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HBO
"Just our weapons, right? Why are they taking our boat?"

•At last, the King in the North lands on Dragonstone. Here he is greeted by Queen Daenerys's welcoming party, consisting of the Hand of the Queen Tyrion Lannister and her most trusted adviser Missandei. (In modern terms, I wonder who among them would be Daenerys's chief of staff?) The reunion between the bastard and the dwarf is a bit touching, as you can literally feel that they go way back, all the way back to Season 1, in fact.

•Ser Davos, are you hitting on Missandei? She's taken. Although her man has no manhood, so I guess you can pleasure her with your fingers. See what I did there? No? Okay, never mind.

•Why don't Varys and Melisandre seem to get along? I think it's probably because Varys feels threatened that Melisandre might join the Queen's entourage. Since she's a powerful red priestess while Varys is only as useful as the reliability of his spies, if the Queen had to take someone off her entourage, it would probably be Varys.

•Daenerys currently has seven (7) titles. She is Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, 1) rightful heir to the Iron Throne, 2) rightful queen of the Andals and the First Men, 3) protector of the Seven Kingdoms, 4) the mother of dragons, 5) the Khaleesi of the great grass sea, 6) the Unburnt, 7) the Breaker of Chains. Stormborn is probably her middle name, like in her birth certificate, it says "Targaryen, Daenerys Stormborn Targaryen" (as she was a child of incest).

•One has to commend Jon Snow for how he handled Daenerys Targaryen. He acted like a king, yet he did not exalt himself the way Daenerys did. Compared to Daenerys, his only title is "King in the North". He has no claim to his position except his leadership skills, his fighting abilities, and his sense of honour and justice. He's a bastard, and he knows it, yet his social status never stopped him from acting like a king. He was born to rule, and he hates it; the mantle of leadership is a burden for him to carry. But despite the pressure exerted from the side with the huge army and three dragons, Jon Snow refused to bend a knee. The northerners would've been proud.

•I'm probably not the only one who wishes Daenerys and Jon Snow should totally bone. If Snow is indeed a Targaryen, then Dany would be his aunt. On the incest scale, that would be a bit more tolerable than sibling sex (Honestly, all guys have that one aunt they'd like to bang, although I don't know if the converse is true for girls and their uncles.) That sexual encounter would indeed be a meeting of ice and fire. Coincidentally, "Ice" and "Fire" are also varieties of sex lubricants from Bliss. You're welcome.

•Poor Theon Greyjoy. He was rescued from the sea by some ironborn sailors loyal to Yara, but as they hauled his sorry ass from the water, all they could see was a coward. A craven. A pathetic excuse for a man. But like I said in my review for the previous episode, Theon had his reasons for jumping. No one is in any position to judge him, unless they've been through the same things he has. Sadly, no one will ever understand this.

•Euron Greyjoy is my least favourite character in this series. And by that I mean I hate him the most, not that I find him the most uninteresting. I hate him now more than Cersei Lannister, and I think the effectiveness of his portrayal is a testament to Pilou Asbæk's acting skills. Plus, his capture of Yara Greyjoy and Ellaria Sand seems to have turned the tide of this war.

•I think one of the yardsticks for measuring true evil is how one carries out a plan for revenge. Take Cersei Lannister, for example. At first I thought, "What's with the lipstick, Cersei?" And then it turns out it's actually poisoned lipstick, and she kisses Ellaria's daughter on the lips with it. If you recall, that was also how Cersei's daughter Myrcella was killed by Ellaria in Season 5, so there's a kind of poetic justice at play here. This suggests premeditation of the highest degree, and Cersei even goes one-up on Ellaria by dooming her to watch her daughter die and slowly decompose in front of her very eyes. True evil? You bet it is.

HBO
The only one in this episode who bent a knee was Cersei.

•Twincest is back. Hooray. Or not. Wait, who's the maid in the pixie cut? Well, she's not a new character, according to Vanity Fair. She's been serving Cersei Lannister since Season 2.

