«Game of Thrones» is a new TV series produced by HBO, the people who gave us «The Sopranos» and «The Wire», arguably some of the best series made the last years. This series is based on a series of novels called «A Song of Ice and Fire» by the American author George R. R. Martin. 4 novels have come out so far, one is due soon and 2 more planned. The title of the series is derived from the title of the first book. The series premièred on April 17th 2011 and is currently scheduled for at least 2 seasons. I watched the pilot and the two following episodes this weekend.

I have never read the novels by Martin, so I had no expectations when watching the show other than having been recommended it by some friends. The series is set in a semi-fantasy setting, a mix between middle-earth and our own middle ages. The distinction is subtle in the pilot. I first assumed this was your common British middle ages setting as we saw in for instance the last Robin Hood movie. This may in part be due to the fact they filmed these episodes in Ireland and Scotland.

The pilot itself is always a tricky bit to pull off for a new series. All the main characters need to be introduced and their backstory established as well as some main plot outline. This pilot pulled it off well despite the large number of characters introduced. You may need to watch the pilot twice to get a grip on it all though. The acting is excellent and the characters are convincing. As others have mentioned, even the child-actors are very good. The scenery is magnificent, and the overall mood of the set is convincing and immersive.

The story is set in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros where a struggle for power is fought between several noble families. We are introduced to a few parallel storylines in the first three episodes. Starting with 2 in the pilot and splitting to 4 in episode 3. The plot seems to have it all, drama, romance and power struggles; intrigues and conflicts. It is not a romanticised and idealised fantasy world like Tolkiens, but has a rougher, darker tone where violence is frequent but not overdone. This is not your average cleaned up American TV series, not that you’d expect that from HBO anyway if you have seen «The Sopranos» and «The Wire». It features swearing and partial nudity when appropriate, and manages to not overdo that either, giving an overall impression of a rougher and darker time.

In any case, go watch it. Very highly recommended!

The Event is an emotional, high-octane conspiracy thriller that follows Sean Walker, an everyman who investigates the mysterious disappearance of his would-be fiancée Leila, and unwittingly begins to expose the biggest cover-up in U.S. history. TheTVDB.com

Started watching this new TV-Show today, on episode 5 so far. I cannot add too much to the introduction above yet, but so far I like it. It has a bit of the story-telling style of Lost with the jumps back in time to elaborate on the characters background and the background of the story. The story itself reminds me a little bit of The 4400, but I hope this show manage to keep my interest better as The 4400 quickly failed to deliver a story progression that lived up to the initial expectations. So far this show does, but hey, I’m only on episode 5.

Finally, just before Xmas, XBMC released version 10.0 of this excellent open source media centre software, codenamed “Dharma”. I have finally gotten around to upgrade it on my media centre box. Some of the main new features I have been looking forward to is the option to use a MySQL server for the database instead of a local SQLite database. Now I can update content from my PC and have it accessible on my media centre box. I also have a database I can integrate into my media manager website which I have been working on for a while. All this is probably not what most people are after, but there are much more. The addon system have been significantly improved, the software now properly remembers files you have watched even if they’re not in the library and many more minor improvements and bug fixes. Still, XBMC is much as we’re used to, and why not? It’s an excellent piece of software!

I run XBMC on a custom built PC in a ChiefTec media centre box, all of which I wrote about in an earlier post. Such a box can be built fairly cheaply, it doesn’t require much hardware, I have pretty much just picked cheap items. Computers these days are made for computer games, playing video is piss easy, even HD. All my media is stored on a server in another room, but there isn’t necessarily a need for that since the ChiefTec box has room for 3 hard drives. Anyway, the system runs on Ubuntu Linux 10.04, which is also free and incredibly easy to set up. The box i use also come with a iMON remote control, which was a bit tricky to set up in Linux, but is fairly easy to configure in XBMC when that’s done. I have finally a setup that I am very happy with

Here’s a few screenshots (I use the skin Transparency! instead of the default skin):

Update 16.03.2011: Comments have been disabled, because this post receives an immense amount of spam.

I got hold of the 1980′s sitcom “ALF” here the other day. For once one of the good old TV shows I watched as a kid turns out to be every bit as funny as I remember it to be!

ALF (Alien LifeForm) is a character from the planet Melmac that crash-lands in the garage of a regular middle class American family, the Tanners. They take him in as part of their family to hide him from the government Alien Task Force. ALF is a frantic funny little guy, a bit immature for his 229 years of age. Every episode of the 4 seasons of the show are more or less independent stories involving ALF getting into some sort of trouble or another. Enjoyable easy-going sitcom with many fun moments. It is pretty timeless for being over 20 years old, and have very few obscure 80′s references.

ALF – Episode list

“I shed, therefore I am.” -ALF

SciFi’s new Science Fiction show, Caprica, which started in January this year (although the pilot aired in April 2009) is a follow up show, or actually a prequel, to Battlestar Galactica (the new version). It takes place on Caprica and covers the backstory of how the Cylons first came to be. We see Bill Adama as a young boy, and we follow his family and the Graystone family through the first half season of the series.

