If you are anything like me, you are fans of the Indiana Jones movies. And with this series, you will go back to your childhood when you first saw them and even without so much action, mystery and adventure from the movies, you will be charmed by this little boy. George Lucas (with some help from Steven Spielberg) is creator of this series continuing the great success of three original Indy movies from the eighties.

Even though idea of cashing on the success of the movies in the different format, this is not simply a sell-out series, but really thought out history of famous Indy, helping us understand how the great archaeologist and  adventurer came to be.

Story and Characters

When Junior was a young boy he ventured with his parents into the world. Great influence on his development had his tutor Helen Seymor (played by Margaret Tyzack). She was a tutor to his father too. From movies you know that Indy had only some relations with his father how was more interested in philosophy and literature. And he was absent a lot, away from home, or locked in the study, reading.

Lloyd Owen is in the role of Henry Jones and he played the part well. I was always a great fan of Sean Connery and his performance in the movies in the role of Henry was amazing. But Lloyd Owen did a decent job following in Connery’s footsteps. Corey Carrier is in the role of young Indy (at age of 10 — 13) proved to be a great choice for the role. Same goes for Sean Patrick Flanery playing the older teenage Indy.

On his adventures, young Indy will meet many famous people including Freud, Tolstoy, Roosevelt, Al Capone and may others. And from he early age he manages to get himself into trouble. But, you will not see much of buried treasures or ancient traps and tombs.

Production

Series premiered in 1992 on ABC. With no extra special effects but filmed all over the world, this series is no match to movies visually, but it’s still great entertainment. It’s targeted for kids and teenagers, and all fans of Indiana Jones. But, Lucas being Lucas, years later he order that all episodes be reedited and from total of 22 initial full feature episodes, 45 were made with different, chronological order of events.

Series episodes were directed by many directors including some very big names like Frank Darabont and Terry Jones. Also, many great guest stars were part of the series including Catherine Zeta-Jones, Daniel Craig, Christopher Lee, Elizabeth Hurley and many others.

Conclusion

I really love this type of children series, they are nice, simple, you can watch them without fear, everything is good. And this is one for the collection, so you can watch them with your kids.

Jesus Christ, real or not, has left a significant mark on the human race. History tells us different stories about him, the holy grail, templars that found and protected the grail. And sometimes, templars where presented as protectors of the church, but sometimes, stories where different. And because of this, church has abandoned them. Were they a fearless warriors, immortals bound to the fate of the grail? Or maybe something else.

The Last Templar is mini series, made in 2009 and based on the novel of the same name by Raymond Khoury. Book published in 2005, became bestseller and remain so for years. And because of that, producers decided to use it to make this series.

Story and characters

This is a story about templars that followed the principle that truth will set them free. 700 years old flashbacks are used to explain the story that follows very attractive Dr. Tess Chaykin, well known archaeologist played by beautiful oscar winner Mira Sorvino. Her quest for the lost treasures of templars started with her mentor Dr Bill Vance (played by Kenneth Welsh) who dedicated his life to that quest. And Tess is daring, brave and reckless, always getting into trouble because of her obsession for excavation, and she remind us of famous Indiana Jones. And, as it happens is such books and movies, leading lady needs a man. And her free spirit and recklessness attract FBI agent Sean Daley (played byScott Foley) and he joins her in her quest. He is religious with traditional values trying to hold on to the church dogma and teachings.

And the story needs a bad guy, or in this case the Catholic Church that denies the existence of the templar treasure. Emissary of the church is Monsignor De Angelis (played by Victor Gerber) doesn’t care about rules and he believes that he has to do everything in his power to stop Tess and Sean. A small role in the series is given to one of the greatest actors of all time Omar Sharif, who is helping our heroes to find the truth. And the truth behind the treasure is not what they have expected.

Sean & Tess

And while there is a lot of action all the time, and it was intended as an roller-coaster adventure, this series fails to deliver on all counts. Bad acting even though the actors tried to make it work, but the script they had was the worse part of this mess. Incoherent, with a lot of confusing and not used well flashbacks. Visually, series is not up to todays standards and is just above the series of bad TV movies and mini series NBC made in the recent years.

Production

At least they shot the series on location in Canada, Morocco and Turkey. But they skipped the important part of getting all that right, and have been criticized with unrealistic portrayal of Turkey and no truth in geography. I guess that research was not so important to producers. As long as it looks ‘realistic’ it’s ok. But, that’s wrong with many similar attempts and one of the reason why such adaptation end up pale and well, bad.

Conclusion

I expected much more from this adaptation. Cast was good, the source book also, but the end result turned out unoriginal, poorly directed and simply has failed. But, maybe that’s just me, maybe you will like it, and you can get the DVD’s and check it out for yourself.

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.

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.

Series about lawyers. Again. My first thought was, how they still make such shows, it’s getting boring already. But, when I have seen Boston Legal, I have realized that I am wrong. It’s very different from any other series in the genre. Series creator David E. Kelly is one of the most productive and popular creators, who already made several very popular TV series like Ally McBeal, Chicago Hope and L.A. Law.

Production

David E. Kelly managed to make very interesting and never boring series with great actors that remain the strongest element of the series. Boston Legal is spin-of of another successful series The Practice, sharing some of the cast members and characters. Boston Legal premiered in 2004 on ABC with first season having 17 episodes. First season pulled of highest ratings from all 5 seasons, and managed to reach more than 12 million viewers on average.

Story and cast

It’s set in Boston, in the fictional company Crane, Poole & Schmidt. And in the main role as Denny Crane is William Shatner, best known as the legendary captain James T. Kirk from the Star Trek series and movies, and i was curious in seeing him in very different role as a lawyer. Crane is ‘the best lawyer’ in history (he says that about himself), and for 45 years he has never lost the case. Until…

Series has episodic structure with not many connections between episodes, each one about new case. We are following Danny, his moody behavior, always ready to argue and doesn’t care about insulting anyone including friends. It’s hard to describe exactly his performance, but you need to hear his introduction to understand exactly how great this character is. He is egoistic, selfish, but very capable to turn any situation to his advantage. And he doesn’t really care if his client is guilty or not, he always does his best to set them free.

