TV Review : BEING HUMAN UK

This review is on the original UK series BEING HUMAN. The quick one sentence breakdown on this series? This five season series, goes on two seasons two long.

The first three seasons tells the unconventional tale of a werewolf, and vampire, and ghost that end up sharing the same house. REAL WORLD for the universal monster set. Alternately funny and imaginative and dramatic the series over three seasons sports first and foremost solid casting, actors who are magnetic and likable and you want to follow their journey. That’a a significant point, that I think gets missed by too many shows, the casting and the chemistry of the cast.

Shows like AGENTS OF SHIELD sport bland cookie cutter casts with negative star power, and then have an uphill battle making the audience care enough to follow the boring cast. Thankfully for the first three seasons the UKs BEING HUMAN had a cast with chemistry, great writing, wonderful performances, and excellent effects all building up to a great cliffhanger third season finale.

For all intents and purposes that’s really where the show ends. After that  a pitiful fourth and fifth season limps out with largely a new cast and atrocious writing. The saying ‘jumped the shark’ is never truer than with season 4 and 5 of BEING HUMAN UK. My advice get the first three seasons, and let this series end in your memory with that intriguing cliffhanger and erase all belief that a season 4 or 5 was ever made (much like season 2 of SPACE 1999 and season 4 of BATTLE STAR GALACTICA [new series] should likewise be forgotten). Grade: Great for seasons 1 to 3! Price Blurays below.

Being Human: Season 1 [Blu-ray]

Being Human: Season Two [Blu-ray]

Being Human: Season Three [Blu-ray]

Being Human – Series 1-5 Boxset [Blu-ray] (Region Free)

Deal of the Day!! Winegard FL5000 Digital HDTV Antenna

Okay so if 2013 was the year of Roku, Roku 3 Streaming Media Player (Click here for more) as my tech device of the year, then the Winegard FL5000 Indoor HDTV Antenna is setting up to be an early contender as my favorite tech device of 2014.

I dislike monopolies, and I dislike multi-year contracts, all of that translates into me not being a huge fan of cable or satellite companies. And I really disliked the highway looting and theft of American analog airwaves by government and big business. This eradication of the analog airwaves a few years ago in essence made your traditional rabbit ears useless; and was a boon to paid tv options, leaving the majority of the American population to choose between suffering with subpar reception or buying into pricey paid options to enjoy their television.

Thankfully the infrastructure and technology of local stations has caught up, finally, with the demands of digital viewing. And add to that we now have affordable digital reception devices such as the Winegard FL5000, and free television is suddenly once again a viable reality. The Winegard FL5000 I can report after a couple of weeks of using it is awesome! If you are in a typical large city the un-powered FL-5000 will do the trick fine, bringing in numerous digital channels, with great pictures and sound, and an info option that lets you see details on the program you are watching. Combine the free coverage from the Winegard with the Roku on-demand channels and there is no reason to remain a slave to over-priced cable companies and locked-in punitive satellite services.

Put simply the Winegard FL5000 is the deal of the day!Winegard Company FL-5000 FlatWave HDTV Indoor Digital Flat Antenna – Made in USA (Click here for recent discounts and savings)

Deal, Collectible of the Day : STAR WARS Frames

Star Wars: Frames

Star Wars: Frames … Price Your Copy Here!

Book Description
Release date: October 29, 2013 | ISBN-10: 1419704702 | ISBN-13: 978-1419704703 | Edition: 1
After George Lucas finished work on Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, he wanted to look back on the Star Wars saga with an entirely new point of view: isolating stills, or frames, from each of the six Star Wars films, focusing on them intensely as works of photography and design, and reproducing them in a book. For two years Lucas went through more than 150,000 frames per film, editing more than 1 million frames down to the 1,416 images that now comprise Star Wars: Frames, a testament to the hard work, craftsmanship, and dedication evident in every frame of every film. Star Wars: Frames brings together Lucas’s personal shot-by-shot selections into a lavishly designed two-volume hardcover set—one volume for the Original Trilogy and one volume for the Prequel Trilogy. For collectors and fans, Star Wars: Frames is the ultimate look on this grand project devoted to a cinematic phenomenon—and the ultimate Star Wars collector’s tome.

