Gotham - TV Show

I love my superheroes. I especially get excited for origin stories that bring about a new fresh look into the very characters behind the masked vigilantes. But Hollywood does tend to make things interesting with their twists and turns in the re-telling of the old stories that tend to be just another re-telling of the same thing over and over again. This can be seen in the TV show that’s gotten me hooked with its dark and gloomy tone that is so often associated with the hero that will eventually (hopefully) be born from it.

Gotham is quite an interesting approach to the world that births Batman and as it weaves it’s intricate story with all its cherry picked characters that ring bells for the future it creates a very captivating story to watch. Set in a relatively old time when Bruce Wayne is still a young boy, the story begins when the fateful tragedy that will one day be the defining moment for our dark knight befalls him and sets into motion a string of events that has various stories unfolding in the underbelly of Gotham.

Coming to the scene of the crime we have our lead investigator and lead on the show, Jim Gordon, a name we know well as a man who will one day play a large hand in helping the masked vigilante clean up the town, but for now he is a new detective bent on living the right way in the wrong town. Partnered up with a man by the name Harvey Bullock, who has become more jaded by the realities of the corrupt town, we see them take on various cases that have them crossing paths with all kinds of people as they try to find out who killed Bruce’s parents, along with other cases that draw them into gang fights and some bizarre situations.

It is these bizarre situations that have us introduced to some interesting characters, some of whom are the very villains who will grow to be Batman’s enemies. Watching the origin stories of the bad guys is quite a treat as you learn more about their lives and what makes them tick and how they break, or evolve if you prefer. 

One particular character to note is the girl who will grow to one day be Catwoman. Her relationship with Bruce is fun to watch and it’s interesting to see how she grows and changes with her environment, slowing becoming the master thief and ambiguous baddy we expect her to become one day.

The character development is pretty amazing to observe and the stories do keep you entertained most of the time, though I’ll admit to it being a bit of a drag there in the first season near the end. But the story picks up again as the finale comes about and the second season so far has kept me hooked enough to care to look forward to the next episode.

I won’t say I’m not looking forward to more scenes showing Bruce actually becoming the dark knight, because I am but I will say that for now Jim Gordon has definitely proven to be an intriguing character to keep my interest occupied and my attention on him and other villains being created is quite okay for a little while.

So do I recommend it, maybe... but only if you like detective shows and have a penchant for dark styled TV shows and you have patience. Because I think we’ll be waiting for a while before we get to see any Batcave action. But I like it and I’ll continue watching until I don’t care for it or it gets cancelled, whichever comes first.

Minority Report - TV Show [FOX]

People are predictable. If they find things that are awesome they must exploit it. This is just the way of things. But should all things be exploited? That is the question that plagues me as I watched a few episodes of a recent series that was based off a pretty cool movie from back in the day.

Don’t get me wrong the series, Minority Report, is pretty cool. The effects and futuristic take on the world is pretty epic and the tech makes me drool, just a teeny tiny bit. But I can’t help but feel like there’s just something missing from the show. And no, it’s not Tom Cruise. Although that would be pretty cool though, wouldn’t it?

Anyway, the show is set farther in the future than its predecessor as it follows the actions of one of the three siblings that powered the ‘hive mind’ that initially created the ‘pre-crime program’. The young boy who was once used as a tool in a machine to find crime has now grown up and become a man who now uses his limited ability to try and do what they once did as he struggles with the idea of doing nothing at all.

Needless to say he runs into a detective who has gotten used to working in a world where ‘pre-crime’ and its workings has become nothing but a myth used as stories to tell to children in museums. Obviously, things get complicated as our precognitive hero tries to explain things to the detective and things get messy as we learn just how limited his abilities are without the help of his siblings, thus leading to various twists and turns that carry the story on.

To be honest I have to say I’m slightly disappointed by this show. It didn’t grip me as much as I hoped it would and my attention wavers as I try to focus on it. All in all, let’s just say it’s not the first show I go to pick when looking for something to watch. Albeit, if I’m out of things to watch and I can’t sleep and have some time to kill, maybe I’ll consider it then…

Got to love the tech tho! >.<

iZombie - TV Show [The CW]

Every time there’s news of a superhero TV show that’s going to air I tend to get excited because frankly my little nerdy heart likes to jump at the idea of sitting back and watching some hero do his or her thing on screen as they take me on a journey into their curious world that I may or may not have researched in depth for months before the release date of the pilot episode. Granted I sometimes find myself so distracted by other dramas and anime that I also tend to forget for a bit the TV show is coming out and have the added bonus of ‘rediscovering’ it from time to time.

