A Green Mushroom

DareDevil season two is so much better than season one!  It's on Netflix and if you made it through season 1 you definitely need to go watch season two! Where season 1 was full of inconsistent pacing and quality, season two is good all the way through.  I really came away from season one feeling very "meh" about it.  I wasn't sure if I would come back for season two but a friend convinced me to at least give it a shot and watch the first episode.  He was so right. Season two picks up and gets moving so much faster now that we have all that annoying origin story out of the way.  At this point I realize I just hate superhero origin stories.  They tend to be boring and take way too long.  Season one was basically one long origin story.  Season two tells an actual story with the characters. Speaking of characters, The Punisher is super interesting.  I've never read about him before, I just kinda knew he existed.  This incarnation o...

I think this is the best thing that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has created so far.  It's so much better than the other shows I've watched, especially compared to DareDevil. Where DareDevil left me frustrated with the pacing problems and inconsistency in quality, Jessica Jones is well paced and interesting the entire way through.  I watched it in two sittings but stopping that first night because I had to go to bed was painful since I was so engrossed in the story. The premise is that Jessica Jones has super powers but doesn't want to be a super hero.  She's super strong and can heal faster than normal people but she mostly just uses her powers in an everyday sort of way while doing her job as a private investigator.  The story is all about her dealing with her powers and confronting her past with the villain Kilgrave, who is played by the amazing David Tennant.  I thought he was good in Doctor Who but he's amazing in Jessica Jones. Kilgrave is a min...

Playing Assassin's Creed last week really brought something to light for me.  Often, in games, we define characters by the weapons they use.  It's an interesting phenomenon. In Assassin's Creed Syndicate the Frye Twins have different default weapons that give them a different feel from one another.  Evie has a cane sword and Jacob has a brass knuckle.  It immediately distinguishes them even though they're twins and mostly have the same skills.  They are quickly shown to have unique styles via their weapons. When I was watching DareDevil the other week there were a few episodes that focused on how he started using his batons as weapons.  They end up becoming a defining part of his character. Not to mention iconic characters like Cloud and Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII are also often defined by their weapons.  No one ever really thinks about Sephiroth without thinking about his super long Masamune sword.  And the image of Cloud with ...

DareDevil is another show I got to catch up on while I was sick the other week. Oh boy, does this show have some pacing problems. I don't exactly know how to review DareDevil for you because it has some great episodes and it has some absolutely amazing scenes in certain episodes.  But it also has episodes where almost nothing happens and the show seems to drag on for way too long. That's especially bad as a Netflix Original since the show can be any length it feels is appropriate.  It doesn't have to fit into the normal 42 minute block for an "hour long" TV show airing on network TV. But then we have scenes like the hallway encounter at the end of episode 2.  It's one of the most interesting fight scenes I've ever seen. And then there are amazing moments with Wilson Fisk, the bad guy.  He's portrayed so incredibly by the actor. I'm honestly torn.  I'm glad I watched season 1 of DareDevil but I don't see myself ever wanting t...

Having watched my backlog of movies I figured it was time to move on to TV.  There are a bunch of shows that I've been meaning to try out.  I watched the first couple episodes of each to see if they would stick. Humans  - In the near future there are androids (called synths) that are sufficiently advanced to pass for human.  A few of them seem to be on the verge of consciousness and that's where the tension of the show resides.  And this show is full of tension.  Instead of the deep philosophical look at humanity I was expecting instead I got a show that's trying to be subtle drawn out horror sci-fi.  The first few episodes are all about setting up the tension between the synths and the humans, but with no payoff at all after watching hours of the show I had to give up.  If Humans had picked up the pace I would have kept watching. Dark Matter  - Six people wake up on a spaceship as the life support is failing.  They don't remember wh...

Last week I wrote a little bit about my impressions of Daredevil after the first few episodes.  This week I checked out Marco Polo, another Netflix Original Series, and I'm reporting back after watching the same amount of episodes. I like it so much more than Daredevil. This is my kind of show.  There's intrigue and competing objectives.  It's epic in scope, yet based on real events of the past.  In some ways it reminds me of Game of Thrones. Marco Polo is the son of a merchant who travels the world looking for new goods and trade routes.  He tags along while his father is visiting Kublai Khan and ends up unexpectedly getting placed as a servant in his court to save his father's merchant dealings.  It's the story of a westerner thrown into an eastern culture. It's all set in the 1200s and based on historic facts.  I think that's so cool! I love the characters and I'm already very invested in seeing what ends up happening.  This s...

I love Netflix original series.  It's fantastic that one of the modern streaming media services is getting so much into content creation.  I've been hooked on House of Cards since it first came out and it's given me interest in every project they've done since then. Daredevil is the first Netflix original series created in partnership with Marvel.  I really like what Marvel has been doing with movies lately, so the show intrigued me.  I remember watching the first Daredevil movie with Ben Afleck, so the bar is set pretty low for this show.  I thought I would give it a try. I watched the first few episodes and they're ok.  I've been hearing friends rave about how amazing this show is, but maybe it's just not for me.  That's not to say I can't see the positives in it. Daredevil is an interesting take on a gritty world.  He's a hero without the typical superpowers.  When he gets into a fight he actually has to expend effort.  He g...