Exfanding Review: Hawaii Five-O

One of the many joys of having Netflix is the ability to pick up and drop any TV series that catches my interest, without any obligation to buy the DVDs or to continue watching if my interest begins to wane. Having demonstrated with The Dick Tracey Show that I can break free of my completionist tendencies and skip around if necessary, I was prepared to take on another detective show of sorts that I had no hope of ever finishing: Hawaii Five-O.

Twelve seasons? 279 episodes? 45-50 minutes per episode? It'd take me two weeks straight to watch it all, assuming I quit my job and spent every waking minute of my day marathoning Hawaii Five-Oh For The Love Of Jack Lord Make It End. I don't even like cop shows! But I have a passion for classic cinema, and that passion extends into the realm of television. It's not just entertainment; it's educational as well: film has a unique way of preserving our history and culture, and even the fictional elements have a way of hinting at the reality of the time.

If you're unfamiliar with Hawaii Five-O, the short version is that there's a crack police team in Hawaii known as "Five-O" that's always hot on the trail of every crime syndicate, con artist, and disgruntled tourist on the islands. Five-O is comprised of the levelheaded Steve McGarrett, who is rarely seen without his iconic blue suit; his ever-ready sidekick Danny "Danno" Williams; family man Chin Ho Kelly; Kono Kalakaua, the loyal tough guy; and a parade of replacements for anybody who leaves the show. I realize that Ben Kokua, Duke Lukela, and other characters who joined the regular cast later on are worth mentioning here, but the fact is, I barely saw any episodes with them in it.

The original plan was to selectively watch a few episodes from every season, choosing the ones whose descriptions sounded most up my alley and/or most important to a broader understanding of the show's overarching plotlines, assuming there were any. This worked nicely through the end of Season Four, by which point I'd realized three things:

1.) The episodes with the most appealing premises were the least relevant to overall plot and character development, and thus began to lose my full attention after about 10-15 minutes;
2.) The episodes that were most relevant to overall plot and character development had the least appealing premises, and thus began to lose my full attention after about 10-15 minutes;
3.) I was mostly watching to see who else would show up from Star Trek.

Hawaii Five-O ran from 1968-1980, which very neatly covers the hiatus between the last episode of Star Trek in 1969 and Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979. Star Trek: The Animated Series notwithstanding, this Trekless period of time is one where all the actors from The Original Series had previously disappeared from my radar. I've been spotting Star Trek alums in films such as Airplane II: The Sequel throughout the '80s and beyond, but before that? Either nobody did any acting, or else they were making appearances in shows I'd never watched.

Like Hawaii Five-O.

In one early episode, a Japanese man under the impression the year is still 1941 attempts to carry out his planned role in the bombing of Pearl Harbor. First off, it was jarring to watch a television show made in a time period where the majority of viewers would remember World War II as a part of their childhood, and not a Hollywood-coated history lesson. Second, it was jarring to see someone who was clearly not Japanese wearing heavy makeup to appear Japanese--the thought crossed my mind that any Japanese actor of the appropriate age for that role might potentially have found the subject matter to be too close to home.

Enough food for thought with those two points alone, but then I began to recognize the actor who McGarrett and the rest of his team were chasing. At first, I thought it was Charlton Heston, who I'd recently seen pass for a Mexican in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil. When the credits rolled, I realized my mistake--it wasn't Charlton Heston, but Mark Lenard.

Mark Lenard, who played Sarek, Spock's father, on Star Trek. Suddenly I had a renewed interest in Hawaii Five-O.

As I continued watching, I saw Diana "Dr. Pulaski" Muldaur as a suspicious wife, Ricardo "Khaaaaaaaaan!" Montalbán as an expert racecar driver, Roger C. "Harcourt Fenton Mudd" Carmel as a Russian informant, and William "Denny Crane on Boston Legal" Shatner as a Texan detective, complete with an accent of such questionable authenticity that--I swear I'm not making this up--one of the characters in the episode was on the fence about whether he was a Westerner or only "affecting a Western accent."

It was a kick to see so many actors from Star Trek in such wildly different roles and situations than I was accustomed to. I'd never seen Mark Lenard or Roger C. Carmel in anything else, and it was fascinating to watch them take ownership of their characters--and amusing to realize how much of a character actor Carmel must have been when his Russian accent occasionally gave way slightly to a very fine English one.

Diana Muldaur was impressively...normal. As in, a persuasively regular person, and not a Star Trek character out of uniform. For someone whom I strongly associate with a particular character to show no trace of that character in a different role is no easy task. Especially for William Shatner, whose slyness and force fit the role perfectly, but whose accent--as consistent and inoffensive as it was--never convinced me of his origins. Funny how easily accents can make or break a character.

I find myself with a growing respect for how--in the movies I've seen, at least--Ricardo Montalbán's distinctive accent never seems to define his character. He's the kind of actor I admire most: one who can fully become a character even without changing his hair or disguising his voice. He could've played JFK, and I wouldn't have questioned why John F. Kennedy sounded Mexican.

In general, I have nothing but praise for the acting and direction. I even caught a familiar name directing one of the episodes--Nicholas Colasanto, who played Coach on Cheers, which my wife and I are currently watching. The stars I recognized were one of the most compelling reasons for me to stick with the show for a while, but the unique setting was a selling point, too--I appreciated how Hawaii wasn't just part of the background, but an integral factor in the kinds of crimes Five-O would deal with. Culture, history, and geography played a big part, and I feel like that's not always true of detective shows.

I was simultaneously impressed and disappointed by the show's consistency--twelve seasons, and aside from the aforementioned cast changes, there were very few ways to tell the first episode from the last one. A few minor modifications to the intro theme, really. The actor playing Chin Ho had visibly aged by the end of his ten-year tenure, but the film quality and costumes and actors around him seemed to have been oddly unaffected by the passage of time. I think of shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation whose first seasons seem like a completely different show coming off of later seasons, but Hawaii Five-O established itself almost immediately and never seemed to stray from its path. The only significant addition I can think of was a mildly distracting split-screen effect toward the end of the series that allowed the viewer to watch the bad guys running away and the good guys running after them in two different locations at the same time. Oh, and the uncontrollably shaky camera seemed to calm down a bit after a while, so there's that.

There was a lot to like about Hawaii Five-O. I'm just not big into detective shows. For fans of the genre, and even for aspiring film buffs such as myself, it's worth a look...even if you've only got a 10-15-minute attention span.

If nothing else, the title theme is really catchy:



And, just for the heck of it, let's throw in a little Star Wars, too:

Friday Catch Up

Tonight's my late night at the office, so I won't be home until sometime tomorrow morning. Even so, I've (heroically) managed to get something up here on the blog this afternoon--and with time to spare before our posting deadline!

