Michael Stephenson's Blog, page 16
September 23, 2015
What Can I Say? I’m Attracted To Pigs #Muppets #PremiereWeek
What Can I Say? I’m Attracted To Pigs #Muppets
Pictures courtesy of ABC
First, I would like to announce that I’ve made the decision to do a cumulative post on most of the new shows I listed in my #PremiereWeek post a few days back. This means that I will withhold talking about most of them until their third episode has aired so I can get a good sense of where the show is going and what it wants to be. For anyone saying they’d like to see a review of the show before they tuned in, but they also don’t want to be behind, I’m sorry. All I can say to you is that if you do come to find my opinion about shows that important, most channels (cable and network broadcast) tend to keep the first three episodes On Demand so you can catch up. Three (really two and a half) hours of bingeing on a good show isn’t that bad. And actually, it is much better than bingeing a full season of something. This way, I won’t break my back trying to review every single new show all at once. Oh, and some of those reviews will come either the week of the third episode or the week of the fourth.
With that said, I have to break that thought and post about The Muppets’ (#Muppets) new show. If you read my initial premiere week post, you will know that I was not too thrilled with this show or idea. Honestly, I think many people have soured on the Muppets or at least I thought they had soured on them as their second movie in their big comeback a few years ago didn’t do so well. I thought, “well, people are clearly not that interested in puppets anymore.” But with the final winner of America’s Got Talent just last week being a puppeteer—the second one to win the million dollar prize in its ten year run—I clearly don’t know as much as I thought I did. Maybe the jubilation from watching that has carried over to this show. I don’t know. But what I do know is that I actually found it pleasant, far more than I thought I would.
A mix between The Office and 30 Rock—two NBC shows that both were good in their time but I thought stayed longer than they should have—this new incarnation of the Muppets follows the behind-the-scenes exploits of a fictional show entitled Up Late with Miss Piggy. The first episode saw Miss Piggy trying to veto guest Elizabeth Banks because of a failed Hunger Games audition. It also saw Fuzzy meeting his girlfriend’s parents for the first time and Kermit getting acclimated to having a new pig girlfriend/assistant to his Liz Lemon. And you know what, it was actually funny a few times.
Before you go there, remember what you’re getting people. This is not going to be highbrow humor; in fact, I would argue that no sitcom really has that (yes, that includes the Big Bang). But I will say that if you lifted this script and put it into an episode of 30 Rock, few viewers would know the difference. It’s on that level. Much of the humor is geared toward adults just like the two winning puppet masters of AGT also had adult humor mixed in with Will Ferrell-esque silliness (love Will Ferrell).
In talking about the kind of humor, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the controversy. A few conservative groups have come out against the show believing it would be too dirty or too adult for its eight o’clock time slot, especially since it was marketed as a family show. While I have yet to see the other episodes, I didn’t find anything too offensive or dirty in the show to warrant such outrage. I actually find it funny that this is the show magnet-ing controversy when ABC clearly expected that crown to go to Black-ish’s season premiere, which they quite cheerfully promote for approaching the use of the N-word (so edgy! Has it ever been done before?). Another post will follow about that.
If anything, the humor wasn’t adult enough. Here’s my thing, after watching the show I really don’t know who it is geared to. I thought there’d be more jokes for younger children (under 10 crowd) but not really. Adults will get all of their silliness, but will they tune in weekly for it and what will motivate that? The crowd I see most likely to both be young enough still for the novelty of puppets and old enough to get all the jokes would be the tweeners, teens and new adults (11-22). The question is will that be enough to keep it afloat or will older people tune in for nostalgia and the Office-like humor? Again, The Muppets always skewed a little older even in their original show. Will this attract the fans left over from shows like Community, Parks and Recreation and the like? Only time will tell.
What do you think? Did you see the premiere of the new show or were you too busy watching Scream Queens over on Fox or The Voice over on NBC or something else on some other channel... or reading? Even if you didn’t see it, are you interested now that you know what kind of humor it has? Do you think you would watch it with your family? And will you give it the three episode challenge as I do most shows? Let me know what you think in the comments below. Hint: click where it reads “no comments” to comment.
As always, check out my books on Amazon (if you’re looking for Halloween scares check #AFuriousWind, #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or #ThePowerOfTen). For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check out #TheWriter. The final episode of season one of The Writer is coming this Friday. All other 14 episodes are out now available exclusively on Amazon. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to my blog.
Until next time, “Pope, the floor is not a hamper.” “Maaannn!”
P.S. Fine, that’s not really a sign-off line. It’s really more dialogue than anything. And yes, it’s from Family Guy from, like, ten years ago. But gimme a break, the Pope is here. Am I Catholic? No. But it’s the pope. The pope, y’all!
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Twitter@filmbooksbball
Pictures courtesy of ABC First, I would like to announce that I’ve made the decision to do a cumulative post on most of the new shows I listed in my #PremiereWeek post a few days back. This means that I will withhold talking about most of them until their third episode has aired so I can get a good sense of where the show is going and what it wants to be. For anyone saying they’d like to see a review of the show before they tuned in, but they also don’t want to be behind, I’m sorry. All I can say to you is that if you do come to find my opinion about shows that important, most channels (cable and network broadcast) tend to keep the first three episodes On Demand so you can catch up. Three (really two and a half) hours of bingeing on a good show isn’t that bad. And actually, it is much better than bingeing a full season of something. This way, I won’t break my back trying to review every single new show all at once. Oh, and some of those reviews will come either the week of the third episode or the week of the fourth.
With that said, I have to break that thought and post about The Muppets’ (#Muppets) new show. If you read my initial premiere week post, you will know that I was not too thrilled with this show or idea. Honestly, I think many people have soured on the Muppets or at least I thought they had soured on them as their second movie in their big comeback a few years ago didn’t do so well. I thought, “well, people are clearly not that interested in puppets anymore.” But with the final winner of America’s Got Talent just last week being a puppeteer—the second one to win the million dollar prize in its ten year run—I clearly don’t know as much as I thought I did. Maybe the jubilation from watching that has carried over to this show. I don’t know. But what I do know is that I actually found it pleasant, far more than I thought I would.
A mix between The Office and 30 Rock—two NBC shows that both were good in their time but I thought stayed longer than they should have—this new incarnation of the Muppets follows the behind-the-scenes exploits of a fictional show entitled Up Late with Miss Piggy. The first episode saw Miss Piggy trying to veto guest Elizabeth Banks because of a failed Hunger Games audition. It also saw Fuzzy meeting his girlfriend’s parents for the first time and Kermit getting acclimated to having a new pig girlfriend/assistant to his Liz Lemon. And you know what, it was actually funny a few times.
Before you go there, remember what you’re getting people. This is not going to be highbrow humor; in fact, I would argue that no sitcom really has that (yes, that includes the Big Bang). But I will say that if you lifted this script and put it into an episode of 30 Rock, few viewers would know the difference. It’s on that level. Much of the humor is geared toward adults just like the two winning puppet masters of AGT also had adult humor mixed in with Will Ferrell-esque silliness (love Will Ferrell).
In talking about the kind of humor, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the controversy. A few conservative groups have come out against the show believing it would be too dirty or too adult for its eight o’clock time slot, especially since it was marketed as a family show. While I have yet to see the other episodes, I didn’t find anything too offensive or dirty in the show to warrant such outrage. I actually find it funny that this is the show magnet-ing controversy when ABC clearly expected that crown to go to Black-ish’s season premiere, which they quite cheerfully promote for approaching the use of the N-word (so edgy! Has it ever been done before?). Another post will follow about that.
If anything, the humor wasn’t adult enough. Here’s my thing, after watching the show I really don’t know who it is geared to. I thought there’d be more jokes for younger children (under 10 crowd) but not really. Adults will get all of their silliness, but will they tune in weekly for it and what will motivate that? The crowd I see most likely to both be young enough still for the novelty of puppets and old enough to get all the jokes would be the tweeners, teens and new adults (11-22). The question is will that be enough to keep it afloat or will older people tune in for nostalgia and the Office-like humor? Again, The Muppets always skewed a little older even in their original show. Will this attract the fans left over from shows like Community, Parks and Recreation and the like? Only time will tell.
What do you think? Did you see the premiere of the new show or were you too busy watching Scream Queens over on Fox or The Voice over on NBC or something else on some other channel... or reading? Even if you didn’t see it, are you interested now that you know what kind of humor it has? Do you think you would watch it with your family? And will you give it the three episode challenge as I do most shows? Let me know what you think in the comments below. Hint: click where it reads “no comments” to comment.
As always, check out my books on Amazon (if you’re looking for Halloween scares check #AFuriousWind, #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or #ThePowerOfTen). For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check out #TheWriter. The final episode of season one of The Writer is coming this Friday. All other 14 episodes are out now available exclusively on Amazon. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to my blog.
Until next time, “Pope, the floor is not a hamper.” “Maaannn!”
P.S. Fine, that’s not really a sign-off line. It’s really more dialogue than anything. And yes, it’s from Family Guy from, like, ten years ago. But gimme a break, the Pope is here. Am I Catholic? No. But it’s the pope. The pope, y’all!
Amazon
Goodreads Author Page
Goodreads Books Similar to TV Shows
Twitter@filmbooksbball
September 22, 2015
I Am Zaardon And The Passcode Is “BRUCE” #Gotham #PremiereWeek
I Am Zaardon And The Passcode Is “BRUCE” #Gotham #PremiereWeek
All pictures courtesy of FOX
So, there was a heck of a lot of TV going on last night and I still haven’t decided how I’m going to cover the new shows. I have been debating whether the new shows I’m interested in will get an individual post for each episode or if I’ll do a first three episode summary and my ultimate judgment on whether I’ll continue watching them or not. For now, I’ll just cover a few of the old returnees, and as you can see, we’ll start with Gotham (#Gotham).
In my opinion, Gotham whimpered back last night. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of stuff happened, but it wasn’t as “umph!” as I might like. However, the fact that it is a season premiere is the big reason why I will excuse that as this looks to be an amazing season.
It opened with Bruce and Alfred still looking into that cave they found behind the fireplace. The nosy little boy he is, he had to get that door open. Remembering that this is not the all-out genius detective Bruce will one day become, I still found it a little ridiculous that he would decide to build his own bomb and blow the door open, rather than taking a strip of clear tape and lifting the fingerprints from the most used numbers on the keypad. But the bomb making will come in handy too. Strangely, it looked nothing like a clock. Huh.
Meanwhile, Gordon suffered through his own version of Breaking Bad or the latest episode of The Writer (#TheWriter) after he was fired from police duty for touching an officer who showed up late for work. The fact that the guy even told on him shows just how ridiculous the cops in this show can get. While Gordon struggled to figure out what was right for him to do—go and collect a debt for Penguin of whom he asked a favor—crazy Barbra managed to get a phone in Arkham Asylum and called him and his new girlfriend.
Adjusting quite well to her new residence in Arkham, Barbra befriended Jerome (our supposed future joker and current redheaded Dennis the menace), as well as some rich guy with not a single lick of back story. Didn’t matter because he refused to be a criminal under another criminal mastermind who seeks to bring total anarchy to the city. The white guy let his black sister (oh no! Somebody call the people who complained about the Fantastic Four’s race discrepancy) gut him in front of Barbra and Jerome.
Oddly, this new big menace was the same guy speaking at Commissioner Loeb’s forced retirement—a favor the commissioner owed to Penguin for sparing his life... and his head (shocked that the FCC let FOX get away with a severed head in the eight o’clock hour). This a favor to Gordon from Penguin, Jim not only got reinstated to detective but also saw his black lady boss become the new commissioner.
All that acted as setup for the season as now a slew of villains will be let loose and puppeteered by this new guy, and revenge from Barbra and Loeb is sure to come. From some of the internet’s theories and rumors circulating, many are saying that Barbra will turn into Harley Quinn as she and Jerome already get along swimmingly. While I can see that in some respects, I’m not sure if Warner would want to do that so close to Suicide Squad releasing. For one, while viewers of the cartoon are well aware of her background, most people are not, especially those who didn’t read the comics after the 90s. Muddying her origin story on the show, then introducing an entirely different background in the film could make people hate both as the disparity in age between the two was always a key aspect of her character. Also, Barbra still seems too put together to become as loony as Harley needs to be. We’ll see if her character devolves into lunacy on par with Jerome, but for now I wouldn’t like this idea.
Probably the biggest thing from this episode that actually ticked me off was its still unresolved spirit of what it wants to be. Does it want to stay completely grounded in reality or will it venture into the paranormal, bizarre and magical which could introduce some of Batman’s stranger villains like Clayface and Killer Croc. This, evidenced by the use of some strange potion imbibed by Zaardon. No, not Zordon the Power Rangers’ pale white benefactor and mentor, but a cheap, costumed villain who Gordon arrested at the beginning of the episode. The potion turned out to be a smoke bomb of some sort that magically went off at the most convenient time for an Asylum break. My reaction: “Really? He just happened to kill over and die from the potion at the same exact time the villains came to get Jerome, Barbra and the others? Well, OK. If you say so, Gotham.”
Still, I had fun and it’s nice to see that they’re building on character—is it too early to say that I suddenly like the kid playing Bruce and could totally see him growing into Batman?
Anyway, what did you all think about the season two premiere of Gotham? Did it not have enough action for you? Are you disappointed in the background they’re building for the Joker (I always liked his mystic and the fact that he had no reason for his evilness; sometimes bad is just bad)? Do you think Loeb will return for revenge or is he forever off the show now? Let me know what you think in the comments below. Hint: click where it reads “no comments” to comment.
As always, check out my books on Amazon (if you’re looking for Halloween scares check #AFuriousWind, #DARKER, #BrandNewHomeor #ThePowerOfTen). For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check out #TheWriter. The final episode of season one of The Writer is coming this Friday. All other 14 episodes are out now available exclusively on Amazon. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to my blog.
Until next time, “ridin’ through the six in my popemobile, just ridin’ through the six makin’ hope so real.”
P.S. OK, maybe I made that up. It was about time I made up a good sign-off, right? So what if it’s a play on Drake’s song lyrics. According to Meek, he didn’t even write them. And just because I’m not pope doesn’t mean I don’t have a popemobile. Alright, fine, I keep workin’ on it.
Amazon
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Twitter@filmbooksbball
All pictures courtesy of FOX
So, there was a heck of a lot of TV going on last night and I still haven’t decided how I’m going to cover the new shows. I have been debating whether the new shows I’m interested in will get an individual post for each episode or if I’ll do a first three episode summary and my ultimate judgment on whether I’ll continue watching them or not. For now, I’ll just cover a few of the old returnees, and as you can see, we’ll start with Gotham (#Gotham).
In my opinion, Gotham whimpered back last night. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of stuff happened, but it wasn’t as “umph!” as I might like. However, the fact that it is a season premiere is the big reason why I will excuse that as this looks to be an amazing season.
It opened with Bruce and Alfred still looking into that cave they found behind the fireplace. The nosy little boy he is, he had to get that door open. Remembering that this is not the all-out genius detective Bruce will one day become, I still found it a little ridiculous that he would decide to build his own bomb and blow the door open, rather than taking a strip of clear tape and lifting the fingerprints from the most used numbers on the keypad. But the bomb making will come in handy too. Strangely, it looked nothing like a clock. Huh.
Meanwhile, Gordon suffered through his own version of Breaking Bad or the latest episode of The Writer (#TheWriter) after he was fired from police duty for touching an officer who showed up late for work. The fact that the guy even told on him shows just how ridiculous the cops in this show can get. While Gordon struggled to figure out what was right for him to do—go and collect a debt for Penguin of whom he asked a favor—crazy Barbra managed to get a phone in Arkham Asylum and called him and his new girlfriend.
