The Simpsons – Treehouse of Horror II

I’m going to conclude my rerunagade Halloween month with a Simpsons episode, for two reasons:

1. I had to watch something that can relieve me from the horrible High School of the Dead.
2. I wanted to review a Simpsons episode for Rerunagade Reviews.

I can go into detail into what I think about The Simpsons of today on whether or not if the show is terrible enough that it should of left years ago. I will choose not to, only because I’m going to save that topic for some other time. My main point for today’s review is only going to be on this episode, Treehouse of Horror II. This episode is not my favorite Treehouse of Horror episode, and I will save that for some other time.

We begin with Marge warning about how graphic and violent this Treehouse of Horror episode (which it isn’t, by the way), and gives up, since she knows that nobody will accept or listen to her this time, just like before.  They did this up until season 7, right up until it got redundant to the point that nobody would ever listen to them. Then we cut into our intro!

Yeah, this is at a time where the writers and show runners were trying to find out how they’re going to do their Treehouse of Horror episodes. That, and the horror credits that they came up with, as well as the comedic tombstones in the graveyard scenes were easy at first for the writers, until they ran out of new ideas for names and jokes for them both. Kind of like how the show has turned out to be nowadays.

Why is there snow on this tombstone? I don’t know.

We get to see Homer being threaten by Jimbo and Kerny over for candy and getting his house egged afterwards, and then Bart and Lisa comes back home w candy. Homer joins in with kids eating candy, and Marge tells them that they were going to get nightmares for eating so much of it. I bought this as a kid, and now I’m trying to figure out how that works. Anyway, they all go to bed and start having their own nightmares

Okay, whenever I’m going to do a review of each and every Treehouse of Horror episode, I will split them into their very own topics. But don’t worry, they won’t be split into their own posts. In case if you don’t fully understand what I’m talking about, just read along with what I’m going to do.

The first story is Lisa’s, where the Simpsons are in a market place in Morocco, where Homer buys a monkey’s paw from a creepy seller, with a huge eye sticking out of his left eye socket.

Homer’s a Whovian?

After their tour around Morocco, they go back home on an airplane, until Homer is stopped by the airport security for stealing, and then pays $2.

According to the show runner, Mike Greece, this was a reference to Midnight Express. Yes, I know what that movie is and the significance of this scene and that movie, but I don’t why it’s in this episode. But you know what, this episode has a ton of movie references coming up. The one we’re looking at most of this story is a parody to Monkey’s Paw.

Bart and Lisa argue about wishing with the monkey’s paw for either being rich and famous, or world peace. I’ll lead you to figure out who wants what. Maggie makes her first wish, and we get to see a high class, fancy-shmancy car drive up, only to give her a high class, fancy-shmancy pacifier. And then the car drives away. The second wish was rich and fame that Bart wishes, and everyone feels great about it. Even for Lisa, who was against it.

Stinkin’ little hypocrite.

What’s funny about the monkey’s paw is that they tried to get the fingers come down until the middle finger is the only one up. They even tried to ask Fox if they can do it by censoring it, but it couldn’t happen. That was until the Simpsons Movie. There were other moments in the show that they wanted to get away with things that could be censored, but I don’t think it was possible during this time. Which is funny to me, because The Animaniacs was able to get away with a lot of stuff in the past.

So, with the family being rich and famous, they go out in fancy restaurants, get record deals, which they now have an album on the Simpson’s Christmas Boggie,

being on T-shirts, on billboards about Mammograms, and everyone really hates it! This whole montage was suppose to be a self-satire of how The Simpsons started to get into the mainstream culture, with two albums that came out at the time, T-shirts, Bart Simpson dolls, and a billboard that Fox had with Bart saying whatever catchphrase that goes with their slogan. Each and everyday! I have no idea how they were able to keep that up.

The Simpsons starts to not like this at all, and Lisa finally wishes for world peace.  This means that the whole world finally get along with each other, getting rid of weapons from all over the world, which leads to both Kotos and Kang to invade the world. This episode made Fox wonder if bringing in Kotos and Kang for this episode was going to be a Halloween tradition, since they were also in the last Treehouse of Horror. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. Now that Kotos and Kang have turned everyone into slaves, Homer thinks about the best, bullet-proof idea he can come up with. A turkey sandwich! He thinks that the turkey is a little dry, and he tries to get rid of the monkey’s paw. Lousy Flanders sees Homer throwing the monkey’s paw, but then receives it, with Homer thinking that he will get crapped upon. But Ned wishes for a way to get rid of the aliens, and it works! ……with Moe using a nail on a board.

