Storytelling Tips Learned from The Leftovers

I’ve watched a lot of TV shows in my life, and every once in a while one of them comes along and makes everything else look like trash. One such show was season 2 of The Leftovers, which managed to be better than its first season in every conceivable way.

A quick summary: The Leftovers is a show that’s about dealing with ambiguous loss. On October 14th, 2011, 2% of the world’s population — with no correlation whatsoever between them — just vanished into thin air at the same time. No one knows why it happened, who is responsible, or what even happened to the people that vanished. Where did they go? Are they ever coming back? Will this happen again? The writers have no intention of answering these questions and personally I hope they never do.

This may not seem like your type of show, but if you’ve ever dealt with the loss of a family member, a friend, anyone you cared about. If you’ve ever dealt with depression, or if you’ve ever just been sad about something at all at any point in your life, you will connect with this show on some level.

In my case, I connected a little too deeply, and I was pretty much an emotional wreck after every episode. It changed the way I thought about my own writing, and it also redefined my perspective on life itself. 

(To be fair, my perspective on life changes about once every week .)

For this post I’m just gonna be focusing on the writing portion, as I bequeath to you some of tips I took from this show:

Don’t be afraid to shake things up.

The show’s first season took place in a small town in upstate New York. It was a stand-in for the rest of the world. “Anytown, USA,” it might as well have been called. We followed the characters there for eight or nine months, getting to know and understand them as they got into various hijinks and tomfoolery.

And then the first episode of season 2 comes along and the focus of the show moves thousands of miles away to the town of Jarden, Texas. The opening episode focuses on a set of characters we’ve never met before. You don’t see a single familiar face until you’re forty-five minutes in. Jarring as all hell, but it worked.

But it wasn’t just the setting that changed: the tone changed, the lighting changed, even the opening credits changed drastically in a way that I can’t remember seeing before. Here’s the opening to the first season: 

And now here’s the second one:

Changing so much about the show was a pretty ballsy move, I think we can all agree, and yet it paid off better than anyone could’ve expected, with a show currently being praised by critics and viewers alike as one of the best on TV.

Not everything has to be explained.

In one episode we watch a character have a friendly conversation with her new neighbor, one that ends with no apparent conflict between them. The very next scene we watch as she casually walks up to the neighbor’s house, picks up a rock, and throws it straight through the neighbor’s window.

The show never outright explains why she decided to suddenly vandalize her neighbors’ house, but the audience is left to figure it out for themselves, even though there’s more than one possible conclusion for the audience to draw. The show trusts the viewers to figure shit out on their own and allows them to interpret things in different ways, and so should you.

Some things probably should be explained.

The guy who wrote The Leftovers is Damon Lindelof, who also wrote the show Lost. As a result, he has a bit of a reputation for setting up mysteries without actually resolving them in a satisfactory way. So when he decided to write another show centering around a mystery that he has admitted from the beginning would never be explained, he got an understandable amount of flak from pissed off Lost fans.

And yet, the second season of the show introduced several mysteries at once, including one really juicy one. A mystery so juicy it might as well have been a porterhouse steak. For weeks and weeks I scrolled through dozens (hundreds?) of different theories regarding it, and not only were a: none of them were right, but b: the mystery was handled in such a jaw-dropping, game-changing way that I couldn’t even sleep afterwards. And I love to sleep.

The lesson here is that you can keep things ambiguous if you want, but you need to have a good grasp on what should be answered and what doesn’t have to be. The Leftovers is a show that’s very premise is an unanswered question, but it remains satisfying because when it comes to big reveals, it never drops the ball. 

Tell a joke for once.

While I can fanboy about this show for ages, and could probably write a novel-length essay analyzing it scene to scene, I must admit that at one point, I was thinking about quitting the show.

Around halfway through the first season, I was getting wary. The show was so dark. All the characters seemed to be digging themselves deeper and deeper into their own misery. The show at that point was utterly humorless. Humorless and hopeless, it seemed; the two worst things a story could be. 

But luckily the writers seemed to figure this out, because they started to inject some much-needed humor into the characters. And then they gave the characters hope within all the sadness, and it was raw and beautiful and cathartic and no I am not crying right now, I just have something in my eye, so shut up.

Make every moment count.

You could tell a story’s well-done if you can’t think of a single thing you’d cut. This wasn’t case for the first four or five episodes, (which is why it’s the weakest part of the show), but re-watching the season 2 premiere, it’s amazing to see just how important every single moment turned out to be. Every odd detail, every facial expression. They even managed to turn a stupid knock knock joke into hardcore foreshadowing. (Yes. Hardcore.)

Not all dystopian stories have to involve an evil government that needs to be overthrown.

I remember seeing a review for The Leftovers describing the series as a dystopia, and I remember thinking, “Hm, I guess it is kind of dystopian.” After all, it was about an alternate version of the world, where mysterious cults are rising up all over the U.S., and the government has no problem with killing them off if need be. 

When I usually think of Dystopian stories, I think of V for Vendetta, or The Hunger Games: where the world is terrible, but at least the readers know who’s to blame. But in The Leftovers, the world can’t be fixed by blowing up buildings, or shooting people with an arrow. The world’s broken because each and every person in it is broken. It’s a dark premise, but I think it’s much more compelling than most of the dystopian books and movies I’m so used to seeing.

