Sententia 2.0

I've always been fond of "Final Fantasy IV" - it may not have achieved the level of intricacy and complexity found in the series' later installments, but there's something to be said for presenting an epic, globe-spanning, coherent adventure with relatively well-rounded characters and an excellent soundtrack, at a time when such things weren't exactly commonplace in the genre.

That said, there's never really been an English version of the game that could be considered "complete". The original SNES release, dubbed "Final Fantasy II", was a hack job, heavily censored and badly translated, with numerous aspects of the game deleted for simplification. The Playstation version, released in "Final Fantasy Chronicles", had a better script and restored most of the edited content, only to fall victim to the platform's limitations by requiring load times at practically every turn.

"Final Fantasy IV Advanced" is, I believe, the game "Final Fantasy IV" was meant to be. The script is excellent, with some new lines added to shed more light on characters' motivations and personalities; gameplay has not only matched the original Japanese version but exceeded it; character portraits have been added to dialogue exchanges, adding a bit of color to them; and the bonus content is worth every minute needed to earn it. The only problem is that, like "Dawn of Souls", airship travel tends to be a bit frustrating because the buttons stick more often than not. Small price to pay.

The real draw here, at least for veterans of the original game such as myself, is the extra material. Specifically, there are three major changes which take place towards the end of the game (and after it). Upon completing the penultimate dungeon, five former party members become available for recruitment, and you can mix-and-match to build your own fighting force for the final dungeon. All former party members will be at a level approximately equal to main character Cecil, so there's no need to go EXP-hunting.

Once a new team is assembled, you'll have the option of exploring a new dungeon, the Cave of Trials, built exclusively as an armory for your old teammates: superior armor is scattered throughout the cave, while the deepest part of the dungeon holds five powerful weapons guarded by five powerful monsters. If you can defeat them, you'll find that even the puny bard Edward will be able to hold his own against advanced enemies.

Upon completing the game, the Lunar Ruins will be unlocked. Much like the Souls of Chaos in "Dawn of Souls", this post-game dungeon is enormous and somewhat randomized, overflowing with dangerous monsters you won't encounter anywhere else and containing equipment that will turn your party members into nigh-unstoppable powerhouses. Unlike the Souls of Chaos, though, the Lunar Ruins are actually a lot of fun to explore, largely due to the immense variety of activities (good thing, since you have to go through it at least two and a half times to get to the end of it). Sure, some floors are the typical hack-slash-find-exit affair, but others require you to punch a combination on floor tiles scattered throughout, or to catch a toad that's teleporting around the screen. Also, each and every character has a trial to endure, ranging from a running a gauntlet to investigating a murder to proving your worth as a paladin by doing good deeds; the trials culminate in confrontations with a Lunar Summon (similar in concept to the Dark Aeons of "Final Fantasy X"), after which you'll receive an ultimate weapon or an item that upgrades your character in some way (ie: Rosa's White Ring changes the Pray command to Miracle, providing much more potent free healing, while Kain's Dragoon Gloves allow him to Double Jump).

In short, "Final Fantasy IV Advanced" offers the best version to date: not only are the script and gameplay in top form, but beating the game is, in a way, just the start of the adventure. Definitely worth the time, whether you've conquered this particular Final Fantasy before or not.

As an aside, this game marks the first time I've ever defeated a superboss; the Brachioraidos is to FF4 what Ruby Weapon is to FF7 (or Penance to FF10 for the more modern crowd). How powerful is it? Its lair is home to an NPC who desperately warns you to avoid the monstrosity stomping across the screen (yes, they gave the Brachioraidos its own map sprite). I was very, very lucky - Kain's ultimate weapon randomly casts Tornado (an HP-sapping spell), and he struck first, the spell was cast, and the next blow destroyed the fearsome creature. Like I said, pure luck; I have no doubt in my mind that I'd lose ten rematches. :)

Heroes, Five Years Gone: As I expected, this episode comes off as a much-improved take on the classic X-Men story, "Days of Future Past". The primary difference is the process of discovery - in DFP, Claremont lays it all out in the first few pages, as Kate Rasputin traipses through the barren ruins of Manhattan and then walks across a cemetery full of superheroes. But when Ando and Hiro materialize on the roof of the Deveaux building, the first thing they see is reconstruction, a deceptive image suggesting that things aren't as bad as you think. The truth, of course, is that this future is much closer to dystopia than it appears, at least for the Heroes. Likewise, there's a significant body count attached to this episode, the full scope of which isn't immediately apparent (or, for that matter, spelled out in its entirety - DL's fate, for example, is revealed only by the fact that Sylar can phase). Excellent episode overall, containing what I believe to be the single most spectacular twist in the series thus far. I'd also like to take a moment to note that Milo Ventimiglia has really filled out lately - he was never scrawny, but now...



Rowr.

My only complaint is with regards to Hana Gitelman, whose existence I continue to protest. Here's the thing: every week NBC puts out a tie-in minicomic that details some aspect of the series that hasn't seen screen time (ie: Eden's backstory). Of course, this potentially interesting avenue is negated by the fact that most, if not all, of the supplementary material is not only useless but often contradicts the series itself - for example, the comic that saw light before "Five Years Gone" depicts Future Hiro fighting a Sylar who's on the verge of exploding, needlessly confusing a plot point that's addressed quite neatly in the episode itself.

And then you have Hana Gitelman, a character who appeared in a grand total of one episode, whose storyline began and continues exclusively in the comics. So if you want to know more... hell, if you want to know anything about her, you're forced to read the tie-ins despite their extraneous nature. And, of course, because her story takes place off-screen, she only ever turns up on the show itself as a plot device, utterly interchangable with any generic character.

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Veronica Mars returns from its break with Un-American Graffiti, the first in a sequence of stand-alone episodes wrapping up the third season. Unfortunately, it hasn't quite bypassed the hurdles plaguing the season thus far: we're treated to yet more tiresome Parker/Logan/Veronica/Piz soap while the primary mystery is steeped in anvilisms - I appreciate the message behind the story, but not so much the mallet-to-the-face method of delivery. And worst of all, Enrico Colantoni came off as completely tired and lifeless, which is very much not the Keith Mars I've come to know and love. As much as I've adored this show, if this is the best they can do at the moment, it might be best to take a bow and leave the stage before things really go south.

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Meanwhile, Supernatural continues its "average-to-good" curve in What Is and What Never Should Be. On the one hand, it's the standard "utopia/wish fulfillment" stock plot, but on the other hand it avoids the usual pitfall of having the protagonist's every desire materialize. Dean gets something he wants, but not everything he wants, and that's important when it comes to the inevitable moment of choosing betwen illusion and reality (because it's a choice between two flawed and therefore similar worlds rather than perfection versus the truth). That, along with some solid character beats from Dean and the two Sams, pushes this episode past the usual "above-average" to "good".

This week also saw the release of Supernatural: Origins #1, a Wildstorm comic tie-in detailing the backstory of John Winchester. As with most tie-ins, there's a lack of correlation between the story being told here and the story as it was related to us on the show: in the first-season episode "Home", psychic Missouri Mosely tells Dean and Sam that when their father exhausted every rational option in investigating their mother's murder, he turned to the occult, whereas this issue depicts Missouri seeking John out. Of the two versions, I prefer the former, as it implicitly shows John gradually picking at his blindfold until he pulls it off, but... whatever. The highlight, IMO, is the touching backup strip (by Geoff Johns, of all people!) depicting Sam and Dean when they were kids, as Dean tries to reroute his brother's curiosity about Mary's demise so as to prevent Sam from entering the world of the supernatural. That's the sort of thing I wish the show emphasized more often: Dean's most basic contradiction is that he wanted Sam to have a normal life but couldn't help resenting his brother for leaving in pursuit of that life.

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Strings is a very charming Danish/Norwegian film that presents a typical fantasy tale in a revolutionary way: the cast is made up entirely of puppets whose strings are not only visible, but acknowledged as part of the fictional world. For example, in the opening moments of the movie, a character commits suicide by severing the string that holds his head up. In one of the most memorable scenes, a woman gives birth by unwrapping threads from her own strings and attaching those threads to the inert form of the baby, which promptly springs to life.

These are just two examples of how cleverly the technique is used. Unfortunately, the plot's nothing to write home about - good king usurped by his evil brother, noble prince sheds his classist ways to see the truth about his kingdom, big battle of good vs. evil, etc. It makes for a bizarre combination of a story you've probably seen a hundred times before, delivered in a way I doubt you've ever seen. Worth a casual viewing, for sure.

It's One Month Later... and everything has changed.

Well... maybe not. :)

Obviously, this week's highlight was the triumphant return of Heroes, with an episode that was very much worth the wait (that said, it's good to know there won't be any more interruptions this season). .07% delivers a bit of everything: some misdirection, some revelation, some great character moments, some long-awaited reunions, and a cliffhanger that has me on pins and needles for the next episode. I think one thing "Heroes" is doing particualrly well is applying correctives to some of the more powerful, recognizable stories in comics: Niki is essentially the Hulk except her alter ego has a personality beyond "Jessica Smash!", Linderman's scheme is an updated take on Adrian Veidt's master plan in "Watchmen" sans giant alien monster, next week's episode is "Days of Future Past" without killer robots, etc. As a rule, there are certain levels of implausibility we just have to accept when it comes to mainstream superhero stories; in fact, it's so deeply ingrained that modern attempts to invoke "realism" in the Marvel or DC universes tend to fail awkwardly (ie: "Civil War"). We, as readers, have already accepted cosmic rays and Nordic gods and giant fork-headed planet eaters, so dropping a Superhero Registration Act on top of that just doesn't work. "Heroes", having never asked us to believe in naked silver guys riding surfboards through space, is able to breach that barrier and take the whole conflation of "realistic fantasy" to a new level.

Drive was cancelled before I got a chance to check it out. Pity: I loves me the Fillion.

Christie Golden's Warcraft: Rise of the Horde ended up being a thoroughly disappointing read: pedestrian, transparent, and way too intent on making the Orcs seem like gullible, naive victims even as the narrator insists that they knowingly condemned themselves. The whole good/evil schism is taken to cartoonish extremes: the draenei are ridiculously benevolent, the Orcs shockingly simple-minded, the Burning Legion unidimensionally bad. Bo-ring.

Supernatural, Folsom Prison Blues: Another by-the-numbers episode, servicably entertaining without hitting any particular highs or lows.

The recent conclusion of Girls left me a bit cold; on the one hand, I never expected the people of Pennystown to really figure out what was going on, but on the other hand, the series ends without much closure at all, emotionally or plotwise. Given that the Lunas focused far more on the human cast members as protagonists than on the mysterious Girls, it's a bit of a surprise to see all the attention in this double-sized finale given to the "sperm-monster" and its mission - we don't really get to grieve for the dead, or see how the survivors deal with the aftermath. A disappointing end to an interesting series.

Final Fantasy IV Advance: Having completed "Dawn of Souls" (which I highly recommend), I've started the first GBA remake of the SNES trilogy. It's a bit glitchy - the buttons tend to stick, and encounter rate/ATB is way off - but the retranslated script is excellent, and the graphics have been tweaked just enough that I don't feel like I'm just replaying the same old game again.

