The Code of the Walking Dead

The third season shows  that there is one rule that animates the living and the dead and that rule is keep moving.  It's been a long winter for Rick and the gang and the zombies have only grown in the size of their massive herds.  Herds?  Mobs?  What do you call a bunch a zombies?

Probably don't call them anything cause you are too busy running.  With so many zombies that's the only choice the gang has or get mobbed.  So the winters been hard, it's obvious that food and ammo are issues.  Lori is near ready to pop out a baby and Rick looks just a little mad around trhe edges.  Only Daryl seems still  to have his edge.  Maybe it's a diet of fresh owl meat.

Luckily, the gang finally finds the prison  that was a very important in the graphic novels that the Walking Dead was based on.  Immediately the gang can see the advantages of lots of thick wallls in a zombieverse.  Of course, to claim it you have to take care of all the walking dead prisoners and guards.  The guards were sort of funny to deal with because they were in riot gear.  That made them rather bullet proof which was bad, but the face masks kept the biting to a minimum which is the funny part. 

Overall, this was a great episode.  The team finally had a plan and acted like they have had some practice now in walking dead killing.  Little Carl might someday make me forgive his role in season 2 if he keeps up this way.  Also Lori was less annoying, yet still annoying.  Let's hope that level keeps dropping.   Tne new characters are adding some new blood and excitement.  The violence was very satisfactory.  Let's hope we are past the days of random walking, pointless bitchery, and forever rescuing Carl.

The Spectacular Spider-man

The nice things about reboots is that you can have fun in playing with the various aspect of established characters.  Will Peter Parker invent web shooters like he did originally, or will they be part of the genetic parcel that made him Spider-man?  Will we concentrate on classic villains or the more grim and gritty villains that are probably not as well known to the non comic book reading populace.  These decisions will in large part decide whether your version rocks or rockets to the bottom. 

So then is the Spectacular Spider-man .... well spectacular?  Honestly, yes I had a hoot watching.  The key I think is they found a natural way to bring the classic sixties villains with villains like Venom without have to drown the viewer with back story.  See, it works like this; the freaks come from two competing labs.  Oscorp is both corporate and amoral as is its CEO Norman Osbourne.  The other is the lab of Dr. Conners who is both a revolutionary and very desperate.  The engine that drives these two labs to make super villains is the the organized crime boss known as "The Big Man."  He's working on the theory that if he can't swat Spider-man then he'll keep him to busy to interfere with business.

They wisely kept Peter in high school and they made Gwen Stacey more of a friend (at least at this juncture) than a love interest.  Peter is still the lovable loser that things never seem to go right.  The writer for this show is sharp and witty.  The animation is sleek and the villain designs are mostly spot on.  Once again animators have shown up the big screen guys.  Maybe they should change places?

Garvity Falls

I love this cartoon. It has the vibe of "Eerie Indiana" and a teen "X-Files."  Brother and sister Dipper and Mabel find themselves with their Uncle Stan who runs a gift shop at Gravity Falls.  It seems to be one of those places where all the weirdness in the universe collides and the kids try to keep up.

It's just fun.  There's some real wit here.  I love the characters.  The animation is simple but lovely and fluid.  This is certainly the sort of cartoon I'd have my kids watching.... at least til there are reruns of "Animaniacs."

Torchwood: Children of Earth

Torchwood is a spinoff of the current incarnation of Dr. Who.  It basically answers the question of what do Earthlings do with aliens when the Doctor is out being charming and odd in some other corner of the galaxy.  They act along the same lines as the Men In Black but with less sass and jokes.  The head member is Captain Jack who is a curious figure.  He's basically the literalization of the metaphorical qualities of Captain Kirk.  Whereas it only seems that Kirk was unkillable our Captain Jack really can't die.  While some might say that Captain Kirk would sleep with anything Captain Jack puts it into policy.  Gender is not an issue.

Captain Jack's immortality is put the test in "The Children of Earth."  An alien race known only as the "456" have somehow managed to take control of the world's children.  First they show off their power and have the kids stand around saying all at the same time, "We are coming back."  Thing is the 456 have been here before and had a deal with the British government.  The British government realizes that with every kid intoning "We are coming back," certain embarrassing questions are going to be asked.  So they decide t o tidy things up.  One of those things is Captain Jack.  So, the one organization that is specifically good at dealing with aliens is being destroyed by its own government.  

