Television, 2011 vintage

 television  No Responses »
Apr 032012
 

Didn’t watch that much television last year.

And good new shows were few and far between.

  • Game of Thrones was by far the biggest event on the small screen. HBO quality, with great actors (Sean Bean and Peter Dinklage as top men). The story has barely started, and the reception across the world has been positive, a second season was purchased around the time the pilot was broadcast.
  • Was very late to the new doctor party of Doctor Who. Though Matt Smith initially seemed to be a huge letdown after David Tennant, he grew on me. The season finished with an appropriately scaled finale, and left high expectations for the sixth.
  • True Blood‘s third season was more or less OK, though the sleepy town of Bon Temps is a bit too much of an occult hotspot for watchers with too strained suspenders of disbelief.
  • Abandoned fifth season of House, MD in mid-flight (mainly on account of a recording mishap). Picked the dvd up on the cheap, but haven’t yet gone back to Princeton.
  • Pasila upped the ante after a weaker preceding season. Plots were longer, not just collections of very loosely connected scenes.
  • The remake of Hawaii 5-0 had the dubious honour of being dropped by the channel after half a dozen episodes. Didn’t miss it.
  • Event was a bad combination of 24 and X-Files marred by an overly busy plot and terrible acting.
  • Detroit 187, on the other hand, was a pleasant surprise, a slow-paced police procedural with interesting plots (and starring Michael Imperioli).
  • The second season of Burn Notice was pleasantly surprise-packed. Tight plotting, with a season-long arc (that’ll have repercussions beyond).
  • Castle‘s second season was broadcast without much of a warning, and ended up missing a good chunk of the series. Watched it off p2ptv and continued to be impressed. Nathan Fillion and the crew play their parts well, the plots do not bore often and all in all it continues to retain the crown of the best mainstream show.

Superbowl, twice

 sports, television  No Responses »
Feb 022012
 

Yay! Nelonen Pro (a pay per view channel) will broadcast Superbowl on Sunday.

With both finnish and english commentary (since it will be available on two channels simultaneously).

Too bad the most expensive commercials will be replaced by breaks.

And obviously, too bad that both ‘niners and Saints got knocked out in the playoffs.

ASoFaI @ 50%

 books, television  No Responses »
Jul 312011
 

Bought Dance with Dragons, but haven’t started it yet. There’s a good 1500+ intervening pages, as I still want to read through the second half of Storm of Swords and Feast for Crows to remember what’s going on in Westeros.

Dance with Dragons got heavy promotion in Akateeminen Kirjakauppa, it’s not often that english hardbacks are pushed so hard (only the latter Harry Potters and Dan Brown’s novels exceeded this).

There’s no word for the home-release of Game of Thrones yet, but considering the reception of the show, HBO’s certainly slavering over the potential revenue from the dvd/bluray-releases.

Noted that I’ve recently acquired quite a few interesting links to Song of Fire and Ice-related pages. Will start on posting them soonish. And also try to note whether they carry spoilers either for the books and/or television show (which will be broadcast by YLE in 2012).

Silhouetting across the popular culture

 art, books, comics, games, movies, television  No Responses »
Jul 302011
 

Prisoner silhouetteI’ve been an Olly Moss fanboy for a long time. A recent addition to his portfolio is a collection of papercuts of various characters. There’s plenty of figures I do not recognize, and quite a few I wouldn’t mind on the walls. The style is very much the traditional silhouette – black on white – with colour very sparingly used for special effect (like the jackets of the Reservoir Dogs crew).

Edge of Darkness, 2.5 stars

 movie reviews, television  No Responses »
Jul 162011
 

Edge of Darkness posterMartin Campbell’s classic six-part television drama Edge of Darkness is one of my favorite pieces of television. Ever. Hence, I was deeply suspicious when a movie version of the series was announced a few years back. And hearing that said movie would be fronting Mel Gibson and be more “action-oriented” didn’t really subdue the worries. Which turned out well-founded, the remake is much worse than the original.

The plot is streamlined to the point of ridiculous, it contains holes that a truck could drive through. The subtle and slow pace of the original has been replaced by a cranky rollercoaster, one that takes an uncomfortable turn after another without much enjoyment to the participants. Some sequences (capture in Northmoor, Emma’s presence) and characters seem to be only vaguely connected to the plot, there’s probably quite a bit of connective tissue on the cutting room floor.

The acting is worse across the board. Mel Gibson’s bull in a china shop approach is miles away from the quiet determination of Bob Peck in the original. And while Ray Winstone plays up his version of Darius Jedburgh – his take on the role that Joe Don Baker simply owned in the eighties pales in comparison.

The fact that Eric Clapton whose work was used to a chilling effect in the original doesn’t appear on the soundtrack at all is a further demerit on the production company, and effectively highlights how much of a lost cause this remake was. What was the most surprising bit of the sordid affair is the fact that the director of the remake is the same as of the original – Martin Campbell, the man with the two best James Bond movies (Goldeneye & Casino Royale) under his belt to confirm that he hasn’t lost his touch totally.

AGoT @ 100%, ASoFaI @ 18%

 books, television  No Responses »
Jul 052011
 

Finished the HBO’s rendition of Game of Thrones.

The two last episodes feel crowded – the grande finale of the novel would clearly have benefited from extra legroom, now a lot of the plotlines are either rushed, simplified or altered to fit.

But the show is testament to the production company’s skill – I never expected a mainstream television show to capture the spirit and scenery of the books so well.

Sadly the second season is barely in setup phase, and I’d be seriously surprised if it would make it into production, let alone on screens, in a year. Even the dvd/blu-ray release date of the first series has not been announced yet.

The fifth book of the series, Dance with Dragons is published next week. I’m rereading the preceding volumes in advance – right now at the tail end of Clash of Kings, so it’ll be a while before I tackle the 1040-page monster.

A Game of Thrones, at 80%

 books, television  No Responses »
Jul 032011
 

Joffrey BaratheonAt eight episodes out of ten, it’s time to look back on the HBO’s version of the Game of Thrones.

And in short the analysis is very positive. The show’s been nothing short of great, it’s a phenomenally good interpretation of the greatest modern fantasy novel.

Most of the actors acquit themselves well – some exceeding expectations wildly. Lena Headey makes for a deliciously borgian bitch, Aidan Gillen returns to the channel as yet another ambigiously moral leader, and Jack Gleeson, the actor playing Joffrey Lannister, manages to evoke hatred the first moment he appears on screen.

But it’s not all roses: some of the plotlines have been streamlined a lot, Tyrion Lannister is nowhere near the ugly monster he’s made out to be in the books, and the bisexual nature of Renly Baratheon was definitely somewhat of a shock (then again, it seems to be an undisputable fact – confirming that my gaydar is not very well calibrated).

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