Adjusting quite well to her new residence in Arkham, Barbra befriended Jerome (our supposed future joker and current redheaded Dennis the menace), as well as some rich guy with not a single lick of back story. Didn’t matter because he refused to be a criminal under another criminal mastermind who seeks to bring total anarchy to the city. The white guy let his black sister (oh no! Somebody call the people who complained about the Fantastic Four’s race discrepancy) gut him in front of Barbra and Jerome.
Oddly, this new big menace was the same guy speaking at Commissioner Loeb’s forced retirement—a favor the commissioner owed to Penguin for sparing his life... and his head (shocked that the FCC let FOX get away with a severed head in the eight o’clock hour). This a favor to Gordon from Penguin, Jim not only got reinstated to detective but also saw his black lady boss become the new commissioner.
All that acted as setup for the season as now a slew of villains will be let loose and puppeteered by this new guy, and revenge from Barbra and Loeb is sure to come. From some of the internet’s theories and rumors circulating, many are saying that Barbra will turn into Harley Quinn as she and Jerome already get along swimmingly. While I can see that in some respects, I’m not sure if Warner would want to do that so close to Suicide Squad releasing. For one, while viewers of the cartoon are well aware of her background, most people are not, especially those who didn’t read the comics after the 90s. Muddying her origin story on the show, then introducing an entirely different background in the film could make people hate both as the disparity in age between the two was always a key aspect of her character. Also, Barbra still seems too put together to become as loony as Harley needs to be. We’ll see if her character devolves into lunacy on par with Jerome, but for now I wouldn’t like this idea.
Probably the biggest thing from this episode that actually ticked me off was its still unresolved spirit of what it wants to be. Does it want to stay completely grounded in reality or will it venture into the paranormal, bizarre and magical which could introduce some of Batman’s stranger villains like Clayface and Killer Croc. This, evidenced by the use of some strange potion imbibed by Zaardon. No, not Zordon the Power Rangers’ pale white benefactor and mentor, but a cheap, costumed villain who Gordon arrested at the beginning of the episode. The potion turned out to be a smoke bomb of some sort that magically went off at the most convenient time for an Asylum break. My reaction: “Really? He just happened to kill over and die from the potion at the same exact time the villains came to get Jerome, Barbra and the others? Well, OK. If you say so, Gotham.”
Still, I had fun and it’s nice to see that they’re building on character—is it too early to say that I suddenly like the kid playing Bruce and could totally see him growing into Batman?
Anyway, what did you all think about the season two premiere of Gotham? Did it not have enough action for you? Are you disappointed in the background they’re building for the Joker (I always liked his mystic and the fact that he had no reason for his evilness; sometimes bad is just bad)? Do you think Loeb will return for revenge or is he forever off the show now? Let me know what you think in the comments below. Hint: click where it reads “no comments” to comment.
As always, check out my books on Amazon (if you’re looking for Halloween scares check #AFuriousWind, #DARKER, #BrandNewHomeor #ThePowerOfTen). For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check out #TheWriter. The final episode of season one of The Writer is coming this Friday. All other 14 episodes are out now available exclusively on Amazon. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to my blog.
Until next time, “ridin’ through the six in my popemobile, just ridin’ through the six makin’ hope so real.”
P.S. OK, maybe I made that up. It was about time I made up a good sign-off, right? So what if it’s a play on Drake’s song lyrics. According to Meek, he didn’t even write them. And just because I’m not pope doesn’t mean I don’t have a popemobile. Alright, fine, I keep workin’ on it.
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September 21, 2015
The Leaves Are About To Turn Any Day, The Weather Is Getting Cooler And Hipsters Are Explaining Their Thesis On Why They Cut The Cord. Brace Yourselves People, It’s Fall Premiere Week! #PremiereWeek
The Leaves Are About To Turn Any Day, The Weather Is Getting Cooler And Hipsters Are Explaining Their Thesis On Why They Cut The Cord. Brace Yourselves People, It’s Fall Premiere Week! #PremiereWeek
Picture courtesy of the 2015 Emmys
Ahhh! I am so excited! As I said in an earlier post, I am back after my summer hiatus to blog and chat with you about TV with a few movies, books, cooking recipes and pop culture chat sprinkled in, and did I mention the season 1 finale of my episodic novella series The Writer (#TheWriter) will be releasing this Friday? Check it out and catch up on the entire season over at Amazon. So, with the season premiering, we have a lot to discuss on TV concerning shows both old and new. Let’s begin, shall we.
Dang it! What should I do first, people: the old school returnees or the new class of shows? Since you’re already familiar with the old school, let’s go over the new shows (at least the one’s I’m interested in watching). And to keep it simple for you, I've made these links so you can zip right to each different network if you don't have time to read it all right now.
CBSFOXCWNBCABC
CBS
Out of the over 100 new shows slated for the 2015-2016 season, CBS seems to have the fewest among the major channels. This probably stems from the fact that they rarely seem to cancel anything and still have the blob/goo monster that is the CSI franchise dominating their network. Speaking of which, it is slated to have a full season of CSI: Cyber which premiered back in March. I am not interested in that show unfortunately (or maybe it is fortunate. Frees up time). The two CBS shows I am interested in are: Limitless and Supergirl.
Since Supergirl won’t be premiering until October 28th (what? First they make us wait a year for Batman v. Superman, then they push Supergirl back to 3 days before Halloween? Not cool, Warner Bros.), I’ll focus currently on Limitless.
Picture courtesy of CBS and IGN
Based on the film starring Bradley Cooper, Limitless follows Brian Sinclair, an average Joe who, like Cooper’s character, winds up with a super pill that makes him a genius while he’s on it (think Meth except... well, nothing like Meth. Never mind). The question for the show, just like for the movie, will be: what will he do with this power? Do I feel an Uncle Ben reference coming on? Huh? Is he going to turn into Spider-man? Hey, don’t criticize my humor and wild assumptions. If you’ve seen the trailer for the show, you’d know that he has a little fire escape stunt that seems very familiar to a certain web slinger.
Why I’m Interested: A sequel of sorts to the movie, Bradley Cooper’s character will appear in the show from time to time I guess as a sort of Mr. Miyagi to Brian. In a dual role, he’ll also serve as a producer to help this thing succeed. As a huge Alias fan back in the day, I am excited to finally see his return to TV even if it is only a pop-in every so often.
Aside from that, I find the premise enticing in that its not your typical genius or typical everyman but a hybrid mixture of both, whose “powers” fluctuate in and out depending on how often he takes the pill. Also, in the movie there was a big deal made about how he’d have to keep taking the pills or possibly die, so... that’s always fun. And it’s got Jennifer Carpenter in it whom I have secretly crushed on since she played Emily Rose during that exorcism movie—not the really famous one, but the other lesser famous one. No, not that one either, but the other one. I ain’t got time, look it up.
Hopefully, this can take the procedural buddy cop show love affair that TV has enjoyed since Moonlighting (and even earlier), and add a new flair to the case of the week premise. Moving ON!
FOXSpeaking of TV series serving as sequels to films, Fox has Minority Report premiering this week. “What? But wait, what about the rest of the shows on CBS?” Sadly, I’ve never been a big fan of most CBS shows, therefore, I’m not interested in watching Angel From Hell, Code Black or Life In Pieces. Check back in January for my decision on Rush Hour.
Back to Fox. With a plethora of new shows, Minority Report looks to be an interesting sci-fi addition to the network. After quick cancellations of shows like Almost Human, and the horrific failure that was Utopia, along with a slew of other bad comedies and some not oft-watched comedies (I’m lookin’ at you Mindy Project), Fox wants to invest in some of the bigger names this season.
Starting with Minority Report, they’ll feed off the fact that it was a Spielberg-directed Tom Cruise-starrer that drew enough of a fanbase to earn a 7.7 IMDb rating even 14 years after its release. Spielberg is back, though only as an executive producer.
Starring Meagan Good as Lara Vega and Stark Sands as Dash, these two team together to fight crime as Dash, a pre-cog who can see crimes before they happen seeks to fit into society as a normal person. If you know anything from the movie, apparently Dash is the weakest pre-cog of the three used and is now an adult living in an era where what he used to do as a child is now illegal. Pre-crime, or arresting someone on a crime they haven’t yet, but will in the future commit is his everyday reality. Where as Brian is Spider-man, Dash is Kitty Pryde or Jean Grey from X-Men. You sneaky shows you, having superheroes without capes and cowls.
Why I’m Interested? OK, there’s a lot here. To begin, the movie focused a bright light on not just the imperfect system of the pre-cogs and what they see, but also on the questionable morality of this new way of stopping crime. Now that it’s illegal or at least frowned upon, will that give this show an outlaw/vigilantism feel a la Batman? Will we want to root for Dash and his female cop friend for stopping the crimes even if people aren’t given the opportunity to change their mind and not commit the crime? Or will the show gloss over those things in favor of buddy cop shenanigans similar to Castle (I love Castle)?
Admittedly, fans should be leery as Fox has a habit of quickly axing sci-fi or anything they feel will push their budget to capacity. On the bright side, they’ve put this in a prime spot on Mondays paired with the strong Gotham returning for its second season. We’ll see how much of the futuristic technology they can incorporate.
Staying on Fox, Tuesdays will be packed with new shows to fill the slot left by the annexing of the Mindy Project. They’ll start with Grandfathered, headlined by Uncle Jesse—uh, I mean, John Stamos, and that fat kid that turned out to be Hollywood heartthrob hot (so I’ve been told by women), Josh Peck. Basically, a guy’s life is flipped upside-down when an illegitimate son shows up and tells him that he is also a grandfather. I am only hot and cold on this show as I haven’t seen enough advertisements about it, but I’ll tune in for the first three episodes when they premiere next week.
After that, they have the Grinder, starring Ben Savage and Rob Lowe, a show I know even less about outside of the fact that they’re lawyers in a small town. Someone mentioned a big fish in a small pond thing and it got me thinking about Robert Downey Jr.’s The Judge—probably not a good comparison. I feel the same about it as I do about Grandfathered. I’ll give it the first three episodes, but I can’t say I don’t see my interest already fizzling.
But then we go from the “eh!” category back to, “I’ve got to see this!” Filling out the rest of Tuesday is Scream Queens (not to be confused with the VH1 reality series from near a decade ago). You want young starlets? They got Emma Roberts, Keke Palmer (#Keeks), Lea Michele and Abigail Breslin. You want older stars? They got Jamie Lee Curtis and Niecy Nash. You want blood, guts, mayhem and all-around bitchiness? Who-hoooo-hooa! They got that. Scream Queens is set to follow a new year at Wallace University’s most popular Sorority house. After an unfortunate death rocked the campus 20 years ago, a sudden and new string of murders has come to grip the campus again.
Why I’m Interested? From Ryan Murphy, creator of Amerian Horror Story (a favorite) and Glee (never quite got into it) and Nip/Tuck (loved the first two seasons then it fizzled), comes this little comedy horror gem (fingers crossed, here’s hopin’!) that, from what I’ve read will be another anthology series such as AHS but highly toned down in gore for network TV. I’m also excited to see it because I recently released my own horror revolving around sorority house horror entitled DARKER (#DARKER) currently out on Amazon. Much less humor, I’d like to see what commonalities we’ll have. And I’m always up for a good scare.
Next, we have Rosewood on Wednesdays which will have Empire as the follow-up in its sophomore season. More on that later. What about Rosewood? Well, I’m not really that jazzed about this show. Starring Morris Chestnut, who I highly enjoy in many of his movies, it’s a show about a pathologist who works with the police a lot. The crux or draw to get you to watch: he’s extremely close to death because of a rare birth defect with his heart. To that, I react with this:
Yeah, it seems just like another run-of-the-mill procedural cop show and with Minority Report and Limitless already on my new show card, not to mention the returning favorites, I’m not that excited about another case-of-the-week drama. While I’d love to support more minorities in good roles, I don’t see myself tuning into this until my mid-season slump/hunt to see if I missed something good.
Moving on!
Fox Thursdays is pretty much old hat, bringing back two old favorites in Bones and Sleepy Hollow. While I completely hate the move of Sleepy to Thursdays (yes, put all the black shows/female dominated shows on Thursdays as if Grey’s, Scandal, How To Get Away With Murder and The Blacklist weren’t already enough), I do thank God and the creator of DVR almost everyday.
Fox Fridays will be a sort of shuffle day. They will start with returning shows Master Chef and World’s Funniest and throw whatever reruns tickle their fancy into those slots whenever desired. And, of course, Saturday is sports and Sunday is Animation Domination (yes, I still call it that even though Last Man on Earth is coming back along with Brooklyn-9-9). Unfortunately, I stopped watching most of that stuff long ago and only tune into Bob’s Burgers occasionally because I love the awkwardness of that family.
To sum up Fox, they seem to be playing fairly safe with their new shows banking on the cache of certain names or certain races of people (hint, hint every night has black people). However, it should be of note that Fox has always skewed both younger and/or more ethnically diverse ever since the days of In Living Color, so not much surprise there.
CW
Speaking of younger skewing, next up is the CW—the dreaded Marcia of the Network TV Brady Bunch. Awkward and gawkish, the CW will continue to stay true to itself and see many returning shows including, The Flash, iZombie, Jane the Virgin, Arrow, Supernatural and a slew of others. Note that I only actually watch one show on CW which is The Flash—I came into Arrow too late for me to really enjoy it and don’t have time to catch up with it. The good news about the CW is that just about all of its shows are returning, so congratulations to the shows that got viewers to believe in them. The bad news is that because of all the returns of hour-long dramas and comedies, most of their new shows won’t premiere until mid-season or as a replacement of something that gets unexpectedly canceled. The even worse news is that the only show they do have coming out new is the show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend which I will have to do a completely separate post on. Why? Because from the trailers and commercials I’ve seen of the show, it sounds a lot like my new book, “Yep, I’m Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend” slated to come out in early October. I don’t know if I’ll watch this show yet but wait for a post maybe in a week or two talking about it more in depth as well as my book and why it matters that they look so similar.
As for the mid-season shows, again, wait until January.
Pasar!
NBC
Next, we have NBC. Where to begin with NBC? They have a slew of shows which are new and look good/are possible rip-offs of other things, and I cannot wait to see all the knock-off glory.
They start their Mondays with an old stand-by, The Voice. You know, that’s the one where the people sing and there’s the chairs and, uh... like... some other stuff. Competition! They move into their new show Blindspot at 10pm.
Starring Jaimie Alexander—the non-Wonder Woman, who should have been Wonder Woman who, instead, played Lady Sif in Thor—as a tatted-up Jane Doe found in a bag in the middle of Times Squares (Fabo from D4L would be proud; it’s an obscure rap reference. I ain’t got time, look it up!). She doesn’t know who she is or why she’s there but the tattoos are not just clues to crimes, but tell a story of who she is and her connection to the FBI agent who has been put in charge of her mystery. A lady Bourne Identity which was just a more specialized version of Dominic Purcell’s 2002 show John Doe, this will see the lovely Ms. Alexander as a kick-butt enigma knowing stuff but not knowing why. A mystery wrapped in a mystery, topped with a bubbling layer of cheese... and more mystery, this is sure to keep me guessing for at least as long as Red’s real identity on The Blacklist did.
Why I’m interested? Oh! I guess I already explained that, didn’t I? Did I say that Jaimie Alexander is one of the 252 Hollywood women that I have a crush on and wouldn’t mind having babies with? I did say that? When? Just now? Gotcha! You readers are tricky.
Passer!
Tuesdays will see more of The Voice followed by new shows Chicago Med and Best Time Ever with the returning Chicago Fire coming back in November to replace the latter show. While I am highly interested in the city of Chicago right now (“Yep, I’m totally stalking my Ex-Boyfriend” is set there), I haven’t watched any of the Chicago shows and am just not that interested in another medical show. Sorry, Chicago Med, I’m probably not going to watch you.
