THE COMPANY SEASON 2 - THE REVIEW

First things first, scores out of ten for each episode, from worst to best:

2x09 - The Biggest Mistake - 6.5 tubes of red lipstick
2x17 - Vi Of The Future - 7.0 flapping German flags
2x04 - Open House - 7.5 tangled Barbie dolls
2x21 - Backstabbing - 7.5 graduation certificates
2x15 - Life Of The Party - 8.0 tanned, athletic, girly-named fish
2x13 - The Breakdown - 8.5 beetroot fishes
2x01 - Grave - 8.5 hot mentors in towels
2x20 - Disconnect - 8.5 fired housekeepers
2x16 - Curiouser And Curiouser - 8.5 omnipresent tortoises
2x07 - Spin-Off Material (Part 2) - 8.5 empty beer bottles
2x03 - Roses Are Red... - 8.5 broken fairy castles
2x05 - Little Miss Lovely - 9.0 cross-dressing cops
2x19 - Morality - 9.0 troublesome seatbelts
2x02 - The Exorcism Of Violet Morgan - 9.0 paper lanterns
2x22 - Lies Are Lies - 9.0 shapeshifting saplings
2x12 - If You Go Into The Woods Today - 9.0 signal fires
2x08 - Drive - 9.0 bribing jailbird posters
2x14 - The Day That I Died - 9.0 stages of grief
2x06 - Spin-Off Material (Part 1) - 9.5 empty trolley docks
2x10 - Saving Benson - 9.5 pairs of bowling shoes
2x18 - Stitch - 9.5 homemade formal dresses
2x11 - The Newbie - 10.0 cinnamon rolls
Season Average: 8.59 Bacon And Egg McGuffins

Remember how in last season's review I said I didn't know how to criticise something as good as it was? Well, this season was even better. I even almost knocked the Earth out of its usual orbit (which is around my own ego, apparently) by giving a perfect ten! (And again, two of the three 9.5's would have been tens as well, if I didn't have this editor's eye for SPAG haggery.)

So many shocking twists this season. Shane getting Signs and visiting the Company? Doc is Crenshaw? The Breakers actually work together with the Fixers sometimes? Benson's fired? Kou's dead? Shane's turning into an adorable monogamous whore? Niko's dead? Bianca is a Breaker? Diana is the mole? Peter somehow got past the memory ray and realised his book was real? All awesome. I think that out of all of them, the only one I guessed was the Bianca one, what with her at the bus crash site without a single scratch, but she died later on.

I think, though, that if I had to find one problem with the season, it's that it went for long stretches without updating us on [insert storyline here]. Yeah, Peter's book was there throughout the season, but the season basically dropped the Doc storyline from a couple of episodes after he was revealed as Crenshaw until right at the end, we didn't really have any huge Morgan family stories in between 2x02's secret birthday party and 2x21's "Penny graduates! Squee!" storyline, and we went pretty much without the dual Shane's band/Jimmy and Tabitha stories for the entire second half of the season. It's great that we got more development with the Company personnel in exchange, and that we got to see Vi having some sort of romantic life, but I would have liked it to be a bit more... even, you know? But then again, judging by popular opinion, I find Erin less objectionable than most, and the Breakers more objectionable than most, so... whatever that's supposed to mean about my own lack of sanity.

Usually, I'm the sort of person who would pick a favourite character after a couple of episodes, read all their storylines ahead of time for no reason (see also: Gabe in Pathways; Arc in Desperate Screenwriters, Mike in Hell's Gate), and then get disillusioned with the entire concept, but with this show it's impossible to pick a favourite, because everyone is seventeen kinds of kickass, and it's making it a very enjoyable show. (Hurrah for enjoyment, woo!)

There are so many things I'm speculating about for Season 3, it's not even funny. Is there some sort of unknown connection linking Vi and Kieran, considering how often they've wound up together? Would it be a Fixer or a Breaker responsible for maintaining the connection? Is there a third branch for dealing with these sort of things? Will the growing dissatisfaction at the Breakers (certainly with Roxy, Nathan and Bianca, it seems like there may be others as well) result in people defecting to becoming Fixers? We've already gotten Bianca and Marcus Breaker-napped, surely that could go two ways? In other news, why were the scenes we were shown in Bianca's Memory Recovery Centre trip ones that never actually happened? If Bianca was meant to take Vi's place as a Fixer, does that mean Vi is supposed to still be alive? If not, how would she have died? Would Shane have still found out about the Company? Will Erin find his sister? Is it possible, given Drive's trip to Melbourne and Vi Of The Future's fly-by-nacht visit to Germany, for Fixers and/or Breakers to be given assignments that would normally be handled by other regional offices? What would the circumstances be? Why am I overthinking a show this much?

