Recently, it was announced that a FIFTH Game of the Thrones spin-off is in development over at HBO. I’m likely to give them all a try, but if we’re looking at it being franchised to that level, I have something very specific I would like to see happen, and I think you’ll want to see this too.
I should clarify that, obviously, we don’t know how the original series is going to end, and at least a couple of the spin-offs have been called prequels. We don’t know who will survive the final season, whether Westeros will be alive and well, severely damaged, or a White Walker infested hell-scape. Because we have no clue what’s coming, keep in mind that my pitch, which is a spin-off taking place after the events of original show is contingent on at least two of the characters surviving.
After the winter is over, or however the show ends, I want to see a spin-off starring Tormund and The Hound. We’ve now had 7 seasons, with all kinds of amazing speeches and conversations, and other character interactions, and I can honestly say none of them have entertained me more than the ten minutes of screen time that Tormund and the Hound shared in the season finale.
This two minute interaction, is essentially the trailer for the show I want to see, throw in a bit of their brutal battle scene, and you get the exact reason why I think this show would be incredible.
These two are a buddy comedy, THE buddy comedy, we’ve been waiting for. They are the Murtaugh and Riggs, or the Foley and Taggart, of gritty fantasy, or really of all fantasy. They have the necessary grit that’s been lacking in a lot of buddy comedies, the reluctance of the Hound to like Tormund, they’re perfect!
My idea, is that Tormund and The Hound (Sandor Clegane) walk the countryside after the great war, and end up defending villages and towns from all kinds of Westerosian danger. Structurally, think about Hercules: The Legendary Journeys starring Kevin Sorbo. In that show, Hercules and Iolaus, traveled around in the same manner, in this show however, Tormund isn’t a trusty side-kick, but rather a kick-ass partner to The Hound. In addition to the title characters, I think occasionally they would run into Brienne of Tarth, who would be this show’s Xena. As on GoT Tormund would pursue Brienne and lightly antagonize The Hound, and the show in the tone that those ten brilliant minutes of screen time have created.
The Hound’s desire to get himself killed, to just keep doing whatever he thinks is right until the day comes when someone or something ends his life, really means that if he doesn’t die in the finale of the show, it’s likely he’s going to go about doing this anyway, whether it’s alone or with a partner. Tormund on the other hand, doesn’t necessarily seem to seek death, but seems to find an excitement (to really live) by facing down those he opposes. The interesting nature of having two people approaching the same problems in the same way, for completely opposite reasons, would make for a lot of interesting character work and potentially some awesome philosophy to be interweaved into this tapestry.
I don’t know how many seasons this structure could run for without getting old, but I would think if you did at least one for every land mass or if you introduced seasonal story arches to go with the serial style of the episodes, you could probably make the show go for a little while, and personally I think most good drama or comedy/drama shows are doing shorter runs, and so I think ‘Tormund and The Hound’ is the winning formula for HBO to go with for their 6th spin-off (unless they’ve already thought about it and it’s one of the first 5).
I was a 90’s kid. The movies and TV shows of that era hold a lot of nostalgia for me. But one show in particular was a fucking revelation: Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I can only think of it happening a few times. Being exposed to a piece of fiction that completely blows your mind. The giddy delight of “I have NEVER seen ANYTHING like this before and it’s fucking AWESOME!”.
One other time a piece of fiction completely changed my life was reading The Dark Knight Returns for the first time. I was 13 or 14 and this book was like something handed down from God himself. Reading scenes like Batman beating the Mutant leader, his final confrontation with The Joker, and of course watching a human being kick the ever loving shit out of Superman, those were all “Holy Fuck!” moments for me. When I was finished, my mind reeled. “What the fuck did I just read?” It changed Batman forever. It made me look at the world differently. Other people thought they knew Batman, but I fucking knew Batman! It was like reading scripture.
I think it was a few years before reading The Dark Knight Returns that one night on a whim, because nothing else was on, my brother and I watched an episode of what we thought was a silly sounding show called Buffy The Vampire Slayer. It was season 2, the episode was “Halloween” (one of my favorites). Like reading The Dark Knight Returns, watching Buffy for the first time was another pop culture come to Jesus moment for me. Holy Fuck! That fucking ruled!
Buffy is and was fucking SICK. It was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen. I loved the characters. The fact that they were only a few years older than me helped. The characters, not the actors, the actors were old as fuck. The mythology, the monsters, the drama. I couldn’t wait for Tuesday nights, my favorite night of the week because Buffy was on. There had truly NEVER been a show like this before. To say that it was groundbreaking is an understatement. It elevated genre entertainment and was one of the few stories where the hero saving the day was a badass girl. I also loved the spinoff Angel. Which was in many was superior to Buffy, but that’s a column for another day.
Besides Buffy, the other genre TV show that was huge and groundbreaking in the 90’s was The X-Files. I like The X-Files a lot, but I was never a super fan. I watched it sporadically, but particularly loved the standalone “Monster-of-the-Week” episodes. Like Buffy, the impact The X-Files had on genre TV was massive. Buffy and The X-Files paved the way for a lot of shows that would never had existed otherwise. One of those shows is Supernatural, one of my all time favorite shows and the show I’m going to talk about in this article.
