Netflix lets in the competition

I'm sure you've heard that Netflix is splitting their DVD service off into Qwikster. I'm assuming from the fact that they're not calling it 'mailflix' or something like that that they plan to sell off the DVD service at the earliest opportunity.

I barely even watched DVDs anymore, my rentals would literally sit around for months. But there were two reasons I never went to streaming-only:
1) Netflix was convenient and affordable; it was so easy to just not change anything.
2) The number of streams I could watch at once was tied to the number of dvds on my account. With four people in my home who like to occasionally use the service, having two streams available was pretty safe.

As a result of this change, there was no longer any benefit to keeping my DVD service, so it's gone. But will I keep the streaming?

Voltron Force

Alright, so when they remake the classics, I feel obligated to at least give it a shot.

Torchwood: A Primer

Torchwood. Outside the government, beyond the police. Tracking down alien life on Earth, and arming the human race against the future. The Twenty-First Century is when it all changes, and you've got to be ready.

Torchwood: Miracle Day will be premiering on the Starz Network on Friday! This series is a continuation of the BBC series, and while I'm sure great care will be given to make the show accessible for those joining us for the first time, I wrote this for any newbies who would like to know what's come before, and any old fans who might want to refresh their memories.

Seriously, though... if you have Netflix, the whole series is available to stream there. So why not just stop reading now and go watch it? I won't be hurt.

As a disclaimer, the above picture is a promotional shot from the new series. As I've avoided spoilers (River would want it that way), I'm not actually sure who the two people on the left are. :)

spoilers below the cut

Game of Thrones: Season 1, Episode 10

"How long do I have to look?"

"Fire and Blood"
So the axe dropped last episode, changing everything. The season finale deals with the aftermath, and sets the stage for what we'll see next year.

spoilers below the cut...

South Park, season 15 part one

So South Park is on its midseason break. Here's the thing about South Park: in my opinion, is that out of its fourteen annual eipsodes, you have three or four that are brilliant, probably about two or three that are crap, and the rest is just kind of "there"... average episodes. It keeps me watching because it tends to be topical, and I appreciate the insights of the creators.


sorta spoilerish...

Game of Thrones: Season 1, Episode 9

"If the day should ever come when your lord father had to choose between honor on one hand and family on the other, what would he do?"

"Baelor"
spoilers below the cut

Doctor Who - Season 6, part one.

"I'm being extremely clever up here, and there's noone to stand around looking impressed! What's the point in having you all?"

Woah... from the first episode, it's clear they're not messing around this season. And as I was doing my first review, I realized they were doing the split-season thing and were already finishing up the spring run, so I'm doing a combined review.

 Oh, River insists that I warn you that there are spoilers below the cut...

A Game of Thrones - Season 1, Episode 8

"Tell Lord Tywin winter is coming for him. Twenty thousand northerners marching south to find out if he really does sh*t gold."

"The Pointy End"
spoilers under the cut

A Game of Thrones - Season 1, Episode 7

"A king does not need a chair to sit upon. He only needs a horse."

Episode 7: "You Win or You Die"
I think it was last episode that I mentioned that there was something that bugged me about Littlefinger that I would come back to later, and now's the appropriate time. Spoilers below the cut...

Daleks take a break....

"The children of time are moving against us, but everything is falling into place."

I just commented a couple of days ago that I thought they should give the Daleks a rest for awhile. And according to Slashdot, wishes do come true. Showrunner Steven Moffat has confirmed that the Daleks are taking a break. When a portion of the fanbase cried out, however, he clarified it was just for this season. I would have gone for two seasons myself, but this will do.

Doctor Who: Season 5

At the end of this season, I'm struck by how very much like a fairy tale the overarching story of Amy Pond is...

Season Finales

A quick roundup of several shows I watch as they go on their summer breaks....

This will be spoilerish...

Game of Thrones: Season 1, Episode 6

"There is only one thing we say to Death... 'Not today.'"

