"Battlestar Galactica" (2003-2009)

The drunk XO, Saul Tigh

SciFi-shows have an undeserved bad reputation, and you need look no further than Battlestar Galactica to disprove all misconceptions.This isn't really just a SciFi-show, but rather a character-driven drama show in a SciFi-setting. Like so many other great shows, its labels can't do it justice. I might explain it another way. I'm currently only watching one show at its air-date no matter what (as there's really not that many great show left on the silver screen), and it's actually incidentally also a SciFi-show; Fringe. This past week I've been so wrapped up in Battlestar Galactica (BSG from now) the regular Friday viewing of Fringe was pushed as far back as to Tuesday.

The great thing about creating a SciFi universe for your show, is the unlimited possibilities of doing your own thing and taking on your own issues without having to push too many people's buttons. BSG is the prime example of this, taking on everything like religion, politics, war ethics, racism and military conduct. It's easy to tie it in to issues well known from our own world, but they don't have to take the usual stereotypical approaches to it. When you do it in outer space political issues doesn't have to be pro-democrats or pro-republicans, suicide bombings doesn't have to be linked to the Middle East and racism doesn't have to be about the color of anyone's skin. BSG still have no problem making their issues valuable viewing experiences as well as food for thought.

The Deck Chief, Galen Tyrol

BSG have a simple premise; humans against Cylons (machines). Having the Cylons open the show by attempting genocide of the human race and Caprica-Six killing a baby, it's not difficult to have the viewers favor the humans. It's the beginning of the 2nd Cylon War, but unlike 40 years earlier, now there's Cylons looking like humans. They can be, and is, among the crew of Battlestar Galactica. It adds layers to the show, but that's just the beginning. We're also presented a hallucination of the Cylon Caprica-Six helping Dr. Gaius Baltar and an Eight known as 'Boomer', a Raptor pilot at Galactica, struggling with her Cylon side. In other words; there seems to be more to these machines than all of them against humanity.

This show is about people, fronted by the military leader; William Adama, his son; Lee 'Apollo' Adama, the President of the Colonies; Laura Roslin, the famous scientific doctor; Gaius Baltar and the hot shot pilot; Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace. There's a lot of secondary characters with great story-lines and development, but for the five mentioned I think the show held on too tightly to most of them. Only Adama Sr. stays true to a golden path of storytelling, as the rest are taken all over the place. To me that's one of the main reasons BSG doesn't quite live up to its enormous potential. If they'd rather trusted the secondary characters to step up and take on more of the story-lines, this could have been one of the greatest stories ever told.

Raptor Pilot, Sharon 'Boomer' Valerii

'Cause there's quite a few very interesting secondary and supporting characters that step up and embrace their potential, but too few of them are allowed to take it all the way. If the show-runners hadn't fallen so desperately in love with their main five, characters like Dualla, Cally, Boomer, Helo, Caprica-Six and others could have grown a lot more. Another thing is the fact Starbuck, Apollo, Baltar and Roslin then all could have avoided some of the unnecessary story-waves that overall damaged their characters a lot more than they gained. Thankfully there's a few secondary characters that are very well handled, but to avoid most spoilers I won't go deeper into that terrain.

Speaking about a SciFi show from outer space with a lot of copies of the same Cylons, you have to acknowledge their special effects, and BSG's SFX are very impressive for a TV-show. Having to work week in and week out on a budget, and still pull this off without becoming cheesy is very well executed.

Fun fact; in one of the early scenes of the miniseries Laura Roslin is at the doctor and we can see several space ships passing over the building. One of them is a Firefly-class as seen in the beloved TV-show and following movie both named after its ship; "Firefly" and Serenity. Just another proof the creators of BSG know talent and quality when they see it...

The two webisode-stories "The Resistance" and "The Face of the Enemy", and the additional parts of "Razor Flashbacks" not included in extended edition are all too short/small to get individual ratings with me. Yet they should all be seen of course... Here's a good viewing order for the show, but personally I think you should avoid The Plan all together. In my eyes it's not only a weak TV-movie as it mostly recap stuff we knew, but in my mind it also ruins parts of the early storyline by trying to explain them better, The show, and especially a certain character, was better of without this misguided attempt.

