My Emotional Rollercoaster | Scrubs Rewatch / Review

I’ve decided to start reviewing the shows I watch when I finish them, and I may extend this to books and movies as well. These reviews won’t necessarily be a critical evaluation so much as a personal opinion, but I’ll try to take objective flaws into account.

These posts will also contain some spoilers, so in order to avoid spoiling anything for those who are simply scrolling past, these posts will exist as unlisted pages, linked to only in blog posts like this one.

Here is the link to my review of Scrubs. Specifically, my thoughts on it after rewatching the entire series.

Anticipating 2018

There are a great many things I’m excited for which are due to release in 2018, and I figured it’d be dandy to go through them in a neat little blog post. And also to never say ‘dandy’ again.

I won’t go through everything, because else we’d be here all day, but I will point out a few highlights in each category I can think of. I’d normally discuss gaming over on my gaming blog, but I don’t think there’s enough really to stretch into a full blog post over there. That’s not to say that there’s nothing to be excited for, but that what I am excited for is a lot of little things that I don’t have much to say about.

Games

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World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth

Well, duh. World of Warcraft is easily my most played game throughout my entire life, and it’s fair to say that nowadays I’m more excited for an expansion than I am for Christmas. And I’m no humbug.

Every two years we get a whole new expansion for World of Warcraft and, if the last expansion is anything to go by, the game is only improving with age. Whilst there’s no guarentee that Battle will match Legion‘s record, what has been announced has got me excited already. I’m intrigued by the island expeditions, apprehensive about warfronts, but most of all, dying to dive into the game’s new zones and experience a fresh round of Azerothian fantasy. And while the expansion probably won’t be releasing until autumn this year or later, there’s a patch on the horizon which will drastically improve the levelling experience and potentially include early access to some of the expansion’s allied races as a pre-purchase reward.

And WoW’s the one franchise I’ll always pre-purchase.

Dragon Quest: Builders (Nintendo Switch)

Initially dismissed as yet another Minecraft clone, I didn’t pay much attention to the game when it launched on Playstation platforms. Dragon Quest as a series is something I’m vaguely familiar with, having played the opening 5 or so hours of two of the franchise’s JRPGs on my DS but never delving much deeper than that. I enjoyed the games, but it’s not a genre that’s ever really hooked me into a full playthrough. After seeing some gameplay of Builders from a Youtuber I follow, however, I changed my tune and lamented its limitation to console.

That is, until it was announced for the Switch. Today I downloaded the free demo, which contains an hour’s worth of story content and unlimited access to the game’s first island thereafter. (I’m not sure how much gameplay you can get out of that without progression, but I’m sure I’ll go back and revisit it.) To my surprise I found myself having a brilliant time. The game is full of charm, iterating on the survival-sandbox genre enough to keep me interested (like Portal Knights), whilst feeling surprisingly polished in performance and control schemes (unlike Portal Knights). The questing system keeps me interested as opposed to losing focus like I would in Minecraft, and I found the story and characters to be enjoyable, which is probably the biggest surprise to come out of a survival-sandbox game.

It comes out on February 9th and I’m buying it the moment it’s available.

Ooblets

I know precious little about this game and I think I’ll keep it that way. Just know that it’s the treasured lovechild of Pokemon and Stardew Valley, all wrapped up in an adorable art-style that I can’t wait to live in for as long as the game will provide for me.

The continued existence of the Nintendo Switch

I’ll confess that the Switch’s strong launch with Zelda and Mario has left me with little to be personally excited for in 2018, besides the notable indies. I’m holding out for some announcements, and while I’m sure that any kind of Animal Crossing or Pokemon announcement would be for a game that’s not released until at least 2019, I’m keeping an eye out for whatever the hell they do with Virtual Console. Animal Crossing Gamecube on my Switch would be a best case scenario. The worst, I fear, will be a delay on any Virtual Console activity (bar the subscription based game a month) until they’re sure the Wii U and 3DS are dead and buried.

As someone who never bought a Wii U or a New 3DS… give me my Virtual Console, damnit. I’ll give you all of my money.

