Tag Archives: supernatural

The Crib

As promised today you get the English translation of my story for the Bücherstadtkurier. They posted a call for entries for their Literary Advent Calendar and I thought for a moment about what I would submit. As one of my stories (called Nebeljagd – Mist Hunt) was published in the March issue of their magazine by the same name, I thought I at least give it another try, maybe they’d like it as well. At first I thought about re-working one of the stories of my first Advent Calendar, but after receiving an e-mail where one of their staff mentioned, that that it’d be okay, even if they’d prefer new stuff, I thought about what I could do instead.
Well, the result is what got me included.

So have fun with:

The Crib

Harry stood before the low cupboard in his friends‘ living room and gazed curiously at it. Spread across its entire surface stood the most different figurines within and around an open square made of Lego bricks.
„Ben, what is this?“ He asked after a moment.
„My crib. It’s Christmas,“ he answered naturally and came to stand beside him.
„Your crib. Made of Lego?“
„Yeah. Buying one would have been boring, so I arranged one myself,“ Ben revealed with a grin.
„I can see that.“ Harry sceptically took out the figurine of a wrinkly, long-eared goblin creature. „You do know that it’s called Baby-Jesus and not Baby-Yoda, right?“
„Yeah, so? That’s my shortest figurine.“ Ben merely shrugged his shoulders and put his hands in his pockets.
„Okay…“ Harry carefully put the Yoda-figurine back into the converted feeding through made out of toilet paper rolls and pointed at a red and black clad, heavily armed, as well as a brawny, green figurine directly beside it: „Does this mean, Deadpool and Hulk are Mary and Joseph?“
„Obviously. One is wrinkly, the other is green. Fits,“ Ben confirmed beaming.
„If you say so…“ Disbelievingly Harry shook his head and let his gaze wander across the crib.
Instead of Donkey and Ox the inside of the wide Lego structure housed a jet black car with wing-like spoilers and a white station wagon with a crossed out ghost on its door. The remaining space to the left of the actual nativity scene was filled with the flock of sheep. It consisted of differently sized, mostly bronze coloured pepper pot-like robots, which were guarded by several metal man with straws for crooks.
Ben had followed his gaze and defended himself: „I know it should be the other way round, but my Daleks just are smaller and make better sheep.“
„Of course, that is completely logically.“ Harry sighed wearily. With a look to the right he asked: „And The Doctor, Superman and DARTH VADER are the Three Wise Men?“
„Yup. They always say one of them is black.“
For a moment Harry quarrelled with himself, then he corrected: „Black: yes; Mass murderer: No. You could have used Batman, at least they would all be heroes.“
„But I already have the Batmobile as Donkey!“ Ben protested.
„Of course. That wouldn’t fit.“
„Exactly.“
For a moment they were silent, then Harry discovered a small, winged, pupil-less figurine on top of the pointed roof of the building.
„And who’s that?“ He asked turning the figurine back and forth.
„The Archangel Gabriel, duh“, Ben only said. As Harry was still looking at him in confusion, he added: „From Supernatural.“
„You’re watching that?“
„No, the figurine was in merch box once. But it fits doesn’t it? Wasn’t Gabriel the one who proclaimed the whole thing?“
„That is probably the only part of the crib, that actually makes sense“, Harry determined with another sigh.
„Oh come on, admit it: That’s the best crib you’ve ever seen!“ Ben challenged him.

Behind the Scenes

Admit it, you’d like to have a crib like that as well! 😀 I know I would, even if I’d change a few things (aside from the fact that I don’t own the majority of figurines, would I – most likely – not include anything DC or Star Wars related).
Apart from that was it quite difficult for me to translate from German to English after translating English to German for about two months (the Advent Calendar + JourneyQuest Season 3), so I hope I didn’t make too many mistakes – or phrased things weirdly. Let me know if I did!
Also let me know, if the word „crib“ or „nativity scene“ is more commonly used for the thing I’m describing. I wasn’t sure, but as we’re just calling it a „Krippe“ (fully „Weihnachtskrippe„) I decided crib was the one I wanted to go with.

I hope you’re having nice holidays!

Stay save,
PoiSonPaiNter

A watchful Halloween

Well, it’s been a while since my last post and I’m not entirely sure why I couldn’t get myself to write anything here, I just didn’t feel like it…
But I did get a few things done – or semi-done at least.

  • I drafted my Advent Calendar and am in the process of typing it.
  • I sketched a special story for a friend and finished the first nine chapters of it.
  • I concluded my participation for fruehstuecksflocke’s #Projekt24
  • I translated and edited two old stories (including The Quest for Ore – reading at own risk as I haven’t included the edits on the Blog yet. ;)) for another project I’ll announce when it’s time.
  • I also finished my entry for Bücherstadtkuriers‘ Literary Advent Calendar. Let’s see if they like it. 😉 (If not, you can read it on the 25th of December).
  • I also was at two conventions (on the same weekend >_<) and at another HGWAnime-Event.
  • And I finished and caught up with a few more series, though I didn’t feel like writing another WWW.

Anyway!
Back to the topic at hand:

Halloween

Just as I did the last couple of years, did I want to write something for this years Halloween.
So far you got: (Childhood) Halloween Memories and some spooky local legends.
This time it’ll be a recommendation of spooky Specials of TV Series or Movies. So have fun checking them out and maybe you want to add your own favourites to the list. 🙂 (Note: I know there is a full list on Wikipedia, but I prefer recommending stuff, that I’ve seen before 😉 ).

Halloweentown I-IV

Movie Poster for the first Halloweentown movie

One of the must-haves for me. It’s quirky it’s funny, not that scary, but scary enough to make little children cringe and most of all: Full of fantastical creatures.
The stories might not be the most innovative – and it still bugs me that they changed Marnie’s actress for part four, as I like Kimberly J. Brown since I first saw her in Rose Red – but they’re a lot of fun and definitely one of those things that just fit the newer sense of the holiday by combining the partying attitude with the old legends and creating something unique. 🙂

Castle – Vampire Weekend

Screenshot from the episode with everyone in costumes

I recently started watching Castle, because of reasons, and this Episode is filled with all kinds of nods and references to stuff the actors (Nathan Fillion, especially) did before.
You have a joke about Firefly, a mentioning of Buffy (which brings an entirely different angle to the table: If Buffy is fiction in Castle, is Caleb then played by Castle in this version? 😀 – and I finally know why Stana Katic looks so familiar; she played the female lead in The Librarian: The Curse of the Judas Chalice…) and all of the classic stuff like Dracula, the Wolfman and so much more that makes this episode fun and enjoyable. There is another Halloween Special, but I haven’t seen it yet, so I can’t tell you if it’s good. 😉

Psych – This Episode Sucks

Screenshot from the episode with Shawn and Gus dressed up as Lestat and Blacula respectively.

Full of Vampire references this one might not be a Halloween Episode per se, but still fun enough to add to this list. And who doesn’t enjoy childish grown ups dressing up as fancy vampires that are unable to talk through their fake teeth? 😀
For some reason I also want to add 100 Clues to this list, that is even less of an Halloween-Episode, but it still has the flair of old mystery flicks.

Grimm – La Llorona

Screenshot of the episode of Monrow in a skelleton costume fully woged.

One of the creepiest episodes of Grimm I’ve seen so far – and I’m still missing a huge chunk of the later Seasons…
With Grimm you basically have a set number of things something could be: Human or Wesen, but with La Llorona they add something entirely different. A real ghost? A special Wesen? No one knows and at the end of a terrifying hunt, she’s gone.
Besides: Monroe’s love for Halloween and the fact that Wesen take a break on this day is also quite fascinating.

Honourable Mentions

There are a lot more Halloween themed Episodes or Movies, but I want to leave it at that, you still need some time to go Trick-or-Treating, right? 😉

But if you still haven’t gotten enough spooky stuff do try the original Sleepy Hollow movie or even Nightmare Before Christmas.
Buffy and Supernatural themselves pretty much are constantly Halloween-themed, but there are episodes that are considered Specials like Hush or It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester. And not to forget the twenty-something Special Halloween Episodes of The Simpsons. 😉
Then of course there are all the horror classics, but everyone knows which those are, so I’m now leaving you with this:

Stay save in this spirit filled night and have Happy Halloween – or Samhain! 🙂

Photo of a selfcarved pumpkin with a small and a large eye and a grin with two canine teeth
Have a pumpkin for the way

PoiSonPaiNter

(c) The pictures (except the pumpkin, that ones mine) were taken from the Wikia or IMDB pages of the episodes/movies linked within them. All rights for them belong to their respective owners.

What’cha Watching Wednesday #10.1

As I told you, am I trying to get a proper schedule for this thing.
Lately I was more into watching then writing so a lot of stuff has piled up since the last time I did this, but as it is quite a lot I’ve decided to make this the update #10.1 and put some of the stuff – mostly the movies I’ve seen – into the separate post that might or might not be published next week.

WWWWhat is this about?

Every fourth Wednesday evening I will publish a post in which I collected the thoughts I had throughout the month while watching the latest or any episode of a series or maybe even a movie.

Depending on how my time allows it, the comment will also be for those that I watched that day.
You’re warned: There will be Spoilers.

Let’s start

Supernatural – different episodes

As Unmei was catching up with the series in German, I simply couldn’t help myself to invite her over to watch Changing Channels and The Real Ghost Busters together – from the amount of times I mentioned these episodes it’s pretty clear that I quite like them.
Supernatural is a series that goes to a lot of dark places, so the humour in it makes it even more worthwhile and these two episodes are some of the prime examples for this.

As I wanted to find out something about the table in the Bunker I also re-watched Slumber Party a while back. I never quite understood why they had to include Oz as another dimension and then basically drop the whole concept again afterwards (with exception of a brief mentioning in There’s No Place Like Home) and the story felt a bit filler-ish, but it was interesting enough on it’s own to learn a bit more about the Bunker and it’s history.

Heroes Reborn

When they announced that there would be another dive into the world of Heroes I was both thrilled and suspicious. The latter was heightened when it was clearer and clearer that a lot of the old cast would not return. Still, I wanted to give it a try and checked it out after missing the initial air date…

Let’s say I kind of understand why it was already cancelled after this one Season. It was interesting, but also really confusing at times. If you saw the initial show you’re used to jumping between characters and story lines, but the connections here seemed way more implausible than there.
The characters weren’t as thought through as the initial cast, I missed a lot of actual character background or development and smother bridges between them, not to mention proper motivation.
It felt rushed and without heart.

It didn’t help that the old characters were either never mentioned again (Sylar? Peter?), killed off off screen or turned into side characters and plot devises (Noah, Hero), with Matt’s turn being one of the biggest WTF-moments.

