New Fall Shows That I Love And You Should Watch

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!  As a huge TV nerd, fall is my favourite time of the year because there’s so many new shows and most of the shows I love come back (though it also causes problems in terms of scheduling) so I decided to write a post about the new fall season. This post will be about the brand spankin’ new shows this year that I’m excited about and think the millions of readers of this site should watch or at least give a decent shot.

Glee
This is the one show that I cannot shut up about and that my friends will not stop making fun of me for watching and loving.  But fuck them all, I love Glee and I’m proud of it. Glee is about the hilarious trials and tribulations of a high school glee club, its members, and the faculty surrounding it. Being about a glee club, of course it has a few musical numbers per episode which are usually quite entertaining and fun whether the song is a Queen or Journey cover or a musical number from Cabaret.   I have downloaded a few of the songs from iTunes and am eagerly awaiting the first album (which I believe is out in November).  The musical numbers are performed by a superb ensemble cast that all have their moments.  The most recent episode is #5 so you have some catching up to do if you decide to jump on the bandwagon and if you’re already on the bandwagon: good for you, you like good things!

Community
My love of this new show can be summed up with: Joel McCale is awesome. I’d like to say that it’s not just him but it’s hard to think of someone else to play such a likeable asshole.  And without that likeable asshole, the whole show would probably fall apart despite all the side characters and actors being great.  Chevy Chase stands out, as the older eccentric guy going back to school who is also a little bit sexist and racist, along with Danny Pudi as Abed who has Asberger’s (as a joke in the first episode commented, “hehe, ass burgers”) and often references TV shows or movies (a funny example of which is in the pilot where he recites a speech from The Breakfast Club).  It is quite funny, it has a fantastic cast, and there’s less story and more just funny here but it’s still great.  It’s also supported by some great guest stars so far: the Spanish teacher played by Ken Jeong and the accounting (I think? not really sure what he taught in his episode, which was the point) teacher played by John Michael Higgins (you might know him from the Christopher Guest movies or Wayne Jarvis the professional attorney from Arrested Development). The third episode is the most recent but being a half hour show, that’s not much catching up to do.

Modern Family
The funniest new show of the year so far and I’ve only seen two episodes so that might change but screw it, I have my opinion and I’m sticking to it.  I laughed out loud when watching the premiere of this show more than Glee or Community combined; it just had so many funny moments in it and ones that have great staying and quotability power (I’ll be quoting “Why the face” and “I can’t turn it off, it’s who I am” for a while).  I was worried after such a good first episode that the second episode would show a huge quality drop off but it didn’t; it had just as many funny, quotable moments as the first and though there was a little bit of a sappy speech towards the end, it didn’t falter. It seems like a premise that has a lot of legs. It’s about three interconnected families: one traditional, one older man married to a younger woman of another race with a son from a previous marriage, and a gay couple that has adopted an Asian baby so they likely won’t run out of ideas for a long time since there’s just so many stories and angles they could approach it from.  It just aired it’s second episode so it will be easy to catch up.

FlashForward
This show was HILARIOUS…well, not so much (though there was a pretty funny scene in the second episode involving blacking out in a bathroom).  This post has been talking about all comedies so far so I’m just used to it.  I’m a big Lost fanatic and as such was pretty interested in this show ever since it started being touted as the next Lost.  It also doesn’t hurt that it is based on a book that I read and enjoyed years ago. That may cause some problems for me because if it follows the book i know I’ll enjoy it but I kinda know what happens and if it doesn’t it might not be as good a story.  The story in the show is that everyone in the world blacks out for two minutes and seventeen seconds and sees their future (six months to be exact).  With a premise like that it has both great character story lines and an overall story arch, just like Lost.  It also has a large ensemble cast with a familiar face from Lost (PENNEH!) but my favourite cast member has to be John Cho, I’ve been a fan of his for a while now and think what may or may not happen to his character is quite interesting.  I’m not sure if it will have the the same culture around it (e.g. tons of theory sites, podcasts, etc.) as Lost or if it will even be as good but I really like it so far and you should give it a chance if you haven’t.

Watch This Show: Supernatural

For my third TV show recommendation post I am going to discuss Supernatural which is one of my favourite TV shows on right now. It just started its fifth, and possibly final, season. I say possibly final because this is the last season of a 5-season story arc and though they’ve teased us with the possibility of doing more the creators have said it would probably be five seasons and no more. Supernatural is the story of the Winchester brothers, Sam and Dean, as they battle monsters, demons, ghosts, and anything “supernatural”.