They’re like Raid for aliens.

So, the day is saved, Flanders gets praised by many, and the end for this part.

Bart’s nightmare begins as a parody from the Twilight Zone movie, which is based off of a Twilight Zone episode, which might be a future review of mine, where everyone should think of happy thoughts, or they will be cursed and something bad will happen to them. Bart is living the life, where nobody should say anything negative about him, having the life of a god. In other words, he’s Kim Jong Un. And now, for the only joke that was not censored by Fox in this episode:

There are so many ways you can get crap like that through the radar.

The only one who rebels against Bart is Homer, and he gets turnedinto a Jack-in-a-box.

Still one of my favorite moments in the show!

Marge takes both Homer and Bart to a shrink by none other than Dr. Marvin Monroe, a character that the show killed off because the guy who did his voice wasn’t able to do it anymore for being too hard, but then came back for a cameo about a decade later. Monroe says that this all because Bart and Homer couldn’t get along, and says that they should both have some quality time together. This later on turned the relationship between the two as from less hating and strangling to, well, being almost like buddies. Doing this, for me, kind of sucks the fun and humor out of the characters.

Through their quality time, we do get to see a montage of them going to a baseball game. fishing, going to church, shooting beer cans, riding on roller coasters, all for parodying an anti-smoking commercial with a knock-off song from the commercial. This resulted Bart to turning Homer back to normal, loving him, and that made him wake up in terror. This brought Bart and Lisa to Marge and Homer’s bed out of how frighten they were, and think that sleeping with them would make things better.

Before I go any further, these wrap around scenes that you see before each segment begins were a thing for these specials. The reason for why you don’t see them anymore is because they didn’t have the time to do it with the commercials. I do wish we can see them again someday.

The third and last segment of this episode is Homer’s nightmare, where Mr. Burns is getting so sick of seeing Homer sleeping on the job. His only decision is to fire him, and he did just that. As for a replacement for the safety inspector, Mr. Burns takes Smithers into his laboratory, showing off his robot. However, the robot is only missing one thing to make it work. A human brain! So this means that both Burns and Smithers go Frankenstein on Homer, who is now working as a grave digger, sleeping on the job. Burns takes Homer into his lab, puts his brain into the robot, and then……the robot goes after the donuts.          …….and he goes back to sleep.

I’m just surprised that no one has ever cosplayed as this yet.

Mr. Burns is just sad that his creation as turned into a disappointment, and Smithers says that they should just put his brain back in Homer’s head. After doing that, Mr. Burns kicks the robot, and that made the robot fall and crush him but his head. Mr. Burns asks Smithers to get some things to help keep him alive, woke Homer up, and sees Mr. Burns’ head sown onto Homer’s body.

Now this is a Halloween idea that Michael Scott wishes he had came up with first.

And then the episode ends with a next tine scene that never happened.

This is one of my favorite Treehouse of Horror episodes in the show. Even though most of them are shorter than the average length of the current segements of today, they still hold up as being funny to watch. I didn’t go into too much detail with the last segment, but that was only because its the best, and I want you to watch it yourself. Believe me, if you haven’t watched this yet (I really wonder why), you won’t be disappointed. Believe me, these segments are more horror related than the recent Treehouse of Horror episodes have become.

7/10

That’s it for Rerunagade’s Halloween! See what I did there? I came up with a very generic title for this month. Man, I Am so lazy on this.

High School of the Dead – Spring of the Dead

That’s right ladies and gentlemen, we started this month strong! We had the great and crazy mind of Garth Marenghi for the start of this month, then we had the once great Steven Moffat  show us  Blink, and now we are sinking almost as low as High School USA! in the month of Halloween. High School of the Dead. Both terrible shows that were animated, have an MA rating, and have the same two words in their titles. The only difference is that the title High School USA! makes sense. This show, on the other hand, has a high school in the first two episodes, and that’s it. If you could of think and try harder for a better title, then I wouldn’t have tried to complain about it.

This show is based off of the manga from the author Daisuke Satou, who is the author of another manga called Imperial Guards.

This image deserves to be painted as a mural!

