Review - Drawn Together (2004-2007, 2010)

Drawn Together was an animated adult satirical sitcom which aired on Comedy Central between 2004 and 2007, with a feature length direct to DVD movie following in 2010.

The premise of the show was simple, 8 cartoon characters of various types were taking part in a reality TV show for some unspecified purpose, and each episode showed the wacky goings off behind closed doors (or, as the opening credits described it "1 House, 8 Cartoon Characters, 1,000,000 Cameras!").

 Each of the characters involved was a specific archetype, both of the genre of animation, and of the "reality TV star".

Main Characters:-



Captain Hero - A Caricature of "American style" caped superheros, particularly Superman.
Captain Hero, or "Leslie" to his friends is the typical all American straight laced macho type, except that in reality he is a misogynistic, chauvinist, homophobic, hypocritical and sometimes violent bigot. Numerous times during the series he is seen to indulge in many and varied sexual perversions, as well as being something of a closeted homosexual. He is also very childish and prone to temper tantrums and periods of sulking when he doesn't get his own way, he also seems to be completely oblivious the the world around him on occasions, usually whenever he uses (or abuses) any of his super powers. Oddly, Captain Hero is one of the best developed characters in the series, receiving a full and coherent back story as well as proper character development. As a reality TV star, he falls cleanly into the "Macho frat boy" archetype.

Wooldoor Sockbat - A caricature of "wacky" cartoon characters, mostly modelled on Spongebob Squarepants (described in one episode as an "ill conceived Spongebob parody") but also incorporating elements of Looney Toons and Tex Avery type characters (Wooldoor can ignore all natural laws at will etc). Wooldoor is an extremely weird and somewhat childish character who usually ends up being the butt of many jokes, or is generally bullied due to his naivety. However Wooldoor also has the ability to be extremely intelligent on occasion, showing he has abilities as a psychiatrist, a surgeon, a doctor and a scientist (as well as an unwilling lab experiment from time to time). As a reality TV star, he is the "Weird guy".


Princess Clara - An obvious caricature of fairy tale princesses, notably "Disney" princess types.
Outwardly kind and charming, Clara is actually a fundamentalist christian, an anti-semite, a homophobe, a racist and an idiot. Although these traits stem from her sheltered upbringing, it is also implied that she has an incestuous relationship with her father the King. Most of the shows humour from Clara comes from her being blatantly offensive without realising it, but also from how hypocritical she is, usually because she realises she can benefit herself in some way by doing something she condemns others for. As a reality TV star, she fits into the "Sheltered rich girl" archetype.

Foxxy Love - A caricature of "blaxsploitation" type characters, Foxxy is a "mystery solving musician" who was formerly a member of the band "Foxxy 5", who had 1 hit single in the mid 1980s (all other members of the band are also blaxsploitation characters). Foxxy, being black, is frequently on the receiving end of Claras racist outbursts, however Foxxy is also hypersensitive towards anything which could remotely be considered racist (for example she deliberately mishears the word "knickers" as "niggers" during a spelling bee and uses it as an excuse to assault the judges). Other than that, Foxxy typically behaves in a stereotypical "ghetto" manner, speaking in Ebonics and/or jive talk, being sexually promiscuous, stealing anything she can get her hands on etc, however out of all the housemates, Foxxy ends up usually being the most level headed (or as Wooldoor describes her "the least retarded"). As a reality TV star, she is the "Sassy Black Girl".

Xandir - Xandir (full name - Xandir P. Whifflebottom) is a caricature of one dimensional video game characters, most notably "Link" from the "Zelda" series of games. Extremely effete, Xandir says he is "on a never ending quest to save his girlfriend", however in the 3rd episode of series 1, he admits that he is gay and breaks up with her. Xandir is the most placid of the housemates however he does have a tendency to freak out over the most trivial of things. As a reality TV star, Xandir is the "Token gay guy", although in one episode he does admit that he finds Toot attractive (she then forces him to have sex with her numerous times)

Ling-Ling - Ling-Ling is a caricature of Japanese anime characters, mainly pokemon/digimon type creatures, but is also a stereotype of Asians in general. As a "Japanese trading card battle monster" (that bears a strong resemblance to Pikachu) , all Ling-Ling seems to care about is battling other creatures, however when the opportunity to battle does not present itself, he goes about other tasks as though he was in an anime style battle, with accompanying theme tunes and stock backgrounds etc. Ling-Ling, with the exception of one episode, spends the entire series speaking a faux Japanese-esque language, and fulfils other Asian stereotypes such as being unable to drive safely, being good at standardised tests and being a disappointment to his father. As a realty TV star, he is the "Clueless foreigner" who struggles with culture shock.

Toot Braunstein - Toot is a caricature of 1920s era black and white cartoon characters such as Betty Boop. She appears to be a chubby flapper girl in her early 20s, however when seen in close up she is actually hairy, spotty and extremely unattractive to most people. Her "cute" personality masks her true personality, which is that of an extremely unpleasant, attention seeking, foul mouthed, alcoholic, gluttonous antagonist. Toot spends most of her time causing trouble, over eating, drinking and indulging in self harm if things don't go her way. She is also extremely sexually frustrated, being as no one will willingly have intercourse with her, however when they do the experience is usually terrifying for them. As a reality TV star, she is the "attention seeking trouble causer".

Spanky Ham - A caricature of Flash animation characters, Spanky Ham is a poorly drawn anthropomorphic pig who has a foul mouth and an obsession with toilet humour and sex. He has a somewhat abrasive and cynical personality, however he demonstrates numerous times that he has a head for money making making schemes of various legalities. As a reality TV star, he is the "loud mouthed slob".

Although the series uses set characters in an established setting, almost none of the episodes follow any kind of coherent story arc, characters are killed off or delivered a life changing plot line one week, for it all to be completely forgotten the following week. Many episodes also include various non-sequitr scenes as well, usually, but not always, featuring a cameo appearance by a "real" cartoon character (although most of these characters are usually not named or obscured in some way to avoid copyright infringement).
The show also features several running gags, such as the shows poor reviews, Foxxys dislike of the foster care system (its said that she has had several of her own children placed in foster care), Toot being mistaken for a cow/whale/bear etc because of her weight and appearance and so on.