When the 456 do finally come they certain add even more fun to the party.  They have simple terms; give them ten percent of the world's children and they'll go away, or else.  In this case, "or else" means human extinction.  Now we are taught to believe our leaders wouldn't kowtow to the likes of the 456, but this series takes a really dark road.  Not only do they consider it, but they try to figure out how to make it work for them.  Their plan is that the 456 want quantity not quality, so why not give them all the poor, badly educated kids.  Less hooligans to worry about in the future.  Can Captain Jack and company save the Earth from itself?  What is Captain Jack's involvement in the first visit of the 456?  What price will he pay to fix  things? 

Definitely watch and find out.  This is a fine science fiction mini series.  The character of Captain Jack is fascinating, you know he's the type that hears his own theme song in his head.  But below that there's some deep pain as Captain Jack is already suffering from Immortal's Lament (the condition where you know everyone you love you are going to watch die.  The 456 are amazing aliens.  We don't see much of them, but that adds to the mystery.  Trying to talk with them is like waltzing in a mine field.  The ambassador will ask a simple question like, "Is quarters to your liking."  Silence.  Silence.  Then suddenly an animal screaming and the glass walls are attacked by heads (?) stingers (?) and green slime is every where.  Then more silence then finally a Hal voice will say from speakers, "Yes, we find it....good."

X-men the Anime

I don't know how essential this latest installment in the X-men saga is.  After all, there has already been several cartoons here stateside involving everyone's favorite mutants.  But, I suppose it can't hurt to try to take Japan as well.  It's a little odd though, because while faithful it's also off in odd ways.  Just in the grammar of body language it feels just a little wrong.  Specially the character of Wolverine who is played more like the ronin in the classic version of "The Seven Samurai." 

The basic plot is that the X men are called to Japan first to find a little mutant girl and then to solve some bigger mysteries like why does the Professor's mutant detector doesn't work in that area of Japan.  There are some bad guys named rather cheekily "U-Men" who look nothing like humans.  They are robot/cyborgs who are interested in harvesting mutant organs.  They save the Japanese girl and Emma Frost who both join the team.  The girl, Hisaki, is a brilliant little piece of patching two cultures together.  Her mutant power is basically creating a psychic mecha.  So we have our giant robot even though this is an X-men show.  The animation is smooth and impressive.  I like how they handled the Beast.  The big mysteries are little "meh" but the action is pretty spot on.  Cyclops is still a massive buzz kill, but what can you expect? 

Overall, worth a watch.

Dream Eater Merry

An interesting little anime series.  People's dreams are being invaded by dream demons.  Some dream demons are total jerks and take over people's bodies.  Others like to live a more symbiotic lifestyle seeking a balance with people.  Our hero can spot these dream demons or see when they are about to emerge.  He himself has been chased by John Doe the Chaser and his army of cats.

Luckily he has Merry on his side.  A dream demon who for some reason is here without having to take over a human body, she kicks the ass quite well.  The series explores why dreams and hopes are important while not stinting on the action.  The character designs are quite nice and if you like anime definitely give it a try.

Things Got Seriously Weird On "Once Upon A Time."

Now remember this is the show that says that Dwarfs are hatched fully grown from eggs, so when I say weird, I mean it.  Now for the past couple of episodes we've had the brooding, mysterious writer on a motorcycle who is doing weird things like adding stories to Henry's book.  Last episode they made a feint and hinted that he was Rumpie's son but that turned out to be untrue.

So who is our august August?  Turns out he's Pinocchio all grown up.  Yes, Pinocchio.  He's slowly turning to wood and if he can't get Emma to get off her lovely butt and destroy the Curse he'll make a fine statue somewhere. 

So, we have a fellow who looks like this...



Who once looked like this...



I guess that means there's hopes for all of us nerds.