Everything simply felt like: We want to give this one last try, but we aren’t actually trying.
I do believe they tried to catch new audiences with the exclusion of the old stuff, but as a continuation it just felt too distanced from it.

Still, not everything was bad. The whole premise with the solar flare, the time travel aspect and the way the special people were treated after Claire’s declaration felt natural in a very frightening way. The camera shots and the new abilities were interesting and quite impressive – even if they felt a bit too powerful at times.

If you want to visit this world one last time: Check it out.
If you’ve never ventured into it: Stick to the old stuff until you get there.

Agent Carter – Season 2*

Where the first Season of this show was incredible, this one had a few very frustrating additions.
The last few episodes of the previous Season dealt with Peggy’s feelings for Steve Rogers and how she finally let go of him, but that is no excuse to plunge her into a love triangle … though she doesn’t really notice this herself until it’s pointed out to her towards the end of the Season.
But the audiences sees it all, the flirting, the awkwardness, the mere focus on something that should get way less screen time (I do believe I’m not romantic enough to enjoy such things).
The Geekmom’s put it into interesting words in their article: What’s killing Marvels Agent Carter – go have a look at it!
Yet, it redeemed itself when Jarvis and Peggy discussed this matter, with Peggy clearly stating that she didn’t want this.

This Season also had a few more comedic elements in addition to the quite grave story line. My highlights certainly were the interactions between Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis, such lovely and incredible people to have/protect ones back – or deal with your Flamingo. 😉

Apart from the focus on Peggy’s love life was the whole premise of this Season quite interesting. A lethal substance, another hidden organisation and incredible characters doing their best to fulfil their respective plans. Peggy is as charming and amazing as ever and I wouldn’t mind seeing her journey until the foundation of S.H.I.E.L.D. and even then I wouldn’t mind seeing more.
I just hope they don’t let it drift further away from the initial awesomeness of the first Season.

Galavant – Season 2*

As I happened to finish Season 1, when Season 2 was just waiting around the corner it was easy for me to continue with this glorious piece of entertainment. It’s just so much fun…

The narration this time around was a bit weird though. It dragged on until the last few episodes where then suddenly everything happened at once.
Still, it offered a chance for some much needed character development, even though the focus was turned away from the actual titular character onto the former „villain“ King Richard, which I don’t mind, as he is way more fun than Galavant anyway. 😀

I’m not quite sure about the the inclusion of Roberta though, as that part of the story felt rushed and was quite frustrating in regards to her attitude, which basically translated to:
„I don’t want to see you die“, so I’m going to the island of crazy cat ladies instead of fighting alongside you to help you prevent your death…
She was a capable fighter after all, at least that’s what I understood from her introduction.
That’s really a wasted opportunity for a another kick-ass female warrior like Isabella – though that doesn’t mean that I felt more connected with her this time around.

Another down point was also that they changed the actor who played Galavant’s father and it was no longer Anthony Steward Head, but Greg Wise. 🙁
Not that that made the episode any worse, it’s just always weird to exchange an actor like that.

My highlights of this Season were Richard’s displays of his naivety/ridiculousness. I really loved the scenes with the Pony with Horn and the dragon Tad Cooper is an awesome addition to the team! 😀
But there were a lot more great and fun scenes, even if a few were a tat bit too weird and/or weirdly transitioned. And you still shouldn’t think too much about the story itself, as that is basically run of the mill fairytale story telling.

Still, I really hope they’ll continue making Seasons for this one, as it’s simply feel good television at it’s best.
If you feel down, go watch Galavant, it’ll cheer you up! 😀

* I wrote the text for Agent Carter and Galavant before it was clear that both shows would get cancelled, but I didn’t want to edit them.
Let me just say: It’s the first time I was up to date with a show that got cancelled and it feels really strange knowing that you like a show some supervisors in a TV channel don’t like enough to continue investing in. Both shows are amazing in their own regard and it’s a pity we won’t see more of them unless they get picked up by a private channel-thing like Netflix or Hulu.
I certainly wouldn’t mind that. 🙂

Elementary – Season 4

This Season was a bit strange.
After the quite spectacular – for Elementary – finale it seemed like this one dragged on quite a bit.
The  addition of Morland Holmes felt strange last Season already, but now we saw way more of him. Not just because he stayed „because of the relapse“ and doesn’t even mention Mycroft until episode 9, but his story line gets stranger and stranger.
I get that he has a lot of influence and is willing to go to great lengths to get what he wants, but did they need to take up a whole Season to show that and subsequently make him Moriarty’s successor?
They pretty much just wanted Sherlock to have a proper adversary again, but that this would turn out to be Daddy Holmes is quite a far stretch – even if his son is a genius.
I understood why Tony Currans character got jealous and wanted to eliminate his competition.
But the whole thing still felt forced…
Equally forced felt the inclusion of Mittens – Sherlocks new girlfriend.
It’s great that they address a lot of mental problems within the show, but they pretty much want to stir the viewers away from the typical JohnLock that comes with the story – even if in the case of Elementary they turned John Watson into Joan Watson.

All in all a quite strange Season with not really any memorable cases.

Undateable – Season 3, Episode 10-13

For some reason did I think that Undateable was already over in December, but apparently it wasn’t and still had some episodes left, even if SaJaehwa had to tell me that. 😉

I stand by my earlier claim that this is simply is a fun concept show and I wouldn’t mind it being picked up for another Season.

Sense 8/Orange is the new Black – different episodes

Since we decided to now get a proper Netflix account I re-watched a couple of episodes of these two shows that I previously had only seen with missing subtitles. It’s great to now have the possibility to do so. 😉

Daredevil – Season 2

Speaking of Netflix: Of course did I also watch the new Season of Daredevil…

Like Agent Carter this Season wasn’t as good as its predecessor, but it was still well made.

The inclusion of The Punisher made for an interesting addition to the cast and storyline, while Electra seemed a bit out of place, to top that off with all the other stuff going on it just felt like too many topics mashed into too few episodes.

Matt’s character development was all over the place, yes he had to deal with stuff from his past, but did he have to turn ever which way the wind was blowing?
Some of the decisions he made were reasonable – saving people for their own sake – some weren’t – neglecting his duties as a lawyer and bailing during important meetings, regardless of his initial promises.
So this was quite a frustrating turn for a formerly interesting character.

Karen stayed pretty much the same, even if it felt a bit weird that she’d get accepted into Ben Urich’s old job so easily. And the weirdly hinted affection towards the Punisher was strange too.

Speaking of which: He was amazingly portrayed. You could grasp the inner conflict, but also see the blood lust and skill behind his killings. I’d even go so far as to say that his fights were more fascinating than Daredevils, especially, as he so nicely put it: When he knocks people down, they stay down.
The fights of Daredevil are interesting, but it does get quite annoying that his opponents always get up again for another round…

As for other annoyances: The whole hand-thread felt too rushed, too overly complicated and weird. Just as Electra and Stick themselves. I think within the first few minutes of her appearance I was already done with the former. She’s just not the kind of person I’d get along with, so watching her is difficult for me.

The one that surprised me the most this Season was Foggy, but here I’m simply quoting my comment from Geekritique’s Review:

To me it seemed like he was one of the most reasonable people this and the previous Season.
He made his choices – even if they hurt him – to stay away from Matt, but still protect his secret; to choose the law above the vigilantes; to stand up to his best friend and tell him what he thinks of his actions.

Of course he gets back to him or is afraid something happened to him, but you can’t completely erase a bond of friendship like they had in a matter of hours or days.

Yes, he’s the happy-go-lucky comic relief, but he is also a compassionate and caring person that uses his jokes to cheer up other people intentionally.
Yes, he’s afraid to go to court without Matt, but they’ve always been a team and he is used to being the man in the background, so stepping up to the front row was a huge and terrifying step for him – that he mastered incredibly.

And I really liked the “twist” with his meeting with Hogarth.
Maybe through working with Jessica he’ll understand Matt better, who knows?

Eastwick/The Class – Season 1

As I said did I enjoy The Punisher’s portrayal quite a bit, so I looked up Jon Bernthals other acting jobs. Which in turn brought me to the two one Season-series Eastwick (based on the novel The Witches of Eastwick) and The Class (basically a prolonged class reunion sitcom). In both series he was not at all like Frank Castle, he was pretty much the jock that didn’t want to grow up from High School.

The series themselves were (more or less) interesting, especially Eastwick.
Pretty much everyone knows the movie version with Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer, but this was still a refreshing new take on things.
It was also fun to see so many different actors from other series/movies in so different roles. Only now writing this part, did I realize why Rebecca Rominjin’s artistic Roxie looked so familiar, but of course she’s Mystique from the early X-Men movies. Then there is also Kat who is a timid turned confident housewife here and a ruthless Blutbad in Grimm and so forth.
I wouldn’t have minded the series to continue, but it did drag on quite a bit, especially when it came to the women discovering their powers and then rushed into things towards the end without much explanation. A lot of things were quite stereotypical and over the top, but the charm of the atmosphere and chemistry between the characters made up for it quite a bit.

The Class was one stereotype after the other as well and while it had a few good jokes and a few nice characters the overall story line was quite obvious and boring at times. Still, as the episodes were only ~20 minutes long it’s one of those easy watches no one really cares about. Plus-side: Sean Maguire was incredible as Kyle.

Moone Boy – Season 1-3

I’m not sure how I discovered this one, but it’s really funny.
I knew (and liked) Chris O’Dowd from(/in) the IT-Crowd, so I couldn’t help myself checking it out as the series sounded fun.
The story is set in the 80s/90s and follows young Martin Moone throughout is everyday adventures in a small town (Boyle) in Ireland which aren’t as normal as this sounds. Quite the contrary. Martin is the youngest sibling in an otherwise all female household (except his father, whose opinion doesn’t matter as much as he’d like to think), with three older sisters that couldn’t be more different (the Goth, the church-goer, the chubby one) and has a lively imagination and view on things. So it doesn’t come with a surprise that he has an imaginary friend called Seán Murphy (portrayed by O’Dowd) that does not always manage to stop him from doing extraordinarily stupid things.

It’s strange, it’s weird, it’s funny and you’re pretty much grinning throughout the whole episode. It doesn’t always take itself seriously, but that it is capable of doing that is brilliantly shown in the Season 3 finale.
It’s a lot of fun even if it is sometimes quite hard to understand the Irish accents of the actors – at least it is for me.

Many of the adventures are supposedly based on O’Dowds own experiences growing up in Boyle, so I’m not entirely sure what to think of that. 😀

Lucifer – Season 1

Somehow I got my hands on the trailer for this series and as soon as the Pilot aired I couldn’t help myself but to watch it three times.
It was just that good.
Unfortunately could the Season not uphold the standard they set up with this episode and it tuned down from „wow“ to „okay“ quite soon.
The characters were interesting and Lucifer himself fits easily into the line of characters I prefer watching (see here), but their actions soon became repetitive and it dabbled on like that until three quarters into the Season.
Then finally came the twist and the story picked itself up again, pushed the cop-show aside and gave us something interesting that makes you want to see how the story will continue with the next Season.