Tyrion steals the show again, confessing his crimes....

Game of Thrones: Season 1, Episode 5

Are we at the halfway point already? A nine-month wait between seasons will be cruel, but nowhere near as cruel as the six-year wait between the last book and the upcoming one.

Stargate: Universe (and on endings in general)

When a young show gets cancelled, there's always that group of people who meant to watch it, might still watch it, but are worried that they'll be left hanging. When you have a show of this nature, there are four ways it can end:

V (2009) The Complete Series

Spoilers.

I followed V from beginning to end. And if you did follow it up to the end, you were probably not disappointed at the end of this season. It was freaking awesome. I didn't even realize it was the final episode when i started watching it... about halfway through there was so much stuff happening so fast that i figured it out.

Survivor: Redemption Island

Spoilers, yo.

Tonight is the season finale of Survivor. I had watched the first seven seasons of Survivor... at that point, I was swamped in good tv shows, and convinced I'd seen everything there was to see in Survivor. But I picked up watching with a friend this season, and now I believe that if you only watch one season of Survivor, this is the one to watch. Here are the three characters that have made it great:

Smallville ends

Let me state up front that I quit Smallville after about season 4. After teasing that we were finally going to let Lana in on the secret after it became flat-out ridiculous that she didn't know already, they undid it and killed Jonathan Kent instead. I had no desire to keep playing the game from that point on.

I hear the show got better, and worse... and better again. Maybe they ran this cycle a couple of more times, it's hard to keep track. I had heard the last season was finishing strong, and I like what I've seen of Erica Durance... I think she might keep it watchable even through the bad times. So I was tempted to jump back in the pool this summer and see it through... but the reactions to the finale don't help my motivation when there are so many things I want to see. I think this quote seems to sum up best the reactions I'm seeing, courtesy of a gentleman named Bat-Fan Beyond in the toonzone forums:


"The last two hours of Smallville represents, to me, exactly how the series as a whole was all through the course of its entire ten season existence: A considerable amount of great moments sprinkled here and there throughout tons and tons of crap from beginning to end."
Yeah, I think I'll keep Smallville on the backburner for now. Probably until they make it super-easy for me by throwing the whole series on Netflix streaming.

I heard they killed Jimmy Olsen in the course of the show, but then went back and said it wasn't THE Jimmy Olsen, that THE Jimmy was actually inspired to follow in his older brothers footsteps. My first reaction was "What a ridiculous copout." But actually, that's a brilliant idea. If I were writing the show, I'd kill Jimmy Olsen every week, with another "Cousin Jimmy" replacing him the next week.

Doctor Who (revived) Seasons 1-4

So I'm a johny-come-lately to this one... didn't really discover it until it hit Netflix about a year ago, got through a couple seasons of it and a season of Torchwood, and even though i loved it i got dragged away and it took me forever to follow up.

It didn't impress me at first... and a two-parter involving farting aliens about four episodes in almost killed it for me entirely. But I decided to give it a little more... and suddenly, it delivered. The episode "Dalek" was a great story that gave me a little background on the Doctor, being new to this and all, and had Christopher Eccleston going back-and-forth between manic and deadly serious. I'm not sure at what point it happened, but at somewhere between the first and second season I decided that this was the BEST SCI-FI PROGRAM OF ALL TIME. No exaggeration... sorry Star Trek TNG, Firefly, Farscape....

Human Target cancelled

It was the second episode of Human Target that hooked me, wherein a good portion of the show took place in a commercial airplane flying upside down. If that doesn't sound awesome to you, you may be reading the wrong blog.

The first season was a five-star piece of brilliance. Every episode was a first-rate mini action-movie. In the second season, they messed with the formula, and the show dropped to a miserable four stars.

Majorly disappointed it's been cancelled, and I would recommend the entire 26-episode series to anyone looking to kill a summer dry spell.