The Japanese Are Weird: The World God Only Knows

I've said it here before and I'll say it now, the Japanese can be muy weird.  It's like the knob sometimes fall off on their volume control for strange and it's left at 11.5.  Dating Sims are a good example of this.  It's a sub genre of Japanese gaming that is just plain strange.  Guys try to seduce digital girls by manipulating the situation and their feelings.  Yeah, sort of a groddy feel just describing these things.  "The Worl God Only Knows" take the world of dating sims and runs with it.

Our hero is a geek who plays these games so well and so often he's called by fans "The God of Conquests."  In real life he's a geeky nerd who dresses emo goth and doesn't really have any interests in girls in reality.  One day he accepts what he believes to be a challenge from some anonymous email.  Bad move charlie, what he accepted was a deal with the devil.  This is explained to him by a pretty female demon with a broom.  The details are this, there seems to be a lot of loose souls running around.  They are hiding inside the hearts of pretty girls and the only way to free them is to open their hearts as demonstrated by a freely given kiss.  Our hero either does this, or he gets a head shorter.  Let the games begin.

The problem is that of course reality is not a game.  He finds himself stymied by simple things like the girl track team not having their hair up.  Everyone of course knows that girls on track team have their hair up.  Luckily his demon can change reality in little ways like that which everyone finds very weird.  He then tries to put his moves on real women with on again, off again success.  Of course he wins his kisses and loose souls, but the real question is will the hero stay a proto-sociopathic geek or will he somehow learn to really connect with people?

It's Official, Regina is Mayor of Crazy Town.

So last night we finally find out why Regina the evil queen hates Snow White so.  See, once long ago Regina was a fresh innocent lass in love with the stable boy.  She of course could not be open about her love because her mother was a social climbing witch...very literally so.  Snow White is riding by and her horse pitches a fit and so she's now at the house.  She sees Regina with the stable boy but Regina impresses upon her that it is a case of true love and don't say a word.  Unfortunately, Regina's mom is very tricksy and soon the young girl is spilling the beans.  Regina's mom kills the stable boy and Regina marry's Snow White's dad and plots the downfall of her new step daughter.

Now true it was Snow White's fault that Regina's mom found out, but really she's just a little girl.  Having a life long vendetta against Snow White over it is like kicking puppies every day.  It's just down and out crazy.  And it just grew even more than crazy, she damns an entire world with her curse because she can forgive what a little girl did.

It was a goo episode, but it certainly showed that there can be no reasoning with Regina.  She's a first class evil nut ball and that's the all of it.  Mr. Gold/Rumple is a far more nuanced character which makes their little war all the more interesting.  Speaking of that it seems that Mr. Gold's offer of help to Regina was less than helpful.  He made Charming's wife disappear but now he's brought her back at a very inconvenient time.  It's still hard to say exactly what his game is, but he seems to be five moves ahead.

Once Upon A Time Versus One Very Mad Hatter

Well, that's something you don't see every day. Our unhappy people in Storybrooke had a joker in their midst and didn't even know it. See, Snow White aka Mary decides to escape from jail. Her daughter Emma decides to try to find her. Both get kidnapped by a rather charming and very insane gentleman. Why? Cause he wants Emma to make him a hat.

See, back in fairy tale land he had a magic hat. The Queen needed him to use his hat so they can both go to the wonderland described in Alice in Wonderland. The Queen of course betrays him and leaves him stranded in Wonderland. The Red Queen forces him to make hat after hat to try to get another magic hat. Alas, he has no magic so he goes mad instead. Then when the Queen creates her great curse it pulls him from Wonderland to Storybrooke. Weirdly, this keeps his memory intact but he can't act on his memory. So for 28 years he stayed in his house and can only watch his daughter being raised by another family, and so he goes mad a second time. When Emma comes he senses that he has been freed and she did it so she must have magic. Therefore why not use her magic to make another hat so he and his daughter can go back to the fairy tale world.

This is a great episode on many levels. The acting was good. The writing was inventive. More importantly it advances the overall plot of the show. Emma is finally taking the curse seriously. She realizes she does make a difference. There are minor problems, like please get a real artist to do Henry's book, but they are small problems. I love that they made the Red Queen so very mysterious. I feel she will be a big part of the story soon enough.

Good job everybody. It fed my head.

