Blogger disagreement: The Following

Leeard: This show is fun and I'm still watching it. Kevin Bacon is the best. The show isn't afraid to be violent when needed, and the result is suspenseful. Each episode plays like a movie thriller instead of TV. Sure, I end up predicting a lot of it. But there are so many twists that for every one I do predict, there's another that I don't.

The audience agrees: This show is better than Revolution, a show that recently got slammed by The Following in the ratings. This show has interesting flashbacks as well. Ryan caught Carroll the last time. The female cop was raised by an abusive cult. Ryan has an ex-girlfriend. Emma killed her own mom. It's all good stuff.

The show doesn't write itself into a corner. There are endless possibilities of what to do with the characters and new characters to introduce. Everyone can be either good or evil. There are tons of bad guys following the ultimate bad guy. And hey, if Carroll dies, who's to say the following won't keep going behind the first guy to step up and take his place?

Ern: Every week, I have to force myself to watch this show, and I'm constantly getting behind. When I finally turn on the computer to catch up, five minutes in, I'm already bored. The Following had a great, action-packed pilot, but then it ground to a halt. There are too many periphery baddies that I don't care about. I hardly even care about the main baddie. Getting reeeeal sick of him. He's such a whiner.

How long are they going to drag this out? I think my main problem with this show is that there is nothing going on beneath the surface. You have the shallow teases, the murder, the cops, the crazies...but there could be more than just basic plot trying to distract us from its stupidity by constantly throwing us twists. There could be character development, a romance I can actually give a hoot about, some sort of theme, personalities....

Remember when LOST's Locke and Ben were juxtaposed? Or Locke and Jack? They saw the world so differently and that was the driving point of the conflict. Not, "Oh, no, they kidnapped my woman!" There comes a time when silly isn't fun anymore. It's just boring. And can we get a female character who is not a) one of Carroll's minions, b) a victim, or c) dumb love interest Claire who will just go with bad guys whenever they mention Joey?!!?

It's all getting repetitive too. Crazy followers. Kidnapping. "Blah blah Poe blah nevermore." Claire being an idiot. Ryan messing up. Someone getting killed. Carroll foils them again! But they get a small victory when they stop Carroll's follower from killing 10/10 of the people they are trying to protect (the follower usually gets 4/10). If the show had more of a brain, it could think of a good middle instead of these cycles.

Oblivion

Great visuals and Tom Cruise still has star power.

But that was the stupidest plot ever. Dumb and long. Also, flat characters. Can we get a personality up in here? Is Morgan Freeman hurting for work? Why would he agree to take that flat, brief role? Seeing Jaime Lannister in it just made us laugh every time he was onscreen.

Not recommended.

Movie grade: C

Man of Steel trailer 3

You can already see some philosophical/heartwarming commentary in this movie. One of us doesn't like Superman (he's too powerful), but this movie might actually be good. Don't love Zach Snyder though....

Once Upon a Time- Season 2, Episode 19

Lacey- Finally. Is there anything more annoying than hiatuses during the season?

Netflix's Hemlock Grove: Season 1

This show got generally negative reviews from critics, so we almost didn't check it out. But then we scanned a few of the reviews and found that most of these people only watched three episodes. Which would be fine if this were a regular TV show. But it's not. It's a Netflix show. Netflix releases whole seasons at once and therefore would greenlight a show with slow build, because audiences don't have a week in between slower episodes to forget about the mystery. Watching three and writing a review just isn't fair.

So we watched it all in the last two days.

It took us a long time to decide whether we liked it. We never hated or loved it. We warbled between "this is okay" and "this is pretty good." We almost certainly would have dropped out were it a week-to-week cable program. But it's not. It's a whole season of a horror show.

The premise is that a rich kid, Roman, who doesn't know much about himself or the world meets a drifter, Peter, who has more of a grasp of the supernatural. Both teens are fatherless and live in a small town. Around this time, a girl is brutally murdered in what looks like an animal attack. The murderer must be found and the secrets of the town must be unearthed.