Best Time ever will also most likely get the cold shoulder as variety shows of this nature seem more YouTube clip-worthy than having me devote a full hour to view it.
Wednesdays will also be filled with returning shows, including a second season for the Mysteries of Laura, which I will be watching, and Law and Order SVU which I dabble in. Chicago P.D. Will end the night. Then on Thursday is when things get interesting with two new shows sandwiching The Blacklist into the 9pm time slot (still don’t like it because it’s against Scandal, but it did alright there last year and my DVR came in handy). Up first, they’ll start the night with Heroes Reborn.
To start, I am surprised that NBC didn’t go for the kill ABC trifecta and switch Heroes Reborn to 9pm on Tuesday to go against Agents of SHIELD or move it all the way to Mondays at 10 (the first incarnations original slot) to go against CBS’s Supergirl come late October. If they had moved it to Tuesdays against SHIELD and moved Chicago Med to Thursdays, they could have an almost exact copycat night with ABC.I digress. Heroes Reborn brings a renewed spin to the original show in which people were given superpowers because of some moon/sun eclipse thingy. As with most things involving superpowered people, it will be dealing with those who have the powers and those who want to destroy them, or capture them or do other such terrible things with them. The thing working against it is that, unlike Marvel’s shows, CW’s superhero universe, and even DC shows on Fox and CBS, Heroes Reborn neither has anything to connect it to something else nor does it really have a rich and long-standing source material. This may have been one of the reasons it originally got canceled. With the influx of superheroes now, it is hard to say whether this can stand above the rest of the crowd.
Why I’m Interested?OK, by now fans of the original Heroes show can probably tell I wasn’t much of a fan the first time around (moon/sun eclipse thingy? Come on, Michael, do your research). You have to remember that the first one came out back before comic book adaptation hysteria kicked into overdrive. If felt too much like X-Men and I was never fully into X-Men. This time, I’m giving it a chance simply based off the fact that there was such fan support for it that NBC saw fit to bring it back. That doesn’t happen often, which means (it better mean!) that there was something good I just missed the first time around. We’ll see.
As said, The Blacklist follows that, but then another new show entitled The Player will air. Probably my most intriguing show of the fall, The Player looks similar to a TV idea I had way back in the 90s (maybe one day I’ll get to make it) entitled The Game. This rendition sees Wesley Snipes in all his Wesley Snipes-black glory returning to someplace other than prison for IRS and tax fraud. Ha ha ha! #TheShadeIsReal! But seriously, he doesn’t stray too far from the criminal element as he plays a broker/game executor who oversees a high-stakes gambling arena where the super wealthy gamble on crime. Yeah! Crazy, right? It totally just blew your mind and then you shrugged and said, “eh! I could actually see that happening.” Now you’re thinkin’, “holy crap! How is he readin’ my mind?” Hey, it’s just how I roll.
Philip Winchester will play the titular character who will be forced to complete complex tasks and stop crimes, while people bet on his ability to accomplish such charges. Forget figuring out How To Get Away With Murder, he’ll have to figure out how to save a life, who shot the sheriff, and who’s that lady week after week. It’s... just... a lot.
Why I’m interested? Well, I finally get to see Wesley Snipes on TV—always been a very specific dream of mine. I also like the concept of the show as it will surely be challenging morally and seems to have a very Liam Neeson’s Taken kind of feel to it. If it can keep the intensity and pace each week while building up to a climax that would see the Player confronting this group of super wealthy people, I’m all in.
Then, in a strange and unconventional twist, NBC has decided to put two comedies on Friday after having abandoned their Must See Thursdays TV slogan they had back since Seinfeld first premiered, maybe longer than that. To add to the weirdness, their first comedy will be the returning Undateable, which I never watched but heard great stuff about. But, in a Drew Carey late 90s early 2000s spin on things, Undateable will be live... all season. Teh! Yeah, take that in for a moment. Not that live television is anything new, but the insignia of “live” is usually saved these days for award shows and reality competitions, or at the very least variety shows where flubs and mistakes from the script can actually endear us to an actor more (Hi, Jimmy Fallon!). Doing this with a scripted sitcom for longer than two episodes is a big risk, which could either pay off in massive dividends or crash and burn the sophomore comedy. Either way, well played Undateable. I am now intrigued to see where this is going.
The same can’t be said about the one new show on Fridays, Truth Be Told. Starring Saved By The Bell blonde kid not playing Saved By The Bell blonde kid (Mark Paul Gosselaar for you lames) and black bailiff from the highly underrated and even more under-watched Bad Judge, this show is about... uh... Well, there’s these two married guys and they... um... I’m sorry, is this a new age version of Seinfeld? I can’t for the life of me figure out what the hell this show is really about. It’s not about people falling in love. It’s not about a modern family. It’s not really about a group of friends struggling to be single in the big city either. So what the heck are they doing? A tee-hee, I don’t know but Vanessa Lachey is on it, so... that’s somethin’.
NBC rounds out the night with Grimm (my fave) and their usual Dateline which then oozes over into both Saturday’s and Sunday’s schedule when football isn’t on. From the list of shows, it seems like NBC is trying to at least appeal to the current trend of superheroes, as well as inject some more minorities into their line-up with The Player, Truth Be Told and Chicago Med. Baby steps.
ABC
And Finally, we have ABC. Oh, ABC, my beloved. What shows shall you enamor me with this season only to cancel them before I’ve had time to truly enjoy the bounty of their stories and the richness of their characters? Why do I return to you, my love, when ill-will and scars remaining from shows taken before their time are fated between us? What new heights shall I soar to on the back of twisty, turning good shows? What unforeseen and unmitigated depths shall I sink when a show I’ve long anticipated turns out to be terrible and bland? Only time shall tell, I suppose.
We begin with Mondays slate of shows. Two old familiars return with Dancing With The Stars #DWTS already started and Castle (#Castle) premiering tonight. For what it’s worth I so enjoy both shows but can see how some fans have tired on both of them. I mean, how long can people make the life of a writer interesting, am I right? Oh, wait...
Tuesday is where we see our first drop of new blood, though, technically its just old blood but with a new and tighter face. The Muppets, after making their movie return a few years back, return to the small screen and boy is it looking to be controversial for the first few episodes as news broke earlier this summer about Kermit and Ms. Piggy breaking up. OK, honestly I am probably not going to watch the show but, come on, who didn’t see the two of them breaking up? It’s been how many years he’s been hoppin’ on that and he hasn’t put a ring on it yet to make her a Mrs. (that was a little dirty wasn’t it)? With all joking aside, it’ll be in the half hour time slot right before sophomore comedy Fresh Off The Boat. Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD is holding steady in its third season at 9pm as mentioned before while ABC will slot a new show at 10pm. The new show, Wicked City won’t start until October after a few weeks of Beyond The Tank, but I’ll talk about it here as it is supposed to start soon enough.
Admittedly, I haven’t seen or read much about Wicked City. It doesn’t seem to be that hyped of a show by the network which is generally a bad sign, but I’ll tune in for the first three anyway. What’s looking like it could be an anthology series in the vein of American Crime, it is a modern period piece set in 1982 LA where music and hard drugs mingle into murder and mystery. It has a few recognizable names to it if you watch enough TV/Film like Ed Westwick and Taissa Farmiga, but other than that it seems to be a big mystery.
Why I’m Interested? Again, I’m not stoked to see it but I will tune in as it promises to be a harder, darker-toned look at crime that will break from the normal cop procedural symptoms and look at the crimes from all sides like American Crime did. That is not to say I was enthralled with American Crime but found it decent for network TV.
Bewegen auf!
Wednesday stays completely the same for now with every single sitcom coming back and the night ending with Nashville. Of course, viewers will look forward to ABC’s click and news-cycle baiting Black-ish premiere that will highlight the use of the dreaded N-word. To that I say, I enjoy watching Nashville.
Onward to Thursday, which also will see a seismic shift in absolutely none of its programming. The same line-up of Grey’s (I wrote something up on that, concerning Ellen Pompeo’s comments earlier this summer), Scandal (prepare thyself #gladiators #Scandal) and How To Get Away With Murder. With the latter going into its second season, each show has proven to be a ratings juggernaut on Thursdays as compared against NFL numbers. We’ll see how viewers and Grey’s core fans respond to the aftermath of the whole Derek fiasco.
Friday also doesn’t show much new programming as ABC is still trying to rebuild its TGIF of the 90s with Tim Allen’s Last Man Standing starting the night. While I thought Reba McEntire’s Malibu Country from, like, two years ago was a worthy coupling to Tim’s zany aging white man troupe, the network has decided to add a middle-aged Asian man and his family to the mix.
Coming to 8:30pm ABC Fridays is Dr. Ken, replacing last season’s Cristela which felt like it would have gone great with CW’s Jane the Virgin if made into a one-camera format. Dr. Ken will follow popular “that one Asian guy in that funny movie” actor Ken Jeong as he brings a funnier, fantasized version of his real life before fame when he was just a lowly super-educated doctor. A “what could have been” look at his life, it’ll be your standard family sitcom focused on upwardly mobile Americans.
Why I’m Interested? Well, out of all the new shows coming out, I am probably the most mixed about this one. From one vantage point, I really want to see this to see if Ken Jeong’s humor not only translates well back to TV (he’s been a little dirtier in the films and was only a tertiary character on Community) but also to see if he’ll be able to adequately play both the straight man and the set-up guy as is generally required in sitcoms. On the other hand, I feel this show doesn’t have the full network backing as it is being placed in a black hole of a slot. See, I feel like if ABC is going to bring back TGIF—as they already have TGIT—then go all out with it. Move one of the successful Wednesday sitcoms to Friday after Tim, move Fresh Off The Boat and The Muppets also so that you can then have Shark Tank earlier in the week. By toe-dipping, they make me think they don’t have faith in the property.
Saturdays will stay open for films, sports and specials as usual, but Sundays will see the rise of two new shows. Just like Last Man Standing, ABC execs have been looking for something to compliment Once Upon A Time (#OUAT) and Revenge. Now that Revenge has been served... its walking papers, only OUAT remains with America’s Funniest Home Videos still in the 7pm spot for those that watch it. While AFV will have new host Alfonso Ribeiro, he will not be the only new, black addition.
That’s right, they’re adding black gold, oil to be precise. At 9pm will follow probably my third most anticipated show of the fall, Blood and Oil. Centered around a young couple that travel to North Dakota to strike it rich in oil, and the preying family they intersect with on their search for riches, this is bound to be a twisty, turny, backstabbing soap drama that has been missing since the first season of Revenge (though I enjoyed all 4 seasons). With Don Johnson attached as the baron, rich guy standing in the way of the young couple’s hustle, I am highly intrigued.
Why I’m Interested? For the past few years, I have been watching Dynasty on DVD. One of the two shows to drive the 80s wild with its opulence, high fashion and over-the-top catfights—sorry, lady quarrels—it showed that rich people could be just as deceptive, mean, conniving and cutthroat as the people at the bottom, they just look better doing it. That, coupled with Dallas, ignited a need for the nighttime soap outside of procedurals and doctor shows. If Blood and Oil can channel even a hint of those shows or the modern day Dynasty (Empire), I’m in for at least half a season. It’s lily whiteness will not be a problem for me.
Speaking of the whitest show we know, ABC made an interesting choice following Blood and Oil up with Quantico. Let me just get my TV exec playing hat out for a second and say that from everything I’ve seen so far of Quantico, it feels more like a Tuesday at 10pm show to me for ABC. Listen, if you watch enough TV and tune yourself into the mood of networks and of the viewing people, you can tell that some shows should air on certain days of the week. Quantico finishing off the Sunday schedule doesn’t seem like a brilliant choice as it looks a little too involved plot-wise for viewers winding down their weekend and looking to focus on work the next day. Then again, AMC had Breaking Bad and HBO has Game of Thrones and True Detectives but it should be noted that those shows were either in the summer or had far shorter seasons than what is expected of Quantico. The only way I see this being a good day for it is if it brings back memories of Alias. But again, I digress.
Quantico, led by the gorgeous Priyanka Chopra, will follow a new class of recruits to the FBI’s famed Quantico training facility. You’ll see them grow and becoming the agents they will be in the future. Then (and this is where a full season of this might make some viewers weary on Sunday nights), the show will hit us with a dual narrative as we jump forward in time to see that one of the recruits has pulled off “the biggest terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11.” Gasp! Yeah, I know. Similar to HTGAWM, you’ll spend much of the season trying to figure out who it is while also getting wrapped up in the romance drama.
Why I’m Interested? For one, it shows that the networks are reaching out so far into diversity now that they’ve actually put an Indian woman as the lead on a show. For that, I applaud them, especially knowing that at some point a great deal of viewers will mistake her for Middle-Eastern. I am also interested in the whodunnit aspect of the show as this will cause me to hate everybody and nobody at the same time. Paradoxical! And if it does end up having parallels with Alias, I’m all for that as well. The one thing I don’t want is for it to become another FlashForward in which the action slows down to such a crawl mid-season when things are supposed to be getting more intense that the writers suddenly have no plans for season two and leave everything too tidy while not solving the main mystery. Solve the main mystery of who did it, but in doing that, present us with a secondary mystery for next season.
Well, there it is. There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. A very long post, for a very long season ahead of us beginning later on tonight. So, what new shows are you eager to see? What old shows are you going to tune in for? Are there some old shows that you’ve finally given up on in favor of that new hussy? Or are you upset that your new show isn’t listed and isn’t coming on until later in the season? Don't be afraid to include any new cable shows you think are going to be amazing. I need to know your thoughts. I need to know them now! Questions, comments and, more comments down below.
As always, check out my books on Amazon (if you’re looking for Halloween scares check A Furious Wind, DARKER, Brand New Home or The Power of TEN. For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check out The Writer. The final episode of season one of The Writer is coming this Friday. All other 14 episodes are out now available exclusively on Amazon. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to my blog. Until next time, “I watched every show! Every single episode. I’m all caught up and I feel superb! I watched every show.”
P.S. Sure, my sign off just happened to be lines from Andy Samberg’s Emmys opening last night. So! It still applies to me. Come on ask me anything? Actually, don’t ask me about The Walking Dead... or Fear The Walking Dead... or True Detective... or what happened on Big Brother. Crap! I gotta go see if Mr. Samberg has room in his Under The Dome/Lost dungeon hatch.
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Picture courtesy of the 2015 EmmysAhhh! I am so excited! As I said in an earlier post, I am back after my summer hiatus to blog and chat with you about TV with a few movies, books, cooking recipes and pop culture chat sprinkled in, and did I mention the season 1 finale of my episodic novella series The Writer (#TheWriter) will be releasing this Friday? Check it out and catch up on the entire season over at Amazon. So, with the season premiering, we have a lot to discuss on TV concerning shows both old and new. Let’s begin, shall we.
Dang it! What should I do first, people: the old school returnees or the new class of shows? Since you’re already familiar with the old school, let’s go over the new shows (at least the one’s I’m interested in watching). And to keep it simple for you, I've made these links so you can zip right to each different network if you don't have time to read it all right now.
CBSFOXCWNBCABC
CBS
Out of the over 100 new shows slated for the 2015-2016 season, CBS seems to have the fewest among the major channels. This probably stems from the fact that they rarely seem to cancel anything and still have the blob/goo monster that is the CSI franchise dominating their network. Speaking of which, it is slated to have a full season of CSI: Cyber which premiered back in March. I am not interested in that show unfortunately (or maybe it is fortunate. Frees up time). The two CBS shows I am interested in are: Limitless and Supergirl.