Coda To The Walking Dead

I am not the only critic who has been frustrated by "The Walking Dead."  Good golly molly, this season has been a mix of greatness and clusterflucks to beat the bank.  I would like to blame it all on Frank Darabont's being shown the door, but the seeds of the problems of this season started in the first.  They just happened to sprout like kudzu.  Well, there was one major addition, AMC being idiot in doubling the amount of episodes for season 2 but keeping the budget the same.  Yes, AMC that's classy quality control.  Gee, didn't even notice all those zombie make ups that were only from the neck up, or those long scenes of basically NOTHING to pad out the running time.  Yeah, that's how you keep a show going AMC.  Everyone, give AMC a slow golf clap.

Of course, the main problem.  The wellspring of woe, is bad writing, bad writing, and bad writing.  A prime example was the whole Shane/Dale fracas.  Now we all know from the audience that Shane offed Otis to get away from the zombies.  No one in the show, though, could know it.  They might suspect because Shane got even more nutty after that, but there was no proof at all.  So Dale, one of the most pragmatic people of the series, suddenly has this psychic twinkle of what Shane did and follows through with it even without a lick of evidence.  This, dear readers, is just sloppy writing.  Somewhere someone said..."Gee we need more conflict" and they thought that a Shane and Dale would be perfectly matched for a battle of wills.  What they didn't do is create an organic reason for it to exist and instead just pulled something out of their butts.

Great job.

So what other things can we blame on poor writing.  Well, boring dialog.  Lack of characterization.  Oh, how about lots of scenes of people aimlessly wandering the woods.  Yeah, we need more that.  The biggest victim on the show from the writing is the character of Lori.  They took a concerned mother and turned her into Mega-witch.  It was just so painful, on many levels, to hear her screeching that I notice many fans on forums were actively wanting her to be zombie chow.  Yeah, great job writers.  The second biggest victim is T-Dog.  First, the writers decide that who needs a personality well just make T-Dog into a walking stereotype.  But then, some latent guilt over that keeps them from using the character because deep down I'm sure they are ashamed that they can't think of something real for T-Dog to say.  The net result is T-Dog is good for one line of painful dialog a show usually. 

On another matter I know when you adapt a work, things do change.  Different mediums, different artists, etc.  It's going to happen and I have no problem with it usually, however there are certain tent poles that you don't pull down without destroying what you want to adapt.  I would say the death of Dale was such a point.  If for no other reason he was a very calming presence on the show and was an emotional middle ground for the various conflicts.  Well until they set him up against Shane for no reason. 

So as you can see, I have problems with the show.  Did the season finale ease my mind any.  To an extent yes.  It was far better than any episode this season.  Starting with a full scale zombie attack on the farm.  It's time to get afraid again of the living dead.  Our team is finally together enough to get in the cars and go head busting.  Amazingly they are able to fire from their cars and get head shots every time (try that at home kiddies!), but I don't mind that too much because this is action movie time and who wants to count bullets. 

I did mind a bit of real stupidity.  Rick and his son get to the second story of the barn and then set the zombies on fire.  That means the barn is on fire.  So the guy driving the RV goes and parks right by them.  They then go on the roof of the RV, and then amazingly stupidly enough go down the ladder in the back as the driver gets munched.  Why?  You get down the ladder and you are still in the middle of a zombie herd.  The thing to do would have just banged on the roof and tell the driver to floor it.  Oh well.

Any after twenty minutes of zombie killing, everyone goes in separate directions.  Now we are back in the familiar quagmire of this season.  People want to go find other people.  Others want to go here, or there.  They natter natter natter.  Finally near the end Rick finally pops a cork and this was a very good thing.  He tells them directly "This is not a democracy."  He's been trying to be the Gene Autry nice guy all through this, but he's tired now.   He's been trying to save everyone's life and he's going to get serious about it.

He also tells them the terrible truths.  He tells his wife that he killed Shane and why.  It's a bit disturbing.  He also tells everyone that everyone is infected.  So you don't need to be bitten by a walker.  You just need to die.  Sort of a downer.  But at least everything is out in the open, and I hope that a newly energized Rick can lead this group.

