Category Archives: TV

Music, TV

That’s entertainment…

…I guess.

Stumbled upon a pair of articles regarding two individuals in the entertainment biz and the troubles they are currently embroiled in.

First up, Austin Russell, aka “Chumlee” from the A & E TV show Pawn Stars was arrested…

Pawn Stars regular Austin “Chumlee” Russell arrested on gun and drug charges

For a few years I watched and enjoyed the Pawn Stars show.  It was fascinating to see what people brought in and find out its history and what it was worth.  That show, in direct and indirect ways, spawned a series of other shows, many of them featuring Pawn Stars’ central conceit: Finding potential value -or not- in oddball items.

As my family and I watched more and more episodes of the show it became all too clear the show was as far from “reality” as could be.  It was obvious even from the beginning that many of the “humorous” asides were scripted.  After a while, however, I began suspecting (I have no proof of this but it just seemed this way) people were sometimes bringing in items the store already possessed for evaluation.

Still, I couldn’t deny the show’s main foursome, consisting of three generations of the Harrison family (Grandfather, father, and son) and “Chumlee” were pleasant enough to watch.

From left to right, Richard Harrison, Corey Harrison (above), Austin “Chumlee” Russell, and Rick Harrison

Now, with the above article, we’re offered a decidedly darker view of the “lovable goof” Chumlee represented in the show.  Granted, one shouldn’t view what you see -even on supposed “reality” fare- as truly representing the people in their individual series’ in real life, yet it is nonetheless depressing to hear the incidentals of this case, especially for one who has seen plenty of Chumlee on the tube.

From the article it states Mr. Russell was already under investigation for sexual assault.  As bad as this was, it wasn’t the reason he was arrested.  Again, and from the article, police served a warrant at Mr. Russell’s home and searched it.  When they did, they found guns (which apparently he’s not supposed to have…though I’m not clear on this) as well as methamphetamine and pot.

According to the article, Mr. Russell remains in jail as of today.  A sad state of affairs.

And speaking of sad state of affairs…

Sony Music to Drop Dr. Luke Amid Public Pressure Over Kesha, Internal Headaches

As someone very much on the outside, especially when it comes to all things related to modern music, I found the whole Kesha vs. Lukasz “Dr. Luke” Gottwald story both sordid and depressing.

For those who, like me, are perhaps not as (ahem) in tune with modern music, Kesha is a singer who now refuses to work with her longtime producer Dr. Luke.  While Dr. Luke took her in and helped her create some of her most famous music and she signed a very long term contract with Sony which forces her to continue working with Dr. Luke, Kesha claims he also drugged and raped her.

While it is my understanding at one point Ms. Kesha did deny any impropriety on Dr. Luke’s part, she now vociferously claims he is a predator and will not work for him.  Unfortunately, and because of the longterm contract she signed, she is effectively barred from creating any new music because it will be under Dr. Luke’s umbrella.

A tense court battle ensued and a judge ordered the contract between the parties enforced even in light of the highly salacious details of her supposed violation evident.

Again, I -and pretty much everyone outside the circles of both Ms. Kesha and Dr. Luke- don’t know what really happened here but it is telling how so many high profile female artists have come to Kesha’s defense…and I’m hearing virtually no such spirited defense for Dr. Luke…other than his own.

The above article, which states Dr. Luke will be dropped by Sony, has been denied by Dr. Luke’s representatives so the story may well be a non-story.

Still, if even a portion of Ms. Kesha’s claims are true, it is monstrous, regardless of the contract signed by her many years before, to force this still very young lady to work with a person she considers a predator.  It is even worse that her only alternative to fight this is to not create any new music, something that could very well kill her career.

Movies, TV

George Kennedy, RIP

While growing up, there were plenty of actors out there that had my attention.  Some were “stars” and carried whatever movie/TV show they were in.  Sometimes, like in the case of Humphrey Bogart or James Dean they took over the feature they were in, sometimes to the detriment of others around them, so charismatic were they.

