glomming Strike Back

Over the weekend I glommed up the latest season of one of my favorite TV shows, Strike Back. I love the format where it’s effectively one long movie broken up into to episodes. Each episode leaves on a cliff hanger and I also enjoy the banter between the team…well especially the original team of Scott and Stonebridge.

I knew it was a new team this season, but I was willing to give them a chance.

I’m glad I did as I did enjoy the latest season (Gracie Novin played by Alin Sumarwata really made it for me and she had some of the best lines). There were also the usual plot twists, that I knew would be there but still left me stunned (great work writers).

However it’s very hard to bond with character’s when there isn’t much known about them. Their past was hinted at, but not well enough for me to really care. I started to worry about Novin when she got involved with another soldier (that never ends well).

I think it’s important to remember before your characters start lobbing grenades and chasing after black market weapons we need to care about them so we worry (though based on previous seasons I was expecting team and deaths ☹ ).

I’m looking forward to another season...not sure if there is one…

The Fall TV Season is Upon Us and I’m Not Ready

Every fall there is a host of new TV shows premiering and even more returning. Usually my husband and I go over summaries and trailers for the new crop and choose three or four to sample.

This year the very idea makes me fatigued.

The problem is that we haven’t caught up on last year’s viewing yet. We still have two episodes of Supergirl, seven episodes of Shield and eight of Twin Peaks to plow through. We’ve all but given up on Outlander season two.

I blame the invention of the PVR (? Perhaps called DVRs in the States?) Once upon a time you had to watch a show on the day that it aired or miss it until summer repeats or possibly forever. Then came the VCR and taping shows that played at an inconvenient time. Which was great. But we never had more than one ‘scratch’ tape so we never fell that far behind. Our PVR has a LOT of memory and so there’s less urgency to finish. (The only one we watch in a timely fashion is Game of Thrones to prevent spoilers.)

We really don’t watch that many shows. However the ones we do watch tend to have an over-arching plotline so we’re fanatical about watching them in order and not missing an episode. It ought to be possible to keep up or at least catch up over the summer. But each year we fall behind.

It’s my fault, really. There are a lot of evenings where we could have watched TV, but I chose to read instead.

Shows We’re Still Watching

1/ Timeless. New last year, this show took a few episodes to really hit its stride and we almost dropped it. I’m so glad we stuck with it and even gladder that it’s been renewed. Cool time travel and good characters with an over-arching plot.

2/ Supergirl. I love that we can watch this as a family. We’re only two shows behind so I’m still hoping to be caught up by the time season three starts.

3/ Big Bang Theory. This is the only sitcom on our list. (I often find sitcom humour hard to take because I hate watching characters I like do stupid things.) However, it’s much easier to block off time to watch a half-hour show, so we are caught up on this one.

4/ Shield. This one is on the bubble. I’m still enjoying most of the episodes, but we’re hopelessly behind. Not only that but it’s spinning off a new show The Inhumans, which sounds cool, but I don’t know that we have time for.

5/ Twin Peaks. We loved the original series but this one mostly has us shaking our heads. We’re eight episodes in and Lynch keeps introducing new characters and plotlines--and ignoring earlier plotlines. We watched ‘Gotta Light’ last night and only the very first scene had anything to do with the plot. Sigh. I’m not quite ready to give up yet, but I may watch the next one with the fast forward button in hand.

New Shows to Try:

1/ Star Trek: Discovery

2/ The Orville

3/ The Inhumans

4/ The Dark Crystal

5/ Krypton

There are also dozens of older shows I would love to try: The Librarians, The Flash, Jessica Jones, Stranger Things, but there’s just no time. Not without cutting into my reading time and that, my friend, isn’t happening.

Supernatural TV I love from Back in the Day and Today

by Maureen L. Bonatch 

I don’t always watch television, but when I do—and when I have the rare opportunity to choose the station—I usually pick a supernatural or paranormal television show. Besides offering a wonderful escape from the stress and demands of the everyday, I believe watching these shows helps me with my writing. 