(That is, of course, if Blogger actually sets it live for the time I've scheduled...grumble grumble)

And, sure, I'm gonna cheat a little bit by embedding a YouTube video, but it's Friday and who wants to read a long, rambling post about who-knows-what when you can watch a WWE Superstar hunt for ghosts instead?

With that incredible transition, I present "Santino's Foreign Exchange," episode 14, the first episode of the YouTube show that I helped plot. I think it came out pretty well, and I think there are a couple of pretty funny spots.

If you're totally unfamiliar with WWE and the Santino character, that's okay--you should be able to catch on pretty quickly. Anyway, check it out, enjoy, and if you're so inclined, watch it 10,000 times or so.

: )

*waves hand* This is not the post you were looking for...

Today's post was written by your favourite blog sidekick, Neko-chan. This was supposed to be a detailed account of her and Nathaniel's adventure to see L'arc~en~Ciel perform at Madison Square Garden, a long-overdue guest post; however, due to Neko-chan being a lazy over-sleeping slacker, this will instead be a short spotlight about the anime series "To."

Friday was Star Wars Day ("May the Fourth be with you"), and I decided I wanted to do more than just wear a licensed t-shirt to celebrate. I have seen the movies countless times, and didn't feel like watching them again on my own (Nathaniel was away on a fishing trip), so instead I kept with the "sci-fi spirit" of the holiday and curled up with a different space-themed show from our Netflix queue, "To."

Released in 2009 by Avex, and directed by Fumihiko SORI (who also did "Vexille" and the latest version of "Appleseed"), the anime series "To" is comprised of two 40-minute episodes set within the backdrop of outer space. The opening music by Tetsuya Takahashi is reminiscent of Yoko Kanno's "Ghost in the Shell," electronica with tribal-ethereal female voices, and the animation is completely computer-generated. I was especially impressed by the cg for the space station and the environments, it was some of the most realistic-looking design work I had ever seen, but something about the cg for the characters was a bit off-putting. It was like a cross between the rotoscoped-over actors of "Waking Life" and a very pretty video game cutscene. Furthermore, unlike the generically beautiful 18-25 year old characters in most anime, "To" actually attempts to bring in a bit of realism by giving its characters wrinkles and other signs of aging and individuality, however the animation still has a "painted" quality to it, so the result was that they looked more like well-sculpted dolls than people, and the juxtaposition of the figures against hyper-realistic backgrounds actually makes them seem even more photoshopped and unrealistic than they would have otherwise.

Both episodes are set in the same world, however there is no cross-over between the characters, and it is difficult to say how they relate to each other in terms of timeline. The first episode centers around Dan, the captain of a space station that acts as the main supply line of goods between earth and its moon colony (the whole station is designed as a cannon that shoots supply crates through space), and Maria, the leader of a deep-space mining operation who has just returned to earth after a 15 year expedition and is stopping at the station to repair and refuel before delivering her cargo of extremely valuable proton energy.

This episode touches on a variety of space-related subjects including earth vs. colony tensions, space terrorism, space exploration and ownership rights, and with how human relationships have adapted to the conditions of space travel (truly long-distance relationships, crew polyamory, and age gaps due to cryofreezing). I was intrigued by the world that was portrayed, however my one problem with this episode was the English translation. It was a bit confusing as to what the nature of the relationship was supposed to be between Dan and Maria, and I actually had to Google it afterwards to understand exactly what the flashbacks and insinuations had meant. 

*SPOILER*
*
*
*
*
*
*



They first make it appear as if Maria is Dan's wife who left him and his son, however in actuality she is his mother who abandoned him to seek her own dreams. She left earth 45 years ago on the first of three 15-year expeditions. Each time she finishes an excursion she stops back by earth to catch up with Dan, so it has been 15 years since they have last spoken. During that time, the earth has been plunged into war, his son has died in the fighting, and his wife has passed on, but Maria has been traveling in cryofreeze for most of that time and has missed these events. She has only aged a total of 6 years since she first left earth.



*
*
*
*
*
*
*End Spoiler* 

The second episode is much more straightforward, complete, and cohesive than the first. It involves mediation talks between two colonies on a survey planet, the Eurasian colony and the European-American colony, who are fighting over resources and terraforming rights on the planet's surface. It does a good job of showing how national feuds don't end at the border to space, but are carried on within the prejudices of the people. As one character states "Humans can start a war anywhere."

This episode also raises some interesting points about alien life forms: What constitutes sentient life? Do humans have the right to terraform without considering the local ecosystems? Is it irresponsible to destroy something before understanding whether it is truly a threat? Do humans really have a lasting impact on the worlds they contact?

Woven throughout this story is a subplot of lovers caught on opposite sides of the conflict. Additionally, there is an overarching theme of "symbiotic versus parasitic relationships" that carries throughout the episode, and which ties all of the events together. I liked that there was no wasted exposition, everything that is introduced comes back full circle at the end - a bit predictably and heavy-handed perhaps, but in the same way that a short campfire story might be.

Overall, I give "To" 8 wookies out of 10. I enjoyed the visuals, even despite the figure-background disconnect. I enjoyed the soundtrack. The voice-acting was some of the best dubbing I have heard in a long time. I enjoyed that these episodes made me think about the issues that were raised, and that this OVA reminded me of longer anime series such as Planetes, or of book series such as the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, both of which deal with the socio-political aspects of space travel and colonization in a semi-realistic manner. Also, in looking up more information about the show, I learned that this was based on a 10-volume Japanese comic book series called "2001 Nights" written by Yukinobu Hoshino, a comic book series that Nathaniel just happened to pick up last year, and which is just sitting on our bookshelves waiting for me to read.

So whether you are an anime fan, a cg fan, or a comic book fan, I recommend taking a chance on this show. It is short and doesn't require a huge time investment, and it is available on Netflix or DVD, so you have no excuse not to exfand your horizons.

The Best Laid Plans

This post was all planned out and (nearly) ready to go, when everything blew up. And, when I say, “nearly ready to go,” I mean, of course, that I had a plan as to what I was going to write about—mostly because last night was the Season Two finale of AMC’s The Walking Dead.

But then all kinds of stuff happened in the office, and a slow Monday morning turned into something else entirely.

Things have calmed down for the moment, though, so I’m gonna try talking about last night’s Walking Dead before I get pulled into something else.

The episode featured what was probably the most intense zombie attack sequence, certainly in the show’s history, but also in quite a while when it comes to horror movies. The action was non-stop, and the show ramped up the pressure on its main characters.

The promos leading up to the show hammered home the point that there were only 13 survivors remaining, and MINOR SPOILER ALERT, not all of those 13 made their way out.

And, for once in a horror story, the deaths weren't completely gratuitous, and instead made quite a bit of sense.

I plan to write about the episode at length later this week, in a spoiler-rific post, so stay tuned!

