Saturday 16 January 2016

The Big Bang Theory 9.13 Review: The Empathy Optimization


With Amy still away at her neurobiology conference Sheldon gets sick and, as usual, he makes it very painful for his friends with his constant demands his unappreciative behaviour at their attempts to help him. We've seen Sheldon sick before, so I'm glad that the episode skipped over his sickness via flashbacks because having a whole episode about him being sick would have been very repetitive. And I love how Amy explained to him to him that his unbearable behaviour makes his friends wants to stay a few extra days at a neurobiology conference.

Raj notes that Amy's relationship with Sheldon improved by having some time apart from him, and Leonard suggests that they should all do to Vegas for the weekend as him and Penny had been talking about it, and Raj suggests taking a party bus there. Sheldon overhears Leonard telling Penny about it and wants to come and Leonard tells him that everyone else is going but he's not invited so he'll have to resort to hanging put with Stuart. Did anyone else think it was unnecessary for Leonard to say that? When they said they were going to Vegas Sheldon didn't even want to go. Had Leonard not said anything else one would assume the whole situation would have been fine, but no, he had to specifically tell Sheldon that he wasn't invited. Just seemed a bit harsh to me.

Sheldon Skypes with Amy and tells her how mad he is at the others, and she suggest that he needs to apologise and she teaches him about empathy - that he should feel bad about the way he treated them while he was sick. Surprisingly, it works and he does feel remorse for his actions. While it's been a little weird confining Amy to Skype conversations the last two weeks, there's no denying that the scenes work wonderfully regardless.

Sheldon apologises to Leonard and he accepts, but he now expects to be invited to Vegas, and Leonard tells him it's not just him he has to apologise to, which arguably led to the highlight of the episode: Sheldon Cooper's apology tour. Trying to play the pan flute for Howard and Bernadette, trying to take a picture of Penny with is commemorative shirt while she's in the shower, and apologising to Stuart and telling him about the trip he's not invited to - it was all so hilarious.


When he tries to apologise to Raj and Emily, however, he once again gives Emily a backhanded compliment about how she must not be called a real doctor all the time because she's a dermatologist. She doesn't accept his apology, and she gets mad at Raj who doesn't stand up for himself or her.

Later Raj storms into the apartment and asks Sheldon what is wrong with him after he has gone to Emily's to try and apologise again, only to make her cry. She told Raj she's not going to Vegas if Sheldon is going. He suggests he go and try to apologise again, but everyone tells him no and he realises that perhaps by not going on the trip he'll prove his sincerity.

On the party bus just as Leonard is about to make a toast Sheldon pops out of the toilet, which Stuart in tow, no less. Sheldon successfully apologises to Emily by telling her that he always means well but his odd nature often makes that difficult. She accepts, and Sheldon says he'll leave (with Stuart) because they'll have a better time without him. Until, that is, they feel bad and invite him back onto the bus we're they're soon watching Raj dance on a stripper pole.

Ultimately this episode worked by having all the cast together (sans Amy) involved in a single storyline. It also greatly highlighted often ignored and underused characters like Emily, whose fierce energy is a welcome addition to the mostly passive group of characters, and Stuart, who, after last week's episode, I am glad got an appearance and a reprieve of sorts.

Rating: 3.5/5

Thursday 14 January 2016

American Horror Story Hotel 5.12 Review: Be Our Guest

At the end of last week's superb episode, 'Battle Royale, I wondered whether or not American Horror Story Hotel and any further story to tell. Unfortunately, 'Be Our Guest', made it abundantly clear it did not.

