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Archive for the 'Television' Category
In the Doctor Who Universe, if Donna Noble has wedding plans something is bound to go wrong. And in ‘The End of Time’ (Part One), things go rather badly for all of humankind.
The two-part Doctor Who Christmas Special marks the end of David Tennant’s run as the tenth Doctor and Russell T. Davies role as Lead Writer and Executive Producer of the series. And there have been some fantastic episodes during this era of Doctor Who – ‘Blink’, ‘The Girl in the Fireplace’, ‘The Christmas Invasion’ and ‘Turn Left’ to name a handful. So the cliffhanger of this two-part finale for Tennant and Davies should be an edge of the seat nail biter, right? Unfortunately, not so much.
Long-time Doctor Who nemesis, The Master, makes his return rather ingloriously in some bizarre Saxon ritual and then runs amok devouring hamburgers and humans alike to feed his famishment. And when meeting up with The Doctor, he just happens to turn on some Star Wars style Sith-like powers to pummel him with an electricity bolt and then zoom directly up into the air.
Granted, the quick chat between The Doctor and The Master was endearing. The visions of a little Doctor and little Master frolicking across fields of red grass is charming, but not nearly enough to save a scene which should have been filled with much more tension and suspense in this grand finale.
It was lovely to see The Doctor’s former companion Donna back and mouthy as ever, yet quite sad to know what she has lost. One can feel The Doctors despair in both seeing Donna back to struggling and just getting by when he knows she is capable of so much more and not being able to approach someone he was once so close to. It is yet one more thing The Doctor has to endure due to his strange infatuation of humans. Being so alien he can never maintain any real, long-term relationships with his companions and acquaintances.
Wilfred Moff, who has appeared in previous episodes as Donna’s Grandfather, was really a bright spot in the show. The café scene where The Doctor shares with Wilf his fear of dying was a tearjerker. Of course The Doctor has the capability to regenerate but he admitted to Wilf he will lose a sense of who he was when this happens, thus, it’s similar to dying. And Wilf is empathetic to his situation; more so than any companion could really ever be, as he, too, is in the winter of his days.
Having Barack Obama as the current United States president waiting to make a speech on Christmas Day was a bit jarring. Usually Doctor Who uses a faux president, prime minister, whatever and it is a good idea for a show like this. Something so political and current really can take the audience out of the fantastical experience Doctor Who offers.
The smaller issues of a Time Lord exhibiting Sith-like powers, silly little rituals, President Obama and a maniacal, cannibalistic Master could have been overlooked if the confrontation between The Doctor and The Master led to a thrilling cliffhanger for the final half of the episode. But the episode just didn’t pick up. Who kidnaps a Time Lord, and a deranged one at that, to do some repairs on an immortality machine? Of course The Master will hack the device for his own use. Which is acceptable. But to make all of humanity a clone of himself? What’s the point – why not just wipe them out, make zombies, or turn them into kittens?
Excitement does ring in the hall of the Time Lords, though. The whole ‘last of the Time Lords’ plot has only existed in this current Davies imagining of Doctor Who. The current Doctor believes all Time Lords perished in a Time War, which does seem a bit of a leap of faith being they are so powerful and ancient. Apparently, the Time Lords have not perished after all and are ready to return. And that allows a little leap of faith in hopes the big Tennant finale will tie up this messy first half and give the tenth Doctor the regeneration he deserves.
Fan of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks? Of course you are!
Check out this amazing behind the scenes gallery!
Some samples after the jump!
The songwriter who wrote the catchy theme songs to The Addams Family and Green Acres television shows has died. Vic Mizzy was 93.
His manager Jonathan Wolfson says Mizzy died on Saturday at his home in Bel Air. He didn’t know the cause of death.
Mizzy got his start in vaudeville and wrote songs that were recorded by Dean Martin, Doris Day, Perry Como and Billie Holiday in the 1940s and 50s.
His hits included `The Whole World Is Singing My Song’ and `With a Hey and a Hi and a Ho-Ho-Ho’.