Exfanding Review: Walking Dead Season 2, Episode 12

As I’ve done pretty much every Monday over the course of this season, today I’d like to talk about the latest episode of Walking Dead, on AMC. And, as usual, there will be MAJOR SPOILERS if you haven’t yet seen the episode.

And, unlike past SPOILER WARNINGS on this site, this time I plan to COMPLETELY RUIN LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE IF YOU HAVE NOT YET WATCHED IT, so please take heed and come back after you’ve seen the show.

Okay? Okay, here we go with the Dash Marks of Doom...

-- -- -- -- --

-- -- -- -- --

-- -- -- -- --

-- -- -- -- --

-- -- -- -- --

-- -- -- -- --

-- -- -- -- --

Okay, that should do it.

On to the Good Stuff.

Last night, in the penultimate episode of Season Two, the Thing that all readers of Kirkman’s graphic novel have been waiting for finally happened. And, while it didn’t happen exactly as it went down in the book, I think it worked quite well.

Of course, I’m talking about the death of Shane, a pretty major event that happened almost immediately in the book. One of my favorite characters on the show, Shane brought a tension to the group that is going to be tough to replace.

His death at the hands of Rick will have repercussions with the other members, sure, and he’ll eventually need to explain his actions, but that constant—and sometimes terrifying— friction between the two male leads will be missed.

Luckily (for viewers, at least), Shane’s death wasn’t the biggest shock of last night’s episode.

Instead, it was revealed that it’s not just those bitten by “walkers” who are coming back to “life.” This is by far the biggest diversion from the book in a season filled with diversions. This adds a completely different dynamic to the show, and to the world these characters (try their best to) live in.

From the clips we’ve seen of next week’s Season Two finale, it appears that AMC is going to give viewers a 90-minute assault, à la Night of the Living Dead.

Seriously, did you see how many zombies were shambling out of the woods just before the credits rolled? Next week is going to be intense, and I think it’s pretty clear that the cast going into the episode will not be the same as the cast coming out of the episode.

While Shane’s death may have been a nice little swerve from the books, this new twist with who can and can’t come back from the dead is interesting and it opens things up to a more “TV-friendly” zombie show. And, by that I mean, with more zombies out there, it’s more visually interesting for viewers.

So, Shane’s death—while not as shocking as it was in the book—still lived up to the hype that the series has built up around it these past couple of months. And what’s to come seems to put what’s already happened to shame in terms of ratcheting up the violence and horror.

So I, for one, am quite excited to see where things go.

I will say, though, that I'm going to enjoy this season a whole lot more on DVD, knowing what's going to happen before it actually does. Because for the only time, ever, with a TV series, I find my stomach in knots during most of the season.

And that, dear readers, is how horror should be done.

Thoughts on The Walking Dead

If you aren’t completely caught up on AMC’s The Walking Dead, then please stop reading this post as there will be MAJOR SPOILERS about last night’s episode.

Further, If you're not at least 60 issues into the comic book series, please stop reading, as I'm going to talk about storylines in the books, as well.

Just to drive that point home...

SPOILERS AHEAD!!

--

--

--

--

--

--

Okay. Now that that's out of the way, let's talk Walking Dead. There's been plenty of criticism from comics fans (online, mostly) about how the TV series has diverted from the comic book series in terms of story.

Towards the end of last season and into this season especially, we've seen a pretty radical departure from the comic book storyline.

And, I have to say, I'm cool with it.

See, I like not knowing what’s going to happen next. Sure, major characters and major beats from the comic are there, and there have been moments when readers of Kirkman’s book have known exactly what to expect at certain points in the series.

Still, that didn't do anything to lessen the tension or to take me out of the story. If anything, knowing something bad is going to happen is worse than not knowing it's coming.

Hitchcock's "Bomb Theory" springs to mind here.

But I think as long as there are roots in the comic book series—and there most definitely are in AMC’s adaptation—I’m good with whatever the TV writers have planned.

The biggest diversion from the comics comes in the form of the incredibly entertaining character, Shane. In the book, Shane doesn’t make it past the first six issues. By the time the comic book group gets to the farm, Shane is long dead and long forgotten.

But in the TV show, Shane is still around.

And thank goodness for that, because he’s the most interesting character in the series. The tension that’s built up between him and Rick is priceless, as the two actors play off one another incredibly well. Dare I say it, but I actually prefer having Shane around.

Now, knowing Shane’s comic book counterpart’s fate makes every seemingly innocuous moment between him and Carl much more suspenseful for Walking Dead readers. I get uncomfortable every time those two are on screen together. But that’s not a bad thing.

This is a horror story we're talking about, after all.

And it seems the series will divert even further from the book, especially after last night's episode and the shocking death in the final moments of the show.

I say "shocking" because of where in the story it happened. For readers of the book, while the character's fate might have been the same, the "where" and the "when" took me completely by surprise.

By shifting timing around, the writers managed to take an expected death and make it shocking. So much so, in fact, that I needed to recover from watching it before I went to sleep.

Somehow, AMC is pulling off the perfect non-adaptation adaptation. By diverging from the comic at key points in the show, the writers and producers have created something that's both similar to Kirkman's monster hit book and completely different.

Well done, I say. Well done.

Sunday Spotlight: The Dick Tracy Show

With my fondness for older movies and the sheer amount of anime in our Instant Queue, it was only a matter of time before Netflix began suggesting the only logical combination of the two: 1960s cartoon shows based on comic strips. Now I've been reunited with a show I'm pretty sure I either loved as a kid or had no idea existed: The Dick Tracy Show.

Just imagine an announcer boldly proclaiming, "THE DICK TRACY SHOW!!!" I love this show already.

My initial reaction was, "Whoa! I didn't know they made this!", but after watching a few episodes, the show began to feel familiar. Perhaps I actually had flipped through it a few times growing up, or perhaps it was just the strong similarities to The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show, which I can confirm I watched as a youngster.

I needed to do a brief bit of research to determine whether Dick Tracy was supposed to remind me of Rocky & Bullwinkle. It seems Chester Gould's famous detective stories went from looking like this...

...to this:

Now, I've never been a Dick Tracy fan, but that's only due to lack of exposure—I've got a brick of a book on my shelf that collects all the earliest Dick Tracy stories, but I have yet to read it; my wife owns the 1990 Dick Tracy film starring Warren Beatty on VHS, but I haven't watched it. Still, I'm fairly certain that Go Go Gomez, Joe Jitsu, Hemlock Holmes, and Heap O'Calorie were never a part of Gould's original hero pantheon.

The Dick Tracy Show also hails from a time when racial insensitivity on national television was more easily accepted (or tolerated, at least) by the general public. For a modern audience (and indeed for portions of the audience at the time), the heroes are potentially offensive parodies and stereotypes.