Also… Untitled Yoshi Title? GIMMIE ❤

 

Movies

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Avengers: Infinity War

I’ll preface this by saying that the only reason Black Panther isn’t up here is because I’m not familiar with that story at all. I’ll see it, and hopefully I’ll enjoy it, but I have no idea what to expect. Knowing Marvel, I’m sure it’ll be good. (Also, I’m not a big movie guy, so expect a lot of comic book movies on this list and not much else.)

I’ve seen every MCU movie bar Iron Man 1 (I should really get on that) and Ant-Man. Oh, and the Incredible Hulk, if you count that. Infinity War is basically what all of it has been leading to, and I’m sure it’s going to be one epic, Thanos-sized treat. Marvel have yet to disappoint me.

Other than that, I’ve not much to say. I haven’t been looking that much into the development or planning of this movie, and I feel like I should be more excited than I am. It’s kind of been overshadowed by the next movie in this list, though.

Spider-Man: Into the Spidey-Verse

I’m not sure I’ve ever been this excited for a movie, and I couldn’t really tell you why. I’m not a big movie guy. I prefer series. But something about the animation style and the atmosphere shown in the trailer grabbed me, and as a Spider-Man fan that’s criminally uneducated on the Miles Morales side of the story (or the Spidey-Verse storyline), I couldn’t be happier that they’re finally exploring it in a movie. Plus, the decision to make this animated as opposed to live-action opens up a whole wreath of opportunities for spectacle, setting and scope.

I’m gonna go rewatch the trailer again.

Solo: A Star Wars Story

It’s Star Wars. Is there anything else to say?

Fine, fine. While Han Solo isn’t my favourite character in the Star Wars Universe, he’s still a good one, and despite the movie’s existence epitomising Disney’s mining the franchise for money, I’m not going to turn my nose up at potential for a good Star Wars story.

 

Series

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Black Mirror Season 4

Oops, I’ve already watched it. I should have written this on January 1st. But seeing as it released on 2018, I feel like it’d be unfair not to include it. Season 4 contained some of my favourite episodes in the series – namely U.S.S Callister and Hang the DJ. Crocodile was fun too, despite the technology not being at the forefront of the episode so much as a mere plot device. I also quite enjoyed Metalhead due to the sheer absurdity of it… which I hope is what they were going for, else all the criticism is well justified.

But anyway, onto the stuff that is actually yet to be released.

Doctor Who Season 11

Despite enjoying Peter Capaldi as an actor, I never really got on with his Doctor as much as I got on with David Tenant and Matt Smith’s iterations. Plus, I’ve always found Steven Moffat’s plots to be very hit-or-miss and often riddled with plot holes. I won’t celebrate his departure as show-runner (as I’ve clearly enjoyed the show since season Russel T. Davies), but I’m very excited for Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor, as well as seeing what Chris Chibnall has in store for the series as new show-runner.

Not as excited for the new companions, but I’ll reserve my judgement for now.

Jessica Jones Season 2

Jessica Jones was my favourite of the Defenders series’, although given how underwhelming I found the actual first season of the Defenders to be, I didn’t particularly enjoy her last appearance. I’m also apprehensive about the trailer for season 2, which isn’t that exciting. Hopefully, the consequences of season 1’s finale won’t leave the second season feeling shallow, as I’ve been waiting for this for over 2 years.

Game of Thrones Season 8

Damnit. The rumours were true. HBO recently announced that Game of Thrones won’t be returning until 2019. And while that’s good news in the long run, it’s anguish knowing the wait extends until then.

Why did I put it on this list? Because I’m just that excited.

Revisiting Harry Potter

Kindle Unlimited is a service that’s been interesting me for some time now, and as my reading habits have been slipping more and more, I decided to claim my free month trial. Rather than using this trial to read new and interesting books, as was the plan, I was instead distracted by the fact that the Harry Potter books were on there, and thus set about re-reading Rowling’s famous series.