_____

I’m going to be honest, guys. This was less about writing tips, and more about how much I love this show. Watch it. It’s lit.

Game of Thrones: The Mountain vs The Viper Review

Warning: Spoilers for any Game of Thrones events up to this point in the show and books. But nothing that will happen later in the show/books will be spoiled. Enjoy.

Also, I apologize for not writing a review for the last episode, but what’s the point in me writing a recap when Snoop Dog already did it so well?

100% accurate

(Warning: this post is less of a review, more of a funeral.)

I’ve been dreading that final scene from the moment Oberyn was introduced. When he first showed up I was all excited because “Man, that guy’s cool!” and then I remembered, “Oh yeah, that guy’s going to a horrible, brutal, frustrating death.”

But I forgot just how disgusting and frustrating the death would actually be. Sure, it happened the same way in the book, but when reading, I was spared having to listen to the sound of his head exploding, or Oberyn’s screams of agony. It didn’t look all that pretty, either. If this happened with just some boring character no one cared about, it wouldn’t be a big deal, but no, we had to watch the stomach-churning death of a fan-favorite character who we’ve all (I hope) come to love. That’s traumatizing, right there.

Luckily, I’ve developed a coping mechanism ahead of time. If you’ve only just watched the last episode, follow these steps:

1. Vomit
2. Cry
3. Eat away your sorrows.
4. Repeat until next episode airs.

Goddamn you, you stupid Mountain. There’s only like, three queer characters in the whole series, and you have to go and kill the best one. And thanks a lot, Oberyn, for ruining your only chance at revenge. You had ONE JOB, and you blew it.

If I continue talking about his death, I’ll get so frustrated I’ll end up punching the wall, breaking a wrist, and saying “Ouch.” So I’m just going to focus on the rest of the episode.

This was Sansa’s best episode to date, seeing as she basically manipulated everyone, including Littlefinger, with ease. She is no longer someone else’s pawn, but her own player in the Game of Thrones, and it’s about time, too.

Do people still hate on Sansa? Really, they do? Well then…

Meanwhile, Roose Bolton legitimizes his bastard son, Ramsey, in a scene that could have been heartwarming if it weren’t for the fact that they were both horrible people. And if my memory is correct, this was the same place where Ned told Jon he’d tell him about his mother the next time they meet. (That turned out well.) There’s a new warden of the north, and he happens to be an evil psychopath whose son likes to flay people for fun. The Starks were so much nicer.

Meanwhile, we say good-bye to Ser Jorah Mormont, whose past has finally caught up with him as Dany finds out he originally spied on her. I don’t have any strong opinions on Jorah, but it’s still sad to see him go, considering he and Dany have been the longest pair in the show’s run so far. Jorah’s been in more episodes than Jaime Lannister,  Samwell Tarly, Catelyn, and a bunch of other major characters, which is pretty impressive considering how minor he is.

But should Dany have kicked him out? Neigh, I say, even though I understand why. It’s clear that Jorah is faithful to her, despite his past, and would probably be willing to die for her cause. Still, if he had just told her he was a spy immediately after the whole poison wine incident, this whole thing might’ve turned out a lot better, providing she never let Drogo know.

I think it’s safe to say that the best part of this episode was Arya’s scene. Child actors/actresses are usually terrible, but Maisie Williams nailed that laugh, sort of like how Dany nailed those slavers to a cross a few episodes back. I’m not sure whether to find this amusing or to fear for her sanity, but the scene was amazing nonetheless, despite not making a whole lot of sense. Why did the Hound and Arya visit the Twins so secretly but just walked straight up to the Vale? And what about all those mountain tribes that caused so much trouble in season 1? And why the hell would anyone let someone as valuable as a Stark, especially a presumed dead one, just walk away?

It’s best not to dwell on these things.

Other notes:

• Holy foreshadowing, Batman! Not just with the “You could’ve at least worn a helmet” line, but there were a whole lot of other moments that made me go, “Ha. I know what he’s talking about.” For spoilers’ sake, I can’t say what they were.
• To all those summer children complaining that “Ugh, all the good guys keep dying!” At least take light in the fact that the whole Kingdom of Dorne is now extremely pissed off at Kings Landing. And at least Oberyn got to die in a memorable way.
• Do heads actually make that sound when they’re crushed? We should test this out.
• The Missandei and Grey Worm scenes were nice, and it makes me glad that she isn’t the ten year old girl she is in the books.

Rating: 9/10. Great episode, but tough to watch.

Game of Thrones: Laws of Gods and Men Review

Caution: Spoilers for every GoT episode up until now, but nothing that hasn’t happened yet in the books will be spoiled.

Really, the only disappointing moment in this whole episode was when the screen cut to black at 9:52, eight minutes before I expected. Nothing goes by faster than an episode of Game of Thrones, and this particular episode felt like a sitcom (in length, not in tone).