Odd, I know but a recent TV show that travelled this confusing path in my world has proven to be quite resilient in being continuously rediscovered as it kept popping out in front of me and intriguing me every time. Though not the average superhero stories I’m used to, iZombie actually still proved to be just as engrossing as any other hero story that my nerdy heart skipped a beat for.

The story followed a woman, at the prime of her life, who suddenly found herself scratched by a zombie and now unable to live on the perfect wave her life was riding. Now a brain-craving zombie, she took her medical skills and worked as a Medical examiner for the police, while skimming some brains on the side from the victims she examined.

The hero part comes from the cool abilities her appetite seems to give her. Aside from being undead, our heroine seems to gain the memories, or fragments of them, from the brains she eats. Fuelled by a desire to help these poor deceased, she works with a detective- who thinks she’s psychic- and they go off to solve various crimes together.

The show is quirky and fun to watch and I like the characters very much. I especially applaud the main actor for displaying the various personalities that come with eating brains as she takes on different people, while retaining the original characters personality.

The supporting actors are also very well developed and likeable. One of my favourites is our zombie’s ex-fiancé whom, despite seemingly giving off a very ‘throw away’ vibe as an actual stay-on character in the beginning, proves his worth as the story progresses.

Now I know this is supposedly based on a comic, but I know nothing of that so my views are purely on the TV show alone and they say this stuff is pretty great. It has character development, gory action and storyline from all sides. It’s really hard to dislike it, in my opinion.

F.Y.I Brains are apparently delicious…

Hello Monster/I Remember You - KDrama

Everybody likes to think they’re crazy, even if it’s for a little moment. There’s just something freeing about the idea that we could go bat-shit crazy and do something unbelievable and plead insanity afterwards, even while we’re still grinning like we belong in the madhouse. In a recent Kdrama that I started watching, a lot of talk of psychopaths has been covered and I can’t help myself but do the research and my, is it interesting.

The Kdrama, Hello Monster/I Remember You, takes a look at the minds of psychopaths and tries to twist and turn a few serial killings into its storyline and I must say, though it was tough to keep up at first, now that I really took a moment to look into it, it’s fascinating how the drama plays out. The story follows the main protagonist, Lee Hyun, who is a gifted child so much so that he actually comes across as a bit of a concern to his father who coincidently deals with juvenile criminals, one of which is a psychopath.

Because of this Lee Hyun goes through a somewhat unconventional childhood and then, due to unforeseen circumstances he is confronted with the murder of his father and the disappearance of his younger brother. Traumatized by these events, his memory becomes fragmented and he is raised by a family friend and grows up to become a genius criminal profiler with a somewhat sketchy personality.

Years later, he is drawn to a crime scene that reminds him of his forgotten past and here he crosses paths with detective Cha Ji-An. But this isn’t our female lead’s first time meeting the oblivious Lee Hyun as she has been effectively stalking him since their childhood, for various reasons.

The two officially reunite over this first case which leads them to working together and a mystery is discovered as Lee Hyun tries to discover who it was that reached out to him through the crime scene, while Cha Ji-An investigates case after case and continually seeks out Lee Hyun’s help as she hopes to keep him in her line of sight for her own reasons.

The drama is entertaining to watch. I especially like the whole ‘stalking’ detective that was pretty hilarious for me. Another aspect is the criminal profiling that is done by Lee Hyun’s character. It’s a unique take on detective skills that I haven’t yet seen in Kdrama’s and it’s pretty intense and I like it, definitely works. As for the story, I’m very curious to see where it goes. Having only watched six episodes I can only hope it gets better as I anticipate who the bad guys really are and how they get revealed.

On that note, I really hope they go into depth about mental illness and other details about psychopaths and I don’t mean the made up stuff, I’m hoping they do their research and they use some real world cases and all that. I mean after all, mental illness isn’t something to joke about at the end of the day and if they can spread some awareness that would be great too, just saying.

