BlackGeekdom Science-Fiction from a Different Perspective

Posted under Games, Reviews

I was not going to watch this because I’m not really into horror but I decided to give it a look.   Four episodes later, I’m still watching.  Something about the show is compelling.  Watching the characters deal with what’s going on in the house draws me in.  The show follows the Harmons as they have made their move from Boston to the Los Angeles to get a fresh start after a miscarriage and Dr. Ben Harmon’s extramarital affair with a student.  The house they purchased is known locally as the “Murder House” because of all the murders that have occurred there since it has been standing.

As the weeks go by, you start to figure out who is real and who isn’t really there.  It’s interesting that the maid Moira looks like an old lady to women, but to men she’s a hot young number who can’t keep her hands off Dr. Harmon.  Dr. Harmon is treating a young man who seems to be a part of the house, but Dr. Harmon thinks he’s an actual patient.  Ben and Vivien’s daughter Violet has bonded with the young man, Tate Langdon who isn’t all that nice a person.

If you like horror stories you’ll like this show.  The subject matter in the show creeps me out just a bit.  That’s why I watch it during the day time.  Not that I’m scared, I just hate having bad dreams.

Posted under Reviews, Television

“Once Upon a Time” is a new show that premiered on ABC on Sunday night.  The show follows bail bondsman Emma Swan as she comes to a town called Storybrooke to bring the son, Henry,  that she gave up for adoption back to his adoptive family.  According to Henry, the book of fairytales that he’s carrying around actually happend and the evil Queen cursed them all to forever live in Storybrooke as regular people.  We learn that Emma Swan is the daughter of Snow White, now a teacher Mary Margaret Blanchard, played by Ginnifer Goodwin, is the only hope from freeing the characters from Storybrooke.

I thought the show was fairly entertaining and thought that some of the performances are great.  Robert Carlyle as Rumplestiltskin and Tony Amendola as Gepetto are the highlights of the cast.  The writers would do well to keep them as involved in the story as possible.  The effects were good and I like how they flashback to before the curse and to the present time.  The only problem I think this show will have is that I don’t think it’s going to garner the ratings numbers that it will need to survive on ABC.  It’s a shame because on a channel like Syfy or USA or even a comparable show on the BBC would do well.  But a big network like ABC is going to demand to big a number.  Sunday night is a good night for the show especially since it might be able to pull some of the Desperate Housewives viewers.

I think the show is worth a look even if you aren’t into fantasy.

Posted under Reviews, Television

Last night, Fox premiered yet another science fiction show, Terra Nova.  The show has a lot going for it; the main thing is that it’s produced by Stephen Spielberg. (side note: Brannon Braga is also a producer and show runner, and I won’t count this against it)  The show starts out in 2149.  Earth is dying due to pollution and overpopulation.  Fortunately, scientist discover a rift in time leading to an alternate Earth timeline 85 million years in the past.  So, we decided to save humanity by sending qualifying humans through the rift to resettle in Terra Nova.

I can tell the producers put emphasis on the production value of the show.  There aren’t any standout stars so you know salaries are low.  Stephen Lang might be the biggest star, but he is basically reprising his fantastic character from Avatar, with a few tweaks.  I’m not going to compare the show to Avatar, because that’s not what this show is.  The set is gorgeous and the effects are nice.  What bothers me most is that they decided not to use well known dinosaurs.  Apparently, they thought it’d be more interesting to create dinosaurs “that might have existed” as opposed to ones that we know, especially due to Mr. Spielberg’s Jurassic Park movies.  I know I wasn’t the only one thinking, “I’ve never heard of that dinosaur.”  It took a little will power to not get on the internet to look up these “new” dinosaurs.

For a premiere show, I thought the story was well done.  Luckily, they did explain that it was a separate reality from the future they left, which easily dismissed the complaints that people like me who overly criticize time travel in movies and T.V. shows in a couple of lines.  A couple of the reveals in the show, which I’m not going to spoil here, were obvious and I wish that they weren’t.   My hope is that this show doesn’t turn into Lost where more questions are raised than answered, or The Event where questions are asked and answered every episode, but the story never gets developed beyond the first episode.

All in all, the show was good and worth tuning in next week.  We’ll see if it has longevity.

