The Second Coming

This was a BBC-made short TV series starring Christopher Eccleston (the 9th Doctor on Doctor Who), available through Netflix as a longish movie. A video store clerk in Manchester realizes one day that he's the son of God. His long time friends are predictably skeptical. Then he does something to prove it. Public reaction is about what I would expect, in the best and worst of ways. I can't tell you more than that without spoiling the best things about it. I'll say this much; don't expect a happy ending, and do expect to have your religious views challenged.

Good acting performances all around, especially from Eccleston and the actress playing his best friend Judy. I can't believe it took me as long as it did to realize the significance of her name, which tells you how caught up in this story I was. Fascinating interpretation of the Devil, how he works and what he signifies. The script does a great job of taking a very big subject and emphasizing the human elements, making this the powerful story that the subject demands it should be.

I did not like the ending, but have to admit that it would be very difficult to find a satisfying end for this story. To me, it ultimately ended with a whopping plot hole and too optimistic in tone to fit what came before. Christian Netflix reviewers were very critical of the portrayal of the son of God, and apparently didn't read the whole description before renting the film. The ending does have a consistent point of view up to a point, and only slightly cops out when it would have been easier to cop out entirely with a more ambiguous ending.

Highly recommended if you have an open mind about the subject matter, even with the slightly disappointing ending.

Sapphire & Steel

This is a BBC science fiction series starring David McCallum and Joanna Lumley that dates back to the mid-seventies. The descriptions in Netflix made me curious as heck. It reminds me of Doctor Who during the same time period, and not in a good way. It's slow-paced and has bad special effects, relying largely on the actors to carry the day, which they do, for the most part.

One problem with it is that the main characters aren't human. They don't have human motivations, and don't solve their problems with human solutions. They have powers that are never really explained, so you have only a vague idea of what their capabilities are. What they're trying to accomplish is often abstract, and resolved in highly non-visual ways, which doesn't make for good television. There are good reasons why you've probably never heard of this series.

On the other hand, there are some really good ideas in the stories themselves. I really like the idea of ghost stories that turn out to have scientific solutions. Yes, Doctor Who has gone there, too, but Sapphire and Steel do a better job in some respects. The slow pace lends itself to the creation of great atmosphere, often a lost art these days.

I'd really like to see a modern remake that gives a shade more information about the main characters and ups the pace just slightly to a more modern sensibility. I still can't recommend the original unless you really like one of the main actors and can cope with David Lynch-style pacing.

Dexter - Season 4

I just finished Season 4 of Dexter last night. Awesome stuff, and the best season yet. I'm almost tempted to get Showtime to watch the new episodes.

John Lithgow absolutely lived up to what I've heard as the most frightening serial killer on the show yet, and a true match for Dexter. I love the way he rattled Dexter enough that the implications of Dexter's resulting errors will bleed over into the new season. Great writing, and great acting performances all around. Very highly recommended!

I really wonder how much longer they can keep this show running, especially after a season as powerful as this one. Almost anything afterward has to feel anticlimactic. I'd like to see the show end with Season 5 or 6 with Dexter being caught or killed, with some kind of twist involved. If I were writing it, I'd probably end it with his being killed in the midst of his serial killer activities in such a way that his actions are misinterpreted in the end in a heroic way, preserving his nice guy reputation while he actually and deservedly pays the ultimate price.

The Tudors

I started watching "The Tudors" based on heavy recommendations from the people I work with. Very good stuff. I've watched the entire first season and all but the last episode of the second so far.

High marks across the board for acting, writing, etc. The series has come under some criticism for being historically inaccurate, which I think misses the point. I'm far from an expert on the history part of it, and even I caught the occasional historical glitch, but it's good drama.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers is fascinating to watch as King Henry, reconstructing reality to suit his desires on the fly. And Natalie Dormer is great as Anne Boleyn, scheming her way up the ladder at court, only to find herself seeing threats around every corner when she gets there. I miss Sam Neill's Cardinal Wolsey from season one; he was my favorite character for that season.

Highly recommended unless the historical inaccuracies especially bother you.

"Lost" - Yes, They Were Lost, All Right

I'll keep this spoiler free, and that's not terribly hard, since they didn't tell us anything anyway.

I'm sure the last ten minutes was the part they've supposedly had written from the beginning, and I think the finale would have been much better without that part. Frankly, they could've ended the show at any point after the first episode and still used almost exactly that same ending. It was a feel good ending that brought a lot of couples together, and meant absolutely zip-a-dee-doo-dah in terms of what was happening on the island. I'm actually okay with how things resolved on the island itself, and wish they'd left it at that without bothering with the flash sideways stuff and the coda.