Even with the sometimes rigmarole story the actors played their parts quite well. I tried to remember what Tom Ellis was like as Robin Hood in Once Upon A Time (the first one, before Sean Maguire took over the role), but I failed because I was pretty much taken in with his charisma, snark and darkness that brought the childish, but devilish character to life. He did a fantastic job at that, even if some of Lucifers antics were quite annoying, but I don’t blame such things on the actors portraying them. Just as I wouldn’t blame Lauren German’s (I’m still not over her surname) for Chloes antics and wide-eyed reactions, but with a character like Lucifer you hardly can do anything else but stare in disbelieve.
The other characters didn’t really get that much screen time, but used what little they had quite well (I still can’t believe Amenadiel is played by the same guy that played Robin Wood in Buffy – I remember him looking different o.O ).

The highlights certainly were the moments Chloe and Dan’s daughter Trixie appeared, but Mazikeen and Dr. Linda were quite great too.
And not to forget: This show has an interesting sound track (devil-themed) and a really cool opening, even if it is quite short.

Some things were easy to see through (Lucifer’s only vulnerable while Chloe is around), others were a bit more complex (Dan was behind the shooting), but the strangest turn of events was that the angels have a mother that is/was locked up in hell. >_<
I don’t know the DC/Sandman-lore enough to know what that is about so that at least leaves me curious (and confused).

But it did make me do two things:

#1 I started reading the Sandman comics (currently at Chapter 41, which means I’m done with Fables and Reflections and A Game of You)

#2 I watched

Constantine

I do consider myself a Marvel-person and don’t really have that much connection to DC except an occasional watch of a movie or episode, so I was quite surprised to find a character like John Constantine amongst their roster.
It’s been years since I watched the Constantine-movie with Keanu Reeves, so I had pretty much a clean slate again in regards to the character.
Not that Matt Ryans portrayal of the character had anything in common of what little I remembered from the movie.

His Constantine was dark, witty and didn’t give a damn about most of the things he had to face and it was fascinating to follow. Though I do admit that some of the stuff didn’t really sit well with me.

It was weird that the character introduced in the pilot wasn’t seen afterwards, her replacement Zed felt like a mix between wannabe doe-eyed love-interest, damsel-in-distress and something that could have become an incredible psychic force. Could have been, as this was again a series only lasting one Season, though I wouldn’t have minded a couple more as it was a nice, darker alternative to other series.

Even in this short amount of time her male counterparts were better formed, had deeper backgrounds and were easier to connect to – especially Chaz (who falls again into the category „Oh, I like him“ – „And he’s dead“, but luckily with a twist 😀 ). I don’t know if this would have changed with the story lines they wanted to tell with upcoming Seasons, but well, we’ll probably never know…

I’ll probably also never know why I expect the character to be pronounced „Constantin“ (tin as in teen) and not „Constantine“, but that might have to do with my own language background – and possibly the movie where they used the German pronunciation…

As I quite enjoyed Matt Ryan in the role I looked a bit into his IMDB and Constantine’s Wikipedia page and soon found that there was a Constatine/Arrow Cross-Over episode (Haunted) which of course I then watched. He felt different – more tired – in it but it was nice to see that they bothered to bring him back instead of giving someone else the role. Maybe through this we’ll actually see more of him (even if it was said that it was a one-time-thing)?

I also watched the Torchwood episode Meat again, as I couldn’t remember seeing Ryan there, but of course, if you’re used to seeing someone with dyed blond hair and only saw them with their natural dark hair colour briefly that’s to be expected, I guess. It felt that his accent was even thicker in Torchwood than it was in Constantine, but Welsh is still a bit more understandable than Irish…

Criminal Minds: Red Team/Criminal Minds (The Fight)

Another thing I watched was the Criminal Minds spin-off Red Team, with Ryan as one of the major side characters. It was an interesting twist to the cases and procedures I knew from the „mother show“, but at the same time a bit more repetitive.

A lot of either series is done through talking, but I never noticed this much re-talking through a case in the other series. I never really connected to any of the characters, they didn’t only distance themselves from each other, but also from the audience and that’s not really a good premise to keep going (which they didn’t as the series was done after one Season as well).

I liked that they added Garcia from the original series to the mix, yet it felt a bit strange that there was otherwise no connection to them – though it was also weird that she was the only one suitable for their needs and had the time to help them anyway.

All in all: Interesting concept, mediocre realization.

Misfits – Season 1-5

As I said did we get a proper Netflix account so I had the chance to watch the five Seasons of Misfits. I had heard good things about it from Black Kat, but never got around to watch it.

It started off as a quite interesting twist on the whole „accidental superpowers“ thing and I really liked that the powers reflected the different personalities of the characters, but it drifted off into banality and who-is-shagging-whom, climaxing with a guy that could literally fuck away other peoples powers (and yes, that pun was necessary…).

The initial cast was entirely switched out by the fourth Season (similar to what happened with Being Human), but they never really build up the new ones and just added one after the other in addition to many new side characters.

They made a few strange choices (the time-travel-love-thing between Simon and Alisha), had lot’s of dirty humour (especially when they switched from Nathan to Rudy in the role of the annoying side-kick), but still managed to get a few interesting story lines (The Guy in the Mask, the Lactomancer, Rudy’s third personality).
And of course the „running gag“: The killing of probation workers.
Though by the time they got to the fourth one it was weird to see how cold and apathetic they handled the whole killing and burying bodies thing … It was also strange that they buried their own loses amongst the other people and didn’t give them a proper funeral.

Lot’s of stuff was left unexplained (Were Jess‘ and Finn’s powers still their original ones and what character trade made them get those? What did they and Rudy actually do to get into community service? Most of all: What the hell was that storm? … ) and there was only one time where they had to actually face consequences, but still got away with it.

As time travel is involved it also had the obligatory „I’m going to kill Hitler“-episode and while it was interestingly executed, I do have to say that I do not believe the British Isles would be allowed to keep speaking English … (and lay off on the Hails). But that’s a topic for another day.

The acting was incredible. Simons change from creepy kid to decent hero felt a bit rushed at times, but still natural, as if he had had it always in him. Rudy’s split personalities were also easily to distinguish by mere body language and way of talking and that’s just the best of them.
What was funny for me was my first encounter with Kelly.
My first thought when I heard her was „Heh, she sounds like Tom“ (Tom being Michael Socha’s Werwolf character from Being Human), followed by „wait a minute – did that just say Socha?“ when the amazing intro played. That made me look her up to see if they were related (as she also looks a lot like him) and yeah, now I know they’re siblings. 😀

Long story short: The first Season is good, two and three are okay, the rest is meh.
You can watch it, as it still has a few interesting things (and Rudy Two is frankly adorable), but the overall story is boring.

Different movies

The different movies I’ve seen will be covered in a separate post.

What were you watching?

What episodes (or movies) did you enjoy/dislike throughout the week/month?
Anything you’d recommend checking out?
Let me know in the comments below!

Final Words

I hope you enjoyed this little look into the different stuff I watched throughout the last months.
Fingers crossed I’ll manage to put this out more regularly, it’ll be much easier that way.

See you around,

PoiSonPaiNter

On the Road: Of Angel Chicken Wings and other oddities

Or (some of) my strangest travelling experiences

Those of you who follow my Blog for a while now, have probably read some of the tales falling into this category, but when I saw the Blogparade by Mit Kind im Rucksack (With Child in the Backpack) on ferngeweht, I simply couldn’t resist to participate and give you a little overview about mine and add a few I haven’t managed to write about yet.

I don’t know why, but it seems like on every journey I take – be it short ones or longer ones – something strange – or rather, ridiculous – is bound to happen, so this will only scratch the surface and I’ll mostly focus on the stuff that happened recently that I haven’t written about yet.

Sometimes these things happen, simply because the whole situation is strange to begin with.
Like when Breagit and I spontaneously decided to take a two hours train ride to Berlin, just to get some bread. Other times they happen because of the people involved, like that time I had a midnight chat in the back of my car at a Festival. Or when Black Kat and I went to a The Other (Horror Punk) concert at the Weekend of Horrors only to exit the hall into bright sunlight.

Sometimes there are other reasons…

Lost Direction

Whenever I drive somewhere for the first time and take someone with me, I always assure them:

„There is a high chance that I will take a wrong turn at some point.“

And I’m usually right.
It takes me a few times to remember a route, but when I do it’s not hard for me to follow it (or recognize it even years later), but when I use the sat nav I don’t always realize if the turn I’m taking is the right one.

But I’m good at that without proper navigation, too.
Two years ago Janzy and I went to Ireland for Halloween (I know, still lacking a travel log, I’m working on it) and for our first day we rented a car to get to our B&B in Navan and continue from there. Unfortunately my sat nav did not have maps for Ireland so we had to focus on manual maps, which wasn’t easy as the highways were a bit confusing, it was dark and we really had no idea where we were.

At some point we simply drove into the town/village Sword – and yes, that is really its name – and looked for someone who could help us. On our way we saw a few children dressed up for Trick or Treating and finally found an electronic market that was still open.

So we went inside and asked for directions to Navan.
The shop assistant was quite confused about our request and right away asked us: „What do you want in Navan?“
Well, we had our B&B there, so there was that…
Luckily he could give us easy to follow directions as it was somewhere close to his own home and after way more hours than we had planned we finally made it there.

Navigating during the day then worked way better and we didn’t have any troubles finding Newgrange and Tara, but back in Dublin something else was lost to us.

I don’t know how many times we walked up and down the O’Connell Street looking for the Hard Rock Café in the alleys on either side of the road, but for some reason we couldn’t find it.
Towards the evening, we’d partly given up the search, but still occasionally glanced into an alley, we went down the street again and lo and behold, there it was, mocking us with it’s bright name-sign as we approached.
It’s probably one of those buildings that you can only find when you’re not looking for it…

Strange Stops

With travelling comes taking breaks and some of them are more intentional than others.
Besides having a whole Youth Hostel nearly to myself (report follows) or staying at a Hotel that turned out to be Motel (same here) there were a few other accommodation surprises over the years.

Like that time Feuerflügel made arrangements with a friend of hers so I could stay there and totally forgot to tell me the guys name. Or the first time I decided to sleep in my car, because rain had soaked my tent and pretty much everything in it (see midnight talk-link). Or that time when I barely slept at all because of the location of the Youth Hostel (soon).

