Bookmonkey's Top Five Episodes of The Avengers

So a few months back my friend Ron lent me the DVD boxed set, The Avengers: The Complete Emma Peel Mega-set, which contained 54 episodes of the classic '60s series, including three lost episodes of the Ian Keel years (season one) and an Emma Peel cameo episode of The New Avengers (I'm pretty sure they just used archival footage and another actress to do the voice). Anyway, after finishing this thoughouly fun show (and I recommend the entire series to anyone who is interested, I thought I would give my top five personal favourite episodes.

For a brief taste of what to expect from The Avengers, I recommend you head to YouTube and check out The Case of the Missing Corpse Basically this three minute short was created to advertise the fact that the show would now be in colour, and in those three minutes it explains the plot of pretty much any episode of the series.

5. The Man Eater of Surrey Green - Ages before Mulder and Scully took years to stop an alien invasion plot in The X-Files, Steed and Peel faced down a mind controlling plant from outer space with plans of world domination in one episode. This episode features monsters from outer space, a terrifying conspiracy and a race against the extinction of mankind.

4. The Gravediggers - This episode has everything I’ve grown to love about The Avengers, eccentric millionaires, the promise of an invading army and one of the best climaxes I’ve ever seen. To save Mrs. Peel, who has been tied to a train track, Steed must fight off three brutes and stop the train, which, by the way is one of those mini trains for little kids you find at amusement parks.

3. Too Many Christmas Trees - Possibly the creepiest Christmas themed episode of anything I’ve ever seen, it has a happy shout out to Steed’s previous partner, Cathy Gale, a very Dickensian Christmas party and the creepiest Santa I’ve seen since The Nightmare Before Christmas.

2. The House that Jack Built - An Emma Peel-focused episode, this one involves her inheriting a house from an aunt and finding out that the house is a lot deadlier than she thinks. This episode finally gave some back story to the character and had a really interesting concept.

1. The Girl From Auntie - My hands-down, favourite episode of the series, this John Steed-focused episode has an Emma Peel impostor, and rather than simply arresting her or what have you, Steed simply partners up with this girl and gets her help to find the real Mrs. Peel. The entire episode was hilarious, involving Russian agents, a knitting circle and an auction house that can get you anything you desire.

I'm really glad I got the opportunity to check out this series as I was vaguely familiar with it before hand, but can now say I've seen a lot of really great '60s television, as well as an introduction to a sub-genre of Science Fiction I had never heard of before; Spy-Fi, wherein espionage stories are told which involve science-fiction technology or concepts.

Things I've Noticed: Waiting a week for the new movie can be cool

So this weekend I’m not going to be seeing the film The Green Hornet in theatres. I’ll be checking it out next week as either a date night movie with my lovely bride or as a buddy movie with my BFF Mike (Sorry Mr. Guy, but you know the old saying - wives before... uh... you).

Anyway, there are a couple reasons why I’ll be waiting a week to see the year’s first superhero flick and here they are.

1) The theatres are always pretty crowded opening weekend (pictured above). I’ve seen a lot of movies over the years separated from friends, forced to sit in either the extreme front (Dracula 1992) or the extreme back (The Lion King 1994) so as I’ve gotten a little older and wiser, I sometimes wait a week before seeing a popular movie.

2) Oscar season is ramping up, and as I’m one of those folks who like to see all the nominees if possible, I may check out either Black Swan, The King’s Speech, or True Grit, which are all playing at my local theatre instead.

3) My kids are both seeing it this weekend, and they have reached an age where Dad isn’t necessarily a cool movie buddy anymore (not for every movie, but definitely for ones they would like to see with friends).

In the end I’m happy to wait a week, as my waiting has protected me from seeing many films that were downright awful (I waited a week after Transformers came out, and in the end decided to take a pass – best movie-related decision of 2007).

Genre Character of the Week: Kenzi

Having just finished watching the new first season of the Showcase series Lost Girl, I thought it would be fun this week to look at my favourite character in the show, the title character’s side-kick Kenzi.

Unlike everyone else on the show (who are all members of a race called the Fae – think different types of faeries), Kenzie is delightfully human. She’s street smart, wise cracking thief, and after being saved by the main character, Bo, in the pilot (which I reviewed here), she is the main characters best friend and often the voice of the audience.

Kenzi (played wonderfully by Ksenia Solo), comes across at first as a sort of grifter, looking for any way to make a quick buck and get on with her day, but throughout the series it becomes more and more apparent that as she becomes involved with the world of the Fae and Bo in particular, she is a decent person at heart and is willing to do the right thing when the chips are down.

What can I say, I’m a sucker for the loud mouth characters, also she tends to get the best lines in each episode.

Book Review: Fear

About a month ago I was talking about great books with a few friends, and one of them suggested I check out the book Fear by L Ron Hubbard. Here is what I knew about the author until that point.

1) Creator of Scientology (I knew this because I almost joined at one point in my twenties, for cash - also I saw a pretty awesome orientation video showing god petting a monkey, which is still one of my favourite images to this day)

2) He wrote the book that became the movie Battlefield Earth, which single-handedly ruined my interest in checking out new Science Fiction films for about a year.

3) He wrote that book with the volcano on the cover.

