A lot of series returned last week, and I tried to see as much as I can. I am not invested in following every show, but I tried to see premier episodes for most of returning series to see at least if they are any better than previous year. Important to say is that all the shows I watch regularly didn’t disappoint with new season premier episodes and I expect them to do well during the season. For starters, Castle and Fringe were the best among returning shows.

The Good

Week started with Chuck that found a new dynamic in the story and that really paid off. It will be interesting to see how it will progress and will the NBC finally give Chuck full season without going back and forth with cancellation. How I Met Your Mother is standardly good and I am looking forward to see how some recent news will be included in this season stories (involvement of Jennifer Morrison).

Despite the stories some TV critics wanted to spread, House is still excellent and going strong. Big change we have seen at the end of season 6 continues, and I really looking forward to this season. But, the strongest series on Monday was, no doubt, Castle. Stana Katic and Nathan Fillion are back! Castle is excellent example how the network can take a chance with a small, filler show and order second season that payed off, now entering into third, still strong.

Fringe

Fringe is amazing. It’s a pity that FOX decided to pair it against CSI, because it will hurt it’s ratings, but I am confident that FOX will stand by Fringe and give us more and more and more seasons to come. On that note, CSI was also very good, even I don’t agree with some of the casting changes they did. The other CSI, New York with some fresh blood is still my favorite CSI series.

As expected, The Big Bang Theory is still going strong, and still remains best sitcom on the air, and best sitcom in the last 10 years. Last night Dexter, fifth season started and it was good, but I am wondering what is going to happen this season. This first episode was more like a conclusion of previous season.

In The Middle

I don’t know how to classify Bones and Desperate Housewives. I watch Bones regularly, hoping that they will improve it and bring back quality of first 2 seasons. Housewives are getting boring, but it wasn’t so bad to just label it so. Maybe it will get better this season. The Simpsons are now starting its 22 season and for a while now is became repetitive. I still like it, but I hope that they will surprise us with more good episodes.

Supernatural is nor here nor there. It’s not good as the first 2 seasons was and it’s started to go down after season 3. Hopefully changes in the team creating the series will give results and help the series improve.

The Bad

Two and a Half Men started as the previous season ended, and that is easily placing it among the bad. I miss the older season of this series. Ever since Charlie Sheen started to drinking again, show started to decline, and nothing can save it, in my opinion. There are few laughs that were good in the first episode, but that’s not enough.

CSI: Miami has lost it’s way a long time ago, and I am waiting for CBS to finally put the end to cartoon character of Horacio and maybe take a chance with another new CSI set even in Alaska, but far from Miami. As much as the New York and Las Vegas are good shows, Miami is so bad that it’s painful to watch. Cancel it already.

Once again, I tried to watch The Vampire Diaries, but it was too painfully bad as the previous season was. I will not be seeing anymore episodes of it. I can’t stand two comedy shows returning: Modern Family and Cougar Town. I tried to watch it, but so many things in both are bothering me too much. I put both in bad, even so you might like then, I just down get them.

Conclusion

Few more shows have yet to start, and I have high hopes for Human Target and Lie to Me. And maybe Stargate Universe will surprise us all and get actually good this year.

New season of TV began last week, and with many new shows. Not so many of them any good, but I expect that by the time mid-season starts many of current shows will be canceled. I had high expectations from several new shows, and I was looking forward to many returning shows. As with any new seasons, initial reactions are mixed and some shows might require at least several episodes to make a better call on the quality. This post is about all new shows I have seen this week.

The Good

Hawaii Five-O was good, but I had high expectations for it, so it will require few more episodes. Great cast, remake of famous series with experienced producers that brought us Fringe, but they tried to hard to cram as much action in the pilot episode, with a lot of character development. I think that 2 hour pilot would be better.

Undercovers: Boris & Gugu

Undercovers, new show from mastermind J.J. Abrams is excellent, and I must say I didn’t expected that. Most announcements of the show were very much misleading, comparing new series to Alias, but it’s very much different. And it works much better than Alias. Undercovers has a very good cast of actors that are not that well known, but both Boris Kodjoe and very beautiful English actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw are truly excellent as married CIA agents.

Surprisingly, The Chase was also good. Same formula used over and over again, but I liked it. US marshals chasing fugitives in Huston Texas, reminds too much of a great In Plain Sight series that recently finished it’s third season, but hopefully The Chase will survive Monday competition.

Boardwalk Empire is a brand new HBO series about prohibition in America, located in Atlantic City. Pilot directed my Martin Scorsese, is really good, and series is already renewed for second season. Another new show that I liked (to my great surprise) is CW series called Hellcats, about a team of cheerleaders (!). It’s not exactly for my demographics, but I have seen all 3 episodes so far and it’s much better than most CW series (including Nikita, The Vampire Diaries or Gossip Girl).

The Bad

The Event is (almost) a total disappointment. If there wasn’t for a very interesting mystery at the very end, I would stop watching it right now. Event tries so much to replace Lost, and it the same time makes mistakes in every step. 4 time-lines changing every few minutes, making it hard to follow what is very simple story and uninteresting characters are among the things that are bad in this show. But, hopefully they will manage to improve soon. If not, this will not survive initial 13 episodes order.

Running Wilde is not so good comeback to TV series from Mitchell Hurwitz (creator of amazing Arrested Development). I really hope that this one turns out to be good, but right now it’s not. Lone Star is another bad new series, that is (no big surprise) already slated to be axed after the first episode and very bad ratings. Jim Belushi’s The Defenders is also disappointing, and I will give it a chance for few more episodes, but it’s not looking good. It’s another top lawyers show that tries to much to compete with great Boston Legal. But neither Belushi nor Jerry O’Connell have any chemistry as James Spader and William Shatner did.

Nikita is a remake of a remake, and all that rehashing of same idea introduced in Luc Besson movie made 20 years ago is here hit rock bottom. I was bored to death with the pilot, and I didn’t care about anything in the series. Maggie Q has shown once again how bad actress she is, and I still don’t believe that anyone would hire her (OK, she looks good, so that counts for something).

Conclusion

There are few shows I have still to watch, but I am not so hopeful. And there are 2 more shows yet to premiere: next week No Ordinary Family and next month Walking Dead, both I look forward seeing.

For the past couple of months, there was very little happening on TVScape.NET due to other projects I am involved with. But, TVScape.NET is not dead, and new reviews are coming. I will try to push 2–3 reviews each week starting from october. Also, there is a new website that will be used as a showcase for products from the Amazon I purchased over the last couple of years. Some design changes are also coming.

Upcoming reviews include second season of Fringe, complete 10 seasons of CSI: Las Vegas, both seasons of Twin Peaks, second season of Castle, first 3 seasons of Chuck and The Big Bang Theory and only season of Flashforward. Also, I will write in depth reviews of some box sets I got recently including: Sherlock Holmes, Monthy Pythons, Fringe (Blu-Ray both seasons).

So, stay tuned, and keep your eye on TVScape.NET. For now, check out new website:

My Collection: http://my.gdragon.info/

Highly anticipated adaptation of one of the best fantasy series ever written (and still in writing) ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ by George R.R. Martin will premiere on HBO next year. First book in the series called ‘A Game of Thrones’ will be adapted into 10 episodes season under the name ‘Game of Thrones’. Filming of first season started recently for the premiere in early 2011. Last night HBO run first official teaser trailer.

There is not much to see in the teaser, but I expect full trailer to be released soon. More info on the show and progress of making the first season will be published on TVScape as became available.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBjFX76oU8E

After a bumpy start of the first season, and first half that was far from the standards we used to get from J.J. Abrams, second half of the first season of Fringe was almost amazing. That earned the renewal for the series and second season was really great, one of the best TV series that is currently on the air. And the good news is that Fringe is renewed for the third season, and with rating expected to rise, Fringe is here to stay.

Production

Season 2 just like season 1 was is run by Jeff Pinkner while Orci and Kurtzman remained on the writing and creative team for the series. Visually, season 2 looks better, with better quality of special effects, considering the need to create a whole new parallel universe that is like ours, but not quite. Overall, great job with the production of the series for FOX. Michael Giacchino, who composed music for the pilot of the series is not longer involved, but music grew more diverse with this season, distinguishing it from Michael’s work.

Fringe Season 2 Cast

Story

Story is still largely connected to the pattern phenomena, but it’s more concentrated to events that deal with the parallel universe where we left special agent Olivia Dunham at the end of first season. Also, more and more is revealed of the work Walter Bishop did in the seventies and eighties and his deeper involvement with everything that was going on now. Mythology of the series is really great and very intriguing, and all the mysteries are almost comparable to mysteries of Lost.

Incorporation of the parallel universe, events causing the problems on the both side, and the cause for those events will all be explored this season. But, we will learn more about the Olivia’s childhood and experiments Walter and Bell run.

Characters

Anna Torv in the role of Olivia was good in the first season, but his character was not developed very well. That’s changed now, and she is easily my favorite character in the series even compared to Walter and amazing performance from John Noble. Walter is much more important to the story now, and Noble managed to add more to his already excellent acting in the first season. Finally, Lance Reddick got better material to work with for his character Phillip Broyles, and once again proved that he is a great actor. Joshua Jackson also got much better material to work with, his character is not fully formed, and even essential to the events. Last, while her character is smaller in the series, I really like Jasika Nicole in the role Astrid.

Conclusion

Fringe is now excellent series, and possibly the only one remaining that can challenge the Lost for throne. Hopefully, it will continue to perform well during next season, and with that ensure more seasons after. Mythology of the series is deep enough to explore for years. Season 2 DVD and BluRay are already available for preorder, so get it now with big discount, and wait for the september release.

And so the journey ends. Last night, the epic 2 and a half hour finale aired on ABC, closing one of the brightest chapters in history of television. It’s very unlikely that we will get soon anything that will come close to replacing Lost in terms of story, characters and good old storytelling. And while some, I am sure, loved, and other hated how the series ended, I will try to write a review and keep it spoiler free, for now.

It’s hard now to write only about this last season now, because it was very different from the first 5 and it’s shares so many elements and moments with everything we have seen during 100 or so episodes, but I will try to keep this a review of this last season, nothing more. In the next coupe of weeks I will write about Lost as a whole.

Story

Season 5 ended with Juliette banging the nuclear bomb with a rock. The debate over the resolution and was the bomb detonated or not lasted for a while, and even with the start of season 6 there was no clear answer to that. And as with many questions asked over the 5 seasons, getting straightforward answer was not easy. And I like the mystery and I don’t really car to get everything on a plate gift wrapped. Lost was always a show that made fans think about what they have seen, answering every little thing takes a magic away.

Lost, in the woods

That’s the main reason I had a problem with couple of episodes in the season 6, because I felt that they over explained things, simplified them too much. And they did so at the very end with only few episodes to go, opening doors that were left closed. But, that in no way made me think less of the Lost. After all, people who are writing it and creating it for years are entitled to tell us story they think is best one.

Characters

It’s hard to find the TV series or a feature film even with so high level of acting perfection as Lost brought into the game. And in this season, acting maybe got even better. Amazing transformation of characters we have seen from Matthew Fox,  Michael Emerson, Terry O’Quinn and all the others is something you need to see.

Lost, hurt again

With sideways universe created in this season, we see a different side, an alternative side to all the main characters that you once again start examining everything you have seen in Lost past seasons, you will see many small details, many character flaws and quirks that made these characters unique and even real.

