Torchwood (TV Review)

SPOILER WARNING: For both “Torchwood” and the end of the first season of “Doctor Who”

Man…“Torchwood.” A spinoff of the popular “Doctor Who” series that’ll always be the perpetual little brother, trailing after its older brother, wanting to be him.

The series stars Captain Jack Harkness, who was a secondary companion to the Doctor as played by Christopher Eccleston. Circumstances at the end of season 1 of “Doctor Who” had the Doctor leave Harkness behind. When we enter the first episode of “Torchwood”, we learn that Harkness now works as the head of the Welsh branch of Torchwood, a secret organization dedicated to tracking down alien life and protecting the world from it.

His underlings are Owen, the forensic specialist who’s the hot-headed impulsive one of the group. Toshito, the computers expert of the group. She’s Asian so of course she has to be the tech geek. Ianto, the office manager who apparently makes really good coffee. And most recently, Gwen, a police woman who stumbles upon Torchwood in the first episode and joins up.

Each adventure is pretty much episodic, though there is a continuous thread that does get more or less resolved at the end of the first season. The thread being that the only reason Jack joined Torchwood was to track down the Doctor. It seems since we last saw Jack, he’s developed an odd case of immortality and he needs the right kind of doctor to fix it. While most might be jumping up and down with glee at the fact that they can’t die, Jack being a fan of the adrenaline rush finds immortality to be a bit of a joy killer.

My general impression of “Torchwood” is that it’s just not as good as “Doctor Who.” It tries to go for its own dark flavor, but I can’t say it really succeeds. For one, the character of Jack Harkness has changed due to his new un-killable factor and also his general moroseness at being abandoned by the Doctor. The shift in personality would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that the actor isn’t all that good at playing angst.

And then there’s the show’s insistence that we must love Gwen, who is kind of the audience stand in as she learns about Torchwood at the same rate that we do. Her supposed battle to not become hardened like the rest of her team in the face of all this alien mayhem is supposed to endear her to us, though sadly it just makes her irritating. The storyline is not even all that plausible since I personally don’t find the Torchwood team to be that hardened. They’re just good at controlling their emotional pain to get a job done. Sure they’ll breakdown later, but it’s later when they’re not standing amongst their co-workers. This is being professional and frankly if Gwen can’t even do that much then what was she even doing in law enforcement?

But my main complaint would be the complete and utter lack of character consistency. Watching the episodes often makes me wonder if the writers talk to each other or even, hell, WATCH each other’s episodes. I’m sorry, but considering that (here comes a spoiler) in the 4th episode Ianto declared that one day he hopes to watch Jack die a horrible death, I don’t get how in the 7th episode they’re now suddenly having sex with each other. And unless it’s revealed in the next season that Ianto’s shagging Jack as part of some nefarious plot to destroy him, I encourage the writers to glance at each other’s notes.

The end of season 1 for “Torchwood” puts Jack in line for his guest episodes on season 3 of “Doctor Who.” And after watching Torchwood’s uneven 1st season, it says something that I finally felt the first stirrings of real interest when it was obvious that the TARDIS was coming to take Jack away to a better show. At least for a few episodes.

Sudden Death Round (Book, Film & Theater Reviews)

Yes, yes, I haven't updated in a few thousand years. And yes, yes, my last few reviews really make it seem like I haven't read a book since Thanksgiving was a mere sparkle of fear in a turkey's eye. But really, I have. It's just that I haven't had the time to really put my thoughts down coherently. So, in order to just prove to myself that I haven't gone intellectually bankrupt, here in quick succession is all the media I've soaked up in the past few months. The only thing I omit is this British mystery series I've been watching because that actually deserves a full review.

Prisoner in a Red Rose Chain by Jeffrey Moore
I read this because it's the debut novel (and the only other novel) Moore has written besides The Memory Artists, which I rather liked. This novel pretty follows the stereotype of every debut novel. It bites off more than it can chew in terms of themes and it's more or less a prototype for his 2nd and much more cohesive book. The premise is intriguing enough and remains the only unique thing about Moore's first attempt to write about a hopelessly clueless brainiac wading the waters of romance. As a child, his protagonist was instructed to rip out a page from a book while blindfolded by his pseudo-uncle (read: the man who was once having a relationship with his mother). The page was to be the map for the rest of the young man's life. And in his 30's, he's still using it as a map for his life. His job, where he lives, how he picks up women and who he picks up are all somehow related to that fateful page he ripped out almost 3 decades ago. As a premise, it's interesting, though the events themselves slowly slide into an absurdist arena. In terms of characters, it's easy to see how Moore's first protagonist, his pansexual best friend and unattainable dark lady are strong first drafts for the more interesting characters of The Memory Artists. And after reading that one, this debut is a disappointment.