Go Go Gomez is a blend of Looney Tunes' controvery-sparking Speedy Gonzales and his cousin Slowpoke Rodriguez; Joe Jitsu are hardry poriticarry collect; and Heap O'Calorie is named Heap O'Calorie, for cryin' out loud. Though, a quick Internet search reveals that no one in particular cares if we perpetuate Heap's "fat people are inherently funny" stereotype. Hemlock Holmes is another "safe" character, because apparently Americans won their right to make fun of the Brits in the war for independence. Heap and Hemlock are bumbling fools and also obvious stereotypes, yet Gomez and Jitsu get all the flack for being cultural caricatures; never mind the fact that Gomez and Jitsu are the most hardworking and effective detectives in Tracy's squad.

It's completely understandable to be offended by something; however, I feel there's been a historical trend of overcensorship in American entertainment. The segments with Gomez and Jitsu have been entirely cut out of certain airings of the show. Funny how we can target a few traits of an individual, blast the individual for misrepresenting an entire group of people, and ignore the fact that we're making assumptions about an entire group of people based on the selected traits of one individual.

I'd like us as a culture to get to a point where we either are more aware of what might inadvertently offend our audience (and adjust the content accordingly), or are willing to address whatever is offending us by raising our children to know how to deal with it, simply shutting off the television when we don't like what we see, and channeling our reactions into meaningful discourse with the people responsible when possible. At least in the entertainment realm, outright censorship hurts our freedom of expression and blinds us to the fact that these issues really exist.

Once again, this goes back to my maxim that it's not so much what you do as how and why you do it; the purpose of The Dick Tracy Show is not to offend or propagate racial stereotypes (though it may end up doing that anyhow), but to entertain kids with a cast of colorful characters, all the while making a buck or two.

You have to give credit to the people responsible for crafting a formula that is both cost-effective and appealing to youngsters who don't know any better. Pick just about any of the 100+ four-minute episodes, and your show will proceed as follows (with no or minimal deviation):

- Dick Tracy finishes a call at his desk from the commissioner.

- Dick Tracy calls on [pick one: Go Go Gomez / Joe Jitsu / Hemlock Holmes / Heap O'Calorie] to arrest [pick one: Pruneface and Itchy / Flattop and B-B Eyes / The Brow and Oodles / The Mole and Sketch Paree / Mumbles and Stooge Viller / Cheater Gunsmoke]

- The selected hero springs into action from their [pick one: hammock, fancy car, police station, neighborhood produce stand]

- Dick Tracy proceeds to do nothing until the last 30 seconds of the episode.

OR

- Dick Tracy proceeds to help with the case by immediately getting incapacitated, doing nothing until the last 30 seconds of the episode

- Shenanigans between the hero du jour and the villain(s) du jour

- Dick Tracy arrives in the last 30 seconds to punk the hero's arrest

- Fade to black

After a few seasons of watching the cast of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine run through the exact same cave on dozens of different planets, I've developed an eye for reused sets, and that translates into an eye for stock footage as well. The Dick Tracy Show successfully manages to recycle at least 25% of the animation in each episode, and the abundance of catch-phrases reduces the work of the scriptwriters (and possibly the voice actors, when old sound clips can be reused) by about 5-10%. These aren't scientifically collected numbers, mind you, but I'd be surprised if they weren't close to being accurate.

There's a certain charm when repetition is used skillfully. The Dick Tracy Show doesn't always demonstrate this, but I usually looked forward to the inevitable moment when the hero held up his hand, shouting, "Hold everything!" and stopping time long enough to contact Dick Tracy with a status update on his current preposterous predicament.

Other instances of repetition, such as Hemlock Holmes' frequent quip about "popping a copper's topper" whenever his hat got shot and deflated, were funny the first time and a bit grating all subsequent times. Another catch phrase, Go Go Gomez's sentence endcap of, "I theenk" actually went from being obnoxious to being rather amusing after my wife started to make announcements like, "I'm going to go get some ice cream, I theenk." I'm convinced that The Dick Tracy Show is more fun to have watched than it is to actually watch it, I theenk.

As best as I can tell, Netflix had the complete series available, though I didn't get to see it all—whether due to contract expiration or other reasons, the show disappeared on March 1. Discovering this a few days in advance (which, of course, was only a few days after I discovered the show existed at all), I made it a point to watch at least two or three of the larger "episodes" (which each contained about five of the regular four-minute episodes) every night until the deadline. While this approach works fine for many other television shows, The Dick Tracy Show loses some of its appeal when marathonned—and I'm not sure whether that was because all the repetition started to get to me, or whether the episodes simply declined in quality over time.

The first few larger "episodes" were wonderfully entertaining. I'm a sucker for clever puns, creative slapstick, and wacky character designs, and there was an element of surprise about which hero would take the case and which villains they'd be chasing that helped to build anticipation for each new story. Then there came a point where I'd sigh when Hemlock Holmes was recruited for the fifth case in a row, or when Stooge and Mumbles became the only villains the writers remembered they could use. The jokes started falling flat, and it felt more and more like the people behind the show weren't expecting the show to run for more than a handful of episodes—too much filler, and too little in the way of novelty. Maybe I'm asking too much for a kids' show.

The day before the show disappeared from Netflix, I skipped ahead to the last two "episodes," having previously been watching in chronological order. Aside from this completionist's wrenching gut reaction to watching things out of sequence, I found there to be absolutely nothing different other than the addition of Heap O'Calorie somewhere along the line. That, and the stories were, for the most part, relatively interesting again. I noted a different assortment of writers, something I've learned to pay more attention to over the years.

In addition to anything I've already mentioned, what really struck me about the show was the focus on gathering evidence. It is repeatedly stressed that the heroes need to have proper evidence to arrest the criminals. I'm not sure whether that's a feature of the original comic or something specific to the show, but it was almost surreal for a children's show to frequently let villains be on friendly or teasing terms with the good guys until they had anything tangible to peg them as crooks.

Also, the villains are amusing to me. They're not real adversaries with devious master plans; they're just regular people with bizarre deformities, awkward habits, and aspirations of stealing all the pennies from the penny arcade.

Overall, even when I wasn't as enthusiastic about the show, I enjoyed the chance to get caught up on a little slice of American animation that's faded into obscurity. The voice acting was generally very good, and I appreciated the clever moments (like two villains getting scooped up by the re-racking machine in a bowling alley, shouting, "We've been framed!") as well as the variety of characters and capers.

Now I'm more curious than ever about, shall we say, a more canonical Dick Tracy—anything that wouldn't be better titled as The Gomez-Jitsu-Holmes-O'Calorie and Oh Also Probably Dick Tracy Show.

Exfanding Review: Comic Book Men

So the mid-season premiere of Walking Dead and the premiere of the new reality series, Comic Book Men, have both come and gone.

Walking Dead absolutely (excuse the pun) killed it, ratings-wise, raking in over 8 million viewers on a night that was dominated by the Grammy Awards (which pulled in close to 40 million viewers). For its part, Comic Book Men did quite well following the zombie phenomenon Sunday night with 2 million viewers.