Since Supergirl won’t be premiering until October 28th (what? First they make us wait a year for Batman v. Superman, then they push Supergirl back to 3 days before Halloween? Not cool, Warner Bros.), I’ll focus currently on Limitless.
Picture courtesy of CBS and IGNBased on the film starring Bradley Cooper, Limitless follows Brian Sinclair, an average Joe who, like Cooper’s character, winds up with a super pill that makes him a genius while he’s on it (think Meth except... well, nothing like Meth. Never mind). The question for the show, just like for the movie, will be: what will he do with this power? Do I feel an Uncle Ben reference coming on? Huh? Is he going to turn into Spider-man? Hey, don’t criticize my humor and wild assumptions. If you’ve seen the trailer for the show, you’d know that he has a little fire escape stunt that seems very familiar to a certain web slinger.
Why I’m Interested: A sequel of sorts to the movie, Bradley Cooper’s character will appear in the show from time to time I guess as a sort of Mr. Miyagi to Brian. In a dual role, he’ll also serve as a producer to help this thing succeed. As a huge Alias fan back in the day, I am excited to finally see his return to TV even if it is only a pop-in every so often.
Aside from that, I find the premise enticing in that its not your typical genius or typical everyman but a hybrid mixture of both, whose “powers” fluctuate in and out depending on how often he takes the pill. Also, in the movie there was a big deal made about how he’d have to keep taking the pills or possibly die, so... that’s always fun. And it’s got Jennifer Carpenter in it whom I have secretly crushed on since she played Emily Rose during that exorcism movie—not the really famous one, but the other lesser famous one. No, not that one either, but the other one. I ain’t got time, look it up.
Hopefully, this can take the procedural buddy cop show love affair that TV has enjoyed since Moonlighting (and even earlier), and add a new flair to the case of the week premise. Moving ON!
FOXSpeaking of TV series serving as sequels to films, Fox has Minority Report premiering this week. “What? But wait, what about the rest of the shows on CBS?” Sadly, I’ve never been a big fan of most CBS shows, therefore, I’m not interested in watching Angel From Hell, Code Black or Life In Pieces. Check back in January for my decision on Rush Hour.
Back to Fox. With a plethora of new shows, Minority Report looks to be an interesting sci-fi addition to the network. After quick cancellations of shows like Almost Human, and the horrific failure that was Utopia, along with a slew of other bad comedies and some not oft-watched comedies (I’m lookin’ at you Mindy Project), Fox wants to invest in some of the bigger names this season.
Starting with Minority Report, they’ll feed off the fact that it was a Spielberg-directed Tom Cruise-starrer that drew enough of a fanbase to earn a 7.7 IMDb rating even 14 years after its release. Spielberg is back, though only as an executive producer.
Starring Meagan Good as Lara Vega and Stark Sands as Dash, these two team together to fight crime as Dash, a pre-cog who can see crimes before they happen seeks to fit into society as a normal person. If you know anything from the movie, apparently Dash is the weakest pre-cog of the three used and is now an adult living in an era where what he used to do as a child is now illegal. Pre-crime, or arresting someone on a crime they haven’t yet, but will in the future commit is his everyday reality. Where as Brian is Spider-man, Dash is Kitty Pryde or Jean Grey from X-Men. You sneaky shows you, having superheroes without capes and cowls.
Why I’m Interested? OK, there’s a lot here. To begin, the movie focused a bright light on not just the imperfect system of the pre-cogs and what they see, but also on the questionable morality of this new way of stopping crime. Now that it’s illegal or at least frowned upon, will that give this show an outlaw/vigilantism feel a la Batman? Will we want to root for Dash and his female cop friend for stopping the crimes even if people aren’t given the opportunity to change their mind and not commit the crime? Or will the show gloss over those things in favor of buddy cop shenanigans similar to Castle (I love Castle)?
Admittedly, fans should be leery as Fox has a habit of quickly axing sci-fi or anything they feel will push their budget to capacity. On the bright side, they’ve put this in a prime spot on Mondays paired with the strong Gotham returning for its second season. We’ll see how much of the futuristic technology they can incorporate.
Staying on Fox, Tuesdays will be packed with new shows to fill the slot left by the annexing of the Mindy Project. They’ll start with Grandfathered, headlined by Uncle Jesse—uh, I mean, John Stamos, and that fat kid that turned out to be Hollywood heartthrob hot (so I’ve been told by women), Josh Peck. Basically, a guy’s life is flipped upside-down when an illegitimate son shows up and tells him that he is also a grandfather. I am only hot and cold on this show as I haven’t seen enough advertisements about it, but I’ll tune in for the first three episodes when they premiere next week.
After that, they have the Grinder, starring Ben Savage and Rob Lowe, a show I know even less about outside of the fact that they’re lawyers in a small town. Someone mentioned a big fish in a small pond thing and it got me thinking about Robert Downey Jr.’s The Judge—probably not a good comparison. I feel the same about it as I do about Grandfathered. I’ll give it the first three episodes, but I can’t say I don’t see my interest already fizzling.
But then we go from the “eh!” category back to, “I’ve got to see this!” Filling out the rest of Tuesday is Scream Queens (not to be confused with the VH1 reality series from near a decade ago). You want young starlets? They got Emma Roberts, Keke Palmer (#Keeks), Lea Michele and Abigail Breslin. You want older stars? They got Jamie Lee Curtis and Niecy Nash. You want blood, guts, mayhem and all-around bitchiness? Who-hoooo-hooa! They got that. Scream Queens is set to follow a new year at Wallace University’s most popular Sorority house. After an unfortunate death rocked the campus 20 years ago, a sudden and new string of murders has come to grip the campus again.
Why I’m Interested? From Ryan Murphy, creator of Amerian Horror Story (a favorite) and Glee (never quite got into it) and Nip/Tuck (loved the first two seasons then it fizzled), comes this little comedy horror gem (fingers crossed, here’s hopin’!) that, from what I’ve read will be another anthology series such as AHS but highly toned down in gore for network TV. I’m also excited to see it because I recently released my own horror revolving around sorority house horror entitled DARKER (#DARKER) currently out on Amazon. Much less humor, I’d like to see what commonalities we’ll have. And I’m always up for a good scare.
Next, we have Rosewood on Wednesdays which will have Empire as the follow-up in its sophomore season. More on that later. What about Rosewood? Well, I’m not really that jazzed about this show. Starring Morris Chestnut, who I highly enjoy in many of his movies, it’s a show about a pathologist who works with the police a lot. The crux or draw to get you to watch: he’s extremely close to death because of a rare birth defect with his heart. To that, I react with this:
Yeah, it seems just like another run-of-the-mill procedural cop show and with Minority Report and Limitless already on my new show card, not to mention the returning favorites, I’m not that excited about another case-of-the-week drama. While I’d love to support more minorities in good roles, I don’t see myself tuning into this until my mid-season slump/hunt to see if I missed something good.
Moving on!
Fox Thursdays is pretty much old hat, bringing back two old favorites in Bones and Sleepy Hollow. While I completely hate the move of Sleepy to Thursdays (yes, put all the black shows/female dominated shows on Thursdays as if Grey’s, Scandal, How To Get Away With Murder and The Blacklist weren’t already enough), I do thank God and the creator of DVR almost everyday.
Fox Fridays will be a sort of shuffle day. They will start with returning shows Master Chef and World’s Funniest and throw whatever reruns tickle their fancy into those slots whenever desired. And, of course, Saturday is sports and Sunday is Animation Domination (yes, I still call it that even though Last Man on Earth is coming back along with Brooklyn-9-9). Unfortunately, I stopped watching most of that stuff long ago and only tune into Bob’s Burgers occasionally because I love the awkwardness of that family.
To sum up Fox, they seem to be playing fairly safe with their new shows banking on the cache of certain names or certain races of people (hint, hint every night has black people). However, it should be of note that Fox has always skewed both younger and/or more ethnically diverse ever since the days of In Living Color, so not much surprise there.
CW
Speaking of younger skewing, next up is the CW—the dreaded Marcia of the Network TV Brady Bunch. Awkward and gawkish, the CW will continue to stay true to itself and see many returning shows including, The Flash, iZombie, Jane the Virgin, Arrow, Supernatural and a slew of others. Note that I only actually watch one show on CW which is The Flash—I came into Arrow too late for me to really enjoy it and don’t have time to catch up with it. The good news about the CW is that just about all of its shows are returning, so congratulations to the shows that got viewers to believe in them. The bad news is that because of all the returns of hour-long dramas and comedies, most of their new shows won’t premiere until mid-season or as a replacement of something that gets unexpectedly canceled. The even worse news is that the only show they do have coming out new is the show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend which I will have to do a completely separate post on. Why? Because from the trailers and commercials I’ve seen of the show, it sounds a lot like my new book, “Yep, I’m Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend” slated to come out in early October. I don’t know if I’ll watch this show yet but wait for a post maybe in a week or two talking about it more in depth as well as my book and why it matters that they look so similar.
As for the mid-season shows, again, wait until January.
Pasar!
NBC
Next, we have NBC. Where to begin with NBC? They have a slew of shows which are new and look good/are possible rip-offs of other things, and I cannot wait to see all the knock-off glory.
They start their Mondays with an old stand-by, The Voice. You know, that’s the one where the people sing and there’s the chairs and, uh... like... some other stuff. Competition! They move into their new show Blindspot at 10pm.
Starring Jaimie Alexander—the non-Wonder Woman, who should have been Wonder Woman who, instead, played Lady Sif in Thor—as a tatted-up Jane Doe found in a bag in the middle of Times Squares (Fabo from D4L would be proud; it’s an obscure rap reference. I ain’t got time, look it up!). She doesn’t know who she is or why she’s there but the tattoos are not just clues to crimes, but tell a story of who she is and her connection to the FBI agent who has been put in charge of her mystery. A lady Bourne Identity which was just a more specialized version of Dominic Purcell’s 2002 show John Doe, this will see the lovely Ms. Alexander as a kick-butt enigma knowing stuff but not knowing why. A mystery wrapped in a mystery, topped with a bubbling layer of cheese... and more mystery, this is sure to keep me guessing for at least as long as Red’s real identity on The Blacklist did.
Why I’m interested? Oh! I guess I already explained that, didn’t I? Did I say that Jaimie Alexander is one of the 252 Hollywood women that I have a crush on and wouldn’t mind having babies with? I did say that? When? Just now? Gotcha! You readers are tricky.
Passer!
Tuesdays will see more of The Voice followed by new shows Chicago Med and Best Time Ever with the returning Chicago Fire coming back in November to replace the latter show. While I am highly interested in the city of Chicago right now (“Yep, I’m totally stalking my Ex-Boyfriend” is set there), I haven’t watched any of the Chicago shows and am just not that interested in another medical show. Sorry, Chicago Med, I’m probably not going to watch you.
Best Time ever will also most likely get the cold shoulder as variety shows of this nature seem more YouTube clip-worthy than having me devote a full hour to view it.
Wednesdays will also be filled with returning shows, including a second season for the Mysteries of Laura, which I will be watching, and Law and Order SVU which I dabble in. Chicago P.D. Will end the night. Then on Thursday is when things get interesting with two new shows sandwiching The Blacklist into the 9pm time slot (still don’t like it because it’s against Scandal, but it did alright there last year and my DVR came in handy). Up first, they’ll start the night with Heroes Reborn.
To start, I am surprised that NBC didn’t go for the kill ABC trifecta and switch Heroes Reborn to 9pm on Tuesday to go against Agents of SHIELD or move it all the way to Mondays at 10 (the first incarnations original slot) to go against CBS’s Supergirl come late October. If they had moved it to Tuesdays against SHIELD and moved Chicago Med to Thursdays, they could have an almost exact copycat night with ABC.I digress. Heroes Reborn brings a renewed spin to the original show in which people were given superpowers because of some moon/sun eclipse thingy. As with most things involving superpowered people, it will be dealing with those who have the powers and those who want to destroy them, or capture them or do other such terrible things with them. The thing working against it is that, unlike Marvel’s shows, CW’s superhero universe, and even DC shows on Fox and CBS, Heroes Reborn neither has anything to connect it to something else nor does it really have a rich and long-standing source material. This may have been one of the reasons it originally got canceled. With the influx of superheroes now, it is hard to say whether this can stand above the rest of the crowd.
Why I’m Interested?OK, by now fans of the original Heroes show can probably tell I wasn’t much of a fan the first time around (moon/sun eclipse thingy? Come on, Michael, do your research). You have to remember that the first one came out back before comic book adaptation hysteria kicked into overdrive. If felt too much like X-Men and I was never fully into X-Men. This time, I’m giving it a chance simply based off the fact that there was such fan support for it that NBC saw fit to bring it back. That doesn’t happen often, which means (it better mean!) that there was something good I just missed the first time around. We’ll see.
As said, The Blacklist follows that, but then another new show entitled The Player will air. Probably my most intriguing show of the fall, The Player looks similar to a TV idea I had way back in the 90s (maybe one day I’ll get to make it) entitled The Game. This rendition sees Wesley Snipes in all his Wesley Snipes-black glory returning to someplace other than prison for IRS and tax fraud. Ha ha ha! #TheShadeIsReal! But seriously, he doesn’t stray too far from the criminal element as he plays a broker/game executor who oversees a high-stakes gambling arena where the super wealthy gamble on crime. Yeah! Crazy, right? It totally just blew your mind and then you shrugged and said, “eh! I could actually see that happening.” Now you’re thinkin’, “holy crap! How is he readin’ my mind?” Hey, it’s just how I roll.
Philip Winchester will play the titular character who will be forced to complete complex tasks and stop crimes, while people bet on his ability to accomplish such charges. Forget figuring out How To Get Away With Murder, he’ll have to figure out how to save a life, who shot the sheriff, and who’s that lady week after week. It’s... just... a lot.
Why I’m interested? Well, I finally get to see Wesley Snipes on TV—always been a very specific dream of mine. I also like the concept of the show as it will surely be challenging morally and seems to have a very Liam Neeson’s Taken kind of feel to it. If it can keep the intensity and pace each week while building up to a climax that would see the Player confronting this group of super wealthy people, I’m all in.
Then, in a strange and unconventional twist, NBC has decided to put two comedies on Friday after having abandoned their Must See Thursdays TV slogan they had back since Seinfeld first premiered, maybe longer than that. To add to the weirdness, their first comedy will be the returning Undateable, which I never watched but heard great stuff about. But, in a Drew Carey late 90s early 2000s spin on things, Undateable will be live... all season. Teh! Yeah, take that in for a moment. Not that live television is anything new, but the insignia of “live” is usually saved these days for award shows and reality competitions, or at the very least variety shows where flubs and mistakes from the script can actually endear us to an actor more (Hi, Jimmy Fallon!). Doing this with a scripted sitcom for longer than two episodes is a big risk, which could either pay off in massive dividends or crash and burn the sophomore comedy. Either way, well played Undateable. I am now intrigued to see where this is going.
The same can’t be said about the one new show on Fridays, Truth Be Told. Starring Saved By The Bell blonde kid not playing Saved By The Bell blonde kid (Mark Paul Gosselaar for you lames) and black bailiff from the highly underrated and even more under-watched Bad Judge, this show is about... uh... Well, there’s these two married guys and they... um... I’m sorry, is this a new age version of Seinfeld? I can’t for the life of me figure out what the hell this show is really about. It’s not about people falling in love. It’s not about a modern family. It’s not really about a group of friends struggling to be single in the big city either. So what the heck are they doing? A tee-hee, I don’t know but Vanessa Lachey is on it, so... that’s somethin’.
NBC rounds out the night with Grimm (my fave) and their usual Dateline which then oozes over into both Saturday’s and Sunday’s schedule when football isn’t on. From the list of shows, it seems like NBC is trying to at least appeal to the current trend of superheroes, as well as inject some more minorities into their line-up with The Player, Truth Be Told and Chicago Med. Baby steps.
