Category Archives: TV Show

Channel Zero, “Welcome Home” Season 1, Ep 6; ALT Title: So … Very … Boring.

Posted on by casewright

cz

It has finally happened: Channel Zero is over (for now)!

Mike is laying in bed with Eddie- the evil one – and Eddie is …. reading a book about Long John Silver?!  Whatever!  Then, Eddie shoves a tooth hand into his mouth, symbolizing possession or some really sloppy dentistry work.

Mike wakes and asks his mom, in a clunky way, to kill him when he’s possessed.

Amy and Gary are looking for Tooth Teacher and they see her… and stabby kids.  Gary sees his kids and convinces them not to kill anyone.  We have to assume that because the children to not respond to him, stare dumbly, and don’t stab him. This show is really going out with a whimper.

Amy finds the evil Winnebago AND…Nothing happens.

Mike decides to meet Eddie because he wants his daughter back and to discuss why Long John Silver got into franchise restaurants.

Mike passes out next to his daughter.

Mike goes into Eddie’s evil reality, which looks a lot like a poorly constructed middle-school drama set.  Mike sees a monster we learn is called “Skin Taker”.  Skin Taker smashes against the wall in a very A-Ha “Take on Me” way …for some reason.  Eddie releases Lilly.

We also learn by a TON OF EXPOSITION:  1) Eddie is the tooth monster, 2)can’t appear in human form because he needs a body, 3)the skin taker is part of him … like they’re totally BFF and everything, 4)Eddie wants to kill children, 5) he wants to pose as Mike to kill children, 6) he uses a TV as a portal into the real world, and 7) he’s REALLY into decoupage!  Just before Eddie is about to go on a rampage, he convinces his brother to play War to stall him.

Mike’s mom looks for Mike and runs into Tooth Teacher.  They fight.  Mike’s Mom wins with help from Amy (Amy shoots Tooth Teacher).

Mikes mom suffocates the passed out Mike, killing him.  This prevents Eddie from entering our world.  Mike now has to hang with his brother for eternity.  Upside: everytime Eddie tries to restart the show’s signal, Mike turns it off.  Way to go MIKE!

That’s it!  WOOHOO!!!

ypmlvenlb1usjcjhkz3zffmxlkk

Channel Zero: Guest of Honor, Season 1 Episode 5; ALT Title: Who has time for the dentist?!

Posted on by casewright

candlecove_blog_hero

Challenges for mankind to endure: Chlamydia, Explosive Diarrhea, Channel Zero.   I’m not writing that Channel Zero is identical to chlamydia; to get chlamydia, you needed to have fun at least once.

Open: Jessica is exsanguinating in a kiddie pool.

Marla’s House:  Marla is being pretty nice to her son and granddaughter.  Mike looks like Hell and he goes to the bathroom to see that there is a tooth growing out of his upper gums. The episode goes downhill from here, but stick with me and we can get through this together.

Mike’s Wife arrives and it’s very banal.  It’s not like anything happened like his creepy brother Eddie Stabbypants was possessing Lilly!  Then, Amy shows up and breaks the meh news that Jessica is stabbed to death.

The Station: Deputy orders an APB for Tooth Teacher, leaving her understaffed.  However, Amy’s manpower issue creates a good contrived plot point.  I can’t imagine why she did an APB; everyone in this town is pretty ok with stabbing and being stabbed.  They should really include their stabbiness at the Chamber of Commerce Visitor’s Center.

Mike decides that he wants to go to Tooth Teacher’s house.  Amy can’t spare any cops; so, the obvious choice is Gary who is grieving his wife’s murder and kidnapped Mike.  Fine. They arrive and look around Tooth Teacher’s home and find some ersatz Candle Cove props.  Tooth Teacher calls Mike and convinces him to see her alone at a random location.  He goes because fine.

Dork Deputy is assigned to find Mike.  Dork Deputy is able to find Mike easily somehow.  When he finds Mike, he is talked into waiting alone for Mike because this would make sense someway. Shit, I forgot to take my stupid pills before watching this show.  Quick, just hit me with a fucking hammer in the head.  Don’t hold back.   WHAM!!! AHHHHHHHH.   Dork Deputy is promptly stabbed by Tooth Teacher who is dressed in an almost certainly Value Village/Goodwill purchased costume. For some reason, Mike takes a nap and a has dream sequence with him as a marionette. Really…I mean…Really, this scene was written and filmed … on purpose.  

