The Doena Journal

Spartacus: Blood and Sand @ Wikipedia

Spartacus: Blood and Sand @ IMDb

Trailer: This is Sparta … cus!

Spartacus (a name given to him by the Romans later), a Thracian, joins forces with a Roman Legatus to fight against an evil horde that constantly raid their villages, rob their crop and rape their women. But then the Romans don’t hold their end of the bargain and the Thracians desert to protect their villages on their own. The Legatus doesn’t take that too kindly and follows them. He can take Spartacus as a prisoner and sentences him to die in the arena. But that man is not that easy to kill.

Lots of nudity (male and female). Even more blood. Better you put a bucket below your telly in case it spills out of the screen. The visual appearance leans more towards 300 than Gladiator, especially when there’s blood flowing. The problem is the story. These first two episodes show how Spartacus became a Gladiator but it didn’t give the viewer an idea what the entire show is going to be about. And that’s why I am not yet convinced. To quote Buffy’s Spike: “I love a good slaughter as much as the next bloke.” but I also need a real story in between.
Time will tell … at least you now get the chance you never got with Xena: To see Lucy Lawless in the nude.

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Life Unexpected @ Wikipedia

Life Unexpected @ IMDb

Lux is nearly 16 years old and she has been wandering from one foster home family to the next for years now. Now she wants to get emancipated to live her own life. But for this she needs the signatures of her birth parents. She’s not an orphan; she’s the “product” of a certain Winter Formal activity. Her father lives above a bar he owns and doesn’t even know he has a daughter until she turns up at his doorstep. Her mother is a radio moderator and is also steamrolled when she shows up. (Un)fortunately the emancipation hearing doesn’t go as planned…

I was made aware of this series at least twice. The second time was a few days ago when blogs reviewed the pilot episode. But I’ve seen bits and pieces of this episode before - most likely in a trailer a few months back. And even though I had forgotten the show in the meantime I now remember that I decided back then that I’d give it a try.
I really liked the pilot. The characters are believable and down-to-earth. Even though the show runs on The CW this isn’t Beverly Hills, 90210 or Gossip Girl; this is different. As with every show it now depends on what kind of stories they are going to tell and how this triangle+attachments is going to work out.

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Human Target @ Wikipedia

Human Target @ IMDb

Christopher Chance (maybe his real name, maybe not) is a bodyguard for special cases. He does not work when there’s only a vague possibility of a threat. When he’s called upon the threat is real and imminent. He does not openly pose as bodyguard but disguises himself in the proximity of the target and only reveals himself when it is absolutely necessary. This way he doesn’t get noticed but he notices his surroundings very carefully.

The pilot episode certainly looked interesting. The action was well balanced above realistic and below unrealistic. It looks like as if it’s going to be Die Hard or Lethal Weapon in a series format and I certainly will watch more episodes of it.

Warning, this trailer spoilers a lot of the Pilot episode:

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Deutsche Version

Since everybody seems to be starting to count at zero instead of one the first decade of this century and millennium is now over. So it’s time to recap these past ten years and take a look at the TV Shows it has given us.

Let me give my résumé at the beginning: Of the four decades I know TV Shows from (70s - 00s) this was without question the best decade for us TV junkies. When you read my review you might say in the end “Hey what about <insert your favourite here>?” (e.g. The Sopranos, Dexter, The Wire, Six Feet Under, …) but that’s exactly my point. This decade has given us so many outstanding shows that it was impossible to watch them all. Also, everybody has a different set of favourite genres but I’d say that every genre got their fair share of excellent series in the last years.

But let’s face it: There’s rarely any series (if there’s one at all) that could keep up the quality and it’s appeal for its entire run. Some had a bad year in between, some fell short at the end. But even in these “bad years” they had more quality episodes in it than entire shows from previous decades. So all the shows I am going to name have of course aspects that can be criticized and I invite you to do so.

For me the most outstanding characteristic of this past decade’s shows is that they are more often than not more about the “journey” of the character(s) than the actual events. It’s not the character who shines a light upon the unfolding events but it’s the events that shine a light upon the character and his development. I have to say that shows (hereby excluding comedy shows that work with stereo- and archetypes) that don’t have a real character development don’t interest me at all. But if the character development is interesting I might even watch shows from genres that usually don’t interest me at all.