★★★★☆ BSG: Miniseries (2003)
★★★★☆ Season 1
★★★★★ Season 2
★★★★★ Season 3
★★★☆☆ BSG: Razor (2007) [Extended Edition]
★★★★☆ Season 4
★★☆☆☆ The Plan (2009)


★★★★★ Overall

The Kristen Bell sloth meltdown

So, it's not like Youtube-videos are about to become a regular feature here. I really don't hang out browsing at Youtube that often, but every ones in a while someone links stuff or I'm checking out something I've read about elsewhere.

I'm a huge fan of Kristen Bell ever since her Veronica Mars-days, and sadly there's been little else celebrating from her movies and TV-shows since then. Thankfully the girl is class act, and how often do these kind of moments come off as anything but a pr-stunt?

Kristen's just so adorable, and there's very little left of that sassy teen-P.I. we once saw her portray.

Even advertisement can be highly entertaining

Sometimes, but not often, there's an ad that makes my day. This is one of those rare ones...

"Bent" (2012 ->), season 1

Amanda Peet, David Walton and the kitchen up for remodeling

I guess that was the entire season for Bent; three airing days with two episodes each day. To me six episodes hardly is enough to be a season at all. To most shows even 13 seems like short seasons, but here we are. I have no idea how to interpret NBC's workings here, but I guess it would take real impressive ratings to overcome it and get renewed for a second season.

There's no doubt Amanda Peet was the reason I tuned in. I found here both adorable and talented in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and have been awaiting her return to TV. The other lead, David Walton, was a new face to me. Jeffrey Tambor (Arrested Development) holds the third starring role, while support from Jesse Plemons (Friday Night Lights) is the final familiar face to me. Other supports include Margo Harshman, Joey King, Matt Letcher, J.B. Smoove and Pasha Lychnikoff.

A show about a single mother and how her kitchen remodeling contractor influence her life doesn't exactly sound like a long-runner. I know I haven't remodeled my kitchen lately, but it doesn't exactly scream four-five successful seasons. And it isn't really that funny either. Some decent jokes, but rarely without a two minute scene of bonding, decency or helpful suggestions to matters at hand. To me it doesn't really work on any level, neither comedy nor drama. It actually holds to much of the drama feel all together in my book, and I'll not be very upset when the inevitable cancellation is confirmed.

★★☆☆☆ Season 1

"Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" (2008)

Behind the camera this Web-miniseries collects a lot of familiar Joss Whedon production-names, including the other two Whedon's, Jed and Zack, on the writing along with Joss and Jed's wife Maurissa Tancharoen. Names we easily recognize from everything between Buffy the Vampire Slayer's TV-show to Buffy the Vampire Slayer's and Dollhouse's writers for the comics, and everything in between. Speaking of Buffy. Anyone who's seen the musical episode "Once More with Feeling" knows Joss and his crew can pull off musicals easily, within any 'verse...

Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion)

Speaking of production names, there's also some very interesting cameo's and smaller support roles in this were you'll see familiar names also on screen. With feature film The Cabin in the Woods soon releasing, there's always worth mentioning co-writer and the director for that movie, Drew Goddard, showing up in this miniseries. Also Doug Petrie's there, and any Buffy fan should recognize his name as well.

Let's finally care about what's happening on screen? Neil Patrick Harris takes the lead as Dr. Horrible / Billy, and he's a perfect cast. He nails the Whedon-humor as if he'd done it all his career. Felicia Day (appeared in other Whedon-franchise's Buffy and Dollhouse) is Penny (the love interest), Nathan Fillion is Captain Hammer (Dr. Horrible's nemesis and a self-obsessed superhero) and Simon Helberg (The Big Bang Theory, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) is Moist (another wannabe-criminal). That's nothing short of a miraculous cast to put together for a $200k production (can't remember where I read that was the cost).

