BlackGeekdom Science-Fiction from a Different Perspective

Persons Unknown followed the story of seven people who were abducted and placed in a seemingly abandoned town in the middle of nowhere. They wake up in a hotel with no knowledge of how or why they are there. The hotel, the streets of the town, and the other buildings are all filled with cameras and microphones. During the first few weeks of their captivity, they are subjected to psychological and physical stresses (torture). They also try to escape several times without success since the town is surrounded by some sort of impassable microwave energy wall. Once, they actually make it through the wall only for all of them to pass out, possibly due to an implant, and awaken back in the town.

The secondary plot follows Mark Renbe, a journalist and the ex-husband of one of the abductees, Janet Cooper. Renbe is attempting to find Janet to not only investigate the unusual circumstances of her disappearance but to also reunite her with their daughter, Megan. Another subplot involves Joe Tucker who at first seems to be an abductee like the other six people but is later revealed to be an agent of “The Program,” those responsible for the abductions and what is going on in the town.

Now that I’ve explained the important plot details, let me explain why I think the show failed in the end. Initially, the show was advertised as a mini-series event and that “All will be answered” at the end of the summer. The only thing that the show didn’t do was to provide answers, or at least the answers for which I wanted answers. 1) How did they decide who to abduct? 2) What is the purpose of “The Program? It has to be more than just finding individuals who show great promise. 3) What is The Program? 4) What’s going to happen to Kate Damatto and Ambassador Fairchild? Those are just a few of the questions that I have. These questions wouldn’t be so bad if I knew that there was going to be another season.

I will commend the writers for creating a show with an original premise. The series finally was a well written episode, if they were setting up more seasons. Am I supposed to just assume that The Program continues on? Why not go out with a bang and have the characters that we (the audience) grew to care about escape and somehow expose The Program, or find a way back to their lives, or even make new lives, instead of being stuck in a loop. Usually, when a series or mini-series comes to an end, there is closure. Fans of this show, however few there may be, won’t have any closure. The conspiracy continues and the plight of our characters isn’t changed. It would be like Battlestar Galactica ending after Crossroads Part 2 with the revelation of who the hidden cylons are. Or it would be like Lost ending after the fifth season finale The Incident when Ben kills Jacob, Ilana opens the metal crate to reveal Locke’s body, and Juliet smashes the nuclear core and detonates the bomb. You can’t end a series that you know is coming to an end with a cliff hanger and not expect people to be a little perturbed.

Maybe it was a case of the writers not knowing how to end the show, but that’s ridiculous. You knew going in that it was going to end. There really isn’t any excuse. I might have been happy with just showing Joe and Mark in a new town starting the cycle over again, but you also show me our original abductees (minus Joe) in a hotel built into a ship out at sea in the middle of nowhere (incidentally the ship is named Almas Perdidias which translates into Lost Souls). They are then told “Welcome to Level 2,” by a now sinister looking Night Manager. What the hell is Level 2? Why didn’t they just scrap this group like the normally would do? If The Program is trying something new, what exactly are they trying? The writers seem to have no problem with raising even more questions.

Maybe I’m being too hard and literal. I actually did like the show, and if there were going to be more seasons, I would watch. But the ending bothered me. I dislike false closure on my TV shows. Maybe this’ll spawn comic books or webisodes, or even some decent fan fiction. One can only hope.

Posted under Articles, Fanboy Rants, Reviews, Television

Sherlock

Sherlock is a modern day version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.  The show is brilliant.  I love the production quality of the show.  So far, each of the first three episodes have been 90 minutes long and that’s great. There is more time to watch Sherlock work through a case and still have time to explain how he comes up with much of his conclusions.  I also love how they display the information that comes through on mobile phones like text messages, caller IDs and web searches on the television screen.

The great thing about this show is how Sherlock (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) is really a modern day version of the sleuth.  Of course he chronicles his exploits in a blog and possess an iPhone. from which he deftly sends text messages and does internet searches for information that isn’t readily available in that big brain of his.

To me, the true gem of the show is Martin Freeman as Dr. John Watson.  Like many of the Dr. Watsons before him, he is a perfect complement to the self-described “high functioning sociopath”.  He’s a marksman and former soldier, and a medical doctor.  He’s proving himself to be down right dependable, a trait common in all versions of the character.  We also get to meet the devious and manipulative Moriarty.  I haven’t decided if I like this version of Moriarty.  He seems more like the Joker than the Kingpin, not that the Joker isn’t brilliant, but he is crazy.  However, I’m not entirely convinced that the man we saw as Moriarty might be him at all.  Sherlock might or might not be in your local listings, but you should watch it if you can.

UPDATE:  BBC announced that Sherlock would get a second season in the fall of 2011.  Man, that’s a long time to wait for a good show.

