Amazon offers The Lone Gunmen: The Complete Series for $13.49 (55% Off).  Free shipping on orders over $25 or with Amazon Prime.

I wrote up some thoughts about the show a while back, I highly recommend the show, especially if you like The X-Files.

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This Recommendation is a little different, as I’m going to talk about next week’s release, Caprica.

This release is a feature length Pilot for the future Sci-Fi channel series, set to air next year.

From the Executive Producers of Battlestar Galactica, Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, Caprica is set 50 years before the aforementioned series, on the planet of Caprica.  The story follows 2 families, the Graystone’s and the Adama’s. 

WARNING:  MINOR SPOILERS BELOW

I went into the show expecting and wanting it to be like Battlestar, but it is not.  And when I was able to put that aside, I enjoyed the show a lot more.  I didn’t know if the show would have a lot of sci-fi in it, as it was set on the planet Caprica, compared to in space like Battlestar was, but I was satisfied with the sci-fi elements of the show.   

One thing very noticeable about the Pilot are the visual effects.  The people who handle the effects, and also did them on Battlestar, are amazing at what they do.  Everything from the buildings, streets, houses, is beautifully imagined and fits with the setting on Caprica.

  The characters are set up pretty well, with understandably a lot of focus on the father’s of the Adama and Graystone families.  One moment with Joseph Adama crying reminded me a lot of Bill Adama breaking down towards the end of the Battlestar series.  In fact my only real gripe with the Pilot is I wish there was more time to develop other characters in the story and the world, but that’s what the show will be for.

The Pilot has a good mix of drama and action, and I definitely think there is a lot of potential here for a TV series.  Knowing some of the people from Battlestar are behind it gives me a lot of confidence as well that it will turn out to be a good show.  I’m looking forward to the premiere, though with it starting in 2010, there’s quite a while to go.

The DVD releases features an extended version of the Pilot, and for bonus features a commentary with Director Jeffrey Reiner and Executive Producer/Writer Ronald D. Moore and Executive Producer David Eick, deleted scenes, and video blogs (What the Frak is Caprica?, The Director’s Process, The V Club, The Birth of a Cylon).

Release date is this Tuesday, April 21st, and the best price is $17.49 at Amazon.  In-store, the best price is $17.99 at Target.

If you liked Battlestar Galactica, I would definitely give this Pilot a try, it looks very promising.

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I have never read any of the Harry Potter books, and until 2 weeks ago I hadn’t seen any of the movies either.  But a couple weeks ago I decided to watch the first movie and see if I liked it.  I was very surprised, after watching the first movie, I watched the other 4 within the next week.  I never thought I would like them as much as I did, and now I want to start reading the books.

For those who don’t know what the movies are about, they follow the titled main character Harry Potter, as he attends school at Hogwarts, a wizard academy.  Each of the movies covers 1 year of Harry Potter at school.

The story follows Harry Potter as he first finds out about Hogwarts, and the whole world of magic and wizardry.  He is taken to the school where he meets 2 characters who have been his friends throughout the series, Ronald Weasley, and Hermione Granger.  Ron is my one of my favorite people, he usually is good for making you laugh.  There are a lot of other strong characters as well, including Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts, and Hagrid, who works at the school, and becomes friends with Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

The whole wizard world has been beautifully imagined, including the Hogwarts school, which has paintings you can talk to, moving staircases, and lots of other magical features.  There is also a fantasy sport at the school, known as Quiddich, which Harry ends up playing.  It’s a very interesting game, and it’s nice to have integrated into this world, while being a unique sport, it does help relate to the real world.

Each movie is about a particular item/event, such as the Sorcerer’s Stone in the first, Chamber of Secrets in the second, etc…  My only complaint about the movies is I wish there was more shown about what is going on over the school year, more Quiddich shown, and background about Hogwarts.  However there is only so much you can fit in a 2 to 2 and a half hour movie, so it’s understandable.  I have heard the books offer a lot more detail, so I look forward to reading them.

