adaptation of the homonymous book from 2008, written by Yusuke Kishi. It shows, too, as the subjects touched are deep, the characters are complex and the story is wonderful. It is a true sci-fi, not only set into the far future, but also using serious concepts such as what it means to be human, what is the price of peace and questioning if we can ever change as a species and as a culture.

It is a complete plot told in 25 episodes, well animated, but I wouldn't call the animation special, yet the story is certainly worth it. If you want to compare it with something, try a combination between The Village and some fantasy kid school movie. While it begins like a post apocalyptic version of Harry Potter, it quickly turns into a discussion about the sacrifices required to preserve peace. It doesn't just stop at the young adult audience, but continues with new and new twists until it feels like you have a collection of stories that just happen to follow one another, yet they are very connected. The film is filled with Japanese ways of seeing the world, from the absolute obedience towards authority to the horror they instinctively feel when talking about mass destruction, but also random cruelty based on a class system, or that sense of duty that permeates everything everybody does, or girls always stumbling or being interrupted by men when they talk and told what to do. However, it doesn't stop there and it explains, in a way, why things are like that and what are their consequences.

In the end, you feel like humanity has been deconstructed and its ways of functioning laid bare and put to trial. I liked the characters and the emotional rollercoaster the anime has put me through. Really nice, Hollywood should take heed on how to do a good story and put it into motion. I highly recommend it.

Just a quick reminder that there are a lot of Star Trek productions out there, some really terrible, some really good. I am going to talk about three(ish) of them today.


First one is Star Trek: Federation One. It is with a lot of actors you have seen in other Hidden Frontier and Studio Areakt productions and focuses on the chief security of the presidential office of the Federation. While the plot is kind of a mess, the acting was decent and I was actually very sad to see that after the first "season" of two episodes they continued the story in an audio format. Even if the main character looked like he was on speed all the time, I had fun with it.


Another one is Star Trek: The Infinite Chain. Even if it is split into "episodes" it is actually a feature film. The acting is a bit amateurish, but decent. No obese teens in this one. It uses the now tired plot of a Federation starship thrown into unknown space by "an anomaly". The worst part of it was the "doctor" that was assigned to the mission. His character was believable: the guy in charge of the project creating the sensors used to study the anomaly, but in truth not a good manager or having any merit in the team. He just explodes randomly in childish emotional outbursts, threatening everybody with his artificial authority, and everybody hates him. I totally know people like that. However the actor was just goddamn awful and his script lines ridiculous! The makeup was ingenious, but really cheesy.


The last, but certainly not least, is something made by the Hidden Frontier team, but not set in the Star Trek universe. I am talking about Frontier Guard. The casting is made with the better actors of previous productions and, while the universe seems very similar to the Star Trek one, it is actually a different thing altogether. They use another type of space propulsion, it involves a FederationFrontier Guard academy and it concerns The Arc, a huge alien artifact that may have seeded the galaxy with intelligent life. Unfortunately, after some great episodes, they completely lost it. They began (some) episodes with "My name is..." evoking feelings of remembrance towards all the bad DC superhero series and movies, they started pointless subplots like the gay relationship thing - which always pisses me off, not because of the gayness, but because of the relationship that doesn't further the plot in any meaningful way - and threw in the towel after the 12th episode (which was an elevator show, basically).

From these three Frontier Guard was the best. My guess is that they wanted to do a Star Trek Academy series - which makes total sense and it should be the direction of the next Star Trek series - but they didn't get the approval. Since this sounds like a really good idea and one that might attract a lot of fans, I believe studios are keeping the story in reserve. However, not being Star Trek allowed them to evolve both stories and characters and I was really excited to see this done. In a world where everybody is remaking remakes, we need and deserve original content. Just look at David Feintuch's Seafort Saga series of books. That would make a fantastic TV series and has enough material to allow for several companion feature films.