The episode starts off with a quiet scene featuring Davos and Stannis meeting with Mycroft Holmes Tycho Nestoris, where Davos got to show off his best bro skills as he gave a monologue about how great of a King he [Stannis] would make, which convinced them to loan him money. I would’ve done a fist bump if not for the fact that I’ve always believed Renly would’ve made a much better King. #TeamRenly4Life

Meanwhile, Yara goes on a mission to rescue Theon—sorry, I mean Reek—only to fail in a scene remarkably similar the episodes in the Simpsons where Mr. Burns releases the hounds. At first glance this scene seems like pointless filler, since there were no real consequences for either party. I mean sure, Ramsay lost a lot of men, but I doubt he ever placed much value on human life to begin with, and Yara’s back in the exact same place she started. But the real point of the scene was to show just how much of an effect the months of endless torture had on Theon. When there’s finally a chance for him to escape, he doesn’t take it because he thinks it’s some sort of trap, which is frustrating and heartbreaking at the same time.

(Side note to all the aspiring authors out there: If you ever want to make an unlikeable character sympathetic, just have some crazy psychopath torture him for a year or so.)

The bath scene afterwards was all types of creepy and depressing, and it made me realize just how great of an actor Alfie Allen is. Too bad The Dinklage had to steal the spotlight near the end. On the bright side, I’ll be shipping Theon and Ramsay for now on.

I loved the scene with Daenerys, because now it seems that the rules of aSoIaF, that cause the suffering of every other character in the show, are finally applying to her. She faces two difficult moral problems in a row, only to find that she has to listen to over 200 more whiners? Even worse: she has to listen to Missandei repeat all her titles over and over again all day? I’d rather be Theon.

Then we get to the juicy part of the episode: the trial. All of Tyrion’s past moments of awesomeness come back to haunt him, as he is betrayed by both Varys and Shae, and has to put up with Grand Maester Pycelle’s, Cersei’s, and Meryn Trant’s obvious exaggerations and lies. (Really, Pycelle? Joffrey was the most noble child the gods ever put on this good earth?)

Peter Dinklage deserves not one, not two, but TWELVE Emmys for his acting in this episode, most notably from the moment Shae showed up in court until his big speech at the end. “Watching your vicious bastard die gave me more relief than 1,000 lying whores.” “I wish I had enough poison for the whole pack of you.” Oh, snap. Shit just got real.

I like how Tyrion called for the trial by combat with no real hope that he’d win. After all, his two most likely champions are Jaime and Bronn. The former has lost a hand and the latter has been mysteriously absent lately. Plus, they’ll have to face Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane, (is this a spoiler? I hope it’s not.) who is described in the books as being seven feet tall and more muscular than the Hulk and I (that’s right, me) combined. Tyrion did this because it’s the only option in which Tywin had no control over, and it completely ruined the whole “ship Tyrion off to the Night’s Watch” plan, which we all knew wasn’t going to happen anyway. I’d be happy for Tyrion if it weren’t for the fact that he’s probably going to die soon. No spoilers there; that’s just fake speculation.

The show hasn’t really gotten the point across that the Mountain is a horrible person, in my opinion. In the books, I hated him more than I hated Joffrey, and that’s saying something.

Rating: 9/10.

Other things of note:

• How do you TV only viewers feel of Shae? While betraying Tyrion wasn’t the nicest move, it’s not like she had much of a choice in the matter. I doubt she knocked on Tywin’s door and offered to be a witness for the trial. But from the look she gave Tyrion you could tell she’s at least partially doing this for revenge.
• I have theory that Daenerys is actually Yara Greyjoy in disguise (or vice versa). Think about it: you never see them in the same scene, and they’re both around the same height, so… yeah. I’m calling it.
• I love how casually Yara slit that man’s neck. She’s the best.

10 Reasons Not to Write a Decent Post Today

1) 24: Live Another Day is on, and there’s no way you’re missing that.
2) You’re too tired to do anything productive.
3) You’ve just discovered a life ruining new app that is so addicting, you can’t think about anything else, even if you tried.
4) You’re trying to read a thousand page epic fantasy novel (A Dance With Dragons, perhaps) as quickly as possible.
5) You have chemistry homework.
6) You have even more chemistry homework.
7) Your last post has been getting a lot of views, and you don’t want to take it out of the spotlight.
8) You’re too busy looking in the mirror and thinking “How come I’m not this beautiful all the time?” No, just me? Moving on…
9) You’re too busy planning a blog party to be scheduled this weekend or the next but can’t think of a theme. (Any ideas?)
10) You’re just that lazy.

The Five Worst Fictional Mothers

In honor of Mother’s Day, I decided to write a list of the five worst fictional mothers I could think of. I’m not sure why I bothered to type that last sentence, since I’m sure you’ve already figured that out from the title.

Before I begin, I should point out that unfortunately, I have yet to read/watch every single book, movie and TV show in existence, so chances are I’ll be leaving a few of them out. Feel free to comment with your list below.

Also, I didn’t bother to write a “Best Five Worst Fictional Mothers” list, because I think we all know how that would go:

1. Molly Weasley
2. Molly Weasley.
3. Molly Weasley’s mother, because Molly sure didn’t get those parenting skill just by learning on the job.
4. Molly Weasley.
5. Molly Weasley.

Now, onto the real list:

(Caution: Spoilers for 5, 4 and 2.)