I honestly don't know where the time's gone...

* "Poor Unfortunate Souls" by the Jonas Brothers is just the cutest Disney remake I've ever heard. Teen rock meets Ursula. I love it!

* Yoko Shimomura has outdone herself with the box set soundtrack of "Kingdom Hearts" (available only in Japan - thanks, Jonathan!). The added tracks for KH2 are wonderful, but what really impressed me was "Lord of the Castle", the new final boss track for "Chain of Memories"; when the orchestra kicks in around 1:40, it easily matches "Darkness of the Unknown" for energy and rhythm.

* I'm in the middle of "Final Fantasy II" (the Dawn of Souls remake) and ye Gods, I hate this gameplay system so very, very much. But the story's quite good.

* Just a few words about the series finale of Rome: on some level, it was perhaps the episode most strongly bound by historical context - we know what happens at Actium, we know what it means for the losing side of the war. That might account for the largely anticlimactic feeling I got by the time it was over; for all that Purefoy and Marshall delivered Emmy-level performances, there's no real surprise. Also, I'm not sure why Vorenus' fate was conveyed so ambiguously (we don't see him die, but Pullo later says he did, but Pullo's lying to Octavian anyway, etc.). And I'm also displeased with the fact that, looking back, Timon's subplot ended two weeks ago. It's not that I really wanted to see him again, but I think I'd been waiting for a more thorough degree of closure (because "Let's go to Jerusalem!" is never a sentence that leads to "Happily ever after"). And finally, much love to Polly Walker for batting it out of the goddamned ballpark, acting-wise: forget Simon Woods, that penultimate scene at the triumph was all her.

* Starcrossed was a 15-minute film by James Burkhammer that raised quite a few eyebrows, though I'm not too clear on why. Yes, it tackles the incest taboo head-on, but it's hardly the first film to do so... and unlike "Harry and Max", which at least admits that seducing your brother has perks but will screw your head up something horrid, "Starcrossed" plays it as the standard Romeo-and-Juliet plot: Connor falls in love with his older brother Darren, "teh sexxx" is had, they're discovered, and they decide to cash in their chips and kill themselves. See, it's missing something. Whenever I think of the quintessential suicide pact storyline, it's not "Romeo and Juliet" that comes to mind but "Thelma and Louise", because the latter added something to the formula: when the situation becomes untenable, you can at least try to run. Because, IMO, if you feel so strongly about someone or something that you're willing to defy social conventions, you're not going to give up easily. It's when you can run no further that you drive off a cliff. "Starcrossed", by contrast, has Darren and Connor giving up without much of a fight, and what the film suggests is that the story couldn't have ended any other way - even though Burkhammer never puts a negative slant on the relationship to begin with. So it's a bit garbled, and the acting's only so-so, and the plot is utterly, thoroughly standard, so I don't see what the big deal is.

* Heroes retrospective catch-up to follow soon (hopefully).

Rome, Deus Impeditio Esuritori Nullus: The penultimate episode takes another leap ahead, but as kazekage points out, the narrative flow somehow remains intact despite the considerable jumps and hiccups in time, even though we're never very sure when we are, so to speak. Anyway, the Octavian/Livia sex scene was fascinating because it's another example of a Roman woman turning the tables on a powerful man - Livia has managed to exploit Octavian's S&M fetish without him laying a finger on her. The fact that the actress bears an unsettling resemblence to Christina Ricci helps a lot. As for the body count, it's just Gaia this time, and apparently Memmio wasn't dead after all (nice reveal there), and I like that we fast-forwarded through the entire Gaia/Pullo relationship just to put her in the same position Eirene was in, because it brings up all sorts of comparisons - not least of which that Gaia is essentially guilty of the same thing Pullo did to get Eirene in the first place. The only difference is that she at least cops to what she did, and accepts the punishment that follows. I have to admit, I didn't expect to sympathize with her... but I did, in the end. Some more quick observations: the decadence of Cleopatra's court was well-portrayed, it was nice to see Niobe again for a few moments, and I love that Atia has been transformed into Servilia, using her son to crush her unfaithful lover and those aligned with him (the difference being that, as history tells us, Atia will succeed where Servilia failed).

Supernatural, Heart: Yikes. Seeing Jared Padalecki shirtless was a lot scarier than it was last year, as he seems to have acquired a set of vein-streaked bulging muscles that wouldn't look out of place on a professional wrestler. Poor boy looks like he's on steroids or something. Anyway, this one was a little too transparent for my tastes - Madison (guest star Emanuelle Vaugier) was obviously a "shake and bake" character, in the sense that she only existed for the purpose of sharing an instant attraction with Sam. In fact, I don't know that we can rightly call her a character, since she's just a bunch of stereotypes and cliches that are preconfigured to work off Sam's established personality traits. All in all, it comes off like Jared Padalecki had a sex scene quota to fill and they just tossed in whoever was on call at the time.

Beauty and the Beast, Once Upon A Time: My pal Tink recommended this late '80s romance series, an urban take on the popular fairy tale. I've only been able to acquire the pilot so far, but I like what I see: it's charmingly antiquated, both in the '80s sense (oh God I'd forgotten about the shoulder pads) and in the use of classic tropes like the spiral staircase, the romanticism of poverty and the underworld, a damsel in distress rescued by a gallant but cursed stranger... but, of course, the damsel is Linda Hamilton so you just know a can of whoop-ass is going to get opened sooner or later, and Ron Perlman (as Vincent, the Beast) plays his part on the down-low rather than ham it up. It really works, and I'm looking forward to more.

Warcraft: The Last Guardian: At some recent point in its development, the backstory and lore of "Warcraft" became a horribly complicated thing. Villains were retconned as pawns of other villains, who were themselves corrupted by an even greater evil... oh, and they have spaceships now. On some level, this was inevitable once the franchise moved into the MMORPG field, where everything is always fluid and open to revision. So in that context, Jeff Grubb's novel "The Last Guardian" is a real treat, as it goes back to much simpler times, exploring events that are set in the pre-narrative world. It's the story of Khadgar (who would later appear in the "Beyond The Dark Portal" expansion), set shortly before the First War, as he begins his apprenticeship to the not-yet-infamous Medivh. Grubb successfully brings this part of Warcraft's history to life, going back to its medieval, swords-and-sorcery roots; if you've played the games, you'll know the answers to the big mysteries (where the Orcs come from, who brought them to Azeroth, what's really wrong with Medivh), but Grubb's dramatization of events that were only ever referenced in the games is a major hook - one chapter, for example, has Khadgar experiencing a vision of Magna Aegwynn's war with Sargeras and the Burning Legion, and it's a very impressive sequence. I recommend "The Last Guardian" to anyone looking for a fun flashback to when things weren't so damned bizarre in the Warcraftverse.

Hellboy - Sword of Storms: So close. This animated movie did almost everything right: it appropriated Japanese demonology fairly well, presented accurate characterizations of the main cast (for better or worse - I found Liz Sherman to be as irritating as she is in the comics, which counts as a mark of accuracy, I guess), and had some great action scenes... it also has one of the most abrupt and unsatisfying endings I've ever seen in comic adaptations. Horribly anticlimactic, to the point where it really ruins the film.

Invincible Iron Man: Another kinda-sorta-okay cartoon flick. Again, the technical quality is very good, a near-seamless blend of conventional animation and CGI, and the voice acting's strong - somehow, it seems completely appropriate for Tony to have a phone sex operator voice, even if this movie's supposedly PG. But anyway, it's a surprisingly old-school interpretation of Iron Man as the rich, sex-addled playboy who just happens to whip up Iron Man suits in his spare time. The Mandarin revamp was nice too. But once again I can't help but feel a little disappointed with the end result - not so much because there's anything wrong with the film's climax and conclusion, but because everything more or less plays out the way you'd expect it. I don't know if being formulaic is a bad thing, given that this is supposed to be an introductory vehicle for the character to the mainstream audience (even though this version of Iron Man no longer exists in the wake of "Civil War"), but it just wasn't exciting or unpredictable for me at any point. Well, okay, except for that scene where Pepper Potts walks in on Tony in the shower, casually opens the door and delivers her report without once looking south. Realistic? No. But impressive nonetheless. :)

Rome, Death Mask: Last week's episode, which I missed. Anyway, it's a very apt title - we have two marriages, lots of sex, at least one pregnancy, but death hangs over everything, very much like a mask. The cast is whittled down a little more, and losing Servilia (and Eleni) was a major shock not just because I didn't see it coming, but because she doesn't achieve anything in death. I don't think I ever felt much sympathy towards her, given that - in this version of history - she caused three civil wars and countless deaths because her sekrit MARRIED boyfriend dumped her ass. But she loses everything as a result of her own pettiness, to the point where she can't even muster the strength to deliver a last blow more substantial than ineffectual curses (I mean, last time she put the Evil Whammy on Caesar, he defeated Pompey and won the Egyptian campaign). So it's kind of sad on that level.

Rome, A Necessary Fiction: Another two recurring characters meet their end, and unlike the previous episode, I was happy to see both of them go. Memmio's scum, so no big loss there. Eirene, though... I always had a problem with Eirene, and not because she was cockblocking Vorenus and Pullo. It's more that she never had much of a personality, or any kind of character arc, that made her more than a piece of furniture. I mean, if you compare her to Niobe, it's not just that Indira Varma was a better actress, it's that she had a function that went beyond just being her husband's anchor. She had a whole seasonal arc about her secret, and her attempts to enter Roman high society, and her reconciliation with Vorenus after their long separation. Eirene never did anything, despite the fact that she had motive - from the moment she agreed to marry Pullo, I was sure she was plotting to get revenge on him for turning her last boyfriend's head into coleslaw. Not only did that not happen, but the summation of her life on-screen was Slave, Wife, Pregnant, Dead. The only effect her death had was showing us that Vorenus is much less a friend to Pullo than Pullo was to him (compare Pullo's grieving process and Vorenus' participation to the reverse when Niobe died), and, well, that's hardly something that'd make me remember Eirene fondly. So long, doormat.

Veronica Mars, Papa's Cabin: I'd completely overlooked this episode when it aired, which probably says more than I'm comfortable saying about where "Veronica Mars" is located on my list of priorities. This is the first mystery that ends with Veronica having the upper hand throughout, and she knows it, and her enemy knows it, and there is no physical violence of any kind. And you know what? It worked for me. The Landry/Mindy/Batando axis got a bit too convoluted towards the end, but it wrapped up nicely and I thought that last scene - with Keith glibly realizing there's no point in trying to shield Veronica from the world's uglier moments - would have been perfect as a series finale. Of course, I later discovered that the series is in danger of cancellation yet again, and if it does survive this time it'll undergo a paradigm shift even greater than the ones that came before it... although now that I think about it, there's something appealing about skipping down the timeline, ditching most of the cast and tightening up the focus on Veronica herself. It just might work if it's given the chance.

