GOT: Season Five is Coming

Winter is here, but season five of HBO's Game of Thrones will not start until April 14th.  In the meantime, you have a new trailer showing the full breadth of the new season.  It is impressive, with scenes of a wedding and funeral, the plight of the remaining Stark children, fierce battles across the sea and far to the north, and talks of a new leader, be it a man or woman who can eventually unite the land.  Certainly plenty to enjoy and ponder. 

If you would like to dissect each piece of the trailer above, I recommend you visit DenofGeek for an enlightening tour.   For instance, you can learn about the Brazen Beast serving Daenerys Targaryen in Meereen (picture  below).  And the website compares the images to the underlying books, to give you some idea if the story is still on track.  As with more and more trailers these days (such as the latest Star Wars installment), we get plenty of speculation.  And yet, as someone who has not read all of the books, I still expect plenty of surprises in the new season.

A Good Find: Man Seeking Woman

I was not sure what to expect after all the failing romantic comedies (and deservedly so) on television this season, but FX's Man Seeking Woman was a very strange yet pleasant surprise.  Talk about bad dates!  Nothing can prepare you for the main characters view of his surrounding plight.  While somewhat extreme it always contains a kernel (yes, at times quite small) of truth.  Have you ever had a first date similar to the one pictured above?  No need to answer.

Here is FX's summary of the story:

A sweet and surreal look at the life-and-death stakes of dating, Man Seeking Woman follows naïve twenty-something “Josh Greenberg” (Jay Baruchel, How to Train Your Dragon) on his unrelenting quest for love. Josh soldiers through one-night stands, painful break-ups, a blind date with a troll, time travel, sex aliens, many deaths and a Japanese penis monster named “Tanaka” on his fantastical journey to find love. 

Starring alongside Baruchel are Eric Andre (The Eric Andre Show) as “Mike,” Josh’s confident and daring best friend; Britt Lower (Unforgettable) as “Liz,” Josh’s intimidating older sister; and Maya Erskine (Betas) as “Maggie,” the ex-girlfriend Josh can never quite forget.

The 10-episode run is based on Simon Rich's (son of former NYT's Frank Rich) love stories in The Last Girlfriend on Earth.  Simon's book is said to be somewhat autobiographical, though I hope he did a little better in real life.  Simon also said other story tellers, such as Matt Groening's Life in Hell, also inspired him.  You can see him discussing his book in this video.  We have not seen the book's time traveler or caveman yet in the first two episodes, but I expect they will fit right in.  

Asked about the show's craziness in an interview with Hitfix, Simon Rich said,

My hope is that if we do our jobs right it will feel seamless and the madness won't feel digressive. And I think there are a lot of shows that are able to employ supernatural elements while remaining emotionally grounded. The biggest ones that I can think of are "South Park" and "The Simpsons," which are two of my all-time favorite shows. And I know those shows are animated, which is a big difference.

The two names shows above are hard acts to follow, but this new series is clearly on the right track.  All I can say is see the comedy for yourself.  The series only started two weeks ago, so you should have no trouble catching up.  You might get a laugh and even see some of yourself in the story.  Hopefully, you are not identifying with the troll.

 

More History: Sons of Liberty

Television drama is moving in the right direction, realizing you do not need to make up so many new stories when the stories of our past are already so interesting.  As we saw with AMC's Turn and HBO's John Adams, the early years of our nation around the time of the Revolutionary War has plenty of heroes, forbidding battles, and hair-raising outcomes.  

The History Channel is also mining this era with its new drama Sons of Liberty.  It has assembled quite a cast to bring the founding of the nation to life.  The series stars tomorrow night (January 25) and runs for three nights.  Here is the History Channel's description of the series:

SONS OF LIBERTY, the three-night, six-hour event, follows a defiant and radical group of young men–Sam Adams, John Adams, Paul Revere, John Hancock and Dr. Joseph Warren–as they band together in secrecy to change the course of history and make America a nation.

The Sons of Liberty sparked a revolution, the cast depicting them includes: Ben Barnes (The Chronicles of Narnia) as Sam Adams, a natural born leader with charisma and a penchant for mischief; Ryan Eggold (The Black List) as Dr. Joseph Warren, a doctor and man of conscience and integrity; Michael Raymond-James (Jack Reacher, Terriers, True Blood) as Paul Revere, a veteran who wholeheartedly joins forces with Sam Adams; Rafe Spall (Prometheus, Life of Pi) as John Hancock, the wealthiest man in Boston at the time; and Henry Thomas (E.T. The Extraterrestrial, Gangs of New York, Legends of the Fall) as John Adams, a lawyer and the conservative, smart cousin of Sam Adams. Additionally, Marton Csokas (Equalizer, The Lord of the Rings, Rogue) plays the ferocious General Thomas Gage who is sent to handle the colonial unrest in Boston; Emily Berrington (24: Live Another Day) as Margaret Gage; Jason O’Mara (The Good Wife, Terra Nova, Life on Mars) as General George Washington and Dean Norris (Breaking Bad, Under the Dome, Men, Women & Children) as the brilliant yet mischievous diplomat Benjamin Franklin.