For people just considering starting to watch these, do not expect Star Trek Next Generation. The actors are amateurs, I mean real amateurs not professionals who just started acting, most of them are American Trekkies and - even if I don't want to insult - some of them are just humongous pieces of fat with big glasses, which kind of explains the whole geek high school thing that is kind of difficult to understand in Europe. The stories, the lines, the makeup, the uniforms, the special effects, they are all done by enthusiasts. Sometimes they feel cheesy, sometimes they look completely and horribly fake. But once you realize that they are people like you, enjoying the wonderful universe of Star Trek, you can begin enjoying these productions.

I've watched other things as well, including Machinima style animations like Borg War - which I wouldn't recommend, but wasn't bad, and I will continue to look for these things. Just by looking at people like Hidden Frontier, who start doing something for the fun of it and end up doing original stuff with veteran amateur actors, I get filled with hope for the whole fan made universe, not just the Star Trek one. Keep up the good work guys (and if you can't do it good, keep working and it will get there eventually :) )

The best thing about it is that most of these series are online, on YouTube, free to watch. Here are some links to the shows above and others:
Star Trek Federation One - 1.01 Unity
Star Trek Federation One - 1.02 Institutions

Star Trek: The Infinite Chain

Frontier Guard

Star Trek: Digital Ghost

Special mention: Star Trip - a humorous parody of Star Trek.

Just wanted to post these really funny Star Trek fan made animations.

South Trek - a South Park animated Star Trek:


Star Trekkin' song:


Stone Park - a Flinstones animated Star Trek:



Some other funny stuff:

As some of you know, I am watching a lot of TV series, including cop and lawyer stuff, childish fantasy and sci-fi series, pirate and musketeer crap, etc. So when I say that I couldn't watch something, you should heed me. There are also some shows that I actually can stand watching, but barely, usually using the fast forward to watch an episode in ten minutes or less.
Here is a list of just such shows:

• Lost - I think it all started with Lost. After a brilliant pilot episode, it got into 1001 Arabian Nights territory and became ridiculously unwatchable. While it wasn't a truly bad show (some people actually enjoyed all 6 seasons) I couldn't watch it more than 2 seasons. Calm down, the rest of the shows will be more recent.
• The Messengers - every once in a while the American Bible thumpers convince producers to create religion based TV series or movies. While every possible superstition has and will be used in films, the Christian ones are standalone - in their own cinematic universe, if you will - and take themselves seriously every time. Messengers is one of these, and I couldn't watch more than 2 episodes before I gave up. It's (again) about the upcoming apocalypse and end of days and these 8 idiots are given superpowers to convince God that we are still worth it, while Satan goes around doing silly things. It was not only about the most tabloid part of (a part of) the bible, but it was acted and scripted badly. Ugh!
• Dig - This relates more to Hebrew religion and feels like a TV series take on the Da Vinci Code, with clones of Jesus (I think), FBI policemen running around in Israel doing whatever they feel like, shady cabals and shady opposing cabals. It could have been interesting and I admit that I was drawn into it by the acting and production values. Unfortunately the script was a convoluted mess that had no way of improving. They never learn to ease into it, present a little bit of the story, add another element later on, make people feel rewarded for continuing to watch the series. Anyway, four or five episodes in, I gave up.
• iZombie - Oh, you have to love this: young blonde accidentally gets turned into a zombie and gets a job at the morgue in order to have access to a fresh supply of brains. While consuming said brains, she gets visions of what the brain's owner had lived and thus helps a police detective to find out who murdered them. It combines police procedurals with zombies, comedy, romance and drama. Talking of messes, this is as messy as they come. I watched a few episodes before I slapped myself "what the hell are you doing watching this swill?"
• Eye Candy - A darker show about a girl using her hacker tech skills to try and catch the serial abductor and killer of young women, including her sister. Yet the killer is just as able and a game of cat and mouse ensues. It started well, then went into pop culture territory. Besides, she continues on only because the killer refuses to murder her and get on with his job. Something about the way the film was made or the main actress or the ridiculous plot made it impossible for me to get past the second episode.
• Allegiance - It is strange to put this series here, as I watched all the episodes so far. However, it was hope that kept me going, not the quality of the show. While it is about Russian spies in the US, living as a family, while their unknowing son is recruited into the FBI, while the antagonists are interesting, the story goes so much over the top that it becomes overcheesy. That means it starts as cheesy, then it starts to smell. Just do yourself a favor and do not watch it.
• Suits - Yet another flashy show that I kept watching for no good reason. It is about lawyers. Young, cocky, caught in personal intrigues and competing with one archnemesis after another, while occasionally engaging in some silly romance. It makes no sense, although I have to admit that I liked the feel of the show. It just goes nowhere. They get the mood right, the actors, the characters, then they make a joke of the storyline and script.
• Helix - Helix is the new Lost! It starts with a subject close to my heart: killer viruses, and then it crashes into la-la-land. Viruses that make people immortal and strong so they form a world controlling organization, CDC teams that act like they are terrorist splinter cells with no support, no rules, no communication, strains of the virus that turns people into The Strain like vampires, religious cults that are also genetic scientists living on their own island, etc. It starts as something, goes into something else, switches back. It's like someone was undecided what to write about and they wrote about everything then they just drew lines between the unrelated subjects and wrote a script. It is a complete and utter waster of time.
• Elementary - I watched two seasons of this until I admitted to myself that there is no point in continuing. I like both Johnny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu, I love Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes character and so a modern Sherlock should have been something I would at least enjoy. Unfortunately, it shortly turns into another "gifted person helps the New York police" show and one can feel when the writers just completely stopped giving a damn, if they ever did before beyond pushing the pilot.
• Scorpion - Talking about gifted persons helping the police, this had a promising concept: a genius young man creates a sort of a thinktank of gifted people then starts helping his FBI parent surrogate. While the characters were brilliant, the people writing their script obviously were not. It took a few episodes to completely fail and another ten for me to just give up hope.
• The Librarians - God, what a complete and utter mess. A TV show spinoff of the ridiculous Librarian movies, it was completely stupid. I mean, the movies were masterpieces compared to the writing for this show. Stay away!
• The Newsroom - This is a show that has ended and I watched all of its episodes. However, it was under duress. My wife liked it, but then I could see that she couldn't watch it anymore. I watched the last mini-season just in order to tell her it was not worth watching. It's about a news organisation that fights for its moral integrity. It would have been fun if not for the hyperactive writers that thought people could normally carry conversations like machineguns shoot bullets and the ridiculous romantic interludes that made no sense for anyone but a New Yorker raised on Woody Allen movies.
• State of Affairs - I already ranted enough about this piece of propagandistic crap. The plot was stupid, the script was stupid, the actors couldn't give a damn. It's just bad!
• The 100 - In theory I am still watching this young adult sci-fi TV show. In reality, I can't make myself start watching the second season. Why? Because the sci, as usual, gets completely negated by the fi. Add to this hormone induced behaviour of teenage kids and savage barbarians and you get a load of messy crap. It started really well, though. Too bad.
• Extant - Another sci-fi show in which they dumped randomly whatever was hot at the moment: aliens, artificial intelligence, the Japanese guy from Helix, etc. Add to this the excruciating acting skills of Halle Berry and you get something unwatchable.
