Season Review: The Strain - Season 1

The commercials for The Strain had me going. It had some giant wall, box, or some other creepy mystery with worms oozing out of it, and enticing you with the fact that Guillermo del Toro has a role in the fun. I was pretty well sold right off the beginning, and that's only due in part to the number of "The Scary Door" jokes I could make off of the teaser. Hopes were high in spite of knowing hardly a thing about it.

Unfortunately the show itself just didn't hold up, and fell apart due to a plethora of individual failings, the foremost being dismal characterization. The monsters (zombies, vampires, what-have-you) had about the same emotional appeal as half the cast. It fell into many of the same trappings as The Walking Dead, (at the very least the first season, the only one I made it through) an easy comparison due to the subject matter. The characters were far from entertaining but the script nevertheless plunged their individual problems into the forefront repeatedly regardless. With both shows, the only entertaining aspect is the monsters themselves, and any of the living and conscious on the screen made you long for the dead. 

There's a lesson to learn from this show that all script writers, especially those in the horror genre, should take note of; unless you're watching a show that's specifically character driven, the individual lives and issues of the characters are going to quickly make the viewer lose interest unless they in some way advance the plot in relation to the monsters. The viewer knows what they're getting into, and zombies/vampires is the name of the game - not the protagonist's agonizingly tedious divorce proceedings. I understand the characters need some degree of depth, but it breaks that show-don't-tell rule or storytelling - I don't want you to explain to me flat-out the man's traits, I want to see them come through and develop on their own in relation to the main plot, the one with the monsters and the horrible evil strain of disease, worms and nightmare fuel. 

Each character is given their backstory, never interesting and rarely relevant. Lets take the doctor; named Ephraim Goodweather (I actually have just learned that now, and his name is undoubtedly the most interesting part of his persona) he's a recent divorcee, struggling to maintain his relationship with his now ex-wife and son as he battles his alcohol addiction and difficulties entertaining the audience. The first few episodes drone on about these problems, but quickly become such a non-issue and so far from the plot-line you could easily have missed the entirety of these developments and not only still follow the story but maintain an equal level of understanding. The same trappings follow for the other doctor, Nora Martinez. Her mother, suffering from the old-age-crazies, is put in a home and... and... you know, I believe I may have just tuned out the majority of it. I've watched the whole season and remember little more than that one fact about her. It wouldn't be such a tragedy if it weren't for the fact these side-plots have taken up a tremendous level of airtime for the program. 

The rest of the cast fares no better, chock-full of almost comical stereotypes. First, the main evil is a former (maybe current?) Nazi, and leader in the infamous Stoneheart Group. Yes, the Stoneheart Group - I believe they may be an affiliate of Evil Inc. and a conglomerate with Antagonists 'R' Us. 

Then there's Augustin Elizalde, the Mexican gangster who hangs with his homies and is fresh out of juvy, but also loves his mother and brother - a role that's been played by so many in exactly the same way he could be systematically crafted from clips from other television programs. All he's missing is having all but the top button on his plaid shirt buttoned up, but instead he opts simply for the typical gangster white wife-beater. There's also the emo-rocker; disrespectful and dark, long black hair and pale. We've all seen this character back in high school, but the difference in the show this time is he has found success in his lifetime. The last of these offences is a personal favourite. Stereotypes in television have been so powerfully engrained that the idea of "throwing the idea on it's head" and having it as the opposite of what's expected has become a stereotype in and of itself. This is seen through the hacker - but wait! He's not a fat slob who lives in a basement? It's not even a he?! It's, in fact, a hot blonde British woman!?

Sheesh.

Now, if the plot was a little better it could make up for some of the atrocious character creation, but unfortunately it has a few slips and falls along the way in that regard as well.

Namely;

1. The aforementioned stereotype-breaking-but-still-stereotypical blonde chick actually has somehow broken the internet. I believe the writers may have been taking the IT Crowd too literally. 

2. The vampires vary in killing quality so frequently to the point it's a little ridiculous. While often times they're super strong and shoot their tongue-infecting attack with pinpoint accuracy, it seems to have serious difficulties hitting main characters - or even trying to hit main characters, for that matter. In the season finale, they were literally standing in front of them waiting to be dismembered.  

3. This rag-tag bunch of misfits that have gotten together are all remarkably accurate with firearms. "Aim for the head!" has been a stunningly easy rule to follow.