I remember Supernatural premiered on The CW shortly after Angel had been cancelled (Buffy ended it’s 7 year run on it’s own terms the year before). Buffy and Angel had a very specific style of fighting monsters. They never, or very rarely for most characters, fought the bad guys with modern weapons. It was all swords and crossbows and axes. I got used to that. THAT was how you fought monsters and demons. I remember seeing the promo for Supernatural and seeing these two pretty boy leads using GUNS to fight monsters, “fucking amateur hour”. Or so I thought. I blew the show off as a pale imitation of the BuffyVerse (I was still mourning Angel’s cancellation), but one day The CW caught my attention by showing the first 5 minuets of the pilot for Supernatural. I didn’t know what I was watching at the time, but it caught my attention. Here it is:
They had my curiosity, but now they had my attention to paraphrase Calvin Candy (A horrible human being, but the man could turn a phrase). That’s a solid, horror, cold open. Not at all what I thought the show would be.
All right so what the hell is this show about? Supernatural follows two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester as they drive across the highways and back roads of America in their 67 Chevy Impala, hunting monsters, demons, ghosts, and any other kind of nightmarish thing you could think of, all set to a GREAT classic rock soundtrack. With the help old hunter and surrogate father Bobby Singer and fallen angel Castiel, the brothers have faced Heaven, Hell and everything in between.
(Sam and Dean on the road in the Impala)
I didn’t fully commit until season 3. I had seen a few “monster of the week” episodes and really liked them. So I bought the first 2 seasons on DVD as a Christmas present for my Dad and we ripped right through them. By the time season 3 premiered I was a full blown fan. Seasons 1 and 2 of Supernatural are solid and entertaining with a few excellent standouts. Nothing reinventing the wheel yet. The first 2 seasons serve best to let you get to know Sam and Dean very well and set up mythology that comes into play later in the series. You do not need to watch every episode in the first 2 seasons, I’ll have a list of the essential episodes of Seasons 1 and 2 at the end of the article. Season 3 is where Supernatural really comes into it’s own in a big way. Now that I’ve given you the set up, I’m going to tell you what makes this show great.
(Jeffery Dean Morgan as John Winchester)
When Sam was a baby and Dean was young boy, a demon came into their home one night and horribly murdered their mother. Their father John, a former marine, became obsessed with finding and hunting down the thing that killed his wife. I think John is definitely eligible for the ‘Terrible Fictional Father Award”, he basically raises his sons on the road, teaching them the same monster hunting skills he learned after his wife’s bizarre death. Going from town to town, living out of motels, constantly changing schools as their father goes off to hunt gods knows what that goes bump in the night. Get some fucking therapy and raise your goddamn kids! Don’t raise them in some horrible world of death and nightmares in your suicidal quest for revenge! Just become an alcoholic like a normal person!
(That’s a lot of fucking weapons there, John)
Anyway John is played by the excellent Jeffery Dean Morgan (he played The Comedian in Watchmen and Negan on The Walking Dead), he’s only on the show for the first 3 seasons and I always wished they brought him back for an episode or two. He always seemed open to it. *UPDATE! Jeffery Dean Morgan did indeed return to the series for the show’s 300th episode, the excellent and heartbreaking “Lebanon”. Sam and Dean are played by Jared Padelecki and Jensen Ackles respectively, who are like 7 years younger than Jeffery Dean Morgan in real life, which is kind of funny. In the first season, we find out that the younger brother Sam got out of this life. He left his father and brother behind, went to Stanford with the intention of going on to law school, and had a beautiful girlfriend. Until one night his brother Dean comes knocking on his door, not having seen Sam in years. He tells Sam that Dad went on a hunting trip and hasn’t been back in a few days. Basically John went missing chasing down a lead on the thing that killed his wife. So Dean drags a very reluctant Sam back into a life he thought he’d left behind in an attempt to find their missing father. But that’s just an excuse for the show get Sam and Dean on the road. Saving people, hunting things, the family business. The actors have great chemistry with each other, which I think is one of several reasons for the show’s longevity. Apparently they’re extremely close friends in real life (It would be very hard to do a successful show for almost a decade and a half if you fucking hated the guy you’re in almost every scene with). Sam and Dean are incredibly dangerous and gifted hunters even though they’re only in their 20’s when the show began. They were essentially raised to be hunters, their Dad taught them every trick in the book.
(Some of the show’s really creepy monsters)
John’s terrible parenting skills gives the show the opportunity to introduce fellow hunter Bobby Singer. Since the show takes place mostly on the road all over the country, the show isn’t much of an ensemble. But there are a few characters other than Sam and Dean that become integral to the story and are beloved by fans. One of them is Sam and Dean’s surrogate father and veteran hunter Bobby Singer. Bobby is the father Sam and Dean never had, the one they deserve. When they were kids John would often drop them off with Bobby, taking off for weeks at a time to hunt monsters or ghosts. Bobby views Sam and Dean as his surrogate sons and would do anything for them (he’s also a pretty badass hunter). As adults, Bobby is frequently off hunting with the boys. When Sam and Dean are in a tough spot, it’s often a clutch eleventh hour rescue from Bobby that saves the day. Since his introduction at the end of Season 1, Bobby has been a fan favorite.