But accommodations aren’t the only stops.
Festivals are a great source for unintentional breaks, especially if you wait about five and more hours to enter a Festival ground that’s only a few kilometres away and people start running into the fields beside the road to relieve themselves (report later).
Or when you have to take a stop to wait for a Ferry because your sat nav decided it would be more fun to take that route instead of the bridge beforehand … (happened to me twice, guy-name link + Metalfest 2012).
Or you take a break on your way back from a Convention at a resting place called „Brocken View“ (The Brocken is a mountain in middle Germany), but it’s nowhere to be seen.

Sprachfasching (Word-messes)

Those who know me personally, know that sometimes the things I say don’t really make sense, but I’m not the only one suffering from that syndrome. Quite a bunch of strange words or discussions were created during my travels.

I told you about the Pony with Horn and the Spaghetti Fish and other things said during that particular Wacken, but I have yet to tell you about the (titular) Angel Chicken Wings.

During InGenius‘ and my visit to Stockholm we discussed a lot of things. Plans, stories, ideas, writing in general and how many wings Archangels in general and in particular in Supernatural have.
While we were in the greatest Book Store I’ve been in so far, I incidentally picked up a book about Angels that said that the Archangel Gabriel has in some sources 152 (or 146 or something like that) wings.
When I mentioned it in a later discussion, we imagined how so many wings would fit on a body and got to the conclusion that they had to sit on things like hands and feet as well.

At some point InGenius commented:

„You could make a lot of of … Angel Chicken Wings from that“

We laughed about this and discussed it a bit further (how would one make Angel Chicken Wings in a SPN setting?). Incidentally SPN itself made a joke about frying an Archangel in the episode Changing Channels, well and there is always GraceCelestial Poultry, so it’s not surprising something like that comes up at some point …

Anyway, somehow we then got to the discussion about strange signs.
In my early days of travelling, when we explored nearby towns back in my school days, I once came across two arrow-signs, hanging directly below each other, reading:

„Lunch Specials: 5.XX DM“
„Funeral Services“

And yes, they pointed in the same direction …

When InGenius then told me about a sign that offered you:

„Second-hand Coffee to go“

when you read it the wrong way, I totally lost it and had to sit down for a moment, in combination with the Angel Chicken Wings this was just too much for me …

It’s in the genes…

Now, you’ve read a few strange stories, but long before I paid much attention to anything – or existed – there already were a few things that I’m told on occasion.
Contrary to what I grew up with, my parents travelled quite a bit before I was born and have many stories of getting lost while picking mushrooms, visiting bone houses and what not, to tell.

But there is one thing, I’d like to use as the final story of this post:

One time my parents and grandparents were driving with my grandpas Trabi (Trabant) and my grandma yelled at them from the back-seat:

„You guys keep looking straight ahead now.“

And proceeded to change the elastic band of her underwear right then and there. >_<
Doing weird stuff while travelling seems to run in the family …

For more stories about my travelling check out the On the Road-Category. 😉

Hope you had fun reading this

PoiSonPaiNter

What'cha Watching Wednesday #9

As part of the Nerd-Week I present to you the ninth instalment of the What’cha Watching Wednesday, which again obviously covers more than one week.

WWWWhat is this about?

Every other Wednesday evening I will publish a post in which I collected the thoughts I had throughout the week(s) while watching the latest or any episode of a series or maybe even a movie.
Depending on how my time allows it, the comment will also be for those that I watched that day.
You’re warned: There will be Spoilers.

Let’s start

Supernatural – different episodes

Since the last time I guess I watched a few episodes, but I can’t really find them in my chronic…what I do remember is watching Tall Tales and The Monster at the end of this Book in German with Unmei. Both episodes are amongst my favourites, but it’s still weird to hear Sam and Deans German voices…(Chuck’s, Gabriel’s and Cas‘ aren’t that strange, but those two definitely are…)
A couple of weeks ago, Wren and I discussed me watching a couple of episodes in German and to pay closer attention to the translation. I didn’t manage to do much in that regard, as I was far too busy with my Advent Calendar, but I did find a few interesting changes in those two episodes above, but I’m nowhere near completing anything. When I do, it’ll probably be part of the Lost in Translation-series.

Doctor Who – Season 9, Episode 4-13 + Christmas Special

I don’t really want to go into too much details regarding the different episodes. In a way they were all incredible and I partly discussed this over at Geekritique, so to quote myself:

[T]hroughout the whole series I was torn between enjoying the episode and wondering what was going on, so the final[e] was both satisfying and utterly frustrating. 😀

Why was I frustrated by the finale?
Well…I for one enjoyed Clara’s death in Face the Raven. It was great closure. She finally overdid it, all her yearning for adventure and not caring for the consequence had finally brought her into a situation that was out of her hands.
And then The Doctor had to go spoiled child on the whole thing, go back and save her. As that was one of the topics of this Season, we more than once learned that that too has consequences. E.g. saving Caecilius – the one that frowned him his face – caused mayhem in Torchwood, saving Ashildr created another immortal (seemingly even a more powerful one than Jack Harkness) and now, through saving Clara he nearly caused the end of the universe.
So in a way I’m frustrated that he was so obsessed with her to even go down that road, but relieved that he now shares Donna’s fate regarding his memories.
Personally I do not want to see a Spin-Off with Clara and Ashildr.
The Husbands of River Song on the other hand was quite a great Christmas Special. It had a lot of laughs, a lot of emotions and was a great closure to Rivers storyline (like Last Christmas and Face the Raven could have been for Clara). The interaction between River and The Doctor was great and I wouldn’t have minded to see more of it, but that is probably quite unlikely.
All in all did I enjoy the Season. The topics were darker (and there was quite a high death-count) and it was a bit annoying that pretty much every episode had a life-or-death-situation, but it was still interesting. Now I’m curious what the next Season will bring.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Season 3, Episodes 2-10

I’m not entirely sure what to think of the Season so far. It was thrilling, exciting and a lot more, but it still left a bitter taste.
Why? Because after finally killing off Ward he is brought back as new vessel for Hive (if I read that correctly). I really hope that thing didn’t take up his attitude, as that would be really frustrating…
It was great to see some character development for Coulson, though it is a drastic change, but a welcome one. Every character – except Ward, who simply walks in circles – has had some development this Season and that’s great. I’m just afraid that the story line with the Inhumans and everything goes too fast before the actual MCU movie will air in 2019(?)…

Deadbeat – Season 2, Episode 7-13

Sooo…I’m caught up with this show now and I have to say the ending was kind of surprising. Though it seems that he will have a new ghost that will be following – tormenting – him next Season…
I’m still not sure what to make of it, but I liked how there at least was a bit of character development in the last few episodes.

Undateable – Season 3

A Season full of Live-Shows, there is only one thing I can say about this: Justin credible, I mean just incredible – sorry couldn’t resist the pun. 😉
But seriously a bunch of comedians and actors performing live in front of an audience is just a lot of fun to watch. The jokes and the story might not be the best, but the whole package is what makes this show enjoyable.
And there are a few gems in the jokes, especially when they mock each others projects. Or when they mess up and try to work their way out of a fiasko of sentence. 😀
One of my favourites from A Box of Puppies walks into a bar is definitely:

Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring. I just hope we get to do this for a few more Seasons.

From what I know they get the storyline and a few additions the others don’t know, but everything else is improvised. I think that is a great concept that very well should go on for another few Seasons. 😉
Though it does remind me a little of the Schillerstraße a German comedy-show that put different comedians into a situation before a live audience and while they played out the rough plot (there was no script and they all had to improvise) a game-master gave them instructions that they had to include into their play like „hug that person without warning“, „imagine there is something in your shoe“ and lot of way more ridiculous stuff. Ah, I miss that show… had to watch an episode after writing this back in December, but I wont go into more detail.

Reaper – Season 1/2

For quite some time now I wanted to finally watch this show that I enjoyed watching when it first aired in Germany. Well, after finishing Deadbead, I just went for it.
It has a lot of ups and downs, open story lines (whatever happened to Cady? Did she really just went to New Mexico and never returned?) and quite misogynistic plot lines, even if a lot of it was used as obvious clichés that was disappointing.
The show walks on the thin line of being utterly ridiculous – over the top acting and plots – and being incredibly dark, while dabbling more into the former than the later, but those dark moments are what make this show special. I can’t really describe it, but the characters grow on you, even the minor ones like Gladys and Tony – who are pretty cool.
In the two Seasons Sam had the most character development and part of that was quite, well, scary the more the Devil tried to pursue him and drive him towards the dark side. Though I really didn’t like the Sam is the son of Satan storyline – see Cady – and am glad to read that the producers had something else in mind. Check out this interview from 2010 if you don’t know yet: How Reaper would have ended.
I certainly wouldn’t have minded a continuation.

Jessica Jones – Season 1

Describing what it was like watching Jessica Jones seems difficult. I do get why people call it feminist or even go as far as to claim that it’s sexist towards men, but it’s so much more than those labels put onto it. It deals with many important topics in incredible ways, has many great characters and their interactions are natural and understandable, though for me personally a few things went too fast, but I guess that’s life. I also couldn’t care less about the different sex-scenes, but I always consider those to be annoying as they don’t really get the story forward, even if they – as they do in this case – advance the characterization.
(VERY) Unusual for me is that I like the main character, especially because she reacts so understandable and normal. She’s not over the top, she’s not able to solve stuff because she’s the main character, no, it’s because she’s determined and willing to do whatever is necessary so other people don’t have to suffer like she did. And that is awesome.
If more series and movies followed the example of the storytelling done in this Season we’d have an incredible change in the industry, though I guess that’s more or less wishful thinking.
I enjoyed the nods towards the larger MCU and Daredevil and I’m curious how it all will continue.

Galavant – Season 1

As you know have I joined Twitter recently and there I saw stuff regarding this show that I hadn’t even heard about before. So I watched the trailer, couldn’t stop grinning and had to check it out. What can I say? Who could resist Timothy Omundson as singing King Richard in a ridiculous „comedy extravaganza“? 😀
No seriously, about half of an ~20 minute episode is taken up by musical numbers, but they’re not always light-hearted numbers. Oh, no, no, no… I think my personal highlights were two peasants (Chef Vincenzo and handmaiden Gwynne) singing about their horrible lives and short life expectancy and deciding to spent the rest of it together and squires singing about their masters, but the guest-songs by Ricky Gervais‘ and Anthony Stuart Head’s characters were also quite fun. Or other really fun numbers where the characters tell each other what they actually think.
I guess the weirdest thing is that everyone is so okay with people randomly starting into songs – though some complains are made. 😀
The characters might not be the most creative ones, but they’re fun and not always entirely what they seem to be and that’s enough for a serial like this.  They’re enjoyable and dorky and fun, so what else do you want? So far the Chef, Gareth and of course Richard (it’s in the name, really) are pretty much my favourites and Galavant himself and especially Madalena quite on the other side, though I’m not so sure where to put Sid and Isabella… We’ll see if that’ll change with the new Season….

