Friday Night Lights - Season 3

Coming of the back of Season 2 the showrunners of FNL had some work to do, the writers strike hit the show bad. Season 2 just sort of stopped in the middle of a bunch of story lines when we only got 15 of the planned 22 episodes. What they manage to do here is pickup things perfectly, the one great thing they did was not try and close up every story from Season 2, sometimes you just have to let things drop. The first episode creates and sets up a great 4 episode arc with Smash, and brings in a fresh angle on the show with JD McCoy and his (asshole of a) dad. Having a shorter 13 episode season works fantastic in my opinion, you get to see these wonderful story arcs last the whole season (such as the conflict between Buddy and Lyla) and see so many things evolve the more the episodes go on. What I love about this show is how it manages to immerse you in the world, and pull you in so deep that you really believe the honestly and truth of theses characters (even if they do look older than the age there supposed to be). Coach Taylor and his wife Tami have one of the most realistic relationships on TV, it never gets sappy they just play it real and just have amazing chemistry. I love that these characters have to struggle for what they got, sure it's TV so mostly everybody gets a happy ending but people like Tyra really push themselves hard, it didn't just magically fall into their laps. My only real gripe with Season 3 is that whole part where Jason realises he can become a sports manager felt slightly shoehorned in to get him to where he needed to go, but thats me nitpicking in an almost perfect season. If you hate sports (like myself) don't be put off, this at it's core is a character drama, if you like well written Television then this is for you. Some people are put off by the hand held camera work, but for me it makes the show all the more better giving it that flavour of realism. If even with the departure of some characters who are only getting 4 or 5 episode arcs I can't wait to see what Season 4 and 5 bring!

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

So having wanted to see this for a while hoping some how that it would be enjoyable nonsense that would at least wash our minds of X3: The Crap Stand I finally manged to see on a flight to the States. Let me just say this, UTTER RUBBISH! This movie really was a utter an shambles, we hurriedly get a little back story on Logan (sorry James) then we see a montage of him and Sabertooth-to be as they fight in the may different wars. Then a young Striker who of course we know from X2 hires them for his "special team" this is the point where I wanted to see more, get to know these interesting characters, see more of them of this team and maybe see them working together as more of a unit. The main problem is that they try and squash to many characters and to much information into one film, and when one of the characters is killed it feels like a wasted opportunity because they did absolutely nothing with them. The film it's self seemed to ignore all continuity, what happened to the drinking of the champagne after they successfully complete grafting the adamantiam to Wolverine that we see in X1? (or 2?). The "reveal" of the final villain at the end was dull to say the least, and I mean did they really do that in the comics, because that felt like another wasted character opportunity. Now I'm not a big CGI hater, I think when used right it can be a good tool but good god did they over do it in this film, now was it me or were his claws just ALL CGI in this? I could rant forever but let me say this, a few action scenes I did enjoy (Agent Zero flipping the guns in the air the beginning - that was pretty cool) and I was glad to finally see Gambit on screen (perhaps he could get his own film too? Or what that just be shit as well?) and despite this major fuck up I still think there are endless great possibility's to be had with the X-Franchise (am I the only one hoping for X-Men Origins: Colossus?). Here's the hoping the sequel is slightly better, I hear it's going to be set in Japan. Hopefully they'll focus a little more on the characters this time, and it wont be so scattered, and you know what the really sad thing is? I'm going to get this on DVD just so I have all the X-Men movies, ughhh. I can't believe I'm saying this but I think I liked X3 a little (just a little) better.

FINAL RATING - 4/10

Alternate universes

While watching an episode of Stargate that revolved around (somewhat) an alternate universe I decided that it is highly feasible that they exist. Bare with me here, for every choice we make it effects our lives. Here's a hypothetical, let's say my parents forget to buy cereal and I am therefore forced to eat toast for breakfast (god forbid), I use a old jam thats hiding away in some dusty cupboard and get ill from some sort of bacteria (like I said hypothetical) and because of this I don't go on holiday to the the US, but because of this I don't die because the plain I was going to go on crashed. (this is all starting to sound a bit Final Destinationish) So essentially I live a longer life because I forgot to buy some cereal. Now this was a more drastic example but every choice we make can effect how our lives turn out. I for one find it extremely interesting, so when thinking about it like "what if I had done so and so, could I be doing this?" it begs the question, how can there not be alternate universes? Course I'm sure someone could come up an extremely good answer to that. Maybe I should stop taking everything quite so seriously and go back to enjoying parallel universe episodes of Stargate, Star Trek and other Star related franchises. Sorry for this random and slightly pointless first post, I'll get better as I go along I swear.