Hey everyone, back from a jam-packed weekend, with a lot to talk about. First off, I had a great time on Saturday night at KNOTT'S SCARY FARM. For the last couple of years, Knott's has been an annual tradition for my friends and I, and we always have a blast each year as Knott's transforms itself into a mecca of Halloween haunts. Sure, some of the rides and mazes are old hat by now, but there's something about the place that you can't help but find endearing. Even though Knott's Scary Farm is now known as one of the country's premiere Halloween attractions, there's still a very hand-crafted, home-made feel to the haunted hauses and mazes that gives everything an air of spooky authenticity. These guys clearly love Halloween, and every year it's awesome to see the effort and creativity that goes into the attractions. At Knott's, you don't get the kind of ultra-polished, super-slick experience you might from other parks, but there is a ton of atmosphere - the park has that old-timey carnival feel that is perfect for Halloween. It reminds me a lot of the Northeast parks I used to go to as a kid - Riverside Park, The Great Escape, Lake Compounce, Quassy, etc. And yet, I am continually impressed with just how thoroughly Knott's is transformed every October. The ENTIRE park becomes Halloween-themed, and the sheer number of haunted mazes, shows, etc is staggering. Sure, there are always a few duds mixed in with the best haunts, but every year there are at least three or four new attractions. This year, along with classics like Club Blood and The Doll Factory, there were some cool new mazes like Terror of London, El Dio de los Muertos in 3D, and yes, Uncle Bobo's Big Top of the Bizarre. Meanwhile, the whole place is teeming with all kinds of monstrous creatures - evil clowns, zombies on skates, chainsaw-wielding psychos, and even werewolves. Good times. Also, we had a great group with us this year. Me and the G-Man drove down to Buena Park and met up with friend and former Conan intern KC and her crew at the park (and the prerequisite pre-park TGI Fridays dinner). We also joined up with my Digital Distribution colleague Lorena L. and some of her friends as well. One rule of thumb for the Scary Farm -- the more the merrier (and the scarier). So yes, it was yet another successful trip to the Farm, and a great way to officially kick off this year's Halloween season.
Despite a long night of traversing the park, there was no rest for the weary. The next day, me and the G-Man reconvened, along with my brother, and drove down to the Bren Events Center at UC Irvine for TNA Wrestling's BOUND FOR GLORY pay-per-view event. Yes, we are nerds. And we were surrounded by fellow nerds - since TNA is a smaller federation, they tend to attract a more hardcore fanbase. So the relatively small arena was packed with intense fans eager to boo, cheer, and scream out chants like "This is awesome!" or "You %#$&'d up!". TNA is a smaller fed, but they have a TV show on Spike TV, and they have a number of big name talents like Sting, Kurt Angle, Mick Foley, Booker T, Kevin Nash, and Scott Steiner - along with some great up and comers like Samoa Joe and AJ Styles. So being live at one of their biggest events was a lot of fun - it had the crazy atmosphere and rabid fans that you might have found at an old-school ECW event. That said, the show probably didn't come off as well on TV as it did live, as there were a number of botched spots and some iffy booking. But there were enough good matches and crazy moves to keep the live fans entertained, and we all had a lot of fun yelling and screaming for our favorites. We saw an insane "Ultimate X" match, in which a title belt is suspended from criss-crossed high-wires, a great tag team "full metal mayhem" match featuring Team 3-D, a very solid Kurt Angle vs. Matt Morgan bout, a bloody hardcore match pitting Mick Foley vs. Abyss, and a main-event title match with the legendary Sting vying for champion AJ Style's heavyweight gold. Yes, we were indeed "reeeeeeady to ruuuumble."
TV STUFF:
- Let me start off by reviewing a Halloween tradition, THE SIMPSONS' twentieth annual TREEHOUSE OF HORROR special. That's incredible - for twenty years, since I was seven years old, every year I've looked forward to The Simpson's Halloween episode, and through the good times and the bad, I've learned to appreciate this little slice of awesomeness as not just a yearly special, but as a genuine by-God American tradition. Now, regular readers of the blog know that I have not thought very highly of the last, well, several editions of Treehouse. In fact, last year's entry was particularly dreadful, and not in a good way - which was particularly disappointing given that last season as a whole was a pretty decent one for The Simpsons. So far this year, the show has been a mixed bag, but the good thing is that there seems to be an overall back-to-basics approach going on. Episodes have been tighter and more focused. Plots have a beginning, middle, and end, and are less random than they've been in the last few years. Even if the humor hasn't always been up to the level of the glory days, there is a decidedly old-school feel to recent episodes. And I'm happy to report that this year's THOH had a similar approach. None of the random non-horror movie parodies of recent years (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, anyone?). Overall, this year's ep was a great change of pace from the disappointing Halloween eps we've now grown used to. Everything was thematically-appropriate. There was some hilarious humor. There were some great homages and cool visual tributes. Finally, a Halloween episode that didn't suck!