Reviews of the show, however, have been a mixed bag.

That’s to be expected, I’d say, and while I really enjoyed watching the series premiere and I liked the format of the show, there were times when the action dragged a bit.

But as an introductory episode to a new show, I think Sunday night’s premiere served the series well and I think the show is going to pick up from there.

Part Pawn Stars and part Clerks, Comic Book Men is, admittedly, exactly my kind of thing. So I’m biased, and while I can understand some of the critiques I’ve read (“there are no likeable characters”; “it propagates the ‘comic book guy’ stereotype”), I knew what to expect going in.

The guys on the show are funny, and a lot of their humor revolves around making fun of each other—they’re close friends, and, frankly, that’s what close friends do.

In that sense, Comic Book Men is one of the most “real” of the reality shows on TV—you get the feeling that these guys act this way towards each other with or without the cameras running. And, sure, some of the insults can seem mean-spirited, but if you listen to any of the multitude of View Askew podcasts out there, you’ll know that these guys are actually good friends and they spend a lot of time together.

The biggest surprise for me, actually, was just how much they focused on comic books—I honestly thought the store and the comics would be an afterthought, but in the first episode at least, that stuff was right up front in flashing lights.

So much so, in fact, that I’m not sure how much of a mainstream audience this show can bring in.

I applaud the show for going this route, though, and I will definitely be back for next week's episode.

Wrestling with the Facts

As you may have noticed if you've been following the blog these past few months, my blogging buddy Alex has been writing about wrestling a bit more that usual (read: at all). Traditionally, I'm the one to foist my fandoms on Alex (as was the case with Star Wars and Firefly), and traditionally, Alex is the one who misses the boat when it's his turn to make me watch Kevin Smith films (which I'm still waiting on, by the way). So, I figured I'd take it upon myself to exfand my horizons.

Between my grandfather and my middle school friends, I received enough of an exposure to know who some of the big names were in wrestling--Andre the Giant, Hulk Hogan, Sgt. Slaughter, The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Undertaker, Big Show, Triple H, etc.--but I was always on the sidelines of the fandom. I'd seen a few matches here and there, and had sat in on plenty of conversations, but there were still huge gaps in my education. Names like CM Punk and Mick Foley meant absolutely nothing to me when Alex brought them up in posts over the past year.

Poking around Netflix yielded exactly the kind of learning tools I'd been hoping for: WWE: Top 50 Superstars of All Time and OMG! The Top 50 Incidents in WWE History. Learn who the major players are, and then learn about the biggest events that have defined their universe--just like I've been doing with comics. So far this has proven to be an effective way of surveying fandoms, and my 4-1/2 hours of immersion in all things wrestling was no different.

Top 50 Superstars was interesting, celebrating fifty of the most popular, successful, controversial, and influential professional wrestlers from the past six decades, as chosen by the WWE's 2010 roster.

There was Killer Kowalski with his murderously large hands; The Fabulous Moolah, who, in addition to having a fantastic name, stayed involved in the business for decades; Ric Flair, who's exactly as flamboyant as his name suggests; Mr. Perfect, who did this incredibly impressive--and perfect--pencil twirl on live TV; "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase, who perfectly embodied the excess of the 1980s; Bob Backlund, the guy who held the championship title forever; and Kane, who's just plain scary.

I was impressed by the grace, style, creativity, and skill of the likes of Eddie Guerrero, Rey Misterio, Randy Orton, John Cena, and Edge. I was fascinated by the parts that Gorilla Monsoon, Iron Sheik, and Gorgeous George played in the history and culture of wrestling. I was amused by the strong personalities of Rick Rude and Rowdy Roddy Piper, and charmed by Junkyard Dog, "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka, and, yes, Mick Foley. After a segment on Shawn Michaels, preceded by snippets of interviews with CM Punk (among others) about these superstars, I was finally able to return to this post and this post and get all of Alex's references.

Actually, I'm getting ahead of myself. I still had OMG! The Top 50 Incidents in WWE History to watch before that could happen. Superstars left me with that warm feeling of, "this is a cool fandom; I could get into this." OMG!, while informative, left me with that warm feeling in my stomach of being violently ill.

It started with the theme music: Some rapper shouting "OH MY GOD!" and nothing but "OH MY GOD!" for what felt like a whole sixty seconds (which, in reality, was probably closer to only a minute). I expected this grating introduction to be followed by a show similar to Superstars--a comprehensive look at the most outrageous, unexpected, and significant moments of the past six decades of wrestling history. Instead, I got everything Stone Cold Steve Austin ever did throughout his entire career, plus that one time in 1984 where Roddy Piper smashed a coconut on Jimmy Snuka's head.

To top it all off, each of the 50 incidents was introduced with "OH MY GOD!" and the same ten or twenty seconds of obnoxious vamping from the song. I was ready to pull a Tim White by the end of it, and the fact that I even know what I'm referencing somewhat disgusts me.

I get that these were supposed to be the most shocking moments in wrestling, and I freely acknowledge that I'm a little sensitive about certain matters and a little squeamish about others. I was on board with anything that was extra theatrical for the sake of looking cool--like Jeff Hardy getting caught in the explosion of his own pyrotechnics, or Brock Lesnar collapsing the entire ring with a superplex, which was awesome--but so many of these incidents were just disturbing to me.

Impaling Randy Orton on a floor full of thumbtacks? Humiliating the tiny Haiti Kid by hoisting him up and shaving his head? Destroying aisle after aisle of a grocery store just to beat somebody up? Kidnapping the chairman's daughter and forcing her into some kind of unholy marriage rite? Driving away from a funeral you've interrupted with the coffin dragging from your truck?

These things look innocuous and even slightly silly in writing, but they made my skin crawl when watching them. Whether or not they were staged is beside the point; I was floored by the number of children I saw in the crowds--small children, at that--and glorifying these ideas with that kind of audience is downright twisted.

After watching the Superstars show, I had a debate with my wife--she argued that wrestling was senselessly violent, and I argued that it's really no different than any other violence taken out of context. Each of these characters in the ring has their own motives and backstories that are driving them to hit Jimmy Snucka with a coconut; The Dark Knight looks pretty senseless, too, if you only see the part where that dude gets stabbed through the hand with a pencil. The violence itself might still be distasteful to you, but it's unfair to judge it as senseless without the proper context.

After watching OMG!, I wasn't sure where I stood in that argument anymore.

The wrestling I remember from what I caught on television was good old-fashioned beatings. Some theatrics, to be sure, but nothing more outrageous than swinging around a steel chair or slamming someone against the wall of a cage--it's all blunt force trauma anyhow, whether you're using your hands or falling on people from the rafters. Barbed wire on a baseball bat? Well, maybe that's just me being squeamish.

