The Walking Dead Season 4 Premier - Review

Season four of The Walking Dead had a really excellent premier. It made the walkers feel scary again after their almost non existent threat towards the end of last season, and it put us in a place where I honestly can’t imagine all of the immensely exciting things that could happen this series.

After the attack by the Governor on his own people, Rick and the survivors have welcomed the remaining survivors from Woodberry into the prison. The group is much larger now and it gives us several new and interesting characters who we will undoubtedly end up loving before the creators of the show decide that they will die horribly and tear our hearts out in the process. One of these new characters is former army doctor, Bob Stookey. He is going to be a main character this season and from what we saw of him this week, seems to have some exciting secrets that will unfold throughout the season.

The returning main characters have gone through some changes since season three. Rick seems to be turning into a little bit of a pacifist. He has taken the responsibility of farming the land and appears reluctant to take responsibility as a leader, a job that has fallen to Daryl and Hershel. This is an interesting change for Rick and I think that this change is possibly just the next step in Rick’s slow descent into madness in the wake of all the awful things he’s had to do, an issue which was directly addressed this episode. Carol has also changed. She is probably the most developed character in the series. She has changed from the always terrified, abused wife and mother from season one into a hardened, brave and confident survivor at the start of season four. This is a change that I really enjoyed; one of my favourite scenes from the premier was a scene in which Carol was showing the larger group of children in the group how to wield a knife. This was a scene that really highlighted how much Carol has changed from season one.

Carl is also a changed character. In the premier we see him struggle to work out whether he is a child or an adult. His confliction is really interesting to watch as he shows such delight when Michonne brings him new comics and yet he wants to help his dad secure the prison and gets really angry with the other kids when they start naming the walkers. Last season Carl killed a man in cold blood, and it is strange to see him not affected by it at all now. He still wants to help and fight, and from the brief trailer at the end of the episode, it seems that he is going to further struggle with morally grey situations this season.

My favourite scene in this episode was a run that Daryl took a few people on to a Costco like shop to gather supplies. This scene alone made me actually scared of the walkers for the first time since season two. The suspense was really intense and the walkers dropping through the ceiling one by one was a really scary situation.

I loved this episode. The Walking Dead is my favourite show on television at the moment and the first episode of season four did not disappoint. I honestly can’t think of a single thing that happened that I didn’t like or at least understand why they included it. I continue to be impressed by the production quality and the high calibre of acting that TWD has to offer.

10/10

Grey's Anatomy Episode 200 Audio Review

9/10

Unfortunately, I did not have enough time this weekend to review episode six of Legend of Korra. Hopefully I will have time next week and to review Walking Dead tomorrow.

Arrow Season 2 Premier - Review

Arrow is without a doubt in my opinion, the best superhero comic based T.V. show around. Unlike Smallvile, which had a very over the top feel to it (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a series about Superman), Arrow is very grounded in realism despite being a series about a man who dresses up in green leather and a hood and goes around shooting arrows at criminals. Season one was really enjoyable. The vast majority if the characters were interesting and well developed throughout the series, and the story, whilst having its occasional weak points, was exciting, dramatic and full of emotion. The finale was full of action suspense and drama. It also left us at a great position to start season two.

Episode one of season two entitled “City of Heroes”, was just as exciting. It picks up five months after the events of season one which was a great decision seeing as having to start watching straight after the earthquake would probably have felt a little forced in terms of how much action they try and fit into an episode. The plot for this episode was very simple, which turned out to be a very good thing. Oliver returns to starling city after having returned to the island for five months in order to get away from the guilt he felt. On his return he finds four copycat vigilantes who have been murdering city officials and are now targeting the Queen family.

However, the most interesting aspect of the episode is seeing Oliver having to step up to run his family’s company. Queen Consolidated is going bankrupt and Isabel Rochev (a business woman played by Firefly’s Summer Glau) is about to buy it out. It was really interesting to see Oliver finally become as serious in the public eye as he is as the Hood.

As ever the acting in Arrow was great. Stephen Amell does a great job as Oliver, managing to show the emotional stress he feels upon his return to the city, but Emily Bett Rickards who plays Felicity is by far the most entertaining to watch. She has some really hilarious moments and pulls them off flawlessly.

As well is Isable Rochev, episode one introduces a mysterious new character at the end of the episode. Black Canary has finally been brought into the picture and I’m really interested to see what they will do with her especially since they are bring superhuman abilities into a series which prides itself in being as realistic as a superhero show can be.

Overall, I loved this episode. It sets up the rest of the series very well and I’m excited to se where they go with it.



9/10

New Review Schedule

A quick update - From now on I will not be reviewing Agents of Shield on a weekly basis. Instead I will be doing one overall review at the end of the season and my new weekly review will be of the Walking Dead.

The purpose of this change is to give myself more time between reviews. I will also be reviewing Arrow later this month and I want to be able to have a couple of consecutive days when I'm not writing.

Here is a rough timetable of my reviews:

Monday: Walking Dead (as of 14/10/13)
Thursday: Arrow (As of 10/10/13)
Friday: Grey's Anatomy
Saturday/Sunday: Legend of Korra

I also plan on writing a full series review of How I Met Your Mother when the series finishes for good later this year, and I will be writing reviews of any new films I see or particularly good games and comics.