Mizzy has said that he didn’t mind if people only remember him for the finger snaps at the start of The Addams Family theme song. After all, he said “two snaps got me a mansion in Bel Air”.
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If you find yourself Googling when the next season of a TV program is going to begin filming (and with an I-cannot-figure-out-how-they-run-their-darn-seasons-over-there BBC behind the production who knows how long the wait will be), you likely quite enjoy the show.
Merlin sat on my TiVo for a few episodes and I put off watching it – it’d be too childish, too far from the traditional Camelot element and Arthurian legends, too silly. Maybe I’ve fan-wanked it too much, but I adore the show. Yes, who has ever heard of an angsty teenage Morgana living with King Uther Pendragon and young Prince Arthur and a gangly Merlin thrown in as a friend and servant.
But it works rather well. Many early reviews and discussions of Merlin likened it to Smallville and in many ways it lives up to the Smallville of Camelot comparisons.
While it is subverting the Arthurian legends of old, it is doing it to tell its own story, which I find easy to forgive. It’s an enchanting, fresh look at an old, old story. Modernized? A little. But what stories and legends weren’t adjusted over the millennia to fit the current times?
In the States, we don’t have many fantastical episodic adventures. The closest thing we have to that is the barely adequate Legend of the Seeker series loosely (and by loosely I mean barely even acknowledging the over arcing storyline much less character development of the original books) based on the Terry Goodkind Sword of Truth fantasy series. In the 90s, Xena and Hercules had their heyday. But it’s been very lacking in the outright sword and sorcerer fantasy vein as of late.
So props to the BBC for developing this and working out a deal with NBC to broadcast it to us fantasy geeks in the good ol’ USA. The ratings haven’t been the greatest here, but it did well enough in the UK that, per my Googling, a second season is in development.
The series does have a bit of the monster-of-the-week going for it, but it still holds on to the overall story arcs you can expect from a teenage Camelot where magic is banned and Merlin must secretly use it to protect his future king, Arthur. Going into a new series, one never knows how many seasons the show will last so this is typical first season fare – we’re learning about the characters and leaving some open ends, but there’s still enough tidying up of a problem in each episode that they can stand on their own.
I’m hoping in the second season they are able to delve more into where the characters are going (Morgana, I’m looking at you – you know you want to go to the dark side!). And exploring the whole Guinevere/Arthur/Lancelot conundrum. And I don’t know if Uther survives season one yet or not, but it would allow magic back into Camelot (though I would miss Anthony Head’s Uther quite a bit – he’s so fantastically evil and ruthless you love to hate him).
There have been some snarky comments about the set and special effects – but it’s not a big budget movie so I never went in expecting that. I think it is fine, but then again, I like the silliness of some of the Doctor Who effects. But Merlin isn’t as campy; it’s endearing. And that means a lot more to me than having a completely realistic looking Griffin (and…who’s seen a real live Griffin to compare it to anyway?).
Wow! What a time for TV… True Blood, Entourage, Hung and now Mad Men season 3 is about to kick off! Having said that, it looks like we’ll be having regular contributions here on Dogmatic with write-ups on each episode – more info soon. And seriously, if you are not watching this show, you are missing out on a bona fide classic television experience on a par with The Sopranos and Six Feet Under.
As the new season is about to kick off, AMC has released some stunning promotional photography that just blew me away when I first set eyes upon them. Photographed by Frank Ockenfels 3 these gems feature composition and color is just second to none and I just had to share them with all Dogmatic droogs. (Check them out after the jump – or visit the AMC website here).
Sunday August 16 is the kick off point for AMC’s season 3 of the brilliant ‘Mad Men’. The latest issue of Vanity Fair features some gorgeous photography by Annie Leibovitz and a great feature article by Bruce Handy on quite possibly the coolest show on TV right now.
