Now that season 1 of Alphas is finally done, let’s take a look back at the premiere season and see what was good and what was not so good. Overall I’m happy because it was a decent show AND it was renewed. But I think there is still a lot of room to improve. So, what happened on the show and what does the future look like? Spoilers ahead, so watch the full season before reviewing.
Terra Nova review
After 2+ years of development, the pilot of Terra Nova finally was shown to a profound “meh”. It was a mediocre family drama with some nice special effects. The show wasn’t so bad that I’m going to avoid it, but will probably watch another 1-2 episodes to see if it gets any better. But, based off last night’s episode, I’m not counting on it. So, let’s check in and see what happened and where(when) is Terra Nova.
The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko
I’ve previously reviewed the movie The Night Watch (my review), and while I enjoyed the movie, I was curious about the book it was based on. So, I read it and enjoyed it a lot. The Night Watch is the first of a trilogy (tetralogy is four books). While the movie only centered on a few characters, the book has a much bigger cast and the story is a lot more subtle. Narrated almost exclusively by Anton, the book does a great job exploring Anton while the plot revolves around him. So let’s see what’s going on.
The Falling Machine by Andrew Mayer
The subtitle of Andrew Mayer’s book The Falling Machine is: The Society of Steam book 1, so there is every reason to believe that this is the prelude to an ongoing series. Where I had compared Hard Magic (my review) to the X-Men, The Falling Machine tries to be more like the Justice League and it doesn’t succeed. The characters are bland and the plot is silly. It’s yet another book that I gave 100 pages to and then gave up. It’s a poorly conceived story and I have no plans to read additional books. So, let’s see what happened.
The School of Night by Louis Bayard
I’ve become a big fan of Louis Bayard recently. He does a great job of weaving together historical stories into an interesting mystery. His books involve real people (Edgar Allen Poe from The Pale Blue Eye
And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer
I am a huge fan of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I own the book, the movie and the TV series, pretty much everything except the radio series. So when I heard that there was another book in the series being released after Douglas Adam’s death and it would an original book written by someone else, I was skeptical. But I recently heard an interview with Eoin Colfer and it made the book (And Another Thing…) sound somewhat interesting. The author clearly had a decent sense of humor and I thought I’d try it out. I should have stayed with my gut instinct. The books wasn’t bad, it wasn’t horrible, it was simply boring and not Douglas Adams. I gave up after about 100 pages. So let’s see what went wrong.
Girl Genius by Phil and Kaja Foglio
I’ve heard good things about Girl Genius
Paul movie review
I absolutely loved Shaun of the Dead
Torchwood Miracle Day finale review
Well, that sucked. I was very excited for the last few episodes after the great flashback episode a few weeks ago. But it ended with a whimper instead of a bang. And by a whimper, I mean Rex whining “What do I do” near the end. I’ve grown to hate Rex and the fact that they are keeping him around is sad. I feel bad for Mekhi Phifer to be saddled with a leading action role as a whining putz. His work with the doctor was wasted and the Esther relationship never seemed that interesting.
And what the hell show was Bill Pullman supposed to be in? He has a great part in a child molester who get’s freed when the death penalty doesn’t work, but then he’s saddled with pretty much idiotic plot that just kind of wanders around doing random things. He goes out with a bang, but all that means is that he can move onto a TV show where the writers know what to do with him.
Gwen and Jack were great (as always) and their parts were the only ones worth watching. I would watch a whole series of Jack’s past episodes (similar to his Angelo story). That is powerful TV. The rest of it just sucked. Given that Jack and Gwen will definitely be back for the next series (if there is one) then I will probably watch it. Hopefully they’ll figure out Rex (or kill him off quickly).
Calculating God by Robert Sawyer
Robert Sawyer has always had interesting ideas. He often does intersections of science and religion, but holds little patience for fools or mysticism. Calculating God