Haven

Haven is loosely based on Stephen King’s “The Colorado Kid”.  The first season is trucking right along on SyFy.  I can’t say that I am a fan of the show even though I’ve watched every episode.  The show is like Eureka with a supernatural twist.  Unfortunately, it’s not the only show that fits that description that started this summer (see The Gates).  I don’t think there is any chemistry between the 3 leads and that’s why the show isn’t pulling me in.  I keep watching each week thinking something is going to kick in but it hasn’t.  I can tell where the show is going, and the writers aren’t really giving me anything that would make me want to keep watching.  The long arc has something to do with the main character Audrey Parker trying to find out about a woman in an old newspaper article from Haven that looks just like her, who could be her mother.  However, we haven’t been given a whole lot to go on as far this storyline goes.  If you aren’t watching it you aren’t missing anything.  There are no main characters of color on this show.

Persons Unknown

I like this show.  If you haven’t been watching it don’t start now, you pretty much have to start from the beginning.  It’s much better than AMC’s remake of The Prisoner.  A group of people were kidnapped by a group known simply as The Organization, and dropped into a town that they cannot leave.  The actors in the cast are all believable and they all have good chemistry together.  There aren’t any big names in the cast, so that probably helps.  The secondary arc follows one of the persons uknown’s ex-husband journalist who’s trying to find her for the sake of their daughter.  The show is like a dark version of CBS’s Big Brother (a guilty pleasure of mine) which is probably why I like it.

The producers promise that all questions will be answered at the end of the series.  I like the idea of having a series with a definite ending.  I kinda felt that this is how Lost should have been (no nasty emails please).  It is apparent that this show couldn’t go longer than 13 episodes or even more than one season.  For some reason, this show makes me miss Defying Gravity.

Again, don’t watch Persons Unknown now if you haven’t been watching it all season.  NBC moved the show to Saturday night which means they have given up on it and are just trying to get rid of it, but to tell you the truth, how many episodes of Dateline NBC can one watch in a week?  Hulu and NBC have a few episodes, but not all of them.  I don’t understand why the network did that, but there are probably other ways to find all the episodes online. Chadwick Boseman (Lincoln Heights) and Kandyse McClure (BSG) both star as Persons Unknown.

Posted under Reviews, Television

Before reading this, if you haven’t read Batman: A Death in the Family this review will contain POSSIBLE SPOILERS.  If you haven’t read it and you are a fan of Batman or DC’s animated movies then you will enjoy this movie.  For those of you who have read it please feel free to read on.

In stores today, Batman: Under the Red Hood is one of the darker stories in the DC universe.  As everyone knows (so it’s not a spoiler) that the Joker killed Robin, Jason Todd, because of a telephone poll done by DC in 1988.  Subsequently, Jason Todd was “resurrected” in the DC universe.  This movie is the animated version of that story.

Bruce Greenwood (Captain Pike in Star Trek) voices Bruce Wayne/Batman instead of Kevin Conroy, the voice that we all know and love.  Greenwood does a fabulous job.  Neil Patrick Harris voices Dick Grayson/Nightwing and Jensen Ackles (Supernatural) voices the Red Hood/Jason Todd.  Both of them were also very good.  I missed Mark Hamill as the Joker but John DiMaggio did well enough.

The story is not unfamiliar to fans of Batman.  I thought they may have glossed over Jason’s resurrection a little fast in order to put in more action sequences.  I would have thought more interaction between him an Ra’s al Ghul would have made for a great subplot.  I really liked the team up with Batman and Nightwing, and how the writers were able to show how it differed from when Batman and Red Hood teamed up.

The animation to me was not as good as DC’s previous animated films, but the story made up for that.  I say see it and enjoy.  Just a reminder, it has graphic violence even for DC animation; it is rated PG-13. (It really is PG-13 and would probably be an R if it were live action.)

Posted under Animation, Comics, Movies, Reviews

The Jensen Project is the second movie from Walmart Family Moments. The movie centers around The Jensen Project which is basically an independent think tank of geniuses gathered on a compound researching and developing projects that can save the world.  The movie stars Kellie Martin (E.R., Life Goes On), Patricia Richardson (Malcolm in the Middle), and LeVar Burton (Roots, Star Trek: TNG).  It was also a backdoor pilot for a possible television series for NBC.  It aired this past Friday night.

Let me start by saying that the only way I knew anything about the movie was from LeVar Burton (@levarburton) on Twitter.  I don’t think NBC or Walmart promoted this movie.  I didn’t see any ads online, on NBC or in any magazine or newspaper.  Which is odd, because NBC is notorious for promoting their productions across all NBC/Universal media.  Apparently, NBC wasn’t going to give Walmart and P & G their money’s (or is it monies’) worth.  Mistake 1: Lack of promotion. 

