Decompressing with the Taskmaster

I’m not completely back to watching “real” television yet. It often takes me awhile to get over the Christmas Crush. Since this is the last weekend before my daughter goes back to college, we have spent quite a bit of time watching Taskmaster on YouTube. Never heard of it? Let me try to explain.

Taskmaster is a British game show that has expanded to other countries around the world. The basic premise is the Taskmaster (Greg Davies in the original British version) sends his Assistant (Alex Horne) to give a panel of five comedians tasks to complete. The comedians are then given points based on how well they completed said tasks: 5 for the best, 1 for the worst. At the end of the season, the comedian with the most points wins a golden trophy in the shape of the Taskmaster’s head.

If you haven’t watched the show before, I highly recommend it. I, personally, enjoy the original British version. My daughter likes the Australian version. And we both laughed very hard at the New Zealand version. There are versions from other countries. Take some time to go through the playlist on the official Taskmaster YouTube channel and find your favorite version. Comment below what your favorite one is!

Devil In Ohio | Series Review

I thought about saving Devil in Ohio for the 31 Days of Halloween but it doesn’t really fit the vibe I’m going for with the October reviews. I was hoping that the series would be more scary or thrilling. But let me tell you more about it first.

Suzanne (Emily Deschanel) is a hospital psychiatrist. When a trauma patient comes in, Suzanne takes it upon herself to find out what is going on with the young woman, who eventually reveals her name is Mae (Madeleine Arthur). With nowhere else to go, Suzanne brings Mae home to her family. Little did they know the truth behind Mae’s trauma.

There are so many problems with this series. I think the main problem is that the series isn’t long enough to develop the characters well enough. The writers want us to dislike or be wary of Mae. But, for the most part, she doesn’t do anything blatant to cause either of those emotions. Examples:

Suzanne has a daughter, Jules (Xaria Dotson), who is about the same age as Mae. Jules is jealous when Suzanne raids her closet for clothes for Mae. She gets upset when her friends like Mae, even though a judge forced Mae to enroll in high school when she has never had a formal education before. The one thing that could have maybe possibly been seen as an “evil deed” by Mae was that she included a picture of herself that Jules willingly took in an envelope of pictures to be used for a school newspaper column about her. In the picture, you could see a little bit of a giant wound that Mae has on her back, which somehow gets a bunch of kids at school to like her. Mae says that she included the picture because she thought it made Jules look good as a photographer. Are we really supposed to believe that Mae is manipulative enough to know how all of these kids would respond to one picture of her that barely shows her back? Especially since high school kids can be vicious. I don’t know that they would have responded with “you’re my hero!” They would have responded with “you’re a freak.”

Peter (Sam Jaeger), Suzanne’s husband, knows that Suzanne lived through a traumatic childhood. She literally has scars to show us. However, Peter gets upset when Suzanne does things to accommodate Mae. As a matter of fact, he is the one that insists that Suzanne find somewhere else for Mae to stay even though Mae has straight up stated that she feels safe with Suzanne. When Suzanne and Mae toured another foster home, Mae told Suzanne to her face that she didn’t feel safe there and that she wanted to stay with Suzanne. But, no, let’s send away the traumatized 15-year old because you think your wife isn’t prioritizing your family. (For the record, Suzanne is almost always there for the kids. In some parts, she is there MORE than Peter!)

Another problem is that the cult that is after Mae isn’t that scary. We see a few instances where they leave some marks to show they know where Mae is but they don’t follow up on most of those. The cult doesn’t actually do anything until the last three episodes. In those episodes, we get told of some other things the cult has done but we don’t see a whole lot.

In the finale, we finally get a reason to dislike Mae. However, I think her actions are a direct result of being told that she was getting sent away from Suzanne and her family. I don’t know that we can really blame her for those actions. Sorry, Peter, those are all your fault.

After all of this, I don’t know that the series is worth watching. It is based on a book so maybe the book goes more in depth on everything. But I really think that this should have been at least 10 episodes instead of 8. There are much better series about cults out there. Go watch one of those instead.

LuLaRich - Reviewing The Amazon Docuseries

Halloween reviews start on October 1!