5) Lori Grimes, from The Walking Dead.

Lori gets a lot of hate from Walking Dead fans, and most of it is completely deserved. She’s whiny, inconsistent, and somehow managed to crash her car on an empty road. But that’s not important. The worst part is that she’s a comically bad mother, to the point where it became a running joke amongst the fans how she never knew where her son was. You could also blame Carl for this, since he always used to leave the house without telling anyone, but he still shouldn’t have gotten away with it so many times.

Fortunately, (or unfortunately?) once she started to improve, she died in a rather brutal, tragic way that made me forget how much I disliked her over the last two and a half seasons.

4) Brianna Barkesdale, from The Wire.

Brianna loves her son D’Angelo and will do anything for him—providing it doesn’t mess with her standard of living. And so when her son gets arrested because of his family’s drug selling shenanigans, she guilts him into agreeing to spend twenty years in prison and not rat them out. Not cool, Ma.

3) Cersei Lannister from A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R. R. Martin, and it’s TV adaptation.

Cersei loves her kids, that much is clear. But she loves them a little too much, to the point where she’s willing to forgive them (particularly Joffrey) for just about anything. I’m not one to lecture people on their parenting tactics, but if your son cuts open a pregnant cat just for teehees, you should at the very least give him a time out.

2) Margaret White from Carrie, by Stephen King.

This woman’s crazy, what with her extremely strict religious beliefs that might have been acceptable back in the puritan times, but nowadays would be considered insane. She even punishes her daughter—by locking her in a closet—for daring to get her period. (It should also be noted that she never even informed Carrie about the whole menstruation cycle to begin with, leaving her scared and confused in the girl’s locker room as everyone else made fun of her.) Her terrible parenting is what made Carrie such an outcast to begin with, and if it weren’t for her I’m sure the whole prom disaster never would’ve happened.

1) Lysa Tully from A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R. R. Martin, and it’s TV adaptation.

She is just all types of crazy, isn’t she? She’s basically the Westeros equivalent of a helicopter parent who still breastfeeds her eight year old son. *shudders*

I like to think that if she has taken a more, shall we say, relaxed version of parenting, Robin might not had turned out as bratty, creepy or as sickly as he is now.

So what do you think? Who would you put on your “Worst Fictional Moms Ever” list? More importantly, Happy Mother’s Day.

Ranking the (New) Doctor Who Companions

Everyone has a favorite companion. Also, everyone had a least favorite companion, and I’m going to take it upon myself to rank Rose Tyler, Captain Jack Harkness, Mickey Smith, Martha Jones, Donna Noble, Wilfred Mott, Amy Pond, Rory Williams, River Song, and Clara Oswald in the order of greatness that I see fit.

Chances are, you will disagree with me on at least one point (most likely #10). Try not to respond with hostility.

10) Rose Tyler

First, let’s talk about the good things about Rose here: she’s brave, and she was a lot of fun with the ninth Doctor. Series one Rose would’ve ranked much better on this list. But with the tenth Doctor? She was annoying.

*Takes cover from all the 10/Rose shippers.*

In series 2 she went from a cool, likeable companion to a petty, selfish jealousmobile.* She and 10 were pretty nauseating together, at least in my opinion. What was even worse was when the Doctor spent most of the next series moaning over Rose, and ignoring the much cooler Martha Jones. And then the show brought her back not once, not twice, but three times. (Of course that last time she was actually a weapon of mass destruction taking Rose’s form, but I’m trying to make a point here, so shuddup.) Not only was this annoying for the group of fans who didn’t like Rose, but it mostly ruined the effect of “Doomsday,” which I thought was mostly great.

Best episodes: The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, The Impossible Planet/The Satin Pit, Father’s Day.

9) Clara Oswald (AKA: Oswin Oswald/Clara Oswin Oswald.)

I liked Clara in her first two episodes. In Asylum of the Daleks she was competent,  funny and extremely likeable, while still showing concealed vulnerability (such as the scene when the Daleks were banging on the doors). The Snowmen Clara was extremely Mary Sue-ish, but she was at least interesting and fun to watch.

And then modern day Clara showed up, who’s basically just a really boring version of the last two. The show was too wrapped up in the mystery of Clara to actually focus on her character development, which as it turns out is the most important thing to do when writing a story. Also, I can’t be the only one disappointed that the show decided not to have a companion from the Victorian era. Can’t we once have someone in the Tardis who isn’t from modern day London?

My problem with her is that she doesn’t have any noticeable flaws. She starts beginning to feel like an almost real person in The Time of the Doctor where she calls herself a bossy control freak, despite never giving the audience the impression that she was in fact, a bossy control freak. Also, she secretly fancies the Doctor (yawn).

Best episodes: Asylum of the Daleks, The Snowmen, and The Time of the Doctor.

8) Captain Jack Harkness

This doesn’t include his time on Torchwood, because then I’d probably rank him a bit higher.)

Jack is basically the Han Solo of the Doctor Who universe: a time traveling, pansexual Han Solo. He was terrific in his first series. Unfortunately, he was, for the most part, completely useless in the third and fourth series. His main job was to flirt with people and say a couple cheesy one liners. That doesn’t stop him from being a bad ass, though.

