ROFL - Community on NBC

I'll just start with this:  if you haven't seen Community, you are missing out on one of the funniest news shows I have ever seen. 

The show is only two episodes in but those two episodes have had me laughing my ass off every minute.  It's as funny as It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia with a sharper wit than The Office.  Yeah, I know who I'm comparing it to but it really is just that good.

Oh, and Joel Mchale, who I always thought was a bit of a douche bag on E, is flat out comedy gold.  He needs to get out of Talk Soup and never look back.  Another thing this show has going for it:  The second coming of Chevy Chase, who hasn't been this funny since Fletch.

I'm not going to do my normal, in-depth exploration of this show because I think it more than speaks for itself, so without further gilding the lilly, check out the premiere:

Best Of The Best - Halo 3: ODST on Xbox360

I know, it's a twofer tonight but I really felt like commenting on ODST while it's fresh in my mind.


Halo 3 is one of the biggest video games of all time.  It sold huge numbers and is still the flagship title for Microsoft.  It constantly fights with Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare for the #1 spot on the Xbox Live total players list.  Needless to say, even an expansion pack to a game with that kind of pedigree is gonna get a lot of attention.  And to say that Halo 3: ODST has gotten a lot of attention lately is an understatement.  Check out the main page of IGN.com to see what I mean.

I got the game last night at a midnight sale at a local gamestop.  Honestly, I don't really know why I did it.  I felt like such a jackass standing around with drugged up teenagers and super-nerds who all smelled strange and dressed like they just rolled out of bed to get the game.  Don't get me wrong, I let my nerd flag fly on a regular basis but even I know about style and smelling good (Pot smell doesn't count because not only is it kind of like BO, it's also a sign of laziness.)  But for some reason, I stood in line and enjoyed the sense of relief when I got in my car and knew the game was mine and I could just enjoy it.


Did I enjoy it, you ask?  Yes.  Wait, hell yes.  A resounding hell yes.


I was honestly getting a little tired of the super-sized sci-fi shooters where everything is so fucking big.  I love sci-fi, especially well designed and built space-faring human future.  I also loved the conflict between the outgunned Humanity and the multi-class Covenant, especially when the Covenant split down the middle in a major civil war in Halo 2.  


So when I sat down and got dropped into the African mega-city of New Mombasa with no idea where to go, all by myself, and completely alone, I was more than a little intrigued.  As I began to play that first mission, I almost immediately fell in love with the campaign for ODST.  I wasn't a super-soldier and unlike the previous iterations of Halo, I couldn't just run in and kill everything like a madman.  Hide in the shadows, avoid conflicts that would tax my available ammunition, and try to find supplies wherever I could, that was my playstyle and man was it fun.  Stalking a future human city during a rainy night, trying to find my squadmates is a really fresh and entertaining take on the Halo style.


The campaign is short, clocking in at around 6 hours, but packs a lot into a little space.  The mystery element of the story, finding the leftovers of your teammate's battles, then playing those past battles gives the story a particular punch and meat that was sadly missing in Halo 3.  


I think the part I enjoyed the most, even thought I really wanted more out of it, was the interaction and help of the city's AI, the Superintendent.  The quirky AI isn't like Cortana from the main Halo series.  Instead, the Superintendent uses it's abilities to control small things in the city to guide you and protect you as you go about searching for your teammates.  That simple dymanic makes the city much more layered and fun to travel through.  You have to keep an eye for the Superintendent's hints because it can't talk to you, but the more time you devote to learning and working with the Superintendent, the more it will open up the city's secrets to you.  


Halo 3: ODST doesn't represent a quantum leap forward in the Halo franchise, but it does remind us what the guys at Bungie can do with a great idea and a little ingenuity.  I loved it and I hope that any other Halo or sci-fi fan will love it to.  My only warning would be to consider returning the game if you have no interest in playing it online.  The campaign is great but it's not really worth the $60 price tag if you aren't gonna use the multiplayer disk or the new Firefight mode.