Once Upon a Time – Season 5, Episode 1: Dark Swan

At some point I tried catching up with OUAT again, but I kind of didn’t get past the first episode. I liked the twist that the Dark Ones dagger is the tip of Excalibur, but it is also a bit disappointing that they included yet another connection. Just as they re-used the whole „we get back to Storybrook and don’t know what happened“ – though I enjoyed that even the characters commented on that. Still, I’m curious how Dark-Emma actually came to be and stuff, but I still haven’t gotten around to watch it.

Psych – different episodes

I really felt like watching Psych again, especially after watching Galavant and reading about the connection from one of the movies I’ve watched.
Psych is simply one of those shows that you can watch time and again and it remains funny. The characters and the interaction between them, the stories, basically everything. It’s a pity the show is over, but it was an incredible ending. Besides not many shows can pull of a Musical Episode like that (even though that was a Season prior to the series finale). 😀

Sherlock – The Abominable Bride

This was an incredible special, especially as from all the promos you’re made to think that it solely takes place in 19th century London, but no, we get titbits that actually move along the current day story line and that is just amazing.
I enjoyed it greatly – even though I should probably re-watch it due to the lags in the stream – and it was great seeing all those characters again and this time in a new, but still similar setting and way.
I really liked the underlying storyline with the women of the show and Molly Hooper posing as man was a really interesting addition that nearly had me fooled as I wasn’t sure if it was her or not. And of course Moriarty and the whole explanation of how he survived ingrained into the old case.
I just really liked this special…

Different movies

I’m not sure I’ve watched that many movies these past few months. If at all.
I know I re-watched Mara, but I’ve told you about that one on Monday.
After the last HGWAnime we watched About a Boy and were quite fascinated by the fact that Nicholas Hoult’s face didn’t really change that much during the last 10+ years. 😀 It’s a fun movie, a bit weird at times, but still quite fun, but that’s British humour for you I guess.
Well there also were the Christmas movies – I tried finally watching The Grinch in English, after only knowing the German version, but simply didn’t feel like it -, but I don’t really want to got into details here, as there were too many. When I’m at my Dad’s place I watch WAY more TV then when I’m in my own flat (like 90% more, as I rarely even turn it on).
Aside from that did I check out Lars and the Real Girl after reading that the titles of Supernatural’s LARP and the Real Girl and Psych’s Shawn and the Real Girl derived from it. It’s quite an interesting piece, calm and slow, but a good pace for the topic. After Coming Down the Mountain it’s another piece that deals with mental illness in a sensitive way. It’s well-played and one can only hope that in real life people would react like the family and friends of the titular character in helping him overcome his delusion instead of condemning him.
For some reason I also decided to watch Revenge of the Nerds Quadrology with Curtis Armstrong, but I guess that was mostly due to the title, this is Nerd-Week after all…
The whole thing kind of left me with mixed feelings. Though that might be due to the fact that being a Nerd has changed over the decades since those four were created. The portrayed characters were awful (embarrassing) stereotypes and each movie followed the same pattern and frustratingly one of the main characters (Lewis) always goes back to his mindset from the beginning of part 1 – except for the last movie – and denies what he actually is. Some of the character concepts were quite advanced for that time, but still not fully fledged and that’s quite unfortunate.
Somehow I believe that you couldn’t make movies like that these days, but I guess that’s what makes them so unmistakably retro – or whatever you want to call it.
Still, I’m not entirely sure, but I might have seen one of the movies before – especially the second one seemed familiar at times – as I’m not entirely sure if they aired in German television. Though from the titles you wouldn’t even be able to recognize them as sequels (<translated> German titles: Die Rache der Eierköpfe/<The Revenge of the Eggheads>; Die Supertrottel/<The Supermorons (?)>; Operation Kleinhirn/<Operation Cerebellum>; Chaos Kings). From what imdb tells me they went straight to VHS and the first was released in 1986 in Western Germany – which means I didn’t have a chance to watch that one back then, because even if I had been born, I would have lived in the GDR. But one can never be sure what some channels dig up…

What were you watching?

What episodes (or movies) did you enjoy/dislike throughout the week/month?
Anything you’d recommend checking out?
Let me know in the comments below!

Final Words

I hope you enjoyed this little look into the different stuff I watched throughout the last months. Maybe I’ll get around doing this more frequently this year, who knows.
See you tomorrow,
PoiSonPaiNter

Re-Wri-Day: Supernatural Summary

Some time ago I got the chance to write for THE EXTREMIS REVIEW, but I only re-blogged the posts I wrote. So as I wanted to get a some distraction from the Advent Calendar, you get another one of these. 😉

ReWriDayWhat is the Re-Wri-Day?

Inspired by EdMooneyPhotography’s Re-Work-Wednesday and based on the fact that my writing style for this Blog has changed over the past years, I kind of created my own version of this.

But why the strange name and what does it mean?

I’m awful when it comes to puns and I couldn’t help myself but to turn re-write and Friday into one strange word: Re-Wri-Day. Sorry…
But in conclusion: These posts are supposed to be always published on a Friday, but not necessarily on every Friday, just the Fridays when I feel like editing an old post beforehand.

And what am I doing with this?

I am taking my old posts from the beginnings of writing this Blog or just former posts and read them again to see what things I can change or add. They wont necessarily be actually re-written, but some changes will be made.
In the Re-Wri-Day post I’ll also give you a couple of thoughts on why I had chosen the topic and stuff you might be interested in.

So, let’s have a look at the pages I changed: Supernatural Summary – Season 1, Season 2 and Season 3

Recently I decided that I want to have the Supernatural Summaries I wrote for The EXTREMIS REVIEWS completely on my Blog as well and not just as a re-blog, so I thought about it for a while. It’s fun to summarize and look into the different Seasons, but as I don’t get Feedback as to how often my posts are clicked I wanted to bring them home. Of course I will also leave a link to the existing post on the other page, but that goes without saying.
That said: I have not changed that much and basically just copy&pasted the posts. Though I did change the titles, removed the pictures Julian used, formatted the headlines and took out some spelling mistakes I found in a read through.
And I created a new Category for Supernatural posts: Supernatural.
Still, this way, I have those posts on here as well, in case anything happens to the other side. 😉
Now I just have to find all those broken links to the old re-blogs…
PoiSonPaiNter

Supernatural Summary – Season 3

Welcome back to the overview of Eric Kripke’s Supernatural; the monster-of-the-week mystery drama series about the Winchester brothers Sam and Dean.

We last saw them closing a Hell Gate and killing their longtime foe in Season Two; now let’s take a look at what’s in store for them in:

Season Three

Storyline

With thousands of Demons up and about on Earth and their only weapon being a Colt with no bullets left, the Winchesters and their friends/colleagues/surrogate family Bobby, Ellen and Jo don’t really stand a chance against them. This is until the Demon Ruby decides to switch sides and help them by not just using a Demon killing Knife, but also by helping Bobby to make more bullets. However, the Colt gets stolen by con-artist Bela Talbot, who is more then a thorn in the eyes of the brothers. They soon discover  she has a similar problem as Dean: A Hellhound is on her heels to collect her debt for a deal she made. Resentful of her actions they, however, refuse to help her, even though she reveals to them who holds Hell’s contracts. Finally able to track down that Demon, Lilith, Dean’s time runs out and he meets his demise at the claws and fangs of the invisible beast, while she tries and fails to kill Sam.

The Monsters

For a Season after the release of thousands of Demons one would think the brothers’ cases this Season would mostly deal with them, but far from it. Right in the first episode they jump into a case where we meet seven Demons representing the Seven Deadly Sins and learn about the Knife. Other than that are they mostly figuring out and looking for demonic signs (cattle death, freak weather), but are faced with lots of other stuff instead, as this Season has a variety of foes.

They reprise the appearance of vampires with a turned Hunter set on killing Sam, that uses his new abilities to attack them. Needless to say he fails.

But there are also some new additions.

We have energy sucking Changelings, name calling Crocotta and the first appearance of – easy to kill – Pagan Gods, though they don’t say which ones. Even Spirits get a twist, as the spirit of a dying girl causes Fairy Tales to come true.
There also is a Witch coven out for blood and the Trickster from last Season returns for a time-loop episode and of course the return of the (to humans invisible) Hellhounds.

Plot Points

From this Season forward the Colt is more or less shelved and the Winchesters use the Demon killing Knife instead, after they take it from Ruby that is. Relevant for the following Seasons is the introduction of Lilith, whose powers do not work against Sam and it is a bit foreshadowing of what is to come of his abilities.

One of the themes of this Season was: What should one do with the knowledge of the supernatural? So besides monsters we can also see the results of using mythical artifacts. With Bela we have someone selling those to the highest bidder. Twice the Winchersters thwart her plans, once with a Lucky Rabbits Foot, that is not so lucky once you lose it – and you will lose it – and the other a Hand of Glory, where you drown after seeing its original owners’ ship. It shows that these things are not to be messed with.

Not addressed for the first time, is the fact that one brother cannot be without the other.

Mystery Spot” plays with the thought: What if Dean died before his time is up and Sam cannot do a thing to stop it.  It gives us a look at how Sam would cope and it shows that he has the same narrow-minded tendency as his father, when it comes to tracking down the one that killed a family member. It is discussed more than once this Season that the brothers are each other’s weakness and this theme will continue to be explored throughout the series.

Minor plot points are the introduction of the Ghostfacers and the re-appearance of the Trickster. One is a parody of the Ghost hunting part of the Winchester’s life, where they bring back two guys that created a creature called a Tulpa through the common belief of their website followers last Season and now attempt to turn their Ghost hunts into a reality TV show – all with hand camera filming. The other likes fooling the brothers and teaching them lessons. In Season Two the Trickster showed them how easy it is to pit them against each other. This time around his illusion lays out another theme – and problem: You can’t escape fate.  The Trickster traps Sam in a time loop and makes him witness Deans’ death over and over again to get his point across. Though seemingly his work and all their struggling is in vein as the Winchesters do everything to escape their destiny either way. Though in this Season this is shown as a failure, as Dean does indeed die in the finale and Sam is left on his own.

Pro’s and Con’s

Season Three was a better one in regards to the variety of topics covered. While there was only a small continuation of the Demon story line, the things that were explored were quite interesting.

The episodes never drifted into repetition and some new and funny concepts were added. I cannot say if this was thanks to the briefness of the Season (only 16 episodes, due to the strikes of the Writers Guild of America back then), but I clearly enjoy the result.

