Television in General

Welcome back to my pilot reviews: 2011 Edition! Today, I'm going to take a look at two of the three new sitcoms that premiered the second week of the Fall Season. One is pretty standard while the other is the worst show ever. The first is better than Up All Night and Free Agents, but it still comes with a few caveats. As such, without further ado, here is the show that kind of made me laugh. 2 Broke Girls: I'm mildly irked that the 2 Broke Girls' creators decided to go with the number 2 instead of the word. All of my alphabetical lists of television shows will forever be ruined. On the upside, the show wasn't a complete bust. 

Hey again! As promised, here is the second half of my review of Week 1. This time, I take a look at two new shows gracing the air on the CW. These would, of course, be the highly anticipated Ringer and the probably highly anticipated but mostly just a Vampire Diaries Clone, The Secret Circle. One of them was surprisingly fun, while the other was absolutely horrible. Without further ado, here are my rambly and strong opinions.

Welcome, a little late, to the first official week of the 2011 Fall Television Season! Seeing as how network television is basically crystal meth in the form of heavily censored family entertainment, I will likely be watching every new pilot ever. As such, I thought it might be fun to A) make a list of shows I think people should and shouldn't watch so as to be able to share my very strong opinions with someone other than my stuffed gorilla and to B) discuss what the STV community thinks about the new season in one big post. I reserve the right to not watch/review something if I feel that it would likely make me seize violently. Alright, I'll be starting Week 1 with something I am going to call "The Kind Of Good, The CW, and The Unbearably Mediocre". As you may have guessed, I wasn't wildly impressed with what the networks had to offer in their first week.

Hey all! This is a review of No Ordinary Family I wrote for the 2010 pilot season. As is evidenced in my review below, I was quite taken with it. Sadly, what started off as a funny and episodic family-friendly show quickly devolved into schlock, nonsense, and generic superhero tripe. I even included a shoutout to the possible success of The Event. My bad. Anyway, this is the last of the articles I wanted to transfer from SpoilerTV to my blog, so, enjoy!

Hey again everyone! This is yet another one of my older recaps/reviews that I am taking from SpoilerTV to post on my own blog. It's is a look at the pilot episode of the too-soon canceled AMC drama: Rubicon. Even if there is little in the way of resolution, I would absolutely recommend this show to anyone with an interest in slow paced psychological dramas. Without further ado, here is what I took from the pilot episode of Rubicon. Remember, spoilers abound!

Hey again everyone. Sorry about having taken last week off for no apparent reason. I'm back in full swing this week as we approach the end of what has been an absolutely brilliant and far too short first season. This week's episode, entitled "The Pointy End," was one of the show's strongest outings to date. It was also written by the author of the novels, George R. R. Martin himself! Yayz :D! That being said and with much excitement being felt, I found the ending a little anti-climactic

Hey again everyone! If you're like me and you don't have HBO GO, you're probably still reeling from what what was, IMHO, the best episode of the season thus far. Quick Plot Synopsis: Tyrion is brilliant, Ned is slow, Theon is a creeper, Bran rides a horse, Dany eats a different horse's heart, Jon is nowhere to be seen for two weeks running, and our first major player bites the dust. Now it's time for some General Commentary!

Hey again everyone! This week's episode of Game of Thrones offered up two important changes with regards to the storytelling. The first is the fact that we spent almost all of the episode in no more than two or three locations. This meant no trips to The Wall or to the continent of Essos in favour of  having pretty much the entire episode take place in King's Landing. This was sad because we didn't get to see any Jon or Dany, but it was mostly awesome because some of the confusion and jerkiness inherent in following half a dozen plots and dozens of characters at once all but disappeared. Episode 5, which was aptly named "The Wolf and The Lion", was all about bringing the brewing Lannister/Stark conflict to a head. It also featured some of the first truly exciting action sequences!

Note: Holy Crap! This review, removed a few days ago by blogger due to the system failing ridiculously hard, was returned to me this morning! It's mad late, but, I figured it was still worth posting :D. At least, for the sake of archiving, it exists. Episode 5 will be up shortly. Episode 4 of Game of Thrones, entitled Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things, has been my second favourite episode to date. Episode 3, my review of which is either still forthcoming or else is never going to happen, would be my favourite. Both of these episodes have one key element in common that the first two were lacking. The majority of characters are now in fixed locations. 

Note: This is a post I wrote after the first 9 or 10 episodes of the season had aired. As the season has progressed, some of what I have discussed has continued to be true (Kurt's storyline being strong, the humour failing, even more Gwenyth Paltrow at the expense of the main cast), while other things have changed (less Bieste, more Quinn, less Sam). I'll likely write a full Season 2 Review as we get to the end, but for now, this is me re-posting what I originally wrote over at SpoilerTV. Enjoy!

Hey all! The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy what with moving to a new apartment and dealing with the Canadian Elections. As such, I've gotten a bit behind on my reviews. This review of Episode 2, almost two weeks late, was written by SpoilerTV contributor darq. I should mention that darq sent it to me on time, but that I wasn't able to get it up until now. My bad. It has been edited slightly and I added my own insight towards the end. I should have a review of Episode 3 up by tomorrow. If not, I'll combine 3 and 4 into one review. I can safely say that The Kingsroad was a far more exciting excursion for me than the pilot. Most of the important character introductions had been gotten out of the way and there was now room for actual character development.