I’ve only read the first chapter, and it’s not as provocative as this show that I’m about to review. That manga contains a giant Siberian tiger eating soldiers in a war series! You should check it out.

The other guy who I’m telling you to avoid is Shouji Satou, the artist who is well known for being a hentai artist, aka, porn. His famous masterpiece is FIRE FIRE FIRE.

This is who we’re dealing with people. You have been warned!

Plus, we even got Tetsuro Araki of all people to direct this anime. What did he direct, you ask?

So, let’s get this straight. We got Daisuke Satou as the author and Tetsuro Araki as the director. Both of these people are very talented at what they do, and a hentai artist did the artwork for High School of the Dead. Let me tell ya, there aren’t enough onions in the world that can help me cry over this subject.

We start off with a foreshadow of the main character, Takashi, monologing about how the world came to an end, and we do see some zombies come in split seconds, and I must say, that was pretty effective. It works, showing how scary this show might be and–oh, we’re interrupted by our main characters of the show. Well, two out of the three in this scene, by the way. They run to the highest point of the rooftop of their high school, and we’re given the first two fan services of the show, with breast physics that is only possible if the second main character of this scene, Rei, goes around without a bra, and a shot with her panties as she falls on the ground after being whacked by her own stick that a zombie grabs. Then Rei almost gets eaten by a zombie before her about-to-die boyfriend helps save her. Okay, there is a confusion that I just noticed in this scene alone with Rei. Right before she almost gets eaten by the zombie, she smacked a zombie without any hesitation. Fine, but when falls on the ground, she still has her spear (yeah, sorry for not clarifying what her weapon is), but can’t move and is terrified for her life. But why? She clearly has the advantage of killing this one zombie.

“If only I had something to defend myself with!”

Can someone tell me if she is suppose to be a damsel in distress or not? Because it is so obvious that she isn’t! And we haven’t gone 2 minutes into this episode at this point! Takashi looks at the zombies who are coming towards them on the roof, and yells out “WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!” That sentence was so loud that it woke up the theme song, which the song itself is great! I just can’t say the same thing about the opening.

And before I go any further, I just want to say that this anime is not as revealing as what Bennett the Sage would normally review for Anime Abandon. If this anime would have been reviewed by him, it would look tamed compared to a majority of the anime that he has reviewed, such as Junk Boy, Mad Bull 34, Apocalypse Zero or Angel Blade. My reason for saying that is because, even though there is a LOT of clevage to be found in High School of the Dead, it shows no nudity at all! My point is that this anime’s portrayal of thin tidy-whiteys and probably no bras is just makes this show too stupid than it already is.

The title shows up, being called Spring of the Dead. In case if you’re wondering, this show’s titles have “of the Dead” in 11/12 of their episodes, from what I can remember, showing how lazy the writing in this anime is. Takeshi sadly stands on a staircase outside one of the school buildings, thinking about the pinky promise that both him and Rei made about getting married, and then breaking it for going out with another guy for reasons that may never be answered. Takeshi is then interrupted by a pink-haired, glasses-wearing, screw-all-breast-physics girl named Takegi, who makes me wonder how in the world she even has any friends in the first place. All she ever does is just nags and talks as if everyone in the world is worthless. That last part at least makes sense, since her parents are filthy rich. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that she is a genius too, making everyone look and feel stupid, hating stupid people. But she leaves, thinking he’s just stupid, and Takeshi sees a zombie in the front gates of the school, trying to get in.

“Me want go in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory! Me want brain cream!”

1. How did this zombie get to this school unnoticed?
2. Where did this zombie come from?
3. Where are the rest zombies at? Shouldn’t  there be a horde of zombies around that zombie? I refuse to believe that this one zombie got away unnoticed, and nobody did anything about it.

Oh, and even the principal, or a teacher, or somebody in staff–oh, who cares? She even has boobs flopping around and then gets bit. And you know what? Not one of the adults in this scene does a thing about it!

This gets Takeshi freaked out as he storms inside of the school to warn everyone else. Or, he tries to take Rei out of the school and leave everyone else to die. Given how confident the staff are within this situation, I’m sure everyone else would be safe on their own. Rei refuses, as she doesn’t believe him when she says that zombies are eating people, and nobody else believes him either. This makes Takeshi so mad, that he slaps her on the face!

