Moonlight

I was going to post a review of the 2nd season opener of Heroes (HRG saved the opener, but it was mainly uninteresting and had none of the bang it needed after last season's squib ending) but in the last couple of nights a war has broken out.

A war for the heavyweight champion of turgid season openers.

In the red and blue corner we have the early frontrunner, the veteran purveyor of utter mediocrity and bad acting: Smallville.

In the grey corner it is the new challenger, CBS' new vampire "thriller" Moonlight.

Smallville is known for having two episodes per season that are almost worth watching. The opener and the finale. Usually the opener involves the stunning revelation that Lana wasn't quite wooden enough to burn up in whatever fire she was in at the end of the previous season. Supermeh blows the budget for the next 22 episodes and saves the day and Lex wonders why he hasn't murdered all of these idiots. He wouldn't be crossing to the dark side, it would be a mercy slaughter.

Tom Welling cycles through all three of his facial expressions in this episode while looking like Brandon Routh's father. We get a few shots of Supergirl and Lex thinks she is an angel, yes, Lex Luthor thinks the latest blonde in town is in fact a servant of the Lord. And not Maxwell either.

Things almost happen, Clark remembers he is strong in sunlight, one person literally rises from the dead because...well, she just does and let's not talk about it, and Lana isn't dead. Again.

However, she is in a really bad green screen that is supposed to be Shanghai and she is dressed as a hooker. She wears a blonde wig she picked up from a drunk transvestite and just in case the audience has been lobotomised (again, mercy) or is watching through HD-Braille, she whips the wig off to both confirm it is she, Lana and also to audition for Pantene.

Utter dross.

But wait, you thought things couldn't get any worse but then CBS unleashes Moonlight upon an unsuspecting world.

The premise is an interesting one. A vampire lives in Los Angeles and works as a private detective in order to help the mortals who...hold on, this sounds familiar.

In fact many people have made comparisons between Moonlight and another show called Angel.

Now the similarities might seem obvious (including the blatant rip-off of editing style when changing scenes) but they are completely different shows.

Angel was good, Moonlight is bad in brobdingnagian proportions.

Alex O'Loughlin stars as Mick St. John (yes I know), a 90 year old vampire who doesn't drink fresh blood (though he does drink human blood which in of itself is...hold on, I'm thinking, silly me) and in the opening episode is trying to solve an apparent vampire-caused murder to stop anyone else suffering the same fate and to prevent the revelation that vampires exist.

O'Loughlin is a moon-faced charisma vacuum who has the edgy wit and delivery of a 50 year old arthritic UPS driver. Whereas David Boreanaz was dangerous, sexy and physically imposing even in his pie-eating phase, O'Loughlin misses every mark he aims at, his charming moments are vapid, his action scenes are fluffy.



At one point he goes to answer a door and manages to be unconvincing. Let me just repeat that for emphasis, he is unconvincing at acting out opening a door.



His line is "Yeah, yeah." in response to the door knocking. I think the writer imagined the delivery to be one of impatience and world-weary grouchiness. Instead "Yeah, yeah." said by O'Loughlin is reminiscent of alternative pop duo "They Might Be Giants".



St. John (not the baptist) comes across a ferociously inept reporter called Beth Turner, played by Sophia Myles who looks like Kate Winslet, but oddly moon-faced, which I think is where the series title came from.



She goes undercover as a college student (she takes 10 years off by wearing pigtails, not since Clouseau has a disguise worked this well) in order to trap the obviously not-guilty cult leader (played by the fellow who appeared in Buffy as Dracula just to throw the sinus-infected audience off the scent).



In Scooby Doo tradition it is of course the background character we are introduced to briefly who is the true culprit and St. John (unfortunately still not the baptist) goes into green screen action mode and the audience is amazed that even a car drive can be such a bad special effect.

I remember trying one of the early virtual reality headsets and along with the feeling of nausea from just those expensive 20 minutes, I felt sick for months after if i saw a certain Dire Straits video on MTV.



Moonlight's special effects made me remember those halcyon days.



And yet the strange spinning sensation didn't end there as St. John (also not the superb goalscorer for Liverpool in previous decades) is having Beauty and The Beast style pant-tightening thoughts for the reporter in an incredibly disturbing way.

Thanks to the power of Vaseline covered lenses and shockingly bad narration we are treated to flashbacks that reveal St. John saved Miss Turner over 20 years ago and has been keeping tabs on her since, from afar.



Yep, he wants to nail the girl he has been stalking since she was about 8 years old.



My jaw actually dropped.