The End

Almost perfect. And deeply satisfying. I know that some people will be disappointed because we never learned when the statue was built, or who dropped the food, or how Eloise knows everything, or more about Dharma. It doesn’t matter, all that was only means to an end, to telling the story that ended with a perfect ending, a full circle in a one of most amazing story telling ever seen on TV or film. You simply need to see it. And it run over 100 minutes or 2 and a half normal episodes.

Conclusion

There is so much to say about Lost, and I will write more when I get the chance. This is a show that must be seen as a whole, without skipping episodes, you need to be invested and to have a sense of wonder that will take you on one journey like no other. Lost is a phenomenon that is unlikely to happen any time soon on TV anywhere. A rare gem that will never be forgotten.

With episode 15 airing tonight, only few more are left until we see the final set of episodes titled (how else) The End. For some time is known that series end even will be double episode, but recently that also changed, and the last two episodes are expanded with another 15–20 minutes. So, here is in more details what ABC has planned for the ending of the iconic series and events that will last a whole week.

So far 14 episodes aired, and while many questions were answered, we are nowhere near finding out what the creators of Lost had prepared. But, it’s a well known that even after finale airs, many questions will remain unanswered. And it’s better that way. We all have seen how the ending can ruin the series with Battlestar Galactica, where everything was laid down and explained with no mystery remaining behind, and the end was as expected, so that was a let down.

Good thing is that Lost will wrap the story and characters in it, but it will not nit pick to answer every small thing that was touched by the series in the previous now almost 6 seasons.

So, episode number 16 will air on May 18. On Saturday, ABC will air the double pilot episode, and on Sunday May 23 all night event will begin with 2 hours intro that will go over everything that happened leading to finale. Two and a half hour long finale will follow, and after that a special episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live Show will air from Hawaii with guests and as reported they will show 3 alternative endings of the series.

So, Lost will be over soon. Big question is what now? Is there a series capable to replace it? Flashforward turned out to be a disappointment and will most likely end with one season only, and Fringe while excellent is not the same type of series as Lost was. Hopefully, we will get another brave series that will break rules of TV.

Thankfully, last season of Buffy is not as bad as previous one. The apocalyptic ending of season 6 ended the storyline that was made a mess by adding geek villains, and the only good thing out of that was creating of Dark Willow. And the first bad thing in season 7, is that there is no more Dark Willow. Regular Willow was good character, but we all grew tired of her, and Dark counterpart was nice change, that didn’t lasted long.

Story

Again, decision to kill Buffy at the end of season 5, proved to be bad, because during season 6, writers didn’t manage to bring her truly back into the story, and not even the new story will not succeed at that. First part of the season has no clear direction and we have bunch of unrelated stories. Previously, series managed to make these type of storytelling interesting and best part of series, but this time, that fails for the most part. We are back in re opened high school with Dawn attending.

Second half of the season, brought back Gilles (not full time, but still), and the story (again) about opening of Hell Mouth. This will get us a lot more Slayers in training gathered by the Gilles and Buffy. We will also explore Spikes past and Anya’s back story.

(Surviving) Buffy Season 7 main cast

Characters

Spike is again used as comic relief, but also he had much wider story to play into and for the most part this character evolved a lot beyond initial setup. Good thing is that he will be back for one season in Angel spin-off. Anya is once again wasted this season. Instead of using her and expanding here role, writers decided to bring in bunch of Slayers to help Buffy fight the opening of Hell Mouth.

Overall, acting is bland and I can’t really single out anyone.  Bringing back Faith was also another bad move and totally unnecessary, but the writing has gone of the rail a long time ago and story didn’t make much sense at the times, so this is not big surprise.

Conclusion

Overall, I liked first 5 seasons of Buffy, but last two are just bad. Changing the production team and company after season 5 was not a good move, and series suffered because of that. This is another proof that most  TV series developers don’t know when to stop. Making seasons after seasons just to have something to air is proving very bad times and again.

So long to Buffy, and I recommend watching Angel, it’s better and more mature in all aspects.

For the most part, this season is pure mess, and overall very week, unfocused and very gloomy, spiritless if you like. Idea to resurrect Buffy was all handled vary badly. She is buried, but her robot version is around acting like her, and nobody suspects. Hello, she is dead, in a grave, does anyone reads the scripts? Also, some of the cast members leaving was not good sign either, and new beginning for Buffy was not as good as hoped.

The WB television decided to end the series after seaosn 5, because popularity has peaked and rating started to decline. Also, most contracts were ended, and new ones would require much more money to be invested, and The WB decided that falling ratings will not be enough. But, another network (UPN) decided to continue Buffy, and as it turns out, it wasn’t the best idea around. Rating continue to fall during sixth season and during seventh they were as low as when the series first started.

Story

Everything starts with Sunnydale turning into hunting ground for all sorts of demons, because the Slayer is dead. Giles left for England, and the remainder of Scooby gang got bored, and decided to resurrect Buffy. Two part premiere episode is total mess, way too long and boring and the rest of the season turned to be just like that and worse at times. Adding bad guys in form of 3 pathetic geeks was the worse idea yet and so many episodes got wasted on that. The only element of the story that managed to improve the overall rating of the season was the ending and creation of so called Dark Willow.

Characters

All main characters, staring with Buffy are just plain boring. All are gloomy, dark atmosphere all around, and very little fun. Anya is the only interesting character left, and despite bad writing, Emma Caulfield managed to give great performance. Alyson Hannigan also was above average this season mainly due to creation of Dark Willow character. Problem is that Dark Willow was too powerful, and she won’t be around for long.

Adding new adversaries in form of 3 geeks was just a big mistake. It killed the series and at times it reminded me of those awful Power Rangers series. Also, not even Spike character was any better, and his quest for soul that will be major plot element of last season didn’t helped. But, the biggest loss is the fact that Anthony Stewart Head left the series and appeared only in 2–3 episodes during sixth season.

To make things worse, Buffy character is so gloomy and whiny and boring all the time, that her depression almost crawls out of TV to consume the viewers. She is the weakest part of the series right now.

Conclusion

Well, all is said, and this is most likely the worst season of Buffy (at least for me it is). Next one will get a bit better, and since it’s the last, at least the producers managed to see that it’s better to end it before it get’s even worse.

Each season of Buffy had tougher and tougher enemies, greater evil beings and more challenge to Buffy and her scooby gang. But, this season seams to be toping all that, and even evil from last seasons is not as evil and hard to defeat. After countless classes of demons, we have finally getting a new bread in the form of gods. But more important than that is very interesting twist on the story and adding a new character…

Story

In form of the Buffy’s sister. Yes, this is a good one, since we all know that Buffy has no sister. But, writers managed to create a really interesting twist that allowed them to create a new story mechanism and new sect of priests that manipulated reality to create sister for Buffy. And, no one of them knows that things have changed, and they all think that Dawn (sister name) is real and has been among them her whole life.

Buffy, Season 5

This is very dark season, and that builds to the (shocking) finale that was initially planned as a series finale, until the series is picked up for another two seasons on another network.

But, no matter how dark it gets, there are plenty of fun episodes we grow accustomed to so far, starting with very season premiere and special appearance of famous vampire Dracula. Great episodes are also The Replacement, Triangle, I Was Made to Love You and Intervention.

Characters

Main addition to the cast is Michelle Trachtenberg in the role of Dawn, and for the most part she did a great job. I am glad that Amber Benson (plays Tara) and Emma Caulfield (Anya) finally got bigger roles to play. Spike is back and he is ambiguous as ever.

And in the role of evil god Glorificus we have Clare Kramer. Rest of the cast remained the same.

This may very well be the strongest season of Buffy, and in many ways it should be the last one. Continuing the story after this season was done badly and the series never was what was intended to be. For me, this is the last true season of Buffy. For all involved, it was better that some of the characters moved to L.A. to join Angel and his detective agency, because that series will grew stronger over time and better then Buffy was (again, maybe it’s only me).

Conclusion

If you liked the series so far, this is a season not to be missed. Season ended with episode number 100, and everything after that was not really needed, but reviews of last two seasons are coming soon.

High school is over (not to mention destroyed in the season 3 finale), and it’s time for Buffy to go to college. Much is changed over the summer after high school and not only that setting is changed, but once again mythology expanded to include secret military organization that hunts demons for experiments (OK, not a best direction, different at least). All in all, this is not my favorite Buffy season, but it’s close.

Buffy goes to college

Same formula as before, but this time a bit more serious, because we are in the college now. Story moves forward as Buffy tries to leave her house, tries to have a normal life, but finds out that it’s not that easy, even though Willow is having a great time. Major story line this season is existence of the secret military organization that hunts and captures demons and experiments on them. And I know, that’s more the story for a bad first person shooter video game than a TV series, on some level that works OK here (for the most part), because it will show what can happen when you add a crazy scientist to the mix, and explore the whole Dr. Frankenstein mythos.

Again, there are some amazing standalone episodes like  Something Blue, Hush, A New Man and Bear Bad that show the best side of this series: dark humor and pure fun.

Characters

Spike is back. And while he starts the season as bad as usual, plotting to kill the Slayer, thing will change for him, and we will get to see a different side of him. Willow is now a true witch, and Xander is working different job each episode, living in the basement. He is more comic relief now, than he was in any other season. Recurring character Anya (excellent performance by Emma Caulfield), a 1000 years old demon turned human who is afraid of bunnies is now regular cast member and a great addition to the story. A new cast member is Amber Benson, playing a witch Tara.

Buffy, Season 4

On the other hand, this is very important year for Buffy, because it’s a year of change, of growing up, finding new love after Angel, and I like the path Buffy traveled during this season.

Good thing is that Angel moved on (into own series, great and better in my opinion than Buffy), because both he and Buffy are too strong leads for one show. With two strong series running together, Joss Whedon managed to create something really special that will influence the whole generation of new TV series, comic books, novels and practically the new culture. Even if you don’t like Buffy or the whole vampires sub genre, you must admit the impact Buffy and Angel had.

Conclusion

All in all, this is very good season for Buffy, even with the military experiments story line. Get the full box set and start watching if you didn’t already.

Season 2 ended on the high note, with Buffy saving the world (again), and than she left Sunnydale. Angel is dead (or is he?) and the rest of the gang is fighting demons each night. There were some changes in the cast and introduction of new second Slayer. Most important thing about this season is expanding of the mythology and adding number of demons and even more evil forces all converging to town of Sunnydale.

Story

This is darker season than previous one, with several story lines that will lead to the ending and double episode and another Apocalypse. Return of Angel and his hidden relationship with Buffy, new and unpredictable Slayer turning to the dark side, city mayor trying to became a demon, all this will run for the whole season.

But, it’s important that writers decided to keep the formula from previous season and to create several great episodes that have nothing much to do with main storyline. Episodes like The Wish and Doppelgangland  deal with alternate time-line, Homecoming duel of Buffy and Cordy for the title are really great.

Characters

Willow role will finally get expanded and she is not going to be a geeky friend of Buffy. She will start to explore the witchcraft, and also will find love in form of a werewolf (previous season introduced Oz, played by Seth Green). Xanders relationship with Cordelia will evolve and eventually end with great episode The Wish.

Buffy, Season 3 Cast

Through the character Faith we will see that being the Slayer can be take a person to the dark path, and for the most part Faith will be the total opposite to Buffy. But, once again, I just can’t stand Eliza Dushku, and I don’t know why Joss Whedon casts her in most of his series. She is not bad actress, but she plays all her roles the same way and that gets really annoying. I wish they had someone else play Faith, because Eliza’s performance was plain bad in my book.

Angel transformation over this season was interesting and will open the door to spin off series after the end of this season.

Production

Visually, series has grown over first two seasons, and that was really needed since the new demons and creatures must look realistic. Still, CGI effects don’t look that good, and I expected them to be better.

