patient zero – Dangerous Universe

TV

Better Call Saul season 4

The crux of the AMC TV series Better Call Saul is that its lead character Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) will one day become the titular Saul Goodman — a lawyer for drug dealers and other bad elements in the Albuquerque, New Mexico of Breaking Bad. Ever since the first season the creators of Better Call Saul have teased that one day chipper Jimmy McGill will cease to exist and be replaced by not so good Saul Goodman, and every season too there’s been more teases about characters from Breaking Bad also crossing over to Better Call Saul, in which a handful have. Now I can’t imagine we’ll ever see Aaron Paul or Bryan Cranston sharing the screen again with Odenkirk, though stranger things have happened, but that seems to be the focus of all the online chatter before each new season of the show.

Maybe it’s because I was never a fan of Breaking Bad but I’m perfectly okay with this. In fact, I think Better Call Saul is a better show because of this.

While there are some ties with Breaking Bad, for the most part Better Call Saul is its own show. Sure, there’s Jimmy and Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) who are the leads of Better Caul Saul and who were players in Breaking Bad, but I don’t think you need to have watched a single minute of that show to understand Better Call Saul. The characters are different here, less set in their criminal ways if at all.

But some of this is changing, it does seem as if both Jimmy and Mike are becoming more in-line with the criminal element than they have in the past with this latest fourth season of the show.

In fact, I’d go as far as saying that Mike’s “crossed over to the dark side.” Whereas Jimmy does have some criminal elements to him, Mike’s now taking a paycheck from bad people to do bad things. And if Mike’s “broke bad,” then how long will it be until Jimmy fully becomes Saul Goodman?

The first episode of the fourth season of Breaking Bad was a little slow, but I find that first episodes of established shows usually are. Much of the episode deals with a very big ramification from something that happened in the final episode of the third season which has left Jimmy a distraught, and nearly destroyed man.

That is until he isn’t distraught or destroyed anymore. There’s a scene at the end of this episode that left me wondering, was this the real debut of Saul Goodman, a man only interested in his self willing to do whatever’s necessary, to hurt anyone for his own gain?

Only time will tell.

Lodge 49

Another AMC series premiered last week, this time the brand new Lodge 49 — NOT another zombie show, shock! Starring Wyatt Russell (Black Mirror), AMC has been promoting this series as the TV version of The Big Lebowski. Heck, Russell’s character even goes by “Dud” which is a lot like the “Dude” from The Big Lebowski. Yet to me Lodge 49 was a lot more like the working-class movies and TV shows of the 1970s and 1980s than The Big Lebowski, though there was a little of that for flavor.

Here, Dud is twenty-something that’s drifting after his life came crashing down before him. He got bitten by a snake and the wound hasn’t yet healed, his dad drown while surfing and he and his sister Liz lost everything from their family home to their family business afterwards. Now, Dud metal detects on the beach for what he can and borrows what he must at high rates from a pawn shop. Until one day he finds a ring on the beach and finds that it’s from a fraternal lodge, of which he’s interested in joining if only to find a way out of his spiraling life.

Lodge 49 really isn’t what I thought it was going to be. It’s a lot more quirky and funny than I was expecting, though there is a dash of darkness to it too. I was intrigued by this show and really liked the characters within it.

The one thing that concerns me about Lodge 49 from promos I’ve seen online is that it seems like there’s quite a bit of mysticism in the series. There is a bit of that in the first episode, but what could be mystical could easily be something else. I could be totally wrong or this might make the show stronger than I think it is, but I hope Lodge 49 stays on the level and doesn’t go all John from Cincinnati or anything.

What To Watch This Week

Avengers: Infinity War – Tuesday
The biggest hit of the summer, and one of the biggest movies of all-time, Avengers: Infinity War is available on DVD and Blu-ray this week.

Patient Zero – Tuesday
This movie about a world overrun with zombies and the one guy who can speak zombie (Matt Smith) was originally due out two years ago but was shelved until now and is getting an on-demand release this week.

Disenchantment – Friday
The first season of the Matt Groening created animated fantasy series Disenchantment debuts this Friday on Netflix.

Red Dawn – Saturday
The commies invade Calumet, Colorado in this classic red-scare World War III movie that I’ve seen waaaaay too many times to count on HDNET MOVIES.

The Reading & Watch List

Cool TV Poster of the Week

TV

In Search Of…

I didn’t realize the TV series In Search Of… which was hosted by Leonard Nimoy had such a long life. I only discovered the show which originally ran from 1977 to 1982 in syndication when History Channel began airing old episodes of it in the 1990s alongside things like Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World. But while there were just 13 episodes of the Arthur C Clark series, there were more than 140 of In Search Of….