The movies are visually stunning, including some of the best CG visuals I have ever seen.  Only having watched them on DVD, I look forward to see the future movies in the theater on a huge screen, with movie theater sound.  That should be a great experience.

With 5 movies released and 3 more movies to come out (the last will be 2 parts), I’m looking forward to see the rest.  So often I end up watching movies/TV shows after they’ve already ended/been completely released, so this is nice.  The movies are excellent, and I highly recommend them if you haven’t seen them.

Previous Recommendations:

LOST
Arrested Development
Alias
Carnivale
MirrorMask
Dirty Jobs

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Having already made a post about JJ Abrams previous TV show Alias, and being sure I’ll be making one for Fringe when it is available on DVD, this post is going to be about the other show in the trio, LOST.

Currently airing its 5th season on ABC, LOST is already one of my favorite TV shows of all-time, and it still has more than 1 and a half seasons left to air.  What makes LOST so great?  Read on…

The story of LOST begins when Oceanic Flight 815 on its way from Sydney, Australia to Los Angeles, crash lands on a tropical island.  This is where the story starts, but the survivors soon find out this is no ordinary island they have landed on.  The island has a lot of mysteries, and over the course of the show a lot is learned about the island and the people that live there.

The first thing I think of when I think about LOST are the characters, never have a seen a show with not only the quality of characters, but the amount of great characters as well.  The cast on the show is so strong, I can’t think of a show with a stronger selection of characters.  From the first season there have been characters added over time, as well as characters that aren’t on the show anymore, but the cast remains in my opinion as good as it has ever been.

The main group of characters, the group that originally crashed on the island consists of Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Locke, Sayid, Hurley, Sun, Jin, Charlie, Michael and Claire.  Over the first few seasons of the show we learn a lot about these characters, where they’re from, their back stories, and how to ended up on the plane that crashed on the island.  Was it a coincidence?  Or was it their destiny?  The first few seasons offer a lot of details about the characters, as mentioned above, when what is happening in the story on the island is involving a specific character, that is usually an episode where we learn more about them through a series of flashbacks.  In the course of a season a character usually has a couple episodes that are centered around them.  In the later seasons though the show has gone away from character centric episodes, and is now focused on the story and the group of people, which I think was a smart change, there’s not a lot of show left, and there is a lot to tell.

Mysteries are a big part of LOST, as mentioned in the previous paragraph there is a lot still to learn about the characters and the island.  This is can be a good or bad thing when you watch the show depending on the type of viewer you are.  If you don’t mind some leaving some questions unanswered for a while, you are set.  If you don’t like not knowing the answer to something, you might have a tough time with LOST.  Things do get revealed, and mysteries are answered, but quite often we as viewers are left hanging, asking why did that happen, or what does that mean?  There are things from the first season that still haven’t been answered, though with the show winding down, a lot more answers seem to be starting to appear, which is good.

All 4 previous LOST seasons are on DVD, with Seasons 3 and 4 also available on Blu-Ray.  Though the prices stayed consistently high for quite a while, the prices on the earlier seasons seem to be coming down.  Now would be a great time to start watching the show, it is well worth the investment.

Previous Recommendations:

Arrested Development
Alias
Carnivale
MirrorMask
Dirty Jobs
The Lone Gunmen

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Arrested Development aired 3 seasons on Fox from 2003-2006, and was cancelled after that.  It is one of the funniest shows ever, and one that definitely shouldn’t have been cancelled.  Though a movie looks to be in the works, so maybe the Bluth Family can live on a little longer.

Arrested Development tells the story of the Bluth’s.  The family owns a real estate company, led by father George Bluth Sr. (played by Jeffrey Tambor).  After George Sr. gets arrested for illegal business practices, the family doesn’t know what to do, having always relied on him and the company for everything.