Supernatural, Roadkill: Eh. Nice twist with Molly's true nature, but this is going back to "Houses of the Holy" in terms of tasteless filler.

Marvel - Ultimate Alliance: Magnificent game, but when held up to its predecessor "X-Men Legends 2", it loses just a bit. I'll admit that the graphics are outstanding, the plot's better, and there's a significantly greater variety in terms of settings, gameplay sequences (ie: the reflex/puzzle-oriented boss battles, the minigames, the optional quests, etc.) and character selection, which means the replayability factor is much higher than XML2... but at the same time, the auto-target is very unreliable (especially problematic for someone like Storm, whose primary offensive powers aren't line-of-sight), using powers can be sluggish, inventory has been downsized so every character can only equip one item (and there's not a single item that's really worth seeking out), and your inability to set your characters' stats pretty much forces you to pick and choose your team members based on attributes you can't control or change.

As with XML2, Simulator missions ensure you get a chance to control every hero (except for the secret ones, obviously), so you can get a clear fix on which heroes work best for you. Unlike XML2, skins (costumes) actually have a function here, each with their own bonuses, but they can only be gained by killing lots and lots of enemies (or, for the most powerful skin, by completing the character's personalized Simulator challenge). Both powers and skins can be upgraded with obscene amounts of money, but since money has no real value anywhere else in the game, you might as well spend that million on another skill point. There also doesn't seem to be any set pattern to powering up: sometimes gaining just one level is enough to advance an ability, sometimes you need two skill points, sometimes three or four.

Still, even with its flaws, "Ultimate Alliance" is a must-play game for any Marvel fan (and even moreso for lapsed Marvel fans, as this game really recaptures some of the MU's best attributes). I started out with Storm, Spider-Woman, Deadpool and Ms. Marvel, and slowly cycled in hidden characters until I had Silver Surfer, Doctor Strange, Daredevil and Iron Man. Much fun was had by all. :)

Dragonsphere: Despite the antiquated graphics and atrocious voice-acting, "Dragonsphere" has real substance. It's pretty short, as fantasy/adventure games go, but it manages to create a world that is at once familiar via the usual Tolkienesque tropes and new, strange, unknown. It also helps that the game is very forgiving: while you can make mistakes that will get you killed, you will immediately resume from the point prior to the fatal error, allowing you to learn from your missteps without interrupting the story flow.

On account of my MA's starting and already I've got homework. :)

I'll play catch-up next week.

Heroes, Company Man: I'm a bit conflicted about this one. On the one hand, I liked how the flashbacks were worked in, and there were plenty of interesting revelations and strong character moments both in the past and in the present. But I'm not sure this episode actually answered any questions I brought to the table: What is Mr. Bennet's first name and why is it such a big deal? How did he get involved with the organization? If they don't have Suresh's list, how are they finding the Heroes? What exactly are they doing to the Heroes? (Bennet says tagging and releasing, but they're clearly responsible for powering up Matt, Ted and Isaac, and Claude mentions vivisections...) And where the hell did present-day Eric Roberts come from? A bit uneven, then, but very effective in terms of changing our perception of a character (possibly two, I doubt I'll be feeling any sympathy for Ted in the near future).

Brick: Oy, what a misfire. I'm sorry, I get it's supposed to be noir-meets-high-school, but hearing Joseph Gordon Levitt talk about taking the heat and shaking the trees and ratting out the finks just veers into comical territory for me. Like "Sin City" before it, there's something inherently ridiculous about the way "Brick" slavishly follows its chosen genre; for starters, we're not living in the pulp era anymore, so injecting archaic dialogue into a modern-day setting only serves to point out how silly noir can be in any other context (insert random Frank Miller parody here). Also, these films follow the pre-established generic patterns so closely that there's no real surprise - yes, the black-clad mystery girl will be a femme fatale, and she's probably the real mastermind behind the story, and drugs will be involved, and the crimelord's top thug has his own dirty secret, etc. On some level, "Brick" is just regurgitating the old tropes via new faces, and I imagine it'd be terminally boring to anyone who's experienced the genre before, in any capacity.

Runaways, Live Fast / Doctor Strange: The Oath: In which Marvel says goodbye to Brian Vaughan, and is all the more creatively barren for it. There was something suitably low-key about "Live Fast" as the coda to Vaughan's run; nobody died, no grand revelation changed everything we knew forever, but at the same time there's an air of finality even before Iron Man bursts in to remind everyone that there's this thing called "Civil War" and maybe you'd like to read it (the "death" of a unique book via invasion of a mega-crossover: meta-text? Surely not). But anyway, I'm definitely going to miss Vaughan on this series - with the news that Whedon's run is in fact limited to six issues, this feels much more like an ending than it should, with only an epilogue to look forward to.

Meanwhile, Joe Quesada and I have our differences, but one of the very, very few things we agree on is the problematic status of Doctor Strange. Specifically, the Sorcerer Supreme has always been a tempting figure for lazy writers to use as a deus ex machina - just wheel him in to do some hocus-pocus and the day is saved. Brian Bendis ever-so-helpfully demonstrated this during "Avengers Disassembled" and "House of M" (and God only knows what "New Avengers" will look like), and Quesada has a point when he claims that Marvel's amorphous definition of magic basically puts Strange in a quasi-omnipotent position. Vaughan offers the simplest solution: rather than try to redefine magic (a task apparently assigned to the upcoming "Mystic Arcana" miniseries), all that's required is to put Doctor Strange's enemies on his level and make the story a mystery that requires unraveling, rather than a solution that can be instantly achieved with some arcane alliteration. That way, Strange can't just wave a magic wand and set things right. In the process, Vaughan unsurprisingly delivers excellent characterization of Strange, Wong and the Night Nurse, so much so that I desperately wanted this to be the first arc of an ongoing series.

With "Y: The Last Man" going bimonthly as it enters its final arc, and only a four-issue run on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in the immediate future, I can't help feeling like the industry is losing one of its brightest, most talented stars. And for sodding Lost, of all things. Let's hope Vertigo snatches him up for another 60-issue series, eh?

This ancient contribution from HorrorSoft makes for an interesting - if deeply flawed - experience.

You play an anonymous hero-type summoned by horror hostess Elvira to her movie studios. The demon Cerberus has kidnapped our Mistress of the Dark, converting her three film sets into real nests of supernatural activity. You must search all three studios (a haunted house, underground catacombs, and an insect maze) for the captive Elvira, slaying Cerberus' minions along the way, and then gather the magical artifacts needed to banish the demon back to Hell.

"The Jaws of Cerberus" belongs to a particularly unforgiving sub-genre of adventure/RPG, the type where it's very easy to make a mistake (ie: drop or use an item at the wrong time) resulting in an unwinnable game, only there's no mechanism to let you know that you're stuck. You can just go on for hours, never realizing you can't proceed beyond a certain point. It's the sort of thing that makes playing without a walkthrough far too great a chore to be enjoyable.

Even with a walkthrough, gameplay leaves much to be desired; combat is pretty much randomly clicking on the enemy, and either you hit it or you don't. Spells are useful, but there's no way to recharge your MP aside from standing around for hours at a time - and unfortunately, the game will most likely force you into this position at least twice. Magic is also problematized by the enormous amount of dead weight, ie: a lot of spells and spell ingredients are just plain useless to you in the course of the game.

Fortunately, "The Jaws of Cerberus" excels at visual presentation, and that's enough of an incentive to at least give the game a casual run-through - there's plenty of gore (exploding eyeballs, blood, mutilation, giant insects, maggoty corpses), but more in the vein of how the '80s classics used it (to enhance frightening scenes) than the more gratuitous methods used in modern films like "Saw". The set designs are surprisingly detailed given the technology that was available when the game was made.

As a throwback, then, it's the sort of game you wouldn't mind watching as a film or television series, but actually playing it requires a great deal of patience - more, perhaps, than is warranted.

Death was working overtime this week; good thing her mascara never runs.

Rome, Philippi: Whatever artistic license "Rome" may employ in depicting historical events and persons, certain aspects are immutable. In that sense, there's little point in depicting the Battle of Philippi as though it could unfold any other way. Fortunately, Bruno Heller is a step ahead of his audience: rather than focus on the question of who wins (a question to which we already know the answer; take note, George Lucas!), Heller shifts the emphasis of this climactic episode to the emotional context. This is, after all, the point where the bodies start piling up, among them characters who've been with us from the start. It's one thing to know Brutus, Cassius and Cicero are doomed; it's another to see Pullo execute the cowardly-but-resigned Senator in full view of a wailing slave, or watch Cassius slip away amidst talk of his birthday. And Brutus... poor, vanquished Brutus gets a death that's quite different from that of his non-fictional counterpart, and yet it works so much better: heroic in one sense, suicidal in another, poetic justice in a third, and all that is conflated in a few bloody, poignant moments.

Heroes, Unexpected: Death makes another pit-stop, and this time she picks up someone I wasn't very fond of. Simone Deveaux has been a problem for me since day one, largely because of her wishy-washy nature. I mean, she dies while bringing back Isaac's key for the third fucking time in two episodes. Sure, I could be charitable and call it evidence of a conflicted heart, except that... well, what did we know about Simone outside the context of other characters? Did she ever do anything but faciliate another protagonist's plotline (sending Hiro to Vegas, revealing Claire's location to Peter, dumping Isaac so he'd be motivated to switch sides, etc.)? Even her death serves only the purpose of cementing the rivalry between Peter and Isaac (and now I'm wondering if Sylar had anything to do with Isaac's fate in episode 2). I'd feel the same way had the victim been Janice Parkman, Matt's wife - it's pretty difficult to care about the fate of a plot device. If anything, I'm glad she's gone because that complicates matters, and forces the characters who actually matter to find less convenient ways of moving along. I was more inclined to feel bad about losing Dale, even though she was only on for two scenes (side note: Zach Quinto is getting disturbingly hotter every week).

Anyway, the Stan Lee cameo was adorable (because, you see, he's a bus driver, a ferryman transporting Hiro from one kind of journey to another, and whether it's more or less heroic than the first depends entirely on how you like your comics), I really hope we haven't seen the last of Claude, and Milo Ventimiglia rocks the Dark Phoenix impression. It's interesting that Ventimiglia, like Jared Padalecki, communicates menace, rage and malice so well; could it be that the WB has been misfiring its castings all these years, and the pretty boys should have been villains all along? Or maybe it's the years of playing sanitized twerps that has them putting a little extra oomph into being bad.

Veronica Mars, Mars, Bars: Aw, Death, it's like you're apologizing for taking away my Menzies by purging TV of annoying people. :) Incompetence, obnoxiousness, sleaziness... all these adjectives (and more besides) describe Sheriff Don Lamb, who was sent rocketing to Hell this week courtesy of Richard Grieco (himself on an express train to Mephisto's Pit of Talent-Free Torment). While we may pity the quite-attractive Michael Muhney, let's not forget that Lamb thinks tough love is the way to go with rape victims, and he's never solved a case on his own, and he pissed off Lucy Lawless.