Conclusion

Overall, this is good season, similar in many aspects to previous one, with more character development, more mythology and more substance.

And while season 1 was not so good, it managed to lay a solid foundation for the rest of the series (if you get past the martial arts stupid vampires and the great ease of killing them). Also, first season was too serious, and that’s something season 2 and later seasons will correct adding more fun into the mix. Main and recurring cast is expanded and several very interesting characters are added (and by that I mean Spike).

Story

While the first season was mostly single story line leading to killing the Master, primarily Buffy has episodic nature, but still having a main arc for each season, each one ending with some form of Apocalypse. Main focus of the arc of season 2 is the opening of one of the Hell dimensions and Angel loosing his soul in the middle of the season, and going back to being evil.

But, strongest side of the series are episodes that divert from main story line and deal with unusual and funny events or creatures. This started with episode Halloween, and costumes that transform the people that wear them. Similar type of episodes are Ted, Bad Eggs and my favorite Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.

During this season, we learn a bit more about Giles and his (dark) past, but that only scratches the surface, and it’s a real shame that only handful of episodes during the series deal with this character. At one point, there were plans to create a spin off series about him, but that never made it into production.

Characters

Many new characters were added in this season. David Boreanaz is now series regular, and his character Angel will be replaced by evil and soulless Angelus. To replace the Master, we get two new characters: Spike and Drusila. They both have a long history with Angelus and they will together plan the opening of Hell. Spike character will get huge fan base during this season, and it’s decided not to kill him off, but to expand his role in the later seasons. James Marsters is excellent in this role. Another great decision is to expand the role of Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) beyond the cliché character she was during the first season, and Cordy is definitively one of my favorite characters in these early seasons.

Buffy, Season 2 Cast

And while series is still plagued by inconsistent writing, too many clichés that will get annoying very quickly, improvement over first season is significant. Also, it’s very important to know that series intended audience is younger than I am, so maybe teenagers will find it much better than I did.

Conclusion

Much better season than first one, with at least 5–6 great episodes and very few really bad episodes. Adding Angel/Angelus twist and character of Spike will prove as excellent move and will ensure the success of the series. So, grab your Chosen Collection box set and start watching. Rest of seasons reviews are coming.

The Vampire Slayer is longest running vampire and supernatural series ever made, even though I think is far from the best. It’s a first major creation for Joss Whedon, and while I like some of his later work (Firefly), I never really watched Buffy and Angel series. So, I recently got my hands on the Chosen Collection box set, and decided to give Buffy a chance. And, overall, my opinion about the series is mixed at best.

First season is the shortest of one with only 12 episodes. And it started a whole new following that spanned not only to TV and long successful line of Buffy and Angel series, but expanded to other media. Joss created very complex mythology and there were not many similar franchises like Buffy was. In the years after Buffy, many vampire series were created, and only the latest one True Blood managed to remain on air for more than a season. Seven season of Buffy don’t mean that Buffy is the best, because I liked both Moonlight and Blade more, but Buffy was much different than any other similar series.

Story

Vampire Slayer is warrior born in every generation, always a girl, with super human strength, rapid healing and only one goal: to kill vampires and other demon folk. Series is set in small California town of Sunnydale. And this small town is a center of demon activities, with opening of Hellmouth in the middle of the local highschool. Vampire Slayer has a Watcher, someone who has a task on training the Slayer and watch over her.

First season will introduce main characters, Slayer’s small group that will later be known as Scooby Gang. They know all about Buffy and are helping her fight evil. And not all people that are helping her are human. During first season they are fighting the Master who is trying to open Hellmouth and start Apocalypse.

Characters

Sarah Michelle Gellar is in the role of Buffy, and for the most part I like her performance. She manages to play two sides of Buffy, a vampire slayer by night and a “normal” teenage girl by day. Her watcher, Rupert Giles, is working as a school librarian, and library will be a major gathering point and center of the series in the first couple of seasons. Watcher is played by the Anthony Stewart Head. Buffy’s best friends are Willow (played by Alyson Hannigan) and Xander (Nicholas Brendon). In the beginning they are mostly annoying, sort of comic relief sidekicks. Over the time, that will change and they will get much more developed and better roles.

Buffy, Season 1 Cast

Buffy has a helper on the other side in form of vampire with a soul Angel. He is featured in half of episodes in the first season, but his role will also grow.

And while I like the complex and deep mythology of the series, there are many things that I feel are bad. For the most part, vampires are presented as a joke, easy to kill, stupid, and all with knowledge of martial arts. Fights all look the same, and you will grow tired of them. And this first season is responsible for setting the bar too low when the vampires are concerned. Many elements of vampire mythology are under developed and (sorry) plain stupid (biting and blood drinking are very stupid). I feel that idea Joss had was very good but somehow it was watered down to unrealistic and mostly week villains. And while the story will get better as time goes on, this basic elements will remain week through out the series. I know that they wanted to make mix of teenage comedy and horror, but this has gone too far.

Conclusion

Fair start of the series, and maybe the weakest season of all. Anyway, if you get past the initial obvious mistakes and plot wholes, series is actually enjoyable and fun to watch. It will get better after first season.

All big networks started announcing the canceled and more importantly renewed series for the next season, and few days ago FOX has finally renewed one of the best series on TV right now Fringe. After poor start of the series, Fringe improved in the second part of that season and at the moment Fringe is on a hiatus after 15 episodes aired in the season 2, and this season has been truly great. Great news to hear about the renewal.

During season one, Fringe was highest rated new series, and it maintained the ratings during season 2, but with only 7–8 million viewers per week. It’s airing in the though time period on Thursday with a lot of good shows on other networks, so the numbers are decent. Things get much better if you add to these numbers ratings from DVR, Fringe total ratings look really good. DVR is finally an important factor in overall ratings of the show helping with getting much precise number of viewers. Hopefully, internet numbers will be added to ratings from next season. Also, the fact that series is primarily sci-fi, makes Fringe best rated genre show airing now, because Flashforward turned to be disappointing.

FOX has yet to announce what’s going to happen to some other shows like Lie to me (that I really like). House MD is not yet officially renewed, but considering that it’s FOX highest rated show is most likely a done deal.

Hawaii-Five-O is CBS long running series about fictional state police department of Hawaii. Original series run from 1968 to 1980 and had 12 seasons and 278 episodes. Remake is targeted for the next season 2010/2011 and for the past 2 months many cast news have emerged but the details about the stories are yet unknown. And with announced cast and show runners looks like that this remake will be a good one.

Peter Lenkov (best known for his work on CSI: New York) will serve as showrunner of the series, with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Fringe, Transformers, Star Trek) are hired to write the pilot episode and possibly more during the first season.

As for the cast Scott Caan (son of James Caan) will play Danny “Danno” Williams. Alex O’Loughlin (best known for great series Moonlight) plays Danny’s partner Steve McGarrett. As previously announced, Daniel Dae Kim (one of the stars of Lost, playing Jin) will be in role of Chin Ho Kelly. Taryn Manning is cast in the role of Mary Ann, Steve McGarett younger sister. And Grace Park (Battlestar Galactica’s Boomer/Athena) is cast as Kono Kalakaua, niece of Chin Ho Kelly and young recruit.

Today is truly very important day for all fantasy genre fans and fans of amazing fantasy series ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ by George R.R. Martin. HBO has confirmed that the first season of the series is approved and will have 10 episodes. Pilot is already shot, so that leaves 9 more episodes to be made. HBO released first official promo image from the pilot episode. Premiere of Game Of Thrones is expected for spring of 2011.

Game Of Thrones is based on the first book in the series, and the current plan is to have one season for one book. It’s unknown at this point if the each season is going to have different name, but at this point HBO has confirmed only one season, but I expect if that goes well, and I believe it will, more seasons will be made.

In the coming months you can expect more info from HBO, more promo images, and TVScape will follow closely what is happening with the filming and the production of the series. For now, here is the first image released by HBO from the pilot episode.

Game Of Thrones

Source: http://winter-is-coming.net/

OK, I knew that Boston Legal was good, but I had now idea how good. After I read the review of first season, I decided to find some time and see what Boston Legal has to offer. And without any reservation I will say that Boston Legal is one of the best series to air on any American TV in the past decade. Sharp writing, eccentricity, humor, great cast and message in every episode are something we really needed on TV in a single show.

I am not big fan of lawyer or cop dramas, and in the recent years nothing original is done with the genre. We have endless line of CSI shows that are getting boring, countless incarnations of Law and Order, and not a single original element in any of them. Sure, they were interesting in the beginning, but producers simply don’t know when to stop and to think of something fresh and interesting.

And than, there was Boston Legal. And while it’s lawyer centric, series introduced original and fresh perspective and characters that are unusual and eccentric. First season was really good, but for the most part they were still searching for the right formula, and some of the characters were not as good as they will became in second seasons. Often changed cast members in second season were not as pronounced as in first, and the story telling is better as well as the way the series is shot.

Story

In terms of the story, episodic nature is still in play, but this time we have some stories spanning over a number of episodes. It’s still fast paced with several cases presented in each episode, and with writing that is improved over the writing in the first season. But, it’s very hard to convey how good the humor is, how witty and smart. No matter how arrogant and self centered characters are, you will never see them only like that, you will see how deeply they are in fact good and how the arrogance is earned and even deserved.

This is series that is more funny than most of the sitcoms you have on air now, and it’s not something you would take too serious, it’s great fun with occasional moments of truth that will make you think.

Cast and characters

Season 2 again had significant changes in the cast. Rhona Mitra and Monica Potter have left the series, and that is certainly a lost for the show. But, replacements are also good, starting with Julie Bowen. She is great addition to the series even though her character was a bit undeveloped in the beginning. Mark Valley’s Brad is still equivalent of Ken doll, or as they refer to him as Buzz Lightyear. Even though his role is not that big, he is still good and interesting character. Candice Bergen came to the series in the late stages of first season, but her role is very important and she does a great job.

Boston Legal, Season 2

And now, we have Alan Shore and Danny Crane. Two absolutely amazing characters, both earning their actors many awards including Emmy. James Spader is perfect as Alan Shore, and the arrogance, self importance are showing not as central element of the characters. He is always fighting for his clients and he doesn’t loose. His closings are something you simply need to hear. Amazing. William Shatner as Danny Crane is excellent and much better than in first season, since writers have improved some of the elements of his character and made him not annoying anymore as he was at times in first season.

Production

One of the things I had problem with in the first season is that camera work was too choppy and at times distracting. But, that’s all fixed with second season and now it’s effectively used to tell the story. Music has not changed much, and it’s still good and very effective.

Conclusion

Excellent show, really excellent. I honestly haven’t felt good about watching something new as I did with Boston Legal. get the DVD’s or try to watch in in syndication and watch it. It’s really worth it. Great.

Right of the top, this is one of the best TV series I have ever seen. Single season with 6 episodes or mini series is all the same. Important thing is that even now, 25 years later this series is still watched and talked about, and recently it was even remade by the same director who directed the original. Written by Troy Kennedy Martin and directed by Martin Campbell, Edge of Darkness is a series you simply must see.

Production

During the preproduction period, there were a lot of tensions about the script and some aspects, and conflicts between the writer, director and series star actor lead to some rewrites that proved to be good for the series. Edge of Darkness is one of the rare political dramas BBC made at the time, and it during 1985 was aired twice on the television, with 4 million viewers initially, rerun managed to double the number of viewers. Critics were also very generous in their praises for the series. Finally in 1986 series won 6 BAFTA awards.

One of the most memorable things about the series is amazing soundtrack and great title theme all composes by Michael Kamen and Eric Clapton. For the soundtrack they won BAFTA award.