Iris and Liz (the only two left living), were desperately attempting to re-vamp the hotel to get more clients but those pesky ghosts kept murdering all their guests, particularly Sally and Will for some reason. Neither were willing to stop killing, wither, until March stepped in and told them all they needed to do was to ensure that the Hotel Cortez was still standing by 2026 (100 years after being built) so that it could qualify to be a world heritage sight, ensuring that they all lived forever. But first they had to convince them to stop murdering people. Cue twenty minutes wasted on two characters I didn't care about getting happy endings. Sally fell in love with the inter webs and became a social media star somehow, and Will entrusted Liz to be the spokesperson for his fashion label outside of the Cortez. And I guess that meant they were back to having avant-garde runway shows while a cover version of 'Nights in White Satin' was playing, so yay?

Despite all their success Liz was still down about Tristan not turning up to have ghost sex with him after dying so Iris hired Billie Dean Howard (a television psychic) to communicate with him. Tristan didn't want to talk though, but Billie got in touch with Donovan instead who said that his heaven was Iris' pancakes. Cue Iris' happy ending. After being apart of the joy that is cutting the umbilical cord of your granddaughter, Liz announced to all her ghost pals at the Cortez some time later that she was ding from prostate cancer (now that was funny!) and wanted them to kill her so that she could eternally live in the hotel with her 'family'. It was all very touching, especially when The Countess, who no one had seen in years, showed up to kindly do the honours and kill her. With her corpse barely cold, Tristan showed up to welcome her to the afterlife. Cue Liz's happy ending.

Billie Dean's involvement in the hotel however, with her three television specials, have started to bring unwanted guests to the hotel (these ghosts are so picky!) so on one Devil's Night John tells Iris to invite Billie to speak with him as he has been of interest to her for sometime. John explains to her what happened to him and his family after the end of his Ten Commandments killings, explaining that he Alex and Holden moved into the hotel while Scarlett went away to boarding school (with Will's son no less), until John was shot dead by the police one day outside of the hotel. John brings Billie as a party favour to Devil's night where him, March, and the other serial killers tell her to never mention the Cortez to anyone ver again or she would be tracked down and killed by Romana. Later that night, an adult Scarlett comes and visits her undead family as they sleep. Cue a happy ending for the Lowe's!

March described the Ten Commandment killings as an epilogue to his years of murder early in the episode, and much like that storyline, Hotel's final episode ultimately came across as hazardous, and ultimately unnecessary. Did these specific characters need such final (happy, nonetheless) moments in audiences eyes? I think if I ever re-watch the series I'll think as last week as the finale.

Rating: 2.5/5

Friday 8 January 2016

The Big Bang Theory 9.12 Review: The Sales Call Sublimation


It's always hard for large ensemble sitcoms to successfully navigate multiple plot-lines, but it's made even harder for The Big Bang Theory by the fact that Sheldon is the unspoken lead character in the series. This means, as exemplified by 'The Sales Call Sublimation', that even if his character is stuck with a particularly lifeless lot with no potential (sorry Raj), that that storyline will become the A plot regardless. This was really unfortunate in 'The Sales Call Sublimation' because it should have been all about Penny and Leonard and how Leonard's innocent trip to a psychiatrist (for Penny) brought up more than a few problems for them.

Since Amy was away at a neurobiology conference Sheldon was free to spend the weekend as he pleased, so as Sheldon does he agrees to help Raj go through data in the telescope lab. This resulted in them discovering a medium-sized asteroid, and apparently laughter was meant to ensue from them trying to agree on a name for it, with Sheldon trying to remove Raj from the equation all the while.


At the Wolowitzs', as Howard and Bernadette prepared for their house renovations (is this really a plot?) Stuart awkwardly announces that he's found a place of his own and is moving out. Stuart is unfortunately a character the writers of the series have never known what do do with and subsequently has become a cliche of running gags about a creepy middle-aged nerd (he watches them while they sleep!). I will be sad, because his departure probably means seeing less of him, but at the same time that's probably better for his character at this stage. Howard and Bernadette's parent-esque reaction to his departure could be seen coming a mile a away.