As for the funny concepts: I like it when a show doesn’t take itself too seriously and with the episodes “Bad Day at Black Rock” and “Ghostfacers” we get some comedic relief from the seriousness of the overall Season. I believe the Christmas special (“A very Supernatural Christmas”) can be included in this count as well, as some things were rather ridiculous.
It is also nice to see some repercussions again, as one of the Hunters they had worked with and got into jail last Season is now on their heels to kill Sam, as he considers him an abomination due to his powers.

In contrast to this did we also get some questionable choices. With Bela an interesting and different character is introduced. She uses her knowledge of the supernatural for profit instead of becoming a hunter herself. But instead of expanding on her characterization, of her crossing paths with the Winchesters more often, she is reduced to just another deal victim with barely any background info and killed off within the Season.

An entirely different thing is the introduction of the Pagan Gods. This Season it is shown that they can be killed quite easily by using – in their case – an evergreen branch as stake. It is said that they lost the majority of their powers when people stopped worshipping them, but I still think this is way too easy.

Another thing that isn’t understandable is the introduction of Dean’s ex-girlfriend Lisa and her son Ben(,who is implied but denied to be Dean’s). It’s nice in a what-he-could-have-had-perspective, but in regards to the story line this Season it makes little sense.

In conclusion: Thanks/Due to its briefness this Season didn’t have much time to toy around, so it focused on the important things. Some of those turned out to be fun diversions (Ghostfacers), some disappointing (Pagan Gods) and others not quite clear (Ben).

All in all is this an enjoyable Season.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Until next time

PoiSonPaiNter

Originally Posted on The EXTREMIS REVIEWS: Carry on our Wayward Sons: Supernatural Season 3 – Poison Breaks Down The One Where Dean Gets Bitten

On a Side Note #3

I feel like I’m really not getting anything done these days…
I managed to low and behold publish five posts in September and four so far in October and seven of those were Weekend Guesses
I don’t even know what it is I’m doing that keeps me from finishing any posts…
I didn’t even feel like reading either and now I have to give back all those books I got from the library back in February when it closed for renovations, unread…
Okay, I admit there were a few series I caught up with during the recent weeks and my trip to Stockholm and two Weekends at the HGWAnime, but that can’t be that time consuming…
It feels like all I’m doing is writing in the bus on my way to work, being at work, writing on my way back from work and doing stuff – possibly typing said writing or writing something else or watching something, when I get back.
Now you probably ask yourself: Why am I not seeing any of that writing?
Well, for one: It isn’t December yet. 😉
But I only need six and a half more Chapters and then it’s time for typing and polishing the whole thing to make it presentable for you. I’m quite exited if you will like that way of story telling, though right now I’m more curious about where the story will take me, as it made a few turns I had not expected in the beginning…
And for the other: I haven’t posted it here and I’m not sure I want to post it here and am even thinking about taking down the Fanfiction section in the Writings-menu altogether…
It’s the amok-running story that started with „Chance Meetings“ – a simple idea of Supernatural characters meeting people that read the in-universe books – and for some reason turned into the Season 11 AU „Light in the Darkness“ that I want to finish before I actually take a look at Season 11, which by now leaves me in a very weird situation between „Ah, I can wait“ and „Arg, I hate Spoilers, why can’t I be able to finish that stupid story and finally watch the show again like everyone else?!“. >_<
It is really frustrating when characters decide that they want you to tell more or different things than you actually wanted to do (same with the Calendar people by the way…)… I could probably write a whole post about that alone – and I probably will when I finished that story.
One thing you could see, however, is „Aequus„, my most recent story for Your Picture – A Story, that is a semi-continuation of this story from my Advent Calendar. Again it is only available in German, but I did manage to translate one of my „older“ stories of the project: The Secret of Milton Road. As Halloween is fast approaching, maybe something you’d like to check out. 😉
And as I’m already talking about the Calendar from last year: Last time I also told you that I left an excerpt of it in the mail box of a local publisher. Well, long story short: They were interested, they liked my stories and wanted to read more, but they also wanted me to support them with 2.500 € to pay for the copy-editing, marketing and what not, while they pay the same amount for the printing itself and only give me 10% royalties. That was not something I was willing to do, so I canned publishing plans for the meantime.
Now onto some more fun news: I probably wont be able to write anything this weekend either, as I’ll be at the TimeLash with AnnaTao and Schmusi from the HGWAnime. The TimeLash is the first ever Doctor Who convention in Germany and I’m quite excited as it will be my third convention ever (as a reminder: #1: Weekend of Horrors, #2 ChiSaiiCon). But I’m also quite terrified as I have agreed to take part in the Cosplay competition with Anna and Schmusi…
It will be:

  • my first Day ever in a Cosplay
  • my first time participating in a Cosplay competition
  • my first time playing after a pre-recorded story in front of a (huge) audience (all audiences are huge if you don’t like being in the spotlight, even if they can be at most 500 people…)

So yeah, I’m kind of practising to not miss my cues and do some acting and most importantly not start laughing, which probably will be the hardest part…
Anyway, noon Sunday it’s show time and I guess I’ll let you know how it went. 😀
We’ll by the way play a self-written (by Schmusi, with comments by me) story starring the Tenth Doctor (Schmusi), Rose Tyler (Anna) and Donna Noble (me) and the Tardis Control-Thingy (a cardboard box). 😀
So, see you around I guess
PoiSonPaiNter

What'cha Watching Wednesday #8

I actually wanted to write a review for Felicia Day’s „You’re never weird on the internet (almost)„, but then I noticed it’s Wednesday and I haven’t done this thing in a while. So I present to you the eighth instalment of the What’cha Watching Wednesday, which again obviously covers more than one week.

WWWWhat is this about?

Every other Wednesday evening I will publish a post in which I collected the thoughts I had throughout the week(s) while watching the latest or any episode of a series or maybe even a movie.
Depending on how my time allows it, the comment will also be for those that I watched that day.
You’re warned: There will be Spoilers.

Let’s start

Supernatural – different episodes (Watch Date: 24./31.08. – earlier last week?)

Wren again inspired me to watch at least one of the following episodes. So thanks, I guess? >_<
I started these random re-watchs with It’s a terrible life. It’s an interesting what-if episode, but as  someone working in IT and fan of the IT Crowd my personal highlight was Sam sitting in IT support and asking the caller: „Have you tried turning it off and on again?“ I grinned like an idiot at that. This episode was also the introduction of Zachariah whom I had previously – knowingly – only seen as coroner Woody in Psych. I have to say: He does a great job at playing the creepy angel. 😀 I also liked that they turned their names from „Winchester“ to „Smith“ and „Wesson“ and of course the inclusion of the Ghostfacers. Another episode that I watched after I’ve noticed that I messed up their appearances in my Season 3 summary. Through this I finally remembered to check out why Ed (AJ Buckley) looked so freaking familiar to me: He played a minor role in one of the movies that influenced me quite a lot in my teens (see movie part). Oh, and it was quite confusing to find out what he looks like by now, though I’m still trying to figure out what the movie is called where he looks/dresses like the singer from Korpiklaani
Anyway, in another sitting I checked out As Time Goes By as a reminder for the whole Henry Winchester/Men of Letters story line. I kind of enjoyed this episode and I really like the Bunker. So as they hadn’t opened it I had to watch Everybody Hates Hitler again as well. The general story line of the episode is interesting and it is generally quite fun. I like the rabbi and the golem and would have liked more information on them, but I’m just generally quite tired of movies/series restoring to use Nazi-themes for their narration… (We had an off topic discussion about this on wren’s side; starting about here)
Well, as I already watched a time-travel episode, I decided to take another look at The Song remains the same and even though my earlier question about this episode cleared up by now (it was revealed that Cain had offspring) there is now a new one. At one point Michael discusses Lucifer and mentions that he „practically raised him„. Soo… were (Arch)angeles created as babies or is he talking about the time after they imprisoned The Darkness and were starting to form their own personalities after simply following orders? I hope its the latter, as otherwise this would be another case of forgotten continuity…
I actually wanted to watch a different episode but ended up watching Pac-Man Fever. It was a Charlie episode and I liked it, except the ending, I’m not that good with mums currently… So, I needed something good and positive to cheer me up and took another look at Hibbing 911. I just really like Donna and Jody and I’d be more than thrilled if the Fandom plans to make a spin-off with them would become a reality.
For some reason did I want to check out the Metatron and Kevin episodes so The Great Escapist and Reading is Fundamental were next on my list. With them the tablets were introduced as well and I think those are quite an interesting concept. In a twisted kind of way do I like Metatron’s appearances, I can’t really explain it…maybe I just enjoy his conflict of – I don’t want to get involved in this – I want everyone to do as I say or maybe his snark, I don’t know. I liked Kevin, too, though I felt sorry for him a lot of times. And I think it’s a pity that they didn’t explore on the whole prophet thing more…
At some point I wanted to watch one of the Benny-episodes again, so I picked Citizen Fang. A very mean episode, with a quite creepy Jon Gries as Martin. I like Benny…
The last one on this list was a very strange watch for me, as Unmei and I watched Changing Channels in German the other day (It’s by the way called „Wie im Himmel, so auf Erden“, a shortened quote of Gabriel’s line: „As it is in Heaven, so it must be on Earth“).
It was really weird… I mean, I started watching the show in German back when it first aired, but I did not remember it like that…
I especially did not remember that Sam was voiced by the voice actor of Dragonball Z’s Krillin – which caused me to randomly exclaim „Krillin!“ at some point during the episode, yes, I do stuff like that, when I remember from where I know an actor or voice… – and Dean by Tenshinhan (or Tien Shinhan in the English dub), that I suspected before checking out. Castiel had too few lines to let me recognize, that his voice usually is heard with Jude Law, though it did sound extremely familiar. Interestingly his voice actor also voiced Curtis Armstrong (Metatron) in a different role, just like Gabriel’s voice actor, who also happens to be the father of Germany’s (possibly) most used, all-round voice actor David Nathan (Armstrong was also voiced by Spongebob Squarepants‚ for two roles). Okay, I’ll stop now… It might be apparent that I enjoy talking about voice actors… (Charlie’s does a lot of Anime stuff, by the way)
Aside from that is this episode one of my most-watched ones. I just really like the humour and the big reveal and stuff. Simply one of my favourites. 😀
Though Gabriel probably didn’t get that good of a face-change if Cas still recognized him…maybe it’s the soul he can’t change or something like that…
Oh, and one more thing: To get the quote right I looked at the transcript and discovered this funny comment from the transcriber:

The fire goes out; apparently in this world water extinguishes grease fires instead of spreading them. – 5.08. Changing Channels Transcript

Grimm – Season 4, Episode 15 -20 (Watch Date: 16./17.09.)