No wonder why she dumped him for the other guy.

And that probably got both Rei and her boyfriend to team up with him. I don’t know. We don’t have any explanation as to why they team up with Takeshi. He didn’t even started explaining what happened outside until they started running in the hallways. Takeshi breaks off a broomstick from the broom itself, showing me that the spear that Rei was not using a spear, proving me wrong!

Rei tries to call the police, but everyone in the police department is on hold, and then the voice on the intercom tells everyone not to freak, until he dies. We even  get to see some people who I doubt will even be characters within the rest of the show. Then everyone starts to freak out and rushes out like it’s Black Friday, beating people up, and kicking girls down the stairs, still showing their butts. Rei encounters one of the teachers who became a zombie, and for some reason, when the zombie grabs Rei, the show literally thought it was a good idea to have a second of her crotch, then her butt for three seconds, showing her undies. You have to be so mind-numbingly pedophilic to go that low in animation. But then the show wants to try its best for forgive the audience by having Rei kill the zombie. Yeah, you don’t just make your character do something good after cowardly showing her panties into full detail while being attacked by a zombie. I don’t work like that. But the show remembers that zombies do not die when they get stabbed in the chest, and then we get to see more exposure of her butt and see her boobs bounce like balloons as she falls down for her boyfriend to save her.     …..just so he can be bitten by the zombie.    …..after twisting it’s head like in The Exorcist.

So, after finally killing the zombie for about 1 1/2 minutes of of trying to kill the zombie and inappropriately showing fan service, they finally go to the roof of the high school, just so they can put an end to this episode. They go on the roof, and sees the rest of their town is in chaos.

Looks more like a riot, if you ask me.

How in the world do these zombies manage to cause so many fires?! What did they do to create all of those fires? Zombies do not create fire on their own. I would find this believable if they were the zombines from Half-Life 2.

Either that, or the Japanese military are just as clumsy as the US military in 1998 Godzilla movie. At least that would have been believable. After all, the zombies in this show moves in a snails pace, which is nothing compared to the fast moving zombies in 28 Days Later, which came out 8 years before this, and was much better in comparison. That, and the way how the infection in that movie spread was more believable than this show, along with other zombie stories that follow this same formula.

So, they see American Black Hawks flying over them,

This is the only fan service you will ever get from this review. I could of shown you the other examples, but there was just too much to the point that half of this review would show nothing but undies and stupid breast physics!

and they don’t understand why they’re there. Spoilers, some people in the world think the American government are the cause of all of this, and the show never explains how. Takeshi says that this is nothing like in any video game or movie, but they clearly use the same logic and tactics as what we all have seen in video games and movies. Avoid getting bitten, killing them on the heads and no where else on their bodies. You know, not like in any video game or movie.

After going through the foreshadowing from the first 2 minutes of the episode, we get to see Hisashi turn into a zombie, BEFORE ADMITTING THAT IT IS LIKE IN A VIDEO GAME AND A MOVIE!!!!!!!! Hisashi asks Takeshi to kill him before he turns, and he does so, but only if the show allows the delay to be over. This 2 1/2 minute delay contains Rei crying how Hisashi shouldn’t die and that he can’t die, crying over his corps, and playing a song that I swear sounds like a carbon copy of that one scene in 28 Days Later in the mansion, where the zombies come in and eats the 9th Doctor for me!

If you have ever seen this episode before, compare that moment with the song I posted, because I fail to find it. But if you haven’t seen this episode, don’t Avoid it like the plague! This episode is bad. Really, really bad. You want to know something else? It gets worse from here on. But this episode is bad enough. As a main character, Takeshi is terrible. He’s agressive and mean spirited, as well as being physically abusive in this episode, and when he’s not any of that, he’s kind of boring for being the lead action character. Rei’s role in this is both confusing to figure out if she’s a damsel in distress or not, as well as being the show’s biggest fan service.  I remember a couple of years ago in an anime club that I use to go to, we saw this in our first day. I remember one woman said “is that even necessary” when looking at the fan service, and another one on the right of me did a counting game and found over 40 fan services in this episode alone! That should tell you the effort and thought that went into making this show. Yes, I will review and destroy this show with an iron fist later on. As for now, I will no longer go with 5 out of 5s anymore, because this episode has made me want to raise that bar for me.

1/10

Will I review something terrible to conclude this month? Maybe.

