Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol

For the first time ever, on December 25, 2010, the Doctor Who Christmas special was broadcast in both the UK (on BBC One) and the US (on BBC America). This year's special was titled A Christmas Carol.

We join Amy (Karen Gillian) and Rory (Arthur Darvill), the Doctor's companions from the previous season, on their honeymoon. Unfortunately, the passenger ship they are on is about to crash into a planet covered in strange clouds that screws up their controls. Of course, Amy calls the Doctor (Matt Smith) to save them. He can't use the TARDIS to save them so he lands on a building that seems to control the clouds. Sadly, he finds a bitter old man, Kazran Sardick (Michael Gambon), unwilling to help anyone.

This is where the Christmas Carol story begins. The Doctor goes back in time to Sardick's childhood to figure out where the man went wrong in life. He finds a boy who has had his curiosity and love stomped out by a demanding father. Luckily, the Doctor steps in to help foster the boy's curiosity about the fish that swim in the strange clouds. But where there are fish, there are predators too. After dodging a shark attack (and losing half of his sonic screwdriver in the process), young Sardick is crushed to find that the shark is dying. Unless they can get it back to the clouds, it won't survive. The only way to save the shark is to use an "icebox", a life support chamber that Sardick's father uses to control people, to transport it.

Young Sardick chooses the chamber of a young woman, Abigail Pettigrew (Katharine Jenkins), because she loves the fish. Just after releasing her, the shark attacks again. It is Abigail's singing that soothes the shark into submission. Once they save the shark, the boy decides that this has been a grand adventure. As Abigail returns to her chamber, young Sardick promises that the Doctor will return every year to celebrate Christmas Eve with them.

Years pass and the Doctor makes good on the promise. Every Christmas Eve, they release Abigail and travel around time with her. On the seventh year, Abigail confesses to a now teenaged Sardick that she was terminally ill when she was locked in the chamber. She only has one more day to live. Devestated, the lovestruck Sardick locks her back in the chamber without telling the Doctor about her condition. Realizing that life isn't fair, he still continues on the path to becoming a bitter old man.

Amy appears as a hologram to old Sardick in order to show him how to passengers of the doomed ship are coping. Since they know that singing can have an effect on the clouds, all of the passengers attempt to sing carols to stop the ship from crashing. The sound of the singing begins to break through to Sardick, but he just waves it away stubbornly.

As a last resort, the Doctor appears again telling old Sardick that he has shown him the past and the present. Now it is time for the future. He brings the boy to see what a crotchety old man he has become. This has a monumental effect on old Sardick, who vow to use his machine to save the ship. However, the Doctor has changed Sardick so much that the machine no longer recognizes him. Their only option is to use Abigail's voice to control the clouds again.

Knowing that this will be her final day, old Sardick opens her chamber one last time. She sings into the sonic screwdriver and the clouds stabilize, saving the ship and her 4000 passengers. Amy and Rory reunite with the Doctor, while Sardick and Abigail spend their last moments riding around the clouds in a shark-drawn carriage.

I usually like the Christmas specials. The Runaway Bride being the one episode I hated. This time around, I absolutely loved the episode. The interaction between the Doctor and the various incarnations of Sardick were wonderful. My favorite parts were when teenaged Sardick asked the Doctor for love advice. While I enjoyed CChristopher Eccleson and David Tennant as their respective Doctor, I really enjoy Matt Smith's version. He has the ability to be completely fun-loving yet deadly serious at the same time. If you haven't watched Doctor Who recently, this may be the one to latch onto.

Eureka Holiday Special

Eureka is one of the "can't miss" TV shows in our household. Last night, they aired a holiday special! As always, it was smart, funny, and added a little twist to the story. (Though I wonder if Sheriff Carter has gotten any term life insurance quotes recently. He is almost always in some sort of danger!) Sadly, I don't want to talk about it too much in case you haven't seen it. (Much like I haven't seen the Warehouse 13 holiday episode from last night yet. It's on my DVR though!) But if you love Eureka, you'll adore the holiday spin on the show. So awesome!

TV review: The Fabulous Beekman Boys

How many of you knew that Discovery has a channel called Planet Green? I didn't. At least not until The Fabulous Beekman Boys appeared. (New episodes aired Wednesday nights at 9PM.) Yes, Discovery has dragged me back into reality television.

The show revolves around city boys, Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge, purchasing a farm in upstate New York called Beekman Farm. Their goal is to turn the farm into their main source of income. In order to do that, Brent (a doctor that previously worked for Martha Stewart) works and lives at the farm full-time while Josh (a former drag queen who is now an ad exec) works in New York City during the week then commutes up to the farm on weekends. Luckily, they have farmer John to help them tend the goat herd that gives them milk for their cheese and soap. Unfortunately, they don't have someone to help them through the strains of a long-distance relationship.