 

Posted under Reviews, Television

Every since I got the Xbox 360 up and running, I’ve been playing the heck out of video games.  Mainly, I’ve been playing Mass Effect 2.  Deus Ex: Human Revolution is the only game I’ve played that I felt like I needed to write a review.  I’m not fan of pure RPGs but Human Revolution isn’t a pure RPG in my opinion.

You play Adam Jensen head of security for Serif Industries.  Serif is a company that provides augmentations to individuals. There’s an explosion and your girlfriend and her research team are killed and you’re left for dead.  You awaken and because of the extensive damage you suffered Serif has decided to give you augmentations to fix the physical damage.  After you get back to work, your goal in the game is to find out who was behind the attack and who killed your girlfriend.

As a player you can decide what type of character Jensen will be.  It isn’t as simple as choosing a class in most RPGs, but there are basically 3 types of play.  You can be a Hacker, Stealth player, or you can blast your way through the game like an FPS.  The best thing about this is that it lends itself to tons of replay value, which is always good for games.  You don’t have to commit to anyone of these since I found myself doing a combination of Hacker and Stealth.  It’s important to at least think about it because you upgrade you augmentations using Praxis points.  I’ll just say that you should get the Icarus landing upgrade quickly because any fall from any height will apparently kill you.

I like the openess of the game.  The augmentation system is realatively easy to understand and not that complicated, especially if you decide early how you want to play the game.  The game rewards you for exploration.  You can avoid conflicts and get through an entire area without ever having to put someone down.  The graphics were good, and the voiceacting was passable…..except Letitia the Trash Lady.  Just watch for yourself.

The only major problem  deals with the boss fights.  The game gives you a lot of opportunities to avoid conflict either by stealth or talking someone down.  But then the developers put you in a locked room with a boss that you can’t reason with or conversate with.  I thought that this would have been a perfect opportunity to show off the games’ Social Enhancement augemtation.  It would have bneen cool to be able to at least have the chance to talk your way out of the fight.  Players who chose to go either the stealth path or hacker path of augmentations will find all the boss fights difficult since you will be outgunned.  One thing I did, which I don’t know if the developers thought of this, is that I would take hacked turretts with me whenever I could and put them in a room with enemies and let the turrent take them out.  I even took a turret into the next to last boss fight and being outgunned was no longer a problem.  That’s another great thing about the game; it rewards you for thinging outside of the box.

Except for the boss fights, Deus Ex Human Revolution is a great game with stunning visuals.  The gameplay is nice and the artwork is good.  If you have the chance to play this game you should.  I would even recommend it as a purchase.

 

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Posted under Reviews, Video Games News

If you haven’t seen Game of Thrones, don’t read my review because it will have SPOILERS. 

Sunday night, the highly anticipated fantasy series Game of Thrones premiered on HBO.  I thought the show was great.  The acting was excellent as were  the sets.  The actors all played their roles close to the characterizations of the novels.  The ages may be off a bit.  For example, Eddard Stark, played by Sean Bean, should be in his mid-thirties.  All is forgiven because Sean Bean is fantastic as Eddard Stark.  Peter Dinklage as Tyrion was cast brilliantly. 

The little bit of CGI didn’t bother me because there probably aren’t that many walls covered in ice that they could have used for the film.  I was concerned that the incest scenes would make me uncomfortable.  However, I didn’t feel anymore uncomfortable than when I read the book.  Indeed, this is one of the few fantasy series that I’ve actually read and had hoped would get the Lord of the Rings treatment, but a television series is just as good.  The story elements they used for this first episode were so well done that I didn’t notice any of the elements that they left out.

All in all, I thought the show was fantastic and it pleases me that HBO has already decided to do a second season.  If you aren’t watching, I suggest you do so.

Posted under Books, Reviews, Television

All-Star Superman is the 10th movie in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies line. It’s based on a 12-issue series of the same name written by comic book fanboy favorite Grant Morrison. The previous movies include, Superman: Doomsday, Batman: Gotham Knight, Green Lantern: First Flight, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, and Batman: Under the Red Hood.  Basically, the story is about Superman’s impending death due to some maneuvering by Lex Luthor and how Superman/Clark Kent is dealing with it.  Sounds like that could be a potentially great story.