Denial (Short Film)
This short that's now available on iTunes stars Brandon Routh, who is best known for (and will probably always be known for) playing Superman in Superman Returns. It's basically about how far a person will go to fool himself into thinking his relationship is going well. I can't say I felt that much sympathy for someone who actually has a choice to turn his life around, but refuses to out of sheer lack of will or laziness. But the cinematography is rather beautiful and the acting is quite solid.

The Exquisite by Laird Hunt
Welcome aboard Laird Hunt trippy ride of a novel. A man who is living post-9/11 has supposedly gotten himself mixed up with an older gent named Mr. Kindt and a woman named Tulip, who have recruited him to help them run a little agency where people pay you to fake-murder them. But wait, that's only the icing on the Insane Cake. Turns out that the guy might actually be a patient in a mental ward with a fellow patient named Kindt and is being treated by a Dr. Tulp. Which reality is real? You be the judge! But honestly, unless the reader is seriously out to lunch while reading this, the answer is pretty obvious.

Suddenly Last Summer by Tennesse Williams (2006 Revival)
If you're doing a Tennesse Williams play, there's very little you can do to make your production stand out. In the end, you really have to depend on strong direction and strong acting. This production was missing both. I can't understand the people who gave this a good review. Blythe Danner as the desperately overbearing Mrs. Venable was probably acceptable at best. Carla Gugino gave a shrill, over-acting Catherine and I'm sad to report that Gale Harold as my personal favorite character, Dr. Krukowicz left me wondering if he was as bored as I was. It even got an extended run. I just don't get it.

Rhinoceroes Eyes
Speaking of Gale Harold, he does a nice little turn here in a role that's so against the Brian Kinney persona he's so known for. The movie stars Michael Pitt who plays Chep, an overly shy prop house assistant. He's asked by a somewhat obsessive production designer to obtain various odd items for her for a movie she's working on. Rarely seeing the light of day or humans other than on a movie screen, Chep gets a little too into finding these objects to please his crush. The film is wierdly humorous in a twisted sort of way. The way Pitt plays Chep....I don't know. He seemed almost mentally challenged at times. But overall, it as an atmospheric little film that made up for its lack of plot with some lovely production work. And yes, the added laugh value was seeing Gale Harold, who usually prowls around the screen as a sex panther, this time playing a mild-mannered detective who is dorkishly in love with musicals.

Toronto Film Festival (Event Review)

I had the opportunity to go to my first Canadian film festival when my mom called me up to say she had to be Canada for something and didn't want to drive their on her own. Ever since the whole "no liquids allowed in your carry-on" rule came into place, my mom decided she'd drive everywhere rather than fly. Problem was, any longer than 4 hours behind the wheel of a car and she'd be going nuts. Hence, she offered an all expenses paid trip for me to drive her to Toronto. And what perfect timing as the Toronto Film Festival was happening.

The list of movies I wanted to see on that was being screened was rather long, but we were only going to be there for one weekend so I carefully picked three that I wanted to see above all others. Sadly, my choices weren't exactly stellar, but at least I got to see the movies that I wanted to see.....and I didn't have to pay for any of them. Aw, yeah.

The Magic Flute by Kenneth Branagh
Okay, to start off, I love Kenneth Branagh. Despite his affinity for casting some random American actor in his films to draw in a larger crowd (Robin Williams in Hamlet??? KEANU REEVES in Much Ado About Nothing?!?!), his vision has never failed to awe me with its precision and originality. He could have made a movie about the making of a telephone book and I would have bought a ticket to see it. And then he came out with a film version of Mozart's the Magic Flute. Coincidentally, my absolute favorite opera ever. My favorite opera AND Kenneth Branagh? On paper it was quite possibly the greatest pairing ever made. Sadly, it was not.