Unless you have been living under a rock, I’m sure you have heard of LuLaRoe. You know, those are the “buttery soft” leggings that “fashionable” moms everywhere wear. The company skyrocketed to popularity only to fall from grace amid scandal. Well, the people that brought us the Hulu documentary, Fyre Fraud, have given us LuLaRich, a four-part docuseries on Amazon Prime, to show us all the gritty details behind the shady company.

In case you aren’t aware of the issues surrounding LuLaRoe, here is a not-so-quick synopsis. The company started with DeAnne Brady selling maxi skirts, that she sewed at home, out of the trunk of her car. When she became overloaded with sales, she recruited some of her friends to help sell the clothes. As the company grew, more consultants signed on and the company began to form a tiered (or may I say, pyramid) ranking of these consultants. The top tiers would make a commission based on the sales of their lower tiers and so on. (Obviously the bottom tier didn’t have commissions as there was no tier under them.) Those top tiers would rake in tens of thousands of dollars per month. I believe some of the top tier consultants got monthly checks for $70,000 or more. While multi-level marketing (MLMs) are not illegal, pyramid schemes are. And this, my friends, is a pyramid scheme.

The issues really started when LuLaRoe had more consultants than an area could handle. It became difficult for consultants to sell their products because there was so much competition. In addition, the quality of the clothing started to go down. Leggings, their highest selling product by far, would arrive smelling bad or have holds in them or the patterns were sewn badly, resulting in the infamous Tower of Pisa leggings or other almost-x-rated patterns.

Eventually, consultants began leaving en masse. LuLaRoe, in an attempt to keep all of their profits, refused to honor the 100% refund they promised their consultants. Bring on the lawsuits!

How does the docuseries do telling this story? Eh. If you already know the story of the company, the series will probably bore you. There are some interviews with Brady and her husband, Mark Stidham, as well as some former employees. We haven’t heard a lot from the people involved with the actual corporation. Those parts are interesting. However, there are a lot of interviews with the very vocal consultants that were in the top tiers before they left the company. I would have preferred to hear more from the people in the lower tiers that lost everything and barely made any money. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for people who raked in tens of thousands of dollars each month on the backs of other people’s work then sob when their expensive sports cars are repossessed.

Each episode is roughly 45 minutes. If you are interesting in hearing more about the terrible things DeAnne and the company did (trust me, I only scratched the surface), it is worth the watch. However, if you are already familiar with the basics of the story, you would probably do better watching the video Vice put out in 2019.

It's That Time Of Year Again!

I know this blog is sorely neglected. Usually I’m way too busy with life to find time to write about things. After all, 2020 was the year my daughter graduated high school, competed in her last dance competition, performed in her last dance recital, and went off to college. Well, they would have been things she would have done if the world wasn’t ravaged by a pandemic. (Thankfully, she was able to live on-campus at college for awhile. The school did shut down in-person classes early though.) So instead of work and hobbies and life and everything, it was depression that got me. I was very sad thinking of all of the things that everyone lost this year - both lives lost and milestones missed. 2020 has been awful.

So that brings me to this year’s Christmas movies. I usually review one movie per day from December 1 through December 25. An advent calendar, if you will. Well, this year, I’m going to challenge myself to tackle all 71 new Christmas movies brought to us by Hallmark, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries (why do they need 2 channels?!), Lifetime, Netflix, and Hulu. Yes, Hulu has joined the fray this year.

What does this mean for you? It means that the movie reviews will extend past Christmas Day this year and some days will have multiple reviews. If I start tomorrow, I will have 43 days to watch 71 movies. That will end this challenge on New Year’s Eve. If, for some reason, I can’t get all of the reviews in by New Year’s Eve, they’ll just have to start out 2021. I am absolutely determined to watch all 71 of these movies. No matter how terrible they are.

Please join me on this Jolly Journey of Christmas Joy - Pandemic Edition. Maybe we’ll be pleasantly surprised and some of these will actually be good this year.

My Favorite Television - 2018

Even though it’s officially 2019, I’m going to continue talking about 2018 this week. I’m going to talk about my favorite television shows from 2018 today and Friday will be my favorite movies. Much like my list of favorite songs, these shows may not be from 2018 but they are the shows I watched a lot last year.

When I first saw a commercial for The Good Place back in 2016, I wrote it off as a fluff show. The premise didn’t sound interesting at all. Then I ran out of shows to binge on Netflix. So in a moment of “why not,” I turned it on. It is SO GOOD.