Let me start by saying that of the previous 9 releases, I liked each and every one of them. They were all animated well and the voice acting was great. For some reason, this movie was a miss for me. It might be that I don’t like the story, because I didn’t like the series it was based on. However, I think it’s more than that. The animation was fine, but I’ve seen better. The voice acting was okay, but it could have been better. Edward Asner as Perry White and Anthony LaPaglia as Lex Luthor were great, but it seems as if everyone else was either phoning it in or half-asleep. Maybe there wasn’t as much enthusiasm from the production team for this movie as it has been for the previous ones. It seems that this might be a theme of DC Comics. Start great with something and once fans get interested and excited about it, don’t work as hard on it anymore because fanboys will still buy it. I’m not saying it’s bad, it’s just not as good as the other movies have been.

DC has been getting a lot of props for these animated movies. They do them so much better than Marvel, but this movie shows there might be a few kinks in DC’s armor. If you’re a die hard DC fan or Superman fan, you’ll probably love this movie. Most people should just skip it.

Posted under Animation, Comics, Movies, Reviews

Last night ABC aired the first episode of the highly anticipated No Ordinary Family. The show stars Michael Chiklis (The Commish, The Shield, Fantastic Four) and Julie Benz (Angel, Dexter). The Powell family take a trip to Brazil and the plane crashes into a river filled with luminous "stuff" that wasn’t fuel, since it didn’t float on the surface. When the family returns home, they have developed powers. Here’s a summary of their powers: Jim Powell is Mr. Incredible. Stephanie Powell is Dash, JJ is a genius, and Daphne is a telepath.

As far as origin stories go for superheroes, it was pretty straight forward. Weird lights in water caused random mutations in family. Sounds an awful lot like the Fantastic Four. A family on a space ship zapped with weird lights which caused random mutations. The writers get no points for originality. I’m sure the source of the mutations, yes I’m calling them mutations (what else could they be), will be a source for future story lines and is probably going to be explained at some point.
I didn’t care for the therapy like session as an introduction to the story. It would have been better as just voice overs. Voice overs are tried and true, and couple’s therapy as a story telling device is a gimmick.

They choose five of the basic superheroes/villains to showcase: the Superman (minus the flying), the Speedster, The Mindreader, The Genius, and The Teleporter. And the obvious Master Villain is, of course, the boss of one of our heroes. When the bank robber was revealed to also have a power and saying, "you don’t think you’re the only one" to Jim Powell, I was surprised. I guess I wasn’t expecting super villains so soon. As we all know, a great superhero is defined by his or her nemesis, so I hope that whoever becomes the main antagonist, which will probably be Stephen Collins, will be a bad ass.

I liked that ABC spared no expense with the effects. Also, I’m glad a network is doing a light hearted drama. Shows with dark themes are getting old and tired.  It has been a while since there has been a good show that has action, drama and some family fun.  I enjoyed the episode.  The dialogue could be better, but that’s to be expected as the writers begin to explore the characters and the actors grow into their roles. 

Despite the obvious comparisons to other superheroes and shows of that ilk, I think this show has potential. The writers have a lot of angles they can work, the main one being how the powers affect family dynamics. I hope this show stays around.

I’ll reserve my rating for a couple of more episodes; if the show lasts that long.

Posted under Reviews, Television

Undercovers premiered with solid ratings numbers. However, solid ratings numbers for a season premiere of a new show doesn’t mean much. A writer’s strike isn’t going to kill this show like Bionic Woman, which premiered with a high ratings number as well.  Let me get the bad things out of the way.

The plot line was thin for a J.J. Abrams show.  It is hard to believe that this show came from the same person who brought us Lost, Alias, and Fringe.  He somehow managed to pull the things that people liked about the soapy Felicity and tried to insert it into Alias.  Those episodes of Alias were the worts ones where he had Sydney channeling Felicity.  Here, he takes it to another level creating a Felicity styled Alias..  He tries to capture us with an opening action sequence, but it doesn’t even involve the lead characters.  If I remember correctly, Alias began with an action sequence and a ragged Sydney Bristow walking into C.I.A. headquarters.  That may not be how it began exactly, but it was a sequence that stuck with you and hooked me into the show.  Our introduction to the lead characters in Undercovers was a catering discussion.  The setup action sequence was wasted.