Best episodes: The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, Bad Wold/The Parting of the Ways.

7) Mickey Smith

Mickey is a lot like Rory, except Rory actually got the girl while Mickey lost Rose to the Doctor. Not sure why he liked Rose to begin with, but you still gotta feel bad for him. He also turned into a tough, competent warrior in the second season, and was really the only main character in that series to get any type of character growth.

Best episodes: Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel, Doomsday.

6) River Song.

River is like the female Jack Harkness, but with better hair. People call her a Mary Sue, (ironically, they often do this right before calling her selfish or arrogant), but I like how she gets more more flawed as we go back in her time stream. It’s reverse characterization, and I think that’s clever.

Sure, she’s selfish. She even stated that losing the Doctor would cause her more pain than the suffering of the universe combined. But hey, at least she has the whole, “I was brainwashed into a psychopath” excuse to fall back on, whereas Rose has nothing.

Best episodes: Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon, The Name of the Doctor.

5) Amy Pond

Amy gets a lot of hate, for her dismissal towards Rory and her supposed lack of character development. But what I like about Amy is that she’s perhaps the only companion who gets completely screwed over by the Doctor in her first episode.

A magical man in a time traveling box swoops into your life as a child, promises he’ll be back in five minute to take you traveling across the universe with him, and then he doesn’t return until twelve years later. Of course you’re going to have some issues to work out.

In The Eleventh Hour, you can see how she’s afraid to form any close, meaningful connection with anyone (she’s even embarrassed about dating Rory), probably because the last person she formed a meaningful connection with did the dip and never returned for twelve years when she was a kid.

(Not cool, Doctor. Not cool at all.)

Then as the show goes on, you could see her starting to heal from all the damage the Doctor caused her. Amy from series 7 is a lot different than Amy from The Eleventh Hour, and that’s a good thing.

Not to mention she has the greatest, most piercing scream out of any of the Doctor Who companions.

Best episodes: Amy’s Choice, The Girl Who Waited, The Angels Take Manhatten.

4) Donna Noble

I have to admit: I hated Donna when I first saw her. She spent the majority of The Runaway Bride screaming and being as unhelpful as possible. When I heard she was coming back for series four, I was annoyed with the show runner. What was RTD thinking, bringing this annoying woman back into the show?

As it turns out, bringing Donna back was one of the best decisions Russel T. Davies ever made, as she became more and more likeable as the show went on. I assume the main reason most people seem to love her is because she and the Doctor had a non-romantic, platonic relationship, which was a breath of fresh air after getting two companions in a row who were both in love with him. She also challenges the Doctor, like in The Fires of Pompeii where she convinced the Doctor to save that one family.

I also enjoyed the way her storyline ended. Getting rid of all her character development was much more tragic than killing her off could have been, and I’m a huge fan of tragedy.**

Best episodes: The Fires of Pompeii, Partners in Crime, Turn Left, The Unicorn and the Wasp.

3) Rory Williams

Rory has the same character development as Mickey, but he has the advantage of having waited 2,000 years for Amy, and was a nice enough guy to not rub it in her face for the rest of their lives. Seriously, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was all:

Rory: “Hey we should buy a trampoline.”

Amy: “I don’t know, there’s not enough space—”

Rory: “TWO THOUSAND YEARS!”

Amy: “Okay fine.”

But the fact that he didn’t just shows how great of a person he is. Rory is a saint.

Best episodes: The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang, A Good Man Goes to War, The Angels Take Manhattan.

No, she wouldn’t.

2) Martha Jones.

Martha is, as the kids say, “the bomb.” Unlike Rose, her love for the Doctor never defines who she is, and she’s not the type of hot-head to say to their family: “Screw you, people I’ve known my whole life. I’m going to leave you all forever for this dangerous guy who constantly puts me in mortal peril.” *Cough cough Rose cough.*

And unlike all the other companions except Amy, she left the Doctor on her own terms, choosing to leave him behind for the sake of her family. That alone makes her on of the best companions.

Best episodes: Family of Blood/Human Nature, The Last of the Timelords.

1) Wilfred Mott

I hated The End of Time. Just the mention of it angers me and makes me want to go outside and steal candy from children. But it had one saving grace that raised the rating of it from a one out of ten to a four out of ten: Wilfred.

He’s the best. Not only is he totally rocking that antler hat of his, but his optimism, his compassion and general grandfather-y personality makes him the best companion we’ve had since at least the reboot.

Best episodes: Any episode he’s in.

Since I know for a fact that most of you will disagree with me, I set up a poll.

*If you ever use the term “Jealousmobile,” make sure to give me credit.

**Fictional tragedy is the only kind I like.

Sherlock Season 3 Predictions:

For those not lucky enough to be living in the UK, the first episode of Sherlock season 3 (The Empty Hearse) airs today on PBS, at exactly 9:58 PM. It’s a strange time to start an episode (why not wait two minutes?) but I don’t mind.

The rules for this post is: NO SPOILERS! And when I say no spoilers, I mean you’re not allowed to confirm my predictions until the end of the season. If you do, you will unleash a fury that not even the devil himself could contain.