Dr. Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris)

Following a super-villain might not be the most original idea these days, but I doubt we'd see both Despicable Me and Megamind come to animated life in 2010 if it wasn't for the huge success this miniseries had. And Whedon knows superheroes and villains very well from his comic book interest, and here he takes the musical success from the before mentioned Buffy episode into the mix along with a lot of other genius touches. Ten years earlier you couldn't have known how blogging opened possibilities, but it's lovely incorporated into this. Dr. Horrible also encounters more usual everyday troubles than facing Captain Hammer, especially his crush on laundromat girl, Penny, whom he find him self unable to speak to. It's funny, cute and compelling, without becoming a cheap gag.

Penny (Felicia Day)

And there's obviously the musical numbers... They're mostly exceptionally well written, mixing wit with the ongoing storyline and the characters different ways, feelings and goals. I have the past few months played the Once More with Feeling-soundtrack a lot, and I think I've found another playlist contender here. My Freeze Ray being an instant favorite from the very first time in the series (and keeps growing on me as I write this, as I now listen to the soundtrack).

The third and final act isn't as great as the first two acts, but overall this is highly entertaining. I was captured already during the first video-blog post, but during the first musical number I was truly hooked. As so often before, these Whedonverse-writers find my funny bone almost every time. It's original, filled with great writing and is a very creative output from this collection of on-screen and writing talents.

During Q&A's for the upcoming Whedon-releases, a sequel has been mentioned. They're supposed to start working on it these days, and I can hardly wait.

BTW: You MUST check out Commentary! - The Musical, the crew's musical commentary track. It's also filled with gold, some of them hilarious enough to justify buying a couple of DVD-releases on its own merit. The other regular commentary track is the usual jibber-jabber, and not much of a sales-pitch.

★★★★★ "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog"

"Firefly (2002) - # 2 The Train Job"

Jayne didn't fight no war...

Episode:	# 2 The Train Job
Writers:	Joss Whedon & Tim Minear
Director:	Joss Whedon

I like the extremely Whedon-esque intro pre-opening credits sequence, taking our heroes into a Alliance-friendly bar come U-day. It has all the flair of his writing, placing our friends in a slightly uncommon situation, barely helping with their needed info being delivered, and helping making new points about the characters. I've always enjoyed those from Whedon. It doesn't exactly hurt having Wash making a giant threat with his non-weaponized transport spaceship.

We get to know Niska in this episode. A villain that makes crooks like Badger and Patience from the opening episode seem like model citizens. The one thing annoying me a little about this Niska is his accent. We're five hundred years into a future supported by the Earth-That-Was dual-superpowers of Americans and Chinese, and Niska sounds like semi-Eastern European... Anyway. Niska hires our crew to do a train heist, and the train heist is a nice episodic touch for our outlaws. Simple enough plan, but not especially easy to perform. You'll need a pilot with steady hands (like a leaf on the wind), a nut to jump from spaceship to train, and a couple of crew-members making an entrance for him at the trains roof. There's of course more trouble rising as well, but I like the crew's attitude towards the caper.

"I aimed for the head."

Jayne's got a lot to offer in this episode. Besides the opening refusal of fighting as he didn't fight no war, he also get to teach us about the chain of command and have a hilarious drugged incident after Simon takes action to secure other chains securing command of the captain-less Serenity. He also aimed for the head...

♪♬♫ You can't take the sky from me ♫♬♪

Whedon also uses this episode to help show Mal's ethics, companion's status in society, the poverty and struggles of outer planets and moons, and the Alliance's disinterest in helping their struggling citizens despite having a large number of peacekeepers passing by. It all helps build on the mythologies and legacies, and we even get to witness the first encounters of two by two, hands of blue; essential to the River-arch, but one Whedon never get to play out fully as the show got cut and the movie couldn't last three-four hours.

Finally I also like to mention the negotiation and understanding made with Niska's minions at the end. Taking out his lead man as he refuses to take the money back and explain their stand, and the subsequent second minion eagerly accepting. I still find that scene funny the third time around.