Speaking of the shows reviews, many reviews slated the show for its overuse of stereotypes, obsession with crude humour and bodily functions and for the amount of swearing, nudity and depictions of sex acts (on a strange note, during one episode, Wooldoor explains to the viewer that due to FCC regulations, the viewers may not see Princess Claras vagina, but throughout the show it is permitted for the viewers to see nearly all of the main male characters penises, both flaccid and erect, as well as being able to show the male members masturbating and ejaculating). One review branded the show as being "unfit for children"...which proves that they probably didn't get the fact that the show was intended as an adult satire program simply because it was a cartoon.

Much as I have seen people slate the show for its racist, misogynistic, anti-religious and other general offensive content, what they don't tend to realise is that Drawn together is a wonderfully crafted piece of social satire, having a pop at many different issues per episode and doing them in an extremely entertaining way.
Unfortunately though, the series was cancelled after its 3rd season began airing, which seemed to come unexpectedly to the production team as they admitted via an on screen caption during the final episode of series 3 that this was "the most crappy series finale ever" and that "several lines of dialogue had already been written and recorded and it was too late to change them".
The series ended with all 8 main characters receiving their contract termination notices and walking as a group through a door marked "Unemployment", bringing the series to an end.

In 2010 however, a 65 minute movie, imaginatively titled "The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie!" was released to finish off the series proper with one last attempt by the characters to get the show back on the air.

I really liked this series because the quick witted and deep cutting dark humour is brilliant, but it is also the reason why the show wasn't too popular with the mainstream people, simply because it was "different".

EPis0dIC! - Alien Nation "The Spirit of '95" (Se01E13) 1990

The episode begins with Buck and Susan visiting the campaign headquarters for the "Alien Vote Amendment", which aims to allow newcomers, all of whom have been granted citizenship and indefinite leave to stay in the united States, to have the right to vote.

Both Buck and Susan believe strongly in newcomers right to vote, as does "Wyatt Earp", the newcomer campaign manager and Jesse, the human campaign manager.
Susan and Buck both volunteer to help the cause, and their assistance is welcomed, however both Jesse and Wyatt are more interested in having George, a respected newcomer police officer, speak out on the issue. Although Susan says she cannot promise she can get any assistance form George, Buck is more enthusiastic, however just as Susan begins to feel ill from her ongoing pregnancy, the campaign headquarters has to be evacuated due to a bomb threat, one of several that have happened since the campaign began. Up until now though, all the threats have been hoaxes, but this time round, as everyone waits outside, the building explodes.

Sikes finds he has been voted in to be the chairman of his apartment blocks residents association, much to his displeasure, however he has no time to worry about it as he is called to investigate the bomb. As it turns out, Jesse says that he received a phone call from someone claiming to be a representative of the "United Purist Party", a right wing ultra conservative political movement dedicated to denying newcomers any rights to vote, or indeed, any right to exist as free sentient beings.
George is disgusted that people would go to such lengths to deny people their rights, and reminds Sikes that the countries foundations were based on people standing up for their rights, however Sikes states that matter doesn't interest him, as he generally doesn't vote.
Their investigation is made somewhat easier by the arrival of Max Clay, the head of the UPP, at the station. Max threatens Sikes and George with litigation if they make any statements directly linking the UPP with the terrorist bomb threats, as they have no direct evidence linking the incidents to him or representatives of his party. Max also states that it is the UPPs party line that direct threats and use of violence is neither encouraged or condoned, however as George points out to him, they have, in the past, made carefully veiled threats of violence against newcomers. Max launches into a monologue about how the Bible states that God created man in his image to have dominion over the Earth etc etc, and it is the Purists intention to keep mankind's "destiny" on course by whatever means necessary, even if that includes being violent or inhumane toward newcomers..George swears and leaves in disgust.

Buck is out canvassing with Wyatt while Susan helps Jesse set up the campaign headquarters in the Fransisco house (George isn't terribly pleased by this) however after having a few doors slammed in his face, Buck is shocked when Wyatt is kidnapped off the street, seemingly by some purists, who almost run him over in the process.
George is outraged at this, the second attack on his family that day, and heads over to UPP headquarters to politely "remind" Max Clay that violence can work both ways, and if anyone associated with the UPP attacks or threatens his family ever again, he will personally take care of the matter.
Meanwhile, Sikes is called to the scene of another kidnapping, this time Jesse has been taken off the street by the same vehicle car took Wyatt, however his investigation is cut short when he is called back to the station to receive a reprimand for Georges threatening behaviour towards Max Clay.

Sikes returns home to find he has to sit as chair at a meeting of the residents association, which quickly devolves into an argument between the other residents over whether they should pay $700 for an elderly resident to have a ramp installed on the back door, which apparently Sikes said he would look into at the last meeting, but hasn't because A) he is too busy with his police work and B) he doesn't care. As it turns out though, the weird old lady who has asked for the ramp has lived there since the place was built, brought up 3 children there and her husband died there, so she feels an attachment to the building itself in a way none of the other residents do. As it turns out later, Cathy paid for the ramp to be fitted out of her own pocket.

At the station the next day, Sikes arrives to find George giving an interview to Burns, the stations almost resident hack journalist. Burns is quite happy at George giving some very strong views on the purists, but Sikes steps in and stops him before he says something stupid.
Just then, Wyatt is dumped outside the station, having been badly beaten. Although he says that he does not know where he was taken, he says he knows that Jesse was there with him, and the people who held them, who identified themselves as purists, drew lots over which one of them to release. Unfortunately, Wyatt isn't able to give a description of his captors as he claims he was blindfolded all the time, but then he shocks both Sikes and George by insisting on giving a press conference right there and then to "expose" the treatment the UPP is meting out to newcomers.