HBO's adaptation of Game of Thrones has finally arrived! Was it awesome? Yes! Would I recommend it to everyone I know? Hell Yes! Was it as incredible as I had dreamed it would be? Well... the jury's still out on that one. While I really liked what I saw of this sure to be epic television series, there were a couple of major elements that caused me to enjoy it less than I had hoped. Although I am going to try very hard to review Game of Thrones without the books in mind, the faithfulness of this adaptation to the source material is going to make that an incredibly daunting task. I will steer clear of book spoilers in this review, but be warned that spoilers concerning the first episode, entitled Winter Is Coming, abound. The series premiere of GoT ranks as one of the best I have ever seen; however, it failed to immerse me as completely as I would have liked.

The final moments of tonight's series premiere of Game Of Thrones, which shall henceforth be known as GoT, are what set it apart from pretty much everything else that I have ever watched. Certainly, the rest of the episode had its fair share of gore, taboo subject matter, sex, and profanity, but these have all become fairly commonplace and even expected of shows on cable channels like HBO. This was something altogether different and, hopefully, for those of you who have yet to read the novels, completely unexpected. If you haven't watched the first episode, entitled "Winter Is Coming", then I suggest that you read no further.

This is an article I wrote prior to Caprica's untimely cancellation. The reasons for which it ought to be watched are still valid, so I thought I would repost it here: Hey all! I was initially going to start doing some regular recapping of Caprica, but it occurred to me that my audience would be fairly limited. Instead, I’m going to use this space as a plea to those of you out there who have yet to give this show a chance. Caprica is one of the most incredible television shows that I have ever watched.

When I first heard that Game of Thrones was being turned into a television show, I both squealed with delight and recoiled in horror. My favourite series of books EVER was being adapted for my favourite artistic medium ; however, the thought that something could go terribly wrong and ruin everything forever was a distinct possibility. When I realised that it was being made for HBO, most of that worry was dispelled. The books have incredibly gritty, realistic, and complex characters. They have heavy plotting that would be too much for a movie and yet too complicated for the usual format found on Network Television. It also has blood, sex, death, incest, and a plethora of taboo topics. HBO is basically the ONLY way these novels could ever work on some sort of screen and IT'S ACTUALLY HAPPENING!

Hey again everyone! This is an article I wrote over Christmas break for SpoilerTV. I'm reposting it here. Enjoy! Now that Christmas Break is upon us, I can get back into the swing of writing articles more than once every few months. I thought that I would begin again with some posts about television in general. This particular article is an idea I have been struggling with for a few months. As such, it’s kind of a doozy in length, but bear with me! T he core of this idea is that Network Television is, more often than not, a colossal creative failure .

Hey again! As I mentioned last time, I’m taking a quick break from television storytelling in order to take a look at television music. This article will explore why orchestral music moves me so deeply in the context of a long running television show. Enjoy! Besides television, music is my favourite artistic medium. Unlike many other forms of art, music is dynamic. As the melody rises and falls and the harmonies shift, my emotions soar and plummet along with them. When the same melody comes back, played over different harmonies, it evokes a sense of nostalgia, while allowing for different moods to take me. If I listen to music while doing something happy or something sad, then those new emotions are incorporated into how I feel about that particular piece the next time I put it on. If a typical Romantic symphony can do this over the course of a mere thirty or forty minutes, then what does that say about the power of a symphony that lasts around 100 hours? Music is fundamental to t...

Hey all! Last time, I briefly outlined my thoughts on different kinds of television storytelling. Today, I’m going to describe one of the three methods in detail. This method is clearly the one that television networks love and depend on the most. I hope you like what you read :). The Episodic Procedural:

Hey again everyone! People seem to have liked my first article, so I figured that I would keep writing :). My pieces are going to take a look at television in general. As such, I will be discussing a large number of shows in each write-up. I’m going to try to avoid specific spoilers; however, spoiler warnings will be issued where necessary. In the next few articles, I’m going to outline the three major ways television shows tell their stories: The Episodic Procedural, The Season-to-Season Serial Drama, and The Multi-Season Serial Drama. Before I really get into it next time, let me give you a definition and example of each.

Hey everyone! Some of you may know me from over at DarkUFO. If not, my name is John and it's nice to meet you all! I usually go by Cadence in the comments section. When I saw that SpoilerTV was looking for writers, I jumped at the opportunity. After an episode of one of my favourite shows has aired, I often sit down at my computer and write a mini-essay. Since I’m going to be writing anyway, I figured why not try and share my thoughts with people who care about television just as passionately!? I’ve never really written anything in a public forum before, so this is my first foray into the world of blogging. I thought that my first entry would be an article about why I think that television might be the highest form of art. Feel free to ignore my pseudo-intellectual rambling, but I truly hope that you enjoy what you read. There are three things that I love about television.