A Game of Thrones: Get ready, Everybody! This is only the beginning of one long-ass, yet truly awesome, song (My thoughts on book #1 in the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin)

Let me start out this review on a bit of a tangent by saying that I’m a big fan of Lewis Lovhaug’s, who’s perhaps more commonly known on the Internet as Linkara, and his video review series, History of Power Rangers. If you haven’t heard of History of Power Rangers, it’s video series where Linkara does in depth reviews of each season of Power Rangers. At the time of this review’s posting, he recently released his review of Power Rangers Megaforce and Power Rangers Super Megaforce, so he’s now finally caught up with all of the seasons of Power Rangers that have finished airing. He will do his review of Power Rangers Dino Charge and Power Rangers Dino Super Charge at some point once Power Rangers Dino Super Charge has finished airing, but that probably won’t be for a while since Power Rangers Dino Super Charge apparently won’t be premiering until the end of January. If you’re interested in checking out his History of Power Rangers videos, you can watch them here. That being said, something that I’ve been thinking about a lot for a long time now is doing an in depth review series of either a TV show or a book series, similar to Linkara’s History of Power Rangers series, but in a written format. Since I’m focusing primarily on reviewing books for my blog these days, I think it could be a lot of fun to do that with the A Song of Ice and Fire book series since there’s a lot to talk about regarding the books and there’s the show Game of Thrones to talk about as well. With that said, here are my thoughts on A Game of Thrones.

Right off the bat, I have to say that I absolutely loved A Game of Thrones. I would even go as far as saying that it’s one of the best books, if not the best book, that I’ve ever read. I really regret not having started reading the A Song of Ice and Fire series a long time ago, because this book and all of the characters, along with the world that they live in is just truly amazing, in my opinion.

This might sound like a really weird and random book to compare A Game of Thrones to since they are in two completely different genres, but as I was reading A Game of Thrones, I found myself thinking a lot about the book The Bourbon Kings by J. R. Ward and what I thought about it when I was reading it. If you’re interested in knowing what I thought about that book, you can read my review for the book here. While I really liked that book, I definitely think that book had a lot of problems. One of the biggest problems that I have with it is the fact that pretty much all of the characters were very black and white, without any shades of gray to them. They were either good and likable people, or they were bad and unlikable people. Given the fact that The Bourbon Kings is essentially a soap opera in the form of a book, I really felt like the book should have had at least some characters that people could love to hate. 

South Park: I don’t know why, but I kind of want to start watching this show again

As weird and random as this probably sounds, hearing Linkara (Lewis Lovhaug) make a joke about the production of South Park episodes in his History of Power Rangers video for Power Rangers Samurai and Power Rangers Super Samurai, has gotten me interested in watching my South Park DVDs again. I bought the first four seasons of South Park on DVD years ago, and yet I only watched a few episodes way back when I originally bought them and haven’t watched them since then. Honestly, South Park is an incredibly ridiculous and stupid show, and yet I still kind of like it for some odd reason.

Revolution: Not since Power Rangers has a TV show forced me to completely leave my brain at the door in order for me to be able to enjoy it (My thoughts on season one of Revolution) (Part 3 of 4)

  (Part Three)

For the third part of my review, I thought that I would spend some time talking about my speculations regarding season two of Revolution. First off, it’s going to be really interesting to see how NBC moving the show to seven o’clock on Wednesday nights will impact the ratings. Hopefully, the show will be able to avoid suffering the same fate that Smash did in its second season when it wasn’t airing after The Voice, especially since I like Revolution more than I ever liked Smash, but that’s not really saying much though. Personally, I’m not sure that The Voice was ever a very compatible lead-in for Revolution to begin with, so whatever help The Voice provided Revolution in the ratings department didn’t last very long, at least that’s my guess having followed the ratings throughout the season.

After all, The Voice is a singing competition, while Revolution is a science fiction show, so I don’t think that there’s much of a crossover between the audiences for the two shows. Sure, I like both The Voice and Revolution, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s also the case for the people who watch at least one of the two shows, and I think the fact that Revolution repeatedly lost about half, if not more of The Voice’s viewers in the ratings throughout the entire season proves that. If I had to guess what the NBC network executives’ logic was behind scheduling Revolution on Monday’s after The Voice, they were probably thinking that since they obviously had high hopes for Revolution they should give it the best lead in that they could offer one of their new shows, which is The Voice. They were also probably thinking that while Revolution and The Voice are obviously not the most compatible with each other in terms of the kind of audience that the two shows attract, The Voice is at the very least one of NBC’s highest rated shows. That’s just my theory regarding the decision to air Revolution on Monday nights after The Voice for its first season though.