I loved the first two segments of the show. First off, the monster-themed intro was a fun little opener, spotlighting the classic Universal monsters out for some trick r' treating, and realizing that their "costumes" were decidedly old-school. Funny stuff. But I really enjoyed the first real segment - a "Dial M For Murder" parody - that was both visually inventive and pretty sharply written (no pun intended). Bart and Lisa's plot to make a secret pact to murder each other's teacher's was gruesome fun, and there were some classic lines from the likes of Principal Skinner and Groundskeeper Willy, among others. I also laughed a lot at the second segment, a 28 Days Later-inspired riff on zombies. The Simpsons has done zombies before (in maybe my all-time favorite Treehouse segment), but this was a different spin on the genre and had a ton of hilarious moments. This one was easily the best segment of the night - packed with laughs and great dialogue. The final segment was interesting. I give it points for trying something different - the visual motif of framing the segment as a stage play being performed by the Simpsons characters was pretty cool. But the story - a musical about Moe enhancing his bar's beer with drops of human (specifically, Homer's) blood - was a bit hit and miss. And really, really weird (Homer's song about turning gay was hilariously strange). While there was some fun stuff in this one and a couple of so out-there-they're-funny jokes, this one didn't have the tightness or quality of humor as the first two segments.
So overall, as a wiseman (or Meatloaf) once said, two out of three ain't bad. This was definitely the best Treehouse of Horror, all in all, in a long while. Tons of hilarious bits - I loved this line, for example:: Principal Skinner: "Lisa Simpson in detention? My horoscope told me I'd see something interesting today, but I thought that'd be the horoscope itself." All that, and the episode, for once, actually aired in October, prior to Halloween. Sweet!
My Grade: A-
(Opener: B, Segment 1: B+, Segment 2: A, Segment 3: B-)
- SMALLVILLE followed last week's fun zombie-themed ep with a much more run-of-the mill outing this Friday. They brought back a semi-cool villain in The Toyman, but didn't really focus on him. Instead, they introduced an out-of-nowhere plotline in which Clark is suddenly given the ability to selectively read minds, which led to all sorts of cheesiness involving Clark getting a glimpse of Lois' inner-thoughts. Like I said last week, WTF? A while back, the Clark-Lois dynamic was one of the best things about the show. Now it has very quickly become very annoying by introducing all kinds of lame mushiness. Didn't they learn anything from how awful Lana Lang became? They need to seriously tone down the Clark-Lois stuff. Also, I'm pretty sick of Tess Mercer. I really don't think she has any set character traits at this point - she's simply good or evil depending on what a given week's script calls for. So really, the ending with her recruiting the captured Toyman to her cause fell pretty flat - this week, she's evil, next week, she's helping Oliver out of a jam. Ugggh, make it stop. Speaking of Oliver Queen, the scenes with he and Clark were probably the highlights of the ep. Oliver is the one character who they haven't semi-ruined yet, and I liked the continued exploration of he and Clark's evolving relationship. All in all though, this was not Smallville's finest hour.