The original commercials made me think this was about Kristen Bell in heaven. It’s not. Well, it is but it isn’t. Kristen Bell’s character, Eleanor, is a trash person. She insults everyone, she literally defrauds old people for a living, and she is only out for herself. When she dies, she is sent to heaven. But she knows she doesn’t belong there. So she tries to get her soulmate, Chidi (William Jackson Harper), to help her earn her way into heaven. Since he was an ethics professor when he was alive, it makes sense that he might be able to teach her how to be a good person.

I would really love to tell you more about the show but I would hate to spoil it for anyone that hasn’t seen it. There are currently three seasons of The Good Place. They are all available either on Netflix or Hulu. You should definitely check it out. You won’t regret it.

If you couldn’t tell from my Instagram, a lot of my life revolves around dance. Both my daughter and I dance. We spend a lot of time in the dance studio or at dance events. Normally, we don’t watch a lot of dance reality shows. I’ve only seen one season of Dancing With The Stars and I’ve never seen So You Think You Can Dance. But World of Dance had a few dancers that we recognized from social media. Since it’s on this list, you can figure out that we enjoyed it.

We aren’t big fans of the judges. Sometimes they make decisions that make no sense to us. But that’s OK. We’re really there to watch the dancers. Thanks to this show, we have been introduced to a lot of amazing dancers and dance groups that we never would have seen otherwise. If you love dance and you can tune out all of the actual reality show stuff, WoD is a pretty good show.

Even though we’ve never really watched Dancing With The Stars (beyond watching a few favorite celebrity routines on YouTube), my daughter was looking forward to the junior version of the show. Once again, the lineup featured a couple of dancers we followed on social media. (I think that might be the key.) Juniors was a little more light-hearted than other dance reality shows, which added to the fun a bit. I’m not sure if we would watch a second season, though. It depends on who the competitors are.

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. I’m not sure I actually have words for this Netflix series. It has almost everything I want out of a supernatural television show. I only say ‘almost’ because I think I would prefer a little more theatrics in my television witchcraft but the show isn’t any lesser without it. The show has a perfect balance between Sabrina’s witch life and her mortal life. And Kiernan Shipka is amazing as the title character.

Sabrina recently released a holiday special that is a perfect witchy companion to all of the Christmas specials out there. If you are into supernatural witchiness, this is definitely the show for you. (Much better than CW’s Supernatural and it can easily be binge-watched in a day or two.)

While this isn’t a comprehensive list of everything I watched in 2018, these were my favorites. A few shows that didn’t quite make the list are Netflix’s Nailed It!, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, The Good Doctor, and Netflix’s BoJack Horseman. However, these weren’t shows that made me run to my TV every week to watch. I enjoyed them when I remembered to watch them but I didn’t carve out time in my week to fit them in. Let’s just say I’m thankful that DVRs exist.

Were there any shows that you absolutely loved this year? Or are there any older shows you think I should check out? Let me know in the comments.

Doctor Who - "The Magician's Apprentice"

The ninth season of Doctor Who premiered on BBC America on Saturday, September 19. Being the Whovians that we are, my family joined together for a rare night of live television. (We usually DVR our shows.) Were we in for an exciting night! As a note, I will try my best to stay away from spoilers.

Every Doctor Who episode has a grand entrance, right? This one is no different. A war rages on some world. It vaguely looks like Earth but the airplanes are shooting laser beams at the men on the ground. Men who are only armed with bows and arrows. Not exactly an even match. One of the men come upon a child running from the fray. Unfortunately, this child has run into a hand mine. (That would be a mines made of hands...) If the hand grabs you, it will drag you under the ground to your death. The child stands still, not knowing how to handle his situation, when a strange object lands near his feet. We hear the voice of The Doctor, amplified through the sonic screwdriver he threw to the child. As The Doctor talks, telling the child that he will not die this day, he asks the child his name. And it is the name The Doctor fears the most. Davros.

OK. I said I was staying away from spoilers. That is the closest I will get because it is very important to understanding the episode.

Clara is in her classroom when she notices the airplanes have all stopped mid-air. They aren't falling. They are just stopped. Of course, she gets a call from UNIT (the UNified Intelligence Taskforce) and rushes off.