Honestly, I feel like the ratings for Revolution looked a lot more stable by the end of the season compared to the ratings for Smash’s first season. The fact that Smash didn’t seem to hold onto very many of The Voice’s viewers is something that really surprised me, because I thought the two shows would share the same audience, at least to some extent. Season two is definitely going to be a big test for Revolution, in my opinion. First off, it’s going to have to prove that it’s strong and stable enough to stand on its own since it will be kicking off NBC’s Wednesday night lineup now and unlike the show’s first season, it won’t have The Voice to provide the show with at least somewhat of a cushion in the ratings.

On a more personal level, the writers of Revolution are going to have to prove to me that the show is capable of maintaining my interest for the duration of the series, or for at least the foreseeable future and not quickly once again lose me as a viewer like Fringe did once its second season started. Honestly, I’m fairly optimistic that they will be able to keep me interested and invested in the show considering the fact that they managed to capture my interest a lot sooner than Fringe did, and they’ve kept me interested in the show since the episode “The Children’s Crusade”. Plus, as I mentioned earlier, they still managed to keep me interested in the show after not being all that impressed with the first episode, but at least I saw that the show had potential to be good, unlike Fringe’s first episode, which didn’t really show much potential in my opinion.

As for my predictions regarding the show’s second season itself, I’m not entirely joking when I say this but there’s a big part of me that’s half expecting that the season two finale cliffhanger will be that Miles and Monroe are shown lying asleep in bed next each other, naked, leaving the viewers to spend the entire summer wondering if they slept with each other, especially considering the homoerotic subtext that a lot of their scenes together had throughout the season. Like I said earlier, I was very surprised that the producers not only revealed the cause of the blackout fairly early on in the series, the characters also turned the power back on in the first season as well. As I said earlier, I was really expecting the producers to stretch that out for several seasons.

I haven’t been able to find the interview, but I read a comment on the IMDB message board for Revolution from a poster who claimed that Eric Kripke apparently said at one point that the show isn’t supposed to primarily be about turning the power back on, but instead it’s supposed to be about the characters rebuilding the United States. If that’s indeed the case, I think that sounds like a very interesting direction to take the show in, so I kind of hope that’s where things are headed.

As for the reveal that the President of the United States has secretly been hiding in a U.S. Colony at Guantanamo Bay, I can’t wait to see what happens when he returns to what used to be the United States. It would be nice to see the writers address the whole issue about how he can still be considered the President when the Constitution is supposedly no longer valid and there’s a law about term limits, not to mention the fact that fifteen years have passed since the power was turned off. Who knows how far into his presidency he was when the power was turned off? I’m not holding my breath about whether or not they will answer those questions though. The writers do have a tendency to overlook details like that at times.

As much as I loved the reveal about the President, it kind of bugged me that they had the President talk, but they didn’t show his face. Since the producers did that, I’m guessing that they will just to expect viewers to simply ignore the fact that viewers will have already heard the President speak if they end up casting an actor whose voice sounds nothing like whoever it was that said the President’s lines in the season finale. From a practical standpoint, I’m guessing the producers did that so they can decide who they want to cast as the President later on. They’ll probably want to find an actor who’s at least somewhat of a big name actor to play the part. What I think would be interesting if the writers have the President become the main villain of the show in season two. Like I said earlier, the show definitely needs to have one clear cut central antagonist instead of flip-flopping back and forth between acting like Neville is the main villain of the show at times, and then act like Monroe is the central villain of the show the rest of the time.


Part 1 of 4:Revolution: (Part 1 of 4)
Part 2 of 4:Revolution: (Part 2 of 4)
Part 4 of 4:Revolution: (Part 4 of 4) 

Revolution: Not since Power Rangers has a TV show forced me to completely leave my brain at the door in order for me to be able to enjoy it (My thoughts on season one of Revolution) (Part 2 of 4)

(Part Two)

As I said in part one of my review, while I thought that the first episode of Revolution was rather average, I still managed to see enough potential for the show to be really good to make me want to watch the second episode, which was definitely a slight improvement upon the first episode, and I became gradually more and more satisfied with the show as the first season continue. I know the producers haven’t been making the show in order to please me as a viewer; after all I’m almost certain the producers are completely unaware of my existence. Although, whoever is in charge of maintaining the NBC’s official Twitter account for Revolution did tweet me on one occasion, thanking me for posting things related to the show on my blog, so perhaps they will end up coming across this review and reading it.

Anyway, I thought it was very smart of the writers to reveal Rachel’s fate by the end of the second episode, because wanting to know whether or not Rachel was still alive was one of the main reasons why I decided to watch the second episode even though I wasn’t blown away by the first episode. I don’t know the producers’ reasons for deciding to fire Andrea Roth and replace her with Elizabeth Mitchell, but I’m really glad that they did because I never really liked Andrea Roth on Rescue Me. Personally, I always thought that she was very annoying on that show whereas I’ve loved Elizabeth Mitchell in everything I’ve seen her in over the years. Elizabeth Mitchell is one of the main reasons why I decided to check out the show in the first place when it started, aside from the fact that the premise of the show sounded interesting to me.