If you like my blog, please leave comments with your opinions. I would love to hear them.

Legend of Korra Book 2 Episode 5 Review

I’m so happy to see that with each episode of Book 2 there is improvement. Episode five had some very strong aspects to it that have been a little absent in the past few episodes. There were a few weak points, but these were not major enough to ruin the episode and are problems that can be easily corrected and will hopefully be addressed.

Episode five saw Korra and friends arriving back in republic city in order to find allies to help fight off the Northern Water Tribe forces. One of the issues I’ve had over the past few weeks is the lack of Lin Beifong in the series. However, this week we saw her again, if briefly. And as usual, every scene that features Lin is enjoyable. I’ve also realised that Bolin is no longer the most humorous character on the show. It seems he has been knocked off the top spot by new-comer Varrick, whose hilarious brain storm scene was my personal highlight of the episode.

One of my favourite additions to Legend of Korra in season two is that of Eska and Deska. In this episode, the terror twins were particularly interesting. After the traumatic incident of Bolin leaving her, Eska has gone crazy, and I have to say, super crazy angry Eska is just as entertaining as emotionless yet entertainingly witty Eska. These two further helped this episode by providing the best fight scene yet this season. I really enjoy fights involving water benders. Water bending has the best animation second only to earth. I was however, disappointed when this well animated fight was interrupted by a giant dark spirit.

Their return was inevitable. As mentioned in previous reviews, I do not like spirit fights. They are not entertaining and the benders seem so futile against them not to mention that the only way they can end is if someone knows how to use ‘spirit bending’. I certainly hope that the series writers have something interesting planned concerning the spirits since their story has, for me, taken a back seat to Tenzin’s.

Speaking of Tenzin, this week we saw him helping his young son Meelo to train a friendly lemur in the southern air temple. It would seem that Meelo has a talent for training things as he managed to train an entire fleet of lemurs to fly in formation. This was perhaps my favourite segment of the episode. I find Tenzin’s family life and his parenting difficulties to be endearing and interesting to watch. Tenzin is probably the most developed character so far this season and his story really helps to create a fully formed world in which all of these characters live.

Overall, episode five was very enjoyable and possibly the best episode so far this series. I’m certain at this point that Book 2 is definitely improving episode by episode. I can only hope that the spirit storyline gets more interesting and that Korra developes a little more. It is unfortunate that the main character of the series can be so unlikeable.

8.5/10

Grey's Anatomy Season 10 Episode 3 Review

There has certainly been an improvement from the first two episodes to this one. Most of the gripes that I have are no longer existent barring one or two, and the ideas that this episode introduces set up some interesting plot points for the rest of the series.

Most importantly, the over dramatic feel of the premier has been toned down an awful lot, allowing more focus on the individual characters and their stories rather than a huge traumatic event. I feel that these events such as the plane crash and the shooting are entertaining and engrossing, but they also detract from one of the best things about Grey’s Anatomy: The characters. When the pace of the episodes begin to slow down, the quality of story telling increases as we get to see how the individual characters are growing and developing. What I loved about the season nine finale that sets it apart from the others is that despite the huge raging storm and it’s affect on the hospital, the pace was slow enough to focus on the individual dramas of the characters. Pacing was the premier’s biggest issue. Despite having two hours to spend, they decided to focus on the storm and the big trauma surrounding Brooks and Webber. Even though Grey’s is a show about surgery, it’s biggest strength lies in the relationships between characters, which is why episode three was such a vast improvement.

In this episode we got to see how Callie was really reacting to Arizona’s betrayal and this played out really well over the course of the episode. It’s in traumatic moments in Callie’s personal life that Sara Ramirez really shows her skills as an actor. There was a really great moment towards the end of the episode where Callie and Arizona are standing outside a couple’s therapy office and Callie explains how she really feels about there relationship and for a moment I seriously did think that things would work out between the two. But of course it didn’t come of anything because we know how much Shonda Rhimes likes to torture her characters in order to bring out the best in them.

Another great aspect of this episode was Webber’s story. We saw the beginning of his recovery and his motives for putting Meredith down as his family member. It was really interesting to see how different his character was after being electrocuted. He was more aggressive and less careful about what he said. His conversation with Meredith at the end of the episode was really emotional and left me wondering what the future of their relationship would be and whether or not he would be in the picture for much longer considering how he hostile he has been to the rest of the characters in recent seasons.

Unfortunately, I still had a few issues with this week’s episode. The first, once again, being the soundtrack. It really irritates me that the music they have chosen to accompany the scenes rarely represents what is going on in them. It really took me out of the experience. When I watch a television show, I don’t want to feel like that’s what I’m doing. I want to feel like I’m there with the characters experiencing everything with them. When I hear upbeat hip hop music during an important heartfelt moment it takes me out of it. The other issue I had is the way that they are trying too hard to further include the interns in the story. Especially Leah who is way past annoying and is also completely irrelevant.

Thankfully season ten episode three was very enjoyable. Not only was it better than the premier, but it set up the rest of what looks to be a great series. It was by no means perfect, but it was a great episode all the same.

7.8/10