Thursday, May 07, 2015

Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Lilyhammer, Season 3:
This show has run out of ideas and is treading water on reimplementation of old plots. The charm is gone and characters have their characters assassinated through illogical actions to push the plot forward. It jumps the shark once Torgeir starts seeing ghosts midseason. Free on Netflix, but stop at Season Two and skip this one.

Final Grade: D

Halt and Catch Fire, Season 1:
This new show about the rise of personal computers in Texas in the 1980s was surprisingly good for being under-hyped. We enjoy watching Lee Pace in things, except for Guardians of the Galaxy where, apparently, his evil superpower was to have a deeper voice and better diction than the people around him. He's able to show his range here as a less-than-likeable protagonist (supposedly inspired by the lead in Mad Men so the audience of that show would start watching this one after Mad Men ends its run). Free on Netflix.

Final Grade: B+

Bloodline, Season 1:
This show is super slow. It's slower than the plot development in Unbreakable and slower than the slo-mo reaction shots of Jim Caviezel blinking while reciting war poetry in The Thin Red Line. If you took the glacial pace of Six Feet Under, removed all of the deep philosophical hooks about mortality, turned it into a slow-burning murder thriller, and then tried to stream it over dialup, you would get this show. It's made by the creator of Damages, whose first season I really liked, but just takes far too long to get to the point. The last three episodes are tense, exciting, and a well-coursed denouement, but you have to get through ten episodes that are equivalent to watching that stupid plastic bag blow around the screen in American Beauty. This is also one of those shows where pretentious viewers argue that the setting is one of the main characters, but you can't reuse a single helicopter view of Key West and the same three pans of a beach and make this claim. Free on Netflix, if you don't count 13 hours of your life.

Final Grade: C-

Sleep Better Iso-Cool Memory Foam Pillow:
I finally had to dispose of my childhood era pillow because it no longer provided any support (and because a cat threw up on it), and bought this replacement for under $40. It's actually a very good pillow with a good blend of sturdy and soft, although it will take a while for me to break my former habit of scrunching the pillow into my desired shape -- this is the type of pillow that you just let sit in one place and it will adjust based on how you're sleeping on it.

Final Grade: B+

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