Now, whilst I’m comfortably familiar with the series thanks to the movies (which I’ve seen on multiple occasions), I’ve only read the actually book series once, and that was when I was around fourteen. Whilst it was enjoyable, I don’t remember being particularly blown away by the novels, and apart from filling in some of the gaps from the movies, they soon fell into obscurity. However, reading through the series a second time round has proven to be a splendid idea. I’m now positively entranced by the wizarding world that Rowling has created, and rather than taking the story at face value, my mind now reels with the possibilities of further stories told within that some world (perpetuated, of course, by the recent release of Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them, which I have yet to see). I’m enthralled by the idea of apparition; intrigued by the consequences of living in a world where things such as the polyjuice potion, the pensieve and invisibility cloaks exist; excited at the prospect of what other Dark wizards get up to and the potential narratives behind that; curious as to the magical governing of other countries; and, of course, tickled by the idea of the wizarding world existing alongside a 2016 world, where there are smartphones (and therefore cameras) everywhere.

There’s also a rich vein of rediscovery to be found from having foreknowledge of the series. Knowing the perspectives and plans of certain characters can be invigorating, enticing and exciting; the ability to understand why Dumbledore’s eyes light up “triumphantly” at a particular spot of bad news at the end of Goblet of Fire, for example, allows you to see the story from a whole other angle as it unfolds. Furthermore, reading this from an adult perspective offers even further insights into the behaviours of some characters, such as why information is withheld rather than shared, and what some unheard conversations between teachers and adult characters might sound like. And finally, I found myself taken off guard by the amount of comedic moments found in the series; some of them, like Fred and George bouncing snowballs off the back of Professor Quirrel’s turban, are even funnier with foreknowledge.

Finally, as somebody who was once caught up in the popular idea that J.K Rowling’s actual writing is overrated based on her popularity, I have this to say: that is incorrect. I’ve found her writing to be easy to read, excellently descriptive, accurately characteristic through applications of free indirect style, to contain very slight and clever foreshadowing, and most impressively, to be thoroughly well-plotted and consistent throughout a myriad of fully-constructed characters, events and in an extensively designed world. There are some minor plotholes that I’d raise, such as why Harry doesn’t see Thestrals pulling the magical carriages at the end of Goblet of Fire, but none of these compromise the story when pulled up for closer inspection, which is a rare trait to find in a lot of fiction nowadays.

Series Review: The Shannara Chronicles Season 1

Mild spoilers for The Shannara Chronicles Season 1 (and likely the book series) below! If you want to approach this series with no preconceptions, avoid this blog post.

So I’ll preface this by saying that I haven’t read any of the Shannara Chronicles books by Terry Brooks. I have no idea as to the quality of content that lies within them, or how closely the Netflix show follows them, though from the blurbs of the books it would seem to be quite loosely. As somebody who normally reads the books first, this was actually a welcome change, though I do wonder how much enjoyment I’ll be able to get from reading the books now that I’ve watched the series.

I found this series simply because I was browsing Netflix for something to watch, and I almost passed over it. I’m not saying that it didn’t appeal to me, but show adaptions from novels don’t have the best track record and it was only as a last resort that I decided to give it a try. But from the opening shot, I could tell that the middling 3-star ratings had nothing to do with the budgetary commitments, and that this was a world that at the very least had plenty of care and effort put into it. This was one of my main fears, as a novelist never has to worry about budget or realistic scope of setting and scale, and the scale issue only showed in a few battle scenes… but even the big-name novel adaptions like Game of Thrones have 50 warriors where there are meant to be 50,000.

Season 1 of the Shannara Chronicles is a quest. It reminds me of Lord of the Rings, in a good way, and I’m not even very familiar with LOTR. (I’m working on it!) Having only seen the first two Lord of the Rings movies and having started reading The Fellowship of the Ring last night, it probably says something when I can immediately identify it as a direct influence and continual referral point in the Shannara Chronicles. The world is made up of Humans, Elves, Trolls, Gnomes and the notably absent Dwarves. The latter three races are descendants of humans (or at least that’s what I’ve gathered base on the incredible intro), whilst the existence of elves remains a mystery… at least, to me.

But here’s where it really hooked me. The Shannara Chronicles are an indeterminate (though later specified) few thousands of years after modern mankind’s downfall. So, while you have elves and magic and so forth, you also have decaying fallen skyscrapers and abandoned wastelands that form the backdrop of the series as a grand narrative; humanity is still recovering from this downfall even thousands of years later. The series balances this portrayal of present day society as ancient lore perfectly, making it not a main plot point or even a readily discussed matter, but a background that rarely comes into play and brings a sense of intense wonder and discovery when doing so. It is possibly my favourite part of this narrative. I often have to remind myself that this takes place on a future Earth, and that’s wonderful. I want to learn more about Earth’s fallen civilisations, and I say this in a world which is currently wrought with the same almost idealised apocalypse story over and over.