★★★★☆ # 2 "The Train Job"

"Firefly (2002) - # 1 Serenity"

A few days ago I read the three hard cover editions of the Serenity comics, combined including every piece of Serenity stories released in comic form. I'll get back to those comics in later posts, but as usual just a tiny piece of Serenity is enough to get my Firefly-lust going again. I watched it last march, I revisited it in October after watching a few Youtube-videos from the show, and now I've just finished watching the entire show as a result of those comics.

This time around I'll give each episode a little post on its own, and as such there will be the kind of spoilers I usually try so hard to avoid. These posts are as such meant for seasoned Browncoats, and is also my little take and evaluation of each episode and the feature film. I did of course watch it in the intended order, Fox be damned for screwing it up in the first place, and so should you if you get hold of it on DVD or blu-ray. I suggest the finest blu-ray edition you can get your hands on, for this is truly TV-history worth owning your own little piece of.

Wash and the sudden but inevitable betrayal

Episode:	# 1 Serenity  (double opener)
Writer:	Joss Whedon
Director:	Joss Whedon

How Fox could skip this double opening episode for, in their opinion, a more action packed The Train Job, is far beyond me. As openers go, this is a gorram good one. It sets the 'verse, it gives us some insight into the characters and it tells the story of why River, Simon and Book find them self among our raggedy crew of Serenity.


We're also introduced to a few other raggedy characters like Persephone's Badger and Whitefall's Patience, giving us a little insight into the world of crime and shady ways of the outer worlds.

Kaylee and the strawberry

It also manage to nail one of my all-time favorite simple characters, Kaylee. From the way she describes Serenity to Book and the way she speaks to her ship after the Crazy Ivan-maneuver, to the way she enjoys her strawberry, her shiny way of seeing potential passengers and her ways around her captain. Kaylee isn't nearly as complicated as the rest of the crew and Serenity's passengers, but she's still a great character in my book. A pure and cheerful soul who always look for the best in people, and who loves her ship in a very proud way.

Kaylee has more of a part to play in the double opener, than she ever get to have again before Fox pulled the plug. I guess it makes me even more inclined to rate it highly.

Creator, and this episodes writer and director, Joss Whedon nails his crew from the opening. His witty writing and the crews ways around each other takes us into their world from the get go. There's a lot of great one liners in typical Whedon-fashion, but he also finds time to really capture the core of captain Mal Reynolds. Especially so in the final scene between Mal and Simon.

There's a lot more to the episode, but I'm not writing a review here. I'm not gonna go looking into all the smaller or bigger positives and negatives from each episode. I'll try to stick with the bigger issues. I do still laugh and giggle over a lot of the things not mentioned, even if I've seen it several times before.

"Your mouth is talking, you might wanna look to that"

"I was just wondering what his job is... on this ship?"
"Public relations"

"If they take the ship they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh and saw our skin into their clothing. And if we're very very lucky, they'll do it in that order."

To take note on that last part. Introducing the reavers is also an important part of the shows mythology, and finding it from the beginning is as interesting as it is well done. Other noteworthy parts of this major opener includes River's introduction from the cryo-box naked, the double-crossing deal with Patience, Mal's practical joke on Simon about Kaylee died and the crew's reaction when he retells the story, and the simple and very efficient way of ending Agent Dobson's journey at Serenity.

As opening episodes goes, there's not a whole lot to put your finger on about this one. Gorram Fox who screwed up from the beginning by airing The Train Job as opener instead.


★★★★★ # 1 "Serenity"

-Buffy the Vampire Slayer # 2 : Halloween-

Cover Artists: Chris Bachalo & Tim Townsend. Colorist: Liquid!

Regular Photo Cover

Writer:	Andi Watson
Penciller:	Joe Bennett
Inker:	Rick Ketcham
Letterer:	Janice Chiang
Colorist:	Guy Major
Format:	Comic
Details:	32 pages - $2.95 US
Published:	October 28, 1998
Publisher:	Dark Horse
Story:	Halloween

Buffy #2 came from the exactly same crew as in #1, so there wasn't exactly any surprises in the art work.

Writer Andi Watson continues to show off his taste of the Buffyverse, within the limitation of ending the story within single issue. There's a nice feel for the characters throughout, and he combines different aspect well. I also find the art work improving as they become more familiar with the characters and the Sunnydale feel,... maybe with an exception for Buffy's eyes on several occasions in this number.