Show vs. Tell

As a writer, I’m constantly striving to show the scene rather than tell it to the reader. This includes using a lot of descriptive terms. When I’m watching television, this isn’t always necessary for the actors/actresses. You can already see the scene, the color of their hair, eyes and their facial expression. Therefore, as a paranormal and fantasy writer, I believe that watching these shows is more than entertainment. It’s also educational. Perhaps a kind of research tool. (Consult your accountant- I’m not one- but if you’re a fiction author, you should be able to deduct your Netflix.)

While watching the show I’m mentally crafting how I’d write the scene in a novel to depict the picture I see on the screen. I have my notepad handy (paper, or the digital one on my phone) to take notes, or to remember an amazing line from the show.

Stretching the Imagination

Paranormal and fantasy television shows encourage us to stretch our imagination. A good one has us easily accepting this into our reality. Over the years, I’ve watched this genre of television grow with technology and the ability to use fabulous costumes, make-up, stunts and special effects. It’s more obvious just how far this has advanced when I watch an old favorite like The Land of The Lost, or I Dream of Jeannie or Bewitched. But when I was watching those shows back in the day it didn’t matter. I didn’t notice how fake some of the creatures looked—because I was already enraptured by the show. 

Some of My Favorites

I’ve watched many different paranormal and supernatural television shows, but some stand a head above the rest (at least in my book ;). Here are a few that I’ve either binge watched multiple episodes with an insatiable appetite to know what happens next. Or that I had to wait impatiently for the week to pass so I could revisit my favorite characters.

•       Supernatural
•       Outcast
•       Stranger Things
•       Ghost Whisperer
•       Medium
•       The X-Files
•       Millennium
•       Charmed

In fact, my first published short story, That Magic Moment, was inspired from the television show, Charmed. 

Can love cross the boundaries mortals have erected to reject all that cannot be explained?

As the last witch in the Turner line, Celeste doesn’t know if she’s finally found true love or if her grandma cast a love spell to continue the Turner line. 

Dane Johns is a man not easily forgotten, but that’s exactly what Celeste plans to do. Because he has one big flaw. He’s a mortal.

Do You Have any Favorite Television Shows You’d like to Share? 

Author Bio: Maureen Bonatch grew up in small town Pennsylvania and her love of the four seasons—hockey, biking, sweat pants and hibernation—keeps her there. While immersed in writing or reading paranormal romance and fantasy, she survives on caffeine, wine, music, and laughter. A feisty Shih Tzu keeps her in line. Find Maureen on her website, Facebook & Twitter

Do I Still Want to Believe?

Let me tell y'all about my relationship with The X-Files.

I was already an SF/F fangirl by the time Mulder and Scully first showed up on our screens in 1993, so I can't exactly say that it was the first show I ever fangirled. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, MacGyver, and Remington Steele all beat The X-Files to that particular punch. But that said, it was arguably the first show I fangirled as an adult out of college, doing double duty with Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman to seize our household's attention that year.

And boy howdy, did our household, the Murkworks, love us some X-Files. We'd happily sing the lyrics we discovered to the theme song ("the X-Files is a show / with music by Mark Snow"), and my housemate Mimi and I in particular totally swooned for Mulder. The first two seasons in particular were amazing, and to this day, a particular plot reveal in second season holds the record (along with a later plot reveal in Babylon 5) for how long a plot point on TV has ever reduced me to amazed, babbling incoherence.

(Season closer of season 2, "Anasazi". When the Smoking Man shows up on a certain doorstep. I boggled for twenty straight minutes over that. It was awesome.)

As we got further into the show, though, it became apparent that no matter how much we wanted there to be an overall plot arc, there wasn't really. The mytharc episodes kept dropping so many tantalizing hints that nevertheless failed to pull together into a cohesive narrative--particularly after the first movie, Fight the Future, which showed up between seasons 5 and 6. Once that movie happened, my household all felt as if the stakes had been upped considerably, and we looked anxiously forward to seeing what would happen next.