To prove every cloud has a silver lining, the previously fabulous Jason Dohring who devoured the screen as Logan in Veronica Mars plays an ancient vampire who gives Mick his orders.



Do you remember a slow mo shot and "Get out of there!" being screamed at Rocky Balboa in Rocky III?



Now instead of Rocky in the ring cut to Jason Dohring in Moonlight who struggles heroically to turn swill into wine and rises above the rest of the cast by actually acting as if he has acted before.



A femme fatale was introduced but I didn't care as soon my fortitude won out and the episode came to an end.



Moonlight is quite possibly the worst first episode of a series that I have had the misfortune and bewilderment to see.

Avoid like the plague if possible, use as a straw man argument that Smallville is good if you so desire.

P.s.

Jason Dohring, please, listen to Apollo Creed, he was the Count of Monte Fisto afterall.

Radioweb

While having far too much time on my hands thanks to the USA's brilliant policy of not allowing me to work for nearly a year after arriving in the country I found myself drawn towards the murky world of podcasting.
Podcasting really is an extension of the web; anyone with a computer and a mic and the basic knowledge of mpeg formatting can produce their very own episodic radio show with whatever content they please, and not all of it is porn.

To begin with, podcasts allowed me to keep up with the football action I miss so dearly through downloadable episodes of 606 (still the best phone-in show going thanks mainly to Alan Green's unwavering opinions) and from there I started to search around for content to satisfy my geeky hunger.

For comics I go no further than the superb iFanboy and Around Comics podcasts. iFanboy release a Pick of The week show every Sunday in which one of the hosts (Josh, Conor and Ron) review their favourite single issue in depth and then go on to discuss the other releases in an intelligent, knowledgeable and entertaining way. They have differing tastes, know their stuff and have an obvious love of the medium they talk about.
On Saturdays the trio also release a video-cast where they pick a comics related subject and add their thoughts in an informative style that is often aimed at the comics newcomer but always of interest to any fan of the medium.

Around Comics has a similar outline for their twice weekly shows but are slightly more raucous and irreverant in their approach, they cover comics news, reviews (in their Top of The Stack segment), future releases and creator interviews in a round table style, which often disintegrates into name-calling and vulgarity which has left me laughing loudly on a regular basis.

For podcasts dedicated to gaming MOG and Virginworlds are the two stand out shows which are utterly different and absolutely complimentary.

MOG (Massively Online Gamer) was once entirely focused on MMO news and discussion but as hosts Gary Gannon and Ryan Verniere became bored senseless with the new releases they have shifted to add console gaming to their perview. MOG isn't for those who are easily offended (their interview with the star of Whorecraft being a classic example) and the duo go from the philosophical and esoteric to ball-shaving and world class ranting with furiously funny ease.
Their sporadic video podcasts have "amaaaazing" production values and the chemistry between the two long-time friends keeps the show fresh, thought-provoking and consistently entertaining.
Definitely one to go through the archives and listen to.

Brent, the host of Virginworlds, is highly respected in the community due to his knowledge of the industry and his commitment to producing content with astounding regularity and quality. Virginworlds is a weekly MMO news show in which Brent goes through the stories making waves in the community and though he does add his own opinions on the burgeoning genre he isn't as rabid as many poseurs on the block. Brent recently opened up the Virginworlds label as a hub for a number of podcasts all of which can be accessed through his website which itself is a fantastic resource for the MMO enthusiast or "noob".
Brent's episode on how to make a podcast is about all you could wish for in a how-to guide.
If you want to know what I sound like at 2am with a shoddy mic and a pounding headache you can hear me reviewing an MMO on an episode in the Virginworlds archives.


There is a lot of dross out there, but let's face it that is true about the Internet in general, but look around and you'll find some really good content.
When I have spent an hour and a half listening to a podcast that I have enjoyed immensely produced by someone in their bedroom then switch on the gogglebox and find an inordinate amount of garbage that costs a fortune to produce I feel glad that the revolution won't be televised.


I honestly spend more time listening to podcasts than I do watching television these days, then again with the horrific advertising policy that is standard in television broadcasting in America I watch most television via DVD anyway.


There are other shows I listen to but my time is short this afternoon, but any suggestions for good podcasts would always be appreciated.

Just for One Day

Warning: The following post includes spoilers of The Matrix Revolutions. And as I am talking about that film it is absolutely guaranteed I will get rabid.

You have been warned.

I was having a conversation with a friend tonight and she asked me the following pertinant and interesting question:

"Why am I looking forward to Heroes?"

It got me thinking.