The series has its flaws, though. Most notably, the pacing takes weird jumps and skates over important developmental issues. Sometimes it’s forgiveable, such as travelling from point A to point B – a travel of weeks – over the course of one single cut. Other times, you have characters entering environments that should make their jaw drop, but they are instead already at home. You have characters lose loved ones and fail to even grieve or be affected by it. And I am 100% certain that this comes down to cut content. But even this is, as worst, merely jarring, and whilst I recall it being particularly bad at around episode two or three, it didn’t come close to deterring me from the series.

I’d also say it was somewhat predictable. Whilst it may be set in a vastly and commendably unique world, the events that take place within it are far from having never been told before. I found myself predicting events which were meant to shock me, and I can’t particularly think of any one moment that felt like a huge revelation or surprise. But perhaps that is simply me being jaded or having a foresight that any writer of the same genre might have themselves.

Just give it a watch. These last two paragraphs have been criticisms, but they’re the only bad things I have to say about an otherwise pleasantly surprising show. I highly anticipate season 2.

The Movie as a Limited Form of Narrative

Note: The second half of this blog post uses the new Netflix Original series ‘Stranger Things’ as a point of discussion, but reveals no spoilers or plot points.

I’m not a big movie guy. Name a classic movie that everybody’s seen, chances are, I haven’t seen it. And after we get done with the ten straight minutes of “So you’ve never seen [x]?!”, I’m just about ready to stop talking about movies altogether rather than justify my reasoning. But here it is: I think TV series do it better.

Well, ‘TV series’ is getting to be an outdated term, what with the increasing number of shows releasing directly to and exclusively on streaming services such as Netflix. And sure, there are some stories which suit a movie better than being stretched out over a series. But the downside of cinema is that you’re highly restricted by the length which your movie is allowed to air for, so as to get the optimum amount of showings in the theater per day. This often constricts narrative cohesion, with most movies having plenty of cut footage. There is no movie that I can think of where there hasn’t been at least one scene that should have been explored in greater depth, or one plot point that feels somewhat convoluted in order to get the rest of the movie rolling. Much of the time, it’ll feel like we’ve barely become acquainted with a set of characters before we’re meant to be fearing for their lives, or rooting for their romantic interests, or whatever the subject of the movie is about.

‘TV Series’, on the other hand, have more than enough room for character development and a fully fleshed out plot. Often, of course, this leads to the opposite problem, with many series having ‘filler’ episodes (see: Breaking Bad’s fly episode), some plot points being redundant (see: Orphan Black S2E8) and the pace of the overarching narrative feeling a little too slow (see: The Flash, Season 1). But nothing is perfect; these are all good shows (in my opinion) and I’d much rather have something with a few redundancies that still makes sense, than something which is cut together and barely retains its narrative thread.

Fun fact: It is for almost the exact same reasons as I mentioned above that I thought season 8 of Doctor Who was just pants. They decided to do a series of non-linked, standalone episodes and almost every single one of them felt rushed and constricted.

Stranger Things just released on Netflix, and is what finally prompted me to write this blog post which has been brewing in the back of my mind for the better part of a year. Stranger Things has eight episodes, all of which were released at the same time, as many Netflix Originals now do. However, I believe that there was more of a solid reason behind why the Duffer Brothers released them this way (if it was in fact their decision). At the end of my viewing I felt that I’d watched an eight hour movie as opposed to a TV series, and lo and behold, when I looked this up, many others felt the same way. The Duffer Brothers stated that they envisioned it as an eight hour movie themselves, so kudos to them for achieving their desired effect.

I’m not a specialist in writing for screen. We had a few modules about it on my Creative Writing course (which I just found out I achieved a 2:1 in, go me!), but we didn’t delve too deeply into the overall craft of making a screenplay, and therefore I’m no expert on what the narrative difference between a movie and a TV series is besides quantity, and basing your structure around that. This eight-hour movie concept, then, is an abstract one to me, as there must have been a reason as to why I pegged it as more of a movie narrative myself. I just can’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe it’s to do with the fact that the series is more of a self-contained story (which may or may not have an ambiguous ending or some loose ends, I leave that for your viewing discovery), whereas most TV series are written with narrative threads for future series in place.