In Search Of… covered everything in the pseudoscience arena, from UFOs, to ghosts, the Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis… and everything in between. Most of episodes asked a lot of questions but didn’t provide a lot of answers. Hence pseudoscience.

Ironically, where In Search Of… was an oddity on a channel in the 1990s that aired lots of documentaries and series about historical things, nowadays the simply titled History instead aires a lot of reality series like Forged in Fire and Mountain Men along with pseudoscience series of their own like Ancient Aliens. So I suppose it makes a lot of sense to reboot In Search Of… for a new generation.

Hosted by Zachary Quinto — who ironically like Nimoy also played Spock in Star Trek — this new 21st century version is essentially the old series all over again. The first episode covered UFOs and had the ubiquitous interview with three people who claim to have been abducted; one failed a polygraph test about his experiences, the other had an “implant” in a toe that turned out to be a rock while a third built a contraption so non-abductees can feel what it’s like to have that experience. There were also interviews with scientists too who were searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. Spoiler alert, nothing found… yet.

There’s nothing new in this overly long and drawn-out at an hour 2018 version of *In Search Of…” that hadn’t already been done before 40 years ago in the old. Since we’re living in 2018 and not 1977 the questions I would’ve liked answered are — if we live in a world that’s increasingly being constantly recorded from security cameras outside businesses to cameras within people’s doors and if essentially everyone on the planet are carrying around cameras in their mobile phones 24/7, then why aren’t we recording evidence of UFOs and abductions on a regular basis rather than less than before? To me that would’ve made an interesting episode, not the same thing that’s been done over and over and over again for decades now.

So far the new In Search Of… is just that, a lot of looking but not a lot of finding.

Doctor Who “Shada” animated special

I don’t think people are ever going to uncover a “lost” episode of Star Trek. All of the episodes of that show that were ever shot have aired, are available in many home media formats and it’s not like there were any episodes that were aired once and never seen again. Sure, maybe they’ll find clips of episode or reels of henceforth unknown behind the scenes footage of DeForest Kelley eating a hamburger on the bridge of the Enterprise, but not a whole episode people haven’t seen in years. However, that’s not the case for classic Doctor Who series. That show has nearly 100 episodes that are considered lost that aired a few times but the original archival tapes either went missing, were destroyed or taped over.

But just because those episodes are lost today doesn’t mean that they won’t be found tomorrow. In fact just a few years ago a batch of episodes were uncovered in Africa. However, not all episodes like this can be found, case in point “Shada” which originally was set to air during the 1979–1980 season. That episode, written by Douglas Adams, yes, that Douglas Adams, was partially shot but never finished due to a work strike. So with “Shada” it’s the case of BBC having some completed footage but not enough for a whole episode. What they’ve done is to put together an episode that’s partially composed of these already filmed live-action elements as well as portions of the episode that were created via animation like “The Power of the Daleks from a few years ago to fill in these gaps.

“Shada” is interesting if a bit difficult to watch for a non-Doctor Who fan. In fact, I think even fans of the modern Doctor Who series probably wouldn’t dig “Shada” — Matt Smith obsessives probably need not apply here. “Shada” is difficult to watch partially because the classic stories were always a bit slow — there’s a part of the episode that features the Doctor and his companion taking a long, leisurely boat ride down a river — and also because the switch from live-action to animation can be quite jarring. Because TV shows aren’t filmed in order means that a character can be outside one second in a live-action scene and walk through door into an animated scene.

“Shada” is for die-hard Doctor Who fans only, and luckily since I’m a die-hard Doctor Who fan it means “Shada” is for me.

Killing Eve

Can I talk about Killing Eve for a moment? This series has won loads of critical acclaim and an Emmy nomination and was a show I was excited to see before it premiered. That was before BBC America advertised it into the ground for me. Before the first episode aired BBC America began promoting the show like most networks do for new and upcoming series. But they didn’t just promote it, they promoted it several times each commercial break. Which meant that every time I watched an episode of The X-Files or Star Trek I’d see ten commercials for Killing Eve every hour. Watch a few episodes of anything on BBC America and you can see why I quickly grew tired of Killing Eve before it ever aired. I can still hear that, “I have to kill you, I’m really sorry,” song echoing around in my head from hearing it so much on the commercials.

So I never watched an episode of Killing Eve. And again, it’s getting great reviews so it’s my loss, but I figured that once the first season ended in May BBC America would be done with it until next year. Except they weren’t/aren’t. They’re still airing promos for the show only this time telling views to “binge” Killing Eve this summer and ones congratulating Sandra Oh for her Emmy nomination.

I give up, BBC America, you win. If I publicly say that Killing Eve is the best show on the planet even though I’ve never seen an episode will you please stop airing commercials for this show?

If this works for you contact me via this website. I am not joking.