And just because it happens to be one of the coolest fucking things ever, here is the live action trailer for the game:

Men Of Mayhem - Sons Of Anarchy on FX

There are a lot of shows on TV that cater to overt testosterone and just drip with manliness. Most of these shows come across as overly cheesy and more than just a little hard to swallow. If you saw a promo for Sons Of Anarchy, you'd probably immediately assume it was just another cheesy man-show.  You would be mistaken. 

I watched the entirety of the first season of SOA from my computer (in a slick media share set up between my computer and my xbox 360 so I could watch the episodes on my tv) in two sittings.  I hadn't planned on it after I watched the first 5 episodes because although the show was interesting and entertaining, it hadn't really grabbed me.  The next day, I decided to go ahead and watch another episode.  Which turned into another, then another, until finally, after 6 hours, I had watched the rest of the first season.  Blown away is a mild way to put my state after it was over. 

I know a lot of shows really try to push the envelope of what you can do on television, especially cable, but the first season of SOA really felt to me like they did things I hadn't seen (I watch a lot of TV) and none of it felt forced with an immense and shocking impact.

Three episodes of the second season have aired so far, the newest episode just a few hours ago, and I've taken time to let them sink in.  Well, maybe not the third episode, but I think I'm getting where the show is going.  And I have to say that thought I still really enjoy the lives of the Sons of Anarchy MC, I'm a little disappointed.  The way the first season ended, I really believed the next season would focus entirely on the tension and eventual break up of the club as Clay Morrow, the club's president, and Jax Teller, the show's protagonist and club VP, dealt with the fall out of the accidental death of club member, and all around good guy, Opie's wife.

Instead, the show is putting that schism a little in the background as the SOA have to deal with a White Power group that tries to take the Sons out of their little home town.  Now, don't get me wrong, White Power is consistently a great villain, but they're always one-dimensional.  They're always bad guys.  I mean, the audience can't identify (or shouldn't identify) with guys whose modus operandi is hating and plotting to kill people based entirely on their skin color, no matter how great people they seem to be.  So putting the club schism on the backburner instead of running headlong into an all out club civil war with the momentum they created at the end of last season seems to me to be a cop out, probably an attempt to give more viewers a good jumping on point.  And according to the Nielson ratings for the season premiere, "Albification", it paid off to the tune of twice the total viewers than the most watched episode of season 1.  Don't get me wrong, I get the approach and I hope it pays off for the show, but I'm annoyed to have to sit through 5-6 episodes of scene building before the storyline really kicks into gear.  I enjoyed the ATF as the villains last year because both sides had to skirt certain issues as they positioned themselves for the other party's next moves but that just isn't gonna happen this time around since both sides can break laws in any way they want.

Despite my grousing over the new villains of the series (and it is nice to see Henry Rollins get some serious acting work because the dude can pull of menacing in a big way,) I'm really enjoying watching Jax build the new alliances that will play out when he decides to take the Sons away from Clay.  It's hard to see who will side with him other than Piney and Half-Sack, who already know what Clay did to Opie.  Part of me thinks Bobby might side with Jax because he knows what Clay did too, but I find that hard to imagine because Bobby seemed so gung-ho about the Sons being an outlaw club last season.

All in all, Sons Of Anarchy is still one of my favorite shows and I look forward to it every week.  If you've never seen it, head over to Hulu.com and catch up on the second season.  Then watch the new episodes every Tuesday at 10pm on FX.

The Power Men Wield - Kings on NBC

Last spring, NBC marketed the hell out of a new show during every commercial break they had, especially during Heroes.  Some of you may have seen the big orange title card with the wings, bound by a halo.  

Kings was an interesting idea.  Take a biblical story and transpose it into modern times where modern concerns are influenced by motivations that haven't changed since the dawn of civilization.  Then create an entirely fake universe around all of that, add in some creative above the line talent, and aim high.

Personally, I think the show was pretty damn good.  Not LOST or Supernatural good, but good nonetheless.  Francis Lawrence (director of Constanstine and I Am Legend) directed the first few episodes and gave the show a sizable and noticeable punch in the early goings.  The acting was stellar, especially from the ridiculously talented Ian McShane as King Silas Benjamin, and the cast gelled well together (and I really enjoyed the addition of Macauley Culkin to the cast.  The creepiness he's been able to embody now that he's older fits in perfect with his role.)  They really showed the meat and sinew of a family with that much power.  But for many reasons, the most obvious being the misdirected marketing for the show presented by NBC, it never found an audience and got shuffled off in the summer.  It did get a 12 episode run and they concluded it really well with a 2 part finale that tied it all off.