There is one actor, though, that seemed to always appear here and there, both in movies and television, and always seemed to be good in whatever role he was playing.  At first, these roles were predominantly the “heavy”…and he brought a growling menace to whatever bad-guy role he played.

And then something changed, most likely his bad-guy turned good role in Cool Hand Luke (a role that won him an Oscar) and, suddenly, he became equally good -perhaps even better!- in roles in which he played an at times exasperated good-guy.  He would go on to play the same role in all four Airport movies, that of Joe Patroni, mechanic and trouble solver.

And then, when you think you have him pegged, he broke out as Ed Hocken in the hilarious -and supremely silly- Naked Gun movies.

Of course I’m talking about George Kennedy.  Today’s audiences, especially those without much knowledge of movies or tv shows from ten years before, may not recognize him, but here he is in Cool Hand Luke:

And here he is in, I’m guessing, Airport 79, the last -and silliest- of the Airport films:

And of course, here he is in one of may favorite clips from The Naked Gun films, this one from the second feature.  The clip is a little long because it first sets up the George Kennedy joke to come.  Though Mr. Kennedy arrives at the 1:30 mark, its worth seeing the entire clip:

When I told my wife yesterday Mr. Kennedy had died and even though she doesn’t have the same trivia-filled mind like mine, she nonetheless instantly said: “I’m just John Q. Public now,” the line Mr. Kennedy states in the clip above, and we both laughed at the memory.

George Kennedy may not have ever risen to the ranks of a Humphrey Bogart or James Dean or Marlon Brando, but he always seemed to give it his all and, even when the film around him might have been complete shit (I’m looking at you, Airport 79), you could count on his professionalism.

Rest in peace, big fellow.  You’ve given me countless hours of wonderful entertainment.

TV

What has HBO done for me lately?!

In these times, where entertainment comes in all forms and at times feels on the verge (if not well past the point) of over-saturation, a once formidable company can suddenly find its fortunes turning.  In the below article, written by Kim Masters and appearing on The Hollywood Reporter, Ms. Masters notes that while HBO still possesses and releases Game of Thrones, one of the most popular shows on TV, the network is dealing with difficulties regarding other quite costly shows, one already released (but not doing all that well) and a few others experiencing pre-production/production woes:

HBO’s High-Class Problems: $100 Mil ‘Vinyl’ Disappoints, ‘Westworld’, David Fincher Woes

I linked up to the article, in particular, to point out the troubles with Jonathan Nolan’s Westworld.  Mr. Nolan is not only the brains behind the wonderful Person of Interest, but he’s also the brother (and at times script writer) of mega-director Christopher (The Dark Knight, The Prestige, Inception, etc.) Nolan.  This new series, based on one of my favorite Michael Crichton works, the 1973 film of the same name which was clearly reworked with dinosaurs for his later Jurassic Park books…

…had recently shut production after it was deemed some early episodes needed “tweaking”.  While the people behind the show were trying to put a positive spin on this hiatus in filming/production (“it gives us time to work out the kinks”!), to me it suggested what’s been filmed so far was probably not very good.  According to the article (I don’t mean to steal Ms. Masters’ thunder here) HBO brought in two more producers and two more writers to “help” Mr. Nolan get the project back on track.

Add to this the embarrassing episode involving the sexually explicit casting contract and one gets the feeling this show may be spinning out of control.

As a writer, I can understand the pressures of creating a large amount of material and, especially if you’re doing it for a large company like HBO, the expectations of delivering quality and quantity.

I’m still curious to see what Mr. Nolan and company do with their version of Westworld even as a part of me, based on the delays and, more importantly, their causes, wonders if the project might eventually turn out to be not all that good.

As with so many other things, we’ll see.

TV

The Expanse Season 1 (2015) a (mildly) belated TV review

When I heard someone had described The Expanse books (to date there are 5 in the series and a few novellas) as a “science fiction version of Game of Thrones“, I knew the authors of the books must have done somersaults of sheer joy.  (The novels are listed as being written by James S. A. Corey which is the pen name for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) .

It wasn’t all that long ago that some critic stated the then first appearing Twilight books were the next “Harry Potter”-type must-read series and you know where that went.