Boston Legal, Season 1

Charming Candice Bergen is in the role of Shirley Schmidt, another partner in the firm, and she is the only one that really understands and know Crane and she is always ready to help him. And her looks maybe deceiving, because in the court she is real lioness working hard to help his client. She is also ruthless, and uncompromising when in the courtroom looking to discover their secrets.

The third main character is Alan Shore, played by James Spader. He is afraid of commitments, changing women daily, never opening to love, but real king of the courtroom, master at manipulating the jury using stories often unrelated to the trial.

Rest of the supporting cast is really good, and as said before, casting is done really good with Boston Legal, not a weak link among them.

Conclusion

What to say in the end. You are missing if you have not seen the Boston Legal. So, get the DVD sets and start watching, it’s really fun. And more reviews will be written soon. Stay tuned.

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.

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.

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.

Vampires? Supernatural? Both movies and series of the genre are popular ever since TV first started. And while some believe in the the forces of the supernatural, most of the people are skeptic, but still like to see a horror series on the TV. And while there are many adaptations of the original vampire and Dracula stories, this one is different. While you still have many familiar vampire elements, parts of the basic myth are changed.

Story

True Blood is based on the book by Charlaine Harris called The Southern Vampire Mysteries. And there are some major changes of the vampire myth: vampires are immune to the cross and garlic or holy water, and they can be seen in the mirror. And also, they living freely among humans. All thanks to breakthrough Japanese scientist made in creating synthetic blood that allows to vampires to feed on it without need to harm humans. And with that they can live like a normal people. We see them trying to fit in and live normal life despite the fact that most of them are hundreds of years old and killed many people to feed themselves.

Sookie and Bill

Main story is set in the small fictional town Bon Temps in Louisiana, and vampires are not only strange beings there. Sookie Stackhouse is waitress in the local bar, but she also has telepathic abilities and she can her thoughts of everyone around. She is sort of a outcast and people in the town are afraid of her, as much as she is afraid of them. But, one day a vampire arrives to town, different, because she can’t hear his thoughts. His name is Bill Compton and he is 140 years old. She spends a lot of time in his company because here mind is at peace with no external influence.

Series starts slow, and first few episodes are long introduction that at times get boring, but once you get over the initial episodes, series gets much better.

Cast and characters

Stephen Moyer is in the role of vampire Bill and he looks very believable in the role. In the role of Sookie, we have oscar winner Anna Paquin. Rest of the cast is also good, and over the course of first season several new roles where added as the story evolved.

Production

Series is created by Alan Ball for HBO, and premiere season had 12 episodes. Due to high ratings as expected, series was renewed for second season. And soon after second season ended, HBO confirmed 2 more seasons. Visually, series looks really good, but on the other hand is very graphic with a lot of blood and violence. As usual, HBO managed to make breathtaking intro. Among many awards series won for the first season most important are Emmy and Golden Globe.

Conclusion

I really like this type of supernatural thrillers, and after I got over the initial slow start, True Blood developed into a great addition to the genre.

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.

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.

Before this firs season ended, ABC canceled Eastwick due to the low ratings. This proved once again that even the great cast, top production, are simply not enough to make the successful show that will interest viewers or even touch they hearts. Maybe, too much was expected from adaptation of The Witches of Eastwick novel by John Updike to match the very good 1987 movie adaptation starring Jack Nicholson.

Much like the book, series is about three witches that used their powers to bring the mysterious stranger into their lives. But they don’t know that this will be like opening the Pandora’s Box.

Cast and characters

Eastwick Cast

Roxanne ‘Roxie’  Tarcoletti is mother of teenage girl, she is free spirited and loose, she looks great and she is a sculptor. Witch that is not in good standing in Eastwick is played by Rebecca Romijn. Joanna Frankel is shy and often intimidated journalist, having trouble writing good story. Second witch is played by Lindsay Price. Kat Gardner is mother of 5 children and a wife to sometimes abusive husband. She is a nurse, hardworking and dedicated to her familiy. Witch number three is played by Jaime Ray Newman.

And they start as strangers, until one day they meet in front of the fountain, and their lives are changed while they are transformed from normal women into witches. And things change even more when new Eastwick resident arrives. Darryl Van Horne (played by Paul Gross) tries to take control over them…

Amazing actress Veronica Cartwright plays local benefactor and former witch. She was also part of the 1987 movie, but in different role.

Production

Until now there were several (mostly bad) attempts to turn the book into the series, and this is actual third incarnation with two previous failed in 1992 and 2002. Witch based series were successful so far, but… Eastwick is created by Maggie Friedman, and she wanted to create a show about normal women with magical powers, believing that the experience will be better. ABC produced it along with WB, but it was canceled early due to law ratings, and remaining few episodes will be aired at the later date.

Conclusion

I can’t say that this was bad series, and maybe it was canceled to early before getting the real chance to improve. But, in the end, it didn’t offer anything new and it’s the time to seek for some new material and not rehashing the old stories.

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.

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.

If you didn’t had favorite housewife, by the end of season one you are surely to get one. Series is fast paced, and always leaving us wanting more, always opening new questions and with a big mystery each season, you don’t know what to expect. ABC did a great job in promoting the series and by the start of season 2, it was already series with high ratings and devoted fans. So, what you can expect from second season?

Story and new characters

Don’t expect to see any big changes from first season, life in the Wisteria Lane is the same, but to make things more interesting, we have new characters. First season central story was a great tragedy, and we have learned many secrets all housewives have. New mystery is in the form of the new neighbor, Betty Appelwhite (Alfre Woodard) that has moved in with her son Matthew under suspicious circumstances. The new neighbor is mysterious, often in a bad mood and plays the piano. And our housewives wanted to learn more about her, and that will prove to be very hard.

In much bigger role from the first season is Nicollette Sheridan (originally casted for the role of Bree) and her character Edie Britt. Housewives don’t like her much, and she is always topic for rumors and gossip, living a free life and she is maybe even source of envy for everyone in the neighborhood. And, she is known to take wayward husbands.

As for our housewives, there will be some changes. Linet will start wearing pants and will go back to work while her husband is looking after their 4 kids. Van Der Kamp’s go through a great tragedy and you will surely admire the strong character of Bree. Gabrielle is going through hard period with her husband.