God, I'm this show's bitch. [God: "Shoutout!"]

THE COMPANY SEASON 1 - THE REVIEW

First things first, scores out of ten for each episode, in ascending order:

1x06 - Love Me, Leave Me - 7.0 impenetrable bra-straps
1x09 - Paperwork Junkie - 8.0 changeroom make-out sessions
1x12 - Loose Lips Sink Ships - 8.0 non-sexual sleepovers
1x11 - What A Friend's For - 8.0 crossbone-emblazoned picks
1x02 - I Liked You A Whole Lot Better When You Were Dead - 8.0 still-wrapped lollipops
1x03 - I Was A Teenage Headline - 8.0 slanderous high-school newspaper articles
1x07 - Best Day Ever - 8.0 wide sombreros
1x04 - Inaction Reaction - 8.5 Disney Princess lunchboxes
1x01 - Connect - 9.0 vampire toys
1x08 - All In The Details - 9.0 rhetorical questions
1x13 - Employee Of The Month - 9.0 uninformed Prime Ministers
1x05 - Talk - 9.5 forged parental signatures
1x10 - Last Stop Sanity - 9.5 pairs of magic scissors
Season 1 Average: 8.42 Bacon And Egg McGuffins

I literally have no idea where to begin tearing shreds into this. It's just impossible. I'm, like, the most negative, nitpicky person this side of a talent show judge, and even I was blown away by the quality of this season. If you had some sort of machine that made pure awesomeness tangible, this is what it would come out as. Probably with a little green ribbon wrapped around it or something.

Seriously, I am pretty much the last person on the planet who would give out a perfect ten for something, and I came damn close a few times during the season -- the two 9.5 grades would both have been 10.0's, were it not for a tiny SPAG error. I think one of the 9.0's would have been close too, if there wasn't... a couple I'm forgetting about right now that's probably obvious. Damn sleep deprivation. (Vi, honey, I know exactly how you feel. Apparently, reuniting families and discovering cheating parents is much more similar to mocking reality TV than I think any of us -- me incuded -- realised.)

The biggest strength this show has, I think, is that it doesn't stick to anything resembling a format. Every episode is something completely different from what's come before, even though the characters and settings may be similar, and it's very refreshing to have something like that with the endless slew of cop shows and fly-on-the-wall sitcoms/documentaries on Actual TV at the moment. Love. It.

You know, I looked at the cast pages before I started reading, and unless there's someone I'm forgetting (in which case I blame Tiger Woods, because who hasn't recently?), I don't think I've ever actually watched any of these people in any of their past works. But the characters were so vivid and distinct that I had no problems at all identifying them after the first episode. It's so unusual, at least to the relatively-unread me, to be able to picture characters so well and also to have a plot, that I have almost literally no idea how you managed to get both done in... what was it, sixty pages? Amazing.

In short: What everyone else has been saying for years. Can't wait to find out who this Crenshaw person is. (This is me, trying to find time to simultaneously read season two and mentally undress Andrew Friar.)

NIGHT STALKER SEASON 1.5 - THE REVIEW

Okay. So. Let's see. Hmm. How else can I stall writing this? (Yeah, I know. Story of my life.) I can't stall anymore? Fine. First things first, scores out of ten for each episode:

1.5x01 - Paradigm - James Jordan - 6.0
1.5x02 - Traffic - Jordan - 7.0
1.5x03 - First Sight - Lee A. Chrimes - 7.5
1.5x04 - Through A Glass, Darkly - Dino Leone - 8.0
1.5x05 - House of Kolchak - Chrimes, Chris Haigh, Jordan, Angelo Shrine - 7.5
1.5x06 - Progeny - Jordan - 7.0
1.5x07 - Prodigy - Jordan - 6.5
1.5x08 - The Afflicted - Haigh - 5.0
1.5x09 - Trinity - Alden C. Caele - 7.0
1.5x10 - What Is Lost - Jordan - 6.0
Season 1.5 Average: 6.75

I'm probably one of the more negative reviewers out there (here, I sense showrunner James Jordan is firing up the Gee-Ya-Think-Inator), so on a whole, that isn't a bad final mark. Really.

For all the mythologising of the episode as one of the Greatest VS Scripts Ever In The History Of VS Ever!!1!1!, I was pretty underwhelmed by House of Kolchak. To me, at least, there just didn't appear to be anything too special about it, beyond the episode structure. Sure, the stories were told well, and the structure was a departure from the usual, but... it just doesn't live up to the hype, in my opinion.