•Hooray, Mark Gatiss! Another awesome cameo for this season. Gatiss is a good actor, because despite looking like Myrcroft Holmes from Sherlock, his acting here isn't like Myrcroft at all. His character here is very serious, very corporate, and very effective. You can practically feel your loan application getting approved or denied just by listening to the tone of his voice.

•Is it just me, or does it seem like the director forced in a lot of shots overlooking the cliffs of Dragonstone just to maximise the location? It's like, "Hey, get a load of this view! You don't get this everyday! Okay, we'll shoot Varys and Melisandre here, then one brooding scene between Tyrion and Jon Snow trying to out-brood each other, then another one with Daenerys and Jon Snow when she allows him to mine the dragonglass!" They most likely dubbed the dialogue in those scenes, as I imagine the wind from those cliffs was probably howling.

•Sansa seems to have the North all taken care of. She'd make a pretty good Lord of Winterfell, or whatever the female version of a lord is. (Lady of Winterfell? Doesn't have the same ring to it, though.) Oh, and Bran's back. And he has a lot of explaining to do, because apparently his sister still thinks he can be Lord of Winterfell. I wish the Stark siblings would just team up and get Littlefinger out of the picture. It'll be best for everyone.

•Look at Bran Stark. You think that's wooden acting by Isaac Hempstead Wright? On the contrary, he's portraying a character whose brain is fried from too much weirwood use. No, I don't mean as a drug. I mean he's tapped into weirwoods too much as part of his Three-Eyed Raven training that his brain has overloaded. What would you expect from someone who can see the past, the present, and the future all at once? Not even Sansa could handle the awkward weirdness.

•Ser Jorah's greyscale may be no more, but his scars are still a horrible sight to behold. Well, at least he's cured. And I mean totally cured, because Sam even has the courage to shake his hand after that. But enough about Jorah Mormont. Let's talk about Jim Broadbent. Ah, Jim Broadbent... my new favourite character in this series. I love him so much, I even signed up on Reddit just so I could rave about how good he is.

•The Unsullied take Casterly Rock, which is a good thing. But it seems a bit fishy, isn't it, how easily they took it? I would've wanted to see some Unsullied action. Sadly, we won't get that treat this episode, because Jaime Lannister has taken his army to march on Highgarden. Also, damn you, Randyll Tarly. I thought you were honourable.

•Goodbye, Lady Olenna. You're one of the good bitches in Westeros. I don't mean that in a bad way; all the powerful women on this show are bitches. But you're a good bitch. So basically, you'll be gone by next episode, and House Tyrell's coffers will be used to pay the Iron Bank. That doesn't seem like a nice way to go. But of course, you dropped the bomb regarding Joffrey's death, which is a great dick move. The only regret you'll have is you won't see Cersei's face when she finds out it was you who poisoned that cunt.

HBO
Yeah, he's a cunt... but he's my cunt!

BBC via DCT

This episode can actually be summed up in just four words:

Awesome writing. Awesome directing.

BBC
And great acting.

BBC via DCT

Liam Cunningham, who plays Davos Seaworth in Game of Thrones, shows us his sea worth (See what I did there?) once more – in a submarine not unlike K-19. Tobias Menzies (Brutus from Rome) and David Warner (Lovejoy from Titanic) are here as well.

BBC
JENNA: It'd be cool to be on Game of Thrones, wouldn't it, Matt?
MATT: You'd have to strip naked and kiss Peter Dinklage, Jenna.

After Christopher Eccleston, we now move on to the new Doctor, the Tenth. And his name is David Tennant.

The Doctor may have changed, but the companions remain the same. Same old Rose Tyler (Billie Piper). Same old Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke). Same old TARDIS.

Let's talk about this regeneration thing. If this were another fictional universe, I would definitely complain about changing actors within the same franchise. I complained when Marvel changed War Machine from Terrence Howard to Don Cheadle in Iron Man. I cringed a bit when DC replaced Katie Holmes with Maggie Gyllenhaal for the role of Rachel Dawes in the Christopher Nolan Batman franchise. But the creators of Doctor Who had that ironed out decades ago by creating the whole regeneration thing. One of the good things about being a Time Lord is that when you die, you can regenerate with a whole new body, a whole new personality, but the same memories. So when you get problems with an actor, whether it be on- or off-camera, you can just kill him off and replace him with another. Then the series can live on forever! Brilliant!


