Ranger's Apprentice, Fake Cast

Taking a temporary break from reviews, I recently discovered that a movie is being made out of the Ranger Apprentice series! I love this series, I own the first three books, and am slowly collecting the rest (too slowly for my liking, but Nii has restricted me to one book per month, much to my chagrin). I can't find a cast list, so here would be perfect cast, if I were in charge:

Logan Lerman as Will
           He has Will's hair, the right sort of thin-framed body type and a sort of sneakily curious expression to his face.

Jeremy Irons as Halt
           The voice. The look. I'm not usually one for beards, but the man looks sexy in a beard. He's a skilled horseman, loves gardening and nature. It's one thing to pretend, but it gives it that extra something special when the actor has the same attributes as the character.

William Mosely as Horace
           As previously seem on The Chronicles of Narnia as Peter. He's already proven that he can act a bully, and be righteous at the same time. He's handsome, with a good physical body type that you'd expect from a young warrior.

Emily Tennant as Alyss
         She just has the look of a straight-laced, no-nonsense type of girl.

Jennette McCurdy as Jenny
        Her full, round face gives the illusion of chubby, and she's still quite pretty.

Garrett Hedlund as Gilan
           Not only does he look and sound the part, he's worked with Jeremy Irons before, so they have a history - just as Halt and Gilan do.

Paul Bettany as Morgarath
          A clear sense of the theatrics and probably not someone you might suspect to play a super-evil character. While he can be happy, he always has a bit of a dark edge to his characters and he could express that really well as Morgarath. He'd have to be taught to play more subtle than usual, but he could be brilliant.

Meryl Streep as Pauline
          Streep has a look of wisdom and elegance, not to mention age, that makes her a perfect Pauline. Pairing her up with Jeremy Irons, and there's a strange looking couple - just as strange as what I picture in my head as Halt and Pauline. Picture perfect.

Gérard Depardieu as Baron Aarald
          Rotund and carrying his own battlescars, Depardieu can be deadly serious but has a humor and sense of eagerness and peacockery that we'd expect to see from our lovely Baron.

Other Characters:

Orman - Gabriel Byrne
Xander - Josh Charles

Outcasts

Genre: Drama/ SciFi

Life and deaths at a human settlement on a planet far far away.

First Impressions: Trust no one. Especially whoever tells you that this show is good.

Okay, so the sets are nice. Not spectacular, just nice. The set-ups for future plots are interesting. And that's about where the good ends. If the director was going for over-the-top drama to rival even the short-lived post-apoco series 'Jericho', then congradulations! Because they've achieved it in spades. SPADES, I tell you.

The plot is on ADD, introducing five different unconnected plot threads within the first 11 minutes. We counted (the husband watched it with me because he's a huge fan of post-apocalyptic media, so he was counting with me). They stayed with each storyline for only a few minutes before suddenly switching over the next one, and each one introduced a bunch of new characters. By the end of the episode I had no idea what the names of anybody were, expect Lily, who wasn't even an introduced character, but she was talked about a few times as one of the main (?) character's missing-and-possibly-dead daughter. The drama, the conspiracy plot, the guy who may be crazy but we'll never know cause he's dead now, the woman spying on her husband, the evil settlement overlords - but one of them is pining for her long lost family and the other is, one minute, having a creepy affair with somebody else's wife and the next minute giving a fancy, dramatic speech on the values of humanity.  COME ON. A writing student drunk on Jaeggarmeister could beat out a better draft of this script.

Speaking of characters (Lame segway is lame)! Who the hell was the main character supposed to be? I thought it was this one girl, but she went into a coma and died, then I thought it had to be this other guy, but then he was an ass and then he died too. How am I supposed to get attached to characters if you kill them off? Not that I was attached. The coma-death which they tried to play all dramatic at the end? I felt nothing. because I didn't get the chance to attach to the character. The drama isn't in the "Oh noooes, coma lady diiiies! She's in a coma! But now she dies!" The drama is suppose to stem from me liking the character, getting attached to the character, THEN having bad things happen to the character. Make me care, Damnit! And I'm not about to care about all 30 of the random characters you introduced in the pilot, everyone of whom may or may not be the main character. Just PICK SOMEBODY, or even TWO somebodies and follow them. Go watch Lost. See how it's done.

Worth Continuing: The preview tag for the 2nd episode looked interesting. But the preview for THIS episode also looked interesting and turned out awful. I'm not going to continue. Maybe they should stick to just previews? I'd watch that.