ABC
And Finally, we have ABC. Oh, ABC, my beloved. What shows shall you enamor me with this season only to cancel them before I’ve had time to truly enjoy the bounty of their stories and the richness of their characters? Why do I return to you, my love, when ill-will and scars remaining from shows taken before their time are fated between us? What new heights shall I soar to on the back of twisty, turning good shows? What unforeseen and unmitigated depths shall I sink when a show I’ve long anticipated turns out to be terrible and bland? Only time shall tell, I suppose.
We begin with Mondays slate of shows. Two old familiars return with Dancing With The Stars #DWTS already started and Castle (#Castle) premiering tonight. For what it’s worth I so enjoy both shows but can see how some fans have tired on both of them. I mean, how long can people make the life of a writer interesting, am I right? Oh, wait...
Tuesday is where we see our first drop of new blood, though, technically its just old blood but with a new and tighter face. The Muppets, after making their movie return a few years back, return to the small screen and boy is it looking to be controversial for the first few episodes as news broke earlier this summer about Kermit and Ms. Piggy breaking up. OK, honestly I am probably not going to watch the show but, come on, who didn’t see the two of them breaking up? It’s been how many years he’s been hoppin’ on that and he hasn’t put a ring on it yet to make her a Mrs. (that was a little dirty wasn’t it)? With all joking aside, it’ll be in the half hour time slot right before sophomore comedy Fresh Off The Boat. Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD is holding steady in its third season at 9pm as mentioned before while ABC will slot a new show at 10pm. The new show, Wicked City won’t start until October after a few weeks of Beyond The Tank, but I’ll talk about it here as it is supposed to start soon enough.
Admittedly, I haven’t seen or read much about Wicked City. It doesn’t seem to be that hyped of a show by the network which is generally a bad sign, but I’ll tune in for the first three anyway. What’s looking like it could be an anthology series in the vein of American Crime, it is a modern period piece set in 1982 LA where music and hard drugs mingle into murder and mystery. It has a few recognizable names to it if you watch enough TV/Film like Ed Westwick and Taissa Farmiga, but other than that it seems to be a big mystery.
Why I’m Interested? Again, I’m not stoked to see it but I will tune in as it promises to be a harder, darker-toned look at crime that will break from the normal cop procedural symptoms and look at the crimes from all sides like American Crime did. That is not to say I was enthralled with American Crime but found it decent for network TV.
Bewegen auf!
Wednesday stays completely the same for now with every single sitcom coming back and the night ending with Nashville. Of course, viewers will look forward to ABC’s click and news-cycle baiting Black-ish premiere that will highlight the use of the dreaded N-word. To that I say, I enjoy watching Nashville.
Onward to Thursday, which also will see a seismic shift in absolutely none of its programming. The same line-up of Grey’s (I wrote something up on that, concerning Ellen Pompeo’s comments earlier this summer), Scandal (prepare thyself #gladiators #Scandal) and How To Get Away With Murder. With the latter going into its second season, each show has proven to be a ratings juggernaut on Thursdays as compared against NFL numbers. We’ll see how viewers and Grey’s core fans respond to the aftermath of the whole Derek fiasco.
Friday also doesn’t show much new programming as ABC is still trying to rebuild its TGIF of the 90s with Tim Allen’s Last Man Standing starting the night. While I thought Reba McEntire’s Malibu Country from, like, two years ago was a worthy coupling to Tim’s zany aging white man troupe, the network has decided to add a middle-aged Asian man and his family to the mix.
Coming to 8:30pm ABC Fridays is Dr. Ken, replacing last season’s Cristela which felt like it would have gone great with CW’s Jane the Virgin if made into a one-camera format. Dr. Ken will follow popular “that one Asian guy in that funny movie” actor Ken Jeong as he brings a funnier, fantasized version of his real life before fame when he was just a lowly super-educated doctor. A “what could have been” look at his life, it’ll be your standard family sitcom focused on upwardly mobile Americans.
Why I’m Interested? Well, out of all the new shows coming out, I am probably the most mixed about this one. From one vantage point, I really want to see this to see if Ken Jeong’s humor not only translates well back to TV (he’s been a little dirtier in the films and was only a tertiary character on Community) but also to see if he’ll be able to adequately play both the straight man and the set-up guy as is generally required in sitcoms. On the other hand, I feel this show doesn’t have the full network backing as it is being placed in a black hole of a slot. See, I feel like if ABC is going to bring back TGIF—as they already have TGIT—then go all out with it. Move one of the successful Wednesday sitcoms to Friday after Tim, move Fresh Off The Boat and The Muppets also so that you can then have Shark Tank earlier in the week. By toe-dipping, they make me think they don’t have faith in the property.
Saturdays will stay open for films, sports and specials as usual, but Sundays will see the rise of two new shows. Just like Last Man Standing, ABC execs have been looking for something to compliment Once Upon A Time (#OUAT) and Revenge. Now that Revenge has been served... its walking papers, only OUAT remains with America’s Funniest Home Videos still in the 7pm spot for those that watch it. While AFV will have new host Alfonso Ribeiro, he will not be the only new, black addition.
That’s right, they’re adding black gold, oil to be precise. At 9pm will follow probably my third most anticipated show of the fall, Blood and Oil. Centered around a young couple that travel to North Dakota to strike it rich in oil, and the preying family they intersect with on their search for riches, this is bound to be a twisty, turny, backstabbing soap drama that has been missing since the first season of Revenge (though I enjoyed all 4 seasons). With Don Johnson attached as the baron, rich guy standing in the way of the young couple’s hustle, I am highly intrigued.
Why I’m Interested? For the past few years, I have been watching Dynasty on DVD. One of the two shows to drive the 80s wild with its opulence, high fashion and over-the-top catfights—sorry, lady quarrels—it showed that rich people could be just as deceptive, mean, conniving and cutthroat as the people at the bottom, they just look better doing it. That, coupled with Dallas, ignited a need for the nighttime soap outside of procedurals and doctor shows. If Blood and Oil can channel even a hint of those shows or the modern day Dynasty (Empire), I’m in for at least half a season. It’s lily whiteness will not be a problem for me.
Speaking of the whitest show we know, ABC made an interesting choice following Blood and Oil up with Quantico. Let me just get my TV exec playing hat out for a second and say that from everything I’ve seen so far of Quantico, it feels more like a Tuesday at 10pm show to me for ABC. Listen, if you watch enough TV and tune yourself into the mood of networks and of the viewing people, you can tell that some shows should air on certain days of the week. Quantico finishing off the Sunday schedule doesn’t seem like a brilliant choice as it looks a little too involved plot-wise for viewers winding down their weekend and looking to focus on work the next day. Then again, AMC had Breaking Bad and HBO has Game of Thrones and True Detectives but it should be noted that those shows were either in the summer or had far shorter seasons than what is expected of Quantico. The only way I see this being a good day for it is if it brings back memories of Alias. But again, I digress.
Quantico, led by the gorgeous Priyanka Chopra, will follow a new class of recruits to the FBI’s famed Quantico training facility. You’ll see them grow and becoming the agents they will be in the future. Then (and this is where a full season of this might make some viewers weary on Sunday nights), the show will hit us with a dual narrative as we jump forward in time to see that one of the recruits has pulled off “the biggest terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11.” Gasp! Yeah, I know. Similar to HTGAWM, you’ll spend much of the season trying to figure out who it is while also getting wrapped up in the romance drama.
Why I’m Interested? For one, it shows that the networks are reaching out so far into diversity now that they’ve actually put an Indian woman as the lead on a show. For that, I applaud them, especially knowing that at some point a great deal of viewers will mistake her for Middle-Eastern. I am also interested in the whodunnit aspect of the show as this will cause me to hate everybody and nobody at the same time. Paradoxical! And if it does end up having parallels with Alias, I’m all for that as well. The one thing I don’t want is for it to become another FlashForward in which the action slows down to such a crawl mid-season when things are supposed to be getting more intense that the writers suddenly have no plans for season two and leave everything too tidy while not solving the main mystery. Solve the main mystery of who did it, but in doing that, present us with a secondary mystery for next season.
Well, there it is. There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. A very long post, for a very long season ahead of us beginning later on tonight. So, what new shows are you eager to see? What old shows are you going to tune in for? Are there some old shows that you’ve finally given up on in favor of that new hussy? Or are you upset that your new show isn’t listed and isn’t coming on until later in the season? Don't be afraid to include any new cable shows you think are going to be amazing. I need to know your thoughts. I need to know them now! Questions, comments and, more comments down below.
As always, check out my books on Amazon (if you’re looking for Halloween scares check A Furious Wind, DARKER, Brand New Home or The Power of TEN. For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check out The Writer. The final episode of season one of The Writer is coming this Friday. All other 14 episodes are out now available exclusively on Amazon. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to my blog. Until next time, “I watched every show! Every single episode. I’m all caught up and I feel superb! I watched every show.”
P.S. Sure, my sign off just happened to be lines from Andy Samberg’s Emmys opening last night. So! It still applies to me. Come on ask me anything? Actually, don’t ask me about The Walking Dead... or Fear The Walking Dead... or True Detective... or what happened on Big Brother. Crap! I gotta go see if Mr. Samberg has room in his Under The Dome/Lost dungeon hatch.
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Arnold Schwarzneggar is the new Trump, They canceled Under The Dome, NBC Cannibalized Hannibal and other Crazy stuff that happened this summer Season #SummerRoundUp
Arnold Schwarzneggar is the new Trump, They canceled Under The Dome, NBC Cannibalized Hannibal and other Crazy stuff that happened this summer Season #SummerRoundUp
I’m back! For the... two or three of you readers out there, no, I haven’t died. Like most TV shows over the summer, I took a hiatus. Why, you ask? Many reasons. First, I had to get some work done. Pretty much the entire summer was eaten by the first season of The Writer (#TheWriter) out now, season finale this Friday.
That project took a lot out of me as I had forgotten how hard deadline writing can be. I had half the season done and suddenly, bam! A month and a half dissipated and I had only added three episodes. At one point, I even had to shut down my other social networking to finish. Thankfully, I had a good outline and a few scripts remaining from the original TV pitch. Again, if you haven’t checked it out, please do. It is slow-building, but I would say it is comparable to TV shows and books like Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad.
I also was quite busy with my garden this summer and maybe I’ll get around to posting a few pics of my veg garden if I have time (currently I’m in the middle of the final edit of my comedy novel “Yep, I’m Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend” due out in early October, #AhStalking). You’ll get to see all of my insect and furry friends that visited and pestered me in my garden.
Also, later on this year, I’ll be releasing my first full-on mystery novel The Knowledge of Fear (#KnowFear) about the annual slaying of three young girls in a small town in northern Ohio and the detective thrown into the melee of paranoia and danger. Currently re-tooling it as I initially sent it to publishers and they said it started too slow (you readers can be the judge of that).
And finally, I’ve made contact on the twittas. No, not alien contact but followers and cool people contact. One such contact I’ve made was with a friendly woman named S. M. Dahman. An author in her own right, (her first book Twisted Greens is out here: http://amzn.to/1YvAfG5) she just recently interviewed me for an author spotlight on her blog here: http://wp.me/p6D8TG-54 . As I don’t tend to blog too often about writing and rarely talk about myself because of my overwhelming humility, I would highly recommend you visit there if you are an aspiring writer or looking for good blogs and other ways to connect, and you currently want to know a little more about me.
Now, to the topic at hand. So much stuff happened this summer. The hottest recorded summer in history happened. There were fewer comic book movies this summer than we’ll ever see for the next five summers. AMC premiered a new spin-off show from the Walking Dead called Fear The Walking Dead. And... and... and... Oh, all the excitement is making me want to break into song with my own rendition of The Sound Of Music’s “Favorite Things.” Republicans started their run for high office,
Stock Market traders took really big losses,Avengers was so-so, and Ant-man was, meh!
That doesn’t stop me from loving Marvel.
Hank Baskett got high and touched some girl’s penis,
Picture courtesy of WETV's Marriage Boot Camp
Kermit dumped Piggy and proved she’s the greenest,
Picture courtesy of ABC's The Muppets
Drake went back-to-back, Meek wan-ted to know, And sweet Kylie Jenner turned into a h—uh... a, uh... very respectable young lady. Yep. That’s what she turned into. Role models, those Kardashians. Back to the song!
There were fires, Huge ass earthquakes, Droughts along the coast, All these things that happened in 2015, and also Aquarius.
Picture courtesy of NBC's Aquarius
Spielberg used Brad-bury to give us The Whispers, Tom Cruise did plane stunts and this chick wore flippers,
Picture courtesy of Bravo's Below Deck
Nene was re-placed by the lat-est trend, Man, I ne-ver wan-ted sum-mer to end.
Trump proved great TV and Tinder proved sexist, Dinosaurs sent Universal to excess, Some Mex-i-can guy had a 19 inch schlong,
Picture courtesy of TMZ
This guy’s micro-penis inspired a song! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Z0T_VnPJg
Picture courtesy of Lifetime's Atlanta Plastic
Astronaut’s Wives,
Then Wayward Pi-nes,
Both made good TV, This was a recap of the season we had, in summer twen-tyyyy, fif-teeeennnn!
Woo! Good, right? And you kept up with the beat? What? You didn’t like the song? It was too short for you? Oh, so I didn’t cover enough events, huh? Now you’re gonna complain that I didn’t actually sing it, and that if I sung it and recorded it, then put it on here that would have made for a better blog post? Teh! You know, you people are so difficult to please some times. Sometimes, I wish I could just build some sorta structure to keep you less desired readers from reading my blog, but I don’t know how I would do that. Maybe I could get you to build it. It would be really tall, and long and it would be a... what’s the word I’m looking for? Right, a dome. It would be a dome.
Speaking of domes, CBS took theirs down, canceling Stephen King’s Under The Dome after three seasons. While I enjoyed the first two seasons (even though they veered from the book wildly) I can’t say I liked the third as much. Things got too crazy with the baby and Barbie acting all doting father. It just got weird. James Patterson’s Zoo didn’t do much better, taking a good concept but never really doing much with it in my opinion. Those animals should have been eating more people. And what about the wolf guy? They set him up as this mysterious dude that knows stuff and then killed him off-screen, so you think his killer will be this big baddie, and then they kill him next commercial break! They had the big black guy whose been in everything lately and is the TV version of Michael Clarke Duncan, yet we never see him fighting a bear or some other massive animal—though I am behind two episodes.
I enjoyed Astronaut’s Wives Club for what it was as did I enjoy Wayward Pines which was right up M. Night’s alley, steeped in that creepy The Village vibe. At least this time they had real monsters. Jurassic World was good but a box office bigger than the first? Whoa! Slow it down, world. Slow it down. Even with inflation and all that stuff, I didn’t think it was the all-time classic that the first one was. At least it was no Terminator Genisys which felt like it diminished the star quality of everyone involved, including Arnold. It makes me wonder how the hell he got the job for the next host of The Apprentice when Diddy and Russell Simmons were both available New York candidates and minorities, if the rumors about NBC were true.
A slew of movies came and went without a peep but Straight Outta Compton was a crazy little movie about Dre and Ice Cube, following the group called N**** With Attitude. It made a ton of money and is even being talked about for a sequel.
What’s not being talked about for a sequel is NBC’s Hannibal, another big cancellation of the season. They had finally caught up to Thomas Harris’ first book and covered the Red Dragon only to see the two Murder Husbands jump off a cliff together and old Bedelia jealous and stood up for dinner—or, I mean, not stood up. Sorry, that’s insensitive. I meant Hannibal always stayed a step ahead. No, that was a tasteless joke. I can’t seem to stop putting my foot in my mouth and—oh! I’ll just move on.