Not only did they fail to answer some questions, they failed to answer just about every question, after asking our patience all of the way and swearing there would be answers if we only hung in there until the end. I enjoyed the character aspects of "Lost", but I'm going to make a point of avoiding anything these writers do in the future after they've been party to such a cheat in terms of the mythology ultimately meaning nothing at all.

Belonging

I hadn't intended to write about Dollhouse again so soon, but they've hit it out of the park two weeks in a row, and the previews from upcoming episodes look like they're going to be in the same league. If you'd even consider jumping on the bandwagon, now is the time.

I know ratings ticked up a bit for a couple of recent episodes, but to be honest, I still don't hold out a lot of hope for the series to survive beyond the end of this season, so this really is not just me trying to get anyone I can interested. The series truly has gotten that good after a rough start.

If you want to give it a chance, I'd suggest checking out the last four episodes or so of the first season, and don't read too much into the slightly weaker first episode of the second season before the overarcing story kicks into gear. Trust me; this is well worth your time.

Staycation

My wife and I took the week off with no special plans in mind, and that's exactly what happened. We took care of some miscellaneous things that we needed to tend to and lounged around a lot. I'd like to say that I got more creative work done than I did, but it just didn't happen. I'm still feeling really stalled in that respect.

We decided that rather than buy each other separate anniversary gifts, we'd both get MP3 players and make the necessary musical conversion from CDs. It's going to take some doing to get our CD collection converted to MP3s, but then it'll be nice to be able to cherry pick some of the songs we like from performers we don't like enough to buy a full CD.

My wife continued on her anime kick and I finished season three of the Dexter TV series, both via Netflix. Dexter continues to be wonderfully written and acted. It remains one of the most tightly written television shows I've ever seen, and I can't wait to see season four. Not enough to subscribe to Showtime, mind you, but season four is already in my Netflix queue for when it is released in DVD. I watched a couple of other interesting movies as well, which I expect to cover in separate entries a little later.

On a side note, the Dollhouse TV series finally hit one out of the park with the episode "Belle Chose". Part of the reason this episode succeeded so well was that they really turned Enver Gjokaj loose in multiple roles and gave him a lot more screen time. Of all of the actors on the show, he's the one I find most convincing in truly different personalities. The other reason was Tim Minear's script, which took full advantage of the possibilities of the Dollhouse setting. The brass at Fox either didn't know what "belle chose" meant or thought the reference sufficiently obscure that most of the public wouldn't find out. I didn't know what it meant myself, but found it right away when I got curious enough to look it up. The capsule version is that it's a spicy Chaucer reference. Dollhouse continues to improve, but it's probably too late for it to achieve its full potential before Fox will have to cancel it for low ratings.

We also pulled together costumes for Halloween. We haven't decided exactly what we're wearing yet, but we each have at least two options. I'm looking forward to using them.

The Trouble with Heroes

And by this, I mean comics as well as the TV series I was watching last night, because I realized they seem to have the same problem, and probably for the same reason.

The trouble with the TV series is that things don't ever really seem to change. The writers try to re-frame the characters somehow each season, and yet it always feels as though I'm watching the same conflicts I saw the season before. And I think it's because I am.

I think the writers are defining the characters almost entirely in terms of one particular conflict or problem, and each season they come up with a modified take on the same thing, rather than moving the character on to something else. And since they do this with every character, it leaves the viewer with the sense that they're watching the same season over and over again.

Comic book super heroes often do this as well. The writers can change some things, and in fact have to in order to try to keep the book fresh, but sooner or later the changes have the potential to redefine the character and risk losing what appealed to readers in the first place. And so sooner or later, someone hits the reset button.

It's true that human beings commonly repeat their mistakes to some degree. Eventually we learn a few things and try a different approach to avoid the repetition, but sometimes the particular mistake involved is so central to our nature or to how we define ourselves that it takes time to find a solution that works. On the other hand, we're not entirely stupid, and once in a while we finally figure it out and successfully change something after a few tries.

A potential problem with successful change is that inevitably there are people who like us just the way we were and aren't very happy about that change, which leads to new problems we then have to solve, and so life continues. Good stories come from that, too.

If I could try to fix "Heroes", I'd let a couple of the characters actually learn from their mistakes once in a while and move on to some other issues, and keep some of them the way they are to change the overall dynamic. Life is change, and stories that don't involve some amount of change in somebody usually aren't good stories. I think I'm going to have to give up on this show, even though the dark carnival intrigues me. Maybe I'll watch some Carnivale on DVD instead.