(Dean, Sam, and Bobby out hunting)
First of all, I think Supernatural was a turning point for The CW. You can definitely see the “CW Formula” in the first season and a half. “The CW Formula” is basically getting really attractive young actors on genre shows that are pretty much soap operas with a large focus on romance. Supernatural really bucked this trend or subverted it at least. The show never had any major love interests for Sam and Dean (However, there are a few notable exceptions). The show is by far one of the darkest and bloodiest show on any non-cable network. This show is bleak as fuck at times, bloody as hell, and the story goes to some deeply dark places. Some of the episodes work as very creepy and effective mini horror movies. This approach results in some genuinely scary episodes.
One of the big standouts of the show is the music. From the first episode, Classic Rock is in the DNA of the show. AC/DC, Metallica, Boston, Kansas, Queen, Blue Oyster Cult, Bon Jovi, Styx, and many, many more. Music is an extremely effective tool in giving a film or TV and identity when used the right way and the show’s classic rock soundtrack is just one more thing that makes the show unique. Fun Fact: the favorite band of both the creators of the show and the character Dean Winchester is Led Zeppelin, but they could never get the rights to use their songs because the they’re too expensive.
Supernatural is very strong when it comes handling it’s mythology. Unlike a show like The X-Files that felt like it was just throwing stuff at the wall to see what stuck, the mythology of Supernatural always builds on itself and ads up to something. The Winchesters have come against ghosts, vampires, werewolves, shape shifters, hell hounds, and literally hundreds of other creatures and spirits. But the show really excels in it’s use of Biblical lore and putting their own spin on it. In Season 4 the stakes are raised in a huge way, when Sam and Dean find themselves smack dab in the middle of The Biblical Apocalypse. This is where the show becomes much more serialized. Demons are attempting to set Lucifer free from his cage in Hell and when that happens, either God’s Archangels will attempt to kill Lucifer and level most of the planet in the process or Lucifer wins and it’s literally Hell on Earth. Anyway you slice it, humanity is fucked in this situation. This is the storyline where Supernatural went from very good to excellent. Demons are bad enough, but Angels haven’t walked the Earth in thousands of years. The Angels are portrayed as alien and terrifyingly powerful celestial beings who are more of less indifferent to mankind’s survival in a fight that they believe to be preordained by God. I won’t spoil why, but they’re very interested in Sam and Dean and not for anything good. Demons and Angels aren’t physical beings on this show, so they need to possess a human “vessel” or “Meatbag” (as a Demon would say) to manifest physically on Earth. The writers didn’t necessarily intend for the show to go in that direction, but they retroactively took seemingly small details, characters, and events from the first few season and made them the building blocks of The Apocalypse storyline. It gives the impression that the show has been building towards this story from the very beginning.
(One of the first times we see Castiel. Not exactly a being with a harp and a halo)
This is also where the show introduces another one of it’s most important and beloved characters, the Angel Castiel. Castiel was an angel assigned to “help” Sam and Dean avert the Apocalypse. Their relationship started out very antagonistic with Castiel blindly following heavens orders. But over time the bond he developed with Dean in particular and his eventual realization that what the angels are doing is really fucked up. His character arc is one of the shows best, he goes from a zealot blindly following order from high above his celestial pay grade to a loyal ally fighting on behalf of humanity. He’s the friend who’s always there for the brothers. Even turning his back on his own kind. Like Bobby, Sam and Dean consider Castiel to be family and like Bobby he would die to protect them both.
Supernatural has a passionate fan base and the show goes very meta in certain episodes. It’s not a show that’s afraid to make fun of itself. There are a lot of fun examples of this, like in the episode “The French Mistake” Sam and Dean are thrown into an alternate reality where they’re actors Jared Padelecki and Jensen Akles starring in a TV show called Supernatural where they play Sam and Dean Winchester. Another episode finds the brothers stumbling upon a copy of a series of books again called Supernatural, with each book chronicling one of their cases. This is during the Apocalypse storyline and author of the books turns out to be a Prophet who gets visions from Heaven to write about Sam and Dean because they’re so central to the fight between Lucifer and his demons and the angels of heaven. They’re fun episodes that display the desire of the creators to tell unconventional stories.
It’s a huge accomplishment for a show to last as long as Supernatural has (Season 13 begins in October), but the standard of quality the series has maintained is truly impressive. Don’t get me wrong, the series definitely has its highs and lows. The series never quite repeats the heights of Seasons 3-5, but Season 11 was one the show’s best. The cast and creators never feel like they’re phoning it in, which would be easy to do after so many seasons. One more key to the show’s continued popularity is it’s ability to be innovative and put out unique episodes. For example, Season 11’s Episode “Baby” is told entirely from the point of view of Chevy Impala that the guys drive around in. They tell an entire episode where the camera never leaves the car and it’s very effective. Since they’ve spent most of their lives on the road, the Impala feels like a character on the show and one of the only “homes” Sam and Dean have ever had. “Baby” stands out as one of the best episodes of the entire series. They never seem to run out material and there is no indication that Season 13 will be the show’s last. Apparently they’re even doing a Supernatural/Scooby-Doo crossover this coming season which should be appropriately insane.