Editorial Reviews
Review
“Cinematography is not about technology. It’s about art, it’s about taste. In the end it’s about understanding your craft.”- GEORGE LUCAS”"FRAMES” is about allowing the reader the time and the space to examine fully that (“cinematography”) craft.”- J.W. RINZLER, Executive Editor, LucasFilmAuthor of “The Making of Star Wars”

Product Details
Hardcover: 736 pages
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams; 1 edition (October 29, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1419704702
ISBN-13: 978-1419704703
Product Dimensions: 14.3 x 12.7 x 3.7 inches

Star Wars: Frames … Price Your Copy Here!

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HOLIDAY IDEAS and MUST WATCH TV : This Week on Roku AMAZON PRIME

MUST WATCH TV : Recommended shows available on-demand this Week on Roku AMAZON PRIME!!!

The Roku is a streaming media device, perfect for people like myself who do not want to be enslaved to a cable company or satellite company, and locked into their (in many cases) 2 year plans.

Instead if you already have 3G or 4G broadband service, adding the Roku allows you to get streaming on-demand stations via that connection. For one low price for the hardware, and no monthly fee, With a quick setup the Roku wirelessly connects to your broadband connection and away you go.

And for those who don’t have a Roku, but would like one. I suggest the following two models:

Roku 3 Streaming Media Player

Roku 2 XD Streaming Player 1080p

Now to get the most out of your Roku, you’ll need to supplement your free Roku channels (some recommended ones being PBS, POPCORN FLIX, CRUNCHY ROLL, SMITHSONIAN, MIDNIGHT PULP and ON to name a few) with one of the paid services such as AMAZON PRIME or NETFLIX. You can get a year membership to either service for far less than a typical month of cable/satellite service.

Get your Amazon Prime service here:

Amazon Prime (One Year Membership)

And finally supplement your on-demand, Roku service with a quality Digital antenna to bring in the free over the air channels:

AmazonBasics Extreme Performance Ultra Thin Amplified Indoor HDTV Antenna – Designed and Assembled in USA

AmazonBasics High Performance Ultra Thin Indoor HDTV Antenna -Made in USA

Mohu Leaf Ultimate Amplified Indoor HDTV Antenna

With this one, two, three punch your up front cost is more, but you’ll actually save over the cost of a year, in getting tons of content with a miniscule monthly fee when compared to cable. And the great part is you are not locked into an onerous contract as with a cable company.

Try it yourself today!!

GRAPHIC NOVEL Round-Up : Bendis’ UNCANNY X-MEN

ALL NEW X-MEN VOL 2 HERE TO STAY – Collecting issues 6 to 10 of the series this is an interesting and fun premise for a miniseries, namely have the X-men of the past interact with the present. However for a series, it is a gimmick, an in-joke, that runs the risk of staying around too long, and outliving its sell by date. For the moment Marquez and Immonen art keeps it interesting, but already the premise is getting to feel belabored.

UNCANNY X-MEN VOL 1 REVOLUTION – Collecting issues 1 to 5 of the series the pluses are a strong, witty and fun script by Brian Michael Bendis, and some gorgeous art by Chris Bacchalo. The weaknesses are the layouts can be lost under muddy finishing/coloring, and a tendency, unsatisfying tendency, to end the very slight collections on a cliffhanger. It is a weakness that both volumes share.

Add to that the outrageous price of $24.99 for only 5 issues ($5 an issue!!!), a hundred thirty plus pages of story and the absence of a complete, standalone story becomes even more insulting.

It is a very petty and miserly and obscene ‘bleed your audience’ policy that Marvel has undertaken here, that does not deserve to be rewarded by purchasing these overpriced volumes. That said, I do feel the writing in these volumes is fun and entertaining and action-packed and worthy of a read if not a buy.