The story of the Magic Flute is childishly simple. A young prince named Tamino gets lost in a mysterious forest and is commissioned by the Queen of the Night to rescue her daughter, Pamina, who has been abducted by the "evil" Sarastro. Seeing a portrait of Pamina, Tamino instantly falls in love and promises to rescue her. He has as back up, Papageno. A strange kind of birdman who is the opera's comic relief and representative of man's earthlier desires. As Tamino goes on his journey to confront Sarastro, he discovers Sarastro's not as evil as he's made out to be and the Queen is not as benevolent. In the end, love triumphs and all is well. It's a thin plot that really exists to give an excuse for some beautiful music. Kind of like how Shakespeare's plots are just an excuse for some beautiful language.

Sadly, whatever ingenuity and creativity Shakespeare inspires in Kenneth Branagh, Mozart fails to produce. Branagh has one or two interesting ideas, but considering the movie's 2 hours and 40 minutes run time, I need more than one or two ideas. He set the opera during World War One, which is an interesting conceit that soon ends up going no where. I got the impression Branagh was trying to make a statement about pacifism, but then also wanted to add something in there about music being the univeral connector and then also throw in something about innocence and love. But in the end, his inability to crystallize one thesis and go with it made this movie look unfocused and lazy, two words I'd never attributed to Branagh until now. I guess I won't be seeing that telephone book movie now.

Invisible Waves by Pen-ek Ratanruang
The follow up movie to "Last Life in the Universe" by Ratanruang. "Last Life" was one of those movies that the minute I saw it, I had to see it again and again. I loved it to pieces and my dvd player had to protest another rotation of it to get me to stop watching. "Invisible Waves" boasts the same director, cinematographer and lead actor and even characters with similar/same names as in "Last Life." Of course I had to see this movie.

The story is about a Japanese chef named Kyoji (Tadanobu Asano, who played Kenji in "Last Life") who is living in Hong Kong and having an affair with his boss' wife. At the very beginning of the movie, she dies in his apartment and after disposing of her body, Kyoji leaves Hong Kong to go to Thailand under the orders of his boss, who may or may not be a mobster of some sort. While on the boat trip from hell, Kyoji meets Noi (also the name of the woman in "Last Life"), the single mother of a baby girl named Nid (the name of the Noi's sister in "Last Life"). The two strike up an odd friendship before they go their separate ways after the boat docks. Apart from his meeting with Noi, Kyoji suffers one indignity after another on his trip and once in Thailand, continues to have bad luck follow him. Or is it bad luck?

The first problem I had with this movie is that there's no real suspense to speak of. Despite not actually seeing how the boss' wife died, it's pretty obvious that Kyoji killed her under his boss' orders. It's also obvious that Kyoji did the deed to safe his own skin after his boss discovered their affair, which pretty much puts him on my Hate List. Why should I feel bad for someone who killed his lover to weasel out of getting whacked himself? Yeah, his boat ride is awful with the tiny bathroom and the ship's engine literally next to it, but the man killed someone! He deserves way worse than that. It's my general disliking for Kyoji that muted my enjoyment of the movie since he's in it for about 98% and I get the feeling I'm supposed to empathize with him.

If I'd never seen "Last Life" I would have catagorized "Invisible Waves" as a sophomoric movie. Even having seen "Last Life" I can barely say "Invisible Waves" is watchable. Still, there is something genuinely sweet about the idea that Kenji and Noi from "Last Life" are meeting again in another life and that the connection they felt for one another is still present when they are Kyoji and Noi. But this sentiment can only carry you so far as the movie limps along to a lame ending.

Macbeth by Jeffrey Wright
Okay, out of all three movies I saw at the festival, THIS was the worst. In fact, it's just so bad I'm hesitant to even take the time to give it a real review. So I'm going to do a very quick one before I review an alternate Macbeth production everyone should watch instead.

Wright's Macbeth takes place in modern times where Duncan is a mobster with his own little empire and Macbeth is one of his most trusted lackeys. The play's language remains intact so you know what's going to happen. Only instead of kingdoms and rapiers, it's nightclubs and sawed off shotguns. The idea felt old and tired, as much like Ethan Hawke's updated Hamlet, the whole modernization thing felt like a gimmick with no substance. It also didn't help that not a single actor in this fairly young cast could do Shakespeare without sounding extremely uncomfortable and lost. I single out Victoria Hill as Lady Macbeth and Sam Worthington as Macbeth as the two worst amongst the talentless talent. Too bad they were the stars.

