Sci-fi Drama Queen

14 Apr 2014

Agents of what?

If you haven’t caught up on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. or Captain America: The Winter Soldier as that is linked too this, then look away now as I don’t want to spoil either for you.

Marvel has done a great job at making the show run alongside the movies. After Thor: The Dark World they headed to London to clean up the mess…although it took a few weeks for it to happen after the film was released. This time round it happens at the same time.

The first episode linked, End of the Beginning we see Agent Sitwell and other S.H.I.E.L.D. members including Coulson having a meeting, followed by Sitwell saying he has a ship to go to – the ship that Captain America rescues him from in The Winter Soldier. It ends with us suspecting Agent May of being up to something.

The second episode, Turn, Turn, Turn is when it all kicks off. Constant questioning who is Hydra and who is S.H.I.E.L.D. keeps us guessing throughout the episode and then a major twist at the end. Trust no one are the words of the poster, but it has all become clear that the agent we can’t trust is Ward, but after his connection with Skye and him finally telling her how he feels, I really didn’t see it coming that he would be Hydra. Although I feel that he is just following his captain and is torn. But we will have to keep watching and see what happens.

Image sources: sciencefiction.com / collider.com / observationdeck.io9.com

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Posted in TV and tagged Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Captain America, The Winter Soldier, Turn turn turn | Leave a comment

13 Apr 2014

5 Comments

Captain America: The Winter Soldier review

Ok so I saw Captain America: The Winter Soldier a couple of weeks ago, but it left me questioning what it meant for its sister TV show Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and therefore I was struggling where to start with this post. Now I’ve been able to see the latest two episodes of the show I have walked away feeling far more excited than I was when I left the cinema. In fact had I known this connection I would have been buzzing from the cinema like I usually am after a comic book movie.

So, before I continue. If you are not up to speed with Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (although full review of the latest episodes will be following in the next couple of days) or you are yet to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier, they look away now, because I am going to SPOILER it up. So Captain America has partnered up with Black Widow (on a professional level not a romantic level – although, unless she hooks up with Hawkeye in Avengers 2, I think it might come) and they are working on various missions together.

A S.H.I.E.L.D. ship is taken over with Agent Sitwell onboard. Captain America and his team go to rescue those on board, but Black Widow is downloading important information, having different orders from Nick Fury. It’s not just the ship that is under attack, but Nick Fury too. And it all becomes clear that it is S.H.I.E.L.D. that is attacking. Hydra has been operating underground within S.H.I.E.L.D. all the while Captain America was on ice. So the only thing they can do is destroy S.H.I.E.L.D. – see why my head was confused? How can a show all about S.H.I.E.L.D. exist when Captain America has closed it down?

Captain America also partners with a new Marvel character in this movie -Falcon. Although they have focused on it being his codename rather than his ‘hero’ name. Oh and how could I forget the Winter Soldier himself. Captain America’s best friend Bucky Barnes, who was believed dead. Hydra got their hands on him, fixed him up with a machine arm and froze him, saving him for when they needed him most. A woman in the cinema gasped when he takes his mask off once she clocks who he is, she obviously hadn’t been paying attention to any Winter Soldier related news since they gave the film its title.

I really enjoyed the film, but like I say I left the cinema feeling confused. Now I know how it all fits within the Avengers universe, I’m all excited and probably would be a heck of a lot more excited walking out of the cinema second time round. I did enjoy the first film, and know a lot of people didn’t, but I think even those that weren’t fans of Captain America’s first outing will enjoy this one.

Image sources: businessinsider.com / mtv.com / fanboy.com / darkhorizons.com / sulit.com.ph

Posted in Film and tagged Avengers, Captain America, Comic Book, Hydra, Marvel, The Winter Soldier

07 Apr 2014

2 Comments

Competition: Win A Commonplace Killing audiobook

Competition time again. Thanks to the lovely people at Audible.co.uk you could win an audiobook of A Commonplace Killing by Sian Busby. This smash hit book has been commissioned for a TV series which is due to appear on screens later this year. It was also chosen for ITV’s Richard & Judy’s Spring Book Club 2014. Sadly the author died shortly before the book was published so she didn’t get to see its success.