Penny enlists Leonard's help in trying to persuade a potential client, physiatrist Dr. Gallo (an underused Jane Kaczmarek), to purchase stress-relive pharmaceuticals on her behalf, but the plan backfires when Dr. Gallo tells Leonard that she's read his mother's book and disagreed with a lot of her theories. The fact that Penny would even ask Leonard to do such a thing is outrageous, but the fact that it delved into some of their character/ relationship problems is always welcome in my eyes. Dr. Gallo's observation that Leonard could potentially be trying to replace his mother with Penny as an unobtanable love interest is an interesting viewpoint on their relationship. The pair have never exactly 'worked' as a couple, but I've always been quick to blame Penny, but this idea goes someway to explaining why they might be together in the first place. Unfortunately, as is the problem with all sitcoms, assumedly all of this will be forgotten be next week's episode, which is a shame because it would be nice to see them try and do something (anything!) with the boringness that is Lenny, and perhaps try and do something better for Jane Kaczmarek.

Rating: 2/5

Thursday 7 January 2016

American Horror Story: Hotel 5.11 Review - Battle Royale

In a series like American Horror Story in which several characters can die and come back to life in the span of an episode it's always hard to build anticipation with life-threatening cliffhangers. So when, at the end 'She Gets Revenge', Iris and Liz burst into The Countess' room guns a-blazing an observant AHS viewer would probably have assumed that The Countess would survive. And she did (and miraculously managed to crawl out of the room somehow), but poor Donovan did not, and before he died from the bullet wounds his mother accidentally inflicted on him he asked her to drag him out of the Cortez before he would to live there eternally as a ghost. It was a tender moment for the pairs confusingly under-developed relationship considering the amount of drama it's caused over the season. Am I sad that Donovan died? Not really, no. Much like the relationship his mother, his character motivations changed drastically episode to episode, so he was very hard to like.

What worked so well for this episode though is that all it's characters seemed to have a singular goal -  albeit with varying motivations - that The Countess had to die, and it made for compelling viewing. So yes, with Sally's help, and the blood of her baby vampires The Countess was able to survive. Sally wanted her to lure John back to the hotel so that be could be killed and forced to stay there with her forever, and that was after telling her and giving us a painful flashback to 1933 where she sewed herself to a couple before they unfortunately overdosed. But much like us, The Countess was not very interested in Sally's problems. One of her favourite boyfriends (the only surviving one at this stage, so I guess he was important) had been murdered and she had to kill her own children to live. She was not in a good place, and props to Lady Gaga who has been great all season, but definitely brought it in 'Battle Royale'.

Iris (after briefly mourning her son by rolling around on the bed with his ashes) and Liz stayed in the hotel despite knowing that The Countess would come for them once she had healed, but I guess they thought they would be fine once they freed Ramona and got her to help them kill her. Unfortunately Ramona was very malnourished from being trapped in that cement hallway with only vampire children as food, and also wasn't very happy with Iris for helping putting her there, so her and Liz had to go out in search for food. But as tends to happen with the Hotel Cortez, guests seem to arrive just as someone decides they need to do some murdering, and this time the victim was none other than Coven's Queenie. Although overall this episode was great I could potentially go into great detail here about the writers tarnishing previous seasons of AHS by haphazardly inserting a major character from Coven and unceremoniously killing her off here, but I won't. After some forced exposition about witch bloodlines and her voodoo doll nature March is able to kill her (because he cannot be harmed) and Ramona gains insumountable strength for drinking her blood. It turns out Match too wants The Countess dead - so that they can finally be together instead of having dinner once a month.
Ramona confronts The Countess in her suite and flirtatious, yet threatening, banter ensued between the two until a mournful Countess apologised for all the horrible things she had done to Romana and offered the Hotel Cortez to her as compensation, which Ramona agreed to for some reason (SHE DIDN"T EVEN NEED WITCH POWERS AFTER ALL THAT! QUEEN DIDN'T HAVE TO DIE). All The Countess wanted to do was take her son and leave the Cortez behind.