So instead of watching this god awful adaptation, watch the BBC's updated Macbeth instead. Run out and get the DVD or record it off of BBC America. It's definitely worth the effort. They aired it along with three other Shakespeare plays they transplanted into modern times. But unlike Wright's mindless moves, there's some actual reasoning behind the modernization.

The BBC's Macbeth not only takes place in modern times, but employs modern language. That's right. No thee's or thy's. No bodkins and knaves. It's all contemporary speak. So why even bother? Well, it's amazing how well Shakespeare's themes of human greed and jealousy can be transported into something as currently relevant as say, the cutthroat world of 5 star restaurants. So in this version, Macbeth is Joe Macbeth (James MacAvoy), the sous-chef to a very popular celebrity chef named Duncan. Together the two built a restaurant that's now being hailed as one of the best in England. Only thing is, Duncan's the name and face, gaining all the credit whereas no one has a clue who Macbeth is.

Much like the play, Duncan has decided to give the restaurant over to his son, rather than the deserving Macbeth who has slaved away at kitchen with a near obsessed frenzy when it comes to preparing each dish. Macbeth might have taken such crap lying down if it weren't for his wife (Keeley Hawes), who pointedly tells her husband just how unfair Duncan is being....and what they could do to rectify this unjust decision. The rest of the story goes pretty much by blueprint off the play, with lots of murder and insanity.

James MacAvoy, a young Scottish actor who is probably best known over here for playing Mr. Tumnus in "Chronicles of Narnia" was probably about 26 in this movie and looks about 15, especially when he's paired against Keeley Hawes. It's not so much that Hawes looks old, but she actually looks like a woman whereas MacAvoy looks like he just got his driver's license. Still, the odd visual works rather well when you start to see the nature of their marriage. And no, it's not just a case of a power-hungry woman controlling her husband. Hawes' Lady Macbeth has got a lot more complexities and problems than just that. In fact, both turn in some wonderfully subtle performances as two people whose dissatisfaction and tragedies in their personal lives twist them to become monsters.....just the way Shakespeare wrote them.

Confessions of a Memory Eater by Pagan Kennedy

It’s common “well, duh!” knowledge that no one’s life turns out exactly as they’d hoped. Quite often you find yourself in the present time, living a life you’d never imagined you’d lead or ever wanted to lead. From there on you have the options of either moving forward into the future, or wallow in your past. Most people have little choice but to move into the future since, well, time moves forward. But what if you could mentally take yourself back in time with enough clarity to make it worth your while?

The protagonist of Pagan Kennedy’s latest book, Confessions of a Memory Eater is given just that power. Hitting 40, Win Duncan has woken up to the fact that he never hit his full potential. As a young man in his 20’s, he was a golden boy academic who was on the fast track to making a name for himself. 20 some odd years later, he’s a professor in a small town college with no hope of tenure, a grant or finishing his book project. In the meantime, his wife Edie has catapulted from being an insecure teacher into a writer on the verge of academic stardom. Needless to say, Win is depressed.

In the middle of his midlife crisis, Win gets a call from Phil Litminov, an old grad school friend. Phil has created a drug named Mem, a potent pharmaceutical that allows its taker to relive any memory they wish. And not just as a hallucination, but actually relive it all in your mind with absolute clarity where you can notice details you never did before and feel the same emotions you felt then. For anyone like Win whose only glory lies in his past, it’s the ultimate escape.

Pagan Kennedy has come up with an awesome concept that more or less fizzled out toward the end. The main prize of the novel is won early on when Win takes his first dose of Mem and from there on out, the novelty is more or less over. There’s nothing more for the novel to be than another story about a man struggling through a midlife crisis. There’re plenty of random side stories involving what’s going on in Win’s present. Such as his marriage finally falling apart and the other people who have been ensnared by the wonders of Mem. But the book is less than 200 pages and leaves little time for things like character development or understanding the attachments people seem to form to one another at the drop of a hat. Overall I give points to Kennedy for a great idea that sadly couldn’t go anywhere after page 50.

Mike Yokohama: A Forest With No Name (Movie Review)

About halfway through my viewing of this movie, I jumped up from my seat and shrieked “Mystery Train!!!!” which I’m sure scared the crap out of my friend who was sitting next to me. Especially since I decided to scream that out during a particularly tense scene. But my sudden revelation came after I spent an hour of staring at Masatoshi Nagase’s (Mike Yokohama) face, trying to figure out where I’d seen the man before. Instead of pausing the movie and looking him up on IMDB.com like a normal person, I just sat in my silent agony until it finally came to me that he was the stoic, but endearing Japanese tourist in Jim Jarmusch’s “Mystery Train.” It was a small, nearly speechless role that all but forced Nagase to convey everything by facial expressions alone. A task that he performed successfully. And his talent at showing so much in one look has not diminished in the 15 years between “Mystery Train” and “A Forest With No Name.”