Tooth Teacher shows up at Mike’s house and INSISTS that he and his mom eat pie.  He looks like shit.  We learn that Eddie is very powerful and created Candle Cove.  In the past, the Tooth Teacher was having a seizure and Eddie relieved Tooth Teacher of a seizure, making her a permanent disciple.  As a good cult member, she let Eddie kill her only son because that’s what people do.  Tooth Teach explains that Eddie is slowly possessing Mike now.  All of this was over only ONE slice of pie. I think she should’ve thrown in some ice cream or fruit.  It’s clear that the gross tooth is a possession tooth.

Mike’s response is to be aaaaaa dennnnnntist [sung] and pulls the Possession Tooth out.

A motel: Lilly is with her mom at a hotel and then ends up in the TV in Candle Cove somehow.  Roll Credits.

This was pretty par for Channel Zero.  They tried to build suspense and it was just boring.

CHANNEL ZERO: CANDLE COVE — “Guest of Honor” Episode 105 — Pictured: Jawbone — (Photo by: Allen Fraser/Syfy)

A Few Thoughts on The Walking Dead 7.4 “Service” (dir by David Boyd)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

2793823972839

I’m going to try to keep this short.

I like The Walking Dead.  Almost all of my friends like The Walking Dead, though there’s also a large number who have recently decided to abandon the show.  In general, we’re fans of The Walking Dead here at the Shattered Lens.

But tonight’s episode was a real chore to sit through.  After all the hype and all the promises that something big was going to happen during tonight’s special 90-minute program, Service turned out to be a big bunch of nothing.  Negan showed up at Alexandria.  Negan acted like an asshole.  Negan left.

THAT WAS THE ENTIRE FUCKING SHOW!

The thing is — we already know that Negan is an asshole.  We know that he’s a bully.  We know that he’s a sick and irredeemable bastard.  And I’m not sure that the show really needed to devote 90 minutes to reminding us about what we already know.  To be honest, the entire Negan terrorizes Alexandria thing could have been handled in 30 minutes.  That would have left the 2nd half of the episode for … well, something!  Something more than the same crap that we’ve been seeing since season 7 began!  I don’t have a problem with the show being disturbing, violent, or even depressing.  I do have a problem with the show being tedious and that’s the best way to describe tonight’s episode.

Quite frankly, I’ve had enough of neutered Rick.  During tonight’s episode, Rick had plenty of opportunities to do something to stop Negan.  When they were visiting the graveyard, he could have set up an ambush.  When Negan was standing right out in the open, he could have had a sniper open fire.  At one point, Negan even let Rick hold Lucille!

And Rick did nothing.

Where is the Rick who shot zombie Sophia without a hint of emotion?  That’s the Rick we need!  No more of this boring, teary-eyed, shellshocked Rick.  We need our old Rick back and we need him now!  If Rick can’t can’t lead his group, he needs to step aside for someone who can.

And Rick, for God’s sake, remember that there’s no crying in the zombie apocalypse!

There are only four episodes left before season 7 goes on hiatus.  I am sincerely hoping that those 4 episode will amount to something than just four hours of Negan taunting Rick.

At the very least, we need at least one more episode with King Ezekiel and Shiva…

 

 

People of Earth, Acceptance-Season 1 Episode 3; ALT Title: WHAAAA?!!!

Posted on by casewright

people-of-earth

This is not typical for me: there is a show without fault.  There have been two brilliant works to premiere in 2016! 2016 has gotten a lot of shit, but I can’t see how it’s that different from any other year.  People died and we elected a rich racist old white guy as President -seems pretty par for the shitty course. Don’t get me wrong; I’m furious, but not surprised that people chose a POS last Tuesday. This is part of the reason why People of Earth is great; there’s a sense of universal mediocrity that we all deal with everywhere.  The hero is in a haze of discontent and mediocrity even before the aliens get to him and the aliens are a mixture of petty and incompetent.  The show posits a comfortable universal mediocrity.  We aren’t unique with having annoying coworkers or a douchebag boss or shitty job- this is just life: UNIVERSAL… EVERYWHERE.  As they told me in the Army: Embrace the Suck!

This episode deals with divorce.  Divorce sucks.   Imagine a break up, but it’s uncertain for the first time in your life what is yours and if you’ll ever be loved by another human being again for free, not that prostitutes don’t have feelings or negotiable rates… wait…. where was I?  In this context, People of Earth explores the painfully banal human concept of divorce with the backdrop of the extraordinary story of slow-moving alien domination.

Open: Ozzie is having dreams about the Lizard alien who is almost certainly Jon teaching him how to use a toy train and he wakes in a cold sweat.