Someone at the Television Without Pity forum made an interesting comment about Lamb's death in the context of the entire series: somewhere along the line, "Veronica Mars" quietly shifted out of the noir (or rather, neo-noir) genre, and Rob Thomas might not be compensating enough for that. Lamb, after all, represented the law as a helpless (at best) or corrupt (at worst) institution. Removing him, and replacing him with someone who we know is both benevolent and reliable, doesn't quite work in a universe aligned against our protagonist (which was always the justification for Veronica's attitude). In terms of the power balance, Veronica seems to be much more in control of herself and the world around her than she should be - to wit, her utter domination of Logan in their relationship, to the extent that even when he dumps her, she makes the move that brings them back together, and then breaks it off herself. That might be precisely the problem that's causing this feeling of ennui; Thomas never defined the series again after the noir trappings were removed.

A Valentine sideplot featuring Bronson, Mac, Parker and Logan was thoroughly enjoyable in a fluffy sort of way... but, see, that's indicative of an identity crisis too, because as much fun as fluff can be, it simply hasn't been a part of Veronica's world until now.

Children of Men: It was beautiful. It was horrible. It was simple. It was complex. It made me cry. It made me smile. It was fucking depressing and ridiculously uplifting and I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it. In keeping with the Theme of the Week, "Children of Men" stands as another example of how death can be an incredibly powerful emotional catalyst for the reader/viewer... and, conversely, how the concept of life (new life, to be specific) can change everything. There's something about the way this film uses death: it starts with the murder of a character we never meet but whose influence is inescapable, and it goes on to ruthlessly whittle down the supporting cast in such a way that you can't help feeling each loss, and yet it ultimately turns out that death isn't the point of the movie at all. It's something much more profound than that. As an aside, I wish I hadn't seen this right after the above episode of "Rome", because that one-two punch had me sobbing into my pillow until three in the morning. Between "Children of Men" and "The Prestige", my faith in cinema - or rather, the potential inherent in cinema - is slowly but surely being restored.

Civil War: I never get tired of seeing how out-of-touch the Marvel admins are with what actually sees print under their watch. To wit, Tom Brevoort recently gave Newsarama an interview where he offers up a script excerpt about the moment that decides the outcome of the war - an excerpt that makes sense of the whole issue, and says quite a bit about the leaders of the two factions. There's just one problem: that excerpt doesn't actually appear in Civil War #7. Nothing remotely similar to that excerpt appears in Civil War #7. Which accounts for the current outrage sweeping the boards.

(As an aside, Brevoort has also contradicted Joe Quesada yet again, claiming Mark Millar had planned the whole thing out in advance while Quesada's constantly reminding us of how Joss Whedon swooped to the rescue and helped shape the conclusion of the story. Oops.)

In any event, I don't have much to say about this debacle: I made the choice, back when it was first announced, to avoid "Civil War" in its entirety, and I've done just that - sure, it's nice to know that it was the right call (for me, at any rate), but at this point I'm far more interested in critical response to "Civil War" than anything the actual event could offer.

Ray of light? I do believe that "World War Hulk" and the impending X-Men crossover will fare better than their predecessors, if only because - for the first time in recent memory - the writers involved actually stand a chance in hell of pulling it off. See, this is the truth I've discovered with regards to comics: it's very, very easy to glean what a creator is and is not capable of, just by giving their past bodies of work (which are eminently accessible) a glance. Just because Marvel lacks any kind of discerning perspective doesn't mean we as readers suffer the same liabilities - we might, for example, question the idea of a subtle, complex tale of political intrigue being assigned to Mark "Mjolnir" Millar (the guy who wrote "Red Son", "The Authority", and "Ultimates" for God's sake!). And this, I think, is a big part of the problem: the writing is, and has always been, on the wall, but it has become the habit of the greater part of fandom to only take a look long after it ceases to matter. Sure, you can jump up and rage about "Civil War" now - #7's out, Marvel made a lot of money, and from their point of view it hardly matters if the end result is embraced or not. Their primary mission - cashing in - was achieved. Now, if the Zombies had said no a bit earlier (like, say, issue #2), maybe things would've been different.

Maybe.

Rome, Heroes of the Republic: This episode marks the mid-season point, and it's been a pretty wild ride so far. In five weeks, we've jumped from Caesar's assassination to the birth of the Second Triumvirate; Vorenus went Dark Side, Octavian got a full-body makeover, Brutus lost his mind, Timon found religion, and Atia and Servilia decided to stop playing nice, because encouraging incest and having your enemy stripped and humiliated in the streets just isn't permanent enough.

It's rushed, no question about it. I accept that, because there's no choice; HBO has a limited amount of episodes to get us from last season's end-point (Caesar's death) to the next optimal jumping-off point (Augustus), while keeping every other plotline from the previous season running. But even with (necessary) compression wreaking havoc on the timeline and on balanced screen-time (Eirene who?), I'm constantly amazed at how nuanced "Rome" can be. To wit, I realized the other day that there's a near-constant tension between the characters as they are now and as they were when the story began. It's as if they're all caught in a state of flux, vacillating between their past and present selves. Octavian reaches adulthood and makes it on his own, only to become his mother's puppet again. Vorenus and Pullo have practically swapped bodies - now Pullo's the domestic, moral man while Vorenus steeps himself in violence, darkness and sex. Brutus plunges into the depths of guilt and anguish, and comes out the other side leading an army, just as he did before (and more importantly, just as his ancestors did, and just as Servilia expects him to).

And that whole mess is a microcosm of Rome itself, caught in the tides of history, going back and forth between the Republic of the past and the Empire of the future, and nobody's sure what they're supposed to do or where they're supposed to stand.

I'm really going to miss this show when it's gone.

Heroes, Run!: Not quite as fulfilling as I'd hoped, because the plot only mimicked forward movement without really going anywhere. So, yeah, Nathan is Claire's father, but she doesn't even see him or get his name. Meredith's a golddigger who's set to disappear again. Hiro and Ando get sidetracked again. "Mohinder's List" starts rolling, and it just serves to pull Sylar in so he'll be involved in an ongoing plotline. Matt and Jessica throw down, and you'd think something huge would happen there, but... well, no. So it's more or less an exercise in wheel-spinning.

Veronica Mars, Postgame Mortem: O-kay, now we've got another multi-episode murder investigation involving both Keith and Veronica, on top of the ongoing Dean O'Dell mystery, concerning a character we've seen exactly once before. Hmm. Then again, both cases progressed this week, while accomodating a rather cute Logan sequence where he gets his groove back thanks to the little God Girl from "Joan of Arcadia". Not so bad, then.

Supernatural, Tall Tales: Another really good one, though for completely different reasons than last week. Bobby arrives to find the Winchester boys bickering and at a total loss regarding their current case, which seems to involve everything from vengeful spirits to alien abductions. Dean and Sam alternately fill Bobby in through flashbacks, though each brother puts his own spin on the story (I can't believe I'm saying this, but excellent acting from both Ackles and Padalecki - and hey, that's two finger-snaps in a row for the Pads!). It's a very lighthearted episode, a surprising but welcome relief from the unrelenting angst of season 2 so far. Not that the angst hasn't been good, in moderation, but it's nice to get a little something different now and again.

Man of the Year: I've always ever had the one problem with Robin Williams - he has a certain way of line-delivery (especially the ones with comedic slants) that just blurs together all the characters he's ever played. I look at Tom Dobbs and I see Patch Adams, Philip Brainard, Alan Parrish, Peter Banning and Daniel Hilliard. It's not that he isn't funny on occasion (though I wasn't especially amused by this film), it's that I never get the feeling he's actually separating the roles in his head, as opposed to just pulling out one generic character and slapping multiple names on it.

Starsky and Hutch: While channel-surfing late last night, I stumbled onto two episodes of "Starsky and Hutch", the series finale and an episode where Hutch is forcibly addicted to heroin. I doubt I'm going to go looking for more, but it was okay, a nice way to pass some time. And those two were so doing it. :)

Thunderbolts: I said I'd give Warren Ellis two issues. I did. And I still have no idea whether this is working for me or not. I think I'll err on the side of caution for now (also, Ellis, not exactly batting a million these days) and drop it.

Batman: Dark Moon Rising: Still on the subject of comics - awesome stories by Matt Wagner (was there ever any doubt?), very evocative of Miller circa Year One without making the common mistake of aping him so closely the thing descends into parody (see: "Spider-Man: Reign"). And I was all set to give this the big review and the many praises it deserves, but then I'd just get depressed that something like "Dark Moon Rising" is the exception and not the rule, and why hasn't anyone signed Wagner on for more work, huh? And where the fuck are those Grendel trades?! So let me just say that it's an excellent mini-series telling somewhat unconventional tales of the Dark Knight, with a touch of the old Grendel flair, and that just makes for fun reading. See, Dan DiDio? Batman can be fun! And we didn't run screaming like our hair's on fire! Try it sometimes!

Go Ask Malice by Robert Joseph Levy
Blackout by Keith R.A. DeCandido

It's probably indicative of how much I loved "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in its prime that even now, more than three years after the show ended, I'm still interested in that fictional world, its characters and mythologies.

However, I find that I'm not nearly as invested in the titular heroine anymore; in fact, when I scour the Net or local bookstores for Buffy fiction, I try my best to avoid Buffy herself. Why? Well... here's the thing. From my perspective, Buffy Summers is a ruined character. Marti Noxon took a sympathetic yet empowered everygirl, and made her an obnoxious, self-righteous bitch with more issues than 2000AD. So much of seasons 6 and 7 is pure ugliness, with the mutual rapes and the ceaseless emo whining, and no one's really stepped in to redeem her since. I'm hoping the upcoming "eighth season" from Dark Horse will at least have a mitigating effect - if anyone can do it, Joss Whedon and Brian Vaughan can.

In the meantime, I've been fortunate enough to stumble onto two novels that don't center around Buffy at all. Robert Joseph Levy presents Faith's pre-Sunnydale backstory in "Go Ask Malice", while Keith R.A. DeCandidio's "Blackout" expands the glimpses we've had of Nikki Wood into a full-fledged tale of New York in the late '70s. In that sense, the books share common elements, but they're very different in terms of how they present their protagonists.

"Go Ask Malice" is subtitled "A Slayer's Diary"; the idea is that we're reading Faith's journal, discovered in the ruins of Sunnydale after the events of the series finale. So it's Faith telling her story here, starting six months before her Calling and ending after her fateful first encounter with Kakistos. Levy's recreation of Faith's voice is surprisingly accurate, taking into account that the bulk of her narrative is set before her transformative traumas occur. As a result, she's not nearly as jaded and cynical as she was when she met Buffy, but she's not pristine either. We can clearly see the shadow of what she'll become.

One of the more interesting aspects of the novel is how Levy uses the epistolary format. We expect complete access to Faith's innermost thoughts, only to discover that she's writing at the insistence of her social worker, and her fear of prying eyes leads her to constantly mislead the reader and edit herself. For example, the very first entry provides an idyllic, almost utopian description of Faith's birthday, but concludes with the following: "P.S. Oh, and by the way, one more thing, if you're reading this and have no idea who I am: All of the above is complete and utter crap." Other entries are partially erased or blacked out. Ironically, her caution is justified: we are, in a sense, invading her privacy, guilty of the same voyeurism she expects from others. So Faith remains in complete control of her story (the tragedy, of course, being that she lacks the self-awareness to really understand what's happening to her).

