Tag: television review

Do Not be One with THE FOLLOWING

So spaketh The Hudsonian! Here’s why:

The-Following-Castby The Hudsonian

I heart Kevin Williamson.

Williamson is the brain behind my favorite “horror” movie (Scream); everyone’s favorite rural town near a river (Dawson’s Creek); and one of my favorite shows currently on television (The Vampire Diaries).

He’s also the brainchild behind the mind-numbingly monotonous plague on FOX titled The Following.

This review could be as simple as one repetitive letter: Zzzzzzzzzzz.

Yes, a snooze fest. For something that is supposed to be a member of this newfound television “horror” genre, it pales in comparison to everything. (I’ve never actually seen American Horror Story, and I know reviews are mixed, but I can’t imagine it’s any worse than this.)

A captured serial killer with an obsession for all things Edgar Allen Poe escapes from jail. He was put there after a string of artistic murders and was caught as his attempt at a fifteenth failed. His capturer, Detective Ryan Hardy – played by Kevin Bacon, who has been separated by six degrees of emotional reactions – is a retired FBI agent with a drinking problem. He’s brought back into the fold when Joe Carroll, the serial killer, escapes from prison.

They spend much of the episode trying to track him down, put together the puzzle pieces, blah, blah, blah. He finishes his failed kill (poor Sarah Fuller), and is promptly captured. The twist? He’s kind of a prophet of sorts to a large Internet following – Does the name make sense now? – who now do his dirty work for him while he sits in jail and toys with the emotions of Detective Hardy.

I feel like I’ve seen this before. There was a similar storyline written into an old CBS show, Moonlight, but instead of a few episodes, Williamson made a whole series about it. The scary moments aren’t scary; the drama isn’t dramatic; and the score fails to provide the necessary feel to extract any meaningful emotion.

I want this lost hour of my life back.

Oh, and I want the real Kevin Williamson to make a good horror show. Thanks.

HAWAII FIVE-0 Pulls Another Ratings Stunt

Hawaii_FiveO-20110721-69
Yeah, this sure looks like a group of Jimi fans. Right.

In yet another desperate attempt to make up for the fact that the show sucks, HAWAII FIVE-0’s unsung marketing geniuses once again prove that they’re better at their jobs than the writers by coming up with a truly fascinating gimmick.

They’re giving us not one, or two, or even three, but seven – count ’em seven – “unreleased” songs by Jimi Hendrix as the sound track for the January 20th episode.

As major Hendrix fans, we’re thrilled, even though:

  • We’ve already heard all seven tracks as mp3s in various places that – so help us, God – we thought were legal
  • The tracks will be released as part of an album called People, Hell and Angels in early March

We assume that the songs will be in their entirety and certainly in the foreground of the mix, on the album but will be chopped up and/or relegated to background bullshit on HAWAII FIVE-0, so we’re not recommending that everybody drop what you’re doing and watch.

But we do recommend that CBS find a better writing staff for this series, one that can give us stories and characters that entertain us and make us want to watch, so that they don’t have to resort to this cynical exploitation of a dead guitar hero. Make that of The Dead Guitar Hero.

Speaking of the new album:

munchman sees CHICAGO FIRE

Quick Reaction: E.R. with firemen. But my girlfriend, who hates action shows, liked it and even wants to watch it again. (I’m thinking maybe it’s the boots?

Prognosis: For Fire Dept. groupies only. (You know who you are.)

Advance Look at Wizards & Aliens

…’Cuz the last season and a half of DOCTOR WHO have made us miss Russell T. Davies more than we ever thought we would:

Wizards Vs Aliens: Dawn Of The Nekross spoiler-free review – by Jeams Peaty

Imaginative, enchanting, and entertaining, Russell T Davies’ new CBBC series is a fitting successor to The Sarah Jane Adventures…

1.1 & 1.2 Dawn Of The Nekross

From the creative team that brought us the award winning The Sarah Jane Adventures,Wizards vs Aliens arrives laden with far more expectation and attention than your standard CBBC series launch.

Co-created by former Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies and SJA lead writer Phil Ford,WvA’s pedigree is first-rate, but does its opening adventure, Dawn of the Nekross, deliver on the promise of its brilliantly on-the-nose central conceit?

Thankfully that answer is a resounding ‘yes’, thanks in no small part to a strong script from series co-creator Ford, confident and stylish direction from Daniel O’Hara, and committed performances from series leads Scott Haran and Percelle Ascot.

Following the classic Davies template of bold storytelling filled with striking and memorable images, the series opens with a pre-credits scene involving alien first contact above an ancient stone circle. Neatly bringing together the two elements at the heart of the show – science fiction and magic – in a single sequence, this tease not only sells the central concept of the show, but also the ambition and scale of the piece in one confident brushstroke.

Read it all

What a great review! We weren’t all that familiar with DOCTOR WHO till Russell Davies showed us what’s what. So even though we’ve felt just a tad too old to be the intended audience for THE SARAH JANE ADVENTURES you can bet we’ll be watching WIZARDS & ALIENS and rooting for its success.

The Hudsonian Sees THE NEIGHBORS

Don’t Invite The Neighbors Over

by Josh Hudson

This ABC show originally aired on September 26, 2012 at 9:30 EST. It has since been moved to 8:30 EST, in between “The Middle” and “Modern Family”. Pretty sure that’s not going to matter.

It’s only fair that one would go to a Disney-owned company for news about athletes. I mean, ESPN is the worldwide leader in sports. The last place I’d look is a gated community in New Jersey, which is the basis of ABC’s new Wednesday night comedy, The Neighbors. Allow me to explain this atrocity.

The inhabitants of this community are extra-terrestrials. To fit in, they named themselves after great figures in the sports world: Larry Bird, Reggie Jackson, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and Dick Butkus to name a few. Then a human family moves in and the green goo comes out of the woodwork.

I can’t say one good thing about this show. The only reasonably funny joke was that the aliens were named after athletes. But ABC spoiled that in the teasers leading up to the show. This isn’t Mork & Mindy and it CERTAINLY isn’t 3rd Rock From the Sun. Those shows had great actors, hilarious situations, and made people laugh. Neighbors doesn’t have any well known actors, the situations are mundane and salty, and is stale on the humor.

Turn away. Run for your life. Find something else to do from 8:30-9:00 before Modern Family begins. Even NBC’s grotesque Wednesday lineup is better than this. (And if you’ve seen those shows, you’d know that’s the equivalent of high praise for the peacock.)