Production

Again, Desperate Houswives earned many new awards and with even more fans and steady high ratings, future looks good for them. Production is as always on the highest level, despite some of the problems behind the scenes and change of producers after first season.

Conclusion

Second season is not much different from the first one. All the actresses are great and they are the main reason to watch this show. Maybe I shouldn’t have expected more after the first season, but it’s still early, many more seasons will follow.

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.

I’ve been trying to write this review for a while, but it’s not going well. I don’t understand producers and the FOX that supported and financed this project that was aimed to end (again) Prison Break. And, we don’t got nothing innovative nor interesting. Story is revolving around Micheal Scofield, and good thing is that series is finally ended, and from this ending there is no chance that someday they can continue with it.

There is not much to say without spoiling the ending, and at the end characters are more interesting than the story itself. And Final Break starts just after the happy ending of the season 4, and tries to resolve all the stories and get to the truth about Company and everything else, even if all that turn out to be not really interesting.

Characters

William Fichtner is once again great in the role of (former) agent Mahone. And he plays integral part of the series, and he is finally ready to change and help his friends. Also, we saw the different face of Gretchen Morgan. Her cold and calculated exterior was a real, vulnerable woman, a mother. Jodi Lyn O’Keefe was really great in the this role. But real center of the story in the Final Break is Sarah and her love for Micheal, and the problems that this love brought them. In a way things get back to beginning, and most of the character will appear again.

Production

I can’t understand why the series was extended, and what was the point of this movie, that feels like an extended episode. Everything would be better if it ended after season 2, making last two season basically reinventing the wheel, dragging the story and feeling boring. And ratings were low during the last seasons, so they couldn’t earn to much money.

Conclusion

What to say in the end? We have seen enough, and this is not something I would like to watch again. I was really a fun in the beginning, but they didn’t know when to stop, ruining the great idea and great first two seasons.

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).

Viewers expected much more from Atlantis, and for the most part, series ended up as copy of SG-1. And that’s one of the reasons that ratings started to drop during second season. They moved the series to another galaxy, replaced Goa-uld with Wraiths, improved visual effects, but the formula stayed the same, format stayed the same. But still, despite all that, Atlantis is fun to watch because characters are good.

Story

So, they found the Lost City, they settled and made the city livable and we expected something new and original, and we waited, and… nothing happened. Once again, they are visiting planets, meeting new people and cultures, trying to help everybody, and search for the advanced technologies they can use to defend Atlantis and Earth. And as in SG-1, politics play the big factor in the story.

SGA Season 2

Characters

The best element of the series, is the cast. They are funny, and they have great chemistry and they add very unique charm to the series. Cast is changed somewhat, and the team is expanded by new character called Ronon Dex, who is a runner that Wraith use to practice and sport hunting.

Production

Atlantis really looks great. Special effects look expensive, more like the movie, than TV series. Both earth and wraith ships look impressive, set designs are great but the essence of the series is still a copy of SG-1. Original Stargate theme, composed by Joel Goldsmith, is slightly modified for intro, and music also sounds much like SG-1.

Conclusion

Series had initial good success and had good good story to start with, but it just failed to be successful as SG-1 was. Still, it has it’s moments, it’s funny (but even that will get old after a while), so you can give it a chance.

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.

Yes, this one is even worse from the previous one. And after the disaster of first disaster movie under the same name, they somehow managed to convince few more good actors to join in. Were they all blind or brain washed to agree to participate in something like this? Also, there are tow versions, and even the short one is boring and very bad, long version is unbearable to watch. Shame on NBC for making this.

Story and characters

Not much to say. Earthquake from the first 10.5 is now moving across US trying to split it in two. Completely unrealisting story, science without any sense, tech-no-bable you are not going to understand, and if you manage to do so you are going to laugh how stupid it is. And how they managed to get new actors, good actors to participate in this is really amazing and because of this one, I almost lost all respect for great Frank Langella how is playing the father of the Kim Delaney character.

Production

Again, director managed to annoy everyone with terrible zoom in-out technique, and reminded us again that many porno movies have better direction and sense of action and scene composition. And yes, all these NBC disaster movies are so bad that you get better production in a porno movie. Did anyone at NBC watched any of these series before they decided to air them? How they managed to make 3 more after the first terrible movie? Do people really buy DVD’s of any of these movies? And this one, Apocalypse, has even a Blu-Ray release. I can’t imagine how bad this must look in HD.

Conclusion

Avoid it. It’s terrible, it’s boring, it’s without any sense of reality. And to write these last 4 reviews I have wasted 12 hours of my life. At least I can warn you to find something better to watch. And there are plenty of good series out there. Check out reviews here and take your pick.

This is actually first mini series about natural disasters made by NBC, and it was broad-casted in 2004. But, for some strange reason NBC decided to make a sequel in for of another mini series 2 years later, and that one will be reviewed also. And as with any other similar movie, 90% of the science part of the story is totally unrealistic with very little connections to reality, and reasons for such script are beyond me.

Story

Main story line is about series of catastrophic earthquakes staring in Washington state and moving south to California. And, as other similar productions, you are thrown into several human relations stories that aim to show how regular people would react to the situation, and here, all that fails completely, and you simple can’t relate to any of them due to bad written characters and situation. First and main problem is to believe that something like that can actually happen. You can check IMDB page for the series to see the amount of scientific errors and even basic geographic mistakes that make the story laughable.

Cast and characters

Situation is bit better here, and cast is solid and overall, performances are good. Many of the characters are cliché and that includes first president of the USA (played by Beau Bridges) and all the scientists. Most of them are not very believable due to no character development and no back stories and cast didn’t had much to go on and work with.

Production

Special effects are bad. When I saw the train miniature and so bad reusing of shots from it, lack of details, I had to see the scene several times, because it was looking so bad. Music is better this time, and at least follows the events on the screen. But, direction is abysmal. Use of zoom was totally uncalled for and distracting. Director thought that sudden zoom in and out will get some sense of dramatics to the mix, but he only managed to diminish the actors performances and annoy the hell out of me.

Conclusion

This is somewhat better from The Storm and Meteor, but still not worth wasting time watching. Again, if you are curious, DVD is available.