The diary itself also grows and changes as the novel progresses; by the time she begins training with her first Watcher, the made-up scenarios trickle to a halt, replaced with shorthand notes about demons and vampires wedged between entries, or fragments from other texts "taped" into her own. And at the end of the story, it becomes a hastily-written goodbye letter - abrupt and open-ended, even though we know what's coming next.

If this novel has one serious flaw, it's when Levy tries to craft an adventure for Faith to start off her tenure as the Slayer, only to get entangled in a byzantine subplot about vengeance demons, Arashmaharr, the spirit of a dead Slayer and imaginary friends. It's a bit much, especially since it ends in a massive infodump that doesn't quite remain true to the diary format (ie: we're supposed to believe Faith could replicate a long-winded explanatory speech word-for-word?).

Still, this is primarily a character piece, and on that level, Levy does a fairly good job of presenting a Faith we've never seen before, yet one who evokes familiarity as well. Her past as he depicts it is mostly his invention, but since that's not an area likely to be explored in official Whedon canon, I'm happy to use "Go Ask Malice" as Faith's official origin story.

Keith DeCandido's approach to Nikki Wood in "Blackout" is quite different. Rather than construct his own take on her backstory and graft it onto what we've already seen, DeCandido works entirely within the context of the televised scenes. In "Fool For Love", Nikki's appearance was clearly inspired by/an homage to the blaxpoitation genre - long leather coat, Afro, disco beat in the background during her fight with Spike. DeCandido expands on that, giving "Blackout" the shape of a Shaft-esque narrative where Nikki is the "Big Mama Jama" stalking the streets, at war with a vampiric crime organization. Indeed, Nikki sees herself as a mix of Cleopatra Jones and Batman, and that sense of cool (in the '70s meaning of the word) radiates from the character, both internally and externally. DeCandido creates a vivid, realistic portrait of New York circa 1977; his love for the city comes through in the way he describes the people, the streets, that slang that looks almost comical until you realize people did talk like that thirty years ago. He blends history and fiction (ie: conflating vampire activity with the infamous 1977 blackout and the ensuing riots) while never losing sight of what's happening to his protagonist.

Seventh-season canon is taken into account here, and Robin Wood is present as a precocious four-year-old; fortunately, his presence here isn't nearly as grating as his adult counterpart's would eventually become. In fact, DeCandido takes advantage of Nikki's motherhood, using it to add another dimension to the character and to the very concept of a Slayer. I can think of only one other story that tried to tackle this issue - "Abomination" from the first "Tales of the Slayer" anthology, and based on the name alone you can probably guess how that turned out.

But of course, the core of the novel concerns Nikki's battles against the undead, both on the page and off it (DeCandido makes some interesting references to an as-yet-unwritten conflict with Darla, and a victory over Dracula). On that level, "Blackout" does its job well: it provides an entertaining adventure that dovetails into Nikki's rivalry with Spike - the outcome of which is never truly in doubt. But DeCandido also succeeds on another level entirely: when "Fool For Love" first aired and we watched Spike kill the then-unnamed 1977 Slayer, we might have felt a bit sad for this kick-ass cipher, but it's clearly inevitable within the context of Spike's biography, which he's retelling to Buffy. By the end of "Blackout", I didn't want Nikki to die. And this is perhaps DeCandido's greatest triumph: he reverses "Fool For Love", makes Spike a secondary character in Nikki's story rather than the other way around. In doing so, he makes us see her as something more than "Spike's victim".

Also of interest is DeCandido's characterization of Spike. The novel contains a framing sequence set in season 6, where Buffy and Spike face off against a vampire who was involved in the events of 1977. It's a bit clumsy, very clearly stapled on as an afterthought, and I get the feeling DeCandido only used it to placate purists who wouldn't touch the book unless Buffy Summers was in attendance. At any rate, as I said, there's something peculiar about the way DeCandido writes Spike; or rather, the way DeCandido writes Spike is indicative of the schism that made him such a problematic figure after season 3. Namely, there are no mitigating factors in Spike's villainy, not the slightest hint that he could ever be anything but pure evil. In the framing sequence, Spike is as much Buffy's reformed lap dog as he indeed was at that point in the series, but once we go back to 1977, we see Spike as deviant, a fiend, an enemy of the Slayer. And this is hardly an interpretation unique to DeCandido; in "Spike and Dru: Pretty Maids All In A Row" (another highly enjoyable and well-written pre-Sunnydale novel), Christopher Golden depicts Spike as a monstrous, infant-devouring demon.

And that's exactly where Marti Noxon fucked up. She saw Spike as a "bad boy" rather than a monster, and had him "tamed" by the heroine. And that created a dissonance in Spike's character arc, because his pre-series history never suggests redemption as a most remote possibility. Sure, you could make the same claim about pre-soul Angelus, but let's not forget that Spike was helping the Scoobies out three years before getting his soul back. That's the schism at the heart of Noxon's Spike: he still (proudly) lays claim to some pretty horrific acts of violence and bloodshed, but at the same time we're supposed to see some hope of his eventual turn to antihero, or even plain heroism. The villain became fetishized to the point where he became a leading character in a story that wasn't even his to begin with.

"Blackout", conversely, is not a story about Spike. It's a story about Nikki Wood, the Vampire Slayer. And you know what? It's all the more interesting for that.

Very, very, very late, because I haven't been able to access LJ since Friday. :(

Rome, Testudo et Lepus: I don't quite know what to think of Simon Woods as the new Octavian; we'll see how that turns out, I suppose. The Atia/Servilia feud hits an all-time high in visceral horror, and I like that neither woman has ever been portrayed as the "good guy" in the conflict; sure, Atia started the whole thing by breaking up Caesar and Servilia, but Servilia's really gone above and beyond appropriate actions for a scorned lover. The Timon subplot seems a bit forced, in that he seemed perfectly willing to kill Servilia back when Cleopatra blew into town, but whatever. And yes, I bawled like a two-year-old when Vorenus reunited with his family. "Rome" really knows how to hit the emotional jugular.

Heroes, Distractions: Yeah, George Takei was awesome. And Zach Quinto's Sylar? Finally scary - ever since they pulled the big reveal, he hasn't felt like a genuine threat until now. I like that Claude isn't quite the omniscient Yoda everyone expected him to be, because he's wrong about how Peter's ability works. Of course, the breaking of that cliche comes somewhat at odds with Nathan being Claire's biodad, but that twist doesn't bother me much given that, from the very first episode, we've seen the cast interacting in ways even they weren't aware of. Everyone's connected.

Veronica Mars, There's Got To Be A Morning After Pill: The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round... it's probably a bad sign when I agree with Dick Casablancas about anything, but seriously, Logan: get up, shut up, grow up.

Supernatural, Born Under A Bad Sign: If this show keeps vacillating between excellent and subpar episodes, I'm going to be seasick. Last week was dull as paste; this week? Pure awesomeness. Curiously, Jared Padalecki seems much more comfortable as a villain, exuding a subtle but tangible menace that - after two years of watching this show - I never would have expected from him. Warning lights are on, though, because Kripke said this episode was supposed to resolve some issues, and at first it seems things are moving forward with the whole "Sam's Destiny" thing, except it all turns out to be a feint. Again. For all that Kripke's saying he doesn't want this to be "X-Files" again, and he doesn't want to deny the audience answers for so long that they stop caring... well, between this and the whole bait-and-switch they pulled at the end of "Croatoan", I have to wonder.

The Dresden Files: Hmm. The first episode didn't make much of an impression on me, probably because it starts in medias res (the sequence was messed up, with the origin story airing at a later date than was intended) but also because the writing's kind of mediocre and I didn't get a good handle on any of the characters. I think I'll let this one develop some more before going back to it, nothing about it really grabbed my attention.

The Prestige: Yes, I'm late to the party as always, but WOW. On some level, this movie was practically guaranteed to please me - I like Christopher Nolan's style, I'm a fan of both Christopher Bale and Hugh Jackman, and the high concept of two magicians at war with each other is quite interesting. But to top it all off, "The Prestige" delivers a complex, multi-layered story, making use of multiple framing narratives (Borden is reading Angier's diary, which describes Angier reading Borden's diary, and there's something about that back-and-forth reflection that's so appropriate given their relationship). Nolan masterfully chops up the timeline for maximum suspense and surprise without ever going so far as to lose the viewer. In a way, the film is a magic trick in itself, with the added bonus that in the end, you learn the secret behind the trick, and you still ask yourself how they did it.

The Night Driver: A graphic novel courtesy of... well, I'm not quite sure. CinemaGraphix and Moonstone, and apparently it was written by John Cork in another medium and then adapted into comics by Christopher Mills (of the webcomic "Femme Fatale"). Anyway, this is precisely the kind of disturbing mindfuck I can really get into: questions of identity, memory, criminality, and it's all tinged with just a bit of surrealism until you suddenly understand what's going on.

Sort of a new feature I'm trying out: extra-short reviews of stuff I've seen this week.

Rome, These Being The Words of Marcus Tullius Cicero: Quite possibly the best thing currently on TV (narrowly beating out "Heroes" thanks to the copious amounts of male nudity), and this episode was no exception. Awesome blend of the political and the personal. But I miss Max Pirkis already. :(

Heroes, The Fix: I don't get why they insist on calling Peter an empath, or how Hiro got so nuts over the Magic Sword, but those are minor nitpicks and everything else is still running strong. And it's nice to see Sylar's still in the game.

Veronica Mars, Poughkeepsie, Tramps and Thieves: Oh God, please, enough with the melodrama already! How many times are Veronica and Logan going to break up this year? Don't either of them have anything better to do?

Supernatural, Touched: Meh. After last week's exciting developments, Eric Kripke wastes an hour trying to tackle The God Question. Which is pointless, since he hasn't established any concrete mythologies in the Supernaturalverse anyway. Better luck next time, I suppose.

Order of the Stick: It's been a great couple of months for OotS fans - Elan and Haley got together, the threat of Xykon is steadily growing, and this week saw Miko Miyazaki's fall from grace. That, and the subsequent smackdown, has been long overdue, and the payoff was flawless.

Friendly Hostility: In her annotations, Sandra says the point of this week's storyline (Collin had a sex dream about his straight friend Arath) was to underscore Collin's insecurities about Fox and women (because Fox has sex dreams about women all the time). I can't quite connect the dots on that one, as it seems more natural that Collin would angry because Fox doesn't care - not only is he not jealous of Arath, he regales his boyfriend with stories of his Dream Harem. Something's not right there, IMO.

Something Positive: Flashbacks are always interesting, especially the pre-Boston ones when Davan and Aubrey had this whole other group of friends. I like that Milholland doesn't drive home the fact of how doomed Scott and Rose are - we know what happens to them, but it's kind of nice to see them as they were before it all went so wrong.