Mistake #2 is dumping it on Friday night.  Friday night and Saturday night are for shows and original movies to go and die in peace, unless you are the SyFy network, which leads me to….

Mistake #3:  Scheduling it against  SyFy Friday.  I will go as far as to say that most of the people who would watch The Jensen Project are also Eureka fans and are probably going to watch Haven (Based on Stephen King’s The Colorado Kid). I will not assume that everyone has a DVR.

That being said, I think the movie was actually not bad.  It was the type of movie that a family could sit down together and enjoy, thus the whole “Walmart Family Moments” theme.  The writing could have been a little tighter and the characters could have been developed some more.  Personally, I would have introduced The Jensen Project first and began the movie with the dramatic departure of Dr. Edwin Jensen stealing all the projects from the compound, instead of a less significant scene that happens more than half-way into the movie.  I don’t like movies or T.V. shows that start out with a scene that is going to occur later and then jump back with a title card that says “5 Days Ago.”  It only ever works when there is some sort of twist involved, like a main character about to die, or a character doing something that is not in their nature.

The effects weren’t bad considering they probably didn’t have a whole lot of “resources” to produce top flight effects.  The product placement for Walmart’s Great Value brand was entertaining as well as the showcasing of Microsoft’s Kinect (the motion sensor add-on for the XBox 360) All the actors delivered and sold me on their roles despite having mediocre dialogue, but they did as good as you can do with bad writing.  I was completely sold on LeVar Burton as a former NSA operative and Kellie Martin as a genius mom who wasn’t sure of herself.

Should you see it?  If you like shows like Eureka, Chuck, Jake 2.0, and a movie like Spy Kids, you might enjoy this with your kids.  I’d give it 2 1/2 raised fists, but I don’t have any 1/2s, so I’ll give it 3.

Posted under Movies, Reviews, Television

The first Iron Man movie was an almost perfect example of how to do a superhero origin movie should be done.  It is easily one of the top 3 comic book movies off all time.  Robert Downey, Jr. returns as Tony Stark.  No the whole world knows that he’s Tony Stark, and as he says in the trailer, “He has privatized world peace.”  He has two villains this time around.  Mickey Rourke plays Ivan Vanko, a Russian scientist who’s plotting his revenge, and Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer, a business rival of Stark’s.  Scarlett Johansson plays Natasha Romanoff, and Don Cheadle has replaced Terrence Howard as Jim Rhodes.  Samuel L. Jackson returns as Nick Fury and Gwyneth Paltrow is back as Pepper Potts.

The movie is not as good as the first.  It’s more action packed and has a bit more drama.  But to me it lacked a clear direction in the plot.  The movie does tighten up in towards the end.  I think the problem is that in the first movie, Tony Stark had purpose.  In this movie, there is no real clear purpose in Tony Stark’s actions.  I’m not saying the movie doesn’t have a plot.  It’s just that the movie had scenes that were maybe a little longer than they should have been.

The effects were excellent.  My only problem was that most of the climatic battle was reduced to points of light zig zagging across the screen.

Overall, the acting was good.  Sam Rockwell’s characterization of Justin Hammer was the weakest of the performances.  I know he was going for a little comic relief but he played it over the top in the wrong direction.  He wasn’t smarmy enough and he was way too goofy/silly.  I like Terrance Howard, but he isn’t even in the same acting category as Don Cheadle.  In my opinion Cheadle played Jim Rhodes closer to the comic book than Howard did.  I would have liked to have seen more scenes between Rourke and Downey.  I think not having together a lot more was a waste of talent.  I think one more confrontation between the two of them without suits would have done it for me.

Posted under Comics, Movies, Reviews

This week Halo Legends was released on DVD and Blu-Ray.  I must admit that I don’t really play first person shooters.  And everyone tells me that Halo is the best of the best.  I have dabbled in the Medal of Honor and Call of Duty franchises and I even downloaded N.O.V.A. for the iPod Touch.  They are fantastic games, but I can’t play them more than 20 minutes at a time.  However, I do watch the cut scenes for many FPS on YouTube.  So, when I heard about this, I thought that it was just going to be a collection of new Halo cut scenes, until I heard it was going to be similar to how Animatrix was to The Matrix.  That got me interested.

The release is comprised of 7 animated short stories.  Each story delves into part of the Halo canon.  Fleshing out some things, and shedding light onto others.  Each episode was done in a different animation style.  Fans will appreciate that the material in the stories are canon.  Fans will like the episodes The Package and The Babysitter since they add to the mythos of the Spartans.  My favorite episode was The Duel.  I liked the animation and the story was a classic.  The Duel also gave you insight into the workings of the Covenant.  But I believe that most fans already know that the Covenant is not as monolithic as one would think.

Overall, I enjoyed watching it and I think anyone whose a fan of animation will appreciate this collection of stories.  I know most of the fans of the game will already have this, I would still recommend it for everyone else.