So, yeah, UNIT has been around for years and years and years. Since the Second Doctor, I believe. At what point do you think they will stop hiring morons? They seemed pretty intelligent when Martha was working with them. But now they are stupid? I found their whole part in the episode annoying. It was nothing more than an easy way to slide Missy (formerly known as The Master) back into the show. (Hey, she was on some of the promo posters and trailers. Not a spoiler!)

Missy is the one that stopped the planes. She needed to talk to Clara but it's not like Clara would willingly go have tea with her for no good reason. It turns out that Missy received an item that means The Doctor will die the next day. Or at least he thinks he will. They need to find The Doctor and save him. Clara uses UNIT's computers to lock down the time and place The Doctor is hiding. And off they go.

Hm. Does this mean that the writers are officially saying The Doctor is out of regenerations? Supposedly this thing Missy received is akin to a will. Why wouldn't it get sent out every time he changes? I mean, The Doctor isn't dying in the first two episodes of the series. Duh. But what are they saying about the future of the show?

From here on out, the episode is all about The Doctor living with decisions he has made. Has he made the right ones? Has he doomed us all by making terrible ones? While this is a two-part episode (it looks like most of the season will be as well), there are quite a few surprises in the second half of this episode. And a lot of it revolves around relationships. How The Doctor views the people he interacts with on his travels. I have to admit that I thought it was rather interesting.

Even though I hate cliff-hanger episodes, I thought this was a good way to open Season 9. We had The Doctor asking Clara if he was a good man in the beginning of Season 8. Will we find out the answer to that this season? Will Peter Capaldi be the final Doctor? I really hope that the writers give us the answers to the possibilities they have given us. I also hope this isn't really the end for the series. I do love it.

Six Degrees of Everything

The Fine Brothers, famous for uploading React (Kids React, Teens React, etc.) videos to YouTube, have come to TruTV with something completely different. Six Degrees of Everything is a take on the popular Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game. The brothers will try to connect two seemingly random things in only six steps. Since I always try to support YouTubers and their attempts to break into mainstream media, I watched the first two episodes. 

I have to admit that I was fairly skeptical of the premise of the show. It sounds interesting to connect Albert Einstein to breast implants but is it actually interesting? On top of that, Benny and Rafi Fine are usually behind the camera. When they are on camera, they can be funny. But will they have the personalities to hold an audience's attention for a half hour show? 

The answer to both of those questions is "not really."

The connections that they make between "degrees" are often tenuous, at best. Since the rules aren't as strict as the original game's, they can make any connection they want. For example, in the premiere episode, they connect Einstein to Cousin Couple because his second marriage was to his cousin then they connect Cousin Couples to Elvis Presley because he had a song called 'Kissing Cousins.' As you can see, that first connection is pretty strong but then that second connection is, well, weak. And the connections don't get any better from there on out. Elvis is connected to comic books (because he based his look on Captain Marvel Jr), which is then connected to Lie Detectors (the guy that created Wonder Woman also created a component of the modern lie detector) , which is then connected to breast implants (because one way to detect lies is with an EEG and they can be thrown off by  breast implants). See? Weaksauce.

In between these connections, the brothers give us tidbits of information. Sometimes they are slightly interesting but, most of the time, they are not. Instead of feeling like a conversation between brothers, it feels like they just needed to fill space. Sure, they probably did need to fill space but it shouldn't feel like it. 

On top of that, the brothers just aren't interesting enough to keep the audience's attention. I honestly think this show would be better if it were presented as a conversation between brothers. Sometimes they get along, sometimes they fight, but they always get excited when the reach the end of their trail. Instead, everything feels overproduced. Their "fights" are obviously scripted and they don't have the acting chops to make them feel organic. (For an example of a show hosted by brothers that feels like a natural conversation between them, check out Hank and John Green's pocast - Dear Hank and John. There is a little bit of awkwardness as they change subjects but their 'arguments' feel real.) As a result, Benny and Rafi come off as stiff and almost inhuman. This show proves that they need to stay behind the camera.

