Falling Skies

  

     Yes, another Sci-Fi show, this one is Falling Skies.  Falling Skies is set in a future world where aliens called 'skitters' take over the planet and destroy most of it in wars.  The main cities are Charleston, South Carolina and Boston, Massachusetts.   In the first six months survivors have banded together in the major cities to try and survive and fight back against the aliens.  The main people that are followed in the show do go from one city camp to another between seasons, so in the beginning the Charleston camp  is just an idea, no one really knows if it exists or not.  

      The aliens steal and enslave human kids/teenagers to do work and be translators for the aliens.  The kids have these back braces which are sort of infused into the skin on their back and have sort of roots that control them, they are simply called Harnesses by the humans.  The aliens do attempt contact with the humans and they speak through the children. If they are lucky, they are sometimes able to recover the children that have been stolen for only a short amount of time and remove a majority of the harness.  Though they are not able to remove the ‘spikes’ that attract to their nervous system so if a skitter is close, they can be controlled still, though they have an easier time resisting it.  The show will renew for a fourth season later this year.

The four boys pictured are the main family in the show, the boy laying down has the last bits of a 'Harness' on him.

The 'Harnesses'

Grimm

"Dressed in the skin, the Wolf strolled into the pasture with the sheep.  Soon a little Lamb was following him about and was quickly led away to slaughter."

Ah yes this week’s show is Grimm, where the episodes are based on the not so fluffy fairy of the Grimm Brothers.   The show starts off each episode with a direct quote from one of the original tales, foreshadowing the creatures in that one episode.  The show is based on Nick, he is a Grimm, now Grimms are supposed to hunt and kill vessen, the evil characters.  The vessen are real people who can morph into these certain creatures at any time they choose.  Nick however decides to become best friends with his next-door neighbor, Monroe who is a Blubaten, a sort of wolf species.

 

Monroe, On the right is when he is normal and the left is when he turns into a Blubaten.

         Nick isn’t supposed to become friends with these things, totally against the rules, so he has to keep a secret.  It isn’t that hard since the vessen can sense that he is a Grimm and that terrifies them. Nick is a cop who just so happens to have a boss who is one of the more vicious Vessen but being a cop does have many advantages.  He also wisely makes friends with Monroe’s girlfriend, Rosalie, who runs an apothecary for vessen.   Nick does have to kill some of the Vessen because they are terrorizing humans, or committing crimes, but he doesn’t feel its right to bother the ones that are just living normally.  I absolutely love this show, its scary but with Monroe making jokes all the time its also quite funny. 

Nick in his aunt's trailer that holds tons of information on vessen and tons of weapons to kill them.

Warehouse 13

Warehouse 13 is about five warehouse agents (though some characters do join the team for a bit of time these are the main ones), Pete, Micah, Claudia, Steve, and Artie.  The warehouse is a huge, enchanted storage unit that expands as space is needed.  It is disguised as a regular old warehouse in the middle of a desert.

                                         The warehouse's exterior (above) and interior (below)

The agents have to collect these things called 'artifacts' they cause something unnatural to happen, most of the time something bad.  The agents have to figure out what the artifact is, what its causing and how to get rid of it, usually its just throwing it into a special bag that cuts off its powers so it can be stored safely in the warehouse. Artifacts are most commonly based off of something that belonged to someone in history such as, John Lennon's glasses or Joan of Arc's chain mail.  Commonly, artifacts are triggered by being touched or by doing an action, Hammurabi's ring allows a person to control someone who has commited a crime while being worn.  The show is very sci-fi while including a lot of things from history.  It's on its last season right now and it's one of my personal favorite shows.

Pretty Little Liars

"Got a secret, can you keep it?  Swear this one you'll save.  Better lock it in your pocket, taking this one to the grave." 

Pretty Little Liars is mystery kind of show based off of the 15 (the book series isn't over yet) part series by Sarah Sheppard.  In the show, four friends Emily Fields, Hanna Marin, Aria Montgomery, and Spencer Hastings find themselves being stalked and tormented by an unknown person who goes under the name A. 

(Emily Fields, Aria Montgomery, Hanna Marin, Spencer Hastings)

The girls often receive texts or a note threatening to reveal some of their biggest secrets if they don’t do as A asks.  The girls suspect it to be their friend Alison DiLaurentis, who is the only person they had ever shared these secrets with.  Though they often dismissed that hunch, Alison has been dead for a year after all.  It doesn't help that A often shows up wearing a mask modeled after Alison's face.  

In the most recent season the girls have found that there is more than one A, and that they are all just being controlled by a single ring leader. These new As' are known as 'red coat' the reason is simple, they wear red coats. In this season the girls have spent more time than ever trying to take down, and reveal who the main A is.  They have found Alison’s old diary and they discovered that A must have been using the book to blackmail the girls because the content of the pages is all the girls deepest secrets. 