A lot of reviews and stories I've read gave too much weight to the religious overtones as the reason the show floundered.  If you look back at the modern history of television, any show that mentions God a lot, especially in reference to the Judeo/Christian tradition, never makes it very far.  The general population doesn't like to feel preached to by primetime entertainment.  It's supposed to be about escapism.  Look at the unrealistic, rock-star portrayal of crime scene investigation on the myriad CSI shows if you want evidence.  Even our "realism" isn't real.

However, I don't think that was the case.  Honestly, I'm not a religious person and I really don't like being preached to but I actually enjoy it when a form of entertainment uses religion as a powerful story-telling tool.  So I know the religious aspect didn't put that many people off.  I think it was the writing.  Or more specifically, the language of the show.  The show came off like it was written by the bible scholars working with Shakespeare.  All the flowery language adds gravitas to the drama but I think it turns a lot of people off.  It's a fine line to tread creating an intelligent show that feels accessible but doesn't seem to talk down to the general audience.  Frasier did it and did it well but Kings perhaps just aimed too high.

The reason for this review is pretty simple.  If you like your drama intelligent then give the show a shot.  It's more a miniseries than a full show but I think anyone can appreciate the layers of complexity.  The entire series is available on Hulu - Kings so go check it out, tell me what you think.

Welcome to the Hype Republic

I am an avid consumer of entertainment.  Seriously, AVID.  So I've decided to turn my thoughts and musings on these things that entertain me so into a blog.  Mostly because I spend so much time on the damn internet, I might as well jump on the bandwagon and give everyone a chance to read my unwanted and weightless opinion.  That being said, I hope you enjoy my ramblings.

To start off with, there are a few things I'd like to address:

1. I'd like to say goodbye to Nine Inch Nails.  They played their last show on Sep 10, 2009 and I wish them all the best.

2. Disney buying Marvel is not a bad thing...as long as the Disney board takes the same approach to Marvel's business that they do with Pixar.

3. Dancing With The Stars is a wound on the face of your television.  It's bleeding on the carpet and you need to turn it off before the dog gets to close to the crimson pool.

Fall TV has finally arrived and thank fucking god.  Summer TV is just so massively boring.  I always start craving new material in late August, after the last of the decent summer movies comes out.  I've been putting together my schedule of shows for the fall and unfortunately, my inability to possess a DVR with dual tuners (hopefully I'll have that situation resolved by early November, just in time for V on ABC) is going to keep me from watching a few shows I'm interested in when they air.  So here is the list of shows I'll be blogging about over the next few months.

The Simpsons
The Cleveland Show
Family Guy
Bored To Death
Dexter
Heroes
Trauma
V
Sons of Anarchy (fav show last season)
Modern Family
FlashForward
Supernatural (gets better every year)
It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia
Dollhouse
Star Wars: The Clone Wars

I'm also going to keep up with Fringe, 30 Rock, The Office, Stargate Universe, and Southland but I'll have to watch them on Hulu over the weekends.  So I may do some quick, weekend roundup type post for them.

If this blog turns out to be interesting, successful, and warranted, I'll get neck deep in it when Scrubs, Chuck, and 24 start in 2010.  I will warn anyone who starts to care about this blog that once LOST starts, I'll probably be posting about that a lot since it just so happens to be my favorite show and this is the final season.

But wait, foul, you cry!  Why only TV shows?  I thought this was an entertainment blog?  Well, IT IS.  So in that spirit, I'll also be posting about movies, comics, and video games as they come across my eyes.  I might get into music a little but I don't put all that much energy into following the scene.

Musings to look forward to in the next week:
Sons of Anarchy episodes 1 & 2
Supernatural
Maybe a review of the video games WET and X-Men Origins: Wolverine