Also, I’m assuming that anyone reading this has already seen the first two seasons (series?), so if you haven’t, and plan to watch it some time soon, then get away from this post as soon as possible.  If you’re in the mood for some high-brow literature, maybe you could click here and read the interactive story I’m working on,

Anyway, here they are:

• John is understandably upset about Sherlock faking his death. I can imagine how the scene would go: first John is shocked, then he’s happy(?), then furious, and finally he accepts the whole thing and everything goes back to normal. Hopefully.

Oh, and by the way, there better be a good reason for Sherlock waiting TWO FULL YEARS to finally tell John he’s still alive. Seriously Sherlock? At least send a post card or something.

• While I can’t say I blame Sally Donovan for suspecting Sherlock (I probably would too, if put in the same situation), she’s probably going to feel horrible about contributing to his suicide. And I bet the journalist girl is going to be a little bit upset as well. Maybe they’ll all share a group hug and everything will be forgiven.
• My earlier prediction about Sherlock being in a tesselecta suit during The Reichenbach Fall will be disproven.
• Sherlock was one step ahead of Moriarty the whole time. And he escaped with the help of both Mycroft and Molly, and whoever that biker guy was.
• The biker guy somehow sprayed the fear gas from The Hounds of Baskerville onto John when he bumped into him, so when John saw Sherlock he only saw what he was afraid to see, which was Sherlock dead. The body was actually a similar looking one with fake blood on it/him.
• John will have grown a mustache out of mourning, and will finally shave after Sherlock makes fun of him for the hundredth time.
• Mary will die, either in this season or the next. I’m saying this because if I’m not mistaken, John’s wife in the original stories ended up dying somehow. (I admit, I’ve only read A Study in Scarlet. I’ll get around to the other books sooner or later.)
• John confesses that he is in love with Sherlock. Mary is oddly okay with this.
• The first and last episodes will be amazing, while the middle episode will be somewhat forgettable. Then again, The Sign of Three is written by Stephen Moffat, who is many things, but not forgettable, so hopefully I’m wrong here. (Edit: as it turns out, The Sign of Three is actually written by Steve Thompson,)
• A lot of the first episode is spent getting everything back to the way it originally was. Hopefully, John will return to 221B Baker Street with Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock will go back to solving crimes, and Moriarty isn’t really dead.

I seriously hope Moriarty stays dead though, because 1) There’s no way (that isn’t contrived) he could have survived that gun shot, and 2) It would just make the ending to The Reichenbach Fall seem pointless.

Well, those are all my predictions. For those who’ve seen it already, feel free to laugh at how wrong they are.

2014: A (Mostly Optimistic) Look Ahead

At midnight, a three will turn into a four, and everyone will be complaining about the people saying ‘New year, new me,” even though no one actually says that anymore.

I’m not going to be spending my time talking about 2013, which was a great year, at least for me. (I hate overly nostalgic people who think the present sucks and the past was perfect.) Here I’ll only be focusing on 2014. There are some things I’m looking forward to, and some things I’d rather pass on. Let’s focus on the latter first.

I have ten cavities that I need to get filled in. I brush my teeth twice a day, but I guess I underestimated the value of flossing. Apparently, it’s important.

Meanwhile, my brother never flosses, drinks enough soda daily to fill up a lake, and needs to be yelled at by mom in order to brush his teeth every day. But I guess he got the Gift of Perfect Teeth for Christmas, because he doesn’t have a single cavity. Life is unfair.

I’m sure a couple bad things will happen to me next year, but I can’t really think of anything expected. The only thing I could complain about is that I have to go back to school again on January 2nd. The fact that I have to set an alarm clock to 11:00 AM is a testament to how hard it’s going to be to adjust back to my school schedule.

But onto the positives:

1) I’m getting HBO come January 20th. My mom sent Verizon Fios a complaint about something, and they responded with “Hey, here’s two free years of HBO!” instead of fixing the original problem. (That was not a complaint, by the way.)

2) And since there’s free HBO, that means I can go back to watching the adaptation of A Game of Thrones. I just finished the second book of the series and it’s amazing, although I have to take a break between each one because they’re so dark and depressing. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is next.

The show, from the first season I watched of it, was a great show, although it did have a tendency to include gratuitous sexual content that doesn’t even serve the story. (Also not a complaint.) It stayed more faithful to the first book than any other movie/TV adaptation I’ve ever seen.

3) I also have a kindle now, which means I now have unlimited access to just about any book I want. Paper books are cool and all (I like the texture) but eBooks are much more convenient. To demonstrate, I took a picture.

Over 4,000 pages could fit in a tiny kindle.

4) I’m making a goal for myself. I will be reading at least 52 books this year. Which is going to be hard because I read a lot of really long books. I’m planning to read A Storm of Swords (1,216 pages), A Feast for Crows (1,104 pages), A Dance with Dragons (1,152 pages), Wizard and Glass (752 pages), Wolves of the Calla (960 pages), The Dark Tower (1072 pages), War and Peace (1298 pages) and Les Miserablés (960 pages). Most of these will take me longer than a week. But they seem interesting, so… yeah.

7) Sherlock series 3 is coming back this year. Tomorrow, for those jerks in the U.K. (I didn’t mean that; I’m just jealous.)