TruTV only ordered 10 episodes. The first two have already aired. I'm not sure the show will make it through the next 8. Even though I love The Fine Brothers and their productions, this one is a bust. The show's production staff should watch a few episodes of Outrageous Acts of Science on the Science Channel. Everyone on that show has the personality to explain complex science experiments and keep them interesting. While OAoS doesn't connect their videos, I think their format could easily be modified to fit the Six Degrees format. That would be amazing! Since that is unlikely to happen, I'm just going to skip past Six Degrees and hope something better comes out of it. 

Disney's Descendants

Disney's heavily hyped Descedants movie aired Friday night. While everyone in my family has been on the fence about actually watching it, we ended up spending the day Sunday sitting through the 2-hour movie. Was it worth it? Well...

In case you have been living under a rock, here is the premise of the movie: The fairy tale villains have been shipped off to a desolate island to live out their years. In the meantime, Beauty (Belle) and the Beast have united all of the kingdoms and everyone is living happily ever after. Fast forward to everyone having 16-year old kids. The children of the villains have all grown up as good-for-nothing scamps while the good children have grown up in boarding school. Ben, the son of Belle and the Beast, is about to be crowned king. His first proclamation is to bring four of the villain-kids to Auradon to go to school. After all, they are not their parents.

So. The characters. The four villain-kids are Mal (daughter of Maleficent), Evie (daughter of the Evil Queen), Carlos (son of Cruella deVil), and Jay (son of Jafar). The main good-kids are Ben (son of Beauty and the Beast), Audrey (daughter of Aurora, Sleeping Beauty), Jane (daughter of the Fairy Godmother), and Doug (son of Dopey). There are a few more good-kids hanging around but they aren't particularly important to the plot. 

Maleficent sees this school transfer as an opportunity to get Mal to steal the Fairy Godmother's wand, which will give her tremendous power. Fairy Godmother is the head mistress of the academy so it shouldn't be too difficult, right?

OK. I think we have everything laid out now. First, I'd like to say that the movie wasn't as awful as I thought it was going to be. That said, it isn't particularly good either. There are problems and there are a lot of them.

I'm not sure why they picked these particular villains as the main characters. I understand Maleficent and the Evil Queen. They are usually the first baddies you think of when you think Disney. I'll even give Cruella a pass. But Jafar? Of all of the Disney baddies, they picked Jafar? It wasn't a good choice. 

And while we're talking about the characters, let's address their names. Every single kid is somehow named after their parents. Mal is Maleficent's daughter, Evie is the Evil Queen's daughter, Lonnie is Mulan's daughter...the list goes on and on. While I could understand one or two narcissistic princes/princesses/queens naming their kids directly after them, I can't believe that every single parent would be like "How can I make my baby a direct comparison to myself?" Insert facepalm.

Next up, let's talk plot. Maleficent is the big baddie here. The other three villains simply go along with her. Everyone is afraid of her. Except the other three kids. They are only afraid of their parents, even if those parents haven't actually shown any reason for the kids to be frightened. Everything seems to hinge on the sole fact that they were the villains in their stories. 

Most of the plot is typical Disney fare: the kids are (slightly) shunned by the other kids because they are villian-kids. The villain-kids do "bad" things like stuff their faces with chocolate. The good-parents are shocked when their kids get along with the bad kids. Prince Ben and Mal fall in love. Love conquers all. You know the story.

Then we get to the songs. Man, there were some stinkers in there. Mal and the gang are introduced through a song - "Rotten To The Core." Where none of them really do anything rotten beyond walking on some tables. OK, at the end, Mal does steal a lollipop from a baby but it wasn't particularly difficult nor did it come off as a terrible act. We were just supposed to THINK it was terrible. The best song of the bunch was a remake of "Be Our Guest" that the good-kids sing when their parents come to visitation day. Sigh.

In the end, the movie was just barely tolerable. They should have gotten rid of Carlos (for serious, Cameron Boyce is NOT a good actor. Get rid of him!) and Jay (though Booboo Stewart did a really good job with the crap he was given) for more interesting villains. Mal should have been way more evil in the beginning. I get the evil-turned-good plot device but she wasn't all that evil to begin with. To be honest, the best villian-kid was Evie. She was never in it to BE evil. She just wanted to be beautiful and marry a prince, just like every other kid in the kingdom. Her turmoil was the most honest. The movie's ending suggested a sequel. I hope not. I can't see this getting any better. 