Here is another mini series from NBC in, what they call Survivor Sunday. This one is bad, but not as bad as The Storm reviewed yesterday. There are two more mini series in this pack: 2 parts of 10.5, they will be reviews also, despite very bad quality. Meteor is also known as Meteor: Path Of Destruction, but this name doesn’t make it any better. And the worst is, many networks are making bad mini series like this one.

Story

Main story is used over and over again in many movies before, and I can bet that it will be used again. And no mater how good the premise is good, there isn’t a single successful adaptation that I know of. So, the large meteor(s) are coming to earth with very little time to stop it. To add on top of that, and make the screenplay longer they have added human based stories that are in many instances totally pointless and always distracting. So, the story that would be enough for maybe even good movie is expanded to 3 hours. Story writing is bad as it was in The Storm.

Cast and Characters

This is what is better in this mini series. But, not by much. No matter how good actors are, they can’t work with bad script, and I think that they did the best they could with what was given. I am not going into many details, and I will not going to single out any of them, but I bet they all regret taking the job. Most likely they had to work on these series due to some contract obligations, and it’s a pity we are going to see more of such productions.

Production

Slightly better than The Strom, but special effects and use of miniatures is really low tech and not very realistic or believable.  I am sure that NBC could spent money on something that is worth like the many of the good series they have canceled in the past few years.

Conclusion

Again, avoid this. And again, if you are interested to see how bad it is, you can get DVD from Amazon and see for yourself.

It doesn’t get worst than this. If you thought that SyFy mini series and TV movies are bad, wait to see this. The Storm is created for NBC, and was aired in two parts in July 2009. From appalling script, unbelievably bad acting from all involved, awful direction, antiquated special effects and really bad music, this is one of the worst productions for TV I have seen in the recent years. But, let’s go in order, starting with story.

Story

Basic idea is not that bad, and that’s the only good thing in the script. Military controlled project to control weather has gone out of control. Everything else has gone downhill from here. Incoherent dialogs, storytelling without any sense. Science elements of the story are very unrealistic and this makes everything even worse.  I understand that they worked with very low budget, but that’s still not the reason to work with such bad script. There are many low budget movies that deliver with the quality script.

Cast and characters

There are many well known names in this one, and I am really a fan of some of them (Treat Williams and Teri Polo are usually really good). Character development is non existent, and even if they wanted, cast members did’t had anything to work with. Acting is bad, delivery plain and without real emotions, and at moments looks like they are reading the phone book.

Production

For the most part, music sounds like it was taken out of the porno movie. Special effects are absolutely horrible. And to make things worse, they are reusing many of the effect shots without any sense of the story, making things worse. Use of the split screen shots is over used and looks bad. Direction is without any style, mix of many techniques, everything used really bad, with no sense of pace or storytelling. I don’t understand why anyone would finance something so bad, and than air it. This is worse than most direct to DVD B production movies. NBC must be in real trouble if they fall so low to make mini series like this. And I don’t understand actors that accepted to be part of this, because the money couldn’t be major part of the deal, considering overall low budget.

Conclusion

I can go on and on, but it’s best to stop. Simply enough: avoid ‘The Storm’, there are many good mini series, series and movies to wast time on this. If you still want to see it, DVD has been released with Blu-Ray on the way.

Well, whatever the first season was about, the second one is a step forward. I really admire J.J. Abrams and his great ideas, and great success, popularity, all his creations achieved. And, this season is now more focused on 16th century genius Rambaldi, his amazing inventions and progressive ideas, people obsessed by all that trying to find his work, and on the other side we have the CIA that is trying to stop them.

First season ending is very crucial for the rest of the series, because we learned that Syndy’s mother is still alive, despite the belief that she was dead for 20 years. And to top that, she is former KGB agent, infiltrated the CIA ranks. Her real name is Irina Derevenko, and her participation will grow considerably. She is portrayed by Lena Olin.

Story

This season will be expanded with number of new recurring characters, and this makes very complicated to follow the story, because we don’t know who works for whom, who is double agent, who is lying, selling information. But, this is the essential element of all similar series, and it’s something that keeps you interested and wanting more. Again, you will be surprised by some of the developments during the season, some of the back-stories that will reveal much more and make the rest of the series more interesting.

Characters

As usual for this genre, many of the characters are like made from the mold. In previous review I didn’t mentioned all the members of the main cast, like a Marshall Flinkman (played by Kevin Weisman), a genius working for the SD-6: expert in everything, lonely and shy. If you like parallels, he is James Bond’s Q. And one of the new recurring cast members is amazing Terry O’Quinn, regular in all J.J. Abrams projects. He is playing the role of FBI assistant director Kendall, that is in charge of the SD-6 double agents and the whole operation.

I don’t like some of the characterizations allowing all main characters to break rules without consequences, with almost no involvement from law enforcement (CIA is not really that), like all things are happening isolated from everybody with no important interactions with the rest of the world.

Production

Production values are really high, and the use of latest technologies, props and locations are really all very believable. And due to all that, Alias has again won number of awards and nominations.

Conclusion

If you love action, secret agents and secret societies, you need to watch Alias and I bet that you will enjoy it. More coming soon.

I must say that I have only heard about the book, original movie (1961) or the one from 1981, but I have never read the book and I never have seen these movies. And I really expected that this latest adaptation would be interesting, and according to trailers it was very promising. But, this once again proves that trailers are not to be trusted. This two part mini series is created and broad-casted in UK by BBC.

Story

Triffids are carnivorous plants, that people are using for their oil that replaces all other sources of energy, and prevent global warming. And there are thousands of orchards where triffids are kept and used. But triffids are not just plants, they can communicate ad move, and people are hold them in captivity. But, one day, a sun activity causes that everyone on the Earth goes blind if they were watching the event. And during this blindness event, someone unleashes the triffids from the captivity and they started to eat people.

Well, the premise is not bad, and has a lot of potential, but this mini series script based on this is confusing, and overall very badly written with many continuity problems, but most importantly it gets very, very boring after first half hour ready, and it fails to keep you interested in going on. It felt like 10 hours long.