All I know is this: It proves my point about the limitations of standardised screen times for movies. In eight hours, there was enough time for character development, emotional exploration, side-characters that felt real, suspense that lasted long enough, and a plot that wasn’t in a rush to get to the end. And yet, when I review it in my head, it doesn’t feel like it stretched out at all; nor does it feel like a TV series. I remember it like it was an hour and a half movie… just a real, damn good one. Of course, you wouldn’t sit in a movie theater for eight hours straight watching ‘Stranger Things’, and I won’t deny that the movie-going experience is an enjoyable social occasion that I’d hate to lose. But maybe it’s time for us to stop restricting ourselves to the current forms of narrative we perceive as absolutes, and step into unknown territories such as eight hour movie-series hybrids.

You Can’t Keep a Good Book Down

You should always read a good book twice.

The first time around, of course, everything is new. Well, it should be, provided the plot hasn’t been spoiled for you in any way. It can be a little daunting, especially, I find, in works of fantasy, to be introduced to new characters, new ideologies, and sometimes whole new worlds with expectation that you are able to keep up. But in good books (the term ‘good’ here is down to the reader’s discretion, of course) you will eventually find that moment where you comfortably slip into the world, and the rest is history. Well, unless you’re reading sci-fi. Then it’s probably the future.

The benefits of reading a book for the first time, of course, are that you’re in a constant state of speculation as to what happens next. Mysteries presented to you are mysterious, plot twists surprising (if done well), and tragedy heartbreaking. I’m currently starting a new series which I will disclose later, when I’m safe from spoilers. It’s been a while since I picked up a new book (as I’ll detail later) and I’ve found it very refreshing to not actually know what happens next. And, to be fair, it is a pretty damn good book. So far.

Reading a book the second time holds, I believe, just as much merit as reading it for the first. It’s a different reading. When I was younger I used to find it boring, as I already knew what was going to happen, but I discovered that once I’d left it for a few months or years, when it was no longer fresh in my mind, I could revisit the book or series and discover not only a story half-forgotten, but a story enriched by the foreknowledge of what’s to come. Foreshadowing became juicy, inevitable betrayals tasted tantalizing before their harvest, and tragedies were all the more bittersweet. Such foreknowledge allows a peek at the machinations of the author. What’s more, I find that on a second reading I’m no longer rushing to see what happens at the end, and am therefore free to explore the text at a slower pace, noting intertextuality, symbolism, and the occasional typo.

Of course, revisiting a book or a series more than twice is perfectly good, too. You may pick up on even more than you did on the second reading, though I do think that the second reading is where you’re most likely to make the most discovery regarding the craftsmanship of the fiction. If anything, on your further readings you’re probably likely to take away different messages from the story depending on where you are in your life. I just finished re-reading Darren Shan’s Demonata series for the fourth(?) time and took to heart messages about maturing and doing things you don’t want to have to do in life. (Perhaps not specifically the need for squishing heads, though coursework can sometimes incite such feelings.)

Speaking of which… reading past young adult fictions that you loved as a teenager, but from an adult perspective, is something I wholly recommend. I recently binged on all of Darren Shan’s works from my childhood, starting with the Larten Crepsley saga, working my way through the Saga of Darren Shan and then through the Demonata series. As an adult, I’ve been more readily able to appreciate narrative techniques used throughout these series and have thoroughly enjoyed refreshing these stories in my mind. As mentioned in the above paragraph, I also took away life lessons as I would from any other book, making this even more worth my while. And also, they’re just cracking good stories, to be honest. As an adult, I’m encouraged to read stories about a newly wed couple in the sixties nervous about getting down to business on their wedding night, but sometimes all I wanna read about is a scorpion demon popping eyes and laying eggs within, or about the war between two clans of vampires and the inevitable end of the world. Does that make me a child? No. Perhaps it just means that I prefer “readerly” fiction to “writerly” fiction, as Barthes would deem them.

So go read a book! Or re-read an old one! You may learn something, from both. Or you may just enjoy staring at blotches of ink on paper for hours on end.