The character of Mike Yokohama is an homage to the Mickey Spillane detective, Mike Hammer. He first came on the scene thanks to Kaizo Hayashi who did a trilogy of features around brash and constantly down on his luck detective. After the conclusion of the trilogy, Yokohama got a second life in a series of TV movies done by various directors. In this reincarnation, helmed by Shinji Aoyama, the film Yokohama with his 50’s retro threads and slicked hair is now a punk hipster, complete with spiky hair and eye-aching wardrobe.

In “A Forest With No Name,” the constantly broke Yokohama is hired by a wealthy businessman to bring back his wayward daughter. The engaged young lady has holed herself up in a commune far from the city, a place where one can “find oneself,” a concept her dad finds a waste of time and potentially embarrassing if revealed to her fiancé. Yokohama goes to the commune as a supposed guest and is welcomed by the creepy proprietress. As time ticks on, you start to realize that there’s definitely something off about the entire place, especially after the proprietress tells Yokohama that there’s a tree in the forest behind the area that looks just like him. But what is this commune exactly? Isolated from the rest of the world, the people there operate on a docile, nearly brain-dead level, accomplishing very little and yet are bent on staying.

After a time, the movie abandons any idea that it’s an actual mystery/thriller. Yokohama finds the girl easily enough and it’d only be a matter of hours before he could logically take her back to town. But a conclusion to Yokohama’s actual mission is not the point of this film. Rather than placing Yokohama in his familiar mystery genre, Aoyama takes his cues from his former mentor Kiyoshi Kurosawa and molds the movie into a philosophical piece about society and man’s place within the world.

Meditative is not exactly the word I’d use for Yokohama and it seems ridiculous that he would be picked to be the central character in this slow-moving allegorical film. But in a way, Yokohama’s irreverence meshes well with the film’s seriousness in such a way that it allows the viewer to see how the themes the director’s speaking about applies to anyone and everyone, even Yokohama.

I’m not a huge fan of K.Kurosawa after seeing his overly pretentious “Bright Future,” but any tepidness in “Forest” is more than made up by Nagase’s acting. While Yokohama is a direct opposite of Nagase’s role in “Mystery Train,” he never lets the character’s verbal diarrhea get in the way of giving the same kind of subtle and multi-layered performance. For all of Yokohama’s bravado, there’s an underlying suggestion of greater complexity to him that convinces you of why he’s worth your viewing time.

The conclusion to “Forest” is open-ended, something you can find either intriguing or annoying. I was personally fine with it because the entire film seemed to rest more on mood and acting rather than plot and conclusions. But my fellow viewing companion wasn’t too pleased with the questions it left open so I guess it’s a matter of taste.

The Promise (Movie Review)

Every once in awhile, you see a movie so bad it actually transcends into another plane of existence to actually become good in how entertainingly awful it is. "The Promise" is such a movie. Apparently boasting a ridiculously high budget, this film directed by Chinese director Kaige Chen stars some of the biggest actors from Japan, China and Korea. The story, such as it is, centers around two men and the woman whose lives are intertwined by fate, destiny, and any other mystical element that’s often attributed to Asian movies.

As a little child living in a war torn land with nothing more than the clothes on her back, Quincheng makes a bargain with the goddess Manshen. Manshen promises Quincheng all the riches of the world will be hers as will the power to capture the heart of any man. In return, Quincheng will ultimately lose any man she truly loves. Quincheng quickly agrees and really, who can blame her? The kid’s like seven when she’s proposed this Faustian pact and hasn’t had a good meal in days. What’s giving up love to a seven year old when all the money in the world is being handed to you?

