Loading ...Firefly Impression
Over the past weeks(or possibly months) I have watched Firefly, a series that is rather unusual for me as I’m not generally a space/sci-fi kind of guy. I saw it getting mentioned on forums a lot as a series people wished would continue so I got intrigued and gave it a shot.
This series is about a a crew of people on a small spaceship called the Serenity. There’s an interesting group of people collected on it which all have very well worked out characters which I love to see. It tells an ongoing story of the adventures this crew get themselves tangled up in as their line of work isn’t especially safe or legal. This creates a unique setting as it really focuses on what’s right and what’s wrong and of course sets itself up for legal troubles for the group.
I’m actually surprised to see how much I enjoyed the episodes seeing the setting and the only real drawback or perhaps oddity is the action. There’s plenty of shooting happening and it to me seems that they didn’t quite know what they really wanted to do with it. There’s plenty of revolvers, shotguns and other old rifles, but on the other hand there’s some sci-fi weapons too such as lasers. During action scenes you’ll see them shoot old rifles and yet there’s that classic ‘space laser’ sound… that doesn’t really work for me, I know it’s the setting as there’s a lot of “wild west” in there which I don’t mind, it’s just the shooting.
Overall I just have to say that it’s a really enjoyable series that very quickly makes you care for the characters and keeps you guessing as to what is going to happen, it doesn’t seem predictable unlike a lot of other series. Especially the final episode which…. was out there.I really enjoyed watching it and like many others, I’d happily see a second season. I’ll probably watch the movie follow-up to it soon that’s called Serenity.
Misfits
British series about some trashy teens with some very (weird) british accents. They’re on community service and are just fucking about as you imagine such youths would. But then a storm happens and shit gets really weird and their probation worker goes mental and attacks them and from then on you learn that they’ve got powers. The fun thing is seeing these characters interact as they act much like you’d expect and would just dick around with each other.
Another thing I really appreciate is how straight forward it is, it doesn’t want to set up a whole big story on why there’s powers and it shows, it’s not important. A fun thing is also that the powers aren’t all really useful or “cool”. One of the characters actually says that some of those powers are really lame and categorizes them into “A-list and B-list”. In it’s own way the show is really quite unique in that it’s fun and doesn’t take itself so seriously nor does it entirely focus on the powers themselves, but on the characters instead.
Nathan Young
Guy who always pisses about, rarely serious and is just an all-around jackass and therefore my favorite character. Though there are times when he is serious, which he pulls off really well, you’ll mostly be looking at him for laughs, be it by making a fool out of himself, being awkward or making fun of the situation.
Curtis Donovan
Jock athlete who got arrested for a possession charge and guy who tries to make the best of things. He’s not a character that stands out too much, out of the bunch he’s probably the one who just wants to be “good” and behave properly. He regrets his actions that caused him to be there and he is a nice character to have around to keep the others in check.
Alisha Bailey
Very outgoing girl who is friendly and caring, though she starts off pretty much as “Just a hot girl because we needed one” but over some episodes you’ll get to know her more and she even starts playing a big part in the story. She also is quite clever and clearly more than just her looks.
Simon Bellamy
Simon is a very interesting guy, from the very beginning he will strike you as weird. He’s the guy who barely speaks and is lonely and an outcast, even among outcasts. He’s probably my second favorite character but I don’t exactly know why. He tends to keep to himself and he’s very unpredictable and even straight up freaky because of this.
Kelly Bailey
My first thought on Kelly was… “What is that accent!?” I hadn’t heard anything like it before and funnily enough, the characters say the same thing. She’s mostly a supportive person who is very open about what she thinks about the situation which I appreciate. She also tries to keep the group together for example when a fight happens.
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- Nathan Young
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- Curtis Donovan
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- Alisha Bailey
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- Simon Bellamy
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- Kelly Bailey
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- misfits group
2 series I'm loving
As some of you may know I quite like to watch some series. Recently I started to watch a couple of new ones. Among those were the in my opinion average The Glades & The Gates, the good Haven & Identity.