4. Apparently technology is the only means of communication and the city seems incredibly calm in spite of the world-ending circumstances surrounding it. Looting seems at a minimum, and the resistance fighters are limited to apparently just the main characters. In a country where guns are only as far as your nearest Walmart, you would think they'd be able to find a few like-minded individuals who don't yet wish to see the world burn.

5. The complete denial of the vampires by the citizenship for the first half of the season is beyond baffling. The best example? Our Mexican friend clubs a vampire over the head as it's busy giving his brother a nasty tongue-lashing (infected tongue pun!). Upon finding the corpse - a monstrosity that hardly resembles a human - the cops are seemingly more concerned with the minority committing a violent crime and take him to jail. As for the other corpse, the man the gangster tried to save, we presume the cops turn to each other and say "man, these meth-heads look weirder every day."

6. The sheer fact that the army has not yet been involved in any shape or form is maybe just a little questionable. Considering a bunch of civilians have taken down a great number of these things singlehandedly with hardly a loss, you would think just a handful of trained professionals would be able to wipe this clean in a manner of minutes. Perhaps the Stoneheart Group is more far-reaching than we had thought? I'm suspecting a connection to Jack Donaghy and the Sheinhardt Wig Company. 

7. This is hardly a plot failing, but at one point when the doctor is on the lamb from the government, he goes incognito by donning a toque. That's it. Just throws on a toque, and suddenly he's in disguise. Perhaps everyone just thought he was Canadian.

8. The main doctor's child is the most unshakeable kid on the planet. He has seen the end of his livelihood, people murdered before his very eyes, and now the shooting of his suddenly vampiric mother. Only the last one has made him tear up a little. My prediction is he is secretly a zen-master, waiting to unleash a flurry of punches while imparting ancient wisdom. It's only slightly more far-fetched than number nine on this list.

9. Seriously, that girl broke the internet.

For all its failings - and there are many - The Strain does have a few things going for it. It does a decent job at building intrigue; a small band of professional and seemingly good-guy vampires is an interesting angle, and the main monster's intentions I could stand to learn a touch more about. These are things I wish to see more of, rather than delving further into the court-cases of our doctor's custody battle. The zombification of the mother in the family is the greatest blessing to this show as it (likely) ends that story arc. Although, perhaps, a spin-off series of a vampire mother fighting to keep her son might just work. We can call it Mombie - "she wants brains - but also her kids back!". 

I did mention earlier something critical to the horror genre. People don't flock to it for the characters. Yes, movies like 28 Days Later can add a plot to it and turn good into great, but at the core if I'm tuning in I want to see some blood and gore and move on with my day. When it actually does come though with it,  The Strain is a friendly reminder of just how far television has come. The monsters look great, the gore is at least fairly realistic, and the production quality reminds you of a movie more often than not. If you subtract the rather goofy-looking main evil, it looks pretty top notch. In truth, he looks a little like what the hacker should have been. 

Warcraft: Killing Arthas

Warcraft 2 was released in 1995, when I was just four years old. My brothers picked it up some years later, probably when I was about six or seven, and we were pretty well hooked right off the bat. We put the disk into the LC575 Macintosh computer, in all it's beautiful grey, boxy glory and tried out the human campaign all together, with my eldest brother at the helm.

We had no idea what to do.

After some time fiddling with the controls we managed to figure out how to attack with our units - a few peasants that should have been used for mining gold. Our first action as commander? Attack our own Town Hall, get confused, and go to grab lunch, leaving the game playing in the background. Upon our eager return we found the building on fire - but this just wasn't any ordinary fire. This was a masterpiece of graphics, a phenomenal rendering of towering flames that was almost too much to handle for my seven year old brain. While this may be kind of pathetic, that is inexplicably one of the more distinct memories of my childhood.

Four years after the release date I've completed the campaigns, reached the final level in the expansion (which back then seemed impossible and is mind-numbingly easy now) and have clocked countless saturday morning hours before the older brothers woke up wanting the computer. Then, content as ever with the game, my brothers called me to the screen on what proved to be a fateful day. They call me in to watch a video. Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos was announced in 1999 with this absolutely phenomenal trailer. Heart pounding, not knowing what horrible monster had just come to attack my beloved orcs and humans, I eagerly awaited the release that came three years later. 