8) Did I ever tell you about how I love snowboarding? Because I’m basically the next Shaun White, except not at all. Going snowboarding was the high point of my last winter, (besides starting a blog that people actually read), partly because snowboarding is fun, but mostly because of the waffles.

Picture the best waffle you’ve ever had. Now picture the same thing, except with chocolate poured over it. Those were the waffles they served up in Vermont. Is your mouth watering? Good.

Some other things I have to look forward to.

• The chances of us making contact with aliens are slightly higher than they were this year, although I’m not sure if this is a good thing.
• The Walking Dead comes back this February. Also, if there’s any Walking Dead fans reading this who want to have a super long discussion about the show, comment here.
• The chance of me dying a horrible death are roughly the same as they were last year.

Happy New Year, everyone!

The Time of the Doctor: A Review

Caution: Lots and Lots of Spoilers for the latest Doctor Who Christmas Special.

The bad:

As it turns out, having the daleks forget all about the Doctor in Asylum of the Daleks served no other purpose than to end the episode on a high note. Boo!!!!

Tasha Lem dies, and is used as a dalek puppet. But she managed to fight off the daleks from controlling her mind (already hard to believe considering an eye stalk just popped out of her head) and is back alive again, just as fine as she was before. How does that work? She died. Moffat, you should take a lesson from George R. R. Martin and learn to start killing off main characters.

Speaking of Tasha Lem, she had almost exactly the same personality as River Song. Boo!!!

The Doctor using regeneration energy to kill all his enemies was a bit of a stretch**, especially since the time lords giving him the energy in the first place was already a bit of a deus ex machina. It wasn’t as bad as, say, The Last of the Timelords, but still.

I’m glad that the series six plot-line got wrapped up, but the way it did seemed made up on the spot, which it probably was. Hey, at least it made sense. Mostly.

The good:

Is it me, or did Clara actually show some character depth in this episode? We finally get to see her family, and she showed all these brand new emotions we’ve never seen before. Combine that with Jenna Coleman’s acting, and Clara (almost) stole the show.

I don’t get the complaints of it being overly convoluted. Compared to episodes like The Big Bang (which I loved) or The Wedding of River Song (which was okay), this was fairly straight-forward, and tied up all the loose threads from Eleven’s era.

Was anyone genuinely upset when Handles the Cyber-head died? I was hoping he’d be a K-9-like companion for a while.

As much as the plot needed some work, I must say, Matt Smith was at his very best here. Everything you could like about his Doctor was in this episode, and the ending was all the more powerful for it.

Speaking of the ending, the regeneration scene was handled perfectly. The Eleventh Doctor went out happy and optimistic for the future, instead of whining the whole time about how he doesn’t want to go. Cough cough The End of Time cough*

Peter Capaldi was only shown for about thirty seconds, but the few moments we did get with him were great. I like him already.

Things I’m not sure about:

Did the doctor just age at least six hundred years in one episode? Not sure how I feel about that.

Stop bringing back the Weeping Angels! They’re cool and all, but every time they show up, they become even less scary. I think they never should have returned after the Time of Angels two-parter.

What was up with the super-quick regeneration? Capaldi just popped up out of nowhere.

Overall Rating: 7.45/10. Flawed, but the two main characters held it all together. Also, the feels.

*To be fair to the Tenth Doctor, he was having a really bad day.

**By a bit of a stretch, I mean it was a huge stretch. Not even Mr. Fantastic could stretch that far.

To end this post on a high note, I should point out that today is my blog’s one year anniversary. To celebrate, I made myself a cake.

The Day of the Doctor: A Quick Review

[Warning: HUGE Spoilers Below]

Even though I tried to lower my expectations, they were still pretty high before I watched this episode. Luckily, they were surpassed. Others will disagree with me, some will agree, and more than a few people will be thinking “I don’t care. What’s Doctor Who?”

Because I’m too lazy to come up with an actual review, here’s all the positives I thought of the episode, and all the negatives.

The Good: 

• Billie Piper was terrific. I didn’t want her to return because I felt like Rose had com back too many times. I think series four would have been a lot better if Rose hadn’t been there. But luckily, Piper wasn’t playing Rose! She was playing a much better character/plot device.
• All the Doctors were exceptional.
• Peter Capaldi and Tom Baker made a cameo!
• I liked the Zygons, and the paintings, and how it tied into John Hurt’s decision to press the button or not.
• The squabbling between the Doctors was well done. That’s some nice protagonist vs protagonist conflict right there.
• The humor was great, and perfectly balanced between the darker parts of the episode. Did anyone else find that unlocked door part hilarious?