(More crazy fucking monsters)
The heart and soul of the show is the relationship between Sam and Dean and how they’ll do anything to protect each other. No matter how many seasons they end up doing, the show is always about family. They will literally go to hell and back for each other. It may not always be the healthiest relationship, but these guys had a pretty fucked up childhood. The show is at it’s best when it emphasizes the bond between Sam and Dean. Hunting monsters is really cool, but you don’t keep coming back to a show for 13 seasons without having great characters that you’re deeply invested in.
There’s so much more to this show that I could get into (12 fucking seasons and counting is a lot of fucking story), so check it out for yourselves. The entire series is available on Netflix. Below I’ll leave a list of the must watch episodes from the first 2 seasons, after that watch every episode. The Season 5 finale could really serve as a series finale because it wraps up most of the overarching story that had been building since the first episode. Season 7 is probably the weakest, but the show is never less than entertaining. The show becomes excellent again in Seasons 11 and 12, and Season 13 premieres on 10/12 at 8pm on The CW. As always, thanks for reading and let me know what you think if you check out Supernatural.
*UPDATE: Supernatural will officially come to an end with it’s record breaking 15th Season. At the time of this update the series is in the middle of Season 14.
-Paul
Season 1
Pilot
Phantom Traveler
Scarecrow
Faith
Nightmare
Shadow
Dead Man’s Blood
Salvation
Devil’s Trap
Season 2
In My Time Of Dying
Simon Says
Crossroad Blues
Croatoan
Hunted
Houses of the Holy
What Is and What Should Never Be
All Hell Breaks Loose Parts 1 & 2
As part of my continuing series of articles about Batman The Animated Series, in honor of the 25th anniversary of the show, i’m focusing on characters, moments, or stories that really exemplify what made this show so special. One of the things that Batman The Animated series did so well that we haven’t really seen in other adaptations of the character, is showing how unexpectedly and deeply compassionate Batman can be. Like my Mr. Freeze article I wrote a few days ago, (if you haven’t checked that out yet here’s the link ) nowhere is this better exemplified than in how the “villains” are handled.
I used the word “villains” in quotes because I feel like the word denotes a very black and white view of morality, which the show does a phenomenal job of transcending. Just like in real life, human beings aren’t broken down into “good guys” and “bad guys”. People aren’t that simple. Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly Batman villains that are full blown monsters, The Joker comes to mind as an obvious example. But as I’ve said before, many of Batman’s villains are the byproduct of tragedy or mental illness. Many of them are victims. Sad, broken people that got completely rolled over by the world. That’s something Batman is intimately familiar with. He knows how easily a life can be destroyed and how fragile our seemingly safe and happy worlds can be.
Take the episode “Baby Doll”, written by the incredible Paul Dini. The episode centers around a woman named Mary Louise Dahl, an actress who suffered from a rare disease that the essentially stoped her from aging. She is roughly in her 30s but she looks like she’s 6 years old. Her one upside was that she became a household name and sitcom sensation playing the main character, the “adorable and precocious” Baby Doll, in her hit sitcom “Love That Baby”. It was the cheesy type of thing you would see on TV in the 70’s and 80’s. On the show, her famous catch phrase was “I didn’t mean to”. This show was the one instance where looking like a little girl was a huge advantage. Eventually the show was canceled and all the fame and adoration that gave her life meaning was gone in an instant. Without the show, it was monumentally difficult for this woman to lead a normal life, to be just like everybody else. Over the years, never really getting over her show being cancelled and being a grown woman trapped in the body of a child her entire life, causes her to have a mental breakdown. She decided she wanted to re-create that perfect time in her life, when she was the star of the show on “Love That Baby”. She kidnaps all her former cast mates from the show and with a group of armed thugs as her muscle, she forces them into a sick reenactment of the show. It’s a sad attempt to relive the only part of her life that gave her happiness and meaning. Even though she’s doing something awful, this woman’s plight is heartbreaking
Of course Batman becomes involved and with the help of Robin, he’s able to free the hostages, Dahl manages to slip away but with Batman in hot pursuit. He chases her through a carnival, eventually ending up in the house of mirrors. I’ll let the scene speak for itself:
That’s one of my favorite scenes in the series. It’s not some epic, save the city battle. It’s a tragic story about a woman who was born different. Batman putting his hand on her shoulder and taking the gun away while she’s still pulling the trigger on empty chambers was masterfully done. This series took an episode that could be pretty stupid on paper and made it a heart wrenching tale of a troubled woman trying to find meaning in her life. That’s pretty heavy stuff for a supposed “kids cartoon”.
Like I said I’ll have more articles on Batman The Animated Series to come. Also, Tim and I are getting together to record the next episode of the podcast, which will be exclusively about Batman The Animated Series in honor of the 25th anniversary of that show. So please keep an eye out for that. And again, as always thanks for reading!
This week marks the 25th anniversary of the premiere of Batman The Animated Series, inarguably the greatest depiction of Batman ever put on film. Tim (my co-host) and I will be doing a big episode on the show for our next podcast “The World’s Best Podcast with Paul & Tim”.
Batman The Animated Series is not only one of my favorite television shows of all time, it’s a masterpiece of storytelling. At the heart of Batman’s story is tragedy and in nowhere is that more apparent than in many of his villains. Who, like Batman himself, had one tragic day change their lives forever. It’s this type of nuanced storytelling, not making the lines between good and evil so clear, that made this show so groundbreaking and emotional. There characters and stories are so well realized that you’ll often find yourself caught off guard at the depth of the show. So every day I’m going to try to put a little something together focusing on some excellent aspect of the show.