Set in London in the summer in the mid 1940s, a woman’s body is discovered in an old bomb site off Holloway Road, North London. The body is identified as Lillian Frobisher, a ‘respectable wife and mother’ who lived with her family nearby. The police assume that Lillian must have been the victim of a sexual assault, but when the autopsy finds no evidence of rape, they turn their attention to her private life.

I love the 1940s era, and a good crime drama so this is the perfect combination. Even better for me is that it is being adapted into a TV series – I love it when the pages of a book a brought to life.

A Commonplace Killing audiobook is out now at audible.co.uk. For your chance to win a free audio copy simply answer the question below:

Which celebrity TV couple picked this book for their Spring Book Club:

a) Ruth & Eamonn

b) Richard & Judy

c) Tess & Vernon

Just comment below with your answer, tweet your answer @ScifiDQ or email your answer to scifidramaqueen at gmail dot com. The winner will be notified after the competition closes on Monday 21st April.

Terms and conditions apply.

Image source: twitter.com

Posted in Books and tagged audiobook, book, Competition, Crime, Drama, Richard & Judy book club, Win

01 Apr 2014

4 Comments

How I Met Your Mother – it’s all over

Well it finally ended. In an hour long episode (or episodes 23 and 24 back to back if you will) How I Met Your Mother finally ended its story of how Ted met the mother of his children. Stop reading now if you haven’t seen it yet as this contains spoilers.

We’ve known for a while now who the mother is, where they meet and how, so really the final scene was surely going to be that? No. The writers decided to take the story further and give us an ending, that if this show wasn’t about how Ted met the mother then people would have seriously thought it would go that way. Like Ross and Rachel in Friends, it seemed that Robin and Ted were meant to be together. But we knew she wasn’t the mother, so as much as the show tried to keep the love alive between them two it was the one thing that angered me as they were focusing on a love story that was never going to have a happy ending. Except I was wrong.

We see Ted and the mother’s relationship post them meeting, they have two kids but take seven years to get married, Barney and Robin get divorced and then Barney has a baby after one of his usual encounters. Lily and Marshall have a third child and Marshall becomes a judge. We find out that the mother is called Tracy, but she is no longer alive. So once Ted concludes his story, the kids say he told them the story because he wants to ask out aunt Robin. So Ted, with the permission of his children, goes to see Robin, who lives in an apartment with lots of dogs. She opens the window and looks down on Ted with a blue French horn, and we are taken right back to the start.

It is nice that they had a happy ending, but it feels like the mother was nothing at all. She was supposed to be the love of his life that he had waited so long for, but really it was Robin. I am in two minds over this finale. Barney really going back to his single ways, bit dodgy for a man of his age in the future the show is set in, also because Barney and Robin were perfect for each other. Both didn’t want to be settled down and have kids, so why couldn’t they have been a perfectly happy couple with just the two of them? I get that not all marriages last, but does it have to be the ones that didn’t really want to settle down? If they thought that they would never last, why did they even write a story that they would get married in the first place?! I really am going to miss the show, and I like the fact that the ending was different to what I expected, but not sure it was the ending I wanted.

What did you think?

Image sources: independent.co.uk

Posted in TV and tagged Barney Stinson, HIMYM, How I Met Your Mother

31 Mar 2014

Review: I Can’t Sing the musical

I was invited to see I Can’t Sing the musical by lastminute.com. But what I didn’t know was they would be taking me to the star studded opening night! Simon Cowell was there, along with Louis Walsh, yet Cheryl Cole and Dermot O’Leary (who inspired two of the characters) didn’t attend.

In fact, Dermot’s character, Liam O’Dreary is the best thing in this. He has Dermot down to a T. Every head wobble, sigh, hug. He does it perfectly. Even the husky voice.

Nigel Harman plays Simon Cowell, and Simon really let them take the mick out of him. His baby, wife stealing and of course, the high trousers.

My favourite West End actor Simon Lipkin was also in it and went back to his puppet days as Barlow the dog. He was entertaining as always.