Watchability Score: 2/10

Game of Thrones

Genre: Drama/ Action

A period piece of various medieval Lords trying to take control.

First Impressions: Holy crap, gory.

They unexpectedly killed off a character that I was starting to like. I love the big scary evil thing they have going on, of these creature things that apparently died away centuries ago. The opening was great, it hooked me right away. But again, holy crap. GORY. This is not for the faint of heart, I tell you. In the first 20 minutes there were dismembered body parts, a graphic beheading and two mutilated animals.

The drama is okay. It could use a bit more action because the drama part bored me in places and I caught myself wanting to fast forward through it to find out more about the creature things. I was watching it on On Demand.

Worth Continuing: I'm interested in the creatures and how they'll play out in the series. I'll give it a few more episodes, but if you watch it this expecting epic drama to the level of something like 'Gladiator', you will be disappointed.

Watchability Score: 8/10

Rookie Blue

Genre: Drama/ Action

A cop show about a group of rookies fresh from the academy.

First Impressions: I like it.

The chemistry between the characters is great, they aren't flat, each character has an interesting personality - everybody is out to prove something. There's good conflict, good action scenes. The drama and situations they get into are mostly believable. My only qualm with the show is that the main rookie is a little bit too good.

She's almost a Mary-Sue character, everything is perfect, she doesn't get credit for her good deeds but doesn't say anything about it. Where are the flaws? The big bad thing she does isn't really her fault. The two male leads (the Detective and the Undercover Bad Boy - hello eye candy) both vie for her attention.

Worth Continuing: I'd watch just for the hot Detective, honestly. And the character chemistry. Definately joining my watchlist.

Watchability Score: 8/10

Mike & Molly

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Two overweight singles, Mike and Molly, meet and fall in love at a meeting of Overeaters Annonymous.

First Impressions: Mike and Molly are sweet. The way he, eventually, asks her out, is super adorable and a definate squeeee! moment.

I love the idea of a romantic comedy about overweight people, but it feels like this show is going to run out of funny steam really quickly. Their main source seems to be fat jokes, which is a shame because there is so much potential.

I find Molly's family unrealistic - with a skinny mom and a skinny sister (does the sister have a boob enhancement? o.O) and they're completely okay and supportive with Molly being overweight? And they work against her loosing it, instead of making fun of her with teasing and sideways snide comments? Come on. No way. In fact, everyone around seem to support them being overweight and there isn't any negativity they have to struggle against. This isn't wonderland, as unfair as it may seem, overweight people don't get off that easy. I should know - after having 2 kids, I am a beached humanoid walrus.

Worth Continuing: It was created by Chuck Lorre!

I'm going to try to hold out. Maybe it'll get better, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

Watchability Score: 3/10

Parks and Recreation

Genre: Comedy

First Impressions: Three words: Do. Not. Want.

P&R is squirmy humor, like The Office, but worse. Tom is creepy, the blond lead (I forget her name, she's that memorable) is way too happy, while the rest of the cast is way to dry. I spent the episode going 'Why, blond lead, whyyy?' she was so bubbly, even in the face of everyone being so unimpressed all the time.

It's so obvious that they're just trying to ride the success of The Office - they even use the same sort of camera work. But it's not funny at all. At all. What makes The Office bearable is, as weird and annoying as the Boss is, he's still endearing and you constantly catch yourself saying, poor guy, he just wants to be loved! But his P&R female clone is just pathetic.

Worth Continuing: Heck NO. I barely made it through the first episode.

Watchability Score: 1/10

The GenesisTube

A Little About Me:

I love Tv. So much so that I've made it my goal to become a writer for Tv. I've gone to the college (see: Vancouver Film School, www.vfs.com) completely on the other side of the country to where I was from, and graduated their writing program. Before I could migrate southand really jumpstart my career, I was hit with an adventure - meeting the man of my dreams, getting married and ultimately having two children - Evan, who is 2 on July 5th, and Will who was just born this past February 25th. In one year, my little family and I are heading out to Saskatchewan to take the world by storm (or at least, the world of Canadian Comedy) via a sitcom I've created.

A Little About What I Do Here:

I've gotten into a routine of sampling television. I'll watch the first episode and either it's good and I'll gather the seasons as they come, or it's bad,very very bad. Since my husband isn't interested in watching first episodes with me, I'm going to share them with you  >D