When I first saw the commercial for the show, I was delighted. It was touted to be a "City Boys Become Farmers" type show. (Yes, there are a lot of Green Acres comparisons.) The commercials claimed the boys knew nothing about being farmers and everything they knew, they learned from Google. In reality, the show is about the strains on their relationship. The pair have been together for 10 years and, for the first time, they aren't together all the time. Josh spends 5 days a week in New York City, which is 3 hours away by train, while Brent stays at the farm working on building the Beekman empire. A lot of the episodes revolve around Josh complaining that he never sees his boyfriend as Brent reminds him that they agreed to this "year of sacrifice" or Josh complaining that he's tired from working hard all week only to return to the farm so Brent can hand him a list of farm chores. Yet, underneath it all, you can see that Josh and Brent really do love each other and, if they can get the farm to a point where it can financially support them, things will be happy again.

So what is my opinion on the show? The 10-episode season ended last night. I purposely waited until the end to talk about it. The first few episodes were annoying. I wanted the "How do we milk a goat? Google it!" show and not the 'Gay guys whine/cry a lot' that we were given. However, by the end of the season, I was hooked. I really want to try their cheese and smell their soap. I want Josh to quit his city job and be a real farmer. I want Brent to relax a bit...though I know it won't happen. The show has been renewed for a second season. I'm hoping that there will be less whining this time around.

TV review: Modern Family

Somehow I have forgotten to talk about THE best show of the season - Modern Family. The show is a look into an extended family with a sort of reality show spin to it. There are three separate households that are related to each other. There's Jay's (Ed O'Neill) house where he lives with his second wife, Gloria (Sofia Vergara), and her son, Manny (Rico Rodriguez). Then there's Claire's (Julie Bowen), Jay's oldest child from his first marriage, house. She lives with her husband Phil (Ty Burrell) and her three children, Hayley (Sarah Hyland), Alex (Ariel Winter), and Luke (Nolan Gould). Finally, there's Mitchell's (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) house. He lives with his partner Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) and their adopted baby girl, Lily.

The three households interact, much like any family would, but each is punctuated with a dialogue directed at the camera/crew. This gives the show a better look into the family dynamics. Instead of just showing the tense relationship between Jay and his out-of-the-closet son, Mitchell, there will be a scene focusing on how the pair interacts, but then the camera will cut to a monologue with each character separately telling how they relate to either each other or the situation. While this sounds like it could be boring, it's often the funniest part of each episode.

This mockumentary way of telling a story isn't particularly new. Christopher Guest does it in all of his movies. However, it is new to a weekly television series. It can be rather difficult to get the storyline across to the audience without getting distracted by the various monologues. Yet it works here. Both the writing and the acting is absolutely brilliant. The show airs on Wednesday nights at 9PM on ABC. I'm not sure if it's available on Hulu, but ABC often reruns episodes. You definitely need to catch this one!

TV review: Demons

On Saturday, February 6, BBC America aired the final episode of the series Demons. At a mere six episodes, the show was extremely short. Especially considering the content.

Luke Rutherford (Christian Cook) is the last of the Van Helsing men. According to Rupert Galvin (Philip Glenister), it is now his job to hunt down demons known as "half lives" and smite them. With help from Galvin, Mina Harker (Zoe Tapper), and his best friend Ruby (Holliday Grainger), he faces vampires, harpies, demons, and more.

The show started off slow, which isn't promising considering how little time the writers have to get the story out and wrap it up. There were a few really good episodes in there. I think "Smitten" was my favorite. However, the writers spent a lot of time building up to something spectacular for Luke, only to end it without giving it to us. Instead, they give us a bit of a cliff-hanger. Unfortunately, it has been confirmed that there will not be a second season so we will never get the resolution to the climax. That would be why I can't really recommend it to anyone. It just doesn't go anywhere.

On the good side, both Christian Cook and Holliday Grainger gave some good performances. I hope to see more excellent work from them in the future.

Grammy Awards

The Grammy Awards aired last night on CBS. I normally don't watch award shows, but my husband is a Lady Gaga fan and he wanted to see if she would win anything. Luckily for me, Green Day performed so that made up for having to sit through the lengthiness of an award show. (Seriously - fewer commercial breaks and just shut the hell up.)

I found most of the performances to be rather dull. Mainly because, for some reason, whoever was in charge of mixing the songs decided that the lead vocals weren't nearly as important as the background vocals or the horn sections. I spent half of Beyonce's performance going "What is she singing? I can't hear a word she's saying!" The other half was "Huh. Is she singing an Alanis song?" Green Day's performance had the potential to be amazing, but, yet again, the mixer screwed everything up. Isn't this the reason they have rehearsals?