So here's the thing: I'm not going to be reviewing comics for a while.

Looking back at 2006, what I'm mainly feeling is tremendous apathy. It's not that everything sucked, it's that even the successes are marred by failure. With Marvel, the post-post-Morrison revamp of the X-Men line got me interested in all three core books, but also resulted in Chris Claremont taking over "Exiles". "Planet Hulk" turned out to be a prelude to another crossover event. "Young Avengers" has disappeared. "Spider-Girl" sank into the backwaters of Clone Saga continuity. DC has fared no better: Worldstorm crashed and burned, leaving only "Gen13", "Tranquility" and "Stormwatch: PHD" (all interesting, all too new for me to decide whether I'm sticking around or not). Of all the OYL revamps, only Gail Simone's "Atom" managed to maintain some kind of appeal three months in, and even then we've only had the one arc so far and it falls into the same category as its Worldstorm counterparts.

Then there are the books that have been (and will likely remain) consistent: Brubaker's "Daredevil" and "Captain America", Vaughan's "Y: The Last Man" and "Runaways", "Fables", "Girls", etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful they're still around, but I don't have anything to say about them. They're excellent reads, but they always were (at least in terms of current runs - I refuse to vouch for pre-Brubaker Cap).

And then you have the failures. The dismal, dismal failures, with "Civil War" topping the list. But "Civil War" is only a symptom of the greater problems: incompetent writers, lazy editors, brain-dead administrators, false advertising bordering on fraud, increasing reliance on shock tactics in lieu of substance and creativity... Frustrating? Absolutely so. But it's been frustrating for just long enough now that I see little need to comment on it anymore. The mainstream is as much a barnyard target now as it was at the end of 2005, but that's not likely to change any time soon. I'm just tired of it, and I'd like to take what few series still please me and let that be that.

Of course, that doesn't mean I can't check out something like "X-Men: Dark Mirror". If Marvel makes the effort to hit the prose market, the least I can do is sample what they're offering.

The agenda behind the novel line, as it stands now, isn't immediately clear to me (aside from cashing in, of course). I'd like to think someone at Marvel recognized that comics regularly dabble in certain themes that don't get the page allocation they might otherwise merit; I can certainly see that being the case with "Dark Mirror". The high concept of body-switching has been done before, but Marjorie Liu makes a conscious decision to focus on the psychology behind that premise, the more horrific take on being trapped in someone else's body, while a stranger wears your face. It's much more nuanced than anything comics could offer, since the generic tropes of superhero fiction require that certain staples be ever-present (ie: The Fight Scene), so I'll concede that there's merit - in theory - for this sort of thing.

Sadly, Marvel makes the same mistake here that they make with their comics: they select writers that simply aren't up for the job.

I can't accuse Liu of phoning it in - it's plainly obvious that she's making every effort to convey the complicated feelings "Dark Mirror" is meant to evoke. Five X-Men wake up in a mental institution, imprisoned in human bodies (and in some cases, in bodies of the opposite gender). They're helpless, at the mercy of doctors and nurses who believe them insane, and they have no idea what happened or who might be using their powers and faces. It's a terrifying situation, but Liu can't seem to tap into that terror, that kind of raw emotion that would make the story work. It's not laziness on her part; I really do feel that she gave it her all, but the results are middling at best. This is a story about people, not powers, but Liu can't seem to access those people at all. She strips her protagonists bare, reduces them to the core of their character, but is unable to proceed from that point. In fact, there's an almost clincal detachment with regards to how Liu depicts her cast, and that's precisely the wrong way to go about it because caring about the X-Men as people, as individuals, is the only thing that would motivate anyone to keep turning the pages.

It doesn't help that the novel suffers from interchangable protagonism - that is to say, any character could have been substituted for the X-Men, and the story would remain the same. There's nothing in the novel that inherently makes it an X-Men story, no real thematic link aside from the Phoenix-ex-machina (but more on that in a moment). Again, that approach runs somewhat at odds with the directive at hand: if you're setting aside the masks and codenames, it'd probably behoove you to make sure the person underneath is defined well enough that it's their story, rather than a story in which they happen to be present.

"Dark Mirror" is also (intentionally?) vague about its chronological setting; Liu claims that she "tried to do something inside X-Men continuity, but that was rejected because the people in charge thought it would be too confusing to new readers." Hmph. Ironically, the plot's conclusion hinges on a twist no new reader could possibly decipher (the aforementioned Phoenix Force, which - let's face it - requires some basic knowledge of X-Men comics lore). Likewise, Liu doesn't do much to flesh the characters out beyond their pre-established parameters, so if you don't know these guys going in, you're not going to emerge any more enlightened by the end of it. I'll willing to shift part of the blame to the powers that be; as much as I'm an advocate of accessibility, the whole Myth of the New Reader has to stop now. Anyone approaching "X-Men" to begin with will have some elementary understanding of what lies ahead. Maybe Liu would have done better had the story been set in present continuity; as I said, there is a kind of dissonance between what she's trying to summon and what actually turns up on the page, which means she's either a very limited writer or she's doing what she can with characters she never wanted to write in the first place.

I suppose we'll never know. Good thing we have "the people in charge" looking out for our interests. Meanwhile, that's another novel down the drain. :(

During my brief introduction to Star Trek (courtesy of Tom, my Trekkie then-boyfriend), one concept that piqued my interest was the Mirror Universe. It's a theme I'm quite partial to in fiction, the notion of characters facing negative images of themselves. It's why "Future Imperfect" is one of my favorite Hulk stories. Even after I lost interest in Star Trek proper (sci-fi, in general, isn't my cup of tea), I'd tune in whenever "Deep Space Nine" aired a Mirror Universe episode. It all went spectacularly off the rails towards the end, but those first few episodes were quite good.

Over a decade later, I've stumbled across a pair of novels by Susan Wright, set in the Mirror Universe and focusing specifically on female characters, politics and intrigue. The tagline promises four powerful women vying for control of the universe; sounds good enough for a casual read, doesn't it?

Wright starts off nicely, going behind the scenes to depict the internal structures and hierarchies of the Alliance. This is something we never got to see before, as the bulk of Mirror Universe episodes tended to focus more on how characters interacted with their counterparts. "Dark Passions", by contrast, isolates the MU from any other context and asks us to interpret these characters on their own merits.

Which would be just fine, except Wright offers little in the way of exploring her cast. It's one thing to skimp on fleshing out Worf and Kira, who'd already been well-established in the TV series, but most of the story revolves around characters we'd never seen, such as Annika Hansen (better known to Voyager fans, if any exist, as Seven of Nine). And without any in-depth characterization, the novel falls flat rather quickly; after all, any novel about political manipulation requires some sort of anchor, a character who serves as the focal point. Wright offers several possibilities, but none of them are especially compelling: Kira is her usual hedonistic (to the point of idiocy, really) self, Deanna Troi's position as consort to the Alliance Regent doesn't seem to grant her much in the way of real power, B'Elanna Torres (Intendant of Sol) is built up as this huge force to be reckoned with only to fizzle out, and so on and so forth. Wright fails to take full advantage of these women, of the fact that she has carte blanche to remake popular Trek characters as she sees fit.

In fact, the novels' tagline is rather misleading: the four primary protagonists of "Dark Passions" aren't fighting each other for control of the Alliance at all. Kira's the only one with tangible ambitions; Troi just wants to build a Club Med on her homeworld, B'Elanna would like everyone to forget she's half-human, and Annika's a pawn taking orders from whichever master she's stuck with. There are so many possibilities, and Wright chooses the least interesting option each time.

Part of the problem lies with the author's tendency to describe key scenes and interactions in retrospective summary, after the events have already taken place. A character will abruptly start an internal monologue and deliver a huge chunk of exposition about events that occurred between the pages of the novel. Not only is it distracting, it shatters the pace. I'd hazard a guess that Wright was under some sort of length constraint, though neither book is much more than 200 pages. Besides, there are ways around that sort of thing, none of which manifest here.

Then there's the innuendo. The DS9 episodes were infamous for its lesbian subtexts (specifically with regards to Kira), but Wright pretty much makes all of her female leads lesbians. It's a bit monotonous by the end of the first book, especially when all these supposedly-powerful women end up using the same techniques of sapphic seduction to get what they want. I get the sense that Wright may have written "Dark Passions" as a female-centric response to that trope of "Star Trek" where the captain has to shag some alien bint in order to save the galaxy; here, women use that same power against other women for the same purpose. But it seems to be the only method of political maneuvering Wright can conceive of, and she wears it out fairly quickly.

Ultimately, the first volume doesn't live up to its potential at all; I didn't even bother with the second book.

A bit ahead of schedule, but I give you: Sententia 2.0! New look, new content, new possibilities! Let's hope the Law of Sucky Sequels won't apply. :D

Getting down to business: I tend to find bad porn somewhat amusing, so when one of my very best friends brought Stonewall and Riot to my bachelorette party... well, it was the perfect gift, really. It's more than just porn, you see. It's gay porn. Gay superhero porn. In CGI. The damned Holy Grail for reviewers everywhere, to be certain.

Now, I could take the traditional route of "Jesus bloody Christ, human bodies can't actually do that!", but the thing that got my attention - what makes this movie worth mentioning - is the fact that it's kind of funny. Not in the usual sense where you laugh at awkward sex scenes and atrocious puns and you can't help pitying the poor schmoes who got stuck with the voice-acting; there are moments of deliberate humor in this movie that work.

It's basically a send-up of Batman circa Adam West, the gimmick being that Stonewall and his wiseass partner Riot defeat supervillains by screwing them, rather than beat them into submission. So when the town's resident mad scientist is kidnapped, they "investigate" by sleeping their way through an entire rogues' gallery. Cue twosomes, threesomes, foursomes and a very weird two-man body-job on a giant dressed like Henry VIII.

Now, I'd never accuse a porno of being subtle; the bad guys include Doctor Probe (who obviously drives a giant phallus-shaped robot) and Straight Boy, whose power involves switching sexual orientations when he's really drunk. But, from time to time, creator Joe Philips surprises me by pulling off a successful gag. For example, in one scene, Stonewall and Riot have to suit up and promptly spin in clockwise circles, only to emerge dressed as Wonder Woman and Artemis - at which point they remember they're supposed to spin counter-clockwise. Sure, it's silly, but this is hardly a film to be taken seriously... I mean, it includes a five-minute origin story presented as a musical number by a Joker analog who calls himself the French Tickler. Garth Ennis is probably sitting at a bar somewhere, wishing he'd come up with that one.

I don't think it's particularly erotic, though. Campy as hell, and rather like something Chuck Austen would've written if he had an inkling of comical talent, but I have a hard time imagining anyone would genuinely get off on it. Still, it got quite a few giggles out of me and my girlfriends, so I suppose it's not a complete waste of time. :)

Assorted season's greetings, one and all! This is Diana Kingston-Gabai, reporting live from the trenches of Wedded Bliss. Let me tell you, boys and girls - it ain't that different from Non-Wedded Bliss. :)

Now that I have some free time on my hands, and with the upcoming holidays setting all my current TV shows on hiatus, I figured this was a perfect opportunity to look back on "Veronica Mars", "Drawn Together", "Supernatural" and "Heroes". How are these series faring at the halfway mark?