With all the clues pointing to UPP involvement in the kidnappings and bombings, Sikes is a little surprised to receive an invitation for him and George to come and see Max Clay at their campaign headquarters. Clay explains that he personally instructed all members of the UPP to not make any violent action against anyone by letter a week before the trouble started, and he also presents Sikes with the proposition that maybe Wyatt and Jesse planned the bombing and kidnapping themselves, as despite the press conference and all the negative press about the UPP, the AVA movements approval ratings have only risen by 14%, as opposed to the expected 25%. George dismisses this notion as laughable, but Sikes sees his point. George asks why Sikes is so cynical about politics, and he explains that several years ago, a lobby group campaigned to outlaw chemical weapons, a motion which was passed through congress and lauded as a step towards the end of the production of weapons of mass destruction, however the money saved on developing, maintaining and building chemical weapons was funnelled straight into the development, maintenance and building of nuclear weapons instead of being used for peaceful means. Sikes says it was this incident which caused him to lose faith in the political system.

A report comes in that the car used in both the kidnappings of Wyatt and Jesse has been spotted, so Sikes and George follow it, only to find Wyatt at the wheel when it pulls up at a cheap motel on the outskirts of town. As it turns out, Wyatt confesses that Jesse planned the bombing and the kidnappings as a way to get free publicity for the AVA and to turn popular opinion against the UPP, however Jesse is ill and called Wyatt to come and take him to the hospital. They enter Jesses room to find that he has been beaten to death.

Now having a murder investigation on their hands, George and Sikes immediately suspect Wyatt, as the tyre iron from his car was used to kill Jesse, but no motive can be found. Sikes calls the phone company and asks for the call records from both Wyatt and Jesses telephones, however he finds that there has already been a wire tap made on both phones, seemingly without any authorisation.
Their investigation leads them to the phone company, where one of the employees there, a staunch purist supporter, had put a tap on the phones at the request of Max Clay, however he denies committing Jesses murder, saying he only told Max Clay where Jesse was when he had called Wyatt to ask him to take him to the hospital.
The vote comes, and the motion to allow newcomers to vote is passed in 32 states, meanwhile, at an investigation committee, the UPPs activities linking them not only to violence towards newcomers, but also to the murder of Jesse are brought to light, and the UPP loses all public credibility as Max Clay repeatedly takes the 5th whenever he is asked about his involvement. The judge ends the proceedings by ordering all the UPPs records to be seized and a full investigation into their activities be carried out.


This is one of the best episodes of the series in my opinion. firstly, it deals in a none too subtle way with the topic of racism in human society, and the efforts of those who use this racist attitude in order to further their own desire for power over others.
Secondly, it also deals with abuses of the political system to allow people to achieve their aims, regardless of the costs.
A very well written episode this be!.

Alien Nation : The Series (1989-1990)

Following on from the original film , the Alien Nation TV series continues the story of a "future" (the series is set roughly in 1991/1992) United States which becomes inhabited by 250,000 aliens after their ship crash lands in the Mojave desert.

Although the series was intended to be a direct follow on to the film, there were numerous small changes made to characters and back story, for example, the two main characters, Matthew Sykes (renamed "Sikes" in the TV series) and "newcomer" Sam "George" Fransisco (renamed simply "George Fransisco" in the series, his original pun name said to have been foisted on him by a bored immigration official) are now played by Gary Graham and Eric Pierpoint as opposed to James Caan and Mandy Patinkin respectively.
In addition, Georges family was slightly changed, With his son now being named "Buck" instead of "Richard" as given in the film.

I first encountered this show as part of Yorkshire televisions "late night" weekend slot, as it usually aired on a friday or saturday night during the early/mid 90s. Itwas strange as i thought that there were at least 2 or 3 series of this show made, the series itself consisted of a single series of 22 episodes, each lasting 47 minutes, and the concept is explored further than it was in the film.
Several new aspects are added to the background of the "newcomers", whose race is named officially as the "Tenctonese", although the pejorative terms "Slag" or "Spongehead" are used by people to refer to them on occasion, a point which in the first episode, George explains to Sikes that calling him a Slag is the equivalent of calling someone a "nigger" or a "kike". Although the newcomers show they too have prejudice by referring to humans as "terts".

The series does have a couple of plot arcs, and each episode generally consists of two story lines running simultaneously in some way.  Themes explored include:-

• The culture shock that ensues from humans suddenly having 250,000 completely alien people dropped on them, which leads to various racist themes being explored, such as jealousy that the newcomers are generally stronger, smarter and more resilient than  humans. So much so that during the course of some episodes, a human centric "purist" movement is shown to exist, which spreads various rumours and lies about the newcomers. The irony of this is is that many black, oriental and Hispanic people end up repeating the same things about newcomers as what was once said about themselves, for no other reason than to express hatred towards something different.
• The new types of crime that spring up once the newcomers begin integrating into human society. Although a lot of this crime is pretty much the same as human crime (drug traffiking, prostitution, theft, murder, gang warfare etc) the problems end up becoming more complex being as that they involve an alien culture, and as such, many of the human characters do not always understand what is happening. 
• Inter species relationships are also explored, with Sikes slowly becoming more and more attracted towards his newcomer neighbour "Cathy", as well as a few episodes depicting both aliens and newcomers in mixed or same sex relationships (it is also shown that the newcomers have no taboos about same sex relationships amongst either their own people or inter species, although some do have prejudice about mixed sex inter species relationships).
•  An interesting sub plot throughout the series is the introduction of a ruling class of newcomers called "overseers", nearly all of whom went unnoticed on their arrival on Earth and all of whom seek to once again take control of the "lesser" newcomers. George finds the overseers detestable, as do most of the other newcomers once they have been freed from their influence. One episode deals with a terrorist obtaining a cannister of the mind control gas that the overseers used to keep the slaves in line, and several episodes deal with the police finding and closing down operations to create "Jabroka", a drug which has roughly the same effect on newcomers as crack cocaine does on humans.
• Sikes and Georges ongoing struggle to make arrests despite interference from the ambitious and somewhat buffoonish Captain Grazer.