Cast and Characters

Well, cast is good, and I really like most of the main actors (with exception of Jason Priestley, sorry). But, the acting is just bad all over the board. Jason has a terrible accent that just distracts so much from his dialogs. Eddi Izzard’s character is maybe the worst one, over the top classic evil thug who survives a plane crash in a Indiana Jones fridge incident manner. Joely Richardson is real beauty, and for me one, her character Jo is of the rare watchable and likable characters. Dougary Scott is also amazing actor, but his character (main one, by the way) is flat and badly written. Best performances were from actors with small roles like Brian Cox and Vanessa Redgrave.

Production

For the most part, series looks good. Special effects are done well, and I really liked the sun activity scenes. Triffids moving is not bad, and overall it’s OK considering that this is made for TV. Music is really good, but sometimes out of place, sounding much better than the things on the screen.

Conclusion

This is one more in the long line of bad made for TV productions. Long, boring, confusing story and bad acting. Best is to read the book or try to find older adaptations. If you are still curious, both DVD and Blu-Ray are released.

Full name of the series in the first season and part of second was ‘8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter’, and is based on the book by the same name from W. Bruce Cameron. This is also the last work on television from great John Ritter. 8 Simple Rules is a sitcom, and is created by Tracy Gamble, and premiered on ABC in 2002. And for list of all 8 rules you can check out the Wikipedia page for the series.

Story

Hennessy family is the center of the series, and they are, as it’s usually with sitcoms, average American familiy. And the first season is very different from the later two, because focus in this one is actually part of the title. Paul, father of the family, is very protective of his teenage daughters and he uses different methods to scare potential boyfriends. Add to that normal family dynamics and very funny characters, great actors and you get very good comedy and a lot of laughs.

Cast and Characters

Main cast

John Ritter is excellent as usual, and the same goes for all other members of the family. Katey Sagal is really amazing playing Paul’s wife Cate. As for the teenage daughters, older one is Bridget (played by Kaley Cuoco), she is pretty one. Younger daughter Karry is the smart one (played by Amy Davidson). And the youngest kid in the family is Rory (played by Martin Spanjers).

Interesting trivia is that Kaley plays older sister, but Amy is actually 5 years older than her.

Conclusion

This is very good sitcom, and it’s worth watching, it’s really funny and if nothing else, you will get to see John Ritter in his last TV appearance.

Kingdom Hospital is mini series developed by Stephen King based on the original TV series Riget. Riget is created by Lars Von Trier, who is also credited as producer and consultant on Kingdom Hospital. Stephen King was impressed by original series, and wanted to do a remake for US audience, but basic story and many minor story elements and characters are part of the new version. In some regards this remake is even better.

Story

I really liked Riget (both parts), but it’s not series easy to watch. It’s shot using different sepia filters to produce strange visual effects, and some of the story elements are not so easy to follow. Kingdom Hospital is based on the same premise, but King added many new elements that are maybe even typical for US shows, and the goal was to appeal to broader audience. It’s longer than original Riget I, and has total of 13 episodes (two of them are feature lenght).

Some of the new story elements really work well, with adding of the anteater creature that serves as a guardian of the gates of death (done as a CG animated character). And he is paired with a dead girl that rings for the dead and that needs to be put to rest and stop the events that unfold in the underground of the hospital. King added few more elements to make more standalone episodes to satisfy the ABC, and he still managed to fit all this independent stories into the main one. Still, story is still morbid, and very funny, and that is done with great cast, excellent choice of music and excellent writing staff (including King himself and his wife Tabitha).

Main Cast

Characters

King added new character that is in the core of the story in form of Peter Rickman (played by Jack Coleman), and this character is based on the Stephen King himself, and starts with the car accident, pretty much the same as the accident King had. Jack Coleman did very good job with his character. All other characters are mostly from the original series, and they even have similar names as a homage to it.

I would like to single out two characters: Dr. Hook (played by Andrew McCarthy) and Dr. Stegman (played by Bruce Davison). They are in constant confrontation the whole series and both of them are amazing and real driving force of the series.

Conclusion

Kingdom Hospital is excellent mini series, with many essential King elements, but still a different type of work for him, simple for the fact that it’s not his original work. It’s scary and funny in the same time, has great characters and it’s really fun to watch. Totally recommended.

Fourth season continues the same story arc, and we really don’t know what’s happening, and if there is an end in sight at all. Things got very complicated, and we finally get to the point when the story is after some 60 episodes finally reached the core of the problem, and that is The Company that is behind all of it. And, again, brothers and few friends with help of the NSA are going after the The Company, trying to bring it down.

Characters

Well, Scofield is again man behind the plan, but he is now working for NSA and rogue agent Donald Self (played by Michael Rapaport, who managed to give decent performance, even with badly created character as Donald really is). Donald is working on his own agenda and he is not affraid of the authority or his superiors. He also is very secretive, and will change sides several times, a real cliché character. General Jonathan Krantz is the head of The Company (played by Leon Russom, an excellent performance).

Prison Break Season 4

Most of the characters from previous season are also in this one, with very surprising (but expected after season 3 fiasco) return of Sara Tancredi).

Story

Story is very complicated, and at times hard to follow. The whole 22 episodes are covering just a couple of weeks, with story progressing fast, and at times without any sense. This is the swan song of the series, and producers wanted to make an impressive ending, and again they have completely failed, because you will lost interest long before the end.

Conclusion

It was interesting to see brothers in action, but we honestly had enough of them. The only reason to watch this season is because you have already seen previous three and you want closure of the story.

Fantasy books are very popular, but for most cases it’s very hard to make good TV series based on any of them. Generally, any type of fantasy TV series is hard to make, and that’s why you can count on fingers such attempts. Long running fantasy series were Xena and Hercules in the nineties, but they were not really great productions. And now, again made in New Zealand we got new series created by Sam Raimi.

Legend of the Seeker is based on the book series The Sword of Truth written by Terry Goodkind. First season is loosely based on the first book Wizard’s First Rule, and they plan to do the same for all other season, and to follow the developments from the book closely. First book title was originally planned for the title for the series also.

Story

Story is pretty much nothing new in the fantasy genre, and I being  great fan of such literature, I wasn’t very impressed by Terry Goodkind’s work. It’s too generic and features many clichés. But, story is not too complicated to work as TV adaptations, and all in all they did a pretty good jot adapting the work. But, at times, writing is not that good, and predictable dialogs and some character developments, and also plainly good and bad characters are missing the point. I will not go into the story itself, you will need to see it for yourself.