*I suppose we can’t forget that there needs to be romance, right!?…*

[Just for kicks, here is an interesting article I found recently that covers psychopaths and what professions they're most likely to have.]

Border - JDrama

Where do we go when we die? It’s an interesting question, one with many varying answers that I find quite intriguing and tend to research from time to time just to kill time. But whatever the answer may be, I’m sure the recent drama I watched would make it one very dark and gloomy place.

Border is a Japanese drama that was released in 2014. One of the many JDrama’s that was on my backlog, I find I’m glad I finally got around to watching it. The series has a somewhat dark tone to it and despite my expectations, which weren’t much aside from the general good acting I always know to expect from the lead actor, I found this drama quite surprising.

The series follows a detective that gets shot while on duty but survives the fatal wound with one strange twist; the bullet that gets lodged in his head allows him to see dead people. Though a fairly predictable plot twist, this drama takes the scenario and paints it with a dark and gloomy brush as it follows our detective as he goes back to work, using his newfound ability to solve crimes and confront the evil that exists in the world around us.

The episodes were interesting and each one seemed to take the detective deeper down a dark path as he strayed further and further from using ‘normal’ methods of solving crimes and instead turned to much sinister ones that aided both his ability and efforts to catch the bad guy. That is until it led our poor strung out detective to the ultimate cross roads.

It’s an interesting observation as you watch the detective’s character change so drastically due to his newfound ability that he seems to attach a somewhat curious responsibility to, very interesting indeed and very engrossing to watch. It reflects a rather sad reality that sometimes the bad guys might just beat the good guys, despite the supernatural advantage on the good guy’s part and that maybe, just~ maybe knowing that little detail might just drive you over the edge more often than we’d like to admit.

Yeah, this was a very thought provoking drama. It might have been dark and gloomy, but I guess that helped as it brought its solemn message across. I reckon it’s worth watching, I mean it doesn’t hurt to remind ourselves the bad guys have their good days too, right?

Sensory Couple - KDrama

My recent Korean drama fix has me fixated with an interesting brand of serial killer which functions in a pretty intriguing way as he evades capture from the police as he goes about his killings while a single witness exists close to him that could bring him down, except she doesn’t yet know she’s the only witness…

I’ll admit it wasn’t the initial reason I started watching the drama. Though I was drawn to the drama by the promise of mystery, it was the fantastical element that caught my eye with the lead female’s ability to see smells that hooked me first.

As the main story goes, a young teen walks in on the abduction of her parents by a notorious serial killer. Despite her shock she is able to escape and runs away, but in the process gets into a car accident that leaves her in a coma. 

When the girl wakes from the coma a few weeks later all her memories from before the accident are gone and the colour of one of her eyes has changed. We soon learn it is the changed eye that enables our lead with the ability to see smells in various colours. 

The drama really kicks off a few years after the accident has occurred and our young teen has grown up and moved on to live a seemingly normal life in a comedy troupe. But due to some circumstances destiny comes knocking and leads her to cross paths with a certain police officer who desperately wants to make detective.

Our male lead is portrayed as a ‘senseless’ man in the literal sense. We quickly learn that he is an odd man who doesn’t quite function as the average person, something that doesn’t help with his standoffish character that puts others off from liking him. We also learn that our policeman is connected to our female lead through a very unfortunate case where his sister, who was in a minor car accident a few years ago, was mistaken for someone else and was murdered in their place.

When the two main leads meet it’s an interesting chemistry to witness and it definitely works in my opinion. It’s hilarious and easy to watch. 

Although I understand the whole idea of the romance undertone to everything, I’m glad to see the drama keep some attention to the mystery and drama of the serial killer and the investigation because I must be honest and say that my interest is largely moving more towards that instead of the couple antics.

I especially like the involvement of the other characters as they investigate the serial killer. The banter makes for interesting side chatter as they try to move the plot along. 

This is really a good drama that fell before me and I’m quite excited to see how it all plays out with the ‘Barcode Serial Killer’ and how they plan to have our poor lead female find her memories. I imagine it will be quite a rough ride when the couple discovers their unfortunate connection in the past. Either way I’m sure I won’t regret watching this drama!