Television

Game of Thrones – Winter Is Coming

I’m not sure how objective about Game of Thrones I can really be,
having read and loved the four currently-released books in the series
that the show is based on. I can only promise that I will try to look at
from the perspective of both a fan and someone who hasn’t read a word,
and tell you what I think. Based on last night’s premiere, we learned a
few things. The show will look amazing, it won’t hold back on the
story’s darker content, and so far they’ve put together a pretty
outstanding cast to portray the large number of significant characters. I
had a few issues with the first episode, but they’re the sorts of
qualms that could easily be smoothed over with time.

Smallville – Kent

After
ten years of Smallville, this show still has the uncanny ability to
switch from one week to the next from a perfect episode to the most
trying, which is starting to try my patience You must admit ten years is
a long time and being faithful to Superman has its limits. A few
minutes into episodes I usually notice a recurrent Smallville theme that
is likely to annoy me for most of the hour. In the case of Kent,
my mind actually came up with two: “excessive hero-worship” and
“dragged-out impostor situation”, and I couldn’t have been more wrong. I
should have remembered that this final season of Smallville has been
until now one of my favorites, so except for one or maybe two tiny
instances, this episode was hero-worship free and they wasted no time in
dealing with the impostor.

Fringe – Lysergic Acid Diethylamide

Since
the beginning of this season of Fringe Olivia has become (in both
universes) even more central to the story than she was before. Despite
the revelations surrounding Peter, she has remained the emotional
epicenter and has been consistently used to move the story forward in
both universes – though arguably a bit more over-here. This is why
following William Bell’s “soul transference” I felt episodes over-here
had to be either strong stand-alone cases or cases drawing heavily on
some aspects of the doomsday arc, in order to play down the absence of
Olivia by relying on William Bell and Peter. The writers seem to have
taken the stand-alone route. Stowaway, the previous episode set
over-here succeeded with a tragic and beautiful story, this week’s
episode of Fringe though good wasn’t quite as impressive.

Watch Toriko Online For Free

Toei Animation Inc. and FUNimation Entertainment will stream the official English-subtitled episodes of “Toriko”, an action/adventure anime series for teen audiences. Starting Thursday, April 14^th 6:00 p.m. PST, four days after the Japanese broadcast, each episode will be available on www.hulu.com as well as www.funimation.com/video . A new episode will be rolled out weekly as “Toriko” continues its Japanese television run. “Toriko” is an anime series based on the popular manga written by Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro and published in Weekly Shonen Jump. Toriko is a legendary gastronomic hero chasing rare ingredients across the world to realize his dream: complete the ultimate full-course menu.

The Enduring Appeal of Kings & Queens

With the premieres of “Camelot” and “Game Of Thrones” Starz and HBO are revisiting the classic tale of monarchs fighting to establish or maintain their supremacy over kingdoms. With these shows, the networks are distilling a whiff of the perennial theme of Kings and Queens embodying the best and the worst in mankind. That second reading made me wonder what is it with royalty that makes its members the protagonists of choice for the most formidable epics. In short, what explains the enduring appeal of stories of kings and queens.

Stories about kings and queens are probably as old as storytelling. The Epic of Gilgamesh (2,150 to 1,100 BCE) is arguably the oldest written story on Earth and its main protagonist, Gilgamesh, is a king. He is not an exemplary king though and following a chain of events, sets out on an unsuccessful quest for immortality that instead teaches him how to live and cherish what he has.

30 Rock – I Heart Connecticut

This has been a very inconsistent season for 30 Rock; there have been plenty of great episodes, like the reality parody “Queen of Jordan”, but also many mediocre ones as well.  30 Rock is still one of the best comedies out there, even when it has a subpar show like this week.  As always, there are lots of isolated funny moments, and witty lines, but the episode doesn’t have much to offer outside of the occasional random comedy spike.

The Office – Training Day

Last night’s episode of The Office had something fans have been
anticipating for a long time – the arrival of Will Ferrell on the show,
which is somehow the first time he has acted with Steve Carell since Anchorman,
a landmark film in both their careers. Ferrell arrives as Deangelo
Vickers, Michael’s replacement as manager of Dunder Mifflin in Scranton,
and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the character. Not because I
don’t like Ferrell, I think he’s still one of the most consistently
funny leading men working right now. He just usually has a type, and I
really like the way Vickers doesn’t quite play to that type.