• Stalker - This is one of the more interesting police procedurals. It involves a team that is tasked to handle stalkers. The new hire of the agency may be a stalker himself. The lead actors are people that I respect. However the story was so banal and lacking anything that showed any concern for the lives of the characters or victims, it was so formulaic that it ended up being something I regret having watched.
• Arrow - OK, I am still watching The Arrow, but I do it on fast forward. It started as a fun comic book TV show with a vigilante dressed in green killing assholes with the use of arrows. It then started growing and expanding until it reached a full team of heroes, with impossible situations, history, skill learning curves, ridiculous villains. It culminated with John Barrowman having a line in the show in which he tells three other characters he is the better man for a job because he is the better at acting. Which is true, but it just shows that even the scriptwriters are tired of the mediocre talents in this mediocre show. I keep watching it because it is set in the same universe as The Flash, which is the better TV show, even if not by much.
• Gracepoint - When Americans are redoing a show with the same script as the original show from a different country I snicker. Stoopeed Americaens, they can't read subtitles. But Gracepoint upped the ante: they redid Broadchurch, a British TV show. Not only that, they cast the same actor as the main character. I love David Tennant, but I can't possibly condone watching this. Anyway, it was cancelled after a season, and then Broadchurh continued for a second season, also starring Tennant.
• Sleepy Hollow - An entire TV series based on the Legend of the Sleepy Hollow. Starring a colonial Mason that fought for and knew the forefathers of the United States, resurrected in our times and fighting along a black female police officer to stop the End of Times. What can possibly go wrong here? Yet it wasn't that clear cut. The comedy was fun, the original drama had impact, the romance was believable and John Noble, like in Fringe, was awesome. However the storyline, like in Fringe, descended into a chaotic mess that makes no sense and no one could ever care for. Too bad, since it wasn't a complete waste of time, especially at the beginning.
• Madam Secretary - Just as with State of Affairs, I've ranted enough about it. It's a pure propaganda piece, with no artistic value whatsoever.
• Haven - It started as a nice supernatural police procedural with a sexy FBI agent coming in a town where people get dangerous "troubles" which act like superpowers out of control. I kept waiting for it to get anywhere, instead it just went more and more overdramatic and adding storylines that made no sense and in the end turned into a supernatural 90120. Too bad, since it started well and has some actors that I really like.
• Forever - Forever boring, this show is about a British doctor who never ages and, whenever gets killed, he finds himself alive and well in a nearby body of water, completely naked. And what does he do with that? He helps the police, as a forensic medic. Just as a general rule: avoid the gifted people helping the police catch bad guys shows. They never end well and they are as well propaganda pieces.
• The Lottery - Badly made show. Bad casting, bad acting, bad scripting. The plot: people stop having children, embryos stop getting fertilized and a woman doctor finds a way. Obviously, the powers that be want to control this in a market of dwindling supplies. Could have been nice, probably, although shows about children and parently feelings never do well in the long run, but it was pure shit from the beginning.
• Taxy Brooklyn - Someone tried to combine the French Taxi storyline with a police procedural. Sexy ass police detective, a Black French taxi driver, some intrigue and of course the obligatory connection with an old case involving a relative. But it was bad. The actors did what they could with lazy writing, but they couldn't save it.
• The Witches of East End - Some of the most beautiful women in acting get together with ridiculously good looking men in order to act a really stupid Dynasty-like plot. Just like similarly afflicted The Originals, it is a complete waste of time, unless you are a hormonal teenager and you need something to jack off to.
• The Leftovers - Trying to express the horrible anguish of being among the ones left on Earth after 2% of the population randomly disappears. Of course, it hints of another Bible concept: the Rapture. It felt to me overly dramatic, with people just doing stuff for no good reason and overly depressing as well for equally no good reason. It seemed to be well acted, but I just couldn't watch it.
• Resurrection - an American remake after Les Revenants, it missed the point completely. Ended up being this drawn out mystery that led nowhere, with really unsympathetic characters and without any of the real tension from the French series.
• Da Vinci's Demons - I know, I am still watching it, but not because it is worth watching. It is about a young Da Vinci who does everything from saving Florence to saving Italy and then going to the Americas (way before it was discovered) to look for clues about his mother, who was there previously. It is a fun to watch show, but it really goes nowhere. I liked the acting and the production values, though.
• Crisis - An intriguing concept: some very resourceful people kidnap a lot of high profile adolescent kids, including the son of the president of the United States, then they use the parents to achieve their goals. While the show was well done, the story was just a lazy fantasy trying to surf the edge of suspension of disbelief. Again, it goes nowhere.
• The Tomorrow People - An American take of an old British children's TV show that wasn't good to begin with, it only served to promote certain actors to better TV shows. It used the common tropes: child with mysterious father who dies doing something awesome, mother unknowing, uncle being involved somehow, evil organizations, rebellious teenagers fighting them, etc. It just collapses under the ridiculous ideas that they introduce to appease a boring viewership.
• The Originals - Some spin-off from a vampire show that I never watched, it is about pompous asses acting even more pompous because they are the original vampires. Werewolves and witches are thrown in the mix, but the only worth mentioning attribute of the show is the pompousness. Which is annoying. So don't watch it.
• Killer Women - Trying to get on the diversity bandwagon and get some easy money, it was supposed to be a police procedural with tough women. Didn't pan out. Was cancelled.
• Bitten - One of the most beautiful actresses around is a werewolf. Instead of being about her biting more than she can chew (heh heh), it is about another clan/royalty obnoxiousness, while the world is blissfully unaware and rivals are trying to take power or kill them or whatever. Do you know why people don't officially acknowledge vampires and werewolves? Because they act all annoying and overbearing while being completely idiotic. Nobody wants to know these people!