Also there are two other cool things that help give me hope.  The first is the appearance of one of the true badasses of the comic book series.  We don't see much of her, but when you see a lady dragging two armless zombies on leashes and using a samaurai sword it just warms the heart.  The other is a lingering shot of a prison which was central in the comic book.  I believe that's how they snagged Darabont in the first place.

"Hey Frank come do are zombie TV show."

"Naw I have better things."

"There's a prison in it...."

"Oh, really?  wow I'm your man!"

It was sad that they canned Frank before he could get to his prison.  I'm sure he could have reenacted scence from Shawshanks with zombies and a sad Morgan Freeman narration.  Oh well, I'll just have to hope that they get it together and put the zombies back in zombie TV.

Aquabats Super Show

The Aquabats are a band that's been around since 1994. They've specialized in a sort of high concept ultra weird stage show and it's about time they've taken it to TV.

The Aquabats are quasi super heroes, adventures, and a band. Their leader has an awesome painted on moustache and missing tooth. One member is super fast. The other can fire lasers from his guitar. One is very strong and the final member is a robot. In the show they have a series of adventures both real and animated. They also have satirical commercials and other features making it a rich stew of weirdness. The feel of the show is somewhere between 1970 Sid & Marty Kroft, Adult Swim, and The Mighty Boosh. If you can't a show with nonsense lines like: "Do you think pancakes can talk in heaven?" "No, we have had this discussion. Pancakes don't talk." Then perhaps you better steer yourself to more mainstream entertainments.

Once Upon A Time

Wow.

Ok.  Here's the deal.  Dwarves in this show are hatched from eggs.  Wearing clothes.  So one day a clumsy fairy drops some fairy dust on an egg and it hatches a happy Dwarf.  When the Dwarf is given his ax the ax names him "Dreamy."  And off they go to the mines a whistling.

So in reality (or is it reality) the Dwarf is the town's mean drunk.  He though finds he's in love with a nun.  The nun being the clumsy fairy in the other world.  The nuns need to sell a lot of candles or Mr. Gold/Rumpy will kick them out.  So Grumpy and Snow White team up to sell candles.

Meanwhile in the fairy tale, Dreamy finds the fairy.  They fall in love.  But they can't be in love cause she'd lose her fairiness.  So Dreamy does the right thing, becomes bitter and his ax renames him grumpy.

In the real world, Grumpy couldn't sell a candle to save his life.  That is until the night of the festival where he takes a pick ax and takes out the power transformer.  With everyone in the dark the candles sell like hot cakes and everyone is saved. 

Wow.  I am in awe of a show that has the freak on for a plot like this.  I love Dwarves being hatched from eggs.  It's a perfect fairy tale image.  I hope the show continues to show such creativity.

Kekkaishi is not a Cereal

This is a pretty standard anime but I liked it anyway. There's a school you see, there's almost always a school. The rule is no one is to be at the school after sun down. There's good reason. Under the school is a source of huge spiritual energy. Any bad spirit that gets on the school ground can use that energy to grow really strong. Luckily there are a pair of Kekkaishi (that I assume is translated as "demon buttkickers") to take care of the problem. They come from different families so they are something of friendly rivals. Of course outside forces forces them to fight together.

I like that the series flits from their childhood to the present. It gives both a bit more character than in most animes of this type. I also like their range of powers. Each is armed with spirit dog thing that can sniff out evil. Also they have the same spells. They can create a square force field. They can destroy any spirit in the forcefield and then send that energy to the afterworld. I like their creative uses of a square forcefield. Overall this is just a fun little show.

In Praise of Aquaman

For many a year Aquaman has been the running swimming joke of the superhero community.  Doubtlessly, it doesn't help that he pals around with Superman who can do everything.  The standard joke is:  "Hi I'm Superman I can fly, I'm invulnerable, I've get super strength, I got freezing breath and laser eyes.  What do you got partner?"  "Um hi I'm Aquaman, I can speak to fish."  Really the only two people who could come out worse in comparison is Hawkman, and Batman (but the Batman is safe cause he's the gawd dangged Batman!)