JJ and I had a discussion at the show's forum after I reviewed the first episode, in which the basic conclusion was that I'm the sort of guy who's probably not going to enjoy the episodes dealing with the ongoing story arcs as much as the standalone episodes, and... yeah, that seems about right. Four of the five lowest-scoring episodes this season were the four mytharc episodes. The irony, of course, is that the lowest scoring episode of all ten wasn't.

So, why did that episode (The Afflicted) score so low? I think the combination of it being a fairly stock-standard vampire story, and the fact that it was even more abundantly clear than usual that none of our lead characters were actually going to be harmed by Marissa sort of made it drag along. I did sort of like the basic idea of using the AIDS virus in such a disturbing manner, though -- it's the same sort of shock tactics that resulted in the success of the Grim Reaper advertising campaign, and it works. Not as well as that campaign, mind you, but it does decently enough to stop the episode from being a complete shemozzle.

One of the biggest problems this season had, in addition to having to clearly be in keeping with the format of the original cancelled TV series (and, by extension, having to explain and continue the mytharc of a show pretty much nobody watched), is that many of the episodes were treading in territory The X-Files had already cocked a leg over. If it was just a couple of episodes, I'd be more forgiving -- especially given that the shows are interconnected in their development -- but most if not all of the episodes felt like they were regurgitating plot points from somewhere during the run. Looking ahead, the show has really got to move away from The X-Files in its second season in order to stand on its own two feet the way it should.

As a whole, though, it's a decent season with a fair but recoupable amount of wasted potential. Let's hope Season 2 is better.

Night Stalker 1.5x03 First Sight

Episode Written by Lee A. Chrimes
Review Written by David A. Bindley

Disclaimer: It’s entirely possible I’m taking the wrong things out of these episodes. It’s entirely possible I’m really not very good at explaining the things going through my mind. It’s entirely possible I lose all sense of coherency when trying for analysis over snark. It’s entirely possible I over-compare things to What I’ve Seen Before. It’s entirely possible I’m an idiot. All things I’m working on. Except for the idiot thing, that’s probably genetic.

This time, I’m going to do stream-of-consciousness reviewing, because my God normal reviewing doesn’t seem to work for me. (And if this doesn’t work either, I’m totally stealing the old XandPro review format.)

…Okay, so. Chrimes. Do I critique harshly and risk getting Lee offside in the lead-up to Leap, or do I go soft and leave everybody except my inner bitch happy? I have no idea.

So it’s something with Boone’s eyes that lets him go all like Robert Patrick Modell, right? Here, it doesn’t seem as though he can immediately get his way, which is a good way of avoiding this being a carbon copy of Pusher and Kitsunegari (though the prison escape was also done like this in KG).

Michael C. Hall seems like an absolutely PERFECT casting choice. Brilliant.

That’s the first time I’ve ever seen anyone give that answer to “Is he armed?”. It seems so damn right that I’m surprised I’ve never seen it before.

Why the hell wasn’t anyone else asking how Boone escaped?

Sudoku? Heh.

Hypnotoad? Double heh. Everybody loves Hypnotoad.

This episode sort of feels like the antithesis of the previous two – here, we feel like we know from the beginning what the Freak Of The Week does and how he does it, but we don’t know why he’s doing it; whereas in the previous weeks it was left as a mystery until the leads themselves figured it out. Both storytelling methods have their advantages, but I think this week’s style seems to gel a bit better compared to the others.

Oh, man. So many used condom jokes, so little time. (What would the Actual TV equivalent be for getting past the censors? A G-string?)

Sooner or later, someone’s going to wind up asking how Kolchak keeps getting to these crime scenes so quickly.

Yeah, I totally got sidetracked by the episode and forgot to keep reviewing. Oops.

It’s always a case of “be careful what you wish for” on genre shows, isn’t it?

So Perri’s doing all this of her own volition? Why? She can’t exactly write about what she’s experiencing – Vincenzo would never let it in the paper – so she’s got no real reason to stay, right? He’s not forcing her? I don’t think I get it.

Simon says get to the damn point of your little show already, Boone.

Oh, cool. He actually does. Nice way to get in some character exposition here. It’s not really development, per se, given we’ve seen and read much of this before, but it’s still hella worth reading. And it’s not a simple all-out brawl scene. Even better.

Convicted killer or not, would anyone really be made to wear blacked out goggles forever? That seems a bit hokey given the rest of the episode.

Rating: Eight used condoms out of ten.

Night Stalker 1.5x02 Traffic

Episode Written by James Jordan
Review Written by David A. Bindley

Now that the weight of the pilot’s necessities have been removed, Night Stalker should be starting to stand on its own two feet, right? Right?