Dollhouse Renewed!

As much as I like the show personally, this was a happy surprise to me. "Dollhouse" got off to a relatively slow start, even for my tastes, but by the last four episodes I was 100% on board. It's tough to build an audience if you've already made a negative first impression for one reason or another, so I think they still have a very uphill battle if they want to make it to season three, but hey, at least they'll have the chance.

The standalone episodes don't do much for me, to be honest. On the other hand, I can't wait to see what happens next to, oh, just about everybody. I especially want to see what happens to the current Dr. Saunders, who I expect will be replaced by Victor as a new Dr. Saunders. And what is Alpha's next move going to be now that his original plan to make Echo like him failed? There's still so much to be explored, and now they'll have at least a little longer to do it.

Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire

I have to admit that the ads for this show weren't funny enough to get me to watch it. It was some very hot photos of one of the cast, India de Beaufort, that did it. But the fact is, the show itself was much better than I'd expected. It reminded me of what you might get if Mel Brooks GM'd a D&D campaign, but not quite that good. You know where they're aiming when one of the first things you hear is a reference to Emperor Zanus.

The writing isn't bad, and neither is the acting. They hit the stereotypes mighty hard, but I suppose that's to be expected in a broad comedy like this. My main question is actually whether or not they can sustain the humor over the course of a series with such thin characters. One of the main cast is very much a one joke character, and the joke isn't even that funny, so how am I going to find this guy funny two or three episodes down the road?

Still there are some fun bits, especially in the dungeon rescue sequence. I won't be going out of my way to see it, but I'll watch if I happen to be up that late on a Thursday night, or if Comedy Central starts running it at some other time. I'll certainly rent it in DVD if it makes it that far. Mildly recommended if you get a kick out of Mel Brooks' style of humor or particularly enjoy fantasy material and have a sense of humor about it.

By the way, read the name "Krod Mandoon" backwards, with a little modification. I was wondering why they used this name, and found my answer.

Syfy

Sorry, but this name change for the Sci Fi Channel is one of the most ham-handed things I've seen done by a large organization in a long time. They insult their core audience in the initial announcement, then go on to try to explain why this name change is "cool".

Apparently, the real reason for the change is that you can copyright Syfy and can't copyright Sci Fi because it's in common usage. Why not just say that up front if that's the case? And why not change it to something less goofy if you feel a need to make a change?

And the tag line "Imagine Greater"? Sorry, that just sounds wrong and says nothing. Either the Sci Fi Channel people devoted surprisingly little time to something as important as the name of their channel, or some marketing people aren't very smart and really need to be replaced. I suspect that they didn't bother to ask any of their target market what they thought about any of these ideas.

Frankly, I won't be the least bit surprised if they change the name of the channel to something that has nothing to do with science fiction within the next three years, considering the direction of the majority of their programming, and eventually get away from science fiction almost entirely.

Dollhouse Episode 2

I probably wouldn't be commenting on Dollhouse again quite so soon if the second episode hadn't been such an improvement over the first. It wasn't a quip-filled bundle o' humor, but it's not meant to be. However, it did have some Whedonesque dialogue and the multiple plot threads that I'd been hoping to see from the beginning.

It's not as immediately engaging as Firefly had been, but it started to raise some of the real issues I've wanted to see tackled since I first heard about the series concept. My faith (no pun intended, Buffy fans) has been substantially restored. Here's hoping that the upcoming episodes are more like this one!

Dollhouse

I've got to be up front here and say that I'm an unabashed Joss Whedon fanboy. I'm not a particular fan of Eliza Dushku, though she can be good at times. My hopes for Dollhouse were high, and yet early reviews had been mixed, so I wasn't too excited by the time I was finally able to watch the first episode last night.

On the plus side, there were a lot of intriguing plots put into place. There are questions I'd very much like to see answered. I can see a lot of depth in the supporting characters already, and there are a lot of good stories to be told with those characters. The premise of the series is a little shaky, but the writers address that very directly in the first episode, implying that there is an answer to the obvious question of why a person wealthy enough to afford a memory-implanted doll wouldn't just hire a regular (and cheaper) person with the necessary expertise; it's just that they're not going to answer that question quite yet.