"Children in Need Special"

BBC
That's a real working number on the screen.
International rates apply.

This is David Tennant's first adventure as the Doctor. He's so fresh he even has Christopher Eccleston's wardrobe on him. Seeing as this is just an approximately 6-minute long video, this short serves no purpose whatsoever but to provide a smooth transition for viewers. Remember, Series 1 is the Doctor's first television appearance in years, and new viewers might find the regeneration thing a bit jarring. So they had to dedicate this short just to make sure the viewers didn't lose their bearings.


I'm a person who started with the Eleventh Doctor. Yes, I may be a late bloomer. Yes, having Matt Smith as the first Doctor I've ever met makes me a clear noob. But I loved the show so much that I decided to travel back in time myself─that is, travel back to 2005, when this show came back on the air after a very long absence.

So I went back two Doctors, to the Ninth, played by Christopher Eccleston. And of course, being human, I couldn't help but compare Eccleston to Matt Smith, who was the only other Doctor I knew. Here's some of the things I've noticed:


  • Matt Smith speaks way faster than Christopher Eccleston.
  • Matt Smith is goofier than Christopher Eccleston.
  • Matt Smith has a hotter companion than Christopher Eccleston.


But let's not compare, shall we? They're the same Doctor, the same Time Lord from Gallifrey, with the same two hearts beating in his chest cavity. And since we're not comparing Doctors, let's not compare head writers as well. Russell T. Davies is not Steven Moffat. Christopher Eccleston is not Matt Smith. And Karen Gillan is not Billie Piper.

1. "Rose"

BBC
Mickey (Noel Clarke) is my favorite character, hands down.
And not just because he has an original Bumblebee.

What a way to start off the reincarnated series─by featuring creepy mannequins. As a kid, I was damn terrified of mannequins. My uncle would try and get me close to a mannequin, and I would bawl my eyes out crying. I always thought they would come alive. And I guess I'm not the only one who thinks so.

How to Make a Series Finale


Dear everyone on television:


Here is how to make a proper series finale:

1. Get a BAFTA award-winning actor to do some really powerful acting for the opening sequence.

"I want another BAFTA."

Here you will see the intensity and the depth of the acting of Mr. Martin Freeman. We'd like to think that the BAFTA award-giving committee carefully deliberates before awarding an actor, and whenever someone tells us that another actor should've won the award, we just show them the opening scene. Also, we're pretty sure Benedict Cumberbatch will win a BAFTA for this one.


2. Please fans of the original canon.

Next item on my Christmas list: that hat.

And you can do that with... the deerstalker. Yes, the famous deerstalker hat, begun by Holmes illustrator Sidney Paget, and immortalized by countless Sherlock actors throughout history. That was a great way we introduced the hat in episode 1, don't you think?


3. Get a good director. 

Manila London Kingpin.

In our case, we got Toby Haynes. This is actually the first time we've used him for Sherlock, but he's already churned out spectacular work on Doctor Who. Check out the crown jewels sequence, and you'll see what we mean. The classical music isn't just some random soundtrack─that's Jim Moriarty's iPod playing. So that entire sequence was viewed from Moriarty's point-of-view. That was what was going on in Moriarty's head!


4. Get a good writer.

"Now where did that screaming girl come from?"

We can't be expected to write each and every episode now, can we? We've got other things to do, you know. So we got a writer who at least understands the vision of where we want this to go. Someone who knows how to stay true to the essence of the canon. Good job, Steve Thompson. Anyway, Thompson just did the technicalities. The story and the plot all have that traditional Moffat flavor.


5. Give them one hell of a villain.

"I'm going to conquer Hollywood with my nice American accent!"

