Shmee.Me

July 24, 2015

I Love Short TV Seasons!

Recently a lot more TV shows have been releasing seasons in a shorter format. 13, 10, and sometimes even 6 episode series are becoming the new normal, and I think this is great! A shorter season means that the TV show can focus in on the central stories, and not get caught up with a bunch of pointless plot lines. That is not to say that a 26 episode season can’t be good, I still love The Flash and Arrow, but they definitely are prone to wander.

This is not the writers fault because to fill 26 hours of content you need to create multiple storylines and points of interest, but the viewers will not/cannot care about all of them, so any episodes that feature those plots will be quickly dismissed as filler. The Walking Dead has definitely suffered by going to 16 episodes. Again still good, but there are always a few episodes that the show could do without.

I understand from a TV channel’s perspective the more episodes of a hit show they can get the better, so they don’t have to juggle as many cycling shows. Especially now with the viewer’s expectation of year round quality programming, but a lot of those extra episodes are making the show worse, not better, and may even be loosing the show ratings, and by extension the channel.

A major bonus with shorter series is that they are easier to keep up with. If you get behind a season or two with a normal length show it is understandable to give up because you have like 50 hours of TV to watch to catch up, but with shorter seasons that time is obviously greatly reduced, and then people are more likely to watch the show live (well at least DVR’ed) since they are all current with what is going on.

I am all for the current migration towards shorter seasons. I hope that it is a trend that continues. We could all do with a lot less filler in our lives.

July 23, 2015July 23, 2015

DC And Hoopla Are A Match Made In Heaven!

When my local library system got Hoopla I didn’t pay much attention to it. It had a small number of books, and the movie and TV sections were worse. It slowly got better, but I still never went back to the App. That has all changed now however. DC Comics and Hoopla signed an agreement, so now a lot of DC’s digital trade paperback length comic books are now showing up on the site, and they say a lot more are to come. If you have never read any of the New 52, now is a great time to start since you can read a lot of them for free. Which is a pretty great price. They also have a good selection of older series as well like Neil Gaiman’s landmark Sandman.

I am not sure what the library’s game is here, maybe they never want me to go back to their buildings? Whatever the case, reading free comic books thanks to their agreement with Hoopla is wonderful. If you haven’t tried it out, you really should. Provided you have the right hardware unlike The Paladin.

July 21, 2015July 21, 2015

A series of reviews by The Paladin

A truth of our time is that there is a lot of entertainment for us to consume. Also true is that we have only so much time to watch it all. Average shows or movies tend to slip through the cracks or fall down the TV schedule, so it’s nice to have Netflix or Amazon Prime to catch up on a TV series or Movie you meant to watch but just didn’t. Assembled below are three short reviews for some things I’ve watched recently and maybe you should too.

Ant-Man

Although Shmee has already reviewed Ant-Man, I’d like to add that Payton Reed did a fine job jumping into a difficult situation as Director. Audiences were excited for Evan Wright’s take on the Marvel Superhero Brand that we were all a little disappointed he left. Absent Wright’s direction, the film could have been slap-dash and paint-by-the-numbers, but I came away from the film really happy; having enjoyed my one hour and fifty-seven minutes (not counting the stingers at the end). Ant-Man had it problems, but I think it does something recent Marvel movies have not done – be small and deal with more ordinary people. Arguably that’s what draws us to Superheroes in the first place, the people behind the mask. Ant-Man explorers that just a little bit more and better.

Agents of Shield

Another Marvel property that I like, because it too follows the little guy (namely Agent Phil Coulson). Agents of Shield has its faults though. ABC has thankfully kept the show going, probably because someone in a meeting used the word “Synergy”. Agent Coulson and his team have changed a lot since the last season, which was slow to build and then after Captain America: Winter Soldier went sideways. Agents of Shield Season 2 builds on that last half of Season 1 and tells two stories that build into each other. A critique of Agents of Shield would be that the final story arc had a good section of the show taking place in a new-age massage parlor set that just really took me out of the show. All together though I enjoyed this season a lot and look forward to Season 3.

