Category Archives: TV

Game of Thrones: Most Anticipated Locations PART 1

Winterfell: Cool. The Wall: Impressive. King’s Landing: Breathtaking. The Eyrie: Intimidating. Yes we have seen some of the most important locations from the Song of Ice And Fire series in the HBO series A Game of Thrones. But there are still so many to come and there are some good ones. I’ve compiled a list of some of the coolest ones that HBO will no doubt make look as brilliant as the ones we’ve already seen thus far. There may be some spoilers below, however minor. You’ve been warned!

SPOILERS! (you’ve been warned again)

Harrenhal

-Ruling Lord: (Currently) House Baelish

Harrenhal is the largest castle in the Seven Kingdoms, but is for most of the time uninhabited due its cost to maintain and the amount of people needed to run it smoothly. It is widely believed to be cursed since every Lord who has had dominion over it has fallen to an ill fate time and time again. I assure you over the course of the series you’ll see it change hands more than once, starting with Janos Slynt who was made Lord of Harrenhal for betraying Ned Stark in “The Pointy End”. Eventually it falls into the hands of one Petyr Baelish though we have yet to see if anything unbecoming happens to him.

Storm’s End

-Bastard Last Names: Storm

-Ruling Lords: House Baratheon

So who wouldn’t want to see Storm’s End, the home of the Baratheons? The castle itself has never in its history been breached during war or by a siege. The only reason the last ruler lost it to the Baratheons was because he was stupid enough to meet them in open combat. The Baratheon’s would probably have never been the new Storm Lords if he hadn’t done that. After the War of the Usurper, Renly was placed as the lord of Storm’s End while Stannis as the heir to Robert was given the traditional island fortress of Dragonstone.

Dragonstone

-Ruling Lords: (currently) House Lannister

Before conquering the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, House Targaryen made their home at Dragonstone, an island in the Blackwater Bay to the far Northeast of King’s Landing. Everything about the castle of Dragonstone is of course likened to Dragons. Would you expect any less from the Targaryens? From the towers, the walls and even the main kitchen it was dragons, dragons and more dragons. After the Targaryen conquest of Westeros, Dragonstone became the seat of the heir to the present king. So after the Targaryens were forced out of power the island fell under the rule of Stannis Baratheon (brother to Robert) who was none too happy to lose the bountiful lands of Storm’s End for the rocky and poor island of Dragonstone.  Sure it looked cool, but it didn’t have much in means of population besides a fishing village. To add insult to injury his younger brother Renly was given command of Storm’s End. That’s the bummer man. Still, I’d like to see Dragonstone on film because dragons are awesome…

Highgarden

-Bastard Last Names: Flowers

-Ruling Lords: House Tyrell

The family of Loras Tyrell, Knight of the Flowers rules over Highgarden, which is a lush and bountiful land further South of King’s Landing. This one may have a wait in being seen on the HBO series because it has not yet been visited in the book series yet. The Tyrells become very involved in the story but their homeland hasn’t as of yet. Hopefully the picture below can give you an idea of what it might look like until we do in the series.

Dorne

-Bastard Last Name: Sand

-Ruling Lords: House Martell

The Martell family don’t really show up until book 3, and we aren’t treated to the location of Dorne and it’s capital Sunspear until book 4. Dorne is located in the southern most part of Westeros, being the only location with a desert. The most interesting thing about Dorne is that they were the only kingdom that resisted the Targaryen’s during their conquest of Westeros and didn’t actually join the seven kingdoms proper until they married into the Targaryen bloodline. The Targaryens allowed Dorne to join the seven kingdoms after that while still being able to rule themselves under Dornish law, in order to entice them into loyalty.

FX’s Wilfred – Series Premiere “Happiness” Review

Never before has there been a show that I was so uncertain of going in. For months worth of Justified we were bombarded with ads for a show about Frodo and a man dressed as a dog. We didn’t know much more than that. However, given their track record, I’ll give anything on FX a chance.

The show starts off with Ryan’s (Wood – see what I did there?) attempted suicide. He is trying to over-dose on the anxiety medicine his sister gave him, and failing miserably. His survival results in a wasted 4th draft of his suicide note and his impending introduction to his new neighbor Jenna and her dog – Wilfred.

Wilfred is no regular dog though as you can see. Because of Ryan’s fragile psyche, he sees Wilfred a man playing dog, where the rest of the world just sees a dog. This allows Ryan an outlet and someone to talk to, in what is really a Fight Club situation, and Ryan is talking to himself.

