So It Turns Out...

That The Walking Dead is still boring after all. No matter how many arrows Norman Reedus shoots from that crossbow in an effortlessly cool way. 

Hmm.

A Reformation

Sometimes, you are surprised.

Not always pleasantly, I'll admit as much. But I stuck with it, The Walking Dead. And while I won't say that it's the best thing I've ever seen, it's shaping up well. I thought I would have abandoned it by now, dumped it on the side of the road like a dead badger, or the sad, forgotten promise of Glee. Season 1 didn't set me on fire. And I was open to it. I wanted it and was totally ripe for the picking. I hadn't been overexposed to the zombie genre, so by the time season 1 started, I was nowhere near annoyed with zombie tropes. My zombie experience was limited to watching Shaun of the Dead. Really. I don't like any sort of scary films. I don't watch them, I don't think of them. 10 minutes alone with Scream, or any other sort of lightweight thriller and I'm sleeping with a rolling-pin-as-makeshift-weapon under the bed for the next year. They terrify me.

I liked it at first. I liked most of the male characters. Except Shane. I liked the setting, I liked the concept. But the season wasn't very strong, and it didn't seem to go anywhere. The women are still a huge problem. Really, really huge. They are ALL annoying. Without exception. Whiny and moany, and useless. Sitting ducks. And I really don't like watching television shows with terrible female characters, it feels like such lazy writing.

I wasn't sure if I would come back for season 2. But I did. I was unimpressed with the pilots on offer, and I'd decided to drop Glee. I was also still on a downer from a summer without Mad Men, so I decided to give it a second chance.

And I'm glad that I did. It's not different, I'll say. It's the same as the first season. The women are terrible. Shane is terrible. They've made plot adjustments from the comics that seem...unwise. They've been sitting on a farm for what might possibly be the last five years doing nothing. But, I think I'm just getting used to it. Getting used to the pace, and what it has to offer. Daryl is just the best thing ever. I don't know if it's the fan love or if it was the intention all along, but they've transformed him from an annoying, rash redneck into an awesome, sympathetic, crossbow toting redneck.

So for now, I'll keep watching. And hope that it keeps on getting better. Fingers crossed!

A Year in Review. Almost.

Every year I think about doing a little bloggy type run down of the top 5/10 good/shit things that have happened in tv/film/pantomime over the previous months. Of course, I am a right lazy fucker so never end up doing any such thing. I'd rather be eating leftover Christmas biscuits, frankly. Plus, this desire usually centres around the thoughts I have floating around my head about certain shows...so I'll manage about 2 categories before I run out of ideas or remember that I don't actually watch every show going.

This year, I started thinking about it again. Because I don't learn. So I thought I might give it a go. In a lazy, half arsed kind of way. I mean, we don't need another few pages of top 10's. They are everywhere. Who can be bothered to sit down and pen another run down of 2010? So here goes _drumroll_ the 2010 top 1's!!

Most Disappointing Show
1. The Walking Dead.

Big hopes. Big. Reality: stupid, stupid, stupid. It could have been so good, and the overall premise is so good that I will even allow it another chance when season 2 airs next year. But this does not mean that all is forgiven. This season had huge plot holes that stretched far beyond the acceptable boundaries of suspension of disbelief. The lack of decent female characters was appalling, rivalled only by the whitest Atlanta ever seen on television. The idiocy of the survivor group - driving around in a five vehicle convoy whilst talking about your lack of fuel. The fake gang moron-athon that wasted an entire episode. The foreshadowing was terrible - when you find yourself in a boat with your older sister, when you've never had any real screen time to think of before.....well, here's a hint: you're going to get eaten. And die really. very. slowly. I don't think I've ever wanted a collection of cast members to get killed off so badly. I'm hoping that season 2 begins with Rick, Glenn and Daryl leaving the rest of the group (I would discuss them, but most of them are so dull I cannot remember their names) and finding some more intelligent life forms to hang around with.

And their ends my round up of the year. I would say that disappointment is the overall feeling of the 2010 television year. This years Big Love was the worst ever and has almost ruined the show for me. I placed my hopes in three new September pilots, all of which turned out to be utter dross. Not just bad, in a Private Practice way, just unwatchable. Boardwalk Empire had all the moves, it looked right, it sounded right. It had all the right pieces in all the right places, but it just fell flat. It was boring. Not bad, just rather uninspiring. Maybe it was all the money. Glee did not live up to the promise of season 1. True Blood was lacklustre, despite the joy of Russell Edgington. I suspect that more naked Eric might solve that issue.

Of course, it wasn't all bad - Fringe was truly excellent this year. I wanted to see it every week and there wasn't a part of it that was not enjoyable. There were some great British shows - Whites, Rev, Mongrels and Sherlock showing excellent first series. Peep Show returned for an impressive seventh outing. I discovered old shows that I had never seen. I finally got around to watching all Felicity episodes. I found Breaking Bad.

Well, this list making has been exhausting! No wonder I never bother to do it.

So it Turns out....

Andrew Lincoln? Not so annoying after all. For the moment.

The Walking Dead is not flawless, by any stretch of the imagination. It's predictable, sometimes obvious and rather full of zombie cliches. Survivors grouping together in a department store. I feel like I've seen it all before and my exposure to zombie material is roughly zero. Not only that, but the stupidity exhibited by some of the characters makes them contenders for Moron of the Month after only 3 episodes.