What makes this so difficult for me--and what makes wrestling the spectacle it is--is how tough it can be to determine exactly what's real and what's just for show. There's a visceral thrill in the uncertainty of it all. If somebody gets tackled on a football field, you know the kind of injuries to expect. If somebody gets tortured in a movie, you can be confident it's all just make-believe. If "Macho Man" Randy Savage gets bitten by a snake in a wrestling ring, your imagination runs wild with possibilities, foiling all attempts to properly rationalize what's just happened.

Even with all the stomach-churning moments I endured throughout OMG!, I'm glad to have had the exposure; this blog was founded on the principle of promoting an understanding between geeks, and this is one fandom where I've been out of the loop for some time, and to a bigger degree than I ever realized. Am I an expert yet? By no means. But I finally understand what it means to be the "Heartbreak Kid," and I think that counts for something.

Exfanding Radar: Comic Book Men

Tonight, Walking Dead premieres on AMC. And, while that is zombie-shamblingly awesome, it's what comes on after Walking Dead that I'm really excited about.

Now, don't get me wrong--I love AMC's adaptation of the zombie neo-classic. But, tonight at 10:00 ET on that same network, the new reality series, Comic Book Men, will premiere.

Produced by Kevin Smith and starring View Askewniverse favorites Walt Flanagan and Bryan Johnson (better known to Mallrats fans as Fanboy and Steve-Dave), Comic Book Men promises to be an interesting cross between Antiques Roadshow and, well, I'm not quite sure what else, actually.

As a fan of the podcast, Tell 'Em Steve-Dave! (which stars Flanagan and Johnson), I can tell you this--when those guys get together, it's going to be funny. And cynical. And awesome. And, dare I say, even pretty cool.

A comic book show that's going to make comic book people look like the heroes? Yes, please.

And as far as lead-ins go, Comic Book Men has a good one with Walking Dead and its 8 million viewers. Here's hoping a sizable number of those viewers stick around to give the new series a shot, because I think these guys are going to be endearing both to comics people and to the mainstream.

So give Comic Book Men a chance, and let us know what you think of the show tomorrow. I'm sure there will be a review of some kind from me sometime in the near future. Probably.

Right after I finish up that whole 2011 Year in Review thingy.

Right.

Happy Sunday, everyone.

Exfanding Review: Fullmetal Alchemist

A fair warning: Here be spoilers.

A few times this month I've referenced Fullmetal Alchemist, the anime series about two young boys in search of the Philosopher's Stone, the fabled red rock that will allow an alchemist to ignore the law of equivalent exchange: that you can only get as much as you put in. Ed and Al (whose names together form a clever anagram for "lead," the substance historical alchemists sought to transform into gold) aren't even tall enough to ride Space Mountain at Disney World when their mother dies, and with their father long gone, they do what any grade-school kids would do: use the sophisticated and forbidden alchemy practice of human transmutation to resurrect their dead mother.

There's only one catch: equivalent exchange. What's a fair trade for a human life? Ed finds out the hard way that it costs an arm and a leg, quite literally. Al loses his entire body, but is saved from total annihilation when, in desperation, his brother's alchemy anchors Al's soul to a nearby suit of armor. What do their sacrifices gain them? A horrific imitation of their mother that dies shortly after its creation.

Fast forward several years. The boys have realized their mistake; now they just want their real bodies back. Al remains a huge walking suit of armor. Ed now has mechanical replacement limbs, and still isn't tall enough to ride Space Mountain. So they set off on a quest for the mythical stone that can undo the damage without requiring two more limbs and another body to do it.

Along the way, they encounter others who have experimented with human transmutation, and others in search of the Philosopher's Stone. The interplay of motives and actions between characters makes for an intriguing series with plenty of plot twists, the characters are intriguing and memorable, and there's enough humor to keep the heavy subject matter from becoming too overwhelming. Still, with less than ten episodes to go until the end of the series, my enthusiasm for the show is gradually giving way to a sort of mild depression that I'm ready to shake off.

Characters continually go to disturbing lengths to achieve their goals, and unhappy events (and flashbacks to unhappy events) are commonplace--yet these aren't responsible for the gloom that's been setting in. I can appreciate that these characters and these situations make the story as engaging as it is; we could still have a good story without anyone ever blending their dog with their innocent daughter to create a new creature, but the psychological impact that anyone would ever do such a thing gives an incredible amount of depth to the story and the characters.

I think that's just it: I can handle the plot, but what's weighing on me most is what the plot is saying about the characters.

Look at any character who's after the Philosopher's Stone. Look at any character who's tried to bring back the dead. Though there are still a number of motives to be uncovered in these last few episodes, there's a recurring theme: these people cannot let go of the past.

I will be the first to admit that I live happily in the past--I play retro video games, I hold off on new technology until it's old, and I wax nostalgic about the joy and simplicity of days gone by. Yet I embrace the present, look forward to the future, and am not so firmly rooted in the past that I let it consume my every thought and action. The characters in Fullmetal Alchemist are driven to reclaim what was lost or what should have been, reliving the past until things turn out right.

The boy seeking the restoration of his lost limbs, despite being told repeatedly how beneficial his mechanical ones are...

The man who has devoted his life to avenging his dead brother and fallen people...

The husband who creates living puppets to remind him of his late wife...

The military officer whose ambition to move up in the ranks is fueled by his fear of being ordered to repeat his mistakes...

Even here, the principle of equivalent exchange applies: instead of building a future, these characters are using the present to fix the past. They're giving up one to focus on the other. It's sad to see the tragedy that has befallen these characters; it's depressing to see them dragging themselves backward when the only way for their wounds to truly heal is by moving forward.

I dig that I'm invested enough in these characters and their world for this to be making an impact on me. But it's time to move on. For as much as I enjoy the animation style, the action sequences, the characters, and the thought-provoking and humorous dialogue, it's time for someone to get what they want. No matter the resolution--happy, sad, or none at all--I'll take it. There's a handful of episodes left and plenty more anime out there I want to experience; gotta move out from under this cloud if I'm going to see it all.

Onward to the Next Adventure

With all the creative input I've been receiving the past few weeks, I've been starting to formulate my next Dungeons & Dragons adventure in my head.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind has begun to break my mind out of the rut of "hobbits in huts" with surprising locations such as a city comprised of organic shell-looking buildings, rocky stretches of land plagued by blinding red dust storms, and a sort of quarantined area blocked off by towering walls of ghostly energy.

I've been getting ideas for villains from the likes of Fullmetal Alchemist and Bunraku--villains who are formidable in their own right, but downright devastating when working as a team. Tangled reminded me of how much I enjoy creating memorable side characters and injecting a measure of humor into my adventures.

Nearly everything I've been watching, playing, or reading recently has triggered some thought or another about what to throw at my adventurers the next time I run a campaign. Now I just need to figure out where to start.