The series is unashamedly a "buddy cop" type program, but also has elements of being a sci-fi soap opera, with many of the "B" plots being little more than simple "aliens/humans not understanding each other" type affairs, but for some reason, it really works well, and quickly establishes a core group of likeable characters performing believable actions within their almost normal environment.
There are numerous examples of comedy in there as well, ranging from simple cultural misunderstandings (such as Georges wife being utterly repulsed by the concept of Halloween), right down to instances of heavily satirical and/or black humour. 

But, despite how well the series was received, its days were numbered as after only a single series. This came as somewhat of a surprise to viewers, and to the production crew, who had expected to at least get a second series based on the shows approval ratings. The problem was, the show aired on FOXs "Fox Network" during its early days as a prime time TV channel, and, due to the network not attracting as much investment from advertisers as they had expected, cuts had to be made to the network budget, and, Alien Nation, being an expensive show to make due to the large amount of special effects and make up needing to be applied to actors playing aliens, ranked as one of the shows which had to go in order to save money.

The story didn't end there though, with five feature length TV movies being produced between 1994 and 1997 which picked up from where the series left off and resolved all the unfinished story lines.

The show still enjoys somewhat of a cult following today, and is one of my firm favourites.

War Of The Worlds - The series (1988-1990)

The War Of The Worlds TV series was first envisaged as a concept in the 1970s by Director George Pal and was intended to be a direct follow on the the 1953 movie, however the series did not make it to screens due to no interest in it.
In 1988 however writer/director Greg Strangis managed to pitch a similar concept which found favour amongst US TV executives who were, at the time, quite keen on making TV series based on successful films, as the same year saw a "Friday the XIII" TV series and a "Nightmare on Elm Street" TV series.

Two full series were made, however there are massive differences in the settings and tone of the second series compared to the first, so much so that barring a couple of shared characters, the second series could be considered to be something entirely different based on a similar premise.

Series 1 (1988-1989)

The back story goes that both the events of the 1953 Film and the 1938 Radio Broadcast were actually real attempted alien invasions, however following the end of the 1953 invasion, the aliens (note - the aliens are not referred to as "martians", as a rule in all episodes, as the concept of life on Mars had long since been disproved and thus useless as a believable plot point) did not die when exposed to Earths bacteria, instead, the aliens entered a state of torpor, and thus, after the 1953 war ended, thousands of "dead" alien bodies were sealed into oil drums and sent to storage areas all over the world, supposedly for scientific research purposes, but in reality they were quickly hidden away along with any spacecraft and artifacts so that the worlds governments could quickly and quietly rebuild and forget about the horrifying events of the invasion.
35 years pass and in present day (1988) a group of environmental terrorists attack and take over a military storage compound, which they intend to hold for ransom due to it being used to store nuclear waste. Unfortunately for them the facility is also one of the places that sleeping aliens are stored, and, in the process of their assault on the facility, the terrorists cause the aliens to become exposed to radioactive waste, which reanimates them. The aliens quickly counter attack, and demonstrate that they have the ability to merge their bodies with a human body, thus allowing them to appear as human (This was actually a cost saving measure so that numerous difficult to produce alien costumes didn't have to be made and maintained, plus it also allowed the aliens to directly influence the plot. It should also be noted that throughout the entire series, the aliens are never seen clearly).

The aliens are discovered when they make a transmission requesting orders from their superiors, and this leads to the introduction of the series' main characters:-

Dr. Harrison Blackwood  (Jared Martin) - The adopted son of Dr. Clayton Forrester and Sylvia van Buren. Harrison is an eccentric scientist who carried on Dr. Forresters work on the aliens, even though after the great cover up no one believed in aliens any more. He becomes head of "The Blackwood Project" a secret group dedicated to finding and stopping the aliens before they take over the world. Blackwoods curiosity quite often gets the team into trouble.

Norton Drake  (Phillip Akin) - A paraplegic computer genius who intercepted the aliens first transmission. (In the pilot episode of the series, Norton sported a faux Caribbean accent, however this was dropped for the series proper, although in the first few episodes he still uses it, however the actor playing him re dubbed his lines in his own voice) Norton, as well as being a top notch research scientist is also an expert hacker, and helps the team get access to information by bypassing governmental "red tape" from time to time with his skills.

Lt.Col Paul Ironhorse  (Paul Chaves) - A US army special forces operative of native American ancestry who serves as the liaison between Dr. Blackwood and the military. Ironhorse is a staunch conservative and generally prefers military action over scientific investigation, putting him at odds with the pacifistic Dr. Blackwood, however over time the two grow to hold a respect for each other.

Suzanne McCullough (Lynda Mason Green) - A Microbiologist and single mother who comes to work for Dr. Blackwood prior to the arrival of the alien threat. Throughout the series Suzanne works on numerous biological methods of identifying or attacking the aliens, as well as finding out more about them. Suzanne is a very "by the numbers" scientist, which causes problems with Blackwoods eccentric approach to science.

The Blackwood team are tasked with researching and finding ways to combat the aliens, however the aliens themselves face numerous problems. Firstly, although they have been resurrected by the radiation, its effect of killing the germs that harm them also causes their bodies to break down from radiation sickness, meaning the aliens can only spend short periods inside a human body before they too begin to disintegrate. Secondly, the aliens do not have access to their advanced weapons or technology this time round, so therefore have to make do with crudely adapted human technology, or hopefully be able to scavenge some of their own equipment from secret storage facilities, or left over from previous visits to Earth.
Over the course of the series the aliens revive more of their own kind and try numerous strategies to subvert and kill mankind, some of which end up being horribly successful (yes that's right, the baddies win sometimes), but the series does end on a fairly high note, as it turns out that humans may have allies from space as well as enemies, although by the end of the series, it is established that an alien colonisation fleet will arrive within a few years.