Elsewhere, John and Alex's poor attempt to have a normal family by keeping their never-aging son aware from grandma's eyes and kidnapping randoms to bring home to eat was put on hold when John returned home to only a Hotel Cortez key waiting for him. He goes to the Hotel and Sally tells him March kidnapped his family for breaking his promise and not fulfilling his Twelve Commandment killings, he still needs a 'Thou Shalt Not Commit Murder' trophy, and it beautifully fitting act he guns down The Countess as she is about to leave the hotel. It's the sort of moment the season was rockingly building towards, The Countess being the final victim of the Twelve Commandments killer, and I don't think its a moment that'll be surpassed in the remaining episodes.

Although it didn't really need it, 'Battle Royale's final scene was a revealing epilogue as March tries to ensure that Ms. Evers helps him accommodate The Countess, who is now a fully formed ghost. March tells The Countess he forgives her for turning her in all those years ago but its okay because they're together now. Ms. Evers cracks, telling The Countess she should have died outside of the hotel and telling March that it was her who tipped the police off about him all those years ago - knowing that he would kill himself rather then get caught. He is dumbfounded and banishes her from his sight, but returns to a cheerier mood as he toasts to his and The Countess her (after)life together while she cries.

It was a surpassingly fact-paced and emotional episode overall, but I'm worried that after this there is little for AHS Hotel to do. John is not that interesting a character, we don't really care what happens to his family, and I can't imagine March's plans for him are all that exciting. Iris, Liz, and Ramona have sort of been extraneous characters all season and they all lack motivation now that The Countess is technically dead. And everyone else is just resentful ghosts, surely there's not too much they can do? Although, as 'Battle Royale' expressed, AHS does still have the ability to surprise us.

Rating: 4/5

Monday 4 January 2016

Galavant 2.1- 2 Review: A New Season aka Suck It Cancellation Bear & World's Best Kiss


Galavant was a wildly rambunctious surprise on our television screens early last year and it seemed set to be a short-lived one at that, receiving dismal ratings over its eight episode (four week) run. Miraculously though, the series survived, and boy, did it want you to know it in its premiere episode 'A New Season aka Suck It Cancellation Bear'. I mean, just read that title. There are very few series that are able, let alone willing, to be as daring to name an episode like that, but the joy of Galavant is that its existent as a series itself - a fantastical musical comedy - has little precedence which I guess lets the writers feel like they can do whatever they want, which makes for a great ride as viewers.


So after its possibly too self-aware opening song, 'A New Season', the first episode found Galavant and Richard shipwrecked while on the search for his kingdom and tangled up in 'The Enchanted Forest', which hilariously, was actually a gay bar. Writing about episodes sometimes it's easier to see points where writers use detours to fill up time, but like Sid said in the opening song, common sense dictates that we know where this season is headed so there's no reason why we can't have fun along the way. So having Kylie Minogue being the owner of said gay bar was absolutely the best regardless. Elsewhere Isabella was still trapped in Hortensia, waiting to be wed to her cousin and trying to escape, while back in Valencia both Gareth and Sid had difficulty without having properly defied roles within the kingdom.


The worst thing about Galavant is that with now three separate plot-threads, and musical numbers thrown in, there's very little room for significant plot/ character progression to occur. Thankfully, this is where ABC's decision to air two episodes back-to-back works quite well (where previously it just seemed like an attempt to get it off the air faster). The second episode 'World's Best Kiss' was nicely able to build on the energy of the first and create some needed plot/ character progression while still technically being an episode by itself, which is why I think it was probably better than the premiere. Thanks to a fortune teller Galavant is able to get in touch with Isabella by 'calling' the amulet she was bestowed with as a child. Unfortunately the connection is bad, and while this is potentially sloppy writing I suspect Isabella thinking Galavant is not in love with her is just another stalling tactic so that she has a legitimate reason not to escape Hortensia. Richard also receives news of Gareth's betrayal which provided a nice character moment for the pair, while Gareth and Queen Madalena also finally bonded over how annoying they find Sid.