Literally, where to start.

My first campaign world was the one I inherited from my first Dungeon Master, who decided he'd like to take a break from running the world to play in it instead. I took on the mantle of DM and carried on the quest from where he left off, making his world my own. This world was the setting of every quest I ran in college, its history deepening and its borders expanding on a weekly basis. I made it a point to keep detailed maps and thorough records of world lore for the sake of preserving continuity, but I found that I had written myself into more than a few corners. There were ways out of these corners, to be sure, but I already had enough inspiration for a brand-new campaign setting to be able to let my first world rest comfortably after graduation.

Unlike the old world, the new world was to be planned out farther in advance than a full course schedule would allow, with the players' actions significantly shaping the direction of the world. Virtually every encounter was to be a first contact scenario--the quests were to be set early enough in the world's history that most races had never heard of one another. Magic and other planes had yet to be discovered. Everything the characters did would have an impact somewhere down the line, and there would be forces at work from the very beginning that wouldn't reveal themselves until someone reached Epic-level status and could take them on.

I got sloppy with the record-keeping. I rushed a few adventures out the door and completely blew the opportunity to set things up as I wanted. My world map was a mess. I was so focused on the big picture that I overlooked so many of the smaller details that framed the big picture.

Now I'm here, thinking about where to hold this new quest I've got in mind.

There's the first world, well-established and rich in history. There's the second world, still young enough to be reshaped to better fit my original purpose for it. Any quest I could come up with would easily have a home in one of these worlds, yet the more I mull it over, the more I want to take a crack at a third world.

If this were anything other than a tabletop roleplaying game, I'd be getting annoyed at myself right now for threatening to reboot my franchise again. Yet this isn't a matter of profit, creative poverty, or desire to breathe new life into a dying series. I want to take the lessons I've learned from both worlds and apply them in the creation of something that draws on the best elements of each: a malleable game world with a bit of history behind it, a bit of subtle hinting toward future quests, and plenty to explore in the here and now.

Besides, I never really abandoned the first world, even after creating the second one. The two were always linked, though you didn't hear that from me. How they were linked was a secret I planned to reveal to my players toward the end of their adventures in the second world, and nothing says there's not room for yet another world to be linked somehow. A fresh start doesn't have to mean I'm giving up on the past; all it means is that I've got new stories to tell.

I think it's time to start putting some ideas down on paper.

Creative Input Overdrive

Over the course of the last few months, I have effectively doubled the number of ongoing entertainment projects I have. Normally I keep the numbers in check--two books, two hour-long TV shows, a handful of half-hour TV shows, two or three video games, and the occasional movie or trade paperback. I've got some free time again, so it's possible to juggle everything and not forget where I left off.

I've mentioned before some of the shows and games my wife and I have been working through--Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Fullmetal Alchemist, and LEGO Batman, along with The Simpsons, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Sam & Max Save the World, to name a few.

At the same time, I've been playing through Sparkster, Kirby & the Amazing Mirror, and The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind on my own. I've also been keeping up with four different books (which I haven't done such a practice was required for school!), including my first James Bond novel, The Facts of Death.
Between Netflix, Christmas, the honeymoon, and the Great Comic Book Adventure we never talked about, there's plenty of new material in the house to keep me busy for a while. On top of all that, there's been a Space Quest renaissance thanks to the release of three long-awaited fangames over the course of a few weeks, two of which caught me totally by surprise.

Imagine that one of your favorite game series has been officially dead for about as long as Duke Nukem Forever was in development, and that the fan community has been more or less dormant for about a decade (aside from rumors that a few fans might eventually finish a remake of the first sequel)...and then suddenly there's not one but three new games to play. Of course we can wait a little longer to unpack the boxes in the guest bedroom.

It's refreshing and energizing to have such variety, and to have the freedom to marathon one thing or bounce back and forth between a number of other things whenever the mood suits us. I'm excited to return to my side projects that have been on hold--all this creative input is giving me some great ideas, and I'm relaxed enough to dedicate however much time is needed without getting too anxious about anything else that's on my plate.

Netflixin'

I've already written about my resistance to modern technology, but it's worth reiterating that it generally takes me anywhere from a few months to nearly a decade before The Next Big Thing seems safe, desirable, reasonably priced, and/or at all necessary. Such was the case with Netflix, which up until late 2011 was (in my mind) some online and order-by-mail DVD service that sounded like more trouble and expense than it was worth.

I had a local library with an impressive movie collection. I collected all the TV shows I cared to watch (read: Star Trek) on DVD. I had no real need for Netflix. That didn't stop me from being fascinated by it when my wife and I visited my family for an extended Turkey Day stay.

Netflix's on-demand streaming media service had been popular with my friends for some time, yet despite several exposures to Netflix at their homes, I had never gotten the opportunity to poke around on my own for something to watch. During my long Thanksgiving break this past year, I had access to my brother-in-law's Netflix account and plenty of time in which to watch such movies as Toy Story 3 and Dragnet. I'm still curious about that which is newfangled, even if I don't immediately embrace it, so I relished the chance to flood my brother-in-law's Instant Queue with Lethal Weapon, Airplane!, and other essential viewing he'd missed out on.

Downloading Life Force and various Gradius games during my Konami kick had warmed me up to the idea of digital distribution, and it wasn't long before Netflix won me over entirely. Buying anything on DVD was becoming a costly endeavor (both in terms of money and shelf space), and my unpredictable schedule had discouraged me from borrowing movies from the library that needed to be returned or renewed every few days. Despite some glaring omissions in the catalog (e.g.: Weekend at Bernie's), Netflix seemed like the perfect solution to my ongoing viewing dilemmas.

Obviously my family was paying attention to my wide-eyed stare and gaping mouth as I skimmed through Netflix's massive library, because a month later I had a free subscription waiting for me under the Christmas tree.

I was excited. Now I could watch RoboCop 1-3 and other films I wanted to try out before admitting I owned them on DVD.

My wife was not so enthusiastic.


Her objection: By watching movies on Netflix instead of buying DVDs, we're effectively taking away money from the creators.

My response: By watching terrible movies on Netflix and buying DVDs of the good ones, we're supporting the creators we like and not wasting any money on the ones we don't.


Her objection: Video rental stores used to be a fun place to hang out with friends, and Netflix is putting them all out of business.

My response: My friends just deliberated over which movie to rent until it was too late to watch anything anyhow. Besides, we haven't had friends or video stores since, like, 2006. (I kid--I saw an ironically named West Coast Video in central Pennsylvania in 2007).


Nevertheless, I went ahead and set up the Netflix account, downloaded the Netflix Channel on my Nintendo Wii, and unwittingly left my wife alone with the Wii Remote for a few minutes. When I returned, I heard a gasp and found my Instant Queue, completely empty just moments ago, filled with anime.