The Bad (Mostly Nitpicks):

• The opening scene was funny and all, but seriously, why didn’t anyone knock on the Tardis door just to make sure no one was in there? That would be the first thing I would do if I was in charge of Unit. And even if they didn’t, they only got lifted up about a minute after Clara drove into the Tardis. Assuming it takes at least thirty seconds for the helicopter to successfully grab onto the Tardis, the people in the helicopter should definitely have seen Clara drive in.
• The ninth (tenth?) Doctor wasn’t in the episode. I can’t blame the show for this since Eccleston simply didn’t want to be a part of it for some reason. It’s a real shame because it would have been nice to see his regeneration,
• I’m a little confused as to how the Zygon story-line ended. Are they all still sitting around in that room?
• How exactly did they get out of the Doctor’s time-stream in The Name of the Doctor? Did he just walk out of it the same way he walked in? If so, why couldn’t Clara just do that?
• As much as I like Murray Gold’s score, there were a couple times where it seemed overused, or not appropriate for what was going on.
• I wasn’t in it.
• Matt Smith is leaving in the next episode, and that sucks.

Overall Rating: 9/10.

So what did you guys think? Did you like it? Did you not like it? Are you not sure what Doctor Who even is? Comment below. (Or not. It’s not like I could make you do anything.”

Why I Actually Need School

I don’t hate school as much as the average teenager seems to. Sure, it sucks to wake up at six each morning, the bathrooms are disgusting, and the lack of air conditioners makes the last three months until summer vacation a living hell. But if I had to choose between going to school or being shot in the gut and left for dead, I’d probably choose school. Unless it was a Monday.

I’m going back to school on Monday and I couldn’t be more somewhat excited. The reason? There are many, and I will tell you after this picture of a cat.

Hey, this picture pretty much sums up this whole blog, right? Just kidding, this blog is hilarious.

Reason #1: It gives me something to complain about.

“I hate having two and a half months of free time where I can do anything I want!” said no one ever. Summer is a worry free time, and all summer-related problems are usually invalid anyway (except for heat stroke, forest fires, malaria, and a whole bunch of other stuff that I’m conveniently forgetting for the convenience of this post).

During the school year, I have an infinite list of things to complain about: “I hate waking up before the sun comes out and having to walk to the bus stop in freezing cold weather.” “Why does everyone walk so slowly in the hallway?” “My dog lit my homework on fire using two sticks and a magnifying glass and my stupid teacher doesn’t believe me.” These are all valid complaints. And to be honest, complaining is fun. It gives us all something to talk about.

Reason #2: I’m motivated to write more.

If you were to make a line graph showing my productivity throughout the year writing-wise, the line would stay mostly the same throughout the first six months of the year. Then, halfway through June, the line would dramatically decline, creating a three month valley, as the line would then increase the same rate around the beginning of September.

If I were to guess, I’d say this happens because during the school year, I use my brain more often, watch much less TV and I’m no longer allowed to sleep twelve hours a day. I also, on average, interact with a lot more people on a daily basis. I believe it was Abraham Lincoln who said, “Interacting with more people can serve as inspiration for your blog posts and shit.” I’m paraphrasing, of course, but you get the point.

Reason #3: I miss my school’s library.

Because I was kicked out of the town library, I have to actually pay for my books during the summer. I have to be absolutely sure the book’s going to be good before I buy it. otherwise I just wasted ten bucks I could have spent on food instead. Luckily my school has a pretty big selection of available books (except no Neil Gaiman, for some reason), so I’ll be saving a lot of money during the school year.

Reason #4: All my favorite shows return during the school year. 

The final season of How I Met Your Mother, along with Modern Family, Doctor Who, Sherlock, The Walking Dead and a bunch of other shows I’m forgetting about, return during the school year. (Except maybe Sherlock. No one knows when that will air.)

In addition to that, Catching Fire is coming out in November, and from the trailer it looks great. Dr. Sleep, a sequel to The Shining by Stephen King, is coming out this month, and the final book in the Divergent trilogy is coming some time in October. So I have plenty of things to look forward to.

And no, it’s not depressing at all that the things I’ve been looking forward to most this year are TV shows.

This Post is About Yellow Buses (Don’t Worry, It’s Interesting!)

I’m sorry if I’ve lead you to believe that I am a genius. I can’t blame you for thinking that, seeing as it’s mostly true. I don’t mean to brag or anything, but I’m a pretty smart guy. In fact, whenever Sherlock Holmes is baffled by something, he comes to my doorstep for advice. That being said, there are still some things I do not know, and they’re usually obvious things.

I loved this episode, by the way.

Such as the fact that yellow school buses are an American icon.

My entire life I’ve ridden to school on a yellow school bus, and never thought anything of it. Of course I knew that not everyone in the world rode a yellow school bus to school, but I didn’t know that yellow school buses were apparently limited to North America. Canadians have yellow buses too (I think. When I visited Canada that one time, I never thought to look for one.), but when people think of yellow buses, they think of the U S of A, and that surprises me.

I found this out for the first time when watching a documentary on Doctor Who, a show that is becoming more and more commonly referenced on this blog. The documentary was about filming the sixth season opener (The Impossible Astronaut), and it had the cast and crew talking about how they wanted to get as many American icons as possible into the episode. When I said that, I thought to myself, “Well that explains the cowboy hat the Doctor was wearing, and the car he was sitting on, and the landscape they filmed the opening scene at,” but I never thought anything of the yellow school bus. Which was one of the most important parts, as it turns out.

Now, did any other Americans not know about this? Or am I just unusually ignorant of the rest of the world? And for my non-American viewers (they seem to growing in percentage each day, I’ve noticed), how often do you see yellow buses?

I need to know!