Heroes has shoddy dialogue, hackneyed plot devices, homage-a-meter originality (this week: Days of Future Past, the whole season: Watchmen without balls) and the kind of 6th Form socio-religious rambling that The Wachowski's (one now not a brother) fell into with their betrayal of all things wonderful The Matrix Revolutions.

Added to that the huge build up across the season to an ending so anti-climactic Trinity dying in a car crash a day after being brought back to life becomes satisfying.

Well ok nothing could make that satisfying.

Anger building, rage growing, Ben Stiller in Mystery Men rip-off peaking...

Anger subsiding.

Anyway, yes Heroes, crappy yet still infectiously entertaining.

However I do think the strange enchantment that Heroes has over the world populace will wain quickly if it doesn't manage to do a number of things.

1) Have a plot not taken directly from a comic then watered down.

2) Avoid Masi Oka leaping from charming and fun to annoying at the level of Chris Crocker parody videos not done by Seth Green.

3) Have Volume 2 pay off spectacularly. If we have 2 story arcs with a clunky ending there will be little faith that the 3rd will be worth hanging around until 2008 for.

4) Kick arse super hero battles. It was hinted at last season but the money shots were played out behind closed doors, this year we need our jaws swinging from raw power exploding on the screen.

If they make those 4 steps I will be in for the exhilirating journey towards porridge once more.

Well that or they could do something insane like put Veronica Mars on the show hehe.

Cunning bastards.

Chuck

I remember first watching the vaunted Siskel and Ebert review show when it was aired on BBC2 in England. As esteemed as they were, I couldn't help but feel that most of their reviews went along the lines of dismantling every part of the film then saying "but I liked her hat so that's a thumbs up from me".

Here is my quick homage to that memory via NBC's new action-comedy Chuck.

It is executive produced by McG, the first episode is directed by McG.

Ok so I didn't need to dismantle every part of it to find some negatives big enough to send most people running before the credits finished.

As I frantically searched for the DVD remote to end things before my eyes bled from slow-mo and crash zooms I stopped and said out loud "Hold on, is that Adam Baldwin?"

And lo, it was Adam Baldwin.

Adam Baldwin in a recurring role as a cantankerous, deadly, ruthless NSA agent in a pissy yet flippant mood.

Thumbs up.

Life

As the mighty Admiral Neck and charismatic Canyon have already stated, there are a lot of new shows about to debut in the Autumn season here in the US of A.


One of them is a show called "Life" in which a cop is wrongly convicted for murder and spends 12 brutal years in prison before being exonerated, receiving a huge amount of cash and being reinstated and promoted to Detective as part of the settlement.


When I first heard of this series I was wondering if it would be a basic procedural with a Prison Break conspiracy arc, which frankly didn't grab me.


Then the prospect of two copper-headed investigative heroes in TV arose as Damian Lewis plays the lead role of Charlie Crews. Lewis was utterly brilliant in Band of Brothers and I've been hypnotised to forget Dreamcatchers, so when I got to watch an advance preview of his new series I was quite hopeful.


The first episode is packed with all the exposition that a TV executive requires and the first case for Crews and his beautiful, tough but troubled partner Dani Reese (played by Sarah Shahi, former NFL cheerleader and The L Word alumni), revolves around the murder of a child.


Crews' Zen philosophy that kept him mostly intact in prison serves to set him apart in the real world as he approaches things from an alternative perspective. Predictably this brings him into conflict with his new partner who herself is trying to put her career back on track after drug issues, hence being lumbered with the partner nobody wants.


We are also introduced to Ted Earley, an ex-con who served time for some creative accounting who was saved by Crews while inside and now handles the Zen Detective's cash. Earley is played by Adam Arkin which is another reason I'm cutting Life some slack.

As the episode progresses the audience is shown that Crews isn't just different because of a paperback book on Zen he read but because he might just be insane.

There are attempts at levity through Crews coming to term with the modern world, mainly to add to Crews' almost childlike sense of wonder as he discovers "the future is now" in more than a philosophical sense. These moments reminded me of Angel and how hilarious David Boreanaz was getting frustrated at his mobile phone. Except Angel was much funnier, but if you've seen Boreanaz dance you know it is unfair to make a comparison.

The case is wrapped up in a way to show Crews knows how things work from both sides of the prison bars and the story arc for the season is mapped out for all to see. And I literally mean there is a visual aid.