Even before his successful revamp in "Brave and the Bold," Aquaman was pretty cool when you got see his solo act.  Check out the old 1960's cartoon version if you need proof.  There he's clearly the King of the Seven Seas and he takes his realm seriously.  He's always trying to stop an undersea volcano or earthquake and fend off alien attacks in his spare time.  He rides a rocking giant sea horse.  He has his own "Aqua cave" filled with high tech gadgets.  He has two side kicks and a walrus that acts like a dog named Tuskie.  He can do funky things with water just by forming it into a ball or spinning around real fast.  Heck, he has all the resources of the undersea city of Atlantis at his disposal.  Pretty rocking fellow if I do say so myself.

So remember that the next time you want to make fun of him for speaking with fish.  Cause the sea king can kick your butt five ways to Sunday and that's before they blew off his hand and replaced it with a hook.

Grimm Vs. a Dickfellig? Sure Why Not.

Well the world of the vessen is a secret to us humans so it seems only natural that there are secretive societies within the vessen community.  Seems a bunch of lion type vessen, or lowen, have organized an underground gladitorial show with everything but Yul Bryner.  The vessen at the top seem to know about this but they are ok with it as long as only certain people get taken.  Leo Taymor the lowen decides screw that I'll take who I want.  Captain Renard is like no no no.  And you know something bad will happen to Leo.

Until then the episode is filled with nick detecting the hell out of a fight club for vessen.  At least half the show is him bumping around trying to find it.  He of course enlists Monroe, our wolf, to help.  Monroe unfortunately gets captured.  He tries to help a fellow prisoner hoping his mercy will pay off in mercy like in the story of the lion and the mouse, but it is all a big psych.  But before Monroe becomes a rug Nick comes in and saves the day.

There are some good things in this episode.  There's some action at least.  There are some cute lines: "What kind of meat has…a tattoo?”  But the potential here feels a bit wasted.  Would it have hurt to string along the fight club for a couple of episodes.  It would have made for a good b level villain for Nick to go up against.  It still seems that they aren't working as hard as they could be to sell it.  That's a shame cause I like the show.

Once Upon a Beast

Well, when I saw the preview of this weeks episode of "Once Upon a Time" I was not eager to watch. The idea of retelling "Beauty and the Beast" with Rumpelstiltskin as the Beast didn't seem like a good idea. Rumpy here, while dangerous, has always been more a trickster figure whereas the Beast in the story was a fearsome monster with hidden depths. Just didn't seem like a good fit, and besides they've been shoehorning rumpy into nearly all the stories so far and it seems they are risking an overload.

Well I was wrong, I can admit that. This was one of the better episodes of the series. To save her town from the Ogre Wars, Belle gives herself the Rumpy and he takes her to his estate and makes her his servant. Despite some early nastiness including teasing her that her duties will include skinning children, they fall in love. It's all rather too quick to be honest. Yes, it's only an hour show but there are ways to show the passing of time to give the relationship weight.

But really this is not about Belle. It's about the continued battle of wills between evil queen/mayor/Regina and Rumpy/Mr. Gold. In the real world story Regina is behind the theft of something Mr. Gold truly values. It drives him so crazy he finds the thief Regina used and beats him up for information. This forces Emma to arrest Mr. Gold.

Meanwhile, in the fantasy world the Evil Queen tells Belle that only a kiss from True Love can free Rumpy of his curse. So Belle comes back and gives old Rumpy a lovely loving kiss. It works, except that then Rumpy wills himself back to his cursed state. He realizes it was Regina who was behind it all and blames Belle as well turning her out. He is left an unloved monster with only a chipped cup to remember that someone loved him once.

In the real world at jail Regina reveals to Rumpy that she has that chipped cup. All Rumpy has to do is say his true name to have it back. He does which reveals that unlike everyone else in storybrooke he knows exactly who he is and why. Of course, revealing this to Regina means he can no longer play dumb. The game between them has entered a new state. What Rumpy doesn't know is that Regina is hiding a piece. Deep in the medical facility Belle is being kept in a cell.

The show ends with a truly evil smile from a truly evil queen.