Series 2 (1989-1990)

Series 2 saw some major changes to the shows format. Firstly, the setting was changed from "present day" to "almost tomorrow", this allowed for the timeline to be moved on to accommodate the arrival of the alien colonisation fleet.
Also, and more bizarrely, the aliens from the first series (the "Mor-Tax") were replaced with another set of completely different aliens, the "Mothren", with little to no explanation given as to why.
Also, Ironhorse and Norton are killed off in the first episode, and instead replaced by a mercenary called John Kincaid (played by a pre-Highlander: The Series Adrian Paul).


In this series, Earth has fallen into a period of chaos and great social upheaval, leading to an almost total breakdown of civilised society.
The Mothren arrive on Earth, and, unlike their predecessors the Mor-Tax, have no trouble whatsoever adapting to the environment, however they find it inconvenient that the humans haven't been massacred, allowing them to begin full colonisation procedures, however, over the course of the series they try to complete their mission of finding a new home world, despite their many internal conflicts.



Overall Thoughts



While the series' original concept, and thus the first series itself was quite good, it completely went to pot with the changes made for the second series.
The first series mixed sci-fi with elements of adventure and horror, and was genuinely scary to me when I first saw this series as an 11 year old, especially some of the gruesome ways that the aliens killed people.
A nice touch was that Jared Martin was instructed to copy actor Gene Barrys mannerisms in his portrayal of Harrison Blackwood, so as to make another link between the film and the series.
Another nice touch was the episode "An eye for an eye", which first aired on the 50th anniversary of Orson Welles' 1938 radio broadcast and pays tribute to it by having the Blackwood team visit the setting of the radio play and tangling with aliens with help from some of the town militia who fought them during the 1930s.
The series also had a lot of environmentalist themes, as well as some cleverly crafted bits of satire and black comedy, most notably that each episode of series 1 was titled after a biblical quote, which had an ironic connection to the plot for the episode.
Series 2 was just awful, with far too many plot and character changes to make the two series' related in any way, even the episodes of it themselves are boring, save for one episode which involves Blackwood travelling back in time to the 1950s.

This is a good series, so long as you only really watch series 1, well acted, and for the most part well scripted. Some of the special effects are a bit bargain basement, and any instance of alien war machines appearing in the series is simply repurposed footage from the 1953 film, but, even though the program is very 1980s in its stylings, and thus may be a little difficult for younger people to get their head round, it is still watchable and entertaining.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014) - CONTAINS SPOILERS

So, nearly 5 years (well, 8 years if you count the fact that he came up with the idea some time in 2006) after it was announced, its finally here....and, unlike Ashens film "Quest for the GameChild", you have to pay to watch it...so therefore it must be good eh?, eh?, eh?....

Costing $325,000 (approx £201,576), which was entirely accumulated via crowd sourcing means, including Kickstarter etc, the film represents James Rolfe's ambition to make a full length movie about the subjects he cares most about, namely films and video games.

The plot is very simple, the Nerd (James Rolfe ) is beginning to get sick of people asking him to review the Atari 2600 game E.T , widely condemned as the worst video game of all time (although throughout the film the game is referred to as "EEE TEE", in order to avoid having to pay Steven Speilberg a lot of money) , however one day, a video games company, "Cockburn Industries" decides to make a sequel to the game, imaginatively titling it "EEE TEE 2". However, in a twist to normal video game marketing practice, they decide from the get go to make the game even worse than the original, as their marketing manager, Mandi (Sarah Glendening ) has noticed that the influence of the Angry Video Game Nerds video review series on "YouPooed" has led to gamers actively seeking out and playing games that are crap in order to rage at them.

The Nerd and his never seen before friend Cooper (Jeremy Suarez ) accept a deal from Cockburn Industries to travel to New Mexico to dig up the supposed site of where Atari buried 2 million unsold copies of the original game in order to firstly prove that it never happened, and then for the Nerd to review EEE TEE 2 and say its crap, which will therefore guarantee millions of sales worldwide. Cockburn Industries sends along Mandi, who is posing as a gamer girl/nerd to act as producer for the documentary and to ensure nothing goes awry, however, things are not all as they seem, cue lots of bizarre occurrences and wacky subplots.



So, was this film worth waiting nearly 5 years for?...in a word...

No

Its good that Rolfe got to realise his dream of making a full length movie, him being interested in film making since an early age and all that, however the film has numerous problems that someone who claims to love film as much as Rolfe really should have spotted and nipped in the bud during planning and production...

1. The film is advertised as a "Comedy/Farcical" film.
O.K, I can go with that, the AVGN review videos are the same, however, this film falls into the trap of many an attempt at farce....it takes itself too seriously.... No this isn't me being a cunt and not "getting it", there is a difference between playing a role "tongue in cheek" and playing the role as a "straight man". Rolfe spectacularly fails on both counts, as during many scenes where obviously ridiculous stuff is happening, Rolfe over plays his character to the point at which the Nerd becomes an overly cynical and unlikeable character. In this respect, he is out acted in his own film by literally everybody else in the damn thing. You cant even argue that the excessive cynicism and strait-lacedness is in keeping with the character, because it isn't, and trying to cover up the flaws with lots of swearing doesn't work in a feature length movie the same way it does in a 15 minute Youtube video, because it gets tired and stale after the first few attempts.

2. The film cant seem to decide whether its going for the "B-Movie" look, or the "Hollywood blockbuster" look.
The film is brilliantly shot, with extremely high quality camera work, lighting and locations, well worthy of anything that a major studio would put out. The films special effects go for the "cheapo" look, with dead obvious scale miniatures and cheap looking effects used for comic effect, as well as heavy use of green screen to show locations where the producers couldn't afford or just didnt want to go to. This is good, however, the two styles of film making clash horribly with each other, and don't mesh very well. Granted, this film is a low budget production, and they had to work within their means, but by going all out for slick filming and then having crap and cheap looking special effects filmed in the same way doesn't add to the films charm, it makes it look decidedly amateurish. Again, this isn't a case of me "not getting it" this is a case of me being able to spot the difference between a well shot movie and a movie that has been cobbled together with poor planning. Again, this bizarre meshing of filming styles makes the film farcical for all the wrong reasons, to the point at which some scenes are just painful to watch.