Story

I am not going into much details of the story, because it’s very complex, layered and it really deserve for you to see it and to be immersed into it. But, I will tell you that it’s influenced by the political situation concerning the nuclear energy industry and implications of involvement of British and US governments with activists of GAIA environment group.

Original ending of the series was very unconventional and was eventually written off, but it would be interesting to see main character dying and turning into a tree. But even without that, main character Craven is constantly having dialogs with his dead daughter, and in some ways she is leading him own to find out the truth.

Story starts as a simple murder case, but soon spirals out of control and reaches international level to uncover a conspiracy. And the only negative thing I can say about it is that maybe it should have been a bit shorter, because one episode less would add much to dynamics. But this is something I noticed only after 3 viewing, maybe is not really relevant at all.

Bob Peck as Ronald Craven

Characters

Series casting is simply spot on. Casting Bob Peck in the lead role was maybe a gamble, since he was known actor but with not many important TV roles to his credit. But, his performance in the series is really amazing. He is stricken down with personal tragedy, trying to find his daughter killer, but he tries to remain cool headed, to think rationally, and yet, you can see in his eyes that he is slowly loosing that control, that all hope is gone. And his talks with dead daughter will help him in solving the puzzle, but will also disturb him deeply. And his performance is one that truly takes us deeper into the darkness, he is not on anyones side, he doesn’t care about the conspiracy, he only cares to find out the killer.

The rest of the cast is also great. Starting with Joanne Whalley as Craven’s daughter and Joe Don Baker as American spy and CIA agent Darius Jedburgh, more veteran British actors like Ian McNeice and Charles Kay. You can’t find a single one that is not giving his best.

Remake

I must talk a bit about remake movie released few weeks ago. Directed by the same director as the mini series and starring Mel Gibson, movie is but a pale copy of the original. Story is much simpler, with many important aspects removed. While Gibson performance is good, you will hardly notice anyone else in the cast. Once again, this proves why most of the remakes fail to live up to the original.

Conclusion

This is a must series, a perfect combination of drama and political thriller, with complex story and great cast. Series such as this are not made any more, and that’s a damn shame. So, buy the DVD and watch it. I guarantee that you will watch it many times. Edge of Darkness is one of the greatest TV series ever made.

TVScape.NET website is now relocated to VPS.NET cloud hosting. Old shared hosting (BlueHost) solution was slow for a website such as this with many images and complex design, and new virtual hosting solution will allow us great deal of scalability if it’s needed to improve speed and ensure best possible user experience. New hosting is now much better optimized than old one to ensure faster response time and loading.

Preliminary testing of new hosting showed that website response time is much faster, and loading of full page is 3 or 4 times faster than on old hosting. Full page with all images and external resources now takes about 15 seconds to load with page response and initial display under 2 seconds. On old hosting full page was loading in 60 seconds on average, with initial response taking as much as 10 seconds. This is measured without use of cache on the browser side.

Browser caching is now fixed and allow browsers to store images and other files for reuse. With use of cache, loading of the website is very, very fast. If you find any problems since the change of hosting, please leave a comment to make sure the problem get’s fixed.

And the Voyager is at an end. If you ask me, they cut story prematurely, and at least one or two more seasons would be better. Towards the end writers started to explore some new relationships between characters, and they had great potential, but the decision was made to end the series. Anyway, this was very good season even though it had similar episodic format as previous one, but with much better writing.

Production

Many changes in writing directions are maybe connected to another change in the showrunner for Voyager. Brannon Braga has left the series to start preproduction work on Star Trek: Enterprise and he was replaced by Kenneth Biller. Visually, use of CGI is more evident in this season and without a doubt, series really looks great.

Story

Even though, episodes are mostly unrelated, there are 3 two parts stories this season including feature lenght episode Endgame that ends the series. But, there is a greater sense of continuity of the series toward the main story line. Still, the main improvement in the writing is that episodes are more fun, at time even comedic, showing the real potential that should have been explored more earlier. Some of the greatest Voyager episodes are from this season including ‘Body and Soul’ where The Doctor is ‘possesing’ Seven’s body in attempt to hide, and Jeri Ryan is truly magnificent in comedic portrayal of the Robert Picardo character. Another great Doctor centric episode is ‘Author, Author’, where Doctor is writing holo-novel that shows in the negative light the crew of Voyager. Another appearance of Q in episode ‘Q2’ is always welcome, it’s a pity we didn’t get a chance to see more of Q during the series (only total of 3 episodes).

Voyager, Season 7

As for the ending of the series,  I personally like it and I don’t understand why many fans were against this episode at the time. It’s not a typical Star Trek ending, but it’s fast, action packed with another ridiculous time paradox story. Add to all that Borg and their Queen, and you can’t go wrong.

Characters

It was good to see a logical conclusion of Neelix story line and that episode (Homestead) proved how important this character was to the series, his friendship with Tuvok and the rest of the crew. Ethan Philips did a great job playing this character.

All the complains in previous seasons payed off, and we will see much more of both Tuvok and Chakotey. The Doctor, Seven and the captain remain dominant characters, but not as they were in previous few seasons.

Conclusion

And, the Voyager is over. It was overall an excellent series, and one I like much more than The Next Generation. It’s not typical Star Trek as TNG was, and the adventurous nature and much more fun are something that Voyager had in abundance. Total of 168 episodes and 7 season are plenty, and you will return more than once to re watch some of the episodes. Highly recommended.

After the furious seasons 4 and 5, Voyager season 6 was a bit of a let down. For some reason, producers decided to abandon very successful formula of the previous seasons, and go back to the very beginning, making it look more like season 1 in the tone and the conception of episodes. Only few episodes this season were dealing with main story arc of going home, the rest were mostly independent or standalone episodes.

Production

Change in Voyager this season is hard to explain, since there were no big changes in the production and writing staff. You can almost watch this entire season without knowing what happened to Voyager in the first place. When this season started, it remained only Star Trek to air, since Deep Space 9 concluded it’s own 7 seasons the same year.

Story

I preferred the direction Voyager had with seasons 4 and 5, but let’s be honest, season 6 had some really great episodes. Only two important ‘going home’ story ark episodes were dealing with Pathfinder project back on earth that open communications between Star Fleet Command and Voyager. Both those episodes were really great, especially Life Line that features The Doctor going back home to help his creator. More Borg episodes were again really great, with last episode and cliffhanger is further exploring the Borg society and collective.

On the other side, there are several really bad episodes that not only didn’t contribute anything to the story, but were genuinely boring and were retelling stories similar to some from other Star Trek series. At some instances, looks like that writers lost their inspiration. But, I still gave this season 8 as my personal mark, because even with flawed writing, Voyager remained very good.

Voyager, Season 6

Characters

I can imagine that most of the main cast were still not satisfied with their role in the series, with many episodes still focusing on Seven Of Nine, captain Janeway and The Doctor. Don’t get me wrong, their episodes are always great, but it would be nice to see more Tuvok or Nelix stories. One episode brings back the character of Kes to conclude the her story line and again tamper with time and Kes great powers.

Jeri Ryan has truly became the star of the series, and she managed to further explore the Borg transformation into human, and give great performance. Same goes for Robert Picardo who did great with given mobility (season 3). His day dreaming episode, saving his creator and Virtuoso episodes are among the greatest Star Trek franchise has to offer.

Conclusion

Not as good as season 4 and 5, but still good. Maybe some fans will prefer the episodic format of this season, and will value it more than I did. Anyway, only one more season to go, with Voyager returning home still remains a mystery.

After great season 4, writers had a tough job of continuing the series with same quality of stories. And, to be honest, they succeeded, even though, I still prefer season 4 over season 5. Voyager in season 5 is darker, and this is evident from the very beginning, and episode Night. Season 4 is the only season ending without cliffhanger, so the start of the season 5 was quite different than fans of the series were used to.

Production

Even though, Jeri Taylor is still credited as creator, she is no longer active as a showrunner. Brannon Braga has assumed that role from season 5 onward. This had an impact on story telling in this season, with more episodes focusing on Voyager getting closer to Earth, and even reaching it in alternative time lines.

Story and Characters

As I said, stories in this season are darker than usual.Each member of main cast had own episodes to further explore their characters, but the center of this season are no doubt Seven of Nine and captain Janeway. This season stories will bring Voyager much closer to home with several encounters that helped speed things along through alien technology and physical phenomena. Time related episodes are also part of this season, and writers managed to surprise us with some very good time paradox stories, especially the episode Timeless, one of the best Voyager episodes.

Voyager, Season 5

One of the objections to writing in this season was the fact that for the most part it was written with Seven of Nine and captain Janeway in center of many episodes. Some of the principal cast had a lot of objections to the course of the series, and the fact that some characters were almost forgotten and even episodic. But, on the other hand this season had explored the transformation of Seven Of Nine from Borg to human, her relationship with captain, her past. Also, darker side of Janeway is explored with many difficult situations Voyager was put to from first episode Night and much more.

Encounters with starfleet in this season will be more prominent ending with cliffhanger are great two part episode Equinox with John Savage as a guest star.

Conclusion

Even though it’s not an usual season, it’s still really good, different but good and on par with season 4. Voyager is truly a great series and huge DVD box set is worth the price.

We left Voyager at the end of season 3 among Borg that were in the middle of the war with a mysterious species from another realm. This is almost like the new start to Voyager, and very big changes will happen in the first few episodes of the season that will shape the rest of the series. In a good way. New character, departure of another was more than just infusion of fresh blood, it pushed the series in new direction.

Production

Most significant change was the increased use of CGI, and that have contributed to much better look of the series, use of large screens and addition of new astrometrics lab that will be used a lot from this season on. Quality of all other elements is also improved with much better holodecks simulations.

Story

Many things changed and Voyager is no longer a ship for the crew, it’s their home, and they are accepting the fact that they will spend a lot of time on it, if not their whole life. But, on the other side, writers added more going home opportunities that were lacking in the first three seasons. Also, few more time paradox stories were made and they were also a good improvement.

Two double episodes ‘Year of Hell’ and ‘Killing Game’ are among the best episodes Star Trek franchise had to offer. Also, episodes that have Seven of Nine as a main character like ‘The Raven’, ‘The Omega Directive’ and others are great and will show conflicts between the Borg psychology of Seven Of Nine and the morality and humanity of captain Janeway.

Voyager, Season 4

Cast and characters

But, the main addition to the story remains the change in the cast and introduction of new character. Addition to the cast is Jeri Ryan in the role of the Borg drone Seven Of Nine. Story ark started with the season 3 cliffhanger and the episode Scorpion concludes with her transformation from drone back into her human form, but with some remaining Borg elements in her appearance. And not only that many episodes will be Seven-centric and very interesting, but the performance of beautiful Jeri Ryan is really great and she is easily my favorite character of the series along with The Doctor (Robert Picardo).

I am pleased to say that with addition of the darker side to characters, series gain a lot in terms of story telling and character development. I finally find captain Janeway good and interesting characters. Unfortunately, Jennifer Lien in the role of Kes has left the series soon after the season began.

Conclusion

Voyager is becoming one of the best sci-fi series ever made, much better than Next Generations ever was. So, if you are true sci-fi fan, try to get through first 3 seasons of Voyager, because from season 4 until the end, Voyager is excellent series.

After average (and at time bad) season 2, Voyager starts to improve, and that is clearly visible in third season, and will continue in the last four seasons. Not only that writing has improved, but so have the characters that are now more real and not so stuck up into the Star Trek template of moral superiority, not so cold as they used to be. This season is the big step forward, and it’s like the Voyager is only starting.