Overall it's a strong single-issue story, but I can hardly wait to they start doing their continuous storylines in just a few numbers. Then they'll have the room to kick it up the notch to produce absolute gold on more regular basis.

★★★★☆ # 2 -Halloween-

The cover used for post-header is my Dynamic Forces exclusive Bloodchrome edition, one of five thousand, and here's the COA.

Guilty Pleasure: "Lost Girl" (2010 - >), season 2

Lost Girl follows Bo (Anna Silk), a fae of the succubus variety. Unlike the rest of faes, she hasn't chosen a side between the dark faes and the light faes. She also has a human for best friend, where other faes look down on our species whilst hiding their world in plain sight amongst us. These two facts helps getting her into trouble all over the fae world.

The first season of 13 episodes didn't suck, but it was early clear this show would never raise above the guilty pleasure-stamp. The second season was a 22 episodes one, and has recently completed its run at Showcase.

Kenzi (Ksenia Solo) - the sidekick

I'm honestly not sure why I've stuck with it so far. I don't really like the leading character of Bo, or for that matter actress Anna Silk, or think she's hot, so that's surely not it. And it's not like the world of faes are that entertaining. It's all a mumble jumble of strange abilities thrown around, a few century old feuds here and there, and so on and so forth. It just lacks substance in its fantasy world.

I guess Kenzi, Bo's human best friend, played by actress Ksenia Solo, is as close to the reason I'm hanging around as anything. She's sadly mostly reduced to a sidekick, but her unique clothing style and sassy humor are amongst the stand-out things about this show. A character from a gypsy-like background with Russian ancestry, and a whole lot of street smartness to go with it.

Overall Lost Girl have been downhill during season 2, and it's not because it's really been that much worse than season 1. Their universe might just have worn out on me, along with very little freshness to kick it up a notch. That makes for a season leaving me hanging in the same old, same old-loop without anything spawning renewed interest.


★★☆ Season 1 (rated now on long-term memory alone)

★☆☆ Season 2

The Guilty Pleasures Three Star-scale explained at the bottom part of the Rated TV-page.

-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Dust Waltz-

Writer:	Dan Brereton
Penciller:	Hector Gomez
Inker:	Sandu Florea
Letterer:	Ken Bruzenak
Colorist:	Guy Major
Format:	Trade Paperback
Details:	80 pages - $9.95 US
Published:	October 14, 1998
Publisher:	Dark Horse
Story:	The Dust Waltz

The Dust Waltz is a rarity. While most trade paperbacks released in the BTVS-series are collections of stories previous released in comic books, this one was released between #1 and #2 of the original series and contains a fresh and previously unreleased story.

I didn't exactly love the art-work here either. While Buffy is athletic, she's not an East-German project, and the latter is what springs to mind with the second drawing above. It gets better, and there's several really good drawings here, but it never quite manages to outlive that first impression. I guess Hector Gomez and Sandu Florea doesn't make my fav-list. Yet, anyway...

The story is better, and the first longer Buffy-story told in comic. Two demonic sisters with sibling issues comes for their own kind of pleasant Hellmouth experience, and our gang is quickly involved. There's banter to be had and demons to kill. It's as usual all sunny in Sunnydale. Still it doesn't quite get there. I guess Dan Brereton doesn't make my list (yet) either. All in all there's more potential than end product over The Dust Waltz.


★★★☆☆ -The Dust Waltz-

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

So. I never did get around to post why I rate "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (the TV-show) so highly (a trained eye might have noticed it's one of a few rated at five stars), and I'm not about to do so now either. It just takes a lot of time to even come close covering half the bases I need to get the message across. I think I'll rather save it for my revisit or a special occasion.

