Fringe – Why It’s The Best Show on Television.

Fringe is by far the greatest show on television right now. I am a big believer in characters, and the leading trio of ‘Fringe’ present intriguing personalities brought to life by a set of brilliant actors (John Noble, Anna Torv and Joshua Jackson). The show brings to the viewers a unique science fiction story with superlative drama overtones and severe human conflicts. Its main premise revolves around a gifted F.B.I. agent working with a ‘Fringe Science’ division, investigating strange incidents occurring around the world. The events are connected, to an overarching story concerning a world where two universes exist side to side, and the hunt of technology trying to sever the barrier between the two.

It may sound absurd, like any good science fiction story. However what takes ‘Fringe’ to another level is the human conflicts it creates within its framework. A world where there is more than one of everything, a world where a scientist who lost his son to cancer could crossover to the other side and steal him from a world in which he hasn’t died, yet.

The intensity of ‘Fringe’ makes the drama between Jack and Locke in ‘Lost’, look like a Simon and Garfunkle argument. This show is patient, it spends episodes on end to simply provide depth to its many superb characters.  Scenes that carry no weight to the overall story are simply fascinating to watch in ‘Fringe’, as they continually serve to evolve the characters and their conflicts. Ultimately this all serves to bond you to the greater science fiction story at play, and the stakes that each character has invested. It provides emotional weight to the episodes that delve in to fascinating paranormal situations, and it is this critical connection that makes science fiction an absolutely wonderful experience.

That my imaginative readers, is what you call great television.

‘Spartacus: Blood and Sand’

A bold new television show for the violently inclined.

'Spartacus: Blood and Sand' premiering on Starz in January 2010

If you thought 300 was too violent, don’t watch this. If you thought ‘Rome’ was too much, don’t watch this. A new show titled ‘Spartacus: Blood and Sand’ is coming to your home in January 2010 courtesy of cable channel Starz. It is as stated above, a harmoniously filthy coming together of ‘300’, ‘Gladiator’ and ‘Rome’.

Word on the street is rather outrageous but generally positive, I hear that the violence is excruciatingly immense, and the sex pushes the envelope on everything but the stick and hole according to TV.com:

“The sex scenes (complete with nudity) are so explicit everyone short of sex workers will blush. Every detail of the brutal gladiatorial massacres in Roman arenas is included — arching blood squirts, sliced tendons, the works. Seriously, it’s like 300 on steroids.”

See for yourself:

…And this is just the trailer which is cut and censored for promotion. Could you have imagined something like this on television let alone cinemas  five to six years ago? Just speaks volumes about the sort of infestation society is developing through

Five more years and I’ll consider a vasectomy.

Check out some more pictures here…

The Lost Season 5 Finale, and Why It Sucked.

After watching it last night, I was upset. Not annoyed, but upset. Compared to the season finales of the last four years, this was just pathetic. It completely lacked the character drama that I love this show for; in fact it has been missing all season. The dynamics, the chemistry between the characters just is not working anymore. Benjamin Linus has become a walking sulking puppy, I miss his intelligence greatly. Locke’s new found confidence was slightly far fetched and aimless at times but it makes a little more sense now. I will not knock on that though, because this was just half of the finale. The whole Jacob/Esau battle that has suddenly appeared is a mystery and plot point for season six and could have interesting implications. What I do wish to knock upon ever so vicariously and viciously and violently and vehemently and… f*** this s***… What the hell is blowing up a nuclear bomb in such an amateur manner suppose to achieve?

What the hell is going on? What the f*** do they think is going to happen? Why the hell are they suddenly so bloody motivated to reset the time/space continuum? Let us ignore the fact how that makes no sense on about fifty different levels. No, actually let us not ignore that. It makes no sense on fifty different levels. I loved the time traveling setup of Lost; it worked really well and was started brilliantly in season four by the excellent Desmond/Daniel Faraday episode called The Constant. But this season’s The Variable just completely tarnished the acceptable physics the show delivered. We and the characters were made to believe the ‘Whatever happened, happened’ motto for the entire season and then suddenly in one episode it was all turned on its head with a completely infinitesimal and absurd explanation. It needed to be developed in a more fleshed out manner, but we never got that chance because Lost decided to deliver a really pointless character death.