Posted under Animation, Reviews, Video Games News

Okay, so I’m late on this review.  Overall, I liked the movie, but I wouldn’t recommend you pay theater prices to go see it.  Wait till it comes out on video or cable.  I really was excited when this movie was announced and that Denzel was attached to the project.  Even the first theatrical trailer had me hyped about it. Book of Eli is about a lone man traveling across a post-apocalyptic world with a sacred book.  When asked where is he taking it, he answers, “where it needs to be.”  Cryptic.

I thought Denzel performed all his stunts exceptionally.  I also think that the Hughes Brothers did an excellent job adapting it for the screen.  The pyrotechnics were great.  I like to see things blow up.   My main problem with the movie is length.  The Hughes Brothers spent a tremendous amount of time showing us how bad ass Eli was.  They also spent time showing people doing a lot of traveling: walking, driving, etc.  I could have easily cut out about 20-30 minutes of the movie.  I have been a fan of the Hughes Brother’s work, From Hell, Menace to Society, Dead Presidents, but all of those movies were tight.  Book of Eli seemed like they tried to make an Epic with less than epic material.

Posted under Reviews

This will be quick.  The Mayans predicted that the Earth has an expiration date. (Unfortunately, some people went and talked to some Mayans and they looked at them like they were crazy, so apparently the Mayans have no idea what we are talking about).  The best thing about this movie were the effects.  The amount of detail that was put into the destruction of some of our treasured landmarks was some of the finest special effects I have seen in a long while.  If you are a fan of catastrophe or disaster movies, then this movie will be right up your alley.  There are many explosions, crashes, and even a dog (a must in good disaster flicks.).

Posted under Movies, Reviews

Let me start this review by saying that I liked the movie.  It was a fun ride.  Plenty of action, explosions, and effects.  Now, that being said, I had some issues.  But let’s start with the good things.

The effects were good.  I thought the action was well paced, and the story line was easy to follow.  I have to eat crow on something.  I had said previously that I the Waynans brother was going to make the movie unwatchable.  He didn’t do too bad of a job.  He wasn’t over the top as he is prone to be, and his comic relief didn’t take away from the story or anyone else’s screen time. The movie benefits from a plethora of sold performances led by Christopher Eccleston as James “Destro” McCullen,  Ray Park and Byung-hun Lee brought some excitement with all their scenes, together and separate, as Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow.  All the cool tech, especially the holographic communicators.  The S.H.A.R.C.s were cool, even though there was no Deep Six.

Problems:  The Cobra Commander’s mask at the end: Lame. The obvious nods to fans (Look at that. Real American Heroes…It comes with Kung-fu grip) Lame.  For fear of spoiling too much, there is a character who switches sides and loses everything that ever made that character appealing.  I could have used more characters mentions or cameos, like Deep Six, Shipwreck, Flint, etc.  The accelerator suits. Lame and unnecessary. Oh and as Lobo pointed out to me, the obvious Star Wars references especially towards the end of the movie.  Lame.

Overall, I enjoyed watching the movie.  And I would recommend it for anyone who was a fan of the cartoon series or the toys.  But don’t expect too much when you go see it.

Posted under Movies, Reviews

It’s taken me a few days to get my thoughts together.  Actually, I enjoyed the movie so much that I didn’t think it would be fair to write a review so soon after seeing the movie.  So, I waited until now since I have had time to digest everything and for the initial shock to wear off.  Let me start by saying it was difficult to not get hopes up for this movie. Star Trek wasn’t completely original (time travel, Khan-like revenge), but it did it in such a refreshing way.  Let me get to it.

Casting was perfect.  Chris Pine didn’t try to imitate Shatner’s Kirk, in fact, he made the role his own.  Zachary Quinto shed his Sylar skin, and became Spock.  The best casting, however, was Karl Urban as McCoy, and Simon Pegg as Scotty.  Karl Urban had the mannerisms and the vocal inflection down.  It went beyond an imitation. Simon Pegg brought his quirkiness and comedic timing to a character that always seemed to bring humor the crew.  Any movie with Bruce Greenwood (Capt. Christopher Pike) is automatically 10 times better.  He brought a gravitas and authority to his role as the no nonsense Captain/Academic .Without going on about everyone, everyone performed their roles well.  Oh, Eric Bana’s measured performance as the snarky villainous Nero was scary. 

The effects were great.  ILM who provided the effects didn’t any models in the space scenes.  If I didn’t know that, I wouldn’t have been able to tell.  The only problem that I had was J.J. Abrams overuse of flare.  I know he was going for a style, but after so many, it wasn’t special. 

Star Trek, to me, is the best Sci-Fi movie since the Matrix, and the best action movie since Transformers.  I expect there will be more.  And I can’t wait.

Posted under Movies, Reviews