Admit it, isn't our Jim Moriarty a great villain? Andrew Scott's one brilliant actor. Complete psycho: check. Heath Ledger's Joker: check. Complete psycho: check. Multiple personalities: check. Did we mention complete psycho? Of course we did.


6. Give it a WTF ending.

Seriously. WTF.

Yes, no one does WTF endings better than Steven Moffat. We don't want to spoil anything, so in case you haven't watched our series 2 ender, we're not going to mention our WTF ending here. But we'll give you a clue. "Sherlock Holmes is Jesus Christ." And we don't mean that in a Matrix kind of way.


Okay, everybody. Now that you know how to do a proper series finale, we don't ever want to see a terrible series ender. Or we will burn you. We will burn the heart of you.


Sincerely,
The makers of



Sherlock (Series 2, Episode 3). UK. 2012.



*DISCLAIMER: "Not really us." ─S. Moffat and M. Gatiss



Rating: Nine and a half out of ten.




*some info from IMDb
pics from VLC




You may also want to check out the review of Sherlock Series 1.
After recovering from the mind-blowing first episode of the second series, I have finally gotten my bearings together, giving me a clearer analysis of this second episode. And one thing I noticed was how diferrent it is.

1. Different title sequence
I should've mentioned this in the previous episode's review, but like I said, I was too blown away. So I'm mentioning it now. The title sequence is slightly different from series one. Well of course, this is a different series, so what did you expect? Wait, why did I even mention that? Okay, moving on...


2. Different style
The more discerning viewers among you might realize that this episode has a noticeably different style compared to the previous one, which was penned by Steven Moffat. That's becasuse "Hounds of Baskerville" was written by this series's co-creator Mark Gatiss, who also plays the adorable Mycroft Holmes. This episode is not as flashy as the Moffat episodes, nor does it utilize the "plant and payoff" narrative technique as much as Moffat does. Gatiss goes for straight-up storytelling. I am not saying at all that Mark Gatiss is an inferior writer; I'm just saying that the difference between the writing styles of Gatiss and Moffat are more pronounced now than they were in the first series. Just in case you've forgotten, Moffat wrote "A Study in Pink" while Gatiss did "The Great Game", and their writing styles were quite similar back then.

Even their use of on-screen text is different.


3. Different look
If you've noticed that this episode seems to have a different visual feel to it, that's because the action takes place not in urban London, but in the beautiful English countryside.

Not Middle-Earth.

There are no buildings, far fewer people, and sparing use of technology. Beautiful as this place is, this is not the natural habitat of Sherlock Holmes, and we can safely predict that they will be back in Baker Street for next week's episode.


4. Different story
The great thing about this show is that it is loosely based on the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and the operative word there is "loosely". I've just recently re-read the original The Hound of the Baskervilles, and I had no problem with spoilers of any kind. That's because the BBC version is nothing like the literary canon, except in essence and spirit. Which is a great thing, actually, especially for die-hard fans of the canon. Baskerville is now a place instead of a person. Dr. Mortimer is now a woman.

"Don't even think about it, John."

I was expecting to see Sherlock's infamous drug use, though, but instead we get to see him settling for second-hand smoke like a pathetic junkie.

Would've been funnier if this was marijuana smoke.


All in all, great episode. Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are at the top of their game. My only problem here was the hound. It was crappy CGI, to say the least. But I don't want to spoil it for those who want to see the hound for themselves. So I leave you with a glow-in-the-dark rabbit instead.

"Ta-da!"



Sherlock (Series 2, Episode 2). UK. 2012.



Rating: Eight point four out of ten.



*GIFs by me




You may also want to check out the review of Sherlock Series 1.
The best way to start the new year is, of course, Benedict Cumberbatch. Y'all don't know how long I've waited for this. I even had to wait longer than the British audience, since the Philippines crosses the date line eight hours before England. Thank God I read the entire Holmes canon by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle during the holidays, mainly to keep me occupied, but also because I wanted to identify each and every allusion they throw at me this time.

"Oh, you can throw the canon out the window."