Character stupidity is a hard one to overcome, particularly when it's only a device to further the plot. Camping in the woods with plentiful zombie ground cover is an exercise is stupidity, as is the concept that we would willingly believe that Merle, handcuffed on a roof with a hacksaw would choose to hack off his entire hand. Rather than his thumb, or even the rather flimsy looking chain between the cuffs. Add these to the fact that the protagonists wife, on hearing that he is dead, supposedly jumps straight into bed with his best friend.

Despite the high moron count and the zombie cliches, I find it thoroughly enjoyable. Is it the zombies? Are they just so interesting (and rarely done in a televisual serial) that all the other concerns are overridden? Is it the cast or the writing? I don't know. But I find it engaging, even when it's annoying me. Still, that can only last so long. And I tell you, if the survivors don't get a move on and start looking for somewhere a bit more sensible to hide (clue: anywhere else), my patience will probably run out.

But for now, with episode 4 to watch this evening, I shall be enjoying my own personal resurrection of Andrew Lincoln.

And When it Was Bad....Well, at Least There's Fringe

Right?

I was so worried before the start of season 3. Season 2 had that iffy start, and JJ shows don't have the best track record when it comes to the third season. I was half expecting Melissa George to show up and instigate Operation: Shittify as usual. 

Fortunately, everyone's least favourite Antipodean has been nowhere to be seen and the season is wonderful. The show has somehow morphed stealthily into something genuinely good, rather than the hit and miss guilty pleasure that it started as.

In fact, I can count the annoyances this season on one hand. Which is impressive, as to be frank....well, I'm easily annoyed. I can overlook a lot of annoyances though, as The Walking Dead proves (more on that next time)....but I still count them.

My only major gripe so far is the seemingly necessary stupidity pills that Peter has been taking. How can he not realise that Olivia is not Olivia? The answer? Because the story line needs him to be ignorant. Which is a major annoyance. Peter is not stupid. Peter is intelligent, has a lot of common sense and is a master of reading people. And yet he has wandered around, in a post-coital haze, seemingly unaware of the imposter in his bed. Are we supposed to believe that suddenly regular sex has dulled the man's brain? Or are they trying to make us believe that Peter has known all along and is playing the game? Well that can't be true. If Peter knew, he would confront her immediately. And the story line would be over. I hate that it is simply the only way that they can run the story - by altering and degrading his character.

I'll let this one slide though (and I'm sure the writers of the show will be breathing a huge sigh of relief there) as the rest of the season has been exemplary. But I'll be watching. But not for another two weeks. There's another annoyance for you.

Zombies, Cont.

There is a reason I am uneducated in all things undead. <whispers> I'm a big girly wuss. I must be about 15 years behind my contemporaries - the things that scare me now are things that they were minorly bothered by terrified of at 15. They built up a resistance to scary stuff and moved on. I stagnated and just avoid, avoid, avoid.

As such, I am only half way through the first episode of The Walking Dead. Pathetic? Indeed.

It's the tension that scares me. Someone jumping out in the dark, not knowing what is around the corner. And so, this:

scared the pants right off me. It's like a televisual version of Silent Hill. <shudders>


I'll be watching the rest of The Walking Dead today.

In the daylight.

Egg and The Great Undead

I'm not really a fan of zombies. I don't watch zombie films, I don't read zombie books. I don't invite zombies round for dinner. Even Charlie Brooker couldn't lure me in with his zombie offering, and that's saying something.

I am also not really a fan of Andrew Lincoln. This is something that you probably can't really appreciate if you aren't from the UK, but he is everywhere. Really. Aside from his televisual and film career, he is an amazingly prolific voice over actor. I can barely go an evening without an advert with good old Egg doing the talking.

These two things in mind, I'm not entirely sure what is attracting me to Frank Darabont's The Walking Dead. I wasn't even aware of the comic before Googling generic-internet-searching the new show.

But there is something there I think. I watched the trailer. It makes me all tingly. I know - you don't like the complicated science talk, but sometimes I can't explain things in any other way. Is this the show I have been looking for? Have I been wasting my time waiting for HBO to come to the rescue? Have AMC been dark horsing around while I assume Mad Men is a one off? Am I going to have to watch Breaking Bad now?

And who knows? Maybe, in adopting a new accent, Andrew Lincoln will find a whole new fan base. I'm referring to myself there, by the way.

BoredWalk Empire

Fine. It's fine. Not spectacular, or awe-inspiring, or inspirational. It's fine.

I've been having trouble getting into the swing of things when it comes to Nucky and friends. It's slick, it's well done, it's expensive. It has a great cast, some good performances. But it just doesn't grab me.

I am rather disappointed. That's my fault for placing too much emphasis on HBO being the saviour of my television world. I'm waiting for something else to reach out and grab me, something that makes me anticipate each week. Maybe it's the genre that's a turn off. Maybe it's lubricated with so much money that it can't hold any interest. I've been wondering if it's more like a long, complicated film rather than a well planned out series. Maybe I'm just feeling down as there was no Fringe last week.

And so....as my next post will show, I've moved on to pastures new, learned no lessons, and simply transferred all of my eggs into a new, zombie shaped basket. This one will perform, right?