Warcraft 3 is and always will be my favourite game. The gameplay is well ahead of its time, the multiplayer was tremendous and engaging, and the cinematics were (and still are) sights to behold. But it was the storyline that hooked me, primarily due to the character of Arthas. If you're unlike me and had better things to do in 2002, Arthas was a prince that was leading the armies of the king in a battle against a sudden, rather unpleasant assault of undead monstrosities. Having sworn to avenge the countless fallen citizens of his kingdom, he sought to find Mal'Ganis, a leader of the undead whom he thought was the head of it all. In his fury, stuck on the frozen shores of Northrend (an icy continent in the Warcraft universe) he found an ancient weapon that corrupted his mind and pulled the prince into undeath, but only after defeating his greatest foe. He returned to his homeland a monster, murdering his father, the king. 

The following campaign focuses on the undead, also a playable race. This time, you're leading Arthas and his zombie minions in his mission to blight the world with the undead plague. In his wake he leaves crumbling cities, murdered characters of Warcraft lore (some of whom were near and dear as I did, after all, grow up with them) all the while finding the time to make a number of snide comments that make you love to hate the character all the more. It's a tremendous story, and one that continued in the tremendous expansion, Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne. 

While I couldn't play the original Warcraft 3 fresh out of the gate (my computer was much too slow, and we had to wait to get a new one) Frozen Throne was practically an instant purchase, released one year after in 2003. The campaign was thrilling, as you once again lead Arthas to glory as you trample whatever races that get in your path. The final level in which you reach the Frozen Throne, a beacon that has been calling to undead Arthas ever since his corruption, was one of the most difficult video game experiences I've had. Upon finally beating it (with countless attempts and about fourty saved games of "good starts" in the files) Arthas ascends the throne, hearing in the background memories of the people he has betrayed or murdered along the way. If you're as into the games as I was, it's absolutely chilling.  He finally reaches the top, dons the helmet of the Lich King (the entity that summoned him there) and sits atop the throne itself, completely victorious. But it doesn't end in the glories of typical video games, trumpets blaring and a battle scene raging. It's utterly serene. He sits, sword in hand on the throne, as you realize you were the one that led him there. I destroyed much of the world that was so ingrained in my childhood. It ends with the quiet, lapping waves of the waters of Northrend easing you out of the scene. You can watch it here.

That's the last you'll see of Arthas for quite some time. The following year (and looking back on it, I can't believe it was only a year) Blizzard released their indomitable World of Warcraft - but mostly with the absence of Arthas. A few zones have references to him and much of the world is changed due to the events he caused in Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne as well as the original, but he's... absent. I would have been bothered by this if I wasn't so utterly absorbed by the whole world. Sometime later they release an expansion, but once again without the most memorable character. It wasn't until 2008 he made his thrilling return, being the focal point of a whole expansion when WoW was at its peak of popularity. 

He was slowing you down at every turn, mocking and threatening you, and gosh darn close to pretty well unstoppable. For the next several months you take down his commanders, minions, and otherwise, but never get a shot at the king himself. Eventually, they release a patch where you fight through the Frozen Throne until, weeks later, you get a chance to fight the chief. However, there's a very good chance you couldn't do this. That variety of content was (at the time) specifically for a very small, dedicated group of players that were ready to find others, commit to a time-frame and use their skill and commitment to finally defeat him. Having groups that only consisted of close friends and being unwilling to commit the degree of time required, I never even thought about having the chance. I watched the in-game cinematic of his death unceremoniously some time later. It wasn't a fitting end to such a tremendous character. In spite of all the hours I clocked in World of Warcraft it wasn't me who stopped him.

I had been playing Warcraft games off and on for over fifteen years now. Since the Arthas themed Wrath of the Lich King expansion, they've released a few more, and over time you "outlevel" the previous content. Arthas is designed for characters that are level 80, and with the expansions, I'm now a full ten levels above that [since the time of this blog - they have since released another, making it twenty levels]. With the addition of a recent patch making defeating old content even easier, beating Arthas is a paltry task - it's hardly more difficult than showing up. It took me a few hours to go through the entirety of his throne, defeating his commanders and other bosses along the way until I reached the king himself. I wanted some achievements for defeating him, and at one point it requires you to basically just let him swipe at you for a little bit. 

So here we are. I'm one guy in WoW, letting one of my favourite characters of any book, show or game swipe away at me with the sword that first corrupted him over ten years ago - but over ten years ago not in the game's world, but in my life. And he has no chance of hurting me. It's been six years since he's been relevant, and this character that in a lot of ways I grew up with is pretty well pathetic. After a couple minutes I killed him, took my new title from the achievement as "Kingslayer", looted his corpse, and went off to bed. 