Calling themselves the Sons of Liberty, they light the spark that ignited our revolution. While many of their names have become legendary, this group of young rebels didn’t start off as noble patriots. They were a new generation of young American men from varied backgrounds, struggling to find purpose in their lives. They were looking for equality, but they found something greater: Independence.

SONS OF LIBERTY is a dramatic interpretation of events that sparked a revolution. It is historical fiction, not a documentary. The goal of our miniseries is to capture the spirit of the time, convey the personalities of the main characters, and focus on real events that have shaped our past. For historical information about the Sons of Liberty and the dawning of the American Revolution, please read the Historian’s View section on history.com/sons.

Notice in that last paragraph that the "History" Channel is engaging in historical ficiton.  I am not sure if I like that bit.  At least the website steers us back to actual history if we get lost, but how many will do this research?  

The Los Angeles Times is already raising a ruckus about the incomplete retelling of the past, stating 

Writers Stephen David, David C. White and Kirk Ellis don't bother explaining the many laws and policies that caused people like Adams to organize and agitate — presumably the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts seem too much like school. Instead "The Sons of Liberty" focuses the big action — the smuggling done to get goods past the British forces, the Boston tea party, the Boston massacre, Revere's famous ride, the battles of Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill.

The proof is in the viewing, so I will be testing the new series against my own knowledge of the past and maybe do a little research as well.  That said, I also look forward to a good story. 

Rainn Wilson Returns In A New Role

I was hoping we would see Rainn Wilson on his own series as Dwight the beet farmer following his success on The Office, but that was not to be.  However, tomorrow night on Fox you can see Wilson in a new role as a brilliant yet disagreeable Portland detective in the new series Backstrom.  Seeing Rainn Wilson as a jerk should not be a huge leap for many, though this new character is definitely darker than his last one. 

Here is Wilson on his character in an article from USA Today:

He has no filter and he hates everyone. Stuff he says is going to come out as racist, but he sees flaws in everyone...He hates no one more than he hates himself...I think people in general like to watch jerks because they see so many in their real lives.

So if you are in the mood for another police procedural, but this one with a familiar face, you may want to add this to your television line-up.

In The Flesh No More

It appears BBC Three will not be making a third season of In The Flesh.  This better-than-average zombie series did well for the first two seasons and had more heart than others of this genre (yes, zombies are now a genre). 

The underlying reason for no third season is not the lack of an audience but rather the lack of a budget. BBC Three faces closure and is instead staying open but as a much smaller version of itself.  The Controller of BBC Three recently stated:

But with a falling income and increased costs, BBC Three can only make one drama a year and I want the latest and freshest ideas, ideas that will break new talent on and off-screen. This is part of what BBC Three does and should do.

I would have thought In The Flesh is pretty "fresh," so to say.  As far as an audience, 35,000 viewers have signed a petition on change.org to bring the show back for a third season, stating:

This show has changed the lives of many watchers and addresses real problems in the world. It really deserves a third season.

Another petition is asking Netflix to pick up the series, which is not a bad idea. 

The creator of the series says he already has a third season written. So will someone save this show? I hope so. Stay tuned. 

Don't Miss the Final Season of Justified

Tomorrow night on FX is the start of the end; the sixth and last season of Justified.  The hard-scrabble, drug-running, dead-end antics of one corner of Kentucky may continue forevermore, but our small window onto this story will close in a few short weeks.  And what a view it has been!

Each season some great actors and actresses join the show (in addition to a great cast), and this season is no different with Sam Elliott, Garret Dillahunt, and Jeff Fahey.  This should be a good way to go.  For while there is enough story to keep the series fresh for this one last season, this is about it, according to Timothy Olyphant (aka Raylan):

You want to stop before you’re repeating yourself. There are only so many situations where Raylan can confront Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) before it feels to you and the audience that we’ve seen it before.

So will we see the final match between Raylan and Boyd, the two friends who grew up together then went their own ways finding themselves on different sides of the law?  This seems to be the case, and we will miss both of them, regardless of which one goes out (feet) first.  Given that Boyd was only supposed to last a season, he already had his nine lives, or at least five until now.  And staying alive around Raylan is not an easy task. 

Check out the final season trailer.  You can see the tension building and poor Ava caught between the two boys.  It doesn't look very comfortable. 

Red Band Society Has a Few More Episodes To Go

If you have been bothered that Fox showed only 10 episodes of the new series Red Band Society, take heart because the last three episodes of the first season will be shown later this month.  Fox really flubbed this show by yanking it from the line up early (as they did with Enlisted, but don't get me started), but at least we can see how the season wraps up, even it is does appear to be the first and only season.  

So plan on watching how it all ends.  Episode 11 will run on Saturday, January 31st, followed by a two-hour finale (episodes 12 and 13) on February 7.  This is another fine show to add to the list of network television train wrecks.  I am starting to like the Netflix and Amazon approach where they commit to and film an entire season before releasing it.  The major networks seem to be too timid to complete what they started.