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2013 Fall TV Update
The fall TV season is now in full swing and I can finally declare that overall it’s uneven at best. It’s true that many of the more interesting series don’t premiere until much later in the season but from what I’ve seen this fall I’ve been underwhelmed.
Here’s essentially every series I’m currently watching, or have recently watched:
The good:
Making Monsters (Travel Channel): I so love this show about Distortions Unlimited, a company that makes and sells horror items for Halloween and horror attractions. It’s a good representation of the realities of working in a creative industry where there’s always another pressing deadline and projects get changed and changed and changed right up until the very end.
The Goldbergs (ABC): This is a enjoyable comedy about the 1980s that’s highly watchable. I just wished the series creators didn’t have to add the Modern Family “awwwwwwww” moment that closes out the end of each episode here too.
American Horror Story (FX): The first season of American Horror was brilliant and the second started off pretty awful but turned into something decent. The third season, titled Coven, had me hooked from the first scene. But we’re just one episode in so it’s tough to know if in the end this series will be as good as the start.
Community (Syndicated on Comedy Central): It’s amazing how much I look forward to Community, especially since Comedy Central airs four episodes each Friday night in order from the beginning of the series.
The blah:
Hello Ladies (HBO): Stephen Merchant’s series about a hapless man looking for love in image obsessed Los Angeles is interesting and it uses many of the cringe-worthy storytelling devices Merchant helped create in the UK version of The Office. But where The Office had a lot of heart and some relatable characters, for the most part Hello Ladies has neither.
Agents of SHIELD (ABC): The first episode of SHIELD was interesting enough that it had me wondering if this show might be working on more than one level? Two more episodes in and I can say that SHIELD is strictly a one level series. It’s action adventure premise is more akin to 1980s shows like The A-Team or Riptide rather than having any nuance. If you want to see baddies get their lights punched out by the good-guys on a weekly basis, and there’s nothing wrong with that, then Agents of SHIELD is for you.
The uninteresting:
Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Fox): This series “feels” a lot like Parks and Recreation. And while a lot of people like Parks and Recreation, I’m not a fan and I gave up on Brooklyn Nine-Nine two weeks in.
Eastbound & Down (HBO): I’ve only kind’a sort’a liked Eastbound since it premiered back in ’09. And four seasons in I’m finding the Kenny Powers (Danny McBride) character a bit more grating than usual and am just about ready to give up on it.
Battlefield 4 Beta : First Impressions
EA and DICE released the Battlefield 4 Beta demo back on October 1, and since I haven’t had much else to do (see the local paper if you aren’t up on the latest federal news..) I, along with several other hundred Battlefield 3 Premium members, decided to test it out.
Now mind you, DICE from the get go stated that the Beta is just that: a Beta product, and that a lot of the issues that are being experienced in the demo have already been addressed. Though, if DICE and EA are listening, here is a laundry list of things that could be fixed:
– Bring back the original controls from Battlefield 3. Its bad enough that I had to learn a whole new control scheme jumping over from Battlefield Bad Company 2 to Battlefield 3. Please make every effort to allow the PLAYERS to control their own button mappings!!
– Fix the shotgun reloading: I can’t figure out how I start out with 6 in the shot gun, along with 48 extra shells, try and reload, and my count goes down to just 6 remaining in the shotgun. Where’d the other 48 shells go??
– Balance the weapons: For some reason the concept behind an Assault Rifle and Light Machine Gun are a bit lost.. with the former winning out every time over the latter. (especially since I just plunked 46 bullets into someone and they shot me twice and I died..)
– Helicopters are flying tanks??: Ok for some reason the “scout class” helicopters can take tremendous punishment from heavy caliber rounds, yet they can easily buzz by a armored vehicle (or tank) with their miniguns and rip them to pieces. Sure hope this isn’t by design.. or the Chinese really do manufacture crap!
– Fix the building in “Siege of Shanghai”: It would be nice if the damned building in the middle of the map wasn’t destroyed in like the first 5 minutes of the game. Maybe a “possession” timer so that once that has expired, the building can be demolished.. (though it is still very cool to see blow up and fall.. turn your speakers up!!)
Of course, I gotta take all of this with a grain of salt: EA and DICE are using the Beta to test out their Multiplayer servers, the matchmaking service, and generally balancing things out before the current gen versions of BF4 go on sale late October. Overall game play is just like the previous Battlefield games. Sniping, Suppressive fire, Tanks blowing Sh*t up.. I just sure hope they get a ton of feedback and pay attention to making some adjustments!
Lost Doctor Who episodes featuring William Hartnell found in Africa
A GROUP of diehard Doctor Who fans has discovered more than 100 long-lost episodes of the popular BBC program gathering dust in Africa.
The episodes from the 1960s, which feature the first two doctors William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton, were feared vanished after the British broadcaster sold a stack of its old tapes and lost or wiped the originals.
But after months of sleuthing the tapes have turned up at the Ethiopian Radio and Television Agency, which purchased them years ago…
Cool images of the week for October 4, 2013
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A mishmash of cool images I’ve collected throughout the week.