The weather has been a complete mess everywhere. It got up to 165 degrees in Iran, wildfires and dust storms swept across Cali and Arizona, and the crazies both here and abroad brought the violence and sadism.
Still, plenty of good stuff came from the summer. Serena got back with Drake (though, she promptly lost what would have been a history-making match), the Braxtons finally started working on an album together, Uptown Funk really gave it to us, and we finally cured the world of Iggy Azalea. So, as we head into the fall, we leave summer 2015 with a few lingering questions:
How long will this charade with Trump and the Republican party last? When will that Lexus hoverboard actually hit markets? Why does the Weeknd sound so much like Michael Jackson on certain songs and then nothing like him on others? When will Kanye West start preparations for his presidential run? What in the hell really are those? Was Girl on The Train that good of a book? And why in the hell won’t The View just die already?
Hopefully we’ll have these answers soon. Until then, as always, check out my books on Amazon (if you’re looking for Halloween scares check #AFuriousWind, #DARKER, #ThePowerOfTEN or #BrandNewHome). For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check out #TheWriter. The final episode of season one of The Writer is coming this Friday. All other 14 episodes are out now, available exclusively on Amazon. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV. Subscribe to my blog and leave your comments below.Until next time, “Jumpman, Jumpman, they gave me my own collection, woo!”
P.S. OK, I may have been listening to the new Drake and Future mixtape while typing this. Still working on my sign off! I’ll get it eventually.
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All pictures courtesy of respective owners marked either in picture or to the side.
I’m back! For the... two or three of you readers out there, no, I haven’t died. Like most TV shows over the summer, I took a hiatus. Why, you ask? Many reasons. First, I had to get some work done. Pretty much the entire summer was eaten by the first season of The Writer (#TheWriter) out now, season finale this Friday.
That project took a lot out of me as I had forgotten how hard deadline writing can be. I had half the season done and suddenly, bam! A month and a half dissipated and I had only added three episodes. At one point, I even had to shut down my other social networking to finish. Thankfully, I had a good outline and a few scripts remaining from the original TV pitch. Again, if you haven’t checked it out, please do. It is slow-building, but I would say it is comparable to TV shows and books like Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad.
I also was quite busy with my garden this summer and maybe I’ll get around to posting a few pics of my veg garden if I have time (currently I’m in the middle of the final edit of my comedy novel “Yep, I’m Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend” due out in early October, #AhStalking). You’ll get to see all of my insect and furry friends that visited and pestered me in my garden.
Also, later on this year, I’ll be releasing my first full-on mystery novel The Knowledge of Fear (#KnowFear) about the annual slaying of three young girls in a small town in northern Ohio and the detective thrown into the melee of paranoia and danger. Currently re-tooling it as I initially sent it to publishers and they said it started too slow (you readers can be the judge of that).
And finally, I’ve made contact on the twittas. No, not alien contact but followers and cool people contact. One such contact I’ve made was with a friendly woman named S. M. Dahman. An author in her own right, (her first book Twisted Greens is out here: http://amzn.to/1YvAfG5) she just recently interviewed me for an author spotlight on her blog here: http://wp.me/p6D8TG-54 . As I don’t tend to blog too often about writing and rarely talk about myself because of my overwhelming humility, I would highly recommend you visit there if you are an aspiring writer or looking for good blogs and other ways to connect, and you currently want to know a little more about me.
Now, to the topic at hand. So much stuff happened this summer. The hottest recorded summer in history happened. There were fewer comic book movies this summer than we’ll ever see for the next five summers. AMC premiered a new spin-off show from the Walking Dead called Fear The Walking Dead. And... and... and... Oh, all the excitement is making me want to break into song with my own rendition of The Sound Of Music’s “Favorite Things.” Republicans started their run for high office,
Stock Market traders took really big losses,Avengers was so-so, and Ant-man was, meh!
That doesn’t stop me from loving Marvel.
Hank Baskett got high and touched some girl’s penis,
Picture courtesy of WETV's Marriage Boot Camp
Kermit dumped Piggy and proved she’s the greenest,
Picture courtesy of ABC's The Muppets
Drake went back-to-back, Meek wan-ted to know, And sweet Kylie Jenner turned into a h—uh... a, uh... very respectable young lady. Yep. That’s what she turned into. Role models, those Kardashians. Back to the song!
There were fires, Huge ass earthquakes, Droughts along the coast, All these things that happened in 2015, and also Aquarius.
Picture courtesy of NBC's Aquarius
Spielberg used Brad-bury to give us The Whispers, Tom Cruise did plane stunts and this chick wore flippers,
Picture courtesy of Bravo's Below Deck
Nene was re-placed by the lat-est trend, Man, I ne-ver wan-ted sum-mer to end.
Trump proved great TV and Tinder proved sexist, Dinosaurs sent Universal to excess, Some Mex-i-can guy had a 19 inch schlong,
Picture courtesy of TMZ
This guy’s micro-penis inspired a song! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Z0T_VnPJg
Picture courtesy of Lifetime's Atlanta Plastic
Astronaut’s Wives,
Then Wayward Pi-nes,
Both made good TV, This was a recap of the season we had, in summer twen-tyyyy, fif-teeeennnn!
Woo! Good, right? And you kept up with the beat? What? You didn’t like the song? It was too short for you? Oh, so I didn’t cover enough events, huh? Now you’re gonna complain that I didn’t actually sing it, and that if I sung it and recorded it, then put it on here that would have made for a better blog post? Teh! You know, you people are so difficult to please some times. Sometimes, I wish I could just build some sorta structure to keep you less desired readers from reading my blog, but I don’t know how I would do that. Maybe I could get you to build it. It would be really tall, and long and it would be a... what’s the word I’m looking for? Right, a dome. It would be a dome.
Speaking of domes, CBS took theirs down, canceling Stephen King’s Under The Dome after three seasons. While I enjoyed the first two seasons (even though they veered from the book wildly) I can’t say I liked the third as much. Things got too crazy with the baby and Barbie acting all doting father. It just got weird. James Patterson’s Zoo didn’t do much better, taking a good concept but never really doing much with it in my opinion. Those animals should have been eating more people. And what about the wolf guy? They set him up as this mysterious dude that knows stuff and then killed him off-screen, so you think his killer will be this big baddie, and then they kill him next commercial break! They had the big black guy whose been in everything lately and is the TV version of Michael Clarke Duncan, yet we never see him fighting a bear or some other massive animal—though I am behind two episodes.
I enjoyed Astronaut’s Wives Club for what it was as did I enjoy Wayward Pines which was right up M. Night’s alley, steeped in that creepy The Village vibe. At least this time they had real monsters. Jurassic World was good but a box office bigger than the first? Whoa! Slow it down, world. Slow it down. Even with inflation and all that stuff, I didn’t think it was the all-time classic that the first one was. At least it was no Terminator Genisys which felt like it diminished the star quality of everyone involved, including Arnold. It makes me wonder how the hell he got the job for the next host of The Apprentice when Diddy and Russell Simmons were both available New York candidates and minorities, if the rumors about NBC were true.
A slew of movies came and went without a peep but Straight Outta Compton was a crazy little movie about Dre and Ice Cube, following the group called N**** With Attitude. It made a ton of money and is even being talked about for a sequel.
What’s not being talked about for a sequel is NBC’s Hannibal, another big cancellation of the season. They had finally caught up to Thomas Harris’ first book and covered the Red Dragon only to see the two Murder Husbands jump off a cliff together and old Bedelia jealous and stood up for dinner—or, I mean, not stood up. Sorry, that’s insensitive. I meant Hannibal always stayed a step ahead. No, that was a tasteless joke. I can’t seem to stop putting my foot in my mouth and—oh! I’ll just move on.
The weather has been a complete mess everywhere. It got up to 165 degrees in Iran, wildfires and dust storms swept across Cali and Arizona, and the crazies both here and abroad brought the violence and sadism.
Still, plenty of good stuff came from the summer. Serena got back with Drake (though, she promptly lost what would have been a history-making match), the Braxtons finally started working on an album together, Uptown Funk really gave it to us, and we finally cured the world of Iggy Azalea. So, as we head into the fall, we leave summer 2015 with a few lingering questions:
How long will this charade with Trump and the Republican party last? When will that Lexus hoverboard actually hit markets? Why does the Weeknd sound so much like Michael Jackson on certain songs and then nothing like him on others? When will Kanye West start preparations for his presidential run? What in the hell really are those? Was Girl on The Train that good of a book? And why in the hell won’t The View just die already?
Hopefully we’ll have these answers soon. Until then, as always, check out my books on Amazon (if you’re looking for Halloween scares check #AFuriousWind, #DARKER, #ThePowerOfTEN or #BrandNewHome). For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check out #TheWriter. The final episode of season one of The Writer is coming this Friday. All other 14 episodes are out now, available exclusively on Amazon. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV. Subscribe to my blog and leave your comments below.Until next time, “Jumpman, Jumpman, they gave me my own collection, woo!”
P.S. OK, I may have been listening to the new Drake and Future mixtape while typing this. Still working on my sign off! I’ll get it eventually.
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June 27, 2015
NEW Episodic Novel/Novella Series: The Writer
NEW Episodic Novel/Novella Series: #TheWriter #WhyIWrite #cheapreads
Hello again people out there in the blogosphere. Yes, I have not one, but two good reads that have come out just yesterday. The first I already told you about below, DARKER (#DARKER). Hold on to your butts (Samuel L. Jackson voice) because this one will take a little more explaining. Read below for a synopsis and a description of how I tackled this project and what to expect from it.
Michael Singleton, 26, is a writer struggling to make it out in Hollywood. Homeless and down to his last dollar, he has a final meeting with a production company interested in hearing his pitch on a show about a writer. Their response? Who wants to watch something about a writer. Years spent pursuing his dream come to an end when he finally decides to return home to Cleveland, Ohio a failure.
Alek Vitsin, a 51-year-old business owner in Cleveland finds his life lacking. He has a smart and beautiful wife, great kids (they're teens, so they can get on the annoying side) and a thriving business empire, still he can't manage to see it for what it is—perfect.
A series of strange events and even deadlier circumstances bring these two men on differing journeys together and bonds them in unforeseen ways that challenge the paradigm of fan and artist. As they each seek a legacy to call their own, they must discover how to navigate each other through the twists and turns that life throws their way, a feat made all the more difficult because of Alek's main occupation—the biggest drug lord in Ohio.
A gripping drama/action/suspense/thriller/literary hybrid in the vein of Breaking Bad, Hannibal and Death Note, The Writertakes the reader through a weekly episodic journey through the increasingly perilous and gruesome lives of Michael and Alek as they become more interwoven, dragging the titular character through a morally ambiguous descent into the macabre all in the name of art. ___________________
Here it is, my Episodic Novel (or novella) series. What is that, you ask? Let me explain.
All my life I’ve always been a fan of entertainment. I love it all: books, music, movies, TV, video games, etc. One of the things I also love is how we used to consume these things. I’m not too young to realize that books (bestsellers especially) have gotten a bit on the long side in recent years (Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl was like a bagillion words, or 130,000 something at least). And while I have plenty of works that match that (most of my books come in somewhere around 100,000 words), I know that not everyone has time to consume that.
That was when I had a thought. While I still use a DVR for most of my television watching, I try to imbibe episodes one at a time. This way, I don’t get binge-watching fatigue. So I thought, why not apply that same thought to reading? Lord only knows how many books that might have been good I gave up on because they either started slow or they just felt way too long. Reading is great but sometimes it can be mean to us.
For those who may feel that way even when they love reading, I present to you The Writer (#TheWriter). So again, what is it. It is an ebook weekly episodic novella/novel (whichever you want to call it). It consists of 60 digital pages (pages measured on the Kindle Fire in Georgia font, lowest pt, to fit all on one page) per week or one episode of a full season. You say, well that sounds like a comic book or a serial from old. Not quite. For one, most comics are monthly or bi-weekly these days, and run until whenever. Serials back in the day usually did the same. The Writer has seasons, thusly a set time each year, just like a TV show. This is season one that is slated to end in late September just before or after the official start of fall. It will consist of between 13 and 15 episodes, all of which will be between 55-68 pages, and will have a proper season finale.
Why do this? In some ways, I miss the days of the watercooler talk. With everyone bingeing shows (I just binged Game of Thrones on an HBO free preview weekend) some of that great watercooler feel has been lost. Even with book clubs, it’s more often than not an all in kind of thing where you meet once every month or however many weeks and you are expected to have finished the entire book, and you’re freaking out because last month’s book was way shorter than this month’s. This way, the casual reader can gobble down one episode at a time and get on with their day. More voracious readers can read an episode, mentally mark what happened and move along to another book between episodes. Book clubs can meet on a weekly or every other week basis and no one have read farther than the other (don’t those people grind you sometimes?)
My point is that I’d like to encourage short reading while giving more power back to the reader to have a freer schedule. Also, with the price going to be kept low (no more than $1.50 for any individual episode; usually starts at $1.00) readers can more easily sample pieces of the season before committing 20-something dollars to a hardcover book by some author that they usually love but just put out a rare miss. It’s also easier than going to the library.
OK, to wrap it up because this is getting long and feels like it’s nearly a quarter the length of an individual episode, this is season one of The Writer. If you go to my author's amazon page you will see that I am selling a compilation of Episodes 1-3 as well as each individual episode, though I recommend getting the compilation because it's one cent cheaper (hey, a penny earned and so forth). I hope you enjoy the start of this journey as it will explore the roots of how legends are made, and become the stories that entertain us all. Next week's episode 4, "The Sound and The Fury" will be out on Friday or maybe even late night Thursday and this will continue until late September. I won't always blog for each episode, but for those that are going to be really big, I might write a blurb or mention it. Anyway, Happy Reading!
Again, purchase the compilation here: AMAZON. As always, follow me on Goodreads, Tweet about the book #TheWriter on Twitter, and join the Goodreads group. Until next time.
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NEW Novel: DARKER
#DARKER
OK, it has been a while people. I know, I've been slacking with my posts especially since there have been a lot of good books, movies and TV shows I want to talk about. My computer crashed on my off and on throughout these last two months making my workload twice as heavy because I had to keep re-booting each time. But I wanted to give you all two new posts today starting with my latest full novel DARKER.
Zariah Smith never thought much of herself. With her loathsomely dark skin, unruly kinky hair, and naivete about herself and the world around her, she has become the subject of ire for many of her different-skinned peers, a punching bag for their own sorrows. Thinking she might escape the shame her mother thrust upon her for being so tar-baby black, she goes to college, a place where youths find themselves and futures are discovered. But when the disdain for her color continues, she finds comfort within a most unexpected place: the darkness. Blessed (or cursed) with an unenviable power, it is within the darkness that she finds strength, and others face their darkest fears.
An exploration of modern-day race relations (though, it can be enjoyed by all readers), college hazing and coming-of-age when everyone around you is so unabashedly different, Michael Stephenson welcomes horror fans on a sometimes gruesome path to terror. A homage to Stephen King's first professionally published book Carrie, DARKER invites the reader to follow Zariah on her odyssey to assimilate in a world that seems only to fear what is different, fear what is misunderstood, fear the darkness.
With DARKER (#DARKER) I initially wrote the earliest draft of this book back in college. It didn't dawn on me until later that it shared some similarities with Stephen King's own work. Rather than try to change it drastically into something it didn't want to be, I stripped away certain elements and made it a straight homage. However, it stands on its own as it explores more so how we deal with our fears and desires in this increasingly complicated world. Yet another go into the horror genre, DARKER is filled with gruesome imagery of the product of our darkest fears. What if you couldn't escape your fears? What if you couldn't hide from your shame? What if... you couldn't avoid the darkness? The answers lie within Zariah Smith!