The musical itself is really funny, but also the most random thing I have seen on a stage. Don’t expect your usual love story style musical, nor the most obvious ending, because let me tell you, you won’t see the ending coming. The first half introduces Simon briefly, but mainly focuses on the contestants and their back stories. The judges don’t make their way to the stage until the second half. I would have liked to see a bit more X Factor in the first half, but it was funny none the less.

An Irish singing duo, clearly supposed to be Jedward, called Alterboys had every Irish stereotype thrown into it, including dancing leprechauns.

lastminute.com also gave me a goody bag with some lovely chocolate. You can book your tickets now to see I Can’t Sing here.

Check out Simon’s fabulous speech below.

Image sources: lastminute.com / seenit.co.uk

Posted in News and tagged Alter Boys, Barlow the dog, I Can't Sing, Liam O'Dreary, Musicals, Simon Cowell, X Factor | Leave a comment

21 Mar 2014

4 Comments

Fancy a new medical drama?

So there’s a new medical drama in town. After E.R. went away Grey’s Anatomy was the only hospital related drama that was able to grab our attention. Three Rivers tried, it has the McDreamy equivalent with Alex O’Loughlin as Dr. Andy Yablonski, it also had lots of high tech gadgets, yet it couldn’t pull in a big enough audience. I tried to watch it but the episodes didn’t excite me. I really liked Emily Owens M.D., it had comedy and an interesting love triangle, it had the feel of high school but at work, but alas that was not to stay for long. Now there’s a new show in town, Remedy. It focuses on a medical-loving family. A dad that is chief of staff, a surgeon daughter, a nurse daughter, her doctor fiancee and the ex-druggie, medical school drop-out son who returns and takes a job as an orderly.

The dynamic between the family is really interesting. It also focuses on staff beyond just the doctors. There is also a support staff drama with a girl who gets stabbed by a medial needle and has a long wait to find out if it has given her HIV.

Grey’s Anatomy is still by far my favourite, but I’m enjoying this show so far.

Image sources: calgaryherald.com / tvrage.com

Posted in TV and tagged E.R., Emily Owens M.D. medical drama, Grey's Anatomy, medical drama, Remedy

11 Mar 2014

Movie review: Girl Most Likely

I know, I’ve been a bit pants this past week with a lack of posts. But whilst trying to get over a rotten cold and enjoying the one day of spring sunshine I am back! So for my first post this week, here is my review of Kristen Wiig’s most recent leading lady comedy Girl Most Likely. This one is not the usual you expect from this comedy queen. It’s a little more on the dark side, think of a female Garden State, like Bridesmaids was the female version of The Hangover.

In Girl Most Likely, Kristen plays a failed New York playwright, who after her boyfriend breaks up with her and she loses her flat, she has no choice but to stay with her mother. Befriending her awkward brother, avoiding her mum’s ‘spy’ boyfriend, discovering her father is alive and having a fling with her mum’s 20-something Backstreet Boys impersonator lodger (played by Darren Criss, Glee – see below picture), are just some of the things that she encounters along her journey.

This is a lovely film about a women who is trying to discover who she is, albeit a little late in life. I was kind of disappointed with the ending of the film, but I guess it would have been far too obvious for her to find herself, write that screenplay she had struggled to do previously and get her life back together, especially when the film covered only a short space of time. What it does show however, is what she has learnt about herself in that time, and what she needed to understand in order to accept she isn’t a failure and move on with her life.

Image sources: tribecafilm.com / newyorker.com / wegotthiscovered.com

Posted in Film | Leave a comment

03 Mar 2014

TV Review: Mixology

There’s a new show in town and it is one with a difference. Like How I Met Your Mother which came to our screens focusing on a guy in the future telling his kids about how he met their mother through a series of flashbacks to the present day (with the odd double flashback to earlier times) this show has taken the sitcom to another level.

Set on one night in a bar, the show focuses on a group of strangers (and each of their friends) on a night out. All of these strangers are on a quest to find love.

In Mixology we see how they interact with each other and their paths cross in a kind of six degrees of separation. There are also flashbacks to help us get to know the characters’ backgrounds and personalities outside of the night.