On the awards side, I was stunned that a country music band (Zac Brown Band) won Best New Artist. They were up against some tough competition. I guess this shows that this particular award was given out on merit instead of popularity. Otherwise one of the pop girls would have been a shoo-in. I was also a little surprised that "Single Ladies" won Song of the Year. It's not really a great song. Sure, it's catchy and it gets stuck in your head, but that doesn't make it great. Ah, well, award show...popularity contest and all that.

So, as usual, I was an unimpressed with the Grammy Awards as I have ever been. Will I watch next year? I don't know. I guess we'll see what rocks the music world this year. Maybe next year will be more interesting.

TV: Cougar Town

One of the new shows that I have been watching this season is Cougar Town. To be honest, I never heard about the show until my husband recorded it for me one night. The show had me laughing my butt off right from the beginning.

Here's the premise: Jules (Courtney Cox) is a recently divorced woman with a 17-year old son. With a bit of help from her best friends - Ellie (Christa Miller) and Laurie (Busy Phillips) - she tries to put a little excitement in her life and, maybe, find a good man along the way.

At first glance, it doesn't look like it would be anything spectacular. However, the writing and the cast are absolutely perfect. None of the characters are overbearing (or at least they aren't for very long) and you always feel like you are in on the joke. I know that some people are put-off by the title. Look past the words and let the laughter commence!

TV review: Alice

Wow. This review is extraordinarily late. Back in December, 2009, the SyFy channel aired Alice, a re-imagining of the Alice In Wonderland story. My husband and I enjoyed their version of Tin Man so we gave Alice a fair chance. (Unfortunately, we took so long to watch it because my daughter wanted to watch it with me and, well, she's a very busy girl.)

As usual, there were things I absolutely loved and hated about it. The Mad Hatter (Andrew Lee Potter) was brilliant. I think that watching the entire show was worth it JUST for him. Matt Frewer also gave a wonderful performance as the White Knight. I also liked the little touches that made Wonderland...Wonderland. On the down side, the flamingo aircycles were odd. They served a purpose but it seemed like they could have used something better. Also, the White Rabbit pretty much disappeared after the beginning of the show. I would have liked to have seen him just a bit more.

In comparison, I liked Tin Man much better than Alice. However, Alice wasn't a waste of my time. I didn't feel cheated or anything like that. Then again, I blame the Mad Hatter. He was just too awesome for words.

TV review: Torchwood: Children of Earth

Last week, BBC America aired the five-part Torchwood mini-series, Children of Earth. It begins a short while after season 2 ends. The team hasn't forgotten their fallen members, but they are moving on. As always, there is another alien force threatening the earth. This time around, it's the 456, an unknown alien race that appeared 44 years earlier and have returned, speaking through the children of the world.

The show is a lot grittier than what we are used to. Gwen loses hope. One of the team members dies. Jack is forced to do something pretty evil. Meanwhile, society around them is falling into ruin. I really did love the show, even though every episode feels like "how else can we screw over Jack..." and Jack doesn't come out of the ordeal unscathed. He comes out very broken. I would love to see another season of Torchwood, especially in light of everything they've gone through. However, it doesn't seem like it would be possible. Most of the team is dead and those that are left are scattered. Where can they go from here?

TV review: Being Human

I watched a lot of BBC America this past week. This includes the Sunday night season premiere of Being Human. The commercials had me interested from the get-go so I greedily tuned in.

The show itself is a little weird. Basically, a werewolf, a vampire and a ghost end up as roommates. The werewolf (George) and the vampire (Mitchell) had an established friendship before the show begins. Anna the ghost, however, already occupies the house they are going to rent. It is where she died. George and Mitchell also work together at the local hospital. The hospital had an isolation room where George could spend his "time of the month" and, well, we all know why vampires like hospitals. Though Mitchell is more of the 'I don't drink human blood' type of vampire so he tries to keep the blood-sucking type away from the patients.

While I think the show has a good premise and has potential, the first episode had a bit too much information shoved into it. Instead of taking the time to introduce our main characters and their quirks, they felt the need to introduce all of the side characters up-front. For example, Lauren (another vampire) could have waited an episode or two before coming into the fold. I understand why the writers wanted to shove as much information at us as possible. After all, you never really know how long your show will last. But too much information at once isn't good either. Let the story unfold on its own. If the show gets canceled before everything is revealed, then perhaps it wasn't a very good story to begin with. However, I think this IS a good story and could use the sprinkling of information well.