As usual, anything Whedon, I came late to the party, but at least I bring home the sexiest girl at the end of the night. It was the same with "Firefly", and in Buffy's case I even threw in the towel after 6-7 episodes the first time I tried getting into the show. Now I can't get enough of Whedon, the Buffyverse and everything even slightly related. I'm even almost looking forward to The Avengers, after watching the first teaser with Scarlett as Black Widow doing a Buffy-esque/Faith-esque/Echo-esque Whedon-scene tied in a chair. Those with good memory might even recall Buffy Summers topping my heroines-list posted earlier this year, so it's safe to say I've become a fan-boy.

They couldn't even get the stake right...

Then it was probably about time I revisited Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the movie), at least I think it was revisiting as I seem to remember some of the stuff I just watched. I've dreaded it as I knew how Whedon felt about the end product from director Fran Rubel Kazan, but I wanted to get it out of the way before reading -The Origin- in my ongoing Buffyverse comics-reading.

It's not a great movie. It's not even a good or decent movie, but there's quite a few great one-liners whispering promises of the greatness to come from Whedon in later years. At least that's something. And there's some aspects of the Buffy-character they'd managed to get right already back then, even if it's far from the Buffy I know and love. Or to put it in the master's own words:

I finally sat down and had written it and somebody had made it into a movie, and I felt like — well, that's not quite her. It's a start, but it's not quite the girl."

Being a Buffy fan, the '92-movie shines a light on the process of creating the beloved character. As such I'm better of for having watched it. It just wasn't quite worth it on its own merits. Kristy Swanson isn't half the slayer Gellar was, Luke Perry's character is a dumber, and one-note, characteristic of Xander, and there's about thousand other reasons to hate it. It will make you giggle every so often, and witty writing isn't something you get across every day. As such there's something to be said for cult-ifying movies like this. Still I doubt I'll ever watch it again. I scored it at 30/100 at my Criticker-rating, and that's not very impressive no matter how strict I usually come across to others.

-Buffy the Vampire Slayer # 1 : Wu-Tang Fang-

Cover Artist: Art Adams

Regular photo cover

Writer:	Andi Watson
Penciller:	Joe Bennett
Inker:	Rick Ketcham
Letterer:	Janice Chiang
Colorist:	Guy Major
Format:	Comic
Details:	32 pages - $2.95 US
Published:	September 23, 1998
Publisher:	Dark Horse
Story:	Wu-Tang Fang

Whatever concerns I had with MacGuffins, wasn't exactly put at ease with the opening page of Buffy's own # 1.

It's not the semi-bimbo Ross gave us, but Bennett's opening Buffy isn't exactly oozing nailed-it either.

Thankfully writer Andi Watson only use a couple of pages to convince me he's nailed-it. He's captured the essence of Buffy in every way. I find myself hearing the lines as spoken by the actors and actresses them self in the TV-show, and a bigger complement is impossible to give. He understands the humor, he get the banter and puns in whether it's dialogue or fight scenes, and it balances the dark and the light in Whedonesque fashion. Add several small and bigger references to prior events and current circumstances in the TV-series, and it's pretty clear Mr. Watson and the editor knows exactly what is needed.

The artwork also draw me in as page by page run by, and soon enough it's familiar and almost there. The darkness and shadows are very well done, the bad guys and fight scenes are well drawn and only a few of the main characters remain an issue for me every so often. It still can't take away the joy of this comic, with its story that adds to the well known and familiar TV-series with a well deserved new life on its comic own.

Overall there's no doubt this is an incredible tight opening issue of own comic, and must have brought in a lot of the TV-audience as sure buyers for future releases.

★★★★☆ # 1 -Wu-Tang Fang-

Special and alternate variants I also own:

COA for Dynamic Forces Art cover signed by Art Adams as one of 10.000 copies. The comic used as header for this post.

Another Universe exclusive Gold Foil edition of photo cover

Another Universe exclusive Gold Foil edition of photo cover, signed by Joe Bennett (COA below)

Dark Horse 1 for 1 re-release

-Buffy the Vampire Slayer: MacGuffins-

Cover Artist: Mike Mignola

Writer:	J.L. Van Meter
Penciller:	Luke Ross
Inker:	Rick Ketcham
Letterer:	Steve Dutro
Colorist:	Guy Major
Format:	Comic
Details:	64 pages - $4.95 US
Published:	August 26, 1998
Publisher:	Dark Horse
Story:	MacGuffins

Buffy's first comic release, -MacGuffins-, was just a short story in this publisher collection alongside Hellboy and others.