Frankly, the procedural element of the show doesn't hold together very well but hopefully that is due to it becoming almost an afterthought due to cramming in as much information for the audience as possible.
Things the audience is to remember:
1) Crews likes to eat fruit.
2) He owns a mansion without any furniture in it (keep an eye out for a cave full of bats in the future).
3) He is NOT GAY (as shown as he bounds upstairs like a puppy chasing a ball whilst following a scantily clad and never to be seen again blonde).
4) He says he is not looking for revenge against those who framed him. Nuh-uh. It wouldn't be Zen. Honest.

This is really a series that will take a few episodes to get up and running but I'll certainly have another look at it when the series begins 26th of September on NBC.

It could go either way, at least it isn't on Fox so it might get a few episodes to find its feet, plus it runs after Heroes on Monday nights and we know that means it will be an instant success and will immediately get renewed.





My wife tells me I lost my memories of something called "Studio 60" along with Dreamcatchers in the aforementioned hypnosis session but I don't know what she's talking about.

WoW part 1.

The last time I checked, World of Warcraft had a subscriber base of around 9 million accounts.
For game producers Blizzard (owned by Vivendi) this means an annual income from this game that outstrips the combined Box-Office of The Matrix Trilogy.
One might define WoW as being successful.

Before WoW was launched in 2004 the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (which I'll refer to as MMO henceforth) market was seen as lucrative but rather niche. It was a playground for the Dungeons and Dragons pen and paper set with little scope for growth.
Everquest (also known as Evercrack for its life consuming properties) had a subscriber base of around 200,000 people who marvelled at its persistant world and graphics that actually needed a 3D Graphics Card.
The model of paying around $15 a month for the pleasure of having a character in worlds full of Elves and dragons and so on became the industry standard income model and persists to this day.

I myself played the game for about 5 years and thanks to it I made a number of good friends, travelled to visit one, met a girl, got all mushy, got married and emigrated. You will understand if I have a fondness for EQ.

What Everquest did was make computer gaming feel epic. As scratchy as the graphics look now, standing alongside a garish gang of 70 players on a raid in a cavern to take down a 60 foot long ice dragon was exciting. Hours of gaining experience, questing for an epic class weapon that could take over a year to get (never got my final epic blade for my Paladin in the whole 5 years), exploring dungeons and huge raiding events were enthralling and many an evening I would realise it was morning.

The problem EQ had was that it really was as niche as the rest of the market. To travel to the other side of the game world you might need to go by boat. The boat might take 30 minutes to arrive, the journey itself might take as long.
You might be in a place that wasn't safe to exit the game at and have to plan ahead by an hour to get back to a town to end your session.
The creature you need to kill to get that item you had been dribbling over had a respawn timer which was random over 72 hours and lots of other people wanted it. First to hit it got to kill it and loot. I know of people who "camped" that creature for 72 hours straight, sitting in that spot on a snow covered iceberg waiting for it to appear, then coming back after taking a bathroom break to find it had spawned and a passer-by had killed it.

To gain experience in the higher levels you were pretty much forced to group with other players to be able to do anything, which meant if there were a lot of people playing the same class they could sit for hours on end looking for group (LFG) and wind up doing nothing. Also the penalty for dying meant that at higher levels one death could mean 4 hours of gameplay to recover the loss. Unskilled players didn't last long in those groups.

Then the raiding progression mentality arose and the top guilds would race through content to be the first to kill Amazing Creature of Awesomeness No. 345, to slow their progression the developers made new raids which required you to defeat them in order before you could begin the next tier of raiding.
This then meant that you absolutely had to be in a high end raiding guild to do any of the big monster kills and thereby get the best equipment to go to the next raid.

Those people who could not treat the game as a second job (though they probably needed to put more hours in than the first job) were left behind.
EQ, like most MMOs had accessibility problems.
Like I said, niche.

Then came WoW.
All the staple MMO ideas are there. A fantasy setting (descended from Tolkien) with elves, dwarves, trolls et al. A choice of classes based on the healer, damage dealer and tank (big brawny git who can take a beating) gameplay staple. And of course the amazingly well-proportioned female characters who run around protected by chainmail that barely covers their Brazilian wax.


What WoW did was bring the revolutionary idea of making everything as fun as possible. You do not need a quad-carded PC beast to play the game. Everything is set out before you and explained to make picking up the gameplay as easy as possible without getting in the way of the hacking/clubbing/clawing/iceblasting.

Quests are found everywhere and you are given all the information you need to complete them within the description from the NPC, which is stored in a Quest Log for an easy reminder (I still can't believe I used to have to write down pages of notes of cryptic words that I would have to try and guess how to move on).
The game design is stylised to keep the framerates high and smooth and it looks pretty beautiful.