Fast forward about 20 years. We meet General Guangming, the leader of the Crimson Army. He’s a good leader, if a bit smarmy and overly confident in his abilities. He’s recently picked out a new slave, Kunlun to be his personal servant after seeing Kunlun out run a herd of buffalo. That’s right. He outran a herd of buffalo. That’s just one of his many special skills. Guangming is given order to rescue the king who is currently being held captive at the mercy of General Wuhuan, who is the twee-est general to ever flit a fan. En route to the rescue, Guangming is attacked by Wuhuan’s special assassin, who also possess superhuman speed (hmmm…) and conveniently spares Kunlun’s life when the slave comes to his master’s rescue (HMMMMM….). Wounded and unable to continue, Guangming orders Kunlun to put on his armor and rescue the king under disguise.

When Kunlun gets to the palace, he ends up killing the king (don’t ask) and rescuing the king’s mistress, who happens to be the grownup Quincheng. Expectedly, he falls in love with her and she with him, but due to the armor believes her rescuer to be Guangming, who when he later on spies her falls in love with her as well. Oh, the drama! Against the backdrop of this eye roll-inducing love story are Wuhuan’s plans to kill Guangming, take Quincheng for himself and rule China. Oh yes, and there’s also the uncovering of Kunlun’s past and how the mysterious assassin from before ties into all of this.

If you’ve managed to keep up with the multi-parts of this movie, then congratulations. I saw this movie and I had to go back to IMDB.com to familiarize myself with all the storylines that got stuffed in. The movie might have tried to tie in all the parts into one cohesive narrative, but damned if I noticed it. I’d almost theorize that the writers sat down and kept trying to one up each other in what sort of bizarre, ludicrous situation they could throw the characters into next. A Rescue Plan Where the Girl Is Flown Out of Her Cage Like a Kite? I see that and raise you a Main Character Runs So Fast He Goes Back In Time.

Speeding through like an impending train wreck, “The Promise” offers some truly classic scenes of accidental humor to mock and guffaw at. So if you do intend on seeing this movie, treat it as you would a comedy. In fact, it’s so bad that I’m almost tempted to believe Kaige made this movie as a spoof on the current “Crouching Tiger”-like Asian films that have been cropping up. Sadly, I don’t think that’s the case.

The Writings of Neal Shaffer

I seem to have an affinity toward writers who have a tendency toward crap endings. Nicole Krauss’ Man Walks Into a Room has some of the most beautiful prose and an interesting premise. But the ending leaves much to be desired. Same thing with pretty much all of David Mitchell’s books. Wonderful, glorious writing from beginning to 2nd to last chapter and then? Bollocks. The ending of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods? A bit pants.

And now I have Neal Shaffer to add onto my list.

Shaffer has carved a name for himself in the graphic novel arena. So far, he has four graphic novels under his belt. I’ve read 3 and like each one for slightly different reasons.
His stories have an addictive Twilight Zone-like bent without losing complete touch with day to day reality. Of the four graphic novels he’s come out with, I’ve now read three (one that’s still going) and each has managed to entertain me in completely different ways. The thing about Shaffer is that he manages to pack in quite a bit to a very short number of pages. This has always been my largest complaint about graphic novels: they’re too short. Yes, I’m well aware that most are serialized so that they stretch over months, years and decades. But I’m talking about getting one big heavy novel plunked onto your lap that you can spend a couple of days reading. This 20 pages here, 25 pages there doesn’t really work for me. It’s a shame really because as it is with people like Derek Kirk Kim and Neal Shaffer, their writing shines the most in still drawings.


One Plus One

All Shaffer virgins should read this one first. But perhaps it’ll spoil you for what lies ahead. Not that the rest of Shaffer’s efforts are bad. They’re just not as good as this one. Had I all the cash in the world, I’d commission Shaffer to continue working with Daniel Krall on this storyline because I fell in love with the protagonist of this bizarre, unsettling tale.

David Coulson is what you might call an enforcer. His job is basically to make sure that certain events happen the way they should. Who his boss is or who makes the decisions about how things should happen are unknown to the reader. All we know is that David rambles into town, makes sure things go the way he’s been told they should go and then he rambles out of town.

At the start of “One Plus One,” we meet Leonard, a man who has the unusual power of being able to see how people will look when they’re dead. If you’re going to meet your maker with a gunshot to the head and a foot missing, that’s how Leonard sees you while you still live and breathe. Surprisingly, this curse of Leonard’s has yet to drive him completely bonkers. Actually, Leonard seems quite well-adjusted, considering his circumstances. When he meets David…well, let’s just say that he notices something a little off about the latter.

David’s particular mission concerns a small-time card shark who hopes to play that one big game that’ll set him and his long suffering girlfriend up for the straight life. Deftly insinuating himself into the young man’s life, David offers to teach him how to step his game up a notch.

