Episode 1486: Looper

Went to see Looper with Natalie. Don't see why some people have found it confusing. Admittedly, I did leave the cinema thinking that for a time travel film, it actually took care of its temporal paradoxes quite well. Then I thought about it some more, and realised that the film doesn't seem to obey the Novikov self-consistency principle, which is one of the ways in which such paradoxes can be explained away. Long story short, Young Joe shooting himself would render unexplained why there was ever an Old Joe coming back from the future to try and alter the past in the first place. Then I found this article on The Huffington Post, which not only clarified how the various timelines work in the film, but in the comments thread, someone put forward an interesting suggestion. Although an optimistic interpretation of the ending indicates that Young Joe has succeeded in altering Cid's future, preventing him from becoming the Rainmaker, there's no actual evidence provided within the film for this. Furthermore, if Young Joe foresees how Old Joe killing Sara would drive Cid to grow up into the Rainmaker, i.e. Old Joe is caught up in a self-fulfilling prophecy, this doesn't explain how the Rainmaker came to exist in the original timeline. So there could be some other event that steers Cid onto that path, and in order to obey the Novikov self-consistency principle, it's really Cid that's closing his loop, so to speak, by becoming the Rainmaker who starts sending all the loopers back for execution, due to what he witnessed at the ending of the film. Pretty interesting theory, I think? Anyway, plenty of food for thought, like with all good science fiction films (and science fiction in general).

Episode 1485: Return Of The Walking Dead

So The Walking Dead Season 3 premiered this week, and its ratings mean it's currently the best-rated premiere of this TV season, and we're talking about something that airs on cable. Awesome ratings aside, the show's definitely making use of its budget increase for this season. I swear that in this episode alone, there were more zombies than we've seen in the rest of the show put together, excluding the pilot. Let's just hope they haven't pulled the opposite of what they did in Season 2, when they saved up to be able to binge on effects in the season finale. I worry though. Now that the characters are all sort of safely sequestered in their prison cells (bit of a heavy-handed visual metaphor for the Ricktatorship, wasn't it?), once again the people making the show have an excuse to spend a whole season not showing us zombies on a zombie show. I have to say though, I'm rooting for Lori to die this season. I was on the fence before, but Phil's right, she's annoying. My idea for her exit involves Carl shooting her. Don't you think that'd be a pretty amazing twist? Gruesome and definitely polarising. I can already imagine the outraged articles it would generate...

Episode 1484: ABC's Sunday Slump?

Having watched this week's episode, I've decided that the problem with 666 Park Avenue is that it moves too slowly for network television. On a cable channel, however, it might fare better. Three episodes in, the show hasn't quite struck a balance between all its elements, which doesn't bode well for its survival, even if its ratings weren't so terrible. The temptation-of-the-week storyline doesn't really gel with either the ongoing attempts of Terry O'Quinn's Gavin to ensnare Dave Annable's Henry or the spooky stuff that Rachael Taylor's Jane keeps running up against. Not that those two storylines are really working all that well together anyway, if you ask me, though I'm guessing that Gavin is trying to groom Henry to take over his role of tempter at the Drake, which is an interesting angle but needs to be played up more, assuming that's where the story is going. Revenge, on the other hand, seems to have hit a sophomore slump, at least for me. I mean, the plot's still deliciously twisty and unbelievably ridiculous, but it also feels like nothing that much really happens each week. The show is also showing signs of having problems with juggling its ensemble cast, as some characters are clearly just showing up each week for a few minutes so that the viewers know they still exist, without any actual plot development that's germane to them.

Episode 1483: An Album Ahead Of Its Time?

So after a post on TV stars of yesteryear popping back on our screens, I might as well do a post about some 'old' pop music that I've been playing a lot on my iPod lately. To be exact, it's really just one album, Rachel Stevens's sophomore effort Come And Get It. For me, it's one of those rare albums that I can listen straight through without skipping any of the tracks and honestly tell myself that I find something to enjoy in each one. (Most recently, that's happened with Bright Light Bright Light's Make Me Believe In Hope.) Stevens might be better remembered as one of the members of S Club 7, though in that pop group, she was more eye candy than key vocalist. Her solo tracks tend to rely on production to buoy her lacklustre vocals, but on Come And Get It, this actually pays off. The album didn't do all that well, but music reviewers have tended to consider it an underrated pop gem, and I think they're right. If any track on the album had been done by any of today's pop darlings like Katy Perry or Rihanna (i.e. anyone whose voice actually seemed to possess some sort of personality), it would probably have been a hit. This is not to say that Stevens's singing is terrible or entirely buried beneath Auto-Tune (I'm looking at you, Britney Spears), it's just a bit emotionally flat and lacking in musical or dynamic range. Still, in a way Come And Get It was sort of ahead of its time, since the dominance of producer RedOne's sound had yet to arrive in the guise of Lady Gaga. (Then there was those awful couple of years when Timbaland's beats were all the rage.) That's part of the album's appeal for me though, that it sounds almost like today's overproduced pop, but somehow isn't quite trapped by all that sonic gimmickry yet. It hits that sweet spot between the cheesiness of late nineties/early noughties bubblegum pop and the slickness of today's club-friendly stuff.