On the negative side, I saw almost none of the trademark Joss Whedon witty dialogue. This might be a purposeful choice, being that the dialogue so beloved by the hardcore Whedon fans might be part of what puts off non-fans. The only characters that really grabbed me were Echo's handler and Dr. Saunders (she of the scarred face). That's not terribly surprising, as it often takes a few episodes for characters in Joss' shows to show enough of themselves for the viewer to get attached to them. The writing was generally more straightforward than Joss' other shows, though there were a few twists to keep things from getting dull. There were a lot of bits (the motorcycle chase and dance scene at the beginning for example) that were clearly added just to increase the amount of action and keep the suits happy, and I seriously think those detracted more than they added in the big picture. I wanted to know why I should care about these people and about the background of the Dollhouse, and instead we spend more screen time watching Eliza dance in a short skirt. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you, but if I want to look at girls dancing in short skirts, there are other places I can get that. I wanted a good story involving characters I cared about, and only got a little of that here.

I've already read that FOX has made a commitment to show a dozen episodes of Dollhouse, if I'm not mistaken, but the flip side of that is that the creative staff had to agree that the first seven episodes will function as stand-alones rather than the layered plotting I generally enjoy in Joss' best work. We've been promised that after those first seven, the big picture plot will take off in earnest, and I hope that's true.

It's a good premise for a series, with lots of issues about identity, etc. to use as material, but honestly, that first episode was just okay. I doubt I'd stick with it if I didn't have faith in the creative people behind it to craft it into something far more powerful by the end of the season. The potential is definitely there, but Dollhouse hasn't truly grabbed me yet.

The Kingdom

This isn't the Stephen King remake I'm talking about here; it's the original Danish TV series that Stephen King thought was so cool he'd try to remake it. I didn't give the Stephen King version more than a passing glance, largely because I remember being particularly busy at the time, and then what little I'd seen just seemed... wrong. The characters seemed more like caricatures than people to me. It was weird, and I don't mean fun weird; I mean just bad weird, almost as though the people making it were trying too hard.

On the other hand, the original is Twin Peaks style weird, which is a very good weird indeed. It's closer in flavor to Twin Peaks than most of David Lynch's film work. I just love it when someone can make TV (or movies) that have horror and comedy right on top of each other and both of them retain their full power, even gaining effectiveness from the juxtaposition. And the original version of "The Kingdom" does just that.

If you happen to rent the DVD, hang in there during the first episode, because honestly it's not especially good, but they needed it to set everything up for later. If you still don't like the second episode, then hang it up, because that's pretty much what the rest will be like, except the weirdness quotient just keeps ratcheting up. I seriously doubt we'll see anything similar to some of the scenes in "The Kingdom" on commercial American television anytime soon.

Unfortunately, there were only eight episodes made, and they never brought it to a conclusion. Further episodes were written, but several of the cast members have passed away, so it appears that the rest will never be made. A pity, really. Highly recommended for those with a taste for the strange and a tolerance for a slightly slow pace by American standards.

Veronica Mars, Season Two

I just finished watching season two of Veronica Mars. While I agree with the apparent Netflix consensus that season two isn't quite as strong as season one, there's some fine writing, and season two wraps up the most significant loose end from season one.


The plot isn't nearly as focused as season one, which I'm sure is a huge part of why it doesn't work as well overall. However, it covers a lot more dramatic territory, focusing less on Veronica personally and more on the supporting cast. It's a bigger, more ambitious story, if not packing as much emotional punch, except for the last episode.


I particularly like that overlapping plot lines generate red herrings without actually contradicting the multiple underlying mysteries. Sometimes a mystery is solved, revealing that one of the apparent clues to it isn't actually related, and in fact is part of something else entirely.


On the negative side, Rob Thomas does seem to have a minor case of J.J. Abrams syndrome, having characters take actions that seem inconsistent in order to generate shocking plot twists. I recognize that real people aren't always consistent, but real people aren't as inconsistent as some of these characters.


Veronica's taste in men continues to mystify me. I don't understand her attraction to Duncan in any way, shape, or form unless it's simply that he's wealthy and good looking, and I give her more credit for depth than that. I can understand how Logan's intelligence and bitter humor would appeal to her, but he's said and done so many nasty things to her that I can't understand how she could forgive him. I'm not talking about "bad boy" behavior here; I'm talking about flat out cruelty that seems inherent to his personality. I'd love to hear a woman's point of view on the choices she makes. Unfortunately, I've been unable to convince my wife to watch the show and don't personally know any other women who've watched it.


I'm intrigued enough to watch season three, but first I need a minor break from watching series on Netflix, and then I'll be watching the second season of Dexter.