Problem was, the show fell back upon the "Monster of the Week" format that had seized its fanbase's attention in the first place. And once David Duchovny started phoning in his role (in some cases, literally, in episodes where Mulder's presence in the plot was only via phone calls to Scully), the show had to scramble again to figure out what the hell it was doing. Mimi and I in particular were very disappointed that Mulder stopped being a main character, and we were particularly annoyed that a major progression in Mulder and Scully's relationship happened off-camera.

Even though we tried to valiantly hang in there during season 8, we finally reluctantly stopped watching. For me, it just wasn't the same without Mulder and Scully as the leads. I don't think we saw any of season 9 at all, aside from coming back to give the finale a look out of a sense of obligation and of wanting closure.

When the second movie came out, Mimi and I went to go see it despite profound misgivings. We were still cranky at the handling of how Mulder and Scully's relationship had progressed, yet we were curious despite ourselves as to how the second movie would pick up with that--not to mention how it'd pick up from what had happened in the season 9 finale.

Suffice to say, that movie was a disappointment.

All of which brings me around to the new season 10 miniseries, which I finally finished watching as of last night. I came into that with much the same sense I approached the second movie: i.e., that I really wanted it to not suck, yet was deeply afraid that it would.

I've been following the recap/review posts put up by both The Mary Sue and Tor.com. And I've gotta say that I'm pretty much on board with what both of these sites have had to say about the miniseries: i.e., that there are moments in it that I've really liked, and that Scully should indeed be Queen of Everything. My favorite moments in these episodes have been followups to Mulder and Scully's established relationship. The scene in which Mulder acts out both sides of many a conversation the two of them have had over the years, while Scully doesn't get a word in and winds up just smiling wryly at him, was delightful.

Taken as a set, though, I have to find the season 10 episodes an incoherent mess. I don't feel like six episodes was enough to progress the mytharc properly. And the Monster of the Week episodes in between the mytharc bookends had too many hamfisted missteps in them for me to enjoy them, for the most part. Worst of all, and I'll say this right out for anyone who hasn't watched the miniseries yet and might want to: the last episode ends on a cliffhanger.

Seriously, Chris Carter? Seriously?

We don't even know whether there's going to be more X-Files at this point. So leaving viewers hanging like that can play as nothing but a cheap ploy to stoke interest and see if FOX can be pressured into letting there be more of the show.

Thing is, I'm not even sure I want more at this point.

In season 10, I've found myself appreciating how Scully has matured as a character. But Mulder has become almost a ridiculous parody of himself, and while this doesn't quite get into "trashing my childhood hero" territory, it does get pretty close. Couple this with season 10's terrible treatment of the transgender character in episode 3 and the Muslim characters in episode 5, and I'm having a hard time mustering any enthusiasm for finding out where this mytharc might go next.

Part of me still wants to believe. But the rest of me isn't sure it can.

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Angela writes as both Angela Korra'ti and Angela Highland, and even references The X-Files in Bone Walker, Book 2 of The Free Court of Seattle. Tell her your opinion of the show in the comments! Or come say hi to her at angelahighland.com, on Facebook, or on Twitter.

10 fantasy movies or shows to binge watch

Here in America, we just celebrated Thanksgiving, and now others are celebrating Black Friday. If you’re out there among the shopping hoardes, good luck, you crazy people. And then there are people like me — celebrating a long weekend at home, taking it easy with a movie, video game, or a good book. Obviously it’s hard to read a book when you have company, so let’s talk about movies.

Being an obnoxious movie fanatic in addition to a rabid reader, I thought I’d share some fantasy film options available on streaming services, for those gathered in front of a TV this weekend and looking for something fun to watch without having to leave the house.

1.  Marvel’s The Avengers – Sure, you’ve probably already seen this one (and if you haven’t, what is wrong with you?!?) but this superhero flick offers a whole bunch of awesome in one movie so it’s worth a rewatch. Hot guys with cool props, hot girls with kickass skills, and Loki. Need I say more? – Available on Netflix and Amazon Prime with subscription.

