Vampire Detective - KDrama

Sometimes watching something simply because it happens to be in the genre you enjoy isn’t such a great idea. Because as perfectly as it is supposed to cater to your appetite it can also happen that the overall storyline isn’t up to scratch. This is unfortunately what I have recently experienced in one of my favorite genre kdramas that sadly failed to live up to the many expectations that were set out before it. Of course that’s just my opinion.

The drama I speak of is Vampire Detective and I must admit that I am sorely disappointed in the way it was executed given the fact that it had so much potential. The story revolves around an ex-police officer who gets infected with a new strain of the ‘vampire virus’ turning him into a special type vampire, not bothered by the sun and if hints are to be believed, not bothered too much by the hunger too. Using these new abilities he works in a private detective agency with an older friend from the force and they go off solving strange and difficult cases that even the police turn away from.

Of course in true kdrama tradition it turns out that most of these cases are connected, in that they lead our fledgling vampire into an underground world where vampires are the norm and that his friends from the force, thought to be dead during a mission, might actually still be lingering around. The main story is admittedly a bit flimsy and the way it is presented is hap hazardous and inconsistent.

While the show does hold some interesting aspects, most of the surprises and action is brief and predictable. Not to mention the whole fact that our lead is a new-type vampire is barely even addressed or fully explored as the show focuses on how amazing his talents as a detective are. Though this isn’t exactly a bad thing it falls short from the promises this genre is supposed to deliver on. The other members of the agency also had much potential, but they basically got thrown to the side as characters just there for some dramatic effect and possible hostages for whenever the baddies needed to make a point.

As for the storyline it remained, in my opinion, inconsistent and sometimes incomprehensible as it rushed through certain things and threw in some random cases just to keep the detective side relevant and maybe show pieces of what a vampire detective could be capable of but not fully of course. It didn’t help that the lead also had a broody personality that didn’t match his actions and motivations, but I have to wonder it that might have been an actor-problem. Whether the acting was good is hard to tell as the story didn’t grip me enough to show that, or maybe even the actors themselves felt there was just something off about the show and didn’t give it exactly their best. Either way I barely paid enough attention to that as I soon grew to just watch the show out of obligation for starting it.

Overall, this was a show with much potential but filled with great disappointment. Hopefully the hint for another season shows a possibility for growth with new storyline and better acting, but if the ratings weren’t as good as I assume, then I doubt even that will come to pass. It really saddens me though that such a show somewhat flopped, but it just goes to show that expectation isn’t something one should give too much energy to when jumping into a new series.

Limitless - TV Show [CBS]

The mind is a brilliant thing and messing with it has been mankind’s greatest dream since possibly the dawn of science. In a recent TV show we see just how deep someone has messed with the mind as they create a drug that actually unlocks what could arguably be the brain’s full potential.

Based on a movie, like another series I won’t mention, Limitless proves to be a successful attempt at bringing the cinema to the silver screen as it carries on the story it initially created but with new characters you can’t help but like and follow as they create a story you will enjoy keeping track of.

The plot follows Brian Finch, a man who has seen better days in his life as he holds on to a dying career while watching the world move on, seemingly without him, until one day he comes across an old friend who gifts him with one dose of NZT as a helping hand to change his perspective on his life. Obviously our down and out lead doesn’t take the drug seriously and takes it with little to no expectation, until he learns what the rest of us who have watched the movie know very well to expect.

Things move fast and soon Brian Finch lands himself in the middle of a very sticky situation that has quite an interesting revelation at the end where viewers get to see how big an impact the movie really did make on the TV series as it brings in the lead actor in the movie for a one on one with the series lead.

Of course it is only a brief return, but it’s effective as it gets the message across while leading our new hero into his role as a consultant for the FBI, or rather their asset. The other characters also hold their own as they come across mildly interesting, but it must be said that it remains Brian Finch’s personality that draws you in and keeps you hooked as well as the way in which the show is structured.

The cinematography is pretty amazing and the use of lighting is spot on. My favourite though is the dialogue between the characters that keeps one entertained. The whole detective theme works as well as when you factor in ways to best exploit the different abilities NZT is supposed to gift the user, so there’s that too.

Over all, I loved the show and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a good action/light science fiction type of show.

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.

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…

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!

Forever - Tv Show [ABC]

I’ll be honest, Ioan Gruffudd could stand there and basically talk about the weather and I’d watch it and be entertained for a solid ten to fifteen minutes and be satisfied. But before you judge me I’ll have you know that if you have a little looksee at a recent survey done somewhere in the world it shows that I am indeed not the only one who thinks that the English accent is quite sexy and should be ranked number one in the world of accents people want to listen to for hours. But alas, that is not the only reason I think ABC’s Forever is a great TV show. There are, in fact, other reasons that make me fall in love with Mr Gruffudd and his portrayal of the immortal Henry Morgan that go beyond his smooth tone of voice and no, it has nothing to do with the image that follows. Though I imagine it could sway a few others to take an interest in the show.



The storyline isn’t exactly a new one as it follows a man who discovers after a certain incident he cannot die. Though the conditions around his death are somewhat glazed over pretty quickly we do however get the gist of how things go down as the story progresses with more than a few unanswered questions.

We find that our immortal man was a doctor and decided to stay in this field and due to his ‘condition’ has strayed to the darker side of his profession as he has become obsessed with the one thing that eluded him, death. It is this same ‘condition’ that allows him the prolonged timeline to master what he does and thus he becomes somewhat of a Sherlock-type detective in his way of analysing the dead. Of course it’s easy to see how he can be so sure of his expertise as he even goes so far as testing certain theories or finding out causes of death on none other than himself.

It’s an interesting mix of entertainment where I see a bit of Sherlock meets CSI with a dash of fantasy to keep you hooked.

The show does try to keep an air of mystery about it, but I think at times it overdoes it slightly as the CSI prowess of Dr Morgan takes over and we nearly forget this is a 200 year old man just killing time with the police. His storyline nearly fading into ‘forget-me-now’ territory before rounding out randomly with a sudden phone call or skinny dip in the river for our doctor [a side effect to his immortality].

Which I think really needs a mention, but where do his clothes go? Seriously it’s killing me to know this! Such a small detail and I can’t help but fuss over it like an idiot stuck staring at a green light as the cars go wild behind me. Don’t get me wrong, I love fantasy. No ADORE fantasy, but there are just some jumps I can’t make without some kind of explanation, you know…

Anyway, despite the niggly bits like such, I like that the story can work a few episodes without relying solely on the fantasy aspect. It shows they have a story to tell, along with characters that aren’t too one dimensional, which is great in this day and age. The side characters are pretty lovable too as they draw you into the world a bit more.

All in all, it’s a good show to watch once or twice a week. Though I don’t see myself binge watching it if given the chance, I do like the idea of having a second season or at the very least, a satisfying end to the first season.