I've gone a bit sour on Veronica Mars; while the post-Season 2 restructuring was a bold move, the first arc of S3 - Veronica vs. the Hearst Rapist - hasn't quite worked out. Leaving aside the somewhat-choppy pace of the big mystery, Veronica's habit of throwing about random accusations rather than engage in any real detective work, and the many many plotholes, there's been remarkably minimal characterization so far - half the cast members featured in the credits sequence were invisible. Nothing came of Dick's breakdown in the premiere; Mac and Weevil disappeared for long stretches of time; Wallace's screen time seems to decrease every season; and while newbies Parker and Piz had their moments, they didn't emerge as fully-rounded characters. That's a pretty big change from prior seasons - and not in the beneficial way Rob Thomas expected. When a recurring guest star like Ed Begley appears more often and garners more sympathy than veteran cast members, you've got a problem.

In a recent interview, Thomas evaluates the first season and states that a big part of its strength came from the fact that everyone was connected to Lilly Kane in some way. Those bonds let to very dramatic and emotionally intense moments, especially when smaller mysteries Veronica worked on led to another puzzle piece being unveiled, but it was a one-time deal - the Bus Mystery of season 2 failed to evoke that power because none of the established characters were really affected (except Meg, who'd become a bit of a bitch anyway). To make things worse, characters were gradually drawn into their own isolated subplots: Logan and Weevil with the Fitzpatricks, Duncan had Baby Lilly, Wallace met his father... and these events had no common link, nothing tying them into the larger storyline. By the third season, there's practically no cohesion left.

With some degree of discomfort, I also have to note that the show's been indulging its WB roots a bit too often lately. I'm referring to the Logan/Veronica relationship, which was subjected to a frankly ludicrous amount of melodramatic stress over the past nine episodes. To be fair, that's mostly due to plot compression, but looking back over past seasons, the writers don't seem to know how to approach Logan and Veronica as a couple. She tends to end up with him by default, and then they start going back and forth on an almost-daily basis. It wasn't so bad the first time around, as the relationship was still new and awkward enough to make instability seem credible; three years in, it's old and tired and I just don't believe it anymore, and I can't get away from it either because Logan's the only other character who has significant screen time.

The resolution of the Hearst Rapist arc was unsatisfactory, and this is actually something that's plagued the series since its inception. The basic contradiction at the heart of the show is this: Veronica is put across as a very intelligent and clever girl, someone with a gift for deductive thinking, but to sustain a season-long or arc-long mystery, she has to be clueless until the very end. What's emerged as a result is a pattern where Veronica makes stupid mistakes (she never thought to ask if Mercer's show was taped?), stumbles across that one crucial fact that comes out of nowhere (like the Aaron/Lilly sex tape of S1), figures it all out and gets victimized for ten or fifteen minutes until someone else bails her out. It's nice to see a vulnerable, fallible protagonist, but having her get kicked around for three seasons by a person no one even thought to suspect is a bit much.

Again, though, the creators are due credit for being open to change: rumor has it that after the next arc-long mystery, Thomas and company may choose to end the third season with a series of standalone tales. It'd make for a nice change of pace, and I'd certainly be glad to see things end on a high note for once.

Stunt Casting Count: There was a lot of that considering we're only nine episodes in. Despite my initial misgivings, Ed Begley turned out to do rather well as Cyrus O'Dell. Bringing in Laura San Giacomo (former co-star of Enrico Colantoni) as Keith's love interest was a very clever way of inducing chemistry between the characters. I don't watch "Gilmore Girls", so I suppose the Meeting of the Logans via Matt Czuchry was wasted on me. Richard Grieco as a washed-up voice actor... okay, that's just plain mean, but it's not like I can fault them for being inaccurate. As for Patty Hearst, well, the less said about that one, the better.

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Supernatural has earned itself a bit of a backhanded compliment: I'm on pins and needles for the next episode, but only because I can't shake my conviction that the show's going to jump the shark by revealing that Sam isn't Dean's brother after all. I'd like to believe TV has learned from its past mistakes, but the cynic in me tends to doubt it.

And it'd be a shame, because while the series isn't breaking any ground or even excelling at what it does, it's still perfectly competent and servicable, despite an unusually high amount of angsty schmaltz - Dean, in particular, has developed an irritating tic of gradually approaching a meltdown only to back off at the last second. I suppose that, were I less charitable towarsd the cute boys, I'd praise the writers for recognizing that Jensen Ackles could never pull off that kind of deep emotion, so it's just as well... but then, you have to wonder why they insist on making the same point over and over again. With Sam repositioned as Dean's impromptu psychotherapist, the show seems to have become All About Dean's Daddy Issues. Good for three episodes, intolerable after nine. Sam's own development has ground to a halt, partly due to Jared Padalecki breaking his wrist in the fourth episode and partly because you can't very well have both protagonists falling apart simultaneously.

The supernatural element remains strong, though I seem to have misread where the show was going with regards to the Winchesters' nemesis. When I first evaluated the show, I was anticipating a "Big Bad" formula similar to the series' esteemed ancestor, which would require the Yellow-Eyed Demon to meet its end sooner rather than later. But it's looking more and more like the Demon is in fact the ultimate antagonist of "Supernatural", and it won't be going down until Eric Kripke's ready to end the show. I'm ambivalent about this: there's a reason that sort of thing went out of style, as - for the sake of drama if nothing else - you'd have to have your protagonists get close to defeating their enemy without actually doing any damage (those poor D&D kids never got the drop on Venger, did they?). On the other hand, this does give Kripke space to position the Demon as a mastermind-type and build up its plans over several seasons. It just might work, provided they don't overextend it.

Stunt Casting Count: Linda Blair as ghost-plagued cop Diana Ballard? Surprisingly cool and un-flinch-worthy (see above, re: Patty Hearst). Amber Benson as vampire queen Lenore? I'd been dying to see her play a villainess since her days as Tara Maclay on "Buffy" ("Conversations With Dead People" is still a sore spot for me), and she didn't disappoint. I don't know if Alona Tal and Samantha Ferris qualify, seeing as how there seems to be more to their roles than the actors attached to them (how much more is anyone's guest), but I'll go ahead and list them for now.

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I'll preface any comment on Heroes by saying, flat-out, that I'm absolutely in love with this show. It's surpassed my every expectation, met every standard I held it to. It's provided a rich tapestry of interesting characters, meticulously structured plots, captivating action, cliffhangers worthy of Brian Vaughan, and - perhaps most importantly - a straight take on the subject matter. Postmodernity tends to bring out what I call Yellow Spandex Syndrome; even respectful adaptations such as Singer's "X-Men" films will occasionally poke fun at comics. I can understand that, considering the inherent silliness comics themselves indulge in far too often, but speaking as a woman who does read comics, and who wants to see them given more legitimacy, it's somewhat gratifying to see the notion of superpowers played at face value. Nobody has time for costumes and codenames, it's the people and the powers that matter. Even a character like Hiro, the consummate fanboy, is treated with respect. Sure, we could laugh at the fact that he salutes people with that Star Trek "V" hand gesture, but the script - and Masi Oka - make it impossible for us to be condescending about it. This is what the superhero genre should be (and never is) in the 21st century.

I find I'm even more enamored with something like "Heroes" or "The Incredibles", as examples of original superhero material, than even the best cinematic adaptation by Marvel or DC. Sure, you could make the argument that neither of the above is really original: the latter is clearly a Fantastic Four pastiche while the former has a close relationship to several Marvel properties, particularly X-Men. But solely in terms of execution, there's a freshness here that I can't seem to find in the mainstream.

The structure of the series bears further commentary: it's a lot neater and more organized than I'd thought possible. I honestly expected "Save The Cheerleader" to last throughout the season, but it's become clear that the series has in fact adopted an arc-like approach, similar perhaps to Grant Morrison's "New X-Men" in that the storylines are clearly defined and separate, yet they interlock to tell one epic story. Who knew having Jeph Loeb as a consultant could actually improve a series?

Pace is also something that's been maintained rather well throughout the eleven episodes aired thus far. What they've done is stagger the rate of progress for each storyline; Niki's arc, and Matt's, took a while to jump-start, but while they were "on hold" (so to speak), Peter was discovering his abilities and Claire was coping with her gift and Hiro was off to save the world, while Sylar lurked in the shadows. And when Niki got her moment in the spotlight, Peter and Isaac spent an entire episode trying to figure out which cheerleader they're meant to save. It's actually a very efficient technique, and this is where "Lost" went wrong: by having the numerous plotlines move at different speeds, they've assured that something is always happening, rather than sticking us in one point in time or with one character (like the second season spending its first three episodes repeating the same chain of events from different perspectives, with everything else put on hold).

The only character/plot who seems to have fallen through the cracks is Mohinder, and my guess would be that plans for him changed midway through because his arc has both slowed to a crawl and he's been disconnected from the rest of the cast. I'd be a little more irate about it were it not for the fact that Peter's a more than adequate substitute, in terms of functioning as protagonist/primary focalizer.

What can I say? If, when I first heard of "Heroes", the spectre of "Lost" loomed over my head, I now feel confident enough to declare this the Anti-Lost. Found, if you will. I suppose there's room still for it to all go horribly wrong, but based on the episodes that have aired so far, I'm going to predict a very strong opening season for this show.

Stunt Casting Count: None, really. The show's got a few recognizable faces like Ali Larter, Milo Ventimiglia and Greg Grunberg, but they're all primary cast members. There haven't been any specific guest stars who earned media attention, though we've got George Takei coming up and that's going to be all kinds of awesome.

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It's funny how quickly humor can turn; at one time, I would've put Drawn Together down as one of the funniest shows I'd ever seen, but the third season hasn't done much for me so far.

It's partly because - for reasons I couldn't begin to fathom - they've dropped the Reality TV angle, opting instead for increasingly random subject matter. The last episode before the break featured a "Home Alone" sketch, of all things. In 2006? Really? I think not. That's kind of a problem, because as I mentioned before, it's the conceit of having all these mismatched characters acting like housemates on "The Real World" that generated so much comedy. It's not as funny when they're not competing in ridiculous contests or parodying certain tropes of reality TV ("the twist", stereotypes coming to light, producers intervening, etc.).

I'll probably be dropping this series after the third season; it depends on whether they'll bounce back after the break. It could just be a case of burn-out on the part of the writers.

Stunt Casting Count: None that I could tell.

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And that wraps up my mid-season review! Hope you enjoyed it. :)

Coming in mid-January: Sententia gets relaunched! I've got some new (and old) TV shows saved up, along with BOOKS (yes, prose novels exist! And I've read some!) and at least one gay porno (because my bachelorette party just wouldn't have been the same without the dubious pleasure of "Stonewall and Riot"). Until then, happy holidays!