Entering its third season on a fresh wave of Emmy nominations, AMC’s Mad Men is the most stylish—and perhaps best—show on television. Inside its meticulous reconstruction of the precipice that was New York advertising circa 1960, where the men and women of Sterling Cooper smoke, drink, love, and lie, the author learns about the struggle of Mad Men creator (and former Sopranos writer) Matthew Weiner, the casting of Jon Hamm and January Jones as Don and Betty Draper, and the obsession that fuels each episode.
Check out the Vanity Fair special here.
And, we’re looking for someone to do weekly recaps of the show. If you’re a fan of the show and would like to join the Dogmatic team, please email me and we’ll get you all sorted.
Howard Stern and Tom Bergeron to honor Three Stooges on Sirius XM.
Howard Stern and Tom Bergeron, host of “Dancing With the Stars,” are teaming up for a riveting project Friday on Sirius XM radio: a tribute to the Three Stooges featuring long-lost interviews Bergeron conducted with Moe Howard and Larry Fine in the 1970s.
If you’re anything like me, at the end of Season 1/start of S2, you’d have been disappointed that the corpse inside Bellefleur’s car wasn’t Sookie bloody Stackhouse. The end.
I’m Penny B. Dreadful, and you’ve been shit.
No, I’m only kidding… today.
…Ok and now for the spoilerriffic disclaimer – if you haven’t started watching True Blood, haven’t seen all the way to the end of Season 1, or haven’t started Season 2 DO NOT READ ON! You’ve been warned…
Yes indeed, the stiffened, rigor mortis-fused corpse was that of Miss Jeanette; the con-artist, drug store employee who “exorcised” Tara and her Jesus-alco mum, Lettie Mae. Now, here’s my first gripe: Tara is shocked to the core at the discovery that the corpse was once Miss Jeanette and, for fear of her mother finding out and relapsing (Tara’s mum seems to have been earnestly cured of her psychotic alcoholism), is very reluctant to tell the police that she in fact knew Miss Jeanette. But all it takes is a few friendly words from her beady-eyed best friend and, contrary to the moments leading up, she goes with the police without a second thought. But, whatever. Maryann, that sultry brunette will make it all better for Tara…
Poor love; Lafayette the flamboyant, prostituting, drug-dealing, short-order cook has been kidnapped and held captive by the vampire-sheriff and Fangtasia owner, Eric Northman, in a dark, dank basement, with a few other humans; including one of the rednecks who was involved with burning three vamps in the previous season. Eric feeds off and kills the redneck, spraying his precious hair (which is covered in ‘foils’, in the middle of being dyed) and Lafayette with blood. Amusingly, Eric is concerned that his hair’s dye-job has been ruined; a nice touch considering that he’s a fairly unoriginal, if not boringly cliched, broody vampire that we’ve all seen done to death, in S01.
Sam hires a clumsy, new waitress named Daphne, who incidentally reminds me a bit of Sookie – I think there’s something in that – and understandably becomes skittish of Maryann’s presence, if his flashback is anything to go by… It’s revealed that Maryann is something Other (though I wouldn’t have a clue what), and poor Fido only finds and freaks out, during cherry-popping-coitus with her.
Now, I’ve had a feeling right from the start that Maryann’s a little, shall we say, dodgy? It seems that the good looking women in True Blood end up either being Something Preternatural, or killer-fodder. (Yeah, you read my mind… “if only Paquin was good looking, not psychic and not the protagonist”……. ) Clearly, Sam’s K9 instincts are bang on about this woman-thing, and clearly, she’s trouble for anyone who lets her in. Let’s just hope that Tara keeps that hard head of hers, screwed securely on her shoulders. Speaking of Tara, just briefly, I’m not sure what to make of the charming Eggs (person, not noun, don’t blame me). One thing’s certain though, the fact that he’s one of Maryann’s can only lead to complications for Tara.
Jason Stackhouse as you may recall from S01, went to jail and found God. Specifically, The Fellowship of the Sun, “God hates fangs” church found him. His naiveté and heartfelt desire to be with God set him in good stead with Steve and Sarah Newlin; the church’s sickeningly square leaders who in turn, invite Jason to join their leadership camp in Texas, where he will have an opportunity to really learn how to hate vamps in God’s name.