Current day: Jon gets the news from Archer’s VO Guy AVOG that Kurt is dead.  Scroty prepares himself with an almost eye-roll for LOTR-Guy’s Hilarious 5 stages of grief in under 30 seconds. It’s awesome.

The Group:  Richard reveals to the group that he was served divorce papers and ordered to mediation.  He reminisces to an idyllic past and camping trip that was the site of their abduction.  He’s convinced the divorce papers are in fact a lizard alien plot of some kind. Ozzie tries to bring Richard back to earth that these are in fact divorce papers, but he’s not ready.  Gina demands that Ozzie partner with Richard and guide him through this ordeal.

B Story: Gerry is out of jail.

The Mothership:  Scroty is suppressing his feelings, comparing Kurt’s not working to LOTR-Guy’s not working because they’re both….dead weight.  WAKKA WAKKA WAKKA! Anywho, LOTR-Guy is trying to get Scroty to express his grief; it doesn’t work.

B Story:  Gerry finds the Kurt-alien outline on the asphalt and Joy finds Gerry.  They chat and discern that it was likely a lizard death because of the acid blood that damaged the asphalt AND that a city official must have covered it up! The more important part of the scene was the burgeoning love between Gerry and Joy, which is a perfect counterweight to the A-Story where two signatures clearly define love’s end.

A Story- Mediation:  Richard goes on about Aliens and his soon to be ex loses it.  He agrees to sign it, but uses a fake name.

Richard’s Ex pursues him to the meeting and we learn that their marriage sucked before, she remembers the abduction, and used to be a member of Starcrossed!  WHAAAAAAA?!!! Richard leans on Ozzie and agrees to sign the papers.  Once again, something has died, but a friendship is born.

The Mothership:  LOTR-Guy gets Scroty to deal with his grief, but Scroty gets to the anger step …. and stays there.  He scans Kurt’s lifeless mind and sees Gina’s bumper sticker and vows revenge.

Ozzie flashes back to his youth and his dad was JON!!! WHAAAAA?!

Once again- A badass song! Wall of Voodoo- Ring of Fire:

People of Earth, “Sponsored By”, Season 1, Episode 2; It’s Funny Alien Stuff, Bruh!

Posted on by casewright

people-of-earth

People of Earth once again delivers! Finding fault with People of Earth is like finding fault with making love, Italian food, or Al Green albums.  Bruh. TOTES AWESOMEBALLS, Bruh!!! Let’s grab some ‘Za! I figure I need to use slang like that now that our country is going to be run by a Nuclear Armed Frat House.  On fleek- Out; Sweet, Bruh- In.

NYC: Jon is phone stalking Ozzie to get him to return to Buzzfeedish.  Bruh.

Gina and Gerry intervene on Ozzie and cajole him to get a sponsor for the Starcrossed Program.  Bruh.

The meeting:  Ozzie makes a list of names to rule out as his sponsor.  As he is judging them, he notices that Chelsea’s recount of LOTR-Guy is remarkably similar to that of Kelly.  They begin to discuss it and Gina tries to put a stop to it because this is her club and she makes the rules darn it!  Kelly slut shames Chelsea and Richard steals the scene by misquoting Fleetwood Mac.  To her chagrin, Father Doug needs to speak to her about their organization.  They separate, tell their stories, do sketches of LOTR-Guy and discover- IT WAS THE SAME ALIEN BRUH, BRUH.  That’s enough.  We learn that Chelsea has a terrible marriage.

Ozzie crosses everyone off his list accept Kelly who becomes his sponsor.

We also learn that LOTR-Guy’s incompetence is what caused Ozzie’s visions.  It’s really really funny watching Scroty bust LOTR-Guy’s balls.  See what I did there?!!! 

Gerry returns to Starcrossed with Ozzie’s car and Archer’s Voice Guy tases him! AWESOME!!!

Jon busts Scroty and Kurt for doing a shitty job with Ozzie’s memory.  The response: Kurt beams down to earth and is promptly runover by Gina who’s texting and driving.  There’s a lesson here: Texting and Driving kills lizard people!

Archer’s Voice Guy shows up and cleans up Kurt’s acid-bleeding body.

We also get a great song once again- Khala My Friend!!!

A Few Thoughts On The Walking Dead 7.3 “The Cell” (dir by Alrick Riley)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

aaron

I’ve been on twitter, reading everyone’s reactions to the latest episode of The Walking Dead, and I’ve noticed a definite pattern.

People who read the comic along with watching the TV show seemed to be pretty excited by tonight’s episode.  They were happy that Dwight (played by Austin Amelio) and his wife, Sherry (Christine Evangelista), were prominently featured.  I mean, make no mistake.  This episode may have technically been a Daryl episode but, for the most part, it was pretty much set up to highlight Dwight and Sherry.