3. The whole point of the film is its downfall.
Right from the very beginning when it was announced that this film would be made, it was hinted that the plot of the film would centre around the Nerd finally reviewing the game he had been most requested to review, but as yet, had not, supposedly because he didn't want to review it.
After sitting through the length of the film, the Nerd finally gets round to reviewing the original "EEE TEE" as the films credits roll, however, the "review" is nothing like the Nerds traditional review style, instead, he adopts a more mainstream "good points/bad points" style of review, and then launches into a faux inspirational monologue about how whether a game shouldn't be judged on whether it is good or bad, but on how it makes the user feel while playing it. I can agree with him to a point, however, I find it disappointing and somewhat laughable that Rolfe would decide to go against everything he has built up with the AVGN character and produce a mediocre review in someone elses style without adding any of the touches he has spent over 10 years incorporating into an established persona. Much less, you have to sit through nearly one hour and fifty seven minutes of fairly unentertaining storyline to get there.
As much as people hate him, I have to say that the "IrateGamers" Review of the game is much funnier, and to the point, and was produced on a significantly less high a budget than AVGN: The movie, simply because it doesn't take itself as uber seriously. I know it is a bit of an unfair comparison, but when it takes AVGN nearly 2 hours and $325,000 to do something someone who is blatantly copying off him managed to do in 10 minutes, you're doing it wrong.

4. Tampering with an established successful formula is usually a bad idea.
AVGN became famous because of his short skits in which he gives a foul mouthed review of crappy games before launching into over the top scenes of violence or ranting...this film contains very little of this, and, introduces new characters for no apparent reason. The character of "Cooper" exists seemingly to firstly provide a token black protagonist character to the piece, but also ask questions in order to fill in or move the plot on. For no apparent reason, the other two people most associated with being secondary characters in the AVGN shorts, namely musician Kyle Justin and illustrator Mike Matei, receive less than 10 seconds of screen time in a cameo role in the mid to late film.
Of course, the "road trip" is used as a plot device in order to place the Nerd and his two new friends into an unfamiliar locale in order to take the Nerd out of his basement, because a 2 hour long film in which the Nerd sits in front of a camera and talks about crap games would get boring, however, the convoluted and cliched plot used to get them from A to Z really doesn't make this film a spectacular must see.




So, to sum up, this film is a very disappointing watch, but its good that James Rolfe finally managed to make his dream of making a feature length movie a reality, and every penny of the money that was donated towards making it has been well spent, but, that doesn't mean that the end product is a good one. In many ways the film ends up being a parody of its premise by hyping itself up but then delivering an average result.
I cant say this is a film that I would watch again and again for laughs, and it is certainly not worth the value of renting it for viewing via Vimeo, If anything, it, like "Quest for the GameChild", is more of a curiosity than a serious attempt at breaking into the film industry.

Gorefest - Men Behind The Sun (1988)

If you didn't already know, World War 2 wasn't the most pleasant of times to live in, for every rendition of "We'll Meet Again", there are 10 examples of people being torn limb from limb, for no better reason other than someone just felt like doing it. War is a horrible thing, where the morals of man take second place to violent gratification.

Men Behind The Sun tells the undeniably true story of once such instance of morals becoming fluid during wartime.

Released in 1988, this Hong Kong/Chinese co production tells, albeit in abridged and, surprisingly, sanitised form, the story of Unit 731, one of many special military units formed during World War 2 and tasked with finding better ways to kill people.

The film itself caused some controversy on its release, with the Japanese government protesting to the Chinese government about the film, saying that it represented both an embellishment and an unrealistic portrayal of events, however the film makers refused to listen to the protests, stating that "history is history", part of a quote which is cited at the beginning of the film.

The story itself follows a group of young Japanese military recruits, all of whom have been conscripted into the army youth corps and seconded to field studies with Unit 731, a top secret unit based in the captured territory of Manchuria on the Chinese mainland.
Another subplot runs parallel to the main one showing the problems that the camps commanding officer, Shiro Ishii has upon returning to the command he was previously stripped of, due to other ambitious officers telling tales behind his back.

On their first day, all the boys are sworn to secrecy, and are introduced to the camps real work ("officially", the camp is a logging camp, which doubles as a field hospital) which focuses on finding a way to manufacture a strain of bubonic plague that is much more deadly than normal strains, and then finding a method of delivering it to a target effectively. To this end, prisoners, referred to as "logs" in keeping with the cover story that the camp is used as a lumber mill (historical note - experimental units such as Unit 731 also used other names for prisoners, such as "monkeys", firstly to cover up how many people had been killed in experiments, but also to fulfil the cultural mindset of being discourteous to an enemy that had allowed itself to be captured).

Over the course of the film, various experiments on humans are shown, ranging from experiments where peoples flesh is frozen to test possible treatments for frostbite, to vivisections on live humans (One such scene caused outrage as it appeared to be footage from a real autopsy, however it was later proven to be very good and convincing special effects) , and to people being injected with infected blood in order to stockpile the deadly strain of bubonic plague they are tasked with creating.

The film itself consists of various scenes showing atrocities, strung together with the developing plot and the passage of time showing the run up to the end of the war in the pacific, with the group of conscript boys either embracing the horror, or becoming sickened by it.
The film is very well made, however the subject matter and scenes of depravity depicted on screen are very disturbing, so those who find that sort of thing distasteful should definitely not view this film, being as that no punches are pulled in the film, and, as it so often plays out in real life, the "bad guys" do not receive a comeuppance in some ironic manner, nor at any time do any of the main "bad guys" show any kind of emotion or remorse for anything that they do, no matter how gruesome or depraved.

This is a good film, and an often ignored part of world history, especially where world war 2 is concerned as most "atrocities" are usually linked with the Nazis treatment of people in Europe.