Usually a single episode falls into one of two categories: either its an “arc” episode about the overall seasons long story, or it’s a standalone episode which could also be referred to as monster-of-the-week. What makes this show so good is that whichever type of episode it is, it’s always entertaining. The arc-stories are epic and the standalone stories, which do tie into the arc sometimes, are interesting. The creators also really know how to play upon fans’ expectations and the fandom surrounding the show.

A great example of this is in the most recent season 5 premiere where a character is introduced who is writing what is known in the fan community as a “wincest” story. Or basically fanfiction about Sam and Dean having sex. Yes, people on the internet do that and yes, the makers of the show decided to show it and make fun of it on the show.

The music is also a great part of the show. Usually the previously on is set to some fucking awesome classic rock song like Thunderstruck or Carry On Wayward Son (which I started playing when I started writing this review, for inspiration) and that just gets you pumped for the episode to come. The character of Dean is obsessed with classic rock and that gives the creators the excuse to play some awesome music. I also bring this up because I wish they would release a huge, official soundtrack for the show but for now I’ll just have to deal with the songlists fans have written.

I guess the great thing is the mix this show brings. It has great comedy moments and pure comedy episodes like one last year about old-time movie monsters (e.g., the wolfman, dracula, etc) killing people. It has good action and special effects, and some gore. It can also be genuinely scary, which is very rare for a TV show.

So, go forth and watch this show. Get on the bandwagon before it ends. Seasons 1-4 are on DVD right now and Season 5 just premiered last night.

Play This Game: Trials HD

Trials HD is a new XBox arcade game in which you ride a motorcycle through various obstacle courses and try to finish as quick as possible, with as few faults (retries) as possible, and/or perhaps even just try to finish the course. I mention the last one because this game is hard, REALLY hard.

It’s really rare for me to like games that are extremely difficult as most of the time for me gaming should be fun and relaxing and to say that Trials HD is challenging would be an understatement. You get 500 faults (or tries from a checkpoint and checkpoints are not spread that far apart) and a maximum of 30 minutes to get through a level (where a flawless time might be something along the lines of 1 minute) and you do hit those limits on some levels. But I guess what makes that palatable is that the difficulty ramps up quite gradually. Tracks are sorted into beginner, easy, medium, hard, and extreme. And for extra challenge there are medals for each track (where gold is a quick flawless run) so that adds more levels of difficulty and more replayabilty. It doesn’t really get extremely difficult until hard but medium will start giving you a bit of a challenge on some levels.

The good thing is leaderboard replays. If you’re having trouble with a certain track, you can go to the leaderboard replay of that level and it not only shows someone doing it but also graphically shows the button presses and analog stick movements that the person is doing. The only thing I wish is that you’d be able to jump into the replays while in the level (you can only watch them while not playing a level), then you could come up to a hard obstacle that kicks your ass and immediately go into the replay and see how it’s done. But that might ruin a bit of the challenge.

Just going through the tracks is not the only thing to do in the game. There’s also tournaments which are groups of levels that must be done together without being able to restart from the beginning; getting good medals in these is extremely challenging because usually to get gold in a track it’s on about my hundredth restart of that level but to get gold in a tournament I’d have to do it first time through. Another section of the game is the skill games which are like mingames; there are skill games in which you have to crash and break as many bones as possible, or ride doing a wheelie as far as possible. Finally, there’s a track creator. I’ve not tried this out much so I won’t talk about it and I’ve also not played any custom tracks because it seems as if you can only share tracks among your friends which I wish wasn’t the case.

Trials HD is epitome of a simple to pick up, difficult to master game and this is due to the controls. The main controls are only really gas, brake and lean. But the other buttons you’ll be using quite a bit due to the game’s difficulty are the buttons to bailout, restart at beginning of level and go back to last checkpoint.

I’ve been playing this game quite a bit over the past few days and while I doubt I’ll ever finish it, I still feel it was completely worth it. Trials HD is available on the XBox arcade marketplace. If you don’t have an XBox there are also a couple PC games if you want to check it out.

See This Movie: Gamer

I haven’t written anything in a while but now I’m trying to force myself to sit down and write at least a little bit a day so eventually, even if I don’t finish an article every day, I’ll at least be working toward a goal. For my first article in quite a while I’d like to tell you about a movie called Gamer.

Gamer is about a future in which people can control other people though nanotechnology implanted in the brain. This technology was created by a Bill Gates-esque super-billionaire named Castle (Michael C. Hall) and is used in two “games”. One is a Sims (or Second Life or Playstation Home) like game called “Society” in which you control an avatar (who is a real person) and you interact with other people controlling real people avatars. The other game is called “Slayers”, think first-person-shooter, in which death row inmates allow themselves to be controlled for the opportunity to gain their freedom. Survive 30 games you go free, but of course no one has ever done that. Kable (Gerard Butler) is getting close though.