At a brisk 77,000 words (a quarter longer than King's original Carrie), purchase your digital copy of DARKER here:AMAZON. Get it this week for only #3.49.
As always, follow me on Goodreads, Tweet about the book #DARKER on Twitter, and join the Goodreads group. Until next time.Amazon
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May 14, 2015
In Need of a Hand, An Inhuman Plan, And Don’t Take the Fish Oil, Dude! #AgentsofSHIELD #AgentsofSHIELDSeasonFinale
In Need of a Hand, An Inhuman Plan, And Don’t Take the Fish Oil, Dude! #AgentsofSHIELD #AgentsofSHIELDSeasonFinale
All pictures courtesy of ABCWow! Like... totes-ma-goats wow! Wowzereenie, Mr. Feenie! Those are a few ways in which I’m trying to show you wa-how I feels about this season finale. All joking aside (don’t roll your eyes at me. You know your inner-child got at least a chuckle from one of those silly things), I really loved the finale. Maybe it is because I just saw #AgeOfUltron earlier and had some interesting feelings about that movie or maybe it was just because it was a kick-butt finale. I don’t know but let’s find out together.
There was so much going on in this two-hour season finale, but first I must stop and thank God and the inventors that blessed us all with the power of the DVR. I was watching both the Cavs/Bulls game (#NBAplayoffs, #gocavsgo) and this at the same time. I had to rewind after to catch Agents from the beginning but it was worth it.
We began with a pretty good fight between May and Skye/Daisy. At first May Mr. Miogi’d/Bruce Lee’d Skye by blocking her every move without much of a muscle-twitch. I nearly thought she was going to turn into Neo and start seeing green numbers scrolling through the matrix, but “Quake” quickly got her act together and actually moved May with a few strikes and kicks. She ended the short battle by using her powers (total cop out) and going off with her family. Meanwhile Jaiying implemented her plan to make it look like SHIELD attacked the Inhumans by instructing her goons to take over one of the quinjets and fire on the compound. After the dust settled, the Inhumans escaped to another secret hideaway with Daisy and Raina in-tow, while Coulson’s brood got away with minimal casualties and Mr. Hyde.
For much of the show we switched back and forth between Daisy slowly learning that her mother was evil (courtesy of Jaiying killing Raina right in front of Skye by accident, something that made old flowers seem like a sacrificial rose), Coulson questioning Mr. Hyde about his wife’s plan against SHIELD, and Ward and Agent 33 trying to get Bobbi to confess to her transgressions against 33. Honestly, the third story was a bit of an add-on that I could take or leave and served little importance accept but to show that Ward is still trying to be an evil mastermind (of which he is not) and to show Bobbi getting shot in the back of the head/shoulder? I wasn’t quite sure where the bullet actually went but I know it wasn’t a nice place. They telegraphed the play of Agent 33 dying as soon as May said she wanted to go and kill Ward. That was probably the most obvious part of the story but again I let it go because it wasn’t very important at all. After Bobbi got back to SHIELD near to death, she did her best Tony Stark impression and said how she couldn’t do this anymore, though she’ll probably be back for next season (hopefully, they actually explain thatreturn). Moving on!
The two important story-lines of the night came from Mr. Hyde and from Skye. Their ability to track white nightcrawler—I mean, the inhuman with no eyes now gone, SHIELD had no advanced warning when he transported a few Inhumans onto their ship and took it over from the inside. Jaiying imprisoned her own daughter, saying that it was for her own good and that this was a war started by Agent Peggy Carter’s people when SHIELD first came to fruition. While she may have a point, she is also ruthless and bloodthirsty and kills a few high-ranking agents with the use of a crystal. With the help of Mac, Skye breaks out and seeks to try to stop the complete spread of the mist through the entire ship as there are plenty of agents still unaffected by the mist and the takeover. Jaiying’s goal is to put the mist into the fan/ventilation system, as well as to lure as many agents to the ship as possible to have them breathe the mist. Skye plays directly into this plan, sending out a help beacon to all of the agency and attracting Coulson’s attention. 
Meanwhile, Coulson interrogates Daisy/Skye’s father about his wife’s intentions. He discovers that the man wants to kill as many agents as he can while there and will use a transforming elixir of his own creation to do it. He morphs into Quasimodo—I mean, Mr. Hyde and runs around like a monster destroying various rooms but not really killing anyone (#NotTheBestDayEver). He and Coulson have a heart-to-heart when he’s pinned against the wall. It is revealed that he only became a monster and only killed all of these people because it fulfilled Jaiying’s desires. He only wanted his family back. He only wanted to be loved. He only wanted her to be... her again. But now that Daisy is in his life and is so benevolent, Coulson convinces him that his wife’s actions will destroy the girl. He agrees to help SHIELD for Daisy’s sake.
It all culminates in one epic battle after the next while on the SHIELD ship. Daisy/Skye/Quake fights with a few different Inhumans until finally meeting her mother and nearly dying at her hands (her mother tries sucking the life out of her which is how she stays alive and youthful). She halfway ruins her mother’s plan by sending the ship with all the crystals into the ocean. In possibly the saddest family reunion, Mr. Hyde manages to stop his wife from killing his daughter only to bearhug Jaiying to death. After all was said and done, he’d have to serve his punishment as a vet living with no memory of his family after a mindsweep courtesy of the MIB... or the Tahiti program, whichever.
Coulson, Fitz and Mac all got into a fight with the no-eyes man and managed to trap him in the ventilation room. It was Fitz who accidentally killed him as the man ghosted into the end of a pipe he was holding. In dramatic fashion, upon dying the man dropped a crystal, hoping to break it on the floor and kill them all. In a second of harrowing heroism, Coulson dove forward and caught the crystal. His arm began to turn a blackened ash, causing me to almost completely lose my sh! Then Mac made me jump up and yell, “what,” as he axed the man’s arm off before the blackness could spread, Ultron-Klaue-ing off his left arm. Wow!
At the end, everything was settled. Coulson would survive having one arm. Ward is trying to become the new head of Hydra—good luck with that. Skye has been put in charge of a new secret division of powered people. And even Fitz and Simmons flirted with going out to dinner. And then I lost my crap again! First, they showed that the crystals that were on the quinjet that sank into the ocean mixed with the water, was taken in by the fish which were caught and pressed into fish oil supplements. That could kill or transform millions of people, though to be fair probably not that many Americans as we are not nearly health conscious enough to be taking fish oil. Seriously, no matter where I go I always see the same dusty fish oil supplement bottles in stock. When was the last time you bought and used some? But the second and most depressing part of the show was the fate of Simmons. Gasp! Sigh! I’ve already said how cute and all-around charming I think that Simmons and Elizabeth Henstridge is, so when it happened, I wanted to throw something at the TV. Messing with the secret rock/liquid thing that was previously in the SHIELD ship, she went to close its door back when it turned into a liquid washed over her, then sucked her back into the solid rock-like form. The question: What the hell just happened to her? Please don’t be dead!
So, what did you all think about the season finale of Agents of SHIELD? What do you expect from season 3? While I still believe that Spider-man is going to be the catalyst for the civil war events (you can read that article here), they could use this newly formed team led by Quake to sub in for the New Warriors also. Do you think it will serve a big role in continuing to set up the events of civil war or do you think they should try to do their own thing? As always, let me know in the comments section below.
As always leave your comments below (click the no comments button if no one has commented yet). I look forward to reading your opinions. Follow me here and on Twitter. Join me on Goodreads in the group Books Similar To Breaking Bad, Scandal and other Popular TV Shows and check out my books on Amazon. #BrandNewHome is on Amazon for just $1.00 until Monday (check recent posts for a better description). #Darker is coming in June and so is #TheWriter. Also, look for the short story #ThePowerOfTen also out now for $1.49 or check out the books I already have up there.
Until next time, If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.
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Dig Three Graves #Revenge Series Finale
Dig Three Graves #Revenge Series Finale
All photos courtesy of ABCI know this is a few days late, but I just had to write it. Maybe this one will be a little shorter. Anyway, on the series finale of Revenge we actually got a proper series finale. Everything wrapped up in a pretty little bow for we viewers who stayed with and enjoyed the show from its inception. There was so much going on in that one hour that it felt like it was two or at least should have been. As always, I don’t really know where to begin.
Let’s start with the fact that Evil Queen Victoria was alive. Yes, we discovered this in the previous episode but we as an audience felt an empathetic shock when Louise was confronted by the living Victoria who wanted help in carrying out her ultimate plan of revenge against Amanda/Emily. We also found out last week that the body of the woman who blew up was an unclaimed cadaver from somewhere upstate but had the added reveal of it being Victoria’s own mother who had just recently died after somebody threw a bucket of water on her and she mel—I mean, she died of some disease. One curious thing, they said that the two hadn’t talked in eight years when I could have sworn that the woman had appeared on the show before (sometime last season). Maybe I’m wrong on that. Feeling more betrayed and used than ever, Louise actually didn’t side with her play-mother’s plan, opting instead to run back to Nolan. While this might not have sat well with some viewers, at least Nolan had showed some sense of caring for her at some point by marrying her and getting her from under her mother’s thumb.
But before Louise could converge with Nolan, thereby joining Amanda’s side, Amanda had to do some trickery and sleuthing of her own. First, she and Nolan broke her out of jail after she confessed to killing Victoria Grayson—a move she only did to get her into a higher security jail that was easier to prisonbreak. Go figure! A little detective work led her and Jack to what appeared to be a safe house of some sort where we last saw Victoria killing Jack’s old partner the week before, or rather the female goon that was hired to protect Victoria doing the deed (side note: Courtney Love is making a comeback? That’s so crazy. I would have never thought that of all the people that she would pop up in show after show). She happened to scoop some uncleaned blood from under the baseboard that clearly belonged to the dead cop. With enough evidence to convince herself of Victoria’s evilness, she was on a mission to do nothing more than kill the old bat finally.
Unfortunately, the group wouldn’t escape unscathed as Jack went back to the house (for reasons I’m still not too clear on) and ran into the assassin who stabbed him through. He’d survive but that would only strengthen Nolan and Amanda’s resolve. Knowing that it was nearly over, Nolan started to freak about what his identity going forward would be. I have a very interesting idea about that as I enjoyed his character—more on that later.
Finally reconnecting with Louise, she led Amanda to Victoria’s new hideout where they could have it out in one last battle. Admittedly, I was a little disappointed that they didn’t throwdown Dynasty style and Amanda seek her revenge through her bare hands. But after being assured that the room was wired to send out a video stream of whatever happened, Amanda put on her blinders and still raised the gun to shoot the Evil Queen only to have her dad David come behind her and take the shot himself, sparring her from sinking to the lowest level. While some fans disagree with even this twist, I found it actually more poetic than anything because of the connection between David and Victoria. If she had only dared to truly love him in the first place, then none of this might have happened. And if he had only dared to never love her, again there would probably have been no show. So, the fact that he is the one that kills her even after spending a good part of the season in her arms, to me is poetic. But she doesn’t die without getting in a shot herself, sending Amanda tumbling into her father’s arms just before the commercial break.
Picture courtesy of TVLinesUpon return from the advertisements, it is revealed that some time has passed since Victoria died. She didn’t lie about the room being set for filming and David was tried and convicted of her murder. Luckily, because he was already deathly ill, the judge granted him a stay of compassion so he could spend his last few days at home with Amanda. In a tearful goodbye on a cold wintry day, he told her to look back at the double infinity carving on the porch one last time and professed his love for his only daughter before taking his last breath. 
If you missed it, that’s right, Amanda was still alive. She recovered from her gunshot and got with Jack, marrying him and literally sailing off into the sunset to get her happy ending. In what was supposed to be another twist that would be left open for viewer debate, a scene where her younger half-sister Charlotte stood in the hospital and donated her mother’s heart to Amanda was shown in a different color to signify Amanda dreaming. What is in question is whether this was just a nightmare or if it actually happened and she is living with the heart of her sworn enemy. I tend to go the inception route and say that it didn’t happen and it was all just a dream, but to each their own theory. Also, some fans have been down on the fact that Amanda didn’t die with Victoria. I actually enjoyed that she didn’t. While she did embark on a journey of revenge that led to people’s deaths, it must be noted that she never really killed anyone herself. She just wanted them to suffer and they did and she did. I think that having her die would have felt too much like the sins of the father visited upon the daughter without cause. Victoria was truly evil. She actually killed people or had them killed. David was even a killer. Amanda, after all was said and done, was still nothing more than a hurt little daddy’s girl who tried sticking up for her dad even while being lied too and manipulated. She’s Louise in five years. I thought it just that she survive and end up with Jack, because she wasn’t the one who threw her life off the path that would have ended in his arms anyway. Sure, she could have not gone for revenge at all, but then she might have never known the truth about her life.
With Amanda’s story come to an end, the last few seconds were spent on Nolan. In my opinion, he had the saddest end of all. Though he had a new beau or beauty to “wrestle” with each season, he ended up with no one in the end. He devoted years of his life to Emily’s quest for vengeance and what does he have now... outside of being a genius, playboy, billionaire, philanthropist? As great as the wrap-up was, his (and to a lesser extent Louise’s) story felt the most unfinished, like it could continue. And with some young man coming to him and telling Nolan that one of his family member’s was accused of a crime they didn’t do, it seemed like the billionaire might have found his calling. This leads me to my theory/half-want/desire. I would like to see a long-defunct ABC show get revived with Nolan as the eccentric head of a team of elites. The show was entitled Vengeance Unlimited and it starred Michael Madsen. In it, he helped people to get vengeance against criminals that had done them wrong. It was a weekly revenge, essentially. With the right cast around him and some good writers, I think now is the perfect environment for this on ABC as it could be a quirkier mix between Scandal and Revenge and I really want more Nolan. Here’s hoping for a Revenge, Inc. spin-off.
Check it out here on IMDbSo, what do you think Revenge fans out there. Are you sad to see it go? Did you like the happy ending for our dear Amanda? Did you like the end for Victoria or should she have lived? What about Nolan? Do you think my idea for him is any good or should the show and all of its characters completely die?
As always leave your comments below (click the no comments button if no one has commented yet). I look forward to reading your opinions. Follow me here and on Twitter. Join me on Goodreads in the group Books Similar To Breaking Bad, Scandal and other Popular TV Shows and check out my books on Amazon. #BrandNewHome is on sale for just $1.00. #Darker is coming in June and so is #TheWriter. Also, look for the short story #ThePowerOfTen out now for $1.49 or check out the books I already have up there. Until next time, Might sound crazy, but it ain’t no lie. Baby, bye bye bye!
P.S. OK, so that was N’Sync. And...? I liked N’Sync and young Justin Timberlake’s crazy curl. It might not be good for my sign-off but it works here.
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May 10, 2015
The Good, The Bad, The Crazy, The Author, The Magic, The Dragon, The Finale #OnceUponATime
The Good, The Bad, The Crazy, The Author, The Magic, The Dragon, The Finale
#OnceUponATime
All pictures courtesy of ABCSo much to talk about! I really don’t know where to begin. I just finished watching the two hour season finale of ABC’s Once Upon A Time and my jaw was nearly to the floor.
First, pretty much everything changed because of the author (side note: look for my episodic novel series #TheWriter this June) re-scripting the happy endings for everyone. In what was possibly the craziest part of the episode, the author wrote a different story for everyone going forward from that point in time (a very important fact to remember). Suddenly, everyone was gone from the town and back in the fairy tale realm, leaving Henry the lone survivor(?) in amidst the chaos. Waking to the empty town, Henry ventured off to find everyone by hopping into a car with no license mind you, and zooming down to the nearest diner/restaurant/information place. OK, I don’t really know what that place was but the woman working there didn’t seem to bright as she thought he was a runaway even though he was looking for his parents—don’t think a runaway would do that. He happened to see a copy of a new book by the author and somehow managed to get to the man’s book signing. A little arguing, some threatening to use a key on a paper door and poof! They’re in his book.