There are much similar between Battlestar Galactica and Caprica. They are both Sci-Fi/Drama, but Caprica is less about politics and religion although these are of course in the background. Caprica is more of a family drama, and it works well in this futuristic and slightly alien setting without becoming to remote from the world we live in. Much is familiar, the main difference is a few levels up in technology, though this is not overplayed as they do in more traditional Sci-Fi like Star Trek. A lot like Battlestar Galactica really, except Caprica takes place on the ground and not in space. The Cylon side of the story greatly reminds me of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which also was an excellent show I might add.

Caprica is a show well worth watching if you like Sci-Fi and Drama alike. Especially if you enjoyed Battlestar Galactica in its first seasons. I’ll be looking forward to the second half of season one which unfortunately isn’t scheduled to start until January 2011.

Yay, a new sci-fi show!

(May contain spoilers!)

I sat down yesterday and watched the first double episode of Stargate Universe. I have to say they made a pretty good first episode there. I also liked the first episode of Atlantis, but this one was much better told. They used the familiar story device of jumping between present and recent past in the introduction phase of the story (probably the whole first episode of the two, didn’t pay attention to when the story became linear). Although the self sacrifice scene towards the end was very very clishé, most of the story was quite well done. I also loved the scene where they were looking at the map and the path the ship had travelled over the millennia. They did a decent attempt to tie the show into the existing Stargate universe, and O’Neil’s “we’re gonna beam you up to our spaceship” comment at the start was hilarious

Basically the story takes place on an ancient space ship that were sent from earth a few thousand years ago, and is travelling through the universe by itself. The first episode explains how these people ends up on the ship after discovering a specially designed stargate that leads there. I do dislike the whole ancient ascension bit. (“The Anscients” is the name of an old race who lived on earth, for those unfamiliar with the Stargate universe.) Too religious-ish for my taste, and it made the reason why the ship was abandoned in the first place a little cheesy. I like the concept of an ancient race who made all this technology, but I prefer the way the Asgard-race disappeared over the way the ancients did. However that’s a rant for another time.

Also, I doubt this show is going to turn into a BSG (Battlestar Galactica, i.e. a space soap) ripoff as some accuse it of. I didn’t really see much in this episode that reminded me of BSG besides a few details. The power struggle may be a part of the story, but in no way like in BSG I hope. This is more like the Atlantis power struggle that popped up now and then. In Stargate such story devices are short lived. Also, I doubt this show is going to be about on-board drama either (I truly hope not). I see people criticizing the show for its characters too, but character development is very important for a good show, and can be done without ending up as a soap like BSG tended to. Babylon 5 had a brilliant balance between character development and action.  In any case, Stargate is traditionally (after 15 season we can use the word traditional) a “us vs. evil alien villains” kinda show, and I doubt they’ll deviate from that path. They’ve already set the scene when introducing the secondary usage of the on-board stargate for resource gathering. I bet this will be a much used plot device. This will make it more a Voyager-like show than a BSG-like show. That is not necessarily bad, it is hard to invent a plot from scratch without using anything that has been used before. Atlantis did remarkably well in that respect though I think, so the creators certainly have the skill needed.

Looking forward to the next episode, and the eventual DVD releases!

Finally got around to watch the entire three seasons of the original Star Trek show from 1966 to 1969 (I have just seen random episodes before). If you like Star Trek, it is well worth watching. It gives you a lot of back story for the Star Trek universe and the full extent of Roddenberry’s utopic vision of the future. I have to note that I do not much care for his utopic future in many ways, and tend to agree with Ira Behr (Deep Space Nine) on this.

Regardless, this 1960s Sci-Fi show is unique in many ways. There was no elaborate make-up, the alien costumes, if any, were laughable by today’s standard. The stories however are very entertaining. We are not loaded with the techno-babble of the newer shows, nor do we have all the boring filler episodes. This is hands on action with beautiful women and classic evil villains. We find planets with Nazis and Chicago gangsters, planets with aliens who keep humans in zoos, and pretty much every old scary aliens-are-evil imaginative story you can, well, imagine.

The set designs reflect what was considered modern at the time (I assume, I was born in the 70s myself). The high-tech panels and controls are covered with flickering lights and switches, and the computer voice is similar to what we remember from the Amiga 500. Of course, computers were not something everyone had much everyday knowledge of, so they tend to be portrayed as big gray boxes with flickering lights. Even the evil AI villain we run into in one of the episodes. Of course we must not forget the costumes. The men are dressed in a pajamas and the women in miniskirts. We also have the classic, yellow for command and red for crew colours which were swapped in the Next generation series. Most episodes have a red-shirt death, they seem to be very expendable.

All in all, the original Star Trek show is well worth watching both for the stories and for the classical Sci-Fi look, and not to mention for the legendary original actors like leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, James Doohan, Walter Koenig and the rest.

IMDB Link: Star Trek