Of all of Batman’s “villains”, none has a more emotional back story than Victor Fries. Today I have a great video from YouTube that highlights the heartbreaking origin of one of Batman’s best villains, Mr. Freeze. Everything in this clip is from the Emmy winning episode, “Heart of Ice”, one of the shows best episodes. This fantastic episode is honestly one of the best Batman stories I’ve ever seen. Now take a look at the tragic life of Dr. Victor Fries and his beloved wife Nora:
Wow… and that’s just a few pieces of the episode. What makes this storytelling that much more impressive is that (at least on paper) this was a cartoon for kids. Yet, it almost seems like they never told the writers that. I think the writers approached the project as not just a series “for kids”, but just a great television series period.
I’ll have more articles highlighting different fantastic aspects of this series in the days to come, so keep checking back here and on Facebook. As always thank you so much for reading!
Here’s our fantastic, new, weekly mini podcast we’re going to be doing for the rest of season 7 of Game of Thrones. Our resident Game of Thrones expert (Archmaester if you will) Mr. Tim Cuff, is going to pick out a detail from the latest episode and then give you some cool history and backstory from the rich world that George R.R. Martin has created. We think you guys are going to love it. And we have a great first episode. Give it a listen here:
I love getting surprised by pop culture. As I’ve gone into at greater length before, I feel that surprise is something that is extremely rare in the media we consume and we’re all the poorer for it. So when something great seemingly comes out nowhere, like last years “Stranger Things” on Netflix, it’s a real exciting treat. Which is why Netflix’s new series Castlevania, which premiered last Friday, is definitely a show to check out.
Based on the video game of the same name and written by the incredible Warren Ellis (writer of the modern comic book masterpiece Planetary and much more), Castlevania is a spectacular 4 epsiode horror/supernatural adventure, Anime series. The story begins in 15th century Wallachia with Dracula himself, getting a rare visit from a human woman named Lisa, who is a healer and scientist. She thinks she can do incredible things to help mankind if Dracula allows her access to the esoteric scientific knowledge that he’s accumulated over the centuries. She hopes the secret knowledge of the immortals, which blur the line between science and magic, will help humanity and society a great deal. Lisa sees Dracula and the knowledge he holds not as something dark and dangerous, but beautiful and eye opening. Dracula doesn’t have much faith in mankind, but he allows Lisa access to his library, technology, and all the wonders he’s accumulated over millennia.
Time goes by and a little Beauty and the Beast situation starts to develop. They fall in love and Dracula(still a very powerful Vampire regardless of how he lives his life) lives the life of a human with his beloved wife. Many years pass, as Dracula lives happily in the countryside with Lisa. One day he returns home from a long trip to find that that his wife has been taken by the Church and burned at the stake for witchcraft. Needless to say he is fucking PISSED. In very dramatic fashion, Dracula gives the people of Wallachia one year to either leave the country forever or die horribly at the hands of the demon army he plans to summon. A year passes and of course Dracula’s warning wasn’t heeded by the local idiots. Dracula’s demon army descends on Wallachia and it is a fucking blood bath. The demons begin moving from town to town, brutally killing anything in their path.
From here we meet Trevor Belmont. Clearly a young man who’s seen better days, we find him drunk in a shitty tavern, fighting lowlifes in a town that hasn’t been hit by the demon army yet. Belmont is forced to move on when the locals realize who he is. The Belmont Family were legendary monster hunters for centuries until they were excommunicated by the Church on a bunch of trumped up bullshit. Trevor is the last of The Belmonts and he can still kick ass and take fucking names, especially when it comes to monsters. So when he comes to the next town, already besieged by the demonic hourde, he has to decide to continue on the path he’s on or try to reclaim some of his honor by helping defeat Dracula and his army.
That’s the basic set up for the show and it is one hell of good watch. At this point I should probably say that I am not an Anime guy and I was not familiar with the video game that this show is based on at all.
This show is an attempt to basically do an American Anime, so the visuals of the show are very much in that style. But even if Anime isn’t for you, the animation on this show is absolutely spectacular. There were so many impressive visuals that stood out as things I’d never seen in animation before.
The voice cast is very strong across the board. Especially Richard Armitage (The Hobbit Trilogy, Hannibal TV Series) as Trevor Belmont. I really liked Belmont as the hero in this story. He has a dry sense of humor that makes him surprisingly funny at times. He’s a great protagonist because not only because of his roguish charm and aristocratic humor, he’s also a person who struggles with morality. The choice between stepping up and helping people versus looking out for number one is a big part of his journey throughout the season. Which gives the character a lot of depth that you may not expect see in something like this.
Dracula is played here by Graham McTavish (Preacher, Outlander), even though he’s not in in the season a whole lot, he managed to make a big impression with the screen time he had. I’m pretty familiar with this actor’s work and I had no idea he played this part until I looked up the voice cast online. Which definitely highlights his ability as a voice actor. He does a great job of going from someone who could be a very tender and loving husband to a vicious, vindictive killer. Despite the horrific things he’s doing, Dracula is still somewhat sympathetic. I mean, these people burned his fucking wife ALIVE! That’s not something you just let slide. It’s not like it was just the Church either, the whole fucking town came out to cheer it on! Like it was their super fucked up version of the big homecoming football game! I guess when you don’t have TV you have to find different ways to stay entertained…
There are a few more important characters who pop up that are key to the season and the show moving forward. But I don’t want to go into them too much because the season is so short, I want to leave out as many spoilers I can. I will say that Trevor Belmont will have some interesting allies and enemies going into season 2.
