All The Things I Did: 20th February 2015

Another week, another lot of things I read, played, watched and listened to.  As always, they're ranked from worst to best.

WORST: The Walking Dead season 5, episode 2: This wasn't exactly bad; it's still quite a well put together piece of television.  I'm just getting bored with the whole enterprise.  There's only so much I can take of the characters killing zombies and being depressed.  I also had to dock it some serious points for the moment where Rick declares that "we are the walking dead".  THANKS MATE, I HADN'T NOTICED THE SUBTEXT.

Thunderbolts #1-11 (2012 series) by Daniel Way and Steve Dillon: The Red Hulk has gathered some of Marvel's most ruthless characters (Deadpool, Elektra, the Punisher, Venom), and together they're taking on arms dealers in the Middle East and south-east Asia.  This book is really flat.  Daniel Way has assembled a cast of strong, silent types (except for Deadpool, but even he's a little bit subdued) and the result is a book seriously lacking in empathy and character interaction.  The plot is tedious, the villains barely have a presence in the story at all, and Way keeps to his usual sluggish pace.  Steve Dillon is the only saving grace, and I really wish that he would stop doing books with Daniel Way.

Resurrection season 2, episodes 7 to 10:  Things are starting to happen, although there's still far too much time spent on the cast talking about their feelings.  Still, on the whole I'm mildly engaged with it, although I am trepidatious about the religious iconography that's starting to take over.  Given the subject matter I expected it earlier, but the show has mercifully held off.  Now we're getting a sinister preacher and plagues of locusts, and I expect that the biblical overtones will only grow stronger.  I can't say I'm looking forward to it.

Pretties for You and Easy Action by Alice Cooper: In my ongoing quest to find more things like David Bowie, I've turned to the other great rock persona of the early 1970s, Alice Cooper.  As it turns out, the original Alice Cooper was not just a bloke but a whole band.  Their first two albums are unfocused and a bit wild, with a hint of psychedelia thrown in.  They're fun, but they're also a bit of a mess.  There are hints of the 'sinister rock fairground' approach that Cooper would take in later albums, but it's not quite there yet.

WWE Raw episode 1,134: This is the last episode before the Fast Lane pay-per-view, with the focus mostly on building the rivalry between Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan.  There's some strange storytelling going on here.  Both of these characters are supposed to be good guys, but with this current feud they're both acting like massive tools to each other.  By the end, though, they had me buying how much they want to beat the hell out of each other, so good job even though it's not clear who the audience is supposed to support.  The rest of the segments were a mixed bag, with the Seth Rollins/Dolph Ziggler match probably being the highlight.

Love It To Death by Alice Cooper: The third album by Alice Cooper sheds the psychedelia in favour of short, focused rock songs, and it's altogether a stronger effort than their first two.  There aren't any stand-out tracks, but the album hangs together nicely, and it's starting to sound like the Alice Cooper that I recognise.

A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle: I've started reading the Sherlock Holmes books, and this is the first.  It's a solid mystery story, and Holmes is a fascinating character from the start.  I question the structure of the book, though.  The first half features Holmes and Watson investigating and solving a murder involving Mormons, and then the second half veers off into a flashback about said Mormons and the build-up to the murder.  I can understand why Doyle wrote it this way: he needed to present the murder as a righteous one, and to do that the reader needed to be shown what led to it.  But the result is that Holmes is absent for about six chapters, and I found myself impatient to return to him.  Sometimes the needs of the reader trump the needs of the narrative, I'm afraid.

Cyclops (2014 series) #1-5 by Greg Rucka and Russell Dauterman: This series follows the young version of Cyclops, who has discovered that his long-lost father is alive, and a space pirate.  The heart of the book is the touching father-son relationship, but there's plenty of space adventure to go around as well.  Greg Rucka is incapable of writing a bad comic, and Dauterman is a great find on the art.  It's a warm, fun book that never loses sight of the human story beneath all of the crazy alien shenanigans.

Billion Dollar Babies by Alice Cooper: This is the band's sixth album, and considered by many to be the best.  I'll echo that, because it really is a top-notch rock album.  Cooper's theatrics are in full effect, and the result is operatic and subversively tongue-in-cheek.  To be honest, the rebelliousness and shock tactics are kind of quaint, but they're always charming.

Daredevil (2011 series) #22-36 by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee: Waid's amazing run on Daredevil continues, barely losing steam at all as it enters its third year.  I said it last time, but it bears repeating: this is the best superhero comic of the last five years.  The pay-off for the first two years is a storyline with Bullseye that goes to some intense, disturbing places without ever compromising the lighter tone of the book.  The run concludes with a story about the Sons of the Serpent, basically the Marvel equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan, and their infiltration of the New York justice system.  The finale is surprising, and takes the character in an interesting new direction.  I can't wait to get to the next volume.

BEST: Tardis Eruditorum by Philip Sandifer: I almost forget this, because I haven't been writing about other blogs here, but this is one of the best.  Tardis Eruditorum is ostensibly a chronological journey through the fifty year history of Doctor Who, but it's so much more than that.  It's also a lens into British politics and society of the late 20th century and early 21st, with digressions into alchemy and radicalism and so many other things.  It's a masterful piece of work, and easily the best long-form blog I've ever read.  The final post went up during the week, and it's a doozy: a 100,000 word history of Doctor Who as a whole.  I'd recommend, though, that any Doctor Who fan go right to the beginning and take it from there.  It's really that good.  (And yes Phil, if you ever track this back here I admit that I totally stole the worst-to-best format from your comic reviews.  Mea culpa.)