Cast & Characters

Cast is very good. Main character, Richard Cypher, The Seeker is played by Craig Horner. He is good in the role, but at times he plays it just over the top, and makes character not so believable. Gorgeous Bridget Regan is playing the role of confessor Kahlan Amnell, and she is Seekers protector. She and Craig Horner have great chemistry and they are one of the best parts of the series. Third member of the party is the Wizard Zeddicus Zedd Zu’l Zorander played by well known New Zealand actor Bruce Spence. And the main villain Darken Rahl is played by Craig Parker (best known for the role of the elf Haldir in the Lord Of The Rings Trilogy).

Confessor and the Seeker

Production

Series is made for Disney ABS Domestic Television and ABC Studios, but it’s distributed through syndication. Legend is shot on locations in New Zealand, and I must say that the series looks very good, and it’s practically shot on some of the same locations as Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Series won Primetime Emmy award for music.

Conclusion

This is very fun to watch series despite all the problems with the story. But for the most part, writers managed to do a good job. I liked the first season, and believe me that the second one is even better, currently airing.

Is the season already over?! Again, these 12 latest episodes were again excellent as the previous season were. I didn’t expect that they will manage to maintain the quality coming into the third season, but they did, and gave as another excellent and interesting story, and again meet several new characters. Base of this season is another important change in Hank’s life and we will discover even more about him.

Story

Second season ended with relatively happy ending and separation of  Hank’s family. Hank is now living with his daughter and has taken position as a teacher at the university. And Becca, his daughter, remains the most important person in his life, while many other woman comes and go. And because of her, he once again will try to change, even though, with all his efforts he just can’t manage to do it.

Characters

The decision of the series creators to introduce new supporting cast each season is excellent, and has proved by right choice and that’s keeping show fresh and interesting to watch. Hopefully, they will keep the same formula for future seasons. And this season adds some very interesting names to the cast list, including great Kathleen Turner in the role of Charlie’s boss Sue. Also, we have charming Peter Gallagher as a dean at the univeristy and in the role of his wife is beautiful Embeth Davidtz. And new gorgeous girl in Hank’s life is his student (work in the striptease bar at night) Jackie, played by the Eva Amurri.

Becca and Hank

But, as usual, David Duchovny is real star of the series, and he has proved once again how great he is in the role of Hank. But, to make things complicated for Hnak and leave us wanting more, creator Tom Kapinos has made very interesting last episode of the season and sort of a cliffhanger. But, we will need to wait for another 9 months for season 4.

Conclusion

Well, I really enjoyed watching all three seasons of this great show, and I hope that you did also. And if you didn’t see any of the episodes, it’s a good time to get DVD’s and start. Until season 4 keep in mind: Hank is the best.

Witchblade is comic book series from Top Cow Productions, made in 1995. So far they released over 130 comic books. And in 2000, some of the comic book creators collaborated in creating TV movie and later TV series based on the Witchblade. Witchblade is an ancient and mystic, and even sentient, self-aware armor that can be used by women only and that unleashes great power through the one that wields it.

I had a chance to glance over some of the comic books, but I didn’t read any of them. So, watching the TV movie and TV series was not about comparing the comic book to the series. Comic book fans were divided about the TV series, and so were the critics at the time.

TV movie is more of a double episode that serves as introduction to the story, and is focused on the our main character Sara Pezzini getting the Witchblade and learning how to use it, and how to control it’s power.

Witchblade

Characters

I must say from the start that I didn’t like Yancy Butler as Sara. I can’t tell exactly why, but her performance was just off most of the time, and I had trouble to like the series main character, and that’s always bad thing. Supporting cast is not bad in general, and I had no major problems with rest of them. But overall, there isn’t one character that stands out. I hope that TV series will improve on this.

Production

This TV movie look, well, like a TV movie. Special effects are plain bad, and I can’t get over that. Armor effects, dreams and everything else is looking awful, and I really hope that they managed to get more money for series season 1 and 2 and improve on bad visuals. Music is on the other hand really good, not much original, but they used great selection of rock songs.

Conclusion

I am not impress by the TV movie of Witchblade. I will be watching TV series in the next days, and hope that it gets better. Anyway, both movie and both seasons are available in a single DVD box set, so you may wanna give it a chance.

Even during the airing of the season one, Lost was on the track to became a  cult show, and by the time the season 3 started, there was no doubt about it: Lost is one of the most amazing shows on TV ever made. It’s so rare to find the show with compelling writing, excellent characters and hard to predict story that is simply griping, and the show that always leave you wanting for more. And it’s absolutely never boring.

The Others

With first two seasons, we only met The Others through stories and only few real encounters, aside from the Henry Gale, the prisoner turned out leader of The Others. But now, things will changes and at least half the episodes will be with among The Others, and we will get to know great deal about some of them. And new character Juliette quickly became one of my favorite characters of the series. Juliette is played by Elizabeth Mitchell, and she did amazing job and created character that will be with us for seasons to come. Also, Michael Emerson did amazing job with his role of Ben and you will be amazed by his transformations over the course of the series. And, most important thing is that we will get different picture about everything that happens on the island and see glimpses of the more great stories in the season 4.

Story

Juliette Burke

This season also uses same concept of flashbacks, but adds new characters and we will learn great deal more about all of them. Also, some of these stories will show many more interconnections of some of the characters. As for the story on the island, we are faced with post hatch events that will lead to the amazing season ending and cliffhanger that will leave you speechless.

Charlie & Desmond

Desmond Hume is amazing character, and I can’t even think of any other actor playing this role that could replace Henry Ian Cusick. He will prove to be very important for the story, and the one that will link further many of the characters and minor story lines. And finally, the time will come for Charlie Pace to shine and his Greatest Hits episode is one of the best this season, and one of the best in the series.

Conclusion

It’s very hard to write about Lost. Lost is class of it’s own, and the series that breaks all the rules. Just wait for the series finale, and you will be shocked when the episode ends, and you see one of the greatest cliffhangers ever made. With only 33 days left until the sixth and last season starts, this is right time for you to see the series in full.