Just be aware that the cliffhanger ending, appropriate for a $3 monthly serialized comic, is wholly inappropriate for an overpriced $25 collected edition ; that you should be able to enjoy on its own without waiting months for the next volume.

GRADE : B-. Until the ending I was enjoying both volumes, but without an ending the volumes are very much like a great parallel bar routine where the athlete fails to stick the landing. Pretty, but ultimately disappointing and forgettable.

And add that exorbitant price point of $25 for 5 issues of material (and yes I realize the trade can be had for a little bit cheaper, but that is still overpriced as well) and it becomes a case of look, do not buy.

Borrow or rent these puppies for a quick read, then move onto something else, that you would not have any problems paying retail for; something you would not mind proudly adding to your bookshelf such as BATWOMAN VOL 1 HYDROLOGY. A book that I have also recently read.

DC publishing (the other big comic book company besides Marvel) has their own problems, however producing satisfying collections is generally not one of them.

DC hardcover collections, offer an issue more and two dollars less retail, and offer a contained story, something that Marvel’s new publishing initiative MARVEL NOW may want to take note of.

Marvel writers generally are currently doing good work (far better than their esteemed competition that with few exceptions is self-destructing due to editorial hubris), so to have that sabotaged by ghetto collections… possibly not the route Marvel wants to go.

To try the books and decide for yourself or to hunt them down for less than retail use the below links and this blog earns a couple pennies. If I’ve helped turn you on to something you would have otherwise missed (BATWOMAN HYDROLOGY is a must have for any art lover’s collection. It is exquisite), then please use the links below. Thanks:

All-New X-Men, Vol. 2: Here to Stay

Uncanny X-Men, Vol. 1: Revolution

Batwoman Vol. 1: Hydrology (The New 52)

Batwoman: Elegy

GRAPHIC NOVEL Round-Up! Mark Waid’s THE INDESTRUCTIBLE HULK!

GRAPHIC NOVEL Round-Up! Mark Waid’s THE INDESTRUCTIBLE HULK Vol 1 and Vol 2

THE INDESTRUCTIBLE HULK Vol 1 – Collects issues 1 to 5, written by Mark Waid. The first three issues do a nice job of introducing Waid’s status quo of a Banner utilizing SHIELD to help him achieve the scientific greatness that being the Hulk has denied. The cost? Making the Hulk into an agent of SHIELD. So lots of interesting ideas in the first three issues, unfortunately the last two issues stumble. The art by Leinil Francis Yu is exotic, intriguing, chaotic and all this combines to be sometimes impressive, sometimes muddy and confusing. Grade : The hardcover at a retail of $24.99 for 5 issues, translates to $5 per issue. So grossly overpriced even if the book was great, and great it isn’t. So worth renting or reading it from your local library, but not worth buying. C+.

THE INDESTRUCTIBLE HULK Vol 2 – Collects issues 6 to 10, and suffers from the opposite issue of Vol 1, here the first three issues, drawn by Walter Simonson I found uninteresting, and the artwork a far cry from Simonson at his best. Completely forgettable. The final 2 part story stars Daredevil and sports far better art by Matteo Scalera and a far more intriguing story. GRADE : C-. Worth reading for the last two issues, if you can borrow it for free, otherwise just pass.

If you disagree with my assessment and want to try or buy it yourself, especially to find options to buy it well below retail go here:

Indestructible Hulk, Vol. 1: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Indestructible Hulk, Vol. 2: Gods and Monster

Classic COMIC BOOK Comic & Cover of the Day: BATMAN and TEEN TITANS

Today’s classic comic cover (alliteration is your friend) is a Jim Aparo cover from writer Bob Haney’s crazy 1970s run on BRAVE AND THE BOLD. This is one of the best books DC was putting out back in the 70s, and even back then the stories were outrageous non sequiturs, diverging wildly from established DC tropes of storytelling and often character. I loved Bob Haney’s stories, and being even of their time the stories were out of their time, and therefore remain oddly timeless.