Of course, it was also set up to give us some insight into the way that Negan runs things.  We got to see the Sanctuary, the home base of the Saviors, and it’s not really that surprising that it turned out to be the testosterone-fueled Hellhole of everyone’s nightmares.  On the plus side, the Sanctuary has power.  It has music.  It has a TV, though there doesn’t appear to be any good programming.  Is a world where the only available entertainment features Tony Danza a world worth saving?

And Negan — well, Negan’s still an asshole.  He’s still strutting around with Lucille, bullying everyone that he comes in contact with.  Obviously, we were meant to compare Negan’s leadership style to King Ezekiel’s.  Ezekiel rules through fantasy.  Negan rules through fear.  No wonder Gordon tried to leave.

(Gordon’s execution would have been far more powerful if we had more of an idea of who Gordon was meant to be.  Then again, that scene was more about Dwight than Gordon.)

Negan is also trying to brainwash Daryl and it’s obvious that Dwight is more than a little jealous.  I liked the fact that Dwight didn’t seem to know if he wanted to kill Daryl or beg Daryl to be his best friend.  Watching Negan and Daryl, I couldn’t help but think about Merle and the Governor.  Of course, that didn’t end well as far as the Dixon family is concerned…

As I said, those who read the comic appeared to enjoy tonight’s episode.  On the other hand, viewers who weren’t familiar with the comic seemed to be a bit disappointed.  On twitter, they complained that tonight’s episode was too slow and anti-climatic.  Interestingly enough, a lot of them said the same thing about last week’s episode with King Ezekiel.

Myself, I have to say that The Cell didn’t do much for me.  Last week’s episode may have been slow but, after all the shit that went down in the premiere, I was kind of thankful for a slow episode that featured at least a little humor.  But with The Cell, The Walking Dead essentially followed one slow episode with another slow episode, the difference being that this one didn’t really accomplish much.

As I watched day-to-day life in the Sanctuary, I couldn’t help but think about Lost.  You remember when Jack, Sawyer, and Kate ended up spending a handful of episodes living with The Others?  The society of the Others was genuinely interesting.  You could actually imagine watching an alternate version of Lost where the Others would have been the main characters and the Oceanic passengers would have been the rarely seen villains.

You really can’t say the same of The Saviors and life at Sanctuary.  The Saviors may be scary and menacing and dangerous but they’re also more than a little boring.  I’ve praised Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s performance in the past but, with tonight’s episode, I started to wonder if there was anything more to Morgan’s Negan than what we’ve already seen.  Yes, Negan’s a bully.  Yes, he’s an asshole.  Yes, I’d love to see him devoured by a walker.  But I could say the same about a lot of the characters on The Walking Dead.  What is it about the television version of Negan that sets him apart from every other wannabe dictator on this show?

To a certain extent, it reminded me of when Colin Hanks showed up as a serial killer on Dexter.  I watched him and I thought, “Yeah, he’s pretty fucked up but who isn’t on this show?”  At this point, just being fucked up isn’t enough.

What the show needs is one episode — just one — where Negan isn’t bellowing and threatening everyone that he sees.  We need one episode where we can see who Negan was before the zombie apocalypse and who he is now when he’s not hiding behind Lucille.  Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a seriously talented actor and he’s capable of a lot more than just playing a one-dimensional villain.

I hope that The Walking Dead eventually gives him a chance to show everyone how true that is.

I do want to end this review on a positive note so I will say two things:

  1. This episode was directed by Alrick Riley, who previously directed several episodes of an intriguing British spy show called MI5 (a.k.a. Spooks).
  2. That scene with the walker falling out of the sky totally freaked me out!

 

 

Horror on TV: The Curse of Degrassi (dir by Stefan Brogren)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Well, can you believe it?  Halloween is nearly over!  In just four more hours, it will be midnight on the West Coast and October will officially be ended and so will our annual horrorthon.  Thank you to everyone who contributed and read and commented this year!  Y’all make all the hard work more than worth it!

Well, here’s our final excursion into the world of televised horror.  Ready for it?  I’m getting a little teary-eyed.

This is a special episode of my favorite TV show of all, Degrassi!  Originally aired on October 28th, 2008, The Curse of Degrassi features Degrassi’s main mean girl, Holy J Sinclair (Charlotte Arnold), getting possessed by the vengeful spirit of deceased school shooter, Rick Murray (Ephraim Ellis).  Chaos follows!

Happy Halloween and Enjoy!

Love you!