The movie has an interesting plot and lots of action scenes. The problem is the plot is more interesting than entertaining at times and sometimes the action can be annoying. The action is shot in really shaky camera style, too close, with lots of quick cuts and when in a game there’s lots of superimposed digital effects too often to remind us as if we had forgotten that this was a game even if the stakes are real. The plot is interesting even if at times the plot scenes, as opposed to the action scenes, drag on a bit.

The plot is helped by a great cast. I’m a big fan of Michael C. Hall who is in full evil genius mode here. And is it just me or is Gerard Butler in everything right now? There was even a preview for another of his movies before this one. I can see why too, he’s a good star. Terry Crews (a.k.a. Cheeseburger Eddy) is also in it but it’s kind of weird seeing him in a one-note serious bad guy role when I’m used to seeing him in really funny comedic roles. I’d mention the rest of the supporting cast but it’d be redundant since no one does a bad job.

The real standout though is Michael C. Hall. I only wish he was in it more because the better scenes in the movie usually involved him (as did my favourite scene in the movie which I absolutely will not give away but to those that saw it you know what it is, it involves a song).

I wish the action was shot better because if it was this would be a ringing endorsement. As it stands now I’m still recommending the viewing of it but you won’t be missing much if you wait until you can rent it or something.

Watch This Show: Legend of the Seeker

I have a few of these TV show recommendation articles in various stages of completeness kicking around but I was inspired to finish up with this one because recently we’ve been getting bits of news on season 2 of this show. As the title suggests the show I am writing about this time ‘round is Legend of the Seeker.

LotS (as the kids are calling it these days) is a fantasy-action-drama about a young man who discovers his destiny is to be a great hero and defeat an evil villain. He’s helped on this quest by a magical sword, and wise old man that he thought was a crazy loner who turns out to be a powerful wizard, and a beautiful woman who has powers of her own. So yeah, generalized it sounds like standard Hero’s Journey stuff but it’s so much more.

Getting more specifically into the premise the young man that discovers his destiny is Richard Cypher who discovers he is destined to be The Seeker of Truth (luckily they just use “Seeker” rather than the full title for most of the season) a warrior that is chosen only in times of great need. That great need is brought upon by Darken Rahl who is a not so nice dude. Which reminds me, if you’re naming your child and you choose “Darken”, you’re kinda forcing them to go into the whole being evil business aren’t you? But I digress. The Seeker of course has help in his quest in the form of a Wizard of the First Order (I guess the most powerful type of wizard) named Zedd and a Confessor (confessors can, with a touch, make a person do anything the confessor wants) named Kahlan.

It’s based (possibly loosely from my extensive research) on a series of books that I have yet to read, though they are waiting for me, collectively called the Sword of Truth books. The Sword of Truth is the aforementioned magical sword. Apparently the books are really good but I cannot pass judgement on them until I get much more than 5 pages into the first book. They did however spawn a pretty fucking entertaining TV show.

It makes sense given that it is being made by some of the same people that made two other pretty entertaining shows: Hercules and Xena. I think it’s time for me to confess something to you dear reader. I was a big fan Hercules and Xena back in the day. And not just because Kevin Sorbo was so dreamy. Fun factoid: Michael Hurst who played Hercules’ side kick Iolaus has a role in this series for an episode as well. Oh, and Ted Raimi is also a guest star in it and you should recognize him, amongst other things, as Joxer the Mighty. Again with the digressing. The connection to Hercules/Xena might also give it bonus points as well; what the hell am I saying “might”, it definitely does.

I do have to say though it is an improvement over those shows and that could be because it is adapted from those books. It has good stories week to week and the overall arc of the season is great too. The action is decent too. So, if you’ve read this far and you’re interested in a very entertaining fantasy show then you should really watch Legend of the Seeker.

P.S.: EXTRME GEEK MOMENT

This show brings up an anecdote that will let all of you know how huge of a geek I am. My sister and I were both at different points in the season and were talking about it when my sister said, “Did you know that Darken Rahl [the evil villain in LotS] was Haldir in Lord of the Rings?” Any normal person’s reaction would’ve been along the lines of: “Who’s Haldir again?” or “OK, I care because…?” but as an extreme-geek my reaction was genuinely excited to discover this factoid and my response was, “HOLY SHIT, YOU’RE RIGHT, NO WAY!” Now, I’m not the hugest geek in the world because if I was my reaction would’ve been to respond, in proper Elvish, “Duh!”