I haven’t read the books but I have, finally, seen the entire first season of the Sy-Fy Network produced The Expanse series and…

…I’m torn.

On the one hand, the series features many elements I really admire in good sci-fi programming: A sober handling of the material.  A complex (but not complicated) plot.  Good special effects.  Appealing -for the most part- characters.

And yet…

Having seen the ten episode season, I’m left liking it enough to justify giving a second season of the show a try while also being curiously unfulfilled.

The Expanse imagines a future society some two hundred years from now wherein humanity is divided between three solar system locations:  Earth, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt.  The relations between those on either settings is very strained and it appears war is almost certain to come.

We start the series with an intriguing mystery: A woman we soon find named Julie Mao (Florence Faivre), is trapped within a spaceship and manages to break her way out of it, only to find the crew within all dead and a very strange crystalline structure growing within the ship.

From there we are presented the three main leads/groups:

On Earth we follow the political machinations of Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo) who works for the U.N. and worries recent events have pushed Earth and Mars on a course of war.  However, she’s suspicious and careful…she doesn’t want to advocate war without first investigating what is causing the perceived Martian aggression and whether it is real or not.  Mrs. Avasarala is also a political animal who is not above betraying her dearest friends in the search for the truth.

In the Asteroid Belt space station Ceres, Detective Joe Miller (Thomas Jane) is tasked with finding Julie Mao.  We follow the cynical Miller around the station and while doing his work and find there is plenty of corruption and general human wear and tear to be found out in space.  Ultimately, Detective Miller finds himself more involved in this case than he thought he would be.

Finally, we follow the crew of the ice trawler Canterbury as they pick up their latest load of ice and are heading back to port when they receive a distress call.  The Captain and most of the officers fear the call is a fake and that Space Pirates (or worse) await them and therefore chose to ignore the signal.  However, James Holden (Steven Strait), the just promoted Executive Officer of the ship, forces the Captain’s hand (without anyone else knowing) and the Canterbury sends a small rescue ship with Holden within it to check the distressed ship out.

It turns out the distress signal was a ruse and a mysterious vessel appears.  It fires upon the Canterbury and destroys it.  Because of the Canterbury’s debris field, Holden and the other four officers within the rescue vessel manage to evade the attackers but are left stranded in a nearly destroyed rescue vessel.  They believe the Martians were to blame for this provocative act and, when they are eventually picked up by a Martian Battleship, they fear the worst.

However, it turns out the Martians didn’t destroy the Canterbury.  It soon becomes very clear someone out there wants Earth to think they did.

Can war be averted?  What is Julie Mao’s role in this mystery?  And what is that strange crystalline material that took over her ship?

Most of the questions are answered in the first season of The Expanse but just because they’re answered doesn’t mean they’re resolved.

In fact, this is part of the reason the first season of this show left me so unsatisfied.  We’re given this weird and interesting mystery and in the end we kinda/sorta know all the players but we’re still left wondering why all these elements are put into place.

There are also a host of little things that, for me, didn’t work as well as the show’s creators thought they would.  For example, I never felt the fevered need for Detective Miller to push push push in resolving the mystery of Julie Mao.  His character is probably the most cliched one in the show, your “cynical” detective who suddenly finds he cannot let something bad just go by.  Perhaps because of the fractured nature of the storytelling Detective Miller’s change never felt natural.

Further, when another character tells him he pursues the mystery of Mao so feverishly because he’s “fallen in love” with her, I shook my head.  By the show’s climax it felt like the show’s creators were indeed trying to prove this was the case but to me I never felt that to be the case.  The storytelling here, in the end, was rather weak.

As for U.N. envoy Chrisjen Avasarala, her story never quite ties in as directly as that of Miller and Holden, who actually join forces together at the show’s climax.  While it is true she is seeking information that relates to the behind the scenes elements that caused Mao’s disappearance, I felt her scenes were never as clever or engaging as those of Miller or Holden.