So bearing that in mind I checked out his 1940 novel Fear, considered a classic of horror by the likes of Ray Bradbury, Stephen King and Isaac Asimov. Now I've read a lot of horror in my time so when I hear a lot of folks saying "classic" I get a little nervous. But you know, what?

The book was pretty cool. It followed a university teacher named James Lowry as his world begins to dissolve around him one day. There are no monsters, haunted houses or aliens, and it does get pretty freaky in some parts. My only problem was that as the idea was pretty clever, I've seen it redone more than a few times in other horror stories.

In the end, a fun book that I recommend to fans of horror, it's not quite a keeper for me (having a copy availabe at my local library is enough) but I had a pretty good time reading it.

Things I've Noticed: Midseason 2011 is here!

Yesterday I was happy to see that my PVR is finally starting to get emptied, as over the Christmas holidays we can finally catch up on the shows we’ve been saving for a while now. What did I watch? Rubicon (very underrated, I liked it a lot), and the Showcase Series Lost Girl (which will probably get a genre character post next week). What do I still have, Season 2 of Being Human and the first season of Todd and the Book of Pure Evil.

Problem is, with mid-season replacements showing up right away, I’ve got to decide which new shows I’ll add to my already busy schedule. In the end I’ve picked three (and one pilot), so, for your reading pleasure, here we go!

1. The Cape
The new Superhero show from NBC – it looks a little more Batman than Superman, but what the heck, I liked No Ordinary Family over on ABC, and as it’s a superhero show and therefore its chances of success are pretty slim to none, I’m going to give the first few episodes a shot.

2. Harry’s Law

Put simply enough – Kathy Bates. Ever since she scared the crap out of me in Misery I’ve watched pretty much everything she’s been in. I already have a lot of legal shows I’m watching, but this one will get a fair shake due to its star power.

3. Off The Map
Following a bunch of Doctors in a remote South American village. I dunno, I followed a bunch of airline passengers to Hawaii for Lost and I was happy with how that worked out.

Finally, they are doing a North American Remake of the BBC series Being Human. I tend to find remakes of shows I already like hit or miss, so I’ll give it the pilot, but that’s it.

Genre Character of the Week: Matthew Corbett

Following a favourite author through their works in publishing order is an interesting experience. Robert R. McCammon, writer of many of my favourite horror stories actually put his first four novels out of print and it is only due to a lot of used-bookstore shopping that I came across them. The writer of fifteen novels, I’ve definitely placed Mr. McCammon in my top ten horror writers. His latest three novels, however, move away from the horror genre into historical fiction. There is a complete lack of monsters, demons, vampires, etc., and although the first of these novels does focus on a witch trial, it is his characters, namely this week’s genre character, Matthew Corbett, who keep me interested.

Speaks the Nightbird takes place in the Carolinas in 1699, and focuses on the clerk of a travelling magistrate as its main character. Matthew is exactly the kind of character I really enjoy in my fiction, stubborn, curious, and wanting to understand the reasons behind everything. Unfortunately, the trial he is working on in the novel, a witch trial for a woman named Rachel Howarth, has a lot going on behind it, and the people involved will do anything to remain hidden.

Matthew is described by his employer as seeing everything in front of him, “if you show him a picture, he notes the work, the frame, the nail and the wall it is driven into,” so Matthew, although still quite young (he is 20 as the novel begins), is a very astute observer, a trait that really impresses me.

Although I’ve only read the first of the three books focusing on Matthew, I’m definitely going back for more, and if you are interested in a really interesting Mystery/Thriller in a historical setting, Speaks the Nightbird is a really good one.

Bookmonkey's Top 5 films to see before summer 2011

This summer has got a lot of genre picks I'm going to see, and it starts in May with the release of Thor. Although I'm not a big fan of the Marvel Character, I am a big fan of director Kenneth Branagh and I've enjoyed the Marvel films over the last few years. The four months between now and Thor, however are filled with a lot of Genre films I'd like to see, so I thought I would share it with all of you.

1. The Green Hornet

Although I never saw the classic '60s series, my interest in the film comes from two distinct factors: a) Canadian Actor Seth Rogen, who I've loved since his days back in Freaks & Geeks, b) Director Michael Gondry, whose film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind may be a strong contender for my favourite SF film of the last ten years.

2. Your Higness

A send-up of fantasy films starring Danny McBride (who I've loved in everything I've ever seen him in, from Land of the Lost to Up in the Air), and James Franco (another actor I've been following since Freaks & Geeks), this movie looks like it may do for heroic fantasy what Hot Tub Time Machine did for time travel SF.

3. Limitless

Starring Bradley Cooper, this film looks at a miracle drug that can open all of mans potential, I wonder if there will be a horrible downside? Regardless I'm looking forward to checking it out.

4 Paul

Much like Scott Pilgrim last year, Paul mixes some of my favourite things (Shawn of the Dead stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, and again (wow!) Freaks & Geeks alum Seth Rogen in a buddy film involving a tour of the great alien contact sites throughout America and the chance to help out a real live (and disgusting) alien called Paul.

5. Source Code

From the Director of my favourite SF film of 2009, Moon, comes this film about a man using technology that allows him to live the last 8 minutes of someone elses life over and over in an attempt to discover who killed him, only problem, he doesn't just want info, he wants to change history.