My only complaint was that the show is so goddamn short. It was only four hours. It felt like more of a movie than a TV show season. Luckily Netflix has already ordered a second season which will have 8 episodes instead of 4. It’s really going to suck having to wait for season 2, because this is hand-drawn animation which can takes much longer to produce than more modern animation styles. So we may not see season 2 for quite some time. Which makes me wish that season 2 wasn’t just going to be eight episodes. If there’s going to be such a large gap between seasons, the more episodes the better.
Bottom line this is another really strong show for Netflix. The fantastic animation, voice work, over-the-top violence, and the great hero and villain are all huge asset for the show. Also, I’m a sucker for anything with really cool looking monsters and supernatural adventures.
If you’re a fan of horror, fantasy, action adventure and a little comedy this is definitely a show you’ll dig. It’s probably not for everybody, but I loved it and can’t recommend it enough. The whole seasons available on Netflix right now so make sure you go and check it out.
On a side note, I wanted to mention that I’d love to get some feedback and engage with my readers. So please feel free to leave comments or questions in the comments section below or on our Facebook page. I’d love to hear from you! Also, check out the latest episode of “The World’s Best Podcast with Paul and Tim”. You can listen to it here on the site, our Facebook page, or iTunes.
Here’s the latest episode of our podcast where we review the two-part premiere of Preacher season 2 on AMC! I hope you all enjoy it! Thanks again to everyone who has been so supportive of this site and the podcast. To show our appreciate, we have few contest plans for the near future with small prizes we’re giving away. Details to come!
I was really excited about Agents of SHIELD when it premiered. The Avengers had just opened that summer and a series about SHIELD felt like a no-brainer. It seemed like the show would be about the Agents of SHIELD running around the more obscure corners of the Marvel universe (because they’re not gonna give them access to any of the major movie characters) dealing with threats and characters from the comic books. Having Phil Coulson (the SHIELD agent Loki seemingly killed at the end of the first Avengers film)as the central character was great because I liked him quite a bit at the time. He was intended to be a small supporting role in the first Iron Man movie and ended up being a vital figure in building the MCU.
Unfortunately that’s not really what we got. First of all, SHIELD is supposed to be the most elite covert government agency on the planet, and yet the agents on Coulson’s team were pretty damn incompetent. SHIELD agents should make Seal Team Six look like mall cops, not this sorry assortment of bumbling secret agents who sucked at their job.
There were three cardinal sins that Agents of SHIELD committed: one, if a Marvel Cinematic Universe television series doesn’t feature major characters like Captain America or any of the other Avengers, you better make the characters you have really, really fucking interesting. They weren’t. Two, the show was just plain boring. I found myself checking out after a few episodes. Sure I checked in here and there and the show definitely picked up at certain points. For example, after Captain America: The Winter Soldier came out, the show incorporated the HYDRA storyline that was central to that film to great effect. There were some really good twists and turns along way in the final part of the first season. Having Bill Paxton (R.I.P.) come in as the central villain certainly helped peak my interest. SHIELD vs. HYDRA, this show was finally starting to feel a little like a Marvel SHIELD comic book should.
Third and lastly, the show didn’t take advantage of Marvel characters and stories nearly enough.
The show continued to struggle with these three major problems, uninteresting characters, the show being relatively boring, and not taking advantage of the Marvel Universe. I never expected them to have A-list of characters like Iron Man or the Hulk on the show, but there was no reason they couldn’t use more of the C-list heroes and villains of the Marvel universe. As Guardians of the Galaxy proved, you don’t need the most popular and well known Marvel characters to tell great stories. Marvel could make 100 movies and there would still be a lot of interesting characters and storylines that are minor enough for Agents of SHIELD to be allowed to use.
To my surprise, they finally started to do just that when the Inhumans became a central part of the show in the second season. Let me give you Inhumans 101: The Inhumans are race of beings who live secretly and separately from humanity in technologically advanced cities hidden in places like the Himalayas and the Moon. They’re humans who had their genetic make up tampered with thousands of years ago by an alien race called Kree. The central part of their culture was when every Inhuman came of age they would pass through a transformative gas called the Terrigen Mist. Once they pass through the mist they would enter a cocoon-like state and after a period of metamorphosis, emerge as something more than human and completely unique. Each Inhuman has their own unique power or ability. No two Inhumans are alike. Some look completely human, but have a superpower. Others couldn’t pass for human at all after the transformation, but still had some power or ability. The comics typically focus on their king Black Bolt and the rest of the royal family of Inhumans. As I finished writing all of that, I just realized how completely fucking ridiculous this all sounds, but believe me it’s kind of cool.
To the credit of the show, they really took this concept and ran with it. They retconned Skye, one of their main characters who knew very little about her past and family, into Daisy Johnson a.k.a. Quake, an Inhuman with powerful seismic abilities. They introduced some notable new villains like Daredevil nemesis, Mr. Hyde and major Hulk villain, the Absorbing Man. The show still wasn’t perfect, but things were looking up.