Production

While ship models are still used for space scenes, this season also marks the change in production with use of CGI more and more, with some scenes completely done with CGI. In the same time CGI is used more on another Star Trek series, Deep Space 9 and that proved that CGI has matured enough to be used.

Story

Finally, Kazon are gone from Voyager. They will be mentioned in 2–3 episodes until the end of the series, but that’s it. This created a bit of vacuum since the series had no main enemy anymore, but that will change over the course of the season. We will see more of Vidiians, a race with the phage sickness and some other races we have seen in previous two seasons. Most important story additions are encounters with the Borg and time paradox episodes. Each Star Trek had episodes that have to deal with time travel and consequences of the paradox that creates, but non had more than Voyager over the course of 7 seasons.

While time stories are, as to be expected, flawed and not very logical at times, these episodes are always enjoyable. Also, Q is back for one more episode, and we will get the chance to learn more about Continuum. Shame that Q will have only one more episode in Voyager. Also, we will see more cross-overs with other Star Trek series and some important characters will be featured including legendary Hikaru Sulu.

Voyager, Season 3

Characters

Once again, cast has not changed. But, some of the characters are much improved. Captain Janeway is now more relate-able and it’s obvious that Kate Mulgrew is more comfortable in the role, and managed to enforce more control over the character and improve the version created by writers. Still, we don’t have much chance so far to see the darker side of her, and we will need to wait more for that.

Jennifer Lien’s character Kes has gone through great character development, we will learn more about her telepathic powers. Breaking up her and Nelix is also a good idea, since allowed to explore more different relationships.

Conclusion

Finally, Voyager is getting on track and starts to provide us with some great sci-fi entertainment. While this is not the best season, it’s much better than first two, and will prove that Voyager’s great potential will be realized with future seasons.

After shorter first season, starting with season 2, Voyager will have 26 episodes per season. There is not much changed in this season from the first one. Cast remained the same with more guest stars added including John de Lancie in the iconic role of Q. But, overall, this is maybe the weakest season of Voyager, since it didn’t offered anything new already done with first season. Still, there are some great episodes making it worth watching.

Story

Not much new has done with this season, but creators and writers decided to stick with main enemy alien species called Kazon introduced in the first episode of first season. I must say that I hated the Kazon and I think that they are one of the most unoriginal introduced in Star Trek and one that I couldn’t understand why creators decided to keep in series for so long. During second season, we will see more of them. Most of the fans didn’t like the Kazon, and fortunately, creators decided to conclude the Kazon ark at the end of second season, and start of the third one. After that, only in few episodes they mentioned the Kazon, but nothing more.

Voyager, Season 2

Apart for little changes in this season, there are some excellent episodes that are really worth watching. And once again, the best episodes or parts of them are involving The Doctor, who will get more and more time during this season, allowing Robert Picardo to show his talent and great performance in the role.

Cast and characters

Unfortunately I must say that  Kate Mulgrew in the role of captain was highly anoying and over the course of the series I couldn’t bring myself to liking her. Same goes for Robert Beltran in the role of Chakotey, and some of the other members of the crew. Most of them show the worst in the Star Trek concept from the moment series has conceived back in the sixties. They portrait the characters of the future humanity that is simply too unrealistic, too perfect and superior towards the other species. Comic relief character of Nelix is far more believable and interesting than most of the star fleet crew. It’s also pity that they decided to write out the Maquis, the rebellious faction that was so different from the rest of the crew.

Bright moment is also an first Voyager episode featuring character Q. Episode had great story and it’s a pity that only Q was part only of few episodes of Voyager.

Conclusion

Good thing about this season is that it will be followed by the third, and that one will get much better. Still, you will maybe find more to watch in season 2 than I have and maybe find out that I was too critical. Watch it and see for yourself.

Voyager is fourth Star Trek and as usual it received mixed reactions from the ‘fans’. To be honest, I hated the original Star Trek and I can’t bring my self to sit through a single episode. The Next Generation is better, but it gets rather boring, and the only thing worth watching is Borg and Q. But next two Star Trek series Deep Space 9 and Voyager that even aired in the same time are quite different and much, much better.

Many so called hard core Star Trek fans didn’t like Voyager, because it wasn’t following the episodic formula set in original Star Trek and The Next Generation. And that’s exactly why both DS9 and Voyager are much, much better than first two Star Trek series that are simply boring and highly repetitive. But DS9 had a story line that run for all 7 seasons, and while it had many classic formula episodes it was not Star Trek as it was known. Voyager was something in between, and it does follow single story line, but with more episodes that are independent.

Story

Set in year 2371 USS Voyager is a Starfleet ship sent after the Maquis ship lost in Badlands to retrieve the undercover operative on board. But, a powerful being called Caretaker transported them into Delta Quadrant, 70.000 light years away from home. So, they are trying to get home and searching for a way to do it faster, since using maximum warp speed, voyage would last 70 years.

Season 1 Cast

During the first season, some basic stories were set and major enemies met that will be around for first few seasons. And while original premise of the series is original for the Star Trek universe until than, in many ways during first season most episodes are strictly episodic with only some references to major story line. And you can’t really expect true originality with such episodes, and you will recognize bits and pieces from TNG. Also, as all other Star Trek series, there is a lot of tech-no-babble talk that is very, very tiresome after few episodes.

Cast and characters

For me, Voyager has the best cast from all Star Trek series, even so some of the great characters are not as developed or used during this first season. Robert Picardo as hologram The Doctor is amazing and while is role is not big during the initial episodes, his character will grow over the next seasons. My other favorite character is Tuvok, Vulcan played by Tim Russ. While in the original Star Trek legendary Vulcan Spock was half human, Tuvok is true Vulcan, showing no emotions and Tim Russ played that perfectly. Kate Mulgrew plays the lead role of captain Kathryn Janeway, and she is overall good in the role, but somewhat predicable and the same goes for some other cast members, but that was to be expected. But, all things considered, Voyager is cast better than previous Star Treks.

Voyager

Production

Voyager is created by Rick Berman, Jeri Taylor and Michael Piller. Visually it’s fairly similar to DS9, and in many cases same sets were used. CGI is used in many cases, but not so much during first season. External ship and space shots are still done using models.

Conclusion

Voyager is my favorite Star Trek, and while first 2 seasons are the weakest of the 7 series had, it’s a good start. When Borg are finally added to the series in season 3, Voyager get’s better.

Well, The Lost Room mini series is a real treat for all fans of fantasy and sci-fi genre, and to generally everyone who likes a good mystery. This is very well written and executed show, with great cast, and I have trouble finding something really bad in it. Maybe it deserved a bigger budget to get better visuals, or maybe that it would be great to see The Lost Room in standard series format that continues after the mini series ends.

SyFy did a great job on this one, and considering that it’s TV production with tight budget, it looks really good. At some points you would like to see better visuals or more original score, but that’s just about all that is wrong with the series. Most important elements: story and characters are great. Originally was in form of 3 full featured episodes, but for DVD and for some countries it was split into 6 parts.

Story

Detective Joe Miller while working very unusual crime scene comes into the possession of the motel room key. But, this is no ordinary key, it allows whomever use it to open any door any where, through a mystic motel room. But, things get very complicated when he learns that key is not only unusual object. There are many scattered around the world, all belonging to the mysterious room, and all having strange powers.

In the center of everything is mysterious event that presumably made all the objects from the room powerful. What caused the event and what consequences had years after is one of the main storyline series follow.

And for the 4 hours, story is rock solid, without any dull moment, tight story telling and so many details revealing more and more about the room, about the objects and people fighting over them for decades. So, the only reason I gave the story part 9 instead of 10 is because of the ending, that felt kinda rushed and not fully explaining everything you want to know. But, ending is left open, and maybe that’s why it looks like a let down, because it was planned to make a series to follow and continue to story. Real shame that doesn’t happened (yet). It’s really rare to find the series with such original idea that offers so much more than a 4.5 hours.

The Lost Room

Cast and characters

Cast is lead by Peter Krause in the role of Joe Miller, and he gives very strong performance, much like he did in all series I have seen him in (Six Feet Under, Dirty Sexy Money). Julianna Margulies has very important role, but is not as present in the series as you would expect from female lead. Also, I really liked Peter Jacobson (currently starring in House M.D. as Dr. Taub) role and small role from Elle Fanning (younger sister of Dakota Fanning). Kevin Pollack, April Grace and Roger Bart are great supporting cast.

Cast did a very good job because they had a great script and a lot to work with, giving the characters depth and sense of reality that makes them believable. You will be able to see what the power that object give do to their life, showing that such power is hard to handle.

Conclusion

The Lost Room is great mini series. Excellent and engaging story, intriguing mystery behind powerful objects and speculations behind the true meaning of the room will hold you until the very end. Even the open ending is good, because you can try and find the answer for yourself, to understand what the even that started everything was. Double DVD set is very cheap, and this is one series that you would want to have in your collection, because for sure you will watch it again, and again.

Ever since Farscape The Complete Series Box Set was released back in November of last year, it was instant hit and one of the top sellers on Amazon. And, once again, Amazon offers 60% discount for the whole box for a limited time. As I have already said in my previous posts, this is really a great set not only for Farscape fans because it contains tons of bonus material, but to all who want to see Farscape for the first time.

Box Set

New box set contains all 88 episodes from 4 seasons on 26 DVD’s. I bought my copy of the set back in December, and I have already watched it (again), and really enjoyed the commentaries, interviews with cast and creators, and many more special features packed in the set, some of them for the first time on DVD. Add to that excellent packaging, and you got really great box set that is available for a very low price.

To see exactly what is included in the box set, you can read the original post announcing the box set:

Farscape Box Set announcement

My review of the box set contain several images of the discs, menues and details about video and audio quality and anything else you might be interested to know before buying the set:

Review of the Farscape The Complete Series Box Set

And to see reviews of all seasons of Farscape, check out the series archive here on TVScape.NET:

Review of the all Farscape seasons

Couple of weeks ago I posted review about Invasion, series that aired on ABC and got canceled after one season. In the same time, on NBC, another series was airing called Surface. But, in this case NBC didn’t even allowed for a full season to end, and they canceled it after only 15 episodes leaving it open ended. Just like Invasion, Surface was amazing show but NBC once again managed to kill it before giving it a real chance.

Why invest millions in a series, just to cancel it after few months? And Surface was really great, great idea, intriguing story. But 15 episodes are not enough to develop the series as it should be. Surface deserved a chance of at least 2 seasons to explore the story, to explore the characters and finish telling it’s story. And trust me, it’s far better than most of the crappy shows NBC aired at the time, and renewed. It’s a shame that other TV stations did’t picked up Surface to continue it. Surface storyline would lead to natural ending after maybe 10 more episodes, and to make things worse, it managed to pull very good and above average ratings.

Story

During an underwater expedition Dr. Laura Daughtery discovered the new species, an unclassified marine vertebrate that appear to be larger and different from anything else in the sea, and far more dangerous. Serbian scientist Dr. Alexander Cirko also is working on tracking the animals. Richard Connelly looses his brother to one of the creatures during the dive.

Nimrod

In the same time, a 15 year old boy Miles finds the egg in the sea. He takes it home, and after a while it hatches. Miles starts taking care of the unusual animal. Until the very end we follow these two story lines: Miles and the creature he called Nimrod, and Laura working with Richard to uncover the truth about them.

Cast and characters

Series lead Lake Bell is great in the role of Laura and the same goes for Carter Jenkins in the role of Miles. But, I didn’t like much Jay Ferguson as Richard, there was something off in his performance, and for the most time he annoyed the hell out of me. Rade Šerbedžija as Dr. Cirko is great as usual and it’s great to see him more in the big US productions.