"Wow, Clannad? And Baccano! They have all of Gurren Lagann! Ooh, I've heard about Highschool of the Dead...wait, I haven't seen Bleach yet, either..."


Her objection: There's not enough time in the day to watch all this anime! My response: You're absolutely right, dear. Netflix is a terrible thing.

First Week Recap

And just like that, it's Sunday morning again.

This past week--this past month, actually--has gone by in a flash, but today I've come to a place where I can just...sit. Just sit, have a cup of coffee, watch some brainless morning show tell me for the hundredth time that the weather's going to be nice, and not do much of anything else, really.

Plus, later on, there's playoff football to watch.

And, once that first game gets out of hand (which I'm betting it will), there will be multi-player Call of Duty to play while we wait for the 4:30 game to start.

So, yeah, after weeks of worrying about making a career move, weeks of saying goodbye to friends, and a week of meeting new people and learning new things, this lazy Sunday morning is most welcome.

Now, I'm sure you're all sick and tired of hearing me and Nathaniel tell you about how much we like weekends, but c'mon. I'm still without the Internet at home (that little problem will hopefully be diagnosed in a couple of hours, though), so doing anything online is a bit of a pain for me at the moment.

Fear not, however, as next week promises to see plenty of posting from your friendly neighborhood Exfanders. In the meantime, though, enjoy your Sunday and I wish you all have as lazy a day as I plan to have.

A Year of Opportunities

We've already covered our official resolutions for 2012, but I'd like to lay out some fandom-centric...aspirations, if you will. I hesitate to say "resolutions," because the year ahead is more or less a blank slate at the moment--I'm looking to make the most of the opportunities I have while I've got the time available. Here's what I've got in mind:

- Write more about tabletop roleplaying games. I admit the vast majority of my experience is with Dungeons & Dragons, but there are still plenty of stories to be told and advice to be given.

- Finish my quest to watch through every official Star Trek that exists. I've completed The Original and Animated Series, Next Generation, and all the accompanying movies. My wife and I are now at the end of Deep Space Nine's fifth season, and we're two seasons into Voyager. We'll cap things off with Enterprise, after which I'll begin to brace myself for J.J. Abrams' next Star Trek film in 2013.

- Follow up on my User's Guide to Star Trek: The Original and Animated Series monster mega-post with a guide to TNG and DS9, most likely saving VOY and ENT for the following year.

- Trim down the ratio of unfinished games to beaten and completed games on my Backloggery. I collect games faster than I finish them, and I'd like that to change one way or another.
- Find a suitable permanent recording solution. I've been fighting with a problem-laden makeshift solution since early 2009, and the technical issues keep getting more outrageous with every video series.

One of my friends set the ball in motion by getting me a professional-quality microphone to replace the discount headset I've been using--the one that's barely compatible with my sound card and makes a clunking sound any time I shake my head too much while talking (I get very animated while doing my commentary). Now I just need video recording software that'll last longer than 10 minutes at a clip, and video editing software that works as well as Windows Movie Maker for slapping together multiple video clips and overlapping audio clips, but can also output videos of sufficient quality and size for YouTube without getting any other programs involved. I've had a few suggestions, but more are always welcome.

- Respond to blog comments in a more timely fashion. Seriously, this should not be so difficult for me.

- Follow through on review requests. We've had at least two people offer us review copies for this blog, and we have failed to post so much as a bullet point referencing the material in question. To the people who have offered us things to review, I am sincerely sorry.

- Get caught up on some of the key anime series I've missed. There was a discussion recently on my YouTube channel about Fullmetal Alchemist, which I'd heard plenty about but had never found the opportunity to watch; it's tough to keep track of your comments section when you have no idea what's going on. My parents got me a subscription to Netflix for Christmas, and it turns out there's a wealth of anime available, including FMA. You can imagine how my wife and I spent the last three hours of our day after setting up our account this past Sunday. It's like my college's anime club all over again, and I'm excited about what else is available to watch.

- Avoid staying up past midnight to finish blog posts. On a completely unrelated note, this seems like a good place to stop.

Exfanding Review: The Walking Dead at Mid Season

First off, let me say that I hate "midseason finales." This was never a thing before. Apparently, this became a thing because of Lost.

I didn't watch Lost while it was on the air (I think my exact words when the pilot aired were, "This is going to be one those shows where they never get off the stupid island. Even Gilligan managed to get off the island inside of two seasons.")

Clearly, I was right. But that's another story.

Lost created the midseason finale and now all of the big, hit TV shows have to follow suit. AMC's The Walking Dead certainly falls into the category of big, hit TV show.

And as such, after seven stellar episodes in their second season, the show goes on a bit of a hiatus, resuming with episode eight sometime in February. Last night's episode marked the halfway point of season two and left things off on a nice (if predictable) cliffhanger.

Actually. Speaking of cliffhangers and predictability, this is probably a good time to mention that this review will contain minor SPOILERS. So if you're not caught up on the TV show and you'd like to not have some yahoo on the Internet ruin your everything, please STOP READING, as there will be minor SPOILERS AFTER THE BREAK.

-- -- --

-- -- --

-- -- --

-- -- --

-- -- --

Okay. Now that that's out of the way.

Thus far, season two has been very enjoyable. I know a lot of folks who follow the comic series are a bit irked by the fact that the show isn't necessarily staying true to the Robert Kirkman book.

Personally, though, I like the fact that the series deviates from the book, because I can watch each episode and not know exactly what to expect. Otherwise, it would be just like watching the Cubs (sorry, Cubs fans...couldn't resist).

I am a(n absolutely) jaded comic book fan who reads Kirkman's book when it comes out in trade. As such, I have learned two things. First, don't grow attached to any of the characters.

And second, refer back to rule one at all times.

Things have happened in that book that just...defy all sorts of comic conventions. It truly is the zombie fan's zombie book, and I often read it with one eye closed, turning pages slowly and not really wanting to see what happens next.

Because it's usually pretty horrible.

The show, to its credit, has managed to incite the same don't-want-to-look-but-have-to feelings of the book. And in today's world of post-post modern zombie flicks, that's saying something.

Take the major events of this season, for example. Anyone who's read the book knew what to expect when Rick carried his wounded son to a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.

Hershel's Farm is/was a major set piece in the comic series, and it's played just as big (if not bigger) a role in the show, as the entire first half has taken place there.

As a reader of the series, knowing what happens at the farm took away one big reveal. But last night's episode managed to bring to the TV series a great (read: horrifying) new twist on what was an already horrible situation in the comic.

Full disclosure here--I guessed the ending about five minutes before it happened, but I still dreaded the moment that it happened. And when the moment did come? Sure, it veered from the book. But who cares? The emotional gut punch was hefty and the episode left a major cliffhanger for the second half of the season.

So far I'm really enjoying season two. I just wish we didn't have to wait three months to find out what happens next.