Action sequences abound, but it doesn’t make up for the weak plot.  So, the C.I.A. needs to bring them back into the fold by finding a missing agent, who may or may not be selling secrets.  And we follow the Blooms, as they globe trot (but yet still manage their catering business) tracking down leads.  They went through each “locale” at a dizzying pace.  I barely had time register what was happening.  Only in the end did I realize that not only had the agent they were looking for had been undercover for 5 years, but that he somehow stole some DOD (Department of Defense) documents and was planning to kill the main bad guy by setting up a sale of those documents.  I don’t even know why he wanted the guy dead and why the agent went rogue.

What did I like about the show?  The production value was high.  I am sure they didn’t actually film in all the foreign locations, but they tried really hard to make it look like it.  I think Boris and Gugu have great chemistry and they look good together.  I like the little moments they have when you are reminded that they are married.  They were believable as a couple who had never worked together as spies before, so the viewer got an insight into the growing pains they are going to have as they explore this new aspect of their relationship.  Finally, there isn’t anything that I haven’t like Gerald McRaney in.

To sum it all up: I like the show and it’s potential.  There are some kinks that the writers need to work out.  I think the second episode will tell us a lot more about how the show is going to play.  NBC isn’t known for sticking with shows that underperform, so let’s hope the ratings stay solid.

Posted under Reviews, Television

This fall there are five new shows that I am definitely interested in watching. I already feel like I have entirely too many TV shows on my viewing schedule this fall with the final season of Smallville, Supernatural, The Amazing Race, Hell’s Kitchen, Chuck, Human Target, House, Castle, Glee, Mentalist, and Fringe. Those are the shows that I can think of off the top of my head and I’m sure there are more. These five shows are definitely going to be squeezed into my viewing schedule one way or the other. My DVR will be working overtime. (Not to mention all the football I’m going to be watching Saturday and Sunday.)

Undercovers and Nikita

I put these two shows together because they are sort of in the same genre. Undercovers is about a married couple and former C.I.A. spys (Boris Kodjoe and Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who are pulled from their catering business back into the espionage trade. My interest in this movie doesn’t revolve around the fact that they are spies because I have had just about enough of spy shows, (Alias, Burn Notice, Rubicon, Covert Affairs). The fact that this is a prime time show on a major Network which has two people of color in the lead roles is the reason I am going to watch it. Hopefully, since this a J.J. Abrams production, the show will have good story lines. The only thing that worries me is that J.J. Abrams has said that he wanted to have fun energy and be a bit more comedic. I don’t know how a funny hour long spy show will play in primetime on NBC.

Nikita is sort of a follow-up to the French film Nikita and its remake Point of No Return (and the series La Femme Nikita). Nikita having now escaped the Division, the organization that turned her into a ruthless assassin, has come back to help others like her to also escape and to bring the Division down. The show stars Maggie Q (Mission Impossible III), Shane West (E.R., Echelon Conspiracy) and Xander Berkley (24: Day 2). Maggie Q looks good in this role and its great to see her finally get a chance to show off her talents that made her a star in Asia.  If the first episode is any indication, then the CW has a pretty good show to possibly pick up the slack when Smallville and Supernatural leave the airways.

The Event

The Event stars Blair Underwood (L.A. Law, Set It Off), Laura Innes (E.R., Deep Impact), and Jason Ritter (Joan of Arcadia).  There isn’t much to say about this show other than it stricks the same vein as Lost.  The mystery surrounding the show is going to make this show good.  I like the fact that Blair Underwood is playing President of the United States.  You can always count on him to give a good performance.

Hawaii Five-0

Hawaii Five-0 is a remake of the classic 60s/70s TV show of the same name that starred Jack Lord.  The remake stars Alex O’Loughlin (The Back Up Plan, Midnight), Scott Caan (Oceans 11-13), Daniel Dae Kim (Lost) and Grace Park (Battlestar Galactica).  I wasn’t a hug fan of the original TV series but my father was.  Networks have done a great job of bringing back classic series and making them modern in recent years, so that’s reason enough to give this show a try.  It helps that it’s a pretty good looking cast, too.

No Ordinary Family

Superheroes in primetime and on network television.  I am so there.  Who cares if it looks like The Incredibles or the Fantastic Four.  The promos look like fun and the show looks hilarious.  Definitely a must see.

Posted under Articles, Reviews, Television