Wipeout/I Survived a Japanese Game Show

I really didn't think I'd end up writing about these when I sat down to watch 'em, but darned if I didn't find myself with something to say afterward.

Wipeout is the same show as Spike's Most Extreme Elimination Challenge, except with virtually all of the humor sucked out of it. I think someone at ABC managed to entirely miss the point about what makes MXE (as they abbreviate it) entertaining. MXE is a wild Japanese game show called "Takeshi's Castle" with hilarious English language overdubbing that is clearly not a direct translation of the original. Wipeout is the same show with none of the over-the-top touch inherent to many Japanese game shows and none of the fun of jokes like reviewing The Most Painful Eliminations of the Day. It's just the obstacle course without the humor. If you think watching people fall off a platform into water repeatedly is funny, this is just the show for you. Not for me, though. I can't believe this made it to network television.

I have to admit that I found "I Survived a Japanese Game Show" genuinely entertaining. It's a strange combination of, yes, a Japanese game show and Survivor: Metropolitan Tokyo. I could do with less of the agonizing over who to put in the elimination challenge and more of the game show brimming over with enthusiasm from everyone from the MC to the audience to that dancing group of Pulp Fiction wannabees that literally carried the loser out of the studio at the end. I think I'd like it even more if at least a few of the Americans would roll with that Japanese spirit and stop thinking so much about winning the grand prize. You can only take dressing up as flies and flinging yourself onto an oversized windshield so seriously, but maybe I'd feel differently if I personally were competing for $250,000.

I really don't care at all who wins, but I'm likely to at least check it out again. I might have to watch this one with the sound off during the reality show parts and turn it back on for the game show parts, 'cause that's where the real fun is.

Coupling

I've recently been working my way through the British sitcom series "Coupling", via Netflix. I'd first caught an episode on PBS very late at night, and was soon laughing so hard my wife came in from the other room to see why. It's essentially about three men and three women and their various romantic (and often sexual) adventures, but that description really doesn't do it justice. It's reasonably accurate to call it a British "Friends" with much earthier and more insightful humor and a far more creative approach. Several episodes use unconventional methods of telling the story (scenes shown out of order, etc.), especially by sitcom standards. If you rent it, I'd suggest trying at least the first two episodes, as the first one is a little weak by the standards of the rest of the series, if I recall correctly, probably because it carries the burden of setting up the relationships of the characters from then on.

One of my favorite bits involves one of the characters trying to pick up a woman from another country in a bar. She speaks no English, and he doesn't speak a word of her language (Hebrew). We first see the scene played from his point of view, then we see it from her point of view, with her now speaking English and him speaking a sort of pidgin Italian that he seemed to be improvising on the spot.

Another favorite is a scene played out through a subtext filter, meaning that the characters are all saying exactly what they mean, as opposed to the words they actually used.

But I think the best scene of the series that I've seen to this point is at the end of the episode "Inferno", in which the main male character attempts to explain the plot of a pornographic film called "Lesbian Spank Inferno" in terms that make it seem more artistic than the title would suggest.

For the most part, "Coupling" is played as a farce, with some typical dating/relationship issue starting out in a relatively normal way, then wildly escalating due to some misunderstanding or miscommunication. However, there are also occasional serious moments that tell us a lot about relationships, such as the end of season two.

NBC attempted an American version as a replacement for "Friends", which I haven't seen, but heard was a complete disaster by all accounts. If you've seen the American version, don't let that stop you from trying the British version. I'd heard they used the original scripts, only slightly modified for an American audience, and for some reason it just didn't work. The problem might have been that some of the funniest bits might have had to be cut or modified significantly to meet American television standards of censorship, and the full impact of the humor might not have survived the cuts.

All of the actors do a fine job, but what really makes the show are the scripts by Steven Moffatt. Between "Coupling", "Jekyll", and his award-winning episodes of Doctor Who, I've become quite a fan, and I'd be willing to take a good look at anything written by him in the future.

Dexter

I've been renting the first season of the TV series "Dexter" through Netflix, and wanted to put a big recommendation out there for those of you who may not have seen it.

This series is about a serial killer who works as a blood spatter specialist for the Miami police department. He was raised by his adoptive father, a police officer, who gave him a moral code to live by to keep him undetected. He only kills murderers and other people who've been up to something nasty (and only then if there's definite proof of their activities), not because he sees anything wrong with killing other people, but because it's a relatively safe way for him to indulge the urge. He's a reasonably functional sociopath. This of course raises the question of whether he's a bad guy because he kills people, or a good guy because he only kills bad people. I know my own answer to that question, but others might not agree with my answer, and that's what makes this fun.