Ascension

Ascension was a SyFy event movie about a generational ship build during the days of Kennedy and sent off into space. All of the crew have not experienced the cultural revolution, 9-11, or any of the other events that have shaped American culture so they are a unique microcosm of society that has developed in their own way. A murder on the ship throws everything into chaos and we see the cracks that have formed in everyone’s relationships throughout the ship. Ascension then plays a slight of hand, by changing the show to something else… something not as compelling by episode two. Also there is a lot of hanky-panky. A lot of the appeal of Ascension for me was the idea of a generational ship half way to its destination and the society that has grown because of that reality. Ascension starts with that same premise, but then stops its world building to do something else. About half way through I was just watching to finish the series; which doesn’t really end with any real satisfaction since SyFy didn’t choose to turn the miniseries into a full blown series. All of the pieces seemed right for a compelling science fiction drama (beautiful sets, nice costumes, and even some compelling characters), the end rest though was just flat.

July 13, 2015July 13, 2015

San Diego Comic-Con 2015 Wrap-Up!

Another Comic-Con is gone, and all it gave us was a ton of awesome trailers. The Nerve! Oh, wait that is totally rad! I mean in the new Batman v Superman trailer (watch it here) we got to see Wonder Woman blow some stuff up. If you were quick enough to watch the trailers before they got pulled you got to see Deadpool murder people and make jokes in a very Deadpool way and the Joker get creepy. Both looked great.

Honestly Warner Bros. and Fox should know better and just release the trailers to the public. They can’t want their movies’ first intro to the public to be crappy blurry cam shots can they? We are all going to see it anyway, why fight us. Embrace the 21st century and let us watch our superhero footage! It is all we really want. We just want to watch guys and gals in capes punch each other! Is that too much to ask? I don’t think so.

Instead of a new trailer Disney released a behind the scenes reel (shown above), and it all looked very exciting. Especially Simon Pegg in an alien suit, so we will see where he turns up. The practical effects look amazing; I just want to go roll around on their set. I don’t care if I hate the heat (fat nerd syndrome) – I will make it work.

There is a lot, and I mean a lot of genre TV coming out, so if there was ever a doubt that geeky stuff is now mainstream, there isn’t now. But the coolest news for me was that we learned that The Flash is going full on multi-dimensional by introducing Jay Garrick the Golden Age/Earth 2 Flash, so now instead of just time travel we have multiple earths. Heck, I am in!

But the very best news of all, the news that I am happiest about: Pacific Rim 2 starts filming at the end of this year. So excited! I loves me some giant robot, that isn’t the abomination that is the Bayformers, action. My top news was almost that they are making a Green Lantern Corps movie, but since that isn’t until 2020 it is hard to get too excited about it (though I am pretty excited).

That is my wrap-up, what did you guys like from this year’s show?

July 7, 2015

Humans Beware!

Humans, the new show by AMC and Channel 4 debuted two weeks ago, and I have to say Summer TV just keeps getting better. This show was going to be one of the highlights for the Xbox TV channel, but when Microsoft closed that down AMC swooped in and picked it up. Though if they didn’t someone else would have because it is looking fantastic.

In a parallel time to our own they have created androids, Synths, to do their day to day tasks. While most of them are non-thinking and only follow directions, some have artificial intelligence and feelings, and they don’t like being treated as slaves. I can’t imagine why. One family (with Jen from The IT Crowd!) may have got more than they wanted when they bought a new Synth for their family.

It really isn’t a new storyline (heck the show is a remake of a Swedish one), but the execution so far has been great, and I can’t wait to see how this all plays out. The actors playing the Synths look and act just slightly off, so they make believable non-humans. Did I mention Jen AKA Katherine Parkinson from The IT Crowd is in Humans? I did? Oh well she is, and she makes everything better. Also I guess William Hurt didn’t get enough android action in AI, so he is back for more.

Humans is only slated to be eight episodes long, so not that much of a time investment. Which makes it perfect for summertime viewing. I hope the rest of the episodes live up to the promise of the first one. AMC really knows how to green light great television! I hope Preacher is this good when it finally airs.