Grimm Steps on a Spider

Well this is a better episode than some but still it's just "The Night Stalker" with a funny werewolf character. This time around our Grimm has to deal with spinnetod, aka a black widow. Sort of nice reveal with poison fangs popping out the mouth. Also, nice that the first victim was also one of the supernatural races, called collectively vessen. But, really while it has nice touches it's still "Weird ass monster pops up and Nick has to figure out what to do within the hour."

The show really does need to grow more.

For example, one of the nice things of this episode was when Nick went to put the fear in some beaver people. They've been the ones that have been following him and even some of their kids egged his house. He came to the accord with them of "I won't kill you, and you keep your beaver traps shut from now on." Everyone seemed happy with the deal and I would like more interaction with the vessen. It could turn into a demented version of "Gunsmoke."

The River

A while back ago I mentioned Stephen King's wonderful meditation on horror "Danse Macabre."  One interesting chapter was on why horror doesn't work well on TV.  It can be boiled down to "commercials," and "managerial cowardice."  It's hard to scare people when you have to break for toilet bowl cleaner commercial and it's even harder to scare people when the powers that be do not actually want their audience to be made uncomfortable.  Because of this horror on TV when not horrid is not actually horror but tends toward a darker fantasy genre.  Good examples of this are "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," and "The Night Stalker."  Both use tropes from the horror genre but to a lighter more action filled use.


I mention this because "The River," has beaten the TV jinx using the type of scare I listed in my review of "Paranormal Activity 3."  Not surprising since the people involved in that are involved in "The River," along with the deep pockets of Steven Speilberg.  So, finally someone has brought the cheap scare to TV and it works. The cheap scare is one so centered on our biology and psychology that one cannot help but just and get a bit of fear juice going even if later we say "Boy, that was just dumb, why did that even scare me."  Of course, that is going to be the cross this show is going to have bear.  Can you build an entire series around cheap scares?  It's like juggling chainsaws, sometime somewhere something's going drop.


Luckily, I think the powers behind "The River," are hip to their problems.  First, they limited their first batch of episodes to eight.  I think this is a wise number for a show who's conceit is that everything we are seeing is found footage.  Also, and more importantly in the long run, the writing seems very sharp.  It's not all cheap scares and there's a taste of "Lost" (in the best sense) that will keep the show going I think. 


So, the basic plot is that once upon a time there was a naturalist who roamed the world putting it all on camera for a TV show that lasted 22 years.  He also put his family on screen for much of those years which explains perhaps why the son, now grown, is a bit screwed up.  Now it is six months after he mysterious disappeared somewhere in the Amazon.  He's been declared dead but his wife isn't having that so she gathers her wayward son a bunch of folks who'll fund the expedition for juicy footage and a crew to handle both boats and trouble.  Eventually they find the missing boat, but no one is on it.  But there is a lot of secret footage showing some freaky stuff.  Worse there is SOMETHING on the boat that's pretty nasty and very fast.  The first hour lays out the stakes and there is a good bit of tension as they try to root out the unseen thing.  After that, they realize there are clues that point the direction where to go.  And thus the voyage continues. 


I'll certainly watch the next six episodes.  If nothing else it's a fascination experiment for serial television.  I'd like more shows with a reasonable number of episodes rather than the idea that every show has to last five years.

So How Much is a R.I.N.O. Nose Worth?

This week's Grimm was pretty ok. We had a red herring with Hansel and Gretel but thankfully it was only that, a red herring. I felt we missed a bullet specially since "Once Upon a Time" had already mucked up that story but good.

What we had here instead was a bunch of beasties called Greiers running a body chop shop. Seems the supernaturals in the Grimm verse sometimes resort to using human parts for their medical needs. As ol' Pilates Wolf said, "Humans are our exotic animals." Should we be so shocked? If anything the Rhinos would think it mere karma.

Still, our Grimm cop just can't let this one go so he hunts down the network and take it down. There's some actual policework this episode. There's some exciting action. It's nice to have beasties this week that we don't have to feel any pity for. Into the firepit with them all! All and all a good effort episode and one that keeps hope alive for something better.

Oh while I like the Greier as villains I also enjoyed the Fuchsbau as one of the more well rounded supernatural creatures. Any show I figure can only be improved by adding fox people.