A Few Thoughts on …. The Walking Dead 7.2 “The Well” (dir by Greg Nicotero)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

kel

Hmmm…

Well, what did everyone think of the 2nd episode of the 7th season of The Walking Dead?  After all the violence and darkness of the premiere, The Well felt like a different beast altogether.  In fact, there were times when I had a hard time believing that I was watching the same series, the tone of The Well was so entirely different from the previous episode.

Essentially, we got to find out what Carol and Morgan were doing while Abraham and Glenn were being killed by Negan.  They were discovering yet another settlement of survivors.  This settlement, known as The Kingdom, was ruled over by King Ezekiel and his pet tiger, Shiva.

Judging from twitter, it would appear that over a thousand people fell in love with King Ezekiel last night.  (Even more fell in love with Shiva.)  And I don’t blame them.  As played by Khary Payton, Ezekiel was a breath of fresh — if possibly insane — air.  He was exactly what the world of The Walking Dead needs.  He’s a leader who sincerely cares about his people but, unlike Negan, he’s not a sociopath.  At the same time, he’s also not totally ineffectual and, after what we saw with Rick last week, that was a welcome development.

When he was first introduced, Ezekiel seemed like a comical, buffoonish character.  After all, he frequently spoke like a bad Shakespearean actor.  He was given to broad pronouncements.  He sat on a throne.  He carried a sword, called himself a king, and often seemed like he was auditioning for a Renaissance Faire.  But as the episode progressed, we started to see that Ezekiel was far more intelligent than he first appeared.  As he told Carol, he knew he and his followers were living in a fantasy world but that fantasy was far more preferable than dwelling on the state of the world.  Over the course of an hour, Ezekiel went from being a joke to being a symbol of hope.

It was interesting to compare Ezekiel and his fantasy world to both Negan and Rick.  Though neither one of them would ever admit it, both Negan and Rick have also built up a fantasy world for themselves.  In Negan’s fantasy, his own sadism is justified by the state of the world.  Negan has created a world where being a sociopath is a heroic act.  Meanwhile, Rick continues to cling to the fantasy that, somehow, things can still go back to being the way that they were before the dead rose.  It’s no coincidence that, after seeing both Glenn and Abraham die, Rick immediately started to fantasize about a future where Glenn and Abraham were still alive and everyone was sitting down for a happy picnic.  In the end, Ezekiel is set apart by the fact that, of all the leaders, he is the only one willing to admit that he’s living in a fantasy.

As of right now, if I had to pledge allegiance to anyone in The Walking Dead, I would pledge it to King Ezekiel.  And it appears that Carol is about to do the same thing.  Either that or Carol’s going to decide to kill him just because she can.  It’s difficult to predict with Carol.

(Sidenote: While the episode was stolen by Khary Payton, Melissa McBride also contributed some of her strongest work yet.  Her amazement upon being initially confronted with Ezekiel’s Kingdom was brilliantly conveyed.)

Last week, a lot of people told me that, after spending an hour watching Negan torture Rick and kill Glenn and Abraham, they were done with The Walking Dead.  I’ll be curious to know if any of them watched last night’s episode and whether it changed their mind.  Much like Carol, the show must now make a choice.  Will its future resemble the first episode of the season or will it resemble The Well?

Now, I have to admit that, at times, I found The Well to be a little bit slow.  I liked it but I didn’t love it, at least not the way that some reviewers loved it.  (Over on the A.V. Club, both the reviewer and several of the commenters are practically rapturous in their praise.)  As fascinating as I found Ezekiel to be, I have to admit that I spent a bit of the episode wishing that I was discovering what was going on with Rick, Maggie, and all the rest.  On twitter, I compared it to how, whenever I wanted to know what was going on with Sawyer on Lost, it would be Hurley episode instead.

But, for the most part, I think The Well worked.  The Kingdom seems like a nice place to live but we probably shouldn’t get too comfortable with it.  Anytime Rick or Carol shows up at a new settlement, that means that death and destruction will soon follow.

We’ll just have to enjoy our time with Shiva while we can!

lvdead26f

Horror on TV: The Twilight Zone 3.24 “To Serve Man”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

You know what?

I’ve spent this October irritated by the lack of episodes of the Twilight Zone on YouTube.  I mean, I understand the importance of copyright laws and everything but seriously, how can you take away the Twilight Zone in October!?

However, I finally managed to find one — and exactly one — episode of The Twilight Zone on YouTube.  And it’s a classic!  (And who knows how long it’ll be available so don’t hold off on watching it!)  Here is the classic “To Serve Man” episode of The Twilight Zone!

Enjoy and bon appetit!