2. Galaxy Quest — This sci-fi comedy pokes fun at Trekkies while also honoring the genre they love. It’s flat-out hilarious and has Sigourney Weaver aka Ripley in it. It’s a good one for almost all ages, too, which is convenient if you have to be conscious of younger viewers. – Available on Netflix and Amazon Prime

3. Odd Thomas — This one is a little dark and has some horror elements, but if you can handle light horror, you won’t be sorry you watched this book-into-film adaptation. Personally, the book “Odd Thomas” by Dean Koontz is one of my all-time favorite books, and I thought the movie kicked booty, too. Anton Yelchin is so darn likable in the role of the small-town psychic, I could hardly stand it. – Available on Netflix

4. Stake Land — This one is for horror fans who love vampire movies. A lesser-known gem in the vampire genre, Stake Land does for bloodsuckers what The Walking Dead does for zombies. A few human survivors are fighting off hordes of vampires and the government has fallen to religious fundamentalists who are now trying to take control of all the remaining people. It’s gritty and a bit gory with good acting, and worth a watch if you like that kind of thing. – Available on Netflix

5. Cockneys Vs. Zombies — Yes, yes, I know. Another horror-ish addition, but this one is also a British comedy with a fun premise. A trio of bumbling cousins attempt to rob a bank to keep their grandfather's retirement home open, and wouldn't you know it, the zombie apocalypse happens in the midst of it. I love seeing some terrific pensioners given a chance to fight off zombies here. Because who wouldn’t? – Available on Netflix

6. Heart and Souls — This is a comedy from the early 90s that stars Robert Downey Jr. Need I say more? Fine. I will. It’s a cute kitschy movie about a creep who is forced to help four ghosts find peace to avoid losing his girlfriend. And did I mention Robert Downey Jr. is in it? – Available on Netflix

7. Live, Die, Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow — I mean, okay, this one stars Tom Cruise, but don’t hold that against it or you will seriously lose out on a movie that’s simply amaze-balls. This is, hands down, the best movie of 2014 that no one knows about, which is a real shame. Plus, Cruise gets killed. A lot. Seriously, he does, and it’s awesome because he keeps coming back to life to try to stop an alien race from conquering the world. Plus, Emily Blunt plays one of the best female characters in a sci-fi/fantasy film I think I’ve ever seen. Not even kidding. Watch it. Now. – Available for rent on demand, but totally worth it.

TV Show contenders

Some of you simply want to binge watch, so I’ve got you covered with some TV show suggestions, too.

1. Orphan Black — A BBC America original series, this show is ridiculously addictive, so be prepared to binge watch and then be left yearning for more (season 3 hasn’t aired yet). It’s hard to give a synopsis without spoiling the show, but let’s just say it involves clones, and they are awesome. – Season 1 is available for free with an Amazon Prime membership.

2. The Tomorrow People — Either you have never heard of this show and just went “huh?” or you know it was a remake and on the CW and expect it to immediately suck. Guess what? It doesn’t! Here’s the show’s description: “A group of young people with evolved powers battle evil using their special talents that include teleportation and telepathic communication.” It was cancelled, so there’s only one season, but it’s definitely worth binge watching. – Available on Netflix

3. Firefly — I have a hard time believing that anyone who is visiting this site hasn’t already seen the awesomeness that is Firefly, but just in case, it’s getting a spot of honor on this list. One, it’s from Joss Whedon. Two, it’s a western in space. Three, either Captain Mal as played by Nathan Fillion will become your new fantasy boyfriend or you’ll develop a serious girl crush on Kaylee or Zoe. So much to love. I can’t even. – Available on Netflix

Happy watching! And feel free to leave additional suggestions in the comments!

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~ Angela Campbell is the author of the psychic detectives series, featuring quirky heroines, sexy heroes and adorable pet sidekicks. Learn more about her books at www.AngelaCampbellOnline.com.