 

Doctor Who – Blink

I continue this month of Halloween with what is consider to be in Doctor Who the most viewed episode in the show’s history.  Blink! But before I go any further, I believe I should point out how I feel about Steven Moffat as the writer of the show. When I first saw Doctor Who, it was after season 5 ended. I did see just about every episode before season 6 began, and some of the best stories that I saw at the time were from Steven Moffat. Season 5 was truly the strongest point for the show in the New Who series, and a lot of people had high hopes for Moffat, and so did I. I was really looking forward for season 6! But when I first saw The Impossible Astronaut, I didn’t feel excited about it, and the same can be said about his other episodes in season 6. But then I felt very worried about the man after he wrote The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe, which was very boring, and I haven’t seen it since it’s broadcast. And then, *sigh*, season 7 started with Asylum of the Daleks. I only had one good thing to say about it, and it was just the plot twist. The rest was offensive to me. That was the point where I gave up on Steven Moffat.

Fortunately, I get to talk about one of Steven Moffat’s best episodes!

Blink is one of those episodes that every Whovian from the new series loves to talk about. After the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, Doctor Who Magazine did a survey, and ended up ranking Blink as the second best episode in the show’s history, with Day of the Doctor being number one.

http://www.doctorwhomagazine.com/the-top-10-doctor-who-stories-of-all-time/

Sure, some of you may see that as an over exaggeration, but knowing that a massive amount of fans who rated Blink as second best in the show reveals it’s reputation. SF Debris once said that this is his kid’s favorite David Tennant episode, because they think the Weeping Angels are the best thing in the show for how terrifying they are. Even I have one of them on their shirts.

My brother’s fiance does have a shirt that says the same thing, but instead it’s this:

The reason for why she prefers this shirt over mine is because she too is scared of the Weeping Angels, and that is a great sign to show how great they work in Doctor Who!

The other thing that I remember one of my friends telling me about this episode is that Blink was suppose to be a 9th Doctor’s story, and Sally Sparrow, the main character of this episode, was suppose to be the Doctor’s new companion at the time, and as a hippie! Probably like Jo Grant. All I know is that I wish that had happened, so we can scrap the scum of the show, which was Rose Tyler. Plus, this would have been the first Doctor Lite story (which is where the Doctor is in an episode for an incredibly short amount of time for filming reasons) to have ever been aired, and it would have probably have shown Russell T. Davies how to do Love and Monsters the right way. And no, I won’t review Love and Monsters, only because the episode has been reviewed and criticized to the point that I have nothing new to add. Nash, Diamanda Hagan, SF Debris, Last Angry Geek, and the Blockbuster Buster have shared all of their pain and anguish about that episode, individually!

We open to Sally Sparrow, played by Carey Mulligan, who first starred in Pride and Prejudice, and is now well recognized in Drive. She goes inside of an abandon house at night, and takes pictures in the dark, because when you take pictures in the dark, it truly means high quality! Well, to be fair, for a rainy night in an abandon house, it is brightly lit to take pictures. I guess that makes sense. Sally walks into a room with wall paper coming off of the wall-

No, not that kind of wallpaper!

and she sees writing behind the wallpaper, telling her about the Weeping Angels, not to blink, and to duck!

 

Then Sally tears up a little more to reveal that the Doctor wrote and warned her about the weeping angels.     …..from 1969. And then the title shows.

So, after the title goes away, Sally goes to her friend’s flat, Kathy Nightingale, and finds a room filled with screens with the Doctor in it, which I should go into detail on what I think about David Tennant. He, as the Doctor, was my first experience on watching the show, and loving so much about him! I think he’s brilliant, and I know I’m very bias about this, even during this modern age with everyone calling him the best, and I do think he’s my personal best too. Yes, I did watch classic Who, and I’m still in the process of trying to watch all of them. Plus, I just started listening to the audio dramas too!

Anyway, the screens are just recordings of the Doctor, but they’re not Kathy’s screens. They’re her brother’s, Larry, who lives with her, and walks around the house butt naked.

More like Leisure Suitless Larry!