Inside the book everyone is supposedly different. Mr. Gold/Rumple is a knight in shining gold armor; Regina is a forest bandit ala Snow White when she was on the lamb from Regina in the original version; Snow and Charming are the Evil Queen and her head knight/guard with the seven dwarves only being six, which dwindled to five before the end of the night (unless we’re counting granny as one now?) And Robin Hood was still a thief... but he was also getting married to Selena and would wed at the toll of Wedding bells in the morrowmorn (new word! Aww snap!). The author being as evil as he is, immediately tried to get Henry killed to preserve the sanctity of the story and maintain his fandom like every writer wants (yes, I want that).
Lo and behold, the Gold Knight saved him from the monstrous ogre before galavanting off to another harrowing adventure (tangent: I cannot believe that #Galavant got renewed. Who saw that comin’? Seriously?) With his life in hand, Henry found Regina and blew her mind by telling her he was her son. He led her to Robin Hood who introduced his soon-to-be wife Selena which made Regina all frowny-faced when she fell in love with him at first sight but couldn’t have him. Henry asked about his real mom and was told that she was locked up out on a tiny island at sea, one he’d need Hook to take him to.
After helping a wimpy Hook steal the Jolly Roger from Black Beard, they found Emma locked in a tower guarded by one Queen’s guard who was easily subdued by the butt of a sword to the forehead. Amazingly, Emma knew who Henry was unlike everyone else, and escaped with him, narrowly avoiding the flame when it turned out that the guard was actually Lily who did her dragon thing at the boat and failed.
Returning to land, the three ran into Snow and Charming where Hook was stabbed and killed by Charming (very important in a confusing way). Henry and his mom escaped and managed to get to the chapel along with Regina to stop the wedding but all she could do was stand at the door and stare at Robin Hood, instead of pulling off an epic The Graduate scene (did I mention my epic novel #Unrequited will be out later this year). Rumple came and twisted swords with Emma in order to keep his happy ending and would have slashed Henry’s throat had it not been for Regina jumping in the way and taking the blade.
With all the hubbub, the bells rang, Robin got married and Regina laid dying when the happy couple emerged from the chapel. Selena grew green when Regina dared bleed on her dress, and Robin gave her that “did I seriously just marry this chick” look. Thankfully the writers didn’t use the true love’s kiss trope again as it had become a little worn, opting to make Henry pick up the pen and become the author. That’s right, the other author was around to laugh and point at Regina’s non-happy ending and still had the pen which he said had been rendered powerless on account of him breaking the rules to not write your own happy ending. #HenryIsTheAuthor.
Henry wrote the magic right out of the book, returning everyone to Storybrooke just as before. The author tried to flee upon re-arrival but was quickly caught. Henry broke the pen because with great penmanship comes great responsibility... or something like that. Still, the one thing left to solve was the riddle of Rumple’s impending succumbing to the darkness. For that, they needed to get back the sorcerer’s apprentice.
Finally being useful, the apprentice tried sucking the darkness out of Gold’s heart and trapping it in the magic hat. While he succeeded at taking out the darkness, he failed in trapping it. In the biggest and best twist of all, the apprentice said that they needed to find the sorcerer who was, drumroll... Merlin! Yeah, it was Merlin the whole time like some of us guessed. Other’s thought it might be Yen Sid, but that would have been too much subliminal Disneyisms. Merlin battled the darkness and could only trap it onto the soul of a single person. This led to... Emma becoming the dark one. What? Did you just read that right? Yes. Yes, you did. #EmmaTheDarkOne . She sucked up the evil energy knowing that her people would find a way to cure her and get her back somehow. The final shot of the season was seeing the name Emma Swan on the dagger. The question: where the heck did she disappear too? Not only did she take on the darkness, it looked like it consumed her. Strange. Another strange thing was Lily’s small mention setting up another plot for next season, her looking for her father. Maleficent (a character mysteriously absent with everything changing completely) said she didn’t know who her baby daddy was because... well, it happened in dragon form. So she clearly couldn’t tell who she was sleeping with because, you know, there’s all those dragons flying around and having unprotected adult fun (though we’ve only seen two). Hook was mysteriously alive again even though it was said that the author couldn’t bring people back to life. In one of the most confusing explanations to me, Baelfire (the other person they wanted back) couldn’t be resurrected because he died in the real world, but Hook could because he died in the fake world which actually wasn’t the same as the fairy tale world they originally came from? I don’t know. With all of that, I was still flipping my lid. I loved every minute of it. I am more jazzed by this finale than I was last season at the introduction of Frozen characters. So, what did you think of the finale? Did you enjoy it? Did you think that the villains getting happy endings was as good as the author’s fans thought it was? Who do you think is Lily’s father (my money is on Mushu from Mulan)? What do you think about Emma becoming the dark one?
Mulan picture courtesy of Disney
As always leave your comments below (click the no comments button if no one has commented yet). I look forward to reading your opinions. Follow me here and on Twitter. Join me on Goodreads in the group Books Similar To Breaking Bad, Scandal and other Popular TV Shows and check out my books on Amazon. Oh yes, my two new stories #BrandNewHome and #ThePowerOfTen are out now. You can look into some of my earlier posts to read more about them and visit my Amazon page to purchase your copy. Get Brand New Home in the next week before it goes up from $1.00 to 3.49.
Until next time, Welcome To The Jungle!
P.S. OK, so maybe that was a quote from Guns and Roses, but man did that song seem to fit at the time I wrote this. I now see that I was wrong. Hmm.
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All pictures courtesy of ABCSo much to talk about! I really don’t know where to begin. I just finished watching the two hour season finale of ABC’s Once Upon A Time and my jaw was nearly to the floor. 
First, pretty much everything changed because of the author (side note: look for my episodic novel series #TheWriter this June) re-scripting the happy endings for everyone. In what was possibly the craziest part of the episode, the author wrote a different story for everyone going forward from that point in time (a very important fact to remember). Suddenly, everyone was gone from the town and back in the fairy tale realm, leaving Henry the lone survivor(?) in amidst the chaos. Waking to the empty town, Henry ventured off to find everyone by hopping into a car with no license mind you, and zooming down to the nearest diner/restaurant/information place. OK, I don’t really know what that place was but the woman working there didn’t seem to bright as she thought he was a runaway even though he was looking for his parents—don’t think a runaway would do that. He happened to see a copy of a new book by the author and somehow managed to get to the man’s book signing. A little arguing, some threatening to use a key on a paper door and poof! They’re in his book.
Inside the book everyone is supposedly different. Mr. Gold/Rumple is a knight in shining gold armor; Regina is a forest bandit ala Snow White when she was on the lamb from Regina in the original version; Snow and Charming are the Evil Queen and her head knight/guard with the seven dwarves only being six, which dwindled to five before the end of the night (unless we’re counting granny as one now?) And Robin Hood was still a thief... but he was also getting married to Selena and would wed at the toll of Wedding bells in the morrowmorn (new word! Aww snap!). The author being as evil as he is, immediately tried to get Henry killed to preserve the sanctity of the story and maintain his fandom like every writer wants (yes, I want that). 
Lo and behold, the Gold Knight saved him from the monstrous ogre before galavanting off to another harrowing adventure (tangent: I cannot believe that #Galavant got renewed. Who saw that comin’? Seriously?) With his life in hand, Henry found Regina and blew her mind by telling her he was her son. He led her to Robin Hood who introduced his soon-to-be wife Selena which made Regina all frowny-faced when she fell in love with him at first sight but couldn’t have him. Henry asked about his real mom and was told that she was locked up out on a tiny island at sea, one he’d need Hook to take him to. After helping a wimpy Hook steal the Jolly Roger from Black Beard, they found Emma locked in a tower guarded by one Queen’s guard who was easily subdued by the butt of a sword to the forehead. Amazingly, Emma knew who Henry was unlike everyone else, and escaped with him, narrowly avoiding the flame when it turned out that the guard was actually Lily who did her dragon thing at the boat and failed.
Returning to land, the three ran into Snow and Charming where Hook was stabbed and killed by Charming (very important in a confusing way). Henry and his mom escaped and managed to get to the chapel along with Regina to stop the wedding but all she could do was stand at the door and stare at Robin Hood, instead of pulling off an epic The Graduate scene (did I mention my epic novel #Unrequited will be out later this year). Rumple came and twisted swords with Emma in order to keep his happy ending and would have slashed Henry’s throat had it not been for Regina jumping in the way and taking the blade.
With all the hubbub, the bells rang, Robin got married and Regina laid dying when the happy couple emerged from the chapel. Selena grew green when Regina dared bleed on her dress, and Robin gave her that “did I seriously just marry this chick” look. Thankfully the writers didn’t use the true love’s kiss trope again as it had become a little worn, opting to make Henry pick up the pen and become the author. That’s right, the other author was around to laugh and point at Regina’s non-happy ending and still had the pen which he said had been rendered powerless on account of him breaking the rules to not write your own happy ending. #HenryIsTheAuthor.
Henry wrote the magic right out of the book, returning everyone to Storybrooke just as before. The author tried to flee upon re-arrival but was quickly caught. Henry broke the pen because with great penmanship comes great responsibility... or something like that. Still, the one thing left to solve was the riddle of Rumple’s impending succumbing to the darkness. For that, they needed to get back the sorcerer’s apprentice.
Finally being useful, the apprentice tried sucking the darkness out of Gold’s heart and trapping it in the magic hat. While he succeeded at taking out the darkness, he failed in trapping it. In the biggest and best twist of all, the apprentice said that they needed to find the sorcerer who was, drumroll... Merlin! Yeah, it was Merlin the whole time like some of us guessed. Other’s thought it might be Yen Sid, but that would have been too much subliminal Disneyisms. Merlin battled the darkness and could only trap it onto the soul of a single person. This led to... Emma becoming the dark one. What? Did you just read that right? Yes. Yes, you did. #EmmaTheDarkOne . She sucked up the evil energy knowing that her people would find a way to cure her and get her back somehow. The final shot of the season was seeing the name Emma Swan on the dagger. The question: where the heck did she disappear too? Not only did she take on the darkness, it looked like it consumed her. Strange. Another strange thing was Lily’s small mention setting up another plot for next season, her looking for her father. Maleficent (a character mysteriously absent with everything changing completely) said she didn’t know who her baby daddy was because... well, it happened in dragon form. So she clearly couldn’t tell who she was sleeping with because, you know, there’s all those dragons flying around and having unprotected adult fun (though we’ve only seen two). Hook was mysteriously alive again even though it was said that the author couldn’t bring people back to life. In one of the most confusing explanations to me, Baelfire (the other person they wanted back) couldn’t be resurrected because he died in the real world, but Hook could because he died in the fake world which actually wasn’t the same as the fairy tale world they originally came from? I don’t know. With all of that, I was still flipping my lid. I loved every minute of it. I am more jazzed by this finale than I was last season at the introduction of Frozen characters. So, what did you think of the finale? Did you enjoy it? Did you think that the villains getting happy endings was as good as the author’s fans thought it was? Who do you think is Lily’s father (my money is on Mushu from Mulan)? What do you think about Emma becoming the dark one?
Mulan picture courtesy of Disney
As always leave your comments below (click the no comments button if no one has commented yet). I look forward to reading your opinions. Follow me here and on Twitter. Join me on Goodreads in the group Books Similar To Breaking Bad, Scandal and other Popular TV Shows and check out my books on Amazon. Oh yes, my two new stories #BrandNewHome and #ThePowerOfTen are out now. You can look into some of my earlier posts to read more about them and visit my Amazon page to purchase your copy. Get Brand New Home in the next week before it goes up from $1.00 to 3.49.
Until next time, Welcome To The Jungle!
P.S. OK, so maybe that was a quote from Guns and Roses, but man did that song seem to fit at the time I wrote this. I now see that I was wrong. Hmm.
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New Novella: The Power of TEN
Hello again people out there in the blogosphere. Yes, I have not one, but two good reads that have come out in the last few days. The first I already told you about below, Brand New Home (#Brand New Home. The second is a short story/novella entitled: The Power of TEN. Read below for a synopsis and a brief description of how I tackled the story.
“Though you may never know, not from the story at least, His name is Tennessee, and he comes in peace.”
The sudden and unexpected death of a man’s fiancee attracts a strange behavior from a mysterious man. When the perpetrator finds more and more ways to thrust himself into the life of the grieving fiance, tensions build between the two of them as the distraught mourner is unable to understand the actions from this strange and vicious fellow. Though not her killer, what role does the mysterious man have to play in the woman’s death? More importantly, why would he do the heinous act he did to her before her body even chilled? Does he want to kill the fiance? Who is this mysterious man?
A taut and fast-paced horror thriller novella, The Power Of TEN invites you down a rabbit hole that grows more and more curious with each day passed as the grieving man pursues this mysterious man through a dwindling count of ten. What you both may find is stranger and more hopeful than anything one would expect. In time, even you’ll know The Power Of TEN.
Featuring real e-book pages as a testing experiment. This book was formatted to have real e-book pages. Not to be confused with real book pages, e-book page number has been formatted to perfectly fit the Kindle Fire HD page display, displaying each page with a number at the top and keeping the entire page on the screen all at the same time. Note that this only reads as a single page to the screen when the Fire is held upright like a book and is set on the lowest font size setting, Georgia-style. This novella centers around a strange man with an even stranger power. Showing up usually after an unexpected accidental death, this man does the unthinkable and mutilates the body of a fresh corpse. But his job is not done there. He must busy himself with ten full days of tasks before his job is complete. A haunting and bizarre story with an inspiring end, you won't want to miss this one. You can buy The Power of TEN here: AMAZON for the low price of $1.49. Get it now!
As always follow me on Goodreads, join the group and tweet #PowerOfTen. And stay tuned for more posts later on tonight and through this season finale TV week.
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“Though you may never know, not from the story at least, His name is Tennessee, and he comes in peace.” The sudden and unexpected death of a man’s fiancee attracts a strange behavior from a mysterious man. When the perpetrator finds more and more ways to thrust himself into the life of the grieving fiance, tensions build between the two of them as the distraught mourner is unable to understand the actions from this strange and vicious fellow. Though not her killer, what role does the mysterious man have to play in the woman’s death? More importantly, why would he do the heinous act he did to her before her body even chilled? Does he want to kill the fiance? Who is this mysterious man?
A taut and fast-paced horror thriller novella, The Power Of TEN invites you down a rabbit hole that grows more and more curious with each day passed as the grieving man pursues this mysterious man through a dwindling count of ten. What you both may find is stranger and more hopeful than anything one would expect. In time, even you’ll know The Power Of TEN.
Featuring real e-book pages as a testing experiment. This book was formatted to have real e-book pages. Not to be confused with real book pages, e-book page number has been formatted to perfectly fit the Kindle Fire HD page display, displaying each page with a number at the top and keeping the entire page on the screen all at the same time. Note that this only reads as a single page to the screen when the Fire is held upright like a book and is set on the lowest font size setting, Georgia-style. This novella centers around a strange man with an even stranger power. Showing up usually after an unexpected accidental death, this man does the unthinkable and mutilates the body of a fresh corpse. But his job is not done there. He must busy himself with ten full days of tasks before his job is complete. A haunting and bizarre story with an inspiring end, you won't want to miss this one. You can buy The Power of TEN here: AMAZON for the low price of $1.49. Get it now!
As always follow me on Goodreads, join the group and tweet #PowerOfTen. And stay tuned for more posts later on tonight and through this season finale TV week.
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