This story out of all of Shaffer’s stories has the strongest ending. Mainly because it sets itself up for a sequel. A sequel which has yet to happen, much to my dismay. One of Shaffer’s strengths is his characterizations. Even someone as mysterious and possible dangerous as David has more going on, a subtle fact that’s hinted at by his phone calls to a disconnected number and the penitent nature in which he takes on his jobs. And then there’s Leonard whose most interesting moments have nothing to do with the greater story, but how loneliness, more than his curse, seems to be what’s killing him. His semi-needy friendship with David is both sad and affecting.

“One Plus One” plays itself out in a quiet, almost mundane fashion, but the story really gets under your skin and leaves you with more questions and a frenzied desire for more stories about the illusive Mr. Coulson. Sadly, there are none. While it takes place in Smalltown, USA, the story has a spooky, supernatural feel to it that never leaves despite the fact that you can believe the events that unfold could happen in real life. It’s that contrasting balance that makes “One Plus One” still the strongest story Shaffer has ever offered.

Awakening

Probably one of the more straightforward Shaffer stories that tragically suffers from a bad ending.

An homage to Italian horror flicks, the story centers around Francesca Testi, the newest student at Glenrock Academy. Glenrock is the finest school for girls that upholds an extremely high academic standard. A fact that rare comes into play, but gives you the setting of a cozy, academia world that soon gets ripped apart when a serial killer starts butchering the student body.

Francesca is unfortunate enough to discover the first victim and gets smashed in the head and sent into a coma for her troubles. When she awakens, she’s privy to witnessing more deaths of her fellow classmates before it happens. Sadly, she’s also been rendered traumatized by the entire thing and is unable to talk to communicate to the police what she’s sees.

“Awakening” is entertaining in the completely the opposite way of “One Plus One.” The excitement is in how the story begins to play itself out and there’s plenty of blood, death and mayhem that makes the storytelling an intense, fun read. Whereas “One Plus One” depended on great characterizations to pull you through the story, “Awakening” depends heavily on plot and pacing. Which is probably way the bad ending stuck out so much.

I wasn’t expecting or even asking for a terrific twist ending, but couldn’t Shaffer have come up with something a little less obvious? I also wasn’t a fan of ultimate default “He’s craaaaazy!” motive as the answer to why these killings are happening. Especially since it looked like Shaffer was setting up for something a little more complex. Many questions that I had were left unanswered and not in the “Potential for Sequel” way, but more in the “We Dropped the Ball” way.

On Borrowed Time

This is the latest serial from Shaffer and from the first part looks to be that lovely mix of Twilight Zone and slice of life that I like about Shaffer’s stories.

Taylor Devlin’s got a pretty sweet life. He has a nice apartment, a good job as a journalist and a girlfriend who loves him. He agrees to an assignment about the Bermuda Triangle and even agrees to travel to the aquatic danger zone so that he can experience the area for himself. And how. Immediately he’s the victim of a vicious storm that knocks him out. When he wakes up, he’s rescued and taken back to his town…..only the town’s not exactly how he left it.

I’ll leave it there for now. Sufficient to say that Shaffer has my attention with this odd story. I can only hope that the future installments come quickly to keep the momentum going. My only complaint about the first installment would be that it really takes its sweet time setting up the story and once I’m ready to settle in to really explore the world Shaffer’s made, the issue’s over. Still, I sense about 8 dollars being put toward the next part of this story.

Doctor Who - New Series (TV Review)

While the rest of my family sank their teeth into geekish American fandom such as “Star Trek” and “Indiana Jones”, I was staking my early claims as an Anglo-philish geek by becoming rapidly obsessed with “Doctor Who.”

For those of you who aren’t aware, “Doctor Who” is like the original “Star Trek” of England in that it was a sci-fi show with a ridiculously low production value and a fan following like no other. It chronicles the adventures of The Doctor, an alien from the planet Gallifrey who travels through time and various dimensions (his people, the Time Lords, were the first to unlock the secret to time travel) in a device called the TARDIS. On the outside, the TARDIS looks like a blue London Police Phone Box. On the inside, it’s a gigantic ship. Since the first season, the Doctor has always traveled with at least one Companion. But no matter the size of the entourage, there’s usually a human woman whose sole purpose in the earlier shows was to scream a lot when faced with danger.