Here are the good things:

• The mysteries keep you coming back for more. We kept watching because we wanted answers. 
• If you like gore, the gore is pretty fantastic. The werewolf scene we mentioned in the last post about this show remains bad ass. Great transformations.
• Interesting characters, interesting creatures, interesting backstories.
• We liked Bill Skarsgard as Roman. 
• We liked the music at the end of the episodes.
• This show feels like True Blood in tone. Campy, a little slow, scary, gross, messed up, and interesting. and is not afraid to go to weird places...or kill some characters
• We like how the show struggled with themes of "the darkness within" and self-loathing. 
• One of the twists genuinely surprised us.
• It respects the lore that came before it. 
• There are two strong female characters, and they are even complex to boot.
• We were able to watch it in two days and not get sick of it, and that says something.
• We appreciated that the show was available in Spanish and had Spanish subtitles. One of us is trying to learn that language and it was less of a waste of time if Spanish words were running at the bottom :-)

There are a few problems (at least to us):

• Famke Janssen should never have attempted a British accent because a) her character isn't from Britain and b) she sucks at British accents.
• Some of the acting was lame (although it really might have been the writing making them look bad; some of the stuff was hard to work with).
• A lot of the dialogue was lame.
• Rape and the way the show handles rape. It's almost exploitative the way the first attack is filmed to look like a rape. The author of the original book strikes us as an obvious douchebag. He once said, "You can pry my rape scene out of my cold, dead hands" or something like that. He wanted this show to be a "hard R," and clearly thinks that this will make it edgier. But smut for smut's sake doesn't automatically make something quality. Just ask Starz. We don't want to spoil anything for you, but one of the rapes was really disappointing for viewers. 
• Most of the violence is against women and there are women getting jealous of other women. Most of the women are portrayed as either Madonnas or whores. 
• It's hard to find a character to like or root for. It's kind of cool that nearly every person on this show could be the murderer and you don't find out for a long time, but if you don't have a main character to hang your hat on, it's hard to get attached. Even after a whole season, we don't love any of the characters (even if a few of them are interesting).
• This story could have been told in ten, 40-minute episodes, rather than dragged out to make 13, 50-minute episodes. There were some slow bits and it came from padding, not an uninteresting story.
• The motivations of a few characters were muddy or unbelievable. One villain was pure, one-dimensional eeeeevil.
• One of the "twists" was so easy to call that Ern called it immediately after the question was raised, and you will too. Ern can usually never predict anything.
• It definitely qualifies as garbage to one of us. It's not gonna enrich your mind or soul or anything like that. You're not gonna feel good after you watch it.

If this show is successful enough for Netflix, there will probably be more to come. The writer of the original book has a sequel ready and a third book outlined. We'll chum on up to our couches and watch the second season when it's one. That's the final proof that we liked this show, overall. But we wouldn't be back if it weren't on Netflix, a whole season ready to stream. It wouldn't be worth following weekly. But we love a binge.

Season Grade: B-

Hemlock Grove

We're not sure if I like Netflix's Hemlock Grove yet, but that werewolf transformation in the second episode was pretty great/disgusting.

Dexter will end this year; Jennifer Lawrence; Suburgatory; Mean Girls Musical

Even though Dexter's ratings are awesome, the execs would rather end the story well than milk the cow until it dies. You read that right. Showtime wants Dexter to have an endgame and go out on a high than drag it out. Great news. Also, poor Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter won't have to work with their exes anymore, haha.

Congrats to Jennifer Lawrence for landing the cover of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People edition. That's an honor shared by presidents. We love her to death, but we hope the world doesn't get sick of her. This feels over-the-top and like overexposure. But she IS influential to her generation. As long as she keeps churning out great work and carefully picking movies, she should be fine. It wouldn't kill her to lay low before and after Catching Fire though.

Suburgatory ended its season and has been a wonderful, hilarious show during its run. We hope it gets renewed. It's on the bubble.

In amazing news, Tina Fey has been talking about making Mean Girls into a musical. Can we pre-order tickets yet? Amanda Seyfried wants to play Regina. We don't think she has a "mean girl" singing voice. She sounds like a Disney princess. That's a no from us, but maybe she'll have a better shot at convincing Tina.

Breaking Bad Episodes Start August 11

Aaarrrghhhhh! Can't wait!

Awkward- Season 3, Episodes 1-2

Confession: It's a little harder to like this show now that we don't like Ashley Rickards as much. Call us judgmental, but we think it's crazy for a 20-year-old to have a boob job. Who even knows if she's fully grown yet? We sympathize with people who don't like an important body part (Ern will confess that it's her arms), but wait until you have and breastfeed your babies before you get the balloons!