Personally, I think revealing that Rachel was still alive and had been held prisoner pretty much all the years the writers skipped over in the second episode illustrates what I believe is one of the greatest strengths of the show. That strength would be that the writers answer questions and move storylines along at a nice pace for a serialized show instead of dragging things on forever like Lost often did, or like The Event, which was even more guilty of when it came to dragging things out too much. That was at least the case with Revolution’s first season, and I pray to God that the writers will continue to maintain that pace at which they reveal things throughout the rest of Revolution’s run, however long that may be, because it’s one of the few good things the show has been able to do at least a little bit better job of than Lost did throughout its run.

If the producers of Lost were working on this show, they would probably wait until at least season four to reveal the cause of the blackout and turn the power back on. Something tells me that they would also reveal the cause of the blackout as if it were merely some kind of afterthought with just a few quick bits of dialogue. After all, that’s essentially what they did when they finally revealed the significance of the numbers and their explanation for the numbers’ significance was ever dumber than the fact that it was power-inhibiting nanites that caused the blackout. I for one thought the writers’ of Lost were being extremely disrespectful towards the views when it came to explanation for the significance of the numbers and how they revealed that information. Revolution may have numerous flaws, but at least the producers seem to have more respect for the show’s viewers than I often felt Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse had for Lost’s viewers. They definitely gave the reveal of what caused the blackout the time and attention that it deserved, which is something that I felt Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse often failed to do on Lost when it came revealing the many mysteries of the show.

When it comes the writers revealing what caused the power to be turned off, I was shocked that the writers not only did that in the show’s first season, they also turned the power back on. Maybe it’s because I was so used to Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse taking several seasons or in some cases waiting until the sixth and final season of Lost to answer some of the show’s biggest mysteries, but when Revolution first started I was totally expecting them to wait several seasons to do that and perhaps even longer to actually turn the power back on. I’m really glad the producers of Revolution didn’t go that route, because as much as I love Lost, I always hated that Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse constantly waited way too long to answer a lot of the show’s biggest questions. In some cases, the writers left several of the show’s biggest mysteries completely unanswered and unresolved when the show ended.

Revolution: Not since Power Rangers has a TV show forced me to completely leave my brain at the door in order for me to be able to enjoy it (My thoughts on season one of Revolution) (Part 1 of 4)

(Part One)

It had originally been my intention to write a review of the first ten episodes of Revolution while the show was on its midseason break, but after a series of delays and deciding to focus on blogging about other TV shows that I knew had potential to bring in a lot more traffic than I believed a review of Revolution would, I ultimately decided to wait until the season was over to write my review. I would like to preface this review by saying that I will be talking about other TV shows in this blog post. Some of the those shows will be Lost, Flash Forward, Fringe, Supernatural and as some of you may have guessed based on the headline for this review: Power Rangers. However, since I don’t know how familiar the people reading this review will be with those shows, I’ll try to not dwell on those shows too much. Although, in the case of Supernatural, I don’t have much commentary to offer on the show since I’ve only seen the first episode at the moment.

Due to the fact that I have so many issues with Revolution, I’m going to try and get the majority of my complaints with the show and its first season out of the way in part one of this review so I can hopefully end my review on a positive note and ideally avoid coming across as a total negative nelly by the end of this review. That being said, here are my thoughts on the first season of Revolution.

When it comes to Revolution’s first episode, my overall assessment of the series premiere was that it was rather average, and I constantly found myself thinking about things that I liked about the first episodes of Lost and Flash Forward, which ultimately led me to watch the first episodes of both shows in preparation for writing this review. Watching the first episode of Flash Forward again really made me wish that the writers for Revolution had taken page from the writers for Flash Forward’s book in terms of how they structured the first episode. Don’t get wrong, I don’t think they should have necessarily completely copied the structure of the episode, but I do think they could have learned a thing or two from Flash Forward’s first episode.

For those of you who’ve never seen the first episode of Flash Forward, the structure of the episode essentially went like this: The episode opened with them showing Mark Benford who was the primary protagonist of the show waking up after the blackout, he gets out of his police car where he surveys the damage in the area that was caused by everybody around him, along with the rest of the world blacking out for two minutes and seventeen seconds. They then showed the title card for Flash Forward, when the show returns from the commercial break they went back several hours before the blackout and briefly introduced most of the characters until they once again reach the point in the day when the worldwide blackout occurred, and then the characters each started to deal with the immediate aftermath of the blackout for the remainder of the episode and the episode ends with two characters discovering footage of an unknown person who was somehow still awake when everybody else on earth was unconscious during the blackout.