It was a painfully unceremonious experience.

Unfortunately, there's no real workaround on this from Blizzard's perspective. They want people to see what they've done previously, and there is no reasonable way to make it relevant and useful if it's from six years ago. So they make it easier as a means of being able to check things out, learn the lore, see the sights and so on. But I guess when you find yourself attached to a series and a character (for those of you who aren't huge into video games, you can't tell me you've never felt that way from a book or film) you don't want to be able to mow through it just that easily. It was one heck of a weak goodbye.

When he was standing there, swinging Frostmourn at me, I was almost rooting for him.

House of Leaves: Book Review

The first words are "This is not for you".
Oh, the hours I would have saved if I had
 listened...

"This book will blow your mind!"

"It has such a unique style!"

"It's such a mind trip, it's like acid in book form!"

That's pretty much the gist of what the reviews were for this book. As usual, there were the occasional ones scattered throughout that were at least somewhat negative, a few middling and so forth, but the majority were claiming some great feat of literary genius that takes you to other worlds. Heck, I wanted a part of this, and I wanted a part of it now. Everywhere I looked I ran into gushing praise about this book where a house seemingly comes alive, and the book finds a life of its own along with it. It makes you turn it upside down, read pages out of order, the colour and font change, sometimes the words on the page form shapes... well, I was intrigued. I ordered the book online, and soon enough it was on my doorstep and I was brimming with excitement - excitement that is usually reserved for video games, so really, this was out of the norm.

The main selling feature of the book is a house that has boundaries that defy logic. Inside a hallway lies an endless chamber of rapidly changing dimension, and on the outside it appears mostly normal with the exception of the fact that the inside and outside length and width do not match up as they should. All of this is detailed in a documentary called The Navidson Record that follows a family within the house and their expeditions around the corridors of endless blackness. That basic description grabbed me. It sounded original, a little creepy, and I was genuinely curious where it was going to turn. A second storyline follows Johnny Truant, a drugged-up, semi-attractive man who stumbles upon a series of notes on the Navidson Record and feels compelled to complete them in one way or another. Through his travels he meets prostitutes, does more drugs, and any variety of things that make him "edgy" to the point it feels absurd and forced - oh, he's a tattoo artist too. The style was interesting at the very least, and the plot of the house showed potential, even if Truant did not.

Unfortunately, as the story wears on (it's far too long and filled with excessive, needlessly wordy description), you begin to realize most of it relies on gimmick; it's a clear-cut case of style over substance. I mean, I get it - placing one word on each page makes it seem like everything is being read in slow motion. Sometimes the words are near the top or the bottom of the page, symbolizing the difference in space in the subject matter that's going on at the time in the novel. They're neat little tricks, and they're enough to captivate your interest for the first few times it happens. However, the book is staggeringly long, and my patience started to run dry when I realized that beneath all the gimmicks lies a painfully uninteresting series of characters and events.

Not once did I feel the slightest moment of interest in a character in the novel. Johnny Truant is painfully bland; his character slowly grows insane, but since he's such an unlikeable character at the core I feel nothing for him. His personality is never really fleshed out properly, as with literally every other side character. Even the positive reviews (and there are inexplicably many) so rarely mention the characters which take so much of the space in the novel. To reference some television moments here, as T.V. makes everything easier, take a look at Breaking Bad. It wasn't just the events that capture you in that show - it was that you legitimately cared deeply for what happened to the individuals in the show (except Skyler, I hate Skyler). Here, some die, go crazy, and other things which should elicit a response but in the end you feel absolutely nothing for them as you're too busy focusing on being in awe that a book makes you turn it upside down for a few pages to read it.

The book reads as if the author, Mark Danielewski, is patting himself on the back with one hand and typing with the other. It is so heavily laden with pretension it practically oozes out of the pages. Gimmick after gimmick, supposedly dark and deep conversations, reminiscent of True Detective but falling well short, and an ambiguous Lost type ending that serves more as a cop-out than a proper closing. Similar to Lost, I feel I have been robbed of my time; they build up so much, promising you, urging you to finish them to explain what is going on but then neatly packaging it with an unfulfilling ending that explains nothing but the fact that they didn't know how to end it all along. It goes to show how easily you can build up a mystery if you don't have to solve it. It's like calling a puzzle the most difficult one on the planet simply by removing a piece.