Surface cast

Production

Series looks expensive, but it’s not really consistent. Special effects are not as good as you would like them to be, and in many cases it’s easy to spot flaws in merging of special effects and live action. But, it’s not that important, story is great and some production problems are not that big issue. Initially, Surface was planned as a mini series, but due to high initial ratings it was expanded to a season, and than canceled before the end.

Conclusion

Despite it lacks the ending, Surface is one of my favorite series, and I have seen it couple of times by now. Complete series is released on DVD and I recommend that you give it a chance.

Couple of weeks ago website has gone through some updates and design has been altered a bit to allow more space for posts and text. But more changes are on the way, including some new and very useful and interesting features. First important update will be to improve the speed of the website, and that will be achieved by moving TVScape to new hosting server. Continue reading this post to find out more.

We are in the process of moving to new server, and next week we will test everything before the TVScape is moved to it. New server will be on VPS cloud hosting server that will allow scalability in terms of speed and performance. Current server is getting slow last few weeks with rising number of visitors, so new cloud hosting will solve all these problems.

Two new features will be added to TVScape over the next month. First will be search and recommendation page. This will allow you to filter reviews and series according to various criteria and that will allow you to find the series you would like to watch. Select one of more genres, actors and creators and you will get the list of series to match the choice.

After that, we are planning to add the forum, with discussions about series, actors, news and DVD/Blu-Ray releases of TV series. If you have anymore suggestion on what to add to the TVScape, please leave a comment.

Lone serial killer gathers bunch of people to the remote island, cuts the island from the world and than starts killing them one by one. This is the story plot used in the countless movies, but very rarely in the TV series (as far as I know, I haven’t seen such series before this one). Harper’s Island is more like a long movie with a lot of killings spread over the 13 episodes and with more than 20 people killed over the period of a week.

Story

It’s very hard to write original story that deals with serial killers and follow him killing people one by one, and on top having them restricted to a town or island in this case. So, don’t expect anything different with this series. Killer and over 20 victims  in a course of 13 episodes during one week. Story is set on a small island outside of Seattle during the wedding. All guests arrive together with a boat to a small town of Harper’s Island where bride’s (Trish) family has a big estate. Groom (Henry) used to work for his wife to be family. Henry’s best friend Abby lost her mother 7 years before to serial killer and the wedding was first time after her mother’s death that she returns to the island.

During first few episodes you will learn about events from previous serial killings. But, many things will remain hidden until the very end of the series keeping viewers in suspense. But, there is no time to waste and people will start dieing during the premiere episode. And until the end, at least one of the characters will be killed in each episode.

Abby and Henry

Don’t expect story to be too complicated, and it was not meant to be. It’s about pure entertainment, and finding new ways to kill someone. But the pacing and the structure will allow you to think about who’s next between the episodes and try to put all pieces together and find out who’s killing the wedding guests.

Characters

While the story is nothing new, and not very original, characters are developed nicely during the course of the series, and cast for those characters is excellent. Beautiful Elaine Cassidy is truly the star of the show in the role of Abby, and most believable and consistent performance in the series. Christopher Gorham as Henry is OK, but there was something off in his performance that bugged me from time to time, he doesn’t look the role he is portraying. Without going into the rest of the big cast, I think that cast is best part of the series. No big stars in it, but very good. I will surely keep my eye on more work also from Katie Cassidy, Gina Holden and Matt Barr.

Fans of Supernatural will be pleased to see Jim Beaver in the role of sheriff, and he is really good here also, maybe even better than in Supernatural.

Production

CBS did a great job with making the series and it surely looks expensive. Ratings were high at the start, but have fallen after few episodes. CBS moved the show to Sunday, and the ratings fall further. But, still they have aired the series. This is the only series planned, and I really don’t see any way to make more of Harper’s Island since the story is resolved. Maybe something similar would be nice to see sometime in the future.

Conclusion

Not the best of the shows, but very good in what was intended to be. You will surely enjoy the suspense and will be entertained during all 13 episodes. I have. Get the DVD Edition and check it out for yourself.

Hercules: The Legendary Journeys is fantasy genre series premiered in 1995 and lasted for 6 seasons, with Kevin Sorbo starring as Hercules. In the same time, Xena: Warrior Princess premiered also in 1995 and also had 6 seasons, with Lucy Lawless starring as Xena. And a while back both series were available on DVD’s, but for some time they are out of print. Finally, both are being re-released this year by Universal.

Hercules, first season has 13 episodes and will be available in the boxed set with 3DVD’s. Currently, there is no information on special features. Xena, however, has 24 episodes in the season one, and will be packed in 5DVD’s boxed set. No special features are yet announced by Universal. Both sets will be released on april 20 2010 for US market. Hercules is already available in the Australia.

Right now, both boxes are already available for preorder on Amazon. All other seasons will follow, and it’s expected that at least 2 more sets of each series will be released in 2010, with rest following next year.

Tin Man mini series is real treat. At first I thought that it’s a remake of the Wizard Of Oz (and remakes are usually bad idea to make in the first place), but the Tin Man is much more. And also, to my surprise, story is better than the original story of Oz, and is actually continuation of the original story, set some 50–60 years after, but much more modernized, with some elements changes including change from Oz to O.Z.

Kathleen Robertson as Azkadellia

Production

This is probably the best mini series made by SyFy so far. It costed more than 20 million dollars to make and that is a big budget for television. And it’s easy to see how well that money has spent, from great cast, expensive visuals and to top it very good story. Let’s hope that SyFy will continue to make worthy production instead of the low budget TV movies they still make.

Story

As I said, story is set some 50 years after the Wizard Of Oz events. There is no Dorothy, but instead of her we have a DG, and she finds herself in the mystical lands of O.Z, where she sets on the adventure to find her parents. And she meets 3 companions and they are also on sort of a quest. But, DG quest for parents turned out to be much more difficult, and she need to save the O.Z from infinite darkness.

On the other side of O.Z., we have Azkadellia and she uses magic and technology to rule the O.Z. But, her role evolves during the 3 episodes, and turns out to be much more than simply evil antagonist to DG. She keeps her mother, the real Queen prisoner while she seeks to find Emerald of the Eclipse to bring darkness to O.Z.

Modern version adds many elements of science fiction, fantasy and even today very popular steampunk genre making the story more appealing to the younger audience that maybe didn’t even see the original movie.

TinMan cast

Cast

Zooey Deschanel plays DG, and for the most part, she did good job, even though she looks confused most of the time, maybe too much than character required. Azkadellia is by far my favorite character of the series, and gorgeous Kathleen Robertson is great in the role. She was criticized to be to serious in the role, but I think is fitting especially when you see the ending.

DG traveling companions are also Glitch (played by Alan Cumming), who is searching for his brain, Wyatt Cain (great Neal McDonough) who is former policeman of the O.Z., or Tin Man and he is looking for his familiy, Raw (played by Raoul Trujillo) belonging to race of viewers and he is similar to original Cowardly Lion. And for the end I would like to mention Richard Dreyfuss as The Mystic Man (Wizard Of Oz from the original), who has a small role here, but good one.

Conclusion

This is great mini series, and with DVD released with Blu-Ray on the way, this is a real good title to purchase for collection. And with over 4 hours in lenght, series never gets boring. If you have a chance, you definitively need to see this one.

When FlashForward started few months ago, I really liked the concept and expected a lot from it. And first few episodes were great, but that soon changed and it wasn’t as interesting and dynamic as it was at the start. They managed to pull through and last 2 episodes seems to be back on track. And all hopes that FlashForward is new Lost as it was speculated, were gone. And now, there are more production problems.

As it turns out, David Goyer is no longer running the series. He stated that even though he will be still involved with the series, his other projects and feature films will take priority. Mark Guggenheim was showrunner after the series premiere, but in October that also ended. And with long break between first half and continuation scheduled for March 18, ratings that were not very high to begin with, FlashForward future doesn’t look good.

Right now, there are no announcements about who will replace Goyer, but production has reach episode 18 of the 23 ordered. Let’s hope that they will sort things out before is too late. Concept used in the series is great and they started well. It would be great to see the ending.

SyFy mini series and original movies are usually bad, with few exceptions, and at first, I didn’t expected much from The Triangle, despite the names behind it. To be honest, the only reason I have watched this episode was the name of the Rockne S. O’Bannon (mastermind behind my favorite TV series Farscape). And, as it turns out, this is really good mini series, not without flaws, but still very enjoyable and entertaining.

Production

Series is created by Brian Singer (House M.D., X-Man movies, Superman Returns, The Usual Suspects, Apt Pupil) and Dean Devlin (Leverage) along with Rockne. Series is very expensive, with many special effects shot and it had very high ratings for premiere airing, with over 4 million viewers, and it remains one of the highest rated mini series SyFy ever made.

Story

Core of the story is the mystery behind the Bermuda Triangle, but this time with much more original approach. And for the most part we are following two story lines that will come together at the end to solve the mystery and resolve it. One story is with only survivor of the event connected with triangle when 2 ships got lost. He is having trouble grasping reality and experiences strange things. Main story is following group of experts in different fields hired by shipping tycoon to discover the truth behind the Bermuda Triangle, for 5 million dollars each. But, the initial skepticism by all involved will soon turn into something else, and they will start to experience strange events, time shifts and ripples that all emanate from within the Triangle.

For the most part, story is good, but it feels to long at times, and many things look like fillers than actually something that story needs. Through strange events we learn about characters back-stories and the way this is done is something I really liked. Ending feels rushed. They needed dynamic ending, but this is not it. Still, final solution is good and interesting.

Cast and characters

Cast is very good, and is one of the best aspects of the series with such names as Eric Stolz, Sam Neill, Bruce Davison and beautiful Catherine Bell. I must admit that I even liked the performance of B movies star Lou Diamond Phillips. Most of the characters have predictable reactions, but this is not that important for the overall story and series is really entertaining to watch. Don’t expect some deep meaning, this is fun series with interesting take on the famous Triangle.

Conclusion

Triangle is a good mini series, much better than usual Sy-Fy works, and with good cast, high production values and interesting story is entertaining and fun to watch.

I’m not going again into the cancellation policies TV companies have, but canceling Invasion was a big, big mistake. But, at least they gave advanced warning to creators that managed to wrap some of the story lines by the end of the only season. Still, it ends with cliffhanger and was meant to continue on CW, but they decided not to pick it up. Series is created by Shaun Cassidy, and aired on ABC in 2005 and 2006.

Story

Invasion is set in small town in Florida after the devastating hurricane, that brought something strange and out of this world, creatures that live in the water. During first several episodes we don’t see much of them, but the story will uncover what’s happening with the creatures and will show that they have been around for a long time. But, the things will culminate fast, and will lead to great finale of the season that will for sure leave you wanting more.

Invasion Cast

With some episodes, story can be slow paced, but it’s complex, and has many characters, and we need as much back stories as we can get. From time to time, series uses flashbacks to fill the gaps and all that was done great and helped to build the mystery surrounding the yellow creatures.

Cast

Cast is great. Starting with little girl Rose (played by Ariel Gade), and older Kira and Jesse (Alexis Dziena and Evan Peters) to truly amazing actor William Fichtner in the main role of sheriff Tom Underlay, who is without a doubt main force driving the series. Eddie Cibrian is really good in the role of Russell. Kari Matchett plays Dr. Mariel Underlay, and she is Russell’s ex wife, and they have two kids together. Russell’s pregnant wife Larkin Groves (beautiful Lisa Sheridan) is journalist, and her brother Dave (Tyler Labine, best known for his role in the series Reaper) is full of conspiracy theories and he is the first that starts to uncover what’s going on in the town and the truth behind the yellow creatures.

