So... Last Weekend's Telly Was Pretty Good Wasn't It?

First up was the return of series 7 (is this season 33?) of Doctor Who. For some reason I've been gradually losing heart with the direction of Doctor Who. It's becoming too clever for it's own good, in my opinion. Sometimes I just want a story with character development but not too much timey-wimeyness. Don't get me wrong, there's obviously place for timey-wimeyness in Doctor Who. But not all the time. So I started watching The Bells of Saint John more out of duty than pleasure and was not expecting to like it quite as much as I did.

Best episode ever? Hell no. But solid, enjoyable and rewatchable? Absolutely. Celia Imrie was an excellent villain, the episode sort of had thematic similarities to "Partners In Crime" and I'm liking the emergence of a proper "Big Bad" for the series in the form of the Great Intelligence. It hasn't made me fall completely back in love with the Doctor's adventures but it gave me a big slap in the face and told me to stop moaning and just bloody enjoy them!

Second came the season 3 finale of The Walking Dead. Here's another show I've fallen out of love with. It's not that it isn't following the comic storyline close enough; I quite enjoy the "surprise" of things going differently. But it just seems to be too decompressed. They could develop the characters just as much and tell the same story but in far fewer episodes (and I'm never usually one to call for less episodes). And whereas I was hoping for a final climatic battle, or at least some solid conclusion to this chapter of the story, all we got was a bit of a damp squib. Plus this series they first ruined and then in this episode killed my favourite character. There wasn't even a cliffhanger, just a set up for the next series. *sigh*

And then finally came the series 3 opening episode of Game of Thrones. There was no trepidation on my part in watching this, I've been waiting for this way too eagerly to be totally healthy. And it delivered, excellent story as ever and I'm (not having read the books) putting my flag firmly in Daenerys corner. Awesome, awesome, awesome. I just want more and more!

And this week, on a Twitter recommendation, I decided to watch the 3-parter "In The Flesh". My geeky love of zombies meant I'd heard about it but every blog post I saw on it as about how it was some lovey-dovey zombie story and I wasn't into that. How wrong those previews were. It was fantastic take on a less explored area of zombie lore... what happens if the zombies (or "rotters") are "cured"? Emotional and dark, the final minutes of the last episode had me quite teary. I cannot recommend this enough.

Genre TV is good these days :)

The Walking Dead's First Season

So, after 6 awesome weeks we are at the end of the first season of The Walking Dead. Whilst, as a Brit, I'm used to short seasons, 6 episodes seems insulting considering just how great the show has been!

I'm usually the sort of person who finds any changes to the source material in a movie or TV adaption pretty disgusting. You should of seen my reaction, at the age of 10, to the differences between Jurassic Park the movie and the book (she's not meant to be the oldest, it's a Stegosaurus not a Triceratops! etc.). Unusually, I've been far more forgiving of this series. The changes have been fairly substantial, with totally new characters and some important characters missing. And the CDC storyline came out of nowhere. BUT it's all been handled well, scripted excellently and with enough nods to the source material to keep this fanboy happy.

If you think "Oh God, I hate gore and zombies" and refuse to watch this, I urge you to reconsider. Yes there is gore. Yes there are zombies. But it's so much more than that. This is, like the comic book, about the characters, and how they deal with their circumstances. And it will have you hooked!

I cannot believe there's nearly a year to wait for the next set of episodes! :( How will I cope??