Re-Opening The X -Files: Avatar, Quagmire, Wetwired

Scully: The doctor suggested amphetamine abuse. Maybe that coupled with, with the disturbing images he was watching, pushed him over the edge.

Mulder: All I know is television does not make a previously sane man go out and kill five people, thinking they’re all the same guy. Not even “Must-See TV” could do that to you.

Avatar

The story goes that David Duchovny pitched the idea of “Avatar” to Chris Carter in an attempt to have a bit of mid-season break in the production of the show. The result was one of the first episodes to really explore Walter Skinner a bit more, though whether or not it minimized the overall involvement of Mulder and Scully, I’m not quite sure.

And while it’s nice to give Mitch Pileggi something more substantial to do, I’m not quite sure this is the best showcase for him. For one thing, there are moments that “Avatar” feels a bit more like something out of Duchovny’s previous series Red Shoe Diaries than it does as an episode of The X-Files. Sure, we’ve got the succubus thread, but it feels almost as if it were tacked on to give the episode a supernatural element rather than organically part of the story.  (And  boy, does this story seem to be obsessed with the woman Skinner sleeps with turning out to be a lady of the evening)

Re-Opening The X-Files: Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’

Jose Chung: Aren’t you nervous telling me all this? After receiving all those death threats?

Blaine Faulkner: Well, hey, I didn’t spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage

Looking back over the long run of The X-Files, I’d argue that the best seasons of the show were seasons two and three. What two has going for it is that the mythology episodes are tighter, feel more like an event, and give us hope that Chris Carter and company have some kind of end game in mind for government conspiracies and cover-ups. Season three has three of the best stand-alone episodes of the entire run of the show, all by writer Darin Morgan.

Review: The One by John Marrs

Instead of swiping left or right to meet your Match, what if you swabbed the inside of your mouth and got paired with the person who is genetically coded as your ideal match?

For the past decade, Match Your DNA has been doing just that, slowly building up a database of potential matches and pairing couples together. And while there has been a rise in successful marriages, there have also been side effects to pairings from discrimination against those who aren’t matched yet to the breaking up of long-term relationships when the results reveal that they aren’t genetically meant to be.

John Marrs’ The One explores the lives of five people who have all recently received their results and the impact — both expected and unexpected — it has on their lives.

Cycling between each character, chapters are short, impactful, and always leave you wanting to come back and find out what will happen next to each character, though I will admit some of the story lines grabbed my attention with more urgency than others. The most intriguing is Christopher, a serial killer who is using another dating app to choose his next victim and working toward thirty victims. Into his life comes Amy, who it turns out is a policewoman investigating the series of murders that Christopher if committing. The give and take as Christopher tries to reach his deadline while balancing his relationship with Amy makes for some of The One‘s most intriguing and compelling moments.

We also meet Nick, who is happily engaged to Sally until his results reveal his match is a man named Alex. Then there’s Elle, a successful businesswoman who hasn’t really connected with anyone in her past but has just paired with a new man who might just sweep her off her feet. There’s also a woman who’s match is dead but she connects with his family, to the point that she’s willing to go to extraordinary lengths to make a connection and the woman who travels across the world to find out her match isn’t what was advertised.

Marrs juggles all of our various characters in a clever, entertaining fashion, giving us one development or revelation per chapter to set the hook and then keep you wanting to come back for more. However, the later the novel goes, some of the twists feel a bit like piling on or having anther twist for the sake of having another one. Of the five stories, I found Christopher and Elle’s the most intriguing and I will give Marrs credit that he doesn’t give in to the temptation to have all these stories intersect at some point.

I also see that this novel has been picked up a series for Netflix. Given the episodic nature of each chapter, adapting it into a compelling series designed for binge-watching should be a straight-forward affair and I have to admit I’m looking forward to seeing it.

Review: The Mother-in-Law by Sally Hepworth

When Lucy’s mother passed away while she was a girl, Lucy hoped that someday she’d find a mother/daughter bond with her future mother-in-law. But that kind of bond has never really materialized with Diana, who keeps her children at arm’s length and wants to make sure that each of them can stand on their own in this world.

So, when Diana passes away suddenly under potentially suspicious circumstances, each member of her family has a really good motive.

Less a murder mystery and more a domestic thriller, Sally Hepworth’s The Mother-in-Law is a character study of both Lucy and Diana. Told in alternating viewpoints and at various points in their lives of both Lucy and Diana, Hepworth takes time to give us the perspective of all the parties involved and help us to understand their motivations. Several of Diana’s children see her desire for them to stand on their own two feet as a punishment or her being vindictive. But, instead, we are allowed inside Diana’s world to understand how her helping those less fortunate or not allowed the same opportunities as her family has brought her to the point of wanting her children to stand on their own for both good and bad.

And while the stakes aren’t necessarily high ones, they are still compelling ones, especially when the kids find out that Diana has changed her will and that her death won’t be the easy “get of jail free” card some of them were hoping for (or counting on).

A compelling thriller with some great character study, The Mother-in-Law is a very different kind of domestic suspense page turner.

Review: My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

With cover blurbs from Stephen King and Gillian Flynn and solid on-line buzz from a variety of reviewers, my expectations for Kate Elizabeth Russell’s debut novel, My Dark Vanessa may have been a bit lofty.

Vanessa met Jacob Strane when she was in her teens and he was in his early thirties. At first, Vanessa found the fact that he was twice as old as she was a novelty, something to ponder to herself as she went through life at a private girl’s school. Estranged from her only friend during her first year over a conflict over a guy, Vanessa falls under Strane’s influence and is slowly manipulated into a relationship with the older man. And yet, despite all of Strane’s abuses (and there are many), Vanessa staunchly refuses to see herself as a victim — even years later as Strane’s pattern of behavior becomes public and more and more victims began to go public with their stories.