A lot was done to develop main characters during the first half of the season, and they succeeded in creating believable and passionate characters that offer plenty for everyone, even if you don’t like science fiction.

Production

Invasion looks really good, and it was intended to be another high budget series in the vain of Lost. And it started really great with 17 million viewers following the second season of Lost. But, ABC changed it schedule several times, and the ratings were falling. In the time of cancellation, Invasion had between 6 and 10 million viewers, but ABC still decided to axe it.

Conclusion

Invasion is really great. It’s not just sci-fi, it’s a drama and thriller, mystery and even horror. At least, the only season can be seen as a complete work that unfortunately ended too soon. Grab the DVD box set and watch it, and see  for yourself.

So, it’s finally here. Final season, season 6 of Lost has started on Tuesday, February 2 2010 with 2 hour episode called ‘LA X’. I don’t remember that any show has ever created so much tension and anticipation over the past several months as Lost did. Having the end date set 3 years ago was highly beneficial and Lost will end this year on its own terms, building to long-planned ending with this sixth and final season.

Jack on Oceanic 815

Season 5 ended with mind blowing cliffhanger episode that followed two different time-lines: New John Locke with Ben killing Jacob, and Juliette in the hatch shaft with the nuclear bomb that should explode and change the events that caused Oceanic 815 to crash in the first place.

Beware: following text contains spoilers!

Major questions of the season 5 cliffhanger are the nuclear bomb incident and new John Locke. And with nuclear bomb writers did the only logical thing.

Bomb is what caused the incident in the first place and everything that happened to our survivors. This is done to avoid the time paradox that so many fictional work falls into by allowing events to be changed with no logic at all. But, in turn, incident also caused creation of new parallel time-line, based on theories Faraday discussed in previous season. And after flashbacks, flashforwards and time travel, we have new narrative element in form of the two different time-lines. Main time-line remains on the island, and everyone is back in 2007. Second time-line takes us back to 2004, on the flight that started it all, but there is no island (it’s on the bottom of the ocean, to be precise). And back on the shore with foot of the ancient statue, minutes after Ben killed Jacob, we will learn a lot about new Locke, or should we call it Man in Black? All survivors are now in the same time, in 2007.

I am not going through all the things that happened in this episode (or episodes), because there are too many events, all of them important. It’s great how the writers constructed alternate time-line, how many subtle changes were added and how some of the relationships changed. But, the most important question is: what is the significance of this parallel universe? How does it relate to everything we have seen so far, and where it will lead us?

In the same time we got few very important revelations. We have seen the famous Temple, another resurrection, we meet few new characters that are in charge of the Temple. This answered some old questions: how Ben was healed, where are the children from the plane and few more. But the biggest revelation is what the Smoke Monster is, or rather who. New and transformed John Lock, Man in Black  will show some of the secrets and his motivations.

Richard and New Locke

All the elements of the story in this first episode, all fit together perfectly, and the great story is again matched by the performance of the actors. Terry O’Quinn has once again proved that he is an amazing actor, and that his performance in Lost is truly great. Just watch the scene where he talks to Ben or the last scene when he talks to Jack in other universe, you will be mesmerized by the character and performance. Josh Holloway is star of the first part, and the process his character went through over the last 5 seasons is amazing. The rest of the cast is again great and there are few worthy additions that will hopefully be recurring during the final season.

In many ways story has come full circle and is back at the beginning. Legendary scene from season 1, when John Locke explains the backgammon to Walt, two stones, one white and other dark are finally taking it’s shape. From what has happened so far, it’s hard to see who is good and who is evil, but over the next 16 remaining episodes, I expect that this will be answered.

It’s hard to find many other series that have done what Lost did for the television, for the way the story is told, for the suspense and mysteries that captivated devoted viewers. Number of viewers is not as high as when the series started, but that’s saying more about viewers than series. Lost is more like a long movie that is aired over the last six years, and it requires dedication to follow the story, requires fate in writers that they know where the story will go and how will it end. Lost is not something you can watch to pass the time, it will make you think, it will make you wonder and will always leave you wanting more.

The end of Lost begins with LA X episodes, and is not too late to catch up. Get the earlier seasons and watch them, because without them, seeing new episodes will be both confusing and frustrating. And if you are patient, I promise that you will not regret the time spent watching Lost.

Amazing show, canceled by the FOX before it even got a chance. But, things like that happen each year and they happen on all US networks, and they will never learn, because they care about ONE thing only: MONEY. And that’s why Keen Eddie, Life, Moonlight, New Amsterdam and other great series were canceled without getting real chance. Keen Eddie is excellent series that proved to smart for average audience.

“Hi, I’m Eddie. How do you like me so far?” This is how detective Eddie Arlette introduces himself. He arrives in London from NY to work on a follow up case. But after the case is done (pilot episode), he stays in London working for Scotland Yard.

Story

Eddie arrives in London and moves into the house he rented, only to find out that Fiona, daughter of the woman that rented the house is living there incognito while her parents think that she is in college. All stories, and each episode is one story, one case, are very well written, clever and funny. With many unexpected twists, series quickly grows on you, because episodes are not dull as the most cop shows turn out in the end. Humor is great revolving around cultural clash of American and English sides. Also, there are many great references to James Bond and Eddies flirting with Carol Ross, superintendent’s assistant.

Cast and characters

Sienna, Mark, Julian

Eddie is played by Mark Valley (Fringe, Human Target) and he is only American actor on the series. Mark is really great in the role, charming and smart. It’s real pity he didn’t get a chance of several seasons to explore the character further. Gorgeous Sienna Miller is playing Fiona, and she is spoiled and always bickering with Eddie. They have great chemistry together and it’s real fun to watch them. The rest of the cast, detectives in Scotland Yard are great English actors, and Colin Salmon and Julian Rhind-Tutt are both really great.

Production

Visually, series looks at times like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and that works very well, making the series look dynamic and fresh. But, FOX managed to turn the series into disaster ratings with constant changes of the air time, moving it around and using it to fill the time. In the end they cancel it early, and the rest of the 13 episodes airen on BravoTV.

Conclusion

Get the DVD and watch the series, it’s fun and really great. And if you like the Mark Valley in the role, check out the early Fringe episodes and also a new series Human Target that is currently on the air.

So, some of them got rescued and some of them were left behind (by choice or bad luck). And the island? Well, Locked (Ben to be exact) moved it. That’s how season 4 ended and left us wondering about many things. And most important question is: where the hell the island has gone?! Lost writers managed to surprise all of us again with another great cliffhanger, and leave us for months waiting to find out what what’s next.

Seasons 1, 2 and 3 used flashbacks, and the last episode of season 3 changed everything with first flashforward. And during season 4 flashforwards were used to tell the story of rescued Oceanic 6. And, for season 5 they once again changed the way the story is told.

Story

Not only that the story telling has changed, but many things were revealed during season 5, and as usual, many more questions were opened. Some of new questions involve things we were wondering for few seasons, like mysterious Jacob. And you will finally see him in season 5, but we still don’t know much more about him, except that he is no ordinary human being (and we kind a expected that). We will find out everything about French chick Russoe, how she arrived on the island and how she went mad. You will learn all about Charles Widmore, you will see where smoke monster lives, you will find out how Dharma Initiative found the island in the first place, how the hatch was build and much more.

Cast and characters

Not much new to say about them. Absolutely amazing cast, with few worthy additions, and you can’t find the weak link among them. I am glad that Jeff Fahey is back in the really great role of Lapidus, we will see amazing Lance Reddick in the role of Mathew Abaddon, but unfortunately Henry Ian Cusick will be only in few episodes as Desmond.

Greatest tandem from previous season is back again, and they are better than ever. I am talking about John Locke and Ben Linus. Terry O’Quinn playing Locke and Michael Emerson playing Ben (won the Golden Globe for the role) are great together and they have added so much to their roles, especially Terry, since there are many changes with John Locke that will really surprise you.

We will see the different side of Sawyer, and Josh Holloway really managed to sell the new Sawyer.

Lost Season 5

Conclusion

I can go on and on, but the best is to watch the Lost. I know that the ratings went down during season 5, and I think that it got too complicated for some people, because Lost now has a purpose, it’s no longer list of episodes telling random stories about characters. If you don’t want to follow the complex story, and want to watch episodes from time to time, than Lost is not for you.

Season 6 starts February 2 2010 with 2 hour premiere called LA X. Don’t miss it.

Lost madness is in full force. And, I thought that you might need some cool wallpaper to freshen up the desktop, or promo picture of the cast members, so I decided to make a small list of Lost resources from other websites. With only few days until the start of the final season it’s good to be prepared. So, if you didn’t already, watch the previous seasons or some of many recap episodes for each season. Lost starts on Tuesday.

Before the list of interesting websites, here is very interesting promo poster with scraped images of all cast members. Some of them are dead, but that doesn’t mean much on Lost. Who knows what will happen once the final season starts, and what happened in the pit where Juliette is last seen trying to activate nuclear bomb.

The Final Season

For general info about Lost, episode info, cast members, theories and just about anything else, best place to start is:

Lostpedia: http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Latest news, promo images, promo videos, interviews and other resources you can find here:

DocArzt’s Lost Blog: http://www.docarzt.com/
SL-Lost: http://www.sl-lost.com/

And let’s not forget the official website with Lost store, many interesting videos, images and episode guide:

Lost at ABC: http://abc.go.com/shows/lost

Waiting for Lost fever is almost over, but the heat will not go away, since we all expect amazing final season. Lost is one of the best TV series ever created, very complex and complicated, series that involves plane crashes, smoke monster and time travel, and island that is moving, people that don’t age, great characters with amazing back-stories, interconnection that makes you wonder what way the series will end.

So, while we wait fore the season 6 to start, here are some more Lost videos. First two you can see bellow are SkyONE interviews with Daniel Dae Kim (playing Jin on Lost), Jeff Fahey (playing Lapidus), Emilie De Ravin (playing Claire), Terry O’Quinn (playing John Locke) and Michael Emerson (playing Ben).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofymRZe4gYE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37U6WH5AP9I

Here are videos with interviews with many cast members from many different sources:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NakbLCZ5gR4

Swedish writer Henning Mankell created Kurt Wallander in 1991 in the novel Faceless Killer. And so far, 10 novels and a collection of stories are published. And, so far a series of films was made in Sweden, and also a TV series, also in Sweden. But, the stories and characters also made it’s way into the BBC and the latest incarnation of TV adaptations featuring great Kenneth Branagh in the role of Kurt Wallander.

Story

First season had 3 feature length episodes, that aired in 2008. Adapted novels were Sidetracked, Firewall and One Step Behind. I didn’t read any of the novels, but reportedly, BBC adaptation is very faithful to the original novels, maybe a little darker and moodier. As the scripts go, they are done really well, all episodes have good balance and pacing, slowly revealing the mystery and leading to solution.

Characters

Kurt Wallander is police inspector, working in Sweden, in city Ystad. Reportedly, Kenneth Branagh approached Henning Mankell personally, and wanted to play the role of Kurt from the start. And, I must say, that he is really great. Dark, troubled and disconnected from his family, devoted to work first. All episodes work really good in deep character development and showing what drives Kurt, his relations to family (ill father and daughter). Support cast is also good, starting with Jeany Spark in the role of Kurt daughter Linda and Sarah Smart as Anne-Britt Hoglund, Wallander partner in the Ystad police station.