A word of warning: I believe my overwhelmingly positive response to this game may be influenced by the nostalgia it invokes (which affects me as someone who'd played through the series to that point) and by what I call the Manna Effect - after two "okay" games and an abysmally awkward third, anything more than halfway competent is bound to look like a Godsend by comparison. Objectively speaking, though, I have no doubt that "Phantasy Star IV" is a substantial improvement over its predecessors, and is certainly the best of the four.

Don't let the title fool you; this is actually a sequel to the second game, not the third. In fact, looking back on "Phantasy Star" as a whole, PS3 really comes off as the "Freddy's Revenge" of the series - the black sheep that could be erased from the canon altogether without making any difference. But in any event, we're back in the Algol star system, a thousand years after Rolf Landale and his friends destroyed Mother Brain. In the interrim, civilization has collapsed and everything has changed. It's the same trick PS2 used to distance itself from the first game while maintaining basic continuity: since we don't get to witness the changes as they occur, we're thrust into unfamiliar territory once more even though it's the same world.

Chronologically, we've reached the early '90s here (1993 to be exact), and this is when RPGs took a turn for the better on the creative level. PS4 uses a number of interesting narrative techniques, such as a telescoping plot and a false protagonist, and it features a cast of distinct characters with individualized personalities. Sure, none of them are particularly complex, but they don't need to be - it's enough that we can see them as people rather than stick figures, and watch them interact with each other and the world around them. Diversity is also another big plus: at various points, your party will include a Dezolian priest, a Motavian axe-warrior, a Numan, two Espers (a male sorcerer and a female warrior) and a pair of androids. Easily the most varied bunch ever seen in a "Phantasy Star" game, leaning more towards the "band of misfits" archetype than homogenous adventurers.

The story begins with renowned huntress Alys Brangwin and her 16-year-old protege Chaz Ashley. On a routine assignment, the two accidentally stumble upon an impending planetary crisis; as their journey progresses and they gather up allies, the cause of Motavia's troubles seems to be Zio, a psychotic warlock out to destroy the world. But Zio is only the puppet of a darker power, concealed behind many masks and guises. The party must ultimately face a cosmic entity and end the cycle of violence and destruction that has plagued Algol for so long.

It's the very definition of the telescopic plot - starting small and local, and growing in scale with every plot twist until it ends on a global/galactic level. The key to success is having us get invested in each stage of the unfolding tale, and "Phantasy Star IV" achieves this largely through the likeable characters and their subplots. I think what makes them so compelling, despite a seeming lack of complexity, is the fact that most of them reflect basic human concerns: Gryz wants revenge but finds no reason to continue with the team once he gets it, Raja just wants to have fun, Kyra's out to prove herself to her peers, Rika's determined to test her lab-learned knowledge against life experience... and, of course, Chaz is forced to grow up and stand on his own. In fact, Chaz really surprises me towards the end of the game: when he's told of the cosmic battle between Light and Darkness, and is tasked to destroy the Darkness, Chaz refuses - not out of fear or an ulterior motive, but because following the commands of a disinterested metaphysical entity doesn't make him any different from Zio and Dark Force. It's a surprisingly profound point, worthy of the most sophisticated modern RPG.

While we're on the topic of characters, I have to give one last round of cookies to Sega; whatever problems I may have had with the "Phantasy Star" games, there's no question that I appreciate their concentrated contribution of strong female protagonists to the RPG genre. The fact that Alys Brangwin is a well-rounded, interesting figure in her own right is even more commendable.

The graphics are spectacular by "Phantasy Star" standards, showing full animations for spells and physical attacks while using illustrated manga-esque panels to enhance cutscenes. Everything is so much more dynamic here; this is the only game in the series where I didn't feel the need to disable random encounters, because they were genuinely fun to watch. Fun to play as well, which is another important note: after three wildly erratic games, "Phantasy Star IV" finally achieves the perfect balance of encounter frequency and difficulty. With the added incentive of macros (allowing the characters to execute pre-programmed attack sequences) and combination-attacks (where two or more party members combine their abilities to create more devastating techniques), you'll probably spend most of the game wanting to get into fights. The Hunters' Guild side-quests are also worth mentioning: during certain lulls in the quest, you can undertake some optional missions for Alys' and Chaz's guild, running the gamut from rescuing a dog to halting an invasion of cyborgs. Most of them are pretty fun, and you can get plenty of EXP and money per mission; again, it's the sort of level-building side-quest that's typical of modern RPGs, and "Phantasy Star IV" does it just as well as its contemporaries.

Nostalgia is a big part of PS4's emotional payload - and it's the little things that have the most power. Stepping into the Bio-Plant and being greeted by PS1's Tower theme; Rika being the perfected version of Nei; the wreckage of the worldship; Lashiec and Daughter representing the villains of the past; meeting Myau and Lutz; the statue of Alis in Termi (which provides the last frame of the finale); and, of course, the Elsydeon scene, where Chaz meets the heroes who came before him. There are also things the game doesn't explicitly spell out: for example, towards the end of the game you're sent to find the Aeroprism, which Lutz concealed in the Soldiers' Temple. Except he'd given it to Rolf before the Noah mission, which means someone made it back alive from the end of PS2 after all.

Of course, most of this won't mean anything to players who haven't gone through the first two games at the very least, which suggests to me that PS4 was primarily targeted at the pre-existing fanbase, offering as much closure and continuity as possible. It's a nice gesture, and one that serves to wrap up the "Phantasy Star" series at its peak.

On an unrelated note: this was my last review for the next few months, as "Sententia" goes on hiatus while I get married and make some life changes. I'll probably be incommunicado until March, but comments are welcome as always. :)

A bit late, because I've been waiting until all my marked series had at least one new episode out.

Veronica Mars: It's good to know Rob Thomas is so dependable when it comes to strong season premieres. For the third time in a row, "Veronica Mars" begins with a captivating episode that hits all the right marks: the teaser (re)introduces our titular protagonist and lets her demonstrate her sharp wit and formidable detective skills, and then we segue right into a fantastically well-written blend of mystery, snark and good old-fashioned drama. As always, Kristen Bell, Jason Dohring, Enrico Colantoni and Ryan Hansen deliver stellar performances, but special finger-snaps go to Tina Majorino and Chris Powell. The former rocked the hell out of the long-awaited Dick/Mac face-off without saying much of anything, and the latter portrayed newcomer Piz so adorably that my Maggie Beckett Syndrome didn't flare up at all ("Sliders" fans will peg the reference, I'm sure).

One quality that makes "Veronica Mars" stand out from its contemporaries is the fact that its creators learn from their mistakes. The "season-long mystery" format worked perfectly well in the first season, and not so well in the second - rather than risk failure again, the writers made the admirably bold decision to restructure the series as a sequence of smaller, more compact story arcs/mysteries. Also, last season saw the introduction of Jackie Cook, an obnoxious twit who ended up being so irrelevant I had to look up TWoP recaps just to remember her name. This time, Piz and Parker are presented as likeable and sympathetic from the moment we meet them. It's preferable to me wishing I could gnaw Tessa Jackson's face off week after week.

A minor complaint: I'm sick to death of the Fitzpatrick storyline. On the other hand, if this show were perfect it'd probably be cancelled by now, so I'll endure it. :)

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Heroes: I'm a bit anxious here. Quite frankly, "Heroes" seems to be a very ambitious and interesting project, and I enjoyed the first two episodes very much... but I can't help thinking about the last ambitious and interesting project I liked. We all know how "Lost" turned out.

On the other hand, the distinct lack of J.J. is a big advantage, so who knows? I love what I've seen so far: an ecclectic mix of characters and powers, solid acting, inventive criss-crossing of subplots... and Santa, if you're listening, I want a talking Hiro doll for Christmas. :)

Bottom line: Cautiously high hopes. Let's wait and see what happens.

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Smallville: Good lord, is this still running?! Times like this I wish I knew a "Summon Doomsday" spell. Oh, Dan Jurgens, if only you worked in TV and hadn't spent your Superman-killing mojo already...

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Supernatural: Hmm. Okay, I think the premiere should have served as last season's finale, because it's all about the loose threads: the Colt of Contrivance, the John/Sam feud, and Dean's complicated feelings about death all serve to underscore and complete plot points raised in the first season. Things end in this episode, the protagonists are irrevocably changed, and that emotional climax would have made an excellent pre-summer farewell. As it stands, there's no time to really process what's happened: the first episode wraps things up and a week later, we get new beginnings, new recurring characters and a new perspective in the wake of tragedy.

I have to admit my sharkey-sense was tingling after the premiere - it occured to me that they might be setting up a "Sam isn't really Dean's brother" twist. Which is just dreadful. Granted, there's nothing to substantiate my faint hunch besides John knowing "the truth about Sam" and refusing to tell him; that just sends me shrieking into Soap Opera Land. Still, I'm reasonably convinced Eric Kripke and friends can do better than that, so I'm probably way off-base.

In any case, Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki are still devilishly pretty, and I remain fond of their characters, and Alona Tal's finally bringing some estrogen into the mix. I doubt anything short of ixnaying the aternalsfray will have me ditching "Supernatural" anytime soon.

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Nip/Tuck: Every few months, I tune in and try to determine whether Christian and Sean have fucked yet. Sadly, that's about the only thing about "Nip/Tuck" that has me even mildly curious - sure, Julian McMahon spends a lot of time naked, but even his extreme rowr-ness can't get me to watch this crap on a regular basis.

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Drawn Together: A recent discovery, though it's been around for a while. My boyfriend hates it with a fiery passion, but I just can't get enough of it! :) I love the central conceit - an animated parody of a reality TV show, complete with confessionals and the occasional challenge. I'm equally impressed by the many targets "Drawn Together" hits simultaneously: reality TV, superheroes, Pokemon-style anime, faded sex symbols, Hanna Barbera cartoons and effeminate video game characters (because you just know Mark Foley whacks off to pictures of Link from "The Legend of Zelda").

Sure, the humor can get very crass and revolting (especially when Spanky Ham is involved), and in that respect it's not dissimilar to "South Park". But the kids from "South Park" aren't particularly amusing - the humor derives from relatively normal kids in bizarre and abnormal situations. By contrast, the cast of "Drawn Together" is made up of some very hilarious analogues that have clearly been given some thought: Clara, for example, is a typical Disney Princess... except she's also a Christian fanatic and an ignorant racist, because of the environment in which she grew up (oh, and an evil witch turned her vagina into a tentacle monster). Captain Hero is strongly reminiscient of the Timm/Dini design for Superman, except he's a walking bundle of neuroses, masochistic tendencies and general idiocy. It's all very entertaining.

What's more, I was genuinely surprised by the degree of self-awareness: lesser writers would be content to trot out the stereotypes and walk away, but when Clara is sent out to stop a Jew from poisoning the well, she finds he's just tossing in water purification tablets. Critics who vilify the series for its offensive material miss the point - it's the Archie Bunker paradigm, we're supposed to ridicule the stereotypes themselves rather than the minorities they represent.

And being really, really funny certainly helps. :)

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Lost: Yeah, right. Like I'd put myself through that again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, you get a dynamite suppository.