Finally, with regard to Holden and his motley crew, they proved to be the most interesting characters in the story but even their story line had some issues.  I can buy they head to the derelict and witness the Canterbury’s destruction and narrowly escape the same fate but what follows proves harder and harder to swallow.  I don’t want to get into too many SPOILERS here, but suffice to say mega-destruction follows in Holden and his group’s wake and after a while one couldn’t help but admire their incredible luck in avoiding annihilation so many times.

Finally, and as mentioned above, we really aren’t given much of a story resolution here.  The first season of The Expanse feels like a prolonged introduction to events and people but ends without us knowing all that much as to what the heck is going on.  Sure, we find out what Mao was up to.  We find out what happened to her.  But we don’t know any of the “whys” here and that’s frustrating.  What’s up with the crystals?  Why do certain people want there to be war between Mars and Earth?  Why did they do what they did on Eros station?

It’s frustrating to spend nearly ten hours on a show and still have no idea about so many things.

Despite the negatives enumerated above, there was still enough intriguing material to warrant my catching a second season.  I just hope we’re given more answers than were provided in the first ten episode arc.  Otherwise, I might just give up.

General, TV

Man Remembers Who He Is After 30 Years…

This story, written by Artemis Moshtaghian and Lawrence Crook III and presented on CNN.com, sounds like something you’d find in a Robert Ludlum book…

Police: Man remembers who he is after 30 years

I have to say, as I was reading the article I kept thinking this was simply some kind of ruse, that the man who had amnesia about his past just couldn’t have had it, that he was fleeing some kind of familiar relationship he no longer wanted any part of and/or had a second “life” with someone else he preferred.

It reminded me of one of the segments of a Zucker/Abrahams’ forgotten comedy creation, Our Planet Tonight (1987), which itself was a parody of the 20/20, 60 Minutes, etc. news shows.  In it we have a report on how these two twin brothers were separated at birth and yet live such extraordinarily similar lives while -supposedly unknowingly- also lived in the very same town and in very close proximity to each other.

The upshot of the skit/pseudo-news report (if you haven’t clicked above to see it, you should!) was that there were no twin brothers and the man they were following was in actuality a bigamist with two different wives/lives who, now that he was being investigated for this show, had to pretend mightily he and his “other” were twins.  The hosts of the news show hilariously miss all the evidence right in front of their face that points to the fact that these men are one and the same, including how they use the “same type of car” or “work in the same place” yet how, in the reporter’s words, hadn’t once crossed each other’s path!

Toward the end of the episode, the reporter wanted to bring the “twins” together to meet and it was hilarious how “each” twin stated that they didn’t want to meet just yet that they had to digest this information and didn’t want to traumatize the other.

Hilarious stuff and, yes, I was thinking of exactly that when I started reading the above article.  I suppose that’s the cynic in me.

Anyway, my cynicism was quickly banished when I found out the man who had this extended amnesia is mentally disabled and has an intellectual development of a 12 year old.  While I would be suspicious if a perfectly “normal” man made such a wild claim, it makes more sense in this case that this developmentally disabled individual wouldn’t have the capacity or desire to make such a thing up.

Which makes the story, and the fact that this man and his family will finally be getting together, nothing less than heartwarming.

Even to a cynic like me.

Sports, TV

…and that’s why they play the game.

My thoughts on Super Bowl 50, if you’re interested:

Lady Gaga’s rendition of the National Anthem was quite spectacular.  Couldn’t tell you about the halftime show as I was busy doing a few things and missed it completely (I could have rewound and watched it but as I don’t care for either Coldplay, Beyonce, or Bruno Mars all that much there seemed little need to).

As for the final score, I was very surprised by it.  Going into the game I thought this would be a blowout with the Carolina Panthers winning.

While I knew the Denver Bronco’s defense was damn good (it was rated #1 this year), I felt Peyton Manning’s QB play was so very weak that it would ultimately prove a liability the Broncos could not overcome.  The fact is Mr. Manning’s body is broken down and he is, at best, an average to below average QB at this point.

Add to that the fact the Carolina Panthers looked to be an far better rounded team and you’ll understand my reasoning.  Carolina’s defense, while obviously not ranked #1, was nonetheless still a damn good unit and in combination with an overall better offense had me feeling this would be an easy win for Carolina.

