Category Archives: TV shows

Three Pines

Three Pines is a murder mystery series by Louise Penny. These books have now been turned into a TV series. I haven’t seen the entire series, as it is coming out in sections. But I have seen the first four episodes of Three Pines, which seems to cover two books.

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. Image from the internet.

I feel I should take a moment to make a disclaimer: I read one book in this series and it was not the first book. So I don’t know anything about Three Pines or Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his detective team. I don’t know how accurate the TV episodes are to the book series. I can say that I like what I am currently watching. The series takes place in Quebec, in a small town outside of Montreal. Since the main character is part of the police, he speaks French. Recognizing the largely English audience, most of the dialogue is in English – but not all. They still switch to French on a regular basis – which I find helps to reinforce the characters and world building. Also the French is subtitled so I can actually follow what is being said. Oftentimes these are background comments being made that enhance the flavour but not the plot. For instance, the assistant constable calls for additional support from Headquarters when a body is found in French at the end of a scene. Even if you don’t read the subtitles, you are not missing out on important information.

The village locals meeting at the bookshop – totally not suspicious! Image from the internet.

The current pattern as each mystery requiring two episodes to solve. However, in the background, there is another case that the detectives are slowly working on. I think this is to provide an overreaching narrative to the series. Interestingly, they have decided to tackle the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women. Infact, the creators have leaned in heavily to the conflict between colonists and First Nation People in Canada. I don’t know how much is true to the books and how much is being added to reflect current times, but it is interesting to see discussion about residential schools and the lasting harm they caused brought into more mainstream TV. I cannot speak for anyone but myself, however, it seems they are presenting these issues in a meaningful and thoughtful manner. It certainly adds the feeling of relevance to the series that I don’t get with most cop shows on TV – which are generally pure escapism from reality.

The acting is good. There is certainly a range of colourful characters existing in the small village of Three Pines. Though much like Midsommer (England), it is not a place I want to live for there are far too many murders! 🙂 I do like the show and happily give it 4.5 stars out of 5. For a cop drama, I think it is just different enough to make it interesting and just similar enough to make it fun to watch.

Wednesday

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Again, I am a little late to write about the TV series Wednesday. I actually watched it the first week it came out, but with November being busy and much of the first part of December being taken up with Holiday preparations, well I am late.

If you haven’t heard of Wednesday, it is the story of Wednesday Addams when she is sent to a private school for the outcastes of the world. In the promotional material it is described as a coming of age story with a mysterious madman lurking in the background.

I liked the series far more than I expected. I thought the casting was great: Jenna Ortega makes an excellent Wednesday Addams. They have Catherine Zeta-Jones for Morticia Addams, who is fabulous. I was less impressed with the young woman they had playing Morticia as a school girl, I didn’t find her as strong. Interestingly, I liked the young man playing school-aged Gomez Addams more than Luis Guzman who played the older version of the character. Luis was a bit stiff for me. The rest of the caste was well chosen. Emma Myers pulls off an amazingly colourful Enid!

School group from Nevermore Academy – image from the internet.

The story was visually interesting. There is an interesting play of colour and shadow throughout the series. I liked the stylization of the costumes, buildings and locations. The plot flowed nicely from start to finish. There were lots of guesses as to what was happening and who was behind it all that left me guessing from one episode to the next. The final reveal did not come out of nowhere – which I really liked. I hadn’t exactly guessed ‘who dunnit’, but I wasn’t blindsided by the twist either. It made sense and worked with the story.

Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams. Image from the internet.

It was easy to watch and very engaging. Which is impressive since it could have been very boring and painfully stilted (or ridiculously dramatic) with its focus on high school aged characters – such an awkward stage of life. I think I finished the series in four days – and generally I don’t binge watch TV. Overall I was quite surprised by how much I liked the show. I will give it a solid 4.5 out of 5 stars.

The hardest part about writing a review of the TV series is that I did like it. There is really not a lot to comment on. I think if you enjoy the Addams family then you will like this continuation of Wednesday Addams’ story.