Anime Review - Cardfight!! Vanguard - Link Joker (Eps 105-163) 2013

Right then, so, I've made it to Vanguards 3rd series....Link joker... , although a more accurate translation from the original Japanese would be "Chain joker", but never mind...
At the time of writing, only 48 episodes of the 59 episode series have been Released for free viewing on YouTube in English, so this review is somewhat incomplete, however the storyline is pretty simple to understand.

So, the story takes up some time after Team Q4 are victorious in the Asia circuit tournament, and Aichi has progressed from junior high school to senior high school, but, having switched schools, this means he now only really sees the other members of Team Q4 and his circle of friends when he visits Card Capital. The first few episodes of the series deal with Aichi attempting to start a "Cardfight Club" at his new school (Japanese schools place a heavy emphasis on extra curricular after school activities as a way of increasing student socialisation and learning opportunities) , however he finds that even with his enthusiasm, plus assistance from some of his friends, the prefect of the student council opposes him at every opportunity.
Its at this point the series makes a fairly big change to the established format and group of core characters, as many characters from previous series are relegated to being supporting or background characters, even Aichi himself is missing from several episodes during the mid series, where many of the stories concentrate on other characters facing problems with the series antagonist storyline, the "link joker".
"Link Joker" is the name given to a new aspect of the Void, who was the main enemy throughout series 1 and 2. simply put, the Void has now refined its tactics for conquering the planet Cray by instead of manipulating people who have "PsyQualia" powers, it applies its evil influence to anyone it can find, simply by having a cardfighter that is has possessed beat other players, who it in turn possesses by means of a technique called "Reverse". Those who are "Reversed" generally become evil, and their personality traits become a mirror opposite of their original standing, for example, in Kais case, he goes from enjoying a good game of Vanguard to simply wanting to win at all costs, generally by annihilating his opponents through the use of overpowered card mechanics, or in the case of Kenji, he goes from wanting to spread the message of truth and justice, to becoming a despotic tyrant obsessed with power. Generally, those who have been Reversed can be identified by the fact that their eyes go "dead" and they gain red facial tattoos whenever they use their power.
Only a few people, namely Aichi and Leon, are capable of resisting the power of Reverse, which not only makes the possessed evil, it also replaces cards in their deck with evil Reversed versions of their best cards.
The only way to release someone from being possessed is to bet them at a game of vanguard, which Aichi and Leon, then later joined by some of the others start doing once the Voids evil plot has been discovered.

This series gets really boring halfway through when they go back to having entire double episodes concentrating solely on a card by card play through of games, although this time round the "action" is stretched out by having cut scenes featuring flashbacks which fill in some of the lesser known characters backgrounds, which is pretty good as through this method we find out that Tetsu originally had no interest in vanguard until he met Ren, and that Kenji was originally rather crap at the game until he met  Gai and Yuri and learnt enough from being beaten by them to increase his skills and eventually surpass them.

This series also introduces a couple of new characters into Aichis circle of friends, namely Shingo Komoi, a fan of Aichi and a pretty good Vanguard player, and Naoki Ishida, a young man who originally tried to bully Aichi but was amazed by how confident Aichi became when playing Vanguard, so much to the point that he starts playing Vanguard himself being as he has never had a proper hobby himself before and finds he quite enjoys playing the game both of these characters end up being reversed at one point, and Aichi saves them).
One interesting-ish plot development is a growing attraction between Kourin (of the pop group "Ultra Rare", now a student at Aichis school) and Aichi, something which is played on after she is Reversed and becomes obsessed with Reversing him so they can be together.


So, thus far the series is fair to middlin' in content, although the storyline is basically the same as the YuGiOh! GX "Society of Light" storyline, insofar as an outside power begins beating people at a card game in order to convert them to their cause, with the fate of the world decided by who comes out on top. it really drops the ball mid series though by returning to the long drawn out cardfights between players during which the characters exchange tense and somewhat boring dialogue, again, a departure form series 2s in game dialogue, most of which was actually entertaining and somewhat funny.

My verdict on this series is that they shouldn't have tampered with a winning formula and gone back to the ridiculously over serious tones of the original series, but nontheless it isn't a bad watch.

Gorefest - ReGOREgitated Sacrifice (2008)

Right then, no anime related offerings today, just some good old fashioned blood and guts.

So, I cant remember how I came across this film, well, I say film, its more of an hour long straight to video special more than anything...the key word there being "speeeecciaaall".

Apparently this is the second film in a loose trilogy called the "Vomit gore trilogy", after viewing this, I cant say that I will be eager to view the other two entries in the series.


So, the plot is simple....there isn't one, well, nothing resembling a coherent plot anyway, because quite simply, all this film boils down to is a series of rather badly edited scenes strung together in some sort of bizarre dream like sequence in which various horrible things happen, usually including someone being vomited on and/or someone being killed in a fairly horrible manner...yes that's right folks, this film is a pseudo-snuff film.

It becomes extremely obvious within minutes of attempting to watch this piece of straight to video shit that the director, the imaginatively named "Lucifer Valentine", has very poor film making skills, and has managed to convince himself that his attempts are "arty" in some way. Its also fairly obvious throughout that Mr. Valentine has some very bizarre fantasies, mostly involving vomit, violence and sadism against women, lesbianism and some level of fascination with "Water sports" .

The overall "theme" of this film seems to be stories about female runaways/abductees who are subjected to torture and humiliation before being killed in some fashion, more often than not willingly.
 Scenes shown include:-

• A woman being disemboweled by identical twins, before then being choked/strangled with her own entrails before being vomited on by several people.
• A pregnant woman drinking her own urine, before then vomited and urinated on by a woman identified as being her "stepmother".
• A pair of co joined twins being "separated" by having the co joined bit in their head cut through with a hacksaw, then shown slowly dying as blood and brain matter leak from the hole in their heads.
• A woman being beheaded with a hacksaw before having the eyes and brains scooped out of her skull, which is then vomited in by a man wearing an octopus on his head who then drinks his own vomit.
• A woman performing oral sex on a man who ejaculates blood on to her once she has bitten his (obviously fake) penis.
• Numerous scenes of women being strapped into a gynaecologists chair and then being beaten, stabbed, whipped, vomited on etc.
• Numerous scenes of lesbian threesomes involving identical twins and a pregnant woman.