Boy was I was wrong.

Denver’s defense essentially won the game while Manning, though he committed a few errors (and potentially more…there were times his passes were up there for grabs but Carolina didn’t get them), nonetheless didn’t sink their ship.

After the game, one of the announcers repeated my exact thoughts by noting he never thought a defensive performance alone would be sufficient to win a Super Bowl but that this game proved it could indeed be the case…provided your defense is as good as this one.

In the end, the better team won and in this case it was because of their incredibly good defense.

So much for the game.  How about…The commercials?

Ho boy.

What was always a side tradition of watching the Super Bowl was seeing a parade of clever and sometimes outrageous commercials.  This year, it was nothing more than a bust.

Of the commercials I could remember:

The Prius commercial.  This was the worst.  I mean, who thought it was a good idea to present a group of “lovable” bank robbers as protagonists in these commercials?  For those who didn’t see the commercial, it starts with the bank robbers’ car being towed and they are forced to steal a car to make their getaway.  They find a Prius and take it but, hey, it’s all good: They leave behind a bag of stolen money to pay the owner for the stolen car.  The commercial then has them getting away…and away…and away as the Prius is not only fast, but so fuel economical that it keeps the police from capturing them.

Of course in real life the police would blast the living shit out of that Prius and take the bank robbers down hard.  Further, other than the people behind the making of the commercial, who in their right mind would look upon bank robbers as being “lovable”?!

The Snickers commercial.  Last year Snickers presented one of the all time best versions of their “You’re not yourself when you’re hungry” commercials by having Danny Trejo (Machete) and, at the end of the commercial, Steve Buscemi (Broadwalk Empire, among many others) appear as the “hungry” versions of Marcia and Jan of The Brady Bunch.

This year we had Willem Dafoe playing a cranky Marilyn Monroe as s/he’s filming her famous “white dress being blown up by the subway air” scene from The Seven Year Itch.

On paper the idea of seeing Willem Dafoe in Marilyn’s dress and doing that scene must have felt like a home run but in watching it I couldn’t help but cringe.  Didn’t work at all.

The superhero commercials:  Unless I’m missing one, I believe there were five in total.  The Deadpool one was ok.  They’ve done better.

The Captain America: Civil War trailer was…only OK as well, IMHO.  I’m curious why they didn’t just call it Avengers 3: Civil War, considering the fact all the main superheroes (plus a few new ones) are there.

The Hulk/Ant-Man Coke commercial…Cute concept but ultimately played out too long.  And a part of me was thinking: All that destruction and potential human life lost/injured because of one stinking can of Coke?

The Batman v Superman/Turkish Airways commercial.  Though many have dumped on the film before its release, I’ve felt that up to this point the clips/trailers I’ve seen have me optimistic the film will be good.  But this whole Turkish Airways cross-promotion has me scratching my head big time.  I mean, what’s the point of this commercial?  Use Turkish Airlines whenever you want to go to fictional cities like Metropolis and Gotham?!  Very weird.

The X-Men Age of Apocalypse trailer…Again, I thought it was only OK.  It was so average, in fact, that I forgot entirely about it until I did a search for the superhero ads placed in the Super Bowl.  Not a good sign.

Other commercials:

The Bud Light Seth Rogan/Amy Schumer commercial.  Too long and not as funny as it could have been.  But I did like the Paul Rudd appearance/joke.

The Amazon Echo commercial featuring Dan Marino…I chuckled at that one, especially some of the zingers at the end.  The follow up/morning after commercial, though, wasn’t quite as good.

Weirdest commercial by far: The Puppy Monkey Baby commercial for Mountain Dew.  How do I even explain it?  I can’t so I’ll conclude this blog entry by showing it.  Gaze in wild wonder at one of the most bizarre commercials I’ve seen in quite some time…

TV

Colony (2016) a (mildly belated) pilot review

Given I couldn’t watch the Fox channel last night see either the Panthers/Arizona game or the first episode of the new X-Files (read all about it), I finally checked out the first episode of Colony which has been on my DVR for the past couple of weeks.