Dota 2: Dragon’s Blood Review

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Dota 2: Dragon’s Blood is an animated TV series on Netflix. This review does not spoil the specifics of the plot.

The Netflix series was clearly not done by Valve. Valve makes video games. And they are good at it. One of the things I really enjoy about their video games, at least the ones that I play, is how they can work in story elements into games that are not driven by a plot.

Mirana and Davion sitting in the forest; Dota 2: Dragon’s Blood – image from the internet

Team Fortress 2, TF2, was one of the first games that I really played. It is a team based shooter. You and your team attack the enemy to gain the bases or check point or briefcase. The game play was fun, not too impossible for me to pick up, but with enough of a ceiling that my brother sank tons of hours into the game. There is no plot to the game. Yet, Valve was able to include clever dialogue lines, small hints to a greater story in the small background elements of the levels and later with their comics. Sure the stories from the comics were not deep, but they were well done – fun, amusing and competently written.

This attention to detail was carried into Dota 2. This multiplayer fighting game – MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) is not plot driven. There is no story that you learn by playing through the game. Yet, there are little clues to the world’s lore scattered through the short background notes for each of the heroes, the heroes voice lines and the fluff tags attached to items. From these cleverly written short bits, you get a feel for the world and the heroes you play. There are comics that I haven’t read, which delve deeper into the world. And they were even going to explain some of the world with their (now dead) digital card game, Artifact. So, while story and plot are not driving forces, the artists at Valve have been able to create a cohesive world filled with multiple races, beings and conflicts.

Davion, Dragon Knight and squire. Based on the characters in Dota 2; from the animated series: Dragon’s Blood by Studio Mir, Netflix Animation & Valve

There is a lot of potential for a story scattered throughout this game. So, I was excited to learn about the animated netflix series – Dota 2: Dragon’s Blood. This TV series was going to set a story in the Dota universe. I watched the sanctioned hype videos, which helped to create some interest. That said, on a scale of 1 – 10 (one being no interest and 10 being super excited), I was sitting at about 7 when I sat down on the couch to watch some TV. The intro raised my excitement to a 9, which then plummeted to a 5 by the end of the first episode.

Dragon’s Blood may be set in Valve’s world. But this outsourced production lacked the Valve touch. The best I can say is the 8 episode season was generic. The dialogue was bland and the animation was washed out. It was very surprising how many shots were still images, no movement. There were crowds cheering in the background while the audience stared at a stationary image. Everything about the series was flat. The key plot points were either entirely too predictable or so obtuse I couldn’t follow the show’s explanations. Honestly, I don’t get the ending. It doesn’t make sense, which must be off putting to those not familiar with the Dota 2 universe.

The video game is full of movement. One of the things I struggle with as a player is how many things are happening at once. Battle scenes are a swirl of chaotic movement and particle effects. It is very action focused, even during the ‘quiet’ moments of the game. So, an animated series that spent one third of the time used stationary images didn’t ring true. The animation was a bit better during fight scenes – during these moments they pulled more directly from the video game animating the skills of the heroes.

Mirana in a fight scene! Based on the characters in Dota 2; from the animated series: Dragon’s Blood by Studio Mir, Netflix Animation & Valve

The character lines in the video game are fun, witty and convey a surprising amount of information considering they have nothing to do with a plot. The dialogue in the animated series used cussing to seem edgy. Something Valve doesn’t need to resort to because they are better writers. As it was a Netflix series it also felt the need to incorporate orgies into some of the visuals, presumably to compensate for the lack of well developed characters and plot. Finally, the visuals were very white-washed. While this may be a common feature of anime, I feel like it is counter to the Dota vision that was trying to be more diverse with its character design.

While I feel like there is potential to pull stories out of the Dota 2 world, I found this first attempt underwhelming. As I am not an expert in the lore of the Dota 2 world, I cannot speak to the accuracy of the story. However, with generic dialogue and bland animation I cannot say I was impressed with this attempt to expand the franchise.