Now, even though I would say that Steven Moffat should know better than writing that Larry walks around the house butt naked, because there are children watching Doctor Who, but he doesn’t show him naked, nor does he glorify it. At least he writes Kathy hating him for acting like a slob. Sally wakes Kathy at 1AM in the morning to go out in the abandon house to figure out what happened. Or, maybe it wasn’t 1AM, because in the next scene, it’s daylight outside. Or……did they just sat in Kathy’s flat, sipping on coffee, and wait until Larry puts on his pants to leave in 6 in the morning? Whatever. I’ve seen time work worse in Transformers 2.

Sally and Kathy enters into the house and Sally says that the only reason for why she in this house was because she likes things that are sad, and those sad things makes her happy. I really wonder how that works? If sad things makes you happy, then does happy things make you sad? Do both Cheerful bear and Grumpy bear have to fight to the death to make sense out of this, or is this just some kind of emo thing that I don’t know about? In case if your brain didn’t fry by thinking about that too  much, Sally takes Kathy into the room with the hidden message behind the wallpaper, and also pointed outside of the window that the weeping angel moved further away from where it once was. But then someone rings the doorbell, and Sally answers it, and allows Kathy to stay on guard, in case of incidences.  Even that sounds too childish for a kid to accept. Sally opens the door to find a guy who just looks awfully weird to me. I mean, just look at the guy.

Maybe I’m the look that the Doctor wanted. After all, I’m Ginger!

I…..  he just looks so distracting to me.

And just to keep the guy’s face away from me, Kathy thinks she hears something from the distance, but only sees a weeping angel outside, and makes a different face as she walks away.   ….and then the weeping angel gets closer…..  ……..and then reaches it’s hand towards her….   and then *THUMP* OH, WHAT IN THE WORLD, MAN!?!??!?!!!! I THINK THE WEEPING ANGEL JUST STOMPED ON KATHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No, this is just one of the four abilities that the weeping angels have. The other two were revealed in the Matt Smith era. I just love how after Sally yells out Kathy’s name, and this guy is like “yes, Kathy.” as if he didn’t hear the loud sound that just took place seconds ago. Yeah, the guy happens to be Kathy’s grandson, and this ability of the weeping angel sends anyone back into a period of time in the past, usually more than a century, and in a different location. This time, Kathy was sent in Holt in 1920. She wrote a letter for Sally that the weird looking guy was suppose to deliver. Obviously, Sally doesn’t believe it, but what do you expect from a guy who has the looks of a child who got lost in a train station? Sally runs upstairs to find Kathy, and she sees one of the weeping angels carrying the TARDIS key and grabs it.

The letter contains pictures of Kathy and her life from the 1920s-80s, and how good her life was. She even wrote about how her husband was the first man she first met when she appeared in 1920.     ….who didn’t noticed that she just appeared there in Holt.    ……and followed her where she went. Yeah, that was just as stalker-ish as in The Doctor, the Widow, and Wardrobe. Kathy tells Sally to tell her brother Larry to come up with a fake story about what happened to her in a DVD store that he works in. She sees a TV with both the Doctor and Martha in it. Martha was, well, boring to me. I don’t have that much to say about her, which sums up her character to me, but I think Clara Oswald might take that place. Sally looks at the TV screen as Larry walks away, and the DVD just plays on it’s own. Then she sees the Doctor speaking, almost as if the Doctor is speaking to Sally, even after it looks like he responded to her. Larry explains that this part of David Tennant is from one of the 17 easter eggs that were found in 17 different DVDs, and they are all unrelated. Larry hands Sally the list of the 17 DVDs as she walks out of the store to the police station to try and get some help, while the weeping angels follow her. Just by a blink of an eye, they disappear.

Sally does get some help from someone who is called Detective, Inspector Billy Shipton. Well, Sally calls him that. She also forgot policeman officer. Shipton knows about the house where she came from, and was able to bring the TARDIS to the police station. Shipton tries to take Sally for a drink, but she only gives him her phone number. However, the weeping angels got him and the TARDIS and puts him back in 1969. Man, why did it have to be the black guy? In 1969, the Doctor and Martha finds Shipton with a Timey-Wimey Detector. How does it detect the Timey-Wimey things in time?