I doubt anyone could have predicted the impact Buffy's entrance into the comic-world eventually would have. No disrespect to any of the artists involved, but they didn't exactly catch the spirit of Buffy in this attempt. Well, with the exception of writer Van Meter. He actually managed to write a little story that captured a lot of Buffy's core and that Sunnydale-feel, despite not even taking place in Sunnydale. The art-work from Ross and Ketchum did however leave me feeling like they had no idea who Buffy was. Their Buffy felt like a semi-bimbo, and that's no way to threat The Chosen One.

★★☆☆☆ -MacGuffins-

-Dollhouse: Epitaphs-

Phil Noto's cover of the one-shot

One-shot, comics #1-5 incl. a special edition

Wanting to ease back into comics, I went for the one-shot and the shorter mini-series based on Whedon's Dollhouse, rather than opening with the monstrous volumes of the Buffyverse, or my fan illusions of Firefly and its 'verse. Comics based on popular shows or movies are difficult. You'll always have the prior knowledge of the created universe, the character's habits and core and so on, and it isn't always easy to accept other artists takes on those.

In Whedon's cases that's usually no problem, at least not since the release of Buffy Season Eight and then the later releases from any Whedonverse, as it's become a habit of himself and his own staff-writers from these shows to get heavily involved. In the case of these six releases (one one-shot and five comics in the mini-series), the writers are Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen and Andrew Chambliss, all staff-writers from the Dollhouse TV-show. It ain't hard to take their take on these characters then, as they're all involved in the creation to begin with.

For those familiar with the TV-show, and my opinion is you should all be or become, these comics takes place in a timeline closely related to the events in the show's episodes "Epitaph One" and "Epitaph Two: Return", which ended each of the two seasons of the show. They offer some answers to stuff we wondered about after watching the show, but mostly they offer a lot more insight into some of the show's characters.

Overall it's interesting enough to stand on its own legs, and I would most definitely buy more Dollhouse comics from these guys when they're ready to tell new stories. They have the characters down and they understand the humor. Still. They're not quite great, mostly thanks to the storyline they chose to open with. I would've hoped they opened in another direction to help gather the fans of the show behind its release.



★★★☆☆ Epitaphs one-shot & mini-series (#1-5)

I did love the cover art for each of the issues... Here Fiona Staples's #1 cover.

-Morning Glories-

I came late to the party, but Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the following drips of Angel and Dollhouse have also awakened an interest in comics again, as they've all had comics released and many of them with Whedon somewhat involved. I haven't read comics much the past twenty years, since I left behind The Phantom and Disney's Donald Duck. The one exception is Modesty Blaise, which I've read all along. As I've now fallen in love with the Buffyverse, I've had to invest in the comics as well. I'll be reading them in their released order once I begin, but for now I've tasted a little of other comics including those based on Whedon's Dollhouse.

The first comics returning me to the form are still unrelated to Whedon in any way, but somehow I've picked up the name Nick Spencer along the way. As a result I invested in the first two tradebacks collecting the first 12 issues of Morning Glories, each with six issues collected, written by Spencer, art by Joe Eisma and cover art by Rodin Esquejo.

It's as ambitious as any great TV-show you've ever or never watched, and has a certain Lost feel to it. We follow the six newest students at the Morning Glory Academy, a boarding school unlike anything you've ever attended. There's a lot going on behind the scene, and our new students early realize there's a lot wrong about this place. Spencer give us drips of information, but spreads it out over time. He still manages to keep it very interesting, where others often fail to do so when keeping their story going for a while, and I for one am hooked. I'll keep buying these tradebacks as they're released. Hopefully Spencer manages to keep the interest going.

Oh. I wouldn't be very surprised if this is the next comic to make adaptions into the TV-show format following the success of The Walking Dead. There's just a lot of great storytelling here, easily adaptable onto the silver screen.


★★★★☆ Volume 1
★★★★☆ Volume 2