TV Review: Sherlock

I can't believe I forgot to talk about this! Way back in the summer of 2010, the BBC aired a new series titled Sherlock. Created by Steven Moffat, the same guy that created the currently-airing version of Doctor Who, I heard great things about the series. It wasn't until I came upon the episodes on Netflix that I got a chance to sit down and watch them. Boy, am I glad that I did!

Pretty much everyone knows who Sherlock Holmes is so I won't go into too much detail. For those of you that don't (shame on you), here is the nitty gritty: Sherlock Holmes is a strange man who reaches grand conclusions with only the smallest of details. Since he is not much of a "people person," he requires someone to not only help him out in day-to-day activities (such as shopping) but also someone he can bounce thoughts off of. This person is John Watson, a former military doctor who longs for more action in his life. Together, they help Scotland Yard solve the toughest cases.

First, I want to talk about the bad points of the show. There really is just one. The entire first season is a mere three episodes long. Just as we're starting to love Sherlock and his insane ways, they unlovingly dump us on the floor. There is a second season, which is also only three episodes, but it didn't start until this month! I haven't watched it yet so I'm hoping it's as good as the first.

Now. Let's talk about the good points. Benedict Cumberbatch is absolutely amazing as Sherlock. He is able to bring forth the smugness and frustration that is Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock knows he is smarter than everyone else in the room and it frustrates him when people miss things he considers obvious. Also, Martin Freeman is an ideal match as Watson. Watson isn't there to be brilliant or awesome. He is just there to continually keep Sherlock grounded in the real world. I couldn't imagine anyone else in these roles. The show would fall apart of these two weren't so good.

I also love the cinematography of the show. In the first episode, as Sherlock notices things, random words appear on the screen. It isn't until Sherlock pieces everything together for us that we realize what the words mean to him. For once, we get to see a bit of the inner workings in Sherlock's brain. No wonder the world is so frustrating for him.

For you old-school Sherlock fans, there are some minor changes but not a lot. He no longer smokes pipes (not even cigar specials). Instead, he uses nicotine patches. He claims the nicotine helps him think but it isn't convenient to smoke in London nowadays. We do get to see him playing the violin a little. Though, I fully admit that it isn't very good violin playing. Perhaps we'll get something better in the next season.

Sherlock is an awesome piece of television. If you get a chance to see it, be it on PBS or on Netflix, do it. You definitely will not regret it. And, if we're lucky, we'll get to see the second season sooner. I'd hate to have a wait another year and a half to see what happens!

TV Review: Grimm

Last week, I talked about ABC's fantasy drama Once Upon A Time. Now I'd like to talk about NBC's fantasy drama Grimm. The two shows are similar yet so different. Both shows revolve around fairy tale characters in the real world. However, where Time is a pretty straight forward drama, Grimm is a gritty police drama.

Nick Burkhardt (David Guintoli) is a homicide detective who recently finds out that he is a descendent of the famous Grimm brothers. However, the Grimm brothers were more than just fairy tale writers. They were part of a group of hunters that fight supernatural creatures. Now that Burkhardt's powers have been activated, it is up to him to protect humanity from the evil creatures in the world.

I am always very excited when fairy tale series come to television. Even though I know in my heart that they could be very disappointing, I always set aside time to tune in. Unfortunately, Grimm is not a very good show. Despite wanting desperately to enjoy it, I found it severely lacking. Instead of focusing on the fantastical creatures, we are relegated to watching Burkhardt try to solve a crime without letting anyone, including his partner Hank (Russell Hornsby), know that the responsible party is an animalistic creature masquerading as a human. It is painful to watch Burkhardt trying to figure out what is going on. Even though his Aunt Marie (Kate Burton) left him a trailer full of information about the various creatures, he barely touches any of it. Sure, there are a few scenes of him slowly paging through a book but that isn't anything like real research. If the show wanted to focus on the police aspect, they should stop being so half-hearted about it. There are plenty of good cop shows to show them how to do it.

It's not always a good idea to compare shows. However, since Once Upon A Time and Grimm both debuted around the same time and contain the same underlying plot, it's difficult not to compare them. Time is a great fantasy drama that drops hints about the true identity of each character. Grimm, on the other hand, is muddled and doesn't seem to know what it is. I am going to give Grimm a few more episodes to redeem itself. I'm just not going to hold my breath waiting for redemption.