The reasons why he travels have altered during the show’s long run. But just about every week he goes to some time or dimension or planet where there’s evil to be fought and a mystery to be solved. The show’s most clever idea was to come up with the idea of Time Lords being able to regenerate. Meaning if their body is mortally wounded, they can shed it and get a brand new body that looks different from the last, but the mind is still pretty much the same. This little plot point allowed the show to logically replace whatever actor was playing the title role. This made it possible that as long as the show was popular enough, it would never be cancelled due to its lead actor quitting. Currently, they’re on the 10th Doctor.

Back in the day while I was growing up, Tom Baker (the 4th Doctor) was playing the role and it was really his portrayal of the Doctor as a snarky, humorous, quirky sort of guy who tended to have bursts of emotional warmth through his glibness that endeared the character to me. The other five actors who played the character during the show’s first early run each gave something to the role, but Baker was forever my favorite. Sadly, due to a miscast with Colin Baker as the 6th Doctor, the show got the axe after one more season with Sylvester McCoy as the 7th Doctor. There was a brief try to resurrect the series to the screen via a TV movie back in 1995 with Paul McGann as the 8th Doctor that was a disaster of mythical proportions. Sadly, Paul McGann probably would have made a fine Doctor if only the script hadn't been riddled with awful writing and a general ditching of the status quo from the old series that enraged the fans (yeah, I was holding a pitchfork too.).

But now for the new century, the BBC brought the show back with Christopher Eccleston as the 9th Doctor. I’d say the best way to describe Eccleston’s Doctor is intense. A lot’s happened to our beloved Time Lord since we last saw him and due to this, he’s a lot darker and emotionally overwrought than his past incarnations. Though the darker shift makes sense, Eccleston's performance overall lacked something. The one thing that all Doctors had despite various interpretations is a certain magical quality they conveyed. There’s a greater myth and destiny surrounding the character and each actor managed to keep that slightly fantastical element to the role alive as they passed it on to each succeeding Doctor. Eccleston plays the role as more of an Everyman, a soldier just returned from war. Again, the portrayal makes sense to an extent, but I missed the light supernatural element of the past Doctors. So I wasn't exactly distraught when Eccleston only did one season.

While BBCAmerica is finishing up the Eccleston episodes, the BBC has moved onto their 10th Doctor, played by David Tennant. For anyone who isn’t an Anglophile in the US, you’d probably best know Tennant as Barty Crouch, Jr. from the last Harry Potter movie. In an interview, the Scottish actor stated that he’d once written an essay back in grammar school about wanting to play Doctor Who on television. About 30 years later, the dream’s been realized. I have to say that Tennant’s obvious fanboy-love for the show helps him out quite a bit. He has the tone of the show down and strikes a nice balance of the fantasy and campiness of the writing. His Doctor brings back the magical quality of the character without completely ditching the groundwork Eccleston had laid out before leaving.

Speaking of the writing, the show’s resurrection was helmed by Russell T. Davies, who was also the creator of the original UK “Queer as Folk,” a show that I adored when I first saw it for the clever writing and awesome acting. I’m a little concerned that Davies cites “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” as his inspiration for his scripting of the new Doctor Who series, mainly because after awhile that show was no longer about the characters, but about a great Story and Arc where all the nice characterizations got shafted. I couldn’t handle that with Doctor Who. The greatest thing about this show is the character, a plausible plot is always a nice bonus, but I'm more than willing to ditch that if it means the Doctor can remain true to his quippy self. Sure, I’m so far liking the set up of there being a greater purpose to the Doctor’s existence, but I do hope his personality doesn’t get squashed for it to fit into a neat plot space Davies digs out.

The biggest change I’ve noticed in watching the new series is that the Doctor might finally get it on with his female Companion. Since the original Doctor, there was an unspoken rule of some kind that the relationship between the Doctor and his roster of rotating female companions was always platonic. But it’s obvious that Russell T. Davies set up for some sort of romance with the current companion, Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) back when the 9th Doctor was still around. Having watched the first four episodes with the 10th Doctor, I don’t think the romance line has been dropped. I can't say that Billie Piper and David Tennant have as much chemistry as Piper did with Eccleston, but if done right I probably wouldn't object too much to a romance.

I hope for the sake of the show that Tennant stays around. Since Tom Baker, he's been the best Who yet and will stick around for many more seasons to come.