Scenes are randomly inter dispersed with discordant music, pictures of small children, and even a scene where one of the women who is later killed reciting a poem about kurt cobain.
Most scenes are shot at strange angles, and some include odd black and white or colour reversal effects, some scenes are also very obviously filmed using a camera which has been badly attached to a remote control car.


So yeah, This film, and by extension I would presume the entire series of films, goes to show that just because you own a video camera and have an idea, does not mean that you should make a film of that idea and then attempt to sell it to people. If i were to classify this film, I would not place it in either the "horror" or "slasher" genres, instead, I'd have to put it in the "shocker-porn"

Gaming Review:- Star Trek Attack Wing OP "The Collective" - Month 1

So, finally got round to playing the Star Trek Attack Wing Organised Play event "The Collective - Month 1", somewhat later than what everybody else has.

In what is a 3 part organised play event, similar to last years "Dominion War" event, which I missed due to not playing the game at the time, the idea, other than to sell the recently released Borg related products, is that the Borg have suddenly appeared in the Star Trek Universe and are up to all sorts of shennanigans etc.

The Fleet Build

Each player constructs a fleet up to 90 squadron points, within the limitations of the ships/personnel selected. In addition, players each receive a "blind" boost pack, containing one of the following ships:-

• Federation Saber class ship /U.S.S Yeager
• Klingon D7 battle cruiser/IKS B'Moth
• Romulan Bird of Prey/IRW Vorta Vor
• Independent Maquis Raider/Gavroche
• Dominion Jem'Hadar Attack ship/ 3rd wing attack ship.

Players will then use the contents of this booster to make a unit to the value of 30 SP and use it as part of their fleet.


The Scenario

Players set up along opposite edges, facing each other, then the Borg cube token is placed in the middle of the play area. the turn proceeds as normal (players may NOT attack the Cube at any time, even if able) however at the end of the turn, three ships within range 2 of the cube run the risk of having upgrades "assimilated" by it.
During the turn, players may spend a ships action to add a "resist" token, which allows them to either ignore or choose the upgrade (crew member, weapon or item) which the Borg take, by rolling an attack dice and the outcome decided by what is rolled. Otherwise, upgrades are taken by means of "random" selection (it is left up to players to decide how this is done, personally, I put my upgrade cards in deck protectors, shuffled them and then allowed my opponent to choose a face down card, I found this worked better than the "roll a dice" method that some people were using).
Once a ship has exhausted all of its available upgrades, the Captain card is taken, and once that has gone, the Cube instead makes an attack on the captainless ship with 8 attack dice.

After the Cube has "assimilated", it then moves towards the players fleets, in a direction randomly determined based on whether there are any ships to move towards, or whether its movement would take it "off-board" (the cube will not move in a direction where there are no ships, and cannot move in a direction which will end with its movement taking it out of the play area).

The game ends when one or both players have no ships remaining on the board.

Opinion

As per tournament dictats, I played 3 games over the course of the day:-

Round 1 - Federation (me) V Dominion/Klingon (loss)
Round 2 - Federation (me) V Borg/Dominion (win)
Round 3 - Federation (me) V Federation/Klingon (loss)

Final placing - 6th.

Although the idea must have seemed like a cool one when the scenario was being devised, basically as a homage to the TNG episode "Q Who", it quickly becomes apparent that this scenario has several extremely big flaws.

1. The cube is either irrelevant to play, or dominates play.


The inability of players to attack or incapacitate the Cube whenever it comes near them seriously hampers the objective of basically annihilating each other. Although players may "resist" their upgrades being taken, the effectiveness of the ability to resist is negligible.
The Cubes random movement can also end with a Cube "following" a player around the board, rather unfairly picking on them, especially so when it crashes into ships as its movement makes it land on top of them and forces them to take damage.

2. The 30 point ships are basically worthless.
The best tactic I worked out (I tried 3 different strategies over the course of the day) was to use the 30 point ship as a lure, splitting it off from the "main" fleet so that when the Cube made its "random" movement, there was a chance it would go off in the direction of that ship and not attack the main fleet. Of course, this opened up the possibility that your main fleet would be at a disadvantage due to being one ship down, however with the attack values of the smaller ships being quite low, they were little more than fire support anyway.
When building the 30 point "special" fleet you were pretty much limited to choosing either the "named" captain and maybe one or two upgrades, or choosing the "unnamed captain" and upgrades that would compliment each other. the definite winner of the "Blind Booster" ship category goes to the Klingon ship, which when taken as unnamed with the named captain, allowed for a ship that had a decent level of firepower, a cloaking device and a named captain that allowed you to disable enemy crew members.

3. "Prize" items offer horrendously unbalanced advantages for this scenario.
The ability to boost firepower and take free actions makes or breaks this scenario, and being as that most of these boosts come courtesy of tournament prize items, if you don't have them, or don't have the money to purchase them from Ebay, you're fucked.
To be honest, this is something that seems to be a common problem in any STAW game, as the "general" release ships and cards, as well as participation freebies, offer very little by way of advantage over "Prize" items, to the point at which sometimes it basically boils down to "if you weren't playing this game 18 months ago, its not worth bothering with organised play".

Overall Thoughts
The 90 point fleet restriction, plus having limited access to being able to buy stuff, really hampered my ability to make a coherent and competitive fleet, especially against prize item using opponents. Although I was quite pleased that I got the Saber class ship as my blind, the point and build restriction on that meant that I couldn't use it to its full potential as a torpedo boat.
The added frustration of the invincible Cube interfering with play and not being able to do much about it pretty much meant that I was fucked before I had even bothered rolling any dice, so in essence, the game boiled down to "whoever has spent the most money wins".
The participation freebie is quite good though, with the counter attack dice allowing you to substitute one defence dice for it, and possibly inflict damage on your opponent when they attack you.
In short though, this scenario sucked, and wasn't the slightest bit enjoyable to participate in whatsoever.