Starring Josh (Lost) Holloway and Sarah Wayne (Walking Dead) Callies, the pilot for this series was intriguing but, at this point, I’m far from willing to be committed to continuing with it.

On the plus side, the show is well done.  The acting, cinematography, and special effects (though not all that many of them) were solid if unexceptional.  The story itself, involving a vaguely defined alien invasion and the subsequent subjugation of the human race, is far less interesting…at least so far.

Basically, we have a Nazi Germany metaphor going on here, with the unseen “overlords” having invaded Earth at some point in the past (Or did they?  Could there be something more going on?  Check out the trailer below and pay particular attention to that last bit of dialogue in it) and in California where our protagonists live, an ominous wall has been built which separates parts of the city of L.A.

When the show opens, Will Bowman (Josh Holloway) is having breakfast with his family.  All appears relatively normal but we soon realize that parts of the city are destroyed and we see people are mostly riding around in bicycles.  There are also some rather fearsome looking soldiers/police monitoring people’s activities and busting down those who may be guilty of something/anything.

Will leaves his family and smuggles himself into a cargo truck headed to the other side of the wall.  He’s in search of a son he’s been cut away from because of the wall.  However, the smuggling run is sabotaged by a resistance bomb which takes out the truck he was hidden in and Will is imprisoned.

Meanwhile his wife Katie (Sarah Wayne Callies), unaware for now of her husband’s fate, is shown going through a typical day.  She tries to get her hands on insulin for a neighbor’s child but the people offering it for trade are obviously trying to give her an inferior -and potentially dangerous- product and she is forced into near violence to get out of the situation with her bargaining chip (a bottle of liquor).

As night falls and Will doesn’t return home, the family becomes very preoccupied that something has gone wrong.

Will, meanwhile (redux redux!), is taken from prison and meets with the “Mayor” of subjugated L.A.  The man has discovered Will was once an Army Ranger (a no-no) and had hidden his identity.  Normally army officers are subjected to the alien’s “law” but because of his “skills” at finding people, the Mayor offers Will a choice: Either be subjected to that law and be sent along with his family to a labor camp (or worse) or collaborate with him in finding, and identifying, the leaders of the resistance.

There is, of course, no choice at all.

The show ends on a “twist” I completely saw coming and I suspect most viewers will too.  It is the predictability/familiarity of the subject matter along with the grim, depressing tone that have me very ambivalent about whether I want to continue watching the show.

Again, Colony is a reasonably well done show which has potential but if things don’t pick up with the next couple of episodes, I don’t think I’ll stick with it.

Your mileage, as they say, may vary.

Movies, TV

A little more on The Abominable Bride…

Yesterday I reviewed the New Year’s day premiere of the 4th season Sherlock episode The Abominable Bride.  If you’ve read the review (its here), you know I absolutely loved it.

Loved it.

But what’s most surprising is the fact that it appears this episode has really torn some fans of the show.  While I’m clearly in the camp that loved it, there are those who really detested the episode.

Over at IMDB and on the page representing the episode, the main user review featured (at least for now), is highly negative.  Scroll down a little more and a couple of the topics featured in the message board also note the series is “going downhill”.

Frankly, seeing these negative comments surprises me though by now it should not.

It proves yet again that critical opinions of artistic works can vary -sometimes wildly- from person to person.

As someone who did not think all that much of either Star Wars (back when it was originally released in 1977!) and absolutely hated Guardians of the Galaxy, yet finds himself strangely enthralled by the mess that is Supernova, it should come as no surprise that others won’t agree with my opinions.

Yet the negative reviews of The Abominable Bride nonetheless did surprise me.  Not that they’re many (despite the mentioned critical comments, the film nonetheless scores a high 8.6 out of 10 on IMDB), but it just seemed like those who didn’t like it either didn’t get “into” it (ie, lose themselves in the story as I did) or were frustrated by the fact that the show went on such a flight of fancy.