Audiobook Review: Doctor Who: The Caves of Androzani by Terrance Dicks

Regarded as one of the best stories in the Doctor Who canon (classic or new), “The Caves of Androzani” gets a rather disappointing Target adaptation from Terrance Dicks.

Listening to the audiobook, ably read by Peter Davison, I couldn’t help but wish that the Dicks who adapted “Spearhead From Space” into “The Auton Invasion” was on-hand and could work that same magic on another solid script from Robert Holmes. Maybe Dicks didn’t have the time or the inclination to do that here and it’s a shame because there is so much that could or should be expanded upon on the printed page.

Imagine expanding or delving into the history of Morgus and Jek a bit deeper or giving a deeper dive into Chelak’s career before being saddled with this losing campaign on Androzani minor. I’m not talking about expanding “Caves” to three-hundred plus pages like we’ve seen with recent adaptations of “City of Death” or “The Pirate Planet.” But there’s just so much more lurking beneath the surface of this story that it’s a huge disappointment that the Target novel isn’t any more than a standard retelling of the televised story.

This tragic story to end the fifth Doctor’s era is one of the most unique and compelling in the Doctor Who canon — one of those perfect coming together of acting, directing, and scripting to create something that transcends the genre and material. The only letdown is the forced inclusion of the Magma creature, which stands out a bit like a sore thumb on the screen. I will give Dicks some credit that he tries to make the creature a bit more threatening than the budget allowed for on our screens.

Alas, this is still a big missed opportunity for a Target novel to take one of the undisputed classics of Doctor Who and make it into one of the undisputed classics of the Target range.

Top Ten Tuesday: Adapt These Please

Today’s prompt for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is our choices for books or series that should be adapted for television. Of course, if these were all to be adapted, I’d probably immediately be behind on watching all of them.

1. The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. Yes, I know SciFi did a version of this one a decade or so ago and it had its moments. But as I was finishing up “Peace Talks” earlier this week I couldn’t help but think a well-done urban fantasy like this one could be a great idea.
2. The Robot Series by Issac Asimov. We’re finally get a Foundation series and while I’m intrigued by that, I can’t help but think the Asimov’s robot mystery novels might not be just as fertile a ground for adaptation. Maybe if Foundation is a success, we can get these for when these novels eventually tie-in.
3. Spider-Man. I love the Marvel movies as much as the next person. But to really capture the essential angst that is Peter Parker, I can’t help but think a live-action series would be a great way to go. And the idea of a season-long build-up to a huge showdown with a big bad ala Buffy the Vampire Slayer is something that intrigues my inner comic book reading self.
4. Villains series by V.E. Schwab. Seems like we’re awash in anti-heroes these days on various shows, so why not go for the ultimate anti-hero in a supervillain? Schawab’s novels seem perfect for adaptation and would be a ton of fun to see unfold over the course of a season or five.
5. The Dark Tower by Stephen King. The shared universe series of movies and limited run series never got off the ground and it appears the latest attempt to bring this series to screens won’t happen at Amazon. Which is a doggone shame because this is a rich universe just ripe for adaptation. I do think it would require a good sized budget though.
6. Golden Arrow series by Megan Scott Molin. If you’re looking for a great blend of geek-references, romantic triangles, opposites attractions, and suspenseful mysteries, this two book series is definitely one to pick up and give a try. And that’s all reason why I think this might work well as a series in the right hands.
7. Book of the Ancestor by Mark Lawrence. A kick-ass heroine, a fascinating world and three books packed with epic fantasy action that often gets completely turned on its head. This could be better than a certain big name fantasy series that didn’t end well.

I’m sure I’ll think of a few more within five minutes of posting this. But I think this would be a great start!

Movie Thoughts: Rebel Without A Cause

In college, I took a course in the history of rock and roll.   While studying the music and musical influence of Elvis Presley, the professor brought up an interesting theory that was Elvis passed away at the right time to be well-remembered and regarded.  We never got to see Elvis get too far past his prime and a shadow of his former self, relegated to the back pages of the tabloids.

This same theory applies to actor James Dean, who only made three films during his short career in Hollywood.   Each of those three films is fairly well-regarded by scholars and critics, though it can be argued this his most iconic film was his last, Rebel Without A Cause.

I first saw it years ago on VHS and while it started an entirely new subgenre of film, I’m not necessarily sure this is a film that holds up all that well or is really as good as its iconic status would have you believe.   Watching it again this time, I was fascinated by the performance of Dean as Jim Stark and seeing actor Jim Backus in a role other Mr. Howell from Gilligan’s Island.  But I couldn’t help but think the film seemed awfully melodramatic in parts and like it was trying too hard.

Audiobook Review: Hello Girls by Brittany Cavallero and Emily Henry

Lucille Price and Wynona Olsen met the night they headed to the local police station to turn in various family members for a variety of crimes. Realizing that going to the cops will probably make things far worse than better, the duo decides to head for a local dive-bar that won’t look too closely at their fake IDs for a few G&Ts.

That night a new friendship is born. Each girl has someone (or multiple someones) they want to escape from. Wynona’s is her controlling father, the popular, enigmatic weatherman Stormy Olson. Stormy keeps Wynona on a short leash, saying he’s saving her from becoming like her drug-addicted mother who passed away a decade ago. Stormy cultivates an image of the perfect family and life, all while abusing Wynona and keeping her rich grandfather carefully under his thumb.

Last Year I Was Reading…

To celebrate Throwback Thursday, I’ve found Last Year I Was Reading, created by Maria.

Take your current read and compare it to what you reading this exact time last year. Which one do you like better? What is different about the books? Any special facts/things you want to make note of or bring attention to?