My Grade: C+
- Here's the thing though - as easy as it is sometimes to rag on Smallville, there is a certain spark to the show that keeps me coming back even when things are bad. I don't know if the same can be said for FLASH FORWARD. This past week's episode was so bland, boring, clunky, and mind-numbingly uneventful that I think this may be it for me. I mean, look, the show is very competent in certain areas. The cast is comprised of very talented actors, no doubt. But I don't think a single character has really popped yet. I don't give a crap about any of them, really. There's no hero to really root for, no villains you love to hate. Even the show's most intriguing element, the mystery of who or what was responsible for the flash-forwards, has been dragged out so long, and in such meandering fashion, that it's hard to really care anymore. All the hints we've been given are right out of the usual sci-fi book of cliches. Wow, a mysterious organization with nefarious intent might be behind the whole thing? Well slap me sideways and call me uncle. It didn't help matters that the interrogation scenes - in which the mysterious femme fatale from Ambiguous Evil Organization X was questioned about her knowledge of the flashes - were hamfistedly scripted and ultra-clunky. The writing in general on this show has been so frustrating. I mean, the biggest and craziest event in human history just happened, and we get scene after scene where the gruff FBI director dude questions his agents' every move as being too out-there? Spare me. Okay, so now is the point where apologists will point to a show like Lost, and say that Lost had a very ambiguous set of mysteries when it debuted, but what made the show work was the characters and their backstories. Well, here's the thing. Lost's character-based flashbacks worked so well because each flash revealed NEW information that further fleshed-out that character. In Flash Forward, each character has now been inextricably tied to a single, short flash. And we've had to see that same flash-forward footage about 10,000 times now. How many times do we need to see Olivia walking down her staircase and saying hello to the guy from Swingtown, implying that she's left her husband for him? Enough already! Every ep of FF so far feels like its just recycling the pilot. It was a damn good pilot, yes. But it's time to move on. Forward momentum! Does anyone honestly care about any of the slow-moving plot-points on this show after four episodes? D. Gibbons? The crows? The long-dead daughter who may still be alive? I don't think I do. One thing I will say in the show's favor -- Thursday's ep had a couple of really well-shot scenes. A great opening montage revisiting the chaos caused during the flash-forwards. An exciting on-foot chase scene. But these were all incidental scenes that did nothing to move the plot forward. Like many, I'm still waiting for a single jaw-dropping, holy-%#$@ moment. Or for a "Walkabout"-like episode that wows me from start to finish. If you have to wait five episodes for a show to at all live up to the potential of its premise, that's way too many in my book. Should I give the show another episode or two? Dominic Monaghan made a nice entrance at the end of this week's ep, but it was yet another instance of the show having a couple seconds of coolness after 44 minutes of blah. Dominic is a good actor and Charlie wasa great character on Lost, but Flash Forward is a show filled with quality actors who have yet to make an emotional impact via their characters. It feels to me like this might be a case of Kristen Bell on Heroes. So, yeah, I don't know, I feel like I might be done with Flash Forward. Thoughts?
My Grade: C-
- I'm also still feeling kind of disinterested in COMMUNITY. It's funny because I'll watch an episode and feel somewhat ambivalent, and then I'll go online and see several glowing reviews from various entertainment sites. This is one where I like the cast, I like a lot of moments in the writing, but the characters and overall premise just don't do it for me. I don't really like how much the show has focused on wacky side-character Abhed. He just falls flat for me as a character, and I find it strange that he's gotten so much of the spotlight. Meanwhile, Chevy Chase's character still feels underdeveloped. I don't feel like we've really explored him yet, and at the same time, he feels kind of out-of-place. He's yet to really have a breakout subplot that justifies his existence on the show - instead, they seem to be coasting on the fact that it's Chevy Chase. I'm as huge a fan of Chevy's classic comedy as anyone, but I don't think the character he plays here has really been a standout. Finally, the relationship between Joel McHale and Gillian Jacobs just feels strained. Rather than letting the two develop chemistry, we've immediately rushed into a situation where McHale openly pines for Jacobs. For a show that aims for an Office-style sophistication and realism, this and other plotlines feel way too traditionally sitcom-ish. In fact, I think that may be what gets me about Community. It has the trappings of a new-school single-camera comedy, but at the end of the day, is does have the feeling of being second-rate TGIF.
My Grade: B-
- On the other hand, PARKS & RECREATION continues to impress. I got a kick out of this past week's ep, and thought SNL's Fred Armisen was pretty hilarious as a visiting dignitary from Pawnee's South American sister city. The clash of egos as Leslie met her foreign counterparts was a lot of fun, and there were a number of subplots that were very funny. The foreign intern making passes at Leslie's droll, not-buying-it intern was great. And Aziz Ansari sucking up the embarassment of being taken for a servant and gladly acepting the foreign visitors' tips? Also very funny. Parks & Rec is officially a pretty awesome show.
My Grade: A-
Alright, that's about it for now. Hope you're surviving this latest Monday. I'll be back soon for more rants, reviews, and general craziness.
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