House of Leaves made me turn the book upside down, read a variety of font types and colours, had me flip pages quickly, frustrated me with the order in which to read them, and sent my eyes all over the book for footnotes - but one thing it certainly failed to do was entertain. With incomplete, bland characterization and a plot that ultimately goes nowhere, I can't find it in me to turn even a slightly positive spin.

The Sims 2: Creating Myself

It would likely be more entertaining if I started this article with some comment about a desire to live in a life with an 'undo' button, eventually trailing off into a joke or two about choosing my physical features. Where's the fun in that, though? I'd rather pick the honesty route and say the real reason in which I began to play The Sims: 2 once more, ten years after it's creation. It was given away free on Origin, and much like yogurt, if it's free I'll give it a shot no matter how old it is.

I don't remember much about The Sims from when I was a kid. I never had the patience to really build a character properly as I spent the majority of my time fiddling with the character creation settings and trying to make a unique but still properly functioning house. Both of these goals always fell well short; my character always ended up looking pretty well the same, and I wasn't creative enough to build a house that reached beyond the designing techniques of one basic rectangle. Fortunately, the character creation section was sorely outdated now and with that comes a lack of appeal, resulting in me giving the breath of life to my freshly birthed Sim in record time.

See the guy third from the right, lurking behind the green dude? We

become quite well acquainted.

 

 

I didn't go for anything flashy - in fact, he was pretty much just me. Skinny white guy, blonde hair, light jacket and jeans… everything was pretty well normal until I discovered the option of having a Bioshock-esque diving helmet on my head. Admittedly, this made my choices for hair and face quickly obsolete, but if you have the opportunity to live your life perpetually able to survive in the deep end of swimming pools without basic lessons, you take it in a heartbeat. My Sim was off to a great start, and without further adieu, he was ready to take the plunge into his real, fake life.

 

I purchased an empty lot to build my future dream-home. I planted some walls, some nice trees out front, a window or two, the whole nine yards. I then proceeded to struggle with putting a roof on the thing for the next (I kid you not) twenty minutes or so. At one point I somehow managed to build a giant cone around the entirety of the walls, at which point I was feeling the pangs of regret from turning off the 'hint' options quite dearly. Once I learned the trick to it (click second floor, not first!) I went about decorating the walls with some nice wooden-themed wallpapers, stone floors, and other such accessories that made my house look shockingly spiffy considering the freshly moved-out circumstances I was given. My Sim is going to freaking love this place.

 

Unfortunately, I may have gone a little overboard. His $352 left in his wallet were just enough to purchase a toilet and literally nothing else. His dream-home just became the single greatest outhouse known to man. Fortunately, he's a content fellow, and milled about over the next several hours catching bugs and reading the newspaper - in which he found a job as a security guard, coming by the following day at 7:00 p.m. to pick him up. What joy! A daily wage will surely be able to allow him to purchase a fridge. 

These Sims are way cooler than the ones I met. Wait, is that an
alien? Am I even playing the same game?

The neighbourhood came out to greet their new homeowner, marveling over his outhouse with awe and reverence. He spoke with some woman for quite some time, but they didn't really hit it off - I think trying to open with a high five just didn't work with her personality. Fortunately, it did with another lad in the neighbourhood, and he had a new friend faster than anything. His social meter - one of the bars of measurement for the happiness of your Sims - was through the roof. His bladder level was also just perfect, the new toilet serving it's duty flawlessly. 

 

However, there was trouble on the horizon - he was hungry as all heck, having not eaten in many hours time and having no access to the magically stocked super-fridge. Hoping desperately another Sim would bring over a pizza, he passed out on the floor, exhausted and lacking even a chair. The rock was somehow not as comfortable as he had hoped, and the hunger pains must have made it difficult to sleep. He kept asking for food, his free-will just strong enough to beg for sustenance. At a loss for cash, I had no idea what to do. I couldn't feed him. I refused to get a refund on any of the beautiful wallpaper I had laid down. What's a Sim to do?

 

Fortunately, a new visitor came to the door (perhaps he has pizza!). I didn't recognize him - he was dressed all in black, somewhat of a ghostly complexion, and brandishing a rather impressive farming implement. He politely informed me that my Sim had passed away. 

Well, crap. I'll try again tomorrow.