Episode 1482: The Comeback Season?

It struck me that this TV season has largely been about comebacks. Not so much in the sense of faded TV stars trying to rekindle their careers, but rather TV executives obviously banking on familiar names from various hit shows of the last decade or so to propel this year's new shows to success. In a way, it's not surprising that actors and actresses from old shows are popping up again now. I mean, they have to work, don't they? What is surprising is the sheer number of shows that seem to be counting on this tactic paying off, which by and large, it actually hasn't. Off the top of my head, considering only those shows that I'm actually watching and excluding stuff that's premiering mid-season: 666 Park Avenue - Robert Buckley (Lipstick Jungle, One Tree Hill), Terry O'Quinn (Lost, Hawaii Five-0), Vanessa Williams (Ugly Betty). Animal Practice - Joanna García-Swisher (Privileged, Gossip Girl, Royal Pains). Arrow - Stephen Amell (Hung), Katie Cassidy (Melrose Place, Gossip Girl). Beauty & The Beast - Kristin Kreuk (Smallville). Chicago Fire - Taylor Kinney (The Vampire Diaries), Jesse Spencer (House). Elementary - Lucy Liu (Ally McBeal, Dirty Sexy Money). Last Resort - Dichen Lachman (Dollhouse, Being Human), Autumn Reeser (The O.C.), Scott Speedman (Felicity). Nashville - Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights, American Horror Story), Hayden Panettiere (Heroes). Partners - Sophia Bush (One Tree Hill), David Krumholtz (Numb3rs), Michael Urie (Ugly Betty). Revolution - Elizabeth Mitchell (Lost, V). The Mindy Project - Mindy Kaling (The Office). The Mob Doctor - Jordana Spiro (My Boys). Vegas - Jason O'Mara (Terra Nova).

Episode 1481: What A Beastly Show

I don't think anyone goes for their pre-employment medical checkup expecting the doctor to be so interested in the fact that they write poetry. I mean, the guy actually tried to Google me on the spot, but the search engine was blocked on his computer. Honestly though, it's slightly ridiculous that the amount of time he spent chatting to me was about twice as long as the actual physical examination. Was good to catch up with Jared afterwards though. Now I'm watching the pilot for Beauty & The Beast, which is actually pretty awful. Kristin Kreuk is easy on the eyes, but since this is The CW, the Beast of the show, Jay Ryan, just gets given a scar because you know, now you just can't bear to look at his ugly face. Right? (Yeah, I think Hollywood already tried this with Alex Pettyfer in Beastly, and nobody bought it that time either.) Also, what the world obviously needs is yet another show that makes out a guy stalking a girl to be something really romantic. It's possible to use that as a springboard for something more nuanced (The Vampire Diaries), but it's equally possible to just go downhill from there (the whole Twilight franchise). In short, I can't believe The CW axed The Secret Circle for this. The only thing this show has going for it is that as a procedural, it's another step towards further diversifying The CW's offerings. It also premiered solidly ratings-wise, but likely only because it aired opposite the US vice-presidential debate this week, rather than competing dramas in its timeslot.

Episode 1480: People, NBC's Revolution Isn't That Good, Okay?