I admit, the episode did go off on a tangent (especially when the previous series ended on such a cliffhanger).  Still, it’s hard to believe those who didn’t like it didn’t at least see something good in that episode, whether it be the clever dialogue or acting or…

Ah well, that’s why they’re called opinions.

TV

Sherlock: The Abominable Bride (2016) a (very mildly) belated review

1 Comment

If you haven’t watched any of the Benedict Cumberpatch/Martin Freeman Sherlock movies, you’ve missed out on something truly special and should check them out.

Go ahead, I’m waiting.

Seriously, with perhaps a single exception, Sherlock could well be one of the greatest things to make their way to television in these past couple of years.  The idea behind the series is to make adaptations of Sir Conan Arthur Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories but set them in modern times.

Benedict Cumberpatch rocketed to superstardom as Sherlock Holmes but equally effective is Martin Freeman as the sardonic Dr. Watson.  The two play off each other magnificently and the movies presented are alternatively hilarious, incredibly clever, and eminently watchable.

(I mentioned above that there was one exception.  That would be the adaptation of perhaps the most famous of the Sherlock Holmes stories, The Hound of the Baskervilles.  Sadly, of all the Sherlock episodes made, this proved to be the most confusing one, to me)

On New Year’s Day, the BBC released The Abonimable Bride, a special “one-off” Sherlock film that had our intrepid characters going back in time to the era Sherlock Holmes is most associated, the late 1800’s.

I’m so tempted to get into details regarding the episode but all that would do is spoil things so I won’t.  I will say this, however: This might well be one of the absolute best of the Sherlock episodes/movies ever made.  It is clever, engaging, hilarious (some of the dialogue!  I would kill to write such clever dialogue!), and incredibly surprising.

When it was over I was absolutely blown away by what I had just seen.

The story, in short: In late 19th Century London, a woman in a wedding dress appears to go crazy on the balcony of her apartment and fires at people down below.  Ultimately, she puts the barrel of one of her revolvers in her mouth and blows her brains out.

She’s dead, it would appear, yet her husband, who is about to head out to identify her corpse, is confronted by his wife in her wedding dress.  He sees her and positively identifies her before witnesses…before she kills him with a shotgun.  She then vanishes but her corpse is still in the morgue!

How could a dead woman kill her husband?

Holmes is tasked to solve the mystery but is unable to.  A year later, he is presented with a new mystery…and the ghostly bride appears to have returned from the grave to seek out another victim.

Great, great stuff.

I’m once again tempted to go into SPOILERS but I won’t.

Suffice to say, this “old fashioned setting” episode plays an intricate role in the Sherlock series though, on the surface, it would appear not to.

For those who haven’t seen the series, you simply must try to catch it.  For those who have, The Abominable Bride might well be one of the very best episodes of the series ever created.

I’m not kidding here: Sherlock, and The Abominable Bride in particular, is television at its very best.

TV

Ash Vs. Evil Dead, Season One (2015): A (mildly) belated review

I’m going to come right out and say it: I loved the first season of Ash Vs. Evil Dead, for the most part, but really –really- hated the ending.  (A quick counterpoint from i09: How Ash Vs. Evil Dead Took Everything We Loved From The Movies And Made It Better).

If you know anything at all about the Evil Dead films (the original Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, and Army of Darkness) and actor/God Bruce Campbell, there’s nothing I can add to the myth/legend that is Ashley “Ash” J. Williams, the “hero” of these three films and the new Starz! series Ash Vs. Evil Dead.

Good ol’ Ash (Bruce Campbell, of course), like all of us is a little older but -hopefully unlike all of us- not at all wiser than he was in the original series of films.  He’s still full of those delightful, often vulgar wisecracks and smart ass comments that endeared him to legions of fans, of which I’m one.

The Ash Vs. Evil Dead series started out incredibly strong with a premiere episode directed by Sam Raimi, who was the director of the previous three original Evil Dead movies (the less said about the modern remake, the better).  One of the biggest problems subsequent episodes of the series had was that Mr. Raimi didn’t direct any of the other 9 episodes and, while the other directors didn’t do a bad job by any stretch, that premiere episode looked and flowed, to my mind, much better than what followed.  Please note this was not a critical problem with the bulk of the series but became more noticeable when we reached the the last two to three episodes of the season.  It was in the climactic moments I wished Mr. Raimi was there, directing us through the greatest mayhem.