But there’s 2 others I’m really loving so far, namely Lie To Me and Rubicon. Let’s quickly talk about Lie To Me first, it’s about the Lightman Group which are a small group of people who specialize in truth. The main characters are Dr. Cal Lightman, who specializes in “microexpressions”, Dr. Gillian Foster who’s worked with Cal for a long time, Eli Loker who believes in “Radical Truth” and is the comedic character I suppose with his incredible straightforwardness. Finally there’s Ria Torres who gets recruited in the first episode as she’s a “natural” who’s extremely good at judging moods and facial expressions which conflicts quite badly with Cal’s years of training. Every case is interesting and the way it’s told is all around pleasant and I find myself looking at facial expressions a lot to find out the truths/lies myself, which somehow adds to the fun of an already great show.
Secondly there’s Rubicon which is about an intelligence firm which act as intermediaries to make decisions. The story focuses on Will Travers as he takes his boss’ position and uncovers several leads that his old boss had left him and he follows them to unravel a conspiracy. Now this series seems rather slowpaced, there’s a lot of talking about work at API(the company) about cases and some team members. I get the feeling though that it’ll all be important and play it’s part in the end though. But it does bring up some interesting points as members talk about the worth of human life as they have to decide to bomb a building to kill a terrorist while they have evidence that kids live nearby. I really like Will as a character as well as he’s slowly getting more and more paranoid and he really puts up a believable character.
For you US people the first episode can be fully viewed online here.
TV 2.0 + small update
So I was reading slashdot.org and stumbled upon this article, which interested me.
I have just finished watching the pilot for Pioneer One and I must say that I’m intrigued, they did a great job especially considering what budget they were on. If I didn’t know they were on such a low budget I’d not really noticed much. I feel like I should chime in on the donating but considering the crazy amounts of money I’ve been spending on games lately.. I dunno, I’ll probably end up throwing in 5 or 10bucks. Innovation and a good story, sign me up. 
In unrelated news, I have my holidays coming up so expect slightly more videos in the upcoming weeks. I can’t really go crazy with it as frankly, rendering and uploading these sets takes some real time. I also ordered Uncharted 2 for the PS3 so I can play through that in the holiday, very excited for that one. And I might have something special coming up, but I can’t say what it is just yet. 
Ninja Edit: I just updated my iPhone to the iOS 4 and… my screen is just zooming in for some reason. A tap on the screen is supposed to make it go away but.. it isn’t. Neat…. I guess I’ll google a bit more, as for now it’s unworkable. Ninja Edit 2: The Zoom function in the Accessibility menu got turned on by the update, weird bug I’d say.
As a bonus I just have to share this concept art for “Demon Elaine” on Tales of Monkey Island, click for full size.
Thoughts on NCIS so far
So what’s NCIS? Naval Criminal Investigative Services.
Riiiight… It’s a kind of CSI, but focused on the Marines. Mind you I’m currently at the end of Season 1, they’re at or just finished season 7.
It’s as good as CSI was in the first seasons. However their focus is a bit different, CSI is really all about the “Look at what detail we’re using to solve this case and catch the badguy” while NCIS’s focus is more on action and talking to people, seeing the team talk about the case. Ofcourse there’s still plenty of evidence going around but it’s not so much the main focus. I’m really enjoying it thus far as the more action focus allows for a lot more creativity with the episodes. I’m just hoping that they can keep it up.
It has it’s own ‘unusual’ cast, a bit more so than CSI perhaps.
Gibbs
Gibbs, the boss. You frankly don’t know much about him other than he’s been married a couple of times, is asocial and all-around tough boss who really is focused on the job, never anything else.
Other than building a boat in his spare time.
Tony
Tony, a team member. He’s the flirty guy who likes to play around with.. well, anything female. Ofcourse he gets plenty of chances for this but his flirting will often help them out on a case. Either that or really piss Gibbs off.
Kate
Kate, a team member. She’s the tough girl kind of character who has a lot of experience, is smart and overall really effective force. She gets recruited in the first episodes as she’s leading the security of Air Force One. Immediatly proving the stereotype.
Abby
Abby, a forensic scientist. Also a really interesting character. Oh did I forget to mention she’s a goth? Spiky bracelets, collar, goth makeup and just in general into rock, which I dig.
Ducky
Ducky, a coroner. Likes his stories and random trivia. That’s also most of what his character offers. He’ll just go off in random trivia and quite detailed at that. He’s the guy where you go “well, you may shut up now” to.