OK, as an interesting experiment on my preferences vs the public preferences, I will tell you how many of the shows above were cancelled and how many were not. Ready?

Completed (meaning not cancelled, but finishing their story): 2
Cancelled: 16
Still Running or undecided: 15

So there you go, studios think 50% of the shows that I can't stand should be running and they are basing their decisions on public choice. What do you guys think?

There are these time periods in which movies and TV shows start to follow a common theme. I don't know exactly why that happens, but I suspect it's about Hollywood corporate managers stealing everything that seems to work and getting to copy each other. We seem to be living under the sign of the Spy right about now and in this blog post I will be discussing the following TV series (listed in alphabetical order):

• Allegiance - a show about a CIA analyst who is the unknowing son of a pair of Russian KGB spies. He is also a kind of idiot savant which can remember a lot of things and make connections that no one can. It gets really hard to believe soon as it mashes up family drama with evil SVR (former KGB) machinations, CIA and FBI operations, traitors and double agents, hired assassins, plots to bring down the United States, and so on. It's one of the lesser spy shows and I don't recommend it.
• The Americans - I believe this is the gem of the lot. The protagonists are two fake Americans, in reality KGB agents. They live like an American couple, with the mandatory two children and their neighbor is an FBI agent in the very taskforce that is supposed to catch people like them. The acting is very good and the show is a serious one, going only occasionally over the top. Also the lovely Keri Russell makes it very appealing as well :)
• The Assets - The Assets has ended after a single season, with the successful completion of the main plot. It was a strange mix of really good acting and rather weak characterisation. It followed the story of Aldrich Ames, a famous disgruntled CIA operative who sold American secrets to the Russian KGB. As it is a true story, the entire plot was not terribly captivating, but the problem for me was with the characters.
• Turn - About the spy ring of the American rebels against the British during the Washington era, it is an intricate and interesting story. I like most of the characters, even the villains, which is rare in films these days. I particularly like Burn Gorman in this, even if he plays this British buffoon that understands nothing of what is going on around him.
• X Company - Set during World Word II, it is about a company of spies working in the German occupied territories. Their newest recruit is a guy who can remember everything he sees, but is a little weird. Sound familiar? Heh

From the list above, The Americans shines bright. Good acting, good directing, but also a dedication to show the political and social issues of the time. From the ones here, it is the only one who I feel can teach one something about history and about human nature in general. Turn is also rather good, but it is too reliant on a number of characters that keep ending up crossing paths in implausible situations, and many times goes a little over the top. The actors are really good in this one, though, and it is worth watching for sure. X Company is more like the typical WWII movie, with the evil Germans and the brave resistance fighters. They do attempt occasionally to enter the grey areas, like good German officers, conflicted collaborators or remorseful secret agents who have to compromise between human values and the mission, but it is not enough. When the beautiful team leader played by Evelyne Brochu reveals that she is half Jewish and the whole story goes into Holocaust territory you can feel the show going south. The Assets was brave in not employing only beautiful actors. The main character was ugly and weak and constantly fearing discovery, hard to empathize with. But so were the people who were trying to catch him, led by an obsessive woman that acted like a blood hound the entire time. Not being able to make an emotional connection to any of the characters hurt the success of this otherwise interesting story. This leaves Allegiance, which feels a lot like a fairy tale combined with a police "special" procedural (you know the type: special person helps police solve crimes) which incidentally features spies. While I cannot really recommend X Company, Allegiance is the only one that I would recommend against.

Worth mentioning is that three of these shows are based on real events. The Assets follows the exploits of Aldrich Ames, X Company is loosely based on Camp X and Turn links to the story of the Culper Ring.