Levelling does not take forever, you can log on, do something for an hour and log off and feel like you have achieved something, the group dynamic in dungeon runs works with graceful simplicity and raiding can be hugely enjoyable and exciting.
My wife plays the game now after watching me for a lifetime and I still remember her nervous excitement on her first raid. Fun stuff.

But astonishingly for the long-time MMO player like myself, you can actually go from level 1 to level 70 (currently the highest point) without ever having to form a group (5 people working together) or a raid (6 to 40 people working together).

There are plenty of Pop Culture references to amuse scattered across the world (Ogres dance like Chris Farley, certain large gorillas will drop empty barrels when killed, I've weilded a Hanzo sword and hundreds of other fun Easter Eggs referencing everything from Ace Ventura to Siouxsie and The Banshees) and the whole game when levelling up is based on being entertaining all the time.

So that's my introduction to World of Warcraft. I know of a few friends who have pondered trying it out and haven't been sure and thought I'd offer some information.

The next time I post about WoW I'll give a rundown on why I'm taking a break from the game and how it makes me "want to drown things".

Invincible

As I'm currently flushed with the joys of destitution I find myself reaching to my once proud but now miniscule collection of pop culture and loooking for happiness.
I have the first 7 Invincible trades by Kirkman and Ottley (published by Image) and they remind me why comics still capture my imagination.

To get this out of the way, I'm what is known as a Marvel Zombie (which apparently means I will soon have a cover by Arthur Suydam done for me), I grew up on the X-Men and Spider-Man and to this day think the only Superman worth bothering with is to be seen on celluloid or as part of the JLU animated series. I caught the last episode of the recent Smallville season: spoilers ahead....seriously don't read on...here it comes...the episode was absolutely terrible. What a twist.

Well my childhood/teenhood/adulthood favourite X-Men got boned by Joe Quesada's genius idea of hitting the reset button as there were apparently too many mutants in the Marvel Universe. Ok fair enough, just a shame that leaving only a handful of remaining mutants kind of destroys the next phase of human evolution part of the mythos. Also the politically allegorical subtext which drives the Mutant idea is pretty much destroyed if a movement has less members than the Uwe Boll fan club.
Thankfully Joss Whedon has kept Astonishing X-Men pretty much away from all of the M-Day fallout nonsense.

Meanwhile JMS is taking Spider-Man down a fascinating new route in which he's dark and brooding. Oh and commiting crimes. Because he is dark and brooding. For 7 issues. But don't worry, the rumour is a magic reset button to turn Amazing Spider-Man into Ultimate Spider-Man but without Bendis writing it is soon to arrive. Don't go forming the queues to get this blockbuster right away, the ending has the same twist as Smallville's.

For more genius, read Loeb and Bianchi's recent Wolverine run, actually don't, read the always entertaining Paul O'Brien's review of Wolverine 55. After Loeb's first issue the theme song to Itchy and Scratchy came to mind as Wolverine and Sabretooth "fight and fight and fight and fight and fight". The difference being Itchy and Scratchy are funny and entertaining and don't compel me to stab myself.

Forgive my digression but I am a bitter man and it leads up to why I love Kirkman's Invincible.
It is a Super-Hero comic. It is well written.

Crazy I may seem but those characteristics appeal to me.

Invincible is Superman if he was raised by Ben and May Parker except Ben didn't die he just saved the world a lot. There is well-timed ironic humour, solid action and a Whedonesque sense of sub-plot and story arc pay-off.
Basically it is a lot of fun with characters you gradually fall in love with being put through the mill regularly. It doesn't reinvent the genre (Superman meets Spider-Man meets Buffy meets the JLA) but it does what it does very well and isn't trying to be pretentious doing it.
There is a large cast of characters each with a story that I'm more bothered about than most of Comics' leading icons at the moment.
I don't want Tony Stark to be Dick Cheney and I don't want Peter Parker to be de-aged and un-married with a wave of a magic wand because editors think they can't write stories that are interesting without altering a character completely.

World War Hulk works even if it is obvious how it will end and consists of Hulk walking from a pile of dust to show he has beaten someone else up (much more of it and he'll be nicknamed Pig-Pen).
It works because it takes the basic concept of the character and puts him in a situation that will be interesting.
Taking the basic concept of a character and changing it until you hope something interesting happens doesn't work.

Have a read of Invincible and enjoy the simple pleasure of a good idea written well.

Wahhh?

This Blog is under construction.
Check back soon for content so full of content it will be contentious.
Blame Admiral Neck.