The resulting series is very unique stuff. Dexter comes across as a likeable guy, even though you know he doesn't actually feel anything for anyone else and is just trying to figure out how to fit in well enough to survive. I think they stray a bit, actually, because he does seem to care for his adoptive sister at the very least. I can make a reasonable argument that his other human relationships are nothing more than cover, except for her.

Science fiction series often use an alien character to comment on the human condition, and "Dexter" does the same thing in its own way. There are scenes in this show that you simply won't see anywhere else. One of my favorites is when he's about to slit the throats of a captive married couple, but pauses to ask them for relationship advice to help him deal with his girlfriend. I also love the bit where the police call him to inspect his own crime scene, which turns out to surprise him in one very key respect.

The supporting cast is also consistently interesting and entertaining, and their characters come off very much as real people, with positive and negative aspects to their characters.

I have one disc (four episodes, I think) to go to complete the first season, and I'm looking forward to it. Very good stuff.

Veronica Mars - Season One

I finished watching this yesterday, and had a few thoughts on it. As I'd said before, the quality writing is the best reason to watch it. I found the ending satisfying without necessarily tying up everything (since a TV series has to have somewhere to go next season). I'll probably watch the second season at some point, but for now I need a break, and the Netflix review consensus seems to be that later seasons weren't as good as the first, anyway.

One thing that didn't make sense to me is Veronica's taste in men. Most women will be attracted to men who are very much like their father in some respects, while a minority will look for men as different from their father as they can manage. Either way, it's a reaction to their father, which is understandable, since he's the first man that's important in her life (assuming he's present to raise her). Since Veronica's father is a main character on the series, we get to know him fairly well, so we can accurately judge whether or not this is true for Veronica, and it's not even close.

Why does she seem to be attracted to men with a serious psychotic streak? I don't just mean men who have quirks or "bad boys", but men who suddenly become loud and sometimes violent with little provocation. I understand that these are teen characters, and therefore less stable than adults, but they seemed over the top to me, even by teen standards. The police deputy is obviously an exception, but I can't see why he'd hold any attraction for Veronica, either, apart from the fact that he works in law enforcement and is a little older than her. That doesn't seem like much, and she's clearly less attracted to him than she is to the psychotics, in any case. I could understand one strange guy happening to appeal to her for some reason, but the fact that it happens more than once makes it a pattern, and that bothers me. I prefer to see romantic relationships that make some kind of sense, even when they're not what you'd call healthy relationships.

Creative work inevitably tells you something about the point of view of the person (or people) creating it, so what does this tell us about Rob Thomas, the guy behind this series? I don't know anything about him, so I don't even have a basis from which to speculate. I just know that it doesn't square with the more accurate perceptions of human behavior otherwise seen in the series. Don't get me wrong here. I enjoyed this series, and would recommend it to almost anyone. I just don't understand that particular aspect of it.

Hidden Gems

Well, hidden from me, up until now, anyway.


I somehow missed the Veronica Mars TV series while it was originally on the air, but heard so much about it that I've picked it up through Netflix. I haven't finished it yet (I'm most of the way through the first season), but what I've seen so far is excellent. It's well plotted, well acted, and creates an engaging over arcing mystery even though individual episodes still hold up well on their own, for the most part. Unfortunately, the Netflix reviews suggest that the second and third seasons were disappointing compared to the first, but I'll need a break after binging on this one for the last couple of weeks anyway. The one thing that bothers me is how Veronica constantly tweaks local law enforcement without being taken away from her father's care. It just stands to reason that when someone takes as many chances as she does, it should catch up with her sooner or later. There's also a character thing bothering me about one of the supporting characters that I'm going to wait out and see if it's eventually explained before commenting on it. Highly recommended.

The British series "Jekyll" was also a pleasant surprise. This is a powerful modern take on "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". I don't even remember how I found it, though I think I spotted it in a catalog of British TV series DVDs. It was written by one of the people behind recent seasons of Doctor Who, Steven Moffatt. The writing is sharp, scary where it should be and occasionally funny to break the tension, but the strongest reason to rent this one is James Nesbitt as the lead character. You can really believe this one actor is two entirely different people in the blink of an eye. I won't spoil it by telling you anything more, other than that there are several differences from prior versions, and every one of them is there for an entertaining reason. If you like horror as much as I do, rent this one as soon as you can.