What he perceives to be Wilfred though means nothing but trouble for out protagonist, and that results in the further spiral-downturn that his life heads in. Ryan starts out simply tolerating Wilfred to get closer to Jenna – obviously, but he then grows attached the low-life canine. As he begins to trust his new friend, the audience learns this pooch can’t be trusted. This harkens to Youth in Revolt and makes for the start of what should prove to be an entertaining show, if it survives.

The idea isn’t new, it’s actually a re-make of an Aussie show by the same title, and staring the same dog – Jason Gann. The original series ran from 2007-2010 before Gann was able to sell FX on it and bring it to the states.

The first episode was funny and original (at least here in the US) and had a dark humor that I think is really paired well with its Thursday night partner Louie. That however is what worries me, this may be too dark and clever to survive.

Not knowing what to expect going in turned out to be a nice surprise for me, it’s not often that’s the case. I really liked it and look forward to next week. Though at the same time my girlfriend and her sister, who both watched it with me, didn’t laugh at all, so I wonder if it has enough mainstream appeal to draw in new viewers. In any case, I once again give FX kudos as they try to populate my TV with something a little different.

I’d give this first episode a ‘optimistic for the future’ 3.5/5 Bears. 

Futurama Season 6 – ‘Benderama’ Review

Whooooo boy I’m so glad Futurama is back. More Bender hilarity and Professor’s catastrophic inventions. In this episode we get both! Enter: The Banach Tarski Dupla Shrinker. You put matter into it and place something on top of it and boom! You get two smaller versions of whatever is on top of the Dupla Shrinker.

So taking into consideration the title of the episode, it’s easy to deduce what happens next. In Bender’s infinite laziness he creates two of himself in smaller versions. The three Benders together are quite hilarious especially with their ugly jokes aimed at the big ugly alien the Planet Express crew, and the three Benders are delivering oxy pads and a face chisel to. Of course those two Benders are just as lazy as their predecessors and create four more, smaller Benders and so on and so forth until there are 2046 Benders throughout Planet Express of varying sizes.

Professor Farnsworth determines that if the Benders continue unchecked they will eat through all matter on Earth before long. So the crew goes through the task of exterminating all of the extra Benders in a way that reminds me of the variety of deaths that the Venture Bros. had in their season 2 premiere. The stripper bot in the mouse trap was priceless. If you weren’t finding this episode funny before, you’re a mindless corpse and should burn yourself immediately.

After the discovery of microscopic Benders missing their executions, the Planet Express crew decides to deprive them of alcohol. Scientifically things get even crazier as the Benders now on a sub atomic level change water molecules into alcohol to survive and now water is alcoholic to everyone. I think Morbo drunk was the highlight of my day. I won’t spoil the rest of the episode but in the end Bender sums it all up nicely – “Well, that was dumb.” But it was a great episode of dumb.

Overall this episode really made me remember why I love Futurama so much. They mix science with humor and mash it together with some of the best voice acting and cartoon characters ever created. Sorry Homer and Pete Griffin, you guys can suck it.

Four out of five bears.

Update: The Walking Dead Season 2

On June 21st, a ‘Behind the Scenes’ video of The Walking Dead cast on their first day of filming Season 2 was put onto AMC’s website. In the video, the cast were spending an awful lot of time underneath abandoned vehicles. Are they trying to relocate? Are they all together? I have so many questions! I am definitely not the only fan eagerly awaiting the next season, so seeing a little video of the set was almost enough to tide me over.

In the video, as I said, a few of the cast members were stationed under vehicles on the set. We also hear commentary from producers Frank Darabont and Gale Anne Hurd.

ALSO:

The famous McFarland toy company is at it again! The Walking Dead figures will be available in November! This will help me in figuring out what to get some of my friends for Christmas.

Cinemax’s Femme Fatales: 106 – Girls Gone Dead

This week’s Femme Fatales, Girls Gone Dead, was about the wonderful world of the Girls Gone Wild type videos. Are those still around? In this episode, a sorority house is in need of money and agrees to shoot a ‘Crazy Chix’ video in exchange for $10,000 to avoid foreclosure.

Continue reading Cinemax’s Femme Fatales: 106 – Girls Gone Dead

Breaking Bad Season 4 Trailer!

As promised on the 9th, we’re gonna try to keep you up to date. In the last post, we had the first trailer for the upcoming 4th season of Breaking Bad, but it was just old footage re-cut. Well now we’ve got something real…

In this new trailer it would appear that Walt is done getting kicked around, and he’s ready to lay down some ass-whoppings.

http://youtu.be/Y7AvqD2loX4

Total Awesome Sauce. The new season premieres on July 17th.