No, really. That’s how it lets you know about the Timey-Wimey. The Doctor hires him to hide the 17 easter eggs, ad tells Sally this on his death bed in 2007. It’s a deep and emotional scene, and I’m only going to allow you watch this scene on your own to see how great this moment is, from the cinematography to the direction. Sally is told by Shipton that the DVDs are hers and she has to use the 17 DVDs that Larry has. Larry tags along to help her and goes into the abandoned house to put a stop to the weeping angels! They use a portable DVD player to play all 17 DVDs in one disc, and takes instructions from the Doctor. The clever thing about this scene is how this DVD was made like you are actually talking to the Doctor himself. It’s almost as if they’re talking to him through Skype as the DVD actually responds to every word both Larry and Sally say. If you ever watch the DVD scenes itself, its almost like watching a first person view of those without Garfield comic strips that you see on the internet.

Larry writes down what Sally is saying, but I don’t know. It looks like, like this:

Man, it sure makes everyone elses handwriting look like it was written by Shakespeare.

Who knows? Mayabe Larry will come up with an alphabet like this in the future. The Doctor says that the weeping angels are assassins who can only move when they’re not seen, and their perfect defense is that they are quantum locked, meaning that they don’t exist when they’re being seen and they freeze into rock when you look at them.

This is the kind of thing that makes the weeping angels great, and it made Steven Moffat well known for what he has done in Doctor Who too. Steven Moffat loved this idea so much of not doing things to not get killed by anyone that he liked using it.

Again,

and again,

and again,

and again.

As the Doctor tells Sally and Larry not to blink and sees the weeping angels coming close to them, they try to run down into the basement to get into the TARDIS. Larry tries to defend her by staring right in the eyes of a weeping angel. At least I assume he is, because that could have lead into a retcon in The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone. Both Sally and Larry successfully find the TARDIS that is guarded by more weeping angels, who tries to turn off the lights so they won’t see the angels try to move towards them. They both manage to enter into the TARDIS and triggers the emergency protocals of the Doctor as a hologram.

That’s right, David Tennant is soooo awesome, that he correctly displayed himself as a hologram that not even Coachella can successfully do with their projectors!

The hologram says to put in a disc that for some reason shines as bright as the sun,

(Seriously, this looks so stupid that you might as well make the TARDIS key glow like that),

and inserts the disc that makes the TARDIS dematerialize both Sally and Larry out the TARDIS. The weeping angels were grabbing the TARDIS, trying to destroy it, but when the TARDIS went away, it tricked all four of the angels to stare at each other, just so they can never move again. One year has pass, and Sally sees the Doctor running down the street with Martha. Sally was going to mail the information that the Doctor needed to know about the 17 DVDs, but seeing the Doctor from a time period before this episode helps a lot better for her to deliver. And the episode ends with the Doctor explaining the dangers of the weeping angels and warns us not to blink when we see them, or any other statue that is in a figure of a human being, which will soon become ridiculous in New York City.

I always enjoy looking back at Steven Moffat’s stories in his earlier years of the show, remembering how his success got started. This is one of them. Blink still holds up as a classic horror story for me, and seeing how the weeping angels are one of the most terrifying things in the show makes them a perfect Halloween monster. I have no problem showing this episode to those who want to see an example of why this show can give children nightmares, and neither should you. It does have a number of problems, not making this one perfect. But this episode didn’t need to do that, and unfortunately, I can see that Moffat has laid in that idea for too long. To me, that is.

My overall score:

4/5

The Reviewing Universe Chart

I just made a chart of reviewers from Channel Awesome, Normal Boots, and Hidden Block, as well as those who have tie-in relationships with each other, such as the Indy Christian Reviewer, Some Jerk with a Camera (who will join in Channel Awesome on October 17), The Angry Video Game Nerd, Spoony, and Pat the NES Punk.

I know that Brentalfloss is not a reviewer, but he reviewed Moulin Rouge. At least that counts. That, and I wanted to make a connection to Normal Boots and Hidden block, just to make a bridge to some of the best reviewers I want people to know and see!

You may think that I’m leaving more out, and will add more soon!

Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace – Once Upon a Beginning

That’s right, I’m starting off the month of Halloween with a show I just barely started watching and liking. Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace!