If the character development is interesting enough I might even set the fact aside that my second favourite characteristic is missing: A real story-arc. The first TV Show in my TV universe that had a real story-arc, was Babylon 5. Later Star Trek: DS9 did the same albeit not in that quality and complexity. But these shows were two of the rare exception in the 90s (another famous exception would be Twin Peaks, but I never watched it). It seemed that viewers weren’t interested in either developing characters or story-arcs.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Paradox @ Wikipedia

Paradox @ IMDb

A scientist has a satellite in orbit to observe the activities of the sun (like flares and stuff). But when he downloads the new images from it there are eight images that come from Earth. And they weren’t taken by the satellite. The timestamp of the pictures seems to indicate that they were taken in the future. And they seem to show an attack or an accident. The institute involves the police and now a race against time begins.

When I read the description of this new British series, it sounded like a variant of Early Edition or Tru Calling so I gave it a try. But unfortunately the pilot was a bit disappointing. The scientist behaved like he was behind all it. I assume he did it to force the police to investigate but it didn’t really work out for me. And the police didn’t even take the most obvious precaution. They simply could have blocked that seemingly unimportant road but they didn’t.
In the second episode they’ve got their first possible paradox. If they hadn’t got the pictures the guy most likely hadn’t died. But if he hadn’t died the boy most likely wouldn’t have died either. So their investigation caused the boy to die but their knowledge helped save him.
Still the scientist is too underused; I believe for the show to really take off, he has to be more involved, otherwise it’s just another ordinary cop show.

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I seriously have to revise my former statement. Whoever created the pilot was an idiot. That or he/she didn’t know where the show was supposed to be going.

If you only watch the pilot you will get the feeling of watching “Transylvania 90210″ and might feel the urge to turn it off. Don’t. Watch at least to the fifth episode to get a glimpse of where this show is really going and I promise you that you will see a lot more depth than was to be expected considering said pilot.

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The Vampire Diaries @ Wikipedia
The Vampire Diaries @ IMDb

Stefan Salvatore is at least 160 years old and a Vampire. He returns into his home town of Mystic Falls to “blend in” as high school student. He lives with his nephew who pretends to be his uncle but unfortunately his brother Damon is also turning up. Damon sees Humans as nothing more than playthings and food and he wants to make Stefan’s life a nightmare. Stefan tries to hide his true identity (even before his new girlfriend) but that isn’t easy with a brother like that.

I thought I give it a try but I am underwhelmed. A Vampire who tries to blend in with the crowd but his evil Vampire buddies don’t let him. Been there, done that (with me being the evil Vampire I mean Wink). And these diary entries at the end don’t make it better. I will watch a few more episodes but I don’t think that this is a show for me.

Update: “The Vampire Diaries” Revised

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V @ IMDb
V @ Wikipedia

Out of the blue huge spaceships appear above the major cities all over the world. In 29 ships the Visitors - as they call themselves - came to Earth to make trade. They need a mineral that exists in abundance on Earth and they are willing to give technologies and cures that don’t exist on Earth. But are they really putting all their cards on the table?

It wasn’t bad. And I bet for someone who doesn’t know the original it’s a cool start. But this wasn’t a restart like the one from Battlestar Galactica. Somehow this felt a bit too indistinctive, even when they used a slightly different back story. But all the other elements were there. The Human spokesperson, the secret resistance, the resistance within the aliens, the “Hitler Youth”-alike youth organization, … Don’t get me wrong I will watch it, but so far the only thing that surprised me was the identity of resistance alien.

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The Good Wife @ Wikipedia
The Good Wife @ IMDb

Attorney-at-law shows have always been an off and on thing for me. Back in the days I watched Matlock and L.A. Law, then later Ally McBeal. But then I fell off the bandwagon and while Boston Legal seemed to be funny it never managed to make me tune in.
Today I heard about this show with Julianna Margulies (Carol Hathaway in ER) and I thought “Why not?”. So I “organized” the pilot episode and watched it. And I really did like it.
Alicia Florrick is the wife of a fallen state attorney who’s now in prison and she returns to her job as lawyer at a law firm. The characters seem to be interesting and the case was good, too. And I loved that Alicia’s teenage daughter put the theme of Twilight Zone onto Alicia’s cell phone as ring tone for when her mother-in-law calls.

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