The family is made up of father George Sr., his wife Lucille (played by Jessica Walter), his 2 sons Michael (played by Jason Bateman) and Gob (played by Will Arnett), and daughter Lindsay (played by Portia de Rossi).  There is also Lindsay’s husband Tobias Funke (played by David Cross), and their daughter Maeby (played by Alia Shawkat).

The story of the show is how the Bluth family tries to get by without George Sr. running the company, and how Michael is trying to keep the whole family together.  This is a huge challenge, for such a dysfunctional family.  Everyone is trying to manipulate someone else to get what they want.

One other thing that I must mention is the narrator on the show, Ron Howard.  I have never seen a show with a narrator who does a better job.  While helping the story progress, and summarizing what is going on, Howard does a perfect job as a narrator.

All 3 seasons have been released on DVD, with MSRP’s of $39.99 for Seasons 1 & 2, and a $29.99 MSRP for Season 3. They regularly go on sale for $19.99 every so often.  And for the replay value from these sets, they are well worth it.

Previous Recommendations:

Alias
Carnivale
MirrorMask
Dirty Jobs
The Lone Gunmen
Psych

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Today’s Recommendation is Alias, which aired for 5 seasons on ABC from 2001-2006.

From Creator J.J. Abrams, who’s went on to create LOST, as well as Fringe, Alias is a spy drama shows, based around the life of Sydney Bristow (played by Jennifer Garner).  The show starts off with Sydney getting recruited to work at the CIA, and follows her life from there.  I can’t remember a Pilot episode that was as good as Alias’s, it was incredible.  All 3 of J.J. Abram’s shows have had incredible pilot episodes.

There is a great cast of characters on this show.  Sydney’s Father Jack (played by Victor Garber), who also works at the CIA, is a great character, who is a loving father at times, but can also be really serious and sometimes mean when it comes to being a spy.  Two other great characters are Marcus Dixon (played by Carl Lumbly), and Michael Vaughn (played by Michael Vartan).   Dixon is Sydney’s partner at the beginning, and they work together throughout most of the series.  Vaughn works with Sydney at the CIA, and like Dixon they work closely together.

The last 2 characters I’ll note are Marshall Flinkman (played by Kevin Weisman), who is the main technical person where Sydney works.  He is always creating new devices to help Sydney on missions, whether it’s a camera in a pen, or a tube of lipstick that knocks someone out when it touches their skin.  Marshall is probably the funniest character on the show, he doesn’t have great social skills, and that leads to some funny conversation moments.  The last character I’ll mention is Arvin Sloane (played by Ron Rifkin), who is Sydney’s boss at the beginning of the show.  He is a big part of the story, and has known Jack and Sydney for a long time.  There are so much I could say about all the characters on the show, the depth of these characters is amazing.

I’m not going to get into the story very much here, there is so much that happens over the 5 seasons, and not knowing where the story is going makes the show so amazing to watch.  The episodes are so unpredictable and exciting.  I can’t think of another show with such well-done cliffhangers as Alias.  Luckily I watched the entire show on DVD, waiting week to week when it aired would’ve been torture.

Usually each episode focuses on one specific mission for Sydney, and her team at the CIA.  Some episodes are 2 parts, always with a cliff hanger to end the first episode.  The show has a overarching mythology, that progresses through the seasons leading up to the finale, which I thought was excellent.

All 5 seasons have been released on DVD, and now is the perfect time to get them.  After years on staying at a high MSRP, the retail price has finally dropped to $29.99 on all seasons.  They can be found online for around $20-25 now.  That makes the show an amazing value.  The first 4 seasons are 22 episodes, and the fifth season is a short 17, for a total of 105 episodes.  The DVD’s are all well done, with some bonus features, and great quality audio and video.

I cannot recommend this show enough, if you’re looking for a new drama to watch and haven’t seen Alias, give it a try.

Previous Recommendations:

Carnivale
MirrorMask
Dirty Jobs
The Lone Gunmen
Psych

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