And if the writer's didn't have enough to fit into an episode, they managed to put in a nice cliffhanger too - upon reaching his Kingdom Richard and Galavant discover that his castle is gone. Where could it be? Deviously self-aware, often hilarious,  and contagiously catchy are why you should give into the miracle that no one thought we'd get, and watch Galavant.

Best Musical Number: 'Off With His Shirt' could easily be a Kylie Minogue chart topper.
Best Quote: 'Die in a fart brown cow' - a distorted Galavant as heard by Isabella.
Rating: 3.5/5

Saturday 2 January 2016

Joy Review


Joy is a semi-biographical dramedy following the life of Joy Mangano, a woman who overcomes her dysfunctional family life as well as the difficulties of building a business from nothing, to invent the Wonder Mop in the 1990's.

The film starts off as a surprisingly funny one considering the potentially dry material. Joy (Jennifer Lawrence) is struggling to run a household which includes her bed-ridden mother, Terri (Virgina Madsen), her grandmother Mimi (Diane Ladd), her two children, and her ex-husband Anthony (Édgar Ramírez), who lives in their basement. Things become even more complicated when her father Rudy (Robert DeNiro) is dumped on her doorstep by his current partner, claiming she can no longer deal with him. It would be easy to evoke empathy with a set-up like this but O. Russell  gleefully paints this family with vivid strokes of outlandish humour, like Terri and her soap operas, or Rudy's inability to not be in love, that instead garner a greater sense of empathy through the familiarity of family. There are however, some more questionable writing choices, like that of having Joy's grandmother occasionally narrate the story, or it's odd use of flashbacks throughout different stages of the film.

Regardless of all this the film does have a plot though and eventually, after moping up glass on her fathers' new girlfriend Trudys' (Isabella Rossellini) boat, Joy is inspired, just as she was as a child, to invent a self-wringing mop. From here she must convince Rudy and Trudy to help her invest in her product after showing them a prototype so that she can manufacture them, but even after placing a second mortgage on her home she is unable to sell her product, when Anthony introduces her to Neil Walker (an underused Bradley Cooper), executive of the recently started cable network shopping channel QVC (Quality, Value, Convenience).

For me personally the film peaks at the end of the second act when Joy successfully markets the Miracle Mop on the QVC network after it had previously failed on the first attempt. By this point she has overcome an appropriate amount of obstacles to make this victory well-earned and inspiring. The writers, however, seem to disagree and the third act begins with the tonally jarring death of her grandmother, Mimi, and from there Joy's problems seem to unnecessarily multiply as once again the validity of her success and dreams are put into question. Her dysfunctional, yet previously endearing, family lose any semblance of kindness as her half-sister Peggy (an unrecognisable Elisabeth Rohm) makes a blunderous business decision behind her back, while her father and his girlfriend are revealed to have given her bad advice about her invention patent at the beginning of the film, and the father of her children stands idly by as all this happens and Joy is forced to declare bankruptcy. The scenes are potentially the most emotionally charged of the film, and Lawrence and DeNiro are given the best material to work with here, but to what end? After a western-esque standoff with a troublesome business partner in which Joy successful solves all her problems the end of the film shows Joy as the head of a multimillion dollar advertising agency in which she helps inventors like herself produce their products for television. It is a very odd ending. She's still taking care of her heartless family, a problem, it turns out, she was never to overcome. And while she's helping those like herself, she no longer comes across as herself, sitting at a big desk, dressed in a fancy suit (something she made a point about not doing before unveiling her Miracle Mop on QVC), no longer in touch with the woman that needed and made that mop. And that's not even mentioning that flashback to her time as girl is which she pronounced she didn't need a prince but seemed to be longing for one now.

Undoubtedly inspiring and surprisingly funny, although tonally problematic, Joy maintains itself to be an enjoyable enough film.

Rating: 3/5