Thank you, Messrs. Moffat and Gatiss, for giving us something even better than the first series. A lot of folks on Tumblr would also be extremely grateful for giving them loads of shipping materials that would last them until 2013 (and when I say "shipping", I don't mean the one that goes in the water). It's probably become quite clear now that John Watson (Martin Freeman) is not gay, since he's gone through a string of lovers already, the latest being the lovely Ms. Oona Chaplin, but I don't think she'll be back for the next episode. Too bad also for Sarah, who was Watson's squeeze in the first season. I liked her.

"Wait, who said I'm gay?"

But Sherlock's sexual preference still leaves a cloud of doubt. Is he gay? The fact that he's never had any romantic relationship isn't really conclusive proof of that. And the fact that he went out of his way to save "The Woman" isn't conclusive proof of the contrary, either. Too bad, though. I just loved all their scenes together, with sexual tension so thick you could cut it with a butter knife. Too bad Irene Adler makes only one appearance in the canon, which means that Lara Pulver would also probably make only one appearance in the series.

One appearance that was totally worth it.

So, is Sherlock gay? Is Mycroft married, because he has a ring on his finger? Is Irene Adler alive? Frankly, I don't know, and I don't really care.

This applies to everyone who loves this show.



Sherlock (Series 2). UK. 2012.



Eight and a half out of ten.



*some info from IMDb
GIFs by Sue Denim




You may also want to check out the review of Sherlock Series 1.

What do both Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss have in common, aside from both being writers of Doctor Who, and proper Whovians in themselves? The answer is that they are both big fans of Arthur Conan Doyle, and the ones who came up with the idea of putting the Conan Doyle's famous creation smack in the middle of second millennium-London.

This is the first time I've actually encountered a TV show with only three episodes per series ("season" in the US), with each episode lasting 90 minutes. I'm familiar with the 6-, 12-, and 24-episode series, but not this. Anyway, I'm not complaining. I just wanted to mention that I learned something new from the Brits. Yet again.

This first series came out in mid-2010, and fans had to wait a year and a half for series 2. Blame it on Peter Jackson, whose film The Hobbit created scheduling conflicts for Martin Freeman, who plays Bilbo Baggins, and maybe Benedict Cumberbatch as well, who voices the dragon Smaug. But the BBC decided to start the year right, by bringing series 2 on New Year's Day itself, creating the grand fireworks display between Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler.

But before we go onto the review of the first episode of series 2, here is a recap of the entire first series. Clicking on the episode title links back to the original review, which is actually already here, so it wouldn't be necessary to click it. Unless you want to give this blog more hits, then by all means, click away.


1. "A Study in Pink"

I've been a fan of Sherlock Holmes since grade school. Although I admit, I haven't read the entire canon. But I've read quite a lot. And if you've been a fan of Holmes for some time now, you'll recognize the title from A Study in Scarlet.

Then you get to the part where Sherlock asks John:

"Afghanistan or Iraq?"
Among the three episodes of Sherlock thus far, this is probably my least favorite. Make no mistake, I love all of them. But if I had to choose which one was my least favorite, and if I had a gun to my head, then I'd say it's "The Great Game".

First, there's just too much going on.

Too much, in fact, that Sherlock just got an orgasm.

There are five phone pips here, each pip being one mystery, so that's five mysteries in all. And although each of the five mysteries can stand alone, they are merely sub-mysteries of one big mystery. Which involves...

Professor Moriarty, which is my second point here.


I know Moriarty is psycho. But Andrew Scott is just creepy. It's the way he delivers his lines─like he's definitely unhinged. He should've been killed. Plus, he looks a bit like Jim Parsons.

My new favorite character in this show (like we have a lot to choose from) is none other than this guy:

"Who? Me?"

Yep. Mycroft Holmes. Sherlock's brother. Played by Mark Gatiss. If you think the name rings a bell, it should. You've seen it before.


Yes, he's the writer of this episode, and the co-creator of this series. And he's a bloody brilliant actor.

I loved the root canal bit.


Sherlock (Episode 3). UK. 2010.


Rating: Eight point five out of ten.



*some info from IMDb and Wikipedia
pics from VLC
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