Production

Branagh was not the first choice to play Kurt, and before him BBC considered David Morrissey, Clive Owen and Michael Gambon among the others. But, Branagh meet Mankell who was already involved with BBC, and the decision was made. Series is made in Sweden, in Ystad.

Kurt Wallander

Many aspects of the production were Anglicized so that terms are closer to English speaking audience. Also, interesting fact is that Branagh and directors didn’t watched Swedish movies and series, and they managed to offer a fresh view of the character and the series as a whole. First season had very high ratings, and was very well received from audience and critics, and has won many awards. In turn, many countries have purchased right to the series, expanding the success.

BBC plans to continue with similar treatment, trying to repeat the success of the Inspector Morse series, with feature length episodes

Conclusion

This is another great BBC series, and I recommend it to all who love police procedurals. Review of second season is coming soon, and also, I have managed to get my hands on the Swedish Wallander series from 2005–2006, and I will watch and review all 13 episodes of that series also.

Well, I really like science fiction and I really wanted to like Space: Above And Beyond, but it wasn’t at all what I expected. And I must say that I am very, very disappointed with it, and I am not at all surprised that it was canceled due to the low ratings. Series is created by Glen Morgan and James Wong and aired on FOX in 1995 and 1996 with only one season and total of 24 episodes and ended with cliffhanger. But let’s get back to the start.

Story

One of the biggest problems of the story is that it’s too complicated. Human race was in war with one another, there are silicates (robots basically) made to fight for humans. They rebelled, so humans made tanks (made in vitro) to fight against silicates. And finally they were found by brutal alien race. To make things worse, center of the story are US marines (yeah US). World is seemingly united, but US marines are still top dogs, only now are operating on space ships. Everything about them is already seen in countless B production movies and it looks very bad here. If it wasn’t for that, maybe the rest of the series wouldn’t look so bad.

I will not bore you with actual story, but it’s not anything you didn’t see, and it’s far from anything original.

Cast and characters

Casting is just average and bland. Characters are not interesting and their back-stories badly constructed, and I couldn’t relate to any of them. Dialogs are full of cliché talk and historical references to pop culture of 20-th century, and most of it is plain stupid.

Production

Well, this is kind a better than both story and characters. Visual effects are very good for the period and TV budget. Sets are not as good, and look too generic and boring (maybe because of the military theme), but special effects, ships and CGI are good. Music is also good and again, much better than the series.

Conclusion

So, I didn’t like it, but who knows, you may wanna try it for yourself. I know that many consider this a cult show, but I simply can’t see that.

So, the time is almost come for the sixth and final season of Lost to start. Last month or so, ABC was running countless promos without any new footage, keeping all fans on their toes. Most of the names for the new episodes are known by now, and some of the new and returning actors also, but as for the story, this is pretty much complete unknown, and so far there are many, many speculations on the season six.

Some of the promos are just plain bits and pieces with footage from the previous seasons, but some of them are also very funny, like the one made last week on ONN (Onion News Network) cable channel. Promo is called: ‘Final Season Of ‘Lost’ Promises To Make Fans More Annoying Than Ever’. Both Lindelof and Cuse are in this promo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhbZOX3Q5zs

The newest promo was completely different, and it’s made of the series of very fast transitions, and among all that you can see some new, and never seen before images, presumably from the upcoming season 6.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XCcMwJNT08

And, here is another great clip, showing the Oceanic 815 crash in real time made in the style of 24, from footage aired through out the series.

So, countdown is on, with only 7 days to go until the big premiere. Also, two days before main premiere there will be a premiere on the beach on Hawaii, for people who can travel there to see the first two episodes before they are aired on TV. Final season of Lost starts on Tuesday, February 2 2010 with recap episode at 8, followed by the two new episodes at 9 and 10.

SyFy (former SciFi) is well know for producing bad TV movies and bad mini series. But, the things are changing, and if you see last two miniseries are they made, we can expect more and more quality short content. First different one is Tin Man (I will watch this next week), and Alice that I am reviewing here. Alice is very good, it has some bad moments, but overall it’s an enjoyable series with a spin on original story.

Story

Alice is based on both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll. But, they made many changes and added new elements. Story is modernized, made too look realistic, but they still used all important characters. So, you still have White Rabbit, but he is not rabbit any more, but a man with two ponytails to look like the rabbit. Story revolves around Alice, some 150 years after the story from the book and the ring that controls the Looking Glass between our world and Wonderland.

First part of the mini series is really good, and the story develops great. But the second part is not as good, and feels like story is dragging. It runs total of 3 hours, but the pacing would be much better with some elements removed and entire run shortened to 2 hours.

Cast and characters

Cast is excellent, and performances are really good from all involved. Alice is played by Caterina Scorsone, well known Canadian actress, and she is really star of the show. Mad Hatter is now only Hatter, and he is played by Andrew-Lee Potts. Third in our trio of heroes is Charlie, The White Knight played by Matt Frewer. As for the rest of the cast, we have some great names: Kathy Bates as a Queen of Hearts, Colm Meaney as a King of Hearts, Harry Dean Stanton as the Caterpillar. Tim Curry has a minor role, and also Alessandro Juliani (Gaeta from Battlestar Galactica) and Teryl Rothery (Dr. Fraiser from Stargate SG-1).

Production

White Knight, Alice, Hatter

Visually, Alice looks really good. Special effects are great for the most part, but still it’s visible that this is made for TV on a limited budget. It’s pity that they didn’t had enough to polish the visuals. If SyFy continues to invest in mini series as they did with Alice and Tin Man, and with good scripts and cast we can expect the rise of quality from SyFy.

Conclusion

Alice is fun to watch, interesting and explores the well known Wonderland story from a different angle. It’s too long and boring at moments, but that’s just my subjective opinion and maybe you will have different look on it. Anyway, you can get the DVD and enjoy the Alice and her adventures.

Shocking finale of season 3 was a complete game changer not only for Lost, but it set bar higher for any other TV series. After 3 seasons of flashbacks into the lives of plane crash survivors, flashbacks are now gone and they are replaced by flashforwards showing as group of Oceanic Six, survivors who are now saved and live back in the world away from the island. This season is about finding out how that happened.

Ratings

During the season 3 number of viewers started to drop, and this trend continued during season 4, even with improving quality of the show. And reason for this is that show has became more complicated and casual users who was only watching some episodes couldn’t follow the story any more. Lost is not episodic series and you can’t watch only parts.

Story and Characters

It’s hard to summarize the complex story line, and I will only give you outlines of this season. You need to watch Lost to understand scope and complexity of the script of the performances, it’s one of a kind. And partly because of that many critics started to gave lower ratings for the series, and why ratings start falling. This is not series for everyone, and if you are not interested in complex story that requires a lot of time, it’s better to avoid it. But, if you give it a real chance you will see how great it is.

Back to the story. 6 of our favorite characters have been rescued, and during the course of the season you will see how that happened. After first few episodes you will learn who the six are, and that 3 years have already passed for them. There are also several new characters arrived from the boat that found the island, and they will be very important for the rest of the season and next one also. This is very dynamic season with only 14 episodes (due to the WGA strike), and with another amazing ending and jaw dropping cliffhanger.

Lost Season 4

New people added to the series are really great addition and they brought fresh blood and new interesting stories. And they quickly became the integral part of the story, like in one of the best episodes of the series called The Constant with Desmond, and a new guy Daniel Faraday (played by Jeremy Davies).

Many new elements are added to the story telling, and apart flashforwards we have time travel elements, commando action and much more of the smoke monster.

Conclusion

Lost is one show you must see. It will get very complicated, so you must see the whole show, all the episodes to fully appreciate the magic behind this unique series. And with season 6 just 2 weeks away, it’s the right time to watch it (again).

Last night was the night of the annual Golden Globe Awards ceremony. And there were few surprising winners for bost movies and TV. Michael Giacchino got the award for the score for animated movie Up, but he is best known for his amazing score for Lost, Fringe or Alias, and also latest Star Trek. But, TVScape is interested in TV, not movies, so here are the TV winners of 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards.

Mad Men won the globe for the third year in a row, and yet, I still don’t like it. I really tried to watch it several times, but there is something in this series that I just can’t stand. Newcomer Glee won the best comedy or musical award and Grey Gardens best mini series or TV movie.

Kevin Bacon won best actor in mini series or TV movie for Taking Chance, but my favorite was Kenneth Branagh for his amazing role in Wallander (I am watching season 2 right now). Drew Barrymore won the globe for best actress in mini series or TV movie for Grey Gardens. Alec Boldwin won best actor in a comedy for 30 Rock, the show that started good, but after first season it got so boring and mostly unfunny. I also did’t like too much United States of Tara, but Toni Collette was really good in a multiple personalty role and won the globe for best actress in comedy. Finally, Michael C. Hall won best actor in drama series for Dexter, and Julianna Margulies best actress in drama for The Good Wife.

Chloë Sevigny won best supporting actress for drama, for her role in Big Love, and finally, John Lithgow won supporting actor in drama series for his amazing performance in Dexter as the Trinity Killer.

Human Target (Christopher Chance) is a comic book character created by Len Wein and Carmine Infantino. Character first appeared in 1972, and he is private detective and bodyguard. Pilot episode for the FOX adaptation aired on Saturday starring Mark Valley as Christopher Chance, Chi McBride as Winston and Jackie Earle Haley as Guerrero. Tricia Helfer is a guest star in the pilot episode in the role of a client.

First season should have 13 episodes, and let’s hope that FOX is not going to cancel it after just one season, because pilot was really good. Mark Valley is excellent in the main role of the charismatic Chance, and that’s not too hard to believe judging by his previous work (Keen Eddie and Fringe). And both Chi and Jackie Earle are also very good in their roles. Tricia also proved to be excellent choice for the guest star of the first episode.

Human Target

I recommend that you watch Human Target, because it’s full of action, good detective work and a lot of humor. Let’s wait and see how it will do during the first season. But, even based on one episode, this is one of the best new series in 2009/2010 season.

Emma is a novel by famous English writer Jane Austen, and as all here novels this one is adapted many times for both TV and a big screen. The latest in this line is the BBC adaptation aired in the late 2009. It’s made in the form of mini series with 4 one hour episodes. It’s written for screen by Sandy Welch (successfully adapted Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre in 2006), and all episodes are directed by Jim O’Hanlon.

Story

Story is a well known and in the center of it is Emma Woodhouse, rich and smart young girl living in a small town of Highbury. She is a skilled matchmaker (or at least that’s what she thinks), and is determined to not get married. And everything starts going wrong once she meets Harriet Smith.

I have not read the Emma novel, but the story here is very well done, with great dialogs especially by Emma and Mr. Knightly. There are some moments when story seams to be dragging and is a bit boring, but overall all 4 hours will pass by quickly.

Cast and characters

Emma

In great BBC tradition, cast is very good, lead by the veteran Michael Gambon (to younger audience known as Dumbledore in Harry Potter movies) and he plays Emma’s father. In the role of Emma is beautiful Romola Garai and she is really adorable in this role, and for me the strongest performance of all. Johnny Lee Miller is in the role of George Knightley, who is Emma’s best friend and only intellectual equal in the town. Rupert Evans is in the role of Frank Churchill, and he also gave great performance, and that goes for the rest of cast.

Production

Excellent production by BBC and as usual they are great in making costume period adaptations. Emma looks great, with great costumes, and to follow music is really good and goes well with the period. It’s hard to find some week element in the whole production and it’s a real pleasure to watch Emma.

Conclusion

This is excellent adaptation, and if you like this type of adaptations you will really enjoy. DVD is released, and you can get it at Amazon.