This particular cover and comic of the day is BRAVE AND THE BOLD #149, from 1979, starring BATMAN in conflict with the TEEN TITANS, and titled ‘LOOK HOMEWARD, RUNAWAY’. Both the absurd and highly entertaining writing of Bob Haney and fluid and graceful art of Jim Aparo are at full gallop in this fun story.

If interested grab a copy here!

Enjoy till next time!

2013: Day 7 – Item of the Day!

of the Day: Bicycle Shadow Masters BLACK Deck of Playing Cards by Ellusionist

Price or Purchase here: Bicycle Shadow Masters BLACK Deck of Playing Cards by Ellusionist

DVD REVIEW: DOCTOR WHO – THE HAND OF FEAR aka the SEXIEST DR WHO Villain?!!!?

Well that’s a strange heading for a blog post I admit, but I was re-watching the 1976 episode of DOCTOR WHO: THE HAND OF FEAR, and man is this a ‘rocking’ episode of Doctor Who!

Okay the following contains spoilers for the episode (as well as a smattering of risque adult themed humor :)), now you regular readers know I typically avoid spoilers like the plague, but there is no way to really sell this episode and not describe its reveals. And it is still a great episode, even when you know what is coming.

However, jump to the last paragraph if you want to avoid any spoilers (or avoid tasteless humor :)).

For the rest of you… into the mystery.

This 4 part episode works in large part because of the villain of Eldrad played by Judith Paris. A silicone rock based creature who is one of the first scifi gender-bending characters I’m aware of. This alien menace starts out off camera as a dude, becomes a dudette, and in the final episode returns to a dude form. It’s probably just as well that I didn’t see the whole serial as a kid, as my young mind may not have been able to compute all that. But as an adult I can appreciate the entire serial.

But yeah the first three episodes, and much of the fourth are just great, and again largely it’s because the villain of Eldrad is such a rich and complex character. Powerful, a bit violent, but also a bit vulnerable, it’s just a well written part, that Judith Paris I thought performed the heck out of.

It didn’t hurt at all that she was drop-dead gorgeous. Between her and Catwoman in the Adam West Batman reruns… I knew puberty had arrived.

Wait did I say that out loud?!!

What can I say that woman was frigging gorgeous. Okay there were slight problems, she was an alien menace, and she was made out of rock. Okay I see that being a minor hiccup, but hand me my ‘Ben Grimm’ condoms and cry ‘Clobbering Time!’, and I’m good.

(Heh, Heh! That joke is only for fans of the FF. Yes, I am evil! )

Okay getting my mind out of the gutter (I’m telling you, I’m going to find that costume and put my girlfriend in it— wait… did I say THAT out loud?!! DOH!!) it’s just a great 4 part storyline, right up till the last episode, when Judith Paris’ Eldrad gives way to a male version.

Now, I’m not a sexist, and I’m not going to hate on the rock dude villain, because he’s a dude, but I am going to hate on him because… he is effing rubbish! Eldrad turns from a complex, intriguing, nuanced character, to this blustering, shouting, scenery chewing, mustache twirling stock villain… yeah.. it is just disappointing; a glaring combination of bad writing, and horrendously bad over acting.

But thankfully the screen-time of the male Eldrad is brief, and the episode ends on one of the pivotal scenes between the Doctor and his companion, Sarah Jane Smith. It was a good four part-er that really showed how well these two work together and what they mean to each other, which made the ending all the more… bitter-sweet.

All in all it is not a perfect episode of Doctor Who, largely because of dropping the ball with the demise of Eldrad, but that aside it’s a beautifully directed, and well performed episode that comes highly recommended. Plus the DVD offers a commentary with the cast, so it’s worth getting for that alone. Grade: B/B+.

Doctor Who: The Hand of Fear (Story 87)

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