I’ll get back to the first season’s climax in a moment.

So the plot of the show goes like this: Ash screws up yet again and while stoned and with his latest “girlfriend” reads from the cursed Book of the Dead, the Lovecraftian Necronomicon.  Of course, this releases a new wave of deadly demons/deadites.

Ash comes to this realization and while in his dull Superstore job he reluctantly gathers his coworkers Pablo Simon Bolivar (Ray Santiago) and Kelly Maxwell (Dana DeLorenzo) and off they go together to try to end the deadite menace once and for all.

Meanwhile FBI agent Amanda Fisher (Jill Marie Jones) also has an encounter with the strange and this leads her to believe Ash is behind the menace.  We’re concurrently introduced to the mysterious Ruby Knowby (Lucy Lawless who, for most of the ten episodes is but a cameo player), who eventually joins forces with Agent Fisher in her pursuit of Ash.

The episodes that follow are filled with gory, bloody effects mixed with hilarious dialogue that further proves Ash is a blowhard fool.  The show, however, shows us that deep beneath the swagger lies a man who genuinely wants to do the right thing even with his mental handicap(s).

Again, this is played to great effect and I absolutely loved -and relished!- every moment Bruce Campbell’s Ash opened his mouth, so eager was I to hear the latest silliness he was about to utter.  My favorite line of the series came early and is found at the 50 second mark of the series’ trailer and concerns…churros?

So the series proceeded and characters got together and eventually made their way -it was logical- to the cabin in the woods that birthed the whole mess in Evil Dead and Evil Dead II.

Repeating once again: While the direction in these concluding episodes wasn’t terrible by any stretch of the imagination, one can’t help but compare the cabin scenes in Ash Vs. Evil Dead with those of the movies, particularly Evil Dead II.  And when one does this, one can’t help but feel that the Sam Raimi directed movie had a greater manic energy and humor and, once again (redux), one comes away wishing Mr. Raimi was again at the helm during these episodes.

Moving away from the direction, the crux of my critique lies in the way the series “ended”.  Or, rather, didn’t.

Evil Dead II, the movie that most resembles Ash Vs. Evil Dead, gave us a great story which had a definite ending.  It was then followed by a coda meant to get us interested in more Evil Dead material.  This coda was the jumping off point into Army of Darkness.

Unfortunately with Ash Vs. Evil Dead, we get a great story but even with the 10 episodes of approximately half an hour each for a total run-time of five or so hours, when all is said and done what we were given was nothing more than an introduction to a story.

Ash Vs. Evil Dead’s conclusion wasn’t much of one at all.  Through the series we move from place to place and reach that cursed cabin in the woods but instead of getting a conclusion to the story we’re effectively told the story is about to happen (hello, season 2!) and this disappointed me tremendously.

We still don’t know who/what exactly Ruby Knowby is.  Sure we were given some big hints but she remains an enigma that will obviously be dealt with in greater detail in the future.  Worse was the fate of another of the main characters (I won’t get into spoilers here) who wound up being nothing more than an overglorified victim.

As for the remaining characters, including Ash, its obvious his fight against the deadites has just begun.

In sum, I loved loved loved Ash Vs. Evil Dead…up to the conclusion which I felt wasn’t much of one.

Given the amount of joy the series offered versus that disappointing final five or so minutes, I suppose Ash would likely say, “quit your bitchin’, there’s a second season on the way”.

Of course that’s true.  And you know what?  I’ll be right there to see it.

Alright, I’ll quit my bitchin’.  Despite my reservations regarding the conclusion, I HIGHLY recommend the first season of Ash Vs. Evil Dead to anyone who likes their gory horror mixed with some hilarious -and vulgar- comedy.

Just go into this realizing that the full story will take at least two seasons to tell…I hope!