There’s also a couple of faces in here that I recognise, Vanessa Lengies (Glee) and Adam Campbell (Date Movie and husband to Glee star Jayma Mays). But everyone else is relatively new to me. I always think that’s best with a couple of familiar faces to pull you in, but everyone else lets you focus on the characters.

I’m entertained so far with this show, it’s funny and an interesting concept. I just wonder how long a show set around one night can stretch. After all 24 stretches one day over 24 episodes, but that is at a real push. Although How I Met Your Mother has managed to stretch the story of two parents meeting over nine series.

Image sources: web.poptower.com / post-gazette.com / hollywoodreporter.com / tvguide.com

Posted in TV and tagged How I Met Your Mother, Mixology, sitcom | Leave a comment

26 Feb 2014

2 Comments

Movie review: Prisoners

Films about children being kidnapped often pull on the heart strings they can be hard to watch, especially when the child isn’t found alive. The Lovely Bones was a beautiful story told from the perspective of the deceased child but the film struggled to bring the book to life in a way that captured the audience. Prisoners goes down a different route and a very dark one.

Two young girls are taken as they head in-between each others homes. A young man is suspected and released by the police due to his state of mind, but one of the fathers (Hugh Jackman) is convinced that he knows where the children are and he decides to take matters into his own hands to try and find his daughter. It involves some torture and will leave you moving from each side of the fence as to if he is doing the right thing or not.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays the detective on the case, who has solved every case that he has worked on, but this one he is struggling with.

I think this film tells the story really well and it keeps you guessing who took the kids, who held them and if they are still alive or not. There are some great performances by all of the cast, in particular Gyllenhaal and Paul Dano (who plays the suspect). It’s worth a watch if you can handle these sort of films.

Image sources: reviewjournal.com / gorgview.com / ohmygodot.blogspot.com / sophiemagazine.com

Posted in Film and tagged Hugh Jackman, jake gyllenhaal, Prisoners

25 Feb 2014

Movie review: Greetings from Tim Buckley

I’ve always been a fan of Jeff Buckley and enjoyed Penn Badgley in Gossip Girl so thought I would check out Greetings from Tim Buckley. The film follows Jeff Buckley in the lead up to his performance at a tribute concert for his father. Badgley plays Jeff Buckley and the film also features flash backs to his father during his career played by Ben Rosenfield (Boardwalk Empire).

What I loved about this film is that Badgley captured perfectly how Jeff Buckley can make a song his own. There is an incredible scene where he is in a record store and finds a copy of I’m Telling You Know and decides to relive his love of the song by singing it in the middle of the store, perhaps in a way that some of us have sung along to a song at home.

Whilst Penn Badgley doesn’t give a replica performance, he does capture the essence of this brilliant singer. And I’m not too familiar with Tim Buckley and his music, Rosenfield also gives a great performance.

This film doesn’t focus on the tragic deaths of both Jeff and his father. But more on a man who didn’t really know his father, is frustrated that his father wasn’t really around for him, yet everyone is celebrating him and believing that he is the better performer but yet to have the matching success. This concert did however bring Jeff to New York which is where he knew he was meant to be to perform. We know that after many performances around New York he released his critically acclaimed album and drowned before he finished his second.

So while we’re on the subject of his own material, I shall leave you with one of my favourite Jeff Buckley songs, from the very few that we sadly got to hear.

Image sources: theartswire.com / unsociallyglued.blogspot.com / blogs.indiewire.com / concertvault.com

Posted in Film and tagged folk music, Greetings from Tim Buckley, Jeff Buckley, music film, Tim Buckley, true story | Leave a comment

Sci-fi Drama Queen

Film, TV and random ramblings, often sci-fi related

Agents of what?

Captain America: The Winter Soldier review

Competition: Win A Commonplace Killing audiobook

How I Met Your Mother – it’s all over

Review: I Can’t Sing the musical

Fancy a new medical drama?

Movie review: Girl Most Likely

TV Review: Mixology

Movie review: Prisoners

Movie review: Greetings from Tim Buckley

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