          One thing is for sure, if you think you know what is going to happen, or who A is, it’ll probably turn out in a whole unexpected way.  

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD

   "Everything is changing. A little while ago most people went to bed thinking the craziest thing in the world was a billionaire in a flying metal suit."

          This week’s show is Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD.  Wooh the first show that isn’t on the BBC (I mostly watch British television, whoops.) Well this show is a spin off show with agent Colsoun from Marvel’s Avengers.  He assembles a team of five, Agent Malinda May, Grant Ward and the scientists, Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz. His team soon picks up Skye, an expert hacker living in a van who discovers an emerging superhero and constantly tries to hack SHIELD’s databases.

(Left to Right, Skye, Jemma Simmons, Leo Fitz, Phil Coulson, Malinda May, and Grant Ward)

          In each episode Coulson’s team discovers new heroes and defends the earth from Villains.  Throughout the season the continuing story line is the team trying to find out who the Clairvoyant is and how to bring down the team who is enlisting new villains, HYDRA.  The Clairvoyant (meaning can see information about a person, event or object through inhuman means.) is known as the leader of HYDRA and seems to be the one providing the group with their information against SHIELD.  HYDRA in SHIELD’s eyes is pretty much a terrorist group aiming to bring down SHIELD and rein the earth with mechanically controlled super villains.  The show also touches on how Agent Coulson has miraculously come back from the dead after he was killed by Loki in the Avengers.  Overall if you love Marvel or just super heroes in general this is an amazing show with action, romance and like I said, super heroes.  

Orphan Black

          “You’re the only person I can talk to about this and you’re another version of me.” Alison Hendrix

          Well today we will be talking Orphan Black.  This one is going to be real hard to explain so I’ll just dive right in.  It starts out with normal, orphan, Sarah Manning witnessing a girl jump in front a moving train, but that’s not the weird part.  The weird part is that she looked exactly like Sarah.  The first thing Sarah does is grab the girl’s purse and run back to her brother, Felix Dawkins' place.  

            She soon finds out that this girl has been living a nice life and transforms to take her place.  She convinces everyone that the girl on the train tracks is actually her and becomes Elizabeth Childs.  So now’s the real weird part.  Sarah finds out that, guess what? There’s nine identical versions of her, she’s a clone! 

          The main clones are from left to right, Sarah Manning, Helena, Alision Hendrix, Cosima Niehaus, and Elizabeth Childs.

          Through out the series Sarah, Helena and Alison become good friends and work together to try to work out the mystery of how they could possibly be clones.  Sarah is forced to pose as a cop in her new life as Elizabeth Childs, Cosima is the Scientist and Alison is the soccer mom.  The three clones are not only trying to work out the details but also keep themselves safe from Helena, who happens to be a religious nut that is convinced she is the original clone and the rest are superior to them.

          The girls all have ‘monitors’ secret people who are keeping track of how the clones are doing.  That becomes another struggle since most of their monitors happen to be their husbands/girlfriends.  Most of the time desire overcomes them and they end up just forgetting that they are probably the enemy. The show is a crazy, awesome sci-fi mystery that is just impossible to resist.

Sherlock

 "We solve crimes. I blog about it, he forgets his pants. I wouldn’t hold out to much hope.”-John Watson

Sherlock is the TV adaptation of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle.  Sherlock Holmes, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, is a sociopath consulting detective.  He solves crimes with the help of his friend and blogger, John Watson.  Sherlock loves anything blood and gore, especially murder. 

“Four Serial suicides and now a note! It’s Christmas!” – Sherlock Holmes

The show so far has only three seasons, and each season has only three episodes, each episode an hour and a half long.  There have been about a two year hiatus between seasons.  Meaning Sherlockians are not fangirls you want to mess with.  

Season three aired in January of this year.  I think it was the best season yet with several plot twists and major character development.  When Sherlock "returns from the dead" he finds John Watson has a fiancé, Mary, and a rather unpleasant mustache.  Anderson, Sherlock’s former enemy has spent his last two years obsessing over Sherlock, somehow knowing he is really alive and meeting in a group to figure out how Sherlock could have survived his faked death. 

Episode two is John’s wedding and is one of the very rare times Sherlock starts to show emotion even though he is completely unaware on how to react to other people’s emotions in the room.  He gives a lovely speech about his only best friend, John and even gets himself a girlfriend even if it is only to retrieve a password from her work. 

Like most season finale ‘His last vow’ ended in a huge cliff hanger which was shown after the credits.  I’m not so sure those Sherlock fans are going to be able to hold out another two years to find out the meaning of all that has happened.