SyFy (former SciFi) is very well known for bad TV movies and bad mini series. There are few exceptions, but overall this is a rule. And this 4 part mini series, 5ive Days To Midnight is just above the average bad quality of their productions. It has very good idea behind it, and even manages to hold the story for some time, but in the end they managed to kill it. Casting is good overall, but this can’t save the bad production.

Story

Series is based on the time paradox and warning from the future that should save our main character and potentially destroy the universe due to the paradox itself. It’s very, very hard to make any coherent and logical story from anything that involves time travel, and movies ant TV series rarely succeed in that. 5ive days manages to create so-so story that works in the first two parts (ir days as they refer it as), but once they involve physics and almost crazy character who points to possibility that universe will end if they even try to prevent the events, things go downhill. But, the real problem is the ending that is just bad, and worst cliché.

Cast & Characters

Cast is really good. Timothy Hutton is good in the role our hero J.T. Neumeyer who is trying to prevent his own death using material sent from the future. I also really liked the character of his girlfriend Claudia (played by beautiful Kari Matchett), but that’s really all as the character goes. Randy Quaid role of the detective is both good and bad, and turns out to be the worst written character of the series.

Conclusion

I was hopeful with the first two parts, and was hooked up on the story and some characters. But as the episodes go on, and on, things were getting bad, and ended really bad. So, no wonder you see just a low average rating. Anyway, it’s almost interesting watch, so give it a try, you might like it.

This is very interesting series, so much different than any other crime and cops procedurals we see on any channel in any given year. Spies, secret agents, double agents with many elements of fiction and fantasy, mystery and adventures. Alias is made by famous J.J. Abrams (Felicty, Lost, Fringe) for ABC television. Alias is story about network of secret organizations, recruiting agents under the false cover, posing as the CIA.

Characters

As you usually have, hero of the series is young and pretty much indestructible Sydney Bristow (played by Jennifer Garner), working for SD-6, a secret organization she believes is a part of CIA. And, maybe J.J. Abrams went to far in creating her character because she is almost a Wonder Woman (except for flying); she looks gorgeus, is very smart and intelligent, weapons and martial arts specialist, speaks all (and I mean all) languages. And she is a double agent. Her father, Jack, also a double agent is played by Victor Gerber and he is serious, unpredictable and short on words, agent very hard to read, but always there to help his daughter. Director of SD-6 branch, and their boss is Arvin Sloane, played by Ron Rifkin who is the source of the major story line in Alias, about artifacts and knowledge of one Milo Rambaldi.

Story

Alias Season 1

While main story is made around a new case each week, there are several story lines going through many episodes, or even the whole series. Main and longest story line is revolving around Milo Rambaldi, an inventor and mystic, renaissance genius, very similar to Leonardo De Vinci. Milo’s last name is homage to Carlo Rambaldi, who worked on special effects on many movies including Oscar winning E.T. And the whole Milo story is the reason for this series to be labeled as mystery and sci-fi.

Production

First season premiered in 2001, and was very successful, generating big ratings. Also, series won many prestigious awards including Golden Globe and Saturn Awards. And, as usual for a J.J. Abrams production, music is composed by great Michael Giacchino.

Conclusion

I really liked this season, and I was intrigued by the complex story that involved prophesies and ancient secrets, mixed with the futuristic technology. I recommend that you watch Alias is you missed it until now. It’s real fun.

Greetings to all fans of the well known housewives, and to those that are about to became fans. Series is create by Marc Cherry, who found his inspiration in the movie American Beauty. Series is made for ABC, and early during first season has scored very high in terms of ratings. This is not only love drama, it’s comedy and also a mystery. Story follows four neighbors and best friends, all housewives living in a suburbia.

Story

Through lives of housewives, we are lead by the narration of the dead Mery Alice Young, played by Brenda Strong. Our four main characters live in the Wisteria Lane street in the fictional town Fairview. They are very different in many ways and still they are best friends. Producers made excellent choices in picking both the four main actresses as well as all the other characters, and casting is one of the strongest points of this series.

This first season is mostly for indroducing the housewives, their families and lifes. And the story begins with first great tragedy (there will be at least one such tragedy each season), and they all try to understand it, and to eventually cope with it.

Characters

Attractive Teri Hatcher plays Susan Mayer, over emotive and fragile, with no luck in the love life and mother of a teenage girl, also author of children books. And she starts to change once the Mike Delfino (played but James Denton), plummer, moves into the neighborhood. Beautiful red haired Marcia Cross plays a perfect housewife, perfect mother, perfect cook and at first look cold Bree Van de Kamp, that thinks that she has a perfect life and family. Or so it seams.

Desperate Housewives

Very attractive, ex model Gabrielle Solis is played by Eva Longoria. She is selfish and even spiteful, merried to a rich business man, only looking after herself. And finally, the fourth housewife is Lynette Scavo (played by Felicity Huffman), and she is complete opposite of Gabrielle. She has gave up her career for her familiy, and she is mother of 4 children. She is a prisoner to her household, with her husband always working.

Production

This series have gain a lot of popularity in the first season, and managed to retain that during until now. It was awarded by numerous awards including Emmy and Golden Globe awards.

Conclusion

This is mostly introductory season that leads into much more complex seasons. I am not big fan of the series, but I still like it and it’s still lot of fan to watch. Hopefully, next season will get better, but this is a right place to start with the Desperate Housewives.

Wow, I really don’t know what to say. The end of second season is very interesting and unexpected. We saw that Lincoln acquitted of all charges and that he became a free man, but events took a strange turn and, again, we are at the beginning. Again, we see attempts of organizing and going through with the plan to escape from the prison with reverse roles this time and with different environment, unfamiliar and out of control.

Story

First two seasons, we were following Scofield sticking to the previously arranged and detailed plan of escape. Good here with this season is that now, situation is different, and he needs to make a plan as he goes, to show how intelligent and capable he is. New prison, with no blue prints, with unfamiliar terrain and wild inmates. Prison hold the worst inmates in Panama, with no guards, where inmates are running things, surrounded with no-mans-land controlled by the police trying to prevent them from escaping. But, this is only a pale copy of the first season, a rehashed story with nothing much to offer. They made more complex and complicated story about Company, added few more characters. And, the whole story became boring. This season proves that they should have stopped with the series after second season, and that it was best to make another ending.

