‘TV Shows’ Archives
Dexter: Season 4
SPOILER WARNING!! After a lighter season, this is the darkest season yet. It is so dark that my wife stopped watching it, even though she really liked the series. It all centers around the bad guy of the season: the Trinity Killer, Arthur, played perfectly by John Lithgow. His killing scenes are horrific, a worthy "adversary" for [...]
Dexter: Season 3
SPOILER WARNING!! This third season is similar to the second one in terms of themes. The guest star of the season is Jimmy Smits, who plays Miguel, the assistant DA. They meet and by chance Miguel slowly starts to know the real Dexter. But he's not repulsed, on the contrary he offers his friendship and help in killing criminal who get away from [...]
Dexter: Season 2
SPOILERS!! The second season picks up with last season's finale. Debby is traumatized by Rudy's revelation as the ice-truck killer. Doakes is following Dexter at night, he suspects he had something to do with the ice-truck killer. Meantime Dexter doesn't have too many opportunities to kill, but when he does he can't seem to do it. That was [...]
Dexter: Season 1
This is one very special series that can only exist on cable TV, with a tight and focused 12 episodes season. The protagonist is a serial killer, and although he only kills murderers, he does because he has the urge to kill, and channels it on murderers. He's not a normal vigilante that kills bad people, he's a monster. That's the key: he has evil [...]
Castle: Season 1
I've been a fan of Nathan Fillion ever since I watched Firefly, so I wanted to check out his current TV series. I'm glad I did, as the title suggests, the main reason to watch it is Fillion. The police procedural is a tried and true formula for US TV series. Law & Order and CSI are the biggest franchises, but there are so many of them I can [...]
Glee: Season 1 Part 1
In the past few years I've come across some musicals that I've enjoyed a great deal. The movie Once, the web episodes Dr. Horrible, the Buffy episode "Once more with feeling", even a recent episode of Batman: The Brave and The Bold. It made sense then for me to watch the new musical series of the season, Glee. My wife and I watched all 13 [...]
Dollhouse: Season 2
After a disappointing but promising first season, I was looking forward to a much improved second season of Joss Whedon's latest series. Unfortunately the season did not start well. We still got some stand alone stories. There was a slight improvement, in that there was a little more progress regarding the characters and the overall plot. Then [...]
Undeclared
Undeclared is the thematic follow up to Judd Apatow's Freaks & Geeks, following a group of college students. The format is different, this series is a 20 min/episode comedy, so there's a little less time to dedicate to characterization. There are a lot of laughs to be had, and each character is well defined. The tone in general is very [...]
Freaks and Geeks
This series has appeared in many best of the decade list, so I thought I should check it out. I wasn't too keen on it without knowing much about it, I just knew it was about high school. There have been many shows about high school, but this one is different: it takes place in 1980. That simple fact allowed this show to elevate itself in [...]
The Venture Bros: Season 4 Part 1
This series has always been uneven for me. Some episodes are hilarious, and I enjoy the pop and comic references. On the other hand, some episodes just don't click for me. The first part of the latest season has been lame for me. It started great, with an awesome opener picking up from the shocking finale from last season. Unfortunately the [...]
Paranoia Agent
Satoshi Kon has become one of my favorite filmmakers. His movies are always something different and interesting. But I never watched a series from him, so it was time for me to check this out. It's obviously still very "Kon-ish", but with a few differences. This being a series of 13 episodes, he had time to explore many different themes. [...]
The Wire: Season 5 (re-watch)
In less than a month we finished watching The Wire, which tells you how much my wife and I enjoyed it. This last season brings it all to a close, but I've already discussed that in my first review. Nothing much to add, except that I loved that they didn't show Bubbles getting clean, instead he starts the season already clean. That's the easy [...]
The Wire: Season 4 (re-watch)
Again, not much to add to my previous review. I hate Herc even more, but I also blame Carver for trusting Herc. This time I paid more attention to the kids stories from the beginning, so I was able to get some subtle hints about Michael and Chris's past. Michael was clearly the one to watch out for since the beginning. The only thing keeping [...]
The Wire: Season 3 (re-watch)
I've already written at length about this season, so I won't repeat myself here. One thing I did notice was how much I dislike McNulty this time around. He really gets obsessed with something and doesn't care about anybody else. It might be the right thing to do, but he doesn't care about the casualties he leaves behind. He doesn't care if he [...]
Survivor Season 19 – Samoa
Another season of Survivor is over, another great season. As with all Survivor seasons, the first part of the season is slow, less exciting. We have to get to know the contestants, and start to take sides. Also there's not gonna be many blindsides at this point, so tribal council is not that exciting. The main attraction at this point are [...]
The Wire: Season 2
This season was my least favorite the first time I watched the series. After my second viewing, I have a slightly better appreciation for it. First of all, it was just cool to see so many big players of the following seasons: Clay Davis, Bunny, Cheese, Prop Joe etc... They only have little more than cameos, but they'll be important players in [...]
The Wire: Season 1
I am now re-watching The Wire with my wife, and this series really deserves to be watched multiple times. It starts slowly, in fact my wife wasn't really into it at the beginning. It's only because I pushed her that she continued watching. Just like the case they're dealing with, this season slowly builds the plot and characters, so as you [...]
Breaking Bad: Season 1-2
After Mad Men I was eager to start watching the next big drama series. Breaking Bad is it, from the same network as Mad Men: AMC. This drama hooked me and my wife since the first episode. There's a lot of tension and it's fast paced, so as soon as we finished an episode we really wanted to watch the next one. The performances are great, [...]
Serenity (re-watch)
And finally we get to one of my favorite movies of the last few years. I've reviewed this already, but after re-watching it I want to delve deeper into details. Also since it's been a few years already, I can spoil the story. Since this movie has to appeal to people who've never watched the show before, the prologue explains the history of [...]
Firefly Ep 14: Objects in Space
This is another superb episode, written and directed by Whedon himself. This episode starts with one of those "existential surreal" scenes we've seen from Whedon before. River walks around the ship, seeing the crew both from the outside and from inside their minds. This scene ends with River coming back to the real world with a loaded gun in her [...]