All The Things I Did: 13th February 2015

Here it is, for the third week running: everything I read, watched, played and listened to in the last week ranked from worst to best.  And here's a warning in advance: there are spoilers for The Walking Dead's latest episode.

The Wheel of Time: Winter Dragon TV Pilot:  Okay.  This may take some explaining.

The Wheel of Time is a series of fantasy novels/paving slabs by Robert Jordan.  It's immensely popular, and in the wake of Game of Thrones there has apparently been some interest from TV and movie studios.  Unfortunately, many years ago Jordan sold the licensing rights to a company called Red Eagle, which has done nothing but cock things up ever since.  The rights were set to return to Jordan's estate on February 11th, but lo and behold, look what showed up at 1.30 am on the FXX channel, right in the middle of the infomercials: a completely unheralded TV pilot.  In other words, a hastily slapped together bit of telly made so that Red Eagle can retain the rights to the series.

This show has to be seen to be believed.  It's one of the worst things I've seen in years, and I watch wrestling.  Billy Zane is in this, playing one of the major villains of the series.  Billy freaking Zane!  It's a delight watching him attempt to deliver dialogue about "the nine Rods of Dominion" and the "One Power", all while smiling affably.  Here's a link: http://io9.com/watch-that-weird-wheel-of-time-tv-show-pilot-here-1685036791.  Check it out, Wheel of Time fans, and see just how bad an adaptation can be.  This may be the worst thing on my list, but to be honest it's one of the things I enjoyed the most.

A Beard of Stars by Tyrannosaurus Rex: Okay, so bear with me: I'm going to write about some music here.  This is not something I know how to do, so forgive me if I make even less sense than usual.  I'm in uncharted waters.

With that out of the way, can we all agree that A Beard of Stars is an amazing, incredible album name?  Okay?  Good, because understanding how radical that name is will help you to know how let down I felt by this album.  A few years ago I went through David Bowie's entire catalogue, and that was a positive life decision.  T Rex is a band that often gets mentioned in the same breath as Bowie, so long as we're talking about his glam albums, so I thought I'd check them out.  I went with A Beard of Stars because it had the best title (it was a toss-up between that and Futuristic Dragon), and I think I may have gone a little too early in their chronology.  Instead of glam I got psychedelic folk rock, which is a genre I have an affinity for, but I didn't exactly warm to this album.  Most of the melodies felt awkward, and I found Bolan's voice grating.  Don't hate me, Bolan fans, I'll probably give one of their later albums a spin at some point.

Resurrection season 2, episodes 2 to 6:  I'm still not loving this show, but I am getting a little more invested in it.  Some of this is the growing focus on the conspiracy angle, which is more interesting than how such-and-such or so-and-so is feeling about their emotions this week, but mostly it comes down to Michelle Fairley, and her portrayal of the newly revived family grandmother.  She's the most heinous character I've seen on TV in a while (and yes, I do watch Game of Thrones).  Basically, I'm sticking with this to see her get set on fire or something.

The Walking Dead season 5, episode 9:  The Walking Dead is back from its mid-season break, and it's also back to its old trick of killing off all the black men.  Seriously, it's absurd how many have pegged it at this point.  Have the creators not noticed, or are they taking the piss?  There are still two left in the cast, but one has a gammy leg and the other is a nervous priest.  The odds don't look good for either of them.

As for the episode itself, it was decent enough, but it still feels like the show is treading water, and has been since half-way through season 4.  Rick and co. have decided to go to Washington, and see what's there, which I guess is a direction, but it's not really a compelling one.  I think I know what's in Washington, anyway.  I'll give you a hint: more zombies.

All-New X-Men #18-21 by Brian Michael Bendis and various artists: In the aftermath of Battle of the Atom (which I reviewed last week) the original X-Men have defected, and are now living with Cyclops and his team of revolutionaries.  It's a move that makes sense, as it gives the core cast a whole new set of characters to interact with, and that's what Bendis does well.  That's not the focus here, though.  Instead we have the introduction of X-23 to the team (she's a female clone of Wolverine.  Don't ask.), and a battle with the Purifiers, a group of militant religious mutant-haters.  Bendis gets good material out of X-23, and particularly her rapport with the young Scott Summers.  Not so much the religious fanatics, but those stories tend to be pretty one-note anyway.  The series is holding up quite well so far.  (I hate the new costumes, though.  So much uglier than the 1960s designs.)

Morning Phase by Beck: Like everyone I saw Kanye making a knob of himself at the Grammys, but it did have the positive effect of reminding me that Beck is a thing that exists.  His latest album is a mellow acoustic affair, with a lot of heartfelt, slightly melancholy tracks.  I can see why Kanye dissed it: it's an album for introspective middle-aged white people.  I liked it a lot.

Daredevil (2011 series) #1-21 by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee: I'm revisiting this run of comics before I read Waid's final issues, and I feel pretty safe in saying that this is the best super-hero comic of the last five years.  Waid took the character back to his swashbuckling roots after a decade of unrelenting noirish misery, while never ignoring the many terrible traumas that exist in Matt Murdock's backstory.  The action is sharp and inventive, the emotional beats hit hard, and the art is crisp and sublime.  If you want to read some Daredevil before the TV series begins, this is the one.  (Oh, okay, there's also the Frank Miller runs.  And the Bendis run.  And Brubaker.  But I like this one the best.  It has Stilt-Man.)