Jekyll, Texas blows it, music reviews

So this weekend was pretty low impact. Watched some TV, played a little FIFA, hung out with Larry. Should have raked leaves and cleaned the gutters, but I can do a two for one next fall.



Saturday afternoon I finished the BBC mini-series “Jekyll”. After the first couple of shows, I was hooked. To be fair, the dialogue bordered on the completely absurd at times, which took away from a great story idea.
The show fades after a blistering beginning as a ridiculous conspiracy element takes over. The ending felt rushed and wasted. The last sequence reveals the missing piece for those of us too stupid to figure out and then . . . credits. As always, great idea, poor execution. Definitely sets up for a sequel at a later date.



Saturday night I watched Texas v Texas Tech. When I turned on the TV, it was 19-0 Tech and I thought, just my luck. So I was in and out of the game, and when Tech went up by 14 in the second half, I almost put in a movie. But I was a trooper and stayed with it. I was rewarded by dramatic idiocy. Texas scores to go ahead and then completely crapped their pants. Poor kickoff coverage, then they let Tech march down the field after they had been stopped in their tracks in the second half. As always, the prevent defense prevents you from winning. When the Texas defender dropped a sure interception, you knew the Longhorns were in trouble. To top it off, the Tech QB then throws a prayer to the sideline and all the defender has to do is knock the receiver out of bounds. God forbid he knocks the ball down. He makes some sort of pansy tackle that we would make in the backyard and Crabtree walks into the endzone. Game over. And what was the safety doing? Very frustrating. Yes, that is why college sports are so much better than pro. Scholarship athletes.



Music I’ve checked out:

Travis (The Invisible Band): The album title says it all. Most of it is pussy rock. Airy songs, falsetto voices. Not what I’m looking for.

VonBondies (Pawn Shoppe Heart): Fever, now that’s what I’m talking about. The rest of the album is ok, Kinda punky, which I’ve never been into, but like to dabble in from time to time.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (Take them On, On your own): decent album overall, probably better than Howl. They have this sound and they nail it.

Velvet Underground and Nico: Recently I’ve seen movies that have used their music, so I decided to give them a try. I already knew Heroin (Basketball Diaries) and Venus in Furs (Brick), but I really liked a track called I’m Waiting for the Man. Also Sunday Morning could easily fit into a movie like Little Miss Sunshine or Eternal Sunshine.



By next week, I hope to have finished The Job, a show Denis Leary did before Rescue Me. Also have more Travis on hold, as well as Woodstock 25th anniversary collection. Ta ta for now.

house improvements and media intake

So I’m done with House. I’ll probably finish out the season, but after that I’ll probably find something else to watch. Moving into the fifth season, the formula of being wrong, commercial, being wrong, commercial, being wrong, commercial, moment of clarity and miraculous save, has grown tiresome. How much of a genius can he and his team be, if they nearly kill a person 2-4 times before “saving” them?

The dynamic of Wilson and the P.I. has been a fun change for this season, but it hasn’t been enough to save the show. Last week’s episode re: the sexuality and issues of 13 was interesting but got lost in the confusion of the patient’s condition and the firing, rogue work by 13, rehire.

Next week looks ridiculous. The woman having the baby that Cuddy is adopting has a medical emergency and only House can save her? Really? Is that the direction you want to go?

Obviously I’m fed up with the show, however, I think it could be saved with the following suggestions (ie, mandatory changes):

They need to work in House being involved in clinic duty. It worked so well in the early seasons. He gets to wow normal patients and have interesting dialogue with them that can reveal more about his character. Remember that’s how he found his underage, psycho stalker with the red thong.

How about solving the case on the first try? Now that wouldn’t make it that much of a medical mystery, but for all the times they are wrong, who is to say they wouldn’t get it right out of the gate? You know if a billion monkeys had a billion typewriters . . . .

How about a road trip to some infectious disease conference? New environment, let the hair down (except in the case of Taub) and have real personal interaction.

And if all else fails, have a Road Rules/Amazing Race type event between the old team and the new team. Face it, reality TV is here to say and you had might as well accept it

In short, I would move away from the medical mystery aspect of the show. Based on what I’ve read on politedissent.com, most of the diagnoses and treatments vary from a little outrageous to absolutely wrong. This show is about the characters. Focus on that.



Moving on . . .


I read the first trade of a comic series called “The Losers.” Quite good. Sort of a darkly comic A-Team if you can imagine that. Based on the first story arc, I could easily see this being made into a movie. There’s revenge, backstabbing, ridiculous action scenes. I wonder if anyone in Hollywood has picked this up.



Over the weekend I watched The Science of Sleep. If you haven’t seen it, I can’t even describe it. I’ll just say that the beginning was very interesting as you saw a person’s dreamworld and reality blend together, but then it got sort of weird, as if Terry Gilliam took over as director, and I sorta fell asleep, didn’t care. I don’t even know if I can recommend it.



Last night I started the British mini-series Jekyll, which I guess My Own Worst Enemy is trying to copy. The first show was AMAZING!! Super intense and I have no idea how they are going to wrap it up in 6 episodes, but I can’t wait to finish.



Finally, I have caught up with The Mentalist. It is quite fun to watch him toy with people. I really enjoy the show and if they got rid of ‘roided up agent and the tight ass lead agent, I think I would enjoy it even more. Hopefully they keep the cases interesting (even though are they are completely absurd from a jurisdiction perspective) and keep digging into Jane’s background, motivations and history.