The Newlins are, as I said, sickeningly square – and their plot (if my writer’s hat is on correctly) can only go one way; verrrrry dark..
Vampire Bill and Sookie’s relationship becomes a little strained as Jessica, Bill’s vamprogeny (yeah, I made that word up) hits a kind of undead puberty, with angsty teenage tantrums and moods to boot. Add to this Sookie’s discovery that Bill was involved in her nasty, sexually abusive Uncle Bartlett’s death and you’ve almost got dramatic tension between Buffy and Angel!! – Er, I mean man-jaw and tin man. Oh don’t worry, they have some unnecessarily overexposed, gratuitous make-up sex (this vamp doesn’t lose his soul!!) and all is fine again in Sunnydale. I mean, Bon Temps…
This time I mean it; I’m Penny B. Dreadful, and you’ve been shit. Ciao.
![[True] Blood From A Stone?](http://www.dogmaticblog.com/images/tv/sookie.jpg)
Let me get started by saying this: I can’t stand Anna Paquin. Yep, her beady little eyes and her tomb-stone, gap-toothed mouth make my eyes water and my mouth purse as if I’m eating a very sour lemon and deliberately squeezing its juice into my eyes.
Looks aside, despite the fact that she won an Oscar as a little girl for that Piano film (which incidentally, I never watched), and most recently a Golden Globe for her Sookie (apt name – because she is a bloody ’sook’*) Stackhouse; this kiwi ain’t got nothin’ that ‘does’ it for me, acting-wise.
*(For the international, non-Aussie readers, the word ’sook’, according to wiktionary.org, means “A moaner, complainer, or person refusing to see the mirth in a joke made at their expense; A sulk or complaint; (Scottish) To suck”)
We all know she was only cast in the X-Men films because she’s got a hard little body that looks acceptable in a catsuit – and let’s face it, when looking at “talent” like her or Megan ‘club thumb’ Fox (actually, don’t even get me started on her), apparently that counts for everything, and excuses any lack of actual craft.
So. From day one, I (the only viewer of True Blood that counts in my world) had to work very, very hard to find one, ONE redeeming quality that would make me sympathise (or even gods forbid, side with) the True Blood protagonist, behind Paquin’s faux-innocent, infuriatingly coquettish, absent, wooden man-jawed face.
But I’m here to review True Blood Season 2, and they say that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, so I’m going to retreat back to my bat-cave and be quiet now…
-PBD
…some snippets that were revealed at this year’s Comic-Con.
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Season 2 started with a collective girly scream…
You may recall Season 1’s cliff-hanger finale with Detective Andy Bellefleur, Tara and Sookie’s grim discovery of a corpse on the back seat of Bellefleur’s car, parked out the back of Merlotte’s. Needless to say, the corpse was in quite a state…
In my opinion, the discovery of a corpse is always a good way to start a new season of a show. After the minute-long intro to Season 2, I was hooked all over again and couldn’t wait to sink my teeth (pun intended) into what was in store for us viewers.
True Blood Season 2 is four episodes down (Episode 5 to be screening tonight in the ‘States) and has already begun posing and answering questions, setting up some intriguing plot twists and hints of surprises, as well as introducing and solidifying its great characters. – All positive signs that we’re in for a good season.
So, grab a burbon (or a TruBlood as the case may be), take off your cowboy boots, sit back, relax and enjoy the show, as I present to you my episode-by-episode reviews of True Blood Season 2.
NOTE: I will try to warn you in advance about spoilers, however; if you like to dive into the unknown, I recommend you don’t follow my ramblings, as I will undoubtedly cover events and plot-points through each episode, that may be classified as ’spoilers’.
-PBD
Apple: Capturing the essence of ‘True Blood’ on the Mac.
How do you market to a vampire? That’s the challenge interactive agency Digital Kitchen faced as they created a series of fang-in-cheek ads to promote HBO’s smash show True Blood.