Darkplace is a show that horror author, Garth Marenghi, made in the 1990’s, but was cancelled for reasons that he gave that I don’t think was serious. He said on his website (http://www.garthmarenghi.com/darkplace/default.htm) that MI8 pulled the plug off the show because Marenghi knew too much. Remember, this is coming from the same guy who wrote books that are title “Tomb Boy” and “Crab!!” Yes, this is exactly what we’re in for from Darkplace! Garth Marenghi started his show with himself reading from one of his books, and then goes into detail about his show and how started it. He says that he wrote, directed and stared in the show, while being produced by his book publisher, Dean Learner, who also stars in this show. He also says that this show is violent and crazy that, yeah, it’s bloody enough to not ignore the sheer gorefest that this show offers. So, if you cannot stand the gore and violence that Resident Evil provided in their games, don’t worry. This show will make those games look like a step down on the gore and violence.

We start off with, well….          let’s see if you can describe to me on what happens in this scene:

Okay….  it starts off with Liz Asher, walking in the hospital on her fist day petting a cat that was tossed in, and could read it’s mind, telling her to leave, then she tries to get a job as a doctor by replacing the previous doctor who just died, shakes hands with Dr. Sanchez, Dr. Sanchez screams out “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” with his mouth gaping wide open, and Liz just see images of a man who died in a brutal death who looks like he just exploded!

Anyway, this hospital is called Darkplace Hospital, in a town called Darkplace. Why? Because this is what Garth Marenghi defines what his dark place is. Gore mixed with hilarity, and very low budget. Kind of like the Asylum,, if they stick with cheap practical effects, and not cheap CGI.

Garth Marenghi’s character is Dr. Rick Dagless, who is very sarcastic, mellow dramatic, and thinks his life is a serious action thriller. He visits a little child, but then gets interrupted by his boss, who is Dean Learner’s character, Thornton Reed. Dr. Sanchez and Thornton try to discuss to Rick that Liz is a psychic who can see dead people. She only sees the dead people in visions, not…. she didn’t make the Sixth Sense. Liz also says that there is something supernatural going on in the hospital, but Dr. Sanchez said that Rick is more on the supernatural side of that area with his past experience on black arts.

And because of that, Rick takes full responsibility over the current supernatural situation that Liz just saw. Dr. Rick does speak with Liz, who tells him that she can see the past, present, and future. But Dr. Rick can’t believe a single word she’s saying thinking that she’s being sarcastic, while being sarcastic, using sarcasm as his defense.

While Dr. Rick offers Liz some coffee,  Dr. Sanchez asks her where the dead man in her vision is, and says that he’s in room 213. Rick thinks about how his friend Winrick (I think that’s how you spell it), Liz hears it, and explains who Larry Winrick is. Larry was Rick’s best friend when he started working in Darkplace hospital, who saved his life, as will as Winrick’s, twice. But when both Larry and Rick got into the dark arts and open the gates of hell, that’s when Winrick was last seen, and put into room 213. That’s right kids, even hospitals with a history of demonic activities are safe and available to be treated at!

Liz wants to help. Rick says yes. Rick tells Liz to go off and do something else that has nothing to do with room 213, Rick tells Sanchez that he can handle it. Rick goes into room 213. Rick sees Larry- You know what, just watch this whole scene for yourself.

Oh, man! There is nothing more humorous than seeing a disembodied plastic head flying away and bouncing right back at ya! But the best part is yet to come, if you don’t believe that.

Rick then explains to Thornton, Sanchez and Liz that when Larry exploded, the gateway to another dimension opened, and it needs to be closed. Rick says that Larry’s body needs to be burned, but Thornton refuses and says that the body should be buried for his family, because the hospital has a reputation that he needs to keep. They do just that, and-okay, remember how I said  Larry exploding was not the best part of this episode? I wasn’t wrong! This funeral was saved for last!

Wow! Just, Wow! Garth Marenghi just gave me another reason to love flamethrowers!

So, the day is saved, Rick goes on the rooftop of Darkplace hospital, in a set that makes the roof scenes in The Room look realistic, and monologs about the dark doors into evil worlds are open, and he has to put a stop to it. The end.

This is a show that has everything that I love. It looks cheap, but no one said it was suppose to look professional. After all, Darkplace is a comedy, and Garth Marenghi does that really, really well! The jokes work, the characters have great comedic moments, and overall, I would like to see more shows like this. Plus, this show is available on Hulu too. All 6 episodes. Yeah, this show is short, and could review them all for this month. However, I’ll save the rest of the show for some other time. Because I have some more things I have in mind to review this month! However, this show is not made for everyone. If you are into this kind of insanity, then you might like it. If you’re not into this kind of thing, then you won’t like it.

5/5