After quite some time did I take another try at watching Double Date to catch up with Grimm. I still don’t like the sub-plot with Adalind, with the episodes so far the one with Juliet looked better, but I unfortunately knew about the final outcome of that one. 🙁
So knowing the remaining episodes now there are a few things that bugged me about their strange narration.
Juliet’s turn from good to bad is way too fast and too weird. The characters that are usually so open to new things, that accepted supposedly bad Wesen into their group (Blutbad/Fuchsbau), now, when Juliet needs them most, despise her and want to change her. They don’t even give her a chance to adapt or help her in any way. All they want to do is make her go back to the way she was. I can totally understand why that frustrates her, still don’t get much of her choices, but still. It could have been good. It could have been so much more than that. Instead they turn Adalind into a semi-human again, she is still pregnant and for some reason everyone jumps on the bandwagon to help HER. I really don’t get it…
They also could have done more with the new royal – instead of letting him kill Kelly and then killing him off. He was fun…
With Juliet and Kelly dead, I kind of feel bad for Nick, though part of me wants to tell him that the whole thing is his fault, for not helping the woman he said he loved…
And what was up with the Jack the Ripper-Ghost hijacking and the devilish arms? That didn’t make a lick of sense. Why did he kill Wesen? Why did he kill Henrietta? Why was this story involved anyway? o.O

Doctor Who – Season 9, Episode 1-3 – (Watch Date: 19./30.09./3.10.)

Season Nine has started!
I was curious what this Season would bring as it would mostly consist of two-parters, but I kind of like the pacing. It reminds me of the few old episodes that I’ve seen by now. It’s really something different and takes a little getting used to, but still enjoyable.
In The Magician’s Apprentice The Doctor has one of his most epic entries: Riding a tank into a medieval axe-fight, while playing an electric guitar. That really reminded me of the guys from Sabaton and their stage decoration. 😀
I also enjoyed the Davros-dilemma of the episode – Note to self: Finally watch the one with the Fourth – and of course Missy was quite fun again. The first part had an interesting cliff hanger, but I didn’t fear for Missy and Clara. The Witch’s Familiar then finally explained how Missy escaped, which is quite a neat trick she has there. For a short moment I really pitied Davros and wanted to believe him, while something in the back of my mind screamed: They wont kill him like that! Well, that voice was right and I enjoyed the solution to the dilemma that seemingly created the Daleks ability to beg for mercy. Still, a lot seems to be left unexplained and that’s just unfortunate… (How did Davros survive? Is he even the Davros from Stolen Earth/Journey’s End? How did all these different Daleks come together? And why do they just dump the old ones into the sewers? What’s with the other planet from Asylum of the Daleks? What’s Missy’s plan with the Daleks? What did Missy want to gain by making the Doctor kill Clara?)
Under the Lake had a weird start, as I really didn’t understand Clara’s enthusiasm and was right there with the Doctor when he asked her to get a new boyfriend. She’s using these trips to distract herself from mourning and in the long run that’s not a good thing…
I liked that they included a deaf character/actress in the cast and the story so far seems interesting, even though I hope the theme of everything being a life and death situation will cease soon. It’s kind of annoying as you know there are still a couple of more episodes to go and they won’t kill of the main character before that – besides there aren’t any news on Capaldi already being replaced – so the shock factor is way off in those episodes.
Oh, and I kind of like the Sonic Sunglasses, miss the Screwdriver a bit, but they look cool. 😀 And I really like the Doctors new dressing style, I like the hoodie/jacket…

The Musketeers – Season 2, Episode 8: The Accused (Watch Date: 22.09.)

I’m confused…the break was too long.
Mark Warren is creepy…no comparison to his role in Doctor Who.
I liked Porthos and was annoyed by Aramis.
And why did I expect Rochefort to still be in the room and make a snarky comment when Athos and Milady left the hidden cupboard? o.O

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Season 3, Episode 1: Laws of Nature (Watch Date: 30.09.)

Confusing yet somehow satisfying start into the new Season. They showed Jemma! And Fitz was amazing. And I’m really curious how this Season will continue…

Deadbeat – Season 1/2, Episode 1-6 (Watch Date: 4.-6.10.)

Like Undateable I am not entirely sure what to make of this show. I saw the add for the German version, checked out the English one – as it stars Tyler Labin from Reaper – and half into the second Season, I still think this is a very weird series. It’s still fun, though. And Lucy DeVito is soo cute… Still, twenty minutes an episode are far too short to get some actual grip on the characters and the world. It got better by now, but it’s still quite lacking and very random…

Different movies

I felt in the mood to watch Midnight in Paris again. The first time I saw it, I went to the cinema in Uetersen with Janzy for special English screening, I gave her as a birthday gift. We both like movies and with Tom Hiddleston as one of the side roles and the story sounding interesting and the whole setting in Paris with all the old writers, we quite enjoyed it. Though watching it again I realized that I seemed to have known Woody/Zachariah (Kurt Fuller) before I saw him in his TV roles. 😀 I really like the atmosphere and narration of the movie. It’s not just some story that focuses on one thing only, no it takes you on a ride through Paris, it introduces you all these talented people (I probably would enjoy this part even more, if I actually recognized them), it shows the struggle of an aspiring artist, the downsides of a relationship with someone very different from yourself and it gives you something to think about, regarding everyone’s „Golden Age“. Just a wonderful movie.
As I’ve seen a lot of positive comments regarding Jensen Ackles in Ten Inch Hero I thought I might as well check it out. It was a fun watch and explored some unusual topics. Half way into the movie I recognized Adair Tishler (Molly from Heroes) and she was just as cute a kid, as she is in the series. Still, there were a few weird choices: Last time I briefly discussed the whole changing yourself for someone else thing. In this movie it wasn’t the girl who got the change, but the boy. All throughout the movie he ran around confident in his appearance with mowhawks in different colours (I’m not entirely sure what the pace of the movie was, so it seemed, like he changed them daily…) and styles, piercings and everything. But to get his love interest he cut his hair short and took out the piercings and put on some „proper“ clothes. It’s just so frustrating. If she loves him, she loves him with the hairdo and piercings and everything, not because he somehow discovers to dress „decently“. He looks so uncomfortable…
They also had a sex-scene that let to a brutal boyfriend-theme, but I think it would have been enough to show less of that part and still get the story across.
And what’s up with the naked wedding?
As I wrote earlier did I discover in which movie I saw AJ Buckley before: The Forsaken (the German title also includes „Die Nacht ist gierig“/“The Night is Voracious“). It’s an old vampire hunter road movie thing, that isn’t even well done, but it’s still special to me. I do believe this is one of the first movies I’ve ever watched in the „horror“ genre and I think I was still about fourteen when watching this PG 16 movie late at night, hoping that my parents/my mum wouldn’t come in and ask me what I’m watching. In a way it shaped my interests quite a bit. Besides Buffy it took part in creating my interest in vampires (and other creatures) and their different backgrounds. The characters I liked most can somehow be found again in later favourite characters (Pen and Nick if anyone is interested >_<) and the title even became a reference for the family name of a branch of characters from Michael’s story. When I watched it again, I feared I wouldn’t like it as much as I did back then, but I still did. It’s fun in a weird kind of way. Pretty trashy, with lots of weird camera movements, but still great in a way.
Towards the end I had this memory that one of the characters would start singing „Enter Sandman“ by Metallica any moment now and put it aside, but then he ascended the stairs and the scene actually happened and I was happy that I remembered that correctly. So the soundtrack is also part of why I like this one so much. 😀

What were you watching?

What episodes (or movies) did you enjoy/dislike throughout the week/month?
Anything you’d recommend checking out?
Let me know in the comments below!

Final Words

As I also found out that the actress of Becky from Supernatural played Brigitte in the Ginger Snaps-franchise I decided to re-watch those movies again – or finally watch the third part, that’s been lying around for ages…
Well, we’ll see when I’ll get around to do that and write another one of these…
PoiSonPaiNter

What’cha Watching Wednesday #7

I didn’t really feel like watching any series and focused more on old movies in the past months, but I still want to present you the seventh instalment of the What’cha Watching Wednesday, which again obviously covers more than one week.

WWWWhat is this about?

Every other Wednesday evening I will publish a post in which I collected the thoughts I had throughout the week(s) while watching the latest or any episode of a series or maybe even a movie.

Depending on how my time allows it, the comment will also be for those that I watched that day.
You’re warned: There will be Spoilers.

Let’s start

Supernatural – Season 2, Episode 15: Tall Tales (Watch Date: 11.06.) and others

While writing my Season summary for Season Three, I came across the Trickster again and decided to re-watch his episodes(, but I didn’t feel like changing the title much more than adding „and others“ as I had included a date on the other episode). I really enjoyed this character and his episodes were quite fun in a weird way. He really had had potential, but then again, so did many characters on the show…
I just really like the struggle the Trickster/Gabriel portrays, he claims to not want anything to do with Lucifers and Michaels fight, yet he does everything in his powers that Sam and Dean accept their roles in it and shows them time and again that some things just need to happen. He’s great and as I’ve discovered recently a lot of fun to write, which might explain that my simple One Shot idea kind of turned into two Multi-Chapter stories…

Incidentally I couldn’t get myself to watch The Hammer of the Gods, I just couldn’t…apart from the fact that there is so much wrong with that episode, did I just not want to see the outcome of it again…

I also watched several other episodes, though I can’t remember which ones, Season Four/Five stuff with Lucifer, Chuck and the Horsemen I believe. I also took some suggestions from wrencollins in this matter and just watched whatever I felt like.

Outlander – Season 1, Episodes 1-7 (Watch Date 6./7.6.)

As it was about to air in German television I felt like checking this one out. We’ll it is an interesting concept, the characters aren’t bad and somewhat interesting, but as you can see from the watch date, have I not gotten myself to continue since June…

My dad has probably seen more episodes in German than I have in English…

Sense8 – Season 1

I let myself be goaded into watching another series again. And I do not feel bad about it.
This show is incredible.
Actors from the actual countries the story plays in, with the actual accents, filmed in the actual locations. Really great.
And the switch between the Sensates, when they changed the perspective in a conversation or one took over and handled the situation of the other, was quite interesting, especially in the finale. I really liked the finale, though I’m afraid it’s hard to top.

I can’t even say who my favourite character is, I kind of liked all of them…Riley and Capheus are just incredibly adorable and cute, Lito and Will have quite hilarious moments, whereas Sun and Wolfgang show their badassery and Nomi and Kala, just show off their smarts, not to mention Freema Agyeman and Naveen Andrews, who made for interesting side characters.
I like the whole pretext of the show, its realization, the characters, pretty much everything…I can’t wait for Season 2 to be completed.