Characters

Prison Break: Season 3

Prison is controlled by Luchero, inmate played by Robert Wisdom who is very dominating, strong and really perfect for this role. William Fichtner, is once again, a secret star of the series and he showed a lot of his talent in character transformation as agent Mahone, now behind bars. New female lead is beautiful Jodi Lyn O’Keefe in role of Gretchen Morgan, employee of the Company. Lincoln, now outside the prison works with Danay Garcia in role of Sofia Lugo.

Production

This season has only 13 episodes caused by the WGA strike. Series is shot in Dallas (Sona prison location), and some parts are shot in Panama City for authenticity.

Conclusion

The only reason to watch this season is because you have already seen previous two, but all in all this is not as good continuation and not worthy of the first two seasons. But, one more is left, and maybe it will get better.

After the first season ended I thought that second one can’t be more dirty, twisted, interesting, funny and even sad. Comedy series usually fail to have successive seasons as good as the first one, because of some repeating elements of the story. But with Californication we are continuing where the story ended in first season, and in some aspects this season improves on the first, ads more interesting characters and much more.

Story and characters

We have seen a relatively happy ending of the first season and we secretly hoped that Hank will change and became a family man. But, his life style is still the same, and he makes all close to him miserable. Hank is realizing that he is not the only one who is living the fail life and chasing dreams, when he meets a music producer and soon his best friend Ashby. He is played by Callum Keith Rennie (best known for his role as a Cylon on Battlestar Galactica), who managed to pull of the difficult role of the miserable addict searching for something more from life. Young Madeleine Martin (Hank’s daughter Becca), once again proved that she is talented actress and that she will go far in her career.

Californication Season 2

Amazing Natascha McElhone was, once again, a real pleasure to watch as Karen, Hank’s life partner who is still not fully committed to her. And as before, we still follow life’s of Hank’s friend and agent Charlie and his wife Marcy (Evan Handler and Pamela Adlon). They still try to make their life and love more interesting no matter how low or shameful that gets.

Production

First season success definitively came as a surprise to creators and producers, and this time Showtime made sure that Californication get’s more promotion and more viewers. And this trend continues with the third season.

Conclusion

I can’t say enough about how great this series is, and how the creators managed to lead us on this great journey through Hank’s life. Don’t miss this series, and enjoy. Third one is almost over and review is just around the corner…

And, 40 years after the original series The Prisoner, AMC Television Cable Network decided to create a remake. And during the production, it was planned as a full season series under the name Village, but finally decision was made to change the name back to the original title, and to create a mini series. So, 2009 version of The Prisoner had 6 episodes, and was aired as three days event, with two episodes each day.

Story and comparison to original

Basically, the story is very similar to the original but with many differences like the location of the Village somewhere in the desert. Main characters are still Number Six and Two, but this time Two is only one character. But, this is not actually a remake of the original, story is much different, and so are the characters. It’s hard to compare the two, and I know that most of the fans of the original didn’t like this new version. I tried to watch new version as a separate series, not trying to find what’s bad or good in the new version.

Two & Six

But, most essential elements from the original are still here, maybe not as elaborate, but still decent. And series actually has an ending, not like the original and enigmatic and controversial as the original was. Writing is a bit iffy, and dialogs are not as good as in original (except for Six and Two), and this is something most fans disliked the most. There are some new elements that didn’t worked so well, like the Six family and some other things, but they tried to add some originality to remake.

Characters

Characters are much different. Number Six is in many ways opposite of the character from 1967 version. James Caviezel’s Six is much darker, much more insecure and haunted by the past, and the events leading to the Village. Ian McKellen as Two is amazing, and he is playing Two in all episodes allowing more character development. And the best part are confrontations between Two and Six. Ian and James are the great in their scenes together, and it’s a pity that they don’t actually have too many scenes together.

Production

The Prisoner is created by Bill Gallagher, and overall looks really good, visually is very effective. Music was really great, and good thing is that they decided against using the original soundtrack themes, it would not fit in this remake.

Conclusion

Much different from original, still this is good series. It’s very hard to make remakes of cult series, too much time has passed and things done differently now. But, you should give a chance to the remake, it might surprise you.

This is a truly a classic TV series that was way ahead of it’s time when aired for the first time way back in 1967. It’s a mix of sci-fi, spy fiction and psychological thriller, but it’s much more than just a genre series. Starts as a continuation of the previous Danger Man series staring also Patrick McGoohan, but it has very little in common with this previous works. Patrick McGoohan co-authored the series with George Markstein.

Story and characters

Series start with Patrick’s character resigns from his job as the British secret agent. But right after that, he wakes up in the mysterious place called the Village, and is given the designation Number Six, much like all the citizens of the Village having numbers instead of names. Village is fully monitored, with no way to escape, and is controlled by the Number Two, who is highest ranking ‘number’. His main goal is to break Number Six and find out why he resigned his job. And they use wide range of methods to break him. Still, he refuses to settle, and tries to escape in almost every episode.

Patrick is simply amazing as Number Six and his performance unforgettable. All the other cast members were exceptional, even though not many of them appeared in more than one or two episodes. Number Two was replaced in every episode.

Writing and influence

In the center of the story is the fight between the individualism and society, a struggle against the overwhelming progress (hence the bicycle as the symbol) that changes what makes a human. And after all these years the idea behind is still fresh, and still actual. No wonder that there were many later movies and TV series that borrowed things from The Prisoner.

Number Six

Metal band Iron Maiden has two songs inspired by the series (The Prisoner and Back to the Village). Cult graphic novel Watchmen uses some of the dialog, animated movie Shrek has used it for some elements. Recently, in Battlestar Galactica character Six (Tricia Helfer) was named as a homage to the series. And most importantly, you will recognize some ideas used in two J.J. Abrams series: Alias and Lost.

Production

Visually, The Prisoner is also ahead of it’s time, with many technological gadgets, surreal visual effects and overall very high production values. Music is great and very memorable, used many times after that. It’s shot on film, and because of that a quality restoration was possible, delivering the Blu-Ray release with all 17 episode, that looks simple stunning for a series more than 40 years old.

Conclusion

This is a series that you simply must watch. It’s different from anything airing today, it’s very original and very entertaining and in the same time, it will make you think. Grab DVD’s or Blu-Ray, and start watching.