The basic genesis of this episode – the legend of the “haunted highway” – is one of those things that pretty much every sci-fi and supernatural show will cover at some point. It’s just one of those stories. The X-Files did it memorably with season 8’s Roadrunners, and of course Supernatural has tried variations on it a number of times. Luckily, JJ somehow manages to find some original ground to cover in this, one of the biggest horror story clichés. I was a little confused by how the victims could be in two places at once (with Kolchak and back where they were killed), but with this genre of show, it’s best to just go along for the ride, so to speak. And it’s not like much else could have been done whilst still keeping it from being a retread of what we’ve all seen before. The whole method of getting to the actual mystery itself did seem a bit forced, though – would Kolchak really give a hitchhiker a lift on a stretch of road where he knows people have been brutally murdered?

This episode feels much more packed than the previous one. Not only is the haunted highway aspect explored in greater detail than the Sphinx was, but this time around we also got more in the way of character development from Perri and Jain (whom I already love). Perri does come off a bit Scully-esque at times, but she’s much snarkier with her disbelief than Scully usually was, and it serves her well. (Admittedly, the bizarre pseudo-sunniness Gabrielle Union usually brings to scenes, warranted or not, may be foisting itself upon my imagination here, and warping my views.) On the other hand, Jain pretty much defies analogies. Which is a wonderful thing in this case. It helps him to stand out a bit more compared to the others, thus allowing the writers to focus on everyone else for a bit to get them away from the comparisons without too many readers feeling like he’s going to get shafted. Jain’s Kolchak-fanboy streak was an amusing piece of minor character development in the meantime, though. It’s great that JJ appears, at this stage at least, to be thinking along these lines, even though it’s probably more due to Kolchak and Perri being main characters while Jain is the Token Comic Relief. Now all we need is some way to stop me from imagining Mitch Pileggi playing Vincenzo.

Grade: 7.5 idolising newspaper photographers out of 10. (You may choose whether to keep the top or bottom half of the eighth idolising newspaper photographer.)

Night Stalker 1.5x01 Paradigm

Episode Written by James Jordan
Review Written by David A. Bindley

Hey, look, I’m actually reviewing something! Gasp!

This episode certainly has a lot to live up to. It’s gotta function as a pilot for a completely new series for the Night Stalker newbies, it’s gotta function as the next episode in the chronology of the series it’s based on for the hardcore fans, and it’s gotta reintroduce the basic concept of the original series for those who are vaguely familiar with it (like myself). It also needs to be a decent standalone effort on its own merits. Does it do that?

Honestly, I’m not entirely convinced it does. Sure, it fits the style of the show – devoid of cheesy love triangles, pop-culture references, and sci-fi fanwank, but with the stylistic elements preserved – and it dovetails in with the existing mytharc nicely, but… like, there were times there where, if I wasn’t aware of the “real” show or what had happened on it, I wouldn’t have been able to follow the script. I get that you can’t dumb it down for the people who know the show inside and out, but… this wasn’t a huge success as a show, and it’s far more likely that people had no idea what happened on this show. To use a reality TV analogy, you’d have probably been fine going down this path had the show been as high on the pop-culture recognition scale as Dancing With The Stars or American Idol, but this show’s really more of a Celebrity Survivor: Vanuatu (which even I barely remember, and I’m in the process of writing about it). SPAG was a fairly minor issue, but one that does need a little bit of work – ambulance only has one E, won’t needs an apostrophe throughout, and the second period in the abbreviation b.g. doesn’t actually function as a full stop on its own merits – and a couple of bits of exposition were clunky, but that’s to be expected given the circumstances.

Having said that, of course, I still found it thoroughly enjoyable to read. The idea of using a concept as instantly recognisable as the Sphinx and turning it into a monster-of-the-week style killer was a clever idea, as was the not entirely revealing it’s motivations for killing the people it did. If I’m not mistaken, I counted homages to at least four X-Files episodes – Within (a killer tracking down one particular kid at a school), Badlaa (the idea of someone killing because of genetics, and of not explaining why it was killing the people it did), Existence (the whole rooftop climax), and Dod Kalm (the flashback to the people in a vehicle aging rapidly). And yet, none of them stuck out waving signs like “Hey! Rip-off! Over here!” So congratulations for that. And thanks for having the cojones to kill off kids. Helps make this stand out a little bit from the televised series, and makes the Sphinx more menacing at the same time. Great work.

Grade: Seven kiddie corpses out of ten.

In Which Raceguy Reviews!

No, really. I review. Or am planning to.