I am fairly certain that I might have a separate post for my Lost in Translation-series about Wolfgang – even though I have to say that they picked one of the most horrible sounding names here…
In German Wolfgang is fine, but in English? Just no. This is one of those names that, as a German, you don’t want to hear pronounced in an English way…

Speaking of translations…well…let’s say: I didn’t watch it directly on Netflix, therefore a lot of stuff is lost to me, as it did not have the translations with it, especially the Sun-focused episode, which was a pity.

Orange is the New Black – Season 3

Same problem as above, a lot of it was lost, as I didn’t have any subtitles. This was quite frustrating in the background episodes for Gloria, Chang and Leanne.

The overall storyline of this Season was a bit disappointing and boring – especially everything that concerned Piper. I just can’t stand her.
I really enjoyed the looks at the different inmates pasts again, I feel like this is always the most interesting part of the show. It was also fun to find out that another character spoke German, even if it was an Amish variation of it, that I didn’t really understand – though I believe it was the bad quality of the stream and my head still being stuck in English-mode…
The thing that bugged me most was probably Red. She was one of my favourites in the previous Seasons, but now, I’m not so sure any more. I also didn’t really understand the whole thing with Norma

So in conclusion: This Season wasn’t as good as the others, but it was still fun.

Merlin – different episodes

I felt like watching a bit Merlin again and I think Gwayne and Servant of two Masters are my most watched episodes of the series by now. Another one is The Once and Future Queen that I this time even watched in German with Fairy during my recent stay at her place. I just love Merlin’s rant in that episode and wanted to see how it was done in German. This show is just always fun to watch.

Lasko – different episodes

For every non-German: Lasko – Die Faust Gottes (The Fist of God) is a German show from 2009/10 about a secret organisation of fighting monks (Pugnus Dei – hence the title) that fight another secret organisation Ares and other people who want to do nasty things to those who can’t defend themselves. As this show was produced by a station known for its love of scripted reality and casting shows, you might imagine the seriousness of the production. Lasko is a totally ridiculous show, with the titular character constantly loosing his Habit to fight the foes showing off his muscular chest. He has a chubby side-kick that is good for quips and wordplays and there are so many tropes and what not, that it gets fun to watch because of its terribleness.

The show started shortly after we started writing Warlords and Fairy and I made it a tradition to watch each new episode together and discuss it directly via ICQ. We had a lot of fun doing that and we still have fun watching the show now and giving off the same comments we used to make. We just love Gladius. 😀

Buffy – different episodes

Just as the ones above: I just felt like watching some episodes of Buffy and I do believe I even caught some I haven’t seen back when it was still on television. Well, it’s also interesting to re-watch it in its original language and not in the translated version I grew up with. Does anyone else consider Tabula Rasa one of the shows most hilarious episodes? 😀

Different movies

As I said in the beginning did I feel more like watching movies than series in the past few months and I came across several quite interesting pieces and some really weird choices…
As I don’t want to go into that much detail I’ll simply make a name-dropping description here and say a few things about them.
One last comment before I start: When I consider actors to be interesting, I like to check out their other work, so some of the choices came from that perspective and I probably forgot to add some of them.

Lucifer (Mark Pellegrino) and Castiel (Misha Collins) in the same movie? Of course I had to check out Moving Alan, though I’m not entirely sure, what exactly I watched there… It is a weird mixture of Weekend at Bernies and other things I cannot name, just with two girls, a dead-turned-paralysed husband and an insane actor in the middle of the desert… it’s just weird…

Not much better is Par 6, another of Collins‘ older movies about a family obsessed with golf, though it has some more fun scenes than the other one. Downside for me: Their accents were hard to understand sometimes.

As it was in his imdb list as well I took a look at Girl, Interrupted, his role here was only a minor five seconds part and the focus was on the main characters played by Winona Rider and Angelina Jolie. I don’t really like Jolie as an actress, but in this role she was quite creepy, well, the whole film is strange and creepy, but still interesting.

What I, however, noticed is that Collins‘ minor or side character roles seemingly often include being the love interest or some kind of random hook-up for one of the main character. Which is kind of best shown in Over Her Dead Body, were he really is just that – same in Girl, Interrupted. Makes you wonder about his role in Supernatural… 😀
Anyway, that movie was quite fun, the idea wasn’t new – ghost fiancé stalks her ex and tries to convince him to not fall in love with another girl -, but doing the whole thing through a medium made for some quite funny scenes. And Paul Rudd did a good job at playing the confused and torn ex, but I think I have yet to see him in a role that I didn’t enjoy watching, which is in stark contrast to Jason Biggs, whose role choices I do often question, guess someone just has to do those things as well…

One of my, if not the, highlight/s of this watching streak was 3 Blind Saints, with Richard Speight Jr. as main character. This movie is hilarious and if you haven’t seen it, you should totally check it out – if you did, you should watch it again. It has a lot of slapstick and situation humor, but here are some of my favourites:

  • Several people try to get an out of jail free card, by claiming that they were saved by God – one of them is an atheist
  • The main characters end up having to pretend to be ministers in the local community with the atheist having to fill the role of the pastor.
  • Some very strange argumentations and utterly ridiculous prayers and sermons.
  • A very strange meeting with God
  • A couple of guys in drag – one of them unwilling to shave off his beard – trying to get a confession out of a bad guy, with a kink for girls in short skirts, who knows its them in drag and plays along.

I watched it for a second time on Sunday and I could watch it again, it’s just so much fun. It’s far from being perfect and has a lot of flaws (e.g. a missing and re-appearing beard/stubble), but it’s just one of those funny feel-good movies.

I grew up with the Harry Potter movies, so when I got the chance to pick up Driving Lessons
with Rupert Grint, I didn’t hesitate long. This movie has an interesting take on different things: The protected life of an only child, the downsides of growing old alone, growing up and being an artist. It’s a nice watch. Emma Watson’s The Secret Life of a Wallflower on the other hand took a more depressing turn. It shown some light on different usually left out problems (depression, suicide, homophobia, …), but it felt like they still left out things that would have made it more clear and more rounded. That’s a bit disappointing for an otherwise good movie. Though I somehow can’t remember the ending or I am at least not sure that what I remember is the ending…

On a similar depressing note was Coming Down the Mountain with Nicholas Hoult, but here I really liked the conclusion, even though some of the things that happened throughout the movie were quite creepy. It’s an interesting take on the struggles to live with someone who suffers from the Down Syndrome.
For some reason I decided to watch What’s Your Number? with Chris Evans and I’m still not entirely sure why I did. The movie isn’t totally bad, but it has some quite strange moments. Though not as bad as Totally Blonde, where my memory kind of betrayed me… I remembered it as a fun movie with singer Michael Bublé, but it turned out to be something entirely different and I’m not sure how I made it through the movie, as some decisions by the main character were utterly frustrating to say the least. Speaking of frustrating main characters: The Devil Wears Prada. I really don’t get the appeal of these kinds of movies where a woman with a totally okay style and personality changes everything in order to become the „better“ person for someone else (here: her boss) and loses herself in the process. Not my type of movie, but I like Anne Hathaway and Glen Close and felt like watching this again…

Tumblr is a great what-to-watch source when it comes to their favourite actors. So I checked out The Losers, with Chris Evans, Zoe Saldana, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Idris Elba in main roles. It turned out to be one of the DC-adaptations that I actually enjoyed. It was fun, had some good action and a lot of logical flaws, but still a nice watch.

Before we went to Fairys place we stayed at her parents place and watched a French/German version of Beauty and the Beast from 2014 with her boyfriend and Fissel (her sister) that just aired on television, though we kind of missed the beginning of the movie, twice. We still had a lot of fun watching it and commenting on different things, but the whole experience could be summed up in this quote from Fairy, that we put on our Facebook-Page:

The movie is fun, but I don’t think it was planned to be a comedy.

More quotes (including stuff about beagles and rose tendrils) can be found there, though they are in German, if you’d like a translation, let me know.
We did consider, however, if we should record ourselves watching movies, so that other people can be part of our ridiculous conversations. 😀 Would anyone be interested in such a thing?

I also re-watched the Underworld movies with Unmei. We are three movies in and the fourth, The Awakening, would then be new for me as well. In the first three films it is nice to follow the different connections among them, but we kind of had large pauses between watching them, so some things weren’t that easy to recognize. It doesn’t matter how often I see these movies Lucien is still my favourite character of the four parts. Still, I don’t get how Michael Sheen could agree to betray the Lycans and become a sparkling vampire. o.O

Also on Speights list I found Noobz a movie about a Gaming Tournament and it’s participants. It took me a while to recognize Jon Gries beneath that god awful mullet, but it was indeed him who had a very strange and short conversation with Speights character and later on a tiny bit larger role in the overall storyline…
The movie is a very strange look on gamers and they used a lot of stereotypes and weird characters, but it still was somewhat fun. The effort in showing this kind of subgenre reminded me a bit of Knights of Badassdom, which is way more fun as it has a quite awesome soundtrack, that Noobz can’t compete with by having only two rock numbers. Still, when it comes to movies/series depicting gamers and nerds do I prefer Felicia Day’s The Guild and Zombie Orpheus‘ The Gamers– series. They feel way more accurate and genuine than the other stuff out there, which is kind of obvious as they are made by and for gamers…

Well, I didn’t only watch old stuff, I was also in the cinema a couple of times.
At first I thought I wouldn’t manage to see Mara und der Feuerbringer (Mara and the Firebringer), due to some scheduling issues in the marketing, but then I found out that it was screened in Greifswald and I took Schmusi and Anna from the HGWAnime with me to see it and we had a lot of fun. Finally a German Fantasy movie that isn’t as stoic and flat as German movies tend to be, has interesting characters, an interesting plot and funny dialogues. With songs like Echter wahrer Held/True Genuine Hero by Schandmaul it also has a nice soundtrack. Schmusi first thought it was Jan Josef Liefers doing the singing until I told her it was the singer of one of the bands that first got me hooked on Metal. 😀
Anyway, if you get the chance: Definitely check this one out!

I also saw Melissa McCarthy’s latest flick Spy and laughed a lot, though we were wondering if the age level was appropriate for that movie, as it did have some nasty sequences. I went to check out Mad Max: Fury Road after all the praise it got on Tumblr and I wasn’t disappointed. The strange and staccato like cut of the movie was a bit confusing, but it was still fun to watch. More fun, however, was Ant-Man that I originally didn’t even want to see, but went along when Fairy and her boyfriend asked if we’d go and see it. After the changed tone in Age of Ultron this one was more focused on the humour than the seriousness of it all. I don’t regret seeing this one after all.

What were you watching?

What episodes (or movies) did you enjoy/dislike throughout the week/month?
Anything you’d recommend checking out?
Let me know in the comments below!

Final Words

We’ll see when I’ll write another one of these…

PoiSonPaiNter