As it stands the X-Men characters, which are all mutants, are owned by Fox and even though they’re Marvel comic book characters they can’t appear in the MCU. The way Agents of SHIELD has handled the Inhumans is very similar to how mutants are handled in the X-Men films and comics. They are feared by the public and viewed as dangerous liabilities by the United States government. Of course, heroic people like Agent Coulson protected the good Inhumans and defended against the dangerous ones and the show improved because of it. However, it was with the most recent season that the show really came into its own in my opinion.
At the time of the season premiere, Doctor Strange was opening in just a few months. So to capitalize on the recognition that would come from the premiere of Doctor Strange, the show introduced what had been largely absent from the MCU at that point: the supernatural and magic. Using these new concepts as a jumping off poin, Agents of SHIELD introduced the most major Marvel character it’s ever used: Ghost Rider.
Ghost Rider is a very cool character, especially visually. There’s been a number of Ghost Riders over the years, but the version they chose to use is a man named Robbie Reyes. The basic concept of the Ghost Rider is, an individual sells their soul to the devil in exchange for something noble, like saving a life of a loved one. In this case saving the life of Robbie’s younger brother after a violent car wreck that Robbie feels responsible for. In return, their body becomes host to a demon that transforms it’s human host into a monster with a flaming skull for a head and demonic vehicle (usually a motorcycle or a muscle car) that catches on fire and displays other supernatural abilities. All with the purpose of hunting down supernatural bad guys. Robbie hunting down bad guys with a flaming skull and driving a demonic muscle car naturally gets SHIELD’s attention. I wouldn’t say I’m completely sold on the show, but a lot of what I saw of it I really liked. Especially the Ghost Rider stuff. It was really well executedand the special effects were phenomenal. I don’t think I’d goes far to actually recommend the show, but you could do a lot worse on a Tuesday night.
Now we come to Gotham, which of the two shows probably improved the most. Agents of SHIELD at its worst was never terrible, but Gotham reached some truly abysmal lows. The cast is excellent, but the writing was god awful. The series opens with the murder of the Waynes which introduced us to several of the main characters. The story kicks off with Det. Jim Gordon promising a traumatized Bruce Wayne that he’ll find the man who killed his parents and bring him to justice. Other central characters include Alfred, Harvey Bullock (who had never been shown in live action before for this show), The Penguin, The Riddler, and Catwoman or at least versions of these characters before they become their more iconic incarnations. As I’m sure you can imagine there are a lot of lame jokes allusions to who these characters could would be eventually become. For example The Riddler’s real name is Edward Nygma and as the show opens he is the medical examiner for the Gotham city Police Department. Every time we see him he only speaks in riddles. You can imagine how quickly that gets old. I would say I gave up on Gotham about halfway through the first season. I checked in again during the final stretch of season two when I heard of that introduced Hugo Strange and one of my favorite new additions to the Batman mythology, The Court of Owls. I ended up regretting it. It was a poorly written set of episodes and when The Court of Owls was finally introduced, it was pretty underwhelming. The writing on this show was so bad, I’m not exaggerating when I say in one episode a character will be arrested for murder, but somehow they become mayor in the next episode. Sure, why not?
For some reason I found myself watching the midseason finale of the current season, which is season three. The episode centered on Bruce Wayne, who is now a teenager and just beginning the path to becoming Batman. He doesn’t have a clear idea of what he wants to be, but he knows there’s a demon inside him that needs to be fed. It was also worth noting that at this point Bruce has had enough hand to hand combat training to be formidable in a fight. A character who calls himself “Jerome”, who may or may not be the man who becomes Joker, attempts to kidnap Bruce and involve him in a sick circus funhouse game without multiple lives on the line.
This is the first time we really see a Bruce Wayne that looks like the character we know from the comics. Something really clicked on the show seeing a pre-Batman Bruce Wayne fighting a Proto-Joker. It really worked and it was a surprisingly well written episode. So I found myself watching the first new episode when the show came back from its midseason break and I stuck with it through the rest of the season. While it’s certainly still silly and not always well written, the latter half of season three was the best show’s ever been.
The season finale introduced Ra’s Al Ghul and the final scene saw a masked Bruce stopping a mugging, much like the one that ended in tragedy for him… and somehow it really worked. The final shot of the episode was Bruce standing on a desolate Gotham rooftop overlooking the city after he had saved that family and it was hard not to think how cool that was. Here’s the final scene:
I’m a long way away from saying that Gotham is a good show, but I’ll definitely be tuning into the season four premiere in the fall.
Agents of SHIELD and Gotham: These were two shows I’d completely written off and both hugely improved over the past year. Neither one of them have achieved the heights of Daredevil or The Flash, but they definitely caught my attention and I thought it was worth pointing out. Once again, I am NOT saying these are good shows, but considering the level of improvement and progress they’ve made I think it’s worth keeping an eye on them. Anyway, as always, thanks for reading.
The big event of the last few weeks for genre fans everywhere was undoubtedly the opening of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2. I was so eager to see this damn movie that the first thing I did after being discharged from a 4 day hospital visit for pneumonia, was run to the movie theatre to see Guardians 2. The first Guardians film was lightening in a bottle. One of those rare cinematic experiences that’s impossible to recreate. It was an instant classic.