That's it for pure spy shows. I am not putting in this list shows like Homeland or Legends, which also show undercover operatives, but are not specifically aimed at spying as the main subject of the plot. Tell me what you think.

The same people that did Star Trek: Hidden Frontier created the three season Star Trek: Odyssey. The first season was pretty good, beginning a story that was a combination of Voyager, Deep Space Nine and even Enterprise, the second season had fewer resources and the third season was decent, but the story was a complete mess that was very hard to grasp. Luckily enough, the superfluous homosexual stories in Hidden Frontier were almost not existent in Odyssey. Instead we were treated to intergalactic invasions, religious empires, slipstream drives, artificial wormholes, omega particles, anti-omega particles, Romulan first officer played by lovely Michelle Laurent and some decent (not good) screenplay. The technical effects, acting and directing varied from OK to really bad. They clearly learned a lot from Hidden Frontier, but the green screen continues to be their greatest enemy.

Even better, it is a crowdfunded show and you can watch it all online, for free, on YouTube. Here are the links for all three seasons:

Season 1
Season 2
Season 3

Enjoy!

I took the name of the anime from a YouTube video, recommending it as one with a great twist in it. I watched for two episodes as the main protagonist, an ordinary guy in a Japanese highschool, starts talking to a strange girl (Haruhi Suzumiya) in his class, gets coopted in a mad scheme to create a club that investigates mysteries - specifically aliens, time travelers or espers, then adding the three other members of the club. I thought it was going to be about this club actually investigating something. But no, in the third episode we realize that the three other members are an alien, a time traveler and an esper. Soon after we find out that they know about each other and that each of them and, indeed, their entire race/organization were figments of Haruhi's imagination made reality. Haruhi apparently has the ability to create entire universes, essentially making her a goddess, albeit unknowingly.

So far so good, but then for 28 episodes I waited for anything interesting to happen. Where was that amazing twist? Apparently, the twist was that she was some supernatural phenomenon and that's it. The rest is just a typical cliched Japanese high-school story, the one where the lead character is a male boy surrounded by beautiful girls that have an almost undisclosed interest in him and that do crazy stuff together. When the last episode wasn't even closing the series, I got really mad. It was a complete waste of my time. Ugh!

OK, I have no idea what most Japanese titles want to say. Is this about a parasite who is also a short, pithy statement expressing a general truth or rule of conduct? No, it is not. Parasyte is about a guy who gets infected by an alien metamorph, but somehow he manages to contain the infected area to his right arm. As a result, he maintains his personality, but now has a powerful alien as his right arm. It can change shape, it is very intelligent and it is generally useful when dealing with other afflicted, who usually have their brain infested, and thus are alien in their entirety.

Of course, being a Japanese anime, our hero is a high school male student after which a number of girls are pining for no good reason and that he has to fight to protect. No scenes of using his versatile tentacle arm on these girls, though. There are also some discussions about the role of these parasites and/or humans in the world, a vague ecologist propaganda that really has nothing to do with the plot and lots and lots of gore. The interaction between the human highschooler and the amoral and fiercely individualistic alien makes for most of the fun in the anime.

The series is ongoing, but I just watched the first 23 episodes and I can safely say that they could have stopped there. Probably they can come with fresh ideas, but for me the story started and ended satisfactorily with episode 23. The animation is good, but nothing spectacular, the Japanese cliches are abundant, but only barely overused and the main character is someone you can easily like and understand.

As far as I can see the anime faithfully follows the manga and episode 23 ends where the manga chapter 62 ends. There are just two other manga chapters published, so the anime and mange are pretty much synchronized. You can read the Parasyte manga online.

Just days after I was saying how great Star Trek New Voyages/Phase II was, I stumble upon this gem of a story: Star Trek Aurora. It is a 3D animated full movie set in the Star Trek universe. Even if the animation is primitive, give it a few minutes. The acting is good and the story is really nice and original, with a believable female character and a fresh perspective on the Star Trek universe. I am embedding here the full movie, but also go to their web site and YouTube channel, since they have more work coming!