Dear Nielsen households of America, do you honestly like Revolution that much? It really isn't that good. Having seen four episodes, I'm obviously going to stick with it for the full season, but I'm unimpressed by the way the show has managed to drag out a 'rescue' over four episodes, to the detriment of significant plot developments in other more interesting areas. Like why the power suddenly went out. Hello, that is the basic premise of the whole show, right? So yeah, it's baffling to me that the ratings for Revolution are still holding up. On the pilot side of things, today I've seen NBC's Chicago Fire, I'm watching ABC's Nashville right now, and I'll get to The CW's Arrow later. Of the three, the one I'm really rooting for is Arrow because I've loved Katie Cassidy since she was on the failed Melrose Place reboot in 2009. The CW clearly likes her too, since they gave her an (admittedly somewhat disappointing) arc on Gossip Girl, and now she's the female lead in Arrow. (Then again, The CW has this tendency to recycle actors anyway. Like Kristin Kreuk in Beauty And The Beast, which I bet is going to flop, despite being given The Vampire Diaries as a lead-in. Hope it tanks faster than The Secret Circle, which was actually getting good towards the end.) I thought Chicago Fire was okay, and I'm curious to see what sort of ratings it gets for NBC, although I think they should really have let Jesse Spencer keep his native accent, like on House. As for Nashville, it's been described as Smash-meets-country, but it's actually moving along quite snappily in comparison to that show's pilot. Not a country music fan, so I went into this not expecting to like it, but hey, I'm being pleasantly surprised, Hayden Panettiere's presence notwithstanding. Not impressed by the presence of a politics subplot though. Like that worked out so well on Smash, right?

Episode 1479: Third Review, And I've Barely Dented The Pile

Review of Cryptic Endearments is done and sent off to Andrea. A bit nervous about this one, as I feel like he's got quite high expectations (based on the review of Alan Brownjohn's The Saner Places that I sent him as a sample) and it's also the first poetry review I've done in ages (the last two were of fiction). I also think that there's a lot more to Howie's collection than I've managed to cover in 900+ words, but it's also difficult to articulate what those things are without resorting to extensive and repeated quotation of the poems themselves. It sounds clichéd, but it's really one of those collections that you have to read yourself, in order to get a sense of what it's like. Here's the link to purchase a copy, in case anyone's interested. Ah well, no use worrying about the review now that it's done. Time to move on to the next one! Have done three since I got back from the UK, but I've still barely made a dent in my to-do pile and my editors are beginning to come knocking. I think the next thing on my list is going to be Wes Brown's Shark, and then one of the KFS chapbooks that I've owed Lindsey, and now Claire, since the middle of the year.

Episode 1478: Ageing Teen Dramas

So The CW is finally premiering the rest of its shows. Have seen the first episode of 90210 Season 5 and I'm amazed that this was given the green light for a full season, whereas Gossip Girl only got a half-season order. (I'm already predicting that its timeslot mid-season replacement, The Carrie Diaries, is going to be this TV season's Ringer-style flop.) Don't get me wrong, I think the A.V. Club's D- review of the Gossip Girl Season 6 premiere is basically spot-on, and this is without even having seen the episode (because Gossip Girl has honestly become that predictable). I just figured the flagship show of the network would have been cut some slack and given a full season to send it off, though I suppose it's really The Vampire Diaries that's The CW's crown jewel now. Thought it's going into Season 4 this year, it's managed to avoid (so far) the fundamental pitfall of teen dramas, i.e. failing to properly handle the characters' inevitable growing up. 90210 and Gossip Girl, on the other hand, are perfect case studies of how a teen drama can go completely off the rails.

Episode 1477: The Silent History

Okay, I've changed my mind about Season 2 of Homeland because this week's episode was great! On a side note, for some reason it's taken ages for genuine AVI versions of my shows to become available, which makes it difficult to keep up with what is a very packed viewing schedule. Haven't managed to read Cryptic Endearments again today, so I absolutely have to do it tomorrow, and maybe try to write the review too, which means another bunch of TV shows that I can't watch. Anyway, my discovery of the day has been The Silent History, which is an e-book with a twist. To begin with, it's serialised, so the story is being portioned out in six volumes, each running for a month with some time in between for people to catch up. However, as it's delivered in the form of an app for iPhone or iPad, the creators have taken advantage of the GPS function to add content that is only unlocked when the app is run at specific locations. These ancillary stories add another dimension to the narrative, but are not strictly necessary reading in order to follow the storyline. The creators have already stated that they don't expect anyone to actually be able to unlock all these site-specific stories, but part of the fun is that users can submit their own work for consideration. There's currently no unlockable content in Singapore, so I might actually try my hand at writing something for the app. It's definitely a way of doing e-books that goes beyond just converting text into a digital format, and for readers living near unlockable content, will make for very immersive storytelling. The main narrative itself is already intriguing anyway, about an 'epidemic' of silence that begins affecting children, and the book looks like it'll be tracking fictional firsthand accounts all the way to the early 2040s. At US$8.99 (I paid S$10.98), it's pricier than the average Apple app, but I think it's worth it.