Though Guardians 2 can’t quite reach the dizzying heights of its predecessor it’s a richer and more mature film. I have a lot more I could say about Guardians 2, but the short answer is I absolutely loved it. Also, I doubt anything I have to say would be all that different from a million other blogs and websites. So, I decided to take the opportunity to spotlight another excellent new piece of genre entertainment that isn’t getting quite as much coverage as it deserves: American Gods, the new Starz series that premiered a few weeks ago.
To borrow an overused phrase, we are living in the golden age of television. I feel we have officially reached the point where television has caught up to and in many ways surpassed feature films. When I looked back at 2016, all of my favorite on screen moments came from television. I would put Game of Thrones and Westworld against the best films of the year in terms of both spectacle and dramatic storytelling. Marvel is doing some of it’s best work in any medium on Netflix with Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage. What started with Arrow on The CW gave birth to a full blown DC cinematic universe that’s a lot more fun and thrilling than the films DCEU has on the big screen. FX knocked it out of the park with Legion, a comic book show that’s unlike anything on TV. And those are just a few of my favorites. Stranger Things, Fargo, House of Cards, there’s a wealth of great content from every genre. In my opinion, Starz has produced another fantastic must see show with American Gods.
American Gods is based on the acclaimed novel by the legendary Neil Gaiman. Gaiman is an award winning fantasy novelist and comic book writer, arguably most well known for being the creator of the groundbreaking comic book series, The Sandman. Neil Gaiman has been one of my favorite writers for years. Regardless of the subject matter, anytime Gaiman has a new book out, I can’t wait to read it.
American Gods is one of my favorite books and when Starz announced it was adapting the novel as a TV series, I was cautiously optimistic. I’m happy to say that so far, American Gods has exceeded my expectations.
American Gods is the story of a man named Shadow Moon played by Ricky Whittle, who just a few days before being released from prison, is told he’s getting out early because his wife has died. As an added kick in the nuts, not only did his wife die, she died in a car accident while performing oral sex on Shadow’s best friend who also died in the car wreck. With his world completely shattered, Shadow heads home to take care of his affairs. While on his flight home, he meets a charming and enigmatic man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday, played by the great Ian McShane. Wednesday seems to know way more about Shadow than he should and wants to offer him a job. Wednesday has a road trip planned to recruit some of his old friends for a mysterious mission and he wants Shadow to be his right hand man on the trip. Shadow knows that there’s something extremely shady about this guy, but he’s so lost at that moment he accepts the job against his better judgement. From there, Wednesday drags Shadow into a surreal conflict between old gods and the powerful new gods who’ve replaced them. Gods survive and thrive on human worship and not many people are worshiping Anubis or Odin these days. Media, Technology, Firearms, these are some the new American gods and they have no interest in sharing the world with the old gods.
Shadow is tough role to cast. He’s a blank slate in some ways and with the wrong actor in the part it probably wouldn’t work. Fortunately Ricky Whittle is perfect as Shadow. He manages to make Shadow likable, sympathetic, and intelligent, which makes you end up rooting for him to make it through this insane journey in one piece. Ian McShane is one of our greatest living actors and it’s very fun to watch him play Mr. Wednesday. You know the guy is probably a piece of shit, but you really like him anyway. You can definitely see how a sharp guy like Shadow could get involved with this guy even though it’s most likely a really, really bad idea. The supporting roles are filled by fantastic actors like Peter Stormare, Crispin Glover, Cloris Leachman, Orlando Jones, and Gillian Anderson.
One of the very cool ideas the show plays with, is power of human belief. As the new god Media played by Gillian Anderson says, millions of people worship her for hours every day, staring at televisions, smartphones, and tablets. To Media, in the 21st-century, attention is a more valuable form of worship than blood sacrifice.
The things we put our faith in only have the power and meaning that we allow them to have. Whether it’s an old god like Anansi or a new god like the Technical Boy, the god of technology, their power stems from the importance we give them. Which begs the question do we have faith in something that’s already there or is it our faith and belief that allows them to exist? It’s unique and fascinating idea.
In addition to the original American Gods novel, Neil Gaiman has written a quasi-sequel called Anansi Boys, as well as several short stories that take place in and feature characters from the American Gods universe (all of which I highly recommend you read). So there’s a wealth of material for the show to draw from and I can’t wait to see where it goes from here… Oh, and a guy has anal sex with a genie cab driver with one of the biggest dicks I’ve ever seen. That’s got to be worth the price of admission alone, right?
Only 3 episodes into the 8 episode first season and I’m hooked (you can watch all of the episodes that have aired so far on demand or on the Starz app on any device). The cast is incredible and the look of the show is beautiful and different. Trust me, give this spectacular show a shot. American Gods airs Sunday nights on Starz.
This show is an attempt to basically do an American Anime, so the visuals of the show are very much in that style. But even if Anime isn’t for you, the animation on this show is absolutely spectacular. There were so many impressive visuals that stood out as things I’d never seen in animation before.
If you’re a fan of horror, fantasy, action adventure and a little comedy this is definitely a show you’ll dig. It’s probably not for everybody, but I loved it and can’t recommend it enough. The whole seasons available on Netflix right now so make sure you go and check it out.
World’s Best Media 