A Funny Article and News About NBC's Friends

Eight characters you won't believe are based on real people. By the way, that stupid woman who acted like a sexy baby totally deserved what she got.

So, rumors of a Friends comeback season are just that...rumors.

Game of Thrones, Season 3, Episode 3

Walk of Punishment- This week, we got to see everyone and there was forward movement in nearly every plot. The scene of Tywin's council sitting down was so brilliant and hilarious. We didn't think a scene of people picking seats around Tywin could be so entertaining and revealing. Tyrion dragging the chair across the room and annoying everyone was classic. He definitely deserves to sit at the head of the table.

Movie: The Place Beyond the Pines

This is the best movie we've seen so far this year. The director, who also did Blue Valentine, crafts an emotional, intense movie about family, fate, and mistakes. It's not a crime thriller, as some might believe, but it's engrossing. There are a few things that didn't work (one teenage character's actions didn't feel like something he would spiral into so quickly), and the movie lacks a point to tie everything together. But we really enjoyed it and there was good acting.

Movie grade: A

Mad Men- Season 6, episodes 1-2

The Doorway parts 1 and 2- We loved the hair! Times are changing. We hardly recognize half these people though. We know now that Don decided to cheat on Megan, but man are we glad she's still around. And she's a successful actress! We never thought that would happen, but that's amazing.

A Couple of Movies

Ted- A stupid waste of time that wasn't even funny 90% of the time. Also, Mila Kunis has a great body. Whoever did her costumes did her an injustice by making sure they didn't fit it. Movie grade: C-

Killing Them Softly- Redboxed at the last minute because we saw that Brad Pitt was in it. It was pretty good. It had the best scene of a car blowing up that we've ever seen. The political commentary would annoy some capitalists (if they watch/think closely enough), but we didn't care. This was a darkly funny small-time gangster indie. We couldn't help but compare it to the superior Seven Psychopaths. Movie grade: B-

Glee, season 4, episode 18. We hear (and believe) that Degrassi did it better

Shooting Star- Last night, Glee did a "school shooting" episode. Note the quotes. Because this was less an episode on the topic of school shooting than a pointless episode about nothing. Glee wanted some attention, so leaked the topic of the episode way before it aired. Ryan Murphy tweeted that it was the most "powerful" episode of Glee yet (it wasn't).

Instead it was a missed opportunity intending to provoke and get talked about. ASB: Attention-Seeking Behavior. The stunt worked. People watched and are talking. We're talking. The episode started out good, but then it got stupid. We don't think it was "off tone." Glee has done serious episodes and moments before. It's usually a comedy, but it's allowed to change it up.

Being Human, season 3, episodes 5-13

Being Human ended its excellent third season this week. As promised, it was lighter in tone than the dreary, but still entertaining, season two.

Good News

The CW's Cult is a failure and is being pulled. If you enjoyed the show and are sad, we certainly don't know why. Also, the stupid looking Ready for Love failed to pull in good ratings. 

Finally, the US version of Being Human, which we love, was renewed for a fourth season today.

Smash- Season 2, Episodes 1-10

You wouldn't know it from this blog, but we've been watching Smash's second season. Last year, we heard that Smash was going to be completely overhauled, its kinks worked out, and its level of quality raised. There have certainly been a lot of changes, especially in the cast. There's no more Leo, Julia's husband with the kick ass singing voice didn't even get to sing before he left, and there's no more Ellis or Dev, thank God. Most of these characters were dragging down the stories anyway.

New York/Puppy Catch Up Post part 2. Game of Thrones, Bates Motel, Walking Dead

Game of Thrones, season 3, episodes 1-2
This show always starts each season off slow, because it's based on books and most books build to climaxes. The first two episodes were fine and beautiful and got us pumped for the rest of the season. The second one was a little dull and uneventful, but we're loving Cersei losing her influence and feeling backed into a corner. As people who have read the book this season will be based on, we assure you that this will probably be the best season of this show.

So, yeah, one of us was in NYC and saw musicals this weekend

We know some of you love those, so we'll tell you which ones we saw this weekend and our thoughts in brief. We wanted to see Mathilda and Pippin, but we ran out of time. Our favorite musicals include Ragtime, Les Miserables, Wicked, Rent, Next to Normal, Spring Awakening, Legally Blonde, Avenue Q, Sweeney Todd, Funny Girl, The Wild Party, Company, and Into the Woods.